The Ambivalent Magician

by Simon Hawke

  "Excuse me," said the chamberpot in Brian's usually sarcastic tone, "I'll admit it's been a few years since I've formally fulfilled any of my functions as a prince, so perhaps I've missed something, but since when have peasants had any rights?"

  "They shall have rights in our kingdom," Shannon said.

  "I see," said the chamberpot. "And how do you suppose the other monarchs will respond to that? They'll see it as a challenge, a threat to their power and their way of life. 'Twould be yet another compelling reason for them to go to war against us."

  "What if we entered into formal negotiations with the other kingdoms," Brewster suggested, "and promised to stop making nickallirium if they recognized our right to rule ourselves?"

  "I do not think that would help, Doc," said Mac, entering the hall. He was carrying a bulging sack over his shoulder. "Forgive me for being late, but I was unavoidably detained." He swung the sack off of his shoulder. "Look what I found," he said. He untied the sack and dumped it out onto the table. With a frightened cry, Teddy came tumbling out.

  "Eeeuuw, a troll!" said Rachel.

  "Ah, but not just any troll," said Mac. "Observe his collar."

  Teddy tried to scramble back out of the way, but Mick grabbed him and pinned him to the table. Teddy struggled to break free, but though trolls are not much smaller than leprechauns and surprisingly strong for their size, Mick was no ordinary leprechaun. The years he'd spent at his forge had given him a powerful physique, and he clamped a muscular arm across Teddy's throat while he read the little metal tag on his collar. "Property of Warrick Morgannan, Alabaster Tower, Royal Mile, Pittsburgh."

  "A spy!" said Harlan.

  "Warrick's own familiar, no less," said Mac. "I caught him outside in the bushes, scouting out the grounds."

  "Well, we know how to deal with spies," said Shannon, drawing her sword.

  Teddy cried out in fear and kicked Mick in the stomach, breaking free and leaping up to run down the length of the table with surprising speed. Shannon swung her sword, but missed, and Teddy jumped down to the floor and bolted toward the door. However, Thorny happened to be in the way. As Teddy tried to dodge around the bush, Thorny scuttled to one side to get out of his way, inadvertently blocking his path. Teddy darted in the other direction, but Thorny moved that way as well, blocking him once again, and before Teddy could dart around the bush, Mick brought him down with a flying tackle. They thrashed on the floor until Robie and Pikestaff Pat came running up and grabbed Teddy by his arms, holding him between them.

  "Don't kill me, please!" the little troll wailed. "I am not a spy, I swear it! I truly meant no harm!"

  "You lying little hairball!" Mick said. "You deny that you are Warrick the White's familiar?"

  "Aye, 'tis true I was, but no longer! He has banished me!"

  "A likely story," Harlan said. "Do you take us all for fools?"

  " 'Tis the truth, I swear it on my life!" said Teddy. "Have your wizard place me under a spell of compulsion if you do not believe me and you shall see that I speak truly!"

  "Warrick could have warded you against such spells," said Mick.

  "Then surely your wizard would detect the wards, if he is as powerful as they say," said Teddy. "Please, you must believe me! I serve Warrick no longer!"

  "Then why are you here?" asked Shannon.

  "I came to offer my services to the mighty Brewster Doc," said Teddy. "I have been a sorcerer's familiar all my life. 'Tis all I know. And no other sorcerer in the guild would accept a familiar who's been banished by the Grand Director. I had nowhere else to go." He sniffled miserably.

  "That's the most ridiculous story I have ever heard," said Harlan. "You expect us to believe that?"

  " 'Tis the truth!" insisted the troll. "I swear it! And I can prove it to you, if you will but allow me."

  Shannon narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "How?" she asked.

  "Before I left, I stole some items from my former master," Teddy said. "Magical items he never would have parted with willingly."

  "What items?" Shannon asked.

  "In the satchel," said Teddy. He glanced at Mac. "He took it from me."

  "You mean this?" said Mac with a derisive snort. He removed a small leather bag from his shoulder. It did not look big enough to contain much of anything. He tossed it to Shannon.

  She caught it and looked inside. "It contains nothing but a few scraps of food." She tossed it aside.

  "Only because you do not know the secret of the satchel," Teddy said. "The satchel, itself, is one of the magical items that I took."

  Brewster picked up the bag and examined it. "What secret?" he asked.

  "Take me to Brewster Doc and I shall reveal it to him," said the troll.

  "You're speaking to him," Shannon said.

  The troll's eyes grew wide. "Him?" he said with disbelief. "He is the mighty wizard of Brigand's Roost?"

  "Well, I don't know about the mighty part," said Brewster, "but I guess that is my formal title."

  Teddy looked skeptical. "You do not look much like a wizard."

  "Say the word, Doc, and I'll slit the little warthog's throat," said Shannon.

  "No, don't," said Brewster. He crouched in front of Teddy, setting the bag down on the floor. "Look," he said, "I don't want to see you hurt, but you're in a rather difficult position. If there's some way you can prove you're telling us the truth, I advise you to do so now."

  Teddy glanced at the two men holding him, then looked uneasily at Shannon, standing there with her sword drawn. He swallowed hard. "Very well," he said. " 'Tis a Bag of Holding. Place your hand upon the satchel and say, 'Open wide and open deep, reveal the secrets that you keep.' And then open it."

  "Be careful, Doc," said Harlan. "It could be some sort of trick."

  "Allow me," said Mac, picking up the satchel and carrying it over to the table.

  "Hear me, troll," said Shannon. "If he opens it and anything happens to him, I will make sure you die a very slow and lingering death."

  Teddy merely swallowed hard and nodded that he understood.

  Keeping an eye on Teddy, Mac placed his hand on the satchel and repeated the words, "Open wide and open deep, reveal the secrets that you keep." And then, cautiously, bending back away from it, he opened the satchel. Nothing happened. He glanced back at the troll, then carefully looked inside the satchel. "Well, I'll be damned," he said.

  "What is it, Mac?" asked Brewster.

  Mac reached into the pouch and pulled out a sword. The blade was much too long to have been contained inside the small satchel, and yet, it nevertheless came out of the bag. It had a hilt wrapped with silver wire and a round, flat pommel with the symbol of the sun carved into it. The curved cross-guards were artfully twisted and the well-oiled leather scabbard was hand-tooled with intricate designs. Mac unsheathed the blade and it gleamed as it caught a shaft of sunlight shining through one of the windows of the great hall. The entire length of the blade was etched with cursive runes.

  "An elven blade!" said Mac. "I recognize the style of the runes, but I cannot read them."

  "Let me see," said Rachel.

  Mac handed her the sword.

  The elf held the blade across her hands, so that she could read the runes. Her eyes grew wide and she inhaled sharply.

  "What is it, Rachel?" Shannon asked.

  "Dwarfkabob!"

  "Gesundheit," Brewster said.

  "No, Dwarfkabob!" said Rachel. "'Tis the enchanted Sword of the Shaman!"

  "HOLD IT! CEASE! STOP EVERYTHING!"

  Warrick! Damn it, what are you doing interrupting this scene? I thought you and I had made a bargain!

  "Dwarfkabob?" said Warrick. "You named an enchanted sword Dwarflcabob?"

  It dates back to the days when elves and dwarves were deadly enemies. Actually, they still don't like each other very much and... why am I explaining this to you, anyway? Who's writing this thing, you or me? Besides, it was your sword. Teddy stole it from you.

  "Nonsense. Teddy would never hav
e had the gumption to steal anything from me. What is more, he knows that all of my valuable personal possessions are spell-warded against theft."

  No, he doesn't. I mean, he didn't.

  "Yes, he did. You think he would have been my familiar for most of his life and not known something like that? You think I would leave magical talismans lying around unprotected? Not even a sorcerer's apprentice would be so stupid. I certainly would not be. That would be completely out of character. You cannot have things happen simply for the convenience of your narrative. That sort of thing lacks believability."

  Look who's talking. I don't believe this. I am just totally losing control. Look, I thought we had an understanding. You promised not to interfere and now you've broken your word.

  "Of course, I've broken my word! I'm the villain of this tale, remember? I am wise to your design now, Narrator. I finally understand that this narrative art of yours is merely a form of sympathetic magic. You are observing events here from your ethereal plane and setting down a chronicle of what you see, and by doing so, you seek to influence the outcome."

  What?

  "Aye, you are very clever in your application of this art, but the principles are rudimentary. I should have realized this before, but you worked your tale in such a way that you prevented me from seeing it before. However, by trusting me, you have allowed your guard to slip, and now I know what you intend. Well, I am afraid that I shall have to disappoint you."

  All right, that's it. You've messed with this story for the last time. I don't care if it screws up the plot, I've had it! You're history, my friend. You're toast. You are out of here.

  "Unfortunately, what the Narrator failed to realize was that while he was busy chronicling the events in Brigand's Roost, Warrick had prepared a powerful warding spell to protect himself against being written out of the story."

  Oh, is that right? Well, we'll just see about that. How would you like to go? A heart attack? No, not suitably dramatic. And not nearly satisfying enough. For all the grief you've given me, I think I'll give you a particularly nasty, gruesome death. Let's see...

  "I am waiting." -

  Keep your shirt on, I'm thinking.

  "Do let me know when you have hit upon an interesting idea."

  Oh, you'll be the very first to know, trust me.

  "Aye, I know. Always trust your narrator."

  Shut up! You're distracting me.

  "By all means. Take your time."

  I could ... no. That's been done. Or else ... nah, that wouldn't work. Hmmm, let's see, now...

  "You know, I believe I will take a nap," said Warrick. "Be sure to wake me whenever you are ready. I would hate to sleep through my own death. That would hardly be very dramatic, would it?"

  I'm gonna kill him. I swear, I'm gonna kill him...

  I give up. I guess it's just one of those days when I should have stayed in bed. Yes, I know I've been telling you to trust your narrator, but narrators are human, too, you know. We have bad days, just like the rest of you. And this has been a really bad day. It's now about three in the morning as I write these words, twelve hours since I wrote that last paragraph, and I haven't been able to come up with any way to write Warrick out of this damn story without having the whole thing fall apart. Let me tell you, it's been pure hell.

  Believe me, for a writer, there is absolutely nothing worse than hitting the wall. You feel like a spent marathoner. No matter what you do, nothing seems to work. The brain simply refuses to function. No matter how hard you try, the words just won't come. So you get up and take a walk, or else go out and work in the yard, or try to read a book, only that doesn't work because you're too worried about your own writing to get into someone else's story. So you wash the dishes that have been piling up in the sink all week, then you clean the house, change your sheets and do the laundry, maybe shop for groceries, straighten all the pictures on the walls and rearrange your bookshelves, and when you're done with all of that and can't think of anything else to do, you try calling your friends.

  If it happens to be a weekday afternoon, all your friends are working, because they have real jobs, so then you call your writer friends, on the principle that misery loves company. Except the ones that are having trouble writing, just like you, aren't home. They're out taking a walk, or working in the yard, or doing the laundry, or shopping for groceries... and the ones who are home have their answering machines on because they are busy writing, damn it. So you succumb to the ultimate degradation and sit down to watch TV with a bag of Doritos and a six-pack of beer.

  You tell yourself that you've just been trying too hard and you simply need a break. You just need to take your mind off writing for a while. Maybe there's a good movie on HBO. Of course, with my luck, it turns out to be Throw Momma From the Train, where Billy Crystal plays a writer who spends the entire movie trying to come up with an opening sentence for his novel. So you switch the channel in frustration and you get The Owl and the Pussycat, where Barbara Streisand spends the entire movie making George Segal feel inadequate because he's a failure as a novelist. In disgust, you switch the channel yet again and it's an episode of Murder, She Wrote. Five minutes into the show, you've figured out who the murderer is and you spend the rest of the show wondering how J. B. Fletcher got to be such a famous mystery novelist when she never actually seems to do any writing. She's too busy solving murders in Cabot Cove or visiting relatives, who immediately start dropping like flies whenever she shows up. You'd think when people saw her coming, they'd start locking their doors and putting on bulletproof vests. And there's another thing, publishers are always wining and dining her. The closest I've ever come to being wined and dined by a publisher was when an editor took me to a Brewburger about ten years ago. Screw it, change the channel.

  Oh, great. It's Barbara Walters interviewing Judith Krantz at home in her luxurious, multimillion-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills, complete with three swimming pools. Yech. Back to channel surfing. Okay, here's something. Entertainment Tonight. That's probably safe. Nope. They're doing a feature on Michael Crichton, who's become so damn successful he could probably sell his shopping list. It would, of course, become a bestseller, get made into a movie, and he'd get to direct. Jesus, there's no getting away from it! Okay, the hell with it. I'll go cook dinner and then settle down to watch Letterman.

  "On the show tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the master of horror, Mr. Stephen King -"

  Gyahhhh! Quick, switch to Leno.

  "Our first guest tonight is a genuine movie legend, an honest-to-God superstar, ladies and gentlemen. You know him as Spartacus, but now he's embarked on a new career as a bestselling author. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Kirk Douglas-"

  I shut off the TV and sit there in the dark with my empty, jumbo size bag of Doritos and the crushed remains of a sixpack scattered on the floor around me, thinking, "God hates me."

  Around one a.m., I slink back to my office, where Archimedes, my Apple Mac computer, sits malevolently on my desk, and I just stand there in the doorway, glaring at it. It glares back. There's nothing much to do at one a.m. in the Sonoran desert. The nearest town is Tucson, a forty-five-minute drive away, and by the time I get there, the bars will all be closed. And, of course, I can't go to sleep, because I've got insomnia. It's either face that damn computer or watch the Home Shopping Network or those late night commercials with bimbos in lingerie moaning and pouting into the camera, exhorting you to call their 976 numbers. I actually consider it for a moment. What the hell, I haven't even had a date in months. I imagine how the conversation might go...

  "Hi, is this Stormy? Listen, if you had to knock off an evil wizard, how would you go about it?"

  "Huh? What kind of fantasy is that?"

  "It's not a fantasy ... Well, yeah, actually it is, but not like you think. See, I'm a writer and I'm working on this book and -"

  "You're a writer? Really? Hey, you know, I do a little writing. I mean, this phone sex thing is only temporary, something to tide me over, you know?
Actually, I'm working on this romance novel and it's pretty hot. My friends all think it's great, you know; they say it's got real commercial potential. As a matter of fact, I just happen to have it here with me and since you're a real writer and all, maybe I could read you a few chapters and you could tell me what you think...."

  God, even my fantasies are depressing.

  "How utterly pathetic."

  Leave me alone, Warrick. Just... go away.

  "I could have told you this would happen," Warrick said, "only you refused to listen. You think you can turn my own familiar against me with impunity? You think you can conjure up spirits to threaten me in my own sanctorum and I will submit meekly to your will? I, Warrick the White, of the House of Morgannan, Grand Director of the-"

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know already. Spare me the resume. I wrote it, remember?

  "As you wish. Perhaps now you are prepared to discuss matters reasonably."

  I'm too tired to argue. And I can't just go back to the last scene in the keep. You've completely screwed up the continuity of the story now. Okay, screw it, I give up. What do you want?

  "I have told you what I want." He walked over to Brewster's time machine and stood staring at it. "I want the secret of this infernal magical device. None of the subjects I have transported with it have returned, despite the spell of compulsion I had placed upon them. I want to know why. I want to know where they have gone. I want to know the purpose of this damnable machine and the secret of its operation. I want to know everything about it."

  Okay, you win. It's a device for traveling through time, as you have already surmised. Except that it does not merely travel through time, but through a dimensional portal, as well.

  "A dimensional portal?" Warrick frowned. "What is that?"

  A warp in the fabric of time and space. Sort of a passageway to another world, another plane of existence.

  "A gateway to the ethereal planes?"

  Something like that, yeah.

  "To the world where you reside?"

  Well... yes, I suppose so. In a manner of speaking.

  "Then this sorcerer, this Brewster Doc, is not of this world? He is, like you, a creature of the ethereal planes?"