The Knight

Finally I said to myself, “By the power of the sea life left the sea. They were able to leave it because they took it with them. I was a sea-creature in Mother’s womb, and she was a sea-creature inside her mother, and I will be a sea-creature as long as I live. The king must know, exactly the way I do, because he put a nykr on his shield.”

“He is my brother,” Garsecg said.

We were both swimming hard, but I looked around at him, surprised. “Can you hear my thoughts?”

“Sometimes.”

“You’re an Aelf. Isn’t the king a human man?”

“He is.”

I thought about that for a long time, and got nowhere with it. Garsecg must have been able to hear some of it, because he said, “When a man of my kind takes a woman of your kind, she may bear a child.” Still not understanding, I said, “All right.”

“Every child has something of its father and something of its mother as well; save for monsters, every child is of the male kind or the female kind nevertheless.”

We stopped to rest, floating on our backs in the clear sea. I said, “I took an Aelf woman—a woman I really truly love like nobody else on earth.”

“I know it.”

“Will we have children?”

“I cannot say.”

“Suppose we do.” These were things I had not thought about before. “If it’s a boy, will it grow up to be a human man?”

“Or an Aelf man. Until the child is born, there is no knowing.”

“What if it’s a girl?”

“The same. The king’s royal father lay with a woman of my race, even as you with your Aelfmaiden.”

I saw then that Garsecg did not really know everything, and to tell the truth I felt good about it.

“Of their union three children were born, one of my kind and two of yours.”

“Three?”

Garsecg nodded. “Our sister’s name is Morcaine.”

When we started off again, I thought we were going to swim a long way like we had before. Now I can see Garsecg wanted to rest before we got where we were going. He knew about the stairs, and he knew we might have to fight. The Khimairas would not recognize him, and he would not be able to tell them who he was. Anyway, I was just getting warmed up again when he stopped and pointed. “That is the isle your mariners call Glas,” he said, and pretty soon we were there and climbing over slick sharp rocks that shone crimson, gold, and scarlet in the sunshine, with a lot of other colors, more beautiful than I could ever make you believe it was.

“Do they call it Glas because it’s made of glass?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “It is not, but of fire opal.”

“The dragon stone.”

He would not look at me. “Who told you that?”

It had been Bold Berthold, and I called him my brother. “He’s dead now, I think.”

“Wise Berthold. If you do not know him dead, let us hope that he lives.”

I told Garsecg how I had searched for Bold Berthold’s body without finding it.

“Many have searched for this isle, but those who search for it never find it. More than a few have sighted it by chance, however, and a handful of mariners have landed here.”

I had the feeling Garsecg knew more about that than he was telling, so I asked what happened to them.

“Various things. Some returned safely to their ships. Some perished. Some remain with us, and some went to other places. Do you see the tower?”

I did, and it was huge. Somebody had built a skyscraper all by itself way out on that little island, and at first I thought why did they have to make it so high? Because there was nothing else out there to crowd it. Only there was. It was the sea. The island was not really very big, so if you wanted to put a big building on it, it had to go straight up.

It did. It was round, and only a little wider at the bottom, and it went up and up like a needle, taller than the tallest mountain.

“The builder was of the sixth world, which is Muspel,” Garsecg said. “My people build nothing like it unless they must. Would that they did! From this tower Setr sought to overawe this sphere, which you call the World Below.”

I said we called it Aelfrice mostly.

Garsecg nodded. “He built smaller towers as well, his strongholds on many coasts. My sister dwells in one when she chooses.”

“But you don’t?”

“I could if I wished.” Garsecg stood up on what I had thought was just another slick rock, and walked away. When I could not see him, I heard him say, “How is your wound?”

I felt for it, but I couldn’t find it.

“Healed?”

When I caught up with him, I said, “There’s a scar, but it’s closed and it’s not sore.”

“The scar will fade. For a time, a gull might have seen rocks below the water.”

“I get it. Am I really the strongest knight in the whole world now?”

“That is for you to say.”

“Then I am.” I did not feel any stronger when I said it, but I knew I was very, very strong and very, very fast. Exactly how strong and how fast I did not know. I also knew that some of that was what Disiri had done, and some came from the sea—from learning how it was, and that it was in me, tides of blood pounding the beaches of my ears. But some was just me, and in fact the part about the sea was just me, too; that had been there all the time, although I had not known it.