The Dragon in Lyonesse Page 10

  Think again. Think thoroughly, this time.

  He was not meant to escape from here so he could hunt for Brian, except by the established method and route. That was fact one. Following that, it was almost certain Morgan le Fay's magic was limited in that she could use it to do no more than just dump him in a place from which it was hard, but not impossible, for him to get out. That was not yet a proven fact; but it was the next thing to it. If she had planned something beyond his possible escape from the Forest Dedale, what would it be?

  She had said, just before Kineteté joined the conversation, that she would strip away his ward, because she wanted to see how much pitiful power he really had.

  She had not found out, of course—thanks to Kineteté. She had not even discovered his name.

  This Dedale encounter could be set up to make him reveal as much other information about himself as possible.

  The encounter with the knight who could never marry might have been a way to find out something about him. About his magic? No, there had been no magic involved to test Jim's. On the other hand, maybe Morgan was simply collecting as much knowledge of him generally as she could—since he had turned out to have Kineteté for an ally.

  In fact, that last encounter had been more like a test of his courage and knightly skill than a simple attempt to make him use his magic—which would mean opening his ward and making himself vulnerable to her. Would she have realized how much of his success in the lance-running had been because of the difference between the ancient warhorses and armor of Lyonesse and that of the fourteenth century? Possibly not. Never mind—call that a test of him as a person.

  But there certainly was magic at work with both the strange horse and the racing waterway. More so, if the black horse was not really there.

  So, the black horse at least, if not the tent, the dwarf Hob had spoken of seeing, and the river, could all be part of a different test set up by Morgan le Fay to measure something else about him. Perhaps an attempt to force or tempt him to crack his ward instinctively, in panic or absentmindedness? So that Morgan could measure his self-control as an opponent?

  Well, if she had mistaken him for a bold and skillful knight after his meeting with the Unwed Knight, she was in for another mistake. Most magicians from the land above had magic and nothing else. What she couldn't know or guess was that the greater part of his dangerousness to her was his knowledge that came from being born hundreds of years in the future.

  He would go back to the tent and the river, and feel his way, this time, bearing in mind that the black horse could be an illusion.

  "Hob," he said, "leave me and hide under the cover of the load on the sumpter horse."

  The slight pressure against his spine that was Hob was abruptly gone. He lifted Gorp's reins and rode back to the tent by the river.

  Chapter Ten

  As before, the black stallion paid no attention to their approach, and Jim's horses acted as if he was not there. But this time, when Jim was within a few horse-strides of the tent, the little man Hob had spoken of came out. There was nothing distorted about him physically, Jim noted. But the lines around his mouth and eyes made it seem as if he sneered, staring at Jim.

  "Messire!" he said; and something about his high-pitched, thin voice matched the implication of his stare.

  "Master Manikin!" replied Jim, falling back on the abrupt manners he had learned from observation of other knights dealing with inferiors in this age. "Will your bridge bear the weight of two horses, both laden? Answer me briefly, yea or nay."

  "Not even one horse, unladen." said the manikin; and it seemed that he sneered even more by answering with other words than the ones Jim had ordered him to use. "It floats upon the water, messire, and with that much weight would sink deep enough below the water's top so that the current would sweep your horses off their hooves."

  "Hmm," said Jim, deliberately ignoring the attitude of the other, who was now staring at Jim in an even more offensive way; as if any child would have understood what he had just said without being told. "Dumb insolence" the British armed forces had called that, a few hundred years before Jim's birth in his own world.

  "Well," said Jim, "I guess in that case we'll swim it."

  "I would not advise Messire to do that," said the manikin, lifting his head with his upper lip twisted unpleasantly. "The current of the river is very strong; and no ordinary beast can swim it without being swept away and drowned. Only my Cloud Courser has the strength to stem its power. I will rent him to Messire for four gold pieces of value; and then whistle him back to me once Messire is on the other side."

  "Your price is a thought high, Manikin," said Jim, still playing his knightly part, since the other seemed determined to go on playing his, "and your manner ill likes me. My horses will swim across."

  "Do not mistake… Messire," said the manikin. "Look at the horse ye ride, and then at Cloud Courser. Has your horse such size and thews?"

  Jim glanced briefly at the other horse, which had still neither moved nor made a sound. He was saddled and bridled, as if merely waiting for a rider. But it was true, Jim saw, now that the two were side by side, with only a small distance between them. The little man's animal was taller, heavier boned and muscled than Gorp by a noticeable margin—Gorp, whom he had never seen, until now, matched in size and obvious strength, except by Brian's Blanchard.

  He looked again at the river. The broken limb of a tree shot toward them along the water's surface, caught for a moment on the edge of the floating bridge, and then was pushed underneath it by the current; to reappear a second later on the other side and shoot with equal rapidity on downstream, to where its above-water outline, like a sketch of itself in soft, dark pencil, was lost to sight in the greater uniform darkness of the surrounding forest.

  The current was definitely traveling at the speed of a river throwing itself down the steep side of a mountain. No horse could live in that. It would be a miracle—or magic—if the black horse could.

  Well, there was always the knightly way of dealing with this problem. Thankfully, he had seen enough of those called knights and gentlemen in this time and world to realize that men like Brian and Chandos were not typical of those who wore armor. This was a spot where being like most of the pack would work better for him.

  "Churl!" he said, drawing his sword. "Not even that horse of yours could carry me across. You seek to slay me for some purpose of your own; and the loss of your horse is a cheap price to pay for the death of a knight! With four gold pieces of worth you could buy yourself ten such horses!"

  The results were remarkably gratifying.

  The manikin ducked and cowered back as the blade of Jim's sword gleamed like silver upheld in the white light. His face contorted.

  "Not so, messire—my Lord!" he cried. "Not all the gold in the world could buy another like him! I swear on my soul he can take you safely across—take you, and pull your two horses with him on lead ropes as he goes!"

  Jim lowered his sword, but did not resheathe it.

  "Then you will make good those words!" he roared, beginning to be somewhat carried away by his knightly role. "You, yourself, will mount your stallion and ride him across the water. Now! While I watch. Do yon hear me?"

  "Yes, yes, my Lord!" The manikin edged around Gorp's rear hooves to get to his own steed. "But, my Lord—my four pieces of gold—"

  "You dare speak to me of pay when I suspect you of tricking me to my death?" Jim roared. He reined Gorp half around to face the little man and lifted his sword once more in the air. "You'll get your pay if and when I choose to give it to you. Now ride!"

  The manikin scrambled into the saddle of his stallion. He picked up the reins and the motionless animal came to life. Together they rode to the brink of the rushing water, just below the floating bridge, and plunged in.

  Jim put his sword away, and frowned at the two of them. The manikin seemed to have no doubt of the horse and his horse no fear of the racing water. They quickly reached the other side, t
he big black horse swimming powerfully until it could put its front hooves on the farther bank and heave its body up out of the water. The manikin reined its head around to face Jim from across the racing current.

  "You see, my Lord?" he called triumphantly.

  "Now, ride him back across the bridge!" shouted Jim.

  "But, my Lord—"

  Jim flourished his sword again.

  The manikin bowed his head and put the stallion in motion, reining him around. At the horse's first step on it, the bridge sank below the surface of the water.

  By the time they were halfway back, the rushing stream plucking and pushing like powerful hands against the animal's legs as high as his hocks, Jim was sure that the running water would carry the legs from under any other horse; but this one came on without pausing to the near side of the stream, successfully stepping out at last and striding up to where Jim sat on Gorp. The horse still looked past Jim, rather than at him.

  "You see, my Lord?" cried the manikin triumphantly.

  Jim saw, all right. What he had just watched being done was physically impossible. The black horse might be able to swim that current; but there was no way, walking on that bridge, that he could keep it from pulling him off balance. The stallion had to have accomplished what he had just done by magic—there was no other answer.

  If Morgan le Fay was behind this—and Jim was feeling more and more sure she was—then it was her magic making this possible. So, if the fight with the accursed, wifeless knight had been an attempt to test Jim's fighting ability and courage, it appeared more obvious all the time that this was an attempt to force him to use the black horse, for some reason.

  Well, if that was what she wanted, she was not going to get it, he told himself.

  The manikin must be in on it on her side. In fact, he, the stallion, the tent, and the river might all be her creatures or things. Unless they were all illusions—and Jim himself was enough of a magician to know they were not, now that he was close to them.

  So, rule out illusions. What else was left?

  "—Well, my most puissant Lord?" the manikin was saying, sneering once more and halting the still-wet stallion in front of Jim.

  Jim stared at him, a long, wordless stare; and the sneer faded as the manikin's face grew pale.

  "My Lord, my Lord…" he said shakily, "if I have said aught amiss—"

  "I do not care what you say," said Jim, slowly and distinctly. "So, your animal can stem the river current. That doesn't mean he can tow my horses safely across as well; and I'm not about to risk them just to find out. Prove to me you can do that and I will think on it."

  "How can I prove—" the manikin began, wringing his hands. But then he stopped suddenly and the touch of a sly look crept onto his face. "But why does your Lordship not ride him across yourself, and see how strong he is? He has strength to lead both your horses and to spare. You will see."

  Jim hesitated. If the horse tried to throw him off and drown him in the river, he could always save himself, of course; but that would mean using his magic. And since the name of the game here had become avoiding any such use that Morgan le Fay might be able to observe…

  Still, he had to go forward somehow. He could not stay on this side of the river indefinitely. He could, if he had to, try riding the stallion and see what developed. Besides, one of the few things that Brian-types and the kind of ordinary medieval gentleman-knight Jim was pretending to be had in common was that they never turned away from a challenge.

  "I will ride the beast," he said, and waved in his best disdainful fashion at the little man. "Fetch a clean cloth and wipe the saddle."

  "Yes, my Lord. Immediately, my Lord!" The manikin ran into the tent and came out with a cloth that seemed to gleam brightly silver in the Lyonesse sunlight. He carefully wiped the saddle and stood back from it.

  "My Lord—"

  Jim dismounted, Gorp looking back over his shoulder at his customary rider curiously. Putting his left foot into the stirrup of the black horse, Jim swung himself up onto its back. Under his weight and to his touch, the animal seemed as solid as any real horse could be.

  Not only that, but he showed himself marvelously obedient to his rider's intentions. Almost without Jim's laying the right-hand rein against that side of the black neck, he turned about and angled toward the river just below the bridge. As he reached the edge and plunged in, Jim braced himself for the touch of icy waters, like those from high on a mountainside.

  But the water was almost warm. Jim frowned. They were in midstream already and he tightened his legs around the barrel of the horse's massive chest—

  —And like a soap bubble popping in midair, the horse was gone. He had simply ceased to be; and Jim found himself being whirled on by the racing stream, frantically trying to swim enough to keep his head above the water against the weight of his sword and armor.

  In spite of his efforts, his head began to dip, and dip again, under the liquid surface. "All right, you idiot!" he told himself, "you had to walk right into it…" He could not keep up this struggle to stay afloat in his armor; and there was no way to shed any of his armor or even his sword without going straight to the bottom of the river.

  This was it. Only magic would get him out of this—and once he cracked his ward, Morgan would have him.

  Water filled his mouth and despair mounted in his chest. Brian and Dafydd—God knows he needed them, but they needed him. If Morgan took him out of the situation now, his friends would be lucky to escape Lyonesse alive; and Brian, damn chivalrous fool that he was, would probably consider it his duty to stay and do what he could alone. If so, Dafydd might well feel that he could not leave; and both of them might die.

  Better to lose his magic and hold on to life a little longer. Maybe, even without magic, he could frustrate Morgan somehow…

  His strength was going. The water closed over his head. He heard a roaring in his ears and felt the toes of his shoes dragging on the bottom of the river. Panic took him. He tried to push himself off from that surface and reach the air; and to his astonishment he bobbed up with his face barely above the water.

  He gulped air for a wonderful moment, to get what he could into his lungs before he went down again—and then, to his dawning astonishment, he realized he was not going down again. He was floating on the surface, being rushed along by the galloping speed of the water. It was a miracle.

  Or was it?

  He suddenly realized he was no longer in his human body. He was in his dragon shape. Morgan had now gotten a good look at his instinctive shape-changing ability—and as far as Jim knew, there were no resident dragons in Lyonesse.

  But wait a minute—dragons were supposed to be heavier than water—that was why Smrgol and all the other dragons of the Cliffside Eyrie had thought him a reckless fool for flying about at night. Why, in the darkness, a dragon could fly right into a lake, where he would sink and drown.

  But he was not sinking—for some strange but welcome reason. He heaved a sigh of relief… and immediately began to sink. He was aware of his half-spread wings under water making rowing motions, trying to push him up that way.

  Hastily he inhaled again, filling his lungs; and once more his body rose to ride high in the water.

  So much for dragon beliefs that they would drown if they fell into any water that they could not scramble out of. Certainly the dragon body—as a body—was heavier than water. But dragon lungs were enormous. That was why dragons had the pouter-pigeon chests they did. The lungs had to pump an incredible amount of oxygen to the dragon body while it was taking off, flying almost straight up.

  But still, he had changed his shape; and if Morgan was watching closely, she had discovered more than he had wanted to show her.

  He had to have done it unconsciously. He had been a dragon often enough to know how, as a dragon, he had an entirely different set of instincts. When he changed shape, he not only appeared as a dragon, he became a dragon—emotionally, reflexively, as well as consciously. As a man he did
not enjoy fighting—the way Brian and a surprising number of other knights, both good and bad, seemed to. But as a dragon, he could get emotionally caught up in a fight and think only of destroying his opponent.

  So it was not surprising, really, that by this time he was almost as much of a dragon as a man. It would not have occurred to the dragon part of him that he could use magic to escape—though at the cost of letting Morgan le Fay know of it. The dragon-Jim would have been thinking only that he was at the bottom of a river and drowning.

  At any rate, he had not had to crack his ward.

  In his dragon body, he was now able to hold all of his head above water, when as a man he could not have. Even as he thought this, he was making plans. All he had to do now was scramble ashore—both wings and feet would help with that—and he could go quietly back through the woods, or even through the air—

  He inhaled deeply, held his breath, lifted his wings out of the water, and spread them to their full, enormous width as a preliminary to taking himself back to solid land—and suddenly recognized that, ridiculous as it seemed, he was being carried back into the same clearing the river had whisked him away from.

  Yes, there it was, the clearing, the bridge, and the tent. The manikin was staring with a horrified face at a completely unexpected dragon. Gorp and the sumpter horse, who had seen dragons before—and probably recognized this one even at a distance—were calmly watching. The black horse was standing immovable and unmoved, exactly where Jim had seen him at first glance.

  At that moment, the river sucked him under the floating bridge. He came to the surface beyond it and was whirled past and out of their sight again, as the clearing ended and the river curved into the forest. He had pulled his wings back to his body just in time to keep them from possibly being damaged on the bridge—or, for that matter, since they stretched far enough, and the trees were close enough, on the massive, upstanding tree trunks on either side of the water where the forest started.

  But he was breathing comfortably now; and he had instinctively begun to look forward, again. He would have to wait for some open stretch to risk trying to get out of the stream; then, he would have to pull himself ashore swiftly before the river took him into thick forest once more.