Free The Grail War by Richard Monaco Page A

had explained that a talisman collected power the way a cup held water, that the power could act as if the wizard himself were actually present to baffle spells and deflect attacks …
    “Tell me, Lancelot!” he demanded.
    “Now!” The legendary warrior signaled and he and several spearmen charged forward.
    Parsival plucked at Prang’s arm and they retreated quickly toward the stair, though three armored men waited there with leveled spears. Prang was certain they’d be held up long enough for the others to fall upon their rear. He was grimly amused to think he was suddenly on the other side of the fight and about to die for no reward and in obscurity to boot at the hands of the most famous knight in the world.
    Except, incredibly, the first attacker seemed to skid, as if on sheer ice, and fall even as he thrust so a way opened between the other two that Parsival smashed through, cutting one sweep over his head that sliced both spears short. Prang jumped over the strangely fallen man and followed his reluctant teacher. The man still struggled to gain his feet, as if he walked in grease. Prang had noticed nothing as he passed, he reflected, cutting one good blow on the upraised sword of the man at his heels …
    Once on the landing above, they raced down a twisting series of passageways until Parsival lost the pursuit. Prang followed by sound and an occasional moonlit glimpse as they passed embrasures … They stopped in a high, dim hall. There were columns leading to a pair of raised thrones on a dais.
    “I last looked upon my mother on this spot,” the older man said. “Sitting here … she bid me godspeed in the world … I was impatient to go. I thought I’d be back before too long …” He smiled faintly to himself and shook his head, then sighed.
    “Sir,” said Prang, “for God’s sake, let’s be off.”
    “There’s no hurry. I sealed the door behind us.”
    “What? I didn’t see that. Is this magic?”
    “There is no magic — only what you cannot understand at the moment.”
    It was like praying: you couldn’t explain why, you couldn’t grasp the mechanism of the underlying intelligence and movement of all life, but you could learn to trust it. You could throw it out from yourself and simply trust it. Like walking in the dark with shut eyes, your body could see for you if you totally gave yourself up to it …
    “Well?” Prang wanted to know.
    Parsival started walking again. They left the chamber. He remembered his mother’s face for a moment: pale, glowing, wordless, beseeching … wordless …
    Well, he knew he’d have to have blood now. The part of his awareness that was free saw it as absurd, that pain would lead only to pain and resolve nothing … But he had to have it now … the chains of custom …
    He stopped in a narrow cell. An iron-bound door was bolted shut and locked. A dim ray of moonlight fell there.
    “A way out?” Prang wondered.
    “Yes.”
    “Have you the key?”
    “There is none. My mother had my father’s weapons sealed here forty years ago.”
    “What? Was she mad?”
    “Some said so. But she was not.”
    Her subtle form floated between his eyes and the glaring world … blurred, dimmed its reality.
    “Cannot we be off?” Prang said, impatient. “For all we can tell, they may have surrounded the castle.”
    “I don’t think they have,” Parsival said, staring at the door. “You will have to stand up to Lancelot while I deal with the others.”
    “What? What are you saying to me?" Prang was incredulous.
    “Don’t try to win against him. Just stay alive for a few minutes. Turn and defend, keep turning and defending. If he finds you still he'll beat you flat.”
    Parsival reached and gripped the lock in his hands. He began to twist it. His body was relaxed, Prang noted, and his face peaceful, as if he prayed — and yet the metal began to bend, and then, after an interminable moment in which Prang’s heart pounded, iron and wood parted and the incredible