"You are not wholly relieved?" They were outside the pavilion now, among the tables—tables that at the moment were empty. The QB led them farther into some trees that here came close to the pavilion. Once among the trees he spoke again. "You are still concerned, Sir James?"
"We could bring the bowmen to the battle despite these Knights," said Dafydd, "and I cannot point out that the Drowned Land is in danger from these same enemies without seeming—as Gawain himself pointed out—selfish in our reason for fighting with them. But otherwise, I cannot think of any miracle that might save Lyonesse, if they fight alone, for all their prowess."
"Gawain said," spoke up young David, "that their Descendants would be allowed to help. Each Knight must have more than two or three of those, at least, of fighting age, after all these generations that must have gone by since Arthur left them for Avalon."
"But none of those are going to have known serious battle, as just about all of the Knights of the Table Round must have," said Jim. "I don't know…"
"Come, James!" said Brian. "Lift up your heart. God is on the side of Lyonesse. Also, those who fight for gain cannot match with those who joy in the fighting, especially a fight for a good cause—and what better than this?"
"Lift—" said Jim. "I forgot! It slipped my mind completely. Brian, I asked you once if you'd like—"
He checked himself. Brian had been out on his feet then and Jim had not seriously expected a sensible answer. On the other hand, he had not thought before asking. Brian was not afraid of anything—that was an exaggerated statement used for anyone else Jim knew, but not for Brian—and the fact he was now happily entertaining the thought of the relative handful of Lyonesse Knights encountering an army of experienced men more than several times their own numbers was proof of it.
"You were about to ask if I would like something, James," said Brian. "Of your kindness, continue. Some wine would not go amiss; and I have not eaten to the filling of my hunger for what seems a great time, now."
Jim still hesitated, although the other three were now also waiting to hear what he would say. Now that he had stopped to think, he remembered that courage was not all that was required in what he was going to suggest—at least not from someone like Brian. Brian had hunted mere-dragons—the larger Cliffside dragons stayed prudently out of his sight—and he knew, as everybody did, that an experienced man in armor on horseback and with lance was more than a match for even the largest dragon.
This last Jim had found out to his own cost, when he had first appeared in this world as a dragon, in the body of Gorbash. He had attacked, head-on, Sir Hugh de Bois, then possessor of Malencontri—and almost immediately died, as a result. Dragon bodies, while immensely strong, and heavy on the whole, were necessarily boned as lightly as possible, to allow them to get up into the air; and Sir Hugh's lance had gone clear through Jim.
But in many medieval minds, Jim knew, there was a sense of horror connected with the concept of a dragon. That could well keep Brian from wanting what Jim was to propose.
On the other hand, there was only one way of finding out. That was to ask.
"It was not of wine or food I was going to ask you, Brian," Jim said. "You were asleep on your feet the first time I mentioned it to you, but what I said then was 'How would you like to be a Dragon?' "
Brian blinked; and then he smiled, a large smile.
"Hah!" he said. "I would like it of all things, James!"
Jim sighed internally with relief. It was what he had expected, of course; but although Brian knew nothing of the danger of what Jim had in mind, Jim felt stronger, knowing the other would be with him. But Brian was speaking again.
"That is, James," he was saying, "I would wish to adventure at being a dragon for some short time. But the time must needs be limited. There is Geronde and our wedding to think of."
"Of course," said Jim, his memory jogged. "Still, I think there would be time… actually, something came to mind a little bit back that the two of us might get done—"
Dafydd cleared his throat.
"Er, Dafydd," Jim said, turning to him, "I hadn't thought beyond Brian and myself, because you weren't with us at the time the idea first came to me. I don't want you to think I'd forgotten you—"
"Not at all, James," said Dafydd. "I was within a word of echoing Sir Brian's happiness with your question; but before I could speak, I remembered. I am not a man who loves nothing but his duty, look you. But I was at once minded of the fact of my obligation to my King, which must put dreams of flying like a falcon from me."
"I would be right willing to become a dragon, also," said David.
"It is not for us, Sire, alas. Your kingdom weighs on you; and through you, on me."
"You are right!" said David, straightening up and looking as stern as someone his age could. "I thank you for putting me once more in mind of it."
"M'Lord?" said a small voice in Jim's right ear.
"You'd better stay here, Hob, with Dafydd and his Majesty of the Drowned Land."
"But m'Lord, you wanted me with you at all times in case you needed to send some suddenly necessary word to m'Lady at Malencontri!"
"Did I say that?"
"Yes, m'Lord."
"When?"
"I don't remember exactly, m'Lord." Hob screwed up his face in a frown. "—But we always do it. We did it when you took me to the Holy Land and we had all the trouble with those Djinn—and people; and you did have to send me back to Malencontri then. Remember, m'Lord?"
"No," said Jim. "But in any case this is Lyonesse and the land above, where my Lady is, is in another place entirely. There's no way for you to get there from here."
"My Lord," said Hob, "I may only be a Hob, but I may also have mentioned to you there are some few things we Hobs can do. We can go anywhere smoke can go, though the opening may be too small for the eye to see; and we can find one certain smoke, even if it is somewhere on the other side of the world. At Malencontri, smoke arises daily from wood as it is burned; and I may step from wood smoke here to that wood smoke in the wink of an eye, though all distance and difference of lands lie between."
Everybody was silent for a moment, watching Jim.
"Well, I suppose, if you think you can do it," said Jim, giving in to what he knew very well were some rather shaky arguments; and all the rest of those with him now knew it, too. "Hop up on my shoulder, then, and don't move for a minute—not a muscle."
"Yes, m'Lord," said Hob with suspicious meekness.
Hastily, Jim arranged for his ward to cover Hob in addition to himself. It was essentially the same sort of magic mechanism at work as when he had expanded his ward to make room to work on the magic fruit.
On second thought, he arranged for the ward around Hob to bud off from his ward, if Hob had to leave him for a short while; and then reattach itself automatically when the small Natural returned. Hob need never suspect he was being protected.
"All right," Jim said, "better get down inside my mail shirt, though."
"Huzzay!" cried Hob. "But I'm already there, you know, m'Lord."
Happily, he weighed so little Jim felt him as only a slight pressure against his back.
"That's fine, then," said Jim. He turned to the rest of them. "All right, Brian and I are going to try to find out, from the air, where the Harpies come from. The Dark Powers have to make them somewhere. At the Loathly Tower—you remember, Dafydd—it was in the Tower itself. We'll find them and see what can be done. I want to make the Drowned Land safe for your people again. We'll worry about what more's to be done, if anything, after Cumberland's crew gets here, and the fate of Lyonesse is settled. Your Majesty, Dafydd, will you be here when Brian and I get back?"
"I think I'd best take them back to King Pellinore's home," said the QB; and before Jim could say another word, there was the blink of dark and the three were gone.
"One does seem to get around this land a great deal—had you noticed, James?" Brian said.
"I have indeed, Brian. Now, I'll just make y
ou into a dragon—"
"Should I kneel?"
"It's not necessary. I will be," said Jim, "using a form of magic that takes into account the fact you're already a knight."
"Ah."
Jim fished in his purse for his various magic fruits and brought them out. They had gathered some dust, but since no one in this medieval time paid any attention to such things, he had gotten into the habit of ignoring them, himself.
He had eaten one grape. Now he thought of taking a bite out of the apple. It was a small apple. If he bit into it now, only a few more bites would remain. He was about to take one, when he felt uneasy. There was no reason to prefer one fruit over another. He changed his mind and took another bite from the pear, instead, visualizing Brian as a dragon.
As he looked up from putting the remaining portion of the pear back in his purse, he saw a dragon before him, one a little smaller than he himself would be as a dragon—which made sense since change size was proportional to original size. The new dragon's eyes were all but shooting sparks.
"THIS IS WELCOME INDEED!" boomed Brian, in a voice that easily echoed the length and breadth of the Gathering Place. As a hum of aroused voices arose from beyond the nearest trees, Jim waved both hands desperately downward before Brian's long, savagely toothed muzzle.
"Don't say anything!" hissed Jim in his loudest whisper. "Nothing until I speak to you!"
A dragon's voice was certainly tremendous—a useful thing when you wanted to chat with another dragon across three hundred yards of thin air while on the wing; but a dragon's hearing was also very sensitive.
Brian nodded.
Jim hastily led Brian out from under the trees, into a small clear spot; then changed into his own dragon-form. Brian smiled dragonishly at him, but kept silent. Voices and movement could be heard approaching.
"Here we go, now," said Jim. "We'll fly."
"How… ?" said Brian, in a sort of low-pitched bass grumble.
"You can speak up now. They will hear but we'll be gone before they can get to us. As for flying, just think of jumping up into the air. Your dragon body has instincts"—went on Jim, remembering his own first throat-closing dive from an upper entrance to the Cliffside Aerie—"and those instincts will make this body do what you want. When you jump up as a human, you don't have to tell your knees, 'Now bend, now straighten out fast.' do you? Just follow me, and the body will fly for you."
Jim took off. Brian took off. The sound their wings made, pulling at the air, must have been quite loud; but they were gone above the trees and it could make no difference.
At about eight hundred feet up, Jim leveled out; then had to hurry on up after Brian, who seemed to want to fly all the way to Lyonesse's white sun.
"You can stop moving your wings now," roared Jim at him. "Hold them out open and steady and just let them carry your weight—remember how a falcon does it!"
Brian obeyed.
"DEAR JAMES—that is to say, dear James," he said, toning down his dragon voice as they began to plane earthward into a rising column of warm air Jim had located, "how can I thank you for this. Who do we fight?"
"Nobody," Jim was about to answer, when he realized this would be a blow to Brian's expectations—also perhaps not correct.
"Possibly the Harpies," Jim said.
"Good!" said Brian. "James, you are quite right. I am flying without knowing how I do it. It is a most delightful sensation—just the flying, I mean. Rather like sailing, without the waves."
"Yes," said Jim. "Watch yourself, though; since all you have to do is want to do something, and if this dragon body you've got can do it, it'll try."
"Surely, since it's something I wish, it would be good to do it?"
"Mostly. But you're not just a man at the moment, you're a man in a dragon body. It might get you into something you should have thought before doing."
"Yes. James!" said Brian suddenly. "My soul! I did not think. Have I put my soul in peril by taking on a dragon shape?"
"No, no. It's the same old soul inside the dragon body, with all your regular pieties and virtues."
"Say rather my many sins…"
"See. Didn't I just warn you of that?" said Jim, as Brian raked—or rather, tried to rake—a viciously long and sharp talon through his tough-skinned chest in an attempt to cross himself.
"You did, James. I cannot deny it."
"You're still the same person you always were, no matter what shape you're in. Look at me. I've been a dragon dozens of times."
"You have a tendency, though, to fall asleep at vespers," said Brian. "I heard you snoring several times during the two weeks we were at the Earl's Christmas party. We are none of us perfect, James."
"Naturally," said Jim. "But this damn talk about me snoring has to stop. There were enough others asleep at vespers at the Earl's. It could have been anybody snoring."
"You are quite right, James," said Brian. "I pray for the grace and pardon of your forgiveness for thinking it was you I heard."
Jim glared at him. Brian's dragon face looked back innocently—too innocently!" and interestingly so, because a dragon's expression of innocence consisted mainly of wide-open eyes and lips pulled away from the fangs as much as possible.
There was nothing to be done about it, however. Brian had outmaneuvered him on this exchange. Jim made up his mind to lie in wait. An opportunity for revenge would present itself.
"Of course," he said, though it almost choked him to get it out gracefully, "that, too, was natural. By the way, were you wondering where we're going?"
"I was."
"I'll tell you, then," said Jim. "We're going north, to travel along the edge of Lyonesse nearest the Drowned Land, almost as far as we can go."
"Hah!" said the dragon that was Brian. "And what do we there, at our destination, James? I know you said we two would go and find where the Harpies come from."
"That's right," said Jim. "The Dark Powers have to make them somewhere. Harpies can fly, but ogres and Worms and other such—if they have other kinds of monsters—have to do their traveling on foot. So the Dark Powers will want to make all of them as close as possible to wherever they plan to fight."
"But what would they need Harpies and such for, if they have that help from some like Queen Morgan le Fay, Cumberland, and Modred?"
"The man or woman who gave it to them would have to give up his or her will completely before being able to work directly that way with the Dark Powers."
"God forfend!" said Brian, raking his chest again with a talon to make the shape of a cross. Jim winced. "But it is a grace that you know these things, James."
Jim winced. He did not know them. It was just that from the first, after spending several years here after growing up in a logical universe and world, he had not been able to keep himself from looking for a logical process at work in this world and time as well.
Certainly, this world seemed almost identical to the universe of his birth, with all the natural laws in place—except where magic appeared to set them aside. But did magic really do that? Or was it something else that required that part of what seemed logical reality here was also something that could mold reality like clay into any shape wanted or needed?
… Well, this was no time to ponder over that. In any case, the real marvel was the balancing of forces, or whatever, that allowed ordinary physical laws and magic to coexist.
That coexistence had to mean things like the Dark Powers had to be matched with limitations. If he just knew what their limitations were in this case—
"I think," he told Brian, in the privacy of their being some hundreds of feet up in the air with no one between them and the surrounding horizon to listen, "the Powers have to make their Harpies and monsters fresh each time. I can't imagine them keeping them around until the next time they're needed. It'd be only common sense to reduce them back to the magic energy from which they were created; and then remake them as needed.
"So, chances are they have a monster-building place close to where t
hey're going to be using them; and that's going to mean close to the Empty Plain, which is in the direction we're headed."
"But the Harpies could be made in some place apart from the ogres, Worms, and such, James."
"It's possible, but I don't think so. I'm beginning to think that in some ways the Dark Powers aren't as bright—I mean wise—as we would be, or they would have achieved Stasis or Chaos—"
"Forgive me, James, Stasis or Chaos?"
"Uh—well," said Jim, "they're some things magical that they should have gained by now if they were as wise as we are. The point is, why should they split up the places where they make creatures like that, when the use for them is only to be in a final battle with the present owners of Lyonesse?"
"Why, I know not, James," said Brian straightforwardly. "But doubtless you do."
"Well, I don't actually know it," admitted Jim. "But Morgan le Fay's been watching me and listening to me; so when we heard the Empty Plain was going to be the battleground, she must have, too—if she hadn't helped to decide it should be there in the first place. But, given a day or so, any renegade from Lyonesse could have learned it from one of the Originals and told her."
"You think such matters through fully, do you not, James?" said Brian admiringly.
"No, no," Jim broke in on him. "Well, yes, a little, maybe. But on most things it's just a matter of guessing."
"Ah, you are modest, of course," said Brian; and Jim suddenly realized that all this praise was his friend's oblique way of apologizing for the remark about Jim's snoring.
"It just happens," said Jim, to put an end to the whole thing. "Now we've got to concentrate on finding the place I think is there."
"Does it indeed! Well!" Brian was silent for a moment. "If that is the nub of it, then may I ask how you plan to find it? I have seen nothing but treetops below us since we took to the air."
"It ought to be noticeably different than what's around it—just like the Loathly Tower and the end of the causeway was. Something different enough to spot easily from the air."
"You are right, James, of course. I have not been on proper watch for lack of knowing what to watch for. Now you mention it, is that not a somewhat strange place ahead of us and to our left? The trees seem to end suddenly."