The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Well, thank you anyway for the congratulations," said Jim.

  "You're welcome," said Carolinus glumly. "What did you want to talk about?"

  "Well, I got this idea for letting Mnrogar get close enough to the guests so he could smell out the troll among them; but when I told it to Brian and Aargh, it appeared that there would be some technical problems involved—"

  The door behind Carolinus opened abruptly and a tall, lean man with a thin face and keen eyes came briskly into the room. He was wearing a somewhat worn, flowered dressing gown.

  "What is the nature of your problem—" he was beginning to say to Jim, when his gaze fell on Carolinus.

  "Ah, Carolinus," he said. "It's pleasant to see you again."

  "I could say the same thing to you, my dear Holmes," responded Carolinus, with more cordiality in his voice than Jim had ever heard him use in addressing any other human, animal, Natural, supernatural, Force or Functionary. "May I introduce Mr. James Eckert? Mr. Eckert has been studying with me."

  "Ah, yes," said Holmes, his sharp eyes seeming to pierce right through Jim. "You will be an American, clearly, Mr. Eckert. From the Midwest?"

  "Why… yes," said Jim. "How did you guess?"

  "I never guess," said Holmes. "I deduce. From what I heard of your accent as I came in, you are American, but from a region there, the speech of which I have never heard before. There is the barest touch of French influence, but none of the Scottish inflection that could imply that you might come from farther northward in the American continent. On the other hand, you have none of the characteristics of any of the various southern or western regional American accents with which I have made myself familiar. Therefore there is no place left for you to have come from, but from somewhere in the middle of the continent between north and south in America."

  "Remarkable!" said Jim. "Your deduction, I mean, Mr. Holmes."

  "Not at all," said Holmes. "My real interest lies in what you have to tell me. If it is also what you are about to tell Mage Carolinus, perhaps you'd favor us both at the same time with the problem."

  "Well—" Jim caught himself saying again; and made a mental vow to banish the word from both lips and mind for the rest of the time he was in Holmes's company. He had no idea how well the detective would understand the background; but the only reasonable course was to go ahead and tell them both what he had been just about to say to Carolinus.

  He did.

  It turned out to require more explanation than he had expected. Carolinus listened in silence, without moving. But Sherlock Holmes wandered over to his pipe on the mantelpiece, stuffed tobacco into its bowl from a Persian slipper, lit the pipe and wandered back, beginning to fill the room with clouds of smoke.

  When Jim finally ran down and stood waiting for a reaction from either or both of them, Carolinus remained silent, frowning. But Holmes, taking the pipe from his mouth, spoke up decisively.

  "Both the problem you describe, and those involved in it, are outside what I normally encounter. Today, of course, Carolinus and Mr. Eckert, you realize we live in a modern world. Many of the things and individuals you mention, Mr. Eckert, have long since vanished from society. Also, in any case, Moriarty is once more in London—I have just gotten a telegram informing me of this—and I must give my attention to dealing with him first; so I don't have freedom to involve myself in your concerns at the moment."

  He turned, stepped back, knocked out the dottle of his pipe into the ashes of the fireplace and placed the pipe itself back on the mantelpiece.

  "However," he said, "there are inevitable patterns in all such matters. I would suggest, Mr. Eckert, that you make an effort to locate the secret witness, who has been keeping silent until now."

  "Secret witness to what?" asked Jim.

  "That remains to be seen," said Holmes, starting toward the door. "However, a secret witness exists, and you will save time in the long run by finding whoever it is and making public the knowledge kept hidden until now."

  With these last words, he went out the door, closing it behind him. Jim and Carolinus were left looking at each other.

  "What did he mean?" Jim asked Carolinus.

  "I know no more than you," said Carolinus. "But his advice is always correct. However, on a more important point, what do you want from me?"

  "I was hoping you could help me with some advice," said Jim. He added hurriedly, "I don't mean you should help me magically, but show me what I need to do magically to produce armor for Mnrogar, and find a horse for him to ride in the lists."

  "Jim, Jim…" said Carolinus. "When will you understand? You come from a far and strange place, where things are done that would seem magical to anyone of us here. But still, you're infected by the popular superstition about Magick—even such as I control. You believe it capable of almost anything."

  "Isn't it?" asked Jim. He had almost added here.

  "Far from it!" Carolinus glared at him. "Actually, as I've tried to explain before, Magick can actually do very little. Certainly we magickians can make things appear and disappear. We can ourselves appear and disappear. We can even disappear in one place and appear in another; thus saving us the ordinary discomfort and time of traveling. Magick can heal wounds. But you've already learned it cannot help with disease; otherwise I'd have used it to cure myself, the time that bunch of ragged outlaws held siege around my cottage. But I could not; and so you, Angie and your men-at-arms had to come to my rescue. The wonder isn't how much Magick can do. It's how little it can do, that's of any real use in ordinary human affairs. Most important matters have to be dealt with by human—or animal—means alone, as they always have been. Witness your individual battle with the sea serpent Essessili. At its utmost, Magick can merely be a sort of aid to ordinary human subtlety; or by influencing a situation by illusion."

  "But it's an illusion I'm after," said Jim, snatching at the opportunity. "I want Mnrogar to give the illusion of a black knight in armor on horseback, so he'll ride down any human knight who dares to face him, win the crown for the day, and get to ride slowly past every guest watching; and that means every guest of the Earl's, because of the importance of the occasion. It'll give Mnrogar a chance finally to smell out the disguised troll among them. I'm only asking you to help me with some instruction on how to work magic that'll create the illusion of the black knight and the horse. I'm hoping Brian'll agree to train the two of them. But it'd be a great help if magic could also make it easier for Mnrogar to learn how to carry and use the lance."

  "And you were counting on me to produce that Magick for you?"

  "Unless you can't, of course," said Jim.

  "Can't? Can't?" said Carolinus.

  He checked himself abruptly, glaring now at Jim.

  "That is to say," he snapped, "something may be possible in Magick and still be impractical in reality. To begin with, you forget I'm still trying not to have anything to do with you, so that no one can accuse me of helping you."

  "But if I can arrange for Mnrogar to find the other troll," said Jim, "then that will probably unravel whatever scheme the Dark Powers had for disturbing this particular holiday season at the Earl's. Aren't I right?"

  "Well…" Carolinus became suddenly thoughtful. "You have suddenly made it to C level…"

  His voice faded away. He stood, staring off into the distance.

  "Could I get Aargh and Brian here to help us talk about this?" Jim asked him.

  Carolinus came back to himself with a jerk.

  "What? Oh, certainly, if you want to. No. Wait a moment… let me do it…"

  He looked hard at the other side of the room. The fireplace mantelpiece and the wall with the bullet holes in it vanished. In its place was a section of Mnrogar's den under the Earl's castle, with Brian and Aargh still in it. Brian blinked and stared at them. Aargh was instantly on his feet. But neither one of them seemed to pay any attention to the different appearance of that part of the room at 22IB Baker Street where Jim and Carolinus stood.

  "Brian, Aarg
h," said Jim, "forgive me. I had to find a place where we could all talk with special privacy; and with Carolinus joining us. We're all now in a place like that one Carolinus took Aargh and myself to before, the one where there was the little tinkling invisible person he talked to and who took us there and back—only this is a different place. I'm talking to Carolinus about the difficulty of having Mnrogar appear as the black knight."

  "James," said Brian, "how can this be? You and the Mage are here, with us. We are not some place else with you."

  "Jim," said Carolinus's voice in Jim's head, "they can't see any of Sherlock Holmes's room. They aren't hearing me say this either. Just ignore the whole thing and we'll go ahead and talk."

  "Carolinus thinks we should ignore things like that and simply go ahead and talk," parroted Jim, trying to keep straight in his own mind everything that was going on. "I've just been telling him about the plan to have Mnrogar enter the lists at the tournament as the black knight; and he's concerned about some of the practical difficulties."

  "Concerned indeed!" said Carolinus out loud—and Jim saw the eyes of both Brian and Aargh fasten upon him.

  But Carolinus was continuing.

  "For one thing," Carolinus was saying, "where are you going to find a horse to bear his weight and behave in proper fashion in the lists? Don't bother to try to answer, you can't. You're counting on me to do it for you. But if you couldn't get me, you were willing to go ahead and try it yourself; and, Jim, that would have made the most unbelievable coil not only of real things, but of the whole fabric of Magickdom—and this at a time when you're in enough trouble there already! In anything approaching actuality, the idea is as far-fetched a plan as could be imagined. How can a troll be expected to ride and act like a knight?"

  "As well ask a brute beast to put on an armor and do the same," put in Brian.

  "A brute beast," growled Aargh, "would have better sense."

  Jim's head whirled again. It seemed as if he was being attacked from all sides, by those he had most counted on to support him. He reached out to snatch at and deal with one point at a time.

  "But I'm not expecting a great deal," he said. He turned to Brian.

  "Look, Brian, all that would be necessary, if we could get Mnrogar into the armor and on the horse, would be to teach him and the horse itself to go through certain motions—just a few motions that'll make them look as if they know what they were doing. They won't even have to know why they're doing it. I was thinking of magic, of course. With a little help that way, possibly it could all become a simple matter of training—"

  "James," said Brian sadly, shaking his head. "You know that you, yourself, are really not ready to ride in the lists with any seriousness against any knight of experience at all. This, after several years in which I've tried hard to teach you many things—many things out of the many, many more things that one who fights either on foot or a-horse must know. Certainly magic must be able to do wondrous things. But how can it help me to teach more than I ever taught you, to a troll; and in a matter of a few days only! Even if he was willing and able to learn?"

  "Which he won't be," said Aargh.

  "Now there," said Jim, recovering some of his self-confidence, "is where I think all of you are wrong. I think Mnrogar wants that other troll so badly that he'd be willing to do anything. Not only that; but I also think he'd rather enjoy being an unknown knight in armor and trying to put a lance point through a human being. It's his nature. All he has to be taught is that instead of leaping on somebody from a place of hiding and using his teeth and nails, he's going to ride toward someone with a long, pointed lance and knock whoever it is off their horse. It's just another way to attack, that's all."

  "That's all! echoed Brian. He shook his head from side to side, slowly.

  "And as for the armor and the horse," said Jim, turning on Carolinus, "you really could help me with that, if you wanted to, couldn't you, Carolinus? What I mean is, magic could make something appear like something else?"

  "Of course it can!" bristled Carolinus. "But that's not the point. The point here is that the level of Magick required for that could only be done by a magickian of my skill. Magickdom will realize this instantly."

  "Would they?" said Jim. "After all, you said yourself I suddenly jumped to a true C level by my way of arranging my transfer to Sherlock Holmes's rooms. In fact, you acted almost as if you thought I'd jumped higher."

  "I implied no such thing!" said Carolinus. "In any case, I can't lie to my fellow Master Magickians."

  "You wouldn't have to," said Jim. "I don't suppose any of them are likely to try to pin you down on how we got these results." Carolinus's mustache bristled briefly.

  "Hah! No," he said. "But they can suspect."

  "But will they be sure?" said Jim. "You yourself say that since I came from somewhere else I sometimes get results that someone who belongs here shouldn't. It could be my responsibility, rather than yours. Particularly, if the whole thing works. Couldn't it?"

  Carolinus stared at him, opened his mouth and hesitated.

  "It's barely possible," he said finally. "But only if the whole insane scheme works. It'd be the next thing to showing you could make new Magick anytime you wished. You did do it that one time at the Loathly Tower by defeating the Dark Powers with only human strengths. I only refereed in that instance, giving you a clear area to fight in. Of course, all Magickdom thought it was a single, fortunate accident…"

  He abruptly fell silent for a second, staring past Jim's head at nothing.

  "Still," he continued, on a note of new interest, "if you could do something like that, none would question you. Once could be an accident; twice would indicate a gift. You'd have to be put in a class by yourself. And what with all of us losing Magick all the time as bits of it become something anyone can do—like sewing skins and cloths together to make clothes, as I once told you—that which used to be high and most secret Magick grows less by the day. We badly need more. Magickdom would welcome you with open arms if you had the gift of making some."

  He grew thoughtful. Suddenly, he threw up his long, thin arms with his hands held wide.

  "Well, why not?" he said. "The world is turned upside down. Masters serve their apprentices, instead of the other way around. Trolls become knights because a troll needs to be in disguise. Perhaps this is World's End and Chaos has finally routed the orderly process of History completely. Yes, I can do it. I might as well do it—if you can manage your part of it. But I don't see how you can."

  "Mage!" said Brian. "You would countenance this?"

  "Why not?" said Carolinus. "The Wild Hunt has passed over your heads in this castle each night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, as it does each such season of the year. Yet no man or woman has so far been caught up and carried away by it. This plan of Jim's is no wilder. If it succeeds, and the troll under the castle destroys or drives off the troll among the guests that would challenge him, then mayhap the army of trolls gathered around us will run off in all directions from one another once more and the Dark Powers will not have succeeded in disturbing this Holy Season after all. That at least may speak in Jim's favor and justify my argument he deserves special consideration. There is just a chance it might save him; and also settle the troll and Earl situation here, once and for all. One chance among many, like one star among all those in the heavens. But why not?"

  "There, Brian," said Jim quickly. "If Carolinus will help, will you help too? Can't we work out something simple for the troll and whatever we find him in the shape of a war horse?"

  "If you could find him a war horse," said Brian. "In any case, what is he to ride? He must weigh twenty stone or more—"

  Jim made a quick calculation in his head. Twenty stone would be right around three hundred pounds. His own guess was that Mnrogar, probably with oversize bones inside that big body of his, might weigh even more than that.

  "He would break any horse's back, even if we could find one who would carry him," said Brian.

  The t
ruth was, Jim had been holding back an inspiration he had had as far as solving that much of the problem went. He had just been waiting for the best moment to bring it up.

  "With Carolinus helping," he said, avoiding the magician's eyes, "perhaps with magic we could transform that large boar that upset both the Earl and his horse the first morning when the guests at the castle here were out hunting. I was told he was as weighty as a bull. If magic could make him look like a horse, he ought to be able to carry Mnrogar's weight; and, not only that, but his natural instincts as well would be to charge anyone or anything in his way; which would make it a natural thing for him to adapt to charging down one side of the barrier in the list."

  "Yes, I was out that morning with the rest of them and saw him," growled Brian. "A fine beast; but how are we even to find him again, let alone train him?"

  "I know the boar you mean," put in Aargh. "There's only one that size around here. I can find him, if that's all you need."

  "Fine. Then—" Jim risked a glance at Carolinus, and was startled at what he saw. Carolinus's expression had changed completely. A cheerful wickedness had made its way onto his otherwise stern features. Jim had been about to ask him whether Aargh's being able to find the boar meant that Carolinus would be willing to help train the boar; but it did not seem necessary. The elder magician was looking past them all at something off in the distance.

  "Reminds me of when I was a young magician," he was saying, more to himself than to them. A faint smile that could only be described as Machiavellian touched the comers of his lips. "Yes, yes, indeed… Jim? You were about to say something to me?"

  "Just whether you'd be willing to help make the boar act like a horse as well as look like one. We'll have to trap him first, I suppose, or trick him into some position where he can't get away from us—"

  "No, no," said Carolinus, still smiling a little evilly to himself, "that won't be necessary. If Aargh knows where he is, I can simply bring him to wherever the rest of you are going to work with Mnrogar."

  "But, there's this business of making him look like a horse and act like a horse—" Jim was beginning again.