The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea

by L Sprague De Camp; Fletcher Pratt

  Shea leaned against a trunk, puffing. "How much more of this is there?"

  Belphebe's face had a frown. "Woe's me; I fear this forest thins ere it thickens. But let's see."

  They worked round the edges of the grove, but it was small, and the distance to all others, but the one they had come from, prohibitively great.

  "Looks like we have to go back," said Shea.

  "Aye. I like not that. Assuredly he will not have pursued us alone."

  "True for you. I think I see something there." He pointed to a group of distant figures, pink in the rising sun.

  Belphebe gave a little squeak of dismay. "Alack, now we are undone, for they are a numerous company. If we stay, they surround us. If we flee, Busyrane follows on that grim mount — What are you doing?"

  Shea had gotten out his knife and was whittling the base of a tall sapling. He replied: "You'll see. This worked once and ought to again. You're good at tree climbing; see if you can find a bird's nest. I need a fistful of feathers."

  She went, puzzled but obedient. When she returned with the feathers, Shea was rigging up a contraption of sapling trunk and twigs, tied together with ivy vine. He hoped it wasn't poison ivy. It bore some resemblance to an enormous broom. As Shea lashed a couple of crosspieces to the stick he explained: "The other one I made a single-seater. This'll have to carry tandem. Let's see the feathers, kid."

  He tossed one aloft, repeating the dimly remembered spell he had used once before, and then shoved it in among the twigs.

  "Now," he said, "I'm the pilot and you're the gunner. Get astride here. Think you can handle your bow while riding this thing?"

  "What will it do?" she asked, looking at Shea with new respect.

  "We're going up to tackle Busyrane in his own element. Say, look at that mob! We better get going!" As the pursuers came nearer, thrashing the brushes of the near-by groves in their hunt, Shea could see that they were a fine collection of monsters: men with animal heads, horrors with three or four arms, bodies and faces rearing from the legless bottoms of snakes.

  They straddled the broom. Shea chanted:

  "By oak, ash, and yew,

  The high air through,

  To slay this vile caitiff,

  Fly swiftly and true!"

  The broom started with a rush, up a long slant. As it shot out of the grove and over the heads of the nearest of the pursuit, they broke into a chorus of shouts, barks, roars, meows, screams, hisses, bellows, chirps, squawks, snarls, brays, growls and whinnies. The effect was astounding.

  But Shea's mind was occupied. He was pleased to observe that this homemade broom seemed fairly steady though slower than the one he had hexed in the land of Scandinavian myth. He remembered vaguely that in aerial dogfighting the first step is to gain an advantage in altitude.

  Up they went in a spiral. Busyrane came into view on his wivern, bearing towards them. The enchanter had his sword out, but as the wivern climbed after them Shea was relieved to see that he was gaining.

  A couple of hundred feet above the enemy he swung the broom around. Over his shoulder he said; "Get ready; we're going to dive on them." Then he noticed that Bephebe was gripping the stick with both hands, her knuckles white.

  "Ever been off the ground before?" he asked.

  "N-nay. Oh, Squire Harold, this is a new and very fearsome thing. When I look down —" She shuddered and blinked.

  "Don't let a little acrophobia throw you. Look at your target, not the ground."

  "I essay."

  "Good girl!" Shea nosed the broom down. The wivern glared up and opened its fanged jaws He aimed straight for the red-lined maw. At the last minute he swerved aside; heard the jaws clomp vainly and the bowstring snap.

  "Missed," said Belphebe. She was looking positively green under her freckles. Shea, no roller-coaster addict, guessed how she felt.

  "Steady," he said, nosing up and then dodging as the wivern flapped towards them with surprising speed. "We'll try a little shallower dive."

  She came down again. The wivern turned, too. Shea didn't bank far enough, and he was almost swept into the jaws by the centrifugal force of his own turn. They went clomp a yard from the tail of the bottom "Whew," said Shea on the climb. "Hit anything?"

  "Busyrane, but it hurt him not. He bears armour of proof and belike some magic garment as well."

  "Try to wing the wivern, then." They shot past the beast, well beyond reach of the scaly neck. Twunk! An arrow fixed itself among the plates behind the head. But the wivern, appearing unhurt, put on another burst of speed and Shea barely climbed over its rush, with Busyrane yelling beneath him.

  Belphebe had her acrophobia under control now. She leaned over and let go three more arrows in rapid succession. One bounced off the reptile's back plates. One went through a wing membrane. The third stuck in its tail. None of them bothered it.

  "I know," said Shea. "We aren't penetrating its armour at this range. Hold on; I'm going to try something."

  They climbed. When they had good altitude, Shea dove past the wivern. It snapped at them, missed, and dived in pursuit.

  The wind whistled in Shea's ears and blurred his vision.

  Forest and glade opened out below; little dots expanded to the pursuers on foot. Shea glanced back; the wivern hung in space behind, its wings half furled. He levelled out, then jerked the broom's nose up sharply. The universe did a colossal somersault and they straightened away behind the wivern. In the seconds the loop had taken, the beast had lost sight of them. Shea nosed down and they glided in under the right wing, so close they could feel the air go fuff with the wing beat.

  Shea got one glimpse of Busyrane's astonished face before the wing hid it. The scale skin pulsed over the immense flying muscles for one beat. "Now!" he barked.

  Twunk! Twunk! Belphebe had drawn the bow hard home, and the arrows tore into the beast's brisket.

  There was a whistling scream, then catastrophe. The wide wing whammed down on the aviators, almost knocking Shea from his seat. They were no longer flying, but tumbling over and over, downward. The top of a tree slashed at Shea's face. Dazedly, he heard the wivern crash and tried to right the broom. It nosed up into a loop and hung. A cry from behind him, receding towards the earth, froze him. He saw Belphebe tumble into the grass, twenty feet down, and a wave of the monster men close over her.

  * * *

  Shea manhandled his broomstick around, fervently wishing he had a lighter one — a pursuit job. By the time he got it aimed at the place where he had last seen Belphebe, there was no sign of her or of Busyrane either. The wivern sprawled bloatedly in the grass with hundreds of the enchanter's allies swarming round it.

  Shea drew his épée and dived at the thick of them. They screeched at him, some of producing clumsy breast bows. He swooped towards a monster with a crocodile head as the strings began snapping. The arrows went far behind, but just as Shea stiffened his arm for the gliding thrust, Crocodile-head thinned to a puff of mist. The épée met no resistance. As Shea held his glide, parallel with the ground, he found the crowding monsters disappearing before him. He pulled up, looking back. They were materializing behind. More arrows buzzed past.

  He circled, cutting another swath through them. No sign of Belphebe.

  At the third charge an arrow caught in his cloak. The flint head of another drove through his boot and a quarter inch into his calf. The goblins were learning and-aircraft lire. But of Belphebe there was still no sign, and now the ghost men were streaming towards him out of the woods on all sides. In every direction they were hopping, yelling, drawing their crude bows.

  He climbed out of bowshot and circled, locking. No luck. It would have to be some other way. He felt slightly sick.

  He went up higher, till the vast green expanse of Loselwood spread out before him. The sun was well up. Under it he fancied he could see the region where he had tangled with the Da Derga. Beyond should be the edge of the forest, where he and Chalmers had met their first Losels.

  TEN

 
An hour of cruising showed him a clearing with a little garden, a thatched cottage, and a circular palisade of pointed stakes around the whole. He helixed down slowly.

  A man came out of the wood and entered the palisade through a gate. Shea caught a glimpse of red face and black beard as his own shadows whisking across the grass, brought the man's eyes upward. The man dashed into the cottage as if all the fiends of Hell were after him. In a moment two armoured men came out. The shield of one bore the striking black and silver gyronny of Sir Cambell.

  "By oak, ash and yew;

  My broomstick true,

  Like a dead leaf descending,

  So softly fall you!"

  That was not quite the right way to put it, as Shea immediately learned. The broom settled slowly, but remorselessly literal, carried the imitation of a dead leaf to the point of a dizzying whirl. Cottage, forest, and waiting knights came to him in a spinning blur.

  Shea felt the ground under his feet. He staggered dizzily.

  Artegall roared: "By'r Lady, 'tis the enchanter's varlet!" His sword came out, Wheep!

  Shea said: "You're just the man I'm looking for —"

  "That I warrant!" His laugh was a nasty bark. "But you'll accomplish no more magician's tricks on me. I have a protection, which is more than you have against this!" He shook the sword and swung it back.

  "Wait a minute!" cried Shea. "I can explain, honest —"

  "Explain to the devils of Hell, where you soon will be!"

  * * *

  At that moment Britomart and Cambina came out of the cabin. Shea wondered frantically whether to run towards them, try to start the broom, or — What was that? A set of little patterns was faintly visible on Artegall's breastplate as he turned in the morning sun. They were the type of pattern that would be left by soldering on brass oak leaves and then prying them off.

  "Hey!" he said. "You're the guy who showed up in the oak leaves at Satyrane's tournament and won the second prize but didn't stop to collect it!"

  "Huh? How knew you — What mean you, rogue?"

  "Just what I say. You fought for the challengers, and Britomart knocked you off your pony, didn't she?"

  "'Tis to be said . . . ah —" Artegall turned his scowl on Britomart. She glared back.

  "Come, good friends," said Cambina, "no variance. I proclaim it was Sir Artegall, for I penetrated his disguise. Come, Artegall, confess; you cannot hide the sun at the bottom of a bucket."

  "I suppose I must," growled the knight. "I did but wish to make proof whether I were as strong in the lists as I seemed, or whether certain of the knights would rather fall off their horses than oppose the queens justiciar." He turned to Britomart. "You have a rude way towards an affianced husband, my lady!"

  Shea caught Britomart's eye and winked violently. She turned on Artegall a look that would have melted granite. "Ah, my dear lord, had I but known! Yet surely you shall feel no shame at that one overthrow, for 'twas the combination of that enchanted ebony spear I bear and your own horse's stumbling, neither alone sufficient." She reached for his mailed arm. "When we are wed I shall leave these broils and tournaments to you."

  Campbell and Cambina looked at Britomart, then at each other. The look implied they had never seen her act that way before. Shea repressed a grin. The brawny blonde learned fast.

  Artegail smiled shamefacedly. "Why, dearest dame, that were a great sacrifice indeed. I knew not you cared so." His voice hardened "But we have here a most villainous young rascal."

  No rascal," said Britomart, "but a true and loyal squire, whom I have sworn to my service and that of the queen."

  "Then what of his soaring through the sky like a bug or witch? Nay, he's of the tribe of enchanters —"

  "Not so," interrupted Cambina. "His magic is white, even as my own; and my art tells me that this Harold de Shea will speak the truth if you'll let him."

  Artegall scowled, but asked: "Then what's the truth he would speak?"

  Shea told his story quickly before a new argument could start. "That is good truth, I guarantee," said Cambina, when he had finished, "and Belphebe is in deadly danger."

  "Then why stand we here at words?" snapped Artegall. "Ho, woodcutter! We start at once. Food and horses, as soon as they may be had, for all of us."

  Shea disapproved of this cavalier treatment, but didn't feel called upon to comment. He said: "Going to collect an army?"

  "Nay, not I. Time presses us too close. Here we must count on our own good arms and Cambina's magic. Art afraid?"

  "Try me."

  "There's a stout younker." The frown in Artegall's brows cleared a bit. "I will be just and admit I held you wrong."

  * * *

  The moon in this world, Shea observed, set only twelve or thirteen minutes later each night, instead of the fifty minutes later of his own earth. He and his four companions were crouched at the edge of the opening that hid Busyrane's unseen castle. They did not attempt it till the moon had disappeared.

  As they crossed the open space Shea whispered: "I'm afraid I can't find the gate. Too dark to see my landmarks."

  "Small loss," answered Cambina. Shea saw her dimly, doing things with her wand. Out of nothing grew a faint phosphorescence that resolved itself into a row of bars.

  Cambina pointed the wand at it. The instrument elongated, flexing itself like some tame worm. The tip groped with the lock, inserting itself gently. There was a faint click.

  The wand withdrew, then poked its end through the bars. Under the night song of the insects there came a faint grate as the bolt slid back. The gate was open.

  As they tiptoed through, the infinitesimal jingle of the knight's armour sounded to Shea's ears like an earthquake in a kitchenware factory. Cambina pointed. Over their heads on the wall appeared a sentry, visible only as a cloak and hood, glowing with a phosphorescence almost too faint to he visible. The hood swung its black cavity towards them. Cambina pointed her wand, and the sentry froze in that position.

  Light and music streamed from the windows of the great hall. Shea, leading because of his knowledge of the place and the fact that his tread was most nearly soundless, was heading for the door, when he tripped over a huge, hairy leg.

  With simultaneous grunts a pair of Losels who had been stretched out on the steps rolled to their feet. While the one nearest was fumbling in the dark for his club, Shea drove the épée through the creature's throat. Behind him he heard the other's club swish up —

  But the club failed to come down. He looked around and saw the Losel, club aloft, frozen to a statue like the sentry. The other Losel was expiring with quiet bubbling noises.

  Cambina did things with her wand, and the door of the building swung open. There was light and noise within, but no one to see them. Across the corridor in which they stood was the entrance to the great hall, the door slightly ajar. Within, the revellers were too occupied with their grand ball to be watching the door.

  Shea beckoned the four heads close to his and breathed: "This corridor runs around to the serving entrance."

  "Are there other doors beside those two?" asked Artegall, and when Shea shook his head went on: "Then do you, Squire, with Cambell and Cambina, take that entrance. Here Britomart and I will take our stand; for this is the place where they will naturally come and we are, I think, the best men-at-arms."

  Heads nodded. Shea and the other two stole down the corridor. Just before they reached the service entrance, an imp crossed the corridor from the kitchen with a tray in his hands.

  He saw them. Cambell bounded forward and cut the imp in two. The bottom half of the imp ran back into the kitchen. There was an instant uproar.

  The three ran a few steps to the service entrance and flung open the door.

  Shea got one brief static picture of a roomful of magicians and red-lipped women looking at him. Some had their mouths open. Busyrane sat at one end of the horseshoe facing him, and he thought he recognized Chalmers. Before he could be certain, the photograph came to frenzied life.

 
; He turned to face the noise behind. Out of the kitchen boiled a mass of imps and hobgoblins, bearing spits, knives, rolling pins. Shea neatly spitted the first on his épée, dodging the counter. The imp leaped backward off the blade and came on again. Behind him Shea heard the roar of the Chapter, Cambell's deep war cry, and the whack of swords against his shield.

  "I can . . . handle these," panted Cambina. Her wand darted to and fro, freezing imp after imp. The rest started to run.