The Dragon At War

  Angie shuddered again.

  "But he shrunk it down to almost a speck," Jim told her. "I was surprised at how easy it was to swallow. Anyhow, with that in me, and practicing at it, I've begun to get a better grasp of magic. To start off with I was just using sort of kindergarten magic. Now I'm beginning to put together simpler enchantments. One of those will give me something to make the trip. I'll enclose all of us in a bubble of air, kept continually fresh. I've done it before."

  "You have?" Angie sat up suddenly in the bed and looked narrowly down at him. "When? Where?"

  Jim saw another quagmire in front of him. When had been when he was held in thrall by a particularly beautiful, female, French water fairy. He had used the magic to escape from her.

  "Oh just a lake I had to cross by walking along the bottom of it and up the other side," he said carelessly. "Also, this time if I'm delayed, I'll find some way of sending you messages."

  "Good!" said Angie. She jumped off the bed. "Now, what do you need to take back to Giles and Brian? Let me help you get it together."

  Some two hours later, Jim reappeared on the pebbly shore of the beach, leading a single horse with all the personal belongings, armor, weapons and food for each knight. Happily, Brian had arrived at the castle on his destrier, and leading a baggage horse in expectation of some adventure, for like most knights he was able to get by with very little. Nevertheless, the faces of both knights fell as they approached Jim and saw what his single horse carried.

  "Where's my lance? Where's Blanchard, my horse?" demanded Brian, as he reached Jim.

  "And my lance, and my horse?" said Giles, right behind him. "To say nothing of your own, James?"

  "You won't be needing them where we're going," said Jim. "Remember, a horse can't travel under water. And even if it was, it couldn't get up enough speed against the water to make your lance-work useful. So we'll save ourselves trouble all around by leaving them behind."

  "Won't feel the same," grumbled Brian. Nonetheless, he began to check what was on the baggage horse's back, and remove pieces of his armor, preparatory to putting them on.

  Jim himself was putting off the business of getting on his armor and weapons. Instead he was pacing the shingle of the beach while he worked out the magic needed to take them safely to their destination.

  This involved not one, but a number of incantations; and even though what he finally worked out seemed to cover everything necessary, he had a vague feeling something was missing. He returned to the others and began to put on armor and weapons.

  "What made you wait till now, James?" asked Brian curiously. "You seemed to have something on your mind, the way you were walking to and fro, over there."

  "I was solving a magical problem," said Jim.

  Brian was completely satisfied with the answer, as Jim had known he would be. In any case, it would have done no good to tell them what he had figured out, since none of it would have made much sense to either of them.

  He proceeded, accordingly, to armor and arm himself with the help of the other two, as the other two had helped each other, into their respective armor. Even fourteenth-century armor was almost impossible for a man to put on completely by himself; and be sure it was firmly tied, hooked, or otherwise fastened in place.

  Finally ready, Jim lifted up his visor—which had managed to fall down as they fastened his leg greaves—and looked into the other two faces, peering back at him from under their own raised visors.

  All this putting on of armor, Jim knew, was probably unnecessary. But it would be impossible to convince the other two of that. They were going into an unknown situation, and the thought in either knight's head of doing any such thing without armor and weapons would have struck them as unthinkable.

  There was only one more thing to be done; and that was to magically send the baggage horse back to the stables of Castle Malencontri.

  He did so.

  "Now," said Jim, "I'm going to summon our guide to where we're going."

  "Forgive me for asking, m'Lord," said Brian. His use of the title emphasized the formality and therefore the importance of his question. "But where is that, exactly?"

  "I've no idea," answered Jim, "but our guide will. He knows this kraken; and he'll take us to him. Now, all I've got to do is call him. His name's Rrrnlf."

  Once more, he tried to trill the initial R, and succeeded well enough so that Giles looked at him with a glance of both puzzlement and approval.

  "Rrrnlf," said Giles, doing a much better job of it than Jim had been able to do. Giles's Northumbrian background, obviously, Jim thought.

  "That's right," he said.

  He turned and walked down and away from them to where the waves smashed against the shore closest to them. He stood for a moment watching; and noticed that the waves came up different distances. In fact he was forced to move back a few feet, when one of the waves came up to the point where it would have splashed over the armor of his feet and lower legs. He found himself wondering if it was actually true that the ninth wave always came farthest up the beach. He had read that someplace. Some story by Rudyard Kipling, he thought.

  Having retreated, he cupped his gauntleted hands about his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could.

  "Rrrnlf!"

  He repeated the call half a dozen times, but only the waves smashing on the beach responded. He was not at all surprised at this. Rrrnlf might be anywhere; and his notions of time were unguessable.

  Jim went back to Giles and Brian.

  "Now," he said, "I've called our guide. He's called a Sea Devil, by the way. But I've no way of knowing whether he's going to get here in fifteen minutes or fifteen days. So we'll just have to be patient. If it turns out to be a matter of days, we'll set up a camp here."

  The other two nodded. They were no strangers to having to live outdoors for days, or more, if necessary. It was part of ordinary travel.

  "Meanwhile," Jim went on, "I'll start on the magic that'll make it safe for us to go down with him to see this kraken. If you don't mind I'll just go off a little distance to do that."

  "By all means, James," said Brian, almost hastily; and Giles nodded again vigorously beside him. They had a healthy respect for magic and believed in being a polite distance from it when a magician was at work.

  Accordingly, Jim walked down the beach about fifty yards, though actually this was not necessary at all, and began to form the various magical commands that would need to be put together to create the vehicle that would take them safely under water.

  Giles, of course, having selkie blood and able to become a seal, could have dived to a considerable depth. But Jim suspected Granfer would be a lot deeper than a seal could go with just the air in his lungs. Pressure would increase rapidly; and, seal or not, he would have to return to the surface for more oxygen, then dive again to join them.

  Altogether, an impractical way of traveling along with the other two.

  Jim cogitated; then, after a moment, he came up with the last line of the incantations he had worked while pacing the beach.

  MAKE TRANSPARENT BUBBLE WITH ALL

  NECESSARY AMENITIES TWELVE FEET

  IN DIAMETER → NOW

  Something almost invisible appeared immediately in front of him. It was the bubble, all right, for it shimmered. He could barely make out its shape from the fact that the farther beach seen through it was distorted. It looked like a very satisfactory submersible.

  He was proceeding with other incantations, to make doubly sure the air in it would always be fresh and that it would resist any depth of water pressure they should encounter, when a sudden roar from seaward interrupted his attention and made him look in that direction as he recognized the roar for the single word it had been.

  "Hail!"

  Sure enough, now that he looked, the familiar head of Rrrnlf was beginning to protrude from the waves only about fifty feet offshore. As Jim watched the Sea Devil waded forward, appearing to grow as he emerged from the sea.

  "Muddy botto
m here, but nicely shelving," he boomed. "Don't like the feel of mud underfoot, though!"

  By the time he had finished this sentence he was striding through the last of the surf and up onto the shore itself, where he stopped, about a dozen feet down the shore from where Jim was.

  "How can I help you, wee Mage?" His deep voice echoed over Jim's head.

  But Jim was staring in fascination at the sort of half boots tied up around his massive thighs with thongs.

  "But your feet aren't muddy at all!" he said.

  "Oh I was careful to walk above the mud, not in it," said Rrrnlf. "Always do that. Don't like mud at all. No, no, I don't like it. Or silt."

  "But—" Jim looked at the towering thirty-foot figure, which seemed to be bearing down on the stones of the beach beneath its feet with entirely normal ponderousness for a body of that size. "How did you manage to walk above the mud? I mean, without touching it?"

  "No trick, wee man," boomed Rrrnlf. "I just thought light. Think light and then you don't need to touch what's underfoot. Just a matter of thinking."

  "Oh, I see," said Jim. The trick must be part of the abilities of Sea Devils as Naturals. Now that he stopped to think of it, it would be handy not only for mud, but for walking over coral, or something like it which would quickly slice any sort of boots, shoes or feet to ribbons.

  He suddenly remembered Brian and Giles. When something the size of Rrrnlf hove on the scene, there was a tendency to forget about smaller objects. Jim hurried to amend the matter.

  "If you'll turn around," he said to the Sea Devil, "you'll allow me to present to you Sir Brian Neville-Smythe of Smythe Castle; and Sir Giles de Mer of Northumberland. Two worthy gentlemen, and Companions of mine who will be accompanying me."

  Rrrnlf turned, looked down at the two men and boomed genially.

  "Good to meet both you wee knights," he said. "Which one's Brian and which's Giles?"

  "I am Sir Brian!" said Brian with an edge to his voice. Clearly, Rrrnlf's size was not intimidating him. Giles looked almost equally ready to challenge the Sea Devil to single combat. But Rrrnlf had spoken in pleasant terms, and the least they could do in courtesy was to reply.

  "And I am Sir Giles," said Giles.

  "Well, well, well, well," said Rrrnlf, turning back to Jim. "Now what was it you wanted from me, wee Mage?"

  "I want you to take us, all three of us, to meet Granfer. We need to talk to him," said Jim. "Can you find him?"

  "I know where everything in all of the oceans are, of course," said Rrrnlf. "What sort of Sea Devil would I be if I didn't? Shall we go?"

  "I've got a few things to do first," said Jim. He had not expected the other anywhere near this swiftly; and the magic on the vehicle he had built for Giles, Brian and himself was still incomplete.

  "Oh, working some of your wee magic, I see," said Rrrnlf. "Go ahead, by all means. Take your time. I have all the time in the world. Centuries. Millennia, if necessary."

  "It won't take anything like that long," said Jim a little shortly. He knew Rrrnlf meant well, but the Sea Devil seemed unable to help rubbing others the wrong way. He found himself feeling a little bit like the way Giles and Brian must be feeling after Rrrnlf's condescending greeting of them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They dropped swiftly at a shallow angle through a translucent blue darkness—or was it a translucent blue lightness? They were very far beneath the surface of the ocean now, and the light had grown less and less; until finally it had given way to this strange bluish illumination, which was very dim but at the same time seemed to illuminate remarkably.

  They were moving at what Jim estimated to be a terrific speed. He could only measure it and their drop by the sensations in his stomach, like those of someone in an elevator that was dropping rapidly; and the occasional flash of the form of some sea life that they passed. They were moving at this speed to keep up with Rrrnlf, beside them.

  How the Sea Devil was managing to travel so fast was a mystery; because he was not visibly swimming or moving his body. He seemed to progress the same way someone who was able to do so might levitate himself through the air—except that for some reason Jim was certain that they were traveling at about the speed of a commercial airliner, back on his original world.

  It was impossible for Rrrnlf to move without moving, so to speak. But it was also impossible for their bubble to travel this fast through as thick a medium as water, without making that water effectively as solid as concrete. Unless the answer for them lay in one of Jim's magic incantations.

  He had, in building the bubble, taken the precaution to make it "uncrushable," at any pressure.

  But it was an eerie, and an uncomfortable, situation. Jim sat on a stool on the leveled floor he had created, along with the stools, inside the bubble. Rrrnlf was just outside the bubble to his right, now; and Giles and Brian sat on other stools, facing him.

  The two knights looked as uncomfortable as Jim felt. Their present situation was undeniably unnatural and frightening.

  Jim forced his own emotions down under control. At all costs, he thought, he must keep up the spirits of the other two; because while they were both men who normally feared nothing, this was the type of unreasonable, magical situation that could make flinders of even their courage.

  Jim put on a grin for their benefit.

  "Well, well," he said to them, "we're on our way!"

  Neither of the others responded. It was obvious that they were on their way. Jim tried again.

  "Strange, isn't it?" he said. He went on grinning determinedly. "But then we've been in a lot of strange situations, haven't we? Remember how Malvinne's magic tricked us into blundering into the Kingdom of the Dead when we were trying to escape from Malvinne's castle?"

  "I remember," said Brian, "but there the magic just got us into it. Here we're right in the middle of the magic and it keeps on going. This light is unGodly."

  "As a matter of fact, I think it's perfectly natural. Indeed, I know it is," said Jim, thinking back. "I remember reading once about a man who went down in an iron ball into the very deep ocean and he had a window in the iron ball. He saw this same blue light when he got very, very deep indeed. So it's really not unGodly. It's just the way the ocean is."

  "I'd not disagree with you, James," said Giles. "But I have to confess I've got this terrific urge to turn into my sea form as a seal, and break loose for the surface. Whatever else is true, it is not safe to be at this depth."

  "Well, this is where we have to look for the kraken," answered Jim.

  "In shallower water," boomed a deep bass voice from outside. Rrrnlf had a habit of intruding on a conversation any time he felt like saying something; and since his voice, in volume and tone, could simply override theirs, there was no way of stopping him. "Why do you call Granfer—what was it you called him—a kraken, wee Mage?"

  "That's what people on land call such as Granfer," Jim answered.

  Rrrnlf could evidently speak to them quite easily from outside; and he seemed to hear equally well when one of them spoke back to him, so Jim had not raised his voice—although the booming tones tempted him to shout in return, in spite of himself. But he told himself that doing so would be giving away an edge to the Sea Devil; and Rrrnlf had edge enough, already.

  "Where is Granfer?" Jim asked. "Aren't we starting to get close to him now?"

  "Not too far off," said Rrrnlf. "We're getting near. It's one of the shallow banks he likes, where the cod school. Likes cod a lot, does Granfer."

  The angle of their travel turned sharply upward. Also they began to slow toward a more normal speed. As they did, they began to glimpse the fish and other sea life they were passing. But even slowed to this speed, these forms of sea life were visible only for fractions of a second—so that the effect was weirdly kaleidoscopic.

  Still, the upward motion and the slowing continued.

  "We're getting close now to the bank where Granfer is?" asked Jim, speaking through the wall of the bubble to Rrrnlf.

&
nbsp; "That is so," boomed Rrrnlf, without looking at him. "It is a bank close to the large land area far to the west of your little island; and much frequented by a number of all kinds of fish."

  Jim was interested. A "large land far to the west of your little island" sounded very much like North America. He wondered if the place they were coming to after traveling at such speed would be the Newfoundland banks. It was possible, at least. He knew of no banks in the mid-Atlantic that had such a reputation as a gathering place for fish.

  If that was true, they had been traveling not merely as fast as a commercial airliner but at a speed more than the equivalent of supersonic speed in air, which made their quick passage all the more amazing.

  The weirdly transparent blue light had been left behind now. The light in the water outside the bubble was clearly getting stronger; and Giles, at least, was beginning to look more cheerful.

  They seemed to be slowing almost as fast as they must have gathered speed. Jim could feel the slowing, though he had not been aware of the acceleration that must have been needed to get them up to the tremendous rate at which they had crossed the ocean—if that, indeed, was what they had done.

  They were now leveling off in water that certainly did not lack fish up to fairly good size—four and five hundred pounds and even more, although Jim's knowledge of fish was not good enough to identify clearly the ones they passed.

  Looking down now through the bottom part of the bubble, he had a moment of vertigo. A sea bottom was visible, toward which they seemed to be descending, even though the motion he felt of the bubble gave him the impression that they were still headed upward at an angle. Clearly, the sea was shallowing faster than they were rising above it.

  It was not a very attractive underseascape. There was no evidence of the plantlike sea creatures that populated more tropical waters. The sharply upward-angled slopes below were bare, except for occasional large boulders. Sometimes an open rock-face would be visible, but usually the surface had the sort of soft, dark, unchanging aspect of mud or silt.

  They were slowing steadily now, to a speed that left them sometimes outpaced by the fish that passed them; and Giles was definitely looking cheerful.