The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  “Brereep.”

  “You don’t know Bess, my dear. She’s a good-hearted old thing, but she takes it terribly to heart if you refuse a drink in her hovel, and I didn’t dare risk offending her.” Kedrigern gave a shuddering, desolate sigh. “I don’t know how she survives it. Her stomach must be lined with stone. I wouldn’t offer that stuff to an alchemist.”

  “Brereep?”

  “Worse than that. I think it would paralyze a full-grown troll.”

  As if on cue, the troll-of-all-work came skidding into the breakfast nook on huge flat feet. “Yah! Yah!” it shrieked in jubilant greeting, an arm’s length from Kedrigern’s ear. He made a little whimpering sound and buried his face in his hands.

  “No, Spot. Quiet, please,” he said faintly. “Please.”

  The little housetroll waited by his knee, big-eyed, panting and salivating, while the wizard recovered. Kedrigern rubbed his eyes gingerly, then blinked and glanced down on Princess’ plate, on which lay a thin slice of bread covered with strawberry preserves. He quickly shut his eyes again.

  “Plain porridge, Spot. A very small serving. A dab. And bring it silently,” he said.

  Spot careened out noiselessly, ears and big hands flapping, like a skiff crowded with a three-master’s full complement of sail. Kedrigern looked again at Princess. Her expression of superior disapproval was unchanged.

  “I wasn’t too bad last night, was I?” he asked.

  “Brereep.”

  “I did? Funny . . . I don’t remember that at all. Are you positive?”

  “Brereep!” she said indignantly.

  Kedrigern raised his hands before him defensively. “Certainly, my dear. If you say so. I’m terribly sorry.”

  She glared at him, but said nothing.

  “I didn’t . . . I didn’t try to work any magic, did I?” he asked apprehensively.

  She solemnly shook her head.

  Kedrigern let out a deep sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that. Working spells when one is not fully . . . when one has had . . . well, it’s irresponsible. I’ve known of conventions where everyone wound up invisible just because some silly wizard . . . anyway, we don’t have that to worry about.”

  Princess did not look comforted by this observation. She did not speak. Spot caromed into the breakfast nook, eased a bowl of porridge and milk silently onto the tabletop, and departed. Kedrigern ate, in small, cautious helpings, and still she was silent. At last he laid down his spoon and looked directly into her eyes.

  “In any event, my dear, I got what I was after. It meant a long trip, and hard bargaining, and an excruciating hangover. The price was absolutely outrageous. But it was all worthwhile,” he announced.

  “Brereep?”

  “More than that. Much more. I had to give Bess a full vial of dragon’s blood. But I don’t begrudge a drop of it. What’s dragon’s blood for, anyway? I’d gladly spend all I’ve got to make you happy.”

  “Brereep?” she asked. Her voice was somewhat softened.

  “All for you, and you alone, my dear.” Kedrigern reached out and gently laid his fingertips on her hand. “It’s your anniversary present: the crystal of Caracodissa. At this very moment it stands on my work table. And as soon as my head is clear –”

  She squeezed Kedrigern’s hand in both of hers. With a croak of sheer joy, she jumped up, ran to his side, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him repeatedly. He took her in his arms and held her close.

  “I was going to keep it for a surprise, but I suppose it’s just as well you know about it,” he murmured.

  “Brereep?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Oh, no doubt at all. It’s the genuine article. I know the markings too well to be fooled. The inscription runs all the way around it, in letters that burn like fire:

  Magic of the helping kind,

  Seek it here, and ye shall find,

  Wake the spirit that indwells,

  Find the spell to loose all spells . . .

  I’ll work on it first thing tomorrow morning, and by dinnertime tomorrow you’ll be speaking as clearly as ever you did.”

  She drew away and looked perplexedly at Kedrigern. “Brereep?” she asked.

  “No, tomorrow. Please, my dear. My head is throbbing. I can barely focus my eyes. I’m in no condition –”

  “Brereep!” she cried.

  “Of course I love you!” Kedrigern said, wincing at the loudness of her voice. “We’re dealing with very delicate magic here, my dear. I can’t undertake it lightly. I must have a clear head, and at the moment –”

  “Brereep?” she suggested.

  “No, I can’t. There’s nothing that can cure a hangover. Not even magic. We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. Surely, one more day won’t be so bad to endure, will it, my dear?”

  Princess slumped dejectedly. She sat huddled by his chair, looking up at him with wide, sad eyes. A tear welled up in each eye, brimmed, and coursed down her pale cheeks.

  “My dear, I really can’t. A great deal of preliminary study is required. It would be very risky to barge ahead.”

  She gave a little sob. More tears came. She buried her lovely face in her hands and wept, silently.

  Kedrigern’s resolve lasted less than a minute. Rising, he laid his hand on her shoulder and said, “Perhaps I can do something today, after all. If Spot can bring me a cold compress –”

  Princess sprang to her feet and clapped her hands once, sharply. Kedrigern twitched at the sound, which brought Spot reeling into the breakfast nook.

  “A bowl of very cold water, and a clean cloth, Spot. Bring them to my study at once. And don’t make a sound,” said the wizard in a low, strained voice.

  The cold compress helped ever so slightly. Kedrigern wiped his brow, dried his wet fingertips on his robe, and turned his attention to the crystal cube that stood in a cleared place on his long work table. Princess, too, gazed on it with fascination.

  It was a perfect cube of flawless crystal, about a hand’s length to a side, and it glowed from within, where a misty radiance swirled through it like a fiery soul. Around four sides, in letters of reddish-gold that flickered like living flame, ran the inscription. In the darkened room, Kedrigern read the familiar words, turning the crystal cube slowly as he spoke:

  “Wake the spirit that indwells,

  Seek it here, and ye shall find,

  Find the spell to loose all spells,

  Magic of the helping kind . . .”

  Something nudged his memory. He had not been at his most alert when he read the inscription earlier, but it seemed to him that the verses had been in different order. He picked up the cube, turned it over in his hands – it was oddly light in weight – and setting it down, read the inscription once more:

  “Seek it here, and ye shall find,

  Wake the spirit that indwells,

  Magic of the helping kind,

  Find the spell to loose all spells . . .”

  He let out a deep groan and reached for the compress. This was going to be more difficult than he had expected. Princess, seeing his look of concern, lent her aid, plunging the cloth into the bowl, wringing out the excess water, and applying the soothing compress gently to Kedrigern’s forehead. He accepted her ministrations silently, his eyes fixed on the glowing crystal surface.

  “This is not going to be simple, my dear. Not simple at all. What we have here is a permutational spell . . . very tricky thing to deal with,” Kedrigern said abstractedly. He turned and started to say, “It really would be best to wait until I . . .” but the abandoned look in Princess’ eyes silenced him.

  He returned his attention to the cube. The radiance at its center was slowly swirling, like dyes dropped carefully into still water. He whispered a melodious phrase, and then another. The glow deepened, and clotted. He gestured for Princess to go to the opposite side of the table, facing him, and as she moved he took up a longer incantation in an utterly strange language of soft liquid syllables which flowed into one anothe
r without pause.

  When Princess stood opposite him, he reached out, took her hands, and placed her palms flat against the sides of the cube. He placed his own hands over hers. The light within the crystal drew in upon itself, congealed, and solidified into a golden cube within a cube.

  Kedrigern’s head was throbbing painfully. Swent ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He blinked it away, staring hard at the letters slowly coming into sight on the face on the inner cube. The print was tiny, the light was painfully bright, his vision was blurry, and his head felt as if it were about to burst into flame, but there was no stopping now. Squinting and cocking his head, he read off the words of the unbinding spell as one by one they came into view. When he spoke the final word, the golden cube burst into a million tiny fragments of light that glowed, and faded, and left the crystal and the room in semidarkness.

  Princess was slumping forward, dazed. Kedrigern rushed around the table just in time to catch her as she fell. He carried her to their bedroom, placed her on the bed, and summoned Spot.

  “Get the cold water and the cloth from my study, Spot. Bring them here at once,” he ordered.

  Princess was a bit pale, but her breath and heartbeat were regular. Kedrigern began to swab her brow and cheeks as soon as Spot arrived, and in a very short time, her eyelids fluttered. He set to wiping his own brow as she opened her eyes, looked up at him, and smiled.

  “How do you feel, my dear?” he asked.

  “.well Very .Well,” she said.

  Kedrigern gave a great sigh of relief. “I’m so glad to hear. For a moment there . . . I had some difficulty making out the words of the spell, you see. But apparently, I got it right.”

  She frowned, shook her head, and said, “.wrong it got you think I, No”

  “What?”

  “!backwards thing silly the recited You”

  “Backwards?”

  “.backwards, right That’s”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “?say can you all that Is”

  “Well . . . at least I didn’t recite the spell sideways, my dear,” Kedrigern said brightly, grasping at the first positive circumstance that occurred to him. “There’s no telling what you might sound like if I’d done that. This way, if you’re careful, and you work hard–”

  “?life my of rest the for backwards talking be I Will ?careful, mean you do What !Careful”

  “Oh, dear,” Kedrigern repeated.

  “!say to you for Easy ?dear, Oh”

  “Look at it this way: it’s a start. You’re speaking, and that’s the important thing.”

  “.Backwards,” she muttered.

  “It’s better than croaking, isn’t it? If you just keep to simple sentences, everything will be fine. Meanwhile, I’ll read over everything I have on the crystal of Caracodissa and permutational spells, and we can try it again in a few days. Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see,” Kedrigern said cheerfully.

  Princess looked up at him, still dubious but trying not to show her doubts. She was, after all, speaking. And it was an improvement over croaking. At last she smiled and held out her hands to him. ‘up me Help,” she said.

  Kedrigern was much relieved when she rose, stretched, and then walked out of the bedroom in completely normal fashion. When, at dinner, she did not begin with dessert and end with soup, he was reassured. And when Princess showed no sign of waking up before going to sleep that night, his mind was put completely at ease. The spell had affected only her speech. Kedrigern was confident that given time to bone up, and a clear head, he could set everything to rights.

  He spent the next day in his study, reading closely. When he came out, in midafternoon, to take a short breather, he received a shock to see Princess preparing an upside-down cake for dessert that evening; but it turned out to be sheer coincidence. He sat down, relieved, on the kitchen bench.

  “?hard working you Are,” she asked.

  “Yes. The crystal of Caracodissa is an amazingly complicated device. It seems that whenever one summons up the spell, it appears in slightly different form on each face of the crystal. Only one form is the right one, but there’s no way to tell which it is.”

  Princess frowned in puzzlement. “.one only saw I ?six were there sure you Are”

  “Whichever face you look into appears to be the only one with a spell showing. It was centuries before a witch named Moggropple discovered the secret.”

  “?mirrors use you Could”

  “Moggropple tried just that. She surrounded the crystal with mirrors, five of them, and recited all six spells one after the other, as fast as she could. She’s been trapped in the mirrors ever since, five of her, and no one knows the spell to get her out. No one is sure which is the real Moggropple, either; so they can’t try anything drastic. I don’t think it pays to get too clever with the crystal.”

  “?do you will What”

  “If we have one chance in six of finding the right spell, I suppose we just have to keep trying.”

  “. . . now, minute a Wait,” Princess said, holding up her hands.

  “It didn’t hurt at all, did it?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “And you did get your voice back.”

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly.

  “Well, there you are. We’ll try again tomorrow morning. There’s nothing to worry about,” Kedrigern said confidently.

  “?out-inside Or ?sideways talking start I if What”

  “You’re worrying yourself unnecessarily, my dear,” said Kedrigern, rising. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few references to check out. I’ll be working late tonight, I’m afraid. I want to have everything ready for tomorrow morning.”

  * * *

  The next morning, both Princess and Kedrigern were too edgy to eat a proper breakfast. Spot had scarcely cleared away their half-emptied plates when they went hand in hand to Kedrigern’s study. Kedrigern at once began to bustle about, covering his nervousness with activity and a stream of chatter.

  “Now, if you’ll take your place at the other side, just as you did yesterday . . . that’s right, my dear, right there . . . hands by your side, relaxed . . . nothing to worry about,” he said in a gentle, reassuring voice. “I’ll just clear away these empty bowls . . . there we are. Now, I’ll turn the crystal so . . . and see what happens when I read the spell in the next face. It won’t be any time at all, you’ll see. I’ll read the spell, and you’ll be speaking beautifully. Forwards. Only one or two little things to attend to before we . . . there . . . and there . . .”

  “!it with on get, Oh,” Princess said sharply.

  “Certainly, my dear, certainly,” Kedrigern said with a soothing gesture. “I’m practically finished. There. Now. Are you ready, my dear?”

  “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth.

  He nodded, took a deep breath, and commenced the summoning of the spirit in the cube. At his first words, the inner radiance came to life, and stirred, and began to glow. It twisted and spun, sinuous and slow, and Kedrigern began the incantation that would raise it to readiness.

  Motes and streamers of light danced in the crystal cube, ever closer and denser, moving in upon one another until a single glowing sphere hung shimmering in the center. Kedrigern reached for Princess’ cool hands, placed them on the sides of the crystal, and covered them with his own, just as he had done before. The light formed a brilliant inner cube. Once again, letters began to take shape before Kedrigern’s eyes, and he read off the spell slowly revealed to him.

  As the last words left his lips, the light burst into fragments. Kedrigern looked up quickly. Princess stared at the crystal, vacant-eyed, for a moment, then looked at him, fully alert and aware.

  “No, it isn’t,” she said.

  “Is everything all right?” Kedrigern asked anxiously.

  “Well, I’m not. Something’s gone wrong again.”

  “You sound fine, my dear.”

  “Listen to me! I’m one sentence ahead of you, that’s wh
at happened!” Princess cried.

  “What could have happened?”

  “– Ridiculous!”

  “But that’s –”

  Kedrigern waved his hands frantically for silence and restraint. Princess folded her arms like a gate shutting and glared at him with Armageddon in her blue eyes. With a flurry of reassuring gestures, Kedrigern prepared for an immediate new attempt. He gave the crystal a quarter-turn. He wiped his damp forehead on his sleeve, rubbed his eyes, took three deep calming breaths, and for the third time, spoke the words of summoning.

  The light this time was sluggish, moving slowly as honey in the center of the crystal cube. Kedrigern could sense the reluctance of the indwelling spirit; but once having begun, he could not turn back. That was one of the basic rules of the wizard’s trade.

  When the summoning phrases were done, Kedrigern paused for breath. The cube was faintly glowing now, with a sallow, grudging light. Princess had relaxed; her hands were by her sides, and her eyes were fixed on the crystal.

  Kedrigern began the incantation. The inner light swirled fitfully, like a fish on a line, but its color brightened and deepened. As it gathered, Princess placed her palms against the sides, and Kedrigern enclosed her hands in his. The light rose, and flared, and died, and they stood in the faint light, exhausted, their bowed heads almost touching over the crystal cube.

  “Are you all right, my dear?” Kedrigern asked when he had his breath under control.

  Princess nodded. She took a long, deep breath, then another, and raised her eyes to meet Kedrigern’s.

  “Say something. Just a short phrase will do. Anything,” Kedrigern said.

  She cleared her throat. “Peererb,” she said.

  Kedrigern recoiled in shock but quickly recovered his poise. “We’ll try again, my dear! A few minutes’ rest, that’s all we need, and then we’ll try again,” he said quickly.

  “Peererb! Peererb!” Princess cried, enraged.

  “Now, my dear, you must be patient. These things happen sometimes. It’s a momentary setback, nothing more. You mustn’t let it – Princess, what are you doing!?”