The Knight

Chapter 39. Magic In The Air

It was Gylf who found me, not me who found Gylf. When I had gone so far into the woods that I had begun to think I might get lost, I heard him trotting behind me. I stopped and sat on a log (it was no wetter than I was) and motioned to him in a way I hoped was friendly. He was bigger than I remembered, but you could count his ribs.

“You mind?” He came a step at a time, not too sure of me.

I said, “If I didn’t want you I wouldn’t have called you, would I?” and I smiled; and he came up to me then and let me scratch his ears.

After a while I said, “I know I tried to leave you behind before I got on that boat. I’m sorry I did that. Maybe I’ve apologized already, and if I have I apologize again. You must have thought I was doing the same thing when I didn’t come back to look for you, but I didn’t know you were waiting in Aelfrice. I thought you had probably gone back to the boat. I went there, and after I did I couldn’t get back to Garsecg. Did he tell you what happened?”

Gylf shook his head.

“Maybe he didn’t know.” I thought about that. Garsecg was as smart as anybody I had ever met, and he knew a lot; but when somebody’s like that you can overestimate them and maybe you convince yourself they know everything. Not even the Valfather knows everything.

I said, “I used to think he had arranged for me to meet Kulili, and for you and me to get split up the way we did. I can’t be sure, but now I think that’s probably wrong.”

“Think so.”

“Do you?” I thought about that for a minute or two. It seemed like Gylf had been waiting down where the Kelpies were for quite a while after Garsecg and I got separated, and if Garsecg had come back there Gylf might have heard something. Finally I started telling about the ogre, just because it was on my mind a lot and I wanted to talk it over.

I told Gylf how it had hurt Duns and scared Nukara. “I don’t believe it’s really a ghost at all,” I said. “Why would a ghost run from Duns? It could disappear. Baki can disappear pretty well, and she’s not even a ghost. People may think that all the ogres are dead, but there are still giants in the north, lots of them. I think this is a real ogre, still alive, and safe because everyone thinks the last ogre died a long, long time ago.”

It took a while before Gylf nodded, but he did.

“I didn’t come out here to look for it, I came to look for Disiri. But maybe I should have. It must live in these woods.”

Gylf shook his head.

“It doesn’t? How do you know?”

“Smell.” Gylf yawned and lay down at my feet.

“Of course you don’t smell it. How could you? It’s still raining, and it was raining hard. Rain washes smells out of the air. Everybody knows that.”

Gylf stayed quiet, but the way he looked up at me showed he was not convinced.

“Look here,” I said, “everything fits, and you ought to be able to see it. The windows were open because of the hot weather. The ghost or ogre—I think ogre—could get in just by climbing through a window.”

Gylf shook his head again.

“You think it’s too big? It jumped out one when Duns chased it, so it could climb in one.”

Gylf was too polite to say anything, but I could tell how he felt.

“A big thing like a snake shaped like a man. That’s the way Duns described it, and Duns should know. Maybe we could come back when the weather’s better. Then you could track it for me.”

Gylf put his head down between his paws and closed his eyes.

I said, “Am I putting you to sleep? I hope you’re not scared of it.”

“No,” Gylf said very distinctly.

“Because I’m scared of you. That’s why I tried to leave you behind before we crossed the Irring.”

He pretended not to hear.

“I like going around telling people how brave I am. What a jerk! I told that woman back at the farm that there wasn’t a knight in Sheerwall I wouldn’t cross swords with. Maybe it’s the truth—I know I thought it was when I said it. But I saw how you changed when we fought the outlaws, and it scared me half to death. I wasn’t scared when Disiri changed. Or when Baki did, just now. I wasn’t even very scared about Garsecg and what the sunlight showed he really was, even if I was scared of him later in Muspel. But what you did was different.”

Gylf laid his head on his paws the other way, and sort of groaned.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you feel bad. I’m sorry too that I didn’t have more guts. I’m a knight, and we’re not supposed to be scared of anything. Besides, you’re the best friend I’ve got.”

“Dog.” He looked up at me. He had brown eyes set deep in his brown face, and most of the time I did not notice them much; but when he said “dog” they looked straight at me, and I knew he was begging me to understand what he was and how he felt.

“Yes,” I said, “you’re my dog, and nobody ought to be afraid of a friendly dog. A knight shouldn’t, for sure. Disiri said a dragon had the sword called Eterne—somebody like Garsecg, I guess. How am I supposed to fight a dragon if I’m afraid of my own dog?”

Gylf only looked up at me, his eyes saying he could not make himself any smaller than he was. (It was really pretty big, a lot bigger than any other dog I ever saw.)

“I’m supposed to fight Kulili, too.” I wanted to hide my face in my hands as soon as I said that. “I gave Garsecg my word, and look at all he did for me. But I don’t want to kill Kulili. The Aelf hate her because they’re afraid of her, that’s all. It’s one of the things fear does to you, it make you want to kill things that haven’t ever hurt you, just because they might. Like it made me try to leave y ou behind before I forded the Irring. I’m ashamed of that, too.”

I waited a long time for him to talk because I did not feel like talking any more myself. Finally I asked, “Why didn’t you come back to the boat? You went to get Garsecg, but when he came it was just him and some Water Aelf. Why didn’t you come with them?”

“Chained me.”

“That’s right, the innkeeper’s wife said you had a broken chain on your collar.” I turned his spiked collar on his neck, and sure enough there were two or three links of chain hanging off it. There was no catch or anything, so I just undid the collar and threw it away. I think it may have been Aelf skin, but the spikes were shark teeth. After that I asked Gylf if he knew why Garsecg chained him up.

“Afraid of me.”

“There it is again.” I took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh! “Well, I’ve apologized, and maybe Garsecg will too, eventually. He let you go free, though, once he and I had separated. I’m glad of that.”

“Broke it,” Gylf said succinctly.

“And came to Forcetti to wait for me?”

Uri stepped from behind a tree; it was as if she had been waiting there since Mythgarthr was made. “He came to search for you, Lord. He came to this wood looking for you, and to a good many other places besides. Baki and I would catch glimpses of him now and again while we were watching you.”

“I don’t like your doing that,” I told her, “but since you were doing it anyway, why didn’t you tell me?”

“You did not ask. You scarcely spoke save to tell us to steal your weapons back.”

I did not buy that. “I’ve never noticed that you and Baki were shy about forcing your talk on me.”

Uri bowed the woman way, spreading a skirt she did not have. “Because you are not sufficiently observant. We are diffident, Lord, whether you notice it or not.”

“Then you must have a swell reason for elbowing in on me and Gylf.”

“I do, Lord. Someone must explain to you that this is not the first time your dog has been in this wood. Far from it. You seem to think him newly come—”

“No!” Gylf said. It sounded a lot like he barked, but it was no.

“That he cannot wind this ogre you hunt because of the storm. The truth is that he has been here in many weathers. Have you ever winded him here, dog?”

Gylf eyed her with disfavor but shook his head.

I asked, “Have you ever smelled him at all? Anywhere?”

“No.”

“Maybe you really have.” I was testing him. “Maybe you smelled a strange smell, and you didn’t know what it was.”

He shut his eyes.

“He feels it is useless to talk to you since you will not believe him,” Uri explained. “Baki and I often feel the same way, so I recognize the symptoms.”

I stood up, swinging my arms to get warm. “Well, it’s possible, isn’t it?”

“It is not, Lord.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he has said that he did not. I trust his word, and so should you. Perhaps this ogre is a ghost. I cannot say. I have never seen it, or smelled it either. But if it is a ghost it is not in this wood. I would know.”

“What about Disiri? Is she here? I should’ve asked you before, and Gylf, too. Have either one of you seen her?”

Gylf rose, shaking his head. “Hungry?”

“No,” Uri said. “I cannot declare she is not present, for her arts are greater than my own. But I would be as surprised if she were to step from behind a tree as you were when I did.”

“Go home to Aelfrice,” I told her. “Wait there until I call you.”

She nodded and walked away.

“When we find this ogre,” I told Gylf, “I’m going to fight him by myself. I’d like any help you can give me finding him, but once the fight starts you leave him to me.”

Gylf looked unhappy.

I’ve got to prove myself to myself, I said, and it was only when I was through that I realized I had not said it out loud. Did I really like Kulili? Kulili was just a bunch of worms, something worms made when they got together. Maybe I just told myself I did because I did not want to fight her. When I beat Sir Nytir, was that one of those crazy things that happen when a team down in the cellar beats the division leader? I knew I was no good with a lance. Was I good at all?

I did not know, and not knowing was so bad I was ready to risk just about anything to find out.

By then the rain had stopped. The sun came out, and it was not the enemy sun that had pounded down on Pouk and me earlier that day, but a beautiful sun of new gold. East, a rainbow leaped in glory, the bridge that the Giants of Winter and Old Night had built for the Overcyns so they could climb up to Skai.

“There’s magic in this air,” I told Gylf. “I love it!”

He did not say anything, but I started whistling.