The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "But they might have a sensitivity to magic—that troll is over a thousand years old, being around him might have helped to point her in the right direction. Kids pick up more than people ever think from people around them—but never mind that now."

  He turned back to the respectfully listening hobs.

  "What did the lord want?" he asked.

  "To make the King sick," said Tiverton hob.

  "Sick?" Jim and Angie stared at Tiverton hob. Angie was the first to pick up on his meaning.

  "You don't mean sick with the plague that's now in London?"

  Tiverton hob nodded.

  "That's it, m'lady," he said. "Those goblins m'lord ran into taking that Holy Person home might have been some of them that was herding rats with lots of fleas down here."

  "What makes them so sure rats carry the fleas that make people sick with plague?" Jim asked.

  "Maybe the lady told them," said Tiverton hob, "or maybe they just saw fleas being sick into the place where they'd bitten some human to get at human blood."

  "Saw it?" Jim echoed.

  "Yes, m'lord. Haven't you?"

  "No. Their bite's so small, and they're gone so fast."

  "We hobs can see it—can't we, Hob?" Tiverton's turned to Malencontri hob.

  "Yes, m'lord," said Hob. "Maybe it's because we're smaller than humans. But the fleas do it every time, whether they've got sickness in them or not."

  "I can't believe it," said Jim, turning again to Angie. "Even Cumberland wouldn't try murdering the King—or would he?"

  "Maybe Agatha talked him into it. She wouldn't have any qualms about doing it. And you told me once he does want to be King, or Regent."

  "Then maybe he would," said Jim. "This is a hell of a mess! Nobody would believe it—least of all the King. Probably not even the Prince. Angie, if this is actually what's going on here, I've got to do something to stop it! Carolinus has been hammering into me that my first and greatest duty is to keep the King alive—but he'd never say why, maybe because I'm not a full-fledged Magickian yet."

  "Jim—" Angie began.

  "But evidently," he rushed on, "it's the first duty of every Magickian, and I'll be told that, along with other things, if I'm ever voted into the Collegiate as one of them. But all the rest of you had better clear out now without waiting—I mean this minute." He was feeling things that needed to be done pushing him faster than he could think about them. "I'll use magic to make your going invisible and then work it some way as if you're still here, when I ask the King for permission to leave tomorrow."

  "I won't go without you!" said Angie. "Dafydd won't either, or Brian, of course, and that means Danielle and Geronde will be staying, too. Yes, Geronde definitely. On second thought, Danielle will absolutely go, so there'll be her at least to take care of her children if Dafydd doesn't make it back from here, but everybody else will stay." Then she paused in her turn for breath.

  "Can you be sure that's what's going on?" she asked.

  "You're right. I need some evidence. Tiverton hob!"

  "Yes, m'lord?"

  "How can you be sure they're trying to make the King sick, you hobs?" said Angie.

  "I watched from behind the fireplace fire one eve and saw the lady give m'lord Verweather his orders," answered Tiverton hob.

  "When was this?"

  "A fortnight ago—no, maybe three weeks agone."

  "But that's not going to help you much," said Angie. "The word of a hob, particularly one with a grudge against the goblins—how can we be sure the staff here's all goblins?"

  "If I just knew even one of them was, it'd be a start," said Jim. "I could try to counter whatever magic makes a goblin… turn it—or him—into his real shape. But then if I could, I'd have alerted all of them…"

  He thought a moment. Then he suddenly snapped his fingers.

  "We can use our own full-length mirror in the Solar—the one I silvered the back of for you. Hang on a minute. I'll get it here!"

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Angie looked carefully at the full-length mirror Jim had just transported from the Solar back at Malencontri. It was really a rather beautiful mirror—as well as being the only one like it in England.

  True, its images were a little wavery, since the glass was fourteenth-century window glass—rare enough in its own right. It was some of the glass Jim had gotten for the rare luxury of having real glazed windows in their towertop residence. But the Malencontri carpenter had made for it as beautiful a frame as was within his power: no figures of course, but some excellent ornate carving on the edges.

  "I hope nothing happens to it here," she said. "I didn't have time to suggest it, you acted so fast, but couldn't you just have made a copy, now you've got the first one?"

  "I could not," said Jim. "Magic doesn't understand silvering—mainly because I don't either. I'd have to make another from scratch—and you remember how long it took me to get the silver to stick to the glass, last time."

  "You're right," said Angie. "I forgot. I'm not really worried about it."

  "All right. Now a touch of magic to make it invisible. Good. And a touch more to make it reveal things."

  "But you haven't made it invisible—" Angie began.

  "Yes, I have. Not to us. But it'll be invisible to any goblin or anyone else magically trying to pass his or herself off as something different. Now we call in the servant or the man-at-arms. Maybe the hobs better be invisible, too."

  "Tiv and I can be up the chimney," said Hob, "and still see and hear everything."

  "Fine," said Jim. "A pinch of magic saved is a pinch of magic earned. Angie do you want to be the one to call the servant, or the guard?"

  "Servant here!" Angie raised her voice. The servant came in.

  "Over here, by me," Angie said to her. "Stand right there—that's right. Now look at this pen here. Now, I want that cleaned four times a day and always when I'm expecting guests. You understand?"

  Lured into perfect range of the mirror, the servant was suddenly reflected no longer as a woman, but exactly like a hob, except for a light coat of buff-colored hair.

  "Oh yes, m'lady," said the individual projecting this image.

  "Good," said Angie, in a perfectly controlled voice, "you can go now." The door closed behind the servant. "Jim!"

  "Yes, I saw," said Jim.

  The two hobs were back in the room. Jim was beginning to be able to tell them apart. Tiverton hob was slightly shorter than Malencontri hob, and a little more burly—if that word could legitimately be used to describe any hob.

  Jim had been standing in a trancelike state looking at the two hobs, his mind whirring away and getting nowhere like an electric motor out of control. Suddenly he came out of it, knelt down and began sculpting empty air with this open hands.

  "What are you doing?" Angie said.

  "Making a model of Tiverton." Jim stood up from his work. What he had created was a shape of mist that resembled a castle—but only in that it had a surrounding wall and a tower attached to a broader, lower section. "Now we'll cause a green light to show for each one in the castle who's a goblin—my God!"

  Pinpricks of green lights were showing all through the model, in uncountable numbers.

  "How many are there?" he asked.

  The two hobs looked at each other. "I don't know, m'lord," said Hob.

  "More than two hundred," said Tiverton hob.

  "They don't need that many to run a castle the size of Tiverton, do they, Angie?" said Jim, dazed.

  "Seventy would do it," Angie said out of her experience as Chatelaine of Malencontri. "Jim, if they ever find out we know about them—"

  "You don't have to spell it out—" Jim broke off. "Sorry, Angie. Didn't mean to bark at you. We'll just have to make sure they don't find out."

  "How will you do that, m'lord?" asked Tiverton hob, plainly interested. Jim stared at him.

  "By just giving no sign we ever knew any different," said Jim. "And if you and Malencontri hob stay in the chimneys
and out of their sight, they'll have no way of finding out that anything unusual has been going on."

  "Oh, but they will know that soon anyway, m'lord," said Hob.

  "Yes," Tiverton hob chimed in before Jim could respond, "I understand what you mean, Hob."

  "Well, I don't!" Angie said. "Jim, what are they talking about?"

  "I think," Jim said slowly, "the hobs are saying that that goblin who was being a servant will have smelled that magic was at work in the room a moment ago." He shook his head. "I should have remembered that Hob said the goblins can smell magic."

  "But you work magic all the time," Angie said. "So smelling magic around you shouldn't make them suspect anything."

  "What do you think about that, you hobs?" Jim asked. "You both know more about them than we do. Will they be suspicious?"

  "Maybe not right away, m'lord," Hob said, after exchanging a look with Tiverton hob, who simply nodded. "But later that goblin is going to remember how m'lady had her stand right in front of the magic she smelled and get suspicious you magicked her, for some reason."

  "But what of it, if she doesn't know we could see her true shape in it?"

  "But she'll tell the other goblins," Hob said, "and one of them is going to guess you might have magically seen through their shape-changing. Very suspicious, goblins are."

  "A goblin would guess that? That's pretty good guessing," Angie said.

  Tiverton hob nodded, and looked at Malencontri hob, who continued to answer for the two of them.

  "Goblins are always worried," Hob said. "Especially when there's magic involved. In the Kingdom of Devils and Demons they always had to be afraid because the higher demons might be after them at any time."

  Paranoid goblins, Jim thought to himself. I suppose it might be a survival trait for them.

  "It probably doesn't matter how much they really know about what we've learned about them," Jim said out loud. "Fear alone may drive them to act against us all."

  "Yes." Hob nodded. 'They probably wouldn't know how the magic the servant-goblin smelled could tell you what they really are, but that's the purpose for it they fear most."

  "Wait a minute, Hob—my hob—some of those that attacked us on our trip with the Bishop tried to turn themselves into imitation knights, but they managed only very clumsy imitations. The servants here look exactly like humans!"

  "They have to practice, m'lord," said Tiverton hob, "and that's what they did. I watched them from the fireplaces. There must have been no cross on this castle door—or whoever was here didn't have that much faith in a cross. So they came in—making themselves almost as small as insects so they wouldn't be noticed—and spent some time studying and practicing, each on a different human, until they could look and act just like that human. Then they made themselves big, killed all the humans in the castle, and probably ate them."

  "That explains why that one servant would do anything I told her," said Angie, "except touch my flask of boiled Malencontri water after I said it held holy water!"

  "Hmm, yes," Jim said. "Tiverton hob, you think they might take only a short time to figure out that we might know from the report of the one that was made to stand in front of a mirror?"

  "Don't know, m'lord. Probably pretty quickly. They're not too wise about lots of things, but very quick about magic and suspicions. It could take them only a few minutes, or—"

  "Then we can't waste time!" said Jim. "We've got to move right away! We've got to get out of here—all us humans. You hobs, too!"

  Angie looked alarmed. The two hobs looked very interested.

  "What are you going to do?" Angie asked.

  "Fort up, to start with!" said Jim. "We're in the top story here under the tower floor. First get all humans in the castle collected here, where we can defend the stairs. Then move us all to the King's rooms around the hall. Ward the whole top floor, and the King's quarters, so we can do a nose count—tell you the rest later—where's that water pitcher?"

  "Right by your elbow."

  "Oh, good!" Jim stared into it. "Edward—Prince—to here!" And the Prince appeared in their room, looking about him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jim was already moving on, unheeding.

  "Joan? Joan—there you are." She appeared, looking startled. Jim's voice had risen in the room.

  "Now, the King's own knights—to me, here. Silence! I'll explain everything in a minute!"

  "What is this?" cried the Prince, in an outraged voice.

  "Emergency!" said Jim. "Pray patience for a moment, Your Grace. Brian? Is Geronde with you?"

  A tinny voice came from the pitcher, not understandable out in the room.

  "I don't care how she's dressed. Here, now! You're dressed enough, Geronde. Both you and Brian here, now? Good. Dafydd, you alone? Where's Danielle? Oh, sorry Daniele—it's getting so crowded here I didn't see you. Danielle, Dafydd, here are your bows, and all the arrows you two can carry!"

  Jim and Angie's room had become jammed with people. Jim took a moment to expand the room, adding the corridor to its space while keeping it walled off, with the castle servants remaining outside. People were demanding answers.

  "I said I'd tell you all in time and I will. No, Geronde," he said, "you, Angie, Dafyyd and Brian—close over by me and His Grace and Joan, here. Stand close so you all can hear me over this noise. Silence, please—all! First I've got to talk to my Lord Prince and Lady Joan. Then Angie, Brian, Dafydd, Geronde, Danielle."

  He threw an extra ward around them.

  "Silence all!" he said again. At that magical command the people in the room were unable to speak. At that point Jim became aware that the terrier bitch was barking excitedly, her barking interspersed with growls at the people standing closest to her pen full of puppies. "Silence," he roared, "you can't bark anymore, as of now!"

  Jim had forgotten for a moment that magic did not work on animals. But the little terrier had apparently been trained to the order of "Silence!" She stopped barking, but began to whine, looking at Jim.

  "Don't whine either!" he told her. "You can make noise later, after I'm through talking." Surprisingly, she obeyed that order, too.

  "Hob," Jim went on immediately, "can you talk to her—explain everything's going to be all right?—Oh, that's right—you hobs can both talk again."

  "I can tell the dog, m'lord," said Tiverton hob eagerly.

  "M'lord ordered me to do it!" Hob snapped at his fellow hobgoblin. "There, she understands, m'lord."

  "All right, Hob. But now you and Tiverton hob be quiet unless I ask you something." Jim looked about the room, then turned back to the Prince and Joan, making sure he had brought the model of the castle close where they could see it.

  "I wanted to talk to you first, Your Grace and Lady Joan, because you'll be quickest to understand what we're up against. See this? It's a sort of picture of this castle, which I made with magic. All the green lights show where goblins are inside this castle. They are magically disguised as the servants of this castle." The people listening looked stunned, and there could be no doubt that Jim would have been inundated with questions if they had been able to speak.

  "Yes," Jim went on quickly, "they're shape-changers, and they've made themselves look like humans as part of a plot to infect the King with plague and kill him that way. I don't know just why. I'll find out and then I'll get us all out of here."

  He paused for a moment. The belligerent look on the face of the Prince was being replaced by a look of dangerous determination. Taking a chance, Jim removed the command that had imposed silence on the group immediately about him. He was rewarded by a wary silence.

  "Meanwhile," he went on, "we've got to deal with the goblin man-at-arms on watch outside, as well as guard the staircase. I've put a ward around this whole floor, but I want to take some goblins prisoner, so I'll open the stairway soon. We ought to be able to defend that against an army. Your Grace, if you'd take over the fighting men of the King's personal service, we can feel secure—just one thing, though. Brian, Dafydd and
I have been fighting together against enemies for some years, now. I would wish you to leave them to me to command."

  The Prince frowned, but before he could respond, Joan spoke quickly.

  "Amazing, Sir James!" she cried, understanding immediately as Jim had expected her to. "If anyone but a Magickian like yourself had told us all this we could not have believed it." She paused to take a deep breath.

  "Thank Heaven you are with us, James," she went on in a calmer tone. "You know how to confront these demons and goblins! I think your plan to keep Sir Brian and the archer under your own magickal command an excellent idea, is it not, Your Grace?"

  "I'm not so—a war captain like myself—" the Prince broke off and coughed. "Yes, possibly. Thank all the saints you are with us this day, James!"

  "Good," said Jim. "We're making progress. Now let's take a look at who all I managed to rescue." He plunged into the mass of other people, still talking, freeing them from their silence. "You'd know better than I, Your Grace, how many souls the King brought with him when he came here. Where are the King's knights? Ah, Sir Mathew, and the rest. Good!"

  Sir Mathew, who was only dressed in his hose, shirt and shoes, looked at him grimly.

  "Sir, I honor your magickianship, but may I ask—oh, good day, Your Grace."

  "Mathew," said the Prince sharply, "may I suggest you use a more polite tone of voice toward the gentleman who has just saved your life and that of everyone else here."

  He had raised his voice enough to be heard by all the gathering in the now extended room. Jim felt grateful, but only for a moment. His mind was spinning with other things to be done immediately.

  "Hark to me all here!" continued the Prince, raising his voice.

  There was an instant attention from all in the room.

  "—from this moment on, all gentlemen present here—except our three paladins—are about to engage with a horde of goblins. You knew them as Tiverton's servants and men-at-arms, but in fact they are a damned horde of devils, shape-changers, out to murder our beloved King. We must prevent that or die in the attempt!"

  "Alas, Your Grace," said Sir Mathew. "I am a naked man at the moment, completely without my weapons."