The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Of course, they didn't speak English, either. At least not the English he and Angie knew, even if they spoke this world's language as easily as their native tongue, from the moment of their arrival here.

  In any case, there was no point in translating to the four with him. In words they would understand, the French he knew translated to "… we must dare, and continue daring, and keep on daring…"

  But let the rest of them think it was a magical incantation. It would make them more certain that he knew what he was doing. His mind was suddenly made up to gamble.

  "I think," he told the others, "what we should do now is just stroll on in to the other room, as if we were the King and Ecotti's best friends."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "First," said Jim, "hide your twigs—as I hide mine."

  They did.

  "Now," whispered Jim to Dafydd, who was on his left. "Remember, when I stop in front of the King and Ecotti, you make a break—I mean, you run for the corner of the room there. What I want you to do is attract Ecotti's attention for just a second, to take it off me. Brian, Giles, Secoh, you follow me."

  Dafydd nodded.

  "All right, then," said Jim. "Here we go—at a walk, everybody."

  They went through the door.

  "I'm happy to see your Royal Highness again!" said Jim confidently and cheerfully as they marched in. "You probably don't remember me—"

  The King and Ecotti turned swiftly to stare at them.

  "—but I had the great honor of meeting your Majesty once before. I'm Sir James Eckert, the Dragon Knight, who summoned the dragons to aid our attempts to stop the second battle of Poitiers, if you may remember. These two knights with me—"

  He was proceeding with the introductions of Brian and Giles, as he came to a halt almost within arm's length of the King and the sorcerer. He did not bow to the King, although Brian and Giles did so, instinctively.

  In the moment in which they halted, Dafydd sprinted from behind Jim toward a far corner of the room. Ecotti immediately whirled to look after him and opened his mouth; but before any spell, incantation or command could come out of it, Jim had stepped forward and driven a fist firmly into the sorcerer's small but protuberant stomach.

  Ecotti folded up on the floor, choking for breath.

  "WHAT MEANS THIS!" thundered the King. Suddenly, he seemed to have grown six inches in height; and was no longer a pleasant-looking, rather middling-sized man, but someone very commanding and regal. Jim, however, had no time to spare him at the moment. Jim was too busy writing on the inside of his forehead.

  DAFYDD BACK WHERE HE WAS → NOW

  —AND INVOKE HIGHWAYMAN POEM

  TOWARD BRIAN, DAFYDD, GILES, SECOH,

  ME AGAINST ALL → FORCES

  Dafydd was suddenly back at his side. They were all together; and they were all now protected. Jim had not progressed to the point where he could sense magic being made, where he could not see it being done, even if it was very close at hand. But he was beginning to feel his own magic when he used it. Accordingly, he could feel the ward that now protected them, as if it was an impenetrable glass box around them.

  "I'm sorry, your Majesty," he was beginning, when the King interrupted him.

  "Do you think that an apology is going to excuse this behavior, sirrah?" roared King Jean. "I'll have you taken care of—all of you! I—"

  He broke off to bend down and help Ecotti back onto his feet. The sorcerer was looking very sour and rubbing his stomach and still struggling in his effort to breathe somewhat.

  "Are you all right, Julio?" he asked concernedly.

  "I'll be all right, sire," wheezed Ecotti. He glanced malevolently at Jim and the others. "But these won't!"

  Instantly, the four were surrounded by raging flames. They did not burn the King and Ecotti, or anything else in the room; but Jim knew they would have burnt Jim and those with him to a crisp, if the flames had been able to get at them.

  But Ecotti had lost the initiative. Jim had been able to get his magic working, before the other could get his started. It had undoubtedly been some time, if at all, since Ecotti had traded incantational blows with a real magician; and, as Jim was glad to discover, Carolinus had been right in saying that the real magic was stronger than anything a sorcerer could draw on from the Dark Powers.

  It was true the real magic was limited by being only defensive; where Ecotti's sorcery was all built for attack. But where the odds were even, the real magic was the stronger. Jim and the other four with him, safe behind the ward he had just set up, looked out at the flames, as if they were indeed enclosed by the equivalent of a wall of glass that would not let anything inimical pass, solid or immaterial.

  "Still!" said Jim, pointing a finger through the flames at Ecotti.

  Ecotti froze where he was. For a moment he stayed that way, then Jim could see him struggling back into control over himself and throwing off the effect of Jim's magical order.

  He must be using a command of his attack magic to bypass it, Jim thought; since the fact the ward was keeping them safe from his fire meant he could not directly overcome one of Jim's.

  Ecotti had evidently also not tried to set up wards around himself; perhaps he could not establish wards, after all.

  Clearly, however, he could find ways around the effects of at least some of Jim's magic; if that had not been established before he was ready to combat it. He recovered from the still command, able at first only to move slowly; but, shortly, he was back to normal movement.

  Abruptly, Jim began to realize that keeping the ward around them was putting some kind of a drain on his own strength. He could not explain to himself what kind of drain it was: mental, emotional, or physical. But he felt it; and he realized that there was a limit to how long he could maintain this, if Ecotti kept attacking. But that meant there was also a limit to how long Ecotti could keep up his attack. It might get down to a test of strength between them.

  Through the flames, now, Jim could see that the King was smiling approvingly at what Ecotti had done. Clearly, he was expecting to see Jim and his friends reduced to cinders.

  Something had to be done to break the present pattern of their magical combat.

  … Toujours de I'audace… thought Jim again.

  The thing was to keep Ecotti off balance, and find defensive weapons that would do it. An inspiration came to Jim.

  He wrote on the inside of his forehead:

  TEMPERATURE OF FLAMES 30 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT → NOW

  Then, gingerly, writing another incantation to protect himself, he pushed his arm out through the ward, unprotected, until his hand was in the flames. What he felt was actually something like a cold breeze blowing upward against the hand. He brought his hand back and smiled. He could see that this action had shaken both the King and Ecotti—though Ecotti was quick to hide his reaction.

  Ecotti glared at Jim. For a moment Jim felt smug; then he remembered that his job here was not merely to defend himself against Ecotti's enchantments, but to discover information from the sorcerer or the King as to who was behind the sea serpents' invasion of England.

  Hastily, he wrote a further brief incantation, making the ward soundproof as well as resistant to anything Ecotti might magically throw at him and his Companions.

  That done, he spoke quietly out of the corner of his mouth to those with him.

  "In a moment," he said, "I'm going to give a signal and I want us all to drop down and play dead. Half-close your eyes. Don't close them completely, leave them open enough so that you can see what's going on immediately near you. Everybody got it?"

  Accustomed to Jim's occasional lapse into twentieth-century expressions, the other three men understood the general gist of his words and nodded. Secoh frowned, but seemed to understand.

  "I want you each to say a word apiece, in turn, starting with Dafydd, next to me here, and then continuing with you Brian, then you Giles, and then you Secoh," Jim went on. "Dafydd, your word is 'you.' When I nudge you with my finger
after we're both on the ground, you say that word. Wait a minute after Dafydd has said it, Brian. Then you say your word; and your word is 'are.' Giles, you wait another moment and then say 'both.' Secoh, you wait a moment more and then say 'under.' Then everybody just lie still. I'll take care of things from there. Everybody ready?"

  Four voices murmured soft agreement.

  "Everybody know his word?"

  Once more, the murmur of agreement.

  "Then down we drop," said Jim, "now."

  They all dropped.

  For a moment, from under his half-closed lids, Jim watched the King and Ecotti staring through the flames at them and doing nothing. Then, Ecotti made a pass with his hand and the flames disappeared. Both men stepped forward to examine the fallen bodies.

  "How clever of you, Julio," said King Jean. "They're all still alive. Just unconscious. That's fine. Now, we can question them at our leisure. Also, they will pay for the effrontery of entering my quarters as if it was part of some common inn!"

  The King paused.

  "Why are you paying so much attention to that little one there?"

  "I'm not sure," muttered Ecotti, who was closely examining Secoh. "But he seems different from the others, somehow. I wish I could put my finger on it—"

  Jim nudged Dafydd.

  "You."

  The word rang out clearly in Dafydd's voice on the air of the room.

  Both Ecotti and the King spun about and went back to prod and examine Dafydd.

  "Are."

  Equally clearly Brian spoke.

  The King and Ecotti abandoned Dafydd hastily and turned toward the three others.

  "Which one spoke that time?" asked the King.

  "I believe it was this one—" said Ecotti, kicking Brian roughly in the ribs. Brian, schooled in that hard educational establishment called knighthood, gave no sign of feeling that he had even been touched.

  "Are you sure—" the King was beginning, when Giles, whose head was turned a little away from them, so that his mouth was not visible, spoke.

  "Both"

  "Under," said Secoh, rushing things a little bit. But—thought Jim—at this point it didn't matter.

  By this time the King and the sorcerer were both completely befuddled. Jim envisioned the arrow on his inner forehead, waited for one dramatic moment, then uttered the one word beyond the arrow he had been keeping back for himself.

  "—HYPNOSIS. You cannot move."

  King Jean and Ecotti stopped moving and stood where they were, bent over in speculation above Giles.

  Jim hauled himself to his feet.

  "You can get up now," he said to the others.

  The rest pulled themselves to their feet.

  "What happened?" asked Secoh. "What did we do?"

  "Well," said Jim, "you all helped me in making some magic."

  Dafydd, Brian and Giles stared at him. Secoh also stared, but then his face was split by a wide grin of glee.

  "I?" he said, whirling around on one foot in glee. "I made magic! I helped make magic, I mean! But I did, didn't I? I actually made some of the magic?"

  "You most assuredly did," said Jim. "Just as the rest of you did."

  Brian and Giles crossed themselves. The kind of magic that Carolinus did and Jim did was known as white magic; and was not supposed to be unchristian. But these two were taking no chances. They had been warned all their lives that the devil sets traps for unwary feet. Though both would have indignantly denied thinking for a moment that Jim was the devil, or in league with him.

  But it cost nothing, the two of them clearly thought, to play safe.

  "Why did you want them—what was it you said?" Dafydd asked.

  " 'Hypnotized,' " answered Jim. "You see, I needed to catch them unawares in order to—"

  "One moment!"

  It was the bass voice of the Accounting Office, speaking as usual with awful authority from a point about three feet above the ground next to Jim.

  "We have just received a complaint from a certain Son Won Phon, B class magician, to the effect that you are using eastern magic; without having properly studied the same under accredited masters."

  "But—" said Jim. "I thought hypnotism wouldn't be in the realm of magic at all. You see, where I come from—"

  He was cut off by the voice of Carolinus, also out of thin air and sounding very irritable indeed.

  "I thought we settled this some time since!" he said. "Where my apprentice comes from, these words and this practice are known worldwide and understood. His education was proper under those circumstances under which he learned about it."

  "That has been accepted." The announcement came in the voice of the Accounting Office, which was undoubtedly also being heard right now by Son Won Phon, B class.

  "Besides," Carolinus's voice snapped, "if license be required, let it be remembered that I am AAA+ rated. If I'm not fully qualified to teach eastern magic, I don't know who is! Have you anything to say to that, Son Won Phon?"

  There was a fragment of speech that was cut off into silence before it could really become intelligible. The Accounting Office started to speak.

  "I believe this should—"

  —The voice of the Accounting Office suddenly also stopped and was heard no more.

  Nor was the voice of Carolinus.

  Jim was puzzled for a moment; and then a slow anger began to burn inside him. They had deliberately made the talk between them private and unhearable even by Jim, himself. He could see the others looking at him, wonderingly. He felt a sudden anger. He was the subject the Accounting Office and the others were talking about, wasn't he?

  "I have a right to hear!" he snapped, out loud.

  There was a short further silence, and then Carolinus's voice broke it.

  "No matter, Jim," he said. "I think the matter has been settled. You're free to go ahead as you want. And I mean in any direction you want. Am I not correct, Accounting Office?"

  "You are right, Mage Carolinus," boomed the almost always unexpected voice of the Accounting Office from its usual position in mid-air.

  Dead silence followed. The others had turned away. This was more magic to avoid.

  "Now, what do we do?" asked Brian, examining the motionless, stooped-over bodies of King Jean and Ecotti.

  "We find out from these two as much as we can of what we need to know," said Jim. "Then we get out of here and get away with our information to England. First, however, I'd better make both more comfortable."

  "King Jean. Julio Ecotti!" he said to the two hypnotized men. "You can straighten up. Go now and sit down in the nearest chair. Ecotti, pull your chair up beside that of King Jean, so I can speak to the two of you at once. Go!"

  Hypnotized as he was, Ecotti made the mistake of heading for the closest chair, which happened to be the same one King Jean was heading toward. The King unceremoniously bumped him out of the way and took the chair himself. Ecotti turned about, found another chair, not too far away, pulled it up next to the King's and sat down.

  Seated, the two looked back at Jim with no particular expressions.

  "I'm going to ask you some questions," said Jim. "If you know the answers, to them or to anything connected with them, you will tell me. King Jean, when is the invasion of England to be?"

  "In five days," the King said in an unemotional voice, "weather permitting."

  Jim continued with his questioning. From both men he got fairly ready answers; and he was helped out by his friends too, when he inadvertently overlooked certain things. For example, it was Brian who thought to ask about the numbers and kind of the King's forces. It was Giles who thought to ask for a description of the ships that would be acting as troop ships. Altogether they found out a great deal. But there was one thing they did not find out.

  They did not find out who it was who had sent Essessili to get in touch with Ecotti. They learned only that Ecotti had found a message by his bedside one morning telling him to go down to a particularly deserted section of the seashore, where he wa
s unlikely to be seen by anyone else or overlooked by any buildings.

  He had gone; and Essessili had come out of the surf to talk to him; and tell him that the sea serpents had their own vendetta against the dragons of England. They would be happy to join the King. They would even help him get his own troops over there to fight whatever humans might attempt to oppose them on the British island.

  But nothing the sea serpent had said brought them any closer to an answer to that question of who was engineering the help of the serpents—apart and solitary creatures as they were normally.

  It was past belief that it was Essessili. Carolinus had been sure of a hidden, powerful, magically trained identity behind it all.

  Jim tried vainly, by phrasing his questions in different ways, to see if he could not discover some more information from Ecotti; but Giles eventually interrupted.

  "If we are to cross the Channel," he said with a meaning glance at the two hypnotized men, evidently not too sure but what they might be able to hear and remember what he was saying, "it would be well to be elsewhere before the light is gone. After dark it will be difficult to find what we want."

  "That's all right," said Jim. "You can talk freely in front of them. I'm going to make sure they forget everything before we leave. You mean we need to find a ship to take us over, and once it becomes dark, this is going to be difficult if not impossible? Right?"

  "That is it, James," said Giles.

  "You're right, Giles," said Jim. "I'll give up here, then; and as I say, I'll make sure they forget everything before we leave."

  He turned to the two seated men.

  "You'll sit exactly as you are until you can count to yourselves slowly up to five hundred. At the end of that time you will wake up, but not remember anything that happened after the moment just before we walked into the room. You understand? Nod if you do."

  Both men nodded.

  Jim turned away and led them all back out the door, picking up the servant as he went, and remaking their invisibility.

  Once out in the corridor, Jim had the servant lead them back to the front door through which they had entered; and then just short of the door, they all stopped and Jim reminded the servant to forget everything that had happened from the first moment Jim had spoken to him. He too was supposed to start back toward the King's quarters, counting to a hundred slowly as he went, before he also woke from his hypnosis.