Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (18 page)

"I dare not," the old woman whispered. "The pain is held at bay only by the spells I've cast-and even with their aid, 'tis like to drive me from my senses!"

"And if you repent, you lose your magic powers, so the pain will rip you apart? But remember I tried to recall the rules, as I'd learned them from Dante. "If you suffer the agony patiently here on Earth for the few days you have left, it will take centuries off your tortures in Purgatory."

"I fear the pain too much," she gasped in despair. "I am too far sunk in cowardice!"

I bit back the urge to tell her she deserved what she was getting, then-I'm sure it wouldn't have seemed that way to me, if I'd been the one that was in agony. I frowned; what to do? If she couldn't repent because she was in pain, but the only thing that made her want to repent was that same pain ...

No, it wasn't. It was fear of eternal pain, in Hell.

"If I can make the pain go away," I asked her, "would you still want to repent?"

"Aye, assuredly!" she gasped. "Anything to save me from an eternity of agonies as I've felt now!"

"Probably worse," I reminded her. "Well, let's see what we can do.

What kind of pain?"

"A gnawing, a hideous gnawing!" She pointed to her belly.

"Here!"

"Not a burning pain, like a hot coal?l, "Nay! 'Tis as if something did eat me from the inside, with terribly sharp teeth!" Not appendicitis, I guessed-but it did sound like abdominal cancer, and she was sure old enough.

I sat back on my heels, frowning. How do you use magic to cure cancer?

Then I remembered that "cancer" is Latin for "crab," and that the disease was named that way because it felt as if a crab were digging you out inside with its pincers.

So how do you fight an inside crab?

obviously, bring it outside.

"Gilbert," I called, "come over here with your sword."

"Nay!" the witch shrieked.

"Oh, it's not for you," I said impatiently. "No mercy killing-I'm not about to end your mortal agony by sending you to everlasting torture. " Gilbert came up, sword ready, frowning. "What moves, wizard?"

"A crab," I told him. "I'm expecting a giant crab, or something ery much like it. If it shows up, stab it. Frisson?

v "Aye, Master Saul." The poet edged up, trembling.

"See if you can't cook up a verse for killing shellfish. Okay, folks."

I took a deep breath, tried to ignore the gnawing in my own middle, and reached out for the scrap of parchment Frisson handed me. I read it, chanting,

"Get you gone up-channel With the sea crust on your plates, And get out of that body With the burden of your freights!" Nothing happened.

Frisson's face stretched so long I thought it was rubber. "I have

failed!"

"No, I don't think it was you." The rules again. "She's in the power of evil now, and our spells are based on goodness, so they can't touch her." Except for spells inducing remorse-I'd found that out with Sobaka.

I wondered if I would have to use them again. "Woman! I cannot cure you unless you repent! You have to open your soul to God's race, or all the good will in the world can't touch you!" She was still a moment, rigid. Then she convulsed around the agony in her middle again, screaming and crying out, "I repent me!

Aiiee, even if I die in agony, I will not suffer thus for eternity! I forsake Satan and all his lies!"

Then she screamed, as the king of all pains racked her body again-a souvenir from her boss, no doubt. But the woman had amazing grit; she held on, and when the spasm passed, she went right on where she'd left off, though in a husky whisper. "May God forgive my sins! I forswear my pact with the Devil!"

Then she screamed again.

I started chanting on the instant, repeating the verse:

"Come forth from salty bloodstream With your pain that cramps and grates!

Get you gone up-channel With the sea crust on your plates, And get out of that body

With the burden of your freights!"

The witch gave one last shriek ' then fell silent, panting hoarsely as, between Gilbert, Gruesome, yself, and the huddled witch, the air seemed to thicken, growing darker and darker. Then, all of a sudden, it snapped into sharp, clear detail-and a crab three feet wide, with yard-long claws a foot thick, was scuttling straight toward me, its pincers aiming for my throat.

I yelled and jumped back, just as Gilbert shouted, "For Saint Moncaire and for right!" and leapt in, stabbing down. His sword skewered right through the whole crab, pinning it to the forest floor-and he had the sense to jump back. A high-pitched keening pierced my ears, and I fell away, hands pressed over them. Gilbert was staggering, too, fingers in his ears, while the crab scuttled, thrashing about-until it pulled the sword free from the earth and came straight at the squire.

With a bellow that shook the trees, Gruesome leapt. He landed on the monster with both feet; its shell gave with a sickening crunch. Pincers waved wildly, snaking back to snip at Gruesome's feet-but he reached down, catching the claws in huge hands, and straightened up, wrenching them loose. The monster screamed-I heard it even through my hands-then went limp.

The clearing was very quiet.

I looked around and saw Frisson, over at the base of a tree trunk, his lips moving silently.

I sat up, dazed, taking my hands away from my ears, but keeping them close, just in case.

The only sound I heard was the roar of triumph as Gruesome jumped up and down on the shell, then tore open the claw and thrust it toward his mouth ...

"Gruesome, no!" I shouted.

His fangs clashed together but held back, as if he'd just bitten down on a spare auto fender. Then he held off on the claw, looking down at me resentfully. "Hungry!"

"And you certainly deserve a ten-course banquet," I said quickly, stumbling over to him. "I'll conjure one up for you, as soon as we're done helping this poor old lady! But not that meat, Gruesome! Bad for you! Shellfish has parasites! Very bad! Especially since the pieces of this one might pull themselves together inside you and start trying to eat their way out!"

Gruesome stared at the claw as if he'd never seen it before.

'Tis well spoken," Angelique said. "The monster weakened outside a host's body, and quickly-but would it not regain strength, once within? " Gruesome hurled the claw away with a howl of frustration-but even as he did, it was fading, fading ... and was gone. So was the huge plastron he was standing on, and all the little legs, and the other big claw. Gruesome stared down, dismayed; the lower edge of his huge lipless mouth quivered.

"Shellfish never did stay with me long," I sighed. "Always hungry again in an hour. Don't worry about it, big fella-we'll get you a whole steer, in just a few minutes."

"The witch," Gilbert said softly.

Something in his tone reminded me that without the lash of pain, our witch might not be feeling so remorseful. In fact, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't go back on her repentance.

She was sitting up, staring down at her midriff wide-eyed, pressing experimentally here and there. " 'Tis 'tis gone! I am well!

No more hurt! " ,i,d still take it easy for a while, if I were you," I said. "Just because we've got it licked for the time being, doesn't mean it won't come back."

"Nay, it will not, for I saw it torn apart by your huge troll!

Amazing, most amazing! Who would have thought there was a crab within?

Who would have thought to have conjured it out to fight it with steel?"

"It faded away," I reminded her. "it could reappear inside you-or another one just like it."

"Even if it does not, I may find myself beset by another illness, right quickly." The old woman looked up with tears in her eyes.

"Alas! How comes it, good stranger, that you would help me, who have been so cruel to so many and torn the life from no few?

"I can't resist a call for help," I said, with some self-disgust.

"I know that makes me a chump, but-" "Then a 'chump' must be a most excellent thing! Oh, I will sing your praises wherever I go!"

"Mayhap," Gilbert put in, "it would become you more to sing God's praises."

"Aye, indeed!" The witch sank down on her knees, clasped hands upraised. "I repent me of all my sins! I would that I could atone for each and every wrong I have done! Dear Father, forgive me!" Nothing happened, no thunderclap ... but a look of peace swept over her face, and her eyes widened in surprise. "Why ... is it thus?" she whispered.

"The peace of God." Gilbert nodded. "Yet you must seek out a priest, poor woman, as quickly as you may, that your sins may be shriven. " "Even so! That I shall!" The ex-witch pushed herself to her feet, gathering the rags of her robes about her. "And I must go quickly, for if the queen should discover my betrayal, I shall die quite quickly!"

"And in agony," Gilbert nodded. "Therefore tarry not." The old woman shrugged. "The agony matters naught; I deserve far worse than ever she could wreak upon me, for all the wrongs I've done. Nay, almost would I welcome it now, that it might ease my burden of guilt. Yet I would not have it for eternity, and therefore will I go hotfoot." She whirled to me, hands upraised in gratitude. "Oh, stranger, I cannot thank you enough for your pity and aid! You have behaved as a true Christian, nay, as a saint would have! May you be blessed forever!"

"Glad I could help," I said, uncomfortably aware of everyone's eyes on me. "Now go your way and try to help others as I've helped you."

"I shall! Oh, I shall! And shall praise your name every night, in my prayers! Farewell!" She turned and hobbled into the woods, and was gone from sight.

"You have wrought well for God this day, Master Saul," Gilbert said softly.

I shrugged impatiently. "I did something good for a human being, out of entirely selfish motives."

"Selfish?" Gilbert frowned. "How so?"

"Because it made me feel good inside." I raised my voice. "Hear that, angel? I'm grateful for your help-but I had it coming, because what I wanted to do was also what you wanted done! I'm not on your side! But I'm not on their side either! Got that?" But I felt a strange, vagrant wave of amusement that almost seemed to blow through me like a breeze, and I had to turn away fast to escape Frisson's long and thoughtful gaze. "Come on, troops. We've still got a long day's hiking ahead of us." But we couldn't have been hiking down that trail for more than ten minutes before the roadway exploded in front of us.

The explosion kicked up a geyser of dust, and there stood the wicked queen herself, shrieking pure venom, her rolls of fat shaking with rage. "Vile invader! Your meddling has cost me five minutes'

agony, hot irons searing all through my body! My master has punished me shrewdly for letting another soul escape damnation-and has commanded me to obliterate you and your friends! Yet first, I shall see you suffer as I have suffered!"

But it wasn't me she threw the first whammy at, it was Frisson, stiff-arming a gesture that twisted as it stabbed while she bellowed something I couldn't understand.

Frisson screamed and fell, writhing.

I shouted, "For the unquiet heart and brain,

A use in measured language lies;

The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain." Frisson relaxed with a groan of relief.

"Meddler!" Suettay yelled. "Rogue! Villain!" Yes, I did detect a note of panic there, a note of fear.

Of me?

No, Of her master.

"Mendacious mendicant!" she screeched, then added some syllables in the Latinlike language, winding up to throw me down. I took a deep breath for a counterspell, hoping I'd think of one in thing pressed into my palm.

time-but on the inhalation, I felt some Looking down, startled, I saw some chicken-track lines scrawled on a scrap of foolscap. The misspellings were horrendous, but they were being viewed by a volunteer tutor who had fought his way through many a Freshman English paper, and I managed to catch the gist of it at a glance. I called out,

,wicked old queen, come losses or gains, Here is the verse to bring you fear:

Go hand, go foot, till naught remainsGone with the snows of yesteryear!"

Suettay began to disappear, from the feet up. She howled in frustration, then lifted her arms to throw another whammy-but they disappeared, too. She screamed in full rage, face darkening and as ugly as I've ever seen, as her hips and abdomen faded. Then, unfortunately, she remembered herself and screamed something in the Old Tongue that made her arms reappear; they wove a quick, unseen symbol as she screamed another verse, and all of her reappeared just as it had gone, but much more quickly. Even as her nether parts were returning, she was winding up another verse that she belted out, hands rolling over and over each other, and a six-foot dragon leapt from them to charge roaring at us.

Gilbert gave a shout of joy and leapt in front of all of us, stabbing in low and jumping back. Ichor spurted from the dragon's chest, and it bellowed in startled pain, swerving to pounce at Gilbert-but the squire leapt aside and chopped horizontally, shearing off a bat wing.

The dragon screamed, whirling and lashing out; steel talons cut through Gilbert's mail, and blood slicked the metal. The squire clenched his jaw and chopped again, a roundhouse swing that clipped the beast's head off its sinewy neck.

We all cheered.

But Suettay was chanting again, gesturing wildly, her volume building toward a crescendo.

I gulped. "It's gonna be a big one."

"Can you not hinder her?" Angelique pleaded.

"Frisson!" I snapped. "Any more verses,"' The poet shook his head, huge-eyed. "Naught but an old song comes to mind, Master Saul-a child's bit of nonsense."

"Try it! Anything, right now!"

"As you will." Frisson shrugged and started singing.

"As I went down to Darby town, 'Twas on a summer's day, There I beheld the biggest ram That ever was fed on hay!

That ever was fed on hay!

That ever was fed on hay!

When this ram began to bleat, Sir, The thunder, it did break!