At evening they found themselves in a slight dip. Ahead bulked the slopes they must climb tomorrow, rock piled on rock till a distant ridge stood back and saw-toothed against the sky. But in this dale a cataract foamed over a slate-blue cliff, into a lake tinged red with sundown. Closer at hand, the shore was low and still. A flock of wild ducks clattered off as the humans neared, to settle near the opposite bank, a mile away. The hush returned.
“I hoped we could reach this loch,” said Alianora. “If we leave some fishlines out o’ernicht, we can make a better breakfast than salt pork and hardtack.”
Hugi shook his big shaggy head. “I know na, lassie. This whole land smells evil, but here’s a stench I ne’er met.”
Holger inhaled a breeze tinged with damp green odors. “Seems okay to me,” he said. “Anyway, we can’t get around the lake before nightfall.”
“We could go back uphill and camp above,” said Carahue.
“Retrace our steps two miles?” Holger sneered. “Do so if you wish, sir. But I’m not afraid to sleep here.”
The Saracen flushed and bit back an angry retort. Alianora hurried to break the silence by exclaiming, “See, yon’s a good dry spot.”
Moss squelched underfoot, soaked as a sponge. But a great rock heaved above, the slant side spotted by lichen, the flat top covered with soil that bore short thick grass. A dead shrub near the middle offered ready-made fuel. Alianora spread her arms and said, “Why, ’tis as if prepared for us.”
“Aye, so ’tis,” grumbled Hugi. No one heeded. He must chop wood with a hatchet from the pack mule, while the men established a protective circle and took care of the animals. The sun slipped down under western heights but that half of the sky remained crimson, as if a fire had been lit by giants.
Alianora jumped up from the blaze she herself had kindled. “Whilst a good bed o’ coals gets started,” she said, “I’ll go set our hooks.”
“No, remain here, I beg you,” said Carahue. He sat cross-legged, his handsome dark visage turned merrily up to her. Somehow, through their hard traveling, he had kept his picturesque clothes nearly immaculate.
“But would ye no like a mess o’ fresh fish?”
“Aye, certes. However, ’tis worthless compared to one hour more, of this too short life, in the presence of utter beauty.”
The girl turned her head. Holger saw how the blush stained her face and bosom. Still more acutely was he aware of her young curves. within the swan tunic, of great gray eyes and soft lips and fluttering hands. “Nay,” she whispered. “I dinna know what ye means, Sir Carahue.”
“Sit down, and I shall do my poor best to explain.” He patted the turf beside him.
“Why... why—” She threw Holger a blurred look. He snapped his teeth together and turned his back. From the edge of an eye he saw her join the other man. The Saracen murmured:
“’Tis honorable that an errant knight
go boldly forth however dim the chances,
and not alone upon such times as lances
gleam high and then are shattered in the fight:
for when the golden daystar burns less bright
than one pure hope at which his heartbeat dances,
’tis honorable that an errant knight
go boldly forth however dim the chances.
And so, since your rare loneliness has quite
ensnared my soul with one or two sweet glances,
I dare ask more than lordship of ten Frances—
that you a moment linger in my, sight;
’tis honorable that an errant knight
go boldly forth however dim the chances.”
“Oh,” stammered Alianora, “I, I, I canna think what to say.”
“You need not say, fairest of damsels,” he answered. “Only be.”
“I’ll set the lines,” Holger barked. He snatched them up and scrambled down off the rock. His neck ached with the effort of not looking back.
By the time he was out of sight among the reeds, his shoes and hose were wet. A fat lot she’d care if he caught pneumonia.
Now cut that self-pity out!
If Alianora tumbled for such a slicker, Holger had none but himself to blame. He’d been given first refusal, hadn’t he? Only, under the circumstances he’d had to refuse. What a lousy trick to play on a man.
He slashed at the plants with his knife. Except for the dagger belt, he was unarmed, having doffed his heavy mail on making camp. So had Carahue; but Holger lacked the Saracen’s gift of elegance, he was muddy and sweaty and rumpled. He didn’t even wear his own face any more. No wonder Alianora—Well, what did she matter to him? He ought to be glad if she found someone who’d take her off his hands. Goddam bulrushes!
He emerged on the water’s edge. Very still it lay under the black cliffs, the purple eastern sky where a moon and one star hung, the sullen red to the west. The surface was touched by that sunset light as if with blood, but in so thin a shimmer that he could sense the darkness below. The reeds shivered and rustled; Holger’s footsteps plashed startlingly loud. Frogs leaped from an old log that had drifted into the bank. He spread his lines out on this and started to bait the hooks with meat scraps.
The cold enveloped him, ate inward and made him shake. His fingers were clumsy, he must squint through the failing light to see a hook.
And I could be on Avalon this minute, he thought. Or even, by hell, under Elf Hill with Meriven. Doesn’t that hillbilly swan wench know what she’s doing to me, parading around half naked? Satan take all women, anyway. They’ve got exactly one purpose in the world. Judas, but Meriven sure served that purpose.
His hand slipped. The hook went into his finger. He pulled it out with a blasphemous oath, drew his steel dagger and stabbed the log because he must stab something.
Laughter rang like the cataract. He flung his head around and glimpsed the white shape risen behind him. Then his wrists were pinned at his back. An arm clamped about his neck. He felt himself heaved backward and down. The lake closed over him.
19
THROTTLED, HE TRIED to kick, but the faintness was already upon him. His brain spun toward night. When he was let go, sheer reflex opened his mouth in a gasp.
He did not drown. He sat up. For a moment he couldn’t think who he was, or why or where. Awareness returned. But he needed minutes to see what lay about, for his eyes were not trained to such things.
He sat on white sand that reached beyond sight in graceful ripple marks. Here and there lay stones covered with a brilliant green overgrowth of algae, whose long filaments wavered upward. A luminosity filled the air, akin to the sourceless un-light in Faerie, but faintly greenish. Only... not air. For bubbles streamed from his mouth and nostrils, to rise like tiny polished moons. He saw a fish go by, from the wanness on his left to the perspectiveless distances on his right. He sprang to his feet, bounced, and drifted down with ghostly slowness. His body seemed to be without weight. The water flowed sensuously around each movement.
“Welcome, Sir ’Olger.” The voice was cold and sweet.
He turned. A woman poised lazily before him. She was nude and paper white, with delicate green traces of veins under the skin. Long hair floated about her shoulders, fine and green as the algal weeds. Her face was broad and flat-nosed, with yellow eyes and a heavy sensuous mouth. Neck, torso, limbs, and hands were by contrast not quite human in their slenderness. Holger had never seen such grace as was hers, save in eels.
“Who, who, who?” he choked.
“Nay, now,” she laughed, “you are no owl, but a highborn knight. Welcome, I say.” She edged closer with a kick. He saw her feet were mostly toe, and webbed. Lips and nails were pale green. But the sight was not horrible. On the contrary! Holger had to remind himself he was in serious trouble.
“Forgive my impetuous invitation.” Bubbles swarmed bright from her mouth. Some clustered like jewels in her tresses. “I must needs seize the fleeting moment when you had no iron and were in an unblessed mood. Truly, no harm was meant you.”
“Where the devil am I?” he exploded.
“Beneath the lake where I, its nixie, have dwelt these many lonely centuries.” She took his hands. Her own were soft and cool, with an underlying sense of the strength that had captured him. “Fear not. My spell guards you from drowning.”
Holger noticed his breath. It felt no different from usual, except for a slight heaviness on his chest. He rolled his tongue around in his mouth and squirted saliva between his teeth. Somehow, he thought—striving for a toehold on sanity—the forces called magical must be extracting oxygen from the water for him and forcing it into a thin protective layer, perhaps monomolecular, on his face. The rest of him was in direct contact with the lake. His clothes flopped soggy. Yet he was warm enough...
What am I gabbling about? I’ve got to get out of here!
He jerked free of her. “Who put you up to this?” he demanded.
She stretched her arms over her head till the verdant hair entwined their whiteness, arched her back, and poised on tiptoe. “None,” she smiled. “You cannot imagine how wearisome existence grows, alone and immortal. When a beautiful young warrior, with locks like the sun and eyes like heaven, chanced hither, I must love him on the instant.”
His cheeks burned. The detached part of him reflected that she, being of the Middle World, was as immune to the illusion which disguised him as he was himself. Even so... how did she know his name? “Morgan le Fay!” he flung out.
“What matter?” Her shrug was a flow along her whole body. “Come, my house lies near. A feast awaits you. Afterward—” She swayed close. Her eyelids drooped.
“This is no accident,” he insisted. “I expected Morgan would track us. When we passed by this lake, she arranged everything. I don’t believe my own actions were free, even.”
“Oh, fear not that. No mortal of good character can be touched by enchantment, unless he himself wishes.”
“Well, I know what my character was like at the time, and I suspect I was prodded into the right frame of mind, if not forced. Very well. Begone, you!” Holger drew the sign of the cross.
The nixie smiled her slumbrous smile. She shook her head, slow weaving back and forth with billows running through the loose hair. “Nay, too late. While you are here, whither your own desires have brought you, you may not escape so cheaply. Aye, why should I not own the truth, that her majesty of Avalon commanded me to lurk by the shore and abide my opportunity? I am to keep you here until she sends for you, which will be after the war that is almost begun.” She drifted upward till she lay horizontally before his face. Her thin wire-strong fingers reached out to stroke his hair. “Yet ’tis also truth, how glad of your questing Rusel is, and how cunningly she will strive to make your stay joyous.”
Holger wrenched away and kicked against the sand. He shot up. His limbs caught the water and he swam toward the unseen surface. The nixie glided alongside, effortlessly, still smiling. She didn’t oppose him herself, but beckoned.
Lean shapes hurtled into sight. Jaws snapped before Holger’s nose. He looked into the blank eyes and needle-toothed beak of the biggest pike he had ever seen. Others closed in, a dozen, a hundred. One ripped his hand. Pain jabbed; his blood came out like red smoke. He stopped. The pike circled on every side. Rusel made another gesture. They swam off, but slowly, and remained on the edge of vision.
Holger bobbed back down to the sand. He needed a few minutes to get his breath and pulse under control.
The nixie took his hand and kissed the wound. It closed as if it had never been made. “Nay, you must stay, Sir ’Olger,” she purred. “’Twould be a deadly disappointment for me did you seek so discourteously to leave.”
“Deadlier for me,” he managed to say.
She laughed and took his arm. “Far too soon will Queen Morgan claim you. Meanwhile, come, consider yourself a prisoner of war, honorably taken in an honorable captivity. Which I shall seek to lighten for you.”
“But my friends—”
“Fear not, my sweeting. By themselves they’re no menace to the great purpose. They can be suffered to return home unscathed.” With a flick of malice: “From a distance, after the sun that is fatal to me had sunk, I espied certain attitudes struck in yonder camp. Meseems the swan maiden will soon let herself be consoled for you. If not this very eventide, then surely within a sennight.”
Holger clenched his fists. He felt strangled. That worthless Saracen—
But Alianora had fallen all over herself to heed Carahue’s flatteries. The little bird-brain!
Rusel laid one hand on Holger’s neck. Her lips were close to his. He saw how they swelled. “All right,” he said thickly. “Let’s go to your house, at least.”
“How you gladden me, gallant sir! You shall see what dainties have been prepared. And what pleasures undreamed of by the oafish land dwellers there may be in these depths, where no weight hinders, the freedom of the body.”
Holger could well imagine. If he was caught, why not enjoy it? “Let’s go,” he repeated.
Rusel fluttered her lashes. “Will you not first remove that ugly sack?”
He looked at his water-logged garments and back at her. His hands fell to his belt.
But instead he clapped hold on Duke Alfric’s dagger. Memory flashed in him. For a moment he stood rigid. Then he shook his head, violently, and said, “Later, at the house. I expect I’ll want them again sometime.”