The Wizard of Karres

by Mercedes Lackey

  And then the shaking began. At first it felt as if a herd of fanderbags was thundering past in the distance, but the intensity began to build. Pausert tried to move, but could not. He felt as if his body was strapped to a gigantic drumhead and the drummer was picking up both the volume and the tempo. The droning noise was like thunder.

  Then it began to die away. "It's no use," said Goth. "That swimming through jelly feeling is back. We need more power."

  The hull vibrated for an entirely different reason. "Near miss, Captain," said Vezzarn. "Can't you help the little Wisdoms?"

  The Leewit looked at Goth. Goth stared back at the Leewit. "Going to have to try it I guess," said Goth. "Captain. Follow the pattern with us."

  Captain Pausert realized that he had been staring at it while they'd tried. Now he did his best to mesh in with Goth and Leewit. Suddenly, the mesh came into being.

  It was like being plugged into an electrical outlet. The Egger Route was grinding away at him, and shaking everything. He found himself twisting parts of the pattern that now burned as if outlined in fire. Tweaking this, flicking that over. Gradually the shaking lessened and died away.

  But the darkness that enveloped them was complete.

  "Are we dead?" asked Vezzarn, nervously.

  CHAPTER 28

  "No, I don't think so," said Goth's voice, out of the darkness.

  "But don't ask us where we are . . . because we don't know," said the Leewit. The Leewit didn't sound grumpy, as she usually did when things went wrong. Just a little scared.

  "What I do finally know," said Goth, "is what caused that swimming-though-jelly feeling, Captain. It went away just as soon as you joined us. But the power you poured into that pattern and the changes—it was like riding a runaway bollem. I got no idea what happened or even where we are."

  Embarrassment flooded the captain. The other Karres witches had grown up with witch magic. They had instructor patterns in their minds to guide their development. Pausert, a one time citizen of the stuffy and conservative little Republic of Nikkeldepain, had no such special advantages. He just had to muddle along with klatha. He did achieve some spectacular results, some time to time, though they were rarely the results trained operatives would achieve. But his uncontrolled klatha pooling had disturbed all the adult witches when he'd been on Karres, and even the adolescents.

  "You mean I might have been causing the problems with the Sheewash Drive?"

  "Pretty sure, Captain. The feeling was the same."

  Hantis spoke from the darkness. "Have you been concentrating on the patterns for the drive, all this time?" she asked.

  "Er. Yes. I felt I nearly had them . . ." Pausert heard his own voice trail off.

  "Foolish churl," growled Pul. "Haven't you been told that klatha powers come in their own time?"

  If the darkness had been mere absence of light, then Pausert was sure the others could have seen the dull red glow he was sure that his face was putting out. "Yes. But, well . . . I thought I could help. And I felt I nearly had it."

  "Instead you were dragging like a dead weight at those who did have it," said Hantis. "At least we understand what was wrong, then."

  "Yeah," said the Leewit. "Now all we need to know is what went wrong with the Egger Route. And where we are."

  "This isn't the Egger Route, then?" asked Pausert.

  "Nope," said the Leewit. "Not like it at all." In a small voice: "Can you get us out of here, Captain?"

  "Well," said the captain. "I'd like to. But how? Like I did with those shields? Tracing it backwards?"

  "If that worked at all, we'd be right back under fire from Imperial cruisers," pointed out Goth.

  "Anyway, I don't know if I can," admitted Pausert. "The pattern. Well. I sort of changed things as I went along, because it was hurting, and I'm not sure I can visualize it."

  Then suddenly he relled vatch.

  So there you went! said a cross little voice. How did you get here, Big Real Thing? And why did you run away from me? Did you think I wouldn't find you? There was a trace of plaintiveness in the voice.

  For the first time ever, Captain Pausert was truly glad to see those tiny, slitty silver eyes peering at him. One of the reasons he was so glad about it was that they could be seen at all. There appeared to be no other form of light, and his attempts at moving hadn't succeeded. He wasn't really sure if they were actually talking with sound and words. It didn't feel as if his lips were moving. Actually it didn't feel at all.

  "I never thought I'd be glad to see a vatch," said the Leewit. "Hey! Leggo, you little beast!"

  Where are we, little vatch? asked Pausert.

  You mean you don't know?

  Tell us. Please?

  Might. If I feel like it. What are you going to do now, Big Real Thing?

  Pausert didn't tell it that what he really wanted to do right now was wring the little silvery-eyed vatch's neck, if it had a neck and if he could have come to grips with it. Nothing interesting, he said. Sit here and be boring.

  The vatch made a rude noise. Can't do that. The wave of everything is coming.

  Wave of everything? Pausert wondered if it was worth fashioning klatha hooks. Of course he could only tickle this one, but maybe he could tickle it into telling them. Tickling was not that far removed from torture, after all.

  Yes. You're outside of everything. The only thing that's here is your ship. Even time hasn't got here yet. It's a strange place to come.

  Well, can you get us out of here? Or tell us how to get out of here?

  I don't think I will, said the vatchlet petulantly. Last time I did something for you I got sick. And then when I went to play in all the other ships so they'd leave you alone, you ran away.

  Inwardly, Pausert groaned. If there had been any doubts in the minds of the captains of Imperial Space Navy ships that the Venture was indeed chock full of the notorious witches of Karres and should definitely be destroyed on sight, he was sure it wasn't there anymore.

  But here, outside of everything, that seemed a minor problem. Oh, well. I suppose you can't do anything, anyway.

  Can too! snapped the little vatch, and vanished.

  Sitting in the darkness, Captain Pausert had time to wonder if he'd handled it right. And time to try to reconstruct the pattern he had used, inside his head. He was sure if he could just get up and redraw it, he'd have it.

  "I've been thinking, Captain," said Goth.

  "Careful! You know what happened last time you did that," said the Leewit, snippily.

  "You're lucky I can't move," grumbled Goth.

  In the interests of peace, Pausert intervened. "What, Goth? Have you some idea of how we can get out of here?"

  "Well, no. But I think I have some idea of how we got in here. You remember you said you had changed some things in the pattern?"

  "Yes," admitted the captain. "They . . . well, they just didn't seem right. It felt as if my changes would stop all the vibrations."

  "And it did," said Goth, thoughtfully. "Never heard of that with the Egger Route, before. But we—the Leewit and me—were also using that same klatha pattern. And so I think we didn't end up where any of us were heading."

  "So you mean we could just do it again?" asked the Leewit.

  "Doubt it," answered Goth. "It might do something else entirely. Anyway, I've tried all sorts of klatha stuff. It doesn't work. There is just nothing here, except us. Or nothing here yet. Looks like only vatches can handle this place, though I don't know why that should be true."

  Goth was sounding very like her mother, Toll, now. The captain wondered whether it was her Toll-pattern speaking, and wished, yet again, that he could have such an instructor.

  "It also means," she continued, "that to reverse it we'd probably have to work together."

  "Uh-oh!" interjected the Leewit. "I'm relling vatch again. Big vatch."

  It was a big vatch. A huge one—and it was in hot pursuit of little Silver-eyes, who didn't seem in the least bit amused about anything. Downright s
cared, in fact.

  The huge eyes were green, at the top of a mountain of tumbling black energy, roiling and twisting klatha force. The vatch paused abruptly in its chase, its eyes fixed on Pausert and his crew.

  HOW DID THEY GET HERE? HOW ODD. The big vatch laughed thunderously. NO—HOW DELIGHTFUL! WELL, I'M GLAD I FOLLOWED YOU AFTER ALL, YOU LITTLE NUISANCE.

  Pausert hastily began fashioning klatha hooks in his mind.

  They're mine! All mine! hissed the little one, buzzing around the big vatch and then hastily retreating.

  Before Captain Pausert could react, he was plucked, no, hurtled, out of the Venture. He was dimly aware of the passage of enormities of time and space. And then of sitting down, hard, onto blue-green spongy stuff.

  His first realization was that he'd actually felt that landing. The next was that, far from the darkness of a few moments before, his senses were almost drowning in colors. The horizon was pricked by towers. Improbably slim towers, elfin and beautiful, and very white against a sky that was definitely a shade of primrose. Somewhere in the middle distance a waterfall splashed.

  He glanced around hastily. To his immense relief, he saw that the whole crew of the Venture had come with him and were sitting on the same spongy material. Above them, parasol-like trees stretched feathery red leaves towards an alien sun. The air was full of strange but almost intoxicating scents.

  "Where are we?" asked Vezzarn, warily. "Boy, I really hate this witchy stuff."

  Hantis answered, in an almost dreamy voice. "We're on Nartheby. Nartheby in her golden age." She pointed to the towers on the horizon. "The towers of fabled Delaron were destroyed during the final phase of the quarantine wars. We lacked the skills needed to rebuild them. They are partly creations of klatha force."

  Pausert knew that time and space were not limiting to vatches, particularly large ones. He was also grimly aware that this was a game to them, an entertainment played with what they considered to be phantasms of their minds. And that a vatch loved to test its phantasms, to see if the pieces in its mind-games had a role in the dream-drama.

  True, there was usually a way out for pieces of quality. Although not always—the vatch who had placed them on the Worm World had fully expected them to be destroyed. The immensely powerful and capricious living klatha creatures were quite capable of maneuvering players into hopeless situations, just to watch the drama of their doomed efforts to escape.

  And even if there was a way out, there was usually only one. Not for the first time, the captain wished that vatches would just leave him alone. Of course, that wasn't likely. Klatha use attracted the creatures; the Venture must have stood out like a lighthouse.

  "What do we do now, Captain?" asked Vezzarn, looking nervously around.

  Pausert did rather wish that people wouldn't keep asking him that. He really had no idea. This vatch was undoubtedly watching, but from beyond the range at which the Karres witches could rell it.

  And there seemed to be a more immediate problem, anyway. By the deep-throated rumble issuing from Pul, there was something else watching them too. Pausert felt the hairs on his neck rising the way they had when the Sheem war robot had been stalking up behind them. He stood up, turning as he did so.

  Of course. The vatch would not have chosen a safe, comfortable place to deposit its play pieces.

  No. They just had to be in trouble.

  Hantis had turned from her rapt contemplation of the towers and was now looking in horror at what Pul was growling at. "Gnyarl!"

  The creatures that were staring at them from the fernlike undergrowth were sinuous, reptilian and gray. Their eyes, however, flamed a particularly disquieting shade of orange.

  "Hantis," said the captain quietly, warily watching the statue-still creatures. "What are they? What do we do about them?"

  "We are on some High Sprite's lands. These beasts are his guard. We can do nothing, so far as I know. They have been extinct on Nartheby for many centuries, but I have been told gnyarl were nearly impossible to kill and equally difficult to shake off. We can split up. Maybe they won't get all of us."

  "How do they do on direct blaster fire?" asked Pausert grimly. Of course it would help if he had a blaster snugged to his hip. Hulik always carried her slimline Mark 7 model. But the captain's weapons were safely locked up in the Venture. And the Venture was somewhere beyond the edge of nowhere.

  Vezzarn proved that once a rogue . . . always a weapon-carrier. The little thief had a military RV special, out and at the ready. "I don't know, Captain. But I can try them on this."

  One of the gray reptilian forms darted forward, snaking its long neck towards them. Vezzarn fired. The gnyarl's head was engulfed in flame. The creature blinked, shook its long beak-nose, and spat a gout of fire back at Vezzarn. Only being nimble on his pins saved the old spacer.

  The other three gnyarl had taken advantage of the distraction to split up and begin flanking them.

  The Leewit looked hard at the advancing creatures—and whistled. The sound was like a wet finger being skimmed around the edge of a delicate wine glass, but many times as loud.

  Everybody, from Pausert to the grik-dog, cringed. The gnyarl backed off a bit, rubbing their ears with black-taloned paws, blinking those flame-orange eyes. They looked puzzled. Obviously, nothing much had ever given them pause, before.

  "Right, let's head out," said Pausert. "Keep together. And the Leewit had better be ready to whistle again."

  Watching the gnyarl, they began moving away up the hill. Silently, keeping to the cover, the creatures followed. Sometimes all they saw was a sinuous streak of gray through a gap in the undergrowth. The clearing they'd landed in, with its distant prospects, had narrowed into a path that wound upwards through a defile. The way grew ever steeper and narrower.

  "I don't like this," said Goth, who was an accomplished huntress herself. "It's almost as if we're being herded."

  "I guess we should just be grateful they're not eating us," said Vezzarn, who had tucked away his RV and was looking to be on the edge of panicky flight.

  Very distantly, just on the edge of perception, Pausert could rell vatch. If he could get klatha hooks into the creature . . .

  "Stinkin' vatch," said the Leewit.

  Pausert agreed this time. But the big one was keeping out of range.

  The feathery trees had thinned. Ahead stood a stalked building. That was the best way Pausert could describe it. It looked rather like a giant piece of broccoli, though it was plainly stone. There were high, round windows looking down on them. Flicking a glance at her, Pausert could see that Hantis was biting her lower lip with those slightly odd-shaped, very white teeth of hers. She looked to be almost in pain.

  Behind them, one of the dragonish gnyarl hissed.

  The Leewit must have been waiting for the slightest provocation from them. She turned around immediately and whistled again. The pitch was too high to hear. But not too high to feel! The captain felt his teeth ringing.

  The gnyarl had a lot more teeth—and they were on the directional receiving end of that whistle. The Leewit could target things rather precisely.

  The lead gnyarl yowled like a cat that had had its tail stood on. Then, scrambled back hastily, wrinkling its long nose-snout, and attempting to squint at its snaggled teeth. The other three also retreated.

  Goth took Hantis' elbow. "Should we go somewhere else? It doesn't look like you like this place much."

  Hantis gave a low, musical laugh. "It's no use going anywhere else, my dear. This is where we were meant to go. And it's not that I don't like this place. I love it, as does Pul. We know it well. But seeing it like this hurts."

  "We'll make them fix whatever it is they've done wrong, then," said the Leewit, using her Mistress of the Universe tone.

  "Nothing is wrong, children. This is my home. This is where I was born. But Castle Aloorn, in our time, has few inhabitants. And I am afraid it is not in the best repair. This is the golden age of Nartheby, when our star-empire was at its height and t
he Sprites' culture was in full flower."

  A swinging platform was being lowered slowly down from the broccoli-head of the building. The platform looked as if it were glass, and made by some Old Yarthe baroque-style glass-smith. It was transparent yet ornate, full of gilt and green curlicues and spikes. On top of it, on an angular throne, was a statue. A haughty-looking perfectly realistic male Sprite, but only half Hantis' size.

  Captain Pausert had assumed it was a statue, because it was all one color, even the hat—a pearly white. And then, it moved. He was no statue. He'd just been sitting as still as one.

  The captain looked at Hantis to see her reaction. And suddenly realized that she was no longer next to them. She was using her klatha powers now, to levitate. And she was speaking, but not in Universum.

  "What's she saying?" whispered Goth to the Leewit.

  "She's just greeted the Lord of Castle Aloorn. Real flowery stuff. Huh! Never heard Hantis talk like that before!"

  The half-pint Sprite spoke.

  "He wants to know who she is that dares to trespass on the lands of house Aloorn."

  Hantis replied.

  "She said she has the hereditary right to visit her own lands and home. She said some words that I don't think mean anything."

  The haughty looking Sprite looked as if he was about to fall off his throne. He raised his hands and began jabbering furiously.

  "Oh. They must be like a password or something. He says . . . he wants to know who betrayed his house. Oh, that's nasty, what he just said! You oughta wash his mouth out with soap, Captain."

  By the widening of the Leewit's eyes, Hantis' reply was even more educational. "Oh, boy. I think we are in trouble. The two of them are mad clear though. I've never heard anyone say anything like that. Not even the Agandar's pirates."

  Somewhere in the distance was a hint of huge vatchy laughter. The captain didn't like this situation at all. Other glassy platforms were beginning to be lowered down from the bulbous castle above. Behind, the dragonish gnyarl still hemmed them in. The Leewit's whistle had put them off, true, but would it stop them in a truly determined rush? And this was definitely playing the game the way the vatch wanted. They had to break out of its pattern.