David Grace - The Accidental Magician

The inquiry brought Grantin back to full awareness of where he was and the dangers which still confronted them. He released his grasp and jumped back a pace, his face burning with embarrassment.

"To answer your question, Chom, no, we will not mate now. Humans do not mate under these circumstances. I was merely comforting the young lady. My actions had no sexual connotations whatsoever."

Castor and Chom looked at each other and exchanged exaggerated expressions of skepticism and wry amusement. Grantin's cheeks colored an even deeper shade and he stamped off angrily toward the chamber's exit. Mara looked at Castor and Chom, then swept her gaze around the room, first noting Nimo's frozen body, then Hazar's punctured, bloodless form. A horrified whimper escaped her throat. She raced forward to again allow Grantin to comfort her, an activity which he engaged in with tender care, all the while presenting to Chom and Castor a look of exaggerated innocence.

In a few minutes Mara's tears slowed and with an exercise of willpower she managed to bring herself back to a state of more or less normal composure.

"How long will they be like that?" she asked, pointing at Nimo.

"We are not exactly sure. Several hours at least."

"Then you don't intend spending the night here?"

"By no means! Leaving here will mark the happiest instant of my life. In fact, I propose we depart the moment that we locate my uncle."

"The wizard Greyhorn? There he is, against that wall."

Grantin, Chom, and Castor turned as one. At the far side of the room a heavily cloaked object sat huddled in a crumpled ball. Grantin walked to the figure and pulled back the edge of the cloak. Beneath the cloak appeared Greyhorn's familiar thin visage, distorted now with a look of weary fear.

"Uncle, are you all right?" Greyhorn's eyes stared unseeingly into empty space. Tentatively Grantin poked the wizard's shoulder. Under his robes Greyhorn's body was hard and unyielding. Less restrained, Grantin pinched the old man's cheeks and slapped his face, but without response. The flesh had the gummy rubberyness that Grantin had felt in Theleb's mummified form.

By now Chom, Castor, and Mara had approached the wizard's rigid body. Chom bent over. Fixing his eyes three inches directly in front of Greyhorn's and clasping the wizard's ears and shoulders in his four arms, he attempted to commune with the sorcerer's consciousness, if any.

"Is he alive?"

"He sleeps."

"How long do you think he will stay like this?"

"Hazar has done something to him. Deep within him I feel a spark of life, but unknowing, unaware. I think he will stay this way a long time."

"A long time… How long?"

"Years."

"Years? He's going to stay huddled up in this grotesque position for years? What am I supposed to do with him all that time?"

"You could leave him here, I suppose. He is your kin." While Chom's voice held no note of disapproval, Grantin sensed that somehow the Fanist was testing him. The young Hartford shuffled his feet nervously, his mouth down turned in a sour expression. Twice he seemed ready to take Mara by the hand and lead her from the mine, but each time, as he looked at his uncle's twisted shape, he relented.

"Why is it always me?" he asked petulantly. "Always it is Grantin, the easygoing, the softhearted, who Is called upon to solve the problems of others. Why must I be the one to save the Hartfords, protect the Ajaj, rescue the maidens, defeat the villains, take on the labors of the world? I am too good-hearted, that is my flaw. Now I am expected to carry this heavy… object… halfway across the Gogol empire, through dangerous bandit-ridden forests, across treacherous mountain passes!"

Accustomed to Grantin's exaggerated complaints. Castor and Chom made no response other than the exchange of brief, knowing sidelong glances which, although retained for only an instant, contained overtones of skepticism, amusement and weary resignation. Occupied as he was with his tale of woe, Grantin failed to detect the interchange and continued his monologue to its inevitable conclusion.

"Very well. I see that you will give me no peace until I comply with your wishes. No, you won't say anything about it. You will just treat me like an ingrate, like some kind of monster, if I refuse to strain myself to the limit for the benefit of one who would have cut off my finger and betrayed his own kinsmen into slavery. Very well, very well. I will yield to your accusation. Again, as usual, I act against my best interests. All right, Chom you win. We will take him with us for all the good it will do."

"As you wish…"

"As l wish-hahl"

"However, we have some unfinished business before we leave.",-

"Such as?"

"The bloodstones. We cannot leave them here. They are too much of a temptation. Some other Gogol might come along and take Hazar's place. Then all of our efforts will have been for nothing."

"Very well; as long as we're transporting my wretched uncle anyway, I don't suppose it will be much more of a burden to stick the things in one of his pockets."

"I think what Chom wants," Castor suggested, "is more than just the removal of the loose stones. If we leave this place untouched, others might come here and reopen the mine. More than that, Hazar already has distributed several of the stones to his subordinates. When his death is discovered they will battle among themselves for supremacy. The winner of that struggle is certain to be someone who possesses one of the gems. He will still be a formidable enemy for my people as well as for you humans. Somehow we must destroy the mine."

"Destroy the mine! How do you propose to do that?"

"It is not absolutely necessary that we destroy the mine itself," Chom replied, "so long as we destroy the stones. We need only construct a spell which affects them alone."

"I know a spell," Mara said. "One of enchantment which one fixes upon an object in the possession of the victim of the spell. Perhaps we could adapt it to set a spell upon every bloodstone in the empire."

"That's a fine idea, except how do we protect ourselves from being killed in the process? If I were to project my energies into all the crystals in existence I would feel a feedback through my own ring as well."

"There is a way, I think," Castor suggested. "We know the gems amplify the power of our spells. Instead of projecting incantation into all of the gems at once, what if you formulated it so that it would take effect, for example, on one of the stones in this room, and that stone would, in turn, broadcast it to another stone, and another, and another, until the energies became so great that the crystals themselves shattered?"

"And my arm with it? No, thank you!"

"We could protect you, I think," Chom said. "The three of us could construct a force field around you that would prevent the energies from reaching your ring. We could pronounce most of the spell before we left and then, when a good distance away, create the protective field an instant after directing the final portion of the incantation back here through your ring. The distance and the shield should protect you."

"Should protect me? And if it does not?"

"We will be inside the shield with you. We'll all go together."

"That makes me feel a lot better!"

Three faces, three pairs of eyes, stared at Grantin. For a full thirty seconds there was complete silence. At last Grantin threw up his arms in frustration.

"All right, all right, I will do it. I am putty in your hands. It will serve you right if I blow up the lot of you "

For the next half hour Grantin, Mara, Chom, and Castor discussed the possible contents of the incantation. Finally, after hurried preparations, all of the spell save the last line was recited. A new tension filled the air. Grantin felt as if his body had been infused with gallons of stimulants. A high-pitched, inaudible whine prickled his ears.