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scenes that were very ordinary and customary when he was first falling asleep.
Thencame a blank spell. Then, unexpectedly, he found himself outside
Carolinus's cottage at the Tinkling Water. It was just about dawn. Carolinus
and Aragh were both there, standing outside Carolinus's dwelling on the path
between the flowers. The only difficulty with his dream picture was that
everything was upside down.
"What is this?" he snapped in his dream at the Accounting Office. No sooner
had he dreamed that he had spoken the words, than he was amazed at his own
audacity. He had never spoken brusquely to the Accounting Office in his life.
But in his dream it answered now; and its tone, far from being angry, was
apologetic.
"Oh, sorry," the bass voice answered; and the scene turned right side up.
"Actually," the bass voice went on, "you were the one who was upside down."
It fell silent. Jim was left wondering how he could be upside down, when as
far as he could see he was not in the scene at all. He merely seemed to be a
disembodied point of view, an invisible pair of eyes. And an invisible pair of
ears, also, evidently; for just then he realized he could hear Carolinus and
Aragh talking.
"Well, everything's well here at least," Carolinus was saying. "You'd be as
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aware of that as I would, too bad I can't say the same thing for elsewhere.
You know that James has gone toFrance ?"
"Yes," growled Aragh. "I told him it was nonsense!"
"Nonsense is a matter of point of view, wolf," said Carolinus. "What's
nonsense to you may not be nonsense to James, or Sir Brian, or a number of
other people."
"All the two-legged ones " said Aragh grumpily, and broke off. "No offense,
Mage. I wasn't speaking of you. But I swear, nearly anything on two legs has
about as much sense as a butterfly."
"There is more to what moves the world than simply sense; common sense, I
take it you mean," said Carolinus. "This business of rescuing the Prince
fromFrance is no such thing as theLoathlyTower affair, is it? No clear-cut
matter with Evil perched in a dark place, its creatures gathered below, ready
to fight all comers; sending out its legions of such as the sandmirks to
overcome any who might oppose it. Not at all like the affair at
theLoathlyTower , is it?"
Aragh stared at the mage with hooded eyes.
"If you are trying to tell me something, say it right out, Mage," he said.
"My way has ever been the straight way. I ve no love for dark hints and tricky
twists of words."
"Very well," said Carolinus, "then I'll tell you bluntly that this present
matter is as much of a joust with the Dark Powers as was that of the Loathly
Tower, of which you were a part. But this time it's cloaked about by the
worldly ambitions and imaginations of men, so that it's not as visible as it
was before. Nonetheless, it's the same thing all over again. There's a threat;
and James, Brian, and now even Dafydd, go against it as the only hope to stop
it from breaking out and doing great damage, just as it threatened to do the
time before. They are all there but you."
"No affair of mine," growled Aragh.
"You mean you won't see it as an affair of yours," said Carolinus, "and to
support that blindness, you pretend that your comrades don't need you; that
James and the others go up against an enemy which is no more than their equal
in strength."
Aragh growled again, wordlessly but uneasily.
"You talk in large words with small sense inside them, as usual, Mage," he
said. "I asked you to tell me plainly what the situation was; but you keep
moving around and around it, without coming out squarely to say what it is.
Why've you passed word to me to come here, now? What do you want of me; and
why do you think I should give you whatever it is?"
"I tell you this way," said Carolinus, "because you're a cross-grained,
hard-headed, selfish, English wolf; and you need to be able to find the
answers to those questions of yours yourself otherwise you'll never believe
them. You know what a wolf cub is, I take it?"
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