The Sword of Aradel (12 page)

The spring refreshed him. Back inside, he hastily crammed the food she gave him into his pouch, and followed her through the passageway to the cavelike room. Grimly he took his place in the great circle and clasped her hands. With the touch he could feel the fear in her.

Suddenly she exclaimed, “It's just come to me what must have happened. I—I made a little mistake.”

“In what?”

“In time. It's
so
confusing. But I can easily make an adjustment. Ready?”

“Ready!”

As she started her curious chant with the numbers, he was aware again of that hateful, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. The coldness had been there ever since she had first chanted those numbers many hours ago, but now it was worse. It so disturbed him that he heard only the last few words of her rhyme:

“… north or south or east or west,

Please take us safely on our quest.”

Then came the giddiness, the terrible feeling of whirling and flying apart, and instinctively he tried to prepare himself for the jolt he knew would follow. It came, but instead of the hard pavement he had expected, he was flung down with Merra upon a carpet of soft grass.

It was several seconds before he could collect his wits and realize they had landed somewhere in the park. How strange, he thought, to see the morning sun streaming through the trees! Back in the grove, only minutes ago, it had been nearly dark.

“Praise be that we fell in the park instead of that street!” he muttered thankfully. “But why did it happen this way?”

“Oh, I'm sure it's because we have no established landing point here. I—I hate to confess it, Sir Brian, but I was horribly afraid we'd find ourselves returning to that utterly senseless place where that horse of a female—” Merra broke off with a little squeal of delight. “Tancred! Oh, Tancred! How I missed you!”

She caught the nightingale gently in her hands and held it to her cheek, cooing to it. “Now, precious one,” she went on finally, “we must go speedily to that white temple across the lake yonder. Inside we surely will need you—but I have a feeling those haughty guards do not care for birds. So you must hide in the cowl of my cap until we are safely inside.”

Tancred rode on her shoulder until they neared the temple steps, then he crept under the cowl so that he was hidden by one of her thick golden braids. On the steps Brian paused briefly, making sure Tancred could not be seen, then his eye was caught by the Roman letters carved in the marble above the columns: TATE MUSEUM. Time, he realized suddenly, had turned
mouseion
into
museum
, and even changed the meaning of the word. But what about
docteur le grande?

Something stirred in his memory, but was quickly forgotten as he mounted the steps. For the coldness within him was growing. Almost at the entrance he stopped abruptly, staring at the small line of people waiting to pay admission at the counter just within the door. A tall figure in black was moving away inside. He glimpsed it only briefly, but it was enough to turn the coldness in his stomach into a hard ball of ice. Maybe it wasn't Albericus he'd caught sight of, though it made no difference. The monk was near, and might even be watching for them somewhere in the temple.

At the counter he managed the problem of the admission fee by giving the collector of it one of the pieces of paper money that seemed, by its marking, to have more value than the others. It worked, and he received more paper money in exchange. As he turned away, however, he was stopped by a stern-faced guard who had been standing by watching them.

“That sword, young man,” the guard began coldly. “You cannot wear it in here. It must be left at the check room.”

“But—but I may need it,” Brian protested.

“Need it for what? Check it, or I'll have to put you out.”

He was seeking desperately for something elusive in his memory when Merra came to his rescue. “He needeth it to show to Docteur Legrande,” she said quickly.

The guard looked blank, but the gray-haired woman behind the counter said, “I'm sure it's all right. Dr. Legrande is curator of the medieval collection. I understand he's been getting together some costumes for the art school.”

Brian was so relieved to get away from the watchful guard that he forgot to ask where Dr. Legrande could be found. But the information was easily obtained from a student in the next hall whose class was busy making drawings of the old Greek statuary on exhibit there.

“You'll find him downstairs in the east wing,” the student explained. “It's all underground there. His office is at the very end of that long hall.” The student paused, studying them interestedly. “Say, those are great outfits you two are wearing! How about posing for me a couple minutes?”

Brian shook his head. “We be in great haste. But our thanks for thy help.”

They hurried away, finally located the east wing and the stairs, and came at last to a long, empty hall where a light gleamed through the large open door at the end. Merra whispered softly to Tancred. The nightingale left his hiding place, flew up, and alighted on a broken stone cross, intricately carved, that decorated the corner near the bottom step.

“Keep watch, good friend,” Merra said uneasily. “I know that black-robed Lucifer is somewhere near. I can just feel it. But you mustn't let him find us till Sir Brian has the true sword in his hand.”

As they started quickly down the hall, she added in a low voice, “I wouldn't have dreamed Cerid was trying to tell us the name of the person she left the sword with. I thought Nysa had misunderstood her. It sounded so French.”

“But I don't understand. How could she get in here without trouble, and find the right person—”

“Oh, don't be a goose! Cerid could remain invisible for as long as she wanted, which means she could go anywhere. As for finding the right person, you forget she was of the Dryads. Why, even I can sense the worth of a man a full league away—”

Her voice died, for they were almost at the door. “Oh, dear,” she whispered worriedly. “We are nearly at the end of our search, yet I know all is not well. Do you not feel it, Sir Brian?”

“This is no time to be plagued by feelings,” he muttered, and strode determinedly through the doorway.

It was a strange room he suddenly found himself in. From floor to ceiling on all sides it was filled with shelves and cabinets, all jammed with old books, manuscripts, helmets, weapons, tools, and assorted odds and ends that might have been found in any village at home. Two desks piled with papers occupied the space in the center, directly under a skylight. A young woman with hair cut like a page boy's and with huge round glasses sat at one of the desks examining a yellowed sheet of vellum with a large magnifying glass. As they entered she glanced up with lively dark eyes that were instantly full of interest, and smiled.

“Well!” she said in a softly musical voice. “How very nice! You two are so authentic you are like a breath of fresh air from the past. I'm Mary Day. What can I do for you?”

“If it pleaseth thee, good lady,” Brian began, “We—we seek the Doctor Legrande.”

“It pleaseth me, but thou seekest in vain,” Mary Day replied, her smile broadening. “The good doctor is away. And that is regrettable, for I'm sure he would enjoy your costumes as well as your English. He would like it better if you spoke in Latin—but who today can even read it save a few scholars and the clergy?”

“It is our common tongue at home,” Brian told her, speaking in Latin. “Do you know it?”

“Of course I know it!” she exclaimed in the same language. “I would hardly be Dr. Legrande's assistant if I didn't—” She stopped, her mouth open in astonishment. Then carefully she set down the magnifying glass and the vellum. “Who are you, and where are you from that you can speak so easily in a tongue long dead?”

“He is Sir Brian the Fair,” Merra said quickly. “And I am called Merra. We are from Aradel.”

“Aradel?” Mary Day repeated. “Aradel? Where have I heard that name?” All at once she gasped. “I don't believe it! It's impossible! How did you get here?”

“The same way my mother did, five years ago. We of the Dryads have certain powers. We can travel by formula.”

“Through
time?”

“If you wish to call it that,” said Merra, her green eyes twinkling. “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all one, and are separated mainly in our minds. The Dryads know these things, for they are born with knowledge. But Sir Brian is a mere mortal, and woefully ignorant.”

“Even as I,” Mary Day murmured, still speaking in Latin. Her face had paled, and her dark eyes behind the huge spectacles now seemed enormous. “But I—I still cannot believe any of this. It has to be a hoax. What—what was your mother's name?”

“Cerid.”

“Cerid!
Oh my lord! And why did she come here?”

“To hide the sword of Aradel in a place of safety. But now the time has come to take it home, for only with it can a tyrant be destroyed and a kingdom be regained.”

Mary Day stared at them, momentarily speechless. Then she took off her glasses and buried her face in her hands. “He told me about Cerid, but I couldn't believe him!” she sobbed. “It is impossible!” Suddenly she looked up and shook her head. “I still say it is impossible. I am intelligent enough to know what is possible, and what isn't. I am a Phi Beta Kappa. I have three degrees and a doctorate, and I speak five languages. So I know very well that the Dryads are only mythical creatures. I know it is impossible to travel through time. And I know it is equally impossible for anyone to appear and disappear at will, as this imaginary Cerid is supposed to have done. Poor Dr. Legrande was simply having hallucinations over an old sword he'd found.” She said this last almost defiantly while she wiped her eyes.

Merra smiled. “And if I vanished and reappeared before you this very minute, you would know better than to believe it, would you not?”

Mary Day blinked and opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Merra vanished. Five seconds later Merra gave one of her gay little laughs and took form again on the other side of the room.

Mary Day sprang to her feet, staring, and abruptly sat down again. She rubbed her eyes and stared once more. When she finally spoke, her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Were—were you two the pair that were caught fighting in the park last night, and—and later disappeared from a closed room at the police station?”

“Yes. How did you learn about it?”

“There was a lot about you in the morning news. I—I didn't connect you with it at first, because, well—they said you were young criminals working in costume, and that you'd stolen some valuable things from a collection.”

Mary Day paused, her dark eyes swinging from Merra to Brian. “I'm sure the police have misunderstood you completely,” she went on. “They're hardly equipped to believe anything you might tell them. It's difficult enough for me. You see, you've upset a great many basic things I've been taught, and it's been a shock. Now, why don't you sit down and tell me about Aradel, and all that has happened to you here.”

Brian told her, showing her the coins in his pouch and his sword. “The scabbard,” he explained, “belongs to the true sword, but Cerid was unable to bring it when she came.”

“And this sword,” said Mary Day, looking at it wonderingly, “is the substitute Albericus had made? Oh, it is a beautiful thing … and extremely valuable. No wonder the police couldn't believe it belonged to you! You say you won it in combat with—”

“He beat that rotten Rupert and broke his pate!” Merra put in. “And with a quarterstaff, no less. Naturally, I knighted him.”

“You have the power to—to create knights?”

“I do. Young as I am, I am the ranking princess of Aradel, and destined to become queen—that is, if I am alive tomorrow, and we are able to return with the true sword.” Merra paused, then said, “But our time grows short, good lady. Where
is
the true sword?”

Mary Day wet her lips. “Dr. Legrande has it,” she said slowly. “He left yesterday for London, and he took the sword with him.”

“To London!” Brian exclaimed. “But—but—”

“Let me explain,” she said. “People here have given Dr. Legrande a bad time about the sword. In fact, he calls ours the land of non-belief. I hate to admit it, but I'm just as guilty as the others. But in England there are those who still believe in elves and such things. So naturally—”

“But the sword!” Merra cried. “A kingdom depends upon it—and many lives!”

“I'm beginning to realize that,” Mary Day said, clenching her hands. “I'm trying to think how I can reach him.”

“Can you talk to him from afar?” Brian asked quickly. “There are those in Aradel—”

“I can manage it with this,” Mary Day answered, reaching for a curious instrument on her desk. “The problem is to locate him. He'll fly back immediately when I tell him about you. He wouldn't miss—”

“He—
he flies?”

“Today we travel in machines that fly. Janice,” she said into the instrument she was holding, “this is Mary Day, Dr. Legrande's assistant. We've an emergency, and I must locate Dr. Legrande immediately. Will you place a call to him at Claridge's in London? If he isn't there, see if they can find him. He may be at the British Museum, conferring with Dr. Harlowe.”

She replaced the instrument on her desk, then said, “We can only wait, my friends. But I should warn you: Even if they find him right away, he couldn't possibly get back here before tomorrow evening. More likely it will be the next morning.”

Brian looked at Merra. Her face was stricken. “That will be too late!” she whispered. “Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we can prevent Albericus from returning to Aradel.”