The Dragon Knight

by Gordon R. Dickson

"You're going to have to make up your mind what to do about Malvinne, James," Carolinus said. "It's time now to make your decisions."

  "Do?" Jim said. "Matters seem to have taken care of him pretty well. His false Prince is gone and an agreement has been reached between the Earl and King Jean. It's just a matter of stopping the soldiers on the field from fighting."

  "As you noticed," said Carolinus dryly, "that part of things hasn't taken care of itself too well."

  "No," admitted Jim, "but it does seem to me that Malvinne is now pretty effectively out of the picture."

  "Out of the ordinary temporal picture, yes," said Carolinus. "The question remains what to do about him as far as the Kingdom of Magic is concerned."

  "But deciding what to do with him isn't my responsibility, is it?" asked Jim, abruptly very uncomfortable. "Certainly there are other people, or other rules, or something like that that will deal with him."

  "There are, in a sense," said Carolinus. "Primarily the Accounting Office. However, what the Accounting Office does, depends upon the action you decide to take."

  "Why? What action should I take?" asked Jim.

  "That, as I say," answered Carolinus, "is something that has to be your own decision. I can no more help you now with this, than I could help you earlier. It was necessary Malvinne be stopped and brought to book; not by a magician like myself, but by someone like you, of much inferior rank. That is part of the rules that govern all who deal in magic. It has its roots in the need to set up a system that would keep strong magicians from fighting each other, with possible resultant danger to the other Kingdoms that inhabit this world, the space above, and the space below, its surface. I may have explained some of this to you. What I brought you out here for is to tell you exactly what your position is, right now."

  "Tell me, then," said Jim.

  "Very well," said Carolinus. "First, you should understand that of all the magicians in this world, you are the only member of our craft and art who was in a position to do anything about Malvinne. It was necessary, as I say, that he be brought down by an inferior. But by definition, no inferior could succeed in doing so. The exception to this rule was an inferior who had had training that no other magician in this world has had—primarily, the training in something you call by another name, but which has totally shaped your future world in the place you come from."

  Understanding woke in Jim.

  "You mean, technology?" said Jim.

  "If that's the name for it, yes," said Carolinus. "This was necessary, because in no way was I allowed to assist you—and that included teaching you the things you would need to know to survive what Malvinne might strike at you with in the way of magic. Moreover, I did not know what he might strike at you with, and to protect you against all possibilities, I would have had to teach you enough to bring you up to a rank equivalent to his. Even if this had been allowed, we wouldn't have had the time. The teaching alone would take years."

  "But how does technology come into this?" asked Jim.

  "Because, with this particular background of yours, you were able to teach yourself, in a way that no student of magic from this world could," Carolinus said, with a strangely patient note in his voice. "To begin with, you are not bound by the unconscious habits and reactions that people growing up in this world acquire without realizing they have them. Habits and reactions it takes many years of the study of magic to unlearn, before you can proceed to its higher orders. For example, one of the things that takes years for a young magician usually to unlearn, is the sense of unquestioning awe where the effects of magic and other things are concerned—such as the ability of elementals like Melusine, or the powers of the King and Queen of the Dead within their Kingdom."

  "I didn't realize that," Jim said. "Why am I specifically free of that?"

  "Because," answered Carolinus, "you, because of your acquaintance with this thing you call technology, are used to having to do with situations or devices, where remarkable things are made available to you, or experienced by you, the actual workings of which you do not directly understand. There will be other humans in your world who do understand why such things work, and can even explain them; but you are quite content to take their workings on faith. In fact your attitude to them is a very everyday one. You regard them, in spite of their-wonder-working, as no more remarkable than a spade or an axe."

  "You think so?" said Jim. He found it hard to believe. Then he thought of cars and television sets.

  "I'll give you an example," said Carolinus. "When you were leaving the two dragons to which you had been steered, one of them deliberately sent you by Melusine's lake, so that you should be trapped and drowned by her."

  "Yes," said Jim, "but why is that an example of me being different?"

  "Because," said Carolinus, "of a number of factors dependent on early conditioning in this world, being once in the dragon body, a young magician like yourself would never have changed out of it simply because it was uncomfortable. From your standpoint, however, it was the natural thing to do. As a result, you were human when you came by the lake; and Melusine reacted quite differently than if you had been still a dragon. Similarly, when you led your Companions into the castle of Malvinne, it never occurred to you that the magical traps he had set could not have some findable solution. At no point did you say to yourself, 'Whatever traps are here must have been set by a greater magician than myself, so there can be no hope of my trying to discover how they may be defeated or overcome.' "

  "Well, no," said Jim, "but what's that got to do with my situation with regard to Malvinne right now?"

  "At the present moment," said Carolinus, "Malvinne is facing the need to answer a charge by the King of the Dead as to being an accessory in allowing a Magician to enter his Kingdom. This is a charge he can dispose of by admitting merely collateral responsibility; and simply paying from his account with the Accounting Office to the King of the Dead a fairly respectable percentage of what he has, but nothing at all crippling. Outside of that, the Accounting Office has no charges against him."

  "What about the simulacra, the false Prince?" said Jim, astonished.

  "You are under a rather natural misapprehension," said Carolinus dryly. "You think the Accounting Office is concerned with either morals or ethics. It is concerned with neither. It is concerned only with the balance of the energy for which it is responsible. The complaint of the King of the Dead is therefore of importance to it, because it implies a disturbance of the balance of that energy between the Kingdom of the Dead and the human world to which Malvinne, even though a magician, still belongs. Malvinne's snow-Prince, however, is something that was an effect merely within the human world, and does not affect that balance of energy—just because it happened."

  Carolinus placed a particular emphasis on the last words that made Jim look narrowly at him.

  "You're suggesting there's something else there that could be of interest to them?" he said.

  "There could be," said Carolinus. "If another magician should point out that this was done to aid the Dark Powers to alter the shape of things to come. Things to come are forbidden even for the Accounting Office to anticipate. Magicians are strictly enjoined from stimulating any disturbance within them. That, by the way, is a very serious charge. If proved, it could strip Malvinne not only of all of his account with the Accounting Office, but with any status that his AAA rating might otherwise entitle him to. This last is highly important within the ranks of the Kingdom of Magicians, themselves. It means he will be stripped to only his temporal powers—against which you should remain on guard, for with his temporal wealth alone, he is still dangerous."

  "But if he's still dangerous," protested Jim, "what's the use of his powers being stripped from him? What's the point of all we've done?"

  "It robs him of being of any further use to the Dark Powers—for they never use the same tool twice. Unstripped, however, they will put him to use anew."

  "Well then, why don't you—" Jim broke off, staring at Carolinus
. "You mean I should bring that charge to the attention of the Accounting Office and against Malvinne?"

  "I mean nothing," said Carolinus. "I may not enter this situation in any regard, because of the law that forbids me to help you in any way, and which I violated only to the minor extent of making you impervious to Malvinne's personal magic this day. When the twenty-four hours of protection I gave you earlier is over, by the way, you will lose that imperviousness. Then Malvinne may use the powers still in his account to even things up with you."

  Jim stared at Carolinus. Carolinus's eyes met his with a great deal of meaning in them.

  "You're telling me, then, that I have less than twenty-four hours to make my charge against Malvinne?"

  "I repeat," said Carolinus, "that I am telling you nothing. What deductions you care to make from the statements I have made—statements about things as they are—are yours to make, alone."

  "Can you answer one question for me?" asked Jim.

  "Possibly," said Carolinus briefly.

  "If I don't make these charges and the twenty-four hours get used up and Malvinne is released from what you put upon him—"

  "And for which I shall have to pay a fine, as I explained," said Carolinus, interrupting. He winced. "It will still be costly. What makes up an account at the Accounting Office is not gathered easily, you know."

  "Yes, yes," said Jim, "I know. The point is if I wait until after sunup and do nothing, how much of what Malvinne lost will he be able to recover?"

  "I'm not in a position to pronounce on what a fellow magician might do," said Carolinus. "In the case of such a hypothetical situation, a magician such as the one you're talking about could possibly recover everything he had lost, and more, to boot!"

  "In other words, if he's about to be stopped, he has to be stopped now," said Jim.

  "If that is a deduction from my hypothetical situation, I'd have to agree with it," said Carolinus. "Note, a lesser magician bringing such a charge against an elder mage of AAA rank, can expect, if his charge did not carry, to be stripped of all his powers and possibly even turned completely outside the Kingdom of Magicians. Not even Malvinne faces that, at worst."

  "But I'm not even sure of the sort of charges I could bring!" said Jim desperately.

  "In the way of giving instructions to a pupil, I might advise you," said Carolinus, "that the charge that could be brought in such a hypothetical case would be one of creating a situation that could ultimately result in the amount of energy controlled by the Accounting Office being permanently decreased. So, degrading the power of the Accounting Office itself and lessening its ability to act as a ruling control over the Kingdom of Magicians."

  Jim stared at the slight figure before him, with its wispy mustache and beard.

  "You mean," he said at last, "that could actually be a result of what Malvinne's done?"

  "In this same hypothetical case. It would be, of course, a matter for the Accounting Office to decide. My own opinion, which is unimportant, is that the charge is absolutely irrefutable. Action would have to be taken against the hypothetical magician we are speaking of—I mean, of whom we are speaking!"

  Carolinus ended on an angry note, correcting himself.

  "My grammar gets more atrocious with the years," he grumbled. "However, all that aside, you now should have a general grasp of what's involved in the situation we've just been talking about. My duty ends. The decision to enter charges with the Accounting Office or not, is up to you."

  "And there's no middle ground?" asked Jim. "If I enter the charges, this hypothetical magician you're talking about will be completely ruined?"

  "Yes," said Carolinus, "and speaking off the record for a moment, I can't think of another hypothetical magician to whom it could better happen! Particularly to one who has abused the great Art and craft of magic for years. Also, one who has on the purely human level caused a great deal of misery."

  There was a long moment of silence between them.

  "Well," said Carolinus, "we had better be getting back to the others. I have told you what I wanted to tell you."

  He turned and strode off. Jim followed. As the two of them reached the ring of men, Theoluf hurried up to Jim.

  "Sir James!" he said. "I couldn't find you. Sir Giles is very close to his end now and he has asked for you!"

  Chapter Forty

  As Jim approached the tree where Sir Giles lay in the shade, he could see that the other had been made at least a little more comfortable. Some man-at-arms' wadded-up jacket had been made into a pillow for his head; and his helm and those parts of his armor that could be taken off without disturbing him too much had been taken off. Melusine still knelt beside him, holding one limp, white hand and talking to him, although Giles seemed incapable of answering.

  As Jim came up, Melusine stopped talking to Giles and looked up at Jim.

  "Good!" she said. "Quickly, quickly! He needs to speak to you and barely has the strength to do it. You must put your ear right to his mouth!"

  Jim knelt beside Giles, taking Giles's other hand, which felt cold and strange in his grasp, with all the blood drained out of it.

  "I'd rather have lost almost anything than you, Giles," he said.

  He saw the other man's eyes focus on him and a little life came into them.

  "I'll listen to what you have to tell me now," said Jim. "I'll put my ear right at your lips."

  He bent over from the kneeling position he was in, and put his ear against the cold lips for a moment before withdrawing it a fraction of an inch to give Giles freedom to speak. He listened intently.

  "Sea… "Giles whispered with great effort. "…bury…"

  "I give you my word, Giles," said Jim, squeezing his hand. "Rest easy. You will be buried at sea. I promise it!"

  Giles may have sighed, or it may have been that for a moment the breath coming through his lips made a slight sound. But his eyes closed and his face relaxed.

  "Oh, the poor one," said Melusine, still holding his hand.

  Giles was not quite dead yet. His chest still moved slightly with his breathing.

  "It is the water," said Melusine, staring down at him. "Like me, it is the water he wants at the end…"

  Jim got to his feet and found himself surrounded by a semicircle of the men-at-arms, just behind the Prince, who had been standing throughout this, watching Jim with Giles. Like the men-at-arms, there was hope in his eyes as those eyes fastened on Jim, hope that he could do something to keep Giles from dying.

  Jim shook his head slowly.

  "He wanted to tell me he should be buried at sea," Jim told them. "I promised he would be."

  Moved more than he would have thought possible, Jim turned away from Giles. Clearing his throat, he pushed his way through the men and came back to the place before the flag, where the Earl of Cumberland and King Jean of France still discussed the terms of a truce that, judging by the sight of the scattered, still embroiled warriors in the field, was anything but assured. As Jim came up, they were talking about the burial of the dead.

  "Yes," King Jean was saying, "I like that idea, my Lord Earl. I myself will build and endow a Chantry, where prayers shall be said for those Frenchmen fallen on this field on this day."

  "And King Edward will do the same, without a doubt," said the Earl, "for those English also fallen here. The field itself shall be consecrated, and all the Englishmen who fell today will be buried together."

  "In a single grave. Yes, it shall be so for our French dead, also," said King Jean. "It will be a fitting marker for the occasion; and—in line with our further purpose—it will draw the attention of all the world on the place, rather than the fact that the truce is left unresolved. Our dead, sleeping together but in two separate great graves, will set a seal on the occasion that shall silence questions."

  "We must scour the field, to make sure that no body of an English knight escapes us. The lesser ranks—those who are not gentlemen"—he waved his hand—"can be buried off in the woods, so as not to det
ract from the solemnity of the fact that our gentlemen lie here."

  "Also with our French gentlemen," said King Jean. "The lesser sort and particularly such as the Genoese must be placed off the field and apart. That will be no matter—"

  "Forgive me—" said Jim.

  For a moment it seemed as if the two had either not heard him, or would ignore him completely. Then both turned their heads slowly to stare at him.

  "He is one of your English, I think, my Lord," murmured King Jean.

  "To my shame I own it!" snapped the Earl, his eyes still on Jim. "Sir, were you taught no manners at all, wherever it is you come from? The King of France and I are speaking—to each other."

  The Earl's tone put Jim's teeth somewhat on edge, but he kept his own voice as calm and polite as he could.

  "I know," he said. "Forgive me for intruding, my Lord and Your Majesty. I would not have spoken up at all, but I chanced to overhear your plans for a common grave for the knights of each side and Chantries to pray for their souls. It is an excellent idea. I only wish to point out, that one of the English knights that fell here today, has a need to be buried elsewhere."

  The Earl of Cumberland stared at him and both the close-cropped gray beard and gray mustache bristled.

  "What's this of his need, whoever he is?" snapped the Earl. "He shall lie with the rest, of course! Otherwise, there is no point in the whole matter of setting up a Chantry Guild and telling the world that all the English dead lie here."

  "I'm afraid," said Jim, with an effort still keeping his voice calm and appeasing, "that won't be possible—"

  "Hell's Hounds!" exploded the Earl. "Do you talk of necessity to me? Where got you this impertinence? I tell you he shall lie with the rest and the matter is done! Now leave us!"

  "You don't understand," said Jim desperately. "It is Sir Giles de Mer I'm referring to. The knight that kept the Prince safe when Malvinne's knights would have killed him while we talked up here. Certainly, he's earned the right to be buried when, where, and how he pleases."

  "He shall lie with the others!" snarled the Earl. "Go! Before I have you dragged away!"