"Heliz!" came Jennicandra's voice from outside. "Show yourself."
Heliz pulled himself to his feet. Cursing himself. Cursing his great-grandmother. Cursing Lumm and the gods and words and Sanctuary itself.
He moved into the doorway.
Outside, the rain had stopped, but only in the immediate vicinity. It formed a curtain around the manor's front drive. Standing before the main doors was the red-clad form of Jennicandra, Mistress of the Crimson Scholars. Behind her loomed the green-mawed ape made of hewn rock.
"Heliz," said Jennicandra, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile.
"Great-grandmother," said Heliz, his throat tightening.
"You've caused me a lot of trouble, child," she said reproachfully.
Her mannerisms were careful now, those of an old person. She looked like a child playacting.
"I'm sorry," said Heliz, feeling his knees tremble and threaten to go out. "I didn't mean to destroy the tower. I didn't know the word was that dangerous. Don't kill me."
The smile blossomed fully on the young/old woman's lips. "Kill you? Hardly. Not while you have that useful word in your mind."
"But the tower?"
Jennicandra laughed harshly. "What of the tower? Fifty scribes. A word that powerful is worth five hundred. I've been looking for words like that. Original words. Words of Destruction and Creation. Show me the word you learned, child. I'll be happy to leave you in this hole of a town if you just show me the word."
She said something else, something that Heliz heard and then forgot immediately. Something that slid off his brain, leaving a muzzy residue behind. He wanted to speak, but his throat tightened at fear of his great-grandmother. He shook his head, more in confusion than in negation.
"Come now, child," said Jennicandra. "You wrote it down, didn't you? Of course, you're a good scholar. I taught you to be one. So you would find the right words for me. Now I want you to show me your devotion to your Great-grann-nanna. Show me what you did, child. Show me the word."
Again she added something else, the extra syllable that strained at the gates of Heliz's mind. Heliz made a gasping whisper. "I'm sorry," he managed. Despite himself, he clutched at the notebook resting over his thundering heart.
Jennicandra took another step forward. "You disappoint. All those deaths are meaningless, child, unless I get the word. Unless I get the power. It's your purpose in life. It's in your notebook, isn't it? I can take it off your body. Don't fight me, child. Your blood comes from me. You owe it to me. Give it to me. Give me the word."
This time the syllable struck like a blade against the bounds of his mind, and the torrent came loose. He felt the sudden need to pull the small notebook out, to show his Great-grann-nanna what he did, to make her proud of him. He reached for the book.
And something large and heavy slammed into him, knocking him against the side of the door. Something sharp broke inside Heliz's mind, and he realized that he had fallen beneath one of Jennican-dra's own words of power.
Lumm, rubbing his shoulder, bellowed, "Use it, Heliz! Use it on her!"
Heliz looked at the staver. "But the town…"
"Will be my first test of power," said Jennicandra, and she shouted, "NOW, GIVE ME THE WORD!" and added her word of power. Behind her, the rock-ape bellowed in chorus.
Heliz opened his mouth and screamed, bellowed the word of power that had been unspoken these many months. It was a short word, but charged with the power of sun and stars and earth and creation. It pulled fury with it, and detonated right where Jennicandra was standing.
And as Heliz shouted the word, he changed it, twisting it in his mind and his throat to merge it with the diminutive form he had discovered earlier in the evening. He appended it more as a hopeful prayer than as a real attempt to control the damage.
A bright light flashed, one that Heliz had seen once before, long ago in the tower. It blossomed outwards, encasing his great-grandmother, the rock-ape, and licking at the entrance of the manor itself. Yet it was contained, folded back upon itself by its diminutive suffix. It looked as if a massive ball of lightning had detonated among the manor houses, turning the region to brief, sudden day.
And as suddenly as it appeared, it diminished again, collapsing like energy without matter to house it, pulling itself inwards and evaporating in a single point. The area in a fifty-foot circle was blasted black, and the stone front of the manor house was charred and blackened. All that remained of the rock-ape was a pair of roughly hewn feet, which could be imagined as being anthropoid only with a vivid imagination. Of the Great-grandmother of the
Crimson Scholars there was no sign. The rain was falling again in the courtyard, and the thunder grumbled in the sky like a god disturbed from its slumbers.
Lumm helped Heliz to his feet. The linguist had not realized he had collapsed.
"You got her," said Lumm, self-satisfaction in his voice.
Heliz shook his head. "I did this to her before. She survived that."
"No, you got her," assured Lumm. "If she lived through that, she's a better thesaurus, or sorceress, or whatever, than she should be."
Lumm thumped down the broad steps of the manor house, then turned. "You coming?"
Heliz was quiet for a moment, wrestling with his thoughts. "Yes. Let me take you to the Unicorn. I suppose I owe you a drink."
Lumm shook his head, then spat, "You owe me a house, linguist." He growled, "And I just hope you like working in the central courtyard, because that's where you're going to be until you pay me back."
And with that the barrel-maker headed down the slope, listening as he walked for the footsteps of the linguist behind him.
One to Go
Raymond E. Feist
The flea moved.
Jake the Rat held motionless, ignoring the irritation as the tiny bloodsucker sought out another location where he could visit more misery upon the old thief. Jake could feel the tiny parasite hop down his right calf toward his ankle, already covered in scab-capped welts. Slowly, with a patience born of a lifetime spent being patient, he moved his leg, bringing it to a point where his gnarled fingers could lash out and seize the tiny malefactor.
"Ah ha!" he shouted in triumph as his still nimble digits struck downward, fetching up the flea between calloused forefinger and thumb. "I have you!"
"Wot?" asked Selda.
"Damn flea that's been biting me for the last hour. I got it!"
Selda had been tending her knitting. She put down the two bone needles and sat back in the rickety chair she had appropriated for that purpose approximately five seconds after entering the hovel for the first time, seven years earlier. Fixing her husband with a baleful gaze she said, "Ain't that wonderful! Now you can set about catchin' the other thousand or so wot's still in residence with us."
Ignoring her sarcasm, Jake held the tiny creature up for inspection. He moved it closer and farther away under the dim light of the lantern above the table and couldn't quite seem to get it into focus. "Damn," he muttered. "Are these fleas smaller than they used to be?"
"No, you old fool. It's your eyes wot ain't what they was."
Not taking his eyes from the tiny bloodsucker, he muttered, "Nothing wrong with my eyes, old woman. I can still spot a watchman a mile away." He rolled the flea between thumb and forefinger, very hard. "You've got to mess them around a bit," he said as if conducting lessons on the execution of vermin. "They've got hard shells and if you just try to squash them, they'll leap away. But if you roll them hard, it breaks their legs or something and they just sit there." He did so and deposited the flea on the table. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw the insect twitch. Deriving satisfaction from the thought that the thing might be suffering in retribution for the misery inflicted upon others, Jake hesitated a moment, then drove a bone-hard thumbnail into the wood, bisecting the tiny creature. "And there you have done with it!"