The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Carolinus still did not respond in any way.

  "That kettle's known you for years, maybe for centuries!" Jim said wildly. He hastily threw together a spell in his mind, wrote it on the inside of his forehead; and a moment later Carolinus's kettle, on the boil as usual, was dangling from his right fist.

  "Here you are—ouch!" The yelp from Jim was involuntary. The kettle, swinging a little, had brushed its hot metal top against his knuckles.

  "You don't understand," said Carolinus in a dead voice. "That which Granfer carries was the figurehead of a ship carved and painted to represent one of the waves. Aegir, the Norse sea god, and Ran, the giantess, had nine daughters, who were the waves. Last and greatest of these waves was the ninth, named Jarnsaxa—'the Iron Sword'! Even though pagan times must have been all but past, that figurehead was carved by pagans for pagans—"

  "Pagans!" said Brian suddenly, putting his hand on his sword hilt and staring grimly at Rrrnlf, as if measuring him as someone to be challenged.

  Carolinus raved on, as if he had not heard.

  "—To them it was Jarnsaxa and had life to cleave the waves for them; for Jarnsaxa is the ninth wave, the one that goes farthest up on the beach, according to legend. When Rrrnlf found the sunken ship with that figurehead upon it, he took it off, replaced its missing paint, stripped it of barnacles and all other sea damage, and fixed it as good as new. Then went beyond that, to load it with jewels and other presents—"

  "I loved her, do you understand!" broke out Rrrnlf unexpectedly above them, his voice for one moment covering all other noise, including that of the approaching Granfer. "We were lovers! But when the old Gods left, Aegir took his nine daughters with him. I never saw her again."

  "So Rrrnlf—" went on Carolinus in that same dead voice. Jim saw, to his surprise, great tears rolling down Rrrnlf's cheeks. "Rrrnlf gave the love he could no longer give to the one he had loved, to this figurehead of her that was left. In doing that he gave it some life. Wherever there is love, there is life given. Loved objects become living, to some extent. When Essessili, or some other sea serpent at Granfer's order stole the figurehead from Rrrnlf and brought it to the kraken, he was able to use that life in it to bring his own magic to a state in which it was alive and acting. Together, they have a magic unknown and invincible."

  "No!" cried Jim. "You've brought this kettle alive, the same way. It went to save you. It's alive! You can use that just as well. All you have to do is translate from what you know to Granfer's magic."

  But Carolinus remained unresponsive. Something seemed to explode inside Jim.

  "Then I will!" he shouted—and in that moment, Granfer broke through the last of the trees on the edge of the clearing, plunging into the midst of the serpents.

  He stopped. He had crushed a number of them in coming in among them; but the rest paid no attention. They gathered around him like hounds around their master.

  Jim held up the kettle before him with its handle in both hands, between him and Granfer. His mind was busy constructing spells.

  He spoke the effective lines aloud to give them more force.

  "Simon says—" he called out desperately. "Simon says: Granfer, still!"

  But Granfer was busy speaking to the serpents. Jim's magic did not even make him pause. Jim realized then that his magic had never worked on the other. On the sea bottom Granfer had only pretended to be stilled, to hide his own magic from Jim.

  Now, his tentacles continued to wave in the air—all but the one that was holding the carved head of Jarnsaxa. He was telling the serpents what nitwits they were to be afraid of the dragons overhead, particularly now he was here. He was telling them that he would lead the way through the walls and through the castle and leave everything open for them to move in, to kill and eat whatever was killable and eatable there.

  It was no use. Jim lowered the kettle. Only Carolinus could do it. Desperation drove him beyond the usual limits. He must rouse the other man, even if he made an enemy of him forever. He turned on the magician.

  "Damn you, Carolinus!" he snarled. "Do you dare curl up like a worm there, and still call yourself an Englishman and a Mage?"

  For a moment it seemed that even these words had not broken through the dark cloud that had come to enclose Carolinus.

  But then, suddenly his shoulders straightened with a snap. Once more his erect self, he spun about to face Jim with a face transfigured with fury.

  Chapter Forty-One

  "Give me that!"

  Carolinus, his eyes blazing, reached out and snatched the kettle from Jim's grasp.

  "Carolinus!" cried Angie.

  For Carolinus had taken hold of the kettle, not by the handle as Jim had been holding it; but by wrapping both hands firmly around its sides and base, pressing fingers and palms hard against the metal hot from the near-boiling liquid within.

  Ignoring Angle's reaction, he turned to face outward toward the serpents and Granfer. He held the kettle at chest height before him; but his eyes were fixed on Granfer.

  He, himself, was now rigid as a figure cast in metal. So rigid, so tense, that he seemed on the verge of quivering with the tension in all his muscles; and his face began to shine with perspiration as he stood holding the kettle and staring.

  An old man does not perspire easily. Those standing around felt it; the tremendous effort—not physical, mental, but magical—that Carolinus was making.

  His eyes seemed to devour every motion of Granfer, and his hands were rock-steady around the kettle, though the skin of his palms and fingers, where it could be seen, was already beginning to puff up from the blistering and burning that the hands must be taking, out of sight in those areas where they touched the kettle.

  The rest were held, motionless. Motionless and silent. Jim felt Angie struggling to say or do something, but his hand which was already on her arm, put there unconsciously to stop her when she spoke that one utterance of Carolinus's name, closed about her arm.

  "There's nothing we can do," he said in a whisper.

  They stood and watched.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, a thin thread of steam jetted from the spout of the kettle. And the thin, breathy voice they had heard from it before, when it had stood on the table in their Great Hall, calling for help for Carolinus, began to sing. But this time it sang differently.

  "Caro—lin—us, Caro—lin—us…" it sang softly.

  The melody was as simple as a lullaby, repeated over and over, with nothing but Carolinus's name for words. But, like a lullaby, hearing it over and over again did not become tiresome. Carolinus's name, Jim suddenly realized, was the one word the kettle was able to make on its own.

  But now it was making it into a little song of love and comfort; and strangely, Carolinus seemed to draw strength from it. He relaxed and appeared to grow at the same time. He not only seemed taller, but broader and stronger. Once more, he showed himself as he had all the time they had known him; in command of any situation in which he found himself, including this one.

  In the open area, Granfer's voice suddenly broke off speaking and rose to a high-pitched scream; and the combined voices of the serpents cried out around him.

  Looking over the wall, Jim and the rest saw Granfer moving slowly up into the air. For some reason it reminded Jim, who as a boy had seen television pictures of the takeoff of the manned rocket from Cape Kennedy that had first gone to the moon. Like that rocket, Granfer lifted from the Earth, slowly at first, gaining speed gradually as he rose.

  He lifted until he was several times his own length above the serpents. He stopped. Then, equally slowly, he began to rotate vertically, like the second hand of a clock, until he was head down.

  Head down, he began to drift toward the castle, through the air over the heads of the serpents below, over the dead Essessili, over and above the open ground between all their green bodies and the moat with the castle wall behind it.

  Until he hung; enormous, but helpless and screaming in that shrill voice of his, only twenty yards in
front of the top of the wall.

  "Be silent!" Carolinus's voice cracked out; and it had the same snap to it that it had, until recently, always had.

  Instantly, Granfer was voiceless.

  Carolinus spoke to him again.

  "You know what I want," his voice was sharp and definite.

  Fumblingly, with his other tentacles waving wildly as if to reach out and grasp something to hold to, Granfer passed the carved and painted head of Rrrnlf's Lady, still dripping with all the jewels and golden chains that Rrrnlf had attached to it, to a longer tentacle that reached out over the wall to deliver the head into Rrrnlf's waiting hands.

  The Sea Devil clutched the figurehead high on his chest. Tenderly he hugged it to him and bowed his head to rest his cheek against the carved, golden hair.

  "I'm waiting!" snapped Carolinus's voice again.

  From some hidden recess, behind or about him, Granfer brought forth a heavy, black book with gold lettering on its cover. This, too, he passed over the wall, transferring it from tentacle to tentacle, this time into Carolinus's hands.

  "Now, sir!" said Carolinus. "I could take vengeance for what you were trying to do; and for what has been done by these serpents under your control. But I will not alter things as they were by changing things as they may be. It was the current of History that allowed you to come this far. I will not tamper with History. So, I will send you back now, and set you down in your own place. But not by your magic—which is inferior—but by mine; for you have no more strength to oppose our strength. Remember that; no matter how many centuries you have yet to live. You have no more magic!"

  "I have no more magic…" echoed Granfer's shrill voice sadly and almost inaudibly.

  "Then go, and your serpents with you, all of you. Begone!"

  Suddenly, Granfer had vanished. The gray-green, trodden ground, the moat, was empty, even of corpses, to the forest trees. Only the pathway smashed through the trees, which Granfer had made in coming toward them, remained.

  For a long moment, as all those on wall and platform stared at the empty space about them, there was silence.

  That silence stretched out; and then, one by one, they began to look up; for the darkness that had been cast over them with the coming of the dragons began to lighten. They looked and saw that the mass of soaring bodies was beginning to thin.

  The French dragons were withdrawing to the south, and the English dragons were turning away to go back to their own homes in the west, east and north of Britain.

  Jim, who had looked up like the rest, looked down again just as Angie also did. They smiled at each other. Jim became aware that Carolinus was holding out the kettle to him.

  "Pull this loose," Carolinus said.

  Jim took the kettle by its handle. The metal of its body was now cold when he touched it, and the little singing voice had stopped. But the body of the kettle itself seemed stuck to Carolinus's hands. Jim pulled and it came loose.

  "Carolinus!" said Angie. For Carolinus's hands and fingers were raw flesh, with the skin completely gone from the undersides of them, except near the edge of the parts that had been touching the kettle, where the bubbles of blisters showed.

  "I should keep these to heal naturally, as a reminder to myself," Carolinus said harshly, looking down at his hands. "But I may have use for them."

  Suddenly, the hands were as healed and as whole as ever. Carolinus looked up and met Jim's eyes.

  "And to you, Jim," he said, "I owe you the deepest of apologies. This was my fault, after all, because I had forgotten something. Strange, how we so often forget what we know best."

  He reached out and took back the kettle, holding it by its handle with one hand and caressing its body, now hot again, with the other. But this time the hand that touched the metal did not burn. Jim stared at it.

  "Carolinus," he said, "if you could hold the kettle without burning, why did you go through that much pain?"

  "There is a time and a use for one kind of pain," Carolinus said, looking fondly at the kettle. "A time for good pain. Good pain focuses, bad pain scatters and destroys."

  A wisp of steam came forth once more from the kettle's spout. The little voice sang, once again.

  "Caro—lin—us, Caro—lin—us." Then it fell still, although the steam continued to come.

  "I forgot," said Carolinus, looking at it, "that love is the one force capable of creating." He shook his head. "That was why Granfer's magic was so primitive. That was why if I had only tried, earlier with all the power at my command, I should have been able to overcome him. But I had let myself fall into a despond, from my sickness and my weakness. And, indulgently, I had let that despond to continue. My kettle worked for me because it had gained life from me; as Rrrnlf's Lady had gained life from Rrrnlf. But Granfer had no love within him; and so no life of his own to give to his totem. Fear and awe are not enough, as our people learned long since. So, in the end, the weaker magic had to go down before mine, with the help of this small kettle."

  He looked at Jim and Angie and also smiled. It was seldom that he did so; but when he did the smile was a memorable thing, because a warmth could be felt from it, as from a kindled fireplace.

  "So, we won," he said. "And Sir John"—he turned to Chandos—"I do not think the King of France and his army will be trying to land in England now, without the serpents to help them."

  "You're right," said Chandos. He too smiled, but a little sadly.

  "Heigh-ho," he added, "but I will have some explanations to make, after talking the other captains into sending the army south, to stand as if to bar the serpents from the sea and make them fear that they would be killed, one and all. Armies like not to be sent on a fool's errand."

  "But m'Lord—I mean, Sir John Chandos, sir," stammered Secoh. "We heard some time ago—but there was so much else happening I didn't get a chance to tell you. They didn't go."

  "They didn't go?" Chandos stared at him. "The army didn't move? But all the captains in council—"

  He broke off. Suddenly he burst into a great roar of laughter.

  "And so, always, are our captains and armies!" he said. "In the end they make up their minds, and change their minds, and no agreement holds; no one sensible thing is done unless one strong hand drives all! Well, well, it is their way; and this time it's to my advantage."

  His laughter was so infectious that the others found themselves laughing with him; and even those farther out along the wall, who had not understood—in some cases not even heard—the interchange of words on the platform, laughed also. It was a laughter of sheer relief after long tension.

  Jim suddenly remembered something. He whirled on Secoh.

  "Secoh!" he said. "Get that surety back to the French dragons!"

  Secoh took off.

  Around Jim, the laughter was at last dying.

  "ER-HEM!"

  It was a clearing of the throat by Brian louder than Jim had ever believed anyone could clear his throat. He looked startledly at his closest friend. Brian, his sword still in his hand, was all but glaring at Jim; with a look that baffled Jim for a moment before understanding came.

  Of course, after every victory, there had to be a celebration. In particular, a feast. Brian was always longing to give one of these; only his poverty kept him unable. But in this case, it was Jim's castle; and Brian was in a fever for fear that Jim, who had the wherewithal, would shame himself by forgetting that something like this was due; shame himself particularly in front of Chandos.

  "Well now!" shouted Jim. "We must note this memorable day with proper festivities!"

  Brian almost slumped with relief.

  Jim turned to Angie. "M'Lady! Can we arrange the Hall and have food and drink set up, first for these knightly persons about us, then for the lesser of our people, and finally even some food and drink for those more humble who have come to shelter in our courtyard?"

  "Absolutely, m'Lord!" sang Angie, who had probably understood Brian much more quickly than Jim. "All shall be ready in a trice!"


  She turned, picked up her long skirt, ran off the platform and down the stone stairs to the courtyard, shouting for a servant or a man-at-arms to carry messages for her, as she did.

  Jim watched her go with fondness, then turned back to Carolinus.

  "Carolinus," he said, "you'll stay for this, won't you?"

  "I think," said Carolinus, touching one of his white mustaches gently. "Yes, I think so. But first, if you don't mind, I would like to be by myself for a while, to collect my thoughts. Do I still have the room you've been keeping me in?"

  "Of course!" said Jim. "The room is yours. It will always be ready, waiting for you here. Just go back to the castle and step into it. Call on the servants for anything you want."

  "I'll do just that," said Carolinus.

  Holding the kettle, he went off down from the platform. As he moved away from Jim, a little jet of steam showed past his right side. Faintly, Jim heard a small, breathy voice singing, as Carolinus moved away from him, until it could no longer be heard. But singing warmly and triumphantly.

  "Caro—lin—us! Caro—lin—us ..."