The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter (21 page)

“Hush,” Granite said, stopping.  “Don’t gasp.”

“I’m breathing!”

“Then don’t.”

“Very funny.  Is this the camp?  Where is everyone?”

“This was the right direction,” Granite said uncertainly, “and we have come far enough.  Do you see any footprints?  Any signs of the company’s passing?”

“No.  The snow doesn’t look trampled.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Then we didn’t come the right way after all?”

Granite turned on him.  “If you can’t be helpful—”

The air pfiffed, something thumped, and Granite toppled over.  There was an arrow punched through his chest with such force that it protruded out of his back and nailed him to the ground.

A shadowy figure stepped out of the trees opposite Stephen.  It was too dark to see its eyes, but Stephen could feel them.  He held out his hands to show he was unarmed.  “Dog!” he murmured, trying not to move his lips.  “Dog!”

The figure drew a long, shining blade from its belt, and Stephen did the only thing he could think of.

He fainted.

Little robin redbreast sat upon a tree—

Don’t you love nursery rhymes?

I always wonder what they really mean.

There was something warm, soft, and alive pressed against Stephen’s face.  Its hair ticked his nose and got in his mouth and tasted both unwashed and curiously familiar.  It smelled familiar too—like animal and magic and something he couldn’t place—because it was, in fact, the way he himself smelled to other people.

Stephen opened his eyes against a vast expanse of brown-grey hair.  “Dog,” he mumbled, “pillows are supposed to go under your head.”

Dog growled.  Not the response he had been expecting.  He forced himself to wake up.

Dog nosed him and growled again.  He was not, Stephen realized, growling at his master.  There was someone else in the room.

He needed to concentrate.  His head swam—had he hit it when he had collapsed?—and he was having trouble focusing.

And he was hungry—but that would have to wait.  He levered himself to a sitting position.  Dog whined at him, and pawed his arm.

Stephen was in a warm, wooden room cluttered with hunting trophies—ink-dweller silks, wolf hides (normal and fairy), boar tusks, snapplehorn teeth, unicorn tails, fairy skins, eagle feathers, fish scales, bobcat heads, lizard bones, and a few unsavory specimens that could only have come from
homo sapiens sapiens
. 

Just as Stephen had concluded that he was in a hunting cabin, he spotted an unrolled tactician’s map with battle strategies marked by colorful tacks.  There were books too, thick homebound volumes on warfare, tactics, and history.

Before Stephen could assume he was in a general’s cabin, his eyes fell upon a book of poetry, and an open notebook filled with scrawled lines and marks of meter.

Then there were half-knitted sweaters, musical instruments, mountain-climbing gear, drying herbs, a pottery wheel—hundreds of different objects from different hobbies, all stuffed together in one room, all used often.  If the owner had no specific interests, it was because he was interested in everything and—when he grew bored—invented his own diversions.

Stephen absorbed this in a matter of seconds.  Before he could make up his mind what it all meant, he found his attention dragged, firmly and unavoidably, to the owner.

The owner was contemplating Stephen with something like amusement.  “You slept through the evening and the night,” he said.

That explained his grogginess; he had overslept.  “Most people sleep during the nighttime,” he said.

“But few have dogs so faithful.  Do you know—yours wouldn’t move to save its life?”

“No,” said Stephen.  “You couldn’t have killed Dog if you’d tried.”

“Yes,” said the man, “I could have.  I told it this, and I gave it every chance to back away—and I’m sure it understood; it’s wonderfully intelligent—but it only growled at me.  It would never have allowed me to bring you here if I hadn’t sworn not to hurt you.  A magnificent creature—but then, what else could one expect as the servant of an enchanter?”

“And you said that without sarcasm,” said Stephen.  “Is this your house?”

“It is.”  The man crouched in front of Stephen and smiled at him.  It was a charming smile, friendly and charismatic with a hint of mystery, as if the man were sharing a secret with Stephen.  The man had gleaming white teeth, perfectly clean and even.  Stephen wondered if they were real.

What struck Stephen most about the man, however, was that he did and did not fit the room.  He was not what Stephen would have expected—he did not look sly or diabolical or old or young or studious or rough or brawny.  True, the man was tall—taller than Stephen, who was not short—and very fit.  He dressed in hunters’ greens and browns, but in shades a tad too vibrant for camouflage.  His cloak, on the other hand—hung up on the door—was shades of grey and white, and would be almost invisible in shadowy, snowy woods.

The man was probably in his early forties, but had a timeless quality that could have pushed him a decade in either direction.  His hair was a deep brown untouched by frost, his eyes steely blue, his chin square, his profile strong, his voice the kind of golden tenor seldom heard outside the opera.  He looked, in fact, the epitome of every storybook hero.

Here, thought Stephen, was a man one could follow to the ends of the Earth.  Here was a leader far more worthy than the Jolly Executioner with his rag-tag band.  Here was a man for whom one would willingly die.

Stephen narrowed his eyes.  Willingly die?  An enchanter?  Hardly.  It was unbecoming.  He stood, and the man rose with him.  “How dare you try to bedazzle me!” Stephen snapped.  “Did you think an enchanter could be drawn in by your games?  Think!  I know your name!”

Robin grinned, not in the least put out.  “It hardly seems fair that you know my name when I don’t know yours.  But you needn’t go high and offended—I was only curious; I’ve never captured an enchanter before—and your companions were subdued easily enough.  Bedazzlement,” he added, “is a particular talent of mine.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Stephen.  “It’s not yours at all.  Whatever you’re using, it’s foreign magic.  Only enchanters can bedazzle.”

“Ah!  You’ve caught me!  Such is life.”

“Indeed,” said Stephen.  “Only—where did you acquire such strong magic?  From whom?  I would not have thought it possible.”

“What, acquired this poor, secondhand magic?  I can’t remember.  I suppose I must have picked it up at some point during my travels.”

“You did not.  Enchantment isn’t like that—it’s not a transferable skill.  The only way I can think of to transfer it is if your very flesh were enchanted with the ability to bedazzle—and enchanting living flesh is beyond the skill of any human enchanter.”

“True enough; luckily, my patroness is not human.  Her skills are far beyond anything for which you could hope.  Her skills at bedazzlement are quite extraordinary—I’ve never seen any better.  I only wish I had half her ability—but alas, my skill is paltry.”

Stephen knew the question expected of him and, resignedly, asked it.  “Who is your patroness?”

“Who?  Oh, I daresay you’ve heard of her.  She’s the Fairy Queen.”

Unlikely
, Stephen thought,
but not impossible
.  “Fairies are known for giving gifts,” he admitted, “but not free gifts, and never gifts that benefit their recipients.”

“Ah, but the Fairy Queen is no ordinary fairy—and, admittedly, I was a special case.  I did the Fairy Queen a favor some years back, and she gave me this as my reward.  My continuing gratitude prompts me to use it frequently—I would not like the Fairy Queen to think I despise her gift.  You understand, I’m sure.”

Of course Stephen understood.  One had to admire the humility of the man, his gentle gratefulness, his continuing faithfulness.  Certainly, Robin was—

“I told you,” said Stephen, “that won’t work on me—and it’s giving me a headache.  Besides, bedazzlement is both illegal and immoral—as, no doubt, was whatever you did for the Fairy Queen.”

Robin laughed his golden laugh.  “No doubt!  But that doesn’t bother me.  We all do things we dislike when necessary.  I rule over humans and animals—I protect the town that bears my name—so I do what I must.  Would you deny me my one magical ally?”

“Yes,” said Stephen, “because you aren’t protecting anything except your self-interest.  That town’s wards could repel anything.  It doesn’t need you.”

“Ah, but who do you think paid for those wards?”

“Taxpayers!”

“Me.”

“And how did you do that?  By bedazzling and murdering travelers for their money?  No; that’s backwards.  You didn’t kill them for their money; you took their money because you had killed them.”

Robin shrugged this accusation off.  “Necessity commanded it.”

“No it didn’t.”

For the first time, Robin frowned in honest annoyance.  “The bedazzlement really doesn’t work on you.  This may be more difficult than I imagined.”

“Killing me?”

“No; that would be easy.  Did you think I would have carried you all this way to play mind games, and then murder you?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“You have something there; I might do that.  I have some ingenious ways of killing people, and a few more ideas I haven’t tried.  But in this case, I want to make a bargain.”

Stephen was more than a little incredulous.

“I understand and applaud your caution, but I’m telling the truth—”

“Or what portion of it pleases you.”

“Naturally.  But some portion is necessary in this case, because what I want can only be freely given.”

“And that is?”

“Your dog.”

“Dog!”

“Yes.  Dog—is that really his name?  I’ll have to change that; he deserves something better—he is, as I said, magnificent.  I want him.”

“But he’s my dog.”

Dog whined piteously, and Stephen patted his head, mind whirring.  His dog!  And he’d just finished him—it wasn’t fair!

No; don’t think of that.  Stay sharp.  Stay ahead of Robin’s deceptions.  You’ve done it so far.

He hoped.

“Yes, Dog.  Lucky for you, isn’t it?  That dog is worth more to me than the pleasure of killing you—and is the only thing keeping you alive.”  Robin took on an air of benign supplication.  “It’s a lonely life, residing in these woods.  I have few visitors, and those seldom stay long.  I fear the years of solitude have hardened my heart; I am not by nature a bad man.  Pity me, good enchanter; do not leave me without companionship.”

“If you want companionship, stop killing everyone who comes through these woods. 
Why do you want my dog
?”

“This gift of mine—the bedazzlement—did not come without cost.  As soon as I gained it, I found myself forever indebted.  My obligations are onerous, and it is my wish to barter with the capricious queen.  In return for this dog, I could win my freedom from these woods.”

There was, Stephen knew, a touch of truth in Robin’s words—but only a touch.  “All fairy gifts come with obligations,” he said, “which you undoubtedly knew before you made the deal.  But that aside, no dog, not even this one, could possibly buy off any fairy—and certainly not the Fairy Queen who has all the beasts of Faerie at her command, and all the glamours that ever existed.  A third time: why do you want Dog?”

“I see I cannot fool you,” Robin said.  “Here is the truth: I am a hunter, the best that ever there was.  But I am human, and though my senses are keen and my mind full of clever strategies, I am limited.  Your dog appeals to me.  His legs are swift, his nose and ears powerful, his teeth sharp.  He would be a great asset.  And his eyes—there is something almost human about them.”

“And when you tired of him, you would hunt him in turn?”

“I did not say so.”

“But it’s true!”

“I would never tire of that dog.”

Stephen let it go; Robin had already told him more of the truth than Stephen had expected.  “Then what you want is for me to release my dog to hunt down humans—including, I suppose, the company with which I traveled—or did my companions escape?”

“Several escaped into the next world.”

“And the others?”

“They are with us.  I have a place in which I keep those I would hunt.”

“And you think I’ll help you?”