The Sword of Aradel by Alexander Key

hers. It was not until he clasped her small cold hands, and felt the tremor in them, that he realized how frightened she was.
    â€œDon’t worry,” he managed to say. “Everything will be all right. I know it!”
    â€œI—I—you are very brave, Sir Brian. Thank you.”
    â€œYou are the brave one, your grace.”
    â€œPlease, I wish you wouldn’t address me that way.”
    â€œBut it is your right! And as long as you call me Sir Brian—”
    â€œThat is the way I want it. Later, when we—but the dawn is here. Take a long breath.”
    He did so.
    â€œReady, Sir Brian?”
    â€œReady!”
    He closed his eyes and waited. In a low voice she began the curious chant with its many numbers, far more numbers than he had heard her use before. At last she finished with a rhyme:
    â€œBy all my right, and power bright,
    Please take us through the dawning light—
    A thousand years of day and night;
    Please take us to that realm unknown
    Where Cerid fled when hope had flown,
    And hid so well that none can tell
    Where hangs the sword of Aradel.”
    There came the familiar giddiness, as if he were whirling and flying apart, only it was far worse now than he ever would have dreamed it could be. Abruptly he came down hard on his heels, so hard that he crumpled.
    When he opened his eyes he gasped in disbelief.
    Merra screamed.

7
    Nightmare
    F OR TERRIFYING SECONDS B RIAN’S ONLY IMPRESSIONS were of noise and blinding lights, of hordes of hurrying humans, strangely dressed, who were swirling about them, and of impossible mechanisms on wheels that seemed to be charging madly upon them from all directions.
    He and Merra had fallen in a tangle on the edge of hard pavement, and for a dazed and bewildered moment he was unable to move or even think. Then the blare of horns and the sudden sharp awareness of the hurtling things on wheels brought him to his senses. He managed to stand up and jerk Merra to her feet, then he pulled her through the moving press of people to what appeared to be the entrance of an incredible building made of glass. It took them out of the human tide and gave them a chance to take stock of this monstrous caldron of another era into which they had tumbled.
    Gradually Brian’s shock wore off. The size of the place awed him, but everything about it repelled him. He stared blankly at the endless streams of people, wondering where they came from, where they were going. So many, many people! Why did they build their buildings so impossibly high? Why did they jam their streets with those frightening machines? And the lights—he couldn’t get over them. It was night here, but the lights made it bright as day. Lights uncounted, garish, flashing, constantly changing color and pattern. And under it all was something he’d never heard before: the sound of a monster city. It was humming, grinding, blaring …
    â€œIt—it’s like a horrid dream,” Merra whispered, her hand clinging tightly to his arm.
    â€œYes. I can’t understand why Cerid ever chose such a place as this.”
    â€œShe didn’t. It was the formula. All she knew was that it would take her safely into the future.”
    â€œDo you suppose she landed here, in this spot?”
    â€œShe must have. Or a place very close.”
    Brian shook his head. “What a chance she took! She might have been killed.”
    â€œYes, but she hardly cared. You mustn’t forget that she was nearly out of her mind with grief. I—I would have run too—just as fast and as far as I could. The Dryads are that way. Bringing the sword and hiding it here was almost—well, I mean she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing it ordinarily.”
    â€œBut—but where around here would she have hidden it?” His eyes followed the soaring lines of the impossible sky-reaching structures that made a deep valley of the street. “Don’t tell me she left it in