The Wizard

Chapter 26. Sea Dragons

The slope descended for whole leagues—so it seemed to me. And if it did not, if I am somehow mistaken, it is because I have made the distance less than it was.

How far to Aelfrice? No one asks, for all who know Aelfrice, even by repute, know that no man has found the league that will measure the way. How far to summer, sir? How many steps? How far to the dream my mother had?

The trees grew great and greater, until those of the wood we had left behind us in Mythgarthr seemed shrubs. The fog, which had been thinning, darkened from white to yellow. Gylf sniffed the air, and I did the same and said, “The sea.”

“Does it please you, Lord?” Uri grinned at me, and I recalled all the fires we had fed together, the flying horror she had been, and the moaning Aelfmaid who had trembled in the lush grass beside the durian tree, red as sunset and too weak to rise.

I found I was smiling. “It would if I weren’t needed in Mythgarthr. How much time has passed while I idled here in Aelfrice? A year?”

“Not an hour, Lord. You have only walked a few steps.”

“But I’ll walk many more before I find my friends.”

“Not at all. Would you see them? Come with me.”

She led us through trees where no path ran, and out upon a point of naked rock, with swirling fog to either side. I protested that I could see nothing, and Gylf backed away to shelter among the trees again.

“You will in a moment, Lord, when the fog lifts.” Uri linked her arm with mine, perhaps to assure me that I need not fear the height, and I found her no Aelfmaid but a human woman, slender and naked, with a floating mass of hair like a smoky fire. A shower pelted us with rain—and was gone.

The fog parted; through the rent, I glimpsed the stone-strewn beach below, the white-maned waves that pounded it with every beat of my heart, and beyond them (where the water was no longer clear or green, but deepest blue) the head and shoulders, claws and wings, of a snow-white dragon greater than Grengarm. There are no words for the way I felt; if I were to say here that my heart sunk, or that I felt I had been gutted like a deer, what would that mean to you? Nor would it be true, since I felt far worse. Cold sweat ran down my face, and I leaned on my sword, fearful my knees would not support me. Uri spoke, but I did not reply Nor can I recall what she said—her voice was lovely, but the singing of a bird would have conveyed as much or more.

The fog closed, and the white dragon was lost to view.

“Bad! Bad! Bad!” That was Gylf, barking from the shelter of the trees.

“Your master will not think so,” Uri told him. “He has built his fame on the slaying of these creatures. Think of the joy in the Golden Hall!” Her arm held mine more tightly. “I had not meant you to see Kulili so, Lord. And yet—”

“You’re glad I did, so you can bear witness to my fear and shame.” I tried to turn to go, but she grappled my arm, and upon that narrow outcrop I did not wish to oppose her.

“Not glad. Amused. Kulili has defied armies.”

“You would frighten me more, if you could.”

“You are my lord.” She turned to look me in the face; and her own held beauty beyond that of mortal women, though her eyes were yellow fire. “If you fear her you will not fight her, and if you do not fight her you will live. I have bantered with you often, Lord.”

“Too often.” I watched the swirling fog, fearful that it would part again. If I had seen the white dragon when it did, I might have thrown Uri from the precipice and fled.

“As you say. I am not bantering now. A second death for you, here, may mean oblivion. Do you think to ascend beyond your Valfather?” I shook my head.

“Nor will you, Lord, if you die again—here or in Mythgarthr—you may perish utterly. This I hold is that part of the Able who was which survived.”

“Sir Able,” I told her.

“You demean yourself!”

I watched the fog in silence.

“Garvaon and Svon are knights. ‘Sir Garvaon,’ they say, and ‘Sir Svon,’ and bask in your reflected glory.”

“As those who come after us will bask in ours.”

“You’re going to fight Kulili anyway, aren’t you? You’re going to fight her alone and perish from the world.”

I did not speak; but in my mind Gawain knelt again, baring his neck.

“Did you see Garsecg and the rest?”

“No,” I said.

“The Isle of Glas?”

That surprised me. I confessed that I had not, but only the white dragon. Nothing more.

“Then we must stay. Garsecg and some Sea Aelf wait on the beach, but we must remain until you see the isle, so you will know that Garsecg’s words are true.”

“He is a demon out of Muspel,” I said.

“He was your friend, and would be your friend again if you would permit it.”

“Baki wanted me to come here and kill him.”

“I have seen, Lord, that you will not.”

I did not believe then, and do not believe now, that Uri had power over the fog, which had been thinning as we spoke. Whether or not she possessed such power, the fog cleared a little. The white dragon had vanished beneath the waves. Far off I beheld the Tower of Glas, and its top (which had been lost in cloud when I had seen it in Garsecg’s company) was just visible where it rose into Mythgarthr. At the sight I understood as never before that the land we walk on there, and the sea we sail on there, are in sober fact the heaven of Aelfrice. I saw the Isle, the tops of a few trees, and its beach. Five tiny figures waited there; and though they were so small, I knew that they were Vil, Toug, Etela, Lynnet, and another. One waved to me.

Perhaps I should write here of our descent of the cliffs to the beach below. I will not, because I recall so little. Disiri, Gawain, and Berthold swam through my mind, with the Valfather and many another, one of them a boy who had lain in the grass of the Downs and seen a hundred strange things in clouds, a flying castle among them.

Garsecg greeted us, in form a venerable man of the Sea Aelf, as I had first seen him and seen him most often. He embraced me as a father,and I him. “They have slandered me to you,” he said, “and I dared not come to you. You would have slain me.”

I swore that I would not.

“Uri and Baki told you I was Setr, and you believed it.”

“They are your slaves,” I said, “though they pretend to be mine. How could I not believe it?”

Another man of the Aelf (as it appeared) came near. “If he denied it, would you credit him?” His eyes were endless night, his tongue a flame.

“If he is Setr,” I said, “Setr is not as I was told.”

Garsecg nodded. “I am Setr. Let us leave these others, and sit alone for a moment. I will explain everything.”

We left them, walking a hundred paces or so along the beach. When we had seated ourselves upon stones, I whistled Gylf to me.

“It would be better,” Garsecg said, “if we were two.”

“Setr cannot fear a dog.”

He shrugged. “Setr fears interruption, as all do who must unravel complexities. It was I who taught you of the strength of the sea. Do you acknowledge that?”

“I do. I have never denied it.”

“Not even to the Valfather?”

“Least of all to him.” I wished then, and mightily, that he stood at my side. Not because I longed for his spear, but because I longed for his wisdom, which surpasses that of all other men.

“You have said you are my friend, Sir Able, and those words I will treasure always.” Garsecg fell silent, staring out to sea, where mist mingled with white spume. “Let me unravel what has occurred here. There is much that is wrong, and I am to blame for much of it. I had plans. They went awry. Such things, I hope, do not befall you.”

“Only too often they do.” My eyes had followed his, and I was looking at the Tower of Glas; it seemed far indeed, and I could no longer see the isle at its summit. “I am of Muspel. So was Grengarm, whom you slew.” I waited.

“You are a man of Mythgarthr, and a good man. Are all the men of Mythgarthr good? I do not ask whether they are all as good as you—I know they cannot be. Only whether they are good at all.”

“I would like to think there is some good in the worst of them.”

“But on balance?”

I thought then of Master Thope. He had sought to save me when the duke’s knights would have killed me. For that effort to protect the duke’s honor, he had been stabbed in the back. “On balance,” I said, “many who think themselves good are not.”

“Just so. You have been to Skai. I have not. Let us leave aside the Giants of Winter and Old Night. They are for the most part evil as I understand it, and some say they are entirely so. We will not speak of them. Among the Overcyns, are there some in whom the worse part outweighs the better?”

I explained that there was said to be one at least, and that the rest—though they punished him—did not take his life for his brothers’ sake.

“Here in Aelfrice?”

“The Aelf are worse than we, if anything.”

“So in Muspel. There are many who are strong and very wise, though not good. Grengarm was neither the strongest nor the worst. They plotted to seize this fair world and despoil it. I tried to dissuade them, for the Aelf should be the objects of our reverence, as the Overcyns are yours. I tried, as I say. I failed.” He sighed so that my heart went out to him.

“When I saw at last that it was no use, I determined to frustrate them. I came here.” He spread his hands, mocking himself with a wry smile. “Humbly, I warned the Aelf of their danger. Some believed me, but most did not. They are divided into many clans, as you must know. I warned them that if they did not unite against us they must fall to us one by one. Those who had refused to credit me refused to credit that as well. Among those who believed, some would not merge clans with the rest. Your Queen Disiri was one of those. You see I am being completely honest with you.”

“You were my friend,” I told him, “when I was wounded and needed one badly. Now I must ask about other friends, those upon the Isle of Glas. How did they get there?”

Garsecg shrugged. “They wandered into Aelfrice. So you did as a boy, not so long ago.”

I nodded.

“My friends and I would have sent them home, but the white dragon—perhaps you saw it—snatched them from us and carried them to the Isle of Glas.”

“You want me to fight that thing.”

“Certainly not! Did I say so? You would be killed.”

I looked at him sharply.

“You asked me how they got there.” Garsecg laid a hand on my shoulder, a firm touch and a friendly one. “You should have asked how you yourself came here. I sent Uri to fetch you, realizing you would want to know of their plight. I intend to recapture my tower if I can. And if I can, I will mount to its top and see to their welfare. But events here move slowly, while time flows swiftly in your Mythgarthr.”

“Which is where they are.”

“Exactly. For them, decades may pass while I collect an army. You have influence in Mythgarthr. You might collect a force there and sail to their rescue. Such was my thought. If you would prefer to join us here, we would be delighted to have you.”

I considered the matter for as long as it might take a man to pray, watching the farthest breakers so that I would not see Garsecg’s eyes. My whole life, it seemed to me, was wrapped up in this—my knighthood, the Valfather and the Lady, even Disiri. At last I said, “You are a dragon of Muspel. Isn’t that your true shape?”

Garsecg nodded. “It is, though my sire was a king in Mythgarthr.”

“And your friends. Aren’t they dragons of Muspel too?”

“Some are. Some are of the Sea Aelf, as they appear.”

“Cannot several dragons defeat one?”

“We will try, leading an army of the Aelf. You have seen me as a dragon. Was I as large as the white dragon?”

“Not nearly. That was your true shape?” I took off my helmet as I spoke, and laid it on the shingle.

“It was.”

I pulled my hauberk over my head; its links were so fine that I could store the whole of it in my helmet, and that was what I did, admiring it for what might well be the last time and wondering whether it was the wearing that brought its blessing or mere ownership. Grengarm had owned it, after all.

“Are you going to swim out there?” Garsecg asked.

“You know I am. I have sworn to fight Kulili.” I undressed, and explained to Gylf that he would have to guard my armor and my clothing, and that he was to trust no one. He would not speak, but bared his teeth at Garsecg to show he understood.

No more than Skai is Aelfrice like Mythgarthr. I have tried to show you how different it is; but I know that I have failed. At this point in my story, Ben, I have to confess that even I had not known just how different it was until I drew Eterne.

The sound of her blade leaving the scabbard became a wind. (You cannot imagine this.) That wind snatched away such fog as remained. In Aelfrice, one never sees the sun. But there is light; and as the fog vanished, that light waxed until the whole sea flashed like a mirror.

Over it flew ships of the olden time, long ships with many oars like wings, and embroidered sails red and black and green and gold, and high prows and high sterns of painted wood. At stern and prow stood the knights of Eterne, real as I myself was real. Their armor, the blades of the swords they held (those were Eterne too), and their smiles gleamed and glinted in that light.

Still grasping Eterne, I dove into the sea.

It is no easy thing to swim while holding a heavy sword. I did my best, swimming mostly underwater with my legs and my left arm for oars. The advantage I had (and it was a great one) was that the water did not drown me, but received me graciously. I cannot say that I breathed it as I breathed air ashore—I was never conscious of breathing at all. Perhaps I drew breath through my skin; or perhaps breath was not necessary to me as long as I remained there.

Sharks came like shadows, swift and silent. One, then two, then three; the third was of monstrous size. I knew that though I might kill one, I could never kill all three if they attacked me together. Desperate, I slashed the nearest. Eterne’s fabled blade severed head from tail, releasing a storm of dark blood and a dozen foulnesses. The remaining sharks fell upon it like hawks, and I swam for the surface as a dying man swims for Skai.

The ships of the Knights of the Sword were there and all about me, one not half a bowshot off. I had not thought them real, and had never supposed I might climb aboard one. But climb on board I did, and it was a wondrous thing to stand dripping upon the deck of such a ship, a ship rowed not by convicts but by bearded warriors in leather byrnies studded with bronze, men of mighty arms whose eyes flashed like ice.

“I am Sir Hunbalt,” said the knight to me. “I welcome you to our company.” We clasped hands and embraced.

Soon the white dragon surfaced. We went for it with arrow and spear, though I could do nothing until we closed. There was a ram beyond the prow; I stood on it holding the carven figurehead with my free hand while the oars beat behind me like the white wings of the griffin, and churned the sea to foam. “Disiri!” I shouted. “For Disiri!”

It was by this, I would guess, that the white dragon knew me. The ship on which her jaws had closed fell from her mouth. Our eyes met, and I saw the battle rage die in them as I felt it dying in my own. She sank beneath the sea, and I knew I must follow.

In Skai I saw grander sights than ever Mythgarthr or Aelfrice can offer, but none so strange as this. The dragon melted as I watched, so that I might almost have thought the sea dissolved it. It had been a dragon, great and terrible. It became a cloud, white, shimmering, and ever-changing. And at last the face of Kulili.

Will you spare me?

I could not speak as men speak in air, but I formed my thought as I had so long ago when I was young. “I will spare you if you yield.”

We have not engaged. First you must follow me, and see the thing that I will show you.

I agreed, and in the dark abyss we men call the bottom of the sea, I saw that of which I will not speak—though I shall speak of it in time, I hope, to one mightier than even the Valfather.

Toug, young Etela, Lynnet, and Vil stood waiting for me on the beach at the foot of the Tower of Glas. Though Toug’s left arm was in the sling still, that sling was crimson with blood, and Sword Breaker bright with blood to the hilt. Whom he had fought when they descended the tower I never inquired; but Etela let drop a hint now and again, as women will. It matters little to this tale of mine—and yet I shall never forget Toug’s face, the eyes that started from their sockets, and the clenched teeth.

“They’re coming!” Etela called, pointing. “We better hide!” Seven dragons—black, gray, turquoise, blue, green, golden, and red—flew stark against the luminous sky.

I shook my head and called the ship nearest us to shore. When its keel ground upon the beach, I lifted her into it, and put Lynnet and Vil into it as well. Sir Hunbalt and I took Toug, who stood as if entranced, waiting to fight them all. When our words availed nothing, we lifted him bodily and carried him. The dragons flew low at times and high at others, swooping and diving, but never closed with us. They would have slain us all if they could, or so I believe; but something restrained them, and if it was no more than fear, then fear proved restraint enough.

“They wanted to kill us before,” Etela explained, “only the white one scared them. Are you scared of the white one?”

I shook my head.

“We were. I was terrible scared, and Toug, ‘n I think Vil would of been more scared, too, only he couldn’t see it, you know. But it got us ‘n it carried us way up where they couldn’t get us. I shut my eyes, only then it went away.”

“The claws shut ‘round me,” Vil muttered, and there was nothing of the showman about him then.

Sir Hunbalt shook his head. “He’s blind, isn’t he?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” Vil said, “and it was better, maybe, to be blind just then. Little Etela was so affrighted me an’ her ma thought she’d die. It was a hour I’d swear ‘fore she stopped cryin’.”

“Well, you were scared, too,” Etela said, and turned to me, holding on to me as the crew pushed our vessel free of the beach. “I’m still scared. They wanted to kill us, the bad dragons up there did, ‘n they ‘bout killed Toug. The white one chased them ‘n said don’t be scared...”

She hesitated, and I said, “You couldn’t really hear her, could you, Etela?”

“No, sir. Only she did. Then she grabbed me up, the first one. ‘N she flew way up with me ‘n I thought she’d drop me, ‘n when we got way up there she did, only not hard, ‘n then Toug said we had to go down where you was, and there was big snakes ‘n Vil couldn’t even see them, ‘n a thing—I don’t know—”

She had begun to sob again. Toug comforted her.

“‘N the nice one’s gone, ‘n the others are still here.” She clasped Toug, trembling.

Vil said, “You’re takin’ her someplace safe, ain’t you, Master?”

“I’m trying to,” I told him.

Our ship was going about, the rowers on one side pulling while those on the other backed water. Sir Hunbalt touched my arm and pointed. The dragons Etela feared so much were coming to earth, and three had resumed Aelf form. I nodded.

Toug said, “I’ll kill them.” I was the first time he had spoken, and I was happy to hear his voice. Gylf, still guarding my clothing on the beach, clearly felt the same, standing and wagging his tail.

I drew breath. “If I fight beside you? Sir Hunbalt and I, and the other knights?”

Toug shook his head. “I just wish I had my big sword.”

“Alone?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Sir Hunbalt nodded approvingly, but I said, “They would kill you, Toug. Setr alone would kill you.”

Toug only gripped Sword Breaker the tighter, freed himself from Etela, and went to the prow, looking out past the figurehead.

“He’s a knight,” Sir Hunbalt whispered.

I said that Toug himself did not know it.

“A young one, but a knight.” Sir Hunbalt paused, and his voice, when it came again, seemed to issue from the grave. “What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does.” He turned away, and did not speak again.

Vil whispered, “Sick, ain’t he?”

“Dead,” I told him. “So am I.”

“Not like him you ain’t, sir.”

Etela clung to Lynnet, no longer having Toug to cling to, and Lynnet stroked her and calmed her.

One of the crew brought a scrap of old sail, brown and having worked on it in white thread something that might once have been a feather. I tied it about my waist.

Ashore, two knights came riding out of the wood, one leading a mount I knew at once. Gylf barked greeting.

Garsecg called across the water. “Are these friends of yours?” Etela wiped her eyes. “That’s Sir Svon, isn’t it? ‘N Sir Garvaon.”

That was; and when we had come nearer the mainland, I jumped from the gunwale, greeted them, learned that they had been searching for me for hours, and reclaimed my clothes and armor.

Garsecg said, “You will wish to take your friends back to Mythgarthr. At a later time, Uri can bring you again. Then we shall discuss the crowns I plan to give you.”

I shook my head and spoke to Svon and Garvaon. “You come too late, both of you, for me to explain all that has happened here. Did you see dragons?”

“One,” Svon told me. “A blue dragon, very large. But it’s gone now. I don’t know what became of it.”

“It’s here!” Etela burst out as she, Lynnet, and Vil followed Toug and Gylf ashore. “That’s it!”

“It is,” I told Svon and Garvaon. “But certain other things—the ships and the knights you see—are not here.” I sheathed Eterne as I spoke; and it was seen at once that the Knights of the Sword and the vessels that had borne them had been illusions born of the light that flashed from wave to wave. “Sir Svon.”

He looked nervous and a little frightened, but he nodded to show I had his attention.

“You seek to prove yourself. Because you do, I promised to fight you not long ago. Queen Idnn is not here to watch. Do you want to prove yourself to her alone? Or to yourself as well?”

“The latter.” Svon stood very straight as he spoke, and I could see his hand itched for his sword.

Garsecg turned to his followers. “This has nothing to do with you. You may go.”

One dove into the sea; two flew; the rest sauntered away grumbling, still in Aelf form.

“You are courageous,” I told Garsecg.

“And hungry.” His eyes were an emptiness into which whole worlds might vanish.

I remarked to Svon that his wounds had not entirely healed; he said it did not matter.

“As you wish. Sir Garvaon, you looked for death when we fought the Angrborn outside Utgard. You need not confirm or deny that. You know what you did, and I know what I saw.”

Garvaon did not speak; but Etela said, “He was really brave. Toug said so.”

“So was Sir Toug. We’ll get to him in moment, Etela.” Addressing Garvaon again, I said, “In a way, we come to him now. He has told me that when you led your men-at-arms out to take part in the fight that began in the marketplace, they appeared badly frightened. He thought it was because they were leaving the protection of the walls to war upon Angrborn. Yet they are brave men, they were led by a great knight, and they had fought Angrborn before and beaten them. I think they looked frightened because of something they had seen only a moment before.”

Garvaon still did not speak.

“I haven’t questioned them,” I told him, “and I won’t. What you did I judge to be no crime. Neither the first time nor the second.” Garvaon did not speak, but there was hope in his eyes.

I said, “When you left Lord Beel, did you offer to help Sir Svon search for his squire and his squire’s slaves?”

“Yes. We went out to look for them, found your camp, and thought it would be well to bring your horse along in case we found you, too. Your servingmen were packing your things, and did not object.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I owe you a lot, and this is one thing more.” I stopped to draw breath, not liking what I had to say next. “I must tell you that this blue man who speaks with us is called Garsecg. I dreamed of him, and you, once. In my dream he killed you. So it appeared.”

“Go on,” Garvaon told me.

“As you wish. If Sir Svon engages a dragon, and that dragon is Garsecg also, will you stand beside Sir Svon? You will have no, help from me.”

“I will,” Garvaon declared.

Etela whispered, “They haven’t seen them.”

“They have,” I told her. “They saw Setr as they rode up, and it is Setr they must close with. What about you, Toug?”

I do not think he had expected to be asked; he looked surprised.

“As the law would have it, you are merely Svon’s squire. You have no duty to fight, only to save Sir Svon if he falls. You’re wounded already, and the bone can’t have knit in so short a time. Will you engage?”

For the space of a breath, Toug’s eyes met Garsecg’s. “I won’t fight,” Toug said. “Never again if I can help it.”

“As you wish.” I turned my back on him and pointed to Garsecg. “There is the dragon, Sir Garvaon—Sir Svon. He has been a friend to me, and I will not—”

Garsecg interrupted me; I think now that he spoke in order to have more time for the transformation, although I cannot be sure. “Did you fight Kulili? The white dragon? You swore you would.”

“I did.”

“Did you kill her?”

I shook my head. “I never swore to take her life, and I could not have if wished to. I yielded, and she spared me.”

Just then Etela shouted, “Look out!”

Garsecg had begun to change, his head lengthening and swelling. He dropped to all fours, and claws sprouted from his hands. He hissed, and fire and smoke wreathed his mouth and great leathern wings rose from his back. So swiftly did he strike that Svon had scarcely time to raise his shield. Setr’s fangs pierced it even as his breath scorched it, and leather, wood, and iron were torn away.

I held Gylf, who would have rushed into the fight if I had not. As if in a dream I heard Vil demanding that Etela tell him what was happening; and she, with a trembling voice, struggling to comply.

Had either knight had time to mount, things might have gone differently. As it was, Setr went straight for Svon. Svon retreated, defending himself with his sword.

As he did, Garvaon attacked Setr’s left side, keeping his shield between Setr’s head and himself. Twice his sword rang on Setr’s scales. A thrust found softer hide behind a leg, and Garvaon drove the blade in. What welled forth might have been boiling pitch.

Svon came straight for Setr then. I was proud of him, even as I knew his effort doomed. He thrust at Setr’s eyes as Setr struck. His point missed by half a hand, slipping futilely along the bony plate that had been Garsecg’s face, and Svon went down.

Garvaon fought on as few men fight, cunning and bold. Setr was compelled to keep a forefoot on Svon, who struggled against it and stabbed beneath its scales with his saxe. Setr’s weight was insufficient to crush him, and his hauberk saved him (largely, though not entirely) from Setr’s claws.

Setr’s jaws closed upon Garvaon. That was a moment I would like to forget. At one instant, as brave a knight as woman has ever borne darted in to stab and slash, and out again before the dragon stuck. At the next, those terrible jaws had raised him high.

Only to open at once, so that he fell dying to the ground.

A monstrous figure to which I could put no name rode Setr’s back. A moment more and that figure had broken, becoming Etela, who had slipped from Vil’s broad shoulders and fled, and Vil, with a thousand hands about Setr’s neck. No artist could paint it; but if one tried, he would show a chain of arms and hands, living and strong, that tightened until that scaly neck burst like a blasted tree.

Setr reared in his agony, and Svon rolled from beneath his claw. Setr trembled, and fell dead.

It was over. Rapture held me while sorrow groaned in a place too deep for words.

But not for tears. I did not know I wept until I saw them fell on Garvaon’s upturned face.

“You knew,” he said. “Tell her I loved her.”

Toug was bending over Garvaon too, and Svon, and Etela. Cloud came as well; and what she felt filled my mind—that a great and noble rider had passed, leaving all steeds the poorer.

The air was as still as air can ever be; I heard a whistling wind nevertheless. Garvaon heard it, too. I saw his eyes turn upward. He smiled, that grim old knight. He smiled, and took the fair, white hand that had reached for his, and rose, leaving his stiffening corpse on the sand.

Alvit helped him mount, for she had not yet kissed him and his wounds troubled him sore. I wished them good speed. Alvit, too, smiled at that, while Garvaon waved farewell. She mounted behind him, the white stallion leaped into the air, and in less than a breath all three had vanished in that bright mist that is our own Mythgarthr.

“He’s dead, sir.” Vil knelt beside the corpse, his fingers on its wrist.

Etela laughed; there was hysteria in it, and I urged Toug to comfort her.

Svon said, “Sir Garvaon is dead, Vil, as you say. So is the dragon.”

Vil said nothing.

“You went into battle with that child on your shoulders. You’re a braver knight than I will ever be. So is she. I wouldn’t have done what she did, not at her age or any age.”

Vil said, “She told me it was like to kill you, sir. We had to do something.”

“Without a sword and without armor.”

“What I had was better.” Vil held out his hand to me. It was empty, but when he had passed his other hand across it, my bowstring lay coiled in it. “Here ‘tis, Sir Able. I know you must a’ seen it. I filched it. You know when. You want to sort me out, ask Master Toug. Only you got the right to do anything you want to, an’ I’ll tell him so.”

I took the bowstring from him and ran it through my fingers, feeling the lives of many, so very many, who dwell in America. I had passed beyond them, above or below them, and as they plowed and coded and traded, swept their floors and minded their children, we said our farewells. For a moment, my hands embraced them, and they embraced my hands.

Perhaps Vil sensed that in some unimaginable manner; perhaps it only seemed so. However that may be, he said, “There are tricks you can do with a string like that, Sir Able, lots o’

’em. Making things that ain’t there, soon’s you move your hands, an’ lettin’

’em cut it, only it’s not really cut, you know. Only when you do ’em with that’n it’s all different.” Although the air was warm, he shivered.

“No,” I said. “Hold out your hand again, Truthful Vil.”

He did, and I put the bowstring into it. “This was a gift, when I began, from a very great lady. Men name her Parka, and she dwells in our own place.”

“If you say it, sir.”

“But she is of the world above Skai, the second realm. She is thus higher than the Valfather, who serves her. Do you understand?”

“I hope.”

Etela exclaimed, “Well, I don’t understand at all!” She was standing beside Toug, her arm about his waist. Seeing them I understood that she was no longer Little Etela, and that in sober fact she had never been, in the short time that I had known her. I said, “Vil will explain it to you.”

We laid Garvaon’s body across his saddle; Uri (silent still, and I would guess very frightened) guided us back to our own world.