The Dragon in Lyonesse

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Brian wiped his eyes. The oval of his forehead to his chin, the only part of his head not covered by his helm and other armor, was running with sweat. The harsh stink of it came to Jim's nostrils.

  "A rescue?" he said. "Who, James? I thought it was you needing me!"

  He picked up his reins as if to turn back to the melee.

  "James!" he said, staring at Jim like someone waking from a dream. "You were the dragon?"

  Jim did not bother to answer.

  "Listen to me, Brian!" he said. "We've got to get out of Lyonesse—right now. Are you starting to see color in anything?"

  "Color? No, no—no color. Why should I? James, I must get again to Arthur's side—"

  "Listen! Don't you remember what Dafydd told us about people from the Drowned Land that came here and stayed too long—until they started seeing things here in their natural color? And when that happened they were never able to go home to stay anymore—they had to remain here forever? These engines on my nose are magic glasses to warn me when we are just about to start seeing color—so we could leave in a hurry. They've shown me color now. We've got to get out of Lyonesse, now! Right now!"

  Brian's face changed, chilling and closing.

  "Go you, James," he said. "I cannot leave yet!"

  "Brian!" said Jim, exasperated. "Didn't you hear me? I said I'm seeing color!"

  "Howbeit," said Brian, "my first duty is to the ending of this battle behind my King Arthur." His eyes had become colder than Jim had ever seen them before, as cold as stones in a stream running down from a mountain glacier. "As a knight I can do no less."

  "The battle's already over—in any real sense. I tell you, I'm seeing color now with the glasses—a few minutes can bring us to the point where we start seeing it with our naked eyes. Think of Geronde! Do you want to leave her alone for the rest of her days?"

  "I will come back to her."

  "You won't be able to! At least, not to come back to her and stay, you idiot!"

  Brian's sword rasped from its scabbard; and his face was as Jim had never seen it before.

  "Sir! You offend me with your foul insults! Draw and defend yourself!"

  Jim's mind suddenly became starkly, emotionlessly clear as a snow-deep winter land under a blazing, cloudless, windless sky. It was Gawain and Lancelot all over again—only this time, real. Carefully, he kept his hands where they were, without movement, well away from the sword at his belt.

  "Brian," he said slowly and clearly, "you're drunk!"

  Brian's sword swept up for an overhand blow. Sitting Blanchard as he was, his blade would fall with all the force of his added height on Jim.

  Angie, God, and everything else in this place and time, help me! prayed Jim, as he had not prayed since he had been very young indeed. He did not move.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Brian's sword hung in the air. The noise of the battle, the battle itself, and all the other armed men were as if they had been swept away. There was only the two of them, face-to-face. Jim kept his eyes on Brian's eyes.

  Brian's blade, bright in the setting sun, checked, hesitant. It wavered, sagged, then dropped like something forgotten. Brian did not lose his grip on its hilt, but sword and hand went down together, as if his arm had lost its strength.

  "Why do you say such a thing, James?" he asked—but in an entirely different, bewildered voice.

  His eyes were no longer like stones, but weary and unhappy. "How could I be drunk, and I without even a drop of water since I left King Pellinore's home, these many hours past now?"

  "Drunk on battle, Brian," said Jim softly. "The fighting took you over. But that's as good as done, now. Come along. It's time you thought of your own home, and Geronde."

  "Geronde… yes," said Brian unsurely. He fumbled, trying awkwardly to insert his sword into its scabbard. Finally the point found its opening, and the blade slid out of sight. "My duty to her…"

  His eyes blinked, closed; and he fell suddenly from the saddle.

  Jim caught him. There was no avoiding it. He could not let his closest friend simply smash to the ground.

  He had intended merely to break Brian's fall with his own body, not stay on his feet and hold him. But that was what he did; though the heavy, armored weight of Brian's limp form staggered Jim for a moment.

  In that passing second it came to him that his years in this early century had built more physical strength into him than he had realized, even though he had not known it was happening.

  He eased Brian to the ground and knelt beside him. Over his friend's mail shirt was his jupon, the blue one Geronde had seen him off in, he knew—but now darkened on its left side.

  He tried to work his hand under the jupon, up to the darkness; but long before he came to it, he felt the slipperiness of the chain mail beneath it, and knew it was blood.

  —Again! It seemed to him for a moment that he had spent half his time on trips like these dealing with a Brian who had lost dangerous amounts of his blood.

  He turned Brian on his side to see where the armor might have been broken through—and sighed with relief. There was a rent in Brian's jupon, all right—a small one. But not more than three inches beyond it there was another. He got a finger in through the second hole and touched chain mail a little higher up on Brian's chest—mail that had been scored and had some broken links, but was dry. Clearly, whatever had made Brian bleed had been a spear or sword point that barely glanced off him. Brian's collapse must be more from reaction to the battle, possibly heightened by further sleeplessness.

  "Time to go," he told his unconscious friend; and half turned his head. "Hob, are you still with me?"

  "Yes, m'Lord. But the first Lady we met down here—the one that sent us to the Forest Dedale, is with us, too."

  Jim jumped to his feet and turned around. There, only three steps away, was Morgan le Fay, smiling grimly, resplendent in an elaborate gown of some misty material that Jim's glasses showed him was purple in color, a fan of bird-of-paradise feathers behind her head, backgrounding a small but beautiful coronet of silver, sparkling with jewels.

  "So you thought you were going to get away," she said.

  "Pay no attention to her, Jim!" said another recognizable voice. "I'm here also."

  Jim looked to his side and saw Kineteté—either her, or her projection. Morgan's smile changed. She and Kineteté smiled at each other, but only with their lips.

  "Thanks," said Jim to whichever version of Kineteté it was. "But it's not necessary, Kineteté, thanks. Everything's under control. I can understand Queen Morgan le Fay's position here very well indeed. Hob, where are your manners? Go escort the great Queen to me."

  Hob flashed past Jim's right eye and landed at his feet, running the few steps it took him to reach Morgan.

  "This way, by your grace and kindness, my Queen," he said, in the best imitation Court manner the traveling ballad singer could have taught him.

  There was a faint look of puzzlement on Morgan's face. She was looking from Kineteté to Jim. She ignored Hob, making no move to follow the little hobgoblin as he took a first step back toward Jim.

  "Come, my Queen!" said Hob more firmly. He stepped back to her, caught hold of her hand and tried to tug her after him. It was as useless as some small pleasure craft trying to tow a beautiful but towering ocean liner. Jim spoke quickly.

  Summer to winter

  Day to night

  Turnabout

  —And serve you right!

  Morgan paled with shocking suddenness. First her hands, and then her limbs, and finally her whole body began to shiver and her teeth to chatter. She jerked her hand out of Hob's; but the shivering got worse… and quickly a haze was forming around her. Forming and solidifying, until she seemed encased in a block of something transparent, unable to move. Abruptly, she was gone.

  "That simple spell for the Witch's Gate gave me the idea," he said to Kineteté. "But it'll take her a moment to work out how to get rid of it. Meanwhile she'll know how Northgales and H
ob felt—come on back to me, Hob. Thanks for coming, Kineteté. We'd like to go home now as fast as you can magick us there, now. But where's Dafydd? He probably ought to go back now, too."

  "He's at Malencontri already!" Kineteté said dryly. "So! You can pronounce magick properly, when you want to!"

  "Merlin pointed out the difference to me," said Jim.

  Kineteté snorted.

  "James…" began Brian, speaking unexpectedly from the ground at Jim's feet, his first words almost inaudible, but with his voice growing firmer as he spoke. "—we cannot leave without thanking our host."

  "Our host?"

  "King Pellinore."

  As if the words had been a magic summons, the QB was suddenly beside them.

  "—Pray your forgiveness, Sirs!" he said. "But I was coming to speak to you in any case, heard your last words, and realized I must speak now or not at all. I would beseech you not to attempt to say farewell to King Pellinore at this time. Sir Percival and Sir Lamorack of Wales are once more gone from us; and he feels their loss deeply at the moment."

  Incredibly, Brian spoke again from the region of Jim's feet, his voice once more starting out so weak as to be barely understandable, but growing stronger with each word.

  "They were killed?" he asked harshly.

  "No," said the QB. "But like all those others who were allowed to come help us in this, our time of need, they have been taken away once more now the need is gone."

  "That would be hard," said Jim, as gently as he could, "just when he thought he had them back again."

  "It was not unexpected," said the QB. "We all knew they were only lent us, having all left us before Arthur's final battle. But their second going has cut deeper in him than he had expected—especially it is hard on one such as he who will never let himself admit pain; so that he does not speak of it, but lives with it caged in his breast, alone."

  "Yes," said Jim.

  "If you would wish to send word by me, to be told him at a time when matters have eased a bit for him…"

  "By all means," croaked Brian. "Say our best…"

  He did not finish. Looking down, Jim saw his eyes had closed.

  "I've got to get him back to Malencontri," he told Kineteté. "And our horses—"

  "Of course," said Kineteté; and at once she, Brian, Hob, and Jim were back at Malencontri in the Great Hall. Gorp, Blanchard, and the sumpter horse were not; but Jim had no doubt they were probably already being taken in hand at the castle stables.

  They were all on the dais of the High Table in the Great Hall. Kineteté had been entirely correct. Dafydd was there, as was Danielle and their two older sons. But so, of all people, was Carolinus, in one of his worn-out red robes, looking much more healthy than when Jim had last seen him.

  Also there was Angie, and Geronde—who swooped down immediately to examine the still and silent Brian—with John Steward and several of the servants running to be helpful to her if needed. Supper was being put on the High Table, bathed by the light of the tall white guest candles already lit there.

  "Servants out of the Hall!" said Jim, almost as a reflexive response. "Not you, Hob."

  "Yes, m'Lord."

  The other servants left—at a run, as polite, trained servants were expected to do in this time and place.

  "Brian's wounded!" snapped Geronde.

  "Not seriously, I think."

  "We must put him to bed and dress the wound at once!"

  "Of course," said Jim. He raised his voice. "Servants!" he shouted. "Servants here, as fast as you can come! Menservants to carry Sir Brian to bed!"

  They ran back—those who had gone and as many others as thought they could get away with it; since whatever the excitement was about, they wanted to be involved in it.

  "He is in a swoon—how can you say that is not serious?"

  "Oh, I think that's just a syncope," said Jim.

  As he had hoped, the incomprehensible word not only checked Geronde's indignation at Jim's indifference, but also reassured her that a magical mind had judged the damage with a professional eye and found it not as threatening as she had feared.

  Brian was carried off in the direction of the stairs to the chambers on the upper levels of Malencontri's Tower, where the room given Geronde undoubtedly waited.

  "Call me the moment he wakes!" Jim shouted after the eight men carefully carrying Brian.

  "Yes, m'Lord." A chorus.

  "And the rest of you—out of the Hall!"

  The servants who had failed to have an excuse to follow Brian left.

  "Now—" began Jim.

  "Well you may say 'Now'!" exploded Kineteté, exactly like a time bomb which had been patiently ticking its way down to this moment for explosion. "I've never been so embarrassed in my—in a long time! There I was, ready to take care of all of you; and you had to show off by choosing instead to use a first-year apprentice's spell that what's-her-name will find her way out of in less time than it takes to tie your hosen on! What made you think you could deliberately make a fool of me before that booby, all of whose magick I could wind around my little finger—and in that baby-clumsy way?"

  "I earnestly beg your forgiveness—" Jim began, finally understanding how he had insulted her magical competence—but Carolinus kept him from finishing.

  "Yes, that spell!" snapped Carolinus with surprising strength in his voice. "I want to know. Why such a simple spell?"

  "I—" began a small voice from the fireplace.

  "SILENCE, HQBGOLIN!" roared Carolinus.

  His glare reduced Hob to a small ball of gray limbs that curled up tightly, squeaking, "Dreadfully sorry, Mage—crave your pardon, Mage—"

  Carolinus ignored him. "Jim, I asked you a question!"

  "He undoubtedly heard me the first time I asked it!" said Kineteté.

  Carolinus glared at her. But Kineteté was not a hobgoblin. She glared back.

  "Well, Jim?" barked Carolinus, turning once more to Jim. "I'm waiting to hear. Kin wants to know. Well… ? Well? Well? Well?"

  "Well," said Jim, who had now had time to think over his answer. "Actually, I had several reasons."

  "I'm listening."

  "The first is that I might have to go back to Lyonesse someday; and I wanted to show Morgan le Fay that I wasn't quite helpless by myself. Also, I wanted to find out if I was right about something—whether Lyonesse's own magical energy could be made to respond to one of our basic magic patterns from up here. I deliberately chose the simplest spell I could think of, to make sure I hadn't been too specific—that was why I said it as I did."

  Kineteté sat back in her chair with her arms folded.

  "The other reason has to do with why I did it," said Jim.

  "Tell us, then!" said Carolinus. "Never mind the invocation—go direct to the sermon! Why did it work?"

  "Why shouldn't it?" said Jim, meeting stares from the two of them. "There's no Accounting Office down there. Anyone in Lyonesse who delves into magic seems to have as much credit as he or she wants for any purpose. Where do they get it?" He looked from one to the other of the Mages before him.

  "Wherever it comes from, why should it be a different sort of magick than we get here?" he continued. "Does that mean that each different land has its own kind of magic? Doesn't make sense. Anyway, I'm beginning to think they don't, I think we just have magic as a sort of natural force here, like"—he boggled over the word gravity and decided not to use it—"like any other natural force—worldwide."

  "You remember, Mage Carolinus, how that magickian in Tripoli served just as well with a bowl of water as we do up here with crystal balls? I've tried it and it worked. Also, I drove the Dark Powers out of my Great Hall with the same sort of magical energy I'd have used on any intruder; and now I've got evidence Lyonesse magic can respond at least to simple commands."

  "Hah!" said Kineteté. "But it was Lyonesse magick you said you were using. That's impossible."

  "Who knows?" snapped Carolinus. "If it was Lyonesse magick, Jim, how did you get po
ssession of it?"

  "It just happened to fall into my hands, actually," said Jim. "The Witch Queen of Northgales had an unnatural coldness—a coldness that had to have some kind of magic basis. She deliberately tried to get one of us to touch her so she could steal the body heat of whoever it was—and she ended up touching Hob—I didn't know what she was up to, then. Anyway, she was so much bigger than Hob that it almost killed him. I managed to save him, though, without using my magic—that's important. But Hob insisted on liking her after that, and being kind to her; and the coldness left her—"

  "What's all that to do with what you're saying?" said Kineteté.

  "Will you just let the lad finish, Kin?"

  "If you insist!"

  "—But Hob didn't catch the permanent coldness from her. He couldn't, of course, because Naturals, outside of the instinctual magic they have built into them, can't use magic—but you Mages know all that far better than I do, of course. So he couldn't catch the cold from her—but he could become a carrier of it. I guessed that maybe he could pass it on to a human if the conditions were right—to someone who was full of anger or hate. So I arranged for him to touch Morgan le Fay—and, sure enough, she caught the coldness."

  "Why the spell, then?" demanded Carolinus, on an odd note of eagerness.

  "Oh, that was just to confuse Morgan and make her feel that I was responsible for what had just happened to her—that it was me, instead of Hob, who was responsible."

  "Very interesting," said Kineteté dryly, "but I still fail to see what it's got to do with what you were saying."

  "Why," said Jim, "what I'm saying is that magic is possibly the same in all lands, in spite of small, surface differences—but it's like any other natural part of things. It can float free, as the Old Magic perhaps does in Lyonesse—but be unable to do anything to those who have nothing to do with it." Caught up in his words, he rushed on.

  "It can be absorbed and used, unconsciously," he said, "as Naturals use it. It can be used to one purpose only, as the devils and demons of all classes use it. And, finally, it can be taken from its free-floating state by those who're aware of it—that's us humans—and used for either good or ill. But we really only have a small corner of the available magic in this world—and all the rest put together would represent a tremendously powerful force. But what we have through the Accounting Department's actually only a tiny part of it. I'm not sure of this, of course; but I'm just saying that's how it looks to me."