Steel Magic (9 page)

I
n the stone wasteland of the mountains Greg felt so alone. As the chime of the bells sounded he stood very still, his head up, looking about. The stretch of mountain wall was far away and none of the strange pillars were crowned with belfries. Some thin and lazy wisps of smoke rose from the charred logs of the fire, but there was nothing else to be seen.

The pillars! While the bells still clamored, Greg returned to the pillar he had leaned against. To the eye it was a tall, rough, column of stone. Yet to the touch it was far different.

Once more Greg put out his hand, and the tips of his fingers moved not over stone but over the smoothness of metal and the soft texture of leather. For the second time he jerked away from that contact. Why should stone feel like a body dressed in scaly armor and leather? Why did his eyes tell him one thing, and his fingers another?

“Is—is there anyone here?” He meant that call to be
louder than the bells, but it came from his lips hardly above a whisper. The rock pillar remained a rock to his eyes. Nothing moved. But now the sound of the bell, instead of chiming from all parts of the plateau, centered on one point across the dying fire. And more smoke puffed from the ashy brands, although no more wood had been added.

“Who is there?” Greg called again.

“There is no need to shout, sir squire.”

Greg gaped. One moment the space across the fire had been empty, now someone stood there. For a second he thought it Merlin, for the person wore the same long gray robe he had seen on the wizard. Then, perhaps because his fears made him more alert, Greg knew the difference. Merlin's gray had been patterned with threads of red and it had been a silver-gray, the color of a sword blade.

But this newcomer was cloaked, and hooded as well, in the dull gray of winter storm clouds, and the patterns were in black thread, as was the girdle. Greg had felt awe for Merlin, but this stranger aroused fear. And instinctively Greg raised his fork-spear with the tines pointing to the other.

The stranger laughed gaily. White hands threw back the hood and a woman faced Greg. Her hair tumbled out of the sack of the hood and fell about her shoulders, its ends reaching below her girdle. The locks were not dark, nor fair, but the color of the silver blade Huon had shown them. And they appeared to throw off sparks of glittering light, as the dagger had drawn and reflected the sunlight.

She gathered up a handful of hair and spread it wide across her palm, then broke loose one, two, three of the long
hairs. And, as she stood smiling at him, she rolled these together between thumb and forefinger.

“Why do you come here, sir squire?” she asked softly. “Also, it would seem that you do not like the open road, since you crept upon me by a back way.” Her tone was that of an adult reproving a naughty child. But it was a tone Greg had heard many times in the past and it did not shame him. In that the witch made her first mistake, for he was not thrown off guard in confusion.

“I came by the road shown me,” Greg answered, not knowing just why he chose those particular words, but knowing that they did not please the witch.

“Oh, and who guided you on that road?” It was a sharp demand.

Again Greg found words which were strange to him. “That which shines across stone—stone of body—stone of mind—”

“So! You are of those, are you!” Her eyes blazed green at him and her fingers moved very fast, weaving the cord she had spun of her three hairs into a net. “Then join your fellows!”

She cast the net at him over the charred logs and it expanded in the air as if to engulf his whole body. Greg thrust at it with the spear. The tines tangled in the mesh, wrapping it about the spear. One strand whipped about Greg's hand and wrist, clinging tightly.

But in seconds those strands which had caught on the prongs lost their silvery gleam, blackened, withered away to threads, and fell harmlessly to the ground. The bells shrilled in a wild clamor and the woman retreated a step or two, her clenched hand at her mouth, staring at him.

“Iron—a master of iron!” she half wailed. “Who are you who dares bring cold iron into the Stone Waste and takes no harm from it? Whom do you serve?”

“Merlin sent me.”

“Merlin!” she spat the name in a snake's hiss. “Merlin, who is between the worlds so he can touch iron, and that silly boy Huon, who was born a mortal so he can wield iron as a sword, wear it as a shield, and that Arthur, a stupid, roaring bully of a king, who brought iron with him into Avalon—to poison those greater than he dared dream of being! May they rot and perish, may iron turn against them and sear the flesh from their crooked bones, may they be eaten up by the demons of the night! And you,” she stared at Greg, “you are not Merlin though he is a master at shape changing. But with his ring gone from his hand”—she laughed harshly—“he could not put on any disguise which would hide him from me. And you are not Huon, and certainly not Arthur! So I command you, boy, tell me your true name?” She was smiling and her voice had grown soft again.

“Gregory Lowry,” he replied, in spite of himself.

But that answer did not appear to please her in the least. She repeated the name, her hands moving in complicated gestures as they had done when she had woven the net of hair. Then she threw them up in a movement expressing impatience and defeat.

“You hold iron, against that I may not set any spell. Well, what do you want of me?”

“That which is hidden.” For the third time Greg spoke words someone, or something, else had put in his mouth.

She laughed loudly. “That you shall not have! Look about you, rash child. Where will you find that which is hidden? If you search here for forty days and forty nights, still will it remain safe for me!”

The pronged spear moved in Greg's hold, as it had moved to draw him into the tower in the deserted village. Slowly the points reversed, heading earthward. Greg had a flash of memory—people hunting water with a forked stick which turned to the ground where a well might be dug—he had read about that. Could the fork-spear guide him to what must be found? He would try.

But he did not have to move far in his quest, for the weapon nearly flipped out of his grasp as he approached the fire, thrusting the tine tips into the mass of burnt wood and ash. Greg, kicking aside charred ends, began to dig.

The bells were no longer silver chimes, they were a harsh clamor beating in his ears, making him deaf and dizzy with their din. And the witch sped around and around the fire, though she prudently kept beyond spear reach, shouting strange words and making those patterns in the air with her hands.

A fearsome scaled thing, neither snake nor crocodile but a nasty mixture of both, squatted near, reached out claws to menace him. Greg swung the spear, brushed those claws, and the thing was gone. Other horrors gathered to ring him in, but Greg, feeling secure in the power of iron, did not even try to get rid of them. He continued to fork away earth from where the fire had burned.

It was slow work, for the fork did not serve well as a
shovel and he was afraid to put it down and use his hands. In the end he squatted, holding the fork with one hand and shoveling out the loosened soil with the other. Then his groping fingers found something to tug at—

The object came up and it was so heavy he had difficulty in shaking it free of the dirt. But what he held was a sword!

Greg had seen its like in a museum and he had wondered then how any man had had strength enough to swing it. For its broad blade and heavy cross hilt weighed down hand and arm. A sword—the missing talisman—Excalibur!

He put the spear between his knees for safekeeping and brushed the clay dust from the hilt and glimmering blade of the sword. It was very plain, bearing no bright gems, no wealth of gold, but he was sure this was what he had been sent to discover. Greg held it tight to him in his left arm as he looked up at the witch.

She no longer strove to weave spells, but stood quietly, eying him narrowly in return. And, as he backed away from the hole, Greg had the feeling that while she had lost the sword, she still believed that she had a chance for victory. Was it chance, or some more of Merlin's long-distance magic that had solved part of her secret for him?

For, as he backed away, the tip of the sword struck hard against one of the pillars. And that blow was answered by a choked cry!

Where the pillar had been stood a man, or rather swayed a man, his eyes closed, his face very white. He wore armor and leather like Huon's elf knights, but his surcoat was white with a red dragon for its device. He moaned and his eyes opened.

“ 'Ware the witch!”

A net of hair whirled through the air. Greg caught it on his spear before it could touch the man and it withered away.

The witch screamed and the sound was not a human cry. In her place, a huge gray bird fluttered wings in rage and ran at Greg with cruel curved beak wide open. The boy swung the spear and the creature dodged, scurried on for a few feet, and took to the air, disappearing over the mountain. Then there was utter silence, for even the bells had ceased to chime.

“The sword!”

The man who had been a pillar was on his knees, his eyes wide and happy as they rested on the blade Greg held. “Sir, I beg of you, free this company. And then let us ride fast and hard. For Arthur's sword must rest in Arthur's hand before the enemy strikes into the very heart of Avalon! Time is passing very fast.”

One by one Greg touched the pillars on the plateau and then the larger boulders which lay among them, until a company of men wearing the badge of the Red Dragon and their horses were living creatures once again. They left, two of the guardsmen riding double so that Greg might have a mount to himself.

The road was too broken to allow them a fast ride, but the knight Greg had first freed kept them to the best pace they could. They rounded the mountainside to the meeting of the cliff road, and before them now was the valley of the deserted village. It was close to sundown and Greg's dread of spending the night in that haunted place grew with every horse length they advanced. He tried to argue his companions into a night halt where they were, but to that they would not agree.

“You do not understand, youth. Now that the sword is out of their hands, they dare no longer hesitate in the attack. They must move before we reach Arthur or fail—and they still have the horn and the ring to hold against us. Thus if they can strike before we return Excalibur to the king, they will have some chance of victory, since only he dares carry the blade into battle. We must ride by night and day lest that chance be proven true.”

“Huon's horses are winged. If we had those—” Greg said.

“The Warden of the West is served by the Horses of the Hills. But those are few in number and answer only the call of the Green Dragon, not the Red. Most strongly do I also wish they were with us at this hour!”

Greg could see the buildings of the village now, the tower, the humpbacked bridge. They had ridden to the edge of the fields where the road ran between hedgerows and he had walked through the lines of animals. What had been the purpose of that gathering? Where now were the wolves, all the rest?

He did not see the thing that scuttled out of the bushes. Greg's first awareness of danger came when the horse he was riding reared high and he was nearly spilled from the saddle. Greg was no horseman and it was all he could do to cling to the saddle horn with one hand and the precious sword with the other, while his fork-spear fell to the ground.

That which had halted in the road before his mount had been no larger than a small dog, but it was growing fast into a scaled thing such as the witch had summoned on the
plateau. Its taloned forepaw arched up above mount and rider, then flashed down.

Greg let go his hold on the saddle horn. With both hands he raised the sword; it was far too heavy for him to swing. The paw of the other came down, was impaled. The creature screamed and tried to jerk back; Greg was torn from the saddle. As he fell, in spite of his efforts, he lost his grip on the sword. Defenseless he faced the full fury of the giant dragon-thing.

The horse bolted, scattering the men who were fighting the frenzied fear of their own mounts. Greg saw the knight who led them trying to reach him.

Excalibur! Where was the sword? It had fallen from the thing's paw and lay in the road dust between Greg and the monster. The wounded limb of the reptile was shrunken and powerless, and perhaps the blade between Greg and the dragon prevented a second attack. Greg tried to look for his spear and watch the monster at the same time. Suddenly a gray shadow leaped from the hedge and slashed at the scaled tail, and Greg heard the howled challenge of a wolf. As the spined head of the thing flashed around to this new annoyance, Greg caught up his spear.

A second wolf howl rent the air, but it was a cry of anger and not of fear. Up over the road rose a wave of animals, large and small, all heading for the dragon-thing, their teeth gleaming as they came. The monster stamped its feet, swept with its tail, shrilled red rage.

Then it leaped high, springing over the sword, looming
above Greg. But excited though it was, the dragon flinched from the spear prongs. Greg lunged and the monster gave way, making a fatal mistake, for on its second retreat the bulk of its underbody came down on the sword.

Its head cracked skyward and it bellowed, twisting back and forth, but seemingly unable to move from that spot, as if the blade upon which it now crouched was a trap. The outlines of its body wavered, grew smaller. Greg saw that it was no longer a dragon but the gray-robed witch of the plateau. She shivered and shuddered, but her two feet were locked to the blade of Excalibur and there she was held fast.

On her robe the black lines rippled and ran, her silver hair writhed about her as if every strand had a life of its own. Then there was a flash and the woman was gone. A column of smoke wavered, sinking lower and lower. Save for the sword the road was now empty.