Fenzig's Fortune_A Gnome's Tale

by Jean Rabe

  “Lady Rehmir! What happened to you?” Grechen stared slack-jawed at the disheveled form of Carmella.

  “Your dress!” exclaimed a doughy human cook behind the gnome.

  “And your hair! Those spider webs!” gushed another. “Where have you been?”

  Carmella offered them a weak smile and cradled a bundle to her chest. The bundle was wrapped in a large swath of her dress—which was now torn off well above her knees.

  “I . . . uh . . . fell,” she settled on. “I went for a walk and I fell. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to sneak up the back stairs and change. Can’t have the guests see me like this.”

  Grechen tsk-tsked at her, and via her necklace, Carmella picked up all manner of lascivious thoughts from the human cooks—who believed she was the victim of an unfortunate turn of a tryst in the stables.

  “The party’s winding down,” Grechen said, as Carmella brushed by. “We’re just about to serve breakfast.”

  Hours, I was downstairs, Carmella thought.

  “Is that blood on your dress?” the doughy cook pried.

  She shook her head and continued. “Grechen,” she added over her shoulder. “Fix some tea for breakfast, would you please? I’ll be down in a moment to help.”

  “Sweet Carm!” Gregory was surprised to see Carmella in her change of clothes—tight black leggings with a brilliant and billowy orange, purple, and rose tunic over the top. It was one of her more conservative Carmen the Magnificent outfits, and the closest garment within her reach in her room. Her hair was a mass of uncombed curls, all of the beads removed and most of the webs brushed away. “Your dress. . . .”

  “Breakfast is about to be served. I wanted to change, get out of all those petticoats. Just too much material.”

  “Of course,” he said, taking her arm and escorting her to the lesser ballroom. “You’d look radiant in anything Carmella.”

  “Why thank you, Gregory.” You simpering liar, she added to herself. The necklace told her he was thinking otherwise, and revealed all manner of thoughts that made her decidedly unhappy. So I’d be quite a catch because of my father’s position? The possibility of him becoming a king? She inwardly groaned and stood next to him, suffered him pulling out the chair for her and placing the napkin on her lap.

  A half-dozen tired servants bustled into the room, bearing trays of shirred eggs, spiced potatoes, bowls of fruit, and pitchers of steaming tea. Carmella took in the remaining guests, who were also obviously tired. Two tables away, the hawk-nosed woman leaned on Duke Rehmir’s arm and looked up at him with starry eyes.

  Carmella shook her head and ate her meal, drank none of the tea that she helped brew and that slowly and methodically put to sleep every one of the gala event’s guests. The cooks in the kitchen would have succumbed by now, too, to her very special tea. Everyone sleeping soundly.

  Except one.

  Duke Rehmir extricated himself from Elsbeth, stood, and glared across the intervening tables.

  “Wasn’t sure if it would work on you, Erlgrane,” Carmella said evenly. “But I hoped.” She rose, carefully concealing a silver-plated knife in the folds of her tunic.

  “You know.”

  “I know some of it. But I’d appreciate if you’d fill in all the details.”

  He backed away from the table, slowly walked toward her. “Unfortunate that you are not so trusting as your sisters.”

  “Not so blind,” she corrected him, backing away to keep what she considered a safe distance.

  “How did you discover my ruse?” He stopped before the last table, leaned forward and brushed his fingers at some crumbs that had spilled on the linen tablecloth. “I had his mannerisms down perfect. And I have his body.”

  “I found your body in the dungeon,” she answered. Carmella shivered when she saw the eyes of her father’s body narrow, his hands clench the edge of the table until the knuckles turned white. “A few questions, and my father told me what you did, told me that . . . .”

  “That when I was dragged down to his cellar and put in chains that I ensorceled the guards, bade them to fetch Duke Rehmir?”

  She nodded and took a deep breath, clutched the knife a little tighter. “That you enspelled him.”

  “Such a simple term for such an elaborate enchantment,” he continued. “I changed bodies with him, left him chained to the wall.”

  “And stuffed a gag in his mouth so no one would learn what you did! Wizard!” She spat the words at him, took another step back when she watched him release the table and resume his course toward her.

  “And enchanted glyphs and sigils to keep people away from him.”

  “Except your guards. Just how many of my father’s people have you ensorcelled, Wizard-King Erlgrane?”

  The portly man stopped a few steps from her, threw back his head and laughed. It was a hollow, haunting laugh, one that her father could never have managed. “Just those I needed,” he said, regaining his composure.

  “Ketterhagen?”

  “The old fool was easy to dominate.”

  “Guards?”

  “Only a handful. Only as many as I needed.”

  “My sisters?”

  “Too weak-minded. It wasn’t necessary. They never questioned me. And soon you won’t question me, either.” The form of Duke Rehmir raised its hands, the fingers of which glowed a sickly green.

  Carmella dropped to the floor just as miniature lightning bolts shot from those hands and cut through the air where she’d been standing. The air instantly stank with the smell of sorcery and burnt paint and plaster. Then she rolled to her right, under the table, as another barrage of the magical lightning struck. The marble tiles where she had been a heartbeat before shattered into white and gray fragments, pelting her and biting into her legs. A heartbeat later and the table above her exploded.

  “The guests!” she screamed as she rolled away and stood to face the man in her father’s body.

  “I’ve killed none of them!” he hissed. “And whatever wounds they have will heal. I only intend to kill you!”

  “And my sisters!” She was reading his mind.

  “In time,” he said evenly, his voice dripping with a malevolence that made her shudder.

  “After you’ve wed, gained more land?”

  “Astute.”

  “After your wife dies. The wealthy, land-owning Elsbeth.”

  “But not before she produces an heir.”

  “She’s too old!” Carmella spat.

  “Magic can do wonders, girl.” His hands glowed again, yellow like the sun, mesmerizing.

  Carmella felt a force hold her in place, invisible bonds that tightened about her legs and arms, that started to tighten about her throat.

  “And when I’ve my offspring,” he continued, “and when my offspring is old enough, I’ll let this body die and inhabit the child. It’s how I live, Carmella, how I’ve lived for centuries. And I will have these lands, the lands Erlgrane held, and all of the Northern Reaches.”

  Carmella struggled futilely, then struggled for breath. He was killing her! She slammed her eyes shut, focused all her energy on undoing his spell. Concentrate! she mouthed. Everything rides on this! Everything!

  She felt herself blacking out, fought it, held onto the last bit of air in her lungs and found the pattern he’d woven in the air. Found it, and began unraveling it. She gasped and dropped to the floor, the magical bands gone.

  “How?”

  “You’re not the only wizard, Erlgrane! And, like you, it’s an avocation I don’t trumpet to the public!” Using her necklace to anticipate his next spell, she slid across the floor and into the hallway beyond, threw her hands over her ears to cover the deafening noise of the ballroom wall collapsing from the force of his magic.

  “Don’t want to harm those people? You don’t care about anyone, Erlgrane!” she scampered down the hall past the entrance to the large ballroom, then retraced her steps and hurried inside. The musicians were gone, sent home when breakfast was served
. No one to hurt in here except her.

  “Erlgrane?” She heard his voice behind her. “Hardly! His was just a convenient body I found at the time my old one was traveling through Erlgrane’s lands years ago.”

  Not Erlgrane? she mouthed. If he’s not Erlgrane, then who is he? She reached into his mind then, probing his thoughts deeply as she ran. She heard his steps echoing in the hallway, slow because of the bulk and age of her father’s body. Taking a deep breath she ran toward the raised dais, dashed behind a curtain and flattened herself against the wall. She forced herself to breathe slowly now, to calm herself and focus on the wizard’s thoughts. He was coming nearer, into this room.

  “Carmella!” He bellowed in her father’s voice. “Come to me and I’ll end your life quickly. There’ll be no pain. You’ll feel nothing. Ah, there you are, girl. Behind the curtain. A scared mouse.”

  The footsteps came closer, and she concentrated on his mind, determined to discover the spell he was hatching and counter it. Closer, closer. Now!

  She dropped to her knees and scampered out from behind the curtain just as it was engulfed in ghastly green flames. In the next instant she thrust out with her arm, jabbing the knife into the wizard’s stomach.

  A look of surprise crossed the man’s face, and Carmella sensed his mind churning with another spell, one that would put his consciousness inside her.

  “No, you don’t!” Tears streamed from her eyes as she jammed the knife in again and again, her mind locked with his thoughts to make sure he didn’t spirit his essence into someone else. She felt his pain, every blow she delivered, felt his sinister force seep away, die. Carmella fell across her father’s body, sobbed until she hadn’t the energy to cry any more.

  Five days later, Carmella sat at the foot of what was to the gnome a very large bed. She was dressed in a plain brown tunic and breeches, very un-Carmen-like, but very functional.

  “Feeling better?”

  The gnome looked at her from beneath the quilted covers, sighed, and finally offered her a slight smile.

  “You’ll have to talk,” she said, pulling her necklace out of a pocket and quickly replacing it. “I’ve had enough of reading minds. Gregory was a cad.”

  “I knew from the first that I didn’t like him,” Fenzig said. “And, yes, I’m feeling much better. How many hours was I out?”

  “Five days, give or take several minutes here and there when the cooks got some broth into you. My father’s healers almost lost you.”

  The gnome paled and his stomach growled loudly. “But I’m gonna be all right?”

  She nodded. “Everyone will be all right.”

  “Your father? I was worried about him, thought you should have carried him up from the dungeon, not me.”

  “He was safer there, while I dealt with Erlgrane, or rather the wizard who’d been Erlgrane.”

  Fenzig cocked his head.

  “You’re right not to trust wizards. A very old and a very powerful one took over Erlgrane’s form when the old king of Burlengren died. The real Erlgrane died in the process.”

  “So the wizard could switch bodies! And that’s what he did with your father!”

  She frowned and nodded. “So the wizard, in Erlgrane’s body, became the new ruler. But Burlengren wasn’t enough for him. He hatched the scheme to marry one of my sisters and take this land, too.”

  “Didn’t work.”

  “No. And when it didn’t, he arranged to fight you on the grounds of my father’s estate, knowing you wouldn’t kill him, that he’d be imprisoned.”

  The gnome’s eyes grew wide. “So he planned it! Knew your father would visit him in the dungeon!”

  “Switched bodies with him then,” Carmella finished.

  “Wow! And set a plan in motion to take these lands and Burlengren.”

  “And land to the west by marrying that woman.”

  The gnome slapped his palm against his head. “No wonder your father had changed, was more ambitious. But everything’s all right now.”

  She rose from the bed and padded to the window, pushed aside the curtain and looked out.

  “Everything’s all right,” he repeated hopefully.

  “It will be.” She pointed toward a spot that Fenzig couldn’t see. “My father’s body is buried there. To kill the wizard I had to. . . .” She didn’t finish. Drawing the curtain, she returned to Fenzig. “But my father lives on in Erlgrane’s body—though the world thinks my father is dead. Younger, healthier, more years ahead of him. And he’s a king now.”

  Fenzig drew his lips into a tight line. “And what about these lands?”

  “My sisters and I, we’ve given these lands to that king, though Elayne is going to manage this estate. It’s all for the best. My father is a wise ruler, will make things good for the people of K’Nosha and Burlengren. Though the people of Burlengren will be amazed at the change in their monarch’s temperament.” She finally smiled. “And he doesn’t have to worry about marrying Elsbeth. She was engaged to a different body. She’s still mourning my father’s death.”

  The gnome wiped his brow in a mock gesture of being relieved. “And what about you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m all right, too, I guess. But I’m not sticking around. Politics, courts, big parties. Not my style. My wagon’s hitched, ready to go.”

  The gnome threw back the covers and gingerly got to his feet, scowled when he saw he was wearing a cutoff and sleeveless Carmen the Magnificent blouse. “I’ll join you.”

  “We’ve got a stop to make first,” she said.

  He followed her from the room. “Yeah, to a tailor. I need some clothes. None of your stuff. No cook’s dresses, either.”

  “All right. But another stop after that. To Graespeck.”

  “You mean what’s left of it.”

  They took a winding staircase downstairs, through a hallway where workmen were busy repairing a wall. Fenzig didn’t ask what had happened, figured Carmella would fill him in when she was ready. He poked his head in the small ballroom, saw shattered marble tile, blackened walls, and wished he hadn’t been in bed when all the action was going on.

  Outside, the Carmen the Magnificent wagon waited, with Summer tied behind it. Carmella somehow knew he’d want to go with her/. Nearby were a dozen larger wagons, all filled with lumber and various building supplies.

  “For Graespeck?” the gnome asked happily.

  “Father insisted you receive a reward for helping put everything in order. If it hadn’t been for you, we might have never learned that the wizard had switched bodies with him.”

  “A reward?”

  “Well, I knew you’d refuse, off course. Especially since you said you’d never go below the palace again. And that’s where the treasure room is.”

  “But. . . .”

  “So I accepted the reward for you.”

  “But I might have. . . .”

  “I took enough gems to cover all of this.” She swept her arm to indicate the caravan. “And the dozen wagons loaded with supplies that left yesterday.”

  “Another dozen?”

  “Well, twenty actually. Eight carried all the gnomes who’d been staying in K’Nosha.”

  “Twenty?”

  “The builders I hired had their own wagons.”

  “Builders?”

  “From the Northern Reaches. Nothing but the best.”

  Fenzig swallowed hard. “That . . . all of that . . . cost a fortune.”

  “No small fortune to be sure. I bought the best material available, too, with your reward. Your friends are very happy. And your father and Apple-Pie Annie are supervising everything. Leonard Smithson. . . .”

  “Smithsward,” he corrected her.

  “Is helping, too. So you should be very proud. Your fortune was very well spent. I even got something out of it.”

  Fenzig didn’t ask. He stared at the wagons. My fortune, he mouthed.

  “Recipes, formulas. Hundreds. Your gnome friends gave me everything they’d committed to m
emory. Hand creams, skin moisturizers, cold remedies, hair tonics, wart removers, toothache soothers, toenail strengtheners, flu cures, snakebite antidotes, fixes for diseases and rashes I’ve never heard of. Fenzig, you and I will be rich.”

  My fortune, he mouthed again. The prosperity I’d coveted. My prosperity!

  “I kept just enough gems to cover the cost of all the ingredients, some new clothes—we’ll have to get something flashy for you, some traveling expenses.”

  He numbly climbed onto the wagon, still favoring his sore shoulder.

  “I’ve just enough magical paint left to add your name to the wagon.” She beamed and climbed up beside him and grabbed the reins, flicked the wrists and set the caravan into motion. “I was thinking about calling you Fenzig the Fantastic.”

  “It’ll do,” the gnome replied. “Nothing too flashy to wear, okay?” He jiggled the lapel of his shirt. “I don’t like to stand out.”

  “Some purples and reds?”

  “Grays.”

  “How about dark blue with some beads sewn on?”

  “Blacks.”

  “We’ll see.” She gently nudged him in the side and grinned broadly.

  He smiled back. Fenzig the Fantastic? he thought to himself. Yes, indeed. I kind of like the sound of that.

  THE END

  About the Author

  USA Today bestselling author Jean Rabe has written more than three dozen mystery, adventure, and fantasy novels, and a many short stories. When she’s not writing, which isn’t often, she edits ... upwards of two dozen anthologies and more magazine issues than she cares to count. She’s a former news reporter and news bureau chief who penned a true crime book with noted attorney F. Lee Bailey. She lives in central Illinois near three train tracks that provide “music” to type by, and she shares her home with dogs, a noisy parrot, and angel fish. Visit her website: www.jeanrabe.com.

  Also by Jean Rabe

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