Weasel's Luck

by Michael Williams

  “For neither Agion nor your brother saw what happened next, as I bent above one of the dead satyrs for a closer look at our enemy. Agion claims that nothing happened next.”

  “That nothing changed, Sir Bayard,” the centaur interrupted, folding his arms across his chest. “Nothing, that is, save the look upon thy countenance, which liked to frighten me, thou wert so taken in thy disbelief and horror.”

  “Agion,” Bayard explained, “did not see the satyr turn into a goat.” The Knight sat, drew his knife, and ran his finger lightly over the blade.

  “It was as if death had unmanned him,” he said finally, staring once more into the fire. “As though the dying had taken all humanness from its body, leaving only goatish, inhuman remains.”

  “Which was all there was from the beginning, Sir Bayard,” Brithelm said, patiently but much too loudly for this dangerous terrain. “It has the makings of a proverb,” he added with a smile. “ ‘If you fight goats, expect to kill goats.’ ”

  “Whichever,” said Bayard, his voice low and oddly troubled. “But of one thing there can be no doubt: things are passing strange in this forsaken swampland. I am anxious to leave, but first, I’ll fulfill my pledge to confront the satyrs, be they real or imagined, and then hasten on the way to my appointment.”

  Bayard looked long and hard at the fire before rising. He stomped off to attend to Valorous and the pack mare. Something fluttered in the bushes to my left. I started, thought of ambush.

  Then I recalled it would not happen here, that it was my job to lead these folk to ruin—back to the house at the center of the swamp, where, if ambush was coming, it would come.

  Meanwhile, Agion had busied himself with gathering bundles of reeds and leaves, which he fashioned into a makeshift mattress on the floor of the clearing. As the others set about their business, he caught my eye and motioned toward his handiwork with a big, ungainly hand.

  “My lord Archala said seven days and seven nights among us will find thee out,” he observed, his face widening into a smile as kind as it was ugly. “But he never ordered thee to spend all that time in waking.”

  I crawled onto the mattress gratefully and, with my enormous companion and captor standing watch, slept heavily through the morning and the afternoon.

  I figured that Bayard had lost all patience with Pathwardens for the moment. Even the time I slept was time he had to make up on the road to Castle di Caela.

  But there was good in this impatience, for while I was asleep, Sir Bayard seemed to have forgotten about pressing me for further details about my adventures of the night before. Or had let it pass on purpose.

  As he attended to the horses and Brithelm moved away from the fire to the far edge of the light, where he sat in what seemed to be meditation, I stirred sleepily on my bed of reeds, reached in my pockets, and drew out the Calantina.

  One and ten. Sign of the Adder.

  Well, then. Best do what adders do.

  I roused myself and walked over to Bayard, who leaned against the pack mare, his big hands on her saddle, intent on tightening what the swamp had loosened. He looked over his shoulder at my approach, then returned to his work.

  “Bayard?” Again I called softly. “Bayard?”

  He dragged his armor off the pack mare and began to put it on. He looked up at me, smiled, motioned me over. I felt more viperous by the minute.

  “I hope you slept well, Galen, but we must be moving. I’m sure we can find the satyrs near that place you spoke of. How far would you say we are from that encampment? Help me with this.”

  I stooped, tightened a greave, and answered.

  “Not far, I expect, sir. It should be easy to find again.”

  “Think, boy,” he urged. “You have no idea how serious this delay is to me.”

  As I helped Bayard to his feet the phosfire began to shine above our heads, at first spangling the early evening air as though it had settled, like an army of fireflies, in the branches of a huge, mossy oak that overhung the clearing where we had camped. Shortly, the light arose from the branches and began to move, back in the direction from where I had come.

  I pretended not to notice the phosfire at first, but soon I was aware that none of my companions had seen it. So I could follow the weaving light easily, stopping once in a while to pretend at pondering my whereabouts before pretending to recognize a tree, a standing pool of water, a bend in the path. Soon I had to pretend no longer, for my companions followed me unquestioningly, involved as they were with the swatting of midges, the breaking through underbrush, and the swearing at terrain and at each other.

  All the while, the light hovered above us and a little ahead of us, my signpost through the treachery of the swamp. And the night dropped upon us with that terrifying quickness it can possess only within deep greenery.

  At Bayard’s orders I took the lead as the guide. Walking at my side, Brithelm carried one of the torches, and Agion brought up the rear carrying the other. Bayard led Valorous and walked between the lights, now wearing his full suit of armor, which creaked loudly and weighed him down in the soft ground of the swamp. He must have foreseen the possibility of a pitched battle taking place at the spot to which I was leading them, and he wanted to be dressed for the occasion.

  What distressed me the most was that Brithelm was coming with us. What the Scorpion had in mind for our little party, I couldn’t guess, but my innocent brother did not deserve my treachery. But he was intent on accompanying us. My brother was along for the duration.

  Always, the green, unhealthy phosfire danced a few yards in front of me, guiding us all toward the encampment and who knew what destiny.

  When, ahead of us, I smelled woodsmoke and heard the bleat of a goat, I stopped and took stock.

  I searched my history there at the edge of the encampment, ankle-deep in wet mud.

  Secretly, quickly, I drew the Calantina from my pocket and cast the red dice in my hand. Sign of the Adder again. I was being told something, but I could not figure it out.

  Brithelm laid his hand on my shoulder. I started, then turned to find him staring at me, face filled with worry and concern.

  “What ails you, little brother?”

  “Ails me? Why, nothing, Brithelm.” I looked behind me cautiously: Bayard was soothing an increasingly skittish Valorous.

  Suddenly, the sound of shouts and shrill cries burst from the clearing ahead of us.

  Bayard drew his sword, grabbed me as I tried to run back up the trail, and cast me to the ground.

  “Draw your sword, Galen!” he ordered softly and urgently, his teeth clenched. “By the gods, you’ve enlisted for this one.”

  Yanking me to my feet, he carried me bodily under his left arm into the clearing, clutching his sword in his right. I heard Agion snort behind us, heard Brithelm say something and Bayard answer, “Just stay under cover and hold the horses, Brithelm.” Then I was blinded by the strange, artificial daylight of flame and phosfire.

  There were twelve of them I could count, and I counted quickly. After their initial outburst, the satyrs regrouped under the cloudy platform—whether it was the house or the Scorpion’s throne hidden by the image of the house I could not tell. The goat-men moved in and out of the shadows, their cries and calls mingling one with another into a low but threatening murmur. Most of them had bows, some of them short, wicked-looking spears.

  “I shall take the eight on the left, Sir Bayard,” Agion shouted. “Thou and thy squire may have the four on the right.” And he charged.

  It was the kind of division of labor I liked. Now I could only hope Bayard was planning on taking the other four all by himself.

  I hoped so even more devoutly when the clouds above the satyrs began to clear.

  For above them sat the Scorpion on his throne. As the satyrs nocked bows, set themselves to hurl spears, their leader reached into the folds of his black cape and drew out something shiny, something flickering. It was a pendant of sorts, from this distance as clear and as shining as a c
rystal, which he dangled casually from his left hand, swinging it softly through the air.

  While his troops prepared for battle, the commander’s total attention was not on the conflict unfolding, but upon the bauble in his hand. For why shouldn’t he sit there, playing casually with glittering trinkets? His satyrs outnumbered us three to one—six to one if you counted the fighting worth of the Pathwardens—and it was obvious that …

  “Don’t look at the pendulum,” Brithelm urged beside me, having left Valorous and the pack mare to their own devices and joined us in the clearing.

  “See to the horses, blast you!” Bayard cried, and I forgot the warning, the pendulum, and the Scorpion himself, as the volley of arrows and spears was upon us.

  I was still lying under Bayard’s feet when a big satyr drew his bow and sent an arrow flying in my direction.

  I could see the yellow of the feathers on the fletching, but I could do nothing but try to scramble to my feet. But just before the arrow struck, as it certainly would have struck, as I was growing rapidly to believe it would strike, Bayard’s large, well-armored sword arm moved into its path and deflected it into the ground in front of us.

  Beside me, I heard Agion grunt, and a quick glance told me he carried a satyr’s spear in the fleshy part of his arm. All of a sudden I feared for his largeness, which had seemed only an advantage before. Now, under fire, he was just a big, stupid target.

  The biggest, but not the most stupid. Or so it seemed as Brithelm suddenly burst past us and headed at a trot for the throne and the satyrs. Arrows sailed around him, the closest tearing through his cloak on their way to lodge harmlessly in the ground. Bayard dropped me and started for my brother, but it was too late—Brithelm was well past him, nor was there any question of pursuit, since Bayard was having trouble staying on his feet under the weight of all that armor.

  “If it’s not one Pathwarden it’s another!” he sputtered, then sank to his knees, watching along with the rest of us as my brother rushed cheerfully towards the Scorpion.

  The lines of the satyrs parted weirdly in front of my brother, as though the nasty-looking armed creatures were reeds in the swamp he was pushing aside in search of a trail. Some of them not only moved, but vanished entirely at Brithelm’s approach. Beside him, where satyrs had once bristled with menace and weapons, several goats grazed calmly, scarcely noticing any of us.

  That was enough for Bayard. All of a sudden, he moved lightly, gracefully. He looked back at me, where I was sprawled in the swamp mud, beginning again to dig for cover, and spoke quietly but assuredly.

  “Get up at once, Galen, and follow your brother. The army we stand against is peopled with illusion. There is nothing dangerous in this clearing. Do you understand? Nothing dangerous in this clearing.”

  The evidence was against him, I figured. But he gazed at me so unflinchingly, so sternly, that I feared going against his will far more than I feared any satyr.

  What was more, illusory or not, the satyrs were having a rough time with my comrades. Agion grabbed two of them by their wooly napes and battered their heads together, as though he were playing hairy horned cymbals. The swamp resounded with a hollow, cracking sound, and the satyrs fell unconscious. Laughing, the centaur rushed at two more of them, who stood cowering beneath the Scorpion’s throne.

  With his sword drawn, Bayard walked calmly through the midst of the satyrs toward the platform where the Scorpion was seated. The satyrs encircled him, shrieking and hopping like carrion birds around something that is dying, but none of them got near him. One lunged at him with a sinister-looking long knife, but Bayard parried the weapon, sent it skittering across the floor of the clearing, kicked the satyr aside, and kept walking.

  Indeed, mere looks from Bayard seemed to stop the rest of their attacks, as the satyrs snarled, brayed, and sidled away from him.

  It was something out of a story.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran after my brother, who was standing beneath the base of the platform. Satyrs had begun to surround him.

  I looked toward Agion, who was occupied, juggling two more satyrs, and then to Bayard, who was still yards away from my brother. Neither of them would reach Brithelm in time. I started to call out, with no earthly idea what good that would do, except that it was something to do, and then stopped, gaping in my tracks.

  For Brithelm had raised his arms and was now rising slowly through the air, borne on the wind, perhaps, except there was no rustle of leaves, no movement of branches. He rose head and shoulders, then waist and ankles above the milling satyrs, whose weapons slashed harmlessly about him.

  His hands glowed with a silver light that seemed to cleanse the green and sickly light of the phosfire until the clearing glowed with a fresh white glow like that from a marvelous candle.

  With rising courage and confidence I rushed through the midst of the enemy, calling for Brithelm over the sound of their shrieking, which was changing slowly to the bleating of goats. The satyrs turned to face me, but did nothing, and I passed among them easily and without harm.

  I rushed to one of the posts that held up the platform and scrambled up it like a squirrel, until I stood on the rickety platform, puffing, sweating, and shouting in triumph.

  That was when the Scorpion rose from his throne.

  The dark hood still covered his face, but there was something about the bend of his shoulders, of his knees, that signaled defeat. It was a gesture someone would make in a bad painting.

  But as Brithelm rose onto the platform, the Scorpion stood to his full height, threw back his shoulders, and stared into our faces.

  His eyes whirled red, then yellow, then white, then blue, like the burning of a thousand suns. He turned the shimmering crystal towards us in the shifting swamplight.

  It flashed green and yellow and green. For a moment Brithelm lost his balance, plummeted into the empty air, then caught himself on the side of the platform. I staggered backward toward the edge, toward the long drop onto the floor of the clearing. In that moment the battle had turned. We were both defeated.

  But not Bayard. As anyone could see in his gait, in the straight and dauntless arch of his back as he leaped for the base of the platform, armor and all, and grabbed it firmly and easily, pulling himself up onto the platform in one incredible movement. The Scorpion turned to face him, with only one satyr, although a big one, between the Knight and the sinister caped figure.

  The satyr lunged at Bayard, and his spear passed through the Knight, who kept walking as though nothing had happened, straight through the wavering, translucent body of his adversary, as though the satyr were made of smoke or steam. The creature evaporated and in its stead a goat, looking confused and a little embarrassed, clattered into the smoke-filled cabin behind us.

  Now Bayard stood beside the cowering Scorpion. He raised his sword, holding it in both hands like an executioner or a woodsman, and brought it crashing down.

  Brought it down through hood, through cloak, through tunic, and into the rotten wood of the platform.

  And through nothing else.

  For there were only three of us on the platform, not counting the goat. Bayard and I stood around a dark robe spread like a pool over the platform, over a dark tunic and a pair of shiny black boots. We stood at the front of a ramshackle cabin I remembered from earlier that night, and behind the cabin the swamp was beginning to redden and glow—not with the fires that earlier encircled this place, but with genuine and entirely welcome sunlight.

  Brithelm pulled himself painfully up from the edge of the platform where he had been clinging.

  Below us, Agion rubbed his shoulder quietly, gaping amidst a herd of goats. His wound had closed as the sunlight first touched the clearing. When I saw that, I was gaping, too.

  “That, I suppose, is that?” the centaur called up to us, gently nudging away a spotted kid that came up to nuzzle his leg.

  I glanced at Brithelm, who rubbed his head quietly, staring up at the cabin with admiration and wonder.
r />   He was silent, was lost in the strange thoughts of the blessed.

  So I looked again at Bayard, who stood astraddle the heap of abandoned clothing, looking back at me.

  “What do you think, sir? Is that, that?”

  “No, Galen,” Sir Bayard replied, sheathing his sword and casting a puzzled look off into the swamp. “Though I understand little else of what has just transpired, I can tell you this much. That is anything but that.”

  PART II

  House of di Caela

  Three on eight, light upon flood,

  Sign of the Centaur in a lost season.

  Generations of light that the flood has covered,

  The old water singing of reverence.

  And here on continuous banks of rivers,

  The light is moving, is lost, is moving.

  —The Calantina III: VIII

  CHAPTER 9

  “No matter what you say, little brother, this is the kind of place I have sought and awaited. The kind of place I have dreamed of, continually and in humility, I hope. I have prayed to the gods for such a place, in which to take hermitage, alone with thoughts and meditations and with the gentle creatures of the marshes.”

  So I kept hearing from Brithelm, who had found meaning and purpose in the struggle we had waged in the swamp, there in the very clearing where we still sat by midmorning, pondering several of many imponderables.

  Bayard, too, was tired of listening to Brithelm’s praise of “the gentle creatures of the marshes,” especially since some of those gentle creatures—namely the satyrs—had been looking to waylay us since we arrived in the swamp.

  “My dreams take me to other places, Brithelm,” he said. “And I for one would arise and travel to Castle di Caela in quest of the hand of the Lady Enid, were it not for the restraining commands of our centaur companion.” Bayard nodded curtly at Agion.

  This had been going on for hours: a running argument between Sir Bayard and Agion as to whether obligations had been met, so to speak. Bayard claimed that the swamp was now free of satyrs and whatever evil had led them against the centaurs in the first place. He claimed that since there was no longer any enemy to fight, our job in these parts was done. And since we had cleared our names in this issue beyond any doubt, the centaurs should allow us to go on our way.