The Witch War Cycle

Chapter ten

Chapter ten

Kyr Emder cooks Deb-lu-Quienyin’s recipe“The electrum blade failed!”

People were running in now and torches illuminated the scene. Erclan bent to the girl, whose long white dress tangled around her legs. We were running across, shouting. The fury that gripped me I know possessed Seg also. We had put store by dudinter to combat this menace, we had believed it would enable us to fight back at the ganchark. And now — this failure, this disaster...

Naghan the Gnat came running out clutching his three other dudinter blades. Seg snatched one, I another, and we ran along the path following the trail of the werewolf. We could see blood spots upon the gravel, black coins in the light of the moons.

Guardsmen with torches ran with us. In a mob we raced on.

From up ahead the sound of snarling, whining violence blasted the night air. The horrid sounds ceased, to be followed by a single scream, abruptly choked off. Everyone knew the werewolf had found another victim.

Full of apprehension at what we would find we roared along the path and headed past a graceful circle of lissom trees, past a dell, to burst through bushes onto the path beyond.

A guardsman lay on the path, disheveled, sprawled out, his sword uselessly by his side. Blood streamed from his shoulder, glinting black and red as the torches flared high. He tried to lift his other arm, pointing.

“That way — horrible — horrible—”

“Rest easy,” I said, finding the words full of ugly uselessness.

“Fetch a needleman,” someone shouted.

Some of the guards started to run on to follow the path; the bloodspots had vanished, disappearing in that magical fashion that had evanished the scrap of fur.

“Hold!” I bellowed. “It is no use chasing farther. The beast is gone. See to Wenerl the Lightfoot here. And all of you, stick close.”

“Aye,” they said, and looked about uneasily.

The doctors could patch up Wenerl the Lightfoot’s body; I wondered what this horrendous experience had done to his mind, his courage, his resolution.

“The girl is safe, majister,” said Erclan, panting up. “And Fodor has a cracked rib or two. But—” He saw Wenerl the Lightfoot. “By Vox! The beast struck again!”

I felt it incumbent upon me to attempt to take charge of fears that might slide us all into even greater disaster. What to say? Dudinter had proved false — what else was there we could oppose to this evil that stalked among us, unseen until the moment of death?

“Listen, comrades,” I said in a voice only slightly raised. As usual that voice issued forth like an old rusty bucket filled with gravel being dragged up a rocky slope. They all fell silent on the instant. “This evil annoying us in Vondium is merely an evil thing. There will be ways found to destroy it. The wise men, the wizards, they will know. The priests will give us strength. I do not call upon you to have courage; for this you already have, as I well know, for have we not stood shoulder to shoulder on many a battlefield? Keep together, and do not wander off alone. I tell you this, there are no greater sorcerers than the Wizards of Loh, and we have their utmost assistance and advice. Death to the ganchark!”

“Aye,” they roared. “Death to the ganchark!”

With that, and feeling mighty small, I can tell you, I went off to have a few words with Deb-Lu-Quienyin. Wenerl the Lightfoot cried out as we went off: “Hai, majister! Hai, jikai, Dray Prescot!”

As I say, I felt pretty small.

Wenerl was a kampeon, an old hand from 1ESW. On his chest he wore three bobs, and each one of these three medals represented an act of valor. He was a shiv-Deldar and knew his business. His celebrations this night had been unpleasantly interrupted, and I wondered again if the werewolf attack would shake him. I devoutly hoped not. But facing the thundering onslaught of the enemy when they are flesh and blood like you is one thing; facing the ghastly evil of the werewolf was quite another.

Speculation and gossip must now be raging throughout the folk congregated here to have a good time. Rumor would wear a hundred different guises. Hard news would have to be spread, and quickly.

Until I’d learned the meaning of what had transpired from Deb-Lu, the news would remain not hard but soft — damned soft, by Krun.

Walking rapidly at my side along the alleyways between shrubs with torchlights flaring from the trees and the hubbub of the party all about, Seg twisted the shaft between his fingers. His powerful, handsome face looked troubled.

“If the dudinter is of no use, my old dom — then what?”

“Deb-Lu will know. He would not have told us that dudinter was the answer if it was not.”

“I agree. Then there is more.”

“Evidently.”

The Wizard of Loh was not to be found in his own quarters in his own Wizard’s Tower. He’d recently accepted the services of two apprentices. These were never going to become Wizards of Loh, of course; but with the level of training afforded by Deb-Lu they could if they studied diligently turn into remarkably qualified and powerful sorcerers. For the moment they fetched and carried, prepared mixtures, hewed wood and drew water, in the old way gophering for Deb-Lu. One of them, a thin-faced lad with a wart by his nose, which was of the runny kind, looked up as we entered.

“Majister—”

“Where is your master, Phindan?”

“He took Harveng with him, instead of me, and I am to—”

“Where, Phindan, is your master? I have asked you twice.”

“Yes, majister, yes. He is with Kyr Emder—”

“The devil he is!”

Seg started off at once, without bothering to lollygag about making footling remarks. I followed. Now what would a puissant Wizard of Loh want with good old Emder?

We found them both in the small kitchen to the side of Emder’s quarters where he could supervise personally the preparations of the meals of which he was an expert culinary artist. Everything was spotless. The copper pans glittered in the lamplights. The scrubbed surfaces of the tables gleamed like finest linen. The fires banked to just the right temperature flickered an occasional beam from the grates. The smells were just simply delicious.

Deb-Lu’s lopsided turban stood in grand isolation upon a table. He had removed his outer robe and it hung upon a hook behind the door. He and Emder were staring into a copper pot upon the stove, and they were stirring the pot’s contents with a long wooden spoon. I sniffed.

“That does not smell like anything I recognize.”

Both men turned sharply.

Emder smiled. Deb-Lu, busy, called out: “Jak! Excellent. You have brought the first weapons. You are just in time. Kyr Emder is invaluable in matters of this nature.”

I breathed in and breathed out. I thought I understood.

Seg laughed. “So that’s the way of it! I am mightily relieved, I can tell you!”

No one else was in the kitchen. I said, “You did not think to put a guard on the door?”

Carefully, Emder said: “We felt that would arouse interest and cause speculation we can do without.”

“Yes, you are right.”

“Is it ready, San?” Seg walked across and looked into the pot.

“The potion has but now reached the Required Proportions of Evaporation.” When Deb-Lu spoke in these clearly heard Capital Letters, matters of import were in the wind.

Seg looked up.

“Potion?”

Deb-Lu sniffed. “Well, yes, Seg, you are quite right. I do not think we will convince the ganchark to open his jaws so that we may pour the liquid down. It will be more in the nature of an injection, by the Seven Arcades, yes!”

He looked around the kitchen, and, quite automatically, put up a hand to push his turban straight, only to discover the absence of that article of headgear.

“I but wait for the return of Harveng. I fear he is almost as idle as his comrade, Phindan; but they must learn hardly if they are to amount to anything in the occult world of thaumaturgy.”

Deb-Lu nodded toward a ragged clump of twigs and leaves lying on the floor, striking an incongruous note of untidiness in Emder’s immaculate kitchen.

“The lad sorely mistook these plants, when I gave him explicit instructions. Well, well, we were all young once.”

Emder gave the mixture a prodding kind of stir.

“If Harveng doesn’t return soon, San, I feel — speaking not as a wizard but as a cook — the broth will spoil.”

What dire fate would have befallen Harveng we were not to discover, for he pushed the door open and trotted in. He was plump, scarlet-faced, pop of eye and prominent of ear; but he carried a branch ripped from a shrub that made Deb-Lu nod in satisfaction.

“I see I do not have to lose all faith in you, young Harveng. Right, strip the leaves off, and work fast.”

This Harveng proceeded to do. With his miraculous aptitude with sharp knife and chopping board, Emder reduced the rolled leaves. His fingertips were tucked in, his knuckles out, and the knife went chop-chop-chop in a radius, first one way then at ninety degrees. Green juice oozed.

Deb-Lu used an ivory spatula to lift the chopped leaves. He weighed them on his own balance, a spindly construction of balass and ivory, silken-suspended, exact. The required amount went into the pot, and Emder took the wooden spoon and stirred with a nonchalant expert cook’s twirl.

Deb-Lu heaved up a sigh.

“This must be kept close, Jak. You know the story of the Ganchark of Therminsax...”

“Everyone has heard that dudinter will deal with the werewolf, Deb-Lu. Even the werewolf must have heard — and the vile beast must have laughed, before he struck.”

“Oh?”

These two had not heard the uproar, involved as they’d been with the preparation of this potion. We told them what had happened.

“And the girl is safe? And the two lads? By Hlo-Hli — what a moil! I would feel personal guilt had they been killed, for they would have died believing I had betrayed them—”

“Never, Deb-Lu, never. And Wenerl the Lightfoot is no young lad, no green coy, but a kampeon. When he grips a dudinter sword anointed with your potion he will feel very differently, believe me.”

“Aye,” said Seg. “And that brings up the problem, of course. It’s a knotty one.”

“How much of this potion is necessary?” I sniffed at the pot. The smell was not unpleasant, with an under flavor of vegetable oil and a tang of bittersweet herbs.

“A single drop is sufficient, given time. But for a more rapid success the more the better up to a reasonable limit — say a six-inch coating upon a sword — before any extra becomes unnecessary.”

“Then a shaft can do it?”

“Of course, Seg, of course.”

Seg lifted his arrow, looked at the Wizard of Loh, received a confirmatory nod, and so dipped the arrowhead into the pot. He stirred it about, then withdrew, flicking off a few drops. The head looked no different from before.

“That’s all very well. But — how do we do it?”

I said, “I had thought, with Deb-Lu’s permission, to involve the various temples in this.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Deb-Lu.

“I see that.” Seg laid his arrow down and drew the dudinter sword. “We must keep this secret so that the werewolf cannot learn it. If the churches bless the weapons, and anoint them, and folk know they must have an anointed weapon — yes. It would work!”

“It will work.” Deb-Lu turned and glared balefully upon plump young Harveng. “This is a high secret, of thaumaturgy and of empire. You will not breathe a word of what has passed here. If you do I shall know. Then, I think, you may become — what? A little green toad? A small brown frog? A slinky shiny slimy worm?”

“No, master, no!” Harveng, plump, scarlet, near-bursting, sweating, mightily discomposed, stammered out his protestations. “Never, San, never!”

“So be it!”

Seg, Emder and I remained discreetly silent during this exercise of arcane power.

Then Seg coughed and said: “One thing, San. Steel did not harm the werewolf, for my shaft just clipped a little fur, which vanished away. And now we have this potion to turn dudinter into a proper weapon. But — what of the dudinter sword with which Erclan struck the werewolf?”

“You are right, Dudinter has power, of itself, to wound a ganchark. It will not really kill the thing, as you say you saw. It will make the beast aware that it can be hurt, drive it off.”

Again Deb-Lu put up a hand to push the absent turban straight. He glanced across at me, and then away, and heaved up a sigh, and said: “Mind you, Jak. All this is In Theory Only.”

“Oh?”

“Aye, aye. Dudinter — well, that is easy enough. And the potion, too, that is from my childhood. But in fact, in action. No, no, Jak. One Must Wait on Events.”

“I see. You’ve never actually dealt with a werewolf before?”

“Precisely.”

“If that blade of Erclan’s made the thing run off,” I said, “then a wound may be inflicted. A shrewd blow across the neck, say, might lop the beasts head, and—”

“Not quite, Jak. The werewolf by the very nature of the change must involve thaumaturgy of some kind, magic on some level. Steel bounces, as we have seen. Dudinter wounds; but it is generally held that the steel does not bounce, it—”

“How can that be?” said Emder.

“The werewolf possesses regenerative capacity of a very high order. The steel passes through fur, skin, flesh and blood, and instantly the wound heals itself. The moment the steel has passed and the cleavage made, the flesh knits together, the blood circulates.”

“Would a severed neck and a lopped head have time to regenerate?”

“Indubitably.”

“If the theory is correct...” put in Seg. He spoke quietly. I guessed he was wondering what effect an arrow would have, and hating to have to ask.

“Correct or not, we must act on the assumption that San Quienyin’s potion will work. There is a lot told in legend and story; we must hold this close.”

Deb-Lu got out quite quickly: “Oh, no, Jak. The potion is not mine. I will not tell you its history; but it is named ganjid.”

Drawing the dudinter sword I said to Emder: “Have you a pastry brush? You’ll get to work to produce more of this ganjid?”

“All day and night, if necessary.” He brought across a pastry brush.

“And a vial, a well-stoppered one. A spice phial would do.”

Seg and I took turns to paste the ganjid potion onto our sword blades. We laid it on liberally, never mind the six inches that might — or might not — be enough. The liquid sparkled for a moment on the metal and vanished. It did not seem to dry up. It was as though the potion seeped into the metal and was absorbed.

Emder brought a small bottle and this was filled and I popped it into one of my belt pouches. Seg did the same.

“You’ll have to contact the four smiths, and Naghan. All the new dudinter weapons will have to be consecrated. I’ll get Farris to talk to the chief priests.”

“The potion will be ready,” promised Deb-Lu.

We four, with Harveng, pop-eyed, looking on, must have presented an odd spectacle. A frighteningly powerful sorcerer, a valet-helpmeet, a formidable Bowman of Loh, and an emperor, standing in a kitchen clustered about a pot on the stove. And I did not forget that that famous Bowman of Loh was a king. We were like a caucus, a cabal, plotting secret doings in dead of night. If anyone had looked in, we’d have appeared downright furtive. We combated a dark and secret evil, and we were employing dark and secret remedies.

“I’ll tell Targon the Tapster and Naghan ti Lodkwara to set an inconspicuous watch. We do not want anyone spying in here.” I stretched, scabbarded the sword, took a hitch to my belt. “Now there’s an Opaz-forsaken werewolf skulking about out there. I think I’ll take a little stroll and see what dudinter and ganjid will do.”

As I spoke I felt — and I admit this with no shame, no sense of falling-away — a twinge of doubt.

Would electrum coated with werebane work? Would anything work against the foul pestilence that had fallen on us in Vondium?

I saw Seg looking at me, his head a little on one side. Well, he could guess what I was thinking. Good old Seg! I roused myself.

“I want to have a go at the dratted beast myself first. I believe in your theories, your work, what you have accomplished, Deb-Lu. But — just in case — I don’t want some young guardsman, some lad, having his head bitten off and me nowhere around.”

Seg let rip a guffaw.

“What! Things happening and Dray Prescot not around! Never...”

The others found smiles at this, and I grumped. What I didn’t know then was the truth — the awful, horrible truth — behind Seg’s chaffing words.