The Warslayer(32)

Or (for that matter) could?

Educated, really adept nutcases with a strong engineering background, that was who.

And that was what was really bothering her about all this. Because they were a bunch of folk who could build something like this—who HAD built something like this, and then had been rolled out like pastry dough by a villain. . . .

Whom they expected her to put under heavy manners for them with a nice sword, a fancy costume, and some B-movie dialogue.

Her.

The final results are in and it's definite: the universe is without reason or sense.

"How very odd," Belegir said suddenly.

"Wozzer?" Glory said, startled. She dropped her tote-bag, her hand going to her sword in a gesture that was starting to become automatic. It wasn't as if she thought she could actually use it on someone in cold blood, but it certainly looked intimidating. And she could certainly give them a good discouraging whack with the flat.

"That door oughtn't be open."

As though it had grown as tired as she was, the ornament and the cyclopean scale had both dwindled slowly and unnoticeably away, until Glory and her companion now stood in a passageway little different than the one they had first entered: a bare corridor of grey rock about twelve feet in every direction. Directly ahead, the passage ended. In the end wall, three steps led up to a plain wooden door secured with a drop bar.

To the right of the steps, on the level they were on now, another wooden door—the one that bothered Belegir—stood open. Bright purple radiance, as harsh and strong as desert sunlight, illuminated the room within and spilled out into the corridor.

"What's in there?" Glory asked, drawing her sword as quietly as she could. A random thought came to her: she wondered why the scriptwriters on TITAoVtS had never given the thing a name, like Bonecruncher or Headknocker or something. Maybe they'd been saving it for Season Two.

"Artifacts of the Time of Legend," Belegir said.

"Great. You wait here." She set Gordon carefully down beside her bag, and tiptoed cautiously toward the light.

Why am I doing this? she wondered in the part of her mind that was still bothering with anything beyond listening intently for sounds from up ahead. The answer was patently obvious. Because Belegir was a helpless old man. Because he was doing his best for her, and so she ought to do her best for him. Because good harmless people did not deserve to play the victim for villains and frighteners. And because she was the one with the big sword.

She got to the door and peered cautiously around the edge. If this had been an episode, she'd have done a forward roll and come up fighting, but it was a stone floor and she had no idea what the inside of the room looked like. If it was as full of junk as the others they'd passed had been, she could do more damage to herself than the villains could, assuming there were any in there.

She peeped cautiously around the edge. No sound. No movement. Just a whole room full of . . .

Armor?

And the purple light was coming from a giant neon sword that was hovering in midair.

Glory gave up on stealth, walked in flat-footed, and stared.

She realized after a moment that the sword wasn't all that giant, and it wasn't neon. But it did seem to be hovering, and it did seem to be the source of most of the light in the room. She stared at it for several seconds before she could tear her gaze away and look quickly around the rest of the room.

It looked pretty much like the Wardrobe and Props Department at TITAoVtS: racks of armor, racks of shields, racks of weapons. Nothing else. Nothing that looked like a threat or menace.

"Ah, Belegir? I reckon it's safe to come in," she said sheepishly. She went back to staring at the sword.

It was—radiance or no radiance—purple. No, PURPLE. The blade had that dull satiny sheen and pale grape color of that weird posh metal they made hypoallergenic jewelry out of. It looked sharp. She couldn't quite bring herself to touch it, even if she could have figured out how, with the thing hovering point-downward in the middle of the room eight feet off the floor. She craned her neck to look up.

The helve and quillons (she knew these terms courtesy of Bruce, the show's swordmaster, who was a real bug on all things edged and pointy) were of the same color metal as the blade, though glossier, and very fancy in a curved and scrolled fashion. Quillons and pommel were inset with large fuchsia crystals that looked just like the one that had been on Belegir's staff when he'd come to see her in Hollywood. They were the source of the light bright enough to read Bible print by. The whole effect was rather gaudy and alarming, really, but somehow Glory wasn't alarmed. It was more like she'd gotten to the money shot in the latest summer blockbuster and was marveling at the cool special effects.