The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

“The other hand?” I prompted, hoping that my interest in the matter was not too obvious.

  “Tollar? He’s sweet, I guess, in a way. A little coarse, of course. He’s very taken with me, you know. He even asked for my hand in marriage. Of course, that would never do. As Father is continually reminding me, Tollar is far below my station.”

  She touched my elbow. “If we turn here, we can enter the back door of the barn.” She led me around a corner of the weathered wooden structure. She held my arm firmly now. “There’s a hay loft that I think you’ll be particularly interested in.”

  I was looking at her, and so did not see the foot until it struck me on the forehead. I stumbled against her but managed to keep from falling. She hugged me suddenly and strong, an action I found delightfully surprising until I saw the reason for it. The foot that hit me belonged to Tollar, the third hand, or at least what was left of him. His body hung from the rafters, strangely dark and bloated.

  “Perhaps,” I whispered, “we should go out and find my master.”

  Alea agreed that that was a very good idea. Neither of us particularly cared to pass beneath the corpse again, so that we decided to walk as quickly as possible through the barn’s all-too-dark interior. Holding each other as tightly as movement would allow, we began our flight through the shadowed recesses to the small square of light at the other end.

  Then came the banging in the loft, so loud that we would have heard it even if we hadn’t lost the power to speak (and possibly to breathe). We ran.

  Out into the sunlight. Both of us, shouting at the top of our voices. Out to the approaching Samus and Ebenezum, both clearly astonished at our behavior.

  “Is there something wrong?” Ebenezum inquired.

  “Magic!” Alea said.

  Ebenezum pulled at his beard. “If so, it will be the first I’ve seen today. Come. Show us this sorcery.”

  We led them back to the barn. As we walked, I told the wizard about the strangely altered farm hand.

  “But you say there’s been no sorcery?” I asked.

  “Nary a twitch.” Ebenezum rubbed his nose.

  “But Farmer Samus—”

  The mage cut me off with a wave of his palm. “There is more here than is apparent to the eye.”

  We turned the corner of the barn. The doorway was empty. The body was gone.

  “Obviously,” Ebenezum added.

  “What are you trying to do, daughter?” Samus exploded.

  “But Tollar!” Alea said. “And the noise—”

  Ebenezum raised his hand for silence. There were still noises inside the barn.

  “What does this mean?” Samus asked.

  The mage’s hand went even farther up in the air. He sneezed.

  Two figures could be seen in silhouette as they escaped through the far door of the barn.

  “Sorcery!” Ebenezum cried.

  “Those two, running?” the farmer asked.

  “No, closer! Much closer.” The wizard’s sleeve flew to his nose. He lowered it after a moment. “That’s better. Near this door. A recent spell, but minor at best.” He turned to me. “Describe what happened again.”

  I retold the story carefully, point by point: the foot; Alea and then me seeing the body with the odd distortions.

  Alea began to sob. “Poor Tollar. What did he do to deserve this? He might have been beneath my station, but he was sweet.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her. Samus glared at me rather pointedly. I took my hand away.

  Samus looked at my master. “But what about the body?”

  Ebenezum sniffed, “Oh, I expect we’ll see it again, sooner or later.”

  Alea’s tears broke out anew.

  “I believe the best course would be to explore our surroundings,” Ebenezum continued, already walking out of the barn, “and interview everyone we meet.”

  Especially anyone traveling in pairs, I silently added. I retrieved my staff. I might have need of it.

  We met the two other hands at the edge of the pens. They were herding a small flock of sheep into one of the enclosures.

  “Franik!”

  One hand looked up. “Yes, Master Samus?”

  “Have you seen anyone pass here?”

  The hand’s broad brow wrinkled. He took his finger from his ear to scratch at his receding hairline. “Anyone? Since when, master?”

  “Any strangers, then?”

  “Strangers?”

  “Two of them!” Samus was getting a bit red in the face.

  “Let’s see. Not that I can recall. Wait a minute. Frinak?”

  “Yes, brother?”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “Any strangers? Not that I can recall. Leastways, not today. As I remember, someone new passed by a week ago Tuesday. Would that be any help? Don’t get many new faces around here.”

  This was getting us nowhere. There was obviously only one pair of men unaccounted for anywhere around the farm. I decided to take a more direct approach.

  I stepped forward, pointing my staff at the two villeins.

  “What were you two doing in the barn?”

  That startled them. “In the barn?” one of them said (I think it was Franik). “We do all sorts of things in the barn.”

  “That’s true. We bail hay.”

  “Feed the stock.”

  “ ’Course we shovel manure.” They both made a face – the same one. “That job always takes too long. Be surprised how much manure just one horse or cow can come up with. Some of them not even full grown, either.”

  “No!” I said, frantic to end this line of conversation. “Not what do you do when you’re in the barn. When were you in the barn?”

  “Oh, all sorts of times. Days, nights. Can’t tell, exactly.”

  I rapped my staff on the poached earth. “No! When were you in there last?” My brow was getting moist from the mental exertion. Were they going to thwart me in front of my master? In front of Alea?

  Even worse, could they really be innocent?

  My questioning was cut short by a clatter on the road. I looked past the hands. Whatever made the noise was hidden by a copse of trees.

  “Aha!” Ebenezum cried. “I thought he’d show himself eventually! Quick, Wunt! Through those trees!” I followed him at a good trot into the woods.

  The trees soon thinned to bushes, and the shrubbery boarded a road. A wagon was leaving a hiding place of overgrown greenery, making for the mud path that passed for a country highway.

  “Quick, Wunt! They mustn’t get away!”

  I sprinted ahead as the wagon turned onto the lane. It was brightly painted in red and yellow, drawn by a single horse whose harness was decorated with multi-colored plumes. Large letters on the side proclaimed “The Great Glauer, Magician-at-Large.”

  I put on extra speed and darted in front of the horse. “Stop!” I cried and raised my staff. “If you value your safety!”

  The staff almost dropped from my hands. There, on the wagon seat, was Glauer, reins in hand. But next to him sat the unexpected. Tollar. Alive.

  Well, we had faced worse things than reanimated corpses. Or so I told myself at the moment. I reaffirmed my grip on the staff, ready to thwack anyone who made a move against me.

  “Oh, Fesnard Encundum!” Glauer said in a peeved tone. He made a series of three mystic passes.

  A spell of entanglement! I tried to fight it off, but the magic was already at work in my system. My arms wrapped around my body, reaching with intertwined fingers for the legs which in turn sought my chin. Soon, I would be caught in a hopeless knot!

  Ebenezum stepped in front of the carriage. “Stop, knave!” he cried. “You’ll not find me so easy to deal with!”

  Was there going to be a magician’s duel? I watched helplessly from my prison of arms and legs.

  “Wait!” It was Tollar speaking. “Everything can be explained!”

  Ebenezum stopped himself mid-gesture and wiped his nose, his hands ready to conjure should there be a
ny treachery.

  “This is my fault entirely,” Tollar said. “It’s all for Alea. I couldn’t live without her. Oh, she’s friendly enough. I’ll grant that. But she wouldn’t marry me. Her father insists that I am beneath her station!”

  He hit the wooden seat beside him with his fist. “Beneath her station! I couldn’t bear it! I decided to take matters into my own hands. I’d arrange for certain small disasters to occur. When Samus was convinced that he was cursed, I would bring Glauer in. And circumstances would present themselves so that Glauer could remove the curse only with my help. I would be a hero. Perhaps enough of a hero to marry Alea.

  “The plan was a good one. Samus is notoriously tight. Even with a curse, I figured he would not pay for a magician with a stature greater than Glauer’s!” The last remark warranted a vitriolic look from the merchant.

  “But,” Tollar continued, “as fortune would have it. Samus heard that Ebenezum’s rates had declined. To get a sorceror of his reputation for little more than Glauer was a bargain even Samus couldn’t pass. It was hopeless – unless we moved quickly and put our plan into effect before Ebenezum could interfere.

  “The barn was the best place; in the midst of the farm, yet our actions would be hidden. What better place to come up with a quick supernatural explanation, not to mention a magical cure?

  “And all would have gone well, if you hadn’t stumbled on me before we were ready.”

  Tollar’s bloated body returned to my mind’s eye. “But your—”

  “Simple hallucination spell,” Ebenezum muttered.

  “Well, I had to think fast!” Glauer barked. “You can’t expect a masterpiece every time!”

  “Master—” Ebenezum growled, but stopped to let Tollar finish his tale.

  “Once you’d spotted us, the game was over. I decided we should leave as quietly as possible. However, we failed even there.”

  “Little wonder,” Ebenezum said, glaring at the other magician.

  “That does it!” Glauer screamed. “I’ll not suffer humiliation at the hands of a mage who has lived off his reputation for the past twenty years!”

  “What?” Ebenezum quickly returned his hands to gesture position.

  “I have resources far beyond your imagination, mage!” Glauer shouted. “My plan was brilliant, dazzling in scope!” He pulled a large bottle, mottled blue and green, from behind the seat of the cart. “Would you expect a minor magician to control such as this?”

  Ebenezum’s hands dropped to his sides. “Netherhells, man! You know not what you hold!”

  Glauer smiled at that. “Quite the contrary. I know its power, and its risk.”

  Tollar and I looked from one magician to the other. Tollar said it first: “What is it?”

  Glauer held it aloft, the better for all to see. “Bottled demon.”

  “Put it down, man!” Ebenezum urged. “If it gets loose it might devour us all.”

  Glauer’s smile got broader still. “What? The great magician is afraid? What will people say, when Glauer defeats a demon the great Ebenezum was afraid to face?”

  With that, he pulled the cork from the bottle.

  And a demon materialized in our midst. Short, squat, the color of dirty brick. He appeared to be a bit musclebound, although it just may have been that he had four arms where most of us have two.

  “Good afternoon,” the creature said in a voice of cultured gravel. “Dinner time.”

  “He must be contained!” Ebenezum cried, clutching his nose.

  “Contained?” Glauer waved the bottle. “I thought that was part of the enchantment. The fellow who sold me this bottle assured me . . .”

  “Tasty, tasty morsels,” the demon said, allowing its head to circle completely around and survey each of us in turn. It stopped when it saw me. “Entangled. How nice. A quick bite.”

  It stepped towards me.

  Glauer continued to make a series of gestures towards the creature, none of which seemed to have any effect at all. Tollar mentioned something about it being high time he sought his fortune in the west and sprinted into the fields. Ebenezum waved his hand towards me just before he sneezed. I was free! I grabbed my staff and jumped to my feet.

  “Come now, lad,” the demon said. “Let’s not be difficult. Just one swallow. You’ll like it in my stomach. They tell me it’s quite colorful.” It took another step forward.

  I hit the top of its head as hard as I could with my staff.

  “Upstart!” The creature’s eyes filled with demonic anger. “It would have been so easy. A simple swallow! Now, I’ll be forced to chew!”

  It lunged for me. My feet, seeking to get as far and fast as possible, tripped. I fell. The creature’s claws swept the air above me. I managed to rap its head with my staff again. The demon screamed in a rage beyond the human as Ebenezum shook his head briskly and managed a quick breath. He mumbled a few quick words before the sneezing started again. The demon was pulled away from me by invisible forces.

  “Magicians!” The demon spun to face the other two; Ebenezum caught in a sneezing fit, Glauer lost in his ineffectual gestures.

  “You!” It pointed at Glauer, who, after all, was the only one currently involved in anything vaguely sorcerous. “I’ll teach you to come between me and my dinner!”

  “Stop, demon!” Glauer shrieked. He waved interlocked fingers at the creature as he stamped his right foot in a peculiar rhythm. It appeared to do as little good as anything he had done before.

  The demon’s tail flicked with irritation. “Must we be so tiresome?” It surveyed the merchant mage, a forked tongue passing over crooked fangs. “Yes, you’ll do quite nicely.”

  “Hold!” Glauer said, changing his gestures. “I am not the great magician here!”

  “Really?” the demon said as it strolled towards its snack. “And who is? Perhaps,” it gestured towards Ebenezum, “that pitiful human lost in a sneezing fit?”

  Glauer gave up his gestures altogether. The demon was upon him. “Wait!” he cried. His voice was getting higher by the word. “My resources are virtually without limit. Perhaps I have something to offer you.”

  “Most assuredly.” The demon reached for him. “ ’Tis called a full stomach.”

  “But . . .”

  “Alas, magician. We all have our bad days.” It swallowed Glauer with rather more noise than was necessary.

  The creature wiped its fangs with the back of a clawed hand, then turned to face Ebenezum and me. “Who’s next?”

  Ebenezum took a deep breath. A dozen words flew from his mouth, his hands dancing around them.

  The demon began to fade. It looked down at its disappearing form. “Oh, drat!” it said. “And me without a decent meal in eight hundred years! Ah, well.” It waved in our direction. “Perhaps we shall meet again, my tasty tidbits. Ta ta – for now.”

  Its words hung in the now empty air, only a faint sulfur smell left behind. Ebenezum had a final sneezing fit, then was able to breathe again.

  Alea ran towards us out of the woods, followed by Samus walking at a more leisurely pace. She rushed straight to me, saying how worried she had been and how brave I was. After so arduous a day, I decided that I could stand there for a moment and absorb the praise.

  “What happened?” Samus asked as he approached Ebenezum.

  The wizard shrugged his sleeves out to a more respectful position before looking the gentleman farmer in the eye. “Alas,” he said. “Poor Glauer. He let the bottle get the better of him.”

  III

  “There is nothing so rewarding as a day’s work well done, save perhaps for a full stomach with a warm fire, a purse full of gold, or a three day vacation in the pleasure gardens of Vushta.”

  —from The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. 23

  Ebenezum had gone into the great house with Samus to explain what had happened on the farm, as well as to demand a larger fee (it had been a demon, after all!). So it was that I found myself alone with Alea again. I must admit, had it not been for her p
resence, I would have long since quit this dismal countryside.

  I walked with her in silence around the farm, caught in her fragile web of beauty. She took my hand at last and led me to the door of the barn, the place where we had first come together – unpleasant though the initial circumstances might have been. Now, with all sorcery fled, the enclosure was a different place, filled with quiet dark and the soft smell of hay. I looked into Alea’s face, the lines even more graceful in shadow.

  “Alea,” I said, my voice stuck in my throat. “Do you think that – the two of us . . .”

  She laughed; the wind through a mountain stream. “Dear Wuntvor! I’m afraid that’s impossible. Father would never allow it. You are far beneath my station.”

  My world fell away from me. Agony stabbed my chest. My eyes searched the straw-strewn floor for answers.

  Alea pulled my hand. I blindly followed. She spoke brightly. I forced myself to make sense of the words.

  “—and I want to show you the hay loft. It’s very comfortable. And very private.”

  She turned to me, her eyes catching mine. “Father conducts my formal affairs. He pays no attention to my recreation.”

  She smiled a tiny smile and led me to a ladder in the hay-strewn dark.

  I began to see some advantages to the farming life.

  GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN

  Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick

  I can’t think of many occasions when three authors have collaborated on a single short story, and three such distinguished writers at that. Gardner Dozois (b. 1947) is the esteemed editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and has been writing science fiction and fantasy since 1966. His few novels are either fast-paced adventures, as in Nightmare Blue (1975), or explore emotional relationships, as in Strangers (1978), and it is only in his short stories that his humour breaks to the surface. Jack Dann (b. 1945) has been writing since 1970, mostly science fiction such as the intensely charged The Man Who Melted (1984). Michael Swanwick (b. 1950) began writing in 1980 and is also best known for his science fiction, especially the award-winning Stations of the Tide (1991), but he also produced the challenging fantasy The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993). Quite how the three produced this seamless story is a miracle in itself.