The War of the Lance t2-3

by Margaret Weis

  Oster was now beating the Highlord's attacks easily, reducing her to weak parries and dodges. The two locked blades again (Kali made a mental check to see if there was any surviving furniture). This time, when they broke, the Highlord's sword separated from its owner, burying its point in the china cabinet (shattering the last of the unbroken teapots). Oster brought his sword around in a mighty blow, aimed at his opponents' throat, as smooth and as level as carpenter's beam.

  Kali stepped forward and, in a loud voice, shouted, "Oster, don't do it! It's your Columbine!" Or rather, he fully intended to. A great, soft explosion blossomed at the base of his own skull and he toppled forward. The room pitched and the floor rose up to meet the gnome. He was dimly aware of two other forms striking the floor before he reached it, one the shape of a full human helmet, the other resembling a human sans both helmet and head. A part of Kali's mind paused to calculate how long it would take a plummeting gnome, a falling severed head, and a crumbled body to all hit the ground at the same time. Then the void closed up over him.

  Kali awoke to find himself in his own bed, looking up at a grim Oster and a worried-looking Eton. The expression on his fellow gnome's face told the story — that shamed-dog look of gnomish responsibility when an invention goes slightly awry, combined with a mild sense of pride that the idea proved feasible. He still had his combination plowshare-shovel in his hands.

  Oster's face was human and therefore unreadable. Gray. It looked like that of a gnome who has realized his invention is unworkable, and nothing could change that fact. A look of defeat, tinged with worry.

  "She's dead," Kali croaked. Not a question, but a notation, a footnote.

  "They both are," said Oster, putting a hand on the reclining gnome's shoulder. "And the priest, too, I'm afraid."

  "Both?" Kali's brow clouded.

  "The Highlord, and… and…" Oster shook his head. "Eton showed me the tomb you made for her. It is very sweet. Almost as if she were alive. When I pointed the priest toward the bedroom, the Highlord was waiting. If you hadn't come home, he would have caught us both."

  Kali looked hard at Eton, hoping to elicit from his fellow gnome an explanation that would at least bring him up to date.

  Eton avoided his eyes, and instead grabbed Kali's big toe and looked at his wrist. "Hmmm, confused from a lateral conclusion. He'll need his rest. If you don't mind, Oster?"

  The human nodded and saw himself out. The bedroom door had been replaced with a roughly-hung carpet, and Kali could hear the human busying himself outside.

  Eton leaned over to check the dressing wrapped at the base of Kali's skull. The small healer grabbed his caretaker's beard and pulled him close, hissing so Oster could not hear.

  "How did you keep him from finding out?"

  "Quick presence of mind," whispered Eton. "Before he could examine the body, I told him that if the Highlord was near, other enemies may be around as well. Oster scouted. I gathered up the pieces. By the time he had returned, I had placed the body, still in its armor, on the pyre."

  "And Columbine?"

  "Still in her crypt. The Clockwork Hero made up his own story, and did a better job than we did. He's broken up about it, but he'll get over it. I think. Humans are so difficult-to figure out."

  "Why the…?" Kali glowered at the destructive weapon Eton held.

  The other gnome sighed and said, "Because you created something that worked, and I did not want you to throw it away."

  Kali's head hurt, perhaps just from the shovel blow, but he wasn't sure. He frowned, but remained silent. And silence for gnomes means agreement.

  "You created a hero, Kali," Eton said quietly, gently. "Oster arrived as a prisoner, a failure as a merchant and a rebel. But because of all the lies you spun — the tale of Columbine, the errands to fetch useless items — he found a purpose in life. I knew you had decided to tell him the truth, and I had to stop you. If you had told him, he might have pulled his blow, and she would have killed us all."

  "But he believes a lie!" groaned Kali, still keeping his voice down.

  Eton shrugged. "From what I know of humans, that is a standard state of affairs. They excel at self-deception. Sometimes the lie is the unity of a nation, or the perfection of a cause. Or the love of a good woman — "

  " — who doesn't really exist," muttered Kali.

  "Exactly." Eton nodded. "It might even be preferred that way. Less fuss and bother. I might create one for myself…"

  Kali hrumphed weakly and drifted off to sleep. After a few days he came around to seeing things as Eton did. And Oster did heal over time and come to conquer the wound in his heart made by Columbine's death at the hands of the Highlord. And after a time it became less and less important for Kali to tell Oster the truth of the matter. Even so, he himself pledged to tell no more lies. No more dangerous ones, at least.

  And so it has been from that day to this. There still is a gnome village so remote that other gnomes refer to it when talking about remote villages, a noisy place of clanging hammers and the occasional explosion. And it has as its protector a champion in bronze armor, a human in clock-work attire. And its healer is a gnome who has an air of satisfaction because he made something that works, though, even if pressed, he won't reveal the nature of his discovery.

  Now, if you ever encounter this Clockwork Hero, you can ask him the tale, and he will tell, as best he is able with his human tongue and direct manner, of the story of his reluctant heroism, of finding himself entrusted to protect a group of small, foolish gnomes. He will speak of encountering a beauty wrapped in slumber, a fair maiden who never spoke to him, yet captured his heart. And he will tell of the fell creature who killed her and threatened his newfound people, such that they called upon him for salvation. And he will speak of sacrifices made and mighty oaths sworn and horrible battles fought and how justice and valor prevailed at the end, though at terrible cost.

  But that, of course, is a Human Story, and as such we shall not worry about it.

  The Night Wolf

  Nancy Varian Berberick

  The village of Dimmin lay snugly in a fold of the Kharolis Mountains, tucked between the elves' Qualinesti and Thorbardin of the dwarves. On the outskirts of that little village, beyond the bend of the brook where willows overhung the water on both sides, stood a small stone house. It was the mage's house, and Thorne had lived there for twenty years. To the eye, he was a man just come into his prime, but he'd been looking like that for all these twenty years past, never a hair turned gray, and so folk reckoned that he had an elf lurking in his ancestry somewhere.

  Mages enjoyed no good reputation in those days just after the Cataclysm, but the villagers liked Thorne. From the headman to the lowliest dairy maid, they knew him as "our mage." Even Guarinn Hammerfell — the dwarf who did the blacksmithing — couldn't hide a grudging fondness for Thorne, and that was saying something. Until the mage's arrival, Guarinn could name only one friend — Tam the potter. But for Tam the potter, Guarinn had always kept to himself, a grim fellow, without much warmth of feeling. Yet, when Thorne arrived, Guarinn made room in his lean heart for another friend. Long-lived dwarf and long-lived mage… the villagers joked that Guarinn must have reckoned Thorne would be around for a while, so he might as well get used to him.

  The people in Dimmin didn't know the half of what was to be known about Guarinn and Tam and Thorne, though they did consider it natural that Roulant Potter, grown to manhood tagging at the heels of Tam and his friends, stepped into his father's place after the potter's death — and became just as friendly with Guarinn and Thorne.

  Likely, they predicted, when young Roulant married Una the miller's girl they'd get themselves a son who'd inherit his grand-da's friends. No one thought it would be a bad inheritance, mage and all. People had gotten used to Guarinn the blacksmith. And Thorne was helpful in the way mages can be, for he was able to charm a fretful child to sleep or bring water springing up from a dry well — always willing to turn his mysterious skills to good use.
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br />   No one blamed Thorne that he was never able to do anything about the Night of the Wolf.

  Anyone with eyes in Dimmin could see that it was a great source of frustration and sorrow to their mage that he could offer them no protection against the wolf that terrorized the countryside one night each year. For thirty years it had avoided traps and hunters, and that was enough to make people understand that this was no ordinary wolf. What natural beast could live so long?

  Yet Thorne could offer no better wisdom than that everyone keep within-doors; for life's sake, never venture out into the dark when the two moons rose full on the first night of autumn. And so, on this one day each year, all around Dimmin, small children were shooed early into cottages, cached behind bolted doors. And if a child's bed should be near a window, this night the little one would sleep in the loft with his parents.

  Most often a stray sheep or roaming dog, sometimes a luckless traveler benighted in the forest, satisfied the hunger of the great beast. But only three years ago on the Night of the Wolf, a farmer who lived but a morning's walk from Dimmin had wakened at moonset to hear one of his children wailing. Fast as he ran to the youngster's bed, he'd found only an empty pallet, and the broad, deep tracks of a large wolf outside the window. No one questioned Thorne's advice to keep close to home on the Night.

  It must be a curse, they muttered as they bolted their doors. What else could it be?

  It was exactly that. Thorne had always known how to end the curse, and no one wanted that ending more than he.

  On the first day of autumn, Thorne sat before a banked hearth-fire. Outside the stone house, cold wind hissed around the eaves, but he didn't hear it. Eyes wide, he dreamed as though he were deep asleep. In his dreams the two moons, the red and the silver, filled up the sky, showered their light upon the jagged back teeth of a ruin's broken walls while cold, hungry howling ran down the sky. In his dreams Thorne cried out for mercy, and got none.

  He sat so all morning, sat unmoving all afternoon. When the light deepened toward the day's end, he heard his name urgently whispered, and he came away from his dreaming slowly, like a man swimming up from dark, deep waters. Guarinn Hammerfell stood at his shoulder, waiting. The dwarf's face was white, drawn in haggard lines; his dark, blue-flecked eyes were sunk into deep hollows carved by weariness. Thorne hadn't stirred even once during the long day, but he knew that Guarinn had kept watch beside him and never took a step away.

  "It's time, my friend," Thorne said.

  Guarinn nodded, wordlessly agreeing that it was. He said nothing as he and the mage dressed warmly in thick woolen cloaks and stout climbing boots, spoke no word as he slung a coil of heavy rope over his shoulder and thrust a short-hafted throwing axe into his belt.

  They crossed the brook by the old footbridge and entered the darkening forest. At the top of the first low hill, Thorne stopped to look down upon Dimmin as lights sprang up in the windows of the cottages, little gleams of gold to console in the coming night. He watched the last cottage, the one that stood alone at the far end of the village where the street became a narrow footpath winding down toward the potter's kiln at the edge of the brook. When that light sighed to life he knew that Roulant Potter was taking up his bow and quiver, making ready to leave.

  "And so the Night comes," Thorne whispered. "And we'll try again to kill the wolf, to end the curse."

  His words fell heavily into silence. Guarinn turned his back on the lights of Dimmin and began the climb to the tall hill in the forest, the bald place where the ruin lay. Thorne followed, and didn't trespass into the dwarf's silence.

  Their friendship was older than people in Dimmin realized. Guarinn knew that the mage was once called Thorne Shape-shifter. And he knew that Thorne Shapeshifter was the wolf. With Tam Potter, Guarinn had been present twenty years ago when Thorne had bared his wrists and taken up a keen-edged dagger, blindly seeking to end the curse by killing himself.

  "There IS no hope but this blade," Thorne had cried that day, sickened by the taste of what the wolf had killed. "I will change every year, unless one of you kills the wolf. Neither of you has been able to do that."

  He'd meant no reproof, for he knew why his friends had failed each year. That, too, was part of the curse. Still, they reproached themselves, and he knew that, as well.

  He found no hope anywhere, not even among the wise at the Tower of Wayreth. He'd fled there, after the curse had been spoken, but he'd been driven from that haven by the dark magic of the curse itself, compelled to return to the broken ruin in the mountains at the rising of the full autumn moons. Ten years he'd hidden there. The efforts of the most skillful mages at Wayreth had not been able to blunt that compulsion. The wisest had sadly counselled Thorne that he must accept that there was only one way to end the curse. The wolf must die, and only Guarinn or Tam Potter could kill it. So said the curse. But they had failed him.

  It was twenty years ago that Thorne decided there might be another way to end the curse. And so, with careful precision, he'd set a dagger's glinting edge against the blue veins in his wrist. In the end, whether by some agency of the curse itself, or an innate will to survive that was stronger than he'd guessed, he'd not been able to draw the steel across his wrist.

  Guarinn had wept for both joy and rue over his friend's inability to end his life. And Tam Potter, taking the dagger gently from the mage's hand, said: "Thorne, come back and live in Dimmin with Guarinn and me. We'll find a way to kill the wolf. We'll keep trying."

  In the summer when Tam died, Roulant Potter learned that he'd inherited his father's part in a curse that was older than he. Thorne had told Roulant just what he knew his father had believed — what Guarinn yet believed: when the wolf was dead, the curse would end. "What will happen to you?" young Roulant had asked. "I will not be hurt," Thorne had replied. "I will be free."

  Some of that was true, and some of it wasn't. Thorne never told his friends all he'd learned during the time at Wayreth.

  Shrouded in shadow, hidden beneath a stone outcropping at the forest's edge, Una wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees, hugged herself to muffle the drumming of her heart. She was outside after sunset on the Night of the Wolf. Una had not lived in Dimmin but five years, come to stay with her cousin, the miller's wife, after her parents died. She'd been thirteen then, and it hadn't taken her very long to learn that no one in the village ventured outdoors on the first night of autumn.

  No one, that is, except — lately — Roulant Potter. He would stealthily enter the forest here soon. Una had seen him do this each year on the Night for two years, and there had never been a question in her mind that she'd keep Roulant's secret faithfully. She'd loved him as long as she'd known him, and he'd never been shy about letting her know that he felt the same way. They would marry soon. Maybe.

  And maybe not. Una's faithful silence on the subject of Roulant's Night-walk extended to Roulant himself, for she didn't know how to ask the question

  that would sound like an accusation: What do you know about the Night of the Wolf that even our mage doesn't?

  And so the secret cast a shadow between them. Day by day, a little at a time, the shadow was changing them, as if by a malicious magic, into uneasy strangers.

  As darkness gathered beneath the forest's thin eaves, old dead leaves ran scrabbling before the wind. In the luminous sky, one early, eager star shone out. A dark shape stood atop the hill, a young man with a great breadth of shoulder and a long, loping stride. Roulant stopped at the crest and stood silhouetted against the sky, the last light shining on his brown-gold hair. Still as stone, he hung there, between the village and the wildwood — stood a long time before he at last vanished into the twilight beneath the trees.

  The wind moaned round the rocks, and Una shivered as she checked the draw of the dagger at her belt. She was afraid: of the Night, and of what she might discover, and of what she might lose. But she hugged her courage close. She would follow Roulant tonight, and she wouldn't turn back. She had to know what part he played
in this yearly night of dread.

  Soft on the cold air, Roulant heard a whisper, the dry rattling of brush behind him. He turned quickly, saw a flash of red in the tangled thickets on the slope below: some padding fox or vixen on the trail of prey. Roulant went on climbing. He must reach the ruin before moonrise.

  The tumbled stone walls atop the bald hill in the forest had been his destination each Night for the past two, as it had been his father's every year since Roulant could remember. When he was a boy, after his mother's death, Roulant used to think he knew why his father went out into the forest on the Night of the Wolf. He believed that Tam was a brave champion upon a secret quest to help save the people of Dimmin. Roulant'd never told anyone what he believed, nor did he mention it to his father. A secret is a secret, and Tam need not carry the burden of knowing his had been discovered.

  The year the wolf had killed the farmer's child was the last Tam went up to the ruin. The summer after, he died. Roulant was seventeen then, and that was when he learned that Thorne was the wolf.

  It was a hard thing to learn. Roulant had known Thorne since childhood, had felt for him the magical awe and affection that is hero-worship. Even knowing that the mage became the wolf, once every annum, could not break their bond. From that year to this, enmeshed in the web of an old curse, Roulant had been drawn out into the forest on the Night to stand with Guarinn Hammerfell and promise Thorne they would kill the wolf, swear they would free their friend from the curse.

  This, on the face of it, was a difficult promise to keep, for wolves are hard to hunt and kill. But Roulant, in youthful zeal, had never truly thought it would be impossible. He was a good hunter. His father had taught him to be a faultless shot with bow and arrow. Guarinn had taught him to track, and made the lessons easy, companionable rambles in the forest. As he'd stood faithfully with Tam, Guarinn was always with Roulant. Yet, just as Tam had failed his own promise, Roulant had, too — so far.