Arthur H. Landis - Camelot 01

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by A World Called Camelot


  “Why not remember?” he asked blithely. ” Twould be a pleasant tale for my old age.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “But for the moment, believe me. Tis a thing that no one should know. Someday,” I said, “someday… .”

  “Someday indeed,” he echoed me.

  And now would be the last step before Glagmaron and the moving of Fon Tweel’s host to the field of Dunguring. It was my definite intent to zap the lord Fon Tweel this very night, and to put Rawl, Griswall, and Chamey in command of the thirty thousand for the six-hundred-mile dottle-dash to the aid of Marack and the north. I would not make that trip, or so I thought then; I would do one last flight of the starship and thereby arrive fresh for the denouement to this massive, alien web of plan and plot.

  We chatted and spent some time. I told Rawl of the Vuuns and of Murie and Caroween, and that we would all meet on the plain of Dunguring. And then as it grew late I activated the ship and we rose straight up for a good two hundred miles. I bade Rawl—since he would lose all memory of it, anyway—to look his fill at “the fairest planet of them all.” He did, then he said, “And I would fight even you, Collin, for the privilege of a memory.”

  “Nay!” I said. “Nay!” And I felt an utter bastard before the justice of his thoughts. “Someday, as stated. I promise you.”

  We cut back down then, through Fregis’s atmosphere to Glagmaron. I asked Rawl to don his armor, stating that when next he blinked his eyes he would be at the spot where he first met me.

  He looked at me strangely. “I should,” he told me, “fight you, anyway. For it is not fitting that such as I should be played upon by you. It seems to me that I, we all, are as puppets to your hand. You say you will take my memory. You appear here and there, and always in battle—or the preparation thereof—so that all my world is now in perilous confrontation with the hell of Om and the dark Kaleen. Yet how know I really that this is not all a thing of yours, and yours alone?”

  “You don’t,” I said gruffly. “But I think you have seen sufficient to know that it is not.” And then I said a thing to him which, had the Boos or the Foundation overheard me, would no doubt have found me blasted—instantly. “Rawl,” I said strongly, “I promise you—and this promise will not be taken from your memory—two people will be informed of who I am and what I do when this is over. You will be one, Murie the other. Trust me until that time. You will not regret that trust.”

  He nodded slowly and looked away, which I knew was the only answer I would ever get

  Then he was in full armor and I caught his eyes and held them, and worked my little game so that shortly he was stretched out prone upon the starship’s tiny deck.

  I landed in the clearing, hauled the supine figure of Rawl —-armor and all—through the door and out upon the greensward. And I trundled him beyond to the ring of sleepers, Charney, Griswall, Hargis, and the student, Tober. Then back to the ship where I arrayed myself in all my battle splendor— padded underdress, link armor, helm, great shield with my colors of gold and violet, broadsword and sundry small weapons, and my surcoat, now cleaned and laundered by the ship’s appointments. We would be a splendid crew indeed, I thought, when we rode forth to the great camp of Fon Tweel’s thirty thousand… .

  Dusk was fast approaching as I stepped from the ship to the green swale below. And as my foot touched the ground the ship faded without my calling. Simultaneously with this the node at the base of my skull signaled the Greenwich alarm. I switched on. “In,” I said. “What are you doing with the ship?”

  “You will use it now only if you promise to reenter and leave Camelot. You’ve had it, Sir Collin.” The voice was Kriloy’s. “You’ve broken every Foundation law in the book. We’ve been scanning. And if it were not for the fact that a case like this warrants a decision from H.Q., we’d cancel you out on our own… . For God’s sake, Kyrie, you’ve got to be off your rocker.”

  “You’re not restricting yourselves to the agreed two minutes,” I said curtly. “Which means you’re taking a helluva risk just to sink the shaft into me.”

  “We take risks? That did it, Buby.” Ragan was talking now. “You’ve risked everything! We know there’s a connection between the destruction of Alpha and the little game your Pug-Boos are playing with their opposite in ‘goodness’ in that pile of stones called Hish. We know, too, that the Vuuns have a claw in the pie. But this is their planet, Buby1 You of all people should know that. You were sent to check things out, to keep us informed as to what was happening, and to insert what influence you could. And what have you done? One: Your data on the tape wasn’t. Two: Against orders you’ve played games with the starship. Three: You’ve done all this because—as we’ve psyched it—you’ve actually begun to fancy yourself as the mythos-incarnate of these people’s folk hero, the Collin. Gods, what a ham! You were supposed to just hint at it, you know, not jump into the role with both feet. But there you are. The Great Collin, returned in all his splendor. His armor glows in the dark. He is the match of any ten Fregisians. And, he’s already won and bedded the fair princess of the threatened kingdom—and thereby carved a niche for himself in this somewhat backward economy. And you just love it, don’t you? You really do. Our position, Buby, is that the moment you saw that blond-furred, purple-eyed pixie in the scanners, you had a case of instant brain-boggle. You’ve come a cropper, Collin! You’ve had it! It’s back to school for you, and now! So wave good-bye to your five sleeping beauties, strip off that iridescent armor and get your whatnot into that ship and blast off!”

  I said softly, “You’ve got it wrong.”

  “Into the ship, Kyrie. No more talk.”

  “Un-unh!”

  “There are penalties.”

  “I know. There are also a few things that I know that you don’t.”

  “Holding out, eh? All right, tell us.”

  “Can’t.”

  “That’s crap. The Foundation, Kyrie, is the heart of all Galactic knowledge, the conglomerate of intelligent life. Decisions regarding the protection of that life are made by the Collective: the computers. The knowledge of ten thousand years and of tens of thousands of planets are in those computers: all at our beck and call—sufficient, Kyrie, to handle any problem. And you’re holding out!” Ragan drew a deep breath and repeated: “Get into the ship, Kyrie!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “No deal. There’s a battle shaping up. Contact me when it’s over. Better yet—I’ll call you after I’ve had a chat with the Boos again, when we’ve won the battle. Right now, I’m going to ask that you get the hell out of this system until the battle’s over. You can’t help. You can only hinder. And, I might add, you’re out of your league. From where I sit, I think we all are… .”

  “That’s your last word?”

  “Right! And I’m not even going to wait for you to snap the proverbial umbilical cord … I’m snapping it! Me! Right now!” And I did. And because I’m essentially the sneaky type, I snapped it right back on again, in time to hear Ragan say to Kriloy, “He’s nipped! Our Collin’s nipped. Call forward. Get out as he requested. That’s probably the least we can do now. But so help me … !” Then they cut me off.

  I pressed the ship stud and said the phasing in numbers; nothing! They had most effectively loused it up for me. So be it! I would now have to go that six hundred miles with Glagmaron’s finest: by dottle-back.

  The idea made me physically ill.

  One by one I awakened them, gathered them about me for a briefing. I pulled no punches. I told Griswall, Charney, Hargis, and Tober where I had been and what I had been doing. Rawl’s presence, in part, underlined the truth of my words. They didn’t question just how I had been to those places. About the Vuuns, I was deliberately vague, explaining only that I had convinced them to break their pact with Om, and to return the princes and Caroween to our armies on the field of Dunguring.

  “And now, my lord,” Griswall rasped, and after Rawl had thanked them all for their fight for his lady, “I take it that we will ride back to Fon T
weel, dispense with him, secure the army, and ride for Dunguring.”

  “You take it right.”

  Charney was laughing. He shook his head. “My lord,” he confessed, “neither I nor my brothers, in our moldy keep and gog-pen above the village of Fuuz in Bist, have ever thought in our wildest dreams that someday we would ride the crest of the wave in Marack’s greatest war. All of this is so new to me and mine.”

  The eyes of Tober and Hargis beamed a similar joy and gratitude.

  Rawl stood up then to his full height. He looked first the others and then me straight in the eye. “Now listen, all,” he said. “And you, too, Collin. For though I do love you, there is a thing that you must know. I say you. For though you say you are of Marack, and therefore Fregis, there are things of protocol that you do oft forget.” He smiled slyly. “It is as if you never really knew them. Anyhow my words are these: My father, the lord Cagis Rawl, now dead, was brother to our queen, Tyndil. I am blood-cousin to our princess. There are no sons to the line of Garonne. And though the Collin here becomes prince-consort by marriage with our princess, still I and no one else, as of this moment—and since ‘tis too early for an offspring of the Collin’s joining—do represent the Royal House in Glagmaron. What I say, Collin, is simple. I and not you will slay the traitor, Fon Tweel. It is my right— indeed, it is my duty!”

  I looked to the others who had followed Rawl’s words with rapt attention. They nodded “Aye” in unison.

  “It is,” I said lamely, “that I would bring you whole to your lady, Caroween.”

  “Hey, now, Collin? Do you think I am some mewling coward? Methinks you go too far, sir.”

  “Nay! Nay!” I held up a hand in mock fear. “I love you, too, sir. But you must admit that a redhead, Can Hoggle-Fitz, is something to contend with. I want not her anger, should you not show up at Dunguring. Still, you are right in this argument. And none here, including myself, doubt that within the hour you will sweep Fon Tweel’s lying head from his traitorous body. Now let’s whistle up our dottles and be off.”

  Tober whistled, while Charney and Hargis and Griswall beamed at young Rawl Fergis.

  And the dottles came, among them being Henery, and among them, too, a thing I had not counted on. On the backs of half the ten were five Pug-Boos. Hooli, Jindil, Pawbi—and, I reasoned instantly, the two lost Boos of Kelb and Great Ortmund. The eyes of my stalwarts lighted up like lasers in their welcoming joy. And they cast lots to see who would be the one to ride without a Boo, since Hooli sat on Henery’s rump and no one questioned that.

  Hargis, Charney’s brother, lost. And he was Boo-less as we thundered up the great road in the direction of the camp of Fon Tweel’s thirty thousand… .

  To say that I felt somewhat oppressed and slightly skittish at this sudden weight of Pug-Boos would be the understatement of the Fregisian week. The little bastards were up to something. Was I glad that they had joined us? I had mixed emotions. A certain safety existed in the presence of Boos. But this, too, could be a chimera, wishful thinking. I tried opening my mind to Pug-Boo thoughts. Nothing happened. The little bastards—the double damned little bastards!

  They were good for one thing. The very weight of their presence, plus my own, plus our students, plus Griswall, served to clear a path all the way to the entrance of Fon Tweel’s command tent; served, too, to lend credence to Sir Rawl’s challenge when he denounced Fon Tweel as a traitor to Marack, and to all the lands of the north, before that gathered chivalry of Glagmaron. It was Ferlach and Gheese all over again; with shouts of rage, support, cheers, and a half hundred contradictory exclamations. But I think the cheers favored our side, for they also had some faith in the old stalwart, Griswall—certainly in the Boos—even a little in me, though only my shield glowed now since I had put aside the trick of the ion-beam. Fon Tweel, therefore, and before all that mass of warriors, had no recourse but to comply with Rawl’s challenge. For there were those present who had already questioned his lack of movement toward Ferlach and Gheese; especially since they had had word of the battles of Gortfin, and at the Veldian Pass.

  A spot was chosen between four fires, at point. Additional torches—it was now quite dark—were brought to light this square of turf. Since Rawl was the challenger, Fon Tweel was given the choice of weapon. He chose that which he used best, the broadsword. He chose light armor, too, thinking his strength superior so that he could abide Rawl’s blows, whereas Rawl could never abide his. He had five stalwarts to back him. For other than his treason, and his loud mouth, he was a personable fellow, capable of engendering friendships of a kind. From time to time I noted that Fon Tweel looked about him, and up and around, as if he were expecting something or someone, and was surprised that “it” had not made an appearance. I saw him muttering words, too. And the unhappy look on his face was most evident when he saw they had no effect.

  Twas then I realized that those five fat Boos—who never went to war—were at it again. Fon Tweel obviously enjoyed Kaleen support, otherwise he would never have played his perilous game. He expected it now, was waiting for it. But I knew it would never come… . “My boy,” I said mentally, “my five fuzzy Boos have stirred the tea leaves with their hairy little pinkies, and you, sir, have had it!”

  While it lasted, they were evenly matched. Fon Tweel’s black-browed mass was offset by Rawl’s lithe and wiry suppleness. Rawl was all around him, hacking and chopping. Once, when Rawl lifted his shield to protect his head, Fon Tweel cleaved that shield to the area—had there been one— of the bar sinister. Before he twisted free in rage, Rawl had sore wounded him with a smashing blow to midriff which cut through links to bite into the muscles of his rib cage. Then Fon Tweel struck back. And the two of “them became a flashing, spark-flying, roaring duo of arms and armor, from which Rawl emerged with his helm struck from his shoulders. Luck, I thought, that it was not his head. He was truly at a disadvantage then. And, had not Fon Tweel made the mistake of slowly and confidently stalking him for the kill, he may have lost. But Fon Tweel’s purpose was so evident, and his own disadvantage so clear, that Rawl threw all caution to the winds. He dropped shield to ground, seized upon his great sword with both hands—and charged! Some say he was exceeding foolish; others that he was mad! I would say simply that he had judged his man rightly, and knew his weakness.

  There then happened a thing contrary to all held dear on Camelot—and a thing, in fact, which guaranteed Fon Tweel’s death. Fon Tweel, weakened in part by Rawl’s first hacking blow, was not prepared for this howling, maddened rush, and blued-steel arc of whirling sword. He held firm for brief seconds only. Then he turned and ran. He ran! But he was instantly tripped by a half dozen roaring warriors, so that he fell with a look of abject terror on his face. He knew he had committed the impermissible.

  Without the slightest qualm they jerked the helm from his head, brought him to kneeling position, laced his hands behind his back with leathern thongs—and waited in a great and awesome silence while Rawl struck his head from his body. The whole fight had lasted, at best, but ten minutes… .

  Rawl returned to our group in triumph and tossed his bloodied sword to those who had rallied to our side (if he had lost we would have been in grave danger), and received our earnest handclasps. He said bluntly to me, ” Tis yours to do now, Collin.” And I nodded and called for a table, had it mounted in the center of that grassy square where Fon Tweel’s headless body lay, and climbed upon it. I bade Rawl and all our stalwarts to gather around me.

  I waited dramatically until the shouting and the bedlam died and the mass of lords, knights, men-at-arms, archers, and camp provenders moved in. I waited still again until the ensuing silence became something more than that: a dead-ness, a vacuum, a breathlessness in which all waited for something they now instinctively knew would strike home to their very hearts and marrow.

  Then I raised my arms. “Comrades of Marack!” I shouted. “Friends! All ye lords and men and warriors! There is a thing that I would tell you. There is a thing of your w
orld, and that which comes against it from the foulest pits of Best There is a thing that transcends all else in your lifetime. And there is a thing, therefore, that you must do.”

  Behind me there then began the faintest, the most delicate, and the most beautiful sound of music I have ever heard in my lifetime. And it seemed that to my words—but oh, ever so faintly, so as not to intrude—Hooli the Pug-Boo was playing his pipe. And so I told them. And the hypnotic, charismatic cadence of my voice, mixed with that subtle, insidious, and totally enthralling melody of Hooli, was such that I doubt will ever be heard again on Camelot-Fregis. And we had an audience of thirty thousand. And I think, when I look back upon it, that considering the affinity of dottles for Pug-Boos, and granting, too, their position within the culture, we had thirty thousand of these gentle creatures to ring us around, and to listen to the Pug-Boo’s music. We were a great horde of life. In our hands lay the future of that world.

  And so I talked and the Pug-Boo played. And one by one the great stars came out in our black saucered sky. And once, before I was through, small Ripple flew across the night: as a comet, an omen, a red portent of things to come— and soon.

 

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