The Magician of Karakosk, and Other Stories

by Peter S. Beagle

  So the Queen came to know more spells than anyone but a wizard ever has known; and, also, that she learned them far faster than a true apprentice wizard ever would have done. She walked through the walls of her castle, utterly terrifying her servants and soldiers, who took her for her own ghost; she caused the dishes being prepared for her in the great kitchens to rise and float solemnly through the halls to her dining table; at times she left a smiling, regal shadow to debate with ministers and counselors, and herself slipped away unnoticed to gaze from her highest tower far over the lands she intended to rule. There is a legend—no more than that—that as she grew even more accomplished, she took to prowling the midnight alleys of the city in the lean, man-faced form of a lourijakh, straight out of the Barrens. Further, it is told that she did not go hungry in that form, but that I do not believe. Lanak would never have allowed it, of that much I am sure.

  Finally Lanak said to her, “I have kept our agreement, Majesty. You now know what I know—every spell, every gesture, every rune, every rhyme. Except, perhaps—” and he suddenly coughed and looked away, so plainly trying to swallow back the betraying word. But it was too late.

  “Except,” repeated the Queen. Her voice was light, her tone no more than respectfully curious, but her eyes were bright stone. “Except what, my master?” When Lanak did not answer, she spoke once again, and all she said was, “Lanak.”

  Lanak sighed, still not looking at her. “Sendings,” he mumbled. “I did not teach you about sendings, because I do not use them myself. I would never employ a sending, for any reason. Never.”

  The Queen said, “But you know how it is done.”

  “Yes, yes,” Lanak answered her. He rubbed his hands hard together and shivered, though it was a hot day for the time of year. He said, “A sending is death. That is its only purpose whether it ever touches its victim or not, its presence kills. It may appear as an ordinary man or woman, as any animal from a snake to a shukri to a rock-targ—but it is in truth born of the very essence of the magician who controls it. And yet it is not the magician, not at all.” His voice grew more urgent, and he did look straight at the Queen now. “Majesty, magic is neither good nor bad in itself, but a sending is evil in its nature, always. How you will use what I have taught is your own affair—but ask me no more about sendings. I implore you, ask me no more.”

  “Oh, but I must,” replied the Queen prettily. “I simply must ask, since you have so aroused my curiosity. And you must tell me, good Lanak.” They stared at each other, and I think there was something in Lanak’s eyes that made the Queen add, “Of course, I have no intention of ever using such a thing. You are my master, after all, and I take your words most seriously. That is why I would hear all of them. All of them, Lanak.”

  So Lanak taught her about sendings.

  It took him more than two weeks: still far less time than it should have, when you consider the memorizing alone, never mind the embarrassing rituals, the herbs that have to be gathered and cooked into stinking brews, the merciless disciplining of your mind—and all that for a single sending! But the Queen took it in as though it were no more than another lesson in predicting the sex of a child or the best month for planting. Truly, she was a remarkable woman, that one, and no mistake.

  At the end, she said, “Well, Lanak, you have indeed kept your word, and I will keep mine. You may depart for home and hearth this very moment, if you desire, though I would be truly honored if you chose to dine with me this one last night. I do not imagine that we will meet again, and I would do you tribute if I may. Because I may have mocked you somewhat at times, but never when I call you master.” And she looked so young when she said this, and so earnest and so anxious, that Lanak could do nothing in the world but nod.

  That night the Queen served Lanak a dinner such as he never had again in his life, and he lived to be very old and more celebrated than he liked. They drank a great deal of wine together—yes, you are quite right, Chashi, the vineyards of this province have always supplied the black castle—and both of them laughed more than you might think; and Lanak even sang a few bars of an old song that the folk of Karakosk sing about their rulers in Fors na’Shachim, which made the Queen laugh until she spilled her drink. Nevertheless, when Lanak went off to his quarters, he was dreadfully, freezingly sober, and he knew that the Queen was, too. He turned in the doorway and said to her, “Above all, remember the very last word of the spell. It is a sure safeguard, should anything go ill.”

  “I have it perfectly,” answered the Queen. “Not that I would ever need it.”

  “And remember this, too,” Lanak said. “Sendings call no one master. No one.”

  “Yes,” said the Queen. “Yes. Good night, Lanak.”

  Lanak did not go to bed that night. By candlelight he carefully folded the clothes that Dwyla had packed for him—how long ago!—and put them back into his traveling bag, along with the gifts and little keepsakes that he had bought for her and their daughter, or been given for them by the Queen. When he had finished, the moon was low in the east, and he could hear a new shift of guards tramping to their posts on the castle walls. But he did not lie down.

  If you had been there, you would have watched in wonder as he wrapped his arms around his own shoulders, just as precisely as he had packed his bag; and even if you missed the words he murmured, you would have seen him stand up on his toes—a little too high, you might have thought—and then begin to spin around in a curious way, faster and faster, until he rose into the air and floated up toward the arched ceiling, vanishing into a corner where the candlelight did not go. And how he remained there, and for how long, I cannot say.

  By and by, when all the candles save one had burned out, and every other sound in the black castle had long been swallowed by other high, cold corners, there came the faint scratching of claws on stone in the corridor just outside his door. There was no rattling of the knob, no trying of the lock—which Lanak had left unturned—there was simply a thing in the room. The shadows by the door concealed it at first, but you would have known it was there, whether you could see it or not.

  It took a step forward, halfway into the shivering light. It stood on two legs, but looked as though it might drop back down onto four at any moment. The legs were too long, and they bent in the wrong places, while the arms—or front legs, whichever they were—were thick and jointless, and the claws made them look too short. There were rust-green scales glinting, and there was a heavy swag to belly and breast—like a sheknath, yes, Gri, but there was a sick softness to it as well, such as no one ever saw on a living sheknath. It was not dead, and not alive, and it smelled like wet, rotting leaves.

  Then it took another step, and the candlelight twitched across its face. It was the face of the Queen.

  Not altogether her face, no, for the delicate features had blurred, as though under layers of old cobwebs, and the rusty skin of it seemed to be running away from her eyes, like water crawling under a little wind. But there were tears on it, a few, golden where the light caught them.

  In the darkness, Lanak spoke very quietly. “I have done a terrible thing.” The Queen, or what remained of the Queen, turned ponderously toward his voice, her blank black eyes searching for him. Lanak said, “But I saw no other way.”

  The creature lifted its ruinous head toward the sound, so that Lanak could see for the first time just what had happened to the Queen’s hair. The mouth was squirming dreadfully, showing splintery brown teeth, and the eyes had grown suddenly wide and deadly bright at the sound of his voice.

  “A terrible thing,” Lanak said again. “There was no need for me to mention sendings, knowing you as I do. I knew very well that you would command that I teach you to summon them, and that you would set about it as soon as I was out of your sight. For whom this first one was meant, I have no idea. Perhaps for the Council in Suk’kai, over the hills—perhaps for the Jiril of Derridow—perhaps even for me, why not? Sendings call no one master, after all, and you might easily feel that it mi
ght be safer to silence me. Was that the way of it, Majesty?”

  The Queen-thing made a sound. It might have melted your bones and mine with terror, or broken our hearts, who can say? Lanak went on. “The last word of the summoning. I did not lie to you, not exactly. It is indeed a ward against the sending—but not for the sender. Rather, it balks and nullifies the entire enchantment by protecting the target itself against the malice of the enemy. Thus you set your arrow to the string, and let it fly, and struck it aside, all in the same spell. My doing.” His voice was slow and weary, I should imagine.

  “But sendings call no one master. I did warn you. Finding itself thwarted from its very birth, it turned back in fury toward its source and its one home—you. And when it could not unmake itself, could not reunite with the soul from which it was spun, then it chose to merge with your body, as best it might. And so. So.”

  Somewhere in the town a cock crowed, though there was no sign of morning in the sky. The Queen-thing lumbered this way and that, looking up at Lanak in raging supplication. He said heavily, “Oh, this is all bad, there is no good in it anywhere. I do not think I will ever be able to tell Dwyla about this. Majesty, I have no love for you, but I cannot hate you, seeing you so. I cannot undo what you and I have done together, but what I can I will do now.” He spoke several harsh words, pronouncing them with great care. If there were gestures to accompany them, of course these could not be seen.

  The Queen-thing began to glow. It blazed up brighter and brighter, first around its edges and then inward, until Lanak himself had to shut his eyes. Even then the image clung pitilessly to the inside of his lids, like the sticky burning the Dariki tribesmen make in their caves south of Grannach Harbor. He saw the outlines of the Queen and her sending, separate and together at once: her in her pride and beauty and cunning, and the other—that other—embracing her in fire. Then it was gone, but I think that Lanak never really stopped seeing it ever again. I could be wrong.

  The room was indeed growing a bit light now, and the cock outside was joined by the wail of a Nounouri at his dawn prayers. There are a lot of Nounos in Fors, or there used to be. Into the silence that was not emptiness, Lanak said, “No one else will ever see you. I cannot end your suffering, but you need not endure it in the view of all men. And if a greater wizard than I can do more, I will send him here. Forgive me, Majesty, and farewell.”

  Well, that is all of it, and longer than I meant, for which I ask pardon in my turn. Lanak went home to Karakosk, to Dwyla and his daughter, and to his fields, his black beer, and his fireworks; and he did the very best he could to vanish from all other tales and remembrances. He was not wholly successful—but there, that’s what happens when you are too good at something for your own ambitions. But I will say nothing more about him, which would have made him happy to know.

  As for the Queen. When I was last in Fors na’Shachim, not too long ago, there were still a few street vendors offering charms to anyone bound as a guest to the black castle. They are supposed to protect you from the sad and vengeful spirit that wanders those halls even now. Highly illegal they are, by the way—you can lose a hand for buying and a head for selling. I myself have spent nights at the castle without such protection, and no harm has ever come to me. Unless you count my dreams, of course.

  THE TRAGICAL HISTORIE OF THE JIRIL’S PLAYERS

  To this day Lisonje will tell you that what happened in Derridow could have been avoided if I had only shown a little foresight and a little resolve. This from a woman whose incessant complaint for thirty years has been that I am perversely obsessed, if you please, with controlling every aspect of my company’s existence, from the permitted degree of offstage contact with local citizens to exactly how many times a week we will rehearse The Blind King or The Comedy of the Three Priests. Now if I draw certain lessons from a lifetime spent, as often as not, in teetering on two planks set on two muddy trestles in a barnyard, yelling out poetry, and attempt to apply them as seems wisest and most professional to me, how does that make me a fussy, finicking, carping, domineering old scold of a tyrant? Ask Lisonje.

  And yet she sees no contradiction at all in proclaiming that I should have been more decisive twenty years ago in Derridow! There’s no reasoning with a woman like that, nor any chance of winning if there were; and the gods know there would be no living or working with her if she weren’t—when properly cast and in the right humor—very nearly as good as she thinks she is. One has to keep one’s temper firmly in hand and remember that you still won’t see a soul—not south of Leishai, at any rate—whose Lady Vigga or Sul’yarak comes anywhere near hers. No, I’ll go further, if I must, and whisper that even at her age she can give you a flawless, flawless Mistress Haja four times out of five. That I’ll never tell her, not on my deathbed; but you’re a showman yourself, you know this life. Children, the best of them. Especially the best of them.

  You do know my company? Ah. Ah, well, I don’t know yours either. Sad, really reprehensible when you think about it—here we are, two troupers, experienced managers both, two battle-tried veterans of hauling wagonloads of gifted hysterics from one place to another, of having endlessly to coax and cozen the most common civilities out of them, let alone anything like a performance. And yet we’ve never crossed paths, nor even heard of one another before this evening. Sad, sad, too few like us these days. Your health, colleague.

  No, no, I’m ashamed to admit we don’t perform the classic repertoire as much as we’d choose. Not but what we could—you’ll find no one in my company, down to the lowest apprentice, who doesn’t have his Jurai or her Shaska by heart, scene for scene, role for role. I won’t have it otherwise, and they know it. We may have come down somewhat in the world, if you will; we may spend season after dusty season touring the same unspeakably dreary, benighted, plague-ridden provincial towns, but our standards are only the higher for it, I can assure you. We could play The Horseman’s Tragedy tonight, on ten minutes notice, even Lisonje would say so. Yes, she would.

  But no one will ask us for The Horseman’s Tragedy, or any such masterwork, not in this filthy wilderness. Oh, yes—on occasion we may still find ourselves engaged by some guild or other, some city council, even some minor lordling, to put on The Fishermen’s Rebellion or The Marriage of the Wicked Lord Hassidanya; for the rest, we plod along, staging our country farces of priests and adulterers, our stupendously inaccurate histories, our monumentally absurd sagas of heroes who never existed. Lisonje and I, in fact—well, and Trygvalin, our overage juvenile, and Nususir, who plays all our old wives, nurses, and sibyls, because Lisonje won’t touch those—by now we four are the only ones left in the company who remember another sort of existence. I don’t fault the others for falling away, mind you, not at all, don’t misunderstand me. One lives as one can; who knows that better than I? Loyalty, friendship, a certain sense of community—should such things stand in the way of a chance to play blind King Bel’ryak or the wizard Khyr, on something a bit grander than a few tables pushed together? Who am I to judge? All I can say is that I am humbly thankful I wasn’t raised to abandon comrades, fellow artists, at the first inconvenience, the first temptation. But there, never mind, I wish them all success, and may they enjoy it in good conscience. The lot of them.

  Derridow, Derridow. You wouldn’t be familiar with the place, of course….no, no reason why you should, not these days. And you with your own theatre in the Old Keep right here in Fors na’Shachim itself, only touring when you choose, imagine. Well, Derridow’s a handsome city still—all those archways and gardens, they won’t have changed anyway—but I wonder whether one would still feel that certain tingle, coming in along the Queen’s Road, that certain sense that anything was possible, that one’s life could change quite surprisingly at any moment. Not that it’s ever been a place of real consequence, like Fors, or a wild, wide-open stew like Bitava—even so, you wouldn’t have mistaken it for any other town, nor wished to be somewhere else while you were there. Dear, dear Derridow. Certainly would be n
ice to be able to go back.

  Well. As you likely won’t know, twenty-odd years ago things in Derridow were a good deal different from what they are today. The old Jiril was still alive, for one thing, and still well able to keep his four quarrelsome sons from tearing one another to pieces, and the town with them. A decent man, I always thought him, the Jiril—killed people only when he thought it really necessary, and never tortured them, didn’t believe in it. Hard to imagine what more you can ask from the nobility. And a true lover of the theatre with it, an open hand to any troupe passing through Derridow. Acrobats, tragedians, Leishai dancers, knockabout clowns, they all played for the Jiril’s pleasure and applause, and dined magnificently with us afterward—his cook Deh’kai was the best I’ve ever known—in his great hall at the high table. A real enthusiast, bless his bad teeth and dyed black beard. I don’t blame him in the least for what happened in Derridow.

  “Dined with us?” Did I say that? Ah, forgive me—I thought I’d schooled myself out of all such foolish nostalgia. But yes, it’s quite true. We were the Jiril’s personal resident company—a full six years, the Jiril’s Players, we had a charter—and consequently we were always on display at his banquets in honor of any show folk passing through town. We performed for him on command, of course, but our principal concern for those six seasons was mounting plays to which the Jiril might enjoy bringing his family. His wife, the Jirelle, invariably fell asleep at anything but the loudest and bawdiest of farces; but strangely enough, all four of those strutting, swaggering, brawling boys of his were as devoted to the theatre as their father. If I had known—no, no, you’ll have to forgive me again, I’m sounding like the Prologue to some melodrama or other, and I never could abide Prologues. I didn’t know, and I couldn’t have known, and I did the best I did know at the time, and this is what happened. Mmm—yes, thank you, why not? Your health.