“Forgive me,” said Jim. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You did not startle me, Sir James,” said the QB in its pleasant tenor speaking voice, which at first seemed so unlikely coming from its snake’s head. “After the first few centuries in Lyonesse, none of us startle. Things happen, people come and go-but, if you’ll excuse me a moment... I was just moistening my hunting voice-“

He lifted his head; and from his serpent mouth suddenly came the sound of thirty couple of hounds questing. The sudden change in volume was enough to make Jim stiffen in his saddle. A few of the hound voices, moreover, sounded a little as if they were gargling.

The QB frowned. Jim was intrigued. He had never imagined a snake face being able to frown. How was the QB doing it? He had no eyebrows.

“-Crave a moment’s pardon, Sir James,” the QB was saying, even as Jim thought this. “But this won’t do. I’ll try it again...”

This time the thirty couple of hounds questing almost blew Jim out of the saddle; but every voice was clear and pure.

“Much better,” said the QB. “You were looking for me? The trees told me that, so I brought you to me. Faster that way.”

“The trees talk to you?” Jim asked.

“Yes, it was one of the two great gifts Merlin was good enough to give me, once. The other was to be able to become a black-and-white staghound when needed.”

Jim opened his mouth to ask why becoming a staghound was such a great gift- then closed it again. The matter at hand was finding Brian. “Well,” he said, “it doesn’t matter now. We’re here.”

“There?” Jim stared at him.

“Look for yourself, Sir James.” The QB pointed with his nose.

Jim looked down and saw his legs, but no horse between them. Nor was the sumpter horse to be seen.

“Hob!” he said, in sudden alarm.

“Yes, m’Lord?” Jim turned his head. But no hobgoblin was to be seen on his shoulder.

“You see,” said the QB, “you’re really still back there where you hugged the tree.”

“Oh, you know about me and the tree?”

“The word as it was passed on to me was that you must have a noble heart to hug so well.”

“Well, I’m a Baron, of course.”

“Indeed, it shows,” said the QB. “But even kings, sometimes, have failed to have noble hearts. Not all are like our great King, Arthur Pendragon. Which reminds me. Whence do you come; and why are you here this time?”

“I’m down from the land above-my home’s named Malencontri, in Somerset. England.” The QB bowed with beautiful snaky grace, inclining his head and upper body. Jim bowed back in as courtly a fashion as he had yet learned to do. “But you know,” Jim went on, “I’d like my horses with me.”

“Then you shall have them,” said the QB. “Follow me, Sir.”

He headed off into the woods. Jim followed him, riding on invisibility and feeling very strange now that he knew he was doing it. But they went only a little distance before the QB halted again and turned back to face him.

“Stop!” he said. Jim pulled hard on his reins and stopped moving. “Now, turn your horses completely around.” Jim could have sworn he heard the sumpter horse nearby, grumbling something.

“Is this what you mean?” he asked, when he had reined to the right until he was facing back the way he had come.

“Almost. A few feet to your left... there. So, there you are now, all together in one place.”

Jim looked down, and saw himself. He also saw Gorp and the sumpter horse, and, turning his head, saw Hob on his shoulder. He did not understand it; but that did not matter.

“Were we that close to you and didn’t know it?” he said.

“Oh, no,” said the QB. “I was nearly half of Lyonesse away from the Forest Dedale, from which you must have escaped. But you’ve actually been here all the time; and it happens I’m able to move very swiftly if I want to.”

“I see,” said Jim. “And to take others with you, I see, also.”

“We all have our little gifts,” said the QB deprecatingly. “But in this case, I took you and yours nowhere; because you were really here all the time.”

“Nothing at all. I know only that you passed through Lyonesse once before, on your way to the Gnarly Kingdom. By the by, I hope your visit there was a pleasant one?”

“It was successful.”

“Ah, that kind of visit. I also know that Queen Morgan le Fay of Gore had a dispute concerning you with a person of great magic from the land above; and that as a result she was forced to let you go, and sent you to the Forest Dedale. There was something said by the Dieffenbacbia cantans who lost his voice-and therefore the honor of singing before the Original Knights of the Table Round at time of war-to the effect that you, yourself, are of strength in magic; and that is the reason Morgan le Fay was so incensed against you. Also, you came here with another from the land above; but he is not with you now.”

“That’s a lot,” said Jim. “Actually, my friend’s name is Sir Brian Neville-Smythe; and it’s about him I was looking for help from you.”

“I do not know the noble Knight, I’m afraid.”

“No, of course not,” said Jim. “But he was one of those with me when we came here before; and is a close Companion of mine, and my best friend. He’s been captured by someone, I’m afraid. I thought someone who knew Lyonesse as well as you could help me find him.”

Slowly, regretfully, in wide sweeping movements, the QB shook his head.

“Forgive me,” said Jim, a little stiffly. He had not expected so quick and flat a refusal to help. “It was just a thought.”

“A good thought, Sir James,” said the QB. “An admirable thought. Pray don’t think me unwilling. I just may not be able to help.”

“Oh,” said Jim.

“You must understand. I am of Lyonesse, and one of the Lords of Lyonesse, by virtue of being enshrined in the Legends of our great King and the Table Round. I know all there is to know about Lyonesse and what is within it; excepting that which is deliberately kept from me. I did not know your friend had been lost to you, therefore that knowledge must have been hidden from me. So I can neither know nor guess where he could be now.”

“Well, give me the whole list; and I’ll check them one by one.”

The QB’s head came up.

“Sir James,” he said strongly, “you sound like a true knight indeed; one well fit to tread the soil of Lyonesse. I will help you to my utmost. But a full list is not possible. It would have no end. From the Old Magick upwards, there are many, many magicks in Lyonesse. They are in all things here, and in almost all who live here-“

Jim nodded. He was beginning to understand. His own upbringing, from more than half a millennium later in time, led him to suspect patterns in everything. There could be one for the magicks here.

“-For example,” the QB was going on, “there are those unskilled in magick, but with one magick talent. Recall how Gawain, having forced a fight with Sir Lancelot close to the time of our Great King’s passing, made use of his gift of waxing in strength from morning to noon, to the strength of seven men; but Lancelot withstood him and won over him after the noontide.”

Jim would have sworn that his memory of the King Arthur legends had been buried and all but lost since his earliest years of reading. Now, though, with the QB’s words, Jim found an image rising to his mind.

It was a mental picture of Gawain-but by a strange sort of double vision of the imagination, it was Brian at the same time-lying wounded and unable to get up, and shouting at Lancelot to come back and fight until one of them was dead, or Gawain/Brian would one day force him to fight again; and Lancelot’s unforgettable words in Malory’s account, just before he turned and left, saying “I wall no more do than I have done. For whan I se you on foote I wall do batayle uppon you all the whyle I se you stand uppon youre feete, but to smyte a wounded man that may nat stande, God defend me from such a shame!”

For a second, to Jim it was all as clear in his mind’s eye as if it was taking place before him.

He shook his head. No. Men could go crazy with hate or fury. But Brian-like Lancelot, not like Gawain, to judge from Malory-was too caught up in the ideals of chivalry. He would never act like Gawain. He would wait to heal himself and then go hunting for his enemy.

“Well,” Jim said, “give me the list anyway. I’ll start with Morgan le Fay, then, and see where I go from there.”

“No,” said the QB. “You deserve better from me than that. I have considered. Clearly, you are brave enough to be taken where I can take you. If you choose, I will carry you to Merlin in the dark of the sky-which is soon, now.”

“Soon?” Jim looked to his right, above the trees; and sure enough, the white sun was now almost low enough to be lost in the upper branches of the surrounding trees. “It does set, then? How long is nighttime?”

“But a short time,” answered the QB. “Long enough only for you to ask Merlin’s help-if he chooses to give it you; and if you do not fear to speak to him.”

“He is very powerful,” the QB said. “He was always so; and he is still so.”

“But wasn’t he spell-locked inside a tree by Nimue?”

“Now we go, Sir James,” said the QB’s voice out of that darkness. “Do not try to move. I will move us.”

Jim sat still on Gorp; and for a space of time nothing seemed to happen. Then he felt moving air on his face, as if he was leaning out the open window of a traveling car. The breeze stopped abruptly.

“We are here,” said the voice of the QB. “Dismount.”

In the total darkness, Jim swung out of Gorp’s saddle with the familiarity of habit; and felt the heel of his foot jar against an earthen-soft surface a little before he had expected it. He took his other foot from the stirrup and stood by Gorp, holding on to the reins and the pommel of the horse’s saddle. Gorp stood rock-still, as a well-trained warhorse should.

“I will be back to get you just before the light rises again,” the QB’s voice came. “But Merlin will hear you now if you speak to him.”

Jim stood for a moment. In spite of the indifference he thought he had toward dark places, the coolness on the back of his neck was back again; and he felt a stiffening of the little hairs on the back of his neck.

“Merlin?” he asked.

His voice seemed strangely loud, but flat-as if lacking all normal echoes. There was no answer. Stubbornness lifted its head in him. He had come to get information.

“Merlin?” he said again-more loudly.

“Who calls?” The voice was powerful, not at all like the voice of an old man.

“Sir James Eckert, de Malencontri,” said Jim, strongly enough in his turn, although he was feeling a strange dizziness-unnatural enough that he spoke with medieval formality. “I come to ask your help in finding my friend, Sir Brian Neville-Smythe, whom someone in Lyonesse has hidden from me.”

Having said these words, however, he found himself feeling they had been both weak and pompous.

“Jim, eh?” said the voice on a more conversational level. “Carolinus’s little apprentice. That Carol-lad was always out to get himself in too deep, unless he looked out first-which he wasn’t likely to do.”

The shock was considerable. It was like being in a foreign country, face-to-face with a native; and addressing him with great effort in a halting and clumsy version of the local language-only to have the native reply instantly in fluent, colloquial English.

Jim’s memory awoke suddenly. Merlin’s greatest ability, according to the legends, had been to see the future.

“No, Mage,” said Jim hastily. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”

“And don’t call me ‘Mage’!” The voice, however, had gone back to the lower, more familiar level. “They can title themselves all they want; but I alone am MERLIN.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. In itself it’s commendable. Well, I won’t deliver him for you, but I can tell you where he’s held. How badly do you want to rescue him?”

“I couldn’t want to any more than I do now,” said Jim. “Not only that, but Sir Brian would want to be free himself, more than anything in existence.”

Anything in existence?” said Merlin. “That’s a strong reason to give, Jim. Are you sure your friend would use just those words if he were here?”

“Yes,” said Jim, seeing Brian in his mind’s eyes. “I believe he would. He’d stop short of pledging his soul, but that’d be about all.”

“Very well, then,” said Merlin. “Know that he is held in thrall by the Lady of the Knight More Bright Than Day. The QB will carry you to her castle.”

“Thanks,” said Jim. He looked into the dark about him for the QB, but of course saw nothing.

“Stay,” said Merlin, “while I tell you one more thing. If you had not told me what you did, I would not have revealed where he’s now kept; for if he is left there, he’ll suffer a while, but live. However, if you find and free him, he may face a sorrowful death from which I fear no one, even you, can save him.”

“What sorrowful death? Why do you say even I wouldn’t be able to save him?” Jim stared through the blackness in the direction of Merlin’s voice.

There was an extended silence. Even the dark about Jim seemed to hold its breath. Then Merlin’s voice came back, strangely hollow and distorted, like someone speaking through a long tube or corridor from a great distance.

“In all the ages since I came here,” it said, “not once have I ever replied, once I had said my last word. But perhaps Carolinus saw more than I gave him credit for, and you as well. This once will I give further answer. All magic and all else. Yes.”

Jim took a deep breath.

“All right,” he said. He remounted Gorp by feel in the darkness; and again there was that sensation of a small wind blowing in his face for a short time.

Once more it stopped abruptly. Almost as it did so, there were the dim shapes of trees to be made out around them; and within seconds thereafter the light brightened in the opposite side of the sky from which Jim had seen it disappear; it became plain they were back at the place where they had started. The QB was still with him; and by the little hesitation as Gorp stepped out, Jim knew that the sumpter horse was still at the end of the lead rope tied to his saddle.

The QB led off among the trees, at the same easy, but swift, loping speed, with his leopard belly strangely close to the ground, that Jim had seen him show on his earlier visit to Lyonesse.

“Where does the Knight come in, then?”

“Later, they say, the Knight came by and the two fell in love; and the lady went back to Morgan le Fay and begged a protection for him. For now he would be defending the castle and her against all comers-else all would have called him a false knight. It was Morgan le Fay that gave the Knight the gift of such brightness as you will find to dazzle your eyes.”

He would probably have to do combat with an experienced knight if he hoped to free Brian. Plain luck and Gorp’s weight-nothing else-had made him victorious over the knight who had been doomed never to marry. It was too much to expect another such result. His mind spun, trying to come up with a means of getting out of the fight itself.

His mind’s motion produced no means to that end. Geared up though he was, he told himself, perhaps he was also dull-witted from lack of sleep. He had not slept, now he came to think of it, since he had left Malencontri; a day and a night- if the recent dark he had just been through could be considered a full night.

But he felt clearheaded and alert. He felt no need for sleep or rest at all. More of the general magic of this place? And what had Merlin meant by “all else?” The talking trees?

They came, after what seemed almost no distance at all, to a large, open, grassy area with a clean-looking castle of white stone at the far end of it. The area did not look as if it had been deliberately cleared, as was normally done around castles for defensive purposes; yet the trees of Lyonesse all stood back some distance from it, as if they did not want to be associated with it.

It had the usual water-filled moat around it, and a drawbridge over the water. But the tall and wide double doors at the inner end of the drawbridge were closed tight.

“You must sound your horn, Sir James,” said the QB.

“I don’t-“ Jim caught himself just in time. “As it happens, my horn isn’t with me at the moment.”

“So!” said the QB. “Then pray display your shield and your arms upon it.”

Jim and the QB waited. Nothing stirred at the castle. Jim’s arm began to get tired; and he let the shield drop until its lowest point rested against the pommel of his saddle.

“Maybe the Bright Knight’s not here at the moment,” he said.

“I do not believe he would be gone,” said the QB seriously.

Suddenly, everything happened at once. A long white pennant with what looked like a jagged black lightning bolt painted on it suddenly appeared and blew free at the top of the Castle’s main tower. Several horns together sounded a chorded note; and a small door in one of the big, closed entrance gates opened.

“Ah! From this point on, Sir James, you will be able to handle matters yourself,” said the QB; and vanished.

What looked like a teenaged girl dressed all in white came out of the door. She ran at remarkable speed across the drawbridge and the open space beyond, toward Jim. He gazed at her with admiration. Though he was used to Angie, who was surprisingly fast on her feet, this one was sprinting like an Olympic contender. She ran all the way to where he sat on Gorp, took only a couple of deep, quick breaths, and spoke.

Sir Knight-“ she said, “we do not know your arms. I am sent to find your name and purpose in coming here.”

It was time to behave himself in pure medieval style. Jim stiffened a little in his saddle.

“What place is this, that does not know the Knight-Dragon?” he said as harshly as he could manage. “He who is known in the land above and all the lands below?”

Pray forgiveness, my Lord Dragon,” said the messenger. “I am but an ignorant servant of those who dwell in yonder castle and only ask what I am sent to say. Would you of your grace tell me of your purpose in coming here, that I may carry word of it back to my masters.”

“I am here,” said Jim, slowly, and as terribly as he knew how to be, “to loose a pure and worthy knight I have heard is held captive in your castle-Sir Brian Neville-Smythe. To that end I will meet and destroy any who would fail to yield up that brave gentleman at once. I have in my time battled ogres, sea serpents, and demons-and vanquished them all. Let none think I will hesitate to do the same to any who would keep Sir Brian Neville-Smythe from me!”

He paused to see how, if at all, his words had impressed. Sometimes bombast like this just bounced off its hearer-sometimes it terrified them. You never could tell.

This time, the only change he noticed was that the flush on her face-in this colorless land, it had appeared only as a darker tone of gray-that had come from running had faded somewhat; but it was doubtful if she had actually paled.

“Then,” she said, “I am sent to say to you, Sir Knight, that in this castle lives the Knight More Bright Than Day. Who has overthrown and made prisoner or slain all who have come against him. You are warned to withdraw!”

There was no help for it. This called for the ultimate of knightly gestures.

“Withdraw!” shouted Jim furiously, drawing his sword and heaving it up as if he was about to cut the messenger in two.

She dodged-probably a well-conditioned reflex-and ran with surprising speed back once more to the castle, where the small door opened for her as she pelted in over the drawbridge.

Jim waited. The pennon waved from the tower.

“Are they going to take all day?” growled Jim to himself. He was keyed up and finding it hard to sit still.

A boy of about twelve, dressed in what seemed to be black-and-white livery, emerged from the small door and began walking sedately and importantly across the grass toward Jim.

“Sir Knight,” he said in a high treble, when he had come within a few yards of Jim, “know you that the Knight As Bright As Day does not fight with just any who comes. You must show some proof of what you claim to be.”

“I’ll tell him, byyourGracem’Lord-“ The last words were slurred together in the boy’s eagerness to get away.

“Stop!”

The boy froze, already half-turned. “It is for me to make conditions, now. I must know that the brave knight I came to rescue is safe and well. He must be brought out here, close enough to me so I can make sure he’s all right. Otherwise I will not deign to match lances with your Lord. Bring him first-then I’ll fight. You hear me?”

“Yes, yes, m’Lord...” And the boy was off and running.

Again, Jim and the silent Hob waited, along with the patient horses. But what happened next surprised Jim. One of the two large leaves on the drawbridge entrance opened just enough to let out a horse with a rider on its back; and the rider was Brian-in full armor and on Blanchard. Brian looked around the open space, saw Jim, and put Blanchard into an immediate gallop toward him.

Jim’s heart lifted on a sudden hope. Could it be that the Castle’s people had decided that giving up Brian was smarter than fighting someone with Jim’s credentials?

Earlier, Jim had felt no real desire for combat with the defender of the castle. Possibly it was his victory over the first knight he had opposed; but he had felt an unusual sensation of confidence at the thought of dealing with this particular foe- maybe it was his interview with Merlin that had filled him with such self-confidence.

On the other hand, the practical side of his mind hurried to point out, nothing could be ruled out when it came to a matter of lances or swords, no matter how confident a fighter might be. A foot might slip, a strap might break-the man or his horse could be not quite set at the crucial moment of contact. A sword blow or lance thrust could land just that little off-target that made them harmless.

“Hah!” said Brian, sharply reining in as he reached Jim. He wound his reins around the pommel of his saddle and lifted both arms. There was a circle of iron about each of his wrists and about a foot and a half of metal chain between them.

“Didn’t trust me!” he said. “Damn fools! Because chained or not, now I’m free to tell you of this gentleman you are to engage-and how to handle him. Seemingly, that never came to their minds; only the vainglory of pretending you could have me back, since they trusted you to fail in your meeting.”

“Is this Bright Knight that good?” asked Jim, feeling the touch of coldness in him for the first time since he had come within sight of the Castle.

“Good? Well...” Brian looked away; and Jim stared. It was rare to see his friend embarrassed. The cold feeling in him increased. “I would say-but the fact is, James-“ added Brian with a sudden rush of words, “I was lifted off Blanchard’s back before I was well able to see him closely. Not to excuse myself-it is a man’s own fault if he is set down-but let me say, first, he is indeed Bright, James; very, very Bright.”

“Well, then...” Jim hesitated, hunting for a way to put the question that was foremost in his mind without hurting Brian’s feelings. “I suppose you had trouble picking up the fine points of his lance work-“

“Oh, I was not as helpless as all that, James! I could hear the approach of his horse; and clearly, it was no trained and gifted warhorse such as Blanchard. More than that, his beast was uncomfortable. He was either sitting too far back in his saddle-a mark of a rider with little skill, as I have remarked to you before this-or holding his weapon too tightly, trying to aim with it; another fault of squires in particular and knights without real practice. But that brings me exactly to what I wish to suggest to you.”

“What’s that?”

“He will be too Bright to see clearly-so do you deliberately ride wide of him on your first essay against him-miss him, in short. They may cry coward at you, but the advantage is that I, watching from the side here, may see better how he does what he does, so warn you before your second pass, and give you the victory when you tilt next.”

And Brian sat back in his saddle, literally beaming at Jim.

“I see,” said Jim. His thoughts were racing furiously in half a dozen different directions at once. “You think I’ll be able to win against him if you can tell me some things about him? You’ve never thought too much of my lance work.”

“To be frank, James, I have not. But unless my ears deceived me, from the sound of his horse’s hoofbeats, his own panting and grunting when he was close upon me, and the angle at which his spearpoint struck what might as well have been a blind man opposing him-“ Brian halted the rush of words to smile at Jim.

“-and lo!” He beamed. “You behold me essentially unhurt! I was unhorsed, that much is true; but with such advantage he should have taken me in the helm and broken my neck, rather than at the base of my shield and merely pushed me out of the saddle. It is also true,” he added, with a touch of darker tone suddenly showing in his face, “that I did not have my feet as firmly in the stirrups as I might have... because of the unusualness of his Brightness. Else he would never have taken me out of the saddle at all. But all this is not the point.”

“Of course not,” said Jim.

“The point is, he is as poor a man with a lance as-as any I’ve seen; and watching from the side where his light should not blind me so, I will be able to tell you how to meet him. Trust me, James-with a very little skill you will unhorse him. Then down you to the ground; and it is a matter of swords, with which I know you to be...” Brian coughed a little, embarrassed once again. “More fit to win.”

Jim grunted noncommittally. He knew only too well he was only slightly better with the sword than he was with the lance-and that made him among the worst of knights with both. On the other hand, he knew Brian was just the opposite: a demon with a lance, a wizard with a sword. He had no doubt at all that Brian could tell him what to do, faced with the Bright Knight. The only question would be then-could he do it? What had Brian not thought to tell him?

Like most masters of an art or skill, Brian tended to forget that what was obvious to him now, with his years of long and weary practice, was not necessarily so to someone else who had no such experience. Brian had not prepared Jim for this moment.

A crowd of what Jim took to be retainers had come out of the small door in the castle entrance, undoubtedly to see the show. Another female figure in white was just now emerging and joining them. Jim peered at the crowd through the lower half of his spectacle lenses; then realized what he was doing and snatched them off his nose putting them in their case at his belt. It was not that he did not see as well through them, but he needed no unnecessary irritations at a time like this. He was aware of the strong beating of his heart in his chest.

Trumpets sounded from the castle. Both great doors swung wide. A figure on horseback emerged and rode out over the drawbridge.

Involuntarily, Jim’s hands jerked in an attempt to come up and shield his eyes. For he could make out no detail of man or horse. The man himself was the center of a blinding glare of light. Trying to see him was, indeed, like attempting to look directly at the unyielding white sun of Lyonesse.