King Kobold Revived

Prologue

“Sorrowful it was, and great cause for Mourning, that so young a King should die, and that in his Bed; yet Death doth come to all, yea, the High and the lowly alike, and ‘tis not by our choosing, but by God’s. Thus is was that King Richard was taken from us in the fourteenth year of his Reign, though he had not yet seen forty-five summers; and great lamentation passed through the land. Yet must Life endure, and the motion of it never doth cease, so that we laid him to rest with his ancestors, and turned our faces toward our new Sovereign, his daughter Catharine, first Queen of that name to Reign, though it had been scarcely twenty years since her birth.

“Then the Lords of this land of Gramarye sat them down in Council, and rose up to advise the young Queen of her actions, and at their head stood the Duke Loguire, time-honored and revered, foremost of the Lords of this Land, and Uncle to the Queen. Yet she would not hearken to him, nor to any of her Lords, but set her face toward the doing of things as she saw them, and would not heed Council. And what she wished done, she set in the hands of the Dwarf Brom O’Berin, who had come to the Court as her father’s Jester, but King Richard had raised him to Chancellor; and Queen Catharine ennobled him. This did affront all the Peers of the Land, that she should set a Dwarf in their midst, and he baseborn, for she would trust none among them.

“Then did Loguire send his younger son Tuan, who long had courted Catharine ere her Father died, to beg of her that she plight him her Troth, and come with him to the Altar to become his Wife. And she called this foul treason, that he should seek the Crown under guise of her Hand, and banished him from the land, and set him adrift in a coracle, that the East wind might take him to the Wild Lands, to dwell among Monsters and Beastmen, though all of his crime was the love of her. Then was his father full wroth, and all the Lords with him; but Loguire held his hand, and so, perforce, must they all; but Tuan his son swam back to the shore, and stole within the Land again, by night, and would not be exiled.

“Then did Catharine the Queen meet with her great Lords all, in her great Hall in Runnymede, and did say unto them, ‘Lo, it seemeth thou dost take boys from the plow, who know neither Letters nor Holiness, and doth set them above thy people as priests, that they may more certainly do thy bidding; and know that such practice doth offend the Lord God, and affronteth thy Queen; wherefore, henceforth, I shall appoint thee full measure of Priests, and send them unto thee; and I will not brook nay-saying.’ Then were the Lords wroth indeed, but Loguire held up his hand, and they checked. And it came to pass as the Queen had said, that the souls of her people were governed by monks that she sent out from Runnymede, though they did oftimes confirm the priests the Lords had set over their Parishes; yet some among them had grown slack and, aye, even sinful; and these the Queen’s monks removed, and set others of their number up in their steads.

“Then did the Queen summon all her Lords unto her again, and did say unto them, ‘Lo, I have seen the Justice that is done on thine estates, both by thyselves and by the Judges thou dost appoint; and I have seen that the manner of Justice thou dost deliver is not all of one piece; for Hapsburg in the East will hew off a man’s hand for the theft of a loaf of bread, while Loguire in the South will only outlaw a man for a Murder; and I have seen that my people grow restive therefore, and are like to forsake the ways of Law in their confusion. Therefore wilt thou no longer deliver thyselves of Justice, nor set others to judge thy folk for thee; but all shall be judged by men that I shall send among thee, from my Court in Runnymede.’ Then all the Lords waxed wroth indeed, and would have haled her down from her Throne; but the Duke Loguire withheld them, and turned his face away from the Queen, and withdrew to his Estates, and so did they all; but some among them began to plot Treason, and Loguire’s eldest son Anselm made one of them.

“Then, of a night, thunder did roll and fill all the World, though the skies were clear, and the Moon bright and full, and folk looked up and wondered, and did see a star fall from the Heavens, and they turned away marveling, and praying that it might prove an Omen, heralding the healing of their Land of Gramarye, as indeed it did; for the Star fell to land, and from it stepped the High Warlock, Rod Gallowglass, tall among the sons of men, high of brow, noble of mien, with a heart of golden courage and thews of steel, merciful to all, but stern in justice, with a mind like sunlight caught in crystal, that clearly understood all the actions of all men, and his face was comely above all others.

“He came unto the Queen, but she knew him not, and thought him only one among her soldiers; yet there was poison in the air about her, and he knew it, and did banish it; and thereupon she knew him. And she sent him to the South, to guard her Uncle, for she knew that Treason brewed, and not only toward herself. And the Warlock did as she bade him, and took with him, for a servant, the giant Tom. And they came unto Loguire secretly, under the guise of Minstrels, yet they had not been heard to sing. And there were ghosts within Loguire’s castle, and the High Warlock did befriend them.

“Then did Loguire summon all the Lords of the Realm, and they came to him at his castle in the South, that he might counsel them to withhold their power yet awhile; but being met, they brewed their Treason ‘gainst him.

“And there were witches in the land, and warlocks too; and word did go from mouth to mouth, the Rumor that speaks more loudly than the heralds, that the Queen had welcomed to her keep all witchfolk who did wish her protection, and there they held wild Revels through the night, for many were the Good Folk who had sought to burn them; and folk began to murmur that the Queen herself had something of witchcraft in her.

“And the High Warlock did befriend the witches, even Gwendylon, most powerful among them, and she was young, and comely, and he spoke to her of Love.

“And Lord Tuan came by night unto the town of Runnymede, that he might be near unto the Queen, though she despised him, and he came unto the beggars, and sought Sanctuary amongst them; and he taught them Governance, and they made him King among them. Yet the one among them whom Lord Tuan most trusted, he who held the purse and was called ‘the Mocker,’ bethought himself of Lord Tuan’s mock crown.

“Then, when all the Lords were met at Loguire’s demesne in the South, and Anselm with them, they did stand against Loguire’s face and refute his leadership, raising up young Anselm to the Dukedom in his father’s stead; and one Durer, erstwhile Loguire’s councillor, drew blade against him. Then did the High Warlock by High Magic snuff out all the lamps and torches, so that Loguire’s hall lay all in darkness, for his Hall lay underground, and had no windows. And the High Warlock conjured up the ghosts that dwelt within that keep, and they did pass amongst the folk within that hall, and all were sore afeared, aye, even those great Lords that there were met; and the Warlock stole the Duke Loguire away, and brought him secretly unto the Queen at Runnymede.

“Then did the Lords summon up their armies, and all did march against the Queen. But the High Warlock spake unto the Elves that dwelt within that land, and they did swear to fight beside him, and the Witches also. And the High Warlock called up young Tuan Loguire, and he marched forth with all his beggars; and thus they came to Breden Plain: a Queen, a Warlock, and a dwarf, with an army made of witches, elves, and beggars.

“Then, under the Sun, the Lords charged out in bold array, but their horses sank into the Earth, for elves had mined it; and they hurled their spears and arrows ‘gainst the Queen, but witches turned their shafts, and they fell back amongst the Armies of the Lords, and there did grievous harm. Then did Lord Tuan lead his beggars forth, and his father beside him, to finish what the witches had begun, and all the Field fell into melee. And the giant Tom rose up amidst that churning mass, and hewed a path unto the Lords and all their Councillors, and the beggars followed, and did beat down all those men-at-arms and Councillors, and made prisoners of the Lords; but the giant Tom did, in that carnage, perish, and the Warlock mourned him, and the beggars also.

“Then would the Queen have slain the Lords, or chained them into Servitude, but the Warlock spoke against it, and the Queen gazed upon his lowering brow, and knew fear. But Tuan Loguire stood beside her, and faced against the Warlock, and cried that all should be as the Queen had said; but the Warlock felled him with a most foul blow, and struck the Queen in remonstrance, and rode away upon his charmed steed, that no mortal mount could near; yet Lord Tuan in his agony shot forth a bolt that struck the Warlock as he fled.

“Then did Queen Catharine cry Lord Tuan as the Staff of her strength and the Guard of her honor, and spoke to him of love, and gave him the Lords to do with as he wished. Then did Lord Tuan free them, but with their heirs as hostages, and he took their armies for the Crown. And he did take Queen Catharine unto the altar, and became our King thereby, and reigned with Catharine the Queen.

“But the Warlock sought out the witch Gwendylon, and she did draw Lord Tuan’s bolt from out him, and enchanted the wound so that it did no harm; and the Warlock spoke to her of love, and brought her to the altar.

“And the Lords went back to their demesnes, and there ruled Justly, for the King’s Eye was upon them, and all was peaceful in the land of Gramarye, and contentment returned unto its folk.

“So matters stood for two years and more, and men began to trust their Lords once more, and to look kindly upon their fellows again.

“Then the night wind blew wailing and keening from the southern shore, and the sounds of War…”

—Chillde’s Chronicles of the Reign of Tuan and Catharine

“According to the records, the planet was colonized by a crackpot group who dressed up in armor and held tournaments for fun; they called themselves the ‘Romantic Émigrés.’ This kind of group acted as a selective mechanism, attracting people with latent psi powers. Put them all together on one planet and let them inbreed for a few centuries, and you get espers—which is what they’ve got here. Only a small percentage of the population, of course, but I have grounds for believing the rest are latents. They think they’re normal, though, and call the espers ‘witches’ if they’re female, and ’warlocks’ if they’re male.

“What’s worse, there’s a native fungus that reacts to projective telepaths; the locals call it ‘witch moss,’ because if the right kind of ‘witch’ thinks hard at it, it turns into whatever she’s thinking about. So the ones who don’t know they’re witches sit around telling fairy tales to their children, and, first thing you know, the landscape is filled with elves and ghosts and werewolves—I’ll show you my bites sometime.

“In this agent’s humble opinion, the place is a communications gold mine and the answer to the prayers of our noble Decentralized Democratic Tribunal. A democracy can’t survive if its territory gets too big for the speed of its communications system, and the last projection I heard was that the DDT would hit critical size in about a hundred fifty years. If I can turn this planet into a democracy, it’ll have just what the DDT needs—instantaneous communication over any distance. All the guesswork I’ve read about telepathy says it’ll be instantaneous, regardless of distance, and what I’ve seen on this planet bears that out.

“But if the planet is vital to the success of democracy, it is equally vital for totalitarians and anarchists to keep it away from the democrats—and they’re trying to do just that. The totalitarians are represented by a proletarian organization called the House of Clovis, which is trying to organize all the beggars and petty criminals, and doing a pretty good job of it, too. The anarchists are working on the noblemen; each of the twelve Great Lords has a councillor who is, I’m pretty sure, one of the anarchists.

“Where have they come from? Well, they might just have sneaked in from off-planet—but I’ve found at least one gizmo that can’t be anything but a time machine, and I’ve got good reason to believe there’re more.

“What upsets me about the place is the uncertainty factor. Given the local genetic makeup, and the telepathically sensitive fungus, virtually anything could happen—which means that, if I wait long enough, it probably will…”

—Excerpt from Report on Beta Cassiopeiae Gamma (local name “Gramarye”), by Rodney d’Armand, Agent for Society for Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent Totalitarianisms