Upon a Sea of Stars (41 page)

“Mehopes that you’re right, Your Highness.”

“Then come, Sir John. Time’s a-wasting.”

They walked on—and then, just ahead of them, Grimes saw a pontoon landing dock on the river. There was a ship alongside it, an archaic side-wheel paddle steamer, smoke issuing from its tall funnel. At the shoreward side of the stage was a notice board and on it, in big black letters on a white ground, the sign:

RIVER TRIPS TO OGRE’S KEEP.
HALF A FLORIN. VERY CHEAP.

“Your Highness,” said Grimes, “let’s take the boat and rest awhile, then face the dragon with a smile.”

“Have you the wherewithal, Sir John, to pay the fare agreed upon?”

“I have a pass, Prince Sanderson. And so have you—your trusty gun.”

Something at the back of the Commodore’s mind winced at the doggerel and cried voicelessly,
You’re a spaceman, not a character out of a children’s book!
Grimes almost ignored it, tried to ignore it, but the nagging doubt that had been engendered persisted.

They marched on to the pontoon, their sturdily shod feet ringing on the planking, their weapons drawn and ready. Side by side, but with Sanderson slightly in the lead, they tramped up the gangway. At the head of it stood a man in uniform—and, incongruously, his trappings were those of a purser in the Waverley Royal Mail Line. He held out his hand.” Good knights, if you would board this ship, pay passage money for your trip.”

“Varlet, stand back! The ride is free for this, the bold Sir John, and me!”

“And here, as you can plainly see,” added Grimes, making a meaningful gesture with his Minetti, “is our loud-voiced authority.”

“Sir, it speaks loud enough for me,” admitted the purser, standing to one side. As they passed him Grimes heard him mutter. “The Royal Mail could not be worse.
They
never made me speak in verse.”

Grimes, who was always at home aboard ships of any kind, led the way down to the saloon, a large compartment, darkly paneled, with black leather upholstery on chairs and settees. At one end of it there was a bar, but it was shut. Along both sides were big windows, barely clear of the surface of the water. There were no other passengers.

Overhead there was the thudding of feet on planking. Then there was a jangling of bells, followed at once by the noise of machinery below decks. From above came the long mournful note of a steam whistle, and then came the steady
chunk, chunk, chunk
of the paddles. The ship was underway, heading down river. On either side the banks were sliding past, a shifting panorama of forest and village, with only rarely what looked like a cultivated field, but very often a huge, frowning, battlemented castle.

The rhythm of paddles and engines was a soothing one and Grimes, at least, found that it made him drowsy. He lolled back in his deep chair, halfway between consciousness and sleep. When he was in this state his real memories, his very real doubts and worries came suddenly to the surface of his mind. He heard his companion murmur, “Speed, bonny boat, like a bird through the sky. Carry us where the dragon must die.”

“Come off it, Sanderson,” ordered the Commodore sharply.

“Sir John, please take yourself in hand. Such insolence I will not stand!”

“Come off it!” ordered Grimes again—and then the spell, which had been so briefly broken, took charge again. “Your Highness, I spoke out of turn. But courtesy I’ll try to learn.”

“My good Sir John, you better had. Bad manners always make me mad. But look through yonder port, my friend. Methinks we neareth journey’s end.”

Journey’s end or not, there was a landing stage there toward which the paddle steamer was standing in. Inshore from it the land was thickly wooded and rose steeply. On the crest of the hill glowered the castle, a grim pile of gray stone, square-built, ugly, with a turret at each corner. There was a tall staff from which floated a flag. Even from a distance the two men could make out the emblem: a white skull-and-crossbones in a black ground. And then, as the ship neared the shore, the view was shut out and, finally, only the slime-covered side of the pontoon could be seen through the window.

The paddle steamer came alongside with a gentle crunch and, briefly, the engines were reversed to take the way off her. From forward and aft there was a brief rattle of steam winches as she was moored, and then there were no more mechanical noises.

The purser appeared in the saloon entrance. “Good knights, you now must leave this wagon. So fare you forth to face the dragon.”

“And you will wait till we are done?” asked Grimes.

“We can’t, Sir Knight, not on this run.

“Come rain, come shine, come wind, come snow,

“Back and forth our ferries go.

“Like clockwork yet, sir, you should try ‘em,

“And even set your wristwatch by ‘em.”

“Enough, Sir John,” said Sanderson, “this wordy wight will keep us gabbing here all night. In truth, he tells a pretty tale—this lackey from the Royal Mail!”

The spell was broken again. “You noticed too!” exclaimed Grimes.

“Yes. I noticed. That cap badge with a crown over the silver rocket.” Sanderson laughed. “It was when I tried to find a rhyme for
tale
that things sort of clicked into place.”

Grimes turned on the purser. “What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Alas, Sir Knight, I cannot say.
I cannot say
?” The young man’s pudgy face stiffened with resolution. “
No
! Come what may . . .”

Whatever it was that came, it was sudden. He was standing there, struggling to speak, and then he was . . . gone, vanished in a gentle thunderclap as the air rushed in to fill the vacuum where he had stood. Then another man stamped into the saloon, in captain’s uniform with the same familiar trappings.

“Begone, good knights,” he shouted, “to meet your fate! Get off my ship, I’m running late.”

“Sir,” began Grimes—and then that influence gripped his mind again. He said, “Thank you for passage, sir. Goodbye. We fare forth now, to do or die!”

“Well said, Sir John,” declaimed Sanderson. “Well said, my friend. We go—to shape the story’s end.”

“I hope, good knights, you gallant two,” growled the captain, “that story’s end does not shape you.” He led the way from the saloon up to the gangway.

They stood on the pontoon, watching the little steamer round the first bend on her voyage up river, then walked to the bridge that spanned the gap between landing stage and bank. Overhead the sky was darkening and the air was chill. The westering sun had vanished behind a bank of low clouds. Grimes, his shirt and slacks suddenly inadequate, shivered.
What am I doing here?
he asked himself. And then, quite suddenly,
Who am I?
It was a silly question, and he at once knew how foolish it was. The answer shaped itself in his mind.
I am the one they call Sir John, true comrade to Prince Sanderson.

“We forward march,” announced the Prince, “my cobber bold, to meet the perils long foretold. Up yonder hill, let us then, to beard the dragon in his den.”

“The dragon wastes no time on fuss,” remarked Grimes. “He’s coming down, and bearding us.”

Yes, the beast was coming down, either from the castle or from somewhere else atop the hill. It was airborne—and even in his bemused state Grimes realized that it should never have gotten off the ground. Its head and body were too large, its wings too small, too skimpy. But it was a terrifying sight, a monstrous, batwinged crocodile, its mouth, crowded with jagged teeth, agape, the long, sharp claws of its forefeet extended. It dived down on them, roaring, ignoring the laser beams that the two men directed at it, even though its metallic scales glowed cherry red where they scored hits. It dived down on them—and there was more than mere sound issuing from that horrid maw. The great gout of smoky flame was real enough, and Grimes and Sanderson escaped it only by diving into the undergrowth on either side of the steep path.

The beast pulled out of its dive and flapped away slowly, regaining altitude. The men watched it until it was only a darker speck in the dark sky, then realized that the speck was rapidly increasing in size. It was coming for them again.

Something was wrong, very wrong. In the fairy stories the dragons never kill the heroes . . . but this dragon looked like being the exception to prove the rule. Grimes holstered his laser pistol, pulled out his Minetti. He doubted that the little weapon would be of any avail against the armored monstrosity, but it might be worth trying. From the corner of his eyes he saw that Sanderson had out and ready his heavy projectile pistol. “Courage, Sir John,” called the young man. “Aim for his head. We’ve no cold steel; we’ll try hot lead!”

“Cold steel, forsooth!” swore Grimes. “Hot lead, indeed! A silver bullet’s what we need!”

“Stand firm, Sir John, and don’t talk rot! Don’t whine for what we haven’t got!”

Grimes loosed off a clip at the diving dragon on full automatic. Sanderson, the magazine of whose pistol held only ten rounds, fired in a more leisurely manner. Both men tried to put their shots into the open mouth, the most obviously vulnerable target. Whether or not they succeeded they never knew. Again they had to tumble hastily off the path just as the jet of flame roared out at them. This time it narrowly missed Grimes’s face. It was like being shaved with a blowtorch.

He got groggily to his feet, fumbled another clip of cartridges out of the pouch at his belt, reloaded the little automatic. He saw that Sanderson was pushing a fresh magazine into the butt of his heavy pistol. The young man smiled grimly and said, “Sir John, the ammo’s running low. When all is spent, what shall we do?”

“The beast will get us if we run. Would that we’d friends to call upon!”

“Many did give us good advice. If they gave us more it would be nice.”

“What of the fairy Lynnimame?”

“And how, Sir John, do you know her name?”

The dragon was coming in again, barely visible in the fast gathering dusk. The men held their fire until the last possible moment—and it was almost the last moment for both of them. Barely did they scramble clear of the roaring, stinking flame, and as they rolled in the brush both of them were frantically beating out their smoldering clothing. The winged monster, as before, seemed to be uninjured.

Suddenly Sanderson cried out, swung to turn his just reloaded pistol on a new menace. It was Grimes who stopped him, who knocked his arm down before he could fire. In the glowing ovoid of light was a tiny human figure, female, with gauzy wings. She hung there over the rough, stony path. She was smiling sweetly, and her voice, when she spoke, was a silvery tintinnabulation. “Prince, your companion called my name. I am the fairy Lynnimame. I am she who, this very morn, from the jaws of the spider foul was torn. I pay my debts; you rescued me. I’ll rescue you, if that’s your fee.”

“Too right it is, you lovesome sprite.”

“Then take this, Prince. And now, good night.”

She put something into Sanderson’s hand and vanished. Before she flickered into invisibility Grimes, by the pale luminosity of her, saw what it was. It was a cartridge case, ordinary enough in appearance except that the tip of the bullet looked too bright to be lead. “A silver bullet!” marveled Sanderson. “A silver bullet. We are saved. He’ll play Goliath to my David!”

“Unless you load, you pious prig, he’ll play the chef to your long pig!”

Hastily Sanderson pulled the magazine from the butt of his pistol, ejected the first cartridge, replaced it with the silver bullet. He shoved the clip back home with a loud
click
. He was just in time; the dragon was upon them again, dropping almost vertically. The first lurid flames were gushing from its gaping mouth when the third officer fired. The result was spectacular. The thing exploded in mid-air, and the force of the blast sent Grimes tumbling head over heels into the bushes, with only a confused impression of a great, scarlet flower burgeoning against the night.

He recovered consciousness slowly. As before, when he had dozed briefly aboard the river steamer, he was aware of his identity, knew what he was supposed to be doing. And then Sanderson’s words severed the link with reality, recast the spell.

“Arise, Sir John! No time for sleep! We march against the Ogre’s Keep!”

They marched against the Ogre’s Keep—but it was more an undignified scramble up the steep path than a march. Luckily the moon was up now, somewhere above the overcast, and its diffused light was helpful, showed them the dark mass of briars that barred their way before they blundered into the thorny growth. Luckily they had not lost their weapons, and with their laser pistols they slashed, and slashed again, and slashed until their wrists ached with fatigue and their thumbs were numb from the continual pressure on the firing studs. For a long while they made no headway at all; it seemed that the severed, spiny tendrils were growing back faster than they were being destroyed. When the power packs in the pistols were exhausted they were actually forced back a few feet while they were reloading. It was Grimes who thought of renewing the attack with a wide setting instead of the needle beams that they had been using at first. The prickly bushes went up with a great
whoosh
of smoky flame, and the two men scrambled rather than ran through the gap thus cleared, and even then the barbed thorns were clutching at skin and clothing.

Then, with the fire behind them, they climbed on, bruised, torn and weary. They climbed, because it was the only thing to do. At last they were high enough up the hillside to see the castle again, black and forbidding against the gray sky. The few squares of yellow light that were windows accentuated rather than relieved the darkness.

They gained the rock-strewn plateau in the center of which towered the Keep. They stumbled across the uneven surface, making their way between the huge boulders, avoiding somehow the fissures that made the ground a crazy pattern of cracks. From some of these sounded ominous hissings and croakings and gruntings, from some there was a baleful gleaming of red eyes, but nothing actively molested them. And there was a rising wind now, damp and cold, that made a mockery of their rent, inadequate clothing, that whined and muttered in their ears like unquiet ghosts.