The Dragon in Lyonesse

  Certainly, They were Powers. But "Powers" were all They were.

  There was no reason for Them to have the kind of logical mental processes that were needed to add two and two, let alone seek to unravel a contradiction. Their thinking could run "It's something that shouldn't be here!"—only to have that thought contradicted by "But it's a harpy. This is where Harpies belong when they aren't being useful."

  Their minds—if Their thinking processes could be called that—could be bouncing back and forth from the one decision to the other, bound into a sort of eternal oscillation about what to do with the element that both was a harpy and was not. He had best not say anything more out loud to help Them to the right decision, though—if his guess was correct.

  "Hob," he thought, "can you hear me when I just think? I know you hear the trees, and you've heard Gnarlies and horses thinking, if I remember right. Just tell me 'yes' in your head, if you can …"

  He waited, but there was no answer. Of course, he told himself, how could there be? Hob might be able to hear his thoughts; but he most certainly could not hear Hob's.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow—little Hob, without knowing how he was able to do it, was so much more able than he was with all his magic…

  He was an idiot! Sometimes—he told himself privately—you can't see what's right under your nose.

  The invisible ghost—like him inside the harpy—reached for his pouch, pulled out the plum, and sternly thought "From now on I can hear Hob when he thinks at me." He hesitated a moment before biting into it.

  He thought of his dwindling supply of magic fruits. He had not meant to use them up so quickly, but every use had seemed necessary at the time. They had been intended for that last, desperate moment when, his experience told him, needs would come thick and fast. But he had to get himself and Hob out of here if at all humanly possible.

  "Hob," he thought, "do you remember how we came here? Could you guide me back the way we came?"

  He held his breath, waiting for the answer. Maybe this kind of talent was not covered by magic manipulation. But the answer came back promptly and clear in his head.

  "No, m'Lord. I thought you'd know."

  "I don't." There was a long moment of silence in the dark between them. "Hob, if you had smoke, could it show you the way out—you said in the Forest Dedale, if there was an exit, the smoke would find it."

  "Oh, yes, my Lord. But I don't have any smoke."

  "I know. But you also said that if there was wood smoke at Malencontri, you could go from a fire here to there."

  "Yes, m'Lord, I can do that. Like goes to like."

  "Could you go out now and get some smoke and bring it back to us here, so it could find the way out for us?"

  "I'd need some smoke to go from. Like to like it goes. I'm very sorry, my Lord …"

  So here goes another of the magic fruits, Jim thought bitterly.

  "Never mind. Maybe I can find you just a single puff of smoke, magically. If I can, what kind of smoke would be quickest for you to find?"

  "There was wood smoke at the place where they had you, Sir Brian, and Dafydd tied up in the tents."

  So there must have been, but Jim had paid no attention. He thought of the open fires before the tents, around which slept those without tents among the Borderland invaders. He remembered them; and he held one in particular steadily, pictured sharply in his mind, focusing down on a short piece of wood with only one end burning.

  "Right," he said out loud, though he was speaking more to himself than Hob. He mentally fumbled in his purse, withdrew this time the so-far unbitten apple, and spoke to it mentally as he visualized.

  "Bring me that piece of wood with one end lit."

  He mentally took a bite of the apple, and put the rest back into his purse. There was a pause in which his purely spiritual human heart nearly stopped—a sound of something approaching was coming up the tunnel. Hastily, he began to back up; as quietly as he could, the way he had come. How close had that last tunnel division been?

  There was a sudden flicker of light—so unexpected on eyes straining to see through total darkness, that for a moment he was dazzled. The short piece of dead tree limb he had visualized lay on the tunnel floor against the far wall. Its burning end was giving off small flames that seemed to light the area around Jim like a searchlight.

  "All right, Hob," he thought. "Now—"

  There was a sudden increase of light, and a crackling sound, and flame shot up the wall, brightening as it rose and spread. Jim stared. The flames from the wood had immediately set fire to the wall beside it, and were spreading as if the wall was dry paper.

  Jim backed frantically away. For a moment he thought he was leaving the fire safely behind; but even as he thought that, the crackling noise increased. Light blossomed before him, and noise and light followed him as he retreated, backwards, as fast as his harpy body could move.

  "M'Lord—," said Hob shakily.

  "I know, I know!" said Jim. "But I can't do anything until I get to a place where I can turn around. Was that just a little way back. The place where we went to the left, this last time?"

  "Yes, m'Lord."

  "I can't even look back over my shoulder. Can you see it?"

  "Yes, m'Lord. I mean I can't see it yet, m'Lord, but it's only a little way back. This narrow room we're in curves so—THERE IT IS!"

  "Whew!" said Jim to himself in relief. He reached the place where the tunnel they had come down had branched. "Hang on, Hob. I'm going to get myself… bent… around this place where they join …"

  By dint of almost breaking his harpy body in half, he managed to reverse his position. Head first now, he went as fast as he could along the way that should bring them out. Waves of heat and flashes of light were chasing him as he went; and the crackling was now a roaring.

  "Now right, m'Lord!" cried Hob aloud. "To your right!"

  "No, the first one I took was the left one, coming down."

  "But you're going back now. The smoke says go right, m'Lord—the smoke is already going out ahead of us."

  Jim did not see it. But this was Hob's area of expertise. He took the tunnel to his right, running like a bent-over chicken on his two harpy legs, rubbing a stream of the so-easily burnable material from the walls as he blundered against them in his hurry to escape.

  And suddenly, there was a lit slit of white sky ahead. A half dozen more pushing strides—and they were out.

  OUTSIDE! Out in the open air, the cool, the lung-filling, clean air. Jim pulled himself onto the surface of what he had originally thought was a boulder, and sagged there, breathing deeply.

  "M'Lord, are you all right?"

  "Just fine, Hob," he said out loud, still gasping for air, "and about to be better. Hang on!"

  He switched out of the harpy, not needing to use his magic fruit to do so since his natural magic could put him back into his dragon body at any time—a fresh, unexhausted body, brimming with breath and energy—and shot almost straight up like a rocket, feeling Hob now clinging to his neck.

  Chapter Forty

  Jim did not rocket far, however. At a bit above treetop level he checked himself, and began making tight circles on the updraft from the burning hive. He circled, held by a somewhat awed fascination with what he had caused to happen.

  He was safe now, he knew. If the Dark Powers could attack him only through Their creatures, as he now was almost sure was the case, he could be in no danger up here. The worst They could do was send Harpies up after him; and he could outfly Harpies with—loosely speaking—one wing tied behind his back.

  Besides, he doubted They had any Harpies to spare at the moment. If there were, their owners would want to keep them for the encounter between the Earl's small army and the Lyonesse Knights.

  Fire had apparently reached all through the hive now, but in an odd, irregular fashion. Most of the great, stonelike structures that had made it up looked untouched on their surface; but all were spouting flames from side or top in what seemed
haphazard fashion. But now, a flame ran up the side of one huge boulder shape, and continued to burn fiercely and spread… it was hard to believe the whole Nursery was a made thing. Creating it must have been a gigantic task.

  "M'Lord," said Hob in a uncertain voice, behind him, "did you use magick to make the rock burn?"

  "No," said Jim—and was about to go on to say that he had simply been a complete damn fool. But he checked himself in time. It might relieve his feelings to admit the truth; but that would simply transfer the load of his uncomfortable emotions to Hob, as unasked-for confessions usually did to the one who heard them.

  "I thought it was stone, too," he told Hob, instead, "but it was something the Dark Powers just made to look like stone; and whatever it was made of caught fire from that bit of burning wood I summoned."

  Privately, he was thinking of the nests made by wasps out of chewed-up plant fibers, or the strands a spider produced from its own body to make a web. The Dark Powers could have somehow produced some creature which could build the rock-appearing Nursery in some similar fashion.

  He checked his runaway thoughts, realizing his mind was trying to escape what he was forcing himself to watch.

  "It's burning up all over," said Hob, craning his head out from Jim's, so that Jim could see him from the corner of his eye, staring at what was below. "There's our harpy: and see all the other strange… beasts."

  "Yes," said Jim emptily, looking down with him. Creatures of all sorts of shapes and descriptions were coming out of the bases of the great boulder shapes; and some of them were huge.

  There were ten-foot ogres, like the one Jim, in the dragon body of Gorbash, had fought at the Loathly Tower; and Worms as thick as main-line sewer pipes.

  But there were also others that Jim had never seen or imagined before. Such as a great flat thing like an enormous landgoing flounder, with a massive head owning two mouths full of jagged teeth. It was legless and seemed to move by throwing its whole body forward—as if it wanted to crush any opponent as much as to slash them to death with its teeth… and there was a sort of great serpent that struck at the surrounding rock shapes it passed as it fled from the fire.

  These four types were the most numerous. There were things of other sizes and shapes—but no other flying ones except the Harpies. Most of them, however, seemed to have come forth only to die—or at least collapse. They made their way only a little distance from the aperture from which they escaped before sinking to the earth and lying still, or falling over and moving only feebly.

  It was, thought Jim as he watched, as if they had only a small hold on an imitation of life; and the mere act of escaping the flames had been too much for them.

  All together, though, Jim's blunder seemed to be more than a small help for those of Lyonesse—that was, if the Dark Powers had to take some time to replace them. He had started out with the thought of seeing what could be done to delay or bother Them. He had never expected to be able to do this much damage.

  His next step now was take a look at the Borderland invaders and see how close they were to actually showing up on the Empty Plain—

  "Sit back straight up and take a good hold, Hob," he said harshly. "We've got to get going."

  "But m'Lord—what about the harpy?"

  "The harpy?" Jim looked down. The harpy body he had been in—strangely familiar from his having been in it; and evidently equally so to Hob—had pulled itself perhaps as much as fifteen feet out onto the round, rock-colored surface by the slit from which they and it had escaped; and so far at least, the fire had not followed it. At first glance, Jim had assumed it was already dead; but then he saw its body shiver slightly—as if it wanted to move farther, but did not have the strength.

  "Never mind the harpy, Hob," he said. "It's done for anyway; and we've got to go."

  "But my Lord, it's your harpy!"

  There was an emphasis on the word your that did not escape Jim. In this world the relationship between any two individuals was a street than ran both ways. The serf, tenant, servitor in the Castle (or whatever passed for a castle) owed service and life to his overlord. But that overlord owed him in return—defense, the right to justice against others, enough leadership and forethought so that the lesser one did not starve. That and a host of other duties according to such things as past practice and established custom. There was no free lunch.

  The harpy's body had been used by Jim. As Hob saw it, Jim owed it something in return. And everyone from Brian to—probably even—Morgan le Fay would have agreed with him. There were those, of course, who did not honor such debts. They filled up the ranks of the men led here by Cumberland.

  "Can't we go down to it for a moment, my Lord?"

  "Yes. All right, Hob, we'll go down."

  Jim descended, accordingly, to beside the now-still body. Hob leaped down immediately; and tried to put his arms around the disproportionate head with a madwoman's face. The harpy pulled back its lips, exposing the vicious poison fangs, but did not have the strength to reach out and bite him.

  "We're here, Lady," said Hob to it softly. "We're here with you."

  The harpy abandoned its attempt to bite, but stared at Hob with eyes like black fires.

  "Just rest," Hob was saying. "All things come out all right. Just rest. Close your eyes…"

  To Jim's surprise, the harpy's eyelids flickered down, flickered up, half closed, then closed. It lay still; and then another strong shiver ran through its whole body and wings. The shivering stopped, and it relaxed. The wings drooped, the head sagged—until its sharp chin touched the gray surface; and as Jim watched, a slow change came over its fierce face, as even that relaxed… relaxed, until it looked sane, almost happy… and asleep.

  "It's dead, Hob," said Jim softly.

  "I know, m'Lord," said Hob, slowly taking his arms from around the head. "Goodbye, Lady." He looked up at Jim. "Do we go now, m'Lord?"

  "You're a better man than I am, Hob," said Jim as he took off.

  "My Lord? Is there someone else with us?"

  "No," said Jim. "Forget I mentioned it. It's part of a line from a poem a man wrote and I read—a long time back."

  "But I'm not a man, m'Lord. You know that." Hob's voice was puzzled. "I'm a Hob."

  "A very good Hob. Never mind. It doesn't matter—sort of talking to myself, anyway."

  Jim had to climb to almost two thousand feet to find a current of air moving toward where the Borderland camp was, or had been. But from that height he could see it was now deserted; ugly with litter, but deserted. He looked away to his left.

  The Empty Plain was still empty.

  Mentally drawing a line from the camp to the Plain through the thickly leaved treetops, he began to glide down toward that line at its Borderland end.

  He reached that point with surprising swiftness; and turned to soar along above the treetops beside the imaginary line he had drawn. For some little distance he saw nothing; and then there was movement visible below him on the ground. As he went, the movement began to have the purpose and shape of men and horses moving together in a single direction, though spread out from each other some little distance.

  Cumberland's force was indeed on its way from the surrounding woods into the Empty Plain. How could they be so sure of their destination, he asked himself; and the answer came back immediately.

  Of course. Morgan, Modred, or any of that inclination could have told them of the Plain's existence and led them to it.

  Meanwhile, they were under the trees, and the trees—for they were now over the border into Lyonesse itself—were a threat. They probably knew that; but even if they did not realize the trees could reach down with their limbs and strangle them, plants could not move that swiftly. The men would have to pause, or at least go very slowly, to be in such danger. Those moving below Jim now were probably safe as long as they were in constant movement.

  But—it was puzzling. On several occasions his sharp dragon-hearing picked up shouting voices from below; and he caught glimpses of
what seemed to be individuals running in different directions than their general line of march.

  But he could not get any closer without being seen; and he wanted to keep himself unseen, if possible, until he had to show himself as a dragon. If he went any lower, among and between the trees, he risked being seen. Best to head directly back to King Pellinore's home, where Brian and the others should be waiting for him.

  He tilted his wings and peeled off, not wanting to use his wings to climb until he was beyond the hearing of those below. Once he was, he beat up some four hundred feet, found a tail wind blowing in the right direction, and began riding it.

  It seemed almost too leisurely a way of going when the enemy was already on the march; but there was not a great deal he could do to hurry it up, unless he wanted to climb in hopes of finding a stiffer breeze.

  It would be a gamble. He had learned from volleyball that patience also had its place in winning any victory. He turned away from the Plain and soared on.

  When he came within sight of Pellinore's log-built home, he saw that Pellinore himself was just about the only one missing from the crowd around its front door. The space where Jim had eaten now held not only Brian—easily recognizable to Jim still in his dragon shape—Dafydd King David and the QB. But there were also a number of other men, all wearing clothes that looked as if they would have been the Blue of Dafydd's Color, if Jim could have seen their tint. They had quivers full of arrows slung by their sides and longbows over their shoulders.

  Jim landed with a thump, turning himself back into his human shape immediately. As an afterthought, he used a small bite of the plum to turn Brian back into a human, also. The archers stared.

  "James!" said Brian, as they gathered around him. "Damme, but it's good to see you! I should never have let you cozen me into leaving you alone there. But you took no hurt?"

  "Not a scratch," said Jim, deciding to say nothing about the crawl in darkness in the narrow tunnel. "But I was right about that being the breeding place of the Dark Powers' monsters; and by sheer luck—no credit to me, an accident really—I set fire to it. So the numbers of those that bred there have been reduced certainly by, at a guess, more than half."