Rudy made his way out of the house and down the steps, blinking in the pallid light of dawn. He was soon cursing the owner of the car. There wasn’t anything resembling a tool in all the bushels of trash in the trunk or on the back seat.
There was a shed half-buried in the weeds farther back in the groves behind the cottage, and he spent ten grimy minutes picking through spider-infested debris there in search of tools. The result was hardly satisfactory: a rusted Phillips screwdriver with a dog-chewed handle; a couple of blades with the business ends twisted; and an adjustable end wrench so corroded that he doubted it could be used.
The sun was just clearing the hills as he stepped out again, wiping his hands on his jeans; all around him the clear magic colors of day were emerging from the dawn’s grayed pastels. The house, formerly a nameless bulk of shadow, ripened into warm russets and weathered sepias, its windows blazing with the sun’s reflected glory like the dazzle of molten electrum. As Rudy stood there in the shadow of the shed, he thought for a moment that it was this burning glare that was playing tricks on his eyes.
Then he saw that this was not so, but for a moment he didn’t know what it was. He shaded his eyes against the blinding silvery shimmer that hung in the air like a twisting slit of fire, blinking in the almost painful brilliance that stabbed forth as the slit, or line of brightness, widened scarcely a dozen yards in front of him. He had the momentary impression that space and reality were splitting apart, that the three dimensions of this world were merely painted on a curtain, and that air and ground and cabin and hills were being folded aside, to reveal a more piercing light, blinding darkness, and swirling nameless colors beyond. Then, through that gap, a dark form stumbled, robed and hooded in brown, a drawn sword gleaming in one hand and a trailing bundle of black velvet gripped tightly in the crook of the other arm. The sword blade was bright, as if it reflected searing light, and it smoked.
Blinded by the intensity of the light, Rudy turned his face away, confused, disoriented, and shocked. When he turned back, the blazing vision was gone. There remained only an old man in a brown robe, an old man who held a sword in one hand and a wailing baby in the other arm.
Rudy blinked. “What in hell was I drinking last night?” he asked aloud. “And who the hell are you?”
The old man sheathed the sword in one smooth, competent gesture, and Rudy found himself thinking that whoever this was, he must be very quick on the draw with that thing. It looked real, too, balanced and razor-sharp. The old man replied, in a scratchy baritone, “I am called Ingold Inglorion. This is Prince Altir Endorion, last Prince of the House of Dare.”
“Hunh?”
The old man drew back the hood from his face, revealing a countenance wholly nondescript except for the remarkable blueness of the heavy-lidded eyes and for its expression of awesome serenity. Rudy had never seen a face like that, gentle, charming, and supremely in command. It was the face of a saint, a wizard, or a nut.
Rudy rubbed his aching eyes. “How’d you get here?”
“I came through the Void that separates your universe from mine,” Ingold explained reasonably. “You could hardly have missed it.”
He’s a nut.
Curious, Rudy walked slowly around him, keeping his distance. The guy was armed, after all, and something in the way he’d handled the sword made Rudy sure he knew how to use it. He looked like a harmless old buffer, except for the Francis of Assisi get-up, but years of association with the brotherhood of the road had given Rudy an instinctive caution of anybody who was armed, no matter how harmless he looked. Besides, anybody running around dressed like that was obviously certifiable.
The old man watched him in return, looking rather amused, one thick-muscled hand absently caressing the child he held into muffled whimpers, then silence. Rudy noticed that the old man’s dark robes and the child’s blankets were rank with smoke. He supposed they could have come out of the shadows around the corner of the house in the moment the reflected sunlight had blinded him, giving the impression they’d stepped out of a kind of flaming aura, but that explanation still didn’t tell him where they’d come from, or how the old man had happened to acquire the kid.
After a long moment’s silence Rudy asked, “Are you for real?”
The old man smiled, a leaping webwork of lines springing into being among the tangle of white beard. “Are you?”
“I mean, are you supposed to be some kind of wizard or something?”
“Not in this universe.” Ingold surveyed the young man before him for a moment, then smiled again. “It’s a long story,” he explained, turned, and strolled back toward the house as if he owned the place, with Rudy tagging along in his wake. “Would it be possible for me to remain here until my contact in this world can reach me? It shouldn’t be long.”
What the hell? “Yeah, sure, go ahead.” Rudy sighed. “I’m only here myself because my car died on me—I mean, it’s not really my car—and I have to check out the pump and see if I can get it running again.” Seeing Ingold’s puzzled frown, he remembered the guy was supposed to be from another universe where, since they used swords—
and he’d still like to know where the old man had picked that one up—the internal combustion engine hadn’t been invented. “You do know what a car is?”
“I’m familiar with the concept. We don’t have them in my world, of course.”
“Of course.”
Ingold led the way calmly up the steps and into the house. He proceeded straight on down the hall to the bedroom, where he placed the child on the stained, lumpy mattress of the cot. The baby immediately began working himself free of his blankets, with the apparently fixed intention of rolling off and braining himself on the cement floor.
“But who are you?” Rudy persisted, leaning in the doorway.
“I told you, my name is Ingold. Here, enough of that … ” He reached down and stopped Prince Tir from worming himself over the edge. Then he glanced back over his shoulder. “You haven’t told me your name,” he added.
“Uh—Rudy Solis. Where’d you get the kid?”
“I’m rescuing him from enemies,” Ingold stated matter-of-factly.
Wonderful, Rudy thought. First the fuel pump and now this.
Untangled, the kid was revealed to be a crawler of six months or so, with a pink rosebud of a face, fuzzy black hair, and eyes that were the deep unearthly blue of the heart of a morning glory. Ingold set the kid back in the middle of the bed, where he promptly started for the edge again. The old man removed his dark, smoke-smelling mantle and spread it out like a groundcloth on the floor. Under it he wore a white wool robe, much patched and stained, a worn leather belt, and a low-slung sword belt that supported the sword and a short dagger in beat-up scabbards. The whole setup looked authentic as hell.
Ingold picked up the child again and put him down on the mantle on the floor. “There,” he said. “Now will you stay where you are put and fall asleep like a sensible person?”
Prince Altir Endorion made a definite but unintelligible reply.
“Good,” Ingold said, and turned toward the door.
“Whose kid is he?” Rudy asked, folding his arms and watching the old man and the child.
For the first time that look of self-command broke, and grief, or the concealment of grief, tightened into the muscles of the old man’s face. His voice remained perfectly steady. “He is the child of a friend of mine,” he replied quietly, “who is now dead.” There was a moment’s silence, the old man concentrating on turning back the cuffs of his faded robe, revealing a road map of old scars striping the hard, heavy muscle of his forearms. When he looked up again, that expression of gentle amusement was back in his eyes. “Not that you believe me, of course.”