The Complete Compleat Enchanter (29 page)

He said vaguely: “Oh, we’ll figure something out. Doc and I would see to it that you were—uh—uh . . .”

“Harold!” she said sharply. “What are you proposing? Think not that because I lead a free-roving life, I—”

“No, no, I didn’t mean—uh . . .”

“What then?”

He thought again. One obvious solution was staring him in the face; yet to bring it up so early might spoil everything. Still, nothing ventured . . .

He drew a deep breath and plunged: “You could marry me.”

Belphebe’s mouth fell open. It was some seconds before she answered: “You jest, good Squire!”

“Not at all. People do it in my country, you know, just like here.”

“But—knew you not that I am affianced to Squire Timias?”

It was Shea’s turn to stare blankly.

Belphebe said: “Nay, good friend, take it not so to heart. I had thought it known to the world, else I should have told you. The fault was mine.”

“No . . . I mean . . . it wasn’t . . . let’s skip it.”

“Skip it?” said Belphebe wonderingly. Shea bent over his rabbit-haunch, muttering something about the meat being good.

Belphebe said: “Be not angry, Harold. Not willingly would I hurt you, for I like you well. And had I known you sooner . . . But my word is given.”

“I suppose so,” said Shea somberly. “What sort of man is your friend Timias?” He wondered whether the question had a useful purpose, or whether he was showing a slight touch of masochism in keeping the painful subject alive.

Belphebe’s face softened. “A most sweet boy; shrinking and sensitive, not like these brawling knightly ruffians.”

“What are his positive qualities?” asked Shea.

“Why—ah—he can sing a madrigal better than most.”

“Is that all?” said Shea with a touch of sarcasm.

Belphebe bridled. “I know not what you mean. ’Tis even the core of the matter that he’s no bold confident venturer like yourself.”

“Doesn’t sound to me like much of a reason for marrying anybody. I came across a lot of cases like that in my psych work; usually the woman lived to regret it.”

Belphebe jumped up angrily. “So, Squire, you inquire of my privy affairs that you may sting me with your adder’s tongue? Fie on you! It regards not you whom I marry, or why.”

Shea grinned offensively. “I was just making general remarks. If you want to take them personally, that’s your lookout. I still say a woman is taking a lousy chance to marry a human rabbit in the hope of making a lion out of him.”

“A murrain on your general remarks!” cried Belphebe passionately. “An you would company me, I’ll thank you to keep your long tongue in its proper groove! Better rabbit than fox with pretense of marriage—”

“What do you mean, ‘pretense’?” barked Shea. “I meant that when I said it! Though now I see that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea—”

“Oh, you do? You change your mind quickly! I’ll warrant me you’d have done so in any case!”

Shea got himself under control, and said: “Let’s not go any farther with this, Belphebe. I’m sorry I made those cracks about your boyfriend. I won’t mention him again. Let’s be friends.”

Belphebe’s anger wilted. “And right sorry am I that I threw your proposal in your face, Squire Harold; ’twas a sad discourtesy.” Shea was surprised to see a trace of moisture in her eye. She blinked it rapidly and smiled. “So, we are friends, and our breakfast done. Let us be on.”

###

The new sun was a patch of flecks of orange fire through the foliage. They found a sluggish little stream and had to squeeze through the thickets on its banks.

They reached a stretch of drier ground where the glades expanded to continuous meadow and the forest shrank to clumps of trees. They left one of these clumps and were swishing through the long grass, when a leathery rustle made them look up.

Overhead swooped a nightmarish reptile the size of an observation plane. It had two legs and a pair of huge batwings. On its back rode Busyrane, all clad in armor but his face, which was smiling benignly.

“Well met, dear friends!” he called down. “What a pleasing thought! Both at once!”

Twunk!
went Belphebe’s bow. The arrow soared through one wing membrane. The beast hissed a little and banked for a turn.

“Into the woods!” cried Belphebe, and set the example. “The wivern cannot fly among the trees.”

“What did you call it? Looks like some kind of a long-tailed pterodactyl to me.” Shea craned his neck as the sinister shadow wove to and fro above the leaves.

Belphebe led the way to the opposite side of the grove. When Busyrane circled above the segment away from them, they dashed across the open space and into the next clump. A shrill hiss behind and above warned them that they had been spotted.

They worked their way through this grove. From under the trees they could see Busyrane silhouetted against the sky, while he couldn’t see them.

“Now!” said Belphebe, and ran like an antelope through the long grass. Shea pounded after. This was a longer run than the first, a hundred yards or more. Halfway across he heard the hiss of cloven air behind and drove himself for all his strained lungs were worth. The shadow of the monster unblurred in front of him. It was too far, too far—and then he was under the friendly trees. He caught a glimpse of the reptile, horribly close, pulling up in a stall to avoid the branches.

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 wivem, beating toward 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 Belphebe 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 toward them with surprising speed. “We’ll try a little shallower dive.”

Shea 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 armor 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 armor 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 dove 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 leveled 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 scaly 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 toward 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 dove at the thick of them. They screeched at him, some of them producing clumsy breast bows. He swooped toward 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, Crocodilehead 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 anti-aircraft fire. But of Belphebe there was still no sign, and now the ghost men were streaming toward 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, looking. 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 shadow, 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 armored 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!”