Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 03 - King Kobold Revived

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Stasheff, Christopher - Warlock 03 - King Kobold Revived (v1.0) (html).html

TO MY READERS

This isn't a new book.

But it isn't an old book, either.

Let me tell you how it happened…

Back in 1970, when King Kobold was first published, I waited with bated breath

to see what the critics thought of it—and was rather disheartened to find they

weren't exactly overwhelmingly enthusiastic. That's when I decided I shouldn't

pay too much attention to the critics.

Unfortunately, I couldn't ignore Lester del Rey. I had always admired his

perspicacity and penetrating insight (i.e., he always agreed with my opinion

about new books. Please understand that, at the time, I had never met him.).

When del Rey said, "It isn't a bad book, if you don't expect too much of the

evening spent with it," I knew I was in trouble. Worse, letters began arriving—

and they agreed with del Rey! And though del Rey had been gentle and

charitable, the fans felt no such need for restraint.

So, when the good people at Ace indicated an interest in reissuing King Kobold,

I said, "Not until I rewrite it!"

Please remember, I'd had twelve years to mull over the flaws of the original, and

figure out how to fix them. There were some changes that I knew I definitely

wanted to make, and quite a few others that I was thinking about.

So the book you hold in your hand is not the product of a publisher who tried to

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jazz things up to hype sales; it's the result of a mulish writer who refused to go

through having fans call him nasty names again. If you bought the original King

Kobold fourteen years ago and misplaced your copy-sorry, this ain't quite the

same book you read back then. And, if you never did read King Kobold (an

offense I will overlook only if you were too young to read), this ain't the plot

you've been hearing about. Better, I hope, but not the same. If your favorite

scenes are missing—well, sorry. Or, worse yet, your favorite character—well,

I'm even sorrier; but I just don't think he really worked (not "she"—she was a

total nonentity, and I don't see how anybody could miss her—except maybe

"him"). All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with this revised version; it's still

essentially the same story, but I think it's much more solid, and a much better

read (all right, so I haven't cut out all the lousy jokes). Besides, if you really

liked it better the other way—well, there's always the original edition. You'll

have to search a little to find a copy, but if you'd rather read it, you can.

Thank you all, for pestering your bookstores for King Kobold, and bringing it out

of hiding again. Here it is, the same story—what happened to Rod and Gwen

when they'd only been married a few years, and only had one baby warlock to

contend with. I hope you enjoy it. I did.

—Christopher Stashef f Montclair State College October 4,

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

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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.

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"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.

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"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 df 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

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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 Run-nymede, 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

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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.

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"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 Emigres.' 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

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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 telepathic-ally sensitive f.ungus, virtually anything

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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

The heavy clinging fog lay dense, nearly opaque, over the heaving sea. The

rolling, endless crash of breakers against the headlands at the harbor's mouth

came muted and distant.

High above, circling unseen, a bird called plaintive sentry cries.

The dragon shouldered out of the swirling mist, its beaked, arrogant head held

high.

Four more like it loomed out of the fog at its back.

Round, bright-painted shields hung on their sides.

Oars speared out from the shields, lifting in unison and falling feathered to the

waves.

The dragon's single wing was tightly furled around the crossbar lashed to the tall,

single mast that thrust upward out of its back.

Squat, hulking, helmeted shapes prowled silently about the mast.

The dragon had an eagle's beak, and a tall, ribbed fin for a crest. Two long,

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Stasheff,Christopher-Warlock03-KingKoboldRevived(v1.0)(html\).htmlTOMYREADERSThisisn'tanewbook.Butitisn'tanoldbook,either.Letmetellyouhowithappened…Backin1970,whenKingKoboldwasfirstpublished,Iwaitedwithbatedbreathtoseewhatthecriticsthoughtofit—andwasratherdisheartenedto\findtheyweren'texactlyoverwhe...

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