The Knight

“Bad news?”

“They serve Setr. We are shapechangers, we Aelf.”

I remembered Disiri and how she had been a bunch of different girls for me, and I said, “Yeah, I know.”

“Setr cast those into the shape you see. He is a shapechanger himself, so potent that he can lend great strength to others. As they are, he made them. They ca

High above a shrill voice screamed, “Will not!”

“They guard his tower still,”. Garsecg told me, “or try to.”

I was thinking it was like a big video game, except I was on the screen. Or virtual reality maybe. I sort of felt my head for the gear, but there was not any and just then a Khimaira swooped down at me, pulling up just before I could grab it, a little starved body, mostly black but red at the cracks, with claws and jaws and black bat wings.

“They hope to convince you that they pose no serious threat,” Garsecg muttered. “Now that you have seen them, they fear you will turn back.”

“I don’t think so.”

“When we have climbed higher, they will cast us from the stair. If we fight, we will surely fall. Shun them, and climb as fast as you can. In the tower we will not be safe from them, yet the tower is to be preferred.”

I stopped and looked back at him, thinking about how old he was. “Aren’t they going to try to kill you too?”

“These Khimairae have sought my life before,” he said.

I went up about a hundred more steps, and one whished past so close I could smell it. Another went in back of me, and its wing brushed my head. “Look about you,” Garsecg warned me. “Heeeeaaaar!”

I looked back at him instead. Only he was gone, and where he had been there was a kind of alligator with horns, as big as a cow, and ten or twelve legs. The legs had suckers, and all the suckers were grabbing on to the steps. It lashed its tail and raised its head and roared at the Khimairas, snapping at any that came close. Just then one blindsided me. I fell and barely caught the edge of the stair with the fingers of one hand. They were slipping, and I knew I was going to die when a sucker closed around my wrist and heaved me back up onto the steps.

I was still grabbing and shaking when the alligator’s mouth opened and I saw Garsecg’s face inside it. He said, “Recall the sea. And run!”

I was so scared I could hardly stand up, but as soon as I did, a big wave caught me from behind. Do you know what I mean? My legs ached too, but that did not matter. I went up those stairs like I was flying, three steps at a time. They kept hitting me, or trying to, and once I stumbled. But I never stopped until one dropped down on the step ahead of me with a sword in each hand. It was black and all bones and wings, and its lips would not quite cover its teeth. But the eyes seemed wrong. They were those yellow-fire eyes all the Aelf have, even the Kelpies and the ones who gave me Gylf, the same kind of eyes Disiri used to have even when the rest looked just like a human girl. When I looked at them all I could think of was her.

It opened out its wings when it saw I had stopped. With those big black wings open it looked as big as a house. “You musst fight usss.” Its voice was mostly hiss, but you could understand. “Ssee? I have sswordss for uss both.”

It held one out hilt first, but I did not take it. I hit the pommel with the flat of my hand instead and drove the sword backward into the Khimaira’s chest. Its eyes got big and scared then, and stuff that was not quite blood spurted out of the wound, and it fell off the stair. I thought that had been pretty easy, but before I could take another step, five hit me all at once, not to knock me off but grabbing me and lifting. I had one on each leg and one on each arm, and one had its claws in my hair. They flew with me so fast it was like falling up in a hurricane. I saw there were windows and balconies and arches and torn places in the sides of the skyscraper, and way up above us but getting closer and closer was Mythgarthr: trees and people, animals and mountains.

About then the one that had my left ankle yelled like it was scared and let go and peeled off, and I figured they were going to drop me, so I wrenched around and grabbed the wrists of the ones holding my arms. After that I kicked off the one that had my other leg. Their wings went even faster, but we started losing altitude. The one who had my hair said, “We fall!” and I told him to land me on the steps, but he let go instead.

After that, the one that had been holding on to my left arm screamed we were going to die. I kept yelling land on the steps, and we did, coming down too fast and crashing on them. It was not easy to keep hold of the Khimairas the way I did, but I did it, and as soon as I got my breath I banged the two of them together until they begged.

I stopped. “You guys work for Setr?”

“Ssetr iss henss.”

I banged them together some more. “That’s not what I asked you. Do you work for him?”

“Yess!”

“Okay. Quit. From now on you’re going to work of me.”

“We ca

“Then you’re go

Garsecg came up behind me, not being the alligator anymore. “They are evil creatures, Sir Able, but I ask you to spare them.”

That was crazy, and I said so.

“Yet I ask it, Sir Able, for the sake of the good I have done you.”

I threw one down and got my foot on its neck, and I bent the other one backwards over my knee. I was still hurting from the fall and still scared silly, and I would have killed it then and there for two cents. I leaned down on it, and heard its back creak like a gate in the wind.

“She ca

I did not answer, just leaning down some more on the Khimaira.

“Do you owe me nothing?”

I owed him a lot and I knew it, but he was begi

After that I bent the Khimaira some more, and it said, “I renounsse him!”

I eased up a little. “That’s good. Say it again.”

“I renounsse him.”

“Say the name. Who are you renouncing?”

“Ssetr. I renounsse Ssetr forever.”

I kind of looked over my shoulder at Garsecg. “What do you think of that?”

He shrugged. “Are you pleased with a breath?”

“You don’t think it means it?”

“I do not know. Nor does it matter—anyone can say anything. She ca

“What could she swear by that would make it real?”

Garsecg shook his head. “There is nothing.”

So I thought about that, and finally I said, “How does Setr make them do whatever he wants?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, she does.” I put more pressure on the Khimaira and said, “You listen up. Tell me how he’s got you, or I’ll break your back this minute.”

Garsecg said a lot more then, but I am not going to write it down here. He wanted me to let the Khimaira go.

“Sslay me,” she said. “End my life and end my agony.”

I let her off my knee and grabbed her by the neck. “You swore by Setr, didn’t you? Admit it!”

“Yess.”

About twenty were buzzing us by then, and I decided we had better get inside quick. I let the other one up and grabbed her too. I made them fold their wings, tucked one under each arm, and ran for it. They did not weigh a lot, and the sea was surging all through me. Even so, it was tough going, and when we got inside I was ready to quit. I lifted them up and threw them down, and I made them shut up until Garsecg got there and I caught my breath. It was a really big, huge room, pretty dark, that stunk of rotten meat and mold, and it was so quiet you could listen to your heart beat. The throne at the far end must have been twenty-five feet high and fifty feet wide.