The Knight. Part 28

"I'se stronger den. On'y it's stronger dan me. Lot stronger." He was clearly shamed.

Nukara looked at me anxiously. "You're not goin' to wrestle it are you, Sir Able? The way Duns done? I thought you'd--I don't know what."

"I don't--" I fell silent as the eerie howl of the wind filled the room, a ghost not nearly as substantial as the one I hoped to hunt down.

"Storm's gettin' worse," Duns muttered.

"Yes." I stood up.

Nukara looked surprised. "That was just the wind in the chimney, Sir Able." I agreed, but I had recalled what Disiri had told me when we parted, and knew I had to go. Pouk rose too, but I made him sit back down and finish his food.

After that, I turned and went out, afraid that I would say or do something that would give my secret away. There was a covered porch at the back of the house, and I suppose I stood there for half a minute looking at the rain. That 262.

may have been why I missed her.

I do not know how long it took me to cross the fields and meadows and reach the woods on the other side. It was slow going and hard going, but I kept at it, head down, with the hood of my cloak pulled up as far as I could get it to give my face some protection. I started calling for her when I got close, and I was dumb enough to be happy that the wind had dropped and it seemed like she might hear me. The rain had slacked off by that time too, not stopped but not pouring the way it had been.

"If you simply want a woman," said a soft voice at my ear, "I know one who would be honored."

I jumped. It was a red Aelfmaiden taller than I am but as slender as a glowing poker.

"I am back, Lord," she said, "and I am Baki. Possibly you have forgotten me."

"To tell the truth, I've been wondering where you were," I said. "You got Sword Breaker for me, and my bow, and put them under my bed."

"After which you told me to go away and let you alone." I really did not want to talk to her, although I felt I had to. I said, "Y ou wanted to get under the covers with me again. You and the other one." She t.i.ttered.

"Has anybody told you you sound like a bat?"

"Only bats, Lord."

"That was you, wasn't it, in the armorer's shop? I could hear you but I couldn't see you."

"Not I, Lord." She smiled. She had big white teeth, and they looked sharp. "It must have been Uri. Or your precious Queen Disiri, perhaps." I sighed. "I ought to punish you for lying."

"I? Whose blood glutted you? You have not the heart, Lord."

"You're right, I don't." I started calling for Disiri again, though I felt pretty sure I was not going to find her.

"I need not look like this, you know." Smoke came out of her eyes. She shrank and faded, getting wider, white and gold. In about a minute, maybe less, there was a naked, shy-looking girl with golden hair and a big stick-out chest where Baki had been standing. Her eyes sucked up the smoke. "Do you like me 263.

better now, Lord?" Her head came as high as my chin.

I had thought only Disiri could do that, but I said, "I'm not exactly crazy about you either way."

"Your guilty slave grovels." The blonde bowed her head. "She would do anything to please you, Lord, and if you have no notions of your own, she can offer any number of exciting suggestions."

"Aren't you cold?"

"I am, Lord, and so are you. We can heat ourselves pleasantly by following one of my most exciting suggestions. First I will kneel--so! You--" As quickly as I could, I said, "Have you been following me all day?" The blonde shook her head, keeping her eyes down as she had the whole time. "Up here, Lord? Of course not. But I have watched you from Aelfrice. Will not you go there with me? It is not raining there."

Something too deep-voiced for a wolf howled in the distance. I stopped to listen before I said, "I spent quite a bit of time in Aelfrice with Ga.r.s.ecg. I don't remember seeing anybody I knew in this world then."

"Because you did not know how to look, Lord. Put your head right down here."

I shook it instead.

"You will not? Seriously, if you come to Aelfrice with me I will teach you to view Mythgarthr. It is not difficult. You can learn in a day or two."

"And afterwards I'll come back and find out I've been gone three years."

"Not that long. Or I think not, Lord. It is unlikely. Lord, if you will not sport with me, may I change?"

I did not answer because she had begun to change while she talked, looking up at me for the first time so that I saw the blonde had Aelf-eyes of yellow fire. Smoke poured from them, wrapping her in a robe of twilight and snow. When it returned to her, she was Baki again.

I said, "Are you really my slave?"

Still kneeling, she bowed to the rain-soaked fern. "I stand ready to serve my lord night and day, though night is preferable. He need only ask."

"Who's your lord?"

The white teeth flashed in that face of glowing copper. "You are. Who should be my lord but that most n.o.ble knight, Sir Able of the High Heart?" 264.

"A knight," I said, "but not n.o.ble."

"I think otherwise, Lord."

"The armorer seemed to know about you Fire Aelf, and he said you were iron workers. Is that true?"

"Metal workers, Lord. Iron and other metals. Would you like to see a sample of my own work? What of a silver chain with but one end? Whenever you needed money, you could cut off a piece and sell it."

I shook my head. "Why did Setr choose metal workers?"

"You must ask him, Lord."

"I will, next time I see him. Why did your people persecute Bold Berthold?"

"Persecute is a terrible word, Lord. We may have teased him. Was he worse for our attention?"

"The years, the Angrborn, and you all hurt him. Why did you do it?" A gust of rain hit us; the howl I had heard before came with it, deep but as lonely as the cry of a wounded bird.

Baki wiped cold water from the burning oval of her face. "Do you still care about this Berthold, Lord? Whom I have never set eyes upon, by the way. Or may we talk of something interesting?"

"I'll always care for him."

"Very well. It was not I. I was a Khimaira for Setr for a long, long time. It must have been centuries here. If Aelf teased him, I apologize on their behalf." I was tired, and I knew by then that I would not find Disiri; but I was stubborn too. "I wish I knew why they did it."

"Which you will not learn from me, Lord, for I cannot know it. I might speculate, if you wish me to." Baki looked sulky.

"Go ahead," I told her.

"We like to tease you upper people. You think you are vastly superior and we do not matter at all. So we tease you, and if you prefer to say torment, go ahead. Usually we do no harm, and sometimes we help, especially when we think our help is going to surprise somebody we have been teasing. We Fire Aelf like to help smiths and such mostly, people like your armorer. We like them because they do the same kind of work we do in Aelfrice."

"Are you saying Disiri enjoys tormenting others? I won't believe it." Baki stared at the ferns around her feet.

265.

"Well, does she? Let's hear it!"

"Not she, perhaps, Lord. But the rest of us do. Mostly we choose people who are alone, because it bothers you more. You are not sure it is really happening. Was this Berthold all alone?"

"Yes." I nodded. "In a hut in the forest."

"Well naturally then. That's exactly the kind we like to play with."

"I have met Fire Aelf, Water Aelf, and brown Bodachan." I sighed, remembering Disiri. "Also the Moss Aelf, who have been very kind to me." Baki stood, and suddenly she was so near that our cheeks touched. "I would be very kind to you too, if you would let me." Her long warm fingers toyed with the cord of my cloak.

I smiled--bitterly, I'm afraid. "Now it's my turn, isn't it? I'm alone among trees, just like Bold Berthold."

"You think I am going to pinch you and run? Try me, Lord. That is all I ask." I shook my head.

"There is a great deal we can do without lying down on this wet ground, you know. But look at how soft this fern is. It is wet, but we are wet already. Let us make our own fire."

I pointed. "I want you to go to the farmhouse I came from. Watch there. Watch all of them, but watch the younger brother most closely. Don't let an ybody see you, and be ready to tell me everything they did when I come back."

"As you wish, Lord."

I waited until she vanished among the shadows of the trees, wondering whether she would do what I had told her, and whether I would ever see her again. Once she was out of sight, I called Gylf.

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CHAPTER 39.

MAGIC IN THE AIR.

I t was Gylf who found me, not me who found Gylf. When I had gone so far into the woods that I had begun to think I might get lost, I heard him trotting behind me. I stopped and sat on a log (it was no wetter than I was) and motioned to him in a way I hoped was friendly. He was bigger than I remembered, but you could count his ribs.

"You mind?" He came a step at a time, not too sure of me. I said, "If I didn't want you I wouldn't have called you, would I?" and I smiled; and he came up to me then and let me scratch his ears. After a while I said, "I know I tried to leave you behind before I got on that boat. I'm sorry I did that. Maybe I've apologized already, and if I have I apologize again. You must have thought I was doing the same thing when I didn't come back to look for you, but I didn't know you were waiting in Aelfrice. I thought you had probably gone back to the boat. I went there, and after I did I couldn't get back to Ga.r.s.ecg. Did he tell you what happened?" Gylf shook his head.

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"Maybe he didn't know." I thought about that. Ga.r.s.ecg was as smart as anybody I had ever met, and he knew a lot; but when somebody's like that you can overestimate them and maybe you convince yourself they know everything. Not even the Valfather knows everything.

I said, "I used to think he had arranged for me to meet Kulili, and for you and me to get split up the way we did. I can't be sure, but now I think that's probably wrong."

"Think so."

"Do you?" I thought about that for a minute or two. It seemed like Gylf had been waiting down where the Kelpies were for quite a while after Ga.r.s.ecg and I got separated, and if Ga.r.s.ecg had come back there Gylf might have heard something. Finally I started telling about the ogre, just because it was on my mind a lot and I wanted to talk it over.

I told Gylf how it had hurt Duns and scared Nukara. "I don't believe it's really a ghost at all," I said. "Why would a ghost run from Duns? It could disappear. Baki can disappear pretty well, and she's not even a ghost. People may think that all the ogres are dead, but there are still giants in the north, lots of them. I think this is a real ogre, still alive, and safe because everyone thinks the last ogre died a long, long time ago."

It took a while before Gylf nodded, but he did.

"I didn't come out here to look for it, I came to look for Disiri. But maybe I should have. It must live in these woods."

Gylf shook his head.

"It doesn't? How do you know?"

"Smell." Gylf yawned and lay down at my feet.

"Of course you don't smell it. How could you? It's still raining, and it was raining hard. Rain washes smells out of the air. Everybody knows that." Gylf stayed quiet, but the way he looked up at me showed he was not convinced.

"Look here," I said, "everything fits, and you ought to be able to see it. The windows were open because of the hot weather. The ghost or ogre--I think ogre--could get in just by climbing through a window."

Gylf shook his head again.

"You think it's too big? It jumped out one when Duns chased it, so it could 268.

climb in one."

Gylf was too polite to say anything, but I could tell how he felt.

"A big thing like a snake shaped like a man. That's the way Duns described it, and Duns should know. Maybe we could come back when the weather's better. Then you could track it for me." Gylf put his head down between his paws and closed his eyes. I said, "Am I putting you to sleep? I hope you're not scared of it."

"No," Gylf said very distinctly.

"Because I'm scared of you. That's why I tried to leave you behind before we crossed the Irring."

He pretended not to hear.

"I like going around telling people how brave I am. What a jerk! I told that woman back at the farm that there wasn't a knight in Sheerwall I wouldn't cross swords with. Maybe it's the truth--I know I thought it was when I said it. But I saw how you changed when we fought the outlaws, and it scared me half to death. I wasn't scared when Disiri changed. Or when Baki did, just now. I wasn't even very scared about Ga.r.s.ecg and what the sunlight showed he really was, even if I was scared of him later in Muspel. But what you did was different." Gylf laid his head on his paws the other way, and sort of groaned.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to make you feel bad. I'm sorry too that I didn't have more guts. I'm a knight, and we're not supposed to be scared of anything. Besides, you're the best friend I've got."

"Dog." He looked up at me. He had brown eyes set deep in his brown face, and most of the time I did not notice them much; but when he said "dog" they looked straight at me, and I knew he was begging me to understand what he was and how he felt.

"Yes," I said, "you're my dog, and n.o.body ought to be afraid of a friendly dog. A knight shouldn't, for sure. Disiri said a dragon had the sword called Eterne--somebody like Ga.r.s.ecg, I guess. How am I supposed to fight a dragon if I'm afraid of my own dog?"

Gylf only looked up at me, his eyes saying he could not make himself any smaller than he was. (It was really pretty big, a lot bigger than any other dog I ever saw.) "I'm supposed to fight Kulili, too." I wanted to hide my face in my hands as 269.

soon as I said that. "I gave Ga.r.s.ecg my word, and look at all he did for me. But I don't want to kill Kulili. The Aelf hate her because they're afraid of her, that's all. It's one of the things fear does to you, it make you want to kill things that haven't ever hurt you, just because they might. Like it made me try to leave y ou behind before I forded the Irring. I'm ashamed of that, too." I waited a long time for him to talk because I did not feel like talking any more myself. Finally I asked, "Why didn't you come back to the boat? You went to get Ga.r.s.ecg, but when he came it was just him and some Water Aelf. Why didn't you come with them?"