King Kobold Revived wisoh-3

by Christopher Stasheff

  The priest’s mouth pressed thin. “ ‘Tis to be lamented. But there will be other work, more’s the pity.”

  Rod turned toward him, frowning. “What…? Oh. Yeah—the Last Rites.” He turned back toward the beach. “But it won’t just be our dead down there, Father. How about the beastmen? Think they have souls?”

  “Why—I had not thought of it,” the priest said, surprised. “But is there reason to think they would not?”

  One of the soldiers growled a reply.

  The monk shook his head. “Nay, goodman. I ha’ known Christian men to do worse—much worse.”

  “I would, could I but get one of them alone,” another soldier snarled.

  “There—do you see?” The priest spread his hands. “Still, souls or none, I misdoubt me an they be Christian.”

  “They called upon their false god at the battle’s beginning, did they not?”

  “Was that the burden of their chant?” another soldier wondered. “ ‘Go Bald,’ was it not?”

  “Something of the sort,” the first growled.

  Rod frowned; he’d heard ‘Cobalt,’ himself. Well, each interpreted it according to words he knew. What did it really mean, though? He shrugged; it could be some sort of heathen god, at that.

  “They have boarded their ship,” the sentry called. “They are launching… they turn…”

  “May I build a fire now?” Father Chillde asked.

  Rod shrugged. “Please do, Father—if you can find shelter for it and anything dry enough to burn.” He turned to the young warlock. “Sure you feel up to it, Toby?”

  The esper nodded, coming to his feet. He was looking a little better, having rested. “I will start them, at least. When I’ve learned the trick of following a ship without being seen, I’ll call another of our band and teach it to him.”

  Rod nodded. “See you soon, then, Toby.”

  “Thou shalt, Lord Warlock.” Toby sprang into the air. The soldiers stared after him, gasping, as he soared up and up, then arrowed away over the waves. A few crossed themselves, muttering quick prayers.

  “There is no need for that,” Father Chillde said sharply. “He is naught but a man, like to yourselves, though somewhat younger and with a rare gift. But he is not proof ‘gainst arrows or spears; if you would pray, beseech God for his safety.”

  Rod stared at the chubby priest, surprised. Then he nodded his head in slow approval.

  “He has gone through the clouds,” the sentry reported.

  Rod nodded. “Wise, once he’s figured out which way they’re headed. He’ll probably drop down for a quick peek now and then, just to check on them.”

  “They have crossed the bar,” the sentry reported. “They stand out to sea.”

  Rod sighed and came to his feet, cradling Gwen in his arms. “It’s over, men. Let’s go.”

  Below them, on the beach, the village smoldered.

  “Nay, my lord. ‘Twas the lightning, I am certain of it!” Gwen spoke calmly, but her chin was a little more prominent than usual.

  “Lightning!” Queen Catharine cried. She threw her hands in the air. “Why not the thunder, then? Or the wind, or the rain? Lightning, i’ sooth!”

  “Nay, Majesty—hear her out.” Tuan touched her arm gently, restraining—but Rod noticed he’d become awfully formal all of a sudden.

  “ ‘Majesty,’ indeed!” Catharine stormed, turning on him. “What wouldst thou, mine husband? To blame it on the lightning! Nay, ‘twas these beastmen only—themselves, and no more! They are vile sorcerers, and the spawn of Hell!”

  “You may have a point there,” Rod admitted. “We’re not really disagreeing, you see—we’re just getting into the how of their sorcering.”

  “Why, by peering into thine eye,” Catharine shrieked, whirling back on him. “Lightning, forsooth! Was it at lightning that thy soldiers stared?”

  “Nay, certes,” Gwen said wearily. “ ‘Tis true, when they stared at the beastmen’s eyes, then could the beastmen cast their spell. And ’tis a foul spell!” She shuddered. “I had some taste of it when I sought to lift it. ‘Tis a vile thing that doth fascinate with ugliness!”

  “ ‘Fascinate’ is the term,” Rod agreed. “They focused all the soldiers’ attention on one single point—the beastmen’s pupils. Then…”

  “Then they could spare no attention for fighting?” Tuan nodded heavily. “Vile, indeed, that will not even allow a soldier the chance of defense.”

  Catharine rounded on Gwen. “Hast thou never encountered a spell like to this before?”

  “There are tales of it,” Gwen said slowly, “of the Evil Eye. I, though, have never found it in life.”

  “I have,” Rod said slowly, “though it was a milder version.”

  Tuan frowned. “When?”

  “In prefligh… uh, in apprenticeship,” Rod hedged, “when I was being trained in the, uh”—he took a deep breath and gave up on honesty—“in the wizardry I use. This particular form of magic was called ‘hypnotism,’ but it looked a lot like this Evil Eye. It came to the same thing in the long run; it’s just that they had to do it much more slowly.”

  “Aye, therein is it most phenomenal.” Tuan frowned. “How can they fascinate so quickly?”

  “Therein I have some experience,” Gwen said slowly. “ ‘Tis a matter of throwing one’s thoughts into another’s mind.”

  Fess’s voice murmured in Rod’s ear, “Your wife is describing projective telepathy, Rod.”

  “Scientific terminology is wonderful,” Rod growled. “It lets skeptics believe in magic. In fact, it transforms them into instant authorities.”

  Catharine turned on him, glowering. “Of whom dost thou speak, sirrah?”

  Not you, Rod thought, remembering the rumors that the Queen had a touch of ‘witch-power’ herself. Aloud, he said, “To whom is more the point—and the problem is that the beastmen do it to whomever they want. I think we’ve got a pretty good idea of how they do it now—but how do we fight back?”

  “Why, as we did.” Gwen looked up in surprise.

  Rod frowned down at her. “ ‘We’?” He felt a chill trickle down his back.

  “Toby and I,” Gwen explained. “What we did was even as thou didst say, mine husband—we cast our thoughts into the soldiers’ minds and made them see what the glowing point at which they stared was in truth—naught but a pair of tiny eyes. We made them see again the face around the eyes, and the body ‘neath the face.”

  “Yeah,” Rod said with a curt nod. “Then they stepped up the strength of their Evil Eye and knocked you both out.”

  But Gwen shook her head. “Not ‘they,’ milord. ‘Twas the lightning.”

  Catharine threw up her hands in despair and whirled away.

  “Lightning or not, they did knock you out,” Rod growled, “and you’ll pardon me, but I didn’t like the look of it.”

  Gwen spread her hands. “What wouldst thou, my lord? There were but Toby and myself—and we acted at the same moment, but not in concert.”

  “Huh?” Rod’s scowl deepened. “ ‘Not in concert’? What did you want—a drum-and-bugle corps?”

  “Nay, my lord.” Gwen visibly fought for patience. “We could not join our powers—and there were too many soldiers for poor two of us. We did attempt to cast our thoughts into all their minds—but we did it side by side, not by blending both our powers into one.”

  “I take it you think it’s possible to merge your powers,” Rod said softly.

  “Mayhap.” Gwen frowned, gaze drifting to the window. “When two who can hear thoughts do touch, there is ever some greater sense of contact—threat, I should say; for I’ve never known two who have risked reaching out through touch to thoughts.”

  The door shot open, and Brom O’Berin stumped in, followed by two men-at-arms, each with a shoulder under one of Toby’s arms. The young warlock limped between them, panting, “Nay! I… I can bear mine own…”

  “Thou canst scarcely bear thine head upon thy shoulders, now,” Brom growle
d. “Indeed, an thou wert a crab tree, thou couldst not bear an apple. There,” he said to the two men-at-arms, nodding toward a chair. They lowered the young warlock carefully, and he sagged back, mouth gaping open, eyes closed, panting in huge hoarse gasps.

  “What ails him?” Gwen cried.

  “Naught but exhaustion.” Brom’s mouth held tight. “Were his news not vital, I would have sent him to his bed.”

  “Young idiot! I told him to call for a relief!” Rod strode over to the teenager and caught up a wrist, feeling for the pulse. “Didn’t you bring any wine?”

  Brom turned to the doorway and snapped his fingers. A page scurried in, wide-eyed and apprehensive, bearing a tray with a flagon and a flask. Brom caught them up, poured the mug half-full, and held it to Toby’s lips. “A sip only, my lad, then a draught. Attempt it, there’s a good fellow.”

  Toby sipped, and promptly coughed. Rod thumped him on the back till the boy nodded weakly, then sipped again. It stayed down, so he took a big swallow.

  “Feel a little better now?” Rod asked.

  Toby nodded and sighed.

  “Don’t fall asleep on us,” Rod said quickly. “What did you see?”

  “Only the dragon ship, and miles and miles of water,” Toby sighed. “I sickened at the sight. I swear I’ll never drink the stuff again!” And he took a long pull on the wine.

  “Steady there, now,” Rod cautioned. “So they sailed a lot. Which way did they go?”

  “West,” Toby said firmly, “west and south. I called for Giles, and set him to the following, whiles I appeared upon my bed and slept till he did call to say he’d sighted land. Then I appeared beside him and sent him home. He was sorely tired, seest thou, whilst I was fresh.”

  From the gray cast of the youth’s face, Rod doubted that. “There was also a little matter of possible danger if you’d reached their homeland.”

  “Well, that too,” Toby admitted. “In any case, the journey’s end was mine affair. The danger was not great; the sky was lightening but not yet dawning, and clouds still hung low and heavy.”

  “E’en so, I had hoped thou wouldst not take too great a chance,” Gwen said. “What had the beastmen come home to?”

  “A bend of land in the coastline,” Toby explained, “low land, with high sky-reaching cliffs behind it a mile or two from shore.”

  Rod nodded. “How big was the low land?”

  “Mayhap some five miles wide.”

  “He describes an alluvial plain,” Fess’s voice murmured in Rod’s ear.

  “You’re a better observer than I knew,” Rod told the youth. “What was on the plain?”

  “A village.” Toby looked up at him. “Huts of daub and wattle, at a guess—round and with thatched roofs. Around and about their fields they did lie, with greening crops.”

  “Farmers?” Rod frowned, puzzled. “Not the kind of people you’d expect to go pillaging. Any idea how many huts there were?”

  Toby shook his head. “More than I could count at ease, Lord Warlock. ‘Twas as far across as any village I ha’ seen in Gramarye.”

  “Village,” Rod repeated. “Not a town?”

  Toby pursed his lips. “Well… mayhap a small town… Still, the houses were set far apart.”

  “Maybe a thousand households, then. How’d they react when they saw the dragon ship come back?”

  “They did not,” said Toby.

  “What?” Rod gawked. “They didn’t react? Not at all?”

  “Nay—they did not see it. ‘Twas not yet dawn, as I’ve said, and the dragon ship did not come to the village. Nay, it sailed instead to southward, and found a narrow river-mouth just where the cliffs came down to join the water. Then the beast-men unshipped oars and furled their sail and rowed their ship upstream, until they slipped into a crack within the cliff-wall from which their river issued.”

  “A crack.” Rod kept his face expressionless.

  Toby nodded. “ ‘Twas a crack thou couldst have marched thy Flying Legion through, milord; but in that vast wall of rock ’twas nonetheless a crack.”

  “So they sailed into a river-pass.” Rod frowned, trying to make sense of it. “What happened then?”

  “Naught to speak of. When they slipped into the cliff-face, I dropped down to the cliff-top, where I lay and watched. Anon, I saw them slip out on a footpath, without their shields or helmets, and naught of weapons save the knives at their belts. They trudged across the plain, back to the village. I did not follow, for I feared sighting by an early-riser.”

  Rod nodded. “Wise. After all, we found out everything we really needed to know.” He frowned. “Maybe more.”

  “What then?” Brom demanded.

  Toby spread his hands. “Naught. The work was done… and I commenced to feel as weary as though I’d not had a night of sleep.”

  “Not surprising, with the psychic blast you pulled yesterday,” Rod reminded him. “And teleporting takes some energy out of a man too, I’ll bet.”

  “I think that it doth,” Toby agreed, “though I’d not noticed it aforetime.”

  “Well, you’re not as young as you used to be. What are you now, nineteen?”

  “Twenty,” Toby answered, irritated.

  “That’s right, it’s a huge difference. But that does mean your body’s stopped growing, and you no longer have that frantic, adolescent energy-surplus. Besides, what’s the furthest you’ve ever teleported before?”

  “On thine affairs, some ten or twenty miles.”

  “Well, this time, you jumped… oh, let’s see now…” Rod stared off into space. “All night in a sailing ship… let’s assume the wind was behind it… say, ten miles an hour. Maybe ten hours, factored by Finagle’s Variable Constant…” He looked back at Toby. “You jumped a hundred miles or more. Twice. No wonder you’re tired.”

  Toby answered with a snore.

  “Take him up,” Brom instructed the men-at-arms, “and bear him gently to his bed. He hath done great service for our land this morn.”

  One of the soldiers bent to gather up Toby’s legs, but the other stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Nay. Only lift the chair.” The first soldier looked up, nodded approvingly, and picked up the chair legs as his companion lifted the back. Rod instantly memorized the second one’s face, marking him as one who might have potential.

  The door closed behind them, and Brom turned on Rod. “What makest thou of this, Lord Warlock?”

  “Confusion,” Rod answered promptly. “For openers, I want him to draw a map when he wakes up. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “We do have a tidy little mystery, don’t we?”

  “Aye,” Brom agreed. “Why would they come so silently back to their lair?”

  “Mayhap ‘twas not all returned from this sally,” Tuan offered, “and they feared the censure of the slain ones’ kin.”

  “Possible, I suppose.” Rod frowned. “But it doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, I suppose there really are some hard-hearted cultures who take that attitude—you know, ‘Return with your shield, or on it,’ and all that. But their mission wasn’t exactly a total flop, you know. Their ship did come back stuffed. They took everything that wasn’t nailed down before they burned the stuff that was.”

  “E’en so, they did have dead,” said Brom, “and if they’d gained recruits by promising great bounty with little danger, they would now have reason to fear the wrath of the kin of the slain ones.”

  “Ah, I see you know the ways of recruiting-sergeants,” Rod said brightly. “But they’d have to face that anger anyway as soon as the rest of the villagers found out they were back. I mean, sooner or later, somebody was bound to notice they were there. So why sneak in?”

  Catharine looked up slowly, her face lighting. “They stole back like thieves in the night, did they not?”

  Rod frowned and nodded. “Yeah. How does that…” Then his eyes widened. “Of course! Your Majesty has it!”

  “What?” Brom looked from one to the other, frowning.

  “Aye, she
hath!” Gwen jumped up. “The whole of this expedition was done in secret!”

  “Aye!” Tuan’s eyes fired. “Indeed, that hath the ring of truth!”

  “Hypothesis does not account for all available data,” Fess said flatly behind Rod’s ear.

  “But it’s got the right feel,” Rod objected. “Now, just how they managed to hide the little fact that they were gone for thirty-six hours, I don’t know; but I could think of a few ways, myself.”

  Gwen looked up, alarmed.

  “That means, Your Majesty,” Rod said, hastily turning to the King, “that we’re not being attacked by a hostile nation.”

  “Nay, only thieves who come in ships.” Tuan frowned. “Is there not a word for such as they?”

  “Yeah; they call ‘em ‘pirates.’ ” Rod wasn’t surprised that the people of Gramarye had forgotten the term; their culture was restricted to one huge island and had been isolated for centuries.

  Tuan frowned thoughtfully, gazing off into space. “How doth one fight a seaborne bandit?”

  “By knowing something about the sea.” Rod turned to Brom. “Is there anybody in Gramarye who does?”

  Brom frowned. “We have some fisherfolk in villages along the coast.”

  “Then, get ‘em,” Rod called back over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Get me a fisherman who knows something about the winds and the coastlines.”

  “An thou wishest it, we shall. But where dost thou go, Lord Warlock?”

  “To find out what’s current,” Rod called back.

  “But there’s got to be a current here somewhere!”

  “They are not visible on standard reflected-light photographs, Rod,” Fess explained, “and when we arrived on Gramarye we had no reason to take infrared stills.”

  Rod’s starship was buried under ten feet of clay in a meadow a few hours ride from Runnymede. He had persuaded the elves to dig a tunnel to it so he could visit it whenever he wanted.

  Now, for instance. He was enjoying the rare luxury of Terran Scotch while he pored over a set of still pictures on the chart-table screen. “I don’t see anything, Fess.”

  “Isn’t that what you expected, Rod?”