"Er—" said Jim, looking around him, "this is a very nice little sitting room, but—"
"It is perfectly capable of making room for a dragon if I want," said Kineteté. "Be one."
Jim turned into a dragon. The room had expanded.
"I see you clearly and unmistakably," said Kineteté. "Whatever gave you the notion that I couldn't—ah, I see what you're trying to tell me. Being human, I can see you with unassisted eyesight. Fly out the window and around the building until you're out of my normal sight. Then fly back."
Jim looked at the window—which was not all that wide—and hesitated.
"It's a little small," he said.
"What did I just tell you about this room? That also holds true for a window in it."
Jim extended his wings—without trouble, although they were of the enormous length required to lift his heavy body into the air and allow it to soar. He flew off through the window, finding himself outside what seemed one turret of a many-turreted structure. As big as a castle, but not one.
He flew around the blind side of the tower and back in the window.
"Quite right!" said Kineteté. "You're absolutely quite right. Magically, I lost sight of you the second you moved out of my physical eyesight. Of course! It's a branch-off from the Law that magick can't touch animals. It's true dragons are something more than animals—like Naturals—but that just means some things magickal work with them, some don't."
"Good!" said Jim. "And can I take off the ward you put on me and use my magic when I'm in dragon body, then?"
"Not unless you know how to poison the ward you put back around you later, so Morgan can't strip it off you when you have gone back to being human," she said.
"I don't suppose you could show me—"
"I could not. You know better than that by this time. Magick cannot be taught, only learned. A Magickian must teach herself—or himself. Your way of poisoning a ward wouldn't be achieved the same way I achieve it."
"Yes," said Jim. She was right, of course. That principle was one of the first things he had picked up from Carolinus. "Too bad. I could be a real help down there if I could just use my magic."
"That's life," said Kineteté. "Begone."
"Poor Dafydd just rode in—more ready for a bed than a battle, James," said Brian, an edge of reproach in his voice. King David and the QB were beside him.
Brian was standing, for all the world like a male emperor penguin Jim had once seen in an Antarctic photograph, that was balancing an egg on his two feet to keep it warm under a fold of his skin in a howling, snow-filled wind. But instead of an egg, Brian was supporting Dafydd, who was seated on the ground, using Brian's legs for a backrest and sleeping so heavily he was on the verge of snoring. Very unusual behavior for Dafydd.
He had probably been captaining a team of Drowned Land archers against the Harpies, around the clock, thought Jim, remembering what young King David had told.
"Though, damme," went on Brian thoughtfully, looking down at their motionless friend, "it might have been kinder to him if you had been even longer."
He leaned down and spoke loudly into Dafydd's left ear.
"Dafydd! Wake! He is with us again. WAKE, I say!"
Dafydd's eyelids fluttered, tried to stay closed, reluctantly opened. He stared around at David, QB, and Jim as if he recognized none of them. Then, abruptly his eyes were wide open and he was struggling to his feet. Brian gave him a hand up.
"Sir James!" he said thickly. "I saw you from the edge of the woods and called—"
"And I disappeared again. I'm just now back. Sorry, Dafydd; but it was necessary for all our sakes."
Dafydd ran the back of a hand across his lips.
"Is there water, anything, to drink about?" he said. "My mouth is dry as a land in drought."
"Here," said Brian. He stepped over to Blanchard, untied his saddle flask, and pulled out the stopper as he brought it back to Dafydd.
"My thanks, Sir Brian—"
"Drink, man! And be done with courtesy!"
Dafydd drank and choked.
"Wine!" he said, when he could speak. "Very good wine, Brian, but if I might just have some plain water first—"
"I will go ask the good King for some," said David. "He must have water within doors."
But Hob was already coming up to Dafydd, carefully pouring water from a flask, as he came, into a rather battered bronze mazer—both items retrieved from among the goods on the sumpter horse.
Hob handed the brimming mazer to Dafydd, who took it in both hands and poured its contents down his throat without stopping to breathe; although the mazer would have held more than a pint.
"Good," said Brian, watching him hand the empty mazer back to Hob. He passed his flask once more to Dafydd; who, to Jim's surprise—Dafydd was usually almost as abstemious as Jim, himself—drank heartily from it.
"Now I have my voice again," said Dafydd, handing the flask back to Brian. "My thanks to you, Brian, and James and Hob. I will remember this kindness so long as I live. But James"—he turned once more to Jim—"matters are desperate in the Drowned Land. Did our King not tell you?"
"Indeed, he did so," said Brian. "And on being told James was bespoke by Lyonesse and could not come, challenged for James's release King Pellinore, whom you do not know—"
"But I do, if only by legend and repute," said Dafydd. He stared at the young King. "You were fortunate indeed he did not take up your challenge, as he had every right to do."
"But Pellinore did," said Brian, "and King David did right nobly in their spear-running, though of course he was unhorsed and the wits knocked out of him. But Sir James made him well again with magick."
"Thank God! And thank you, James." Dafydd looked at David severely and shook his head. "What madness took you to make such a challenge to a knight—a Knight of the Round Table at that?"
"At the worst, Dafydd," said the King, "it seemed to me he might feel a sadness at having slain me; and from that sadness felt an obligation. So that he might, possibly with some others of Lyonesse, come sometime to our aid."
Dafydd only shook his head again.
"You are King," he said. "You owe it to all those in the Drowned Land to live and work for their good; rather than die for them. There are no lack of men to do that."
"Yet I thought it worth the trying," said David, "and it came out well. Beyond that: look you, Dafydd, if I am King, these decisions are mine to make."
"Yes, Sire," said Dafydd. There was an uncomfortable silence all around for a moment or two.
"But you came here for a reason, Prince Dafydd," said the QB.
"I am no Prince here," said Dafydd, "but a Master Archer, Bowyer and Fletcher; and would wish to be no other than that. But you are right, my Lord Questing Beast—may I continue to address you so?"
"That, or simply as QB."
"I shall speak to you as QB, then."
"James!" said Dafydd, turning to Jim with all the urgency that had been in his first words on waking. "We have desperate need of you. We have found some good bowmen among the other Colors, who can captain a group of archers and give us of the Blue a chance to sleep and eat. But there is a limit to how long we can hold out, nonetheless, and no limit to be seen of the Harpies that keep coming at the cities. So far none of them has gotten through—"
"As a matter of fact, there's a limit to the Harpies you can have coming at you, said Jim. "I spoke to Mage Kineteté about that. I can promise you that for the Dark Powers to send endless Harpies at you has to finally exhaust their magical powers. More than that, though, I think I've come up with a way of hitting back at the Harpies."
He turned into his dragon self.
The QB started at the suddenness of the change, moving backward a pace. David turned very pale indeed, but did not move an inch.
"It's all right, Sire," said Jim, his dragon voice booming forth. "It's just me, James. Turning into a dragon is one of the things I can do; and I did it just now because I think being a dragon may let me
help your Drowned Land people against the Harpies—"
Behind him a door slammed, and a voice almost as powerful as his own roared.
"What is this? A dragon?" There was the slick, rasping sound of a sharp sword being drawn from a scabbard. "Horse!"
They all turned. Pellinore had come outside. There had not seemed any great difference in this last cry of his, but this time his tall white horse came around the end of the building toward him at as close to a gallop as the turn made possible. As it reached him, he leaped into the saddle, returned his sword to its scabbard, and seized the tall spear that stood upright in its boot beside the saddle.
He reined the white horse about to face Jim.
"It's all right!" called Jim, changing back, with the middle word, from being a dragon to a human. "I was just demonstrating something."
Pellinore's spear was still in his hand and leveled at Jim. He reined his horse back to a walk; but came on, his face still dangerous.
"Are you such a Magickian as Holy Church would approve?" he demanded.
"Assuredly, he is!" said the QB, who had moved forward once more. "Would I have brought him to you otherwise? Also, the trees have spoken for him!"
"Well," said Pellinore. "If that is so, I will put up my spear." He did so. "But what was it you had been about to show these others—and I trust you had not forgotten that your first duty was here, in Lyonesse?"
Jim was trying to remember exactly what he had said that had bound him to Lyonesse first. It would not come to him. But of course, he told himself, Pellinore would undoubtedly take a very strict view of a knight's word. Nonetheless, it was time to look this King in the eye.
"I forget nothing," he said, trying to sound as close as he could to the way he thought Merlin would have said it.
"It's time," he went on, "for you to tell me some things. I want to meet with whoever'll be the leaders of the Original Knights of the Round Table here in Lyonesse. While you're arranging that, I must make some magical preparations for what I may have to do; and for that I may have to leave Lyonesse—because as long as I'm here, Morgan le Fay's going to know where I am. As it is, she can't touch me, for certain magical reasons—but on the other hand I can't use my own magic to help you. But if I can get out of her influence, maybe I can arrange things so I can help. Starting—I hope—with what comes from my meeting with the Originals. Now, can you arrange that?"
Pellinore slid his spear, upright and butt-down, almost absentmindedly back into its boot by his saddle.
"Now that you speak of this meeting," he said, "I cannot remember such a gathering, since Arthur left us. But if all are to come and that means all who once were, save Arthur and Lancelot, to be with us once more… it minds me… my two sons could be there."
His face had taken on a light as he talked. Not a great light, but as if the rocky face of a mountain had been touched for a moment with winter twilight. His gaze, which had slid aside as he talked, almost to himself, returned and sharpened on Jim.
"I will essay it," he said. "But mark me, Sir James, if there are some who will not come, I will not attempt to force them. We have long since ceased from fighting among ourselves—for any reason."
"I have a feeling," said Jim, "that they'll all come."
"If God is with us," said Pellinore. Turning, he rode off, away from them into the trees, as he had gone before.
Jim changed back into a dragon.
"Brian, Dafydd, your Majesty, QB—forgive me, all of you. I can't tell you why I'm leaving you, because of the danger of Morgan overhearing; it may be half an hour, or it may be as long as a full day or two, I don't know. But if you'll all stay here, where I can find you when I come back, it'll help more than anything. Can you all wait for me; or is there anyone who'll have to leave?"
"James," said Dafydd, "I do not know what dangers you will be going into. But I do know that our Drowned Land needs their King. Even I am needed in this evil time. We two must return to our own land."
"That's up to you, Dafydd," said Jim. "I can only say I'd like you both to stay. The serious battle's to be here. And think about something else. Harpies can fly. That's what makes their poison teeth so dangerous to any who can't. But dragons can fly, too."
With that he extended his great wings.
"James!" said Brian. "Am I to wait here and do nothing, then?"
Jim hesitated, already crouched for his upward spring.
"Not for long, Brian," he said. "A day and a night at the most—probably much less. But I must have someone to find my way back to. Pellinore should be back before long. Remember how little the time was he was gone before. I'm sure he'll invite you in, if it turns out I don't get back until tomorrow."
"Shelter was not my concern," said Brian, a little stiffly. "It was the need to ride and do." He thawed abruptly. "I will await you patiently, James."
"Thanks, Brian. I'll be as quick as I can; then there'll be plenty for both of us to do."
He leaped skyward, leaving them with the thunder of his going.
Chapter Thirty-Two
As usual when he was in his dragon body, Jim's first action—indeed, the first instinct always of his dragon body—was to climb for as much altitude as he could without getting out of breath. Like all animals, including humans, dragons had both flight and fight reflexes. And in spite of their size and strength, there were times when instinct took over and they ran—just as there were times when they instinctively attacked. At all times, the direction in which a dragon preferred to run was straight up.
Almost as instinctively, when Jim reached a safe height and a river of air moving parallel to the ground in the general direction of the Drowned Land border, he gave over climbing. He extended his wings and began soaring like a hawk.
The border was closer than he had expected, believing that the QB would have used his magiclike ability to make large distances in Lyonesse seem like small ones, when he had taken them to Pellinore. Even now, as Jim looked around and behind him from this altitude, Lyonesse appeared to stretch to a farther horizon, with only the top of a ridge above the treescape, that would be the rock cliff-face behind which lay the passage to the lands of the Gnarly.
Interestingly, he could see both suns in the sky from up here, the white sun of Lyonesse and that of the Drowned Land. They were far apart, but moving parallel to each other through the two different skies. Evidently time must be very much the same in both lands; though they seemed to have nothing in common otherwise.
He pulled himself out of these thoughts to find himself over the Drowned Land, and evidently some distance into it. His soaring, however, had inevitably moved him downward in the air current on which he was traveling, until he was now not more than a couple of hundred feet off the ground.
This did not fill in with his plans at all. From his previous experience with Harpies, he expected to find them flying at no great height above the ground.
He put his wings to work again, climbing until he could now see the dark shape of the Borderland camp to his far left, like a blotch on the horizon. But there were several glints between him and it that must be Drowned Land cities. He started a more shallow glide downward toward the nearest of these, searching as he went for a thermal updraft of warm air that would let him climb even higher.
He found it; and mounted the upward-flowing air in spirals until he could see, beyond the reflected light of the cities, a thin, dark line that would be the sea. Not a seashore, as would be normal, but the wall of water that would be the undersea, stretching up to the few small clouds like puffballs in the Drowned Land, here looking like large, softheaded pins, holding the wall erect and keeping the sea from flooding these two ocean-buried lands.
The thermal thinned and died beneath him as it cooled, rising. He abandoned it, extending his spirals to slow his descent and examining the cities as he went, to find the largest one. That would be the capital city of the Drowned Land—almost certainly the city from which David and Dafydd both had come to Pellinore, and the one most
heavily under attack by Harpies.
It was not hard to pick out. It was the city with the tallest buildings; the one from which their Drowned Lander guide had most probably come for Dafydd when they had first arrived in this land.
He focused his dragon vision on an invisible line that marked the shortest point between the city and the nearest dark edge of Lyonesse.
His human eyes would have begun to water after minutes of such a steadily held gaze; particularly a gaze which was concentrating on seeing some tiny movement in the air along the shortest line of distance between the border of Lyonesse and the capital city. His dragon eyes did not.
And their ability was rewarded. After perhaps an hour, during which he had to climb twice more to maintain the height from which he intended to watch, he caught sight of what seemed no more than a close, moving clutter of dark objects; broken occasionally by a flash of white amid the dark. The whole was moving at a height of no more than four hundred feet; and slowly—it seemed from his point of view—toward the capital city, sitting in the warm Drowned Land afternoon light.
He used his wings, slowly but powerfully, to move toward what he was watching, but kept himself a good five to six hundred feet above them. As he approached, the black and white resolved itself into the shapes of eight Harpies, flying toward the capital. The black was the color of their bodies and wings—all of each of them—except their faces. The unnatural white of those faces showed with the effort of their wings from moment to moment, to make the flashes he had seen from a distance.
He had been right. They were both low and slow—compared to his winged dragon body.
He hesitated over his next move. But here in the Drowned Land he was beyond Morgan le Fay's touch and also—what was important right now—out of her sight. He could afford one experiment.
He put himself into a glide to a point at which he would be only a few hundred feet above the Harpies. The air rushed past him, the earth below grew larger—it was startling the way the distant Harpies seemed to leap at him. He maneuvered to approach behind them.