6

THE TRUTH IS A FLAMING SWORD

I don’t remember being knocked out, and I don’t remember arriving at the wilderness lodge and/or corporate retreat that the knights were using as a stronghold. I don’t know if there was some kind of gas in the car that Emil and the knight had been immunized against, or if I picked up some kind of odorless contact poison, or if I was taken out later at some point by a sniper the moment I stepped out of the car.

If that seems strange, you have to consider that a knight’s entire existence revolves around concealing events, and Templars were artists with drugs that destroy short-term memory long before Rohypnol became a synonym for date rape. Maybe they tortured me. Maybe I painted half my face blue and gave some impassioned speech about freedom before they shot the shit out of me. Maybe I fought, or escaped and was recaptured. Maybe I killed several people or had long philosophical conversations with a jailor about the meaning of existence.

I just don’t know. That part of me is gone. Usually that kind of stuff comes back, because I regenerate damage, including damage to my brain, but the knights had been putting a lot of research into fighting werewolves lately, and they must have found some kind of chemical cocktail with permanent side effects.

All I know for sure is that I awoke druggily, and I know that “druggily” isn’t really a word, but that’s how I woke up, anyhow. It must have been the drugs.

There was something important, but I couldn’t remember it. My secret, my secret, kept so well that even I didn’t know what it was.

My vision lurched as it contracted and expanded without any prompting on my part. When I tried to focus, blackness began to close around the edge of my vision, and when I tried to shake my head, I realized that I couldn’t feel my ears or my skull, but somehow my brain still felt tight. Everything sounded too loud but far away at the same time, as if I were underwater.

Room. Basement air. Heavy. Still. Chill. Not a basement, a dungeon. I was welded into a steel chair or felt like it. A centaur, except instead of a horse’s trunk, my waist ended in four chair legs. A sitaur. Body cold and sweaty at the same time. Not fair, not fair. Seven men sat in padded wooden chairs, their bodies hard whether burly or lean, their skin weathered, their eyes old and cold.

I threw up.

This apparently was not unexpected. I heard Emil’s voice, and two guards came and cleaned up my mess. There was still pain, a lot of pain, but someone else was feeling it.

Ever seen one of those old movies where brains have been removed, just floating in a jar of God knows what, pulsing? It felt like that was me, except my body was the jar. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s the closest I can come to describing the effects of whatever they had me on.

Somebody was saying something. Emil again. Wait… who was Emil? I realized that this Emil someone had been saying something for some time.

I blinked three times, and I didn’t wake up in Kansas, but there was a young boy standing in front of me. Where had he come from? For a second I wondered if the kid was me, if this was some dream symbol thing. It was that unreal, but no, it was a real kid holding out a real sword, or at least a white gold hilt that was sticking out of a plain leather sheath. I tried to grab it and realized that I couldn’t move my arms.

Just as well. What kind of asshat makes a sword with a white gold hilt? The damn thing would warp in your hand.

Unless it was a magic sword.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding. Pinball lights.

The kid was saying something again, but how the hell did he have Emil’s voice? I stared at his mouth, so mesmerized by the way he was making those adult-sounding words without moving his lips that I missed the meaning again.

Something hard slapped the side of my face. Once. Twice. Oh. There were guards behind me and beside me. That wasn’t nice. Somehow the slap adjusted my inner ear a bit, even if everything was still too loud.

“… CLAIDEB, ONE OF THE FOUR GREAT TREASURES OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN.” I realized now that Emil was one of the men sitting around me, in the middle. Lean body. Immense dignity. A Grandmaster’s signet ring.

Wait. What?

“Hi, Emil,” I said, and got another fist-to-face wake-up call. Bam boom, to the moon, Alice. I can name that tune-up.

“THIS SWORD WAS ONE OF THE FOUR FAE ARTIFACTS THAT OUR ANCESTORS SWORE UPON WHEN WE BOUND OURSELVES TO THE FAE’S GEAS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS?”

Claideb? Where the hell had I heard that name before?

Someone slapped me again.

What?

Slap. Again.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS?”

“It means that boy is holding the sword of light,” a voice said calmly. “Also known as Claiomh Solais. Dyrnwyn. Whitehilt. The flaming blade. The sword of truth.”

With a start, I realized that the answering voice was mine.

The voice asking questions became more cautious. “YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE SWORD’S PROPERTIES, THEN?”

“The blade burns, but only in the hands of a righteous man,” my voice said. “And if anyone tries to use that sword for evil or selfish purposes, the hilt burns instead of the blade. If a truly evil man holds that sword, the sword remains cold as he catches fire. He lights up like a torch.”

Where was this knowledge coming from? I couldn’t remember remembering any of this until I heard myself saying it. It was as if the drugs were cutting out the middle man. Me.

“ESSENTIALLY.” Emil sounded satisfied now. “NO ONE CAN LIE AND KEEP HOLDING THAT BLADE. AND THE SWORD’S MAGIC IS INTERWOVEN WITH OUR GEAS. ITS MAGIC WORKS EVEN ON KNIGHTS.”

I was feeling less disoriented by the second.

“IF WE PLACE THE HILT IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND, WILL YOU HOLD IT, JOHN CHARMING?”

I took control of a mouth that was too dry and shut it firmly before it could answer, took control of it with a conscious effort at making a conscious effort.

“IF WE PLACE THE HILT IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND, WILL YOU GRAB IT?”

“Am I… the only one… who finds that sentence… a bit Freudian?” I forced the words out slowly.

There was a stunned silence. That’s right. I’m baaaaaack.

This time it wasn’t a slap. It was a punch, and I felt the tail end of it. Nothing going down, but a slight aftertaste of oh shit. Slipping and sliding my consciousness through the drugs made me aware of how much my neck hurt. I was pretty sure the rest of my body was soon to follow. Somewhere, a face was tingling, stinging. My face. Stingling.

“Are you really the Grandmaster of the entire order, Emil?” I asked.

He held up a hand, making a stopping motion to someone behind me. “Will you take the sword, John Charming?”

Even as wrecked as I was, I knew that they were only giving me a choice because they had to give me a choice. For some reason, I had to take that sword willingly. I also understood that the choice they were giving me was no choice at all. If I didn’t accept that sword, I would be given to the tender mercies of an inquisitor until death looked appealing.

“Sure,” I said.