The Exotic Enchanter (3 page)

"Why didn't you just grab Florimel and run?" Shea asked. "Or are you a slave, too?"

"No, no. I am the chieftain's counselor, and expected to attend him at all times. After I was, er, captured, and happened to mention the, er, burned palisade, I am considered to bring good luck."

"Were you there when she was captured?"

"Of course. I had some idea of running off with her during the raid, but I had not then worked out a spell for leaving this world. Nor have I been able to persuade the chief to give her to me. These people are quite mercenary; they insist on cash down."

"Ah, has she been hurt in any way?"

"No, no. The chieftain, at least, understands the market value of undamaged merchandise. The captives are guarded by eunuchs. And—I have not been able to get her away. She and the other women get together and take turns calling on the saints to keep them safe." Malambroso looked sour. "Besides, she has developed much skill in biting, kicking, and screaming."

Shea wondered just how he had found that out.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because Florimel has a most unfortunate habit of loyalty. She won't desert those she considers her comrades. And once she's sold—do you know how hard it is to rescue a slave around here? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and everybody so solicitous of everyone else's property rights."

"Yean, these bastards sure are."

"Well, they are among themselves, and—confound it!" (although that wasn't exactly what Malambroso said).

The wizard slapped himself in a sensitive spot, and the tent effect disappeared. Shea could hear normal background noises again, and the bargaining had risen to bellowing. With a last glance at Malambroso, who definitely had ants, if not something bigger, in his pants, Shea rode back to the Rus.

Igor's men had pulled their helms low over their eyes, so that might have been the only reason they seemed to look suspiciously at Shea.

Minus the infestation, Chalmers was as uneasy as his enemy. "This looks more like a challenge than a trade," he whispered.

"Or a trap," Shea noted. Everyone who had been riding with bows unstrung had now started stringing them. Those whose bows were already strung seemed to be displaying great interest in the number of arrows in their quivers.

"A lousy son of a mangy she-goat, am I?" the chieftain bellowed. " I'll show you, you dung-weaned boars get of a Rus!"

Shea braced for an arrow in his mail or in him, but nothing happened—yet. Instead the chieftain shouted something loud but wordless. All the Polovtsi who hadn't mounted now did so. The ones already mounted started shifting outward, to the flanks. The Polovtsi would be stretched thin, but they would be able to hit the Rus with archery from three sides, and disperse rapidly if the Rus charged in any of the three directions.

The psychologist looked behind him. The Rus also knew what they were doing. Several bowshots away, the scouts who'd led the way toward the camp and then stopped were spreading out. They would be able to cover the retreat.

Except that Igor didn't look like a man planning to retreat. Lances were coming out of their slings and the fading daylight sparked ruddy fire from steel points. If the Rus could get to close quarters without losing too many men to archery, their armor and longer reach would give them an advantage. The Polovtsi were going to have to fight their way off this battlefield.

Shea scratched his sunburned nose. He was going to have to fight his way into the ranks of the Polovtsi, or lose his useful reputation as a
bogatyr
. He wished for a helmet with a nasal, to keep his nose from leading the way.

Hell, he wished (as he had done at other times) that he'd given up syllogismobiling across the continua after he'd married Belphebe! He wanted to see her. He wanted to see their child, other children, their grandchildren.

Not to mention that an all-out fight now would probably end any chances of rescuing Florimel. He could see what that thought was doing to Chalmers; the older man's face was even grimmer than before.

Shea looked at his colleague. "Doc, make your passes!"

Shea hastily began reciting:

"O would some power the giftie gie them

To see themselves as others see them!

From many a hurtful notion free them!

The truth make known:

The sight o' vermin carried wi' them

To them be shown!

A Polovets bowman, stretched to the limit, sighted along his arm. It might have just been Shea's imagination, but he seemed to be aiming at Igor.

Then the man seemed to turn to stone, except for his eyes, which grew very wide. A moment later, he reanimated himself—and let out the scream of a banshee with a migraine headache.

The scream was only the first of many, not to mention shouts and curses. All the Polovtsi grew bug-eyed, and some of them leaped from their horses to roll frantically on the ground. One of them rolled into a campfire and out the other side, jumping up with his clothes on fire.

He threw himself down again, rolled until the flames were out, then ran off toward the river, tearing off his clothes as he ran.

He wasn't the only one. Polovtsi swatted, punched, and clawed at themselves, making their ragged clothes even more so. Some drew their knives and started slashing at their garments or even stabbing at themselves, although Shea noted that none of those seemed to hit a vital spot.

Hardly any of the Polovtsi paid any attention to their horses, and it would have been a waste of time to do so. Their riders apparently going mad had thoroughly spooked all the ponies, and they were running off as fast as the Polovtsi themselves. Some of the ponies threw their uncaring riders off; others didn't bother with that courtesy and ran away with them.

Shea took a firm grip on his own mount's reins, thrust his own feet even more firmly into the stirrups, and tried not to laugh.

In what must have been less than five minutes, the camp area was completely empty of live, or at least conscious, Polovtsi. A couple lay staring at the sky, after stabbing themselves or perhaps knocking themselves silly falling off their horses.

The chieftain and all the rest of his band were either heading toward the river or already in it. Shea saw heads bobbing around and clouds of spray as Polovtsi warriors tried to scrub themselves clean of what they'd seen. Some of the horses had run clear out of sight; others were winded and quietly grazing, waiting for their riders to return.

Seeing all the Polovtsi out of bowshot, Shea dismounted and walked over to the sprawled rearguard. Neither of them seemed to be bleeding, and both were breathing regularly. He did not stay long; even a couple of Polovtsi were ripe enough to force a nasty retreat.

At this point Shea realized that he and Chalmers were alone in the camp. The Rus had galloped away from the Don as fast as the Polovtsi had dashed toward it. None of them seemed to have fallen off, but quite a few had dismounted, and were holding reins with one hand while busily crossing themselves with the other.

Shea let out a long gusty sigh of relief, at having changed the pronoun in the adaptation of Burns from "us" to "them." Otherwise he might have routed the Rus as well, which Igor would not have appreciated.

Igor had not dismounted, and now he rode back, accompanied by Mikhail Sergeivich and two or three others. All, Shea noted, were keeping their hands very close to their sword hilts, except for one who had a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.

"By God's Holy Mother, Egorov Andreivich!" Igor exclaimed. "That was like something out of a tale. What did they see?" There was more than a touch of awe in the look Igor gave Shea, but also more than a touch of comradeship.

"Rurik Vasilyevich and I gave them a good look at their lice, Your Highness. Ah, does Your Highness know what a louse looks like?"

Prince Igor's eloquent look told the psychologist he'd made a major blunder.

"Um, well, in the Silk Empire they make, uh, crystals, and these crystals let us see things like bugs, or flaws in jewels, that are too small to see with just our eyes.

"If you looked at a louse through one of these crystals, you'd see that it has a small head and huge stomach, three pairs of legs, large jaws, and each of its eyes is made of millions of other eyes."

"Monsters," Igor said.

Shea nodded. "Exactly. The Polovtsi saw themselves covered with monsters, and panicked."

The prince's look was now one of complete amazement. "No
bogatyr
in any tale ever did a thing like that."

"One other thing, Your Highness. The Polovtsi have a sorcerer with them. He may send more after us than arrows."

Shea was relieved to see Igor shift back to the practical. He rose in his stirrups and called to the trumpeters and banner-bearers to signal the rally, then beckoned Shea and Chalmers.

Igor's men rallied around the banner, except for the scouts, who rode out at once to open the distance between themselves and the main body. Igor also set out a rearguard, in case some of the Polovtsi regained their wits and courage.

Shea offered to join the rearguard, in case the pursuit took magical form. Igor thanked him all over again and accepted the offer.

As they rode into the fading light, Shea wished this dimension had a bookmaker to take his bet that the bathhouse was now as sacred as the church in the eyes of a good many men of the Rus. He could have made a pile.

They rode night and day until they were all away from the Don, and even after that set double guards around each encampment. The two psychologists agreed that one of them should be awake at all times, although Shea didn't care for Chalmers' remark:

"I can hardly sleep anyway, so why shouldn't I keep watch?"

The return trip seemed to take even longer than the trip out, without hope of Florimel's quick recovery to spur them along. One night Chalmers commented that everything seemed to take longer, cost more, and smell worse in this continuum than in any of the others they'd visited.

"I've been thinking about that," Shea replied. "Remember what you said about the peculiarities in the world of the
Aeneid
?"

"There were a great many such," Chalmers said. "Which ones were you thinking of in particular?"

"All of them, and your explanation," Shea said. "Homer lived four hundred years after the Trojan War, and Virgil lived eight hundred years after Homer, besides being a Roman with a political axe to grind."

"So?"

"Suppose whatever Borodin used for his opera—an old Russian epic, I suppose—was written by one of Igor's contemporaries. Maybe one of his nobles. It would be favorable to Igor, but it might not leave in a lot of the details."

"Such as lice and smells and taking forever to get anywhere?" Chalmers snapped. "I suppose that could be an explanation. It is hardly an excuse."

Shea decided that Chalmers was in no mood for academic analysis, and turned away to take the first watch.

By the evening of the third day, Chalmers was feeling more reconciled to the realism of Igor's world and the absence of Florimel.

"Did that chief have any intention of negotiating at all?" he asked Igor as they made camp.

"They still respect the truce banner, though not as much as they used to," the prince replied.

"The wizard said that their rules, even among themselves, are breaking down," Shea added.

Igor frowned, and Shea gave a thought to one of the virtues of being a Hero—what would be a grimace on an ordinary man was an earnest, noble expression on the prince's face. "I wouldn't mind seeing them fight among themselves, but if they no longer keep trade-truce . . . Curse them for the Devil's own spawn and fools as well!

"Trade law holds that no one may be attacked at a neutral trade site, or for three days' journey before or after. In the lands of the Rus, of course, the princes punish theft, three days or no three days. But trade law holds even for the steppe, or has until now."

"Does that mean, Your Highness, that if we find Florimel . . . ?" Reed's voice faltered. "If we find Florimel—for sale—that we couldn't challenge it there, or for three days after?"

"In the lands of the Rus you could," Igor replied with a touch of pride. "No one may be enslaved among us except according to the provisions of the law, and before witnesses. And the wise man will register his slaves, whether Rus or foreign, with the chiliarch's clerk, so that if they flee, or are stolen, their ownership will not be in question.

"But those who buy slaves on the steppe, by trade-truce, do not question their origins. And if they go to the chiliarch's clerk and say, 'I bought this slave on the steppe,' the clerk has to accept it. If it turns out that the slave belonged to someone else, or was not a slave at all, well, under the law, Polovtsi raids are treated as fire and shipwreck, a natural loss."

"I can see room for all kinds of corruption," Shea muttered.

"I have seen it, Egorov Andreivich."

"But how do we get my wife back?" Chalmers pursued.

"I could see about having her purchased by one of my agents," Igor replied. "That's risky; you never know how the bidding will go. A counterraid would be risky too, with that sorcerer among the steppe tribes. The only man I could count on would be my brother Vsevolod, but we might be enough, if we can catch them before they reach the truce area."

The psychologists could see that Igor was now the warrior-prince, considering options. They said no more, nor, as he walked off to his own campfire, did he.

III

Harold Shea sipped cautiously from the silver goblet in his hand. The mead in it was strong and sweet. Already he found himself unable to focus on the frieze of Olga's revenge, that marked the point where the walls of this chamber arched up to form its dome.

The inside of the dome was painted gold, and the afternoon sunlight gilded it further. How many more sips before it was too bright to look at?

His companions at the table were also hard to see, but not because of what he'd been drinking. Despite the long embroidered robe of fine green wool that Reed Chalmers wore, and the brighter silks and brocades that clad the Rus, they were all lost against the paint and gilding of the walls. Bright reds, blues, and greens patterned with gold—the prince, princess, and Mikhail Sergeivich fit right in.

"Vsevolod will ride," Igor said. "The bards don't call him a fierce aurochs just to flatter him. He maintains a full band at Kursk, so they can start at once."

"The prince your brother needs to get his harvest in, as do you," Euphrosinia pointed out.

"Who needs warriors for that? We could be over the Don and back before threshing is over!"

"And who will collect your taxes if your men are over the Don? Besides, if the rains come early, you'll do well to return before butchering is over."

"Hm . . . Can the two of you control the weather, Egorov Andreivich?"

"I'm afraid not, Your Highness."

"Someone needs to keep an eye on young Sviatoslav Borisovich," Mikhail Sergeivich commented. "He's been talking too loudly and too long, of late."

"The ambitions of the young," Igor said. "Boris Vsevolodovich, God rest his soul, is a year dead. With the old stallion gone, the young one is kicking up his heels."

"Unless God brings Sviatoslav to a better mind, he'll be in your court before another year's out," Mikhail Sergeivich replied.

"Perhaps I should require his services on this expedition."

"Would you trust him at your back?" Both Euphrosinia and Mikhail Sergeivich seemed to speak at once.

"Ah, well . . ."

"And what is that sorcerer likely to do?" Mikhail asked.

"Probably set a trap with an illusion spell," Chalmers answered. "He'll be aching for the chance to pay us back."

"So will that chief," Euphrosinia said. "Will he even keep trade-truce?"

The talk turned to boyars and princes willing and able to ride. There was no question that the Polovtsi had numbers on their side, and it was obvious that the raid on Nizhni Charinsk had shaken many of the Rus.

"The raid may have been fortuitous, but no one wants to ride against a sorcerer," Euphrosinia concluded.

"They will if I order them, and I will if I must," Igor growled. "I have sworn to free those captives."

"They will ride more willingly after harvest," the princess said.

The meeting broke up shortly afterward. Chalmers and Shea took a turn in the palace yard to stretch their legs, then returned to their room. "The last thing I expected here was a Board of Directors meeting," Shea groused. "If I had taken a few more sips I would have sworn I was back at Garaden."

Chalmers did not respond, and Shea looked closely at his colleague. They'd survived some nasty spots in various dimensions, but this was the first time Shea had seen Reed Chalmers so close to the breaking point.

"
My wife
. . . is a
slave
, and I can't cut the bastards' throats!" Shea could hear the tears, but they didn't—quite—show.

"Reed," Shea said, and then no more for a while. When Chalmers seemed more in command of himself, Shea continued.

"Igor's doing the best he can, but we shouldn't depend on him. There's magic in this universe, so what can we do with it?"

They tried to recall verses on freedom and emancipation, but their harvest was meager. Slavery was also a part of this universe, so they doubted the effectiveness of any spell based on its immorality. The few spirituals that Shea remembered emphasized freedom in the next world.

"I don't think it would be any use trying to freeze the Don so she could walk across it, even if we could get there," Shea concluded, looking out at the sunset. "Maybe my subconscious will trigger something tonight. The morning is wiser than the evening, even if the Rus do say it all the time. Coming to dinner, Doc?"

"Not tonight. I really have no appetite."

Physician, heal thyself
, Shea thought as he took another look at Chalmers, but he seemed safe to leave for an hour or so.

The Ohioan was not that enthusiastic about Kievan cooking, which, like that in the
Faerie Queen
, emphasized elaborate, highly spiced dishes. (A sturgeon stuffed with a carp stuffed with a mullet stuffed with a trout stuffed with something Shea couldn't identify stuffed with an egg stuffed with a pea was one main dish he remembered without pleasure.) But he wished to keep on the good side of the Patriarch, whose profession naturally required him to deplore the presence of sorcerers in the prince's domain.

So Shea put on his best robe and a seemly mien, and went down to his place at a table near the prince's. Shea was surprised when the Patriarch sat down with him, instead of taking his seat at the high table.

"May God smile on you and your house in all their lawful undertakings," the Patriarch murmured.

"May we always deserve His favor," Shea replied, wondering where this was leading.

As dinner progressed, it turned out that the Patriarch, who was near Shea's own age, wanted to hear about his travels. The psychologist edited these a bit, thinking that he'd better not admit to encountering demons and living to tell about it.

"I always loved tales, so I badgered my father into having me taught to read," the Patriarch said wistfully. "Naturally, he thought I had a desire for the religious life."

"Being able to read lets a man pursue all kinds of wisdom," Shea said, hoping he couldn't go wrong with that response.

"Or unwisdom," the Patriarch replied. Original vocation or not, he was a churchman now.

The Patriarch left right after dinner, and so did Shea. Reed Chalmers was dozing in their chamber, and Shea went quietly to bed himself.

Chalmers and Shea spent the next few days thinking up potential spells and wishing there were some way to test a few of them. After what Malambroso had said about the piety of the Rus, they would not have cared to test many in the shadow of the basilica, even if the Patriarch had been friendlier. Chalmers avoided company, and seldom left their chamber. Shea did not press him to socialize; Chalmers was in no mood to be diplomatic.

But there were times when Chalmers wanted no company at all, and Shea spent those in the practice yard. Regular dimension-hopping meant regular sword practice, even back in Ohio. Shea worried about leaving his colleague at these times, but there was nothing he could do, and as a psychologist, he knew when to leave well enough alone.

I never thought to play shrink to Doc Chalmers
, Shea thought.
He's supposed to be my mentor.

"Contagion and Similarity should work in this universe," Chalmers summarized one morning, "and you proved that Synthesis will. There's a strong literal element to the magic here. Your willow-bark analgesic might not have been so bitter if you hadn't insisted on that in your spell."

"There's also that strong element of reality we discussed," Shea replied. "Willow-bark tea is naturally bitter. It might not have worked otherwise."

"Malambroso seems to have found a way around any limitations of this world's magic," Chalmers said bitterly. "His see-the-expected spell would be just the thing for rescuing Florimel."

"We'll be expected to defeat such spells. Igor doesn't want his men confused when they have to fight."

"He is still planning to ride, then?" Chalmers asked.

"Oh, yes. He thinks it will discourage further raids, and besides, he just can't stand Polovtsi."

"When is he leaving?"

"He hasn't said."

The next day Shea was returning from arms practice when he met Igor. The prince wore old riding clothes and invited the psychologist to take a turn on the ramparts with him.

Igor's fortress—Shea couldn't quite use the Rus word
kremlin
with a straight face—was a good deal less imposing than its later Muscovite counterpart. It covered a considerable area on a rise of ground near the western edge of Seversk, but most of it was built of wood, including the walls.

A stout railed platform ran around the ramparts. The upper part had archery slits, and there was a deep ditch clear around the castle. The ditch served (from its smell) as the fortress' garbage dump, and also (Shea suspected) as a firebreak. Seversk was nine-tenths wood, and from where he stood beside the prince Shea could see three burned-out blocks without looking hard.

Inside the ramparts were two outer courtyards and an inner one. The larger of the outer ones held the storehouses, kitchens, and servants' quarters. It was also the place where taxes collected in kind were deposited, in sacks, barrels, chests, carts, or whatever else they came in.

The other courtyard had an outer gate guarded by two stone towers and an inner gate that led to the inner gate that led to the inner courtyard. Here were stables, smithies (one recently rebuilt, judging from the mixture of smoke-blackened and new wood Shea saw), and more storehouses. Shea didn't know precisely where the kitchen was; from the temperature of the food it had to be some ways from the dining hall.

Inside were the quarters for the prince's household troops, the family quarters, the basilica, the treasury, and (noises in the night hinted) the dungeon. The place would not last long against medieval or even Roman siege engines, but this did not seem to be an era, or an area, where sieges were feared. The fortress walls kept thieves out of Igor's treasury and fires out of his bedchamber, and that was enough.

The sun was crawling down toward the horizon; Shea had been here long enough for the days to shorten. He thought of everything the term "Russian winter" conjured up and hoped that he, Reed, and Florimel could be back in Ohio before the days grew much shorter.

"It seems we have less to fear than Mikhail Sergeivich thought, from my cousin Sviatoslav Borisovich," the prince said. "The first three carts of his taxes are in the lesser courtyard, together with a pack train. They are being unloaded now."

A party of men with Igor's colors on their shields came tramping up to the main gate. Shea counted twenty-five or thirty, all on foot but armed with everything but lances. Igor saw them too.

"Ah, those must be the men I bade Oleg Nikolaevich send out, returning. There was a small tax matter that is no concern of yours that I wished to see settled peacefully before we left. We shall have to—"

He broke off, as one of the approaching men nocked an arrow. "The fool—" Igor began.

The "fool's" arrow picked off a guard on top of the tower. Several more arrows soared up, then whistled down on the heads of the remaining guards and the men on the ramparts to either side or the towers. On the ground, the men not wielding bows drew their swords, except for a few who pulled axes from under their cloaks.

"By the Holy Mother—!" Igor exclaimed. He didn't get to finish this remark either. A din broke out in the other courtyard, among the storehouses. Shea heard shouts, screams, and the clash of weapons.

So did Igor. He spoke no more, but dashed back along the ramparts, heading for the family quarters. His expression reminded Shea somewhat of Chalmers', but this was a warrior prince of the Rus, not an American academic. Igor was in a berserker's fury, and Shea sincerely hoped that nothing would happen in the next hour to turn that fury against him.

First, though, he had to stay alive for the next hour.

Moving as fast as Igor, Shea dashed for the nearest stairway. He was too late. The inner gate to the courtyard flew open, knocking several defenders sprawling. What seemed like an army of men in Igor's colors swarmed in.

Shea whirled and headed for the other stairway on his side of the courtyard. Whoever the new arrivals were, they weren't friendly. Had Oleg Nikolaevich turned traitor?

As Shea took the stairs two at a time, an arrow whistled across the courtyard from the far wall. It stuck in his mail and only pricked his skin. He came down even faster after that, knowing that jumping down like Errol Flynn made a great movie shot but would probably sprain his ankle.

Several more arrows passed close enough to Shea for him to hear the whistle. Then the archer gave up, as if he couldn't tell friend from foe.

Shea sympathized. He had the same problem. Everyone was in Igor's colors, although one side was closer to the inner gate and one closer to the outer. Shea decided to assume the inner group was Igor's men, the good guys. He also saw that they were outnumbered at least two to one.

He hurried toward them, joining their ranks just as the other group charged. None of the defenders turned to fight him, and he suspected why. With only a mail shirt, and no surcoat, he had no place to show colors, and his basket-hilted saber was now fairly well known.

What bothered him about the next couple of minutes was that none of the attackers seemed to bother with him either. Did they expect to find somebody dressed like him on their side, and if so, how?

Shea decided to settle that point right now.

"Forward, for Igor of Seversk!" he shouted. Several men around him took up the cry. Several others decided that he'd proclaimed himself an enemy, and charged.

The two groups collided. Shea found himself ducking under the swing of an axe. The axeman thought he was inside Shea's sword's reach and drew a dagger. Shea thrust clumsily but effectively upward, catching the axeman under the chin. The wound made quite a mess and put the man out of the fight, even if it might take a while to kill him.

Shea slashed and thrust his way back and forth across the courtyard, as vigorously as he dared. The two lines were breaking up and it was almost impossible to tell friend from toe even down on the ground. Everybody was now shouting "Igor of Seversk!" or some other battle cry; Shea began to think he might have made the confusion worse rather than better.