It's Magic, You Dope!: The Lost Fantasy Classic Read online

  Lorn, who in the confusion had struggled out of her marble encumbrances, rushed up to me and flung herself into my arms. “Please, honey,” I protested, albeit I held her pressed tightly to me with my free hand, “I may have to kill a few people."

  "No,” boomed the wizard. “You are all trapped, doomed!"

  "Ha!” said Maggot, cackling shrilly. “What makes you think the Thrake is dead? I could very easily have taught it to feed itself. In fact, how do you know I haven't hooked it up to a high frequency spell-transmitter that I can control from here, and render you all helpless, ha?” She certainly sounded convincing.

  So convincing that Kwist, who was wildly impressionable, screamed shrilly, “Help! I can't fly anymore!"

  Maggot was momentarily distracted. And her power, which had been full on Cort since her arrival at Sark, wavered in intensity. Wavered just as the wizard made a frantic effort to employ his sorcery.

  "Maggot the witch—STOP!” he roared, his arms doing that weirdly fluid motion toward her.

  And Maggot froze helpless, like a plump, black-garbed statue clutching a broom. At the very instant of her going rigid, my sword vanished from my hand, and I found myself strapped in the heavy lead cuirass once more.

  The Kwistians advanced upon us, snarling.

  "Albert!” cried Lorn miserably.

  "Odds bodkins!” moaned Timtik.

  CHAPTER 13

  WITHIN forty seconds, I had four Kwistians holding me, Lorn had two, and Timtik looked chagrined to find it took but one man to hold him.

  Cort, despite that nasty spill he'd taken, was looking very pleased. In front of all the Kwistians, the emperor had cracked up in a crisis, leaving all the prestige to the winged wizard.

  "Cort,” said Kwist, just about recovered from his fright, or at least feigning that appearance.

  "Yess ... Majesty?” Cort's unmistakable mockery elicited a few snickers from the clustered Kwistians. Kwist turned a pinkish hue, but managed to continue.

  "Cort, what does an Earthman taste like?"

  Cort's feathery eyebrows rose in shrewd consideration, but not half so high as my pulse rate and hackles. I could see that the idea, while new to the wizard, was not at all displeasing to him. “I really don't know,” he mused, staring at me curiously, his yellowish eyes raking over my body from bare feet to tangled hair. “He might be quite delicious."

  "Why,” said the monarch to his wizard, “don't we have us the nymph for a main course, and then the man as a soft, succulent dessert?"

  "For now, that should be excellent,” said the wizard.

  "For now?” echoed Kwist, sensing the glint of sharp speculation in the other's eye.

  "Majesty, I was simply thinking. Here in Drendon, we must struggle to stay fed upon a relative handful of these delicious but scarce wood nymphs. But earth people exist by the billions!"

  "What a thought!” enthused Kwist, his beak wet with saliva.

  "Why,” continued the wizard, “with my magic to aid us we can capture dozens every day. If things turn out well, we may just move out of Drendon entirely, and live on Earth, with an infinity of plump, juicy people to feed upon!"

  "But,” said the monarch, uneasily, “what of the Edict of Banishment, Cort? I know it's possible for a few Drendonites to slip through on occasion, but if we all went through, wouldn't there be dreadful repercussions?"

  Cort shook his head. “Even Merlin was not that all-fired powerful. As with any spell, the effect wears thin in time. Many centuries have passed since his was woven. A thousand years ago, no Drendonite could return to Earth; a hundred years ago, dozens were sneaking out for short forays every day. And today ... It wouldn't surprise me if any of us could return without impunity, to remain so long as we desired."

  "Can it have worn so thin, then?” said Kwist, hopefully.

  "So thin, and so delicately poised,” said Cort, “that the right shock, the right circumstances, could foreseeably collapse the Edict entirely, and return Earth to its primal state, save for the cheering fact that present-day Earth people would have no idea how to cope with the sudden onslaught of fabulous beasts returning to ravage the land!"

  "Wonderful!” The monarch's joy was manifesting itself in a nervous dance step. “When can we get started?"

  "As soon as it is determined whether or not the Earthman is as delicious as he looks!"

  I felt myself turning pink, and avoided Lorn's eyes. I tried desperately to think of something to offset our fates. Then I had it. I thought.

  "Aren't you forgetting the Thrake?” I said, and was pleased to see the Kwistians stiffen, monarch and wizard included. “If Maggot can, as she says, turn it on from here, you'll all be in a fine fix, won't you!"

  "He's right, Cort!” said the emperor. “We must destroy the Thrake, first, before we plan any further. Its power is the one thing that can ruin, us all."

  "Am I to assume,” mused the wizard, “that you are finally giving me your permission to try the Roton Beam?"

  "Never!” gasped Kwist, his face grey with horror. “I tell you, Cort, that so-called long-distance Thrake-destroyer, is too incalculable! The heat at the focal point of the beam could ignite the moss fields and destroy all of Sark!"

  "But majesty,” Cort said, almost whining, “how do we know the Thrake is anywhere near the moss fields?"

  "How,” countered the monarch, “do we know it isn't wriggling across the moss tufts this minute?"

  "All right, all right,” Cort said petulantly. “No Roton Beam. We'll have to get at the Thrake indirectly."

  "How?” asked Kwist.

  "Through Maggot?"

  "That's our only course,” said the wizard. “Without her, the Thrake will die of starvation. And even should it linger a while, Maggot's death can still prevent any long-distance activation of the Thrake's power, such as she claimed to be able to bring about."

  "Good!” said Kwist. “You men there, stick your tridents—"

  "Kwist!” Cort interposed wearily.

  "-straight into her heart!” finished the monarch.

  As I watched in horror, half a dozen gleaming brass tridents sped toward the rigid form of the plump little witch. And all six, their points blunted, clanged onto the floor, leaving her unscathed. Kwist turned a puzzled face to Cort.

  "A counterspell of hers?"

  "No, majesty. My spell. The difficulty with the paralysis spell is that the very forces that seize up the person serve also to seal out the world. She cannot, in her present state, be harmed in any way."

  "But that's ghastly!” blurted the emperor. “Spells don't last forever, and when this one wears off..."

  "If you'll let me finish?” Kwist shut his beak, and Cort went on, “I was saying that she cannot be harmed at all except for one force, the jaws of the Serpoliths."

  The emperor's face went greenish, and not a few of the Kwistians shuddered. “Please Cort,” said Kwist, “it's dinner time!"

  Then I stood looking bewildered, Timtik turned his head my way and said, “Those are the mothers of the Kwistians, Albert. Maggot told me all about them. Cort keeps them locked in a black cavern beneath Sark, and only goes in there once a year to bring out their eggs for the hatchery. The eggs hatch into Kwistians, and—"

  "Silence, goat-boy!” snarled Cort.

  "But how can the Serpoliths...” said the monarch.

  Cort shrugged. “I don't know. I never have. Something in them defies most of my magic. Perhaps due to their being the primal ancestors of the Kwistians?"

  "Your magic door holds them,” Kwist pointed out.

  "No,” said Cort. “It merely blocks the light, and they detest anything but absolute darkness. To pass through the door is to enter into glaring pain and death for them. And the far end of the cavern is sealed by natural means. So there they stay."

  I was at sea about most of their conversation, but had no chance then to figure any of it out. Cort, deciding the dinner hour had been long enough delayed, ordered the guards to take Timtik and Maggot awa
y, Lorn to be prepared for the flame pit, and myself sent under guard into the room beyond the preparation chamber, to await my return. As dessert.

  There wasn't much I could do but let the two tall Kwistians drag me bodily from the throne room. I was taken into the room where Timtik and I had first achieved this level of the castle, and could only sit and try not to listen to Lorn's piteous cries as she was sturdily re-strapped into those marble encumbrances.

  The only hope was, of course, Maggot. And Maggot was magicked into evanescent ossification that probably wouldn't wear off until long after the Serpoliths—the sound of that word made my skin crawl—had rendered her pretty nigh useless as an ally. I wished listlessly that I'd paid better attention to Timtik's thunderstorm spell. If I could whomp up a shower every ten minutes or so, I could hold the flame pit at bay for quite a while.

  And then it came to me. Timtik could do magic. Not like Maggot could, of course, but he wasn't what you could call powerless, either. If he could be encouraged into trying, he might just be able to louse things up good for the Kwistians. If I could only get to him.

  I thought hard. Something about the Serpoliths was frightening to the Kwistians. With luck, I might maybe turn this loathing to my own advantage. I cleared my throat, said a short prayer, then spoke to the guards. “How's chances of my saying farewell to Maggot and Timtik?"

  One of them snickered. “Rotten. You've seen the last of them, Earthman."

  I forced myself to look nonchalant, and went on, “I figured as much. You Kwistians only attack unsuspecting people from the air, with those tridents ready to stab in the back. And you fight me, two women, and what amounts to a small boy, at odds astronomically in your favor. And now, tough as you look, you're scared silly at the thought of going anywhere near the Serpoliths."

  I fell silent and waited. This was the crucial moment. If only they had a spark of pride, a tiny spark of pride...

  "Who's scared!” said the first guard. He glanced at the other one. “Come on, Twork! Let's give this guy a quick look at his friends before they're no longer available."

  "Gee, Idlisk,” said the other, “I dunno. Cort might be mad."

  "At what?” said Idlisk. “We take him down, show him his buddies, then bring him back. Where's the harm?"

  "Oh. Okay, but let's make it fast. They'll cook up the wood nymph any minute, and we don't want to be skipped!"

  With that, they took me by the arms, sprang into the air and out the tall stone casement in the sunlight, high over the moss. My stomach shrank sickeningly as they plunged down two levels and soared into a huge chamber there. We were two levels below the throne room, near the very corridor wherein Timtik and I had made our entrance. And whether these guys knew it or not, there was a large hole in the stone wall at the end of that corridor, right on the brink of the moss.

  I kept that fact in mind as the two guards half-led, half-carried me down that dark corridor. One of them took a wooden flambeau from a wall sconce and ignited its tarry tip, and by this sputtering light we made our way deeper into the corridor, but suddenly turned off at an angle to the path on which I'd first entered Sark.

  Shadows from the flaming torch danced wildly on walls barely wide enough apart for a Kwistian to move with his pinions folded, and this narrowness necessitated my being first in the procession. The corridor was damp and had a strangely familiar odor to it, a sick-sweet odor that tugged at my memory as it grew stronger, but I couldn't place it.

  Then ahead of me I saw the circular opening leading into a dark muck-floored cavern, and standing a mere ten paces within the cavern were Maggot and Timtik, Maggot still inflexibly rigid, and Timtik sobbing hopelessly into the thick fabric of her voluminous skirt.

  "Timtik!” I called, and he turned his tear-streaked face toward me, looking more small boyish than ever in the flickering orange light of the torch.

  "Albert!” he wailed. “Do something! The spells are meshing in the doorway, and the light's going fast!"

  "What?” I said, baffled by his words. Then I saw that there was, indeed, something strange occurring in the circular plane that was the entrance to the cavern. A greyish cast to the air there seemed to resist any illumination thrown by the torch.

  "What kind of spell?"

  "Two of them. Polarized spells,” sniffled the faun. “One turns slowly to right angles to the other, and once it's there, no light can get in here; then the-the S-serpoliths'll come out!"

  "That's enough, Earthman!” snapped Idlisk, grabbing my shoulder. “You've seen them. Now come along."

  "And,” I said, turning to face him, “if I don't?"

  "You have no choice,” he said, reaching for me.

  "Make me come,” I said, and stepped backward through the polarizing spells into the cavern.

  "Hey-!” he said uneasily. “Come out of there!"

  I noticed he made no move to advance toward me, through the circle of grey which grew gradually darker even as I stood watching him. His torch had developed a fuzzy crimson nimbus, as its light was distorted by the meshing spells.

  "Two steps, and I'm yours,” I said, tauntingly. Idlisk jerked his head around to Twork.

  "We better get Cort!” he said nervously.

  "He'll molt if you tell him what you did!” said the other. “We shouldn't have brought the Earthman here!"

  "Better to get him upset over a slight dereliction of duty than a big one. He'll have us flung in the flame-pit if we let the Earthman get away with this!"

  "Well...” said Twork. “Okay. You go tell him what's happened, and I'll stay here and make sure he doesn't try and sneak out."

  As Idlisk hurried off, leaving the torch with Twork, I turned back to Timtik and Maggot. I knew the reason for Maggot's remaining where she was; then I saw the thick iron gyves on a short chain binding Timtik's hooves to the floor.

  "You better scram, Albert,” he said wistfully. “Is Lorn..."

  "Not yet,” I said. “But look, Timtik, I came down here on purpose.” I glanced back over my shoulder, but Twork was standing well back from the cavern entrance, a dim red-lit figure as the polarized spells neared their locale of total blackout. In an impenetrably black grotto off across the cavern, something slithered ominously. I forced my mind away from that darker darkness, and said, “Timtik, I think you can save us all."

  "You'll be sorry, Earthman,” called Twork's voice, as the darkness thickened. “When the Serpoliths come forth, angry with you interlopers, and all that acid dripping from their forked tongues, your death will not come quickly! You'll be begging for the flame pit after one second in the grip of those jaws!” In the tunnel, his voice was a hollow echo. Purplish-grey twilight hid him almost completely.

  "Timtik,” I said, “you must know some magic that'll get Lorn and all of us, safely out of here."

  "I know a little” he said dubiously. “I can ... Wait.” In the gloom, I saw him frown deeply, then brighten as his memory came across with an answer. “Got it!” he said, then chanted:

  "Bonds of metal, hemp or thong.

  Loosen as I sing my song,

  Set me free, as I belong,

  Ere my witching does you wrong!"

  The chains wriggled like galvanized worms, and the gyves sprang open from his hooves and clunked into the muck on the floor. “Come on, Albert,” he said. “We'll have to carry Maggot out of here, first, and try to save Lorn next."

  "We can't,” I said. “Twork's just beyond those magic blackout curtains."

  "Odds bodkins!” he muttered furiously. “We've got to do something, Albert, and fast!” My nose, which had been twitching with disgust from the moment I'd entered the cavern area, gave a particularly violent wriggle, and called my attention back to the smell. “Pee-yew!” I said, sniffing the air. “This place smells like—” Then I remembered the odor, and identified it. “Like hell-brew!" I finished, startled.

  Timtik squatted in the dimness to a clot of smelly stuff upon the floor and took a good whiff. “It is hell-brew,” he gasped, ast
onished."

  The blackness was abruptly complete, an almost palpable blackness, heavy and stygian to the senses. I could hear the slithering Serpoliths bestirring themselves in the grotto.

  "You must free Maggot!” I said.

  "But how?” he quavered, grabbing my hand in the darkness, as the slithering sounds began converging upon us. “Maggot never taught me the spell for freeing someone from magical paralysis."

  "Must you rely on regulations?” I demanded. “Someone has to coin these spells; why not you?"

  "We sure have nothing to lose,” he temporized, as the crawly noises with their contrapuntal sizzlings came horribly nearer. “Here goes nothing, Albert,” he said, then intoned swiftly, frantically:

  "Now weave I a countermand,

  That the wizard's curse be banned!

  Move I now my warlock's hand—

  Spell, leave Maggot, I command!"

  I felt him move, as his arms did some gesture in the blackness which only sorcerers know, then...

  "Tikky!" sang out Maggot's voice, through a noise oddly like a distant shattering of glass, as her enchanted bonds were broken asunder.

  "I did it!” the faun crowed in delight.

  "The Serpoliths!” I yelled, as a terrible scratching of scaly bodies crackled on the slimy stone of the cavern.

  "Oh, of course!” said Maggot. “Lights, lights!"

  There was a sputter, and two gleaming fluorescent tubes shone bright as elongated moons just beneath the cavern's domed ceiling. I barely got a glimpse of the Serpoliths, rasping out discordant screams of ocular agony, they sped back into the black recesses of the grotto.

  "Swell!” I said. “Now, quick, let's save Lorn!"

  "Wait a second, Albert!” said the faun. “Maggot, look at the stuff on the floor of this place. It's hell-brew, or I'm not the warlock I thought I was. Tell me, Maggot, is there some kind of connection between the Thrake and the Serpoliths and the Kwistians? And where is the Thrake?"

  "Dead,” said Maggot. “Fell into the cauldron fire. But as to the connection ... I guess it doesn't matter if I tell you now, now that the poor little thing's gone..."