“In any event, I believe he was returned here at the crucial moment. Direct divine intervention seems unlikely; with all due respect, sir, I doubt if you are quite in a state of grace as yet, and certainly the spell on your mind remains. No, I think Morgan did not realize that unity of creation which you say you speculated about. At the moment of greatest need, the champion had to return. And now the Middle World is using its arts and strength to block him. Or you, as the case may be,” Martinus finished anticlimactically: “This is only a theory, my dear sir. Only a theory. But I flatter myself that it does fit the known facts.”
Holger hunched his shoulders. It was an eerie situation. He didn’t like being a chess piece.
No, he wasn’t that. He was free. Too free. He embodied a power he did not know anything about and could not handle. Oh, blast and damn! Why did this have to happen to him, out of every soul alive?
“Can you send me back?” he asked tautly.
Alianora drew a sharp breath, then looked away. She’d known he wanted to return, thought Holger with a tinge of remorse, but she’d ignored the fact, lived in some kind of dream, until this moment.
Martinus shook his head. “No, sir, I fear the task is too great for me. Most likely too great for anyone, mortal or Middle Wonder. If my guess is correct, then you have not only been caught up in the struggle between Law and Chaos, you are an integral part thereof.”
He sighed. “Perhaps once,” he said, “when I was young and gay and arrogant, I might have tried to oblige you. I’d attempt anything in those days. You have no idea what student pranks can be till you’ve seen a magicians’ college… But I have learned my limitations. I fear I can give you little help, nor even much advice.”
“But what should I do?” asked Holger helplessly. “Where should I go?”
“I cannot tell. And yet—yet there is that item of the sword Cortana. Tales come out of the west, but so unwontedly clear and fulsome that I think the events concerned may have happened rather closer to here. The story is of a sword named Cortana, of the same steel as Joyeuse, Durindal, and Excalibur; and the story is also that a holy man, a veritable saint, laid his blessing upon Cortana, that in the hands of its rightful owner it might bulwark Christendie now that those other great weapons are gone with their masters. But later, the tale says, the sword was stolen away and buried in some distant place by the minions of… Morgan le Fay? You see, they could not destroy it, but with the help of heathen men who could ignore the sacredness, they hid Cortana away lest it be used against them.”
“Should I try to find it, then?”
“A dangerous business, young man. Yet I see nothing else which can long protect you against your foes. Tell you what.” Martinus tapped Holger’s knee. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll use my powers, and some have been kind enough to call ’em not inconsiderable, to try and find out who you are and where the sword is hidden. Its aura would make it perceptible to such airy sprites as I can summon. Yes, that seems the best course.”
“Thank ye more than I can tell,” said Alianora. The prospect of danger didn’t seem to bother her, in her relief that Holger wasn’t going to be whisked away the next minute.
“I fear I’ve no guest space,” said Martinus, “but there’s a tavern where you can stay overnight. Tell the landlord I sent you, and—hm, no, I’d forgotten about that bill of his. Well, come back tomorrow… Oh, yes. Would you like a disguise against the Saracen? I have some good disguises, very reasonably priced.”
“The Saracen?” Holger exclaimed.
“What? Didn’t I tell you? Bless my soul, so I didn’t. Clean forgot. Getting absent-minded. Must remember to whip up a memory-strengthening spell. Oh, yes, the Saracen you’d heard was looking for you. He’s in town too.”
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