"I feel I should be of more use here, James," said Dafydd. "After all, it is my land now being disturbed."
"Don't think of it that way, Dafydd," said Jim. "This is something I'm the only one equipped to do something about. In a word, for the rest of you, it could kill you, but you couldn't kill it. Now, let's get back to where we first saw that thing that looks like you."
They rode back along the front of the trees. Once more, they left the false Dafydd standing behind them; and once more he was there when they got to their original position.
"And you, James?" said Brian, breaking the silence of that ride and crossing himself as they halted at last to face the Dafydd image again. "Can he not kill you?"
"Not unless I let him," said Jim.
The answer was designed to reassure the others, and to obscure the fact that he did not yet have a clear understanding of what they faced. But a bottomless crack in the earth, stretching as far as they might try to ride in either direction, was ridiculous, in terms of the magical expense it would represent. If it was the real thing.
The first thing he needed was a close look at the rift from a safe distance. He changed to his dragon-sight.
"James!" said Brian, sounding a little sick. "Your eyes—"
"It's all right," said Jim. "I've part-changed them into the eyes I have when I'm a dragon, so I can see better—no different than looking out a couple of windows."
"Damned ugly windows."
Jim ignored the comment. From his present distance he was closely watching the false Dafydd. The advantage of high-flying birds like the falcons, the eagles, and others was not so much that they saw things on the ground larger than a human would see them; it was that they were very much better in picking up movements—even very small movements—from very great heights. That was one reason many small animals tended to freeze when such a predator appeared overhead.
Now he kept his eyes on the false Dafydd, looking for any kind of movement, even the slightest. There was none. The guarding figure stood like a carved statue.
"Ah!" he said in satisfaction, returning to his normal human vision. But this time he spoke carefully to himself. He was tempted to tell the others what he had in mind; but experience with the people of this time and world told him that once the word magic was uttered, their eyes glazed over and you might as well have sung a lullaby to them as tried to explain yourself—what he was saying was plainly something too mysterious for them to understand. So they didn't.
Besides, they would—or at least Brian and Dafydd would—disturb his concentration with their concern—spoken or unspoken—that whatever he had in mind wouldn't work. They were too used to being the ones to take care of him in more ordinary troubles and tight places; but this was something too massive and too much beyond their experience for them to understand.
Jim swung down out of his saddle.
"Stand!" he said to Gorp—unnecessarily. Gorp had finally learned to stand if his rider ever left him with his reins dropped to the ground.
"James!" said Brian sharply. "What are you intending?"
"Sir James!" said Dafydd—and the more formal address emphasized the sense of responsibility in him. "I said this was my land, my duty."
Jim waved them back as they both rode toward him.
"There's nothing to it," he said. "This is just something I've been equipped to do; and neither of you have. Hob, hop back onto Gorp's saddle, and wait for me there. That's an order!"
"I'm not afraid, my Lord."
"That's not the point. Sir Brian and Master Bowman Dafydd ap Hywel aren't afraid, either, but they, too, have to let me do this alone. Hop!"
Jim had already stepped a couple of paces from Gorp. Hob hesitated a second, then made one of his remarkable leaps across a good six feet of space from Jim to the saddle.
"Be right back," said Jim, waving his hand to them all again, as he turned his back and started off toward the false Dafydd and the dark rift beyond.
He did not walk straight at the Dafydd figure, but on a path to pass close by it. Nonetheless, the figure did not move as he came closer.
He came on steadily, but as his vision became filled by what was before him and his friends were left invisible behind, tension began to mount in him. He reminded himself that he was surrounded by his ward, and that ward could not be penetrated by anything unless he allowed it—that he was a living being; while he had a strong doubt that the Dafydd figure before him also was.
So if the figure and the rift were, as he had guessed, merely another ward, untenanted, set up and left—like Carolinus's ward that could protect his frail cottage, pond, and flowers from unlimited armies, even though Carolinus himself was not there—then within the armor of his own ward he must be safe against what was here.
But a conclusion was not a certainty. Particularly not a certainty in his guts. He could be wrong. If he was wrong… he felt his body start to stiffen and became aware that his right hand had crossed his waist to close upon the hilt of his sword. So much of the fourteenth century had now, after all, become a part of him.
If he was wrong, the sword would be no more use to him than his empty hand; but it was warming to the chill that was growing inside him, in spite of his magical knowledge and experience. The false Daffyd was three steps away from him—he was two steps away—he was one…
Jim turned his head to make himself look straight into the calm face of the figure as he passed by it, and saw it suddenly distort and collapse, as if it were made of water pouring under gravity—but a gravity beside it instead of beneath its feet—pouring into him; or rather into the ward around him.
And in that ward it was lost, swallowed up, disintegrated. He felt it happen—as he had bet on it happening.
His hand dropped from his sword. He had been right. He went forward toward the rift. That was the bigger gamble, the greater unknown.
The closer he came to it, the more he saw into it; and the more it sickened him to look at it. Close up, the bulges and hollows in the stone sides that had merely appeared humanlike in shape, seemed more and more clearly so; like the shapes of actual people caught and overwhelmed by a flow of molten stone. The growing chill he had felt, approaching the false Dafydd, came back on him, but far more strongly; for to finish what he had set out to do, he would need to walk forward as if the rift was not there—eventually even stepping out into the emptiness of the air between its sides. To fall—where?
His mind told him that since the figure had proved to be false, there was no doubt the rift was, too; but his body sweated anyway, and his right fist was once more gripping his useless sword. There was still much he had to learn about this sort of magic.
But he was a man of the later centuries, he reminded himself; a man of reasoning mind and willpower. And with his mind he drove himself forward, on to the very lip of the rift with his left foot; and, with a powerful effort, out over nothing with his right one.
His right foot touched nothing solid.
There was no sound; but the universe seemed to scream voicelessly around him, as the walls of the rift began to flow up and up on either side of him. He was falling.
No! He was not! It was rising!
Up into his ward—up into the small unbreakable space surrounding him, was now pouring all the massive structure of the rift, being eaten up—engulfed—destroyed by the suit of magic armor that was the ward Kineteté had given him—what he had guessed was a more skilled version of the double ward in which he had smuggled his magic back into the Gnarly Kingdom. Bless Kineteté's magic. He should have had faith it would be stronger than anything a magic-maker of these lands could put against it. Or bless the Laws of Magic that had made what was happening possible.
—Or bless both.
It did not matter—but as he faced that fact, he became conscious that the knowledge that the rift was being destroyed by his ward, rather than his by the rift's, was becoming harder and harder to hold to. Exhaustion was growing in him from the great effort it took to disrega
rd all the evidences of his senses and hold to what his mind knew.
"I'm standing still. The rift is moving—" he told himself. You lie! You lie! screamed his eyes and all the evidences of his physical responses. You're falling! Falling—deeper and deeper. You're lost!
He fought it. The sensitivities magic had begun to build in him, these last few Years, told him he must fight it. If he gave in, if he let that inner voice triumph, the balance could shift and the ward of the rift would win back everything it had lost, and him as well. But his strength was going.
There was a pressure, a flow of energy so massive and continuous against him that he was being made bound and helpless by it. In that helplessness he felt himself unbalancing, as if he had been standing on one foot. He fell over on one side, stiffly, as a one-legged toy falls; and still the other ward poured into his. It was like being buried by a rising volcano. He had to hold on.
He reached for something to cling to—and his mind went to Angie. Angie was the one part here of the world they had both come from. She was real. She was part of a reality that had nothing to do with magic. Everything like that here was a dream or illusion. As long as he could see Angie in his mind, he told himself, the rift could not take him.
—And, suddenly, it was over.
He got up, still facing into the wood with his back to Brian and Dafydd, still on their horses. He was soaked in sweat and his body was trembling. It was an effort to keep standing, rather than simply collapse where he stood. But the rift was gone.
"Easy!" he ordered his body under his breath, making it a magic command. "Stop sweating. Stop stinking!"
The body obeyed. He turned and walked slowly back toward the others. He thought they all, even the horses, looked at him strangely.
Chapter Twenty-Three
James—?" said Brian, the sharp blue eyes on either side of his falcon nose keen upon Jim.
"I'm fine!" said Jim shortly, feeling an unreasonable irritation—probably a hangover from his experience with the cleft. He took hold of Gorp's reins and saddle and started to mount. It was almost more than he had strength to do. Brian reached out an arm and helped him up.
A light weight landed on his shoulder.
"Are you hurt, m'Lord?"
"I'm fine, Hob!"
"Drink deeply!" said Brian, holding his own saddle flask to Jim's lips.
"I'm all right, I said!"
"Drink!"
Jim drank, almost choking on the volume of red wine Brian poured into him. He pushed the flask upright and away from him.
"That's fixed it," he said—for otherwise Brian would never leave him alone. His ever-filled flask was not only Brian's first aid prescription for any problem—it was the prescription of his historic time and place. "I'm all right now."
"Good red wine!" said Brian, on a note of satisfaction, driving the leather-clad wooden stopper back into the neck of the flask with the heel of his hand. "Just the thing for a sudden blow. It was a magical blow of some sort, was it not, James? We saw you pass the creature that looked like Dafydd and make him disappear, then you took a few more steps, stood in mid-stride for a moment to destroy the hole beyond, and then fell over. A magical blow, I said to myself, at once. He's had a magical blow—God send it did not kill him! But it had not, thanks to Him—and will not thanks to the good red wine."
"Thank you, Brian."
"Hah!" said Brian, embarrassed. "Well, shall we ride on?"
"Yes," said Jim. It was remarkable. His mind was clear as a bell, though it might become a bit foggy when that wine, swallowed in one sustained gulp, caught up with him. "Unless Dafydd—it's his country. Dafydd, what do you think? Also, where are we in this Borderland of yours, because I assume we entered it once we passed those trees behind us."
"We did," said Dafydd, "and I find it hard to call it my country anymore, with such magicks and pitfalls in our way. Somewhere in it, though, are those responsible for such things; and it is well we have come to see who and what and where they are. We are a little above the middle of the Borderlands, which stretch the length of our border with Lyonesse. The cliff you know, that was the entrance to the Land of the Gnarly King, is near the south end of the Border, which is to our right. I suggest we go straight across here, try north first, then south until we find what strangers are with us."
"Cannot you find them by magick, James?" said Brian. "Some swifter way?"
"I don't think so," said Jim. "If I knew someone among them, maybe; but…"
He let the sentence trail off. There was really nothing more to say.
"M'Lord—my Lord, I mean," said Hob timidly, "why don't you ask one of the trees?"
They all looked at the hobgoblin.
"The little one's right, of course," said the QB. "The obvious answer, and none of us thought of it for ourselves."
Realizing that they were now all looking at him approvingly, Hob glowed, radiating happiness down to his fingertips.
Jim was the first one to think a step further. A good deal of his first feeling of satisfaction with Hob's suggestion went down the drain as he realized Brian and Dafydd would be watching him doing the asking.
"QB," he said, "wouldn't it be a good idea if someone else were to be the one to ask the tree this time—Brian, say, or Dafydd? Get the trees used to them, too."
"No. No, I don't think so," said the QB. "You've already been in touch with one Drowned Land tree for the Land's young King—and in a good cause, a very good cause. Also, if the trees here are at all like ours in Lyonesse, other trees in this land will now know you the minute you put your arms around them."
"Of course," said Brian, clearing his throat, "I cannot believe it would be quite the right thing for a knight to do—I speak, of course, of a simple, ordinary knight—rather than a Mage…"
"I'm not a Mage!" said Jim. "You know that as well as I do. Just a C+-class apprentice magician. I'm nowhere near a Mage. Anyway, there's no reason anybody couldn't do it."
"You're sure you would not be forswearing yourself, or anything of that nature, dealing with strange magicks?"
Jim found the unreasonable irritation that had followed his dealing with the rift threatening to rise in him again. He knew Brian too well. His friend was deliberately needling him, egging him on.
"Certainly not, Brian. Nothing of the sort. The QB made a good point. Of course I'll do it." He looked at the thick trunks around him. "Which tree?"
He looked at the QB.
"That is for you to decide," the QB said. "There is an oak right over there. Oaks are among the trustiest and kindliest of trees, in my experience."
He pointed with his snaky nose. Jim looked off to his left at an angle of some forty-five degrees; and saw a massive trunk with its lowest branches at least ten feet above the ground.
He walked to it. The others followed him. He wrapped his arms around the trunk, with Brian and Dafydd watching him with deep interest.
"I did not think to watch him when he saved the King," Jim heard Dafydd remarking to Brian. "I was watching only my King."
"This is the same," said Brian.
Jim shut their conversation out of his mind. He hesitated only a second before putting his cheek to the rough bark.
"How should I tell a tree what we're looking for, QB?" he asked.
"It is difficult for me to say," answered the QB, "since we don't know what they are. Perhaps just—other strangers?"
"I'll try it," said Jim. He rested his head against the tree once more, and thought, "We're looking for other strangers, here in the Borderland. Not friendly strangers like us—whoops!"
The last word, or rather sound, came out of him with a jerk. The kindly oak had not only located what they were seeking but taken them to it, as the trees in Lyonesse had taken him to the QB originally.
"A small token of thanks from the trees of the Drowned Land, the tree says," translated Hob.
"Never mind that!" said Brian. "We're in plain sight, with the nearest foe less than fifty yards away!"
&nb
sp; Jim looked around. Dafydd was looking also. Now they stood near the foot of a tall yew tree—the only tree in a large, soup bowl—shaped meadow that was surrounded by the flanks of green hills clothed with distant trees above the rich green of Drowned Land grass. Before them, to the right and left, and behind them, were loose gatherings of men in half armor, or no armor at all—knights at leisure, and a few crossbowmen and foot-spearmen, generally without their warlike tools.
But all wore swords, however, or daggerlike sidearms too long and solid to be eating knives. Half-obscured by this strolling, talking crowd were the upper parts of some tents, less than clean and new, in the distance.
"The Saints be with us!" said Brian grimly. "We will stand out as if we were painted red to the first one who takes a good look at us!"
"Look you," said Dafydd, in his lazy, ready-for-action voice, "it may not be so, if we act as they do. I see no one here I know; and therefore none who knows me. Unless you, Sir James or Sir Brian, see some who know you?"
Jim and Brian both shook their heads, looking around them.
"Then I would suggest we simply walk among them, leading our horses as if we had somewhere to go in this place. They cannot all know each other. Even if we seem different, they are most like to take us for several who are part of their—but I was forgetting—" Dafydd broke off suddenly. "Our friend the QB is sure to attract attention—"
He again broke off suddenly, looking away to his left deep into the crowd. They turned to look in the same direction, but he looked back, shaking his head.
"A man of the Drowned Land—not wearing his color," said Dafydd. "I do not think he saw me. He was going even as I looked and gone now."
"How did you know him if he was not wearing—" Brian began.
"It would be hard to explain," said Dafydd, smiling at him. "But I would know anyone of the Drowned Land, anywhere. It does not matter. He is gone, and I will be on watch for him or any other like him. Let us on."