The Warlock in Spite of Himself

"Hey!" he protested.

"Peace," said Puck. "We do but bear you forth to your freedom."

A host of tiny hands lifted Rod. He resigned himself and lay back to enjoy the trip.

It was a rather pleasant way to travel, actually—like an innerspring mattress with four-wheel drive.

His feet tilted up higher than his head and the pace of the scuttling feet under him slowed—they were mounting an incline.

Damp night air struck his face; he heard the breeze sighing in the leaves, accompanied by a full complement of crickets, with an owl and maybe a curlew providing the harmony.

He was dropped unceremoniously; the blindfold was whipped from his eyes.

"Hey!" he protested "What do you think I am, a sack of potatoes?"

He could hear a stream gurgling off to his left.

"Tha'rt free now, RodGallowglass," Puck's voice husked in his ear. "May God be with you!" And the elf bounded away.

Rod sat up, flexing his limbs to make them realize they could move gain. He looked about.

It was a moonlit forest glade, with a silver stream trickling past on the left. The trees were bright steel trunk and tinsel leaf, and black shadow among the trunks.

One of the shadows moved.

It stepped forward, a tall figure in a dark, hooded monk's robe.

Rod scrambled to his feet.

The figure moved slowly toward Rod, halted ten feet away, and threw back the hood.

Wild, disordered hair over a long, thin face, with hollows under the cheekbones and caves for eye sockets, with two burning coals at their backs—and the whole face twisted, curdled with bitterness.

The voice was flat and thin, almost a hiss. "Are you, then, so tired of life that you come to a werewolf's cage?"

Rod stared. "Werewolf!"

Well, why not! If elves were a basic assumption…

Then Rod frowned. "Cage?" He looked around. "Looks like the great outdoors to me."

"There is a wall of magic around this grove," hissed the werewolf. " Tis a prison the Wee Folk have made me—and they do not feed me in my proper fashion."

"Oh?" Rod looked at the werewolf out of the corner of his eye. "What's your proper fashion?"

"Red meat." The werewolf grinned, showing a mouthful of canines. "Raw, red meat, and blood for my wine."

Something with lots of cold little feet ran down Rod's spine.

"Make peace with your God," said the werewolf, "for your hour has come."

Fur appeared on the backs of his hands, and his fingernails grew, curving outward. Forehead and cheeks sprouted fur; nose, mouth, and chin slipped together and bulged, tapering outward to a muzzle. His ears moved upward to the top of his head and stretched into points.

He flung off the dark cloak; his whole body was silvery fur, his legs had become haunches.

He dropped to all fours. His upper arms shortened and his forearms lengthened; his hands had become paws. A tail sprouted and grew into a long, silvery plume.

The silver wolf crouched close to the earth, snarling, growling low in its throat, and sprang.

Rod whirled aside, but the wolf managed to change course in mid-air just enough; its teeth ripped Rod's forearm from elbow to wrist.

The wolf landed and spun about with a howl of joy. It crouched, tongue lolling out, then it sprang again.

Rod ducked, dropping to one knee, but the wolf checked itself in mid-leap and fell on top of him. Its legs clawed at his chest; the great jaws fumbled for ' on his spine.

<*ed to his feet, bowing forward and shoving against the wolfs belly with all his strength. The wolf went flying, but its claws had raked Rod's back open.

The wolf landed on its back, hard, and howled with the pain. It scrambled to its feet and stalked around Rod in a circle, growling with blood-lust.

Rod pivoted, keeping his face toward the wolf. How do you handle a werewolf?Fess would know, butFess was still out of order.

The wolf snarled and leaped for Rod's throat.

Rod crouched low and lunged with his hand stiffened. His fingers caught the wolf right in the solar plexus.

Rod leaped back, falling into a crouch. The wolf clawed at the ground, struggling to regain its breath as life poured back into its nerves. Rod circled around it, widdershins for luck.

How do you fight a werewolf?

Wolfbane, obviously.

But Rod couldn't tell wolfbane from poison ivy without a botany text.

The wolf dragged in a long, grating breath and rose into a crouch. It snarled and began to prowl, widdershins around Rod, watching for an opening.

So much for widdershins, Rod thought, and reversed direction, circling clockwise in an attempt to get behind the wolf.

The wolf sprang.

Rod pivoted aside and let fly a right jab at the wolf's jaw; but the wolf caught his fist in its teeth.

Rod bellowed with pain and kicked the beast in the belly. Fang went down for a breather again, freeing Rod's hand as the toothy jaws gaped for air.

Silver bullets. But chemical sidearms had been out of vogue for thousands of years, and the DDT had gone off the silver standard quite a while before.

A crucifix. Rod made a firm resolution to take up religion. He needed a hobby, anyway.

His furry friend had meanwhile pulled itself back together. Haunches tensed, it sprang.

Rod sidestepped, but the wolf had apparently counted on his so doing. It landed full on his chest, slavering jaws snapping for Rod's jugular vein.

Rod fell on his back. He pulled up his legs, planted his feet in the wolfs belly, and shoved, catapulting the canine clear of his corpus. The wolf fell hard and squirmed, getting its feet under its body.

What else didn't werewolves like?

Garlic.

Rod circled around the wolf, fumbling in his purse for the garlic sausage left over from dinner.

The wolf spread its jaws wide and hacked a cough.

Rod munched a mouthful of sausage.

The wolf came to its feet with an ugly, very determined growl. It tensed and sprang.

Rod caught the beast under the forelegs, staggering back under the weight of its body, and breathed full in its face. He dropped the wolf and sprang away.

The wolf rolled, spitting and coughing, drew in a shuddering gasp, and collapsed.

Its form stretched, relaxed, and slowly stretched again—and a tall, lean wiry man lay naked,face down, in the grass, unconscious body heaving with great panting breaths.

Rod sank to his knees. Saved by garlic sausage!

Grass whispered by his knee; he looked into the smiling eyes of Robin Goodfellow.

"Return with us if you will, Rod Gallowgrass, for our paths are yours, to walk at your pleasure, now."

Rod smiled wearily. "He might have killed me," he said, with a nod at the unconscious werewolf.

Puck shook his head. "We looked on, and would have prevented death to either of you; and as for your wounds, why! we shall quickly have them mended."

Rod rose, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Then, too," said Puck, "we knew you to be a warlock of such potency that you could defeat him… if you were a white warlock."

"Oh?" Rod raised an eyebrow. "What if I wasn't? What if I was black?"

"Why, then," Puck said, grinning, "you would have leagued with him against us, and sought to fight loose of the prison."

"Urn." Rod gnawed at his lower lip. "Wouldn't that have put you in" a rather delicate position?"

"Nay." Puck grinned again. "The magic of a score of elves has never yet been equaled by two warlocks."

"I see." Rod rubbed his chin. "Hedged your bets, didn't you? But you couldn't let me know, of course. As long as I was in the dark, fighting the werewolf proved I was one of the good guys?"

"Partly."

"Oh? What's the other part?"

"Why, Rod Gallowglass, there were several times when you had rendered the werewolf helpless, but you did not kill him."

"And that shows I've got a good heart."