The Dragon in Lyonesse

  "Because magic seems to be made out of a raw energy—that energy I mentioned. It isn't how much raw material you've got, it's how you can use it." He paused for a moment.

  "Put it like this," he went on, "I'm going to be completely protected against attack, thanks to Kineteté, and I can attack Them because I can outthink Them. I don't think They've got anything more in the way of brains than some very primitive form of animal life."

  He stopped speaking. It had been a pretty good statement on his part, he was thinking—and then, with the sensitivity of a well-trained husband (though he and Angie had only been married since they had come to this medieval world), suddenly he was sure it had been nothing of the sort, as far as convincing Angie had gone.

  "Look," he added hastily, before she could say anything, "we humans actually have only a small scrap of the energy from which magic can be made here. The Kingdoms, like that of the King and Queen of the Dead, and Lyonesse itself, are full of it. Big devils like the Demon Ahriman have huge chunks by themselves." Angie frowned.

  "I think," Jim continued hastily, "humans here started out with none at all, but have simply earned a small corner of it. I got my first chunk just by coming here to find you, out of our own world. Then I got a much larger chunk—but the Dark Powers would hardly notice it compared to Theirs—by winning the fight at the Loathly Tower. I've won against Them each time I've been up against Them, in a sense getting richer and gaining experience at the same time. But it's just lately I'm beginning to figure out how the whole thing works. My advantage is, you and I come from a time where we grew up feeling there had to be a reason, a pattern for everything that happened. Most people in this time don't think that way—so it gives me an edge."

  He stopped talking again. He was not improving matters between Angie and himself. He gave up and prepared to listen.

  "Tell me all the truth, then," said Angie; but she spoke gently. "What are you really up against? The dangers, everything. Magic for one thing, of course."

  Jim looked at her affectionately.

  "Nothing you'll have to worry about."

  "I'm a lot happier knowing what I ought to be worrying about than I am sitting here at home and guessing at everything."

  The beginning cheerfulness that had been lurking behind Jim's words went away.

  "In all truth, then, Angie," he said, "there's the so-called Old Magic of Lyonesse. I don't know much about it, but it seems to be somehow different from the Magic we've seen used. I think it works to help the Knights there, but I don't know if it'd be any help to me."

  "But other than that I'm really not afraid to match magic with anyone—no, scrub that. What I mean is, I'm not afraid to match what magic I have, along with all I know from being born six hundred years later, against any other magic on this world. Every time I've been faced with that sort of thing so far I've always won. I haven't got it all sorted into words yet; but I've got an edge, something no one else has."

  "An edge," said Angie.

  "All right—an edge only, not a guarantee. But it's like anything else. Since I've been using it, I've gotten better at using what I have and the magic together. Trust me, Angie."

  "Don't I always?"

  "But you're determined to worry, anyway."

  "Whether I worry or not's my own business. It wasn't your future knowledge and edge that you used to win at the Loathly Tower."

  "No, said Jim soberly. "I won only because I was in Gorbash's dragon body. But I didn't know about magic, then."

  "You did when we faced Ahriman; and it was only the magic in your staff that helped you win against that Demon."

  "Not quite. It was that and the rest of you making a human chain with me to herd him back into the Kingdom of Devils and Demons. But that—"

  "Was different, too. I know," she said. "All right, let's talk about this business of how you might get caught in Lyonesse and I'd never see you again?"

  "Oh, that—" said Jim. "You mean what Dafydd told us the people of Drowned Land warned him about?"

  "Yes, that."

  "We're supposed to have warning before anything happens in any case, you know. I told you all about that. As long as the whole land and everything in it looks black and white, or silver, in color, there's no danger at all. It's only if you stay long enough to start seeing things in their ordinary colors that you're trapped and can never leave."

  "And by that time it's too late. You can't leave."

  "We're supposed to see it changing in time. Anything less than black-and-white… I'll have to keep my eyes open, that's all."

  "You ought to be able to do better than that," Angie said. She reached out to catch another autumn leaf that was swirling down toward the ground; and studied it for a few seconds before dropping it. "Where's that future knowledge of yours? You need a warning device… let's see—I've got it! Glasses! Glasses to warn you when the change starts so you can leave immediately!"

  "Glasses?" said Jim, staring at her. "Pretty strange I'd look in Arthurian times, or even here, going around with glasses on my nose. What good would glasses do me, anyway?"

  "Magic glasses, of course! And you don't care how you look!"

  "Hah!"

  "Besides, Magickians are supposed to look strange."

  "Well, yes, I suppose so. But—"

  "Anyway, I mean glasses that will make you notice your first tendency to see things differently. Just like shortsighted people see more clearly when they put on their glasses or lenses—the moment a hint of a color change becomes visible down there, your glasses would suddenly see everything in blaring, bright colors, everywhere, all around you! Or would something like that call for magic you haven't learned yet?"

  "I don't think so," said Jim. "In fact, I know I'm way ahead of most C+ -class Apprentices—with all I've been mixed up in. None of them usually get the chance at things like Carolinus has let me run into on my own. I'd have asked him about rating me B-class before this, if he hadn't been so worn out and frail from what he went through in the Gnarly Kingdom."

  "Then make the glasses."

  "I can't just do it like that—right now," he said. "I have to work up a concept of what I want before I can make the actual thing. I have to think of ways of going about it."

  "But you'll make them?"

  Jim looked at her. She was very serious.

  "Barring some reason that makes it impossible, that I can't even imagine now, I promise you—yes, I'll make them."

  "And wear them."

  "And wear them," he said resignedly.

  "And you're really not worried at all about the Dark Powers you'll be meeting?" "No. As I said, they can't do anything to me physically. They can only work through other people or things. I can outthink the people and avoid the things."

  "And there's nothing—nothing at all else… ?"

  "No."

  "What troubles you?" said an unexpected, but familiar, harsh voice behind them.

  They turned, and it was the only individual that particular voice could possibly go with: Aargh, the English wolf, who had also been one of Jim's Companions and allies at the battle of the Loathly Tower—though Aargh would never admit being anything like a Companion to anyone. As usual he had come up behind them without a sound and had possibly been following them and listening to their conversation for more than a few minutes.

  "What makes you think we're troubled?"

  Aargh lifted his muzzle toward Jim.

  "You were standing fight-ready," he said. "You have an enemy?"

  Jim opened his mouth to point out that he had a number of enemies—Agatha Falon, the Earl of Cumberland… and so forth. Then he realized what Aargh must be talking about. He had been watching them as he usually did, for a small while, before making himself known; and this time he had been there to see Jim tense up and get angry all over again when Angie mentioned the Dark Powers' intruding on the Hall at Malencontri.

  Most wolf language was body language; unless, like Aargh, the wolf could speak like a human—maybe
it was not uncommon for them. Jim had met at least one other wolf who talked human-style. But the body language was still theirs. Aargh would have read Jim's body-remembered, absolute fury toward the invader of his home,

  "The Dark Powers," Jim said.

  "It will do no good to get your hackles up now," said Aargh. "Wait for the time when you can bite back."

  "They came right into Malencontri!"

  "No need to tell me," said Aargh. "I knew it. The deer know it, the birds know it the forest knows it; and so I know it. Well, you can deal with it yourself this time. It's nothing to do with me."

  "I didn't ask you for help," said Jim. "You might have, as soon as you found me." There was enough past evidence to warrant this assumption on Aargh's part. But the great wolf always had to pretend he cared for no one, rescued nobody. Jim was silent for a second, trying to think of a crushing answer. None came to mind, "They're threatening the Drowned Land—but you probably don't know—"

  "I know," said Aargh. "I know all places I can go. I know it also threatens Lyonesse."

  "Put it this way, then," said Jim. "You wouldn't care, of course, if the whole world including your territory here in Somerset, dissolved into Chaos?" "It isn't going to. What you two-legs consider your world might do that; but for the rest of us, we'll hardly know it happened. For us, the earth is important, the sky, the wind, the trees as we have always had them. Your Dark Powers can't touch those. If They could, we would all fight Them. Not otherwise."

  "What makes you so sure?" said Jim.

  "Why doesn't what you call your magick work on me, or others you call an animal—it only works on two-legs and Naturals?"

  Jim felt like a chess player who had just had the bishop he was counting on to gain him checkmate with the next move captured and swept away by a completely overlooked knight.

  "It just doesn't. There's no particular 'why' to it—"

  "Of course there is. What you lose means nothing to us. There's no History for us; and as long as we are alive, there can be no Chaos."

  "Why not?" asked Angie.

  Jim would have found that a challenge to answer. Aargh did not.

  "Chaos is not an emptiness. It is everything moved out of place and connection with what was before. None of what humans call magick could move us and our world; and the kind of enemies who would bring on Chaos have only magick to work with, to move us—they cannot touch us."

  "Hm," said Jim.

  "However, if I am needed at Malencontri while you are gone," said Aargh, "Angie can set out the signal for me in the woods, the usual way."

  He turned, fawned upon her for a brief moment, moved around her, and was gone.

  Jim gazed into the trees in the direction where the wolf had vanished. Aargh must have been shadowing them silently and listening for longer than they had thought.

  "I wonder if I made a mess of that," he said to himself, but aloud.

  "You were fine," said Angie, slipping her arm through his. "Come on, let's look at the cattails down at the lake. There's still part of a beautiful day left, and the cold weather'll be here before you're home again. Let's roam a bit more and enjoy our lands in this best of fall weather, before we have to go back inside."

  Chapter Five

  The shadows of the tall elms at the edge of the forest were reaching out across the cleared space to touch the gray face of the western curtain wall of the castle, when they returned once more over the hollow-sounding drawbridge into a courtyard already deep in shadow.

  Within the Great Hall the fireplaces were blazing; the cressets along the interior walls also brightly burning, shedding light and a welcome small amount of warmth from one end of the long room to the other. Candles set out in honor of the guests made even more light upon the High Table, at which Dafydd, Brian, and Geronde were already sitting.

  They had been talking as Angie and Jim came through the door from the courtyard; but this broke off. There was silence as Jim and Angie sat down, and one servant poured wine for them, while another offered the trays of small foods that would start the supper. They helped themselves, drank, and then looked expectantly at the others.

  "I must—but I cannot!" Brian burst out as if the conversation had already been going on for some time. "I am between two millstones, James." The keen eyes of Geronde were upon him; and the candlelight had the effect of making almost invisible the scar where Hugh de Bois had slashed her cheek when she refused to marry him at sword's point. Jim was reminded suddenly he had meant to ask Carolinus, as soon as the Mage was well again, whether something could not be done, magically, to remove it. Even with the scar, though, Geronde's face was beautiful.

  "—I swore an oath," Brian was going on, "to be at Castle Smythe whenever my creditors might come there to see me, the castle and the lands that I gave in surety for the debt!"

  "Do you remember," asked Jim quietly, "the exact words you swore to?"

  "Of course I do! I solemnly swore before God that should any officer of the court or the creditor come to Castle Smythe, they would see me there within the twenty-four hours after their arrival."

  "Then I don't think there's anything to concern yourself about. Carolinus is still with Kineteté, as you know, recovering from what the old Gnarly King did to him. I could try to talk to him, or to Kineteté—in fact, I ought to try Kineteté anyway. Hold on—"

  He tilted his head back and spoke to the dark rafters of the Hall, overhead.

  "Kineteté—"

  "Try looking for me then at the usual level, Jim," said the voice of Kineteté. "We're right here, under your nose."

  He looked down; and, sure enough, just being seated at the table with them—no surprise at all—was Kineteté and—very much a surprise—Carolinus, with wine cups and appetizers now set out before each one of them.

  "You wanted to speak to me?" Kineteté asked. "Carolinus insisted on coming. Don't tire him."

  "Bah!" said Carolinus.

  "Of course not," said Jim. "Yes, I—well, Brian, will you tell Kineteté your situation and what you have to do?"

  "An honor," said Brian, "to speak to you again, Mage Kineteté; and Mage Carolinus, how it gladdens my heart to see you once more. Er—my problem is this…"

  He told them, as he had told Jim just a short time before.

  "That's quite in order, Brian," said Carolinus in a rusty version of his usual voice. "I'll—"

  "No, you won't," said Kineteté. "I will! Brian, if it becomes necessary for you to return swiftly, have someone call out my name—"

  "I'll take care of that," said Geronde.

  "Very well. I'll then talk to you, Geronde. You'll inform me of the situation. I'll then speak to you, Brian, wherever you may be; and tell you your immediate return is prepared. You may not be able to leave the exact moment I call you; but it won't matter. All you need to do is click your heels together three times—"

  Jim and Angie, who unfortunately were drinking a private toast together, both choked on their wine at the same moment.

  "—clicking your heels together and saying to yourself three times—'Smythe, Smythe, Smythe.' May I ask what's got into you two, Jim and Angie?" Kineteté wound up in a steely voice.

  "The servants poured the wrong wine for both of us," said Angie, who was quicker-tongued than Jim. "It was not the wine for our toast, and we didn't want to drink it."

  "Ah!" said Kineteté, clearly annoyed and disbelieving, but also unable to find a polite formula to put these things into words. "—At any rate, Brian, you will find yourself back at your Castle immediately."

  "I am forever in your debt, Mage."

  "As for the two of us," Kineteté went on, "we just dropped by to show off Carolinus's recovery. Say something to them, Carolinus!"

  "What the devil can I say?" replied Carolinus in the same rusty voice, but sounding more like his old, snappish self and warming the hearts of the rest at the table. "I'm perfectly all right, now. Be back in my cottage tomorrow!"

  "By the end of the week hopefully, let us
say," put in Kineteté. "Now we must go. Ah, Jim, Brian, Dafydd—may good chance go with you, down in the Drowned Land and Lyonesse, all of you."

  She and Carolinus disappeared.

  There was a long moment of silence in which all those still at the table looked happily at each other.

  "So!" said Brian, breaking the silence and lifting his mazer so strongly the wine within almost sloshed out onto the tabletop, "I shall be going to the Drowned Land and mayhap to Lyonesse with you, Jim and Dafydd! This is a day to celebrate!"

  "Within reason," said Geronde.

  "Of course. Who would go forth on a task such as we three face with a head like a pumpkin and little sleep?"

  "But what about your wedding, Brian?" Angie asked.

  "Oh, this can hardly delay matters. After all, our battle at the Loathly Tower was accomplished in a day—"

  "Hob!" said Jim.

  "Yes, my Lord?" said a timid voice from the nearest fireplace; and the face of the castle hobgoblin appeared, upside down, peeking out from inside the top edge of the fireplace.

  "Either," said Jim irritably, "come all the way in or go away. But stop popping into sight for a second and then out again. We all know you've been listening to everything said here, from the first moment Dafydd arrived."

  "My Lord—"

  "And, no, you can't go with me, this time. Your duty is here at the Castle." Any argument that would keep the hobgoblin at home was a good argument; it had reached the point that the little creature took it for granted he could go along any time Jim left home.

  "Besides," added Jim, "you probably aren't allowed there. Remember, Rrrnlf had to leave us at the border of the Drowned Land. Probably Naturals aren't allowed into the Drowned Land or Lyonesse."

  "I know, my Lord," said Hob. "But the Sea Devil and other Naturals are different. They've got no proper place in the real world—and that's the only place they're allowed to go. But we Hobs are allowed to be with people. Then, there's some like that Demon Aroman—"

  "Ahriman," said Angie helpfully.

  "Thank you, my Lady—Ahriman, my Lord. He had to be summoned, even to come into the real world. Most Naturals who don't have their proper place there can go into the real world, but not into one of the Kingdoms of other Naturals. The only ones who can are those whose proper place is with people—like me—and, well…"