Mebodes' Fly

Harry Turtledove (b. 1949) is probably best known for his science fiction, particularly his long alternate-history sequence, the Videssos Cycle, starting with The Misplaced Legion (1987), which exploits his deep knowledge of Byzantine history by creating an alternate Byzantine world where magic works. He began by publishing fantasy, starting with Wereblood and Werenight (both 1979) under the alias Eric G. Iverson, and he occasionally returns to the fantastic in his short fiction. He used the Iverson name on the first of his stories featuring Clever Rolf, "Blue Fox and Werewolf" (1983). This is the second story in the series.

Viviane thought Clever Rolf the scribe was reckoning up accounts for the baron of Argentan. The baron thought he was doing the same for Herul, who owned the Blue Fox, the best tavern in town. Herul didn't know where he was, or care.

In fact, Clever Rolf was pleasantly horizontal in a little upstairs room at the local sporting house, for which he also kept accounts. He took his pay there, not in the baron's silver or Herul's ale, but in the place's stock-in-trade. Viviane talked too much, and it wasn't as if she owned him.

His pay sat up, jiggling prettily, and reached for the wine jug on the rickety nightstand by the side of the bed. She did not talk too bloody much, he thought, and certainly did not bring up the size of his belly, which dear Viviane was all too apt to do these days.

The girl offered him a cup of wine. "Thanks, Aila," he said, and reached over the edge of the bed for a coin from his trousers. The wine was not free. He found another small bit of silver. "This is for you, and don't tell that old harridan down below you got it."

She wrinkled her nose. "As if I would." They drank together, well pleased with each other. Aila's sandy hair flipped up and down as she suddenly nodded, remembering something. She put a warm hand on his arm. "Somebody was up here the other day, asking for you."

Clever Rolf scratched his head. "Easier ways to find me than that. Who was he? What did he want?" He wondered which one of his little schemes had gone wrong. Had the baron found out he was involved with the sporting house? Surely not--if old Bardulf wanted to make something of that, he knew well enough where the scribe lived.

Alia said, "I didn't see him myself, and I'm glad of it; from what Mintrud told us afterward, he was cruel. He looked it, too, she said: tall, skinny, somber, with a great hawk's beak of a nose. He spoke with an Easterling accent."

"A rogue born," declared Clever Rolf, who was no taller than Aila, pudgy (too much good beer at the Blue Fox, he always thought), and snub-nosed. "Not a rogue I know, though. What name did he use?"

"Wait. She said it. Let me think. Mi--Ma--Mebodes; that was it... Rolf, what's wrong?"

She sprang up quickly, but not as fast as Clever Rolf, who was already scrambling into his breeches. He put on his tunic back-to-front, and never noticed. A scheme had gone wrong, all right, but no little one--Mebodes was the wizard from whom he'd stolen Viviane. Having lived with her awhile, he was perfectly willing to give her back, but he feared that wouldn't be good enough. Nobody knew much about Mebodes, but his reputation was black. And wizards, black, white, gray--pink, for that matter--enjoyed revenge.

"What will I do?" he mumbled in despair. "What will I do?"

He took the stairs two at a time and dashed through the reception hall, angering the madam and frightening a couple of customers (which angered her more). He was past caring. In blind panic, he flung the door open, crashed it shut after him.

"How kind," a cold voice said. "The mouse runs into the cat's jaws."

Cruel, Aila had told him. He discovered how little weight a word has, next to reality. Mebodes loomed over him. The wizard's eyes were huge, yellow, and unwinking as a falcon's. Clever Rolf saw himself reflected in them. His reflection did not look clever; it looked small, disheveled, and scared. The reflection, he thought, did not lie.

"I m-meant no harm," he quavered. "I c-can explain--"

"What care I for your lies?" Mebodes' hands twitched in anticipation of the torment Clever Rolf would know. His fingers were long, pale, and many-jointed, like a cave spider's legs. He filed each nail to a point.

"But--" Clever Rolf squeaked.

The wizard spat in front of him; his spittle steamed, as if boiling hot. "Had you owned to your crimes, I might have given you a quick, clean ending. But as you snivel like an insect, I think it only just that insects bring you your fate. Sometime soon, they shall. Until then, your life will be--interesting." With a mocking bow, Mebodes stepped round the corner into an alley.

More terrified of standing frozen than of moving, Clever Rolf darted after him, to beg forgiveness one last time. The alley was empty.

He started for home, his knees still knocking. Halfway there a wasp buzzed out of its nest of mud, stung him on the back of the hand, and flew away. He yelped and cursed and plunged his arm into the cool water of a horse trough, none of which did much good. His head went up like a hunted animal's--was that the ghost of chilling laughter on the breeze?

He snarled at Viviane when he got back, and she screeched at him. It might have turned into a nightlong brawl, but the good smell of mutton stew was rising from the pot that bubbled over the fire. Viviane made a couple of pointed remarks about his caring more for his stomach than for her, but served him a big bowlful. Whatever her other faults, she could cook. Maybe that's why I don't heave her out on her rump, he thought, digging in with his spoon. He raised a big chunk of meat to his mouth.

Pleasure turned to horror as he began to chew. Instead of the savor of fat mutton, an acrid taste filled his mouth. He choked, gagged, spat, then gaped at the tabletop, his eyes bulging and stomach heaving. In place of the meat he had put into his mouth, there was a gob of little brown ants, most of them dead, but some still feebly moving. More tiny legs kicked against his tongue and the inside of his cheeks.

He rinsed his mouth again and again with ale, wondering each time if it would turn to scorpions as it passed his lips. Viviane was, for once, speechless. "Remind me not to go rescuing damsels in distress," Clever Rolf wheezed when he could speak again. "Your precious Mebodes has a sense of humor I don't care for." He told her what had happened.

She paled. "You wouldn't hand me back to him, would you?" She had come to know him well enough to make it a serious question.

"He didn't show any signs of wanting you back, my sweet," said Clever Rolf. Viviane glowered at him; no woman cares to hear she is unwanted. Clever Rolf was too caught up in his own fear to worry about her feelings. He went on: "And if he did try to take you, I don't know what I could do to stop him. No, he's after vengeance now, and all from me, all from me."

The scribe sat with his head in his hands, staring at the bowl of stew in front of him. "Do I dare?" he muttered. At last, with trembling hand, he raised another spoonful to his mouth. He gulped it down, as if hoping to swallow before he could find out whether it had turned dreadful.

Nothing happened. He ate more, with growing confidence--maybe Mebodes was still loosing warning bolts from his catapult. Then, with no warning at all, Clever Rolf bit down on a mouthful of beetles. They crunched between his teeth.

He kept shuddering long after the noxious taste was gone--he wouldn't be able to trust another bite of food for as long as he had left. This was no fun at all. Never had one of his finaglings come home to roost so disastrously.

He got through breakfast next morning without catastrophe, but only wondered what Mebodes had waiting for him. Jamming a disreputable hat onto his head, he hurried out the door. For one, he really did have to see to the baron's books.

Mebodes was waiting for him. "Why hello, my friend," he said, though his voice made the word a lie. "I trust you enjoyed your evening meal."

"Screw you," Clever Rolf said. It was not courage, or even defiance--more on the order of having nothing left to lose.

The wizard laughed. "Such spirit! Anyone would think you had the means with which to back up your insolence. Unfortunately for you, we both know that is not the case, do we not? No, I fear you must continue to savor your richly deserved punishment yet a while longer. For your pluck, though, I shall grant you a boon."

"Save it," Clever Rolf said.

"No, no, I insist--and who are you to say me nay?" Mebodes chuckled, a sound that made Clever Rolf want to hide. "Here is my boon: I grant it to you to know your end. You shall recognize the envenomed fly that bears your doom by its eyes, which shall be golden as my own, to remind me of you in your final moments."

The wizard stalked away, lifting his trousers to keep the muck in Argentan's dirt streets from soiling them.

Clever Rolf did not bother following him. All he had to be thankful for was that it was early, and no one had seen him cringing. His head hung; he muttered hopeless curses under his breath as he tramped past the Blue Fox.

An apple tree stood outside the tavern, its fragrant blossoms opening as the sun began to climb in the sky. Bees happily buzzed round the flowers. Or they did until Clever Rolf came by--then the buzz turned furious. As though they were so many hawks, they dove on the scribe.

He shrieked when the first one stung him. Ice ran up his back as he heard the rising, angry drone. Without conscious thought, he jumped through the Blue Fox's doorway.

The hour being so early--for everyone save Clever Rolf and, worse luck for him, the bees--the tavern was almost deserted. One old soak sat blearily at a table, nursing the mug of thin, sour beer to which Herul staked him every day until he cadged enough coins for a stronger fare. And Herul himself, an immensely fat man--fatter than Clever Rolf--with a black beard that reached what had once been his waist, but now might be called his equator, stood by the fire, stirring a pot of porridge. It was thick, strong stuff, and bubbled merrily as Herul dragged his long-handled spoon through it.

"Get out from there, Rolf, you whoreson!" he roared as Clever Rolf dove behind the bar. Save for a yip as a bee stung him on the forehead, the scribe did not answer. He grabbed a dipper, plunged it into the cask of mead that sat between red wine and porter, and sloshed a great sticky puddle of fermented honey over the polished top of the bar.

Herul roared again, louder this time. "Out, out, you dizzard, you loon, you crackbrained jobbernowl, and never come back! I'll make my own reckonings of profit from now on--you, you're a dead loss."

"Oh, put a cork in it, suet-chops," Clever Rolf said with dignity. His stings throbbed, but he was not getting any more of them. Next to the perfume of mead, Mebodes' magic was magic no more. The bees droned down to the puddle one by one. A couple flew away, weaving slightly from the potent brew. The rest stayed to gorge themselves. Clever Rolf crushed them all with a big skillet, then set to work digging the stings out of his flesh.

Herul bore down on him, fist clenched on the long-handled spoon. He realized he was brandishing it like a club, slowly lowered it. His eyes went back and forth from Clever Rolf to the smashed bees.

"Here." The scribe dropped a coin on the bar next to the puddle. "This should cover a dipper of mead. I always thought it was vile stuff, but it came in handy today." Leaving Herul and his solitary customer staring after him, he strolled out of the Blue Fox.

Though one eye was puffed shut, he was whistling as he reached the baron's keep. The half-victory his quick wits had won him gave him back his hope; maybe he could find some way to save his hide (however punctured) from Mebodes after all.

He did not, unfortunately, have any idea of what that way might be.

Bardulf was brusquely sympathetic to his lumps and bumps. "I got stung myself, a couple of years ago," the baron remarked. "Bees are nasty things."

"Yes, sir," Clever Rolf said. He hurried up the spiral stair to the castle's record room. Dust puffed under his feet as he made his way to the accounts--but for him, few people came here.

The parchment account-scrolls smelled of old dust. As a scribe, Clever Rolf found the odor as comfortable as the old shoes he wore. It was doubly welcome today: no risk that musty smell would draw any stinging bees, he thought. He bent above the scroll, frowning when he saw how much the baron had spent for horse leeching.

A silverfish scuttled over the parchment. One day, Clever Rolf thought, all of Bardulf's records would be bug turds, and a good thing, too. But this insect moved with malignant purpose. It darted onto Clever Rolf's hand, then scurried up his arm inside the sleeve of his tunic.

The scribe gave a stifled scream and swatted frantically. The silverfish might have been dipped in liquid fire. It drew a line of agony behind it everywhere it ran. Clever Rolf sprang up from the table, ripped the tunic off over his head. The silverfish was in the matted hair on his belly. Sobbing, he knocked it to the floor and stepped on it. Wherever it had touched him, his skin was an angry red. The pain remained fresh when he went home that evening.

He faced supper with a certain amount of dread, but Mebodes did not disturb his meal. But when he and Viviane went to bed, a horde of ants emerged from the mattress ticking and crawled all over them like an animated brown carpet. Naked but for ants, Clever Rolf and Viviane ran for the creek and plunged in, scrubbing at their hair and digging the insects out of their ears and noses.

When they looked up, Mebodes stood at the stream bank, a glow of pleasure in his terrible eyes. He bowed mockingly toward Viviane. "Only fair you should have your share of enjoyment, too, my dear." Then to Clever Rolf again: "Not long now before the fly." He gestured, as if to make a sorcerous pass. Both his victims ducked under the water. When they raised their heads again, he was gone.

Viviane shivered, half from the chill of the creek, half from fury. "Ohhh!" she said, a long syllable of rage. "He is such a wicked man! Even the other wizards hate him."

"And I don't blame them--" Clever Rolf stopped in amazement. He stared at her with something closer to real affection than he had shown her for a long time.

"Let go of me!" she exclaimed a moment later. "Stop that, you shameless lecher! Stop it, I say--or at least let's get out on the grass. Let's--mmglmph!"

Clever Rolf was not listening anymore.

When he got an idea, he seized the bit in his teeth and ran away with it. He set out that very night, leaving a rolled-up blanket in bed in the hope that Mebodes might think he was still at home. He even left his mule behind and went by shanks' mare. By the time the sun came up, he was halfway to Estreby, which was a larger town than Argentan and boasted a wizard in residence.

Clever Rolf was footsore and yawning by the time he found the wizard's establishment on a side street between a farrier and an apothecary. The sign simply said "Rigord". Either one knew who he was, or not.

Rigord proved to be a tall, sleepy-looking fellow in his forties; his chamber was dustier than Bardulf's record room. He was not, however, lightly befooled. When Clever Rolf tried to present a circumspect version of his difficulties, the wizard drawled, "Ah yes, heard about you: the fellow who diddled Mebodes. Wants his own back now, does he?"

"Well--yes," Clever Rolf admitted.

Without haste, Rigord got up and dug out an astrological tome and an abacus. He cast a quick horoscope, flicking beads back and forth and muttering to himself as he calculated. At last, when Clever Rolf was quivering with anxiety, he said, "I can help, I reckon. Mebodes is strong, but so full of his affairs that he leaves himself vulnerable to magic. Now"--and Rigord's sleepiness fell away--"what's it worth to you?"

Clever Rolf had been waiting for that question, but not so soon. "Ah--three silver marks."

"This is your life we're speaking of," Rigord reminded him scornfully.

"Very well, then--a whole gold piece. I am not a rich man."

"No?" Rigord leaned forward. "What about the treasure you stole from Mebodes along with your leman?"

Clever Rolf quailed. "You know too much. I'll pay you six marks."

"I want the treasure--all of it."

"Would you beggar me? I'll give you two gold pieces, or even two and a mark."

"The treasure." Implacable, Rigord folded his arms and waited.

"I've spent some of it," the scribe said miserably.

"How much? The truth--I will know if you lie." The wizard made a quick pass.

"Maybe a quarter."

"The balance will do nicely--if, of course, you truly want my aid."

Clever Rolf yielded; as Rigord knew, he had to yield. "All right," he said, very low, the picture of a beaten man.

They dickered over terms after that; the scribe did not want to pay before Mebodes was driven off. At last he agreed to let Rigord lay a geas on him, compelling him to fetch the treasure once the magician had met his half of the bargain. The spell was quickly and competently cast. Clever Rolf's mercurial hopes began to revive; Rigord knew what he was about. He might well prove a match for Mebodes.

And deep inside, where it did not show, the scribe was chortling. Mebodes' treasure was largely brass, worth a mark and a half at the outside. Rigord would have done better for himself had he been a less steely haggler. That, however, Clever Rolf thought, was Rigord's problem.

When they went back to Argentan, Rigord rode a mule while Clever Rolf walked once more. The wizard's beast had as lackadaisical a disposition as that which he affected, so the scribe, sore feet and all, had no trouble keeping up.

It was almost evening when Rigord's nostrils started twitching; he and Clever Rolf were still a mile or so outside Argentan. The scribe sniffed, too. "Night-blooming jasmine," he said. "We have some of the finest in the duchy."

"Quiet, fool." As it did at need, Rigord's laziness disappeared. "It's the reek of evil sorcery I smell." He paused, considering. "Aye, likely Mebodes. The spells have an eastern flavor to them."

"Spells?" Clever Rolf's fears flooded back. "Are they done?" If they were, he was likely doomed no matter what Rigord did.

The wizard extracted a packet of whitish powder from his robe, poured a little into the palm of one hand. He mumbled an incantation, moving his other hand in small, jerky passes. Then he spat into the powder. It bubbled and turned a faint pink. "Close, but not quite," he told the anxiously waiting scribe. "Were it red, you could visit the undertaker now and save yourself the wait."

"Heh, heh," Clever Rolf said in hollow tones. "By the gods, then, find him and deal with him before it's too late." He had an inspiration. "If you don't, you'll never see his treasure, you know."

That seemed to stir Rigord. He sniffed again, worked a quick divination with a green twig. It hung suspended in the air. "That way," he said, squinting along it. He repeated the divination several times as they got into town. Night had fallen by then; hardly anyone was--in the street to ask questions.

At last the floating twig pointed squarely at a two-story building bigger and finer than most. "He's in there," Rigord said decisively. "On the second floor, by the angle of things, behind that window there--here now, you idiot, what's so funny?"

"Angle of things, forsooth." Clever Rolf had to fight back hysterical laughter. "It's the town bawdy house."

"Is it indeed? So much the better; if Mebodes is with one of the wenches, he'll hardly be minding his wardspells. Like as not, this is what I saw back in my study."

" 'Affairs', eh? So that's what you meant. Well, all right--now nail the bastard."

"Hush," Rigord said absently. He had lit a small lamp and was heating several strong-smelling potions and liquids over it. Then he poured them one after the other into a small, deep silver bowl. A puff of pungent steam rose from it. Clever Rolf sneezed.

"Hush," Rigord said again. He was chanting now, in Iverian dialect so thick Clever Rolf could hardly follow it. The hair rose on the back of the scribe's neck; he could feel the magical force Rigord was concentrating in that bowl.

The wizard's voice went harsh and deep: "Fiery spirit of the void, I summon thee! Come forth, O salamander; come forth, come forth!" A sphere of coruscating flame rose from the silver bowl. It threw sparks--red, gold, white--into the night. Clever Rolf's mouth fell open in awe.

At Rigord's urging, the salamander slowly floated toward the sporting house. It drifted in through the open second-story window. After a moment of silence, twin screams rang out, one soprano and frightened, the other a baritone roar of outrage that changed in mid-cry to a howl of pain.

"You did it! You did it!" Clever Rolf cried. Exhaustion forgotten, he capered about, hugging himself with glee. "I hope your fireball roasts him like a capon!"

"Then you'll likely be disappointed," Rigord said. "Wizards aren't that easy to kill. But you should be rid of him for a while."

As if to prove him right, Mebodes came diving out of the window by which the salamander had entered. He was a sadly different sorcerer from the one who had terrorized Clever Rolf. Landing in the muddy street with a bone-jarring thump, he got to his feet and ran, the salamander in hot--in both the literal and figurative senses of the word--pursuit. Mebodes would have fled faster had he not had to reach down every couple of strides to haul up his unbuttoned breeches. Each time he did, the salamander scorched his bare backside.

Aila appeared at the window through which Mebodes had crashed. "Serves you right," she shouted at him as he vanished into the night. Then she looked down toward Clever Rolf, who was still cheering in the street below. When she recognized him, she said, "Come on up. You can have this one free, for ridding me of that scoundrel." As she was wearing her working clothes--which is to say, nothing much--the invitation's appeal was immediate and urgent.

"Remember the geas," Rigord called to Clever Rolf, but the scribe's hearing could be very selective when he chose.

Afterward, in the comfort of a well-warmed bed, he gave Aila the whole story (though Viviane, had she heard, would have been furious at how small her role was). Aila giggled when he told how he had used Rigord's covetousness against him. "These wizards, they're not so much," he said grandly.

The candle by the bed lured moths and other insects into the little chamber. For the first time in days, Clever Rolf listened to their flutterings and dronings without a sense of panic. Then one buzzed down to settle on his arm. Aila's face twisted with fear. "Rolf," she quavered, "look at its eyes! That's--that's Mebodes' fly!"

The scribe reached out with a thumb and killed the insect, whose eyes were indeed golden like the wizard's.

Aila stared. "How could you--?"

"Nothing simpler, my sweet." He showed her the dead fly; it had no mouthparts. "For one thing, Rigord told me his spell wasn't finished. But I didn't need Rigord to know that. After all"--he leered at her, his sense of his own quick wit at last completely restored--"didn't you just watch Mebodes running away down the street with his fly undone?"