The Knight

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?”