The Grail of Sir Thomas

them all?”

“Defending,” Oleg replied briefly.

She cast a momentary glance at Thomas. He braced himself up, dusted his elbows off, stood upright proudly. “Killed everyone?” she asked Oleg, her disbelieving eyes still fixed on his gaunt face.

“Defending,” Oleg said again.

She clutched her small fists against her bosom, screamed in a thin voice. “But how you… He was stronger! We calculated hundreds of times! No mistake could occur!”

Oleg made a slow move of shoulders. “Who says it did? But I had a tiny chance. And I used it.” He put his arm round her shoulders, led her to the entrance that opened suddenly: a glare of distant sunlight at the end of the tunnel.

Thomas felt magicians, Holy Virgin, beastly god, falling walls, and the beautiful woman who turned out to be the most dangerous person in the world — all mixing up in his mind. He trailed along behind them irresolutely, pressing the cup on his breast, his sword hilt catching at the low ceiling.

The sunlight struck his eyes with pain. Thomas screwed up, breathing in the cool air greedily. The cold waters of great river were flowing by near at hand. Behind him, there were towers of cliffs gaping with black holes: from small bumblebee or swallow to giant ones. In one of those caves, our serpent now lies drowsy, counting sacks of juicy meat in his sleep.

The woman turned round slowly to the wonderer, her face was meek. Oleg looked in her eyes. She lifted her arms, which were bare and tender, but he caught them, brought away from his neck, examined her palms closely. With an imperceptible move, he tore a nail off. It fell down on the ground: bloody, glittering with razor-sharp edge. The strange woman did not even wince, looking in the wonderer’s green eyes. All of her nails, as Thomas spotted with terror, were in place. It appears weapons are not limited to swords only. A false nail can hide enough poison to send a legion of heroes to Heaven! Or either to Hell.

Oleg put her palms on his neck slowly. Their eyes kept grappling. “Any other tricks?” he asked softly.

“None,” she breathed. “You won again, damn you…”

“Why so angry?”

“You know, rascal, I wish no one’s death as much as yours. Let it be terrible. It shall make me free from this stupid love that follows me through ages!”

Oleg’s eyes showed deep sympathy. He clasped her to himself, patted the back of his head with his huge palm gently, as if she were an offended child. “Will they try to stop me again?”

“You crushed them all,” she replied quietly. “The rest of the Counsel do not interfere.”

“No more tricks?” he asked.

“No, you bloody winner…”

As he kept patting her, the fingertips of his left hand ran along her elegant girdle. Their eyes met for a moment. The sorcerer smirked wider. He took out a hairpin, as thin as a needle, his fingers cracked it. The broken halves tinkled against the floor, turned into a poisonous smoke that melted away

A golden comb flashed in Oleg’s right hand. Her gleaming hair, as black as raven wings, came down on her straight back in a released fall of black gold. Oleg dropped the comb uncaringly. Thomas gasped. The comb turned into a lizard, orange as melted gold, with a reared comb from the back of its head to the tip of its tail. Its red eyes blazed with malice like coals. Baring its teeth, the lizard darted to the sorcerer’s boot, but he stepped on it quickly with another foot. There was a faint pop, as though a fish bladder were burst. Small spiders scattered out from under his double sole, dashed to hide beneath the stones.

Oleg laughed, took precious earrings out of the woman’s pink ears made for kisses, tossed them down on the ground before Thomas, then a brooch, bracelets, hairpins, rings. At last Oleg took a necklace off her neck tenderly. The knight, bathing in vile sweat of terror, jumped like a hare, his iron soles knocked the hellish creatures into the rocky ground, trampled down, squashed, destroyed.

When he also smashed the necklace, which turned out to be a tiny basilisk spitting out fire and poisonous arrows, the woman asked innocently, “Sir knight, did this hypocrite tell you that your beautiful Constantinople shall fall under the blows of his sons?.. It shall be ruined forever, along with all the Eastern Roman Empire.”

Oleg was convulsed. “Do you mean to hurt him?.. Alas, she speaks truth, Sir Thomas. She bore a hero who will give rise to a new nation… I recall giving him the name of Seljuk.”

The woman laughed triumphantly, as she made herself comfortable in the ring of strong arms, settled on his broad chest.

Oleg, with his eyes grievous, nodded at the setting sun. “Sir Thomas, we set off in the morning! Come what may, here goes! I’ll see you to Britain. I just want a look at the glorious ancestors of the future nation that will have the blood of Ruses, the battle fever of berserks, the soft sensitivity and reason of Germans, the cheerfulness of Franks, the courage of Irish… I want to see the people who will have the brightest light of the Holy Grail!”

Still embracing the small woman, he led her to the dark cave entrance. At some moment the woman seemed to make a move away but the strong arm kept holding her narrow shoulders and she went limp, clung to him like a supple vine to a mighty oak.

Thomas twisted, guessing how he could express his apprehension delicately. That’s no woman but a full armory. Oleg and Gulcha were already at the cave threshold when Thomas yelled at the top of his voice, as if he were storming the Tower of David again. “Sir wonderer! Oleg! If last time… Seljuk, what now? Think about the future! Or your victory will become a defeat…”

Oleg looked back. The knight was clasping the Holy Grail with both hands at his iron chest. He had the eyes of a scared deer. The petite woman stopped. For a while the wonderer stood thoughtful: maybe he was thinking about the future. The woman felt his hesitation, cuddled up to him with her whole body. “Future?” Oleg asked vacantly. “Off chance it will come right.”

The last thing Thomas could see — while the wonderer could not — was that her hand, the one remained free, darted to the luxurious mane of her hair, tore out a pitch-dark single hair, and threw aside. Then the couple vanished in the black gape of the cave.

Thomas stopped breathing. The single hair transformed imperceptibly into a snake, as black as sin. It stirred, went crawling to the cave entrance. Thomas jumped after it. A champ under his boots, a splatter of dark stinky blood. Thomas trampled down for a while to make it sure, spreading the black flesh, bones, and even skin on the stones, then wiped his soles clean with disgust. His heart pounded as if he were a hare caught by a wolf.

He sat down near the entrance, set the bare sword up menacingly at his feet. The wonderer won’t beat off a gnat now. I must guard. His thoughts floundered fussily around the tribe that would ruin Constantinople in centuries to come. Then a burning question flashed: what would the people who come of him, highborn Angle Thomas Malton of Gisland, be like? Where, in which unknown land would they create their unprecedented state? Would his descendants bear some resemblance to him, a modest knight errant?

Well, I’m not likely to find it out until morning comes. The creation of new tribes and nations must be time-consuming.

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About the author

Born in Kharkiv, USSR in 1939, Yury Nikitin has changed 32 jobs before writing his first novel about foundry workers. Soon after that, his name got blacklisted for many years, but in the post-Communist Russia he became one of the most famous and best-selling writers in fantasy and science fiction. Today Yury Nikitin is the author of more than 60 novels, distinctive by their captivating style, action-packed storylines, elaborated half-historical half- mythological background, and characters who evolve and transform as unpredictably as real people do.

You may contact Yury Nikitin online at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ury.nikitin