by Mike Ashley
“Roderick! Come back here!” He knew that if the horse kept on Sir Griffith’s heels he would eventually have the whole troop of the Duke’s men to deal with.
Roderick came back, his nostrils snorting angrily.
Sir Griffith regained the reins and finally got the bay gelding under control, but he decided not to go back. He had done as the Duke had ordered and had unhorsed the knight in black in the bargain. He had won, hadn’t he? Besides, he felt safer with the troop.
The Empty Knight had leaped to his feet and was ready to remount Roderick and ride after the fleeing Sir Griffith, but Magus MacCullen yelled: “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
“After that catiff swine! He’s murdered Frithkin! I loved that goblin like a brother!”
“Wait a minute! There’s a dozen of them! They can’t kill you, but they’d knock you to pieces and scatter your armor all over the place. What do you mean, he murdered Frithkin? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous am I?” bellowed the Empty Knight in a high dudgeon. “Come over to these gorse bushes and take a look! Caught him right in the chest from behind!”
The Magus ran over to the bushes, reaching them before the knight did. “Frithkin! Frithkin! Are you hurt?”
“Damn right I am,” said Frithkin feebly from the bushes.
The Magus parted the bushes and looked in. “What happened?”
Frithkin lay still, his hands over his chest, his body twisted, his goblin eyes glazed with pain. “He ran me through. My neck’s broken, and so’s my back. I think my head’s busted.”
The Empty Knight looked down at the goblin. “You’re still alive, good Frithkin?” He paused, then said in a wondering voice. “And no blood?”
“Of course he’s still alive,” said MacCullen. “You can’t kill an earth elemental. And who ever heard of a goblin with blood?”
“That’s right, my lord,” said the goblin with a feeble grin. “It’ll take all night to heal, but I’ll be all right in the morning.” Then he winced. “Being immortal is all right, I guess, but dammit, this sort of thing hurts!”
Frithkin was obviously in great pain. “Help me get him out of there, Sir Knight,” said the Magus. “Careful, now! Easy! There! Now let’s get busy and bury him.”
“But he’s not dead,” protested the Empty Knight, reasonably enough.
“No,” said MacCullen patiently, “but that’s the best way to cure an earth elemental of anything that’s wrong with him. Put him in the earth.”
“Aye,” muttered Frithkin with a faint attempt at a smile. “It’s back to the Auld Sod for me!”
They dug the grave and buried Frithkin. And all that afternoon the magician and the knight discussed in angry tones what they would do with the recreant knight when they caught him.
“I’ll know his coat of arms when I see it again – a row of four red diamonds across a silver shield,” said the Empty Knight.
MacCullen nodded. “Argent in fesse four fusils gules. We’ll find out who that butcher is all right!”
They talked until the moon rose, then Magus MacCullen lay back on the grass and fell into fitful slumber. The Empty Knight sat up and tended the fire, having nothing else to do.
Just before dawn, he heard a scrabbling, digging noise and looked over at the grave. Frithkin was digging his way out. He stood up, brushed the crumbs of soil from himself, then looked over at the Empty Knight and grinned. “Good as new, my lord.”
“I’m glad, good Frithkin,” the knight said simply. “Very glad.”
Three weeks later, they had reached the border of Faerie.
IV
The curious dimensional interface which constituted the “border” of the Land of Faerie was not always easy to find. It was computed by astrologers who knew their business that Faerie would drift further and further away until at last the interface would no longer exist, and knowledge of the Land of Faerie would fade from the memories of men and the stories of Faerie would be discounted as childish twaddle. “Nothing but a Faerie story,” would become a catch-phrase until, after cycles of time, the drift reversed itself and Faerie came once again within the ken of mortal men.
For Frithkin, finding the exact location of the borderland was childishly simple; as a subject of the Faerie King, he had a homing instinct that was infallible. The goblin took the lead, followed by Magus MacCullen and the Empty Knight, and they threaded their way through a thick forest of gnarled, ancient oaks. The sky was shrouded with a light overcast, and the light filtered down through the leaves and branches to fill the air with greenish gloom.
There was danger here, for trolls, dragons, basilisks, and other horrendous denizens of Faerie often found their way through the border and lurked in wait for travelers – especially during a Centennial Convention year, when so many would be coming this way.
The Empty Knight had wanted to ride up front, by Frithkin – to protect them, he said – but Magus MacCullen would have none of it.
“They’re more likely to sneak up on us from behind, anyway, Sir Knight,” he said. “You’ll be of much more use in the rear. And if anything happens, for the love of Heaven use your mace or your sword, not your lance.”
Mollified by having been put in the position of what the Magus said was of greatest danger, the Empty Knight rode behind.
As a further precaution against danger, MacCullen had previously conjured up a series of spells ready for casting should the occasion arise. The real reason he wanted the Empty Knight in the rear was that if a dragon, say, were to challenge them from ahead, the knight would most likely lower his lance and charge from force of habit. And, of course, get knocked out of his saddle as a result.
He had explained the whole thing to Frithkin on the day after the attack by Sir Griffith.
“He’s strong enough and skilled enough, but he doesn’t have the weight behind him. Oh, he looks heavy enough, but that’s because we tend to think there’s a man inside that armor. There’s a common rumor, among peasants who don’t know any better, that a knight in full armor can’t get up again if he’s knocked flat. The heaviest plate armor made doesn’t weigh over ninety pounds, and any knight that can’t get to his feet, with only ninety pounds of armor distributed evenly over his body, doesn’t deserve to wear it.
“Now, Sir Empty’s armor is fairly heavy, but it isn’t of the heaviest kind. He doesn’t weigh more than eighty pounds – eighty-five at the most. What chance does he have of driving his lance point home? How can he unhorse a man who, with armor, weighs close to two hundred and fifty pounds?”
“I see,” Frithkin had said. “I remember when that ba— er, gentleman was chasing me, I wished I were a rock elemental – a gnome or a kobold. No fear of lances, then! A friend of mine named Gwuthnik is a little gnome who stands three feet high if he stretches, weighs a good four hundred pounds, and he’s so hard that a lance point wouldn’t do more than scratch him.”
“Four hundred pounds, eh?”
“Since he’s a rock elemental, I should have said he weighs close to twenty-nine stone.”
A mace or a sword was something else again, MacCullen decided. A mace has weight of its own and a sword has a sharp edge and you don’t depend so much on your own weight to wield them. Besides, the Empty Knight could hold on to the pommel of his saddle with one gauntlet while he used a sword or mace with the other.
Nevertheless, the Magus had charged himself up with a horde of good spells, just in case.
They came to a bridge over a wide, sluggish stream, and Frithkin stopped, his nose twitching. “Smells all right to me,” he said after a moment. “Come along.”
They went on across the stone bridge, but the Magus and the Empty Knight kept a sharp watch all the same. There was, as far as anybody knew, no reason for trolls to prefer bridges to hide under, but they did. Fortunately, none had discovered this particular bridge. The three travelers crossed without incident.
There was no precise moment when the interface was crossed. The border of
Faerie was like any other border; unless it has been marked out by a surveyor and clearly marked, there is no way of knowing at which precise moment the border is passed. But one minute the three were in the mortal world – and a few minutes later they knew they were in Faerie. It was hard to tell how they knew. Partly it was the luminous appearance of everything; the colors of grass and leaf and flower seemed to have a fluorescent quality about them. And the quality of the light itself was different. Since the sky had been overcast before they crossed the border, the change in the sky had not been obvious, and the leafy branches overhead made it even more difficult to tell, but all three knew that the sun was gone. The sun never shines in Faerie; there is only the blue of the sky, a darkling blue which permeates the very air with a silvery twilight.
After an hour or so, the heavy forest began to thin out. The trees were still as big, but there was more room between them. The place might have been a well-tended park instead of a woods. If nothing else, the Faerie folk took care of their countryside.
“How does this place smell to you, Frithkin?” the Magus asked.
The goblin tilted back his head and tested the air with his nostrils. “All right,” he said. “Nothing dangerous. There’s a griffin several miles to the south, but he’s digesting a meal, not hunting.”
“Fine. Let’s take a rest, then. Unpack some sandwiches. And some beer. Be sure to take the cold spell off the beer or we’ll chill our insides when we drink it.”
Frithkin narrowed his eyes – as much as he could narrow those huge orbs – and said: “Where are you going?”
“For a walk. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Without waiting for an answer, he got down off his mule and strode off through the woods until he was well out of sight of the goblin and the Empty Knight. Then he walked over to the nearest oak, traced a peculiar symbol in the air, murmured three lines of potent verse, and knocked briskly on the tree.
“Who is there and what do you want?” said a contralto voice from the tree.
“Let’s not play guessing games, my lady,” he said; “I am the Magus MacCullen, as you well know. You and your sisters have been keeping a watch on us for a long time. I’m not a magician for nothing, you know.”
“Very well, Magus MacCullen,” said the voice, sounding rather miffed. “What is it you want?”
“Who is the Elder Sister in this grove?” MacCullen asked.
“It so happens that I am. Now, what do you want?”
“I thought my intuition was working pretty well,” said MacCullen. “Picked you out right away.”
“What do you want?” The voice sounded angry.
“I said, let’s not play guessing games, my lady. You know what I want. Information. But if you want to play another kind of game, I have one for you.”
“Which is?”
“First I tell you a story, then you tell me one.”
“It had better be a good story,” said the voice. “I’m not in a mood for games.”
“Oh? I thought you were. Well, I’ll do my best to interest you. First, I will begin my story by reminding you that it is against the Law of Faerie for any of the Faerie folk to fall in love with a mortal.”
There was a gasp from the tree. Then the voice said: “Go on, Magus.”
“Fine. Now, we will mention no names. We both know what we’re talking about, don’t we?”
“Yes, Magus.”
“Thank you, my lady. Then I shall say that I know what your sister did and I think it was very good of her. I want to help. I know that she partially averted a very serious crime, a breaking of both the laws of Faerie and the laws of Christendom. In order to set right that situation, I am willing to overlook a small infraction of the law, such as falling in love. More; with your help, I am willing to aid and abet this minor misdemeanor.” He was bluffing. Most of what he was saying was guesswork, but it was guesswork based on knowledge and observation.
“Do you swear by the Most Holy?” the voice asked.
“I swear by His Name,” replied the magician.
“I believe you, Magus. I know you to be a good man. We would not want to get our sister in trouble. Though I don’t know how you knew.”
“Someday I’ll tell you,” the Magus promised, “but there are more ears in this grove than ours.” Again he mentioned no names, but the air elementals were notorious for spreading gossip.
“I don’t think there are any of the wind sprites about just now,” said the voice, “but let’s keep it confidential, as you say. Now, Magus, I honestly don’t know all the details. None of us does. Other information I am forbidden to give. What I tell you now is all I can tell you. Ask no further questions.”
“All right, my lady. I’ll do the best I can with what I have to work with. Speak on.”
“Very well. You have heard of the Great Chalice?”
MacCullen raised his red eyebrows in surprise. “I have. Don’t tell me that’s mixed up in this.”
“It is.”
The Magus pursed his lips for a silent whistle. The Great Chalice was the symbol of the Kings of Faerie. Whoever rightfully owned it was, by law, King of Faerie. It could not be stolen or taken by force; each King had to give it willingly to his successor. To mortals, it conveyed immortality; to all, it gave the power to rule Faerie.
“Someone is after it,” said the voice from the tree. “I don’t know any of the details of the plot, but if you solve it, you will solve your own difficulties and ours as well. Now, the man to watch is the Duke of Duquayne!”
“Thatson of— Pardon me, my lady. I have no love for the Duke; he ordered one of his knights to run through my familiar.”
“Sounds like him,” said the tree. “The point is, you have to get to King Huon’s court before he does, and he’s three days ahead of you. We were going to use subtle pressures and misguidance to get you to take the shortcut, but now that won’t be necessary.”
“The shortcut. You mean across the Blistering Desert?”
“Exactly. If you take the long way round, the Duke will be at King Huon’s court before you.”
“But nobody can carry enough water to cross that desert and live!”
“Arrangements have been made. Go directly to the edge of the desert from here. You will find a golden ring in the sand. We had arranged things so that you would find it accidentally, but there’s no need of that now. With it, you will be allowed to ask for water three times as you cross the desert. Three times only, so don’t waste your requests. Do you understand?”
“I understand, my lady.”
“That is all, Magus MacCullen. I can tell you no more. Further, I bind you to say no word of this to anyone.”
“I cannot promise that, my lady. The goblin Frithkin is my familiar; we have no secrets from each other.”
“You may tell Frithkin when you judge the time is ripe. But no one else. Above all, not to the one you call the Empty Knight.”
“Who is he, my lady?” the Magus asked. “Do you know?”
“I said no questions. But. . . I’ll answer that one and no more. No. None of us knows. We suspect, but that is not enough. But the signs tell us that you will discover his identity.”
“That’s all I need to know, then. Thank you, my lady.”
“Thank you, Magus MacCullen. May God go with you.”
V
“Look here, Master Magus,” said Frithkin pleadingly, “I’m not asking for my own sake. Lack of water makes me wither up, but I could still make it across that desert. So could his lordship, here. But you need water. And what about the mules and Roderick?”
“Don’t you trust me, Frithkin?” the Magus asked gently.
“Yes, Master! Of course, but—” He clamped his lips together for a moment and looked out over the sandy waste that stretched before them. “Well, then, let’s go, Master. Whatever you say.”
“What about you, Sir Knight?” MacCullen asked.
“Lead on, Magus. I follow,” the knight said boomingly.
Then MacCullen saw what he had been looking for. Something gleamed in the sand at the desert’s edge, a few feet away. He couldn’t have missed it, even if he had not known it would be there. He stooped, picked up a handful of sand, and let it run through his fingers. When the sand was gone, the ring remained in his palm. He got up on his mule, then, and said: “Let’s go. We have a long ride ahead of us, and we must make good time.”
All that day they plodded across the Blistering Desert. The hooves of the animals had been wrapped with cloth to protect them from the heat of the sand, which would have blistered their hooves in time.
Night came. The sky darkened to a royal blue, and a glimmer of light appeared on the horizon. Faerie has no sun, but its moon, three times the size of the moon mortal men were used to, was always full and shone with a yellowish light.
At midnight, when the moon was overhead, they stopped to rest the animals. The Magus conjured up a cold spell that chilled the sands for a little while so that he and the mounts could lie down without getting feverish from the sand’s heat. When the moon sank in the west, and the sky lightened again, they all rose and went on.
At midday, Frithkin said: “Well, Master Magus, that’s the last of the water.” He had just given a drink to the mules and Roderick. The leathern water bag was empty.
“Well, we must do something about that,” said Magus MacCullen. He put his hand in the pocket of his blue-and-silver robe and muttered something.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, nearby, two small whirlwinds began to form. They whirled faster and grew taller, until they had become whirling cones of sand nearly as tall as a man. Then they changed shape subtly, and the spinning sand took the form of two girls, tan and shapely.