Geronde backed off a few steps.

Angie stood where she was. She took a deep breath. Her hands were at her sides, and she clenched her fists and closed her eyes. She stood tensed.

Moments ticked by.

Geronde parted her lips to say something, and then changed her mind. She waited.

Angie exhaled exhaustedly and opened her eyes. She stood a moment limply, breathing deeply with her whole body relaxed.

"I tell you," she said to Geronde, "there's a way to do it! Jim sort of believes in his magic in his own mind; and he believes enough so that it happens-something like that. If I believe I can do it, then I can. If he can do it, I can do it"

"Of course you can, Angela," said Geronde.

Angie took another deep breath, closed her eyes and clenched her fists, and again Geronde waited.

"I am a dragon, I am a dragon, I am a dragon..." muttered Angie between her teeth. Another little period of time pa.s.sed while Geronde waited. Then Angie gasped, opened her eyes again and relaxed.

"I tell you I can do it!" she said angrily to Geronde.

"Of course you can, Angela," said Geronde.

"The irritating thing is"-Angie began to pace up and down on the tower-top-"that I really know how he does it. I'm close enough to him to feel him doing it. Now, if I can just get that feeling. Bear with me, Geronde. I'm going to try again."

She tried-with no success.

"Angela," said Geronde gently, "don't you think, perhaps-"

But Angie's eyes were closed again and she was not listening.

Also, suddenly she was a dragon.

Geronde took several involuntary, extra steps backward.

"Angela..." she said. "Angela, are you in there?"

The dragon turned its head on a gracefully curving neck and looked at her. It was a very big dragon, in spite of its overall gracefulness.

"It's me, Geronde," said the dragon. "See? I told you I could do it. Now all I have to do is turn you into one, too."

"Oh, yes!" said Geronde enthusiastically. She added in a tone of curiosity rather than fear, "Does it hurt much?"

"Not at all," said Angie. "Now, just stand still and I'll concentrate on believing you're a dragon. I don't know just what I did, but I'm sure I can do it again; only for you it may take a little longer to manage. We mustn't be impatient."

The dragon closed its eyes, bunched its clawed feet into fists and took a deep breath.

"Geronde is a dragon, Geronde is a dragon, Geronde is a dragon, Geronde is a dragon..." it intoned.

The dragon that was Angie tried very hard for quite a while; but nothing happened to Geronde. Geronde stood patiently waiting. Hob was gazing at them with awe and delight from his waft of smoke, though both women had long since forgotten he was there.

After several pauses Angie drew an unusual series of deep breaths and looked at Geronde.

"You know," she said, "it might help if you too, close your eyes and say to yourself, 'I am a dragon, I am a dragon...' while I'm trying to make you one."

"Of course, Angela," said Geronde. "Should I also-"

There was a bang and a puff of smoke; and Carolinus was standing in front of them, looking nine feet tall. His beard bristled with rage.

"THAT WON'T WORK!" he said. Both the dragon and Geronde opened their eyes and exhaled. They stared at him.

"Angie," he said, "this is the end-well, almost the end! One of you is bad enough. That husband of yours, leaping around the world, burning up magickal energy right and left as if it could be had for nothing, doing everything wrong and coming up with the right answer by some sort of miracle every time, using some of that other-worldly whatever he brought in his head with him when he came. Two would be too much. I'm an old man. Angela Eckert, this will not do!"

"I've got to find Jim!" said the dragon.

"Well, you're not going to do it that way!" snapped Carolinus-and suddenly the dragon was gone and Angela was there again.

"How dare you!" cried Angie.

"I only took back what you had no right to have in the first place!" said Carolinus. "Angela Eckert, you are not going as a dragon, to search for Jim, let alone turning someone else into a dragon and taking her with you. In fact, you're not turning yourself into a dragon at all. If Jim chooses to turn you into a dragon, I can't stop him. That's within his prerogative. But you can't turn yourself into a dragon. You can't turn yourself into anything. There. It's done. You weren't only breaking every rule in the Encyclopedic Necromantick, you were doing it, as unlicensed as a sorcerer, without the supervision of a senior magickian and no sort of permission from anywhere. The whole balance of Powers trembled there for a minute, I'll have you know!"

"Let it tremble," said Angie. She seemed to grow a few feet herself and glared back at Carolinus. "I'm going to get Jim out of whatever he's in, and you can't stop me. If your stopping me from turning into a dragon turns out to make things so that I won't be able to save him in time, you'd better look out, Carolinus. I mean that!"

"G.o.d bless my soul!" said Carolinus, for Angie had been utterly convincing in what she had said.

"Just remember that," she said, now, in the same voice.

"Angie," said Carolinus, "this is nonsense. Don't you know that you can't possibly manage to harm a Master Magickian like myself?"

"I'll find a way!" said Angie ominously.

"Bless my soul," said Carolinus for a second time, in a wondering tone. "I had no idea, Angie, that you-"

"Well, you know now," said Angie.

"My dear," said Carolinus patiently, "believe me. I feel for you, I feel for Jim. I would help if I could. I can't. If you can save him on your own, without magick, I will be there cheering when you do it. But what you were trying just now can not be, will not be, and has been utterly closed to you. I'm sorry, Angie. That's the last word."

With that, he disappeared.

Slowly the rage leaked out of Angie. She looked at Geronde; and Geronde looked back at her in silence.

"Don't worry, Angela," said Geronde, after a moment. "We'll save James and Brian. We will. We'll find some way."

"What way?" said Angie emptily.

Hob cleared his throat. It was such a small noise that if there had not been a perfect silence on the top of the tower as Angie and Geronde gazed at each other, the two women would not have heard it. They looked at him.

"Er-hem," said Hob, clearing his throat again; and shrinking a little as the direct gaze of two pairs of eyes drilled upon him. "I had an idea..."

Angie relaxed.

"That's all right, Hob," she said, wearily but gently. "But tell us a little later, would you? We've got things on our minds right now."

"No, no!" said Hob excitedly. "But this is a way you could get to where m'lord and m'lord Brian is, in a hurry, after all, using the smoke- maybe."

They stared at him.

"But you said-" began Geronde.

"Oh, I know what I said," said Hob simply. "I said I couldn't carry two of you on the smoke at the same time. But I've thought of a way around it, if I can just get some help. I mean, if I can get an agreement."

"Agreement?" asked Angie. "What sort of agreement?"

"Oh, not from you, m'lady, or m'lady Geronde," said Hob. "But Lady Geronde, your Malvern Castle has its own hobgoblin, of course. I don't know him well. I've met him a couple of times when we were both out on the smoke at the same time and our paths crossed. But if I could carry Lady Angela, then your hobgoblin could carry you-if he would."

"If he would?" echoed Geronde. Her face hardened. "You mean he can and he'd refuse?"

"Oh, please, m'lady," said Hob. "Please don't think of trying to make him do it. He's not like me, you know. He's very timid and not used to going far from home. Quite different from me. Let me talk to him.

I'll go talk to him right now; and why don't the two of you come over to Malvern Castle on horses, or however you want to do it? With luck I'll meet you there with him at the top of Malvern's highest tower-just like this one- and maybe we can simply all take off from there."

"Hob," said Angie, "do you seriously think you can talk him into it?"

"I wouldn't want to promise anything, m'lady," said Hob, "but I'll do my best; and I really have high hopes. As I say, he's timid, but maybe I can rouse the fierceness that lies way down deep in all us hobgoblins."

"I certainly hope so," said Geronde, with an ominous note in her voice.

"I'll try my best, m'lady," said Hob anxiously. "I really will, believe me!"

"We believe you, Hob," said Angie. "You just have to understand. The Lady Geronde wants to get Sir Brian safely back, as much as you and I want to get your Lord back safely."

"I know," said Hob. "I think it'll be all right. I'll meet you there."

His waft of smoke accelerated away into the sky toward the east, picking up speed as it went. In a few seconds it was out of sight.

"Will they never feed us? Will we stay here until Judgment Day?" said Brian. "Do you suppose?"

He had been pacing back and forth in their cage. Jim had found something that might be considered a bed, also in the cage, except that it was small enough for a child. He had sat on it, gingerly at first, but it had borne his weight. He was sitting there now.

"I know what you're thinking, Brian," he said. "I promise I'll use my magic if I have to. But I want to put it off until I know it's really necessary. I wouldn't be so close with it if it wasn't for something that really impressed me, Brian."

"Hah," said Brian doubtfully.

"But I was," said Jim. "When Carolinus told me about using as little as possible of it, there was something about the way he did it. He was more serious than I think I've ever seen him. I've seen him wave his arms and be emphatic; but this was different. He was trying to get something across to me; and the trouble with all this magic business is that, as he always insisted, he can't just tell me things. I've got to find them out for myself; and he can only point me in the direction where they're to be found. I think I'm beginning to see why I have to find them for myself. It's because, if someone else tells you, you never really believe it the way you need to until you run into it as a necessity in a real-life situation-"

"Hush!" said Brian, interrupting him, low-voiced. "Someone's coming. The less they learn from us the better, whoever they are."

They both fell silent; and into the room of cages came the same officer they had seen before, this time with four guards much more neatly and finely dressed Also, their clothing was of blue and white and they all wore helmets and mail shirts made of steel.

"Come!" said the officer, unlocking the door. The tone of his voice was now perfectly neutral. There was nothing to indicate whether he was being pleasant, or speaking with the same voice of authority he had used before. "These men will take you to a place where you are expected."

Jim and Brian walked out of the cage, the four men formed up around them, and they reascended the stairs, with the officer somewhere behind them. This time they followed the corridor to an opening that led them into a wider, cleaner corridor which ran for some distance and changed into one with carpets on the floor, and walls that were faced with marble.

Eventually they came to a wide entrance on the right-hand side, and the officer indicated with a wave of his hand that Jim and Brian should pa.s.s through it. The guards themselves stood back. From the moment Brian and Jim had first seen them, they had not said a word.

Brian and Jim went in, pa.s.sing through a short but opulent corridor and into an equally opulent room, only differing from the corridors they had recently been pa.s.sing through by the fact that cloths hung like curtains from some sections of its walls, suggesting that there might be further semihidden entrances behind them.

Baiju and ibn-Tariq sat there on cushions, with a tray of food between them, almost touching the knees of their crossed legs, and coffee cups on small, highly polished black wood stands beside each man.

"Food," said Brian ravenously, under his breath.

"Ah, my friends!" cried ibn-Tariq, seeing them. "We have been waiting for you. Come in, refresh yourselves and I will explain why you were put to such distress."

He clapped his hands. In the wall just behind him two areas of the stonework slipped backward, then off to one side, and four men came out dressed in robes of the same rich, deep blue and gleaming white as the guards that had brought Jim and Brian here. Even before the two of them reached Baiju and ibn-Tariq, cushions had been set down for them; and next to these, little black wooden stands were set, and coffee was being poured into the coffee cups on top of the stands.

"You're all right?" Jim asked Baiju.

"I was never otherwise," said Baiju.

"Luckily," said ibn-Tariq, "I was able to straighten out things before our friend here was taken to a somewhat less-"

He paused, watching Brian, who was popping small pastrylike foods into his mouth like a child eating bits of candy. He clapped his hands; and when the four men who had come out of the wall stopped and looked at him, he jabbed a fingertip twice toward the tray. They went off into the wall.

"-Less pleasant quarters than yours," ibn-Tariq went on. "Actually, it was never intended that any of you should end up just as you two did. But, what can be done-"

He broke off, for the four serving men had come back, bearing four trays. These were arranged around so that while one was within reach of each person there, three of them were more or less cl.u.s.tered around Brian.

"-I ask you?" continued ibn-Tariq. "In any matter of government, complexities occur, and mistakes will happen."

Jim had devoted himself to the coffee, to begin with; and that black liquid dynamite was, as usual, brightening him up inside.

"Is this the place of the military commander of the city?" he asked.

"No," said ibn-Tariq, "it is not. It is the house of Murad of the Heavy Purse, with whom I am acquainted."

"Then I take it," said Jim, helping himself to one of the small items of food on his tray and watching his cup being refilled with coffee by a man who had apparently appeared out of nowhere, "that Murad of the Heavy Purse is the military commander of the city?"

"No," said ibn-Tariq, "he is not. But he is a man of many possessions, and of importance in the city; and the military commander let him use some of the soldiers. Unfortunately, as I say, the instruction given to those low fellows was garbled when it reached them; and they took you for offenders of some form or another."

That first foodlet he had eaten had awakened Jim's hunger. He felt as ready as Brian was showing himself to be to wade into the food; and was trying to do this discreetly while talking at the same time. It was not easy, but he persisted.

"All right, then," he said, around mouthfuls, "can you tell me why we were brought here?"

Ibn-Tariq spread his hands.

"I must express my own personal deep regrets that it happened," he said. "Murad of the Heavy Purse wished only to do me a favor, by bringing our friend Baiju here; so we two could speak without arousing undue interest in the streets. It is not unusual to see such a one as a Mongol being arrested by soldiers of a city. But, as it happened, before the soldiers were sent out-and this may have contributed to the confusion of their orders-I discovered that one of the matters Baiju and I need to discuss fully turns out to involve you two to a certain extent, although to what extent I am not quite sure."

He looked inquiringly at Baiju, pausing as if to give the other an opportunity to speak. Baiju looked back at him, poker-faced, and said nothing.

"As all men know, the Mongols conquered the castles of the a.s.sa.s.sins in Persia, whereas we of Egypt-for that is my native land-conquered all those here. However, in recent times, these a.s.sa.s.sins have revived in the shape of Grandmaster Hasan ad-Dimri and his White Palace, to which I believe you two were taken after you were captured and stolen from the caravan. Recently the sultanate of Egypt was approached by people speaking for Hasan ad-Dimri, and offering friendship to our Bahri Mameluke caliphate-may something be done for you, my friend?"