CHAPTER II
MASTER OF SWORDS
My eyes snapped open. I lay flat on my stomach on a stone floor, smooth and warm against my cheek. I remembered flying through the air and cars hurtling towards me. I must have been absolutely mangled. I must be dead. This must be Hell. I jumped to my feet and shivered in the warmth. Where were the demons? Blazing torches mounted high out of reach illuminated my tiny space. I seemed to be on a small landing at the top of a broad staircase. There was no railing or bannister, so I stayed in the middle for safety.
I checked my head, feeling for damage; it seemed okay. I slapped my face hard; it smarted. I felt my legs and chest. I could sense everything. I didn’t feel like I was dead.
“Hello?” I shouted. “Is anyone there?”
There was no reply. I called out a bit louder. Still no reply. I looked over the edge into the dark below. It was as dark as the bottom of the sea.
I heard a faint siren. It sounded like a police car. Where was that sound coming from? I pressed my ear against the stone wall behind me and listened. It sounded like traffic. I stepped back and examined the wall, not understanding at first. Of course, there had to be a door. I couldn’t see a door, so I searched for a secret one, pressing every centimetre of the wall I could reach. If there was a secret door, I couldn’t find it. The great stones were not sealed by obvious mortar; I could only feel the lines between them with my fingertips. But I was certain the busy streets of Paris lay just on the other side, just out of reach.
I looked down the stairs. It was the only way forward. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, and so down I went. Were numbers significant? Should I be counting the steps? Was the light for me? Was I expected?
After a very long time, I reached another small landing. This one had a low door set in the wall. It had no handle, and I couldn’t see any hinges; it seemed to be made of metal. The stairs continued all the way down, illuminated by flaming torches. If this were Hell, it would be sensible not to go all the way down. Did I deserve to be in Hell for winning a fight unfairly in the school car park? If so, then Heaven was much harder to enter than previously thought.
Maybe this door was the gateway to purgatory. Purgatory was better than Hell. I pushed it with my hand. The door swung open without a sound. I peered through and squinted in the bright light. How did they pull it off? It was all an elaborate practical joke. It was like that TV show Punk’d. I was being filmed; that’s why it looked so bright. Film lights! I ducked under the lintel and stepped over the threshold, expecting ‘Surprise!’ and a warm welcome from family and friends. But there was no welcome. Instead, I got the shock of my life.
Giants! Giants wearing black boots the size of articulated lorries! I watched them for ages; they moved so very slowly. I didn’t understand what they were doing at first, but I eventually got it: they were preparing a sumptuous fruit salad. Fruits so exotic they must have come from another planet were being peeled and pipped and thrown into great lakes of cream. I’d arrived in a bloody massive kitchen full of bloody great giants. What the hell was going on?
Searching for a way out, I came across a line of trolleys, overflowing with enormous portions of food, manned by giant kitchen porters dressed in dark blue dungarees.
I picked the last trolley in line. It had a ten-foot-high loaf of bread on it and a colossal roasted suckling pig; with an apple the size of a caravan stuffed in its mouth. You can imagine how large the pig was. I scrambled onto the trolley’s rear mudguard, all the time thinking about how to deal with giants and held on tightly. How do you introduce yourself to a giant? Was it even wise to try?
Pushing off, we glided smoothly over the tiled kitchen floor. I wondered how big the rats were. What about the spiders? We made a sharp left. Two swing-doors loomed a thousand feet high. Trolleys crashed through in front. I tightened my grip. Crash! Bang! Bump!
The banqueting hall was bigger than Africa. Countless people, of all nationalities past and present, sat at white marble tables covered with mismatched silverware and goblets of every kind imaginable. It was incredibly noisy, but thankfully, everyone appeared normal; that is, they weren’t giants. That was a huge relief. I began to relax and take in the view of this magnificent, otherworldly feast.
My trolley’s first stop was at a table of mobsters dressed in sharp suits and natty hats, their table cluttered with Tommy-guns and empty plates. The giant porter gave them a loaf of bread. They wanted the pig. There was no mistaking that. One of the mobsters picked up a Tommy-gun and opened fire. For a moment, I thought he was aiming at the giant kitchen porter. But no, he was firing into the ten-foot-high loaf of bread. In anger, I thought. I was wrong. Smoke rose from the scorching barrel, and a thick slice of bread thundered flat on the table.
As the trolley pushed off, I watched the mobsters dip their bullet-sliced bread into a wide, clear bowl of luscious green olive oil. Nice entrée: I could smell the olives from the trolley.
Our next stop was at a table of Canadian paratroopers. They were given the pig. They cheered when they saw it. A sergeant hoisted a rocket-launcher onto his shoulder, took aim and fired. With a whoosh and a boom, he blasted a hole through the apple. The rocket came out of the pig’s neck and fizzed away out of sight.
As I wondered where the rocket had gone, and how come no one had been wounded or killed, what with all the ammo being fired around the place and everything, I noticed a hand grenade arc and drop down the pig’s gullet.
Bloody hell! I jumped off the trolley and ducked. The grenade exploded, and fragrant white meat fell on the table. Some bits landed at my feet. They looked delicious.
My stomach grumbled. I was so hungry. I decided to take a chance. Making sure I didn’t knock anyone, I reached across the paras’ table and helped myself to a small piece of pork, about the size of two fists, which glistened with the promise of great crackling. As I chewed the textures, it occurred to me this place was probably closer to Heaven than I first thought.
After I finished eating, I reached for a drink. There were more goblets at this table than people, so I wasn’t too worried about stealing someone else’s. I sniffed and sipped. Red wine! I gulped down that fragrant, wonderful draught. My spirits lifted, and I started to laugh. What a fantastic feast. And look there! There was a table of samurai. They were armed with katanas. Not a gun in sight. They seemed very orderly and polite compared to the rest of the rabble in here. The Canadian sergeant noticed me watching them.
“I wouldn’t like to fight those guys,” he said.
“Ha!” I declared. “I’ll fight anyone with a rocket launcher and a bag of hand grenades.”
I felt a gentle tap between my shoulder blades. I spun around, expecting the worst. I must have drunk someone’s wine. “I’m so sorry,” I blurted.
“André Pérez-Brunot, I’ve been waiting for you to speak.” A tall, pale man with short red hair looked down at me with a neutral expression. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt and new white Nike trainers. I studied the person who knew my name, and he knew how to pronounce ‘Brunot’ correctly: ‘Bru-know’. So, I was expected. The light had been for me. “Think of me as your taxi driver,” he said.
“Where are we going? Where are we now?”
He offered his hand for shaking. I shook his hand, and when our hands parted, a green baize door materialised before me.
“This is for you,” he said
The door looked like a hologram suspended in mid-air. I walked around it and tapped it with my knuckles. It wasn’t a hologram; it sounded like wood. The ornate handle was made from crystal or glass.
“It feels like a trap,” I said.
“Of course it’s not,” he said.
“Okay… I’d feel a lot more comfortable going in there with a gun. Can you get me one?”
“Did I say I was an arms dealer?”
“No, you said you were a taxi driver.”
“Did I?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, here we are.”
“Listen, I thought you were going to drive me somewhere?”
“You thought wrong,” he said.
“Is this the way out?”
“It could be,” he said. “But it’s definitely the way in.”
This guy wasn’t giving anything away. Everyone else in the banqueting hall ignored the green door. Or maybe they couldn’t see it, I don’t know. I pushed down the handle, opened the door, and peeked inside.
The interior looked very old-fashioned, resembling a drawing room from the 17th or 18th century. It seemed very comfortable - and safe - so I stepped cautiously inside. I stamped my fencing shoes on the parquet flooring, which had a good grip. The floor felt solid. I turned to look at the taxi driver standing outside; I think he was waiting for me to close the door.
“Okay, bye,” I said.
“Goodbye,” he said.
I closed the door. It shut without a click. I tried to reopen it, but it wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t surprised. I’d been brought here to meet someone. I wondered who it might be. It was so peaceful and quiet, compared to that crazy war zone outside. I sat down in a not-uncomfortable chair and looked up at the intricately corniced ceiling, waiting to see what would happen next. In the tick-tocking silence, my breathing slowed - my eyelids closed - and I soon fell fast asleep.
Bustling maids woke me up. They turned off the gaslights and opened tall window shutters. When they finished, glorious beams of sunlight illuminated every sumptuous corner. A short while later, an old man entered. He strode towards me with purpose, his blue cloak billowing behind him. I stood up, ready to shake hands, but handshakes weren’t on the menu. This time no hand was offered.
The old boy had lots of liver spots and wrinkles, but his hair was dark and well-combed. He commanded respect; there was no mistaking it.
“Good morning, young man,” he said.
“Good morning,” I replied.
“I am the Master of Swords,” he declared. “It is my privilege and duty to welcome you here. Welcome to Valhalla, the final resting place of warriors who die in combat.” He said this with a flourish of his white-cuffed hand and a bow of his well-groomed head.
“I’ve read some Norse mythology,” I said.
“Norse history, dear boy! Norse history. As you can see, Valhalla has moved with the times.”
“So, I am dead then,” I said.
“You died holding a sword, and that is why you came here. Then, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, you were resuscitated by two paramedics.” The old boy gave me a piercing look to see if I understood.
“So I’m alive?”
“Just about. Your body is in a coma. You have a massive head injury.”
I cautiously touched my head. It felt normal. My head seemed fine. But if I were in a coma, then things were starting to make sense.
“This is definitely the most realistic dream I’ve ever had,” I said.
“Perfectly natural to be sceptical at the beginning,” he said.
“So I just stay here till I wake up?”
“No. You can’t stay here. This is Valhalla, and you don’t belong.”
“Right… Because I’m not dead?”
“Exactly! In the past, there were cases when warriors died from their wounds but were revived when a loved one hit them hard on the chest in frustration, unwittingly restarting their heart. And sometimes a skilled healer got lucky with a potion… Therefore, Odin created a loophole called Valhalla’s Quest to help those people return home - people like you, who arrived here but are no longer dead. That’s why you entered through the back door instead of the main entrance.”
“I thought Valhalla was all about swords? The only swords I’ve seen here are katanas.”
“We had to modernise when people stopped using swords. Now, Valhalla is all about guns. Die holding a gun and this is where you come.” The old boy pointed his fingers at me, pretending they were pistols: “Pow! Pow! My junior colleague in Munitions is much busier than I am. These days, I mostly orientate ‘died and revived’ holding knives. I much prefer people with swords, though. It’s always...”
“Look, why can’t you just let me go?” I interrupted. “If I’m not dead, I shouldn’t be here, you said so yourself.”
“Precisely.”
“If I’m not dead, then you can send me home.”
“Complete Valhalla’s Quest and you will return home,” he said. “And this conversation will be forgotten. It will be as if you were never here. We can’t have people telling their friends all about Valhalla’s Quest when they go home. That would never do.”
“But how can I be in two different places at the same time? Here and hospital? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You are not in two different places. You are here. Your body is not. It all takes some getting used to, but what religion doesn’t? I used to be a Roman Catholic.” He shrugged.
“And if I fail this quest? What happens then?”
“You can’t fail a quest!” he exclaimed. “You can only stop trying.” The old boy studied my confused expression. “If you don’t succeed, you don’t wake up.”
“You mean if I don’t succeed… I die?”
“If you don’t succeed, there’s no going home for you!” he declared with great amusement.
“And what happens to me if I don’t go home?”
“You return here - taking your seat in the great hall until the end of the world, feasting with the undead until Ragnarök.” The Master of Swords grinned like a glacier. “Now some people would say that’s a win-win!”
“I’m not some people. I want to go home. Right now!”
It was obvious what I had to do. I had to assert my conscious authority before this nightmare spiralled out of control. This is how people go insane, listening to voices inside their heads. “Listen, none of this is real!” I declared. “I’m dreaming everything, it’s all in here.” I tapped my head with my middle finger. “I’m in a coma. I got run over, Dummy! This is my show. This is my dream, not yours,” I jabbed my index finger at the old boy, “I will decide what happens next, not you.”
It was the start of the summer holidays. Come September - it would be my last year at school - and my plan was to attend Notre Dame University on a fencing scholarship. I’d had a silly accident. Now I was in hospital, being looked after by doctors and nurses. The French health service is unmatched: it’s almost free, accessible to all, and very efficient. That was my reality. I was in a nice bed in hospital, and this old boy, and everything here, was a figment of my imagination. I threw up my arms to shoo him away.
“Go away!” I cried. “Leave me alone.”
The Master of Swords unsheathed his sword, sliced the air with a swish, and cut my left thumb. “Ouch!” I cried. It was only a scratch, but it hurt worse than a stubbed toe.
“This is not a schoolboy’s exercise. It’s a second chance. Body and soul,” he said. He stared at me sternly and raised his sword.
“Body and soul,” I felt compelled to repeat. That sword was very sharp.
“That’s more like it. Hardly the stuff of dreams now, is it?” I wanted to say that actually it was - but the pain in my thumb felt real. It stung like hell and was bleeding. And the blood was real because I could taste it. What if I was wrong? What if it was a matter of life and death? Maybe this was my brain trying to repair itself. Would I wake up quicker if I went with the flow? What would a sensible person do? Probably imagine it’s like a computer game - the kind where you have to ask accurate questions before advancing to the next level.
“What exactly do I have to do again?” I asked.
“Complete Valhalla’s quest,” he replied.
“Which is?”
“Your choice,” he replied.
“I mean... What is the quest? Please?”
“Your choice,” he said.
“But that’s impossible! You have to say what it is.”
“No, I don’t.”
“This is ridiculous. It could be anything!”
“Use your initiative,” he said, not unkindly.
Use my initiative. Well, if that wall at the top landing represented my coma (it made sense at the time), I had to knock it down. Back up the stairs with a rocket launcher.
“Okay,” I said, “I’m leaving. I need a rocket launcher.”
The old boy stepped into my path. He appeared to have grown taller. He pointed the tip of his rapier at me and winked.
“If you beat me, you can leave early,” he purred.
So, it seemed that I had to deal with this lunatic first.
Dozens of rapiers criss-crossed the wall; I took one down.
The old boy stalked towards me like a geriatric panther. Game on. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt; it had a good grip. The ornate guard covered and protected my knuckles. The pommel nestled neatly inside my wrist. I lifted the rapier into ‘en-garde’. Not what I expected. Compared to my modern-day sword, it was an iron pole - impossible to flick and incredibly heavy. The blade was forged for sterner work. Its tip was a finely tooled point designed to slip into flesh and muscle with minimal resistance.
I made the first move. Something simple to see what he had. Beat, one-two, half-lunge to forearm. My point slipped into a decorative swirl adorning his guard. He locked his wrist and broke off the tip. Old rules, it made sense. I hurled my broken sword like a javelin. The old boy ducked. My broken blade stuck into the wall behind him with a thwack! And quivered there.
I grabbed another rapier. They were so bloody unwieldy. Stick to the basics. Focus.
I feinted high and dropped my hand to spike his knee. The Master of Swords parried in octave and riposted in spades, hammering his needle-sharp point into my guard, centimetres from my wrist and forearm. He was flicking. But the blades were too stiff. It was impossible! Flicking hadn’t been invented yet. How could he do that?
As I stepped back, I aimed for his foot. My timing was terrible. My opponent simply lifted his foot and stamped on my blade. I tried to wrench it free, but I couldn’t. He walked up it like a tightrope walker and sliced the tip of his sword into my shoulder. The pain was intense.
“First blood. I win!” He grinned like a champion. He offered his hand and helped me to my feet. “Not bad for a teenager.”
“Sir.” (I finally decided I should be treating him with respect.) “If I’d won, could I have truly gone home early?”
“No.” He shook his head and smiled. “You can only go home by completing a quest. Rules are rules, and I can’t control them. I just wanted to see what a modern-day fencer could do, that’s all.”
Marvellous. All that effort for nothing. I had a wound on my shoulder (not to mention a cut thumb and aches and pains everywhere else), just so this old boy could boast to his friends that he’d beaten a modern-day fencer. If the match had taken place on home turf with modern weapons, it would have been a different story. I was certain of it.
The Master of Swords unbuckled his scabbard and handed me his sword.
“A little something for your journey. I don’t often lend it out. But I never expected to meet a modern-day fencer. It’s been an absolute pleasure,” he said.
I stared at the gift. What a useless piece of kit - it was far too heavy and unwieldy. I’d be better off with an ass’s jawbone. Still, I could swap it or sell it and get something more useful. Something big like a shotgun. Or maybe something small and easy to conceal like an Uzi. The rapier certainly looked valuable; it should be easy to trade. I accepted the gift with a rueful smile. Then I held it above my head. I lowered my arm in awe, completely dumbfounded. “It’s as light as a pen!” I exclaimed.
“As light as a feather,” he confirmed. “You will never tire. It cuts like a razor, and no armour, however strong, can stand before it. Though it’s not very good for throwing at people.”
“I’ll remember that.” I grinned. What an incredible gift. No wonder he’s been so quick. I carefully drew the blade from its black leather scabbard. It was a beauty. Near the hilt, at the foot of the blade, Feather Song had been etched in old-fashioned script. “Feather Song. What a beautiful name. Who made this?”
“A very well-known blacksmith made it,” he said.
I didn’t know any blacksmiths. I returned the blade to its scabbard and fastened the belt around my waist.
“Please return it, if at all possible,” he said.
“Yes sir, I will. Thank you.”
“Good,” he said, and he motioned towards a tall, thin mirror without a frame. “Now step through Odin’s mirror, and you’ll be on your way.”
“Where to?”
“Back to a simpler time where people wield swords. The mirror decides where, and by passing through Odin’s mirror, you will be able to understand and speak any language you hear on your quest.”
“That’s handy,” I said. “But it’s a pity you won’t tell me what I have to do...”
“I can give you a hint,” said the old boy agreeably.
“Yes please,” I said. “It’s going to be extremely hard to do otherwise.”
“Choose honour,” he said.
“Honour?”
“Yes. Decide on an honourable quest and follow through.”
“But that could be anything.”
“Oh no,” he replied. “If it were easy to be honourable the universe would be a very different place.” He squinted at me. “It’s not meant to be easy,” he said.
“Okay,” I sighed. “I will choose an honourable quest… and follow through.” It kind of made sense thinking about it. I had to do something good to heal my head.
I faced the portal. My reflection surprised me. My white fencing kit looked grubby, as did my face. I pulled up my long white socks and checked the laces on my Adidas fencing shoes. They were tight and well tied. My long white socks looked out of place because they were so clean.
“Good-bye, young man.”
“Good-bye, sir.” Brushing my hair back, I took a deep breath and held it. I was expecting deep water. Turning my eyes into slits, I stepped cautiously into Odin’s mirror. But I needn’t have worried. Stepping through a mirror is like stepping through a door into a breeze.
Great! Love the read.
Love it!