The Wood Nymph & the Cranky Saint

by C. Dale Brittain

  It sounded as though the wedding party was coming down from the chapel. I went to find Evrard, wondering if it would be more unsuitable to leave before the wedding feast or irresponsible to stay for it. But then a huge crash resounded in the great hall, followed by a scream.

  The scream was repeated. It was a woman’s voice.

  In the chapel stairway I could hear the shouts of the knights of Yurt. But they couldn’t help with what I knew I would find.

  I raced into the great hall as Evrard and the knights burst in from the other side. In the middle of the hall, between the rose-decorated trestle tables, stood Gwen, clutching her baby, a trayful of silverware at her feet and an overturned bench blocking her retreat. Before her was the monster.

  “Good,” said Evrard.

  “What do you mean, good?” I almost screamed at him.

  The great hall was instantly a scene of panic, as women and men both yelled, some fighting to retreat up the chapel stairs as others fought to get out, and those already in the great hall ran in all directions. Only Gwen stood frozen, and a creature as tall as a man but twice as broad slowly advanced toward her, its undead eyes staring fixedly at the baby.

  One of the royal knights leaped forward, but the monster lifted an arm, almost lazily, and dashed him to the flagstones.

  Evrard sprang between Gwen and the monster, and it paused, then shifted its eyes to him. “My spell’s working!” he shouted to me. “Come on! It should follow.” He darted by the monster and out through the tall doors into the courtyard. Turning its back on Gwen and the dazed knight, the monster lumbered after him.

  Evrard waited in the courtyard, but as soon as the monster came out he was off again, flying through the gates, across the drawbridge, and onto the grass beyond. Again the monster followed, and I flew behind. Out of the valley, it moved relatively slowly, which was a relief. But seeing it again brought back vividly the last time I had seen it, as it had raced away from killing the old wizard.

  “What did you do?” I demanded, dropping to the ground next to Evrard.

  “I improvised,” he said, panting but looking inordinately proud of himself. “I know they purposely never taught us the summoning spell, but a few of us young wizards found it in the Master’s books, one night about a week before I left the school.”

  It was exactly what I had done myself. Maybe the Master had known all along what we were doing. The monster had stopped and was eyeing us, its head thrust forward between massive shoulders.

  “I decided you were right,” Evrard went on, “that I couldn’t very well summon something without a proper mind, so I altered the spell. You’re not the only person who can improvise!”

  I had to admire his ingenuity, if not his good sense. I kept an eye warily on the monster. It moved slowly toward us, and we backed away. It moved again, slightly faster, and we backed up faster.

  “But how did you manage to put a spell on it?” I yelled to Evrard.

  “While you were all busy worrying about the saint, I went back into the cave after it, remember?”

  The monster was backing us down the hill toward the woods. Its eyes still seemed alive even without the old wizard looking through them. “You found it but didn’t tell me?” I demanded furiously.

  “Well, no, I didn’t actually find it. But I went far enough back to be fairly sure I was going the right way. So I set up my summoning spell and added a few touches to your magic marks, which I hoped would help draw the monster in the right direction. Once it was out of the cave, I didn’t doubt it would be able to follow us back here if I’d made my spell strong enough. And it looks as though I did!”

  His spell was certainly working. The monster seemed fascinated by Evrard. Slowly and inexorably, it kept coming toward us.

  We flew at this point, down the hill to where the brick road from the castle entered the trees, and paused again. “Evrard,” I said, speaking slowly and carefully, “would you like to tell me why you called the monster out of the valley and brought it here?”

  “You’re not pleased with me?” asked Evrard in distress.

  So he’d figured it out at last.

  “And I’d thought you’d be impressed! If I hadn’t summoned it, your Cranky Saint would probably have shipped it out of his valley and sent it after you anyway, since he seems to like you so much.”

  I ignored this jab. Overcoming the monster would need both of us. Besides, he might be right. “But why did you bring it here?”

  The monster swung its arms as it advanced, more quickly now. It would have been frightening enough if it was some sort of enormous creature, like a bear, but the mindless stare made it horrible, a force of nature given separate volition and evil intent.

  “Well, I had to get it out the valley, of course,” said Evrard, moving back into the woods. “It was able to move much faster there, so it was clear we didn’t have the slightest chance against it. Since we were coming back to the royal castle ourselves, didn’t it make sense to have it come here too?”

  “I wonder if it killed anyone on the way,” I said grimly.

  “It shouldn’t have,” said Evrard. “I deliberately made my spell so strong that it wouldn’t want to stop.”

  He might be content to gloat over how well his spell had worked, but I could no longer stand the tension. “Come on,” I said abruptly. “Let’s take it down to the old wizard’s cottage. He had it imprisoned there once; we may be able to bind it again.”

  I had become aware of the knights, led by Prince Ascelin, assembling on the castle hill. I couldn’t risk letting him be killed on his wedding day

  Evrard and I flew along the road into the woods, and the castle was lost to sight behind us. Almost immediately we had to pick up speed, as the monster pursued with a rapidity it had not yet shown today. It chased us with its arms extended, emitting a low roar.

  Evrard, I was sure, was now flying farther and faster than he ever had before. We darted back and forth along the forest path, avoiding overhanging branches, but behind us we heard snapping and crashing as the monster plowed straight through.

  We shot out into the clearing before the old wizard’s cottage maybe a quarter mile ahead of it. Grabbing Evrard by the arm when he seemed to sag, I flew straight up and hovered twenty feet above the ground.

  “Try to distract the monster when it gets here,” I said. “I’ve got to look at my predecessor’s notes.” I dropped to the ground and went through the green door into the wizard’s cottage.

  The room was, if possible, an even greater mess than when I had seen it last. I looked around quickly, hoping wildly there might be something here to help. Most of the old wizard’s books were dusty and appeared long-unopened, but a massive register was propped up on the table, ready if he ever came back. I glanced at the page to which it was open, then began to read. Here was the spell, written out in the old wizard’s spidery hand, that had created his creature from dead bones. In the first three lines were two mentions of herbs of which I’d never heard.

  I flipped forward. The spell went on for fifteen pages.

  A wordless roar sent me diving for the window, which turned out to be locked. But the creature did not come in. In a moment, I looked cautiously out the door.

  It was in the clearing in front of the cottage, circling below Evrard and ignoring me, at least for the moment. Evrard remained twenty feet off the ground, concentrating on holding himself up. “Keep it looking at you,” I said quickly, “but don’t do anything to excite it. If you can hold its attention for another two minutes, I’ll try to find the herbs for the spell to bind it.” I shot behind the old wizard’s cottage.

  My predecessor had always had an herb garden where he grew the most common magical herbs. I had thought I knew it well, but this summer over half the garden was given to a low, leafy plant I never remembered seeing here before. I plucked one, looked at it closely, and probed it with magic. This was the same herb the old wizard had found in the valley.

  I flew back to Evrard and the
monster, my fingers already starting to glow blue. “I’m going to try to put a special binding spell on it, but this will only work if the creature is absolutely still. Let’s go over to the tree.” Trying to fly and cast a complicated spell at the same time was too much for me. We flew to the enormous oak tree that sheltered the old wizard’s cottage.

  Evrard collapsed against the trunk, the sweat running down his face. In spite of my own greater practice in flying, I was not in much better shape. I wondered uneasily how well the monster could climb.

  At least at first, it seemed content to circle the tree, appearing and disappearing from our sight. Its search for life had not been blunted by killing the old wizard. I hoped the cat had had the sense to hide.

  I started trying to put the wizard’s binding spell together, though if the monster kept on moving it wasn’t going to do much good. In the cave, I had been able to bind it only with the old wizard’s help. I realized that I should have taught Evrard the spell immediately. Once again I had failed, this time in being too caught up the last two days in my own exhaustion and sorrow and sense of responsibility. I had neglected to look for help from someone who was, at least potentially, a perfectly competent young wizard and had, after all, once made a man-like creature himself. “Stop moving!” I muttered in the monster’s direction. “Otherwise I’ll never be able to bind you.”

  In a moment, Evrard had caught his breath enough to sit up again. He turned to face me, his jaw set. “Well, Daimbert, I guess this is my problem, and there are two ways to solve it.

  “My calling spell has made it interested only in me. You said it was searching for life, and the life it wants is mine. Either I can leave Yurt, which would make it follow me—” I started to speak but he didn’t give me a chance. “—or I can go down to meet it. While it does to me whatever it wants to do, you can try your binding spell.”

  IV

  “Good God, Evrard,” I cried, “you can’t be serious! You certainly can’t spend the rest of your life flying around the western kingdoms with it on your tail, but there must be a solution short of letting it kill you!”

  “Such as?”

  “If it would just stand still for a minute, I’d try this binding spell. It did work before.”

  Evrard looked at me from behind lowered eyelids. “I’ve got another idea. How about if I try dropping things on it? I know I can’t kill it that way, but with a boulder lying across it, it might be more susceptible to your binding spell.”

  “Good idea,” I said, taking him by the shoulders to look at him and urgently hoping he had not been serious a moment before.

  “As soon as I finish catching my breath, I’ll go collect some rocks. The monster can’t be stronger than a river, and I was able to block a river’s course, even if only for a little while.”

  In a minute, Evrard flew off toward the stream, and soon he was back, carrying a good-sized stone with magic. He dropped it in the middle of the clearing and went back cheerfully for another. The monster poked at the stone with its hand, then hurried after him. It pushed straight and unhesitatingly through the dense brush.

  In fifteen minutes, while I desperately worked on spells, Evrard had accumulated a fairly good pile. Twice he stopped on the oak’s wide branch to rest, and all the time the monster prowled back and forth, following him from below. I did not trust its intent expression.

  It was some of the hardest magic I had ever done. Not only was the spell itself fiendishly difficult, but I constantly had to hold steady the part I had already completed. A spell I had worked very quickly with the old wizard now appeared interminable when I tried it alone.

  Evrard’s voice suddenly cut through the words of the Hidden Language. “Do you think this is enough rocks?”

  I came back abruptly to myself, realized that it was probably very foolish to try such a complicated spell balanced on a tree branch, and shouted, “Let’s try it!”

  Evrard, still hovering, took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and began lifting his rocks with magic.

  I couldn’t help him and still keep the binding spell ready, and he could only manage one rock at a time while flying, but very rapidly he started lifting and dropping rocks on the monster’s upturned face.

  The first few missed, and as the next bounced from its shoulder the monster began to run in circles. But then Evrard got into the rhythm, saying the words of the Hidden Language so rapidly that the spell was almost self-sustaining, and two lucky shots in a row knocked the monster off its feet. With a whoop of triumph, Evrard piled another dozen rocks on top if it, so that, at least momentarily, it lay still.

  My turn now. This spell was too difficult to do while flying or even sitting in a tree. I came down to the ground, ignoring Evrard’s warning shouts, and threw the binding spell at the monster.

  The loops of the spell caught and held. Crushed by stone and held by the old wizard’s magic, it lay looking at me with unblinking eyes.

  Evrard’s feet hit the ground beside me. “So is that it? We’ve done it? We’ve done it!”

  “It’s still very much alive,” I said, “and if we aren’t careful it—”

  But I couldn’t speak and work magic at the same time. And the monster’s arm was starting to twitch, pushing upward again the stones that imprisoned it.

  I threw another loop of the binding spell around it, and again it lay still. But it was no longer looking at Evrard. It was looking at me.

  We darted back up into the oak. We had a second to catch our breaths, but a very precarious second. Even the old wizard, who had created this binding spell in the first place, hadn’t been able to keep his creature pinned down for long. I wiped my forehead with an arm. “We have to find a way to destroy it before it breaks free.”

  “Can you teach me the binding spell?” asked Evrard eagerly.

  “I’ll teach you the magic to keep it going.” The monster twitched again, and again I renewed the binding loops. “There, did you see what I did?” I pushed drooping bits of plant into his hand. “Just keep saying that spell.”

  “Let’s hear it again.”

  After hearing it once more, and after one abortive attempt of his own in which both of the monster’s arms threatened to break out, Evrard knew enough of the spell to strengthen it whenever it started to weaken, which seemed to be constantly.

  “I might be able to improvise a way to dissolve the monster if I knew the spell that created it,” I panted. “Quick, teach me the spell you used for the rabbits, and I’ll try to extrapolate.”

  It took twenty minutes for Evrard to teach me the spell, not because it was terribly complicated for someone who already knew a fair amount of the old magic, but because we had to keep stopping to rebind the monster.

  I kept listening as we worked, wondering if the others were coming and praying that they weren’t. Evrard and I, sitting high in the tree, were relatively safe, but if the monster broke loose from a spell that was becoming increasingly tattered it could kill half the knights of Yurt.

  But though I now could have made horned rabbits—or a soldier of hair and bone, and without even using dragons’ teeth—I still couldn’t dissolve this monster. The spell Elerius had taught was shot full of gaps, bridged almost tentatively by a few words of magic, so that anything made from it could be readily destroyed. The late Royal Wizard of Yurt had found a way to fill those holes.

  I frowned in concentration, sifting through phrases of the Hidden Language. “Maybe if I looked again at the old wizard’s spell,” I started to say, then looked up to realize the monster had managed to kick all the rocks off one leg and was starting on the other. I couldn’t take the time now to pore over the written spell, to find in it a way to dissolve the monster. I had to make do with what I already knew.

  All I knew was the spell that had given the creature its facial features, and that I had heard only partially. But dissolving a spell might require only an understanding of its general lines, not all its details. Trying desperately to remember theoretic di
scussions of spell structure, from lectures through which I had dozed, I tried reversing the spell, hoping that this might generalize enough to affect the entire creature. If not, I was completely out of ideas.

  It was almost too late to try repairing the binding spell. I clung to the branch of the oak with both hands as the heavy words of the Hidden Language rang through the clearing.

  Much more quickly than they had formed, the monster’s ears, nose, and mouth disappeared. The roaring stopped, and for a moment it stopped kicking, but the eyes still glowed at us.

  “Keep going, Daimbert!” yelled Evrard, renewing the binding spell. He piled on a few more rocks for good measure.

  But I was temporarily halted. I looked toward Evrard. He was as exhausted as I was, and only sheer will was keeping him going. I had maybe a minute before our weakening magic and the monster’s strength freed it, either to climb the tree after us or go to meet the knights of Yurt.

  I pulled together everything I knew, the spell to create facial features, the spell to make great horned rabbits, and the first few words of the spell I had seen in the old wizard’s register; put on the twist that reversed spell structure; and tried it all in combination with the words that would break a normal spell.

  It probably shouldn’t have worked, and indeed I could see no immediate change, but there was a sharp swirling in the local field of magic that suggested that a spell much more powerful than anything of mine was beginning to break up.

  I tore my attention away from the spells just long enough for a glance at Evrard. Consciously or unconsciously, he had left the tree to move closer to the monster, as though trying to hold it immobile with the force of his personality as well as the spell that he was now working nonstop—or maybe he was now so tired that he didn’t trust his ability to project a spell any distance.

  “Now!” I shouted and threw what should have been the spell of final dissolution onto the monster.

  And trembling, burning, spreading like a fire, it began to dissolve the spells that held the old wizard’s creature together. But first it destroyed the binding spell that had held it down.