The Dragon and The George Read online

  "It's all right," he told her, hastily. "It's just me, Jim…"

  He was hunting about for some part of the cage that would open up. After a second, he found a door with a heavy padlock on it, but there was no key. Experimentally, he took hold of the door with one large, clawed paw, grasped a cage bar with another, and pulled. The padlock twanged and disintegrated, the cage bar broke into pieces, the door flew open. Angie screamed.

  "It's just me, I tell you, Angie!" he said, annoyed. "Come out, now."

  Angie did not come out. She scooped up one of the broken pieces of bar and held it like a dagger, underhanded, with its sharply splintered end toward him.

  "Stay away from me, dragon!" she said. "I'll blind you if you come close!"

  "Are you crazy, Angie?" cried Jim. "I tell you it's me! Do I look like a dragon to you?"

  "You certainly do," said Angie, fiercely.

  "I do? But Grottwold said—"

  At that moment the ceiling seemed to come down and hit him on the head.

  … He swam back to consciousness to find Angie's concerned face hovering over him.

  "What happened?" he said, shakily.

  "I don't know," she said. "You just suddenly collapsed. Jim—it really is you, Jim?"

  "Yes," he said, stupidly.

  "…" said Angie.

  He did not catch exactly what she said. Something peculiar was going on in his head, like a mental equivalent of the sort of double vision that sometimes follows a concussion. He seemed to be thinking with two minds at once. He made an effort to settle down with one set of thoughts; and succeeded in focusing in, mind-wise, after a fashion. Apparently with an effort he could keep his mind undivided.

  "I feel like somebody hit me over the head with a club," he said.

  "You do? But, really, nothing happened!" Angie was sounding distressed. "You just went down as if you'd fainted, or something like that. How are you feeling now?"

  "Sort of mixed up in the head," Jim answered.

  He had pretty well conquered the impulse to think on two tracks at once; but he was still aware of something like a separate part of his mind sitting, contained but apart, in the back of his consciousness. He made an effort to forget it. Maybe, if he ignored it, the feeling would go away. He concentrated on Angie.

  "Why is it you believe it's me, now, and you didn't before?" he demanded, sitting up on his dragon-haunches.

  "I was too upset to notice you were calling me by my name," she said. "But when you kept using yours, and then when you mentioned Grottwold, I suddenly realized it could be you, after all, and he'd thought of sending you to rescue me."

  "Thought! Hah! I told him to get you back or else! But he told me I was only supposed to project, and other people probably wouldn't even see me. Only you would."

  "What I see is one of the dragons they have here. You've projected, all right. But you've projected your identity into a dragon-body."

  "But I still don't see—Wait a minute," said Jim. "I thought earlier I must be speaking dragon. But if I'm speaking dragon, how come you can understand me? You ought to still be speaking English."

  "I don't know," said Angie. "But I could understand the other dragons, too. Maybe they all speak English."

  "They don't—I don't. Listen to what I'm saying. For that matter, listen to the sounds you're making."

  "But I'm speaking ordinary, colloquial—" Angie broke off, with an odd look on her face. "No, you're right. I'm not. I'm making the same sort of sounds you're making, I think. Say 'I think.' "

  "I think."

  "Yes," Angie said, thoughtfully, "it's the same sounds; only your voice is about four octaves or so deeper than mine. We must both be speaking whatever language they have here. And it's the same language for people and dragons. That's wild!"

  " 'Wild' is the word for it," said Jim. "It can't be! How would we learn a complete new language, just like that?"

  "Oh, I don't know," said Angie. "It could be, in the case of a subjective transfer, such as we both had in order to get here. Maybe the universal laws are different here and there's only one language possible, so that when you talk in this world, or wherever this is, your thoughts automatically come out in this one language."

  Jim frowned.

  "I don't understand that," he said.

  "I guess I don't either. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The main thing is, we can understand each other. What did he call you—that other dragon?"

  " 'Gorbash.' It seems that's the name of his grand-nephew, the one whose body I'm in. His name's Smrgol. Evidently he's almost two hundred years old and he's got a lot of authority with the other dragons. But never mind that. I've got to send you back; and that means I've got to hypnotize you first."

  "You made me promise never to let anyone hypnotize me."

  "That was different. This is an emergency. Now, where's something to rest your arm on? There, that rock will do. Step over here."

  He pointed to a loose boulder, one of several in the cave. This particular one was about waist high on Angie. She went over to it.

  "Now," said Jim. "Lay your forearm down on top of it as if it was a table. That's right. Now concentrate on being back in Grottwold's lab. Your forearm is getting lighter. It's rising, rising—"

  "Why hypnotize me?"

  "Angie, please concentrate. Your forearm is getting lighter. It's rising. It's lighter, it's rising, rising. It's getting lighter. It's rising—"

  "No," said Angie, decisively, taking her arm off the boulder. "It's not! And I'm not about to be hypnotized until I know what's going on. What happens if you hypnotize me?"

  "You become able to concentrate completely on being back in Grottwold's lab and so you reappear there."

  "And what happens to you?"

  "Oh, my body's there, so any time I don't want to be someplace else, like here, I return to it automatically."

  "But that's supposing you're just a disembodied spirit. Are you sure you can go back that easily if you're in another body, like this dragon one?"

  "Well…" Jim hesitated. "Of course I am."

  "Of course you're not!" said Angie. She looked upset. "This is all my fault."

  "Your fault? This? Of course not. It's Grottwold's—"

  "No," said Angie, "it's mine."

  "It isn't, I tell you! Maybe it isn't even Grottwold's fault. His equipment could have just had some kind of a breakdown that sent you out, body and all, and made me end up in this Gorbash-body instead of completely apporting."

  "His equipment didn't break down," Angie insisted. "He just went ahead the way he always does and experimented without knowing what he was doing. That's why it's all my fault. I knew he was like that, but I didn't tell you because we needed the extra income; and you know how you are."

  "How I am? No," said Jim, grimly. "How am I?"

  "You'd have fussed at me; and worried about something happening—and you'd have been right. Grottwold's just like a baby with a shiny toy, playing with that equipment of his, in spite of the degrees he has. Anyway, it's settled."

  "Good," said Jim, relieved. "Now, just put your arm back on the top of that rock and relax—"

  "I didn't mean that!" said Angie. "I mean there's no way I'm going to go back without you."

  "But I can go back just by not wanting to be someplace else!"

  "Try it."

  Jim tried it. He closed his eyes and told himself that he no longer wanted to be anyplace else but back in his own body. He opened his eyes again, and Angie was standing watching him with the walls of the cave all around them.

  "You see?" said Angie.

  "How can I want to be someplace else while you're still here?" Jim demanded. "You've got to go back safely to our own world, before I can want to be back there, too."

  "And leave you here alone, not knowing whether you'll ever make it or not, and Grottwold without the slightest idea of how he sent me here in the first place, so he'd never be able to send me back again? Oh, no!"

  "All right! You tell me, the
n. What else is there to do?"

  "I've been thinking," said Angie, thoughtfully.

  "About what?"

  "That magician the other dragon was talking to you about. The magician you were going to open negotiations with, on me."

  "Oh, him," Jim said.

  "That's right. Now, you know that these georges—these people they apparently have around here—are never going to have heard of me. The first thing they'll do when the magician carries word to them about me is look around to see who they know who's missing; and they're going to find no one is. Then, if I'm not one of their own people, why should they get into any negotiations to get me back from the dragons—let alone give the kind of concessions your grand-uncle seems to want—"

  "Angie," Jim explained, "he's not my grand-uncle. He's the grand-uncle of this body I'm in."

  "Whatever. The point is, once the georges figure out I don't belong to them, they won't have any interest in saving me. So, when you go to the magician—"

  "Wait a minute! Who said I was leaving you, to go anywhere?"

  "You know as well as I do that that's what you have to do," Angie answered. "You know we don't have a chance any other way. But it might be, it just barely might be, that this magician can help us both get back. If nothing else, you could teach him to hypnotize both of us at once, so that we'd go back together, or something—Oh, I don't know! It's the only chance we've got, and you know it as well as I do. We've got to take it!"

  Jim opened his mouth to contest this point and then closed it again. As usual, she had exercised that verbal judo of hers to leave them both on her side of the argument.

  "But what if the magician doesn't want to help?" he protested feebly. "After all, why should he help us, anyway?"

  "I don't know; but maybe we can find some reason," said Angie. "We have to."

  Jim opened his mouth and once more closed it again.

  "So off you go and find him. And when you do, be honest with him. Simply tell him about our situation with Grottwold. Ask him if there's any way he can help us get back, and any way we can make it worth his while. We've got nothing to lose by being open and straightforward with him."

  To Jim's mind this did not ring like the foregone conclusion it apparently was to Angie. But she was winning.

  "And leave you here, meanwhile?" was all he could manage to say.

  "And leave me here. I'll be just fine," Angie answered. "I heard what you said at the end, down in the big cave. I'm a hostage. I'm too valuable to hurt. Besides, the way that old dragon was talking to you, the Tinkling Water must be close. You can probably go there, talk to that magician and get back in an hour or two. It's just about the middle of the day here—hadn't you noticed? You can learn what to do and get back here safely before night."

  "No." Jim shook his head. "If I hypnotize you, at least you'll get home. We start playing games like this magician business and maybe neither one of us will. I won't do it."

  "Well, I won't let you hypnotize me," said Angie. "I'm not going to leave you here with maybe no way to get back, or something worse, even. So what are you going to do?"

  She had, Jim thought, a neat way of sealing up all the exits except the one she wanted him to use.

  "All right," he said finally and unhappily.

  He walked to the edge of the sheer drop, then caught himself and teetered there.

  "What's wrong?" demanded Angie.

  "I just thought," Jim said, a little thickly. "Gorbash obviously knew how to fly. But do I?"

  "You could try it," she suggested. "It'll probably just come to you. I'd think it would, instinctively, once you were in the air."

  Jim looked down at the jagged rocks far below.

  "I don't think so," he said. "I really don't think so. I think I'd better move the boulder there and go back down the inside route."

  "Didn't the old dragon—What's his name… ?"

  "Smrgol."

  "Didn't old Smrgol warn you not to come downcave again? What if you meet him on the way and he says you're not to go, after all? Besides, the Tinkling Water may be far enough away so you'll need to fly to get there."

  "True," said Jim, hollowly. He thought it over. There seemed to be no alternative. He shuddered and closed his eyes. "Well… here goes nothing."

  He jumped outward and began to flail his wings wildly. The air whistled about him as it might if he was either flying or falling like a stone. He was sure he was falling. There was something like a sudden soundless explosion in the back of his head, and his wings stretched, slowed and began to encounter resistance. He could feel air against their undersurfaces in the same way the back pressure of the water on an oar can be felt by somebody rowing.

  Hope flickered faintly alight in him. If he were going to smash on the ground, he certainly should have done it by this time? On the other hand, maybe he was just managing to delay his descent, sliding down at a steep angle toward a collision with the rocks some distance from the base of the cliff?

  He could stand the suspense no longer. He opened his eyes and looked.

  Chapter Four

  Once more, as when he cried out on seeing Angie, he had underestimated dragon capabilities. The ground was not rushing up to meet him. To the contrary, it was far, far, below him, odd little patches of wood alternating with open country. He was at least a couple of thousand feet up and climbing rapidly.

  He paused for a moment and his wings stiffened out automatically in glide position. Still, he did not descend. He woke abruptly to the fact that he was soaring—instinctively riding a thermal, an uprising current of warm air, after the fashion of balloonists, sailplaners and the large birds of his own remembered world. Of course! He kicked himself mentally for not thinking of it before. The larger birds were mainly soaring birds because of the effort required for them to fly. He remembered now hearing that most of the heavier hawks and eagles would refuse to fly on days that were completely windless.

  The same thing had to be true—or more so—for dragons, with their enormous weight. Evidently, like the lion, who could make a very fast charge but maintain it for only a small distance, a dragon's great muscle power could lift him quickly to soaring heights. But from then on it must be a matter of his riding the available winds and thermals.

  Apparently, such riding was instinctive stuff to his Gorbash-body. Without conscious thought he found he had lined himself up with the sun above his right shoulder and was sailing northwestwardly away from the cliff face where he had taken off. In fact, the cliff itself was now dwindling into inconspicuousness behind and below him. Far away on the rim of the horizon before him was the dark-green belt of a wide-stretching forest. It moved steadily toward him, and he toward it without effort; and almost without his being aware of it, he began to enjoy himself.

  It was hardly the time for such self-indulgence, particularly with Angie held prisoner behind him in a cave; but Jim found it so difficult not to feel good that he finally relaxed and allowed himself to do so. For one thing, it was just past noon of a thoroughly superb day sometime in late spring or early autumn. The sky was a lucent blue, touched here and there by just that small number of little, fleecy clouds that would serve as grace notes to set off the beauty of the day as a whole. Even from a couple of thousand feet up (dragons apparently shared the telescopic vision of the large birds of prey as well as their soaring inclinations) the gorse-fuzzed open moors, the pines and oak tree clumps he saw below him had a sort of dewy freshness about their appearance. With Gorbash's acute sense of smell, Jim could even catch the faint medley of green odors rising from the countryside; and the scent slightly intoxicated him.

  He felt powerful, capable and a little reckless. In fact, for two cents he would go back and face down the whole rest of the dragon community, if necessary, to free Angie. The double-thinking back part of his mind even seemed strangely sure none of the others could match him at flying. He puzzled over that impression, then remembered that Smrgol and even Bryagh had referred to Gorbash spending more of his
time aboveground than was usual for dragons. Perhaps because he had been out of the caves more and had had to fly more frequently, Gorbash was in better training than the others?

  An unanswerable question. But it reminded him of all the other questions that his incredible adventure raised. This world had more unreal elements in it than a sane mind could imagine. Dragons—let alone dragons that talked—were incredible. Somehow this world must have a set of physical and biological laws that made this possible; and someone with a doctorate in history, with a fair number of science courses along the way, ought to be able to figure those laws out—and, having figured them out, make use of them to his and Angie's advantage.

  He would have thought that language would be the main problem in this other world. Only, it wasn't. The more he thought of it the surer Jim was that he, in this Gorbash-body, was not talking modern English—or any other form of English. Apparently he was talking dragon with no trouble at all; although the mental channels that seemed to translate this into modern English—colloquial modern English at that—in his head, were puzzling, to say the least. As a medievalist, Jim could both speak and read Middle and Old English, and with a doctorate he could also read and make himself understood in modern French and German. In addition to these languages, he had a smattering of modern Spanish, a few words of modern Italian, and a good knowledge of all the Romance languages in their medieval forms. Finally, he could read both classical and church Latin with facility, and work his way through classical Greek with the help of a dictionary in that language.

  All in all, a pretty fair set of qualifications for anyone adventuring into any period of the European Middle Ages. Only, it seemed, none of these were useful. It was not his major areas of interest that he would find useful here but his minor ones. Still, there had to be a system of logic behind any operating environment; and if he kept his eyes open and put two and two together…

  He soared on steadily through the air, thinking intensely. But his thoughts eventually went in a circle and ended up getting nowhere. He simply did not have enough data yet to come to conclusions. He gave up and looked around below him once more.