THE QUIET KNIGHT

by garth nix

“No going out till you’ve split that wood, Tony. All two tons, you hear?”

Tony looked up from lacing his outdoor boots and made a gesture to indicate he’d already done the job. His father understood the sign, but he still went outside to check, returning a few minutes later as Tony was finishing winding the lace around the top of his left boot.

“When did you do it?”

Tony held up five fingers and curled back his forefinger, to make it four and a half.

“Four thirty? This morning before school?” his father exclaimed. “You’re crazy, son. But good for you. You must have chopped like crazy.”

Tony nodded. He had chopped like crazy. He’d enjoyed it though, crossing the lawn to the shed, the frost cracking under his boots. It had been cold to start with, and quite dark under the single lightbulb swaying on its lead high above his head. But as he’d swung the blockbuster, split the wood and stacked it, he’d gotten hot very quickly, and the sun had come up bright and strong.

“What is it tonight? Basketball practice?”

Tony nodded again, and shrugged on his backpack. It was a full-on hiker’s backpack, not a school satchel or day bag. He carried it everywhere outside school, notionally for all his sporting equipment, and his father had gotten used to it long ago and didn’t inquire about what was actually inside.

“Considering how much practice you do it’s a wonder you guys never win a game,” said his father. He’d been an all-round athlete in his youth, and he couldn’t help but needle Tony a little about his lack of sporting success. He didn’t come to the games, either, not for the last few years. He didn’t like being with the other dads when Tony’s team didn’t win. He was also too busy. Though they lived on a farm on the outskirts of the city, it was a hobby farm, a tax deduction and sideline interest for his dad, who was a senior executive in some shadowy government intelligence outfit. Tony’s mother and younger sister lived on the other side of the city, almost an hour’s drive away. He spent some time with them, but not much. He preferred the farm, even though it took him forty minutes to get to school on the bus.

Tony settled his pack, then mimed turning a car key to his dad.

“You want to borrow the monster again?”

Tony nodded.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to talk to me.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Tony. His voice was low and scratchy. It sounded like a rough scrubbing brush being drawn across broken stones. He’d accidentally drunk some bathroom cleaner when he was little, and it had burned his throat and larynx. His mother had blamed his father for it, and his father still blamed himself. “Can I borrow the car?”

“Of course. Be careful. No drinking after practice. None at all, you hear?”

Tony nodded. He looked old enough that he could easily pass for legal drinking age. He stood six foot four in bare feet, and took after his father in both his heavy build and an early onset of dark stubble on his face. He didn’t plan on drinking and he wasn’t going to basketball practice anyway.

He took the keys to the farm truck. His father moved as if to hug him, but didn’t follow through. Tony waited stolidly, ready to hug if that was what was required to get the keys.

“Okay. I’ll see you later. I’ll be in my study, working till late. Check in when you get home.”

Tony nodded and walked out into the cool, near-freezing air of the night.

The backpack held his armor, belt, helmet, and mask. His foam-wrapped PVC pipe boffer sword was in a sack in the tray of the truck. Tony checked to make sure it was still there. His dad hardly ever used the truck and practically never looked in the back, but a good knight always checks his weapons before venturing to battle.

That night’s game was being held in the usual place, the old wool shed and farm buildings on Dave Nash’s family property. Dave was a big mover and shaker in LARP circles; he’d been involved in live-action role-playing for more than twenty years. He was in his forties, heavier and slower than in the old pictures and videos Tony had seen. He was still a tough fighter, though he mostly ran the games rather than participating in them.

Tony parked the truck off the road a half mile from the Nash property, edging it well behind a fringe of trees. It was a rural road, and not much traveled, but there would be other LARP gamers heading along it later and he didn’t want them to spot him or the vehicle.

It took him ten minutes to get his armor on. First there was the athletic supporter and the padded undergarment, which were easy enough. It was the thigh-length hauberk made of thousands of steel rings that was the hassle. It was a lot easier if you had help to lace the back up, but he’d worked out a method using a long leather strap and a lot of wriggling about.

He didn’t change his boots, but tied on a pair of gaiters that disguised them so they looked more medieval. The hauberk was long enough to protect his thighs, but he strapped on converted ice-hockey armor to his knees and shins. It was painted black and looked okay, at least it would in the partially lit game that would occur tonight.

Tony’s helmet was fairly basic. Unlike the hauberk, which he’d bought with the unwitting assistance of his mother, he’d made it himself in Dave’s workshop with a lot of help. It was modeled on a classic Norman nasal-bar helmet and went on over a padded lining and a mail coif, which also protected his neck.

With almost everything on, Tony added the final unique touch: a half-mask of beaten gold (actually gold paint over tough plastic) that covered his face from his chin to just below his eyes. It locked onto the nasal bar and the sides of the helmet and was perforated so he could breathe. And talk, if he wanted to do that.

All armored up, Tony tested his movement, jumping, springing, lunging and stepping back. Everything was on right and tight, so he strapped on his belt and put on his leather gauntlets. Last of all he took up his sword, practiced a few test swings and cuts, then laid it at rest on his shoulder.

There was a beaten track made by the sheep along the inside of the barbed wire fence that paralleled the road some ten yards in. Tony had made a rough stile when he first started going to the LARP sessions a few years before, just a log up against a corner post that he could run up and jump down on the other side. He checked that, too, before he went over. It would be very embarrassing to break a leg out here alone, in full armor….

As he always did, Tony stopped at the edge of the roadside trees to observe who was waiting outside the woolshed, before he went on. The woolshed itself was huge, a vast barnlike relic of bygone days when two hundred shearers had worked inside, shearing several thousand sheep a day. Dave Nash had partitioned it up inside with moveable walls and scenery like a theater so he could arrange all kinds of different scenarios. The LARP group used the paddocks outside as well as the smaller buildings. For evening games like this one, they always chose a night when the moon was full. It wasn’t up yet, so all the exterior lights were on, including the big floodlights at the front of the woolshed. They lit up the bare dirt field in front that was used as a car park.

There were half a dozen cars there now, parked as far from the woolshed as possible, in the half-dark so they wouldn’t detract from the atmosphere. Tony recognized all but one of them. Seeing a strange car made him cautious, so he carefully scanned the group around the front steps of the woolshed.

Dave Nash was standing there, wearing his wizard’s robes, which meant he would be the gamemaster and not an active participant. Next to him were the twins, Jubal and Jirah, equipped and dressed as elven scouts in green and tan leather, with their boffer long swords at their sides. They didn’t have their bows. Dave didn’t allow even boffered bows, since he’d nearly lost an eye a few years before. Other groups did use them, and Jubal and Jirah were fine archers, even with the very light draw bows used in LARP.

Besides Jubal and Jirah, there were five regulars Tony knew, all of them already geared up in armor from Dave’s Orc armory, with an array of foam-core axes, halberds, and other polearms. Their latex masks and helmets were stacked on the steps. No one put them on until they had to. It got very hot and sweaty very quickly fighting in a latex mask. But it looked good.

That meant the strange car belonged to the two people Tony didn’t know. A girl he guessed was around his age, who wasn’t wearing armor, but a serviceable dress of red and gold, square-cut around the neck. She had a lute on her back and a reed pipe through the gold cloth belt she wore, so she was clearly a bard.

The boy at her side was younger and had the same dark but slightly strange good looks as the girl, so Tony guessed they were brother and sister. He wore leather trousers, a leather brigandine coat and a leather cap that was a bit like a WWI aviator’s helmet. Two long daggers were thrust through broad loops on his belt. Boffer weapons didn’t scabbard very easily. The foam cladding made them bulky but was of course essential to not getting hurt.

Dave walked up to the top step, tapping his way with his six-foot oaken staff that was tipped with a Cyalume chemical light. He turned at the top and spread his arms wide.

“Are all who would essay tonight’s adventure present?”

“Aye!” called the people around the steps.

Tony hesitated, then strode forward toward the light, stamping his feet as he walked so he made more noise.

“Ah, the Quiet Knight approaches!” declaimed Dave, a smile flitting across his face. He was the only one who knew who Tony actually was, and he respected the confidence. “You are welcome, as always, Sir Silent.”

Tony saluted with his sword, and went to stand off to one side, near but not close to Jubal and Jirah.

“We have two newcomers, recently moved to our fair realm,” said Dave. “Sorayah the Bard, and Horace the Halfling Rogue. Welcome, Sorayah and Horace.”

Sorayah was cute, Tony thought, and she and Horace were definitely sister and brother. They had the same nose and eyes, and probably the same ears, though it was hard to tell, as Horace had stuck artificial hairy ears over his own.

“Tonight we seek to find a passage through the ancient tunnels of Harukn-Dzhur,” said Dave. He nodded at the orcs, who picked up their masks and helmets and walked off to one of the entrances around the side of the woolshed. “If we can but find a way, we may escape those who have pursued us from the wilds….”

Tony listened carefully as Dave set up the scene. “Tunnels” meant that Dave would have spent the last week rearranging the walls and lowering the temporary ceilings inside the woolshed, and there would be lots of close combat, with only enough light for safety. Dave liked strobe lights, too, and color effects for magic, and he had a lot to work with, since he’d bought all the old lighting gear, sets, and props when the city had condemned the Alder Street Theater.

“We begin with the long crawl through the zigzag way,” intoned Dave. “Horace, will you scout a little way ahead? Not too far, mind. Ten feet, no more.”

“Aye,” said Horace. He drew his daggers and moved to the door.

“Sir Silent, if you would follow, and Sorayah behind you,” said Dave. “I task you with protecting the Bard, for she wears no armor, and we will need her magic and her song in times to come. I will follow, and Jubal and Jirah will guard our rear.”

Sorayah came over to Tony and curtsied, inadvertently giving him a good look down the front of her dress.

Tony bowed back. He was glad she couldn’t see him blush.

“I thank you for your protection, gallant knight,” she said. He liked her voice. It sounded cool and pure, and she had the trace of some foreign accent that sounded real, not like it was put on for the game.

He bowed again, and led the way up the steps. Horace was lying on his stomach, listening at the gap in the bottom of the door. As Tony approached, he stood up and slowly opened it. There was darkness within, but slowly a weak red light blossomed, revealing a narrow passage no more than three feet high.

“The long crawl!” hissed Dave. “Let the adventure begin!”

Tony didn’t get home till just before midnight, his curfew time. It had been a great game, one of the best, and the others had stayed behind to have a drink and chat around the fire, wrapped in the cloaks from a long-ago Alder Street production of Henry V.

Tony had wanted to stay too, to talk to Sorayah, and it wasn’t the curfew that stopped him. It was his inability to talk. He knew that as soon as he opened his mouth and she heard his hoarse crow-voice her face would show scorn, or even worse, pity. He didn’t want that. She respected him as the Quiet Knight; they had enjoyed playing their parts; it was best to keep whatever they had in the game.

Tony laughed at himself for thinking such stupid thoughts. Whatever they had! They didn’t have anything. He’d protected her in the game, sure enough, and had taken bruises enough to show for it, including the one across the back of his left hand that was coming up purple and brown. But that didn’t mean anything in real life. He didn’t even know her real name, or where she lived, or anything.

Tony was sore and his arms and legs were very stiff the next morning. Splitting two tons of wood for the potbelly stove and later fighting for four hours was way too much, too much even for a blindingly hot shower to totally remedy. His bruises had come up as well, on his hand and forearms and the back of one leg. He applied anti-inflammatory cream to the worst of them, but didn’t take a painkiller.

The bus trip to school was normal. Tony sat two-thirds of the way to the back, alone as always, with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head. He was big and mean-looking enough that the bullies and the petty annoyers left him alone, but since he didn’t talk, no one else interacted with him, either. In fact, most of them, including the bullies, were afraid of his dark, hooded presence, though he didn’t know that.

He spent the time looking out the window, wondering what the hell he was doing with his life. There was one more year of school to get through, which he could do. His grades were good, better than anyone ever expected from a silent ox. But he had no friends. Not real friends. Dave was the closest to a real friend that he had, but Dave had a family and a job and was just being kind to a kid.

Tony supposed he could be friends with Jubal and Jirah. They went to the same school, though they were a year behind. They had lots of friends, too, gamers and fantasy freaks and alternative drama types. That was the trouble. Tony already felt he was an outcast. A disguised outcast, to be sure. He looked normal enough. No one in the street would ever know he that he had a weird voice and liked to dress up and play pretend fighting.

If he revealed himself to Jubal and Jirah as the Quiet Knight, they probably would welcome him as a friend, and he could hang out with their friends. But everyone would know he was a real weirdo. Besides, if he had friends they’d expect him to talk….

What would the Quiet Knight do? Tony asked himself. Not talk, that’s for sure. He’d just get on with things, in his own quiet way….

The bus stopped outside the school. Tony waited for everyone to get out, then slowly followed, steeling himself for another day of trying to minimally answer questions. The teachers usually didn’t push him too much now, not after a long trial with one particular English teacher a few years before, which had ended with Tony still stubbornly refusing to deliver a speech, his father raging in the principal’s office, and the teacher requesting a job transfer to another school.

The usual stream of student foot traffic filled the front drive, most of them heading for the main doors, with knots of people here and there delaying the inevitable. Tony strode through them, his mind on last night’s game. Younger students scattered out of his way without him noticing. He didn’t know that he was a legend to the lower years, his reluctance to talk transformed into a story of backwoods tongue mutilation and bloody revenge. Even if the backwoods in question were only ten miles past the outer suburbs.

There was a small commotion just before the doors, to the left of the front steps in the blind spot that was hidden from the security cameras out front and the gaze of the teacher on door duty. There often was something going on there; it was a favorite spot for some casual bullying or lunch money shakedowns. Tony never paid much attention to this kind of thing. It never happened to him.

This time, he stopped. Two students were being terrorized by five of the spoiled brat girls, the ones who liked to think they were rough and tough and had some kind of gang readily identifiable by infected eyebrow piercings without the studs (since the school wouldn’t allow it) and expensive leather jackets bought by their daddies and driven over to rough them up.

The two students being tormented were Soraya and Horace. Soraya was wearing another medieval-style dress, this time in dark yellow. She looked good, but totally out of place at school. Horace, though in jeans and a T-shirt, still had on the stupid hairy ears. Two of the self-proclaimed bad girls were holding Soraya back with difficulty; two more were holding Horace, and the five-eyebrow-piercings leader, whose name was Ellen, was trying to tear the ears off Horace.

“They’re stuck on; he can’t get them off!” Soraya shouted. She shook off one of the girls and swung at Ellen, but there were too many of them and she was dragged back.

“Stop! Let him go!”

A baseball cap was shoved in Soraya’s mouth, muffling her shouts. She kept struggling, kicking back at her captors’ knees. Horace was trying to bite his enemies, tears of pain welling up as his real ears were twisted every which way.

Tony saw Soraya’s frantic gaze as she looked every which way for help. But her gaze swept across him and then she was bundled farther back into the shadow of the stairs.

He’d been invisible to her. Just another student who wasn’t going to help, who didn’t want to get involved, or cross Ellen and her gang. It wasn’t just her and her half-dozen girls. There were their boyfriends as well, most of whom were bad-tempered second-string jocks who weren’t good enough to focus all their energy on sports.

Tony stopped for what felt like ages, but could not have been longer than a second. Then he continued on up the steps, crashing through several slower students.

I can’t intervene, he thought. She’s in a medieval dress. He’s got hobbit ears on. They won’t really hurt her….

He stopped before the doors as another thought struck him like a blow to the heart.

What would the Quiet Knight do?

Tony turned about and pulled back his hood before taking a very deep breath. The students coming up the stairs parted like the red sea as he stood there, taking another breath, sucking in the air as if he were taking in strength.

I must do it, he thought. And I will talk to her, even if she does laugh.

He ran down the stairs. Students sprang aside and dragged their friends out of his path and turned to watch as Tony picked Ellen up and lifted her over his head and then gently but very firmly deposited her on the steps.

“Sit,” he ordered. Ellen gulped and sat on the step, and Tony turned to the other girls.

“Let them go.”

His voice was as peculiar and scratchy and variably pitched as ever, but coming immediately after lifting their leader above his head, incredibly effective. The bad girls released Soraya and Horace and backed away.

“They are under my protection,” rasped Tony. “You will never even talk to them again, understand?”

The bad girls nodded.

“Go to class,” added Tony. He stabbed a finger at Ellen. “You, too. And keep your mouths shut.”

Ellen stood, and for a moment Tony thought she might do something. But she turned away and went up the stairs, with her minions hurrying after her.

Tony turned back to Soraya, and the words that had so gloriously issued from his mouth failed him. She smiled and curtsied. He looked up and blushed and averted his gaze to Horace, who shrugged and rubbed his ears.

“Super glue, all right?” said Horace. “So it was a bad idea. It goes with being called Horace in the first place. Stupid parents. They can’t organize laundry either or my sister?—”

“Thank you again, Sir Silent,” interrupted Soraya, with a quelling glance at her brother. She stepped closer to Tony, and looked up at him. He thought that it would be very easy to rest his chin upon her silky head and draw her close.

Tony tried to ask her how she knew who he was. No sound came out, but his puzzled frown was clear enough.

“Your eyes are very distinctive,” said Soraya. “And the bruise on your arm.”

Tony nodded slowly, and gulped again. He was making a fool of himself, he knew, and he felt an incredibly strong compulsion to back away, to pull his hood up and just disappear.

But he wanted to stay, he wanted to talk, and so he fought against the urge to run.

“My name really is Soraya, by the way.”

Tony cleared his throat. Soraya waited patiently, smiling, looking straight into his eyes. The world faded away around them as Tony gulped at the air again and searched for the words that he knew he had to say.

“Tony,” said the Quiet Knight at last. “My name is Tony.”