“None,” Sir George admitted. He pushed himself experimentally into a sitting position and patted Matilda’s knee reassuringly when he felt no sudden dizziness. He sat a moment, then rose smoothly to his feet and raised one hand, palm uppermost.
“I feel fine,” he told them, and it was true.
“Perhaps you do, but you’ve given me more than enough fright for one day, Sir George Wincaster!” Matilda said in a much tarter tone. He grinned apologetically down at her and extended his hand, raising her lightly, and tucked her arm through his as he turned to face his senior officers once more.
“I feel fine,” he repeated. “No doubt I did stumble over something—my thoughts were elsewhere, and any man may be clumsy enough to fall over his own two feet from time to time. But no harm was done, so be about your business while I—” he smiled at them and patted his wife’s hand where it rested on his elbow “—attempt to make some amends to my lady wife for having afrighted her so boorishly!”
A rumble of laughter greeted his sally and the crowd began to disperse. He watched them go, then turned his gaze back to the dragon-man.
But the dragon-man was no longer there.
Matilda watched him closely for the rest of that long day, and she fussed over him as they prepared for bed that night, but Sir George had told her nothing but the simple truth. He did, indeed, feel fine—better, in some ways, than in a very long time—and he soothed her fears by drawing her down beside him. Her eyes widened with delight at the sudden passion of his embrace, and he proceeded to give her the most conclusive possible proof that there was nothing at all wrong with her husband.
But that night, as Matilda drifted into sleep in the circle of his arms and he prepared to follow her, he dreamed. Or thought he did, at least . . .
“Welcome, Sir George,” the voice said, and the baron turned to find the speaker, only to blink in astonishment. The voice sounded remarkably like Father Timothy’s, although it carried an edge of polish and sophistication the blunt-spoken priest had never displayed. But it wasn’t Father Timothy. For that matter, it wasn’t even human, and he gaped in shock as he found himself facing one of the eternally silent dragon-men.
“I fear we have taken some liberties with your mind, Sir George,” the dragon-man said—or seemed to, although his mouth never moved. “We apologize for that. It was both a violation of your privacy and our own customs and codes, yet in this instance we had no choice, for it is imperative that we speak with you.”
“Speak with me?” Sir George blurted. “How is it that I’ve never heard so much as a single sound from any of you, and now . . . now this—”
He waved his arms, and only then did he realize how odd their surroundings were. They stood in the center of a featureless gray plain, surrounded by . . . nothing. The grayness underfoot simply stretched away in every direction, to the uttermost limit of visibility, and he swallowed hard.
“Where are we?” he demanded, and was pleased to hear no quaver in his voice.
“Inside your own mind, in a sense,” the dragon-man replied. “That isn’t precisely correct, but it will serve as a crude approximation. It is our hope to be able to explain it more fully at a future time. But unless you and we act soon—and decisively—it is unlikely either your people or ours will have sufficient future for such explanations.”
“What do you mean? And if you wished to speak with me, why did you never do so before this?” Sir George asked warily.
“To answer your second question first,” the dragon-man answered calmly, “it was not possible to speak directly to you prior to this time. Indeed, we aren’t `speaking’ even now—not as your species understands the term.”
Sir George frowned in perplexity, and the dragon-man cocked his head. His features were as alien as the Commander’s, yet Sir George had the sudden, unmistakable feeling of an amused smile. It came, he realized slowly, not from the dragon-man’s face, but rather from somewhere inside the other. It was nothing he saw; rather it was something he felt. Which was absurd, of course . . . except that he felt absolutely no doubt of what he was sensing.