Iain Banks: The Bridge

Maybe it was for the best, you never know. Doubt I'd have lived this long without him; some of his ideas were pretty smart. His first was to go back to see that young witch I'd been doing the business with no long before I rescued the familiar from Hades. Angharienne, that was her name; the familiar thought me and her might be able to come to some sort of arrangement, he said. She was pretty duebious at first, thought the familiar was trying to pull a fast one, going to try and take over her body or something like that, but they had this dead complicated talk, and they both did some magic, and went into one of them trances (dead bloody boring that was); they woke up all smiles and agreement. Familiar told me that we were going to have a trial troylistic arrangement. OK, I said, as long as there's nothing dirty involved. Anyway, I gess that was how I got be an old swordsman.

'What are you doing? Trying to raise the dead already?'

'Shut up you; none of your business.'

'Of course it is my business; what if you have a heart attack or something?'

'Well why no magic up one of them whouris for me then?'

'Certainly not; you'd be sure to peg out then. Just stop that; it's so unseemly in a man of your age. Your brain may still be retarded but your years are advanced.'

'It's my willy and it's my life.'

'It's my life too and you can't play with one if it means playing with the other as well. Have a sense of proportion, man.'

'Och, I'm no really wanting a wank, just to see if I can get it up still. Go on; show us a dirty video, eh?'

'No. Keep watching the screens.'

'What for?'

'Just keep watching. You never know what might happen. All is not yet lost.'

'We should have kept looking for that Fountain of Youth, so we should.'

'Ah ... you'd probably just have pissed in it.'

'Aw, fuck,' I says, and just lie there with the arms folded feeling sorry for myself.

The flying castle is sitting on this hillside; we landed it here weeks ago after visiting this planit where they claim to be able to make people live for ever. Whatever they did, it didn't work on me and the wee familiar (they said they'd no ecxperience with something like us, a swordsman and a familiar). I wanted to go to one of these fancy cities here on Earth and take some of those magic drugs they've got nowdays; a few weeks of fun burning yourself up like a young man, then you pop your clogs, quick and painless and you've had a lot of fun in the innterim, but the familiar wasn't having it; pilated the castle here to the middle of nowhere, on this cold and windy hillside, and dismissed all the guards and servants and that and even shooed offa couple of the great-grandchildren and gave away half the magic gear that we had - crystal balls that fortel the future, enchanted sub-machine-guns, magic missiles and that sort of stuff. Seemed to want to give everybody the impression we were getting ready to die, but didn't give all the good stuff away; kept the flying castle itself and some bits and pieces like a jacket that flies, the Universal Translator and a few tonnes of invisible platinum in the hold. Even found some new batteries for the old dirk; the 'knife missile' as the familiar calls it. Its batteries ran out about a century ago and it was just a no very sharp knife after that what I kept for sentimental reasons. Wee familiar was dead snooty about it at the time 'Just a cheap copy, I told you so,' it said, but it found new batteries for it just reently and put it in charge of security, guarding the flying castle's door. Fuck knows why; maybe the familiar's getting ecsentric in its old age.

Still canny stop thinking about the wife. Popped her clogs nearly half a century ago, but I can still see her bonny face like she'd just croaked yesterday. Turned out she wasn't as young as she looked; never did find out how old she was, but the familiar thinks she was a thousand or so at least. She wouldn't grow old slowly, like even witches are meant to; did the magic on herself so that she stayed looking just out of her teens until right to the end; burned herself out staying young; can't say I blamed her but it catches up on ye in the end. She became a statue; a wee dark wooden carving, all hard and dark and old-looking; left instructions she was to be planted in this forest near where she was born, where she's become a wee tree, no long since. The familiar says the tree will probably go from being wee and shrivelled to big and tall and younger, and then shrink like it's going back in time until it becomes a sede, and after that even it doesn't know what'll happen. It seems sad when it tells me all this, because it knows that when I die - when we both die, because it can't live without me - it'll just disinntigrate into dust and that'll be that; no even an existence in the Underworld for it after that. Tough titty; I'll probably no even be allowed in to hell after what happened the last time I was there; the wee familiar still chuckles when we talk about the old days and me rescuing him; seems they had to alter the whole rejeem down there after that bloke Charon turned into stone; couple of characters called Virgil and Danty took over temperarily and they're still there. Fuck knows what sort of receptcion I'll get when I turn up at the perilly gates or whatever it is they've got now. Probably let me in all right but have something really nasty arranged, I'll bet. Ye can see why I'm no so keen on kicking the bucket, anyway.

'Ah-ha.'

'Ah-ha whit ?'

'I thought you were supposed to be watching the screens.'

'I am, I am, I just - aw wait a minute! Who the fuck's that?'

'No one who wishes us well, that's for sure.'

'Aw shite!' Coming down the hillside there's this muscley punter with blond hair and a fucking great sword. Bloody great broad shoulders and sort of metal straps all over his body, big boots and a wee sort of loin cloth thing. Some sort of helmet on his head with a wolve's head on it, snarling like. I sit up in bed, feeling scared already; I'm dead stiff these days (all ecsept the bit I'd like to be), and what with the roomatism and that, and the way my hand shakes nowdays, and needing glasses and so on, I really don't fancy squaring up to some young fit warrior with a dirty great sword. 'Whit happened to the fucking total exclusion zone then, eh? I thought people were meant to fall asleep if they tried to come up to the flying castle!'

'Hmm,' the familiar says, 'must be that helmet he's wearing; probably contains some neuroscreening device. Let's see if the laser can deal with the fellow.'

The big berr with the muscles marches on down the slope, staring up at the castle, big blond brows knitted together, muscles rippling, the big muckle sword swinging. Suddenly he looks surprised, and starts swinging the sword even faster, so it's a blur all around him; next thing I know there's a flash and the screen goes dead. 'Aw naw! Whit now?' I'm trying to get out of bed, but my old muscles seem to have turned to jeely or something, and I'm sweating like a pig. The screen comes alive again, showing the door of the castle from the inside.

'Hmm,' the wee familiar says again, as though it's dead impressed or something. 'Not bad. Some sort of limited prescience involved there, I'll warrant; he knew the laser was about to fire on him. Probably only a few seconds into the future, but enough; he's going to be difficult to stop. Nice trick with the laser too; probably some sort of mirrorfield in the sword. Reflecting the light back into the cameras might have been coincidence, but if not then it was very cheeky. Quite an adversary, what?'

'I canny move! Do something! Fuck being a wonderful bloody adversary; get us away from that bastard! Get the castle moving!'

'Not enough time, I'm afraid,' the wee familiar says, calm as ye like. 'Let's see if the knife missile can stop him.'