“Chivvying them?” The other gnomes regarded him in mild alarm.
“A good poke up the backside with a sharp stick will work wonders.”
This evoked an image so similar to the gnomes’ traditional fear of being roasted on skewers that the subject had to be changed at once. The gnomes hurried out of the cave, leaving the offensive words echoing behind. For once, the sight of the Gooligog emerging from the trees was welcome. He stamped irritably toward them, birds circling low over his head.
“If the shytes only feed on carrion, why are they following the Gooligog?” asked Pan triumphantly.
“The Gooligog’s time must be near,” the Miggot explained. “The stench of death is upon him.”
The Gooligog joined them, kicking aside a shyte that hopped before him like a pallbearer. “This is a macabre situation, Miggot,” he shouted, “and I want something done about it. One of the bastards landed on my head this morning. By the Sword of Agni, they’re worse than that bloody housemouse of mine!”
“I thought you’d come to terms with the housemouse, Father,” said Fang. “And anyway, wasn’t he drowned when your burrow flooded out?”
“He escaped and followed me, the faithful bastard. He was with me last night.” The shytes were not the only carrion-eating creatures in gnomedom. Elderly gnomes traditionally kept housemice in their dwellings, to clean up when they died. “I saw him standing there in the moonlight, trembling,” said the Gooligog. “He’s getting old too. I’m going to outlast the brute, mark my words. But not unless you call off these bloody shytes, Miggot. A while back I sat down under a tree to contemplate, and the buggers were all around me in an instant! Have you ever smelled a shyte’s breath?” He lashed out with a gnarled stick, catching a bird squarely in the rib cage and bowling it squawking across the clearing, shedding feathers.
“I don’t think my father’s going to die yet, Miggot,” said Fang mildly. “He seems very spry to me. The shytes have got it wrong.”
“They know,” said Bart o’ Bodmin wisely. “They know.”
“The laws of nature,” murmured Spector. “And the balance of life. The moles are born, the Memorizer dies.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet,” snapped the Gooligog, “and I’ll thank you not to anticipate the happy event, Miggot. So where are these moles? People are getting impatient back in the forest.”
“You see those holes?” The Miggot pointed. “That’s where the moles are. You’re welcome to go down and fetch them, Gooligog. Bart tells us kindness will bring them out.”
“It would be unwise to follow a flesh-eating creature down its hole,” Spector warned him. “I can visualize an occasion when it might not respond to kindness.”
“Thongs are the only way,” Bart agreed.
The ensuing discussion lasted until nightfall, by which time the gnomes had made their way back to the blasted oak. Probably the only practical suggestion came from Fang: “We could wait until the moles abandon their holes, and then move in.”
“Rebuild gnomedom at the whim of burrowing animals?” cried Lady Duck. “What kind of credibility does that give us in the forest?”
“We must discuss priorities,” said Spector the Thinking Gnome. “That would be the logical thing to do next, with only two moles. Then, when we’ve found a way to put the moles to work, we will have a plan of action all mapped out.”
“It seems to me,” said the Miggot, “that the first burrow to be dug should be some kind of community gathering place.”
“Absolutely!” shouted Clubfoot.
There was a murmur of agreement and the gnomes found themselves nodding at one another wisely. It was several seconds before the first screams of dissent were heard.
“Nonsense!” cried Elmera.
“Forget it, Miggot!” roared Lady Duck. “If you see rebuilding Tom Grog’s disgusting drinking hole as a major priority, then you’re a more selfish and stupid gnome than I thought. We need places to live, not stinking burrows where male gnomes drink themselves senseless!”
Tom Grog, a polite and pleasant gnome, said quickly, “You’re welcome at the Disgusting anytime, Lady Duck. So is Elmera, even. If more females used my establishment, it would be a much happier place. It’s hard for a gnome to be doing his job according to the rules of his guild, and yet find half of gnomedom against him.”
“I never mentioned the Disgusting,” said the Miggot, aggrieved. “By the Great Grasshopper, why does every discussion come back to beer?”
“That was what you meant,” said Elmera. “I should know, Miggot. I’ve lived with you for countless years, God knows why. You don’t fool me.”
The discussion petered out without any decisions being reached, which was the norm for gnomish meetings. In gloomy silence, the gnomes prepared for another night in the open.
“Tomorrow,” said the Miggot after a while, “Jack will furnish us with rabbits, and we’ll seek out our dwelling sites. For myself, I prefer this spot.” Lying on his back, he gazed up at the charred branches of the blasted oak. Shytes perched there, waiting for the Gooligog’s eyes to close.
“The giants ate the rabbits,” said Jack quickly.
They considered this disturbing news, then Lady Duck said, “If they could eat rabbits, they could eat anything.”
“I have no fear,” said Pong the Intrepid, “for the Gnome from the North will watch over me.”
“Amen,” murmured Bart o’ Bodmin.
“The Gnome from the North,” echoed Jack o’ the Warren.
“You’ll have to tell me all about this Gnome from the North sometime,” said King Bison, “because right now I have plenty of fear. I could do with someone to watch over me too.”
One by one, the gnomes fell asleep.
4
THE SWORD IN THE ROCK
NORTH OF THE FOREST OF MARA ZION, PENTOR ROCK emerges jagged from the smooth dome of the moor like a hatching dinosaur. It is a bleak spot, where the winds blow unobstructed from the far side of the Atlantic. Sheep and ponies roam the sere grass, long-haired against the freezing winters, and when they face the wind, their coats stream flat against their bodies as though combed. When the snow falls heavily, as it does once every eleven years, most of the animals die. The children of the survivors grow just a little bit more hardy, as though Nature is trying to do better next time. Natural selection applies on the moor, and the Miggot of One would have approved.
One spring day in the year of our story, a gnome stood examining the base of the rock. Coincidentally, he was the cousin of the Miggot. His expression was gloomy and his attention was divided, because from time to time he would glance apprehensively over his shoulder.
“Hello, little gnome!”
“Aaargh!” The gnome wheeled around with a shout of terror.
The monstrous and unexpected apparition was clearly female. It was dressed in a long black cloak, black-haired and white-faced like a figure glimpsed by moonlight. The beauty of the face was unearthly.
“Don’t be frightened.” The voice was gentle. “I’m not going to harm you. My name is Morgan le Fay. What’s yours?”
“H-H-H …”
“Hector?”
“H-H-Hal. Hal o’ the Moor.”
“And what are you doing all alone at this windswept spot, Hal?”
“I’m looking for my cave.”
“Is your cave hard to find?”
“Impossible, it seems,” said Hal unhappily, encouraged by the friendly tones of the giant. “It was here a fortnight ago, before the flood. But then it disappeared. That horrible old giant they call Merlin crawled into it and took it with him somehow.”
“Oh, Merlin!” Morgan le Fay laughed. “I’ve been wondering where he’d gotten to. So he’s inside this rock, is he? I always knew something like that would happen to him.”
“Well, I wish he’d come out, and let me have my dwelling back.”
“I may be able to arrange that for you.” She took a gold-capped wand from beneath her cloak and tapped on the
rock. “Open, Pentor,” she said. Nothing happened. The wind blew as before, whistling among the fissures of the rock. A few ponies ambled toward them, munching. “What’s gone wrong here?” murmured Morgan.
“You need to do more than tap on it,” Hal ventured. “You need a work party with hammers and chisels fashioned by the Accursed Gnomes. Gnomes are excellent stonemasons. We can make things from stone without disobeying the Kikihuahua Examples. Chipping at stone doesn’t count as working a malleable substance. It’s allowed. Anyway,” said Hal quickly, realizing he was getting onto philosophical quicksands, “you need time and patience to break open a rock this size. You won’t do it by tapping with a stick.”
“This is a wand, you little fool.” Morgan’s disguise slipped for an instant.
“Well, it’s obviously not a very good one.”
She regarded him speculatively. There was a great temptation simply to put her foot on him and, with a grinding motion, fertilize the short grass. It would be an excusable act and probably for the ultimate good of life on Earth. But Morgan was a Dedo, or Finger of Starquin, and able to resist earthly temptations. “Tell me, Hal,” she said sweetly, “exactly how Merlin got stuck in this rock.”
“Well, he came up here with Nyneve. It was getting late and he wanted to rest. He crawled into the cave and tried to get Nyneve to go in there with him. She wouldn’t. The moons were up and she wanted—”
“The moons? Of course! This all took place before the happentracks merged.”
“There were three moons, then they became two.”
“And Merlin disappeared just about the time one of the moons did?”
“That’s right. He—”
“Be quiet, gnome. I have to think.” And in the way that only Dedos could, she cast her mind into the past, seeing separate happentracks merge backward into a widening stream of flowing Time. She saw the grasses rise as the wind abated. She saw the sheep and ponies in ghostly multiplicity; the moor smudged with their possible courses and positions; all of them trotting backward, converging, becoming more solid. The sun was easy to backcast, as were the moons. The clouds and the rain she could divine by the soil and the plants. Morgan le Fay concentrated, slowed Time, and the sky darkened.
“The moons are back,” whispered Hal. “What have you done?”
It was evening and the three moons he’d known all his life were back in the sky. Pentor Rock bulked huge and black before them. Two ghostly figures moved near the rock. Their lips moved, but Hal could hear no words. One of the figures—an old man with a long beard—dropped to his knees and crawled into a cave.
The air tingled with an electric tension, as though a thunderstorm were brewing.
“Now!” said Morgan, tapping the Rock with her wand.
Two moons winked out. Night turned into day. The figure standing beside the Rock disappeared.
“My dwelling!” cried Hal. The hole at the base of the Rock had returned. He ran forward.
“Wait,” Morgan cautioned him. “All right, Merlin,” she called. “You can come out now!”
Spluttering and grumbling, the ancient Paragon emerged from the cave. Surprisingly, another creature emerged at the same time: a beast of the most disgusting aspect, hairless with batlike ears. It bolted, snuffling, into the night.
“Can you imagine it?” Merlin expostulated. “Two weeks alone with that brute? The cave was so damned small that whatever way I set up the hibernation field, that stinking bastard was inside it with me. Why did you do this to me, Nyneve?”
He stood painfully, rubbing his legs and blinking. Then his eyes became accustomed to the daylight, and he stared. “It isn’t Nyneve,” he said.
“No, it’s me, Merlin,” said the Dedo. “Your sister, Morgan. Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
The old Paragon’s jaw had dropped slackly agape. He hitched it up and said quietly, “Perhaps I was better off in the cave, after all.”
“If I hadn’t come along, you’d have been in there for thirty thousand years. And according to my calculations, this rock would then be destroyed, and you along with it. Pull yourself together and take me to Avalona, you old fool. Terrible happenings are in the ifalong, and somehow they must be forestalled!”
Happentracks may branch and happentracks may join, but the little cottage deep in the forest of Mara Zion never changed. The slate roof was thick with moss, and the cracks in the stone walls were home to a hundred varieties of plant life. Insects dwelt in there, too, eating one another and any plants that took their fancy. They could make no impact on the timbers of the cottage, though. These were black with age and as hard as the stone itself. They spanned the interior and angled up to support the roof, where huge spiders prowled.
It was early evening when Nyneve pushed open the creaking door and entered. Avalona sat by the fireside in a high-backed chair, eyes closed as she rummaged through the ifalong in search of unsuitable happentracks. The fire had burned out hours before.
“We went to the village,” said Nyneve.
After a long pause Avalona returned to the present. “What was the feeling there?”
“It was so frustrating! They simply refused to accept Arthur. Ned Palomides even challenged him, knowing Arthur wouldn’t be so unfair as to draw Excalibur on him. The whole thing’s a big joke to them. They will not acknowledge that he’s the Arthur of the legends, traveled back in Time.”
“I wouldn’t expect them to. Why should they?”
“He’s a great man, Avalona!”
“No man is great. Only Starquin is great.”
“Well, Arthur’s pretty damned good!”
“Give it time, Nyneve. The nearby ifalong is already decided. Arthur will be accepted and will become king of England.”
“I wish I could see some sign of that happening. Just a glimmering of respect from those bloody peasants; that’s all I ask.”
“And what does Arthur ask?”
She shrugged in frustration. “Nothing, it seems. He’s quite satisfied with things as they are.”
“That’s because he does not know the full extent of his destiny. To him it is nothing—just a story told by a young girl with a gift. He doesn’t believe you any more than the villagers do. And that’s the way it must be. Arthur’s future must be allowed to develop naturally, and as time goes by you will find that the legend and the man become indistinguishable. By the time he is king, the existence of the legend will have lent an inevitability to events that will make his path much easier.”
“And who will be queen?”
“Guinevere. You know that.”
“Gwen from Camyliard? But that was just a part of the story!”
“If Arthur is to be king, then logic ought to tell you that Guinevere will be his queen.”
Over my dead body, said Nyneve, but she said it to herself. “Can’t Arthur stay here with us?” she asked. “It’s cold at night in that tent of his. And it doesn’t do much for his image in the village, living rough like that.”
“He must be seen to be an ordinary human, free from supernatural influence. If he lives with us, he will become associated with us in the minds of the villagers.”
“But he already has Excalibur. How supernatural can you get?”
“Excalibur is not supernatural. It simply spans two happentracks. Its user appears invincible because his doppelganger in the other happentrack has already seen the blow coming, and has parried it. Excalibur operates slightly in advance of events on our happentrack that’s all.”
“Oh. And I really thought it was magic.”
“Magic is relative to knowledge, Nyneve. If you … Hush. What was that?”
The sound of voices came to them; one shrill, a reply in gruff, cracked tones.
“This is one happentrack I had not foreseen,” said Avalona.
The door burst open.
“Morgan le Fay!” exclaimed Nyneve.
“And Merlin,” said Merlin. “Thought you’d gotten rid of me, didn’t you, Nyneve!”
“I had nothing to do with you getting trapped in that cave. It was a convergence of happentracks!”
“Oh, I’m sure it was. Pretty convenient convergence, if you ask me. I suppose you had nothing to do with the moon-dog that got trapped in there with me.”
“Be quiet, you two,” said Avalona coldly. “Morgan—why are you here?”
“Have you’ lost the knack of reading the ifalong?”
“I have not. I did not include you in my calculations.”
“There’s a lot of things you didn’t include. Like the destruction of your Rock, the death of Starquin and all of us!”
“Yes, I foresaw that. I am working to prevent it from occurring.”
“I don’t see much in the way of preventive measures around here!”
“Calm yourself, Morgan. You are a Dedo.”
“Emotions can be very satisfying. When things go wrong, it helps to stamp and scream and blame something. Then you can reassess the problem with a clear mind. But that’s beside the point. The point is that your Rock will be destroyed in approximately thirty thousand Earth years from now, by humans, just at the time Starquin is approaching on the corresponding psetic line. That line will cease to exist—and Starquin with it. And you, Avalona. And I.”
“It is my Rock and my problem, and I am dealing with it.”
It was the nearest thing to irritation that Nyneve had ever heard in Avalona’s voice. She watched in fascination as the two Dedos faced each other. Even Merlin was quiet, standing in a dark corner and watching events with apprehension.
“I see absolutely no sign of action at all!” Morgan said. “Humans will destroy your Rock, right? So the sensible precaution is to destroy the humans first. Yet they still exist. The countryside is alive with them. You even have gnomes now, it seems. Dirty little devils.”
“I propose to eliminate the danger to Starquin with a minimum of adjustment to the ifalong, Morgan. There is little to be gained by rash and drastic action. Existing life-forms can be allowed to continue, where appropriate. Skillful manipulation is the correct course to follow.”
“The dangers are too great.”
“Not according to my calculations. If everything goes according to plan, Starquin—and ourselves—will continue to exist on 87.362 percent of happentracks at that point in the ifalong.”
King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) Page 7
