The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson Page A

hand, there came a flash of golden spurs, and the white horse broke into a heavy-hooved gallop, directly for Jim.
    "A Neville-Smythe! A Neville-Smythe!" roared the man, muffledly, within his helmet.
    Jim's reflexes took over. He went straight up into the air, stiff wing muscles forgotten, and was just about to hurl himself forward and down on the approaching figure when a cold finger of sanity touched his mind for a fraction of a second and he flung himself instead into the upper branches of the tree that had shaded his eyes.
    The knight—as Jim took him to be—pulled his horse to a skidding stop on its haunches directly under the tree; and looked up through the branches at Jim. Jim looked back down. The tree had seemed fairly good-sized when he was under it. Now that he was up in it, with all his dragon-weight, its branches creaked alarmingly under him and he was not as far above his attacker's head as he would have preferred to be.
    The knight tilted back his visor and canted his head back in order to see upward. In the shadow of the helm Jim made out a square-boned, rather lean face with burning blue eyes over a large, hooked nose. The chin was jutting and generous.
    "Come down," said the knight.
    "No thanks," replied Jim, holding firmly to the tree trunk with tail and claws.
    A slight pause followed in the conversation as they both digested the situation.
    "Damned catiff mere-dragon!" said the knight, finally.
    "I'm not a mere-dragon."
    "Don't talk bloody nonsense!"
    "I'm not."
    "Course you are."
    "I tell you, I'm not!" said Jim, feeling a preliminary stirring of his dragonly temper. He got it back under control, and spoke reasonably. "In fact, I'll bet you can't guess who I really am."
    The knight did not seem interested in guessing who Jim really was. He stood upright in his stirrups and probed upward with his lance through the branches, but the point came a good four feet short of Jim.
    "Damn!" said the knight, disappointedly. He lowered the lance and appeared to think for a moment. "If I take off my armor," he said, apparently to himself, "I can climb that goddam tree. But then what if he flies down and I have to fight him on the bloody turf, after all?"
    "Look," called Jim, "I'm willing to come down"—the knight looked up eagerly—"provided you're willing to listen with an open mind to what I have to say, first."
    The knight thought it over.
    "All right," he said, at last. He shook the lance at Jim, warningly. "No pleas for mercy, though!"
    "Of course not."
    "Because I shan't grant them, dammit! It's not in my vows. Widows and orphans, men and women of the Church and honorable enemies surrendering on the field of combat. But not dragons!"
    "No," said Jim, "nothing like that. I just want to convince you of who I really am."
    "I don't care who you really are."
    "You will," Jim said. "Because I'm not really a dragon at all. I've been put under an… ensorcellment to make me look like a dragon."
    "A likely story."
    "Really!" Jim was digging his claws into the tree trunk, but the bark was flaking away under his grasp. "I'm as human as you are. Do you know S. Carolinus, the magician?"
    "I've heard of him," grunted the knight. "Who hasn't? I suppose you'll claim he's the one who ensorceled you?"
    "Not at all. He's the one who's going to change me back as soon as I can find the lady I—to whom I'm affianced. A real dragon ran off with her. That's what I'm doing so far from home. Look at me. Do I look like one of your ordinary mere-dragons?"
    The knight considered him.
    "Hmm," he said, rubbing his hooked nose thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, you are a size and half on what I usually run into."
    "Carolinus found my lady had been taken to the Loathly Tower. He sent me out to find some Companions, so I could go and rescue her."
    The knight stared.
    "The Loathly Tower?" he echoed.
    "That's right."
    "Never heard of a dragon—or anyone else in his right mind, for that matter—wanting to go to the