by Terry Brooks
“It will be all right,” she whispered.
Questor breezed back about Abernathy again, adjusting him first this way and then that, telling him all the while that things would take only a moment. Satisfied at last, he moved directly in front of the scribe and took two careful steps right. He tested the air with a wet finger. “Ah!” he declared mysteriously.
He brought his arms high out of the gray robes, flexed his fingers, and opened his mouth. Then he paused, his nose twitching. One hand dropped quickly to rub at it in irritation. “Dratted sunshine tickles,” he muttered. “Pollen does nothing to help, either.”
The G’home Gnomes crowded close again, pressing up against the wizard’s robes, their ferret faces peering out at Abernathy in anxious anticipation.
“Could you move those creatures back?” the dog snapped and even growled a bit.
Questor glanced down. “Oh. Well, yes, of course. Back now, back with you!” He shooed the gnomes away and resumed his stance. His nose twitched again, and he sniffed. “Quiet, please!”
He began a long incantation. Bizarre gestures accompanied words that brought frowns of puzzlement to the faces of his listeners. They edged forward a pace or two to listen: Ben, a lean, fit man of forty standing firm against the advancement of middle age; Willow, a child in a woman’s body, a sylph, half-human, half-fairy; the kobolds Parsnip and Bunion, the first thick and stolid, the second spindle-legged and quick, both with sharp, glittering eyes and teeth that suggested something feral; and the G’home Gnomes Fillip and Sot, furry, unkempt ground creatures that appeared to have just poked their heads up from their earthen dens. They watched and waited and said nothing. Abernathy, the focus of their attention, closed his eyes and prepared for the worst.
Still Questor Thews went on, looking for all the world like some scarecrow escaped from the fields, his recitation seemingly as endless as the complaints of the G’home Gnomes.
Ben was struck suddenly with the incongruity of things. Here he was, until recently a member of a profession that stressed reliance on facts and reason, a modern man, a man from a world where technology governed most aspects of life, a world of space travel, nuclear power, sophisticated telecommunications and a hundred-and-one other marvels—here he was, in a world that was all but devoid of technology, fully expecting a wizard’s magic to transform completely the physiological makeup of a living creature in a way that the sciences of his old world had barely dreamed was possible. He almost smiled at the thought. It was just too bizarre.
Questor Thews’ hands swooped down suddenly and then up again, and the air was filled with a fine silver dust that sparkled and shimmered as if alive. It floated in breezy swirls all about Questor’s hands for a moment, then settled over Abernathy. Abernathy saw none of it, his eyes still tightly closed. Questor continued to murmur, his tone changing, growing sharper, becoming more a chant. The silver dust swirled, the light in the room seemed to brighten, and there was a sudden coldness in the air. Ben felt the G’home Gnomes shrink back behind his legs, muttering guardedly. Willow’s hand closed tighter about his own.
“Ezaratz!” Questor cried out suddenly—or something like it—and there was a brilliant flash of light that ricocheted off Ben’s medallion and caused them all to flinch away.
When they looked back again, there stood Abernathy—unchanged.
No, wait, thought Ben, his hands are gone! He has paws!
“Oh, oh,” Questor said.
Abernathy’s eyes blinked open. “Arf!” he barked. Then, in horror, “Arf, arf, arf!”
“Questor, you’ve turned him completely into a dog!” Ben exclaimed in disbelief. “Do something!”
“Drat!” the wizard muttered. “A moment, a moment!” His hands gestured, and the silver dust flew. He resumed the incantation. Abernathy had discovered paws where his hands had been. His eyes had snapped wide open and his muzzle had begun to quiver.
“Erazaratz!” Questor cried. The light flashed, the medallion flared, and the paws disappeared. Abernathy had his hands back. “Abernathy!” the wizard exulted.
“Wizard, when I get my hands on you … !” the scribe howled. Clearly, he had his voice back as well.
“Stand still!” Questor ordered sharply, but Abernathy was already advancing on him, moving out of the ring of silver dust. Questor moved quickly to stop him, brushing at the dust where it formed a screen between them. The dust darted away from him as if alive and flew suddenly into his face.
“Erazzatza!” Questor Thews sneezed suddenly.
A well of light opened up beneath Abernathy, a cloudy brightness that seemed to fasten about the dog’s legs with tiny feelers. Slowly, the light began to draw Abernathy down.
“Help!” Abernathy cried.
“Questor!” Ben screamed.
He started forward and tripped over the G’home Gnomes, who had somehow edged in front of him.
“I … I have him … High Lord!” Questor Thews gasped between sniffles. His hands tried desperately to regain control of the swirling dust.
Abernathy’s eyes had opened even wider, if that were possible, and he was struggling to climb free of the pooled light, calling out to them frantically. Ben tried to untangle himself from the G’home Gnomes.
“Be … calm!” Questor urged. “Be … ca … ah, ah, ah … ACHOOO!”
He sneezed so hard, he lurched backward into Ben and the others and knocked them all sprawling. The silver dust flew out the windows into the sunlit gardens. Abernathy gave one final cry and was sucked down into the light. The light flared once and disappeared.
Ben pushed himself up on his hands and knees and glared at Questor Thews. “Gesundheit!” he snapped.
Questor Thews turned crimson.
BOTTLE
“Well?” Ben demanded. “Where is he? What’s happened to him?”
Questor Thews didn’t seem to have a ready answer, so Ben diverted his attention from the flustered wizard long enough to help Willow up, then turned quickly back again. He wasn’t angry yet—he was still too shocked—but he was going to be very angry any second. Abernathy had disappeared just as surely as if he had never been—vanished, just like that. And, of course, Ben’s medallion, the medallion that protected the kingship and his life, the medallion Questor had assured him would be perfectly safe, had vanished as well.
He changed his mind. He wasn’t going to be angry after all. He was going to be sick.
“Questor, where is Abernathy?” he repeated.
“Well, I … the fact of the matter is, High Lord, I … I am not entirely certain,” the wizard managed finally.
Ben seized the front of the wizard’s robes. He was going to be angry after all. “Don’t tell me that! You’ve got to get him back, damnit!”
“High Lord.” Questor was pale, but composed. He didn’t try to draw away. He simply straightened himself and took a deep breath. “I am not sure yet exactly what happened. It will take a little time to understand …”
“Well, can’t you guess?” Ben shouted, cutting him short.
The owlish face twisted. “I can guess that the magic misfired, of course. I can guess that the sneeze—that wasn’t my fault, you know, High Lord, it simply happened—that the sneeze confused the magic in some fashion and changed the result of the incantation. Instead of transforming Abernathy from a dog back into a man, it seems to have transported him instead. The two words are quite similar, you see, and the magics likewise are similar. It happens that the results of most incantations are similar where the words are similar …”
“Skip all that!” Ben snapped. He started to say something further, then caught himself. He was losing control of the situation. He was behaving like some B-picture gangster. He released the front of the wizard’s robes, feeling a bit foolish. “Look, you think that the magic sent him somewhere, right? Where do you think it sent him? Just tell me that.”
Questor cleared his throat and thought a moment. “I don’t know,” he decided.
Ben stared at him, the
n turned away. “I don’t believe this is happening,” he muttered. “I just don’t believe it.”
He glanced momentarily at the others. Willow stood close, her green eyes solemn. The kobolds were picking up a planter that had been knocked over in the struggle. There were dirt and broken flowers scattered in a six-foot circle about them. The G’home Gnomes were whispering together anxiously.
“Perhaps we should …” Willow started to say.
And then there was a bright flash of light from the spot where Abernathy had disappeared, a popping sound as if someone had pulled a cork free, and something materialized from out of nowhere, spun wildly about, and came to rest on the floor.
It was a bottle.
Everyone jumped, then stared. The bottle lay there quietly, an oval-shaped container about the size of a magnum of champagne. It was corked and wired tightly shut and it was painted white with red harlequins dancing on its glass surface, all in varying poses of devilish gaiety, all grinning madly.
“What in the world is that?” Ben muttered and reached down to pick it up. He studied it wordlessly for a moment, hefting it, peering into it. “Doesn’t appear to be anything inside,” he said. “It feels empty.”
“High Lord, I have a thought!” Questor said suddenly. “This bottle and Abernathy may have been exchanged—transposed, one for the other! Transpose sounds like transform and transfer, and I think the magics are close enough that it is possible!”
Ben frowned. “Abernathy was exchanged for this bottle? Why?”
Questor started to reply and stopped. “I don’t know. But I am quite positive that is what happened.”
“Does this help determine where Abernathy is now?” Willow asked.
Questor shook his head. “But it gives me a starting point. If I can trace the source of the bottle, then perhaps …” He trailed off thoughtfully. “Odd. This bottle seems familiar.”
“You’ve seen it somewhere before?” Ben wanted to know immediately.
The wizard frowned. “I am not sure. It seems as if I might have and at the same time it seems I must be mistaken. I do not quite understand it.”
Along with just about everything else, Ben thought rather unkindly. “Well, I don’t give a hoot about this bottle,” he declared, “but I do care about Abernathy and the medallion. So let’s find a way to get them back. Whatever it takes, Questor, you do it and do it quickly. This mess is your responsibility.”
“I realize that, High Lord. You need not remind me. It was not my fault, however, that Abernathy tried to move out of the incantation’s sphere of influence, that the dust flew into my face when I tried to stop him, and that I thereupon sneezed. The magic would have worked as it was intended to work if I had not …”
Ben impatiently brushed the explanation away with a wave of his hand. “Just find him, Questor. Just find him.”
Questor Thews bowed curtly. “Yes, High Lord. I will begin at once!” He turned and started from the room, muttering, “He might still be in Landover; I will begin my search here. The Landsview should help. He should be safe for the moment in any event, I imagine—safe even if we do not reach him immediately. Oh! Not that there is any reason he shouldn’t be safe, High Lord,” he added, turning hastily back. “No, no, we have time.” He started away again. “The sneeze was not my fault, drat it! I had the magic perfectly under my control, and … oh, what is the point of belaboring the matter, I will simply start looking …”
He was almost through the door, when Ben called after him, “Don’t you want this bottle?”
“What?” Questor glanced back, then hastily shook his head. “Later, perhaps. I have no immediate need for it. Odd, how familiar … I wish my memory were a little bit better on these things. Ah, well, it cannot mean much if I cannot summon even a faint recollection …”
He disappeared from view, still muttering—the Don Quixote of Landover, searching for dragons and finding only windmills. Ben watched him go in frustrated silence.
It was difficult to think about anything beyond the lost medallion and the missing Abernathy, but there was nothing to be done about either until Questor reported back. So while Willow went into the gardens to pick fresh flowers for dinner and the kobolds went back to their work about the castle, Ben forced himself to resume consideration of the latest complaint of the G’home Gnomes.
Intriguingly enough, the gnomes were no longer so anxious to pursue the matter.
“Tell me whatever you have left to tell me about the trolls,” Ben ordered, resigned to the worst. He settled himself wearily in his chair and waited.
“Such a beautiful bottle, High Lord,” said Fillip instead.
“Such a pretty thing,” echoed Sot.
“Forget the bottle,” Ben advised, remembering for the first time since Questor had departed that it was still there, sitting where he had put it down on the floor next to him. He glanced at it in irritation. “I’d like to.”
“But we have never seen one like it,” persisted Fillip.
“Never,” agreed Sot.
“Can we touch it, High Lord?” asked Fillip.
“Yes, can we?” pleaded Sot.
Ben glared. “I thought we were here to discuss trolls. You seemed anxious enough to do so earlier. You practically cried to do so. Now you don’t care anymore?”
Fillip glanced hastily at Sot. “Oh, we care a great deal, High Lord. The trolls have mistreated us grievously.”
“Then let’s get on …”
“But the trolls are gone for now and cannot be found again immediately in any case, and the bottle is right here, right in front of us, so can we touch it for a moment, Great Lord—just for a moment?”
“Can we, Mighty High Lord?” echoed Sot.
Ben wanted to take the bottle and beat them over the head with it. But instead he simply picked it up and handed it over. It was easier than arguing. “Just be careful,” he cautioned.
There really wasn’t much to worry about on that count, he realized. The bottle was heavy glass and looked as if it could endure a good deal of mistreatment. Actually, it seemed almost something more than glass—almost a metal of some sort. Must be the paint, he thought.
The G’home Gnomes were fondling and caressing the bottle as if it were their most precious treasure. They stroked it and loved it. They cradled it like a child. Their grimy little paws moved across its surface almost sensuously. Ben was disgusted. He glanced out into the gardens at Willow and thought about joining her. Anything would be better than this.
“How about it, fellas,” he said finally. “Let’s finish up with the trolls, okay?”
Fillip and Sot stared at him. He beckoned for them to return the bottle, and they reluctantly handed it back. Ben set it down next to him again. The gnomes hesitated, then resumed their complaint against the trolls. But the effort was halfhearted at best. Their eyes kept straying back to the bottle, and finally they gave up on the trolls altogether.
“High Lord, could we have the bottle?” asked Fillip suddenly.
“Oh, yes, could we?” asked Sot.
Ben stared. “Whatever for?”
“It is a precious thing,” said Fillip.
“It is a treasure,” said Sot.
“So beautiful,” said Fillip.
“Yes, beautiful,” echoed Sot.
Ben closed his eyes and rubbed them wearily, then looked at the gnomes. “I would love to be able to give it to you, believe me,” he said. “I would love to say, ‘Here, take this bottle and don’t let me see it ever again.’ That’s what I would love to do. But I can’t. The bottle has some connection with what happened to Abernathy, and I have to know what.”
The G’home Gnomes shook their heads solemnly.
“The dog never liked us,” muttered Fillip.
“The dog never did,” muttered Sot.
“He growled at us.”
“And even snapped.”
“Nevertheless …” Ben insisted.
“We could keep the bottle for you, High Lord,” in
terrupted Fillip.
“We would take good care of it, High Lord,” assured Sot.
“Please, please,” they implored.
They were so pathetic that Ben could only shake his head in wonder. They were just like little children in a toy store. “What if there were an evil genie in the bottle?” he asked suddenly, leaning forward with a dark frown. “What if the genie ate gnomes for breakfast?” The gnomes looked at him blankly. Obviously they had never heard of such a thing. “Never mind,” he said. He sighed and sat back again. “You can’t have it, and that’s that.”
“But you said you would love to give it to us,” Fillip pointed out.
“That is what you said,” agreed Sot.
“And we would love to have it.”
“We would.”
“So why not give it to us, High Lord?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Just for a little while, even?”
“Just for a few days?”
Ben lost his temper once again. He snatched up the bottle and brandished it before him. “I wish I had never seen this bottle!” he yelled. “I hate the damn thing! I wish it would disappear! I wish Abernathy and the medallion would reappear! I wish wishes were candy and I could eat them all day long! But they aren’t, and I can’t, and neither can you! So let’s drop the whole subject of the bottle and get back to the trolls before I decide I don’t want to listen to you anymore on anything and send you on your way!”
He put the bottle down again with a thud and sat back. The gnomes glanced at each other meaningfully.
“He hates the bottle,” whispered Fillip.
“He wishes it would disappear,” whispered Sot.
“What did you say?” Ben asked. He couldn’t quite hear them.
“Nothing, Great High Lord,” answered Fillip.
“Nothing, Mighty High Lord,” answered Sot.
They went quickly back to their tale of woe about the trolls, a tale which they wrapped up rather quickly. While they were telling it, they never took their eyes off the bottle.