Erlkoenig merely turned his mask of ice toward the next knight seated one seat lower than Pwyll, who was Bertolac, the champion of Alberec. Bertolac said, “I will not venture it. I smell the magic of the Green Knight at work here. I trained this boy, and in a year he learned what most squires learn in ten. For his reward, I gave him my own horn, which once was Roland’s. How, then? If I come into possession of so great a treasure as that sword, will not the noble company gathered here suspect me of being party to deceit? And I do not wish Ysbadden to rip my arms off, as he did to Rhydderch Hael, who last held that blade!”
Then, Ethne smiled in her anger and spoke in a lingering drawl. “That blade is too fine to be found in the hand of a Moth, a mere Twilight creature, a half-breed! Bran, step forth!”
But Bran said, “Sir Esclados the Red is your champion, O Queen! Let him be first before me.”
A tall figure in scarlet, azure, and gold brocade, set with figures of fiery serpents and swimming eels strode forth next. When he touched the sword, it burned with a yellow flame no brighter than two or three torches. He tugged in vain. The fires spread, and more of the corpse was burning now.
He scowled and gnawed his moustaches in fury, tugging and pulling with both hands, and then lying on the floor and pushing on the hilts with both feet. He would have been there pushing forever had not Ethne, scoffing, called him back.
Bran, without moving from his position, reached with his mighty arm to the center of the chamber. He could only grip the sword with finger and thumb, like a man plucking a toothpick. It burned blue-white for him, not as bright as it had for Pwyll, but brighter far than the fire Esclados the Red had called forth.
King Brian called forth his champion, who had the shape of a horse whose coat changed color from white to red to black and back again. “Blackahasten!” called the king, “Not often do I call you to fight and fret on my behest, but I’ve a potent hankering to have that sword me own! And, wallaway, how it will vex the giants if the wee folk have the giantkiller’s white sword!”
The horse stepped over to the sword, and his neck grew like a giraffe’s neck, and he clamped powerful teeth on the hilts, and sparks and flickers of multicolored power shined in his mouth. Tug as he might, he was no better than any man-shaped knight.
Knight after knight made the attempt, and the corpse burned and burned.
When it came his turn, Sir Aglovale said, “I will not attempt it!”
Some near him jeered, but he said, “I am unafraid. But I know too well that if my mother gave this, my bastard brother, his advice, she has already outsmarted us all.”
From the hushed and whispered remarks (all of which could be heard in the strange, high air of that enchanted chamber), it was clear that everyone heard the truth in the voice of Aglovale and believed him.
The knight smiled a small, sad smile at that, as if the loss of the power to lie or be accused of lying might not be such a curse after all.
But Dornar his brother jumped up. “What? Shall Queen Ethne say no Moth will carry such a blade? For twenty years I have hid that name and called myself Dornar de Corbanec, but no more! I claim my due!”
When he touched the blade, it was white with heat and fire and burned like ten torches, but he could not stir it.
More than half the body of the corpse was consumed by now, and bones protruded from the ashes and burned flaps of leather, but still the horrible stench rose up.
Lamorak laughed and said, “Come now! If this little bastard dropped from the wrong side of sheets stained with the sweat of Mother cavorting with some strange fellow can hold the blade, can I not? Am I not better born than he and in wedlock to boot?”
“Incestuous wedlock and unholy rape,” said Gilberec coolly. “But I blame you not for the sins of the father. Take it and hold it, if you can!”
Again, the blade burned white with heat, bright as it had under the hand of Dornar.
There now began whispers and titters in the chamber, and a pressure in Gil’s ears told him that the elfs were speaking but maintaining an illusion of silence. Some ladies were glancing sidelong at Esclados the Red.
After the elfs, the cry in the chamber rose to let others come. Without waiting for Erlkoenig to speak, Gilberec called out that all were welcome.
Dragon-faced or snaked-eyed efts in their baronial coronets and shirts of gold tried next, and the blade burned white for them. Dark Svartalfar with muscles like knots of iron tugged, and for them the blade burned yellow.
Two of the knights who wore the goggles and owl-feather cloaks of the Striga attempted, and each one walked counterclockwise thrice about the sword before attempting it, as if to break the charm. They each used the strength of the wings as well as arms, flapping furiously, but could not budge the orange-yellow blade.
Only one human warlock was young and hale enough to attempt it, a man with iron-gray hair who seemed very fit and strong for a man so old. He called out blasphemous names and touched the white hilt with mistletoe, and for a moment Gil was worried. The blade burned orange at his touch like a hot coal, but did not stir.
A woman warrior of the most ancient race of Cessair, dressed in the white tunic and red cloak like a Spartan maid, attempted the blade. Sparks and shimmers of power, which gave her the strength of a man, came about her slender and fair limbs, and she groaned and strained. The blade burned dull red under her touch, a smoky and poisonous color no brighter than it had done in the hands of Guynglaff. A scornful laugh trickled through the chamber, and the Amazonian girl blushed in shame.
When Balor of the Evil Eye came, fairies landed on his head and shoulders, and shed sparks and sprinkles of light on him, and shrank him down to the size of a tall man. A servant led him to the sword, for his one eye was closed, and he could not see. He pulled with such strength that the marble broke under his heels, and he pushed himself two inches into the floor. But the sword did not move.
By now the corpse was a great heap of ash, burnt meat, and blackened bones, and it was a great dark pile on the marble floor.
Other Fomorians, creatures hopping or hobbling on one leg and reaching out with one arm, came next, and the blade shined with a dull orange hue for them as well.
Red it burned for the proud Nephilim, who yanked at the blade with their six-fingered hands.
When pooka or servants attempted, the blade shed heat like might be seen above a pavement on a summer’s day, but did not grow brighter than a black frying pan and did not burst into flame.
The corpse was now a soft black pile of bones and charred debris, smoking and smoldering, and still the helmet clutching the sword was unseen beneath heap of ash.
Not every knight or strong man in the chamber made trial of the blade. The elfs were hissing and whispering openly now, for they had noticed at whose touch the blade burned more brightly or less.
Sir Esclados the Red was blushing with shame and glaring at the serpent-faced efts, for the sword had betrayed his birth to be less than theirs. Before the last attempt was made, so many had seen the low births and high presumption of several knights and nobles betrayed, or an eft who touched the blade and turned it orange, not gold, or a Nephilim for whom it would not ignite at all.
Gil called out asking to step forward anyone to endure the test of the sword. No one was willing.
4. The Swan Blade
Silence hung over the chamber.
Gil smiled thinly, remembering what the Man in the Black Room had told him about being a kitchen page in Arthur’s Court, and how the magic cauldron could detect lies and betray boasts as false, and how dangerous such an instrument could be among those who whole lives were based on reputation, glory, and honor. How much more desperate and dreadful for a race of beings whose lives were based on illusion and vainglory.
Erlkoenig said, “Your mother has counseled you well, Sir Gilberec son of Ygraine and an unknown sire. But that treasure is too precious to take from this chamber. No man passes into the Elfinlands unless he bows and swears to serve me, or one
of these my vassal kings, Brian or Alberec, or the queen Ethne, or some other lord of Elfland.”
Gilberec said, “Nonetheless, the sword is mine, as it was my father’s before me, and I shall take it.”
Alberec said, “But what if your father is baseborn, or a traitor, or a damned soul condemned to Hell? You cannot assume your blood is fine enough to let you take up that sword!”
Little King Brian said, “Tell us on the quickstep how you tricked us! Neatly it was done, I say! And it is fair sport and fine to match wits with you.”
The May Queen, Ethne, said cooly, “You have earned your place here, Sir Gilberec. If you put aside the name of Moth, we will forbid any to call you bastard and halfbreed to your face. Immortality, endless strength, the beauties of fair women, and the secrets of magic can all be yours; a castle made of ivory with sirens and lamia to sing from the sea beneath your casements! Bow and serve us, and the elfs will reward you.”
Gilberec laughed. “Noble offers, sovereigns of elfinkind! I will ask you three riddles in answer: first, who was king in Elfland before Alberec took the throne?”
Alberec said, “Arthur, for in the power of Excalibur, he conquered Troynovant, the Third Troy, as easily as he conquered Rome, the Second Troy.”
Gilberec said, “Your law is that I must swear fealty to a King of Elfland. So I have, for Arthur is not dead, nor is Merlin, for he was betrayed, but the charms he wove about his life were too strong for his false and traitorous student who betrayed him to overcome. Lady Nimue! Perhaps the sword will serve you! Come and take the hilts in your hand.”
Nimue shook her crowned head so that the clamshells of her coronet rang. She shrank back in her seat. “You cannot prove any crime of mine! Take that dreadful sword away! How did it come to be in the hands of a Moth?”
Gilberec smiled, “Even so, milady? Is there any here who doubts that I am Arthur’s Knight, duly knighted and sworn, or must I call here to testify the Green Knight himself of the Green Chapel?”
And at those words, there was a mighty roar and rushing of winds in the corridors and doors outside the chamber, and the diamond doors were battered, and the bar broke, and they were flung open. Yet when the doors opened, no man was there, merely the roaring winds that swept through the chamber, making all flames blow and tremble and all the feasters shiver with cold.
Sir Bertolac stood up and cried, “No! No! Knights and gentlemen! Sovereign kings and queens! You know me to be the most fearless fighter of this generation, undefeated save only by Bran the Blessed! I am no coward, but I tell you, let not this lad call the Green Knight here again! Who can withstand his terrible wrath?”
Other voices in the chamber took up the cry. Alberec looked at Erlkoenig and shrugged. Alberec said, “Let us acknowledge that fealty sworn to Arthur will suffice. The Swan Knight surely will not hurt the realm that Arthur rules, not and be a true knight. And Arthur might never wake.”
Erlkoenig said nothing.
Gilberec said, “Answer me my second riddle: what is louder than a horn, or what is sharper than the thorn; what is heavier than lead, or what more blessed than the bread?”
The kings and princes looked at each other in confusion, but little King Brian snapped his fingers, “This one, ’tis known to me! ’Tis an old one, but sound and hard, like all old saws should be. Shame is louder nor the horn, guilt sharper than the thorn, heavier than lead is sin…” His bright, ruddy face now collapsed into a sullen frown. “Aye, ah! I forget the rest…”
Gilberec said, “More blessed than bread is bread the Savior’s flesh is hid within. Do you see know how you were prevented from drawing up this sword? Even struck through a heavy body, none of you could stir it an inch.”
Gilberec now took the sword in hand. It ignited with a brightness of thirty torches, burning with white-hot heat. Sharp black shadows leaped back from every object in the room. As before, the elfs cried out and hid their eyes, for the sword in his grasp outshone them all.
He lifted up the sword. The charred and black remains of the body of Guynglaff fell away. Gil stood with the blazing sword overhead, with nothing but scraps of leather about the hilts, and a few burned and blackened ribs, which he shook onto the floor. At the tip of the sword, unharmed, still stuck to it, was the Helm of Grim. In a moment the bright fires Gil’s hands called forth burned all the ash away. The helm glowed red hot.
Earlier, during the bright flash when Pwyll had attempted the sword, Gilberec had knelt and petted his dog. As they had practiced, Ruff spat the iron nail he had been carrying in his mouth—the pooka could indeed carry cold iron unharmed—and Gil hid the nail in the palm of his hand as Ruff had shown him how to do.
Hiding and passing small objects was apparently one of the skills Ruff had learned in spy school. Gil had not wanted to carry any cold iron earlier because he was not sure whether it would denature or disenchant his mother’s wine or the yeti’s helmet.
Now Gil reached up and yanked the Helm of Grim free of the sword, for he allowed the tiniest unseen tip of the nail peaking between his fingers to touch the iron crystal topping the metal cap.
As before, the touch of cold iron broke the charm, and the stone from the lodestone mountain released its grip.
Gil dropped the red-hot helm clanging to the marble floor in a spray of red sparks. He sheathed the sword to quench its fire and allow the blinking and half-blinded elfs to see what he had dropped. The helm had lost its roundness, and its crown sagged, and steam poured upward from it.
Gilberec said, “Here is the Helm of Grim, which Ygraine of the Reeds called upon to gather to itself all the sins of any man who tried to pull my sword from its grip. None of you was strong enough to pull against your sins, your years and centuries of sin, sins unrepentant, ugly, and proud. Have none of you ever asked for absolution, as befits a knight before combat? Ere I came here, I was shrived, and all my sins were forgotten. For me, this cursed cap was feather light. For you, heavier than lead, sharper than thorns, louder than horns. None here is worthy to bear this sword, and so none of you will dare take it from my hand.”
A silent chamber answer him with no words at all.
Gilberec said, “Here is my third riddle: in whose hand burns Dyrnwen the brightest withal? The most base or the most nobly born in the hall?”
The elfs and nobles looked on silently. The Glashan, pipe in his horselike mouth, was seated at the lowest table farthest from the fire. He laughed aloud, and the laugh was the only noise in the great chamber. And the Glashan began to clap his hands in applause.
Gil said, “Have I any art this great sword to deceive? My father is the equal of anyone here; so vows the brightness of the blade. Do you still not believe?”
Others joined the applause. First, it was only the maids and butlers banging cooking pans together, then the pookas barking and neighing, then the Fomorians banging their fists on the table, the Nephilim striking the floor with their feet, the Nibelungs tossing coins, and the elfs making clever rhymes and songs.
To Alberec Gil looked. The one-eyed man was wiping at his one eye.
Gil drew the sword and saluted Alberec, holding the sword before his eyes and looking over the hilts toward the elfking. There being no blood on the blade, it was shining metal only, quiet and waiting.
“Sire, I have done you service in defying the Green Knight and returning alive. I ask this boon in return: although I do not know his name as yet, and perhaps never shall, I wish your decree to go out to all your subjects, that the honor and blood of the Swan Knight cannot be questioned. Is this so?”
Alberec said, “The sword burned in your hand as only it would for a prince. Higher born are you than nobles and wisemen, and all burghers and serfs. In you is the royal blood of some high kingdom, and you are above your brothers, who boast a family line no greater than a count and a swanmay. Yes. I shall decree as you have said, and I grant as well my prayer that if some day you meet the elder swan who is your father, you will be pleased and happy rather than ashamed of him. He
may not be as good a man as you.”
Ethne said, “Have you no riddles for me, you saucy son of Ygraine? Have you no answer? I offered you all the glory of Elfland if you will stay, and serve, and do as you are bid by one of these sovereign lords, including all pleasures of the flesh and all the glory of the world.”
Gilberec said, “Yes, ma’am. Here is my riddle. Four things have eyes but can never see: one in the tailor’s hand is found, one in sky and one in ground, the final one in thee.”
She said, “I don’t know that one.” But at the same time, wee King Brian laughed and slapped his knee. Ethne glared through half-closed eyelids at Brian, and her skin glowed pale and terrible.
Gilberec said, “I will ask an easier one. Ever more and ever more at end of days you have of me. The more you have, the less you see. What am I?”
Now Brian ceased to laugh and looked stricken, even frightened.
Gilberec bowed to the kings and nobles of the elfs, and saluted the warlocks and mastersmiths, the sea-folk and winter giants, and turned to go.
He saw that someone had closed the diamond doors before him. He said, “Open! In the name of the Green Chapel!” And with a roar that blew the fires behind him out, the doors were kicked open by the wind.
He mounted and rode to the end of the long corridor. The doors before his face were closed. He said, “Titania is risen!” and the gates rose, and the great black rock drew back.
Sunlight was pouring in. Time was strange below ground, for even though less than an hour had passed, the sun had set and risen again into the sky above. Gil looked left and right. He had passed these doors in the dark of night twice, and heard the breathing of the beasts in the kennels and stables, but now he saw them. Wooden doors were above him, and ramps wide and shallow enough for steed and hound to pass were raised at the moment, but could be lowered with pullies and rope.