The Merchant Adventurer (3 page)

In the center of Robrecht, there was a river. In the center of this river was an island. And in the center of this island was a very damp castle. And in the very damp center of this very damp castle was a Duke on a throne. Both of which were also damp. And one of them was terribly bored.

The Duke started what would have been a mighty yawn, but he quickly worked to stifle it. This resulted in one of his eyes closing and his mouth attempting to wrap itself around his strong nose. When his face was not in spasm, the Duke came close enough to being noble. He had a finely drawn face, thick dark hair, and a nose well-suited for looking down at people. But if you looked in his eyes, the effect of a cruel Mercian conqueror would have been spoiled. With more force of personality, his eyes might have been piercing. But alas, from the loins of the most powerful Empire on Earth had sprung another stuffed personage with weak chin and sunken eyes.

He was yawning because he was holding court. Well, such as court as could be held in the remote and unimpressive Duchy of Robrecht to which he had been consigned. There were no glittering courtiers here. There were no ladies-in-waiting. There was just the Duke, an uncomfortable wooden chair and a long line of disputes that the Duke was expected to settle before he would be allowed to go to his supper.

“Messrs Rudolph and Fuad, herders of goats!” the Chamberlain announced. The Duke waved his hand and the men were brought before him.

“He had advantage of my goat, my Lord. And I desire compensation,” said a cross-eyed man as he glared in the general direction of the man standing next to him. The Duke turned his gaze at the accused, a man wearing a goat-skin helmet. Was the helmet this man’s idea of formal dress? the Duke wondered. The Duke opened his mouth to ask, but then thought better of it. He squinted at the man and tried to decipher the matter on his own.

The pause stretched to such a length that the Chamberlain gently prompted, “My Lord?”

“Advantage?” asked the Duke, unable, with his formal, courtly upbringing, to understand how having a goat might be an advantage. It was not that there were no goats in the Mercian Empire. It was that his entire life had been carefully constructed to insulate him from all creatures shaggy and uncultured.

“He had knowledge of my best nanny goat.”

“Knowledge? I don’t understand, of course he has knowledge of your animal,” the Duke said, glancing at the dull-eyed, leather-helmeted man who was being accused of bestiality, “He is a fellow goatherd, is he not?”

“No, my Lord,” said the cross-eyed man, blushing with the weight of what he must now make painfully obvious. “He…” and then he thrust his pelvis forward and backwards in an unmistakable, rhythmic motion.

“Oh. Oh? OH!” said the Duke, as the facts of the case came into disgusting focus for him. “Really?” He turned to Leather Helmet. “What was it like?”

The Chamberlain began to cough. This was a prearranged signal between the two of them that the Duke was wandering dangerously off course. The Chamberlain did a lot of coughing in the performance of his duties.

“Very well,” the Duke said, “I command you to violate one of
his
sheep.”

“WHAT!”

“Yes, yes, my good man; that is justice. He has had one of yours, so, “–the Duke slapped his knee decisively–“you must have one of his. An eye for an eye and an ewe for an ewe. Yes, that certainly has the ring of justice to it, doesn’t it? Symmetry and suchlike,” the Duke said, feeling awfully proud of himself. But by the look on the goatherd’s face, he could see that his legal acumen was lost on the man.

The Chamberlain continued to cough. The Duke became worried about how he might talk his way out of his ruling without seeming that he was contradicting himself. The Duke was aware, vaguely, that he was not the sharpest arrow in the quiver. But he was straight on one point: The only mortal sin a person in power might truly commit was seeming to contradict himself.

He couldn’t understand where he had gone wrong. What taboo had he crossed? It was a perfectly logical verdict. He was a perfectly logical ruler. And why did rulers have to explain themselves to their subjects anyway? Maybe it was just Dukes. He was pretty sure if he were a King he wouldn’t have had to explain himself to anyone.

Just as he was thinking that, a Wizard appeared in the Great Hall. And this is not to say he made an entrance. One minute there was an empty space on the cold stone floor and the next, there he stood. Shaven pate, black robes, the large silver torque around his neck only slightly larger than the dark circles under his eyes, strange stains under his fingernails–yes, unmistakably a Wizard. One moment he wasn’t there, and the next, he was. The Wizard appeared.

There was a gasp as those in the Great Hall jumped back from the man who had apparated into their midst. Nonplussed, the Chamberlain announced, “A man, appearing from nowhere!”

The Wizard looked at the Chamberlain sharply and hissed, “My name is Alston Dimsbury.”

“Dimsbury, a Wizard of Considerable Evil…” the Chamberlain said.

The Wizard’s look darkened, and more imaginative people in the crowd believed that they saw flames forming in his eyes.

“…whose reputation is much maligned!” the Chamberlain added diplomatically.

“Yes, enough, that’s quite enough,” said the Duke. “Wizard, you will simply have to wait your turn.”

“Oh,” said the Wizard. “Is this inconvenient for you? I
am
sorry. Pray, continue with your amusements. My time is of little consequence.” He punctuated his sentence with a wave of his hand that turned the cross-eyed goatherd into a rather lovely brown and white nanny goat. This time, even the Chamberlain gasped in fear.

Fuad, the goatherd in the leather helmet, smiled at the newly-minted goat with an unwholesome gleam in his eye. As he rubbed his hand along the length of rope that held up his trousers, the nanny goat gave up a fearful bleat.

Dimsbury said, “As I was saying, don’t let me interrupt.”

No one spoke. The only sound was the clacking of the goat’s hooves as it wisely made for the exit as fast as its terribly confused legs would carry it.

Exasperated that the crowd still wasn’t getting the point, Dimsbury said, “What does it take? Must I strike all of you down with a pillar of flame? Gah. Let me outline it for you. I am a
horrible
man. Dimsbury the Terrible. Master of the arcane arts and elder mysteries, summoner of demons, so on and so forth. Now, go. Flee.”

And flee they did. When the oaken door had slammed behind them, Dimsbury and the Duke were the only people left in Robrecht’s meager throne room.

“There,” said the Wizard, “That’s better.”

“Hullo, Alston, enjoying yourself?” asked the Duke.

“Quite, Weeveston. I do like to make an entrance.”

“I apologize for my subjects,” said the Duke, “they are a bit… provincial.”

“‘Thick’ is the word I would have used.”

“Would you care for some wine?” asked the Duke, as he draped his leg over the side of his chair and slumped with the false exhaustion that can only come with never having worked a day in one’s life.

“I want you to
get out
,” said the Wizard.

“Uh? Pardon me?”

“I said, get out. Abdicate. Leave this place and take everyone with you.”

“I wish that I could,” said the Duke, “I never wanted to come to this damp, grey place to begin with.”

“Ah, well there you go,” said the Wizard, “I love it when things are easy. Did you say there was wine?”

“Wine? We’ve got it by the barrelful. And by the bottleful in the cabinet over there. Since you’ve run off all my servants, subjects, and goat herders, you will have to help yourself. All told, this tower and keep contains more wine than I could drink in three lifetimes. Although the prospect of staying here for three lifetimes,” the Duke chuckled as he made a slicing motion across his throat.

“I don’t think you understand,” said Dimsbury, trying to be reasonable, “this is a courtesy call. What I mean to say is that this request is for your benefit, not mine.”

“Steady on, old boy,” said the Duke. “I’m on your side. I’m ready to do as you command. You want this Kingdom–well this dismal little Duchy–I say you can have it. Good riddance to fickle mountain weather, thick-ankled peasant girls, and goat-violators of every stripe. But, here’s the thing, I can’t. The minute I leave my post, my family will know of it. In particular my uncle Torvalds, do you know my uncle Torvalds?”

“Can’t say I have had the pleasure,” said Dimsbury, fighting back the urge to engulf the Duke in flames with a clap of his hands.

“I have the burden of carrying a great name. Weeveston Prestidigitous RampartLion Toroble the 15th, in fact. And this name means that I am not free do what I would like. I am not free to marry whom I like. I am not free to live where I like. I have been sent here. And if I abdicate, Torvalds Toroble will have me killed. By assassin, or generalship of an army on its way to a glorious lost cause, or perhaps just with a good old-fashioned hunting accident.”

“How do you know?” asked Dimsbury, still trying to reason with him.

“It’s how he did my father, or tried. Hunting ‘accident.’ And when dear old Dad survived that, Torvalds sent in his very own doctor to poison the man.”

“Damn it,” cried Dimsbury, “I’m trying very hard not to be the stereotypical Evil Wizard. But you’re just not helping. I don’t want to be a stereotype. Don’t make me be a stereotype.”

“I never suggested that you were,” said the Duke, with a look of concern on his face.

“I could have swept in from the east and just taken that mine and cavern system for myself. Killed all the miners, released horrible creatures into the countryside. Right? Could have done that, couldn’t I?”

“Yes, Alston, you could have, but I don’t feel that you are the kind of–”

“But instead, I bought that mine. Paid gold on the barrel head for it. Didn’t I?”

“You did. Please, Alston, what has gotten into you? You are a fine neighbor,” said the Duke, trying to tell this powerful and somewhat crazed man what he wanted to hear.

“Yes, I am,” Dimsbury said, calming enough to take a healthy gulp of wine. “I am a fine neighbor, but you, and I mean the royal You, Duke Robrecht, are not.”

“Ugh, Robrecht as a name. Why, it sounds simply ghastly, doesn’t it.”

“Your subjects are the ghastly bits. Those little people who infest this land. With their grubbing in the dirt and milking of animals.”

“Ah, taxpayers,” said the Duke, “Yes, my uncle says I am here to farm them.”

“Herd them? Wouldn’t herd be the word you’re looking for?”

“Yes, I suppose it would be. I am to herd them until tax time. And then I shear them and release them back into the fields.”

“It’s not your sheep that are the problem. Nor your goats. The problem is the relentless press of Adventurers seeking to steal what they imagine is the vast repository of Treasure stashed in my dungeon.”

“You have Treasure, Alston? All this time you’ve been holding out on me?”

“No, no, heavens no. I mean a little
family
money, but nothing to speak of. I am a Wizard, a researcher into the arcane and terrible forces that undergird all of our lives.”

“Sounds rather dull to me.”

“Well, it’s not for everyone, but my work is
important
. Deucedly important. So much so that I’ve nearly isolated the source of all Magic in this plane of existence.”

“Plane of existence?” asked the Duke, wrinkling his face in confusion.

“Sorry, sorry, don’t mean to trouble you with technical terms. The thing is, if I can harness this source–tap into and control the very essence–why, I would be the most powerful and accomplished Mage in the history of the world.”

“Prize for that, is there?”

“No, Weeveston, there is not. Power is its own reward.”

“Ah, yes, well, you’d have to talk to my uncle about that.”

“But not on a hunting trip?”

“Oh, ho ho, quite so. Quite so.”

“The point is, I keep getting interrupted in my work by these blasted Adventurers. I can’t get anything done. And it’s your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Yes, the endless stream of mendicants, Adventurers, and ne’er do wells who seek to kill me and deprive me of property. It’s Brigandry!Utter lawlessness, that you, as the local authority should but down. They want to become rich Heroes by defeating the Evil Wizard. And by defeat I mean murder and rob. Rapine and pillage writ simple.” Here Dimsbury had a thought, “Wait, I’m not
Evil
, am I, Weeveston? I try not to be, but some days, Gods, I just don’t know.”

“No, of course you are not Evil. I’ve known you since grammar school. A touch mischievous, perhaps. But Evil? No.”

“Oh, thank you for saying so. I do appreciate your honesty,” said Dimsbury. “At first, I thought the Adventurers would stop coming. You know, after most of the first few waves of looters fell into my traps or afoul of my pets. But their failure dissuaded no one. They doubled their efforts. And then redoubled them after that!

“Most died on the upper levels, but the few that have managed to penetrate deeper into my stronghold, they’ve caused real damage. So I have been forced to turn away from my important work to employ spies and turncoats, fashion ever more diabolical traps, and oversee the painful logistics of force management and deployment. I don’t want any of this. It’s a constant strain and a distraction from my work. I tell you Weeveston, I am close to a deeper knowledge and understanding of the forces that shape our world than any man has ever had before.”

The Duke fixed the Wizard with a look and said, “I know what force shapes our world, and sadly, it is heredity.”

But the Wizard was on a roll. “And the power! The limitless power. Only
I
should make this connection with the source, lest this power fall into the hands of some
truly
Evil Wizard. So I’m afraid you simply must go. I see no other way.”

The Duke smiled with regret, “I would like nothing better than to comply with your wishes, old friend. But my uncle would have me killed. Even if I did leave, it would do you no good. He would come in force and just take the Kingdom back. And it’s not like it would solve your problem. I mean, I can’t very well take the sheep with me. Or stop members of the herd from seeking you out and troubling you in your research.”