Again as I drifted into slumber I heard that same chanting, those same women, and I tried again to tell them they attempted to summon the wrong person. I knew this now for certain. I had had it confirmed by the Captain himself.
– I am not your Princess Sharadim!
– SHARADIM! RELEASE THE DRAGON! SHARADIM! TAKE UP THE BLADE! SHARADIM, SHE SLEEPS IMPRISONED, WITHIN THE STEEL THAT CHAOS MADE! SHARADIM, COME TO US AT THE MASSING! PRINCESS SHARADIM, ONLY YOU CAN HOLD THE SWORD. COME TO US, PRINCESS SHARADIM! WE SHALL WAIT FOR YOU THERE!
– I am not Sharadim!
But the voices were fading, their chant to be replaced by another.
– We are the tired, we are the sad, we are the unseeing. We are the Warriors at the Edge of Time. We are tired, so tired. We’re tired of making love… Fleetingly I saw again the warriors who waited at the Edge. I tried to speak to them, but they had already faded. I was yelling. I was awake and the Captain stood over me.
– John Daker, it is time for you to leave us again.
Outside it was as dark and as misty as always. Overhead the sail was swollen like the belly of a starving child. Then, all of a sudden, it grew empty and flapped against the mast. There was a sense that the ship rode again at anchor.
The Captain pointed to the rail and I followed his blind gaze, looking down to where another man was standing—a man who was identical to the Captain, save that he could see. He signed for me to clamber down the ladder and join him in the boat. Now I wore no kilt and bore no sword. I was stark naked. – Let me find some clothes. A weapon.
At my side the Captain shook his head. – All that you need will be waiting for you, John Daker. A body, a name, a weapon… Remember one thing. It will go best for you if you return to us when we come for you.
– I would rather pretend, at least for now, to have some mastery over my own fate, I told him.
And as I climbed down the ladder and entered the longboat I thought I heard the Captain’s gentle laughter. It did not mock me. It was not sardonic. But nonetheless it was a comment on my final statement.
The longboat took me out of mist and into a cold dawn. Grey light illuminated streaks of grey cloud. Large white birds flapped over what looked to be a vast fenland, glittering with grey water, with grey tufts of reeds. And standing nearby, on a hummock of land, I saw a figure. It was like a statue, it was so still and stiff. Yet in my heart I knew it was made neither of iron nor of stone. The figure, I knew, was made of flesh. I could guess something of its features…
I could already see that it was clothed in dark, tight-fitting leather, with a heavy leather cape pushed back from its shoulders, a sturdy conical cap upon its head. There was a long-hafted pike in its hand on which it seemed to lean and it bore other weapons whose details were harder to determine.
Yet even as our longboat approached this rigid figure I saw another in the distance. This was a man who seemed inappropriately dressed for the world he traversed. He was weary and had the air of one pursued. He wore what seemed to be the remains of a twentieth-century suit of clothes. He was weather-beaten, with pale blue eyes staring from features affected by something more than just the wind and the sun. He was probably not more than thirty-five years old. His head was bare, revealing light blond hair and he seemed tall and sturdily built, though somewhat thin. By the look of him he was close to collapse as he waved at the statue and shouted something I could not hear. By what was evidently an effort of will he continued to plod and to stumble across the chilly marshland waste.
The Captain’s twin gestured for me to get out of the longboat. I was a little reluctant. As I put one naked foot onto the yielding peat he said:
– John Daker, let me wish you something other than luck. Let me wish instead that, when the time comes, you will be able to call upon your resources of courage and sanity when you most need them! Farewell! I trust you will wish to sail with us again…
Not one whit improved in spirit by this, I stepped with greater alacrity from the longboat. – For my part, I hope never to see you or your ship again…
But the boat, the oarsman and the frozen figure had all vanished. I turned a stiff neck to look for them, aware that I felt suddenly warmer. I realised immediately why the figure had disappeared, at least. It was because I now inhabited and animated him. Yet still I did not know my name or what my purpose was in this new realm.
The other man was still wading towards me, still shouting for my attention. I raised my heavy pike in greeting.
I felt the sharp pang of fear. I had a premonition that in this fresh incarnation I stood to lose everything I had ever possessed; everything I had ever desired…
BOOK ONE
He slept aloft on a sarsen stone
Dreaming to, dreaming fro,
And the more he dreamt was the more alone
And the future seemed behind him;
But waking stiff and scrambling down
At the first light, the cramped light,
The wood below him seemed to frown
And the past deployed before him;
For his long-lost dragon lurked ahead,
Not to be dodged and never napping,
And he knew in his bones he was all but dead,
Yet that death was half the story.
—Louis MacNeice,
‘The Burnt Bridge’
1
THE MAN CALLED himself Ulric von Bek and he had come out of a camp in Germany called Sachsenburg. His crime had been that he was a Christian and had spoken against the Nazis. He had been released (thanks to well-meaning friends) in 1937. In 1939, when his attempt to kill Adolf Hitler had failed, he had escaped the Gestapo by entering the realm we now both occupied. I called it Maaschanheem but he called it simply the Middle Marches. He was surprised that I should be so familiar with the world he had left behind him. “You look more like a warrior from the Nibelungenlied!” he said. “And you speak this oddly archaic German which seems to be the language hereabouts. Yet you say you were from England originally?”
I saw no point in telling him too much of my life as John Daker, nor in mentioning that I had been born into a world where Hitler was defeated. I had long learned that such revelations frequently had disastrous consequences. He was here not merely to escape but also to find a means of destroying the monster who had taken possession of his country’s soul. Anything I said might divert him from our destiny. For all I knew, von Bek might have been responsible for defeating Hitler! I explained as much of my own circumstances as I thought politic and even this was enough to leave him open-mouthed.
“The fact remains,” I told him, “that neither you nor I is any better equipped to deal with this world. At least you have the advantage of knowing your own name!”
“You have no memory at all of Maaschanheem?”
“None. The only thing I seem to have is my usual facility to speak whatever language prevails on whatever plane I find myself. You said you had a map?”
“A family heirloom which I lost in that fight I told you of, with the little armoured boys who tried to drag me off. It was not very specific. It had been drawn up, I would guess, some time in the fifteenth century. It enabled me to reach this place and I had hoped it would enable me to leave when my reasons for being here were over, but now I fear I’m stuck here for good unless I find someone to aid me in leaving.”
“The place is populated, at least. You have already encountered some of the inhabitants. There may be those who can help you.”
We made a peculiar pair. I was dressed in clothing which seemed appropriate for the terrain, with tall boots to my thighs, a kind of long-handled brass hook at my belt (like a heavy salmon gaff), a curved knife with a serrated blade and a pouch containing some edible dried meat, some coins, a block of ink, a writing stick and a few rather grubby pieces of rag paper. It gave me no real clue as to my trade but at least I did not have the misfortune to be dressed in a ragged grey flannel suit, a rather loud fairisle pullover and a collarless shirt. I offered
von Bek my cloak but he refused for the moment. He said he had become used to the rather melancholy weather of this place.
We were in a strange sort of world. The grey clouds very occasionally parted and let down some thin sunshine which illuminated shallow waters in every direction. The world seemed to consist of long strips of low-lying land divided by swamps and creeks. Hardly any tall trees grew there. Only a few shrubs offered cover to the oddly coloured waterbirds and bizarre little animals we occasionally sighted. We sat together on a mound of grass staring around us and chewing on the dried meat I had found. Von Bek (he added with some embarrassment that he was a count in Germany) was ravenous and it was obvious he could scarcely contain himself from devouring the food before he had properly chewed it. We agreed that we might as well stick together, since we were both in similar circumstances. He pointed out that his purpose here was to find a means of destroying Hitler and that this would always be paramount with him. I said that I too was determined to accomplish a particular task but that so long as my self-interest was not directly challenged I would be more than happy to count him as an ally.
It was at this point that von Bek’s eyes narrowed and he pointed behind me. Turning, I saw in the far distance what looked like a building of some description. I was certain I had not seen it there before, but assumed it had been hidden in mist. It was too far away to make out details. “Nonetheless,” I said, “we’d be well advised to head in that direction.”
Count von Bek agreed enthusiastically. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he said. He had improved physically and mentally, thanks to food and rest, and seemed a cheerful, stoical individual. What we used to call “the best type of German” when I was at school all those aeons ago.
It was long, slow going through that marshland. We had constantly to stop, to test the ground ahead with my pike or the gaff which von Bek now held, to look for means of crossing from one clump of solid earth to the next, to rescue one another from plunging waist-deep into deceptive patches of water, from falling into the sharp fronds of reeds which were in the main the tallest plants in the region. And sometimes we could see the building ahead of us, sometimes it seemed to vanish. Sometimes too it had the appearance of a good-sized town or a large castle. “A definitely medieval appearance, I think,” said von Bek. “Why, I wonder, am I reminded of Nuremberg?”
“Well,” I said, “let’s hope the occupants are not similar to those currently in residence in your world!”
Again he showed a little surprise at my detailed knowledge of his world and I made a private resolution to make as few references as possible to Nazi Germany and the twentieth century which we had in common.
As I helped von Bek through one particularly foul section of the mire he said to me: “Is it possible we were meant to meet here? That our destinies are somehow linked?”
“Forgive me if I seem dismissive,” I said, “but I have heard too much of destinies and cosmic plans. I am sick of them. All I want is to find the woman I love and remain with her where we shall be undisturbed!”
He seemed sympathetic to this. “I must admit all this talk of dooms and destinies has a somewhat Wagnerian ring to it—and reminds me a little too much of the Nazis’ debasement of our myths and legends to justify their own ghastly crimes.”
“I’ve experienced many justifications for acts of the grossest cruelty and savagery,” I agreed. “And most of them have a high-sounding or sentimental character to them, whether it be one person flogging another as in de Sade or a national leader urging his people on to kill and be killed.”
It seemed to me that the air was growing colder and there was a hint of rain. This time I insisted that von Bek take my cloak and he at last agreed. I leaned my pike upon a hillock, close to a bed of particularly tall reeds, and he placed his fishing gaff on the ground so that he could settle the leather garment better about his shoulders.
“Is the sky darkening?” he wondered, looking up. “I have difficulty telling time here. I’ve been here for two full nights but have yet to work out how long the days are.”
I had a feeling that twilight was approaching and was about to suggest we have another look in my pouch to see if I possessed any means of making a fire when something struck my shoulder a heavy blow and sent me face forward onto the ground.
I was on one knee and turning, trying to reach my pike which, apart from the short knife, was my only weapon, when about a dozen weirdly armoured warriors rose up out of the reed bed and moved rapidly towards us.
One of them had cast a club and it had been that which had thrown me down. Von Bek was yelling, stooping to reach for his gaff, when a second club caught him on the side of the head.
“Stop!” I cried to the men. “Why don’t you parley? We are not your enemies!”
“That’s your delusion, my friend,” one of them growled while the others uttered unpleasant laughs in response.
Von Bek was rolling on his side, clutching his face. It was livid from where the club had hit him.
“Will you kill us without challenging us?” he shouted.
“We’ll kill you any way we choose. Marsh vermin are fair game for anyone and you know it.”
Their armour was a mixture of metal and leather plates, painted light green and grey to merge with the landscape. Even their weapons had the same colouring and they had smeared mud on their exposed skin to further disguise themselves. Their appearance was barbaric enough, but worst of all was the noxious smell which came off them—a mixture of human stink, animal ordure and the filth of the swamps. This alone might have been enough to knock a victim off his feet!
I did not know what marsh vermin were, but I knew that we had little chance of surviving the attack as, with raised clubs and swords, they advanced, chuckling, towards us.
I tried to reach my pike but I had been knocked too far away from it. Even as I scrambled across the wet and yielding grass I knew that another club or a sword would find me before I could get to my weapon.
And von Bek was in an even worse position than I was.
All I could think of to do was to shout at him.
“Run, man! Run, von Bek! There’s no sense in us both dying!”
It was growing darker by the moment. There was a slight chance that my companion could escape into the night.
As for myself, I threw up my arms instinctively as a mass of weapons was lifted to dispatch me.
2
THE FIRST BLOW landed on my arm and came close to breaking it. I waited for the second and the third. One was bound to make me unconscious and that was all I could hope for—a swift and painless death.
Then I heard an unfamiliar sound which, at the same time, I recognised. A sharp report swiftly followed by two more. My closest assailants had fallen, evidently stone dead. Without pausing to question my good fortune I seized first one sword and then another. They were awkward, heavy blades of the sort favoured by butchers rather than fencers, but they were all I wanted. I now had a chance at life!
I backed to where I had last seen von Bek and from the corner of my eye saw him rising from a kneeling position, a smoking automatic pistol held in both hands.
It had been a long while since I had seen or heard such a weapon. I felt a certain grim amusement when I realised that von Bek had not come completely unarmed from his realm to the Maaschanheem. He had possessed the presence of mind to bring with him something of considerable use in such a world as this!
“Give me a blade!” shouted my companion. “I’ve no more than two shots left and I prefer to save those.”
Scarcely glancing at him I tossed him one of my swords and together we advanced on our enemies who were already badly demoralised from the unexpected shots. Plainly they had never experienced pistol-fire before.
The leader snarled and flung another club at me, but I dodged it. The rest followed suit so that we received a barrage of those crude weapons which we either avoided or deflected. Then we were face to face with our attackers, who seemed to have li
ttle further stomach for fighting.
I had killed two scarcely before I thought about it. I had had an eternity of such contests and knew that one must kill in them or risk losing one’s own life. By the third man, I had recovered my senses enough to knock the sword from his hand. Meanwhile, von Bek, plainly an expert with the sabre, like so many of his class, had dealt with another couple until only four or five of the fellows remained.
At this the leader roared for us to stop.
“I take it back! You’re no marsh vermin, after all. We were wrong to attack you without parleying. Hold your swords, gentlemen, and we’ll talk. The gods know I’m not one who refuses to admit a mistake.”
Warily, we put up our blades, ready for any likely treachery from him and his men.
They made a great play, however, of sheathing their weapons and of helping their surviving comrades to their feet. The dead they automatically stripped of their purses and remaining weapons. But their leader growled at them to stop. “We’ll unshell ’em when this business is dealt with to everyone’s satisfaction. Look, home’s close enough now.”
I stared in the direction he had indicated to them and saw to my utter astonishment that the building—or two—von Bek and I had been making for was now considerably nearer. I could see the smoke from its chimneys, the flags on its turrets, lights flickering here and there.
“Now, gentlemen,” says the leader. “What’s to be done? You’ve killed a good few of ours, so I’d say we’re at least even on the score, given that we attacked you but that you have no serious injuries. Also you have two of our swords, which are of fair value. Would you go on your way and no more said on the matter?”