The Grail War (19 page)

“God help us, Morgan,” he said, “he finds this light and full of fancy! Why, he comes to the devil’s hole like a lover to his lass!”

“Even so,” the leader said, “it may be sooth.”

They passed through a mounting stench now that slammed into Lohengrin like a damp, filthy hand. He gagged and almost staggered. They were in a wide chamber, like a carved cave. The bedrock was dark and damp.

“What is this place?!” he exclaimed. “A tomb loaded with corruption?”

“It may be a tomb,” the leader said.

“Move along,” ordered bushy-beard.

The corridor was suddenly a narrow crevice. The chill walls seemed barely shoulder-wide.

It may have been from the hot bath, but Lohengrin found himself shivering. Up above, the captain had whispered, “Come and meet the king. If he approves you, there is no limit to what may become yours.” There was no need to say what happened if he did not approve.

He was startled. He blinked. The wall before him glowed a dim, evanescent green. An unsettling phosphorescence. The corridor had ended and only the captain stood beside him now in a room that seemed to be the bottom of a shaft not much larger than a good-sized well. It rose straight up into greenish haze and then darkness. Could it actually go all the way to the surface? How could it have been made?

For the first time he was aware of his fear. There was no dreaming of escape here.

A single guard with a long spear in the passage behind could hold any number at bay until he fell asleep. If this were a prison, it would be the worst imaginable. The idea of being left alone in here set off a chill sweat. He tugged his light robe closer around him. He had certainly blundered. He’d never expected to fall so easily. He’d planned to hold the castle and negotiate with whomever the real master was … and then these demonic fellows walk out of the walls … ,! And he falls like a sheep … He shivered under his crossed arms.

He noticed a thin slit, an embrasure in the round wall. No light showed beyond. At his side the captain suddenly bowed and sank to one knee.

“Lord of the earth," he said, staring fervently through now raised visor at the slit.

Is
this
the
devil's
home
—
are
we
as
deep
as
that
?

For an instant his mind wanted to believe the fairy tales he’d always scoffed at. Then a resonant, rumbling voice, slightly muffled by the stone, sounded from behind the dark slit they faced.

“So this is the dangerous man?" it said.

“Yes, Lord Master."

The captain was very strong. He reached up and gripped Lohengrin’s wrist and yanked him to one knee.

“Neglect not your homage," he said.

“Lohengrin," the voice rumbled, meditative.

“Yes?" he responded and waited in the silence without a reply.

“Son of Parsival the fool," the voice reflected. Lohengrin nodded irrelevantly. “You have done well," the voice allowed. “You are powerful, yet now your life hangs by the merest thread." The voice digressed. “This is ever the way with men who have not mastered destiny … Have you ever considered the workings of fate?" Lohengrin had, but he realized this was a rhetorical experience; thought he heard the captain sigh faintly beside him and shift his bent knee, as if anticipating a long session. “Fate is history. History is the past. There are little waves in the sea, currents, and finally tides. Individuals are little waves. States are currents, but, ah, what are the tides?” In spite of his uncomfortable and slightly absurd situation, Lohengrin found himself getting interested in this strange lecture. The voice had a compelling quality, a feeling of endless power flowing into it, an impression of utter conviction that seemed greater than human. “All the individuals flowing together!” The voice seemed pleased with its effortless syllogism. “So, human life is mainly chaotic, fragmented, given only momentary shape by each petty purpose and belief and by the force of the strong. But is there an ultimate purpose? Is there a universal goal? Only the tidal man can know this!”

“The which?” Lohengrin murmured unconsciously. He was drawn in, surprisingly. He was still shivering and afraid, yet the circumstances made him strangely receptive.

“Power comes to the man who disciplines and develops himself … power beyond the blood and mud of mere body and brain. So if all men are joined, made one …” — the voice became louder and louder until the walls in the chamber rang with it and a shivering, not of cold only, swept over Lohengrin, and for an instant he had an urge to stand up and shout with the voice to reinforce it, merge with it — “ … if the tide moves irresistibly forward, then what ultimate power of the totality of all men will manifest?” The voice soared now. “All united, all one movement! All one mind and heart! Any dedicated man can do miracles, consider hundreds of thousands! Consider!” It was a cry that stunned. “Then, and then only, can the gods return to earth. Then, and then only, can the world be made perfect, as it was in the beginning. But it is not possible for you to understand this yet. No …”

The voice paused and Lohengrin started to speak, but was nudged to silence by the kneeling captain beside him. Apparently the voice was not pitched for ordinary conversations.

“But hear me, fellow,” the voice went on, “I was master of the Duke you slew. He was a fool, or you had not slain him. So you may replace him. You shall be given certain tasks. If you leave this place, you are the Duke and my trusted servant, sworn to me and to me alone! And I task you then to find your father. Your predecessor failed in that.” A pause. “What do you believe in, Lohengrin, son of Parsival?”

“Believe?”

“In God? In the devil? Answer!”

Lohengrin allowed himself a grim smile. It seemed right for the moment. And he was still trying to digest the strange message that the thrilling voice had driven into his consciousness …

“In my skill,” he said, “and in death.”

The voice was not so pleased as the bushy-haired knight expected.

“Don’t parade ignorance!” it cried. “You know nothing of death! And consider where your great skill has brought you … Bui, before you leave here, if you do, you’ll learn more of living and dying, my young sage.” The voice was amused.

Lohengrin started, suddenly aware that the man beside him was gone. He turned: the entrance was now sealed by a stone door.

“What means this?” he asked. His heart raced.

“My purpose,” the voice boomed electrifyingly, “is not as yours! -Your thoughts and powers are petty and pale. You strive for shadows …” Lohengrin hoped there wasn’t going to be another lengthy digression: awed, frightened, and fascinated as he was, he still realized the “master” talked too much … And he was a little strange. But still, the sound alone, never mind the words, the sound alone was stirring and seemed to pour energy into the hearer. You felt swept into fervent wrath, somehow …”I strive for the ages to come! Beyond death!” The voice paused, as if shaken to stillness for a moment by its own eloquence. Then: “Now comes your first lesson in what a shadow you are, Parsival’s son. Yes. From this time forward the daylight world will seem dim to you, if you survive. From this time forward the world will begin to fade … like a dreaming … like a misting …”

“Who are you?” Lohengrin asked, tones shaking a little from the violence of his heartbeat.

“In these days,” was the conversational reply, “I am called Clinschor of the South.”

But this was a name, a legend, a tale to frighten children with, his mind was telling him. Clinschor was dead and gone in his father’s time. For some reason his knees sagged.

“What,” he started to say as the fugitive, greenish gleaming faded out. “Wait!” he cried in open fear. “Wait! I …”

And then it was dark.

“Compose yourself,” Clinschor said. “At this moment you sway at the abyss.”

Lohengrin felt a tingling prickling all over his body. Something seemed to invisibly pull at the area near his heart and stomach, and he had an impression that if he failed to lock his arms and set his teeth against it, he’d be twisted inside out.

Now he was falling, very slowly, as if the air had thickened to support him. Everything crackled like static electricity and he tried to scream now, but no sound came out. He was sure this was the end … He never seemed to actually reach the floor and had an impression that it had opened up, that the earth itself was engulfing him … He could not tell how long the falling went on … Then he could suddenly see: a vast, dark, level plain lay all around him, littered with sooty cinders of rock. The ground was black and glassy. The sky burned red as furnace flame (though he felt only chill) and somber clouds massed and towered.

The chill was like watching eyes, somehow. He felt something icy and pitiless piercing him. He realized he was drifting forward like a feather drawn by a draft … floated on and on across the cindered flatness. An immense distance away, vast mountains rose into the boiling sky, and then he reached the lip of what seemed a gigantic mouth for an instant: it was a rock-rimmed, bubbling crater, flaming from the depths … At the rim stood a black, armored figure with its back to the fires, squat and wide, resembling, he thought, a warrior frog on its hind legs … There was a steady roaring sound everywhere … Now he was close, facing the creature who turned a blank, dead-black faceplate to him … There were no eyeholes … Was it blind …? It held a wide-bladed sword naked at its side. The blade appeared molten. Lohengrin realized he couldn’t feel his body and couldn’t move his head to study it. He had terrible fear about his form. Was he human, or had he changed? He felt cold and transparent and feeble … He kept telling himself this was not the world, that he was asleep, and then the black, blank thing sprang at him on its bowed legs and raised the flashing, burning sword and he thought:
Killer
!
Killer
! And he found himself in a dreamlike panic, striking what seemed his fists against the goblin horror, striking what seemed to have the mass of a mountain, felt forces moving all around him that shrunk him to an ant against an avalanche, a minnow in the wild surf, dust mote in a whirlwind … felt a moment of unbearable terror and pressure, saw the dazzling blade slice into himself, felt himself pop like a bubble, and then he was falling again and scene after scene, landscape after landscape flashed past: lightless crags where pale beings wailed; jungles where scaled shapes wallowed in rot; limitless fields of ice; rivers of blood flowing through a land of shattered bones …

“What do you believe, Lohengrin the Duke?” the voice demanded. “Speak!”

“In nothingness …” — he mumbled — “ … in nothingness …”

He was sitting cross-legged in the well-like chamber. The long slit eyed him from the greenish wall. The voices seemed part of the roaring in his head and he couldn’t tell who asked and who answered …

“ … so you begin to learn,” the roaring said.

A moment later he recalled this was the voice of the legendary, demonic Clinschor, who’d nearly conquered Britain before he was born. Clinschor, the terror of children. “Clinschor will get you if you don’t watch out,” the saying went, “and you’ll burn in the bottom of the world! He’ll take you from your bed; you’ll wish that you were dead …!” It went on …

“Nothingness,” the voice was saying with almost purring pleasure. “And pray, tell me, nothingness, what would you have from this world? The gold of nothingness? Power over other nothings? Are you so sure now that you even know how to die? Are you so sure you can ever die? How do you destroy nothingness?” Clinschor was delighted. “For how long will you go on and on in shadowy and helpless forms? For eternity?” A pause. “What power must we have, sleeping fool?” the voice suddenly thundered at him. It was like a blow. He felt himself tremble. His thought raced and circled weakly. “Consider, consider, Duke, what coin would you be paid in if there be no end to the filmy nothingness of endless lives and deaths? Consider!”

Lohengrin’s mind kept spinning, overloaded. He knew he was a captive of unending and unrelenting time … saw death was no escape, no end … felt the insubstantial dreaming he’d called life thin and fade … tried to think and speak …

“Give me …” — he started to say — “ … I need strength, master … I need …”

“Peace and mark me, Duke, mark me well. Abandon everything — everything! I give you my hand to grip.” The voice, Clinschor’s voice, was now so firm and concentrated that it seemed the sound alone lifted Lohengrin to his feet, where he stood, wide eyed, thoughts scattered like dry leaves in a windstorm. He found his arm reaching up toward the blank, glowing wall, unconscious of the chamber’s moist stench, reaching up to shoulder level, fingers extended, trembling, as if he actually expected Clinschor’s hand to spring in return from massive stones. He felt a new, sparkling energy vibrate through him. “You will be the greatest of my captains,” the voice announced raptly. “Grip my hand and never turn it loose!” And Lohengrin stood there, arm out straight, reaching …

Gawain was out of helmet and armor, sitting at ease facing Parsival in the close chamber. A comfortable fire on the hearth soothed away the chill castle damp. Gawain wore, Saracen-fashion, a light turban with the last wrapping looped to cover the half of his face that was sliced away. The effect wasn’t bad: under the silk his head seemed just slightly too narrow on the left side and only one eye showed.