David Grace - The Accidental Magician

Grantin and Chom set off once more. A few minutes later another pod sailed across their path. They could hear snappings in the underbrush along the edges of the trail. As the ground sloped more steeply the forest noises became louder and more constant. Spike melons became a familiar sight.

"What do you think?" Grantin whispered to Chom as they picked their way around a large grassy mound. "Men or animals?"

"The bandits," Chom answered.

"I'm afraid you're right," said Grantin, letting out his breath. Another pod whistled through the air and glanced off Chom's pack. "And their aim is getting better." The travelers increased their pace.

"Do you notice anything different?" Chom asked Grantin a few minutes later.

"No-yes, the sun is brighter." Grantin studied the forest canopy. "The vines… they're thinning out."

"And the pods are riper," Chom added. "They are huge now."

The pods in fact were dark and dangling from loose strands at the treetops. The crowns themselves were swollen.

Another missile flew at them from the bushes. With the loss of the vines Grantin and Chom were now able to see flashes of the men who flanked them, fifty yards to either side of the trail. Apparently Yon Diggery was afraid of using magic against anyone who had vanquished Shenar. Instead he intended to harry them with the missiles until, panicked to the point of exhaustion, they became easy prey for knives, clubs, and crossbow bolts. His strategy was working. Grantin's makeshift spells might be sufficient to eliminate one or two of the bandits but not all of them. Chom's magic was mostly that of the practical variety. The Fanists had never developed spells for self-defense.

Grantin and Chom struggled up the hill, hoping to outdistance their pursuers. Yon Diggery seemed willing to pace his quarry until they dropped. A few hundred yards farther Grantin was forced to rest. His breath tearing at his throat, he leaned back against an asparagus tree. Under his weight it began to wobble. With a clatter, the ripest pods rained down around him. He and Chom struggled up the slope away from the swaying tree.'' A few feet farther on Chom reached out and pushed another of the growths. It wobbled back and forth as if balancing on a narrow base. He prodded a third. It, too, leaned ominously.

Grantin and Chom looked down the hill and saw that the bandits were now growing bolder. They had tightened their lines and were clearly visible as they moved through the underbrush. Chom once more studied the top-heavy trees.

"Grantin, I have an idea. Take everything from your pack that you do not absolutely need and drop it on the trail. Do it as fast as you can. We must get to the ridge. Plundering our supplies may delay them for a minute or two."

Chom led them off at a slow trot, the best speed they could maintain against the grade. A quarter mile or so ahead rose the brow of the hill. Down below two of Yon Diggery's band, Luke and Spicer, pawed through the provisions and made a hurried report to their chief. Chom continued to set a grueling pace. Now a hundred yards to go. From down the slope came sounds of pursuit, and Chom urged Grantin onward. With a last surge of effort, gasping and sweating, they gained the top.

"Grantin, take this stem bomb we made last night. Put it against the trunk of that tree-and hurry."

Grantin wedged the double-bent piece of lantern bush beneath the shallow roots of an asparagus tree at the top of the hill. An instant later Chom rushed up, clutching dried leaves, twigs, and branches. These he heaped around the stem while Grantin struck a lucifer and set the materials ablaze.

"Now back," Chom commanded. For a heart-stopping fifteen seconds nothing happened. Yon Diggery's men could be heard scrambling up the hillside, only thirty or forty yards from the top. Exhausted, Grantin and Chom stood back from the edge, their eyes transfixed by the fire at the base of the tree. They had almost given up hope when the sealed six-inch piece of lantern stem erupted in a ringing explosion. The trunk shattered. The asparagus tree leaned backward and toppled down the slope. As it fell it careened into three other trees. In a slow-motion chain reaction each one fell against another and another and another. As each toppled backward others broke loose until, like gigantic dominoes, they created a path of destruction which raged down the grade. Their hard, barbed fruit sprayed like shrapnel in all directions. Even Chom was startled by the violence of the reaction. In less than a minute the slope was littered with the fallen trees. Of Yon Diggery and his men no trace was visible.

Chom studied the scene critically and offered a comment. "This may be their normal means of reproduction. As the fruit ripens the trunks grow hollow. The trees secrete a substance which kills the vines which normally steady them. Eventually they fall, spreading the pods. The new crop is fertilized by the decaying trunks. As they grow the vines reappear and tether them until the next generation of pods ripens and the cycle repeats. An ingenious if dramatic form of propagation."

"Just the same, I'm glad they're behind us. It looks as though we've reached the edge of the Weirdlands."

Following Grantin's gesture, Chom turned from the littered slope and looked to the west. Ahead the land dipped gently to a lush grassy plain. In the far distance was the glint of sunlight on water.

"The trees always fall downward and so have never been able to escape the valley," Chom said, studying the vista. "We will rest here and have lunch, then set off across the grasslands before nightfall."

Late that afternoon Grantin and Chom sheltered themselves in a copse of ironwood trees deep within the Gogol kingdom. A few leagues behind them, sap-stained, his skin scraped, Rupert struggled from a crevice between two fallen asparagus trees. Blood spilled freely from his gashed right arm, which now made a set with the smashed fingers of his left hand. As he emerged from the tangle of logs he spied Yon Diggery sitting on the ground, his back perched against a splintered stump. A large freely bleeding, purple-black bruise adorned his forehead. Like the Gogol deacon his body displayed the cuts, abrasions, and scrapes occasioned by the avalanche of trees and pods.

"Diggery, are you alive?" Rupert called weakly.

"More or less," the bandit responded in a husky tone. "Spell of impenetrable defenses, was it?" he asked Rupert.

"A charm of instantaneous miniaturization," the deacon responded.

"I thought as much. The rest of them, I suppose they're all…"

"Unless you've taken to giving your hired hands the power that only a deacon would have, they are. Your men lost, and the quarry too. A fine bandit leader you are."

"Not to worry. I have many associates, not all of them in Grenitch Wood. Obviously they're heading for Cicero. Tomorrow we'll contact my friends and prepare a reception for them both."

"What special dinner?" Cockle asked suspiciously.

Buster cringed a bit at the question and contrived a look of mild surprise. "Why, the dinner for… it's just that I had heard that Lord Hazar had planned… well, it's just a rumor. Perhaps I should say no more. Excuse me for bringing it up, Master Cockle."

"You've heard something about Lord Hazar? Don't play games with me, old one. What is it that you know?"

"Well, master, it is only a rumor, mind you, but it's whispered that Lord Hazar has invited a guest to dinner in his apartments tomorrow evening. Naturally I assumed that you would want to plan a special fare for our Lord and his visitor, but of course," Buster added hurriedly, "it's not my place to say how you should perform your duties. I am sure the everyday provisions are good enough for them."

"Who are you to judge what's good enough for our lord and master? What do you mean, suggesting that I would stint on my duties? You be careful. Buster. You're not so old that I can't punish you for insubordination. Now, then, I must compose the menu. If you have any suggestions you may give them to me now and I will consider them."