Monsters and Magicians

by Robert Adams

  Then he chuckled. "Sorry, I do get preachy sometimes, don't I?"

  She smiled. "No more than Fitz or my shooting instructor, Pedro, and I appreciate it, I really do; feminism is all well and good, but a woman who really likes men also usually likes being looked after, it's just the nature of the beast, I guess.

  "I'll tell you, I'll drive out to the house this weekend—I'd thought about doing that anyway—and I'll look around for that pistol and the ammunition for it. Can you show me at least a picture of one so I'll know what I'm looking for, Pedro?"

  He nodded. "Can do, lady. I've got some gun books at home; 111 bring one in tomorrow. One of the best things about the PPK is that you can safely carry a round chambered in it, release the safety and fire off the first load double-action, no need to have

  to use your other hand to pull back the slide, as with your little Browning.

  "Oh, and Danna, you'd better get in touch with Fitz, too, this week sometime, if you can. I just may need to talk with him soon."

  Danna grimaced. "Blutegel?"

  "No." The man shook his head. "The I.R.S. thing is still hovering over Fitz, of course, but we've done about all that we can for the nonce. I still wouldn't advise him to make a big public thing of coming back to this country if he does come back, but Blutegel's superiors now know that certain monies are in an escrow account, so they're not as likely to get a federal warrant for Fitz as once they were.

  "No, this is a new can of worms that's unexpectedly popped open, Danna, or rather an old can that's showing new life after a lengthy hiatus . . . and I just may have been part of the reason it's now reraised its ugly head."

  "What in the world are you talking about, Pedro?" she asked. "How could you have gotten Fitz into more trouble?"

  "Simple," he replied. "Completely unintentional, of course; I like everyone else thought that the U.S. Customs-Interpol aspect was over and done, long ago. But it now appears that the powers that be in those two groups have never been completely sold on the Irish provenance of the gold coins and those artifacts, and my recent release of that batch of coins Fitz had had hidden in his freezer in that bucket of stewed squid has set them off again.

  "The first I knew of it was when a Customs agent, one Evan Stilton, rang me up earlier today, asking

  Fitz's whereabouts. I told him the usual, that Fitz was on safari, whereupon he demanded to know exactly where he was hunting, saying that an Interpol type could question him wherever he was. They want, it develops, to search the house and grounds— the grounds in particular, or so it sounds—but they want to do it with Fitz's permission, sans a warrant."

  "Looking for what?" she queried, blank-faced. "As Fitz tells it, the first bunch of them broke into that house on at least two occasions and searched it rather thoroughly on both visits. And why the grounds? The only thing that can't be seen clearly from almost any point outside the back fence is the interior of Fitz's fallout shelter, that and the crawlspace under the house itself."

  "Beats me," he shrugged. "But my experience with these lands of bureaucrat is to try to at least give the appearance of bowing to their requests before they reach the stage of demands, no matter how petty, silly, meaningless or quasi-illegal those requests might seem to be. I told him that, although I was not at all certain just which country Fitz currently was in, I could arrange for him a meeting with the owner-in-fact of the property. He has an appointment with me, here, for tomorrow at two. He mentioned that he would be bringing along a couple of his professional colleagues. We'll get them in here, hear them out, then take us a little stroll through their minds and find out just what they're really up to—what they know, what they think they know, what they suspect, what they hope to find out by searching that place out there in the county.

  "And, recalling the last bunch of these types, should

  we find that they're up to something other than official business . . . ? Ah, then you and I just might play us a little psionic game or three with them, Danna."

  Even as the dragon rushed from its place of concealment, hissing, tooth-studded jaws agape, Kaoru's katana left its case and the tip of its blade took the reptile—which had chosen to attack on all four feet, in this instance—directly across the hinges of both sides of the jaws, severing the powerful tendons there as well as deeply gashing the ultra-sensitive tongue, but even as the beast screamed and swerved its hard-lashing tail took the man's bare legs from under him and he fell, his head coming into contact with a rounded boulder half buried in the soil, whereupon his mind became a momentary blur of bright red, then a blank nothingness.

  In his aerie up in the towering oak tree, Fitz willed himself to fly to the assistance of the now-unconscious Japanese officer, for he knew that the lizard or dragon or whatever was not anything approaching dead and, although only about ten or twelve feet long, could doubtless still do fatal damage to the senseless and near-naked body of the little man. He willed, but nothing happened, nothing at all.

  "Damn me for a fool!" he thought, furiously, then began to strip himself of the iron and steel items. His next mental willing worked and, pausing only long enough to lift the drilling in one hand by its leather-and-brass sling, he sped through the air in the direction of the imperilled officer.

  Among all the laboring, blood-smeared Japanese

  infantrymen, only Company Sergeant Kiyomoto saw the flying man . . . and his heart seemed to stop. Then, dropping the wakizashi and grasping the haft of the ancient bronze axe, he shouted exultantly, "He has come! The god has come! We must go and greet him!" Then he set off along the stream bank at a dead run.

  The men just looked at one another, then dropped their work and their implements, retrieved their spears and followed in the noncom's wake. None of them could imagine what his strange shouts had been all about, but he was the sergeant and if he said to follow him, then that was clearly their duty.

  Cool Blue had not had to go far. In the next vale over from that Fitz was even then following westward, he had encountered Sir Gautier and had very nearly been speared by one of the Norman's retainers into the bargain. The knight had found six of these—every one of them scruffier and smellier than the one before, the blue lion had thought, disgustedly.

  Giving Sir Gautier Fitz's instructions, the lion had seen the Normans well on their way toward the rock shelter, then had set himself to hunting for flesh to fill his gaping void of a belly. This day he had been successfiil, and more quickly than he had even hoped. Then, with his belly full of hot meat and blood, he had valiantly resisted the almost overpowering impulse to lie up somewhere and take a lengthy snooze; instead, he had set off after the Norman knight and his stinky retainers as fast as an overstuffed, basically lazy, baby-blue lion could travel, consoling himself with the thought that the Normans would doubtless

  camp at the cache overnight and he could sleep there.

  He was wrong. The knight and his men, with so much daylight yet remaining and who knew just how far to go to catch up with Fitz, had divided the load and set out following the blazed trees. Indeed, Cool Blue never even got back to the rock shelter, for as he had come down into the vale up which Fitz had travelled, he had smelled, then heard the Normans headed west along the vale and set out after them.

  Night had come on them still in the vale and they had camped there, dining well on fish from the burn, a plentitude of snails and an abundance of plant foods. At dawn, they had set out once more, guided by the white slash-marks on the tree trunks, and at the moment that the man they sought was flying to the defense of a man he had never really met, the seven Normans and the big blue cat had arrived atop the waterfall-cliff.

  Kneeling, Sir Gautier used the butt of a spear to test the weight-bearing capacities of several of the spray-slickened boulders that projected from the vine-covered face of the cliff, but two out of five, when subjected to any meaningful amounts of pressure, pulled from out their seats to fall in a shower of damp earth and bounce down into the deep bed of pine tags below.

  "We c
ould always try joining our sword-girdles, I suppose," the knight mused dubiously, "but I doubt me that a mere seven girdles would own the span to lower a man far enough that he not still suffer sorely upon dropping the remaining distance. What think you, Master Lion?"

  Gazing down the face of the cliff, Cool Blue beamed, "Like I could prob'ly jump down okay; it down look like no more than 'bout forty feet, you dig? But any you cats try that way, you gon' be like crawling the resta the way. Must be a way 'round it, but how far is all, you know."

  Just then, a short, squat, but muscular towhead tugged at his forelock and addressed the knight, saying, "My lord, know you not this place? Down in that pine grove is where we first found us when we were chasing the camel up that stone-dry wadi . . . and it please my lord."

  The knight suddenly struck his fist into his thigh so hard that Cool Blue winced. "Of course! I must be losing my memory. Well done, Rollo, well done! And if it be so, then ..."

  With Sir Gautier leading the way, the Normans and the lion retraced their way far enough upstream to be able to wade across the rushing, icy burn, then proceeded back down the opposite bank to the north side of the falls. Here the cliff-top was rocky and uneven, and it grew higher the farther north they went.

  "Man," protested the blue lion, "like not even me in this like lion getup could jump down that far. You guys wanta try it, like go right ahead, but them iron tee-shirts and steel pots ain't gonna help you like one damn bit, you know. But if you like do it, at least I won't have to do no huntin' for a while, is all, you

  dig?-

  "No need to remind me that you do not stick at eating the flesh of good Christian men, you heathen beast," said Sir Gautier. "Were we not both sworn

  retainers of our puissant Lord Fitz, I'd certainly set upon you with spear, axe and my good sword."

  "Any time, buddyroll," replied the lion, "any-fiickin'-time, 'cause like you know, you and them stinkpots of yours ain't my idea of good cats to do no gig with, neither. But forgetting that, you got any real idea how the fuck we gonna get down this mutha, man?"

  The knight nodded. "If in truth this is the place wherein we—me and mine—did arrive in these climes, and not merely some place than beareth a resemblence to it, then there is a way. I need but seek out and rediscover it, then we . . . Aha!"

  When at last the seven men had carefully and very laboriously descended the height by way of a copse of pines that grew hard against the cliff-face, they were running sweat and Cool Blue—he having made his way back across the burn and jumped down from the spot where the cliff was much lower—was waiting for them.

  As the men dropped their loads and their weapons, first to drink deeply and long from the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, then to sprawl out on the soft bed of pine tags, the lion lied to Sir Gautier.

  "Look, man, like we should oughta be catching up to Fitz soon, and like he told me was you to find any your boys and bring them along, you know, it was plenty of soap and shampoo and all in that pack and he wanted them and you to be clean, like you know. And like this here's as good a place as any with that there pool and all, you know. Humans smells bad enough when they're like clean. You dig? You and your bunch, man, I've smelled dead skunks had been rotting out in the sun and was full of worms and maggots smelled better'n you do, now."

  "I knew there was soap, Master Lion," replied the knight, a bit stiffly, "I smelled its exotic fragrance when first I did gape the pack and right gladly will I relish that cool water upon my body. The men now . . . ? Well, they all are good retainers, obedient and loyal; they will do my will, obey my dictates, even if not at all happily, to begin."

  Because the other two-legged, warmblooded prey-beast seemed to have fled, the huge, scaley predator forgot about it, for there was meat to fill its belly in the one that his lashing tail had felled. Approaching its stunned and immobile prey, the lizard sent out its long, forked blue-black tongue to explore the full length of the meal-to-be. When still it made no move to either fight or flee, the predator moved in closer still, close enough for teeth to close in the warm, soft, unsealed flesh of the helpless creature . . . but they would not. Try as the nightmare monster might, strain as it might to bite down, all that the beast accomplished was to cause itself increasing degrees of pain and accelerated blood-loss in the jaw-tendons and muscles almost severed by the shrewd, circular slash of the long, sharp katana.

  The reptile backed off, hissing its rage and frustration at being unable to even begin to consume so much fresh, hot meat. Lacking the reasoning-abilities of even the most primitive mammalian brain, the monster could not understand why it could no longer snap its toothy jaws shut, so once again it sent the long tongue out to examine its "kill," relishing the feel-taste of the hot, red blood flowing from the scalp which had impacted with the stump of tree-bole.

  Then, suddenly, its senses told it that another of the prey-creatures had appeared nearby; hissing, it spun about to face the menace to its ownership of the meat.

  Fitz held the weapon suspended by the leather sling and made sure that both his feet were planted firmly on the ground before his skin came into contact with any steel portion of the drilling, cursing himself the while for bringing it rather than the more powerful though shorter-range magnum, for none of the three loads in the drilling was designed for anything approaching dragon-slaying. The most he could hope to do with one load of birdshot, one of rabbit-shot and a single round of .22 Magnum was to distract the beast, possibly—with extreme luck—blind it and keep it away from the unconscious Japanese officer long enough to himself get possession of the sword . . . And then what? It was not a familiar weapon to him, he'd just have to do his best. But had he had the foresight to bring the heavy revolver instead, now . . . ?

  "And if a bullfrog had wings," he muttered fiercely to himself, "he wouldn't bump his arse so much!"

  A blast from the first barrel resulted in a pulpy, bloody mess where the monsters left eye had been and evoked an immediate roar of rage and pain, but Fitz doubted if it accomplished much else, for only a stroke of unimaginable luck could have propelled enough of those tiny pellets into the brain to do any good in permanently downing the long, massive reptile. But if he could somehow get the other eye, as well . . .

  Arm-long, blue-black forked tongue flickering in

  and out of a mouth that was running bright blood, with a lower jaw that seemed crookedly and incompletely closed, the scaley predator turned its head and still-functioning eye in the direction of the creature its tongue-sensors detected.

  As he observed its actions, Fitz wondered if the giant reptile's tongue might be its principal sensory organ. 'The driller's other barrel is birdshot-loaded" he thought, "and it has a more open choke than the first one; that tongue has no scales to protect its surface, so the pellets will do a lot more damage to it than they could against its hide. If it doesn't do any good I can always try to put the twenty-two into the other eye, shouldn't be a difficult shot at this range, either."

  Waiting until the deeply-forked tongue was again exposed, Fitz snapped off the second barrel. This time, the hissing-roar had to it a fluid, gargling quality. When the tongue was thrust out again, the left lobe of its fork was dangling, attached to the tongue's base only by shreds of bleeding, lacerated flesh. Abruptly, the reptile rose onto its thicker hind legs and took a long step toward its attacker, clawed forefeet extended, long tail suddenly whipping at the legs of its small adversary.

  Reflecting that just such a stroke had felled the Japanese officer, Fitz dropped the drilling and willed himself up into the air high enough that the thick, whiplike tail went swishing beneath the soles of his boots. Then he will himself off to the side, partly to escape the monster's charge, partly to secure for himself the young officer's katanga, it surely being of more value just now than a single round of .22 Mag-

  num could be. That such intimate proximity to the steel blade would render him irrevocably earthbound so long as he held it was something that he must simply bear with.
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br />   "What I need," he thought to himself, "is weapons of some non-ferrous metal—copper, brass, bronze, like that. I recall they used to fabricate guns out of brass and bronze, 'gunmetaT was even the word for bronze, I think. I wonder if it would be strong enough to use for a modern Magnum? I'll have to ask Danna or Pedro to check that out for me, that and run down somebody who'll undertake to make me some edge-weapons of bronze, brass, anything that will hold a decent edge and doesn't contain any iron or steel."

  Furious that the two-legged interloper was on the verge of taking possession of its "kill," frustrated in the fact that its fearsome jaws no longer seemed to work and that not even the shrewdest swipes of its muscular tail had connected, maddened by the pain of its many wounds, the reptile again reared up onto its hind legs and lunged to renew the attack, clawed forelegs extended, its hissings projecting a fine spray of blood before it.

  Had his perspective been less perilous, Fitz would have pitied the monster. Of necessity, it was canting its head in order to get maximum use of its one remaining eye, it seemed to be having trouble in controlling its long tongue—the once-smooth, once-rapid movement of that sensory organ was now jerky and perceptibly slower—and the nearly-severed muscles at the corners caused the lower jaw to gape quite widely open, so that the beast's movements increased blood-loss and undoubtedly produced grind-

  ing agonies as well. But even so, the scaled-down tyrannosaurus rex, with its blocky head and its dangling, blood-dripping dewlaps of scaley skin came on.

  Fitz knew that there was great danger, in trying to protect the unconscious young Japanese officer. Yes, he had been a fair swordsman in college, years ago, but with foil and ep6e—point-weapons, both of them—not with the saber. Therefore, this Japanese katanga (at best, a two-handed saber) did not naturally lend itself to his grasp, it felt odd, unwieldy, point-heavy and ill-balanced. Yet the lieutenant's handling of the weapon had looked to Fitz like pure, fluid motion, steel-poetry, and he now sought desperately to recall just how the officer had set about using the antique sword.