He stopped speaking, and sat, staring a little away from Jim as if he was seeing what he had just been talking about. Brian, Jim knew, was not a run-of-the-mill romantic. But once he was caught up by emotion, he was off like a rocket.
Jim had seen him in the grip of emotion before—most notably during their trip to Northumberland, where they two, with Dafydd, had gone to bring word of the death of their friend Giles to his family.
Thankfully, Giles had in fact not died, after all, thanks to his heritage of selkie blood—a fact that had not been known when Jim, thinking so, had had his first run-in with the Earl of Cumberland over the burial. The Earl had been forced to give way at that time, due to the intercession of the young Prince Edward; but Jim and his friends had earned themselves the Earl's enmity.
But having found Giles alive in his home, Jim found himself confronted with the problem presented by Brian's sudden infatuation with Giles's sister, to the point of announcing himself ready to forsake his lifelong love, Geronde. Jim had been grateful when Brian's feelings had evaporated with surprising swiftness, and left no residual effects.
Perhaps the same thing would happen with his feeling about Pellinore's deer. But it was hard to tell. There had been something deep-voiced in the way he told the story of the doe that touched Jim as the gathering of the animals had in his case.
"—But here they are, now!" Brian suddenly interrupted himself, in his usual energetic voice.
"Here? Who?" said Jim, turning to look. Back in the direction of the heart of the Gathering Place, where the ends and edges of a number of tables could be glimpsed among the trees, Dafydd, David, and the QB were approaching.
"Our friends, of course," answered Brian unnecessarily.
"Sir James!" said the QB, "we have been searching for you and Sir Brian!"
"And I've been looking for you. You were the ones who disappeared."
"We did not expect to be gone so long. But you are right, Sir James. We were the first to leave, and without speaking to you. Pray pardon us. But we have news of importance. We three have been to the Drowned Land—"
"In daylight?"
"Indeed," said the QB. "But Dafydd—who insists I call him simply that, rather than by his rightful title as a Prince of that land—wondered why it had been so plagued with Harpies, while Lyonesse has seen none of the creatures of the Dark Powers. And since we had some time in hand—"
"Hold on!" said Jim, "wait a minute! I didn't know we had some time in hand. Did you, Brian?"
"I did not," said Brian. "
"I thought King Pellinore would be taking us directly to meet some of the leading Originals," went on Jim, "and maybe we'd even begin to start making plans with them. But he went off with his son; and when I thought to look for the rest of you, you were gone."
"Mea culpa—as you humans say. Once more, the blame is entirely mine. Knowing King Pellinore as I do, I did not stop to think that you would not know. His talk with his son could not possibly be a short one. He will be hungry to hear all that Sir Lamorack may have to tell him. But Sir Lamorack will have to talk cleverly and long on his own behalf if he wishes to bring his father to speak of himself. Yet Sir Lamorack will do so, and succeed; for he and Sir Percival, his brother, greatly love King Pellinore."
"I see. Well, these things happen," said Jim. "I didn't mean to sound—anyway, you're here now."
"But, Sir James, I did not mislead you. We do have some time in hand, after all. Favor me by looking into my eyes."
Jim stared at him for a moment, then concentrated on doing what he had just been asked. It was not the simple matter it sounded. The eyes in the QB's head, at the end of his long, snaky neck, were one on each side of that head; whereas Jim's were side by side in front for binocular vision. But Jim managed it.
For a moment he saw nothing but the glittering darkness of those serpent eyes. Then the darkness seemed to expand, and merge into one image, which brightened until it showed the green land under a yellow sun that was the Drowned Land. The figure of a woman in white was pacing up and down, impatiently, half a dozen feet each way.
He stared at her for a moment.
"Isn't that—" he began; but that was as far as he got before the QB interrupted him for a second time.
"Shall we go, Sir James?"
"Go?" Jim blinked, losing the image, and stared at him for a second. "Go. Oh, yes, certainly."
A slice of darkness came seemingly out of nowhere, to cover them for so short a fraction of time that its momentary appearance hardly registered on Jim; and they were there—Jim, the QB, Dafydd, David, and Brian, all facing the lady in white; who had halted, staring at Jim.
"Well?" she said, challengingly, to him.
"The Lady!" Hob burst out, from Jim's shoulder.
"Yes" said Jim grimly, "Queen Northgales."
"Are you better now, my Queen?" asked Hob.
"I am always perfect—so the Natural or manling—the little one, at any rate—is still with you? Get rid of it so we can talk!"
"Is there a lake nearby?" asked Jim.
"How should I know? Are you planning to drown it?"
"No. I was just going to suggest you go to the lake and jump in."
"Jump in?" She stared at him. "Why? Why would I want to do that?"
"Because then both Hob and I'd be rid of you."
"Sir James, Sir James!" said the QB. "Grant the favor of some small amount of patience…"
"Hard to do with this Lady."
"I am a Queen, you dolt!"
Jim ignored her.
"I pray you most earnestly, Sir James," said the QB, "that you wait to hear for a little while."
"King David and I also ask that, Sir James," said Dafydd, unexpectedly.
Jim looked at them curiously.
"Is there more to this than just name-calling?"
"We—the Lord QB, King David, and I—believe so."
Jim looked at the two serious human faces, and at the unreadable serpentine face of the QB.
"All right," he said. "But Hob, don't get close to the Queen over there. Above all, don't let her touch you. Best you don't even try to talk to her."
"But m'Lord! She's so sad!"
"Sad!" exploded Northgales, almost sputtering.
"Sad or not, stay clear of her. That's an order, Hob!"
"Yes, m'Lord." Hob's voice was unhappy.
It's for his own safety, Jim told himself. But a trace of guilt was stirring inside him, nonetheless. He had known the little hobgoblin intimately long enough to know that Hob could not help feeling for anyone or anything suffering, lonely, or even less than joyous. He pushed the guilt from him. There was no time for it now.
"All right," he said. "Then, QB, you explain."
"Briefly, Sir James," he said, "King David, Dafydd, and I came to this land to find out if the invaders were ready to move against Lyonesse, as those of this land whom they had kept watching them reported. Dafydd judged they were; indeed, they had already started packing for the move. But then, checking the landscape generally for Harpies and finding none, we yet found—not the Queen of Northgales, but her—"
He hesitated.
"Simulacrum?" Jim suggested.
Northgales sniffed.
"—But when we stopped to look at her, she became herself as you see her now, the QB went on. "She told us she wanted information from you; and might be willing to give you something in return. We all thought immediately that you should be the one to deal with the matter, so we came and got you and Sir Brian. We thought—"
"Never mind what you thought!" said Northgales. "I'll do the talking. You, James, give me your attention. I have watched you stay safely out of the hands of Morgan le Fay for some time now. You will tell me immediately how you have managed to do that."
"Just tell you—like that?"
"Of course!"
"Why?"
"Because you have been commanded to, idiot!"
"Nothing in return?"
"Certainly not. This beast of Pellin
ore's must have misunderstood me. A Queen does not bargain. I command!"
"Then long may you continue to do so," said Jim.
Northgales evidently did not understand that this was his answer, at first. Then something that was almost a flush stained her white cheeks for a second.
"Of course," said Jim, "being a Queen, you could always try to make me tell. Go right ahead."
"You'll regret it to your dying day—which may be soon!" she spat out.
"I don't mind. Go ahead—what're you waiting for? Don't tell me you don't have any magic powers here in the Drowned Land?"
"That is false! I have some," said Northgales.
"I'll believe 'some,' " said Jim. "You'd need it to make a simulacrum of yourself, but you might have to personally, physically, convey it here."
"You have no magick, either!"
"I don't?" said Jim. "Then how've I been able to stay safely out of Morgan's grasp all this time—sorry, I forgot. That's what you wanted to find out from me."
"Perhaps. But the idea of my giving you anything in return is ridiculous. You may have magick you cannot use—except to stay free of Morgan le Fay!"
A shrewd guess. Jim winced internally.
"You're wrong," he said stoutly.
"Wrong. How? Do you pretend to have magick in Lyonesse?"
"Of course."
"Ridiculous! You are not of Lyonesse, and so could have no powers there. In any case, Morgan would have taken them from you!"
"She tried. She couldn't."
"Couldn't? That's—"
"She burned her fingers when she tried."
"Burned!" Northgales took a quick, long step backward.
"That's right," said Jim. "Now, do you want to come down from your high horse and start talking sensibly to me or shall we end this little chitchat?"
"Morgan? Burned her fingers?" This time the emphasis was on the name of the other Witch Queen.
"Yes."
"I'm not surprised." Reasonableness was beginning to sound for the first time in Northgales's voice. Also a sort of desperation, or exhaustion. She passed her fingers over her forehead for a moment.
"—She is not all-powerful," Northgales said suddenly. "We four Witch Queens were given Lyonesse to rule each in our own place of strength. Where my winds blow, none of the other three can stand before me. But Morgan has improved her Powers because her strength was to be with Arthur and those like him, whose spirits in all else control Lyonesse, together with the trees and the Old Magic. Now she thinks she should rule all; and, since that is impossible, she has cast her eyes on this earth about us here."
"But she will have no magick power here, either," said Dafydd. "How can she hope to rule and own us?"
"Ah!" said Northgales, laying her finger to her nose, and peering over it slyly at Jim. "If you want that answer, you must buy it—"
But the finger was trembling. She took it away from her nose and stared at it. "Wet!" Her whole hand was shaking; and now Jim saw her body was shaking also. She wavered on her feet.
"M'Lady!" Hob leaped from Jim's shoulder and started to run to her. Jim dived after him; and caught him just out of reach of Northgales. But she made no effort to reach out her arm and touch Hob; only turned her eyes, now wet and spilling tears, on him.
"Why do you torment me so with your vile concern, little one?" she choked.
"But m'Lord, she needs help!" Hob was still struggling in Jim's arms, trying to reach Northgales.
"You can't help her; and if you touch her, she'll hurt you!" said Jim. "Now, be quiet!"
"No one can help!" Her voice had weakened down to a whisper. "No one. It is this sun—the terrible sun here. The heat, the burning heat!"
"Speak quickly," said Jim. "Tell me what you've come to offer; and maybe I can save you. Quick!"
"I… came…" It took sharp listening to hear the ghost of a whisper from her white lips now. "… to join you… against her…"
"There's more than that. Tell me—you can't take much more of this!"
"Cumberland… to have this land… in hold. She… to gain Lyonesse above the Knights… aid Cumber… gainst upper worl…"
Her voice went silent. Her streaming eyes closed.
Jim reached into his purse with one hand, with the other still holding back Hob. From the purse he pulled out his pear from among the enchanted fruit there, and took one bite. Like his use of the grape earlier to supply him with the sleep he had lost, it was not what he had planned. But it was worth it.
"A pavilion;" he said within himself, visualizing the airy, tentlike structure. "Shade. Temperature seventy—no, fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit." The Auditing Department would have no idea what Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Absolute degrees meant in terms of heat or cold, but that did not matter.
He did.
Instantly the pavilion was shading them, the temperature that of the outdoors on a cool but not-unpleasant fall day. He had been tempted for a second to go down to forty degrees; but that might be harmful to Northgales—to be plunged into too cool a temperature too quickly, even though it might be a temperature she liked and was used to.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The shade and the coolness in the pavilion were pleasant for Jim, whatever good they were doing the now-unconscious Witch Queen.
He and the others watched her. Hob had stopped struggling to be free.
"Grant me the grace of your forgiveness, m'Lord," he said now in a small voice. "I am a poor Hobgoblin, not to know that such as I could not help her as you can."
"Nonsense!" said Jim. "Put that out of your mind completely, Hob. What you can do for people, old and young, is beyond magic."
Still held by Jim's arm, Hob looked up at his face with a doubtful expression. Jim remembered to let go of him. Still staring, alternately at Jim and Northgales, Hob joined the silent semicircle around her.
She had not moved, her eyes were still closed—but no longer streaming tears, Jim saw.
"I think she'll be all right," he said in the somehow strange silence of the pavilion. "Let's wait a minute or two."
They waited; and though time seemed to stretch out, it could only have been a moment before her eyes opened.
She stared at the cloth ceiling over her, tensing.
"Am I in Lyonesse?" she asked.
"No," said Jim. "This is still the Drowned Land."
She relaxed, closing her eyes again briefly, and a long breath came slowly from her lips.
"You thought you were back there and had lost your magick?" said Jim, deliberately pronouncing the word as everyone but Angie, Merlin, and himself seemed to pronounce it.
Her eyes snapped open.
"If I did, it was a momentary weakness," she said; and her tone was trying to be as sharp as ever. But, surprisingly, it had softened. "Still, it—strange, I seem to like this little breath of coolness, warm as it still is compared to my fine castle."
"And you'll need our help to get back to that," said Jim. "Your magick may be waiting for you in Lyonesse; but all the troubles that have also been waiting for you are still there. Are you ready to make a deal with me now?"
"Queens do not do… what you just said!" But the sharpness was still not what it should have been, for her. "Queens demand; and if they are pleased with what they get, they reward."
"And Magicians," said Jim, emphasizing the word and pronouncing it his way, this time, "don't demand. But they don't give at anyone else's demand, either. You're going to have to talk my language if you want to talk to me."
She turned her head a little and looked away from all of them.
"Send that small, intruding creature away. I cannot bear him, weak as I am now."
"He stays," said Jim. "It's not his fault he loves everyone, even someone like you."
"That is false." She was still looking away from them. "Love is an illusion. Even if it were not, no one could love the North Gales. None ever has. None ever will."
"Look back this way and keep your eyes open," said Jim. "One can and does.
He's standing right beside you. Take a good look at him and you'll be able to see for yourself how he feels."
"No. Queens do not take commands."
"I challenge you. Turn and look!"
With that she turned her head, opened her eyes, and looked directly at Hob.
"Admit he lies!" she said to him.
"Oh, m'Lady! My Lord would never lie."
Jim winced internally.
"—And besides," said Hob, his voice rising a little. "It's true anyhow! We Hobs are just made that way. It makes us feel good to make the children laugh. It makes us feel sad to see anyone sad. And you can't do anything about it! I'm going to go on feeling sad for you until you stop making me feel that way."
"Then be sad forevermore—for all the good it will do you! I am the North Gales! No one can love me. I have no lovers, no friends."
"I'm your friend. If you'd just let me take you for a ride on the smoke, you'd see. You'd feel better. You couldn't help it."
"But I don't want to feel better, you little idiot!" cried Northgales, sitting up. "I like the way I am. I like feeling as I feel! Oh, take him away—!" she almost screamed at Jim. "Take him away and destroy—no, don't destroy him, just take him away from me. He lies. You lie. Love! Idiocy! He can't love me—and what difference would it make if he could?"
"Maybe we better go," said Jim. Time was slipping by and he was beginning to give up the idea of getting to any sensible bargaining terms with Northgales. "Hob—"
"But I do!" cried Hob—and before Jim could stop him he had darted forward, seized Northgales by the hand, and was trying to pull her to her feet.
She made an effort and got herself up. She stared down at him as he let go of her hand.
"I didn't gain any heat from you…" she said slowly. "It was as if we were of the same chill—or warm!"
She turned on Jim.
"What is this place?" she said. "It is not—not in the land—that land—"
"The land above? No," said Jim.
"Then how can magick be working here on me when you can have none here?"
"It's not magic," said Jim. "It's you—" He checked himself just in time. Name-calling never helped any situation; and he had been on the precipice edge of it. But Hob had shown the way to all of them. Jim stepped forward and grasped Northgales's hand.
The Dragon in Lyonesse Page 39
