Free The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter by D.J. Natelson Page B

“Snowmen, be silent!”
     
    There was a brief moment of quiet before the snowmen began moaning again, pleading with Stephen for mercy, crushing in toward him.  Stephen’s own snowmen were obliged to hold them back, lest they injure the master.
     
    “It didn’t work,” the Jolly Executioner observed.
     
    “Then you should have given me more warning.  I only had time to put the crudest of enchantments on them—enchantments designed to control action, not words.  I did not foresee the addition of mouths—and no, I can’t destroy the mouths without destroying the enchantment, and then I’d have to start from scratch.  But loud snowmen will work as well as quiet—maybe better.”  He turned to the snowmen.  “Form orderly ranks nearby and do not move again without my command.”
     
    “Noooo . . .” groaned the snowmen, as they moved to obey.
     
    “I feel ill,” said Weakstomach.  “This isn’t right.  Why are they afraid?”
     
    Presumably, thought Stephen, because the people who made them were afraid, and I unwittingly channeled that foreign fear into their enchantment.  And it’s not my fault; I didn’t have enough time; but I’m the one who’ll be blamed.
     
    “It’s bad luck to fight surrounded by cowards,” said Twitch.
     
    “Superstitious nonsense,” said Miss Ironfist.  “We’re wasting time—the beast could already have awakened.
     
    “Worse,” said Stephen, “the enchantment is decaying.  It’ll last a couple of hours, but not much more.  We should hurry.”
     
    The Jolly Executioner had, presumably during his long disappearance the day before, located the Beast of Quag in a bowl-like depression less than a mile from camp.  Walking alone in his traveling stride, Stephen could have made the trek in twenty minutes despite the deep snow.
     
    It took the company nearly two hours.
     
    The fault lay, predictably enough, with the lugubrious snowmen.  They took enormous pleasuring in hopping into every shrub, tree, or companion who was—and sometimes was not—remotely in the way.  Every time one tripped or lost a clump of snow or scrapped its side against a twig, it complained loudly to Stephen.
     
    “Master!  I’m suffering!  My innards are leaking!”
     
    “The sun burns me, Master!  I’m in agony!”
     
    “No you’re not,” said Stephen, whose patience had long since evaporated.  “You can’t feel pain.”
     
    “Don’t you love us, Master?”
     
    “How could you treat your faithful servants like this?”
     
    And of course there was the ever-popular standby of “Nooooo . . .”
     
    “Enchanter!” the Jolly Executioner would yell.  “Hurry up!  And control your snowmen!”
     
    “They’re hopping, aren’t they?” Stephen would reply, breathless and harassed.  “If I’d had more time, maybe I could have made something better—but I didn’t, did I?”
     
    Stephen had other problems. With each hop, the snowmen packed more snow onto their bottoms. Within a tenth of a mile, each was hopping on an extra six inches of snow; after two, they were tottering on clumped towers; after three, they were too heavy to move.
     
    “We’re stuck,” they moaned.  “Release us, Master; we can be no help to you.  Leave us in the glorious cold and let us die natural deaths in the spring.”
     
    “Not, I think,” said Youngster, “your best work.  Look—there’s one I made—the one with the horns.  Ugly, isn’t it?”  Tinkerfingers had stayed behind to watch the horses—someone had to, and Tinkerfingers, Youngster gleefully informed Stephen, was the least useful in this sort of situation.  “I tried to make it hideous.”
     
    “I especially dislike the mouth,” said Stephen.  “Snowmen!  You’re being ridiculous.  Separate yourselves from the snow.  You’re magic.  It’s not that hard.”
     
    “We’re tired . . .”
     
    “You’re lazy cowards!”
     
    “We can’t help it . . .”
     
    “No, but you can obey