The Lawrence Watt-Evans Fantasy

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Wait,” she whispered, but they were gone.

  She stayed at the surface for hours, staring out at the stone walls and the darkening evening sky outside the window, hoping they would return, but they did not, and at last she let herself sink back into the stone.

  For a night and a day she sulked and mourned, but at last she gathered herself together, telling herself that she would do no one any good with such behavior. She debated whether to resume her attempts at digging out the bottom of her home—her home, which had become her prison—or whether she would do better to stay near the surface, where she might catch the attention of any further intruders.

  Eventually she decided to do both, in alternation.

  She was pressed up against the surface, her eye to the slight imperfections in the wall to get the sharpest angle, trying to see through the door to the narrow little entryway, when she heard voices. She swallowed—or rather, did her immaterial equivalent—to be better ready to speak, and listened closely, hoping the speakers would approach.

  This time, she promised herself, she would not wait—she would call out as soon as she could to assure any visitor that she would not harm him. She strained to hear.

  The voices had been approaching, but now she heard one say, “I’m not going any closer! Duin said there was a monster in there, guarding the old wizard’s treasure!”

  It was a high-pitched voice, plainly audible through the glassless window, though she could not see the speaker. She had never heard a child before, but she guessed that this was a child.

  “Duin’s a liar,” the other voice, another child, replied. “If the wizard had a monster, would he have let the priest’s men catch him and burn all his things?”

  “Maybe the monster was sleeping,” the first voice said. “I don’t know. But Duin said he saw it—it had the face of a beautiful woman, but the body of a winged serpent, and it came right through a stone wall at him.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Maybe,” the first said, a little less certain. “But believe him or no, I’m not going in there. Even if there’s no monster, there could be traps.”

  “Or just snakes,” the other said. “Maybe that’s what Duin really saw, a snake in a hole, and he made up the woman’s face so we wouldn’t know he was scared of a mere snake.”

  “So are you going in to see if it’s a snake?” the first speaker challenged the second.

  For several long seconds there was no reply, and she held perfectly still, listening intently.

  “No,” the other said at last. “I guess not. It might be dangerous. I don’t believe in snake-women, but I guess there could still be something in there.”

  And then they turned away, and spoke of other things, as she called desperately after them, too quietly to be heard, “I am no serpent! I’m just a woman, alone in here, trapped!”

  They didn’t hear her, and then they were gone.

  She strained against the surface for several long minutes, but at last sank back into the stone, weeping in frustration.

  She lost track of the days after that. The sun rose and set, rain came and went, and in time the cold winter winds blew in through the empty windowframe, bringing white flakes that danced briefly in the air before settling into pale streaks in the dark ash on the floor. She struggled fruitlessly against the limits of her home, but could not break free; sometimes she sank into silent depression for days or weeks at a time. She often called out, as loudly as she could, but received no answer.

  And then one day, when the wind howled around the walls and snow was piling up on the sill, she heard a man’s voice, cursing. It was barely audible over the storm, but it was growing louder. He was at the door of the house, she was certain.

  Then he stopped cursing. “Hello!” he called. “Is anyone here? Am I intruding?”

  She hesitated. Her voice could not be heard over the wind, she was certain. She waited, at the very surface of the wall, plainly visible should he come inside the house and up the two steps from the entryway to the room that had once been the wizard’s home and study.

  She wished she could go down into the entryway to greet him, but the walls there were not of stone. They were mud and wood and plaster, and she could not enter them.

  “It would appear not,” the man said, more quietly. She listened, struggling to hear over the wind’s complaints.

  And she held very still as the man came inside—she could not hear his boots on the stone floor, but she could hear the difference in the wind when he pushed shut the broken remains of the exterior door that had hung open for so long.

  And then he stepped into the room, scuffing at the ash and snow, looking about curiously. He was a tall man, heavily built, with a thick black beard and curly black hair, clutching a sheepskin cloak tightly around himself.

  “Hello,” she said, and she smiled nervously, as broad and welcoming a smile as she could manage.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her, thunderstruck.

  “You’re welcome to stay here, if you like,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s such a mess.”

  He looked around at the empty windowframe and the gray ash.

  “It is, isn’t it?” he said. Then he took a few cautious steps toward her, and stared at her intently. “What are you?” he asked.

  She frowned helplessly, confused by the question. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m me.”

  “Are you a woman, then? Or something else?”

  She remembered conversations with the wizard, when he would reply to something she said with, “Of course you would say that, since you’re a woman,” or some similar remark.

  “I’m a woman,” she said.

  “Where are you?”

  Puzzled, she answered, “I’m right here, in the wall in front of you.”

  “You’re in the wall? Inside it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get there? Is it magic?”

  “The wizard put me here.”

  “The wizard?” He looked around, suddenly nervous. “What wizard?”

  “The wizard who used to live here. The villagers came and took him away, and left me here alone.”

  He relaxed. “He’s gone, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re trapped here?”

  “Yes!” He understood!

  He stroked his bearded chin. “Now, that’s interesting!”

  She hesitated, then asked, “Can you free me?”

  She wasn’t really sure what she would do if she were free; she didn’t really understand how people lived, what they did with themselves, what would become of her if she were out of the wall and free to move about as other people did. Still, it seemed the best possibility—she was so very tired of being alone here, trapped in the tiny world inside the wall. She had some concept of hunger and cold and pain, though she had never experienced any of them, and she knew that if she were freed she would probably suffer all those and more, but she could see through the window, could see the wide world, the vast sky, the days and nights, the changing seasons, and it all seemed so open and glorious that she was sure it would be better to suffer betimes out there in the wide world than to endure her lonely and limited existence in the wall.

  “I’m afraid not, my dear. I’m no wizard; I haven’t the slightest notion of how to free you.”

  “Oh,” she said sadly. “But will you stay here, then, and keep me company? At least for a little while?”

  “Oh, I’ll stay, have no fear,” he said. He gestured at the window. “At the very least, I’ll stay here until this storm ends.”

  “Of course,” she said, embarrassed and grateful. “I’d offer to help make you comfortable if I could, but I can’t do anything from in here.”

  “Well, you can talk,” the man said. “Can you tell me where I might find firewo
od?” He gestured at the fireplace in the end wall. “I’d like to warm the place up a little.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know. There may not be any left. The men who took the wizard away smashed or burned or stole just about everything.”

  “Just my luck,” the man muttered, pulling the sheepskin cloak more tightly about himself. He looked around, then said, “I’ll be right back.”

  She waited eagerly as he hurried down the two steps to the entryway, and out of her sight. She listened as he pried open the door, admitting the howling wind. A moment later she heard a distant crunching and crashing, then silence until he returned, stamping snow from his boots as he slammed the broken door.

  He held up his prize, two lengths of damp wood, a streak of snow still clinging to one. “From the fence,” he said. “Hope I can get it lit.” He tossed it into the fireplace, then squatted on the hearth, pulled out a tinderbox and a wad of kindling from somewhere under his cloak, and began building a fire.

  “It’ll be good to have some heat,” he said. “You must be freezing, in that light dress!”

  “No,” she said. “I can’t feel the cold.”

  He looked up at her, startled. “You can’t?” He turned his attention back to the fire. “Must be part of the spell. I suppose you don’t need to eat, or drink, or breathe, while you’re in there?”

  “That’s right.”

  He snorted. “Trust a wizard to find an easier way to keep a woman,” he said. He leaned forward and blew gently at the smoldering tinder; when it was burning satisfactorily he glanced up at her. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “I…I don’t know,” she said.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He considered her for a moment, then shrugged. “So be it, then.” He turned back to the fire, tending it carefully.

  She watched, fascinated. When the wizard had wanted a fire he had simply spoken a certain Word, and flame burst from wood laid in place by the homunculus. He hadn’t had to worry himself with all this painstaking effort.

  At last he sat back, gazing critically at the small, steady blaze he had achieved. He held out his hands, warming them before the flame.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “Reuel,” he said.

  “A pleasure to meet you, sir,” she said, curtseying—the wizard had always been fond of that effect.

  “By the good Lord,” Reuel said. “That looks very odd! It’s as if your body faded away, while your face bobs up and down.”

  “Oh,” she said, flustered by this reminder that Reuel was not at all like the wizard.

  He stared at her. “You can fade in and out, then? And appear anywhere on the wall?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He considered her silently for a moment, then said, “You asked if I could stay, to keep you company—you’re lonely?”

  “Very much so,” she admitted.

  “I think I might be persuaded to stay for a time, even after this storm has passed,” he said. “And I think I may bring you some other people to talk to, as well, if you’ll do as I say.”

  She blinked at him, unsure how to respond. Do as he said? She was trapped in the wall; what could she do?

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  He looked around. “I’ll need to clean this place up,” he said. “And a curtain would add to the effect…” He was talking to himself, not to her; she listened without replying, just enjoying the sound of a human voice.

  The storm died away by mid-afternoon; by evening Reuel had swept the ash, dust, and debris from the chamber, leaving only bare stone. The fire burned cheerily on the hearth, warming the room somewhat and melting away the snow that had blown in, though the stone remained chill.

  He stayed that night, and slept wrapped in his cloak on the bare stone floor in front of the fire. He talked to her before dozing off, telling her tales of lands he had seen, and listening to her own reminiscences about the wizard and his magic.

  In the morning he arose shortly after dawn, washed his face with snow, then told her, “I’ll be back soon,” and departed. She listened longingly to the fading crunch of his footsteps in the crusted snow as he trudged away; when at last she admitted to herself that she could no longer hear him she sank back into the wall to think.

  Would he really be back? He had said he would be, but she knew that men could lie.

  At least they had spoken the day and night before; their talk had given her strength. He hadn’t fled at the sight of her. Their conversation had been different from her conversations with the wizard, but in its way quite satisfactory. She was much reassured; even if he did not return as promised, she had hope for the future in the knowledge that others might yet take pleasure in her company.

  Night was falling when she heard a distant scraping and rose to the surface. Something was approaching, but the sound was not exactly footsteps; instead it sounded as if something large and heavy were being dragged through the snow.

  And in fact, when Reuel finally appeared in the doorway, it appeared he was dragging something large and heavy—an immense bundle. He dropped it in the entryway and began unwrapping it.

  She stared as he began hauling his treasures into the chamber.

  Rugs, and draperies, and cushions, a bedroll, two folding chairs and a little table—in a matter of minutes the chamber was furnished once again.

  It was nothing like the wizard’s chamber of old; there were no bell jars, no crowded shelves, no books nor scrolls, no oaken bedstead, no elaborate workbench with its dozens of drawers and compartments. There was no homunculus nor mummified crocodile, no herbs nor alembics, no scrying glass.

  Still, it was furnished.

  “That’s better,” Reuel said, looking over his handiwork.

  She clapped her hands silently. “It’s lovely!” she called. “I’m so glad you’re back!”

  He smiled at her, and doffed the black cap she had not until then noticed, making a sweeping bow. “The pleasure is all mine, milady,” he said. “I’ve spent every ducat I had, sold half my gear, and pledged my credit to the very limits of what the merchants would accept in order to equip this place appropriately, but I am quite certain that with your cooperation I shall swiftly earn back every bit of it.”

  Her own happy smile vanished, and she studied him uncertainly. “My cooperation? But what can I do, here in the wall?”

  “You, milady, can tell fortunes. I have spread the word in yonder village that I am a holy man, drawn here by my mystical knowledge, and that I have found the late unlamented wizard had confined spirits here, with whom I can speak. I propose to bring those interested in knowing the future here, where they, too, can be counseled by those trapped spirits—for a fee. You, milady, will of course play the part of the spirits.” He clapped his hat back on his head. “It would be even better if in fact you actually can see the future, or judge a man’s fate—can you?”

  “Of course not!” she said. “Reuel, I am glad you’re here, but I fear you’ve misjudged or misunderstood something. I am no wizard. I can’t tell fortunes!”

  “Certainly you can! It’s easy; I’ll teach you. You need merely speak in terms so vague they might mean anything, and then let the customer’s own words lead you on to the specifics. They’ll be so astounded by the wonder of speaking to an apparition such as yourself that they won’t notice any errors.”

  She hesitated. She was not sure she understood him—though she feared she did. “But it would be lies and trickery,” she said.

  “In a way, in a way,” he said, with a wave of dismissal.

  “I can’t do it,” she said unhappily.

  He frowned, then shrugged. “If you cannot, then you need merely appear on cue, speak nonsense or move your lips silently, and I will translate.
That will be just as effective, I’m sure.”

  “But it’s untrue!”

  “Who does it harm? ’Twill bring us all we need, and do no one any hurt. You’ll see, you’ll see—we’ll only be telling them what they want to hear.”

  “It’s still wrong,” she said, but with less certainty.

  The argument continued for a time, but after that they both knew he had won, and that she would do as he asked.

  That night he hung a curtain on the long wall, over the spot where she appeared most readily. She protested without effect. Her discomfort with his plans and with the presence of the curtain put a damper on their conversation.

  In the morning he departed for a time, leaving the curtain open, but then he returned—and not alone. She heard his voice outside the window, telling someone, “Wait here while I prepare; I’ll call you in when I’m ready.”

  “Reuel?” she called. Then she heard the door open—it creaked on its hinges now, in a way the wizard would never have permitted. Reuel’s footsteps entered, and then he was there on the steps, a finger pressed to his lips.

  She frowned at him, unhappy that he was determined to carry out his ruse.

  “Listen,” he said, “I want you to disappear, and then when I say, ‘spirits, come forth!’ you appear. Move your lips, but do not speak aloud. That’s all you need do this time. Will you do it?”

  “I don’t want to,” she said.

  He growled deep in his throat. “Do this for me, and I’ll stay, and we’ll talk in the evenings. Refuse, and I’ll go on my way and leave you here alone. It’s your choice.”

  She hesitated, and he demanded, “Well?”

  “I’ll do it,” she whispered.

  “Good!” He smiled broadly, not just with his mouth but with his eyes and cheeks and beard. “Then get out of sight until I call you.”

  She sank down into the wall, watching the gray stone close over Reuel’s face like gathering clouds—and she saw him close the curtain as well, shutting out the light.

  This was not right. And Reuel, while he smiled often and spoke freely with her, while he told fine stories, was not the man the wizard had been. He had not even thanked her for agreeing to perform on cue; the wizard almost always thanked her when she was of service to him.