Golem in the Gears (16 page)

He scored. The pin stabbed into bony flesh. The Hag let out an ear-splitting screech and jumped back. She wasn't seriously damaged, for the leather of her boot pro- tected her foot, but now she was twice as angry as before.

There was an exclamation from Rapunzel. "Go with Snortimer!" Grundy cried to her. "Make yourself small, get on his back; he'll take you safely down!"

"But you—" she faltered.

Grundy lunged at the Hag's ankle, catching it a grazing blow. "I will follow, once you are safe!" He jumped back as the broom came at him again, telling its position more by sound than sight.

"You little piece of excrement," the Hag cried. "When I get through with you, you won't be more than a spot on the wall!" And the broom smashed down with such force that the wind almost blew him off his feet.

"You can't even catch me, you big piece of excre- ment!" Grundy responded.

"Just let me make another light!" the Hag said. She fumbled her way to the kitchen, where there was evidently another lamp.

"Going down," Snortimer called in Monster-tongue.

"On your way!" Grundy replied. "I don't know how much longer I can distract her."

The Hag came back, carrying a new lamp. Light flooded

the chamber. "Where's the damsel?" she screeched, abruptly realizing what had happened.

"She's gone, old fang," Grundy informed her. "She has escaped your clutches at last."

The Hag dashed to the window. "She's descending her own hair!" she cried. "I'll cut it off!" She drew an immense carving knife she had evidently brought from the kitchen.

Oops! Grundy hadn't counted on this! One slash with that knife, and Rapunzel and Snortimer would both plunge to the rocks below.

He charged forward—but now the Hag could see him. She pointed the terrible blade at him. "Come within range, Golem, and I'll skewer you right through your big mouth!"

Grundy hesitated. Her threat was no bluff; she could and would do exactly that. He would not be able to do anyone much good if she wiped him out. Strangely, he felt no fear, now, just a wary frustration; how could he distract the Hag long enough to allow Rapunzel and Snor- timer to reach the foot of the Tower?

The Hag reached behind her and caught the hank of hair that went out the window. It was securely knotted to the chair, and the chair was too big to fit through the window, so the anchorage was good. But now the Hag slowly brought the knife to the taut hair. "One cut, and poof!" she cackled, grinning.

Grundy thought fast. If he charged in, she would skewer him, then cut the hair. His hatpin was no match for her knife. If he threw the hatpin at her, it might distract her a moment, but couldn't really hurt her, and then he would be without any weapon. If he insulted her again, she would merely get even by cutting the hair. He had to find some other way.

He found it: logic. "If you cut that hair, Rapunzel will fall to her death—and you won't have a nice young body

to take over. You'll be stuck up here with no way to get down and no body left to take but mine."

"Yuck!" she exclaimed. She looked at the knife, then withdrew it. "You're only half-right, Golem, but that's enough. I'm not limited to whatever's close at hand; when I become a ghost, I can travel any distance to seek a new host. But it is true that I don't enjoy pot luck; I'd much rather have the body I have so carefully prepared, young and beautiful and packed with exactly the information I have chosen. So I won't kill her." She grimaced. "But you I have no use for. You I can dispatch now."

She lunged for him, her blade sweeping through the place where he stood. But Grundy, alert for exactly this treachery, jumped straight up, came down after her hand passed, and stabbed a mighty stab of the hatpin into the back of her hand.

"Yowch!" she screeched, wrenching her hand away. The pin was caught in it; Grundy had to let go lest he be carried along. But he made good use of this new moment of distraction. He ran to the lamp and shoved at its base, trying to push it over. In darkness he would be relatively safe.

"Oh no you don't!" she exclaimed, recovering herself enough to snatch up the lamp. It had been too heavy for him to budge quickly enough; that ploy had failed.

Grundy scrambled for the window. He grabbed the hair and started to let himself down outside.

The hair was now slack below him; Snort and Rapunzel had reached the bottom! But now the Hag's head poked out the window. "I don't want her to die, but I'm happy to have you die, Golem!" she exclaimed, putting the knife to the hair again.

She had him this time! Grundy could neither let go nor stop her; his life was in her hands. But perhaps his wit

could save him. "If you cut it, you'll still be trapped up there," he said. "You can kill yourself and seek another body—but right now Rapunzel won't accept you, so you'll be stuck with whatever else is handy, and then you'll have to die again to get to Rapunzel. You'll have to get her up here again, without her hair to climb on. That's an awful lot of trouble to get one silly golem."

"Confound it!" she swore. "I hadn't thought of that! I don't like to die any more times than I have to. It hurts, for one thing, and I'm disoriented for a while after I move into a new host. The girl would be apt to get away."

"Too bad, old wrinkle!" he agreed.

For a moment he thought he had overdone it, for her knife slashed at the hair. But then she stopped. "You'll not trick me that way, Golem! I will preserve my descent. But maybe I can still get rid of you!" And she took hold of the hair and started to shake it.

Grundy's grip on the hair was already tiring, for he was not used to sustained hanging. Now he was banged against the ivory wall. He was in worse trouble than ever;

even if she stopped moving the hair, it would not be long before he fell on his own. It was a long way down!

But at least he had saved Rapunzel! If he had to die, this was the way to do it. He had at least done somebody some good.

"Get away, monster!" the Hag cried angrily. Grundy wondered at that, as his hands lost power; he was hardly a monster!

Then his grip slipped. His little hands tore free of the hair, and he fell into the night.

Chapter 9. Escape

A big, hairy hand caught him and hauled him in. Grundy tried to fight, thinking it was the Hag—then realized it was Snortimer. "You caught me!" he exclaimed, dazed.

"Well, I was coming up to get you anyway," the Bed Monster replied gruffly in Monster-tongue.

Grundy shut up. He was weak with relief. He had thought he was going to die, but was glad he had not. After all, he had not yet completed his Quest! It would have been very embarrassing.

Snortimer carried him down to the base, where Rapun- zel waited in the pale moonlight. Apparently this emer- gency had caused the Bed Monster to become less shy of that light. Rapunzel was human-sized, and sitting in the Hag's rowboat, for the tide had come in and flooded the island. Grundy wondered whether she had remained that size while Snortimer carried her down the wall; she must have been very heavy. But if she had turned small, then what about her hair? That had remained full-sized. Well, it wasn't worth worrying about; they were all safely down, and they had the boat.

But Rapunzel's hair was tied to the chair at the top of the Ivory Tower; she could not travel from this spot! Unless—

The damsel drew out a pair of scissors. "Oh, I really hate to do this!" she exclaimed. "But—"

But what choice was there? They had to get moving before the dawn!

She handed the scissors to Snortimer. "You do it," she told the monster.

Snortimer took the scissors in one big hairy hand, and grabbed her hair with the other. Holding it firmly clear of her head, he hacked away with the scissors. In a moment Rapunzel's head of hair was short and wild, while the remainder of her tresses swung from the Tower. It was

done.

Tentatively, she touched her head. "How do I look?"

"Awful!" Grundy said without thinking.

Rapunzel burst into tears. "My lovely hair!" she cried in anguish.

Snortimer, mortified, scuttled under the seat.

Grundy hated to see such a lovely creature in distress. Her hair was nightmarish, but Rapunzel herself remained beautiful. He had to reassure her.

"I meant—" he started.

"I know what you meant!" she wailed.

"But you were so brave to cut it off!" he said.

She brightened slightly. "Was I really?"

"So you think you've gotten away, do you?" the Hag called from above. "Well you haven't! I'm coming down."

"We've got to get away!" Grundy exclaimed. "Rapun- zel, you're big enough to use the oars—"

"Don't you dare!" the Hag called. "You just sit right there, girl, until I come for you."

Rapunzel sat frozen.

"We have to move!" Grundy cried. "Take the oars and

row!"

"I can't," Rapunzel said tearfully. "Mother Sweetness told me not to."

"But she's not your friend!" Grundy reminded her. "She only wants to use your body!"

"I know. But still, I can't directly oppose her. She's all I have known."

Grundy realized that he was up against a truly nice person. Rapunzel, even though she now knew the facts, simply could not bring herself to act in a contrary manner. She couldn't betray the person she had known all her life.

Meanwhile, the Hag was climbing out the window. Obviously she intended to climb down the hair, land in the boat, toss Grundy and Snortimer overboard, and carry the damsel back up to the chamber atop the Ivory Tower. With Rapunzel captive again, the Hag would have all the time she needed to persuade her that it was all a bad dream, and in the end she would have the body.

He had to do something! But what? It simply was not possible for him to man the big oars himself.

"Snortimer, can you—?"

But then the moonlight intensified, and the little mon- ster scrambled farther under the seat. He was no help— not while the light was too strong.

Grundy looked about. Above the heaving sea a mean little cloud hovered. That was the one that had moved out of the way, allowing the moonlight to shine down on them unimpeded.

Was that coincidence? That cloud had a familiar look. Could it be Cumulo Practo Nimbus? This was just the kind of thing that cloud would do, when it saw its oppor- tunity!

But maybe Grundy could turn that malice to his advan- tage! He knew that Fracto had a bad temper and a lot of hot air. If he could make the cloud blow its cool—

"Hey, Fracto!" he called. "What are you doing so far from home? You'd better get back to land, where it's

safe!"

The cloud huffed visibly. That was Fracto, all right!

Meanwhile, the Hag was starting down the hair. This

was going to be close.

"Fracto, you're nothing but a windbag!" Grundy cried. "You used up all your power back in the Gap! You couldn't work up a decent storm now to save your foggy skin!"

The cloud puffed up ominously. An experimental bit of lightning flashed, and there was a rumble of thunder.

"Don't pull your fakery with me, foggybottom!" Grundy cried. "I know you're just a cottonpuff! All you can do is huff and puff and rattle around! You don't have enough power to blow at that Ivory Tower, even!"

The cloud huffed and puffed and blew at the Tower.

"Hey!" the Hag cried. "Watch what you're doing, you soggy mass of nothing!"

Affronted, Fracto blew harder. The Hag swung about on the hair, banging into the Tower. She was only a quarter of the way down, and couldn't move well while the wind

was blowing.

"Leave my ugly friend alone!" Grundy yelled with sud- den inspiration.

Naturally Fracto now concentrated on the Hag. The cloud moved nearer the Tower and began spitting rain at

it.

"Get away from here, you vacuous piece of mist!" the

Hag screamed, furious.

"Yeah, cauliflower-nimbus!" Grundy put in. "Do what

she says!"

The cloud was really worked up, now. It had swelled

to triple its prior size, and fairly glowed with contained lightning. It oriented more carefully on the Tower.

The Hag, perceiving this development, hastily scram- bled back up the hair toward the safety of the chamber. She didn't want to get caught halfway down when that storm let loose.

Fracto, seeing her trying to escape, hastily sleeted on her. Tiny pellets of ice bounced off the Tower, but they weren't enough to make the hair slippery.

"See?" Grundy called nastily. "Your real name must be Cucumber-Fraction-Nimble!"

A jag of lightning fired out of the cloud to strike the Tower. But the Tower was impervious to influences from outside; it stood unaffected. The Hag clambered back into the chamber, then turned to lean out and shake her fist at the cloud. "I'll occupy a roc and flap you into oblivion!" she screeched.

The cloud had not only driven back the Hag, it had blotted out most of the moonlight. "Come on, Snortimer!" Grundy said.