I laughed. "From a dwarf? Are you mad?" I smoothed my chuckling into a glaring frown.

He snorted and crossed his arms, propping them on his huge stomach. "I"ll require a demonstration. If copper is all you can make, then do it so I can see if this shawl really does what you say."

I counted to ten before nodding. Straightening. I took the shawl from the counter and placed it over my shoulders. It was a gossamer delight, so softand billowy. How it sparkled against my linen shirt. I twisted slightly to pick up the candlelight as I slowly wrapped myself in it. The man"s nostrils flared in response.

Being the careful man I am, I"d spent time planning out this encounter. I made a small, leather bag, designing it so it would easily fall open after pulling a slender, almost invisible thread attached to the clasp. This delicate task took me days with my bad hand, but in the end it worked well. I could place several coins inside it and by regulating the tension on the string, I could dump a few at a time. Before coming to Bareen Tykar"s shop, I had slung the pouch over my shoulder and packed it beneath my coat.

Standing in the middle of the room, I muttered a useless incantation and released the copper pieces. Three fell clear and rolled across the floor.

The old merchant frowned. "Do it again," he said.

I repeated the motions and the nonsense words, dropping the rest of the contents from my bag. It looked good, like the shawl actually worked.

"I"ll try it now," he said. "Give it to me."

I did as he commanded, watching him as he fitted the cloak around his body.

"What are the words I need to speak to make gold?" he demanded.

Digging into my britches pocket, I pulled out a small tear of parchment. I had written down the incantation that triggered the shawl"s real power. "Can you read?"

His response was to grab the paper and whisper the ancient words to the spell.

The shawl began to shimmer. From where I stood, I could feel the warmth coming off it as the magic surrounded him. In the candle glow, I saw a distinct, woven texture forming on the skin of this encasing bubble. It sparkled and glittered. At one point I had to glance away from the brightness. A minute pa.s.sed and it was, then, too late for the merchant to escape without my help.

He realized he was trapped. His growing panic fed the constricting power of the cloak and he began to beg for mercy, but the sh.e.l.l around him m.u.f.fled his voice. I watched as the tears of anguish rolled down his fat cheeks, then finally, he squeezed his hands against his temples and opened his mouth to scream. Before he could, the shawl captured him.

He disappeared in sparks and glitter, the cloak falling to the floor with a soft flutter. I picked it up and felt the heaviness as the man"s very being settled into the threads. Throwing it about my shoulders, I sagged beneath this weight, but after another moment slid by, the weaving grew delicate and silky again.

Turning a slow circle, I smiled, then laughed. Such sweet revenge!

Bareen Tykar will remain in this filament prison for years, aware, yet helpless. It"s only after I"ve grown old and think I"ve seen my last blue moon that I"ll finally release him. When I do, I"ll make him watch as I drink his precious Spring Tonic.

THE GREATEST HERO WHO EVER DIED

J. Robert King

The stormy winds that swept up from the Great Ice Sea often brought unwanted things to lofty Capel Curig. Tonight, in addition to pelting snow and driving gales, the wind brought a hideously evil man.

None knew him as such when he tossed open the battered door of the Howling Reed. They saw only a huge, dark-hooded stranger haloed in swirling snow. Those nearest the door drew back from the wind and the vast form pre- cipitating out of it, drew back as the door slammed behind the dripping figure, slammed and shuddered in its frame. Without discharging the ice from his boots, the stranger limped across the foot-polished planks of the Reed to a trembling hearth fire. There he bent low, flung a few more logs on the flames, and stood, eclipsing the warmth and casting a giant shadow over the room.

The rumble of conversation in the Reed diminished as all eyes in the tiny pub turned furtively toward the ruined figure.

Silhouetted on the hearth, the stranger looked like some huge and ill- formed marionette. He lacked an arm, for his right sleeve was pinned to the shoulder and his left hand did all the adjusting of his fetid form. Deliberately, that widowed hand now drew back some of his robes, but the sodden figure beneath looked no less shapeless. For all his shifting, he did not remove the hood from his head, a head that appeared two sizes too small for his body.

Beneath the hood, the man"s face was old and lightless, with cold-stiffened lips, a narrow black beard, and a hooked nose. In all, his form looked as though a large man hid within those robes, holding some poorly proportioned puppet head to serve as his face.

He spoke then, and his hollow voice and rasping tongue made the patrons jump a bit. "Can any of you spare a silver for a bowl of blood soup and a quaff of ale?"

None responded except by blank, refusing stares. Not even Horace behind the bar would offer this stranger a gla.s.s of water. Apparently, all would rather dare his wrath than know their charities had provided sustenance to him.

The man was apparently all too acquainted with this response, for he shook his head slowly and laughed a dry, dead-leaf laugh. A few staggering steps brought him to a chair, vacated upon his arrival and still warm from its former occupant. There he collapsed with a wheeze like a punctured bellows.

"In the lands of Sossal, whence I hail, a man can earn his blood and barley by telling a good tale. And I happen to have such a tale, for my land gave birth to the greatest hero who ever lived. Perhaps his story will earn me something warm."

Those who had hoped to dismiss him with bald glares and cruel silence now tried turning away and speaking among themselves. Horace, for his part, retreated through a swinging door to the kitchen, to the gray dishwater and the piles of pots.

Unaffected, the shabby wanderer began the telling of his tale with a snap of his rigid blue fingers. Green sparks ignited in air, swirled about him, and spread outward like a lambent palm in the heavy darkness. The sparking tracers lighted on all those seated in the taproom, and each tiny star extinguished itself in the oily folds of flesh between a patron"s knotted brows.The faint crackling of magic gave way to a single, hushed sigh. In moments, the place fell silent again, and the tale began. "The lands of Sossal were once guarded by a n.o.ble knight, Sir Paramore, the greatest hero who ever lived...."

Golden haired, with eyes like platinum, Sir Paramore strode in full armor through the throne room of King Caen. Any other knight would have been stripped of arms and armaments upon crossing the threshold, but not n.o.ble Paramore. He marched forward, brandishing his spell-slaying long sword Kneuma and dragging a bag behind him as he approached the royal dais.

There the king and princess and a nervous retinue of n.o.bles ceased their conference and looked to him. Only when within a sword swipe of His Majesty did Paramore finally halt, drop to one armored knee, and bow his fealty.

The king, his face ringed with early white locks, spoke. "And have you apprehended the kidnappers?"

"Better, milord," replied Paramore, rising with a haste that in anyone else would have been arrogance. He reached into the bag and drew out in one great and hideous clump the five heads of the kidnappers he had slain.

The king"s daughter recoiled in shock. Only now did King Caen himself see the wide, slick line of red that Sir Paramore"s bag had dragged across the cold flagstones behind him.

"You gaze, my liege, on the faces of the hoodlums you sought," the knight explained.

In the throat-clenched silence that followed, the wizard Dorsoom moved from behind the great throne, where his black-bearded lips had grown accustomed to plying the king"s ears. "You were to bring them here for questioning, Paramore, not lop off their heads."

"Peace, Dorsoom," chided the king with an off-putting gesture. "Let our knight tell his tale."

"The tale is simple, milord," replied Paramore. "I questioned the abductors myself and, when I found them wanting of answers, removed their empty heads."

"This is nonsense," Dorsoom said. "You might have simply cut the heads off the first five peasants you saw, then brought them here and claimed them the culprits. There should have been a trial. And even if these five were guilty-which we can never know now-we do not know who a.s.signed these ruffians their heinous task."

"They were kidnappers who had stolen away the children of these n.o.ble folk gathered around us," Paramore replied with even steel in his voice. "If anything, I was too lenient."

"You prevented their trial-"

"Still the wagging tongue of this worm," Paramore demanded of the king, leveling his mighty sword against the meddling mage. "Or perhaps these warriors of mine shall do the task first!"

The great doors of the throne room suddenly swung wide, and a clamor of stomping feet answered ... small feet, the feet of children, running happily up the aisle behind their rescuer. Their shrill voices were raised in an unseemly psalm of praise to Sir Paramore as they ran.

Seeing their children, the n.o.bles emptied from the dais and rushed to embrace their sons and daughters, held captive these long tendays. Theebullient weeping and cooing that followed drowned the protests of Dorsoom, who retreated to his spot of quiet counsel behind the throne. It was as though the sounds of joy themselves had driven him back into the darkness.

Over the pleasant noise, the grinning Paramore called out to the king. "I believe, my liege, you are in my debt. As was promised me upon the rescue of these dear little ones, I claim the fairest hand in all of Sossal. It is the hand of your beautiful daughter, Princess Daedra, that I seek."

Paramore"s claim was answered by a chorus of shouts from the joyous children, who now abandoned their parents to crowd the heels of their rescuer. From their spot beside him, the children ardently pleaded the knight"s case.

Daedra"s bone-white skin flushed, and her lips formed a wound-red line across her face. The king"s visage paled in doubt. Before either could speak, though, the children"s entreaties were silenced by an angry cry.

"Hush now, younglings!" commanded a thin n.o.bleman, his ebony eyes sparkling angrily beneath equally black brows and hair. "Your childish desires have no say here. The hand of the princess has been pledged to me these long years since my childhood, since before she was born. This usurping knight-" he said the word as though it bore a taint "-cannot steal her from me, nor can your piteous caterwauling."

""Tis too true," the king said sadly, shaking his head. He paused a moment, as though listening to some silent voice whisper behind his throne. "I am pressed by convention, Paramore, to grant her hand to Lord Ferris."

Sir Paramore sheathed his sword and crossed angry arms over his chest.

"Come out, wicked mage, from your place of hiding in the shadow of this great man. Your whisperings cannot dissuade my lord and monarch from granting what his and mine and the princess"s hearts desire."

With that, Paramore touched the handle of his mighty sword, Kneuma, to dispel whatever enchantment Dorsoom might have cast on the king. Then he snapped his fingers, and the tiny percussion of his nails struck sparks in the air. The king"s retinue and the king himself, as though awakening from a dream, turned toward the shadow-garbed mage. Dorsoom sullenly answered the summons and moved into the light.

"Milord, do not be tricked by the puny magicks of this-"

"Hush, mage," replied King Caen evenly, regarding Dorsoom through changed eyes. He turned, then, to address the thin n.o.bleman. "Lord Ferris, I know the hand of my daughter has been pledged to you since before you could understand what that pledge meant. But time has pa.s.sed, as it does, and has borne out a n.o.bler man than thee to take the princess"s hand.

Indeed, he has taken her heart as well, and mine too, with many great deeds that not a one of them is equalled by the full measure of your life"s labors."

"But-"

The king held up a staying hand, and his expression was stern. "I am now convicted in this matter. You cannot sway me, only spur me to anger, so keep silence." His iron-hard visage softened as he looked upon Sir Paramore. "By royal decree, let the word be spread that on the morrow, you shall wed my darling child."

A cheer went up from all of those gathered there save, of course, Lord Ferris and the mage, Dorsoom. The joyous voices rung the very foundations of the palace and filled the stony vault above.It was only the plaintive and piercing cry of one woman that brought the hall back to silence. "My Jeremy!" cried the n.o.blewoman, wringing a light blue scarf in tender, small hands as she came through the doors. "Oh, Sir Paramore! I"ve looked and looked through all this crowd and even checked with the doorguards, and he is not here. Where is my Jeremy?"

Sir Paramore stepped down from his rightful place before the king and, tears now running down his face, said, "Even I could not save your son, with what these butchers had already done to him...."

"And her cries were piteous to hear," the cloaked man muttered low, and the crowd in the pub soaked in the sibilant sound of his voice, "so that even evil Dorsoom shut his ears-"

"That"s it, then. No more ale for any of you. I don"t care how strong the gale"s ablowin" out there; there"s a stronger one in here, and it"s ablowin" out this stranger"s a.r.s.e!"

It was Horace, fat Horace who"d tended this bar in this tiny crevice of the Snowdonia Mountains and fed eggs and haggis to the grandfathers and fathers and sons of those gathered here. In all that time, the good folk of Capel Curig had learned to trust Horace"s instincts about weather and planting and politics and people. Even so, on this singular night, regarding this singular man, Horace didn"t strike the others as their familiar and friendly confidant.

"Shut up, Horace," cried Annatha, a fishwife. "You"ve not even been listening, back there banging your pots so loud we"ve got to strain our ears to hear."

"Yeah," agreed others in chorus.

"I hear well enough from the kitchen, well enough to know this monstrous man"s pa.s.sin" garbage off as truth! He makes out King Caen to be a dotterin"

and distracted coot when we all know he is strong and just and in full posses- sion of himself. And what of Dorsoom, cast as some malicious mage when in truth he"s wise and good? And Lord Ferris, too?"

Fineas, itinerant priest of Torm, said, "I"m all for truth-as you all know-but bards have their way with truth, and barkeeps their way with brandy. So let him keep the story coming, Horace, and you keep the brandy coming, and between the two, we"ll all stay warm on this fierce night."

Now the stranger himself extended that trembling left hand that did the work for two and said with a rasping tongue, "It is your establishment, friend.

Will you listen to your patrons" desires, or turn me out?"

Horace grimaced. "I"d not throw a rabid dog out on a night like this. But I"d just as soon you shut up, friend. Aside from lyin", you"re puttin" a dreamy, unnatural look in these folk"s eyes, and I don"t like payin" customers to go to sleep on me."

This comment met with more protests, which Horace tried unsuccessfully to wave down.

"All right. I"ll let him speak. But, mark me: he"s got your souls now. He"s worked some kind of mesmerizin" magic on you with the words he weaves. I, for one, ain"t listenin"."

Nodding his shadowed and dripping head, the stranger watched Horace disappear into the kitchen, then seemed to study him hawkishly through the very wall as he continued his tale. "Though Lord Ferris"s forked tongue had been stilled that morning before the king and n.o.bles and children, his handswould not be stilled that night when he stalked through the dim castle toward Sir Paramore"s room.

"But one other child of the night-the ghost of poor dead Jeremy-was not allied to the sinister plans of Ferris. Indeed, the ghost of Jeremy had sensed evil afoot and so hovered in spectral watch on the stair to Paramore"s room.

When he spotted Lord Ferris, advancing dark at the foot of the stair, Jeremy flew with warning to the bed foot of his former bosom friend, Petra...."

Petra was a brown-haired girl-child and the leader of the pack of n.o.ble children. Jeremy found her abed in a castle suite, for the children and the parents had all been welcomed by King Caen to spend the night. Poor Jeremy now gazed with sad ghostly eyes on the resting form of Petra, sad ghostly eyes that had once gazed down on his own still body, lifeless and headless.

"Wake up, Petra. Wake up. I have terrible news regarding our savior, Sir Paramore," the child-ghost rasped. His phantom voice sounded high and strained, like the voice of a large man pretending to be a child.

And Petra did wake. When she glimpsed her departed friend, her brave girl-heart gave a start: unlike greater ghosts decked in diaphanous gossamers, poor Jeremy had no body upon which to hang such raiments. He was but a disembodied head that floated beyond the foot of her bed, and even now his neck slowly dripped the red life that had once gushed in buckets. So grotesque and horrible was this effect that Petra, who truly was a brave child, could not muster a word of greeting for her dead companion.

"It"s Lord Ferris," the ghost-child said urgently. "He plots to slay our Sir Paramore where he sleeps tonight."

Petra managed then a stammer and a wide stare.

"You must stop him," came the ghost"s voice.

She was getting up from the feather mattress now, arraying the bedclothes around her knees. With the sad eyes of small boys-who see small girls as mothers and sisters and lovers and enemies all at once-poor Jeremy watched Petra"s delicate hands as she gathered herself.

At last she whispered, "I"ll tell Mother-"

"No!" Jeremy"s voice was urgent, strident. "Grown-ups won"t believe.

Besides, Sir Paramore saved your life this morning. You can save his life now, this evening!"

"I cannot stop Ferris alone."

"Then get the others," Jeremy rasped. "Awaken Bannin and Liesle and Ranwen and Parri and Mab and Karn and the others, too. Tell them to bring their fathers" knives. Together you can save our savior as he saved us."

Already, Petra was tying the sash of her bedclothes in a cross over her heart and breathlessly slipping sandals on her feet.

"Hurry," commanded Jeremy. "Even now, Lord Ferris is climbing the stair toward Sir Paramore"s room!"

Upon this urgent revelation, Petra gasped, and Jeremy was gone.

Alerted and a.s.sembled in the next moments, the children followed Petra to the stair. It was a long and curving stairway that led to the high tower where Sir Paramore had chosen to bed. The steps were dark, lit mainly by a faint glow of starlight through occasional arrow loops in the wall. But when Petra and her child warriors began to climb, they saw ahead of them the vague, flickering illumination of a candle."Quiet now," whispered she.

Bannin, a brown-haired boy half her age, nodded seriously and slipped his small hand into hers. The twins Liesle and Ranwen smiled at each other with nervous excitement. Meanwhile, Parri and Mab and Karn and the others clus- tered at the rear of the pack and set hands on their knives.

"That"s got to be the candle of Lord Ferris," Petra mouthed, indicating the light. "We"ve got to be quiet, or he"ll know we"re coming."