The Dragon in Lyonesse Page 5

  Hob gulped.

  "Trolls, for instance. Their proper place is where they can eat humans—and other people—in the real world, and can go anywhere humans are. Besides, m'Lord forgets I was there with him before."

  Jim had forgotten, remembering only while he and Hob had been talking, just now. He had ignored the memory, however, hoping Hob's memory had been equally faulty.

  It was time to use his authority. Argument was getting nowhere.

  "Hob," he said, "I order you to stay here."

  Hob gulped again.

  "Yes, m'Lord. Very well, m'Lord. May I ask, though, who will tell m'Lord what the QB is saying when he barks?"

  Jim opened his mouth and then closed it again. The QB, of course, was the Questing Beast of Arthurian legend, a friendly creature that had literally saved their lives when they had been passing through Lyonesse before. He had come up to Jim after his rescue and barked—not with his famous sound like twenty couple of hounds questing, but with the single bark of a single dog; and Jim could not understand what he was trying to say until Hob translated.

  Hob had a point. They might well be bumping into some person or creature along the way with whom Hob could be useful in the same way again.

  "QB? QB?" said Brian, conveniently filling the conversational gap. "Oh, you mean that mixture of several beasts, head of a snake, body of a leopard, and tail of a lion? Never expected to see such. It was the one hunted by King Pellinore, was it not, James?"

  "It was," said Jim. "Remember how the youngest Sir Dinedan told us they liked to hunt together? But neither one was a good hunter; and they were always losing each other, so they spent most of their time hunting for each other rather than game—"

  Jim caught himself up sharply. He had been about to plunge into a warm bath of reminiscences with an equally willing Brian; and for the first time he realized that the women at the table were being ominously silent.

  "Essentially, you're correct, though, Brian," he wound up hastily; and put his mind back to what Hob had been asking. "Well, Hob"—he made his best effort at a smile and a conciliatory voice—"I'm glad you reminded me of that. Maybe you will have to come, after all."

  "Oh, good!" caroled Hob, shooting up the chimney and out of sight like a rocket.

  "I only said may—" Jim gave up. Reminding Hob of the escape clause in Jims promise would only plunge the little Natural back into uncertainty and gloom. Might as well let him feel good while he could. Besides, Hob was most probably out of hearing range by now, anyway.

  "James!" said Geronde sharply, "if the Mage can bring Brian back here to meet a court officer or a creditor, can you not also bring him back for the wedding and its celebration? It would only take three days."

  "When's the wedding, then?" asked Jim; for the date had been moved forward, then back, then forward again, several times in the tug-of-war between Geronde's father—to have it done as quickly as possible so that he could leave on his latest adventure—and Geronde—in her determination that it should be done properly and only when everything was ready—including her wedding dress.

  "Three weeks, two days, hence," she said.

  "In that case, Jim," said Angie, "maybe it'd be a good idea to get started as soon as you can."

  "I was just thinking that myself," said Jim. "I'd better get back to Kineteté right away. I'll try to come back here to almost this same moment—I mean, I'll hope to be back with answers almost before I've gone."

  "You again?" said Kineteté, as Jim once more appeared in her waiting room. She was sitting there alone in one of the overstuffed chairs, sewing on what looked like another sampler.

  Chapter Six

  Jim gazed at her, fascinated.

  "What are you staring at?" said Kineteté. "Didn't you ever see anyone sew before?"

  "What? Oh, yes," said Jim. "I just didn't think of you as doing it."

  "Anyone can do what they want—though most people fail at the dare," said Kineteté, laying cloth, needle, and thread aside on a tiny, fragile-looking end table. "I sew. Let who would stop me try it at will. Sit down."

  Jim sat.

  "I thought you'd be expecting me back without too much delay," he said. "No lineup of people or others to see you?"

  "You were put to the head of the line," said Kineteté. "Also, I needed to do some thinking of my own. To answer your question, yes; knowing you, I was indeed expecting you back at any moment."

  "Good. Then I'll just tell you what magic I'll need—"

  "I know what magick you'll need as well as or better than you do. But to take things in their proper order, understand this will be magick from my own credit with the Accounting Department, not some of Carolinus's."

  "Very well," said Jim.

  "Furthermore," went on Kineteté, "never forget that it's being lent to you. Not given. The magick Carolinus gave you in the past was from his credit and it was lent, too—"

  "He didn't tell me that."

  "No doubt that was because, as your Master-in-Magick, he has control of your account and can pay himself back out of what you've earned from actions like the battle at the Loathly Tower, or your going to World's End to awaken the Phoenix. But I'll expect you to remember—if you survive—that what you will have gotten from me was borrowed. You'll have to speak to the Accounting Office to pay me back. Can I count on that?"

  "Of course you can," said Jim. But the matter-of-fact tone of the words "… if you survive…" had sent a chill down his back.

  He had been in a number of dangerous situations since he had first come to this world. So far, he had always come out of them safely. But Carolinus had never treated him with the solemnity that Kineteté was showing. Now he remembered that time when, inhabiting the body of the dragon Gorbash, he had hung between life and death, with the lance of Sir Hugh de Bois all the way through his chest; and also the knife in his back from Edgar de Wiggin.

  Perhaps he had come to think too much of himself as someone invulnerable. But there had been that cold note just now in Kineteté's voice as she mentioned his chance of survival… He put it aside for the moment.

  "Good. Then about this magic I'll need—" But Kineteté was already talking to thin air.

  "Accounting Office?" she was now saying to the otherwise empty room. "Have you made a note of the agreement on this Magick I have just lent the Apprentice, Jim Eckert?"

  "I have," said the bass voice of the Accounting Office, as usual out of thin air, some five feet above the floor. And as usual, in spite of the fact he was expecting to hear it, Jim jumped.

  "Duplicate to Carolinus's credit record."

  "Yes, Mage."

  Kineteté glared at the thin air.

  "And copy to the Archives. If I remember correctly, once in King Tut's time—"

  "That was an unfortunate error, Mage. A one-in-a-million—"

  "Just so this matter doesn't become the second in that million. You can go now."

  "Yes, Mage."

  "Tell me," asked Jim, as the bass voice fell silent and before he thought, "why do you and Carolinus always give the Accounting Office such a hard time?"

  "Is he gone?" Kineteté took another look at the thin air that the voice had been coming from. "Yes. Good. Keeps him in line. Tracking our magickal credit gives him no authority over us—rather vice-versa. But, now that the terms between us are settled, I've a lot to tell you about Lyonesse."

  "Couldn't," Jim began, "I simply tell you what magic I need—"

  "I'll tell you. After I've told you about Lyonesse. Now, sit still and listen."

  "By the way, I'll need to get back to where I just came from, only a minute or so after I left there to come here. And when you send me back there, could you—"

  "I could and will. Sit down."

  Jim took a chair opposite her.

  "Incidentally," he said, "I've been warned about the dangers of staying in Lyonesse too long—long enough that everything there stops being black and white, like a place in bright moonlight, and I can never leave. So I
know about that."

  "Do you? I hope so. Doubtless whoever told you that also told you it was a Land of Old Magic?"

  "Yes, come to think of it," said Jim, remembering Carolinus's words, in the projection he had left for Jim to find on his last trip into Lyonesse. "I was told."

  "Then suppose we start with that as the basics and enlarge on the matter from there. Old Magic—have you any idea what that means?"

  About to say "Of course. It means magic that's old," Jim checked himself just in time.

  "No," he said. "Tell me."

  "Old Magic," said Kineteté, "is magick that is very old indeed. Old before all remembrance. Old before Lyonesse was upheaven from the abyss by fire, to sink into the abyss again—"

  "Why," said Jim, "those're exactly the words Tennyson used to describe it."

  "Who?"

  "Alfred, Lord Tennyson. A poet of the nineteenth—a poet whose poems we know back where I come from."

  "He must have been there. At any rate, the point is that Old Magic is very, very old. So old, none of us in the Collegiate of Magickians has ever understood all of it." She paused briefly.

  "When King Arthur and his army came to Lyonesse for the last battle with his son Modred, that delayed the land's sinking back into the abyss, which it otherwise would have done before now. But it's something that has to happen eventually—hopefully, not while you and your friends are there."

  "Why should it happen then?"

  "Because," said Kineteté, "the Dark Powers are single-minded, unthinking Natural Forces. But compared to the Old Magic they're no more than jumped-up latecomers who don't know the risk they're taking. They're playing with fire in trying to take over Lyonesse, though they don't suspect it. They could win Lyonesse, but by doing that destroy not only it but themselves."

  "How can you be so sure they don't suspect it?" asked Jim.

  "Because they don't have our capabilities, Apprentice. Their power is only in the present, so that's where they live. From their viewpoint there never was a past and the word future means nothing," said Kineteté. "Obvious enough, I should think?"

  "Yes," said Jim; and made up his mind to say no more for the moment.

  "As far as they know, they only have to own Lyonesse to have a physical base in the real world, something they've never been able to have. A place. Hah! Little do they know what they may have to go through to win it. And little do we know what we'll have to go through if they do win it—"

  "It could make that much difference?" said Jim, in spite of his determination to be quiet.

  "How could it not? But to finish what I was trying to say—to win, the Powers at least realize they'll have to take it from those of the Round Table who are loyal to Arthur. But as far as the Powers understand it, if they just do that, they've got it. They can't conceive of the Old Magic refusing to let them hold it—possibly, they don't even realize the Old Magic exists. But, while they might win it, they won't be able to hold it except by agreement of the humans or Naturals occupying it. Bodiless forces can't possess earth."

  "Makes sense," said Jim, forgetting again about his recent vow of silence.

  "I'm glad to hear it. But—if the Dark Powers do manage to hold it, then with humans loyal to them, they'll have a powerful base in Reality to launch future attacks on History and Chaos. In a word, they would come closer to being sentient beings, rather than just Forces—which would allow them to think more like us who oppose them by making History—a great advantage."

  She stopped and stared hard at Jim.

  "Ah, I see," said Jim, since clearly, now, at last, he was expected to speak.

  "So you can understand," said Kineteté, "why the use of any outside magick by anyone, in Lyonesse, causes double danger. Not only is it subject to erasure or retaliation, but any transfer of the ownership of that Land from Arthur and his Knights—his original Knights of the Legends—to the Dark Powers may disturb the precarious magickal balance that keeps the land itself from sinking in fire once more into the abyss."

  "Oh," said Jim.

  "Not only that, but any improper use of magick from elsewhere may also upset the balance, with the same result."

  Kineteté paused and again looked hard at Jim.

  "Any irresponsible use of magick by someone like yourself."

  "Yes, I understand," said Jim.

  "All of which, of course," Kineteté continued in a more academic tone, "rather limits the amount and kind of magick I can lend you. I expect you're planning to carry those two friends of yours—and I suppose that foolish little Hob—with you, plus horses and weapons and such; and I suppose we must expect at least a couple of emergency situations, in which you'll have to make at least two other uses of magick." Her voice took on an edge.

  "I should warn you," she said, "that if you are stripped of that magick while you're there, you must leave Lyonesse immediately, to resupply yourself. Do not take the risk of trying to recover what you have lost while you're there. But if I lend you the amount of magick needed for what I just mentioned, you should be amply supplied."

  "Except for one thing," said Jim.

  "What one thing?"

  "Well perhaps I should say two. I know you have already agreed to call Brian back to Castle Smythe when Geronde asks; but for me, too, there may be a need to send one or both of my Companions back to the real world here and then recover them again, a little later, as well. Or myself, for that matter."

  "What for?"

  A wild memory from his own twentieth-century world flashed into Jim's mind, of having watched, on television, as people being forced to testify invoked the Fifth Amendment. Impossible here, of course. But…

  "I respectfully decline to answer," he said.

  Kineteté stared at him.

  "What?" she said.

  "I realize," Jim went on stiffly, trying to take the attitude of someone standing firmly on his rights, "that this may result in your refusing to lend me the necessary magic. I further realize it may mean that it will make any attempt by me to go to the aid of Lyonesse at this important time impossible. Refusal to give me the magic necessary is, of course, your privilege.

  "I will only say that the sort of magic I have used on several occasions, successfully up until now, requires that I have as much as is needed, and a free hand in using it. I estimate I could need at least double the amount you had in mind—or more. I'll also mention that at one time I had an unlimited drawing account; and when Carolinus arranged for me to have it, he made no stipulations about its use."

  He folded his arms and sat looking as immovable as he could.

  "I have never…" began Kineteté, and ran out of words.

  They sat looking at each other for a long moment.

  "Do you know what being an Apprentice means?" Kineteté asked at last.

  "I think I do," said Jim. "I also think I am the best judge of what I might run into." He was beginning to feel ridiculous, sitting like this with his arms folded; but he could not think of an excuse to unfold them that would not give Kineteté the impression he was backing down.

  "And you haven't forgotten who I am?"

  "No."

  "And you're continuing to demand—demand, I say—as much magickal credit again as I intend to lend you; but with no accountability?"

  "That," said Jim, "is right."

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

  "If there was the slightest chance you could explain," said Kineteté. "I don't promise anything, you understand—I might—I just possibly might be willing to listen—"

  "I'm afraid an explanation is not possible," said Jim.

  "If you could simply give me some grounds for asking and acting like this…

  "No," said Jim. "That's not possible, either." But he could feel his determination weakening.

  "Then I have no choice but to refuse to help you in any way at this time."

  "Very well," said Jim. He unfolded his arms and stood up.

  "Sit down!" said Kineteté sharply. He sat down.
She looked away from him into a corner of the room. "It's not the credit, it's the principle of the thing…" she said in a low voice, as if speaking to herself.

  Jim continued to sit without saying anything. After a pause, she looked back at him.

  "Tell me one thing," she said. "Did Carolinus actually never, at any time, require accountability from you?"

  "He never did."

  "Well" she said. "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. That's Carolinus for you through and through. Very well. I'm still only lending you this magick credit, remember; but you may have the amount you want, and do with it as you think necessary. And the boy's only an Apprentice, in the name of all that's magick!"

  The last words were addressed only to the room in general. Jim scrambled mentally for the safest thing to say under the circumstances.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Very well," said Kineteté, "I'll do what you asked when I sent you back to the Royal Cave of the Gnarlies: send you to Lyonesse with a ward that includes some of the Here around you."

  "That would be just what I was hoping," said Jim.

  "—And I'll protect you as well as I can. But you must remember it's only while the ward holds that you'll have magick to strike out with; and once anyone or anything in Lyonesse senses you're warded, he, she, or it may wipe the ward out as easily as you breathe on a snowflake to melt it. Also, remember what I said; no one, including me, knows all the Old Magic. Merlin might have, but there's no one like him today. So your powers can disappear without warning."

  "Ah… yes," said Jim. "I'll remember everything you've had to tell me. But isn't it time now you gave me the magic and sent me off?"

  "Very well," she said. "But recall this as well. I have a long memory, myself; and woe to you at my hands if you're careless or wasteful with the magick you borrow from me!"

  "I'll have it in mind," said Jim stiffly.

  "Very well," she said. "Then you're warded and equipped as of this second. Oh, by the way, the ward I gave you and the power to bring or send back and forth your friends; but you understand your own ward protects you only against magick. Good luck."