Chapter 1

At 10:30 a.m., sharp, James Eckert pulled up
in front of Stoddard Hall on the Riveroak College
campus, where Grottwold Weinar Hansen had his lab.
Angie Farrell was not, however, ready and waiting at
the curb. Of course.

It was a warm, bright September morning.

Jim sat in the car and tried to keep his temper un-
der control. It would not be Angle's fault. That idiot
of a Grottwold undoubtedly had dreamed up some-
thing to keep her working overtime in spite of—or
perhaps because of—the fact he knew she and Jim
were supposed to go home-hunting this morning. It
was hard not to lose his temper with someone like
Grottwold, who was not only one of the world's non-
prizes but who had been very patently trying to take
Angie away from Jim and get her for himself.

One of the two big doors on the front of the Stoddard
Hall opened and a figure came out. But it was not An-
gle. It was a stocky young man with bushy reddish
hair and mustache, carrying an overstaffed briefcase.
Seeing Jim in the car, he came down the steps over
to the car and leaned on the edge of the opened win-
dow on the curb side of the front seat.

"Waiting for Angie?" he asked.

"That's right, Danny," said Jim. "She was supposed
to be out here to meet me, but evidently Grottwold's
still hanging on to her."

"That's his style." Danny Cerdak was a teaching
assistant in the Physics Department. He was the only
other Class AA volleyball player on campus. "You're
going out to see Cheryl's trailer?"

"If Angie ever gets loose in time," said Jim.
"Oh, she'll probably be along any second now. Say,
do the two of you want to drop over to my place after
we play tomorrow night? Nothing special, just pizza
and beer and a few other people from the team with
their wives and so forth."

"Sounds fine," said Jim, glumly, "if I'm not stuck
with some extra work for Shorles. Thanks, in any case,
though; and we'll certainly be there if we can make
it."

"Right." Danny straightened up. "See you tomor-
row for the game, then."

He went off. Jim returned to his own thoughts.
At the same time, he told himself, maturity dictated
that he should not lose his emotional control over
something like this—even though they only had two
hours to get to the trailer court and return and have
lunch before getting Angie back to her part-time job
as Grottwold's lab assistant. He must remember that
frustration was a part of life. He had to learn to live
with the whole business of selfish department heads,
inadequate salaries and an economy that was pinch-
ing Riveroak College here, like all other educational
institutions, to the point where it seemed that about
all you could do with a doctorate in medieval history
was use the diploma to shine your shoes, before going
to apply for a job as a grain shoveler—

Jim hauled himself up in his thoughts at this point,
having noticed that, far from calming him down, this
rehearsing of things to be endured had his fists white-
knuckled and beginning to bend the ancient steering
wheel of the Gorp. Nothing about the Gorp was strong
enough to ignore that kind of treatment. For a ten-
year-old Fiat, it was still a faithful little car, but no
honest person could call it in good shape. On the other
hand, Jim himself—like many Class AA volleyball
players—was in shape with a vengeance. He stood a
shade under six feet, but even professional weight-
guessers usually underestimated by twenty or more
his two hundred and ten pounds, which he carried
mostly in bone and hard muscle. Unfortunately, that

sort of physical engine, matched with an instinct for
taking direct action when challenged—which was use-
ful on the volleyball courts with the caliber of oppo-
nents Jim had been facing in tournament play for
some years now, but not perhaps the best thing so-
cially—gave Jim reason to consider that he had cause
for concern about himself.

Thank heaven for Angle. The beautiful thing about
her was that she could get results from people without
becoming at all annoyed with them, in situations when
Jim would have sworn that the other persons were
deliberately looking for a fight. How she managed it,
Jim had never been able to figure out. As far as he
could see, all she did was to explain matters in a level,
friendly voice. Whereupon, for some reason, the other
people immediately stopped doing whatever they had
been doing that was antagonistic and became friendly
and helpful. Angie was really rather special; partic-
ularly for someone hardly bigger than a minute. Look
at the way she handled Grottwold...

Jim woke to the fact that time had been sliding
away as he had been sitting here thinking. He
looked at his watch and scowled. Nearly a quarter to
eleven. This was too much. If Grottwold didn't have
the sense to let her go, Angie herself ought to have
broken away by this time.

He pushed open the car door on his side, and was
just getting out, when one of the two big front doors
swung open again and Angie came running down the
steps to the car, pulling on her light beige topcoat as
she ran. Her brown eyes were bright and her cheeks
pink with her hurry.

"Oh, there you are," said Jim, getting back in.

"I'm sorry." Angie got into the Gorp on her side
and slammed the door behind her. "Grottwold's all
excited. He thinks he's right on the verge of proving
astral projection is possible—"

"Whichjection?"

Jim keyed the Gorp to life and pulled away from
the curb.

"Astral projection. Setting the spirit free to wander




outside the body. What with the results he's been get-
ting using advanced input on biofeedback circuitry
to duplicate certain forms of sleep states—"

"You aren't letting him experiment on you, are you?
I thought we got that settled."

"Don't get all worked up, now," Angie said. "I'm
not letting him experiment on me, I'm helping him
with his experiments. Don't worry, he's not going to
hypnotize me, or anything like that."

"He tried it once."

Jim pulled the Gorp out of the college grounds onto
West Street and turned down on the ramp leading to
Highway Five.

"He only tried. You were the one who hypnotized
me, if you'll remember—after Grottwold taught you
how."

"Anyway, you're not to let anyone hypnotize you
again. Me or Hansen, or anybody."

"Of course," said Angie, softly.

There she went, doing it again—just what he had
been thinking about, Jim told himself. Now he was
the one she'd just handled. All of a sudden there was
no more argument and he was wondering what he had
gotten excited about in the first place. He was also
feeling half guilty for making a fuss over something
that probably had not been that important to begin
with.

"Anyway," he said, heading out along Highway
Five toward the trailer court Danny Cerdak had told
him about, "if this trailer for rent turns out to be the
deal Danny said it was, we can get married and
maybe, living together, we can get by cheaply enough
so you won't have to work for Grottwold as well as
holding down your assistantship in English."

"Jim," said Angie, "you know better."

"We could."

"We could not. The only reason the co-op can get
by charging us a hundred twenty apiece per month for
food and board is that it makes slop food in quantity
and beds us all down in double-decker bunks in dor-
mitories. Any place we find for ourselves is going to

put our living costs up, not down. I can't manage meals
for us as cheaply as the co-op can. No, I can't quit
my work with Grottwold. But at least having a place
of our own will make it seem worth while to go on.
We've got to have a place of our own—but let's not

fool ourselves about the expense."

"We could sort of camp out in the new place, the

first few months."

"How could we? To cook and eat, we've got to have

utensils, and a table to eat on. We need another table
so we can each have one to correct tests on and so
forth for our jobs at the college. And chairs. We need
at least a mattress to sleep on, and something like a
dresser for the clothes that can't be hung up—"

"All right. I'll get an extra job, then."

"No, you won't. I had to stop work on my thesis.
You're going to stick with writing papers for the aca-
demic journals until you publish something. Then see
Shorles keep you out of that instructorship!"

"Oh, hell," said Jim. "I'll probably never get any-
thing published anyway."

"You better not mean that!" For once Angie

sounded almost angry.

"Well, actually, no," Jim said, a little shame-
facedly. "Actually, this last paper was going pretty
well this morning before I headed off for class."

Professor Thibault Shorles, head of the History De-
partment, liked his assistants to sit in on. all of his
classes, in addition to doing the usual work of correct-
ing tests, reserving reference books for the students
in the course, and so forth. It was a neat little whim
that added eight hours a week to the time Jim other-
wise required to put in to earn his hundred and

seventy-five dollars a month.

"How was he?" Angie asked. "Did you ask him

about the instructorship again?"

"He wasn't in the mood."

"He wasn't? Or you weren't?"

Jim winced internally. Shorles had interviewed Jim
at the History Association meeting last year in Chi-
cago; and as good as promised him a recently created

instructorship just added to the history department
Shorles headed at Riveroak. With this prospect, An-
gie had tried for, and to the happiness of both of them,
got, a teaching assistantship in the English Depart-
ment. She was still working for her doctorate in Eng-
lish literature, Jim having been three years ahead of
her at Michigan State, where they met as graduate
students. With both of them set for jobs at the same
academic institution, it had looked as if they had the
future taped. But then when they had gotten here,
Shorles broke the news that because of last-minute
budget problems, Jim could not be given his instructor-
ship until the spring quarter at the earliest. Meanwhile,
Shorles had a teaching assistantship open...

It had taken Jim less than a month to find out the
real nature of the "budget problem." Like academic
departments in many colleges and universities, the
staff teaching history at Riveroak College was riddled
with internal politics. Two established factions in the
department opposed each other on almost every point.
Shorles, independent of both, had gotten by for years
by playing them against each other. But an additional
instructor added at this time could cause a reshuffling
of allegiances and a resultant upset in the neat balance
of power. On the other hand, Professor Theodore N.
Jellamine, the outspoken, motorcycle-riding vice-
chairman of the department, was thinking of retiring
this coming spring. His leaving would mean promo-
tions for those under him; and by controlling these,
Shorles could then absorb a new instructor into a fresh
balance of power hand-tailored by himself.

"I'm sorry, Angie," said Jim, contritely. "I had to
sit through that class for a hour with nothing to do
but look interested and think of what he's done to us;

and by the time the bell rang, I didn't dare talk to
him for fear I'd put one in his teeth when he turned
me down again."

There was a moment's stark silence in the car as
they drove along; then Jim, staring straight ahead out
• the windshield, felt his arm squeezed gently.

"That's all right," Angie told him. "If you felt like

that, you did the right thing. You'll catch him some-
time when you're able to talk calmly about it."

They drove on for a little while longer without talk-
ing.

"There it is," said Jim, nodding to the right, off the
highway.

Chapter 2

The Bellevue Trailer Court had not been laid
out with an eye to attractiveness and none of its own-
ers in the past twenty years had done anything to
amend the oversight. Its present proprietor, in his fif-
ties, was as tall and heavy as Jim Eckert, but his skin
was now too large for his long face. The flesh had
fallen into folds and creases, and the Prussian blue
shirt he wore ballooned loosely about him. His faded
maroon pants were drawn into deep puckers at his
waist by a thin black belt. His breath smelled as if
he had just been snacking on overripe cheese, and in
the sun-hot interior of the empty mobile home he
showed Jim and Angie this aspect of him was hard to
ignore.

"Well," he said, waving at the mobile home walls
about them, "this is it. I'll leave you to look it over.
Just come back to the office when you're ready."

He took his breath outside, leaving the door open
behind him. Jim looked at Angie, but she was run-
ning her fingers over the cracked varnish on one of
the cupboard doors above the sink.

"It's pretty bad, isn't it?" Jim remarked.

It was. Obviously the mobile home was in the last
stages of its life. The floor canted visibly behind Jim
and as visibly canted toward the trailer's other end,

where Angie now stood. The sink was stained and
gritty, the dusty windows sat loosely in their fram-
ing, and the walls were too thin to give anything but
minimum insulation.

"It'd be like camping out in the snow when winter
comes," Jim said.

He thought of the ice-hard January of a Minnesota
winter, both of them twenty-three miles from Riveroak
College and the Gorp running on threadbare tires plus
a wom-out motor. He thought of summer sessions at
the college and the baking heat of a Minnesota July
as they both sat in here with endless test papers to
correct. But Angie did not answer.

She was opening and shutting the door to the trail-
er's shower-and-toilet stall. Or, trying to shut it. The
door did not seem to latch very well. Her shoulders
in the blue jacket were small and square. He thought
of suggesting they give up, go back and check the list-
ings at the Student Housing Bureau once more for an
apartment around the college. But Angie would not
admit defeat that easily. He knew her. Besides, she
knew he knew it was hopeless, their trying to find any-
thing the two of them could pay for close in.

Some of the dreary grittiness of the mobile home
seemed to blow through his soul on a bleak wind of
despair. For a moment he felt a sort of desperate hun-
ger for the kind of life that had existed in the Euro-
pean Middle Ages of his medievalist studies. A time
in which problems took the shapes of flesh-and-blood
opponents, instead of impalpable situations arising
out of academic cloak-and-dagger politics. A time
when, if you ran across a Shorles, you could deal with
him with a sword, instead of with words. It was un-
real that they should be in this situation simply be-
cause of an economic situation and because Shorles
did not want to disturb the political balance of his de-
partment.

"Come on, Angie," Jim said. "We can find some-
thing better than this."

She wheeled around. Under her dark hair, her
brown eyes were grim.

"You said you'd leave it up to me, this last week."

"I know..."

"For two months we hunted around the campus,
the way you wanted. Staff meetings for the fall se-
mester start tomorrow. There isn't any more time."

"We could still look, nights."

"Not anymore. And I'm not going back to that co-
op. We're going to have a place of our own."

"But . . . look at this place, Angie!" he said. "And
it's twenty-three miles from the campus. The Gorp
could throw a rod tomorrow!"

"If he does, we'll fix him.'And we'll fix up this
place. You know we can do it if we want to!"

He yielded. They went back to the trailer park of-
fice and the manager.

"We'll take it," Angie told him.

"Thought you'd like it," said the manager, getting
papers out of a drawer in his littered desk. "How'd
you happen to hear about it, anyway? I haven't even
advertised it yet."

"Your former tenant was the sister-in-law of a
friend of mine," Jim answered, "guy I play volley-
ball with. When she had to move to Missouri, he told
us her mobile home was available."

The manager nodded.

"Well, you can count yourself lucky." He pushed
the papers across to them. "I think you told me you
both teach at the college?"

"That's right," said Angie.

"Then, if you'll just fill in a few lines on these forms
and sign them. You married?"

"We're going to be," said Jim, "by the time we move
m here."

"Well, if you aren't married yet, you've either got
to both sign or one of you has to be listed as sub-
renting. It's easier if you both sign. Then that'll be
two months rent, the first and the last, as a deposit
against damage. Two hundred and eighty dollars."

Angie and Jim both stopped handling the papers.

"Two-eighty?" Angie asked. "Danny Cerdak's




sister-in-law was paying a hundred and ten a month.
We happen to know."

"Right. I had to raise it."

"Thirty dollars more a month?" said Jim. "For
that?"

"You don't like it," said the manager, straightening
up, "you don't have to rent it."

"Of course," Angie said, "we can understand you
might have to raise the rent a bit, the way prices are
going up everywhere. But we just can't pay a hundred
and forty a month."

"That's too bad. Sorry. But that's what it costs now.
I'm not the owner, you know. I just follow orders."

Well, that was that. Back in the Gorp once more,
they rolled down the windows and Jim turned the key
in the ignition. The Gorp gorped rustily to life. They
headed back down the highway toward the college.

They did not talk much on the way back in.

"It's all right, though," Angie said as Jim pulled into
the parking lot next to their co-op and they went in
together to lunch. "We'll find something. This chance
opened up all of a sudden. Something else is bound
to. We'll just keep looking until it does."

"Uh-huh," said Jim.

They cheered up a little over lunch.

"In a way," Angie explained, "it was our own fault.
We got to counting on that mobile home too much,
just because we'd been the first ones to hear about it
being vacant. From now on, I'm not going to count on
anything until we've moved into it."

"You and me both."

By the time they had eaten, little time was left. Jim
drove back to Stoddard Hall and let Angie out.

"You'll be through at three?" he asked. "You won't
let him keep you overtime?"

"No," she said, closing the car door and talking to
him through the open window. Her voice softened.
"Not today. I'll be out here when you pull up."

"Good," he said; and watched her go up the steps
and vanish through one of the big doors.

10

Putting the Gorp in gear, he pulled away and around
to the other side of the campus to park in his usual
space behind the History Building. He had said noth-
ing to Angie, but over lunch a decision had crystalized
inside him. He was going to confront Shorles with the
demand that he give him his instructorship without
any further delay—by the end of spring quarter and
the beginning of the first summer session at latest. He
ran up the three nights of the back set of stairs and
came out into the long, marble floor corridor where
most of the top staff members in the department had
their offices.

Shorles was one step above anyone else in the de-
partment. He had a secretary in his outer office, who
doubled as secretary to the department itself. Jim
came through the door now and found her retyping
something that looked suspiciously like the manu-
script of Shorles' latest paper on the Etruscan roots of
modem civilization.

"Hi, Marge," Jim said. "Is he in?"

Jim glanced toward the door leading to Shorles*
separate office as he spoke, and saw it closed. So he
knew Marge's answer almost before she gave it.

"Not just now," said Marge, a tall, sandy-haired
girl in her mid-thirties. "Ted Jellamine's with him.
They shouldn't be more than a little while, though. Do
you want to wait?"

"Yes."

He took one of the hard seats for visitors in the
outer office; and, at her desk. Marge resumed typing.

The minutes crawled slowly by. Another half-hour
passed and another quarter-hour on top of that. Sud-
denly the door burst open and out came Shorles, car-
rying his ample belly energetically before him and
closely followed by Ted Jellamine in cowboy boots
and a checkered houndstooth jacket. As they headed
for the outer door without pausing, Shorles spoke to
his secretary.

"Marge, I won't be back this afternoon. We're
headed for the Faculty Club. If my wife calls, she can
find me there."

11

Jim had got to his feet automatically as the door
opened and taken half a step in pursuit of the two
men as they snailed through the room. Noticing him
now, Shories gave him a cheerful wave of a hand.

"Marvelous news, Jim!" he said. "Ted, here, is go-
ing to stay on another year!"

The door slammed behind both men. Jim stared at
it, stunned, then turned to Marge, who looked back at
him with sympathy.

"He just wasn't thinking. That's why he broke the
news to you that way," she said.

"Ha!" said Jim. "He was gloating and you know
it!"

"No," Marge shook her head. "No, really, you're
wrong. He and Ted have been close friends for years;

and Ted's been under pressure to retire early. But
we're a private college with no automatic cost-of-living
increases in the pensions, and with this inflation Ted
wants to hang on to his job for the present if he still
can. He really was just happy for Ted, when it turned
out Ted could stay on; and he just didn't think of what
that meant to you."

"Mmph!" said Jim, and staUked out.

He was all the way back to his parking spot before
he calmed down long enough to check his watch. It
was almost two-thirty. He had to pick up Angie again
in half an hour. He had no time to do much of any-
thing before then, either on his essay, or in the way of
his duties as assistant to Shories—not that he felt over-
whelmingly like doing work for Shories right now. He
got into the Gorp, slammed the door and drove off,
hardly caring where he went as long as it was away
from the campus.

He turned left on High Street, turned left again on
Wallace Drive, and emerged a few minutes later on
the Old River Road alongside the Baling River: two-
lane asphalt strip that had been the old route to the
neighboring town of Bixley, before Highway Five had
been laid over the rolling farmland on a parallel route.

The old road was normally free of traffic and today
was no exception. It was even relatively free from

12

houses and plowed fields, since most of the ground was
low-lying and inclined to be marshy. Jim drove along
with no particular destination in sight or mind, arid
gradually the peace of the riverside area through
which he was passing began to bring him back to some
coolness of mind.

Gradually he brought himself to consider that pos-
sibly Marge had been right and that Ted Jellamine
might in his own way have been as concerned about
his future and his livelihood as Jim was himself. It
was a relief to come around to this point of view, be-
cause Ted Jellamine was the one other member of the
History Department whom Jim liked personally. Like
Jim, he was an individualist.' It was only the factors
of their situation that made them competitors.

But, outside of this crumb of comfort, Jim gleaned
little happiness out of this new development. Perhaps
it was not Ted who was to blame, but the tight eco-
nomic situation which squeezed them all. Nonetheless,
once again Jim caught himself wishing that life and
the problems it produced were more concrete and in
a position to be attacked more directly.

He glanced at his watch. It was fifteen minutes till
three. Time to head back to Angie. He found a cross-
road, turned the Gorp around and drove back toward
the campus. Luckily, he had been driving slowly along
the river road and was not that far from town. It
would not do to have her standing and waiting for him,
after all his insistence that she not let Grottwold keep
her overtime and make him wait outside.

He pulled up in front of Stoddard Hall, actually
with a couple of minutes to spare. Turning off the mo-
tor, he waited. As he sat, he put his mind to work to
decide on the best way of breaking the news of his
latest blow to Angie. To come up with news of this
kind on the same day their hopes of renting the mo-
bile home had been dashed was the worst possible
timing. For a short while he played with the notion of
simply not saying anything about it today at all. But of
course that would never work. She would want

13

to know why he had not told her immediately; and she
would be quite right in asking. They would get no-
where if they fell into the habit of hiding bad news
from each other out of a mistaken idea of kindness.

Jim glanced at his watch and was startled to see
that while he had been sitting thinking, nearly ten min-
utes had gone by. Angie was staying overtime, after
all.

Something popped inside Jim. Suddenly he was
completely angry—cold angry. Grottwold had pulled
his delaying tactics once too often. Jim got out of the
Gorp, closed the door and headed up the front
steps to the Hall. Inside the big double doors was the
main staircase, its shallow stair treads capped with
gray granite which had been worn into hollows by
student's feet over a number of years. Jim went up
them two at a time.

Three stories up and thirty feet down the hall on
the right was the frosted-glass door to the laboratory
section in which Grottwold had a ten-foot-square cu-
bicle. Jim went through, saw the door to the cubicle
was closed and strode in without knocking.

Grottwold was standing before what looked like
some sort of control panel to Jim's right; and he looked
around stardedly as Jim burst in. Angle was seated
against the far wall in what looked like a dentist's
chair, facing Jim, but with her head and the upper
part of her face completely covered by what looked
like the helmet of the hair dryer in a beauty shop.

"Angie!" Jim snapped.

She disappeared.

Jim stood for a timeless moment, staring at the
empty chair and the empty helmet. She could not be
gone. She could not have just winked out like that!
What he had just seen was impossible. He stood there
waiting for his eyes to disavow what he had just seen
and return him sight of Angie, still before him.

"Apportation!"

The strangled yell from Grottwold jarred Jim out of
his half-stunned condition. He swung about to face
the tall, shock-haired psychology graduate, who was

14

himself staring at the empty chair and helmet with a
bloodless face. Life and purpose came back to Jim.

"What is it? What happened?" he shouted at
Grottwold. "Where's Angie?"

"She apported!" stammered Grottwold, still staring
at the place where Angie had been. "She really ap-
ported! And I was just trying for astral projection—"

"What?" Jim snarled, turning on him. "What were
you trying?"

"Astral projection! Just astral projection, that's all!"
Grottwold yelped. "Just projecting her astral self out
of her body. I wasn't even trying to get her to experi-
ence an actual projection. All I was hoping for was
just enough astral movement to register on the
microammeters connected to the plant ganglia I'm using
as response indicator. But she apported instead.
She—"

"Where is she?" roared Jim.

"I don't know! I don't, I swear I don't!" the tall
young man's voice climbed the scale. "There's no way
I can tell—"

"You better know!"

"I don't! I know what the settings on my instruments
are; but—"

Jim took three steps across the room, picked the
taller man up by the lapels of his lab jacket and
slammed him back against the wall to the left of the
instrumenc panel.

"GET HER BACK!"

"I tell you I can't!" yelled Grottwold. "She wasn't
supposed to do this; so I wasn't prepared for it! To get
her back I'd first have to spend days or even weeks
figuring out what happened. Then I'd have to figure
out some way of reversing the process. And even if
I did, by that time it might turn out to be too late be-
cause she'd have moved out of the physical area she's
apported to!

Jim's head was whirling. It was unbelievable that
he should be standing here listening to this nonsense
and shoving Grottwold against the wall—but far
more believable, at that, than that Angie should really

15




have disappeared. Even now, he could not really be-
lieve what had happened.

But he had seen her disappear.

He increased his grip on Grottwold's lapels.

"All right, turkey!" he said. "You get her back
here, or I'll start taking you apart right now."

"I tell you I can't! Stop—" Grottwold cried as Jim
pulled him forward from the wall preparatory to slam-
ming him back against it—or through it, if that was
possible. "Wait! I've got an idea."

Jim hesitated, but kept his grip.

"What is it?" he demanded.

"There's just a chance. A long chance," Grottwold
babbled. "You'd have to help. But it might work. Yes,
it might just work."

"All right!" Jim snapped. "Talk fast. What is it?"

"I could send you after her—" Grottwold broke off
at something that was almost a shriek of terror. "Wait!
I'm serious. I tell you this might work."

"You're frying to get rid of me, top," said Jim be-
tween his teeth. "You want to get rid of the only wit-
ness that could testify against you!"

"No, no!" said Grottwold. "This will work. I know
it will work. The more I think about it, the more I
know it'll work. And if it does, I'll be famous."

Some of the panic seemed to go out of him. He
straightened up and made an effort—an unsuccess-
ful one—to push Jim away from him.

"Let me go!" he said. "I have to get my instruments,
or I can't do Angie or anyone else any good. What do
you think I am, anyway?"

"A murderer!" said Jim, grimly.

"All right. Think what you want! I don't care what
you think. But you know how I felt about Angle. I
don't want anything to happen to her, either. I want
to get her back safely here as much as you do!"

Cautiously, Jim let go of the other man but kept
his hands ready to grab him again.

"Go ahead, then," he said. "But move fast."

"I'm moving as fast as I can." Grottwold turned
about to his control panel, muttering to himself. "Yes,

16

that's the way I thought I set it. Yes ... Yes, there's no

other way..."

"What are you talking about?" Jim demanded.

Hansen looked back at him over one boney shoul-
der.

"We can't do anything about getting her back until
we know where she's gone," he said. "Now, all I know
is I asked her to concentrate on anything she liked and
she said she'd concentrate on dragons."

"What dragons? Where?"

"I don't know where, I tell you! It could be dragons
in a museum, or anyplace! That's why we have to
locate her; and why you've got to help or we can't do
it."

"Well, tell me what to do, then," said Jim.

"Just sit down in the chair there—" Grottwold broke
off as Jim took a menacing step toward him. "All right,
then, don't do it! Take away our last chance to bring
her back!"

Jim hesitated. Then, slowly, reluctantly, he turned
back to the empty dentist's chair at which Grottwold
had been pointing.

"You'd better be right about this," he said.

He walked over and seated himself gingerly.

"What are you going to do, anyway?" he asked.

"There's nothing to worry about!" said Grottwold.
"I'm going to leave the control settings just the way
they were when she apported. But I'll lower the volt-
age. That must have been what made her apport in
the first place. There was just too much power behind
her. I'll reduce the power and that way you'll project,
not apport."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you won't go anywhere. You'll stay right
there in the chair. Only your mind'll reach out and
project in the same direction Angie went."

"You're sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Your body will stay right in
the chair. Just your astral self will go to join Angie.
That's the way it should have worked for her in the

17




first place. Maybe she was concentrating too hard—"

"Don't try to blame it on her!"

"I'm not. I just— Anyway, don't you forget to con-
centrate, too. Angie was experienced in this sort of
concentration. You aren't. So you'll have to make an
effort. Think of Angle. Concentrate on her. Concen-
trate on her in some place with dragons."

"All right," Jim growled. "Then what?"

"If you do it right, you'll end up wherever she ap-
ported to. You won't really be there, of course," said
Grottwold. "It'll all be subjective. But you'll feel as if
you're there, and since Angle's on the same instrument
setting, she ought to be aware of your astral self being
there, even if no one else there is."

"All right, all right!" said Jim. "But how do I get
her back?"

"You'll have to get her to concentrate on returning,"
Grottwold answered. "You remembered how I taught
you to hypnotize her—?"

"I remember, all right!"

"Well, try to hypnotize her again. She's got to be-
come completely oblivious to wherever her present sur-
roundings are before she'll be able to apport back
here. Just put her under and keep telling her to con-
centrate on the lab, here. When she disappears, you'll
know she's come back."

"And what," said Jim, "about me?"

"Oh, it's nothing for you," Grottwold said. "You
just close your eyes and will yourself back here.
Since your body never left here to begin with, you'll
automatically return the minute you don't want to
be someplace else."

"You're sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Now, close your eyes— No,
no, you've got to pull the hood down over your
head..."

Grottwold stepped over and pulled the hood down
himself. Jim was suddenly in a near-darkness faintly
scented with the perfume of Angle's hair spray.

"Remember now," Grottwold's voice came distantly
to him through the open bottom of the helmet, "con-


centrate. Angle—dragons. Dragons—Angle. Close
your eyes and keep thinking those two things ..."

Jim closed his eyes and thought.

Nothing seemed to be happening. There was no
sound from outside the helmet, and with the thing
over his head he could see nothing but darkness. The
scent of Angle's hair spray was overwhelming. Con-
centrate on Angle, he told himself. Concentrate on
Angie ... and dragons ...

Nothing was happening, except that the hair-spray
odor was making him dizzy. His head swam. He felt
huge and clumsy, sitting under the hair dryer with his
eyes closed this way. He experienced a thudding in his
ears that was the sound of his heart, beating along the
veins and arteries of his body. A slow, heavy thudding.
His head began to swim in earnest. He felt as if he
were sliding sideways through nothingness and in the
process expanding until he bulked like a giant.

A sort of savagery stirred in him. He had a fleeting
desire to get up from where he was and tear something
or someone apart. Preferably Grottwold. It would be
sheerly soul-satisfying to take hold of that turkey and
rip him limb from limb. Some large voice was boom-
ing, calling to him, but he ignored it, lost in his own
thoughts. Just to sink his claws into that george—

Claws? George?

What was he thinking about? This nonsense was not
working at all.

He opened his eyes.

Chapter 3

The helmet was gone. Instead of into hair-
spray-scented darkness, he stared at rock walls lead-
ing up to a ceiling also of rock, high above his head
and flickeringly lit by reddish light from a torch blaz-
ing in a wall sconce.

"Blast it, Gorbash!" roared the voice he had been

trying to ignore. "Wake up! Come on, boy, we've got
to get down to the main cave. They've just captured

one!"

"One... ?" Jim stammered. "One what?"

"A georgel A george! WAKE UP, GORBASH!"
An enormous head with crocodile-sized jaws
equipped with larger-than-crocodile-sized fangs thrust

itself between Jim's eyes and the ceiling.

"I'm awake. I—" What he was seeing suddenly reg-
istered on Jim's stunned mind and he burst out invol-
untarily, "A dragon!"

"And just what would you expect your maternal

grand-uncle to be, a sea lizard? Or are you having
nightmares again? Wake up. It's Smrgol talking to you,
boy. Smrgol! Come on, shake a wing and get flapping.
They'll be expecting us in the main cave. Isn't every

day we capture a george. Come on, now."

The fanged mouth whirled away. Blinking, Jim

dropped his eyes from the vanishing apparition and
caught sight of a huge tail, an armored tail with a row
of sharp, bony plates running along its upper surface.

It swelled larger as it approached him—

It was his tail.
He held up his arms in front of him. They were

enormous. Also, they were thickly scaled with bony
20

plates uke those on his tail but much smaller—and his
claws needed manicuring. Squinting at the claws, Jim
became aware of a long muzzle stretching down and
out from where his formerly "invisible" nose had
been. He licked dry lips and a long, red, forked tongue
darted out briefly in the smoky air.

"Gorbash!" thundered the voice once more; and
Jim looked to see the other dragon face glaring at him
from a stone doorway. It was in fact, he saw, the en-
trance to the cave he was in. "I'm on my way. Catch

up or not—it's up to you."

The other disappeared and Jim shook his head, be-
wildered. What was going on here? According to
Grottwold, no one else was supposed to be able to see
him, let alone—

Dragons?

Dragons who talked... ?

To say nothing of his being—he, Jim Eckert—him-
self a dragon...

That was the absolutely ridiculous part. He, a
dragon? How could he be a dragon? Why would he be
a dragon, even if there were such things as dragons?
The whole thing must be some sort of hallucination.

Of course! He remembered, now. Grottwold had
mentioned that what he would seem to be experienc-
ing would be entirely subjective. What he was appar-
ently seeing and hearing must be nothing more than a
sort of nightmare, overlying whatever real place and
people he had reached. A dream. He pinched himself.

—And jumped.

He had forgotten noticing that his "fingers" had
claws on them. Large claws, and very sharp ones. If
what he was experiencing was a dream, the elements

of that dream were damned real!

But, dream or not, all he wanted was to find Angle
and get out of here, back to the ordinary world. Only,
where should he look for her? He had probably better
find someone he could describe her to, and ask if she'd
been seen. He should have asked whoever it was he
had been "seeing" as the "dragon" trying to wake him

21







up. What was it the other had been saying? Something
about "capturing a george ... ?"

What could a george be? Or was it George with a
capital G? Maybe if some people here appeared as
dragons, then others would appear as St. George, the
dragon-slayer. But then, the other dragon had referred
to "a" george. Perhaps the dragons called all ordinary,
human-looking people by that name, which would
mean that what they had really captured was proba-
bly—

"Angle!" Jim erupted, suddenly putting two and two
together.

He rolled to all four feet and lumbered across the
cave. Emerging through its entrance, he found himself
in a long torchlit corridor, down which a further
dragon shape was rapidly receding. Concluding this
must be the—what it had called itself—grand-uncle
of the body Jim was in, Jim took after him, digging in
his memory to turn up the name the other had used
for himself.

"Wait for me, uh—Smrgol!" he called.

But the other dragon shape turned a comer and dis-
appeared.

Coming up rapidly in pursuit, Jim noticed that the
ceiling of the corridor was low, too low for his twitch-
ing wings, which he could now see out of the comers
of his eyes evidently trying to spread themselves in re-
flexive response to his speed. He turned the comer
himself and emerged through a large entrance into a
huge, vaulted chamber that seemed jammed to over-
flowing with dragons, gray and massive under the light
of a number of wall torches that cast large shadows on
the high granite walls. Not watching where he was go-
ing, Jim ran squarely into the back of another dragon.

"Gorbash!" thundered this individual, jerking his
head around and identifying himself by this cry as the
maternal grand-uncle again. "A little respect, blast
you, boy!"

"Sorry!" boomed Jim. He was still not used to his
dragon-voice and the apology came out like the ex-
plosion of a signal cannon.

22

But apparently Smrgol was not offended.

"That's all right, that's all right. No harm done," he
thundered back. "Sit down here, lad." He leaned over
to rear in the ear of the dragon next to him. "Make
room for my grand-nephew, here."

"What? Oh, it's you, Smrgol!" bellowed the other
dragon, turning his head to look. He shifted over
about eight feet. "All right, Gorbash, squeeze in.
We're just getting down to discussion on the george,
now."

Jim pushed his way between the two of them, sat
down and began to try to make sense of what was go-
ing on around him. Apparently the dragons in this
world all spoke modem English ... Or did they? Now
that he listened closely to the verbal tumult around
him, the words that his ear was hearing seemed to dis-
agree with the sense that his mind was making out of
it. Maybe he was talking "dragon" and didn't know
it? He decided to file that question for examination at
a more leisurely moment.

He looked about. The great sculptured cave in
which he found himself had seemed at first to be
aswarm with literally thousands of dragons. On closer
look, the idea of thousands gave way to hundreds, and
this in turn resolved itself to a saner estimate of per-
haps fifty dragons of all sizes. Size-wise, Jim was
pleased to note, he was not among the smallest there.
In fact, no dragon close to him at the moment, with
the single exception of Smrgol, could compare to him
in size. There was, however, a monster across the
room, one of those who seemed to be doing most of
the talking, gesturing now and then to a box-like
shape of about dragon size, placed beside him on the
stone floor and covered with a richly worked piece of
tapestry that looked far beyond the capability of
dragon claws to produce.

As for the discussion—verbal brawl was perhaps a
better description of it. A discussion among dragons
appeared to consist of all of them talking at once.
Their voices were tremendous in volume and the stone
walls and ceiling seemed to shiver under the reso-

23

nances of the titanic bellowing. Smrgol lost no time in
getting into it.

"Shut up, you—Bryagh!" he exploded at the over-
size dragon beside the tapestry-covered object. "Let
someone get a word in edgewise who's had more ex-
perience with georges and the rest of the upper world
than everyone else of you put together. When I slew
the ogre of Gormely Keep there wasn't a dragon here
that was out of the shell yet."

"Do we have to listen to your battle with that ogre
one more time?" roared the oversize Bryagh. "This is
important!"

"Listen, you inchworm!" Smrgol thundered. "It
takes brains to beat an ogre—something you haven't
got. Brains run in my family. If another ogre cropped
up nowadays, me and Gorbash here'd be the only two
tails seen above ground for the next eighty years!"

The argument between the two gradually domi-
nated the lesser bellowings that were going on. One by
one, Jim noticed, the other dragons shut up and sat
back to listen, until only his grand-uncle and Bryagh
were left shouting at each other.

". . . Well, what do you want to do about it, then?"
Bryagh was demanding. "I caught it right above the
main cave entrance. It's a spy, that's what it is."

"Spy? What makes you think it's a spy? Georges
don't go spying on dragons, they come looking for a
fight. Fought a good many in my time that way."
Smrgol expanded his chest.

"Fight!" sneered Bryagh. "Ever hear of a george
nowadays out to fight without its shell? Ever since the
first george we've known, when they were looking for
a fight they had their shells on. This one was practi-
cally peeled!"

Smrgol winked ponderously at the dragons near
him.

"Sure you didn't peel it yourself?" he boomed.

"Does it look like it? Look!"

And, reaching down, Bryagh twitched off the tapes-
try from the box-like shape, revealing an iron cage. In

24

the cage, crouching miserably behind its rough bars,
was—

"ANGIE!" Jim cried.

He had forgotten the tremendous capabilities of the
dragon-voice. Or, rather, he had not yet had a real
chance to test them out. He had instinctively called
Angie's name at the top of his lungs, and a shout at
the top of a dragon's lungs was something to hear—
provided you had earplugs and were safely over the
horizon.

Even that oversize assembly in the cave was
shaken. As for Angie, she was either blasted flat on
her back or fainted.

Gorbash's grand-uncle was the first to recover from
the shock.

"Blast it, boy!" he bellowed, in what Jim now un-
happily realized were normal dragon conversational
tones, "you don't have to burst our eardrums! What do
you mean—'hanchee'?"

Jim had been thinking fast.

"I sneezed," he said.

A dead silence greeted this remark. Finally Bryagh
retorted.

"Who ever heard of a dragon sneezing?"

"Who? Who?" snorted Smrgol. "I heard of a dragon
sneezing. Before your time, of course. Old Malgu, my
mother's sister's third cousin, once removed, sneezed
twice on one day a hundred and eighty-three years
ago. Don't tell me you never heard of a dragon sneez-
ing. Sneezing runs in our family. It's a sign of brains."

"That's right," put in Jim hastily. "A sign my brains
are working. Busy brains make your nose itch."

"You tell 'em, boy!" Smrgol rumbled, in the second
dubious silence following this remark.

"I'll bet!" roared Bryagh. He turned to the rest of
the assembly. "You all know Gorbash. Mooning
around aboveground half the time, making friends
with hedgehogs and wolves and what all! Smrgol
here's been talking up his grand-nephew for years, but
Gorbash's never showed anything yet that I know of
—least of all, brains! Shut up, Gorbash!"

25

"Why should I?" Jim shouted, hastily. "I've got as
good a right to talk as anyone else here. About this—
uh—george, here—"

"Kill it!" "Bum it alive!" "Hold a raffle, and the
winning diamond gets to eat it," a roar of suggestions
interrupted him.

"No!" he thundered. "Listen to me—"

'Wo, is right," trumpeted Bryagh. "I found this
george. If anybody gets to eat it, it'll be me." He
glared around the cave. "But I got a better use for this
george. I say, let's stake it out where the other georges
can see it. Then, when some of them come to get it
back, we'll jump them when they aren't expecting it
and grab the lot of them. Then we'll sell them all back
to the rest of the georges for a lot of gold."

When Bryagh said the word "gold," Jim saw all the
dragon eyes around him light up and glitter; and he
also felt a hot bite of avarice warming his own veins.
The thought of gold rang in his head like the thought
of a fountain of water to a man dying of thirst in the
desert. Gold ... A slow, swelling murmur of approval,
like the surf of a distant sea storm, rose up in the cave.

Jim fought down the gold hunger in his own dragon-
breast, and felt panic rising in its stead. Somehow he
had to turn them all from this plan of Bryagh's. For a
moment he toyed with the wild idea of snatching up
Angie, cage and all, and making a run for it. Even as
he thought this, it came to him that it was not such a
wild idea after all. Until he was able to see Angle close
to Bryagh—and Bryagh was about his own size—he
had not realized how big he was. Even squatting on
his haunches, as he was not, his head was in the neigh-
borhood of nine feet off the floor of the cave. Standing
upright on all four feet, he would probably measure
six feet or better at a front shoulder, with as much as
half that length again of powerful, limber tail. If he
could catch the other dragons all looking the other
way for a moment...

But then it sank in on him that he did not know the
way out of this underground place. He had to assume
that a further opening dimly seen at the cave's far end

26

led to a passage which would take him to the surface.
Some faint, Gorbash-memory seemed to assure him
this was so. But he could not count on the subcon-
scious memories of this body he was inhabiting. If he
should lose his way—be trapped with his back against
some wall, or in some blind passage—the other drag-
ons might well tear him apart; and Angie, even if she
survived that battle, would lose her only possible res-
cuer. There had to be another way.

"Wait a minute," he called out. "Hold on!"

"Shut up, Gorbash!" thundered Bryagh.

"Shut up, yourself!" Jim bellowed back. "I told you
my brains were busy. They just came up with the best
idea yet."

Out of the comer of his eyes he saw Angie sitting up
in her cage with a dazed expression, and felt relief.
The sight gave him courage and he doubled the vol-
ume of his voice.

"This is a female george you've got here. Maybe that
didn't strike any of you as something important; but
I've been aboveground often enough to learn a thing
or two. Sometimes female georges are especially val-
uable—"

At Jim's shoulder, Smrgol cleared his throat with a
sound like an airhammer biting into particularly stub-
born concrete.

"Absolutely correct!" he boomed. "It might even be
a princess we've got. Looks to me something like a
princess. Now, a lot of you nowadays don't know what
princesses are; but in the old days many a dragon
found a whole pack of georges after him because the
george he picked up turned out to be a princess. When
I fought the ogre of Gormely Keep, he had a princess
locked up along with his pack of other female georges.
And you ought to have seen the georges when they got
that princess back. Now, if we stake this one out, they
might send a regular army against us to try and get it
back. . . No, staking it out's too risky. Might as well
just cut our losses and eat—"

"On the other hand," shouted Jim, quickly, "if we
treat her well and hold her—'it,' I mean—for a hos-

27




tage, then we can make the georges do anything we
want—"

"No!" roared Bryagh. "It's my george. I won't stand
for—"

"By my tail and wings!" The tremendous lung
power of Smrgol cut the other dragon off. "Are we a
community, or a tribe of mere-dragons? If this george
is actually a princess and can be used to stop these
shelled georges from hunting us all over the landscape,
then it's a community property. Oh yes, I see some of
you with the gold-lust still in your eyes; but just stop
and think that the life-lust is maybe something just a
little bit more important. How many of you here
would like to face just a single george in his shell, with
his hom aimed at you? Eh? We've had enough of this
nonsense. The boy here's got a real idea—surprised I
didn't think of it myself. But then my nose wasn't itch-
ing; his was. I vote we hold the george here hostage
until young Gorbash can go find out what it's worth to
the other ones. How about it?"

Slowly at first, and then with mounting enthusiasms,
the dragon community voted to do as Smrgol had sug-
gested. Bryagh completely lost his temper, swore for
forty straight seconds at near full dragon-volume,
and stamped out of the meeting. Seeing the excite-
ment was over, other members of the community
began to drift off.

"Come, my boy," Smrgol puffed, leading the way
to the cage, and covering it once more with the tap-
estry. "Pick up the whole thing, there. Careful! Not
too quickly. You don't want to shake the george
around too much. Now, follow me. We'll take it up
to one of the topside caves opening on the cliff face.
Georges can't fly, so it'll be safe enough there. We
can even let it out of the cage and it'll get some light
and air. Georges need that."

Jim, carrying the cage, followed the older dragon
up a number of winding passages until they came
out into a small cave with a narrow—by dragon
standards—opening on thin air. Jim set the cage
down, Smrgol rolled a boulder into place to block

28

the entrance by which they had come, and Jim
stepped to the edge of the outer opening to look
around at the countryside. He caught his breath at
the sight: one-hundred-plus feet of sheer cliff side drop
to the jagged rocks below.

"Well, Gorbash," said Smrgol, coming up beside
him and draping a friendly tail over the younger
dragon's armor-plated shoulders. "You've talked your-
self into a job. Now, my boy, I don't want you to be
offended at what I'm going to say."

He cleared his throat.

"The truth is," he went on, "just between the two
of us, you really aren't too bright, you know. All that
running around on the surface you used to do and
consorting with that fox, wolf, or whatever-it-was
friend of yours was not the right sort of education
at all for a growing dragon. Probably I should have
put my foot down; but you're the last of our family,
and I ... well, I thought there wouldn't be any harm
in letting you have a little fun and freedom when you
were young. I've always backed you up before the
other dragons, of course, because blood's thicker than
water, and all that. But brains really aren't your
strength—"

"I may be brighter than you think," Jim said,
grimly.

"Now, now, don't be touchy. This is just between
you and me, in private. It's no disgrace for a dragon
to be thick-headed. It is a disadvantage in this modem
world, though, now that georges have learned how to
grow shells and long, sharp horns and stings. But
the point I want to impress on you is something I
wouldn't admit to any other dragon. If we're to sur-
vive, sooner or later we're going to have to come to
soine kind of terms with these georges. This constant
warfare doesn't seem to be cutting down their num-
bers much, but it's decimating our ranks. Oh, you
don't know what that word means—"

"Of course I do."

"You surprise me, my boy." Smrgol looked at him,
startled. "What's it mean, then? Tell me!"

" 'The destruction of a considerable part of—

that's what it means."
"By the primal egg! Maybe there's hope for you

after all. Well, well. What I wanted to do was impress
you with the importance of your mission, and also
with its dangers. Don't take chances, Grand-nephew.
You're my only surviving relative; and, in all kind-
ness I say it—in spite of all that muscle of yours—
any shelled george with a bit of experience would

chop you up in an hour or so."

"You think so? Maybe I'd better make it a point

to keep well out of sight—"

"Tut-tut! No need to get touchy. Now, what I want
to do is try and find out from this george here where
it came from. I'll leave, myself, so as not to frighten
it unduly. If it won't talk, leave it here where it's safe
and fly up to that magician who lives by the Tin-
kling Water. You know where that is, of course. Due
northwest of here. Start negotiations through him.
Just tell him we've got this george, what it looks like,
and that we want to discuss terms for a truce with
the georges. Leave it up to him to make arrangements.
And whatever you do"—Smrgol paused to look Jim
sternly in the eyes—"don't come back downcave
to me for more advice before you leave. Just go.
I'm having trouble enough holding control here with
what prestige I have. I want to give the impression
you're capable of handling this all by yourself. Un-
derstand?"

"I understand," said Jim.

"Good." Smrgol waddled to the open-air entrance
of the cave. "Good luck, boy!" he said, and dived off.

Jinx heard the beating of his great, leathery wings
descending and dying out in the distance. Then he
turned back to the cage, pulled the tapestry off it once
more, and discovered Angle huddled in the back of

it, as far away from him as she could get.

"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
30

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 Angle's

concerned face hovering over him.

"What happened?" he said, shakily.

"I don't know," she said. "You just suddenly col-
lapsed. 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?"

31




"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 some-
thing 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 An-
gie.

"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 under-
stand 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 what-

32

ever 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 wn-r^vcr 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 doesnt 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 hyp-
notize 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 get-
ting 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 hyp-
33

notized 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 automati-
cally."

"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 up-
set. "This is all my fault."

"Your fault? This? Of course not. It's Grott-
wold's—"

"No," said Angie, "it's mine."

"It isnt, 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 some-
place else!"

34

"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!"

"AH right! You tell me, then. What else is there

to do?"

"I've been thinking," said Angie, tihoughtfully.

"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 inter-
est in saving me. So, when you go to the magician—"

"Wait a minute! Who said I was leaving you, to
go anywhere?"

35




"You know as well as I do that that's what you
have to do," Angle 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 hyp-
notize 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 ver-
bal 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 rea-
son," 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 an-
swered. "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 leam what to do
and get back here safely before night."

"No." Jim shook his head. "If I hypnotize you, at

36

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 resist-
ance. He could feel air against they undersurfaces in
the same way the back pressure of the water on an
oar can be felt by somebody rowing.

37




Hope flickered faintly alight in him. If he were go-
ing 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 4

Once more, as when he cried out on seeing
Angle, 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 main-
tain it for only a small distance, a dragon's great mus-
cle power could lift him quickly to soaring heights. But

38

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 be-
hind 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, par-
ticularly 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 inclina-
tions) 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 Angle. 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 im-
pression, 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

39




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 drag-
ons 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 Angle'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 modem 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 mod-
em English—colloquial modem English at that—
in his head, were puzzling, to say the least. As a me-
dievalist, Jim could both speak and read Middle and
Old English, and with a doctorate he could also read
and make himself understood in modem French and
German. In addition to these languages, he had a
smattering of modem Spanish, a few words of modem
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 any-
one adventuring into any period of the European Mid-
dle 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 environ-
ment; and if he kept his eyes open and put two and
two together ...

He soared on steadily through the air, thinking in-

40

tensely. 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.

The wood had evidently not been as close as he
had first thought. Although he was making very good
time indeed—Jim estimated his air speed as some-
where in the area of fifty to seventy miles an hour—
the green band of trees was still the same small dis-
tance off. On the other hand, he did not seem to be
tiring at all. In fact, he felt as if he could soar like this

indefinitely.

He did feel the first, slight tickling of an appetite,

however. He wondered what, as a dragon, he ate. Not
—he winced away from a thought—no, definitely not
human beings. If that was ordinary dragon fare, he'd
just have to go hungry. Perhaps the magician could
help him out in the foot department as well as with
the means of getting Angie and himself home again.

He was finally beginning to get close to the wood
now. He could make out separate trees. They were all
pine, spruce and balsam, growing close together. For
the first time a doubt crossed his mind. If he had to
search through that forest on foot . . . But then he
reassured himself. He could not have been expected
to know exactly where this Tinkling Water place was,
or Smrgol would not have reminded him that it lay
to the northwest. On the other hand, if it had been a
hard place to find, the older dragon, with the low opin-
ion he had of Gorbash's mentality, would have given
more explicit directions and double-checked to make
sure his grand-nephew had them straight.

Possibly there would be something he could see
from the air, Jim thought, as he began to swoop down
on a long arc that would bring him in close above the

treetops.

Suddenly, he saw it: a tiny clearing among the trees
with a stream running through it and cascading over
a small waterfall at its upper end. Beside the stream
was a pool with a fountain, and a small, oddly nar-
row, peaked-roof house surrounded by grass and

41

flower beds, except where a gravel path led from the
edge of the dense woods up to the house's front door.
A signpost of some sort stood to one side of the path
just before the door.

Jim set down on the path with a thump.

In the silence that followed his rather heavy land-
ing, he distinctly heard the sound of the water of the
fountain falling and splashing in the pool. It did, in-
deed, tinkle—not like the sound of small bells, but
with the very distant, fragile notes of glass wind
chimes, clashing in the light breeze. The sound was
somehow inexpressibly lulling to the nerves, and the
rich and mingled odors rising from the blossoming
flowers in the flower beds reinforced the effect; so that
all at once Jim felt as if he had been plunged into
a dream place where nothing was quite real and cer-
tainly nothing was overly important.

He moved slowly up the path and paused to read
the signpost before the house. The sign itself was a
plain, white-painted board with black lettering on it.
The post on which it was set rose from among a riot
of asters, tulips, zinnias, roses and lilies-of-the-valley,
all blooming in complete disregard for their normal
seasons. Printed on the board in black, angular letters
was the name S. Carolinus. Jim went on up to the
front door, which was green and sat above a single
red-painted stone step.

He knocked.

There was no answer.

In spite of the soothing effect of the fountain and
the flowers, Jim felt a sinking sensation inside him. It
would be just his luck and Angle's to arrive at the
residence of S. Carolinus when S. Carolinus was not
within it.

He knocked again—harder, this time.

The sound came of a hasty step inside the house.
The door was snatched inward and a thin-faced old
man with a red robe, black skullcap and a thin,
rather dingy-looking white beard stuck his head out
to glare at Jim.

42

"Sorry, not my day for dragons!" he snapped.
"Come back next Tuesday."

He pulled his head back in and slammed the door.

For a moment Jim merely stared. Then comprehen-
sion leaked through to him.

"Hey!" he shouted; and pounded on the door with
some of his dragon-muscle.

It was snatched open furiously once more.

"Dragon!" said the magician, ominously. "How
would you like to be a beetle?"

"You've got to listen to me," said Jim.

"I told you," Carolinus .explained, "this is not my
day for dragons. Besides, I've got a stomach ache. Do
you understand? This-is-not-my-day-for-dragons!"

"But I'm not a dragon."

Carolinus stared at Jim for a long moment, then
threw up his beard with both hands in a gesture of
despair, caught some of it in his teeth as it fell down
again, and began to chew on it fiercely.

"Now where," he demanded, "did a dragon acquire
the brains to develop the imagination to entertain the
illusion that he is not a dragon? Answer me, 0 Ye
Powers!"

"The information is psychically, though not phys-
iologically, correct," replied a deep bass voice out of
thin air beside them and about five feet off the ground
—causing Jim, who had regarded the question as rhe-
torical, to start.

"Is that a fact?" said Carolinus, peering at Jim with
new interest. He spat out the hair or two still remain-
ing in his mouth and stepped back, opening the door.
"Come in, Anomaly:—or do you have a better name
for yourself?"

Jim squeezed through the door and found himself
in a single cluttered room which evidently took up the
full first floor of the house. It contained pieces of fur-
niture and odd bits of alchemical equipment indis-
criminately arranged about it. S. Carolinus closed the
door behind him and walked around to face Jim again.
Jim sat down on his haunches, ducking his head to
avoid hitting the ceiling.

43




"Well, my real name is James—Jim Eckert," he
said. "But I seem to be in the body of a dragon
named Gorbash."

"And this," said S. Carolinus, wincing and massag-
ing bis stomach, "disturbs you, I gather." He closed
his eyes and added faintly, "Do you know anything
that's good for an unending stomach ache? Of course
not. Go on."

"I'm afraid not. Well, the thing is— Wait a min-
ute. Are you talking dragon, or am I talking whatever
language you're talking?"

"If there's a language called 'dragon,'" said S. Car-
olinus, grumpily, "naturally, you're talking it. If you
were talking it, I'd be talking it with you—naturally.
Actually we're simply talking. Will you stick to the
point? Go on about yourself."

"But, I mean, do dragons and humans here—
I mean georges—speak the same language? I mean,
I seem to be speaking your language, not mine—"

"Why not?" Carolinus said, closing his eyes. "In the
domain of the Powers there is only one language pos-
sible—by definition. And if you're not talking to the
point in five seconds, you're a beetle, on general prin-
ciples."

"Oh. All right. Well," Jim explained, "the thing is,
I'm not so interested in getting out of this dragon-
body as I am in getting back to where. I came from.
My—uh—Angie, the girl I'm going to marry—"

"Yes, yes, on October thirteenth," said Carolinus
impatiently. "Get on with it."

"October thirteenth? This October? You mean in just
three weeks?"

"You heard me."

"But, I mean—so soon? We didn't hope—"

Carolinus opened his eyes. He did not mention bee-
tles, but Jim understood immediately.

"Angie—" he began hurriedly.

"Who is where?" Carolinus interrupted. "You're
here. Where's this Angie?"

"At the dragon cave."

"She's a dragon, too, then?"

44

"No, she's human."

"I see the difficulty."

"Well, yes— No," said Jim. "I don't think you do.
The difficulty is, I can send her back, but possibly I
can't get back myself; and she won't go without me.
Look, maybe I better tell you the whole story from

the beginning."

"Brilliant suggestion," said Carolinus, wincing and

closing his eyes again.

"You see," said Jim, "I'm a teaching assistant at a

place called Riveroak College. Actually, I ought to
be an instructor in the English Department . . ." He
ran rapidly over the whole situation.

"I see," Carolinus replied, opening his eyes finally.
"You're sure about all this, now? You wouldn't prefer
to change your story to something simpler and more
reasonable—like being a prince ensorceled into a
dragon by a rival with access to one of those Inner
Kingdom charlatans? No?" He sighed heavily and
winced again. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"We thought you might be able to send both Angie
and myself back where we belong."

"Possible. Difficult, of course. But I suppose I could
manage, given time and a proper balance between
Chance and History. All right. That'll be five hundred
pounds of gold or five pounds of rubies, payable in

advance."

"What?"                               1
"Why not?" Carolinus inquired, frostily. "It's a fair

fee."

"But—-" Jim almost stammered. "I don't have any

gold—or rubies."

"Let's not waste time!" snapped Carolinus. "Of
course you have. What kind of a dragon would you be

without a hoard?"

"But I don't!" Jim protested. "Maybe this Gorbash
has a hoard someplace. But if so, I don't know where

it is."

"Nonsense. I'm willing to be reasonable, though.

Four hundred and sixty pounds of gold."
"I tell you I don't have a hoard!"

45




"All right. Four twenty-five. But I warn you, that's
my rock-bottom price. I can't work for less than that
and still keep house and goods together."

"I don't have a hoard!"

"Four hundred, then, and may a magician's
curse— Just a second. You mean you really don't
know where this Gorbash-hoard is?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"Another charity patient!" exploded Carolinus,
flinging skinny fists in the air, furiously. "What's wrong
with the Auditing Department? Answer me!"

"Sorry," came the invisible bass voice.

"Well," said Carolinus, calming, "see that it doesn't
happen again—for another ten days at least." He
turned once more to Jim. "Haven't you any means of
payment at all?"

"Well," Jim said, cautiously, "about this stomach
ache of yours. I've just been thinking ... Does it go
away after you eat something?"

"Yes," said Carolinus, "as a matter of fact it does,
temporarily."

"I was just thinking you might have what people
where I come from call a stomach ulcer. People who
live and work under a good deal of nervous pressure
often get them."

"People?" Carolinus looked at him suspiciously.
"Or dragons?"

"There aren't any dragons where I come from."

"All right, all right," said Carolinus, testily. "You
don't have to stretch the truth like that. I believe you
about this stomach devil. I was just making sure you
knew what you were talking about. Nervous pressure
—exactly! These ulcers, how do you exorcise them?"

"Milk," said Jim. "A glass of cow's milk six or eight
times a day until the symptoms disappear."
"Ha!"

Carolinus turned about, darted over to a shelf on
the wall and took down a tall black bottle. Uncorking
it, he poured what looked like red wine into a dusty
glass goblet from one of the nearby tables, and held
the goblet up to the light.

"Milk," he said.

The red liquid turned white. He drank it off.
"Hmm!" he said, with his head on side, waiting.
"Hmm . .."

Slowly a smile parted his beard.
"Why, I do believe," he said, almost gently, "it's
helping. Yes, by the Powers! It is!"
He turned to Jim, beaming.

"Excellent! The bovine nature of the milk has a
remarkably placating effect on the anger of the ulcer,
which must, by-the-bye, be a member of the family
of Fire Demons, now I come to think of it. Congratu-
lations Gorbash, or Jim, or whatever your name is.
I'll be frank with you. When you mentioned earlier
you'd been a teaching assistant at a college, I didn't
believe you. But I do now. As fine a small bit of
sympathetic magic as I've seen for weeks. Well, now"
—he rubbed bony hands together—"to work on your
problem."

"Possibly . . ." said Jim, "if you could get us to-
gether and start out by hypnotizing us both at once—"

Carolinus' white eyebrows shot up on his forehead
like startled rabbits.

"Teach your grandmother to suck eggs!" he
snapped. "By the Powers! That's what's wrong with the
world today! Ignorance and anarchy!"

He shook a long and not-too-clean forefinger un-
der Jim's muzzle.

"Dragons, galumphing hither and yon—knights
galumphing yon and hither—naturals, giants, ogres,
sandmirks and other sports and freaks each doing
their billy-be-exorcised best to terrorize his own little
part of the landscape. Every jackanapes and teaching
assistant in his blindness setting himself up to be the
equal of a Master of the Arts. It's not endurable!"

His eyes lit up exactly like live coals and glowed
fiercely at Jim.

"I say it's not! And I don't intend to endure it,
either! We'll have order and peace and Art and Sci-
ence, if I have to turn the moon inside out!"




"But you said for five hundred—I mean, four

hundred pounds of gold—"

"That was business. This is ethicsl" Carolinus

snatched up some more of his beard and gnawed on
it for a moment before spitting it out again. "I thought
we'd chaffer a bit about price and see what you were
worth. But now that you've paid me with this ulcer
spell . . ." His tone became thoughtful suddenly; his
eyes dimmed, unfocused, and seemed to look else-
where. "Yes. Yes, indeed... very interesting..."
"I just thought," Jim said, humbly, "that hypnotism

might work, because—"

"Work!" cried Carolinus, returning abruptly to the

here and now. "Of course it'd work. Fire will work to
cure a bad case of the dropsy. But a dead-and-
cindered patient's no success! No, no, Gorbash (I can't
remember that other name of yours), recall the First

Law of Magic!"

"The what?"
"The First Law—the First Law! Didn't they teach

you anything at that college?"
"Well, actually, my field was—"
"Forgotten it already, I see," sneered Carolinus.

"Oh, this younger generation! The Law of Payment,
' you idiot! For every use of Art of Science, there is a
required or corresponding price. Why do you think
I live by my fees instead of running through the
aleph tables? Just because a number is transfinite
doesn't mean you can use it to get something for noth-
ing! Why use hawks and owls and cats and mice
and familiars instead of a viewing crystal? Why does
a magic potion have a bad taste? Everything must
be paid for, in proportion! Why, I wouldn't have done
what this wooden-headed Hansen amateur of yours
did without having built up ten years' credit with the
Auditing Department first; and I'm a Master of the
Arts. He's pushed his debit right to the breaking

point—it can't go any further."

"How do you know?" asked Jim.
"Why, my good teaching assistant," said Carolinus,

48

"isn't it obvious? He was able to send this maiden of
yours—I assume she is a maiden?"

"Well-—"

"Well, well, call her a maiden for form's sake. Ac-
ademic question, anyway," Carolinus snapped. "The
point I'm making is that he was able to send her back
completely, body and all; but he only had enough
credit with the Auditing Department after that to
transport your spirit, leaving your body behind. Re-
sult, you're an Imbalance in the here and now—and
the Dark Powers love something like that. Result,
we have a nice, touchy situation—now that I look a
little deeper into it—ready to turn things here very
much for the worst. Hah! If you'd only been a little
more clever and learned, you'd have realized you
could have had my help without paying for it with that
ulcer exorcism. I'd have helped you anyway, just in
order to help myself and all of us here."

Jim stared at him.

"I don't understand," he said, finally.

"Naturally not—a mere teaching assistant like
yourself. All right, I'll spell it out. The fact of your
appearance here—yours and this Angle's—has upset
the balance between Chance and History. Upset it
badly. Imagine a teeter-totter, Chance sitting on one
end, History on the other, swinging back and forth—
Chance up one moment, then Chance down and His-
tory up. The Dark Powers love that. They throw their
weight at the right moment on a side that's already
headed down, and either Chance or History ends per-
manently up. One way we get Chaos. The other we
get Predictability and an end to Romance, Art, Magic
and everything else interesting."

"But . . ." Jim found himself drowning in a sea of
words, "if that's the case, what can we do about it?"

"Do? Push up when the Dark Powers push down.
Push down when the Dark Powers push up! Force
a temporary balance and then hit them head on—
our strength against their strength. Then, if we win
that final battle, we can set your situation to rights

49




and be back on permanent balance again. But there'll
be trouble, first."

"Look here, though—" Jim was beginning.

He was about to protest that Carolinus seemed to
be making the situation out to be far more complicated
than was necessary. But he had no chance to finish
his sentence. Just then a loud thud outside the house
shook it to its foundations; and a dragon voice thun-
dered.

"Gorbash!"

"I knew it," said Carolinus. "It's already started."

Chapter 5

He led the way to the door, threw it open and
strode out. Jim followed. Sitting on the path about a
dozen feet from the door was Smrgol.

"Greetings, Magel" boomed the old dragon, dip-
ping his head briefly. "You may not remember me.
Name's Smrgol. You remember that business about
the ogre of Gormely Keep? I see my grand-nephew
got to you, all right."

"Ah, Smrgol. I remember," said Carofinus. "That
was a good job you did."

"He had a habit of dropping his clubhead after a
swing," Smrgol explained. "I noticed it along about
the fourth hour of the battle. Left himself wide open
for just a second. The next time he tried it, I went
in over bis guard and tore up the biceps of his right
arm. After that it was just a matter of finishing."

"I remember. Eighty-three years ago. So this is
your grand-nephew?"

"I know," said Smrgol. "A little thick-headed and

50

all that—but my own flesh and blood, you know.
How've you been getting along with him, Mage?"

"Well enough," said Carolinus, dryly. "In fact, Fll
venture to promise this grand-nephew of yours will
never be the same again."

"I hope so," Smrgol said, brightening. "Any change
is a change for the better. But I've bad news, Mage."

"Don't tell me!"

"Don't... ?" Smrgol stared.

"I was being sarcastic. Go on, go on," said Car-
olinus. "What's happened now?"

"Why, just that that young inchworm of a Bryagh's
run off with our george."

"WHAT?" cried Jim.

The flowers and grass lay down as if in a hurricane.
Carolinus tottered, and Smrgol winced.

"My boy," he said, reproachfully. "How many times
must I tell you not to shout? I said Bryagh's taken the
george."

"WHERE?" Jim yelped.

"Gorbash!" said Smrgol severely. "H you can't talk
about this in a polite tone, we won't include you in
the discussions after this. I don't know why you get so
excited whenever we mention this george."

"Listen—" said Jim. "It's time you found out
something about me. This george, as you call her, is
the woman I—"

His vocal cords seemed to become paralyzed sud-
denly. He was unable to say another word.

"—and to be sure," Carolinus interrupted quickly,
shoving into the gap caused by Jim's sudden and un-
expected silence, "this is a matter of concern to all of
us. As I was telling Gorbash, the situation is bad
enough already without our making it worse. Eh,
Gorbash?"

He bent a penetrating eye on Jim.

"We want to be careful and not make it any worse
than it is already, don't we? We don't want to disturb
the already disturbed fabric of things any more than
it already is. Otherwise, I might not be able to be of
any help."

51




Jim found his vocal cords suddenly free to operate
again.

"Oh? Oh ... yes," he said, a trifle hoarsely.

"And to be sure," repeated Carolinus, smoothly,
"Gorbash has asked the right question. Where has
Bryagh taken this so-called george?"

"Nobody knows," Smrgol answered. "I thought
maybe you could find out for us. Mage."

"Certainly. Fifteen pounds of gold, please."

"Fifteen pounds?" The old dragon visibly staggered.
"But, Mage, I thought you'd want to help us. I thought
you'd— I don't have fifteen pounds of gold. I lived
up my hoard a long time ago."

Shakily, he turned to Jim.

"Come, Gorbash, it's no use. We'll have to give up
our hope of finding the george—"

"No!" cried Jim. "Listen, Carolinus! I'll pay you.
I'll get the fifteen pounds somewhere—!"

"Boy, are you sick or what?" Smrgol was aghast.
"That's only his asking price. Don't be in such a
sulphurous hurry!"

He turned back to the magician.

"I might be able to scrape together a couple of
pounds, maybe. Mage," he said.

They dickered like fishwives for several minutes
while Jim sat quivering with impatience; and finally
closed on a price of four pounds of gold, one pound
of silver and a large flawed emerald.

"Done!" said Carolinus.

He produced a small vial from his robes and walked
across to the pool at the base of the fountain, where
he filled the vial about half full. Then he came back
and searched among the soft grass around the edge
of one flower bed until he found a small, sandy,
open spot between the soft green blades. He bent
over and the two dragons craned their necks down
on either side of him to watch.

"Quiet now," Carolinus warned. "I'm going to try
a watchbeetle—and they're easily alarmed. Don't
breathe."

Jim held his breath. Carolinus tilted the vial in his

52

hand and a drop fell on the little sandy open spot
with a single glass-chime musical note. Tink! Jim
could see the bright sand darken as the moisture sank
into it.

For a second nothing happened; then the wet sand
cracked, opened, and a fine spray of lighter-colored,
drier sand from underneath spouted into the air. A
small amount of this under sand grew about a depres-
sion that sank and became a widening hole, like the
entrance to an anthill. An occasional flicker of small
black insect limbs could be seen, rapidly at work.
After a second the work ceased, there was a moment
of silence, and then an odd-looking black beetle
popped halfway out of the hole and paused, facing
up to them. Its forelimbs waved in the air and a little,
squeaky voice like a cracked phonograph record re-
peating itself far off over a bad telephone connection
came to Jim's ears.

"Gone to the Loathly Tower. Gone to the Loathly
Tower. Gone to the Loathly Tower."

The watchbeetle stopped abruptly, popped back out
of sight and began churning away inside the hole, fill-
ing it in.

"Not so fast!" Carolinus snapped. "Did I give you
leave to go? There're other things than being a
watchbeetle, you know. There're blindworms. Come
back at once, sir!"

The sand spouted into the air once more. The
watchbeetle reappeared, its front limbs waving agi-
tatedly.

"Well, well—speak up!" said Carolinus. "What
about our young friend here?"

"Companions!" creaked the watchbeetle. "Com-
panions! Companions!"

It ducked out of sight again. The sand began to
work itself smooth once more; and in a couple of
seconds the ground looked as if it had never been
disturbed.

"Hmm," Carolinus murmured thoughtfully. "It's
the Loathly Tower then, that this Bryagh of yours
has taken the maiden to."

53




Smrgol cleared his throat noisily.
"That's that ruined tower to the west, in the fens,
isn't it. Mage?" he asked. "Why, that's the place the
mother of my Gormely Keep ogre came from, as
the stories go. The same place that loosed the blight
on the mere-dragons nearly five hundred years ago."

Carolinus nodded, his eyes hooded under his thick
white brows.

"It's a place of old magic," he answered. "Dark
magic. These places are like ancient sores on the land,
scabbed over for a while but always breaking out with
new evil whenever the balance of Chance and His-
tory becomes upset."

He went on musingly, speaking almost more to him-
self than to Jim and the older dragon.

"Just as I feared," he said, "the Dark Powers
haven't been slow to move. Your Bryagh belongs to
them, now—even if he didn't, before. It'll be they who
caused him to take the maiden there, to become a
hostage and weapon against Gorbash here. It's a
good thing I took a stem line with that watchbeetle
just now and got the full message."

"Full message?" Jim echoed, puzzled.

"That's right—the full message." Carolinus turned
commandingly upon him. "Now that you know your
lady's been taken there, no doubt you're all ready to
go to her rescue, aren't you?"

"Of course," said Jim.

"Of course not!" snapped Carolinus. "Didn't you
hear the second part of the watchbeetle's message?
'Companions!' You'll have to have companions before
you dare venture close to the tower. Otherwise your
Angela and you are both doomed."

"Who is this Angela?" Smrgol asked, puzzled.

"The Lady Angela, dragon," said Carolinus. "The
female george Bryagh took to the tower."

"Ah," said Smrgol, a little sadly. "Not a princess
then, after all. Well, you can't have everything. But
why does Gorbash here want to rescue her? Let the
other georges do whatever rescuing there has to be—"

"I love her," said Jim, fiercely.

54

"Love her? My boy," Smrgol scowled, aghast, "I've
put up with a good deal of your strange associates in
the past—that wolf and so forth. But falling in love
with a george! There's a limit to what any decent
dragon—"

"Come, come, Smrgol," said Carolinus, impatiently.
"There are wheels within wheels in this matter."

"Wheels ... ? I don't understand. Mage."

"It's a complex situation, derivative from a great
many factors, unobvious as well as obvious. Just as in
any concatenation of events, no matter how immedi-
ate, the apparent is not always the real. In short, your
grand-nephew Gorbash is also, in another sense, a gen-
tleman named Sir James of Riveroak, obligated to
rescue his lady from the Dark Powers now controlling
Bryagh, the Loathly Tower, and the Powers-know-
what-else. In words 'of one syllable, therefore, he
whom you know as Gorbash must now embark on a
quest to restore the balance between Chance and His-
tory; and it is not for you to criticize or object."

"Or understand either, I suppose," Smrgol said,
humbly.

"One might say that," barked Carolinus. "In fact,
I do!" His voice softened somewhat. "We're all caught
up in a new battle for freedom from domination by
the Dark Powers, Smrgol. And it's going to be a battle
that makes your set-to with the ogre of Gormely Keep
seem unimportant. You can stand aside if you want,
but you can do nothing to change what's coming.*'

"Stand aside? Me?" Smrgol huffed. "What kind of
dragon do you take me for? I'm with Gorbash—and
with you too. Mage, if you're on the same side he is.
Just tell me what to do!"

"I am," said Carolinus, dryly. "Very well, Smrgol.
In that case, you'd better get back to the other drag-
ons and start making them understand what's at stake
here and just where Bryagh, you, and Gorbash stand
on matters. As for you—" he turned on Jim.

"I'm headed for that tower, like it or not," said Jim.
"Do, and you'll never see your lady again!" Car-
olinus' voice cracked like a gunshot. His eyes were

55




burning once more. "Do it, and I wash my hands of
you; and if I wash my hands of you, you've no hope!
Now—will you listen?"

Jim swallowed his immediate impulse to take off
then and there. There might be something in what
Carolinus was about to say. In any case, he and An-
gie would still need the magician's help to get home
again, even after Angle was rescued. It would hardly
be wise to make an opponent of Carolinus now.

"I'll listen," he answered.

"Very well, then. The Dark Powers have taken your
lady to their tower for the very reason that they hope
to draw you into their territory before you've gathered
the strength to oppose them. They want you to come
immediately to the rescue of the Lady Angela; be-
cause if you do, you'll be easy to defeat. But if you
hold off until you've gathered the companions the
watchbeetle indicated, it's they who can be defeated.
Therefore, you're foolish if you go now."

"But what'U they do to Angela—I mean, Angie—"
said Jim, "when they see I'm not coming right after
her? They'll figure she's no good as a means to stop
me, and do something terrible to her—"

"They cannot!" Carolinus snapped. "By taking the
lady they've over-extended themselves, made them-
selves vulnerable. If they treat her any way but well,
all who might oppose them—man, dragon and beast
—will form a solid front against them. There're rules
at work here; and just as if you go now to her rescue
you will certainly lose, so if they harm their hostage
they will certainly lose!"

Jim found himself wavering in his firm intention to
go after Angie at once. He remembered his earlier de-
termination to figure out the system by which this
world operated. If Carolinus was correct . . . and the
magician was a very convincing arguer ...

"But you're sure she'll be all right if I don't get to
that tower right away?" Jim asked.

"She'll only be other than all right if you do go
now." '

Jim gave in with a deep sigh.

56

"All right," he said. "What do I do, then? Where
should I go?"

"Away!" said Carolinus. "That is, in exactly the op-
posite direction which you would use in returning to
the dragon cave from which you came."

"But, Mage," put in Smrgol, puzzled, "away from
the cave is exactly toward the fens and the Loathly
Tower. And you just finished saying he shouldn't go
to the tower—"

"Dragon," cried Carolinus, wheeling on Smrgol.
"Have I got to argue with you, now? I said 'away!'
I didn't say 'to the tower.' The Powers give me pa-
tience! Have I got to explain the intricacies of Ad-
vanced Magics to every dumbwit and numbskull who
flies in here, or don't I? I ask you?"

"No!" said the deep bass voice out of thin air.

"There," Carolinus said in a relieved tone, mop-
ping his brow. "You heard the Auditing Department.
Now, no more talk. I'ye got my hands too full as it is.
Off with you to the dragon cave, Smrgol. And away
with you, Gorbash, in the opposite direction!"

He turned around and stamped into his house, slam-
ming the door shut behind him.

"Come, Gorbash," boomed Smrgol. "The Mage's
right. Let me get you started in the right direction,
then I'll leave you on your own. My, my, who'd have
thought we'd run into such interesting times in my old
age?"

Wagging his head thoughtfully, the elderly dragon
sprang into the air, leathery wings opening out with a
thunderous clap, and mounted skyward.

After a second's hesitation, Jim followed him.

57




Chapter 6

"You can just see the beginning of the fens,
there—that misty, bluish line beyond that bit of forest
coming in from the north and stretching out like a fin-
ger across your way."

Smrgol, soaring alongside Jim, broke off as they left
the thermal they had been rising upon and had to use
their wings to get to another. The prevailing breezes
seemed to be blowing against them.

Jim noticed that the older dragon had a tendency to
fall silent when he had to exert himself flying. It gave
the information Smrgol seemed determined to impart
something of a fragmentary feeling.

"Nothing important comes out on the fens nowa-
days to concern our people, of course. Except, that is,"
Smrgol went on abruptly as they caught another ther-
mal and started on a long, buoyant glide toward the
dimly seen fens, "for the mere-dragons. Relatives of
ours, as you know, Gorbash. Distant, naturally. You'll
have some fifteenth or sixteenth cousins among them
without a doubt, though probably they won't remem-
ber the connection. Never were a very solid branch of
the family to start with; and then when this blight hit
them—well, they generally fell apart."

Smrgol paused to clear his throat.

"Took to living separately, even from each other.
There are no good caves out there among all that bog
and water, of course. They must be feeding them-
selves mostly on fish from the sea, nowadays, I don't
wonder. Only an occasional sandmirk, sea lizard or
stray chicken is to be found in that sort of territory.
Oh, there are a few small holdings and impoverished

58




farms on the borders of the fens, and occasionally they
can be raided. But even those'll have suffered from
the blight; and everything they own'll be stunted or
hardly worth the eating to a healthy dragon like you
or me, boy. Why, I've even heard some of our mere-
dragon relatives have fallen so low as to try and exist
on garden truck. Heard of one even eating cabbages.
Cabbages! Unbelievable ..."

Once more they had to use their wings to reach an-
other thermal; and by the time they got to it and
Smrgol took up talking again, it was obvious to Jim's
ears that the older dragon was definitely winded.

"Well, there you have it ... Gorbash . . ." he said.
"I guess that covers it, pretty well. Keep . . . your
head, my boy. Don't let your natural . . . dragon fury
run away with you; and you can't help . . . But do
well. Well, I guess I'd better be turning back."

"Yes," said Jim. "Maybe you'd better. Thanks for
the advice."

"Don't thank me ... boy. Least I can do for you.
Well.. . good-bye, then ..."

"Good-bye."

Jim watched Smrgol fall off in a sloping dive, turn-
ing a hundred and eighty degrees as he swung to catch
a lower thermal and the wind from the seacoast, which
was now behind him. Smrgol dwindled quickly and
Jim turned his attention back to what lay ahead of
him, personally.

Below him at the moment, the forest and open
ground over which Jim had approached the woods
holding Carolinus' house had given way to a wide
landscape of desolate moors, interrupted by strands of
just a few trees, and some poverty-stricken huts made
of what looked like fallen branches tied together in
bundles, the roofs thatched with hay or grass. The in-
habitants of these, when surprised outside their dwell-
ing, invariably scurried for shelter at the sight of Jim
winging overhead. They were dressed in furs rather
than in more conventional clothes and did not appear
to be a very attractive people.

However, as Jim, continued on his flight, these hab-

59

itations became more and more occasional and finally
disappeared altogether. The moors were ending now
and the forest Smrgol had pointed out was close. Un-
like the coniferous woods around the Tinkling Water,
this other growth was apparently of deciduous trees
such as oaks and willows. They all seemed curiously
leafless for this time of year and their branches, seen
from above, had a gnarled and tangled look that gave
the forest a particularly forbidding look; as if it was
the kind of place that would not easily let out again
anyone who wandered into it on foot. Jim felt a twinge
of smugness at being able to soar safely above it.

In fact, once again the intoxication of being air-
borne was making him feel better than conditions jus-
tified. He had no real idea of what he was headed
into; but that did not seem to disturb his cheerful feel-
ing. He had wanted to go to the Loathly Tower and
Carolinus had argued against it. But here he was, at
Carolinus' direction, going toward it anyway. What-
ever the reason was for his being headed in this direc-
tion, what he was doing at the moment felt to him
particularly right...

Now, the far edge of the forest was almost under-
neath him. Beyond, there was nothing but the green
fenland, stretching to a misty deeper-blue line which
must be the open sea. The fens was a good-sized area,
he saw, a greenly lush, low-lying wilderness of land
and water. It filled the landscape before him to the
skyline in all directions except straight ahead, where
the sea blue showed.

He searched about it with the telescopic vision of
his dragon-eyes for some sight of a structure which
could be the Loathly Tower, but he could pick out
nothing. The breeze that had been blowing against
him dropped abruptly, and a new, light wind began to
push from behind him. He stretched his wings to it,
and let it carry him, gliding at a small angle down the
invisible air surface as if it was some miles-long, magic
slide. The fenland rose to meet him: spongy, grass-
thick earth, broken into causeways and islands by the

60

blue water, thick-choked itself in the shallower bays
and inlets with tall seagrass and club rushes.

Flocks of water fowl rose here and there like eddy-
ing smoke from one mere, drifted over and settled on
the surface of another, a few hundred yards away.
Their cries, thinned by the distance, came faintly to
Jim's hypersensitive ears.

Ahead, heavy clouds were piling up above the
coastline to the west.

Jim soared on, above the still water and the soft
grass, smelling the distant saltwater. He looked wor-
riedly at the declining sun which was just now begin-
ning to slip down behind the thick cloudbank he had
just noticed. It would be nightfall before long. He was
hungry and he had absolutely no notion of what he
should do once it was dark. Certainly, he could not
continue in the air. It would not be pleasant to fly full-
tilt into the ground because he could not see where he
was going. It would not be pleasant, in fact, to fly full-
tilt into one of the bays or meres. He could land and
travel onward on foot—but there would probably be
bogs.

The sensible thing once the sun set, he thought,
would be to spend the night on one of the small land
patches below him. Not that such a prospect sounded
very comfortable. Also, he would be completely ex-
posed down there if anything decided to creep up on
him.

Jim was brought up short in his thoughts at this
pqint by the sudden remembrance of what he was. He
had, he realized, been thinking like a human, not like
a dragon. What, in its right mind, would want to creep
up on a dragon? Outside of a knight in armor. And
what would a knight in armor be doing prowling
around in the dark? Or another dragon, for that mat-
ter? The only other dragon he had any reason to fear
around here, if Smrgol's report on the mere-dragons
had been correct, was Bryagh; and Bryagh would be
making a mistake if he came anywhere near, in the
mood possessing Jim right now.

In fact, thought Jim, he would like nothing better

61




than to get his jaws and claws on Bryagh right now.
He felt a grim and sullen anger begin to kindle in him
like a hot coal fanned to life just beneath his breast-
bone. The feeling was rather enjoyable. He let it kin-
dle and grow until it suddenly occurred to him that it
was a dragonly, rather than a human, anger he was
feeling. Perhaps this was what Smrgol had been talk-
ing about when he had advised Gorbash not to let his
dragon-fury run away with him.

Jim made a determined effort to put the emotion
aside, but the inward fire he had kindled did not seem
disposed to go out that easily. He struggled with it,
alarmed now, and—as luck would have it—just at
that moment he caught sight of another dragon shape,
down on one of the spits of land directly in front of
him.

The other dragon was concerned with something ly-
ing in the grass. What it was, Jim could not make out
from this height and angle; but in any case, its identity
was academic. The sight of the other dragon had been
all that was needed to bring to full flame the fury now
within him.

"Bryagh!" The word snarled, unbidden in his
throat.

Reflexively, he nosed over and went into a dive like
a fighter plane, his sights locked on the target below.

It was a dive sudden enough to take the dragon un-
derneath utterly by surprise. Unfortunately, it had one
natural drawback. Even a small flivver airplane with
its motor cut off makes a noticeable amount of noise
descending in a steep dive; and a large dragon such as
Gorbash had no less air resistance than the average
two-seater light airplane. Moreover, the dragon below
had evidently had some experience with such a noise;

for without looking upward he made one frantic leap
and went tumbling head over tail out of the way as
Jim slammed down onto the ground at the spot where
a second before the other had been.

The attacked dragon came to the end of his tum-
bling, sat up, took a look at Jim and began to wail.

"It's not fair! It's not fair!" he cried in a—for a

62

dragon—remarkably high-pitched voice. "Just be-
cause you're bigger than I am! And I had to fight two
hours for it. It almost got away half a dozen times,
Besides, it's the first good-sized one to wander out onto
the fens in months, and now you're going to take it
away from me. And you don't need it, not at all.
You're big and fat, and I'm weak and hungry ..."

Jim blinked and stared. He glanced from the
dragon down to the thing in the grass before him and
saw that it was the carcass of a rather old and stringy-
looking cow, badly bitten up and with a broken neck.
Looking back at the other dragon again, he realized
for the first time that the other was little better than
half his own size, and so emaciated that he appeared
on the verge of collapse from starvation.

". . . Just my luck!" the other dragon was whimper-
ing. "Every time I get something good, someone comes
along and takes it away from me. All I ever get is
fish—"

"Hold on!" said Jim.

"—Fish, fish, fish! Cold fish, without any warm
blood in them to put strength in my bones—"

"Hold on, I say! SHUT UP!" Jim bellowed, in
Gorbash's best voice.

The other dragon stopped his complaining as
abruptly as if he was a record player whose plug had
been pulled.

"Yes, sir," he said, timidly.

"What're you talking about?" demanded Jim. "I'm
not going to take your cow away from you."

"Oh no, sir," said the other dragon; and tittered as
if to show that nobody could accuse nun of not know-
ing a good joke when he heard it.

"I'm not."

"He-he-he!" chuckled the smaller dragon. "You
certainly are a card, your honor."

"Dammit, I'm serious!" snapped Jim, backing away
from the carcass. "Go ahead, eat! I just thought you
were someone else."

"Oh, I don't want it. Really, I don't! I was just jok-
ing about being starved. Really, I was!"

63




"Look," said Jim, taking a tight rein on his dragon-
temper, which was beginning to rekindle, "what's your
name?"

"Oh, well," said the other. "Oh, well—you know—"

"WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"

"Secoh, your worship!" yelped the dragon, fearfully.
"Just Secoh, that's all. I'm nobody important, your
highness. Just a little, unimportant mere-dragon."

"You don't have to swear it to me," said Jim. "I
believe you. All right, Secoh"—he waved at the dead
cow-—"dig in. I don't want any myself, but maybe you
can give me some directions and information about
this territory and what lives here."

"Well . . ." Secoh hedged. He had been sidling for-
ward in fawning fashion while the conversation was
going on, until he was once more almost next to the
cow. "H you'll excuse my table manners, sir. I'm
just a mere-dragon—" And he tore into the meat
before him in sudden, ravenous fashion.

Jim watched. His first impulse was the compassion-
ate one of letting the other get some food inside him
before making him talk. But, as he sat and observed,
Jim began to feel the stirrings of a not inconsiderable
hunger himself. His belly rumbled, suddenly and au-
dibly. He stared at the torn carcass of the cow and
tried to tell himself it was not the sort of thing any
civilized person would want to eat. Raw meat—off a
dead animal—flesh, bones, hide and all...

"Say," said Jim, drawing closer to Secoh and the
cow, and clearing his throat, "that does look rather
good, after all."

His stomach rumbled again. Apparently his dragon-
body had none of his human scruples about the eat-
ability of what he was looking at.

"Secoh?"

Secoh reluctantly lifted his head from the cow and
rolled his eyes warily to Jim, although he continued
to chew and gulp frantically.

"Er, Secoh—I'm a stranger around these parts,"
said Jim. "I suppose you know your way around pretty
well. I— Say, how does that cow taste?"

64

"Oh, terrible— Mumpf—" said Secoh with his
mouth full. "Stringy, old—awful, really. Good enough
for a mere-dragon like me, but not for—"

"Well, about those directions I wanted ..."

"Yes, your worship?"

"I think— Oh, well, it's your cow."

"That's what your honor promised," replied Secoh,
cautiously.

"But you know, I wonder," Jim grinned confidingly
at him, "I just wonder how a cow like that would
taste. You know I've never tasted anything quite like
that before?"

"No, sir." A large tear welled up in Secoh's near
eye and splashed down upon the grass.

"I actually haven't. I wonder—it's up to you, now—
would you mind if I just tasted it?"

Another large tear rolled down Secoh's cheek.

"If—if your honor wishes," he choked. "Won't you
—won't you help yourself, please?"

"Well, thanks," said Jim.

He walked up and sank his teeth experimentally
into a shoulder of the carcass. The rich juices of the
warm meat trickled over his tongue. He tore the shoul-
der loose...

Some little time later, he and Secoh sat back, pol-
ishing bones with the rough upper surfaces of their
forked tongues, which were abrasive as the coarsest
sandpaper.

"Did you get enough to eat, Secoh?" Jim asked.

"More than enough, sir," replied the mere-dragon,
staring at the denuded skeleton with a wild and fam-
ished eye. "Although if you don't mind, your honor,
I've got a weakness for marrow—"

He picked up a thighbone and began to crunch it
like a stick of candy.

"Tomorrow we'll hunt up another cow and I'll kill
it for you," said Jim. "You can have it all to your-
self."

"Oh, thank you, your honor," said Secoh, with po-
lite lack of conviction.

65

"I mean it—now, about this Loathly Tower, where

is it?"

"The wh-what?" stammered Secoh.
'The Loathly Tower. The Loathly Tower! You

know where it is, don't you?"

"Oh yes, sir. But your honor wouldn't want to go
there, would your worship? Not that I'm presuming to
give your lordship advice—" Secoh cried suddenly, in

a high and terrified voice.

"No, no. Go on," said Jim.

"—but of course I'm only a little, timid mere-
dragon, your honor. Not like you. But the Loathly
Tower, it's a terrible place, your highness."

"How terrible?"
"Well ... it just is." Secoh cast an unhappy look

about him. "It's what spoiled all of us, you know,
five hundred years ago. We used to be just like you
other dragons— Oh, not so big and fierce as you, of
course, sir. But then, after that, they say the Dark
Powers got pushed back again and sealed up, and the
tower itself broken and ruined—not that it. helped
us mere-dragons any. Everybody else just went home
and left us the way we'd become. So, it's supposed to
be all right, now. But all the same I wouldn't go near
there if I was your worthiness, I really wouldn't."

"But what's there that's so bad?" demanded Jim.

"What sort of thing, specifically, is it?"

"Well, I wouldn't say there was any thing there,"
replied Secoh, cautiously. "It's nothing your worship
could exactly put a claw on. It's just that whatever or
whoever goes near it—without belonging to it, I mean
—it does something to them, sir. Of course, it's the
evil sorts that head for it in the first place. But some-
times things just as strange seem to come from it, and

lately—"

Secoh caught himself and became very busy search-
ing among the bones of the cow.

"Lately, what?"
"Nothing—really, nothing, your excellency!" cried

Secoh, a little shrilly, starting up. "Your illustriousness
shouldn't catch a worthless little mere-dragon up like

66

that. We're not too bright, you know. I only meant. . .
lately the tower's been a more fearful place than ever.
No one knows why. And we all keep well away from
it!"

"Probably just your imagination," said Jim, shortly.

He had always been a skeptic by nature; and al-
though this strange world was clearly full of all sorts
of variances with the normal pattern of things as he
knew them, his mind instinctively revolted against too
much credit in the supernatural—particularly, he
thought, the old B-mbvie horror type of supernatural.

"We know what we know," said the mere-dragon
with unusual stubbornness. He stretched out a scrawny
and withered forelimb. "Is that imagination?"

Jim grunted. The meal he had just gulped down had
made him drowsy. The gray last light of day was
leaden in its effect upon his nerves. He felt torpid and
dull.

"I think m grab some sleep," he said. "Anyway,
how do I find the Loathly Tower from here?"

"Just go due west. You won't be able to miss it."

A shiver was to be heard in the last words of the
mere-dragon, but Jim was becoming too sleepy to care.
Dimly, he heard the rest of what Secoh was telling
him.

"It's out along the Great Causeway. That's a wide
lane of solid land running due east and west through
the fens for about five miles, right to the sea. You just
follow it until you come to the tower. It stands on a
rise of rock overlooking the edge of the ocean."

"Five miles ..." Jim muttered.

He would have to wait until morning, which was
not an unpleasant prospect. His armored body seemed
undisturbed by the evening temperature, whatever it
was, and the grassy ground beneath him was soft.

"Yes, I think I'll get some sleep," he murmured. He
settled down, on the grass and yielded to an impulse
of his dragon-body to curl his long neck back and tuck
his head bird-fashion under one wing. "See you in the
morning, Secoh."

"Whatever your excellency desires," replied the

67




mere-dragon in his timid voice. "I'll just settle down
over here, and if your worship wants me, your wor-
ship has only to call and I'll be right here ..."

The words faded out on Jim's ear as he dropped
into sleep like an overladen ship foundering in deep
saltwater.

Chapter 7

When he opened his eyes, the sun was well
above the horizon. The bright, transparent, cool light
of early morning lit up the clear blue arch of sky over-
head. The seagrass and the club rushes swayed slightly
in the early breeze that was sending a series of light
ripples over the stretch of shallow lake near where Jim
lay. He sat up, yawned expansively and blinked.
Secoh was gone. So were the leftover bones.
For a second Jim felt a twinge of annoyance. He
had been unconsciously counting on tapping the mere-
dragon for more information about the fens. But
then the annoyance faded into amusement. The pic-
ture of Secoh stealthily collecting the denuded bones
in careful silence and sneaking away before daybreak
tickled Jim's sense of humor.

He walked down to the edge of the lake and drank,
lapping like some enormous cat and flipping several
pints of water into his throat with each flick of his
long tongue. Satisfied at last, he looked westward to-
ward the misty line of the ocean and spread his
wings—

"Ouch!" he said.

Hastily he folded the wings again, cursing himself
mentally. He should, of course, have expected this
from the way Smrgol had run out of breath while flying

68

yesterday. The first attempt to stretch Gorbash's
wings had sent what felt like several keen-edged
knives stabbing into muscles he had seldom used be-
fore. Like anyone else who has suddenly overexer-
cised a body out of shape for such activity, he was
stiff as a board in that portion of his body he had most
need of at the moment.

The irony of it did not escape him. For twenty-six
years he had gotten along quite nicely without wings.
Now, after one day's use of them, he was decidedly
miffed to have to proceed on foot. His amusement
gone, he turned his head toward the ocean and set
about following a land route.

Unfortunately, it could not be a direct route. In-
stinctively, he tried to travel on land as much as pos-
sible, but often he had to jump small ditches—which
caused his wings to spread instinctively and sent fresh
stabs of pain into his stiff flying muscles—and once or
twice he had to actually swim a ditch or small lake too
wide to jump. This taught him why dragons preferred
to walk or fly. Unlike humans, they apparently had a
slightly higher specific gravity than water. In other
words, unless he swam furiously, he had a tendency
to sink. And his dragon-body, Jim found, had a near-
hysterical fear of getting any water up its nose.

However, proceeding by these methods, he finally
gained a rather wide tongue of land which he assumed
to be the Great Causeway that Secoh had spoken
about. He had seen nothing else to compare with it
in the fens and, if further proof were needed, it seemed
to run westward as far as he could see, as straight as a
Roman road. It could almost, in fact, have been built
there: it was several feet higher than most of the sur-
rounding bits of land, covered with bushes and even
an occasional tree.

Jim rolled on the grass—he had just finished swim-
ming one of the stretches of water too wide to jump—
and flopped, belly-down, in the sun. A tree nearby
kept the sun out of his eyes, the heat of the daystar's
rays were soothing to his stiff muscles and the grass
was soft. He had walked and swum away most of the

69




morning and the midday hush was relaxing. He felt
comfortable. Dropping his head on his foreclaws, he
dozed a bit...

He was awakened by the sound of someone singing.
Lifting his head, he looked about. Someone was coming
out along the causeway. Jim could now hear
the dry clopping of a horse's hooves on the firm earth,
the jingle of metal, the creak of leather, and over all
this a fine, baritone voice carolling cheerfully to it-
self. Whatever the earlier verses of the song had been,
Jim had no idea. But the chorus he heard now came
clearly to his ear.

"... A right good spear, a constant mind—
A trusty sword and true!
The dragons of the mere shall find
What Neville-Smythe can do!"

The tune was one of the sort that Jim may have
heard somewhere before. He was still trying to decide
if he really knew it or not, when there was a crackling
of branches. A screen of bushes some twenty feet away
parted to disgorge a man in full plate armor, with his
visor up and a single strip of scarlet pennon afloat just
below the head of his upright lance; he was seated on
a large, somewhat clumsy-looking white horse.

Jim, interested, sat up for a better look.

It was, as things turned out, not the best possible
move. Immediately, the man on horseback saw him
and the visor came down with a clang, the long lance
seemed to leap into one steel-gauntleted hand, there
came a flash of golden spurs, and the white horse broke
into a heavy-hooved gallop, directly for Jim.

"A Neville-Smythe! A Neville-Smythe!" roared the
man, mumedly, within his helmet.

Jim's reflexes took over. He went straight up into
the air, stiff wing muscles forgotten, and was just
about to hurl himself forward and down on the ap-
proaching figure when a cold finger of sanity touched
his mind for a -fraction of a second and he flung him-

70

self instead into the upper branches of the tree that
had shaded his eyes.

The knight—as Jim took him to be—pulled his
horse to a skidding stop on its haunches directly under
the tree; and looked up through the branches at Jim.
Jim looked back down. The tree had seemed fairly
good-sized when he was under it. Now that he was up
in it, with all his dragon-weight, its branches creaked
alarmingly under him and he was not as far above his
attacker's head as he would have preferred to be.

The knight tilted back his visor and canted his
head back in order to see upward. In the shadow of
the helm Jim made out a square-boned, rather lean
face with burning blue eyes over a large, hooked nose.
The chin was jutting and generous.

"Come down," said the knight.

"No thanks," replied Jim, holding firmly to the tree
trunk with tail and claws.

A slight pause followed in the conversation as
they both digested the situation.

"Damned catiff mere-dragon!" said the knight,
finally.

"I'm not a mere-dragon."

"Don't talk bloody nonsense!"

•Tmnot."

"Course you are."

"I tell you, I'm not!" said Jun, feeling a preliminary
stirring of his dragonly temper. He got it back under
control, and spoke reasonably. "In fact, I'll bet you
can't guess who I really am."

The knight did not seem interested in guessing who
Jim really was. He stood upright in his stirrups and
probed upward with his lance through the branches,
but the point came a good four feet short of Jun.

"Damn!" said the knight, disappointedly. He low-
ered the lance and appeared to think for a moment.
"If I take off my armor," he said, apparently to him-
self, "I can climb that goddam tree. But then what if
he flies down and I have to fight him on the bloody
turf, after all?"

"Look," called Jim, "I'm willing to come down"—

71

the knight looked up eagerly—"provided you're will-
ing to listen with an open mind to what I have to say,
first."

The knight thought it over.

"All right," he said, at last. He shook the lance at
Jim, wamingly. "No pleas for mercy, though!"

"Of course not."

"Because I shan't grant them, dammit! It's not in
my vows. Widows and orphans, men and women of
the Church and honorable enemies surrendering on
the field of combat. But not dragons!"

"No," said Jim, "nothing like that. I just want to
convince you of who I really am,"

"I don't care who you really are."

"You will," Jim said. "Because I'm not really a
dragon at all. I've been put under an ... ensorcelment
to make me look Uke a dragon."

"A likely story."

"Really!" Jim was digging his claws into the tree
trunk, but the bark was flaking away under his grasp.
"I'm as human as you are. Do you know S. Carolinus,
the magician?"

"I've heard of him," grunted the knight. "Who
hasn't? I suppose you'll claim he's the one who ensor-
celedyou?"

"Not at all. He's the one who's going to change me
back as soon as I can find the lady I—to whom I'm
affianced. A real dragon ran off with her. That's what
I'm doing so far from home. Look at me. Do I look
like one of your ordinary mere-dragons?"

The knight considered him.

"Hmm," he said, rubbing his hooked nose thought-
fully. "Come to think of it, you are a size and half on
what I usually run into."

"Carolinus found my lady had been taken to the
Loathly Tower. He sent me out to find some Compan-
ions, so I could go and rescue her."
The knight stared.
"The Loathly Tower?" he echoed,

"That's right."

"Never heard of a dragon—or anyone else in his

right mind, for that matter—wanting to go to the
Loathly Tower. Shouldn't care to go there myself. By
heaven, if you are a dragon, you've got nerve!"

"But I'm not," said Jim. "That's why I've got—er—
nerve. I'm a gentleman like yourself, bent on the res-
cue of the lady I love."

"Love?" The knight reached into a saddlebag, pro-
duced a piece of white cloth and blew his nose. "I say,
that's touching. You love this demoiselle of yours?"

"Doesn't every knight love his lady?"

"Well . . ." The other put his handkerchief away
again. "Some do, some don't, politics being what it is
these days. But it is a coincidence. You see, I love my

lady also."

"Well, then," said Jim, "that's all the more reason
you shouldn't interfere with me in my efforts to rescue

mine."

The knight went into one of his moments of obvious

thought.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" he said,

at last. "Bloody dragons could say anything!"

Jim had a sudden inspiration.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "Hold your sword up,
point down, I'll swear on the cross of the hilt that what

I say is true."
"But if you're a dragon what good will that do?

Dragons don't have souls, dammit!"

"Of course not," retorted Jim. "But a Christian gen-
tleman does; and as a Christian gentleman, I wouldn't
dare forswear myself, now would I?"

Jim could see the knight visibly struggling with the
inverted logic of this for several moments. Finally he

gave up.
"Oh, well," he said, held up his sword by the blade

and let Jim swear on it.

He put the sword back in its sheath. Jim let go the
trees and half jumped, half flapped down to ground.

"It might be . . ." said the knight, moodily, staring
at Jim as Jim stood up on his hind legs to dust the
bark and twigs from his foreclaws. "There was a

palmer in gray friar's-cloth came to the castle last
Michaelmas and spoke a rhyme to me before he left:

"Betyde thee weale yn any fyght
When'ere thou kenst thy cause ys right."

But I don't see how it applies."

"Don't you?" said Jim, thinking rapidly. "I'd say it
was obvious. Because I'm bent on rescuing my lady,
if you tried to kill me, your cause would be wrong.
Therefore weale wouldn't have betyded you."

"By St. John!" said the knight, admiringly. "Of
course! And here I thought I was just out after some
mere mere-dragon today! What luck! You're sure this
cause of yours is right? No doubt about that, I sup-
pose?"

"Of course not," said Jim, frostily.

"Well, then, I am in luck. Naturally, I'll have to de-
mand permission of my lady, since there's another
demoiselle involved. But I can't see her objecting to
an opportunity like this. I suppose we'd better intro-
duce ourselves, since there's no one around to do it
for us. I take it you know my arms?"

He swung his shield around for Jim's inspection. It
showed, on a red background, a wide X of silver, like
a cross lying over sideways, above a rather fanciful-
looking animal in black, which Jim made out to be
lying down in the triangular space under the lower
legs of the X.

"The gules, a saltire silver, of course," went on the
kmght, "are the Neville of Raby arms. My great-
grandfather, as a cadet of the house, differenced with
a hart lodged sable—and, of course, I'm in the direct
line of descent."

"Neville-Smythe," said Jim, remembering the name
in the song he had just heard and any memories he
could dig up on the subject of heraldry. "I bear—in
my proper body,,that is—"

"Assuredly, sir," Neville-Smythe agreed.

"An—gules, typewriter silver on a desk sable. Sir
James Eckert, Knight Bachelor." Jim suddenly re-

74

membered something Carolinus had mentioned in ex-
plaining him to Smrgol and took a chance on gaining
a little authority. "Baron of Riveroak. Honored to
make your acquaintance, Sir Brian."

Neville-Smythe lilted off his helm, hung it on the
pommel of his saddle and scratched his head puz-
zledly. He had light brown hair, rather compressed by
the helm; and now that his face was out in the sun-
light, it could be seen that he was no older than Jim.
What had given the impression of a greater maturity
in the shadow of the visor was a very deep tan and
little sun wrinkles around the outer comers of Neville-
Smythe's blue eyes. Also, a white scar seamed his
lower right cheek down to the jawline, adding a
veteran-like touch to his appearance.

"Typewriter . . ." Sir Brian was muttering to him-
self. "Typewriter..."

"A—local beast, rather like a griffin," said Jim, hur-
riedly. "We have a lot of them in Riveroak— That's
in America, a land over the sea to the west. You may
not have heard of it."

"Damme if I have," replied Sir Brian, candidly.
"Was it there that you were ensorceled?"

"Well, yes and no," said Jim, cautiously. "I was
transported to this land of yours by magic, as was the
lady—Angela. Then when I woke, I found myself be-
dragoned."

"Were you, now?" Sir Brian had bright-blue eyes,
amazingly innocent-looking in comparison to his
tanned and scarred face. "Angela, eh? Fair name,
that."

"As she herself is fair," answered Jim, gravely.

"You don't say, Sir James! Perhaps we ought to
have a bit of a go on behalf of our respective ladies
while we've got the chance, before we get to know
each other too well for it."

Jim swallowed.

"On the other hand," he said, quickly, "you were
telling me about your lady. What was her name?"

"The Lady Geronde." Sir Brian began to rumble
about his saddlebags. "I've got her favor here, some-

75

place. Wear it on my arm when I expect to run into
someone, of course, but when one's out hunting drag-
ons— Half a moment. It must be right here under my
hand.. ."

"Why don't you just tell me what it's like?" Jim sug-
gested.

"Oh, well." Sir Brian gave up his search. "It's a
kerchief, you know. Monogrammed. 'G.d'C.' The
Lady Geronde Isabel de Chaney, presently chatelaine
of the Castle Malvem. Her father. Sir Orrin, went off
to the wars against the Eastern heathen three years
ago Whitsuntide, less five days; and there's been no
word of him since. If it weren't for that and the fact
that I have to do all this scurrying around the country-
side, winning worship and so forth, we'd have been
married by this time."

"Why do you do it, then? Go riding around the
countryside, I mean?" Jim asked, curiously.

"Good Lord, Geronde insists on it! Once we're mar-
ried, she wants me to come home safe, you know."

Jim did not follow this argumental development in
the conversation. He said so.

"Why, how do you people manage things, over-
seas?" demanded Sir Brian. "Once I'm married, with
my own lands, I've got to produce my own levy of
men if my lord or the King calls on me for service in
war. If I don't have a name, I'll be forced to march
out with a raggedy-breeched bunch of bumpkins and
clodpoles out of my own fields, who'll like as not take
to their heels at the first sight of trained men-at-arms,
and probably leave me no choice but to die on the
spot for honor's sake, if not for other reasons. On the
other hand, if I'm known about as a warrior of some
worth, I'll have good, experienced men coming and
wanting to serve under my banner, because they
know, do you see, that I'll take good care of them.
And, by the same token, they'll take good care of me."

"Oh," said Jim.

"And besides," went on Sir Brian, ruminatively,
"this chasing about does keep one in shape. Though I
must say the mere-dragons we have around here don't

76

give you much of a workout. That's why I had high
hopes of you there for a moment. Doesn't do to prac-
tice with the neighbors, you know. Too much chance
of a lost temper and a feud resulting."

"I see," said Jim.

"However," said Sir Brian, brightening, "all's well
that ends well. And this quest of yours to rescue your
lady can certainly be worth a dozen mere-dragons to
my reputation. Though, as I say, I'll have to get per-
mission from Geronde, first. Happily, Castle Malvem's
only a day and a half's ride from here. Long days,
though; so hadn't we better be moving?"

"Moving?"

"Traveling. Covering distance. Sir James!" Brian
squinted up at the sun. "We've only about a half-day's
light left to us now, and that means noon or better of
the second day before we can see the gates of Castle

Malvem. So, shall we?"

"Hold on a minute," said Jim. "You're talking about

both of us going to this Castle Malvem. Why?"

"My good sir, I explained why," said Sir Brian with
a touch of impatience, reining his horse about so that
it faced to the east. "The Lady Geronde must give her
permission, first. After all, my first duty's to her."

Jim stared.

"I still don't follow you," he said, at last. "Permis-
sion for what?"

But Brian was already walking his horse away from

the ocean. Jim hurried to catch up with him.

"Permission for what?" he repeated.

"Sir James," said Brian, severely, turning his head
to look Jim squarely in the eyes-—on horseback, his
head was just about level with Jim's as Jim walked on
all fours. "If this continued questioning is a jest of
some sort, it is in sorry taste. What else could I seek
my lady's permission for, than to accompany you on
your quest and make one of the Companions you told
me you were seeking?"

77

Chapter 8

They went along silently, side by side. Brian
stared straight ahead as he rode, looking somewhat
stiff-faced and offended. Jim was busy adjusting to the
idea of the knight as a Companion.

He had not really paid that much attention when
Carolinus had echoed the watchbeetle in saying that
Jim would gather Companions to aid him in rescuing
Angie and facing up to the Dark Powers. But as far as
he had thought about it, he had assumed he would be
selecting those who would join him. He had not really
envisioned them thrusting themselves upon him.

Obviously, Brian was not likely to be a liability as a
Companion. Plainly, he had no lack of courage and
his appearance testified to some experience in combat.
But beyond these things, what did Jim really know
about the man? Nothing, in fact, except for the meager
facts of his name, arms, and the identity of his lady.

On the other hand, was it wise to look a gift horse
in the mouth? Carolinus had spoken of forces at work
and given the impression that inhabitants of this world
were about to be divided by them into two camps—
that of the Dark Powers and that of those who, like
Jim, were in opposition to them. If that was the case,
then it ought to be possible to identify the camp to
which any particular individual belonged by watching
to see who and what he lined up with.

Brian had lined up with Jim. Therefore, he ought to
be in the camp of those opposing the Dark Powers, by
definition...

Jim came up out of his thoughts to realize that the
knight was still riding alongside him stiffly, with a very

78

obvious, if invisible, chip on his shoulder. A small
apology might be in order.

"Sir Brian," said Jim, a little awkwardly. "Excuse
me for not understanding that you were offering your-
self as a Companion. The truth of the matter is, things
are different where I come from."

"Doubtless," said Brian, unsmilingly.

"Believe me," said Jim, "there was no jest of any
kind involved. It was just my own lack of—er—wit,
that kept me from understanding what you were talk-
ing about."

"Ah," said Brian.

"Naturally, I couldn't ask for a better Companion
than a gentleman like yourself."

"Quite."

"And I'm overjoyed to have you with me."

"Indeed."

Jim felt like someone knocking on the door of a
house in which the owner was home but obstinately
refusing to answer. A touch of annoyance tweaked at
him; and on the heels of this came an idea at which
he nearly smiled visibly. Ignorance of other people's
customs could work both ways.

"Of course, if only I'd known your Social Security
number right from the start," he said. "It would have
been different."

Brian's eyes flickered. They continued to travel on
side by side in silence for perhaps another full minute
before the knight spoke again.

"Number, Sir James?"

"Why, yes," said Jim, raising his eyebrows. "Your
Social Security number."

"What bloody number is that supposed to be?"

"Don't tell me," said Jim, "you don't have Social
Security numbers here?"

"Blind me if I ever heard of any such thing!"

Jim clicked his tongue sympathetically.

"No wonder you thought It odd of me, not under-
standing the offer of your Companionship," he said.
"Why, where I come from nothing can happen unless
a gentleman's Social Security number is known. Nat-
79

urally, I thought you were withholding yours for good
reasons of your own. That's why it didn't dawn on me
that you were offering me Companionship."

"But I haven't got one to withhold, dammit!" pro-
tested Sir Brian.
"Haven't got one?"
"By St. Giles, no!"
Jim clicked his tongue again.

"That's the trouble with living out in the provinces,
here," Sir Brian said in an aggrieved tone. "They've
probably been using these what-do-you-call-it num-
bers for a twelvemonth now at Court; and none of us
out here have ever heard of them."
They went on a little farther in silence.
"You've got one, I suppose?" Brian said.
"Why—yes," Jim answered. Hastily, he delved into
his memory. "469-69-9921."
"Damned fine figure."

"Well . . ." Jim decided he might as well pick up
some credit while the opportunity existed. "I am
Baron of Riveroak, after all."
"Oh, of course."
They rode on a little farther.
"I say," said Brian.
"Yes, Sir Brian?"
Brian cleared his throat.

"If I was to have a something-number of my own,
what would you venture to say it might be?"
"Well, I don't know ..."

"Well, well, I shouldn't ask it, I suppose. Puts me
at a disadvantage, though." Brian turned a troubled
face to Jim. "Here you tell me your number and I
can't reciprocate."

'Think nothing of it," said Jim.
"I do think something of it, though."
"You shouldn't," Jim insisted. He was beginning
to feel a little guilty in spite of himself. "I'm sure your
number, if you had one, would be a very good one."

"No, no. Probably quite an ordinary figure. After
all, what am I? Just an outlying knight bachelor, no

chansons about me for the minstrels to sing, or any-
thing like that."

"You underestimate yourself," said Jim, uneasily.
The ploy was getting out of hand. "Of course, I
wouldn't know what the official number would be; but
in my country I'd guess you'd be at least a"—he had
to think rapidly to count the digits in his own Social
Security number—"387-22-777."

The eyes Sir Brian turned on him were as round

as dinner plates.

"Really? You think so, do you? All that?"

"At least that."

"Well, well. What was it again?"

Jim slowly repeated the number he had given Brian
several times over until the knight had it by heart; and
they went on cheerfully together, chatting like old
friends. Like Companions, in fact, thought Jim.

Brian, having gotten over his stiffness of manner,
turned out to be eager to talk. Specifically, his topic
of conversation was the Lady Geronde, who was ap-
parently not only the most beautiful of women, but a
collection of all the other talents and virtues as well.
Over and above Geronde, however, the knight was a
repository of local gossip, both bloody and salacious.
Jim had never considered himself to be someone
easily shocked, but what he was now hearing was

startling.
He was, in fact, learning fast. His mind had been

translating the language and actions of Sir Brian into
the fuzzy, quasi-Victorian image of a stage English-
man that most Americans carried around in that part
of their mind reserved for stock characters. Now, a
closer acquaintance with the knight was destroying
that particular image rather thoroughly.

To begin with, Brian was entirely physical, prag-
matic and human. "Earthy" might have been a better
word. The taboo areas in his cosmos were restricted
to those of religion and a handful of ideals and prin-
ciples. Curiously, he seemed perfectly capable of
highly idealizing something as an abstract idea, and
at the same time ruthlessly being honest about it as a




specific reality—all without seeing any particular con-
flict between these attitudes. For example, Jim
learned, to Brian his King was at once a majestic
figure anointed by God, a ruler by divine right for
whom Brian would die without question if the need
arose, and at the same time a half-senile old man who
was drunk half the time and could not be trusted with
the more important decisions of his kingdom. The
lady Geronde was somehow both a goddess on a
pedestal, above and beyond the touch of gross males,
and a thoroughly physical human female with whom
Brian's hands were quite familiar.

Jim was still trying to fit this double view of the
knight into a pattern with the other things, like
intelligent dragons, talking watchbeetles and the
existence of Dark Powers, which he had so far dis-
covered in this world, when the daylight began to
wane and Brian suggested they look about for a place
to camp overnight.

They had left the fens well behind by this time,
and had spent several hours striking at an angle
northeast through the rather unpleasant wood Jim had
flown over the day before and congratulated himself
on not having to traverse at ground level. Happily,
now, they had left it behind for a much less forbidding
forest, still mainly populated by oaks and elms, but
in the shape of larger specimens of these, which had
killed off the more tangled undergrowth under-
neath them, so that the going was easier. They came
at last to a small clearing by a brook, which in the
last rays of the afternoon sun, filtering through the
high branches of the trees, looked almost as inviting
as Carolinus' property by the Tinkling Water.

"Should do us quite well, I'd think," Brian ob-
served, cheerfully.

He dismounted, unsaddled his horse, rubbed it
down with some handfuls of grass he pulled up, and
left it tied on a long tether to crop its dinner from
the clearing. For himself, Brian produced from his
saddlebags something dark which was evidently
smoked meat. For Jim, there was nothing; and, al-

82

though his stomach twinged reproachfully at him,
Jim could not really blame the knight for not offering
to share the food. What had made a rather adequate
meal for the man would have made a single, unsatis-
fyingly small gulp for the dragon. Tomorrow, Jim
promised himself, he would find some excuse to leave
Brian for a while and find a cow . . . or something.

He became aware that Brian was lighting a fire,
something he viewed with only academic interest at
first, out of his own newly discovered indifference to
external temperatures. But, as the sun went lower be-
hind the trees, its light reddened to the color of bright
blood and deep shadows started forming between the
surrounding tree trunks; and the fire, now blazing
away heartily on the dry, fallen branches that Brian
had accumulated, began to take on the appearance
of the only mark of cheerfulness in the growing dark-
ness.

"Getting chilly," observed Brian, hunching his
shoulders and standing close above the fire.

He had divested himself of helmet, gloves and the
plate armor from his legs, leaving only his upper
body metal-covered. His hair, recovered from the
pressure of the helmet, had expanded to show itself
as quite a mane. It gleamed with ruddy highlights
from the fire, as he stood facing the flames.

Jim drew close on the fire's other side. It would not
have occurred to him to think of the night as grow-
ing chilly, but he was conscious of a sort of depression
of the spirit which had come on liirn with the dis-
appearance of the sun. The forest about them, which
had seemed so friendly in the daylight, now began to
acquire an ominous and threatening appearance as
night closed in. Looking around, Jim could almost
swear that the surrounding darkness was a physical
entity trying to push inward upon them, only held
back by the dancing light of the fire.

"Where are we?" he asked Brian.

"Lynham Woods," said Brian. He, too, looked
about at the wall of night surrounding the circle of
firelight. "Not such a bad place, ordinarily. But

83




there's a difference about this night, wouldn't you
say, Sir .James? One gets the feeling there's something
afoot out there in the dark, somewhere."

"Yes," Jim agreed, feeling a small, involuntary
shudder inside him.

To his dragon-senses Brian's description was un-
pleasantly accurate—it did indeed feel exactly as if
something was prowling out there in the woods, some-
where beyond the firelight, circling their camp and
waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

"Stars," Brian commented, pointing upward.

Jim looked up between the treetops. Now that the
sun was completely down, some stars were visible.
No moon, but some stars. However, even as he
watched, they began to disappear one by one, as if
an invisible curtain was being drawn across the sky.

"Clouds," said Brian. "Well, there's one comfort.
With a cloudy sky, it shouldn't get as cold here before
morning as it might if the sky were clear. A clear sky
and I'd have ventured to guess at a touch of frost
before dawn. It's cool for this time of year."

The clouds to which Brian had referred had by this
time covered all portions of the sky visible beyond the
treetops. The clearing now seemed englobed in un-
relenting lightlessness.

. Slowly, the knight sat down by the fire and began
to replace the cuisses and greaves he had earlier re-
moved from his legs.

"What is it?" asked Jim. "What're you doing that
for?"

"I don't like it," Brian said shortly. "There's some-
thing amiss this night. Whatever it is, it'll find me
armed and ready for it."

He finished getting his body armor back on and
went to get his helmet and lance from where he had
placed them with his saddle and other gear. He drove
the butt of the lance into the ground beside the fire,
so that it stood point upward by his right hand, and
put the helmet on, leaving the visor up.

"Let us keep facing each other with the fire

84

between us. Sir James," he said. "That way we can
watch all about us, as far as the firelight shows."

"Right," Jim replied.

They stood facing each other. After a little while
a sound began, very faint and faraway at first.

"A wind," Brian remarked.

It was indeed the sound of a wind. They could hear
it far off, almost as if it was hunting among the bushes
and the limbs of the trees. The sound of it rose, fell,
and moved from quarter to quarter, but always off in
,the distance. Then, gradually, it began to come
closer, as if it had been quartering the forest for them
and was now closing in.

Still, in the clearing, not a breath of air stirred,
except that drawn in by the updraft from the dancing
flames of the fire. Brian threw more of the dried
branches upon the blaze.

"My special thanks to St. Giles, whose day this is,"
muttered the knight, "an,d who moved me to gather
wood enough to last until dawn."

The wind drew closer. They could hear the sound
of its passage, now loud in the near-distance. It
breathed closer and closer to them, leaving a sighing
and groaning of branches where it passed. It was loud
now, loud enough so that they had to raise their
voices above its sound to speak to one another. Then,
suddenly, it was on them.

It blew directly into the clearing with an abrupt
force that threatened for a second to push them off
their feet. The fire shot up a long trail of sparks into
the darkness and its flames guttered nearly to extinc-
tion, so that the gloom all around suddenly flooded
in on them, and they were peppered in the face by a
shower of dried twigs and dead leaves.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the wind was gone.
The fire flamed up again and the darkness was pushed
back once more. Without warning, there was silence.

The wind had gone.

Brian sighed softly within the open visor of his hel-
met.

85




"Stand to watch, Sir James," he said softly. "Now,
it comes."

Jim stared at the knight.

"It comes—" he started to echo.

And then he heard it.

It was so small and distant at first, he thought it
was only a singing in his eardrums. Then it grew
ever so slightly in volume and he identified it for
what it actually was: a continuous, high-pitched clut-
tering—like the wind, now off at a distance, but
gradually growing closer. He sensed something mind-
less about that cluttering, something that made the
skin crawl on the back of his dragon-neck, instinc-
tively.

This body reaction stirred Jim almost more than
the sound itself had done. What could there be out
in woods like this, at night, of which even a dragon
would be afraid? He opened his mouth to ask Brian
what was making the noise; and found the question
stuck in his throat. An almost superstitious fear
checked him. If be asked Brian, and Brian told him,
then whatever was moving in on them would become
undeniably real. As long as he still did not know, it
could be that it could all turn out to be an illusion, a
bad dream from which he would awaken to a sunlit
morning.

But as they stood, the cluttering grew slowly louder
and closer—and there was no awakening from a
nightmare.

"Sir Brian," he said, at last. "What is it?"

The knight's eyes, within the firelit gloom of his
visor, burned strangely on Jim.

"You don't know? Sandmirks, Sir James."

The moment Brian spoke the identifying word,
something in the very blood and bones of Gorbash
passed knowledge on to the mind of Jim—and he
knew without further asking what they looked like,
those hunters out in the night, circling ever closer and
closer to this campfire and the two of them who
waited here.

In his mind's eye Jim saw them, something of a

cross between a rat and a ferret in shape and the
size of small dogs. Their eyes would shine red, re-
flecting the light of the flames when they came close
enough, but their black, coarse-haired bodies would
remain invisible in the darkness as they passed around
and around the clearing, just beyond the reach of the
firelight. And from their mouths would continue to
come this same mindless chittering that was like the
claws of spiders running up and down Jim's spine
and into his brain.

"What they do here," said Brian, "this far from
the sea, only the devil that helped them knows. Their
proper runs are the cold salt beaches. Little shore an-
imals and the poor castaways who have the ill luck
to wash ashore at night are their proper prey. Here
is an enemy against which my sword and your claws,
Sir James, will be small help."

"If they come close enough—"

"They will not, while the minds are in our bodies.
These are craven creatures, whose weapon is mad-
ness."

"Madness?" Jim echoed. The word had slid along
all his nerves like an icy knife.

"What else did you think their noise meant?" Brian
said. "The story is that they're possessed of the souls
of other animals who have died insane, or in great
torment, and so they are full of the stuff of madness,
which they pour out on the night air to infect the
minds of such as you and I. I know not how it is with
you, Sir James, but Saint Giles has always been a
good friend to me and he did not advise me to gather
this huge pile of firewood for nothing. It's my counsel
that we turn to that good saint, and to God with all
his angels, for none else can aid us, here."

The knight drew his sword, rested it point down
on the earth before him, and taking the hilt of it in
both his hands, bowed his head above it in prayer.
Jim stood still, watching the armored man, the fire
and the surrounding darkness, hearing the steadily
growing sound of the chittering.

He was not at all religious himself; and somehow,

in this particular moment, something in him rebelled
at the thought of turning, or even pretending to turn,
to religion for help. On the other hand, he could not
help envying Brian for being able to find such a
backup available and waiting.

For, whatever the truth was about the souls of an-
imals who had died insane or in torment, there was
no denying the fact that some quality in the chittering
went clear through the conscious, logical, upper part
of Jim's mind into the old, primitive levels behind it,
and plucked the chords of atavistic fears he had
not known he possessed. Deep within him, from the
very first moment in which he recognized the chitter-
ing as something more than a singing in his ears, was
the impulse to turn and run from it. To run and run,
until either he could hear it no more, or his heart
would burst from the effort of running.

In the end, that must be what all victims of the
sandmirks did—run until they could run no more.
And then, at last, with their prey exhausted and help-
less, the black, fiery-eyed, humping shapes would
close in, chittering, to kill and feed. While his con-
scious mind still worked, Jim recognized the fact that
if he ran, he was lost. Like Brian he must stand here
and fight back against the noise that was gnawing
away at his sanity.

He could not bring himself to follow Brian's exam-
ple; but there had to be other things he could do to
set up a defense against the calling of the sandmirks.
The multiplication tables?

He tried them. For a while, he was able to concen-
trate on them; and he congratulated himself on finding
a weapon. But after he had run through all those that
he knew readily and had started again on them, he
found that the second time through they did not shut
out the chittering as well as they had the first time.
The third time he went through them, they were
hardly any help at all, not much more than meaning-
less sounds muttered under the breath.

He searched his mind as best he could under the ef-
fect of the sandmirk voices—which were now clearly

88

circling the camp at a distance of no more than fifty
yards away or so—for something stronger than the
multiplication tables with which to oppose them. In
desperation, he began to recite the argument of his
doctorate thesis on the changes in social custom deriv-
ing from the rise of the cities in France during the
Hundred Years' War. Night after weary night, after
all other work had been done, he had sat in the single
light of his desk lamp, hammering out that thesis. If
there was protective magic in anything he knew, it
would be in that.

". . . Examination of the direct effects of the English
military incursion into western France in the two dec-
ades immediately following the thirteen-fifties," he
muttered, "show a remarkable process of change at
work unrecognized by the very people caught up in it.
Particularly the port of Bordeaux ..."

Suddenly, to his joy, he realized it was working. All
those midnight hours of effort he had put into the the-
sis had created a piece of mental machinery with a
momentum that was too powerful for the chittering of
the sandmirks to clog and stop. As long as he could
keep the words of it running through his head, he
could hold them off. It was as if the chittering was
blocked now by a barrier that allowed only the harm-
less noise of it wash over the barrier's top. The thesis
had been two hundred and twenty double-spaced
pages of typescript when finished. He would not reach
the end of his material too soon, as he had with the
multiplication tables. He glanced across the fire at
Brian, and found the other still praying. Neither one
of them dared take time off to speak with each other,
but Jim tried to signal with his eyes that he was hold-
ing his own and he thought that Brian understood and
returned a like message.

The sandmirks were close now—just outside the cir-
cle of firelight; and the sound of their voices was so
shrill and encompassing that Jim could hardly hear the
sound of his own voice in his ears. Nonetheless, he
and Brian were holding their own and the predators
in the darkness would not dare attack while their prey

89

still had the will and the strength to defend them-
selves. As Jim watched, Brian reached down to throw
a couple more of the dead branches on the fire.

Flames spurted up on the new fuel; and for a sec-
ond, straining his eyes, Jim thought he had a glimpse
of shadowy shapes slipping back out of sight into the
further darkness. He and Brian continued their watch,
and their own private litanies.

The night wore on.

The fire blazed. The sandmirks continued to circle,
never stopping for one moment their invitation to ter-
ror. Croaking, with voices gone hoarse from steady,
long use, Jim and the knight faced each other above
the fire. Sir Brian swayed a little with weariness; and
Jim felt himself also growing light-headed with ex-
haustion. The dark continued unbroken around them.
The raw, damp scent of dawn was in the air, but
daybreak was yet some time off.

And now, for the first time since be had begun to
recite his thesis, Jim felt the pressure of the sandmirk
voices beginning to crumble away the barrier he had
erected against them. His exhausted memory fumbled,
lost its place on the remembered page it was quoting,
and found it again. But in that second of weakness
the effect of the cluttering had gained ground. It
pierced through the words Jim painfully uttered; and
its power was growing steadily.

Jim became conscious that Brian had stopped
speaking. Jim also stopped and they stared at each
other across the fire while the sound of the cluttering
soared in volume all around them, lifting triumphantly
into the night.

The knight reversed his sword, picking it up to hold
blade upward in both hands.

"In God's name," said Brian, in such a torn and
ragged voice that Jim could hardly understand him,
"let's go to them, while we still have the strength to
do so."

Jim nodded. In the final accounting, to charge

90

death was preferable to fleeing from it in sick fear. He
stepped around the fire to stand beside Brian.

"Now!" said the knight in his husk of a voice, rais-
ing his sword overhead—

But before they could charge the almost invisible
foe that encircled them, a scream almost worse than
the chittering split the darkness to their right. At once,
the sound that had driven them to the edge of mad-
ness ceased utterly, to be followed by the noise of
many small bodies crashing away in night through the
woods.

Another scream sounded, this time straight ahead
and farther out. A moment of waiting followed, dur-
ing which the sounds of flight had all but died in the
distance; and then came a third scream, farther off
yet.

"By Saint Giles!" whispered the knight in the still-
ness. "Something's killing them..."

He had hardly finished before a fourth scream
came, this time a long distance off. After that, utter
silence.

Numbly, Brian moved to build up the fire. It
crackled, blazed afresh and the shadows drew back a
long distance. Jim glanced upward.

"Look," he said. "I think ..."

Brian looked. An edge of cloud was pulling back
from a few stars that were still visible; and the sky be-
hind the stars was paling.

"Yes. Dawn," said Brian.

They stood watching as the sky turned toward light
and the remaining stars faded to invisibility.

"But what was it that came to our rescue?" the
knight asked.

Jim shook his head.

"I don't know," he said, hoarsely. "I can't guess
what—"

He broke off.

Something had moved—a blacker black within the
darkness of the still-deep shadows beyond the firelight.
It moved again and came forward slowly, stepping in-
to the light. A four-legged shape as large as a small

91

pony, green-eyed, with long narrow muzzle, half-
parted to show white, gleaming teeth and a tongue as
red as the fire flames.

It was a wolf. A wolf double the size of the largest
wolf Jim had ever seen in a zoo or on film. The green
eyes went past the knight and the fire to bum savagely
upon Jim.

"So it's you," a deep, harsh voice from the scimitar-
armed jaws said. "Not that it makes all that differ-
ence. But I thought as much."

Chapter 9

The mind can take only so much before reac-
tion sets in. With all Jim had been through since he
had ended up in this world, and particularly after the
ordeal he had just gone through as the prey of the
sandmirks, he should not have been struck numb by
the fact that now it was a wolf who could talk like a
man. But he was.

He sat down on his haunches with a thump. If he
had been in his regular human body, he probably
would have collapsed on the ground. But the effect
was the same. He struggled to find his voice while the
monster wolf walked forward to the fire.

"Who—who're you?" he managed at last.

"What's the matter, Gorbash?" snarled the wolf.
"Sandmirks got your memory? I've only known you
for twenty years! Besides, there's few living who'd
mistake Aragh for any other English wolf!"

"You're who— Aragh?" croaked Brian.

The wolf glanced at him.

"I am. And who are you, man?"

"Sir Brian Neville-Smythe."

92

"Never heard of you," growled the wolf.
"My house," said Sir Brian stiffly, "is a cadet
branch of the Nevilles. Our land runs beyond Wyven-
stock to the Lea River on the north."

"None of my people up there," grated Aragh.
"What're you doing down here in my forest?"

"Passing through on our way to Malvem, Sir wolf."
"Call me Aragh when you talk to me, man."
"Then address me as Sir Brian, Sir wolf!"
Aragh's upper lip began to curl back from his
gleaming teeth.

"Wait—" said Jim, hastily.
Aragh turned to him, lip uncurling slightly.
"This Sir Brian is with you, is he, Gorbash?"
"We're Companions. And actually I'm not really
Gorbash. You see ..." Jim tried hastily, with his
weary throat, to explain the situation that had ended
up bringing Brian and nun to this place.

"Hmpf!" Aragh growled, when Jim had finished.
"Pure nonsense, all of it. You always did get yourself
mixed up seven different ways every time you tried
something. However, if this Sir Brian's committed him-
self to fight alongside you, I suppose I can put up with
him."

He turned to Brian.

"And you," he said. "I'll hold you responsible for
taking good care of Gorbash. Soft-headed he is, but
he's been a friend of mine for years—"

A light went on in the back of Jim's mind. This
Aragh must be the wolf friend of Gorbash's which
Smrgol had talked disapprovingly about, the one
Gorbash had associated with while he was growing up.

"—and I don't want him chewed up by sandmirks,
or anything else. D'you hear me?"

"I assure you—" Brian was beginning stiffly.
"Don't assure me. Just do it!" snapped Aragh.
"About those sandmirks," Jim put in hastily, once
more in an effort to turn the Brian—Aragh conversa-
tion from possible disagreement, "they almost had us.
Didn't that sound of theirs bother you?"

"Why should it?" said Aragh. "I'm an English wolf.

93

You don't catch me thinking of two things at once.
Sandmirks belong on the seashore. They'll know next
time what'U happen if I catch them here in my
woods."

He snarled softly, as if to himself.

"You mean to say"— Brian took off his helmet and
stared at the wolf in a sort of wonder—"you could
hear that cluttering and not be troubled by it?"

"How many times do I have to say it?" growled
Aragh. "I'm an English wolf. I suppose if I sat around
like some people and just listened, I might have no-
ticed the noise they were making. But the second I
heard them, I said to myself, 'That lot's got to go!'
And that's all I had on my mind until they went."

He licked his lips with his long tongue.

"All except for four of them," he said. "They're no
good for eating, of course. But they do scream well
when you break their necks. I heard those noises they
made, never fear!"

He sat down on his haunches in turn and sniffed at
the fire.

"World's going to pot," he muttered. "Few of us left
with any sense at all. Magicians, Dark Powers, all that
nonsense. Break a few necks, tear a few throats out
in the good old-fashioned way, and see how long these
sandmirks and their sort'll go on acting up! See how
much trouble the Dark Powers would be able to stir
up after a few doses like that to their creatures!"

"Actually, how long have you known Sir James?"
inquired Brian.

"Sir James? Sir James? He's Gorbash, far as I'm
concerned," Aragh growled. "Gorbash he's always
been. Gorbash he'll always be, in spite of any spell-
and-body nonsense. I don't believe in people being
one person one day, then somebody else the next. You
do what you want. As far as I'm concerned, he's
Gorbash. Twenty years, to answer you. And didn't I
say twenty years? Why?"

"Because, my good fellow—"

"I'm not your good fellow. I'm nobody's good fel-


low. I'm an English wolf; and you'll be wise not to for-
get it."

"Very well. Sir wolf—"
"That's a bit better."

"Since you've very little sympathy with the quest
that Sir James and I are on, and since I see dawn is
now breaking, it only remains to thank you for your
assistance against the sandmirks—"
"Assistance!"

"Call it what you will. As I was saying"—Brian
put his helmet back on, picked up his saddle and went
to his horse—"it only remains to thank you, say adieu
and resume our travel to Castle Malvem. Come, Sir
James—"

"Wait a minute!" snarled Aragh. "Gorbash, what
do you think you can do against those Dark Powers,
anyway?"

"Well... whatever I have to," Jim answered.
"To be sure," growled the wolf. "And what if they
send sandmirks against you again?"
"Well. . ."

"I thought so," said Aragh with bitter satisfaction.
"Up to me, as usual. Give it up, Gorbash. Stop this
madness of thinking you've a human mind in you and
go back to being a plain, straightforward dragon
again."

"I can't do that," said Jim. "I've got to rescue An-
gie—"
"Who?"

"His lady," put in Brian, stiffly. "He's explained
how that other dragon, Bryagh, stole her off to the
Loathly Tower."

"His lady? His LADY? What's the times coming to,
a dragon mooning about over some female human
and calling her his 'lady'? Gorbash, give up this non-
sense and go home!"

"Sorry," said Jim through his teeth. "No."
Aragh snarled.

"Damned idiot!" He got to all four feet. "All right,
I'll corae along and make sure the sandmirks don't
get you. But—only sandmirks, mind! I'm not going to

95

be a party to the rest of this ridiculousness of yours!"

"Damme if I remember your being invited," said
Brian.

"Don't need to be invited." Aragh's upper lip began
to curl again as his head turned toward the knight. "I
go where I wish, Sir knight, and I'd like to see any
try to stop me. I'm an English—"

"Of course you are!" Jim broke in, "and there's no
one we'd rather have with us than an English wolf. Is
there, Brian?"

"Speak for yourself, Sir James."

"Well, there's no one I'd rather have with me, be-
sides Sir James here," said Jim. "Sir Brian, you have
to admit those sandmirks were more than we could
handle ourselves."

"Hmph!" Brian looked as if he was being asked to
agree to having a tooth pulled without as much as a
drink by way of anesthetic. "Suppose so."

He suddenly swayed where he stood and the saddle
dropped out of his hands to thump on the ground. He
walked heavy-footedly over to the nearest tree and
sat down with a clatter of metal, his back to the trunk.

"Sir James," he said hoarsely, "I must rest."

He leaned his head back against the tree trunk and
closed his eyes. In a moment he was breathing heav-
ily, with deep inhalations of air, just on the edge of
snoring.

"Yes," said Jim, looking at him. "We both had a
night with no rest. Maybe I should catch some sleep,
too."

"Don't let me stop you," said Aragh. "I'm not the
sort to need a nap every time I turn around; but come
to think of it, I might just trail those sandmirks and
make sure they kept going once they left here."

He glanced at the rising sun.

"I'll be back about midday."

He turned about and effectively disappeared. Jim
had a glimpse of him slipping between two tree trunks
and suddenly there was no sound or sign that the wolf
had ever been there. Jim lay down on the grass him-

96

self, tucked his head under a wing, and closed his
eyes...

But, unlike Brian, he did not find himself falling
asleep.

He persisted in keeping his eyes closed and his head
wing-tucked for perhaps twenty minutes before he
gave up and sat up once more to look around him.
Much to his own surprise, he was feeling quite well
indeed.

He remembered now that the hoarseness of his own
voice had disappeared while he was standing around
engaged in the three-comered conversation with
Aragh and Brian. Evidently his fatigue had vanished
at the same time. These things were remarkable; but
apparently dragons simply had better recuperative
powers than humans. He looked at Brian, who was
now frankly snoring the snores of utter exhaustion and
had slid down the tree trunk until he was very near
to lying flat on the grass. The knight ought to be out
of things at least until noon. Which left Jim with that
much time to kill. He thought once more about some-
thing to eat.

He got to his feet. Now might be the very time to
look around and see if anything was available. About
to wander off, he checked himself. What if he lost
his way in the wood and could not find the route back
here? Perhaps he should mark the trees as he went—

He broke off his thoughts, mentally kicking himself
for an idiot. Of course, on foot he could easily get lost.
But who said he had to go on foot? Experimentally,
he stretched his wings and found that all the stiffness
and soreness was gone out of them. With an explosion
of air, he leaped from the clearing and headed sky-
ward. Behind him, Brian slid all the way down on to
the grass and snored ever more loudly.

But within seconds the knight was forgotten below
him. It was a sheer pleasure to be on the wing again.
A few vigorous flaps took him above treetop level. He
banked in a circle to take a look back down at the
clearing and set up a memory of its appearance from
the air, then mounted higher to relate it to its immedi-

97

ate surroundings. High up, he was happy to see that
both it and the stream running through it were quite
distinguishable from a distance.

Leaving Brian and the clearing to take care of
themselves, he banked again and began to quarter
above the wood, examining it.

From the air it looked more parldike than it had
on the ground. The large trees were spaced evenly
enough so that he could get a fair to good view of the
earth between them. Unfortunately for his stomach,
nothing was in sight that looked like food. He looked
about for Aragh, but found no sight of the wolf, either.

There seemed to be little point to his soaring above
the forest, except for the pleasure of doing so and the
fact that he had time to spend. A finger of guilt
touched his mind. He had hardly thought of Angie
since he had met the knight. Was she really all right?
Perhaps he should make some effort to go and find
out for himself?

With these thoughts, he let himself go with the ther-
mals, an uneasiness in him like the memory of the chit-
tering the sandmirks had made that could make the
skin on the back of his neck crawl in recollection. The
only way to settle this uneasiness, he told himself now,
was to go and make sure that Angie was all right.
Carolinus' directions to stay away from the Loathly
Tower until he had gathered the Companions who
would aid him to overthrow the Dark Powers really
did not make sense. He should decide, for himself,
what to do—

He woke suddenly to the discovery that he was al-
ready at an altitude of at least several thousand feet
and just rising into a tailwind blowing directly for the
fens and the seashore—back the way he and Brian
had come. Already, in fact, he was riding that air cur-
rent in a long, soaring glide which would bring him
eventually to ground at the point where the Great
Causeway met the ocean. As he realized this, he heard
echoing in his mind the memory of the chittering sand-
mirks. Overriding this was a knife-thin whisper calling
him to the Loathly Tower.

98

"Now . . ." the whisper was saying. "Go now . . .
don't delay ,.. go alone, now ..."

He checked himself with a chill of horror, and fell
off sharply in a long, turning bank that would bring
him down and back toward the woods where he had
left Brian sleeping. Almost as soon as he had turned,
the echoing memory and the whisper were gone, like
Aragh a short while back, as if they had never been.

Had he actually heard them? Or had he merely
imagined them?

He shook the questions from him with an effort of
will. He had certainly not imagined that he had un-
consciously lifted to an altitude and a wind that would
have carried him directly to the Loathly Tower. It
gave him an uneasy feeling to find himself so vulner-
able to a call from that direction. He had not been
so, yesterday, even when he was headed on foot to-
ward the tower. Somehow, the sandmirks' chittering
had opened up a channel through which the Dark
Powers could call him to them. And if this were so,
even though the ugly, small creatures had been driven
off, the Dark Powers had won something by their at-
tack.

Or—was it that simple? Aragh had certainly put
in an appearance in the nick of tune. Wasn't the co-
incidence of the sandmirks' arrival just a little too good
to be true? What if the Dark Powers had never in-
tended that the sandmirks should destroy him? What
if, for their own purposes, what they wanted was not
the death of Jim Eckert, but his coming to their tower?

That was another chill thought.

Jim found himself wishing he had Carolinus nearby
to question. But something told Jim that if he should
turn and fly to the Tinkling Water now—even assum-
ing he could get there, find Carolinus in and manage
to return to Brian by noon—the magidan would not
be pleased to see him. Carolinus had made quite a
point of Jim's following the path that would lead to
his gaining of Companions, before he did anything
else.

Well, Jim thought, soaring low once more over the

99

Lynhan Woods back toward the clearing where Brian
was sleeping, he had acquired two of the Companions
so far, at least. Brian and Aragh. Now that he was
turned resolutely away from the Loathly Tower once
more, he found his momentary suspicion of Aragh
had evaporated. Hadn't Aragh been a close friend of
Gorbash for years? Not but what the wolf wasn't a
grim enough character in his own right; but there was
nothing secret, dark or hidden about that grimness.
What he was, was all on the surface for anyone to see.

Jim checked himself as he soared over a small, dark
object on the ground below. Turning back, he swept
in and came down to land heavily beside it.

It was a dead sandmirk. Clearly one of the four
Aragh had killed the night before.

Jim examined it. Here, after a fashion, was food;

but he found that Gorbash's stomach recoiled from the
thought. Why was not clear; but the reaction was un-
deniable. A tentative parting of Jim's jaws above the
corpse brought a definite wave of nausea to the
dragon-stomach. Apparently, Aragh had known what
he was talking about earlier when he mentioned that
sandmirks were no good for eating.

Jim left the carcass to some beetles and a few flies
which were beginning to circle it, took to the air again
and began his search for the clearing. It did not take
him long to find, but the interval was enough for him
to come to some conclusions about fueling this over-
size body of his.

The touch of nausea had effectively cured his ear-
lier appetite. Which made it pretty clear that it was
only appetite, and not hunger, that he had been feel-
ing. He and Secoh had divided the cow between them
—in hindsight, Jim admitted that he had taken the
lion's share of the meat—and even that large meal
had not exactly filled up the stomach of Gorbash. In
spite of this, he had really not been suffering for food,
since. To be sure, he was ready to eat again at first
opportunity, but he felt none of the interior hollow-
ness and discomfort of real hunger. Apparently drag-
ons were able to go for some time between meals,

100

really stoking up only when fuel was available. The
pattern of dragon feeding was obviously something
like an enormous meal once a week or thereabouts. If
so, he could probably go at least a few more days be-
fore really needing to eat. However, when he did, he
had better do a good job of it...

By this time he had relocated the clearing and
was gliding in to a landing on its grass. Brian, he saw,
was still there, and still snoring.

A glance at the sun told Jim there were still at least
three hours to go until noon, if not more than that.
He walked to the stream, drank deeply, and flopped
down on the grass. His outing had relaxed him. He felt
limp and at peace with the world. He tucked his head
under his wing once more without hardly thinking
about it, and fell instantly asleep.

He woke to the voice of Brian, once more heartily
rendering his musical promise of what the mere-
dragons might expect from a Neville-Smythe.

Sitting up, Jim saw the knight sitting naked in the
stream, happily splashing himself with what must be
some fairly cold water and singing. His armor was laid
about on the grass and his clothing was spread out
and draped on sticks rammed into the turf, so that
the various garments were spread to the sunlight. Jim
got to his feet and walked over to examine the cloth-
ing. He assumed that Brian had washed it and that it
was spread out like this to dry. But he found it al-
ready dry.

"Fleas, Sir James," called Brian cheerfully. "Fleas!
Damme if they don't seem to love a gambeson under
armor for breeding in more than any other cloth a
gentleman might wear. Nothing like a good hot sun,
or a good hot fire, to drive them out of the seams, eh?"

"What.. . ? Oh, yes. You're right," said Jim. "Noth-
ing like it, as you say."

It had not occurred to Jim that body vermin might
be as universal a problem on this medieval world as
it had been in medieval times back on his own world.
He took a second to be grateful for the fact that, evi-
dently, his dragon hide was far too thick and tough

101

to be bothered by the pesky creatures; then he glanced
at the sun and saw that it was standing directly over-
head.

"Aragh back yet?" he asked.

"He's not here," said Brian.

"Not here?" growled the voice of Aragh. He slid
into sight from behind a tree that should have been
too small to hide him. "I got back some time ago. Who
says I'm not here?"

"No one. Sir wolf," Brian said, cheerfully, rising
from the stream. Stripping the water off his body and
limbs with his hands, he walked over to his clothes and
began putting them on, without bothering with farther
self-drying. "We'll be ready to travel in a wink!"

It was slightly more than single wink's worth of
time, but not too much more, before Brian had him-
self dressed and armored and his horse saddled. He
swung himself up into the saddle.

"Shall we go?" he asked.

"Fine," said Jim.

Aragh melted into the woods and disappeared. Jim
and Brian, side by side, followed after the wolf.

They found him sitting down, waiting for them two
clearings farther on.

"I see," he growled. "One of these poke-along, take-
forever-to-get-there trips. Is that what it's going to be?
All right. I can dawdle along at a walk as well as the
rest of you."

He fell in level with them and they paced forward
together.

"I don't intend to trot my horse in the heat of the
day, just to please you," said Brian.

"Why not? Trot's the only pace to move at," mut-
tered Aragh. "All right. Suit yourself. Oh, not that
way. Sir knight. This way."

"I know the route to Malvem Castle," Brian said,
stiffly.

"You know a. route," said Aragh. "I know the short-
est one. You'll be a day and a half, heading in that
direction. I can bring you there before sunset. Follow
me—or not. Makes no difference to me."

102

He headed off to their right, tail swinging low be-
hind him. Jim and Brian halted, looking at each other.

"But that way leads to the lower reaches of the Lyn
River," Brian protested. "The closest ford's fifteen
miles upstream."

"It's his woods, though," said Jim. "Maybe we 6ught
to trust him."

"Sir James—" Brian began. "Oh, very well!"
He turned his horse's head in the direction Aragh
had taken and together they moved after the wolf,
catching up with him a little farther on.

They rode through the warm hours of the afternoon.
The forest opened out even more, but never quite
ceased being a forest. To begin with they did very
little talking, Aragh and Brian growling "Sir knight"
and "Sir wolf" at each other whenever Jim tried to
draw them into any kind of conversation. But grad-
ually the atmosphere thawed on the pleasant discov-
ery by the two that they had at least one thing in
common: a detestation of someone named Sir Hugh
de Bois de Malencontri.

". . . sent his beaters through my woods!" snapped
Aragh. "My woods! As if it was his private preserve.
I broke up his hunting for him. Hamstrung half a
dozen horses and—"
"I say, not the horses!"

"Why not?" Aragh said. "You humans in armor
make yourselves safe by riding on somebody else's
four legs. Catch an English wolf letting anybody laze
about on his back!"

"A gentleman has a use for a good steed. Not nec-
essary for game, though. Always dismount, myself,
to go after a boar with a boarspear."

"Ah? Twenty or thirty of you at once, no doubt!"
"No such thing. I've gone into a thicket by myself,
alone, several times!"

"Well, that's something," said Aragh, grudgingly.
"No boar's a picnic. No brains, but no picnic either.
Will charge anything. The only way to handle one is
step aside and cut him up. Break a leg or two for him,
if you can."

103

"Thanks, I prefer the boarspear. I take his charge.
Crosspiece keeps him from getting at you. Then it's
hang on until you can let go for a moment to get a
falchion into his throat."

"Suit yourself," Aragh growled. "Anyway, de Bois'
fine gentlemen didn't like being on their feet. I killed
two, crippled eight, before the main party came up
with crossbowmen."

"Well done!"

"Eh? All in the day's work. I missed de Bois him-
self, though. He knocked somebody else out of the
saddle, took his horse and ran before I could follow.
No matter," Aragh snarled lightly to himself. "I'll
catch him one of these days."

"Unless I get to him first," said Brian. "By St. Giles!
He had the affrontery to pay his court to the
Demoiselle Geronde. Hah!"

"The de Chaney .. . ?"

"Exactly! My lady. I drew him aside at my lord
the Duke's Christmas feast, nine months since. 'Lord
Baron,' I said, 'a word in your ear. Keep your bastard's
breath out of my lady's face or I may be forced to
hang you by your own guts.' "

"He said?" growled Aragh.

"Oh, some nonsense about having his verderers
skin me alive if he ever caught me near his lands. I
laughed."

"And then?" put in Jim, fascinated.

"Oh, he laughed, too. It was my lord Duke's Christ-
mas feast—peace on Earth, good will and all that—
neither one of us wanted to make a public fuss. And
that was how matters stood when we parted. I've been
too busy with mere-dragons and now this quest of
yours, Sir James, to get around to keeping my promise
to him. But I really must, one of these days."

And so on ... in the same vein.

About midafternoon, they came out abruptly
through a screen of trees and bushes onto the banks
of the River Lyn. Without pausing, Aragh stepped off
into the water and proceeded to head across the

104

stream, immersed almost to his backbone. Jim and
Brian stopped.

"But there's no ford here, dammit!" said Brian.
"With weather the way it's been for the past month
and this time of year," said Aragh over his shoulder,
"there is—for this week and the next. But suit your-
self."

In fact, the wolf was nearly to midstream now and
his neck and head were still well above the surface of
the water. Brian grunted and urged his horse down
the bank. He began to ride across.

"I think I'll fly," Jim announced, looking at the
river with disfavor.

He had not forgotten his swimming sessions m the
fens. He leaped into the air, and with a few winpbeats
passed over the heads of the others to land on the far
bank and watch Aragh climb dripping back onto dry
land. They waited together for Brian.

"Must say you knew what you were talking about,"
said the knight, grudgingly, to Aragh as he came
ashore. "If this is Malvem Wood on this side, which
it should be—"

"It is," said Aragh as they moved off together into
the forest.

"—we should indeed see the walls of the castle
there before nightfall," concluded Brian. "I must say,
being on my lady's land is almost like a homecoming
to me. If you'll notice. Sir James, how peaceful and
pleasant things are here—"

A thwock resounded, and a three-foot arrow stood
suddenly in the ground a few paces in front of them.

"Hold!" cried a high-pitched voice, the voice either
of a woman or a young boy.

"What the hell?" demanded Brian, reining up and
turning in the direction from which, judging by its
angle in the turf, the arrow had come. "I'm going to
crop myself some archer's ears—"

Thwack! sounded another arrow, materializing in
the trunk of a tree a foot behind and an inch or two to
the right of Brian's helmet.

105

"I'll take care of this," Aragh granted, on a low
note, and vanished.

"Hold where you are. Sir knight!" cried the voice
again. "Unless you want me to put an arrow through
that open visor of yours—or into one of your eyes,
dragon! Don't move a muscle until I come to you."

Jim froze where he was. Brian, also, he saw, was
prudently not moving.

They waited.

Chapter 10

It was a golden afternoon. In the Malvem
Wood birds sang and a little breeze blew past Jim and
Brian. Time went by and nothing else happened.

A deer walked across the open space between two
trees about twenty yards from them, paused to look
interestedly at the two unmoving figures and continued
on, out of sight. A badger galumphed past, ignoring
them completely in the tough, deliberate manner of
its species.

Jim's feet were beginning to go to sleep, when he
heard a droning sound in the air. A bumblebee buzzed
into their vicinity, circled twice and then Hew into the
opening in the knight's visor. Jim waited interestedly,
sleeping feet forgotten, for the explosion he was sure
would come; but he had underestimated the self-
control of Sir Brian. Neither sound nor movement
emanated from the knight; although with his acute
dragon hearing, Jim could now hear the bee buzzing
hollowly around in the helmet and falling silent inter-
mittently, which meant it must be landing on lip, nose
or ear momentarily to assess the situation.

Eventually the bee flew out again.

106

"Sir Brian?" said Jim, questioningly, for he had ac-
tually begun to wonder if the knight was still conscious
within his armor.

"Yes, Sir James?"

"Something's wrong. Whoever shot at us must have
run off, right afterwards. Or something. We've been
standing here twenty minutes. Why don't we go look?"

"Perhaps you're right."

The knight reached up, snapped his visor down
and reined his horse behind the tree the arrow was
stuck in. No further shots came in their direction.
Jim followed him; and keeping some trees always as
a screen between themselves and the point from which
the arrow had probably been launched, they circled
around to investigate.

The woods appeared as quiet and untenanted as
they had been all day, for perhaps a hundred yards'
distance. Slightly beyond, however, the two came
upon a slim figure in brown hose and doublet, with a
peaked hat over shoulder-length red hair, kneeling on
the grass with a longbow and quiver of arrows laid
to one side, massaging the furry neck of a large black
shape.

The large black shape was Aragh's. He was lying
on his stomach in the grass, his long muzzle stretched
out on his forepaws and his eyes half-closed, growling
softly to himself as the slim hands worked on his neck
and scratched under his ears.

"What devil's spell, is this?" roared Brian, pulling his
horse to a halt as he and Jim came up.

"You," said the figure kneeling on the grass, glanc-
ing up at him, "guard your tongue, Sir knight! Do I
look like the devil?"

Clearly she—for obviously the figure in the doublet
and hose was no boy—did not look like any devil. The
word "angel" might have fitted better, if it had not
been for her rather steely gray eyes and the deep,
practical tan of the skin on her face and uncovered
hands and forearms. Aside from those two ordinary
aspects, however, she appeared almost too good to
have been cast from the ordinary human mold.

107

Even kneeling in the grass as she was, she was
obviously almost as tall as Jim or Brian. Her legs were
long, her waist tiny, her shoulders delicate but wide,
and the curves of her body such as an artist of Jim's
world might come up with for the illustration of some
advertiser's commercial daydream. Her hair, a few
shades darker than Brian's in the sunlight, was
touched with highlights of honey-colored gold. She had
a delicate curving jawline, a perfect mouth, a perfect
nose and those same eyes which—except for the steeli-
ness Jim had already remarked—had also to be con-
sidered perfect.

"No," admitted Brian. "But what're you doing to
the wolf to make him growl like that?"

"He's not growling," she said fondly, stroking his
neck. "He's purring."

Aragh opened his left eye and rolled it up to look
at Brian and Jim.

"Mind your own business, Sir knight," he grated.
"Up under the ears there, again, Danielle . . . Ah!"

He went back to his growling.

"I thought you were going to take care of things,
Sir wolf!" said Brian, gruffly. "Do you know we stood
there for—"

"The knight's a Neville-Smythe," snarled Aragh to
the girl, lifting his head from his paws. "The dragon's
an old friend of mine named Gorbash—thinks he's a
knight, too, right at the moment. Sir James of some-
thing. Can't remember the Christian name of the
Neville-Smythe."

"Sir Brian," said Brian, taking off his helm. "And
the good knight with me, who's been ensorceled into
a dragon's body, is Sir James, Baron of Riveroak, from
a land across the sea."

The girl's face lit up with interest. She scrambled
to her feet.

"Enchanted?" she asked, approaching Jim and
looking closely into his muzzle. "Are you sure? I
don't see human eyes within the beast eyes, as they
say you should. Can you tell people what you were,

108

Sir James? What was it like being enchanted? Did it
hurt?"

"No," said Jim. "Just, all of a sudden, I was a
dragon."

"And before that you were a baron?"

"Well..." Jim hesitated.

"I thought so!" she said, triumphantly. "Part of the
spell keeps you from telling who you really were. I
mean, undoubtedly you were the Baron of Riveroak,
but you were probably a lot more than that. A hero
of some kind, probably."

"Well, no," said Jim.

"How would you know? This is exciting. Oh, my
name's Danielle. I'm the daughter of Giles o' the
Wold; except that I'm on my own, now."

"Giles o' the Wold?" Brian echoed. "He's that out-
law, isn't he?"

"He is now!" she flashed, turning on him. "He was
a gentleman of rank once, though his true name I
will tell to none."

Aragh growled.

"No offense," said Brian with surprising mildness.
"I thought Giles o' the Wold, though, was of the
King's Forest, up beyond Brantley Moor?"

"So he is," she said. "And there he and his men are,
still. But, as I say, I now live apart from him."

"Ah," said Brian.

"Ah, yourself!" she said. "Why should I spend my
days with a bunch of men either old enough to be my
father, and women just as old, or clod-pated young
bumpkins who turn red and stammer when they
speak to me? My father's daughter deserves better
than that!"

"Well, well," said Brian.

"And again, well!" She looked from Brian to Jim
and her voice softened. "I feel no need to crave par-
don, Sir James, but it's only fair to say I'd not have
shot at you if I'd known you and this knight to be
friends of Aragh."

"That's all right," said Jim.
"Quite all right," echoed Brian. "However, if

109

r

you're through tickling the wolf, my lady o' the Wold,
perhaps we three should be moving on. We want to
get to Malvem Castle before the gate's locked for the
night."

He reined his horse about in the direction they had
all been heading originally and began to ride off. Jim,
after a moment's hesitation, moved after him. A sec-
ond later they were joined not only by Aragh, but by
Danielle, her bow and quiver slung upon her shoulder.

"You're going to Malvern Castle?" she asked,
"Why?"

"I must ask permission of my lady Geronde de
Chaney to companidn Sir James here in the rescue of
his lady."

"His lady?" She turned on Jim. "You've got a
lady? Who is she?"

"Angela . .. uh ... de Parrel, of Trailercourt."

"Odd names you have overseas," commented Brian.

"What does she look like?" demanded Danielle.

Jim hesitated.

"She is fair," Brian put in, "according to Sir James."

"I'm fair," said Danielle. "Is she as fair as I am?"

"Well . . ." Jim stumbled. "Yes and no. I mean,
you're different types. . ."

"Different types? What does that mean?"

"It's a little hard to explain," said Jim. "Let me
think about it. I'll think of a better way to explain it
after I've had a chance to mull it over."

"All right. You mull," said Danielle. "But I want
to know. Meanwhile, I think I'll come along with the
rest of you to Malvem Castle."

Brian opened his mouth. For a second he looked as
if he would say something. But then he closed his
mouth again.

They moved along together, Danielle refusing an
offer from Brian to mount her behind him on his
horse. She could, she stated, outrun the heavy white
charger any day in the week. Certainly she could out-
walk him.

Jim was more than a little baffled by Danielle. He
had been prepared to take on in the way of Compan-
ions any who could be useful to him. When Brian had
cropped up, he had wrestled a bit with the idea of the
knight simply declaring himself in. Once he had ac-
cepted that idea, however, Aragh's joining them had
seemed almost natural. But this girl—to be one of
his Companions, to face the Loathly Tower and the
Dark Powers and rescue Angie? In no way could he
envision her being useful. Granted, she was good with
a bow and arrow ...

He lost himself in the mental puzzle of trying to
reconcile all the unbelievable elements of this place
he and Angie had fallen into. The dragons, the ma-
gician, the sandmirks (if he had seen them on film in
a late, late movie he would have sneered at them),
Aragh, and now this russet-haired goddess with a bow
and arrow who talked like—he did not know what
she talked like. Except that he was becoming more and
more wary of finding himself in a conversation with
her. She had a directness which literally scared him
silly. What gave her the idea that she could ask any
question she felt like?

Of course, he did not have to answer. But not an-
swering simply made him look as if he were dodging
something. The nub of the problem was that Jim had
been very strictly trained not to ask embarrassing
questions; and apparently Danielle had no inhibitions
at all in that area.

The next time she asks me something I don't want
to answer, he told himself, I'll simply tell her it's none
of her business—

"Ridiculous!" he heard Brian saying to Aragh, "I
tell you. From this angle we have to come in behind
the castle, at the Little Lyn Stream, where the curtain
wall is up on a rock and there's no way in, even if
someone on the wall recognizes me."

"We come in facing the gate, I tell you!" snarled
Aragh.

"Back!"

"Gate—"

"Look," said Jim hastily, waking once more to his




role as peacemaker between these two. "Let me ask
somebody local. All right?"

Peace at any price.

He turned aside from their line of march through
the apparently unending wood, and searched about
for a source of directions. It certainly could not be too
hard to find someone. Granted, there seemed to be no
other humans about. But in this world, everything
seemed capable of speech—dragons, watchbeetles,
wolves . . . An exception might be the flora. So far he
had seen no evidence that trees, flowers or bushes
could speak. But if he could only find an animal or
insect...

However, annoyingly, just at the moment, there
was nothing in sight. He wandered on, looking for
anyone at all: a mouse, a bird . . . Suddenly he almost
tripped over a badger, in appearance a twin to the one
he had seen galumphing by while he and Brian were
holding their positions at the command of Danielle.

"Hey, wait!" he cried.

It did not seem disposed to wait. Jim flipped him-
self into the air on his wings and thumped again to
earth, this time facing the badger

He had it backed up against a bush. It bared its
teeth in true badger fashion. Badgers, Jim remem-
bered a zoologist saying once at a rather drunken fac-
ulty party, would tangle with anybody. This one was
obviously not about to spoil the general reputation of
its kind, in spite of the fact that Jim-Gorbash out-
weighed it something like a hundred to one.

"Take it easy," said Jim. "I just want some infor-
mation. We're headed toward Castle Malvern. Will
this way bring us up behind it, or to its front?"

The badger hunched its shoulders and hissed at
him.

"No, really," Jim persisted. "I'm just asking."

The badger snarled and made a lunge for Jim's
left forefoot.

When he snatched the foot back, the badger turned
with a speed that was surprising in a creature of its

112

apparent clumsiness, slipped around the bush and dis-
appeared. Jim was left staring at nothing.

He turned away to find Brian, Danielle and Aragh
behind him, all in a row, staring at him.

"I just wanted to get some directions from someone
who knew . . ." he began; but his voice died in his
throat at the sight of their stares. They were looking
at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.

"Gorbash," said Aragh, at last, "were you trying
to talk to that badger?"

"Why, yes," said Jim. "I just wanted to ask someone
who knew the local area whether we would come out
behind Castle Malvem, or in front of it."

"But you were talking to a badger!" said Danielle.

Brian cleared his throat.

"Sir James," he said, "did you think you recognized
this particular badger as someone you knew who had
also been ensorceled? Or is it that in your country
badgers can talk?"

"Well, no—I mean, I didn't recognize this badger;

and no, in my country badgers can't talk," said Jim.
"But I thought..."

His voice failed. He had been about to cite as evi-
dence his experience that dragons, watchbeetles and
wolves could talk; but faced with those stares, he got
the abrupt but certain feeling he had just managed to
make a fool of himself.

"Mixed up in the head, that's what he is!" Aragh
said, gruffly. "Not his fault!"

"Well," said Jim, defensively. "I talk, and I'm a
dragon."

"Don't dragons talk where you come from. Sir
James?" asked Danielle.

"We don't have dragons where I come from."

"Then what gave you the idea they didn't talk?"
demanded Aragh. "Been overworking your brains,
Gorbash, that's the trouble. Try not to think for a
while."

"We have wolves where I come from"—Jim turned
on him—"and they don't talk."

113




"Wolves don't talk? Gorbash, you're addled. How
many wolves do you know?"

"I don't exactly know any. But I've seen them in
... I mean, on ..."

Jim realized immediately that the words "zoos" and
"films" would mean as little to the three in front of
him as "Social Security number" had meant to the
knight, earlier. In whatever language he was speaking
now, they would be nothing but meaningless noises.

"How about watchbeetles?" he demanded desper-
ately. "When I talked to Carolinus, he poured some
water on the ground and a watchbeetle came to the
surface and spoke."

"Come, come. Sir James," said Brian. "Magic, of
course. It had to be magic. Watchbeetles can't talk,
any more than badgers can."

"Oh, well," said Jim feebly. He gave up. "Never
mind. As Aragh says, maybe I've been thinking too
much. Let's forget it and get going again."

They took up their route once more, and a sudden
shower caught them unexpectedly. For'a moment, as
the raindrops pelted down hard about them, Jim
looked around for shelter—then recognized that the
three with him were completely ignoring the wetting.
Hard on this came his own recognition that his own
armored hide was scarcely conscious of the moisture;

and he decided to ignore it also. After a bit, the rain
ceased and the sun tried to come out.

It was now in a quarter of the western sky which
caused Jim to guess at a time of about 5 p.m.—an
hour Brian and Danielle would probably refer to as
. midway between none and compline, from the canon-
ical hours commonly in use in the Catholic Middle
Ages. Momentarily, Jim ran back over his memory to.
fix those hours in his mind. The earliest was "matins,"
at midnight. Then came "lauds," at first daylight—
call it plus or minus 5 a.m., depending on the season
of the year. Then "prime," at sunrise—call that 6 a.m.
Then "terce," midmoming—say, 9. a.m. "Sext," at
noon. "None" at midafternoon—3 p.m. "Vespers" at
sunset—5 p.m. or later . . . Finally, "compline," be-

114

fore retiring; which would probably be no later than
an hour or so after sunset, particularly if you were a
monk and had to look forward to getting up at mid-
night.

He had reached this point in delving his memory,
when Aragh abruptly put his nose up into the air.

"I smell smoke," he said.

Jim sniffed the breeze which was blowing from
them, not toward them. His dragon's sense of smell
was not so much inferior to the wolf's but that he
could smell smoke himself, now that his attention had
been called to it. If they could smell it when the wind
was carrying the odor away from them, then whatever
was burning must be merely a short distance in front
of them.

Aragh broke into a trot, and Brian spurred his horse
to keep up. Jim increased his pace and Danielle ran
easily alongside him. They went a short distance,
emerged from among the trees and stopped, to find
themselves in a clearing, at one end of a double row
of huts made of mud and wattle, with straw-thatched
roofs. Several of these were still smoking. The short
rain had fallen here, too, and the bare earth between
and around the huts was darkened and, in trampled
spots, muddied by the water. The trees and the
thatches still dripped moisture and the air was soft
and damp. On it, here, the smell of smoke was strong.
It hung still, for the breeze had now stopped.

The village—if that was what it was—was silent,
with no one to be seen moving about it. Except for the
few huts that had caught fire—only to have their
flames apparently put out by the shower—there was
nothing at all happening. The only people were four
or five who had evidently fallen asleep about the street
or in the doorway of some hut or other. About a dozen
feet in front of Jim, as he pushed past Brian and
Aragh for a better look, was a half-grown girl in a
robe of coarse brown cloth, lying on her side with her
back to them and her black hair spread on the mud.

Jim stared. Had the people here been having some
sort of celebration, at which they became so intoxi-

115

cated that they did not stir to put out the fires which
drunken accident had started on their meager dwell-
ings? He took one step more toward the girl to wake
her up and ask her—and at that moment some twelve
or fifteen men on horseback, with steel caps, half-
armor and drawn swords, rode out from between the
last huts at the far end of the village and turned to
face Jim and the others.

The scene before Jim seemed to jump abruptly, like
a faulty movie film, from one frame to the next. All at
once, he saw the village with a difference: the people
lying about were not merely sleeping, they were dead

—killed—and their slayers were at the other end of
the village street. He took a third step forward, looked
at the dead girl before him, and from this fresh angle
saw her arms stretched out before her without hands.
They had been cut off at the wrist.

The smell of smoke now seemed to fill his brain. He
launched himself into the air, swooping forward and
down upon the mounted men. He saw their swords up,
catching the watery sunlight as he drove into them,
but he felt no blows. Three of the horses went down
under the impact of his body and he tossed two of their
falling riders aside with his clawed forepaws, cutting
the third man—the one most directly in front of him

—almost in half with one snap of his jaws. On the
ground now, Jim reared up, striking out with claws,
teeth and wings at once.

The action around him was a blur. He saw an ar-
row sprout suddenly, half out of the metal breastplate
of a rider; and some gleaming metal drove into the
fray on his right. The point of Brian's lance carried
one rider clear off his horse and into another rider,
who also flew from his saddle. Then the lance was
dropped, and Brian's sword was cutting right and left;

while under him the clumsy white charger—abruptly
transformed—reared, screaming, lashing with its front
hooves and savaging with its teeth, to beat to the
ground the lighter horses about it.

At Jim's left a rider suddenly vanished from his sad-
dle; and for one insane moment it was Aragh riding

116

the mount instead, his jaws grinning as he launched
himself from the leather under him into another of the
opposing riders—

All at once, it was over. Two or three of the
mounted men-at-arms, and as many riderless horses,
were dashing off. Aragh, on the ground now, was tear-
ing out the throats of any who still lived. Jim checked
himself, snorting heavily through his nostrils, and
looked around.

Neither Aragh nor Brian seemed to have been
touched. Danielle, Jim was glad to see, was still sev-
eral houses down the street, approaching them at a
walk, bow still in hand and an arrow ready but not
strung. She had stood back, it seemed, sensibly, and
used her weapon as it ought to be used—from a dis-
tance.

Jim looked down at his own forearms and body. He
was covered with blood, some of which was probably
his own; but he felt nothing. Within, he was conscious
of two conflicting emotions struggling for ascendancy.
The dragon in him was savagely disappointed that
there were no more enemies to kill; the man felt as if
he badly wanted to be sick.

Chapter 11

"Hold still!" said Danielle. "How can I wash
you off if you keep moving?"

He wanted to tell her that it was the dragon-
adrenaline in him that was still making him twitchy.
But he did not know how to explain this in terms she
would understand. What had triggered him off had
been a purely human horror at seeing the dead girl
without hands, but after that he had been pure dragon.

117

Or had he? An impulse made him stop and question
this. Perhaps not. Maybe he was in some ways as sav-
age as Aragh, or Brian or those men he had killed.

"That's all right," said Danielle, having gotten him
cleaned up. She was a competent, but not necessarily
sympathetic, nurse. "You're cut up more than a little;

but nothing important. Three or four of the cuts could
use some oil and bandages. But if you keep them
clean, they should all heal well, despite the lack. Don't
roll in the dirt. Sir James."

"Roll? Why would I want to roll—" Jim was be-
ginning, when Brian, who had been busy taking off his
helm and gauntlets after retrieving his lance and
checking it for damage, interrupted.

"It's plain to see," he said, "there's been no less
than an attack on Malvern Castle. That lot of swine
would not be foraying in such a manner unless the
Malvem force at least were shut within walls and un-
able to sally. We'd best go carefully to get a look at
the castle before we let the countryside know of our
numbers and whereabouts."

"Catch me approaching any castle any other way."
Aragh was standing nearby. Though his words were
in character for the wolf, the tone was unusually mild.
"And what if the castle is no longer in the hands of
your lady? Shall we turn back?"

"Not far," Brian answered, tightly. His jaw muscles
were lumped and the bones of his face seemed to
stand out sharply under the skin. "If the castle is
taken, I have a lady either to rescue or avenge—and
that takes precedence over my desire to help Sir
James. If unfriends indeed hold the castle, we must
find another place for ourselves this night. There's an
inn not too far off. But first, let's go see how matters
stand with the castle."

"I can go and get back with no one seeing me," said
the wolf. "Better the rest of you wait here."

"Those who got away might come back with help, if
we stay here," put in Jim.

"Not with night coming on," said Brian. "Still, it
won't be long until dark for us, as well. Perhaps it's

118

best if you do scout the castle alone. Sir wolf. I and
the others will head for the inn, to see if that's open
.to our using, or has been misused like this village. But
wait—you don't know where the inn is."

"Tell me," said Aragh. "Though, given a little time,
I could find it easily enough myself."

"Due west of the castle is a small hill with a crown
of beech trees against the sky. If you look south from
that hill's top, you'll see a place where the trees
darken in a hollow, about two arrow-flights distant.
You won't be able to see the inn, itself; but under
those trees you'll find both it and the stream that runs
by it."

"Soon," said Aragh, and was gone.

Jim, Danielle and Brian headed off through the
wood, Brian leading.

"All this is familiar land to me," he explained. "As
a boy I was a page here for three years, to leam my
manners from Sir On-in. My lady and I have walked or
ridden over every foot of this ground, since."

The sun was setting now, and long shadows
stretched out from the trees across the grass. They
were not forbidding shadows, however, as they had
been in 'Lynham forest, the night before. The evening
hush lay on everything and, with half the sky overhead
painted pink, for a moment the world about them
seemed a different one from that holding the village
they had just left.

But the moment passed. The light continued to fade
and they came at last to a spot where Brian stopped
abruptly, holding up his right hand to halt Jim and
Danielle.

"The inn's just beyond these trees," he told them.
"But walk and talk softly. Sound carries in this place,
particularly when there's no wind."

They moved forward quietly together and gazed out
from the shadows of the trees which the knight had
indicated. They saw an open glade perhaps four hun-
dred yards across at its narrowest. The stream Brian
had spoken of to Aragh was ditched to flow com-
pletely around a long, stout building of logs, built in

119

the center of the glade on a grassy mound of earth
that seemed artificially raised within the circle of land.
At the far end of the building—actually an extension
of it—stood a sort of half-open shed in which two
horses could be seen tethered, their heads in some
sort of wall trough, feeding.

"The inn door's open, and the shutters are folded
back from the windows," muttered Brian. "So they're
not in a state of siege. On the other hand, it can
hardly be a trap with men waiting for us inside, seeing
there are only those two horses in the stable. Nor
would these two feed so quietly if other horses had
been taken off into the woods nearby to trick us.
Those in the stable would be eager to get loose and
join theirstablemates. Nonetheless, we'd best wait for
Aragh. Indeed I believed that, swiftly as he travels,
he'd be here before us."

They waited. After only a few minutes, there was
a movement behind, and Aragh was once more with
them.

"Your fear's justified. Sir knight," he said. "The cas-
tle is barred and guarded. Also, I smelled blood
spilled on the ground before the main gate, and the
armed men on the walls talk of their lord. Sir Hugh."

"De Bois!" The name seemed to stick deep in Bri-
an's throat.

"What other Sir Hugh could it be?" Aragh's red
jaws laughed in the last of the light. "Rejoice, Sir
knight! We'll both have our chance at him, shortly."

"Rejoice? With my lady no doubt in his hands, as
well as her castle?"

"Perhaps she escaped," put in Jim.

"She's a de Chaney, and holds the castle for her fa-
ther, who may be dead in heathen lands. She'd defend
the castle to the death or her own capture." Brian's
teeth clicked together. "And I won't believe in her
death until I've had certain proof of it. Therefore,
she's captured."

"Have it your way. Sir knight," said Aragh.

"I most surely shall. Sir wolf. And now, we need to

120

scout this inn more closely to make sure it holds no
trap for us."

Aragh's jaws laughed again.

"Did you think I'd come to meet you here without
first taking a look at that box down there? I came up
close behind it, before coming to you here, and lis-
tened. There's an innkeeper, his family and two men
servants. Also one guest. And that's all!"

"Ah," said Brian. "Then we go in."

He started off and the rest of them caught up with
him, walking openly across the glade in the last of the
light; but a slight frown grew on the knight's face as
they got closer to the ditch that separated them from
the open front door.

"It's not like Master Dick Innkeeper not to be out
of doors by this time to see who we are and what in-
tentions we have," he said.

Nonetheless, he kept walking forward. His armored
feet rang hollowly on the rough-hewn planks of the
bridge crossing the ditch before the inn's door. He
stepped onto the artificial island on which the inn was
built, mounted its slight slope and walked into the
gloom within, where what looked like a single torch
had been lighted against the darkness. The others fol-
lowed him in and found him stopped dead still, a pace
inside the building.

He was staring at a lanky figure seated in a rough
chair with his hose-clad legs propped up on the table
before him. In one hand, the seated figure held the
longest bow Jim had ever seen; and the other held an
arrow loosely fitted to the string.

"And perhaps you'd better tell me who you are,
now," the figure said in a soft tenor voice with an odd,
musical lilt to it. "I can put an arrow through each
of you before one of you could take a step, you should
all know. But you do be seeming a strange pack of
travelers to be together on the road, and if you have
something I should be hearing, I'm prepared to listen,
look you."

121

Chapter 12

"I'm Sir Brian Neville-Smythe!" said Brian,
harshly. "And you might think twice about whether
you could put arrows through us all before one of us
could reach you. I think I might just reach you, my-
self!"

"Ah no, Sir knight," said the man with the bow. "Do

not be thinking of that armor of yours as something to
make you different from the rest. At this distance the
lady's doublet and your steel coat are the same as
nothing to my arrows. The dragon a blind man could

not miss, look you; and as for the wolf—"

He broke off suddenly, and laughed noiselessly for

a second.

"It is a wise wolf, then," he said, "and a sly one as

well.. I did not even see him go."

"Master bowman," said Aragh's voice from out of

sight beyond the open doorway, "You'll have to leave
that inn, someday, and travel in the woods. When that
day comes you'll be breathing without a throat before
you can close your fingers on a bowstring, some mo-
ment when you least expect it, if either Gorbash or

Danielle o' the Wold is harmed."

"Danielle o' the Wold?" The bowman peered at
Danielle. "That would be this lady, now, whose face I
cannot see any more than I can see the faces of you
others, for the glare of the sunset light behind you.
Would you be of some relation to a Giles o' the Wold,

lady?"

"My father," said Danielle.

"Indeed! He is a man, then, and an archer—if re-
port be true—whom I am most wishing to meet." The

122

bowman raised his voice. "Rest you easy, Sir wolf.
The lady will not be harmed by me, now; neither at
this moment nor any other."

"Why do you want to meet my father?" Danielle
asked, sharply.

"Why, to be talking to him about bowmanship,"
said the man at the table. "I am Dafydd ap Hywel,
look you, a man of the longbow, the same which was
first made and used in Wales, and which has since
falsely come to be called an English weapon. So I am
traveling about to teach these English archers that it is
none of them can come near to matching a Welshman
like myself, whether at mark or at rover, or at length
of flight, or anything at all they wish to try with bow,
string and shaft—and this because I am blood of the
true bowmen, which they are not."

"Giles o' the Wold can outshoot you twice over, any
day!" said Danielle, fiercely.

"I do not think he will, indeed," Dafydd said,
gently, peering at her. "But I do have a great wish to
see your face, lady—" He lifted his voice. "Inn-
keeper!" he called. "More torches, here! And you have
more guests also, look you!"

A faint sound came of voices and footfalls farther
back in the building; and then light spilled through the
doorway in. the shape of a square-bodied, middling-
tall man of about forty, holding a burning torch in one
hand and carrying three unlit in his other fist

"Sir knight—lady—dragon . . ." he said, a bit
breathlessly, and began to stick the unlit torches in
wall sockets around the room and light them.

As the new flames flared up, Jim could see that
Brian's face was hard.

"How is this, Dick Innkeeper?" he said. "Do you
treat all old friends this way—hiding in the back of
your inn until some other guest summons you forth?"

"Sir Brian, I— Forgive me—" Dick Innkeeper was
obviously not used to apologizing; and the words came
with difficulty. "But my roof is over my head and my
family alive only because of this guest. You may not

123




know it, messire, but Malvem Castle has been taken
by Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri—"

"I know it," Brian interrupted. "But you seem to

have been spared."

"Spared, we have been," said the innkeeper, turning

from setting the torch from which he had been lighting
the others into the last wall socket. The red light
showed all their faces clearly now. "But only because
of this bowman. It was two days since that he stopped
here for the night; and early yesterday we heard
horses outside and both went to the door to see fifteen
or twenty men-at-arms riding out of the wood to my

door."

" 'I don't like this,' I said to him, as we stood in the

doorway together.

" 'Do you not, my host?' he answered; and, without

saying anything further to me, stepped out of doors
and called to them to come no nearer."

"It was no great thing," said Dafydd, from the ta-
ble, on which his feet were still cocked, although he
had now laid aside his bow and arrow. "They were a
quarter of the way clear of the wood, and not an
archer or crossbowman among them."

"Even so," said Brian, staring interestedly at him.
"Dick spoke of fifteen or twenty, and all mounted. Not

likely they'd stop at your word."

"Never they did," the innkeeper explained. "Where-
upon he slew five of them in the time it takes me to
draw a single breath. The others fled. When I went out
to gather the bodies afterwards, every arrow was
through the same place on each dead man's chest ar-
mor."

Brian whistled.

"My lady Danielle," he said, "it strikes me your fa-.

ther may have something to do in outshooting this man
of the Welsh bow, after all. I take it, Dick, those fel-
lows of Sir Hugh's haven't been back?"

"They may come if they wish," said Dafydd, mildly.
"I am not a man of great dispute, but I have said they
shall not come in here, and they shall not."

"Not likely," said Brian. "Sir Hugh's not fool

124

enough to waste any more men than he has already,
even to take an inn as valuable as this one."

It was unfortunate—also involuntary—but at the
word "valuable" Jim felt again that sensation that had
kindled in him back at the dragon cave, when the
word "gold" had been mentioned. Unfortunately, ava-
rice seemed to be a built-in dragonly vice. He forced
the reaction out of his mind. The innkeeper was still

talking.

". . . But what would you wish in food and drink,
Sir Brian?" he was saying. "I've meats both fresh and
salted, bread and fruits of the season . . . ale, beer
and even French wines ..."

Jim felt a new sensation kindle in him.

"And what can I give the dragon?" The innkeeper
had turned to Jim. "I've no cattle, swine, or even
goats. Perhaps, if the good beast—"

"Dick," said Brian, severely, "this gentleman is Sir
James Eckert, Baron of Riveroak in a land beyond the
seas. He's been ensorceled into this dragon shape you
now see him in."

"Oh! Forgive me, Sir James!" Dick Innkeeper
wrung his hands. Jim stared at him, fascinated, having
never seen it done before. "How can I make amends
for my stupidity? Twenty-three years keeper of this
inn, and never before have I failed to know a gentle-
man when he stepped through my door. I—"

"That's all right," Jim said, awkwardly. "It's a nat-
ural mistake."

"No, no, Sir James!" said Dick, shaking his head.
"You're kind; but one who keeps an inn doesn't make
mistakes, natural or otherwise, or he doesn't stay long
in business. But what, then, can I bring you to eat, Sir
James? Will you dine on what I can supply the others?
I know not what food is preferred in lands beyond the
seas. True, my cellar is stocked with great variety—"

"Why don't I just take a look down there," said Jim.
"You did mention . . . wine?"

"Indeed. Wine of Bordeaux, of Auvergne, of—"

"I think I'd like a little wine."

It was a massive understatement. The moment the

125




innkeeper had mentioned the word "wine," Jim had
experienced a glow inside him that very nearly
equaled the feeling he had had at the mention of gold.
In addition to their taste for treasure, it appeared,
dragons had a fondness for wine.             '

"And I'll find something down in your cellar to eat,"
he said. "Don't bother about me."

"Then perhaps you'd come with me. Sir James,"
Dick offered, turning toward an interior doorway. "I
think you can get through here all right? As for the
entrance to the cellar, since we need to pass casks
through it, it should be wide enough and the staircase
stout enough to bear you . . ."

Talking, he led Jim through the doorway, down a
passage that was narrow but adequate for Jim to pass,
and into a large room that was obviously a kitchen. In
the kitchen wall to their right a wide door stood open,
with steps leading downward beyond it. Jim followed
the innkeeper into the cellar.

The cellar, in fact, turned out to be worthy of the
innkeeper's evident pride in it. Apparently it ran a full
length of the inn building and was a storehouse of ev-
erything from what might be found in a medieval attic
to what might be found in a medieval castle store-
house. Clothing, furniture, sacks of grain, bottles full
and empty, casks of drinkables . . .

"Ah," said Jim.

. . . And toward the far end a forest of hooks in
the heavy wood beams overhead supported heavy
planks of smoked meats, including a small wilderness
of good-sized hams.

"Yes," said Jim, stopping by the hams, "this should
do me nicely. Where was that wine you were talking
about?"

"All along the far wall, Sir James," said Dick, bus-
tling about. "In the bottles—but perhaps you'd want
to taste the wine I've got in casks, of which there's a
greater assortment..."

He was rummaging on a dark shelf—the cellar was
unlit except for the single torch he had carried down.
Now, he came up with a large container of darkened

126

leather, with a wooden handle fixed to it by metal
straps. It looked as if it might hold perhaps three-
quarters of a modem American gallon. He handed
this to Jim.

"Why don't you try the various wines—the wines
are at this end of the row, beer and ale at the other—
while I take some meat and drink up to Sir Brian and
the others? I'll be back shortly, to carry up what you
choose."

"Don't bother," said Jim, craftily. "Actually, the
furniture up there doesn't suit this dragon-body of
mine too well. It's embarrassing trying to eat with
other humans in their natural bodies. Why don't I just
eat and drink down here?"

"Whatever you wish. Sir James."

Dick went off, considerately leaving the torch he
had brought down in a holder near the wine casks.

Jim rubbed his forepaws together, looking around
him ...

Chapter 13

Jim woke, under the vague impression that a
conversation was going on somewhere in his vicinity.
A pair of voices, both male, seemed to be talking in
attempted hushed tones; but which, under the stress of
emotion on the part of one voice or another, broke out'
occasionally to sound louder than its owner intended.
Waking up a little more, but without opening his eyes,
Jim identified one voice as Brian's, the other as that
of the innkeeper.

Jim listened idly, only half paying attention to what
he heard. He felt far too comfortable to concern him-
self about anything. For the first time since he had

127

found himself in this body, his stomach was comfort-
ably upholstered. He felt no further inclination to add
to its contents, no matter what might be available
within arm's reach. And the wine had been all that a
dragon could have expected. Nor were there any no-
ticeable aftereffects. Perhaps dragons did not get hang-
overs . .. ?

He was gradually drifting back to full consciousness
as he lay there. His eyelids were bright with what must
be additional torchlight—he remembered that the
torch Dick had originally left had guttered out some-
time before he was through eating and drinking; but
his dragon-body was quite at home in the dark, and
also by that time he knew the location of everything in
the cellar which interested him. The two voices were
now completely understandable, so that he found him-
self following the conversation in spite of himself, and
despite the fact that the two were obviously trying not
to disturb him.

". . . But Sir Brian," the innkeeper was saying, for-
lornly, "hospitality is one thing; but—"

"The bowman may have saved you from that small
pack of rascals," Brian answered, sternly, "but if Sir
Hugh's to be driven off and you and your family live
once more in full safety, it'll be Sir James here, as well
as myself, who'll provide you with that peace. How
will you answer my lady, once she's been put back in
possession of her castle, when she hears that you be-
grudged one of her rescuers a little food and drink?"

"A little!" Jim could imagine Dick wringing his
hands again. "Forty-six of the choicest hams! A quar-
ter of a tun of Bordeaux and perhaps two dozen bot-
tles of other wines! Three such meals by Sir James, Sir
Brian, and you'll see me a ruined man!"

"Lower your voice!" Brian snapped. "Want to wake
the good knight with your complaining and crying?
For shame. Master innkeeper! I've been with Sir
James since two days ago and he's not eaten until now.
It may well be he won't need to eat again until the
castle's recovered. But, in any case, I've told you I'd
see you paid for any costs he puts y6"u to."

128

"I know. Sir Brian. But an innkeeper can't merely
put your pledge instead of food before hungry guests,
with the explanation that his cellar's empty. It takes
time to gather such a store of foodstuffs as I have—
had—downstairs here. As it is, ham alone is going to
be a rare dish under my roof until Eastermass of next
year—"

"Hush, I sayl Come away!" hissed the knight
sternly.

The torchlight and the sound of footsteps withdrew
together.

Jim opened his eyes in utter darkness. The strong
jaws of his conscience began to nibble at him. This
strange world with its talking creatures, its magic and
its Dark Powers, had somehow put that part of him to
sleep. Now it awoke, a giant with its strength re-
doubled. However fairy-tale his existence appeared to
be here, this was in fact a world where people were
bom in the ordinary fashion, suffered and died—were
killed, too, like that poor child in the village with her
hands cut off. He remembered how, back in his own
world, he had wished to change modem times for a
medieval period when problems were more solid and
real. Now, here he was, surrounded with solid and real
problems even if the rules were a little different—and
far from appreciating that solidity and reality, he was
acting as if it were some kind of dream in which he
had no responsibility.

The innkeeper had a point. He had more than a
point—he had a serious problem that was the result of
Jim's simply helping himself to whatever and how
much of the man's stock-in-trade had tickled Jim's ap-
petite. The ripoff was no less than it would have been
if Jim had walked into a supermarket back in his own
world and made off with a hundred and twenty-six
full-sized hams and twenty cases of wine.

And the fact that Brian had made himself respon-
sible for the cost of the gargantuan meal made it no
better. To begin with, Jim had no idea that he and the
knight had become close enough friends so that one
might be expected to undertake such an obligation for

129

the other. Guiltily, Jim had to admit that if the situa-
tion were reversed, he, with his own world's twentieth-
century attitudes toward someone he had only known
for a couple of days, would have felt that the other had
gotten himself into the situation and that it was Tip to
the fellow to get out of it on his own ...

An inspiration broke suddenly upon Jim like the
light of a torch abruptly kindled in a pitch-black cel-
lar. Some of Gorbash's memories seemed still to linger
in this body Jim was using. Perhaps the memory of
where Gorbash kept his hoard was still there also, if
only he could evoke it. If he could discover where the
hoard was, he could pay back Dick Innkeeper him-
self, and rid his conscience of its uneasy sense of ob-
ligation to the knight.

Feeling much better, now that he had thought of
this, Jim roused himself and, with a dragon's sureness
in the dark, strode back along through the cellar and
up its stairs into the kitchen. No one was there but a
stout woman of about the innkeeper's age, who
bobbed him a curtsey when he appeared.
"Uh ... hello," said Jim.
"Good morning, Sir James," replied the woman.
Jim went down the passageway and into the tavern
room. He felt shamefaced about the idea of encounter-
ing the innkeeper or Sir Brian, but the room when he
stepped into it was empty. Once more the front door
was open—a natural response to the need for some
circulation of air, Jim realized, since the windows of
the inn, even unshuttered, were mere slits—designed
more for defense than for light and ventilation. He
stepped outside and heard the voices of Brian and the
innkeeper again, but from a distance. They were down
at the stable end of the building, concerned with
Brian's white warhorse, which had also been slightly
cut up in the fight at the village.

Talk of the horse's cuts reminded Jim of his own.
He had hardly been conscious of them yesterday. To-
day, however, he felt them—not seriously, but in
the same way half a dozen small razor cuts might feel
on his face after he had done a clumsy job of shaving.

130

His Gorbash-body felt a sudden impulse to lick them;

and he discovered that his supple neck and long
tongue had no trouble reaching any of the wounds.

With the cuts all cleaned by his tongue, the dis-
comfort from the wounds fell to a point where he
could ignore them. He sat up and looked around, to
discover Aragh sitting on his haunches not ten feet
from him, watching.

"Good morning," said Jim.

"It's good enough," said Aragh. "Spent the whole
night inside that place, did you?"

"Well, yes," answered Jim.

"Suit yourself," Aragh said, grimly. "You'll never
catch me going into one of those boxes."

"You didn't come in at all?"

"Of course not," growled the wolf. "That sort of
thing's for humans. Something soft about all humans,
Gorbash, even if they can hold their own like that
knight and the bowman. I don't mean just soft in the
body, I mean soft in the mind. Takes ten years for one
of them to be able to take care of itself, and they never
get over that. They remember being petted and fed
and looked after; and later on, when they get the
chance, they try to set up things so they get petted
and cared for some more. When they get old and
feeble, that's all they're good for—more petting and
caring. Not for me, Gorbash! The first warning I'll get
that I'm growing feeble is going to be when somebody
who oughtn't to be able to, tears my throat out!"

Jim winced slightly. This assessment of human na-
ture, coming on top of his guilt about last night's in-
dulgence, struck a more tender spot than it might have
done otherwise. Then he thought of something.

"You liked having Danielle scratch under your
ears, yesterday," he said.

"She did it. I didn't ask her to," Aragh replied,
gruffly. "Hah! Wait'11 she catches up with you!"
"Catches up with me?"

Aragh's jaws parted in one of his noiseless wolf-
laughs.

131

"I know her. You and your nonsense about having
a human lady, Gorbash! Now, you've got two!"

"Two?" said Jim. "I think you're imagining things."
"I am? Go see for yourself. She's just off there in

the trees with that bowman."

Jim looked away in the direction Aragh's muzzle

was pointing.

"Maybe I will," he said.
"Good luck!" Aragh yawned and lay down in the

sun, jaws on forepaws, eyes closed.

Jim went off toward the area Aragh had indicated
in the surrounding woods. Stepping into the shade of
the first big trees, he saw no one. Then his dragon-
ears caught a murmur of voices that would have been
inaudible to his human ones, coming from a short
distance farther off. Feeling like an eavesdropper, he
moved quietly toward them, and halted when the

speakers came into view.

They were standing in a small opening among the

trees. The grass under their feet, the sunlight upon
them and the tall elms all around them framed a pic-
ture that was almost too perfect to believe. Danielle,
in her hose and doublet, looked as if she had just
stepped out of a book of legends; and Dafydd, who
stood with her, was hardly less imposing.

The bowman wore his bow and quiverful of long
arrows—Jim got the idea that these two items were
never more than an arm's length from him, even
while he slept. Danielle, however, had left her own
bow and arrows someplace else. She wore no weapon
except the knife at her belt; although this, with its
six-inch sheath outlining a near-equal length of blade,

was certainly nothing to ignore.

". . . After all," she was saying, "you're just a com-
mon bowman."

"Not common, lady," Dafydd replied softly. "Even

you ought to recognize that, look you."

He stood over her. Danielle was tall, but Dafydd
was a good deal taller. Jim had not really appreciated
the Welshman's height, on seeing him seated in the
inn. Grottwold might have been as tall; but beyond

132

the overall inches, any similarity between the two men
ended. Dafydd was as straight and supple as his own
bow and his shoulders were as wide as the inn's front
door. His face was of the sort usually described as
"chiseled"—straight nose, square jaw, level eyes, but
all without the heavy boning of someone like Brian.
His voice was soft and musical; and he had been en-
tirely right about himself as a bowman—or anything
else. He was not at all common.

Jim, watching, found himself completely caught up
in wonder at Danielle's attitude. How, he wondered,
could she prefer someone like himself—that is, if
Aragh was telling the truth—to this medieval super-
man? For the moment, he had forgotten entirely that
he was in a dragon's body, not in his ordinary hu-
man form.

"You know what I mean!" said Danielle. "Any-
way, I've had enough of bowmen to last me for a life-
time. Besides, why should I care about you, bowman
or not?"

"Because I find you beautiful, lady," Dafydd
answered, "and I remember nothing in all my life that
I found beautiful that I did not want it; and, want-
ing, never ceased from striving for, until I gained it."

"Is that so? I'm not some bauble to hang on your
baldrick, Sir bowman! As it happens, I'll say who
gains me!"

"Indeed, you shall. But shall no one else while I
live—as you may now know from my telling you of
it."

"Hmph!" Danielle did not exactly toss her head,
but Jim got the strong impression that for two cents,
or its medieval equivalent, she would have. "I'm go-
ing to marry a prince, when I marry. What can you
do against a prince?"

"Against prince, king, emperor. God or Devil—
the same thing I would do against any man or beast
who came between me and the lady I wanted. One
or the other of us would go down; and that is not
likely to be myself."

"Oh, of course not!" sneered Danielle.

133




She turned and marched away from Dafydd.
Jim woke suddenly to the fact that she was coming
straight for him and that in a moment he would be
discovered. There was hardly anything to do but pre-
tend he had just arrived. He stepped forward, out -of

the trees.

"There you are, Sir James!" Danielle called,

happily. "Did you have a good night's sleep? How are

your wounds?"

"Wounds?" echoed Jim. She had certainly not dig-
nified his cuts with the name of "wounds" when she
had cleaned him up yesterday. "Oh, fine! Yes, I slept

like a log!"

"Dear Sir James," she said, reaching him. "I've

been waiting for you to wake up so that we can talk
some more. There were things I wanted to know,
you remember. Shall we take a walk, just th& two of

us?"

"Well . . . sure," said Jim. He had come into these

woods with the firm intention of settling any foolish
notions Danielle might have about him. Face to face
with her, he felt his confidence evaporating. "Oh,

good morning, Dafydd."

"Good morning. Sir James," said the bowman,

pleasantly.

Danielle already held Jim by the forearm and was

leading him off into the wood at an angle to the route

he had taken on coming here.

"I'll talk to you later in the day," Jim called over

his shoulder to Dafydd.

"Indeed now, we shall. Sir James."

In a moment the small clearing was out of sight.
Danielle led the way through the trees for some dis-
tance, but soon slowed her pace.

"Have you remembered anything?" she asked. .

"Remembered?" Jim echoed.
"Of who you were, besides being Baron of Riv-

eroak."

"Well . . . who could I be?" Jim said. "I mean,

just being Baron alone—"

"Come, Sir James," said Danielle, impatiently. "A

134

gentleman isn't just his rank. For that matter, he can
have many ranks. Isn't our Lord Duke also Count
of Piers, Steward of the East Marches and lots of
other things? And as for our King in England, isn't
he also King of Aquitaine, Duke of Brittany, Duke of
Caraballa, Prince of Tours, a Prince of the Church,
a Prince of the Two Sicilies, Count this. Count
that . . . and so on, for half an hour? Baron of
Riveroak is probably the least of your titles."

"What makes you think so?" asked Jim, feebly.

"Why, because you've been enchanted!" Danielle
snapped. "Who'd bother enchanting a mere baron?"

Her manner softened. She reached up to pat him
gently on the end of his muzzle. To Jim's surprise,
the touch of her hand was a very pleasant thing. He
wished she would do it again—and a small twinge of
jealousy toward Aragh stirred within him.

"There! Never mind," she said. "It's the enchant-
ment that keeps you from remembering. Are you sure
it didn't hurt?"

"Not at all," said Jim.

She looked dubious.

"We used to do a lot of talking about magic in my
father's band, in the wintertime. There wasn't much
else to do from December until March, once we got
snowed in, but sit around the fire and talk. Of course
nobody knew—but everybody seemed to think there'd
have to be this one, sudden, terrible flash of pain
when you changed forms. You know, the same way it
would be if you were getting your head cut off, just
before your head rolled on the ground and you were
really dead."

"It didn't happen that way with me," said Jim.

"You've probably forgotten it—just like you've
forgotten being a prince."
"Being a prince?"

"Probably," Danielle answered thoughtfully. "Of
course, you could have been a king or emperor; but
somehow that doesn't seem to fit you like being a
prince. What did you look like?"
"Well . . ." Jim coughed self-consciously. "I was

135

about as tall as Brian, say, and about the same weight.
My hair was black and my eyes were green. I'm

twenty-six—"

"Yes," said Danielle, decisively, "that's the right

age for a prince. I was right."

"Danielle . . ." said Jim. He was beginning to get
a little desperate. "I wasn't a prince. I happen to
know I wasn't a prince. I can't tell you just how I
know; but believe me. Take my word for it—I know

I wasn't a prince!" >

"There, there," said Danielle, "don't worry about it.

It's undoubtedly just part of your ensorcelment."

"What is?"

"Thinking you know you weren't a prince. Un-
doubtedly, whoever ensorceled you didn't want you
realizing who you really are. Let's not talk about it
any more now, if it upsets you. Do you happen to

know how you can end the enchantment?"

"You bet," said Jim, fervently. "If I can get
Angela—my lady—back, I'll get out of this dragon-
body in a hurry."

"Well, that's not hard, then. All you have to do is
get your Companions together, go to the Loathly
Tower, get this Lady Angela and send her back
wherever she came from."

"How do you—?"
"I've been talking to Sir Brian," said Danielle.

"How many more Companions do you have to get?"

"I don't know," Jim answered. "But you realize,
once I get Angela free I'll be going back with her."

"Going back with her ... ?"

"I love her."
"No, no," said Danielle. "You'll see, that's just

another part of the enchantment. Once you're dis-
enchanted, you'll see her as she really is; and realize

you're not in love with her at all."

"As she really is?" Jim -echoed, bewildered. "Now
look, Danielle, I know how she really is. She ... I
. . . we've known each other very well for a year and

a half, now."

"That's what the. enchantment makes you think. It

came to me suddenly, last night. The reason you
couldn't answer the question I asked you about
whether she was as fair as I am was because, although
you knew better, the enchantment was making you
think she was. Nobody," Danielle insisted, "is as fair
as I am. But I don't blame you for not being able to
see that, while you're ensorceled this way."
"But—"

"Come, Sir James. You're going to have to face
facts, eventually. Look me right in the eyes and tell
me you really believe this Angela is as fair as I am."

Jim stopped, to keep from running into her. She
had stepped around in front of him and was gazing
directly into his eyes from less than a foot away.

He gulped. The absolute hell of it was, she was
right. Much as he loved Angie, this suntanned figure
of perfection would win any beauty contest between
them in the moment of its announcement. But that
was beside the point. It was Angie he wanted, not
five feet eleven inches of—

"That's beside the point, Danielle," he made him-
self say. "It's the Lady Angela I'm concerned with;

and I'm the one she's concerned with. Even if you
could convince me things were different, I don't think
you could convince her."

"Oh? Hmm," Danielle said, her fingers playing with
the hilt of her knife. "Well, well. She and I can settle
that little matter by ourselves when the time comes.
But, Sir James, hadn't we better be heading back to
the inn? The others will be wondering that you should
keep me apart alone with you all this time."

"You're right," said Jim, and headed back with
her.

It was not until he was a half-dozen steps along the
way that he realized she had conned him again. Who
was likely to wonder about his spending time with
Danielle as long as he was still in the body of a I
dragon?

When they did arrive back at the inn, they found
a table with benches—something like a picnic table
—set up outside the front door. Brian and Dafydd

137




r

were seated at it with leather drinking mugs and a
bottle of wine before them. Aragh sat on his haunches
at the foot of the table, his head well above the

boards.

"Sir James!" Brian called, as Jim" and Danielle

emerged from the wood. "Come join us! We have
plans to make for the retaking of my lady's castle."

Jim felt the pit of bis stomach drop slightly. He had
gathered earlier that Brian had definite intentions of
evicting Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri and free-
ing his Geronde, but he had not bothered to think
seriously about what the knight might do. Now, how-
ever, that they were down to the point of action, he
recalled that the situation was somewhat unbalanced
between their own numbers and those of the castle's
probable occupiers. This discrepancy would not have
bothered him so much if he had not gathered that
Brian was the sort of individual who, having made up
his mind to do something, was certain to do it.

He lumbered up and sat himself down at the open

end of the table, opposite Aragh.

"Sir James," said Brian. "Oh, by-the-bye—would

you like some wine?"

"Ye— No," said Jim, remembering his existing

debt to the innkeeper.

"Very well. Sir James, I have some sorry news
for us," Brian went on. "The good bowman here tells
me that he sees no reason to join forces with us against

Sir Hugh, his principles being—",

" 'Let be who will leave me be,'" put in Dafydd.
"Not that I do not wish you well, whatever. But it is

not a quarrel of mine."

"Likewise," went on Brian, "Sir wolf here con-
siders the matter of my lady and myself to be
no quarrel of his; and he has reminded me that his
promise to join us extended only insofar as we have
to deal with sandmirks."

"Oh."

"Therefore," said Brian, cheerfully. "Clearly, it is

to be you and I alone against Sir Hugh and his men.
For that reason, let us put our heads together, for

138

we will have need of what cleverness we can mus-
ter."

"Well, there you have it, Gorbash," said Aragh,
with grim relish. "That's what you get for thinking
you're human. Only humans would consider taking
a castle full of enemies, when there were only two of
them and the castle is built to keep out an army."

"It's certainly not sensible. Sir Brian!" put in
Danielle, who was standing by Aragh, petting him
behind the ears. "You have to admit that!"

"Sensible or not," Brian resumed, his jaw muscles
bunching, "my lady is held and I will loose her. By
myself, if need be. But I believe I can count on Sir
James."

"It's not Sir James' duty to free your lady!" said
Danielle. "His duty's to free himself from his enchant-
ment by getting the Lady Angela out of the Loathly
Tower. In fact, it's his duty not to risk his life—and
that rescue—by trying anything as foolish as taking
Malvem Castle, two-handed!"

"I constrain none," said Brian. His burning-blue
gaze swung around to lock with Jim's. "Sir James, how
say you? Are you with me in this matter, or do I pro-
ceed alone?"

Jim opened his mouth to make his apologetic ex-
cuses. Attacking the castle with Aragh and Dafydd to
help put matters, perhaps, faintly within the realm of
success. Without them, such an attack would be noth-
ing less than suicidal. Better to make the situation plain
to Brian right now, than to have to back out later.

But, oddly, the words seemed to stick in his throat
and would not come out. Jim was under no circum-
stances the bravest man around—and he was no better
a dragon than he was a man, as far as courage went.
.On the other hand, there was Angie ... for whose
rescue Carolinus assured him he would need Com-
panions—and if he let Brian down now, it was not to
be expected that Brian would still come along to the
Loathly Tower to help him. Also, there was something
about the knight's determination ... and something,
as well, about this crazy world he was now in: unbe-

139




lievable as it seemed, there was something in him—
in the human, not dragon, part of him—that wanted
to try taking Malvem Castle, even if he and Brian
must make that attempt alone.

"Well, Sir James ... ?" said Brian.

"Count on me," Jim heard himself saying.

Brian nodded. Dafydd refilled his jack with wine,
held it up to Jim and drank it off in silent toast.

"Oh, yesi" Danielle flashed, turning on the bowman.
"And you were the one who would put yourself up
against prince, or king or emperor, and were so sure
it wouldn't be you who would go down!"

He looked at her in surprise.

"This is none of my concern, as I said," he answered.
"How is it you're making a comparison between this
and what I would do for you, in your own case?"

"Sir Brian needs help! Does Sir James hang back
and say it's none of his concern? He does not! I won-
dered about your courage with all those fine speeches
you've been making. I see I was right to wonder!"

Dafydd frowned.

"Ah," he said, "you mustn't go making talk like
that. My courage is as good as any man's—and, in
fact, I think better."

"Oh?"

He stared at her with a sort of slow wonder.

"You will be pushing me into this, now?" he said.
"Indeed, I see you will."

He turned to Brian.

"What I said was no less than the truth," he told
the knight. "It is nothing to me, one way or the other,
about this Sir Hugh of yours. Nor am I some knight-
errant, look you, to go rescuing maidens. That is for
those of you who are liking such things. But for this
particular maiden with us now, and no other, you may
count on me, too, for what I can do to aid."

"Good man—!" Brian was beginning, when Aragh

interrupted.

"You've got visitors, Sir knight. Turn and look."

Brian turned. They all turned.
Emerging from the trees opposite the inn were the

140

first of a number of men, all in steel caps, brown,
green or russet hose, and leather jackets with metal
plates fastened thickly upon them, wearing swords at
their belts and with longbows and quivers of arrows
slung from their shoulders.

"It's all right. Sir Brian," said Danielle. "It's just
Giles o' the Wold, my father."

"Your father?" Brian turned back swiftly to dart a
suspicious glance at her.

"Certainly!" Danielle explained. "I knew you'd
need help, so I asked one of Dick Innkeeper's sons to
ride secretly last night on one of his father's horses to
summon him. I said to tell him you'd be glad to split
whatever wealth was to be gained from Sir Hugh de
Bois and his men in retaking the castle."

Chapter 14

Brian stared at her for a second longer, then
turned back to look at the newcomers, who were al-
ready halfway across the open ground to the inn.
Slowly he got to his feet. Dafydd rose also, casually,
his hand on his quiver. Jim found himself getting to
his feet as well, and Dick Innkeeper materialized in
the inn door, stepping out to join them. Only Aragh
stayed seated, his jaws laughing.

The man in the lead was a lean individual who
looked to be in his fifties. The ends of hair seen es-
caping from under his steel cap were iron gray, and
his short, curly, jutting beard was pepper-and-salt in
color. Beyond his air of authority, he seemed little
different from the men behind him, except that the

141

weapon at his belt was not the short sword the others
wore, but rather a longer, two-handed weapon like

Sir Brian's.

He came up to the ditch girdling the inn, crossed
its bridge and stopped before the knight.

"I'm Giles o' the Wold," he said. "And these are
my free brothers and companions of the forest. I take
it you're Sir Brian Neville-Smythe?"

"I am," Brian answered, stiffly. "Master outlaw, I
wasn't the one who invited you here."

"I'm aware of that," said Giles. Above his beard,
his face was tanned to almost the color of old leather
and the skin had gone into small, shrewd wrinkles.
"My daughter sent for me—"

He glanced past Brian for a moment.

"I'll talk to you later, girl," he said. "Now, Sir
knight, what matters who sent for me? If you need
assistance, here am I and my men, and the price of
our aid's not so high as to be beyond reason. Shall
we sit like reasonable men and discuss it, or should
my lads and I turn around again and go?"

Brian hesitated a second—but only a second.

"Dick," he said, turning to the innkeeper. "Bring
another jack for Giles o' the Wold; and see what his
companions will have."

"Ale," answered Dick, in a somewhat grim voice,
"is all I have in such quantity."

"Ale, then," said Brian, impatiently. "Bring it!"

He sat back down at the table. Giles took the other
end of the bench that Dafydd had been sitting on.

Giles looked curiously at Aragh, and then at Jim.

"The wolf I know—by reputation, if nothing else,"
he said. "The dragon— My daughter's message said
you were a knight under enchantment?^'

"This is the good Sir James," Brian explained. "The
bowman next to you is Dafydd ap— What's that family
name of yours, Master archer?"

"Hywel," said Dafydd, pronouncing it with a lilt
that Jim knew his own tongue certainly could not have
managed. "I am in England to teach the English that

142

the longbow, as well as the true blood of they that
best use it, are from Wales alone; and it is also that
I am going to marry your daughter. Master Giles."
"He is not! "cried Danielle.
Giles' bearded face parted in a smile.
"If you ever get her permission," he said to Dafydd,
"come talk to. me about it. You might have to con-
cern yourself not only with my feelings in the matter,
but the intentions of some score or so younger mem-
bers of my band."

"You've a clerkly way of talking. Master outlaw,"
said Brian as Dick came out with bottles and another
jack for Giles, followed by his two men servants rolling
a cask through the door into the yard.

"Use your caps," they could hear him directing the
outlaws who came clustering around. "I've no store
of jacks for such a number as this."

"I've been that, too," Giles answered Brian, care-
lessly. He took off his own steel cap and tossed it on
the table, filled his jack from one of the bottles and
drank deeply. His sparse hair stirred a bit in the light
breeze that was blowing. "Now, Sir knights. Friend
Welshman and Master wolf, I've heard some little
about you all—"

His glance touched for a second on the unusual
length of the longbow leaning against the table at
Dafydd's side.

"—But to save time, perhaps it's best you tell me
from the beginning all that bears on the matter here,
including that about each of you."

They told him—Jim starting off, Brian taking up
the story after he had met Jim, Aragh carrying the tale
on from the defeat of the sandmirks, and Danielle,
Dafydd and the innkeeper putting in their own reports.
Giles drank and listened.

"Well, gentles and others," he Said, when they were
done. "Maybe I've brought my lads here on a fool's
errand after all. My daughter's message gave me to
believe you'd a chance to take this castle that only
needed a few more stout fighters to secure. But a

143




mixed bag you are—I mean no offense by that—and
I know Malvem Castle, which is not a cattle shed to
be taken by a rush and a few blows. My lads are fine
bowmen, and swordsmen if need be, but no men-at-
arms. My pardon to all, but how in hell did you think
you might take half an acre of stone walls from per-
haps fifty men in no less than half-armor and used to

such defense?"

Brian scowled.
"I know Malvem Castle inside out," he said. "Fifty

men scattered about it won't be more than two at a
time in any one place. Here are three of us, at least
—four if the wolf had joined us—who are each more
than a match for any two of them in any place, at any

time."

"I'll not deny thatJ' said Giles. "But you'd need to

be in the castle itself to match them. So, to take first
things first, what magic had you planned to use to get

into the castle?"

"Malvem will have food stored for siege," said

Brian. "But that has to be dull stuff. There's better
provender here. Sir Hugh tried to take this inn and
failed—I don't doubt he knew there were choice wine
and meats here. It was my thought that I could dis-
guise myself as Dick Innkeeper, driving a wagonload
of choice food as a peace offering to the new com-
mander of Malvem. The wolf would ride along in the
wagon as a dog of the inn, to snarl at any of the com-
mon sort that might be tempted to filch the dainties it
carried before they reached Sir Hugh. Then, once
within, and hopefully in the presence of Sir Hugh him-
self, he and I would kill the baron, and strive to reach
my lady's quarters, where she will be held prisoner—"

"Why?" asked Giles. -

"Why what. Master outlaw?"

"Why do you think the Lady Geronde will be

locked in her own quarters?"

"Because," said Brian, with obviously hard-held

patience, "Sir Hugh would waste no time in taking
over the lord's chambers; and there'd be no place else

144

but my lady's room below the solar, to keep anyone
like her prisoner in good health and safety. Strong men
have been known to last little more than a few days
in dungeons, of which Malvem has two, and none of
the nicest. Anyplace else in the castle my lady could
not be guarded from her own people, who might help
her to escape, or to attempt such an escape that death
would put her beyond her captors' power. Nor could
she be safely guarded elsewhere from Sir Hugh's own
men, some of whom at least—as you'd know. Master
outlaw, having lived- long enough to have a knowledge
of men-at-arms—will be no more able than brute
beasts to think of the consequences for what they do,
when drink is in them."

"Granted," Giles acknowledged. "Go on, Sir Brian.
You've slain Sir Hugh and guards and broken into the
lady's room. Now what?"

"Now, the good Sir James, who has been on wing
and waiting, sees our signal from the balcony of my
lady's eng-mbCTT-Htf swuups dowii aiid'cames-heraway-
to safety and to rouse a force from the countryside,
to retake the castle. Nothing is left but for the wolf
and me to escape, ourselves—if God wills it."

"God?" snarled Aragh, abruptly. "Your god, knight,
not mine! If anyone saves Aragh, it'll be me. When I
was half grown and a full-grown sow bear broke my
right foreleg, so that in no way could I run, was it the
god of humans who saved me? No, it was I—Aragh!
I stood, and fought and got my teeth through the fur
and loose skin to the great vein in her throat, so that
she died and I lived. That's the way it's always been
for an English wolf—the way it will always be. Keep
your god if you wish, Sir knight, but keep him to
yourself!"

He paused, licked his jaws with one flick of his red
tongue and yawned elaborately.

"But I forget," he said. "I'd already told you this
business of your lady and the cas.tle has nothing to do
with me."

145

"So. Then what of your plan, Sir Brian?" said Giles.

Brian scowled.

"Master outlaw, I'll remind you once more—
it wasn't I who invited you here. Here, we're trying
to decide what force is needed for a rescue, but how
to do it with what we've got. If we lack the wolf, we
lack him, that's all."

"How . . . ?" Giles began. "No, with all respect,
Sir Brian, I think this trip of mine has been—"

"Wait a moment, Fatheri" said Danielle. "/ was the
one sent for you."

She turned and looked directly at Aragh. Aragh
opened his jaws in silent laughter.

"This is Aragh!" he growled. "Did you think I was
another lovesick bowman?"

"No . . ." Danielle replied, "I thought you were
Aragh, my wolf-friend, who'd never betray me, any
more than I'd betray Aragh. When I sent for my father
and his men, it never crossed my mind that Aragh
would abandon his friends, such as Sir James and my-
self. But, sinw-he has—"

She turned back to the table.

"I may not be a match for any two men-at-arms,
except with bow and from a safe distance," she said.
"But I can be even more useful than a wolf for attract-
ing attention away from Sir Brian, and with the help
of surprise I could even aid in killing Sir Hugh and
freeing Geronde. Once that's done, of course, I may not
be so likely to fight my way to freedom, but I have
an advantage over Aragh—like Sir Brian, I can leave
my rescue to God."

"Girl—"

"Hush, Father! I'm my own mistress, now. So. Sir
James—Sir Brian—count me with you in your attempt
on the castle."

She looked back at Aragh.

"And you may sleep in the sun!" she snapped.

Aragh opened his jaws, licked them again and
closed them. Then he did a thing that astonished
Jim: he whined.

"No, you don't!" Danielle said, fiercely. "You had
your chance. Now I'm going into that castle, and
you're not going to have anything to do with it!"

Aragh's head dropped. It lowered and lowered until
his nose almost touched the ground. He all but crept
toward Danielle and pushed his head against her knees.

For a moment she merely glared at him. Then she
sat down with a thump and put her arms around his
furry neck and hugged his head to her.
"It's all right... it's all right," she said.
"I wouldn't have let Gorbash get hurt, either,"
growled Aragh, in muffled tones into the padding of
her doublet. "I was just going to wait until time to
go. What good am I if I can't kill for my friends?"

"Never mind." She rubbed behind his ears. "It's all
set straight, now."

"I'll even get this knight out safely, afterwards."
"I know you will," said Danielle. "But maybe you
won't have to."

She looked up from where she sat to her father.
"Now that Giles o' the Wold knows he'll have three
strong allies inside the castle, maybe he can consider
making use of himself and his men after all to take
the castle?"

"Daughter," said Giles, "you stay clear of the whole
affair."

"That's right," Aragh insisted, pulling his head out
of her embrace. "/ go. You don't, Danielle!"

"All right," she replied. "I won't go into the castle.
Anything I can do outside, I'll do. Father... ?"

Giles refilled his jack and drank thoughtfully.

"My lads and I are no good unless we can get in-
side, too," he said. "If there was some way you could
open the gate for us ..."

"If it's to be a taking of the castle," said Brian, "I
can then barricade my lady and myself in her quarters.
Sir James, instead of carrying her off, can land some-
where within the walls and attract attention, during
which the wolf can slip down, slay the guards and
open the gats—"

He turned to Aragh.

"There's a rope hoist to the right side of the gate,
within," he said, "by which one man may lift the bar.
With your teeth in that rope, it should lift easily. Then
throw your weight on the right-hand gate door—note,
Master wolf, the right-hand door, not the left—and
you should be able to swing it out enough for the arch-
ers to get in."

"Good enough, as far as it goes," said Giles. "But
the gate won't stand unbarred for more than a mo-
ment, I think, even if it takes a dozen men together
to cut down the wolf. And it'll take more than a mo-
ment or two for all of us, even at a dead run, to cross
the open ground that I remember lies about Malvem
Castle. Because it's from the nearest cover we must
come, certainly. They'll have lookouts on the battle-
ments against anyone creeping close, unseen."

"Shoot the lookouts first," Dafydd suggested.

The Welshman had been so silent that Jim had al-
most forgotten Tie was there. Now, they all looked at
him.

"How, Master Dafydd?" Giles asked, ironically.
"With head and shoulders only for target above the
walls, and at a distance of close on half a mile?
Clearly you've not seen Malvem Castle and the land
it stands on."

"I can do it," said Dafydd.

Giles stared at the younger man for a long moment.
Gradually he leaned forward, peering closely into
Dafydd's calm face.                          -

"By the Apostles," he said, softly. "I do think you
.mean that!"

"I know what it is that I can do," Dafydd said. "I
would not say it, else."                 ...

"You do . . ." said Giles, and paused. "You do ...
and you'll never have to prove to me anything more
about the bow and men of Wales. I know of no man
living, or of any bowman in, memory, able to make
such a shoot and kill the men on watch. There'll be at
least three, maybe four, of them on that front wall, or

148

this Sir Hugh is no soldier; and you'll have to kill them
all at near the same time, or the last one to fall will
raise the alarm."

"I have said what I can do, look you," said Dafydd.
"Let us pass on to other things."

Giles nodded.

"The thing at least seems possible," he agreed. He
turned to Brian. "There'll be smaller details to keep
us busy the rest of today and the evening. Twilight or
dawn were the best times to surprisei them; and dawn
preferable, since it gives us as many hours of light af-
ter as we wish. So, we can take our time with the de-
tails. Meanwhile, let's agree on the pay for my lads
and me. Sir Hugh's men will have some gear of weap-
ons and armor which should come to us. In addition,
it's only just that Malvem Castle should ransom itself
—say, for a hundred marks of silver."

"If my lady chooses to reward you after she and
hers are free," said Brian, "that's up to her. I've no
authority or right to spend what belongs to the de
Chaneys."

"There won't be any de Chaneys if Sir On-in's in-
deed dead among the heathen, and the Lady Geronde
isn't rescued—and you need us for that!"

"Sorry," said Brian.

"All right, then . . ." The sun wrinkles around the
comers of Giles' eyes grew deeper. "Let us have Sir
Hugh to ransom. He'll have family or friends who'll
pay for his safe return."

"No," said Brian. "I've said he's to die. And he is.
Not only I, but the wolf's vowed it. And Aragh's a
part of this, as much as you and your men."

"Don't think to take his throat from my teeth, Mas-
ter outlaw!" Aragh snarled.

"For my lads to risk their lives to gain only some
metal and war tools is not enough," said Giles. "We're
a band of free men, and they won't follow me at that
price, even if I ask it."

He and Brian argued for some little time, without
getting to a solution.

"See here. Master Giles," said Brian, at last. "I've

149

no hundred silver marks of my own to give you; but
you'll have heard of me as one who pays his due. I'll
give you my knight's word to speak of you and your
men to my lady; and she's not the sort to let service
go unrewarded. If, however, for some reason payment
can't come from her, I'll myself undertake to pay you
as I manage to gather that sum, or any part of it, until
it's all accounted for. Damme, now, more than that I

can't say!"

Giles shrugged.

"I'll talk to my lads."

He got up from the table and went to gather his
men into a huddle at a distance large enough to give

their discussion privacy.

"Don't worry, Sir Brian," said Danielle, quietly, to

the knight, "they'll agree."

In fact, in about fifteen minutes Giles came back
and announced agreement. Behind his back, Danielle
smiled at the others sitting around the table.

"Let's get on to the details, then," Giles went on,
sitting once more. "Sir Brian, you can hardly wear
sword and armor when you drive the provision cart
into the castle. On the other hand, you're not likely to
be able to do much against men-at-arms, to say noth-
ing of Sir Hugh himself, if you're naked. How to get
your weapons and armor into the castle? Perhaps Sir
James could carry them in a bundle and drop them to
you—but then, there would be the time necessary for
you to don them, and once Sir Hugh's men had seen

a dragon deliver them to you—"

"Once inside the keep, with only one or two armed
men for escort to Sir Hugh," said Brian, "the wolf
and I can kill them quietly and make a few minutes
in which I can dress and arm myself. As for my weap-
ons and armor, these will be with me in the cart.
They'll be hidden under the provisions, and the wolf

' may lie on top of all."

"And no one," snarled Aragh, "will rummage be-
neath me to find them—I promise you."

Giles nodded, slowly.
"Still . . ." he said to Brian, "even if you appear the

perfect innkeeper, or innkeeper's assistant, Sir Hugh
and his men are bound to be wary, suspecting some
attempt at rescue of your lady—"

"Ha!" said Dick, who had been standing in the door-
way of his inn.

He turned about and vanished into the dark inter-
ior.

"What ails him?" said Giles, looking at the now-
empty entrance to the building.

"As it happens," Brian said, "I'd thought myself
about Sir Hugh suspecting me. I've got an answer to
that worked out. To start with, I'll go to the castle this
afternoon. Ride as close to the walls as I can safely,
in armor, considering he'll have crossbows from the
walls of Malvern Castle even if he failed to bring some
with him; and challenge him to come out and settle
the matter by single combat—"

"What silly sort of knight's trick is that?" broke in
Giles. "By the scar on your face, you ought to know
better than that, Sir Brian. Why should Sir Hugh come
out to fight you, when he can simply stay safely in the
castle and keep all he's got?"

"Exactly!" said Brian. "I count on him doing just
that."                                       •

"But all you'll accomplish is letting him know you're
outside Malvem Castle."

"Exactly. Then, when he sees the provision cart I'm
driving closely pursued by a knight in armor on a
white horse, he'll be all the more ready to swing wide
the gates, let the cart in and believe the man driving
it."

"And how's that to be arranged, unless you've two
suits of armor and a twin to wear one of them? To
say nothing of the fact—" Giles broke off, abruptly.
"By the way. Sir Brian", does this Sir Hugh know you
by sight?"

"He does," said Brian, grimly.

"Then what if he's on the wall when you drive up?
Do you think rough clothes'll keep him from recogniz-
ing you?"

"Dick Innkeeper has a false beard among some
stuff left here by several strolling players who could
not pay their shot," said Brian. "With that to cover
most of my face, I stand a chance; and beyond that—
well, I have to take some risks."

"A beard?" Giles hesitated. "That's a thing I hadn't
thought of. This innkeeper's a man of possessions. It
might work."

"A man with a large cellar," said Brian. He paused
and listened, cocking his head toward the doorway be-
hind him. "And here, I think, comes the answer to
your objection of a moment since ..."

A thumping sound came from inside the inn. All
turned to see a shape materialize in the doorway, fill-
ing it. It was a shining figure in full plate armor, with
beaked helm and closed visor; and in one mailed fist
it carried a mace.

Chapter 15

"By God!" Giles exclaimed, sitting back down
on the bench, picking up his jack and drinking deeply
from it. Like all the rest, except Brian, he had half
risen to his feet at the sight of the figure in the door-
way. "You don't want to startle an old bowman so,
Master Innkeeper—if it is indeed you, in that suit.
You might have had an arrow through you before you
were recognized!"

"That was my own thought, also," said Dafydd.
"Your pardon, Sir James, lady, and my masters,"
boomed Dick's voice hollowly inside the helm. "As Sir
Brian has just said, my cellar is large. And an inn ac-
quires many things from its various guests over a pair

152

of lifetimes—for my father kept it here, before me.
But can I not pass for a knight, think you? Particularly
on horseback and from a distance?"

"Hmm," said Giles, getting up again to examine the
innkeeper more closely. "I'd counsel you not to wear
that assortment of metal in actual battle. Master Inn-
keeper. Now that I look close, you've got parts of four
different suits upon you, none of which fits as armor
ought. Can you raise your right arm above your
head?"

Dick tried. The arm creaked halfway to shoulder
height and stopped with a clank.

"Yes," said Giles, "I thought so. Your couter on
that arm is overlarge, and your pauldron too small for
a man of your shoulder. But from a distance . . . from
a distance, and sitting on a horse, you might pass."

"Good," Brian said, briskly. "Something to eat then,
Dick, and I'll ride to the castle to present Sir Hugh
with my challenge."

"I'll go along with you," Jim offered. "I'd like you
to point out where you want me to land inside the
walls."

"I'll go, too," said Giles, "along with six of my lads,
who'll each lead five to eight other bows against some
particular part of the castle, once we're inside. We all
need to look Malvem over and make our plans."

"And I," said Dafydd, "will have a glance at those
walls where the lookouts may be standing."

"We might as well make it a bloody picnic,"
grunted Brian. "Anybody else want to come along, eh?
How about you. Sir wolf?"

"What for?" Aragh replied. "I'll go in with you and
Gorbash; and stay with you, killing all I find, until it's
over and I go out again. That takes no study or plan-
ning."

The meal was served, as Brian requested; and a lit-
tle more than an hour later all those who had spoken
about going stood hi the cover of a thick clump of
beech trees, looking out at the broad stretch of cleared
ground around Malvem Castle. Brian, armored and

153




with spear upright in hand, rode his white warhorse
forward at a walk to within perhaps sixty or eighty
yards of the castle gate. There he stopped, and
shouted to the heads whom those in the woods could
see showing above the merlons and crenels of the bat-
tlements.

"He makes a brave show," said one of the outlaws.

"It's a custom of knights to do so. Jack," replied
Giles, dryly.

"You were not wrong indeed. Master Giles," said
Dafydd. The Welsh bowman was shading his eyes
with one hand, peering at the heads on the walls. "It
is, in fact, close to half of one of your English miles.
But. at dawn the wind should fall, and with no strong
cross-breeze I see no trouble with up to six of them.
I will mark the nearest crenel to each steel cap I see,
then first shoot one watchman and wait for the others
to look out, which they will surely all do when they
see their comrade struck dead, and no one in view in
the open ground^ I will have five other arrows stuck
in the ground before me, and I will put those in the
air so close together that the five looking out will die
almost at once— Hold, the knight speaks!"

In fact, Brian had begun to issue his challenge. A
headgear brighter than the others had appeared on the
battlements and the individual wearing it had called
out something. Brian was responding. The fact that he
was facing away from those in the forest edge caused
a good share of what he said to be lost, even to Jim's
sharp dragon-ears. Those words that Jim heard, how-
ever, were nearly all obscenities. He had not realized
Brian had such a command of colorful language.

"Now, Sir Hugh answers," said Giles, for Brian had
fallen silent and the voice that had shouted earlier
was making itself heard again—though none of its
words were understandable to those at the forest's edge.
"It'll be Sir Hugh, beyond a doubt, because of the high
crest and visor of the helm that takes the light so.
That's a headpiece for horseback."

154

"Master Giles," asked Dafydd, looking sideways at
the outlaw, "is it that you ever wore such a helm and
armor yourself, now?"

Giles glanced back for a second.

"If you ever do become one of the family," he said,
"you can ask me that again. Otherwise, I don't hear
such questions."

"Now come the bolts," commented the outlaw
whom Giles had addressed as Jack. "Best he turn and
ride now. There—he does so!"

Brian had turned his charger and was galloping
away from the castle.

"Can the crossbows get through his armor with their
bolts at that distance?" asked Jim, fascinated.

"No," said Giles. "But they can cripple his horse—
and that's a beast worth twenty farms, if it's worth
one. Ah, they've missed ..."

A swarm of what looked like little black match-
sticks against the blue of the sky was descending
around Brian and his galloping steed. Jim was puzzled
about how Giles could be sure the quarrels from the
crossbows had all missed, when most of them seemed
still to be in the air. A matter of the trained eye, he
supposed. In fact, by the time he finished his thought
the missiles had fallen either behind or to one side or
the other of the running horse.

"And that's that!" said Jack, spitting on the ground.
"Sir knight'll be in the woods with us here before they
can rewind those engines for a second shot. Give me
two of our better men and the horse would have been
down within ten strides—and the knight, too, with any
luck."

Dafydd, leaning on his great bow, looked aside and
down at Jack. For a second it looked as if he would
say something, but then he turned his attention back
to the approaching Sir Brian.

"Good, Master Welshman," said Giles, softly. He
had been watching the tall young man. "A slow tongue
indicates a wise head."

Dafydd said nothing.

155




In the next moment Brian came riding into the
shadows of the forest and pulled his snorting charger
to a stop. He wheeled the animal around, pushing up

his visor.

"Half thought they might make a sally after me,"

he said. "But I see not."

He swung down from the saddle with surprising
lightness, considering the weight of metal be was car-
rying.

"You tempted those crossbows closer than I should

have," said Giles.

"Blanchard of Tours, here," Giles answered, slap-
ping the white horse affectionately on one sweaty
shoulder, "is faster than most would guess."

He looked around at them.

"What do you think of what you saw?" he asked.

"Judging by the heads on that front wall," said
Giles, "your Sir Hugh has at least the fifty men with
him. But he's got no archers, or he would have used
them against you right now; and his men with the
crossbows were nothing admirable. Draw me a plan of
the castle, now, while we have it out there in front of
us; so I can gain some idea of where my lads should

go, once they're inside."

Brian drew the dagger from his belt, bent stiffly at

the waist and began to scratch on the ground.

"As you see," he said, "Malvem's more wide than
deep. The top of the keep you can barely see from
here. It's in the left corner of the rear wall, its upper
part rising above the towers in the other three comers
—which are watchtowers and granaries, only. The
Lord of Malvem's chambers are just under what was
the original top floor of the keep, back when the keep
was the same height as the watchtowers. My lady's
grandfather added two more floors and a new battle-
ment floor above the keep, so as to give Sir On-in and
his new bride separate bed space, with a solar above
them for good measure, and the new battlement floor
above the solar, with supplies of heavy stones there to
cast down and kettles for the heating of oil to pour

156

on any who might try to scale the keep's outer walls."

His dagger scratched in the dirt.

"Below and before the keep, in Sir Orrin's time," he
explained, "was added a great hall, mainly of wood
—the original walls and towers of the castle are stone,
as you see. This filled up much of the old courtyard.
It is joined to the keep as high as the first floor and
has served both as dining hall and as barracks for the
large number of men Sir Orrin would gather about him
from time to time when he went off to war. Stables
of wood and outbuildings were also added inside the
outer walls, so that there's much that can bum—but
look that Sir Hugh's men don't try to set fires to cover
their escape, once we're inside and they find them-
selves losing the fight. Of your men, Master outlaw,
there should be a party to secure every tower, another
party to hold the courtyard, and yet another strong
party to invade the keep by way of the great hall. I,
and possibly Sir James, will already be in the upper
levels of the keep when you and your men come
through the gate—if so we be still alive. Now, give me
your questions ..."

Giles, Dafydd, and even some of the other outlaws
Giles had brought along proceeded to do so. Their
queries had mainly to do with distances and angles
within the castle.

Jim found his attention wandering. What he him-
self wanted, he thought, was to get a direct look at the'
inside of those walls—and there was no reason he
should not be able to do so. Flying high enough, and in
a direct line, on a pass that took him by but not di-
rectly over the castle, he should be able to use his
telescopic vision to get a pretty fair view of everything
inside. At a sufficient distance, he might not even be
noticed by Sir Hugh's men; or, if he was, they might
merely take him for a large bird.

Even if they identified him as a dragon, a dragon
who was simply passing by and apparently paying no
attention to them should hardly be cause for alarm or
speculation. At the same time, it probably would not

157




hurt to make his overflight just at twilight, when at the
end of the day and their evening meal, the watchers
on the castle walls would be least likely to be alarmed
by something passing high overhead.

Accordingly, he waited until the questions of the
others had been answered to Brian's best ability and
they had all returned to the inn. Once there, however,
he took Brian aside and explained what he planned
to do.

"What I mainly want to be sure of," Jim said, "is
where I ought to land, when I come in."

"My lady's main chamber has a balcony—but a
small one," Brian pointed out. "The solar above has
no balcony, but very large windows through which
you might fly directly."

Jim felt doubt stir in him.

"I don't know that," he said. "I haven't had all that
experience in flying."

"Then," said Brian, "there's only the battlement
floor—the open top level of the keep. In fact, it might
be the best place for you to land, since there'll be at
least one guard on duty there, and possibly someone
else belonging to Sir Hugh in the solar. So that if you
can slay those and fight your way down to Geronde's
floor, you'll have made all safe to the top of the keep;

and in case of anything going amiss, you can carry her
off from there by air, to safety."

Secretly Jim had a few doubts about his ability to
carry the weight of an adult human, and still fly. True,
his wings were capable of exerting tremendous lift for
a short time. But he was fairly sure that he would not
be able to soar with the added burden of a grown
woman; and if he could not soar, how far could he fly
by wing power alone? For safety, it should be at least
to the edge of the surrounding wood, which Giles had
pointed out was half a mile away. But there was no
point in loading these doubts on Brian. The knight had
enough uncertainties already to trouble him, although
Jim had to admit that Brian showed little sign of being
overwhelmed by them.

158

"I'll let you know what I see," Jim said.
But he did not. Half an hour later, he cruised past
the castle at about twelve hundred feet altitude and his
telescopic vision failed to catch one of the guards so
much as looking up, let alone watching in his direction.
Nor did he discover anything about the castle that
was different from what Brian had said. He checked
out the battlemented roof of the keep and saw only
one man on guard there, as Brian had guessed. Things
were working out almost too predictably to be inter-
esting.

He circled back at a distance and landed at the
inn just as darkness was closing in. To his surprise,
most of the outlaws—except Giles and a few of his
subsidiary leaders—were already asleep, the ale ap-
parently having assisted them to slumber. Brian, with
no more than a normal amount of wine in him, was
also slumbering. So was Danielle. Aragh had gone off
into the night woods and would probably not return
until morning. Even Dick Innkeeper, with most of
his family and employees, was asleep—except for
one older woman who was supplying wine to Giles
and ale to his outlaw lieutenants.

Disgruntled, Jim settled down in the main room of
the inn, tucked his head under his wing, and prepared
himself to spend a sleepless night. ..

It seemed he had only blinked and then again lifted
his head from under his wing, however, to find activity
all around him.

Dick, his family and the servants were bustling
about. Danielle was bandaging Aragh's neck—the
wolf had somehow managed to get himself hurt or
wounded during the night. Giles was seated at a
table, drawing plans of the castle on thin leather sheets,
in quintuplicate for his lieutenants; and Dafydd, work-
ing in a concentration that hinted he would not wel-
come interruption, had set up a small pair of pan
balances and was weighing half a dozen of his arrows,
one at a time, then slightly but meticulously trimming

159




r

their shafts and feathers. Brian, seated at a table a
few feet away, was eating an enormous breakfast of
bacon, bread and cold beef, with several more bottles

of wine.

Outside, it was still dark. Far from being daybreak,

it was not even first light. Jim guessed the hour to be

about 4 a.m.

He looked enviously at Brian. Anybody who could
have that kind of appetite before the sun was up, on a
day when he might well expect to be killed—

"Ah, there. Sir James," said Brian, waving his jack.

"Have some wine?"

Jim decided he deserved a drink, in spite of his

debt to Dick Innkeeper.
"Yes," he said.
Brian uncorked a fresh bottle and passed it over.

Jim took it in one claw grasp and put it to his jaws,

swallowing its contents in a gulp.
"Thanks," he said.

"Dick!" roared Brian. "Wine for Sir James!"
Dick Innkeeper came up, wringing his hands.
"Sir knight, please," he said, "not another quarter

tun of Bordeaux—"

"Nonsense!" said Brian. "Of course not! Just a few
dozen bottles, or their equivalent; Just enough to wet

the good knight's throat."

"Oh, in that case ... of course, of course . . ."
Dick hurried out of the room. Jim heard him shout-
ing for one of the menservants.

What appeared a few minutes later was not a few
dozen bottles of the innkeeper's best, but a small
cask holding no more than ten gallons or so of good,
if second-rate, wine. But the cask was full and Jim,
with a momentary wistful thought for the vintages he
had sampled in the cellar, settled down to its contents
philosophically. After all, not even a dragon could
have the best of everything all the time.

He sat drinking with Brian and gradually absorbing
the bustle going on around him. Everybody was very
busy and very businesslike. He heard a great deal of

160

sharpening of weapons, making of last-minute repairs
in equipment, checking of maps, and directions and
orders. Correspondingly, he noted almost a complete
lack of the cheerful jokes and insults that had been a
noticeable part of the give-and-take between the out-
laws, in particular, the day before. Now, everybody
was serious. Torches smoked and glared everywhere.
People went back and forth at high speed, each one
engaged in some task that did not brook interruption.
Giles was neck-deep in lieutenants, and unapproach-
able. Aragh, bandaged, soon went out; and Danielle
was now nowhere to be seen. Dick and his staff were
like the captain and crew of a ship fighting a hurri-
cane. Finally, even Brian gave up the wine bottles and
suggested in a friendly voice that Jim get the hell out,
take a walk or something, because it was time he was
seeing to Blanchard and his weapons ...

Jim took the advice and left the inn for the deep,
chilly, pre-dawn darkness outside. He was feeling a
distinct loneliness and awkwardness, like a stranger
at a large family gathering; and this feeling was rein-
forced by a sort of gentle melancholy induced by the
wine he had just drunk. He was not really lonely for
his own world:,—strangely enough, with all its hard,
medieval realities, he was discovering he liked it here—
but for somebody to whom he could anchor. Prefer-
ably Angie; but, failing that, anyone who could give
him a feeling of belonging, instead of one of being a
sort of wandering soul adrift between worlds.

He looked around again for Aragh and remembered
he had seen the wolf leave the inn immediately after
Danielle had bandaged him. But neither his dragon-
nose or ears gave him any evidence that the wolf was
anywhere in the vicinity; and Jim had seen enough of
Aragh to know that unless the other was plainly in
evidence, his chances of finding him were close to non-
existent.

Jim gave up and sat down by himself in the dark-
ness. Behind him were the noise, the odors, and the

161




light of the inn. Before him were the solid blackness
of the trees and overhead a thickly overcast sky,
through which the faint gleam of an obscured moon
came milkily now and then, low in the western quarter
of the heavens. The moon would be down, soon, and
there would be no light at all.

He might well be dead at the end of this day that
would soon be dawning. The thought brought with it
no particular fear but an increase in the feeling of mel-
ancholy. If he could be cut, as he had been in the
brawl at the village, he could be seriously wounded or
killed. In which case he would die here, at some im-
possible remove from everything he had ever identified
with. Nobody would even know of his death. Even
Angle, assuming she survived the Loathly Tower and
the Dark Powers which Carolinus had. talked about,
would probably never know what had happened to
him. He might not even be missed ...

He was sinking steadily deeper into a sort of luxu-
rious self-pity, when he realized that he was no longer
sitting on the ground. He was, instead, lying down on
it, about to turn over on his back, spread his wings and
roll back and forth on the rough, sandy soil. Echoing
. in his mind, just in time to stop him, came the remem-
bered words of Danielle: "Don't roll in the dirt, Sir

James!"

He had wondered at the time why she should
think he would ever want to roll in the dirt. Now he
understood. Thinking about his cuts had reminded
his subconscious of them. The day after he had gotten
them, they had smarted like small shaving cuts; but
he had come to ignore them and they had passed out
of mind. Now, however, he realized that they were
healing; and, in the process of doing so, they had de-
veloped a new sensation: they itched.

A good scrub against the hard earth would be a
satisfying way of scratching those itches. Of course, it
would also not only reopen the cuts, but get dirt and
infectious materials ground into them.

He sat up again. Of course, Danielle was right. The
worst of it was, though, that now that he bad recog-
nized the itch feelings, they redoubled, as if fiendishly
and consciously determined to drive him crazy. He
forced his body onto all four of its legs. If Brian could
remain motionless with a hornet buzzing around the
inside of his helmet, he ought to be able to ignore a
little itching.

On his feet again, he could now smell the coming
day—not an odor he could identify precisely, but a
generally damp, fresh variation in the night breeze
that was blowing in his direction. His ears caught the
faint sound of paws on ground, and suddenly Aragh
was before him.

"They all awake in there?" growled the wolf,
softly. "Time they were moving!"

"I'll tell them."

Jim turned toward the inn door; but just at that
moment it opened, and Giles stuck his head out.

"Sir James?" he asked, quietly. "Have you seen
the wolf?"

"He has," snapped Aragh. "I'm here. What are you
whispering for. Sir outlaw?"

Giles pulled his head back in and shut the door
without answering. He had not, in fact, been whisper-
ing. His voice had only been lowered—as had Aragh's
a second before. Almost immediately, the door opened
again and Giles with his lieutenants came out, fol-
lowed by Danielle.

"Dick Innkeeper's gone to put his armor on, and
harness the horses," she told her father. "His men
have the cart already loaded. Sir Brian's still with
him, over at the stables."

"All right. Jack, will you tell the knight that we're
ready to move?" Giles asked. "The rest of you go as-
semble your lads."      .

Jack went down along the building toward the sta-
bles; the other lieutenants moved out into the dark-
ness, to where the rank and file of the outlaws had
set up camp.

Fifteen minutes later, they were on the march.
Brian on Blanchard, Giles on one of the inn horses
that gleamed a strange, pale grayish-white in the
murkiness, and Jim on foot, led the march. Behind
them came Dafydd and Danielle, followed by the
wagon driven by Dick, then the general body of the
outlaws. Aragh had disappeared into the darkness of
the forest at their first movement, growling that he
would meet them at the edge of the forest facing the

castle.

The promise of daylight began to deliver itself as
they moved. It was a good hour yet till sunrise when
they left the inn; but as they wound their way among
the trees, the taller trunks began to emerge from the
darkness as the sky overhead lightened. As these
two things happened, the light wind dropped, just as
Dafydd had predicted, and the mist filling the lower
levels of the forest gradually became visible; it was a
landscape of white, black, and gray they moved
through—a land fit for spirits and night demons. In
the semi-gloom of the emerging day, the earth un-
derfoot was a dark platform and the mist a ghostly
blanket reaching twice a man's height up into the
trees, so that to the right, left, and all about, things
were hidden. Even the gradually brightening sky was
swag-bellied with thick, cold clouds.

They moved with little talk, the mist, clouds and
darkness acting like a smothering blanket upon any
enthusiasm. The wagon, weapons and armor jingled.
The hooves of the horses thudded on the earth. Their
breath—and Jim's—smoked as white as the mist in
the damp, cold air. Gradually the light became true
daylight and the mist began to thin; and almost before
Jim was ready for it, they reached the edge of the
wood looking out on the plain where Malvern Castle
stood. The last mist still trailed in streamers across
the open ground, and the tops of the stone walls and
towers rose from it like the upper parts of some castle
half drowned by the sea. Suddenly, even as they
halted and looked, the first rays of the rising sun slid

through the treetops to the east and struck at a long
slant into the mist, thinning it further.

Slowly, the plain began to become fully visible, ev-
erything pn it sharply seen, down to the very stones
at the base of the battlements.

Jim glanced up once more at the sky. The heavy
cloud cover was beginning to be lorn open in places
by the upper winds, although the air was still calm
at ground level. Enough of the clouds remained,
and hung low, however, so that for the first time it
occurred to him that he would not be able to fly
high in approaching the castle. If he was to come in by
air to the top of the keep during the next half-hour
or so, he would have to fly at little more than a few
hundred feet; and there would be no disguising to
those on watch about the castle walls and towers that
a dragon was coming—nor the destination to which
that dragon was heading.

Chapter 16

"Right!" said Brian, loudly and cheerfully.
"Everybody present? How about Sir wolf?"

"Worry about yourself. Sir knight," answered the
voice of Aragh. "I've been here long enough to kill
twenty sheep."

"All right," said Brian. "Make ready, then. Master
Giles, you know your men and your bow work. I.know
my part. Do you take charge of your archers, including
the Welshman. Sir James, Dick, wolf—to me here."

The expedition split into two groups.

Dafydd, a few yards off by himself, was carefully

unwrapping one by one the cloths in which he had
individually cased the arrows on which Jim had seen
him working at the inn. He handled the shafts del-
icately, planting six of them before him point-down in
the earth and sliding the other two into his quiver.
Dick descended from the horse he had ridden here;

and now that Jim saw it clearly in the daylight, he
noticed that the light-brown animal had been liber-
ally powdered with flour or some other white sub-
stance to lighten it to something like Blanchard's color.
Brian swung down from Blanchard now and began
transferring to the smaller, whitened horse the breast-
plate and body armor his charger customarily wore.

"Like rider, like steed," he said. "You and your
mare here will be a pair for unfit armor, Dick. The
chaufrain's too wide for her head, the crinet too long
for her neck. But she can carry them a short while
without too much trouble. The petrel's -also too wide
for her chest, but that can hang loose. On the other
hand, I can buckle the flanchards tight around fore-
arms and shoulder and they'll carry almost as well as
they do on Blanchard."

"It's still not going to hang well," said Danielle.
"And that horse's coloring is poor. I don't see why you
don't just let the innkeeper ride your horse."

Brian frowned.

"Wish me no bad luck, mistress," said Dick, cheer-
fully, out of the depths of his helmet. "I've stabled
" such horses before. I can ride most beasts; but I'd
not throw leg over one like Blanchard for a hundred
pounds of silver. Not only would he not endure for
a moment anyone but his master on his back, but hav-
ing thrown me, he'd hardly be content to stand. He'd
turn on me with hooves and teeth, as he's been
trained, until either he had me killed, or I managed

to escape."

"Quite right," said Giles, turning from his own men.
"The knight knows what he's about, Danielle. Try not
to command everyone, for once. Horses such as
Blanchard wouldn't be worth the duke's ransom they

166

are, if they were the sort that could be found on any
farm. I'd wager Sir Brian paid a heavy penny for this
one."

"My full inheritance," grunted Brian, hard at work
fastening the second horse's straps. "The armor's my
father's; but all else that came to me went to buy
Blanchard. Never made a sounder move. He'll face
lance, battle-axe, mace or sword, and defend me if
I'm down against any man or beast that lives. I can
ride him with knees alone and both hands busy with
shield and weapon. And damned few other warhorses
can match him for weight or strength."

He glanced at the innkeeper.

"No offense to you, friend Dick," he said. "But
even if Blanchard'd carry you, I'd not let him. He's
my horse alone."

"No fear. Sir Brian. I'm happier on Bess here, in
any case." Dick hesitated. "But will you not at least
wear a chain shirt under your cloth one?"

"Chain shirt alone won't do, anyway, if I run into
Sir Hugh in full armor," said Brian. "He's a whoreson,
but he knows how to fight. And if one of his men
should think to search me early and find the mail, the
alarm'U be sounded ahead of time. No, best to take
the chance and dress later."

"You don't make the most likely innkeeper,
either," Danielle remarked.

That much, Jim thought, was true. Sir James was
clad in tight leather breeches with belt and sheath
knife that had originally belonged to Dick's son, a
loose gray shirt and a clumsy, thick, dark cloak. As
clothes, nothing was wrong with them. They would
have looked all right on someone like Dick, himself—
assuming that the breeches could have been gotten to
fasten around the innkeeper's relatively thick waist.
But the trouble with them on Brian was the way he
wore them. Jim's earliest impression of the knight had
been of piercing blue eyes, the erect carriage that
comes from living in the saddle and bearing armor,
and an aggressively jutting chin. All these were still

167




r

very visible, in spite of the humbleness of the gar-
ments that now clothed him.

"I've the beard, here," said Dick, producing it from
among the load in the wagon. "It's not an exact match
for your hair. Sir Brian; but then it's not unknown for
a man with brown hair your color to have a beard
touching on the red. These threads go over your head
under your own hair to fasten in on ... and if you
then comb your own hair forward to mingle with it in
front, as the player showed me . . .Let me assist you,

Sir Brian ..."

Together, they got the beard on. It did, indeed, go

a long way to disguise the knight, giving him an un-
kempt, raffish look above which the blue eyes looked

merely villainous.

"You might try slouching a bit," said Danielle.

"Like this?" asked Brian.

He tried, without any great success.

"I'm not a damned jack-o-motley, you know!" he
fumed at them all, finally. "Leave be! I'll either
coney-catch Sir Hugh and his men, or not, as God

wills!"

He got up on the seat of the wagon, and picked up

the reins of the two horses harnessed to it.

"Ready?" he demanded.
"Ready, Sir Brian," said Dick, who was already

mounted on the whitened and armored Bess.

"Give me a good lead, now, so that they don't see
you having to hold Bess back from catching me."

"Yes, Sir Brian."
"And you, Giles, don't forget to leave a party on

the gate. If Sir Hugh's first warning is to look out his
chamber window and see fighting within the walls,
he'll stop to arm and armor himself before all else.
Once he shows up, full-accoutered, make sure those
in the gate party stand back and try only to keep
him from a horse, until I myself—"

"Or I," interrupted Aragh.

Brian glanced'at him, impatiently.

"Sir wolf," he said, "what might you do with a man

in full armor?"

168

Aragh snarled softly, leaping up to settle himself in
the wagon.

"Sir knight," he said, "someday you may see."

"At any rate," Brian went on, turning back to Giles,
"hold the gate and keep Sir Hugh from horse!"

"Fear not. Sir Brian," said Giles. "I've some little
knowledge of such things."

"Doubtless. But saying it makes all certain." Brian
flipped the reins he held, starting his wagon horses
forward. "Now—for God and my lady!"

He drove but of the woods.

Out on the small plain surrounding the castle, the
last of the mist had now disappeared and the gray
stone walls were warmed by the clear yellow light of
early day. Brian whipped the wagon horses into a trot,
and then into a clumsy gallop along the tracks lead-
ing toward the castle gate.

"Not yet. Master Innkeeper! Not yet ... Now!"
snapped Giles; and Dick kicked Bess into movement,
clanking out from the screen of trees at what was al-
ready a gallop.

Giles glanced at Jim.

"Yes," said Jim, "I'd better get started."

He badly wanted to stay and see whether the gate
would be opened for Brian and Aragh, and whether
Dick would be able to turn and get back safely. But
he must take off in the opposite direction to approach
the castle from an angle and altitude where he would
not immediately be spotted.

He turned, accordingly, and ran back some dis-
tance in the wood before leaping into the air and
mounting to just above treetop level. Looking back
over his shoulder, he saw he was now far enough
from the castle so that the trees hid him from the
viewers on the battlements, and commenced to fly in
a wide circle toward the back of Malvem.

Shortly, he caught his first thermal. Circling up on
this, he found himself just under the cloudbank,
which was unbroken here but showed openings toward
the north and west. On impulse, he decided to fly up

169




r

through the clouds and see if it was possible to get
above them.

It turned out to be so; although he had to climb
nearly twelve hundred feet to achieve it. Once above
the clouds, he headed directly toward the castle,
looking for a gap in the white masses below him
through which he could orient himself. Locating one,
he soared toward it and looked through at an angle
.that gave him a view of both the plain and Malvern.
No wagon or armored figure on horseback was in
sight, but there was a patch of sunlight on the ground
to the west of the castle, indicating another rift in the
clouds somewhere above it.

He lifted his head, searched for this other rift from
above and found it, not far off. He soared to it,
saw the castle at a sharper angle below and iden-
tified the roof of the keep. He was about three-
quarters of a mile from it and about a thousand feet
above. He went into a dive, not through the rift, but
through the clouds just beyond it, directly above the
castle.

For a long moment he was wrapped about and
blinded by cloud mist. Then suddenly he was back
in open air again and the castle was right under him.
Half folding his wings, he dropped like a stone from
a catapult, arcing to its target. At the last moment
he pulled up and, with a thunderclap of cupped air,
slammed down on the top of the keep.

Only one guard met him. The man gaped, turned
and disappeared down the stone stairway leading to
'the floor of the solar, below. Jim plunged after him,
gained the solar and ducked in time to avoid a spear
flung through the air. Instinctively, he struck out
with a wing, and that powerful member literally
picked up the man-at-arms and slammed him against
a wall, to drop and lie still.

The dragon-blood of Jim—or Gorbash; under these
conditions it was impossible to identify whose blood
it was—was up and boiling!

He heard the sound of steel clashing on steel below

170

him and plunged down the next flight of stairs to catch
a momentary glimpse of a tall, slim girl in white hold-
ing a short pike and facing out an open doorway. He
brushed past her as she cried something he could not
understand and tried to stick him with the pike.
But by that time, he was through the door and into a
short corridor where Brian, wearing only a helmet and
with the rest of his armor in a pile at his feet, was
holding off three men-at-arms with his sword.

Jim slammed into the three and they went down.

"Thanks!" gasped Brian. "Hold the lower stairs,
will you. Sir James? And aid the wolf, if need be.
He's either opened the gate by this time, or they have
him dead. Bring word as to which—if you can."

Snorting, long red tongue flickering out between
parted jaws, and wings half raised, Jim hurled him-
self down the last flights of steps. At the bottom he
discovered a large, dim hall to his right, somewhat
divided by curtains, beyond which came the sounds
of fighting and the shouts of men. To his left was a
doorway to open sunlight. He went through.

To his right now, around a curving wall of weath-
ered logs, he saw the space of an interior courtyard
and the castle gates, one of which was swung part-
way inward and open. Two fights were going on in
the courtyard. One was over by some open sheds
containing horses, where five of Giles' men were en-
gaged with swords against about the same number of
Sir Hugh's men-at-arms. Just inside the gate, a shout-
ing semi-circle of nearly a dozen more men-at-arms
had Aragh against the battlement, none of -them ap-
parently too eager to be the first to close with him,
but all trying by sword feints and gestures to hold his
attention long enough for someone else to get in a
blow.

"ARAGH!" thundered Jim, using his full dragon-
voice.

He plunged at the semi-circle, which disintegrated
as he hit it. Immediately, he was fighting four men,

171




Aragh was killing three others, and the rest were flee-
ing.

"Where's Giles?" Jim shouted at the wolf as he
finished off three of his own four opponents and saw
the other turn and run.

"Inside the hall," Aragh panted, "when last I saw
him."

"Sir Hugh?"

"No sign of him."

"He's not in the keep!" Jim said. "I just came
from there. Brian's getting into his armor. I'll check
the rest of the castle."

He leaped into the air and with one pump of his
wings put himself atop the wall. To right and left he
saw the bodies of several men-at-arms down and
motionless, a single arrow through the chest of each.
The battlements were abandoned except by the dead.

Jim wondered where Dafydd was. Still back in
the forest? Or had he come in and joined Giles' men,
who were fighting in the hall or otherwise?

At that moment, an entrance on the far side of
the keep suddenly disgorged men-at-arms carrying
the same sort of short pikes that the girl had bran-
dished. They bore down on the fairly even battle that
was going on near the stables between some of their
comrades and the outlaws.

The dragon-fury was now completely in possession
of Jim. He leaped from the wall at this new body of
the enemy. None of them had been looking up and
he cannoned into them without warning. Suddenly he
was in the midst of battle, hissing, roaring, fighting
with teeth, claws and wings all at once, balanced on
his hind legs like some gigantic bird of prey.

They melted about him. It was like battling straw
men armed with candy-cane weapons. The pikes
broke at his touch; he flung the men who carried them
about like dolls. A savage feeling of power flamed up
in him. Out of the comer of one eye he saw Aragh
again surrounded by a fresh group of Sir Hugh's re-
tainers and thought of going to the wolf's aid as soon

172

as he had finished matters where he was. What was
it Aragh had said about seeing that Gorbash got
back safely? But Jim needed nobody's help. Who
could stand against a dragon? No one. He was in-
vincible, and when this was over he would remind
them all of that—wolf, outlaws, knight . . . Then,
abruptly, the men-at-arms who had been attacking
him began to shout and yell triumphantly.
"Gorbash!" howled Aragh. "Gorbash!"
Was the wolf calling for help? Jim looked and saw
Aragh hard-pressed, but in no way badly wounded
or in trouble.
"The hall, Gorbash!" cried Aragh.
Jim looked, between the pikeheads that came
flashing at nun suddenly with renewed vigor. The
main doors of the hall were opening; and slowly, as
he watched, a ponderous figure all in mirror-bright
armor, already mounted with long lance in one
gauntleted hand, rode out through the opening.

The armored figure did not appear to be in a hurry.
It rode out into the center of the courtyard, turned
its head in the direction of the wolf, looked toward
Jim, then put its horse into a leisurely trot and rode
—not at either one, but out of the castle gate.

Howls of reproach and anger replaced the shouts
of triumph of the men-at-arms. They retreated from
Jim and Aragh. Some dropped weapons and tried to
run. Aragh was immediately upon those who ran from
him, bringing them down from behind; but Jun ig-
nored the men-at-arms falling away from him.

"You clean up here, Aragh!" he roared at the wolf.
The feeling of unmatchable power was blazing in him
now, and he could not wait to close with the mounted
figure he had just seen. "I'll go get him!"
"No! Stay! Hold, Sir James—!"
It was another fully armored figure, shouting, burst-
ing but of the same exit from the keep that Jim had
used. Brian, fully dressed and weaponed at last, ran
heavily toward the stables, where horses still neighed

173




and pulled at their tethers, upset by the excitement

around them.

"Too late!" Jim thundered, joyously. "I spoke for

him first!"
He took to his wings, lifting up and over the wall.

Outside, the armored figure on the horse was already
three-quarters of the way to the forest edge.

"Surrender, Sir Hugh!" shouted Jim at full volume.

"I'll get you, anyway!"
He had expected the escaping knight, particularly

after showing he was the kind to leave his men to die
while he saved himself, to do nothing but put his
heavy roan into a panic-stricken gallop at the sound
of a dragon-voice and the sight of dragon-wings
swooping after him. To Jim's surprise, however. Sir
Hugh pulled his steed to a stop, turned and lowered
his lance to attack position. Then he broke the horse
into a run, charging directly for Jim.

Jim almost laughed. The man had lost his head.
Either that, or else he had faced the fact that defeat
and death were inescapable and had decided to go
down fighting. At the same time, it was odd; and Jim
had a sudden, reasonless memory flash of Smrgol,
demanding of the other dragons in the cave: "How
many of-you here would like to face just a single
george in his shell, with his hom aimed at you?"

Then he and Sir Hugh came together with a crash,
an unbelievable impact that in one blinding, pain-
shot moment blotted out sight, thought, memory and

all else...

174

Chapter 17

"My boy . . ." said Smrgol's voice, brokenly.
"My boy ..."

It had seemed a very long time now that Jim had
been conscious of shapes moving around him, of al-
ternate periods of light and darkness, of voices that
came and went. . . voices familiar and voices strange.
But he had paid little attention to them, lost as he was
on a sea of pain which sucked him down, now and
again, into dark waters of unconsciousness, then let
him return partway to reality. The pain had become
the whole world to him lately. It filled his mind com-
pletely. It dissolved his body in sensation. No one part
of him suffered; it was his total being. And this situa-
tion had continued and continued ...

But now, with his identification of Smrgol's voice,
the waters of the pain-ocean receded a little. The re-
duction in discomfort made him feel almost com-
fortable—almost luxurious. What pain remained was
like an old disability, grown into a companion over
the years, something that would be missed if it were
suddenly to disappear altogether. He tried to focus his
eyes on the large, shadowy shape near nun.

"Smrgol... ?" he asked.

The voice that came from his throat was a ghost-
voice, a wraith of that dragon-resonance with which
he had become familiar since he had first awakened
on this different world in Gorbash's body.

"He spoke to me!" It was Smrgol. "Praise to the
Fires! He'll live! Wolf, call the others! Tell them he's
going to live, after all. Tell them to come, quickly!"

175

"I'll go," snarled the voice of Aragh. "But I said he
would. Didn't I say he would?"

"Yes, yes ..." Smrgol's voice was throaty. "But I'm
an old dragon; and I've seen so many go down before
those horns of the georges . . . Gorbash, how do you
feel? Can you talk... ?"

"A little ..." Jim whispered. "What happened?"

"You were an idiot, boy, that's what happened!"
Smrgol was trying to sound stem and was not succeed-
ing very well. "What gave you the wild idea you could
take on a shelled george—one on a horse at that—

single-handed?"

"I mean," husked Jim, "what happened to me?"
"You got a horn—a lance, they call it—through
you, that's what happened. Anyone but a dragon
would've been dead by the time he hit the ground.
Anyone but one of our branch of the family would've
died within the hour. As it is, it's been eight days now
with you teetering on the edge; but now that you're
back enough to answer me, it'll be all right. You'll live.
A dragon that's not killed outright survives—that's

the way we are, boy!"

"Survives . . ." echoed Jim. The word had a strange

sound in his ears.

"Of course! As I say, that's the way we are. Three
more days and you'll be on your feet. A couple of days
after that and you'll be the same as ever!"

"No," said Jim, "not the same ..."

"What're you talking about? Nonsense! I say you'll
be as good as ever, and you will! Don't argue with me,

now. I say you will!"

The old dragon went on talking, but Jim found his
mind slipping back into dark waters once more. He
would not argue with Smrgol. There was no point to it.
But that did not mean he was allowing the old dragon
to convince him. There was a change in him now; and
he would never be the same again.

That recognition of a change stayed with him in the
days that followed. As Smrgol predicted, he mended
rapidly; and'as he mended he began to respond to the

176

visitors coming to see him. From them he slowly
pieced together what had happened to him since that
second in which he and Sir Hugh had crashed together
outside the castle walls.

He understood now why the dragons, magnificent
animals as they were, were still correct in fearing an
armored knight, particularly one on horseback and
armed with a lance. Over a ton of horse, man and
metal—moving at speed of better than ten miles an
hour with all that mass concentrated on the sharp point
of a sixteen-foot shaft—gave awesome penetrating
power. In Jim's case the lance had missed his heart
and both lungs, or even Gorbash's constitution could
not have saved him. The point of the weapon had en-
tered high on his chest where the massive pectoral
muscle of the left wing was not thick, and gone clear
through him to emerge beside the left scapular with
about eight inches of point and shaft. In addition, the
back twelve feet of the lance had broken off, leaving a
short stub of thicker shaft protruding from the entry
point in his chest.

At first, the others had thought him dead. Certainly
Hugh de Bois had thought so; for, without waiting to
make sure, he had climbed back on his horse—which
had gone down in the collision—and ridden off before
he could be chased and caught by Brian on one of the
castle horses.

The others had gathered around Jim on the plain,
where he lay unmoving; and it had been Aragh who
had first established that he still breathed, if only
barely. They had not dared move him, as he was
clearly on the very precipice edge of extinction. So
they had built a makeshift hut of poles and branches
over him where he lay, covered him with cloths and
built a fire within the shelter to keep him warm while
the wolf went for S. Carolinus.

Carolinus had come, accompanied by Smrgol, to
whom he had somehow gotten word. At the magician's
direction, the old dragon had used his strength to do
what the others had seen no way of doing, even if they

177

had been willing to risk it. Smrgol had carefully drawn

out the broken shaft.

With the wound cleared, Jim had bled heavily for

a while, but eventually the bleeding had stopped; and
Carolinus had announced that since Jim had survived
so far, nothing more was to be done for him. The ma-
gician had made ready to leave.

"But there must be something we can do!" Danielle

insisted.

"Wait," snapped Carolinus, "and hope."

He left.
They built the hut into a more permanent structure.

Smrgol and Aragh took turns sitting with him, occa-
sionally with Danielle, Brian, or one of the other hu-
mans for company; and they waited. Finally the day
had now come on which he answered Smrgol.

Now, all were coming around to talk to him and
convey their satisfaction that he had survived. Each of
them had an individual way of doing this: Smrgol lec-
tured him. Aragh growled sourly at him. Danielle in-
sisted that he had been stupid, but thought at the same
time that it was rather princely of him to hurl himself
to almost-certain death; she was briskly unsympa-
thetic, but very gentle in changing his bandages, which
she would not allow anyone else to touch. Giles was
curious as to the style of fighting Sir James had known
in his proper body, and came close to hinting that Jim
must have had some secret ploy up his sleeve or he
would not have risked making a frontal attack on Sir
Hugh in the first place. Dafydd came and sat and
worked at his fletcher's craft of arrow-making, and

said nothing.

Geronde de Chaney (who had been the girl in

white, with the pike, in the keep) came by and prom-
ised him revenge. She wore a bandage herself on her

right cheek.

It appeared that Sir Hugh had originally ridden up

with a half-dozen followers and obtained entrance to
the castle by saying he had word of her father's death.
Once inside, the men with him had overpowered the

gate guards and let in the rest of his retainers. With
the castle in his hands, he had admitted he knew noth-
ing about her father; but since he intended to have
Malvem, he told her he expected her to marry him
immediately. When she refused, he had threatened to
disfigure her in stages by slashing first her right
cheek, then three days later her left, then three days
after that by cutting oft her nose, then by putting out
her eyes one at a time until she gave in. She had de-
fied him and now would carry the scar on one cheek
for the rest of her life. She was a frail, rather ethereal-
looking maiden with ash-blond hair and detailed plans
for cooking Sir Hugh over a slow fire as soon as she
could make him her prisoner.

Brian brought wine and sat and drank with Jim,
telling his bad jokes and endless stories, some of
which were apparently true—according to Aragh or
Smrgol—but all of which were incredible.

Dick Innkeeper sent the last of his hams to tickle
Jim's appetite.

Actually, Jim found that for the first time in his
dragon-body appetite was missing. The wine was
pleasant on his throat; but even that did not tempt him
except in what, for a dragon, were very small quanti-
ties.

Nevertheless, he mended. He took to sitting outside
in the sun, and the clear, bright light of early autumn
warmed his body even if it did not touch the inner
coldness that had come to swell in him. The truth was
that Death, in the shape of Sir Hugh's lance, had come
too close. The broken spear was out of his body now
and most of the pain was gone, but there was still a
low-level general interior ache that stayed with him
and nourished a bleakness of spirit. The color had
gone out of things, the uniqueness and value out of the
people about him. Even the thought of Angie dwin-
dled in importance. His mind held only one overriding
thought: he would never attack an armored knight
head-on again. He would, in fact, never attack any-
thing again but in the easiest and surest way. Only

survival was important; and it did not matter how sur-
vival was accomplished, just so that it was ...

Perhaps, the thought came to him much later, the
others might have noticed this change in him and
would have worked to reverse it, if it had not hap-
pened that, just at that time, as soon as he was well
enough to participate, he was drawn into their discus-
sion about what should be done next.

". . . The decision," said Brian firmly at length,
"must rest with you. Sir James. Geronde, he lent us
his aid to get you free from Sir Hugh, and I'm in his
debt for that. If he wishes to go first to the rescue of
his lady—and Lord how can I object to that, seeing
he's helped me to recover mine—I must go. You know
that, milady."

"Of course I do," Geronde said, quickly.

They were all—except Smrgol, who had flown back
on business of his own to the dragon cave—sitting at
the high table of the castle hall after dinner and Jim
was slaking an appetite for wine that had greatly re-
covered. Geronde was seated on the other side of
Brian from Jim, and she leaned around the knight
now to look directly into the dragon's eyes.

"I'm as much in debt to Sir James as you are,
Brian," she said, "and bound like you to honor his de-
cision. But, Sir James, I only want you to consider the
advantages of moving against Hugh de Bois at just
this time."

"Advantages for you, perhaps," Aragh growled at
her. The wolf was always uncomfortable inside any
building, and this made him even more bad-tempered
than he was ordinarily. "I've no use for a castle. Nor
should you, Gorbash!"

"But you wish an end to Sir Hugh as much as we,"
Geronde said to him. "You should want to go after
him now, just as we do."

"I'll kill him when I find him; I won't hunt him. I
hunt for food—not, like you humans, for anything
cold or warm, wet or dry, that takes your fancy,"
snarled Aragh. "And Gorbash is like me, not like
you."

180

"Gorbash may well be like you," Geronde retorted.
"Sir James is not. And Sir James will be back in his
own proper body one of these days. When that day
comes, he may have need for a castle. Under law, I
cannot acquire Sir Hugh's land and castle as long as
there's doubt whether my father lives or not; and
Malvem Castle and lands will go to Sir Brian as my
husband, on our marriage, in any case. Meanwhile,
once Sir Hugh is taken care. of, we'll need a reliable
neighbor; and the Bois de Malencontri is not an ill es-
tate, even for a"—she glanced briefly down the length
of the high table at Danielle—"person who may be of
considerable degree."

"I say again, castles and lands are nothing to me,"
snarled Aragh. "What good are cold stone and dry
earth? And I also say again they should be nothing to
you, Gorbash. If Smrgol were here, he'd tell you that,
too. In any case, I've been with you to guard your back
and stand with you against the Dark Powers, not to
help you gain human toys. You start lusting after
things like that, Gorbash, and we go different ways!"

He rose to all four feet, turned and trotted from the
hall, the castle people moving out of his way as he
came close to them.

"Indeed," Dafydd agreed, when the wolf was gone,
"and he could be right at that. Defending yourself is
one thing, going to seek the killing is quite another, no
matter how good the reason, look you."

"Don't listen to them. Sir James," said Danielle.
"You don't need them, anyway. If you don't take that
castle, somebody else will. Isn't that right. Father?"

"Since there's pay in it, count on me and my lads,"
Giles said to Lady Geronde. He turned to Danielle.
"But it's business—business only—that takes us there.
Beyond that, leave me out of this."

"I've promised you and your band half of the
wealth Castle Malencontri contains," Geronde assured
him. "You know it should be worth your while. Sir
Hugh has been robbing his lesser neighbors for years."
"And I've agreed," said Giles. "It's not me you need
consent from. It's Sir James."

181




Jim started to shrug before he remembered his
dragon-body was not equipped to do so. "Carolinus
had told him that Angie would not be in discomfort
while she was waiting for him to rescue her. A few
more days, he thought now, out of his new inner bleak-
ness—even an added week or two—should make little
difference. Besides, just in case Carolinus couldn't get
the two of them sent back to where they belonged, a
castle and lands would not be a bad thing for them to
own. The need for food and shelter—good food and
comfortable shelter—was as much a reality here in
this world as pain itself. And realities were not to be
ignored.

"Why not?" he said. "All right, I'm in favor of mov-
ing on Hugh de Bois de Malencontri and his property
now."

The moment he said it, a strange sort of ripple
seemed to run through the air in the hall, something
like the momentary shimmer of a heat wave, and the
bleak feeling inside him expanded into a sensation of
hollowness as if he and Gorbash's body together were
only a shell enclosing nothing at all. Jim blinked, half
inclined to think his eyes were playing tricks on him
because of the wine or the smoky atmosphere of the
candle-lit room. But the impression was gone in the
same instant it had seemed to exist; so that he found
himself unsure he had really felt anything in the first
place.

He looked around at the others, but they seemed to
have noticed nothing, except for Dafydd, who was
looking at him penetratingly.

"Good," said Geronde. "It's settled, then."

"I do not think it is good," Dafydd put in. "In my
family, from father to son and mother to daughter
for many generations now, there have been eyes to see
warnings. And a moment past the candle flames here
all bent, though there was no wind in the hall. I do not
think this going after Sir Hugh now is good at all."

"Aragh frightened you, that's all," said Danielle.

"I am not frightened. But, no more than the wolf,
am I a knight to be holding or taking of castles."

182

"I'll make you a knight," Danielle told him. "H I
make you a knight, will that do away with your
doubts?"

"For shame, Danielle!" said Giles. His face had
darkened. "Knighthood is no jest."

Dafydd got to his feet.

"You are making sport of me," he said. "But since
you will do this thing, I'll do it also, because I love
you. For now, I will go out into the clean air and the
clean woods by myself."

He, too, left the hall.

"Here, here!" said Brian, cheerfully. "Let's have an
end to doom-saying for a bit. Fill your cups! We've
agreed now. To the soon taking of Sir Hugh and his
castle!"

"And Sir Hugh himself, one day closer to the fire,"
added Geronde.

They drank.

Early the next day they set off, without Aragh but
with Giles' outlaws reinforced by some forty men
drawn from Malvem Castle and the other de Chancy
estates. Geronde herself had been fiercely eager to
come with them; but her sense of duty to the castle
and lands of her father was capable of overriding even
her thirst for vengeance. So, she had agreed to stay
behind. They saw her standing on the castle wall,
looking after them, until the trees of the forest blocked
her from view.

The morning was overcast as it had been on that
day when they had retaken Malvem Castle from Sir
Hugh. This day, however, the clouds did not clear. In-
stead they thickened, and soon a light, steady drizzle
began.

Their way led at first through alternate woods and
open spaces, but as the morning wore on the tree
cover became general, the ground low-lying and wet.
They were moving into an area of small lakes and
bogs, and the wagon track they were following soon
became miry and slippery. Their party straggled, and
separated into groups spread out over half a mile.

183

But more than their pattern of travel seemed af-
fected by the grayness of the day: the damp dullness
of the atmosphere seemed to produce a sullenness of
temper. Those on foot, like the outlaws and the forty
men from the Castle Malvem lands, trudged along
head-down against the falling water, their bowstrings
cased, their weapons hooded. The outlaws' previous
custom of rough jokes and friendly insults had van-
ished. When they spoke it was sourly, expressing their
dissatisfaction with the weather, the route, and the
.probable cost—in deaths and wounds—of reducing
the castle they were going to assault. Old arguments
were dredged up between individuals and tempers

grew short.

Even the leaders of the expedition seemed affected
by the^general change in attitude. Giles was grim, Dan-
ielle-sharp-tongued and Dafydd completely uncommu-
nicative. It was as if the whole party was reacting to
a feeling that something was wrong.

Jim took refuge, at last, at the head of the column
with the single exception to this general malaise: Brian
on Blanchard was his invariable self. There was some-
thing cheerfully spartan and unyielding about the
knight. His personal world appeared to have had all
its essential questions and uncertainties settled long
ago. The sun might shine, snow might fall, wine might
flow or blood be spilled—but all these were surface
variations, to be ignored ordinarily as beneath notice.
Brian gave the impression that he would joke with his
torturers as they were stretching him on the rack.

Jim told him about the way the others were acting,
particularly the leaders.

"Shouldn't worry about it," said Brian.

"But it's important to keep everybody working to-
gether, isn't it? For example, what if Giles suddenly
decided to pull out with all his band? We'd be left
with the forty men from Malvem, half of whom don't
look as if they know anything about fighting."

"I don't think Giles would do that," said the knight.
"He knows there's wealth to be got for him and his

184

lads in Sir Hugh's stronghold. Also, he's agreed to go
—and was a gentleman once, pretty clearly, though
he won't admit it now."

"Well, even if Giles personally can be counted on,"
Jim added, "there could be trouble with Danielle and
Dafydd that might end up involving her father.
Dafydd's been saying less with every mile, and Dan-
ielle won't let up on him. Actually, she shouldn't be
along on this, anyway, except that nobody seems to
have had the guts to tell her she couldn't come."

"Master Welshman wouldn't have come without
her."

"True," Jim admitted. "But you have to concede
she's no warrior—"

"Are you sure about that?" asked Brian. "Ever seen
her shoot?"

"Just that time her arrows came at us. And in the
looted village. All right, she can handle a bow—"

"Not just a bow," the knight said. "She draws a
longbow with a hundred-pound pull, like half the arch-
ers in her father's band."

Jim blinked. Years ago in college, he had taken a
passing interest in bow-hunting. Practicing at targets,
he had begun with a forty-pound bow and graduated
to a sixty-pound one. Sixty pounds had felt, to Tinn,
like the practical limit—and he did not consider him-
self weak.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Saw her shooting after you were lanced, at the tak-
ing of Malvem Castle while some fighting was still go-
ing on."

"She was at the castle?" Jim asked, startled. "I
thought she stayed in the woods. But how could you
tell, just seeing her shoot?"

Brian looked sideways at Tiirn with curiosity as they
moved forward together.

"It's a strange land you must come from overseas,
James," he said. "By watching the arrow as it leaves
her bow, of course."

"Watching her arrow?"

185

"See how much it lifts as it leaves the string," Brian
explained. "When I saw her, she was still aiming un-
der her mark at ten rods' distance. Pull no more than
an eighty-pound bow myself. Of course, I'm no archer.
But Mistress Danielle is no weakling."

Jim trudged on alongside Blanchard and the
mounted knight for a long moment of silence, absorb-
ing this.

"If she pulls a hundred-pound bow, what does

Dafydd pull?"

"Lord, who knows? A hundred-and-fifty? Two-
hundred? Even more than that? The Welshman
doesn't fit any ordinary suit of clothes. You've seen
he's his own bowyer and fletcher—and a rare crafts-
man at both. I wager there's not an archer in Giles'
band—assuming he could draw it when he got it—
who'd not give ten years' earnings for that bow of Mas-
ter Dafydd's. With the longbow, the secret's all in
the taper towards the ends of the bowstave, you know.
Even allowing for the man's strength, it's not just a
case of cutting himself a heavier, longer bow that
lets him shoot the flights he does, arid that accurately.
There's a cunning and an art built into his weapon
that goes beyond the skill of the ordinary bowyer.
You heard Giles when Master Dafydd first undertook
to slay the guards on the castle walls from the edge of
the woods. And, of course, the same holds true for the
arrows the Welshman makes. Any of these outlaw
lads'd no doubt trade half the teeth in his head for a
quiverful of those."

"I see," said Jim.

The information sank into the back of his mind and
lay there leadenly. Once upon a time, he realized,
before his encounter with Sir Hugh, he would have
found this kind of information fascinating. Now, it
only left him vaguely resentful—against Dafydd for
possessing such knowledge and skill, and toward Brian
for the condescension he thought he heard in the
knight's voice when explaining it to him.

He said nothing more; and Brian, after making a

186

few further remarks aimed at continuing the conver-
sation, gave up and turned Blanchard about to trot
back down the track and check on the rest of the
expedition. Left alone, Jim plodded on, scarcely no-
ticing where he was going. He realized he was travel-
ing by himself now, but that suited his present mood.
He had no wish for company—particularly for the
company of these medieval characters, both beast and
human.

In fact, now that he glanced about, himself, he
could see neither people nor horses, nor anything of
the wagon track they had been following. Undoubtedly
the track had taken one of its reasonless curves—like
a footpath, it had evidently developed along the route
of easiest travel. There was no construction to it as a
road at all, with the result that it often went widely
out of its way to avoid a patch of bushes which a man
with an ax could have cleared in an hour or two of
work. It had probably detoured; and he, tied up in his
thoughts, had unconsciously taken the direct route,
straight ahead—in which case, he would be running
into it again shortly, when it curved back to its base
line of direction.

Meanwhile, as Jim was telling himself, the isolation
was not unwelcome. He had had it with strange
worlds, talking creatures, blood, battle, superhumans
and supernatural forces—all of these in the context
of a primitive technology and elemental society.

When you got down to it, he thought, there was a
limit to how much living you could do with animals.
Smrgol and Aragh, as well as the other dragons, were
animals in spite of the fact that they could talk. For
that matter, the humans he had met were no better
—human animals, operating by custom, instinct or
emotion, but never by civilized thought. For all her
beauty, Danielle was hardly more than a fur-clad
female out of the Stone Age. Similarly, for all his craft
and skill, Dafydd could have stepped right out of a
Cro-Magnon hunting party. Giles was a clever old
criminal, no more; and Brian was a pain-indifferent

187

killing machine who thought with his muscles. As for
Geronde—she was a pure savage in her happy antici-
pation of the torture she would inflict on her enemy
once she had captured him.

What had made him think—back in the cleanliness
and comfort of the twentieth-century world he be-
longed to—that he would ever find it attractive, let
alone pleasant, to live with people like these? Their
redeeming qualities were nil. Any obligation or affec-
tion he might think he was developing toward them
was nothing but the product of a false romanticism.

He broke off at this point in his thoughts to realize
that he had been traveling for some time and had not
yet come upon the wagon track or seen any sign of
the rest of the party. Possibly the wagon track had
run out. Possibly they had turned off on some other
route. Possibly, even, they had decided to halt for
the day—because the ram was now coming down quite
heavily. Well, in any case, they could take care of
themselves; and he could rejoin them tomorrow. He
felt no need of their company; and with his dragon's
insensitiveness to temperature and weather, it made
little difference to him that the day had grown wet and
chilly.

In fact, now that he thought of it, it suited his own
mood to have the day drawing to a prematurely gray
close and the skies pouring down upon the dripping
trees and sodden earth that surrounded him.

Nevertheless, he looked about, picked out a grove
of trees and walked over to it. It was a simple matter
to pull up some of the larger saplings by the roots and
lean their tops together, teepee-fashion, to produce a
makeshift shelter. The interlaced tops, still thick with
leaves, did provide him some protection against the
falling rain.

Jim curled up inside the shelter with a good deal of
satisfaction. The day was gathering into gloom, now.
He had no idea where the others were, he could not
find them if he wanted to, and that was as it should be.

They could not find him either—and that was as it
should be...

He was preparing to tuck his head under a wing,
when a sound registered on him that he had been
hearing faintly but which had been growing slowly
in volume for some time. For a second his mind re-
fused to identify it; and then recognition came, clear
and unmistakable.

Sandmirks—approaching.

Chapter 18

Jim was out of the shelter before he realized
he had moved—and was ready to run. What checked
him was the same instinct he felt at the time he had
encountered sandmirks before: the wordless under-
standing that to try to run from them was the begin-
ing of the end. It was a knowledge that came from the
deepest levels of Gorbash's brain.

He stood where he was, in the increasing darkness,
his jaws parted, his tongue flickering in and out be-
tween them. His breath was snarled in his throat. It
he had any idea in which direction Brian and the
others could be found, there might be some sense in
running. If he could reach them, there was perhaps
safety in numbers. Just why there should be, he was
not quite sure; but the impression persisted, instinc-
tively. Furthermore, he knew that sandmirks vastly
preferred to attack a helpless and outnumbered vic-
tim. Maybe a large group of humans or animals to-
gether could resist the fear the sandmirks tried to
breed in the minds of those they wanted to destroy
and devour. If the victims could resist, then they might
be able to attack the sandmirks in turn. The sand-




mirks, as he had seen, were not likely to stand against
those who had no fear of them—witness, the speed
with which they had fled when Aragh had driven them
off.

But which way should he go to find the expedition
against Sir Hugh? As he had considered earlier, they
might have diverged from the path or halted for the
night, some time since. They might even have turned
back. If he began to run and it turned out he was
headed in the wrong direction, he would be running
into the sandmirks' jaws.

One thing was certain: he had no Aragh to come
to his rescue here. Even if the wolf had hung around
Malvem long enough to see whether Jim would, in-
deed, go along on the expedition, he would have had
his worst fears confirmed long since; and he would
have taken off in a direction back to his own woods.
He would be miles beyond hearing the voices that
were closing in on Jim now.

Fear and rage, combined, flared like living flames
inside Jim. The breath snarled once more in his throat.
His head darted left and right, reflexively, like the
head of a driven animal hearing the sounds of the
beaters closing in on it from all sides. There had to
be some way out. Some way ...

But there was none.

The frantic, instinctive darting of his head slowed
and then stopped. The rage in him died. Now he
was only afraid, and the fear filled him completely.
At last, he faced the fact that he was right to be
afraid: there was something wrong with him if he was
not. It was death he heard coming—his death. .

He stood in the rainy darkness, hearing the clutter-
ing of the sandmirks growing closer. They were only
minutes away from surrounding him now. He had no
place to flee to; and it would be too late to flee once
they had arrived. His mind reached the furthest pos-
sible limit of despair and went beyond, into a kind of
limitless, colorless clarity.

He saw himself clearly now. He had wandered off,

190

rehearsing in his mind all the things he could find
wrong with Brian and the others. But the arguments
against them that he had summoned up were only a
smoke screen for what was wrong with himself. It
was not Brian, Smrgol, Aragh and the others who
were so much less than he, but he who was so much
less than they. If it had not been for the accident that
had landed him in the powerful flesh he now wore, he
would be nothing. In his own body he would not have
been able to qualify as the least member of Giles'
band. Could he pull a hundred-pound longbow, let
alone hit anything with an arrow from it? Could he,
clad in the best armor in the world and mounted on
the best warhorse, delude himself that he could last
as an opponent of Brian's or Sir Hugh's for two min-
utes?

He knew better now. It was very ego-pampering
to cannon into men-at-arms whom he outweighed
five to one and send them flying. It was very comfort-
able to tell people living in a rigidly stratified society
that he had been a baron, and let them surmise that
he had perhaps been a prince. But what had happened
when a real lance actually went through him? All at
once the fun had gone out of the game. He was ready
to pick up his marbles and go home.

Now, alone, with the sandmirks closing in on him,
and facing himself at last, he saw that this was no
soft world he and Angie had landed in. It was a hard
one; and all those he had met here—Smrgol, Brian,
Aragh, Giles, Dafydd, Danielle, even Secoh and Dick
Innkeeper—were battle-scarred survivors of it. They
were survivors because they had the courage required
to survive. That courage he had resented in them when
he had flown onto the lance point of Hugh de Bois
and discovered that he could be killed, just like any-
one else. The discovery had woken him to a realiza-
tion of how little of their sort of courage he had ever
been called on—in his own world—to show.

Now it no longer mattered whether he could be
courageous or not, because he was going to die, any-
way. The sandmirks were just beyond the trees that

191

ringed him; and the panic born of their cluttering was
beginning to eat at his brain. They would be certain
of him this time. He had not even a campfire to keep
them at a distance. Cleverly, once again, they had
come on a rainy, cloud-thick night when a dragon
could not take to the air for fear of flying blindly into
a tree or cliff; and when he, like any ordinary earth-
bound animal, could only attempt to escape on foot.
The only difference now from the time before was
that he had at last come to terms with himself—a sin-
gle, small triumph, the one thing that made him differ-
ent from a simple dragon-victim.

The breath checked in his lungs. For a moment
even the sandmirk voices were forgotten. He had, at
least, a final choice. He would die either way, but he
could still choose how. What was it he had said to Car-
olinus, back when they first met? ". . . But I'm not a
dragon"?

Nor was he. Gorbash might have no choice in this
situation, but he was Jim Eckert, who had. He could
go down, he could die, still trying to reach the Loathly
Tower and rescue Angie—by himself, if necessary—
not as a helpless meal for sandmirks.

It might be death to fly, but he preferred that death
to staying here. He gaped his jaws and roared at the
sandmirks. He crouched and sprang upward into the
rain and the darkness; and the sound of the cluttering
faded quickly to silence and was lost, far below and
behind.

Pumping his wings, he reached for altitude. It was
a forlorn hope to think that the cloud cover would be
low enough for him to mount above it. And, even if
it was, and he did, above those clouds arid rain on a
night like this one where would he find thermals to
soar on? A good wind could save him—but weather
like this did not go with strong, steady winds above
a layer of rainclouds. If he could not soar, sooner or
later he would become wing-weary and start to lose
altitude. After that the crash to earth would be inev-
itable.

192

But for now, his strength was still with him. He
beat upward through the downpour. Darkness sur-
rounded him—before, behind, above, below. He felt
as if he were hanging still in a wet and lightless void,
exerting all his strength but going nowhere. No pause
came in the rain, no rift in the darkness overhead to
show a patch of starlit sky.

Judging by the altitude he had gained previously
in a first few minutes of upward flying, he thought he
should easily be above five thousand feet by this time.
He tried to remember what he knew about rain-
clouds. Most precipitation, he vaguely remembered
learning once, fell from nimbostratus, altostratus or
cumulonimbus clouds. Cumulonimbus were low-
lying, but the other two were in a middle range—up
to twenty thousand feet or so. Clearly, he could not
fly above twenty thousand feet. His lungs were the
lungs of any animal adapted to a planetary surface.
He would run out of oxygen at that altitude—even
if the cold of the higher air did not freeze him.

A faint but steady wind pushed the rain along at
his present altitude; and instinctively he had been
heading into it to gain lift. He took a chance now
and stiffened out his wings in soaring position while
he caught his breath. He had no visible evidence that
he was losing altitude, but he could feel the pressure
of the air on the underside of his wings; and this sen-
sation sent clear signals to his dragon-brain that he
was now on a shallow glide back toward the ground.
He dared not prolong the glide. He might be losing al-
titude faster than he thought.

He began to use his wings again, and his pressure
points signaled that he was once more gaining alti-
tude, though at a slow rate. His mind, working at a
steady white heat from the moment he had decided
to leave the sandmirks on the ground behind, now
tossed something at him out of the very back of his
reading experience: a passage from a very old book
dealing with somebody lost underwater who no longer
knew even which way was up to the surface. He had

193

thought, when he had read that passage, that what
was needed in such a situation was some sort of di-
ver's personal sonar. That memory triggered off in his
mind the recollection that not only was his dragon-
voice of unusual proportions but his eyesight and
hearing were unhumanly sensitive. Bats could fly
blind at night, or even—as experimenters had discov-
ered—when the animals had been physically blinded,
because of their echo-sounding—their sonar. What if
he could do something like that?

Jim opened his mouth, gathered the full force of his
lungs, and sent a wordless cry booming out into the
falling rain and darkness around him.

He listened ...

He was not sure whether he had heard anything
echoing back at him.

He boomed again. And listened . . . and lis-
tened ... straining his ears.

This time, he thought he heard an echo of some
sort.

Once more he boomed, and once more he lis-
tened. This time, clearly, an echo returned. Something
was below him and off to his right.

Lowering his head toward the ground below, he
boomed again.

His dragon-hearing was evidently quick to leam.
This time he was able to make out, not only a gen-
eral echo, but some differences in the areas from
which the echoes came. Far to his right, the response
was soft, close to his right it was sharp, and far to
his left it became soft again. K these were any in-
dication, they should signal a hard surface almost
directly underneath him.

He checked on that thought. It was not so likely
that the echoes indicated hard surface, as that they
did a reflective one. This could mean that right un-
der him was an area of open land, while to right
and left were areas where tree growth interfered with
echo response.

He stopped experimenting and resumed flying,

while he thought this out. The real problem, he told
himself, was to discover if he could determine the
distances between himself and the source of the
echoes. A sort of glee ran through him- It was not
that, even now, he had any real belief in his ability to
save himself—win an overall victory against the
sandmirks. He was merely doing something about
his situation.

He flew for a while, again deliberately trying to
gain altitude—enough so that he would be able to tell
by what he heard whether there was any real differ-
ence between the echoes he had caught at a lower
altitude. He once again stiffened his wings into soaring
position and sent his pulse of sound winging into the
rain-drenched darkness.

The echoes came back—and for the first time hope
leaped up within Jim. For what he was hearing was
essentially the same distribution of strong echoes and
weak—indications of high reflective surfaces adjoin-
ing softly reflective ones—in the same directions in
which he had found them before, but with a very clear
weakening of the echoes—an obvious indication that
the echoes' strength might be usable as indexes to his
height.

He was now caught up in what he was doing. A
fever of optimism burned inside him. The odds were
still large against his being able to leam anything
in time to let him land safely; but the odds had been
astronomical against him before.

He continued alternately to fly, soar, experiment
with changes in altitude. His life-and-death situation
helped him learn: his ability to interpret what he was
hearing was growing by leaps and bounds. Not merely
was his hearing becoming more sensitive, but also
more selective; so that he was able to distinguish not
merely two types of surfaces below him, but perhaps
half a dozen—including a thin streak of sharp, al-
most metallic echo which might indicate a stream or
river.

Also, little by little, his skill in using the informa-

tion from the echoes was increasing. Gradually build-
ing in his mind, like the negative of a photograph,
was an image of the' area below. He could now ignore
two sounds which—had he considered them earlier
—might have kept him from trying the experiment:

the noise of the falling rain, hissing around him, and
the steady sound of it beating on the earth below.
His dragon-hearing apparently was capable of con-
trol by conscious intent.

For a moment it crossed Jim's mind that dragons
might have more in common with bats than was
generally thought. Certainly their wings were like
enormous bat wings. If he was able to do what he
was now doing, possibly any dragon could; and it was
surprising that most dragons believed nighttime to be
a time when they could not fly unless by a bright
moon.

Of course, he remembered, dragons obviously had a
different orientation to darkness than humans did. He
remembered how he had felt in the dragon caves—
he had not had so much as a touch of claustrophobia.
As a dragon, he did not mind being underground, or
enclosed in darkness. Similarly, in the cellar of Dick
Innkeeper, the fact that the torch had gone out while
he was eating had left him completely undisturbed.
Darkness as such, and the inability to see, held no
terrors for him. It struck him now that the real reason
for other dragons' fear of flying at night, when they
could not see, was that for them aboveground was
considered a strange and possibly dangerous place;

and the lack of light to fly by was a good excuse not
to go there. Gorbash, Jim remembered, was thought
of as an almost unnatural dragon for spending so
much time aboveground. Now, Gorbash's abnormal
attitude, complemented by Jim's normal human atti-
tude that the surface was a good place on which to
be, opened up a whole new dimension in dragon night
travel.

Meanwhile, although he was gaining more and
more control over his situation, Jim had no way of

196

judging his altitude. It did no good to know that he
was getting closer and closer to the ground, if he had
no way of guessing when getting close changed
abruptly to being there!

It occurred to him that he had only one solution: he
could fly down toward the stronger echoes, coming as
close to their source as he dared, and hope that when
he got very near there would be enough light—even
on this dark night—for him to pull up at the last mo-
ment. The attempt would be a bit like playing Russian
roulette; but what other choice had he?

Putting himself into the shallowest of glide paths,
he began to descend. As he did, inspiration came to
him for a second time. He remembered the streak
of particularly sharp echoes and his own guess that
it might represent a river or creek, with a highly
sound-reflective surface. He altered his path slightly
toward that particular echo. If he was fated to crash-
land, he would have more hope if he came down on
water than on earth or into a grove of sharp-branched
trees.

He continued his descent, sending out pulses of
sound as he went. The echoes came back, more and
more sharply, more and more swiftly. Straining his
eyes, he peered ahead; but all he could see was black-
ness. Closer he came, and closer—and still he could
see absolutely nothing.

Abruptly, he pulled up; and as he did so his tail,
hanging down behind him, splashed through water.
A split second later he was climbing again, and curs-
ing his own stupidity. '

Of course, dammit! Voice, ears—he had completely
forgotten nose. Suddenly he had smelted water! His
dragon-olfactory sense might be no match for Aragh's
superb physical instrument, but it was a great deal
more sensitive than a human's. He checked his climb-
ing instinctively and went again into a shallow glide,
once more aimed toward the water echo below. But
this time he paid attention to the odors reaching his
nose.

197




Conscious awareness, he found himself thinking,
was a wonderful thing. What he now identified
through his nostrils should have been apparent to him
on the way down before, but because he had not
been expecting to use his sense of smell to orient
himself, he had paid no attention. Now, deliberately
sniffing, he smelled not only water, but grass, pine
needles, leaves and the damp earth itself.

Coming down over what he now knew was water,
he smelled soil to right and left of it. He had been
right: it was a small river, perhaps fifty yards wide.
He descended until his tail touched water, and then
rose a little and drifted toward the smell of earth on
the right. He glided at an angle toward it, and—

Oops! He pulled up just in time as he smelled a
stand of elm trees rising thirty feet into the air above
the right bank, directly in his path. Beyond them was
a scent of grass and earth. He glided down again
above the bank's edge beyond the trees, veered just
off it over the water, once more—

And pancaked into the liquid below.

Jim made a tremendous splash. But the water by
the bank turned out to be only shoulder-deep on him
—perhaps the height of a man. He stood in the stream
for a moment, the cool liquid streaming slowly around
him, savoring the simple feeling of being safely on

the surface of the earth again.

After a few moments, the rapid beating of his
heart slowed and he turned and climbed out of the
water onto the bank, his head dizzy with success.

It occurred to him, tantalizingly, that he might even
have succeeded in coming down safely on the bank
itself. Then he rejected the thought. Landing on some-
thing solid was more than a bit risky. It would be
wiser to wait until he had practiced these new night-
time skills some more.

His headiness began to fade. It was a great thing
to be alive and to have escaped the sandmirks, but
he was still without Companions or a plan of action.

He was no strong staff for Angie to lean her hopes

198

of rescue on, he thought now, in guilty reaction;

but he was all she had. Briefly, he thought of waiting
until morning and then taking wing to see if he could
find Brian and the rest. Then he remembered how he
had already promised to help them take Hugh de
Bois' castle first. His change of heart would probably
be excuse enough for the troupe to consider itself free
of any obligation to help him with Angie. Even if they
didn't, he now realized how far he was from under-
standing his strange new friends. All of them, even
the humans, thought and acted according to standards
entirely different from his. It was a sobering example
of how one could speak the same language as some-
one else without being- on the same mental wave-
length at all.

He needed to get straightened out on the way his
medieval friends thought and felt, before he made any
more mistakes about them and this world; and the ob-
vious person to help him was Carolinus.

He lifted his head. It had almost stopped raining
while he was coming in for a landing and during these
heavy thoughts. In fact, the clouds seemed to be thin-
ning a trifle. He thought he saw a milky gleam behind
one patch of them that could be the moonlight strug-
gling to get through.

If the moon came out—or even if it didn't, he
thought, now—he ought to be able, once airborne, to
locate the Tinkling Water again. His wing muscles,
which had been tiring while he tried to interpret the
echoes he heard from the ground, now felt rested
once more—another instance of the amazing dragon-
strength and endurance. It was too bad dragons could
not be studied by competent physiologists, zoologists
and doctors of veterinary medicine to find out how
they managed to have such physical gifts.

Jim took off with a bound into the now-rainless
air—and a little afterward, as he soared in a direc-
tion he could only hope was toward Carolinus' cottage,
the moon came out to reveal the silver-black land-
scape about nine hundred feet below him. Five

199




minutes later the sky was all but clear and he was
in a long glide toward the woods holding the Tin-
kling Water, which he could see now, less than two
miles ahead of him. He had only been off in his head-
ing by about five compass points.

Chapter 19

Among patches of white moonlight and India-
ink shadows, Jim landed with a thump on the gravel
path leading to Carolinus' front door. Far off in the
woods some sleepy bird clucked loudly enough to be
overheard by Jim's dragon-ears. Otherwise, there was
complete silence.

Jim hesitated. No light at all showed from the win-
dows of the house; and now that he was here, he was
feeling a reluctance to awaken the magician.

As he stood indecisively, a conviction began to
creep over him that the building was not merely shut
up for the night, but was deserted. In the little clear-
ing, an air of abandonment and emptiness hung on
the air itself.

"So, there he is!" growled a voice.

Jim spun around.

"Aragh!" he shouted.

The wolf was approaching from the shadows at
the edge of the clearing. Jim was so glad to see him,
he could have hugged him. Behind the lean, gleaming-
eyed shape strode a larger, familiar dragon-figure.

"Smrgol!" said Jim.

He had not realized until this moment how he
had come to feel for these two, and for Brian and the
others. It became clear to him that the space between

200

contrasting life forms in this world was not so great
as in the world he had left. Life and death were next-
door neighbors; similarly, love and hate were as close
as two doorways at the end of a corridor, and if you
did not leam to hate someone within a short space of
time, you learned to love.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked.

"Waiting for you," Aragh snarled.

"Waiting for me? But how did you know I was com-
ing here?"

"The Mage did," said Smrgol. "He called me here
yesterday by a cliff sparrow who brought me his
message. "Dragon,' he said, when I got here, 'James
Eckert, whom you know as Gorbash, and I each have
long journeys to make—alone. If I make mine, I'll
find you all together, later on. If James makes his,
he'll come looking for me, here. Wait for him, and
tell him what I just told you. Also, tell him that the
hour is close and the battle is greater than I thought.
More than one plane is involved—can you say that
word, dragon?"

"'Plane,' I said. And then: 'What does it mean,
Mage?'

" 'Very good,' he said. 'And never mind what it
means. James will understand. More than one plane
is involved, and if we can fight together to save the
sickness here from spreading out over all, so much the
better our chances. But if we can't fight together, still
it behooves each of us to fight on as he can, alone; for
if our opposition succeeds, there'll be nothing left for
any ofus... Have you got all that, dragon?'

" 'I can recite all the legends from the First Dragon
on—' I was starting to tell him, but he cut me short.

" 'And never mind legends either, right now, if you
please, Smrgol,' he said. 'Also tell that wolf—'

" 'Aragh?' I asked. 'Is he coming here, too?'

" 'Naturally. He'll be wanting to know what's got
into James. Now stop interrupting!' he said. 'Tell the
wolf to go find the knight, the bowman, the outlaw

201




and his daughter, and tell them all that they're needed
for the last battle. Also, there's no use in their going
on to Malencontri. Sir Hugh and his men have already
turned aside to answer the call of the Dark Powers in
the Loathly Tower, whose minions they now are. Even
if Sir Brian and the others should take Castle
Malencontri now, ifd be worthless to them. For if the
Dark Powers win. Sir Hugh will gain it back with one
stroke of his sword on its gate and a single crossbow
bolt over its walls. Tell them that they'll see me before
the Loathly Tower, if I return from my journey. Like-
wise, they'll see James there if he returns safely from
his. And so farewell.'" .

" 'And so farewell'?" Jim echoed. "Was that part of
the message?"

"I don't know. But they were his last words," said
Smrgol. "Then he disappeared—you know, the way
magicians do."

"What was your journey, Gorbash?" asked Aragh.

Jim opened his mouth and closed it again. It would
not be easy—or comfortable—to explain to these two
about his recent inner pilgrimage into self-examination
and self-discovery, which Carolinus by some magical
means seemed to have anticipated.

"Someday, maybe," he said, "I might be able to tell
you. But not right now."

"Oh, one of those journeys," Aragh growled, leav-
ing Jim uncomfortably uncertain as to how much the
wolf actually knew or understood. "All right, you're
here. Let's get to this Loathly Tower, then, and settle
matters!" His teeth clashed together on the last word.

"Gorbash and I will go," said Smrgol. "You forget,
wolf, you've a message to the knight and his company.
In fact, you were probably supposed to go right away,
when I told you."

"I'm at nobody's orders," said Aragh. "I wanted to
stay to see Gorbash safely back from this journey of
his, and I did."

"You'd better go now," Smrgol insisted.

"Ha!" snapped Aragh. "I will, then. But, save a

202

couple of those Dark Powers for me, Gorbash. I'll catch
up with you."

The shadows seemed to close about him; and he
was gone.

"Not a bad sort—for a wolf," said Smrgol, glancing
back into the darkness, for a second. "Touchy, though.
But then, they all are. Now, Gorbash, as soon as it's
dawn, we'd better be pressing on to the Tower. So
what you'd better do is get some rest after your long
journey the Mage talked about—"

"Rest?" said Jim. "I don't need rest!"

And in fact, even as the words popped out of his
jaws, he realized that they were correct. He felt fine.

"Perhaps you don't think you need rest, my boy,"
Smrgol was saying severely. "But a dragon of any ex-
perience knows that to be in good fighting trim he
needs sleep and food—"

"Food?" Jim asked, suddenly alerted. "Have you
got something to eat?"

"No," Smrgol replied. "And all the more reason you
should plan on getting five or six solid hours of slum-
ber—"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Couldn't sleep . . . ? A dragon who can't sleep?
Enough of these wild stories, Gorbash. Any dragon,
and particularly one of our family—can always eat,
drink or sleep—"

"Why not take off right away?" Jim asked.

"Fly at night?"

"There's a bright moon," Jim said. "You just saw
me fly in here."

"And very reckless it was. Youngsters like you al-
ways like to take chances. They get away with some-
thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a
thousand. Then, one day, their luck turns sour and
they wish they'd listened. But by then it's too late.
What if while you were in the air the sky'd clouded up
before you realized it, and suddenly you found you
couldn't see the ground?"

Jim opened his jaws to tell the older dragon what he

203




had discovered about flying in utter darkness and rain,
then decided to leave well enough alone.

"Come come," said Smrgol, gruffly. "No more of
this nonsense. We both need sleep."

Something about Smrgol's insistence touched the
new sensitivity of Jim's emotional perceptions. He
looked at Smrgol as closely as he could without seem-
ing to openly study the older dragon. There was some-
thing different about the large body he saw, something
hard to pin down but undeniably different from the
last time he had seen Gorbash's grand-uncle. Sud-
denly it struck him what it was.

Smrgol's left eyelid was half closed. It drooped
down over the long, narrow eye. Smrgol's left wing
also drooped, slightly but visibly; and as he stood on
all fours the older dragon seemed to be resting most of
his weight on his right two legs. Jim had seen physical
signs like these before—if not in dragons. His grand-
father had shown similar marks of physical distortion
on one side of his body following his first stroke, three
years ago.

But dragons didn't get— Jim checked the thought.
Apparently they did, if they were old enough or other-
wise vulnerable. In any case, whether they did or not
was unimportant here. What mattered was that Smrgol
was now crippled; and whether he understood the ex-
act nature of what had happened to him or not, he
was in no condition to fly right now.

"All right," said Jim. "I guess I can wait until mom-
ing."

Smrgol would be no better in the morning, but a
few hours would give Jim some time to puzzle out a
way of handling the situation. He tucked his head un-
der one wing and pretended to go to sleep. His ears
caught what he thought might be a faint sigh of relief,
and when he peered out from under his appendage a
few minutes later, Smrgol also had his head tucked in
and was beginning to snore lightly.

Jim fell asleep while he was still pondering what
should be done, but woke with the answer already
formed in his mind.

204

"Smrgol," he said, once they were both awake in the
dawn of a new day, "I've been thinking—"
"Good boy!"

"Er—yes," Jim said. "And what came to mind was
this. I should probably fly to the Loathly Tower as
quickly as I can. If Carolinus is right about Sir Hugh
and his men being headed there, then the Dark Powers
are probably gathering all their forces. Who knows
what they're likely to come up with? Thousands of
sandmirks—or anything! Meanwhile, why don't you
go secretly on foot back to the dragon caves, so that
no one will know you're planning to gather the other
dragons, get them together—"
Smrgol coughed self-consciously.
"My boy," he said. "I meant to say something to
you about that. As a matter of fact. . . well, the oth-
ers aren't coming."
"Not coming?"

"They voted against it. I did what I could, but. .."
Smrgol let his voice trail off.

Jim did not press him. He could imagine why the
other dragons had voted against it, if Smrgol had al-
ready had his stroke when he tried to talk them into
coming. An overage and crippled leader was not one
to inspire followers with a thirst for combat. Besides,
Jim had acquired enough knowledge of dragons by
now, both through his Gorbash-body and -brain and
from association with Smrgol and the others, to know
that they were basically conservative. Let's sit tight,
and maybe if II all blow over, would be basic dragon
philosophy.

"Well, that's even better!" said Jim, quickly. "That
means you'll be free to walk towards the fens while I
fly there, and act as liaison with any of our side that
you run into on the ground."

"'Liaison'?" Smrgol said, suspiciously. "Is that a
word you got from Carolinus or that knight?"
"No ... Well, maybe. At any rate, it means—"
"I know what it means," said Smrgol, sadly. "It's
just that it's such a george type of word for you to be

205




using, my boy. Well, well, you really need me to go
towards the fens on foot?"

"I think it'd be wise," Jim answered. "That lets me
head right for the tower, and leaves you to take care
of ... well, everything else."

"That's true." Smrgol's glance darted for a second
to his left side. "Perhaps I ought to do just that . . ."

"Good!" said Jim. "All right then, I'll be taking off
right away."

"Good luck, Gorbash!"

"Good luck to you, too. Grand-uncle!"

Smrgol's eyes lit up happily at the last word.

"Well, well, Nephew—don't just stand there. You
said you were leaving. Get on with it!"

"Right!" answered Jim; and leaped into the air.

The new morning was as free of rain and clouds as
the previous day had been full of them. A stiff wind
was blowing toward the fens. At about six hundred
feet, Jim spread his wings into soaring position and
rode the airstream like an eagle. He had hardly been
in the air five minutes, however, before the wind in-
explicably changed direction a full hundred and
eighty degrees and began to blow inland from the

fens, against him.

He tried shifting to various altitudes in an effort to
find at least one where this contrary wind did not
blow; but it seemed to be everywhere. Battling it for
some time, he made very slow process. If this kept up,
he might as well have joined Smrgol at making his
way to the fens on the ground. In fact, if things didn't

improve—

The wind quit abruptly. Suddenly, there was no
breeze at all. Caught unprepared, Jim lost nearly five
hundred feet of altitude before he could adjust himself
to the new conditions and start hunting for thermals.

"What next?" he asked himself.

But there was no next. The air stayed dead calm,
and he continued, working his way from thermal to
thermal, mounting on one and gliding forward to catch

206

another and climb again. It was faster than walking,
but still not the swiftest way of traveling.

By the time he reached the fens, it was midmoming.
He made out the line of the Great Causeway and be-
gan to work his way out above it at a height of merely
a couple of hundred feet.

The land end of the Great Causeway was thickly
enough covered with trees and bushes to look similar
to the forest land behind the moors and above the
fens. The vegetation stood with leaves and branches
motionless under the clear autumn sun, as Jim alter-
nately soared and flew above it. Nothing could be seen
on the ground, under or between the trees, that Jim
could make out. No human or animal figure—not
even a bird or cloud of insects—showed itself below.
The emptiness of the scene was at once both forbid-
ding and reassuring. Jim found himself being lulled
into nearly forgetting why he had come here. Reason-
lessly, there came into his head a fragment of a poem
he had tried to write in his undergraduate days, be-
fore he had sensibly decided to be a teacher;

An hour, an hour .. . another hour ...
Without a difference I can see,
Like faceless children on a wall
That stretches to eternity ...

"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!"

A tiny voice, calling from far off, roused him from
his thoughts. He looked around but could see nothing.

"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!"

A shiver went down his back and spread out to chill
his whole body as it came again, more loudly; and
now he pinpointed its location as somewhere on the
causeway up ahead.

"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!"

It was full-strength now, a dragon's voice, but not
the voice of a dragon with the volume of a Smrgol or
Bryagh.

Jim stared, ahead, raking the causeway with his
207

sharp vision. Finally he caught sight of something gray
that moved slightly, far up in a patch of tall grass sur-
rounded by trees and bushes. He swooped toward it.

As he approached, he saw what he had already al-
most guessed to be the source of the calling. It was
Secoh, down on the ground, his wings spread out over
the grass on either side of him, like some captured bird
cruelly stretched on display. The mere-dragon was
lifting his head, almost hopelessly, from time to time

to call.

Jim was almost above the mere-dragon now. Secoh
had plainly not yet seen him approaching—not sur-
prising, considering that Secoh was facing in the wrong
direction. Jim thought swiftly. The calling of his real
name was eerie; and there was something more than
that—something unnatural about the odd position in
which Secoh was extended—that made even the
thought of answering the mere-dragon an uneasy one.

Jim hesitated; and as he hesitated, the momentum
of his glide carried him beyond Secoh and the mere-
dragon caught sight of him.

"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!" Secoh cried. "Don't go!
Come back and listen to me, first! I've got something
to tell you. Please come back! Oh, help me! Help,
your worship! I'm just a mere-dragon ..."

Jim glided on, closing his ears to the cries fading
behind him; but there was a war going on within him.
Somehow Secoh had learned to call him by his right
name. That meant the mere-dragon had either really
discovered something, or else the Dark Powers were
using him as an intermediary. Could the Dark Powers
be ready to negotiate Angie's release?

He kept a firm grip on the hope that sprung up in
him at that last thought. Negotiation was a possibility
. . . and if, on the other hand, Secoh had only dis-
covered something useful, Jim would be foolish not to
take advantage of it. Also, although Jim sternly throt-
tled down the idea that emotion had any strong in-
fluence over whatever decision he might make, he was
touched by the note of despair in Secoh's voice and
the mere-dragon's desperate appeal for help.

Grimly, Jim banked into a turn, beat his wings for
more altitude and started to glide back.

Secoh was in the same spot, his position unchanged.
He set up a chorus of glad cries as he saw Jim once
more coming toward him.

"Oh, thank you, your highness! Thank you, thank
you . . ." he babbled as Jim slid in to land on the
grass beside him.

"Never mind all the thanking!" snapped Jim.
"What's this you've got to tell me—"

He broke off, for he had just noticed the reason for
Secoh's unnatural, spread-eagled position. Cleverly
hidden in the grass were pegs driven into the earth, to
which Secoh's wingtops and toes had been cinched
tight by leather cords.

"Hold, dragon!" cried a voice.

Jim looked up. A figure in bright armor, which he
had last seen coming at him on horseback, lance in
hand, stepped out from the cover of trees on his right;

and all around Jim, shoulder to shoulder, a solid ring
of crossbowmen had appeared, their weapons aimed
and cocked, the quarrels pointed at Jim's chest.

Secoh wailed.

"Forgive me, your greatness!" he cried. "Forgive
me! I couldn't help it. I'm just a mere-dragon and they
caught me. The Dark Ones told them that if they
made me call you by that name, you'd come and they
could catch you. They promised to let me go if I could
get you to come. I'm just a mere-dragon and nobody
cares about me. I had to look after myself. I had to,
don't you see? I had to ... J"

Chapter 20

The figure in armor walked intrepidly forward
until he stood less than three feet from Jim's jaws. He
put his visor up and Jim saw a square, cheerfully bru-
tal countenance with a large nose and pale, cold, gray

eyes.

"I'm Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri, dragon," he

said.

"I know you," Jim answered.

"Damme if I see why you're any different than any
other dragon," said Sir Hugh. "Still, who's to argue if
it makes Them happy. Tie him up, lads. He's too
heavy for the horses, but we'll make a sledge and drag
him on it to .the tower."

"Please, Sir knight, your lordship, will you untie me
now?" Secoh called. "You've got him. Will you just
cut these tight thongs and let me go—"

Sir Hugh looked over to Secoh and laughed. Then
he turned back, considering Jim.

"Sir knight! Sir knight!" Secoh quivered, all through
his body. "You promised! You promised you'd let me
go if I got him to come. You wouldn't go back on your
knightly words, would you, your Royalty?"

Sir Hugh looked at the mere-dragon again and burst
into a roar of bass-throated laughter.

"Hark at him! Hark to the dragon! Knightly honor,
he says! Knightly honor to a dragon?"

His laughter cut off abruptly.

"Why, dragon," he said to Seeoh, "I want your head
for my wall! What sort of jack-fool would I be to
turn you loose?"

210

He turned away; and as he did so a deadly shower
came down from the clear sky—a ran of clothyard
shafts whistling upon them. Half a dozen of the cross-
bowmen fell. The rest, some with arrows in them,
broke for the cover of the trees. Four shafts fell
around Sir Hugh, and one long arrow drove through
the top edge of his left pauldon to ring loudly on the
breastplate below, but without penetrating the second
thickness of armor.

Sir Hugh swore, snapped down his visor and also
ran heavily for the trees. A second flight of arrows
descended in a large circle among those same trees,
but it was impossible for Jim to tell what damage they
had done. He heard the sounds of feet running away,
of a man in armor mounting and galloping off. Then
silence. He and Secoh were unhurt, but alone except
for the dead and dying crossbowmen on the ground
about them.

A whimper from Secoh brought Jim's attention
back to the mere-dragon. He stepped over and drove
the claws of one forepaw into each of the pegs holding
Secoh down, in turn, and pulled them out. They came
up easily to his muscles. Secoh immediately sat up and
began biting through the leather thongs that had held
the pegs to his toes.

"Why didn't you pull the pegs out yourself?" Jim
asked Secoh. "It's not easy, stretched out like that,
I know, but any dragon—"

"They had all those bows and swords and things,"
said Secoh. "I'm not as brave as you are, your mag-
nanimity. I couldn't help being afraid; and I thought
maybe if I did what they wanted, they'd let me go."

He stopped biting through the thongs and cowered.

"Of course, I understand how your worship would
feel. I shouldn't have called you down to land here—"

"Forget it," said Jim gruffly.

Secoh took him at his word and went back to biting
through leather.

Jim made a small tour around the fallen crossbow-
men. But there was nothing to be done for any of

211

them. Those who were down were either already dead
or within minutes of dying; none of them yet retained
enough consciousness to realize that someone was
standing over them. Jim turned away just in time to
see Secoh preparing to take off.

"Wait a minute!" he snapped.

"Wait? Oh, of course—wait. I understand, your
highness!" Secoh yelped. "You thought I was about
to fly away. But I was just stretching the cramp out
of my wings-—"

"You aren't going anywhere," Jim said, "so settle
down and answer a few questions. Who told you to
call me Jim Eckert?"

"I already said!" protested Secoh. "The george—
the knight—told me; and the Dark Ones told him."

"Hmm. And how did they catch you in the first
place?"

Secoh looked unhappy.

"They—they put out a fine piece, of meat," he said.
"Half a large boar . . . lovely, fat meat, too."

A tear trickled down from the eye on the side of
his head nearest Jim.

"Such lovely, fat meat!" Secoh repeated. "And then
they didn't even let me have a bit of it. Not a bite!
They just aimed their crossbows at me and tied me
up."

"Did they say why?" Jim asked. "Did they give any
reason for guessing I'd be along, so you could call me
down in the first place?"

"Oh, yes, your worship. They talked about it a lot.
The knight said you'd come at just this time, and
after they caught you the six men he named must
take you without delay to the tower; and he with the
rest would catch up with them on the way."

"Catch up?" Jim frowned.

"Yes, your importance." Secoh's eyes looked sud-
denly a good deal shrewder than Jim had ever seen
them before. "This knight was going to stay behind
to lay a trap for the other george—your friend. And
that was something he wasn't supposed to do: the

212

Dark Ones had sent him out just to get you, and come
right back. But he really has a terrible anger against
your friend, you know, the one who goes around chas-
ing us mere-dragons all the time. So this knight was
going to catch your friend in spite of what the Dark
Ones wanted—"

Secoh stopped to shiver.

"That's what's so terrible about them, these georges,"
he went on. "Nobody can make them do what they're
told, not even the Dark Ones. They don't care for any-
thing, just as long as they can go riding around in their
hard shells and sticking their sharp horns into poor
mere-dragons like me, or anyone they want to. Imag-
ine somebody else going ahead and doing just what he
wanted after the Dark Ones had given him orders!"

"I wonder where they all went when they ran off
from here though?" Jtm wondered.

"The knight that was here and those crossbowmen?"
Secoh nodded his head back toward the mainland end
of the Great Causeway. "There's a swamp off to the
left there where you'd drown in a minute if you
couldn't fly, your highness. But the Dark Ones showed
that knight a way through it. He and his men have
gone out there, and they'll be circling around to get
back on the causeway behind your friends who shot
all the arrows in here, just now. I know, because that's
the way this knight told his men they'd surprise and
take your friends after you'd been dragged off to the
tower."

"That means they've cut us off from the main-
land—" Jim was beginning, when he became aware
that he had been listening to the sound of approaching
horses' hooves for some seconds; and a moment later
Brian rode into the clearing.

"James!" cried the knight, joyously. "There you
are! I've been feeling seven sorts of rascal for trying
to talk you into that assault on Malencontri. After you
disappeared yesterday, I got to pondering and it struck
me that we'd probably been counseling you against
your duty; and you'd determined to go it alone, after

213




all. Said as much to Giles, Dafydd, and Danielle; and
blind me if they hadn't all been thinking along the
same lines themselves. First the wolf, then you, gone.
Bad omens, those,, for a group of Companions, eh? So
we'd already turned toward the fens here, when the
wolf caught up with us last night— Hullo! Is that one
of our local dragons you've got here?"

"Secoh, your mightiness!" yelped the mere-dragon,
hastily. "Just Secoh, that's all. I know you well, your
georgeship, and admired you from afar, many times.
Such speed, such dash—"

"Really?"

"Such kindness, such gentleness, such—"

"Oh, not all that, actually—"

"I said to myself, a knight like that'd never hurt
a poor mere-dragon like me."

"Well, of course," said Brian, "I would have, you
know. Chopped your head on if I could have caught
you, just as I would any other dragon. But I take it
you're on our side now, from seeing you here with
James."

"Your ... ? Oh, yes sir, yes. I'm on your side."

"Thought so. Struck me you had the look of a
fighter about you the moment I noticed you there.
Lean, hard-muscled, deadly—not like most of the
other local dragons I've seen."

"Oh yes, your knighthood. Lean—"

Secoh, who had half spread his wings as if he was
about to try leaving once more, broke off, checking
himself in midmotion to stare at the knight. Brian,
however, had turned back to speak to Jim.

"Others'!! be here in a minute—" he had begun.

"Wrong," said a sour voice. "I've been here since
before you rode in. But I was busy tracking our ene-
mies. They went off into a swamp by the causeway. I
could have tracked them there, too, but decided to
come back and see how Gorbash was. Are you all
right, Gorbash?"

"Fine, Aragh," said Jim, for the wolf had stepped
into the clearing as he was talking.

214

Aragh looked at Secoh and grinned evilly.
" 'Hard-muscled' and 'deadly'?" he said.
"Never mind all that now. Sir wolf," said Brian.
"Important thing is we're all together again, and the
next step calls for a bit of planning. As soon as— Ah,
here they are, now."

Dafydd, Giles and Danielle, together with the
rest of the outlaws, had in fact been coming into the
clearing from the moment Aragh had appeared. The
outlaws were already moving around the fallen forms
of the crossbowmen, retrieving their arrows. Dafydd
paused in the center of the clearing and looked about.

"Carried my shaft off, he must have," the bowman
said to Jim. "Was he wounded, then?"

"That was your arrow that hit Hugh de Bois? I
should have known it," said Jim. "It went through part
of his armor but not through the rest."

"It was a blind loose," said Dafydd, "with a drop-
ping shaft because of the trees between us. Yet I am
not happy hearing that I put point in him but did him
no harm."

"Peace!" Danielle said to him. "With the interces-
sion of Saint Sebastian, you couldn't have done more
from that distance on such a shot. Why do you keep
pretending you can do the impossible?"

"I am not pretending, whatever. As for 'impossible,'
there is no such a thing as an impossible, but only a
thing the doing of which has not yet been learned."

"Never mind that now, I say," Brian interrupted.
"We're back together with Sir James and there's a de-
cision to be made. Sir Hugh and his crossbowmen, hav-
ing escaped us here, have taken refuge in a swamp.
Should we follow them, post a force to hold them from
returning, or press on to the tower, leaving them be-
hind us? For myself, I would not willingly leave ene-
mies free to follow upon my rear guard."

"And they aren't just in the swamp," said Secoh
loudly and unexpectedly. "By this time they're back
on the causeway."

Everyone turned to look at the mere-dragon; who
215

wavered and seemed on the verge of cringing under
so much attention, but ended by straightening his
spine and staring back at them.

"What's this?" said Giles.   -

"Hugh de Bois and his men are fighting under the
orders of the Dark Powers in the tower," said Jim.
"Secoh here tells me the Dark Ones told Hugh how to
get through the swamp safely and back on the cause-
way. That means they're on firm ground somewhere
between us and the mainland."

"No argument, then," said Brian. "The Tower be-
fore and those crossbowmen behind are no situation
to wish for. Let's turn and go back to meet them."

"I don't know . . ." said Jim. There was an uneasi-
ness in the pit of his stomach. "The rest of you go
meet them, if you think that's best. I've got to get on to
the Loathly Tower. Somehow, I've got the feeling
time's running out."

"Ha?" said Brian, and became suddenly thoughtful.
"That was the feeling that came on me when I found
you gone yesterday. In some sort, I've got it with me
even now. Perhaps best you and I together go on to-
ward the tower, James, and to whatever awaits us
there. The rest can hold here and deal with Sir Hugh
and his men if they try to pass."

"I'm going with Gorbash," said Aragh.

"And I, too," said Dafydd, unexpectedly. He met
the eyes of Danielle. "Do not look at me so. I said the
taking of castles was not my work—nor was it, at all.
But when, in Castle Malvern, the flames all bent and
there was no wind, a coldness came into me. That
coldness is still there, and my mind is that it will never
leave me until I seek out and help to slay its source."
"Why, you are a knight,'^ said Danielle.
"Mock me not," said the Welshman.
"Mock? I'm not mocking you. In fact, I'm going

with you."
- "No!" Dafydd looked over her head at Giles. "Make

her stay."

Giles grunted.

216

"You make her stay," said the older man.
Danielle put her hand on the knife at her belt.
"No one makes me stay—or go—or anything else,"
she said. "In this hap, I'm going."

"Giles," Brian put in, ignoring her, "can you hold
Sir Hugh and his men, alone?"

"I'm not quite alone . . ." Giles said, dryly. "I have
my lads here. And the Malvem Castle stalwarts! Sir
Hugh and his troop will pass into Heaven before they
pass us by."

"Then let's go on, in God's name!"

Brian remounted his horse and started down the
causeway. Jim fell in beside the large white charger.

". . . Any more objections?" Danielle was challeng-
ing Dafydd.

"No," the bowman answered, sadly. "Indeed, a part
of the cold feeling was that you would be with me
when the final tune came. As the shadows point, the
day will wend. Let us go, then."

The two of them fell in behind Jim and Brian, and
their voices dropped to confidential tones, not so low
but that Jim could not have used his dragon-ears to
overhear what they were telling each other, but low
enough so that he could give them the privacy of ig-
noring them. Aragh came trotting up on the other
side of him from Blanchard.

"Why so glum, Sir knight, and Gorbash?" he said.
"It's a fine day for slaying."

"In the matter of this tower and those within it,"
said Brian, shortly, "we go against something that
touches our souls."

"The more fool you, for having such useless, clog-
ging things," Aragh growled.

"Sir wolf," said Brian, grimly, "you understand
nothing of this, and I'm in no mind to instruct you."

They continued to travel in silence. The air stayed
windless and the day seemed hardly to alter with the
ordinary movement of time. Gradually the horizon,
where land met sea, began to be visible as a gray-

217

blue line ahead of them, still some miles distant. Jim

looked up at the sky, puzzled.
"What time is it, do you think?" he asked the

knight.

"Shortly before prime, I should say," responded

Brian. "Why?"

"Prime . . .?" Jim had to pause to remember that

prime was noon. "Look how dark it's getting!"

Brian glanced around and also raised his gaze sky-
ward before looking back down to Jim. To the west,
above them, although the sun still floated in an appar-
ently cloudless sky, a sort of darkness of the air itself
seemed to dull the colors of heavens and landscape.
Brian looked sharply to his front.

"Hullo!" he said. "See ahead, there!"

He pointed. Jim looked. Before them the causeway
now held only an occasional tree or clump of bushes
intermixed with the tall fenland grass. Somewhere up
there—it was impossible for the eye to measure ex-
actly how distant—the grass was being pressed down
along what seemed to be a sharp line extending across
the causeway and out into the fen on either side. Be-
yond that line everything looked coldly gray, as if
seen under a chill and winter sky.

"It's moving this way," said Aragh.

It was.

It took a moment or two of watching for Jim to
make it out, but by watching the grass bend and rise
again it was possible to discover that the line, what-
ever it might be, was creeping slowly forward. It was
as if some heavy, invisible fluid slowly and heavily
flooded outward along the causeway, overwhelming
the meres and islands of the fens. Jim felt a slow
chill mounting his spine as he watched.

Instinctively, Jim and th.e knight came to a halt as
they watched; and Aragh, seeing them stop, also
halted. He sat down now and grinned at them.

"Look up, and west," he said.

They looked. For a second Jim's hopes bounded up-
ward at seeing what he thought was a dragon shape

218

about four hundred feet above the causeway, soaring
in their direction. But then a difference gradually reg-
istered upon him. This was no dragon, or anything
near the size of a dragon, although it was too large to
be any soaring bird. It looked to be half again the
wing-spread of an eagle, but it had an odd, heavy-
headed silhouette that gave it a vulturous look. Jim
squinted hard into the sky, but the strange darkness of
the air baffled him in his efforts to make out the fly-
ing shape's detail.

It was coming straight for them, gliding. All at once,
as the flying shape grew closer, Jim began to resolve
the features of that odd, bulky head. He soon saw it
clearly—and his vision blurred, refusing to accept
what his mind recorded. It was a huge, dun bird—
all but the head. Its head was the head of a woman,
her pale face staring forward and down at Brian and
himself, her lips parted, showing pointed white teeth.

"Marpy!" said Brian beside him, on a slow intake
of breath.

It came on.

Surely, thought Jim, it would veer aside at the last
moment; but it continued to swoop directly toward the
two. Now he saw why his eyes had refused to focus
on that white face. It was not merely that it was hu-
man and female. More terrible than that, it was com-
pletely mad. The frozen features of insanity rode
above the pinions of the huge, winged creature swoop-
ing toward them—

Abruptly it was on them, driving at Jim's throat;

and everything seemed to happen in a single moment.

A dark shape shot into the air toward the harpy
just before it reached him. Long jaws clicked on emp-
tiness where a fraction of a second before the white
face had been, and the harpy screamed hideously,
yerking aside into Brian, half tumbling the knight
from Blanchard's back before it's long wings caught
on the ah: and beat upward once more to safety.

On the ground, Aragh was snarling softly to himself.
Brian pulled his body upright again in the saddle. The

219

harpy, its strike missed, was now winging away from
them through the air, back toward the tower.

"It's well for you the wolf turned it away," said
Brian, somberly. "Its bite is poison. I own that hell-
face had me spellbound and frozen."

"Let it try again," said Aragh, viciously. "I don't
miss twice."

A voice broke in on them, wailing from out over
the still fenwater to their left.

"No! No! Turn back, your worships! Turn back!
It's no use. It's death for you all, up there!"

They turned their heads.

"Why, dammit!" Brian exclaimed. "Its' that mere-
dragon of yours."

"No," said Aragh, testing the air with his nose. "An-
other. Different scent."

A mere-dragon, looking enough like Secoh to be a
twin, was perched precariously on a small tussock of
half-drowned soil and marsh grass about forty feet out
from the causeway.

"Oh, please!" it cried, stretching out its wings and
fanning them to maintain its balance on the tussock.
"You won't be able to do any good; and we'll all
suffer for it. They're woken up now in the tower, and
you'll just make Them angry if you go there!"

"Them?" called Jim. "You mean the Dark Pow-
ers?"

"Them—Them!" wailed the mere-dragon, despair-
ingly. "Them that built and live in the Loathly Tower,
that sent the blight on us five hundred years ago. Can't
you feel Them, waiting for you there? Can't you smell
Them? They that never die, they who hate us all. They
who draw to Them all terrible, evil things . .."

"Come here," said Jim. "Come onto the causeway
here. I want to talk to you."

"No . . . no!" whined the mere-dragon. He threw a
terrified glance at the line approaching over the grass
and water. "I have to fly—get away!" He flapped his
wings, rising slowly into the air. "They've broken loose
again and now we're all lost—lost—i"

220

A breeze out of the chill wintriness beyond the mov-
ing line seemed to catch the mere-dragon and whirl
him away into the sky. He went, flying heavily, back
toward the mainland, crying in a thin, despairing
voice.

"Lost... lost... lost... /"

'There, now," said Brian. "What was I telling you
about mere-dragons? How can a gentleman gain honor
or worship by slaying a beast like that—"

In midsentence, the words died on his tongue.
While they had been talking to the mere-dragon, the
line had come upon them; and as Brian spoke, it
passed beneath them. The cold winter colors beyond
it enclosed them, and the knight and Jim looked at
each other with faces gone ash-colored and pinched.

"In manus tuas, Domine," said the knight, softly,
and crossed himself.

All about and around them, the serest gray of win-
ter light lay on all things. The waters of the fens
Stretched thick, oily and still between the patches of
dull-green grass. A small, cold breeze wandered
through the tops of the bullrushes, making them rat-
tle together with dry and distant sounds, like old bones
cast out into some forgotten churchyard. The trees
stood helpless and quiet, their leaves now dried and
faded like people aged before their time; while all
about, a heaviness—as of hope gone dead—pressed
down on all living things.

"Sir James," said the knight in an odd, formal tone
and with words Jim had never before heard him use,
"wit thee well that we have in this hour set our hands
to no small task. Wherefore, I pray thee that, should
it be thou alone who return and I am slain, thou shalt
not leave my lady nor those who are of my kindred
live on in ignorance of mine end."

"I—I'll be most honored to inform them—" Jim
answered, awkwardly, from a dry throat.

"I thank thee for thy most gentle courtesy," said
Brian, "and will do in like event for thee, so soon as
I may find ship to take me beyond the western seas."

221

"Just—tell Angie. My lady, Angela, I mean," said
Jim. "You needn't worry about anybody else."

He had a sudden mental picture of the strange,
brave, honest character beside him actually leaving
home and family to head out over nearly three thou-
sand miles of unknown ocean in obedience to a prom-
ise given a near-stranger. The image made him wince
inside, in its comparison to the picture he had of him-
self.

"I shall dp so," said Brian—and at once reverted
to his ordinary self, swinging down out of his saddle
onto the ground. "Blanchard won't go another inch,
damn him! I'll have to lead him—"

He broke off, looking back past Jim.

"Where'd the bowman and Mistress Danielle go?"
he asked.

Jim turned. Brian was correct. As far as the eye
could see, there was no sign of the two who, they had
assumed, were following them.

"Aragh?" Jim asked. "Where did they go?"

"They fell behind, sometime since," said the wolf.
"Perhaps they changed their minds about coming with
us. They're back there somewhere. If it weren't for the
trees and bushes, you might still see them."

A moment's silence followed.

"Then, let's on without them," said Brian.

He tugged, at the bridle of Blanchard. The white
horse reluctantly took one step, then another. They
moved off. Jim and Aragh fell into step alongside.

As they traveled onward, the dreariness all around
and pressing down upon them had the effect of sti-
fling conversation. Even existing seemed to be an effort
under its influence, and each movement of their bod-
ies required a conscious exertion of will; their arms
and legs were like lead weights swung heavily and re-
luctantly into each slow, necessary step. But the effect
of their silence was worse, for it left them isolated;

each set off alone in the dark pool of his own thoughts.
They moved as if in some pale dream, speaking now
and then for a moment, then falling silent.

222

As they progressed, the causeway narrowed. From
forty yards across, it dwindled until it became as many
feet. The trees, too, shortened and became more
stunted—more twisted and gnarled—and under their
feet the thinning grass revealed a different soil, an
earth lacking in the rich blackness of the fenland to-
ward the main shore. Here it was sandy, with a sterile,
flinty hardness. It crunched under their weight and
under the hooves of Blanchard, and was at once un-
yielding and treacherous.

The white warhorse checked himself suddenly. He
tossed his head and tried to back up instead of going
forward.

"What the hell!" exploded Brian, tugging on the
reins. "What devil's into him now—"

"Listen," said Jim, who had also stopped.

For a moment, Jim could almost make himself be-
lieve he had imagined what he had just heard. But
then it sounded again and began to grow in volume.
It was just ahead of them and getting closer. It was
the cluttering of sandmirks.

The volume soared upward. Clearly, the sandmirks
were not just in front of them, but all around. The
dark predators had simply not all given voice, to start
with; but now they were in full chorus. Jim felt the
sound they made reaching through, once more, to the
old primitive areas of his midbrain. He looked at Brian
and saw the knight's face beneath the open visor of
his helmet; it looked drained of blood, its skin fallen
in to the bones like the face of a man ten days dead.
The cluttering was rising to a crescendo and Jim felt
the ability to think slipping from him.

Beside him, Aragh laughed his silent laugh.

The wolf threw back his head, opened his long
jaws, and howled—a long howl that cut like a razor
slash across the sound of the sandmirks. It was not
merely lupine night music from some moonlit hilltop
that Aragh uttered, but a call that began on a low note
and climbed in tone and volume to a pitch greater
than all the chittering; then it fell again, dropping . . .
dropping into nothingness. It was a hunting howl.

223

When it ceased, there was silence. Only silence.
Aragh laughed again.

"Shall we go on?" he said.

Brian stirred like someone coming out of a dream,
and tugged on the reins. Blanchard stepped forward.
Jim, too, moved; and they once more took up their
journey.

The sandmirks did not begin their cluttering again.
But as the knight, the dragon and the wolf moved on,
Jim could hear innumerable small ripplings in the
water and rustlings behind the trees, bushes and bull-
rushes that surrounded them—a noise that paralleled
their path and kept up with them, as if a small army
of heavy-bodied rats was providing them with es-
cort. He did his best to put that sound from his mind.
An instinctive terror was inspired by the noise of those
feet and bodies alone; and he had other terrors to
watch for.

But the watching was becoming more difficult.

"Getting darker, isn't it?" Jim said, finally. "And
misty."

They had gone perhaps a mile and a half since
they had crossed the line. And the sky had, indeed,
been blackening. It was not a natural darkness, but a
sort of thickening of the air, a premature night that
seemed to be coming over them. With it came low
clouds above their heads, and banks of mist, moving
at water level off to either side of the causeway.

Abruptly, Blanchard balked again. They stopped.
But around them the noise of the sandmirks began to
mount toward a fren2y of invisible movement. There
was something triumphant about their mad activity.
Unexpectedly, ahead and off the causeway to the right,
rang out a single, heavy splash, like the sound of
something large heaving itself out of water onto land.
Aragh's nose lifted abruptly, and he growled, deep in
his throat.

"Now," he said.

"Now what? What comes?" Brian demanded.

"My meat," snarled Aragh. "Stand clear!"

224

Stiff-legged, he walked a few paces forward from
them and stood, tail hanging in a low are, head a little
down, jaws slightly open, waiting. His eyes burned red
in the dimness.

Now Jim's nose caught the scent of whatever it was
Aragh had smelled. The odor was oddly familiar—
and then he realized it was the same scent he had
been picking up from the sandmirks, who had kept
company with them. Only, this was stronger and far
more rank. Now, too, his ears picked up the sound of
something heavy-bodied approaching them from
down the causeway—the sort of creature that would
go through bushes rather than around them.

Brian drew his sword. Aragh did not turn bis head,
but his ears flicked at the sound of metal sliding
against metal.

"My meat, I said," he repeated. "Stand back! Go
when I say."

Jim found his every muscle tensed, his eyes almost
aching with the effort to see through the gloom to what
was coming. Then, all at once it was visible, moving
toward them: a great, black, four-legged shape, its
close body hair still gleaming -slickly from the waters
it had just left. It made no effort to hide, but came
on until it was less than three times its own body length
from Aragh. Then it reared up and from its throat
came a sick-sounding chuckle that was a deep-toned
version of the same cluttering the three intruders here
had heard earlier.

"Apostles guard us!" Brian muttered; "Is that a
sandmirk ... ?"

A sandmirk it was, but many times the size of the
smaller creatures that had now three times awakened
an ancient fear in Jim. This individual was at least
as large as an adult grizzly bear; in fact, very nearly
the size of one of the great Kodiak Island brown bears.
Aragh, standing forward to challenge it, seemed in
comparison to have shrunken from pony-size to the
dimensions of a small dog.

But the wolf showed no signs of backing off. From

225




his throat came the steady, slow rumble of a growl,
unvarying and continuing. For a long moment the
monster sandmirk stood swaying a little on its hind
legs, chuckling its bass chitter. Then it moved forward,
yet upright—and suddenly the fight had begun.

It was a flurry of action, too fast for human or
dragon eye to follow in detail. For all its size, the great
sandmirk could move its body and legs with vision-
blurring speed. Only, Aragh was faster. He was in, out,
around, up and down on the towering black figure, so
swiftly and continuously that Jim's eyes gave up trying

to follow his actions.

As suddenly as they had come together, the two

parted. Aragh stood back, head low, sounding his
steady growl while the huge sandmirk panted, sway-
ing on its heavy hind legs, its black coat marked here

and there with lines of red.
Aragh's growling now broke off, though his tense

watching of his opponent did not relax an inch.

"Go!" he said, without turning his head. "The others
won't follow you as long as I hold their mother in play.
And they won't mob me to help her, because they
know that the first five to reach me will die; and none

of them want to be amongthose."

Jim hesitated. Brian spoke for both of them.
"Sir wolf," he said, "we can't leave you to face these

odds alone—"
But before the last words were out of his mouth,

battle had been joined again. Once more, the move-
ment was too fast to follow; but this time it lasted
longer—until a sudden, ugly, breaking sound rang out
and Aragh leaped back to stand on three legs, his left

foreleg dangling.

"Go!" he snarled, furiously. "I told you—go!"

"But your leg—" Jim began.
"Did I ask your help?" Aragh's voice was thick with

rage. "Did I ever ask help? When the she-bear caught
me when I was a cub, alone and with three legs I killed
her. I'll kill this Mother of sandmirks, again with three

legs and alone! Go!"

226

The monster now wore a bright pattern of red,
bleeding slashes all over her body. But though she
panted hoarsely, she did not seem weakened, or
slowed. Nevertheless, Aragh's decision to fight alone
was plainly not to be altered; and to throw away the
wolfs deliberate sacrifice of himself was unthinkable.
Certainly, if he was killed, it would only be a matter
of time before the sandmirks would finish the other
two. ,     —

Brian looked at Jim.

"Let's go," said Jim.

The knight nodded. He tugged on the reins of
Blanchard and led the horse forward. They moved
off, as the wolf and the giant sandmirk matriarch
closed in combat again behind them.

The sounds of fighting behind them soon died in
the distance. The darkness and the mist enclosed
them. But Aragh had been right about one thing: none
of the smaller sandmirks followed them. They plodded
on; and for a long time neither of them spoke. Then
Brian turned his head to Jim.

"A very worthy wolf," he said, slowly.

"If that big sandmirk kills him—" Jim began, and
heard the sentence die in his mouth.

He had been about to promise revenge upon the
killer, and then it had come to him that he could do
nothing. If the huge black creature should kill Aragh,
there was no way he could find her again; and if be
found her, there was no way he could destroy her be-
fore she and her legion of children killed him. He was
not an English wolf, to ignore the effect of the chitter-

ing voices.

It was bitter for Jim to face the fact that he was
helpless to strike back against a cruel wrong. Intol-
erable. He had reached his present age never having
cause to doubt that injustice must eventually be
brought to book, and that any unfaimess of life must,
in the end, be balanced. Now he had to accept the
debt of Aragh's possible self-sacrifice, knowing it
might be something he could never pay back. March-
227

ing slowly along under the eerie and unnatural dark-
ness that held the fenlands, he forgot for the moment
where he was, and what might become of him, in the
internal struggle of finding some way to live with that

debt.

It was hard to let go of cherished illusions; but he

had no choice. Gradually, as he faced that fact, his
convulsive grip on the belief that life must be fair,
or else it could not be endured, relaxed; and he saw
one more shackle upon the strength of his individual
spirit fall away and sink into the waters of oblivion.
"Getting darker, isn't it?" Brian's voice roused him

from his thoughts.

Jim looked around. They had gone perhaps a mile

and a half since leaving Aragh and the sandmirks
behind; and indeed the air had further thickened,
even as the mists were closing in solidly on either

sides of the causeway.

"Much more of this," Jim said, "and we won't be

able to go on."

It was by now all but impossible to see any dis-
tance farther than the water's edge on either hand or
for more than a dozen yards in front of them. They
drew the cold viscousness of the air into their lungs,
and it seemed to settle and pool there, stifling them.
Walking had become even more of a labor as their
wills sagged under the sense of depression which
pressed without letup upon them.' Nor was this all;

for with the additional darkening had come a blanket-
ing of sound. The noise of their footsteps and hoof-
treads on the sandy soil was all but lost to their ears;

and even their voices seemed to sound distant, thin

and faraway.

"Brian?" called Jim, groping through the gloom.

"Here, James . . ." The dim outline of the armored
knight moved toward Jim and blundered against him,

as they both came to a halt.

"I can't see to go any farther," Jim said.
"Nor I," Brian admitted. "We shall have to stay

where we are, I suppose."

228

"Yes..."
They stood facing each other, but no longer able

to make out the features of each other's faces; they
were lost in an impenetrable darkness. And this dark-
ness became even blacker, until any last intimation
of light was gone and the obscurity was total. Jim
felt chill, hard, iron fingers grip his left shoulder.

"Let us hold together," said Brian. "Then, what-
ever comes on us, must come on us at the same time."

"Yes," Jim agreed.
They stood in silence and in lightlessness, waiting

for they did not know what; and soon the blackness
about them pressed further in on them, now that it
had isolated them, and was nibbling at the very edges
of their minds. Out of the nothingness came no ma-
terial thing; but from within Jim crept up, one by
one, like blind white slugs from some bottomless pit,
all his inner fears and weaknesses, all the things of
which he had ever been ashamed and striven to for-
get, all the maggots of his soul...

He opened his mouth to speak to Brian—to say
something, anything, to break the black spell upon
him. But he found that already a poison had been
at work within him. He no longer trusted the knight:

for he knew that evil must be in Brian because of the
evil he had rediscovered in himself. Slowly, stealthily,
he began to withdraw from under the other's

touch...

"Look!" Brian's voice came suddenly to him, dis-
tant and strange, sounding like the voice of someone
who has gone a long way off. "Look back the way we

came!"
Jim turned. How he knew (he proper direction to

look, in that nothingness, he was never able to tell.
But he turned; and he saw, faraway—so very far
away that it was like the glimmer of a star seen across
uncounted light-years of space—a tiny, distant point

of light.

"What is it?" he gasped.
"Don't know," replied the distorted, toy-like voice

229




of the knight. "But it's coming this way. Look at it
grow!"

Slowly, very very slowly, the far-off light waxed
and advanced. It was like a keyhole into daylight, en-
larging as it came closer. The minutes ticked off,
measured second by second in the beating of Jim's
heart. Finally, the light stretched tall, lengthening as
it came on like a knife slit cut through a cloth of
darkness.

"What is it?" cried Jim, again.

"I don't know ..." the knight repeated.

But both of them felt the goodness of it, as it came.
It was life and courage again; it was a power against
the power of dark helplessness that had threatened
to overwhelm them. They felt their strength return-
ing as it came on, brightening; and Blanchard stirred
beside them, stamping his hooves on the hard sand
and whinnying.

"This way!" called Jim.

"This way!" shouted Brian.

The light shot up suddenly in height, reaching for
the heavens, as if activated by the sound of their
voices. Like a great rod it advanced, upright, toward
them, now broadening as it approached. The darkness
was rolling back and lifting. The black was graying
once more into a thick twilight, then the twilight
thinning and dispersing. The scuffing sound of feet
nearing them came to their ears, they heard a sound
of slow breathing, and all at once—

It was daylight again.

And Carolinus stood before them dressed in his
robes, a high-pointed hat on his head, holding erect
before him—as if it was blade and buckler, spear and
armor, all in one—a tall, carven staff of wood.

"By the Powers!" he said, gazing at them. "I got to

you in time!"

Jim and the knight looked at each other like men
snatched back from the brink of a cliff. Blanchard
tossed his bridled head and stamped his feet again,
as if to reassure himself that he was once more upon
the solid earth of a world he knew.

230

"Mage," said Brian, "my thanks!"

"The fabric of Chance and History was stretched
this time in your favor," said Carolinus. "Otherwise,
I could never have reached you in time. Look!"

He lifted the staff and drove it point-down into the
sand at his feet. It went in, and stood upright like the
denuded trunk of a tree. He gestured at the horizon
and they looked around.

The darkness was gone. The fens lay revealed, far
and wide, stretching back the way they had come and,
up ahead, going perhaps another half-mile to where
they met the thin dark line of the sea. The causeway
had also risen in altitude; until now, where they stood,
they were perhaps twenty feet above the level of the
surrounding landscape. Far ahead to the west, the
sky was on fire with sunset. It lighted all the fens, the
meres and the causeway with a red glow which lay
bloodily on earth and grass and stunted trees; and it
pooled just ahead, around a low hill, at a rise of a
hundred feet or more above the seashore where,
touched but uncolored by that same dying light there
loomed over all, amongst great, tumbled boulders, the
ruined, dark and shattered shell of a tower as black as
jet.

231




Chapter 21

This much and little more they saw in the
brief minute or so that the light lasted, for the sun
was on the very lip of-the sea horizon and went down
as they watched. Night—true night, this time—came
in from the east in one swift stride.

Carolinus had been bending over something on
the ground beside his staff. A little flame now leaped
up beneath his hands; and going a little off to one
side, he brought back some dry branches fallen from
one of the causeway's dwarfed trees. He threw these
on the flame, and a fire blazed up, lighting and warm-
ing them.

"We're still within the circle of strength of the
Loathly Tower," said the magician. "Stay within ten
paces of the wand if you care to be sure of your own

safety!"

Tucking up his robe, he sat down cross-legged be-
fore the fire.

"Lie down. Sir knight," he said, "and you, too, my

enchanted friend. When that sun comes up again,
you'll find you'll need all the rest you've been able

to get."

Brian obeyed willingly enough, but Jim sank reluc-
tantly to the ground by the fire.

"What about Angie?" he asked. "We haven't seen

any sign of Bryagh. Do you suppose—?"

"Your damsel's in the tower," Carolinus interrupted

him.

"In there?" Jim started up. "I've got to—"
"Sit down' She's perfectly safe and comfortable, I

232

promise you," said Carolinus, testily. "The forces in
strife here don't center around her—not for the pres-
ent, at least."

He winced, and reached into his robes to produce
a flask and a small cup made of cloudy glass. He
poured white liquid from the flask into the cup and
sipped it.

"What the devil?" said Brian, staring.

"How do you know?" Jim demanded of the magi-
cian. "How can you tell—-?"

"By the Powers!" snapped Carolinus. "I'm a Master
of the Arts. How do I know? Forsooth!"

"Pardon me," said Brian, his blue eyes staring. "Is
that milk you're <lrinking, Mage?"

"A bit of a sympathetic magic, Sir knight, for an
ulcer-demon that's been plaguing me lately."

"Tell me how!" Jim asked again.

"I should think there'd be danger of it giving you a
flux," said Brian, frowning. "Children, now . . ."

"I will not tell you!" exploded Carolinus. "Did I
spend sixty years to get my degree, only to be de-
manded an account of my methods at every turn? If
I say Saturn is in the ascendant, Saturn is in
the ascendant. And if I say the maiden is perfectly
safe and comfortable, then the maiden is perfectly
safe and comfortable. By the Powers!"

He snorted indignantly to himself.

"Listen to me, my young friend," he went on to
Jim, draining his cup and tucking it with the flask
back out of sight in his robes, "you may have a little
kitchen knowledge of Art and Science, but don't let
that give you delusions of understanding. You're here
for a purpose, which comes into operation after sun-
rise tomorrow—just like this knight."
"I, too, Mage?" inquired Brian.
"Do you think you just happened to run into our
mutual friend, here?" Carolinus asked. "You laymen
always think of Chance as a random operative
factor. Nonsense! The operations of Chance follow the
most rigid rules in the universe. Chance is invariably

233




determined by the point of greatest stress between
the other Prime Operators, such as History and Na-
ture—particularly History and Nature, I might say,
since as any fool knows, their particular strife makes
changes in the pattern almost hourly. Otherwise, the
universe would become so orderly we'd all die of
sheer boredom. Listen to me, then—"
He pointed a long, bony forefinger at Jim.
"Nature is always at work to establish a balance
of factors, which the operation of History is as un-
failingly and continuously at work to disturb. The rub
to all this lies in the fact that the new balance may
always be established at more than one point, and it
is in the determination of exactly which point that
Chance—as a compensating element—enters the
equation. This truth is the basis on which all magic,
as a product of Art and Science, is constructed. Now
do you understand the situation we have here?"

"No," said Jim.
"Oh, go to sleep!" cried Carolinus, throwing up his

arms in exasperation.
Jim blinked...

... And it was morning.

He sat up in amazement and found himself yawn-
ing. On the other side of the staff—or wand, as Car-
olinus had called it—Brian was also sitting up with
a look of surprise. Carolinus was already on his feet.

"What happened?" asked Jim.

"I sent you to sleep. What d'you think happened?"
retorted Carolinus. He produced his flask and cup,
poured himself some milk and drank it down, making
a face. "I'm beginning to hate this stuff," he grumbled,
putting the utensils back out of sight again. "Still,
there's no doubt it's working. Come now!"

He turned snappishly on Jim and Brian.

"On your feet! The sun's been up for an hour and
a half and our forces are strongest when the sun is in

234

the ascendant—which means, we have our best
chance of conquering before midday."

"Why didn't you wake us up earlier, then?" asked
Jim, getting to his feet as Brian also rose.

"Because we had to wait for them to catch up with
us."

"Them? What them?" asked Jim. "Who's going to
catch up with us?"

"If I knew who, exactly," said Carolinus, gnawing
on his beard, "I'd have said who. All I know is that
the situation this morning implies that four more will
join our party— Oh, so they're the ones!"

He was staring over Jim's shoulder. Jim turned and
saw the approaching forms of Dafydd and Danielle,
followed by two dragon shapes a little farther down
the causeway.

"Well, well—Master Bowman!" said Brian, heartily.
as Dafydd came up. And Mistress Danielle! Good
morning!"

"A morrow it is, but whether good or not, I'd not
wish to guess," said Dafydd. He looked around.
"Where is the wolf. Sir knight?"

A cloud crossed Brian's face.

"You haven't seen him?" Jim asked. "You must
have passed him. Some ordinary-sized sandmirks and
one particularly large one caught us, and he stayed
behind to fight the large one. You must have passed
the place where we left them fighting."

"Left them?" cried Danielle.

"It was the wolf demanded it," said Brian, grimly.
"We wouldn't have left, otherwise—as I think you
might know, mistress!"

"We saw neither him, nor any sign of sandmirks
or battle," said Dafydd.

Jim stood silent. It was like absorbing a hard blow
to the stomach to hear this, for all that he thought he
had faced the fact the day before that he might never
see Aragh alive again.

"Just because he asked you," Danielle said,
fiercely, "you didn't have to leave him alone to
face—"

235

"Danielle," Carolinus interrupted. She turned to

face him.

"Mage!" she said. "You here? But you were a hun-
dred years old even when I was little. You shouldn't

be here!"

"I am where I must be," said Carolinus. "As was

your wolf; as are Sir James and Sir Brian. Accuse
them not. It was the task of Aragh to stay and fight
alone, so that these two could come to this place at
this time. That's all, and there's no more to be said!"

His old eyes were steady on her. Her own be-
came unhappy, and she turned away from him.

"I'll go look for him . . ." said Jim, half to himself.
"As soon as this is all over, I'll go and find him."

"Perhaps," said Carolinus, dryly. He looked past
Jim once more. "Good morrow, dragons!"

"Secoh!" Brian exclaimed. "And—who's this?"

"Smrgol, george!" huffed the older dragon. He was
approaching with a pronounced limp and with his left
wing draped on the back of the mere-dragon. His left
eyelid was now drooped almost shut. "Give me a min-
ute to catch my wind! Not as young as I used to be;

but I'll be all right in a moment. Look here who I've

brought with me!"

"I—I wasn't too keen on coming," stammered
Secoh to Jim. "But as your wor— I mean, as you
know, your grand-uncle can be pretty persuasive."

"That's right," boomed Smrgol, evidently having re-
covered the larger share of his breath in the moment
of pause while the mere-dragon spoke. "Don't you go
calling anybody 'your worship.' Never heard of such

stuff!"

Then he turned to Jim, himself.

"And letting a george go in where he didn't dare
go, himself! 'Boy,' I said to him, 'don't give me this
nonsense about being only a mere-dragon! Mere's
got nothing to do with what kind of dragon you are.
What kind of world would it be if we all went around

talking like that?'"

Smrgol tried to mimic someone talking in a high

236

voice, but succeeded in lifting his tones only into the
middle-bass level.

" 'Oh, I'm just a plowland-and-pasture dragon.
You'll have to excuse me.—I'm just a halfway-up-the-
hill dragon. . . .' 'BOY!' I said to him, 'you're a
DRAGON! Get that straight, once and for all time!
And a dragon ACTS like a dragon, or he doesn't act
at all!'"

"Hear, hear!" said Brian.

"Did you hear that, boy?" Smrgol demanded of the
smaller dragon. "Even the george understands that
fact of life!"

He turned to Brian.

"Don't believe I've met you, george."

"Brian Neville-Smythe," said Brian, "knight bach-
elor."

"Smrgol. Dragon," said Gorbash's grand-uncle. He
ran an approving eye over Neville-Smythe's armor
and weapons. "Good harness! Wager you carry your
shield somewhat high when fighting on foot."

"Matter of fact, I do. But how did you know?"

"Shiny place there on your rerebrace where the el-
bow cop's been rubbing back against it. Good shield
tactics against another george, but I wouldn't advise
you to try it on me. I'd have my tail between your
legs and you off your feet in a second."

"Is that a fact?" said Brian, plainly impressed. "Re-
markably sporting of you to tell me so! I'll remember
that. But aren't you making it rather hard on the next
dragon I fight, if it isn't you?"

"Well, I'll tell you," rumbled Smrgol, clearing his
throat. "Pardon me—I've been thinking, for some
time, that maybe you georges and us dragons could
stop fighting and get together. We're really a lot alike
in many ways—"

"If you don't mind, Smrgol," cut in Carolinus
sourly. "We're not exactly oversupplied with time to
chat. It'll be noon in—"

He was interrupted, in his turn, by a cry from Dan-
ielle. The rest turned to see her running down the

237




causeway. Limping slowly toward them on three legs
was the figure of Aragh.

Danielle reached him and dropped on her knees
beside the wolf, hugging him. Sticking out a long
tongue, he tried to lick her left ear, which was the
closest part of her he could reach, held as he was. Af-
ter a moment, however, he pulled from her grasp and
walked on up to the rest of them, in spite of her ef-
forts to make him He down and let her examine the
broken leg. Only when he had joined the group did he
lie down and give in to her.

". . . You ought to know better than to walk on
this!" she was saying.

"I didn't walk on it," said Aragh. His jaws grinned
evilly at them all. "I walked off it."

"You know what I'm saying!" Danielle flashed.
"You know better than to travel on it."

"What else could I do?" he snarled. "I killed the
Mother, but the kits are all around us. They want
your meat after those in the tower get through with
you. They want lots of meat to start feeding up a new
' mother. None of you can handle them but me. With
me beside you here, they'll stay their distance."

"We thought you dead," said Brian, somberly.

"Dead, Sir knight?" Aragh glared at him. "Never
count an English wolf dead until you see his bones
well bleached by the sun."

"Enough chitchat!" Carolinus snapped. "Time
moves, and both Chance and History change. As I
was saying, it'll be noon in— When will it be noon,

you?"

"Four hours, thirty-seven minutes, twelve seconds,
at the second gong," replied the invisible voice Jim
had heard before. There was a momentary pause; and
then a mellow, chimed note sounded on the air.
"Chime, I mean," the voice corrected itself.

Carolinus muttered something under his breath.
Then he addressed them all.

"Come on, now," he ordered. "Stay together. And

stay behind me!"

238

He pulled the staff from the ground; and they all
moved off in the direction of the tower, Brian now
back in Blanchard's saddle since the horse seemed to
have ceased his objections to going forward.

With then- first steps, however, the day which had
dawned as bright, clear and ordinary as any day any-
where, began to cloud and darken and its air to
thicken as it had the day before. Swiftly, this time, the
mist closed in on the sea side and on the waters to ei-
ther side of the causeway. The clouds became a solid
bank, lowering until they touched the top of the tower,
to hang literally no more than a hundred feet over the
challengers' heads. The dreary, drab dullness of the
day before settled down on the group and added its
weight once more to Jim's spirits.
He looked around him.

Surprisingly, none of this strangely assorted bag of
individuals who were his Companions appeared to
show any sign of being affected by the fresh demon-
stration of the power of whatever lived in the Loathly
Tower. Aragh was limping along on three legs,
grumpily assuring Danielle he would lie down, and
stay lying down, in a moment so that she could set
and splint the broken leg. Carolinus, leading them all,
looked as if he was merely out for a brisk walk and
his wand was no more than a staff to help him along.
Dafydd was carefully untying the cords binding what
looked like a plastic tube that had encased the string
of his bow against the overnight dampness. After a
second's puzzling, Jim suddenly realized that it must
be a length of animal gut—probably pig or sheep—

which had been carefully cleaned, dried and put to
that purpose.

Smrgol marched along quite stoutly, his bad wing
and some of his weight bearing on the mere-dragon
beside Urn. On the other side of the old dragon rode
Brian, and the two of them were now in earnest con-
versation.

"... About this business of people and dragons get-
ting together," said Brian. "It sounds interesting—

239




must say that. But hardly practical, d'you think? We'd
be bound to run into a lot of rock-hard prejudice

against, on both sides."
"Got to make a start sometime, george," said

Smrgol. "There's times when it'd pay to work together
—like now, for instance. Not that you're not right, of
course. For example, you'll notice I couldn't get any
more of the dragons from our cave to join me here."
"Ah, yes," said Brian, nodding.
"Not that they're fearful, you understand, george.
I don't think that for a minute. But when you live for
a couple of hundred years—with luck, that is—you
hardly feel like risking everything on the first chance
that comes along. I'm not excusing it, you understand;

it's just the way we are. Knight-erranting may make
sense for you georges. Dragon-erranting would make
no sense, at all, to us."

"Well, then, where's the hope?"
"The hope's in us—you and me, george—and of
course Gorbash here, the Mage, young Secoh alongside
me here, that bowman and the female george with
him, the wolf, mage and all. If we can pull this off-
defeat the Dark Powers, that is, and win a victory—
it'll be a tale to tell for five hundred years. Now, I
don't know about you georges, but we dragons love
tales. That's what we do in the caves, you know, for
months on end, lie around telling each other tales."

"Months? Really?" said Brian. "I'd hardly think—

months?"

"Months, george! Give a dragon a few pieces of

gold and jewels to play with, a good cask of wine to
drink and a good story to listen to—and he's happy.
Why, if I could count the times I told the story of how
I slew the ogre of Gormely Keep, all those years
ago— Oh, of course the younger dragons all groan
and moan when I mention it; but they curl up, fill
their flagons and listen all the same, for all they've

heard it time and again."

"Hmm," murmured Brian. "Now that I think of it,
we humans do a bit of sitting around and listening to

240

old ^tories ourselves. Particularly in winter, you know,
when it's hard to get about and there's not much to
do if you could. By St. Denis, I cut my teeth on some
of those old tales—they were one of the things that
made me want to be a knight."

"Exactly!" said Smrgol. "Exactly the same with us
dragons! Every dragon hearing the tale of how we de-
feat the Dark Powers here at the tower will want to
go out himself and team up with some georges and
maybe a wolf or some such, and have a like adven-
ture of his own. From that, it's only a step to working
together..."

"Tell me something," Jim said to Carolinus, aban-
doning the knight-dragon conversation to catch up
with the magician and walk a half-pace behind him,
"what's the price that has to be paid for the magic you
used to drive away the darkness yesterday?"

"It's already paid," replied Carolinus. "The first to
invoke magic incurs the debit. Counter-magic only
balances the ledger. Not so with this—"

He lifted the staff and shook it slightly in the air be-
fore Jim's eyes.

"I had to go a long way to get this," he explained.
"And I had to mortgage a lifetime of credit with the
Auditing Department to make the journey. If we
should lose here, I'm destroyed as a mage. But then,
if we lose, we're all destroyed, anyway."

"I see," said Jim, soberly. He thought for a minute.
"What is it, exactly, that lives in the Loathly Tower?"

"What lives there just now, I don't know yet—any
more than you do. What is there—neither alive nor
dead, but just in presence on that spot—-is the mani-
festation of Evil, itself. There's nothing we or anyone
else can do to get rid of that. You can't destroy Evil,
any more than the creatures of Evil can destroy Good.
All you can do is contain one or the other, if you're
strong enough, and render it momentarily ineffective
in your own situation."

"Then how can we do anything about the Dark
Powers... ?"

241




"We can't—as I just said. But we can destroy the
creatures, the tools by which Evil is currently working
its will. Just as its creatures, for its purpose, will be
trying to destroy us."

Jim felt a cold lump in his throat. He swallowed.

"You must have some idea," he said, "of what land
of creatures they'll be, the ones who'll be trying to
destroy us."

"We already know who some of them are," Caro-
linus answered. "Sir Hugh and his men, for example.
Also, the sandmirks. In addition—"

He stopped speaking and walking as abruptly as if
he were an automaton that had been turned off. Jim
checked himself, too, staring at the tower. From the
windows just below its ruined battlements, figures had
come boiling out—several dozen at least of great-
winged, heavy-headed shapes that dipped and swung
in the air about the top of the tower, screaming.

For a second they swarmed there, like a cloud of,
giant gnats. Then one of them swooped down toward
the Companions—

And plummeted from the air like a body flung from
the top of a cliff, a slim shaft impaling its body. It
struck heavily, dead upon the causeway at Jim's feet,
its woman's face frozen in a silent, maniacal scream.

Jim tamed to see Dafydd standing with a fresh ar-
row already drawn to his bow. The screaming had cut
off, completely and suddenly. Jim looked up and saw
that the tower had no longer any swarm about it.

"Indeed, it will be no trouble if they are all of that
size and swiftness," said Dafydd, coming forward
to reclaim his arrow from the slain harpy. "A child
could not miss at such a distance!"

"Don't mislead yourself. Master Bowman," said
Carolinus over his shoulder as he began to walk for-
ward once more. "It won't be anything like that easy

with the others—"

He had tamed his head west again as he spoke, and
once more he broke off, stopping sharply. He stared
down at a patch of grass in which, apparently, some-


thing lay hidden. Above the long beard his old face
grew bony and grim. Jim stepped forward to see what
had caused the magician's reaction.

With a shuddering wave of nausea, he twisted his
head away again, just as the others came up to look.
Lying in the grass before them was what had once
been a man in armor.

Jim heard Brian's deep intake of breath as he sat
on Blanchard.

"A most foul death," said the knight, softly, "most
foul... most foul. .."

Getting down from Blanchard, the knight went
down on his armored knees beside the dead body in
the grass, joining his steel gauntlets in prayer. The
dragons were silent. Dafydd and Danielle stood with
Aragh, none of them saying anything.

Only Carolinus, among the humans, bent his fierce
old eyes on the scene before them with something be-
sides horror. The magician poked with his staff at a
wide trail of slime that led around and over the body
and back in the direction of the tower. It was the sort
of trail a garden slug leaves; only, to leave such a trail
the slug would have had to be two feet wide where it
touched the ground.

"A worm ..." said Carolinus to himself. "But it was
no worm that killed this man so. Worms are mindless.
Something with great strength and patience plucked
and crushed, in that slow fashion—"

He stared at Smrgol suddenly; and Smrgol bobbed
his massive head in an oddly embarrassed gesture.

"I didn't say it, Mage," the old dragon protested.

"It'll be best none of us says it until we're sure,"
retorted the magician. "Come along!"

Brian rose from beside the corpse; made a small,
helpless gesture over it, as if he wished to straighten
out the limbs but saw the utter futility of bringing
anything like decent order to what remained; and
climbed back on Blanchard. The group went on up
the causeway to perhaps a hundred yards from the
tower; and here Carolinus stopped, driving his wand
once more into the earth so that it stood upright.

Aragh dropped, panting, into a lying position and
Danielle, getting to her knees beside him, began to
set and splint his leg, using some dry, fallen limbs
from a stunted tree nearby and a sleeve of her doublet

cut into strips.

"Now," said Carolinus; and the word tolled on Jim's

ear like the sound of a bell.

The mist had closed in on them. Whiteness was on
all sides and close overhead. Only the tiny plain where
they stood below the tumbled boulders of the tower
hill, the boulders themselves and the tower were clear
of it. Or was it quite clear? Tendrils of mist drifted
above it below the clouds, and something about the
air and the light filtering through the clouds them-
selves baffled the eyes and made it hard to focus on

any one thing.
"As long as my wand and I stand," said Carolinus,

"no power of theirs can completely take from us light,
breath or strength of will. But stay within the space
the wand keeps clear, or it and I may not be able to
protect you. Let our enemies come to us here."
"Where are they?" asked Jim, glancing around.
"Patience," said Carolinus, sardonically, "they'll
come soon enough; and not in such form as you may

expect."

Jim looked around himself at the causeway's end:

the boulders and the tower. No breeze stirred from
out of the mist. The air was heavy and still. No, it
was not exactly still; it seemed to shiver faintly, with
a quivering unnaturalness, like that of an atmosphere
dancing to heat waves. Only, here it was all dim, win-
try and chill. As Jim noted this trembling of the air,
there came to his ears—from where, he did not know
—-a high-pitched, dizzy singing like that which some-
times accompanies delirium or high fever.

When he looked again at the tower, it seemed to
him that the appearance of the structure itself was dis-
torted by these happenings. Although it had seemed
only an ancient, ruined shell of a building, between
one heartbeat and the next it had appeared to change.

244

Almost, but not quite, he thought he caught glimpses
of it unbroken and alive, thronged about with half-
seen figures. His heart thudded more strongly; and the
causeway and the tower upon it seemed to shake with
every contraction of his chest, seemed to go in and out
of focus, in and out, in and out...

Then he saw Angle.

He knew he was too far from thp tower to see her
as clearly as he now saw her. At this distance, in this
light, her face should have been hard to make out.
But he saw her both from a distance and as if from
close up, with a sharp and perfect clarity. She stood
in the slight shadow of a ruined doorway opening on
a balcony halfway up the side of the tower. Her blouse
stirred to the slow movement of her breath. Her
calm blue eyes stared closely into him. Her lips were
half parted.

"Angie!" he cried.

He had not realized how much he had missed her.
He had not understood how much he had wanted her.
He took a step forward and found his way blocked by
something as unyielding as an iron bar set in posts of
concrete. He looked down. It was only the length of
the wand, held in the old arm of Carolinus, but it
was a barrier beyond his strength to pass.

"Where?" Carolinus demanded.

"There! On the balcony of the tower, there! See?"
Jim pointed; and the others lifted their heads to peer
where he indicated. "In the doorway! Can't you see?
Up on the side of the tower, in the doorway!"

"Not a thing!" said Brian, gruffly, dropping the
hand with which he had been shading his eyes.

"Maybe," said the mere-dragon, doubtfully. "May-
be ... back in the shadows, there. I'm not sure, re-
alty..."

"Jim," said Angie.

"There!" cried Jim. "You hear her?"

He pushed the restraining staff once again. But
it was no use.

"I can hear you, Angie!" he shouted.

245




"You don't have to raise your voice," she answered,
softly. "I can hear you, too. Jim, it's all right. It's
just all those others that don't belong here. If you
come up by yourself and get me, I can leave, and we
can go home and everything will be fine."

"I can't!" cried Jim, almost sobbing, for Carolinus'
staff would still not let him pass. "They won't let me

go!"

"They've got no right to keep you, Jim. Ask the

Mage what right he has to keep you, and he'll have to
let you go. Ask him, and then come up here by your-
self to get me."

Jim turned, raging, on Carolinus.

"What right—?" he began.

"STOP!" Carolinus' voice went off like a cannon

exploding in Jim's ears.

It dizzied, deafened and half blinded him, so that
vision and hearing were blocked as if by thick, soft
barriers. His unnaturally keen vision and hearing of
Angie were gone, but he could still make himself think
he saw her—as a shadow-in-shadow in the doorway
behind a balcony on the tower.

"Why?" Jim turned on Carolinus in fury.
The magician did not back off an inch. His dark

eyes glittered above his white beard.

"By the Powers!" he shouted, and his words came
very clearly to Jim's ears. "Will you walk blindly into
the very first trap They set for you?"

"What trap?" Jim demanded. "I was just talking

to Angie—!"

The sentence broke off on his lips as Carolinus

swung his staff to point. About the base of the tower,
between it and the boulders on the slope, had just
arisen the wicked head of a dragon as large as Jim

himself.

Smrgol's thunderous bellow split the strangely sing-
ing air.

"Bryagh! Traitor! Thief—inchworm! Come down

here!"

246

The distant dragon opened his mouth. His booming
answer rolled down to them.

"Tell us about Gormely Keep, old bag of bones!"
he thundered. "Ancient mud puppy, fat lizard, scare
us with words!"
"Why, you—" Smrgol lurched forward.
"Hold!" shouted Carolinus; and Smrgol reared high,
checking himself, his heavy foreclaws digging deep in-
to thesandy soil as his body came down.

"True..." he rumbled, his eyes hot.

"Old iguana! Go sleep in the sun!" Bryagh taunted.

But the older dragon now turned away, without
answering, to the magician.

"What's hidden. Mage?" be asked.

"We'll see."

Carolinus' voice was tight. He raised his staff and
brought it down endwise, three times, on the earth.
With each impact the whole causeway seemed to
shake.

Up among the rocks, one particularly large boul-
der tottered and rolled out of the way. Jim's breath
shuddered in his throat and he heard Brian, behind
him, grunt hoarsely. Secoh cried out on a thin, sharp
note.

In the space that the dislodged boulder had re-
vealed, a huge, slug-like head lifted from the ground.
It raised up even higher as they watched, yellow-
brown in the harsh sunlight, its two sets of horns
searching as its upper body waved from side to side,
revealing a light external shell, a platelet with the mer-
est hint of a spire. Its horns twitched and the eyes on
the end of the primary pair aimed themselves at the
group below. Slowly, it began to creep down the slope
toward them, leaving a glistening trail on boulders and
sand behind it.

"The Worm," said Carolinus, softly.

". . . that can be killed," growled Smrgol, thought-
fully. "Though not easily. Blast it, I wish it were
Bryagh alone!"

247




"Nor is it those two alone." Carolinus struck at the

ground three times again.
"Come forth!" he cried, his old voice piping high

on the quivering air. "By the Powers! Come forth!"

And then they saw it.

From behind the great barricade of enormous
rocks near the top of the tower hill, there slowly raised
a bald and glistening dome of hairless gray skin.
Gradually, this revealed two perfectly round blue
eyes, below which was exposed no proper nose but,
instead, two air slits side by side, as if the whole of
the bare, enormous skull was covered with a simple
sheet of thick skin. As it rose still farther, this unnat-
ural head—as big around as a beach ball—showed
its wide and idiotically grinning mouth, entirely lipless
and with two jagged but matching rows of pointed

teeth.
With a clumsy, studied motion, the whole creature

rose to its feet and stood among the boulders. It was
man-like in shape, but was clearly nothing ever
spawned by the human race. A good twelve feet in
height it stood, a rough patchwork of untanned hides
studded with bones, bits of metal and clusters of tiny
color points that could have been gems and made a

kilt around its thick waist.

But this was not the extent of its difference from
the race of man. It had, to begin with, no neck at all.
Its unnatural hairless, near-featureless head was
balanced like an apple atop perfectly square shoul-
ders of gray, coarse-looking skin. Its torso was one
straight trunk, from which arms and legs sprouted
with disproportionate thickness and roundness, like
sections of pipe. Its knees were hidden by its kilt and
its lower legs by the rocks; but the elbows of its over-
size arms had unnatural hinges to them, while the
lower arms were almost as large as the upper and
near-wristless, and the hands themselves awkward,
thick-fingered parodies of the human extremities, with
only three digits, one of which was a single-jointed,

opposed thumb.

248

The right hand held a club, bound with rusty metal,
that surely not even such a monster should have been
able to lift. Yet one thick, crook-fingered hand hefted
it lightly, as deftly as Carolinus had carried his staff.

The monster opened its mouth.

"He!" it went. "He! He!"

The sound was chilling. It was an incredibly bass
titter, if such a thing can be imagined. And though
the tone was about that of the low note of a three-
valve tuba, it clearly came from the creature's upper
throat and head. Nor was there any real humor in it.
Having sounded its voice, the monster fell silent, watch-
ing the advance of the great slug with its round, light
blue eyes.

Jim found his dragon jaws open, panting like a
dog after a long run. Beside him, Smrgol stirred
slowly.

"Yes," he rumbled sadly, almost as if to himself,
"what I was afraid of. An ogre."

In the silence that followed. Sir Brian got down
from Blanchard and began to tighten the girths of his
saddle.

"So, so, Blanchard," he crooned, softly. But the
large white horse was trembling so violently it could
not stand still. Brian shook his head, and his hands
fell from the girths. "I must fight on foot, it seems," he
said.

The rest were watching Carolinus. The magician
leaned on his staff, looking very old indeed, the lines
looking even deeper in the ancient skin of his face.
He had been watching the ogre, but now he turned
back to Jim and the other two dragons.

"I'd hoped all along," he said, "that it needn't come
to this. However"—he waved his hand at the ap-
proaching worm, the now-silent Bryagh and the watch-
ing ogre—"as you see, the world goes never the way
we want it, but must be haltered and led."

He winced, produced his flask and cup, and took
a drink of milk. Putting the utensils back again, he
turned to Dafydd.

249

"Master Bowman," he said, almost formally. "The
harpies are again in the tower, but when the others
attack they'll be out again. See how the clouds over-
head now sag down from the tower's height."

He pointed upward. It was true: the cloud cover
now bellied down like the worn-out ceiling of some an-
cient room. The thick, eye-baffling vapor hung less
than thirty feet above their heads.

"The harpies will come diving swiftly out of that
cover," said the magician, "giving you all but no time
whatsoever to shoot before they're on you. Do you
think you can hit them with those arrows of yours un-
der such conditions?"

Dafydd cocked an eye upward.

"K the clouds come no lower—" he began.

"They cannot," said Carolinus. "The power of my
staff holds them at no closer than this."

"Then," Dafydd replied, "provided they come no
faster than the one I shot a short while ago, I have a
fair chance, look you. I do not say that one may not
get through, for I am but a man, after all—though
there have been those who thought I was something
more, with bow and arrow. But it is a fair chance I
can put a shaft through each of them before it can do
us harm."

"Good!" said Carolinus. "More than a fair chance,
none of us can ask for. Don't forget that their bite is
poisonous, however, even when the harpy itself is
dead."

He turned back to Brian.

"I'd suggest, Sir Brian," he said, "particularly since
you're to be on foot, that you take the worm. You'll
be most useful that way. I know you'd prefer that ren-
egade dragon, but the worm is the greater danger to

the others who have no armor."

"Difficult to slay, I imagine?" queried the knight,
stopping from adjusting the annstrap on the inner face
of his shield to squint up the slope at the approaching

slug shape.
"Its vital organs are hidden deep inside it," Car-


olinus explained, "and, being mindless, it will fight on
long after being mortally wounded. Cut off those eye

stalks and blind it first, if you can."

"What—" Jim began, then found his voice ham-
pered by the dry throat. He had to swallow before he
could continue. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Why fight the ogre, boy! Fight the ogre!" roared
Smrgol; and the inhuman giant up on the slope, hear-
ing him, shifted his round-eyed gaze from the worm
to fasten it on the old dragon. "And I'll take on that
louse of a Bryagh. The george here'll chop up the
worm, the Bowman'11 deal with the harpies, the
Mage'U hold back the evil influences, the wolf keep

off the sandmirks—and that'll be that!"

Jim opened his mouth to cure Gorbash's grand-
uncle of what seemed a bad case 'of false opti-
mism—then suddenly realized that it was nothing of
the kind. Smrgol was deliberately trying to pass the
.matter off lightly in order to put heart in Jim. This,
when the old dragon was himself half dead and cer-
tainly no match for the powerful young Bryagh.

Suddenly Jim felt as if his heart had turned over in
his chest. He looked around him at the others. If the
old and crippled Smrgol was no match for Bryagh,
was Brian any more a match for that obscene worm
now only about thirty yards off? Was it a fair match,
Aragh on three legs, for all the wolf's indifference to
their cluttering, against the horde of small sandmirks
that remained alive? And Dafydd, miracle archer that
he was, how could he hope to shoot down without er-
ror harpies that could appear practically on top of him
without warning? Finally, was it fair to expect the old
magician by himself to hold down all the impalpable
evil in this place while the battles were going on?
Jim himself had a good reason for being here:

Angie. But the others were here primarily because of
him, involved by him in a fight where the odds would
all be against them. Guilt moved deep inside Jim and
weakened his legs. He turned to the knight.

"Brian," he said. "You and the others don't need

to do this—"

"Lord, yes!" replied the knight, busy with his equip-
ment. "Worms, ogres—one fights them when one runs
into them, you know."

He considered his spear and put it aside.

"No, not as long as I'm to be on foot," he murmured
to himself.

"Smrgol," Jim said, turning to the dragon, "don't
you see? Bryagh's a lot younger than you. And you're
not well—"

"Er . . ." Secoh muttered, hastily, and broke down
in what seemed to be embarrassment and confusion.

"Speak up, boy!" rumbled Smrgol.

"Well . . ." stammered the mere-dragon, "it's just

—wh-what I mean is, I couldn't bring myself to fight
that worm or that ogre. I really couldn't. I just sort of
go to pieces when I think of one of them getting close
to me. But I could, well, fight another dragon. It
wouldn't be quite so bad—not so frightening, I mean

—if that dragon up there were to break my neck . . ."

He broke down and stammered incoherently.

"I know I'm sounding silly ..."

"Nonsense! Good lad!" bellowed Smrgol. "Glad to
have you! I can't quite get into the air myself at the
moment—still a bit stiff. But if you could fly over and
work that sea lizard down this way, where I can get
a grip on him, we'll stretch him out for the buzzards."

He dealt the mere-dragon a tremendous thwack
with his tail by way of congratulations, almost knock-
ing the other off his feet.

Jim turned back to Carolinus.

"There's no retreat," said the magician, before Jim
could speak. "This is a game of chess where, if one
piece withdraws, all on his side fall. Hold back the
creatures, all of you, and I'll hold back the forces; for
the creatures will finish me if you go down and the
forces finish you if they get me."

"Now, look here, Gorbash!" Smrgol shouted in
Jim's ear. "That worm's almost down here. Let me
tell you something about how to fight ogres, based on
experience. You listening, boy?"

"Yes," said Jim, numbly.

252

"I know you've heard the other dragons calling me
an old windbag when I wasn't around. But I have
conquered an ogre—the only one of our race to do it in
the last eight hundred years. They haven't. So pay
attention, if you want to win your own fight."

Jim nodded.

"All right," he said.

"Now, the first thing to know"—Smrgol glanced
at the oncoming worm and lowered his voice confiden-
tially—"is about the bones in an ogre."

"Never mind the details," said Jim. "What do I do?"

"In a minute, in a minute . . ." Smrgol answered.
"Don't get excited, boy. An excited dragon is a losing
dragon. Now, about the bones in an ogre. The thing
to remember is that they're big—matter of fact, in the
arms and legs they're mainly bone. So there's no use
trying to bite clear through. What you want to do is
get the muscle—that's tough enough, as it is—and
hamstring. That's point one."

He paused to look significantly at Jim. Jim man-
aged with an effort to keep his mouth shut and be
patient.

"Now, point two," Smrgol went on. "Also connected
with bones. Notice the elbows on that ogre. They
aren't like a george's elbows. They're what you might
call double-jointed. Why? Simply because, with the
big bones they've got to have and the muscle on them,
they'd never be able to bend a bone more than half-
way up before the bottom part'd bump the top, if
they had a george-type joint. Now, the point of all
this is that when that ogre swings his club, he can only
swing it in one way with that elbow. That's up and
down. If he wants to swing it side to side, he's got to
use his shoulder. Consequently, if you can catch him
with his club down and to one side of his body, you've
got an advantage; it takes him two moves to get it
back up and in line again—instead of one, like a
george does."

"Yes, yes . . ." said Jim, watching the advance of
the worm.

253




"Don't get impatient, boy! Keep cool! Now, his
knees don't have that double joint, so if you can
knock him off his feet you've got a real advantage.
But don't try that unless you're sure you can do it;

because once he gets his arms around you, you're a
goner. The only way to fight him is in and out—fast.
Wait for his swing, dodge it, dive in while his arm is
down, tear him up, get back out again. Got it?"

"Got it," said Jim, numbly.

"Good! Whatever you do, remember, don't let him
get his grip on you. And don't pay any attention to
what's happening to the rest of us, no matter what
you think you hear or see out of the comer of your
eyes. It's everyone for himself, once things start. Con-
centrate on your own foe. And, boy ..."

"Yes?" Jim answered.

"Keep your head!" The old dragon's voice was al-
most pleading. "Whatever you do, don't let your
dragon-instinct get in there and run away with you.
That's why the georges have been winning against us
all these years, the way they have. Just remember
you're faster than that ogre and that your brain'U win
for you if you stay clear, keep your head and don't
rush. I tell you, boy—"

He was interrupted by a sudden cry of joy from
Brian, who had been rummaging around in the
panniers behind Blanchard's saddle.

"I say," shouted Brian, running up to Jim with
surprising lightness and agility, considering the weight
of his armor. "The most marvelous stroke of luck!
Look what I just found!"

He waved a wispy length of white cloth at Jim.

"What?" Jim demanded, his heart leaping.

"Geronde's favor! And just in time, too. Be a good
fellow, will you," Brian went on, turning to Carolinus,
"and tie it about my vambrace, here on the shield arm
... Thank you, Mage."

Carolinus looked grim, but nonetheless tucked his
wand into the crook of one arm and with his freed
hands fastened the cloth around the armor of Brian's

254

left forearm. Brian turned about, drove his spear into
the ground and tethered Blanchard's bridle to it.
Then, catching up his shield position, he turned back
and drew his sword with his other hand. The bright
blade gleamed even in the dull light. He leaned for-
ward to throw the weight of his armor before him; and
ran at the worm, which was now hardly more than a
dozen feet away.

"A Nevffle-Smythe! A Nevffle-Smythe! Geronde!"
he shouted as they came together;

Jim heard but did not witness the impact of their
collison. For just then everything began to happen at
once. Up on the hill, Bryagh screamed suddenly in
fury and launched himself down the slope and iftto
the air, wings spread like some great bomber gliding
in for a crash landing. Behind Jim was the frenzied
flapping of leathery wings as Secoh took to the air to
meet him—but this was drowned by a sudden, short,
deep-chested and grunting cry, like a wordless shout.
Lifting his club, the ogre had stepped clear of the
boulders, coming straight down the hill with heavy,
ground-covering strides.

"Good luck, boy!" said Smrgol in Jim's ear. "And
Gorbash—"

Something in the other's voice made Jim turn his
head to look at him. The ferocious mouth-pit and
enormous fangs were close to him, but behind them
Jim read an unusual expression of affection and con-
cern in the dark dragon-eyes.

"Remember," Smrgol said, almost softly, "that you
are a descendant of Ortosh and Agtval, and of
Gleingul who slew the sea serpent on the tide banks
of the Gray Sands. And be, therefore, valiant. But
remember, too, you are my only living kin and the last
of our line—and be careful!"

The old dragon's voice stumbled and choked. It
seemed to struggle for a fraction of a second before
it went on.

"And—er—good luck to you, too—er—James!"

Then Smrgol's head was jerked away as he swung

255




about to face Secoh and Bryagh, who came crashing
to earth entangled together, almost on top of him.
Jim, turning back toward the tower, had only time to
take to the air himself before the rushing ogre was
upon him.

He had lifted on his wings without thinking, out of
his dragon-instinct when attacked. He was aware of
the ogre before him, halting now, its enormous gray
feet digging deep into the ground. The rusty-banded
club flashed before Jim's eyes and he felt a heavy
blow high on his chest that swept him backward
through the air.

He flailed with his wings to regain balance. The
oversize idiot face was grinning only a couple of
yards from him. The club swept up for another blow.
Panicked, Jim scrambled aside in midair, retreating,
and saw the ogre sway forward a step. Again the club
lashed out—quick! How could something so big and
clumsy looking be so quick with its hands? Jim felt
himself smashed out of the air down to the ground,
and a lance of bright pain shot through his right
shoulder. For a second a thick-skinned forearm
loomed over him and his teeth met in it without
thought.

He was shaken like a rat by a terrier, and flung
clear. His wings beat for the safety of altitude and he
found himself about sixteen feet off the ground, star-
ing down at the ogre, who grunted and shifted the
club to strike upward. Jim cupped air with his wings,
flung himself backward and avoided the blow. The
club whistled through the unfeeling air; and, sweeping
forward, Jim ripped with his teeth at one great
shoulder before beating clear. The ogre turned to face
him, still grinning. But now blood welled and trickled
down where Jim's teeth had torn, high on the
shoulder.

Abruptly, Jim realized something.

His panic was gone. He was no longer afraid. He
hung in the ah-, just out of the ogre's reach, poised to
take advantage of any opening; and a heat of energy,

256

a sharpness of perception was coursing all through
him. He was-discovering that, with fights—as with a
great many similar things—it was only the before-
hand part that was bad. Once battle was joined, sev-
eral million years of instinct took over and there was
no time or thought for anything but confronting the
enemy.

So it was, now.

The ogre moved in on him again and that was his
last intellectualization of the fight; for everything else
was lost in the moment-to-moment efforts to avoid
being killed and, if possible, to kill, himself.

It was a long, blurred time—about which, later, he
had no clear memory. The sun marched up the long
arc of the heavens and crossed the midday point and
headed down again. On the torn, sandy soil of the
causeway he and the ogre turned and feinted,
smashed and struck at each other. Sometimes he was
in the air, sometimes on the ground. Once he had the
monster down on one knee, but could not press his
advantage. At another time they had fought hallway
up the slope to the tower and the ogre had pinned
him in a cleft between two huge boulders. The club
was hefted for the final blow that would smash Jim's
skull. Then he had somehow wriggled free, between
the very legs of his opponent; and the battle was on
again.

Now and then, throughout the fight, he would catch
brief kaleidoscopic glimpses of the combats being
waged about him: Brian, wrapped about by the blind
body of the worm, its eye stalks now hacked away,
and the knight striving in silence to draw free his
sword and sword arm, which were pinned to his body
by the worm's encircling form. Or there would roll
briefly into Jim's vision a tangled, roaring tumble of
flailing, leathery wings and serpentine bodies that was
Smrgol, Bryagh, and the mere-dragon. Once or twice
he had a momentary view of Carolinus, still standing
erect, his staff upright in his hand,-his long white
beard flowing forward over his gown, like some old

257

seer in the hour of Armageddon. Then the gross body
of the ogre would blot out his vision and he would
forget all but what was before him.

The day faded. A mist pressed inward from the sea
and fled in little wisps and tatters across the battle-
field. Jim's body ached and his wings felt leaden.
But the ever-grinning ogre and his sweeping club
seemed neither to weaken nor to slow. Jim drew back
in the air for a moment, to catch his breath; and in
that second he heard a voice cry out.

"Time is short!" it called, in cracked tones. "We are
running out of time! The day is nearly gone!"

It was the voice of Carolinus.

Jim had never heard it raised before with such a
desperate accent. Even as he identified it, he realized
that it had sounded clearly to his ears—and that for
some time now, upon the causeway, except for the
ogre and himself there was silence.

He had been driven back down from the slope to
the area from which he had started. To one side of
him, the snapped ends of Blanchard's bridle dangled
limply from the earth-thrust spear to which Brian had
tethered the horse before advancing against the worm.
A little off from the spearshaft—from which the ter-
rified horse had evidently broken free—stood Car-
olinus, leaning heavily on his staff, his old face
shrunken, almost mummified in appearance, as if life
had been all but drained from it.

Jim turned back to see the ogre nearly upon him
once more. The heavy club swung high, dark and
enormous in the dying day. Jim felt in his limbs and
wings a weakness that would not let him dodge in
time; and with all his strength, he gathered himself
and sprang instead up und&r the sweep of the mon-
ster's weapon and inside the grasp of those cannon-
barrel-thick arms.

The club glanced off Jim's spine and he felt the
ogre's arms go around him, the double triad of bone-
thick fingers searching for his neck. He was caught,
but his rush had knocked the ogre off its feet.

258

Together they rolled over and over, on the sandy
earth, the ogre gnawing with his jagged teeth at Jim's
chest and striving to break the spine or twist the neck,
while Jim's tail lashed futilely about.

As they rolled against the standing spear and
snapped it in half, the ogre found his neck hold and
commenced to twist Jim's neck as if it was a chicken's
being wrung in slow motion.

A wild despair flooded through Jim. He had been
cautioned by Smrgol never to let the ogre get his arms
around him. He had disregarded that advice and now
was lost, the battle was lost. Stay away, Smrgol had
warned, use your brains ...

But the wild hope of a long chance sprang suddenly
to life in him. His head was twisted back over his
shoulder and he could see only the darkening mist
above him; but he stopped fighting the ogre and
groped about with both forepaws. For a moment of
eternity, he located nothing—and then something
hard nudged his right foreclaw, a glint of bright
metal flashed before his eyes. He gripped what he
had touched, clamping down on it as firmly as his
clumsy claws would allow—

And, with every ounce of strength that was left
to him, he drove the broken half of the snapped spear
deep into the middle of the ogre, who now sprawled

above him.

The great body bucked and shuddered. A wild
scream burst from the idiot mouth beside Jim's ear.
The ogre let go, staggered back and up, and tottered
to its feet, towering above Jim as the stone edifice
itself towered above them both.

Again, the ogre screamed, stumbling about like
a drunken man, fumbling at the broken end of the
spear that was sticking out of him. Jerking at the
shaft, he screamed again; and lowering his unnatural
head, bit at it like a wounded animal. It splintered in
his teeth. He'then screamed a final time arid fell to his
knees. Slowly, like a bad actor in an old-fashioned
movie, he rolled over on his side and drew up his legs

259




like someone with a cramp. An ultimate scream was
drowned in the bubbling in his throat; black blood
trickled from his mouth. He lay still.

Unsteadily, Jim crawled to his feet and looked
about him.

The mists were, oddly, drawing back from the
causeway and the thin light of late afternoon stretched
long across the bouldered slope, the tower above it
and the small plain below. In the rusty light, Jim saw
that the worm was dead, literally hacked in two.
Aragh lay, grinning, a splint on his broken leg. Brian,
in bloody, dented armor, leaned wearily on a twisted
sword not more than a few feet from Carolinus.
Dafydd was down, his shirt half torn off., the shape
of a harpy sprawled motionless across his chest. Dan-
ielle stood above him, an arrow still notched to her
own bow. As Jim watched her, she slowly lowered her
weapon, cast it aside and dropped down beside the
Welshman.

A little further off, Secoh raised a bloody neck and
head above the motionless, locked-together bodies of
Smrgol and Bryagh. The mere-dragon stared dazedly
at Jim. Jim moved painfully, over to him.

Looking down at the two immense dragons, he saw
that Smrgol lay with his jaws locked in Bryagh's throat.
The neck of the younger dragon was broken.

"Smrgol. .." Jim croaked.

"No . . ." gasped Secoh. "No good! He's gone ... I
led the other one to him. He got his grip—and then
he never let go . . ." The mere-dragon burst into sobs
and lowered his head.

"They all fought well," creaked a strange, harsh
voice.

Jim turned and saw the knight standing at his shoul-
der. Brian's face was as white as sea foam below the
now-helmetless tousled brown hair. The flesh of his
features seemed fallen in to the bones, like the face
of an old man. He swayed as he stood.

"We have won," said Carolinus. "At a price!"

He turned to Danielle. Jim and the knight turned

260

with him. She was still beside Dafydd; but she had
pulled the harpy from Dafydd's upper body, and the
shreds of his shirt. Brian's helm, now filled with water
from beside the causeway, was with her and she was
gently sponging a red tear that ran from near the
joining of Dafydd's neck and left shoulder to his
middle ribs.

Jim, the magician and the knight walked together
to stand over the two of them. With his shirt off,
Dafydd's upper body looked twice as large as it had,
clothed. It was a sculptor's find of a chest: the shoul-
ders lay back, square and incredibly broad of bone,
and powerful muscle lay in cables across the bow-
man's lean torso from the pectorals to the abdominals,
as if molded by an anatomist building a display model.
But the body was limp now, and still.

"Indeed," said Dafydd to Danielle, so faintly that,
had it not been for the utter stillness now all about
them, the three watchers would not have understood
him, "you are wishing the impossible. As the Mage
said, their bite is death, and I feel that death now in
me."

"No," said Danielle, sponging away at the ragged
slash the harpy's teeth had made in him.

"But it is so," Dafydd insisted, "though I wish it
were not so, for that I love you. But to every bowman
comes death, in time. I have always known this, and
am content."

"You are no longer merely a bowman." Danielle's
voice was steady and composed. "I made you a knight
and you are a knight; and as a knight, it's ungentle-
manly of you to take leave without my permission.
And I do not wish you to go. I will not let you go!"

With a strength that startled Jim, for all that Brian
had told him about how she pulled a hundred-pound
warbow, Danielle lifted his upper body easily in her
arms, laid his head against her shoulder and held him
to her.

"I have you," she said; and though her eyes were
perfectly dry and her voice quite calm, almost busi-

261

nesslike, the sound of it wrung Jim's very guts, "and
I'll never give you to anything else—even to death
—unless you want to leave me. You have to tell me
you want to leave me, or eke you can't die."

Dafydd smiled faintly.

"Indeed . . ." he said; and in that moment after, in
which he said nothing, Jim was ready to believe that
the single, faintly breathed word had been his last.

But the bowman spoke again.

"Then it's true, that you really wish me to live. If
so then death must come get me against my will,
which I do not think it or any other thing can do, since
never have I been forced against my will nor shall be
now, look you."

He closed his eyes, turned his head a little to rest
against her breast and said nothing more. But his chest
continued slowly to rise and fall steadily.

"He'll live," Carolinus said to Danielle. "He asked
no price for coming here, and not even the Auditing
Department can ask a price of him, now that he's
helped win this day."

The girl did not answer the magician, but bowed
her head above Dafydd's slowly moving chest and
sat holding him as if she would sit there forever, if
necessary. Jim, Brian and the magician turned back
to Aragh, and to Secoh, who had conquered the ex-
plosion of his grief and now sat quietly above the
body of Smrgol.

"We have won," said Carolinus. "Not again in our
lifetimes will this place gather strength enough to
break out against the world."

He turned to Jim.

"And now, James," he said. You wanted to go
home. The way is open."

"Good," said Jim.

"Home?" asked Brian. "Now?"

"Now," said Carolinus. "He has wished from the
beginning to return to his own place. Sir knight. Fear
not, the dragon who's the original owner of this body
James has been wearing will remember all that's hap-
pened here and be your friend."

"Fear?" Brian somehow managed to dig up a spark
of energy to spend on hauteur. "I fear no dragon,
dammit! It's just that... I shall miss you, Jamesi"

Staring at Brian, Jim saw the knight's eyes unex-
pectedly brimming with tears. He had forgotten learn-
ing, in his studies of the European Middle Ages, that
people cried then as naturally as they laughed; his
own self-conscious twentieth-century self felt acute
embarrassment at the sight.

"Well, you know..." he muttered.

''Well, well, James," said Brian, wiping his eyes on a
trailing end of Geronde de Chaney's favor. "What
must, must! In any case, in respect to the old boy
here"—he nodded at the dead Smrgol—"I'm going
to see what can be done about this dragon-human
alliance business, so I'll be seeing a fair amount of
whoever owns this body you've been in, and it'll be
somewhat like having you around, in any case."

"He was great!" burst out Secoh, staring at the body
of the old dragon at his feet. "He made me strong—
for the first time in my life. Anything he wanted, I'd
doit!"

"You come along with me, then, to vouch for the
dragon end of things," said Brian. "Well, James. I sup-
pose it's good-bye, then—"

"Angie!" cried Jim, suddenly remembering. "Oh—
excuse me, Brian. But I just remembered. I've got to
go get her out of the tower."
. He spun around.

"Wait!" said Carolinus.

The magician turned to face the edifice itself; and
raised his wand.

"Deliver!" he cried. "You are vanquished. Deliver!"

They waited.

Nothing happened.




Chapter 22

Carolinus struck his wand once more, end-
wise, upon the hard sand.

"Deliver!" he cried.

Once more they waited. The slow seconds stretched
out into minutes.

"By the Powers!" Suddenly, strength seemed to
have flowed back into S. Carolinus. His voice was once
more full and he looked to have grown six inches.
"Are we to be flouted? Auditing Department!"

Something happened then that Jim was never to for-
get. The memorability of it lay not in what happened,
but in the quality of the event. Without warning, the
whole earth spoke—the sea spoke—the sky spoke!
And they all spoke with the same, single, bass voice
that had responded from thin air to Carolinus before,
when Jim was present. This time, however, nothing
was apologetic or humorous about the voice.

"DELIVER!" it said.

Almost in the same second, something dark came
swiftly out of the blackness of the arched, ground-
level entrance to the tower. Drifting down the slope
toward them, it seemed to float; but it arrived more
quickly than its leisurely velocity indicated. It was a
mattress of intertwined fir boughs, the needles still
fresh and green upon them; and on that mattress An-
gie lay, her eyes closed.

The mattress reached them and settled to the
ground at Jim's feet.

"Angie!" he exclaimed, bending over her.

For a moment a deep fear had stirred in him; but

264

then he saw that she was breathing steadily and
calmly, as if only sleeping. In fact, as he watched, she
opened her eyes and looked up at him.
"Jim!" she said.

Scrambling to her feet, she threw her arms around
his scaly neck and hung on to him. Jim's heart did a
flip-flop in his chest. His conscience ripped him like
a handsaw for not having thought of her more dur-
ing the past days, for not having managed to come
for her sooner.

"Angie . . ." he murmured tenderly—and then
something struck him. "Angie, how did you know it
was me, and not some other dragon?"
She let go and looked up at him, laughing.
"Know it was you!" she exclaimed. "How could I
miss, after all this time in your head—"
She broke off suddenly and stared down at herself.
"Oh, I'm back in my own body, again! That's bet-
ter. That's much better!"

"Head? Body?" Jim's mind wobbled between two
incredible questions; and finally chose the one that
sounded the more ominous. "Angie, whose body were
you in?"

"Yours, of course," she said. "That is, I was in your
mind, which was in your body—or Gorbash's body,
to be exact. At least, I way—unless I'm dreaming now.
No, there they all are, just the way they Should be:

Brian, Dafydd, Danielle and the rest."

"But how could you be in my mind?" demanded
Jim.

"The Dark Powers, or whatever they call them-
selves, put me there," said Angie. "I didn't catch on,
at first. Right after Bryagh brought me here, I got
sleepy and lay down on those fir branches. The next
thing I knew, I was in your head—seeing everything
that was going on. I could tell what you were thinking,
and I could almost talk to you. At first I thought some
accident had happened; or maybe Grottwold had been
trying to bring us back and got us mixed up together
this time. Then I caught on."

265




"Caught on?"

"The Dark Powers had put me there."

"The Dark Powers?" Jim asked.

"Of course," said Angie, calmly. "They were hoping

I'd want to be rescued so badly that I'd keep trying
to push you to come to the Loathly Tower here, alone.
When I was about half asleep, I thought I heard some
voice or other talking to Bryagh about ways of getting
you to come after me without Companions to help

you."

"How did they know?" Jim frowned.
"I don't know, but they did," said Angie. "So, when
I remembered that, it wasn't hard to guess who'd put
me in your mind, and why. As I say, I couldn't really
talk to you, but I could make you feel the way I was
feeling, if I sort of pushed hard enough, mentally. Re-
member when Brian told you he had to get Geronde's
permission to be a Companion of yours and you would
both have to go to Castle Malvem, first? You remem-
ber how you suddenly felt guilty about turning your
back on the tower, with me there? Well, that was me
in your mind. I'd just woken up there, and didn't
realize why. Then it hit me that you might be in pretty
terrible danger going on to the tower alone, if Caro-
Unus had insisted you get some Companions before
trying it; and I remembered what I'd heard when I was
falling asleep. I put two and two together, and stopped
wishing you'd come to rescue me. The moment I did
that, I could tell that you began to feel better about

going with Brian to Castle Malvem."

She ceased talking. Jim stared at her, too full of

questions to sort out what he wanted to ask first.
Now that he had a moment to notice, he realized that
apparently Angie had grown in translating to this other
world. He had thought of Danielle as tall, but now he
saw that Angie was equally so. Not that she looked
any the worse for the increase in size. To the con-
trary—

Carolinus clicked his tongue.

"Two minds in one body!" he said, shaking his

head. "Highly irregular! Highly! Even for the Dark
Powers, that's taking a chance. Could be done, of

course; but—"

"But wait!" Jim had found his voice. "Angle, you

said Gorbash was in my mind, too? How could he be?"
"I don't know how, but he was," Angie said. "He
was there already when I got there. I couldn't com-
municate with him, though. You had him sort of

locked up."

Jim winced internally. Now that Angie had iden-
tified Gorbash as the other mind in the back of Jim's,
he could feel the original owner of the dragon body
strongly. Gorbash had evidently returned to his own
head back during that moment in the dragon caves,
when Jim—alone with Angie—had been as good as
knocked out by some invisible force. Now Jim could
feel Gorbash clearly—wanting control of his own body

again.

"Three!" Carolinus was saying, staring at Jim.

"What do you mean, 'locked up'?" Jim asked An-
gie, feeling a twinge of conscience toward the dragon.

"I don't know how else to describe it," said Angie.
"You've been sort of holding his mind down with yours
—that's the best explanation I can give you. I didn't
see any of this, you understand, I could just feel what
was going on. He couldn't do a thing unless you got
emotionally wound up about something and forgot him

for a moment."

"Three!" Carolinus repeated. "Three minds in one
skull! Now that really is going over the line. Dark
Powers or not! Auditing Department, are you copy-
ing all this—"

"Not their fault," said the voice out of thin an-.

"Not... ?"
"Not'the fault of the Dark Powers that Gorbash was

there," explained the Auditing Department. "They did
put the Angie-mind in with the James-mind, but the
responsibility for the presence of the Gorbash-mind

lies outside our departmental area."
"Ah. Complicated matter?" asked Carolinus.

"Decidedly. Wheels within wheels. So if you'll start
to straighten things out as soon as possible—"

"Count on me," said the magician. He tamed back
to Jim and Angie. "All right, now. What do you want?
Am I to send you both back?"

"That's right," said Jim. "Let's go."

"Very well," said Carolinus. He looked at Angle.
"And you wish to return?"

She looked at Jim for a moment before answering.

"I want whatever Jim wants ..." shesaid.

Jim stared at her, bewildered.

"What sort of an answer is that?" he asked. "What
do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," Angle said, with a hint of
stubbornness in her voice. "I want what you want
—that's all."

"Well, I want to go back, of course. I just said so."

She looked away from him.

"Very well," Carolinus agreed. "If you'll both move
over here by me—"

"Wait!" said Jim. "Wait just a minute!"

He turned to face Angle.

"What's all this?" he demanded. "Of course we're
going to go back—just as quick as we can. What else
can we do? There's no choice about this!"

"Of course there's a choice," said Carolinus, irri-
tably.

Jim looked at the magician. The old man appeared
tired and cross.

"I say, of course there's a choice!" repeated Caro-
linus. "You've now got sufficient credit with the Audit-
ing Department for a return. You can spend it all
going back; or stay and keep some of it to help build
your life here. It's up to you. Make up your mind,
that's all!"

"Stay, James," said Brian, quickly. "Malencontri
can be yours—yours and the Lady Angela's, just as
we promised earlier. Together, our two estates and
families will be too strong for any enemies."

Aragh growled, a wordless sound. When Jim looked
over at him, the wolf glanced away.

Jim tamed back at Angie. He was feeling com-
pletely mixed up.

"Come on," said Angie, putting her hand on his
massive dragon-shoulder. "Let's go and talk for a sec-
ond."

She led him toward the side of the causeway. By
the edge of the water, they stopped and Jim heard the
lapping of tiny waves against the edge. He looked
down into her face.

"Did you really know everything I did?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Everything you did and thought!"

"Hmm." Jim remembered a stray thought or two he
had had about Danielle.

"That's why I believe you ought to think about
this."

"But what do you think?" he insisted.

"I said what I think. I want whatever you want.
But what do you want?"

"Well, of course I want to get back to civilization.
I'd think we'd both want that."

Again she said nothing. It was very irritating. It was
as if she forced his words to hang in the air in front
of his nose, staring back at him.

"Hmm!" he growled to himself.

It was ridiculous, he thought, to suppose that he
could want anything other than to go back. His job
was waiting for him at Riveroak, and sooner or later
they would be finding someplace to live—admittedly,
nothing palatial—but it would be at least a one-room
and kitchenette. And later on, when they both had
teaching positions, they could move up to something
better. Meanwhile, back there they had all the bless-
ings of civilization—doctors, dentists, accountants to
figure out their bills, time off every summer to do what
they liked . ..

Moreover, all their friends were back there: Danny




Cerdak; and, well, Grottwold . . . Here, there were
only a bunch of strange characters they had met only
the week before last: Brian, and Aragh, Carolinus,
Danielle, Dafydd and the dragons and so forth . . .

"To hell with it!" said Jim.

He turned around to take his decision back to Car-
olinus, with Angie trotting along beside him. No one
was looking at them now, however. All were facing
the approaching figures of Giles o' the Wold and the
men with him. The little army was a sorry looking lot,
and many bore evidence of wounds, but they were
smiling through their weariness as they began to re-
port the final rout of Sir Hugh's men, now fleeing back
in the direction of Castle Malencontri.

"And Sir Hugh?" Brian asked.

"Alive, worse the luck," Giles told him. "Though
he was reeling a bit in the saddle, the last I saw of
him. One of my men got a shaft through his armor,
and he'd be losing blood. Less than half his men go
back with him."

"Then we can take Malencontri before he can re-
coup his losses," Brian exclaimed. Then he frowned
uncertainly and turned his face toward Jim. "That is,
we could, if we had reason..."

"I'm staying here," Jim told the knight gruffly.

"Hurrah!" shouted Brian, throwing his helmet into
the air and catching it, as if he was twelve years old.

"Very well!" Carolinus said, testily. "If that's your
decision. You realize that if you spend your credit
with the Accounting Department to get your own body
back here, you won't have enough left over to change
your mind and return whence you came? You'll have
enough to get you started here, but not enough to
get moved back, after all."

"I understand. Of course, I understand that."

"All right, then. Stand back, all the rest of you!
We're going to be having two- bodies where one is
now. All right, then"—Carolinus lifted his staff and
thumped its end down on the earth—"there you are!"

270

And there he was.

Jim blinked. He found himself looking directly into
the dangerously toothed jaws of a dragon-muzzle less
than six inches from his nose; and clutching a pillow
to his body, which was now dressed only in what
seemed to be a white hospital gown.

"Just who do you think you are?" demanded the
dragon-jaws.

Jim took a couple of steps backward, partially to
keep himself from being deafened and partially to get
a better look at what was confronting him.

"Gorbash?" he said.

"Don't try pretending you don't know me!" said the
dragon, which Jim was now seeing entire.

It—Gorbash—was a very large and fierce-looking
animal. Larger and fiercer than Jim had realized, from
his experience inside the body.

"Of—of course I know you," Jim gasped.

"You certainly do! And I know you. I ought to.
Who do you think you are, taking over somebody
else's body, doing what you want with it and treating
the dragon who really owns it as if he just appeared
in it yesterday? All the time using it the way you
choose to. Mishandling it, taking risks with it! Would
anybody believe what this george did with my body
in just the first few days after he had it?"

Gorbash turned appealingly to the others standing
around.

"Shut me up completely. Wouldn't let me twitch a
muscle—in my own body, mind you! Then, before I
could think, he went headfirst off a cliff and started
flailing around with my wings so much that I could
barely get them beating properly in time to keep us
from smashing on the rocks. Then, he nearly got the
Mage here to turn us into a beetle. Next, he overflew
and got my muscles stiff. Then, instead of resting up,
he swims—mind you, swims—across all sorts of water
in the fens. Never a thought about our toes and vi-
cious sea turtles or giant sea lampreys come into the
tidewater. And that's only the beginning. Then—"

271




"I—I didn't end up in your body on purpose," pro-
tested Jim.

"But you certainly acted like you owned it from the
minute you got there! And don't interrupt!" Gorbash
roared, resuming his appeal to the audience. "And
that was just the beginning. He nearly got us eaten by
sandmirks, did, get us nearly killed by the horn of that
other george, and never a bite to eat or a drop to
drink . . . er, except for that time at the inn. But that
hardly counts!'*

"Oh, it doesn't, doesn't it!" cried Secoh. "I heard
about that feast of yours at the inn. All the lovely
meat without hardly any bones you could stuff into
you! All the rich, rich wine! It wouldn't be James who
wanted to drink that cellar dry, and you know it as
well as I do—"

"WHAT?  Shut up, mere-dragon!"  boomed

Gorbash.

Secoh gave a sudden bounce that landed him nose
to nose with Gorbash, who reared back instinctively.

"I will not shut up!" roared Secoh. "I don't have to
shut up! I'm as good as any other dragon, mere-bom
or not."

"Mere-dragon, I'm warning you . . ." Gorbash be-
gan ominously, beginning to hunch his shoulders and
gape his jaws.

"You don't scare me!" cried Secoh. "Not anymore,
you don't. It was your own grand-uncle taught me I
didn't have to bow down to anyone. Death before dis-
honor! I've just fought a dragon as big as you were—
to the death! Well, anyway, I helped your uncle fight
him. He didn't scare me and you don't scare me. You
haven't done anything—all you did was get carried
along by what James wanted to do with your body.
But you'll go around preening yourself for the next
hundred years, talking about how you were in a fight
with an ogre! All right, you go ahead, but don't try to
push me around. I'll tear your wings off!"

And Secoh snarled into the very teeth of the bigger

dragon.

272

Gorbash bobbed his head and looked uncertain.
"Yes, and another thing!" said Secoh. "You ought
to be ashamed of yourself! If your grand-uncle was
alive, he'd certainly tell you so. He was a real dragon!
You're just one of those fat cave lizards. Here, James
made you famous-and all you can do is complain . . ."

"Ha!" said Gorbash—but he said it without quite
the force he had in his words a moment before. He
looked, away from Secoh toward the others. "I don't
have to worry about what some mere-dragon thinks.
The rest of you were around and saw how it was with
this george taking over my body—•"

"And a good thing he did!" Danielle interrupted,
sharply. "You don't sound like anyone I'd trust to
face an ogre."

ttT___»>

"Gorbash," said Aragh, grimly, "you never had
much in the way of brains ..."
"But I—"

"Nor will I stand by and hear Sir James maligned,"
Brian announced. The knight's face was set and dark.
"Another word from you, dragon, about this good
knight and gallant gentleman and I'll find yet one

more use for my sword this day, bent as it is from .the
worm."

"I'll help!" said Secoh.

"Enough!" snapped Carolinus. "Dragons, knights—
you'd think there was nothing in the world but fight-
ing, ready as you all are to do it at the drop of a leaf.
Enough of this now! Gorbash, another word from you
and you can be a beetle, after all!"

Gorbash collapsed abruptly. He thumped down on
his haunches and began making choking noises.

"You don't have to cry!" said Danielle, slightly less
sharply. "Just don't go around making foolish state-
ments like that."

"But you-don't know!"_Btt@unie(i-Gerba8b, in his
sub-bass voice. "None of you know! None of you un-
derstand what its been like. One minute, I'm count-

273




ing my diam—cleaning my scales. And the next, I'm
in some tiny magician's room aboveground, and this
george—I don't know if he was the Mage there or not
—bending over me. Naturally, I get up and start to
tear him apart, but all I have is a sort of george-body,
no claws at all, no teeth to^peak of ; .-.-And a lot of
other georges come in and they try to hold me, but I
get away and run out of this large castle I'm in and
some georges dressed all in blue, with clubs, comer
me; and one hits me over the head with his little club.
That george's head I've got can't even stand a little
hit like that; and the next thing I know I'm back in
my own body, but this george called James is already
there, and ire-keeps me crowded ^aek mto a comer so
that I can't do a thing unless he's so busy he almost
forgets about me. I can't even do anything when he's
asleep, because when he goes to sleep the body goes
to sleep and I have to go to sleep, too. That time in
the inn when we drank a little wine is the only time I
got loose at all, and if I hadn't been so hungry and

thirsty—"

"Gorbash," said Carolinus. "Enough."
"Enough? Oh, all right." Gorbash gulped and fell

silent.

"Speaking of wine. Mage," said Brian, a little

hoarsely, into the stillness. "Can you do something?
It's been a day and a night since any of us ate. A day
since we drank—and nothing but the water of the few
fresh ponds of the meres for drinking, even now."

"Also, if nothing else," put in the clear voice of Dan-
ielle from where she still sat on the ground beside
the bowman, "Dafydd needs shelter and warmth for
the night; and he's in no condition to travel. Can't
your Auditing Department do something for him, af-
ter aU he did for if?"

"His credit lies in another area," Carolinus ex-
plained.

"Look," said"Tim, '"you'saio-Td-have some credit

left over with the Auditing Department even after get-
ting my body back, if I decided to stay here. Let's use

274

some of that to get food, drink and shelter for every-
one."

"Well, perhaps . . ." Carolinus answered, gnawing
his beard. "However, the Auditing Department doesn't
keep a kitchen and a cellar stocked for entertainment.
But I can use some of your credit, James, to move
-everyone to where food and drink are available."

"Go ahead," Jim suggested.

"All right, then"—Carolinus raised his staff and
struck its end against the ground once more—"done!"

Jim stared around him. They were no longer on the
fenland causeway by the Loathly Tower. They were
back once more before the establishment of Dick Inn-
keeper. The sunset was rosy behind the treetops to
their west and a gentle twilight held everything. A
mouth-watering smell of roasting beef came from the
open doorway of the inn.

"Welcome, welcome, travelers!" called Dick, him-
self, bustling out of the open door. "Welcome to my
inn, whoever ye may—"

He broke off, his jaws dropping.

"Heaven help me!" he cried, turning to Brian. "Sir
knight, Sir knight, not again! I can't afford it. I simply
can't afford it, no matter how many times you're af-
fianced to milady in the castle. I'm only a poor inn-
keeper, and my cellar holds only so much. Here you
are now with not one dragon but two, and at least one
other—uh—" He stared doubtfully at Angie, and at
Jim, still dressed in his hospital gown. "Gentleman
and lady?" he wound up a questioning note; and
added hastily, "Plus the Mage, of course. And all the
rest..."

"Know you, Dick," said Brian, sternly, "that this
other gentleman is Baron James Eckert of Riveroak,
just lately freed from his ensorcelment into the body
of the dragon, after slaying an ogre at the Loathly
Tower and defeating the Dark Powers who threatened
us all. This is his lady, the Lady Angela. Over there
you see the dragon—Gorbash, by name—in which
the ensorcelment took place. You can even see the

275




scar of Sir Hugh's lance upon him. Beside him is a
dragon of the meres and fens—Secoh, by name—who
despite his smaller size has fought most valiantly this

day—"

"No doubt, no doubt!" Dick was wringing his

hands. "A worthy company, indeed. But Sir knight,
someone must pay me this time. I ... I must insist."

"Unfortunately, Dick," said Brian, "sensible as I
am of your situation and the strain our party threat-
ens to put upon it, I am not wealthy myself, as you
know. Nonetheless, as I did previously, I will

pledge—"

"But pledges do me no good. Sir knight—with all

respect!" cried Dick. "Can I feed other travelers with
the pledges, which is all I will have left after you and
your friends have been accommodated? And if I can-
not feed travelers, what will become of me and

mine?"

"Carolinus," Jim offered, "I've still got some credit

left, haven't I? Why don't we use that to pay Dick?"

"It's not that kind of credit," said Carolinus,
grumpily. "For an instructor in the arts, your igno-
rance is appalling sometimes, James."

"Dick Innkeeper," said Danielle, and her voice had
an edge to it that made all look at her, "whether or
not you feed and house me, or these others—all but
• one—means nothing to me. But Dafydd needs warmth
and sustenance; and I give you fair warning, if it be-
comes necessary for—"

"Not necessary," growled Aragh. "Though if it

comes to that, there is an English wolf at your side.
But we've no problem here. Gorbash can afford to

pay for the best for all—and will!"

"I ... ?" Gorbash grunted like a dragon just hit in
the solar plexus by a particularly powerful ogre. "I?
I've practically nothing, no hoard at all to speak of—"

"You lie!" cried Secoh. "You were next of kin to
that great dragon, your grand-uncle. As next of kin,
you've been told where his hoard lies; and since he
was very old he was very rich from years of hoarding.

276

You have two hoards, let alone one; and you're a
wealthy dragon!"

"But I—" Gorbash began.

"Gorbash," said Aragh, "I've been a friend when
you had none other, except your grand-uncle. This
day you've lost him. You owe a debt to James and
these others who've made life safe for you and
touched you with the mantle of their courage. The
least—I say, the least—you can do to discharge a part
of that debt is to cease whining about what little you'll
pay here. If you can't do that, you're no friend of mine
and I leave you alone in the world."

"Aragh—" began Gorbash, but the wolf turned his
back. "Wait, Aragh! Of course I didn't mean ... Of
course, I'm happy to make a, well, a celebratory feast
in honor of my grand-uncle who slew the ogre of
Gormely Keep and today in his old age . . . Well,
what more do I need to say? Innkeeper, your best for
these people, and you shall be paid in gold before we
leave."

In a daze, Jim found himself ushered into the inn
just behind Danielle and Dafydd, who was carried
gently to the best bed and tucked in to recover under
Danielle's care. In another room, Jim struggled into
a number of clothes brought up from the store in the
inn's basement; and eventually emerged, richly clad,
with Angie, onto the grounds outside, to find that ta-
bles and benches laden with the materials for a feast
had been already set up.

While they had been inside, the sunset had died
completely and now night was come. Great torches on
tall standards blazed all about them and made a warm
cave in the new night. Their fires crackled and
sparked around the long table with benches on either
side. The surface of the table was hidden under roasts
and joints, fruits and cheese and other food of all
kinds; while at the far end stood a massive hogshead
of wine, already tapped, and before that, a row of
drinking vessels both human- and dragon-sized.

"Well done!" said the hearty voice of Brian behind
them, and Jim and Angie turned to see the knight

emerge from the inn, his eyes fixed on the table. "Dick
Innkeeper has sent to tell Geronde we're here. She'll
be joining us in a bit. Dick's really done us up well,
eh, James?"

Brian had also dressed. He was out of his armor
and wearing a scarlet robe Jim had never seen before.
Jim suspected the knight of also benefiting from the
inn's store of clothing. In the robe, belted around his
narrow waist by a broad tapestry-like gold cloth hold-
ing a dagger in a gold sheath skeined with ivory
threads. Sir Brian Neville-Smythe was a noble figure.
The sight of him reminded Jim of his own inadequa-
cies.

"Brian . . ." he began, awkwardly, "I should tell
you something. You see, I really don't know a great
deal about using a sword and shield, or a lance, or a
great many things like that. I'm not sure how much
use I'll be as a friend—now that I'm staying. I'm not
even in training for the sort of thing you take for
granted. It's not as if I still had Gorbash's dragon
body, with all its muscles..."

Brian smiled.

"Well now, James," he said, "indeed, it will be a
pleasure for me to train you myself in the noble use
of arms and all else that becomes a gentleman of your
rank. As for muscle, it would be strange if one of your
size and thews could not make a good man of deeds."

"Size . . . ?" Even as Jim echoed the words, he re-
alized he had been aware of what Brian was talking
about for some time; in fact, ever since his mind had
returned to his own body.

He had not paid real attention to it until this mo-
ment. He had seen how Angie had grown in translat-
ing to this world. But as he compared himself now to
Brian, he faced the fact that beside him the knight
looked no larger than a half-grown youth.

Understanding woke inside him.

He had forgotten one thing—or, in fact, a number
of things: the suits of medieval armor he had seen in
museums, the plans for medieval boats, buildings and
furniture ... In the European Middle Ages the aver-

278

age size of men and women was much smaller than it
had become by the twentieth century, his own time.
Jim had been merely middling tall in his own time and
place. Here, he was a giant.

He opened his mouth to explain this, but before he
could speak he felt Angie squeeze his arm. Behind
Brian, others were coming out of the inn. Danielle,
and Giles o' the Wold, closely followed by Carolinus,
and two sons of Dick Innkeeper, who carried wooden
platters and goblets. The heavy shapes of Gorbash
and Secoh had also loomed up in the torchlight out of
the darkness beyond the open terrace and now Aragh
slipped up, too, to join them. There was a clean, fresh
splint on the wolf's broken leg.

"The innkeeper says all is ready," he growled.

"God be thanked!" commented Giles. The leathery
face of the outlaw leader was bent into new creases
by a rare smile. "For, I vow, we were all close to fail-
ing there for lack of proper meat and drink."

"Amen!" said Brian, limping a little as he led the
way toward the benches and the tables. "Take seats,
friends, and let us all be joyous, for we're given pains
enough in life so that we should not lack will to make
good use of pleasure such as this, when it is truly
earned."

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