by K. B. Bogen
It occurred to him that he’d just made a bad decision. After all, here he was about to take on a master sorceress and her entire army (at least, he hoped what he saw was all she had) with only two warriors and one inexperienced journeyman sorcerer. Plus a damselfly or two. Not the best odds.
Of course, he had an ace up his sleeve or, rather, in his pocket. He hoped it would work. All he needed was a few seconds and someone to distract Sharilan.
“Viona,” he whispered to the damselfly, without taking his eyes off of Sharilan.
“Yes, Erwyn?” He noticed she did not come out of the folds of his cloak where she had hidden earlier.
“Could you do me a favor?”
“As long as it doesn’t mean coming out in the open.”
“I’m afraid it does.”
“Uh-uh.”
“You mean you’re just going to leave your friends hanging there? You’re not willing to help them? I’m suprised at you!”
The damselfly peeked out from under the material. She looked a little limp.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing much. Just distract Sharilan for a couple of minutes.”
“Nothing much,” Viona mimicked. “Your idea of ‘nothing much’ and mine are a little different.”
“Come on, it’s not that difficult. All you have to do is just fly past her nose or something. And stay out of reach of those blue sparks flying from her hands.”
“Right. Sort of like dodging raindrops.”
“Exactly. But not until I give you the signal.”
Viona grumbled a little more, then sailed into the air and headed toward Sharilan. While Erwyn and the damselfly had been conferring, the guards had moved Devydd, Lariyn, and the net closer to Erwyn’s group, presumably to give the sorceress a larger target. That way she could kill them all at once, instead of a few at a time.
Erwyn kept his eyes glued on Sharilan while the sorceress slowly, very slowly, built up the power in her lightning spell. She smiled as she did it, and Erwyn felt certain she was building her power slowly so the suspense could build along with it. It was working. Erwyn’s palms itched and his neck muscles were tight.
Blue light crackled and flashed, spreading up from Sharilan’s fingertips to her wrists. Erwyn continued to stare, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. The pin was almost in position. He nodded slightly, hoping that Viona would recognize his signal and Sharilan wouldn’t. He also hoped that Sharilan wouldn’t be ready before he was.
Suddenly, Sharilan ducked in her saddle, waving her hands as though to shoo away an insect. Not the most healthy of reactions, considering the spell she was in the process of casting. Unfortunately for Erwyn, she remembered to damp down the lightning before she solved his problem for him. The pin was in place, though, and Erwyn nodded again.
Sharilan turned back to her captives. In spite of Viona’s efforts, she was still smiling. So was Erwyn, as he waited for her to start casting her spell again. She disappointed him, though.
“On second thought, I think I’ll let my men take care of you. It’ll last longer that way.” She turned her horse.
“Too bad,” Erwyn muttered.
The sorceress didn’t notice. Addressing the man with the pike, she said, “Kill them all, then bring me the wand and the sphere.” With that, she rode away.
“Rats! She was supposed to fry us, not spit us.”
“You must be joking!” Chesric whispered back. “At least against these guys we’ve got a fighting chance.”
“You don’t understand.” Erwyn sighed, exasperated. “If she had tried to zap us, the battle would be over already.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand ... ”
“’ere, now,” one of the guards was addressing them. “Stop whisperin’ and untie those two,” he indicated Lariyn and Devydd, “and take their gags off. We can’t go executin’ ‘em with ‘em lyin’ in the dirt like that.”
The guards had a strange sense of fair play. It seemed that they couldn’t kill anyone with their arms tied up. They preferred to line their victims up face to the wall for a nice little round of back-stabbing.
“I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, kid,” Devydd said when Chesric had removed his gag, “but it seems to me that now would be a good time to practice your sandcastles. Get my drift?”
Erwyn did. “Be nice if I could manage to ... ”
“To what?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Erwyn’s mind flicked to the expanse of sand he’d seen just south of the enchanted castle. It was convenient how Sharilan’s army just happened to be assembling there. If only he could ... oh, well. He could try that later, if he survived.
He took a quick peek at their executioners, thought about the sand some more, then concentrated on building the castle he wanted. He heard the men take a few steps in their direction. Then ...
“Hey! What th ... !” That was one of them now.
“T’ain’t hardly fair. You stop that this instant!” There went another one.
“I hate fighting against mages!”
The air behind them filled with more muffled cries of outrage.
The group turned around. Behind them stood the sandcastle, right where Sharilan’s men had been. Actually, the men were still there. The castle had been built around them. Erwyn was rather pleased with that. He figured it took a bit of finesse to build a castle around someone.
Of course, it wasn’t a very big castle. But then, there had only been sixteen or seventeen men about to kill them.
It was adequate. It also had walls about three feet thick.
“Should take them a while to get out of that one.”
“I don’t see any doors or windows,” Kerissa observed.
“There aren’t any,” Erwyn replied. “That’s why it will take them some time to get out. Longer, if none of them has anything to make a torch out of. Or dig with.”
“So what do we do now?” Devydd was being practical.
“We’ve got to get rid of that army somehow.”
“That’s terrific.” Devydd fingered the hilt of his sword. “Just the six of us against an army. You folks won’t mind if I just go find myself something else to do, will you? Something a little less terminal?”
“Now’s yer chance, young fella.” Chesric placed a hand on Erwyn’s shoulder.
“Huh?”
“Yer chance to practice some more of that magic of yers. We’ll race around the castle here and catch up with the army. The rest of us’ll keep the riffraff from slicin’ you to ribbons, while you take out the bad guys.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Beats waitin’ around here to get slaughtered.”
“Moot point.” That was Devydd again.
“Uh-oh.”
The army had caught up with them.
Hole In One
Sisters, Sisters, There Were
Never Such Devoted Sisters
“OVERCONFIDENCE CAN BE YOUR GREATEST ASSET, AS LONG AS IT IS YOUR OPPONENT’S AND NOT YOURS.” — Sorcerers’ Almanac, Section Three: On People and Their Influence
It was really only part of the army. But they were running in the companions’ direction, screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Fortunately, they could only run four abreast, once they got between the storybook castle and the sandcastle.
“Do something!” For someone who had a low opinion of magic-users, Kerissa was sure asking a lot.
“I’m not sure I can,” Erwyn shot back. “Magic isn’t like breathing, you know. You have to stop sometime.”
“You have to stop breathing some time, too. And if you don’t do something, we’ll all get to experience it, you know.” Chesric had to add his two gold pieces’ worth.
“Whatever happened to ‘the rest of us’ll keep off the riffraff,
etc.’?”
“That was before the riffraff started trying to off us first!”
“All right. Just don’t expect miracles!”
Erwyn gathered his remaining energy into one last burst. For lack of a better idea, he just started adding another room to the sandcastle. He thought the guys in the first room were digging through that wall, anyway.
While the group watched, a wall formed halfway between them and the men who were running toward them. It grew sideways until it almost reached the thorn hedge, then took an abrupt right-angle turn away.
“Uh-oh.”
Erwyn groaned at Devydd’s now-familiar warning. His aim had been a little bit off. Seven or eight of Sharilan’s soldiers had slipped through the wall before it was completed. And they were still headed in the companions’ direction.
“You guys are going to have to handle this,” Erwyn said wearily. “I’m beat.” He sank to the ground to watch.
To Erwyn, it was the most spectacular example of swordfighting he had ever seen. But then, he’d never seen any real swordfights.
Chesric accounted for three of the enemy, his sword flashing brightly in the sunlight. Devydd took out two more. Kerissa and Lariyn handled the rest, however many that was. It was pretty intense for a while. Then all was still, except for a lot of heavy breathing.
After a minute or so, Erwyn finally relaxed. While he rested, the rest of the group waited tensely for someone else to come looking for them. No one did.
They couldn’t sit there forever, though. Finally, they decided to follow Chesric’s advice and go looking for the rest of the army. How many more could there be? Twenty? Thirty? No sweat. Well, maybe a little sweat.
They walked slowly around the sandcastle toward where they supposed the rest of the army was. Princess Fenoria, whom Erwyn had blissfully forgotten in the heat of ... er ... sandcastling, snuggled up as close as she could get to him. If she got any closer, Erwyn decided, he’d have to find a larger set of clothes.
Everyone who still had a weapon had it out again. As a group, they rounded the last corner of the sandcastle. And froze in their proverbial tracks.
“Wow! I never realized how much sand it takes to build one of those.” Devydd let out a low whistle.
“Me, either. That’s amazing.” Kerissa’s voice held a touch of awe.
Erwyn was a little impressed himself. Whether his subconscious was responsible, or just thinking about the sand did it, the results were spectacular. Sharilan’s entire army had conveniently fallen into the hole left by Erwyn’s sandprison.
“I hate to bring this up, but Sharilan’s still on the loose here somewhere.” Leave it to Chesric to put a damper on things.
Maybe he should have saved the damper for later, for, with a crack of lightning and a cloud of smoke, the sorceress herself appeared in front of them.
“Speaking of whom,” Erwyn murmured. Aloud, he said, “Back so soon?”
“I should have known better than to leave important business to incompetent clods.”
“Well, thanks for the compliment, but ... ”
“Silence!” The sorceress looked down at Erwyn. “I thought I had chosen the right tool to free the princess. It seems, however, that you are no ordinary fool. Nonetheless, you will soon be a dead one.”
“Suits me,” Erwyn replied, silently hoping his plan would work. He only had one chance.
That stopped her for a moment. The last thing Sharilan expected was for Erwyn to agree with her. The rest of the group was having doubts about his sanity, as well.
It didn’t take her long to recover. She stared thoughtfully at him. “You have courage. Perhaps it will be of service to me someday.” Something with little prickly feet ran up Erwyn’s spine. Was it what she said, or the way she said it?
“I think I will bottle you up for a while, until I decide what to do with you.” She began her usual wind-up for her spell-casting. What a ham!
“Oh, put a cork in it, Sharilan!”
“You dare ... ! I ought to ... to ... ” She sputtered for a second or two.
“Yes?” Erwyn prompted. If she would just hurry up.
Lightning crackled, leaping from one hand to the other as Sharilan glared at Erwyn. He tried to look as smug as he could. If the sorceress didn’t actually cast her spell, it would do him no good at all. He had to force her hand.
“Hold it, Sharilan, sweetie! If you think I’m going to let you blast these people to kingdom come without sticking my nose in, you got another think coming.”
“Fenoria!?” Was it Erwyn’s imagination, or was Sharilan a teensy bit upset?
The latest arrival at their little rendezvous was slightly shorter than Sharilan herself, with light brown curly hair and dimples. She was wearing a pink tutu and ballet slippers, and, at the point she entered the fracas, was hovering about four feet off the turf. This put Sharilan at a disadvantage, since she was standing on the ground.
“In the flesh, sister, dear. Why don’t you just take a hike, huh?”
As Sharilan’s spell fizzled out again, Erwyn groaned in mental agony. Some days, you can’t get zapped no matter how hard you try.
“Not a chance, you stupid bimbo. I worked hard to get that ball. It’s mine!”
“Well, excu-u-use me! You’re out of luck, Miss High-and-Mighty. The current owner isn’t through with it yet. And who are you calling ‘bimbo’?”
“Oh, pardon me. Bimbette. I forgot you haven’t attained full bimbo status yet.”
“You ought to know. You’ve been Queen Bimbo for years.”
“I’ve half a mind to ... ”
“Gee, that’s the first time in years we’ve agreed on anything. That you’ve got half a mind.”
“I oughta send you clear into the next dimension!”
“You, and what army?”
Erwyn was beginning to get the impression that Sharilan and Fenoria didn’t get along too well. He wasn’t about to get in between them, though.
“I’m going to tell Mother on you!”
“Listen to you. You sound like a little baby. Here, baby, take this.”
During the argument, Sharilan had been working on another spell. Now, she literally threw it toward her sister, casting it as she would a net. Fenoria Two recovered from her surprise in time to put up some kind of a shield, using a strange wand with a star atop it.
She needn’t have bothered. The white glow the sorceress tried to fling onto her sister never got any farther than Sharilan’s hands.
Like smoke being blown into the smoker’s face, the white cloud swelled to envelope its creator. It billowed higher and higher, hiding the sorceress completely.
From inside the cloud came a single exclamation.
“Oh, shit!”
Then a gust of wind blew the cloud away, leaving no trace of the sorceress. Sharilan was gone.
“Where did she go?” the princess said in a bewildered voice.
“I don’t know.” Erwyn wondered about that himself. There must have been something odd about the way he said it, though, because Chesric looked at him strangely.
“You sure know something,” the old man eyed him suspiciously for a moment. “Come on, out with it. What gives?”
“Well ... ” Erwyn stalled for a moment more, then shrugged. “You remember that silver pin Sharilan stuck me with when we first met. The one she was using to ‘tune’ in on me?”
“Yes. But what does that have to do with this?”
“Everything. I levitated the pin onto Sharilan’s dress. When she tried to cast a spell at her sister, it recoiled on her.”
“But I thought you said you fixed it so she couldn’t use it anymore.”
“No, I fixed it so she couldn’t use it on me. I did a little creative spell casting so that, when she tried to zap me, it would backfire.”
“But she w
asn’t aiming at you.”
“That part I don’t understand. Unless ... ”
“Unless what?”
“Unless she thought the connection was still active. If she had tried to drag me into performing the same spell on her sister ... ”
“It would backfire on her.” Chesric concluded.
“Maybe.” Erwyn still wasn’t certain. He was just glad his experiment worked.
“The question is,” the Fairy Fenoria added, looking at Erwyn the same way Chesric had, “what, exactly, was the spell she was using?”
“Well, at least Sharilan’s gone, for the time being.” Erwyn sighed. What he needed now was some good, old-fashioned boredom.
“And I’m free at last,” Princess Fenoria added, snuggling up to Erwyn and batting her eyelashes.
“Uh, right.” Erwyn found himself blushing. “Has anybody seen the damselflies lately?”
“Over here, Erwyn, honey,” Viona called from somewhere near Devydd.
“I mean, the rest of the damselflies.”
No one had. Some of them had been missing since before Princess Fenoria had been located. The remainder had disappeared after they had been released from the net.
“Oh, well. They’ll turn up sooner or later. Probably sooner than we’d like. So what happens now?”
“What do you mean?” Chesric was being dense.
“You were all tagging along to help me free the princess. Now that she’s freed, I expect you’d all like to go on your separate ways.”
In spite of his words, Erwyn was half hoping they would decide to stay with him. If it hadn’t been for their help and coaching, he’d have ended up dead, or worse. But he didn’t want to ask. Truth was, he didn’t like admitting that he no longer wanted to go it alone.
“I think I’ll go find myself a place where a sword or a set of nimble fingers are needed more than a spellbook. I’ve got some ideas about how Viona could help me, you know what I mean, kid?” Devydd spoke softly as he stared off into space. “I’ll catch up with you some other time.”
“I understand.” Erwyn smiled sadly. He hated to admit it but he’d miss them. “Maybe I’ll see you guys around sometime.” He turned to leave.