S. Stirling - The High King of Montival

“No trouble at all, my daughter,” Ignatius said. His face lit with an impish smile. “Your confessions are rarely very traumatic, you know, my child.”

“Alas,” Artos said and winked at her; she blushed.

“I’ll stay with Rick for a bit,” he said. “See you in a little while, acushla.”

Pitching camp for the Sioux was simply a matter of finding a suitable stretch of prairie, picketing their horses, bringing in a water-cart from the ranch wells, and unrolling their sleeping bags. That done, they trooped down to the lake to wash and began primping for the celebrations, with horseplay and joking about the cooking smells beginning to waft from the barbecue pits. It was well into the long summer twilight by then, when two men walked up to Artos.

Three Bears looked at them casually, then cursed and reached for his shete. Dalan flinched, and Graber put an arm around his shoulders.

Artos laid a hand on Three Bears’ where it rested on the hilt of his blade.

“Quietly, my friend, quietly. You’ll find these men somewhat changed.”

“They threatened my family, on our own land!” the young Sioux leader snarled, pointing at Graber. “He threatened to kill my whole clan, down to the youngest children!”

“And tried his best to kill me and mine, if you’ll recall,” Artos said. “And tried more than once, so he did, and did kill some who were dear to me. Hear them out, for my sake, my friend. And for the world’s.”

Grudgingly, inch by inch, the younger man relaxed. “OK. This better be good, Major Graber. And the High Seeker. .”

Rick Three Bears was extremely angry, but he was also intelligent and perceptive.

“Is that really him? It’s his face but the. . the look ’s all wrong. He doesn’t stand or move like that guy, or any of them.”

“It is him and it isn’t,” Artos said. “It’s the boy he was before the Church Universal and Triumphant took hold of him. Before the. . things . . that they miscall their Ascended Masters got their claws into his mind.”

“What happened to him?”

“ This happened to him,” Artos said grimly, touching the Sword. “It. . undid that part of his life. And while the man you met deserved to die, this lad has done none of the man’s deeds. Instead he’s trapped inside that man’s body, with all his best years stolen from him.”

“Oh,” Rick Three Bears said, and shivered slightly. “Oh, man, those CUT guys are just. . they’re just not right .”

Graber nodded to him, then addressed Artos: “My lord, I told you that I had come to believe that the masters of the Church have. . have betrayed we who served them. I now believe. . believe that I must turn against them. Go among my own people and try to tell them the truth. I have come to ask your permission for this.”

The man’s face was still a thing carved from granite slabs, but it had a sheen of sweat now, far more than the mild summer evening could account for. He would know, better than most, what that would mean if he failed; and failure was almost certain.

“You can’t believe him!” Three Bears said.

“Graber,” Artos said carefully. “I know you’re telling the truth. No man can lie to me now and be believed. But you served the lords of Corwin for a very long time. The Prophet himself put you on my track. You are. . marked. And vulnerable to them.”

Bobby Dalan nodded eagerly. “Yes, sir. That’s why I had Major Graber come to you. You can touch him with the Sword like you did me, and then he’ll be safe!”

Safe from anything but inconceivably prolonged torture and death , Artos thought.

Graber met his eyes. “If you would, my lord,” he whispered. “If it can be done without destroying my memories and purpose.”

Artos stood silent for a long moment, looking up into the darkening sky; the first stars were glimmering above the distant eastern horizon, and the moon shone silver.

I did not ask to be a judge of men’s souls.

“I know a little more of the Sword now than I did on Nantucket,” he said at last. “It is the Sword of the Lady, and therefore the Sword of Truth . I can use it to. . to cleanse your mind, Graber, and to establish barriers there. But that means that you must confront yourself. Everything that you have been and done, and how those you served were woven into it. You will not lose your years, as Dalan did; but you will see them .”

“Please, my lord,” Graber asked.

There was no point in delay. With a single swift movement he drew the Sword. Three Bears gasped and blinked as it caught the moonlight in its not-steel, but Dalan smiled with an innocent joy. Artos flipped his grip so that he was holding the hilt with the blade pointing down and the pommel above his thumb, then pressed it against the other man’s forehead.

Shock .

A whirling through his own mind, a moment of piercing grief, of sorrow . Then Graber was on his knees, panting and pressing his clenched fists to his temples.

“No, no, I didn’t know , no-”

The mumbling went on and on, until Artos feared the man was mad; the smell of his sweat was heavy and sour. Dalan whimpered and wrung his hands. Then bit by bit Graber gained mastery of himself, staggered erect, braced his shoulders back. He looked to have aged five or ten years in as many minutes, but it was an age like sun-dried jerky or tough rawhide thongs. Whatever else the lords he served had taught him, he had learned a merciless control that Artos could not help but respect. Dalan came beside him, offering a shoulder as a son might, and the older man rested a hand on it.

“Why-” Graber croaked. “Why did you wait until now? I am free, I am free . That was as bitter as death but it freed me. I see. . I see now. I see it all.”

Tears ran down the hard weathered face, without the man being really aware of them. Artos sheathed the Sword and considered for a moment, his hand on the pommel.

“Because. .” he said, then began again. “Because I could not do it until you had walked a certain distance along that path yourself, of your own will and choosing and through your own wrestling in the silence within your head. To use the Sword before you had done that would only have broken your mind. A very wise man said to me once that none of us could know what a devil was, or what a devil he himself might be, until he had conquered the devil in himself, and that by hard work. I think you know, now.”

“I. . it was as if all my life I was living in a story, and then I awoke. And until I did I lived as in an evil dream.”

“That’s what compulsion does. No man can be free, be really himself, unless he makes himself so. Then the Sword could help you. The Lady heals, but She doesn’t enchain; and not even She can make an evil as if it had never been. Now you must make such atonement as you can.”

“Thank you, lord,” Graber said thickly. His face hardened into the bronze mask Artos was familiar with. “I will. Though my life would be no payment, it is still all I have.”

But he is different, as a spear is different when it’s aimed in a new direction.

“I think I understand. Now I understand. Yes, I must do this. Though I die, I must.”

Dalan nodded. “And he’s safe, now. The bad things can’t get into his head anymore .”

“Indeed they can’t,” Artos said grimly. “But their arrows and swords and red-hot irons can.”

Graber managed to smile. “ That never frightened me, lord.”

“Rick,” Artos said, turning a little to the Sioux war-chief. “Could you help me with this?”

The whites showed all around Three Bears’ pupils, but he nodded jerkily.