Wizard's Goal

by Alan J. Garner

  The Keeper was not keen. “She no like the cold. Hard leaves grow."

  "Stress to her that by doing so she'll be saving the Elves from extermination."

  "That's a wild exaggeration,” disputed Terwain.

  Pointing dynamically at Garrich, Maldoch avowed, “That boy holds greater importance than the air we breathe. Without him, the world as we know it will change for the worse. If he dies, the Elves and their darling wood perish with him. Tell her all that, Garond. If she doesn't make Oaken Grove colder, I can't save this one Goblin, who will in turn preserve everything Elven."

  Brazenly overstating his case to get his own way, the wizard's gamble paid off. Wrapping a bobbing tendril about his waist, Garond conveyed Maldoch's bleak prediction to the Shadult Greenthe. Her starry leaves rippling in response, a noticeable chill crept into the air.

  "Get the tree to make it as cold as she dares,” Maldoch exhorted Garond, “and she'll have to release her grip on the Goblin as well. I have magic of my own to perform."

  The mystical plant complied on both counts. Those branches meshed into Garrich's sickbed unraveled and recoiled from the gathering coldness, retreating up into the leaved sheath formed by the topmost boughs. The temperature plummeted as winter seeped into Oaken Grove, the mantle of the normal trees speedily changing hue from effervescent green to lifeless yellow prior to falling away as leafy rain to litter the grass carpet, moist with sudden dew.

  Prilthar openly frowned. “What have you got up your sleeve, magician?"

  "My arm,” Maldoch lamely replied, stepping up to the plate to work his magic. Dusting off a cobwebbed spell that had not seen the light of day for centuries, the conjuring wizard muttered incoherently after cuing himself from the string of runes inscribing his staff. Ice granules began coating Garrich, forming on his shallow rising chest and spreading towards his head and feet to the sound of faint crinkling. The youth's tremors and breathing slowed, eventually stilled, as the rime gradually crystallized into a solid block, encasing the Goblin in frozen transparency.

  "You've iced him!” marveled Prilthar.

  Attached to his talkie tether, Garond hobbled forward to knock enquiringly on the Goblin ice-block. “He be dead?"

  "Preserved,” amended Maldoch. “Freezing Garrich is the only way of keeping him alive long enough to treat him. Luckily I remembered the incantation for frozen foods."

  Terwain's reaction to the Goblin forestalling death was lukewarm, much like the dropping temperature. “I bet you are wanting to ride all the way to the Great Desertland to borrow Tahriana's Leaf from the Trolls,” he presumed.

  The wizard nodded. “Something along that line."

  "And all this cold?” shivered the nippy old Elf.

  "To prevent the boy melting before my return.” Hailing Prilthar, Maldoch charged him with continuing Garrich's care during his absence.

  "Like he was my own,” promised the healer.

  "You don't have any kids,” Terwain muttered vulgarly.

  "Thank your mistress for me!” Maldoch shouted at the Keeper.

  "Why for spank a dress?” the near-deaf caretaker misheard.

  "The queen will be told of your gratitude,” said her adviser.

  Maldoch set Terwain straight. “I was referring to the tree."

  Sensing the wizard's indebtedness, the Shadult Greenthe dipped a branch and touched his forehead in acknowledgement, flooding Maldoch with a sensation of personal responsibility for the frosty Goblin. Garond tugging insistently at the spellcaster's cloak broke the connection.

  "Dragonweed. Me want to know more, wizard. Plants alive they are. Be they like Shadow Greenie?"

  Maldoch indulged the curious Keeper before hustling the royal counselor along. “Smaller, meaner, and mobile. Back to Lothberen we go, Terwain. You've got to jack up a ride for me."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Maldoch's ride turned out to be a stroppy Reypt steed that went by the disconcerting name of Eggcrusher. Merainor joined the dubious wizard at the pens where the mounts for the small scale Elf cavalry were corralled next to a grassy paddock of cleared forestland ritualistically felled to construct the newfangled lifestyle bungalows yet to gain widespread acceptance in the stodgy community. In the bright noonday sunshine the petite Elf Queen seemed smaller than usual beside the slatted timber fence caging a flock of giant, flightless birds.

  Horses in Terrath stayed confined largely to the midwestern plains, never migrating to the heavily forested Deep South, thereby leaving those profusely shaded woods free to be colonized by the vastly different ratites. Starting out turkey-sized, these wingless birds long ago lost their power to fly, leaping in size and weight to the present day leviathans strutting fearlessly through the bracken undergrowth due to the absence of large woodland predators. The Garvians were by far the biggest of the three species, attaining ten and a half feet in height and some 600 lbs in gross weight. Bodies were feathered in long, soft quills drably shaded in hues ranging from camouflaging russet to inconspicuous grey. Glaringly naked, but sporting dangly blue wattles, their flexible necks were carried in a relaxed S-shaped pose, and mounted an elegantly curved triangular bill on a laughingly tiny head in relation to the vaster bulk. That miniscule head happened to be set with incessantly curious eyes below a two-pronged, purple-skinned casque. The powerfully built legs were bare too, from the pinkish, muscled thighs down to slender three-toed feet that gave these running birds their legendary turn of speed. Impossibly heavy now to get airborne, even if their ancestors had retained more than the vestigial wings evolution reduced them to, the Garvians could outpace the fastest Strantharian racehorse should a speed test ever be arranged between beast and bird.

  A deep-throated chugga-chug boomed from the prancing peacock penned on his own. Maldoch jumped back from the wood railing an instant before a solid kick from the titanic ground bird sent splinters flying and the fence slat vibrating with a pained hum.

  "Boisterous fellow,” commented the wizard, smoothing his ruffled cloak.

  Merainor grinned at him. “I find most males that short tempered."

  The Reypt was certainly spirited. The male half of the Garvians rose another three feet over the heads of their hens, aided by a foot-high flamboyant crest of red feathers that came erect whenever the cocks got excitable. Which was often. It was a garish crown in sharp contrast to the reserved V-shaped combs of bone that helmeted the hens. There were other dissimilarities to distinguish the sexes aside from size and headgear. The neck wattles embellishing the Reypt were dramatically longer and intensely bluer, while the broad, sinisterly hooked beak was a sure indicator of an omnivorous diet, as opposed to the purely vegetarian pickings that fuelled the Garvians, and was perhaps the most extreme case of sexual dimorphism to be found in the animal kingdom ... if you discounted Dragons, which is a given since they are extinct. Temperament was also a divider, the docile hens at distinct handling odds to the aggressive cocks. What the divergent sexes did share was a fearsome spike on the innermost toe and a reputation for viciously kicking out at anything the birds considered threatening. The cocks naturally put the boot in with gusto.

  "Have you time for that chat before taking off?” Merainor asked Maldoch. Terwain had dutifully kept his mistress abreast of the developments before excusing himself to arrange transportation for the wizard.

  "For you, anything,” the spellcaster congenially replied. “You're the daughter I never had, Merainor ... only shorter."

  The Elf Queen smiled politely. “I won't allow my people to be bullied into war."

  "Don't beat around the bush, queenie. Just come right out with what you want to say."

  "We Elves kept our noses well out of the northern disputes with the quarrelsome Losther. How Men and Dwarfs deal with their western neighbors is not our concern. It is my opinion that we continue sticking to the same policy of nonintervention."

  "Then you shouldn't have signed the Western Transgression Alliance."

/>   "I can't write, so technically I didn't."

  "Don't split hairs, girlie. X marks the spot as good as putting your name to a document."

  "At your urging,” the queen recalled. “You said the alliance was meant to keep Carnach in line by presenting a united front."

  "I hoped it would. Unfortunately, it backfired and has become a red rag to a Carnachian bull."

  "Then perhaps this tree should keep its leaves out of the gale."

  "You can't bury your head in the sand like a Garvian,” remonstrated Maldoch.

  "That's an old wives tale, Magnificent One."

  "Wouldn't know. I've never had an old wife.” Offering Merainor his arm, the wizard strolled down the fence line. “Ahrianna appreciated the value of having friends on the outside."

  "She was queen over seven hundred years before me!"

  "And I'll give you the same advice I gave her back then. Gwilhaire is geographically isolated. It doesn't need to be cut off culturally too."

  "Jeiannah thought and taught the same. She did reinstate tenuous relations with Anarica after three centuries of giving them the cold shoulder following that insensitive request from Men for milling rights to our beloved oaks."

  "Your predecessor was a wise woman."

  "And a good teacher. There is much violence in the northlands. I've no wish to expose my people to that unpleasantness further than they already have been."

  "That decision is out of your hands, my girl. The Goblins are feeling frisky in a big way and they don't make nice playmates. I've never been able to figure out why there is so much enmity between your two races over and above the usual discord Good coexisting with Evil generates."

  "I can't stand brussel sprouts,” Merainor strangely informed him. “The disgusting look and smell of them is most off-putting. That's not to say I loathe them enough to stop anyone else from eating them. I merely prefer not to have them dished up on my plate. The Losther fall into the same category."

  "Every Elf Queen I've known, which by the way is all of them, has made light of the unexplained connection between the Goblins and the Elves in terms of looks. Pointy ears and skewed eyebrows aren't exactly commonplace. Come clean, Merainor. What's the gist?"

  "The resemblance is superficial, a mere coincidence. Shave your beard off, yellow your hair, and even you'd pass for an Elf. But only if you came up with an anti-wrinkling spell."

  "Don't be nasty,” chided Maldoch, dropping the prickly subject.

  Fishing inside his robes, he laid his hands on a small scroll and passed it to the fretting queen. She courteously scanned the meaningless jumble of runes. Elves recorded orally in song and verse. Letters were considered a crude way of giving sound two-dimensional form and disdained by the musically inclined Treesingers.

  "Not every northlander is a crazed lumberjack embarked on a chopping spree,” said the wizard. He gestured to the unreadable parchment in her petite hands. “That's a request from the Prince of Men to make friends and come over to his house to play."

  "Isn't Jannus a smidgen long in the tooth for parlor games?"

  "His son's not. Jannus died a few years back."

  "Men flower and wither so quickly. I don't recall his heir's name."

  "Lindan. Fine boy, despite his obsession with restraints,” supplied Maldoch. “He's coping better than expected, considering he inherited a screwed up princedom and a looming race war."

  "An international struggle is truly getting underway?"

  "Seems about to. You can understand my difficulty at obtaining a Goblin itinerary.” Merainor rolled the diplomatic overture up into a tight ball and sighed. “It seems like only yesterday when scuffling up north ceased for the first time in ages."

  "Thirty years have elapsed since the borders were sealed, my dear.” The wizard hummed sympathetically. “Time gets away from us all."

  "Cannot peace be maintained?"

  "Some badness is inevitable, no matter how hard you work at preventing it."

  Not entirely convinced, she nevertheless asked, “What do you want from me, Maldoch?"

  "Nothing much,” he offhandedly said. “One national champion by the time I get back. That's all. For now."

  "I'll see what I can scrounge up. Anything else you need ... a seedling from the Royal Maple, the life song from my throat?"

  "Mockery doesn't become you. Since you ask, the Horn of Dunderoth would be peachy."

  Swinging Maldoch around, Merainor started ambling back to the splintered section of fence behind which Eggcrusher was calmly cropping the lush grass. “Terwain was wrong to reveal its theft to you,” she said, admitting all with that single sentence.

  "Bit hard to hide a treasured relic being nicked. Don't get your bloomers in a twist, Elf Queen. Your secret is safe with me ... and the wizards, probably my witch of an ex, as well as the whole Goblin nation.” A rueful laugh escaped from the spellcaster. “I forgot to include the rest of Terrath. I'm pretty sure my ears picked up a horn blaring mightily a while back."

  "The Losthers have used it then."

  Shrugging, Maldoch was philosophical. “A lute should be strummed, a horn blown. What's happened is done. We need to move on. You can't expect the Elves to live in a box, walled away from the nastiness of the world. There is an alliance to honor, remember."

  Merainor could never forget her trip to the Bridgewater War Convention to cement defense ties with her Eastern Realms partners. The one hundred and twenty fourth year into her reign, the coach ride there in a brougham loaned by the Alberion prince satisfied a longstanding yen on her part since a little girl to see what lay beyond the trees of home. Never before had an Elf Queen forsaken the forest haven of Gwilhaire Wood to go sightseeing in the Anarican countryside. Arriving late, she missed the brokering wizard called away on some mystical errand. Her boldness, factored in with beauty and brains, ignited friendlier relations with the stumpy Dwarfs and arrogant Men, only to be doused by Eroc's colored perceptions and Terwain's bootlicking apathy. Nobody likes to shake a tree, lest a rotten apple falls off to brain you.

  Keen to rekindle the queen's dormant amity, Maldoch pressured her. “If Garrich makes it, he'll be the key to bringing about an end to hostilities between East and West. However, he can't do it alone and that's why I'm recruiting a helper and tool from each of the Fellow Races to give him a hand. Furthermore, if our little fellowship is to have any chance of succeeding, the sovereignties must buy them time and that entails mucking in to fight this dirty holding action together. Are you in?"

  Persuasion was one of Maldoch's middle names, but Merainor looked unconverted. “I'm curious. How did you hook up with your Goblin?"

  "He kind of fell into my lap,” the wizard said evasively. “In or out?"

  The undecided Elf Queen unexcitedly threw her flowery crown into the ring, with the proviso, “Defending Gwilhaire only. I made the pledge to support the scrap against wickedness to protect my forest holdings on the understanding that the Elves never become the aggressor. We'll come to the party as promised, but only in defense of Elven woodlands."

  "Good enough for me"’ expressed the wizard, patting her slender arm. “You won't regret it."

  "I already do. You've been pulling the strings all along, Maldoch. Luring me out to Bridgewater by playing on my curiosity, having my mark put to the Western Transgression Alliance when you knew beforehand that a race war darkened the horizon, and neglecting to keep the Elves in the loop. What a deplorable deception."

  Maldoch did not give a fig. “I had no other way to get you green-thumbed pacifists to sign on for the biggest punch up in history."

  Eggcrusher's guttural call put paid to further recrimination. Maldoch stared uneasily at the big bird as they neared the point in the fence where the cock tried to kick the wizard's head in. “His name is a pun, right? Like calling a Troll Tiny."

  Merainor shook her silver highlighted tresses. “That bad boy lives up to his name."

  The wizard made his reluctance clear. “I'm not being towed by hi
m all the way to Rift Dale."

  "Don't get your staff knotted up. The Reypt prove too unmanageable to use for haulage and are kept only for breeding purposes. Eggcrusher has the habit of scrambling the clutches he fathers, so is removed from his flock of hens as soon as he's ... finished his business.” Elvish prudishness was at times a good match for Dwarven promiscuity.

  "I thought you lot are into natural propagation."

  "Even wild grapes are trained to grow on a straight vine,” Merainor cleverly analogized.

  A hail from across the way announced Terwain coming through the double gates on the far side of the pen adjoining Eggcrusher's private space. The venerable Elf was in the company of three others outfitted in sleeveless vests and leather pants, two of which were shouldering molded timber saddles with abnormally high pommels, while the third sported a crook of unpolished walnut. The flocking hens scattered at their approach, agitating the Reypt next-door into a display of challenging chugs and neck bobbing. The Elf with the crook rapped the top rail of Eggcrusher's enclosure sharply with the crescent-headed staff, instantly quieting the disturbed cock, which gave an indignant squawk before sauntering off to resume grazing.

  The party finished crossing the corral without incident as Terwain called out, “Time for your riding lesson, Maldoch."

  The wizard was mortified. “I assumed we'd be carted to Jarde in a buggy."

  "My birds don't take too kindly to wearing tack,” the crook-holding Elf informed Maldoch.

  Terwain made the necessary introductions. “This is Bortalth and his sons, the finest Garvian handlers this side of Anabrithe Waters."

  "Don't be so modest, Terwain. I'm the best in all of Gwilhaire."

  Bortalth possessed the goods to match his shameless boast. His brawny arms and strapping legs might have been grafted on to his sinewy frame as an afterthought, but on looks alone he could wrestle a redwood to the ground. His two boys were equally husky, the knowledgeable wizard glimpsing in all three a throwback to far earlier times. The identically faced brothers especially captured Maldoch's interest. Twins were a rarity amongst the Elves, so Bortalth's striking sons enjoyed a certain amount of local fame and attention from the ladies.