The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter (16 page)

“Do yours, Enchanter!”

“I already am.”

Medic made a sudden movement, as if he were going to hit Stephen.  Stephen flinched and drew back.  “Not try?” Medic snapped.  His helpless humility was gone, replaced by fury.  “The Enchanter will not try for a man who considers him a friend?”

“I told you,” said Stephen; “enchanters don’t have friends.”

“Then the Enchanter will not come to me if he is injured,” said Medic.  “The Enchanter will not speak to me or enchant anything that is mine.”

Stephen turned on his heel and left without another word.  He tried to keep working on the spinal column, but his hands were unsteady, and he couldn’t concentrate on the magic.

Sometime during the night, Tinkerfingers disappeared.  Stephen knew this because the Jolly Executioner bellowed it as Stephen was trying to sleep.

It was not a pleasant way to awaken.  He moaned into his blankets.

“Where has he gone?” the Jolly Executioner was asking.  “Did any of you give him permission to leave?  He’s deserted!”

“Sir, I don’t think so,” said Miss Ironfist, who was the only one who could speak to the Jolly Executioner when he was in a mood.

“Was he dragged off then?  Eaten?”

“I don’t think so, sir.  There are footprints, leading from his bed.  We believe he simply walked into the woods, without taking any supplies.”

“Maybe he had to go—you know,” Whimsy muttered

“Wake the whole camp up, why don’t you,” grumbled Arm.

The Jolly Executioner heard them.  “Think that’s clever, do you?  You two—up!  Get up!”

“It’s the middle of the—”

“Did I ask you what time it was?  Get up—you and Arm are going to find Tinkerfingers.  I want him back here by morning.

“Yes, sir,” Arm said, but Whimsy kept grumbling until Miss Ironfist snapped at them.  There were sounds of shuffling, and then silence again. 

Eventually, Stephen fell back asleep.  He did not awaken again until a little past dawn.  “What’s going on?” he asked, almost before he had his eyes open.  “Is Tinkerfingers still gone?”

“How did you know that?  I could have sworn you were asleep!”

“I was.”

“Amazing.  Do you know about Whimsy and Arm?”

“The Jolly Executioner sent them after Tinkerfingers.”

The man, a sturdy fellow with an intricately knitted black hat and equally black hair under it, shook his head.  “I never knew enchanters could do that.”

“We can’t; that all happened hours ago.  What’s going on now—and do you have a name?”

“Not that you’ve told me,” said the man, in perfectly good humor.  “You can come along and pick one, if you like.  A friend and I are the second search party—Arm and Whimsy haven’t come back, and there’s been no sign of Tinkerfingers.  You know Tinkerfingers, right?  I’ve seen you talking to him.”  The man offered his hand and Stephen, surprised, took it.  “You did a fine job on my sword, and I’m grateful.  Are you coming?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Stephen, “if we’re only searching.  I’m afraid I’d be useless in a fight.”

“Then if a fight does come, stay back and let us do the hard work.”

That suited Stephen.

“It probably won’t come to that, anyway—likely as not, Arm and Whimsy got lost.  We’ll find them in no time, and laugh about it.”

Stephen seriously doubted the Jolly Executioner would laugh.

The scout’s friend proved to be a giant of a man with a large, baby blue eyes beneath his facemask.  In any other company, he would have loomed; but here, he was no broader than Granite, no taller than the Jolly Executioner.  Stephen didn’t recognize the poleaxe he carried—which was hardly surprising; it was too heavily iron for even a layman to assume Stephen could enchant it.

The giant nodded at Stephen.  “Don’t call me Babyface,” he said.  “I’ll take any other name, but not that.”

“It never crossed my mind,” Stephen lied.

Almost as soon as they departed, it became apparent that Arm and Whimsy had not—could not have—become lost.  Three sets of footprints led away from camp, two overlapping the third—a path clear enough that Stephen could follow it unaided.

Why was he doing this?  He wasn’t a scout or a search party.  He had no business following footprints in the snow.  He was an enchanter!  He should go back, get a little more sleep.  If anyone should be searching for Tinkerfingers, it was Youngster.

Stephen stuffed his hands in his various pockets, fiddling uneasily with the material.  Whatever happened to Tinkerfingers, it wasn’t his fault—whatever Medic had implied.

“They stopped following,” said not-Babyface, pointing ahead.  “Why would they have done that?”

The first scout raised his nose in the air and sniffed.  “Smell that?”

Stephen pulled away his scarf and sniffed the air.  “Smoke?”

“It’s coming from over there—Arm and Whimsy must have smelled it and gone to investigate.”

“Hours ago?” Stephen asked doubtfully.  “In the middle of a possible rescue mission?”

“It must have been important, if they turned aside—and if they’re not back yet.  They could be in trouble.”

“Then we should help them,” said the giant.  He started off after their footprints and, after a moment’s hesitation, the first scout followed. 

Stephen stayed where he was.  “I’ll look for Tinkerfingers alone, then,” he said.

“Tinkerfingers can wait,” said the first scout.  “He caused all the problems in the first place—if he hadn’t wandered off, Arm and Whimsy wouldn’t be in trouble.”

“Even so,” said Stephen.  “I’m no good in a fight anyway; I told you.  I’ll meet you back here, where the footprints diverge.”

“Just a moment,” said the first scout, and drew the man who was not Babyface aside.  There was a hurried, whispered conversation—presumably, over whether they could leave the Enchanter to his own devices.

“I’m not going to run off,” Stephen said.

“Then come with us.”

After whatever had delayed Arm and Whimsy?  He certainly would not.  There might be something dangerous.  “And leave Tinkerfingers to freeze or get lost?  Don’t worry about me.”

“Maybe we should—” the first scout began, but the giant shook his head.

“We should hurry.”

“Yes.”  The first scout paused only a moment longer, wavering on whether to admonish the enchanter.  He settled on, “Don’t do anything that would make the Jolly Executioner mad,” and hurried off with his friend.

“The Jolly Executioner is already mad,” Stephen muttered to the world at large.  He pulled his scarf back across his face, and stumped after Tinkerfingers’s footprints.  After a while, he began humming.

Tinkerfingers’s footsteps continued in a wavering, stumbling path, around trees and down a hill.  There were torn branches where he had had to steady himself, and crushed bushes underfoot.

Movement caught Stephen’s eye, directly ahead.  Stephen opened his mouth to shout—but it was not Tinkerfingers.  It was, in fact, a woman.  She had seen something, and was rushing forward to bend over it.

Stephen picked up his robes and crept forward, wishing he were wearing a different color.  Blue would do nothing to camouflage him in these woods.

The woman wore a long, chocolate brown cloak.  The hood was up, but Stephen could see long golden tresses protruding on either side.

Definitely not Miss Ironfist, then.

The woman knelt by the thing that had caught her attention, and peered closely, prodding it.  When she had examined the thing to her satisfaction, she withdrew a knife and began cutting it.

Someone moaned, long and low, and Stephen realized what the thing on the ground must be.  He was out of his hiding spot before he knew what he was doing, running forward.  “Stop it!” he called.  “Stop, witch!”

The witch looked up at him, perfectly coolly.  “Mind your own business,” she said.  She returned to her work—and Stephen was now near enough that he could see what it was; she was carefully extracting Tinkerfingers’s heart—and she was doing a neat job of it.  There was hardly any blood.

“This is my business.  That man is a—an associate of mine.”

“Was an associate, maybe.  He’s dead now.”

The witch removed the heart carefully and examined it. 

“Put that down!”

To Stephen’s surprise, the witch dropped it.  “Ruined,” she pronounced.  “Completely ruptured.  I might have known.”  She wiped her gloves off with snowy leaves, removing the blood.  “The idiot ignored a splinterworm infection.”

“You killed him!”

“He was nearly dead anyway.  I would have cut the splinterworms out, otherwise.”

“You cut his heart out!”

“He was done with it, and I wanted one.”

Stephen was abruptly reminded of Deadman’s eyes.  But that was totally different.  He had been forced to take them—and he was going to use them in a dog; he wasn’t going to chop them up and concoct some horrible potion with them.

Besides, he’d only cut them out after Deadman had died.

And it was too late to throw them out now.  He’d already fitted the skull to hold them.  It’d be a massive waste of effort.

There was a cry in the distance, and the scouts were running toward them, weapons drawn.

“More of your associates?” the witch asked.  “I always knew enchantment was a low, secondhand sort of magic.”

“It’s better than witchcraft!”

This, Stephen realized, did not look good.  Here he was, standing ten paces from the witch who had just carved Tinkerfingers’s heart from his body.  If the scouts were the kind of shoot first and ask questions later, he was in trouble.

“Stop,” the witch commanded, raising her hands—not in a magical gesture; she held a crossbow.

A familiar crossbow.  Stephen had enchanted it himself.

The scouts skidded to a halt.  “That’s Arm’s!” said the giant.

“You killed them!” snapped the first scout.  “We saw the house—and the bodies!  And—is that Tinkerfingers?”

“Yes,” said Stephen.

“He was already dead,” said the witch, “and I didn’t kill your friends.”

“She did cut out his heart, though,” said Stephen.  “That wasn’t me.”

The first scout looked from enchanter to witch and back, clearly not sure what to believe. 

“The heart’s over there, if you want it,” said the witch, motioning with her crossbow.  “I wouldn’t bother, if I were you.  It’s ruptured—and may still hold the infection.”

The giant ignored crossbow and witch, and knelt to retrieve the heart.  In gloved hands, he bore it gently to Tinkerfingers’s body.  The witch stepped aside, watching him, not shooting.

“Don’t touch it,” she said, “or you’ll regret it.”

The giant set the heart carefully down into its socket.  As he did so, one gloved finger slid one over the ruptured area.  The giant gasped and snatched his hand away, staring at it.

“You idiot,” the witch snapped.  “Hold this.”  She shoved the crossbow at the first scout.  “Give me the hand.”