Forward the Mage

by Eric Flint

  Still, there were four of them, one of me, and they were armed and armored. Two of them even had the presence of mind to seize the table and upend it, clearing an open space in which to fight. The girl atop the table leapt off nimbly just as it went over, landing on her feet and scampering aside. I heard her shouting something at her younger sister, but didn't catch the words.

  The first thing to do, needless to say, was to break up the rough "formation" which the four men were taking. As drunk and terrified as they were, they had enough fighting instinct to form a line.

  "A maneuver!" I shouted. "Against de Pouilleux? Useless! Revenge is mine!"

  To be successful, "maneuvers" presuppose a certain amount of celerity and nimbleness. Neither of which was a strong suit of such fellows—and both of which were a strong suit of mine. (Again, you will recognize, the result of my uncles' rigorous regimen.)

  So it was no great feat to scamper around them to the left, double up the whip, and then use it two-handed as something of a flexible club to hammer the man closest to me into a state which approximated senselessness. "Turning their flank," as it were.

  My victim seemed a bit shocked by my tactics. Hard to tell, of course. I suspect the man was so stupid that the tactics of a tortoise would have shocked him. In any event, his sentiments were short-lived. A doubled-up bullwhip lashing a man's arms and face—knocking his sorry excuse for a helmet askew in the process—will daze even a genius. His neck then exposed, I danced back two steps, unfurled the full length of the whip, and cracked it once. The armored tip of the weapon opened his jugular vein as well as a razor could have done it.

  From there I was expecting the affair to turn desperate. A whip is a dazzling weapon, true enough, but not really very practical in a melee facing determined opponents. It simply requires too much room, either on a battlefield or—more to the point—in a feasting hall. So I abandoned it, but not before one final lash coiled around one of the retainer's legs and, with a jerk, upended him on the floor.

  Two left, now, and a third out of the action for at least a moment or so. That left me, wearing nothing but tattered clothes and a coating of flour, unarmed, facing two armored and sword-wielding opponents. As I said, a desperate affair.

  Except—

  "Facing determined opponents" proved to be a misnomer. The two surviving retainers, as brutal as they might be, were not the stuff of heroes. They ogled me, ogled the carnage—blood and wine and ale and shattered furniture everywhere—ogled their cursing fellow rolling around on the floor frantically trying to disentangle the whip from his knees . . .

  Then dropped their swords and raced for the entrance to the feasting hall, shrieking with terror. I stared after them, too astonished to react immediately.

  Along the way, the ruffians passed the two sisters huddled against the wall. The older girl stuck out her leg. A little leg, it was, but it was enough to send the first of them sprawling onto the stone steps. His companion trampled him under on his way up the stairs.

  That callous disregard for comradeship proved to be fruitless. When the man reached the stop of the stairs there was a sudden flurry of motion in the darkness of the corridor bend beyond. I saw him stiffen, his head jerking, and heard what sounded like a little gasp. Then he turned and staggered back down, clutching his throat. Blood gushed from between his fingers.

  Again, when he reached his still-prostrate fellow trying to rise, he trampled him under. That effort seemed to use up his strength, however, and he collapsed in a heap. His fellow was just getting to his knees, shaking his head to clear the daze, when Gwendolyn came down the stairs and used that great cleaver of hers to sever his spine with one blow. She then stalked over to the man still trying to disentangle the whip from his legs, dropped to one knee, jerked his head back, and practically cut his throat to the bone. All this, somehow, without getting a drop of blood on her.

  I stared at her. She stared at me. Then she burst into laughter.

  "God, you look ridiculous!"

  I spread my arms and studied myself ruefully. "I don't suppose there'd be a laundry anywhere in this castle?" I complained. "What's left of my clothes looks like a butcher's apron. Between the flour and the blood . . ."

  Gwendolyn began cleaning her blade on the corpse's clothing. "A laundry?" she chuckled. "Not likely."

  She sheathed the cleaver, rose, and pointed to the corpse. "You'll have to make do with odds and ends of their clothing. Your own's pretty well ruined."

  I studied the garments in question with considerable distaste, foreseeing a problem with lice. "I'm not giving up my shoes," I grumbled. "Not for those things."

  Again, she chuckled. The sound seemed oddly forced. When I looked at her, she was shaking her head and her eyes seemed even darker than usual.

  "You are absolutely insane, Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini," she whispered. "Also magnificent."

  I moved toward her, wanting an embrace. And so, I think, did she. But she placed a hand on my chest and held me off. "Please," she whispered. "Not now. I think I'm half in love with you myself—more than half, to tell the truth—but it's still insane. Besides, my leather would look silly with flour all over it."

  Abruptly she turned away and studied the two girls. The sisters had not left the hall, but they were standing on their feet now. Standing and staring at us, their eyes as wide as saucers.

  "Warn your families," commanded Gwendolyn. "You'll have to stay hidden for a while."

  They nodded jerkily. Gwendolyn strode over and studied the one surviving retainer closely. Then turned away, apparently satisfied.

  "He won't recover consciousness for hours. Plenty of time to finish setting the scene." She studied me again, this time very approvingly. "I wouldn't have thought you could be such a clever bastard. It's almost scary."

  She jerked her head toward the entrance. "I assume you made arrangements with the servants? That's the reason for your weird appearance?"

  I nodded. By then, the two girls had advanced and were standing not far from Gwendolyn. But both of them still had their eyes fixed upon me.

  "Why'd you do it?" asked the older.

  * * *

  Gwendolyn explained. When she was finished, the two sisters were practically hopping up and down in fury.

  "You were on a critical mission for The Cause and this—this—" The youngest girl was pointing a finger of outrage and accusation at me.

  "J'Accuse!" shrilled the older, pointing an identical finger.

  "Rampant petty-boojoy individualism!" hollered the younger.

  "Sabotaging the class struggle for the sake of romantic sentimentalism!" hollered the older.

  The two little fingers never wavered in their condemnation. I gaped at them. Gwendolyn burst into laughter.

  "Welcome to Grotum, Benvenuti," she gasped. "Where—ah—we take our ideology seriously."

  The two sisters lowered their fingers. "Certainly do," they muttered fiercely.

  I fear I was still gaping. The youngest sister squinted at me. "What's his problem? Is he a halfwit or something?"

  "He's from Ozar."

  Again, the two fingers. "Imperialist stooge!" shrilled the younger. "The imperialist himself!" countered her older and wiser sister. "In the flesh!"

  Gwendolyn cleared her throat. "He did rescue the two of you, you might remember."

  The two fingers lowered; then, wiped little noses. "Well," said the younger. "That's true." A moment later, grudgingly: "Thanks."

  The older was made of sterner stuff. "Still an outrage," she muttered. "I'd call it treason to the revolution except"—she eyed me suspiciously—"you probably never was part of it nohow."

  "Certainly not," said Gwendolyn firmly. "Enough of this, girls. Benvenuti meant well, and that's enough. You're too damn young to be making ideological pronouncements anyway."

  The two sisters transferred their suspicious squints to her.

  "Is that so?" demanded the younger.

  "And just who exactly are you?" echoed her sister
crossly.

  "I'm Gwendolyn Greyboar. Which is a name I'd just as soon you forgot because—"

  She got no further. The suspicious looks had vanished, replaced by—I will swear to it!—the saucer-wide eyes of sheer adulation. Then came the squeals of hero worship.

  Heroine worship, I should say. None of those girlish peals of enthusiasm were directed my way.

  "Gwendolyn Greyboar! I can't believe it!"

  "Right HERE! In the FLESH!"

  On and on and on. They even managed to rouse the unconscious retainer. Not for long, of course. I was in quite a foul enough mood by then to have broken a horse's jaw.

  * * *

  And so it was, in the hours that passed thereafter, after we left the castle and the peasants in the area heard the news, that Gwendolyn was surrounded by a mob at all times. Pestering her with questions about the latest news of the revolution; asking her to clarify fine points of doctrine; and, as often as not, just staring at her as if she were an icon come to life.

  As for myself, I was largely ignored. Save, of course, for never-ending suspicious squints and the occasional pointing finger of warning and accusation.

  About noon the next day, the servant and the cook were seen carrying the surviving retainer in a mule-drawn cart toward the nearest Baron in the area. The retainer had regained his senses, more or less, but his jaw was swathed in a crude bandage.

  The servant and cook were playing their part to perfection, according to the peasant who brought the news. Repercussions were not to be feared. Clearly enough, no one in the Baronies not privy to the truth would have any doubt that the spirit of the Sieur de Pouilleux had committed the massacre. Superstition was as common to the area as potatoes.

  None of this, of course, allayed the peasantry's hostile attitude toward me. As Gwendolyn and I made to leave the area, the parting words of the common folk were spoken more or less in a chorus.

  "Dump the imperialist, Gwendolyn! Beware the Ozarine snake!" And so on, and so forth. Quite tedious, it was.

  * * *

  Once we were finally out of sight, I gave vent to my spleen. At some length, as I recall.

  When I was done, Gwendolyn smiled. Then, stopped me in my tracks with a hand on my shoulders. "Don't pout. For whatever it's worth, I don't think you're an imperialist snake. A dinosaur, maybe, but not a snake."

  "Well, that's something," I muttered. "Progress of sorts, I guess."

  I started to say something else but was cut off by a fierce kiss. A quick one, true, but fierce. The sensation which went down my spine was equally fierce.

  "Be quiet," she whispered. "Let's just get to the Mutt. Then . . . we'll see what happens."

  As usual, the damn woman was decisive and quick-moving. I hadn't time to recover from that incredible kiss before she was striding off. "Now, move! No time for your sluggard Ozarine ways, Benvenuti the Gallant! You've just made the Baronies even more dangerous than usual."

  * * *

  That night, as we lay together in another thicket, Gwendolyn's hands upon me were softer than they had been before. Almost caressing, now; and my own, the same. The touches were not those of lovemaking. The tight quarters would have made that quite impossible, leaving aside anything else. But if she—and I, for that matter—still thought our feelings for each other were well-nigh insane, neither of us would any longer pretend they didn't exist.

  * * *

  When we emerged from the thicket at sundown the next day, Gwendolyn studied me for a moment. The furs and assorted leather rags I was now clad in seemed to meet her approval. But when her eyes fell upon my feet, she chuckled and shook her head.

  "When we reach the Mutt, we really have to get you a decent pair of boots. Those—things—you're wearing are almost worn out, and besides, I'd be too embarrassed to be seen with you. Me, Gwendolyn Greyboar, cozy with an Ozarine down to his pointed patent leather shoes! No, it just won't do."

  PART IX

  In Which, Sad

  to Relate, Our Narration

  of the Further Adventures of

  the Wizard and His Loyal But Stupid

  Apprentice is Cast Into Disarray

  By a Truly Unfortunate

  Chronicler's Mishap.

  CHAPTER X.

  The Dwarf's Question. The Wizard's Reproof. The Dwarf's Question. The Wizard's Reproof. The Dwarf's Question. The Wizard's Bemusement. The Dwarf Is Dispatched On a Perilous Journey—Into the Very Darkest Interior of the Sack! Adventures Too Overwhelming to Relate In Detail! Alas! Suffice It To Say—

  "Why did he say that, master?" queried Shelyid, as the coach lurched into motion. His question was in regard to the driver's announcement that passengers should bring their own provisions for the first two days of the journey, as no roadway inn could be constructed in the Drear.

  "Bah!" oathed Zulkeh. "More to the point, gnome, is the question: Why did he say that three seconds before departure, thus ensuring that no time would be available for the acquisition of said necessities? An outrage!" He fell into a brooding silence, which lasted the length of the coach's voyage through the gates of the Caravanserai and out into the Drear beyond.

  Then did the dwarf speak again.

  "But why did he say that, master?"

  "What?" demanded Zulkeh, frowning fiercely at the runt. "Why did he say that? Because he is a churl, dolt, employed by a churlish firm!"

  "But why, master?" persisted Shelyid.

  "Why? Why? Why?" cried Zulkeh, his wrath now steeping to the surface. "Wherefore am I plagued by these imbecile inquiries? I have already explained why, diminutive cretin!"

  "B-but," stammered the dwarf, "why can't they build a roadway inn in the Drear, master?"

  Zulkeh leaned back in his seat, clearly taken aback. "Why, because—" A moment's silence. "Quite amazing. I don't know the answer to that question. Most amazing." He stroked his beard thoughtfully, gazing out the window onto the barren vastness of the Drear.

  For many long minutes did the wizard muse after this fashion, until the Caravanserai had long since disappeared below the southern horizon. At length, Shelyid became so bold as to make a whispered suggestion to his master.

  "Maybe you could ask one of these people on the coach, master. They've probably lived here for years."

  "Bah!" oathed Zulkeh. "Am I to waddle about in the swamp of empiricism, like a child in his sandbox? No, dwarf, the truth is found in books. The question is—which book?"

  More long moments of silence. Then did the gleam of understanding come into the wizard's eyes.

  "Of course!" he spoke. "Shelyid, fetch me the Chronicle of Edward the Confusor."

  Shelyid blanched. "B-but . . . but." He gulped. "Do I have to, master?" This last in a piteous wail.

  A frown gathered on Zulkeh's brow as quickly as the storm clouds of the north amass themselves about the awesome granite slabs of Mount Pud. "Do you question my command, gnome?" he demanded.

  "N-no, but—but—" stammered Shelyid.

  "Silence!" stormed Zulkeh. "Perform your duty as I bade you!"

  Realizing that all resistance was useless, and quite obviously regretting the innocent question which had led him to such a pass, Shelyid sighed, gathered up his courage, and went to seek out the appointed tome in the wizard's sack.

  Now, the gentle reader is no doubt perplexed by this attitude on the part of the dwarf. Of course, it will have become transparent to the gentle reader through his perusal of the preceding pages of this chronicle that the dwarf Shelyid was not, shall we say, blessed with leonine audacity. Nonetheless, it must appear bizarre that Shelyid should exhibit such cravenness when faced with the routine task of extracting a volume from a sack.

  Ah, dear reader, do not so malign the poor dwarf! His fear was well-founded. For remember, this was no ordinary sack! No, no. Any comparison between the wizard Zulkeh's sack and the traveling pack of any common voyager would be mistaken in the extreme.

  For this pack was a wizard's pack, and that of a well-traveled and prodigiously learn
ed wizard to boot. Thus not only was it voluminous—nay, huge—nay, elephantine—in its proportions, containing as it did every single item of every bizarre description which the mage had accumulated in his long and varied lifetime; not only was the internal ordering and arrangement of that multitude of sorcerous materials mazelike in its dimensions; not only was it filled with many a noisome specimen, many a sharp instrument, and many a perilous artifact; not only was all this true, but Shelyid must have known as well, dim-witted though he was, that the many days of arduous and jostling travel would inevitably have rearranged the objects of the interior into a new kaleidoscope in which he stood a fair chance of losing his way for days, and would as well have brought to sullen life the divers intelligences (not all of them animate) which lurked therein.

  Mind you, in most instances no problem was posed in extracting the object of Zulkeh's desire from the pack. For the wizard, like all professional men—though he would have bitterly challenged this statement—relied for the most part upon only a small portion of his accumulated treasures. For just as a scholar may have shelf after shelf in his library lined with the most obscure tomes, journals and scrolls, yet does he still rely for the most part on a handful of essential works: the encyclopedias, the classics, and so forth. So it was also with the wizard, and when Shelyid had packed up the sack, he had taken great care to place these items of common usage at or near its surface. But now, it seemed, his preparations had been in vain. Into the heart of the interior must he go!

  And so it was that Shelyid went into the sack, in that bouncing coach on its way to Prygg, and did not emerge for many hours. Alas, dear reader, our tale lengthens overmuch already, and so we cannot chronicle Shelyid's adventures that day. Alas! For verily those adventures were epic in their scale!

  Suffice it to say that many a time did Shelyid lose his way and tremble in fear lest he starve before finding the book and blessed egress. Suffice it to say that the rearrangement of the interior of the sack would have provided more than ample evidence for Shelyid to have from its study, had he the wits, derived brilliant treatises on heretofore unknown aspects of Brownian motion and entropy. Suffice it to say that he nearly became asphyxiated on the fumes of the noxious ragweed specimen with which the wizard bribed the lower classes of demons whom he conjured up on occasion. Suffice it to say that for many terrifying moments was he locked in mortal combat with the normally lethargic Great Newt of Obpont, now risen from its torpor and filled with the venomous rage which is that beast's distinguishing characteristic—a combat made more difficult for the gnome by his knowledge that the wizard prized the monster highly and would thus overfill with spleen should Shelyid, in his frenzied efforts to prevent his devourment by the amphibious carnivore, cause the creature to come to harm. Suffice it to say that at length the dwarf succeeded in bottling the vicious predator in an unused vial, only then to fall into a pool of that unnamed and unnameable fluid whose presence in various pockets and folds of the sack was made necessary for the sustenance of that very amphibian horror of which I have just spoken—and of that fluid itself, of its nature and its effects upon the human much less the dwarf body, I will say nothing, lest the gentle reader discontinue in his nausea the further perusal of our tale. Suffice it to say that at length the dwarf found the book in question, seized it by frontal assault, and escaped at length the maddened pursuit of the band of club-wielding imps for whom, alas, the tome was their tribal totem. Suffice it to say that as the sun began its descent over the western horizon, Shelyid emerged from the sack, book in hand, and handed it over to his master. Surfeit it to say that that that that that that that—