Free Wistril Compleat by Frank Tuttle Page A

wizard
mumbled constantly while leaning over his plate.
    Even so, the wizard's words sounded no
further than his cowl, and the party ate without conversation,
until at last the Barn threw down his fork and knife and shoved his
plate roughly away.
    "The wine makes the meal, I always say,"
boomed the Baron, to Wistril. "Mayhap a better vintage than this
--" he motioned with his half-full wine-glass, sloshing wine out
onto the wide oak dining table "-- will suffice to make apology for
the rudeness of your fare."
    Kern tensed, and as he did so the Baron's
officers nearest him paled and looked quickly away.
    Kern smiled. He'd sought out a mirror, as he
dressed, and had seen himself revealed as a tall, cat-eyed vampire,
with fangs that hung a full inch below his lip, and long white
talons at the tip of every finger. Even as he had stared at his
reflection, his eyes had narrowed, and had begun to glow a ruddy
red in time with the beating of his heart.
    Kern turned to the nearest man, and licked
his lips.
    "Apprentice," said Wistril. "Cease. Fetch the
Baron more wine. Bring a bottle from the North Tower cellar."
    "Is that your best?" said the Barn.
    "It is," replied Wistril.
    The Baron turned. "We shall see about that,"
he said. "Wizard!" He snapped. "Attend!"
    Herthmore turned. "Yes, Baron?" he said, his
voice hoarse and wavering.
    "Is there magic here? In this room?"
    "Sir!" snapped Wistril, indignant.
    "Silence!" boomed the Baron. He glared at
Wistril. "You are a White Chair wizard, are you not?" he said.
    "I am," said Wistril, his round face
reddening and his hands clenching into fists.
    "So your Oath of Peace forbids you to use
magic offensively, does it not?"
    "It does," said Wistril. "How dare you accuse
me of perfidy!"
    "I accuse nothing," said the Baron. "Save,
perhaps, your desire to impress your noble guests. Wizard!" boomed
the Baron. "I asked a question of you!"
    Kern sent a single questioning glance toward
Wistril. Wistril saw him, and when the Baron turned his eyes away
he gestured Kern to silence.
    Herthmore cleared his throat. "I hear,
Master," he said. He pushed back his chair, and stood, and Kern
distinctly heard him whisper a long, strange word before he fell
into a brief fit of wet, deep coughing.
    "Then answer me," said the Baron. "Is there
magic in this room?" The Baron turned a wicked grin upon Wistril.
"Magic meant to confuse or confound?"
    Herthmore twitched and yelped, and the men
seated about him scooted their chairs back and mouthed words of
their own.
    "It is merely a simple glamour," said
Wistril, "Meant only to enhance the beauty of Kauph."
    The Baron spat a word in Oomish, and the
wizard Herthmore bowed and pulled his hood back over his face. Kern
heard whispering, and then a moan, and then the Hall shimmered and
spun, and the candle-flames and lamps went briefly dim. When the
light returned, Kern saw that the Hall had changed.
    Kern blinked. The Hall was dim now. Dim and
dark and sooty and damp, worse that the basement of the South Tower
after a rain and a spraying by a randy wumpus-tom. The floors were
covered with straw, and the rough-hewn table was missing a leg and
propped up on an empty beer-cask, and the ceiling was a low,
cracked mass of mold and spider-webs.
    Kern looked down at his plate, and what had
been silver-worked china was plain, worn wood. His fork was bent
steel; his glass a cracked clay mug -- of all the things in the
Hall, only the plain food on his plate was the same.
    The Baron laughed. He dismissed his wizard
with another hearty slap to the shoulder, and he turned instead to
Wistril and roared laughter in his face.
    "White Chair magic!" he roared. "Think you me
a fool, wizard?" he said. "Think you that I would sit down to a
White Chair's table and eat tough boiled beef and old string-beans
from fine Delve china, and not realize I was dining more on
illusion that substance?" He roared anew, and glared at his men
until they followed suit. "Think you me a fool?"
    Wistril glared,