A World Called Camelot

by Arthur H. Landis

  When I think back on it now, I am sure that not until that very moment were they fully aware of the seriousness of the situation. That I had asked them to ride at night brought it home. All were silent, their faces strained and white. I called for sviss. The others did likewise. And the quiet continued. It was as if we were in the eye of a great hurricane. Then Chitar glanced at Draslich and Draslich nodded and Chitar arose.

  “My lords all,” he began solemnly. “Bear with us for we are your liege lords. It would seem from what the Collin has told us that all that has been will be as naught, do we not follow where Marack leads. It is also true that our northland will not survive our absence from the field of Dunguring—if it survives at all. Therefore would we be there to lift our swords against the might of Om. It promises to be a battle unlike to anything our world has ever known. And it will be a place where— thinking on some future time—all who now call themselves men will curse their absence, whatever the reason, did they not go to Dunguring. So finally, noble sirs, if this be sooth—then, in the matter of the dottles and the night, what, indeed, is one more broken shibboleth?

  “That we will truly fight the might of Om should first be seen in that we dare to ride the blackness of tomorrow’s night… . For we will ride tomorrow, sirs, and on tomorrow’s night, and the day after! And in that way will we arrive for one night’s sleep, and to battle on the third day’s morning! And if we hold, as this young man prays we do, then on the morn of the fourth day will we receive the thirty thousand of Glagmaron for the battle’s end, whatever that may be. … How say you now, sirs? Stand up and give me voice!”

  If there had been clamor before, it was as nothing to the shouting and hurrahing that now arose. A great fever, akin to an almost religious frenzy, swept all the tent and the massed warriors outside. I learned later that Chitar’s twenty thousand had even marched to the river bank to hear the news from the shouted words of men strung down to the water’s edge. I knew then what holy wars were like—crusades, and the infantile idiocy of the call to “flag and country.” In Camelot’s situation, however, the stakes did have merit In effect, and even the Boos would agree with me, whatever our means— they would most certainly be structured to envision due and perilous ends… .

  I switched off the ion-beam and instantly ceased to glow. I glanced at my two sorcerers; they smiled back at me, too caught up in the emotion of it all to notice my fall from purity. I was about to cancel the null magnetic warp, too, but thought better of it Though harm would no longer come from the sorcerers, the Kaleen still loomed large on my personal horizon. I signaled to Rawl, arose, and went to my original place at the great table. Then, while Draslich and Chitar and the great lords of the two countries planned their march—a full one-hundred and twenty-thousand dottles and forty-thousand men in a thundering charge across six hundred miles of mountain, plain, and river—I told him of his lady, Caroween, of our trip to the snow-lands, and of the great fight in the courtyard of Ooolbie’s keep. I put my arm around him when I came to the loss of his lady, and my own. And well I did. For in the telling he grew hot eyed, clapped a hand to his fat-dirk, and in his anger would have sought some quarrel with me had not my presence and his reasoning prevailed.

  “Well, what now then, Collin?” he asked bluntly, his anger hardly assuaged. “Where go you now? With us? To Glagmaron? To Vuunland? Where go you, sir—for I would go there, too.”

  “You cannot”

  “Indeed?”

  “Aye, indeed! The Marackian fleet of some five hundred ships, come down from Klimpinge, should be off Ferlach’s port city of Keen now. You will ride with your hundred to join it; to tell of all that has transpired so that they will know; to see that all remains well in that the greatest unity is forged then with the fleets of Ferlach and Gheese, so that—and they should number at least two thousand, all gathered—when you appear off Corchoon four days from now, the Omnian fleet will know your strength. It is desired,” I improvised simply, “that no ship of the Omnian fleet will ever see the southern continent again.”

  “I am no sailor, and I would go with you.”

  “You cannot.”

  “Collin,” Rawl said softly, and his purple eyes against the bold saffron of his fur were deeply unhappy, “I was not born to tread the planks of ships. I would fight Vuuns and rescue Caroween and your lady. I believe you in that you did this day fight in the battle of the Veldian Pass. I would go with you to Vuunland, for I know you go there, though I know not how you go.”

  “It cannot be,” I said again.

  We were being ignored now by the very dynamics of the situation, and therefore jostled by the shouting, milling throng around us, with couriers coming and going and all the marks of a great movement beginning to develop. The two kings were no novices in the marshaling of armies. “It cannot be,” I repeated. “But I promise you one thing, good friend.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you will see me again—and that after that you will be with the lady Caroween and the princess Murie Nigaard, and Lord Hoggle-Fitz, and all the great lords of Marack on the plain of Dunguring—if all goes well.”

  “What mean you—if all goes well?”

  “Why, simply that despite what things may seem to be, I am as human and therefore as vulnerable to death as you, sir.”

  Rawl clutched my arm then, hard. His eyes gleamed fiercely, with joy of my knowledge. “Well then, Collin—see, sir, that you stay alive. We, all of us, have a stake in you. And, too, sir, mayhaps there will be much to do—even beyond this war.”

  I frowned. “And what means that?”

  “That if we win there is still a great and unknown world beyond that river-sea. And the Kaleen is there.”

  I laughed. “Let us win here first”

  We were interrupted by Rawl’s two student guards. They had heard my orders to Rawl, that he was to go with the fleet from Reen in Ferlach to Saks in Cheese, and thence to Corchoon in Kelb. They liked it not; nor did the remainder of the hundred. “Do not deny us, sir,” they begged, “the privilege of Dunguring.”

  I could not say them nay. “Cast lots,” I told them. “The ten of you who lose will accompany Sir Rawl to the fleet; the remainder will join my lords of Gheese and Ferlach for the ride to Marack and Dunguring.”

  We left them to go joyously off to gamble while we joined the two kings at the great table. I cut the null magnetic field so that where I touched but the faintest tingle would be felt. This for my continued safety, and their surprise. We shook hands. The eyes of Draslich and Chitar lifted in astonishment, and amusement… .

  “You have indeed summoned a something,” Draslich said. “If it be the Collin, I know not. But I will call you friend, withal. For I think you good liege to my brother king, Caronne.”

  Chitar mumbled similar kudos and then asked sharply, “And do you ride with us, Sir Collin?”

  “No,” I said, and stepped back a pace or two. “No, m’lords. I go to another place, and now—and then to Glagmaron. Recall? I said to you that I would bring all Fon Tweel’s thirty thousand—plus his head—to Dunguring.”

  Draslich took my cue. He asked, smiling, “You make as if to leave us now?”

  “That I do, m’lords—with your permissions.”

  “Or without them.” Chitar grinned. “Nay, nay!” He raised a muscular arm while laughing. “Let the deliberations of kings not delay you, oh Collin… . Just do your promised thing, and bring us the thirty thousand—else, I warn you, sir, you will answer to me when next I see you.”

  I bowed deeply, saluting all with the intricacies of sweep, swirl, and dip. Then I pressed the ion-beam to glow again, walked with Sir Rawl Fergis to my fat and wheeeing dottle (he had ordered a dottle saddled for himself), vaulted upon her fur-cloaked back, and bid the gathered throng within and without the tent a hearty farewell.

  In a sense what followed was like running a gauntlet Though the long double line to the edge of the cooking tents brandished no clubs, they did hold swords and spears alof
t, which they then brought crashing down upon their shields in thunderous cadence. The cheering was deafening, too. And I kept my arm raised in salute as I rode, my armor all ablaze.

  At one point a herd-warden—by the insignia upon his jupon—yelled over the clamor all around him: “Where did you find my lovely dottle, Zelpha, Great Collin?” ” Twas she who searched for me,” I shouted back. “Then keep close rein, withal,” he cautioned loudly. “For like my wife, she tends to stray.”

  The ensuing roar of laughter was followed by more “hails” and “aves,” and Rawl and I continued on. At the edge of the tents, and therefore at the edge of darkness, we halted. “I would leave you here, Sir Fergis,” I told him. “Just like that, m’lord?” “Exactly.”

  “So let it be—if we meet again at Dunguring.” “We will,” I said. “And mayhaps before. I promise you.” We shook hands and I turned and left him there; and beyond him all the others who had ringed the fires to watch.

  As I kneed my dottle, Zelpha, toward the darkness of the grassy fields and the small hill beyond, I damped the ion-beam so that I would begin to fade; so that in their eyes I would now slowly disappear… .

  Minutes later, at the top of the hill, I dismounted and gave that overly friendly Zelpha a rump pat to send her on her way. I was not surprised when she swiftly turned her head to give me a quick blubbery kiss such as Pug-Boos oft receive from dottles. Then she clicked her heels and ran off to the herd. … I wiped my face with the hem of my surcoat and smiled.

  I slept in the starship, insulated from Pug-Boo probes. They had suggested one thing; that thing I would do. Still I was not about to accept interference from them, on any level—or from my cohorts on the Deneb-3 either. I was tired and I slept well. Toward morning, since controls had been set, I was gently massaged by bed-fingers. More, I was bathed and oiled with a healing flesh unguent, so that when I actually did get up, it was as a phoenix from one’s proper fire. Erstwhile Terran fanatics would call it being born again. I, too, clicked my heels, like dainty Zelpha, and went to breakfast.

  It was still night. Vuunland was next—Vuunland and Murie. And now that all else had been done, I allowed myself to think of her; of that elfish, piquant, great-eyed face; of that small body that was so fantastically feminine that even now, were I to dwell upon it, I would develop one damn large pain in my gut… . “All right! Shield-maiden!” I exclaimed aloud to the control panel. “Your bold and brilliant lover is on his way.”

  As I plummeted south across the night side of Fregis-Camelot, I seemed to follow the path of Ripple, the second and smaller moon. And it, in turn, seemed to trail the wake of Capil, the larger and brighter.

  Again I had time. Requested data about Vuuns and Vuunland had been given me in the instant tape from the Deneb-3. Though the creatures had long been thought extinct by those of the northern countries, Watchers had known of their continued existence through pirates, prisoners, and the few Selig tradesmen who dared the sea to the northern cities. One had but to go to where they once held sway, and that in the great mountains to the east of Om, itself. Thrice two thousand miles the distance was. How fast, I wondered, did a great Vuun fly?

  I dropped low in the protective darkness to skim the waters of the river-sea. I passed over many hundreds of tropical islands, then a calm; then a raging storm with the visible fury of great phosphorescent waves.

  Then I was over the continental landmass of Kerch, and beyond that country to jungle and high savannah and teeming river life such as was not listed in Watcher data, except for mountain Yorns. Fregis-Camelot possessed a myriad of life-forms, of which the great Vuuns were but one.

  Om began with the high ground, the plains, and the lofty mountains in chain on chain. I regretted that I had no time for all that night-bathed grandeur. My goal was the easternmost alps called lit on our maps and matrix. There were only trackless wastes below. Indeed, other than the few paths from Omnian cities to the northern ports of Kerch and Selig, across thousands of miles of plain and jungle, the southern continent, like the north, was virgin territory. I had time to wonder what truly lay in all those massive, forested wastes that was of Camelot-Fregis alone—and not derived of the tragic refugees of Fomalhaut’s Alpha. …

  The Vuuns, I had learned, were telepaths which, when you think on it, should have told us something. Whatever. I was keyed to contact with them. I slowed the starship so that to ground view I would seem as a floating, baubled facsimile of St. Elmo’s fire. … I relaxed wholly in the encompassing contour chair before the ship’s screen, letting my mind be open, receptive to all that might come. Though I had tried this once before, thinking the Pug-Boos would seize the opportunity for contact, nothing had happened. I thought now that it would be ludicrous indeed if those same Pug-Boos chose to intervene at this point. Even the Kaleen might join in the hookup, were he aware that such existed. But he or “it” did not, and I had no fear that he would. Instead I received the first glimmerings, half-formed pictures and disconnected thoughts of lesser Fregisian creatures; for all simple animals in their formative, evolutionary years, have the potential for telepathy. But finally, to my S.O.S. of, “I would speak to you! I would speak td you!” there came an answer.

  “Who speaks! Who on all this world save us, and that which lies in the tomb of Hish, has the power to speak thusly?” The projected thought-words were icy cold, insistent They formed an alien web to seize upon my mind so that I felt a sudden, abysmal, soul-choking fear. I didn’t reply at once. Instead I ceased my probe and listened, regaining composure. Again the question: “Who speaks to us? Who speaks to us who have known the world forever? Say again, and now—and know that your life will not be forfeit.”

  I then said boldly, “I speak. And I would meet with you, and would you tell me how and where.”

  “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I am one of those of which you are informed. But I am different. I would have council with you. I would not, nor could not, harm you; nor you myself. But there is that which you should know which only I can tell.”

  “How know we that you cannot harm us?”

  “I am a man of the northern world. Can such harm you? Look now at me and all that I truly am.” I then projected a self-image so they would know. “How can I harm you?”

  There was a great silence which seemed to last and last, so that I became afraid they had broken contact. “Hear me!” I said again, peremptorily. “Hear me! I would speak with you.”

  “Oh, simple man,” the thought came through and strongly. “What would you say to us who have lived forever? Why do you come at all? Well we know that we are the horrors of your dreams, the dragons of your play in childhood. What want you now of us, who have brought you naught but death before?”

  “I would speak,” I said calmly, “of that which lies in Hish, and of what it plans for you. For though it be true that I cannot harm you—no Vuun now living will survive the thing with which you now enjoin, if you continue in your path.”

  “You are aflight!” The thoughts came again, and almost in excitement. “We see you as a glowing thing in darkling skies. Why should we not now strike you down, and end our newfound fear of you?”

  “You could not do that.”

  “Then you can harm us.”

  “No. I cannot, for I am prevented by a force stronger than yourselves. But that in Hish, for which you now do service, can truly bring you naught but death.”

  “And so have we begun to think. Yea. We will see you. And do you harm us, we have two of yours that likewise will be harmed.”

  “I know this,” I said bluntly. “Now through my eyes I see the following—and it is for you to guide me.” And I told them of serrated chains of mountains and chasms, all covered with snow, since it was winter in this southern clime. They then gave me directions so that I selected one great valley with giant conifers at its bottom, and implanted with stunted, twisted growths of evergreens on its precipitous slopes and craggy ridges. I went full up its length to where white water sp
rang from a high precipice, beyond which lay another, tighter valley of barren blasted rock and night cliffs. In contrast to the wintry white of snow and gray-white granite, the great surrounding peaks were volcanic. From them poured an empurpled mass of flame, so that the dawn sky was laced with a kaleidoscope of hellish colors.

  I was told to enter this shadow valley, which I did. At its farthest end there arose great cliffs to the height of the final base of volcanic peaks. These, other than their glowing cones —from which I was pleased to see there came no lava—were snow-girt and perma-iced. Three quarters of the way up the sheer black cliffs (some six thousand feet) at the valley’s end, were the mouths of great caves. These were indented somewhat in that before them was a ledge; full circle for some ten miles. To left and right were other cliffs and ledges and caves, so that I knew that here indeed were the homes of Vuuns.

  “Where are you, then?” I mentally asked. “Of all these caves, I know not which-—and further—he or those with whom I talk must have authority for decisions. For in what I do there is little time. I would not waste it idly.”