The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven Page B

beast shrugged and danced about until his saucer-like eyes strained from his rounded boulder of a head. His limbs trembled but would not obey him. His roar of frustration was disturbingly human.
    Aros’s head snapped around. “What in the hell is wrong with your damned magic?”
    Neoloth looked at the talisman cylinder in dismay. “I guess it takes more time to charge than I thought.”
    â€œYou didn’t know ?”
    The ogre screamed and jumped up and down, flapping its arms around and around like a headless chicken. At last it seemed to grasp that its accustomed weapons had been rendered worthless and started trying to stomp his human targets. Horses and mule scattered, braying and neighing to wake the dead.
    Aros avoided the huge feet at first. “The hell with this!” he screamed, and leapt to the attack.
    The next minutes were a blur of jump and slash. Neoloth managed to generate flashes of light that dazzled without damaging. Dancing out of the way of the flapping arms in the bizarrely shadowed moonlight, Aros chopped away matted hair until Flaygod could slash the ogre’s left ankle tendon. The creature bawled and fell to its knees. As if chopping a log, Aros hacked his sword down into the ogre’s throat. Its roars died to screams. And then gurgles. And then it was silent.
    Aros wiped blood from a bruised shoulder. “No wonder those desert dwellers believed the land would defend itself!”
    â€œOh, no…,” Neoloth said. The wizard’s voice was flat. Sad.
    And even without turning around, Aros knew what he would see.
    The wizard stood over Fandy’s crushed body, huddled next to the stone that had broken him.
    â€œIs he?” The question felt stupid even before it left his lips.
    â€œYes,” Neoloth said. “Dead.”
    â€œYou’re a sorcerer. Can’t you?”
    An odd menagerie of emotions crossed Neoloth’s face. “It’s what I’ve been trying to say. The magic is dying.”
    Aros grunted and sheathed his sword. “That leaves the world for me, I think. What can I do to hurry this miracle along?”
    â€œI could give you good manners,” Neoloth said. “That should eat the magic for miles around.”
    Aros laughed. Neoloth was right, damn him. Fandy had been a bit irritating but harmless. He didn’t deserve squabbling at a time like this. The sight of the tiny crushed body sobered him.
    â€œLet’s give him a proper burial,” he said. “And then…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLet’s charge up your damned talisman. I suspect we might need it.”
    â€œI think,” Neoloth said, “that the ogre’s death did that. I’ll check…”
    There was a saying Aros had heard about clouds and silver linings. Another about ill winds.
    Neither felt worth a damn at the moment.

 
    TWELVE
    Warfroot
    The coastal town of Warfroot was a warren of twisted salt-cured docks, dark alleys, and patchwork buildings that looked as if the next stout wind would sweep them into the bay. Aros and Neoloth reached it seven days after burying Fandy, and they had spoken little along the path. But now that they were actually walking the narrow, plank-paneled dockside alleys, the wizard was growing downright chatty. “All right,” he said.
    They’d left horses at a nearby stable, donned fashionably cowled tunics, and begun their search. After a quarter of an hour threading through darkened streets, Aros stopped them before a tavern called Sailor’s Rest. The smell of stale beer and unwashed bodies rolled out in a cloud.
    Neoloth asked, “I hope you know what you’re doing. This is something of a dive.”
    â€œI think,” Aros said, “that this place would need redecoration to qualify as a ‘dive.’”
    Neoloth glared at him. “You speak strangely for a barbarian.”
    â€œI’m foreign,” Aros said, “not stupid. Come