Tales of Ethshar (legends of ethshar)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The herald proclaimed in a deep, rolling voice, “Whereas, Our Realm has been attacked, without provocation, by certain Enemies, and...”

  The herald took a deep breath, and the wizard started to say something, but before he could get a single sound out the herald continued, “Whereas, Our normal methods of defense do not appear to provide a complete assurance of Victory against this foul invader, and...”

  Again a deep breath, and a continuation.

  “Whereas, supernatural methods needs must be employed against this Desecration of Our Borders, and...”

  Another deep breath.

  “Whereas, Our enlightened rule has provided all alike, commoner and noble, mortal and magician, with great benefits and fair treatment...”

  The herald paused dramatically, one hand raised, and the wizard waited politely.

  “Therefore,” the herald announced, “We call upon all those with any skills in arcane practices, be they in wizardry, sorcery, theurgy, witchcraft, or other practices, to recognize their obligation to the Crown, and...”

  The wizard really wished that the herald would forget about the dramatic pauses and get on with it.

  “Therefore, all practitioners of Magic are hereby summoned forthwith to the Castle Royal, by Command of His Majesty Kelder, First of That Name, Heir to the Ancient Lords of the Holy Kingdom of Ethshar.”

  The herald nodded for emphasis, and began rolling up the scroll as he concluded, “Signed, and with Our Seal, this fourteenth day of the month of Harvest, in the Year of Human Speech Five Thousand and Sixty-Eight.”

  The wizard was very impressed by all this, which sounded quite majestic, and when the herald had finished reading the wizard asked him just exactly what it all meant.

  “It means that you’re to come with me to the castle, immediately,” the herald explained.

  The wizard considered that for a moment, and then asked, “Why?”

  “You’re a wizard, aren’t you?” the herald asked.

  The wizard promptly agreed that yes, he was indeed a wizard.

  “Well,” the herald explained, “all the magicians in Mreghon are being summoned to the castle to help fight off the invader.”

  The wizard was not at all sure he liked the sound of that, and he said so.

  The herald insisted, and made some rather nasty threats about what the king might do to uncooperative magicians.

  The wizard remarked that it was all very unfair.

  The herald argued that the invasion was unfair, and it wasn’t the king’s fault, and it didn’t really matter whose fault it was or whether it was fair or not, because it all came out the same in the end — the wizard had to come to the castle if he didn’t want to be in a very great deal of trouble.

  The wizard continued to argue for awhile, but the herald was relentless in his insistence.

  In the end, the wizard gave in on the major points, but he did a little insisting of his own and was allowed time to pack a bag and finish his tea.

  While he was packing, and on the walk to the castle, he asked the herald more questions, and got more of an explanation of just what was going on.

  It seems that the exact reason for the invasion was not entirely clear to the Mreghonians, but it appeared to have something to do with an insult the Mreghonian king, Kelder the First, had unintentionally directed at the king of Lassuron, a surly fellow by the name of Bardec who had a reputation for turning every little incident into a war, and who had thus enlarged Lassuron considerably at the expense of its neighbors — such as tiny Mreghon.

  Although the insult was completely inadvertent, King Bardec had chosen to take umbrage — he had probably been looking for an excuse. He had led an army of some four hundred men into Mreghon, marching them through the peaceful countryside, burning farmhouses and trampling crops and in general making life very unpleasant for the citizenry.

  The year had already been a bad one for the Mreghonians, as the wizard well knew. Some quirk of the weather had cursed the kingdom with a veritable plague of gnats and mosquitoes, the crops had been poor, several wells had gone dry at midsummer, and then a few sixnights later heavy rains had caused flooding along the little river that trickled through Mreghon on its way to the Gulf of the East.

  After all this, most people were not really surprised by the attack. As everyone knows, bad luck often comes in streaks. Some people had wondered if they had offended some god or other, but most just put it down to chance and accepted it as another nuisance to be tolerated.

  To some, it was rather more than just a nuisance. Naturally, King Kelder was quite upset by the invasion. The kingdom had been at peace for years, and the minuscule standing army was out of shape, out of practice — and out building levees against the floods.

  Even in the best of times, the Mreghonian army was probably no match for King Bardec’s force, and as it stood, defeat had appeared certain. From King Kelder’s point of view that was completely unacceptable; King Bardec had announced that his honor had been impugned by poor Kelder, and that only a direct personal duel to the death between the two monarchs would satisfy him. As Bardec was young, fit, and famous for his skill with a broadsword, while Kelder was aging, fat, lazy, and inept, this was the same as stating that he intended to kill the Mreghonian king.

  Ordinarily, the Small Kingdoms being as small as they are, King Bardec and his army could have reached King Kelder’s castle in a few hours’ march, and the war would have been over within a day. In this particular case, however, Mreghon was blessed with an ally. Serem of Fileia was the father of the current queen of Mreghon, and did not care to see his daughter widowed. He had distracted King Bardec with elaborate diplomatic maneuvers that had been ultimately unfruitful, but which had gotten the Lassuronian army marched off in entirely the wrong direction for a day or two as an honor guard for the ceremonies.

  King Kelder had taken this respite as an opportunity to review his situation, and to realize just how pitiful his defenses were. He saw plainly that if he wanted to survive, he had to find some way to defeat King Bardec without an army. Obviously, that would take a miracle — and that meant magic.

  Accordingly, King Kelder had sent messengers out, and posted proclamations, and did everything he could to locate and gather every magician in Mreghon. When they had been located, he summoned one and all, however powerful or puny, to his castle.

  And that, of course, included this frog wizard.

  The wizard had been staying inside lately, because of the mosquitoes, and had missed all news of the invasion — until now.

  He really did not want to be involved in a war, but he did not see any practical way to back out, so he went along with the herald without any serious argument.

  It was a beautiful sunny day, and the worst of the summer’s heat had passed, leaving a gentle breeze that blew the clouds about like gamboling sheep, but the frog wizard was unable to enjoy any of it while worrying about what lay ahead.

  Soon enough they reached the royal castle, and hurried across the drawbridge into the great hall, where the wizard was introduced around, checked off a long list of magicians who were expected, and then generally made welcome by the castle staff.

  He wanted none of this welcome. He promptly found a quiet corner and did his best to stay there, out of the way, while the messengers and heralds brought in magician after magician — witches, sorcerers, wizards, magicians of every sort.

  The frog wizard recognized several of them, while others were total strangers, but he said nothing to any of them. He just sat and watched them arrive — and they kept on coming, and coming, and coming.

  He was quite amazed. Really, he had had no idea that there were so many magicians in Mreghon! They kept on arriving, off and on, for the next two days.

  Throughout that two days the frog wizard generally stayed in his corner, trying hard to be inconspicuous, and succeeding, for the most part. He slept on a mat in a magicians’ barracks that had been improvised in a gallery, and he ate the bread and chee
se and ale that the castle servants distributed three times a day, but other than that he simply sat quietly and watched and waited.

  On the third day the magicians stopped coming. Instead, the invaders appeared and surrounded the castle.

  By this time, though, the castle was full of magicians, dozens of magicians, magicians of every description, marching about and boasting of their prowess.

  King Bardec’s army arrived at the castle about midday and, as expected, found the drawbridge up and the battlements manned — they had no way of knowing that the defenders were the castle servants, rather than soldiers, nor that the place was crammed with magicians.

  The invaders spread out and settled in for a proper siege, setting up tents and pavilions, bringing up a battering ram, and so forth.

  Meanwhile, inside the castle, the magicians were milling about, unsure just what was expected of them. After the initial round of silly boasting, most of them found they had little to say to one another, and nothing at all to do.

  Around sunset King Kelder finally appeared in the great hall, in his best royal robes and wearing his crown, and announced to the gathered magicians that they were to use whatever magic they had at their disposal to destroy the besieging forces.

  “When?” someone called from the crowd.

  “Right now,” the king replied, smiling. He waved a dismissal, and retreated to his apartments.

  The magicians looked at each other, shrugged, and began making magic, each after his or her own fashion.

  The noted sorceress Rudhira the Red, for example, brewed up lightning in a kitchen cauldron, balls of crackling blue-white lightning that hissed and spattered sparks across the floor while they waited to be flung at a target.

  The demonologist Kiramé of the Blue Hand etched a pentagram on an anteroom floor with blue chalk, and set about summoning a few cooperative demons.

  A wizard named Kalthen the Fat found his way up the the battlements, where he began chanting a long, complicated spell intended to draw the floodwaters up from the river and wash the invaders away in a great wave.

  Another wizard, Sancha the Foul, collected assorted leavings from the kitchen midden, sat down in the courtyard, and began assembling and animating homunculi, nasty little man-shaped creatures the size of your hand that he said would sneak out of the castle and torment the enemy with poisoned hatpins and whispered curses.

  And all the various others set about their various fearsome magicks, while the poor little frog wizard just sat there in his corner, looking scared and nervous.

  Amid all that terrible magic, it certainly looked as if King Bardec’s army were doomed. The frog wizard saw no need to get involved.

  But then things began to go wrong.

  Kalthen’s great wave swept up from the river just as Rudhira’s lightnings spilled out of the castle, and the two collided with a great hissing roar; the water put out the fire, while the fire boiled the water away into steam, steam that drifted harmlessly up into the night sky.

  Kiramé’s demons sprang from the pentagram, hungry and ready for the sacrifice they had been promised. The invocation had directed them to devour all those who did not belong in the area, and they obeyed that — but instead of the enemy soldiers they snatched up Sancha’s homunculi and gobbled them down like squirming candy. Homunculi didn’t belong in the World at all, of course, and to a demon that was far more obvious than any human’s nationality. Most demons, the legends of treachery notwithstanding, are not really very bright.

  Their hunger satisfied, the demons then vanished, and could not safely be conjured again until the next time the greater moon was full.

  Nor were these the only disasters as the magicians, accustomed to working in solitude, got in each other’s way. Man-eating plants bloomed by moonlight and consumed witches rather than soldiers; spells of sudden death became entangled with spells designed to send the invaders dancing helplessly and harmlessly away, and sorcerers died in jigs and gavottes; fearful illusions overlapped each other in grotesque juxtapositions that caused more laughter than fear among the besiegers.

  Demonologists were sent flying to the moons. Theurgists were swallowed by the earth. Spells backfired, misfired, and crossfired, and the castle filled with smoke and strange light, while unearthly howls echoed from the stone walls. The servants fled in terror, taking refuge in the cellars and towers, while the frog wizard cowered in the corner and waited for it all to be over.

  Some of the spells worked properly — but not very many.

  By dawn, the castle was still surrounded by about three hundred Lassuronian soldiers, and the magicians were all gone, banished or slain by spells gone wrong.

  All, that is, except the frog wizard, who had stayed crouched in his corner, never even considering any attempt at magic.

  As the sun rose, and the smoke cleared away, and the last eerie echoes faded, the castle’s inhabitants crept out of hiding. The king, still in his regalia, emerged from his chamber and looked over the aftermath. His gaze swept across smeared pentagrams, spilled potions, and scattered scraps of wizards’ robes, and fell at last on the frog wizard, curled up in the corner.

  “You!” he called. “Come here!”

  Reluctantly, the frog wizard got to his feet and came. He bowed deeply, and then knelt before the king.

  “You’re one of the magicians, aren’t you?” King Kelder demanded.

  The frog wizard nodded.

  “You’re a wizard?”

  “Yes, your Majesty,” the frog wizard replied.

  “You can work real magic?” the king persisted.

  “Yes, your Majesty,” the frog wizard said, with only the slightest hesitation.

  “Then do something about those soldiers out there!” King Kelder demanded.

  “But, your Majesty...” the frog wizard began.

  “Do something, wizard!” the king shouted.

  The frog wizard had never liked being shouted at; it made it hard for him to think.

  “Do something about those soldiers!” the king insisted, pointing out a nearby window and leaning over until he was yelling right in the wizard’s face.

  Without really meaning to, the frog wizard did something. He worked his one and only spell, directed at the soldiers outside, and all three hundred of them were abruptly transformed into frogs — very large, hungry bullfrogs, all rather startled by their sudden change.

  At first nobody realized what had happened, and the king continued to shout for several minutes before somebody tugged at his sleeve and pointed out that the invaders were gone, and had been replaced by a horde of amphibians that were now hopping about in mad confusion.

  The king stared out the window, and, forgetful of the royal dignity, most of the other people in the room crowded around him and peered out over his shoulders.

  Sure enough, the invading army was gone.

  King Kelder turned to the wizard and demanded, “Did you do that?”

  The wizard, too miserable to speak at the thought of what he had done to all those men, merely nodded.

  “Is it permanent?” the king asked.

  The wizard nodded again.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m afraid so, your Majesty,” the wizard replied.

  The king’s face broke into a broad grin; he whooped with joy, and his crown fell from his head.

  He caught it and tossed it in the air, then danced for joy in a manner not at all consonant with proper castle protocol, but quite understandable from a human point of view. After all, he had just been saved from certain death.

  The wizard was nowhere near as happy, but he managed a weak smile in response to the king’s obvious delight. And after all, he hadn’t killed anyone, and for all he knew frogs could live long and happy lives, and soldiers faced death regularly as an occupational hazard. He tried to convince himself that it was all for the best.

  In fact, it did seem to be all for the best, at least from the Mreghonian point of view. The war was clearly over, and had
ended in an unmistakable Mreghonian victory.

  The castle servants were sent out to investigate and to collect the spoils, and by sunset that day the royal armory was jammed to overflowing with captured weapons. The frogs had been chased away, scattering in all directions, and the entire army’s supply train had thus been abandoned, completely intact, to the victors.

  King Kelder and his councillors had spent the day alternately thinking up insulting terms to impose on King Bardec, if it should develop that he had not been among those transformed, and planning for a massive celebration of this miraculous deliverance.

  The frog wizard sat in his corner, listening to all this, with no very clear idea what he was supposed to do other than feel guilty and miserable.

  Nobody else seemed to think he had any reason to feel guilty and miserable, but he certainly thought so.

  In all the excitement he was quite ignored, and both breakfast and lunch were somehow forgotten, so that around mid-afternoon he grew very hungry, so hungry that his stomach was making more noise than his conscience. Finally, he got up the nerve to approach the king and ask what was expected of him.

  “Should I go home now?” he inquired.

  “No, of course not!” the king replied. “You’re my honored guest, at least until after the celebration!”

  Servants were called, and the wizard was given a hearty meal and a pleasant room for the night, but he still didn’t really know what to do with himself. All his books and belongings were still back in his cave, after all, and he didn’t know anyone in the castle. He spent much of the time sitting on his bed thinking about all those poor frogs, or staring out the castle windows, or aimlessly wandering the castle corridors.

  This went on for the three days it took to organize the victory celebration.

  At the feast, the frog wizard was dragged out in front of the rowdy, half-drunk mob of peasants and petty nobles, and was declared the kingdom’s Royal Magician. He was given the tallest tower in the castle for his own exclusive use, and servants were sent to his cave to fetch back all his belongings.