The Fiorellis all looked at one another; Mary rose, and cautiously peered out through the small barred pane.
“It’s the bogle,” she said. “It looks scared.”
“Don’t let it in!” her father ordered.
“I won’t.” She unlatched the door and opened it a crack, but kept a foot behind it.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Ah, lass, a little peace!” the bogle said, trembling. “The world’s gone mad since I last roamed abroad! Great machines everywhere, roarin’ and shriekin’, and their stenches foulin’ the air, chargin’ doon the highways and flyin’ overhead, and flashin’ lights and shoutin’ people and every sort o’ noise imaginable brayin’ and wailin’ aboot…”
“It isn’t any better in here,” Mary said warningly.
“I know, lass—but could ye see your way clear to let me back in me trunk? I swear I’ll go back, you can lock me in—‘tis cramped, but ’tis better than this world o’ yours!”
“I don’t know…” She looked at her parents.
“Oh, all right,” her mother said.
Mary swung the door open, and the bogle dashed inside, heading straight for the basement.
A minute later it was securely locked back in its trunk.
“Maybe we should ship it back to Scotland,” Mary suggested, when she returned to the dinner table. “I feel a bit sorry for it.”
“Maybe,” her mother agreed.
“But on the other hand,” Mary said, “I bet no one else around here has a bogle in the basement!”
(Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, John Watt, who was raised just outside Dundee.)
THE MAN FOR THE JOB
The wizard Gallopius frowned and said, “You know, I wonder sometimes how it is that all these peculiar bits of wizardry one hears about in the legends wound up scattered about the countryside, stashed away in caves and dungeons and the odd mausoleum, rather than put away safe and secure in someone’s personal vault. When I make some especially puissant talisman, you can rest assured that I don’t go hiding it under an altar somewhere, or set some silly chimera guarding it. I keep it close at hand, where I can get my hands on it in a hurry should the need arise.” He pulled a thick volume from a shelf, dislodging a cloud of dust.
“Then do you have something we can use?” the tallest of his five visitors rumbled. “This dragon has to go, and my brothers and I…”
“And sister,” the only woman among the five interrupted. “I’m part of this too, Buk.”
Buk looked at his sister, grimaced, and said, “Yes, well, this dragon is making our lives miserable, and it’s plain we can’t get rid of it without some magical assistance. Do you have anything here we can use?”
The wizard’s frown deepened. “Well, not right here,” he admitted. “Our ancestors may have had strange notions about where to hide their magical kickshaws, but there’s no denying they knew more about how to make them than anyone alive today. I can whip you up a first-rate aphrodisiac or love philtre in a matter of hours, lay a curse of boils on all and sundry, but weapons fit for fighting a sixty-foot fire-breathing dragon? I’m afraid that’s beyond me. Haven’t a thing that would serve. A plague of boils would just make it mad.”
“But everyone in town said you could help us find what we need!” another of the brothers said.
“And indeed I can,” the wizard replied. “But I don’t have it here, and I can’t make it myself. That was the entire point in what I was just saying—I do know of something that should serve your purposes, but I’m afraid it’s one of those legendary bits of bric-a-brac that someone tucked away, for reasons I can’t begin to imagine, in an eccentric location.”
“A quest!” the shortest male among the five exclaimed. “By the Essence, a true quest! Glorious!”
“Oh, shut up, Akdar,” said the man who had not yet spoken. “We have a dragon to slay—who has time for quests?”
“We don’t appear to have much choice,” said Buk. “What is this legendary thing, and where can we find it?”
“It’s a helmet,” the wizard said. He thumped the immense book onto a handy table and opened it to a particular page, displaying an elaborate illustration. “The Helmet of Justice’s Balance, created by Biren the Obsessive in the reign of Oshwal the Third, some three hundred years ago. As you can see, it’s a great ugly thing with silver wings sticking out like oversized ears—you’d have to be a fool to wear something like that into battle if it weren’t enchanted.”
His guests clustered around the table and studied the picture; the lone woman had to shoulder her way between two of her siblings to get a look.
“Enchanted how?” Buk asked.
“I couldn’t say,” the wizard said. “At least, not the details. The text is amazingly vague, even more so than usual, about just what spell is on the silly thing. It does say, though, that its wearer is so transformed as to pass unrecognized by his own kin, that even a man’s own dog won’t know him whilst he wears this headgear—I’d say that implies some sort of concealment spell, suitable for creeping up on this dragon of yours, but the nature of the transformation is never specified. And it goes on to say that the wearer cannot be harmed by flame or blade, and shall not tire before his foe, and I think the utility of that in confronting your dragon should be obvious.” He picked up the book and slammed it shut, raising another cloud of dust.
“Is that all?” asked one of the men.
“That’s all it says,” the wizard answered. “But there’s no telling whether that’s the entire enchantment. These old wizards did the most astonishingly complex magic sometimes. If it does anything else, you’ll just have to find out for yourselves.”
The four men looked at one another, while the woman stared at the closed book.
“All right, if that’s the best you can do for us, where is it?” Buk asked.
“Just the other end of the valley,” the wizard said. “There’s an abandoned shrine there, a temple of the Old Reformed Cult of the Withering Light, and the legend says the helmet is somewhere in the shrine, defended by three guardians.”
“Three of them, four of us…”
“Five!” the woman snapped.
“Right, five,” Buk corrected himself. “Three of them, five of us—we should be able to manage that, even if one of us is just a girl!”
“Woman,” the woman said. “I’m twenty years old.”
Gallopius smiled crookedly. “Well, actually, I didn’t say the three guardians are individuals. The first is an enchanted hedge that grew up overnight and wrapped the entire temple in poisonous thorns.”
The four men looked at one another again.
“The second guardian is a dozen warriors from the infamous Isle of Kurderak.”
“A dozen?”
“Maybe we can sneak in,” the woman suggested.
“Maybe you can,” one of the others retorted. “Men don’t sneak.”
The woman looked at him for a moment, then said, “That’s stupid even for you, Filmar. Men sneak when they need to.”
“Never mind sneaking,” Buk said. “What’s the third?”
“The third guardian is a monster hound,” Gallopius explained happily. “Supposedly summoned from some Nether Realm, with poisonous fangs and the ability to smell your very thoughts.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It’s a quest, Filmar,” Akdar said. “It’s not supposed to be easy!
The wizard snorted. “You may be overestimating the difficulty,” he said.
All five looked at him. “How?” Buk asked.
“I’ll let you see for yourselves,” the wizard said. “I’d suggest you be on about it—it’s a good three miles, and it’s already past noon.”
Akdar laughed. “Three miles! A proper quest should cross a continent or two!”
> “We don’t want a proper quest,” the woman replied. “We want the dragon to stop eating our sheep and our neighbors, and the sooner the better.”
“Then let’s do as the wizard says and get on with it,” Buk said, turning toward the door. “Come on.”
“That’ll be three ducats for the consultation,” Gallopius said quickly.
“Pay him, Filmar,” Buk said.
Grumbling, Filmar obeyed.
* * * *
An hour and a half later the party of five stood studying the former fane of the Old Reformed Cult of the Withering Light.
“He did say it had been three hundred years,” one of the brothers said.
“Vines and hedges can live that long if they’re properly cared for, Sidi,” the woman said.
“Well, Arulla, I’d say this one wasn’t properly cared for,” Sidi replied.
That was obvious. While dried-out woody strands of vine still clung here and there to the temple ruins, and several stumps still thrust up from the bare dirt, all still sufficiently toxic to have somewhat deterred termites, rot, or other parasites, it was clear that the first guardian, the dreaded venomous hedge, was long dead.
“Why would anyone care for it?” Filmar asked. “Of course it’s dead!”
“Then that just leaves two,” Buk said. “Weapons ready, boys!” He matched his actions to his words, drawing the short sword he wore on his belt.
None of the others had swords; Filmar and Sidi carried spears, Akdar had a club in one hand and a dagger in the other, and Arulla had only a knife. Together, they advanced up the crumbling marble steps.
At the top Buk pushed at the door; it yielded not an inch. He threw his shoulder against it, and the ancient panels shattered; unable to catch himself he tumbled through the newly-made opening and landed in a cloud of dust and splinters.
He leapt quickly to his feet, sword ready, as the two spearmen rushed through the door to his aid.
They found no opposition. Instead Buk found himself standing amid dust and scattered bones as the others hurried in.
Light filtered in through the shattered door and holes rotted through the roof, and for a moment the five looked around, baffled, trying to make sense of what they saw.
Every vertical surface in the room, from the floor to as high as a tall man could reach, was covered with writing. It wasn’t the careful work of temple artisans, but a rough scrawl, written in what appeared to be a mixture of charcoal and blood.
Wonderingly, Arulla stepped to the nearest wall, where the writing was largest and clearest. “It’s kind of old-fashioned,” she said.
“Probably three hundred years old,” Buk. “Can you read it?”
Arulla nodded, and read aloud, “What sort of idiot wizard hires mercenaries and then seals them up in a temple so even he can’t get in? How could anyone be stupid enough to lock us in here and not feed us? What did we do to deserve this?” She dropped down a few lines and read, “Biren is an imbecile. Biren has the brains of a hamster. Biren licks the private parts of dead weasels. Biren’s mother…” She blushed, and stopped reading.
“I think we get the idea,” Filmar said. He looked around at the bones, noticed that several bore toothmarks, and decided not to look any more. “Two guardians down.”
“There’s the door to the inner sanctum,” Akdar said, pointing.
“Right,” Buk said cheerfully, clearly heartened by the condition of the first two guardians. “I’ll take a look.” He crossed the antechamber and gave the inner door a good, hard kick.
It burst open, revealing another ruined chamber. Again, there were bones on the floor—but these were not scattered, and not remotely human, and a gigantic rusty chain was wrapped around them.
For a moment the five siblings stood and stared silently at the bones. Arulla was the first to look away, and to notice the deep gouges in the marble walls, gouges that matched the size of the skeletal claws.
She shivered. “I think I’m very glad I wasn’t here three hundred years ago,” she said.
Akdar started to say something disparaging her courage, then thought better of it and admitted, “Me, too.”
“Where’s the helmet?” Filmar demanded.
“Probably back in there somewhere,” Arulla said, pointing toward the space behind the red marble altar that occupied the center of the room.
Buk clambered quickly across the altar, sword ready in his hand, and looked around. He frowned, then turned back to face his brothers.
“I don’t see…” he began. Then something caught his eye, and he looked down.
“Oh,” he said, “here it is.” He reached down and picked up a gleaming silver helmet, very much like the illustration in Gallopius’ book.
“Wait!” Akdar called, as Buk lifted the thing. “Don’t put it on yet!”
Buk paused. “Why not?” he demanded.
“Because…well, we don’t know anything about the transformation. It might be dangerous.”
“Akdar, somebody’s got to wear this thing if we’re going to get any use out of it!”
“Oh, of course! I meant it might be dangerous to the rest of us if we’re too close.”
Buk frowned. He, Filmar, and Sidi looked at one another as Arulla stared at the helmet and Akdar at his oldest brother.
“We could wait in the antechamber,” Arulla suggested.
“Good idea,” Akdar said. “Come on, then—let Buk try it on in private!”
“This is silly,” Filmar protested. “It’s just a helmet!”
“It’s a magic helmet,” Akdar said. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
“Oh, come on,” Arulla said, as she headed for the ruined door. “Just do it, all right?”
“But I want to see!” Filmar insisted.
“You’ll see next time,” Akdar said. “If it’s safe, I mean.”
“Go on,” Buk said.
Reluctantly, Sidi and Filmar joined their youngest two siblings in the outer chamber, and stood for a moment looking at the bloody graffiti.
Then a high-pitched scream came from the inner fane—a scream that was Buk’s voice but somehow altered, and pitched higher than any sound that they had heard from Buk in the fifteen years since his voice first broke.
Filmar didn’t hesitate; he dashed back into the inner sanctum, his spear ready.
The other three stood ready, listening intently, but not setting foot past the broken door.
“Oh, Death and Essence!” Filmar said. “Take it off!”
The other three looked at one another, puzzled.
“I think I hear whimpering,” Sidi said.
“I know I hear whimpering,” Arulla said. “What I don’t know is who’s doing it, or why.”
Then the whimpering stopped, and for several seconds total silence reigned.
“Should we come in?” Akdar called.
“No!” Buk roared, his voice cracking but otherwise back to normal.
“Should…should I try it?” Filmar asked, his own voice shaky.
“What is going on in there?” Arulla demanded.
Then Filmar screamed, a high, thin squeal of terror that ended abruptly, to be followed by the sound of metal striking stone.
“Don’t break it!” Buk called. “We need it!”
“No, we don’t!” Filmar replied. “I’m not wearing that thing again!”
“I’m going in there,” Akdar said, suiting his actions to his words.
Sidi and Arulla looked at one another.
“I’ll wait,” Sidi said.
Arulla shrugged. “Me, too,” she replied.
They stood waiting as the other three whispered in the inner chamber. Then Akdar said loudly, “It does what?”
“Try it,” Filmar answered.
A moment later Akdar squeaked, “By the Anc
ient Powers! Get it off!”
Then the three were whispering and mumbling, too low for Arulla or Sidi to hear. Arulla amused herself by reading some of the grafitti on the walls, admiring the author’s command of invective.
“Should we ask Sidi?” Filmar said audibly.
“Or, much as I hate to suggest it, Arulla?” Akdar said.
“I don’t see much point in trying Sidi,” Buk said. “It’ll do the same thing to him it did to the rest of us.”
“But it can’t do it to Arulla!” Akdar insisted.
Arulla looked up from the grafitti, puzzled, and met Sidi’s gaze. Her brother shrugged. “I don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said.
“Arulla?” Filmar called. “Could you come here, please?”
“Wait a minute,” Sidi said, before Arulla could respond. “I think I’d like to know what’s going on before you start dragging our sister into this.”
“Nobody dragged me,” Arulla replied angrily. She strode toward the inner sanctum, and Sidi hurried after her.
“All right,” she demanded, “what is it that this magic helmet does that’s so terrible?”
Her brothers ignored her as Filmar beckoned Sidi over. Arulla stood, hands on her hips, and listened as Filmar whispered to Sidi.
“…shriveled right up…” she heard.
Akdar nodded. “Like turning inside out,” he said. “And…” He gestured at his chest instead of finishing the sentence.
“Do you want to try it?” Buk asked, holding out the helmet.
Sidi stared at the thing, then shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said.
“But it can’t hurt Arulla,” Akdar said. “She’s already a woman!”
Arulla had been just short of shouting a complaint about all the secrecy, and stopped abruptly, her mouth open.
Was that the mysterious transformation the helmet performed? It turned men into women? No wonder dogs wouldn’t recognize their masters—men and women smelled different.
“Give me that,” she said, stepping over and snatching the helmet from Buk’s hand. Before her startled brothers could react she had set the thing on her head.
The Lawrence Watt-Evans Fantasy Page 14
