All the horses, of course, had been relieved of all they carried-saddles, bridles, and the sumpter horse’s load.

“We must needs ride without gear and goods,” said Brian wistfully. “But it were folly to go back and search for them at the risk of being retaken.”

“Perhaps not,” said the QB. “At least I can try. My hound nose is better than the one I was made with; but perhaps leopard’s nose is all we need here-“ They heard him sniff. “The whole encampment is asleep, except for those few tents still lit within. If we stay clear of such tents you may as well ride-and be ready to escape with speed if necessary. Your horses need only follow me. I will lead you to safety. Hob, can you tell Blanchard to follow me in the dark? I do not know this land, but I can still sense the trees and the spaces beween them.”

“Blanchard won’t listen to me,” said Hob, startling Jim by speaking from behind him on Gorp’s back. “But I can tell Gorp my Lord said so to do, and then Gorp will listen and follow.”

“And Blanchard shall follow Gorp. My word on it!” said Brian’s voice out of the darkness.

“And you, my Lord Regent,” came the QB’s voice, “will your horse also follow?”

“No,” answered Dafydd’s voice, sounding as if he were smiling. “But I will listen to the hoof-falls of your horses, and guide mine along with the rest of you.”

“Then we go,” said the QB; and go they did. There were a few moments of movement, then the QB stopped again. “We are close now-to what I assumed must be.”

They went forward again. After another small distance, he slowed and stopped again.

“You cannot see it yet,” he said in a low voice. “For that matter, neither can I. But this is the tent holding Sir Hugh de Bois’s extra gear. I have followed my nose to the tarred cover on the load your sumpter horse carried. Now that I am close I can smell your saddles as well, along with other equipage that may belong to Sir Hugh, or perhaps to a number of knights. There is one man on duty inside it, as night guard.”

“I will take care of him,” said Dafydd.

“No. There is no need. He has drunk himself to sleep. Let us go softly; and each of you keep a hand on my back. We will go in and carry out what is yours.”

They did so. With the QB’s nose to guide them throuh the blackness of the tents interior, it was a simple enough labor. They outfitted their horses, swung into their saddles, and were ready to ride.

Now that all the difficult work was over, the first paling of the morning sky announced that the night here, as short as that of Lyonesse, was all but over.

“The encampment still sleeps,” said the QB. “Follow me now.”

They followed. In no time at all they were surrounded by forest and trotting their horses behind a QB whose energy seemed limitless. They rode for what Jim judged to be almost a half hour. The sun was still not yet lifted above the tops of the surrounding trees, but overhead the sky was white with dawn, and at ground level they could see clearly where they were going.

“How much farther to Lyonesse?” Jim finally asked the QB.

“We have been there for some time,” the latter answered, without turning his head. “Look where the first edge of the sun now rises between the thinner upper branches of the trees.”

Startled, Jim looked up and to his right. It was a white sun now, and the upper branches through which the daystar’s upper edge looked could not have been blacker. The bright color of the Drowned Land was gone. He reined in Gorp. The others also stopped.

“Just a moment,” said Jim, searching at his belt for the case for his magic glasses. He put them on, just to make sure. No colors. With relief he put the glasses away again.

He was about to say something about going on once more, when Dafydd spoke up.

“Lyonesse it is indeed,” he said, “and therefore I am going in the wrong direction. I must carry word to my King and that means I leave you now.”

Without waiting for any answer from the rest, he reined his roan about and started off at a hand-gallop back the way they had just come.

“Wait, Dafydd!” Jim called after him, “you don’t want to run the risk of running into that encampment!”

“There is no danger!” shouted Dafydd over his shoulder. “Now that the sun is up, I can find my way safely around it. This is my country!”

“A proper sense of duty,” he remarked. “Shall we on?”

They onned.

“Why think you it may be small?” Brian looked curiously down at the loping leopard form.

“For more than one reason,” said the QB. “Much more than Lyonesse, the Drowned Land is like to the land above, which these invaders are used to, full of people to be their servants and slaves; and finally, it is all but without magick. No matter what they may say, I believe that you people in the land above fear, but are used to living with, magick.”

“With reason,” said Brian, “if some of it is in evil hands.”

“Yes, but in Lyonesse, with some few exceptions, magick is our friend. An old friend, as are the tree magick and the Old Magic, who together made a home for us when otherwise our stories might have been forgotten and lost forever.”

“Such great stories are never lost!” said Brian. “Support me, James. Is that not true?”

“I can guarantee it,” Jim said, “for another thousand years, at least. But QB, if you haven’t got a king like Arthur to go to, where are we headed now?”

“To another king,” said the QB. “Though his name is Pellinore, not Arthur. But he was one of the many at King Arthur’s Round Table; and the only one whose strength was equal to or greater than that of Arthur himself. So much so, that once as they wrestled together in armor, Arthur’s sword having broken, Pellinore overcame Arthur and would have slain him, but Merlin stopped him.”

“I seem to recall some word of that tale, too...” said Brian, frowning thoughtfully.

“King Pellinore is one of the Originals,” went on the QB. “One of those Knights of the Legends who sit apart from their children’s children’s children nowadays. It is such as he who must be told of the danger in the Borderlands; for while our Knights can fight like no others can, I fear for them without Arthur. In Arthur was always victory-for his cause, for others, if never for himself... In some ways those of Lyonesse are ordinary men in spite of the Legends; and, lacking him, they lack something of what made them great-especially face-to-face with such greater numbers as those we have seen in the Borderland.”

“Ordinary men may do unordinary things,” said Brian.

“Yes, but... it is more than that. When Arthur went to war, the earth fought for him. The sky fought for him. All fought for him. You cannot understand what that means. You have not seen him as I have, his sword flashing like lightning in the melee! Had you, you would understand-“ The QB’s usually pleasant voice had taken on hoarseness not unlike that of a human who was close to tears. “I cannot explain! I cannot explain!”

“You don’t need to, QB,” said Jim. “Your word is good enough for us.”

“Perhaps for you, Sir James and Sir Brian. But the Knights of Lyonesse remember Arthur and will know what they lack-and in that is the greatest danger.”

“There’s help for them in Dafydd’s people, too,” said Jim. “Once those in the Drowned Land understand both kingdoms face a common danger, they’ll be ready to join forces with Lyonesse-I can almost guarantee it!”

“Perhaps,” said the QB.

If Dafydd were still with us,” observed Brian, “he might say that those of the Drowned Land have found little to love in Lyonesse as their neighbor. Remember, James, the stories he told us of Drowned Landers going into Lyonesse and being trapped there, lost and unable to come home?”

“But with a situation this dangerous, I can’t see either the Knights or the Drowned Landers hesitating, Brian!”

I hope you to be right, Sir James.” The QB turned his head to look over his shoulder at Jim, without interrupting his smooth, swift running that kept the horses behind him at a fast trot. “But it must be put to the Original Knights as a question, since on their part they know that knighthood is unknown in the Drowned Land.”

“Hah! If needs be, let me speak to them,” said Brian. “It would be a foolish head that entertained the thought that Dafydd’s lack of a knight’s belt and golden spurs meant he also lacked warlike skills and the courage to fight; and I misdoubt there is any great lack of others in the Drowned Land like him.”

“I do not hold him so, myself, certainly,” said the QB, “and I will put it in just those words to King Pellinore. But the full problem must be put to him. A truce with you on this point, Sir Brian. We all have our own ways.”

“Indeed”-Brian’s voice dropped-“I should not have flown out at you so.”

The QB halted suddenly. They reined in their horses sharply to keep from riding over him.

“I must call ahead,” he said. They were in deep woods yet, with hills like small mountains all around them and no sign of buildings or people. But remembering how the QB had whisked him from one end of Lyonesse to another in almost no time at all, it struck Jim that they might have covered more ground than he would have thought since the sun came up.

But before he could start to guess where they were, there burst from the QB the sound of thirty couple of hounds, questing-and for the first time Jim was able to note that the sound came not from his serpent’s mouth-but, as the legend had told it, from his belly.

After a moment a horn like that a hunter might use answered, followed by the yelping of other hounds-not thiry couple of them, but at least a dozen or so. The QB turned himself into his hound shape and put on speed, leaving them behind. Jim and Brian followed.

It could have been no more than seventy-five yards before they passed through a cluster of young trees and came out into a forest-encircled clearing. A large and long house of logs filled the far side of the clearing; with a sturdy bench next to its front door, made of half a log that had been split lengthwise, the bark still on its underside, the flat side on top, and eight thick legs fitted into it below, supporting it.

On the bench, in full armor, sat a clean-shaven, mature-looking man who was one of the most tall and powerful-looking individuals Jim had ever seen. He was not looking at them. From inside the closed door of the log building came occasional yelps like those they had heard before, to which the large man paid no attention at all.

The QB had halted at the edge of the clearing, still in his form as a hound. He looked back at them and whined in his dog voice.

“M’Lord,” came the voice of Hob, “he wants to go ahead alone, first. Do you mind coming after him?”

“Not at all,” said Jim, speaking quickly before Brian could say anything else.

The hound nodded and trotted toward the seated man. Jim and Brian gave him a head start of about half the length of their distance to the man, then rode out from among the small trees, directly toward him.

The man’s eyes had been all on the hound from the moment he had appeared. It was only when it stopped some six feet from him and sat down on its haunches that the man looked beyond it, and stood up, seeing Brian and Jim.

“Who are you?” His voice was rusty with age, but as powerful-sounding as his body looked strong.

The hound turned suddenly back into the QB-and a chorus of dog voices burst out behind the closed door of the log house. The man turned his head toward the door.

“Silence.”

Brian and Jim swung down from their horses and bowed. Pellinore inclined his head.

“In what should we need help?” he asked. His rusty voice was like a great drum booming in the wide cavern of his chest.

Jim found himself held by Pellinore’s gaze. The King’s heavy-boned face was expressionless and showed no wrinkles or lines of age; but his eyes were dark and deep under his black brows. They did not blink. The impression Jim got from him was one of tremendous strength and will-much more of both than he had expected. For some reason, possibly the way Sir Dinedan (a descendant, not the Original of that name) had spoken of him, Jim had got the idea of Pellinore as an almost comic knight.

He was anything but. Come to think of it, none of the Originals should be. Hamlet had his grave-digger in the play by Shakespeare. The Legends about King Arthur had no such character.

He found himself now in a staring match which he could do nothing but lose. He was about to give up and drop his eyes, when Pellinore looked once more at the QB.

“You did not answer me, old friend,” he said.

“I was surprised you did not seem to know, King,” said the QB. “Some evil forces, known as the Dark Powers and until now a trouble only to the land above, have made intent to perhaps try to take this land of Lyonesse for themselves, and for full evil purposes. Sir James and Sir Brian have encountered with these Powers before and bested them, not once but several times; and so they have come to do what they can to aid us of Lyonesse.”

“In what shape do these Powers come, then?” said Pellinore’s deep voice. “Surely there will be others besides me who will be willing to face them and send them away again?”

“In no shape, and with no face, King Pellinore. That is what makes them such terrible foes. Fighting them is like fighting the winter when it comes. Brave hearts, strong arms, and good weapon-work find nothing in them to strike at.”

“This is hard to believe-yet I would never misbelieve you, QB,” said Pellinore. His implacable eyes swung back to Jim and Brian.

“How then,” he said, “can such as you help?”

“I am a magician,” said Jim, speaking with all the fourteenth-century formality he had learned in the last few years; “and also, while the Dark Powers themselves are as hard to wound as ghosts or shadows-to take anything real, such as the ground we stand on, they make use of creatures that can be touched with weapons and killed.”

“Creatures?”

“Harpies,” put in Brian. “Like great bats, except that they have a woman’s face and poison fangs. Worms, like giant lampreys, their circular mouths filled with rows of teeth. Ogres, giants four yards high, with bones so thick no mace or ax, let alone sword, can break them... and others.”

“These I have never heard spoken of,” said Pellinore.

“The Dark Powers may try to conquer Lyonesse with such as Sir Brian mentions,” said Jim. “Perhaps with other sorts of creatures, too. But they will also come at you with those you had not expected to fight for them.” He lifted a hand to indicate Brian.

“In the past,” he went on, “Sir Brian and I have faced a rogue magician, a great army of sea serpents attacking us upon land, and a Demon from the Kingdom of Devils and Demons. Also those who were called the Hollow Men; and at another time the greatest and oldest deep-sea squid, a monster with a dream of conquering all the land above. Not only magicians are needed when the Powers attack; knights and any else who’ll fight are needed to conquer their creatures.”

King Pellinore’s eyes watched Jim.

“You won these battles, I take it,” he said. “Otherwise, you would not be with us now, if all you say is true.”

Jim nodded.

“We won,” he said; “but only because the rogue magician was defeated, the Hollow Men destroyed, the great squid finally made helpless by my Master-in-Magic-one much greater than myself.”

“And what,” said Pellinore, “if this time, the attack upon us calls for another, greater than you in magick?”

“There isn’t any other to come and help,” said Jim, his medieval formality begining to break down. “You’re going to have to fight with what you’ve got now. Besides your own forces, I’m what you’ve got-Sir Brian and I. There’re only two of us, but we’ve had experience with this enemy before. It’s your Knights, us, and beyond that only the trees and the Old Magic.”

“That is true,” said the QB.

“Yes, it is true,” said Pellinore. “But we do not command the trees or the Old Magic. We cannot even speak to them-we Knights cannot-I know you can talk to them, QB. But it may be they do not even decide a matter together as we do, who walk and talk beneath them. Who is to know whether they might aid us and how?”

“There’s one,” said Jim. “Merlin might know. I can ask him.”

Not only Pellinore, but the QB stared at him without words. Jim was suddenly embarrassed. It was all very well for him to talk of asking Merlin about something; but clearly neither QB nor the King had ever considered such a thing being done.

But then, as often happened with him, his own embarrassment made him angry, and anger made him stubborn. The words had just popped out; but he was not going to take them back now.

“However,” he said to the QB, “I suppose you won’t be able to take me to him until the next dark of the sun. The question here and now is what we can do with our strength other than magic.”

“It will be dark soon,” said the QB; and there was a hard note in his voice that Jim would not have imagined from the way the other had always spoken to him. “But you are right, Sir James, about our needing to count our strengths. For what use it will do, I will speak to the trees, of course-but King Pellinore is right. I have little hope of any direct help from them.

“As for the Old Magic, I know of no one who can speak to it at all-or if it has the ability to hear our words. But I believe it has a kindness for you, Sir James, and possibly could be your friend as well, because it helped you to escape the Queen of Northgales. Perhaps it will help, in its own way and time. But as to who may fight for us; and what they may hope to do-it is beyond me. That was why I ventured to bring these new friends to my oldest friend.”

He looked at Pellinore.

Pellinore’s eyes were looking past them, off at something in the distance.

“Never since Arthur left us for the Vale of Avilion,” he said, as if he was speaking more to himself than them, “have all those here who once sat at the Round Table gathered together. I will go to them one by one and perhaps we can meet again. Be sure there will be none who dare not fight; but there may be some who for other reasons would stand aloof.”

Pellinore patted the white shoulder in an automatic gesture, took up the reins, and stepped into the near stirrup to swing himself lightly into the saddle.

“I will sound my horn when I have something to tell you,” he said to the QB. “God’s grace be with you, Sirs.”

“And with you also, King Pellinore,” said Brian.

The big man on the big horse rode off and was lost to sight among the trees.

“He seems a man of much strength and valor,” said Brian, looking after him. “But at that pace, on that horse for all its long legs, we may have to wait months before he calls you with the word he has gotten from his fellow Knights.”

I pray you not to judge by appearances, Sir Brian. The Originals, as I can, may travel swiftly when they wish. If it would have taken a long time, he would have warned us of it.”

“I doubt that not,” said Brian, “now that you have told me about this matter of swift-going. I meant no slighting word. As I said, he seems a Knight valiant and of great power.”

“He is indeed,” said the QB. “And he had two pure and noble sons, as worthy in their own ways as himself. One was named Sir Percival and the other Sir Lamorack of Wales.”

As he was speaking, the sky, the trees, the earth, and the building behind them all seemed to fade and to lose the sharp lines of their edges, as the day dimmed.

“I will await you,” said the voice of a Brian already becoming a dim figure. “But I would I were going with you.”

Jim swallowed. He had not forgotten what he had so unthinkingly said a little while past. But now, with the QB’s last words, it had suddenly become immediate- and far too real.

“Face it,” he told himself, “you spoke up all right to Merlin the last time you saw him, but don’t try to dodge the fact-Merlin chills you.”

Now that he had put the feeling into actual words, he realized how true it was. But the strangest part of what he felt was that even now he did not know why he should feel so. Merlin had not been threatening in any obvious way. The closest Jim could come to an explanation was to remember that in his first meeting with Carolinus he had been aware of a great deal of real power and strength in the older man-in spite of Carolinus’s apparent ego and rather ridiculous cantankerousness. There had been a similar awareness-without the cantankerousness-at a much greater level when he spoke to Merlin.

“I pray you pardon me, Sir Brian. Merlin would not permit it.”

“I should entreat your pardon,” said Brian. “It is for him to say, of course.”

But still, he had been assuming that the white sun above Lyonesse was the yellow daystar of the Drowned Land, only robbed of its color. But it could be they were different, as the kingdoms themselves were different-now the utter blackness of the dark period surrounded him.

“You need not move, Sir James.” The QB’s voice seemed to speak almost in Jim’s ear.

“I wasn’t planning to,” Jim said, a little more sharply than he had meant to.

Once more, as on his earlier visit to Merlin, he felt a breeze in his face. It cooled his skin for a few minutes, then stopped abruptly. He waited. Then, without warning, he was hearing the QB’s voice in what surely had to be the tail end of a conversation.

“-if in your kindness you will permit, Merlin.”

“I will,” came the same strong voice he had heard once previously. “He is a magician of a different sort; and that makes him welcome when others would not be, so soon after his last visit. Beginning now, QB, you will hear, but not understand as we talk. We will be speaking of things it is not time for you to know.”

“You know why I’m here?” Jim stopped his hand just before it went up in a ridiculous, instinctive effort to fan aside the darkness, as if it had been smoke or mist.

“That and many other things. Live as long as I have, Jim, and you will also know many things. You will also know that you know nothing-you are a babe just beginning to understand. But you do realize that simply by living, you are learning more each minute?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Jim. Strange how Merlin pricked him to a kind of defensiveness. He was feeling the other’s strong influence, but, as before, he found he could talk. “But if you want to include every bit of information, useless as well as useful, you’ve got to be right, I suppose.”

“There is no such thing as useless information. You will learn that, too, someday. But there was a question you have come to me with.”

“Then I’ve wasted your time and mine in coming,” said Jim, a ready anger rising in him in reaction to the way he felt of Merlin’s power.

“It is never a waste of time if the one you talk to wishes to talk. If you like, I will tell you a thing about yourself, instead.”

“That’d be interesting,” said Jim, holding on to his temper with a great effort. “But the question you won’t let me ask needs an answer that’s critical right now- more critical than anything-including what you might tell me about myself.”

“How can you be so sure of that? So, you wish to hear nothing from me, then?

Jim’s That’s right! was on the tip of his tongue, when, just in time, an instinctive caution stopped him from uttering it.

“No, of course I’ll listen,” he said. “Where there’s life-I mean, where there’re words, there’s hope-or at least some information that can be useful.”

“The first sensible thing you’ve said, so far,” Merlin told him. “Carolinus said you had a sensible bone in your body. Just one; but that’s more than the average individual has, by quite a bit.”

“I’d like to know how they think they know it,” muttered Jim.

“So would I,” said Merlin. “If you think that I know everything, you’re wrong. But to get back to what I was talking about, there are limits to what magick-as Carolinus and others pronounce it-can do-yes, I know you pronounce it another way, but your way makes a word that means something different to you than what Magick means to those like Carolinus.” Jim found himself nodding, but Merlin was continuing.

“As I was saying,” Merlin went on, “the magick has its limits; and beyond them are further unknown territories where everything is different. Carolinus has gotten to the point where he can glimpse the unknown territories. But at the same time, and for the first time, he has also begun to doubt that he, himself, will ever reach them.”

“No!” said Jim.

He had not had time to think before bursting out so sharply; but it had exploded inside him all at once that the Carolinus he knew-that sometimes-infuriating old man, apparently so jealous of his magical knowledge, and rarely seeming to exert himself for anything but his own ends-might also be, in his own eyes, stuck at the foot of a ladder he had always dreamed of climbing. Within, he could still be a serious young student yearning for something Jim himself could not even imagine; and in the process hiding inside himself-well, who knew what emotions?

“It is hard to suddenly see all we have overlooked before in others,” said Merlin, as if he had been able to read Jim’s mind in that moment.

“It’s that bit about a promised land that gets me,” said Jim, “and your saying he’ll never be able to cross over to it. Are you sure-I mean, it’s hard to believe there’s no way he could get there.”

“Forgive me,” said Jim, “but what you say is pretty cold comfort.”

“That is all the future ever certainly promises. I say that, whose work has always been with the future, not the present. Like the Old Magic and like you, I am not a magickian. I am a magician; but unlike you, my first concern is the future.

“I am a seer. That is why I do not answer questions and some other things. One whose study is the future must not only know the past, but avoid meddling with the present which will make it. I shall only tell you one thing with perfect certainty. In the end any battle is always between the selfish and the unselfish. The selfish often win in the short run. The unselfish always win in the long.”

“But I’ve got to get some idea of where to go from here. I needed to find out from you whether the trees or the Old Magic would help us-and how they could.”

“There!” said Merlin. “You have finally achieved a perfect example of what everyone should understand is meant by the word communication. It is perfectly possible to inform someone else of what you want to know, other than by thrusting it at him as a question.”

“Thank you,” said Jim.

“-And, incidentally, I am immune to irony. I will tell you some of what you would like to know. The trees do what they want; and no one can foresee what they will want. The animals share equally with we who are human and the land. They have their own link with the Old Magic, one we have never understood- but we understand that Lyonesse is theirs as much as ours.” He did not pause, but Jim felt a difference in the next words.

“The Old Magic, itself-note that I pronounce the word as you do,” Merlin said, “has its roots lost in the deep darkness of time; and is so different as to never be understood. I have looked as far down as I was able, to try and find why and how it does what it does-but the answer always lost itself in the ancient Dark.”

Jim was speechless.

“I can tell you only,” the voice in the darkness continued, “that the Old Magic is necessary to Lyonesse; and therefore necessary to the rest of us. In a very real sense the Old Magic’s presence is necessary to keep us all living. Between our earth and our sky all belongs to Lyonesse alone, and from Witch Queen to gray squirrel we hold it in common; and if we lose it, we are lost indeed.”

“In other words,” said Jim, “there’s no use looking to it for help-“

“There’s no use you looking to it for help.”

“-As far as I’m concerned, I suppose I should have said. But perhaps the Old Magic is a part of Lyonesse that itself needs help.”

“I would not say so.”

“All right. But the Knights’ll need it, the trees’ll need it, if whoever invades wins. So it’ll be a waste of time my trying to turn to either trees or Old Magic now.”

Jim, who had been about to take an automatic step backward, checked himself.

“I will tell you one thing,” said Merlin. “Even I do not understand it. The Old Magic has been active in some way, since the Dark Powers appeared over us. This can mean something that could be a help to you, or it could mean only some meaningless small thing like a change in our weather. We will have to wait and see.”

Then Jim was back in final silence. The darkness seemed to wrap itself more tightly around him, alone.

“A moment only,” said the welcome voice of the QB, “and we are on our way to our friends, Sir James.”

Once more Jim felt the breeze in his face; and then the full darkness was no longer with them. The white sun of Lyonesse was not yet visible-indeed, it was probably still below the horizon which the surrounding trees hid; but the sky was beginning to lighten, enough so that he found himself looking at Brian, seated on the bench that was half a log and still holding the horses’ reins in his hand.

The horses were eating, as usual. In fact, they had cropped a circle in the grass about the bench.

“James!” said Brian, starting to his feet, but still holding carefully to the reins. “You are back. I did not think you would be gone so long. Or else the dark seemed longer than I thought.”

“Sir James was, in fact, longer than expected, Sir Brian. Even longer than I expected, who am familiar with Merlin and his ways.” The QB looked at Jim. “Have you any good tidings for us, Sir James?”

Jim opened his mouth to say that Merlin had told him nothing important; and then remembered Merlin had, but mostly in matters that concerned him personally.

“He knows so much more than I do,” he told the other two, instead. “I’ll have to do a good deal of thinking about what he said. But the only thing he told me that might help was that Pellinore was a good choice to lead the rest, because he was a king. He also said something about every being in Lyonesse-human, animal, and tree-holding the Old Magic in common. He also said others might help us.”

“Sir Brian-“ began the QB, with sudden, unexpected fierceness.

“It’s all right, QB,” said Jim hastily. “It’s all right. Brian, I give you my word as a knight and as your friend-Merlin is all they say and more. I’m not easily impressed by words alone-and it wasn’t words alone, with him. I could feel his power,, and you would have, too, if you’d been with me.”

“Well, well,” said Brian, recovering his usual good humor. “It could be common repute is right-it often is. I would much rather think of him as a great Mage, rather than otherwise. But what now, James, QB? Should we go in pursuit of King Pellinore, rather than waiting? Or somewhat else?”

“I do assure you he will be back at any minute, now,” said the QB. “I give you my word. The word of a Questing Beast is not one that men are asked to take every day; but I promise you it is good-look, there he comes now!”

Jim and Brian looked where the QB was pointing with his serpent head, at the forest into which King Pellinore had ridden.

They stared for a full minute longer; and then Jim saw motion among the tree shadow, and then a shape that could be a man on a horse.

“So I do,” said Brian. “You were right, QB. Our eyes are no match for yours.”

“A matter of practice, only,” said the QB.

They all watched as King Pellinore emerged from the gloom and rode up to them, dismounting when he reached them. Without a word being said his horse walked off, around the same corner of the log building from which it had appeared. Jim and Brian watched it go with interest; but when they turned back to Pellinore, they saw his gaze was on the QB, rather than them.

“A marvel, QB,” he said to the Questing Beast. “Balan and Balin are with us again. There is also word of others of the Table who fought against Arthur at that last great battle and were thought dead: but are also now back and repenting their falsity to him, saying that it was Modred who led them into such traitorous acts. Even Gawain himself-who, you remember, repented himself to Arthur on his deathbed-is back again and of a changed heart.”

“I remember,” said the QB. “He lamented to Arthur that he had been the cause of Arthur’s unwilling war against Lancelot, and so of Modred’s treason.”

“So he did,” answered Pellinore; and they both stood silent, possibly remembering things of a long time past.

It was not the kind of silence that strangers can feel comfortable interrupting But Jim had been reminded of something, that now seemed as if it might be too important to go unasked.

“Tell me,” he said. “You must both know what Modred looked like. Will you describe him for me?”

The two looked at him, then at each other. But, when the QB said nothing, King Pellinore answered.

“He was tall and well-made,” said Pellinore, “but not so great as his father, Arthur. Not an ill face, but neither what might be said to be a well-favored one. His shoulders were overwide for his height and his arms overlong, his hands large.”

“No,” said the QB. “Indeed there was not.”

“Tell me more about his face, his mustache, his beard,” said Jim.

“Then he couldn’t have a bushy mustache and a chinbeard?”

“He could have, I am sure,” said the QB. “But he did not care for such things; and also, such was not the fashion of the Knights at Arthur’s court. Except for Arthur, who in his later years grew a noble beard.”

“Why do you ask, James?” Brian’s voice was curious.

“Remember, when the Earl of Cumberland and Agatha Falon had us in that large tent, there was a man behind them in the shadows? All I could make out was that he had a mustache and a goatee. But that was the man that the QB said was Modred, by his scent.”

“I could not see him well,” said Brian; “but mustaches and beards can be grown and shaved off again.”

“Yes,” said Jim, “and if Knights are being brought back to life again, Modred could have been brought back, too. Merlin told me the Old Magic had made some change, though he did not know what it was-that it could be something unimportant, but there was no telling. Perhaps this return of the Knights is part of that.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Jim. “But there he was, behind the Earl of Cumberland and Agatha Falon.”

“Who is this Earl and this Lady?” asked Pellinore.

No, she vanished once the trap had been sprung,” Jim said.

“The Witch Queen, Morgan le Fay,” said Brian. “She must have brought them.”

“She shouldn’t have the power to do that without help from the land above.”

“James, you told me plainly that Agatha Falon was a witch.”

But even as he said this, a thought came to him that he told himself he should have had before. A name or title could mean different things, depending on who said it. If someone had asked KinetetE, as little as a year before, whether he, Jim, was a Magickian, she would undoubtedly have snapped that he was nothing of the kind-yet! But by that time he actually had learned a number of things in the Art.

Still, by KinetetE’s standards he would not have been qualified for the title.

But Jim had assumed from KinetetE’s response to him that Agatha had left the witch-seminary without really learning anything. That might not have been true. There was the instance of the Witch-Gate, for example.

He stood, thinking a moment longer. Had KinetetE known about the invasion force in the Borderland, when he told her that he, Brian, and Dafydd were going to the Drowned Land and Lyonesse?

“Maybe there’s a way to find out,” he said, more to himself than the others. He turned to Brian. “It would mean leaving you for a little while.”

“I am hardly a child to be watched and guarded, James.”

“Of course not, Brian. I didn’t mean that. I meant-anyway, we’ve yet to hear from King Pellinore about how the other Originals felt when he spoke to them.”

They all turned to face the towering man, who now stood looking down on them like some iron statue from an earlier age-iron face, iron hands, as well as iron armor.

“I spoke to no more than twenty of the Originals, if that many. I did not keep count. They were the ones who should be told first. The word will spread. They think on you, Sir James, as like to Merlin in that you must be able to see the future; and therefore pray you to name who will lead them to battle. It is sad...”

The iron face softened for just a moment.

“... but the younger ones are not like us, desire what they may. They will wish to fight also, of course. But they are not of the mold of we of older days.”

“We met a younger Sir Dinedan, our first time through Lyonesse,” said Brian, “and I had the honor of encountering him with lances. But he had the misfortune to swoon just as both our spears were about to touch. I gathered from what he said that it was a family weakness.”

“If so, I do not know of it,” said Pellinore. “The Original Sir Dinedan has never given sign of any such swooning. He is a Knight of good heart and strength, though perhaps oversudden in his decisions. No, this is the sort of change that has crept into our children and their children. I thank Heaven that the two sons of my own body, Sir Percival and Sir Lamorack of Wales, were of an age to belong to the Round Table while it still existed-and showed no such weakness whatsoever.”

He broke off suddenly, looking at Jim.

“But Sir James,” he went on, “you have not told me who you choose to lead we who are the Original Knights. You must come with me and name him to them.”

Jim was thinking fast. If neither the trees nor the Old Magic was going to be of help, then he needed to get busy on his own. The first thing was to find out what the Dark Powers had in the way of ogres, Worms, Harpies and such. He had no time to go and talk to Knights right now. What if he had to name himself as that leader, to go ahead and have to try to counter what magic he could?

“Look,” he said to Pellinore, “I’ve got reasons for not wanting to announce my choice of someone to lead them right away. Magic is involved in this; and I’ve got to find out how powerful it is, first. I’d rather you just told them the name of the leader is something to be revealed hereafter. For now, only tell them that no common man shall lead them.”

Pellinore looked grimly at him.

“Indeed, that promise could be a better one,” he said. “For, providing all other virtues be equal, it is always best that he who leads is a king. But since I myself am a king, and I would not have it thought that I had, in some way, unseemly put myself forward, it should be you, Sir James, when the time comes, who tells them who it will be. Horse!”

But even as the tall white horse was still nodding his way around the corner of the house to come to Pellinore, the QB cried out.

“King! Wait! The trees are speaking to me of an urgent message for Sir James. One comes with it, but does not know how to find Sir James. I must go to meet him; and bring him here, so that he not wander the land of Lyonesse for years.”

“Go, then,” said Pellinore. “Let Sir James hear him, but do not delay after. I have said the other Originals must swiftly know the choice of a leader is forechosen, and beyond dispute.”