by Dave Duncan
never heard of such an enchantment, but neither
had he ever heard of one person managing a
conjuration all alone.
Perhaps that was dangerous and the spirits might escape?
Or was this all just some crazy fake? Could one
man perform an enchantment? The light dimmed and
Radgar prickled all over with shock until he
realized that it was just the sun dipping behind the cliffs.
He must leave right away if he was to have any chance
of reaching home before dark. He didn't.
Sudden silence. The conjurer had stopped his
chanting, leaning limply on his staff and gasping for
breath. Now his deformity was obvious. He had no
right arm and the hang of his robe suggested that he was
missing most of the shoulder also, which was why he seemed
so lopsided. But he had not finished the ritual.
He drew a deep breath and let out a huge,
cracked bellow: "Wulfwer
Cynewulfing!"
Wulfwer moved for the first time, lifting his head.
He was blindfolded, yet he turned his head as if
looking for something.
"Wulfwer Cynewulfing!" roared the
hooded cripple again.
The big cniht unwrapped his arms and swayed
to his feet. He seemed confused, peering in all
directions but making no effort to remove the cloth
tied around his head. That rag was the only thing he was
wearing, for his boots, clothes, and weapons lay in
a heap on the edge of the clearing. Wulfwer's
face was much improved by being covered up, but
Radgar did envy his muscles. Although he would
certainly never admit this to anyone, he
secretly hoped that he would have a chest and shoulders
like his cousin's when he grew up. And some hair
on his chest, too.
Again the conjurer roared out his name; and this time
Wulfwer turned to his left and took a step,
then stopped, irresolute. If he was drunk,
he was very drunk, barely able to stand. Had the
enchantment stolen his wits? Again and again the tall
conjurer shouted his name as if summoning him from a far
distance; but the more he called, the more bewildered
Wulfwer seemed to become, reeling around with arms
outstretched, ever more frantic, either trying
to escape or just hunting for the source of the
summons. It was absurd that so huge a man could
move so wildly and yet remain within so small a
space; at times he even seemed to be running,
his long limbs flailing, and yet he went nowhere.
Then he did. He spun around,
tripped on the pot that marked the water point of the
octogram, and pitched over it, landing flat on his
face, right at Radgar's feet. Only then
did Radgar realize that he had left his hiding
place and walked out to stand in full view of the
hooded conjurer.
For a moment shock kept him rooted to the spot
as firmly as the trees--whatever had possessed
him? Wulfwer sat up, cursing and reaching for his
blindfold.
"No!" the enchanter screeched. "Death and
fire! Wind and waters, wait! Look not
yet!" He cradled his staff in the crook of his
elbow and flapped his solitary hand in a go-away
signal. The eye holes of the hood were directed
at Radgar. Needing no further invitation,
Radgar vanished behind the nearest tree.
Then he peeked.
"All right, you can look," the old man
croaked. He came lurching around the octogram;
and now his deformities were clearer, for only one
horny foot showed under the hem of his robe. On
the right side he was balanced on a wooden post
and the hang of the cloth showed that he had only a
short stump of thigh left. He had been doing
all that dancing on a wooden leg!
Wulfwer hauled off the rag. He twisted
around to study the octogram, his brutish features
screwed up in a scowl. "Water? Water! You
can proof against water!" He stood up. He was
taller than the tall conjurer and twice as wide.
"Stupid earming!" the old man mumbled.
"Yes, I can proof against water. Death and
maggots, is water the answer? Wind gusts,
wave crests, weird will follow ... Who is
sure?" Even when he was not chanting, his voice was
discordant, muffled by the hood. "Water or
blood? Or wine, even?"
"That's water!" Wulfwer kicked the empty
pot and then cursed because he had no shoe on.
"But you knocked it over, you clumsy goat.
Fate, is that significant? Ah, death! From
the time it took you to find the way out, Slow
Wits, there's no urgency. I'll chant the
hlytm again next time you come ... and no great
loss if you die before then anyway."
"Do it now!" The big youth's growl
usually got him what he wanted around Cynehof,
but it did not frighten the old man.
"It's too late, brainless! See not the sun
its setting nears?"
"Why does that matter?"
The conjurer lurched at him and screeched right in
his ugly face: "It matters if I say it
matters!"
Wulfwer recoiled, tripped over the pot
again, and went down like a falling cedar, almost causing
Radgar to burst out laughing.
The conjurer struck him across the thighs with his
staff. "Do as you're told, ni`eding, I'll
leave you to drown. Put your clothes on before the
lice starve and get out of here--you stinking
ocusta."
"Yes, Healfwer! Sorry, Healfwer!"
Wulfwer scrambled up, but his clothes lay at the
base of the very tree Radgar was hiding behind, so when
he hobbled over to get them he came close enough for
Radgar to hear him muttering, "Stupid old
goat," and other less polite descriptions.
His next move would be to go and collect Sceatt
and there he would find Cwealm. Radgar vanished
into the forest.
Bats flitting through the trees were shrilling their
impossibly high calls as he walked back
to the cabin the next time. Bats did not scare
him; he just wished he could see as well as they
did, because he was having to rely on memory to find
the right paths, and the forest was very dark. The walls of the
crater cut off the long midsummer twilight;
there was no moon. Hidden in the trees, he had
watched Wulfwer lead Sceatt and the packhorse
into the tunnel. Radgar had unsaddled Cwealm and
left him in the little meadow where the packhorse had
been. The big chump wouldn't stray from all that
juicy grass.
Once Radgar showed up at the palace he
would never be allowed back into Weargahlaew, so
he must satisfy his curiosity about it now, and
especially find out more about the mysterious conjurer.
Anyone who called Wulfwer a stinking armpit and
hit him with a stick must be admired for his good
judgment. Healfwer meant "half man,"
obviously a name bestow
ed after he lost his arm and
leg. He had sounded old, although he had been
nimble enough. Radgar could run very fast when necessary.
All the same, there was still enough danger in this
foering to produce that delicious
sick-creepy feeling in his belly again. While
Dad probably did know whatever it was that
Uncle Cynewulf and ocusta Wulfwer were
up to with the conjurer, he might not; and in that case
Atheling Radgar would be back in hero territory.
It was good he had sent Aylwin home to say where
he was. If he didn't show up by morning,
reinforcements would arrive.
He had never stayed out all night before. Mother
would scream two octaves higher than a
skylark. If he wasn't in hero country, if
he was just a wayward brat snooping where he had
been forbidden to go, then the reckoning was going to be
terrible--good-bye to Cwealm, hello to mucking out
stables with the thralls for months and months and
months, and sore butt on an epic scale the
scops would sing about for centuries. He'd be
better off plugging up the tunnel with rocks and
living like another hermit here in the valley.
The forest was so still that he heard thumps before he
even saw the lights. The cabin's doors and
shutters fit so badly, and there were so many chinks in
the walls, that it glowed like a starry sky. Smoke
was pouring out of it just about everywhere except the proper
smoke hole. Someone had cut the old man's
firewood for him, because obviously one hand couldn't
manage that great ax stuck in the chopping block;
but the periodic bangs coming from inside proved that the
old man was hitting something. Radgar tapped on
the door.
Then he heard nothing except the fire
crackling.
After a few spooky-long minutes, he
tapped again. Now the harsh voice cried out, "Who
wakens the dead? Here are rotting bones and
ancient hatred. Flee while you still can!"
Radgar pushed the door open, squeaking on its
leather hinges. Smoke gushed out white in the
darkness, making his eyes sting, so he dropped and
crawled in on hands and knees, knowing the air would
be clearer down near the dirt floor. The hearth
was just a central circle of stones. The scarecrow
conjurer sat on the ground with his back to the entrance,
his real leg outstretched beside the wooden one, but the
bag over his head was caught up at one side,
revealing wisps of white beard, as if it had
been pulled on in haste. A small hatchet and
heap of kindling near his hand explained the earlier
banging.
"Begone!" the old man croaked, "lest my
curses rot the flesh from your bones."
Radgar kicked the door shut and moved some
baskets and a bucket so he could move closer
to the fire and sit down, legs crossed. "I
need to know when I'm going to kill Wulfwer."
He also needed something tasty to eat, of course,
and a comfortable place to sleep. The blackened
crock steaming and bubbling in the embers emitted
fine savory scents, but comfort was in short
supply. Even a thralls' barn had more of
it--no chairs or stools or tables, and the bedding
just a layer of branches with some mangy old furs
on top. The rest of the furnishings were crude
clay pots, a couple of oaken chests, no
shelves on the walls, although there was a sword
hanging up opposite the door--and a pretty
fancy one too, as far as he could tell through the
smoke. Some scrolls and books shared the top of
one of the chests with an inkwell and a heap of goose
quills ... how did the cripple sharpen a
quill one-handed? The conjurer must live entirely
at ground level, like an animal. Certainly with
only one arm and one leg, he would have trouble standing
up and sitting down. Now he had turned his head
to look at his visitor, but only darkness showed
inside the eye holes of his hood. At least there
were two eye holes, not only one, as there would be
if the half man had only half a face.
Shiver!
"Spawn of slime, who sent you to torment a
dead man in his infliction?"
"No one sent me, ealdor. Your hlytm
summoned me, didn't it?"
"Torment, torment! Who told you of the
hlytm, Atheling?"
Aha! Suspicions confirmed! If the
conjurer knew who he was then Radgar must have been
here before. "No one told me, ealdor. It was
obvious."
"Don't give me titles. I am a dead
man, but if you must speak to my corpse call it
Healfwer." The conjurer's voice sank to a
disgusting phlegmy rattle. "Women wile with
whitened arms ... What was obvious?"
Uncertain which women had entered the conversation,
Radgar decided to ignore them. "From what you were
doing, what you said. A hlytm is a casting of
lots, yes? You were casting lots among the
elements to see which one will kill
Wulfwer. When you had summoned them you stood at
death point and called him, and in the end he went
to water point so--you told him he would drown, but
really he knocked over the water pot, didn't
he, so it didn't count, and he was coming to me! He
came to me and fell down before me. I am
Wulfwer's bane, his weird!" Not many
ten-year-olds could have worked that out, but an atheling had
to be more clever than others.
"Does that make you happy, pig-toad?"
"You shouldn't speak to me like that."
"I'll speak to you how I want. Answer me
before I make you scream with agony. Their white
arms ..."
"And don't threaten me, either. I'm the King's
son."
The old man raised a gnarled hand to his
hood. "Answer my questions, Aeleding, or I will
show you my face and then you will never sleep again."
That was a new threat to Radgar, one that would need
some thought. "No, I don't really want to kill
Wulfwer, but I will if I have to. We're going
to be rivals to succeed Dad when he gets old.
I'd rather kill him than let him kill me. If
he stays out of my road I won't hurt him."
The horrible old man shrieked with mirth.
"Earth and water! He could crush you with one hand,
little grub. Fire and fish so fair the song ...
Everything smells of music now. Why came you
here?"
"Because I'm only ten years old." That
piece of impudence had worked on Dad once--
only once and the second time had turned out to be
unwise, but Healfwer had not heard it before.
The old man growled in exasperation. "You may
never see another winter. You expect to eat my
supper and sleep by my hearth?"
"Oh, thank you, ealdor!--I mean
Healfwer. A share of your food and a place by the
fire would be very kind of you."
&nb
sp; "Explain, worm! Weird and woe the
wylfen brings."
"It was too dark to go after Wulfwer left and
if I'd gone ahead of him he'd have seen me."
"I mean why did you come at all?"
"Your conjuration summoned me, didn't it?"
"You just want me to agree so Aeled won't
whip the skin off your ass, boy."
"Partly," Radgar admitted. It would be a very
good defense: "The hlytm made me do
it."
"How could it have summoned you when you came before
I started it? When you didn't know about it? What
really made you come?"
Radgar shrugged. The smell from the pot was
making him drool so much he was drowning. There was
meat in there, which Wulfwer must have brought, for how could
a one-armed man catch game or even skin it?
"I went foering on my stallion,
Cwealm, taking only my trusty follower
Aylwin Leofricing. I decided to explore
Weargahlaew and saw that someone was feeding the
weargas. That is an unfri`ed, so I sent
Leofricing back to tell the marshal to send some
house thegns. And I came on ahead myself
to investigate."
The enchanter made a strange choking sound that
became a racking cough. He threw more sticks on
the fire. "Filth and death! Has not your father a
hundred times forbidden you to come here?"
"Not that often. And the tanist brought Wulfwer--will
you chant the hlytm for me, too? I want to know
my weird."
"Weird?" the old man screeched. "Your
weird is to die as I did! Die now, brat,
and save yourself suffering!" He snatched up a log
and hurled it at Radgar.
It struck him on the forehead. Fortunately it
was a very small log, already split for kindling, but
the impact and shock were enough to knock him over. He
fell on his back, crying out at the pain.
"You almost hit my eye!" He clapped a hand
over the injury and felt blood running.
"More than that will I hit!" Healfwer shouted.
One-handed he grabbed up his staff and struck as
if swatting a fly. Fortunately the fire between
them made that a difficult shot; and Radgar saw
the pole descending in time to roll clear. The end
struck a heavy stone crock and shattered it. His
head would have been smashed like an egg.
"You're crazy!" He jumped to his feet.
"I'm the King's son!"
"You're dead! Dead like me!" The old man
tried another swipe with the pole, but Radgar could
dodge now. "Die, curse you!" Releasing his
staff, the conjurer hurled another log, then a