Wistril Compleat (6 page)

"Master," said Kern. "You aren't going out on
the lake in that, are you?"

Wistril hiked up his robes and waded
ankle-deep out to the boat. A pair of tall, wiry gargoyles dropped
from the dark; one steadied the boat while the other hauled Wistril
aboard.

"Master," said Kern, trotting to the water's
edge. "Master, the lake is full of sea-monsters, and you can't
swim, and that is a very small boat--"

"I see torches," barked Wistril, as he bobbed
and teetered. "You have your chores, and I have mine. Begone."

One gargoyle clung to the boat's stern and
paddled with his feet while the other picked up an oar. The boat
headed unsteadily toward the deep water, Wistril standing
amidships, hands on hips.

Three long serpentia-heads broke water and
then rushed whistling to meet the tiny boat.

Kern shook his head. Sir Knobby hooted, long
and low.

Torchlight in the trees, moving closer -- and
then the hunters marched into the open, the Grizzly at the
fore.

Kern fixed a smile on his face, motioned to
Sir Knobby, and sauntered toward the hunter and his men.

Sir Knobby followed. The Grizzly looked at
Kern, spat, and loosened the leather tie on his sword hilt.

Kern smiled and waved. "Good evening," he
said, when the Grizzly and his men were near enough to hear
plainly. "Out for a stroll, maybe a bath?"

Kern stopped. The Grizzly marched his ten men
to within five short paces of Kern and halted. "Where's your fat
White Chair wand-waver?" said the Grizzly.

Kern shrugged. "Oh, he's out gathering
dragons and lightning, I suppose. You know wizards. They're always
up to something."

"He leave you here to chase us off?"

Kern grinned. "Something like that. By the
way, those tall reddish bushes the rest of your men are hiding in
are called itchweed by the locals. The blisters won't go away until
you stop scratching, which, I hear, is almost impossible to
do--"

"Shut your mouth," said the Grizzly. "I'm
come for the other three snakes."

"How unfortunate," said Kern. "Still, I'm
only one man. What could I do expect to do against the likes of
you?" Kern shrugged, stepped backward, and scratched a line in the
turf with the toe of his boot. "Ooga booga woodja woo," he said,
loudly. "That's just wizard talk for watch your step," he added,
with a wink.

The Grizzly's right hand fell to his
sword-hilt. Kern made a sweeping motion of invitation toward the
Lake. "The snakes seem to favor the shallows at the north end," he
said. "Right this way."

The Grizzly's brow furrowed. Sir Knobby
grinned a toothy grin and mocked Kern's wave of invitation.

Kern glanced over the Grizzly's shoulder and
watched his men -- a scarred and dirty lot -- draw weapons and
exchange worried looks.

"Where's the 'goyles? Where's the haints?"
growled the Grizzly.

"They quit," said Kern. "Took off. Claimed
they didn't want to fight. Just this one fellow remains, and he's
so beside himself with fright he can barely swing a mace. Isn't
that right, Sir Knobby?"

Sir Knobby spun his mace in a blurred twirl
that mocked the sound of angry hornets. Kern prayed the head didn't
come unstuck.

"It's a trick," said the Grizzly, shaking his
head. "But it's a White Chair trick. White Chair tricks can't hurt
me."

"True," said Kern. "That's just what I said.
What good is a trap if it doesn't hurt the trapped?" Kern raised
his voice. "But the Master just laughed. What is the harm, he said,
in giving a man donkey ears? Donkeys hear better than men, and that
ought to come in handy for a soldier. Same thing goes for big flat
cow teeth. Or hooves. Imagine, a --"

The Grizzly cursed, stepped over the line,
and shoved Kern aside.

Sir Knobby sprang forward, mace a whining
blur. The Grizzly drew his sword, struck, and shattered Sir
Knobby's antique mace.

"Next time I kill," said the Grizzly. Kern
grasped Sir Knobby's shoulder and drew him back.

"Hoot," said Kern. Sir Knobby snarled and
cast his broken mace aside. The Grizzly spat and motioned his men
toward the Lake.

"Well done," said Wistril's voice from just
beside Kern's right ear. "Well done indeed. Is Sir Knobby
injured?"

"He's fine," muttered Kern. "Are you done
with whatever it is you're doing?"

Wistril chuckled, and his voice was gone.

Kern patted Sir Knobby's arm. "Skyward, brave
sir," he said. "Fetch the troops. Time to skin our grizzly."

"Hoot!" The gargoyle leaped into the
night.

Kern trotted off after the Grizzly. "Sorry
about trying to fool you gentlemen," Kern shouted. Faces turned his
way. "In truth, though, I was just stalling for time." The pines,
silent before, began to fill with faint but growing screams.

Shadows came tumbling out of the nighted
forest, howling and capering across the starry sky, converging on
the Lake from every direction. The leathery snapping of gargoyle
wings joined the moans of the phantoms, and soon the sky was filled
with hundreds of bat-winged gargoyles, eyes and blades glinting in
the moonlight.

"No more stalling, though," said Kern
cheerily. "Time's up. You boys should have taken up farming."

A light, harsh, brighter than the midday sun,
flared in the sky over the Lake. Kern looked quickly away, spots
dancing in his eyes. Harsh cries went up from the Grizzly's men,
and with them the short, soft sounds of swords hastily drawn.

Darting shadows crowded the ground. Kern
shielded his eyes with his hands and scanned the Lake for
Wistril.

There, far from shore -- wizard and rowboat
tossed and bobbed, but remained upright and afloat.

The fierce glare dimmed to a blood-red glow
just bright enough to highlight gargoyles and phantoms.

"Harken," rang out Wistril, in a voice loud
as nearby thunder. "I am Wistril of Kauph." The shrieks of the
phantoms fell to a quiet chorus of soft, airy moans. Wistril let
his echoes die, and then continued.

"You have intruded on my ancestral lands,"
said the wizard. "You have offered insult to my House, injury to my
staff, and butchery to creatures rare and magical."

The ghostly wails dipped to a minor key.

"No more," boomed Wistril. "No more insult.
No more injury. No more butchery. For now you do not trifle with
water-snakes and White Chair magics, but with the Law of Man and
the House of Kauph."

The Grizzly opened his mouth. A crackle and
blast of lightning and thunder -- both from a starry, cloudless sky
-- snuffed out the Grizzly's words.

"My ritual is done," said Wistril. "Know that
I, Wistril of Kauph, in full and right accord with the ancient and
venerable Laws of Man, have adopted into the House of Kauph three
new souls. Blood of my blood, House of my House, Law of my Law.
Rise up, you of Kauph, and be seen."

The three young serpentia thrust their heads
above the water and issued a trio of short, loud chirps.

The Grizzly stared, slack-jawed. Kern tore
his gaze away from the Lake and quickly shut his own mouth.

"You can't adopt water snakes," snarled the
Grizzly. "Law was writ for people."

"The Law says the Houses may adopt orphans,"
said Kern. "It doesn't say to count legs or teeth. And orphans they
are, since you and your thugs killed their mother." Kern grinned.
"Now maybe you're too stupid to be afraid of an angry White Chair
wizard, but are you really demented enough to break Kingdom law for
forty pieces of silver and three baby snake skins?"

The serpentia dove. Wistril's boat turned
about and sped toward the shallows. "Think about it," said Kern.
"You'll all be fugitives. The Kingdom never gives up, you know.
Never."

Wistril's boat slid into the shallows, hit
bottom, and plowed onward, not stopping until Wistril could step
over the side and plant his boots on dry ground.

The Grizzly bristled. Wistril clambered onto
the shore, threw back his cloak, and stamped toward the hunters,
his hand on his sword hilt.

Kern fell in on Wistril's left. Sir Knobby
dropped lightly from the sky on the wizard's right.

The Grizzly spat. "The Law says you can't
adopt orphans without swearin' to give them schooling. To raise
them up--"

"In the finest traditions and standards of
the House," said Wistril. "And this I shall do. They are, after
all, intelligent creatures. But education and care of young
Serpentia Giganticus Aquatica Kauph is none of your concern."

Wistril halted a long stride from the
Grizzly. Then the fat wizard drew his sword. "You are a brute and a
coward," said Wistril. "The sight of you offends me. The serpentia
are now of my House. Threaten them -- threaten anyone here, save
your own wretched band of ruffians -- and I shall loose the wrath
of Kauph upon you."

Gargoyles and ghosts dipped low, quiet menace
in the flap of their wings and the chill of their passage.

The Grizzly snorted. "White Chair wizard with
a sword. Gargoyles with broom-sticks and tree-limbs. I got a
hundred men in the trees, White Chair wizard. And a hundred more
behind them." The Grizzly drew his own short, battered blade.
"Broken laws don't mean nothing if there's nobody left to tell. I
reckon we'll have plenty of hides to sell, come fall."

Wistril's eyes were full on the Grizzly's
sword-hand, but the wizard, from the corner of his eye, saw Kern
mouth a three syllable word, squeeze his eyes shut, and jam his
fists against his ears.

Wistril's sword grew hot in his hand, rang
like a struck bell, and belched out a blinding, deafening surge of
white-hot power.

Full into the Grizzly's hairy, frightened
face.

The flash was visible all the way to the
Laughing Horse, Dervanny's celebrated (and singular) inn and
eatery. The blast that followed a heartbeat later rattled the
Laughing Horse's only window, knocked old Ferlow the baker's beer
mug into his lap, and woke every dog for sixty miles in every
direction.

"Danged wizards," muttered Ferlow as he
mopped beer off his britches. "No use at all, they ain't. No use at
all."

Wistril eased into the wide, soft chair
behind his desk and let out a long, satisfied sigh. "Nature," he
said, his eyes shut, "has her splendors, and is rightly proud. But
home and hearth need have no shame."

Kern rolled his desk-chair around to face the
wizard. "Pithily put, Master," he said. "I agree. There's no place
like home." He surveyed the study, taking in the burgundy carpet,
the polished cherry bookshelves, the bright brass goblin-clock
whirling silently away on the corner of Wistril's enormous ironwood
desk. "Especially after a week in the wild. I needed a bath more
than the Grizzly and any ten of his minions."

Wistril chuckled. "Indeed. As did I. Still, I
shall not dread our next excursion to the Lake; the lads are coming
along quite nicely, I believe."

Kern shook his head. He had an image in his
mind, one he knew he would carry with him for the rest of his days.
It was the sight of Wistril tottering precariously aboard a tiny
two-man rowboat, a bucket of fish at his feet, and a trio of
playful sea-monsters arcing and diving and coiling about the boat.
Were it not for Wistril's equilibrium spells and two stout
gargoyles, Kern knew the boat would have capsized two feet from
shore.

"How smart are the lads, Master?"

Wistril shrugged. "I suspect the serpentia
may, like certain dragons, be as intelligent as they wish to be,"
he said. "Only time will tell."

Sir Knobby knocked softly at the half-open
study door. "Come," said Wistril. "What is this?"

Sir Knobby held a long oak box. Kern rose,
walked to stand before Sir Knobby, and threw the box open with a
flourish.

"Behold," said Kern. "The Sword of the House
of Kauph!"

Kern withdrew a sword -- Wistril's sword --
from within the case. The blade curved slightly, having softened in
the blast, but the hilt shone and the edges gleamed.

"I had it engraved," said Kern. "Ovis tern va
lats, on one side, and Serpentia Giganticus Aquatica on the
other."

Wistril took the sword. "Apprentice," he
said, "you never cease to confound me."

Kern frowned. "Why, Master," he said. "I only
wanted to commemorate your heroic defeat of the Grizzly and his
army."

"Pfui," said Wistril. "It was your fool spell
that left the Grizzly and half of his men bald, naked, and
temporarily blind." Wistril shuddered visibly. "Would that I had
been rendered blind as well."

"I designed the spell so we'd be safe,
Master," said Kern. "After all, isn't that what you told me to do?
Smelt it yourself, but bring me a sword, you roared. And I
did."

"I had no such intention," said Wistril. "I
spoke in anger and with great distraction. My Oath clearly forbids
such directives, in spirit if not in letter."

Sir Knobby snickered softly. Kern winked and
grinned. "Of course, Master," he said. "Of course."

Wistril put down the sword and picked up a
book. Kern rolled his chair back to his desk, pulled a stack of
paper from a drawer, and inked his pen.

"This inscription," said Wistril from behind
his book. "Ovis tern va lats. What is the tongue, and what is the
meaning?"

"Not sure, Master," said Kern, his pen
scratching on the paper. "One of the spooks suggested it. Something
like honor forever, or Hand of the Valiant, I think. The old boy
claimed all the great swords of the Old Kingdom bore the same
phrase."

"Hmmpph." Wistril went back to his book.

"Ovis tern va lats," wrote Kern, in the
dialect of the Hill Clan his great-grandmother had spoken. "We
shall dine in shifts," he added.

Then he crossed both phrases out, crumpled
the paper into a ball, and moved on to a fresh page without even
the smallest, most innocent smile.