The Complete Compleat Enchanter (39 page)

“You mean the famous one, the Welsh wizard? Is he still around?”

“Certainly. I meet him at the Sphinx Club in London. Do you know him?”

“I’m afraid I never met him personally.”

Astolph’s handsome face went a trifle grim. “That’s unfortunate. Really, you know, with a war toward, we can’t have strange wizards running around the borders of the Emperor Charles’ dominions. Someone must vouch for you.”

“There’s Doc Chalmers.”

“Another American. Doubtless another gangster.”

“Echegaray.”

“Atlantès’ man. Come, you don’t expect me to accept that, do you? Anything he said in your favor would be a guarantee of bad faith, assuming you could get him to say anything.”

“Well, there’s Lord Roger. He won’t say anything in my favor.”

“A fool.”

“I have a friend around here somewhere, who came with me—”

“Still another gangster! Really, old man, you’re only making things worse. I can’t let you go under the circumstances, and I can hardly use you as a prisoner for exchange, since there’s no war as yet. So there’s only one think to do . . .”

Shea, perspiring at this reasoning, cried: “Belphebe!”

There was a frown of puzzlement on the girl’s face, but she shook her head. “He has the proper figure of a man, but—my lord, I know him not.”

“I have the high justice,” said Astolph, as though that settled everything. “Kneel down.”

“Damned if I do,” said Shea, tugging at his sword and reckless of Belphebe’s nocked shaft.

“Righto,” said Astolph, making a restraining motion at the girl. “But half a tick. Are you baseborn? Most Americans are.”

“I’m not a duke or anything, but I’ve been made a knight, if that will do. By Sir Artegall of Faerie.”

“Splendid. Ordeal of battle, and sound law, too. Only right to let a chap go out on his feet. Too bad you can’t be shriven.”

Shea got the sword out and shucked off his Muslim coats. As soon as he come within reach, Astolph took a stance, swung the big blade up, and struck down overhand with a wood-chopper’s swing.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Shea parried with the awkward blade, though the force of Astolph’s stroke almost drove it from his hand. He took a backhand cut with it, which Astolph parried easily, then came back forehand, but his opponent jumped away with a lightness surprising in so big a man. His return was so rapid that he forced Shea to give ground.

The duke was good but not too good. After the third exchange Shea felt he could parry anything the big blade sent at him. However, the next clash brought a trickle of worry. Astolph’s reach and length of blade were keeping him too far away for this clumsy weapon to be used as it was supposed to be used. If he could parry, he could not cut home, and in time the big man would wear him down.

Another whirl and he almost lost his sword. The handle was slippery in his grasp. He began to grow angry at the unfairness of this big lug, and with difficulty remembered that an angry fencer is a losing one.

Astolph drove him back again, almost into a tree, and lowered his blade for a second to get a better purchase. The sight of the exposed chest brought Shea’s fencing reflexes to the surface. His right arm shot out, with the whole weight of his body behind it in a long lunge. The rounded point of the sword hit jacket and chest with a thump. Astolph, a little off balance and not expecting such a push, sat down.

“Yield thee yourself!” shouted Shea, standing over him and sighting on the Englishman’s neck.

The duke’s left arm came around like a jibing main boom and swept Shea’s ankles from under him. Down went Shea. He was struggling in a bone-crushing wrestler’s grip when he heard the girl cry: “Hold, enough! By the power of woods and water which is the domain, I bid you cease!”

Shea felt Astolph relax unwillingly and climbed to his own feet. A rill of blood trickled from the duke’s nose where Shea had butted him, while Shea’s turban was in his eyes, one of which was swelling, and the other end of the headdress was draped around him like one of Laocoön’s serpents.

“I say, my dear,” said Astolph, “you can’t do this, you know. Ordeal of battle goes to a finish, and anything left of the loser has to be burned. I shall complain to the Emperor.” He bent over, reaching for the big sword.

“Hark, sir! Would you try my bodkin?” She had drawn the tough shaft to the head and it pointed steadily at the big man’s midriff. “I care not for the Emperor Charles or the Lord of Circassia in this domain. But I say this is a true man that has fought well, and that spared you when he might have slain, and be he Saracen or no, there shall henceforth be peace between you.”

Astolph grinned and held out his hand to take Shea’s in a hearty grip. “Needs must take the fortune of war. Jolly good thing you didn’t make that hit with a pointed blade or I should have been properly skewered. I daresay you can show me a trick or two. Care to join forces?”

“I’m not sure,” said Shea. “What kind of campaign do you have on?” He thought: if I can only get her to Chalmers, he can bring back her memory. In the meantime not all of Atlantès’ ifrits will pry me away from her.

“This bloody—excuse me, old girl—this Castle of Carena. Atlantès has Lord Roger in there, and there’s a prophecy that our side can’t win the war unless we convert him.”

Shea snickered. “From what I’ve seen of that guy, I’d say you’d have a rough time converting him to anything he didn’t want to do. He hasn’t got enough mind to convert with.”

Astolph waved a hand. “That’s all right. He saw Bradamant, the lady warrior, you know, at the Fountain of Love, and fell in love with her when he drank from it, so he can’t do anything but what she wishes, at least until the spell is taken off. Atlantès was going to fly him to the Fountain of Forgetfulness, but I’ve bagged the mount.”

A wave of relief swept over Shea. “You mean Bradamant is the lady warrior who is supposed to steal Roger from the Saracens? I was afraid—” and he gave a quick résumé of Chalmers’ position with Florimel at Castle Carena, and why he had come hunting the big beef.

When he had finished, Belphebe said: “My lord duke, said I not it was a proper man? Sir, I thank you for your gentleness toward me; you may make me your devoirs.”

She whipped a knife like a steel sliver from her own belt and, taking down her cap, daintily split the feather in it along the middle, and handed Shea one half. “My favor.”

Feeling awkward and a trifle confused, he tried to fix it in his breast. Silly, starting one of those formalized medieval courtships with its gambits and counters at this stage in their relationship . . .

Said Astolph: “So Roger’s on the scram, as you fellas say? Very interesting; should have told me sooner. Stupid-ass, Roger, though an awfully good fighter.” He paused. “Do you know, this won’t quite do, my friend. You and I are rivals in a sense. We both want Shaykh Roger, and for that matter so does the Lady Bradamant, though I really can’t understand why. But I’ll make you an armistice, matter to be decided by dicing, or whatever you say, but no magic. Are you genuinely a wizard, by the way?”

Shea looked down. “Not a very good one, I’m afraid.”

“Come, young fella; no false modesty. Just cast me a little spell and demonstrate, so that we can have confidence in each other. Nothing like confidence, you know.”

“Or leather either,” said Shea. “It lasts.” Belphegor-Belphebe was looking at him expectantly, and for his life he could not recall the passes of the somatic element that seemed so important in the magic of this space-time continuum. Wait a minute, though—there was the little spell Chalmers had used the other day to demonstrate that very point. The passes were simple and made a plant grow before the eyes; in Doc’s case, a snapdragon. Grass would do to start with; it ought to make some kind of important-looking plant. Shea plucked a handful, laid it on the ground and knelt over it, closing his eyes in the effort of memory as he whispered:

“Though sore be my sowing,

And more than you know,

And the end of my growing

Is only to grow;

Yet I cease not of growing for lightnings above

me or death-worms below.”

When he looked around again there was no sign of a plant. Nor any of the grass. He wondered what he had done wrong this time.

Astolph was looking straight at him. “By Jove! That’s a neat bit, Sir Harold. Quite as good as Malagigi could have done. Apologies, old man.”

“What is?” asked Shea. His voice sounded strangely muffled as though he were speaking through a blanket. Which, as he learned by putting his hand to his face, was just what he was doing. His beard, sprouting at about an inch a second, had already spread down his chest and across his shoulders, the ends twisting and curling like the tips of thin and inquisitive worms. The beard passed his belt-line and engulfed his arms.

Frantically he tried to think of a counterspell, and felt as though he were in Hell when the only thing he could remember was Chalmers’ all-too-effective spell for raising dragons. Live dragons growing out of one’s face, ugh! Or would it be snakes? The beard had passed his knees, his ankles, its questing points had reached the ground. Belphegor stared at him open-mouthed.

“Oh, bravo!” said Astolph.

The stuff was piling up on the ground in a little haycock. If it would only lay off a minute; give him a respite to think! He wondered desperately how long it would keep going if he failed to find the counterspell. There was the mill that had ground the ocean full of salt. That might be legend, but in a universe where magic worked there was apparently nothing to stop such a process until coils of hair filled the forest and rose like a tide round the magic flames that now encircled the Castle of Carena. He stepped back, almost tripping over a root. If that pulsating hair got him down—But wait, maybe he could get Astolph to stop it. If the Duke claimed Merlin as an acquaintance, he ought to know something of magic.

“Had enough?” he called over the growing mattress of wool to Astolph, whose head was now just visible.

“Thanks, yes.”

“All right, fair’s fair. Let’s see you take the spell off.”

“Righto.” Astolph shifted his big sword to his left hand and swung it through the air, making a few expert passes with his right and mumbling a spell. The young mountain of first-rate upholstering material vanished, and Astolph tenderly felt his smooth cheeks. “You must meet Merlin someday,” said the Duke. “Nobody likes a good joke like old Merlin. But I say, shall we get on with the business? Do you know, I believe the whole problem would become rather simple if we could get your friend out of Carena.”

“I’m not sure he wants to get out,” said Shea. “There’s the question of Florimel.”

“No trouble at all, old man. With a pair like you and your principal, we ought to be able to rescue Malagigi from Albracca, and it would be jolly odd if he couldn’t do something for the lady. But I really don’t see—” he went off into frowning concentration.

“What?” asked Shea.

“That wall of flame. Deuced awkward. That is, I know well enough how to deal with it, only we can’t apply the solution.”

“Sir Harold has been made immune to it,” said Belphegor.

“Ah, but the problem is not smuggling him in, but getting this Lady—ah—Florimel out. It’s this way, you see—” the big man turned to Shea with a wide gesture. “The Lady Bradamant owns a magical ring, very superior production, which protects one from any sort of enchantments, and also makes one invisible if taken into the mouth. It would be just the thing for your Florimel. Bradamant intended to use it to break into Carena for Roger, but she loaned it to Roland for no reason, and the silly beggar accidentally drank at the Fountain of Forgetfulness and lost his wits. Completely blotto. Can’t remember where he put the ring or that there is a ring; can’t even remember his name.”

“I think I see,” said Shea. “If we can get Roland to remember where the ring is, then one of us can extract Florimel from Carena and start all over again. But who’s Roland? Is he important?”

“Really, old man! One of the twelve. The paladins. The companions of Emperor Charles. Best man of the lot in a fight.” m

“Oh,” said Shea. The thought had occurred to him that this was not a problem of magic at all. Roland sounded like a fairly simple case of amnesia, and there was no reason why the techniques of the Garaden Institute should not work quite as well among these mountains as in Ohio. “I think I know a spell that will restore Roland’s wits,” he said. And if Roland’s, he thought, why not Belphebe’s? He must watch for a chance to try.

“Really? That would be wonderful. What do you say we go about it? Buttercup must be about somewhere.” He put his forefingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly.

Something moved in the forest and a hippogriff trotted into view, wings folded neatly back against its flanks. The wings were mainly white with pulsations of rainbow hues flickering through them. The animal pricked up its ears as it came and poked at Astolph with its beak. He scratched among the roots of its feathers. “It answers me better than it ever did Atlantès,” he said. “Those confounded Saracens don’t know how to treat animals.”

“What does it eat?” asked Shea practically. “I don’t see how that eagle’s head goes with a horse’s digestive apparatus.”

“Blooms from some of those African plants, I believe. Buttercup’s not a heavy eater. Very well, everybody, all aboard! Bit crowded, what? What’s that remark you Americans make when punching cattle? Brutal business that, by the bye; I never could see why you don’t just herd the poor things instead of punching them. Oh, yes, yippee.
Yippee!”

Eight

The hippogriff trotted swayingly up a rise. Shea imagined that it would not be very fast on the ground, thanks to the interference between the magnified claws on the forefeet and the hooves behind. As they reached the granite hogback of the crest, the claws clung securely enough to the rock, but the hooves skidded alarmingly. Shea clutched Belphebe-Belphegor around the midriff, and she clutched Astolph, who did not seem at all perturbed. The hippogriff spread its wings, blundered along the ridge, flapping furiously, slipped again, teetered over a fifty-foot drop, leaped into the air, swept down and then up in a smooth curve that just missed the treetops.