Brian, he noticed, was looking around hungrily. Awakened in time to eat at Pellinore’s, he had chosen instead to sleep to the last minute. Now his nose lifted toward those tables with food and wine on them. Jim felt for him, remembering his own appetite for the fish pie and the wine at Pellinore’s; but could think of no way to help him.

“Do you chance to see the Descendant of Sir Dinedan we met once, on our way to the Gnarly cave?” Brian asked Jim, in a low voice. “Surely he would remember us and offer us a cup of wine-if not, indeed, we could offer it to him.”

There were some obvious Descendants among the Original Knights, moving around or standing attentively, almost like squires, waiting on some of the Originals present; but Jim recognized none of them.

“Well, well,” said Brian. “A man cannot always live in a castle. What do we now?

“We continue to follow King Pelion, Sir Brian “ said the OB.

Suddenly, however, the tall King reined in his horse abruptly; and swung himself down out of his saddle as if he was no older than David. He was looking off beside the pavilion, down a leaf-shadowed glade, up which the figure of a younger Knight was coming toward him.

It had seemed to Jim in that first second that Pellinore had intended to go toward the advancing man; but instead he merely stood, suddenly stiff and erect beside his saddle, overtopping even the head of his tall horse. He seemed braced, as if to face the shock of something that would call for all his inner strength. Touched with a sudden feeling of dread, Jim also dismounted; and Brian followed him.

Jim took two steps forward to see if the expression on Pellinore’s face could tell him anything; but it was still the same unyielding visage, the same iron expression. Behind him, Jim heard Brian being accosted by what must be one of the two Knights at an outdoor table they had just ridden past.

“Sir James-“ began the voice of the QB at Jim’s elbow, in a low tone. But before it could continue, the approaching Knight had taken his last step toward Pellinore. Unlike nearly all of the Originals around them, who had come here wearing their knight’s belts, but with nothing at them but the customary sheathed dagger, the new arrival was fully armed in chain mail, as were Pellinore, Jim, and Brian. They had come, in full arms and armor-Jim and Brian because it was their traveling costume, Pellinore in token of their errand.

From the first instant of seeing the young man come toward them, the thought that this was Modred, showing up here after all, had clutched at Jim. But as he stared at the approaching figure, doubt began to creep in. The fact that this face was clean-shaven was unimportant. Modred could have discarded beard and mustache by this time.

The QB’s attention now seemed to be fully on Pellinore. Jim spoke very softly, under his breath.

“Hob,” he said, “could this have been the other man in Cumberland’s tent, when you and the QB were outside it the first time? He would have had a beard and mustache then.”

“I don’t know, my Lord,” Hob said, also whispering, from his post behind Jim’s head, where he was concealed by Jim’s armor.

Jim looked more closely. The clean-shaved face, which he could see in more detail now that it was nearer, was too open and frank to be the one he had half glimpsed in the shadows of the Borderland tent behind the Earl and Agatha. Also, though it and the body attached to it were half a head shorter than Pellinore, it had something like the same amazing breadth of shoulder and unconquerable attitude. And the face was smiling, as if in greeting.

“Come, my father,” said Sir Lamorack softly, when the arms let go. “Let the two of us step aside and speak a while.”

They went off.

Jim blinked his eyes, which had unaccountably begun to mist. Just in case it was the magic glasses that were to warn him of any sign of color seen in Lyonesse- he had almost forgotten he was wearing them-he took them off and looked at them. But they showed no difference; and when he put them back on, after a couple of quick dabs with a forefinger at the inner corners of his eyes, Lyonesse showed itself as black and white as it had when they were off.

He became aware once more of Brian’s voice behind him, in conversation with two other voices. He looked to his right, where the QB had been, but the QB was gone. He looked back and saw Brian standing, facing the table they had just passed, where the two Knights who had been there were also on their feet, and facing him.

The two looked from Brian to Jim, curiously.

“Ah,” said Brian, following their gaze. “Allow me to name to you Sir James Eckert, oft called Sir Dragon, Baron de Bois de Malencontri et Riveroak. Sir James, may I name to you Sir Kay, foster brother to King Arthur; and this is Sir Bedivere.”

“Honored to meet you,” said both of them; and Sir Kay added, “Sir Brian tells us you are also a magickian.”

“I am,” said Jim. As a knight, manners should have obliged him to be modest. But as a magickian he was almost required to be arrogant. After all, magickians called everyone, including kings, by their christened name. Nor did they hesitate to tell Royalty off if necessary.

“Hah!” said Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere, plainly impressed.

They all sat down on stools at the table and Sir Bedivere filled metal wine cups with a dark wine for Brian and Jim. For the first time Jim looked closely at their hosts.

Sir Kay was not a young man, but his round features gave him an appearance of near youthfulness. His bushy mustache seemed salt-and-peppered in this black-and-white land, which reinforced the effect; but if he was King Arthur’s foster brother, he must therefore be close to the same age; and Arthur had been white-bearded toward the end of his life. But then, this was Lyonesse.

Sir Bedivere had a face that could be any age.

“My thanks to you, Sir Bedivere,” said Jim, as the ranking member of his own twosome.

“It honors me to be of service to you, Sir. You and Sir Brian are in Lyonesse because of this threat of an Evil called the Dark Powers?”

“That’s right,” said Jim, tasting the wine, as politeness required, but taking only a small mouthful in view of the drinking he had done at his earlier meal. This wine was not bad.

“We gather they are a thing to be feared,” put in Sir Kay, “of the hardest and crudest of magicks. Would that be also your opinion, Sir?”

“You could say that, Sir,” said Jim. “But being Spirits only, anything they take, they cannot hold, being limited in this way as are all immaterial forces. As a result, it is only their creatures and their armed men that would need to be dealt with.”

“Hah!” said Sir Kay jovially. “No fear from that quarter. Do you not agree, Bedivere?”

“I should certainly agree,” said Bedivere. His was a plain face, but honest-looking in a remarkable degree. A face like that of a farmer who had found himself made a Knight by mistake; but was being the best Knight he could be now that he was one. “Yet I have a foreboding...”

“And I would venture to agree with Sir Bedivere, Sir Kay,” said Brian. “Not merely because of a foreboding, however. But because I have seen their army in the Borderland of the Drowned Land.”

The conversation was moving out of Jim’s territory of expertise.

“Between eight and twelve hundreds of lances.”

“Gentlemen?” queried Kay sharply. He would be referring only to the knights and squires, Jim knew.

“Six-tenths of them, perhaps,” said Brian. “But few of them gentlemen you would sit to table with. They are ruined or sinful men, hedge-knights and outlaws-the scraping of the world’s drain ditches.”

“But armed and able to fight, I trust?” asked Bedivere. “It were a shame to put to flight no more than a rabble.”

“Oh, armed, experienced, armored, and some with squire or page,” said Brian,” and such as will fight hard, because for those like theirselves, it is win or die- and having nothing left but their few mortal years they value life.”

“A considerable number,” said Bedivere thoughtfully.

“Come, Sir Bedivere!” said Kay to him, “to attack us? They must be mad, were they twice as many.”

“Any such attack will go as God wills,” said Sir Bedivere. “And while I think no Knight here would fear death in battle, the arm wearies with killing; and we are not what we once were, in especial without Arthur the King or Lancelot to lead us. You remember how it was with us who were with Arthur in the next to last battle with Modred, the battle at Dover, where he had much greater numbers, but the King, beyond himself with might and passion, his white beard flaming in the sunlight, himself drove them back-and we his Knights followed. But we no longer have him, nor the brightness of Lancelot to set us alight.”

“Lancelot will light no lights in his hermit cell, let be how light the lady!” said Kay, with a somewhat coarse laugh. But then he crossed himself. “If sobeit he is still on live-nay, nay-“ he added swiftly, for Sir Bedivere’s face had darkened and hardened. “I mean no disrespect to his memory. In all but one thing he was the most noble of Knights!”

“Well you may say so,” said Bedivere.

“But you, Sir Brian.” Changing his attention and his subject somewhat hastily, Sir Kay returned to Jim’s friend. “From what you tell us of those armed against us, you must be old in fighting. But, without offense, Sir, may I ask how sure your estimate of this rabble raised against us may be? Have you seen much of battle? Or for that, of spear-runnings?”

“Of battle, only once, and for little time, Sir. But for spear-runnings, since my boyhood, they have been my great desire and delight,” said Brian, “and I have had some small success in them.”

Jim now knew enough of knightly manners to know that it was now up to him, as Brian’s friend, to set the record straight.

“I do not remember, in my time,” he said, as slowly and impressively as he could, “the tournament at which Sir Brian failed to carry away the crown.” (He had only seen one, actually, at the Earl of Somerset’s Christmas party of the previous year.)

“Ah, indeed?” said Sir Kay. His voice dropped a note or two. “Of course, those would all be tournaments in the land above, would they not?”

“They were,” said Brian, “and doubtless not to compare with those found here in Lyonesse. Yet I pray you, Sir Kay, if you would do me the honor, you and I might break a spear or two so that you can judge for yourself how much I know.”

“Sit down. Sit down!” said Bedivere. “With foes at our border is no time to be playing amongst ourselves with sharpened lances!”

Both Brian and Kay sat back down on their stools. Wine was poured into cups. There was a little silence.

Jim was tense. It was Arthur who, in the Legends, focused the concept of chivalry to these men. Underneath, in many ways, they were still savage; and Sir Kay seemed all too ready to make trouble.

“What, then,” said Sir Kay, breaking the pause once more, “from your experience, Sir Brian, would you say is the most important skill of all in spear-runnings?”

It was clearly a testing question.

“Sir,” said Brian, “I would say that it is the skill of a good agreement between the man and his horse.”

This clearly unexpected answer startled Jim with the way it abruptly cleared the small invisible thundercloud of growing antagonism at the table. Both Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere leaned forward with a sudden, wholehearted, eager interest, Sir Kay’s ready animosity forgotten.

“Why do you place that foremost among all other such skills?” asked Bedivere.

“Because, Sir,” said Brian, “if that a gentleman be lacking in it against an opponent whose mount is one with him, not all the other skills put together will avail.”

“But surely, Sir,” said Sir Kay, and there was no edge to his voice at all now, only open inquiry, “all of us have that skill-so all are equals?”

“Perhaps here in your Lyonesse it is so,” said Brian. “I would not doubt that. But consider, Sirs, when the spearpoint strikes, the winner is one who is able to put not only his own weight, but that of his horse, for an instant, behind the blow. I can only say that I have met few indeed in my own experience who could do so.”

“But I say again,” said Sir Kay, “you must be speaking of somewhat other than what is usually considered in this. Does not the weight of horse and man necessarily go behind the strike of the spearpoint?”

“Many assume so, but no. Not with all possible force, not without an exceptional, trained horse; and not without much training of man and horse together...”

Brian spoke on. He had been deeply concerned from the beginning of their friendship to teach Jim jousting, along with other weapon skills; and he had tried hard to do so. But he had never mentioned the unity of horse and man at the moment of collision until now; and Jim judged that it was subject matter for those much more expert than he would ever be-the graduate level of spear-running, so to speak.

His mind drifted off from the conversation. He wondered where Dafydd and the QB had gone when they disappeared. It struck him he was gaining nothing by sitting here while technical talk of spear-runnings whizzed about his ears. Taking advantage of a slight pause in the conversation, he stood up.

“If you will forgive me, Sirs,” he said. “There is something I just remembered I should be about. I will hope to rejoin you a little later-no, no, Brian, there’s no need for you to come, too. By all means stay and finish talking.”

Brian settled back. Jim went. Before he had taken two steps they were deep in a discussion of how much there was to be gained by knowing the man you were about to joust with. Kay and Bedivere believed there was a great deal. Brian insisted the notion was exaggerated.

“-There is a gentleman of my acquaintance,” he was saying as Jim walked out of hearing. “I cannot claim him as an especial friend of mine; but there is not denying he is a superb horseman and man of his hands. I have met him many a time and oft in the lists and outside them; but never have I been able to learn in those times of any weakness or bad habit in his lance or sword work. He gained the crown at one tourney when my girth broke as he and I rode against each other to see who should win the day...”

The words faded behind Jim. He had encountered this same thing in the land above, long since. The gentry could be as tedious as any professionals of his original world when it came to talking shop. Opinions and instances concerning hounds, hawks, hunting practice, and the use of weapons could end up dinning in the ear of someone who had not been raised to live with those things.

Jim roamed through the Gathering Place, noticed as a stranger, but no more than noticed; and as soon forgotten by those he passed. But he found no sign of Dafydd, David, the QB, or Pellinore.

The Gathering Place of the Original Knights of Lyonesse, aside from the Pavilion, had not seemed to have much in the way of walls, or even borders. But now he began to find that even what passed for borders were particularly unreliable, tables with stools seeming to straggle off into unoccupied forest in all directions.

He reached what he thought was an outer edge now; and started to circle around the whole Place-a clever way of seeing all and everyone there, he thought-until he discovered that what had been an outer edge of it some thirty steps earlier had only protruded halfway to the longer area he now walked into, with tables and straight-backed, martial figures talking at them.

But farther around, beyond this second area, the forest closed in again. No tables, no figures, no talking. He wandered into the trees a short distance, however, just to make sure he was not being misled by the immediate greenery and this really was the outer edge of the Gathering Place at this point.

But this time no outdoor furniture and seated Knights appeared, no one. Only on one yew tree he became aware of a squirrel, larger than the one he had seen on entering Lyonesse.

This squirrel clung easily to the trunk of the yew, at a point a little above his head-motionless, upside down, but watching him with up-arched neck and bright, black-seeming eyes. He wondered if it was one of the animals he had spoken to in the amphitheater, earlier.

“Hello there,” he said to it.

It said nothing. Neither did it move, though he was within two long strides of it.

Jim’s mind went worriedly back to the matter of finding his missing friends and Pellinore. The day was moving on, but he could do nothing until he knew what they had been up to. In spite of himself, a feeling of depression, of being hurried into what might well be the wrong action, was growing in him. Good fighters as these figures of heroic deeds long past undoubtedly were, their idea of armed combat was probably nothing more than a super-melee, each one fighting, berserk-fashion, against the enemy before him at the moment, with no overall direction.

Cumberland would at least have a plan. The English, he recalled, had won at Crecy against the French, using the harrow formation.- the archers, protected by ditches and stakes, on both wings, and dismounted men-at-arms-Jim could not see any of the Round Table Knights agreeing to dismount-in the center as spearmen. They had also made use of a favorable ground position.

Here, the question of a plan could not wait much longer. Nor could that of a leader for the fighters of Lyonesse; and though Jim found himself thinking very highly of Pellinore, he could not quite see him as the sort of magnetic general officer who might lead his fellow legendary Knights to victory, fourteenth-century style.

The fact of it was, he felt that he, himself, should be able to think of some way in which they could win against opponents that certainly must greatly outnumber them. The Earl of Cumberland had hardly a decent human quality to recommend him. But Jim did not need to see him in battle to know that the man was no coward. He had commanded-which meant leading in this age-before and would do so now. He would be ready to show the way; and none of those behind him would shirk having to follow.

Even if the Originals had the aid of all their descendants, and even if those, like the Originals, were fearsome fighters-which he secretly believed was not very likely, after meeting the Descendant of Sir Dinedan the last time he, Brian, and Dafydd had been in Lyonesse-they were going to be unreasonably outnumbered and overpowered, in any case. In this mulligan stew of magic and brutal, deadly weapons, he needed some knowledge of a way in which they could be led-what tactics, if any, they could be brought to follow.

But nothing came to mind.

He needed to talk to someone who could tell him more of what to expect from the Lyonesse warriors. What was wrong with him, anyway? Usually he could come up with an idea-but this time his mind might as well have been asleep.

Moved by a wild thought, he looked at the squirrel, who was still there, unmoved, watching him. On impulse he looked for a dead leaf, found none. He reached into his purse for the leaf Angie had given him. “Good magic,” she had called it. It was worth a try in this land of magic.

He reached forward to the squirrel and slipped the leaf edgewise into the animal’s slightly open mouth.

“Here!” he said, “take that to Merlin and tell him I need to know how to get to Avalon.”

“M’Lord?” said Hob excitedly, on Jim’s shoulder, “are we going to Avalon? The ballad singer who taught me-“

“Don’t talk!” Still watching the squirrel, Jim cut him short.

The little animal had not moved. It was doing nothing about the leaf, either. It was not dropping it, but at the same time it hardly seemed aware the leaf was in its mouth. Even for a squirrel, it did not seem to have much intelligence.

Jim started to turn away, feeling empty inside. He should have kept Angie’s leaf. He might as well head back toward the center of the Gathering Place. But before he was completely turned, he became aware that the squirrel was gone. He turned back instantly, but the trunk held nothing now. Strange... he had not seen it disappear, and it had still been within his range of vision.

A sudden touch of coldness, like an icicle slipped down the back of his shirt neck, took him.

What if it had been no living squirrel at all, but some creature or creation of either the Dark Powers or Morgan le Fey, sent to spy upon him?

If so, they might now believe he had some kind of working arrangement with Merlin; and that was why he had just sent the squirrel to the tree-bound seer. Squirrels denned in holes in trees well above ground, and such a hole in the tree where Merlin was imprisoned could lead all the way to the ancient magician. That suspicion might slow them down a bit-or it might make them move all the faster to settle things before he actually made a trip to the legendary land of Avalon.

He shook the thought off. Avalon would be unreachable, of course; and anyway, by now the squirrel would have dropped and forgotten the leaf-which at most could only be a reminder of the message, and useful only if it had understood him, which it probably had not.

“No such thing, Brian,” said Jim. “I was just hunting for Dafydd and the QB.”

“Why, they and the lad David went off, even as we met with Sir Bedivere-a solid-thinking, worthy gentleman, though his ideas are somewhat out-of-date-and Sir Kay. But then, their armor, and weapons, also-however, I run on once more. Of course, your back was turned when our friends disappeared; and of course they made no sound doing it.”

“I particularly wanted to ask the QB when we might get back together with King Pellinore and speak to all the Originals about getting ready to face any invasion from that small army we saw in the Borderland.”

“James,” said Brian solemnly, “it is not a small army.”

“No, of course not. Just my odd way of saying things, Brian. But, you know, there was a squirrel here just now-“

Jim checked himself, looking at the tall yew tree.

“Well, there was a squirrel,” he went on, “one that’d been watching me. Nothing important. I just thought I might send a message through him somehow-“

“Through a squirrel. James?”

But Jim’s mind had gone back to being helpful again. Ignoring the question, he told Brian about how the QB had taken him to meet the wild animals of forest and plain.

“That must indeed have been a moment to remember,” said Brian, a little wistfully. “Do not think I complain, James, but it has not been my good fortune to be engaged in anything so far on this voyage. Nothing, at least, of the sort that makes good telling around the fire on a winter’s night. But indeed”-he brightened up suddenly-“did you know that King Pellinore has animals about his castle that serve like men and women?”

“As a matter of fact...” began Jim, “I did. They set a table outside for me; and some human servants brought out food.”

“When did you have time to have it? When I went with the QB to meet with the animals in the woods you were asleep, and still asleep when we got back.”

“Ah, yes, but I woke up betweentimes. It has happened to me once or twice before, when I have gone somewhat beyond my usual time of sleep. I woke, James, suddenly; not knowing where I was for a moment. I wished very much to sleep again, but I could not seem to do so, so I got up and went out.”

“All the way outside?”

“Outside King Pellinore’s palace. I sat down on his bench-you recall that bench seat against the front wall of it? And sat, trying to think myself back into slumber, but without success. Still, I must have dozed for a moment-but do not think I dreamed this, James!”

“No. I won’t. Of course not.”

“I opened my eyes to see some of the small bears and otters you mentioned, James; one couple of each standing a little apart from the other couple, but all regarding me. It did not come to my mind at first that these animals were servitors of King Pellinore. My first thought was that they had just wandered in out of the woods, though I marveled to see them stand two and two like that-I was barely awake, for all I could not sleep, you understand-and I did not think to see if there was any other animal there with them.”

Brian sighed.

“It may be hard to believe, James; but I could no more refuse that nudge than I could have refused a polite request from a lady. Once on my feet, I felt her moving to nudge me from behind; and so she pushed me gently to the door of the palace, down a corridor and into the room where I had been sleeping, and so to my bed. I fell on it, ready to sleep now; and rest came to me like instant night. The last I remember were her great eyes, so gentle, still watching, looking down into mine, until I could hold them open no longer.”

He stopped speaking, and sat, staring a little away from Jim as if he was seeing what he had just been talking about. Brian, Jim knew, was not a run-of-the-mill romantic. But once he was caught up by emotion, he was off like a rocket.

Jim had seen him in the grip of emotion before-most notably during their trip to Northumberland, where they two, with Dafydd, had gone to bring word of the death of their friend Giles to his family.

Thankfully, Giles had in fact not died, after all, thanks to his heritage of silkie blood-a fact that had not been known when Jim, thinking so, had had his first run-in with the Earl of Cumberland over the burial. The Earl had been forced to give way at that time, due to the intercession of the young Prince Edward; but Jim and his friends had earned themselves the Earl’s enmity.

But having found Giles alive in his home, Jim found himself confronted with the problem presented by Brian’s sudden infatuation with Giles’s sister, to the point of announcing himself ready to forsake his lifelong love, Geronde. Jim had been grateful when Brian’s feelings had evaporated with surprising swiftness, and left no residual effects.

Perhaps the same thing would happen with his feeling about Pellinore’s deer. But it was hard to tell. There had been something deep-voiced in the way he told the story of the doe that touched Jim as the gathering of the animals had in his case.

“-But here they are, now!” Brian suddenly interrupted himself, in his usual energetic voice.

“Here? Who?” said Jim, turning to look. Back in the direction of the heart of the Gathering Place, where the ends and edges of a number of tables could be glimpsed among the trees, Dafydd, David, and the QB were approaching.

“Sir James!” said the QB, “we have been searching for you and Sir Brian!”

“And I’ve been looking for you. You were the ones who disappeared.”

“In daylight?”

“Indeed,” said the QB. “But Dafydd-who insists I call him simply that, rather than by his rightful title as a Prince of that land-wondered why it had been so plagued with Harpies, while Lyonesse has seen none of the creatures of the Dark Powers. And since we had some time in hand-“

“Hold on!” said Jim, “wait a minute! I didn’t know we had some time in hand. Did you, Brian?”

“I did not,” said Brian. “

“I thought King Pellinore would be taking us directly to meet some of the leading Originals,” went on Jim, “and maybe we’d even begin to start making plans with them. But he went off with his son; and when I thought to look for the rest of you, you were gone.”

“Mea culpa-as you humans say. Once more, the blame is entirely mine. Knowing King Pellinore as I do, I did not stop to think that you would not know. His talk with his son could not possibly be a short one. He will be hungry to hear all that Sir Lamorack may have to tell him. But Sir Lamorack will have to talk cleverly and long on his own behalf if he wishes to bring his father to speak of himself. Yet Sir Lamorack will do so, and succeed; for he and Sir Percival, his brother, greatly love King Pellinore.”

“I see. Well, these things happen,” said Jim. “I didn’t mean to sound-anyway, you’re here now.”

“But, Sir James, I did not mislead you. We do have some time in hand, after all. Favor me by looking into my eyes.”

Jim stared at him for a moment, then concentrated on doing what he had just been asked. It was not the simple matter it sounded. The eyes in the QB’s head, at the end of his long, snaky neck, were one on each side of that head; whereas Jim’s were side by side in front for binocular vision. But Jim managed it.

For a moment he saw nothing but the glittering darkness of those serpent eyes. Then the darkness seemed to expand, and merge into one image, which brightened until it showed the green land under a yellow sun that was the Drowned Land. The figure of a woman in white was pacing up and down, impatiently, half a dozen feet each way.

He stared at her for a moment.

“Isn’t that-“ he began; but that was as far as he got before the QB interrupted him for a second time.

“Shall we go, Sir James?”

“Go?” Jim blinked, losing the image, and stared at him for a second. “Go. Oh, yes, certainly.”

A slice of darkness came seemingly out of nowhere, to cover them for so short a fraction of time that its momentary appearance hardly registered on Jim; and they were there-Jim, the QB, Dafydd, David, and Brian, all facing the lady in white; who had halted, staring at Jim.

“All right,” he said. “Then, QB, you explain.”

“Briefly, Sir James,” he said, “King David, Dafydd, and I came to this land to find out if the invaders were ready to move against Lyonesse, as those of this land whom they had kept watching them reported. Dafydd judged they were; indeed, they had already started packing for the move. But then, checking the landscape generally for Harpies and finding none, we yet found-not the Queen of Northgales, but her-“

“Never mind what you thought!” said Northgales. “I’ll do the talking. You, James, give me your attention. I have watched you stay safely out of the hands of Morgan le Fay for some time now. You will tell me immediately how you have managed to do that.”

“Then long may you continue to do so,” said Jim.

Northgales evidently did not understand that this was his answer, at first. Then something that was almost a flush stained her white cheeks for a second.

“Of course,” said Jim, “being a Queen, you could always try to make me tell. Go right ahead.”

“You’ll regret it to your dying day-which may be soon!” she spat out.

“I don’t mind. Go ahead-what’re you waiting for? Don’t tell me you don’t have any magic powers here in the Drowned Land?”

“That is false! I have some,” said Northgales.

“I’ll believe ‘some,’” said Jim. “You’d need it to make a simulacrum of yourself, but you might have to personally, physically, convey it here.”

“You have no magick, either!”

“I don’t?” said Jim. “Then how’ve I been able to stay safely out of Morgan’s grasp all this time-sorry, I forgot. That’s what you wanted to find out from me.”

“Perhaps. But the idea of my giving you anything in return is ridiculous. You may have magick you cannot use-except to stay free of Morgan le Fay!”

“Morgan? Burned her fingers?” This time the emphasis was on the name of the other Witch Queen.

“Yes.”

“I’m not surprised.” Reasonableness was beginning to sound for the first time in Northgales’s voice. Also a sort of desperation, or exhaustion. She passed her fingers over her forehead for a moment.

“-She is not all-powerful,” Northgales said suddenly. “We four Witch Queens were given Lyonesse to rule each in our own place of strength. Where my winds blow, none of the other three can stand before me. But Morgan has improved her Powers because her strength was to be with Arthur and those like him, whose spirits in all else control Lyonesse, together with the trees and the Old Magic. Now she thinks she should rule all; and, since that is impossible, she has cast her eyes on this earth about us here.”

“But she will have no magick power here, either,” said Dafydd. “How can she hope to rule and own us?”

“Ah!” said Northgales, laying her finger to her nose, and peering over it slyly at Jim. “If you want that answer, you must buy it-“

But the finger was trembling. She took it away from her nose and stared at it. “Wet!” Her whole hand was shaking; and now Jim saw her body was shaking also. She wavered on her feet.

“M’Lady!” Hob leaped from Jim’s shoulder and started to run to her. Jim dived after him; and caught him just out of reach of Northgales. But she made no effort to reach out her arm and touch Hob; only turned her eyes, now wet and spilling tears, on him.

“But m’Lord, she needs help!” Hob was still struggling in Jim’s arms, trying to reach Northgales.

“You can’t help her; and if you touch her, she’ll hurt you!” said Jim. “Now, be quiet!”

“Speak quickly,” said Jim. “Tell me what you’ve come to offer; and maybe I can save you. Quick!”

“I... came...” It took sharp listening to hear the ghost of a whisper from her white lips now. “... to join you... against her...”

“There’s more than that. Tell me-you can’t take much more of this!”

“Cumberland... to have this land... in hold. She... to gain Lyonesse above the Knights... aid Cumber... gainst upper worl...”

Her voice went silent. Her streaming eyes closed.

Jim reached into his purse with one hand, with the other still holding back Hob. From the purse he pulled out his pear from among the enchanted fruit there, and took one bite. Like his use of the grape earlier to supply him with the sleep he had lost, it was not what he had planned. But it was worth it.

“A pavilion;” he said within himself, visualizing the airy, tentlike structure. “Shade. Temperature seventy-no, fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit.” The Auditing Department would have no idea what Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Absolute degrees meant in terms of heat or cold, but that did not matter.

He did.

Instantly the pavilion was shading them, the temperature that of the outdoors on a cool but not-unpleasant fall day. He had been tempted for a second to go down to forty degrees; but that might be harmful to Northgales-to be plunged into too cool a temperature too quickly, even though it might be a temperature she liked and was used to.