The Magick of Camelot Page 8

  One can be cruel in striking back where cruelty’s been used. It’s a game wherein people who truly love can rend each other bones-bare, and often do. A basic maturity’s supposed to intervene before things get critical. But there’s always a time factor. And that’s what we didn’t have—time!

  “By the gods, you’ll not!”

  “And you?”

  Her small chin went up defiantly. “Fm Marack’s princess. I play no games, sir. I but do what I must No one in all our council but you has said me nay.”

  “Murie,” I groaned in exasperation, “no one in the king’s council will ever say you nay.”

  She grew pale at my intimation. “I now know for sure that you’re not of Marack, my lord—or Kyrie Fern, as those strange people called you on that skyship. But I remain what I am, heiress to the throne of Marack. What I do is expected, whether I wish it or not. I have no choice!”

  I nodded, white-lipped, saying by rote: “My lady,” and arising to bow toward the king who was using the moment to return to his chambers and the ailing queen whom the day had in no way treated kindly.

  The time had passed more quickly than I’d imagined. It’s like that when serious things are afoot I recall battles that seemed to last all day, but in reality took but fifteen minutes. Many of our fifty had already sought their homes in the city below, or their wives in their castle apartments. The rains had eased, only to come roaring down again. The Lord Fel-Holdt bent to my shoulders, saying, “Collin, I’ve word that my first man has reached the road below. The dottles are arrived and waiting.”

  I asked curiously, for he’d spoken again of the major escape passage from Glagmaron’s great granite pfle: “How long will it take you—to reach the road?”

  “Well, ‘tis narrow, poorly kept, serpentine; it winds a thousand feet to go but three hundred. IVe some two hundred and fifty men to get from here to there. The torch smoke’s a problem too. Well use but three, with each man hooked to the belt in front of him. That way, they can at least breathe. So, I’d say at least forty-five minutes, Collin.”

  I said quickly, “Then we’re off, too, my lord. If nothing’s astir, there’ll be no problem. We’ll meet you within an hour on the east road to Gleglyn. If otherwise,” I laughed, “well, we’ll still meet you, in hell—or Gortfin.”

  Fel-Holdt hesitated. His craggy face and aged, blue-purple eyes—and they’d somehow lost their color as a man’s fur does when he grows old—were alert to danger. “Then you do think,” he queried, “that our merchants will be awaiting?”

  “I do.”

  “Is it wise that you personally oppose them? Others could as easily do the job.”

  ‘True. But they’ll not expect me. And for that very reason we’ll shout the fact of my presence to the heavens. A cry, as it were, to all freemen of the city and to all of Marack, too, that the Collin has escaped… . Believe me, my lord, if that oaf, Tarkiis, had done his business tonight, we’d all be either dead or taken. The fact that he didn’t shows that he knows little if anything of the affairs of true men. It is my hope that he’ll never have time to learn. In the meantime, to focus him on us gives respite to the people, whom we will organize while we organize Marack’s magick!”

  Fel-Holdt laughed quietly. Tve oft’ deemed ft, my lord, that your magick is more of the intellect than of ‘words.’ Tonight you prove me right. Well be on our way, sir, to await you on the Gleglyn road….”

  Gen-Rondin had come up, as had Lors Sernas, Raw! and the huge Sir Dosh. Rondin, a strong man who believed in action, said simply, “The rain looks like it’ll last, Collin. What say you?”

  “Why ‘go’?” I replied. “Full armor and gear. Let’s to it!”

  We shook hands then with those who would ride with Fel-Holdt and, went our separate ways. Murie and Caroween had, in the meantime, gone to fetch cloaks in their chambers.

  And so it began….

  Of all the partings on the stone slabs of Glagmaron Castle’s great courtyard, I think that was the saddest. Murie and Caroween joined us as the twelve students who would ride with us brought up the dottles. Gen-Rondin brought the four lord-ambassadors of Kelb, Ferlach, Gheese and Great Ortmund. Sir Dosh’s five swordsmen-knights were given to Caroween as her guard; each of the ambassadors had a handful of his own men.

  At a nod from me, Gen-Rondin led the others off to the shelter of the portcullis arc. Indeed the rain was such that between the main castle entrance and the gatehouse they simply disappeared. The portcullis arc was invisible, lost in the mist of water.

  Rawl, less stubborn than I, was able to forgive his Valkyrie redhead and to wrap her in his two strong arms for sundry “rubbings and pattings,” as Great Ap the Vuun would say, in disgust. Such, however, was not the case with Murie and me. We but went through the motions. Still, embracing as we did in the light of the burning torches, we were an appealing, romantic sight to certain castle scullery maids who watched us from a doorway. One even cried into her apron.

  Pushing me from her, Murie said solemnly, “You are my love, Collin. We should not part in anger, especially since we don’t know when well meet again.”

  I pulled her roughly back to nip an ear and murmur, “It need not be this way at all. Come with me, Murie.”

  “I cannot and I will not.” She leaned her slight weight against my furs and armor. “Nor will I be cozened into it. I know the power of my aunt, and of your potential, sir, as a breeding gerd. I’ve also seen the power of those skymen in your eyes. The road back for us will be hard, indeed.”

  “Trust me, Murie.”

  “Trust you!” Tears brimmed her eyes. “The gods damn ‘ you, Collin. I do not trust you. With your jealousy, you’ll wreak a harm to ruin us all.”

  “And yours?”

  ” Tis natural with women, but harmless.”

  I thought to spin her a web just one more time. I couldn’t help it. I even presumed that what I did was right; that I was properly smoothing things over. “Murie,” I told her, “‘tis true. I was jealous, for nothing like this has happened to me before. But I now see it your way. You are the princess. You’ll be the queen. You must do what you do for Marack, I, my lady, have simply asked that you spare me the details, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “You bastard!”

  “Murie. Again you take it wrong.”

  “Oh? You know that I’ll do nothing with that perfumed thing unless I have to. But you, my sweetest lord. Why you, at this very moment are bound to play our Elioseen’s game and then to blame the very deed on me. Oh, I read you, Collin. I read you like a candled egg!”

  She made to pull away. Our dottles, disturbed by her anger, whoood softly. In the near-distance, Dosh and some of the student-warriors caused their own mounts to prance and called out to calm them. Rawl, that feather-topped gallant— he’d dressed for show instead of battle, saying that he doubted much that any damn yarn-seller would stir himself on such a night—actually” hummed now while whirling his carrot-top in a lively pavane to the further tune of a brace of rainspouts.

  I held Murie tight. She relaxed and held me too, but finally said, “Leave, Collin, before we say things we can’t take back. I love you, my lord, and that’s my final word.”

  “I love you too, Murie.” I bent to kiss her one last time; upon which she sank her small white teeth into my lower lip and hissed, “If you do it, I’ll know. Never mind how, but I will. And by the gods, sir, I’ll seek you out and have you flayed and stuffed, you hear?”

  I laughed aloud. I couldn’t help it “What if I said the same to you?”

  “Why, I’d say you mocked me.” She then burst into tears, slapped my face hard, kissed me again, collected Caroween from the cavorting Sir Fergis and disappeared through the great opened doors of the main hall. All she needed was Hooli on her shoulders to convey her ultimate anger.

  We crossed the bridge in a shaft of silvered moonlight from Capil the larger of Camelot-Fregis’s two satellites. The clouds seemed to have parted for just that l
ittle scene, ghostly dottles; ghostly riders. Then the rains came again in timely gusts to hide our presence. Somehow the dottles knew that noise of any kind was taboo this night. We skirted the skyship in a great round-about curve before hitting the hill-road. At the junction to Glagmaron, Ferlach and Saks to the south and Klimpinge to the west, we bid godspeed to the two southern ambassadors and their men. I adjured them one last time to ask of Chitar and Draslich, the respective kings of those countries, that they offer no resistance and that they send their best warlocks post-haste to Gortfin Castle. Resistance, I said, will surely come. But it must be organized… . And if somehow or other this could not be done; if the leading lords of these two kingdoms had fought .and been slam by Alphians from their respective ships, then the ambassadors were to do what they could in getting their sorcerers to aid us.

  Glagmaron city was sound asleep. It was not a walled city. Only the entry roads were guarded with post houses and warriors from a central garrison. Rawl, myself and the lord, Gen-Rondin, rode at first to the fore, and purposefully. We wanted the word to spread on the morrow that certain lords had fled the castle. We knew we would be counted. We were fewer than twenty. That twenty, would be seen while the two hundred and fifty of Marack’s finest swordsmen, led by Fel-Holdt and Al Tils, would riot. It was but a small part of our game.

  We rode on, saluting at least two groupings of a dozen or so of the night watch in the town’s depths. All these king’s men, of course, were now alerted as to what had happened earlier with the skyship and the aliens on the tourney field. They were wary, nervous, offering us their swords and begging to go with us. Gen-Rondin told them to hide their Weapons and to be ready, for we would return!

  I then sent six of my best student warriors to the fore for bait. Two more padded on silent dottle paws at a few hundred feet to their rear. We followed on at another hundred or so.

  And then it came, what I’d expected, and in a small square toward the west road. As our six crossed it, better than two dozen armed men attacked from the side streets—and should I mention that the rain had stopped again? Since my six were prepared for it, none were taken. But the assault was fierce so that we actually heard the clash of swords before we heard the yells of “A Collin! A Collin!” from the central two who were meant to warn us….

  Even as we arose in our stirrups to unsheathe our greatswords, I was yelling, “Let just three escape to carry the message—Kill the rest now, else well be forced to kill them tomorrow or the day following.”

  Within seconds we’d smashed into them. Only four of my six students remained, their backs against the wall of a guild’s harness shop. Their dottles, from which they’d either jumped or been pulled, awaited the outcome at the arch of the square exit. Five bodies were strewn from the fountain to where they now fought. The two of their own who’d been lost were precisely there. The street-fighters, hired to do the merchants’ job, were pressing in so strongly that had we not arrived ours would have been dispatched, and soon, by faldirks alone.

  There was nothing gallant about what we did. They hadn’t a chance. No Fregisian warrior is merciless. Though he loves a fight, he loves it with an opponent who can in part match him, else where’s the glory. We killed them quickly, and it wasn’t pretty. I cut one great hulk to the sternum and took the screaming heads of two others. The Lord Gen-Ron-din, methodically, as if at a training post, lopped off heads and arms and laid open beer-swill bellies to the spine. Sir Dosh did likewise. Rawl pinned but one man to the wall, then wiped his bloody weapon on the man’s jacket and sat his mount in arrant distaste of the whole thing. Lors Sernas joined with my students who, after each had killed his man, pursued the others down two winding streets, roaring their war cry: “A Collin! A Collin!” to attract the proper attention. They returned shortly with the word that, as per orders, but three had escaped. The rest were dead…..

  At two miles beyond the city we drew up to face five silent figures seated on their dottles and barring the road. Fel-Holdt and Al Tils were with them, the remainder of our two hundred and fifty being hidden to either side. I told them what had happened. Leathern bags of sviss were then tossed from hand to hand and we drank deeply. For some reason, however, I was not in a mood for chit-chat, so I nodded perfunctorily; Fel-Holdt marshaled our forces and we continued on toward Gortfin.

  It was still at two hundred miles to the east. We’d ride straight through with but a single, four-hour dottle browsing period; this, after a nine-hour stint on the road. To force a dottle to run one second beyond the nine hours was impossible. If you persisted the dottle would simply lie down, look up sadly, and refuse to move until you either let him alone or he died. And no one, but no one, had ever done that to a gentle dottle in living memory. They would run at their heartbeat speed of twenty miles per hour. After the browsing period they would do it for another nine hours, and another nine, and another and could conceivably keep it up until old age cancelled them out. All of this being predicated, of course, upon Camelot-Fregis’s twenty-six hour axial spin….

  We’d started out at ten p.m. It was eleven now. With the first nine hours, plus four, it would then be but eleven a.m. when we started out again; and this was only one hour’s riding to go. In essence we’d arrive at Gortfin within the hour before lunch. Good timing, I thought, especially since we all would have slept through the browsing period and would therefore be fresh as newborn babes….

  To a Fregisian nine hours in a dottle’s saddle is no big deal. They, like the dottles, can seemingly go on forever. But not me. I had a problem. I had twice the strength of a Fregisian but only half the stamina. My inability to withstand the rigors of dottle riding had long been known as “the Collin’s curse.”

  Nothing had changed. The contradiction remained. At the ride’s end, when we’d pulled off to a great meadow dotted with deciduous trees, I simply collapsed, swearing, amidst a wave of muted laughter. They’d chosen a good spot for me, beneath a broadleaf tree by a sparkling stream. The grass smelled sweet, clean. The hum of stingless bees and myriad other insects was softly pervasive. I slipped immediately into the night’s sleep I’d never had.

  I awakened just once, with a deep sense of peace, lethargy and complete relaxation. It was when I slept again that what I hoped would happen did happen.

  Hooli came!

  His coming was also relaxing. I could even see myself as if I were awake and watching him; with my hands behind my head and leaning back against the bole of the great shade tree. His coming was always a delight, really—for the way that he did it. .This time, alerted to the event by some primitive triggering device, I know beforehand he’d be there. It was like opening one’s eyes in a darkened theater and with the knowledge that the actor would arrive very soon to begin his. monologue.

  I was alert, though asleep; seeing, but with closed eyes. I but awaited the sound of a voice whose tone and content would be my own.

  He seemed at first like a dot somewhere off to the left. Then a bigger dot. And then, at a certain point, his skating figure evolved into an ancient Terran internal-combustion vehicle, with himself in the driver’s seat. It was a sleek ‘ two-seater with wire wheels, pointed rear end and a long, low, hood-covered engine. The difference between his facsimile, however, and the real McCoy, was that his was custom-made to size, his size!

  He slid to a stop before me with a screeching of brakes and a couple of whoom, whooms from the motor. He got out to leisurely peel heavy gloves from his paws, a dust coat from his body and huge goggles from his eyes. This left him in mortarboard cap, tweed suit of the late nineteen-hundreds and wire glasses with heart-shaped lenses. He busied himself at first with a meerschaum pipe, filling and lighting it, and then blowing exaggerated clouds of smoke. He then deigned to notice me, saying, as was his style: “Hey, buddy! What’s happening!”

  “Shit!”

  “Oh? That’s no way to greet a friend.” He sat down in midair and snapped his gaiters. ‘

  “So? You’re wearing Holmes’s suit, and that
’s his pipe. But you’re in the wrong generation. That vehicle—well, they used to call it a bear-something….”

  “Stutz, buddy. Stutz. Your collagen’s screwed up. They were the rage in your great, great, great, great, great, great, etc., etc., etc., granddaddy’s time.”

  I shook my head, “Why do you do this?”

  ‘Takes your mind off problems; helps to put em in perspective.”

  “Your perspective, not mine.”

  “Oh?” He stood up, tossed his glasses to nowhere, fixed a monocle to one eye and grinned a rodent grin. “Did you like my death scene?”

  “What death scene?”

  “Camille. On the good ship Deneb.”

  “You little bastard. Why?”

  ‘To get your attention, buddy—without scaring the bloody crappola out of you.”