The Dragon in Lyonesse

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "I wish I had been with you, though."

  "Brian, the fire was actually just an accident. I might not have started it, if there'd been someone sensible with me."

  "My Lord was very brave!" said Hob.

  "Nonsense!" said Jim. "It was Hob who was very brave."

  "What did Hob do that was brave, Sir James?" asked King David, pushing his way through the inner ring of people that had formed around Jim.

  Jim opened his mouth to tell them of Hob and the dying harpy, than decided it would not play well to this particular audience. The word bravery, here, meant flashing swords and desperate battles.

  "He went right into the breeding place with me, all the way," said Jim, "and he would have been the only one who could have guided me back out. I'll tell you more about the fire some other time, maybe. I hurried back; because after I left the breeding place, I flew over the route from the Borderland camp to the Empty Plain. The invaders are just moving into the Plain, now!"

  "We know, Sir James," said David.

  "Oh?" said Jim, a little dashed.

  "The Blues are foresters and hunters from birth, James," said Dafydd. "Pellinore agreed to let us use them to keep watch on those who come. As scouts. We have had some of them coming and going at all hours to tell us how the progress of the armed men goes; and if from time to time, they have a chance to put an arrow into one of them, while being beyond sight and capture by those with him, that does no harm, either."

  "That's right, I did see some of them milling around as if something had just happened to them. But I didn't think there was time to stop and find out what was going on. Your bowmen are taking a real risk, though. If any of them are caught by that bunch—"

  "They will not be caught," said Dafydd. "Any who did would not be wearing Blue and with us now. All those now riding to the Empty Plain will see is one of their number falling from his saddle. By the time they stop and find out why, no man will know from what direction the arrow came. Our Blues are like me, James, not men of great dispute; but they know how to send an arrow when no man is looking, even he who will receive it. Also how to shoot from cover and move quickly to safety."

  "Well…" said Jim, knowing he ought to praise this; but torn between that duty and his vision of an unsuspecting horseman, toppling from his saddle, dead before he even knew what killed him. Somehow, man to man with swords or lances, it was different. Which Pope was it, in or about the thirteenth century, who had condemned bows—he had possibly been thinking of crossbows—and their missiles as weapons unfit to be used against fellow Christians?

  "… that should slow them up some," he finished.

  "Ah, yes," said Brian happily. "But do not fret, James. There will still be plenty of the hedge-knights left for us."

  "True!" said Jim, as heartily as he could. "King Pellinore is agreed on this, you say."

  "Most excellently so!" put in young David. "But he still wishes we of the Drowned Land to stand aside when time comes for battle."

  "Yes," said Jim. "But maybe there're other things you can do than giving the lives of your people for them in battle in a different land."

  "But none so noble, Sir James."

  "True, your Majesty. Oh, Dafydd," said Jim, "have you any idea from these Blue scouts when the invaders will get to the Empty Plain?"

  "If they continue so, the Lord QB believes they will arrive before the next Dark, having traversed the forest by daylight—for fear of the trees, they may have planned it so."

  "Or," said the QB, speaking up for the first time, "she of Gore—Morgan le Fay—may have counseled them when to start and how fast to travel to make it so. Possibly Modred could likewise have done; but only one who has lived in Lyonesse would know how long the day may be—it varies from time to time, as you have seen." The QB's words became careful, like the steps of a man on a safe path of stones crossing a quagmire. "—at the wish, many think, of the Old Magic."

  "Is it going to be different this time, QB?" Jim asked.

  "The trees say so. This, Modred could not learn from them. Morgan could. But she does not commonly speak to the trees; and they to her only when addressed. So I believe her no better counselor than Modred in this."

  "What about the Knights—and Pellinore? They know about this, of course. What are they doing?"

  "Why," said the QB, in a tone of mild astonishment as someone in a raincoat, going out into a downpour, might show upon being asked how he would keep from getting wet, "they are arming; to meet and defeat the incomers as soon as they arrive."

  "Arrive?" Jim found his mind was not as sharp as it should be. "But they're already there. Where are the Knights?"

  "James," said Brian, "you are acting most strangely. Have you a fever? All these simple questions. The strength of Lyonesse will be on the Plain at any time now. Look you, Cumberland has brought footmen with long spears to stop the horses. They must march last, as usual, and once here, be placed in formation. There is time!"

  "Of course," said Jim. "No, no fever. I'm just a little stupid for some reason…"

  It was getting difficult for him to see the others and anything beyond them. A sort of milky mist was thickening before his eyes. "I think I should sit down, though…" he heard his voice saying from a distance.

  He looked around, but through the rapidly thickening milkiness could not even make out the half-log bench Pellinore had sat on. He felt his arm taken, and made out Brian's face behind it, leading him somewhere. He stumbled like a man newly blind.

  His eyes closed in spite of himself. He fell.

  He opened his eyes again and looked up into the white sky. His vision was perfectly clear and he felt his usual, clear-thinking self. Evidently, he had only been out for a minute or two. He looked to tell Brian and the others that he was all right; and saw only the two young bears, the two otters—both pairs sitting on their haunches—and the fallow doe on her feet, just raising her head from grazing on the grass.

  All five animals looked at him solemnly, the doe with what seemed to be a touch of sympathy—but then her soft eyes could hardly look at anyone in any other way.

  No one else was in sight.

  There crept into him the first small fear that not a little time, but a lot, had gone past. It grew. Where was he anyway, besides outdoors here?

  Chapter Forty-One

  He raised his head. He was lying on Pellinore's half-log bench. Now that he was aware of it, he realized it was a very hard bed indeed; and his body was still a little numb, both from pressing against it and because his inner temperature had dropped with sleep—

  Sleep!

  He rose with a jerk, and considerable effort, dropping his feet to the ground below the bench and sitting up with his back against the logs that made up the side of the building. Something light slid off his chest and floated to the ground. It was a piece of grayish, thick paper, much like the kind Angie used at Malencontri to keep their accounts. Bending, he picked it up.

  At the bottom there was a very clumsy drawing, made with what obviously had been a stick of charcoal. Above that, it was a letter, in ink, from Angie. He began to read it, greedily.

  Jim: Are you all right? I got worried. I don't know why. I tried to call you the magic way you showed me. But I couldn't seem to reach you or you weren't answering, or something. So I'm going to use the magic paper that Carolinus gave me for emergencies, when you were gone to the Holy Land. He never told me not to use it anymore, so I'm using it. If you get this, Jim, and you're all right, let me know. Or send Hob, or something. I've got to hear from you!

  I love you, Angie

  "Good God!" he said. Both his hands went automatically to his chest, as if there were breast pockets there, but they encountered only his chain mail shirt. He realized he had nothing to write with, and pulled his poiniard from its sheath on his right hip.

  He held it up before his eyes.

  "You're a pen!" he told it. "A ballpoint pen with ink in it. If you can't be that, turn purple. I'll find something you can be!"r />
  Nothing happened. He cursed to himself, realizing he had forgotten he was in Lyonesse, where his magic would not work outside his ward. He hastily reached into his purse, and pulled out the first thing his fingers found that was not a coin. It was the remainder of the plum, which he ate from its pit, telling it to change the poiniard.

  The poiniard stayed a poiniard for a second or two, then almost with a visible effort became something that at least looked like a ballpoint pen, except that the ball on the end was about a quarter the size of a golf ball.

  Jim cursed again—then got himself under control.

  "Never mind," he said, "I've changed my mind. You're a quill pen—a right-handed one, mind, so your feather end doesn't stick in my eye. Also, give me a pot of ink."

  The change was made. Jim wrote on the space below the scrawly drawing.

  Dearest,

  I'm just fine, only it's very busy at the moment. The Knights of the Round Table are just about to fight the Earl of Cumberland, who is somehow involved with Morgan le Fay, who wants the Drowned Land for her own personal estate or kingdom and hopes to get it by helping the Dark Powers to get control of Lyonesse—put like that it doesn't make sense, I suppose, but I can explain it all to you later. Right now I have to find Brian. I'm healthy, rested, unhurt, and in fine spirits, all the better for hearing from you.

  Take care of yourself. I'm here at the home of King Pellinore with a couple of young bears, two otters, and a fallow doe. Everyone else gone, evidently. I'll have to find Brian and the rest. You take care of yourself. I love you and I'll be seeing you very soon. Never worry—remember my magic. I can always protect myself with that. Hob's all right, too.

  I do love you and miss you.

  See you soon.

  Jim

  He waved the paper in the air to dry the ink, turned ink pot and quill pen back into a poiniard and sheathed it; and was about to return the paper to Malencontri and Angie when he remembered the drawing. He looked more closely at it.

  As well as he could make out at first glance, it showed a horizontal stick figure that was probably supposed to be a person, but looked more like a skeleton, being held at the shoulders by a standing stick figure. After that was the shape of a knight's shield with some sort of drawing on it that must represent a coat of arms painted there; and beyond it, two more stick figures, crossing swords with each other.

  Underneath the whole thing were three badly printed words—notte wak cum.

  Jim shook his head over it and went back to trying to puzzle out what was drawn on the shield. It had definitely not been done by Angie. Between the blurriness of the charcoal stick and the ineptness of whoever had drawn it, it was not easy to decipher; but if there was a key to the drawing it was there. If he knew who the shield identified, he could probably guess the rest.

  There was an X on the shield, with some peculiar shape below it. That had four legs, so it must be an animal—and abruptly the scrawl above the forward end of it gave him the clue he was looking for. There, attached above the forward end, were what looked like some tree limbs sprouting.

  Of course. Those were antlers. That meant the creature was a hart, a male deer.

  The whole thing abruptly fell into understandability. It was Brian's arms, which he was used to seeing with a colored background—which, of course, could not be rendered with a piece of charcoal. The X, then, was a saltire cross, on what were essentially the arms of the Nevilles of Raby, Earls of Worcester; and the hart "lodged sable" showed that Brian's father had been of cadet stock to the Nevilles.

  The figure holding the horizontal one still puzzled him for a few moments longer before he realized the vertical one was supposed to be shaking it—a you shake someone to bring them out of dreamland. The words below, then, backed this up: "notte wak…" or "I could not wake you up." And "cum," the last of the message, could only mean what it said.

  "Come find us!"

  But where were they?

  Almost absently, Jim made the cabalistic scrawl with his fingertip over the sheet of paper, and it vanished, automatically on its way back to Malencontri. The magic that had driven it here would take it back again—it was not anything that he had produced, so he did not, happily, have to dig further into his dwindling stock of magic fruits to return it to Angie.

  Too late, he remembered Brian's sketched message on the same paper. Angie would be able to interpret that as well as he had been; and it rather contradicted his assurance that things were busy but there was no danger in sight.

  So he should get another message off to her as soon as he had the means, reassuring her by more or less showing that there had been no need to be concerned.

  Meanwhile, if he interpreted Brian's drawing correctly, the battle between Lyonesse and Cumberland, representing the Dark Powers, was about to begin—undoubtedly at the Empty Plain. He should get there as soon as possible.

  "My horse," he said out loud, trying to think of where he had last put or seen Gorp.

  The otters and the bears merely continued to look at him. The doe paced over to him and nuzzled at his chest in a comforting gesture.

  "I'm afraid you can't help," he said, stroking her soft brow, "but thanks, anyway."

  She pulled away from him, walked over to door of the log building; and, raising one foot, struck at it with her hoof, twice. The sound of the hoof against wood was surprisingly loud in the general quiet.

  She put her foot back down and stood where she was. Several moments passed; and then the door opened. An elderly human servitor looked out. He had evidently had a strong young face in his time; but time had put deep parentheses about the corners of his mouth and eyes, and other lines in his forehead. He looked at the doe, who turned her head to look at Jim.

  "I've got to leave," said Jim.

  "And you need your horse, Sir knight?"

  "Yes. Have you seen him?"

  "He is around the back in the stables," said the servitor with just the tinge of inflection in his old retainer's voice that said Jim should have taken that for granted at the home of King Pellinore. He looked beyond Jim to the corner of the building and shouted "Horse!"

  He looked back at Jim.

  "He must be equipped first, Sir," he said; for someone who could not easily guess that his horse would be taken care of here, might also be ignorant of the fact that he needed to be saddled and bridled before appearing. Jim wondered how Pellinore’s white horse had managed to appear immediately, saddled and bridled. Perhaps a horse stood ready for the owner of the place at all times.

  Gorp appeared—saddled, bridled, and with Jim's lance upright in its boot. He trotted agreeably up to Jim with as much decorum as Pellinore's white horse had done, then spoiled the effect when he stopped by reaching down to snatch a mouthful of grass.

  The servitor held Jim's stirrup. Jim mounted.

  "Am I right?" he asked the man. "They've all gone to the Empty Plain?"

  "Yes, Sir. Not more than the time between terce and sext."

  That wasn't too bad, thought Jim. Terce was the canonical third hour and sext was midday—hopefully, noon. Three hours. It would take nearly that time to get the host of Lyonesse together and ready for battle.

  "—The doe will show you the way," the servitor was saying.

  "Er, thanks…" In the fourteenth century it was customary to reward those servants of your host who had been helpful to you; but Jim had no idea what the customs here in Lyonesse were. He didn't want to offend anyone if trying to tip him would seem like an insult. Anyway, there was nothing compulsory about the practice. He would let the question go for now—maybe there would be a chance to make it up later.

  The doe was touching noses with Gorp. She headed off into the woods and he followed her.

  It took them no more than perhaps forty minutes to reach the Empty Plain. Apparently Pellinore's home was closer to it than Jim had guessed from the air—or else Lyonesse, along with its other strangenesses, had places whose distances apart changed from time to time.
/>   They came out at the near end of the Plain, which itself stretched roughly northwest to southeast. The forces of Lyonesse were at the northwestern end—not important, thought Jim, as the doe led Gorp toward it, unless the battle lasted toward sunset. Then the white sun would begin to get in the eyes of the Lyonesse Knights, and be at the back of their opponents… and it was already past noon.

  At first glance it seemed that every armed man the land could produce was already there. Gorp followed the doe without question; and she led them straight to Pellinore.

  Pellinore was standing with a small crowd of older Knights around him—Originals all, no doubt. But not more than a dozen feet off, Jim, with infinite relief, saw Brian, Daffyd, and King David. He rode past the doe, who was gently pushing through the crowd to get to Pellinore—her appearance there evidently creating no surprise among the Knights. A moment later Jim had lost sight of her for good; for when he turned to look Pellinore's way again, she was gone.

  There had been an air of excitement in the gathering of the Lyonesse forces. Jim was familiar with it in Brian, just before a battle or a contest, where it always showed itself in his eagerness and high spirits. Those of Lyonesse—the Originals in particular—seemed to belong to the same emotional family in this. Dafydd was just as bad, judging from his constant search in the Land Above to find bowmen and wrestlers to compete against—but he hid it behind his pretence of lazy indifference to everything up there.

  Jim himself always felt the pit of his stomach drop at the prospect of any serious fighting. In fact, he had to be hit a couple of times before that feeling disappeared and he could do whatever he was capable of in putting out his best effort.

  But Brian's reaction now was right in line with his usual behavior.

  "James!" he cried boisterously, as he caught sight of Jim approaching. "You woke! You're here! May all the Saints be praised! I knew you would not miss the chance of such a noble victory."