Blood and Dreams: Lost Years II Read Online Free PDF Page A

here, in case they come this way. Once we find the Grail we’ll elude them both. Morgana swears it’s hidden somewhere under this garden. The old man they tortured mentioned it, I suppose.”
    I took a narrow path between mountainous waves of flowers, dazzling in the stippled sun. In a few steps I was lost in a perfumed silence. I felt clean and strangely young; if a way had opened I would have just gone on without concern for all absurd plots and obsessions. I was hungry too, and a little lightheaded.
    The odd lady blocked the trail, standing in a billow of gray gown that flapped as if hung out to dry under the listless, drooping, lifeless hair. She was covered with facepaint; in the shreds of sunlight, it seemed a disease of the flesh; caked, runny, and cracked, hot pinks, dark reds, mud, pale packings — a death mask clinging to the narrow head. She reached, and rested one skinny hand on my chest. Clammy. I could feel the little bones. I resisted shoving her away; that’s called chivalrous training.
    “Just ahead,” said the odd, mocking, cracking voice, “the keeper waits. Find the Grail and flee with me now!”
    “With you, nightmare?” I didn’t feel polite.
    “The keeper waits. “
    “Fine. Where’s Morgana?” She leaned up and kissed me on the mouth. Her teeth touched me and felt slimy. My soul didn’t melt and sag my knees with need. The makeup clung to my face.
    “Sweet young man,” she said as I wiped at the stains. She smiled. Her teeth were too small and numerous and something flashed; this face, tiny teeth … “Forget her.” The voice went too deep, then bounced up an octave. “You may have me.”
    “I get so many offers,” I said, “I can’t keep up.”
    The eyes shifted too much and the body canted steeply inside the flopped clothing when she moved and I was sure now. I clutched and caught the long, dried hair and, of course, it came away in my hand.
    The limping little transvestite laughed and veered into the banked flowers as if a wave of green and white had sucked him under.
    “Come back,” I suggested, calmly enough. “I’ve got something for you, Gobble. Something nice.” I tossed the limp wig aside and probed through the wash of blossoms and honeyed sunbeams. Mock me, would they? What bent lusts …
    And then the skewed path ended in a long field where the overgrown wall had crumbled to floral rubble. Yellow flowers, solid as a carpet, covered the ground. Solid pine trees closed off the far end. There was movement there, branches shaking, and scraping noise like metal bones and scales. For an instant I felt a child’s fear and nearly bolted in the face of lost tales crashing into reality: a scintillant dragon, goldenplated, head high above mine, eyes shattering the angled light, clumped and creaked toward me.
    “Is this supposed to remind me of the Grail?” I wondered, then turned to look at two knights who’d emerged from the flower mass behind me. Their faceplates were open and I knew them both. “So,” I remarked, “this is getting to be social.” I didn’t believe in the dragon for one minute. “Galahad and Sir Bors. Well, well. Planning to slay me —” I gestured across the field, “— or that thing first? And just the two of you?” Likely as bees in winter.
    Galahad looked perturbed. “Ahh, ah,” he demurred, “why not just come back to court with me?”
    “Sick of being a paid head-chopper, too?” He should have been. His eyes showed it: strained and drained empty. They were focused on my chest.
    “Strange dress. Parsival.” Bors chimed in.
    “It’s fashion here.” We never liked each other. Never.
    “Ha! Saxons and Irishmen have more modesty!” Bors had really small eyes. His graying beard had food fragments caught in it. He always seemed to spit when he talked. Galahad, on the other hand, had excellent personal hygiene.
    “The dragon doesn’t worry you either?” I asked. It was flashing and advancing. obviously mechanical. Like a seige