He was safe now, he knew. If the Dark Powers could attack him only through Their creatures, as he now was almost sure was the case, he could be in no danger up here. The worst They could do was send Harpies up after him; and he could outfly Harpies with-loosely speaking-one wing tied behind his back.

Besides, he doubted They had any Harpies to spare at the moment. If there were, their owners would want to keep them for the encounter between the Earl’s small army and the Lyonesse Knights.

Fire had apparently reached all through the hive now, but in an odd, irregular fashion. Most of the great, stonelike structures that had made it up looked untouched on their surface; but all were spouting flames from side or top in what seemed haphazard fashion. But now, a flame ran up the side of one huge boulder shape, and continued to burn fiercely and spread... it was hard to believe the whole Nursery was a made thing. Creating it must have been a gigantic task.

“M’Lord,” said Hob in a uncertain voice, behind him, “did you use magick to make the rock burn?”

“No,” said Jim-and was about to go on to say that he had simply been a complete damn fool. But he checked himself in time. It might relieve his feelings to admit the truth; but that would simply transfer the load of his uncomfortable emotions to Hob, as unasked-for confessions usually did to the one who heard them.

“I thought it was stone, too,” he told Hob, instead, “but it was something the Dark Powers just made to look like stone; and whatever it was made of caught fire from that bit of burning wood I summoned.”

Privately, he was thinking of the nests made by wasps out of chewed-up plant fibers, or the strands a spider produced from its own body to make a web. The Dark Powers could have somehow produced some creature which could build the rock-appearing Nursery in some similar fashion.

He checked his runaway thoughts, realizing his mind was trying to escape what he was forcing himself to watch.

“It’s burning up all over,” said Hob, craning his head out from Jim’s, so that Jim could see him from the corner of his eye, staring at what was below. “There’s our harpy: and see all the other strange... beasts.”

“Yes,” said Jim emptily, looking down with him. Creatures of all sorts of shapes and descriptions were coming out of the bases of the great boulder shapes; and some of them were huge.

There were ten-foot ogres, like the one Jim, in the dragon body of Gorbash, had fought at the Loathly Tower; and Worms as thick as main-line sewer pipes.

But there were also others that Jim had never seen or imagined before. Such as a great flat thing like an enormous landgoing flounder, with a massive head owning two mouths full of jagged teeth. It was legless and seemed to move by throwing its whole body forward-as if it wanted to crush any opponent as much as to slash them to death with its teeth... and there was a sort of great serpent that struck at the surrounding rock shapes it passed as it fled from the fire.

These four types were the most numerous. There were things of other sizes and shapes-but no other flying ones except the Harpies. Most of them, however, seemed to have come forth only to die-or at least collapse. They made their way only a little distance from the aperture from which they escaped before sinking to the earth and lying still, or falling over and moving only feebly.

It was, thought Jim as he watched, as if they had only a small hold on an imitation of life; and the mere act of escaping the flames had been too much for them.

All together, though, Jim’s blunder seemed to be more than a small help for those of Lyonesse-that was, if the Dark Powers had to take some time to replace them. He had started out with the thought of seeing what could be done to delay or bother Them. He had never expected to be able to do this much damage.

His next step now was take a look at the Borderland invaders and see how close they were to actually showing up on the Empty Plain-

“Sit back straight up and take a good hold, Hob,” he said harshly. “We’ve got to get going.”

“But m’Lord-what about the harpy?”

“The harpy?” Jim looked down. The harpy body he had been in-strangely familiar from his having been in it; and evidently equally so to Hob-had pulled itself perhaps as much as fifteen feet out onto the round, rock-colored surface by the slit from which they and it had escaped; and so far at least, the fire had not followed it. At first glance, Jim had assumed it was already dead; but then he saw its body shiver slightly-as if it wanted to move farther, but did not have the strength.

“Never mind the harpy, Hob,” he said. “It’s done for anyway; and we’ve got to go.”

“But my Lord, it’s your harpy!”

There was an emphasis on the word your that did not escape Jim. In this world the relationship between any two individuals was a street than ran both ways. The serf, tenant, servitor in the Castle (or whatever passed for a castle) owed service and life to his overlord. But that overlord owed him in return-defense, the right to justice against others, enough leadership and forethought so that the lesser one did not starve. That and a host of other duties according to such things as past practice and established custom. There was no free lunch.

The harpy’s body had been used by Jim. As Hob saw it, Jim owed it something in return. And everyone from Brian to-probably even-Morgan le Fay would have agreed with him. There were those, of course, who did not honor such debts. They filled up the ranks of the men led here by Cumberland.

The harpy abandoned its attempt to bite, but stared at Hob with eyes like black fires.

“Just rest,” Hob was saying. “All things come out all right. Just rest. Close your eyes...”

“It’s dead, Hob,” said Jim softly.

“I know, m’Lord,” said Hob, slowly taking his arms from around the head. “Goodbye, Lady.” He looked up at Jim. “Do we go now, m’Lord?”

“You’re a better man than I am, Hob,” said Jim as he took off.

“My Lord? Is there someone else with us?”

“No,” said Jim. “Forget I mentioned it. It’s part of a line from a poem a man wrote and I read-a long time back.”

“But I’m not a man, m’Lord. You know that.” Hob’s voice was puzzled. “I’m a Hob.”

“A very good Hob. Never mind. It doesn’t matter-sort of talking to myself, anyway.”

Jim had to climb to almost two thousand feet to find a current of air moving toward where the Borderland camp was, or had been. But from that height he could see it was now deserted; ugly with litter, but deserted. He looked away to his left.

The Empty Plain was still empty.

Mentally drawing a line from the camp to the Plain through the thickly leaved treetops, he began to glide down toward that line at its Borderland end.

He reached that point with surprising swiftness; and turned to soar along above the treetops beside the imaginary line he had drawn. For some little distance he saw nothing; and then there was movement visible below him on the ground. As he went, the movement began to have the purpose and shape of men and horses moving together in a single direction, though spread out from each other some little distance.

Cumberland’s force was indeed on its way from the surrounding woods into the Empty Plain. How could they be so sure of their destination, he asked himself; and the answer came back immediately.

Of course. Morgan, Modred, or any of that inclination could have told them of the Plain’s existence and led them to it.

Meanwhile, they were under the trees, and the trees-for they were now over the border into Lyonesse itself-were a threat. They probably knew that; but even if they did not realize the trees could reach down with their limbs and strangle them, plants could not move that swiftly. The men would have to pause, or at least go very slowly, to be in such danger. Those moving below Jim now were probably safe as long as they were in constant movement.

But-it was puzzling. On several occasions his sharp dragon-hearing picked up shouting voices from below; and he caught glimpses of what seemed to be individuals running in different directions than their general line of march.

But he could not get any closer without being seen; and he wanted to keep himself unseen, if possible, until he had to show himself as a dragon. If he went any lower, among and between the trees, he risked being seen. Best to head directly back to King Pellinore’s home, where Brian and the others should be waiting for him.

He tilted his wings and peeled off, not wanting to use his wings to climb until he was beyond the hearing of those below. Once he was, he beat up some four hundred feet, found a tail wind blowing in the right direction, and began riding it.

It seemed almost too leisurely a way of going when the enemy was already on the march; but there was not a great deal he could do to hurry it up, unless he wanted to climb in hopes of finding a stiffer breeze.

It would be a gamble. He had learned from volleyball that patience also had its place in winning any victory. He turned away from the Plain and soared on.

When he came within sight of Pellinore’s log-built home, he saw that Pellinore himself was just about the only one missing from the crowd around its front door. The space where Jim had eaten now held not only Brian-easily recognizable to Jim still in his dragon shape-Dafydd King David and the QB. But there were also a number of other men, all wearing clothes that looked as if they would have been the Blue of Dafydd’s Color, if Jim could have seen their tint. They had quivers full of arrows slung by their sides and longbows over their shoulders.

Jim landed with a thump, turning himself back into his human shape immediately. As an afterthought, he used a small bite of the plum to turn Brian back into a human, also. The archers stared.

“James!” said Brian, as they gathered around him. “Damme, but it’s good to see you! I should never have let you cozen me into leaving you alone there. But you took no hurt?”

“Not a scratch,” said Jim, deciding to say nothing about the crawl in darkness in the narrow tunnel. “But I was right about that being the breeding place of the Dark Powers’ monsters; and by sheer luck-no credit to me, an accident really-I set fire to it. So the numbers of those that bred there have been reduced certainly by, at a guess, more than half.”

“I wish I had been with you, though.”

“Brian, the fire was actually just an accident. I might not have started it, if there’d been someone sensible with me.”

Jim opened his mouth to tell them of Hob and the dying harpy, than decided it would not play well to this particular audience. The word bravery, here, meant flashing swords and desperate battles.

“He went right into the breeding place with me, all the way,” said Jim, “and he would have been the only one who could have guided me back out. I’ll tell you more about the fire some other time, maybe. I hurried back; because after I left the breeding place, I flew over the route from the Borderland camp to the Empty Plain. The invaders are just moving into the Plain, now!”

“That’s right, I did see some of them milling around as if something had just happened to them. But I didn’t think there was time to stop and find out what was going on. Your bowmen are taking a real risk, though. If any of them are caught by that bunch-“

“They will not be caught,” said Dafydd. “Any who did would not be wearing Blue and with us now. All those now riding to the Empty Plain will see is one of their number falling from his saddle. By the time they stop and find out why, no man will know from what direction the arrow came. Our Blues are like me, James, not men of great dispute; but they know how to send an arrow when no man is looking, even he who will receive it. Also how to shoot from cover and move quickly to safety.”

“Well...” said Jim, knowing he ought to praise this; but torn between that duty and his vision of an unsuspecting horseman, toppling from his saddle, dead before he even knew what killed him. Somehow, man to man with swords or lances, it was different. Which Pope was it, in or about the thirteenth century, who had condemned bows-he had possibly been thinking of crossbows-and their missiles as weapons unfit to be used against fellow Christians?

“... that should slow them up some,” he finished.

“Ah, yes,” said Brian happily. “But do not fret, James. There will still be plenty of the hedge-knights left for us.”

“True!” said Jim, as heartily as he could. “King Pellinore is agreed on this, you say.”

“Most excellently so!” put in young David. “But he still wishes we of the Drowned Land to stand aside when time comes for battle.”

“Yes,” said Jim. “But maybe there’re other things you can do than giving the lives of your people for them in battle in a different land.”

“But none so noble, Sir James.”

“True, your Majesty. Oh, Dafydd,” said Jim, “have you any idea from these Blue scouts when the invaders will get to the Empty Plain?”

“If they continue so, the Lord QB believes they will arrive before the next Dark, having traversed the forest by daylight-for fear of the trees, they may have planned it so.”

“Or,” said the QB, speaking up for the first time, “she of Gore-Morgan le Fay- may have counseled them when to start and how fast to travel to make it so. Possibly Modred could likewise have done; but only one who has lived in Lyonesse would know how long the day may be-it varies from time to time, as you have seen.” The QB’s words became careful, like the steps of a man on a safe path of stones crossing a quagmire. “-at the wish, many think, of the Old Magic.”

“Is it going to be different this time, QB?” Jim asked.

“The trees say so. This, Modred could not learn from them. Morgan could. But she does not commonly speak to the trees; and they to her only when addressed. So I believe her no better counselor than Modred in this.”

“What about the Knights-and Pellinore? They know about this, of course. What are they doing?”

“Why,” said the QB, in a tone of mild astonishment as someone in a raincoat, going out into a downpour, might show upon being asked how he would keep from getting wet, “they are arming; to meet and defeat the incomers as soon as they arrive.”

“Arrive?” Jim found his mind was not as sharp as it should be. “But they’re already there. Where are the Knights?”

“James,” said Brian, “you are acting most strangely. Have you a fever? All these simple questions. The strength of Lyonesse will be on the Plain at any time now. Look you, Cumberland has brought footmen with long spears to stop the horses.

They must march last, as usual, and once here, be placed in formation. There is time!”

“Of course,” said Jim. “No, no fever. I’m just a little stupid for some reason...”

It was getting difficult for him to see the others and anything beyond them. A sort of milky mist was thickening before his eyes. “I think I should sit down, though...” he heard his voice saying from a distance.

He looked around, but through the rapidly thickening milkiness could not even make out the half-log bench Pellinore had sat on. He felt his arm taken, and made out Brian’s face behind it, leading him somewhere. He stumbled like a man newly blind.

His eyes closed in spite of himself. He fell.

He opened his eyes again and looked up into the white sky. His vision was perfectly clear and he felt his usual, clear-thinking self. Evidently, he had only been out for a minute or two. He looked to tell Brian and the others that he was all right; and saw only the two young bears, the two otters-both pairs sitting on their haunches-and the fallow doe on her feet, just raising her head from grazing on the grass.

All five animals looked at him solemnly, the doe with what seemed to be a touch of sympathy-but then her soft eyes could hardly look at anyone in any other way.

No one else was in sight.

There crept into him the first small fear that not a little time, but a lot, had gone past. It grew. Where was he anyway, besides outdoors here?