Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

«You might put it that way,» said Shea.

«Riddle me those words, Squire Harold. For ensample —»

Shea interrupted hastily: «Some other time, Miss Belphebe, if you don’t mind. Right now we want to get our bearings. Is this what they call ‘the wood where the Losels breed’?»

«Aye. Some say the enchanters created that gruesome race of monsters to be their cattle.»

Shea asked innocently: «Why, is the place infested with enchanters too?»

«Marry, a mort of ’em. Take care lest you fall into their snares.»

Chalmers broke in; «Ahem. could you tell us where there are any — uh — magicians to be found?»

Shea scowled at his partner. Belphebe’s face changed. «Now wherefore would you know such things?»

«We’re trying to rescue somebody we think they have, and we thought if we could — uh — gain the confidence of one —»

«Meseems that is a strange and not well-thought-on plan,» said the girl coolly. «Yet, since you wish, straight on, and I warrant me you’ll find enough of the naughty rogues.» She waved her hand. «And now, good gentles, if you will even pardon me, I must trim the ears from the Losel I slew —»

«You must what? » demanded Shea.

«Trim the ears from the Losel. For trophies. Already I have pairs an hundred and twenty and two. Good morrow, gentles.»

* * *

«That,» said Shea when they were on their way, «is my idea of a real girl. And you had to put her off us by that crack about magicians!»

«Very fine girl, provided she doesn’t put an arrow through you and cut off your ears for trophies. I confess my taste runs to a somewhat more sedentary type of female. I doubt whether I can stand much more excitement of this sort.»

Shea said: «I know how you feel. Travelling through Faerie is just one damned encounter after another.» His two narrow escapes in one day had left Shea feeling like a damp washcloth.

Chalmers mused: «It is logical that it should be so. The Faerie Queene indicates that this is a world wherein an endless and largely planless concatenation of encounters are a part of the normal pattern of events — Merciful Heavens, another one! What’s that?»

«That» was a big black leopard which leaped out suddenly into their path. It snarled with the sound of tearing sheet iron. The mounts bucked and started to whirl against the bits.

«Stop, Doc,» yelled Shea, manhandling Adolphus around and reaching behind him for the broadsword. «If you run, it’ll jump you sure!»

He tumbled off, snubbed his reins around a convenient stump, and faced the leopard with the broadsword in one hand and the épée in the other. This was getting to be a worse bore than the Garaden Institute. If I stand my ground, he thought, it probably won’t attack, but if it does — There was a book he had read once — what was its name? — about a Lithuanian who hunted jaguars with a spear. If it springs, impale it with the épée; if it stands off and claws, chop with the broadsword —

The leopard snarled again. It seemed uncertain. Then, to Shea’s astonishment, it swelled and changed into a huge lion. He felt a prick of fear. A man might handle a 150-pound leopard, but a 600-pound Lion — not even a mortal stab wound would keep it from ripping him up, once it got to close quarters. He was in for it —

«Harold!» Chalmers’ voice was not too near. «It’s all right.»

«The hell it’s all right!» thought Shea, holding his ground for want of anything better to do.

The lion did not spring. Instead it grimaced. The fanged mouth became a beak, wings sprouted from its shoulders, and it was a griffin. That, Shea realized, was not kosher; griffins did not —

Chalmers called, closer. «It’s the man we’re looking for.»

Shea relaxed. «Take off the false whiskers, Mr. Magician; we know you,» he said. The griffin began to dwindle and dissolve. Shea turned to Chalmers, who was struggling with a patently balky Gustavus. «Didn’t you say something about when away his regiment ran, his place was in the fore, oh —»

«I couldn’t control this confounded beast. And it’s at the fore oh, not in . How do you do, sir?» This was to the ex-griffin, which had become a stout, dark, bald man, who stood glowering at them, fists on hips.

«I do right well,» said the man. «What do you two here? Eh? Seek trouble? You’ve come to the right market.»

Shea grinned. «In a way I suppose we are, if you call yourself trouble.»

«Ho, you seek my professional service! I warn you I handle no minor matters, like turning cows sour or the manufacture of love philters. That’s witch-wife work. I’m a master magician.»

«Then we’re delighted —»

«Ahem,» said Chalmers. «Excuse me, Harold. I should like to explain to the gentleman that our interest is professional, looking to an exchange of information that might he mutually profitable.»

«Ho!» cried the enchanter. «You two claim to be magicians? How do I know you speak sooth? Tell me that, eh?»

«Well. uh —»

«Work a spell for him, Doc,» said Shea.

«Oh, dear me. I don’t suppose he’d be satisfied with more mice — or cats. All I can think of now is one I prepared for conjuring up a dragon.»

«What the hell, that’s fine! Go ahead with your dragon!» The magician’s ears caught the last word. «Dragon? D’you think you can really produce a dragon? Let’s See you do it!»

«But won’t it be. uh. dangerous?» This was Chalmers.

«Have no fear. I’ll get a counterspell ready. Dolon protects you. The Dolon.» He strutted.

«Show him, Doc.»

Chalmers, with a look of baffled and apprehensive resignation, began to make a list of the properties needed. A small red salamander was discovered under a stone. Most of the other things they had already, but a snapdragon plant was called for, and there was none in sight. «Conjure one up,» said Shea, coolly. The harassed psychologist looked annoyed. But, with the aid of a roadside weed, he produced a snapdragon plant the size of a tree. The Dolon snorted.

Chalmers laid out his properties, lit a fire with flint and steel, and began an incantation:

«By Fafnir and Hydra,

Apophis and Yang:

With the length of Nidhöggr,

Tiбmat’s sharp fang,

The shape of the lizard,

The strength of the bear,

Thou, scaled like the serpent.

Emerge from your lair!

Steed of Triptolemus.

Beowulf’s bane.

Symbol of Uther.

And bringer of rain —»

Shea prudently hitched the animals’ reins around a tree. If the dragon turned out to be winged and hungry — He wished that his damned reckless impulsiveness had not made him force Chalmers’ hand. If the Dolon’s counterspell didn’t work — The oyster-coloured smoke of the fire thickened and darkened. Chalmers bit off his chant in mid-stanza and scrambled back. A reptilian head a yard long was poking towards them out of the smoke.

The head had a scaly neck behind it. Then came a foreleg and another. The dragon seemed to be crawling from nothingness through an orifice somewhere in the smoke, ballooning our as it came. There it was, complete to stinger-tipped tail, gazing at them with yellow cat’s eyes.

Shea breathed, not daring to attract its attention by a movement: «If it starts for us, Doc, you get on Gustavus and I’ll let go the reins.»

Dolon’s face was twisting as though he had swallowed too big a mouthful. The dragon lurched a few steps, not towards them but off at right angles, opened its terrible mouth, gave a whistling « beeep! » and began to crop the grass contentedly.

«God bless my soul!» said Chalmers.

«He’d better,» replied Shea, «Look!»

* * *