The Magick of Camelot Page 5

  Remonstrating with him for the umpteenth time, I yelled, “Rawl. There is no plan. Tis a thing that’s still to be decided.”

  “Ha! But that’s the one I’m talking about.”

  I sighed, said softly, “But we must play the game first, the one wherein we do not fight, where no resistance is offered.”

  “But ‘tis after that I’m talking about.” His eyes had filmed. He refused even to think of an interim. ” Tis after, when we’re ready for them. All Marack will then see who’s had the right of it”

  Sir Dosh sat unmoved. Like his father, he lived happily from moment to moment, attributing all things, good and bad, to the whimsy of the gods, Ormon, Wimbely and the lost child, Harris. Still, he now said pompously, “Well then, my lord, your plan’s to trap them, right? An ambuscade, perhaps of a hundred or so lances; a flight of steel-point shafts from behind some well positioned boulders? I, myself, would prefer the first, sir. That way there’s a chance to get in close; with the sword, mayhap. A small splitting of pates….”

  “Well see,” I told him, and pledged them both. We emptied our cups—a reflex toast to nothing.

  The rosy-cheeked Sir Dosh, his bulging, owlish eyes blinking, then exclaimed as a point of information: “Well now. My good father who, as the world knows, would sheathe his sword in the liver of any liar did the man dare cozen him.

  My good father, who stood before the entire Kelbian army and hacked them all to—”

  “We know of him, my lord,” Rawl growled impatiently.

  “My most illustrious father,” Dosh glared blackly at Rawl, “who also stood in Onnon’s grace, as does our Collin. My father—” His voice then suddenly trailed off; he frowned darkly, shook his head and seemed to stare to nowhere.

  We waited. Nothing.

  Time passed until the impatient Rawl could stand it no longer. “In all courtesy good brother-in-law-to-be,” he shouted in Dosh’s ear, “what of your illustrious father?”

  Young-Dosh batted his bulbous eyes, scratched his head as if to bring himself back from wherever he’d been, grinned and said simply, “Well, sir. I forget. But ‘twas you who distracted me….”

  Rawl’s face went gog’s-blood red so that I feared for the young Sir Dosh. What with the night and Caroween’s refusal, his temper was frayed to the bursting. “I distract you!” he roared. “If your thoughts are so addled as to accuse me of the addling, then I’m bound to think, sir, that my sword’s flat across your thick skull might cure you once and for all.” He grinned evilly and thrust his face close to Dosh’s. “Look on me,” he said, “as your doctor!”

  Dosh blinked, sniffed, wiped his nose on a velvet sleeve and looked hard to me. “Is this then,” he asked rhetorically, “the man who’ll wed my sister, be queen’s consort to my father’s throne? I think not, Collin. Indeed,” and he too now roared, “a single word more from this bladder-head and, despite my sister, I’ll have his guts on our table’s top for a close divining of tomorrow’s happening.”

  At which point, my Rawl, raging, reached out to seize young Sir Dosh by the throat…

  I’d no choice but to roar louder than the two of them, yelling, “Cease now, both of you! No one is served by such intemperance. There is indeed a plan, though ‘twill not be carried out-by corpses. Save your, damned insults for those who’ll come tomorrow.”

  Rawl, hurling the stout Sir Dosh back to his seat, turned happily to me. “What is it, brother? I’ve a right to know for we’ve fought all too long together for there to be secrets now between us.”

  And there it was, the true reason for his heated anger. The coming battle’s complexities he could deal with. But to feel that there was a plan—and he really couldn’t imagine my not having one—to which he, my closest friend, was not privy was unacceptable.

  “Hear me,” I said to both of them, “and repeat it to no one.” I then told them word for word exactly what I’d twice told the council in their presence; except that this time I conveyed a certain deliberate intimacy. From now on, too, they’d be a central part of the collective effort of information gathering; of seeking out the weak points of the enemy, if any, and of helping me to forge some weapon to overcome the aliens.

  I stressed that there would indeed be red-war; that it would be long and hard. But that in the end we would win, and that those who fought in this, the last great fight, would live in the hearts of Marack for all eternity….

  “By the Gods!” Rawl exclaimed in absolute delight when I'd finished. “I’ve said it before, Collin. Remember? That though you oft’ do swear against violence, still, to you, all violence comes. I’ll now say again what I said then: I’d not trade your company, comrade, for the kingdoms of the world!”

  “You’ve a point there, cousin,” Sir Dosh said calmly, forgetting completely the brawl of the last few minutes. “And I do thank our most gracious Collin for allowing me a place in his small company. And as for you, sir, well I’m minded of my sister’s wicked temper and I doubt me not that ‘twill be well served by you.”

  The red gleam came again to Rawl’s eyes. If he’d actually understood what Dosh was saying he just may have seized him again. But he didn’t, and so the matter lay. When I think on it, I hadn’t the slightest idea either as to what Sir Dosh had said. But neither, I mused grimly, had Sir Dosh….

  We drank more sviss then. And Rawl seized a lute from someone and sang as we continued to drink until all things became foggy. Indeed, in the wee hours I again found myself in Murie’s corridor knocking on her door.

  This time ‘twas she who answered; stood in her arched entry in a diaphanous shift, legs apart, hands on hips to laugh merrily and say, “Well now here’s a pretty sight. The savior of Marack, my own true love. He who has slain his hundreds many times for my favor and my hand. How now, in truth, can I turn such constancy away?” Her smile disappeared. She pressed quite close to me to say huskily, “How now, indeed, could I do that, when drunk, sober or even playing the fool, he’s still all that I’ve ever wished for bed and kingdom. Come in, lout I’ll make a place for you upon my body.”

  I awoke in the gray dawn, or rather, I was awakened, ruthlessly, by Murie. My mouth was like the inside of an armorer’s glove. My head rang to the screams of a myriad of tic-tic birds outside the stone lacework of the windows. Like my own and Rawl’s, Murie’s apartment was situated some three hundred feet above the winding Cyr River.

  I tiptoed out. Protocol permitted one to sleep with one’s betrothed before marriage, even when she was a orincess of Marack. But one must never be caught in bed with her. The consequences were not pleasant to contemplate. Before leaving, I kissed her berry-red lips and the lid of one stone-bright eye that regarded me with the contradictory light of true love and deep suspicion. She sleepily sought to pull me to her, while mumbling, “Be pleased to wait on me, my lord, after we’ve breakfasted.”

  I nuzzled my acquiescence.

  We breakfasted, my now happy Rawl, Sir Dosh and myself—Rawl too had somehow managed to insinuate himself through Caroween’s chamber door—in the common-room on gog-milk, bread and delicious flatfish from the Cyr. We even allowed a handful of student pages from the city’s collegium, on castle duty during the summer months, to join us.

  In Marack, I was the students’ hero. Indeed, if and when I was killed and supposedly went to that strictest of heavens as ruled by the gods, Ormon, Wimbely and the lost child, Harris, I’m quite sure they would vote me their patron saint… . Once, in a needed act of bravado, when I and Rawl and the martyred Breen Hoggle-Fitz had challenged fifty of Kelb’s best swordsmen who’d arrived at Marack’s court, under the spell of the Dark One, and ostensibly to seek Murie’s hand in marriage for their Prince Keilwher, we’d chosen forty-seven students to fight at our side to make up the difference. We’d won, naturally, which made our students the heroes of the day. They’d never forgotten it. Indeed, I now, at all times, had a company of students as my persona] bodyguards—when I needed them. They attended classes in the town below while
being taught the bearing of all arms by Marack’s master swordsmen.

  Rawl, Murk, Caroween, Sir Dosh and our Omnian companion, the lecherous LOTS Sernas, along with myself, spent all the morning hawking in the bright sunlight, though not going too far at any time from the castle. While hawking, of course, we kept worried eyes on the cloud-fleeced skies for whatever might appear.

  Murie, as a reward for my nocturnal visit, or so she thought, had left Hooli in her quarters. Actually, I’d looked forward to her bringing the little bastard along. If the real Hooli was back, I wanted to be there when he came back. Not that he didn’t have other means of contact. Indeed, it Was all ninety-nine percent mental anyway; except it made me feel good when the real Hooli would do something, like thumb his nose at me when no one was looking, stick out his tongue, stand on his head and the like. He dearly loved to make me laugh. Indeed, he delighted in what he referred to as Terran humor,” humanoid humor, the like of which he’d not found anywhere. In any event, she’d left bun home.

  The others of our party, in true Fregisian style, had put the thought of the enemy ships from their minds as soon as the subject was dropped. So, while our dottles trotted gaily over the meadows and through lush stands of great trees to the south of the castle, and our fierce birds of prey knocked pitty-docks, tic-tics and fat bartins out of the skies by the pound, the danger was ignored.

  We had lunch in a sparkling meadow at high noon, entertained the while by our Sernas who told a wicked tale of incest in a branch of the Hishian ducal families (there were no kings in the south; the Dark One hadn’t allowed it), which brought blushes and statements of “Fie!” and the like from Murie and Caroween, though they’d listened avidly and on occasion licked their lips. Then, we descended a ravine to swim in the Cyr River, after which we rested on the river’s bank. Twas very pleasant, flies and insects buzzing and my head in Murie’s lap.

  When she too dozed, I used the moment to press one of the brightly colored stones that adorned my belt. It glowed warmly pink….

  “Come in,” I called mentally. “Come in. Come in, Kriloy.”

  He did, his voice worried but sleepy. “Kyrie? What’s happening?”

  “Nothing yet What’s with you? What’s with the ships?”

  “They’re not moving; haven’t moved an inch since the Deneb’s destruction. They’re just there.

  ” “And the galactic grid, the matrix?”

  “I’m working on something. If you hear a loud bang and see a big cloud to the south, you’ll know I failed.”

  “You’re going to play with the CT pack?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay. It’s probably your best chance. Still, don’t give up on the mag-lines. You tap ‘em right and you got all the power you could ever need.”

  “I tap ‘em wrong and who know’s what’ll happen.”

  “Couldn’t be worse than CT fission.”

  “So. How’s everyone taking it?” He changed the subject.

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “Sheeee!”

  “Okay, look,” I said. “You’ll hear from me if anything breaks at all. And I expect to hear from you, right?”

  “Right”

  But somehow it wasn’t right You can “work on something” in two ways: play at it or be serious. I’d give him another twenty-four hours….

  At three p.m. we returned to the field for a bit of archery. By five we’d thumbed our noses at the idea of the enemy showing up at all, this day. We returned to the castle.

  At six, in our respective apartments, Raw! and I had just completed our ablutions and I was patting cologne into all the right places, preparatory to going to the common room for the hour before sup. He called hastily and excitedly from where he stood at one of the south windows. “It’s here!” he yelled. “And there’s just one of them….”

  I ran to look. Sure enough, a single ship of those constituting the remaining pyramid of the alien warcraft was floating lazily some miles to the south. It seemed to be coming in our direction, but at a slower speed than a dottle’s trot Before it reached the field, we’d raced for the corridors and the courtyard exit, throwing on our clothes as we went I whistled up a couple of student pages who quickly brought our mounts from the stables. The great courtyard was bedlam as dozens of dottles in all their finery were brought to be mounted and pranced as a part of the entourage of the royal family, and others, all preparing to move out to greet the “guest.”

  Our plan, such as it was, provided for myself, Rawl, Fel-Holdt and a dozen or so of Marack’s proven leaders to take a low profile. We would follow in the wake of the king, but at a short distance. I’d pleaded vehemently that the royal family, not go at all; that the task of welcome be left to a handful of older lords as heralds, and with certain of the merchant class as representatives and the like.

  The king would not hear of it.

  “Nay! Collin,” he’d said strongly. “In the main we accept your counsel, sir. But I could not wear this crown did I not truly lead my people in bad times as well as good. And to lead them is to take all risks pertinent to kings. Say no more.”

  And off he went. I’d begged that Murie, at least, stay behind. She would not. She but looked to me proudly, leaned from her high saddle to kiss me, hard, and trotted off in the wake of her father to be at his right hand.

  Both sets of ponderous gates in the huge double walls had been flung open. Even as the king stared out the enemy craft had arrived to hover and then to settle precisely where I’d thought it would, on Glagmaron’s military field. The king rode with Murie to his right and the queen to his left. After them, Per-Looris, Gen-Rondin, Gen-Hargis, the great lord Ap Tils and his companion, Gen-Vrees of the sea city of Klimpinge, the Lord Dols-Kieren and-many more. The king made sure that he’d not be lacking in retinue. With him, too, went the five hundred men of the castle guard, the commanders of which, down to the lowliest sergeants, had been warned by Fel-Holdt himself to stay the swords of any man who sought to draw—on pain of instant death!

  Knights, ladies and castle visitors swarmed after them. And all this with only those of the Council aware that this ship that had flown down from heaven might take their lives.

  “And I warrant!” Rawl exclaimed as we rode out, “that if trouble comes, ‘twill be from them. For they’ll react to any threat of danger as they’ve been taught to do. They are Marackians.”

  I grunted noncommittally for he’d said it almost as if he wished it to be that way.

  At two hundred yards to the inner wall’s left we came to the second main gate to the bridge and trotted through and over. The lung’s party, bright banners waving, advanced leisurely. All those who’d been at joust, swordplay, or just picnicking on the field, also moved curiously but cautiously toward the ship. Their numbers, plus the knights, ladies, mendicants from the castle and the garrison, made up a sizable crowd of a few thousands. When my twenty or so caught up, we were hard put to force a way through; mis, since we wore no armor and had even covered our blazonry a bit so as not to attract too much attention. We managed, finally, to get within fifty feet of the royal family, and then to the fore of the mob who’d made a semi-circle at about seventy feet from the “visitor.”

  I had tune to observe it It was indeed a warcraft; certainly no merchant or passenger hulk for colonizing. We could easily have designed the thing ourselves, its lines were that simple. Sleek, rounded in the right places, elongated in others; generator-converter pods; sensor bulges, command-control and weapons sections, it was but a quarter of the size of the Deneb. Its nose and bridge, potentially translucent, were opaque now, for whatever reasons.

  It just sat there sort of brooding, and nothing happened.

  For this reason the waiting crowd became apprehensive, quiet. Time passed and still nothing. The great red-gold orb of Fomalhaut I was already low on the horizon. I didn’t like it at all.

  Then Sir Dosh spoke sotto voce to my rear. “By the gods, my lord. Here comes the other one, the big one.”


  I looked back quickly. Sure enough, the blue sphere, appearing from straight above seemed to be falling rapidly toward us, an optical effect. People screamed, thinking it was actually falling on them. Little coveys of the more timid ran this way and that Instead of landing, however, it hovered for but a few minutes then slowly wafted back toward the west like a great blue balloon, going finally to ground on a barren hilltop some three miles beyond the winding Cyr. From where we watched it mow looked like a small blue marble.

  Only then did a port In the warship’s side open to extend a telescopic ramp which first formed a platform, then a series of steps to the ground. This last was the first small indication of the nature of the life form aboard. The first of the aliens then appeared, to be followed by five companions. They walked casually, arrogantly, if you will, to the very edge of the platform. There they halted, placed hands on hips and gazed down at us with that certain look that I’d seen so often before and on so many worlds. It was the easy, familiar, scan of the conqueror, the overlord, the master!