second prize but didn’t stop to collect it!»
«Huh? How knew you — What mean you, rogue?»
«Just what I say. You fought for the challengers, and Britomart knocked you off your pony, didn’t she?»
«’Tis to be said. ah —» Artegall turned his scowl on Britomart. She glared back.
«Come, good friends,» said Cambina, «no variance. I proclaim it was Sir Artegall, for I penetrated his disguise. Come, Artegall, confess; you cannot hide the sun at the bottom of a bucket.»
«I suppose I must,» growled the knight. «I did but wish to make proof whether I were as strong in the lists as I seemed, or whether certain of the knights would rather fall off their horses than oppose the queens justiciar.» He turned to Britomart. «You have a rude way towards an affianced husband, my lady!»
Shea caught Britomart’s eye and winked violently. She turned on Artegall a look that would have melted granite. «Ah, my dear lord, had I but known! Yet surely you shall feel no shame at that one overthrow, for ’twas the combination of that enchanted ebony spear I bear and your own horse’s stumbling, neither alone sufficient.» She reached for his mailed arm. «When we are wed I shall leave these broils and tournaments to you.»
Campbell and Cambina looked at Britomart, then at each other. The look implied they had never seen her act that way before. Shea repressed a grin. The brawny blonde learned fast.
Artegail smiled shamefacedly. «Why, dearest dame, that were a great sacrifice indeed. I knew not you cared so.» His voice hardened «But we have here a most villainous young rascal.»
«No rascal,» said Britomart, «but a true and loyal squire, whom I have sworn to my service and that of the queen.»
«Then what of his soaring through the sky like a bug or witch? Nay, he’s of the tribe of enchanters —»
«Not so,» interrupted Cambina. «His magic is white, even as my own; and my art tells me that this Harold de Shea will speak the truth if you’ll let him.»
Artegall scowled, but asked: «Then what’s the truth he would speak?»
Shea told his story quickly before a new argument could start. «That is good truth, I guarantee,» said Cambina, when he had finished, «and Belphebe is in deadly danger.»
«Then why stand we here at words?» snapped Artegall. «Ho, woodcutter! We start at once. Food and horses, as soon as they may be had, for all of us.»
Shea disapproved of this cavalier treatment, but didn’t feel called upon to comment. He said: «Going to collect an army?»
«Nay, not I. Time presses us too close. Here we must count on our own good arms and Cambina’s magic. Art afraid?»
«Try me.»
«There’s a stout younker.» The frown in Artegall’s brows cleared a bit. «I will be just and admit I held you wrong.»
* * *
The moon in this world, Shea observed, set only twelve or thirteen minutes later each night, instead of the fifty minutes later of his own earth. He and his four companions were crouched at the edge of the opening that hid Busyrane’s unseen castle. They did not attempt it till the moon had disappeared.
As they crossed the open space Shea whispered: «I’m afraid I can’t find the gate. Too dark to see my landmarks.»
«Small loss,» answered Cambina. Shea saw her dimly, doing things with her wand. Out of nothing grew a faint phosphorescence that resolved itself into a row of bars.
Cambina pointed the wand at it. The instrument elongated, flexing itself like some tame worm. The tip groped with the lock, inserting itself gently. There was a faint click.
The wand withdrew, then poked its end through the bars. Under the night song of the insects there came a faint grate as the bolt slid back. The gate was open.
As they tiptoed through, the infinitesimal jingle of the knight’s armour sounded to Shea’s ears like an earthquake in a kitchenware factory. Cambina pointed. Over their heads on the wall appeared a sentry, visible only as a cloak and hood, glowing with a phosphorescence almost too faint to he visible. The hood swung its black cavity towards them. Cambina pointed her wand, and the sentry froze in that position.
Light and music streamed from the windows of the great hall. Shea, leading because of his knowledge of the place and the fact that his tread was most nearly soundless, was heading for the door, when he tripped over a huge, hairy leg.
With simultaneous grunts a pair of Losels who had been stretched out on the steps rolled to their feet. While the one nearest was fumbling in the dark for his club, Shea drove the epee through the creature’s throat. Behind him he heard the other’s club swish up —
But the club failed to come down. He looked around and saw the Losel, club aloft, frozen to a statue like the sentry. The other Losel was expiring with quiet bubbling noises.
Cambina did things with her wand, and the door of the building swung open. There was light and noise within, but no one to see them. Across the corridor in which they stood was the entrance to the great hall, the door slightly ajar. Within, the revellers were too occupied with their grand ball to be watching the door.
Shea beckoned the four heads close to his and breathed: «This corridor runs around to the serving entrance.»
«Are there other doors beside those two?» asked Artegall, and when Shea shook his head went on: «Then do you, Squire, with Cambell and Cambina, take that entrance. Here Britomart and I will take our stand; for this is the place where they will naturally come and we are, I think, the best men-at-arms.»
Heads nodded. Shea and the other two stole down the corridor. Just before they reached the service entrance, an imp crossed the corridor from the kitchen with a tray in his hands.
He saw them. Cambell bounded forward and cut the imp in two. The bottom half of the imp ran back into the kitchen. There was an instant uproar.
The three ran a few steps to the service entrance and flung open the door.
Shea got one brief static picture of a roomful of magicians and red-lipped women looking at him. Some had their mouths open. Busyrane sat at one end of the horseshoe facing him, and he thought he recognized Chalmers. Before he could be certain, the photograph came to frenzied life.
He turned to face the noise behind. Out of the kitchen boiled a mass of imps and hobgoblins, bearing spits, knives, rolling pins. Shea neatly spitted the first on his epee, dodging the counter. The imp leaped backward off the blade and came on again. Behind him Shea heard the roar of the Chapter, Cambell’s deep war cry, and the whack of swords against his shield.
«I can. handle these,» panted Cambina. Her wand darted to and fro, freezing imp after imp. The rest started to run.
Shea turned back towards the hall, ust in time to thrust through the throat a magician trying to roll under Cambell’s legs with a knife, while others engaged the knight’s attention.
* * *
The noise was ear-splitting. Cambell filled the door, and at the far end Britomart was doing equally well. Artegall had leaped into the hall and was swinging his great sword with both hands. His temper might he bad, but he was certainly a good man to have around in a roughhouse.
The lights dimmed to negligibie red sparks. Cambina cried a spell and waved her wand; the magicians glowed with blue phosphorescence in the dark. The scene became that of a photographic negative — a wild one, with some of the enchanters turning themselves into winged things to flee, other hurling themselves upon the fighters, striking sparks.
A whole press at once bore down on Cambell. Shea saw a glowing head fly from its shoulders, and himself thrust past the knight’s shield arm against something that gave before his blade. Then he was out in the room. A green mist whirled about him, plucking. A pink flash and it was gone.
Right in front of him a magician became a monstrous crab. Shea dodged it, clashed weapons with a still- human enchanter, thrust him through, and then went down as the falling man grabbed him by both ankles. He was stepped on four times before he kicked himself free. Colours, sparks, flashes of light danced about the room.
Just ahead a whole crowd were boiling around Artegall. Shea took one step and found himself confronting Busyrane in person. Busyrane’s eyes were twice their normal size with slit pupils, like a cat’s. For all his venerable appearance the enchanter was swinging a huge sword as though it were a foot-rule.
