Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array - The Incomplete Enchanter

H.S.

He impaled the note on the unicorn’s horn and shooed the animal away. Now, he thought, if I make a break from the castle. I’ll have a guide. If I don’t, at least I’ll see her again — That was last night. During the morning, he was more and more nervous and preoccupied, and now for the second time he had wandered from the incantation he and Chalmers were trying to work. «Nothing much,» he had answered Chalmers’ inquiry. Chalmers glanced at him shrewdly and hummed:

«Heighdy! Heighdy!

Misery me, lackadaydee!

He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb,

As he sighed for the love of a layde!»

Shea looked at his partner sharply, but Chalmers expression was bland. How much did he suspect?

But Chalmers was wrapped up in the task. «Now,» he said, «let’s try again. ‘By Fafnir and Python, Midgardsormr and yang —’» the incantation rolled out. The smoke from the fire in the cage thickened, and the amateur enchanters went on, ready to yell the counterspell Chalmers had worked out if the thing got out of hand.

It was a variant on the original dragon spell, with wording and preparations slightly changed. There was a shrill metallic hiss and a minor convulsion in the smoke. The incantation stopped. The incantators stood gauping.

They had produced a dragon all right. One dragon, not a hundred. But this dragon was ten inches long, with bat wings and a prominent sting on the end of its tail, it breathed fire.

The bars of the cage had been made strong enough to hold a dragon of conventional size. But this little horror fluttered up to them, squeezed through, and flew straight at the experimenters.

« Yeow! » yelled Shea, as a blast of flame from its jaws singed the hair off the back of his hand. « Awk! » shrieked Chalmers as the sting got him in the ankle. They tumbled over each other and dashed around the laboratory, Shea brandishing his épée and Chalmers swinging a pestle. The dragonlet dodged past them and flew through the door into the corridor. There was a rustle and a heavy clank.

Shea went down the corridor. He came back with his face a trifle white.

«The cockatrice looked at it,» he said, and held out a perfect stone dragon, ten inches long.

«Put it down,» said Chalmers gloomily. He hobbled around, looking for something to put on his stung ankle. «Damnation, Harold, if there were only some way to control these things quantitatively —»

«I thought that was it,» replied Shea. «What went wrong to give us that animated blowtorch?»

«I don’t know. The only. uh. certitude is that we got our decimal point off again. We got point oh oh oh one dragon instead of a hundred dragons. I confess, the solution eludes me. The calculus of classes contains no aspect of quantitative accuracy —»

The rest of the day gave them a sea horse three feet long and, after some effort, a cask to put it in; six stuffed owls with blue glass eyes: and finally a large and amiable Tomcat with nine tails. The last experiment found a moon looking in the castle window, so they gave up and went to bed. Chalmers murmured sadly that if he tried to give Florimel a human body in the present state of his knowledge, he’d probably make her into a set of lovely but embarrassing Siamese triplets.

There were noises during the night. Neither slept well till towards morning. When they rose, someone was tapping at their door.

It proved to be along-eared, potbellied imp, who handed them a sheet of parchment, grinned, and sped off down the corridor. Shea and Chalmers read:

Ye Encaunters’Chapter

will meete in Council this daye

in ye great Hall of Castle Busyrane

Arcimage

Maistre Magitian Busyraine

Viceregente

M. M. Dolon

Arciviste

M. M. Courromont

Keeper of ye Moneys

M. M. Voulandour

Ye Fyrst Daye

Addresse of ye Arcimage

M. M. Busyraine

Reading of ye minutes

M. M. Courromont

Report on ye treasurie

M. M. Voulandour

Here will new members be Thought on

Now cometh ye professional meeting

I. M. M. Dolon — «Ye powers magical of six selected Water Fae-Human hybrids.»

II. M. M. Surnoy — «A new use for ye Blood of unbaptized infants.»

III. M. M. Nuisane — «Of ye comparitive efficacie of ye Essence of ye Spotted Frogge & ye Common Green Frogge in sleeping Enchauntments.»

These all with Diverse experiments and shews by ye Maistres aforesaid.

Daye ye Second

Ye Maistres will meete in Executive Council

in ye D.M.

Banquet

At Vespers

Maistre of ye Toasts

M. M. Nuisane

Ye Black Masse will be Celebrated after, followed by a Grand Ball, with various Comeley Witches, Sprites and Succubi.

«Sounds like a big occasion,» observed Shea. «Let’s go down to the great hall and see whom can we find.»

They found their way to a huge room whose stained-glass windows bore pictures of mystical signs grouped round centrepieces of knights in magical torment. Already five people were gathered at one end, talking earnestly. Shea recognized Busyrane, Dolon, and Duessa. He caught a fragment of a story Dolon was telling: — «and I say he was no more than a bungling poursuivant, journeyman though he ranked. Imagine summoning up a devil, but leaving one corner of the pentagon open! He deserved no better than he got — ho-ho! — which was to have his head torn off by the demon’s red-hot pincers! Ha, here come my pair! Busyrane, do ’em the honours!»

The Archimage bowed, first to Duessa and then to the new arrivals. «We are highly favoured,» he said, «to present Master Reed de Chalmers, who has applied for elevation to the honourable state of mastership of our Chapter. He is most expert in the production of singular monsters, also a man full of ideas for the benefit of our order. Also his apprentice, Harold de Shea.»

* * *

Was there a slight change in the voice on that last sentence? Shea could not be sure, and Duessa was curtsying, pronouncing in a fine contralto: «Enchanted, good magical sirs.» With that red hair she was certainly a beauty when she wanted to be gracious. If only — Plop! A bare-necked vulture flopped through the window and lit beside them, then changed into a hook-nosed man in a long monk’s outfit, «The good Fripon!» exclaimed Dolon. «How wags the world with you?»

«By your leave, not well,» croaked the good Fripon, sadly. «I had all but trapped that wretch Belphebe, when what does she do but get a counterspell from Cambina, then shoot an arrow through one of the best sprites I ever had. Curse her! She’s killing off the Losels, too.»

«I live for the day when I can tear her toenails out,» said Duessa venomously. Shea’s scalp tingled. A dust whirlwind that puffed in the window set everyone coughing, and dissolved into a short, fat man, who mopped his brow.

« Whew! » he said. «Fatiguing! Still it’s better than walking for a man of my figure. Hope you have an ample lunch, Busyrane. Always thinking of my belly, that’s me, Voulandoure, at your service. Ah, fair Duessa! And the good Fripon! Still cheating the grave-digger, my gloomy friend?» He poked Fripon’s ribs.

Now magicians began to pour into the hall, by window and door, so many of them Shea could not keep up with their names. The trumpet for the midday meat found him vainly trying to catch up — and also separated him from Chalmers, who was taken in tow to sit at the masters’ table.

Shea found himself next to a fuzzy-haired youth who said shyly; «Pray, generous sir, may I see your enchanted blade?»

«Huh?» said Shea. «But it —» before it occurred to him that no useful purpose would be served by disillusioning these people about the épée. He produced it and handed it over. The fuzzy young man waved it over the table, making noises of approval.