The Dragon and the Gnarly King

by Gordon R. Dickson

  What Jim really yearned for at this moment was coffee. But Carolinus had never been interested in coffee, or in getting Jim or Angie any. He was interested in black teas, and so he had gotten Jim and Angie some of that through his magical connections in the Orient.

  "Here," said Angie, bringing him a cup. "The milk and other things should be up in a moment, I had some honey here, so this cup is the way you like it as far as that goes. Maybe you'd like to start on that."

  Jim did. He sat sipping the scalding tea, his mind clearing. Before he had gotten more than half the cup down, the man-at-arms and a servant showed up with the food. Jim had not thought he was hungry, but once he smelled the food, he realized it was at least one of the things he had wanted.

  Angie had been right. Even as he ate, his mind finished clearing. Not until he had stuffed himself, however, did he sit back in one of the special padded-back and padded-arm chairs that had been made for the Solar, to look at Angie and come to the point of what should be done.

  "All right now," he said. "Now I'll go look at Brian."

  "If he's really sleeping, there's no hurry—unless there's something you can do for him," said Angie. "With a wound like that, he should be left to rest, don't you think? Ellen said he was sleeping now, and he'll need it."

  His enjoyment of the omelet, dreams of hot dogs past, and his pleasure at being home all dropped away from Jim at once, leaving him hollow inside. The moment when the armored lines had met returned to him again, with fresh force, and in his memory he saw once more, Brian falling.

  He turned his head a little away from Angie, so that he was staring at nothing but the white-painted, mortared wall of two-foot-thick stone blocks that had been built there just this year to divide off the small room for Robert and his nurse. He looked back at Angie.

  They gazed at each other, and he felt one of her hands close tightly on his, again, where it lay on the table between them.

  "Oh, Jim!" he heard her say. For a long moment they continued to sit so. But then Angie managed a smile. He smiled back.

  "You're brave," he said.

  "So are you." Angie let go of his hand and stood up.

  "I'll go down," she said, "and see if Brian's actually sleeping. If he is, I'll come back up and tell you. You can decide then if you want to see him today, or whether you'd better let him rest as much as possible before you do anything for him, yourself."

  She was out of the room before Jim could think of anything pertinent to say. He sat where he was, remembering. In a very few minutes, she was back.

  "He's sleeping," she said, sitting down at the table. "And he even looks better. If I were you, I'd just let him sleep for at least another day or so. There's no reason to put any more stress on him than he's already had. I'll send a pigeon to Geronde to tell her he's here; and why don't you go out and put the signal-cloth on Aargh's stake? I think your healing Brian when you did was all he needed. If there're no complications, he ought to be up and around in just a few days."

  "You think so?" asked Jim, suddenly, unreasonably reassured by the matter-of-factness of her voice.

  "I do," said Angie. "You can check him yourself tomorrow, and see what you think. By that time, knowing Brian, you might want to put a spell on him to keep him from getting out of bed."

  Chapter Thirteen

  "No," said Jim, as they went down the stairs. He had been thinking about Angie's idea to keep Brian in bed by putting a spell on him. "I don't think I ought to. It wouldn't be right to put a spell on him without telling him; and he'd resent it if I did—as if his word wasn't good enough. I wouldn't blame him, either. Even more here in the fourteenth century, than in our own time, you've got to watch what you say to people."

  "I suppose so," said Angie, "But it'd certainly help."

  "I know," said Jim. They were halfway down the stairs now. "I really wish I could do something with magic to get him better faster, but I don't know what to do."

  "Like when Carolinus got sick and couldn't heal himself?" Angie said.

  "That's right," said Jim. "Magic can be powerless in some places—like in the Kingdom of the Dead—or in some situations. You know that magic won't work where someone who's a legitimate practitioner of his religion—a holy man of any kind—has forbidden it. The blessing has to be renewed every twenty-four hours, of course, but you remember how much trouble I had with that last Christmas at the Earl's castle—that blasted Bishop—"

  "You don't have to blast him," said Angie. "Remember how helpful he was in making the King give us Robert."

  "You're right, of course," said Jim. "—that blessed Bishop had blessed the place before we got there. I couldn't magic anything—"

  He broke off.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" said Angie.

  "I just remembered—Carolinus moved himself and me, magically, around in the castle, as if there'd never been any blessing at all."

  "After all, he's one of the world's top magicians," said Angie.

  "But that shouldn't affect something like… but you're right, he's done that before—given me the idea magic wouldn't work for something, and then used his to do it, himself—" He was interrupted suddenly by a long, wavering howl, distant, but clear, somewhere outside the Castle.

  "Aargh!" said Angie. "We don't need to put out the signal after all!" She began to hurry down the steps. Jim hurried also, but carefully; staying behind her. There was no handrail or other protection to keep anyone who slipped off the open side of the steps from plunging to the floor-level of the tower, a murderous distance below.

  The sound of Aargh's howl had penetrated and been heard all over the Castle. A wolf howling in daylight was considered the worst sort of bad omen, even though the staff at Malencontri were now used to Aargh announcing his presence this way. Faces about the stable and the courtyard were somber as the two rode toward the great gate in the curtain-wall. Occupying nearly all one side of the courtyard was the massive, leather-clothed figure of Rrrnlf, the Sea Devil, slumbering on one side with his face to the wall.

  "Good," said Jim. "With luck we can get out and back in again without having to talk to him."

  The distance to where Aargh should be waiting was nothing at all. They could have walked it in three minutes; but being Lord and Lady of the Castle, of course, they had to ride. This was something the servants silently insisted on. It was only fair. As servitors, the Castle people did their duties properly; and it was up to their superiors to do theirs with a matching correctness.

  Unfortunately, this instance of propriety meant that the horses they rode had to be tethered some distance from the meeting place—horses did not like wolves any more than the Castle staff did; and unlike the servants, horses did not even have the comfort of being sure that this was not any savage wolf, but a friend of the family. Jim and Angie had to walk the last forty yards to reach the naked stake. Aargh, of course, was nowhere in sight.

  "I think he just likes to surprise us," whispered Angie to Jim as they waited.

  "No such pup-like foolishness!" said a familiar, harsh voice behind them.

  They turned. There he was: a massive, grey-furred, golden-eyed, wicked-toothed, feral shape, the size of a small pony. "It's that he doesn't want any surprises himself. You've got Brian in that place of yours now, haven't you?"

  "How did you know?" asked Jim.

  "I went around the Castle a few moments ago," said Aargh. "I heard his stallion in the stables, challenging yours—safe enough, of course, with each in a different stall. Just talk, actually—but all horses are fools."

  "You shouldn't say that," Angie told him.

  "I say what I please!" answered Aargh. "Horses are fools. All grass-eaters are fools. But if the horse is there, Brian's there. What kept him from coming out with the two of you?"

  "He's been wounded," said Jim, "and he's going to have to stay in bed and rest until he gets back all the blood he's lost."

  "Wounded?" said Aargh. "A great help. First Carolinus can't be found, then Brian
gets himself wounded. All we need is for Dafydd to break a leg. You two-legs can't get around with one of those out of order, the way we wolves can. One of the reasons why deciding to stand up on your hind limbs wasn't so smart, after all. That puts the trouble all on me, I suppose."

  "Have you forgotten Jim?" said Angie sharply.

  "Forgot him? No," said Aargh to her. "He's helpful as long as he doesn't break a leg, too. But he can't wield a sword like Brian, or shoot an arrow like Dafydd. Useful to be able to do things like that, if you're born with teeth that wouldn't frighten a mouse."

  "As a dragon—" Angie was beginning heatedly, when Jim interrupted.

  "It's all right, Angie," he said. "Aargh's not being insulting, just practical. We do need Brian—to say nothing of Carolinus. But the main thing right now, Aargh, is finding Robert, regardless of how many there are of us, or how we have to do it."

  "You can count on me in any case," growled Aargh. He stared at Jim. "I suppose you want to see that hole, now?"

  "Yes," said Jim.

  "Well then, come along," said Aargh. He turned his back on them and trotted off.

  They followed.

  The hole was less than three minutes' walk away. It made a dark circle in a small bank among the trees, only yards from where the clearing around the Castle began. Aargh was standing over it as they came up. He waited while Jim got down on his hands and knees and sniffed at the hole himself.

  "Any scent?" asked Aargh ironically.

  "No," said Jim, getting to his feet. "None I can smell, anyway."

  "A good choice of words," said Aargh. He stretched his neck out so his nose was over the hole, and his nostrils widened for a second. "If you had any nose at all, you couldn't miss the smell of meat—meat being cooked."

  "Meat?" Jim said.

  "That's what I said," said Aargh. "Meat. When I first came across this hole there wasn't any such scent from it. The hole ended here."

  "How could you tell, if it goes straight down farther than you could tell?"

  "It doesn't," said Aargh. "I don't know about that hole in your Castle, but this goes down about six feet. I didn't go into it. But I put my head in far enough to get the sunlight out of my eyes; and after they were used to the dark, I could see where it turned into a level underground-digging, going off to where the sun sets. Now, there's a digging in the other direction, too. The level part may go on forever. But it's the way I'd say whoever took your Robert carried him off when he went."

  "Then what's all this about cooked meat?" asked Jim.

  "It could only be coming from our Castle, Jim!" said Angie.

  "So," Jim said, "this hole was dug first, and then another one was dug later from it, into the Castle to take Robert?" Angie looked at him.

  "I don't understand what's going on," said Jim. "But whatever dug these holes certainly can dig. Like a large mole."

  "There aren't any large moles," said Aargh.

  "Well, we won't worry about that part of it now," said Jim. "It tells us more than we knew before, anyway. I'm grateful to you for noticing it. Now, though, we need to decide how we're going to start looking for Robert—maybe tomorrow would be best. Dafydd will have gotten here by that time and Brian may be strong enough to sit up in the Great Hall. That'll be the place to meet, and, meanwhile, I'll see what I can find out at Carolinus' cottage."

  "Better we meet outside here!" said Aargh, with a snap of his jaws.

  Jim looked at the wolf. He had forgotten.

  "I know you don't like to be inside buildings," he said, "but you've been with us in the Great Hall before—"

  "Not happily!" said Aargh. "A wolf could get trapped in a place like that!"

  "Can't you come in one more time, considering the circumstances?" Angie asked. "Brian might be well enough to be carried down to the Great Hall, but he won't be up to being carried out here; and it was you who said how useful he was to us. Even if he can't swing a sword, his advice is worth listening to. Don't you think?"

  Aargh growled briefly.

  "I'll come in one more time," he said.

  With that, in his usual sudden way, he disappeared among the surrounding trees.

  "He'll come in," said Angie, as they rode back to the Castle. "He'll come in as many times as we need him, actually."

  "I know," said Jim. "He argues a lot, but he's always there when you need him. I'd better go back with you to the Solar. But I think from there I'll just keep on to the top of the tower and head off from there to the Tinkling Water, to see what I can learn."

  "We hope," said Angie.

  They rode back into the courtyard. Rrrnlf, Jim noted with relief, was still sleeping. It was a good thing that Sea Devils did not snore. Or, at least Rrrnlf didn't. You wouldn't have been able to hear yourself think in the Castle if he did—Jim became conscious that Angie was silently looking very unhappy again.

  "We'll get him back all right," he said.

  "It's just that he's so little," she answered, blinking.

  She changed the expression on her face and sat up straighter in her saddle as they came close to the stables.

  "You'll fly there as a dragon, of course?" she said.

  "That's what I had in mind."

  "Yes," said Angie, thoughtfully. "You know, in some ways I worry less about you when you're in your dragon body than I do when you're in your human body."

  "You shouldn't ever worry about me. I can always put a ward around me to protect myself."

  Angie said nothing.

  They left their horses to the stable workers and climbed the stairs in silence. At the Solar door he left her and mounted the last flight of stairs to the tower-top.

  Under the cloud-flecked blue sky there was no one but the man-at-arms on duty, with his spear and sword. He had been leaning on the battlements, looking down at what was going on in the courtyard. But at the sight of Jim, he hastily straightened up and looked watchful.

  "Geoffrey," said Jim, "go down and ask if my Lady will give you audience. Stay at her orders until she sends you back up here."

  "Yes, m'Lord."

  Geoffrey put his spear on his shoulder and headed immediately toward the staircase. He was one of the veteran men-at-arms, in his late twenties at least, his black hair already retreating from his forehead and his square-jawed face weather-beaten and tanned. Jim knew that Geoffrey knew Jim was about to change into his dragon body; but like all good and experienced Castle people, he was perfectly capable of pretending that he knew no such thing. He disappeared down the stairs.

  Jim was not quite sure why he preferred to change into his dragon-shape when none of the servants were watching; but something like instinct told him that it would be better if they saw as little as possible of his actually working magic. At any rate, once Geoffrey was gone, Jim concentrated on turning into a dragon, with his clothes magically removed at the same time—so that they would not be destroyed, but still be with him when he wanted to turn back into a human.

  Immediately he was a dragon; and with the change came the inevitable difference, that he was now in touch with a dragon's way of thinking and a dragon's way of feeling. This was more than a little different from that of a human.

  For one thing, dragons were not generally given to prolonged worrying. Some of his concern about Robert, Carolinus, and the servants, was abruptly gone—although as a conscious problem it was still there in the back of his mind. But the change, together with the sense of now being very healthy, very large, and very powerful—a sensation that could only be described as being very Dragonly—took possession of him. In spite of the current situation his spirits rose.

  He looked around himself to make sure he had room to spread his wings clear of the top of the battlements, and then made a leap into the air, beating downward with his wings and immediately flying up at a steep angle, making as much noise as possible, for Angie to hear.

  In a moment, or so it seemed—such was the wing power of a large adult dragon—he was out over the trees and far enough from Ma
lencontri so that had Geoffrey been back on watch, the man-at-arms could have mistaken him for nothing more than a large but distant bird.

  He had already caught a thermal; he relaxed on outstretched wings, letting it life him in an ascending spiral, up and up until he reached about fifteen hundred feet. At that elevation, the thermal became too weak to carry him much farther. He slanted off, taking advantage of the moving air up here as a ship might set its sails to take advantage of a wind. He headed southeast toward Carolinus' cottage.

  As usual, the sheer joy of being air-borne seduced him. He was tempted to prolong the simple pleasure of soaring, but matters were too grave for him to indulge himself. Shortly, he landed on the gravel walk to Carolinus' small, fairy-tale-like cottage; it stood in a lush clearing, walled about by enormous, ancient trees, and carpeted with heavy grass right up to the flower beds with which Carolinus had surrounded the cottage.

  Everything looked as usual. In the little pool from which a fountain rose, one of the small water-creatures—either a fish or a minuscule golden mermaid, it or she was always too fast for him—leaped, arced over, and re-entered the water before his eyes could properly focus. The feeling of peace in the clearing was overwhelming. He pushed it aside and went up to the green-painted front door of the cottage.

  As he had expected, it was closed. Further, as he had also expected, when he tentatively tried to open it, it did not budge. He did not put any effort into trying to push it open; it and all the rest of the cottage—in fact all the clearing—were under the impenetrable spell of Carolinus.

  He knocked, on the odd chance that Carolinus might actually be there. But there was no answer.

  Now that he was here, it was a question of what he could actually accomplish. His magic was limited, and there was absolutely no hope that any force he might summon could break through a ward put up by a magician of Carolinus' powers. While he was mulling over the matter, he changed himself back into his human form, clothes and all. For want of anything else to do, he knocked again.