Norton threw down his knapsack and scooped up a double handful of water. He drank, delighting in the chill that struck his teeth and stiffened his palate. It was easy to forget that this was an artificial spring, magically cooled; it seemed natural.
He had hiked twenty miles through the cultivated wilderness of the city park and was ready to camp for the night. He had food for one more meal; in the morning he would have to restock. That could be awkward, for he was out of credit. Well, he would worry about that tomorrow.
He gathered dry sticks and leaves, careful not to disturb any living plants, and structured his collection for a small fire in a dirt hollow. He found some desiccated moss and set it within his pyramid. Then he muttered an incendiary-spell, and the flame burst into existence.
He fetched three rocks, set them against the expanding fire, and unfolded his little fry-pan. He unpacked his Spanish rice mix and poured it in the pan, shaking the mix to keep the rice turning as the heat increased. When it browned, he added handfuls of water, evoking a strenuous protest of steam, until satisfied. Then he rested the pan on the stones and left it to sizzle nicely alone.
"Can you spare a bite?"
Norton looked up, surprised. Ordinarily he was alert for other creatures, especially people, even when concentrating on his cooking, for he was attuned to the sounds of nature. But this one seemed to have appeared from nowhere. "This is what I have," he replied. "I'll share it." Actually, that meant he would be hungry on a half ration, but he never liked saying no.
The man stepped closer, his feet making no noise. He was evidently in his mid-to-late twenties, about a decade younger than Norton, and in unusually fit condition. He was well dressed in upper-class city style, but had the calloused palms of a highly physical man. Wealthy, but no effete recluse. "You're an independent sort," he remarked.
It took one to know one! "Wanderlust, mostly," Norton clarified. "Somehow I always want to see the other side of the mountain. Any mountain."
"Even when you know the mountain is artificial?" The man's eyes flicked meaningfully about the landscape.
Norton laughed easily. "I'm just that kind of a fool!"
The man pursed his lips. "Fool? I don't think so." He shrugged. "Ever think about settling down with a good woman?"
This fellow got right down to basics! "All the time. But seldom for more than a week or two." "Maybe you never encountered one who was good enough for a year or two."
"Maybe," Norton agreed without embarrassment. "I prefer to think of it as a distinction of philosophy. I am a traveling man; most women are stay-at-homes. If I ever found one who wanted to share my travels- " He paused, struck by a new thought. "In that sense, they are leaving me as much as I am leaving them. They prefer their location to my company, much as cats do. I move, they remain-but we know each other's natures at the start. So no expectations are violated."
"Man does, woman is," the man agreed.
Norton sniffed his rice. "This is about done; it's spelled for quick cooking. Have you a dish? I can make one of wood-" He touched his sturdy hunting knife. "I won't need one." The man smiled as Norton glanced askance. "I don't eat, actually. I was just verifying your hospitality. You were ready to go hungry to share."
"No man can live long without eating, and I can see you're no ascetic. I'll carve you a dish-" "My name is Gawain. I'm a ghost."
"Norton, here," Norton said, noticing how the man accented the first syllable: GOW-an. "I'm a jack of any trade, expert at none, except maybe tale telling." Then he did a double take. "Pardon?"
"A ghost," Gawain repeated. "Here, I'll demonstrate." He extended his strong hand.
Norton clasped it, expecting a crunching grip-and encountered air. He brought his hand back and touched Gawain's arm. There was nothing; his hand passed through, suit and arm without resistance, disappearing into the man's body. "You certainly are!" he agreed ruefully. "No wonder I didn't hear you approaching! You look so solid-"
"Do I?" Gawain asked, becoming translucent.
"I never met a real, live-uh-"
Gawain laughed. "Real, at any rate." He firmed up to solid semblance again, having made his point. "Norton, I like you. You're independent, self-sufficient, unconceited, generous, and open. I know I'd have enjoyed your company when I was alive. I think I have a favor to ask of you."
"I'll do any man a favor-any woman, too!-but I don't think there's very much I can do for a ghost. I presume you're not much interested in physical things."
"Interested, but not able," the ghost said. "Sit down, eat your supper. And listen, if you will, to my story. Then the nature of the favor will be apparent."
"Always glad for company, real or imaginary," Norton said, sitting down on a conveniently placed rock. "I'm no hallucination," the ghost assured him. "I'm a genuine person who happens to be dead."
And while Norton ate, the specter made his presentation. "I was born into a wealthy and noble family," Gawain said. "I was named after Sir Gawain of the ancient Round Table of King Arthur's Court; Sir Gawain is a distant ancestor, and great things were expected of me from the outset. Before I could walk I could handle a knife; I shredded my mattress and crawled out to stalk the household puk-"
"Puck?"
"Puk-a small household dragon. Ours was only half a yard long. I gave it an awful scare; it had been napping in a sunbeam. My folks had to put me in a steel playpen after that. At age two I fashioned a rope out of my blanket and scaled the summit of the playpen wall and went after the cat. I vivisected her after she scratched me for cutting off her tail. So they brought in a werecat who changed into the most forbidding old shrew when I bothered her. She certainly had my number; when I toasted her feline tail with a hotfoot, she wered human and toasted my tail with a belt. I developed quite an aggravation for magical animals."
"I can imagine," Norton said politely. He himself was always kind to animals, especially wild ones, though he would defend himself if attacked. There were things about Gawain he was not fully comfortable with.
"I was sent to gladiator school," the ghost continued. "I wanted to go, and for some reason my family preferred to have me out of the house. I graduated second in my class. I would have been first, but the leading student had enchanted armor, even at night, so I couldn't dispatch him. Canny character! After that, I bought a fine outfit of my own, proof against any blade or bullet or magic bolt. Then I set out to make my fortune.
"There are not many dragons around, compared to mundane animals, and most of them are protected species. Actually, I respect dragons; they are a phenomenal challenge. It's too bad that it took so long for man really to master magic; only in the last fifty years or so has it become a formidable force. I suppose
it was suppressed by the Renaissance, when people felt there had to be rational explanations for everything. As a result of that ignorance, dragons and other fantastic creatures had a much harder time of it than they had during the medieval age in Europe. Some masqueraded as mundane animals-unicorns cutting off their horns to pass for horses, griffins shearing their wings and donning lion-head masks, that sort of thing-and some were kept hidden on private estates by conservationists who cared more for nature than for logic. A number developed protective illusion so they looked a good deal more mundane than they were, and Satan salvaged a few, though most of His creatures are demonic. But now at last the supernatural is back in fashion, and fantastic creatures are becoming unextinct.
"But some creatures do get obstreperous. Most bleeding-heart liberal, modern governments have bent the other way so far they've gone off the deep end and outlawed poisoning or shooting or using magic to kill these monsters. So the bad dragons have to be dispatched the old-fashioned way, by sword."
"Why not just move the bad ones to reservations?" Norton asked, appalled at the notion of slaying dragons. He was one of the bleeding hearts the ghost described; he knew dragons were ornery and dangerous, but so were alligators and tigers. All of them had their right to exist as species, and the loss of any species was an incalculable loss to the world. Many highly significant aspects of magic had been derived from once-suppressed creatures, such as potency-spells from unicorn horns and invulnerable scale armor from dragon hides. But he realized it would be pointless to argue such cases with this fortune-hunting warrior.
Gawain snorted. "Mister, you can't move a dragon! They're worse than cats! Once a drag stakes out his territory, he defends it. Enchant the monster and move it to a reservation, it just breaks out and returns, twice as ornery as before, killing innocent people along the way. No, I respect dragons as opponents, but the only really good dragon is a dead one."
Norton sighed inwardly. Perhaps it was a good thing for the world that Gawain was now a ghost.
"That was my specialty," Gawain continued. "The hand slaying of dragons. It was dangerous work, to be sure-but the rewards were considerable. Because it was quasilegal, fees were high. I estimated that five or six years of dragon slaying would make me independently wealthy. That was the point: to prove that I wasn't simply inheriting wealth, but could produce it on my own. I knew my family would be pleased; every man in it increased the fortune, if he lived long enough."
Gawain meditated for a moment, and Norton did not interrupt him. What would be the point? Norton had on occasion spotted the traces of dragons in the parks and had always given the monsters a wide berth. He might be an environmentalist, but he was no fool. It was said that some dragons in parks were halfway tame and would not attack a person if he gave them food or jewelry, but Norton had never trusted such folklore. The best way to deal with a dragon was to stay clear of it, unless a person had a really competent pacification-spell.
"I know what you're thinking," Gawain said. "Obviously I met one dragon too many! But in my defense, I do want to say that I was successful for five years and had almost amassed my target level in bonus money. I would be alive today if that last dragon I faced had been genuine. But you see, it wasn't; it had been mislabeled. Oh, I don't blame the natives-not much, anyway; they were a fairly primitive tribe in South America and they spoke a mixture of Amerind and Spanish, while I spoke the language of champions, English. Normally language is not much of a barrier; my armor and sword bespoke my profession, with the dragon design on my shield; and as for the women-a man never needs a language of the tongue to speak his use for them, especially when he's a warrior. These things are fairly standard, anyway; the conquering hero always gets his pick of the local virgins. After all, it's better for them than getting chomped by the dragon!"
He paused a moment, his lips twitching. "Funny that some of those girls don't seem to see it that way."
He shrugged and returned to the main theme. "But I think they were honestly ignorant of the nature of their monster. Of course, I should have checked it out in the Dragon Registry-but I had traveled a long way, and the nearest civilized outpost was a half day's trek distant-couldn't use a standard flying carpet for this, of course, since those things are coded into the tour computers, and that would have given away my business-it would have delayed me a day just to do that, and maybe alerted the Dragon Patrol. So I tackled that dragon blind, as it were. I'll never do that again! I was cocky and foolish, I know-but I was familiar with the specs on just about every type of dragon in the world; I figured I was okay this one time.
"So there I was, afoot and armed with sword and shield, as is proper for such encounters, and I boldly braved the lair of the monster. And monster it was! I could see claw marks on the big trees some ten feet up. A real challenge! I marched up to its cave and bellowed out my challenge, and the monster came charging out, no fire, just growling-and then I realized my mistake. That was no dragon-it was a dinosaur! A largely bipedal carnivorous reptile-allosaurus, to be specific; I looked it up after it was too late. It was supposed to be extinct; I think Satan revived it, just to take me down a peg."
Now Norton spoke. "Isn't a dinosaur much like a dragon?"
"Yes and no," Gawain said seriously. This was his field of expertise. "It should be as easy to slay one as the other, as they are of similar nature. Dragons have fire and better armor, and some are unbecomingly smart, while the ancient camosaurs-well, they have to do it all by tooth and claw and power, so they're both more single-minded and desperate. I was geared and trained for dragons; I knew their typical foibles. A dragon, for example, will always try to scorch you with its fire or steam first; dodge that jet, and you can often get in a lethal stroke while it's recovering its breath. It's blast-oriented, you see, not thinking about what comes next. But the allosaurus-that monster didn't even pause to see how it scored, because it had no attack heat. It simply charged, catching me off guard. I had been ready to dodge to the side, and that was no good this time. I stabbed it in the neck with my sword, but it didn't seem to notice. That's another difference-a dragon will roar with pain and rage when injured-they are inordinately proud of their roars-and whip about to snap at the wound. I've seen a dragon get stabbed with a knife and reach about and bite that knife right out of its body, along with a few pounds of its own flesh, and toast the wound afterward to cauterize it. This camosaur just kept going for me. Its system was more primitive. You know how a snake's tail will keep twitching after you cut it off? True reptiles are slow to die, even when hacked to pieces. So again I misjudged it-and again I paid. The brute knocked me down and took a chomp of my body, armor and all. I didn't even try to scramble free; I knew a body-chomp would only dent the monster's teeth.
"That was my third error. Apparently enchantment has a sizable psychological component; people believe in its power, so it has power. A dragon would have known the armor was impermeable, since the smell of the spell was on it, and protected its teeth by easing up. The crunch would have been more show than serious; just testing, as it were. But this allosaurus dated from before the time of true magic and it gave a full-hard chomp, the kind that crunches bones."
"But magic isn't all psychological!" Norton protested. "When I lighted this fire, the wood didn't need to believe in magic; it was ignited anyway."
"True. My armor was impervious to the teeth of the monster," Gawain agreed. "But the mail was flexible, so I could wear it with comfort and not be restricted when fighting. That reptile had very powerful jaws. When it crunched, no tooth penetrated-but I was squished to death. A dragon never would have done that, for fear of hurting its teeth against the magical hardness of the armor-but that stupid reptile did. It broke a number of its teeth and put itself in dire straits-but it wiped me out in the process." The ghost sounded disgusted.
"Now I understand," Norton said. "I regret meeting you in such circumstance." That was polite; Norton might have regretted meeting Gawain alive, too.
"No fault of yours," Gawain said. "You are a courteous listener. Many people fear ghosts or ignore them."
"Many people are more settled than I am," Norton said. "Perhaps that applies to their minds as well as their bodies. Since you profess no anger toward me, I accept you as a well-meaning companion and hope I may in some way help you." For, ironic as it seemed, he found himself liking the ghost. Gawain alive stood for nothing Norton stood for, but as a ghost, he was an interesting companion. Maybe that was because his evil was safely behind him.
"I like your manners," Gawain said. "I can see we don't see eye-to-eye on everything and I think it's because you're a gentler man than I was. Be assured I offer recompense for the favor I ask. Would you like to learn how to slay dragons?"
"Oh, I do not require pay for any favor!" Norton protested. "Then it wouldn't be a favor."
"This is not really a minor matter. I would prefer to pay. The favor is in merely agreeing to do it."
"Why, then, I should be happy to learn how to slay dragons, though I hope never to have to use such knowledge." That was an understatement; he would never knowingly go near a wild dragon without defensive magic-and with that magic he would not have to slay it. "But what is this favor?"
Gawain frowned. "I prefer to provide more background first, lest you be unable to accept the request."
Norton was growing quite curious about this. The ghost was a tough, direct sort, with quite alien values, but he was also a gentleman by his own reckoning. Why was he being so circumspect about this? "By all means, sir."
"When I died, I had amassed a fair fortune, in addition to my inheritance," the ghost continued. "Actually, the inheritance has not yet come down to me, as my father lives, but I am the only heir. It is important that the estate remain in the family. Therefore, my surviving family arranged for a ghost marriage. That is, they married me to an excellent and healthy young woman of proper lineage who-"
"Pardon," Norton said. "Forgive the interruption, but you have lost me. How can a ghost marry?"
Gawain smiled. "Yes, I thought that would throw you. It threw me, first blush. It is a device used when a noble family wishes to preserve its line-when the heir is defunct. They marry the ghost to a suitable girl- one he would have approved of in life-who then bears his heir."
"But-"
"But a ghost can't impregnate a living woman. That is indeed a problem."
"Yes. I really don't see how-"
"I'm coming to that. My wife may associate with any man she chooses-but she is my wife, by the ghost marriage, and her child is mine. He will inherit my estate and carry on my line."
"But then she's being unfaithful to you!" Norton protested.
"I had trouble with that concept, too, at first. But I came to terms with it. She knows she must provide the heir and that I can not do it personally. But I am involved, for I am choosing the man. With her consent, of course; marriage is a partnership. She has refused several good prospects."
"Are yon sure she really wants to-?"
"Oh, I'm sure," Gawain said confidently. "She is a good and honest woman. She is not trying to renege. She merely wants to do it exactly properly. She has this magic talent: she can tell by looking at a man how good a consort he would make. That's one reason my family selected her. They didn't want the heir sired by some ne'er-do-well bum with poor heredity. She really is special. If I had met her in life, I surely would have loved her, though I wouldn't have had much patience with her views about dragons. She can't bear to hurt any living creature. So if I bring her a man she deems good enough to-"
Realization struck Norton. "This favor-" The ghost nodded. "Precisely. I want you to meet my wife, and if she likes you-"
"Wait!" Norton spluttered. "I take my women where I find them, when they are amenable, but never a married one! That wouldn't be right."
"I like you, Norton. You have the right instincts. I was afraid out here in the park I'd find only wishy- washy sentimentalists, but you've got style. I think my wife would like you, when she didn't like the warrior types I sent before. Look at it this way: I have no physical body and I need an heir. I'm asking you to substitute for me in this one respect. After that you can go your way, with no further commitment. It's like repairing my house for me, and I'll pay you for the service-"
"Some service!"
"Literally." The ghost chuckled. "I realize this is hard for you to accept right away and I like that in you. But at least come to meet Orlene. Maybe she'll reject you."
From the way the ghost spoke, Norton had no certainty of that. Gawain thought this girl, Orlene, would like him. If he went, expecting to be rejected, and then..."I don't know-"
"Please, Norton! You're a good man-and I must have that heir."
"I understand that part. But to cuckold you-that's against my philosophy."
"I am, after all, a ghost. You can consider her a widow. If it helps, you can remember that you will have no rights over her at all. You can not marry her, and your part will be forever unrecognized. Legally there is no adultery here. So this is the ultimate chance to sow wild oats-"
"Complete irresponsibility! That's not what I-"
"Well, then, think of it as artificial insemination, and you're the donor. Hell, man, that's done all the time, in life, when the living husband is infertile."
This was haywire, but the concept helped. The ghost did have a case. "All right-I'll meet her," Norton said guardedly.
"And I'll teach you how to slay dragons!" "Oh, you don't really need to-"
"Yes, I do. I insist on paying for it!"
Norton realized that what a man paid for belonged to him. Gawain had to have his personal, private claim on the heir. "Yes. But first we had better find out whether she's even interested. This may all be for nothing." He wondered what this fine girl who had sold her body in such fashion for security actually looked like. Quality and lineage could normally net a girl a good husband, unless she was ugly or had a vile temper. That latter kind might be the sort who would settle for a ghost.
"We can go right now," Gawain said eagerly. "There's an elevator not far from here."
Norton thought to protest, but remembered that he was broke, so would not be able to camp out much longer anyway. A stay with a good woman, even an ugly one, was at least worth considering. He really could not claim to have anything better to do.
He doused the fire and cleaned up the area so that future hikers would not be annoyed. Wilderness hiking and camping were privileges, not rights, and were strictly licensed. He was always careful not to mistreat the cultivated wilds. He burned only deadwood, left the animals alone, and tried not to harm even caterpillars and worms. He never littered. It was not that anyone was watching; it was that Norton had genuine respect for the heritage of nature and for the parks that sought to emulate it.
They walked a quarter mile to a giant blazed oak tree. Norton touched the lowest branch and stepped inside the chamber that opened in the trunk. The elevator descended to the residential level, where they stepped out and took a conveyor belt to the ghost's address. Gawain, of course, could simply have popped across directly, but he preferred to honor the living conventions among the living.
This was an affluent section of the city, as befitted the ghost's description of his family's status. Poor people did not worry much about preservation of their estates.
They stepped off the belt, took a smaller side-passage belt, and moved into the really refined region of the Who's Who lineages. A uniformed guard barred the way as they stepped off. "Identity?" he asked Norton sternly.
"It's all right, Trescott," Gawain said. "He's with me."
Trescott eyed Norton's somewhat sweaty and worn hiking outfit disapprovingly. "Very good, sir," he muttered.
"The guards don't always let themselves see me," Gawain explained. "Unless I take pains to manifest to them. Ghosts are not much in fashion here; the management worries about property values."
"Or about scruffy-looking characters like me," Norton said. "I feel out of place here."
"Um, there's a point," Gawain agreed. "We really ought to spruce you up a bit to make a good impression."
"I am what I am," Norton said. "If she has the power to judge a man's true worth at a glance, what difference does clothing or polish make?"
"There is that. Very well, we'll try it this way. But if she accepts you, you'll have to dress the part." "First things first," Norton said, not totally pleased.
They arrived at the door. "Now I can't go in," Gawain said. "Rules of the cosmos. Everyone can see a ghost like me except the one most concerned. You'll introduce yourself."
"What, smile toothily and say, 'Hi, girl, I'm here to-'?" "Tell her Gawain sent you. She'll understand."
"Sure," Norton said glumly. How had he gotten into this? He felt like a traveling salesman about to approach the farmer's daughter.
"Good luck," Gawain said.
Norton wasn't sure whether "good luck" would mean acceptance or rejection. He nerved himself and touched the door's call button.
