The Pixilated Peeress

by L. Sprague De Camp

  During the afternoon of the second day he came to the Rissel. The fog made black ghosts of the trunks of the leafless trees and the wan fronds of the conifers. Away from the stream, the dominant sound was the constant drip of water.

  Thorolf followed the river upstream to a rapid, where he could cross by leaping from boulder to boulder. Then he followed the riverbank down to the pool where he had been fishing when Yvette had manifested herself. As he came in sight of the misty flat, he saw a bulky figure, in official crimson, sitting on a folding stool and fishing. He speeded his approach, calling: "Father!"

  The Consul heaved himself to his feet and embraced his son. "Well, Thorolf!" he said. "Thou lookst well."

  "The simple mountain life, sir."

  "But I fear thou also stinkest."

  "Sorry about that; but where I've been there's no water deep enough to bathe in."

  "Anyway, it joys me to see you alive and hale. Where hast been?"

  "Living with the Sharmatt trolls. Is there a warrant out for my arrest?"

  Zigram sank back on his stool, the feet of which settled into the watery soil beneath his weight. "Merely a summons as witness. Gunthram was hot to charge you with murder, desertion, and a treasonous plot with the Carinthians. I squelched that last accusation, pointing out that it came from the Sophonomists and should hence be handled with tongs; also that a band of rogues from Carinthia had attacked you in the Zoological Park—something to do with the fugitive Countess of Grintz."

  "How about the murder? You know I'd never have harmed dear old Bardi."

  "Lodar tells me they have taken in another suspect. The details I know not yet. As for desertion. I told Gunthram ye were on a secret mission for me."

  Thorolf squatted, as living with trolls had accustomed him to do. "Where is Yvette now?"

  The Consul shrugged. "As far as I know, your lady love is mewed up in the castle. None hath seen her since your departure. Now tell me the tale of your involvement with that lady. I have never had it straight— merely a hundred rumors, each contradicting the last."

  "Very well, Father. See you this place? 'Tis where she and I first met ..."

  Thorolf went through the story of his encounter with the unclad Countess, Bardi's magical blunder, and her subsequent capture by Psychomagus Orlandus.

  "He has cast upon many followers," said Thorolf, "a spell that causes them to be possessed by a spirit, which enables him to command their implicit obedience. If he bade them jump off a cliff, they would do it."

  "Terrible!" muttered Zigram. "I wish someone would magic this accursed cult out of existence! As things now stand, I can do nought, for reasons ye know."

  "If I rooted out this nest of vipers, wouldst give me all the protection your position commands?"

  "Assuredly so! But ye must needs do a thorough job. If ye let Orlandus and a few of's creatures escape, they'd be back to plague us more. How would ye gain access to his lair, defended by stout fortifications, fanatical followers, and magical spells?"

  "Methinks I have a way." said Thorolf.

  "How? Through those mythical trollish tunnels?"

  Thorolf winced, feeling the testicular cringe that the thought of entering a tunnel gave him. "I'll tell you nought that they could twist out of you. Speaking of my friends the trolls, knowst Orlandus' plans for them?"

  "Aye. And I am he who tried to raise them to human rank! But the cultists have me in a cleft stick——"

  A loud sneeze made both speakers start. Each looked at the other, saying, "Health!" before they realized that neither had in fact sneezed.

  Thorolf sprang up and raked the landscape with a glance. Then he started away from the stream, saying: "Father, come see!"

  Thorolf was watching, at his own eye-level, a pair of detached eyeballs hanging in midair. He could see the little red blood vessels forming a network around the interior of the eyeballs. As he watched, the eyeballs swiveled away and began to move off.

  "Ho! Come back!" shouted Thorolf, reaching for his sword.

  When the eyeballs continued to retreat, Thorolf bounded after them and swung his blade in a whistling arc. The sword met meat, and its unseen target pulled it down to the ground. Blood sprayed from an invisible source.

  As Thorolf wrenched his blade loose, a faint, transparent human form, like a man-shaped fog, came slowly into sight. As it solidified, it became a man of medium stature and build, nude and clean-shaven, with a deadly wound where Thorolf's sword had cloven it between neck and shoulder, shearing down into lungs. The wound still bled, but the body showed no signs of life.

  "Good gods!" Zigram exclaimed. "What's this, son? Hath some wizard made himself invisible to spy upon us?"

  "I have a suspicion, Father. Bide you here whilst I seek evidence."

  Thorolf soon returned bearing a pair of boots, breeches, and a yellow robe. He said: "Methought the knave would have hidden his garments nearby. Had he been invisible but his raiment not, we were as startled by an empty suit of clothes walking about as by the whole man. He was one of Orlandus' diaphanes, as the villain calls his pixilated victims."

  The Consul said: "Doubtless he sent the fellow to follow me from the city. But why did the Psychomage not make the rascal's eyeballs invisible along with the rest of him? They enabled you to perceive and slay the fellow."

  "My professor at Genuvia explained it. Sight comes from the mutual action of light rays and the eye. Were the eyeballs as transparent as the rest of him, the light would pass through unhindered, and the rogue were blind until the spell wore off." Thorolf held up the garments he had found. "Here's your evidence for legal action against the Sophonomists."

  Zigram frowned. "I know not, son. If I bring action, Orlandus will claim this fellow acted on his own; and since the rascal's dead, that were hard to disprove. Besides, Orlandus hath the shrewdest attorney in Zurshnitt, Doctor Adolfo, in his pay. Moreover, ye know what they'd do to my repute—"

  "Oh, you mean that damned election!" snorted Thorolf. "Where's your courage, man? Which—"

  "Stand!" came a new command. From downstream a group of men marched forward, swords in hand. They wore merchants' dress of plain browns and blacks, but bits of mail gleamed dully underneath.

  "Who are ye?" barked the Consul, drawing his own blade. Beside him, Thorolf whispered:

  "Try not to provoke a battle, Father. You're too old for swordplay."

  "And who impugned my courage just now?" rumbled Zigram. "I shall do what I must." Raising his voice, he called: "Wilchar! Odo! To me!"

  The Consul's bodyguards came crashing through the bushes, armed, armored, and nocking arrows to bows. Zigram turned back to the newcomers. "Know that I am the Consul General of the Commonwealth of Rhaetia. Who are ye and what do ye here?"

  "Let your Excellency not trouble himself," said the leader in the vernacular of Carinthia. "We seek two persons, to wit: Countess Yvette of Grintz and a knave who slew three of our comrades. That hulking man beside you fits the description. Who are ye, sirrah?"

  "Concern yourselves not with that," said Thorolf. "You are Duke Gondomar's men. using our sovereign Commonwealth as your private hunting preserve."

  "None of your affair—" began the leader, but Thorolf interrupted:

  "As for the Countess, she's where neither you nor I have access to her."

  "Meaning she's dead?" cried the Carinthian.

  "She might as well be, being in thrall to a magician. Now get back to your Duke and cease to pester us." Thorolf turned to the bodyguards. "If it come to blows, how many can you kill ere they close with us?"

  "At this range," said Odo, "two surely and four probably. They are seven, and methinks we four could account for the rest."

  "So find your horses and gallop for the border," said Thorolf, "counting yourselves lucky to get out unscathed—"

  "Hold!" said a new and toneless voice. A group of yellow-robed men approached from upstream with bared swords. The leader, who had spoken, continued in his flat, unmodulated tone: "We see ye have slain
one of our number." He indicated the dead man. "Ye are all our prisoners. Resist not, or it will be the worse for you. Yield, and ye shall not be hurt."

  Over a dozen yellow robes advanced, spreading out as if to surround both the Consul's men and the Carinthians.

  Thorolf said to the Carinthian leader: "These are creatures of the sorcerer Orlandus. If they take us, he'll possess us, like them, with spirits that force us to obey his whims. We must join to fight them!"

  "Shoot the yellows!" the Consul roared to his bodyguards.

  Instantly two bows twanged. At that range, the arrows struck the chests of two Sophonomists with such force as to sink up to the feathering and protrude from their backs.

  Although staggered, the two struck recovered and came on as if nothing had happened. Zigram's bodyguards got off two more arrows, with the same result. The Carinthian leader shouted to his men:

  "They're walking corpses! Kill them!"

  He sprang forward and struck a terrific backhand at the leading Sophonomist. The man's head flew off, struck the ground, and rolled. Spouting blood, the headless body continued forward, blindly slashing empty air.

  "They cannot be slain!" wailed a Carinthian. "All's lost! Flee! Flee!"

  As one, the party from Landai turned and ran, as fast as the weight of their mail allowed. They hastened downstream with a jingle and clatter of accouterments.

  "Keep shooting!" shouted the Consul. The headless body finally sank to the sward.

  Bows twanged, then swords were out and clanging. Thorolf's party formed a back-to-back group as the Sophonomists silently closed with them. Thorolf found them slow, clumsy fighters. He thrust one through and then, finding the fellow still in action, hewed his arm from his shoulder.

  The man whose arm Thorolf had severed stopped to recover his sword with his remaining arm. Thorolf split his skull, whereupon the cultist slumped at last while two others pushed forward and tried to step over the body to get at Thorolf. While swinging swords with one hand, each of them reached out with the other to clutch at Thorolf. He hewed off both clutching hands, one at the wrist and the other at the elbow. Thereupon the two attackers dropped their swords and thrust their remaining hands toward Thorolf.

  "They're trying to take us alive!" Thorolf cried, hacking two-handed at his maimed antagonists with chopping woodcutter's strokes. No matter how fiercely he and his allies fought, he thought, they were doomed by weight of numbers. As he thrust another through, the attacker seized the sergeant's sword with his free hand, ignoring the deep wound the blade made in his hand. Another aimed a blow at Thorolf's head, splitting his hat but not his scalp.

  Another sound broke upon Thorolf's ears. From nowhere a horde of yellow trolls erupted and charged, waving iron-headed spears, axes, and clubs. Yelling, they rushed upon the Sophonomists from behind. Of some they spattered the brains with mighty blows; others they hewed asunder or picked up and threw into the Rissel.

  In a few minutes it was over. Zigram, Thorolf, Wilchar, and Odo stood panting and sweating amid a ring of bodies, most of them dismembered like beeves in a butcher shop. Blood spattered the garments of the survivors as if it had been thrown at them by bucketsful. Nor was all the blood that of the Sophonomists; Thorolf had taken a slit in his skin along the ribs; his father had a wounded arm. The mailed bodyguards had fared better, but Wilchar's cheek bled copiously from a cut.

  Looking up from tying bandages, Thorolf said in Trollish: "Hail, Gak! How come here?"

  "Wok say, lowlanders play trick. Kill Thorolf. Thorolf good troll in lowlander body. Go watch. If see trick, help Thorolf!"

  "Good!" said Thorolf. "This Consul. Troll friend. My father."

  Gak ducked his head, grinned, and slapped Zigram on the shoulder, sending him staggering. "Ah! Good. Help us; we help you."

  "Now both mine arms are lamed," grumbled the Consul, moving the bruised member. "What saith the troll?"

  Thorolf translated. Zigram said: "Tell him I will do my best to get my bill anent trolls through the Senate. I owe it to his folk."

  When Thorolf translated, and the trolls roared approval, Zigram added with a smile: "Pray, no more friendly slaps! That last all but dislocated my shoulder. "

  "Now," said Thorolf, "surely you have all the evidence you need to command an attack on Castle Zurshnitt!"

  "Think ye so? Gunthram's convinced that so many of our men are secret Sophonomists that when so commanded, theyd turn on their own officers instead. Think not but that we've considered the problem. Moreover, Orlandus could use your Yvette as a hostage.

  "I'll tell you! Proceed with this secret plan of yours. If by the time the election be over, Orlandus' flag still flies high, I'll see what I can do."

  -

  As Zigram and his bodyguards painfully prepared to mount and amble off, Thorolf said: "Father, how shall we communicate? We need something more regular than an occasional trading party."

  Zigram shrugged. "I know not, son."

  "Let's say you develop a burning thirst for trollish beer and have arranged to receive a keg thereof each week. We can have our missives exchanged with each load."

  "That horrible stuff!"

  "You could give it to your cat when no witnesses be nigh."

  "And poison the poor beast? Anyway, she'd have better sense than to drink it."

  "Well, send me some more paper, pray. I am almost bereft!"

  Thorolf waved to the departing Consul and folded the garments that the invisible Sophonomist had worn. At least, Orlandus had not been so prescient as to realize that a naked spy in this cool, wet weather was likely to betray his presence by sneezing. He gathered his bundle and turned back toward the village of the Sharmatt trolls.

  VIII – Dubious Deliverance

  Looking at Wok across the fire as they gnawed goat's meat, Thorolf said: "O Chief, I shall need help to overthrow the Sophonomists."

  Wok took his time. "Get your father to declare us people, and we will help. Otherwise, not."

  "Ah—a fine idea, but I know not how to bring it about ..."

  "That is my final word, Thorolf. Any such venture were perilous to us trolls. Why lust ye after this? Hast not a good life here?"

  "It's not that you treat me badly. I told you I had an eye on a lowland woman in Zurshnitt. She is a prisoner of Orlandus."

  "What's wrong with Bza? Be ye not futtered enough?"

  "Nay; that's not it. This one I loved ere I ever met Bza."

  "So what think ye? To snatch this woman out of Orlandus' grasp and fetch her hither?" Wok gave a rumbling chuckle. "We cavil not at a man's having more than one mate. Forsooth, it takes a real man—" Wok thumped his furry chest with the sound of a bass drum "—to ride more than one at a time. I know. If they quarrel, he must needs make peace amongst them. If they act in concert, they nag him, one after another, until he gives in to their desire. If ye fetch your lowland sweetling hither, it will be a sight for the ancestral spirits how ye fare betwixt the twain."

  Thinking, Thorolf gnawed. "Not sure am I yet what stratagems would further my sire's bill to benefit the trolls." The horrid idea that had been lurking at the back of his mind could no longer be denied. Taking a deep breath, he said: "Could some troll guide me through the tunnel under Zurshnitt, so that I shall discover whither it leads and where it gives access to the world above?"

  After a gulp and a belch, Wok replied: "Very well. I shall send Gak."

  Not only to guide me, thought Thorolf, but also to watch lest I turn against the trolls.

  -

  Ahead of the hillock on which stood Thorolf and Gak, the Venner Valley sprawled, in the misty midst of which lay Zurshnitt. Beyond the city rose the snow summits of the Dorblentz Range. Thorolf could just make out the dark protuberance in the middle of Zurshnitt that was Castle Hill and its fortlet.

  "Go back down," grunted Gak, pointing down the slope away from the city. He stepped off the crest and skidded down the steep incline, checking his slide with the butt of his spear.

  Thorolf, weari
ng the yellow robe he had taken from the dead Sophonomist spy, scrambled after. Gak halted at the base of a mossy outcrop of stone, forming a small cliff. The face of the outcrop was masked by a screen of creepers dangling from the bank above.

  Gak's sky-blue eyes peered out from under his shaggy, overhanging brows. "Be sure nobody see," he growled.

  He pushed the creepers aside, laid a hairy hand against the stone, and pushed. Groaning, a section of stone revolved about its vertical axis until the slab stood perpendicular to the face of the outcrop, half in and half out of the tunnel entrance.

  Gak took a last look about and entered the hidden door. "Come!" he said in a stage whisper.