Лайон Спрэг Де Камп Array: The Incomplete Enchanter

The wand withdrew, then poked its end through the bars. Under the night song of the insects there came a faint grate as the bolt slid back. The gate was open.

As they tiptoed through, the infinitesimal jingle of the knight’s armour sounded to Shea’s ears like an earthquake in a kitchenware factory. Cambina pointed. Over their heads on the wall appeared a sentry, visible only as a cloak and hood, glowing with a phosphorescence almost too faint to he visible. The hood swung its black cavity towards them. Cambina pointed her wand, and the sentry froze in that position.

Light and music streamed from the windows of the great hall. Shea, leading because of his knowledge of the place and the fact that his tread was most nearly soundless, was heading for the door, when he tripped over a huge, hairy leg.

With simultaneous grunts a pair of Losels who had been stretched out on the steps rolled to their feet. While the one nearest was fumbling in the dark for his club, Shea drove the épée through the creature’s throat. Behind him he heard the other’s club swish up —

But the club failed to come down. He looked around and saw the Losel, club aloft, frozen to a statue like the sentry. The other Losel was expiring with quiet bubbling noises.

Cambina did things with her wand, and the door of the building swung open. There was light and noise within, but no one to see them. Across the corridor in which they stood was the entrance to the great hall, the door slightly ajar. Within, the revellers were too occupied with their grand ball to be watching the door.

Shea beckoned the four heads close to his and breathed: «This corridor runs around to the serving entrance.»

«Are there other doors beside those two?» asked Artegall, and when Shea shook his head went on: «Then do you, Squire, with Cambell and Cambina, take that entrance. Here Britomart and I will take our stand; for this is the place where they will naturally come and we are, I think, the best men-at-arms.»

Heads nodded. Shea and the other two stole down the corridor. Just before they reached the service entrance, an imp crossed the corridor from the kitchen with a tray in his hands.

He saw them. Cambell bounded forward and cut the imp in two. The bottom half of the imp ran back into the kitchen. There was an instant uproar.

The three ran a few steps to the service entrance and flung open the door.

Shea got one brief static picture of a roomful of magicians and red-lipped women looking at him. Some had their mouths open. Busyrane sat at one end of the horseshoe facing him, and he thought he recognized Chalmers. Before he could be certain, the photograph came to frenzied life.

He turned to face the noise behind. Out of the kitchen boiled a mass of imps and hobgoblins, bearing spits, knives, rolling pins. Shea neatly spitted the first on his épée, dodging the counter. The imp leaped backward off the blade and came on again. Behind him Shea heard the roar of the Chapter, Cambell’s deep war cry, and the whack of swords against his shield.

«I can. handle these,» panted Cambina. Her wand darted to and fro, freezing imp after imp. The rest started to run.

Shea turned back towards the hall, ust in time to thrust through the throat a magician trying to roll under Cambell’s legs with a knife, while others engaged the knight’s attention.

* * *

The noise was ear-splitting. Cambell filled the door, and at the far end Britomart was doing equally well. Artegall had leaped into the hall and was swinging his great sword with both hands. His temper might he bad, but he was certainly a good man to have around in a roughhouse.

The lights dimmed to negligibie red sparks. Cambina cried a spell and waved her wand; the magicians glowed with blue phosphorescence in the dark. The scene became that of a photographic negative — a wild one, with some of the enchanters turning themselves into winged things to flee, other hurling themselves upon the fighters, striking sparks.

A whole press at once bore down on Cambell. Shea saw a glowing head fly from its shoulders, and himself thrust past the knight’s shield arm against something that gave before his blade. Then he was out in the room. A green mist whirled about him, plucking. A pink flash and it was gone.

Right in front of him a magician became a monstrous crab. Shea dodged it, clashed weapons with a still-human enchanter, thrust him through, and then went down as the falling man grabbed him by both ankles. He was stepped on four times before he kicked himself free. Colours, sparks, flashes of light danced about the room.

Just ahead a whole crowd were boiling around Artegall. Shea took one step and found himself confronting Busyrane in person. Busyrane’s eyes were twice their normal size with slit pupils, like a cat’s. For all his venerable appearance the enchanter was swinging a huge sword as though it were a foot-rule.

Shea gave back, almost slipping on a spot of blood. Busyrane came leaping nimbly after, slashing. The big sword, half seen, whirled in a continuous snaky blur. Shea parried, parried, backed, parried, and parried. The wall was against him.

There was no time even for ripostes against this demoniac attack. Shea took the last refuge of an outmatched fencer; leaped into a corps-а-corps and grabbed Busyrane around the waist with his free arm.

The magician seemed made of rubber and piano-wire. One hand clawed at Shea’s face. Shea ducked and buried his face in Busyrane’s cloak, trying to trip him. The magician fumbled for a dagger. Shea reflected that the weapon was probably poisoned.

But just at this moment Busyrane was jerked backward, dragging Shea to his knees after him. Shea threw himself back and up. Then he saw what was the matter with Busyrane. Around the archimage’s neck was clasped a pair of large, knobby hands. Just that and nothing more. Around the room, above, flitted a dozen more pairs of those disembodied hands, swooping at the throats of the enchanters.

Shea lunged. But Busyrane was made of stern stuff. He got the hands loose, his own sword up, and came back with a low cut. Shea lunged again. The magician, groggy from that strangling grip, had strength enough left to beat off Shea’s remises and one-twos. Shea tried a coupé and one-two and felt his point go home. He held his lunge, stabbing and stabbing.

Down went Busyrane. Shea looked around, The windows of the hall were jammed with the bats and owls and things into which the magicians had changed themselves. They were beaten. The knobby hands clustered around them, tearing off wings and wringing necks with fine impartiality. The lights flared up again. It was all over. Dead and dying monsters about the great hall changed back into men. Cambell, Artegall, and Britomart picked themselves up from the floor, slowly and with effort. Cambina drooped against the service door, almost fainting.

Artegall’s deep voice boomed: «Ha! Lives one yet?» Shea turned to see him kick over a table and swing back the big blood-dripping sword. He gave a leap and clutched the arm in time.

«Thank you, Harold,» said Chalmers from the floor where the table had been. Florimel was beside him. He was squeezing the neck of a bottle in both hands. The large joints of those hands were familiar. Shea realized that the disembodied pairs that had wrought such havoc among the enchanters were outsize copies of his partner’s.

«Nice work, Doc,» remarked Shea. To Artegall he said; «Don’t. He’s on our team.»

Chalmers gave a hand to Florimel. «You observe,» he remarked, «the improvement in my technique, although, goodness gracious! I didn’t expect the hands to be quite as efficacious as that!» He looked round the room, where nearly half the corpses showed marks of strangulation.

* * *

Cambell carried his wife to a seat and supported her. He said: «’Twill pass. She is much fordone with the labour of defeating those enchanters’ spells, and ’tis well she did so or we were all dead men.»