The Dragon, the Earl, and Page 3

  It began to sputter again.

  "There, there," said Carolinus.

  "Well, it's unbearable, Mage, as you know," said the hourglass.

  "It's not your fault," said Carolinus. "You woke him up. He got up, and from then on it was all his responsibility."

  "But what about me?" cried the hourglass. "Here I am, counting off a second thousand years. Do you suppose the sluggard means to sleep another thousand years, while the world waits? It may be his mistake, but it's me they'll look to first. 'Why didn't you do something about it?' they'll ask me!"

  "No, they won't," said Carolinus. "Tell Jim and Angie about it, and see if they don't agree that it's not your fault and no one will blame you."

  "Just picture it for yourself, JimnAngie," said the hourglass, back in its bass again and running their two names together in its emotion, so it sounded as if they were a single person. "I woke the Phoenix up—and he was hard to wake up. He always was a hard sleeper. I woke him up, he got up, staggered around a bit, searched in his nest, found flint and steel, tried to strike a spark, got a few sparks but couldn't get himself on fire, so that he could blaze across the heavens like a burning star—as he ought to, as a portent to the earth below that a new millennia was about to be started in the next thousand years. From now till the twenty-fourth century, you understand?"

  Both Jim and Angie nodded.

  "But the spark didn't catch, and, and—I don't know how to say this," said the hourglass, breaking into sobs, "but he actually threw the flint and steel down and I heard him say, 'Oh, to hell with it!' He staggered back to his nest and went right back to sleep!"

  Drops of moisture emerged from the glass at the bottom where it joined with its framework, and rolled upward over the bulge of the lower half of the hourglass, in and around the narrow neck between the two parts and onto the swelling shape of the upper part.

  "There, you see," sobbed the glass in falsetto, "even my tears are running the wrong way!"

  "There, there," said Angie.

  "And they'll blame me!" sobbed the hourglass.

  "No they won't," said Jim and Angie together as one person.

  The tears stopped rolling upward, and the face on the lower half of the hourglass ventured a tremulous smile.

  "You really think so?" it asked.

  "I'm sure of it!" said Angie. "Nobody would be that unfair!"

  "The trouble is," said the face, in a calmer, middle-toned, more reasonable voice, "no one's helping me, down there. If some of them would just get busy and settle some of the troubles they've made for themselves, then the Phoenix would wake up again whether he liked it or not; and wouldn't be able to go back to sleep again. Do you suppose that might happen?"

  "I'm sure of it!" said Angie firmly.

  "I'm so relieved!" said the hourglass. It was actually smiling now, a true happy face. "I'll know the minute it does, because I'll turn right side up again, and the sand that's already dropped through will fly back up to the top of me where it belongs. Oh, I can't wait!"

  "I think," said Carolinus in a voice that was almost ominous, "that perhaps we'd better stop talking, Angie and Jim. And leave. Farewell."

  "Farewell," said the hourglass. "Farewell, JimnAngie."

  They were suddenly back on the catwalk behind the curtain wall at Malencontri. The sun was up a little in the sky and it actually seemed somewhat warmer. Brian, Geronde and Aargh, with their entourage, were already beginning to approach the gate through the curtain wall.

  "Well," said Carolinus to Jim, "there you have it. The Dark Powers are at work again and must be stopped. You have a job to do; and that job begins with your going to the Earl's party, you and Angie."

  "That's right," said Jim bitterly. "Me against the Dark Powers again!"

  "Yes!" said Angie. "It's not fair, Carolinus! You've said so yourself—sending a C-level magician to do something the strongest magicians in this world can't!"

  "Of course it's not fair!" snapped Carolinus. "Whatever gave you the idea that this world would be fair? Was your world—the world you came from?"

  Angie did not answer.

  "Never mind," said Jim wearily. "I'll go, of course. Angie—"

  There was a shout from outside the gates, almost mingled with the voices of the sentinels calling back that it was Sir Brian and the Lady Geronde outside wanting to get in. Angie was squeezing Jim's arm to let him know she was ready to go too, if he went.

  "Let them in!" shouted Jim to the gateman. He turned back to Carolinus.

  "What, specifically, am I supposed to watch for, then?" he said.

  "We've no idea," said Carolinus. "The Dark Powers can't work directly; therefore they'll be working through other means or ways. You'll simply have to look for what shouldn't be. Look for anything that seems unreasonable, or that might be rooted in the aim of the Dark Powers to promote History over Chance, or vice versa. As I say, they'll be working at one remove, at least."

  He paused a moment, fixing them each in turn with a sharp eye. "One more word. Because they'll be working that way, possibly even through people who don't know they're being used, you mustn't mention you suspect anything—to anyone. Not even to people as close as Sir Brian and Lady Geronde, here; because they may not know they're being used."

  "And of course not Aargh," said Jim, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice in spite of himself.

  "I doubt that Aargh will be anywhere near," said Carolinus. "He likes the idea of the Earl's feast as little as you do; and runs into considerably more danger, if he's seen by anyone there who doesn't know him. Your fellow guests—the knights in particular—will want to go hunting anything that moves; and Aargh would simply be taken as one more game item to be run down and killed."

  Below them, Brian and Geronde with their retainers had passed through the now open main entrance in the curtain wall and Brian and Geronde themselves were just entering the doorway to the Great Hall.

  "We should get down there," said Angie, looking at Brian and Geronde as they disappeared through the big double doors.

  "Very well," said Carolinus. "But you understand, both of you—you too, Angie—no one must know that Jim is concerned with the problem I've just shown him?"

  "No, no…" said Angie, still looking at the Great Hall.

  "Very well," said Carolinus again, "we'll go."

  He disappeared. Angie and Jim were just walking down the walkway toward the nearest ladder to the ground in the courtyard when Carolinus appeared on the catwalk again, looking cross.

  "Why are you dallying around like this?" he snapped at Jim. "Use your magic, boy! Put it to good use, for once!"

  The last statement was rather unfair, Jim thought. In his opinion he had always put his magic to good use. But, unfortunately, now he had to admit his poverty in that respect.

  "I don't have any magic at the moment," he said to Carolinus.

  Carolinus stared at him.

  "You're out of magic?" said Carolinus. "Again?"

  For once, he sounded more flabbergasted than outraged.

  "Well, yes," said Jim. "You see, it was like this. I was home during harvest season; and what with getting Malencontri in state for winter and everything taken care of and making a few small changes in the castle—"

  Carolinus closed his eyes and shook his head.

  "Please," he said, "I don't want to hear the unlovely details. What baffles me is how you managed to run out of magic with an unlimited drawing account!"

  "Unlimited?" echoed Jim.

  Carolinus's eyes flew open.

  "Unlimited is what I said!" he answered, in something more like his usual voice. "Unlimited! You remember how, after your tussle with those Hollow Men up on the Scottish border, I went to the Accounting Office and had things out with them? Got you promoted to C level; and got you a special drawing account because you're—well, in some ways, anyway—different from the ordinary apprentice magician? I can barely imagine you running through your C-level allowance—just barely, but I can. But also through an u
nlimited drawing account beyond that?"

  "Was it unlimited?" said Jim.

  "Of course!" said Carolinus. "I told you so."

  "No, you didn't," said Jim. "You just said everything had been taken care of; and I heard your side of the conversation with the Accounting Office. I didn't hear you say anything about unlimited—just about my having an extra drawing account. But I've never known how to use it."

  "Never known how to—" Carolinus interrupted himself, staring at Jim. "But any C-level magician knows how to handle an extra drawing account."

  "But I wasn't a C-level magician, then," said Jim, beginning to get irritated in his turn. "Remember, I was only D level and you had them simply promote me to C even though I wasn't otherwise qualified?"

  Carolinus glared at him, opened his mouth, closed it again and opened it once more.

  "Accounting Office!" he exploded.

  "Yes?" queried a deep bass voice out of thin air between them and about at a level with Jim's lower rib cage.

  "You didn't tell him how to access his overdraft!" snarled Carolinus.

  "No," said the bass voice.

  "Why not?"

  "I have no mechanism or procedure for taking into account the need for such explanations," said the Accounting Office.

  "Why not?"

  "I do not know. Perhaps such a contingency was not envisioned."

  "Well, envision it now!" shouted Carolinus. "And tell him!"

  "I cannot," said the Accounting Office. "He must be instructed in the method by someone of at least AAA magician class."

  "You—" Carolinus checked. He turned to Jim and—in an almost gentle voice—said, "Jim, when you need some of the excess magic that I arranged for you, in case you were in an unusual position of having to have more because of your unusual history and situation, you call the Accounting Office and say, 'I want to activate my overdraft. So add the equivalent of a normal full supply of magic for a C-level magician to my account—or two times that amount—or five times—or five hundred times!' Whatever you need. Do you hear and understand me?"

  "Yes…" said Jim.

  "And you, Accounting Office," said Carolinus, still in that same gentle voice, "do you understand; and do you now have the procedure for replenishing Jim Eckert's account as directed when he asks you?"

  "If I may suggest," said the Accounting Office voice, "five hundred times a C-level account is—"

  "—Not that much more than he added to the world's supply of magic by his part in stopping the incursion of the Dark Powers from the Loathly Tower, when he first came among us!" snapped Carolinus. "I repeat, you've the mechanism now? And you'll deliver the magic as ordered?"

  "Yes," said the Accounting Office. "It is merely a case now—"

  But Jim was no longer listening. A decidedly unfair but very attractive thought had suddenly come to him. He had had no idea that the victory he had led at the Loathly Tower when he first came to this world to rescue Angie had been worth that much in generated new magic.

  After that, Carolinus had told him he had enough magic to take the two of them back to their own twentieth-century world again. It occurred to him now that if he could make withdrawals from this overdraft of his—possibly in small chunks so as not to attract attention, but enough to build up sufficient credit in his regular account—he would be able to take them back now.

  Angie would be able to have her child in the world in which she and Jim had both grown up. It would be anything but a good thing to do to Carolinus and all their friends in this world; but the possibility was now there and could not be ignored. It was in the back of his mind and he knew that it would continue to work on him.

  He brought his mind back to the present moment.

  "—Very well. Good day, then," Carolinus was saying icily. He turned once more back to Jim.

  "Now," he said, "what are you standing there for? Call the Accounting Office and draw some extra magic."

  "Accounting Office?" said Jim, a little hesitantly. He had never felt free to bandy words with the Accounting Office the way Carolinus did.

  "Yes?" the bass voice responded.

  "Could I have—say, two times the normal C-level supply of magic added to my account?"

  "It is done."

  "Thank you," said Jim. But the Accounting Office did not answer.

  "Now that's settled, finally," said Carolinus, "the least you can do is use some of this magic you just got to move the three of us into your hall, so your struggling old Master doesn't have to do it for you. Do it now."

  Jim did it now.

  They all three appeared abruptly on the dais that held the high table. Brian and Geronde were already seated behind the table down at one end, drinking wine and eating some of the sweet cakes that the castle's kitchen had already started preparing for Christmas—it being only five days away now, and a good supply needing to be laid in.

  Brian was a competent-looking knight with a square-boned, lean face with burning blue eyes over a large, hooked nose. His chin was jutting and generous. Jim happened to know that Brian was at least several years younger than he; but Brian, possibly because of his weathered face, and certain small scars about it, gave the clear impression of not only being half a dozen or more years older, but extremely experienced and able—an impression Jim would have given a great deal himself to project.

  Geronde was shorter than Angie, possibly by a good four inches. But in addition to that, she was so fine-boned that she gave an impression almost of fragility. In fact, she looked like nothing so much as a life-sized, black-haired, very pretty doll— a classic case of deceptive packaging, in Jim's experience—with blue eyes that were startlingly similar to Brian's. She was wearing a traveling robe of autumn-leaf brown, tight-waisted and high-necked, with an ankle-length, very full skirt.

  Altogether, thought Jim, she looked like something or someone who might break at a touch—except for the fact of a very ugly scar on her left cheek, put there by Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri, the former owner of the castle that Jim and Angie now inhabited. Sir Hugh, who had been more villain than knight, had got into Malvern Castle under false pretenses; subdued its fighting men; and informed Geronde that she was to marry him, so he would become Lord of Malvern as well.

  Geronde had refused, whereupon he had slashed her left cheek and promised to slash her right cheek the next day if she was still holding out; and after that put out first her left eye, one day later, then her right eye on the day after that—and continue in this manner until she gave in.

  Knowing Geronde as he did now, Jim knew that she would never have given in. His own first encounter with her had been when he had been in the body of the dragon in which his identity had inadvertently landed in this alternate fourteenth-century world. He had flown to the top of Malvern's keep, and the single man-at-arms on duty there had escaped down the stairs at full speed. But when Jim started down, he found Geronde coming at him with a boar spear. Wistfully, afterward, Geronde had told Jim of her high hopes of getting hold of her captor, Sir Hugh de Bois, someday again; and roasting him over a slow fire. She had meant it. Geronde, intensely loyal, and gentle by fourteenth-century standards, was not someone any reasonable person would want for an enemy.

  But now both she and Brian had jumped to their feet on seeing Jim and Angie. Geronde and Angie embraced. Brian embraced Jim—heartily and painfully, since they were both wearing chain mail shirts under their jupons—each with his own coat of arms on it. He then kissed Jim on both cheeks.

  Jim had finally gotten used to this frequent fourteenth-century kissing habit. He endured it with reasonable grace, even managing to make a stab at it himself when necessary. Happily, this time Brian was clean shaven, possibly because he was with Geronde.

  "Great news, James!" cried Brian exuberantly. "Great news to hear that you will be with us all this Christmastide—and I have even more and other great news for you. Let us sit down, all of us, and talk. I've just been giving your John Steward and squire some words on how to prepare
those who go with you to the Earl's and the others who will keep the castle here while you're gone."

  For the first time Jim now also noticed John Steward, a tall, rectangular man in his mid-forties, rather proud of the fact that he had managed to keep most of his front teeth. With him was Theoluf, the hard-faced, dark-visaged, former chief of Jim's men-at-arms, now Jim's squire; they were standing just below the table at the end where Brian had been sitting.

  "But you may go now, both of you," said Brian, turning to speak to the two of them. "Sir James or Lady Angela will give you their orders shortly. But for now we talk among ourselves. Sit, sit, all of us!"

  The injunction was unnecessary for Carolinus. He had been seated from the moment he had appeared. However, Angie was still on her feet, and so was Geronde.

  "I've got to go up to the solar," Angie was saying to Geronde. "Come along with me, Geronde. I need to talk to you."

  They went off.

  "Just as well," said Brian, looking after them. "Geronde knows whereof I would speak to you; and in any case I want to hear how you came to be besieged, and all else—as well as giving you the news I have to give. Great news, James—which, come to think of it, should possibly be spoken first."

  Jim's spirits sank as he sat down on one of the padded and backed benches that the high table at Malencontri boasted— articles of furniture about as close to modern, comfortable chairs as Jim and Angie felt they could get away with in this particular time and place.

  "Servitor, fill your Lord's wine glass!" snapped Brian. "By St. Ives! If you were a servant of mine you'd not dally so more than once, I can tell you that!"

  The server, a young man with a wide mouth and a ready smile, was looking unusually sober, but was also already filling Jim's wine glass. In spite of the laggardness of which Brian had accused the man, Jim suspected he was not too impressed by the implied threat in Brian's voice. The server knew as well as Jim himself that this was just Brian's way of being protective toward Jim, whom he very often treated as knowing barely enough to come in out of the rain—under current medieval conditions.