“Something else might go wrong,” said Merlin hopefully. “They’re inquisitive little people, the gnomes.”
“It has been an inconvenience, having the gnomes living on so close a happentrack,” admitted Avalona, “but that problem will soon be turned to advantage. The gnomes have certain attributes we can use.”
There was a dreadful significance in the words. “What’s going to happen to them?” asked Nyneve, her heart suddenly pounding.
“We will soon merge happentracks with them.”
“Merge happentracks? Avalona, how could you do a thing like that? You know they’re my friends!”
“I have no power in the matter, Nyneve. Happentracks are a physical phenomenon beyond the control of Starquin. You might as well ask him to put out the sun.”
Nyneve was crying. “Those poor little people! They won’t stand a chance!”
“Then perhaps it’s up to you to persuade the humans into a more civilized code of behavior, Nyneve. I’m sure we’d all be better off as a result.”
“Damn you, Avalona.” Nyneve’s eyes were hard and bright. “You could do something. You just don’t care, do you?”
“We’ll go on a storytelling journey, that’s what we’ll do,” said Merlin, alarmed by the hostility. “We’ll spread the good word all over the land, you and I, Nyneve.”
She glanced at him. “I’d even do that, if I thought it would help.” She rose from the table, leaving her smoked ham and eggs virtually untouched. “I’m going out for some air. It stinks in here.”
“You will not leave,” said Avalona.
Foolishly, Nyneve looked at Avalona as she was about to make her heated reply, and was caught in the thrall of the stone-cold eyes. Her feet refused to carry her to the door.
“After all,” babbled Merlin placatingly, “it hasn’t happened yet. You have time to warn them.”
“You will not warn them,” said Avalona. “I will not tolerate revelations of the ifalong by Nyneve. It’s bad enough that you can’t keep your own mouth shut around the village, Merlin.”
The old wizard dropped his eyes and mumbled. Nyneve stood hypnotized, her body unable to obey her mind. Avalona ate, only because her body needed fuel. And, unconsciously, her limitless mind began to piece together possibilities in search of the answer to the single problem of retaining the memory of Camelot. The recent remark of Nyneve’s came into juxtaposition with an ancient visit she had made to an adjacent happentrack.
Yes, the gnomes had been useful before, when they had created Morble. At that time she had taught them the human language, perhaps anticipating an emergency such as this. So many of Avalona’s acts were unconscious, bred of her vast knowledge of present and future.
The gnomes, she recalled, had another talent. As well as being able to create life-forms at will, they could carry memory genetically. And before long, they would arrive in this happentrack. …
“You may sit,” she told Nyneve.
Nyneve slumped heavily into her chair and stared at Avalona, heavy-lidded, feeling as though she’d slept for hours.
“If it makes you any happier,” said Avalona, “I can assure you that an acceptable number of gnomes will survive their encounter with your race.”
“Acceptable number? What’s an acceptable number?” Nyneve’s fists were clenched in her lap.
“Enough to ensure the continued existence of the species as a whole.”
“I’ve heard some cold-blooded things in this cottage, Avalona, but that’s the worst!”
“Human ethics are of no consequence. Eat your breakfast, Nyneve. I have work for you today.” Avalona returned to her meditation for a while, then appeared to come to a decision. She stood abruptly, and the others glanced at her in alarm.
“Nyneve,” she said, “You will now go to the valley where the sword lies, and this is what you will do. …”
After Nyneve had gone, she said to Merlin, “Go to the village, find Tristan and bring him to the lake.”
“Why?”
“Merlin, you are a part of all this whether you like it or not. Do as I say.”
“I just thought,” mumbled the old wizard, “I might be able to help more if I knew what the hell was going on. It does nothing for my image in the village, being in the dark. They expect me to know things.” His voice grew stronger as he developed his theme. “I mean, I’d look pretty stupid, wouldn’t I, telling Tristan to come to the lake, and him asking ‘Why?’ and me saying, ‘I have no bloody idea, Tristan. Perhaps it looks like a fine day for a swim.’”
“All right, Merlin,” said Avalona after a moment’s thought, “you may tell him he is to receive the sword Excalibur. But that is all you may tell him. And make sure he keeps it to himself. I don’t want the whole village at the lakeside.”
“It will be done,” said Merlin, throwing a stiff military salute, a habit he’d picked up during his ifalong peeping, which, he thought, came as close to annoying Avalona as anything could.
He departed, and after a while Avalona left, too, picking her way along the forest paths until she came to the shore of the great lake. There was an ancient boat here, pulled up on the pebble beach under the canopy of an overhanging willow. Avalona rested there for a while, considering happentracks.
And before long a young gnome called Fang, who had been astute enough to discover the sword Excalibur, entered those considerations. Some people say that coincidences are caused by kinks in adjacent happentracks. It was quite a coincidence that Fang, at that very moment, was emerging into Avalona’s happentrack less than a hundred yards from where she stood.
The tingling sensation lasted while Fang pulled himself out of the water, then it was gone. He found himself sitting on a grassy bank, looking over a broad lake cupped in tree-covered hillsides. A gentle wind ruffled the surface of the water and chilled the skin through his wet clothes. Leaning forward, he peered down into the lake, but saw only bare pebbles and a tiny fish darting by. There was no way back.
His world had gone. He was sitting in the world of giants.
And any moment a giant might come by, and grab him, and thrust a skewer through him preparatory to roasting.
“By the Great Grasshopper,” he whispered, “what have I done?” Guilt and disgrace in gnomedom was infinitely preferable to death in this awful world. There was a bush nearby. He crawled into it and curled into a shivering ball of fear. How could he get back to gnomedom? The leaves began to rustle with his trembling and he tried to force himself to be still, and think. But a new fear intruded on his thoughts: dogs. Giants had dogs—he’d seen them in the umbra. Although there were wolves in gnomedom, they were comparatively rare in the forest of Mara Zion. But the giants’ dogs teemed in the umbra, sniffing and snapping and urinating against trees.
He heard a sniff, quite close, and stifled a yell of terror. A dog. There was a dog loping around the lakeside, its muzzle dripping saliva, hungry for the taste of gnome. Then the sniff came again, but this time it was followed by a clearly giantish snort, and the sound of a mammoth expectoration.
“Do you have to behave like a pig, Merlin?” roared a voice, very close.
Merlin. Nyneve had mentioned Merlin on many occasions. He was the old fool she lived with, she said—although how anyone as powerful as a giant could be called an old fool was beyond his power of imagination. Fear seemed to have frozen his sense of priorities and he found himself trying to recollect old fools he had known. He came up with the Gooligog.
Dismissing the irrelevant thought, he attempted to pull himself together before he started howling with fear. Carefully he constructed a plan of action. First he would get some idea of his whereabouts. Then he would find Nyneve and ask her about the Sharan. She must be somewhere nearby, with the sword Excalibur. He pushed his head through the twigs and peered out.
There was a boat on the lake.
It appeared from behind a promontory and glided slowly along the shore toward him. The morning sun touched it, illuminating brightwork around t
he bow, but the single figure who pulled at the oars seemed to reject the light, appearing black and impenetrable.
The giantish voices roared out again, somewhere close behind him.
“Who’s that?”
“They’ve seen me!” thought Fang, but the other speaker’s words reassured him.
“It’s the Lady of the Lake.”
“It looks more like that weird woman you live with, Merlin. What’s she doing here?”
“She will give you the magic sword Excalibur.”
“The what? What do you mean, ‘magic sword’? Do you really think I believe in that stuff, old man? You’re not dealing with a child, you know!”
“I wouldn’t take that line with the Lady of the Lake, if I were you, Tristan. You must treat her with respect, and do as she says.”
“Why not give me the damned sword yourself? Why make such an issue out of it?”
“Listen, Tristan,” snapped Merlin. “Do you want the sword or not? I can easily call the whole thing off!”
“I told you days ago I needed a sword. Any half-decent sword would do. It was just a chance remark—I didn’t expect to be taken up on it. I didn’t ask for secrecy and mumbo-jumbo. My sword broke and I needed another. It was as simple as that.”
“You must have the magic sword Excalibur because it will protect you in the struggle to come. You are destined for greatness, Tristan, and in due course you will become king of all Cornwall. You will command great armies and win numerous battles, and—”
“Merlin!” An old woman in a black robe, whom Fang recognized as the witch that Nyneve lived with, was stepping ashore from her boat. “How many times have I told you to stop this stupid prophesying,” she continued, regarding the wizard coldly. “I cannot tolerate you trying to distort the ifalong in this manner. Stick to the here and now, and leave the future to me.”
Merlin muttered rebelliously into his beard while Avalona turned her attention to Tristan. “I’m going to do you a favor, young man. You will have a sword like no man has had before. With this sword in your hand you will never be defeated in battle, and while you are wearing the scabbard you will never be wounded.”
“Now who’s prophesying?” said Merlin.
Tristan had other concerns. “That’s all very well, but what guarantees do I have? Not that I’m doubting your word,” he added hastily, recollecting Avalona’s reputation, “but you must admit it’s a lot for a fellow to swallow. And will the power of the sword fade in time? It could lead me to take on the Baron Menheniot’s army single-handed, and then die on me like a snuffed candle. All I really wanted,” he said plaintively,. “was an ordinary sword, without a name. It’s stupid for a sword to have a name. Horses have names, not swords.”
“And dogs,” said Merlin. “Don’t forget dogs.”
“Dogs have names,” agreed Tristan. “I have a dog called Ralph. And Torre has a dog called Sniffer. We’d look pretty damned silly if we had swords called Ralph and Sniffer, wouldn’t we?”
Avalona ignored him. “Take my boat and row out into the middle of the lake, and the sword will be yours.”
“Row out?” repeated Tristan, puzzled. “Is this some kind of a test, or something?”
“Don’t ask questions. Do as I say.”
Tristan looked at them both, shrugged, climbed into the boat and began to row with splashy, inexpert strokes, weaving a zigzag course toward the middle of the lake.
Avalona frowned in concentration.
Fang, watching with absorbed interest from his bush, gasped with amazement.
Some distance from the shore an arm rose from the waves, holding a glittering sword. The arm was slender, clad in white samite that appeared to be perfectly dry. Tristan, glancing over his shoulder, missed a stroke in his astonishment. His oar skipped over the surface and he fell backward into the bottom of the boat, legs waving in the air. A cry of pain carried across the water.
Merlin uttered a delighted cackle. “Not exactly a memorable image to carry into the ifalong, my dear.”
“You are a fool, Merlin, like all Paragons. Tristan is the one who will carry the image, and Tristan is hardly likely to mention, or even remember, the manner of his oarmanship. Now you know why I didn’t want the villagers here. I didn’t want any emphasis placed on unimportant details. What humans must remember is the arm and the sword. Even the scabbard is an anticlimax, and for that reason I have brought it under my robe and will give it to Tristan before we leave. Nothing must detract from the arm, the sword and the lake.”
And it was indeed a magical sight. Fang watched from his bush, enchanted, forgetting everything else as the young giant approached the sword, overshot it, back-paddled frantically and, leaning perilously far out, managed to seize the sword by the hilt and recover his seat in the boat. He began to row back.
“And so we complete another chapter in our plan to save the life of Starquin, the almighty Five-in-One,” observed Merlin dryly. “I hope he will appreciate the work we shall be undertaking over the next few millennia.”
Avalona’s voice was like ice. “You forget that I am a part of Starquin myself, Merlin. And as for the work, I intend to ensure that you are well out of it, even if I have to shut you in a cave for a few centuries. I cannot afford any mistakes.”
“Huh!” Merlin hobbled off, leaving Avalona staring after him thoughtfully.
Fang, huddled in his bush, began to shiver again. And when the leaves parted and the face of the witch appeared, gazing at him impassively, he gave a yelp of terror.
“You are not afraid of me,” she said.
“I … I think I am,” stammered Fang.
“I am not familiar with gnomes,” said Avalona thoughtfully. “They are not of my flesh. Why are you afraid of me?”
Fang tried to pull himself together. You are … you are …”
“Say what you like. It is impossible to offend me.”
“Perhaps that’s the problem,” said Fang bravely. “You don’t seem to have any feelings. You’re like a fogdog, only worse. If you’ll forgive me saying so.”
A vast hand reached out and plucked him from the bush. “Come to me, little fellow,” said the witch sweetly. “You’re Fang, Nyneve’s friend aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m her foster mother. Do you really think Nyneve would want to stay with me if I were as unfeeling as you think? No, of course she wouldn’t. Nyneve’s a spirited girl, and she does what pleases her.”
“That’s right,” agreed Fang. It made sense. Avalona’s hand was warm and her face, though huge, was oddly beautiful. He began to relax. He felt safe and protected.
“So you’re not afraid of me anymore?” And this time it was a polite question instead of a flat statement.
“Why do you always wear black, though?”
“I don’t, Fang. I never wear black.” And it was true. It seemed he’d seen her in the umbra many times, and she’d worn a variety of colors. Today, for instance, she was wearing a scarlet dress with white trim. It suited her dark, lustrous hair.
“I don’t know why I thought that,” said Fang.
“You’ll never see me wearing black. And you’ll never be frightened of me.”
“Of course I won’t.” Fang smiled up at her. “Why should I?”
“There was an occasion when another gnome was frightened of me, quite unjustifiably,” she whispered. “He is long dead, but his memories live on, as is the way with gnomes. Should you ever encounter these memories, remember our little talk, won’t you?”
“I will,” Fang promised.
“Good. I’ll go now. Enjoy your adventures in our world, Fang, and look after yourself.”
She smiled and put him back in his bush, then turned and walked away. He watched her through the leaves, her scarlet dress swinging with the wind. Why had he ever thought she wore black?
The Challenge
Creep quietly, little gnome,
This world is not your world,
Its creatures do no
t know you,
They will see weakness in your gentleness,
And food in your flesh,
Leave quickly, little gnome,
You don’t belong in here.
—Fang, the Gnome
From the 4036th Kikihuahua Cantata
After a while, Fang crawled into the sunlight. He scanned the lake shore and saw no sign of giants or dogs. Reassured, he trotted to a bilberry bush and began to cram fruit into his mouth. In due course, his mouth blue with juice, he followed a deer trail in the direction of the giant’s village. This was a ramshackle collection of dwellings disfiguring the forest like eczema, which he’d occasionally glimpsed in the umbra. Giants had no sense of blending into their background the way gnomes did.
He walked on cautiously. He had no desire to get too close to the giants, but he didn’t know how else he could get news of the Sharan. Certainly there was little point in combing the forest single-handed. The Sharan could be anywhere. But if he sneaked around the giants’ dwellings under cover of darkness, listening, he might find out something useful. The giants could have found the Sharan already, and have her tethered to a tree. He would quietly untie her and lead her away.
But then—and here Fang’s legs weakened with horror—he might find a giantish party in progress. Roaring drunk giants before a huge fire, and the Sharan roasting on a spit.
He shook his head to dislodge the frightening image, and thought of Nyneve. She would help him. Perhaps he should call on her first, and explain his problem.
A booming shout interrupted his thoughts.
“Where are you now, you bastard?”
Fang slipped behind a tree. Somebody was coming down the trail with slow, uneven strides. The ground shook and the breeze brought a whiff of strong liquor. The shouting was accompanied by a thrashing sound, as though the giant were beating the bushes.
“Come on out! I know you’re in there. Aargh!”
Fang heard a heavy crash and a string of oaths. An earthen flask was rolling toward him. He stopped breathing. A hand came groping around the tree. It missed the bottle by six inches and fastened onto Fang’s right foot. The swearing ceased and there came a grunt of puzzlement. The hand tightened its grip and pulled.
Fang, the Gnome (Song of Earth) Page 17
