The Lawrence Watt-Evans Fantasy

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Merek’s alcoholic courage abruptly vanished. He was a fair swordsman, but surely no match for a wizard. He sought to delay. “Very well, but as the challenged, I claim the right to choose time and place.”

  “Granted, if they be in the city and ere dawn.”

  That demolished any hope of significant delay, and Merek, placing his faith in the Pad’s mysterious plan, said, “Then I choose the temple steps at sunset.”

  “Done. My men shall assist you.”

  Merek found himself escorted roughly from the room. As he was led to a cell to await evening, he consoled himself with the thought that he had obeyed the Pad’s instructions – and it rather appeared that it would cost him his life.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile, the Pad had found no means of escape, and confronted the three priests in a fighter’s stance, dagger in hand.

  “Who are you that enter here unbidden? Do you come from Garl?”

  The Pad made no answer, but straightened a bit. Had he perhaps assumed too quickly that these holy men were his enemies? The priest’s tone held no love for his sorcerous overlord.

  “Answer us, man. We shall not harm you. We are not armed.”

  Still slightly suspicious, the Pad sheathed his dagger.

  “Why do you not speak? Have you no tongue?”

  The Pad made a motion with his head which the priests took as confirmation. They looked at one another.

  “Surely Garl would not send a mute!”

  “Are you from Garl?”

  The Pad shook his head vigorously.

  “Are you perhaps a thief, then?”

  Again, no.

  “Then what do you here?”

  The Pad motioned toward the temple door.

  “What would you in the temple?”

  “Do you not know that Garl has sealed it?”

  “Even we are no longer admitted; it is Garl’s punishment to us that we live ever near the temple unable to enter.”

  The Pad looked at them quizzically. Then he drew his dagger again and stepped to the door.

  The priests crowded around him and watched in amazement as he drew an assortment of curious implements from a pouch on his belt. First, he wedged the dagger into the crack as far as it would go, so that the door would spring open when the lock released, and also so that the cold iron would interfere with the magical seal. Next he produced a succession of lockpicks, and tried each in turn until a deep, satisfying click was heard. Thus encouraged, he tried the door, which still refused to budge. He reached again into his pouch, and when his hand emerged it held a gleaming silver talisman in the shape of a key that bore the stamp of the Thieves’ Guild of Thalasme. This was one of his most prized possessions, and had brought him many a rare treasure from magically-sealed vaults – which had cost many a magician his job. It glittered brightly in his hand and he gazed at it silently for a moment. Then, with carefully-learned gestures taught him by his father, he directed it at the door and to the astonishment of the priests intoned a slow, deep chant.

  He concluded the chant with no visible effect, but now the priests were praying, a chant of their own, calling for the omnipotent Spirit to aid this little house-breaker. The Pad did not interrupt; who could better assist him in entering the Spirit’s own temple?

  The prayer droned on, and just as the Pad’s hopes began to fade, a shiver ran through the heavy door. With a sudden snap it sprang open, and his dagger clattered to the floor. He snatched up his weapon and sped through the opening; the priests, with a cry of joy, followed him.

  Inside, a spiral staircase led up to a balcony; from there, the Pad could see the entire interior of the temple. It was a single great room, stretching out a hundred yards before him, dim and grey with incense, which hung in curiously motionless clouds about him. Candles burned with an oddly steady flame along the walls, and bright carpets lined the floor.

  On one of these carpets knelt a handsome young couple, completely motionless, apparently praying.

  The Pad stopped abruptly; how could there be living people in here? The temple had been sealed since Garl’s usurpation two years earlier; no one could have entered, and surely the King and his bride must have starved to death long ago!

  Or had they? Perhaps one could not starve in the Temple of Life; the Pad had heard that said, but always took it to refer to the famous munificence of the priests toward the poor. Could it be that the saying had a more literal significance?

  Carefully, he stepped down from the balcony, and moved toward the worshippers. They were richly dressed and wore coronets, and they took no note of his approach. The Pad began to suspect that the temple was as frozen as the Broken Stone, save only that no ice and cold were manifest here.

  The deathly silence was broken abruptly from behind, and the Pad whirled to see the priests on the balcony beginning a solemn chant. Ignoring them, he turned back to the west, and moved swiftly past the kneeling pair to the great golden doors. As he neared them, he fancied he could hear the sounds of an excited crowd outside, and he remembered his instructions to the captain.

  * * * *

  Merek stood terrified on the steps of the Temple of Life, sword in hand, as the wizard took a few practice swings at the air. The crowd muttered about him, and the catcalls were heard directed at both sides.

  Merek suddenly found himself propelled forward, his sword-arm raised, and heard the wizard speak.

  “Well, captain, you seem less eager for combat now. Come, cheer up! I’ll even let you have the first blow. Go ahead; let the battle begin!”

  Summoning his nerve, Merek swung powerfully, and to his amazement saw his blade strike home – and glance off the sorcerer’s bare neck.

  The necromancer laughed. “Fool! Now you see part of my mastery! Where other men suffer and die, I cannot! I am immortal!” Then there was no time for words, as swords met and clashed.

  The battle raged, Merek taking only defensive measures; what profit lay in striking at impervious flesh? He chose instead to simply try and prolong the battle, and therefore his life, as long as possible. Small wounds soon appeared on his arms and forehead, and as blood obscured his vision he gave ground and silently began his death-prayer.

  * * * *

  Inside the temple, the Pad tugged at the golden portals; they had neither handle not lock, and seemed free to move, yet utterly refused to do so. The priests’ chant droned on until all the temple seemed to ring with it. It echoed and throbbed and became impossibly loud, making the Pad’s head swim. Then one candle seemed to flicker; then another, and the clouds of incense swirled sluggishly. The king stirred slightly, and now, untouched, the doors that had yielded not at all to the Pad’s strength began to inch inward.

  * * * *

  Merek was trapped; there was nowhere he could run, for the crowd encircled the steps. He backed against the wall of the shrine, his blade desperately parrying the wizard’s blows.

  A movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention, while his body automatically continued to fight. Yes, it was true! The temple doors were opening! The instant he saw a gap in the web of steel that his opponent wove about him he dove through it, and through the widening space between the great gold valves.

  With a cry, the wizard followed, and though none saw the blow, all saw the robed figure falter, then collapse forward, to lie motionless with the hilt of the Pad’s dagger protruding from his back.

  Merek dropped his unbloodied sword and staggered out again into the fading dusk, and immediately behind him came a wondering young king and his beautiful bride. A stunned silence fell upon the crowd, quickly broken by a shout that grew into a roar of acclamation.

  As the royal couple were borne away by the cheering crowd, Merek and the Pad remained standing over the strangely unimpressive corpse of the dead necromancer. With a grimace, the smaller man bent and pulled his dagger free, muttering,
“sixteen.” He wiped his blade and sheathed it, as a priest joined them.

  “I don’t understand,” declared Merek, puzzling over the wizard’s body. “He was invulnerable.”

  “No,” said the priest softly. “He had reversed nature, so that he was invulnerable where other men are not; but here in the Temple of Life, no ordinary man can suffer or die. Thus it was here alone that he could be slain. That is why his first action was to seal it; he knew it held the power to destroy him.”

  Merek gazed at the priest for several minutes, but made no answer.

  Four days later the Broken Stone set sail, a good wind to her back and her holds full with supplies that were the gift of a grateful monarch. The ice had melted quickly in the sun and had left the crew unharmed; Elihaniku was free once more, at his accustomed place on the poop.

  Merek was pleased to be at sea again, and almost completely recovered from his fight, but one question remained to trouble him. When he was sure that the sails were properly set and the helmsman sure of his course, he asked Elihaniku, “Old man, you were imprisoned from the first; how did you know what the Pad and I should do?”

  Elihaniku paused before answering, then said, “Does it not seem to you that such a vast temple must have more than three priests?”

  “I had not thought of it.”

  “Ah! You should think of everything.”

  “Forgive me, old man, but I cannot. How does a lack of priests account for your knowledge?”

  “Have you no wit at all? There was a priest imprisoned in the next cell who told me all. And better company than I have here, he was!”

  Leaning on the rail beside them, the Pad grinned.

  MEHITABEL GOODWIN

  In the Year of Grace 1689, in the town of Berwick, in the County of York, in the Province of Maine, in the Colony of Massachusetts, Thomas and Mehitabel Goodwin were fully four years wed, and yet their first child was still an infant. God had not hurried to bless their union.

  That made the babe all the more precious to them, of course. That which is easiest in the getting is esteemed least.

  And by that standard, Mehitabel believed that surely every good thing in her life was dear beyond reckoning, for life in the New World was not easy.

  Her father and elder brother had been slain by the Indians in King Philip’s War when she was a girl, and she and her mother and her surviving brother Ichabod had all lived for years in fear of the Indians’ return—but the Indians had not troubled the town since. Mehitabel had grown strong and comely, and ten years after her father’s death she had gone happily to Thomas Goodwin’s home, her fears forgotten.

  The soil was poor and rocky, hard to plow and yielding its fruits reluctantly—but Mehitabel and Thomas worked the land patiently, and in time the crops came, augmented by the game Thomas took in his hunting.

  The winters were long and cold, but Thomas had built their home sound and snug, and Mehitabel kept the fire well.

  And because she had lost her father and brother, Mehitabel loved Thomas the more; because the land was hard, the fruits were sweet; because the winters were harsh, the warmth of the hearth was all the more welcome.

  And because he had been so long in arrival, Mehitabel thought all the world revolved about her blessed Roger, that in all the history of the world only holy Mary herself had had a finer babe.

  It was for that reason that she would not leave him in the house while she worked in the field, scraping weeds and stones from the soil, inspecting the vines for any sign of blight or rot. Instead, she kept him on her arm, placing him carefully on the ground when the task to be performed called for both hands.

  He was not yet crawling, though he would be soon, so she had no fear that he might wander off while she worked. He would stare up at her, or at the sky or the surrounding plants, with oh, such a serious expression, and then he would smile and gurgle and wave his arms about in the delight of being alive.

  And she would smile back at him, set her hoe aside and tickle his chin.

  She had just done that, kneeling beside him and asking, “Whose little blessing are you?” when a shadow fell across his face.

  She looked up, startled. She had heard tales of eagles carrying off infants, and though she did not fully believe such tales, and had not seen an eagle in years, her first thought was to look to the sky.

  The sky above was blue and almost cloudless, without a bird in sight—but a man stood before her, and it was his shadow that had darkened her baby’s face.

  He was clad in soft undyed deerskin from neck to toe, decorated with beads and bits of shell; his head was bare, with no decent hat to shield him from the sun, and his face was brown. His hair was black and coarse, not the soft brown or blond of an Englishman. His nose was crooked.

  The Indians had returned.

  Any thought she might have had that this might be a party come to parley, or to trade, vanished in an instant when she saw the man’s face. His cheeks were daubed with paint, and his expression fierce beyond anything Mehitabel had ever imagined on a human visage.

  “Oh, dear Lord, protect me,” Mehitabel said.

  Then the man, the Indian, reached down and grabbed her by the arm, hauling her to her feet, and she saw that he was not alone.

  Thomas was out hunting; Mehitabel had been hoping for venison for that night’s supper. Their home was at the northernmost end of the village of Berwick, and she was a hundred yards north of the house; there was no one she could call to for help as the Indian dragged her from the field.

  A second Indian snatched up her baby, and brought him along as well. Roger, startled and unhappy that this stranger was handling him, began wailing, but his captors paid no attention.

  Mehitabel called out, “My baby!”

  Her captors ignored that, as well.

  In the distance, Mehitabel heard a woman scream. She turned, and saw more Indians, dragging someone. The two parties were converging, and heading north, into the wilderness.

  A moment later Mehitabel recognized the other captive—Mary Plaisted, wife to Mehitabel’s brother Ichabod. She was struggling, thrashing about, cursing her captors in a way that shocked and amazed Mehitabel.

  “Mary!” Mehitabel called.

  Mary turned and saw her.

  “They threw my daughter in the river!” she called back, still struggling. “Mehitabel, help me, they threw Margaret in the river!”

  Mehitabel stared at her sister-in-law for a moment, then wrenched free of the hands that held her and snatched at her own child.

  They would not throw Roger in the river, not while there was breath in her body!

  The Indian holding Roger lifted him up, out of Mehitabel’s reach; Roger squalled anew, and two men grabbed Mehitabel and dragged her back.

  “Give me my baby!” she cried.

  The Indians paid no attention—but one of them said something in his own tongue, and pointed.

  Mehitabel turned, and saw the great oak that marked the northern boundary of the Goodwin lands, and of Berwick. A man was standing under it—an Indian, but one dressed differently from the warriors. The man under the tree was smaller and older than the others, and instead of buckskin he wore a bearskin robe. Bones and feathers were woven into his hair and hung on cords around his neck, and his black hair was streaked with gray. A small drum was slung on one hip, and a good-sized black bird perched on one shoulder.

  For a moment Mehitabel thought the bird was dead, but then it turned its head to look at her, and she blinked in astonishment. It was a crow, and very much alive.

  A live crow, standing on a man’s shoulder?

  It was not large for a crow—Mehitabel had taken it for some lesser bird at first—but it was a crow.

  This, she realized, must be a wizard—every Indian tribe had its own wizard, she knew, who served as priest and doctor to his people. Some of the townsfo
lk mockingly called them “medicine men,” since the Indians seemed to make no distinction between the medicines that God had provided and the magic that was a snare of Satan.

  The wizard called out something to the warriors, and a moment later Mary and Mehitabel stood side by side beneath the oak, facing the old man.

  He stank; the bear hide still carried the thick reek of bear, and the wizard had rubbed himself with some sort of grease that added a stench of its own.

  “You will come with us,” the wizard said. “You will walk on your own feet.”

  “Give me my baby!” Mehitabel demanded.

  “A baby will slow you,” the wizard replied. “And we would have no more Englishmen growing up in this land—your men should all go back to England, whence they came.”

  “Roger was born here,” Mehitabel protested. “His father was born here, I was born here, my father was born here! This is our home!”

  “This was Penobscot land before your fathers were born, Englishwoman, and before their fathers came across the sea,” the wizard replied. “Further, the babe’s cries are unpleasant to my ears.” He said a word in his own tongue to the warrior who held Roger.

  Mehitabel screamed and struggled, but she could not free herself in time; the Indian shifted his grip, lifted Roger up by his feet, then swung the screaming infant so that his head smashed against the thick trunk of the oak.

  The screams stopped abruptly; a horrible silence fell.

  The warrior holding the dead child looked questioningly at the wizard; he, in turn, glanced thoughtfully up at the oak branches above him. He said something in his own language, then addressed Mehitabel in English.

  “Your babe shall serve as a reminder that the English are not welcome here,” he said. “You and your man shall have the pleasure of seeing it whenever you walk this road.”

  As he spoke, the warrior was climbing the oak and clambering out on one of the larger limbs. There, he wedged the dead child into a fork, leaving it dangling limply.

  Mehitabel screamed, and pulled free at last of the arms that held her. She ran forward, then fell to her knees and stared up at Roger.