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examples of creatures particularly known for their quietness.
"Good!" said Jim.
"But what about these trolls, m'Lord?" said Secoh. "Should we do something
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about these trolls? Like tear a few apart and chase the others away?"
"No, I don't think so, Secoh," said Jim. "They've got their own ways, after
all; and it's only right they be left to them. Besides, they aren't troubling
us right now; and I don't really think they will. It's just a matter of the
troll who lives underneath the Earl's castle here possibly being challenged by
a pair of twin trolls."
"Ah, a fight!" said Secoh happily, and there was an added buzz of pleased
excitement that went back through the dragon ranks. Much as dragons detested
trolls, given a choice, they would ordinarily rather watch any kind of a fight
any day than be in it that is, unless the instinctive fighting fury that
slumbered in the breast of every mature dragon was triggered; in which case
there was essentially no question of anything but action. Jim in his
Gorbash-dragon body had experienced this himself. In fact, he had gotten both
Gorbash and himself almost killed by letting it take him over.
"Well then, Secoh," he said. "If Angie hasn't sent word to the guests to come
already, she will as soon as I'm back in the clearing, so things will begin to
happen pretty quickly now. I'd say before the sun has moved much more in the
heavens, you'll be able to move in and watch the proceedings."
"Thank you, m'Lord," said Secoh.
Jim left, and behind him the dragons burst into low-voiced, interested
discussion of what watching a play might be like, what to watch for in
observing a troll-fight, and other related subjects. Jim strode back through
the forest; and, going around a rather thick-bodied oak that was in his path,
he almost bumped into Carolinus.
"Carolinus!" he said, staring at the magician. "You're almost as bad as
Aargh."
"That is something not to be said by an apprentice to his Master!" retorted
Carolinus severely. "I am not someone that others are almost as bad as, Jim. I
am someone that others might hope to be almost as good as but with little or
no opportunity, probably."
"Of course," said Jim. "By the way, thank you for magicking up those stands
for Angie."
"Oh, that," said Carolinus, with a wave of his hand. "I'd almost forgotten
that. Nothing at all, really. You've been using a lot of Magick yourself,
lately."
"Well, yes," said Jim cautiously. "Necessarily so "
He felt like an ordinary chess player who somehow (probably in a dream) had
found himself in a match with a grandmaster of the game; and who had built up
an apparently innocent but actually very strong arrangement of pieces to put
his opponent's most powerful piece, the queen, in danger.
He had until this moment just been waiting for the grandmaster to make one
more incautious move; and it seemed to him that now, Carolinus had just
committed his final error by moving an unimportant pawn. A harmless and
uninteresting move that merely cleared the way for his opponent's bishop to
threaten Jim's queen. But actually that bishop could simply be taken by one of
Jim's own, humble pawns; thereby ensuring Jim's total, crushing victory. The
grandmaster had really been asleep on this move.
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"Good!" said Carolinus, interrupting him before he could finish what he had
been just about to say.
"Good?" echoed Jim, thrown off stride temporarily, "I'd thought you'd want me
to lie low at this time, by using as little magic as possible."
"Not at all, not at all," said Carolinus cheerfully. "You remember what I've
always said to you, Jim. Practice! Practice! Practice! Every time you use your
Magick you're practicing. That pleases me."
"Yes, but with this difficulty building up against me in Magickdom " said
Jim.
" Oh, that. What will be, will be," said Carolinus. "If you're going to
survive here, the more practice you put in, the better. If you're not, then it
doesn't matter, does it?"
"I suppose not," said Jim. "I'm just a little surprised that you're taking
the matter so lightly. I thought you were concerned on my behalf."
"Why, of course I am!" said Carolinus. "But while I can do many things, Jim,
there have to be a few things that I cannot do. Saving you from the concerted
opinion of the majority of other magickians of Magickdom is, I'm afraid, one
of them."
That statement did it. Jim found the suspicion he had been nursing inside him
for some time now becoming a certainty. Mentally, he reviewed his own position
on the imaginary chessboard. No, his position was invincible. With one clear
accusation he would now crush Carolinus with the truth.
"Carolinus," he said, accordingly, "you've simply been using me in a game of
your own, haven't you; from the moment you arranged to have all our friends
delayed from coming to our help at Malencontri when the castle was attacked by
Sir Peter Carley and his gang of raiders?"
"Why, of course!" said Carolinus.
Chapter 43
"Tut-tut, my boy," Carolinus was saying. "Don't tell me you were under any
other impression. Why, that's what an apprentice is for. I believe you told me
when you first came here from where you used to be that you were a 'Master of
the Arts' hah! Or, at least, what they considered a 'Master of Arts' in that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]