Instantly, Sir Galahad wheeled his horse around and rode to the far
side of the meadow. There, he wheeled the horse around again and
dressed his spear. Moonlight danced a silvery saraband on his white
shield, and the blood-red cross blurred and seemed to run.
Mallory dressed his own spear. Immediately, Sir Galahad charged.
_Full speed ahead, Easy Money!_ Mallory encephalopathed, and the
rohorse took off like a rocket.
All he had to do was to hang on tight, and the joust would be in the
bag, he reassured himself. Sir Galahad's spear would break like a
matchstick, while his own superior spear would penetrate Sir Galahad's
shield as though the shield was made of tissue paper, as in a sense it
really was when you compared the metal that constituted it to modern
alloys. No matter how you looked at the situation, the kid was in for
a big letdown. Mallory almost felt sorry for him.
The hoofbeats of horse and rohorse crescendoed; there was the
resounding clang! of steel coming into violent contact with steel.
Mallory's spear struck Sir Galahad's shield dead center--and snapped
in two. Sir Galahad's spear struck Mallory's shield dead center--and
Mallory sailed over Easy Money's croup and crashed to the ground.
He was stunned, both mentally and physically. Staggering to his feet,
he drew his sword and raised his shield. Sir Galahad had wheeled his
horse around, and now he came riding back. Several yards from Mallory,
he tossed his spear aside, dismounted as lightly as though he wore no
armor at all, drew his sword, and advanced. Mallory stepped forward,
his confidence returning. His spear had been defective--that was it.
But his sword and his shield weren't, and now that the kid had elected
to give him a sporting chance, he would teach the young upstart a
lesson that he would never forget.
Again, the two men came together. Down came Sir Galahad's sixth
century sword; up went Mallory's twenty-second century shield. There
was an ear-piercing _clang_, and the shield parted down the middle.
Aghast, Mallory stepped back. Sir Galahad moved in, sword upraised
again. Mallory raised his own sword, caught the full force of the
terrific down-rushing blow on the blade. His sword was cut cleanly in
two, his left pauldron was cleanly cleaved, and a great numbness
afflicted his left shoulder. He went down.
He stayed down.
Sir Galahad leaned over him, unbroken sword uplifted. The cross in the
center of the snow-white shield was a bright and burning red. "Ye must
yield you as an overcome man, or else I may slay you."
"I yield," Mallory said.
Sir Galahad sheathed his sword. "Ye be not sorely wounded, and sithen
I desire not neither of they two steeds, as belike they be as unworthy
as they pieces, ye can return to thy castle unholpen."
* * * * *
Mallory blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, the shining
knight was gone.
He lay there in the moonlight for some time, looking up at the stars.
At length he fought his way to his feet and encephalopathed the two
rohorses to his side. Mounting Easy Money, he encephalopathed it to
return to the westernmost "castle of Yore" and encephalopathed the
other rohorse to follow. He left his broken weapons where they lay.
What had gone out of the world during the last sixteen hundred years
that had left sophisticated twenty-second century steel inferior in
quality to naive sixth-century wrought iron? What did Sir Galahad have
that he, Mallory, lacked? Mallory shook his head. He did not know.
The moonlit "towers" of the _Yore_ had become visible through the
trees before it occurred to him that before riding away the man just
might have removed the Sangraal from the black rohorse's croup. At
first thought, such a possibility was too absurd to be entertained,
but not on second thought. According to _Le Morte d'Arthur_, the
fellowship of Sir Galahad, Sir Percivale, and Sir Bors had taken both
the table of silver and the Sangraal to Sarras where, some time later,
the Sangraal had been "borne up to heaven", never to be seen again.
Whether they had taken the table of silver did not concern Mallory,
but what did concern him was the fact that if they had taken the
Sangraal they could have done so only if it had fallen into Sir
Galahad's hands this very night. Tomorrow would be too late--now was
too late, in fact--provided, of course, that Mallory was destined to
return with it to the twenty-second century. Here, then, was the
crossroads, the real moment of truth: was he destined to succeed, or
wasn't he?
Hurriedly, he encephalopathed the two rohorses to halt, dismounted,
and raised the black rohorse's trappings. He was dizzy from the loss
of blood, but he did not let his dizziness dissuade him from his
purpose, and he had the croup-hood raised in a matter of a few
seconds. He held his breath when he looked within, expelled it with
relief. The Sangraal had not been disturbed.
He lifted it out of the croup-compartment, straightened its red samite
covering, and cradled it in his arms. Too weak to remount Easy Money,
he encephalopathed the two rohorses to follow and began walking toward
the _Yore_. Rowena must have seen him coming on one of the
telewindows, for she had the lock open when he arrived. Her face went
white when she looked at him, and when she saw the Grail, her eyes
grew even larger than plums. He went over and set it gently down on
the rec-hall table, then he collapsed into a nearby chair. He had just
enough presence of mind left to send her for the bottle of
blood-restorer pills, and just enough strength left to swallow several
of them when she brought it. Then he boarded the phantom ship that had
mysteriously appeared beside him and set sail upon the soundless sea
of night.