King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (17 page)

“But that’s all wrong!” Nyneve found tears in her eyes and blinked them back furiously. “That
couldn’t
happen. It was supposed to be Margawse, and then when it obviously wasn’t going to be, I thought … I thought he was safe!”

“Nobody’s safe with Morgan le Fay.”

“But she’s a Dedo! She’s not human at all—she’s a Finger of Starquin like Avalona! What possible reason could she have for … fooling around with Arthur? She doesn’t have any feelings—does she?”

“Not unless it’s in her interests to have them.”

“And
is it?”

He looked cunning—a most unpleasant sight in the firelight. “It may be. You know she and Avalona disagree about how to handle the next thirty thousand years? Well, I think this is all part of her plan to do things her way!”

“But why is she doing
this?
She’s a Dedo and Arthur’s a human! What … what does that mean?”

“It means whatever Morgan wants it to mean.”

“What do
you
think that is, Merlin?”

‘Well … Morgan intends
something
to come of this. To my knowledge a human and a Dedo have never mated. But Morgan’s not your normal Dedo. I’d guess she intends to give birth sometime in the ifalong, and she wants to use some of Arthur’s genes. I think she’s going to produce something powerful and—how would you say it?—
evil,
something that can help her discredit Arthur and the idea of chivalry that Avalona’s trying to put across, something rather like herself, only male. …”

“
Mordred
,” whispered Nyneve.

They sat in silence. The music and laughter died away as one by one the revelers fell asleep. Somewhere in the forest something unthinkable was going on. Nyneve and Merlin, wakeful, sat under their tree.
At the moment of conception,
thought Nyneve,
something unique and recognizable ought to happen. Like an earthquake, or a shooting star.

But the earth didn’t move, and the sky was dark with clouds.

Merlin glanced at her craftily. “So there’s no point in you running around after Arthur anymore,” he said, touching her knee.

“It’s too late. I love him.” It seemed to Nyneve that the night would go on forever.

O
NE MORNING
THREE WEEKS LATER, PONG THE
Intrepid was leaning over the gunwales of his birchbark boat, harvesting kelp. It was low tide and the flat, slippery strands lay along the surface, making his task easy. Grasping a strand, he pulled it into the boat until the kelp resisted, anchored by its roots to the seabed. Then he took his sailor’s knife, fashioned by the Accursed Gnomes, and cut the strand off short. His new friend, Snout, pushed the boat to keep it in place. Snout was a dolphin from the giants’ happentrack who seemed to have taken a liking to Pong and had gotten into the habit of helping with the harvesting.

The work was easier and safer at low tide. At high tide only the tips of the kelp showed at the surface, and Pong had to get a rope around them and haul the strands up bodily, roots and all.

And occasionally a baby lopster had been clinging to the roots.

Those had been terrifying moments. He’d let the kelp sink to the bottom and had sat there shivering, his gaze ranging fearfully over the sea. At the leap and splash of a fish he would scream. At any moment, Pong surmised, the monstrous form of
the
lopster—the grandfather of all baby lopsters—would emerge dripping from the surface and confront him furiously, towering over the boat. And then …

He heard a splash behind him and uttered an involuntary yell of horror,
dropping the kelp. His head snapped around. The water stretched, rippling toward France. Snout had caused the splash, frolicking. There was no lopster.

The lopster, he told himself, probably didn’t exist in this new world. The creature had probably been canceled out by more favorable probabilities. Nyneve had tried to explain that to him. He’d made discreet inquiries elsewhere, and the giants had denied ever seeing such a creature.

The giants … For a moment Pong pondered the question of the giants. Though not a pleasant topic, it was infinitely preferable to the lopster.

The giants seemed friendly enough, though huge. But their size didn’t bother him so much as their numbers. Already the world seethed with them, leaving precious little room for gnomes. How could any race allow itself to become so numerous?

Gnomes were not numerous. The structure of their society didn’t allow it. Each gnome had a job to do. In Mara Zion gnomedom, Pong was the sailorgnome, Fang was the Memorizer, Elmera was the seamstress, Tom brewed the beer, Jack bred the rabbits, and so on. Occasionally there would be a supernumerary gnome; Fang had been one such, until he had taken over his father’s Memorizer’s duties. Young gnomes were often supernumerary, as were old gnomes; it was no disgrace. But the point was, every gnome had a job, or would have a job, or had had a job. Gnome communities were organized that way, everywhere. Loose guilds existed, and gnomes with the same jobs would exchange news and information by way of traveling gnomes. Occasionally a gnome would visit a nearby community and talk shop with his counterpart. Guild methods and secrets were fiercely guarded.

A few communities consisted of specialists such as the Accursed Gnomes, whose jobs could not be integrated conveniently into a normal community without causing distress.

And there were the unfortunate gnomes who, for one reason or another, didn’t fit in anywhere. The Princess of the Willow Tree
was one such. The circumstances of her birth were so shameful that she could never be accepted into any of the recognized guilds. She could only make herself useful in whatever ways she could.

Jobs were not necessarily passed from parent to child. At any one time there might be several children in a community, and any one of these could take up a job when an incumbent retired. Sometimes a pair of gnomes were unable to have children, and other gnomes would be obliged to bear additional children to step into the forthcoming vacancies. Usually, though, gnomes took on the jobs they were most familiar with—which was the job one of their parents had carried out.

As often happened on these occasions, Pong found himself thinking about his father, Poop the Craven, who had fled Mara Zion and never been heard of again. Why had Poop fled? Probably, thought Pong, because the lopster had risen from the depths and confronted him. And what was Poop doing now? No respectable gnomish community would allow him in; that was certain. Communities were carefully balanced. Although strangers were welcomed, it was fully understood that their stay would be temporary. Poop was probably leading a sad and nomadic existence.

Which brought Pong to Bart. How long did Bart intend to stay? He’d been in Mara Zion for four weeks now and showed no sign of moving on. He’d said he was a Memorizer; so how did Bodmin function without him?

Pong was a simple soul, friendly and tolerant as only a gnome can be; but it seemed he’d sometimes observed a crafty gleam in Bart’s eyes. And that was not the kind of gleam one wanted to see in the eyes of an honest gnome. Another thing: Bart seemed to have a knack of befriending the more unsavory of Mara Zion’s inhabitants, such as the Gooligog. Bart, decided Pong, was bad news. This was unfortunate, because Pong was responsible for introducing Bart to Mara Zion.

“Bugger it,” Pong said to the wide ocean as he trimmed the kelp into bite-sized portions for gnomish cooking pots.

And the ocean,
as though in reply, produced six black objects near the horizon.
Giantish boats,
thought Pong bitterly, remembering all the years he’d had the sea to himself.
Giantish boats coming this way, packed with giants all set to swell the forest population.

He hoisted the sail and made speed for the shore. He could see banks of oars thrashing at the water, and sails straining full of wind. There was no point in sitting here in the path of those juggernauts. The boats had a warlike mien, even when viewed from this distance.
Probably Irish,
he thought resignedly,
looking forward to another battle.

Irish!

What had Nyneve said the other day? “Pong, you have sharp eyes, and your cave is well placed. I want you to keep an eye on the horizon from time to time, and if you see any boats coming from the west, let me know immediately. We’re expecting the Irish. They seem to have some kind of a grudge against us.”

The little boat crunched onto the pebbles. Pong leapt ashore and dragged it up the beach. Possessed by a feeling of mild heroism, he ran to his cave. He would give the alarm.
The Irish are coming!
And Fang would commit it to memory at the monthly meeting, and it would go down in Mara Zion history: The Day Pong Saved King Arthur from the Irish Hosts.

“Away, Thunderer!” he cried enthusiastically as he entered his cave, full tilt.

Chit-chit-chit-chit!
came an earsplitting reply from the rocky darkness.

“The lopster!” screamed Pong, feet plowing into the sand of the cave floor as he braked frantically.

Chit-chit-chit!
Light reflected from a great triangular head from which sprouted armored feelers. They waved at him while the mandibles worked thoughtfully, limbering up for the taste of gnome. The head tilted and a huge eye scanned him with multifaceted impersonality.

“Oh, God!” screamed Pong, as his impetus took him sliding toward legs like peeled and jointed tree trunks. Full length, he scrabbled
at the sand and at last succeeded in reversing direction. He shot out of the cave and scurried along the beach, dimly aware of a disappointed
chit-chit-chit
from behind. He untied his rabbit with fumbling fingers, leapt astride, and kicked it into a rocketing hop.

The cliff was a blurred wall to his left; the pebbles passed beneath the rabbit’s flying feet in a broad gray streak.
From now on,
he thought desperately,
I will lead a good life. I will throw away my knife and cut kelp with a sharp rock. The firelighter will never enter my dwelling again. I will shiver through the winter with only blankets to keep me warm, and I will use no leather or skins, and it will be good for my soul. The house of Pong will be a monument to the Kikihuahua Examples.

Blurred rocks changed to blurred trees as he entered the forest. The rabbit, receiving no direction from the paralyzed Pong, eventually lolloped to a halt at the woven willow fence of the new rabbit compound. Jack o’ the Warren sat at the narrow entrance, eyes averted from a vigorously copulating pair of rabbits.

“Jack,” said Pong casually, trying to sound like a gnome who had not been fleeing for his life. He had his name to maintain.

“Pong,” replied Jack, brightening slightly.

“Would you have … such a thing as a flask of beer, Jack?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in beer.”

For a moment Pong debated telling Jack about the lopster. After all, Jack had confessed to the bogus rabbits, and Pong thought more of him for it. … Or did he?

No, decided Pong, he thought
less
of Jack. “It’s been a hard ride,” he said curtly.

Jack produced a flask and handed it up to Pong. Pong drank thirstily, and a glow of well-being began to spread from his stomach. He wondered why he’d never drunk beer before. He surveyed the compound with a benevolent eye. The two rabbits, their lust slaked, were munching their separate ways, but another couple was regarding each other with ear-waving interest.

“You have nerves
of iron, Jack,” said Pong kindly, as the rabbits began a preparatory nosing and shrugging.

“You get used to it,” said Jack. “Provided you don’t start thinking about what they’re actually
doing.
I try to think of it as just another example of rabbity behavior, like eating. What could be more normal than eating?”

“Scratching,” suggested Pong.

“I don’t really think scratching is more normal than eating,” said Jack seriously. “Eating is essential to survival.”

“Scratching happens more often.”

As if in support of Pong’s argument, the rabbits moved apart and began to scratch. Jack regarded them in some irritation. Their various itches satisfied, they began to nibble at a clump of dandelions. “They lead a simple existence,” he said tolerantly. “Eating, sleeping, and, er, filth.”

“And scratching.”

“Not a care in the world.” Thoughtfully he said, “At least we haven’t seen the woodypecker around the forest lately.”

They rejoiced in silence over the absence of this garish and embarrassing bird, then Pong said, “I think it got left behind on our old happentrack.”

“Long may it remain there.”

Another silence followed while Pong began to feel that he’d forgotten something important. He worked his way back through his memory but the nightmare vision of the lopster dominated recent events to an overpowering extent. He skipped that and went straight to the moment he’d woken up. He’d washed and dressed and gone out to harvest kelp, the tide being low. Snout had been with him. The sea was calm, the horizon arched and even, and …

“The Irish are coming!” yelled Pong. “The Irish are coming!”

The results were not nearly so dramatic as he’d imagined. “You don’t have to shout,” Jack said, aggrieved.

“You don’t
understand! I’ve ridden nonstop from the beach to warn our friends the giants of the approaching peril!”

“Rabbits shouldn’t be ridden so far nonstop,” said Jack seriously. “Short bursts are what rabbits are built for. Short bursts with a rest in between. Perhaps a drink and maybe a few minutes grazing to restore the energy level. A good brushing”—Jack warmed to his theme—”will often work wonders for the exhausted rabbit. Get him into the shade. If necessary—”

“We must find Nyneve!”

“—fan his ears. The extremities are—”

“I’m going!” Pong kicked his mount hard—a time-honored method of overcoming exhaustion in rabbits—and like so many of the old remedies, it worked. The rabbit loped rapidly down the path, bearing Pong in the direction of Avalona’s cottage.

During the short reign of the great Tristan, one problem had never been satisfactorily solved. In Tristan’s Great Hall—a barnlike structure close by the village—three men were making yet another attempt.