The Compleat Enchanter

L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt

1989 (Fixup)

A quick note on the spelling of the title - 'Compleat' is a valid alternate spelling of 'complete' though rather archaic. It has been dying out over the last few decades.

This is actually a fix-up of a number of stories:

• The Roaring Trumpet & The Mathematics of Magic which were originally published together as The Incompleat Enchanter (c)1941;
• The Castle of Iron (c) 1941;
• The Wall of Serpents (c) 1953;
• The Green Magician (c) 1954.

The psychologists of the Garaden Hospital have, under the leadership of Dr Reed Chalmers, developed a technique of translating themselves to other locations within the multiverse. All that was required was the ability to visualise their destination. Dr Chalmers urges caution on his colleagues but Dr Harold Shea, faced with marriage to the redoubtable Gertrude Mugler, feels the urgent need to sow a few wild oats before settling down.

In 'The Roaring Trumpet' Harold decides that he would like to travel to the continuum that corresponded to the Irish tales of Cuchulainn but after he invokes the travel spell, he does not find himself in the green lands of Erin, but is faced by a freezing wasteland and a one eyed traveller.

Eventually he learns that he has come to the world of the Aesir as the Time approaches and he has to decide who's company he shall fight in at the end for he can not read the books he had brought to help him stay alive nor do his technological devices work. Even worse, he can't read his English books to work his technique to get back to his home. Is he stuck?

In 'The Mathematics of Magic' Harold and Doctor Chalmers discuss Harold's near-disastrous adventure in the universe of the Aesir. Dr Chalmers reckons that it should be quite easy to visualise the sort of world that they wanted to visit; the fine tuning being done in quoting poetry.

Their first systematic adventure is to Spenser's Faerie Queene which Dr Chalmers reckons would suit both their abilities. Almost from their arrival they find themselves faced by a degree of danger that caused Dr Chalmers to worry for their safety. But Harold is in his element and when they encounter with Belphebe he knows what it is to fall in love. However, they have a foul coven of Wizards to destroy before he can act on his heart's desire.

In the final battle as Harold and Chalmers face down the leader of the Wizards a mighty enchantment is raised to negate all effects of magic. Faced with that Harold is forced from this ideal world back to his home continuum bereft of Chalmers but with Belphebe.

In 'The Castle of Iron' Belphebe suddenly goes missing in a normal forest. At first Shea is not too worried, thinking that she's been returned to the world of Faerie, but when the disappointed Gertrude reports Belphebe as missing he finds that the local cops look upon disappearing wives with disfavour! Shea does try to explain but the cops don't believe his explanation.

Belief, of a sort, is forced on them as they are all swept up in a vortex and deposited in Kublai Khan's Pleasure Dome. But for Shea and two of his companions, this proves to be a temporary halt as they are dragged through into a new reality where Christian and Moor vie for the lands of Southern Europe (the Orlando Furioso for those up on their classics :-)).

Here they find Dr Chalmers and his Ice Maiden companion. Chalmers having arrived there in order to find a magic strong enough to make her a real woman rather than the construct of Ice she still is. It was Chalmers who had snatched Belphebe but she had been enchanted to forget who she was and had run from the Moorish castle. As Mages of Mohammedan and Christian persuasion contend for sorcerous supremacy and the armies for physical ownership Shea has to search both for Belphebe and his colleague who has succumbed to Lycanthropy!

With Shea and Belphebe back in peaceful Ohio, there are a couple of loose ends still lying about - not least Shea's colleague Walter Bayard and Pete the cop, both still stuck in Xanadu. In 'Wall of Snakes' Shea and Belphebe are compelled to go looking for them when they find out they are getting heat from the local cops. This time they decide to try the Finnish epic of the Kalevala - the only continuum they could think of that had strong enough magics for their requirements. Thankfully for Bayard, they knew enough to call him from his exile and fortunately for Pete the Cop, Bayard had learnt enough about him to call him up. But there was a catch; in payment for the Mage's aid in calling Bayard and the Cop to him the Mage requires the group to help him in a feud with equally powerful neighbours. Here, Shea has to act as chief mage of the group and as well as their swordsman - his epee confusing the heck out of those he faces. All appears well until Walter, testing his powers of magic, comes up with a spell that counters that of their ally leaving them exposed to immediate retaliation!

In order to escape their imminent execution, the policeman sings of his beloved Ireland which transports them from imprisonment in the Kalevala to the emerald green of the Emerald Isle. Harold Shea had achieved his heart's desire to get to visit the hall of Cuchulainn in 'The Green Magician'.

The group were the next best thing to naked but the demands of hospitality are recognised by Cuchulainn and his men, though Cuchulainn expects Belphebe to reciprocate in the application of hospitality! An alleged curse is countered which leads to an application of the poetic justice as Belphebe is unable to share Shea's bed. Brodsky the pseudo Irish cop has imbibed the tales of Errin at the station house and his singing wows two courts as they attempt to stop a fight that would destroy Errin's heroes. But while he sings Shea and Belphebe are forced to run from treachery into the lands of the Sidhe. There they are granted a boon of aid for aid.

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This is part of the Fantasy Masterworks series.

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