"Uryzmag, as you love me, obey my command!" he gasped. Then his eyes went strangely clear, and he actually smiled. "Bedwyr," he whispered, "I know you're not what you claim to be, though I know not what you really are—nor do I wish to know, for I believe that knowledge lies beyond the proper ken of mortals. But whoever you may be, grant me this one last favor!" And he pressed the sword against Sarnac's chest.
For a long, stunned moment, Sarnac was held immobile by the High King's eyes, and he found he had taken hold of the sword. Artorius smiled again and released him, and then the wild light was back in his eyes. "Go, Uryzmag! Go! Release me from the magic that prolongs my suffering!"
So he knows,
Sarnac thought.
What did he see or hear? I don't suppose it matters now. All that matters is that he wants me to do this thing for him. Why? Does he somehow know that this is how he will become one with legend? That doesn't matter either.
"Aye,
Pan-Tarkan
," he said. He stood up, holding the sword. "There's a lake to the west," he told Kai.
The Briton stood up. "I'm coming too."
Sarnac nodded and turned to Tiraena. "Stay here with him. This won't take long."
* * *
It was late afternoon when they emerged from the woods at the shore of the lake that stretched away to the west.
Sarnac looked around at the calm waters and the surrounding wooded hillsides. There was no visible sign that Man had ever set foot on Earth. But there was no sense of ancientness, as there was on the Breton coast, where a forgotten people had raised the standing stones to their forgotten gods. No, they had ridden into a realm of suspended time.
They exchanged a look, and by unspoken consent Kai held his horse motionless while Sarnac walked his forward to the lake's edge.
He hefted the sword—as good quality a
spatha
as was currently obtainable, but with absolutely no ornamentation to distinguish it. And it was filthy with dried gore and mud. Sarnac looked at it for a moment that stretched, and felt a strange reluctance. . . .
No! I won't put us through
that
part of the story!
Without risking further delay, he reached back and, with all his strength, threw the sword toward the middle of the lake. As it arched out over the glassy water in a high trajectory, tumbling end over end, it flashed blindingly in the afternoon sun as if somehow cleansed of the encrustation of filth, leaving only a gleaming purity that was foreign to this world and must perforce leave it. When Sarnac could see again, there were only ripples spreading in concentric circles before vanishing.
He turned to Kai. "Could you see it hit the water?"
"No. The sun got in my eyes." The voice was dull, and when Sarnac drew alongside him he saw that the redheaded Briton wore a lost, hurt expression that was shocking on that face.
"Bedwyr, what will we do? He's gone, or will be soon! As gone as Batradz—what you just did brought that home to me. I can't imagine the world without him in it. And we've failed, and . . . Bedwyr, was it all worth it? Did it all
mean
anything? Will anyone remember that we even tried?"
Something flared coldly inside Sarnac.
To hell with Tylar!
He leaned over and grasped his friend by the shoulders, hard. "Kai, listen to me! Because he, and all of you, tried to hold back the darkness, he will be remembered as long as men love the light. And not just by Britons—all the peoples who will live on the island in ages to come will pretend that their own heroes rode with his
cataphractii
! He will be remembered when all the other men of this sad time are forgotten. He will be remembered when men have left this world behind and gone to dwell among the stars!"
Kai drew back from his grip, and his face wore another expression that Sarnac never thought he would see there: one of fear. "I don't understand these words, Bedwyr!"
Sarnac's head slumped, and the icy fire inside him—which, unknown to him, had been visible through his eyes—flickered out. "Never mind, Kai. Just remember that his name will live longer than you can possibly imagine. He can never be forgotten—so, in a way, he can never die."
Kai's mouth fell open. "You say he can . . . never die? Are you sure, Bedwyr?"
Oh, God, what have I done?
Clearly, his last words were the ones that had registered.
Better quit while I'm ahead. I don't really know what I'm playing with here.
"Come on," he said. "We'd better go if we want to get back before dark."
They departed, leaving the lake to its timelessness.
The sun was low in the sky when they returned to the valley. The Britons and a few locals were where they had left them. But the High King was not.
"Where is he?" Kai demanded as they dismounted.
"Three women came while you were gone, with bearers," Tiraena said. "They said they'd take him to the town."
"To the House of Holy Ladies there," one of the Artoriani amplified. "They said they'd ease his suffering."
"It's as well," Kai said, gazing at the town on the crag. "By the way, what town is that? What's it called?"
"Avallon," one of the Gallic rustics told him. And Sarnac found himself nodding slowly.
It's complete. He's passed through into legend.
"I suppose we ought to go there," Kai began, when a rider wearing the uniform of the Artoriani appeared to the west, lashing his horse frantically.
"Visigoths!" the man gasped. "A strong force of cavalry, only an hour's ride behind me!"
Sarnac and Kai exchanged glances. "So they've entered Burgundian territory," the latter said.
"Yes." Sarnac thought aloud, not noticing the looks he got as he went into matters beyond the usual horizons of a simple hiresword. "Surprising, considering that King Euric wants to detach the Burgundians from their Roman alliance, leaving the Auvergne strategically indefensible. He must want something badly to risk offending them by violating their frontiers. . . . Kai, it must be the
Pan-Tarkan
! They've been sent to capture him, or else bring back his body to prove he's dead! We've got to draw them away from here."
"But won't they search the town?"
"He'll be well hidden there," Sarnac stated confidently. A bunch of Catholic nuns would have no reason to love the Visigothic heretics. "And while they may ask questions, they won't go so far as to ransack a Burgundian town. I'm sure they're under orders to avoid provocations. And they won't stay long if we give them a trail to follow away from here."
"Right." Kai nodded. "Well, we were going anyway. We've heard there are other British survivors at Auxerre, to the northwest. We'll join them—together we can maybe fight our way to Soissons, and get home from there."
Sarnac and Tiraena exchanged glances. "Kai, I'm afraid I must leave you. Lucasta and I have to continue east to Dijon."
"Dijon? Why there? It's deeper into Burgundian territory, which we now know is no guarantee of safety. And it's even further from Britain."
"I know. But Tertullian made me promise to take Lucasta there if anything happened—she has kinsmen there. I made a promise, Kai!"
"Ah, well, if you must. At least it'll confuse the Visigoths if they have two trails to follow!" He bawled at the Artoriani to mount up, then faced Sarnac and clasped arms with him. "Farewell, Bedwyr! Follow us later if you can."
"I will, Kai," Sarnac said, hating the lie as he told it.
As Kai mounted up, he gave the town a long look. "I don't suppose we can stop . . ."
"No, Kai, there's no time. We all have to get away as quickly as possible. And, Kai . . . remember what I said earlier. And when you get home, and people ask, you can tell them truly that you never saw him die!"
Kai gave him a long look. Then, with a final wave, he went to the head of the little column, and they rode off along the road to the north of Avallon. Sarnac watched them until they were out of sight. He saw that Tiraena was looking at him strangely. And he realized that, for the first time since early adolescence, he had without thinking made the sign of the cross.
God, if you exist, don't hold my unbelief against Kai, who does not share it. Let him find his way home.
Then his familiar imp reawoke.
Remember, it's in Your best interests to demonstrate that the good guys don't
always
lose. Otherwise, people may begin to wonder about You.
"Let's go," he said aloud to Tiraena. "We'd better put as much distance between us and the Visigoths as we can before nightfall."
They awoke the next morning to an unseasonable damp chill. They had bought some food from the local peasants before heading east, so they were free from the belly-twisting hunger that had sometimes accompanied their flight from Angers. However, for the cold of the uplands night there had been no answer but shared body warmth.
They finished off the heel of bread they had saved, washing it down with the rough local wine—Burgundy, Sarnac decided glumly, had a long way to go. Then they mounted up and resumed their weary eastward trek.
"Did Tylar give you any details about how he's going to pick us up at Dijon?" Tiraena asked after a time.
"Not a word. Come to think of it, he never even said he was going to make the pickup there. He only said to proceed in that direction. So, as usual, he didn't tell us diddly! I'm going to have a few words for him when we meet!"
"If we meet," Tiraena corrected. "We have to consider the possibility that things have gotten so badly balled up that we're stranded in this time permanently."
"Don't talk dirty!" Sarnac shuddered. "Tylar'll find us. You know what kind of resources he's got."
"He's not a god. And he has his own agenda. We'd better decide on a course of action in case we have to make do in the here and now."
"Come on! Everything will work out okay. . . ."
It was then that they heard the rumble of hooves and the clink of harness behind them on the forest trail.
Without a word, Sarnac spurred the weary, overloaded horse, knowing as he did that they could never outrun properly mounted pursuers. Then he saw, off to the right, what looked like a break in the forest, in terrain their horse might be able to manage.
"I'm going to try and lose them," he said, and guided the horse off the trail and over a low ridge. They found themselves in a clearing, facing a semicircle of Visigothic archers.
A guttural command rang out, bows twanged, and their horse reared and went over with a scream. They managed to throw themselves free before the animal collapsed, and got to their feet just in time to see the Visigothic riders enter the clearing.
Sarnac hauled out his
spatha
, Tiraena drew her dagger, and they stood back to back as the barbarians edged inward. There were no more arrows.
So my shit-hot armor is no help,
Sarnac thought.
And even if it was, it wouldn't do Tiraena any good. . . .
"Tiraena," he spoke levelly, turning his head around, toward her, "if you wish it, I'll . . . make sure they don't take you alive."
Her head snapped around, and he could see her eyes widen. They had talked about what had happened in Bourges, and he had tried to explain what the relationship between the sexes could mean in this milieu when taken to its ugly extreme. He wasn't sure it had really registered—it ran too counter to the social assumptions she had grown up with. Now she swallowed, drew an unsteady breath, and opened her mouth to speak.
Then, with a wild cry, a Visigothic cavalryman started toward them, and the rest of the barbarians followed. Sarnac turned to face the advancing rider, raising his
spatha
in a two-handed grip. The Visigoth applied his spurs, the horse plunged forward . . .
And stopped.
The Visigoth didn't rein in his mount. They simply froze, in a gravity-defying tableau of charging man and horse, two hooves in midair.
At the same time, Sarnac became aware of how quiet it had become. There was no more sighing of wind in the trees . . . every leaf was fixed in place. No more chirping of birds . . . he looked up and saw an unmoving thrush suspended in flight. And all the Visigoths were paralyzed in mid-charge, part of the still photo the world had become.
He and Tiraena stared at each other, the only two moving things in the universe, fearful to shatter the unnatural silence by speaking.
"I think it's time we were going."
The quiet voice was, at that moment, the most startling of all possible sounds. They whirled around to see Tylar walking toward them, stepping carefully between two living statues of Visigoths. He was holding something that was sometimes a short sword, but now was wearing a shape they hadn't seen before.
"Tylar," Tiraena said in a choked voice, "are you a . . . a god?"
"Good heavens, no! I'm as mortal as yourselves, if rather long-lived by your standards. I merely belong to a society that has had a bit longer than yours to accumulate knowledge. Well, actually
quite
a bit longer."
"But, Tylar," Sarnac managed to croak, "what have you done? What's happened to them?" He gestured at the grotesquely frozen Visigoths. "What's happened to the
world
?"
"Oh, nothing at all, my dear fellow. You see, it's not them—it's
us
." He slipped into his accustomed pedagogic mode. "Remember I mentioned that we know how to induce a state of temporal stasis? That involves generating a field within which time is slowed to almost nothing—a second for every few hundred million years of the outside universe, say. Well, in its present configuration this device places its bearer in a kind of reverse stasis. For me, time is vastly accelerated."
"But what about me and Tiraena?"
"Ah, yes, I never quite got around to telling you about that, did I? Well, along with the devices you already know about, I took the liberty of having very small temporal-distortion generators implanted in you. When my own field is activated within a very short range, these automatically place you in the same state of accelerated time." He looked sheepish. "I really should have mentioned it, but it quite slipped my mind. At any rate, the outside universe seems frozen because, from our standpoint, everything in it is taking place at an infinitesimal fraction of its normal speed, too slowly for us to see the motion, even if we stayed here for the rest of your lifetimes—or even
my
lifetime. By the same token, it will seem to the Visigoths that you have simply vanished into thin air. I daresay they will decide among themselves that the better part of valor is to tell King Euric they never found any British survivors."