The Mammoth Book Of Warriors and Wizardry (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Sean Wallace

  Raffalon made a last try. “Perhaps, in gratitude for my having done you all these services, we could dispense with the dancing and burning?”

  Hurdevant returned him a disparaging look. “But that would negate your contribution. Do you not see the logic?” He rubbed his hands again and said, “First the Sprightly Wearaway, then the Descending Flambeau, then the sending. I’ll say goodbye now.”

  Raffalon made to protest, but the wizard again silenced him. Hurdevant assumed a precise posture then uttered the mantra of the dancing spell, meanwhile raising his arm only to bring it down in a long sweep as he came to the final syllables, two fingers pointing at his target.

  The thief experienced a sensation as of tiny bubbles effervescing through his flesh, an unbearable inner tickling. His knees bent and he leaped into the air. No sooner did his feet reconnect with the carpet than he began to execute high kicks and daring saltations, left, right, left, and right again, while his arms alternately flew up over his head then descended so that his palms could smartly smack his buttocks.

  The wizard declared the effect to be excellent. Then he gathered himself, took a new stance, and began to intone Chunt’s Descending Flambeau. Raffalon could not hear the oral part of the spell over his own heavy breathing and rump-slapping, but the gestural component was impressive. It concluded with a rapid rolling of one wizardly hand over the other and a double snap of thumb and middle fingers. At that point the thief’s hair burst into flame.

  Instantly, Hurdevant spoke two short words and struck his knuckles together. Just as instantly, Raffalon was no longer in the magician’s library. But neither was he in Glabro’s garden, surrounded by the other wizard’s erotic topiary. Instead, he was . . . nowhere.

  Around him, as well as above and below, was a featureless gray void. He turned and twisted – or at least thought he did; without visual referents, he could not be entirely sure – but on all sides there was nothing to see.

  It was a moment before the thief realized he was no longer kicking and slapping. Nor, he found when he touched his scalp, was his hair on fire. Well, that’s good news, he thought, although he would reserve judgment on his overall situation until he had more facts to work with.

  He looked again in all directions, then realized that, in this place, direction might be a meaningless term. He tried listening, but heard nothing. Nor was there any scent, and the air had no taste when he extended his tongue.

  It was at that point that another realization came: there could be nothing to sniff or taste because there was no air. When he moved a hand from side to side, he felt no breeze stir the hairs on its back. Moreover, it occurred to him that he was not breathing. Nor needed to.

  He wondered if he were dead. But his new environment matched none of the several hells and four paradises that had ages ago been identified by astral travelers. Raffalon’s knowledge of the nine planes – two below his own, and six above – was not extensive, but he was sure that none of them consisted of undifferentiated noneness.

  Wherever he was, he was better off than he would have been had Hurdevant succeeded in sending him, cavorting and blazing, among Glabro’s artfully pruned bushes and shrubs – probably igniting a few before he expired. But, having acknowledged that fact, he saw no need to settle for it.

  What I need, he told himself, is to get out of here and into somewhere that’s an improvement. At that thought, his mind conjured up an image of a tavern he favored when he was in funds – the Badge and Buckle, it was called – where the ale was never frowsty and the barmaids were liberal in all the ways that mattered.

  As he contemplated the mental picture of the place it occurred to him that he was seeing a simulation that was a good deal sharper and more detailed than his imagination could usually achieve.

  I’m not imagining it, he realized, I’m seeing it. The how and why of it completely eluded him, but Raffalon was more given to practicalities than theoretical constructs. If he could see it, perhaps he could get to it.

  He reached out, but the picture – if it was a picture – was beyond his grasp. He tried to stride toward it, but his legs moved without moving him. He swept his arms before him as if he were stroking through water, but there was nothing to push against, and he made no progress.

  Frustrated, he hung in the emptiness. But a thief’s mind, though not as subtle and capacious as a wizard’s, is not without the ability to make connections. I thought of the Badge and Buckle, and there it was. What if I think of moving toward it?

  He did. And did.

  Now it was as if he were just outside the tavern’s tap room, which was at the moment mostly empty. Raffalon had chosen mid-afternoon as the optimum time to invade Hurdevant’s tower, reasoning that the wizard might well be occupied in his workroom, distracted by wizardly endeavors. That was less than an hour ago, and the tavern had not yet attracted the usual supper crowd, many of whom would stay on to become the usual all-night-carousal crowd.

  He examined the scene: a couple of grim-and-bitter drinkers, nursing their tankards and grievances through the day; a dust-smeared traveler making a meal out of whatever was left over from the lunch menu; Boudin the barman, busy behind his counter with preparations for the evening rush; and Undula, the older of the two barmaids, cleaning off a table in the far corner.

  He reached out and his hand encountered its first resistance since he had popped into this nonplace. It felt like a wall; but when he pressed, it seemed to give a little, like the side of a tent stretched taut between poles and pegs.

  I thought of the Badge and Buckle, and there it was, Raffalon said in his mind. I wanted to move toward it and I did. What if I now will myself to be there?

  His first thought was to seek to burst the membrane that separated him from the tavern. But before he could concentrate on doing so, some part of his mind warned that, once broken, such a barrier might not be reparable. And who knew what might then ensue? Perhaps the tavern, the town, the realm, and all the worlds beyond might pour through into the emptiness. That couldn’t be a good result.

  Instead, he focused on the tap room, then on him in it. As the thought crystallized, he felt a tingle along the front of his body, a sensation that then passed all the way through him to exit from his back and buttocks. And when it had passed, he was standing in the Badge and Buckle.

  Only the traveler had noticed his sudden appearance, and the man quickly averted his eyes as sensible strangers do when confronted by events that are none of their business. Boudin looked up from a stack of glasses and said, “Raffalon! What’ll it be?”

  “Something strong,” said the thief, seating himself at an empty table, his back, as always, to the wall. “I have some thinking to do.”

  Raffalon was a thoroughly schooled thief, having served a full apprenticeship under Gronn the Shifter and being then duly accepted into the Ancient and Honorable Guild of Purloiners and Purveyors. He had since added twelve years’ experience to his training and was thus well versed in the complexities of his art. But when an opportunity presented itself, he did not disdain to ply the simple technique of in-out-and-away. It was his grasping of such an opportunity that led him to become the unwilling servant of a minor magician who called himself “Glabro the Supernal”, but who was more widely known by the sobriquet Hurdevant had used: Malaprop.

  The thief had been walking the back alleys, looking for possibilities, when he happened to pass Glabro’s house. He saw that the small door to the rear courtyard was half-open. On the tiles just within lay a bulging satchel. Next to it, propped against the door jamb, was a staff of the kind foot-travelers use. The picture was clear: someone had been about to depart on a journey, but remembering at the last moment something left behind, had stepped back into the house, leaving staff and luggage at the gate.

  Raffalon stopped, looked both ways along the alley, then into the courtyard. Both were empty. He stooped and opened the satchel, rummaged within. His fingers touched a dense, smooth object even as his eye caught the gleam of gold. He
seized the prize and stood up to depart.

  Or such was his intent. What actually happened was that the golden thing refused to budge from its hiding place. Reasoning that it must be far heavier, and thus even more valuable, than he had supposed, the thief applied both hands to the task. But still, he could not lift the thing.

  Frowning, he bent his legs – Gronn had always taught that a sprung back was the reward of an unthinking burglar – and sought to take a better grip. That was when he discovered that he could not remove his hands from the prize. He was still squatting and tugging fruitlessly when Glabro glided smoothly out of the rear door of his house, pointed a black rod at him and said something that made Raffalon’s world go dark.

  He awoke to find himself in the wizard’s workroom, his hands no longer stuck to the bait, but his limbs stapled to the stone wall by iron brackets. His trousers were down around his knees and the wizard was fastening something about those parts of himself that Raffalon – indeed all sensible men – most carefully guard from sudden impacts.

  Glabro straightened, saw that his captive was fully with him again, and said, “Jhezzik, a brief half-squeeze.”

  Instantly, Raffalon knew a pain the like of which he had never encountered before, and which he was certain he never wanted to encounter again.

  “I see I have your attention,” the wizard said.

  “Every jot,” the thief assured him.

  “Excellent. Then here’s what you will do for me.” In a few short sentences, he explained that the thief would go to the manse of Hurdevant and gain entrance to the tallest tower, in whose topmost room he would find an object called the Sphere of Diverse Utility – he showed an image – which Hurdevant had unjustly wrested from its rightful owner, Glabro.

  To ensure that the thief undertook the mission without delay, the sprite known as Jhezzik would accompany him there and back again. “Although it will not go in with you,” Glabro said. “Hurdevant’s grinnet would sniff it out right away and come rushing to seize it – which would be as unpleasant for you as for Jhezzik. So it will see you there then wait for you to emerge with the Sphere. And, of course, accompany you back here.”

  Raffalon began to protest on several counts: Hurdevant’s defenses were unbreachable; he was known to be unremittingly watchful; the Guild had a mutual non-interference agreement with the Ancient and Worthy Council of Wizards and Thaumaturges. He got no further before Glabro bade Jhezzik intervene.

  “As for the defenses, he uses Bullimar’s Differentiating Portal. I will teach you a counter-word to nullify it. You will go just after lunch, when he putters in his workroom. None will know of it, save you and I.” When Raffalon attempted a fresh argument, he added, “And, of course, Jhezzik.”

  Thus did Raffalon find himself clinging to the wall of Hurdevant’s tower when the wizard opened his window. Which led to his unexpected passage through the gray noneness. Which had delivered him to the Badge and Buckle, where he now sat, sipping a second beaker of strong arrack, his thinking done and his plan set.

  He called to Boudin behind the bar. “Is that boy about, the one who washes pots? I have an errand for him.”

  Shortly after, for the promise of a coin, the lad raced off toward Glabro’s house, a sealed note in his pocket.

  The thief was still nursing his second arrack when Glabro entered the tap room. The wizard gave the place a suspicious eye, but seeing nothing to threaten him, he advanced to sit at Raffalon’s table. He peered at the man opposite from a number of angles before saying, “Why are you intact?”

  “Instead of inside-out, like your last operative?”

  “Hurdevant told you that?”

  “We had,” said the thief, “a brief conversation.”

  “And then?”

  Raffalon sipped his arrack. “Is it possible, do you think, to combine two major spells?”

  Glabro’s greasy brow contracted. “Unlikely, but it is far from my area of interest.”

  “How about two major spells plus a third to transport their target to your workroom?”

  The wizard’s head drew back and his chin tucked itself into his neck. “Impossible!”

  “Specifically, Ixtlix’s Sprightly Wearaway and Chunt’s Descending Flambeau. I don’t know the name of the transporter but it involves two syllables and a gesture like this.” He struck his knuckles against each other.

  “Ridiculous!” said Glabro. “The fluxions are inharmonious. No synergism of—”

  “He did it,” Raffalon cut him off. He described the kicking, slapping, hair-igniting, vanishing.

  “My topiary!” Glabro cried. But then he caught up with what Raffalon had been telling him. “But you did not appear before me!”

  “Exactly!”

  The wizard had the look of a man who realizes he has missed a clue. “So . . .” he began.

  “Tell me,” said the thief, “how many planes are there?”

  “Wait,” said the magician, “we were discussing what happened to you.”

  “We still are. How many?”

  Glabro shrugged. “Nine.”

  “And does any one of the nine include a formless, featureless void? With neither up nor down nor sideways?”

  The wizard’s face expressed irritation. “No. Now what about—”

  “A void from which one can see any place and go there simply by an act of will?”

  “Never mind all th—” This time it was Glabro who interrupted himself. “Wait a moment, you’re saying that you were in such a nonplace?”

  Raffalon raised his beaker in an ironic toast. “Now you have it.”

  Later that evening, they were in Glabro’s workroom. Raffalon paced nervously as the wizard stood at his lectern, before him a yellow-bound book of the same edition that Hurdevant possessed plus a handwritten parchment scroll, partly unrolled and held down by bric-a-brac.

  They had agreed that there had to be a test. And the thief was the only choice for its subject. He had, after all, shown that he could go and return; besides, only Glabro had the wizardly wherewithal to cast the three spells. But now that the moment approached, Raffalon’s enthusiasm began to wane.

  Glabro looked up. “Ready,” he announced. An odor of ozone pervaded the room, but the wizard’s eyes were not changing color as Hurdevant’s had – instead they alternately bulged and subsided, apparently in rhythm with the man’s pulse. The effect was not an attractive sight, the thief thought.

  He stood in a clear space where bidden by the other. Glabro took a moment to steady himself, then spoke the words of the jig spell – meaningless to Raffalon – and brought his hand down in the same sweep, ending with the finger-pointing. The high kicks and rump-slapping began. Moments later, what remained of the thief’s hair ignited.

  Now should come the cantrip that would send Raffalon on his way. They had agreed, in case events did not go as planned, that the third spell should move him no farther than to another clear space on the other side of the room. Glabro could then extinguish the blaze before it could consume him.

  But as the fire burnt almost to the roots of the test subject’s hair, the wizard went pale and rocked a little unsteadily. Casting two powerful spells in rapid succession had taken much out of him. He had to put a hand on the bench to steady himself, take a deep breath and blow it out.

  Meanwhile, the thief capered and burned. The skin on top of his head was becoming uncomfortably warm. Finally, Glabro recollected himself. He uttered two syllables and struck his knuckles together. Instantly, Raffalon was adrift in the void, his limbs still and his scalp tender but unseared.

  He rallied his faculties and conjured up an image of the wizard’s workroom. As before, a clear view of the place appeared before his eyes. He could see Glabro coming from behind the lectern to examine the spot where he had just been, peering at the air and floor through a hollow tube of brass.

  Raffalon willed himself to approach the scene. The image grew larger. Arrayed on the workbench were three objects: a plain wooden cup, a gold cand
lestick, and a fist-sized, purple crystal. The thief concentrated on the trio, drawing himself closer to them until they were within arm’s reach. He put out a hand and again felt resistance, as if a taut membrane separated him from the experimental targets.

  Now he left his arm outstretched, just short of the barrier, and willed the limb to pass through it. He had no sense of motion, but felt the same tingling as before, starting at his fingertips and moving at a moderate pace up his arm. But by the time the sensation had reached his elbow, his hand had closed around the cup. Now he willed arm and hand to withdraw from the wizard’s workroom. A moment later, he floated in the noneness, and when he opened his hand, a wooden cup hung beside him.

  Back in the workroom, he could see Glabro, eyes abulge, staring at the spot where the cup had been. Raffalon readied himself again and repeated the exercise, this time retrieving the heavy metal candlestick. Soon, it too floated beside him in the grayness. He noticed, before he let go of it, that here it had no weight at all.

  Then he went for the faceted crystal and drew it smoothly to him. This was a crucial part of the experiment, because it was a receptacle for the storage of arcane power – not a great deal of mana, but neither was it purely mundane – and both thief and wizard were anxious to know if such could pass through the barrier.

  It did so without hindrance, Glabro observing with his tube to his eye – then watching again as Raffalon reversed the process, restoring cup, candlestick, and crystal to the bench, before willing himself through the membrane and back into the workroom.

  The wizard comprehensively examined the test objects then the man who had moved them. He pronounced them unaffected by any measure he could take. The crystal, when properly handled, delivered a flow of colorful energy that the magician captured as a liquid and poured into an alembic.

  “Perfect,” he said, holding up the vessel and making the stuff swirl. “Completely unaffected.”

  “I will rest a little while,” said Raffalon, “then you can try the spell that regrows hair. After that, we will make our first foray.”