David Grace - The Accidental Magician

Grantin's eyes fluttered open and for a moment he forgot where he was. He had been dreaming that he was at home in his uncle's castle, asleep in his own bed and with no greater problems than finding a few coppers for the upcoming fair. All at once the terror of his predicament flooded back. Wearily Grantin levered himself into a sitting position.

"Grantin, we must devise a spell to conquer Shenar- something that will restrain his hands and his voice."

"A spell," Grantin said weakly. "I'll be lucky if I have enough strength to stand up."

"Hurry-he comes. I sense him approaching. You must do it." Chom helped Grantin to his feet.

The human ignored Chom. He studied the room in which they now found themselves, then lapsed into a deep reverie. At last, with Shenar's sandals scraping on the stairs, Grantin devised a plan and whispered it into the Fanist's earhole. The scheme required exact timing and perfect reflexes, two things which Grantin doubted that either he or Chom now possessed. Nevertheless, it was their only hope.

As soon as they heard Shenar begin to unlock the cell door Grantin and Chom slipped into the passage outside the storeroom, a hallway that joined the corridor leading to their former cell. To the left was the cell, to the right the anteroom below the castle entrance hall. Peeking around the comer, they saw Shenar enter the cell. Before the wizard had even closed the door Chom was sprinting noiselessly to the right toward the anteroom, weapon in hand, while Grantin slunk back down the corridor toward the utility closet.

In less than a second Shenar discerned the scars where the granite slab had been burned free from the rest of the wall. Outraged that any mere mortals would dare to try to escape from the great Shenar, the wizard slammed open the door and raced down the hallway as fast as his bandy legs would carry him. At the intersection of the tunnel leading to the storeroom he hesitated, then plunged down the small corridor before widening his search to the more distant portions of his manor. Sliding open the door, Shenar received a second shock to find Grantin, hands on hips, standing insolently in the center of the room.

"So, you've finally come. You don't move very fast on those shrunken little legs, do you?" Grantin taunted him.

The sorcerer's rage rose almost to apoplexy. He raised his right hand to cast a spell, but Grantin waved it aside with a casual gesture.

"Come, now, you don't think you can hex me, do you?" he asked Shenar. "I wear the bloodstone, and my power is that of a hundred ordinary sorcerers like yourself."

"You will die horribly!" Shenar screamed. He pulled back both hands in preparation for casting his most powerful spell of dismemberment. Fingers stiffened in a V-shaped position, Shenar advanced. The wizard's gown rustled as he straightened his arm to cast the spell. The hiss of his sleeves hid the whoosh of air from behind as Chom brought down a mop handle full upon the wizard's skull. Unfortunately for Shenar, Chom had little experience with the more intimate details of human anatomy, and, basing the strength of his blow on Fanist standards, he badly misjudged the energy necessary to render the sorcerer unconscious. The mop handle shattered. Before he could finish reciting his spell, Shenar fell quietly to the floor, quite dead.

"I didn't mean to kill him," Chom apologized. "I forgot how fragile you humans are. What do we do now?"

Grantin shook his head, confused by Chom's question.

"Should we bury him in the garden to fertilize the plants, or do you humans prefer stuffing the remains into the fireplace?"

Grantin stared at the pathetic bundle of cloth and flesh that composed Shenar's mortal remains and shook his head in horror. At last he looked at the Fanist and replied in a quiet voice.

"I think burying him in the garden would be appropriate, but not now. I've got to rest and then eat and then figure out what I'm going to do next. He's not going to bother anyone for the next few hours."

"Best if we left this place," Chom suggested.

"You can leave if you want. I'm going to get some sleep first. Besides, I came here for an answer. I need to find out how to remove this ring. Shenar's library may hold the key."

In a surprisingly human gesture Chom shrugged then helped the weak and shaking Grantin from the room. The former prisoners, now for a while at least masters of the manor house slowly ascended the dungeon stairs. At the top Chom leaned Grantin against the wall, then reached out and threw back the foyer door.

Crisp early-morning daylight streamed through the opening and for an instant half blinded both beings. Through squinted eyelids Grantin was shocked to see a burly human in the center of the hall. The man turned to face the doorway and likewise registered dismay at seeing Chom emerging from the dungeon. Instantly the intruder bounded back and raced out the front door. A few seconds later the disjointed rhythm of a Rex's two hooves and tail could be heard disappearing into the distance.

"What-who was that?" Grantin stuttered.

"We are in danger again," Chom responded. "That was the man who captured me and delivered me here to Shenar. In a day or two he will get over his fear and return with his men. By then we must be gone."

"Who was he?" Grantin repeated.

"He is the human they call Yon Diggery, the bandit."

Against the rustle of trees and the calls of the birds, the plop, plop, plop of softly dripping water was almost inaudible. The moisture made its way down between the fibers of the sodden tunic and passed as an invisible sheet over the slime-encrusted surface of rough leather britches until at last it collected in large, graceful drops near the point of a mud-encrusted cuff. There it dripped back into the shallows at the north edge of the swamp.

At the beginning of his journey Rupert's back had snapped off protruding branches like so much dry kindling. In a second or two he reached the top of an arc which brought him clear of the uppermost limbs of even the highest trees. There Rupert seemed to float suspended between heaven and earth. In a few seconds the propulsive energy was spent, and he sped earthward on a ballistic path. As the forest flew upward at him Rupert curled his hurtling body into a tight ball, all elbows, shoulders, and knees.

He snapped through branches, then rebounded from a limb too massive to break and shot straight forward on a course almost parallel with the ground. In the near distance the trees thinned and spread apart to make room for Stinkhole Marsh.

Gravity and the laws of aerodynamics overcame inertia, and Rupert's body angled downward. Still at high speed, he struck the surface of the water and skipped like a stone across the first two thirds of the swamp. Dense clumps of yellow marsh reeds finally brought a halt to his forward motion. Still grasping an armful of the rubbery vegetation, he promptly sank to the bottom of the pond.

With remarkable fury Rupert flailed his arms and legs until he reached the surface, there to take in great lungfuls of the foul-smelling air. Kicking off his waterlogged boots, he somehow managed to reach the shallows. Numbed and almost exhausted, Rupert struggled forward. At last he reached the shore, where he allowed himself to fall backward on the muddy bank. There he now lay, wheezing like an exhausted pack animal on the verge of collapse. With each breath tiny insects were sucked through his open mouth, but even these were now beneath his notice. Only two thoughts occupied the Gogol's mind: first, the knowledge that he had failed Hazar and that it would be death for him to return to Cicero, and second, the rage-born certainty that somehow, someday, he would tear Grantin's living body limb from limb.

After a few minutes the worst of Rupert's wheezing subsided, and he sat up to survey his location. Already he had begun to make plans. He would find the river and clean himself. Using his Huntsman Spell, he would capture game for an evening meal. That night he would shelter in the forest, and the next day, clean and rested, he would set out to make a new life for himself.