The companions they had been guarding fell on their faces and stayed very, very still. The beast turned lazily away from them, reduced a pine to ash, and lapped it up.
The beast was blind, Miss Ironfist had said. She hadn’t mentioned its hearing.
“Why the coldest day?” Youngster wondered.
“What?” Stephen had half-forgotten he was not watching the scene alone.
“The coldest day,” Youngster repeated. “That’s when the comes out with teeth bared. You’d think it’d be more comfortable in its ice shell.”
“It might’ve been hungry,” Stephen offered—and then echoed Youngster’s question—“but why always on the coldest day? Does it get so cold it has to move around? But the coldest day this year might not be the same temperature as coldest days in previous years.”
In the bowl below, the company was moving more cautiously. The second wave of snowmen had joined them, but—aside from the occasional fearful whimper—was wise enough to remain silent. Three men—Stephen could not tell which, from this distance—crept forward on their stomachs, snowmen hopping before them. The beast ignored them completely; it had finished its pile of ash and made another out of a fine old pine.
A snowman hopped forward, within a few feet of the beast. The beast turned its head lazily and shot a bolt of flame at the snowman, then tested the ground with its tongue to taste whatever it was that had moved. It found nothing but scorched dirt, and returned to sweeping its tongue over the tree ashes.
“If it’s only eating trees,” Stephen whispered, “why do we need to kill it at all? Trees grow back, and we’re nowhere near a village.”
“Actually,” said Twitch, “we are. There’s one north of here, and to the west there are clumps of them. What is forty miles to a beast that size?” Twitch’s voice sounded different, strange, and it wasn’t until Stephen looked at him that he realized why.
Twitch wasn’t twitching. His hands and voice were perfectly still, and the light in his eyes was calm.
“Forty miles isn’t bad,” said Stephen, “if the beast only remains awake for one day.”
“It awakens on the coldest day,” said Twitch. “That doesn’t mean it goes to sleep on the coldest day.”
“It would be a pretty pointless to only wake up once every few years for a snack and then immediately return to sleep,” Youngster agreed. “No wonder there’s only one of it.”
“Except in Faerie. There could be lots there.”
“Maybe they wake in cycles, and this one is the ‘coldest day’ beast.”
“More likely it doesn’t get as cold there.”
“Or,” said Stephen, “maybe it’s always this cold there. Faerie is pretty far north—it might have areas in the mountains that are constantly freezing during the winter months.”
“In which case,” said Youngster, “it likes the cold.”
“Throwing your snowmen down its gullet isn’t going to work,” Twitch said.
“Thank you, I had figured that out.”
“But you have a plan, right?” said Youngster.
“Oh, yes. My plan is to let the company kill the monster.” Stephen sat down and leaned against a tree. “I never pretended that I was going to fight. I provided the snowmen as shields; the rest is up to the company.”
More of the company was sneaking forward, clearly planning to overwhelm the beast with force of numbers. The remaining snowmen reluctantly accompanied them. Whenever one got close enough, or tried to interfere with its eating, the beast whipped around and blew flame at it. The beast’s aim wasn’t perfect, and more than once a companion got singed as super-heated air whooshed past. The companion would drop to the ground and another would creep forward—but it was no good; the beast was simply too fast.
V
Hands come and go, but a good pair of eyes is hard to come by.
After fifteen minutes of this cat-and-mouse game, when barely a dozen of the snowmen remained, the Jolly Executioner sent Warthog jogging up to the Enchanter. “The Jolly Executioner says he wants—”
“Me to do something and save the day. However did the company survive before you got me?”
“You haven’t done anything useful yet,” Twitch said. He did not mean it nastily—at least, Stephen didn’t think he did. But it stung anyway.
“That’s because no one can get close enough to use their weapons. Do you think ordinary steel would cut through that hide?”
“It might. Get the company close enough, and we’ll find out.”
“Fine. Give me your belt.”
Twitch folded his arms. Warthog, ever disinclined to question the ways of enchanters, donated his own belt. “Make good use of it,” he said, “just don’t tell me what.” He returned to the Jolly Executioner, presumably to tell him that the Enchanter was, finally, going to do something useful.
Ignoring Twitch’s and Youngster’s questions, Stephen retrieved his knife and carefully cut the leather off the copper belt buckle. The buckle itself was fairly heavy and fit into his hand—which was exactly for what he had hoped. Copper wasn’t bad, but it didn’t have the same kind of strength as bronze or steel, and would break apart under magical stress.
Stephen began with an unstable base of reflection, which made the copper as gleaming and reflective as still water. He added secondary strands of expansion, reflection, fragility, reflection, scent, aerodynamics, and yet more reflection—reflection was harmless and easy and might come in handy. All in all, he had seven enchantments on top of the first, which hadn’t been stable in the first place—and seven was one more than was generally considered wise.
To make the belt buckle more unwise still, he set tertiary enchantments on top of the two layers—enchantments so unstable and volatile that only the toughest materials could stand them. Some precisely cut diamonds could hold tertiary enchantments for more than a couple minutes, but he didn’t know of anything else that could. He had spent hours experimenting to find a way to make tertiary enchantments stable, and hadn’t succeeded. Luckily, he had been practicing on cotton fluff and flowers, not metal—or else he would likely not still be alive.
Stephen sealed the enchantments with a holding enchantment (and, because he could, yet more reflection) which would keep the whole thing from exploding as long as he continued channeling the holding magic.
“Well,” Youngster said doubtfully, “it’s shiny.”
“The beast’s already blind,” said Twitch, “if that was your plan.”
Stephen nodded but did not answer. He was holding the threads of the enchantment in his mind, and didn’t dare lose concentration. He began walking down into the bowl, his personal guard flanking him. Twitch and Youngster trailed a little behind, nervously eyeing the shining buckle in his hands.
Stephen’s whole attention was on the buckle. He barely noticed when the first of his snowmen was burned away, ignored the frenzied—and futile—attacks of the company. He ignored the beast’s increasingly frustrated thrashing, its annoyance at so many intruders interrupting its meal and not having the decency to stay still and be turned to ash. Several times, only Stephen’s alert snowmen saved his life.
Stephen walked forward until two of his snowmen stopped in front of him and would not let him pass. Then he hurled the belt buckle at the beast, dropped to the ground, tucking his head and hands into his enchanted robe, and shouted a single word that seared the air lilac but made no sound.
The buckle bounced off the beast’s hide and fell to the ground. The beast turned its head to investigate—
The explosion was spectacular. The reflective enchantments multiplied the sun a dozen times, intensifying the light and heat, throwing colored rays in every direction, devastatingly hot. The remainder of Stephen’s snow guard sagged, their magic seeping away. Several people screamed, and it occurred to Stephen that he probably ought to have warned them to close their eyes—and to have enchanted their clothing against heat after all.
Too late now.
When the last
of the magic in the explosion had whipped past, Stephen raised his head. The beast lay stunned, burns sprinkled along its close side. It was not dead, but it was—briefly—slowed down.
Behind him, Twitch and Youngster had seen the Enchanter drop, and had done the same. Now they sprang to their feet, weapons at the ready, and ran at the beast. Youngster danced around its face and Twitch darted underneath it, sword striking once, twice—then he was back out again, and the beast was collapsing. It moaned as Youngster ducked around it, swords flashing, and made no resistance when he swept his arms out and decapitated it.
The head fell to the ground and rolled to face Stephen. There was something miserable in the sight of that dead, eyeless face, but Stephen really didn’t care.
“Hey, look at this,” Youngster called, brandishing his swords at Stephen. “They’re red hot. Its throat was full of fire.”
“And its outside was frozen,” said Stephen. “I suppose it balances out.”
“And I chopped off its head!” Youngster did a little dance, laughing. “Look what it did to my sword.” He held it out for Stephen to inspect. “That’s the one that actually touched it. It’s gone all melty.”
Stephen eyed the sword. It was indeed all melty. The enchantments he had placed on it had allowed Youngster to cut through hide and bone without difficulty, but hadn’t been designed to face that level of heat.
“Enchanter!” the Jolly Executioner roared. “What have you done? I’m blind!”
“Um, yes,” Stephen said. “You were looking at the magic, weren’t you? That was foolish.”
“Enchanter!”
“Oh, the blindness is temporary,” Stephen hurriedly assured him—although he himself had no idea whether or not it was. “The magic has to work its way through your system, your eyes readjust—that sort of thing. I wouldn’t worry about it. Where’s Medic? Isn’t this the sort of thing he should be dealing with?”
“I have something that might help,” Medic said, “back with the horses—I didn’t think I’d need it out here.”
“Then go get it, man!” shouted the Jolly Executioner. “What are you doing, hanging about?”
“I’m blinded too, sir,” said Medic.
“So am I,” said Swishy.
“And I,” said Banananose.
“And I,” said another. “And I,” and then all of the company and the one remaining snowman were moaning together until the Jolly Executioner had finally had enough and bellowed at them to be quiet.
“Who isn’t blind, then?” he said, when the moans had died away.
“I’m not.”
“And you are—”
“Weakstomach, sir—although that name is somewhat of a misnomer; I have no idea why the Enchanter picked it. I had fallen, sir, and my hat slipped over my eyes.”
“Twitch and I can see also, sir. Youngster, here. And the Enchanter, of course.”
“What?” said Stephen. “Oh, no; I’m not blind. If we’re waiting, by the way, do you mind if I harvest a few things from the beast? That tongue of its looks particularly—”
“We’re not waiting,” said the Jolly Executioner. “Youngster, take the Enchanter and retrieve the horses. Weakstomach, Twitch, round people up in an orderly fashion and light a fire. We’re going to be here for a while.”
Stephen opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. He supposed he could get the tongue when he returned. Besides, it was probably still too hot to touch.
And it wasn’t as if the others were going to steal it while he was gone. They were all blind.
“The Jolly Executioner didn’t think much of us killing the Beast of Quag,” Stephen observed as he and Youngster trudged through the snow.
“He was blinded.”
“Not my fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
“No; the Jolly Executioner ordered me to do something, and I did something. He blinded himself.”
“Enchanter?”
“Yes?”
“Do you really believe that?”
Stephen deflated. “No.”
“I was impressed, anyway. What are you going to do with the beast’s tongue? We never saw where you put the wolf trophies. Weakstomach says you ate them.”
“Certainly not! I have them here.” Stephen reached into one of his numerous inner pockets and produced wolf ears and nose. “You see? Kept fresh under a preservation enchantment.”
“Are you going to use it in a potion or something.”
“Do I look like a witch? No! I’m going to use it in an enchantment—probably the fighting monster the Jolly Executioner wants.”
“Excellent!” Youngster burst into rapid speculations and suggestions as to the nature of such a monster. Stephen listened bemusedly. He’d never heard anyone so excited about magic before—not even battle-wizards or other enchanters. Magic was a job, albeit not a job just anyone could do, and mostly hard work. Stephen enjoyed the work, mostly—when it didn’t involve warding—but he didn’t find it exciting. He found Youngster’s excitement faintly annoying, and he wasn’t sure why.
The path back was easily followed: dead snowmen (and the occasional live one, moaning that it was stuck, and why didn’t Master save it?) littered the way.
“The last of the magic will wear off soon,” Stephen said. “It’ll be gone by the time we return, I should think.”
“Noooooo . . .”
“Oh, be quiet.”
“I wonder if anyone will pass this way before it snows heavily,” Youngster said. “I wonder what they’d think of all these snowmen. I don’t suppose you could make one of the enchantments permanent, so the snowman could wave creepily at whomever he sees?”
Stephen shook his head. He could have sealed the enchantments and made them permanent, but he didn’t see the point—and he had done plenty of magic already that day.
“Pity. I would have liked to have seen his face.”
“You wouldn’t have anyway.”
“No, but I could’ve imagined it.”
“You can anyway.”
“It isn’t the same.”
“I suppose not.”
The horses were where they had been left, at the end of a trail demarcated by nineteen sets of feet and hundreds of bare splotches of ground where snowmen had hopped and added the new snow onto their bottoms. Noble Steed looked up when she heard them, and snorted gently before returning to nosing through the patches of bare ground in hope of something edible.
Tinkerfingers sat with his back to them, in front of a small fire. He was scratching intently at the back of his hand, and humming.
Youngster put a finger on his lips and winked at Stephen. With exaggerated care, he tiptoed around Tinkerfingers’s back, raised his hands, and—
“Don’t you dare,” said Tinkerfingers.
Youngster started violently. “How did you know—”
“Because you always do the same thing.” Tinkerfingers stood and looked around at them. “It’s been hours. What happened? Where’s the rest of the company?”
“Alive,” said Stephen, “unlike the Beast of Quag.”
“I cut off its head,” Youngster announced, “and Twitch stabbed its heart. Look what it did to my right sword. It’s totally ruined.”
“Craggy can make you a new one in the next town,” Tinkerfingers said. “Or reforge that one. Craggy is still alive, isn’t he?”
“Last I saw,” Stephen said. “But then, I didn’t look.”
“I did,” said Youngster. “He’s fine. We were sent to get you—and the horses, and Medic’s bags. Stop scratching.”
All the time they had been talking, Tinkerfingers had industriously scratched at his hand.
“It’s itchy. Let me put out this fire, and I’ll be ready to go.”
“It’s only itchy because you keep scratching it. What’d you do, dip your hand in poison oak?”
“I’d have a job finding some in the middle of winter.”
“Get bitten?”
“There’s no b
ump. It’s nothing.” Tinkerfingers dumped liberal amounts of snow over the fire. “Come on, I’ll need your help herding all these horses. What was the Jolly Executioner thinking? Is everyone too badly injured to walk?”
“Oh, no,” said Youngster. “They’re all blind.”
This took a great deal of explanation, none of which reflected positively on Stephen—who rode on Noble Steed and tried to ignore them—and lasted the entire trip back to the bowl.
The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter Page 8