fund or poor fund can use it.”
Unless the whatever that happens involves our getting killed or worse, I
thought.
But no, this approached self-pity. I think the British call it whinging.
I myself had preached to my daughter that sometimes we humans have to
break the rules, certain moral rules maybe included, and take the
consequences–the blame, if our judgment turns out to have been wrong. I
rallied my spirit, got up, and lent a hand.
I won’t describe the work of the next hour or so. Some details are
public knowledge, others are restricted to licensed operators, still
others were proprietary, unique to Ginny. Goetics remains as much Art as
technology. (Well, that’s fairly true of mundane engineering too.)
Basically, we used the data we’d acquired and my calculations from them
to draw up specs for the sword and sheath–the material objects, that
is. Then Ginny laid out the stock we’d brought from Cambridge according
to Frogmorton’s description. Mainly this was an iron bar, a couple of
laths, a piece of leather, and a few pebbles. She put a Seeming on them.
To every unaided sense they became identical with the exhibit. You’d
have needed a vernier and a pretty accurate scale to tell the
differences, short of a chemical analysis which nobody had ever done
anyway. Oh, someone who cast a minor spell or simply had a Gift would
realize something was funny, but it was a safe bet that no such person
would visit the crypt anytime soon.
Afterward we went downstairs. The hour was early for dinner. We had a
high tea instead, to which I added a stiff drink. Returning to our
suite, we drew the shades and tried to sleep. That took me a while, but
there was ample time. Night comes late in the English summer.
Also, it’s short. Our clock owlhooted us awake at 2 A.M. We scrambled
into our clothes. Besides my skinsuit underneath the street garb, I wore
a topcoat and Ginny a cloak, cover for what we carried along and hoped
to carry back. A distinct advantage of staying at a first-class hotel
was that we didn’t have to ring anybody out of bed at odd hours. That
annoyance could have stuck in the memory.
Ginny smiled at the drowsy porter. “We thought we’d enjoy a starlit
stroll on the walls,” she explained in a voice that would have turned
Scrooge’s heart to warm mush.
“Be careful of your steps,” he cautioned like a benign uncle. “You have
a torch, ma’am? Good. Have a nice walk.” He stood sentimentally looking
after us.
I laid an arm around Ginny’s waist. “Too bad we aren’t really going to,”
I sighed. “Saving the world sure does get in the way of enjoying it.”
She leaned briefly against me. “That’s another matter we’ll have to make
amends for.” Then her stride turned brisk.
The air was cool, damp, very quiet. Larger streets were lighted but the
old “gates” lay full of shadows and old dreams. Once a policeman passed.
He gave us a quick, close look, nodded affably, and continued on his
beat. Somehow that deepened our loneliness.
St. Oswald’s had too damn much illumination on it. We’d expected this,
however. After scanning the sidewalks right and left, we went fast up
the stairs to the portico. Ginny drew a Hand of Glory from her purse. It
was only a monkey’s paw, a tiny withered thing that glowed faint blue
when she touched it to a door. (The monkey had died at an advanced age
of a surfeit of bananas.) Its powers were equally slight. But ordinary
locks clicked open under those black fingers, and closed again behind
us.
No candles burned inside. St. Oswald’s wasn’t High Church. We used our
flashlight–no, here in England, torch–to make our way through the nave
to the inner door and down to the crypt.
Those innocents had installed no alarm for us to nullify. The Hand undid
the case. I swung the glass lid back and grasped the sword. It felt
massive, though not heavy. Unlike too many heroes of fantasy fiction,
our forefathers were practical men who didn’t wear themselves out
swinging unnecessary mass. Even a battle ax ran to only about five