The Knight

The dragon reared as a cobra rears, and wings smaller than the great wings on its back stood out upon its neck. “Who has overturned your stone, shade, that you should rise to oppose Grengarm?”

“What stone was overturned,” the phantom knight replied, “that you have seeped from beneath it, shadow?”

Still on his knees, the robed and bearded Aelf called, “This is none of our doing, Lord. I see the hand of Setr in it.”

“Setr’s hand is stronger.” Grengarm might have been amused. “Shade, wraith knight, what will you do if I burn hyssop? Or call the gods of your dead? Would not a puff of my breath disperse you?”

I knew what sword I held, as sword in hand I rose from my hiding place. “He’d call on his brother knight!”

Grengarm moved more quickly than I would have believed possible, his strike preceded by a sheet of fire the way the bray of a trumpet precedes the charge. I thrust, both hands on the hilt—and half blind with fire and smoke heard my blade rattle among his fangs—slashed and slashed, and slashed again, the dark two-edged brand slicing flesh and splitting scale and bone with every stroke.

Knights fought shoulder-to-shoulder with me who were almost real, staunch men whose eyes looked full upon the face of Hel; but behind Grengarm, and at his flanks, the Aelf fought for him with spear, shield, and slender Aelfsword, and fell bleeding and dying just as men in battle die.

Grengarm gave way, and would have dived into the well, but I and a score of knights barred his path. Like lightning he turned aside—

And vanished. Blood ran from the mouth of a piteous dwarf who scutded toward the rushing water. I sprang after him. Fire checked me. He plunged into the Griffin and was gone.

The Aelf fought on, but the phantom knights closed about them with war cries the eldest trees were too young to have heard. From the depths of time rose the thunder of hooves.

Eterne shattered Aelfswords and split heads until the last Aelf alive fled down the dark passage; panting, I turned to the woman on the altar.

An Aelf as gray as ash sawed at her bonds with a broken sword. His head had been nearly severed, and blood dribbled from his fingers to redden her milky skin and raven hair; yet he worked away, turning this way and that to bring the cords in view.

She called, “Sheath your sword and lay these specters before they harm us. And please—I beg this—free me.”

I spoke to one of the phantom knights. (He had removed his helm, and there was sorrow in his face, Ben, to tear your heart.) “Who are you?” I asked. “Should I do as this woman advises? On my honor, I won’t send you away without thanking you.”

They gathered around me, muttering that they had done no more than their own had required. Their voices were dry and hollow, as though a clever showman pulled a string through a gourd to make it talk.

“We are those knights,” the knight I had spoken to said, “who bore Eterne unworthily.”

“You would be wise,” another told me, “to do what she wishes. But unwise to trust her.”

From the altar, the woman called, “Cut me free and give me a drink. Have you wine?”

The phantom knights and I spoke further; I will not tell you what we said now. Then one brought a skin like a wineskin that the Aelf had dropped. He pulled the stopper and poured some into the little cup that was the other end of the stopper. That is how those things are made in Aelfrice. It was strong brandy, as its fumes told me; I had no need to taste it.

I wiped Eterne clean with the hair of a dead Aelf and returned her to her scabbard, thinking to take the wineskin—and the knights vanished. Picture a hall lit by many candles. A wind sweeps it, and at once the flame of every candle is put out. That was how it was with them.

The skin fell to the stony floor of the grotto and most of the brandy was wasted, though by snatching it up I managed to save a little. That little I carried to the woman on the altar, and when I had fetched my old sword belt and cut her free with my dagger, I poured it into the cup and gave it to her.

She thanked me and thrust her finger into it. At once it burned blue, and she downed it fire and all.

“Good lord!”

That made her smile. “Say, ‘good knight.’” She stroked my cheek. “I am no lord, Sir Knight. No lady, either. Are you a subject of my brother’s?” I said I was a knight of Sheerwall.

“You are, and when we meet again you will bow to me while I smile oh, so coldly!” Her breath was heavy with brandy. “But we are not at court—what are you doing?”

I was taking off my cloak to give to her. “It’s still wet,” I warned her.

“I will dry it.” She left the altar then, slender and swaying like a willow in a storm, and let me put it about her shoulders. I am accounted tall, but the cloak that fell to my ankles failed to cover her knees.

“We will both be wetter than that cloak, Your Highness, before we are out of this place.”