After the Downfall

Someone in the watchtower winded a horn. One long, flat note – the warriors relaxed. That meant more Lenelli on the road approaching Castle Svarag. A series of shorter blasts would have been trouble: the Grenye sneaking around again.

Hasso wasn’t sure how things worked around here. He hadn’t seen enough of this world yet. He hadn’t seen any of it, in fact, except for the swamp and the stretch of road between where he’d rescued Velona and this castle. But the Lenelli seemed to have Untermenschen problems like the Reich’s in Russia.

Here on the frontier – and this was the frontier, plainly – the big blond warriors controlled towns, castles, and, when they traveled in force, the roads between them. The countryside belonged to the local barbarians.

Shouts came from outside the castle. Who was who around here was pretty obvious. Even so, the newcomers and guards went through the rigmarole of sign and countersign. That made Hasso chuckle, which hurt his sore stomach and bruised ribs. He might be in another world, but a lot of army rituals stayed the same. What worked one place worked in another. People remained people.

Chains rattled and clanked as Grenye servants – or maybe they were slaves – lowered the drawbridge. Horses’ hooves thudded on the thick oak timbers – faced with iron on the outside, to ward against fire – as the new arrivals rode in.

As one man, the Lenelli in the great hall went out to see what was what. They were as eager for news and gossip as any garrison at an isolated post – and they didn’t have radios.

Everybody turned out to see what was what, in fact: everybody who was tall and fair, anyhow. Mertois tramped out half a minute or so behind the warriors in the great hall. More soldiers came out of the stables. Velona and other women took places between and in front of the men.

Velona started to smile at Hasso, but the expression froze when she saw he’d been knocked around. He nodded, as if to tell her it was all right. You should see the other bums, he thought.

Haifa dozen men had come in. Five were knights in slightly rusty chainmail. They were all stamped from the same mold as the soldiers in the garrison. The sixth was … something else.

He rode a unicorn. Hasso blinked and rubbed his eyes. Unicorns were the stuff of myth and legend – except this one wasn’t. Its horn was silvered. So were its hooves. They all shone even brighter in the sun than the unicorn’s pure white coat and mane and tale. Its lines made the big, heavy horses around it look as if they were carved by a sculptor who was earnest, well – intentioned, and more than a bit of a blockhead.

The rider made the knights seem the same way. He wore polished jackboots that would have gladdened the heart of an SS man on parade, tight suede breeches, and a clinging shirt of shimmering bright green silk that should have looked effeminate but somehow didn’t. Like the unicorn’s horns and hooves, his conical helm was silvered, and flashed in the sunlight. Only his sword, a businesslike cross – hilted weapon in a battered leather sheath, said he wasn’t a refugee from the set of a bad movie.

Graceful as a cat, he slid down from the unicorn. Hasso expected him to march up to Mertois and start giving orders; his harsh, handsome features were those of a man used to being obeyed, and at once. But the stranger strode over to Hasso himself. He didn’t hold out both hands to clasp, as the Lenelli usually did in greeting. Instead, he sketched a star in the air between them. It glowed with gold fire for a moment before fading.

Hasso’s eyes widened, even more than they had when he saw the unicorn. Unicorns were merely legendary. This was flat-out impossible – but it happened anyway.

“You saw?” the stranger demanded … in Lenello. Yes, he spoke his own language, but Hasso understood as readily as if it were German. That was impossible, too, but as true as the glowing golden star, as true as the unicorn’s switching tail.

“I saw, all right. How the devil did you do that?” Hasso Pemsel answered in German, and the man in boots and breeches and silk also understood him.

“Magic,” the fellow said matter-of-factly. Hasso started to get angry before realizing the newcomer wasn’t kidding. “I’m Aderno, third-rank wizard in King Bottero’s service. You will be the outlander Velona spoke of when she summoned me.”

“Velona… summoned you? Not Mertois?” Hasso wondered whether he’d figured out anything at all about what was going on here. He didn’t even understand the chain of command.

“Yes, Velona, of course.” Aderno took it for granted, whether Hasso did or not. “Now tell me – what color did the star seem to you?”

“Gold,” Hasso answered automatically.

“Gold? Something, yes, but gold?” That was enough to shake Aderno out of his air of snooty superiority. He stared down his long, straight nose at the German. “Are you certain?”