Split Heirs (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Dunwin was climbing the fence, and could see Bernice grazing quietly a dozen yards higher up the slope, when he heard the voice.

“Wulfrith!” someone was calling. “Wulfrith! Wait!”

Dunwin sighed. That fat little lunatic from the village was following him.

Well, there wasn't any point in putting it off; sooner or later, if he wanted to be rid of this nuisance, Dunwin knew he would have to confront the maniac and somehow convince him that there was no such person as Wulfrith.

Might as well get it over with. He sat down on the top rail of the fence and waited.

A moment later Clootie came puffing up the trail, still calling occasionally for Wulfrith to wait. Dunwin resisted the temptation to shout back either, “I
am
waiting,” or “My name isn't Wulfrith!”

Instead, he sat silently as Clootie staggered up. He watched without a word as the older man struggled to catch his breath.

“You walk fast,” Clootie gasped out at last.

“Helps keep up with the sheep,” Dunwin said.

Clootie ignored this remark, and continued, “Listen, Wulfrith, I know you don't remember, but you really
are
my apprentice. That Gorgorian witch must have put a spell on you, made you forget it all
—
maybe she was frightened by the idea of
real
magic.”

Dunwin frowned. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “What witch?”

“That Gorgorian girl, at the inn down in Stinkberry. Armetta
—
you remember Armetta?”

“Of course I remember Armetta, and she's no Gorgorian!” Dunwin protested. “Not much of a girl any more, either,” he added thoughtfully. He was beginning to notice the ages of women lately, though he wasn't all that sure why, as yet
—
only that the ones between puberty and parenthood looked like the best company.

“No, no,” Clootie said, “of course not, she's an innkeeper, and a loyal Hydrangean, I'm sure.”

“Then why did you say she was a Gorgorian witch?”

“I didn't, I…let me start over.”

“Go ahead.” Dunwin was determined to give this lunatic every chance. Maybe the poor man would realize how foolish he was being, if Dunwin let him ramble on about his fantasies.

Clootie took a deep breath.

“I talked to Armetta,” he said, “and she told me that she saw you talking to a Gorgorian woman, three days ago
—
a girl who was traveling with a male companion. That was the day I let you take a day off and go into town, and you were supposed to come home that night. So today, I came looking for you, to see why you hadn't come home, and I found you like this, with no memory of your true identity, wandering up the wrong mountain. So the Gorgorian must have been a witch, and she's put a spell on you.”

Dunwin scratched his head, dislodging minor vermin.

“I wasn't in town three days ago,” he said. “And I never met any Gorgorian girl, and nobody put a spell on me, and this isn't the wrong mountain. See? There's Bernice, waiting for me.”

Clootie looked. He saw no woman or girl who might have been the Bernice the boy referred to, only a rather fat sheep and some rocky hillside. He sighed.

“Listen, Wulfrith,” Clootie said, “I don't know what she's done to you, exactly, but if you'll come home with me, I'm sure we can fix it.”

“I'm
going
home, and my name isn't Wulfrith.”

“Of course it is. Your name is Wulfrith, and you're my apprentice, and we live in a cave over that way.” He pointed.

“What sort of apprentice lives in a cave?” Dunwin asked curiously.

“An apprentice wizard, of course,” Clootie answered.

Dunwin snorted. “There aren't any wizards any more,” he said. “And even if there were,
you
couldn't be one!”

“Why not?” Clootie demanded angrily.

“Because you're too short,” Dunwin said. “And too fat. And your beard's crooked; who ever heard of a wizard with a crooked beard? And your hair isn't white.”

“Well, it just so happens that I
am
a wizard!” Clootie replied, hands on hips. “If I
looked
like a wizard, the Gorgorians might have decapitated me with the rest of 'em!”

“I'm not sure there ever really were wizards at all,” Dunwin said. “I think it might've all been a bunch of tricks; how else could the Gorgorians have caught and killed them all so easily? I mean, if there were real wizards, couldn't they have just blasted all the Gorgorians into little tiny bits?”

“No,” Clootie explained, “because they'd gotten out of practice and forgotten all the big, showy spells like that.” That was the short and inaccurate version, of course; he didn't see any point in taking the time just now to lecture his poor deranged apprentice about the hazards of over-refinement.

“Well, maybe,” Dunwin said, “but
you
still aren't a wizard, you're just a fat little lunatic. My name isn't Wulfrith, it's Dunwin, and I never saw you before in my life, and I don't live in a cave, I live up on the mountain here with my Dad Odo.”

“I
am
a wizard, damn it to the forty-six exquisite hells of the ancients!”

“No, you aren't,” Dunwin insisted.

“Yes, I am!”

“Then do some magic, show me a spell!”

“You think I can't?” Clootie began. He raised his hand, then stopped.

The boy might be right, in a way
—
maybe he couldn't. He hadn't brought his staff, or his orb, or any of the tools of the arcane trade.

But there was the transformation spell
—that
didn't need any gadgets!

“Not a wizard, eh?” He laughed. “Watch this!” Clootie raised both hands, gestured, and spoke the Word of Power, thrusting out his fingers.

Dunwin watched with tolerant amusement until the brief incantation was complete. Before he could say anything about the performance, however, Bernice bleated; Dunwin whirled.

As the lad watched, the ewe's wool turned iridescent green and seemed to shrink down around her. Her neck and tail began lengthening rapidly. Crooked little growths sprang from her back and expanded swiftly. Her cloven hooves grew longer and curved, and split further, until she had four claws on each foot. Her legs were thickening, her body growing. Her eyes turned to golden slits, her snout stretched; gleaming white fangs appeared.

“Bernice!” Dunwin shrieked. He tried to jump down from the fence, but his tunic snagged on a splinter and held him, the laces almost strangling him as he struggled.

Bernice cried out again, and this time it was no bleat, but a choking roar, accompanied by a thin jet of smoke. Her serpentine tail lashed; the growths on her back spread wide, and Dunwin and Clootie could see that they were gigantic bat wings.

Her wool had become shining scales, her hooves were razored talons; head to tail she was now easily thirty feet long.

Dunwin finally managed to detach himself from the fence and promptly tripped over his own feet, landing face down on dried mud.

By the time he untangled himself and got upright once again, the transformation was complete; Bernice had become a dragon. This was completely obvious to both Dunwin and Clootie, though neither of them had ever actually seen a dragon before.

It was not, however, obvious to Bernice. Bernice had never heard of dragons; as a sheep, she had never had much of an education in folklore, or for that matter in anything else. Dunwin had told her a few things, but he had never mentioned dragons, and her understanding of the Hydrangean tongue had been very limited, in any case. Sheep are not noted for linguistic talent.

Sheep, if the truth be known, are not noted for
any
sort of intellectual accomplishment. They are, in fact, generally believed to be quite stupid.

This belief has a sound basis in fact.

However, even to a sheep, it was quite obvious that something out of the ordinary had happened. Bernice could see her claws, great nasty-looking things; her head was much too far off the ground, and there were these odd things on her back that were fanning her. She felt oddly light on her feet. Her tail, which had heretofore generally hung there uselessly but had not gotten in the way, was dragging on the ground and whacking uncomfortably against various rocks and stones.

And her brain was beginning to work in oddly unsheeplike ways, for while there is good reason to think that sheep are stupid, this has never been a safe assumption to make about dragons.

Even so, while she might be green and scaly, and her head might be fifteen feet off the ground, she was still a sheep at heart, and when confronted with the unknown, a sheep reacts in one of three ways
—
ignore it, try to eat it, or run away in terror.

Bernice could scarcely try to eat her own scales, and she could not bring herself to ignore the changes, which left only one course of action for a proper ewe.

She fled in terror, bounding up the mountainside in an awkward ovine gait, unsuited to her draconic body. She flapped her wings instinctively, trying to keep her balance, and within moments she was airborne.

Far down the slope, Dunwin and Clootie stared after her as she soared upward and out of sight.

“Bernice!” Dunwin called hopelessly.

“Bernice was a sheep?” Clootie asked.

“I always thought so,” Dunwin answered, still staring after his vanished companion.

“When you talked about Bernice, I thought you meant a person.”

Dunwin blinked, and turned to look at Clootie. “There aren't any people around here except you and me.”

“Well,
I
know that,” Clootie said, “but I thought you were imagining things because of that witch's spell.”

“There wasn't any…” Abruptly, Dunwin stopped.

“You really
are
a wizard,” he said accusingly.

“Yup.” Clootie nodded proudly.

“You turned Bernice into a dragon.”

“Yup.”

“Can you turn her back?”

“Um…” Clootie hesitated. “Uh…yup,” he said at last.

“Do it, then,” Dunwin said. “Bring her back, please
—
she's my best friend.”

“A sheep is your best friend?”

“Hey, a day spent herding sheep is not exactly a great opportunity for socializing,” Dunwin replied defensively.

“You're a shepherd?”

“Of course I'm a shepherd, and you're a wizard. Now, bring her back
—
please!”

“I can't,” Clootie admitted. “I can only change her back if she's right in front of me; I can't make her come back, and she's too far away now.” This was not the exact and complete truth; the truth was that Clootie had no idea whether he could turn the dragon back into a ewe under
any
circumstances. Making his great new spell reversible had not been high on his list of priorities; who would ever want to turn a Gorgorian back?

Just at the moment, he wasn't really even thinking about it, but was instead lying automatically while he considered something else. Old memories were stirring in the back of his brain. A shepherd. Dunwin. Daddy Odo.

“Oh,” he said, as Dunwin wailed.

“Bernice!”

“Oh,” Clootie repeated. “You really
aren't
Wulfrith, are you?”

“I've got to go after her,” Dunwin said. “Maybe I can bring her back.”

Clootie nodded. “I get it, now
—
you're Wulfie's
brother
. I'd almost forgotten there were two of you. And it never occurred to me that you'd still be around, and that you'd look so much like your twin.” He eyed the youth. “It's really quite an amazing resemblance, you know.”

“She's never flown before,” Dunwin said. “Do you think she might hurt herself?”

“Oh, I don't think so,” Clootie said, offhandedly. “I don't suppose you've seen your brother anywhere lately?”

“I don't
have
a brother.”

“Of course you do,” the wizard told him. “Your Daddy Odo sold him to me when you were just babies. His name's Wulfrith, and he's missing.”

“I don't care about that,” Dunwin said. “
Bernice
is missing! I've got to go after her.”

“Good luck,” Clootie said. “
I've
still got to find Wulfrith.” He waved cheerily, then turned and started back down the mountain.

Dunwin, on the other hand, ran
up
the mountain, and headed eastward, on the track of his lost Bernice.

Chapter Fourteen

“Here,” Phrenk said to Wulfrith. “Put this on and don't ask questions.”

Wulfrith took the strange object from Phrenk's hand and studied it. For almost the entire length of their journey from Stinkberry Village to the rich lowlands, Wulfie had found his companions to be fairly sane. They let him eat when he got hungry, rest when he got tired, and answer any other calls of nature when he was so moved. Mungli wasn't much by way of a conversationalist, but there was something…
expressive
about the way she moved and the way she occasionally looked at him that made Wulfrith feel as if there were a lot of questions he had that only she could answer, and she wouldn't need to say a word to do it.

Still, there was the way the man called Phrenk kept insisting on calling him Dunwin. Every day, sometimes several times in a single day, Phrenk would sidle up to Wulfrith and ask him if he was
sure
he didn't remember Daddy Odo and Mommy Ewe and a parcel of other nonsense besides. All Wulfrith had to do was shake his head and Phrenk would go away, muttering.

Until the next time.

It was all very tiresome, and Wulfrith had been tempted many times to chuck the whole sorry puzzle and go home to the cave. But then there was the lure of the palace. He had never seen a palace. He had read about them in some of Clootie's more worm-eaten texts, to be sure. As a rule, palaces appeared to be populated exclusively by damsels of extraordinary beauty.

Wulfrith wasn't entirely sure what a damsel was. When he asked Clootie, his master had gotten that puff-cheeked, hem-hawing look that meant
I am going to tell you a whopper of a lie now
, and replied, “Damsels are a rare and especially delicious breed of plum.”

Somehow Wulfrith could not see all of those armed and mounted Hydrangean warriors risking their lives for a pretty fruit. And how did you put a plum in distress? Threaten to make it into jam? If nothing else, he had to get to the palace just to find out what a damsel really was, and that meant putting up with Phrenk's little oddities.

But this last one took the cake.

“What is it?” Wulfrith asked, dangling the object from his fingertips at arm's length.

“Never mind what it is, put it
on
,” Phrenk commanded.

“If I don't know what it is, how can I put it on?” Wulfrith asked quite reasonably. “I won't know
what
to put it on if I don't know what it is.” He helped himself to another sandwich.

Phrenk sighed and leaned back against the tree. Any passerby on the road would see their little group as merely a trio of merrymakers enjoying a picnic. It was a ruse the queen's messenger had used many times since their descent from the mountains as the traffic on the roads grew thicker and the need to hide Dunwin's face more urgent. Phrenk felt anything but merry. A few days on the road with this loony shepherd had sapped a good deal of his ordinarily easygoing nature and all of his patience. Could anyone really be even half as stupid as Dunwin pretended to be? If so, Phrenk would pay a year's salary for the privilege of never meeting them.

“It's a mask,” he said. “It's to hide your identity. Now where do you
think
you should put it?”

“Oh,” said Wulfrith, nodding. He set aside his sandwich, stood up, and tried to shove his foot through one of the eyeholes.

“What are you
doing
?” Phrenk screamed. Luckily for him, the few travelers on the nearby road mistook his distress for the cry of a helpless victim of cutthroat robbers and hurried on about their own business.

Phrenk snatched the mask from Wulfrith's hands before the lad could tear the rich old cloth. “It covers your
face
, idiot!” he snapped, and jerked it over Wulfrith's head before the boy could protest.

Wulfrith pulled the mask off almost at once. It was one of those hooded affairs, the kind nine out of ten fashion-conscious executioners and tax collectors preferred, but Wulfie knew little about fashion. All he knew was that the mask was hot, tickly, smelly, and Phrenk was weird.

“Put it back on,” Phrenk said, gritting his teeth.

“I don't think so,” Wulfrith replied. He was quite calm. If Phrenk was about to lose the last few marbles in his mental pouch, Wulfie was entirely prepared to toss a spell at him right here and now, out in the open. It wouldn't be a very showy spell
—
during their frequent picnics he'd spied one or two Gorgorian patrols on the highroad and he didn't want one of them to catch him working sorcery
—
just something domestic and unpretentious, like giving Phrenk the sudden, irresistable urge to take a nap, and Mungli…

Funny, every time he looked at Mungli his mind started thinking of other sudden, irresistable urges. Unfortunately, he had no idea at all of what to call them or what to do about them. It was even more uncomfortable than the mask.

Which he was
not
going to put on again, and that was that.

Phrenk must have read Wulfrith's decision in his eyes, for he dropped the bullying approach at once. “Look here, Dunwin, my boy,” he said, casually tossing the mask aside. “You don't have to wear the mask if you don't want to. We can still have a lovely time at the palace if you refuse to wear it.” He sighed. “It will be a great disappointment to Mungli, though.”

Mungli gave Phrenk a startled look that as much as said
It will?
For the first time since they had undertaken this mission, he had the supreme satisfaction of being able to stretch out his legs and surreptitiously give her a vicious kick in the ankle, just the sort she'd doled out to him under the table at the village tavern. She took the hint and put on a wide-eyed, moist gaze of bitter disappointment.

That look pierced Wulfrith's heart. “Will it?” he asked, bewildered. “But
—
why?”

“Ah, the innocence of you young upcountry lads.” Phrenk patted Wulfie's shoulder. “How refreshing it is to meet a youth who has absolutely no idea of civilized manners. You see, my boy, a palace is not at all like your smoke-stained, reeking, rushes-and-dog-droppings-on-the-floor village tavern.”

(Here he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer to Belchops, god of fishermen, asking forgiveness for having told such a barrel-thumping biggee without a rod and line in his hands. The truth of things was that ever since the King Gudge's ascension, most of the ceremonial public rooms in the royal Hydrangean palace would have to improve to meet minimal rushes-and-dog-droppings-on-the-floor standards.)

“No, no,” he went on. “There are certain customs, laws and usages proper to palace life. You can respect them and enjoy the many delights a palace has to offer, or you can be a fierce free spirit who does whatever he likes…
outside
the palace walls.”

“What's that got to do with Mungli?” Wulfrith asked.

“Mungli has become rather…
fond
of you, lad,” Phrenk said, putting a full load of insinuation on the word “fond.”

“You have?” Wulfrith asked Mungli. The Gorgorian bobbed her head so enthusiastically that the fledgling wizard feared for a moment that it might snap off.

“Mungli is not a lady to bestow her…
fondness
upon just any man,” said Phrenk. He made a strange noise in his throat which anyone with a keen enough ear would recognize as the sound of hysterical, scornful laughter being pummeled into the shape of a cough. Mungli gave him a cold glare.

“Really?” Wulfie gazed at the lady in question warmly. “I'm honored.”

“As well you might be, my boy,” Phrenk assured him. “However, much as she is…
fond
of you, she is forbidden by law to show you just how…
fondly
she feels until she has introduced you to her royal mistress. You see, lad, Mungli is no less a person than chief handmaid to her Serene and Gloriously Flowering Highness, Queen Artemisia.” Out of sheer reflex, Phrenke made the gesture of Milky-White Chrysanthemum Blossoms at Dawn of a Frosty Morning Being Not Half So Entrancing and Worthy of Poetic Adoration as the Noble Person Whose August Name These Unworthy Lips Have Just Mentioned.

Wulfrith was sure Phrenk was having a fit. It figured.

“As Queen Artemisia's chief handmaid, Mungli must reside only in the queen's own apartments. It is a sacred custom that no man outside of the royal family or the palace service may enter these apartments unless his face be completely masked. Am I going too fast for you?” he asked, noticing the odd look that had come over Wulfie's face.

“No,” Wulfrith admitted. “I understand what you're saying, I just don't see the sense in it, that's all.”

“Oh, well,
sense
!” Phrenk made a shorter, less exotic gesture, waving away the very idea. “If it's
sense
you want, you might has well have stayed at home.”

Wulfrith thought back to the last thing he had seen at home. The spectacle of all those transformed animals blundering about might be called many things, but
sensible?

Then he thought about all the things a simple word like
fond
might mean.

Without another peep of objection, Wulfrith got up, retrieved the mask, and put it on.

“The eyeholes go around to the front,” said Phrenk.

* * * *

Queen Artemisia sat stiff as a carved image of Vimple, her fingernails gouging slivers from the armrests of her chair. Mungli had just burst in upon her, waving her hands madly and leering so broadly that only an idiot or a Gorgorian could fail to understand that the mission had been a successful one.

A furious series of yes-or-no questions on Artemisia's part quickly revealed that the faithful Phrenk had managed to slip the young man into the palace and was presently awaiting word from his queen that the coast was clear before attempting to bring him up into the royal apartments. Artemisia made a few arrangements, then sent Mungli off to fetch the men. Now she could do nothing more than wait.

A footstep sounded in the hall outside
—
several footsteps, in fact. The Gorgorian guards did not challenge the queen's guests
—
Artemisia had merely mentioned that she was expecting a visit from her dear son, Prince Arbol, and for some reason all the guardsmen at the same time discovered that they had very urgent business elsewhere. It was a remarkable coincidence, but better a coincidence than an unscheduled trip headfirst down a flight of stairs.

The door opened and Phrenk and Mungli came into the queen's presence. Between them they dragged a weakly struggling young man in a hooded mask. He was wearing the very clothes Artemisia had sent along with her messenger, and at first glance his build did indeed resemble the lithe, selectively muscular body of the prince.

So did the bodies of about three-quarters of Prince Arbol's chosen Companions.

“Leave us,” said Artemisia. Her voice was hoarse and tense. Phrenk and Mungli bowed, then cast inquiring eyes at the queen's bedchamber door. “Oh, yes, yes, go ahead if you must,” she replied impatiently. The sprinted off, slamming it behind them.

“Where did Mungli go?” Wulfrith asked wistfully.

“Never mind,” the queen snapped. “Sit.” She pointed stiffly at a stool which she had set nearby on purpose.

Wulfrith did as he was told. The same texts from which he had learned so tantalizingly little about damsels had been remarkably clear when they spoke of kings and queens. Even the highest of high-ranking wizards obeyed when a king or queen gave them an order. Not one of the wizards in the old books ever stopped to ask why he
—
presumably capable of turning the royal personage into something small, green, and hoppy on a moment's notice
—
was taking the orders instead of giving them.

Of course, Wulfie reasoned, the books all took place in palaces, and hadn't Phrenk said that common sense always got left on the palace doorstep with the extra kittens?

Sensible or not, Wulfrith now knew one thing with all the certainty of his heart: He wanted to stay in the palace. It had nothing to do with Mungli. His body had been sending him so many confusing and upsetting signals lately that he was fed up with all twinges, throbs, shivers, and tingles of unknown origin. Ah, but his mind was another story! His mind knew what it liked and what it wanted and, more importantly, how to get it.

What his mind wanted was the Royal Library. All of it. Now.

When they first entered the palace, Phrenk had whisked him straight into the Royal Library because it was the one place no self-respecting Gorgorian would ever go. Wulfrith took one look at the racks and stacks and shelves and piles of wonderful books and fell in love. That was why, when Mungli came scampering back to fetch him into Artemisia's presence, he had dragged his feet and struggled. He didn't want to go.

He would do anything it took to stay.

“What is your name?” Artemisia asked.

“Wulfrith, ma'am,” he replied. “Only Phrenk calls me Dunwin all the time. I know he works for you and all, but if you don't mind my saying so, he's a few vermin short of a plague, if you know what I mean.”

“To be sure, to be sure,” said the queen. She was only half-listening to the lad. His voice! It was not the exact duplicate of Prince Arbol's
—
that would be too much to ask
—
but training might overcome that. “Can you keep a secret, Wulfrith, dear?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You have been brought here on my orders. I hope you don't mind.” Artemisia batted her eyelashes at him in her most fetching manner. She felt rather awkward about flirting with someone who might well turn out to be her own son, but she was desperate.

“Oh, I don't mind, ma'am. I like it here,” Wulfrith said sincerely.

He looked like a man bewitched.
I've still got it
, the queen thought with some satisfaction. Artemisia had no way of knowing that all of Wulfrith's tender yearning was not for her, not for Mungli, but for, among others, a first folio copy of
The Elements of Elementals
which he had glimpsed in the Royal Library.