The Dragon on The Border

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Not more than an hour. In fact," Jim went on, "half an hour should do it."

  "In that case," said Liseth, "I'll send Greywings out right away. I'll be back here in fifteen minutes, and—being careful not to disturb you, with your permission—will look inside for a moment to see if you are awake. If you are, we can reach the meeting place I was talking about within very little time. Much less time than it will take Snorrl, unless he is very near to get there himself. This is important. For if he comes to the meeting place and finds me not, he may not wait for us. On the other hand, if he has been alerted by Greywings to the fact that I may be in some… difficulty, he will certainly not leave the vicinity of the castle. So when we leave the castle itself and go out to the meeting place, he will soon know of it and come to meet us there. So there is no danger of losing him completely, once Greywings has found him. There is only the very small doubt that he will not understand why Greywings is behaving as I shall tell her to."

  "I think that's a very small chance indeed," said Jim, and meant it. "Very well. I'll expect you in fifteen minutes. If I'm still sleeping, would you mind waiting a while? Because I doubt that I'll sleep much longer—as I say, an hour at the utmost."

  "Just as you say, m'Lord," answered Liseth, as she turned and went off.

  Jim unrolled his mattress and laid it out on the available patch of floor. About to lie down on it, he looked again at the flowers by the window, and a strong feeling of nostalgia took him. The flowers reminded him of Angie; and all she had done to make their life together livable back here in fourteenth-century conditions. When Jim and Brian and Dafydd had won their fight against the creatures of the Dark Powers at the Loathly Tower, Brian finally hacking through to the Worm's vitals, Dafydd shooting down the harpies that burst suddenly upon them from the heavy bank of clouds only about a hundred feet over their head, while Jim—in a dragon's body—fought and killed the Ogre, single-handed.

  He remembered Dafydd almost superhumanly deciding to live, after a harpy's bite which was invariably considered fatal, only because his present wife Danielle had finally said she loved him.

  It had been then that Carolinus had told Jim that he had gained enough magic, in his balance with the Accounting Office, to take himself and Angie back to their own world and their own century.

  Also, it had been then that Angie drew him aside, and told him that she wanted to do whatever he wanted to do, about staying or going. Jim, who had taken for granted that she would want to go back—although there were elements about this fourteenth-century world that strongly attracted him, medievalist and athlete in his own world as he was—had been completely floored by her attitude. Upon searching his conscience he had decided to stay, much to the joy of Sir Brian, Dafydd and the others and—just as she had said—with Angie's full agreement and support.

  It had been after that, that they had taken over the castle of Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri and made it their own; since Sir Hugh, who had sold his services to the Dark Powers, had had to flee for his life. He had left England for the continent, unlikely to return.

  The fourteenth century, Jim had found, was no bed of roses. In fact, it often seemed just the opposite—a bed of thorns. But Angie had done a miraculous job of making the castle livable for them and introducing to it some of the better elements of fourteenth-century existence, that had made all the difference to their dwelling in it. The flowers now reminded him of Angie; and he realized he could hardly wait until he saw her again.

  But now it looked very much as if he would not be able to return at the time promised. Not only that, but he would be entering into contest with the Dark Powers with almost no magical powers of his own to help him.

  The magic account balance that once would have taken him and Angie back to Earth—the Earth they had known—was now all but used. He had lived it up; staying here where he was and moving into Sir Hugh's former castle.

  It was true that he had gained some of it back by his actions in France the year before, at the time of Giles's death and the rescue of the Crown Prince of England. But that gain had also been canceled out by the fact that he had necessarily violated one of the rules under which magicians operated. So he was still a magician with a D rating. Only if he ever got to be at least a AAA+ magician like Carolinus could he have hope of taking them back to their original home. It struck him now, not for the first time, that in spite of Angie's stout support, and hard work on behalf of both of them, he had given her a very hard row to hoe, in his decision to stay.

  However, there was nothing to be done about that now, except to move forward as quickly as possible to get the current problem solved and the Dark Powers' present effort against him frustrated; by blunting their hopes of the Scottish invasion of England.

  He lay down on the mattresslike piece of bedding that Angie had made for him, and which he had been careful to keep vermin free, then rolled himself in it. It had been designed so that he could do just this, so it not only cushioned him against the stone floor below him, but furnished him with insulation that would hold enough body warmth around him to let him sleep.

  He closed his eyes and used a little bit of his magic. Mentally writing on a blackboard that was the inside of his forehead, he created the spell that would cause his astral body, in his sleep, to return to Carolinus's cottage near The Tinkling Water in the south of England.

  SLEEPDREAM ME→CAROLINUS'S HOME

  As always happened under these conditions, he fell asleep immediately; and found himself almost in the same breath standing outside the small peaked-roof cottage in the little clearing; with—now in daylight—impossibly green grass, and the tiny pool with its magically activated fountain spouting in its midst, so that its drops fell back to the surface of the pool with a tinkling sound that gave the place its name—The Tinkling Water.

  Chapter Twelve

  As usual at The Tinkling Water, the weather was delightful. The sky was blue, the tops of the tall trees surrounding barely stirred to a warm breeze; and it was exactly the same time of day which it had been in Castle de Mer just now, when he had fallen asleep. He walked up the gravel path to Carolinus's front door.

  The gravel underfoot was neatly raked, though no one ever raked it. Magic, again. The last few times Jim had visited Carolinus this way, he had found the Master Magician in the bad humor that was almost standard behavior with him, except in emergencies. Jim had learned that he was gentle and kind enough underneath his irascibility; but because of the other's temper, when Jim reached the green front door, he knocked at it almost timidly.

  "Not my day for groundhogs!" snapped Carolinus's voice angrily from within.

  Jim knocked again, a more normal knock this time.

  "It's me, Jim Eckert!" he called. Only Carolinus recognized him by his twentieth-century name. There was a moment's pause and then the door was snatched open from the inside and Carolinus's head stuck out.

  "Yes, it is you," said Carolinus, in a voice that was anything but pleased. "What is it now?"

  "This current problem concerning the Dark Powers," said Jim. "I need your advice. Could I come in—"

  "No, no!" said Carolinus hastily. "Stay there. I'll come out."

  He did so, and was closing the door behind him, when he paused and partially opened it again so that he could stick his head back inside.

  "I'll be right back with you, my dear," he said, in a cooing voice that Jim had never heard him use before. "Just be patient a short while longer."

  He brought his head back out, started to close the door, then changed his mind. He reopened it and stuck his head in once more.

  "Have some Madeira, my dear," he crooned. "It'll help you relax. The bottle and glasses are on the table right by you there."

  He took his head out and closed the door firmly, then turned to face Jim.

  "Well?" he snapped. "You can see I'm busy!"

  Only the fact that Jim was familiar with Carolinus's way of doing things caused him to take this without offense. It was just the w
ay Carolinus was. He barked at everybody—including the Accounting Office voice, toward which Jim and everyone else was instinctively humble.

  "Scotland's planning an invasion of England with French money," Jim said, using as few words as possible. "They plan to use the Hollow Men as an advance force—"

  "Yes, yes. I know all about that, now," said Carolinus. "Get to the important matter. What's your problem?"

  "Just that," said Jim hurriedly. "The Dark Powers have really set up a strong hand for themselves this time. The Hollow Men, if all goes well, ought to frighten and kill enough as they move south, so that the Scottish forces can move fairly freely behind them and get deep into England. Then at that point, the French are supposed to land an invasion fleet in the south of England. But the opinion of my Scottish expert is that the French have never kept their promises on matters like this before; and that means they won't do it now."

  He paused to catch his breath. Then he continued.

  "The result will be a mess, with a lot of people killed, both Scottish and English; and eventually, the Scottish army will be surrounded and destroyed by a much larger English force that has the advantage of being able to use archers like Dafydd ap Hywel. You might want to stop and think about it; because if and when the French forces do come in, they'll probably come through here."

  "I'd advise 'em not to!" said Carolinus, his beard bristling. Then his voice quieted and became more thoughtful. "But you're right, they'd devastate the rest of the neighborhood. All of them looking, as William the Conqueror and his army looked, for lands to take over, when they came ashore on September 27, the year of our Lord 1066. No reason anyone invading now should feel any different—except your Scots. They don't want land, they want loot."

  "The Scots also want to protect their homes," Jim put in. "If English land is taken, there'll be attempts to take Welsh and Scottish lands too."

  "True," said Carolinus. "Well, you're right. The Dark Powers do seem to have a strong hand this time. And you're baffled as to what to do about it, I take it?"

  "Well, not completely baffled," said Jim carefully. "I have a plan of sorts, but it involves the use of magic. And you know my account is not the largest—

  "Now look here," interrupted Carolinus. "I can't, absolutely can't, give you any more credit from my own account. The Accounting Office cracked down on me last year, after I helped you out when you were rescuing—what's that lad's name, again?—Prince Edward."

  "Oh, I wasn't thinking of borrowing any more credit from you—" said Jim.

  "A good thing!" said Carolinus grimly. "The Accounting Office is quite right, you know. The amount of credit I shifted to your account—understand, this can be excusable under certain circumstances but not under those circumstances or in that amount—was just a drop in the bucket as far as the total credit of all magicians goes. Not enough to make any difference at all in the bottom line worth noticing. But, as they very rightly feel—and I don't blame them at all—if I'm allowed to do it for you, then magicians everywhere will be doing it for their apprentices, or even for other, poorer magicians; and the whole system of ratings built on the credit reserves of the individual will simply fall apart. Could lead to disintegration of the whole structure by which this present universe is kept in balance."

  "As I said," repeated Jim, a little testily himself, for once, "I wasn't intending to borrow any more credit from you. What I wanted was advice from you on whether the credit I had was enough to let me do what I wanted to do!"

  "Oh?" said Carolinus. "Well, in that case—go ahead then. Go ahead!"

  "What I want to do is tell you the plan and see what you think of it, first," said Jim. "The Scottish crown is sending one of its people with a down payment in gold for what the Hollow Men will be paid, if they agree to this business of leading the invasion into England. What I'd like to do is take that man's place; and that means magically making myself over to look like him. Now, do you think I can afford to do that?"

  "That?" Carolinus frowned, but only slightly. "No, that shouldn't do any great damage to your account."

  "Well, to tell you the truth, at this stage," said Jim, "I haven't thought much beyond that. My idea is to take the gold down to the Hollow Men myself, so as to meet their leaders; and get some notion of what their numbers are and what they can do. Eventually, I hope to surround them with a force of men of the Scottish-English Border, plus perhaps some help from the Little Men—"

  "Ah, yes." Surprisingly, Carolinus smiled almost fondly. "The Little Men. They do go on, surviving century after century, don't they? Not bad people, really. You know originally they owned a great deal of land not only in the Scottish area, but down along the western coast in toward Wales and even over on the continent—

  "So they told me," said Jim. "Now, about what I was telling you. The idea behind all this would be to create an occasion that brings all the Hollow Men to one place; so that they can all be killed at once, and none of them ever come back to life again. If we can do that before the Scottish army is ready to go, then they won't have any Hollow Men to lead the way for them. You can imagine, the Scottish King is counting on the fear that the Hollow Men will create, penetrating down in England as bodiless, but fighting entities."

  "Yes, mmmm," said Carolinus, thoughtfully combing his goatee with his fingers. "The clergy and the gentlemanly class may stand and fight for their own reasons; but the common Englishman may well run like a rabbit when he first sees a sword without a body coming at him."

  "Exactly," said Jim. "So now, what do you think of the plan? You already said I had magic enough to make myself look like this courier from the Scottish court."

  "Well," replied Carolinus, still thoughtful, "It's an ambitious plan. You're aware, of course—yes, I can see you are—that you'd have to kill every one of them off at the same time, so that none of them could rise again? Yes, yes. But, how do you ensure that you get them all killed off in this tidy fashion?"

  "I'm not exactly sure," said Jim. "I've got some ideas. My hope is, if Herrac de Mer can raise the Border men in sufficient numbers and the Little Men will cooperate, all together we may be able to do it."

  "And this is likely to involve more use of your magic?" asked Carolinus.

  "I hadn't thought any would have been needed. Oh!" Jim interrupted himself. "Possibly, just the trick of having them wear sprigs of leafy branches in their caps to make them such that whoever looked at them would refuse to believe they were there—like I did in France. A practical equivalent of invisibility."

  "A practical equivalent of invisibility, indeed!" said Carolinus. "But now you're talking about a new kettle of fish. The magic involved to make one of them practically invisible in this fashion is a bagatelle—"

  "A bagatelle?" echoed Jim.

  "A nothing," kindly explained Carolinus.

  "Oh, I know what the word means—" began Jim.

  "If you don't mind!" said Carolinus fiercely. "I was about to say—individually, a bagatelle. But I get the uneasy feeling you're thinking of making your whole army of Border men and Little Men invisible that way. That would add up."

  "To more than my account could manage?" said Jim.

  "Well, we can check with the Accounting Office if you like," said Carolinus, "but I've no doubt myself that it's well beyond what you're worth."

  "How many people would my account bear—leaving a little magic left over for emergency purposes?" asked Jim.

  "Well, for a short period of magic use," said Carolinus frowning, "and taking your magic used for a disguise, say—twenty men?"

  "Umm," said Jim glumly.

  "I know it's hard, my boy," said Carolinus, "but the road of magician was always a hard road. You just have to take the rough with the smooth; and if there's no smooth at all, then simply get used to the rough."

  "Yes," said Jim.

  "Well, if that's all you need to know," said Carolinus cheerfully, turning back toward the door of his house, "I'll be getting back inside. That poor little dryad in there
will be thinking I've left her for good."

  "What happened to her?" asked Jim.

  "Oh, she had an unfortunate encounter with a water troll," said Carolinus, pausing and half turning back. "Now, they're both Naturals, you understand, but of different classes. As I explained to you once, only humans have any real use of magic. Naturals have only their own, built-in powers. But a water troll has something of an edge on a dryad generally as far as such powers are concerned; and under certain circumstances, this advantage can be really dangerous to the weaker party—like this particular little dryad. But, it's no worse than mending a wing of a butterfly. The main thing is to get her into a receptive state to let me do the mending. Essentially, it's as if I took out your appendix without anesthesia."

  Jim gulped. Sir Brian might merely look nobly pale and pass out, while he was being cut open and a diseased appendix taken out of him; but he, Jim, would have to be strapped down on a table—and even then he knew very well he would scream to high heaven.

  "Tut, tut," said Carolinus, "it's not as bad as it sounds. There are various ways of putting dryads and others into receptive states. And with dryads there's quite a selection. There's one that works very well. And with that, while it won't be anesthesia, she'll be happy enough so that it'll be tantamount to being anesthetized."

  "Oh?" said Jim. "And what way is that?"

  "Mind your own business!" snapped Carolinus. "I mean, you're going to have to wait until you've gone up a good two levels at least in rating as a magician, before such things can be revealed to you. Just take it on faith that I know the best thing to do; and I'll do it; even at some trouble to myself. And now, goodday!"