The Dragon Knight

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "What the bloody hell's a passport?" demanded Sir Brian.

  "Permission to travel, Sir Brian," Secoh answered. "What it means is, Sir James here—Lord James here—has the permission of his community to travel to France, and his community as a whole vouches for his good conduct, dragonwise, while he's there."

  "What wouldn't be good behavior?" asked Jim.

  "Oh, for example," said Secoh, "getting yourself into some trouble that left the dragons of that particular neighborhood in trouble too, and then flying away and leaving them to deal with it."

  "I see," said Jim. "What does a passport consist of, then?"

  "Well, that's the thing," said Secoh. "Your passport would have to consist of the best jewel from the hoard of every dragon in the community."

  There was a moment of silence in the Great Hall. Having been a dragon long enough to understand what the least jewel in a hoard would mean to the dragon owning it, Jim had some idea of what would be involved in the Cliffside ones lending him the best one each owned.

  "Are the rest of the dragons likely to all part with their best jewel? To let me carry it," said Jim, "to France?"

  "It is asking a bit of them, I know," said Secoh. "Usually a dragon going someplace else like that has some official business to transact for the community; or else he's got a great deal of respect and power in the community. But I'll help you talk to them; and I think we can talk them into it. But we ought to go right now."

  "You mean this minute?" asked Angie sharply.

  "I'm afraid, m'Lady," said Secoh, "I do. I really believe we can talk them into it in one session. But they just might want to talk it over among themselves, and think about it and delay things for some time. Maybe even a month or so. So, the sooner we get started the better; and this minute is a better time than any because it's the soonest we've got."

  Jim looked at Angie. Angie looked at Jim.

  "I think I ought to go," said Jim.

  "You could just not be a dragon, while you're in France," put in Brian.

  "And what if my turning into a dragon turned out to be a useful way—perhaps the only way—to rescue the Prince?" asked Jim.

  "Damme!" said Brian uneasily. "Yes, I suppose you must go, then."

  So it was that a very short while later Jim found himself in company with Secoh; winging his way toward the cliff, from one of the high dragon entrances of which he had first emerged in his present shape into this medieval world. It had been so long since he had flown in a dragon body, that he had forgotten the sheer pleasure of soaring.

  Flying—that is, using his wings to gain altitude until he could catch a thermal so as to ride higher up until he was ready to start gliding toward his destination, with stiffly outstretched wings—was work. Soaring—gliding silently over the surface of the earth with unmoving wings—was sheer joy. He made a mental note that he would make time in the future to get off by himself and do a little flying, just for the sheer pleasure of it. Perhaps, he thought, he could even become a good enough magician so that he could change Angie into a dragon also, and the two of them could go soaring together.

  "There it is, right ahead of us." Secoh's voice woke him out of his thoughts.

  The cliff face and one of the high entrances to the caves was straight ahead of them. Secoh, who was a trifle in advance of Jim, made a neat landing on the lip of the opening and disappeared inside.

  Jim had a moment of panic over whether he remembered how to land under such conditions; but his dragon body seemed to have reflexes that took care of that for him. His hind feet grasped the lip of the entrance and his wings folded almost simultaneously, as he touched down and moved inside.

  They had entered a completely empty, small cave. The sort of a place, Jim remembered, is which he had awakened in the body of Gorbash. The sort which dragons liked for curling up and sleeping.

  "No one close around here," commented Secoh, cocking an ear toward the further entrance of the cave. "They must be down in the main cavern. Do you remember the way?"

  "I don’t know," said Jim hesitantly. "I don't think so."

  "Never mind, I'll find it," said Secoh. He led the way out of the cave in which they had landed, into a tunnel in the rock which wound down into the bowels of the cliff.

  They went down and around for quite some distance; farther than Jim remembered having gone to reach that central chamber of the dragons when he had woken up in the body of Gorbash. But Secoh seemed perfectly confident about the route he took, and the branching tunnel openings he chose among. This suggested that he either had been here before or was following his nose in some way that Jim did not quite understand. Jim also had a dragon sense of smell now, but to him all the tunnels smelled of dragon. However, he had to admit that as they went on the smell grew stronger, and after a while he began to be conscious of the distant rumble of voices, which steadily mounted in volume as they got closer and closer to what was obviously their goal; until it was perfectly clear to Jim that a very loud argument was going on, with a great many voices, dragon-style, talking at once.

  Jim and Secoh came out on the scene at last, emerging from a tunnel high on the rim of the bowl-like amphitheater that was the base of the great cavern. It was indeed an enormous place. Its walls were of some dark granite, but they were patterned with a perfect lacework of streams of what appeared to be molten silver, each no thicker than a pencil, but covering the walls densely. All of them radiated light. The result was that the full cavern, including its dark, overarching natural roof, was lit by it. It was not as bright as day, but very close to it. Right now, it was filled with dragons, all of whom seemed to be in hot argument with each other, but as Jim knew, were actually just chatting.

  The noise was deafening—or, it should have been deafening. Dragon hearing was much better than human, Jim had discovered, but also, rather strangely, it could endure more in the way of a sound. A human would have been dazed in the great cavern at that moment. Jim found that in his dragon body he simply found the roar of sound somewhat exciting.

  He and Secoh stood where they were and waited. Gradually, one by one, the dragons below became aware of them; those who had caught sight of them jogging the dragon body next to them and pointing out the newcomers. Eventually an unaccustomed silence fell on the whole huge chamber. All the dragons were staring particularly at Jim. They ignored Secoh. But their eyes on Jim seemed to express both nonrecognition, and astonishment.

  Jim was just thinking about introducing himself; when one of those before him did speak up at the top of his dragon voice.

  "Jim!" cried a dragon halfway up the opposite wall of the amphitheater, and as large as Jim himself.

  Chapter Ten

  It was the dragon called Gorbash.

  Jim remembered then that the largest dragons in this community had always been Gorbash, whose body he had once been in; Smrgol, Gorbash's granduncle; and Bryagh, the dragon who had turned rogue and stolen away Angie.

  Hearing his name called, Jim remembered with almost painful clarity those days shared with the other. Gorbash was the only one in this medieval world who called him always by the name his friends and acquaintances had used, once upon a time, back on the world he and Angie had come from. Why Gorbash preferred Jim to James, Jim had never really found out. Certainly there was adequate excuse. He and Gorbash had shared the same body and brain—the body being Gorbash's—and it was hardly possible to get closer than that. So it would be natural that Gorbash would have come to think of him as Jim, and as Jim only.

  Now, all the other dragons switched their stares of astonishment and incredulity from Jim to Gorbash.

  "What's the matter with you all?" roared Gorbash. "It's the mage-george, who shared my body when we defeated Bryagh and the Dark Powers at the Tower! He was right here with me all the time, while I—we—won the victory! I've told you all about it many times!"

  As one, the dragons of the amphitheater craned their necks around to look at Jim once more.

  "It's good to see you, Jim!"
boomed Gorbash. "The dragons of Cliffside welcome you back among us! Don't just stand there! Come on down!"

  Jim felt Secoh nudging him forward and downward. He realized he was being invited to take center stage; to go down and stand in the very center of the amphitheater where all the rest could examine him in comfort.

  He picked his way down between the bodies of the dragons before him. Secoh followed demurely—if a dragon could ever be said to do anything in a demure manner—and they both descended until they were at the lowest point in the center of the cavern. Jim stopped and looked around him. He suspected that a few words from him were called for.

  "It's good to see you again, too, Gorbash," he roared back, "and good to be back among the rest of you!"

  "Yes," thundered Gorbash, "and a credit to all the Cliffside Dragons to have as one of their members not only a dragon of courage like myself, but one who is also a Mage among the georges, and one of their respected leaders. It gives us all stature and standing in the eyes of the georges and the world in general!"

  There was quite a difference here, Jim thought. Secoh had predicted after the fight at the Tower, and after Jim had finally separated from the body of Gorbash, that the large dragon would make good use of his share of the glory resulting from his body being present in the fight there. Up until then, Jim had come to understand from Gorbash's granduncle, Gorbash had not been much looked up to by his fellow Cliffside Dragons.

  In fact, just the opposite. Gorbash was generally regarded—correctly—as somewhat slow of wit; and also something of an unnatural dragon, in that he spent a great deal of time out of the caves—"above ground," as the dragons referred to it—with non-dragons. Characters such as Aragh the wolf.

  Jim had consequently expected some improvement in Gorbash's position among his fellow dragons, particularly since his granduncle, who had been the acknowledged leader, was now dead. But he had never expected anything like this. Gorbash was clearly respected; and apparently listened to.

  Jim was beginning to conclude that dragons had a tendency to believe in what they wanted to believe in, whether it was obviously true or not. Gorbash had evidently convinced most of those there that he was at least one of, if not the greatest of the heroes to be involved in the battle of the Tower.

  Most, but not all, evidently.

  "That's right!" Secoh interrupted him now. "Only not just because you say it, Gorbash! It may have been your body; but it was James who made it fight and win! I know, remember? I was there. And I did fight!"

  He suddenly whirled about in a circle, scorching all the other dragons there with his gaze.

  "You all know me," he said. "I'm Secoh! And I'm a mere-dragon! And proud of it. Any of you got anything to say about that or about me? If so, you know what you can do about it!"

  There was a rumble of muttering and an uneasy stirring among the Cliffside Dragons; but nobody moved forward to take up Secoh's challenge; and none of them spoke up. Not, Jim noticed, even Gorbash.

  "Now," went on Secoh after a moment, "I'll tell you why James is here. He's going to France; and that means he'll need a passport from Cliffside. From all of you!"

  This announcement was certainly enough to stir the Cliffside Dragons out of their silence. A babble of cries exploded all around Jim and Secoh. Shouts of "Wait" "Just a minute, here!"

  "Who does he think he is?" "Why's he got to go to France?" arose. These, and a few score other questions and comments reverberated from the rocky, rough-cut walls of the Great Cave.

  For a good four or five minutes there was pandemonium. Then Gorbash's voice managed to rise above the rest of them, by sheer lung power dominating the uproar. One by one, the other dragons sank into silence; and Gorbash was left, the only one talking.

  "Hold on, now! Hold on!" he boomed into the new silence. "Are we the Cliffside Dragons or a bunch of mere—I mean an unruly bunch of other dragons?"

  "That's better," muttered Secoh audibly.

  Gorbash chose not to hear the comment.

  "Secoh, here, has some right to speak," announced Gorbash. "After all, as he says, he was indeed there at the Loathly lower. I saw him myself, helping my granduncle, the great Smrgol of revered memory, destroy the traitor Bryagh. Don't forget that we, all of us, every dragon here, every george in this area, everyone, gained by that fight. If we hadn't won, then the Dark Powers would have reached out and touched many more things, possibly including us right here in the cliff. We might have ended up like the—Like Secoh's people."

  There was an uneasy movement among the other dragons, but none of them spoke.

  "So what it amounts to," said Gorbash, "is that Jim, and—of course—Secoh, deserve to be heard. What we decide, of course, is something else again. But first we all ought to listen. Perhaps the Dark Powers are trying to make a move toward us from the direction of France. Ever think of that?"

  Not only an uneasy movement but an uneasy murmuring agitated the Cliffside Dragons now.

  "That's right!" said Secoh, "and we all know we've got no defenses, personally, against the Dark Powers. Only the georges and the magicians among them have ever had any luck meeting them head-on. But here we are, lucky enough to have one among us who is not only a dragon, but a george, and not only a george but a mage."

  He coughed, a little self-consciously.

  "A mage-in-training, that is," he stuck in rather hurriedly, "but nonetheless, someone who can handle magic." He turned to Jim. "Show them James. Turn yourself into a george and then back into a dragon again."

  Jim thanked his lucky stars that Secoh had happened to choose the one thing he had practiced the most. He had had no warning about this. What if Secoh had asked him to suddenly produce a ton of gold or something impossible like that?

  "Very well," Jim said, in his most slow and solemn dragon voice. He paused a few moments for effect; and then turned himself back into his normal shape.

  He was able—but barely able—to repress a start. Because one of the immediate effects of the change was that all the dragons around him suddenly seemed to jump into being four times the size they had been before. He was abruptly aware of being a very lone, and eminently eatable, human surrounded by somewhere between fifty and a hundred dragons, any one of which could snap him in half with one snap of his or her jaws.

  He had been trying to think of something trenchant he could say to impress the dragons while he was in his human form. But now he suddenly recognized how unimpressive his relatively high-pitched voice would be in this particular place and time. So he only waited a few more—hopefully still impressive—moments before turning back into his comfortably large dragon shape, where he was physically at least a match for the largest dragon there.

  There was a babble of excited comment in sub-basso profundo voices. There was no doubt, thought Jim, he had impressed them. The babble finally died down.

  "Mage," inquired a respectful dragon voice halfway up the slope to Jim's left, "how did you first discover that the Dark Powers were attempting to attack us from France?"

  "Yes," put in another voice before he could answer. "Is there some reason they were headed directly for us Cliffside Dragons?"

  "Don't be foolish," snapped a voice from Jim's far right. "What do you suppose they're after? Our hoards!"

  "Dark Powers haven't any use for hoards!" put in yet one more voice, and the babble broke out all over again into full-voiced argument, this time about whether or not the Dark Powers had a use for gold or jewels.

  "Let's ask the mage," put in the first, respectful voice, finally making itself heard.

  Silence fell.

  "Well?" demanded a dragon voice after a second. "Are they after our hoards or not, Mage?"

  Jim realized two things almost simultaneously. One, it would probably make things infinitely easier for them if he should tell them "yes." The truth of the matter was he did not know; but he strongly suspected—in fact he was just about sure—that they didn't.

  "I don't think they do," he said.

  Th
ere was another babble, of triumph this time from those who had never believed that the Dark Powers would be interested in dragon's hoards. It was quelled by Gorbash's strong voice.

  "James!" he roared. "Maybe you'd better tell us then exactly why you do want to go to France!"

  "Actually…" Jim would have cleared his throat at this point, but apparently dragons never needed to. He went on rather lamely, "To rescue a Prince. An English Prince—of the georges."

  "Nothing to do with us!" roared someone immediately; and Gorbash got a new outburst of voices quelled just in time to get his own next question in.

  "James," he said, "do you actually mean to tell us that you want us to give you the best jewel each one of us has, just so you can go rescue a george prince?"

  "That's right!" cried Secoh. "Why don't you learn? Why don't any of you ever learn? What affects the georges affects us dragons too! Smrgol knew that! Just before that last fight, he was talking to one of the georges who lives right around here, a george called Sir Brian, that's hunted a lot of us mere-dragons in his day. Smrgol thought georges and dragons should work together."

  "But to give Jim my best jewel—" mumbled Gorbash, finally aghast.

  "You wouldn't be giving it to him!" said Secoh. "You'd just be lending him these jewels, all of you. Just so that he can deposit them with the French dragons as proof that he won't do anything that will cause them harm."

  With a flourish he produced from among his scales a pearl the size of a robin's egg and handed it to the astonished Jim.

  "Here, James!" he announced grandly; "just to show these others the way. Here's my best jewel!"

  Jim stared in astonishment at the pearl. He had been under the impression that Secoh was so poor that he did not know where his next meal was coming from.