Jim felt an odd pressure like something heavy leaning against his shoulder, and turned his head to look.

Something was indeed leaning there. It was Brian, totally unconscious but still standing, thanks to the fact of Jim’s presence; and now that Jim listened, he could hear a faint but unusually audible sound that was breathing-Brian was asleep and on the very verge of snoring.

Jim’s conscience struck him like a body block. In all the times they had gone strange places and without food or sleep before, Brian had been an iron man. He never seemed to think of food; and he never appeared to need sleep.

Now the only amazing thing was that he was still upright. Jim eased slightly away from him, and stopped immediately as Brian leaned dangerously farther. Just short of falling, he slept on.

Jim would have had trouble believing his eyes and ears if it had not been for two things; beginning with the fact that he had once read of a company of English soldiers in World War I, marching into a French village-every one asleep on his feet. At the time, he had sneered at the page of the book where he found this, disbelieving it entirely.

Then, years later, he had also found himself in exactly that situation-for an entirely different reason, but still having to keep on his feet and keep moving. It had been after midnight and he, with others, had been marching steadily since morning.

He had not remembered being out on his feet-just very tired-but he began to find himself stumbling off the narrow dirt road they were traveling, straying into the rough, weedy ground beside their route. He was aware of this happening several times, and it puzzled him, before his mind woke enough to understand he had been falling asleep-still walking-and, in his ambulant slumber, straying off their route.

Now, he had magically given himself some sleep; but Brian had had none. As a result, for once he had outdone his friend. Understanding followed with a blow to his conscience. He took Brian’s arm and shook it gently. Brian opened his eyes.

“Brian,” he said, “how would you like to be a dragon?”

“Dragon? Sounds like a merry time...” said Brian, and went back to sleep.

“Is he ill?” said the voice of David; and Jim glanced away from Brian for a moment to see the young King standing by and looking concerned.

“No. He just needs sleep,” said Jim. He put an arm around Brian as insurance against the other’s falling over.

“Can I help?” asked Hob’s worried voice from Jim’s shoulder.

“No,” said Jim, “but he’ll be all right. QB?”

He looked around for the QB and found him equally close, but on the other side of Brian, somehow managing also to show a look of concern on his snake’s face.

“Yes, Sir James?”

“We were to go with King Pellinore to meet the other Originals and maybe speak to them? Was that the plan? When do we have to leave?”

“Oh, not for some hours yet. King Pellinore will wish to wait for afternoon, when most will be there.”

“Then Brian’s got time to get some sleep. Would there be a bed inside?”

“Of course,” said the QB. “Follow me.”

Steering his friend like a sleepwalker-something, Jim suddenly realized, at this moment Brian actually was-he followed the QB into the log building. Inside, it turned out to be rather like a hunting lodge, except for the lack of pelts or mounted heads on the walls. They went down a narrow corridor from the main room, to a door that let them into a very small chamber, almost filled by the small bed in it, and with some child-sized pieces of armor and weapons hanging on the wall.

Jim brought Brian to the edge of the bed, rotated him, and laid him down on it, taking off his shoes, spurs, and weapon-laden knight’s-belt. Brian began to snore in dead earnest.

“Well,” Jim said, when he and the QB had returned outside to Dafydd and David, neither of whom had followed them in. “He’s settled. Four hours or so, if I know Brian, should see him on his feet again, whether he’s properly rested or not. How are you two for food and sleep?”

“Sir Pellinore fed us, and gave us a place to sleep, while you were gone,” said David. “I, myself, feel no further need for sleep at the moment. But mayhap Dafydd...” He turned with a look of concern to the bowman.

“I slept well, Sire,” said Dafydd. “Enough that I know my eye is sharp and my aim sure.”

“But you, Sir James,” said the QB; “if Sir Brian needs sleep so badly, surely you do? And when did you eat last?”

“Oh, Brian can always outlast me in staying awake,” said Jim. “And as for eating, I ate-“

He broke off. When had he eaten? When he had stopped to see Angie on the way back here? No. Angie had offered; but he had said he didn’t have time.

Scarcely a minute later a deer pushed the door open from the inside and looked out briefly, before emerging completely. She was a doe, a slim young fallow deer; and she was carrying two otters, perched along her spine. The otters were holding a folded white tablecloth and a large folded napkin between them.

The otters hopped down in a typical otter flowing movement, onto the tabletop, once it had been set in place upon the trestles. They spread the tablecloth, putting the napkin, with a spoon and a large, thick slice of coarse brown bread that had been hidden in its folds, in front of the stool at one end. After that they jumped up once more onto the back of the doe, who moved off a small distance; and, like the bears, turned back to watch the table.

All together, they formed a line of observers; the two otters crouched down, one behind the other, on the doe’s back, each gazing at Jim from one side of the doe’s neck.

Immediately, four perfectly ordinary, if a bit aged, male servants came out, bringing a pitcher and a wine cup, plus a large pie that radiated warmth as if it had just come out of an oven. They served a portion of the pie onto the thick slice of bread, filled the wine cup, and one of them held the stool so Jim could sit down. Then they also lined up, but at a small distance from the animals; and also stood waiting, evidently politely ready to be of service.

The QB came out, closely followed by King Pellinore.

“Forgive me, Sir James-“ the QB was beginning, when Pellinore interrupted him.

“It is for me to beg forgiveness, QB,” he said. “Sir James, it is a sorry thing that I must serve you partly with animals. But out in these woods, away from others, it is difficult to get enough serving folk; and the beasts, being young, find much pleasure showing their cleverness to you.”

“No, no,” said Jim. “I mean, that’s quite all right. I like animals-all kinds of animals.”

“So do the QB and I-“ said Pellinore. “But enough of manners. Let you now eat.”

Jim looked at the rough circle standing and watching him. Dafydd and David. Pellinore and the QB. The four human servants. The doe, otters, and young bears. He felt like Exhibit A in a courtroom trial.

But they were all waiting. Fourteenth-century table manners-which ought to do here in Lyonesse-were that you used your fingers for any food they could pick up; and the spoon only for whatever they could not. Gingerly, hoping he would not spill the filling between the two layers of pastry, he broke off a piece of pie and put it in his mouth.

It was, he found, fish pie. He had never eaten fish in a pie before; but that was no reason why he should not now. Also, he found, it was delicious. And he was not merely hungry, he was ravenous. Forgetting his audience, he waded into the food before him, washing mouthfuls down with straight wine-no water to mix with the wine had been provided.

More fish pie, more wine-deftly served to him the moment his slice of bread or wine cup was empty.

He realized finally he could not hold another bite. He was about to rise, with a sigh of satisfaction, when he remembered that the bread, now soaked with juices from the pie, was untouched. It was good manners in the fourteenth century for a passing guest to eat it also, as a compliment to the food. Was it that way here in Arthurian times-perhaps a thousand years earlier? He felt as if one more mouthful would have no place to go; but he would have to at least go through the motions.

He picked up the bread, which drooped like the sodden thing it now was, and took as big a bite as he could out of it. He managed to chew it and get it down. It, too, tasted good; but it was a labor getting that one bite down.

He did, however; and smiled at his audience. They seemed to approve-those that were left. The humans, all except the aged male servants, had all gone off. Dafydd was engaging David in quiet conversation and had led him away a small distance. Pellinore had disappeared-probably to back inside his house, once he saw his guest was being satisfied. Only the QB, the animals, and the elderly servants remained to watch.

The QB was still standing where he had been, but pointedly looking a little away from Jim. The human servants stood motionless, also seeming to look past him, but clearly attentive in case he wanted anything-almost as if there was a large badge with I AM INVISIBLE written on it and pinned to the shirt of each.

Only the animals were still unabashedly staring, as if fascinated by every move he made and totally indifferent to whether he liked their watching or not.

“I do not,” said the QB.

“Too bad,” said Jim. He looked at the animals again. “I was just thinking of singing it to them. You know-as sort of thanks and praise for their clever service- Whoa, he told himself, You’re drunk... But his mouth went right on talking.

“I thought maybe if you knew it, we could sing it to them together. It’s about a knight slain under his shield; and three ravens are talking. They want to eat his corpse; but one points out the dead knight’s hounds they lie down at his feet-so well do they their Master keep; and his hawks fly above him so eagerly, there is no bird dare him come nigh; and... you’re sure you don’t know it?”

“To my disgrace, Sir James, I do not.”

“Too bad! It has a great ending. The end part goes-“ And to his horror he heard himself beginning to sing:

“Tell me, QB,” he said, “how did King Pellinore get these creatures and train them so well? Were they abandoned at birth for some reason? Did he raise them from nurslings and teach them-“

“Oh, no, Sir James! They each-well, the bears and the otters came in pairs- but they came of their own will and offered their services. They are free to come and go, but they stay because they like him and his home.”

“Amazing!” said Jim. “Bears, otters, that doe...”

“Both King Pellinore and I,” said the QB, “honor the beasts and love them. We hunt always for the chase, never for the killing-sometimes we hunt each other, for sport-“

He paused. To Jim’s surprise, he seemed be hesitating. Jim had never known the QB to hesitate before.

“But your telling me this and singing a part of that song for me,” the QB went on, “encourages me to bring up something I have been less than certain about mentioning to you. As you undoubtedly know, we animals generally mistrust humans, all except the Magickians among them.”

Jim nodded. He did indeed know. It had been one of the first facts he had learned in his early days in the body of the dragon Gorbash. He had learned it from either Aargh the English Wolf or Carolinus, or both.

The QB was going on.

“The animals of Lyonesse, many of them, would like to speak to you and ask your advice. I have plainly come to trust you, and the trees have spoken well of you. But I hesitated, because I was not sure if you had the feeling for all of us who dwell in Lyonesse. But now I judge you do. Your song was about one of the few things that animals and humans tend to think about alike-loyalty to what and who they love. Also you sang it with real feeling. Will you honor us all by meeting with some of them? They have wished to know you.”

“Meet-oh, of course!” said Jim, scrambling to his feet and caught in an emotion that could have been partly from the wine he had drunk, but was also a matter of being both embarrassed and honestly touched by what the other had said. “When though? We’ve got this meeting with the Originals-“

“It will take very little time to meet the animals; and we have ample left before we must go and Sir Brian be wakened. The animals can be gathering as we travel.”

“Well, good, then,” said Jim. He was sobering up fast, but he wished it were even faster. He had not thought of the wild animals which must surely be in these forests of Lyonesse, and he found he very much wanted to see them.

“Come with me, then,” the QB was saying. “It were best you leave your horse behind and go on foot. If you close your eyes I can take the two of us more swiftly.”

“Can I come too, m’Lord?”

Hob was so light, sitting somehow securely on his shoulder, that Jim had begun to forget he was there.

“You can open your eyes now, Sir James,” said the voice of the QB. Jim did so and looked around him.

He was deep in forest, and at the bottom and center of a sort of natural amphitheater, a huge bowl covered with grass and curving up on all sides to wide-trunked old trees standing like guardians at the top edge of the bowl.

All around him were animals of the forest and plains, from tiny meadow mice through shrews, hares, and stoats, to mature bears, heavy-antlered deer, and powerful boars; but with sizes, sex, and age mixed. On the rim of the amphitheater, the lower branches of the old trees were bowed down with birds of all sizes and kinds.

But something more unexpected was there, too. He found himself staring, startled, at-not one lion, but a family of them-a pride led by a large, black-maned male, two grown females, and several half-grown youngsters, two males and one female. They were standing all together, looking at him from a small, clear space in the crowd around them, as still and decorous as a family in church.

It was not believable-all those species gathered together to meet him. Even in this magic-loaded, crazy version of fourteenth-century Earth. This was finally too much-the straw that broke the camel’s back. His thoughts whirled crazily like the propeller of an outboard motor suddenly lifted out of the water. But then, rising like a friendly wave, overwhelming it again and slowing it back to its proper, useful speed, came the one explanation which made sense. The one to which he could cling.

This was Lyonesse. Anything could happen here. He remembered the squirrel, boldly jumping from a tree branch onto the pommel of his saddle as he and Brian entered Lyonesse.

But nothing happened anywhere without a reason, he told himself-and that must be true here as well as elsewhere. Find the reason for everything, from the squirrel landing on his saddle to the unreasonable congregation of all these creatures-most of them predators, from weasels to lions...

Yet it was against reason for different species of animals to gather peacefully together-or was it?

There were, he remembered, in his world, the breeding islands near the South Pole, where leopard seals waded through penguins, ashore, without harming the odd birds; though the same penguins encountered in the ocean water were immediately pursued, killed, and eaten by the carnivorous seals. Different conditions evidently could produce different behaviors by the same meat-eating seal. But what about Lyonesse would produce something like this, here and now?

Out of a dusty corner of his memory came something he had been told of by a friend who was a wolf researcher. The story of the Mackenzie Arctic wolf, who normally did not join together in packs, but ranged individually over large territories-except for twice a year when the days-long river of migrating caribou flowed to and from the Great Slave Lakes where they gave birth to their young, before returning south again when the winter moved in.

At those two times, these solitary wolves would join together with wagging tails and every other sign of friendship. Then, working together in teams, they would prey upon the caribou while they passed; and this alliance would last as long as the great herds moved by.

A common resource drew them together. But what kind of common resource had drawn together all these here, now?

He had asked that same kind of question about the Mackenzie wolves, at the time he heard about them; and his friend had said even animals of different species were capable of combining against a common enemy, or to defend a common resource. But there was no common resource here...

He suddenly remembered what Merlin had said-“The animals share equally... 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.”

The Old Magic a resource? Crazy! No, perhaps... just perhaps-beside him the QB moved slightly; and it struck Jim that both the QB and the animals here could be waiting for him to come out of his mental laboratory and pay attention to them.

An awkward realization. An awkward moment. “Look! Lions!” said Jim in a low voice to the QB, to signal his return to matters at hand.

“Of course,” answered the QB. “Is not the name of our land Lyonesse?”

“Oh, yes. Of course.”

It was full day now, and the white sun shone directly on him in the open spot at the lowest, center point of the bowl. The unwavering eyes of all of them looked at him with the same, direct, unshielded, unblinking stare that the doe, the otters, and the young bears had used. ;

There was silence for a long minute as he stood there; then a sort of general rustling sound, more like the sound of feet shifting than of vocal cords uttering.

“They have looked at you,” said the QB, beside him. “The trees have spoken for you to them and they find you good. They wait for you to speak.”

“What am I supposed to say?” muttered Jim. The animal eyes were once again like miniature spotlights steadily on him; and he felt like a fool. At least by now the wine was out of his head.

“They want to know what they can do,” said QB.

“Do?” Jim tried to understand. “But what kind of thing do they want me to tell them about?”

“They know the fighting for Lyonesse will come. The trees can do nothing These are different. They want you to tell them how they can fight.”

Jim’s reawakened mind leaned and slithered down a slope of possibilities. He tried to visualize a battle-an actual battle-for Lyonesse. A battle with the men he had seen in the camp on the Borderland-against whatever fighting force Lyonesse could raise. The Originals-even with their descendants helping-would be heavily outnumbered. That went almost without saying. But what could animals do against humans, in any case?

Then, abruptly, his mental ground stopped being slippery. It became solid, level, and plain. In the tangle that was a medieval combat, from the small ones he had been in himself to the full-sized battles of one country against another, there were things that teeth and horns and hoofs might do.

Some animals-if they were animals with a purpose-could even be dangerous to that most dangerous of attackers, the partnership of the armored knight, squire, or man-at-arms on his warhorse.

But the odds would still be heavy against any animal, which would need luck to succeed in every case. It was not the sort of thing that these savage innocents should be asked to do-too much like sending men with machetes and knives against machine-gun fire, in his own world.

“You’ll tell them what I say?” Jim asked the QB.

“The trees will tell them, in time, in any case,” said the QB. “But if you like I will also tell them.”

“Good.” Jim looked over the animal faces all but carpeting the open space and crowding the rim of the bowl. He spoke, raising his voice, although he knew his words by themselves would mean nothing to them.

“Some of you know how dangerous an enemy a human on horseback with weapons can be. There’s no need for you to face that kind of foe just to help. I’ll tell the Originals and all the others I meet here of what a brave offer you’ve made. It will cheer them on. But I think you ought to think twice about helping.”

He stopped. The hundreds of animal eyes looked back at him without change. They said nothing. They did not move.

“I asked the trees not to tell them what you said just now, Sir James,” he heard the QB’s voice beside him saying, “and I did not tell them myself. Forgive me, but you make a mistake. The lives of those here and all like them are lives of killing or being killed, all their days. They are not like you and other humans, who can afford those things called bravery or cowardice. It is simply that this is their land and those who come are not allowed here. They do not ask you for permission to fight. They only ask how they may do it.”

Jim winced internally. That phrase “you and other humans” struck deep. He had been with the QB long enough to come to think of him as one with Brian, Dafydd, and himself, only in strange shape. He had forgotten that it was the animal world a Questing Beast must belong to, when the chips were down. Not his world, or that of any other human. Not even Pellinore’s, close as the two of them were.

“All right,” he said; and looked at the listeners again. He felt foolish. He was not used to giving speeches, and to begin now to give one to a silent audience of wild animals-He took a deep breath.

“All right,” he said loudly-startling himself in face of the complete silence of the faces looking at him.

“Look-“ he started again. “None of you are going to be able to win in the long run by going face-to-face with the mounted and armored men. But you don’t have to do that to be useful. There are other things you can do. If they set up their tents someplace here in Lyonesse, and there’s a Dark before the battle, some of you could gnaw through the tent ropes, so that their covering falls on them in the night and they can’t see. They probably won’t sleep the rest of the Dark before the battle.” The silence continued.

“For those of you who can venture on the field,” Jim went on, “remember, a mounted man loses much of his dangerousness if his horse goes down-“

He hesitated. Brian, like most knights, had a special place in his heart for horses. So, indeed, did Jim himself; though not to Brian’s extent. But what he had in mind had to be suggested. It was probably the single most effective thing they could do. He braced himself.

“-The horse’s legs are the part of him you want to attack. Break or hurt a horse’s leg badly enough and he’ll fall-particularly if you hit him while he’s moving. His rider is going to fall with him. You stoats and weasels might even think about attacking the rider’s unarmored parts once he’s down. Stags, you know you can outrun any horse in the short distance, even a horse that doesn’t have the weight of an armored man on its back. Come up from the back, use your horns, and then turn and run away. Then come back in someplace else and do it again. Boars, I don’t have to tell you how to use your tusks-on men or horses.”

He paused.

“I don’t really need to tell you how to fight best. You know that better than I do. But don’t get carried away. Sometimes I’m a dragon; and as a dragon I get carried away. Even humans do that. Some of you may, too, once the fighting starts. Well, don’t. Attack in darkness, or where they aren’t expecting you, or when they wouldn’t be looking in your direction.”

Jim hesitated. The silence in which they all listened was unnerving-as if they couldn’t hear him, or weren’t really listening to begin with.

“But, above all,” he went on desperately, “attack! Attack at the edges of the battle. You’ll be most useful distracting and disturbing the enemy; and living to disturb them some more; so Lyonesse’s own armored men can fight them with an advantage; and the Knights and you together, hopefully, can drive them back where they came from.”

He stopped again. He had no more to say; but it seemed to him a very lame way to finish. He stood staring at them and they stayed where they were, staring back.

As the silence dragged out, Jim began to notice furry bodies loping up the slope and vanishing among the trees. Stags started to turn away as these passed. Jim felt an ugly hollowness in his stomach, in spite of his recent meal.

They were all leaving now, with no acknowledgment, no evidence of a response to signal that anything he had told them could be useful.

The stomach feeling deepened as he watched them leave. He did not know what he had expected; but anything would have been better than this voiceless turning away, as if he had been a complete disappointment-disagreement with what he had told them, even anger, would have been better than this-there was a faint rustle all around the amphitheater, as if of last winter’s dead and blackened leaves being stirred by a breeze.

“I believe them pleased with what you told them, Sir James,” said the QB. Shocked, Jim stared at him, opened his mouth-then quickly rethought the words he had been about to say.

“But you can’t be sure.”

“Each will do what he or she wills, of course. But it is my mind that all who were here will be there when needed. However, come now. It is time we were returning, to go to the gathering place of the Originals.”

“All the animals...” Hob’s voice murmured on Jim’s shoulder in a tone of wonder, as they turned together to leave the amphitheater behind.