The Knight

Chapter 24. Sunshine

If I told everything that happened after that on the stairway that went up the in side of the skyscraper, and what I said to Uri and Baki, and what they told me in the way that they told it, it would use up a stack of paper as high as the stairway was. So I am not going to. Here are the main things.

I wanted to know why the Aelf had driven Setr out, and it was because he wanted to be king of all of them. Some of the kings and queens they had already had not liked that.

Then I wanted to know why some of them were for him, Uri especially. It was because of Kulili. They hated her, and Setr had been trying to kill her. He had raised a big army, all the Sea Aelf, all the Fire Aelf, and some others. They had tried to mob her, and she had killed about half of them and chased the rest. I tried to find out why they wanted her dead, too, but I never got to the bottom of that. It was the same when I asked what she looked like. She looked all kinds of different ways, so she was a shapechanger too. She lived in the sea, like the Sea Aelf, but in deeper water.

We did not get to the top that day, or even the day after. I probably ought to say that, too. Uri and Baki knew where food might be as you went up, so we would stop whenever we got near a place, rest, and eat, if there was anything. Maybe we would find a room we could barricade. We did that both times when we slept.

Only I sort of lost track of the days, and it was night when we finally got to the roof garden. There was no moon, but there was bright starlight and it showed fruit trees with a lot of fruit on them. We were ready to eat anything, and that was great. Baki flew up a date palm and brought me a bunch of ripe dates. I had never eaten those before, and they are the best fruit in the world. There were oranges, too, not exactly like our oranges at home, but not exactly like tangerines either. Small and sweet.

When we were full I made Uri and Baki lie down and said I would keep watch. I did it because the closer to the top we got the less they had wanted to come up here, and I was afraid they would run if I put one of them on watch.

So they sacked out and I sat up with my back against a tree and blinked and yawned, and tried to stay awake. I got to looking at the stars, too, and thinking about the man that Kerl called the Moonrider. And pretty soon, sure enough, the moon came up.

That was when it hit me. You could never see the moon or the stars or the sun or anything like that in Aelfrice. I never had when Toug and I went there, and I never had either when Garsecg and I were swimming all over, watching the island be born and live and die, and watching the crag die, and all of that. If you were lucky, what you saw was the place I had come from, the place where the Western Trader was, and Irringsmouth, and a lot more. You saw Mythgarthr, and people living their lives up there, kind of the way you see somebody’s whole life in a movie. (It was not really like a movie, it was longer and more detailed, and you lost sight of somebody and went to somebody else, but you know what I mean.) So this was not Aelfrice at all. The bottom was in Aelfrice all right, but the top was in Mythgarthr, the same way that our moon and our stars were really in Skai.

So I had been right, and if anything could have kept me awake, it was that. But it did not. Pretty soon I went to sleep anyhow. I could not help it.

The moon climbed up the Bowl of Skai and got brighter and brighter, but that was not what woke me. What woke me was Garsecg. He came flapping up like a big flying dinosaur, bigger than a plane. His wings fanned me and made as much noise as a storm, and I jerked awake. He was still shrinking back into Garsecg when he said, “This may kill them.” He pointed to Uri and Baki. “Do you know that?”

I was yawning; I said, “I guess. Only I don’t much care. Maybe I ought to but I don’t.”

“They would not obey you?”

“I had to drag them a little, and a couple of times I had to smack them around some. I didn’t like that, but I did it. I tried not to hurt them too bad.”

Garsecg nodded, really looking like himself now. “They know they may die.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “What I think is that Setr ordered them not to come up here, and they still can’t do it even if they want to. He enchanted them, or put a spell on them, or whatever you want to call it.”

Garsecg smiled. “Why would he do that? Do you know?”

“I think so,” I said. “Did you get a chance to rest?”

“I have had far more rest than you, I am sure.”

“Then stand watch for us. Wake me at dawn.”

“Sunup?”

He was testing me to see if I knew where I was, but I did not care. I said, “Whatever,” and went back to sleep.

It was the middle of morning when I woke up. I thought Garsecg had gone, but after I had splashed in the little creek I saw him (like you would see a ghost) sitting in deep shade under a big tree. I sat down beside him, not sure if I ought to be mad at him for letting me sleep.

“This is a durian,” he said, and held up a funky-looking fruit. “Would you like it?”

I said sure and took it, and he picked up another one for himself. “The smell is unpleasant,” he told me, “but the flesh is wholesome and delicious.” It had a thorny peel on it, and I could not get it open. “You found no weapon on your climb?”

I told him no. “They’re all down below in the armories. That’s what Uri said. By the way, what happened to getting me up at sunrise? You said you would.”

“I did not.” Garsecg was peeling his durian. “You suggested that I awaken you at the first light. I asked whether you intended the rising of the sun. You said you did, and slept. Did you dream?”

I nodded. “How’d you peel that thing?”

“This is a good place for dreaming. It may well be the best place. What dream had you?”

“I had mail and a helmet, a shield and a sword.” It was hard to remember already. “I rode down out of the sky like the Moonrider. I think I came to do justice on earth, only the earth swallowed me. What does it mean?”

“I have no idea. Nothing, perhaps.”

“You know. You know all about all that stuff.”

He shook his head. “I do not, and resist disturbing you with my speculations.”

“Like you resisted waking us up. Can I try a bite of yours?”

He passed it over. I sniffed it like Gylf would have, and it stunk. It made me think of stinky cheese, though, and I like stinky cheese.

I bit into it. “It’s good. You’re right.”

“You will find that I generally am. What woke you?”

I gave him his durian back. “The sun in my face.”

“I take it that it has not touched your slaves.”

“They aren’t slaves. Not yet, or I don’t think so.”

“We will know when it does, I believe.”

I looked for them and they were right where they had lain down. There was a big flower bush between them and the sun. I said, “Do you really think they’ll die?”

“They may.”

Garsecg sat quiet, fingering his beard while I tried to open my durian with my nails. Finally he said, “Before that happens—or does not happen—there are a dozen things I ought to tell you. Let me get through a few of them. First, I let you sleep because you must fight Kulili. You would fight, I know, even if you were exhausted. But you would be killed, and that would be of no help to me.”

I said, “I’d like to think I’d win anyhow.”

“Perhaps you do, but I cannot afford such follies.”

He waited for me to argue, but I did not.

“Second, I lied to you. I told you I knew no oath that would bind an Aelf.” I looked over at him. “What is it?”

“The Aelf are bound when they swear by their old high gods.”

When he said that I got a funny feeling that the flying castle was going over us. I looked up, but there was just a lot of blue, with a few big, solid-looking clouds. “You mean the Skai people, the Overcyns?”

“Yes,” Garsecg said, “and no.”

“I don’t get you.”

He nodded like he had known it. “It is not likely that you would. The old high gods of the Aelf were indeed their sky people. That is, they were the people seen in the sky of Aelfrice.”

“You mean—? Wait a minute.”

“Gladly.”

“Are you talking about—about Bold Berthold or Kerl? About the guys on the ship? People like that?”

Garsecg nodded.

“You’re saying I’m a god, too. That’s crazy!”

“Not to yourself, but to the Aelf. If they swear by you, they are bound.”

“I’m not a god!”

“You own a dog.” Garsecg smiled. “I have spoken to him. He differs from the Aelf in that they have rebelled against you, but not otherwise.”

That got me to thinking about Gylf, the way he had followed me from the ford, and swum out to the ship, and hidden there starving. I said, “I guess you’re right, but sometimes he scares me.”

“The Aelf worship me now.” Garsecg smiled again. “Many do, and all will. There have been many times when they have frightened me.”

I thought about that, too. And it seemed to me that it was one of those things that sound like they make sense, but really do not. After a while I hit on it, and I said, “The Overcyns are immortal, Garsecg. They live faster then we do, that’s what Bold Berthold said. Whole years of life in one of our days. Only they never die.”

Garsecg nodded. “The old high gods of the Aelf are likewise immortal. What will become of your spirit when you die?”

I tried to remember.

“Will it die too?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Mine will.” Garsecg pointed to the Khimairas. “So will theirs. You have been aboard a ship, Sir Able. What becomes of the wind, when the wind dies?”

Right then one them screamed, and I got up and went to look. Behind me, Garsecg called, “Was that Uri or Baki?”

I could not tell, but the second one screamed too as soon as the sunlight touched it, so it did not matter. They were shaking, and their jaws were working, and their eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of their heads. I watched them a little while and called out to Garsecg, “Come look! Their wings are getting smaller!”

He did not say anything, so I said, “Aren’t you going to come?”

One of the Khimairas was trying to say something. Her tongue was hanging out to where it could have licked her belly, but she was trying to talk just the same. The black stuff was falling off, too, and under that she was red. She made me think of a log in a fire. You whack it with a fresh stick, and the old burned stuff falls off, and you see the fire that was inside.

“They’ve got tits!” I called to Garsecg.

They did, and they did not have claws anymore, either. Their lips covered up their teeth, too.

Finally I went back to Garsecg. “This is really hurting them a lot,” I said. “Is it just about over?”

He shook his head. “It has hardly begun.”

“I’ve been thinking ...”

He laughed. “It is good for you, provided you do not carry it to extremes.”

“I love Disiri. How can I, if I’m a god to her?”

“By being yourself.”

“She’s never worshipped me, and I wouldn’t want her to. I worship her.”

Garsecg looked at me the way that Ms. Collins used to sometimes. “Would she say the same, Sir Able?”

Before I could answer, one of the Khimairas stood up, only she was not a Khimaira anymore. She was red all over, and her hair floated up from her head like there was a wind blowing up, just for it. It waved and snapped. She looked right at us, but you could see she did not see us. Pretty soon she stumbled away.

“She will throw herself off any cliff she reaches,” Garsecg told me. “She is trying to fly back to Aelfrice. Will you stop her?”

I got up and caught her, no problem, and carried her to the durian tree. “Is it all right to lay her in the shade?”

Garsecg nodded, so I laid her down where I thought she would be comfortable. She was the color of a new penny all over, very slender and good-looking.

When I sat down next to Garsecg again, I said, “You know this was going to happen.”

“I feared it would be worse, that she would die. I still fear they both will, though that seems less likely now.”

“One time Disiri and I were playing in the water,” I said. I was thinking how Disiri’s foot changed when the sunlight hit it, but when I said “water” Baki must have heard me, because she started begging for water. The creek was right near there, so I carried her a little bit, cupping it in my hand.

Garsecg pointed. “You’ll find a better container over there, if you want it.” I started looking, and he said, “Under the lime tree, with some other things.”

That was farther away. I asked if he would take care of the red Aelf girls while I was gone, and he said he would.

It seemed to me then like that garden up on the roof of the skyscraper was the most beautiful place I had ever been in. The jungle that had grown up on the new island had been pretty too, but this was better and I was in it. There were fruit and flowers everywhere.

At first it seemed like there was nothing but grass underneath that lime tree. When I did find something, it was a white bone. Pretty soon I saw more, ribs and leg bones, and little bones that might have come from hands or feet. When I saw the skull I went over to pick it up, and I stepped on a tube that looked like thick green glass. My foot was bare, like the rest of me, and did not break it. I picked it up and took out the cork, and there was a long sheet of paper rolled up inside. I carried it to a sunny spot to look at.