by Larry Niven
All the world would tremble under the omnipotent gaze of the great King Dirrach. Why not the great God Dirrach? Nothing would be impossible, if only he avoided some lethal experiment. A real wardspell was necessary, but so far he had not duplicated his accidental success with Bardel. A hot coal could still blister the shaman’s finger; a pinprick could still pain him. Hurrying to the castle, Dirrach pondered ways to steal the great stone from Bardel’s breast. He considered seeking out the cub, Oroles, to employ the raven as a spy—yet that would soon be unnecessary, he decided.
For Oroles, the raven was not the only spy. In Panon’s smokehouse, the fisherman took a load of wood from the boy, chose a billet. “Don’t ask me why all Tihan is edgy,” he grunted. “Ask your friend, the ferret. Better still, don’t. You’ll have me believing in your gift, pipsqueak.”
“I can’t ask Thyssa,” Oroles complained, “’cause the shaman said not to. But everybody’s so jumpy…”
Panon coughed, waved the lad out with him, brought a brace of cured fillets for good measure. “Huh; and why not? Green clouds form over the castle, fires smolder on cobblestones near it, thunder rolls from nowhere,—some say the outlanders bring wizardry.”
“What do you say, Panon?”
“I say, take these fillets home before the flies steal them from you,” smiled the old man. “And steer clear of anything that smacks of sorcery.” He did not specify Dirrach, but even Oroles could make that connection.
Panon’s smile lingered as he watched the boy depart. If the old tales could be believed, neither Oroles nor Thyssa had much to fear from most magical events. Both had hearts so pure as to comprise a mild wardspell—even though Panon had often seen Thyssa embroidering her tales of the redoubtable Urkut; intoning foreign words of his, copying outlander gestures as her father had done to entertain her once. The girl had a marvelous memory for such things, but little interest in the occult. Besides, Panon mused, if such incantations worked, why was Thyssa not wealthy? Panon shrugged, winced, rubbed his shoulder. If his rheumatism was any guide, all Lyris would soon be enriched by summer rains.
* * * *
Try as he might for the next two days, Dirrach could not entice Bardel into another wager, nor further physical risks. At length Averae exclaimed in the parley room, “I do believe Dirrach craves your amulet, sire, more than he wants a parley. Why not just give it to him and be done with it?” Dirrach maintained his composure while writhing inside.
“Because it’s mine,” laughed Bardel. “I even sleep with it.”
Boerab exchanged a smile with Gethae and murmured, “To each his own.”
“To each somebody else’s,” she rejoined, then cocked an eyebrow at the shaman; “however small.”
Because Bardel joined in the general laughter, Dirrach imagined that he was being mocked by all present. The anxiety, frustration, and juggled plans of Dirrach kindled an anger that boiled to the surface; Dirrach leaped to his feet. The moist opal in his waistpouch validated his dignity as Dirrach unleashed his easiest spell with all the gestural strength he could summon, cloaked in verbiage. “Let those who think themselves superior be loosened from conceit,” he stormed.
The next instant, all but the invulnerable Bardel were grasping at clothing as every knot within five paces was loosened.
Oil lamps fell from lashings to bounce from floor and table. Boerab and the outlanders fought to hold their clothing—and Dirrach himself was depantsed.
Without a word, eyes flashing with contempt, Gethae gathered her clothing and strode out, living proof that she could combine nudity with pride. Averae sputtered and fumed, his gaunt rib cage heaving with pent rage as he struggled to regain his finery.
As for Boerab, the staunch warrior faced Dirrach over the head of their openmouthed king, leather corselet and gorget at Boerab’s feet. “Mana or mummery, Dirrach,” he roared, “that was a stupid mistake! You’ve affronted guests; friends!”
Dirrach retied his trousers, fumbled with waistpouch, a furious blush on his features. “The first offense was theirs,” he said huskily. “High time you learned a little respect.”
“I’ll show respect for lumps on your head,” Boerab replied, taking a step forward. “Stop me if you can.”
“Hold, Boerab,” cried the king, finally on his feet. “What will our guests think?”
“They’ll think we need to strangle that piss-witted child molester,” said Boerab. But Dirrach had already fled into the hall.
“Who is king here, you or I?” Dimly, Bardel recognized the need for a regal bearing; for a measured response to this sudden turn. “For all you know, Dirrach could turn you into a toad, Boerab.”
Averae, who had watched the confrontation in silence, now spoke. “Well spoken, sire. It strikes me that you may have need for more than one shaman. A balance of powers, as it were.”
“But we don’t have—” Bardel began, and stopped.
“You have only Dirrach,” Averae said for him and added gently, “We know that, Bardel; but mutual loathing and mistrust are brittle bases for a treaty. With Dirrach, I fear—I fear I’m giving counsel where none is asked.” he finished quickly.
“No, go ahead and say it,” Boerab urged. “Everybody knows our fine shaman is a sodomizer of children.”
“Everybody but me,” said Bardel, aghast.
“And who was to tell you?” Boerab spread his big hands, then launched into a description of what he and Gethae had witnessed outside Dirrach’s chamber. As usual, the tale grew in the telling.
Averae was not surprised. “Dirrach is unwelcome in Moess because he preyed sexually on the young,” he said without embellishment.
In the hallway, Dirrach ground his teeth as he listened, enraged at the irony of it. The king was still ignorant of his real transgressions, but seemed ready to punish him for imagined ones!
“Have Dirrach confined in his chamber,” said the king sadly, “until I can decide what must be done. If you can confine him,” he added with sudden awareness.
“Cold iron is rumored to block any spell,” Averae said mildly.
“And I have an idea where we can locate another who’s adept, or could become so, at Dirrach’s specialty. I don’t think I really thought it possible until now—the mumbo-jumbo, I mean,” Boerab said.
Dirrach heard heavy footfalls, thought of the cast-iron ax, and ducked into a shadowed alcove as Boerab huffed past. The shaman could not return to his chamber now—but perhaps he would not need to.
At dusk, Dirrach emerged from hiding. By turning his tunic inside out and jamming sandals into his belt, the shaman passed unrecognized in the dusty byways of Tihan. Twice he melded with shadows as men clattered by, clumsy with bronze weapons they seldom used. Dirrach felt certain he could command their fear, or at any rate their trousers, in a confrontation. Yet the uproar would locate him. Thunderbolts might not help. Dirrach made his way unseen to a hayrick near the palisades, climbed atop it, and sniffed a breeze chill with humidity as he burrowed into the hay for the night. He willed the rains to hurry; they kept most folk indoors.
Summoned in early morning, Thyssa ran with her friend Dasio before a damp wind as Dirrach, in his perch at palisade height, scanned northern hills for sight of a messenger of his own. While the girl made a fetching obeisance to Bardel, wondering what her sin might be, Dirrach spotted his man astride a pack-ass. Shouldering a stolen mattock, blinking dust from his eyes, Dirrach trudged out from the untended palisade gate into the teeth of the wind to intercept his man.
In the castle, Thyssa was tongue-tied with astonishment. “I, sire? Bubbut, I?” Her pretty mouth was dry as she stared up at her king. “But shamans are men, and I know nothing of necromancy or—I, sire?”
“Oh, stand up, Thyssa, he’s not angry—are you, Bardel?” Boerab dug a gentle elbow into Bardel’s ribs. No, not angry, Boerab judged; but perhaps a bit bewitched. How like the dunderhead to notice beauty only when it lay beneath his nose!
“I’m told you might be of great service to
Lyris,” Bardel began, “if you can but recall your father’s ancient spells. Dirrach has crimes to answer for. The question is, could you replace him?”
Slowly, Thyssa was persuaded that this was no trick to convict her of forbidden arts, and no royal jest. She admitted the possibility that Urkut, in his tale-spinning, might have casually divulged knowledge of occult powers which he had learned in distant lands. Urkut’s failure to make full use of such knowledge might be ascribed to disinterest, fear of its misuse, or even to a blocking spell. Added Boerab, who did most of the coaxing: “Now it’s time to find out, Thyssa. How well do you recall Urkut’s tales, and what secrets might they hold?”
Thyssa nodded, then closed her eyes in long reverie. It seemed an age before a smile of reminiscence tugged at her lips. Hesitant at first, Thyssa knelt before cold ashes in the fireplace. A few gestures mimed placement of invisible kindling, whirling a nonexistent firestick, other actions not so transparently pantomimic—and then the barest wisp of smoke sought the flue. With practice, she coaxed a flame upward, but turned in fear toward Bardel who bent near, his huge sweat-stained amulet swinging like a pendulum.
Too dull-witted to consider the dangers, Bardel grinned at her and winked: “Now try it on the flagstones.”
Flagstones burned, too. The problem was in quenching them. Thyssa finally thought to reverse her gestures and after some failures, sighed as the flame winked out. Thyssa was, of course, wholly innocent of the oral shorthand equivalents which sorcerers of old had used. Thyssa wondered aloud why Urkut had never put such spells to work around the cottage, then recalled another of her father’s anecdotes. She got it right on the third try. Boerab made her erase the spell, laughing nervously as an oak table levitated toward the roof. Again, the reversal worked when she did everything in order; the heavy table wafted down.
Urkut’s spell over food was not to he deduced as a preservation spell just yet. Thyssa tried it on their noon meal of bread, beer and fruit, but nothing obvious happened and the experiment was soon consumed. Thyssa had no inkling, yet, that their lunch could have been stored for a century without losing its freshness.
His belly full, Bardel urged the girl to devise some spell of a more warlike nature. “The sort of thing that gave warlocks their name,” he said. “We may need it; don’t forget, Dirrach is at large.”
Boerab shuddered. “And if it goes awry? Thyssa toys with thunder as it is.”
“The nearest my father got to a curse, so far as I know, was when he’d speak of shamans and their powers,” she reflected. “Then he’d say a prayer for deliverance—and do something like this.” She began a two-handed ritual; paused with a frown, reversed it; began anew with a nod of satisfaction.
The trapspell, far older than any of them could know, was very special. Lacking mana to energize it, Urkut had never known—until too late—whether it worked. Fundamentally it was a shrinkspell, positively polarized against evil and those who employed it by magical means. Only those present—the king, the girl, the warrior, and a mouse near the hearth—could be the beneficiaries, and then only in proximity to a source of mana. As with the preservation spell, nothing spectacular happened; but the room grew oppressively warm.
“I guess I forgot something,” Thyssa sighed.
Boerab, rising: “You’re the best judge of that. But perhaps you’d best stop for now. Think back, and make haste slowly; as for me, I’ll just make haste. There’s bad weather brewing and well never find Dirrach in a storm.”
“I hope it cools things off,” Bardel nodded; “even my amulet is hot.”
Thyssa took her leave, welcoming warm rain on her face as she hurried homeward. It did not seem like the kind of weather that would cool Tihan much.
* * * *
Dirrach’s messenger bore the best possible news, and estimated that the grit-laden packass train was no more than a half-hour behind. The man had no way of knowing Dirrach’s outlaw status and dutifully returned, on the shaman’s orders, to direct the packtrain toward a new destination. Jubilant, Dirrach took shelter from intermittent wind-driven showers under a stand of beeches. From his promontory, he could see groups of Tihaners searching lofts and hayricks. It would be necessary to commandeer an outlying farmhouse and to detain the miners until he had puzzled out ways to make himself invincible.
And how long might that take? Perhaps he should retreat further into the hills with his mana-rich ore. Later he could return with gargoyles, griffons, even armies of homunculi…
As the little group of miners struggled from their protected declivity into the open, heading for their new rendezvous, Dirrach allowed himself a wolfish grin. Then his features altered into something less predatory as he watched the packtrain’s advance.
The skins over the packs gleamed wetly, and the lead miner fought a cloud of biting flies—or something—so dense that Dirrach could see it from afar. Then pack lashings parted—untied themselves, Dirrach surmised—and both skins began to flap in the wind. The lead packass took fright, bucked, stampeded the animals behind it, and in the space of three heartbeats the procession erupted into utter mind-numbing chaos.
* FLASH * BLAMMmm…
A great light turned the world blue-white for an instant, thunder following so close that it seemed simultaneous. Now the miners waved, sought to slow the maddened animals, and fled through clouds of grit as the pack contents whirled downwind, spilled into the air by the leaping beasts.
One miner disappeared in a twinkling. A packass, then another, flew kicking and hawing in the general direction of Tihan—but at treetop level, a sight so unnerving that miners scattered in terror. Paralyzed with impotent rage, Dirrach knew that a trickle of water into one of the packs had triggered a series of events; a series that had scarcely begun.
As the storm waxed, Dirrach hurried toward one pack animal in an attempt to save some of its load without getting downwind of it. Dirrach had seen a man vanish in the stuff, but could not know the man had reappeared safely under his bed in Tihan. The packass saw Dirrach, rolled its eyes, grew fangs the length of shortswords, roared a carnivore’s challenge. Dirrach scrabbled into a tree with a bleat of stark horror. From his perch, he could see clouds of fine grit blowing over palisades into Tihan in a monumental manaspill.
* * * *
Old Panon blinked as a grit-laden gust of wind whirled past him at the dock; steadied himself above his nets with outflung arms. He could never recall later what he muttered, but the next moment he stood amid a welter of fish, all flopping determinedly from the lake into his pile of net. Panon sat down hard.
On merchant’s row, the bronzeworker followed a reluctant customer outside in heated exchange over prices. A blast of wind peppered them both and suddenly, his heel striking something metallic, the customer sprawled backward onto a pathway no longer muddy. It was literally paved for several paces with a tightly interlocked mass of spearheads, plowpoints, adzes, trays; and all of gleaming iron.
The tanner was wishing aloud for better materials when he ducked out of the foul weather to his shop. He found his way blocked by piles of fragrant hides.
The produce merchant spied a farmer outside, rushed out to complain of watered milk, and braved a gritty breeze. The men traded shouted curses before discovering that they stood ankle-deep in a cow-flop carpet. It spread down the path as they fled, and more of it was raining down.
An aging militiaman paused in his search for Dirrach to surprise his young wife, and found that he had also surprised one of the castle staff. The younger man cleared a windowsill, but could not evade the maledictions that floated after him. He hopped on through the gathering storm, his transformation only partial, for the moment a man-sized phallus with prominent ears. He elicited little envy or pity, since most of Tihan’s folk had problems of their own.
Bardel was informed by a wide-eyed Dasio who could still run, though for the time being he could not make his feet touch the ground, that the end of the world had arrived. The king howled for Boerab, aghast as more citiz
ens crowded into the castle toward the only authority they knew.
One extortionate shopkeeper, perched on the shoulder of his haggard wife, had become a tiny gnome. The castle cook could still be recognized from his vast girth, but from the neck up he seemed an enormous rat. Bardel saw what the citizens were tracking into the castle, wrinkled his nose, and stood fast. “BOERABBBB!”
The old soldier stumped in, double-time, sword at ready, but soon realized he was not facing insurrection. “It pains me to say this,” he shouted over the hubbub, “but Thyssa may have made some small miscalculation—”
“All this, the doings of one girl?” Bardel’s wave took in the assembled throng.
It was Dirrach’s erstwhile messenger, breathless from running, who set them right. “No, my lords,” he croaked. “The shaman! I saw it begin with my own eyes.” Convinced as always of Dirrach’s powers, the man attached no value to the windborne grit. Thus he did not describe it, and a great truth passed unnoticed.
“Shaman…Dirrach…the molester,” several voices agreed; as Boerab and his king exchanged grim nods.
Bardel motioned the eyewitness forward, hardly noticing that the knee-high shopkeeper was already beginning to grow to his original size. “Tell us what you know of Dirrach,” said the king, “and someone fetch the girl, Thyssa.”
* * * *
Sodden and mud-splattered, Dirrach made his way unchallenged in waning light to the unoccupied cottage of Thyssa. He moved with special care, avoiding accidental gestures, forewarned by personal experience that the hydrophane fallout was heavier in some places than in others. He no longer entertained the least doubt that Bardel enjoyed magical protection so long as he wore the amulet.
Face-to-face intrigue was no longer possible, and Dirrach judged that raw power was his best option. It should not be difficult to wrest the small stone from Oroles. Far greater risk would lie in finding the means to steal the king’s great opal. Perhaps an invisibility spell; Dirrach had seen the passage of some unseen citizen as footprints appeared in one of Tihan’s muddy paths. The shaman had seen Bardel lose his amulet once through accident, knew that it could be lost again through stealth.