Yury Nikitin - The Grail of Sir Thomas

Thomas, beside himself with fury, bellowed a war cry of Angles, brought the big two-handed sword down with all his might. The gleaming blade, which could break the rider in halves down to his saddle, met an obstacle, all but stopped, then broke through the invisible wall and the sword point reached the enemy magician between shoulder blades!

With a crash, the blue flames vanished at once. It went dark, as the white fire around Oleg was all but a smolder. Slymak turned slowly to Thomas, the sword fell out of the terrible wound, clanged down on the floor. Blood gushed out of the broad cut. Slymak pulled a face of pain mixed with astonishment.

Oleg struggled up his feet, leaning on the wall. His chest heaved fast, his breath wheezed. The wonderer’s eyes were clouded with pain. Slymak lurched in the middle of the room, fell to his knees. His dry lips uttered a faint moan, “How could you?..”

“With no remorse,” Thomas snapped fiercely.

“Noble knight… on back…”

“I don’t mind what a boar thinks of me!” He supported staggering Oleg. “Sir wonderer, are you safe?”

Blood trickled out of Oleg’s lips, set at once. He glanced askew at the dying magician who was still balancing on his knees in the puddle of own blood, said with reproach, “You could do it earlier… You are my only chance!”

Slymak was going as yellow as a dead man, the puddle of blood spreading.

“May I,” Oleg asked, “tell your will to someone? Your last words?”

The lips of supreme magician stirred, he whispered faintly. “Come back… To the head of the Counsel of Secret Magi… your own brainchild…”

Thomas sprang aside from Oleg in fear, felt the sword hilt.

Oleg shook his head. “Until there is power over power… I am the eternal opposition.”

Slymak collapsed face first, splashing the blood over the floor.

Thomas felt sick of the awful wound: cleaved bones, gurgling blood, the body still trying to live… “It is fatal even to a magician,” Oleg told him softly. “Let’s get away from here.”

The opposite wall cracked and slid apart, as though obeying his gesture – or it did obey. In a small room filled up with thick books, rolls of maps and drawings, a small woman sat at the table, her head rested on her hands. She started with fright, and Thomas recognized at once those raised surprised eyebrows, innocent eyes, tender features of her face. The woman who took the Holy Grail! He pressed the cup instinctively to his chest.

“Sir Thomas,” the wonderer said gloomily, “let me introduce to you… my most dangerous enemy! Gulchachak or Gulcha… Not a true name, but that’s how they call her.”

The woman rose slowly. Her wide open eyes were searching his still face with disbelief. “You… you killed them all?”

“Defending,” Oleg replied briefly.

She cast a momentary glance at Thomas. He braced himself up, dusted his elbows off, stood upright proudly. “Killed everyone?” she asked Oleg, her disbelieving eyes still fixed on his gaunt face.

“Defending,” Oleg said again.

She clutched her small fists against her bosom, screamed in a thin voice. “But how you… He was stronger! We calculated hundreds of times! No mistake could occur!”

Oleg made a slow move of shoulders. “Who says it did? But I had a tiny chance. And I used it.” He put his arm round her shoulders, led her to the entrance that opened suddenly: a glare of distant sunlight at the end of the tunnel.

Thomas felt magicians, Holy Virgin, beastly god, falling walls, and the beautiful woman who turned out to be the most dangerous person in the world – all mixing up in his mind. He trailed along behind them irresolutely, pressing the cup on his breast, his sword hilt catching at the low ceiling.

The sunlight struck his eyes with pain. Thomas screwed up, breathing in the cool air greedily. The cold waters of great river were flowing by near at hand. Behind him, there were towers of cliffs gaping with black holes: from small bumblebee or swallow to giant ones. In one of those caves, our serpent now lies drowsy, counting sacks of juicy meat in his sleep.

The woman turned round slowly to the wonderer, her face was meek. Oleg looked in her eyes. She lifted her arms, which were bare and tender, but he caught them, brought away from his neck, examined her palms closely. With an imperceptible move, he tore a nail off. It fell down on the ground: bloody, glittering with razor-sharp edge. The strange woman did not even wince, looking in the wonderer’s green eyes. All of her nails, as Thomas spotted with terror, were in place. It appears weapons are not limited to swords only. A false nail can hide enough poison to send a legion of heroes to Heaven! Or either to Hell.

Oleg put her palms on his neck slowly. Their eyes kept grappling. “Any other tricks?” he asked softly.

“None,” she breathed. “You won again, damn you…”

“Why so angry?”

“You know, rascal, I wish no one’s death as much as yours. Let it be terrible. It shall make me free from this stupid love that follows me through ages!”

Oleg’s eyes showed deep sympathy. He clasped her to himself, patted the back of his head with his huge palm gently, as if she were an offended child. “Will they try to stop me again?”

“You crushed them all,” she replied quietly. “The rest of the Counsel do not interfere.”

“No more tricks?” he asked.

“No, you bloody winner…”

As he kept patting her, the fingertips of his left hand ran along her elegant girdle. Their eyes met for a moment. The sorcerer smirked wider. He took out a hairpin, as thin as a needle, his fingers cracked it. The broken halves tinkled against the floor, turned into a poisonous smoke that melted away

A golden comb flashed in Oleg’s right hand. Her gleaming hair, as black as raven wings, came down on her straight back in a released fall of black gold. Oleg dropped the comb uncaringly. Thomas gasped. The comb turned into a lizard, orange as melted gold, with a reared comb from the back of its head to the tip of its tail. Its red eyes blazed with malice like coals. Baring its teeth, the lizard darted to the sorcerer’s boot, but he stepped on it quickly with another foot. There was a faint pop , as though a fish bladder were burst. Small spiders scattered out from under his double sole, dashed to hide beneath the stones.

Oleg laughed, took precious earrings out of the woman’s pink ears made for kisses, tossed them down on the ground before Thomas, then a brooch, bracelets, hairpins, rings. At last Oleg took a necklace off her neck tenderly. The knight, bathing in vile sweat of terror, jumped like a hare, his iron soles knocked the hellish creatures into the rocky ground, trampled down, squashed, destroyed.

When he also smashed the necklace, which turned out to be a tiny basilisk spitting out fire and poisonous arrows, the woman asked innocently, “Sir knight, did this hypocrite tell you that your beautiful Constantinople shall fall under the blows of his sons?.. It shall be ruined forever, along with all the Eastern Roman Empire.”

Oleg was convulsed. “Do you mean to hurt him?.. Alas, she speaks truth, Sir Thomas. She bore a hero who will give rise to a new nation… I recall giving him the name of Seljuk.”

The woman laughed triumphantly, as she made herself comfortable in the ring of strong arms, settled on his broad chest.

Oleg, with his eyes grievous, nodded at the setting sun. “Sir Thomas, we set off in the morning! Come what may, here goes! I’ll see you to Britain. I just want a look at the glorious ancestors of the future nation that will have the blood of Ruses, the battle fever of berserks, the soft sensitivity and reason of Germans, the cheerfulness of Franks, the courage of Irish… I want to see the people who will have the brightest light of the Holy Grail!”