The Only Wizard in Town

by Heide Goody

  “Tanit yanera,” said Clive.

  “You might need a new bard,” said Bez, “but not me. Now, if you like the pictures, I could paint you a fine portrait. Portrait? Bumfada?”

  Queen Susan gave this some thought. “Yanadik tanatik?” she said and pointed at Merken.

  “Rantallion Merken. A great warrior.” Bez made a pantomime of flexing his muscles. “He’s leading us on a quest into the Foesen’s tomb. Pimpota cov.”

  There was a sudden and prolonged flurry of mutterings between Susan and her advisor.

  “Lethota dik?” said Clive. There was angry hissing from the amassed grimlock warriors.

  “Ah, yes.” Bez turned to Merken. “He points out a raiding party was slaughtered by men such as yourself by the banks of the river above.”

  “What of it?”

  “Dik a sethera.”

  “The queen’s two brothers, including the king, were among those killed.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Merken. “Well, do tell her we had absolutely nothing to do with that and we’re offended by the very suggestion—”

  “Hov a dik bumfera.”

  “And the queen would like to thank the man who cleared her path to the throne,” said Bez.

  “Oh.” Merken did his best to offer a gallant smile to the vile grimlock queen, which wasn’t easy. It was as improper as shaking hands with a beggar, or stealing a kiss from a princess. Gears of social custom ground against each other as he forced his mouth into a vaguely amicable rictus. “Then that would be me.”

  “Teth a dik?” said Queen Susan.

  “Teth a dik!” Clive assured her.

  “Now, I’m sure the queen is grateful,” said Merken, “and will let us on our way with our belongings – starting with that.” He clicked his fingers and held out his hand to be given the velvet pouch.

  Queen Susan, misunderstanding the gesture, reached out and took Merken’s hand in hers. Merken shuddered at the touch.

  “Dikada yan taner,” she said.

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Bez. “A great man indeed. Scourge of the plains. This is the man who single-handedly conquered the island of Abrelia, yeah?”

  “Ik?”

  “Yes, just him, with nothing but words – a battle cry – and some waggling of his sword, I’m sure.”

  “Cov tana?”

  “I know. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you? He may look like a gin-soaked granddad and, yes, I’m surprised he’s still got all his own teeth—”

  “Oi,” Merken growled.

  “—but he’s as strong and as virile as any man. You won’t find better.”

  “You’re not lining me up to go in their cooking pot, are you?” muttered Merken.

  “Not exactly,” whispered Bez with a crooked smile.

  Queen Susan shuffled aside on her throne and patted the seat next to her. Merken stared at it.

  Queen Susan’s eyes jiggled in a most alarming fashion, as though they were trying somehow to escape her face. Merken feared this was the grimlock equivalent of seductively fluttering one’s eyelashes. He found this doubly alarming given that the closest he’d come to any woman – any female – making advances at him in recent years was his infuriatingly pleasant and tolerant wife giving him an extra sausage for breakfast and a peck on the cheek.

  “Yanada hovera dik dik,” said Clive.

  “The last bard recounted a tale of a princess and a frog,” translated Bez. “A familiar tale involving a kiss and a magical transformation.”

  Merken grimaced. “If she thinks she’s going to get a damned kiss from me and magic her into something less hideous, she’s got another think coming.”

  “No, you misunderstand,” said Bez. “In this situation, she’s the princess.”

  “What?”

  Merken saw the cruel smile on Bez’s face.

  “What are you grinning about?”

  “I just think it’s refreshing to meet a woman who’s happy with her looks. Totally confident in her own skin.”

  9

  Merken had spent less than a quarter of an hour on the throne, squashed up next to the leathery baggage which was the grimlock queen, but it felt as if it had been so much longer. There was scarcely enough room for the two of them and each time he shuffled to make some distance between them, the wooden chair creaked warningly. The prospect of it breaking at the seams and spilling them both on the floor was very real. Merken found it increasingly appealing.

  Bez was down by the fire pit, struggling with the simultaneous tasks of translating Queen Susan’s utterances, painting a portrait of the monarch and fending off the various grimlocks who were showing a distinctly hands-on interest in his art.

  “Hov ik pimper,” said Queen Susan.

  Bez pushed away an overly curious grimlock and righted his makeshift easel. “Her majesty says the occasion is to be celebrated with a feast.”

  “The occasion?” said Merken.

  “Your, er, coming nuptials.”

  It was almost enough to make Merken leap from his seat, but he was master of his damned emotions, not the other way round. There was no point getting oneself killed over pride. With any luck, Lorrika would have the wizard freed by now and – assuming the damned man had any concern for his daughter – they would be coming in at any moment: spells blazing, Cope ready to crack the skulls of any grimlocks who got in her way. Failing that he would think of something soon enough. He had brought down chieftains, satraps and revolutionaries. A filthy tribe of grimlocks shouldn’t be anything more than a minor inconvenience.

  A line of grimlocks marched in bearing more fuel for the fire on which the feast was clearly to be prepared. Damp logs, mulchy bundles of grass, rags and bones of those long dead, all went into the fire pit, sending up billowing clouds of steam and smoke, and a marshy funk which caught in the back of the throat.

  Bez coughed at the stink. A pair of enterprising grimlocks took advantage of his helpless hacking to pilfer some of his parchments and paints and, splodging their fingers in the jars of paint, began creating their own pictures.

  Recovered, Bez, who was treating his artwork with far more seriousness than it warranted, put a thoughtful thumb to his lips.

  “Your Majesty,” he called, “do you perhaps have a sceptre or similar which you could hold? You know, something to convey your supreme regalness?”

  “Cov diker?” said Queen Susan.

  “Peth a diker,” suggested Clive.

  “Yes, very much,” said Bez.

  Clive rootled through the pile of confiscated objects. Clive passed over Lorrika’s filthy little knives, gave a lump of chalk an experimental lick, briefly suggested Queen Susan try one of the lamps as a hat, and was about to toss Merken’s velvet bag aside when the soldier lashed out and snatched it from him.

  “Mine! You hear me?”

  Instantly, there were a dozen spear tips pressed up against Merken’s chest.

  “Nice work guards! That looks very good,” enthused Bez. “The bold guards gathered round. Do you think we could get more of them in the picture? Dikad tan?”

  Grimlocks shuffled in and stood to attention.

  “That’s right,” said Bez. “Let’s make a great scene of it.”

  Queen Susan had only eyes for Merken. She swung the velvet bag by one of its ties enticingly. “Hoverik seth?” she teased.

  “Yes. I would like it,” Merken replied.

  She leaned in closer. “A yanota?”

  “Can I have it?”

  Queen Susan puckered up. Merken understood.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Dikera?”

  “I don’t even kiss my own damned wife.”

  Susan held the bag over his hand. Mere inches from his grasp.

  Merken shot Bez a look. “This doesn’t make it into your painting, you hear me?”

  “What doesn’t?” said Bez innocently.

  Merken had once crawled through half a mile of clogged sewers to infiltrate the city of
Qir. He had climbed up Lord Protector Shallandar’s guarderobe to deliver a rather pointed message to the petty despot. He had dressed as a buxom kitchen wench in order to get into the king’s castle in Yarwich and suffered many slaps on the behind in the process. He had certainly made sacrifices in his life. This, he told himself, was just another.

  He closed his eyes and presented his lips for a chaste kiss. Queen Susan grabbed his head in both hands and smushed her fat lips across his entire jaw. The gross creature had a powerful sucking slurp, like the grip of a monstrous eel. For an instant, Merken thought she was going to suck his moustache clean off his face.

  Merken wrestled himself free and came up panting and spitting. He wiped slime from his whiskers and coughed.

  “Dikera,” said Queen Susan happily and plonked the pouch in his lap.

  “You!” said Bez, pointing at an idling grimlock. “Yes, you with the kettle on your head. Come in a bit. And look fierce.”

  Some damned grimlock spit had gone in Merken’s mouth. He spat and spat but there was no shifting the rotten taste. He felt violated and damned queasy.

  Clive, struggling under the weight, tried to hoist Cope’s sword onto Queen Susan’s lap. He half succeeded and managed to prop it up between her legs, so the filthy monarch could grip its hilt like a staff.

  “Figga?”

  “No, it’s a good look,” said Bez. “The warrior queen on her troubled throne. I like it. And let’s get more of you up there. Everyone crowd in behind. Hey—!”

  One of the amateur painters beside him had knocked over a metal pot of paint, spilling a puddle of brilliant blue on the floor. Bez snatched the paint away and grabbed up the others they had taken.

  “You can’t waste this stuff, you know! You think cerulean is easy to get hold of?”

  The grimlock waggled its tongue angrily and snarled. “Teth a letha!” it snarled and pointed contemptuously at Bez’s work.

  “They’re meant to be bigger than the ones behind,” snapped Bez. “It’s what we call perspective. Now: shove off!”

  The grimlock huffed and daubed what little paint it still had on its hands onto the page. The other grimlock, bereft of painting materials, looked around for fresh paint and, failing to find any, bit the end of its finger and splashed its own blood onto the paper. It seemed very pleased with the artistic results.

  “Pollok!”

  At least, that was how it seemed to Merken, but he was having trouble concentrating. The nausea he felt after tasting grimlock lips was growing and his eyesight blurring. Everything looked as if it was being viewed through several feet of water. The submerged feeling extended to his ears; everything was muffled and distant.

  “Ask them about the feathers!” Merken shouted down to Bez. He wasn’t sure why he asked. The words had bubbled up from within him on a whim.

  Bez didn’t hear. The two would-be grimlock artists had decided their chosen painting material was going to be each other’s innards and Bez was trying to keep their violent scuffle away from his easel.

  Merken turned to Queen Susan. Her fat face swam in and out of focus. What was it Lorrika had said about grimlock slime being poisonous, possibly even hallucinogenic?

  He pointed at the feathers inserted in her scalp. “Your feathers!” shouted Merken as loud as he could: his voice was coming from so far away. “Why? What are they for?”

  Clive, who was still investigating the confiscated items and currently sniffing at a large flask of lamp oil, looked at Merken. “Yaner yanad figga cov.”

  “It’s protection from death in battle,” said Bez. (Merken assumed it was the voice of Bez; concentrating on what was and what wasn’t was proving increasingly difficult). It must be Bez, he thought, or else my mind has learned how to translate grimlock very quickly.

  “The grimlocks scavenge battlefields,” translated Bez (possibly). “Rich pickings on a battlefield. They noticed those without armour were more numerous among the dead than those with. And so the grimlocks decided wearing armour was clearly beneficial.”

  “Astute of them to notice.”

  “Ah, but then King Colin – Susan’s predecessor and brother – noticed among the dead there were no individuals with feathers in their heads. It seemed only logical feathers were a better protection than any armour.”

  That sounded damned stupid. Merken knew it was damned stupid. But he couldn’t for the life of him work out why. The pink blotches wobbling across his vision distracted him and prevented him from thinking clearly. He tried to wave them away, but his fingers had turned into spindly sticks and wouldn’t do what he told them.

  “I think I poisoned be might,” he said, frowned, thought about it and declared with confidence, “I poisoned might I think be.”

  “I didn’t say you should kiss her,” said Bez. “Although we should all recognise lust is a powerful motivator.”

  “I wanna didn’t kiss her,” Merken retorted. He patted Susan amiably. “I wanna didn’t kiss you.”

  “Bumfera dik a seth,” said Clive.

  “Ah. Here comes the feast,” said Bez.

  Merken could well imagine what might pass for a feast among these creatures. Rotten funguses, skittering critters, the entrails of unfortunate rodents, all served up in a soup of pond scum. He fervently hoped the wizard, the thief and the warrior woman were moments away from rescuing them all.

  “Hello!” called Pagnell as he was carried in, strapped securely to a long roasting spit. “We got lonely so we thought we’d join you.”

  A gaggle of grimlocks carried in Lorrika and Cope on similar spits, the pole and the grimlocks straining beneath the warrior woman’s weight.

  “This’nt good,” slurred Merken. His tongue was taking on a life of its own.

  “You think?” said Lorrika. “We’re going to be eaten!”

  “Always about you, isn’t it!” said Bez. “We’re the ones who are going to have to eat you!”

  Queen Susan nudged Merken and passed him a flask, encouraging him to drink. Merken took it automatically. Any drink, however rank, would be preferable to the foul aftertaste of grimlock snogging which filled his mouth. However, the concentrated fishy pong from the flask was utterly repellent. Merken squinted at the vessel. It was the damned lamp oil!

  “This disn’t rink,” he muttered. Flashes of dreamy colour raced across his eyes. In amongst them was a thought, a half-formed plan which refused to settle or make itself known to his delirious mind. He tried to focus on it but the wizard, who was being positioned over the fire, made focussing increasingly difficult: shouting about not wanting to be cooked.

  “I am a great and powerful wizard!” he shouted at the grimlocks. “You do not want to harm me!”

  Advisor Clive danced and clapped his hands. “Tethota taner peth!”

  “Eating wizard flesh does not give you their powers!” yelled Pagnell. “That’s unsubstantiated rumour!”

  Pagnell, Merken decided, was a very annoying wizard. He would be quite pleased when the wizard had been cooked. That would silence the damned smug fool. Then Merken would be able to focus on some sort of plan…

  He presented the flask genially to Queen Susan.

  “Must some try, Majesty. S’lovely. It’s…” He screwed his eyes up, searching for the words in the mess of his increasingly jellified brain. “Hovata cova?”

  “Hovata cova?” she said.

  “A fine and delicious wine. Drink up, darlin’.”

  The grimlock queen upended the flask and drank. Grimlocks probably had cast iron guts, what with the filth they usually consumed. Merken was nonetheless surprised to see her chug down more than a pint or two of highly flammable oil.

  “Yes, let’s have you all gather round,” Bez was instructing the grimlocks. “All press in close. Let’s make it a busy scene. We want this painting to say: Here is the queen. Look at her surrounded by her loyal subjects in all their finery. Yes, get on his shoulders if you like. You too, grandma. Pimpa! Pimpa!”

  Queen Susan put down the
half-emptied flask and nodded reflectively like a true connoisseur. The fool Pagnell was blathering on about being painfully hot or something but Merken only had eyes and ears for the monarch.

  “Bumfad dikota,” she said.

  “’Tis. Yes,” agreed Merken.

  Her eyes bulged suddenly, and not as eyelashes all aflutter. The fish oil was plainly too much for even a grimlock’s constitution. Queen Susan hiccupped, mumbled something unhappy and threw up more than a pint or two of oil, all down herself, the throne, the pile of booty, and the floor.

  “Bumfot figg!” she exclaimed. Merken had no idea if it was horror, joy or indignation in her voice. His damned judgement, like his vision and co-ordination, was all but gone. He would have asked her but then the trickle of vomited oil reached the edge of the fire pit.

  The fire leapt up and out.

  Merken leapt too: dragging Cope’s longsword from between his betrothed’s legs as he bounded from the throne.

  Bez screamed.

  The fire exploded upwards along the trail of oil, billowing in sun-bright clouds of flame.

  Merken hit the floor hard. He twisted, ankle clicking as he landed; the pain would come soon enough, but not yet. As he turned, he saw Queen Susan, the half-full flask in her hand, her vomit-stained mouth open as she stared agog at the racing flames.

  She really shouldn’t have her mouth open, Merken thought.

  There was, figuratively and literally, an explosion of grimlocks. Jumping away from the conflagration or thrown by the exploding oil. Grimlocks went in every direction. A couple even flew straight up, making noises like surprised fireworks.

  Merken wasn’t looking; he was racing to free the others. Which wasn’t easy. Looking down through a treacle-blur, he was sure he was currently in possession of the wrong number of legs, and none of them would do what he wanted. But he had a sword, which was something.

  The grimlocks who had held Cope on her roasting spit dropped her in fright and she lay, trussed, on the ground. All Merken had to do was cut her free. He raised the sword.

  “Sir?” squeaked Cope in alarm.

  “There’s no need for alarm, Cope,” said Merken. Or that was what he attempted to say; something more along the lines of “No nee’fr’arm, Cups,” dribbled from his mouth.