Wizard's Goal

by Alan J. Garner

  "I look forward to the day I use you for target practice, Dathok."

  The shaman sneered. “An intimidator, like your old man. The crab apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Didn't he explain I'm untouchable, bullyboy?"

  'Moments ago we chatted about the expendability of all Grizzlies."

  Dathok grinned nervously, the pallor of his sweaty skin betraying his underlying fear.

  "But lucky our shaman has his uses still,” interjected Ahnorr. “Tell Carlaw what you divined from the windfall I placed in your lap."

  "You whispered it in my ear."

  "Nitpicker."

  "My head lice infestation was just a rumor and as unsubstantiated as my interpretation of the prophecies."

  Glancing sharply at his sire, a conniving glint flashed in Carlaw's eyes. “Dathok's referring to the Ode of the Shamanist! You're savvier than I thought, father. How did you persuade Omelchor to part with it?"

  "I couldn't. Stubbornness is the wizard's real name. He keeps the Ode closer to his chest than a Troll's family tattoo."

  "So you came by it dishonestly,” surmised Dathok, himself not privy to the details of Ahnorr's appropriation.

  "We're born thieves. I stole a peek at it."

  "You didn't see all of it?” asked Carlaw.

  "Just a glimpse."

  "Hold the bone,” said Dathok. “Since when do you read, Ahnorr?"

  Narrowing his eyes, the caught out potentate said cagily, “The Ode is written on a parchment scroll magically imbued with an enchantment allowing the illiterate to understand the runes, to make sense of the scrawl."

  "Nobody comprehends the prophecy."

  "You found meaning, Dathok."

  "That remains speculative."

  "I want to hear it anyway,” butted in Carlaw. “What message did the scroll show you, father?"

  "Wooded blade fells shaggy swords."

  "And what did you construe that gobbledygook to mean, shaman?"

  "A single axe seems likely to destroy an entire Goblin clan."

  "Which one?"

  "Ours."

  "You're basing this far out assumption on what?"

  "'The last two words, “shaggy swords", possibly refer to bearskins."

  "They might just as easily describe the wolf pelts worn by Onayl warriors."

  "But the only significant tribe in Carnach meriting attention from the Dwarf King is us Grizzlies,” Ahnorr proudly conjectured. Carlaw rolled his eyes. Quashing his son's disbelief with rationale, the potentate argued, ‘A wood blade can only mean an axe and the mightiest axe in Carallord is Arnuthe, ceremonially wielded by none other than the presently crowned Dalcorne."

  "That's your spin on things, not my add-on,” Dathok pointed out.

  Jabbing a finger at the shaman, Carlaw decried, “You trust this jubba addict to accurately decipher for you?"

  Ahnorr guffawed. “Dathok is lazy, spineless, unmannered—"

  "I am in the lodge,” the shaman meekly protested.

  "—underweight, overmedicated, tactless, boorish, egotistical, disrespectful, and a general pain in the backside."

  "Sure you didn't leave any insults out?” Dathok sulked.

  "But he is not stupid and will not rashly jeopardize his meal ticket."

  Brightened by the flattering end remarks, the shaman glared defiantly at Carlaw, who ignored him, stating, “So the two of you are theorizing that Carallord will someday declare war on Grihaloecke."

  "The probability is always there, but I'm intuiting a more personal act of hostility. To kill an adder you lop off its head. To behead a tribe, you murder its chieftain.” Seeing the shrewd look cross Carlaw's face, Ahnorr said, “Before you bullshit by saying it will break your black heart, son, I know my demise won't bother you one whit. But consider this: while the prophecy alludes to assassinating the Grizzly Potentate, it doesn't specify which one. It could be me or my successor. Possibly even both of us. That should curb your patricidal tendencies awhile. Offing me might put you right into Fate's line of fire."

  Carlaw forced a smile to curl his thin lips. “I guess we should give up Dwarf tossing for the time being."

  "Quite the opposite. Rather than avoid the little beggars, your Blackbolts are going to get up real close to the Dwarven royals. Omelchor wishes Arnuthe stolen from Dalcorne High."

  "Can't be done,” Carlaw flatly said. “The Axe of Power reputedly resides in a vault beneath the Royal Keep. It's unreachable."

  Ahnorr agreed. “This is why we won't waste time attempting an impractical feat. What is doable is eradicating the Dwarf kingship. Your crossbowmen will scale the castle walls then shoot to death Dalcorne senior and junior."

  "Is that all? Here's me thinking you're asking the impossible: sneak over the mountains into Carallord, wade through untold hatchet throwing midgets, storm an impregnable castle, and butcher the two most guarded Dwarfs in the Highlands.” Steaming with perspiration, Carlaw glibly stated, “No sweat, father. And afterwards shall they shoot down the moon?"

  "I have another unbeliever, Dathok."

  Suffering from root withdrawal, the pained shaman put his aching head in his hands. “I said your scheme was harebrained, but you wouldn't listen. Maybe the cub will convince you of its utter absurdity."

  "It does have some merit."

  Ahnorr's surprise outweighed Dathok's at hearing his son's turnaround judgment.

  "You realize this is a one-way mission for my Blackbolts. I'll be sending them to their deaths."

  "Expendability, boy—everyone dies."

  "Yes they do, father."

  Troubled by Carlaw's agreeability, Ahnorr curtly said, “Pick carefully from your crew. Any upstarts you wish to be rid of?"

  "Is Dathok free to go?"

  The shaman scowled.

  "School is out for the Blackbolts,” declared Ahnorr. “Make the final selection of the assassination squad then handle their deployment. Choose four, one as a backup pair."

  "Exactly how do you intend getting my two boys over the castle walls?"

  "I'm gonna fly you in."

  Stroking his beard pensively to cover his amazement, Carlaw involuntarily arched his angular eyebrows. His father reveled in his knack of delivering eye-popping surprises with straight-faced aplomb. Perhaps Ahnorr had bargained for magical assistance for his schemed jaunt.

  "Omelchor's put me on a tight schedule. Carlaw, you'll leave at first light and strike eastwards to slip across Fearsome Grey. By the time you near Dalcorne High I'll have a surprise in place for you. Don't fail me, boy. You'll get only one shot at eliminating the threat to our chieftainship. Blow it and your life becomes forfeit too. Dathok, you need to rinse off. Your body odor could bring down a condor."

  Dragged to his feet by Ahnorr's insistence, the shaman stumbled out of the sweathouse after the decisive chieftain, following him around back to dunk himself in the water trough downslope. Grossed out by the jostling naked buttocks saluting him, Carlaw closed his eyes to shut out the disturbing image. He did not budge when the flap lifted as a hulking shadow blocked out the gauzy autumn sun, the escaping steam joining the overcast.

  "He was in my sights. Had you given the signal, I would have taken him out."

  "I commend your loyalty, Rollag. Only now isn't the time. But it'll come. And sooner rather than later.” When Carlaw reopened his eyes his face hardened into a tight grimace of chilling pleasure. “If we play our cards right, a midget monarch will murder Ahnorr for us."

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  Chapter Fifteen

  Maldoch was hopping mad. Well, he would have been if he were not sitting down. The first month of winter was not going terribly well for the spellcaster. He planned to slip quietly into Carallord, conduct his all-important business with the Dwarf king, and be on his way again with the minimum of fuss before the high country became snowed in. Things did not work out that way. No sooner did Maldoch set foot on Carallordian soil in his persona as Sulca the Weatherman he was intercepted and detained by a
company of the Highland Regiments under the banner of the Ironhand Clan from Kahnbri. Their apologetic commander explained he was acting on strict orders from the king himself. Despite his protests the mail-clad warriors summarily escorted the disguised wizard along the entire fortnight-long journey northwest to the Dwarf capital, where he now sat twiddling his thumbs in a waiting room of the king's citadel that had the stark appearance of a cell.

  Lifting up out of a hard chair constructed more for torture than comfort, Maldoch rubbed feeling back into his numbed backside before strolling over to the circular window admitting a generous amount of daylight to the otherwise cheerless room of unheated bluestone. Using the sleeve of his robe to wipe away the condensation misting the horrendously expensive iron-barred glass, he gazed down at the sprawling courtyard below. Squads of soldiers drilled in a corner of the keep on a parade ground covered with a dusting of powdery white courtesy of the night's light snowfall. They seemed to be exercising more for warmth than training purposes, their hearty exhalations frosting in the alpine air. Beyond the high outer wall of the castle the arresting snow-capped mount of Dalcorne High, for which the fortress-city was named, bridged the boundary between land and sky. The summit of Terrath's tallest mountain was shrouded in clouds that lent the angular peak a brooding look. It matched the wizard's mood perfectly.

  Turning at the sound of the latch to the arched door clicking open, the spellcaster greeted a swaggering midget entering the bleak room. “It's about time you showed up, Dalcorne.” Dwarfs were not very imaginative with names.

  King Dalcorne Steelfist the Sixty-ninth bowed slightly and spoke with the brogue peculiar to the Highlanders. “I'm ninety-five years old, Maldoch. I dinna get around as well as I used to."

  "I seriously doubt that,” responded the wizard. “You don't look a day over fifty."

  It was true. The four foot tall, bow-legged monarch possessed still a full head of hair, albeit graying and shaggy like his untidy beard, and a sparsely wrinkled plump face that belied the toughness of the character it fronted.

  "It must be the mountain air,” Dalcorne said blandly.

  "Don't you ever go about unarmed?” critiqued Maldoch.

  The king looked mortified at the suggestion. Looking nothing like a monarch, he was typically dressed to kill wearing a black jerkin studded with metal squares, red leather boots, and a short-handled spiked mace belted about his ample waist. Even in the confines of his fortified residence Dalcorne seldom wandered about not armed to the hilt. It was even rumored he bathed with a rusty axe at his side.

  "Sit a spell, Maldoch,” he invited.

  The wizard gave the ruler a pained look. “Don't think so. I'd be more comfortable parked on a cactus."

  Dalcorne shrugged and took the seat, admitting, “I've never been one for creature comforts."

  It was another visible sign of the warrior mentality suffusing the Dwarven race. Chiseling a nation out of the wild and rocky north, weathering warlike neighbors on their western border, bred the Highlanders incredibly tough with little softness in their menfolk whatsoever.

  "What brings you to my neck of the woods,” the king innocently asked the spellcaster.

  "You did. Or rather you had your goons shanghai me."

  "Maldoch the Magnificent could've escaped anytime he chose to,” refuted Dalcorne, smiling wryly.

  "That would have been the height of bad manners."

  "It has never stopped you before."

  "True, but I need you as an ally still and not my enemy."

  "You seem to be making plenty of those lately,” noted Dalcorne. “The Anaricans doubled the reward they posted for your capture. It's now up to a thousand full govreans."

  "That's what I'm worth?” The wizard sounded disappointed.

  "It's a king's ransom. That's why I put the word out amongst my troops to provide you with an escort—"

  "Is that what you call it."

  "—for wherever and whenever you showed up next in Carallord. There are unfortunately Dwarfs out there who won't think twice about nabbing your alter-ego for that kind of profit."

  "Let them try. I don't need any of your soldiers protecting me."

  "They weren't guarding you,” disputed Dalcorne. “My men were sent to protect any Highlanders rash enough to get in your way. Even the criminal element has the right not to be zapped into oblivion out of hand."

  "Dalcorne, thinking like a king takes all the fun out of life."

  "Believe me, I know. I'd much rather go about brandishing a battleaxe than a quill. Nothing bores me faster than getting bogged down in paperwork. Junior isn't helping matters either. He's busy brokering an extradition amendment to the Treaty of Judicial Punishment between Carallord and Anarica. You're lucky nothing's been signed yet, otherwise I'd be handing you over to Holbyant's coppers just like that.” He snapped his fingers in emphasis.

  "You jest!” raged Maldoch.

  "I'm serious, wizard. This strife you're forecasting is gonna cost me plenty to counter."

  "Carallord enjoys unlimited wealth with her gold, silver, and diamond mines. If by some misfortune a race war eventuates it won't break you."

  "Pah! Money doesn't grow on trees. It comes out of the ground and that takes time and effort. The bounty on your head could be a nice fat contribution to the campaign."

  Maldoch bristled, not entirely sure Dalcorne was joking. “How's the Crown Prince?” he said, adeptly changing topics.

  "Getting more like his mother every day,” bemoaned the king. “I've fathered an entire camall team, all of them bastards out of wedlock bar one. Can you believe it? Twelve male bairns, only one legitimate heir in the whole bunch and he's a namby-pamby!"

  "Careful, father, you're sounding bitter and twisted again."

  Maldoch came away from the window as a middle-aged Dwarf garbed in Anarican styled sky-blue doublet and breeches slipped into the room through the door left slightly ajar. Immaculately groomed, sporting neatly trimmed tawny hair and beard, he carried with him a leather bound book and the air of a scholar. “Good to see you again, Maldoch,” greeted the softly spoken Highlander, limply grasping the lanky spellcaster's hand in his ringed own.

  "And you, Prince Dalcorne,” responded the wizard.

  Talk about confusing! The first ever Dwarf regent, King Harrole Steelfist, honored his father—the original Dalcorne Steelfist—by naming his firstborn son the same and decreeing that all subsequent kings be named likewise. Things accordingly got bamboozling in the palace when three generations of male rulers were in the house, as was currently the case.

  "I see he hasn't offered you refreshments,” Dalcorne Junior slated his father. ‘Etiquette has never been his strong point."

  "Good idea, nipper,” beamed the king. “Go fetch us a pitcher of mead."

  "I'm aware that the physician advised no more strong drink for you. I'll send for tea,” contravened the prince.

  Dalcorne Senior moped in the chair. “Bah! A woman's drink."

  After arranging for a pot of tea to be delivered, Crown Prince Dalcorne reconvened this informal meeting between the wizard and Dwarf royals in his private study: a comfortable room outfitted with a three-piece leather suite, bookshelves crammed with dozens of well-thumbed tomes, and most importantly a brick hearth in one corner. Maldoch instantly sought out the blazing log heater and hogged the front of the fireplace, warming his back. The sulking king laid claim to the sofa.

  "I don't know why he put you in that awful room,” the prince apologized to Maldoch, drawn by the crackling fire after returning his book to its rightful place. “Anyone would think you were his prisoner."

  "He could have been,” muttered the king. “And we could've been a whole lot richer."

  "Money isn't everything."

  "Spoken like a true bookworm, Junior."

  "It's about time that torture chamber you laughingly call your meditation space was properly furnished, father."

  "Don't dare turn that room into a woman's den, laddie! I keep it t
hat way to remind us of our heritage. We're a simple folk and too much of this soft living makes us weak. It does good to endure hardships every so often."

  The prince sighed wearily. “One of these years I will drag you into the seventeenth century, old man."

  Maldoch had heard enough. “Save the family squabble for when I'm gone you two,” he chided. “Is Carallord ready to tackle the Goblins?"

  "She's been ready and waiting for nigh on thirty years,” stated the king. “It's about time we had a good ruckus. Life has been too quiet of late."

  "You're impossible, father!"

  "And you're a wimp, Junior. I should've marched west yonks ago when Carnach was ripe for the taking and kicked the Goblins back into the last epoch."

  Maldoch disapproved. “You would have stood a fairly decent chance of being annihilated."

  "Says you, wizard,” retorted the king, his voice crisp with resentment. “I thought you wrong back then and still do now. The Eastern Realms could've been saved a whole lot of trouble if you'd given me the go ahead to push west and put an end to the skirmishing once and for all."

  "I'm not going to rehash old arguments with you."

  "Please yourself—you always do. Ach, Maldoch, I only want to know when our next crack at the Carnks will be. If I have to wait much longer these achy joints of mine will seize up from old age."

  "All in good time, my bloodthirsty Dalcorne."

  The peeved king found that reply unsatisfactory and jumped to his feet, griping as he left the room, “Do give me a yell when Dwarf muscle is needed. I hate being late for a good scrap,” slamming the door shut behind him.

  Dalcorne Junior sighed and occupied the vacated sofa. “He's off to get drunk,” he said in a bitter tone. “Booze will be the death of him."

  Maldoch sat beside the prince. “Your father's always been pigheaded, but he's a born warrior. We're sorely in need of his type, and soon. I'm betting he'll be sober at the time. Is he up to the task of leading the regiments?"

  "Try stopping him. Though he's been whining that this upcoming clash is arriving fifty years too late, he is relishing the chance to don that rusty, smelly armor of his again."