The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter (13 page)

Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

“Not again!”

Stephen ran back to Craggy.  “What is wrong with you people?”

But of course, he already knew what was wrong with them: the madness.

The innkeeper had been right.  If it hadn’t been for her advice, Stephen might now be—be what?

It was different for everyone . . . but unpleasant for all.

Stephen was grateful, immensely grateful, and he would enchant any wards the innkeeper required.  But he did think this was perhaps not the best way to avoid rousing the Jolly Executioner’s suspicions.

Sitting next to Craggy, his candle burning down, trying to think what to do next, Stephen finally noticed the room’s final occupant—a weak-chinned, straw-haired man he didn’t recognize without layers of scarves and hat and coat.  The man was curled up in the far corner, trembling, sobbing, and hoarsely whispering, “Feedledum, young fella, feedledum, feedledum, sneedle, feedledum. . . .”

Stephen gripped the silver-and-iron manacle so hard it hurt.  “You’ll be all right,” he told Feedledum unconvincingly.  “A sore throat won’t kill you, and there’s no way I can help.  Come on.”  This last was to Craggy.  Craggy did not answer; he had fallen unconscious. 

Stephen experimentally released him.  Craggy slumped and did not move.  Stephen stood and backed away but still, Craggy did not awaken and return to beating his head.

“I’ll be back to check on you, if I can,” Stephen promised.  “I must see to the others.” 

The innkeeper was waiting for him in the corridor.  “What are you doing?” she asked.  “You’re filthy again, and after that nice bath!  I’ve filled another for you, and then you’d best get back to bed.”

“I can’t,” said Stephen.  “I have to help the others; they’re reacting badly, worse than you expected.  The madness is getting them.”

“Nonsense; you’ve been having a nightmare.”

“Then how I am covered in all this?”

“Nightmares are scary—I don’t blame you.”  The innkeeper led Stephen firmly back into his own room where, indeed, another bath awaited him.  “There’s no need to worry; you should sleep.  We need you healthy and fresh come morning.  Look, I’ve brought you a clean nightshirt—don’t touch it now, sir; you’re filthy.”

“Listen, the others—”

“Will be fine.  I’ll look in on them for you.”

“But it’s my job—”

“Is it?  Is it really?”

“Not exactly, but—”

“You just have a nice bath and go to bed.  I’ll see nothing disturbs you.”

The innkeeper stepped back out of the room, shut the door, and slid the deadbolt into place.

It occurred to Stephen that maybe the lock hadn’t been put on backwards by accident.

“Don’t worry,” the innkeeper called through the door.  “Sleep well!”

Unable to do anything else, Stephen took his bath, changed, and retreated to bed.

Here be there monsters. 

Actually, there are monsters everywhere,

but it sounds so much more dramatic this way.

When Stephen awoke, the sun was bright, the dull-eyed villagers were gone, and there was a wonderful smell filling the inn.  Breakfast.

Stephen jumped to his feet, and found that his robes were laid out on his bed, dry and clean.  Even his boots had been cleaned, and no hint of blood or vomit remained on them.

Had it been a dream?  He didn’t think so.

Stephen dressed slowly, stuffed the manacles in his pocket, and left his room.  There was the door next to him, wherein he had left Craggy, Weakstomach, and Feedledum.  Stephen raised a hand to knock—and dropped it again.  Maybe he would look after breakfast.  There was no need to disturb them, if they were sleeping.  It would be easier to eat and enchant first, without the company following him around, questioning his every move.

“There you are,” said the innkeeper, coming up behind him.  “Breakfast is hot and waiting for you.”

The innkeeper did not look like someone who had spent the night fighting off madness.  If anything, she looked healthier than before, as if she’d had a good, solid meal for once.  “Thank you,” Stephen said.  “I am hungry.”

“I decided to let your companions sleep,” the innkeeper said.  “No doubt they’re exhausted from their long travels—and some of those injuries looked nasty.  That leader of yours snores like a thunderstorm.  Sit just there, Pet will bring you out your breakfast.  There’s still only porridge, I’m afraid, but we’ve rustled up some honey for you.  You do like honey, don’t you?”

“Immensely.”

Porridge!  A proper breakfast—unlike wolf meat.  He could eat porridge every morning for the rest of his life.  Maybe one day he’d make enough money to settle down and live off porridge.  Maybe he’d abandon his enchanter’s robes and live in an inn, and be served and attended to like he deserved, and no one would know about the magic.

As Stephen ate, the innkeeper detailed her desired wards: protection, strengthened foundations, fireproofing, breeze obviation, pest control—

“You have pest control,” Stephen pointed out.  “You have a cat.  It’ll do as much as I can.”

—and wards against beings of flesh or spirit that intended the innkeeper’s family harm.  “You can do all that, can’t you?”

“I can,” said Stephen, who had had many stranger and more difficult requests, although most of them had included the welcome clink of money.

“How long will it take?”

“The rest of the morning, at least.  It depends on how well the building holds enchantments—and how much residue I have to remove from the previous wards—and how often I am disturbed.”

“Your companions will sleep long and deeply,” promised the innkeeper, taking Stephen’s empty bowl and spoon.  “I will see to that.  And when they do awaken, they will be distracted by the prospect of food.  Is there anything else you need?”

“Yes.”

“And that is?”

“I need a name.”

The innkeeper froze.  “A name?”

“You want these enchantments keyed to your family—fine; I can do that.  But I’ll need to know the name of someone in this family, and a piece of him—a hair or fingernail will do.  Otherwise, the enchantment will only be tied to the inn, and won’t protect you if you leave.”

“Isn’t there another—”

“No.”  Yes, maybe.  But they didn’t know that, and he wasn’t about to tell them.  He was sick of not knowing people’s names.

“I’ll do it, Mother,” Pet said, stepping forward.  She plucked out a hair and solemnly handed it to Stephen.  “You already know my name.”

“I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Petunia Cynthia White.  I’ll be inheriting this inn one day.”  Stephen was struck by how robust she looked by daylight.

“I suppose it won’t do any harm,” said the innkeeper; “and you know your business better than I.”  She bustled off to the kitchen. 

Pet stayed where she was.  “May I watch you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” said Stephen, “but if you must, at least stay quiet.”

“I won’t say a word.”

“That’s because you’ll be in here helping me!” the innkeeper called from the kitchen.  “We have eighteen hungry men to cook for!”

“But Mother—”

“Pet—”

Stephen took the hint and hurried away.

The warding was, as Stephen had expected, extremely dull.  He had to trace every inch of the building, inside and out, twice: once for the base enchantment, which he tied to Pet, once for the secondary enchantments.  This was, Stephen reflected drearily, the perfect way to discover the most unpleasant corners of any building.

Stephen began outside, to get it over with.  He was deep in weaving delicate strands of enchantment when something caught his foot.  He stumbled back, fighting to keep the enchantment from breaking.  The thing moved under his feet, and Stephen found himself sprawled on the ground, his head aching.

He climbed hastily to his feet, brushing off his robes.  “Look what you’ve made me do—I’ll have to start over!”

The body on the ground did not move.

It was not, Stephen ascertained after a moment’s panic, dead.  He prodded it with his boot.  “Excuse me,” he said.  “You’re in the way.”

The body—Stephen thought it was probably male, though it was too deformed to say for sure—twitched and snorted.

“Please move,” Stephen said, prodding it again.  Maybe he could go around it?  No; he had to circle this building several times more, and it would trip over it for certain.  Even in the unlikely case that he didn’t, the body might roll over and integrate itself into the wards.

“What have I done to deserve this?” Stephen asked the world at large as he used his foot to roll the body away from the inn.

The body’s arm flew out, and something cold knocked against Stephen’s knee.  Stephen stopped mid-roll.  There was only one thing in the world that felt like that.

Knowing what he would find, Stephen knelt and shoved up the body’s sleeves.  Slim, seamless bands of iron encircled each wrist, too snug ever to remove.  The skin had molded itself around each band—like a ring that had been worn for years and years, maybe since childhood.

“Wake up,” Stephen commanded the body, kicking it in the ribs.  “Wake up!  Does everyone around here wear iron bands like that?  Tell me!”

The body groaned and opened its eyes.  “Go away.”

“Be more grateful; you’ll freeze to death if you stay out here.”  As he said it, Stephen knew it wasn’t true, and knew what allowed the villagers to stay out all night—magic had been sewn into the seams of their clothing, old enchantments, but ones as efficacious as those in his own robes.

A strange dichotomy: enchanted clothing, iron bracelets—but no enchantments on the town, no enchantments even, Stephen realized, on the inn.  Not residual magic, still clinging to the wood.  Nothing.  No enchanter had ever put so much as an anti-wind enchantment on that building.  He was the first.

“Why do you wear iron?” Stephen asked.  “Does everyone in this village wear it?”

The man goggled.  “Of course we do, all of us.”

“To stave off the madness?”

The man staggered to his feet.  “Who are you, anyway?  Let me go.”

“The innkeepers—do they wear iron also?  Tell me!”

“Leave me alone!” the man yanked his arm away and ran.  Stephen let him go.  He had his answers.

No wonder this town stank of poverty, if travelers always stayed in the inn.

Stephen went back and restarted his outside warding from the beginning.  When he had finished, he moved inside, beginning with the cellar. 

The cellar was a damp, unused sort of place, with frozen dirt for a floor.  Stephen used his knife to dig a small hole in the corner and buried Pet’s hair, along with enchantments to conceal it from any searchers.  That would act as a cornerstone for the warding, tying it irrevocably to Pet’s family.

Stephen traced the cellar and moved up to the main floor.  Pet made several moves to follow him, but each time she was prevented by her mother. 

Stephen moved on to the rooms—the innkeeper’s room first, which she shared with Pet—her father, apparently, never moved from his seat by the fire—and onto the guest rooms.  Stephen took care not to look too carefully at any of the companions, and he made sure to face the wall at all times, when going through the room next to his.

He didn’t need to look.  He could smell.  It had not been a dream.

Stephen was halfway through the largest room when the Jolly Executioner sat up in bed and said, “What are you doing?”

“Warding,” said Stephen.  “Don’t distract.” 

“Hmm,” said the Jolly Executioner, adjusting the iron axe that, apparently, he kept at hand while sleeping.  “We’ll talk about this later.”

Stephen grunted and returned his attention to the warding.

The Jolly Executioner kept his promise.  When Stephen returned to the common room, drained but satisfied with his work, the Jolly Executioner was waiting for him.

“What have you done to them?” he said.

“Who?  What?”  Stephen looked around distractedly.  Where was that innkeeper?  He was famished. 

“What have you done to the company?”

“Keep it down,” Pops grumbled from his seat by the fire.  “Can’t a fellow get any peace and quiet around here?”

“I hope not,” said the innkeeper, emerging from the kitchen.  “Finished, are you? I must say, you have good timing; I just finished your lunch.  Pet’s keeping it hot.  Pet!  The Enchanter wants his food!”

Pet tottered out, a wooden tray in her sticklike arms and what must have, in Chubblewooble, been considered a feast: potato, smoked ham, and a baked apple.  The portion wasn’t enormous, but it was hot, and Stephen wasn’t about to quibble.  Frankly, he had expected porridge again.

“And what about me?” said the Jolly Executioner.

“Awake, are you?” said the innkeeper.  “I thought I heard someone making a racket.”

“And?”

“Pet will make you up some porridge; we have an enormous stock—about the only thing of which we have any stock; a most agreeable trader came through not two weeks ago, left us with his entire supply—”

“I’d like pheasant, potatoes, green beans, corn, a fresh roll, and soup.”

“So would I,” said the innkeeper.  “Have you seen this town?”

The Jolly Executioner looked pointedly at Stephen, who was halfway through his meal and enjoying it immensely.

“He,” said the innkeeper, “has done us an enormous favor for practically no payment.  Decent food is small thanks, but it’s the best we can do.”

“The warding.”

“You know about that?”

“I saw him.”

“You can see through that hood?  Yes, I suppose you’d have to.  Oh!  The warding.  Quite an interesting story, that—” and the innkeeper told a long, convoluted tale that contained plenty of little complaints about drafts and rodents but no mention of iron or madness.  “Hardly any enchanters stop in Chubblewooble, of course—anyone can see that this is not a rich town—and you can imagine how grateful I was that this one finally came by.  Keeping this inn warm goes through firewood like you wouldn’t believe and—”