The Iron Tempest

by Ron Miller

  As soon as the knight began his search, Atalante’s magic began to turn against the wizard (for, of course, this was Atalante’s mysterious château). He had so ensorceled his castle that anyone entering it would search forever for his heart’s desire, which would forever elude him. So far it had worked like, well, like a charm. He had enjoyed the tremendously amusing sight of three or four dozen elegantly-dressed ladies and their knights all trying to find one another like some endless game of hide-and-seek. But he had not yet had to deal with a mind as simple as Astolph’s. It was just too likely that having made as his heart’s desire the finding of the demon which was the source of the castle’s power, that the spell would perversely lead the duke directly to it, since the demon itself, naturally, was not under the influence of its own conjuration.

  Atalante had his worst fears confirmed when he saw, from his vantage point in the highest turret, the knight heading directly for the hiding-place, as unerringly as a ferret for a rabbit hole.

  “Damnation!” cried the sorcerer. “The fool has no brain whatsoever! Trying to cast a spell over him is like trying to gild a slug.” He beat his skinny hands against his brow in an effort to hammer out an inspiration. He only succeeded in exacerbating his headache. He could not possibly confront the knight on his own. He had no physical power whatsoever and the man would surely throttle him senseless with just one of his massive hands. Even that damned girl knight had shaken him as helplessly as a ragdoll and he had no wish to relive that experience at the mercy of someone who looked at least five times as strong. Since the castle was fully automatic Atalante had no servants (the serf who had duped Astolph had been ever-frugal Atalante himself). Who could he summon, then? Then, with a snap of his skinny fingers, it occured to him that he did indeed possess an army. A most mighty and puissant army.

  The duke, meanwhile, had been led unerringly to the heavy flagstone beneath which was imprisoned the wizard’s enslaved spirit. He was certain he had found the right spot, since the heavy stone was deeply engraved with mysteriously cabalistic signs (or so he thought—in fact it merely said keep out in Arabic). Once he got the stone pried from its socket, the spirit would be free to return to whatever awful place such things come from and the castle and its spell would evaporate like a shadow in the bright sun. And then he could recover Rabican and be on his way. As simple as that.

  He had only just begun this work when he heard a shout. He looked over his shoulder and was surprised to see a crowd of people where a moment before there had been an entirely empty courtyard. He was pleased, if a little puzzled, to see a number of familiar and even familial faces. Among the many knights were Rashid, Gradasso, Iroldo, Brandimart, Prasildo and even his cousin Bradamant, of all things. She looked even more beautiful than when he had last seen her--she was like a silver eagle in her blazing armor. Her appearance reminded him that he had always meant to look into their degree of consanguinity.

  His smile faded when he saw the expressions on their faces, which were decidedly unwelcoming. Indeed, they were entirely hostile, even murderous expressions. What’s this? They’re unsheathing swords, hefting maces and lowering lances. Even the ladies are stooping to pick up clubs and rocks.

  From his tower, Atalante chuckled as he looked down upon the developing drama. The solution to his dilemma had been sublimely elegant. Rather than attempt a spell over the simple-minded knight, which might have worked but would have been dully uninteresting, boringly unchallenging and certainly tiresomely repetitious, he had tried something considerably more difficult and complex. It satisfied him as an artist.

  He propped his elbows on the sill and cupped his chin in his skinny palms. Below in the garden the poor confused knight was being harried by his erstwhile friends. What Astolphe did not know was that, although he recognized them, they did not recognize him. Atalante had cleverly arranged it so that each individual saw Astolph in the form of their worst enemy. Rashid, for example, was convinced that he faced Charlemagne and Bradamant saw the leering image of Count Pinabel.

  Astolph did not know what to do. For some reason he was being attacked by the very people he loved the most. Even the strangers among them seemed to hate him. The women were pelting him with sticks and rocks. Of course they bounced off his armor harmlessly, but this was in truth no great comfort. He had never had women dislike him so much. It was bewildering. Less harmless was the threat promised by a gang comprised of some of the most formidable warriors of Europe and Afric, not the least of whom were Rashid and Bradamant.

  The attack was the most marvelous thing Atalante had seen in years. Each of his victims, thinking that he or she was murdering his or her most hated enemy, the person or creature who had done them the greatest harm, insult or injury, fought with unrestrained ferocity. Poor Astolph defended himself as best he could, inhibited by a chivalric relunctance to harm his friends. He shielded himself from deadly blows that fell onto him from every direction, blows that would have dimidiated any lesser knight.

  From his lofty vantage, all Atalante could see was a milling confusion of flashing armor and showering sparks, a hydra-like creature with forty arms, each clutching a deadly weapon; his ears were assailed by a clamorous tumult, as though Thor had transplanted his smithy into the castle garden. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. He wished he had had the forethought of conjuring up an artist to record the event. A large tempera panel would have been just the thing to place above the mantel in the châteaus’ great hall.

  The duke knew he could not endure against such an onslaught for very long and that the outcome must inevitably be his death. He could still think of no rationale for the attack, and for that reason it occured to him that it might be the result of some sort of enchantment and if that were the case, than his only hope lay in releasing the buried demon.

  His sword swinging over his head in a blazing silver disk he suddenly leaped to his feet with a bellow that momentarily took his assailants by surprise. His attackers fell back and, taking advantage of their momentary discomfiture, he grasped the hilt of his sword with both hands and plunged the point into the narrow crevice that separated the stone from the surrounding pavement. Wrenching the blade to its breaking point, the stone suddenly lifted and a fetid cloud of vapor hissed from the opening with a gutteral belch.

  “No!” cried the wizard, his face white with alarm, but the croaking wheeze of his voice was barely audible within his chamber, let alone a hundred feet away.

  The angry crowd had fallen back a few paces at the first hissing puff from beneath the displaced stone. Astolph bent and grasped the rock with both hands and lifted, his face growing dark as a garnet with the effort, perspiration spraying from every pore in a saline mist. Suddenly the stone gave way and fell upended onto the pavement where it shattered into several pieces, some large, some small.

  Waving aside the stinging, coiling smoke that rose from the hole, he peered with watering eyes to see what might lie within. All he could see was something that looked like a very large albino frog, or perhaps a hairless monkey. The creature looked up at its liberator with scowling, red-rimmed, lemur-like eyes. It climbed from the pit and fastidiously dusted its naked body with long, delicate fingers. Its bald head did not even come to Astolph’s knee and the knight had the sudden urge to stamp it into the earth.

  “Almighty Allah,” said the little monster with a sneer, “do you think you could have taken any longer?”

  Astolph was too astounded to reply and by the time he began to splutter, the demon waved a hand contempuously.

  “I don’t have time to listen to you,” the creature hissed. “I have an appointment with a certain sorcerer.”

  There was a distant eek!, but when Astolph looked to see where the sound had come from he found only an empty tower window.

  When he returned his gaze to the ground, the demon was gone.

  “Astolph?” someone said. “Is that you?”

  It was Bradamant, the first to recover from the spell. She was shaking her head
and rubbing her eyes, as though she had just awakened from a deep sleep. Where had the curséd Pinabel gone? she wondered. Where had her cousin Astolph come from? Where had the beautiful château and its gardens gone? Why was she standing in a pleasant but otherwise uninteresting meadow? Where were her armor and weapons? These and a hundred other questions were forgotten when she found that she was standing next to Rashid.

  Each cried the other’s name with what sounded to everyone but themselves like inarticulate sobs. They embraced, blushing like roses, culling from each other’s lips those first dewy blooms of young love.

  Both were dressed as Atalante had left them—gone were their splendid if imaginary clothes and armor—they each wore only a simple knee-length, sleeveless chemise resembling a thin nightshirt. To their minds, all of their companions had vanished as effectively as if they had been disintegrated by a—well, a magician, leaving them as alone as Adam and Eve in their congenial garden—and very nearly as naked, at least from Bradamant’s point of view. Indeed, when they next looked, only Astolph remained of all the people who had inhabited the enchanted château—perhaps because he had not been lured there by magic—everyone else had been returned instantaneously to their proper places in the world.

  Bradamant did not think she could contain her joy; her breast seemed about to burst like a supercharged boiler and tears poured copiously down her laughing face. Rashid’s fingers brushed them aside and each fingertip seemed to carry an electric charge that left a tingling trail of St. Elmo’s fire.

  “Pardon me,” interrupted Astolph, “but I wonder if anyone wants this hippogryph?”

  “What?” said Rashid.

  “What?” said Bradamant.

  “I wonder if you want this hippogryph, old man. I found it over there with the horses, along with your clothes, armor, swords and things.”

  “My armor!” cried Bradamant, clapping her hands.

  “Good heavens!” cried Rashid while his lover rushed to the pile of mail and weapons where she began sorting out maces and lances and swords with little cries of happiness, like a bloodthirsty child on Christmas morning. “Here’s Papillon!”

  “Is that it’s name?” replied Astolph. “Is it yours then?”

  “Of course.”

  “I thought you seemed familiar, old man! Rashid, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He extended his hand and the other embraced it. “I don’t suppose you would remember me, as I was a shrub when we last met. I’m Duke Astolph, old fellow!”

  “Good heavens! So you are! I certainly would never have recognized you.”

  “Recognized the beast right off, though. You tied him up to me.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Quite all right. I was just wondering if you wanted to keep it because I’ve decided that I’d like to see a bit of the world before settling down with old Karl and this wee beastie would be just the ticket for the trip.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’ve raised him from a pup.”

  “Make a trade of it,” urged the duke. “Rabican here for the hippogryph. Finest horse in the world.”

  “I don’t need a horse,” replied Rashid. “I already have as fine a steed as I could hope for.”

  Oh dear! Bradamant thought, overhearing the conversation and suddenly remembering that she had yet to tell Rashid that she had lost Frontino.

  “Not like mine!” argued Rashid.

  “I’m sure. But, still . . .”

  “I’ll take Rabican,” said Bradamant.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ll take him,” she repeated. “I need an animal like that and I’d hate to see him go to anyone else. Let’s keep Rabican in the family, shall we?”

  “Perfect!” cried Astolph. “Well then, Rashid old jellybean, how about it? The hippogryph here for a horse worthy of that splendid maiden?”

  Rashid could hardly refuse Bradamant’s desire and in some confusion assented to the trade. His only qualification was to retain the veiled shield. Bradamant petted and cooed to her new mount as Astolph harnessed Papillon in its heavy bridle. Rashid did not know Bradamant well enough, and Astolph was neither interested nor observant enough, to be astonished at how fundamentally unlike the Bradamant of old was this new one who laughed spontaneously, seemed unembarassed at walking around half naked and cooed to animals like a milkmaid. Bradamant herself was unaware that she was behaving in any way unusually.

  “Well, children,” said the duke, climbing into the hippogryph’s saddle, “If I’m to start exploring the realm of our feathery friends, I mustn’t dally. I’ve left my armor over there, cousin. I won’t be needing it, except for my sword, of course, as I’d best keep as light as possible I should think. Be a decent little chick and take the goods to Montauban for me, will you? And give a rousing heigh-ho to Aunt and Uncle.”

  He made a present to her of his lance, knowing how much she favored that weapon. She recognized it as the magnificent one he had won from Argalia, son of the Great Khan of Cathay. With the lightest touch it would throw a man to the ground as though he had been struck by lightning.

  With this last gesture, Astolph had the winged monster mount slowly into the air. Bradamant was reminded with a pang of the last time she had seen the hippogryph, when she had strained her eyes gazing at the fast-disappearing speck that bore her love away from her.

  Having gotten the feel of the beast from a few lazy circles, the duke dug his spurs into its black flank and shot away like a bolt from a crossbow. Hardly another second passed before Bradamant lost sight of her cousin entirely.

  She and Rashid were now alone in the clearing that had once held Atalante’s château—of which now only remained a fairy ring of toadstools. Of living creatures there was only Rabican and a handful of other horses to keep them company.

  “Rashid,” Bradamant said, turning away from the empty sky, “I won’t be parted from you again.” It was a flat statement of fact.

  “It breaks my heart,” he said, “when I think how many weeks I spent so close to you without knowing it—how many times I must’ve walked by your side, looked into your face . . .”

  “I’ll regret every one of those lost days as long as I live.”

  “We’ll have ten thousand more to make up the difference.”

  “Not half enough.”

  She enfolded his face in her hands and drew his lips to hers. The kiss seemed to pass through the length of her body like current through a wire, chasing after her heart like an anaconda pursuing a rabbit into its burrow. She felt his tongue enter her mouth, tasting her lips and teeth; her own fought against the intruder and they wrapped around one another like passionate snails. She was surprised and pleased to discover that he tasted like cinnamon. She released him and sank to the moss, like a recumbent swan in her gauzy white chemise, her long bare legs like tapers on green velvet. Rashid kneeled beside her. She could feel his gaze stroking her like a hot finger and she writhed under that immaterial, lambent touch. Her eyes burned and her mouth was dry; her muscles clenched as though a Voltaic current was passing through them. Rashid’s breath was fragrant with exotic spices and his beard and hair smelled of lavender and musk. She laid her hands on his upper arms, felt the play of the muscles as they moved, like cats stirring in their sleep. She let her hands slide down the length of his arms, her fingers moving through the dark hair like snakes gliding through luxuriant grass, until she reached his hands—so big that even her own large hands seemed like a child’s within them—she gathered them in her own and pressed them against her bosom and when she did she gasped, her breath caught in her throat, at both the touch of his hand as it enveloped a breast and the unprecedented temerity of her action. Rashid opened his mouth and then closed it again; she was afraid he was going to speak and was glad when he didn’t. Instead, he leaned over her and kissed the hollow at the base of her throat; his lips felt hot and dry. She could feel her pulse beat against them. She ran her fingers comb-like through his glossy black tangles, twisted them into the long thick
hair at the back of his neck and pressed his face harder against her own. He nuzzled her breasts gently; she felt the moist heat of his breath through the diaphanous fabric; she felt his lips nibbling at her through the cloth, his sharp teeth, and her nipples, as erect as dolmens atop ancient Druidic mounds, puckered like the smiling faces of little old men. Now even the gossamer touch of the chemise seemed painful; her skin seemed supersensitive, as though she were suffering from a sunburn.

  The chemise had been rucked up to her waist and Rashid, his huge hands engulfing her breasts like starfish embracing their daily oysters, kissed the soft plane of a stomach that rippled seismically beneath his lips; the point of his tongue plumbed her navel like a thirsty Bedouin discovering an oasis. Bradamant kneaded Rashid’s head and shoulders like an ecstatic cat as he pressed his face into the coppery triangle at the base of her stomach, against the soft mound that paradoxically it both hid and, like an arrowhead, drew attention to. She felt the bite of his sharp, fine teeth. She felt heat, an ache, a sudden relaxation and moistness as his tongue found the crevice that bisected the mound, like the jeweled cave of the pomegranate, the passionate grotto of the introspective octopus. She felt as though her body were singing and sparking like the philosopher’s silk-stroked amber. A hundred disturbing dreams, not forgotten but only dormant, suddenly rushed through her mind, blinding her with a voluptuous hallucination. But then she had a sudden vision of Marseilles, suffering from her neglect, its cathedrals and mansions cowering in an illusory safety behind Saracen-besieged walls, which, as she watched in horror, began to crumble before the onslaught like stale bread. Blood poured through the streets like a sanguinary Venice.