Garan the Eternal (16 page)

She was small and thin, and had she not been an heiress none perhaps would have found her a beauty. But she had a smile which could warm a man’s heart (even if he forgot the gold and lands behind it), and eyes which were interested in all they saw. Once Joachim looked upon her he could not see anything else.

Neither could Saystrap. It suddenly flashed into his mind as a great illuminating truth that there were other ways of gaining a keep than through difficult spells. One such way was marriage. He did not doubt that, could he gain access to the lady, he would win her. Was he not a wizard and so master of such subtleties that these clods sighing around her now could not imagine?

His planned trickery might also be turned to account For if he sold Joachim to her father, and the bird apparently escaped and returned to him, then he could enter the lady’s own hall to bring it back, and with him would be other tricks. He could use the pretense of the strayed bird to open all doors.

“Father — that falcon! It is a lordly bird,” the Lady Juluya cried as she saw Joachim.

He felt the warmth of pride. Though she saw him as a bird, he was admired. Then he lost that pride. Let her see him as he really was and she would speedily turn away.

Lord Tanheff was as pleased as his daughter and quickly struck a bargain with Saystrap. But the wizard whispered into the bird’s ear before he placed it on the gloved hand of the lord’s falconer:

“Return swiftly tonight!”

Joachim, still watching the Lady Juluya, did not really heed that order. For he was wondering why, at the moment of change, he could not wish himself into some guise which would bring him close to the lady. However, he did not have long to watch her, for the falconer took him to the
keep. Joachim stood on a perch in the mews, hooded now and seeing nothing, left in the dark to get the feel of his new home as was the way with a bird in a strange place. He could hear other hawks moving restlessly, and, beyond, the noises of the keep. He wondered how Saystrap thought he could get out of this place in man’s shape. Had the wizard some magic plan ready to cover that?

Joachim guessed right there. The wizard knew that his falcon-turned-man could not leave the mews as easily as a landsman’s barn. He did not trust his assistant to have wits enough to work out any reasonable escape. He himself would move cautiously to effect Joachim’s release and not allow magic to be suspected, not when he planned to enchant the Lady Juluya. So Saystrap sat down in a copse near the keep to await moonrise.

At sunset, however, the clouds gathered and it was plain that no moon would show. Saystrap could not summon moon magic now, but perhaps he could put the coming storm to account. If he could only be sure when Joachim’s change would occur, a matter with which he had never concerned himself before. Had it not been for his new plan to win the Lady Juluya, the wizard would not have cared what happened to Joachim. Stupid lads could always be found, but a wizard was entitled to keep his own skin safe. Lord Tanheff, if he did suspect spells, would be just the sort to appeal to a major sorcerer for protection. Saystrap, for all his self-esteem, was not blinded to his own peril from an encounter of that kind.

He could not sit still, but paced back and forth, trying to measure time. To be too early would be as fatal as being too late. The cloud-traveling spell could not be held long, and if Joachim could not take to its cover at once, Saystrap could not summon it again that night. He bit his thumbnail, cursing the rain now beginning to fall.

At the keep that same rain drove men to take cover indoors. Joachim heard footsteps in the mews, the voices of the falconer and his assistant. His time for change was close. He shifted on the perch and the bells fastened to his jesses rang. The footsteps were closing in and — the change was now!

Suddenly he was standing on his own two feet, blinking into the light of a lantern the falconer held. The man’s mouth opened for a shout of alarm. Joachim thought his mind spell

A snow cat crouched snarling, and the falconer, with some presence of mind, threw his lantern at that fearsome beast before he took to his heels, Joachim in great bounds behind. But, as the shouting falconer broke one way out of the door, Joachim streaked in the other, trying to reach the outer wall.

That was far too high to leap over, but he sped up the stairs leading to the narrow defense walk along its top. Men shouted, a torch was thrown, nearly striking him. Joachim leaped at a guard aiming a spear, knocked the man down, and was over him and on. But ahead more men were gathering, bending bows. He thought —

There was no cat on the wall — nothing! The men-at-arms hurried forward, thudding spear heads into every patch of shadow, unable to believe that the animal had vanished.

“Wizardry! Tell my lord quickly. There is wizardry here!”

Some stayed to patrol by twos and threes, no man wanting to walk alone in the dark with wizardry loose. The storm struck harder, water rushed over the wall. It washed with such force that it swept away a small gold ring no man had seen in that dusk, carrying it along a gutter, tumbling it out and down, to fall to the muddy earth of the inner garden where the Lady Juluya and her maids grew sweet herbs and flowers. There it lay under the drooping branches of a rain-heavy rose bush.

When the Lord Tanheff heard the report of the falconer and the wall guards, he agreed that it was plain the falcon had been enchanted, and this was some stroke of wizardry aimed at the keep. He then dispatched one of his heralds to ride night and day to demand help from the nearest reputable sorcerer, one to whom he had already paid a retaining fee as insurance against just such happenings. In the meantime he cautioned all to keep within the walls; the gates wore not to be opened for any cause until the herald returned.

Saystrap heard the morning rumors at the fair where men now looked suspiciously at their neighbors, bundling their goods away to be on the road again, though the fair was not officially over. With magic loose who knew where it would strike next? Better be safe, if flatter of purse. The lord had sent for a sorcerer — with magic opposed to magic anything might happen to innocent bystanders. Magic was no respecter of persons.

However, the wizard did not give up his plan for the Lady Juluya, it was such a good one. Common sense did not even now baffle his hopes. So he lurked in hiding and made this new plan and that, only to be forced to discard each after some study.

The Lady Juluya, walking in her scrap of garden, stooped to raise a rain-soaked rose and saw a glint in the mud. Curious, she dug, to uncover a ring which seemed to slip on her finger almost of its own accord.

“Wherever did you come from?” She held her hand into the watery sunshine of the morning, admiring the ring, more than a little pleased at her luck in finding it. Since all her maids denied its loss she finally decided that it must have lain buried for years until the heavy rain washed it free, and she could claim it for her own.

Two days passed, three, and still the herald did not return. The Lord Tanheff did not permit the keep gates to be opened. The fairground was deserted now. Saystrap, driven to a rough hiding place in the woods, gnawed his nails down to the quick. Only a fanatical stubbornness kept him lurking there.

None in the lady’s tower knew that when she took to her bed at night the ring grew loose and slipped from her finger, to become a mouse feasting on crumbs from her table. Joachim realized that this was a highly dangerous game he played. It would be much wiser to assume wings and feathers once more and be out of the castle with three or four good flaps of his wings. Yet he could not bring himself to leave.

The Lady Juluya was courted and flattered much, yet she was a girl of wit and good humor, wise enough to keep her head. She was both kind and courteous. Time and time again Joachim was tempted to take his true form and tell her his -story. But she was seldom alone, and when she was he could not bring himself to do it. Who was he — a loutish clod, so stupid and clumsy he could not even work in the fields nor speak plainly. At his mere appearance he was sure she would summon a guard immediately. And talk! — he could not tell them anything so they would understand.

After the first night he did not remain a mouse, but went out onto the balcony and became a man, squatting in the deepest pool of shadow. He thought about speech, and how hard it was for him to shape words to sound like those of others. So he practiced saying in whispers the strange
sounds he had heard Saystrap mumble, tongue twisters though they were. He did not use them for the binding of spells, but merely to listen to his own voice. By daybreak he was certain, to his great joy, that he did speak more clearly than he ever had before.

In the scrap of wood Saystrap had at last fastened upon a plan he thought would get him into the keep. If he could then be private with the lady only for a short space, he was certain he could bind her to his will and all would be as he wished. He had seen the herald ride forth and knew that it might not be too long before he would return with aid.

Though the gates were shut, birds flew over the wall. And pigeons made their nests in the towers and along the roofs.. On the fourth day Saystrap assumed a feathered form to join them.

They wheeled and circled, cooed, fluttered, peered in windows, preened on balconies and windowsills. In her garden the Lady Juluya shook out grain for them and Saystrap was quick to take advantage of such a summons, coming to earth before her.

There is this about wizardry: if you have dabbled even the nail tip of one finger in it, then you have gained knowledge beyond that of ordinary men. That ring which was Joachim recognized the pigeon that was Saystrap. At first he thought his master had come seeking him. Then he noted the wizard-pigeon ran a little this way, back that, and so was pacing out a spell pattern about the feet of the Lady Juluya.

Joachim did not know what would happen if Saystrap completed that magic, but he feared the worst. So he loosed his grip on the lady’s finger and spun out, to land across one of the lines the pigeon’s feet were marking so exactly.

Saystrap looked at the ring and knew it. He wanted none of Joachim, though he was shaken at meeting his stupid apprentice in such a guise. However, one thing at a time, and if this spell was now spoiled or hindered he might not have another chance. He could settle with Joachim later, after his purpose was accomplished. So, with a sharp peck of bill, he sent the ring flying.

Joachim spun behind the rose bush. Then he crept forth again, this time a velvet-footed torn cat. He pounced, and the wildly fluttering pigeon was between his jaws.

“Drop it — you cruel thing!” Lady Juluya struck at the cat. But, still gripping the pigeon, Joachim dodged and ran into the courtyard.

Then he found he held no pigeon, but a snarling dog twice his size broke from his grip. He leaped away from Saystrap to the top of a barrel and there grew wings, beak, and talons, once more a falcon, able to soar about the leaping, slavering hound so eager to reach him.

There was no dog, but a thing straight out of a nightmare, half scaled, with leathery wings more powerful than Joachim’s, and a lashing tail with a wicked spiked end. The creature spiraled up after the falcon into the sky.

He could perhaps outfly it if he headed for the open country. But he sensed that Saystrap was not intent upon herding an unwilling apprentice back to servitude. He was after the Lady Juluya, therefore there must be fight not flight.

From the monster came such a force of gathered power that Joachim weakened. His poor feat of wizardry was feeble opposed to Saystrap’s. With a last despairing beat of wings, he landed on the roof of Lady Juluya’s tower and found himself sliding down it, once more a man. While above him circled the griffon, seeming well content to let him fall to his death on the pavement below.

Joachim summoned power for one last thought.

He fell through the air a gray pebble. So small and dark a thing escaped Saystrap’s eyes. The pebble struck the pavement and rolled into a crack.

Saystrap meanwhile turned to bring victory out of defeat. He alighted in the courtyard and seized upon the Lady Juluya to bear her away. The pebble rolled from hiding and Joachim stood there. Bare-handed, he threw himself at the monster. This time he shouted words clear and loud, the counterspell which returned Saystrap to his own proper form. Grappling with the wizard, he bore him to the ground, trying to gag him with one hand over his mouth that he might not utter any more spells.

At that moment the herald rode in upon them as they struggled, ringed around (at a safe distance) by the keep folk who were not afraid to be caught in the backlash of any spells from the tangle.

Lord Tanheff shouted an order from the door of the hall to where he had swept his daughter. The herald tossed at the fighters the contents of a box he had brought back with
him (price: one ruby, two medium-sized topazes). There was a burst of light, a clap of thunder, and Joachim stumbled out of a puff of smoke groping his way blindly. A fat black spider sped in the opposite direction, only to be gobbled up by a rooster.

Well pleased now that they had someone reasonably normal in appearance to blame for all the commotion, the men-at-arms seized Joachim. When he tried to use his spell he found it did not work. Then the Lady Juluya called imperiously:

“Let him alone!” she ordered. “It was he who attacked the monster on my behalf. Let him tell us who and what he is —”

Let him tell,
thought Joachim in despair,
but I cannot do that.
He looked dejectedly at the Lady Juluya watching him so eagerly, and knew that he must at least try. As he ran his tongue over his lips she prompted him encouragingly:

“Tell us first who you are.”

“Joachim,” he croaked miserably.

“You are a wizard?”

He shook his head. “Never more than a very small part of one, my lady.” So eager was he to let her know the truth of it all, that he forgot his stumbling tongue, all else but the tale he had to tell. He told it in a flow of words all could understand.