“Unrich belongs wi’ the nickels,” said Alianora. The engineer decided that must be a tribe of mountain dwarfs rather than a series of alloys.

  The newcomer was as avid for gossip as everyone here seemed to be. Holger’s tale had to be gone through all over again. At the end, the nickel shook his head and spat thoughtfully. “ ’Tis naw so canny a steading ye’re boon fawr,” he muttered. “An’ roight noo, too, when the Middle World is marshalin’ all uns hosts.”

  “Aye,” said Hugi. “ ’tis a cold welcome we micht get at Alfric’s.”

  “They do say elves an’ trolls ha’ made allayance,” said Unrich. “An’ when them thar clans get together, ’tis suthin’ big afoot.”

  Alianora frowned. “I like it little,” she said to Holger. “Sorceries go ever more boldly abroad, even into the Empire, I hear. ’Tis as if a bulwark o’ Law has been taken away, so that Chaos can freely muster to overthrow all.”

  “Thar wuz a holy spell put on Cortana, but noo ’tis berried away fro’ soight o’ man,” said Unrich with a certain morbid relish.

  Cortana— Where had he heard that name before?

  Unrich reached in a pocket of his apron and, much to Holger’s surprise, drew out a stubby clay pipe and a sack of something that looked like tobacco. Striking fire with flint, he inhaled contentedly. The man looked wistfully at him.

  “That’s a trollish trick, yon fire-breathing,” said Hugi.

  “Ay loike un,” said Unrich stubbornly.

  “And quite rightly, too,” said Holger. “ ‘A woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.’ ”

  They stared at him. “I ne’er heard o’ mankind playing dragon thus,” said Alianora.

  “Lend me a pipe,” said Holger, “and watch!”

  “This is too guid to miss!” Unrich ducked back in his cave and returned presently with a crudely carved briar. Holger tamped, got a light, and blew happy clouds. He didn’t think it was tobacco he was smoking, it was strong as the very devil, but no worse than stuff he’d had in France. Hugi and Unrich goggled at him, but Alianora went into peals of laughter.

  “How much you want for this?” asked Holger. “I’ll swap you a spare cloak for the pipe and a sack of toba—of smoking-leaf.”

  “Done!” said Unrich at once. Holger realized he could have made a better bargain. Oh, well.

  “Ye could at least throw in some food for us,” said Alianora.

  “Wull, sith ’tis yew what ask it.” Unrich disappeared again. Alianora looked at Holger and sighed. “Ye men are scarce a practick breed,” she said commiseratingly.

  With a load of bread, cheese, and smoked meat, they set off again. The country grew ever steeper and wilder, and the darkness in the east rose like a vague wall before them. Near evening, they halted at what must be the crest of the range; below them, the hills swooped down toward a gloominess of pine woods. Alianora set deftly to work building a lean-to of plaited withes, while Hugi got fire and supper going and Holger sat feeling rather useless. But it was pleasant to watch the girl moving about.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, as they sat around the fire, “we’ll enter Faerie. After that, ’tis in the hands o’ fate.”

  “Why is it so dark there?” asked Holger.

  Alianora stared at him. “Truly ye’re from afar off, or else a spell is on ye,” she said. “All folk know that the Pharisees canna endure broad daylight, so ’tis forever twilit in their realm.” She shuddered a little. The firelight etched her young face redly against a wind-whining darkness. “If Chaos wins, it may be yon twilight will be laid on all the world, and no more o’ bricht sunshine and green leaves and flowers,” she murmured. “Aye, I suppose indeed I am with Law.” She paused. “And yet does Faerie have an eldritch loveliness about it. Ye’ll see for yoursel’.”

  Holger looked across the blaze at her. The light shone in her eyes and stroked her hair and wove a mantle of shadow for her. “If I am not being rude,” he said slowly, “it seems strange that a pretty young girl like you should live in the woods among—well—among others than your own kind.”

  “Oh, ’tis no hard riddle.” She stared into the coals, and he could barely hear her voice above the whimpering wind. “I was found by the dwarfs as a babe lying in the woods. Belike I’d been stolen in some o’ the harrying and burning which ever goes through the marches, and then the robbers wearied and left me. So the little folk raised me up. They be good, and they taught me much. Finally they gave me the swan-dress and let me live as I wished. But now I canna care mickle for the smoky halls o’ men. I would have space and sky, see ye. That is the whole on ’t.”

  Holger nodded, slowly.

  She looked up at him. “But ye’ve told us little o’ yoursel’,” she said with an unsteady smile. “Where, indeed, be ye from, and how came ye hither without traversing lands o’ men or Middle World and learning wha’ they were?”

  “I wish I knew,” said Holger disconsolately.

  It was on his tongue to tell her the whole story, but he thrust the impulse back. She probably wouldn’t understand any of it; and besides, it might be well to have some secrets in reserve. “I think it was a spell laid on me,” he said at last. “I lived somewhere so far off that we’d never heard of—anything you know here. Then suddenly, here I was.”

  “What micht your realm be called?” she insisted.

  “Denmark,” he blurted, and swore at himself when she exclaimed:

  “But I’ve heard o’ yon kingdom! ’Tis north o’ the Empire, but a Christian country.”

  “Umm—well—it cannot be the same Denmark, then.” No, hardly! “Mine lies in—ah—in a land called America.”

  “As ye will.” She looked shrewdly at him. “Though methinks ye’re hiding summat. Well, let it go. We on the marches learn not to be overly curious.” She yawned. “Shall we to bed?”

  They huddled together in the lean-to, close for warmth as the night grew colder. Holger wakened now and then, shivering, and heard Alianora breathing by his side. She was a sweet kid. If he never found his way back…

  -6-

  Their descent was rapid next morning, though precarious. Hugi often yelped as Papillon’s hoofs slipped on grinding talus and they teetered over a blowing edge of infinity. Alianora hovered far overhead, swooping and soaring. She had a hair-raising sport of turning human in mid-air and going back to swan shape just in time to break her fall. After watching her for a while, Holger needed a smoke pretty badly, to steady him. He couldn’t light the pipe, finally Hugi had to help him with the flint and steel. Damn it all, why couldn’t they have matches in this world?

  The twilight hovered overhead like storm-clouds as they went through the pine woods. It deepened with every muffled step, until Holger wondered whether they would be able to see. His spine crawled at the thought of groping blind through a country of trolls and werewolves and God knew what else.

  It grew warmer as they descended, until they were in a rolling valley where the air was a balm scented with the smell of flowers—pungent, incense-like odors he had never known before. The pines faded out and they rode over open country. Hugi looked nervous. “Noo be we well into Faerie,” he muttered, “but hoo well we gang oot ag’in is another yarn.”

  Holger’s eyes turned about, sweeping the landscape. There was no source of light, but he could see clearly enough. The sky was a deep dusky blue, and the same cool blueness pervaded the air, as if he rode under water. There was long soft grass, with a curious silvery hue overlaying its pale green, and white flowers grew thickly. Asphodels, he thought, and wondered how he knew. Here and there were bushes of white roses that seemed to grow wild. Trees stood alone and in groups, tall slender ones with silverlike bark and leaves the color of the grasses; the slow wind blew through them with a tiny ringing sound. A wandering stream sang like crystal, and phosphorescence eddied white and green and blue over its running surface. It was hard to gauge distances in this tricky, shadowless light. Papillon snorted and trembled, ever so faintly. He didn’t like it.

  But where have I seen this before, just this cool calm blue over pale trees and strange far hills, where else has the wind blown thus singingly and the river chimed like bells of glass? Was it in a dream once long ago, half sleeping and half waking in the light summer night of Denmark, or was it in a time older and deeper and forgotten? I do not know. I do not think I wish to know.

  They rode on. In that unchanging muted radiance, time seemed also a fluid, unstable thing, so that they might have been riding for a minute or a century, but the dimly glowing land slipped past them and still they rode. Until the swan far overhead came rushing down again and landed with a thunder of wings and became Alianora.

  There was fear on her face. “I see a knight coming,” she said. “A knight o’ Faerie riding hither, and what he will I dinna know.”

  “Well—” Holger felt his heart begin a heavy thumping, but he held his face and tone steady. “Well, we’ll find out.”

  The stranger came over the crest of a hill. He was riding a tall and slender horse, milk-white, with flowing mane and proudly arched neck. He was all in plate armor, his vizor down so that he had no face; white plumes nodded on the helmet, and his shield was blank and black, but the rest of his armor was a shimmering midnight blue. He halted and Holger rode toward him.

  When the Dane was close, the stranger lowered his lance. “Stand and declare yourself!” His voice had a ringing, metallic quality; it was not a human voice.

  Holger reined in, Papillon whickered on a defiant note. “I come from the witch Mother Gerd, with a message for Duke Alfric.”

  “But let me see your shield.” The voice was a bell of brass. “Hither come no strangers.”

  “I—” Holger reached down, unbuckled the shield where it hung, and slipped it on his left arm. Reaching around his own lance, he took off the cover. “Here it is.”

  The Faerie knight paused a moment. Then the lance swept down into its rest and he spurred the white horse.

  “Defend yersel’!” shrieked Hugi, tumbling off the saddle. “He’s after yer life!”

  Papillon sprang aside while Holger was still gaping, and the knight rushed past with a soft thundering of hooves. Wheeling, he came back, the spearhead aimed for Holger’s face.

  Blind reflex, then. Holger lowered his own lance, kicked Papillon, and lifted the shield to guard himself. The black stallion sprang forward. The other knight was looming terribly close. His lance dipped, pointing for Holger’s midriff. The Dane brought his own shield down, aimed his shaft, and braced feet in stirrups.

  They hit with a bang that woke a million echoes. Holger’s shield was jarred back against his stomach, and his lance almost tore free as it caught that vizor. The other shaft splintered, and the Faerie warrior lurched in the saddle. Papillon reared and surged a step ahead. The stranger went over his horse’s crupper.

  He was on his feet at once, incredible that he could do it in full armor, and his sword hissed free. There was still no time to think. Holger had to let his body act for him, it knew what to do. He hewed down at the dismounted enemy, sword meeting sword and showering sparks. The opponent hacked at Holger’s leg, the Dane turned the blow just in time. He himself brought blade crashing down on the plumed helmet. It rang aloud, and the Faerie knight staggered.

  Too awkward, striking from above. Holger leaped to the ground. His foot caught in a stirrup and he went flat on his back. The stranger sprang at him. Holger kicked with both feet. Again that brazen roaring, and the warrior fell. Both scrambled up. The newcomer’s blade belled on Holger’s helmet. Holger cut at the neck, trying to find an open joint in the plates. The Faerie knight chopped low, seeking his legs. Holger skipped back. The other rushed at him, sword blurring. Holger met the blow in midair. It shocked in his own muscles, but the other weapon went spinning free. At once the stranger pulled out a knife and leaped close.

  The broadsword wasn’t meant for thrusting, but Holger saw a crack above the gorget before him and stabbed in. Sparks leaped and crackled. The Faerie knight reeled, sank to his knees, and then fell suddenly to the grass and was still.

  Looking about him, dizzily and with a roaring in his ears, Holger saw the while horse fleeing eastward. Off to tell the Duke, he thought wildly. Then Hugi was dancing and ki-yiing around him, and Alianora clung to his arm and sobbed and gasped how wonderfully he had fought.

  I? he thought slowly. No, it wasn’t I. I don’t know a thing about swords and lances and horsemanship.

  But who, then, was it?

  Alianora bent over the fallen knight. “He’s no bleeding,” she said huskily. “Yet belike he is slain, for the Pharisees canna endure touch o’ cold iron.”

  Holger shook his head and breathed hard. Things were clearing for him, a little. He began to see some mistakes he’d made in the battle, it’d have been better to stay mounted after all. Briefly, he wondered what the Faerie dwellers—or Pharisees, as they seemed to be called—used in place of steel. Aluminum alloys? Those would serve, and surely magic could extract aluminum from bauxite—

  He chuckled wryly. The concept was funny enough to restore a balance in him. “Well,” he said, “let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Stooping, he opened the vizor. Hollowness gaped at him. The armor was empty. It must have been empty all the time.

  -7-

  Faerie seemed wholly wild, all hill and forest and open river valleys. Holger asked a much-subdued Hugi what the dwellers lived on. It turned out that they magicked up some of their food and drink, and got some from other realms in the Middle World tributary to them, and hunted some of it in the outlandish beasts that prowled their domain. All of them seemed to be warriors and sorcerers, though Hugi said they had taken slaves from among the goblins, kobolds, and other half-savage tribes. Further questions revealed that the Pharisees knew no age or illness, though it was said they lacked souls. It was a disquieting race to be up against.

  Trying to find firm mental ground and forget that hollow armor lying in the field of asphodels, Holger began to theorize. He had only a fair knowledge of physics and mathematics, but he should be able to make some intelligent guesses. Damn it, there had to be a rationale in this world!

  There were too many similarities for it to be altogether separate from his; this was surely not another planet in space. The ordinary laws of nature seemed to obtain, gravity and so on. But here they apparently had special clauses in them permitting, well, magic. And magic might well be no more than the direct mental control of matter. Even on Earth, his Earth, there were people who thought that possible, telekinesis and the rest. In this world, the mentally controllable forces seemed to be stronger than inorganic ones…

  He had gotten that far when he realized that he had gotten nowhere at all, merely given a different name to the same set of phenomena.

  Well, be that as it may, where was he? Or should he ask when was he? Another Earth, linked to his in some unknown manner—another plane of existence? It might be possible for two objects to occupy the same space and time without being aware of each other. Most likely this was a wholly different universe, one which closely paralleled his own but had its differences. That raised the question of just how many such universes there were.

  He sighed and gave up. First things first. Right now he had to keep alive in a land where a lot of beings seemed to have it in for one who bore three hearts and three lions.

  The castle grew slowly out of twilight. It was a high-walled place, all peaks and angles and soaring narrow towers, dizzily tall, but it had a wild kind of beauty. Its stone seemed like lace, so airy that a breath would dissolve it, but as he approached he saw just how massive those walls were. It stood not far from a low rounded hill covered with roses and streamers of mist. Hugi pointed. “Yon’s Elf Hill,” he said. “In there do the elves hold their unco revels, and come oot to dance o’ moonlit nichts.” Surrounding the castle on two sides and stretching north and west and east was a huge and gloomy forest. Holger’s eyes went back to the fortress itself.

  A trumpet sounded, far and cold like rushing water. Now they’ve seen us, he thought, and dropped a hand to his sword. Alianora fluttered down to turn human beside him. Her face was grave.

  “You and Hugi—” He cleared his throat. “You’ve guided me here, and I thank you a thousand times. But now perhaps you’d best go.”

  She looked up at him. “Nay,” she said after a moment, “I think we’ll stay a bit. Mayhap we can help ye.”

  “I’m only a stranger,” he faltered. “You owe me nothing, while I owe you everything.”

  The gray eyes remained serious. “Methinks ye’re summat more than a stranger, e’en if ye dinna ken it yoursel’,” she murmured. “I’ve a feeling about ye, Sir Holger. So I, at least, will stay.”

  “Well,” puffed Hugi, though not very happily, “ye didna think I’d turn caitiff noo, did ye?”

  Holger sighed. He’d done his duty by them, offering them a chance to leave—and God, was he glad they hadn’t taken it!

  The castle gates opened noiselessly, trumpets blew again, and a troop came riding out with banners and scutcheons to meet him. As they neared, he reined in and waited, his hand tight around the lance.

  So these were the lords of Faerie.

  They were richly clad, in brilliant colors that seemed luminous against the twilight, crimson and gold and purple and green. Some were armored in chain mail or plate, silvery stuff elaborately shaped and chased, others wore only their prideful robes. They were a tall people, moving with a soundless liquid grace no human could rival, and the haughtiness of rulers was stamped on cold, thinly chiseled features. There was a strange cast of face to all of them, high tilted cheekbones, winged nostrils, narrow chin; the skin was white, the long fine hair blue-silver, with most of the men beardless. When they got close enough, Holger thought at first they were blind, for the great oblique eyes held only an azure blankness, but he soon realized their vision was better than his.