Viv slowly lowered her sword. The scratches on her sides stung like fire, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding to death. She was, however, shaking like a dry leaf. Not with fear, but with relief. The street musician in leather pants just watched her, with a lively sort of sympathy playing over his face.
“Who are you?” she chattered out. “What were—what was that?”
“My Lady,” he said, inclining his head to Viv with a twist of a smile. “You may call me Piper, and I am pleased to be at your service. Those creatures were redcaps: dangerous in large numbers, or to the unprepared.” He made a little gesture with his hand, as if inviting her to precede him across the street. Viv’s legs felt like jelly, but she managed to take a few steps to reach the sidewalk.
“What did they want?” she stuttered. “Were they after the sword?”
The Piper shrugged. “May be. Or it may be they were sent for something else, and Caladbolg brought you here to stand against them.”
“Calad—bolg?”
He looked at her with some concern. “You have a very great deal to learn, young Lady,” he observed. “The sword has many names, call it what you like. Caladbolg. Caliburn. Excalibur. The edge of its blade is a dividing-line, and also a bridge, between the mortal world and the Otherlands. If it is yours to wield then you are the Lady of the Lake: you, and those whom you recruit, defend human sovereignty from the undying forces of the wild Queen. I,” he added, “would not be your enemy; le Fay has made me an exile, and I no longer serve Her court. But I will be your teacher if you are willing to be taught. What is your name?”
She swallowed. “Viveka,” she said.
“Lady Viveka,” Piper said, “you must gather your forces quickly, or le Fay will cut you down without mercy.”
“I don’t have…forces,” Viv said. “I just got here, I don’t even—I don’t even have my cat.”
“Well, get your cat,” Piper said sharply. “And get your knights. Caladbolg will help you call them, if needs be. But do it quickly. Meet me again by daylight, Lady Viveka, and I can tell you more.”
“Meet you—where?” she managed.
“And when,” he prompted. “Let’s say, next Saturday noon? I like the biscuits at Orphan Andy’s. I’m sorry, I cannot stay, but I’ll answer your questions there.”
“But,” Viv said, and then her voice trailed off as she stared down at the sword in her hands. The patterned metal was covered, now, with dark blood. “If this is— If I am—” She shook her head, trying to clear it of cobwebs and shock. “What—what lake is it that you think I’m supposed to be the Lady of?”
Piper made an impatient noise, brushing back a stray curl of hair from his perfect face. “It is the fount of life, the source of wisdom, the wellspring of the Grail. The Lake is not of this world, but its tributaries can be found here, and you must discover them on your own. Guard yourself, young Lady Viveka.” He looked down at her with what seemed to be vast pity, then gave her a courtly nod and turned his back, walking gracefully into the mists.
As she watched him go Viv tried desperately to think of words that might call him back, but she could not, so she stood there uselessly clutching her sword, until—in a rush of light and heat and the rattle of wheels—the train came.
The front doors slid open. Two teenaged girls jumped down: they were leaning on each other and giggling, and they spared not a single glance for Viv and her blood-smeared sword. The doors sounded an impatient chime, so Viv grasped the side rail and hauled herself up into the train.
There was a fare box set up front: $2.00, it said, for adults. Viv fumbled in her pocket for singles and fed them into the machine. The driver, without looking over, handed her a transfer slip.
The train was about half full. Nobody seemed to be sparing Viv as much as a second glance. A cold chill ran down the back of her neck as she sank into one of the molded plastic seats.
She placed the sword across her knees and stared down at it. It just lay there, exhibiting no magic. Unless it was magic that nobody seemed to much care about four feet of blood-spattered steel on the streetcar. Viv wasn’t really sure how extraordinary that might be, here in San Francisco. Maybe it happened every week.
She allowed herself to consider, then, the possibility that she had gone insane: but she did not consider it for very long. Her Midwestern practicality wouldn’t allow it. It was easier to believe in magic swords and evil gnomes than to doubt the evidence of her eyes and ears.
Abruptly she remembered what the woman had said: “The sword is precious, but the scabbard is more precious.” But there was no scabbard—and the scarf that had been wrapped around the blade had blown away during the fight. Had she already lost something important? She considered, briefly, going back and trying to find that scarf…but the thought of being alone near that dark tunnel made her shudder. The scarf hadn’t looked important. It had looked a lot like something pulled out of the twenty-five-cent bin at a thrift store. And Viv was pretty familiar with thrift stores.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to find some touchstone of sanity so she could begin to know what to do next. As her thoughts slowly began to settle, she found one certainty emerging: she did not have enough money in her bank account to pay the deposit on her new apartment.
Viv shook her head, smiling a little, ruefully, at herself. Priorities, right? So she’d been handed a magic sword in order to defend civilization from the evil fairy Queen: well, that was certainly a thing that didn’t happen every day, but meanwhile Silk was still in a kennel and she was going to have to come up with that deposit money somehow. The world didn’t stop because it had goblins in it now. It just…got more complicated. And much more scary.
Viv bent her head low over the sword. “Help,” she whispered. “I’m going to need help.”
But the sword gave no answer, and the streetcar only rumbled forward into the night.
The next morning Viv called her parents again from the hotel room. She wanted, badly, to tell them everything; she had slept terribly, even with Excalibur laying in the bed next to her. (She had, of course, cleaned it first. The last thing she needed was extra fees from the hotel.) But she knew perfectly well that they could not possibly believe her—not without seeing for themselves what Viv had seen. And the other Lady had told her to be secret…
Instead she asked them for a loan. They sounded glad to hear from her again, and assured her the money could be transferred that day through Western Union. Talking to them about such normal things as leases and down payments helped, a little, to make Viv feel less dizzy and sick about her memories of the night before. She didn’t tell her parents that the apartment she’d landed was really a converted toolshed, but she told them about the back courtyard, and that the cabinets were new.
Everything went very quickly after that. She met Alberto at the office, and they went together to the apartment. It was the same as it had been the day before, with the gaping hole still left in the kitchen wall, although Alberto assured her they’d send workers around to close that up. They noted the existence of the hole on a pre-move-in inspection sheet, and Alberto encouraged her to point out any other flaws she could see: as any damages not listed on the sheet would be taken out of her deposit when she moved out. Viv dutifully walked through each of the three rooms, flipping light switches and turning on the faucets just as her dad had told her. But she couldn’t find any other problems with the little toolshed-turned-apartment.
She signed, in triplicate, various forms stating that she would pay the rent on time or incur substantial fees; that she would not sublease the unit or allow any other tenants to move in; that she would alert the landlords to any appearance of mold or vermin infestation. (I could have died last night, she thought as she signed.) Alberto noted down the deposit amounts and she signed that too. And then he took her cashier’s check, handed her a set of keys, shook her hand, and congratulated her on her fine new home.
Standing alone in the middle of the dim, empty bedroom, Viv held the keys tightly in her hand, and slowly exhaled as she looked about the place. Her place! She could eventually buy some cheap, but attractive, Persian-style rugs to lay down over the ugly gray carpeting, and a lamp or two would brighten up the interior... She should definitely get a proper litter box before she went to pick up Silk, and maybe some kind of a treat, like a catnip-stuffed toy mouse, to make the cat happy about her new home…
There are goblins and they want to kill me.
Suddenly the most important thing seemed to be going back to the hotel to get her things—to get Excalibur. Viv locked up and made what she sincerely hoped would be the last trip out to the La Quinta.
It was early evening by the time she’d checked out of the hotel and purchased the necessities for her cat, and she was afraid that she might be too late to recover Silk from the kennel; but they were still open when she got there. Silk yowled furiously when she spotted Viv, and Viv was pained to see that the cat was still crouched in her carrier. At least it made collecting her easy. Viv signed the exit papers for the kennel, and accepted Silk’s impassioned haranguing as her just and earned punishment on the walk back to their new apartment.
When she set the carrier down in the bedroom, and opened the door, Silk quieted at once. She cautiously poked a bewhiskered nose out into the room, followed by a first careful paw, and then another. She stood half-in and half-out of the carrier for a minute, nostrils flaring, then eased herself completely into the open. Viv watched the cat’s first explorations: sniffing each of the corners, winding in and out of the closet, lifting herself onto her hind paws to peer out the window. Although Silk was a plump “traditional” Siamese rather than the lean elongated kind, she could still stretch herself to a surprising length when she wished.
After the initial once-over, Silk focused her attention on the carpet, which seemed to please her enormously: she rubbed her cheek against its prickly grains, followed by her entire body, until Viv couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the cat writhing happily against the carpet, her hind legs splayed in the air. She crouched down beside the cat and scritched her beneath the neck. Silk lifted her chin in response to the touch, although she glared at Viv through slitted eyes, as if to say that all was not forgiven.
“Look at this,” Viv said, lifting her sword. “I think this is the sword Excalibur. I think I’m supposed to be the Lady of the Lake.”
Silk only gave her an unreadable stare. Viv gave the sword an experimental swing: it handled like a heavy chunk of metal, and nothing more. “You don’t believe me,” Viv sighed. “I wouldn’t either, if I were you.”
When she’d given Silk a few minutes to explore, Viv made sure she knew where the litter box was (just outside the bathroom door) by the simple expedient of picking her up and dropping her in it. Then Viv set about unpacking her few belongings. She had one suit, which inside the suitcase was folded in its own carrying case with hanger; it was nonetheless wrinkled from travel, so Viv hung it from the door of the shower, planning on a little improvised steaming. Her one clean towel went into the bathroom too. The rest of her clothes she spread out on the floor. They were all she had to use as a bed.
She spent some time, that night, trying to practice with the sword. All her movements felt clumsy and ungainly, and when she tried to check what she was doing in the mirror, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud at how ridiculous she looked. “You could help, you know,” she told the sword sternly, but it gave her no answer at all.
The pile of clothing proved an uncomfortable place to sleep: Viv tossed and turned all night, and was awakened early Sunday morning by Silk, front paws planted directly on her head, and meowing loudly into her ear. She pushed the cat away irritably, and stumbled into the bathroom for a shower.
When she came out, clean and dressed, she found her cat up on the kitchen countertop, nosing at the exposed wires in the wall. “Oh no, no no no!” Viv cried, scooping her up. In the next second she realized she had just ensured that the hole in the wall would seem the most attractive spot in the whole house.
“You know what you need,” she told her cat, “is a bit of exercise. And a distraction.” She marched Silk over to the back door, opened it up, and dropped her at the threshold to the courtyard.
Silk went out eagerly enough, but didn’t seem willing to venture far. As Viv watched, she made a circuit of the yard, and padded up a few steps of one of the fire escapes; then she was ready to come back inside, where she curled up in a corner for a nap. Deciding it was safe, at least for a bit, Viv locked up the apartment and went out herself to do a bit more exploring. She debated bringing the sword with her—but it was heavy and awkward, and she couldn’t quite imagine goblins attacking her in full daylight on a crowded street. Instead she moved Excalibur into the back of the closet. “Be good,” Viv said, and wasn’t sure whether she was talking to the cat or the sword.
On Mission Street she found a raucous, colorful collection of discount clothing and hardware stores, cheap restaurants (mostly Mexican and Salvadorean), little produce stands full of mango and guava, the odd bookstore or electronics repair place, and street vendors hawking everything from jewelry to bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Over four blocks of Mission and its more sedate neighbor, Dolores, Viv discovered no less than five thrift stores, and by stopping into each of them she managed to score a full set of (unmatched) silverware for four, a big and little cooking pot, plenty of clothes hangers, a few plastic plates, a ceramic bowl, and a futon mattress (no frame) that smelled okay despite a faint stain on one side. The futon was a challenge to transport home even though “home” was only a few blocks away, but after she’d struggled with it alone for half a block, a young fellow speaking with a heavy Latin lilt offered to help her out with it. She took him up on the deal, proffering a twenty dollar bill when they’d reached her apartment: she felt shy about the exchange, not sure if she was reading the situation right, and maybe offering too much or too little or possibly even insult if he’d meant his help to be freely given. But he took her money cheerily enough and wished her a good day. On subsequent dips into the secondhand bounty she found a wicker clothes hamper missing only one handle, and a perfectly good gray wool pea coat to wear on chilly nights.
She did, however, draw the line at buying her sheets and pillows used: there was just something too intimate about them to tolerate the knowledge of a stranger’s touch. For those she ventured back downtown, spending a happy afternoon wandering among five floors of Macy’s before finally walking out with a bulky “bed in a bag” package that included white sheets, pillows, cases, and a bedspread done in a bright, cheery patchwork quilt style. It had been on clearance sale, half off, though she still paid a hundred dollars for the set, and knew she wouldn’t be able to do much more shopping for a while. She did stop into a little grocery on her way home and picked up enough food staples—pasta, cereal, bread, cheese, milk, rice, canned sauces, packaged deli meats, a few fresh fruits and vegetables—to last her for a week or so.
The bedroom looked a lot better with the semblance of an actual bed set up beneath the window. Silk made herself a nuisance as Viv attempted to tuck the sheets around the corners of the futon, walking on and under the loose bits of fabric, but once the bed was all made and the quilt spread out, the cat settled atop it with perfect decorum. Viv broke in her new (new to her, anyway) cookware by making a pot of spaghetti. Then she took a long hot shower, and set her alarm clock for six A.M., determined not to be late to her first day of work. Unless Excalibur was going to magic up the rent money, she still needed a job.