The Dragon and the Gnarly King

  " 'Ee and 'oo to help 'ee?" he said. "Be'en't no other kin left to 'elp 'ee now. Them as stands behind 'ee at this moment won't lift a pick or rod to help 'ee—even if it would do good against my King's Power of Magick. What makes thee think thee could even touch me?"

  "I've my Luck!" said Hill.

  The King sneered.

  "A Stoopid's no Luck to you!"

  "Don't thee ever say that!" cried Hill. " 'Ee's Lucky. "Ee couldn't be luckier. Thee knows that! What of all the baybees stole down the centuries? Twas because they were lucky to have. And this'n's a Magickian. That makes him twice as Lucky!"

  "Magickian!" snorted the King. "I've a prime Magickian 'ere already—and look at 'ee!"

  As suddenly as Robert had appeared, Carolinus appeared on the other side of the dais. Carolinus in a cage, holding to the front bars as if they were all that kept him on his feet. His face was ravaged with exhaustion, but he opened his mouth and his cracked voice rang out, not in Jim's head but plainly in his ears.

  "Depart!" he cried. "Jim, DEPART!"

  And Jim did.

  With Carolinus' voice still sounding in his ears, he found himself in a large auditorium filled with men and women, many in red magician robes—more so-dressed than he had ever seen together before. On the stage on which Jim had appeared, a woman was standing, addressing the audience.

  She was a woman he had seen once before, one of the only three AAA+ Magicians there were in this world; and she had been the referee—or whatever magicians called it—at the time of Carolinus' duel with a B-class magician named Son Won Phon, over the latter's accusation that Jim had been using Oriental Magic without having been properly instructed by an expert in that area.

  The woman was of indeterminate age, by appearance perhaps in her thirties or forties; tall, but thin and somewhat cadaverous-looking. Her face was bony and long, and her expression stern. When Jim had seen her before, she had been wearing a dark green robe and a sort of skullcap of the same color; now she wore the magician's red. Her clothes were clean, but were obviously well-worn. Jim's mind scrambled to remember how to pronounce her name.

  Whatever she had been saying to the audience, it had been interrupted by Jim's appearance. She, like everybody in the seats, now turned to look at him. For a moment there was a dead silence, and then murmurs swept through the audience… "Dragon Knight…", "… No, no more than a class C + , I assure you!"

  "Tremendous extra Drawing Accounts. They say… (mumble, mumble)… Carolinus, but…"

  "How did you get here, Jim?" demanded the tall woman. At the sound of her voice, those from the audience ceased.

  "I think Carolinus sent me," said Jim. "—In a way. Or maybe he just took advantage of something that was carved over the entrance, something about 'WHO ENTERS DEPARTS. WHO DEPARTS RETURNS.' "

  "Hah!" she said, as fiercely as Jim had ever heard Brian say it. "That's our Carolinus—taking advantage of their own Natural, Gnarly Magick!"

  There was a sudden storm of questions shouted at Jim from the audience. The woman turned to face them, held up her hand, and all voices except hers fell silent.

  "Now, Jim," she said, turning back to him and speaking only slightly less severely than she had just looked at the audience, "how was it you were there where Carolinus could take advantage of this particular Gnarly command?"

  "Well, you see, Mage Kinety—" he began.

  "Kineteté," she scowled.

  "I'm sorry." Jim tried to follow her pronunciation of her own name with that final emphatic E. "Kinetet… yah?" Jim's attempt to duplicate the sound was a total failure.

  "No," she said. "Kin-eh-tet-E. Accent on the final E. Never mind. Pronounce it any way you want—but answer my question."

  "Well," said Jim. He suddenly felt six years old again, facing a towering first-grade teacher—and, in fact, Kineteté was a good three inches taller than he was. In just a few sentences he outlined the events that had followed the kidnapping of young Robert. Kineteté interrupted him when he came to the part about Hill.

  "What was he?" she snapped.

  "A Gnarly—a Gnarly prince, I guess, but we didn't know that at first." He outlined the rest of their trip up to the confrontation with Hill's uncle. "Anyway," he concluded, "just about then, the King made Carolinus appear. Carolinus commanded 'DEPART—and here I am."

  Jim stopped and tried to catch his breath. The whole story had come out almost in one sentence.

  "Hah!" said Kineteté again, thoughtfully this time, but still somewhat fiercely. "But you say you did see Carolinus. How was he?"

  "The King had him in a cage, and he looked in bad shape. He could barely stand up."

  Something like a moan came from the audience, with an undernote that was very like a growl of rage.

  "Were you aware," snapped Kineteté, "that Carolinus had gone to whoever was King down there with special permission from our worldwide Collegiate of Magickians and full Ambassadorial Credentials, to look into a threat to unbalance the Kingdoms?"

  "No, I wasn't," said Jim. "I saw and talked to him a short time before our journey—but even then he was a projection, rather than with us in person. He appeared once more, just before we went into Lyonesse; and he was a projection then, too—I think a message he deliberately left for us if we showed up; to be triggered into sight and sound by the fact we were there. But he only warned us then that Lyonesse was a land of magic, and dangerous for us."

  "Well, now we know," said Kineteté. "The Gnarly King apparently thinks he can do what he wants with a AAA+ Mage. We'll have to teach him differently!" The audience snarled its approval—very unmagician-like in sound.

  "But Hill's uncle has the only magic that's allowed in that Kingdom, isn't that so?" said Jim.

  "He has it, but doesn't own it!" said Kineteté sharply. "He simply controls it as long as he rightfully wears that Robe bejeweled with Great Silver—do you know what that is?"

  When Jim shook his head, she explained. "Great Silver forms a tiny part of ordinary tin, that only Gnarlies can recognize. Crushed by the Gnarly King's magic, as diamonds are made from the like of charcoal by the miles-deep weight of the Earth, it becomes like a jewel—the rarest jewel there is. It's from those jewels on his Robe and his Throne, that his magick springs. But he has to own these rightfully or they can be taken away. Then, someone else becomes King of the Gnarlies and has it."

  She paused, her dark eyes focusing past Jim at nothing in particular for a moment. Then they returned to him.

  "Yes," she said, almost to herself. "We must think matters out. You do not know why Carolinus sent you to us here?"

  "He must have arranged it that way beforehand, against the time I might need to be Departed," said Jim.

  "I thought so," said Kineteté. She turned her head and spoke to the audience. "Barron, I'm going to have to ask you to come up here."

  There was a moment in which nothing happened, and then a small, fussy-looking man in his fifties, rotund, with a button of a nose, a small unimpressive mouth, and pale blue eyes that blinked frequently, appeared. He was wearing a red robe and a tall pointed red hat, neither of which seemed to fit him very well. He looked exactly like the sort of person who ought to be wearing a pair of metal-rimmed spectacles. But spectacles, of course, were not available in this time and place—and in any case, a magician would not need to wear them: he could make his eyesight as good or as bad as he wanted at any time, magically.

  "If I must," he said, in an annoyed tenor voice.

  "It'll be your mind and mine, plus whatever we can gain from our young Apprentice, here," said Kineteté. "If the Gnarly King can defy us like this and so mistreat one of our most valuable members, then this is something that threatens us all. I can't understand how the King could fail to realize that."

  "Unless," said Jim, "it's because this new King, who seems to have killed the rightful ruler—Hill's father—to take the Throne, has something big in mind and thinks he's invulnerable now, for some reason."

  "Speak when you'r
e spoken to, boy!" barked the man who had come to share the stage with Kineteté. He was considerably smaller than either Jim or Kineteté.

  "I tell you," said Jim, stubbornly continuing to talk, "there's got to be some kind of pattern to it all; and I think that's a part of it!"

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Well," said Barron, "here's pert-ness! Speak when you're spoken to, apprentice. Mage Kineteté and I will unravel this matter!"

  It was not the other man's tone of voice or his assumption that Jim was incapable of helping that did it—it was his perfect pronunciation of Kineteté's name. Barron, Jim remembered now, was the name of the third AAA+ magician in this world; but despite that, Jim found himself growing angry—and when he got angry he also got stubborn. He had run into this kind of person in his own twentieth-century world, and he knew from experience that if he let someone like Barron get away with shutting him up, then he would never get anything said. The only way with this individual was to meet him head-on.

  "No," he said. "None of you seem to be paying any attention to the fact that I said Carolinus' message to us just before we went into Lyonesse was a projection. And best odds are he sent that message from inside the Gnarly Kingdom."

  "Where his magick would not work, you mean?" said Kineteté.

  "And since magic doesn't work there," Jim continued, "he could only have done it with the permission of the Gnarly King. The King wanted me lured there, and wanted me not to take my friend Aargh—the English wolf—along; I suspect Gnarlies have an unusual fear of wolves. So he let Carolinus send his projection to me, and Carolinus managed to give me some hidden information."

  "Not too bad reasoning for an Apprentice, don't you think, Barron?" Kineteté said.

  "Lucky guess, I'd call it," said Barron. He hesitated, added grudgingly, "I suppose he has a few wits, this lad."

  "So do I suppose," said Kineteté. "And I think we'll listen to him for the moment."

  Her last words came in a tone of voice that would not have encouraged Jim to continue a discussion with her. Barron evidently felt the same way.

  Kineteté turned back to Jim.

  "Is there anything else you want to mention to us, now?"

  "Just one thing that might tie in," he said. "I don't understand how it could happen, but while we were crossing Lyonesse, we were led into an ambush by a veiled woman." He explained about recognizing Agatha, and her disappearance.

  "Agatha," Jim said, "stands to inherit the Falon lands and possessions, if her nephew dies. I was given Robert as a ward by the English King, and my wife and I thought we knew enough about Agatha to keep Robert safe from her—"

  "We know all about this!" interrupted Barron.

  "All right," said Jim. "But if it was Agatha—Carolinus warned me that Lyonesse was full of tricky magic, so it might not have been her—she'd have to be working with some sort of magical power, herself, to have gotten there."

  "Hmmm," said Kineteté.

  "Anyway," said Jim, "before Agatha and the two men with her vanished, I noticed that they were wearing Court clothes. And Carolinus had said something to me about the King—I mean, the English King—being in some sort of danger. So I think someone ought to go check this out at the Court."

  This time both Kineteté and Barron were silent after he had finished speaking. Finally, Barron spoke.

  "Probably has nothing to do with Carolinus' predicament at all!" he said.

  "Clearly the woman could gain from taking the child," said Kineteté. "But how capturing Carolinus would involve the English Court—it may be Jim, here, sees a connection where you and I, Barron, don't."

  Barron snorted.

  "You're really ready to believe this Agatha woman might have something to do with Carolinus' being held by the Gnarly King?" he said.

  "I do," answered Kineteté. "And I'll remind you, Barron, that I am unmatched in connective magicks. Just as Carolinus is in intuitiveness—and Carolinus trusts this boy. Remember, the woman is connected to the boy, the boy is connected to the Gnarly King; the King is connected to Carolinus; Carolinus is connected to Jim, here; and Jim is connected to the English Court."

  "I am?" said Jim, but apparently unheard.

  "Oh. Well, in that case," said Barron, "I suppose I'll have to go back to the Court myself, then." He made a face. "No help for it. None of our Collegiate is known there as I am; and above all, no one else from our Collegiate is as respected there as I am—"

  Muttering in the crowd.

  "Except perhaps Carolinus himself, of course," Barron went on, a little hastily. "But in any case, I know my way around the Court better than anyone else. I know the people there. You—"

  His eyes focused on Jim.

  "Yes, Mage?" answered Jim politely, feeling the time for manners had come.

  "I suppose you'll have to go along with me to find this Agatha and the two men she tried to pass off as a brother and a father."

  "Me?" said Jim. "But I can't! I have to go back to rescue Robert and Carolinus—"

  "Not now," said Kineteté.

  "We'll leave, then," said Barron. "—that is, if the Collegiate approves that manner of handling things. Do you all?"

  He turned to face the audience below the stage.

  Jim and Kineteté both looked with him and Jim was astonished to see every robe in the house turn a glowing magician's red.

  "Very well, very well. If I must. Come along, Tim—or Jim, or whatever your name is—"

  "Just a minute," said Jim.

  Barron stared at him in honest astonishment. Jim turned quickly to Kineteté.

  "I need to be able to go back to the Gnarly King's Throne Room," he said. "And as quickly as possible, because it looks as if a fight is developing there. Both Robert and Carolinus need help."

  "I have never—" began Barron, but this time it was Kineteté who interrupted him.

  "Don't worry about that, Jim," she said. "I'll make sure you don't miss anything. You can rest easy."

  "Thank you," said Jim.

  He turned back to see Barron glaring at him, and just in time to see Barron change the glare to a somewhat sickly smile. Jim looked again at Kineteté and saw her smiling at the other AAA+ magician, with a smile of her own that would have stopped a tiger in his tracks.

  "I think it's probably for the best, Barron," said Kineteté. "I'm sure we can all count on you to make the most of young Jim here, by paying attention to what he says and thinks."

  "Oh, that. Yes—of course," muttered Barron. "Are you ready—er, Jim?"

  "I'm ready now, Mage," said Jim.

  With the same suddenness with which Jim was used to being taken places by Carolinus, he now found himself standing with Barron inside a stone-walled room, the small, square window of which evidently gave on an inner court. All that could be seen through it, from Jim's position at least, was a small patch of blue sky above a somewhat distant wall of stone.

  Probably that was the side of another building, Jim thought. From out of sight below rose up shouts and cheers, as if some kind of athletic contest were going on.

  The room itself was obviously a bedroom, for there were only a couple of low, unpadded, semi-backed chairs, a table, and a curtained bed, with its curtains undrawn. On the table sat several wine bottles and a couple of tumbler-like glasses, one almost empty and one half-full of wine. The table was within arm's reach of the bed. Barron was looking annoyed.

  He strode to the bed and grabbed the bare shoulder of the figure on the closest side of it, all that was not completely hidden under the covers. He shook it vigorously.

  "Wake up!" he snapped. When neither shaking nor voice were answered he raised his voice and shook even harder.

  "Edgar, you will wake up—now!"

  The face belonging to the shoulders was half-buried in the pillow. But one closed eye had been showing, above half a mustache and the corner of a mouth.

  Now the eye flew open. It stared upward at Barron. With a spasmodic jerk the man belonging to the eye and mustache
sat bolt upright in bed, both eyes now wide open despite lank brownish-black hair falling into them. He pushed himself back against the headrest as tightly as he could, as if trying to get as far as possible from Barron.

  "Mage!" he said in a thick voice. "Mage—thought you had left the Court!"

  "I did. I'm back," said Barron. "This room used to be your sitting room. Why is it a bedroom?"

  "Well, I—I—well, you see, it was like this—"

  "Never mind!" said Barron. "There are two doors here—" Jim looked. There were indeed two doors in facing walls of the almost square room. "—Which one of them leads to your sitting room?"

  The man called Edgar pointed past Barron and Jim at the door more behind them than in front of them.

  "We will see you there in three minutes. You will be fully dressed, awake, and ready to talk!" said Barron.

  "Yes, Mage—" said Edgar, half-falling out of bed and revealing himself completely naked. Just beyond him the crown of a blond head was barely revealed above the covers, now that he was no longer hiding it with his own form.

  "Come, Jim," said Barron.

  He turned about and marched toward the door Edgar had indicated. Jim went with him, into a room furnished with two plain wooden chairs and two with full backs and padding. Barron took one of the padded chairs and waved Jim into the other. They sat down.

  This room also had a window, through which a burst of cheering could be heard. Jim tried to imagine what was being done or played there. A courtyard like that was not really built for any version of team game. Possibly tennis.

  "Mage," he said, "what's his name? Whoever it was you just woke up in the bedroom there?"

  "Edgar," said Barron, almost absentmindedly, "Edgar de Wiggin. He's taking his time in there."

  "We just sat down, Mage," said Jim. "It can't have been three minutes yet."

  "Maybe not." Barron had crossed his legs, and he drummed the fingers of his right hand on his knee. "Still, a slippery fellow like that. Have to keep a tight rein on him. Not that he isn't useful—oh, here he is!"

  Edgar de Wiggin was just now coming through the door from the bedroom.

  "You are a disgusting sight," said Barron coldly, looking at him. "Lace up your codpiece."