The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea

by L Sprague De Camp; Fletcher Pratt

  Shea smiled crookedly. “I really don’t know myself whether I ought to thank you or bawl you out, Doc. What have you done with Belphebe? You snatched her, too, didn’t you? At least I hope so. She just disappeared while we were out on a picnic together, and they were going to arrest me for murdering her or kidnapping her or something.”

  “Yes—uh—there are certain difficulties.” Chalmers’ fingers moved nervously. “I am afraid there was rather a—uh—grave error on my part. I find the attitude of the police shocking. Though I do not think you need have worried about the legal complications. It would be well-nigh impossible to establish a corpus delicti under the circumstances.”

  “That’s what you don’t know, Doc. Gertrude Mugler was on the picnic, and she was the one who hollered copper when we went off on a walk together and I came back without her, nearly out of my mind because I didn’t know whether some magician had hauled her back to Faerie. That woman could establish a corpus delicti or a society for boiling men in oil, and she would, too.”

  The pale girl made a small sound.

  “Sorry,” said Shea. “Lady Florimel, I present Vaclav Polacek, known in our country as the Rubber Czech.”

  “Hail, fair squire,” said the girl. “The titles of your land are passing strange; yet not, methinks, stranger than that garb you bear.”

  Shea became conscious of a neat pin-stripe suit. “I might say the same thing about Sir Reed’s headgear. What are you doing in that rig, what did you get me here for, and where are we?”

  Chalmers said: “You display an unscientific tendency to confuse thought by the simultaneous consideration of different categories of information. Pray allow me to organize me thoughts and data … Ahem. I presume it was you who employed the spell against magicians on Dolon, and in so doing projected yourself to our—er—point of departure? I confess I do not understand how you also projected the young lady….”

  “I had hold of her hand. We’re married.”

  “My sincerest congratulations. I trust the union will prove happy and—er—fruitful. Your departure, you will remember, was attended by the destruction of the Chapter of Enchanters, and as a result I found myself faced by a problem rather beyond my powers. Namely, the transfermation into a real person of a human simularcrum made of snow.” He nodded in the direction of Florimel, who gazed at him adoringly. “I therefore—”

  “Doctor, you got a chair?” asked Polacek.

  “Vaclav, your interruptions are even more disturbing than Harold’s. Kindly seat yourself on the floor and permit me to continue. Where was I? Ah, upon examination of available data, I was gratified to discover that there existed in Faerie the mental pattern of a universe whose space-time vector arrangement made it possible of attainment from that place by the familiar methods of symbolic logic. To wit, that of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.”

  “Why should that be easy to reach?” inquired Shea.

  “Ahem. I was about to explain. Lodovico Ariosto was an Italian poet, who wrote the Orlando Furioso in what we should call the early sixteenth century. This work was considered the main source from which Spenser, a highly imitative writer, secured the ideas whence he produced The Faerie Queene. Since each of these universes contains the same basic mental pattern, it is easy to perceive how transference from one to the other would be a relatively light task, and I felt confident that I would find here a number of experienced practitioners of magic. Vaclav, I perceive you are not following me.”

  “No,” said Polacek from the floor, “and I don’t believe Miss—Lady Florimel is either.”

  “It’s not necessary that she should. For your benefit, however, I will explain that this similarity of basic mental pattern establishes, as it were, certain connective roads between the two universes, over which passage in our vehicle of symbolic logic can be achieved with a reasonable certainty of reaching the desired destination.”

  Polacek felt in his pockets. “Anybody got a cigarette? I believe you if you say so, Doctor, but I still don’t get why you had to send for Harold, and why we had to land in that cabaret.”

  Chalmers fussed again with the papers, uneasily. “The process was attended by—uh—certain inconveniences. I can only describe them by—taking things in order, if you will permit me to do so. To localize the matter, we are in the castle of the leading magician of the Furioso, Atlantès de Carena, in the Pyrenees, near the Franco-Spanish border. For your benefit, Vaclav, I should explain that these places are by no means the same as we should understand by the terms employed at—uh—let us say, the Garaden Institute.”

  “All right, but why jerk me back here?” asked Shea. “You might at least have asked me first.”

  “Surely, Harold, you realize that symbolic logic is not a thing that can be handled like a telephone. As a matter of fact, the inconveniences to which I referred had become so grave that there appeared to be no other course open to me. I may be mistaken. Working with Atlantès has been most interesting, more interesting. I have been granted the opportunity of correcting many of the principles of magic in view of the somewhat different laws that control it here.

  “However, I feel that I owe this young lady here a certain duty.” He indicated Florimel, and blushed as Polacek and Shea both snickered.

  “Ah—Atlantès has been most coöperative, but I hope I am less easily impressed by an enchanter’s affability than formerly. Not only has he been unable to accomplish anything for Florimel, but these people are also Mohammedans with somewhat—peculiar standards of morality. I have been led to the idea, amounting almost to an absolute conviction, that it would be necessary for me to provide additional protection for Florimel. As matters stand, or stood before I took the perhaps unwarranted liberty of—er—transporting you here, I was the only barrier between her and our, I fear, by no means well-disposed host.”

  “I don’t get all of it,” said Shea. “Why couldn’t you just take her somewhere else?”

  “But where, my dear Harold? That is the very nub of the difficulty. To return to our own universe would be to lose the young lady, since she is of magical origin, and there’s no provision for magic in the mental pattern. It must be regarded as impossible, at least until she has attained complete humanity. It would be possible, of course, to attain the world of Dante, but I am not sure that the atmosphere of the Inferno would be conducive to the health of a person made of snow. Moreover, Atlantès is an extremely competent magician, quite capable of either following her to another place or preventing her going.”

  “A most persistent, arrant lecher,” said Florimel.

  Chalmers patted her hand and beamed. “I feel I owe an apology to you, and to Vaclav. However, one of the functions of friendship is to permit occasional impositions in times of emergency. And I trust you will look upon me as a friend.”

  Polacek waved a hand. Shea said: “It’s all right, Doc, and I’ll be glad to help, especially since you brought Belphebe along, even if it did get me in trouble with the cops. Where is she, by the way?”

  Chalmers became more embarrassed than ever. “That is—uh—the difficulty over which I owe you my sincerest apologies. It was undoubtedly due to an error of selectivity. Er, I had not intended to transport her from our universe at all. If you are familiar with the Furioso, Harold, you will remember that among Spenser’s imitations from it was a character called Belphegor, the cognate of Belphebe…. When the young lady arrived, there was a certain amount of—uh—confusion of identity, as it were, with the result, the unfortunate result, that she had no memory of another name or a previous existence. At the present moment I really cannot say where she is, except that she is undoubtedly in this universe.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that my own wife doesn’t even know me?” yelped Shea.

  “I fear not. I cannot express—”

  “Don’t try.” Shea looked around the room gloomily. “I’ve got to find her. She may be in trouble.”

  “I don’t think you need be apprehensive, Harold. The young lady is quite comp
etent.”

  “Aye, marry, that she is,” said Florimel. “She dealt Sir Roger such a buffet as will make his head spin for long when he would have let her from going without the castle but the now. Be comforted, Sir Harold.”

  “Who is this Sir Roger, anyway?” Shea glowered.

  “I think I had better introduce you to my—uh—your associates,” said Chalmers, and stepped around the desk to open the door behind Shea and Polacek. The air held an unmistakable faint odor of olive-oil, and as they stepped across the threshold, their feet gave back a metallic ring from the floor.

  “Ah, yes,” said Chalmers. “Perhaps I omitted to mention the fact that this castle is constructed of iron. That also is attended by certain—uh—inconveniences. Will you come this way, gentlemen?”

  Another passage branched from that into which they had committed themselves, and led down a ramp towards a pair of double doors, with an oil lamp hanging from chains and throwing but little light. As they approached the doors, Shea heard the wailing sound of an instrument theoretically musical, like those in Xanadu. Polacek’s eye brightened as he ran his tongue between his lips. “Babes?” he asked.

  Without answering, Chalmers waved his hand at the doors, which swung open smoothly. They were looking at the backs of a pair of Arab-dressed musicians squatting on the floor, one blowing into a tootle-pipe, the other slowly tapping with his fingertips a drum about four inches in diameter. Beyond, a slinky dark girl in gauzy drapes revolved in the paces of a slow dance.

  Beyond her again a dozen or more men were visible in the dim light of more oil lamps, dressed in bright Oriental costumes that seemed to have been specially spotted with grease for the occasion. Sprawled upon cushions, they gazed at the dancer with unsmiling, languid interest, exchanging a word from time to time, and looking toward the farther end of the room, as though to take their cue from the man who sat there. He was bigger than the biggest of them, with the figure of a wrestler. His young face bore strong lines, but just now it showed a sulky, petulant expression. A dapper little graybeard, like a brown mouse, was whispering something into his ear to the accompaniment of fierce gestures.

  He glanced up at the sound of the visitors’ feet on the floor and trotted toward them. He bowed low before Chalmers. “The peace of God be with you.” He bowed again. “Who be these lords?” He bowed a third time.

  Chalmers returned one of the bows. “Let no less peace be with you, most magical lord of Carena. These are—uh—lords of my own country. Sir Harold de Shea, and the esquire Vaclav Polacek.”

  “Oh, day of good luck!” exclaimed Atlantès de Carena, bobbing up and down like a ship in a storm. “O day of Allah’s grace that has brought two mighty lords of the Franks for these poor eyes to feast upon!” Bow. “Doubtless it is by some error that you have come to so poor a hovel, but in that error I am honored.” Bow. “Ho! Let the best rooms be swept out and new ceremonial garments be prepared for Sir Harold de Shea and the squire Vaclav, for these be veritably the bringers of benisons.” Bow.

  Shea and Polacek kept up with the first two or three bows, but gave it up as the pace threatened to make them dizzy. Apparently satisfied that he had achieved something, the little brown man took each by the hand and led them around the circle where introductions and bows were repeated as though each man they encountered could not have heard what was said to the rest. There were Lord Mosco, the Amir Thrasy, Sir Audibrad—this last one in medieval European doublet and hose, without turban—and two or three more. In the intervals Polacek kept twisting his head to watch the dancer, until, at or about the third introduction, Atlantès noticed.

  “You desire this handmaid, noble lord?” he said. “By Allah, she is worth not less than a hundred pieces of gold, but you shall have her to your concubine, provided only that our Roger, for whom all things are done, puts not his claim upon her. And you will find her a pearl unpierced—a filly unridden, a gem—”

  Polacek’s face was reddening. “Tell him no!” whispere Shea fiercely. “We can’t afford to get mixed up in anything.”

  “But—”

  “Tell him no.”

  Atlantès’ eyes were fixed on them, and there seemed to be an expression of amusement behind the wispy beard. “Listen,” said Polacek, “I’ll talk to you about it later. Since I’m just new here, I’d like to see some more of your castle before—enjoying your—uh—hospitality. And—uh—thanks anyway, your lordship.”

  “Hearing is obedience.” His lordship led the way to the cushion that supported the sulky youth. “And here is the light of the world, the arm of Islam, the perfect paladin and cavalier of Carena, Roger.”

  The perfect paladin gave a bored grunt. “More Franks?” he said to Atlantès. “Are they of better omen than that red-haired wench whom the Frankish enchanter laterly brought?” Shea stiffened and his heart gave a thump. However, the light of the world was addressing him. “Are ye the new tumbling jugglers my uncle promised? Though my heart is straightened, yet may it find ease in witnessing your tricks.”

  Shea looked at him coldly down his long nose. “Listen, funny-face, I’ve been made a knight by a better man than you are, and I don’t like the way you talk about the ‘red-haired wench’. If you’ll come outside, I’ll show you a few tricks.”

  Roger, surprisingly, broke into a smile of pure amiability. “By the beard of the Prophet (whom God sustain),” he said, “I had not thought to find a Frank so generous. For months have I slain no man, and my muscles rot from lack of practice. Let us then to the hand-play!”

  “Lords! Light of my eyes! Coolth of my heart!” Atlantès bubbled. “You have no need of another death and know well that a doom lies on it that there be none in this castle, and more, these be my noble lords and guests, fellow—magicians, for whose life I would give my own. Come, sirs, let me show you to your quarters, which, though they be but pallets in a corner, are yet as good as Carena can offer. ‘Take what I have,’ said the Hajji, ‘though it be but half a barley-cake.’“

  He clucked on ahead of them like a motherly hen. The “pallets” in a corner turned out to be rooms the size of auditoriums, elaborately hung with silks and furnished with inlaid wood. The rivetheads protruding from the iron plates of the walls and ceiling, however, reminded Shea of the interior of a warship.

  Atlantès was soothing. “Coffee shall be brought you, and new garments. But in the name of Allah, magical sirs, let the voice of friendship avert the hand of disputation, and be not angry with the kinsman of your friend. Ah, lovely youth!” he brushed a hand past his eyes, and Shea was surprised to see a drop of genuine moisture glistening on it. “The glory of Cordova. I sometimes wonder that the perfumed Hamman bath does not freeze in despair of emulating such beauty. Would you credit it that such a’ one could think more on blood than on the breasts of a maiden?”

  He bowed half a dozen times in rapid succession and disappeared.

  Three

  “For the love of Mike, Harold!” said Polacek, eyeing the voluminous robes with distaste. “Are we supposed to wear these nightshirts?”

  “Why not? When in Rome, eat spaghetti. Besides, if you want to give any of the damsels around here the eye, you’ll have to be in fashion.”

  “I suppose … That little wizard’s a smart guy. Say, what’s this, a scarf?”

  Shea picked up a long red strip of textile. “I think it’s your turban,” he said. “You have to wind it around your head, something like this.”

  “Sure I get it,” replied Polacek. He whipped his own turban around with nonchalant speed. Naturally it came apart in festoons around his neck, and another try yielded no better result. Shea’s own more useful procedure stayed on but settled itself firmly in concealment of one ear, and with a tail that tickled his chin. Polacek laughed and made a face. “Guess we’ll have to call for a tailor or wait till they dish out some real hats.”

  Shea frowned. “Look here, Votsy, take it easy, will you? You’ll simply have to be less cocky around a place like this if you don’t want to
get all our throats cut.”

  Polacek jagged up an eyebrow. “Hairbreadth Harry telling me not to be so cocky? Getting married has made a different man out of you, all right. Speaking of which, what are the rules around this joint? I’d like to take Atlantès up on his offer and pitch a little woo at that dancer. She’s built like—”

  The door was flung open with a clang by a man whose hairy, pendulous-eared head bore a startling identity to that of a Newfoundland dog. Without giving time for stares, he barked: “Lord Roger!” and stood aside to let the perfect paladin and cavalier stride in. Shea noticed he moved suprisingly light for so big a man. He would be a dangerous antagonist.

  “Oh, hello,” he greeted the visitor coolly.

  Polacek added: “Say, I’m a stranger here myself, but do you always walk in doors without knocking?”

  “The lord is lord of his own saloons,” said Roger, as though his name were Hohenzollern. He turned toward Shea. “It has reached me, oh man, that you are of knightly order, and I may without shame or hindrance take on myself the shedding of your blood. Yet since I am a warrior experienced, a person of prowess, it would be no more than just did I not offer to handicap myself, as by bearing no armor while you go armored in this combat when the wizards have lifted the death-doom from the castle.”

  If he had had the épée which served him so well in Faerie Shea would have returned the offer. Instead, he bowed: “Thanks. Nice of you. Tell me—do I understand that Atlantès is your uncle?”

  “There is no other way to it.” Roger tapped delicate fingers over a yawn. “Though he is rather like a grandmother, an old nanny with one eye, who holds all here from high sports or unmannerly diversions. Yet even this may be overcome if there be one with a will to warlike valor, who yet knows some of the placing and lifting of spells.”