King Kobold Revived wisoh-3

by Christopher Stasheff

  Gwen’s heart broke open and flowed; and it must have shown in her face, for Agatha transfixed her with a shimmering glare. “Pity them if you must,” she grated, “but never have pity for me!”

  She held Gwen’s eyes for a moment, then turned back to the caldron, taking up her paddle again. “You will tell me that this was no fault of theirs,” she muttered, “any more than it was of mine, that their hunger forced them to me as truly as mine constrained me to welcome them.”

  Her head lifted slowly, the eyes narrowing. “Or didst thou not know? Galen, the wizard of the Dark Tower. He it was who should have answered my hunger with his own. The greatest witch and the greatest warlock of the kingdom together, is it not fitting? But he alone of all men would never come to me, the swine! Oh, he will tell you he hath too much righteousness to father a child into a Hell-world like this; yet the truth of it is, he fears the blame of that child he might father. Coward! Churl! Swine!”

  She dug at the caldron, spitting and cursing. “Hell-spawned, thrice misbegotten, bastard mockery of a man! Him”—she finished in a harsh whisper—“I hate most of all!”

  The bony, gnarled old hands clutched the paddle so tight it seemed the wood must break.

  Then she was clutching the slimy wooden paddle to her sunken dried breast. Her shoulders shook with dry sobs. “My child,” she murmured. “O my fair, unborn, sweet child!”

  The sobs diminished and stilled. Then, slowly, the witch’s eyes came up again. “Or didst thou not know?” She smiled harshly, an eldritch gleam in her rheumy yellowed eye. “He it is who doth guard my portal, who doth protect me—my unborn child, Harold, my son, my familiar! So he was, and so he will ever be now—a soul come to me out of a tomorrow that once might have been.”

  Gwen stared, thunderstruck. “Thy familiar…?”

  “Aye.” The old witch’s nod was tight with irony. “My familiar and my son, my child who, because he once might have been, and should have been, bides with me now, though he never shall be born, shall never have flesh grown out of my own to cover his soul with. Harold, most powerful of wizards, son of old Galen and Agatha, of a union unrealized; for the Galen and Agatha who sired and bore him ha’ died in us long ago, and lie buried in the rack and mire of our youth.”

  She turned back to the caldron, stirring slowly. “When first he came to me, long years ago, I could not understand.”

  Frankly, Rod couldn’t either—although he was beginning to suspect hallucinations. He wondered if prolonged loneliness could have that effect in a grown person—developing an imaginary companion.

  But if Agatha really believed in this “familiar,” maybe the hallucination could focus her powers so completely that it would dredge up every last ounce of her potential. That could account for the extraordinary strength of her psi powers…

  Agatha lifted her head, gazing off into space.

  “It seemed, lo, full strange to me, most wondrous strange; but I was lonely, and grateful. But now”—her breath wheezed like a dying organ—“now I know, now I understand.” She nodded bitterly. “ ‘Twas an unborn soul that had no other home, and never would have.”

  Her head hung low, her whole body slumped with her grief.

  After a long, long while, she lifted her head and sought out Gwen’s eyes. “You have a son, have you not?”

  There was a trace of tenderness in Agatha’s smile at Gwen’s nod.

  But the smile hardened, then faded; and the old witch shook her head. “The poor child,” she muttered.

  “Poor child!” Gwen struggled to hide outrage. “In the name of Heaven, old Agatha, why?”

  Agatha gave her a contemptuous glance over her shoulder. “Thou hast lived through witch-childhood, and thou hast need to ask?”

  “No,” Gwen whispered, shaking her head; then, louder, “No! A new day has dawned, Agatha, a day of change! My son shall claim his rightful place in this kingdom, shall guard the people and have respect from them, as is his due!”

  “Think thou so?” The old witch smiled bitterly.

  “Aye, I believe it! The night has past now, Agatha, fear and ignorance have gone in this day of change. And never again shall the folk of the village pursue them in anger and fear and red hatred!”

  The old witch smiled sourly and jerked her head toward the cave-mouth. “Hear thou that?”

  Rod saw Gwen turn toward the cave-mouth, frowning. He cocked his ear and caught a low, distant rumble. He realized it had been there for some time, coming closer.

  The heck with the cover. “Fess! What’s that noise?”

  “ ‘Tis these amiable villager folk of thine,” said old Agatha with a sardonic smile, “the folk of twelve villages, gathered together behind a preacher corrupted by zeal, come to roust old Agatha from her cave and burn her to ashes, for once and for all.”

  “Analysis confirmed,” Fess’s voice said behind Rod’s ear.

  Rod leaped to the cave-mouth, grabbed a rocky projection, and leaned out to look down.

  Halfway up the slope, a churning mass filled the stone ledges.

  Rod whirled back to face the women. “She’s right—it’s a peasant mob. They’re carrying scythes and mattocks.”

  A sudden gust blew the mob’s cry more loudly to them.

  “Hear!” Agatha snorted, nodding toward the cave-mouth. Her mouth twisted with bitterness at the corners. “Hear them clamoring for my blood! Aye, when an unwashed, foaming madman drives them to it!”

  She looked down at the swarming mob climbing ledge by ledge toward them. Steel winked in the sun.

  Gwen felt the clammy touch of fear; but fear of what, she did not know. “Thou speakest almost as though thou hadst known this beforehand…”

  “Oh, to be certain, I did.” The old witch smiled. “Has it not come often upon me before? It was bound to be coming again. The time alone I did not know; but what matter is that?”

  The ledges narrowed as the horde surged higher. Gwen could make out individual faces now. “They come close, Agatha. What must we do against them?”

  “Do?” The old witch raised shaggy eyebrows in surprise. “Why, nothing, child. I have too much of their blood on my hands already. I am tired, old, and sick of my life; why then should I fight them? Let them come here and burn me. This time, at least, I will not be guilty of the blood of those I have saved.”

  Agatha turned away from the cave-mouth, gathering her shawl about her narrow old shoulders. “Let them come here and rend me; let them set up a stake here and burn me. Even though it come in the midst of great torture, death shall be sweet.”

  Rod stared, appalled. “You’ve got to be joking!”

  “Must I, then?” Agatha transfixed him with a glare. “Thou shalt behold the truth of it!” She hobbled over to a scarred chair and sat down. “Here I rest, and here I stay, come what will, and come who will. Let them pierce me, let them burn me! I shall not again be guilty of shedding human blood!”

  “But we need you!” Rod cried. “A coven of witches scarcely out of childhood needs you! The whole land of Gramarye needs you!”

  “Wherefore—the saving of lives? And to save their lives, I must needs end these?” She nodded toward the roaring at the cave-mouth. “I think not, Lord Warlock. The very sound of it echoes with evil. Who saves lives by taking lives must needs be doing devil’s work.”

  “All right, so don’t kill them!” Rod cried, exasperated. “Just send them away.”

  “And how shall we do that, pray? They are already halfway up the mountain. How am I to throw them down without slaying them?”

  “Then, do not slay them.” Gwen dropped to her knees beside Agatha’s chair. “Let them come—but do not let them touch thee.”

  Rod’s eyes glowed. “Of course! Fess’s outside on the ledge! He can keep them out!”

  “Surely he is not!” Gwen looked up, horrified. “There must be an hundred of them, at the least! They will pick him up and throw him bodily off the cliff!”

  Rod’s stomach sank as he realized she wa
s right. Not that it would hurt Fess, of course—he remembered that antigravity plate in the robot’s belly. But it wouldn’t keep the peasants out, either.

  “What is this ‘Fess’ thou dost speak of?” Agatha demanded.

  “My, uh, horse,” Rod explained. “Not exactly… a horse. I mean, he looks like a horse, and he sounds like a horse, but…”

  “If it doth appear to be an horse, and doth sound like to an horse, then it must needs be an horse,” Agatha said with asperity, “and I would not have it die. Bring it hither, within the cave. If it doth not impede them, they will not slay it.”

  Loose rock clattered, and hooves echoed on stone as Fess walked into the cave. Behind Rod’s ear his voice murmured, “Simple discretion, Rod.”

  “He’s got very good hearing,” Rod explained.

  “And doth understand readily too, I wot,” Agatha said, giving Fess a jaundiced glance. Then her eye glittered and she looked up, fairly beaming. “Well-a-day! We are quite cozy, are we not? And wilt thou, then, accompany me to my grave?”

  Gwen froze. Then her shoulders straightened, and her chin lifted. “If we must, we will.” She turned to Rod. “Shall we not, husband?”

  Rod stared at her for a second. Even in the crisis, he couldn’t help noticing that he had been demoted from “my lord” to “husband.” Then his mouth twisted. “Not if I can help it.” He stepped over to the black horse and fumbled in a saddlebag. “Fess and I have a few gimmicks here…” He pulled out a small compact cylinder. “We’ll just put up a curtain of fire halfway back in the cave, between us and them. Oughta scare ‘em outa their buskins…”

  “It will not hold them long!” Agatha began to tremble. “Yet, I see thou dost mean it. Fool! Idiot! Thou wilt but madden them further! They will break through thy flames; they will tear thee, they will rend thee!”

  “I think not.” Gwen turned to face the cave-mouth. “I will respect thy wishes and not hurl them from the ledge; yet, I can fill the air with a rain of small stones. I doubt me not an that will afright them.”

  “An thou dost afright them, they will flee! And in their flight, they will knock one another from the ledge, a thousand feet and more down to their deaths!” Agatha cried, agonized. “Nay, lass! Do not seek to guard me! Fly! Thou’rt young, and a-love! Thou hast a bairn and a husband! Thou hast many years left to thee, and they will be sweet, though many bands like to this come against thee!”

  Gwen glanced longingly at her broomstick, then looked up at Rod. He met her gaze with a somber face.

  “Fly, fly!” Agatha’s face twisted with contempt. “Thou canst not aid a sour old woman in the midst of her death throes, lass! Thy death here with me would serve me not at all! Indeed, it would deepen the guilt that my soul is steeped in!”

  Rod dropped to one knee behind a large boulder and leveled his laser at the cave-mouth. Gwen nodded and stepped behind a rocky pillar. Pebbles began to stir on the floor of the cave.

  “Nay!” Agatha screeched. “Thou must needs be away from this place, and right quickly!” Turning, she seized a broomstick and slammed it into Gwen’s hands; her feet lifted off the floor. Rod felt something pick him up and throw him toward Gwen. He shouted in anger and tried to swerve aside, but he landed on the broomstick anyway. It pushed up underneath him, then hurtled the two of them toward the cave-mouth—and slammed into an invisible wall that gave under them, slowed them, stopped them, then tossed them back toward old Agatha. They jarred into each other and tumbled to the floor.

  “Will you make up your mind!” Rod clambered to his feet, rubbing his bruises. “Do you want us out, or don’t…” His voice trailed off as he saw the look on the old witch’s face. She stared past his shoulder toward the cave-mouth. Frowning, he turned to follow her gaze.

  The air at the cave-mouth shimmered.

  The old witch’s face darkened with anger. “Harold! Begone! Withdraw from the cave-mouth, and quickly; this lass must be away!”

  The shimmering intensified like a heat haze.

  A huge boulder just outside the cave-mouth stirred.

  “Nay, Harold!” Agatha screeched. “Thou shalt not! There ha’ been too much bloodshed already!”

  The boulder lifted slowly, clear of the ledge.

  “Harold!” Agatha screamed, and fell silent.

  For, instead of dropping down onto the toiling peasants below, the boulder lifted out and away, rising swiftly into the sky.

  It was twenty feet away from the cave when a swarm of arrows spat out from the cliff above, struck the boulder, and rebounded, falling away into the valley below.

  The old witch stood frozen a long moment, staring at the heat haze and the boulder arcing away into the forest.

  “Harold,” she whispered, “arrows…”

  She shook her head, coming back to herself. “Thou must not leave now.”

  “He ha’ saved our lives.” said Gwen, round-eyed.

  “Aye, that he hath; there be archers above us, awaiting the flight of a witch. Mayhap they thought I would fly; but I never have, I ha’ always stayed here and fought them. It would seem they know thou’rt with me. A yard from that ledge now, and thou wouldst most truly resemble two hedgehogs.”

  Agatha turned away, dragging Gwen with her toward the back of the cave. “Thou, at least, must not die here! We shall brew witchcraft, thou and I, for a storm of magic such as hath never been witnessed in this land! Harold!” she called over her shoulder to the heat haze. “Guard the door!”

  Rod started to follow, then clenched his fists, feeling useless.

  Agatha hauled a small iron pot from the shelf and gasped as its weight plunged against her hands. She heaved, thrusting with her whole body to throw it up onto a small tripod that stood on the rough table. “I grow old,” she growled as she hooked the pot onto the tripod, “old and weak. Long years it ha’ been since I last stewed men’s fates in this.”

  “Men’s fates…?” Gwen was at her elbow. “What dost thou, Agatha?”

  “Why, a small cooking, child.” The old witch grinned. “Did I not say we would brew great magic here?”

  She turned away and began pulling stone jars from the shelf. “Kindle me a fire, child. We shall live, lass, for we must; this land hath not yet given us dismissal.”

  A spark fell from Gwen’s flint and steel into the tinder. Gwen breathed on the resulting coal till small flames danced in the kindling. As she fed it larger and larger wood scraps, she ventured, “Thou art strangely joyous for a witch who ha’ been deprived of that which she wanted, old Agatha.”

  The old witch cackled and rubbed her thin, bony hands. “It is the joy of a craftsman, child, that doth his work well, and sees a great task before him, a greater task than ever his trade yet ha’ brought him. I shall live, and more joyous and hearty than ever before; for there is great need of old Agatha, and great deeds a-doing. The undoing of this war thou hast told me of will be old Agatha’s greatest work.”

  She took a measure from the shelf and began ladling powders from the various jars into the pot, then took a small paddle and began stirring the brew.

  Gwen flinched at the stench that arose from the heating-pot. “What is this hideous porridge, Agatha? I have never known a witch to use such a manner of bringing magic, save in child’s tales.”

  Agatha paused in her stirring to fasten a pensive eye on Gwen. “Thou art yet young, child, and know only half-truths of witchery.”

  She turned back to stirring the pot. “It is true that our powers be of the mind, and only of the mind. Yet true it also is that thou hast never used but a small part of thy power, child. Thou knowest not the breadth and the width of it, the color and the warp and the woof of it. There be deep, unseen parts of thy soul thou hast never uncovered; and this deep power thou canst not call up at will. It lies too far buried, beyond thy call. Thou must needs trick it into coming out, direct it by ruse and gin, not by will.” She peered into the smoking, bubbling pot. “And this thou must do with a bubbling brew compounded of things which st
and for the powers thou doth wish to evoke from thy heart of hearts and the breadth of thy brain. Hummingbird’s feathers, for strength, speed, and flight; bees, for their stings; poppyseed, for the dulling of wits; lampblack, for the stealth and silence of night; woodbine, to bind it to the stone of the cliffs; hearth-ash, for the wish to return to the home.”

  She lifted the paddle; the mess flowed slowly down from it into the pot. “Not quite thick enow,” the old witch muttered, and went back to stirring. “Put the jars back on the shelves, child; a tidy kitchen makes a good brew.”

  Gwen picked up a few jars, but as she did she glanced toward the cave-mouth. The clamor was much louder. “Old Agatha, they come!”

  The first of the villagers stormed into the cave, brandishing a scythe.

  “Their clamor shall but help the brew’s flavor,” said the old witch with a delightedly wicked grin. She bent over the pot, and crooned.

  The peasant slammed into the invisible haze barrier, and rebounded, knocking over the next two behind him. The fourth and fifth stumbled over their fallen comrades, adding nicely to the pile. The stack heaved as the ones on the bottom tried to struggle to their feet. The top layers shrieked, leaped up, and fled smack-dab into the arms of their lately-come reinforcements. The resulting frantic struggle was somewhat energetic, and the ledge was only wide enough for one man at a time; the peasants seesawed back and forth, teetering perilously close to the edge, flailing their arms for balance and squalling in terror.

  “ ‘Tis a blessing the ledge is so narrow, they cannot come against me more than one at a time.” Agatha wrapped a rag around the handle of the pot and hefted it off the hook, strands of muscle straining along her arms. “Quickly, child,” she grated, “the tripod! My son Harold is summat more than a man, but he cannot hold them long, not so many! Quickly! Quickly! We must prepare to be aiding him!”