“We are using the stories to make the world see sense, Nyneve. People expect a set pattern, and if we allow anything to get out of character it will discredit the whole series. We will play the game tonight in the usual pattern, and there will be fighting and the good people will win. You may involve yourself in the details if you like, but you must not attempt to change the pattern. Do you understand?”
Nyneve said nothing.
Avalona watched her narrowly. “This morning I chanced to examine the nearby ifalong,” she said, “and I foresaw happentracks on which you disobeyed me, and I was obliged to dispose of you. Do you know what you will do, on those happentracks? Of course you do, because you’re thinking of it now. You will start inventing your own stories to suit your purpose, and you will go out and tell them to the villagers.”
Nyneve flushed.
“And you will be wasting your time, because your new stories will lack credibility. In order to project the right kind of realism, you must have played the game first. And without Merlin or I, you can’t play the game. Of course, there is another happentrack, a most unlikely one, on which. …” And the witch fell silent, watching Nyneve thoughtfully, calculating, seeing the branching of many happentracks from that moment, assessing their relative probabilities and the extent to which they would affect her great plan for the future.
“I’ll go and get some water,” said Nyneve hastily. She often had the uncomfortable feeling that Avalona could read her thoughts. The witch couldn’t, of course—but she could come very close to predicting her actions.
As Nyneve began to work the pump, Merlin came shuffling out of the trees, munching with toothless gums and muttering to himself. His eyes lit up when he saw her. He came to a halt, grinning at her wordlessly, watching the movement of her body as she pumped. It was probably at that moment that he sealed his own fate. Nyneve interpreted his gaze correctly, and set in motion Avalona’s least likely happentrack. “Well, hello Merlin,” she said, smiling at him in the friendliest fashion. Damn Avalona, she thought. Damn Avalona to hell. I’ll show her she’s not the only one with powers around here!
“Hello, hello!” He edged closer, like a dog hoping for a scrap from the table.
“Did you have a good day in the forest?”
“I went as far as the northern edge,” he said absently, talking for the sake of talking while he watched her. “And I looked toward Pentor. My, but it’s all changed in the last thousand years.” His attention span was short, and he began to get interested in his own maudlin ramblings. “I remember I used to wander over the whole of Cornwall, and Devon too, before Avalona made me come and live with her.”
“Why did she make you do that?” asked Nyneve, pumping away.
His face creased into lines of resentment. “She said I was getting senile. She said I was calling attention to myself as a Paragon, because of all the wonderful things I could do. She said it’s our duty to stay out of sight and quietly work Starquin’s will. Damn her.” He squinted up at Nyneve craftily. “Do you know what I sometimes say? Bugger Starquin, I say!” And he shot an involuntary glance at the sky as though expecting a thunderbolt. Nothing happened. “Bugger Starquin!” he repeated, emboldened.
“I think it’s a shame for you to be shut away here,” said Nyneve. “If you like traveling, then you should be allowed to. Wouldn’t you like to see all those places again?”
His eyes had brightened. “Tintagel,” he murmured. “Okehampton, Bodmin, Ilfracombe. Oh, it would be good to see them again—and further, too. Avebury, Glastonbury, Dorchester. …”
“Why don’t you just go? Just pack a few things and walk away while Avalona’s asleep tonight.”
“Well, I don’t know … I couldn’t. …” Now gloom fell over him like a shroud. The whole idea was impractical. “I’m not as young as I was. I’d get lonely. …” He glanced at her. “Winter’s coming. … And I’d miss you, Nyneve. I look on you as a daughter.”
“I’d come with you.”
His mouth dropped open. “You’d what?”
“I’d come with you. We’ll walk the land together, you and I, and we’ll play the game together and tell people stories in return for food and shelter. We’ll go to all those old places you spoke of, and we’ll have a wonderful time!”
“We will? We will?” Merlin’s eyes sparkled. After a quick peep at the empty windows of the cottage he threw his arm around her and hugged her. “We will!” he cackled. “Tonight! And to hell with Avalona!”
The skein of happentracks gathered itself into Avalona’s ifalong. During autumn, a million unfulfilled possibilities were discarded. Events were woven into a pattern that would eventually result in the deliverance of Starquin from his peril thirty thousand years later. Most of the pivotal events had now taken place, but a few remained. As the days went by, one particular event didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen. …
… until eventually a tiny humanoid summoned up his small store of courage and made his way to a certain point on the stream which flows into the sea near Mara Zion. He sat on the bank until the cold northeast wind cut through his clothing and he began to shiver. Then he called, tentatively:
“Princess …!”
There was no reply. He jumped from the bank and landed with a splash in the stream. Putting his head into an opening in the sandy loam, he shouted again.
“Princess! It’s me, Fang!”
And the call came back, “What do you want?”
“I want to see you!”
“What about?”
Fang couldn’t tell her yet. He had a hunch, but it was no more than that. If he was wrong, the Princess would tell him to go away. If he was right, she might in any case not want to share her unhappiness. So he called back, “It’s very important!”
“Please go away!”
He hesitated. His chest rested on the floor of the hole he was leaning into, and he could feel his heart beating. The hole smelled of earth and the roots of the willow tree through which it tunneled, of worms and beetles and, faintly, cooking. It was the normal smell of a gnome’s home, unlike the musty smell of his father’s burrow. It smelled friendly. Burning his boats—the Princess would never speak to him again if he were wrong—he scrambled headfirst into the tunnel.
Then he uttered a squeak of surprise as the ground gave way under him and he fell, landing on his back with a thump.
“Are you all right?” There was a hint of laughter in the Princess’s distant voice. “It sounds as though you’ve fallen into my otter trap. That’s what happens to uninvited guests.”
It was dark in the pit and Fang was disoriented. “How do I get out of here?” he shouted.
“Just climb. There’s a trap door above you. Push it open with your head as you climb out.”
“But couldn’t an otter do that?”
“They don’t have the sense and I don’t tell them how.”
“But if they were in here long enough, they’d find out.”
“They do, but by then they’re so disheartened about the whole thing that they go away, and my home gets a reputation among otters as a place not to visit.”
“But—”
“For heaven’s sake, Fang, are you going to get out of there and explain yourself, or not?”
Fang climbed out into the tunnel. The trap door swung shut behind him. In the light from the entrance he saw a ledge around the edge of the trap, where gnomes crawled who knew what they were doing. His face was hot from embarrassment as much as from the climbing, but he had no intention of backing down now. Doggedly he crawled forward. Soon the roof of the tunnel rose, and he could stand. A watch-cricket chirped at him as he came to a door with light showing through the cracks. He pushed and found it was bolted.
The Princess was not making things easy for him.
He knocked politely, and called out, “Please let me in, Princess.”
“You still haven’t told me what this is all about.”
It was most unusual for a gnome to deny another
gnome entrance to her home. Usually gnomes welcomed visitors. This one fact gave Fang more confidence, and he said, “I think I know why you haven’t been coming to our meetings lately, Princess. Perhaps I can help.”
“Nobody can help.” The misery was back in her voice.
“At least let me try.”
There was a long pause. The Princess must have decided she had little to lose because after a while Fang heard the bolt being drawn back. He pushed the door again, and this time it opened.
“Hello, Princess,” he said, blinking at the light from candles set in holders around the walls.
It was the neatest little home he’d ever seen. The living room was small and oblong, with a big fireplace and oven in one wall and decorated in white tile with roses and ferns on it. Next to this stood a pile of logs, on top of which a housemouse dozed. This was a mouse of friendly appearance, unlike the mangy brute his father kept. This mouse was here for companionship, not as a scavenger. There was a big table and four chairs of excellent craftsmanship; to Fang’s eye they looked like the work of Bart of Lostwithiel. There was a spinning wheel and a loom with a cascade of bright tweed tumbling from it. The kitchen alcove had a giant shell for a sink. All around the room were late-blooming flowers.
The Princess stood in the middle of the room, watching him warily. “Hello, Fang,” she said. She wore a green blouse and a red skirt. Her golden hair poked out from under her tall green maidenscap, falling in braids to her waist. Fang had never seen anyone so beautiful. He snatched his own cap off politely, and held it behind him.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” he said.
“I don’t know yet. You haven’t told me what you’ve come for. You may have a very good reason.”
“I hope I have. I don’t want to offend you.”
“And I don’t want to be offended.”
Fang swallowed, then blurted out, “I have a wild wart attached to me.”
“Indeed?”
“I wondered … I wondered if perhaps you had the same problem. We haven’t seen you around lately. Gnomes get depressed and stay away from people when they have warts.”
“You don’t seem to be staying away from people.”
“Do you have a wart?”
“What a question to ask!” The Princess looked affronted. “If that’s all you came for, you’d better be on your way.”
“I have to know!”
“Why do you have to know? Just suppose, for the sake of argument, that I did have a wart. I certainly wouldn’t go around telling people about it. I’d stay home where I couldn’t affect other gnomes, and wait for the wart to die.”
“That could take years!”
“It’s better than pulling it off and dying yourself. Why are we talking about this, anyway? It’s not a very pleasant topic.” She tried to smile, remembering her etiquette. “Can I offer you a drink, now you’re here?”
“Thanks.” Fang accepted a mug of beer and the Princess poured one for herself. They sat down, eyeing each other cautiously. “There is another way of getting rid of warts, you know,” Fang ventured.
“There is?” said the Princess lightly, as though it were of academic interest only.
“You find someone with a wart of the opposite sex, and you … kind of introduce the warts to each other. After a while, they fly away to, uh, uh …”
“That is absolutely filthy,” said the Princess calmly.
“Isn’t it? Warts are almost as bad as giants.”
“And the woodypecker.”
Fang had been doing a lot of blushing that day. Mention of that sex-crazed creature—from the Princess’s lips, too—caused his face to flare up like Merlin’s furnace. “Terrible, terrible,” he muttered, looking away.
“And then there are people who watch other people bathing.”
“Urgh!” With a croak of despair, Fang snatched up his cap and made for the door. He would go to the other end of the country, tonight. Thunderer was outside. He would ride through the night and nobody in Mara Zion would ever see him again. He would hole up in a cave like Pong, and become a hermit.
“Wait!”
He paused in the act of flinging the door open.
“Don’t go,” said the Princess.
“I must. I must. I have an urgent appointment with the Miggot. Can’t be late, you know. That’s very bad peekers, I mean manners. The Miggot—very influential gnome.” He began to sidle through the door, babbling.
“I want you to stay. I’m in trouble and I think you can help me. I have a wild wart, Fang. Please stay and help me get rid of it. I’ve been so unhappy recently. You’re the first gnome I’ve seen for ages!”
“Oh.” His mind a storm of thoughts, Fang closed the door and sat down heavily in one of the Bart chairs. “How …? What …? The bathing incident. I must apologize for the bathing incident.”
“What bathing incident?” asked the Princess innocently.
“There wasn’t a bathing incident?”
“Not so far as I’m concerned.”
“Why did you mention bathing, then?”
“Oh, that. It was nothing. While I was bathing, I thought I saw the faint shadow of a gnome in the umbra, standing under the opposite bank of the stream. I was probably mistaken, and I certainly couldn’t recognize him, if he was there at all. I don’t think there are gnomes in the umbra, are there, Fang?”
“Very rarely, I’d say,” said Fang.
“So that subject is closed. That gnome—if there was a gnome—might have seen this.” She rolled up her sleeve and showed him the leaf bandage. She unwrapped it and there, squatting on her perfect skin, was the ugly form of a wild wart. “Isn’t it horrible?”
“Awful,” agreed Fang, looking at it closely. It was a slightly different shape from his—narrower in the abdomen, and a little darker, too. “It’s a different s … it’s different from mine, Princess.” He rolled up his pant leg and they compared warts. “See?”
“Yes.” There was a long silence.
“So perhaps we should stay together for a while,” said Fang at last, feeling as though he’d been holding his breath for a very long time.
“It might be advisable.”
“You don’t mind the way the warts might … behave?” He asked anxiously. “You don’t mind the … implications?”
“Not if you don’t, Fang,” said the Princess of the Willow Tree.
The Travels of Nyneve and Merlin
For the first few days Nyneve was in good spirits. Free from the oppressive presence of Avalona she skipped through the forest of Mara Zion, occasionally bursting into song while Merlin plodded behind, eyeing her greedily. The weather was unseasonably warm. The forest floor was covered with drifts of dry leaves which Nyneve would dive into, gathering up handfuls and throwing them at the ancient Paragon. Merlin would enter into the spirit of the occasion and occasionally chase after her, but without any hope of catching her. Leaving the forest, they followed the valley floors around the edge of the moors. The story of Arthur was everywhere. They found themselves welcomed in the small communities; indeed, after a day or two they began to find themselves expected, as horsemen carried their new tales ahead and announced their approach.
At nights they played the game. After an evening of storytelling, during which they were invariably well-fed, their listeners would compete for the privilege of giving them accommodation. Later they would lie on mattresses set on the floor of a farmer’s cottage, or at worst in a warm stable or hayloft, and the images would begin to flow between them. They lay fairly close—Nyneve made sure that Merlin stayed beyond arm’s length—and developed their story for the next day. Then, in the early hours of the morning, they would fall asleep. They would be awakened by their host, who would give them breakfast, and then they would take to the road again.
Everything went well until they reached Penryn, where they met their first setback. The weather had turned colder. A southeasterly wind was blowing into Falmouth Bay, and Maybe Moon could not be seen�
�always a sign of bad weather coming. They stayed at an inn that evening and told their story to the patrons while the winds buffeted the ancient wooden structure. That night Merlin was too tired and too drunk to play the game, and collapsed into a stupor.
The next evening, in a tiny hamlet at the head of a tidal estuary, Merlin addressed their audience.
“Tonight we will tell you the story of Sir Launcelot and Lady Elaine. For five years Elaine had been imprisoned in a tower of the castle of Corbyn Head, where she was scalded every day by boiling water.”
Now Nyneve stepped forward. “Oh, woe is me!” she cried, “For I have aroused the jealousy of Queen Morgan le Fay, which is why I am locked in here.”
“Fear not, fair lady,” shouted Merlin, waving a stick. Over the past days they had evolved this method of dramatizing their stories, which had the effect of enhancing the mental images passing from them to their listeners. “For I, Sir Launcelot, shall set you free!”
“But you will have to fight a fearsome serpent.”
“For God’s sake I shall do my best.”
“The serpent breathes fire from its mouth,” Nyneve warned him, then dropped to a crouch, prepared to play the part of the serpent. At this moment there was an interruption.
“We’ve heard this stuff before! Tell us something new!”
Looking up, Nyneve recognized a group of wagoners who had been at the Penryn inn. She whispered to Merlin, “This is your fault. Think of something.” Her own mind was distressingly empty. The stories told themselves when they played the game. Without the game, she had no story to tell.
“I beg your pardon.” Merlin offered the audience a courtly bow. “I am an old man and a foolish one, and I forget. Much has happened to Sir Launcelot since he rescued Lady Elaine and killed the serpent. Most important of all, he has met and fallen in love with his queen, Guinevere.”
“But she’s Arthur’s wife!” cried Nyneve, horrified.
“Even so,” said Merlin with an unpleasant smile, treating her outburst as a part of the drama. “And who knows what misery will befall the three as a result of it?”
Fang, the Gnome (Song of Earth) Page 25