The Knight

Chapter 44. Michael

If I had known where I was going when I walked away from the fire, I would tell you. The truth is that I did not have any idea. I wanted to get away from Svon, and I wanted to get away from Org. That was all there was to it. I wanted to find a place where I could rest and get my head straight before I had to deal with them again. I could have built a fire where I stopped; but working in the dark it would have taken a long time, I was tired, and it was not really very cold at all then, even at night. I suppose it was about the end of June or early July but I do not know.

Anyway, I just closed my cloak around me the way you do and lay down. I did not even take off my boots, something I heard about from Uri and Baki later. They found me while I was lying there asleep, and so did Gylf, who went back to our fire and tracked me by scent. All three stayed around to protect me, I am not sure from what.

When I woke up, the sun was high and bright. As soon as I was awake Gylf licked my face; he had been waiting his chance, and it was something he did only when he thought I needed bucking up. I kind of grinned and told him I was okay, and when he did not say anything back to me I knew somebody else was around.

Baki waved from a shadow when she saw I was looking her way, and Uri waved from under the same tree. “We feared that you might come to harm, Lord. All three of us were afraid for you.”

“Thanks.” I stood up and looked around for a stream, hoping I could get a drink and splash some water on my face, and maybe even take off my clothes and take a sponge bath after they had gone. There was not any, so I asked where I could find Pouk and Svon.

“I do not know where they are now, Lord,” Uri said, “but Baki and I will search for them if you wish us to.”

Baki said, “Gylf might know,” but he shook his head.

Uri drifted toward me, a pretty girl about as slender as girls get, dark red but transparent in the sunshine. (Think of a naked coppery-red girl in a stained-glass window.) “Why did you go into this forest alone and by night? Surely that was foolish.”

“It would have been foolish to stay where I was. Is there any water around here?”

“No,” Uri told me, “not for a league or more.” But Gylf nodded.

“You had water where you camped,” Baki pointed out. “It was in your water bottles.”

“If I had stayed there, Svon and I would have fought,” I explained. “Besides, I knew Org had killed, and I wanted to see what it was.”

Baki said, “Oh, we can tell you that.”

“It was a mule,” Uri said. “A woman came up the road on a mule, and Org rushed at it. I do not think he was going to kill her.”

Baki added, “But she thought he was.”

“The mule reared and threw her. Then Org got it. That was what you heard.”

“He ate it, too. A lot of it, anyway.”

I thought that over. “The woman escaped?”

“Yes.”

A cloud passed between us and the sun just then, and Baki came forward, very real. “She had a sword, but she ran just the same. I cannot blame her for it. Who would want to fight Org in the dark?”

“I would,” I said, “or at least, I did. Maybe I’ll want to again someday. I don’t suppose you know where he is right now?”

Both shook their heads.

“Then find him for me. Or find Svon and Pouk. When you’ve found somebody, come back and tell me.”

They faded to nothing.

“You said you knew where to find water,” I told Gylf. “Is it very far?”

He shook his head. “A nice pool.”

“Please lead me to it.”

He nodded and trotted away, looking over his shoulder the way dogs do to see if I was coming.

I had to trot too, to keep up. “Nobody else is around, are they? You can talk?”

“I did.”

“Did Uri or Baki know about this water of yours, too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But they wouldn’t tell me. It can’t have been because they wanted me to die of thirst. This is a forest, not a desert, so it can’t be very hard to find water. Why didn’t they want me to know about this water of yours?”

“A god’s there.”

That stopped me dead for a minute. Parka was the first thing I thought of, then Thunor—he was one of the Overcyns that people talked about a lot. “Nobody calls the Overcyns gods,” I told Gylf. “Nobody around here, anyhow. Was this Parka? Do you know who Parka is?”

He did not answer, and by that time he was almost out of sight. I took off after him, running as hard as I could, but I never caught up until he got to the pool and stopped.

I looked for a god then, but I did not see one, so I knelt down and washed my hands and my face (I was sweating a lot) and had a good, long drink.

After that I splashed more water on my face, and spooned some up with my hands and poured it over my head; and while I was doing that, the sun came out again. Sunlight turned the drops that rained from my fingertips to diamonds and struck deep into the pool. At the bottom, way, way down, I could see Uri and Baki. They were in a room that seemed to be about the size of an airport. It had swords and spears and axes all over the walls and in stands and long racks, so that you saw the gleam of steel everywhere you looked. They were talking to something big and dark that writhed like a snake. Uri turned back into a Khimaira while I was watching.

Soon it faded out. The sun was still bright but was not shining straight down anymore. Or that is what I think. As soon as it was gone, a cloud came—or what seemed like one—and Gylf said, “The god’s here.” He got excited sometimes and he sounded excited then, but quiet and polite too.

I looked up, and there was no cloud. It was a wing, so white it glowed and a lot bigger than the Western Trader’s biggest sail; it was coming from the back of a man in armor sitting at the edge of the pool. I could not believe that the wings—there were four—really belonged to him. Just by looking at me, he knew that I could not; so he folded them around him. When he did it, you could not see his armor—he looked like he was wearing a long robe of white feathers. He said, “I too have been sent away.”

“You too!” I was so surprised I really did not know what I was saying. “I’ve been banished from Duke Marder’s court until there’s ice in the bay.”

“Thus I come to you.”

He sounded like he knew all about it. My jaw dropped so far it almost hit the buckle of my sword belt.

“I do not. Yet I know you better than your mother ever could, because I hear your thought.” He raised his right hand. (Later I got to know King Arnthor, and he would have loved to be able to raise his hand like that, but he could not. No human can.) “Your mother never knew you,” he said. “I, who know so little, know that now. I make mistakes, you see. I am near perfection.”

I was on my knees with my head down by then.

“You have my thanks,” he said, “but you must stand. I have not come for your worship, but to your aid. I, too, am a knight in service to a lord. My name is Michael.”

All I could think of when he said that was that it was a name from our world. It seemed like a miracle then. It still does. He had a name from Earth, and he had come to Mythgarthr to help me.

“By putting my knowledge at your disposal.”

I was so happy I could not think of anything to say. I stood up, remembering that he had told me to, and stared at him while he looked at me. There was no white to his eyes, and no black dot in the middle. It was like I was looking right through his head at Skai.

“You think of Skai, of the third world. You believe I have been dispatched from the castle you see there.”

It was not easy to nod, but I did. “I—I hope so.”

“I have not. I am of the second world, called Kleos, the World of Fair Report.”

“I didn’t even know the name of it, My Lord.” I just about choked, realizing that I was talking to him the way I had to Thunrolf. “I ... I’d like to get to that castle, if I could. Is that wrong?”

“It is a higher ambition than most.”

“Can you ...” I remembered Ravd and knew I was putting my foot in it. “Will you tell me how?”

Michael studied me again; it seemed to take a long time. Finally he said, “You know the rudiments of the lance.”

I nodded, too scared to speak.

“You have been taught by one skilled with it.” Michael snapped his fingers, and Gylf came over and lay down at his feet, looking very proud.

“Yes,” I said. “By Master Thope. He was wounded too badly to practice with me, but he could tell me things, and one of his helpers would joust with me.”

That made Michael smile. It was such a little smile that I could hardly see it, but it seemed like it made the sun brighter. “It does not trouble you that your dog prefers me to you?”

“No,” I said, “I prefer you to me, too.”

“I understand. Master Thope is skillful with the lance, but he will never reach the casde of which we are speaking. What lies beyond skill?”

I started to say something dumb, then I stopped. I do not even remember what it was.

“When you know, you will go there. Not before. Have you more questions? Ask now. I must soon depart.”

“How can I find Queen Disiri?”

There was no smile at that. “Pray, rather, that she does not find you.” I felt like I had been kicked.

“Very well. I myself am less than perfect, as I have learned at cost. Learn to summon her, or any of them, and she must come to you.”

“Uri and Baki come sometimes when I call them,” I told him. “Is that what you mean?”

“No.” Michael stroked Gylf’s head. “You must call her, or any of them, as those you call Overcyns would call you.”

“Will you teach me?”

Michael shook his head. “I cannot. No one can. Teach yourself. So it is with everything.” He closed his eyes, and a one-eyed man with a spear came out of the trees, knelt, and laid his spear on the ground at Michael’s feet. Gylf fawned on this one-eyed man.

Then he was gone, and the spear, too.

“You see? How could I, or anyone, teach that?”

I looked around at the bright pool and the sunlit glade. I was really looking for the one-eyed man—okay, for the Valfather, because that is who it was—but even then I knew I never could forget them. That was right enough. Later when I forgot about everything, even Disiri for a while, I still remembered them.

“If you have no more questions, Sir Able, I will go.”

“I have more, Sir Michael.” It was terribly hard to say that. “May I ask them? Three more, if ...”

“If that is not too many. Ask.”

“One time I was on—on a certain island, the island where Bluestone Castle used to be.” He nodded.

“And I saw a knight there, for just a moment. A knight with a black dragon on his shield. Did I call him, the way you called the Valfather?”

“He called you.” Michael stood.

His wings opened a little, and I could see the gleam under the white glow. I said, “Can you fly in mail?”

Something that was not very far from a laugh showed in his sky-colored eyes. “That was not your second question.”

“No. I was going to ask who the knight I saw was.”

“Yes, I can. But I have come here to descend, not to fly. As for the knight you saw, I tell you that there was no one on that island save yourself.”

“I don’t understand that at all.”

“Your third question is the wisest. Things always fall out so. Ask it.”

“It was what question I should ask.”

The smile returned. “You should ask whence came the tongs that grasped Eterne. Notice, please, that I did not say I would answer you. Farewell. I go to Aelfrice to seek that far-famed knight, Sir Able of the High Heart.”

With that, Michael walked over the water to the middle of the pool and sank out of sight.