Grailblazers Read Online Free Page A

fact, I do it so well that some of them bring them back afterwards and complain that they still aren’t right, even when I’ve hexed the dratted things so hard they’d withstand a nuclear attack.’
    â€˜That sounds like a really good cover,’ Boamund said. ‘Actually, while I’m here, I’ll get you just to have a quick look at my astrolabe. I think it’s the bearings.’
    The hermit ignored him. ‘I’m fortunate, of course,’ he continued, ‘in still having a dwarf.’
    â€˜You mean Toenail?’
    â€˜That’s right. They’re getting a bit thin on the ground, dwarves, though it’s not as bad as it was. I think it was the free milk they used to give out to schoolchildren. Plays havoc with calcium deficiency, milk.’ The hermit frowned. ‘I’m drifting off the point a bit, aren’t I? You and your destiny, all that sort of thing. I expect you want to know what your destiny actually is. Well...’
    â€˜Atishoo!’ Boamund said.
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’
    Boamund explained that he’d just spent the last fifteen hundred years in a draught. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you were saying...’
    â€˜What you’ve got to do,’ said the hermit, ‘is go to Ventcaster-on-Ouse and discover the Holy Grail.’
    Boamund thought for a moment.
    The curriculum of chivalry is selective. It consists of, in modern terms, A-level heraldry, genealogy, religious instruction and falconry, horsemanship and weapon-handling to degree level, and the option of postgraduate studies in either mysticism or dalliance. Essential as all these disciplines are to the profession of arms, none of them tends to stimulate the rational faculties. If you can’t kill it, hit people with it or worship it, then as far as chivalry is concerned it clearly can’t be all that important. To set a knight thinking, therefore, a proposition has to be fairly startling.
    â€˜If you know it’s in Ventcaster-on-Ouse,’ said Boamund carefully, ‘how come you need me to go and look for it? Couldn’t you just send a dwarf to fetch it or something?’
    The hermit smiled kindly. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘perhaps I could have put that better. I’m not saying the Grail is in Ventcaster. In fact, it’s a pretty safe bet that that’s one place on earth that the Grail isn’t. But if you’re going to look for it, going to Ventcaster is an essential preliminary step, because that’s where the rest of the Grail Knights are. They need a new Grand Master. That’s you.’ He paused. ‘Better?’ he asked.
    Boamund nodded. He was still thinking. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s fine. But why me, what’s a Grail and why?’
    Maybe the hermit smiled again, or maybe it was the original smile winched up another eighth of an inch.
    â€˜When the powers that be decided that Albion was finally going into Europe and we had to start changing over to continental ways,’ said the hermit with obvious distaste, ‘a few of the more far-sighted of us reckoned that it would be a good idea to ... how shall I put it? We salted away a few essential personnel - knights and hermits and sages and the like - just in case. They had to be fairly low status, or else they’d have been missed, but with potential nevertheless. You were one of them.’
    â€˜Oh,’ Boamund said.
    â€˜What you might call low-flying high-flyers,’ the hermit explained. ‘Bright lights under heavy bushels. Anyway, from time to time, when we need you, we wake you up. The Grail Knights have just lost their leader, and so...’
    â€˜Killed?’
    â€˜Not exactly,’ said the hermit, sourly. ‘He left the Order to start a window-cleaning round in Leamington Spa. So, of course, we need a replacement. It’s a good posting,’ the hermit added, as Boamund gave him a look you could have