The Complete Compleat Enchanter (34 page)

Shea looked at the door. “You see, Votsy? Monkeying with guys like that is like telling Al Capone you don’t like the color of his tie. Now let’s get into those clothes and go see Doc. I noticed he solved the turban trouble and maybe he can help us.”

He led the way down to Chalmers’ apartment. The doctor was puttering away, changing cheerfully:

“We’ve a first-class assortment of magic;

And for raising a posthumous shade

With effects that are comic or tragic,

There’s no cheaper house in the trade.

Love philter—we’ve quan—

“What can I do for you, Harold?”

“These confounded cummerbunds.” Shea watched as the doctor took Polacek’s and adjusted it with quick, expert fingers, then began winding his own. “Look here, Roger says Belphebe’s somewhere in the mountains around here. You’re got to get me out of this place to look for her.”

Chalmers frowned. “I fail to see the necessity for any immediate departure,” he said. “The young woman impressed me as being admirably fitted to—uh—take care of herself. A perfect case of conjoined biological and psychological adaptation. And it would be most inopportune for you to leave at the present moment. We must look for the—uh—better manner of serving our united interests, and I am at present confronted with a serious problem—”

“Oh, Votsy can stay here and take care of her,” said Shea.

“Vaclav
is
a bright young man, but I am afraid he is inclined toward irresponsibility,” said Chalmers firmly, ignoring Polacek’s squawk of protest. “Also, he has a—uh—deplorable weakness for the fair sex, not to mention that he lacks training in the most elementary details of magic. You, therefore, are the only person upon whom I can rely at present.”

Shea grinned ruefully. “Okay,” he said. “You knew you could get me with that argument. But you’ll have to help me find Belphebe as soon as things are cleared up here.”

“I shall be glad to help as far as I can, Harold, as soon as we have reasonable assurance of success in humanizing Florimel.”

Shea turned his head to conceal the sparkle in his eye. Knowing how mulish Chalmers could get, he didn’t attempt to argue. But he was a trained psychologist too, and he suspected it would transpire that he could best assist the transformation of Florimel at a distance from Castle Carena.

Polacek said: “Listen, you two. I might as well be some use around here. Why not show me how this magic works?”

“I had planned a series of talks on the subject,” said Chalmers. “We will begin with the basic concepts, such as the distinction between sympathetic magic and sorcery. . . .”

“How about teaching me a couple of good stiff spells right now? Something I can use? You can get around to the heavy theory later, and I’ll understand it better if I know the practical application.”

“That would be unsound pedagogy,” said Chalmers. “You should be aware that I am not one of those so-called progressivists who believes that the pupil absorbs best material presented in an unsystematic and confusing manner.”

“But—but—I got a reason—”

“Yeah?” said Shea. “What’s going on in that object you use for a brain, Votsy?”

“That’s my business.”

“No tell, no spell.”

“Vaclav!” said Chalmers, in a monitory tone.

Polacek struggled with conflicting impulses for a few seconds. “It’s that little dame,” said he. “The dancer. Of course, ordinarily I wouldn’t care—” (here Shea laughed raucously) “—not having really met her, but I won’t stand for that big oaf telling me what to do. I thought if you gave me a couple off spells I could put on him—”

“No!” cried Shea and Chalmers together. The doctor said: “We are, I think, involved in—uh—sufficient difficulties already without further complicating our situation. I really do not know, for instance, how to avoid Atlantès’ importunities with regard to the death-doom on the castle.”

“The big guy mentioned something about that,” said Polacek. “What is it?”

“It appears that at some time a spell was put upon this structure, I would conjecture when it was erected. The general effect is that if a killing should be performed within it, the building will collapse, though I will not weary you with the details, which are fantastically complicated. While I would normally be most willing to assist Atlantès, it now occurs to me that should this doom be lifted, our friend Roger will no longer be restrained from cutting you or Harold into fragments by way of sword-practice. “

Shea muttered: “I’m not afraid of that stupid ox. I’ll bet that all he knows is sabre-practice, if he knows that much.”

“Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I should provide myself with a weapon. It would be most regrettable if our friendly association came to a sanguinary end. Moreover, permit me to remind you that as a married man you have incurred certain—uh—responsibilities.”

Shea subsided, feeling guilty over having forgotten for some minutes that he was a married man.

“I still think you ought to teach me a couple of spells,” said Polacek. “I won’t turn Roger into a mud-turtle or anything like that, I promise, but I ought to have enough to protect myself.”

“The amount of knowledge you could acquire so hastily would be of little value for self-protection,” said Chalmers firmly. “The course will be imparted as I have outlined.”

Polacek jumped up. “You two give me a pain. I’m going to see Atlantès. Maybe he knows a trick or two.” He stormed out, banging the door metallically.

Shea looked at Chalmers with concern on his long face. “Say, Doc, maybe I better go sit on his head, don’t you think? He almost got into a jam with Roger already.”

Chalmers shook his head. “I doubt whether Atlantès will impart enough magical information to enable our hasty young friend to—uh—jeopardize our safety, or for that matter, whether Vaclav can cause any particular damage in that quarter. In fact, it might be just as well if our host were allowed to gather the somewhat unfavorable impression of your—uh—characters that he is bound to form from contact with our associate. Now if you will lend a hand with this athanor, I shall finish compounding this mixture and we can retire for the night.”

The last words set up a train of thought in Shea’s mind that caused him to look more sharply at Chalmers. “Been rejuvenating yourself, haven’t you?” he asked.

Chalmers flushed. “It seemed expedient, in view of the demands of my—uh—more active recent life. I was, as you perceive, conservative in my application of the formula, not wishing to become an adolescent by inadvertent overdosage.”

Shea grinned nastily as he bore a hand with the athanor. “The more fool you, Doc. Don’t you know what the statistics show about adolescents?”

Four

Harold Shea dreamed he was drowning in an ocean of olive oil, too thick for swimming. Every time he reached the edge of an overhanging cliff and tried to pull himself out, a gigantic Roger with a cruel smile on his petulant face pushed him down with the butt of a lance.

He woke to see Vaclav Polacek on the edge of the other bed, holding a handkerchief to his nose. The whole place reeked with the stench of rancid oil. Shea reeled to the window, which was closed with some alabaster material. As he fumbled it open, a blast of chill but fresh air struck his face. He gulped. Beyond the castle battlements he could see the snowy crags of a range of mountains, pink in the early sun.

“What the hell?” said Shea, thoughts of some weird attempt at poisoning floating through his mind. Staying as near as he could to the open shutter, he struggled into the loose garments provided for him, and, without waiting to jockey the turban into position, made his way into the hall. There the odor was overpowering. As he turned the corner he bumped head-on into the Amir Thrasy, who was toddling along with a cut-open orange held under his nose.

“What the hell makes this stink, my noble friend?” asked Shea.

“Truly, sir, you are right and it comes from nowhere but the ultimate pits of the damned. But as the reason, it has been whispered to me that Atlantès (may flies nest in his ears!) has forgotten to renew his spell.”

“What spell?”

“Verily, none other than that by which the smell of this oil is restrained within bonds, as the Jann are bound by the seal of Solomon. It is certain that there is no spell against rusting, and, unless this castle be kept well oiled, there would be no help for it that it must be overthrown. Yet is the spell for the sweetness of oil more fugitive than a leaf in tempest, and must have renewal from time to time, as . . .”

He stopped as Atlantès himself came bustling around a corner of the corridor. “In the name of Allah, on whom be praise!” he greeted them. “Most noble lords, forbear your anger from your unworthy servant.” He was bowing up and down like a metronome. “Give me but the kerchief of your pardon that my dread may be appeased and my heart eased!” More bows. “I pray you, enlighten me with your graciousness so far as to break fast with me. See, even now the air grows purer than a spring of fresh water! And your squire as well, glorious sir. Is the youth well?”

Shea’s appetite, whatever it might normally have been, had vanished under this shock of the olive oil stench. Nevertheless he called to Polacek, and the Amir Thrasy fortunately saved him the necessity of a reply.

“In sooth,” said he, “our pains are borne lightly for the sake of the pleasures to come, as we bore with joy the smell of the corpses the day Lord Roger slew the two thousand serfs at the gate of Pampeluna, forgetting in his warlike fury to leave any alive for the withdrawal of the bodies.”

Their host conducted them to a breakfast consisting mainly of stewed lamb with a sour, whitish liquid which Shea took to be milk, rather noticeably unpasteurized. Roger, reclining on cushions across the floor from the young psychologist, gobbled horribly. There was no sign of Dr. Chalmers. When the mirror of chivalry had finished his meal by sucking leftovers from between his teeth, he stood up and said meaningfully to Shea: “Will it please your honor to slash at the pells, since under my uncle’s ordnance we may not slash at each other?”

“What’s pells?” demanded Polacek.

Ignoring this question in a marked manner, Shea said: “Delighted. But somebody will have to lend me a sword. I came away so quickly I left mine home.”

The pells of Castle Carena were a row of battered-looking wooden posts in the courtyard. Beyond them, a couple of men in castle guards’ livery were shooting at targets with short, double-curved bows. Oddly enough, they had the heads of baboons.

As Shea and Roger came out, Lord Mosco, a Saracen so pudgy that he waddled, was facing the nearest pell with a scimitar in one hand and a round shield on his other arm. He gave a blood-curdling whoop, leaped at the post light as a cat for all his bulk, and swung. Chips flew. Mosco went into a dance around the unoffending wood, slashing forehead with a drawing cut, and yelling at the top of his voice: “Allah-il-Allah! Mahound! Mahound!” He stopped suddenly and walked back to where the others stood in a little group. “My Lord Margéan, will you give me the balm of your word upon my performance?”

Margéan, in a kind of shapeless cap instead of a turban, and whose nose had once been well broken, said judicially: “I rate it but indifferent good. Twice you exposed your left side during the recovery, and the war cry did not ring. The foe is always the worse for a lusty shout in his ears.”

Mosco sighed. “Blessed by the name of God,” he said resignedly. “I fear I am a lost man unless protected by His angels or the arm of our champion. My lords, shall we not grace our eyes with the sight of these Frankish warriors?” There was a murmur of assent. “Now there is nothing for it but you must smite at these pells, squire.”

“Better say you have a sprained wrist,” muttered Shea.

But Polacek had his own ideas. “I’ll get along. I’ve been watching him, haven’t I? Where do I get one of these toad-choppers?”

The Amir Thrasy handed over his own somewhat battered and nicked scimitar. Polacek marched up to the pell, yelled: “Rah, rah, rah, Harvard!” and swung up in an underhand slash. However, he had misjudged the height of the pell; missed it completely, swung himself clear round the circle, tripped over his own feet, and had to clutch the post to keep from falling.

“That’s my special attack,” he explained with a shame-faced grin. “I make believe I’m gonna chop him, but instead I jump into a clinch and wrassle him down where I can really get at him.”

Nobody seemed to feel the episode at all funny. Margéan’s face expressed disdain, while the others looked away, all but Roger, who glanced at Shea to indicate that he was next.

Shea hefted Thrasy’s weapon; aside from the nicks in the blade, it was altogether wrongly balanced for his type of work. “Has anybody got a straight sword I could borrow?” he asked.

Lord Margéan, who seemed to be some kind of coach, clapped his hands and called; a castle servant with the blubbering muzzle of a camel appeared with the desired weapon. Shea hefted it. The blade was straight enough, but the sword was as purely designed for cutting as the scimitars; no point whatever, the end rounded off, and the hilt made for a small-handed man. The balance was better, though, and if the weapon was too heavy for a proper parry, it might do for a little lunging practice. Shea addressed himself to the post without shouting, did a simple disengage lunge, a disengage lunge with an advance, a lunge-and-remise. In five minutes he had worked up a healthy sweat, and was pleased to hear a murmur from the spectators, partly puzzlement and partly appreciation.

Margéan said: “Marry, sir knight, here’s strange bladeplay; yet methinks that with a Frankish sword you would even skewer one or two of your foes.” And they began to argue about the merits of Shea’s system: “Look you, lords, with a proper point like a spear you could even drive through the fine mail of Damascus. . . .” “Nay, I like not these newfangled tricks. . . .” “But see the reach it gives you. . . .” “Howsobeit, men will slash when excited. . . .” “Oho!” (to Sir Audibrad, who was awkwardly trying to imitate Shea’s lunge). “It is plainly to be seen that the noble Sir Harold’s tricks are not to be picked up in an evening over the coffee cups. . . .”

Only Roger looked contemptuous. Without preliminary words he strode up to the nearest pell, filled the castle-yard with a yell, and swung an enormous scimitar.
Chunk!
went the blade into the wood, and then quickly
chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk!
With the last blow, the upper half of the pell flew off, turning end over end. He swung round and grinned rather nastily at Shea.