The old abbot’s mouth dropped open in dismay. Startled out of his normal tranquillity, he seemed for an instant a completely different man. He waved his hand, as if quite involuntarily, in the direction of his eyes, and Armida, looking up past her own hands, that instant, noticed through her tears, or thought she noticed (but it was dark, as I’ve mentioned), that the long, pale, delicate fingers numbered six, not five! But she couldn’t quite believe it, or failed to register — lost, as she was, in her own unhappiness and eagerly siding with the abbot’s arguments, since he was trying to persuade Prince Christopher to continue living. Seeing (or imagining she saw) that sixth finger, Armida merely shivered, as if a bad dream had slipped into her mind and out again. And now the abbot’s face was more gentle than ever, the tilt of his head more concerned.
“The six-fingered man!” he breathed. “God be with you, dear Prince!”
“I’m no fighter,” said Prince Christopher. “I’d never have a chance, and my death would be vile and ignominious. I won’t have it; I won’t go to him. I’d far rather die by my own hand. I may not be free to live like a poet, but I can die like one!” He stood with his right hand pressed against his chest.
“Yes, I see,” said the abbot. With sad eyes the abbot looked over in the direction of Armida and the dwarf (the dwarf was fast asleep), sitting in the darkness with their hands covering their faces. “Yes, you’re right,” said the abbot with a kind of groan, and began once more to pace. “You really do have no chance against the six-fingered man. How would you even find him? I understand he’s very clever — murders people, or so rumor has it, and steals their identities. How’s a man even to locate a fiend like that?” He shot a glance at the prince. “You have a clue?”
“Nothing,” moaned the prince.
“Well, no matter anyway. You’re right about this business, though it grieves me to say it. Heaven knows there’s no percentage in your facing that man. — Of course he’s not as young as he used to be, and there are always aspects of the situation that we’re not aware of. But you’re right, yes. Safer to do battle with a thousand-year-old dragon.”
The abbot stopped pacing as if he thought he’d heard a distant cry or something, and then his eyes lit up. He began to smile, excited, and came hurrying across the thick carpet toward the prince. He stopped a few feet short and looked up toward the corner of the ceiling, rapt, as if seeing a vision. “Now there’s an idea!” he said.
Christopher the Sullen turned and looked doubtfully up in the direction in which the abbot was looking.
“Listen to me,” the abbot said, moving closer and peering into Christopher’s eyes. “No one could call it ignominious, now could they, if you lost your life in battle against a dragon? A man’s not really expected to have a chance against a dragon. On the other hand, even while you’re dying”—he rolled his eyes, made his voice more dramatic, waved the silhouette of an arm then quickly returned it to his cassock, “—even while you’re gasping out your final breath, locked in mortal combat, you just conceivably might get in a lucky stab and leave the dragon so sorely wounded that—” His eyes flashed lightning and he gazed once more up at the corner of the room: “—so sorely wounded that he would eventually die. In a week or so, perhaps. Think of it! The lot of mankind would be significantly improved. You’d be famous throughout the world, throughout all history like Saint—” He pursed his lips; the name had slipped out of his memory. “Never mind, you get the drift.”
“I,” said Christopher the Sullen, and touched his collar-bone, “should fight a dragon?”
“Come come,” said the abbot. “Use your imagination.” He began pacing in a circle, into the hearth’s glow, out of it again, into it, out of it. “You say you want to kill yourself. I disapprove, naturally, as a man of the cloth (though I might make exceptions for a terminal illness that involved great pain), but on the other hand I can readily see your point, now that you mention the notorious six-fingered man. Very well, if you feel you must kill yourself, why not do it nobly, as Lycurgus did, for the benefit of mankind? Moreover — pay attention now — you may be wrong about everything, as I’ve said to you before. For all you know, the six-fingered man may have died way last January, from stepping on an icy patch and falling on his head. Ha! You hadn’t thought of that, had you, Prince Christopher! You’ll never win your rightful place in history by choosing self-destruction rather than confrontation with a man who’s in fact been dead for months. I don’t say he is, mind you. Very well, though. Excellent. Now we’re on the track.”
The circle he was pacing became tighter.
“Dying in conflict with a dragon would be heroic, my boy! — And come to think of it, I know just the dragon for you, and not far off. You ever hear of Koog the Devil’s Son?”
“Koog!” the prince whispered. The room went suddenly cold as ice. Armida gasped.
“You’ve heard of him I see,” said the abbot. “Excellent! Excellent! Now we’re on the track! He’s old, this Koog, and crafty as the serpent he is. No question! On the other hand, his age is not all an advantage: he’s hardly the dragon he once was, take my word! It’s just barely possible — this is merely an opinion — that a man might take him, if he went at it right.” He shot his face close to the face of the prince and whispered, looking back over his shoulder, “Old Koog’s got a magic charm on him, you know.”
“A charm,” said Christopher the Sullen. His mouth was slightly open. He noticed this and closed it.
“Exactly. Nothing can harm him when he’s in the dark of his cave. There was never a sword ever built that can scratch him. But out in the sunlight, ha! that’s quite another story! The question, of course, is how do you get a smart old dragon to come out in the sunlight where he’s vulnerable?” The abbot stood nodding, fascinated himself by this conundrum.
Prince Christopher cleared his throat. He said, “Fighting dragons isn’t basically my nature.”
“Nonsense, my boy,” said the abbot, almost nastily. Something crossed Armida’s mind, too quickly for her to catch it. “This suicide was your idea, not mine,” said the abbot. “I’m merely suggesting—”
“I’d been thinking of something rather quicker,” said the prince, “and not too painful. Standing there in chainmail at the mouth of a cave, and taking the flame of a dragon head on—” He winced. He decided to pour himself more brandy, crossed quickly to the low, round table (the bottle and glasses faintly glinted in the starlight), and filled his brandy snifter.
The abbot came over to him. Armida could barely make out their two dark forms. Like a kindly old uncle the abbot put his arm around the prince, unless Armida was mistaken. “Come now, Prince,” he urged, “let’s think this through. I won’t deny it could be painful. Of course it would be painful! Glory’s not cheap!” Now both of them were pacing in a circle, into the hearth’s dim light, out of it, in again … Armida strained to see. “But let’s not fool ourselves, my friend, about diving off a cliff. Believe me, I know about these things! First of all, there’s the unspeakable terror involved. You may say it’s more frightening to go charging against a dragon, but my friend, my dear friend, I doubt it. Think how it feels on the cliff-edge, standing looking down. True, we’ve all had the urge to fall. But how grim, how ghastly the actuality! How excruciatingly dreadful! And then there’s the fall itself — first the unexpectedly painful banging of the heart. Many people, you know, die of heart attack long before they hit. And then the gasping for air. It’s difficult to breathe, believe you me, hurtling down thousands of feet toward the rocks. And then the landing! Aie! How would you choose to hit? On your head—? Over in an instant, true, but can you actually conceive of— But landing on your feet would be no better, of course. Smash! In a split second your feet and legs are as nothing, fragile as glass, two blood explosions! and the rocks are rushing toward your pelvis. Your back breaks—wang! — in a thousand places, your organs crash downward and upward and inward … Dear me! Bless me! Perhaps we should speak of drowning.” The abbot stood stock-still, and the prince, too, stopped pacing.