The Dragon Knight

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Finally, they were almost back to that original level. Jim led the way down the last of the stairs; and they came to a place where the secret passage ended. Where it stopped, it was crossed by another passage leading two ways.

  To the left, it led up steep stairs and around a corner, as if it would climb to the height of another tower. To their right, a smooth-floored, narrow passage tilted slightly downward, as if by gentle degrees it would descend to a somewhat lower level.

  Jim moved out to the right on this smooth floor to give the men room to descend, so that they could all stand together. The stairway to their left had cracks through which light filtered, and mere were a few such cracks in the ceiling of the smooth passage, although the height of the ceiling there made them impossible to look through. Nevertheless, they relieved the gloom with light from outside; enough so that the passage below was visible.

  "Now where, Sir James?" asked the voice of the Prince in Jim's ear.

  Jim turned from inspecting the dimly lit, smooth-floored passage to look at the stair again and then at his companions.

  "I've no sure way of knowing which way to take, right or left," he told them. "Does anybody else have reason to think one might be better for us than the other?"

  There was a complete silence from the rest of them. Even Aragh did not make a suggestion.

  "Aragh," said Jim, "doesn't your nose tell you anything about what might lie either up those stairs or along this passage?"

  "It's the same smells everywhere," answered the voice of Aragh. "Two legs, food, and all the smells of the places where you people live."

  Jim drew a deep breath.

  "All right, then," he said, "in that case, it seems to me that we want to go anywhere but up. The passage to the right slants down a little, as if it might come out at ground level outside the castle, or even underneath it for some distance. That might mean that if we go to the right, we'll be on a secret escape-way that Malvinne's had made for himself in case his castle should be attacked and overrun. I think we should turn right."

  There was another short moment of silence and then the voice of the Prince answered.

  "In this situation, you lead, Sir James," said the Prince. "I don't see a better course for us than following you."

  "Thank you, Your Highness," answered Jim. "Here we go, then."

  He turned and led off along the downward sloping tunnel. He could hear the others following.

  Things seemed quite ordinary and straightforward—until, without warning, the path beneath him suddenly pitched steeply downward and his feet slid out from under him as if the floor had been greased. He tumbled to the ground and began sliding downward with increasing speed. Behind him, he could hear the others also falling and sliding after him, under the cover of the Prince's wordless shout of alarm, and the rich cursing of Brian and Giles.

  The speed of their fall increased to incredible proportions, so that they seemed to be going down at the rate of a bobsled on a bobsled run. It became apparent that the path was circling downwards in a spiral, as the stairs had spiraled up the inside of the tower. Jim suddenly saw a flash of red behind his eyes—not in reality, but in his mind.

  As his senses began to swim from the incredibly rapid swirling, he found time to rage at himself over a mistake that had been purely his own.

  Going up the staircase, he had written on the inside of his forehead the magic command that enabled him to see anything magical higher up than where he was, any trap, in red. But he had applied this specifically to traps up and ahead of him.

  He had not stopped to think that they might encounter magic at a lower level in the castle. Now, clearly, they had. Some kind of magical trap had been laid at the point where the secret stairway reached the cross-path. And he, idiot that he was, had phrased his command so badly that, going down like this, the trap had not shown itself in warning color the way the ones above had done. Now it was too late and they were caught in this slippery, spinning chute that was carrying them into the bowels of the earth.

  How long their fall lasted, was impossible to say. Jim later thought that he must have passed out at some stage, either from dizziness or from some other, magical reason. At any rate he came to, abruptly, lying hard up against something vertical and unyielding; with the bodies of the others piled up against him, so that he felt crushed to the point of suffocation.

  He opened his mouth to ask the others to get off him; but they were already doing so. A second later, he was able to climb to his own feet.

  They stood in total darkness.

  "Where are we?" came the voice of Giles. "My memory fails me. I remember only just a moment ago waking to find we were here."

  The voices of Brian and the Prince agreed.

  "But where are we? Sir James?" went on the voice of the Prince. "Are you there, Sir James?"

  "I'm touching Your Highness," said Jim. He moved his arm against the body next to him, to prove the point.

  "What do we now then, Sir James?" demanded the Prince. "I'm still dizzy, but I think I can keep on my feet. Where are we?"

  "I don't know, Highness," answered Jim. "I'm right next to some kind of wall. Wait a minute. Let me see if there's some kind of opening in it, or if it opens itself."

  He turned to race the vertical surface against which he had been pressed and began running the palms of his hands over it. It felt like wood, rather than stone or anything else; and the suspicion came to his mind that it might be some kind of door. He searched across it at a level at which a handle might be; and, sure enough, he came across one of the small handles that he had found on other doors in Malvinne's castle.

  He pushed on it. But it did not move. He tried pulling, and it gave easily.

  Almost without intending to, he flung the door wide, and light flooded in, blinding them all for a moment. Jim, who had been leaning forward, half-fell, half-stumbled out, and heard the others coming after him. Gradually, his sight cleared.

  They stood on what seemed to be a tightly fenced-in landing, barely large enough to accommodate all of them. From the landing to the right of the doorway, a short flight of steps led downward to the floor of what seemed to be an enormous stone cavern. At least, the floor was stone, the nearer wall was stone, and the farther wall, some thirty yards away, looked to be stone also. But the walls went up vertically until they were lost in a place to which the light around them, for which there seemed no particular source, failed to reach. There was no way to be sure whether it was a true cavern in the sense that the stone walls finally arched together to completely close it in, or not.

  Reason said that there had to be a roof up there somewhere. They had fallen so far that a good deal of the earth's crust must lie between them and the surface above. Also, the light was neither the light of the sun nor of the moon or stars. It was a strange, unnatural light, such as might be found underground.

  They stood all together, like prisoners in a three-sided cage, looking down at the floor of the cavern. It was thronged with people, men and women, in what seemed to be black uniforms, wearing strange hiltless knives almost the length of a sword, and carrying round, targetlike shields. They were all perfectly visible in the strange light, with one exception.

  As Jim looked directly at their faces, he recognized none of them, but as his gaze shifted around, it seemed to him that out of the corner of his eye, a face he had looked at just a moment before altered and became the face of someone he had once known and liked, if not loved. But all these faces seemed frozen, distorted into an expression mixed of almost insane hate, fear, and terror.

  The one space clear of this multitude was thirty yards directly ahead of their landing; and twenty yards ahead of the foremost of the blackclad figures below; and this space was clear except for two enormous thrones on which sat two equally enormous figures.

  One was male, one female. They wore loose robes that covered them from the upper chest to just below the knees. Their arms were extended along the arms of their thrones. Their most marked diffe
rence from the humans, outside of their size—for they must be, Jim thought, at least twenty feet tall—were their abnormally long necks, which accounted for a good four or five feet of their height.

  Above his neck, the head of the man was a handsome one, with dark hair and piercing eyes, the hair clinging tightly to his round head. The woman's hair was also black and clung closely to her head; and she was darkly beautiful.

  Both faces were expressionless. It was not, however, until Jim's gaze shifted from them back to the blackclad horde below, that he recognized the real peculiarity about the two on the thrones.

  Just as the faces of those in black had seemed to shift and change just before they moved out of the range of his vision, so the faces of the enthroned man and woman—if that was what they could be called—seemed to shift; her face to that of a serpent, his to that resembling a jackal. But this animal aspect of them could not be seen when Jim focused directly on them. It was only just as he glimpsed them peripherally that he could see the snake head and jackal head.

  Whatever else this was, it was not a place for Jim and the rest. Jim turned swiftly to the door behind him, took hold of the handle on this side, and tried to pull the door open. But it was now as solid and immovable as the surrounding rock. Swiftly, he wrote on the inside of his forehead:

  ALL LOCKS, LATCHES→RETREAT

  He concentrated on the image of the bolts and latches withdrawing into their recesses and leaving the door free from the frame in which it stood.

  It did not give. But his attempt produced a response from one of the mighty figures.

  "So!" A great voice rolled toward them. The male of the two enthroned figures was speaking. "Violation upon violation! One of you is a magician. Having already sinned in Our eyes by coming here alive—all of you—one of you is sealed to forbidden arts. Your kind has always been prohibited from this place, magician—and, as you see, your magic will not work here. Here, nothing rules but Our laws."

  "God save us all!" said Giles.

  "Your God can do nothing for you here, either." Again the great voice rolled from the huge figure like thunder between the stone walls. "Six of you. A beast from above, four living humans, and a magician. All an offense in this place. And armed as well. Let their weapons fly from them!"

  None of the black horde below moved; but the poignards and swords beside each knight stirred in their sheaths. That was all. Brian and Giles both had their hands already upon the hilts of their weapons. Brian whipped his sword from its sheath and held it point-up before him.

  "You cannot take this!" he shouted in a voice burning with fury. "It is a cross; and, for all your boasting, it is not for you to take it from a Christian knight! Pull it from my hand if you can!"

  On the throne both the man and woman were frowning like thunderclouds. The sword in Brian's fist stirred again; but did not leave his grasp.

  "Indeed," said Dafydd, as controlled as always, "but there is no hilt to my knife, and yet that has not been taken. Ah, I see now, the board with which I tie it down makes a cross upon the hilt, and holds it to its sheath. As do the cords upon the casings of my bow and quiver."

  Jim's heart, which had sunk clear out of sight, stirred and began to rise again with a feint hope.

  "This is the Kingdom of the Dead; and we are King and Queen of it!" thundered the huge male figure. "Though some small things may not answer to us, that will not save you! You will be dealt with. Oh yes, you will be dealt with!"

  Aragh snarled.

  "You are Ours," the King of the Dead went on, unheeding, "and we will deal with you in such a manner as the lesson will be remembered for thousands of years by those who might once again violate our place with living bodies. The dead we receive down here; but the living, never! Offensive, offensive, offensive—you are all offensive in Our eyes!"

  Jim's mind was racing. The return of hope within him had started the engine of his brain working again. There had to be a magical way out of here that would get all of them away from this pair of long-necked monsters and their blackclad crew. He felt a sort of recklessness in him. He had realized since he had come to France, that he was digging into his own account, using up its magical balance on this and that; and that there was no telling whether he had enough of a balance left to do anything as large and dramatic as that which was now tickling at the edge of his mind.

  The shape of the plan that stirred in him, he could not quite define. It fled before his mind could grasp it. But he could feel it there, tickling away all the same. Whatever it was, it was big; and it would dig deeply into what was left of his account—if indeed there was enough left to do it. But the only way to find that out would be to try doing it.

  Only, first he had to get clearly in mind what he wanted to do; and time was running out. There had to be a way, using things he could envision, to simply move them magically and instantaneously from this place to somewhere safe.

  Up on his throne, the King of the Dead was still thundering, his unbelievably powerful voice rolling through the cavern.

  "Look at those below you." His tones battered them and tumbled over them, as they stood at the top of the short flight of stairs. "Those you see below you are those I have raised again from the Dead to be our bodyguard. They will bring you to me, now—"

  He broke off. There was a stir below. He looked down and raised one finger from the arm of the massive throne on which he sat. The blackclad figures between the landing and the thrones parted. Jim, with sudden shock, saw Giles advancing at a determined walk toward the thrones and the two gigantic Gods upon them. He stopped and looked up at the King of the Dead, slowly stripping off his left glove with his gloved right hand.

  He took the glove off and held it in his right hand. He advanced one foot a little and put the other hand on his hip. He stared up at the huge male figure.

  "I have been honored," shouted Sir Giles—although his voice was strong, it was like the piping of a bird, after the great sound that had come from the long throat of the creature before him—"to be entrusted as one of those who hath in momentary guardianship Edward, Crown Prince to our throne of England. In his name, I defy you!, and I challenge you, here and now, to single combat to prove your rights upon me, if so be it you are able!"

  And he flung the thick leather glove in the direction of the huge figure.

  It flew through the air to within six feet of the other's face; then checked suddenly—and wafted like a feather, slowly and softly and silently, down to the stone floor only a dozen feet in front of the God.

  "Giles, you idiot!" Jim shouted, leaping forward down the steps; but his voice was drowned by the earsplitting rumble of the voice of the King of the Dead.

  "Take him!" The King of the Dead extended his finger, pointing toward Giles. At once, the blackclad ranks closed around Giles; and he wheeled to face them, drawing his sword.

  They would have overwhelmed him, like a black wave on a sand figure built by some child on a beach; but Dafydd's arrows were already taking their toll among them, and Brian and Jim were upon them. The black-furred shape of Aragh was ahead of all the others, savaging them and throwing them aside with a twist of his neck as if they were toys.

  They fought their way to Giles, surrounded him, and, fighting madly, retreated with him, to the foot of the steps, back up the steps, and onto their platform.

  The black tide surged after them, but was checked.

  "Halt!" thundered the King. "We will do this as it should be done. You will go up there and take away the one I name first, the most offensive; then the next I shall name; then the next, no matter what the cost to yourselves."

  Back up on the landing, panting and disheveled among his panting and disheveled friends and companions, Jim's mind was finally working at full speed. What Giles had done had been stupid, but also magnificent and bold!

  That was what was called for from Jim now, in the way of magic. If he was going to get them all out of here, he must think boldly!

  No sooner had he told himself
this, than his mind finally came up with a wild scenario that just might be turned into a magical way to save them all. There was no time to test it out.

  On the inside of his forehead he wrote:

  ALLOFUS→HOLOGRAPHS→HIGHPOINT

  Wonder of wonders—it worked!

  Jim saw his friends flickering and fading and becoming transparent around him. He could feel nothing himself, but looking down, saw that his own legs had become semitransparent. His mind had seized on a high point at random, the first thing that came to mind; which in this case was the main room in Malvinne's private quarters, which they had left with such relief some time before—just how long ago he had no idea, because of that timeless period of vertigo and disorientation. It could have been seconds or could have been hours, sliding down the spiral chute in darkness.

  Suddenly, they were there again, in Malvinne's private main room. The transparent figures of Brian, Giles, the Prince, Dafydd, and Aragh took on solidity, resolving out of the air around him—

  HOLOGRAPHS→ BODIES

  He wrote hastily on the inside of his forehead. They were saved. They were here.

  The only trouble, Jim suddenly recognized, was that Malvinne was now here also.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Malvinne had evidently been eating a midnight meal, or a very early breakfast, by himself. He had clearly not checked to see if he still held his princely prisoner.

  He was seated at a small table which was—surprisingly—covered with a cloth; and on that cloth were the remains of what seemed a rather sparse meal, and a glass carafe of what appeared to be water. The carafe looked as if it could hold about a liter of water, but now had only perhaps a glassful left in it.

  He had risen to his feet, staring as their transparent figures appeared and then shifted into solidity.

  Jim had never seen him before, nor had him described. But that the man before them was Malvinne, he had absolutely no doubt.