As they made their way back to their own room, Shea laughed. “To see those two, you’d think it was a crime to hold a girl on your lap here.”
“He’s probably never done it before,” remarked Polacek. “Well, he can have that human snowball if he wants her; I’ll take that little Sumurrud. Did you know she was giving me the eye?”
The goblin joined them almost at once, producing from under one arm a small leather bottle wrapped in a ragged piece of discarded turban.
Polacek gave him some of the odd-looking coins, each of which the being tested with fanglike teeth. As he turned to go, Shea said: “Just a minute Odoro.” He had taken hold of the bottle. “Your master is pretty tough about liquor, isn’t he?”
“Oh yes, awful. Law of Prophet.” Odoro touched a hand to his forehead.
“What would happen if he found out you had a supply and were selling it to people?”
The goblin shuddered. “Anathema, second class. Redhot pincers inside.” His grin vanished. “You no tell, no?”
“Well see.”
Odoro paled to lavender and made a shifting motion from one foot to the other that turned into a series of hops. “Oh, you no do! I do you boon! So do no knightly!” he squealed. “Here, you no want wine, you give me back!”
He danced up to Shea, reaching. Shea held the bottle high over his head and did a snap-pass to Polacek, who caught it like a down-field end. “Easy, easy,” said Shea. “Remember I’m a magician too, and I can turn you into a red ant if I want to. This is evidence. All I want is a little information, and if you give it to us you needn’t worry about our telling anything.”
“No got information,” said Odoro sullenly. His eyes ran round and round the room from a swivelling head.
“No? Votsy, you go find Atlantès and tell him we’ve got a bootlegger here, while I keep an eye on—Oh, you don’t want him to go? Maybe you do know a thing or two? I thought likely. Now then, is there a prophecy about Roger?”
“Yes—yes. Nasty prophecy. If he go out before full moon he join infidels, fight true believers. Inshallah!”
“Now, isn’t that nice! All right, why doesn’t Atlantès let Roger out just a little way? He’s a wizard and would know how to keep him from going too far.”
“Afraid Duke Astolph. He magician too; stole hippogriff.”
“That clears up one point anyway. But look here, if Roger’s so anxious to get out, why doesn’t he just make it hot for Atlantès? Cut off his head or something?”
“Not know. Swear beard of Prophet, no know. Think Atlantès do something with—you know—mind—” Odoro pointed to his head—“drive Roger like horse. But Roger not got much mind, so hard to—uh—drive.”
Shea laughed. “That’s about what I thought. Give him another nickel, Votsy. You see, Odoro, you stick with us and you’ll be all right. Now, what’s Atlantès up to with Florimel?”
“Prophecy. Find in magic book.”
“I daresay. What prophecy?”
“He lose Roger by woman knight, come on hippogriff.”
Belphebe was out there somewhere in the hills, and so was the hippogriff. “But what does Florimel have to do with that?”
“Not know. Think maybe he change her shape with woman knight, burn her up, poof!”
“A fine kettle of fish. What kind of spell will he use?”
“Not know.”
“You know about magic, don’t you?”
“Not know that. Atlantès, he very good magician.”
“Okay. Votsy, suppose you ask the very good magician to come—”
“Not know! Not know! Me ignorant!” wailed Odoro, beginning to hop again.
“Maybe he really doesn’t know,” suggested Polacek.
“Maybe. And maybe he gets a break for that crack about Roger. Run along, Odoro. You say nothing and we’ll say nothing.”
“Whew!” whistled Polacek when the door had closed behind the purple shape. “You certainly have got a nerve, Harold. With your luck and my brains—we get a drink.”
Shea rummaged a couple of pewter cups from a low cabinet in the corner, uncorked the bottle, sniffed, and poured some of its contents into each cup. The wine was sweet and dark, nearly black, with something the flavor of port, though he judged the proof would be lower.
Shea sipped his, remarking with the air of an experienced conspirator: “You don’t want to ask questions among the hired help without getting a hold on them somehow first. They may lie to you, or they may be souped up to report anything you ask to the boss. I think we’ve got this bozo playing on our team for the time being—but I don’t like what he said about the deal Atlantès is cooking up.”
“He means Belphebe, doesn’t he?” said Polacek, holding out his cup for another drink.
“I’m afraid so. No, Votsy, we’ve got to hang onto some of this to keep Odoro in line. Besides, Atlantès would smell it on your breath a block away and know something wasn’t kosher. We have to watch our step.”
Six
It was plain that Roger was not enjoying the party, although the seven virgins of Sericane were giving him most of their attention. Harold Shea didn’t know that he altogether blamed the big bruiser. It was good second-rate cabaret stuff, which might have been fairly enjoyable had there been a comfortable place to sit, something to smoke, and something to drink. Reed Chalmers had excused himself early and gone off to enjoy the company of Florimel.
The dance went on. In the middle of a figure Roger suddenly stood up. “In the name of Allah! Oh, uncle, this is not less than the vilest of your entertainments. My liver is constricted, and I would broaden it by hunting bears among the mountains.”
Atlantès broke off his conversation with one of the lords and began fluttering his hands, not aimlessly, but in the passes of a magical formula. However, it had no visible effect upon Roger, who trod firmly toward the door.
From beside Shea, Polacek said: “Say, I got an idea!” and wriggled to his feet and followed. Nobody but the seven girls seemed to mind the departure very much, even Atlantès going on with his whispered conversation. But as the number grew to a close, Shea felt uneasy; Polacek had too great a capacity for trouble to be left wandering around the castle for very long with an idea in his head. He too got up and strolled out into the corridor.
No sign of Roger or his friend. Shea ambled along the hall and around a bend without seeing anything significant. He was about to go back when his eye lighted on a side-passage with a door at its end where a smoky light showed the interlocked pentacles that protect magicians who deal with devils. Atlantès’ own laboratory!
In a moment the direction of his attention changed. The wizard was certainly well-occupied, and if he did come looking for anybody it would be Roger. Shea stepped up to the marked door. No handle; and it did not move when he pushed it. Barred with a spell beyond doubt; but by this time he knew enough magic to deal with the situation. Reaching to his turban, he plucked from the brush that adorned its front a couple of stiff bristles, detached a thread from the hem of his aba, and tied the bristles together in the form of a cross. Holding this up to the door he whispered:
“Pentacles far and pentacles near,
I forthwith command you disappear!
Shemhamphorash!”
He paused, hoping there was no basilisk on guard.
There was not. The room was long and lower than it seemed from the outside. A row of alembics and other magical apparatus lay ranged on a long table at one side, faintly reflecting the blue-white phosphorescent light thrown from the eyes of an owl and a crocodile, which stood on a pair of shelves. The animals were quite immobile; evidently Atlantès’ private system of lighting, though not one that would ever be popular with interior decorators. Along the shelf beneath them was a row of books, terminating in little compartments, each of which had a title on its attached tag.
The books had characters on their backs which Shea tried in vain to puzzle out until he realized that in this space-time continuum he would be unable to read E
nglish or any other language in which books were printed without special instructions. With the tags on the scrolls he fared better:
Ye Principalls of Magick with ye Conjuration of Daemons Superadded; Poisons Naturall; The Lawful Names of Allah; One Thousand Useful Curses; The Carpets of the Lesser Djann; Al Qa’sib’s Manner of Magickal Transformations;…
Ah! This one might have what he was looking for. Shea pulled out the scroll and glanced at it in the eyelight of the animals. It seemed to be almost as strong on general theory as Chalmers himself, but little or nothing as to practical details. A glance showed him that, as might be expected, the scroll had neither table of contents nor index, and its style was so rambling that getting anything out of it would need a week’s work.
Shea slipped the scroll back into its pigeonhole and turned to the rest of the room. If the enchanter were really trying to exchange Florimel’s body for that of the menacing “woman knight,” there ought to be traces of his labors about. However, the apparatus held no trace of filters, and the big scarred oak table beyond their bench lay bare. Atlantès was a neat sorcerer. Where would he keep his notebooks? Beyond the table was a stool and beyond that a low cabinet built into the wall. Like the outer door it had no handle, and as Shea bent closer he could see that its front was inscribed with pentacles. But at a touch it swung open, and Shea realized that his counter-spell must have let down barriers all over the castle. The thought that if there were any ifrits or demons abroad tonight they could get in and have themselves a hell of a fine time made him giggle under his breath.
The cabinet was deep, its shelves set back in, and in front of them a long straight sword hung in its scabbard from a hook. Probably an enchanted weapon, but the counter-spell would have taken care of that. Shea was about to reach past it toward the contents of the shelves when his ear caught the faint sound of a voice ordering the outer door to open.
In a flash Shea had snatched loose the sword and was on hands and knees beside the big table, which luckily had a decoration of carved wood reaching nearly to the floor.
The door opened. Shea could not see through the screening, but light from the corridor momentarily threw the shadow of a baboon’s head across the wall on the side away from the door. The newcomer was one of Atlantès’ servants, and a specially unappetizing member of the gang.
It stood in the doorway a moment, hesitant, as Shea himself had done. Then with the door swinging behind it, it stepped confidently toward the bookshelves. But then it fell quiet—too quiet. Shea heard it sniff; sniff again, like the puffing of a toy engine. Of course it would possess a keener sense of smell than a man. The servant worked its way over to the table that held the alembics, tracing Shea’s movements, just audible as its feet pressed the carpet. Shea could imagine the snouted head turning this way and that…. He gathered his muscles and shifted weight to bring his left hand free for the scabbarded weapon, planning in his mind how to snatch it out with the least lost motion.
The baboon-head reached the outer edge of the table, sniff, pull, sniff, pull, as loud as a locomotive in the oppressive silence.
Hell suddenly broke loose in the castle. A chorus of shouts and bangings echoed through the halls. The baboon-head paused for a moment, then ran to the door on almost soundless feet and out. Shea forced himself to count seven, then scrambled up and followed. The servitor had rounded the corner and the sound of its running still echoed metallically.
Shea turned toward the entertainment hall in the direction of the noise, pausing only in the side passage long enough to catch the sword on the belt beneath his flowing aba. It made him feel better.
As he approached the entertainment hall, he realized that the noise was coming from beyond. He ran past to a big winding staircase, and from where it spread to a landing he could see Atlantès and his guests coming up with swords, maces, and even musical instruments, chasing a wolf the size of a heifer. It came straight toward Shea, but with its tail between its legs and looking utterly miserable.
Shea tried to dodge, then remembered the sword, but before he could dig it out of its hiding-place the creature was upon him. However, instead of leaping for his throat the wolf threw itself on the landing and rolled over, scrubbing its back along the iron floor. It waved its paws in the air, letting out an unwolflike “Wah-wah! Wah-wah!” Then it rolled back again and, keeping its belly to the floor, licked at Shea’s shoes.
“Hey, wait a minute,” said Shea to the crowding pursuers, who were trying to take swipes at the beast. “This is a rummy kind of wolf. It wants to be a pet. Atlantès, would you mind taking a look at it?”
The sorcerer dropped one of the singers’ lutes and came forward. “Verily this is a most unfortunate rare creature, a wonder of wonders. Now shall you grant me room, Sir Harold.” He squatted down and peered closely into the animal’s eyes; it moaned. “There is no god but Allah! There is surely a werewolf. Oh, my lords, an evil hour has brought such a shape to Carena!” He reached to the neck of his robe and made a little tear in it. “Now I must seek by my arts to find how such a creature has passed our defenses. There is no doubt but that this is the work of the Christian enchanter, the paladin Malagigi, son of a hog and a she-dog, though I had heard of him imprisoned in Albracca.” He looked round the circle. “My lords, we must seek a silver weapon for one of you to slay this brute, for being myself an enchanter I cannot.”
Apparently silver weapons were in short supply. “O greatest of enchanters,” advised Margéan, “shall we not affix silver monies to a wooden club and beat it to death?”
The wolf howled piteously. Chalmers, who had popped out of his own room at the sound of the commotion, had arrived in time to hear the last remarks. Now he put in a word: “Ahem—wouldn’t it be the part of-—uh—wisdom to attempt disenchanting the animal first? If I am correct in my understanding, it would then lose any previous invulnerability.”
Atlantès bowed. “O fortunate hour that has brought your father’s son among us, Sir Reed! This is nothing less than the truth. Yet I am but a stick set in the sand beside you in such matters. As your head lives, you shall now do this for us.”
“Um—if we had some holy water, it would be a—uh—comparatively uncomplicated matter, but I will try.” Chalmers turned his back, put one hand to his chin, and meditated. “I am not sure the versification will prove adequate, but we shall see:
“Wolf, wolf, wolf of the windy mountain,
Wolf of fear;
I conjure you by the bitter fountain
Disappear!”
His fingers moved rapidly. The wolf shuddered and turned into Vaclav Polacek rolling on the floor, clothes and all.
“Holy Saint Wenceslaus!” he cried, getting up. “Might as well shoot a man as scare him to death. Why didn’t you lay off when I told you who I was?”
“You didn’t tell us,” said Shea.
“I did so. I kept saying, ‘For the love of Mike, Harold, it’s me, Votsy,’ as clear as anything.”
Maybe it would have sounded like that to another wolf, but it didn’t to us,” replied Shea. “How did you get into that mess anyway? Did you run into this Malagigi that Atlantès is talking about?” There was a murmur of agreement through the group, as Atlantès’ eyes darted back and forth.
“Well,” said Polacek. He cleared his throat once or twice before he could get going. “It’s like this, see? Roger isn’t such a bad guy when you get to know him. He wanted to go hunting or something, and we were talking about it, but he said as how there was some kind of spell so he couldn’t get out the door, and I said I’d been studying some magic, and so we went down there together, and he had the right dope; the door wouldn’t open. Well, you see, I remembered these somatic passes Doc was talking about and made a few of them, and boy, the door flew open just like that!” He paused. Shea stared a little, then hoped Atlantès hadn’t noticed.
“Go on, Vaclav,” said Chalmers severely.
“Well, then I figured I knew enough about magic to maybe—uh—get that babe b
ack—you know, the one you were going to introduce me to.” He appealed to Atlantès. “So I worked a little spell, just like you said, but it turned me into a wolf instead. I’m sorry I made so much trouble.”
“Must be your Slavonic ancestry,” said Shea. “The Czechs are full of werewolf stories, and—”
He had not noticed the gathering clouds on Atlantès’ forehead. Now the storm burst. “Son of a dog!” he shouted at Polacek. “Where is the pride of chivalry, the noblest of his race, who is worth ten thousand such as you?”
“Why, he went out to do a little hunting, like I said,” said Polacek. “He said he’d be back before morning with something good.”
This time Atlantès really did beat his chest. “Ah, woe to me! The doom has stricken!” Then he swung around to the three Americans. “But as for you, Nazarene dogs, who have plotted against me by the hand of your servant while partaking of my bread and salt, you deserve nothing more than to be flayed alive and to have your bodies buried in a pit with the excrement of hogs!”
“Hey!” said Shea, reaching forward to take Atlantès by the arm. “Those are fighting words where we come from. If you want to get tough about it—”
“Harold!” said Chalmers. “Let me handle this. We don’t want—”
“We don’t want anything to do with this thrip except to hand him a sock in the puss. D’you know what he’s up to?”
Chalmers said: “Never mind, Harold. You have already informed me sufficiently. I’ll defend—uh—myself and the young lady to any extent necessary.”
Atlantès’ fury had burned down to a glower. “O ill-omened sorcerers! Know that this castle was wholly established by the arts of which I am master, and within its walls I have such power that I could turn you to beetle grubs in less time than the snapping of the fingers. Yet in the name of Allah, the omnipotent, the merciful, will I spare your lives to the undoing of the harm you have done, for it is written that once in his lifetime may the just man prefer mercy to justice without endangering his hope of paradise.”
The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea Page 32
