Swan Knight's Son by John C. Wright
“Should I leave my sword outside?”
“Never put that sword by you. I have now told you three times.”
“And what you tell me three times is true!”
“Don’t be sarcastic to your mother in church, young man.”
He sat down, putting the helm down on the pew next to him. The scabbard like a big metal tail hung from his hip, and he had to guide it with his hand to lay it down next to him. It stuck out past his knee and bumped the back of the pew in front.
He said, “I just found out everything I thought I knew is false. And you know what is true. Talk to me. Tell me about the elfs, about my father, about you, and about me. Who am I? What am I?”
She gave him a sharp look. “What are you?”
He said, “A knight!” The answer came out suddenly, automatically.
She pointed at his boots. “Where are your spurs?”
“Well… I am a squire then.”
“Whom does a knight serve?”
He growled. “Mother, this is not the time for your riddle games. Tell me what I need to know.”
She said, “First things first. You asked whether you should leave your sword outside this house of peace, and it is not a foolish question. The Church Militant is and has always been an armed ark in an ocean of deadly monsters seeking to sink her and drown the world in darkness. Show me the sword. No! Unhook the scabbard from the belt and hold it up. The scabbard is like the bridal gown of your bride. No one should see her naked. Do not draw it except when you mean to kill or to sharpen and tend the blade.”
Gil held up the sword in its scabbard, scowling.
She said, “All lands have warriors, who fight for their princes, and many a noble and valiant man is found among them. Only in Christendom are orders of knighthood found, who fight for our heavenly prince, who commands you to protect the weak, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Knights are governed by a code of sacred honor which sets them apart from soldiers and warriors of other lands.”
“Samurai have honor.”
“A very delicate and fierce honor is it, indeed, but is it not sacred honor. No Christian knight commits suicide to assuage his shame. Now, look closely!”
She held her finger near the sheathed sword, pointing at the tips and edges, the hilt and pommel, and she spoke as follows:
“All things in this world have a heavenly meaning hidden from earthly eyes. The sword’s significance lies in the fact that it cuts two ways and may be used in three fashions. It slays and wounds with both edges and its point also stabs. The sword is the knight’s noblest weapon, and he too should serve in three ways. First, he should defend the Church, killing and wounding those who oppose her. Just as a sword pierces whatever it touches, likewise a knight should pierce all heretics, attacking them mercilessly wherever he may find them. Second, the sword belt means that, just as a knight wears his sword girded to his body, so he himself should be girded with chastity. Third, the pommel symbolizes the world, for a knight is obliged to defend his king. The crosspiece symbolizes the true cross, on which Our Redeemer died to preserve mankind, and every true knight should do likewise, braving death to preserve his brethren. Should he perish in the attempt, his soul will go to heaven.”
She paused to draw a breath and to dab at her eyes.
She continued, “A knight should harden his heart against those who are false and impious, but he should be gentle toward those who are peaceful and good.”
Gil stared at his mother in confusion and wonder. “Mom, do you need to lie down again?”
She blew her nose delicately in her handkerchief. “I had prayed that the day would not come when I was required to tell you these things. Do you understand the lesson of the sword and the charge I have laid on you?”
“Yes, mother. Kill heretics, don’t sleep around, obey the king. But… we don’t have kings in America, and I think being a heretic is protected by the First Amendment.”
She said, “Among men, you must respect the laws of men. But men are the thralls and serfs, the gladiators and poppets, the concubines and cattle, the pets and toys of powers they do not see, do not know, and do not recall upon waking. Those few who by mishap recall truly and do know how truly dark the night is, they are called mad and hauled away screaming. Even the warnings those few who cry out are soon forgotten, sponged away by elfish mist. The laws of men do not reach to the night world, but the lesson of the sword I have told you does: In the hidden world of twilight are enemies of the Church, and fair seductresses, and faithless traitors whom you must slay, or eschew, or renounce.” To Gil, the idea that all this was real, that all the mysteries of myth and lore might be out there somewhere, hidden to most but open for him to find, the wonders and the horrors both, was an idea that made him feel lightheaded and yet feel more hard and solid than he had ever felt before.
“Why not tell me before now?”
She said, “I kept you out of the twilight all these years for one sole purpose: the oaths of elfs are not like the oaths of men. They are not mere words but are woven with strong runes and cannot be broken.”
“What does that mean, mother?”
“The Twilight Folk are enthralled by unbreakable oaths to the Night Folk, who are bound in turn against their will to something darker than night, older than years. To have my child bound in service to darkness, I would lay down my life to prevent.”
6. Two Worlds
Gil pondered this for a few moments in silence. His mother closed her eyes. Perhaps she was praying, perhaps she was merely waiting patiently for his next question.
He wondered if she were praying for his safety. He had a disorienting moment, as if he were looking at himself from the outside, as if he were just a boy like any other, who could die young as some young men do, in war or in adventure, and leave a mother behind him, grieving.
“I saw a letter written in this sword blade,” he said, “What is it?”
“Dagaz, the rune of Day. The name of that blade is Dyrnwen, the fair white-hilted sword. It is one of the Thirteen Treasures of Lyonesse, taken out of the world of man by Merlin and haled to Avalon, kept in the Tower of Glass. It is a wonder and a mystery to see it in this hemisphere again.”
“Do all elfish swords burn with light?”
“No, only that one, and only in the right hands.”
Gil tapped the pommel of his sword. “You said the pommel represents the king I must serve. What king? I met Alberec last night.”
“Would you serve him, my son? Even unto death? A knight does not give half his heart to his liege, nor to his lady.”
Gil frowned. “I don’t know. He seemed courteous and fair-spoken, as a king should be, but he and Erlkoenig were fighting over which of two evils to impose on mankind, the pestilence of heat or the famine of cold. Do they control the weather?”
“When man rebels against heaven, nature rebels against man and serves other masters. Influence over nature their charms and songs and wicked sacrifices indeed have won for the elfin kindred, but no lawful authority.”
Gil said, “There must be some king nobler than those two, someone who is not an enemy of mankind!”
“All true kingship has passed away from the Earth. You will find no sovereign worthy of your service neither in the daylight, nor in the twilight, nor in the dark.”
He said, “Then I will look in more places than those. Speaking of which, where are they? The twilight lands and the night lands?”
She said, “The globe has more hemispheres than merely East or West, Oecumene or Antipodes, for there are more dimensions than the known three. There is a third hemisphere where Troynovant, the New Troy, rears her lofty towers and is the stronghold of the elfs and the other Night Folk.”
“Wait. What? That makes no sense, geometrically speaking. There can only be two halves of a sphere, by definition.”
“Elfish geometry is different. The mists blind the eyes of men, and they do not see how extensive their world truly is or how generous the creator wh
“So is this third hemisphere always twilight? Or how does it work?”
“The twilight is not a place, but a condition, when one has stepped halfway into the mists. There is day and night, summer and winter, for elfs as for men. The twilight of which I speak is of the mind.”
“What does that mean?”
“Of the twilight are those folk and those places that the men can sometimes see or to which they sometimes might walk. You and I are of that order, as is your cousin Nerea. We are longer of lifespan than Man, but no less mortal than he.
“The Night Folk,” she continued, “are the elfsm and others on whom the passage of years lies with a light hand and the laws of nature do not fetter with chains of iron. They were born before Man, with fish and fowl, on the second-to-last day of Creation, and they shall descend into Hell on the first day of the second creation, when Heaven and Earth are remade. They do not age, and few indeed are the weapons that can slay them, but all will perish on the world’s last day and be eternally damned. There is no redemption for them. They have no souls that can be saved.”
“How many other intelligent races are there? I saw some people last night that looked like foxes or apes.”
“There is no agreement of count: elfs and efts, albs and owls, loathes and linderlings, nephilim and nightmare hags, efrits and evil phantoms, man-wolves and vampires, or other Children of Cain whom the waters of Noah’s flood did not destroy, mermaids and moorgoblins. Some are monstrous, but more dangerous are those that are fair to the eye.”
“Why do they hide from men?”
“I do not know. It was not always thus.”
“Why don’t you tell people?”
“Whom shall I tell whose minds the elfs will not erase as easily as a palimpsest is scraped free of words no longer pleasing to the scrivener?”
“Since I don’t know what those words mean, I can’t answer. If there are twelve to fourteen intelligent races on this world, why don’t they speak to us? Uh, to human men. Or open trade relations, send ambassadors to the UN, that sort of thing?”
“Those who speak on familiar terms with the dark world, or take gifts from it, are warlocks, and dire indeed is their fate if they repent not. And the elfs have no need to trade when they can steal.”
Gil pursed his lips. “I saw a knight slain last night.”
“Yes?”
“Was he like us, with some human blood in him? You said they could not be slain.”
“No, I only said it was not easy to slay them. They charm their lives. Bullets will not harm any of them whose mother or sister knows the art, nor will any weapon that does not have a shadow to cast into the dreamlands. He may have been a Twilight Man, however, whom you saw slain.”
“But Nerea said the elfs would not allow humans among them, except as servants. How could he be a knight?”
“She speaks truly, but at times an elf even of noble or royal blood takes a comely daughter of Eve to wife, and the elfs dare not despise the nobility and royalty of their blood, though it be tainted, and they hide their hatreds.”
“Was he a member of the Moth family?”
“Who?”
“The dead knight. He said his name was Callidore.”
“Describe his escutcheon.”
“It was a red rose with green leaves on a gold field.”
“That is the sign of the House of Coll of Tir-n’a-Nog. After Saint Patrick drove all the Nagas and Nagini out of Ireland, the Colls were bereft of all their menfolk, and so the three daughters of Coll, Maeve, Malen and Morgan, rather than see the extinction of their line, lured the heroes Oisen, Anchises, and Arthur to their bridal bowers. Their family is called Le Faye. They are famous for having bold sons well versed in swordplay and dark daughters well versed in sorcery and venom. I do not know if there are any intermarriages with the Moths. We are a very extensive family.”
“Where did we come from?”
“Moth was the highest noble in the train of Titania, her seneschal, along with Cobweb, Peaseblossom, and Mustardseed, her chancellor, champion, and chief minister. The fairest Oonagh was merely the first of Moth’s many mortal wives from which our family springs, bound to him in solemn rite and proper marriage mass. Some of our mixed blood have climbed by feats of arms or song into the higher ranks of the jealous elfs. Nerea should have said they try to keep us in the servile ranks, often with success.”
“So I could be a knight among them!”
She shook her head. “No. I forbid it. There is none to care for me in my old age but you. I have lost three sons into the service of the elfs. No more.”
“I have brothers?”
“Half brothers.”
“Who is my father?”
“I don’t know.”
7. Two Lords
“How is that possible?” demanded Gil in outrage. “How could you not know your own husband? My own father?”
“He was not my husband. You were not born lawfully.”
Gil was not sure what to say. Anger and curiosity and shame were like a nest of snakes in his chest, fighting and biting each other.
Eventually, she said, “This is the tale: I was once of a higher world than this and the daughter of the Grail King. I fled from the cloud-city of Sarras when Ysbadden the Giant slew the Grail Maiden, my sister, and stole the Grail. In swan form I flew to earth doffed my robe to bathe, and was caught unawares. A maiden in exile without friend or family, I was wedded against my will to Alain le Gros, a puissant elf-knight of the Hidden Lands. He was sterile, but the charm of the High elfs is that all their daughters are fertile. I bore him three stalwart sons.
“A day came when I went a-Maying and wandered in the greenwood with my ladies and knights. Out from the darkness of the trees came suddenly a Wild-Man-O’-Wood.”
“What is that?”
“He is covered from crown to heel with hair like a beast, but he has hands and feet like a man but a face like a jackanape. He is a woses; a wooly man; a yeti.”
“You mean Bigfoot.”
“I have not heard that name. With his club, his teeth, his great claws, he overthrew my knights, and seized me about the waist, and carried me off. A day and a night and a day he ran without once pausing for breath, and on his shoulders I was battered and shaken and half-dead from grief and thirst, soiled, fatigued, and bruised with great bruises, for he was not gentle as he ran.”
Her voice was cool and soft, betraying none of the horror her words conveyed to Gil.
“He brought me to a cave filled with skeletons which serves as his larder, carved by dripping water out of a rock on a small island in Goose Lake of California, east of the Modoc National Forest.
“For two years he kept me there, and I was shorn of my silver hair on the Eve of the Feast of Saint Walpurga. He told me his name, which was Guynglaff Cobweb, and he said he had slain Alain le Gros that same hour before he found me in the wood. Verily, he promised he would eat the flesh from my bones as soon as the cloak he meant to weave from my hair was complete, to cover his great carcass and render him immune to swords.
“Many a time I tried to build a raft or brave the waters to escape, but the trees and the waves were loyal to the Cobweb family, and betrayed me.
“On the Feast Day of Catherine of Sienna, whose hair like mine was shorn untimely, I wept and prayed by the shore, for I knew all but a small thatch of the hairy man’s robe was patched.
“Then, beyond hope, I saw the shape of a tall knight approaching the island on a boat pulled by swans. He promised to aid and save me if only I swore never to ask his name. He battled fiercely with Guynglaff, but the white-hilted sword could not cut the creature. The Swan Knight nonetheless prevailed, driving Guynglaff into his cave. The ghosts of the dead he had slain rose up, and the bones of the skeletons clutched and bound Guynglaff while the Swan Knight piled rocks before the cave mouth and sealed him within.
“Away the Swan Knight bore me to his manse, which had tall windows of green glass and a roof t
“One night I climbed the tower and saw a bearded star and other portents by which I knew I had been betrayed and had betrayed myself, for I was no widow. Guynglaff was false, and Alain le Gros was still alive.
“Without farewell, and taking nothing of his, I departed the castle of the Swan Knight. From a mile away, I looked back and saw the manse had caught fire, and soon after it collapsed, and by this I knew the heart of the house had been broken, and the hearthstone shattered, by my departing.
“Upon my return to the cold and cheerless castle of Alain le Gros, the whispers of scandal immediately came, and at your birth you were called the son of the Wooly Man. I was commanded to give up my child to the tithe; instead, I gave up my crown and my world, and I fled to the world of men.
“Once more I departed in secret and swiftly, but this time I did not depart alone, for you were with me, wrapped in the warm feathers of my celestial cloak. The cold stone stronghold of Alain did not break and burn when I departed, however.
“On that night, within earshot of the stars, I vowed upon the northern star who is constant and stirs not, that my son would never give his vow to the Prince of Shadows, who is the vassal of the Prince of Darkness.
“If you present yourself to Alberec Under the Mountain, you will be required to bow and swear, and when Hell takes its tithe of the Fair People, it is you who will be selected to go into the utmost darkness, whose fires consume but cast no light, where there come no word, no music, and no sound save for the pandemonium of wailing, woeful shrieks, and endless cries of pain.
“For this reason, you may not be a knight.”
Chapter Nine: Errantry
1. Never
Gil touched his hand to his chest and heard the hard jingle of mail. “This is my father’s armor, is it not? This is his sword. That is why you swooned at the sight.”