“Apology? Apology!”
The big man ran true to form. He ignored all else but that single word. His tone had become instantly that of one who has suffered a most sudden and unbearable offense. “Oh, m’lady,” he said contritely to Murie, “though I now acknowledge you, it is easily seen that what I first said is true—that you are accompanied by oafs and kerls… . Know you, silly bumpkin”—he switched his attention to me—”that I am the lord Breen Hoggle-Fitz, driven from Great Ortmund by my own false king, and bound to present my sword and fortune to King Caronne, and to ally myself with him. That I should now be put upon by an impious snotnose such as yourself is beyond endurance! Have at you, sirrah!”
I drew my sword, let it dangle, hung my head, and said softly—but not so softly that he shouldn’t hear—”It is again, that I do not wish to hurt you, Sir Loudmouth. …” ,
“Great Ormon!” He literally roared. “Did you hear him, m’lady? I cannot now in all truth forgive him. With your permission I shall flat him to the turf and beyond, as is my prowess—and I shall do that wow/”
With that, and with no more ado, he came charging mightily toward the bridge.
My dottle of the moment was a young female, both graceful and capricious. She weighed at least three hundred pounds less than the great beast who bore the bulk of Breen Hoggle-Fitz. And, since Hoggle-Fitz was half again my weight, we were, suetwise, “heavily” outnumbered. All in all, however, my needling had worked and Fitz was now a mindless bull to my potential as matador.
We met at the bridge’s end. Hoggle-Fitz, moving forward at express-train speed, stood tall in his stirrups, whirled a gigantic sword, and roared again. I, too, stood high from the saddle. I held my sword loosely until that very tenth of a second when he swung. Then I was instantly down and over, to cling to the side of my sweet-smelling dottle’s belly, while overhead Hoggle-Fitz’s metal broke the sound barrier. Rawl swore later that there was actually a “boom” where his steel had passed.
The very momentum of this mighty sweep turned him halfway around in his saddle. My dottle, under pressure from my legs, simultaneously threw on the brakes so that the two animals were halted rump to rump. It was then that I rose up and almost casually gave the big man a whacking thump on the back of his head with the flat of my sword, so that he fell forward across his dottle’s neck. And then, because his dottle chose to move ahead with this new transgression, he tumbled to the grass directly before the marveling figure of the princess Nigaard.
The collage of whirlwind action then expanded to include the man’s slender companion who, thinking that Fitz was gravely injured, dashed by me and across the bridge to his aid. At which point, in this completely mad charade, Rawl placed himself before the princess and whacked the giant’s companion across the belly, tumbling the slender figure from the saddle.
All action took place in a space of seconds. But the last scene was, by far, the wildest. Upon sailing through space the woven metal hood of the companion fell back, releasing a veritable wealth of bright red hair, plus accompanying female features to match a most feminine scream of outrage.
I was instantly back across the bridge to seize her, which I did, and this beneath the sudden glare of Murie Nigaard. But I couldn’t hold on to her. For despite Rawl’s tummy-whack, her wind was good and her squirming abilities beyond belief. And, too, with Murie watching, I dared not cling too tight. Within seconds she was away and after Rawl, who had dismounted and started to approach us. He, however, seeing the absolute rage in the girl’s eyes, and not wanting to whack such a dainty creature again, took to his heels.
It was that, I think, that saved us further nonsense: Rawl running in circles and yelling for mercy, though laughingly; the girl in hot pursuit shouting blasphemies which were later most diplomatically overlooked by her fanatic father. She finally managed to clip his left heel with her toe, sending him sprawling; upon which she straddled his back and began to pummel him… . Hoggle-Fitz, now awake and sitting up, Murie Nigaard, the four men-at-arms, the dame Malion, and myself roared with laughter.
It was Dame Malion who finally saw fit to rescue Rawl, and to bring the young lady to her senses so that we all, without further ado, crossed the bridge, dismounted before the tents, and flung ourselves down upon the meadow grass before the largest.
The three women, sitting side by side, made their mutual adjustments to the situation. The redhead had been introduced to us by Hoggle-Fitz—after he had been lifted to his feet, brushed, and smiled at—as the lady Caroween, last of his ten children, who, he pronounced sagely, was somewhat of a warrior, too. This boast caused the maid to blush, Rawl to stutter an introduction of himself, and the princess and I to button our lips as was appropriate. The four men-at-arms simply smiled and said nothing.
The odd thing was that the previous claim to insult, or to any of the events leading to the altercation, was simply not mentioned again. The habits of Camelot being what they were, the culture had of necessity to produce this most peculiar form of safety valve, else the whole population would have long since slaughtered each other.
Over bowls of lukewarm sviss (the local mead), which Hoggle-Fitz had served, along with food, he made proper obeisance to the princess. And we were told of his reason for being in Marack.
He had not, nor would he ever, he explained, accept the peace with Om that King Feglyn had proclaimed. He had rejected it, in fact, to the point of open rebellion. Four of his sons had been killed, as had many hundreds of his household. Four other sons and one daughter, together with her husband and children, were now in hiding. And he, Breen Hoggle-Fitz, kolb of Durst in Great Ortmund, had been forced to flee. …
“How so,” I asked, “in this matter of Om? Are there forces of Om’s soldiery even now in Great Ortmund? We have heard that they garrison Ortmund’s port cities.”
“No so, young sir,” Hoggle-Fitz said. “At least not to my knowledge. Our peace was simply that we would not war with Om, or Kelb, or Kerch, in return for Om’s support in certain claims against Marack which have long existed.”
The princess’s eyes slitted at this, but she said never a word. Then we told them of our abduction to Gortfin; of the presence there of Yorns; and finally of the pattern that seemed to be developing against Ferlach and Gheese. At this point the princess did ask about—as she put it—”these so-called claims against Marack,” and how Lord Hoggle-Fitz stood in the matter.
He flushed, but answered boldly, “Our king Feglyn is not of his father’s blood. Of the ‘claims,’ m’lady, I would gladly have gone to war against you to settle them, but not with the support of Om. I am somewhat dull-witted at times, m’lady, but not so much that I would sacrifice all Fregis to Om and to the Kaleen of the Dark Lands—and that is where such an alliance would lead.”
I watched Murie and Rawl as they pondered this. And for the first time I was actually pleased with the bumbling, pious, boasting—but oh-so-brave-and-honest—Hoggle-Fitz.
We continued in this vein, sparring with words and exchanging views and bans mots until darkness surrounded us along with a swift and penetrating cold.
We drew closer to the fires, wrapped in our various fine-woven saddle blankets.
It was then I noticed that they all seemed to be waiting for something, a thing wherein my research had apparently failed me. … I moved to Murie’s side in a gesture of intimacy and asked her when she would sleep. She said simply, frowning, as if I should have known, “Well, after, m’lord—after Hooli plays.”
I said nothing more so as not to disclose my ignorance. I withdrew instead to the half-circle of men, facing the women on the other side of the fire.
The Pug-Boo made his appearance. He simply wandered into the circle of firelight, seated his little fat body upon a flat stone, and placed a tiny metallic object to his lips. Then he began to play a tune.
I watched and listened, fascinated. The Pug-Boo was actually playing a musical instrument. I couldn’t believe it!
The Pug-Boo was an animal, a l
ittle fat furry facsimile of a Terran honey-bear with raccoon hands; yet there he sat, playing music such as I had never heard—nor ever would again, except by Pug-Boos—on any tape, disk or crystal gauge. And I finally knew, too, as I listened to the introductory bars, why “Everybody loves a Pug-Boo.” Pug-Boos were the planet’s minstrels, the only ones, perhaps, that Camelot had ever known.
The fire-pit gleamed in dancing, hypnotic yellows and reds. The night clouds parted and one of Camelot’s two moons shone all silvery bright through the limbs of the great trees. Light splashed on the placid wash of water of the small river, and on the sheen of the grassy meadow. The dottles, too, stopped then-browsing to listen. And they sat around us— thirty now—on haunches and at full length, like gigantic dogs at rest. And all was silent.
The music was symphonic: a medley of every reed or brass or string or pipe that had ever played in any part of the Galaxy. There was no explaining it or its source, or how it was done. I learned later that the Pug-Boo’s instrument was a simple hollow tube of some unknown metal upon which no one else could produce a single note.
And so I listened—we listened, rather. And my mind was invaded with sound and color and mood and imagery, each facet a variation of a thousand themes, melding, growing, expanding to explode finally into great bursts of light that was not light, in a blackness of space that was not space. And through it all a thread emerged. A story of worlds and suns shattered and ruined in seas of cosmic fission, of a Holocaust beyond all understanding. There was a repetitive image, too— of a humanoid planet resembling Terra, Camelot-Fregis, and ten thousand kindred worlds The planet was of an indescribable beauty. The events depicted were of its death in the great cataclysm and a hint of total evil beyond the very limits of time. The suggested horror was so enormous, so all-pervasive, as to blast the mind that sought to understand it.
Yet still another thread ran through this montage of imagery and sound It was one of beauty peace, and above all, hope. And I thought as I listened that those around me, even the dottles could quite likely find a measure of themselves here—as it was no doubt planned that they should do. It would be a tapestry, perhaps, dim viewed, of a fairy world which once was theirs, though they knew it not. For them it would simply be a personal contact, a gossamer thread of liaison between themselves and the essence of their god. There was no precedent for this in the Galactic history of humankind, no counterpart in the patterns of evolution. The thought was frightening. For it spoke of the manipulation of the life-forms of a planet, of a system—and perhaps of an entire galaxy.
The Pug-Boo was more than a bridge to their past, more than their race memory. Somehow I knew that he would play his song until that new time when they would understand its meaning: and when that time came they would be ready for a destiny worthy of any gods who had ever possessed the minds of humans. And thinking in this wav I realized, too. that what I now knew—that they were of an elder race—I, like the Pug-Boo, could not tell them. Indeed, this small scene in which I was to play a minor role was but a page of a play so gigantic as to numb the very processes of reason. Knowing this, the music became suddenly filled with unbearable pain; with a rushing all-pervasive sadness; a harbinger of a world death that had either been—or was still to be: a frightening thought. I pushed the concept, in its future tense, from my mind. After all, had I not seen the Pug-Boo’s version of the Holocaust? And surely that was then and not now—and certainly not tomorrow.
The others sat gazing hypnotically into the flames. In all their faces was a sublime peace, an ecstatic reverie—because they did not know. But I, Kyrie Fern, Harl Lenti, the Adjuster, “the Collin,” dared not listen longer. I blanked out the music with its beauty and its horror and waited numb and corpse-like until the Pug-Boo finished, until the others laid down upon their respective beds and the fire died and only the second moon shone to define our lonely position in the meadow. Then I, too, slept… .
I was awakened in the small hours by the soft wet muzzle of my last “charger” of the afternoon, the young female dottle. She wheeed softly and then whooooed, too, in my ear, so that I sat up to see all the dottles quiet, though alert and watching. They stared in the direction of the road and over the bridge to far Gortfin.
And then I heard the sound—the oncoming noise of a myriad of dottles, of the Erl-King of my childhood—all thundering through the night. I awakened Rawl, who slept at my side. He in turn awakened Hoggle-Fitz and the men-at-arms. Then we secured our weapons, remained prone, and silently watched the bridge.
At one point Rawl moved to alert the princess, but I cautioned him and he returned to our group… . Then they were on us.
It was my first experience, my first sight of organized Camelot cavalry. Even though it was night, it was still a beauteous thing to see. On they came, two abreast, short spears at the stirrup, shields slung, swords and other weapons across the shoulders according to their tastes—and their armor all twinkling and jingling in the moonlight… . Rawl and the men-at-arms had collapsed our tents, and since they thundered on we had only to assume that they saw us not. Our shadowy dottles, yes! But a herd of dottles, though certainly uncommon, was, at least in this case, not a thing to delay them.
“Now, by Great Ormon!” Hoggle-Fitz was saying in choked tones. “Look there! Yorns! Yorns and men! Yorns in Marack!” There was such hatred in his voice that I moved to restrain him, but he held himself in check.
Rawl’s expression mirrored that of Hoggle-Fitz, and this was true, too, of the men-at-arms.
We counted one hundred riders and three hundred dottles. And at the end of their cavalcade there seemed to be a flying thing, something that passed overhead with great wings, and that left such a stench that all the meadow was filled with it for several minutes.
I looked to Hoggle-Fitz. His eyes were bulging, red now with an absolute insanity. “By all the Gods,” he breathed in guttural tones, “Om is here, young sir! Om is in Marack!”
“Aye,” Rawl echoed him, and his tone was equally fierce. “And never in the history of man has a Vuun been north of the river-sea.”
They seemed almost to ignore me then, sensing that I was aloof and not a part of their anger. “They are resurrected,” Hoggle said “They have come again.” He began to pray. He rose to his knees, bowed his head, and made the triple circle of obeisance a number of times: I unobtrusively joined them, alert, watching from the corners of my eyes. I tapped my programmed memory and found that a Vuun was a creature long thought to be extinct on Camelot-Fregis. It was a mammalian, winged, of a fifty-foot span and akin to the Terran bat, though with a great beak and rending talons. History had it that in the ancient wars Vuuns had been used by some forces as allies and cohorts, for they, too, were possessed of intelligence on the order of mankind.
“They ride at night,” I stated bluntly, when the praying was over. “Their fears are not those of true men.”
“Nor should they be,” Hoggle-Fitz answered, looking at me strangely. “For they are a part of Om’s dominion and need not fear the dead-alives.”
“I fear not the night. Sir Lenti,” Rawl said with a burst of courage. “And I would follow to see where they lead.”
“No,” I admonished. “It is not meet. We will know soon enough, so let us go to sleep again. Whatever the morrow brings, and I truly think that all our morrows will now be like none that have^ever gone before, we must be ready.”
Surprisingly, they did as I suggested. And I had the premonition that, for whatever reason, individually or collectively, they would continue to grant me leadership. Hoggle-Fitz was my senior in station and in age, but he, too, deferred to me. Possibly, I thought, before I, too, returned to sleep, for the simple reason that I had bested him.
Dawn broke with mists shrouding the great trees and the small river so that the road was not visible from our camp.
The one thing all species of humankind on Camelot had in common, other than fighting, was an inordinate compulsion to cleanliness. This fact found us all at the r
iver’s edge to plunge and revel in its stingingly icy water. After that came a mutual rubdown and sundry pats of fragrant oil in the appropriate places. Then we were off again.
Since the events of the night were still clear in our minds, and since we knew not where the one hundred riders had gone, I sent Rawl ahead for a distance of many paces. He would be our advance guard. He was to have four dottles in front of him and four in back as protection against sudden attack: We—myself and Hoggle-Fitz—were to ride with the women. The four men-at-arms were to ride to the front of us. They would be preceded by a half dozen dottles, while the remainder of the herd brought up our rear. Thus did we proceed at a brisk gallop toward the castle and city of far Glagmaron—with one exception: the lithe and airy lady Caroween, still in mesh armor and with small sword sheathed across her back, rode to the front to join Rawl Fergis. She said, with a straight face and twinkling auburn eyes, that since she had bested him the day before, it was now most seemly that she act as his protector.
Murie Nigaard smiled at this. And watching her closely, I had the odd impression that though she seemed softer and less prone to a flexing of feminine muscles, she could no doubt hold her own with any fledgling warrior… .
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