Three Hearts and Three Lions Page 9

  “Little girls shouldn’t cry,” snarled Morgan. “They’ll grow up even homelier than they are.”

  Alianora clenched her fists and stalked closer. “Better a wee bit young than ha’ my skin sag wi’ eld.”

  “You have such pretty skin,” hissed Morgan. “How did you ever achieve that peeling-sunburn effect?”

  “Not in the shop where ye bought your complexion,” said Alianora.

  Holger crept aside, wondering how to get out of this alive. “I see you’re a swan-may,” said Morgan. “Have you laid any good eggs lately?”

  “Nay. I canna cackle so shrill as some old hens.”

  Morgan flushed and raised her hands in a violent pass. “See how you like being a hen yourself!”

  “Hey!” Holger leaped forward. He didn’t intend to strike her, but one arm encountered Morgan and the queen went rolling over in the grass.

  “None of that,” he gasped.

  She got slowly to her feet. Color and expression had alike departed her countenance. “So that is how it stands,” she said.

  “I guess it is,” said Holger, and wondered if he meant it.

  “Well, have your way, then. We’ll meet again, my friend.” Morgan laughed, an ugly sound this time, and waved. Suddenly she was gone. There was a bang as air rushed in where she had stood.

  Alianora began to cry in earnest. She leaned against a tree bole and buried her face in one arm. When Holger went to lay a hand on her shoulder, she shook him off. “Go away,” she mumbled. “G-g-g-o off wi’ your witch, sith she p-p-please ye so well. Uh-h-h—”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” said Holger helplessly. “I didn’t ask her to come.”

  “I willna hearken, I tell ye. Go away.”

  Holger decided he had troubles enough without a hysterical female on his hands. He pulled her around, shook her, and said between his teeth, “I have nothing to do with this. Hear? Now will you come along like a grown human being, or must I drag you?”

  Alianora gulped, stared at him with wide wet eyes, and dropped her lashes. He noticed how long they were. “I’ll come wi’ ye,” she said meekly.

  Holger got his pipe going again and fumed most of the way back. Damn, damn, damn, and damn! Almost, there with Morgan le Fay, he had remembered that other life. Almost, and now the knowledge was gone again.

  Well, too late. From this day on she’d doubtless be his bitterest opponent. Though in all frankness it was probably a good thing that they’d been interrupted. He couldn’t have held out against her blandishments much longer.

  And the worst part was, he rather wished he hadn’t. Who had written that line about nothing being so futile as the memory of a temptation resisted?

  Too late. He’d just have to carry on.

  His buried self shot a gleam into his conscious mind, and he knew why the unicorn had departed. Morgan le Fay must have been the last straw on its outraged sensibilities—or the last dozen straws. That made him chuckle, and he took Alianora’s hand. They walked back to camp side by side.

  12

  THEY WERE NOT PLAGUED that night, which Hugi said was without doubt because something worse was being prepared. Holger was inclined to share the dwarf’s pessimism. And now they had only one mount, for three people. Of course Alianora could spend some of her travel time aloft; but swans aren’t hovering birds, and they dared not let her get too far ahead. However great his endurance, Papillon couldn’t carry a large warrior in chain mail, a girl, a half-pint man, and their gear, at anything like his normal speed.

  So they made an early start, and Alianora in swan shape studied their best route from above. She came back to sit behind the saddle, arms around Holger’s waist (which compensated for a lot of nuisances), and guided him. By dusk she hoped they could reach the pass and tomorrow the edge of human habitation. There were still many miles of wilderness to travel on the other side of the range, but she had seen a few clearings, isolated farmsteads and hamlets. “And where’er several men dwell, if they be not evil doers, will belike lie hallowed ground—a shrine, if naught else—which most o’ the creatures that dog us dare no approach closely.”

  “But in that case,” Holger asked, “how can the Middle World even think of seizing human land?”

  “By help o’ beings who need no fear daylicht or priestcraft. Animals like yon dragon; creatures wi’ souls, like bad dwarfs. However, such allies be too few, and mostly too stupid, to have more than special use. Chiefly, methinks, the Middle World will depend on humans who’ll fight for Chaos. Witches, warlocks, bandits, murderers, ’fore all the heathen savages o’ the north and south. These can desecrate the sacred places and slay such men as battle against them. Then the rest o’ the humans will flee, and there’ll be naught left to prevent the blue gloaming being drawn over hundreds o’ leagues more. With every such advance, the realms of Law will grow weaker: not alone in numbers, but in spirit, for the near presence o’ Chaos must affect the good folk, turning them skittish, lawless, and inclined to devilments o’ their own.” Alianora shook her head, troubled. “As evil waxes, the very men who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o’ fighting, and thereby give evil a free beachhead.”

  Holger thought of his own world, where Coventry had been avenged upon Cologne, and nodded. His helmet felt suddenly heavy.

  As much to escape that remembrance as for any other reason, he turned back to immediate things. The powers of his persecutors were not unlimited, or he would have been stopped long ago. What were the limits, then? Curiously, for beings said to be soulless, the Faerie race were under severe physical handicaps, and must rely mainly on guile. Except for being fast and supple, none of them were anywhere near a match for a normally strong man. (To be sure, giants, trolls, and various other Middle World beings did have more brute power than humans, but Alianora said they were slow and clumsy.) None could endure the sun; hence their excursions into the human domain could only take place after dark. Even at such times they must avoid sacred objects. Their spells would bounce like billiard balls off anyone in a state of grace; simply the usual modicum of decency and determination would get a man through. You could be killed by them, or through their machinations; you could be fooled, dazzled, victimized; but in a certain ultimate sense, you could not be conquered unless you wanted to be.

  Also, the force of a spell seemed to depend on distance. The farther he got from Faerie, the safer Holger would probably be from its inhabitants.

  Not that Alfric could be laughed off. On the contrary. He was not the head of the enemy. Morgan le Fay outranked him, and beyond her must be others, clear on to a final One whom Holger did not wish to think about. But Alfric had many powers, he was wily and skillful, and he had not given up. Morgan had hardly begun yet.

  If I only knew what they want me for.

  That whole day the horse climbed. As the sun went down, Holger drew rein atop the pass. Grass grew in sparse clumps among strewn rocks, otherwise the place was bare. A bleak wind ran up the cliffs, and over the ridge. Papillon blew out his lips in a sigh. His head drooped.

  “Poor beastie.” Alianora stroked the velvet muzzle. “We’ve used ye hard, have we no? And naught better tonicht than a few dry weeds.” She found a rock with a depression on top and poured patiently from a waterskin till he had drunk enough.

  Holger rubbed down the stallion himself. He had begun to take his cavalier’s skills for granted, but was rather surprised at the overflow of his affection for this Papillon. He arranged the sadly torn and muddy silk trappings into a sort of coat for the horse. With camp established, supper bolted, and themselves worn out, the travelers retired.

  Alianora stood the first watch, then Holger, finally Hugi. When he had composed himself beside the girl, Holger found he couldn’t get back to sleep. Somehow her head had gotten pillowed on his shoulder and one arm thrown across his chest. He couldn’t hear her breathing above the wind, but he felt the slight steady movement; felt too how she seemed to radiate heat where she touched him. Elsewhere he was d
amnably cold, the chill seeped through the cloaks which covered them. The saddle blanket beneath did little to take the curse off the hard ground.

  But that wasn’t why he stayed wakeful. When danger had sharpened all his senses, and then this creature of warmth and tousled hair lay practically on top of him... He tried to pass the time with recollections of Meriven, but that only made matters worse. And at this moment, he thought bitterly, he could have been with Morgan le Fay.

  Leaving Alianora alone, when the enemy marched? No! Almost unconsciously, he reached for her. That was another mistake. Before he quite knew what had happened, his hand had slipped beneath her feather tunic and cupped a soft young breast. She stirred, murmuring in her sleep. He didn’t move again, but neither had he the strength to withdraw his hand. Finally, shaken, his skin prickling, he opened his eyes.

  The stars glittered like winter. There was no moon, but from the position of Carl’s Wain (even in heaven they remember you, my King!) he judged sunrise was not far off. The blackness on earth was nearly absolute. He saw Hugi’s outline hunched by the low red fire, otherwise only an upthrust of masses against the sky. That crag yonder—

  He’d never seen that crag before!

  Holger sprang to his feet a moment ahead of the earth shock. It came again, and yet again, a sound like monstrous drums; the mountain shook as a house shakes when a heavy man climbs the stairs. Holger heard stones go bounding and shattering down the slope. He snatched his sword, and then the giant was upon them.

  A foot as long as Holger himself kicked the guardian ring aside. The firelight limned great unclipped toenails. Alianora cried out. Holger shoved her behind him. Papillon sprang toward the man, a neigh of defiance, neck and tail arched, nostrils dilated. Hugi scuttled to join Alianora.

  The giant squatted down and poked up the fire with a forefinger like a shaggy staff . As flames guttered high, Holger saw the creature was humanoid, though grotesquely squat and short-legged in proportion to height. Well, his thought flashed, even if the law of proportion doesn’t work quite the same here as at home, he needs enough cross section to bear his weight. The uncouth body wore skins, crudely stitched together; what whiff he caught made Holger glad he was upwind. As nearly as could be judged in that tangled hair and beard, the giant’s features were acromegalic, eyes roofed with bony ridges, nose and jaw jutting coarsely forth, heavy lips and grisly huge teeth.

  “Get on Papillon, Hugi,” said Holger. Now that the first shock was past, he stopped being afraid. He didn’t dare be. “I’ll hold him as long as I can. Alianora, you get airborne.”

  “I’ll stand wi’ ye .” Her voice was small, but she trod up beside him with chin lifted.

  “Hoo could it ha’ happened?” moaned Hugi. “He’s o’ Middle World breed. The charms would balk him.”

  “He stalked us,” said Alianora roughly. “Such folk can gang quiet when they will. He waited for a moment when there was such ungodliness o’ thocht in our midst that the holy signs were annulled.” Her glance accused the cowering dwarf. Holger knew with wretchedness that Hugi was not to blame. But—

  “Talk so I can hear you!”

  That giant did not speak deafeningly loud, nor was his accent too barbarous. What made him hard to understand was the pitch: so low that the inaudible bottom registers shivered in human bones. Holger wet his lips, stepped forward, and said in his own deepest voice, “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I bid you begone.”

  “Haw!” fleered the giant. “Too late for that, mortal, when you’ve broken the good circle by your sinful wishes and not yet made act of contrition. “ He reached out a hand. “Alfric told me I’d find tender prey on this path. Give me the maiden, and you may continue.”

  Holger wanted to throw back some ringing challenge, suitable to his disgust at any such notion. By God, there were worse things than death! Unfortunately, he could only think of a phrase unfit for the maiden’s ears. He lunged instead. His sword blazed across the immense knuckles.

  The giant yanked his hand back, blew on the smoking wound, and cried: “Hold! Let’s talk!” Nearly blasted off his feet by the volume, Holger paused.

  To him, who was used to being the largest person around, the face above his seemed even broader than it was. But he stood fast and heard the basso profundissimo say in a rather reasonable tone:

  “Look here, mortal, I sense you’re a great champion. And of course the touch of iron hurts me. Yet there’s a lot of me, and I could belike crush you with stones before you got in too many blows. What say we contest an easier way? If you win by your wit, you may go on unmolested. In fact, I’ll give you a helmetful of gold.” He pointed to a wallet at his side which must hold a hundredweight or more. “If you lose, you surrender the girl to me.”

  “No!” Holger spat on the earth.

  “Wait. Wait, darling.” Alianora seized his arm with sudden eagerness. “Ask him if he means a riddling contest.”

  Puzzled, Holger did. The giant nodded. “Aye. For know, we of the Great Folk sit in our halls throughout the endless winter night of our homeland, year after year, century after century, and pass the time with contests of skill. Above all are we fond of riddles. It were worth my while to let you pass, could you give me three new ones of which I cannot answer two, that I may use them in turn.” His bestial visage turned eastward, anxiously. “Be quick, though.”

  Alianora’s eyes kindled. “I thocht so, Holger. Make the bargain. Ye can outtrick him.” The giant showed no comprehension. Of course, Holger realized. A creature that big couldn’t hear far into the human range of frequencies.

  He answered falsetto, “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Ye can.” Her confidence sank a little. She stared at the ground and dug with one toe. “If ye canna, well, let him have me. He only wants me to eat. Ye mean too much, Holger, to the whole world, methinks, to risk death in a fight over nobbut me.”

  He groped in his bewilderment. What puzzles did he know? “Four hanging, four ganging, two leading, one trailing: a cow.” Samson’s poser to the Philistines. A few such. But surely over the centuries, the ogre had heard them. And he, Holger, wasn’t bright enough to invent a brain teaser on such short notice.

  “I’d rather fight for someone I know, like you, than—” he began. The squatting monster interrupted him with a gruff “Hurry, I say!”

  A wild idea coursed through Holger. “Can’t he stand the sun?” he asked Alianora in his stage-eunuch tone.

  “Nay,” she said. “The bricht rays turn his flesh to stone.”

  “Oh-ho,” squeaked Hugi, “if ye hold his mind fast eneugh, lad, so dawn comes on him unawares, then we can loot yon bag o’ gold.”

  “I dinna know about that,” said Alianora. “I’ve heard treasure won by such a trick is cursed, and the man who wins it soon dies. But Holger, in an hour he must flee the dawn. Can ye no delay him an hour, ye who overcame the dragon?”

  “I... think... so.” Holger swung back on the colossus, who was beginning to growl in angry impatience. “I’ll contest with you,” he said.

  “For this one night, then,” said the giant. His grin was sadistic. “Perhaps another night after that... Well, bind the wench so she can’t flee. Hurry!”

  Holger moved as slowly as he dared. Tying Alianora’s wrists, he piped, “You can throw off this knot, if worst comes to worst.”

  “Nay, I willna flee, or he’ll turn on ye.”

  “He’ll have to fight me anyway,” said Holger. “You might as well save your own life.” But he couldn’t sound very heroic in falsetto.

  He threw some more sticks on the fire and turned to the giant, who had sat down with knees under hairy chin. “Here we go,” he said.

  “Good. You will be glad to know for your honor, I am the riddle champion of nine flintgarths.” The giant looked at Alianora and smacked his lips. “A delicate morsel.”

  Holger’s sword was aloft before he knew what he was about. “Hold your foul tongue!” he roared.

 
“Would you liefer fight?” The vast muscles bunched.

  “No.” Holger checked his temper. But that such a hippo dared look on his Alianora—! “Okay,” he snapped. “First riddle. Why does a chicken cross the road?”

  “What?” The giant gaped till his teeth shone like wet rocks. “You ask me that?”

  “I do.”

  “But the veriest child knows. To get to the other side.”

  Holger shook his yellow-maned head. “Wrong.”

  “You lie!” The mammoth shape half rose.

  Holger swung his sword whistling. “I have a perfectly good answer,” he said. “You must find it.”

  “I never heard the like,” complained the giant. But he seated himself and tugged his beard with one filthy hand. “Why does a chicken cross the road? Why not, if not to get to the other side? What mystical intent is here? What might a chicken and a road represent?” He shut his eyes and swayed back and forth. Alianora, lying bound near the fire, gave Holger a cheer.

  After an endlessness of cold wind and colder stars, Holger saw the eyes of the monster open. They glowed in the firelight like two blood-colored lamps, deep under the cavernous brows. “I have the answer,“ said the terrifying voice. “’Tis not unlike the one that Thiazi baffled Grotnir with, five hundred winters agone. See you, mortal, a chicken is the human soul, and the road is life which must be crossed, from the ditch of birth to the ditch of death. On that road are many perils, not alone the ruts of toil and the mire of sin, but wagons of war and pestilence, drawn by the oxen of destruction; while overhead wheels that hawk bight Satan, ever ready to stoop. The chicken knows not why it crosses the road, save that it sees greener fields on the far side. It crosses because it must, even as we all must.”

  He beamed smugly. Holger shook his head. “No, wrong again. “

  “What? Why, you—” The ogre surged erect.

  “So you’d rather fight?” said Holger. “I knew you had no intellectual staying power.”