"Yes."
"Insane, even with magic. The orcs—"
"Haven't magic to match ours, Commander. I assure you ours is the more powerful."
"You come from out-frame?"
"Of course."
"You would buy an army to help you defeat our past customers?"
"Our victory is certain. Afterwards there will be a new order composed of seven kingdoms, and those who helped establish it will be lavishly rewarded."
"It would mean an end to Throod, as well as other kingdoms."
"Oh, Commander, armies are always needed. Throod will have to supply troops to put down uprisings, collect taxes, arrest and slay malcontents. There will always be those who have to be repressed, tortured, and slain."
"Yes, I suppose there will be. But you are malignants."
"However did you guess? Yes, I represent malignant power. Malignants after all have the strongest forces."
"Not in this frame. Here malignants have been kept down in numbers. Zoanna of Rud was such a malignant, and she was defeated by a mere boy."
The dandy hissed loudly. It was more like a serpent's hiss than that of a feline. His eyes grew larger and somehow even more predatory.
"Commander, enough of this chitchat. I want my army!"
"You're Zady."
The dandy raised his arms and there was a poof of yellow, sulfurous smoke that quickly cleared. Gone was the dandy. In his place was a beautiful redhead in a slinky red gown. She put cat's eyes on him and they seemed almost to smoke. Her face was as beautiful as the rest of her.
"Yes, I am Zady." She looked around the room, first at one warrior and then another. "I am Zady, and I am malignant. Follow me and the gold will all be yours. Each man who enlists in my service will have a palace, and—"
Her hand gestured, and now she stood totally nude, displaying all the natural hollows and contours. She twirled around, making certain every man saw all that he wanted to. Remarkably beautiful women there had been in Throod, but never one so instantly inflaming to the senses. Commander Roarer feared for his men.
The dress was back. Her beauty would remain a part of every man's memory. Every man was now staring at what was almost as startling. She smiled a wet-lipped smile.
"Each of you can have me, or others magicked to this form. This is only one of the little marvels that a malignant's magic can bring to you. How many of you are willing to follow me?"
"I am!" one brash youngster said, coming forward.
"I too," said another. Two more would-be soldiers joined the first. Their minds, Commander Roarer understood, were now subservient to their glands.
"Zady, I understand your head is not always so young," the commander said. "I understand it is quite old and ugly."
She turned her face to his, and of an instant it was ugly, and old, with large warts, rheumy eyes, and stringy hair. A stench came from her that was overpowering.
The commander blinked back tears. Seeing and smelling had to be believing, but a hag's face on the lovely body and smelling her without magic deodorant was a very hard experience.
"Yes, Commander, this is me," she croaked. "But I don't have to look like this. That is the advantage we malignants have over ordinary mortals. With the right magic"—the hand waved away the strong scent of decay and banished the ugly hag face and restored, after the smoke dissipated, the breathtakingly lovely creature—"I can be anything or anyone I wish," she continued dulcetly. "I can make any woman a warrior takes appear to him and others as I appear now. Or at the man's request I can make any woman or girl or puling infant look any way he wants her to. I can make the object of lust struggle, or not struggle, weak or strong. The choice can be yours. How many of you like the idea?"
Not surprisingly, several, including four fairly decrepit old vets, moved forward with the others. Each looked rather uncomfortable with his own choice, but determined nonetheless. It was exactly what the commander had seen in men he had been forced to execute.
"Excellent! And you, Commander?"
"Go to your Devale!" the commander said.
"Oh, Commander, I intend to do that as it becomes necessary. But surely you would like that arm fixed? And surely you want to be young and strong and virile? I can give you what you secretly want. After victory—everything."
It took a supreme effort, but he managed it. "No."
The beautiful creature looked sad. "Oh, Commander. You won't pick the men for me? Isn't that your job?"
"I won't ask men to serve a malignant. Some will join you; I can't help that. But as for me, I want no part of it."
"Not even"—and her gown again vanished—"a little part?"
"Not anything! Be gone, damned witch!"
"Oh, Commander, I'm so disappointed!" The slim hand waved and somehow dispatched a powder that produced a greenish cloud. The cloud drifted to his face and enveloped it. He took a breath despite himself, sneezed, and the cloud dissipated.
The commander felt himself to be old—incredibly old. He could hardly stand. Looking down at himself he saw that he had shriveled as though with extreme age, and that he now had not one arm ending in a stump but two. He felt an itch on his head and back that cried out for fingers, and his fingers, he was appalled to realize, were gone. The itching immediately became maddening.
"Poor, poor commander, aren't you sorry now?"
"You!" a big burly warrior-type snapped at her. "Restore the commander!"
"Or what, big boy?" She made a gesture, and a cloud formed and cleared, leaving the dog-faced veteran as a small, ugly-faced canine. The puppy tried to bite her ankle and she gestured again, and there was the warrior on all fours. Another gesture and he was out of uniform. As he stood amid astonished stares trying to cover himself and failing, one of the Zady recruits laughed. In a moment someone had stood up and challenged the laugher, and then, the commander knew, a fight was imminent. But Zady, always ready it seemed, made some quick passes and tossed another powder. He sneezed. Smoke cleared. He raised his hand and looked at it. The soldier who had challenged Zady was now clad as he had been in full uniform.
Zady smiled a malignant's smile. "What you have had, warriors, is a demonstration. I need an army and you know that I will pay. I will expect troops to be assembled here for me in three days."
"No!" the commander surprised himself by snapping. "Any man who signs needn't return to Recruitment House!"
"Why, Commander, they don't intend to return. Are you certain you won't join yourself? I can promise you all the rape and rapine you've ever wanted, before, during, and after battle."
He shook his head.
He wanted to say something stronger, but remembering how weak he had been and what it felt like having two stumps, he desisted. He did want to order her out.
Poof! A puff of smoke and she had vanished.
Alas, looking at the eager faces of the readily convinced, the commander knew that she had won against him. In three days' time she would return and her army, without his approval, would be waiting.
Lucernia, president of the malignant Witch and Warlock Society, was a little taken aback at Zady's sudden appearance in her bedroom. The old hag with her lovely new body had appeared just as Lucernia was about to demonstrate for a group of teachers the latest means of breaking students. She had the young future warlock in a contortion spell and had herself stripped to the fundamentals. In a moment more she would have shown how with a little imagination they could make a living knot that would not first involve their transformation into serpents. Lucernia was fond of this particular feat she had perfected. Alas, Zady had to appear right between the red-faced witch and the green-faced one, interrupting her and breaking her concentration.
"All right, Lucernia, get these out!"
"What? Zady, do you forget who I am?"
"I'm trying not to remember. Out!" With a wave of her hand and a puff of smoke Zady returned all the other visitors to outside the apartment. "I've got business."
"What business can possibly be more impo
rtant than corrupting?"
"Destroying. Destroying mundanes."
"You tried that, Zady. You failed. The Roundear of Prophecy scorched your feathers, and I believe you lost your head."
"Shut up," Zady said nastily. "What has been doesn't matter. I need an army of malignants as well as the army of mundanes I'm getting."
"Dream on, Zady. No one will serve you after your last debacle. You've been the laughingstock around the university since you let that uneducated bumpkin slice off your head and his brat keep you from reattaching it. Some Grand Witch you are! Even an apprentice could have done better."
Zady gestured, and Lucernia choked on the resulting purple-and-green-slashed cloud and became an ugly thing in a corner. "Very funny!" she gasped, finding that she had neither mouth nor lips but was speaking with a sphincter not normally used to produce words. The humiliation of doing what she had formerly been accused of doing was tremendous.
"Lucernia, you look good without bones. Maybe you'd like to stay that way for a while—say the next century?"
"What do you want, Zady?"
"I told you. I want total victory, and I'm going to need the most accomplished of my former classmates. That includes you, which shows the lamentable lack of standards."
"See Devale. He knows the alumnae."
"But you're the president of the guild. Devale doesn't keep up with the activities of the graduates. Some have gotten themselves burned. Others have gotten involved with—if you will excuse the word—benigns. I want the current best and I will have them."
"So you want me to pick."
"And persuade. With the benefit of a little magic if necessary. You do know magic, don't you?"
"Oh, very well. Change me back."
Zady tossed a smoke that filled all Lucernia's senses and overcame her and brought her upright, boned out to her usual large proportions.
"Zady, I don't know why you are so bossy and impolite with your colleagues."
"You want me to be polite? What's malignant about that?"
Lucernia rubbed her wattled throat that a moment ago hadn't existed. There were several things she would have liked to do to Zady that were malignant, but she knew her skill was inferior to that of the Grand Witch of Malignant Magic. Besides, even more than most of them Zady was teacher's nasty little pet.
"All right, Zady. I'll get your malignant practitioners for you. But you lost before. Do you really think that now you can win? Kelvin beat you proper!"
"Yes, I am going to win!" With those words, Zady vanished.
The wizened apothecary turned from taking inventory of his aphrodisiac and love potions to see a shapely female body materialize in front of him. He was savoring the astonishment that he wouldn't need one of his own powders when he recognized the nude witch by her less-than-beautiful head.
"Zady!"
"The same, Smedlic. I've come to give you an order. I want enough changing and confusing powders to stock an army—a real army. I want communication crystals, phials of shape changers, wizard wands, materialization and transformation materials, elixirs of malignant nature, and invisibility cloaks."
"Only one invisibility cloak in stock. They take time to materialize. If you witches weren't always losing them—"
"I'll take the one you have, and everything else that will prove useful. I'm taking over the dragon frame."
"Against—Mouvar?" he inquired dubiously.
"Mouvar's hero. Mouvar doesn't cheat. Devale will if he knows that it's necessary."
"Zady, you've got a job ahead of you!"
"And you've got an order! Get on it immediately or face my wrath."
She vanished, leaving the apothecary weak and shaking and alone in his shop.
Zady materialized with a loud poof directly in front of Devale's big desk. She had perfected her appearance and disappearance until it would seem to mundanes that she had the magic opal. Oops, that was a thought—she'd have to go back to the apothecary and tell him she needed a faintheart powder powerful enough to reduce a dragon to a coward. That would be tricky, because dragons weren't normally brave or un-brave—they simply were.
"Zady, you have been doing well," Devale remarked, looking up from his desk's viewing crystal. The horns on his head glinted in the overhead light. "But you will have to nullify that dragon. Have you given any thought as to how?"
"I planted an abundance of passion weeds and get-on flowers for him and his mate. They're in and out of that little lake in dragon territory all the time—they won't notice a few unfamiliar plants. They can be locked in passion while I'm beating and destroying the Alliance. I can keep Kelvin from going there and spoiling their fun. Of course Kelvin's brats can mind-talk to it, but they have to be within range. The opal won't be of help to them if it's not used, and it will be one of my prime objectives to see that it's not."
"After the battle you'll have to destroy the dragon."
"No problem there. I'll first reduce him to cowardice and while he's cowering I'll do an inside-out spell. Once the dragon's copper scales are on his inside and his gizzard and guts on the outside, I'll take the gem."
"You have it all planned, then? You won't expect me to break the rules and help?"
"Professor, I'm not going to need your help. With only Helbah and an old hero to defend the Alliance, my victory is assured."
"That's what I like to hear, Zady. Confidence."
CHAPTER 14
Preparations for War:
Helbah's
Kelvin felt foolish standing in front of Recruitment House with the old witch on his back. Helbah had pointed out that there was no reason why they should ride so far when with his Mouvar boots it was just a step. Accordingly he had reluctantly stooped down, waited until she and her familiar were in place, straightened, and stepped—from the twin palaces to Throod, right where he had visualized.
Helbah slid off, carrying her familiar. Kelvin sighed and felt along his spine. It wasn't that Helbah was heavy, but it felt as though his back had been punctured in eight separate places. Since Katbah and Helbah were in some sense one, perhaps some bizarre transformation had taken place.
Helbah stretched, as though she really had been on some long, fatiguing journey. "There! I'd say that was much better than flying!"
Of course! She could have flown in bird form. Why hadn't she? Was he just here to keep her company?
Grizzled and young faces were looking out the window at them. Someone must have seen their arrival. A middle-aged man completing one enormous step with a hag—a nice old hag!—riding on his back.
"I do hope Captain Mackay remembers me," Helbah said, adjusting her wrapper. Always she wore the same old dark dress. In her own clothing she displayed neither interest nor imagination.
"Helbah! You know Captain Mackay can't still be living! Not unless he's a warlock!"
"Now I wouldn't put anything past the captain! He was a real charmer in his day. But I keep forgetting that most people are only human. It gets harder and harder as the centuries slip away."
They walked in and it was almost the same inside as it had been when he had come to buy mercenaries to fight Zoanna. There were tables and chairs, bottles and cards. In the corner a gray-haired man stood up. The man had one arm missing, but it wasn't Captain Mackay.
"Welcome, Helbah. Welcome, Kelvin. I'm Commander Roarer."
So he was a different man, but similar in appearance. Except for the light greenish eyes he could have passed for a Mackay duplicate.
"You know why we've come," Kelvin said, echoing Morvin Crumb's words spoken over a quarter of a century ago. "You received Helbah's message."
The commander nodded. "It came floating down from the ceiling. That's a neat trick. Captain Mackay, my predecessor, used to get messages from a witch that way."
"Ahem," Helbah said, clearing her throat with unaccustomed loudness, "we've business."
"Yes, yes, I quite understand, and I'm sorry that there wasn't some way for me to make an immediate reply. Please sit down. I'
ve some information for you."
They took their chairs, sitting at a round table still damp with mug rings. Recruitment House smelled more like a drinking establishment than did Lomax's. Kelvin suspected that in a moment they'd be offered refreshment and that this time he'd not be passed over because of his assumed tender age.
"Refreshment!" the commander called to a man carrying a tray. The man wore a stained apron and had a scar across his face, but clearly here he was a waiter. He came over and put down mugs and poured an amber liquid that didn't quite smell like wine.
"I never imbibe," Helbah said. Katbah appeared uninterested. Kelvin picked up his mug, sniffed, then tasted. Something bit his tongue and he set it down again. He'd wait until he was home and could have real fruit wine. Soldiers always seemed to feel that drinking went with the uniform.
Commander Roarer drank, then wiped his mouth on his uniform sleeve. He fixed Helbah with a gaze.
"She was here, wasn't she, Commander?" she inquired, knowing the answer.
He nodded. "I'm afraid she was, Helbah. It wasn't my choice. She sent no advance message."
"Typical. What did you do for her?"
"Personally, as little as possible. But she persuaded some men. She'll get her army."
"And that will leave mine short?"
"Of men you're better off without. But there's more—many men now say they won't serve the Alliance. It's the stories they've heard that the witch is now unbeatable."
"We beat her once," Helbah said. "That's why there's an Alliance."
"Technically, you lost, since your side surrendered to the orcs. As for Zady, she may be better equipped this time. Magic is something no fighting man wants to chance."
"I cut her head off!" Kelvin said, coming to his courage. "My very young son kicked it off a cliff, deflated her body, and unmagicked the girl who grew up to become his bride."
"That's very commendable, Kelvin, but the fact is that today Zady's back. This time she's not neglecting to hire mercenaries and buy war supplies. I'm sorry to tell you that my kingdom is more greedy and corrupt than others. They agreed to sell her all the war supplies—catapults, harness, war-horses, armor, swords, lances, bows, arrows, crossbows—the lot. They agreed to let her hire all who will take her gold. I'm sorry to tell you that there are more who will take her gold than those who won't. There are a few of us—a very few—who want to fight on the side of the Alliance. Gold isn't necessary—we'll fight by your sides for our lives. There are only a handful of us, but we will serve you, each of us, until our deaths."