The Dragon and the Gnarly King

  Very unusually for her, Kineteté broke off in the middle of her sentence, and frowned.

  "Edgar," Jim ventured, "did say there was a rumor at Court that Agatha was a witch. He very much believed it, himself."

  "Hah!" said Kineteté. "She's about as much of a witch as you are. Merlin alone would know what you are—unless Carolinus knows. But if so, he's not even telling me."

  "Anyway, I thought there was nothing to it," Jim said, deliberately ignoring her last words. "But, if then—"

  "Oh, there's a grain of truth to it," said Kineteté. "You remember what came out at the Earl's Christmas Party, about some of her early years when she lived with that very old and powerful Troll. Not that the Troll—"

  "Mnrogar," said Jim.

  "What?"

  "The name of the Troll."

  "His name has nothing to do with it. I'm saying he couldn't have taught her any magick, anyway. She doesn't know any magick—I wish you'd learn to pronounce the word properly!"

  "I've called it 'magic' all my life," said Jim, his stubbornness getting the better of him.

  "Ah?" said Kineteté. "There were some people who knew magick where you came from?"

  "Magic."

  "Magick!"

  " 'Magic' is what I've always called it; and 'magic' is what I'm going to go on calling it!"

  "Well," said Kineteté, "I suppose I can't blame you for your faulty foreign upbringing. Anyway, we'll go into that another time."

  There was a moment of silence in which they stared hostilely at each other.

  "In any case," went on Kineteté, "the point I was trying to make was that, like all Naturals, what simple magick the Troll had would be innate. He wouldn't know why it worked—like your Hob riding the smoke."

  "I know that," said Jim, still stiff.

  "Good. But what you probably don't know is that it wouldn't be unusual for a child, especially a little girl, with only a troll for company and cut off from normal human society and emotions, to look elsewhere for a place to belong. As it happens, I know she did seek out and experiment with Witchery. But when she found out that a mastery of the Lore requires a life-long, nun-like devotion, she dropped it. Never cut out for it, actually. But she might have picked up enough to continue some study on her own. Enough to know of the Gnarlies and how to get to the Gnarly Kingdom."

  "But then," Jim said, "what could she offer the King of the Gnarlies that he'd want, for helping her?"

  "Power," said Barton, speaking up for the first time, words tumbling out of him, "and riches—in this case, Great Silver, riches and power both in one. No ruler ever gets enough of either. Cumberland owns many of the mines, but only at the King of England's pleasure. But as everyone at Court knows, Agatha is well with the King there. Moving those mines into the hands of a ruler of a Natural Kingdom would upset History. So, the Dark Powers and politics come into it—"

  "If you don't mind, Charles?" said Kineteté sharply. "I think I'm dealing with this matter?"

  "Oh, very well," said Barron, looking sulkily off at the far-stretching left wall of the empty auditorium.

  "And if a Mage can send people to the Gnarly Kingdom," said Jim, taking advantage of the moment to ask a question he had been holding, "why didn't Carolinus just import us, or anyone else he needed to help him, instead of leaving Brian, Daffyd, and me to make our own way by land to there?"

  "Because once there," answered Kineteté, "he could no longer access his Magickal energy, unless allowed by the King."

  "You're right, I'd forgotten that."

  "Competent Magickians," said Kineteté icily, "do not forget. Now, if you and Charles don't mind, I was on the subject of Agatha Falon."

  "Oh, yes," said Jim. "I'm sorry. Go ahead."

  "I had intended to, with or without your permission. What I was about to say concerning Agatha and Witchery was this. It wouldn't be unusual for a little girl with a childhood like hers, and especially her years with the Troll, to end up feeling more at home with his like, seeing all other people as different—and enemies."

  Jim was getting a little tired of the subject of Agatha. He thought of Robert—and Carolinus, Brian, and Dafydd—down with the Gnarly King. But mainly of Robert in Gnarly hands, so small and alone.

  "Anyway," he said, "what's all this got to do with Robert being stolen by the Gnarlies? From what I overheard between Agatha and the messenger, Agatha is willing to pay a great price for him. But what's Robert got to do with Agatha, the mines, and the Gnarly King?"

  "Even down there in deepest Somerset," said Barron—Jim had been watching him out of the corner of his eye as he talked to Kineteté, and clearly the third of only three Triple-A-class magicians in this world had been itching to get back into the conversation. "You must have heard how, after the Christmas holiday gathering at your Earl's, Agatha went to a nunnery in Devon. It was said she went only for a retreat of a few months, but actually it was because she was pregnant, and she could have her child quietly there. If she did so, and it died, she might have a replacement, though why—"

  "Charles!" Jim had never heard quite that note of command in Kineteté's voice before. Barron stopped what he had been about to say, shutting up with the reflex of an oyster attacked by a starfish.

  "Very well," he said, "if I'm not needed…"

  He vanished.

  "In a snit, of course," said Kineteté, looking at the space where he had been. "But he'll get over it."

  "Why would she want a replacement?" asked Jim, suddenly very interested in Agatha again.

  "I don't know," said Kineteté. "The by-blow of someone of rank is usually either conveniently left behind or disposed of. That's part of the puzzle, but it's not as important that you know, since Gnarly possession of the English mines would upset History—and that indicates the Dark Powers being behind all this. Your Master-in-Magick went to the Gnarly King as an Ambassador from the Collegiate of Magickians."

  "Yes," Jim said, "you told me."

  "And of course," Kineteté said, "the King treated him well at first, let him move about and use a little magick. But then the King, against all diplomatic custom between Kingdoms, made him a prisoner."

  "What will the Collegiate do? If they decide to do it?"

  "Apprentices aren't supposed—" Kineteté broke off. "There doesn't seem to be anything we can do to free Carolinus. It'll be up to you, as well as getting back your Robert. Don't come back without both of them."

  "Of course I wouldn't—but he sent those projections to me. He must have been able to keep some of his magic!"

  "Anything could be, with Carolinus. Or he could have foreseen what would happen, even Robert being taken. But if he managed to hold on to any of his magick, it's not enough to free himself. It's in the power of any ruler of a Kingdom to make sure no outsider can access his magickal energy. Surely you know that."

  "Yes—yes, you're right, of course," he said hastily, to get Kineteté off the subject of his memory. "I should get down to the Gnarly King's cave as soon as possible. You said you could send me back before anything happened. When you send me back now, isn't there any way at all you can arrange for me to hold on to my magic?"

  "No," she said. She lifted a hand as though to dismiss him, then hesitated. "I could, of course, send you back with a ward that includes some of the Here around you. While the ward holds, you could strike out of it with your own magick. But if you do that even once, or if the Gnarly King guesses you're warded, he can wipe the ward out as easily as you breathe on a snowflake to melt it. Then your Here will be gone and your Magickal power with it."

  "But he might not guess I had a ward until I use my magic—and then it might be too late for him."

  "It would not be too late," said Kineteté. "The instant you use your magick the Great Silver on his Robe and Throne will turn bright red. The King will wipe out the ward and all foreign Magick in the same moment you use it. Probably you as well. Your Magick would be canceled out before it could take effect. Carolinus had you swallow a copy of the E
ncyclopedie Necromantick, didn't he?"

  "Yes," said Jim, remembering how Carolinus had shrunk that immense volume down to a pill, and how nonetheless he had felt like he had ingested a whale after getting it down.

  "Consult it again. RELATIVE POWERS: Footnote 5, page 7—LAWS AND RULES '… Resident Magick uttered in the same instant as non-Resident Magick shall have priority over any and all non-Resident utterances.' "

  "Ah… yes," said Jim. "But you say you can still send me back in a ward with part of the Here around me?"

  "I said I would. But will you remember that footnote in LAWS AND RULES?"

  "Carolinus must have trusted my memory for such, enough to hope I could rescue him as well as Robert."

  Kineteté looked at him for a long, penetrating moment.

  "Maybe Carolinus knows what he's doing with you," she said at last. "What will you do, then, once you're there?"

  "I won't know until I'm there," answered Jim.

  Kineteté shrugged.

  "RETURN!" she said.

  —And he was back in the great cave of the Gnarly King.

  No one, apparently, had noticed his return, or reacted to his absence; and the memory of the way the scene in the scrying bowl had appeared frozen, came back to him—possibly some anomaly of time had worked in his favor, so that only seconds had passed here… or maybe it was something Kineteté had done. Certainly Hill and the Gnarly King seemed still involved in the same argument they had been carrying on when Carolinus had sent him away.

  A feeling like a slight increase in air pressure reassured him that the ward was about him.

  Everyone else was intent on the argument between Hill and the Gnarly King, and for a small, odd moment, he knew he was perfectly visible but felt strangely invisible.

  In that moment, he had time to get a better look at the cave. There was a band of darkness staining the first four or so feet of the stone walls above the cave floor—now mostly hidden by the bodies of the mass of Gnarlies, who had packed all the space behind Brian, Dafydd, and the horses.

  There must, Jim thought, be at least a couple of thousand ordinary Gnarlies present. Gatherings like this must not be unusual. The dark band might have been made by greasy clothing, rubbing up against the clean, brown granite. Still, he had never expected their expedition to attract a crowd like this. Hill was the cause, of course.

  None of that crowd moved, even slightly. They stood as if carved, illuminated by the light from the cavern walls. Yet, above that light, the roof of the cave itself was lost in a sooty darkness that seemed to reject any light that reached it. A darkness suggestive of endless spiderwebs and massive bats—but no movement, no sound, came to suggest that anything lived there above, bats or otherwise.

  The coin-sized squares of the silvery jewel-like metal glittered like cut gems in the stony light, marking the path they had followed and ending in the ring he had noted before, a circle on the floor that included the dais with its throne, a circle perhaps twenty feet in diameter. Upon the dais in that circle the throne and the cloak of the Gnarly King were covered by the metal bits. Their constant, changing glitter—almost on the verge of color changes—seemed to become more agitated as the voices of Hill and the King clashed with each other, rising in volume.

  "—a cheild, yes. But never no growed Stoopid beed a Luck!" the Gnarly King was roaring.

  Hill and his uncle were clearly still in the same argument they had been engaged with when he left. Both had lost the apparently normal—to Gnarlies—open-mouthed stare. The King seemed to be feeling uneasy, Jim thought, over Hill's repeated mention of "Luck," in spite of what he said.

  It was just possible, Jim thought, that "Luck," as the Gnarlies thought of it, was something to be taken more seriously than what the same word might mean to humans.

  It puzzled him how he could bring any kind of luck to Hill. Hill clearly had no doubt; and the King looked almost as convinced. Jim felt a sudden spurt of anger. If he only understood what their concept of Luck was, there might be something he could do to help the situation.

  "No Luck to a Gnarly?" Hill was almost crowing." 'Ee thinks that, does 'ee? Then step into the Ring with me—or does 'ee wish to simply give me the Robe and the Throne and step down? I'll be light on 'ee if 'ee does."

  "Ye be light on me?" The King surged up to a standing position from his Throne, and began shrugging out of his heavy Robe. The metal plaques, which covered the outside of it, put on a sudden sparkling display, like miniature fireworks, that for a moment outshone the light from the walls as he tossed the garment aside, to fall clashing on the dais. He stepped forward and down into the ring.

  Exposed now to the waist, he showed a chest and body like one thick barrel, with very little difference in size between the chest and stomach. Otherwise he looked very human.

  But it was in the arms he and Hill—for Hill had now also torn off his shirt—showed their Gnarly inhumanness.

  The tops of their arms were so close to their necks that they could almost be thought of as having no shoulders at all. But a great hump of muscle ran over the upper end of each arm, giving the impression of power to move each with great strength in unusual directions.

  Their upper arms were ape-like and almost double the length of the lower arms, wrapped in heavy, rope-like muscle, under tight, greyish skin.

  Also, the lower arms were almost lost behind the huge hands that had been hidden in their long sleeves—hands so massive and long that one of them could have clasped clear around the waist of its owner's body. The palms, unfolded now, were as wide as canoe-paddles, the fingers three times the length of those of a large human. They splayed out from the oversize palms so that their grasping abilities were all too plain.

  The King raised his hands like a wrestler ready to grapple and stepped forward, kicking aside Hill's shirt, which lay where Hill had dropped it. Hill already had his own hands up in the same wrestler's position—but it was very plain to see that his were hardly more than three-quarters the size of the King's, and that the King's body in general was taller and heavier than Hill's by the same proportions. They circled slowly, facing each other.

  The Gnarlies packing the cave were still silent; but they had moved backward, either compressing their ranks or crowding those in the rear out into the corridor, because they had now left an open space a good three to five yards from the circle, in which there were left only the Gnarly King, Hill, and Jim, with Brian, Dafydd, and the horses. For the first time Jim noticed that Hob was somehow back on the sumpter-horse, peering out from under its pack-cover.

  Jim looked beyond the King, to the dimmer areas beside the throne's dais. Perhaps now, with everyone watching the two opponents, was his chance to use his magic to save Carolinus and Robert. Robert, he saw, was sleeping. Carolinus, clinging to the bars of his cage, was watching.

  "Hah!" said the voice of Brian in Jim's ear. "The little fellow has forced the fight. Well done, Hill!" The last three words were half-shouted at Hill, who paid no attention to them.

  "It looks more like suicide to me," said Jim, looking back at the fight.

  "Why, James!" said Brian, turning on him in surprise, "what has the sin of self-murder to do with such as this?"

  Their voices attracted the attention of the King.

  "Move ye back!" he snarled at them; and Jim realized the space inside the ring had to be cleared for the fight. He backed automatically; the horses, with the sumpter-horse moving first, were already moving as if they had independently heard and understood the King. Dafydd stepped back with Jim. Only Brian stood where he was.

  "Brian—" Jim was beginning, but in that same instant, the Gnarly King, seeing him still there, made a sudden, slow but powerful, swipe at him with one enormous hand.

  Brian's reaction was pure reflex. Moving much faster, he drew his sword; and its blade met the great hand in mid-swing, cutting square across its palm. There was a sound as if the steel blade had hit one of the stone walls. Brian looked startled, the Gnarly King looked puzzled and
stopped to stare at his palm. There was a red line across it, but the skin—if whatever integument covered that massive hand was skin—was not even broken.

  "Brian! Back up! Come back with us!" called Jim.

  Brian, sword still ready for use, risked a glance over his shoulder in Jim's direction, saw him beckoning, and backed up.

  "The damned creature attacked me!" he said to Jim.

  "Put the weapon away," said Jim. "Please, Brian! The Gnarly King and Hill are going to have a personal combat. You were inside the circle."

  "Circle?" said Brian. "Of course. I crave pardon," he added to the King, who had ceased to pay attention to him. Brian sighed.

  "No manners, of course," he confided to Jim, and turned all his attention to the circular space where the two opponents were facing each other. "But I would wish them to meet with weapons, James!"

  "It looks like they're going to fight without them."

  "Not gentlemanly, of course," said Brian. "But then, they are hardly like Christians, poor creatures."

  "I think those hands of theirs are going to be the weapons," said Jim. "The first time Rrrnlf brought Hill to me, he told me he'd found Hill digging his way out from under the same mountain that Rrrnlf was digging himself out of, and took Hill along because Rrrnlf could dig so much faster. I got the impression Rrrnlf had been digging through solid rock with just his hands, so maybe Gnarlies can, too."

  While they had been talking, the King and Hill had been circling each other, without making contact—still like two human wrestlers warily looking for a favorable chance to get to grips.

  "All the same," Jim continued, "I wish I could believe Hill had even a ghost of a chance of winning. The King must outweigh him two to one."

  "The little one has pluck, though," answered Brian. "He may win, at that. Pluck is everything. Every man must show himself to have it, to prove himself a man, win or lose. And even though these are not men, it goes not amiss for one to act as a man should."