He was feeling a keen delight in being airborne. It was strange, he thought now, how he forgot about the sheer joy of it when he was not translated into dragon form; and how strongly the feeling came back to him once he was aloft. It was a far more gratifying feeling than flying a small plane, which Jim had taken a few lessons at doing, back in his original twentieth-century world, or even like soaring in a man-made glider, which he had done as a passenger, twice. In this case it was his living, feeling self alone that was riding the air currents; and there was a triumphant sensation of both freedom and power.

In his large dragon body, with its much higher mass-to-surface ratio than that of his human one, he was not bothered by the cold. Heat would have been something else again. He had almost melted down trying to walk through the summer heat in the middle part of France as a dragon, a couple of years ago; and the rush of cold air about him now was only pleasant.

He was alive right out to the tips of his enormous wings, which reached out an awesome distance on each side of him, in order to make it possible for that body of his to plane through the air. He was soaring, not flying, as most of even the large birds preferred to do, because of the enormous expenditure of energy required to keep him aloft by flapping his wings alone; but once at sufficient altitude, he could ride the air currents and the updrafts with careful adjustments of his wings; the way a sailing ship might adjust both fore-and-aft and square sails to cause the wind to propel it across the surface of the water.

This adjustment was purely instinctive on the part of his body. Nonetheless, he appreciated it as much as if it had been a skill. It made him feel like a king in this airy realm.

However, he had now covered almost all of his estate and it was time to be heading back to the castle. He would be late for lunch. He started the long swing to his right that would send him homeward; but just then he spotted the widow Tebbits’s little sapling-and-clay igloo.

“Igloo” was not really a proper name for it; but he could think of no other architectural name that fitted it. It had been built out of saplings and thin branches woven together and plastered airtight with clay. It either had no proper roof, or the roof had settled into the walls over the years, giving it roughly the shape of an igloo. In any case, in the middle of the roof was a hole that was right above the sand-filled firebox in which the widow lit the fire for her cooking and heating.

That hole was not showing any escaping smoke now. What was more, it was covered from the inside.

Jim circled down and landed with a thump before the door, which the new direction of the wind had cleared of snow. The sound of his coming to earth evidently alerted whoever was inside; for someone fought with the door for a few seconds, then it popped open. The widow herself stepped out, bundled up in clothing, blankets and assorted rags until she looked more like a teddy bear than a human being, and recognized him immediately.

She gave the small obligatory scream that the Malencontri people had decided was the proper way to acknowledge their Lord in his dragon form, and then tried to curtsy. It was a mistake with all the padding she had on, and she almost tumbled over. Jim stopped himself just in time from reaching out to catch her. She would never have forgiven herself if her Lord had had to do something like that. Happily, the frame of the door kept her from going all the way down and she recovered her footing.

“M’lord!” she said.

Out of her swaddling of coverings, her round, soft, aged face peered at him with two sharp dark eyes.

“How are you, Tebbits?” asked Jim. The widow had a first name, but nobody on the estate seemed to remember what it was. “I noticed there was no smoke coming up from your roof.”

“Oh, no, m’lord,” said the widow. “Thank you, m’lord. It’s good of you to speak to me, m’lord. I’m ever so grateful to you, m’lord. There’s no smoke because the fire’s out.”

“Is something wrong with the firebox?” asked Jim, remembering to use delicacy in approaching the subject

“No, m’lord. Thank you, m’lord.”

Jim sighed inwardly. He felt rather like a man in the dark with a ring-full of keys, trying to find the right one that would unlock the door in front of him. All of the tenants had a horror of openly complaining. They had ways of making their wants known to him-roundabout ways-and the pretense was always that they were perfectly in control of things and needed no help whatsoever... but if he happened to notice, just at this moment they could use...

“You wouldn’t have gotten a little low on firewood, during the snowstorm?” asked Jim.

“Why, I believe I did,” said the widow Tebbits. “I’m so dreadfully forgetful these days, m’lord.”

“Not at all,” said Jim heartily. How she had survived, in spite of all that padding inside, an unheated shelter for the last few days, particularly at her age, was beyond imagination. “You know, I think I saw a fallen branch off in that patch of woods over there. It might be useful to you. I believe I’ll just go and get it for you.”

“Tebbits,” said Jim, in an autocratic, warning voice, “I choose to go get you that bough!”

“Oh, pray forgive me, m’lord. Very sorry, m’lord. Crave pardon!”

“Be right back,” said Jim.

“Here!” he said gruffly-and then noticed that she was eyeing the thickness of the branches where they had been attached to the tree somewhat wistfully. “Oh, come to think of it,” he said, “have you an ax where you can get at it conveniently?”

“Alas, m’lord,” said Tebbits. “I’m afraid I lost it, like.”

She had almost undoubtedly never had one, thought Jim. Iron was expensive. He must do something about getting her at least some sort of tool for cutting up thicker pieces of wood.

“I’ll have Dick Forester send someone down here with some of the castle wood sometime later today,” Jim wound up. “Have you flint and steel? Can you get the fire started?”

“Not at all. Be old myself one day, no doubt!” he said bluffly. “Heaven bless you, Tebbits.”

“May Heaven bless you, m’lord,” said Tebbits.

But, in the process, something new caught his eye. Something not on his land at all. On the small estate of Sir Hubert Whitby adjoining his. Sir Hubert was waving his arms, shouting something incomprehensible at this distance, and directing several of his own tenants or servants over some problem or other-Jim’s telescopic dragon-sight informed him.

Sir Hubert was not the best of neighbors. In fact, he was probably not far from being the worst of neighbors, Jim thought. But then he checked himself. Sir Hubert was not really bad, dangerous, evil, dishonest or rapacious-or any of the many things that neighbors could be in this fourteenth-century England. But he was a never-satisfied annoyance; always angry about something, always insistent and complaining about it at great length.

For a moment Jim was tempted simply to complete his turn and forget that he had seen anything at all. But then his conscience, plus the strong social feeling of obligation to neighbors that existed in this time, turned him back and he soared in the direction of Sir Hubert and his problem.

As he got closer, soaring this time on a convenient slant of the wind, he saw what the problem was. One of Sir Hubert’s cows had evidently fallen into a snow-filled ditch, or small ravine, and Sir Hubert, with the four men he had with him, were trying to get her out.

But the cow could not help them-or else she did not understand what she was supposed to do to help-and her weight was such that the four of them could not lift her or drag her from it. Sir Hubert was making so much noise that none of them realized Jim was even close to them until he landed in their midst with the same sort of thump with which he had landed outside of the widow Tebbits’s home. They all whirled about and for a moment they merely stared at him.

“A dragon!” roared Sir Hubert, whipping his sword out of its sheath. His face was pale, but the sword was quite steady. In spite of all his other faults. Sir Hubert was not a coward. No one was likely to live to adulthood back in this time if they were, of course, no matter what level of society they belonged to.

Clearly they had not recognized him, the way Jim’s own tenants and people did. The four men with Sir Hubert were actually not armed, aside from their ordinary all-purpose belt knives. But they all snatched these out and hefted whatever else they had in their hand that might be a weapon-in this case a couple of long poles which two of them held; and in the case of one man, rather ridiculously, a rope he was holding.

It was foolish of them, of course. Even fully armed and armored, on foot the five of them would probably never have escaped alive if they had seriously tried to battle a dragon of Jim’s size. While they might do some serious damage to Jim before being killed, Jim would certainly be the last to die.

“Don’t be an ass, Sir Hubert,” said Jim, finding the British phrase rolled quite happily off his tongue. What a handy sort of phrase it was for situations like this, he told himself. “I’m James Eckert, your neighbor-only in my dragon body. I came over to see if I could help.”

Sir Hubert’s face stayed pale and his sword stayed pointed, but its point dropped a few inches.

“Hah!” he said doubtfully.

“I happened to be flying by, taking a look at how my own lands had come through the snowstorm,” said Jim, “and I saw you having some trouble over here. So I came.”

Sir Hubert’s sword dropped down, but he still did not sheath it.

“Well, if it’s you, why didn’t you come like a man?”

“There’s a lot more strength in this dragon body of mine, when it comes to helping with something like this,” said Jim. “Stop and think for a moment, Hubert!”

“Well, damn it! How the bloody hell was I supposed to know?” the knight said. “You could have been any dragon, ravening for our blood!”

“I don’t raven,” said Jim. “You’ve eaten dinner at Malencontri often enough to know that, Hubert.”

“Well...” Sir Hubert sheathed his sword. “How can you help us?”

“I’m not sure yet,” said Jim. “Let me take a look at the situation. What kind of hole is she stuck in?”

“Little dimple in the ground, that’s all,” grumbled Sir Hubert. “If she had any sense in her head she could walk out of there. Damn cows, anyhow!”

“Steep sides or sloping sides?”

“Sloping,” said Sir Hubert. “If she’d help a little, we could have got her out of there.”

“If they’re sloping, maybe I can get down in beside her. Then if I lift and the rest of you tug, maybe she can scramble out,” said Jim.

Whether she actually succeeded in kicking him or not, Jim never knew. But he managed to get down beside her, low enough so that he could get leverage for the shoulder of one folded wing beneath her belly. Once he had her firmly pressed between his shoulder and the opposite side of the depression, she stopped bellering, gave one sad moo of utter despair and fell silent.

Jim took a deep breath and lifted, like a man lifting a weight balanced on one shoulder. The cow was no lightweight; but on the other hand, the muscles Jim was bringing into play were awesome compared to any human’s. The cow rose upward and sprawled out on her side on the far edge of the dimple; Sir Hubert’s men immediately laid hands on her, skidded her across the snow away from the depression and began to coax her to her feet.

Jim climbed out of the depression himself.

“Well, you did it easily enough,” said Sir Hubert grumblingly, almost as if he was accusing Jim of doing him an injury.

“You’re entirely welcome,” said Jim, knowing that Sir Hubert’s words were as close as the knight could come to saying thanks. He leaped into the air and began to climb once more for the long soar home.

With the wind in the southeast, he had to climb for altitude and make a long sweep over Sir Hubert’s land to get himself turned about and headed back to Malencontri. He was in the process of this when he suddenly realized he was high enough and looking in the light direction to see the woods in which Carolinus had his cottage; and his conscience niggled at him.

He had been meaning to talk to Carolinus-his Master in magic-ever since he and Angie with young Robert Falon and their personal attendants had gotten back from the Christmas party of the Earl of Somerset almost a month ago. But one thing and another had kept him from getting together with the older magician.

This was an ideal time to call in briefly for a quick chat on a couple of points that dated back to the Twelve Days of Christmas at the Earl’s, and had been bothering Jim since. For one thing, he had the sneaking feeling that he owed Carolinus an apology-having gotten somewhat annoyed with the other man during those twelve days.

But, back at the castle, it was already past lunch time. Angie would be waiting for him in the Great Hall. And there might be something to do with Robert that would call for him to be there...

Robert had become a concern that seemed to crop up in all sorts of otherwise ordinary situations. In fact, Jim was not at all sure that he was the right man to bring up an orphan boy of noble birth in the fourteenth century, where all such were raised to be warriors. He was no real warrior himself. The youngster could well be hampered by Jim’s different, twentieth-century outlook on life-

Jim pushed that thought from his mind. Robert was still far too young to eat lunch with them in the Great Hall. Still-Jim’s conscience pulled him both ways. But then he reminded himself that Angie would not wait very long before going ahead and eating by herself; so actually no harm would have been done. He, himself, could eat anything that was available after he got back to Malencontri, whenever that might be.

He altered the angle of his wings and headed toward the tops of the trees that still obscured the little clearing in which Carolinus’s cottage stood.

The clearing, when he got to it, was pretty much as he had expected it. It was completely surrounded by very tall oaks and yews, and roughly oval in shape. It was also roughly the size of a football field. Snow hung on the trees around the clearing and coated the ground up to within about ten yards of the cottage, leaving a perfect circle in which it was still summer.

Within that circle, the cottage stood, snow-free. The grass was green, flowers bloomed, and a fountain tinkled its jet of water in the middle of a small pool from which occasionally small golden fish-or were they very small golden mermaids?-leaped like miniature dolphins into the air. Jim’s eye had never been quick enough to make sure.

Beside the pool was a neatly raked gravel path leading up to the door of a small, oddly narrow peaked-roof house that ought to have looked out of place here; but what with the pool, the grass and the occasional flash of a golden jumping figure from the pool, it looked as if it could not have been any place else.

Jim landed with a thump at the end of the gravel path; but no one immediately tried to look out from the house to see who had arrived. He turned himself back into a human, complete with warm clothes (he had had a little trouble with the clothes part in the early days of learning how to use magic, but had it under control now), walked up to the door of the house and tapped gently at it.

There was no answer. He pushed gently on it and it swung open. He stepped in.

“Eh? What? Oh, it’s you, Jim,” said Carolinus, looking up.

He was seated in his large, wing-back chair, with a thick and heavy volume of some book or other, open on the table at his elbow; and the small green, sylphlike and fragile, female figure of a naiad perched on one of his knees, as lightly as a butterfly on a twig. Carolinus looked at her.

“You’d better run along now, my dear,” he said gently to the naiad. “We can finish our talk later.”

The naiad drifted off his knee to stand before him with downcast eyes. She murmured something incomprehensible.

“Certainly!” said Carolinus.

She turned and went toward the door. Jim stood aside to let her pass and she approached him with downcast eyes, glancing up for just a moment and murmuring something else equally incomprehensible.

“Not at all,” said Jim. He had not understood her, as Carolinus obviously had a moment before; but the words he had chosen ought to be fairly safe as an answer. She went on out the door and it closed behind her.

“Well, well, my boy,” said Carolinus cheerfully. “It’s good to see you, and particularly to see you in your human body, rather than the dragon one. This is a small house, you know.”

It was indeed a small house; and what was more, crammed to the rafters with books and everything else imaginable, ordinary and occult In fact, it looked more like a warehouse than a home. But since Carolinus was accustomed to merely ordering whatever he wanted from whatever was piled around to appear in front of him, this made no difference to the older magician.

“Well, yes,” said Jim. “I’ve been meaning to drop by ever since we got back from the Earl’s, and I happened to be close so I simply came on. I’m not interrupting anything, or catching you at a busy moment, am I?”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Carolinus. “Lalline and I can chat at anytime. You and I see each other all too seldom.”

The last words were a perfect invitation for Jim to point out that he had made a lot of efforts to see Carolinus. It was Carolinus who had been hard to find. However, he did not.

“But never mind that, now that you’re here,” went on Carolinus jovially. “You’re looking rested and in good spirits. Ready for your next adventure?”