Stephen broke air. “Manacles!” he gasped, but Youngster didn’t hear him. The Blue Lady had Youngster against a wall, next to Craggy—but Craggy was hardly moving; he was on his knees, one hand to his face, the other feebly twitching on the poker.
Stephen hauled himself, choking and spitting water, over the edge of the pool and onto the floor. He knelt there a moment, gasping. The Blue Lady didn’t look in his direction, but Youngster spotted him over her shoulder and redoubled his defense.
My knife, Stephen thought. I’ve enchanted it to cut through anything. He staggered to his feet and tried not to look at the cages around him. I’m sorry, Stephen thought to the creatures, knowing they couldn’t hear him. I had hoped to save you. He drew his knife and leapt forward.
Finally, the Blue Lady heard him, and began to turn—too late! The enchanted knife was in her neck, slashing through her gills, slicing through her trachea. The Blue Lady twitched and grasped at him, but he kept cutting, kept cutting until he had separated the vertebrae and the Blue Lady’s head splashed gently into the water.
In the moment of the Blue Lady’s death, all her enchantments ended. Hundreds of tiny animals, locked in their unbreakable cages, abruptly recalled their true forms: human, fairy, and things stranger still. All of them, however, significantly larger than their prisons.
The room exploded into billows of blood and brain and slices of unidentified organs. A bone fragment sliced Stephen’s arm and another cut his cheek. He dropped to the floor, protecting his face and neck, but it was already over; nothing more flew at him.
The human and fairy remains coated the floor eight inches thick. Around the deep pool, chunks gently slid in and sank down. Eventually, the entire floor would be cleared in this manner—but it would take a long, long time for this room to be clean again.
“Enchanter!” Youngster called, and Stephen realized Youngster had been saying it for some time. He shook his head, and managed to stagger to his feet.
“Yes?” He was swaying gently, he was sure of it—either that, or the house was swaying. Did houses sway?
“We have to get out of here; the house is collapsing! Help me with Craggy.”
Stephen blinked a few times and nodded. He waded over to Youngster and grabbed one of Craggy’s arms. The arm was slick and the man was heavy, but together Stephen and Youngster managed to drag him out of the house to the edge of the water.
The house creaked behind them, and fell down into a heap of old waterlogged timber, no longer supported by magic.
Youngster was crouched over Craggy. “What’s happening to him? Is it that potion? Did Letitia do this?”
Craggy was turning a gentle shade of blue and gasping, fishlike, for air.
“No,” said Stephen. “Look!” He pointed at Craggy’s ankles, where bare skin showed through his torn trousers. There was something sticky and bluish clinging to his skin. “Don’t touch it!” Stephen shouted, when Youngster reached forward. “That’s from the Blue Lady’s tendrils. It’s poisonous.”
They waited by Craggy’s side until he breathed his last. Then they both jumped into the perfect, unsullied water of the cavern and swam to shore, ignoring the ferry. The shore wasn’t far, and both felt a pressing need to wash away the proof of their victory. They left a trail of blood in the serene waters of the cavern, but emerged at the far end clean and cold.
The sun had reached its zenith when Stephen and Youngster saw it once more. It burned against their eyes, vivid and terrible and wonderful after the gentle, faint glow of the cavern. They lifted their faces to it, basking in its light, letting it warm their skin and dry their clothing.
A low, chittering noise startled them from their reverie and, together, they looked out.
Encircling the cave entrance were thousands of spit-mud creatures.
XXV
What spit-mud creatures want
“Oh,” said Stephen, “it’s you. You must be the ones who have been stealing all my magic. I could have used some, a few minutes ago. Too late now, of course, but it would have been nice.”
The spit-mud creatures chittered again and their leader stepped forward. It had only three legs, and limped, but had acquired a sort of crutch to help it—a spindly twig. “You are immensely wise,” it said, and Stephen might have been imagining the difference, but it seemed to him that the creature’s voice was older now, more forceful and intelligent.
“There are so many of you,” Stephen sighed. “Excuse me; I am very weary.” He collapsed on the ground, leaning damply against the side of the knoll. Youngster followed suit. “What do you want?”
“What we have always wanted, O One Who Made Us,” the tripod replied respectfully. “What we requested in the woods of Robin. We saved you then, and have been searching for you ever since, that you might fulfill your promise. But you went where we could not follow, and we have only just now found you again.”
“You couldn’t go into Faerie?” said Youngster. “Why not?”
The spit-mud creatures burst into a long explanation of their growth and evolution and adventures. As they explained, Youngster and Stephen ate and rested.
This is the spit-mud creatures’ story:
The first sensation the newly formed tripod spit-mud creature felt was cold. It was a burning, ravenous cold, emanating from a nearby substance like the icy hands of Death. The spit-mud skittered swiftly away, eager to escape the terrible, menacing cold. It stumbled and limped as it moved, testament to its missing leg.
Missing leg. How had that happened? Surely, Master would not have made it imperfect. Master was kind, and would not do such a thing.
Master. Master was above it, watching it. Master had made it. The spit-mud looked reproachfully up at the black and white blob that was Master. Why didn’t Master fix it? Couldn’t Master fix it?
Master made sounds of it—huge, booming sounds. The spit-mud could not understand the individual words, but there was a shift inside it, inside the very magic that held it together, and it knew it had a Mission. It must help Master, save Master from the wicked, and it must stay away from the nasty cold-making substance, or it would die.
Filled with a new sense of purpose, the spit-mud stood tall on its three spindly legs and limp-skipped out of the cold-making place. It climbed up long, arduous stone mountains and out into the Place With No End. It was cold here too, but a different kind of cold. The spit-mud didn’t mind this cold, this White Stuff; it was not inimical to its magic. The spit-mud limped gratefully out into this new cold. Farther away from the bad cold-making substance, the spit-mud felt stronger, and its Mission drove it forward. It must find help for Master, and it knew exactly where to go; the magic inside compelled it.
The spit-mud skittered silently and speedily over the crust of the White Stuff, which was the not-bad cold stuff. It traveled until its lifespan had many times doubled, until it found the place to which its Mission compelled it. There, it found a creature that was like and yet unlike Master, and had no feel of Master’s clean magic, but much feel of the cold-making substance. Yet the spit-mud was brave in the face of the cold-making substance, and delivered its message—it had not before known it could talk, and knew it would never do so again—and crept away to die.
Already, it could feel the magic within it breaking down and fading away. There was no pain, and even the cold of the White Stuff seemed farther away. Soon, its single eye dimmed until there was no more white, but only black and more black.
Just as the last vestiges of its magic were seeping away, something changed. There was suddenly a new source of life magic, a thread reaching out to it. Master had remembered it! The spit-mud used the last dredges of its strength to latch onto the thread, and—
The world burst into being.
The spit-mud could see again, and hear—but not as before! Now, there were colors and sharp edges and distances; now, the booming around it was distinguished into actual sounds, distinct and comprehensible, covering all pitches; now, it could feel not only the cold
of the White Stuff, but also its texture and taste.
Snow. The White Stuff was called snow.
An entire universe of information spilled into the spit-mud’s mind and it reeled, stunned and terrified. What was happening to it? What was going on?
Master had been freed from the cold-making substance—from the iron. Master was no longer cut off from his creation; the spit-mud had fulfilled its Mission.
Fulfilled, thought the spit-mud, struck with fear. If its Mission was fulfilled, what purpose did it have? It had expected to die, to end along with its Master. . . .
Only, Master wasn’t its master anymore; his only command had been completed. The spit-mud was free.
What should it do?
Master—no, not Master. He was its maker, its enchanter, not its master—Enchanter would know. Enchanter knew much; the spit-mud could feel Enchanter’s enormous power, throbbing along the taut thread of magic that connected them. The spit-mud would find Enchanter, and Enchanter would give it purpose. Catching him would not be difficult; it would follow the magic thread.
The spit-mud traveled hard and long and quickly, but its legs were short and it could not travel as quickly as Enchanter, so that whenever the spit-mud found a place where Enchanter had been, it found it abandoned. When it came to the first camp, it searched the place for signs of Enchanter. There was little to go on: the familiar tang of Enchanter’s magic, a follicle of hair that had fallen from his head, and a fragment of mucus that had dripped from his nose. These, the spit-mud collected, knowing their power—and knowing that it must keep them safe for Enchanter.
The spit-mud continued its journey, following Enchanter’s every step, collecting every fragment that he dropped, no matter how small.
Then came one horrible night, when Enchanter’s magic was . . . gone. Just gone, without warning or reason. One moment it had been there, as strong and powerful as ever, the next—nothing.
The spit-mud creature collapsed to the earth, not far from the town of Chubblewooble. It cringed there, weak and half-alive, clinging to the slight reserves of power it had collected and draining the virtue from the relics that Enchanter had left along the road, like breadcrumbs dropped to lead the spit-mud home.
So why did Enchanter do this to it? Why did he stop the magic? Didn’t he realize that the spit-mud was following faithfully, running along as quickly as it could, utterly dependent on him?
No, the spit-mud realized; he didn’t know. The spit-mud had felt so sure that Enchanter had understood it, because Enchanter had filled its mind and body with words and magic. But, so great was Enchanter’s magic, and so puny the spit-mud, that it knew Enchanter couldn’t feel it.
Devastated by this revelation and the abrupt dearth of magic, the spit-mud lay on the earth and wished for death. What use was its life if Enchanter didn’t know it existed? How could it survive on its own, knowing that Enchanter might at any moment die or touch iron, and it would be snuffed out as easily as Enchanter blew his nose?
Morning broke and with it, returned the thread of magic. But as the spit-mud’s physical strength returned, its confidence remained broken. It knew it had to catch Enchanter quickly and show Enchanter that it existed and deserved permanent life—and it knew that if it could not meet Enchanter soon it would lose all hope, and throw itself into a stream and allow the water to shred it.
The question was: what now? How did it become useful to Enchanter, and how did it catch up with him? It was so small and unsteady on its three legs that it was in constant danger from predators and could not travel in the open. If only it were bigger and stronger, or had someone bigger and stronger to protect it!
And then the thought came, the huge, brilliant thought: it could make more of itself, even as Enchanter had made it! It could make better versions, larger and more powerful. As a swarm, the smallest creatures could travel safely and swiftly where any single creature would perish.
The spit-mud got to work. It dug beneath the snow and began to build other spit-mud creatures, using itself as a model. It was hard work; the spit-mud did not have hands and fingers like Enchanter, and the ground was frozen hard. It persevered, however, and at last succeeded. It did not stop with one other spit-mud creature, but built dozens, improving as it worked, becoming surer of itself. The more it worked, the stronger and larger and more elegant it was able to create its children. Now multitudinous, the spit-mud creatures traveled rapidly, and soon caught up with Enchanter as he ran through a field.
Or was it Enchanter? Enchanter was nearby, but this huge creature, filled with the familiar fizzing of Enchanter’s magic, was not Enchanter. It was an animal—an enchanted dog.
Enchanter had made another creature that was not the spit-mud! The spit-mud was momentarily heart-broken . . . until it looked more closely at the dog, and saw that while its magic was self-contained, it held no piece of Enchanter himself within it; it was made of Enchanter’s magic, but not Enchanter himself.
The spit-mud was still unique.
Then the dog spotted movement among the spit-mud creatures, and bounded over to investigate. It scooped up one of them in its mouth, and shook its head, crushing the delicate creature. The other spit-mud creatures cried out in fury, and the spit-mud just barely managed to keep them from swarming the dog, by reminding them that Enchanter would not like it if the spit-mud creatures killed his creation. Besides, it didn’t think the dog understood; it had not killed the spit-mud creature out of malice.
The other spit-mud creatures were incensed and threatened to rebel, until the tripod explained carefully that they could learn from the dog. The dog didn’t have any of Enchanter inside it, but it was alive and permanent. If they found Enchanter, he could do the same for them—and then they would not have to fear the touch of iron.
The spit-mud creatures finally calmed down, but Enchanter was already far ahead and moving quickly. The spit-mud creatures hurried through the woods after him for many long hours, but Enchanter had a considerable head start, and they didn’t catch up until the far end of the woods.
As soon as it saw Enchanter, the tripod spit-mud realized, to its horror, that Enchanter was in terrible danger. He was using the power of his voice to hold off a terrible human filled with unnatural magic, but he was tired and his power was failing.
The spit-mud rallied its children, reminding them that if Enchanter died, so would they all! The children agreed to help Enchanter, and they swarmed the one with unnatural magic. In that moment, the tripod spit-mud ran to Enchanter and, for the first time since its creation, sat upon its maker’s hand. It began its request, but the danger was not over, and Enchanter was forced to leave in a hurry—as was the spit-mud. And many of its children were badly injured by the one whom Enchanter called Robin.
The spit-mud creatures’ losses were heavy, and they could not immediately begin following Enchanter. When they did follow him, they found he had entered a place where they could not go, and they had to wait outside the border for several long months, still making more of their own.
Then a wonderful and horrible day came. First, they rejoiced, for they felt Enchanter nearing them. Yet they were confused, because there was something wrong with his magic; it was intermingled with another magic, an unnatural magic not unlike that of Robin. Then the wrongness disappeared, but with it disappeared the life threads of his magic!
In that moment, when his magic failed, more than half the new spit-mud creatures died, unable to survive apart from him. Only the older spit-mud creatures, who contained more of Enchanter inside themselves, survived.
Almost as soon as it had gone, the magic returned, but the spit-mud creatures could hardly rejoice. Thereafter followed a great time of mourning and rebuilding, rebuilding at an incredible rate, better and stronger, until they could make no more—and when they tried to connect one new creature to Enchanter’s magic, another fell dead.
Finally, at long last, here they were again, in Enchanter’s presence, their reward for many months’ trial. Would En
chanter help them? Would Enchanter make their magic and lives permanent? If he would, a bodyguard of spit-mud creatures would follow him always, protecting him from harm with their very lives.
“You,” said Stephen, “have grown far beyond my expectations—and far, far beyond any other creature that I have made. I knew I was right to be proud of you—and I was proud of you, and am, and I did not forget you, though I thought you dead. But I can’t do what you ask. No—” he held up a hand to forestall the spit-mud creatures’ protests—“not through any hesitation on my part; I don’t mean I won’t help you; I mean I can’t. There are so many of you channeling my magic that I have none to spare to enchant you permanently, none at all. You yourselves are preventing me from helping you! If there were, perhaps, half your number, maybe I could—”
The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter Page 33
