Tad Williams - A Stark And Wormy Knight

The old man stared at him for a long time with an expression on his face that it would have been difficult to call either friendly or forgiving. “Ah, well,” Eliastre said at last. “My hands appear tied, as it were, and the longer I resist the more the binding rope shall chafe me. Let us proceed.”

When he had completed the transaction with the ex-wizard to his satisfaction, Lixal took the manuscript pages of the new spells and bade Eliastre goodbye.

“By the by, I frown on the word ‘extortion’,” Lixal called back to the old man, who was still glaring at him from the doorway of the shop. “Especially when I have given you my word of honor that I will come back at a time when my pockets are full and repay you at market rate. The expression on your face suggests that you doubt this promise, or else that you are otherwise unsatisfied with our exchange, which to me seems to have been more than fair. In either case, I am displeased. Until that cheerful day when we meet again, I suggest you cultivate an attitude of greater humility.”

Lixal made his way back out of the city of Catechumia toward the forested outskirts where his traveling theatrical company had made its camp. He wished he had been able to force the old man to recite the spells himself, as proof that none of them had been primed like a springe trap to rebound painfully or even fatally on its user, but since Eliastre had been forcibly curtailed from using magic by the Council of Thaumaturgic Practitioners Lixal knew there would have been little point: no flaws would have been exposed because the spells themselves would not have worked. He would have to trust to the curbing effect of his threat to have a colleague notify the Council if anything hurtful should happen to Lixal. The fact that this colleague was an invention, created on the spur of the moment — Lixal had long practice in improvisation — would be unknown to Eliastre, and therefore no less effective an intimidation than an actual confederate would have been.

Most of the rest of his fellow players were still in town, but Ferlash, a squat, ill-favored man wearing the cassock of a priest of the Church of the Approaching Horizon was toasting a heel of bread at the campfire. He looked up at Lixal’s approach.

“Ho!” he called sourly. “You look cheerful. Did you bring something to eat? Something which, by sharing it with a deserving priest, you could store up goodwill in the afterlife? I do not doubt your soul’s post-horizontal standing has need of a little improvement”

Lixal shook his head in irritation. “As everyone in our company knows, Ferlash, you have not been a celebrant in good standing of your order since they expelled you years ago for egregious impregnation of congregants. Thus, I suggest you leave off discussion of my own particular afterlife. I would no more listen to your speculations about the health of my soul than I would accept similar advice from the piece of bread you are toasting.”

“You are a testy young man,” Ferlash said, “and too pleased with yourself by half. In fact, I must say that you seem even more self-satisfied than usual today.”

“If I am, it is a condition well-earned. I have made no small contribution today to my own well-being and, indirectly, yours as well, since the spread of my fame as a thaumaturge will bolster the reputation of our entire troop.”

Ferlash scowled. Along with Lixal and another man who called himself Kwerion the Apothecary, the once-priest acted the part of authority figure for the troop, explaining matters of religion and its accommodations with commerce to the rural audiences. “Your thaumaturgic credentials are even more tenuous than mine as a priest,” he now told Lixal, “since I at least once legitimately wore the sacred mantle. What claim to genuine wizardship have you?”

“All the claim in the world, as of today.” And, because he was indeed pleased with himself, he went on to tell Ferlash what he had done. “So here you see the fruits of my intellect and ambition,” he finished, waving the sheaf of spells. “Once I have conned these, I shall be a form of magician in truth and thereafter I will rapidly better myself.”

Ferlash nodded his head slowly. “I see that you have indeed done well today, Lixal Laqavee, and I apologize for lumping you in with the rest of us poor posers and counterfeits. Since you are soon to become such an accomplished wonder-worker, I suppose you will no longer have any use for that bracelet you wear, the one that is such a fine talisman against premature death? There are times during our travels when the agnosticism of our audiences slips from doubt of my sincerity into actual bad temper — especially among those for whom the prayers and holy artifacts I sold to them did not work as effectively as they had hoped. I would value such a protection around my own wrist against those more strenuous gainsayers of my methods.”

Lixal drew back in irritation. “Nothing like that shall happen, Ferlash. The bracelet is mine and mine alone, given to me by a woman who loved me dearly, even though she chose security over romance and married that toadlike proprietor of a livery stable last year. The idea that you would be rewarded for nothing but beggary with such a puissant token is laughable.” He sniffed. “I go now to learn my spells. When next you see me, I shall be even less a person with whom you might wish to trifle.”

The thaumaturge-to-be left Ferlash sitting by the fire, staring after him with envy and dissatisfaction.

Lixal Laqavee had chosen the incantations carefully, because without the decades of conscientious practice which most wizards devoted to their craft — a routine far too much like hard work to attract Lixal, who knew there were many more amusing uses for his spare time — it was entirely possible to misspeak an incantation or muddle a gesture and find oneself in an extremely perilous situation, taslismanic bracelet or no. Also, due to his lack of experience, it was doubtful that Lixal Laqavee would be able to employ more than one spell at a time, and of course after each employment he would need to learn the spell anew before its next usage. Thus, Lixal had demanded only four spells of Twitterel-who-was-in-truth-Eliastre, a selection that he believed would prove both versatile and easy to manage.

The first was the Rhinocratic Oath, which allowed its perpetrator to create amusing or horrifying changes to the nose of anyone he designated, and then to undo those changes again if he so desired. The second, the Cantrip of Notional Belittlement, allowed its wielder to make any idea or sight seem smaller or less important to one or more people, the length of the effect varying with the amount of people ensorceled. The third was a charm of romance named Dormousion’s Pseudo-Philtre, which tended to create lust even when lust would normally not have existed or exacerbate it in even its most tenuous manifestations until the designated recipient of the pseudo-philtre would take ridiculous risks to scratch the amatory itch.

Last, most difficult to memorize, but also undoubtedly the most powerful of all the spells he had chosen, was the Thunderous Exhalation of Banishment, a weapon which would instantly move an unwanted personage or creature to the farthest end of the earth from the point at which the spell was employed, and then keep that individual there perpetually. An enraged husband or hungry leucomorph so banished anywhere in Almery would instantaneously be flung to the farthest ends of the unknown regions of ice on the far side of the world, and be held in that vicinity in perpetuity as long as he lived.

This spell drew such great reserves of strength from its user that it was practical only for select occasions, but since those occasions would likely be of the life-or-death variety, Lixal did not doubt it had been a wise and valuable choice. In fact, his selection of the Thunderous Exhalation had particularly seemed to nettle old Elisatre, so that the shopkeeper muttered the entire time he transcribed it, which only convinced Lixal he had done well in his selection.