Fane (v1.0), page 14
“Grantin, we must devise a spell to conquer Shenar—something that will restrain his hands and his voice.”
“A spell,” Grantin said weakly. “I’ll be lucky if I have enough strength to stand up.”
“Hurry—he comes. I sense him approaching. You must do it.” Chom helped Grantin to his feet.
The human ignored Chom. He studied the room in which they now found themselves, then lapsed into a deep reverie. At last, with Shenar’s sandals scraping on the stairs, Grantin devised a plan and whispered it into the Fanist’s earhole. The scheme required exact timing and perfect reflexes, two things which Grantin doubted that either he or Chom now possessed. Nevertheless, it was their only hope.
As soon as they heard Shenar begin to unlock the cell door Grantin and Chom slipped into the passage outside the storeroom. This hallway joined the corridor leading to their former cell. To the left of the juncture was the cell, to the right the anteroom below the castle entrance hall. Peeking around the corner, they saw Shenar entering the cell. Before the wizard had even closed the door Chom was sprinting noiselessly to the right toward the anteroom, weapon in hand, while Grantin slunk back down the corridor toward the utility closet.
In less than a second Shenar discerned the scars where the granite slab had been burned free from the rest of the wall. Outraged that any mere mortals would dare to try to escape from the great Shenar, the wizard slammed open the door and raced down the hallway as fast as his bandy legs would carry him. At the intersection of the tunnel leading to the storeroom he hesitated, then plunged down the small corridor to check the storage room before widening his search to the more distant portions of his manor. Sliding open the door, Shenar received a second shock to find Grantin, hands on hips, standing insolently in the center of the room.
“So, you’ve finally come. You don’t move very fast on those shrunken little legs, do you?” Grantin taunted him.
The sorcerer’s rage rose almost to apoplexy. He raised his right hand to cast a spell, but Grantin waved it aside with a casual gesture.
“Come, now; you don’t think you can hex me, do you?” he asked Shenar. “I wear the bloodstone, and my power is that of a hundred ordinary sorcerers like yourself.”
“You will die horribly!” Shenar screamed. He pulled back both hands in preparation for casting his most powerful spell of dismemberment. Fingers stiffened in a V-shaped position, Shenar advanced. The wizard’s gown rustled as he straightened his arm to cast the spell. The hiss of his sleeves hid the whoosh of air from behind as Chom brought down a mop handle full upon the wizard’s skull.
Unfortunately for Shenar, Chom had little experience with the more intimate details of human anatomy, and, basing the strength of his blow upon Fanist standards, he badly misjudged the energy necessary to render the sorcerer unconscious. The mop handle shattered. Before he could finish reciting his spell, Shenar fell quietly to the floor, quite dead.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Chom apologized. ‘1 forgot how fragile you humans are. What do we do now?”
Grantin shook his head, confused by Chom’s question.
“Should we bury him in the garden to fertilize the plants, or do you humans prefer stuffing the remains into the fireplace?”
Grantin stared at the pathetic bundle of cloth and flesh that composed Shenar’s mortal remains and shook his head in horror. At last he looked at the Fanist and replied in a quiet voice.
“I think planting in the garden would be appropriate, but not now. I’ve got to rest and then eat and then figure out what I’m going to do next. We can do it later. He’s not going to bother anyone for the next few hours.”
“Best if we left this place,” Chom suggested.
“You can leave if you want. I’m going to get some sleep first. Besides, I came here for an answer. I need to find out how to remove this ring. Shenar’s library may hold the key.”
In a surprisingly human gesture Chom shrugged his shoulders, then helped the weak and shaking Grantin from the room. The former prisoners, now for a while at least masters of the manor house, proceeded down the stone corridor and slowly ascended the dungeon stairs. At the top Chom leaned Grantin against the wall, then reached out and threw back the foyer door.
Crisp early-morning daylight streamed through the opening and for an instant half blinded both beings. Through squinted eyelids Grantin was shocked to see a burly human in the center of the hall. The man turned to face the doorway and likewise registered dismay at seeing Chom emerging from the dungeon. Instantly the intruder bounded back and raced out the front door. A few seconds later the disjointed rhythm of a Rex’s two hooves and tail could be heard disappearing into the distance. “What—who was that?” Grantin stuttered.
“We are in danger again,” Chom responded. “That was the man who captured me and delivered me here to Shenar. In a day or two at the most he will get over his fear and return with his men. By then we must be gone.”
“Who was he?” Grantin repeated.
“He is the human they call Yon Diggery, the bandit.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Against the rustle of trees and the calls of the birds, the plop, plop, plop of softly dripping water was almost inaudible. The moisture made its way down between the fibers of the sodden tunic and passed as an invisible sheet over the slime-encrusted surface of the rough leather britches until at last it collected in large, graceful drops near the point of a mud-encrusted cuff. There it dripped back into the shallows at the north edge of the swamp.
At the beginning of his journey Rupert’s back had snapped off protruding branches like so much dry kindling. In a second or two he reached the top of an arc which brought him clear of the uppermost branches of even the highest trees. There Rupert seemed to float suspended between heaven and earth. In a few seconds the propulsive energy was spent, and he sped earthward on a ballistic path. As the forest flew upward at him Rupert curled his hurtling body into a tight ball, all elbows, shoulders, and knees.
He snapped through branches, then rebounded from a limb too massive to break and shot straight forward on a course almost parallel with the ground. In the near distance the trees thinned and spread apart to make room for Stinkhole Marsh.
Gravity and the laws of aerodynamics overcame inertia, and Rupert’s body angled downward. Still at high speed, he struck the surface of the water and skipped like a stone across the first two thirds of the swamp. Dense clumps of yellow marsh reeds finally brought a halt to his forward motion. Still grasping an armful of the rubbery vegetation, he promptly sank to the bottom of the pond.—
With truly remarkable fury Rupert flailed his arms and legs until he reached the surface, there to take in great lungfuls of the foul-smelling air. Kicking off his waterlogged boots, he somehow managed to reach the shallows. Numbed and almost exhausted, he struggled forward. At last he reached the shore, where he allowed himself to fall backward on the muddy bank. There he now lay, wheezing like an exhausted pack animal on the verge of collapse. With each breath tiny insects were sucked through his open mouth, but even these were now beneath his notice.
Only two thoughts occupied the Gogol’s mind: first, the knowledge that he had failed Hazar and that it would be death for him to return to Cicero; and second, the rage-bom certainty that somehow, someday, he would tear Grantin’s living body limb from limb.
After a few minutes the worst of Rupert’s wheezing subsided, and he sat up to survey his location. Already he had begun to make plans.
He would find the river and clean himself. Using his Huntsman Spell, he would capture game for an evening meal. That night he would shelter in the forest, and the next day, clean and rested, he would set out to make a new life for himself.
Rupert recalled that some dozen years before another deacon had been forced to flee to the borderlands under similar circumstances. The man was now a bandit chieftain rumored to make his headquarters in this very vicinity. Rupert had little doubt that he would be allowed entry into the gang. If nothing else, he had valuable spells to contribute, together with information on Lord Hazar’s incredible plans.
Rupert began to scheme with the utmost deviousness.
The outlaws would become allies in his search for Grantin and the ring—always the ring. Let his new associates take the brunt of Grantin’s defenses while he, at the appropriate moment, cut off the Hartford’s hand and appropriated the ring. Then how he would make the pipsqueak pay!
Rupert pushed himself to his feet and examined the sky. It was late afternoon. He would have to move fast to find shelter before full- night.
And tomorrow, tomorrow he would search out his new-chosen comrade, the bandit chieftain Yon Diggery.
Chapter Twenty-three
Though it was not so fine as his uncle Greyhorn’s manse, Grantin was, nevertheless, highly pleased with Shenar’s Castle. A fine pigeon-fluff bed of truly immense proportions dominated the late wizard’s bedroom, and a well-stocked larder provided Grantin and Chom with a wealth of food.
When their inspection had revealed no loyal retainers who might avenge Shenar’s death Chom and Grantin returned to the basement. They unceremoniously tucked the wizard’s body into a potato sack and carried it to the garden for burial. There beneath the blossoms of a great bush of saucerflowers Shenar was laid to rest.
Returning to the castle, Chom and Grantin barred the doors and took themselves to separate bedrooms. After only a few hours sleep, tortured by vague nightmares and a sense of tense weariness, Grantin awakened to search out Shenar’s pantry. Slipping back easily into the duties he had performed for so long under Greyhorn’s tutelage, he prepared a meal of cheese, fruit, bread, spiced meat, cookies, and cold marinated vegetables, to be washed down with a thick, bittersweet wine.
At about the time he finished laying out the meal Chom entered the small dining area just off the kitchen.
“We are in luck, my friend,” Grantin called to Chom. “For all his faults our host set a nice table. Don’t be shy. Come in; sit down; there’s plenty for both of us.”
With an expression of vague uneasiness Chom slipped into one of the high-backed chairs which bordered the table. Again the Fanist was confronted with the peculiar human customs regarding food. Also, after his first adverse experience with humans Chom had become a bit suspicious. Might these concoctions contain drugs whose very existence would be hidden by their peculiar seasonings?
Chom studied the fare with a critical eye. For a few seconds Grantin hesitated, waiting for the Fanist to eat but then hunger overcame his manners. Chom watched the young human load his plate with chunks, gobs, puddles, squares, and scoops of various substances and then shovel one after another into his mouth with the use of curiously constructed metal implements. Unlikely that the items were drugged. Well, Ajax said to experiment.
Following Grantin’s lead, he loaded up his plate, then in a random fashion inserted the substances into his mouth. On a slab of dark yellow cheese he spread half an inch of crossberry preserves, then topped the appetizer with two slices of marinated potato. Next he ingested a molasses-brown cookie dipped in pepperroot relish and washed the lot down with a half-pint swallow of wine.
Chom was the victim of harshly contrasting sensations. His throat alternately burned and tingled while the organs which in Fanists passed for taste buds appeared to have been awakened from a millennia-long slumber. These sensations were beyond any of Chom’s expectations. Thrilled with the effect, he began to prepare further mouthfuls with the coordinated use of all four of his hands. A slice of meat was wrapped around a chicken leg and eaten in two bites, bone and all. With his upper and lower left arms he drowned half a jelly-apple pie with spoonfuls of pickled beets, which concoction was conveyed in heaping spoonfuls to his anxiously awaiting gullet. Amazing! Chom decided that the human concept of food was an extraordinarily good idea after all.
With great deliberateness Grantin turned his eyes away from the nauseating combinations which the Fanist was ingesting. When the edge was off his hunger and Chom’s devastation of the buffet had declined Grantin began a conversation with the native.
“Do you live around here?” he asked Chom.
“Nearby, no. My community is back beyond the mountains, in the land of the Hartfords.”
“Then we’re both a long way from home. I’m a Hartford as well, but as a result of various difficulties I find myself exiled here, for the time being at least. And you—were you expelled from your tribe?”
“Expelled, thrown out, no. I am, you might say, studying humans, a traveler, a tourist. Yes, that is a good description, I am a tourist. And you, you are an apprentice wizard?” Chom asked.
“What makes you think that?”
“The fact that you wear such a ring.”
Grantin shook his head sadly and replied: “This ring is not enough to make me a wizard. If you want to know the truth, as of two days ago my occupation was that of apprentice factotum to my uncle Greyhorn. My greatest ambition was to survive long enough to inherit his properties. The ring is a mistake, a folly, a horrible error. It is one with my flesh and cannot be removed. It is a great curse.”
“Certainly there must be a way of removing—” Chom began reasonably.
“You are not going to cut off my hand; you are not; you are not!” Grantin screamed and banged his fist on the table. “I’m tired of everyone wanting to cut my finger off!”
“I was not thinking about removing your finger,” Chom replied pleasantly, “though I suppose that would be one possibility. No, I had in mind a counterspell.”
“I have tried. Even Uncle Greyhorn’s sorcery was insufficient proof against this blasted ring. Unless, of course…Grantin’s face visibly brightened. “…unless, of course, you have a spell…
“No, but I understand a bit about such stones. There may be a spell which can coax the answer from the ring itself. Not only does such a gem project your incantations outward, but it gathers in energy as well.”
“Do you think that such a spell might be contained in Shenar’s library?”
“Library?”
“The books containing records of Shenar’s sorcery.”
“Books—I’ve heard about such things. We do not use them. Our magic instead is stored here,” Chom said, tapping his forehead. “I think I would like to see this library. If you can read the books to me I will know if you find the right spell.”
Leaving the litter of crumbs, bones, spilled wine, and fragments of food, the two beings, not yet friends but far from enemies, passed from the kitchen and down the corridor to Shenar’s library at the back of the manor house.
On a workbench fronted by a low horizontal window, vials, canisters, and jars stood in comfortable disarray. The bench itself was stained with potent substances. Chips and mars tattooed its hardwood planks.
To the right of the table stood three ranks of cupboards ten feet tall. Along the back wall a much-used stepladder stood at ease. To the left of the workbench was a short wall fronted with low, open shelves. A doorway led to an alcove beyond. It was in this alcove, sealed off behind the left-hand wall of the wizard’s laboratory, that Grantin and Chom discovered the library.
The paper in use on Fane was handmade, heavy, thick, and brittle; printing also was done by hand or, in rare cases, through the use of carved type laboriously set a letter at a time. Consequently books tended to be thick, oversize, and bulky. Shenar’s collection was no exception. His library of perhaps a thousand books filled floor-to-ceiling shelves on three of the four walls.
Grantin sought to determine a pattern to the shelving, but if there were one he was unable to divine it. After fifteen minutes of fruitless study, he decided to read each title, and if the subject matter appeared to bear on the problem he removed the volume and passed it to Chom.
Some two and a half hours later, his back aching and eyes bleary, Grantin finished his initial examination. On the table, stacked in orderly piles, were the perhaps fifty or so books which might contain the sought-for spell. Grantin studied the table of contents in each of the books and, after another two hours, succeeded in marking chapters in fifteen of them.
By now night had come to Grenitch Wood. Chom brought food and tapers to the library, the glowpods for some reason refusing to respond to Granting command.
In one ancient book of Hartford origin, The Sorcerers Constant Companion, Grantin found a reference to a spell which could be used to bind one’s jewelry and personal effects to the person so that absentminded individuals could avoid their constant loss. Upon detailed examination, however, the spell appeared to be a simple one easily dissolved by a standard incantation.
Grantin studied the flyleaves on each of the ten books remaining on the table. Eight of these he dismissed out of hand as enterprises of Hartford origin. Two remained: one with no indication of its origin but apparently specializing in spells of physical prowess, athletics, and self-defense; the second a volume of obvious Gogol manufacture: Black Arts and Sacred Fires. With great interest Grantin now examined this last volume. Almost immediately he found a reference to the bloodstone and its Hartford discoverer.
Edgar of Ilium repulsed our forces with spells of unheard-of potency. Over the succeeding years diligent investigation has revealed the source of Edgar’s power: a transparent, hard, deep-red crystal known for its color as the bloodstone or for its energy as the powerstone. The crystal is mined in rock formations of as yet unknown types, and neither is the size of the raw crystals nor their depth below the surface generally known. The shape of the finished crystal is believed to have great importance. It is well known that Edgar of Ilium’s gem was cut in a faceted oval shape. More recent intelligence has suggested that the optimum shape for any given-size crystal is a smooth, polished oval with the major axis twice the length of the minor.
