The Dragon, the Earl, and

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Secoh's head came up and his eyes lit up.

  "Could we, m'Lord?" he whispered.

  "Maybe," said Jim incautiously—and then hurried to add, "but it'll have to be sometime pretty far in the future before we think about it seriously."

  A little of the light died in Secoh's eyes, but some was left.

  "Yes, m'Lord," he said. "Where by this clearing do you want the Cliffsiders?"

  "That's the point," said Jim. "I'd like them to come down in the woods—see if you can't find a smaller clearing some place, not too far away, and then come in on foot until they're right next to the clearing, behind those of us who are putting on the play. They should be far enough back in the trees, though, so that the people watching from the other end of the clearing can't see them. They can take advantage of the things that will be built for the play to more or less hide behind; but they have to keep their voices down."

  "Why, m'Lord?" said Secoh.

  "So none of those watching the play hear them. In fact, they should' whisper," said Jim, "from the time they get there until the time they're called out. You'll hear my voice speaking in your head, telling you to come forward with five—only five of them—when the time's right. But until then they'd better whisper; because the whole point of the play is that there are supposed to be dragons in the story, but the people watching won't expect real dragons to be there until they come forward. It'll be just as it is in the story when Saint Joseph sees the dragons coming and is afraid; and the young Christ tells him there's nothing to fear."

  "I see, m'Lord!" said Secoh. "I understand, now!"

  "And you'll remember all this, won't you?" said Jim.

  "M'Lord! A dragon never forgets!"

  It was true enough—in fact, only too true. They not only remembered, they kept on talking about what they remembered over and over again for hundreds of years. The discussion among the Cliffsiders had quieted down again by this time, and they were waiting to hear more from Jim.

  "Secoh will tell you where and when to go, and how to behave yourself when you're there," he said. "But there's one important thing. No, two things. The first is that you stay hidden among the trees around a clearing until Secoh gives the word for a small number of you to move out, as representatives of all of you. Remember now, none of the rest of you are going to be forgotten. The representatives Secoh chooses will be allowed closest to the young Prince; but his blessing will be for all of you."

  The Cliffside dragons had to talk this over too, but since there was apparently no choice in the matter, they finally quieted once more—all but Lamarg, who was still looking stubborn.

  "What was this second thing you were going to tell us, James?" he demanded.

  "Oh, that," said Jim. "I was just going to mention to you that when you're there in the woods, you just might by chance smell some trolls, or see a few around—"

  An immediate growl erupted from the whole audience, mounting to almost a full-sized roar before it settled down again into near silence.

  "We hate trolls!" said Lamarg; and there was a roar of agreement.

  "I know you do," said Jim soothingly. "But I don't think any of them are going to get close enough for the rest of you to pay attention to them; and if you did start doing something about them, you might give your presence away to the people who are watching the play. That would spoil everything and, of course, you'd never get blessed."

  "It would spoil the blessing?" asked a dragon voice from the crowd.

  "It would," said Jim.

  "Then they just better not come too close," said Gorbash. "If they spoil everything—"

  This, coming from the dragon who—in spite of the fact that he was always careful to hide the fact—was probably the most peaceable of all the dragons there, gave a pretty good index of the dragon reaction if the trolls encircling Mnrogar's territory showed up. Jim winced internally. A free-for-all of the dragons against the trolls would be almost as bad as a melee between the dragons and the Earl's guests.

  Jim wished he had given this aspect a little more thought earlier. But there had been no time. It all went back, Jim knew, to something the dragons had always considered an insult: the fact that the early Vikings and other Scandinavian seafarers had used to take down the dragon-heads of their ships when they came into shore, because they thought the sight of the dragon heads would infuriate the trolls of the land.

  "I repeat," Jim said, "the trolls are nothing to worry about. I just mentioned them because I was concerned some of you might say something out loud if you saw them, or do something that would let the people watching the play know that you're there ahead of the time you're due to come out and be blessed."

  The dragons muttered, but agreed—all except Lamarg, who still seemed in a bad mood. He was staring at Hob-One now.

  "And what's that little thing got to do with our going to the castle? This is our business, isn't it? How's he come into it?" demanded Lamarg abruptly.

  "This," said Jim, "is Hob-One de Malencontri. The hobgoblin of Castle Malencontri, who is my special messenger; and if need be he can carry a message between me and Secoh for all of you, when we're all gathered together tomorrow at the scene of the play."

  "What's a hobgoblin?" growled Lamarg.

  Secoh moved forward a couple of steps toward the other dragon.

  "He lives in a fireplace in Malencontri, Lamarg!" he said. "That's all you need to know."

  "What's a fireplace?" snorted Lamarg.

  "A place where a fire is lit and is kept burning," said Secoh, his wings half lifting. "Hob-One lives with and just above the flames of a lit fire. How would you like to do that, Lamarg?"

  "I'd be a fool to get close to fire," said Lamarg. "And I'm not a fool, Secoh. You're going to push one of us too far, mere-dragon—see if you don't!"

  "I'm not pushing," said Secoh. "I'm just pointing out something. You wouldn't like to get close to fire, but it doesn't bother Hob-One de Malencontri. What does that tell you about what he's like? Do you think he's so little and unimportant, if he can be happy in a place that you wouldn't get close to? I repeat, he lives with flames, Lamarg!"

  "A fire-imp!" said Lamarg, abruptly backing up half a step—which was as far as the dragon bodies behind him allowed him to retreat.

  On his shoulder, Jim felt movement. He looked. Hob had stood up, clinging to Jim's helm, and was literally inflating his tiny chest and squaring his shoulders.

  "You'd like it if he was just a fire-imp, wouldn't you, Lamarg!" said Secoh, taking another step forward himself. "You'd be lucky if he was only a fire-imp. But he isn't. He's much more than that. He's a hobgoblin!"

  "Hah!" said Hob-One, on Jim's shoulder.

  "What did it squeak?" asked several dragon voices at roughly the same time.

  "It said, 'Hah!,' Lamarg!" said Secoh. "Now you've made him angry."

  "I'm not afraid of him!" said Lamarg, trying to retreat farther and finding it impossible.

  "No. It's all right," said Hob, in the lowest tones he could manage. "I'm not angry."

  "That's good," put in Jim hurriedly. "We mustn't have any ill feelings on a great occasion like this. I'm sure Lamarg and you will get along nicely, Hob-One. Now I think it's time Hob-One and I went. Secoh, I'll be in touch with you about final details by the way I mentioned between now and when you leave tomorrow. You'll be here, won't you?"

  "Certainly, m'Lord," said Secoh. "I'll be ready and the Cliffside dragons will also be ready."

  The hall erupted in a clamor of Cliffside voices, starting to announce just how ready they would be.

  Jim took advantage of the hubbub to visualize the serving room at Malencontri again and—in no time at all, he and Hob-One were back in the serving room.

  This time Gwynneth Plyseth was there. She gave a polite, small scream and curtsied to Jim.

  "What would m'Lord like?" she asked.

  "I would like Ned Dunster, if you can find him for me," said Jim.

  "Immediately, m'Lord," she said. "He didn't think it
was proper, a kennel lad like him, waiting inside the hall, though Tom Huntsman had let him off from working any more at the kennels, since m'Lord might need him at any minute. I'll fetch him in a moment."

  She ran out of the room.

  "Hob-One," said Jim, "come down off my shoulder and perch some place in front of me, would you?"

  The light weight of the hobgoblin vanished from Jim's shoulder and there was Hob-One, riding a waft of smoke from the fireplace, at eye level about a foot in front of him.

  "I was hoping for a chance to speak to you alone in any case," said Jim. "I want you to come back to the Earl's castle with me, and stay there. I need you there in the chimney of the fireplace in the outer room the Lady Angela and I have there, to give the alarm, if anyone who shouldn't be there comes in. When you're above the fire in a fireplace, can you hear everything that's going on in the room, or even come down and take a quick look and go back up again before anybody could get a good look at you?"

  "Easily," said Hob-One, with what was almost a tone of authority. "I mean—easy, m'Lord. I can be up the chimney out of sight and still know everything that goes on in the room."

  "That's good," said Jim. "Because I'll want you to keep a watch there as long as we're using that room; and send me a warning—all you'll have to do is think of me and talk to me in your head; and I'll hear you and answer you. Do you think you can do that?"

  "Without a doubt," said Hob-One. "What sort of people who shouldn't be there do you fear—I mean, do you expect, m'Lord?"

  "Anyone who's not usually there," said Jim. "The usual people are the Lady Angela, myself, a serving woman named Enna, a wet nurse and young Robert Falon, who is a baby. People who are unusual visitors would be any man-at-arms not normally stationed inside the room, or any visitor, even if Enna or the wet nurse lets them in—or, for that matter, any servant who wants to come in, and is let in by Enna or the wet nurse. There is a Lady Agatha Falon among the guests there, who's an aunt of young Robert, and whom we suspect of having ill intentions toward him. She probably would not come herself, but she might send somebody else to do him harm. So you simply let me know the minute any person comes in who isn't usually there. You can do that?"

  "Certainly, m'Lord!" said Hob-One. He was still sitting on the waft of smoke, but Jim now noticed he had his shoulders squared, again, and his chest inflated, as they had been in the dragons' cavern, after Secoh had hinted to Lamarg that Hob-One might be related to a fire-imp—one of the servants of the King and Queen of the Dead—and normally never seen by above-ground living creatures.

  Rumor had it that the fire-imps were either beings made of fire, or were continually on fire, themselves; so that they would reduce to ashes any ordinary individual who was touched by them. But suddenly Hob-One's chest deflated. "I mean—I'll do my best, m'Lord," he wound up.

  "I know you will Hob, Hob-One," Jim said, "and in any case—"

  But he was interrupted by Gwynneth bringing into the room Ned Dunster. Having delivered the young man and done her duty, she curtsied and went out, leaving them alone.

  "Well, Ned," said Jim, "we're going to take a short trip, now."

  "Yes, m'Lord," said Ned. But his gaze had left Jim and focused upon Hob, perched on the waft of smoke. The young man's eyes widened.

  "You!" he said to Hob-One. "You took me for a ride on the smoke once years and years ago when I came to the castle with the miller to deliver flour!"

  "I never did," said Hob-One.

  Chapter 33

  "But you did!" insisted Ned. "It was nighttime, just about this time of year, and there was snow on the ground; and I'd been let in to sleep to keep warm, and I woke up and I wandered in here, and there you were and you took me. We went out over the snow and among the trees and I was warm all the way and it was the most great thing that ever happened to me. You can't have forgotten!"

  "I never did," said Hob. "I never did!"

  "Come on now, Hob-One," said Jim soothingly. He turned to Ned. "Ned, have you ever told anyone about being taken for a ride by Hob-One here?"

  "Never, m'Lord," said Ned, staring from Hob to Jim and back again. "The big people would never have believed me. Anyway, I didn't want to tell anyone. It was so wondrous great I wanted to keep it all to myself."

  "And you have, all these years, haven't you?" said Jim.

  Ned nodded slowly.

  "You see there, Hob-One?" Jim said. "Ned's never told anybody; and he never will. It's quite all right to admit if you did take him out when he was small."

  Hob relaxed slowly.

  "Well, yes," he said, after a minute. "I remember him because he was so happy riding the smoke with me. He was the most happy with it, I think, of any child I ever took."

  "I was?" asked Ned, his face lighting up.

  "Yes, you were," said Hob-One. "I really remember that. They always enjoy it, of course. But you just seemed to take everything—the night, the woods, the snow, the stars—it was just as if you took them all into your arms and held on to them."

  "That's the way I felt," said Ned, in a low voice. "I'd like to feel like that again."

  "Well, we're going to be traveling a little too early in the afternoon for you to see stars, Ned," said Jim, "but I think it's about time we started for the Earl's castle. Are you ready, Hob-One?"

  "M'Lord," said Hob-One timidly, "I'm not sure if the smoke will carry two extra people besides me—and one of them a grown Lord."

  "That's all right," said Jim, "you ride the smoke. I'll take Ned with me by magic; and we'll keep pace with you, so we all travel together."

  Jim half closed his eyes and visualized himself and Ned suspended in air just above the chimney that led directly up from the fireplace beside them. This visualization was an amazing improvement over his old method of spelling out his magic. He certainly should have thought of it sooner. It was an improvement like that of writing on a computer rather than a typewriter. But, as fast as the magic was, Hob-One had been faster. He was already waiting for them a few feet above the chimney tip on his waft of smoke.

  "Fine, Hob-One," Jim told him. "You lead off and we'll keep up with you."

  Hob immediately began to travel, again at what seemed like a fairly lazy drifting speed, over the outlying parts of the castle, the open ground beyond, and finally the first trees of the forest. But that speed was again deceptive, and Jim knew that they were going much faster than it appeared.

  It was strange, because he could look down and the trees below did not seem to be blurring past him. It was as if he was involved with a double time-track. One track gave him the certainty that he was moving at almost twentieth-century aircraft speed; while at the same moment the other track insisted that he was drifting above the forest at no more than four or five miles an hour at the most.

  But he, Ned and Hob-One all stayed together. Jim had visualized all three of them traveling along side by side; and so they did.

  "Well, Ned," Jim asked the stable lad, "how do you like it, this time?"

  "I like it fine," said Ned, glowing. "It's not—quite as pretty like, though, m'Lord—I mean, there was a full moon the time before, and all those stars."

  He ended on an uncomfortable note, looking at Jim with a certain amount of embarrassment.

  "That's all right, Ned," said Jim. "I understand."

  He did. This was not night, as Ned had said, but late afternoon of a cloudy day. The sky above them was clouded over, but not heavily, so that there was plenty of light to see what was below them, but no feeling of gloom such as might come before a storm or with late twilight. The snowy and treed landscape over which they passed was eerily silent. There was no breeze to rustle the branches together and no animals visible on the snowy, forest floor below them—nor any sign of tracks.

  It occurred to Jim to wonder, with so many trolls gathered together around Mnrogar's territory, whether they might not be sweeping the countryside clean of game to feed them all. But there was no sign of troll tracks, either; and it had not snowed for a c
ouple of days now. Between and below the bare branches, the ground he looked at could have been painted, for all the life or evidence it showed.

  Thinking of trolls, however, brought another idea to mind. He looked to his right, over at Hob, riding his waft of smoke; for they were moving abreast, Hob to his right and Ned to his left.

  "Hob-One," he said, "do you know if the trolls are still in position around the edge of Mnrogar's land?"

  "Who's Mnrogar, m'Lord?" asked Hob-One.

  "He's the castle troll. The troll in the Earl's castle," Jim said.

  "Oh, that troll!" said Hob. "I never knew his name!"

  For a moment Hob seemed shaken, and then he squared his shoulders and lifted his head again.

  "Are the trolls still there, around that troll's territory?" he asked.

  "Yes. A whole army of them," said Jim.

  Hob wilted visibly; and as visibly pulled himself back together again, upright chest lifted and shoulders back.

  "That's right," he said. "They don't dare go in, do they, m'Lord, until one of them is brave enough to fight the castle troll? But why are there so many of them there?"

  "I don't know why," said Jim. "And I'd like to know. But it suddenly struck me, as long as we're going to be passing over where they used to be, I'd like to check and see if they're still there; or if they've moved away, or moved in closer, or anything like that. I was just going to ask you—can you smell a troll?"

  "Oh yes, m'Lord," said Hob-One.

  "You can? Fine!" said Jim. "Would you be able to smell him even if he was pretending to sleep under a snowbank, waiting for some prey to come along?"

  "I—I think so, m'Lord," said Hob-One doubtfully. "It would depend on how deep the bank was; and how close I was to the top of the snow."

  "I remember," Jim said, "when you brought me from the Earl's castle to Malencontri on the smoke last time you started mentioning seeing them waiting for the snow to fall on them. Do you know where that was?"