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The Perfect Servant (NOT!)

He looked like a cross between a dragon and a catfish, and he could bend iron bands into pretzels with a flick of his hand. But what Zdim the mild-mannered demon really was, was a scholar of logic and philosophy. That’s why when Zdim was drafter for a year’s servitude on the mortal plane he felt that a monumental administrative error had been made.

And even though Zdim resolved to be absolutely obedient and to do exactly what he was told, the wizard who employed him soon agreed.

After The Knights of the Limits, here is a second collection of endlessly inventive stories by Barrington J. Bayley; dark fables resounding with sombre undertones – love used as a weapon, God assassinated by the ingenuity of man, the secret of death revealed, the inexplicable explained! Tales which will be pondered on, and remembered.
Contains the following:
Sporting with the Chid
The God-Gun
The Ship that Sailed the Ocean of Space
The Radius RidersMan in Transit
Wizard Wazo’s Revenge
The Infinite Searchlight
Integrity
Perfect Love
The Countenance
Life Trap
Farewell Dear Brother
The Seed of Evil

The inhabited galaxy was caught in the crushing vice of a struggle for power. The political titans of the planets of mankind were making their bids for supremacy.

The contestants: Cornice, man of strange powers, authority in the spheres of the intellect; and Bassett, man of money-power, financial and business wizard.

As the association of human worlds drew near the teetering edge of internal revolutions; one of these men would be in a position to triumph. The only thing that neither side could foresee was that there were Others hovering among the stars, loo ling for new worlds to conquer!



(First published 1959)

THE WIZARD KNIGHT springs from the myths, legends and literature of times past.
A teenager passes from Earth to a magical realm of seven worlds, where he is given a hero’s adult body and named Able. Though forced to act as a man, inside he is still a boy, even as he sets off to find his destined sword and become a knight.
In his quest he battles giants, meets gods, heroes and a sorceress (who repeatedly tries to seduce him), and serves the mercurial dragon king Arnthor in a was that could end everything.

King Jorian was rather attached to his head. Hence, he felt his promise to seal the Kist of Avlen, a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts on magic, was little enough a price to pay for a chance to escape his own beheading.

But when the quest pitted him against one peril after another – a murderous wizard and his giant squirrel, a castle full of executioners, a marauding troop of ape men, and a voluptuous 500-year-old princess who was also a serpent – Jorian wondered if he’d made a good bargain!

The continuing adventures of Tarra Khash, Hrossak, in the Primal Land at the dawn of time.

Long before Atlantis and Mu, in olden Theem’hdra the Primal Continent, there existed a world of swords and sorcery, of magic and mayhem, and of wizards, demons, and alien gods from far, dark stars. One of the principal players in this land of myth and legend was Tarra Khash, Hrossak, an inveterate wanderer and adventurer.

Join Tarra now in the ultimate challenge, the ultimate quest: to save a world from the menace of pit-spawned demons, called up from hell by Sorcery in Shad!

World War II veteran Edward Bond’s recuperation from a disastrous fighter plane crash takes a distinct turn for the weird when he encounters a giant wolf, a red witch, and the undeniable power of the need-fire, a portal to a world of magic and swordplay at once terribly new and hauntingly familiar. In the Dark World, Bond opposes the machinations of the dread lord Ganelon and his terrible retinue of werewolves, wizards, and witches, but all is not as it seems in this shadowy mirror of the real world, and Bond discovers that a part of him feels more at home here than he ever has on Earth.

Marked with the tainted sword of the evil Prince Mephtik, Jarral Gullen will die horribly unless both the blade and the prince are destroyed by the next full moon. With the help of his friends, Archer, Scythe and the Lady Mandragorina – a band of magically talented adventurers – Jarral undertakes a perilous journey to Mephtik’s demon-guarded fortress. Battling monsters and demons, they fight to overturn Jarral’s sentence of death.

According to the wizard Cryl, only Jarral can save the country from Mephtik’s evil forces. Of the four friends, Jarral alone possesses the greatest magical talent. But will he live long enough to use it?

When Magic Goes Awry . . .

What is an aspiring apprentice wizard to do when she finds her mentor and master frozen in his tracks by mysterious magics?

Kilisha of Eastgate, a promising young student of wizardry in the city of Ethshar of the Rocks, still has much to learn before she can assume the robes of a journeyman enchanter. But when her teacher, the venerable Ithanalin the Wise, is overcome by a peculiar spell that scatters his soul amongst a collection of runaway household furnishings, it is up to Kilisha to find the cause and restore him to his former self. Adventure and mayhem abound.

She was haunted by Thunder and Plagued by Dreams… strange, dark dreams of a world beyond time and space, a land of magic and mystery. But Charley know it was more than a dream – for her friend Sam shared her visions.
Suddenly, the dreams become a reality…as a raging storm sweeps Charley and Sam to the fantastic land of Akahlar, where unicorns and griffins run free, an enchantress commands a den of unearthly pleasures, and a wizard warns of a terrifying, inescapable event:
The changewinds are coming…savage, purple – tinged storms that alter the shapes of man and beast alike. Soon, all creatures must look to the skies – and beware…

Their job is to bring back the goods bought but not paid for by San Francisco’s deadbeats. But the repo men of Daniel Kearny Associates have their own problems. Boss man Dan Kearny has been bounced by his wife. Bart Heslip is wearing leather in the Tenderloin, and Ballard has finally met a woman who’s his match.

Just when things couldn’t get tougher, four DKA cases come together – with a bang. Shotguns, politics and a multimillion-dollar brawl between two high-tech wizards open up bad blood on the streets, exposing a plot to punch DKA’s ticket for good.

In a barbaric, demon-infested world, no one stands against the all-powerful magic of the Unnamed Enemy, who is called Master of Fiends. No on except young Jarrel and his three friends – Scythe, Archer and Mandra – each with their own special powers. And they have taken on the impossible task of rescuing their friend, the wizard Cryl, who is held captive beyond the Barrier Peaks.

Trying to pass beneath the Peaks, they must battle the weird beings of that underworld and their monstrous ruler, the Keeper of the Chasms. And beyond those terrors lies something even worse – the ghastly realm of the Enemy, and his demon horde from the Farther Darkness…

She is known as Seeker. Spellbound by the Faerie Queen, she has abducted human children for her mistress’s pleasure for what seems like an eternity, unable to free herself from servitude and reclaim her own humanity.

Seeker’s latest prey is a Merlin. Named after the legendary wizard of Camelot, Merlins are not simply those who wield magic – they are magic. Now, with the Prometheus Club’s agents and rivals from Faerie both vying for the favor of this being of limitless magic to tip the balance of power, Seeker must persuade the Merlin to join her cause – or else risk losing something even more precious and more important to her than the fate of humankind . . .

Against all expectations, Krispos has won the crown of Videssos. But how long could he hope to keep head and crown together?
For trouble was brewing in every quarter. Civil war erupted under Petronas, the late Emperor’s uncle. A brilliant general and a canny politician, Petronas had a very personal score to settle against the upstart Krispos.
And even as rebel troops took the field against the untried Emperor, outland raiders swept down from the northlands in a tide of carnage. The power stemmed from foulest sorcery, and Videssos’ wizards could not counter its evil curse.
Krispos’ reign showed every sign of being brief – and very bloody…

The Undesired Princess
Rollin Hobart thought he was a logical, sensible man – until he was transported to a world that was perfectly logical but not sensible in the least.

The Enchanted Bunny
Joe Johnson thought he had his hands full ghostwriting a Senators memoirs – but that was before he fell into the middle of a fairy tale, complete with wizard and fire-breathing dragon.

Two reluctant heroes using their modern knowledge but finding that things don’t work quite the way they’re used to. But they’ve got to try, because nobody else can save the world – and unless Hobart and Joe succeed they and their new friends are going to be horribly and realistically dead.

Darian left his home at the edge of the Pelagiris Forest when barbarians attacked Errold’s Grove and killed Wizard Justyn. Now, under the watchful eye of the Hawkbrothers, Darian is honing his craft and gaining new mage skills, not the least of which is an affinity for mind-speaking with his closest companion, the Hawk Owl Kuari.

Keisha, a nartural-born healer, is proving indispensible in Errold’s Grove, but her destiny seems ordinary when compared with her sister Shandi, who is Chosen to be a Herald.

But there is much more in store for Darian and Keisha: they have a task, the outcome of which will affect all of Valdemar – and their guide is to be the legendary hero of the Mage-Storms, Firesong himself.

Darian is apprentice to the Wizard Justyn in a small Valdemaran village. He is unwilling to hone his skill in magic as he believes it is quicker more efficient to achieve your ends by purely physical methods. When Errold Green is suddenly and devastatingly attacked by a force of men accompanied by monstrous creatures of magic, Justyn makes a dramatic last stand, destroying the village in a cataclysmic spell that Darien witnesses. Escaping into the forest, Darien is chased down by three of the enemy only to be saved at the point of capture by the mysterious Hawkbrothers. It is the beginning of a new life where he will for the first time realise the worth of the magical talent he has always wanted to be rid of.

Jon-Tom, the Spellsinger, isn’t getting any younger. And neither, as Jon-Tom is fond of pointing out, is his otter friend, Mudge. But their not so long in the tooth that they’re completely content to laze by a riverbank. Not, that is, while there’s still adventurning to be done.

And when a lost chord comes up, clearly wanting Jon-Tom and Mudge to follow it, a little gentle adventuring, with the usual gaggle of spoiled princesses in peril, seems to be on the cards. But the chord leads the intrepid pair into deadly danger and, unless Jon-Tom’s magic can overcome the machinations of an evil wizard, there’s the real possibility of the world being plunged into discord and chaos…

The Lyonesse sequence evokes the Elder Isles, is a baroque land of pre-Arthurian myth now lost beneath the Atlantic, where powerful sorcerers, aloof faeries, stalwart champions, and nobles eccentric, magnanimous, and cruel pursue intrigue among their separate worlds . . .

Prince Aillas of Troicinet is betrayed on his first diplomatic voyage and cast into the sea. Before he redeems his birthright, he must pass the breadth of Hybras Isle as prisoner, vagabond, and slave, an acquaintance of faeries, wizards, and errant knights, and lover to a sad and beautiful girl whose fate sets his bitter rivalry with the tyrant Casmir, King of Lyonesse.


(First published in 1983)

The dark force known as Shadow had been defeated, but its world-spanning web of power had survived. This incredible magical weapon was now held not by a prince or wizard, but by Pellinore Brown, a marketing consultant from Germantown, Maryland.

Pel Brown wished no one ill; he merely wanted his family back. But the Galactic Empire that had seen Shadow as a threat saw him as Shadow’s heir, a menace to be destroyed as Shadow had been. And when the awesome magical might of Shadow’s legacy was turned against the rayguns and spaceships of the Empire, entire planets were caught in the middle.

Pel Brown wished no one ill – but hundreds would die to put an end to … THE REIGN OF THE BROWN MAGICIAN

Mervyn, wizard and Fluxlord, leader of the Nine Who Guard, faces the ultimate threat of the opposing Seven Who Wait: the opening of the Hellgates to World. Closed more than two thousand years ago, they are portals to unknowable danger and, perhaps, great power.

Mervyn must gather the shattered forces of guardianship, dispersed and reeling after the battle with Coydt:

Cassie, once the powerful saint and crusader, now the brainwashed slave of an oppressive male dictatorship.

Spirit, her daughter, controlled by her mysterious Soul Raider.

Jeff, Spirit’s son

Matson: he will lead the entire force of the Stringers Guild to war, if need be.

But all of them are doomed to death unless they can become Masters of Flux and Anchor.

In Videssos the city, tribune Marcus Scaurus was bored. The legion that had been magically transported to this strange world was far away. But the Emperor’s niece Alypia was near – and willing.

When their secret trysts were betrayed, Emperor Thorisin Gavras was forced to condemn Marcus as a traitor – but with a promise of freedom and Alypia, if he could reclaim a rebel province from a fanatic usurper, with no military aid. With only centurion Gaius Philippus, Marcus set out to try the seemingly impossible task.

But the fates conspired against them, driving them further westward, into the innermost sanctum of Videssos’ great enemy Yezd – and toward the torture chambers of the evil, deathless wizard-prince Avshar.

But behind them, without orders, the men of the legion were on the march!

The Great War of the Gods means nothing to the proud people on the mortal planet – until Akhran the Wandering God decrees the union of two mighty feuding clans. Though the families are fierce Warriors, they are few in number. Even the marriage of Khardan and Zohra is not enough to over power the strength of the invading army or prevent the imprisonment of their peoples. Now, with Khardan and Zohra mysteriously missing – seemingly cowards who hid from certain defeat – the two clans have lost all hope of ever again seeing their beloved open skies. But Prince Khardan and Princess Zohra, aided by the wizard Matthew, have been given another mission . . . a mission that at first seems less useful than counting the many grains of the desert sands, but soon proves to be of far more lasting importance.

Muzic Inc had become a music industry giant by staying one step ahead of the game, but for some reason APs (totally cybernetic rock stars) had failed to ship gold.
That was where Glorianna O’Toole came in. The Crazy Old Lady of Rock and Roll was well into her sixties, but with her producer they hoped to synthesize an AP that would really take off.
Glorianna hated everything Muzic Inc had done to the rebel music of her youth, but for the sake of a steady supply of designer dust she was prepared to try and rekindle the revolutionary music spirit of the 1960s.
Meanwhile, at street level, the wire wizards had come up with a new piece of technology: a portable trip machine that made Owsley acid look like a vitamin supplement…