Ygraine raised both eyebrows, looking pleased. “At one time, you did not know this lore.”
Gil said, “My interest in the old ways grew quickly once I sat at table and supped with monsters, sprites, and devil, and shook hands with a winter-vampiress who deadened my arm to here.” He tapped himself on the shoulder. “Mother, I tell you, nothing focuses a man’s attention on the theology of things like holy water and crucifixes faster than meeting a vampire.”
She said, “Then you will welcome my blessing. I have been saving it unspoken since the day I first wove wings in Sarras, and learned the art of flight, for a child born of love I would one day have.”
Gil said, “Mother, why do the birds never speak of you?”
She said, “That is obvious. They will not lie, but they cannot be trusted, if they speak, not to reveal clues to my position or to say whether I was alive or dead. Therefore they were commanded to silence.”
Gil said, “By you?”
She shook her head. “I have no such authority, nor can I speak to birds. By your father.”
“Who is he that the birds of Heaven obey him?”
She said, “He is a great man, but, more than this, he is a good and kind one. Even after so many years, I love, and I know not the name of who I love.”
Gil sighed a deep sigh and looked up at the bright blue-white winter sky. Too many emotions to name were in his heart then. “When shall I know who my father is?”
She said, “Not soon. Be worthy of him, no matter who he proves to be.”
He knelt, and she put her hands on his head and blessed him.
Chapter Nine: Arise, Sir Gilberec
1. The Gates of Mommur
Gil was drawn swiftly by the swan boat over many strange waters, and he passed places and sights he did not believe were part of Earth: a cliff of solid beryl shining strangely in the rays of a rising moon, a beach whose sands were ground dust of countless pearls, and a colossus of bronze as tall as a skyscraper who stood with one foot on either headland, that any ship departing his harbor must pass between his knees.
He saw strange towers of white metal, covered with vines from which nightshade and poppy and drowsy orchids glared; he smelled the wondrous scent of perfumed jungles, among whose shadows and colored blossoms elephants pale as death walked silently, with lanterns hung on either tusk, eying his boat with cryptic, cold gazes as he passed.
Perhaps the time passed less harshly than in human lands, or perhaps Rabicane was no ordinary horse, Ruff no dog, for as the hours passed the two neither stirred nor complained, nor grew hungry nor weary. Horse and hound spoke in low voices of ancient things, wars lost long ago or won, losses and victories alike eroded by time to nothingness, and of sad things of forgotten years. Gil stood in the bow of the boat, sword at his hip, wine bottle in hand, and his foot atop the corpse of Guynglaff, wrapped in a large leather bag sewn shut.
The next day the weather turned colder, and Gil passed mountains of ice floating on the water. Gil knew from books and pictures that these were something from the human world, but when he saw an iceberg sailing serenely past, with the winds blowing long spumes of snow from the upper peak so that they seemed like swan wings, he rejoiced that there were still many elfin wonders and things of beauty and strangeness left for men to see and recall. Flocks of seamews as pale as ghosts screamed thin, high, harsh cries and circled the ice peak. Gil called them down, and spoke to them, and was told by the quarrelsome birds that he had crossed an unseen meridian and now sailed in a sea appearing on no human maps, called the Sea of Tethys.
At last Gil came to a black mountain rising with its roots in the sea, its crown in the snow, but behind it, as a cloak of black and white, spread a forest of icebound leafless trees. The forest reached to the far horizon without break. The wood was ancient, as if it had never known man, and the trees were giants.
Each titanic tree was coated in clear ice, and from the wide-spread branches hung icicles as delicate as lace, and down from the thicker branches came icicles four feet long and thicker than a woman’s leg. In other places huge spires of ice rose up like stalagmites. In places where the branches of one titanic tree mingled with another, bridges of ice ran.
The sun was setting behind the black mountain when the swans found the mouth of a swift-flowing river. The swans swam strongly against the stream so that white curls of spray flew back from the boat. To his left and right, he now saw towers looming above the icy-white trees. The towers were made of a shining blue-green metal Rabicane said was called orichalcum. Each tower top was shaped something like a hood, for it had a sail or canopy shaped like a triangle rising over its single window.
On the crests of hills to either side of the river, in places where the trees of white crystal were few, Gil saw strange and ancient houses, perhaps half a dozen, whose walls were bricks of opaque white glass with doors and windows painted blue. The roof tiles were laid in crooked lines of green, white, and blue which Gil now recognized as the curls and knots of elfin letters, which always seemed to change in the corner of one’s eye into new shapes.
There were two peculiarities of architecture: first was that the buildings had no corners, for each was built on round or oval foundations or curves more complex than these.
Second was that each building had a mix of doors of several sizes and types: small doors near the ground no larger than mailbox doors; tall doors as large as church doors with knobs and locks six feet off the ground; doors in the roof with neither stair nor ladder leading to them, fit only for winged things to use; and barred doors leading into buried pools into which canals filled with frozen waters reached.
Gil’s sharp eyes also saw silhouettes of hawks and owls and other birds decorating the eaves and window arches, and now he knew in what land he passed and what river he sailed. He had seen it once before, from a distance, from one of those very windows. Which one, he could not guess.
Gil came to an ivory wall. It was shattered in one place, and the waters of the river streamed forth there. The swan boat passed between the broken panels of the wall as if through two cliffs of dazzling white. Here was a wide lake held within ivory walls. Leafless trees coated with frost circled the walls in all places but one. The swans swam there.
Here was a stair of ivory steps that ran straight up the black mountain to a black rock. Each step had tall and thin statues looming one to either side, but these were so coated with snow as to be indecipherable.
Gil disembarked, and thanked the swans, and slung the covered corpse of Guynglaff over Rabicane’s back. Ruff jumped out of the boat. With Ruff at his heels, Gil mounted the stairs.
The sun was setting, and the western sky was as red as fire, and Gil made as if to hurry. But Rabicane said, “Pace these stairs slowly so that they will not expand beneath your feet.”
Gil headed the advice, and as the twilight darkened into night, he walked with a solemn pace, step by step, past statues smothered and coated in snow.
The two figures on the topmost stair, however, were not statues, but soldiers with silver lance in hand. The lances were twice as tall as the soldiers holding them, and the blades gleamed in the clashing, silver-white shadows of the leafless trees with their own captured starlight.
One was dressed in the green and gold livery of Alberec; the other in the sable and silver of Erlkoenig. It was Corylus and Lemur.
Gil approached. Lemur said, “Long ago, we were told to admit any who came hither in the Swanskiff without question or challenge.” And he inclined his head.
The black rock rolled back with a grinding roar, disclosing a buried gate below. Golden light and the blare of elfin trumpets came from underneath. Gil saw through the bars of the portcullis the same long hall he had seen one year ago, leading beneath Brown Mountain in North Carolina.
Lemur smote the silver bars with the butt of his lance and called out, “The golden doors of Heaven welcome all as do the iron doors of Hell. Delling’s Doors of elfin silver wrought ought to unhide and open wide
as easily as well.” And the bars rose up.
Gil said, “Tell me, Corylus, have they eaten of the Golden Boar yet?”
Corylus said, “This year, Alberec commanded that the custom of the feast be kept not on the Eve of Stephen, but this night. They will not feast of the golden meat until some great adventure or deed of arms is done.”
Gil doffed his helm, and now he drew back his coif, so that his silver hair caught the light of spear and star and shined. Corylus stared at the silver hair with awe, and even Lemur seemed impressed.
Gil said, “Please escort me to your lords, good and loyal Corylus and Lemur. I have returned alive from the chapel where the Green Knight holds vigil, and I wish not to surrender sword and gear as I pass in. Come with me. The sight will be worth seeing.”
Lemur said, “Torments to vex even the most stalwart await those who abandon their posts without leave, but I will send my spirit ahead of you, and none will bar your path.”
2. The Wine of Truth
Down the long corridor adorned with trees and serpents, skulls and owls, walked Gil. The diamond doors at the far end had been repaired and opened as he approached, and fanfare rose up.
Gil mounted his steed.
The black wolf and the white wolf made of stone watched him wryly as he came but pretended to be statues, and neither moved nor spoke as he rode in.
Above were the roots of a great oak on which lanterns burned, this time in the pattern of the Southern Cross. The strangeness of the air was here so that any object far away was clear in his eyes as if close at hand, and any distant whisper, when he wished it, loud. All the lords and ladies of the elfs and the dignitaries and grandees of the night world were here, sad human wizards dressed in black hoods, owl-headed figures in white robes, splendid Fomorian women with their ghastly men, knights in livery, counts in crowns, dukes in diamond cloaks, and other beings in robes woven of liquid fire, or of butterflies, or in mantles of opaque and solid music, or in robes of living snakes as bright as gems.
Gil inhaled, and now he recognized the scent here. Behind the wine and the sizzling meats and fresh bread and pastries baking merrily was an odor he had smelled last when the angel spoke to him. As if a small, still voice spoke in his heart, he knew this was the odor of the air of eternity, the perfume of timelessness. The inner intuition told him to take a slower, deeper breath and to savor it more carefully. Gil did, and now he tasted a sour taste at the back of his tongue. Compared to the breath of the angel, this was somehow stale, as if eternity had rotted or gone bad. It was a disturbing sensation, and he suspected he knew what it meant.
But the air also gave a pall of timelessness over the whole scene, for here was Erlkoenig in his faceplate of ice, his eyes like malignant stars; there was Alberec in his eyepatch; little King Brian, no larger than a doll, sat on his same small throne atop the feast table; Ethne the May Queen, with candles in her hair, was next to her giant, Bran the Blessed. The elfs and Night Folk were ranked by dignity beneath their canopies from the bow of the horseshoe-shaped table, to the aristocrats, high-ranked servants, and viziers, warlocks, nibelungs, craftsmen, and poets, and yeomen. Beyond this were Twilight Folk, and at the tail ends of the table, to one side was the beast table, and to the other, Gil saw the three Cobwebs: Rotwang with his metal hand, Lucian dressed like a Cossack in a fur hat, and Zahack in a turban, gray and groaning with age. In the center of the table, in the wide space, were the colored fires where the cooks and bakers toiled, and tiny butlers, no bigger than bumblebees, flashed through the air. Here jugglers tossed, and captive unicorns and loons cried and sang. Here a harpist with a golden harp put the song directly into Gil’s bloodstream like a drug, and, as he had before, Gil had to brace himself not to fall into its seductive rhythm and have it set the set the pace at which he moved and spoke.
And there was the golden pork, being kept warm in a dish by a fretful cook.
All was the same, except for one thing alone. In the seat where once Gil sat, the place of honor next to Alberec, Sir Bertolac in his gold livery was, a goblet in his hand.
Gil did not hide the scowl on his face. For it seemed to him almost as if the elfs were frozen like the figures in a stained glass window.
So into the feast chamber of Mommur, where the elfin lords kept revel, Gilberec Moth trotted on horseback, atop one of the most magnificent steeds in the world. And Rabicane lashed his lion’s tail and held his head high.
Gil could hear their murmurs and whispers perfectly. All were wondering at his silver hair, at who he was, and at what he was. That made him smile. The hour was now come when all would know.
Gil hated the mesmeric elf music, so he put the horn of Roland to his lips and blew. The whole chamber trembled at the sound like an explosion of brass, clear and bold and shocking as being dashed with cold water.
Niall the harpist put his hands over his ears and off his strings. Gil said to the loons and unicorns, “Please cease your calls.” And when the beasts stopped singing, the musicians allowed their music to die in mid note.
Alberec said, “Swan Knight, you have returned. You have preserved the honor of the court and won our admiration. You must tell us the adventure.”
Gil said, “There is little to tell. I kept the fast of Advent and did all the things a Christian gentleman must do, and Heaven protected me from various and sundry temptations I am too ashamed to name. The Green Knight, for reasons known only to him, instead of striking off my head, dubbed me knight in Arthur’s name. I learned then that no feats of knighthood are possible, and no victory secure, without the help of Heaven, so I pray all you good knights in this chamber who seek to survive the toils and ruin of hideous war put aside your pride and seek first victory in unseen things, before any battle of flesh and blood be fought, and kneel to Christ!”
He had to raise his voice toward the end because the choir of hisses and howls and mocking laughter erupting from the silver throats and perfect lips of the elfs was growing louder. And many of the pookas and animals yowled at the sound of the name of Christ.
Erlkoenig tapped on the table before him with his fingertip, making no noise, and all fell silent upon the instant, save one young knight in blue and gold who did not stop his laughter in time, so Erlkoenig pointed the same finger at him, and this young knight was struck mute, clutched his throat, and fell over the table.
Alberec nodded politely to Erlkoenig, and turned to Gil, and said, “Forgive the discourtesy and continue, Sir Knight.”
Gil said, “The Green Knight counseled me wisely how to overcome my foe and the foe of my father. You know the rest, or else Sheila McGuire is no spy.”
Alberec looked at the covered body draped across the saddle. “And who is this foe of your father?”
Gil dismounted, and drew the body down, and placed it carefully on the floor in just the way his mother had instructed him. The Helm of Grim was inside the leather sack, and Gil contrived that the helm and its lodestone were on the underside of the corpse.
Gil said, “I slew Guynglaff wrestling with him, and we fell in the water, and he drowned. Here is his body!”
Gil now drew his sword, Dyrnwen, and in one stroke he cut the upper flap of the leathery bag and exposed the face and neck of Guynglaff.
The apelike face and balding skull looked particularly harsh and ugly in the leaping colored lights of the elf chamber.
Through the corner of his eye, Gil saw Lucien Cobweb, the Cossack, was hissing in detestation and anger, and he opened he mouth and displayed an impressive pair of fangs. Rotwang Cobweb kept his face impassive, but the solid gold goblet in his metal hand shattered into a dozen shards. Even Zahack was moved. The ancient man opened his bleary eyes and gritted his few, crooked and yellowing teeth in anger. Drool leaked out and stained his scabby chin and straggling wisps of beard.
Gil shouted, “And here is the sword!”
Gil stabbed the great sword Dyrnwen through the leather, ribs, body, and back of Guynglaff, carefully inching the sword tip until it touched
the Helm of Grim hidden in the bag beneath the body.
The body was dead, but some trickle of life, the thing that makes the nails and hair of corpses still to grow, was in it. There was a flash as bright as lightning from the sword.
Gil felt a jerk in his arm as the lodestone gem adorning the helm clung and stuck to the blade. Gil let go of the blade, and the fire from the blade became dim, turgid, smoky, and yellowish, no brighter than a red coal.
Gil said, “I returned in triumph to my mother, and she gave me this bottle of wine, but charged me strictly not to open it except that I share it with the knights of Corbenec, Sir Aglovale, Sir Lamorak, and Sir Dornar! Your Majesty, Your Imperial Majesty…” Gil now bowed to Alberec and Erlkoenig. “…I would like your permission to offer a toast, for this victory of mine, over both the Green Knight and the foe of my blood, would not have been possible had it not been for the courtesy and noble dealing of Alberec, the hard training by his Champion, Sir Bertolac, and all done at the behest of Erlkoenig, Emperor of all the Elfs, Lord of Shadows!”
The chamber gave a gasp of wonder when the diamond bottle in Gil’s hand came out of his poke. A quick-thinking serving girl flew down and proffered a corkscrew.
Gil now drew the cork, and he discovered that the wine, bottled in the high country from which his mother came, had the same property as the air in this chamber, except that it was not stale. The scent and savor of the wine, delicious, irresistible, stole through the wide chamber like a spring wind, and each soul there felt as if the drink were only an inch beyond his tongue.
Without waiting for permission, Gil stepped over to the table where his three brothers sat. As before, there was no sign of the father. Here was Sir Aglovale, cool-eyed and intent; here was Lamorak, smiling lazily, as serene as a panther half-asleep in the sun; and there was Dornar, eyes narrowed in perpetual anger. Gil took up their three goblets from the table and dashed the wine to the floor in a splash of purple.