The Dragon in Lyonesse

by Gordon R. Dickson

  And right in the middle of them was one wearing a woman's robe, of some fabric that shone like metal, glistening in the sunlight. Her face was too distant for identification; but the way she stood, and her outstretched, commanding arm, would have been recognizable anywhere. Morgan le Fay.

  "You! Sir Dragon!"

  But that was the voice of another woman—and behind him. A recognizable voice. Returning his eyes to their human form, Jim twisted about in his saddle. Seated on a magnificent roan stallion, only half a dozen feet away, was the Queen of Northgales, with the gigantic knight who had been before her castle, close behind her, like a personal bodyguard.

  "Never rains but it pours!" growled Jim—unfortunately, aloud.

  "What are you talking about? No rain here—not yet, at any rate. Have you still got the little one with you? Is he all right?"

  "Oh, yes, my Queen!" said Hob's voice; and Jim felt him next to his left ear, emerging from between his mail shirt. Hob's face suddenly appeared in the left corner of Jim's eye, smiling at Northgales. "Are you all well, too?"

  "Of course! Why shouldn't I be? Have you some means of getting away if those scum over there"—she nodded toward the far end of the Plain—"overrun everyone here?"

  "Oh, I couldn't desert my Lord, my Queen; no matter what happens!"

  "I was afraid of that. Out of my path, Magickian!" She rode forward alone. Jim got out of her way and she snapped at the two Originals before her, who—turning to see her—also reined their horses aside.

  She rode out in front of the line of Originals.

  "Morgannn!" she called, in a strange drawn-out voice, pitched a good octave and a half below her normal tones. "Still your zephyrs!"

  It was almost as if Jim could follow her words, as they soared rather slowly across the Empty Plain at the height of a few feet above its surface. There was a moment before any answer came back. Hastily resuming his dragon-sight, Jim made out Morgan's pointing arm falling to her side; and he thought he saw a stiffness now in the way she stood.

  She was too far away for him to see her lips move; but her voice, similarly low-pitched, came hollowly back, from much too far away to be merely human.

  "Northgales!" it cried. "Traitor!"

  "It is you who are the Traitor!" retorted Northgales. "Standing against the Lyonesse that is your own land! I tell you, take your zephyrs and begone—or I will drive you and them both off!"

  A laugh came back. An unnatural, extended, grating laugh in that low register in which they two were conversing across the empty distance.

  "You order me to take my fairy zephyrs and go? I—the Queen of Witch Queens? Leave yourself and leave fast, or stay and cook with those who stand by you! Feel what it's like to get some heat in you, for once!"

  "I no longer need heat, from anyone!" There was a snarl in Northgales's answer. "And by Dark and Light and the Nothing in-between, I—and I alone—am Queen of the North Gales!" She threw her head back, staring at the white sky, and her voice rose. "MY CHILDREN—HEAR ME!"

  She flung out both arms straight before her; and her voice lifted to a trumpet force.

  "—TAKE THEM, MY CHILDREN!"

  … And from somewhere high over the heads of those with Jim and behind them, but invisible in the cloudless white sky—echoing over all the Empty Plain, came a distant sound, like that of some ancient steam locomotive approaching fast. The sound of its coming rose in pitch and volume as it came closer and lower, until it roared at no more than treetop height above their heads. It shot forward, diving still farther downward, to no more than a dozen feet over the heads of the Lyonesse force.

  It was a sound only no longer; but a tearing wind—a gale still gaining speed and power—that flattened the black grass ahead of the Knights to the black earth hidden below it, picking up speed and power and filling the air before it with raindrops the size of buckshot; moving horizontally, becoming white sleet that herded the heat before it, back and back into the faces of those at the far end of the Plain.

  For some uncounted time that may have been either short or long, even Jim's dragon-sight could see nothing but a bar of whiteness at the far end of the Empty Plain. Then, slowly, it cleared.

  The shimmering figure of Morgan was gone. But as they had been lined up behind her before the whiteness came, nearly all of the front line of Cumberland's strength still sat their horses. Some of the horses had fallen, and some of their riders were even now pulling themselves free of the fallen weight upon them. But the rest had not changed, except that now the white sun, very low in the sky, backlit the surfaces of their shining armor, showing up where some of the whiteness still clung to it.

  Essentially, their line was unbroken. Those unmoved still sat their horses, shields on arms and lances still upright in boots by the riders' knees. As Jim watched, one white-frosted steel-clad figure toppled, slowly, sideways from its saddle as a statue might fall, in one piece; and lay on the ground at his horse's feet, still in a sitting position. The horsemen on either side pulled slightly ahead of him and moved their steeds together to close the gap.

  Brian beat a gloved fist on the pommel of his saddle, his bony face shining.

  " 'Fore God!" he said. "Whatever their sins, those yonder are men worth fighting!

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Gazing at the look of happiness and excitement on Brian's face, Jim came to himself enough to notice a tall, thin archer whose chest heaved and whose breath came short, who had probably just appeared from among the nearby trees. He seemed to be fidgeting with impatience to speak to Dafydd. But then the Queen of Northgales spoke again.

  Once more her voice carried. But it was not on the long, low, reaching note with which she had spoken across the length of the Plain to Morgan. This time it was high, silver and clear—but it carried all across this end of the open space.

  "Forgive me, my friends!" she called. "I have failed to help you with OUR foemen; but I have pushed Morgan le Fay and all her magicks, like those little devil-heats, from this ground. She will not come again, for this is my ground and she will not again risk public shame. But now I must take me to my castle to make myself safe against her wrath, for she is a bitter hater. But I will watch you win this day from afar, by my own ways!"

  —And she, with the bodyguard knight—who had said no word first or last, but edged closer and closer to the Originals from the moment they came—vanished.

  "James!" said Dafydd.

  Jim turned from staring at the late-afternoon-lit earth where they had stood, and saw Dafydd holding a war-arrow. Jim stared at it, also, for a second, before seeing what was different about it—its shaft was colored black.

  "We pass messages with such as these," said Dafydd, holding it up. "A man who has the message sends the arrow to the next down the line, he to the man just beyond him, and so on, until it reaches one close to me, here. This just came. Those against the Knights are advancing."

  "Advancing? Are they mad?" Brian exploded. "That formation was made for standing against attack, not making it. They will never hold their places in the formation if they start to move!" He took a step forward, shielding his eyes against the late-afternoon sun. "Damme! I cannot see from here if they are in motion or not! But how could Cumberland be that much of a damn fool? His knights advancing, maybe—though it would be throwing away some of their advantage—but once the spearmen are in place they must stay there, or all falls apart!"

  "Cousin Dafydd, can I speak?"

  It was the tall, thin bowman asking. Now, close up, Jim could see the beads of sweat on his forehead; and his chest still heaved with deep breaths. He may have been last in the message line, and needed to run—sprint would probably be a better word for it—to get here as quickly as he could; only to have to wait while others talked. He spoke, interestingly, in English.

  "Surely, Cadoc," said Dafydd.

  "The spearmen it is that have been roped together, so they cannot change their places."

  "Roped?" said Brian. "But by all Hell's fires, that wou
ld only keep them in order as long as they held their place! If they tried to move, they would trip over their spearshafts and each other. It is beyond reason, this moving, I tell you, James!"

  "Maybe, after what Northgales did, his men of coat armor are out of control," said Jim. "Maybe they started to move and he hasn't been able to stop them. They could be wild to get at the Knights."

  "It could be…" Brian's mouth was a thin line. "But if so, we must speak Pellinore immediately with word of it. That Plain tricks the eyes. They may be closer and moving faster than we think. Too much delay here, and there will not be distance enough for our steeds to reach full gallop encounter—"

  He rose on his toes, leaning to one side to look between the two Knights of the Round Table who sat their unmoving horses in front of him.

  "There he is. I will go to him myself—"

  But Jim had also spotted Pellinore by this time. He was on his white horse, facing the middle of the line of Originals; and he had already begun to speak to them.

  "—Messires, I desire your attention!" he was saying. "There is one thing above all you must keep in mind. They outnumber us, and each Knight who falls on our side hurts us more deeply than four falling on theirs. Do not, then, risk yourself foolishly, or whoever is on either side of you, by letting yourself be carried away in the heat of the melee. You will fight as you have always fought—"

  "BUT NEVER WITHOUT ME!"

  It was a great voice, out to the left of Jim and the others, ringing like a herald's long horn, loud and clear without the help of any magic to amplify or carry it; and if it was startling to Jim and Brian, it was like a thunderbolt in its effect on the thin line of Lyonesse Knights. As if tied together and jerked by the closing noose of a single cord, they rode forward, and leftward, jostling each other in attempts to face in the direction the voice had come from.

  "Not that way—this!" shouted Jim, catching Brian by the arm as he was about to follow the horses of the Knights. Jim pulled him in the opposite direction. They had been standing almost behind the last Knights on the right of the line. Now, only a little end run took them around the last horseman and into the open, where Jim could finally see the one who had interrupted Pellinore.

  —And be shocked by what he saw.

  There could be no doubt it was Arthur the King, come at last. The device on his shield, in heraldic terms, had a background that appeared as white, a dark lion rampant, crowned—a snarling, black-looking lion up on his hind legs, against the whitish background, wearing a black crown on his head. Those were Royal Arms—probably showing the red lion of England in fighting position.

  An actual crown also sat on the helm of the man who carried the shield: and forward of its brightness, high on the front of the helm, rode the gleaming shape of a dragon with wings outstretched in flying position. A Badge that was the dragon of Wales, from which came Arthur's family name of Pendragon.

  Jim had had that exact version of the King's arms described to him too many times by Brian and others of his generation who had developed a recent new interest in the Legends, not to recognize them now, in actuality. But Arthur was alone, unattended, unfollowed. The arms should have been displayed on a great banner carried behind him. But that was the least of the differences in what Jim had ever expected to see if he ever set eyes on the legendary King.

  Arthur's beard, and his hair that was visible, was pure white, but curling pugnaciously forward from chin and upper lip. The bones and frame of his body were larger than those of any man present, except Pellinore's. Over his mail shirt he wore a black-appearing jupon, a sort of long, sleeveless vest; and the chain mail over it, molding itself to his body as linked or knitted goods of any material—even metal links—might do. It showed both itself and the jupon as curving in from the broad chest to a waist as narrow as it might have been in late youth or early manhood—or that of a man whittled away by great age.

  Indeed, like his Knights, he was old beyond the meaning of ordinary years. Very, very old. Only the remembered sound of the great, ageless trumpet of his voice a moment before, and a strange fiery light in his eyes, argued with the evidence that showed itself in the rest of his appearance. Those two exceptions, and the indomitable outward curl of his mustache and beard—as if he stood ready to challenge the world—these alone were elements of Arthur as Jim might have imagined him earlier.

  But why such a great look of age? Jim's mind spun. Nearly all the Original Knights of the Legends in Lyonesse were showing signs of middle years; but none were ancient in appearance, as this man who now came riding and ordering—for his words had been no less than an order—that they not go without him.

  Then things fell into place.

  In this land of Legends, the Knights that belonged to them had lived far beyond their time. Centuries, indeed, had passed since that time when they might have lived—and died. Only Arthur had not been one of them, but elsewhere; and while perhaps he could not die while he was in the minds of those who remembered him, any more than they could—perhaps he might not have had the protection of what the others had benefited from, here in Lyonesse.

  So this was the greater of the two leaders that those of Lyonesse had wished to have with them in this moment? He who had been King and greatest in battle, as Lancelot was greatest in tournament, still sat straight in his saddle and rode strongly; but that large body of his must now weigh a full hundred pounds less than it had in his fighting prime.

  All these thoughts shot through Jim's mind like a single bright flash of silent lightning before a thunderstorm, leaving a hush, a feeling of everything holding for a moment, in doubt and waiting—and in that moment Jim noticed a small, dark shape that had been riding on the cantle of Arthur's saddle.

  It leaped down, revealing itself as a gray squirrel. It ran toward him, scampering among the hooves of the Originals' horses, covering the distance to Jim in long leaps, as if he was the only other person there; until with one jump it reached and clung to the leathers of his saddle, pulled itself on up to the pommel before him, and sat hunched there a second, looking him straight in the eye, with a dead leaf held in its mouth.

  And a voice spoke in Jim's head, a hard, final voice.

  "NEVER ASK THIS OF ME AGAIN, Jim Eckert! I told you none can see the future while meddling with the present. But I sent your messenger on—I will do no more for you or any other, hereafter!"

  He had only time to recognize Merlin's voice. Then the squirrel had dropped the dead leaf on his leg, leaped from the saddle, and was gone.

  The squirrel and Merlin's message had occupied no more than a brief moment; but Jim saw now that this had been long enough for the Knights of Lyonesse to be transformed. They had been all business so far—perhaps a little silent and grumpy between themselves—but all that was swept away now. Their attention was all on Arthur and their voices clamored—welcoming him. The fact that Arthur was only a shadow of what he must have been when they last saw him appeared to make no difference to them at all.

  So powerful was that feeling of theirs as they crowded forward, all trying to be close to Arthur but not so close that they intruded on the space around him that a King should have, that Jim found himself infected by it. He felt what must be Arthur's gaze upon him, looked back in surprise, and realized that it was only a trick of those remarkable eyes. That gaze at the same time seemed also on each of the Knights before him, individually. But as Jim watched, the King turned to face Pellinore.

  "King Pellinore"—his voice, lower now, but still resonant with that trumpet note—"will you accept me among these good Knights as one of your army?"

  "My Lord and King," said Pellinore. "They and I are yours to lead."

  "Then—" cried Arthur, once more with his full voice, his eyes blazing from one end to the other of the line of those who faced him as if they would touch with his own fire everyone there, including Jim and the others behind them, "—follow me, my Knights!"

  He reined his tall horse around to ride toward the far end of the Plain, w
here the dark line was approaching across it; and with a great shout they all charged forward behind him.

  "James!" said Brian, in a low voice, but fiercely, holding back hard on his reins as Blanchard tossed his head and danced.

  "Brian—" Jim broke off. A chill touched him inside. Something in him was telling him that this was the moment he had been warned against. Clear and sharp in his memory, he heard the words Merlin had spoken in darkness, after Jim had spoken of Brian's captivity, the first time Jim had talked to that greatest of seers and magicians.

  "If you had not told me what you did, I would not have revealed where he's kept, for if he is left there, he'll suffer a while, but live. However, if you find and free him, he may face a sorrowful death from which I fear no one, even you, can save him."

  "No, Brian!" he said—and saw Blanchard, infected with his master's emotion, was fighting the bit to go forward. "I've got a bad feeling about that. We aren't supposed to go! You mustn't go!"

  "Forgive me, James! There can be no greater moment than this! Betide me weal or woe, I must ride!"

  He loosened his reins, and Blanchard bounded ahead, chasing the wave of armored men already at a canter and breaking into a gallop, overtaking them.

  It had been no use, Jim told himself, looking emptily after this one closest friend he had made in this early century. Brian would have gone regardless—unless he had been still a prisoner of the Lady of the Knight More Bright Than Day. Being who and what he was, he could never have held himself back from this moment.

  The only possible thing to do now was try to catch up with him—for Jim to do whatever he could to get him back alive.

  Even as he thought this, Jim became aware that Gorp had not been immune to the excitement, any more than Blanchard or all the other horses. A wild excitement seemed to have taken them all, as it had the men. The second he relaxed his automatic hold on the reins, Gorp snorted and lunged forward—not swiftly, as Blanchard had, but thunderingly, like the overgrown cart-horse he actually had been before Jim had pressed him into service as a destrier.