The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter (32 page)

“Yet I am here, and I bring tidings.  Behold!”

The Blue Lady lifted the canvas bag that she carried, and reached inside with her opposite hand.  Flourishingly, she withdrew something.  It was a creature, perhaps: small, spherical, covered all over with filthy, tawny hair.  The Blue Lady threw it at Stephen with wonderful accuracy, and it hit him on the chest.  He fumbled for a moment but managed not to drop it, instead holding it aloft and turning it that they might see its nature.

It was not an animal.  It was a head.  The scraggly hair was not tawny; it was blond.  The face beneath it was water damaged and distorted, its skin swollen and wrinkled and pimpled, its features blurred, its skull was partially crushed by great pressure.  Despite all this, the cold water had preserved enough of the face that it was recognizable.

Letitia!

“You killed her!” Youngster cried.  “How could you?  Why?  What harm did she ever do you?”

“Done me?  None, other than drawing me prematurely from my rest.  But she has done you a very great harm indeed.  Did you not know?  Listen again, human men:

“When the fourth who had betrayed the Fairy Queen realized what she had done, she betrayed once more.  She balked from her first betrayal and fled, denying her traitorous activities.  She did not hesitate; she made no excuse; she simply threw herself upon the mercy of the Fairy Queen—she who cares nothing for human life, and practices no mercy.

“Hearing the story of treachery done twice over, and knowing of the earlier treachery done to her former mistress, the old witch, the Fairy Queen did not forgive her, but gave her to me, that I might do to her as I liked.  That head,” the Blue Lady added, pointing, “is what I liked, for I have no more use for traitors than the Fairy Queen.  Less, for I am a solitary being.”

“She might have deserved to die,” Youngster said quietly, “but that doesn’t give you the right to kill her.  You didn’t have to.”

“Have to? 
Have
to?  I do not have to do anything that is against my will!  But death pleases me, and I willed this to be so.  Do you presume to tell me that you do not kill when your victims deserve death?  Tell me, human man: when the opportunity presents itself, and believing as you do that I deserve to die, will you not attempt to strike me dead?”

“I hope I don’t have to,” said Youngster.  “I’ve had enough of killing; I want to go home and life in peace.  But I will protect myself—and my companions—if I must.”

“And you?  What do you say?” the Blue Lady demanded of Craggy.  “Would you attempt to kill me?”

Craggy shrugged.

“And you?” she asked Stephen.

“What I want to know,” said Stephen, “is why you’re so convinced this scenario will play out.  What is your intention toward us?  To fulfill a debt to the Fairy Queen, you have been sent after us—I understand that.  What I want to know is: what form does this ‘sent after us’ take?  Are you going to kill us?  You haven’t harmed us so far . . . is there not another answer to this conundrum that might please all of us?”

The Blue Lady laughed.  “Are you so ignorant, after living in Faerie, that you have never heard of me?  That you have neglected to learn the legends of she who would pursue you?  Could it be that you have survived so long in this world without knowing the very nature and purpose of monsters?  Then let me tell you: they eat people.  As I, too, eat people, they call me a monster.  Is this accurate?  Am I to be categorized alongside slavering, brainless beasts who can neither speak nor reason?  Maybe so—but no ordinary monster am I!  Listen closely, human men, and perhaps my debt may be fulfilled without your deaths.

“Throughout this land, as I have said, I have sanctuaries to which I might retreat.  They are secluded places, and bother no one—for I allow no one to live near me.  The closest of these sanctuary places is five and fifty miles from here, due south-southwest, in a cavern beneath a hill.  Go to that place and defeat me in combat, and I shall consider myself bested and my debt fulfilled and you three as dead to me as if you were dead in truth; the Fairy Queen cannot deny the justice of that.  Defeat me and you shall go free and unharmed, and I shall never bother any of you, nor your families, nor the villages in which you reside, for as long as you live.”

“But if you defeat us,” continued Stephen wearily, “you’ll eat us and we won’t be able to whine ‘unfair,’ because we had advance warning.”

The Blue Lady smiled at him.  With needle-sharp viperfish teeth outside her mouth and three layers of shark teeth inside her mouth, it was a smile indeed.

“What are the rules?” Youngster asked.  “How are we to decide who has won?  What impartial judge would referee the match?”

“You have heard the rules,” said the Blue Lady, “there are no more.  And there is no referee more impartial than Death, who comes for us all in our time.  And I am no more patient than Death; I shall not wait until you arrive to strike.  You have one hour before our game begins.  Travel quickly, friends, and we shall see who is the better between us, and in what manner my debt is discharged.”  The Blue Lady threw up her arms and allowed the waters to envelop her once more.

“What do you say?” Youngster asked, when they were sure she was gone.  “Do you think we can win?”

Craggy snorted.  “She’s a fairy creature.”

“Craggy’s right,” Stephen sighed.  “Even if she spoke the truth, it will do us no good; there is no time limit on the match and if we win a temporary advantage, she may not consider herself beaten.  As long as she lives, we are in mortal danger.”

“Then why bother to have this contest at all, if it’s so useless?”

“At a guess?”  Stephen shrugged.  “To play with us . . . or to lure us closer to her safe house.  If we come to her, she doesn’t have to fetch us herself and carry us back.  Fifty-five miles is no short journey, even for one such as she.  Think of it this way: wouldn’t it be nice if you asked your food to march onto your plate, and it obeyed?”

“In that case,” Youngster said dubiously, “perhaps we should bury Letitia’s head and ride in the opposite direction as quickly as we can go.”

“I said she might not want to carry us fifty-five miles—”

“Not that she couldn’t; yes, yes, I know.  So let’s hurry south-southwest and fight her and try to kill her and probably get eaten instead.”

“We have an hour’s head start,” said Stephen, “so we’d better get going.  Be careful, and whatever you do, don’t touch the water!”

Stephen did not add what was suddenly pressing against his mind: that his enchanter powers were waning, and that he could not build a monster to save them.  He crossed his fingers, and hoped the company wouldn’t ask him.

Tired and sleepy, while the skies are weeping,

Weeping and singing you a lullaby.

—“Raindrops”

“Hold on,” said Youngster, abruptly stopping.  The company had been traveling swiftly for several hours now, and had not again seen the Blue Lady, although her mark was everywhere.  Every drop of water, every trickle, every tiny rill, felt infinitely deep and held flashes of things strange and unnatural, things not meant to be seen by human eyes.  The summer had been a fairly dry one, yet there was still a shocking amount of water around.  Stephen had never before noticed how water pooled in unexpected places, springing up from the ground as if from nowhere.

Then again, perhaps he had never before noticed the sneakiness of water because it had never, in fact, been so sneaky before.

The company had not paused once since the Blue Lady’s warning.  When one of them grew too tired to continue the quick pace, he rode upon Noble Steed’s back until sufficiently recovered, whereupon the next took his break.  There was an unspoken agreement between the members of the company, a certain knowledge that the sooner they reached their destination, the more likely their continuing survival . . . and the fewer chances the Blue Lady would have to ambush them along the way, and pick them off one by one.  If Stephen’s theory was correct, as long as they moved rapidly, the Blue Lady would allow them to come to her and not attack prematurely.

Deadly necess
ity or not, the company couldn’t keep up this pace for a full fifty-five miles, not after a full morning’s walk—and certainly not if they planned to be in fighting condition when they confronted the Blue Lady.

Stephen shook his head to clear it, and realized what Youngster had said.  “Hold on?  What do you mean, hold on?  We need to keep going!”

“I know that; I didn’t mean we had to stop, I just had a sudden thought.  Here we are, rushing in all unprepared to battle an opponent of unknown (but surely formidable) strength, when you could build a monster and send it ahead!  You could kill her from a distance, without risk to our lives . . . or at the very least, give us a significant advantage!  Anything would help—and we’ll need all the help we can get.”

“Ah.  Yes.”  Stephen dithered, examining a very interesting skeleton leaf crumbling upon the ground, “there is that.  Problem, you see: to make a proper monster would take me far too long.  You remember the days and days I spent on Dog—you must remember; you were so busy ignoring me, you had to have been paying me considerable attention—there was a reason it took me so long.  To do proper work with optimal outcome, one must fully immerse oneself into the project.  If one wants a really excellent monster, a monster that can think and fight for itself (and assuming the enchanter in question isn’t willing to sacrifice body parts to make this happen), you need to pour yourself into the work in a different manner—by diligence and hard work and—”

Youngster tapped his foot skeptically and listened with growing impatience until Stephen had run out of things to say.

“That was,” said Youngster, “a vaguely interesting exposition on the professional making and manufacturing of monsters, and was also utterly irrelevant to our current situation.  I’m not asking you to make something as incredible and complex as Dog!  Make something quick, like that snow serpent of yours, or the snowmen.  They may not have been perfect or had ‘optimal effect,’ but they worked, and that’s what we need.  Make a monster of dirt and sticks and rocks.  Make it so that it can bite her and distract her and take the damage meant for us.  Have it nip at her heels and suck out her poison and jam itself between her teeth.”

“My materials—”

“Are all around you and easily accessed!  You’ve made things of snow and mud and sticks before, so why not now?  Have you lost your nerve?  Have you lost your sense?  Do you wish to kill yourself and us along with you?”

Stephen rubbed his nose, but no convenient lies were coming to mind.  When the lie has fallen flat, he remembered, confess the truth, but confess it with a wide sparkling grin, so none can accuse you of being a liar.

He didn’t quite manage the grin, and it was a shamefaced enchanter who admitted, “I can’t.  Normally, you’re right: I’d be able to make a monster.  And after traveling with the company, I’ve come to realize how pitiful my monsters have been all these years, and how much better I can do with the measliest of supplies.  If I had my way, I’d make a magnificent monster that would devour the Blue Lady in her sleep . . . but I can’t.  There’s something wrong with my magic.  It’s waning—nearly gone—and I don’t know how or why . . . and I don’t think I have the power left to enchant a grain of dirt.”

“What?” shouted Youngster and Craggy together.

“What do you mean?” Youngster demanded.  “How could that happen?  What could do that?  Nothing can steal magic—nothing of which I’ve ever heard!  It couldn’t be the Fairy Queen, could it?  Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“I didn’t know what was going on, or if anything was going on, not for sure.  I still don’t know what the matter is, or if it’s permanent.  After we left Faerie, I thought it might be some bizarre aftereffect . . . except that I’ve touched iron since then, and my magic’s gotten scarcer, not stronger.  Did the Fairy Queen do it?  Has she cursed me?  I don’t know!  I’m not an expert on fairy magic; I’ve come to realize that I’m not an expert on enchanter magic—for all I know, this could be natural!  Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!”

Youngster bit his lip for a few long moments before offering, “Just so long as the curse isn’t meant to track you so the Blue Lady can hunt you down, it’s not so bad—most of us go through our lives without a spark of magic to brighten it.  Maybe this will give you some empathy for what ordinary life is like.  You could get an ordinary job without magic or enchanter restrictions.”  He saw Stephen’s face, and faltered.  “You couldn’t, couldn’t you?”

“You should know by now,” said Stephen, “that the only thing at which I am any good is enchanting.  I can’t fight—I hardly know which end of a sword is which—and I don’t have any other marketable skills.  Besides, I like enchanting; I enjoy making monsters with my bare hands and infusing them with magic.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Let’s not talk about it right now,” Stephen interrupted.  “There are other things that require our attention.  Look!”

Oblivious in their conversation, the company had approached a creek . . . an improbably deep creek, filled with all the horrible things that live in water.  The creek was not terribly wide—no more than fourteen feet across—but still too far to jump.

“We couldn’t jump the whole way,” said Youngster, “not on our own power, but I bet Noble Steed could.  Fourteen feet isn’t that far to a horse, even carrying a rider.”

“Which would be fine,” said Stephen, “if we knew the steadiness of the opposite bank and if we had no doubt whatsoever that she could make it under these stressful circumstances, not once, but six times.  Noble Steed is nervous already, and if she stumbled or miscalculated at this juncture, she, her rider, and anyone left on this side of the creek would be doomed.  Besides, if she jumped over multiple times, it’s like as not that something in the water would notice her—and could leap out of the water and hit her mid-jump, or at least startle her.  And if she stumbled—”

“We’d fall into the water, stunned, and be devoured before we knew what had happened.  I see your point.”  Youngster paced back and forth in front of the creek—but not too close—thinking.  “If it’s dangerous for her to cross multiple times, lest she draw their attention, we’d better go all at once.  When we jump, things are bound to congregate beneath us, waiting for either a bite of leg or the next foolhardy jumper.  But if we go together, we have a better likelihood of taking the fish unprepared.  I don’t suppose there’s a chance the creek’s an illusion, and we’ll land hard and break our legs on the creek bottom?”

“It’s real,” said Craggy.  “It may be magical, but it’s not glamoured.”

“Pity,” Youngster sighed.  “I would have liked to wade across, instead of jumping and swimming.  At least it’s a warm day.”

“You can both swim, I hope?” Stephen asked, at a sudden thought.

“Easily—and happily, under other conditions,” said Youngster.

Craggy grunted and nodded.

“Excellent—so can I.  And I’ve had considerably more practice that I would like swimming in heavy robes, so that’s not a problem.  Indeed, I can hope the swirling fabric will confuse and blind whatever predators fancy an enchanter sandwich.  Noble Steed, are you willing to carry across my shovel?”

Noble Steed pushed her warm nose into his ear as assent, her breath unusually hot.  She was frightened and confused and sensed his tenseness.

Stephen patted her nose.

Not five minutes later, Noble Steed was loaded up, and three men and a horse stood lined up, several paces back from the creek.

“On my count,” said Stephen.  “No, forget the count.  Just—go!”  He sprinted forward, eyes on the opposite back, and leapt high into the air, tucking his legs—then ploooshed deep into the water, dunking below the surface, little more than halfway across the stream.  He kicked his legs and hit something hard and fleshy, and felt something else tangle in the folds of his robes—something with long, sticky tendrils that had been reaching for his feet.

Stephen kicked again and surfaced, stroking and kicking without thinking, in blind panic and determination to reach the shore.  A moment later he was there, dragging himself up, leaving behind the whatever-it-was that had clung so tenaciously to his robes and snapped at his legs.

Breathing hard and dashing the water from his eyes, Stephen climbed to his feet and turned back to the creek.  Craggy was next to him on the bank, as was Noble Steed, but Youngster—where was Youngster?

There he was—still in the water, thrashing just beneath the surface.  He was fighting something—Stephen could see the shimmer of a sword in one hand, plunging sluggishly against the water, missing.  What was he fighting?  A squid, maybe, but there were other things also.  A trickle of dark blood curled to the surface, catching the noses of other, more deadly creatures.

Before Stephen could react, before he had rightly assessed the situation, Craggy had dived back into the water, sword drawn.  He hacked at the creatures in the water, pulled Youngster up and back and away from them.  Youngster’s head broke the surface and he gasped at the air.  Craggy hacked again, once, then threw his sword to shore and pushed Youngster after it, although that moved him further into the creek.  He regained his equilibrium and swam strongly after Youngster, kicking at anything that approached him.

Stephen darted forward to pull first Youngster from the water, then Craggy.  They collapsed onto the ground, groaning and clutching at injuries and sucking in the wonderful, pure air.  Behind them, in the water, sharks swarmed the unfortunate creatures that Craggy had wounded, momentarily distracted from that clever prey that had so deftly escaped them.

“His hurt is worse than mine,” Craggy told Stephen.  “He needs bandages immediately—we need to stop the bleeding.”

“Not here,” said Stephen.  “He can ride Noble Steed for now, but we need to get further from the creek.  If the Blue Lady makes it flood, or any of those creatures figure out that they can spend a few seconds out of the water, we’re done for.  Help me load him up.

Together with Craggy’s help, Stephen lifted Youngster onto Noble Steed, and they set off at a brisk walk.

Despite Craggy’s warnings of blood loss and possibly more serious injuries, Stephen wouldn’t let them stop until they had traveled a full mile from the creek.  By the time they had, their clothes were already half-dry in the sun, and all three were considerably calmer.

“I’m not hurt badly,” Youngster assured them, when they finally stopped.  “The blood’s not all mine—and the wound’s already closing up.  I just need to keep pressure on it, and I’ll be fine.  But I think something got Craggy’s leg.”

“We can use strips of my robes for bandages,” said Stephen.  “If any of the enchantments are left, they’ll help protect the injuries—and in any case, I doubt this robe can look much worse than it does now.”

Youngster’s hurts were indeed fairly minor; once all the blood had been wiped away, most of what remained was bruising from where tentacles had squeezed him.  Craggy was worse off: nasty cuts sliced his legs and several pucker marks around his waist had swollen like giant mosquito bites.  Stephen did his best with their extremely limited supplies and even more limited knowledge, then insisted they move on.