The Naming of Kinzel Page 6

  He stroked the staff: it thrummed gently in his arms. One of the cats yawned at him suddenly from its place by the fire-

  "I am Kinzel," said the mage to the staff, "and I have need. I have need of the sense of cats, and the eyes and ears, that I might see danger and know it, that I might know my purpose with a hunter's wit before danger finds those of us who may be innocent-"

  The night grew brighter about him as Power flowed. There were small things in the house he had not seen before: a spot where the boy's blood had dripped; a corner near the hearth that was the safest, strongest spot in the house, drawing on a buried spring for cleanliness. The father's corner glowed the dour color of joylessness, while the sleeping boy held nearly as much safety in himself as the good spot.

  He was not alone.

  He could sense sharing: there was another listening, seeing what he saw, and another. The cats, disturbed from their sleep near the boy, moved to him. They sniffed, ears stiff and alert. Their tail tips twitched with a hint of annoyance, a hint of malice, a hint of necessity.

  Kinzel closed his eyes, seeing more clearly. The rain he heard was not dripping quite properly now; and there were signs - knowledge he had no words for.

  Outside, he knew, there were - things.

  The dark creature, the strongest cat, the one he shared vision with, stood on Kinzel's left knee and screeched a challenge at a distant, fomenting doom.

  Through the fury of wind and rains came the answering challenge: the sound of locusts, as if thick at feeding.

  Kinzel's head throbbed. He grimaced at his ignorance, knowing there was a simple spell of no more than nine words that would do the job for him painlessly. Instead, he listened directly to the locust-roar, reaching out as if to a rabbit or lamb, feeling for the soul of the meaning. His stomach clenched itself against cold-blooded thoughts.

  Around him was a strange tableau. Tonedrin stood with ax in hand, facing the door. The cats were as if rooted: both stared at the wood-shuttered window as they crouched against his feet. Idren, not yet fully awake, held fireplace poker as if it were a sword.

  The roar became confusion, the thoughts were lost. Kinzel grasped the staff tightly. He held it lance-like - green vine at spear point. The locust noise strained his thinking, lowering his confidence even more.

  "Friends," Kinzel said uncertainly, "I never meant to bring such troubles to your home. Forgive me, please-"

  Tonedrin whirled, face grim. "None of that! You'd not be here but for my boy and his doings this morning. It looks like honest trouble, and we'll face it straight on. You do what you know to do and we'll follow as best works."

  Kinzel nodded. "I will do what I can, Housefather."

  The round-faced mage closed his eyes, merged hearing with that of the cats, and listened to the unhealthy litany of the locusts.

  Amid the confusion of the chirps, squeaks, and buzzes Kinzel felt the patterns form in his head. There were voices there. Meaning was buried in the layers of sound and Kinzel sought it, located the strands, isolated the voices.

  "There is no surprise here: the house is woke," came a voice.

  Another broke in, swirled about - "I think it is the cats. Yes, the cats are alert for him. He is warned."

  "Then we must move soon. All four together."

  "This will pay me fully and more, Fallan."

  "I hear!" came the clearest voice, the forceful voice. "We move shortly. He is far from greenwood here, is Kinzel the Fool, who spoke once to the unicorn. We will bind his powers to the stones and break his silly staff to kindling. The boy will serve as sacrifice and I shall have those cats after all."

  "Aye, if you say it. But how? He cannot be defenseless as he seems, and he sits with a second of Power!"

  "They are neither as strong as any of us, and neither proper trained. Pool me some Power there, at the door. I will sunder it with wind and drive them out into the open."

  Hearing with cat ears, seeing through cat eyes, Kinzel flung himself to the safe spot. "As you'd live your life, to me. Away from the door!"

  The cats hissed as the Power built up. A glow came from outside the door, the ugly ruddy glow of iron about to be struck by a smith's hammer.

  Tonedrin moved quickly, the dazed Idren not as fast. "I can see it!" he was saying. "It's all around! They're all around us!"

  The door shook as it might from an evening breeze.

  Kinzel saw the Power building beyond it, was awed by its malice. The door shook again, a bit harder.

  The muttering voice of locusts came again, and within it a sardonic laugh. "Grasway, you astonish. Do you think they left the door unbarred for us? Apply your Power to the pool, fool, that I may start!"

  Of a sudden the staff within Kinzel's hand rattled, sounding like bones dancing on granite. It shook and the vines grew full. It shook more and Kinzel's lance-like hold on it became even more pronounced.

  The door! Not loose boards pegged together, but twin trees. Aye, trees!

  Scuffing a pentagram in the dust around his huddled friends, Kinzel too retreated to the center of it. There was no time to build a proper frame, no way to call to him the metal, the wood, the binding wax. The pentangle would have to do!

  The ruddy glow peeked through the cracks of the front door, growing deeper and duller as it strengthened.

  Tonedrin muttered to Idren, "Boy, you stand behind me, slash and poke low. I will take the height. Guard my legs!"

  Kinzel spoke as if singing to the wind. "Spring brings us new growth, O Branch, and new time, O Clock. There is need now for new growth in old trees, sapling grown to proud wood, twin trees twirled tight together all fresh and green, grown side by side all fresh and green. Grow us more: bring us a door solid and firm. For Balance and for Right, I Kinzel, demand it now!"

  "Look!" screamed Idren as the red glow crept beneath the door. The green nimbus of Kinzel's staff brightened the room. Without thinking, Kinzel lowered the staff as if to charge the invading force, and green fire flew, striking the door and pushing the red glow back, back, out-

  "How?" came the locust voices.

  "He's pushed us back!"

  "Greenwood, I swear it!"

  The door swelled, filled its frame completely in solid wood; the doorframe grew tight to it, and the whole to the wall; the wood peg lock was big as a bough now, with green leaves showing.

  A cat hissed, and Kinzel felt the menace at the window; turning, he yelled, "Greenwood all about!"

  The window shuttered itself tight in fresh wood. That frame, too, grew solid.

  "What has gone amiss?" came a locust voice.

  "Preparation!" came the answering tone Kinzel took to be Fallan's. "So, he'd seal it, would he? Call up demons who throw stones!"

  And the house became an occupied drum: the banging near deafening. The cats huddled flattened in the safe spot; the house shook and bounced.

  Kinzel nearly fell over, then made a curt movement with one hand, murmuring quietly three short phrases of three syllables each.

  The sound faded and faded some more, though the house still shook and rattled. One of the few spells Kinzel knew well was at work now: it was the muting spell he'd learned to distance Madog's rants. The movement increased; Kinzel worried that the very roof might be torn away or the house turned topsy-turvy.

  "The house: I require this house to be rooted to the spot like the trees that make it up!" Kinzel petted at the staff, forming the image in his mind and found the staff responsive, humming-

  The movement stopped, though the sound of stone on the walls could still be heard beyond Kinzel's muting and the roof groaned with the weight of the stones thrown.

  A locust-growl from beyond the walls. "We should burn them!" came one voice, and another "We should flood them," and still another said, "We should overrun them entire!"

  "Devils out there. I feel them!" said the small voice that was Idren. He was white and shaking; the poker wobbled in his hands.

  "Mages, Idren. Men. We can fight them, still. I need you
r help. Will you lend me Power?"

  The stricken Idren stared, mouth open, then gripped Kinzel's worn vest.

  "How? Tell me how? How can I stop this?"

  The locust roar grew louder, closer. "He hears us! He must! Let us all move, one then next, adding to what works. Attack!"

  A scream from behind brought Kinzel whirling about. One of the cats - the smaller, reddish one - had been speared quite through by a stick. More sticks flew out of the fireplace one after the other, began bouncing about the house like mad hornets.

  Kinzel brought his staff up to ward off-

  A flash of Power, close at hand then. Idren held his poker as a staff, firestone in hand: the sticks were bursting into vicious flame now as they got beyond the fireplace, flaming into smoking ash. The fire in the hearth grew bright, licked up the chimney, became a shield-

  "Fire and greenwood?" came the locust words. "The other Power stirs, Fallan!"

  "Then we turn ally against him! Burn them. Burn the fields, fire the land!"

  Kinzel rushed to the door, his staff pulling, leading. Tonedrin was there ahead of the slow-footed Mage. The green-grown locks gave way to his efforts. A cry went up from his lips as he succeeded in opening the door. "My land! They destroy me!"

  In spite of the still-steady rain the distant fields were afire, the flames driving houseward unnaturally fast. An occasional rock or stick fell about the house in the center of a blazing circle.

  Kinzel reached for Tonedrin. "Don't! They'll kill you in a moment out there."

  The man's grim eyes bore down on him. "They'll kill me where I stand else, eh? I taught soldiers, and soldiers know you must attack if your keep cannot stand a siege!"

  "Hold, then!" Kinzel commanded with more hope than plan.

  Kinzel could feel the enemy now. Their pooled powers were heavy about the place and he felt that he could nearly see them. "If winds there be," Kinzel yelled into the flaming morass, "give me counter-winds!"

  "And fire!" screamed Idren beside him. "Send fire to fire!"

  It was so: green flame leaped from Kinzel's staff and bright yellow from Idren's poker. A great spark of light arced toward the ruddy flames and beat back against them. The very road seemed aflame, yet the house in the center stood secure. Tonedrin stared in wide amaze at his son, laughing, laughing.

  "At 'em. At 'em we'll take it!"

  Kinzel heard the locust voices once more even as the bright flames reached the ruddy in a roar and around and about the flames consumed each other in the hissing rain. The darkness was sudden and threatening.

  "Overrun them! Creatures and animals! Destroy them. Garanth, you are there! Direct them proper!"

  The curtain of steam and rain held the night dark. Behind the steam were noises of hooves and bellows; cattle and wild things driven by demons and fear.

  Tonedrin ran by Kinzel, back into the house. The noise grew to a rumble. There, near the path the animals were taking as they hurtled toward the house was a gray form, standing with arm upraised.

  Kinzel peered into the night. Hundreds, nay thousands of beasts had been raised to trample them and the house into dust.

  There was no sense fleeing as had Tonedrin, yet-

  "I can fight something I can see!" came Tonedrin's voice in Kinzel's ear. "Help me - maybe we can draw this and-"

  Kinzel stared at the man in amaze. Tonedrin stood near him, longbow and quiver in hand.

  "In my prime I would make such a shot! I swear it!"

  "I am no archer," Kinzel declared, "but I may be able - I will help. Hold."

  He used no spell - he'd used none as a child when he'd healed rabbits and such. Kinzel grabbed Tonedrin's left arm with his right hand, holding onto his staff the while.

  As he might with a rabbit, he said small soothing words, felt for the wrongness, the pain....

  The staff's vines swelled as Kinzel began his request, his demand, of the crippled arm.

  "Be a proper arm now; muscles that bulge and flex, muscles that answer to a man's needs, bones that-"

  In the midst of it, Tonedrin gasped. His face grew pale and he shivered as he stood. Kinzel felt the strain and pain, reached in and drew it to himself that the man could stand.

  "An arm should work as an arm will work," Kinzel was telling the arm and shoulder; "as good as was and better, be well!"

  The staff flowed green energy into him: Kinzel felt it move through him to the man, felt the man's muscles moving beneath the skin, felt shifting of balances, felt pain, pain, pain-

  And it was done, suddenly. Locust voices worried in the night.

  "Where did such energy come from?" One demanded, while another saw the point and asked, "Where did it go? What are they doing?"

  Kinzel leaned on the staff heavily now, his throbbing left arm full of twitching pains, as if he'd torn a dozen muscles. In a moment that was but memory, though the sharpness held him in thrall for several long breaths.

  Tonedrin was quick about it now. He grabbed up his quiver, and in the light from the hearthfire inside, he took a sure glance down the length of an arrow, set it aside, and glanced at another.

  The animals had broken through the dim circle now and were charging the place, led by a pair of lathered bulls. Tonedrin looked beyond them. He put arrow to string, lifted the bow high in his strong left arm, and let fly. Before the arrow topped its course in flight he'd lifted the second to position and pulled the string to his ear again and let fly again.

  Kinzel saw the second flight begin just as he stepped down from the porch. His thoughts were on the tidal wave of creatures: he would have to take all of their attention to divert them. The magic that held them-

  That magic wavered, fell away. The animals charged on heedless; now a simple stampede instead of a weapon.

  The locust voice brought him sounds of confusion. "My hand: an arrow got through your shield, fools! Help me! Another one! Get me away! Bring me back to you!"

  The stampede was enough to take Kinzel's attention. He walked forward, staff held horizontal in front of him, chanting the strange cattle calming sounds he'd learned, not from Madog, but from his distant relative, the herb woman his villagers called Mad Siljan.

  "Disrupt him! Stop him!" The locust voices argued now. "Get me away!" came another, and "It's only an archer, why don't you just use a spell?"

  Siljan it had been who told Kinzel of the unicorn glade, Siljan it had been who'd taught him to hold frantic rabbits and calm them, Siljan it had been who'd taken a boy near drowned by the water he'd stolen from the unicorn and brought him back to full life. Siljan's words ran through Kinzel now and he told them back to the stampede.

  "Earth magic, Fallan!" came a locust voice. "He's using earth magic like an herb wizard!" While another voice demanded "Attack! Continue the attack!"

  Kinzel recalled Siljan's words: "Tell scared animals first that they've outrun the danger, next that there's water near and they can rest, and finally, that there's safe shelter. That's what they need to know to calm them, boy, that's all."

  A deer burst past Kinzel, and another. The bulls came on in the darkness, and behind them more cattle, more deer. The demons and furies were gone - controlled, Kinzel realized, by the wizard Tonedrin had bloodied.

  And now the bulls turned aside uncertainly, and the deer also; the creatures coming on from behind began to slow and-

  A great ruddy glow grew in the air about the farm. Kinzel felt a stab of fear: here they were in the open, and a great wizard still set on revenge. His arm was tired, his head hurt, and all about were milling creatures which could be used against him again.

  The glow began to take shape, to be swirled around by wind, the threat of lightening hung in the air, as if the light rain would turn now to great storm.

  "Attack!" came the locust voice and there seemed conviction there.

  From beside Kinzel, suddenly, the voice of Tonedrin, the sight of Idren with his fireplace poker.

  "Can we press them? The man in the field has hidden among the beasts.
We've confused them, blunted their attack. But we must press on, threaten them elsewhere, or we're still under siege!" Tonedrin held his bow in hand, ready, as his eyes alertly scouted out the land above the backs of the slowly scattering creatures.

  The ruddy glow was expanding, and Kinzel felt Power there, extremely malicious Power. Tonedrin's urge ... Kinzel felt it, weighed it. The man wasn't asking revenge: just safety. And it was Right. It was not good - but it was Right.

  "Idren, help me. Hold my hand here and think hard about your rat traps. Imagine a rat the size of a man. Imagine four rats that size! Tonedrin - point out where the mage in the field was! Gather me Power, staff, gather me Power to do Right. Give me cat sight and the strength to do this thing!"

  Tonedrin pointed in the field and Kinzel felt his ears flatten, his eyes widen. And there! The prey!

  Idren's hand was slim, firm. But from it came strange strength. The ideas Kinzel had now were sudden and clear. He understood the structure of things, the theory behind the traps, the structure of the latches, how one might whittle and-

  The ruddy glow was huge now; within it the face of a man full of anger.

  "I know you, Kinzel!" came the voice. The glow towered above them in the rain; it grew to be the full figure of a mage, taller than two oak trees.

  "I see you there in the field, cowering and holding hands against the dark! Shake and tremble, fool. I shall kill you, destroy those you protect, and then move on to those you care for. How dare you think to raise up magic against me, Fallan? How dare you?"

  Kinzel's eyes were wide, his prey nearly escaped. He concentrated again, schooling himself to ignore the huge thundering voice-

  Now!

  He pounced, did Kinzel, pounced upon that man in the field as if he had been waiting, tail twitching in the grass for just the proper moment, when the man had also been distracted.

  A scream broke the rainy night, breached the spell of Fallan's threats. Locust voice thundered against the night. "I'm trapped, speared! Save me!"