Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (23 page)

Not that I was about to let her know it, of course.

"Ahhhhhh, insolence!" the sorceress breathed. "You have gained arrogance since our last meeting, Wizard Saul!"

"Oh, so now I'm a wizard, am I?"

Suettay laughed, a noise like a nut grinder. "Certes! 'Tis what the common folk call you. Did you not know? I assure you, I did. Naught could happen in my kingdom that I would knov@ not of-for if anything transpires, my ministers and their clerks tell me of it!

Though there was no need for such offices in this instance; yourself was enough. " "Enough?" I frowned. "You mean just by living, I give myself

away? " "There is something to that." Suettay wheezed; I think she meant it for a laugh. "You should not think so hard about magic-it makes you quite conspicuous, to those with the Sight."

"True-but you've been watching me all along anyway. How come you didn't just send another of your minions tonight? Figure you're ready to take me on personally now?"

"The audacity of the slave!" Suettay breathed, almost in admiration. "Indeed, I have your measure-and you'll be like a child's toy to my power! I am sure of your strengths and weaknesses and know best how to use them!

illogically, I felt a flow of confidence that spread a grin across my face. "Sure of yourself, eh? Is that why you've bushwhacked me out here in the middle of nowhere, away from Gilbert and Frisson?"

"Perhaps," Suettay sneered. "They are, indeed, part of your strength-and you are shorn of them now. You are quite at my mercy."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow in polite skepticism. "Mercy? Do you have any? " "None to mention," Suettay snapped, and her arm swung down like the arm of a catapult, a fireball leaping from her fingertips. I dodged, but the fireball swerved to follow me and exploded against my chest in a soft fountain of sparks. A huge, mushrooming pain answered from inside my chest, an instant of unbearable agony, then ...

Nothing. No sensation at all.

The night seemed to darken about me, and strength ebbed from my legs. As I fell to my knees, I realized, with horror, that my heart had stopped. Panic thundered in, but I threw it back with a wrench. Think fast, or die!

And my mind chilled into total clarity, with an icy lack of emotion that almost frightened me in itself. There was, after all, no time for panic-scarcely time for a single sentence. I rasped it out with what breath was left in my lungs:

"Life ebbs now in full retreat,

Till once again begins the beat

Heavy, steady, short, and hard, Beats the never-ending heart!" Pain wrenched my chest again, but blood roared in my ears and a jackhammer yammered inside my ribs. I breathed in against its beat thankfully. As the haze cleared from my eyes, it cleared from my mind, too: This wasn't going to be a trial of strength, or any other limited form of conflict-Suettay was playing for keeps. If she could kill me, she would.

Could I bring myself to try to kill her?

The sorceress came into focus as my heart slowed and steadied. Suettay's hands were weaving, her lips moving. Then the sorceress froze, and I realized she'd finished another spell while I was trying to restart my pump.

Suddenly, the air was filled with darting, whirling streaks of silver-a thousand knives spinning toward me. I threw myself to the side, but the knives followed me, swooping. I whipped out my pocket knife, swinging it in a frantic figure eight as if it were a rapier, chanting, "I, the spirit master,

Can fend off all disaster.

Multiply my slight stiletto

A thousandfold, by whirling ditto!"

There was one slant rhyme, and the meter wasn't exactly constant, but it worked-the air was suddenly filled with a thousand whirling clasp knives. They buzzed out at Suettay's daggers, and I grinned as I watched each of the poniards collide with one of the pocket knives and fall to the ground.

Then the grin slipped as I caught sight of Suettay; I realized I shouldn't have taken time out to watch the show. The sorceress' hands were weaving air again, stringing a pattern of forces. My face tightened grimly, as I realized the nature of the fight. Working a spell took time-so, while I was chanting my counterspell, Suettay was working up her next attack. That meant that I was going to stay on the defensive, unless I could figure out how to jump a spell. I had to, or I was dead. Sooner or later, I'd tire-and if I was late on just one counterspell, I was had.

Dust writhed, and a hundred serpentine heads lifted up around me, spreading cobra hoods.

It threw me back to my childhood, and Kipling's stories.

"Let us have a mongoose plural From an Indian village rural, Skilled at fighting snakes, and glad toA hundred mongeese, fighting mad, too!"

I carefully did not watch as the dust boiled alive about me; I didn't have time. Suettay's arms were weaving, and I took the offensive:

"Let a dust storm boil up from the plains of the thirties, Filling the sky; and before the next word she's Trying to speak, let it blow in and underA real Kansas dust storm, sudden as thunder!" I didn't even get to the chorus before the tableland was filled with a howling wind, laden with dust. it swept between the sorceress and me, blocking us from each other. Far off, I heard a roar that just barely penetrated the thunder of the churning dust wind-Gruesome, letting out an unbelieving, horrified bellow.

Yes-my mascot was out in this, too. He must have waked, seen l was gone, and realized I was in danger. I felt an instant panic-had he broken the guarding circle as he came waddling out to search for me?

I whipped a fold of my cloak over my nose and mouth, but Gruesome wouldn't know he should do that. Besides, he didn't have a cloak. The storm would kill him as quickly as Suettay's spells.

And maybe not just Gruesome; my chest heaved with a huge, wracking cough. Some of the dust was getting in through the cloth. But I only needed a few seconds to rank the priorities in my mind:

One: Get rid of whatever it was that Suettay was whipping up for her next spell;

Two: Throw another spell of my own at her, and keep on throwing; and

Three: Get rid of the dust.

Right. Get going on number one.

"Still more fool shall she appear By the time she lingers here. With one fool's head she came to war, But she'll go away with more!"

Actually, now that I thought about it, that took care of point two, too; Suettay couldn't do much of a spell with an IQ suddenly lowered to slightly better than an onion's.

If she hadn't deflected my spell in time. The dust was thinning,

and the wind was dying down. So Suettay had wasted time lessening the loesS2

Then I heard a rumble of thunder and realized I was wasting time, myself.

Too late. With a sound like a lireaking sieve, the rain drenched down. The dust settled, fast; and through the curtain of water, I saw Suettay-or something that had been Suettay.

It still wore the queen's robes, but it had small eyes under a very low forehead, and a wide, gaping grin-on one of its heads. The other two were similar, and maybe worse. I stared, appalled-was this what happened when you practiced magic without a license?

Certainly without really knowing what you were doing. I was disgusted

with myself. A clean death would have been infinitely better!

Until I realized the loose grins were forming themselves into words. Sure-two heads are better than one, and three idiots add up to a modicum of sense. Whatever spell it was going to be, it wouldn't be too effective-committee work never is-but I didn't feel like waiting around to find out. I grabbed for another verse:

"This monarch will be hanged With a silver chain'Tis not the chain of many!

Stole the lives of serf and peer, And must be hanged for any!

A silver chain lashed down out of the rain, snaked around the center head, and snapped taut. Suettay's body jerked upward a good three feet and dangled, kicking and writhing, from a chain that wasn't attached to anything.

But the other two heads were still forming words, slowly and painfully ...

Alarm sizzled through me. I'd only solved one-third of the problem! Quickly, I started muttering,

"Triad, by the rule of three, Multiply this spell for Too late. The other two heads were fading, disappearing, and the loose grin on the one in the noose was tightening as intelligence came back into the eyes. The forehead moved up-and it was Suettay's normal face again! The lips writhed in a snarl as she hoisted her hands up to grab the chain above her head. She pulled, got her throat clear of the links, and took a deep breath.

I grabbed for another verse.

"They plucked the entrails of an offering forth, And could not find a heart within her breast!"

Suettay looked up, grinned, and started chanting.

I froze. It hadn't worked! Okay, it was only a couplet, and it didn't rhyme-but it was Shakespeare! It should've shown some result!

Then I remembered an old medieval tale, transformed into a modern fairy story, about sorcerers who, afraid of death, put their hearts outside their bodies for safekeeping-say, in an egg, which was inside a duck. Or an amulet. How that could work, I couldn't see, unless ... yes ... wait a minute ... Assume a hyperspatial link, so that blood could flow from the sorceress to the heart in another dimension, and

back ...

I came to myself with a jolt. Too much thinking! Suettay was spitting out the last phrase, and I had lost the initiative. Suddenly my whole body went rigid. I couldn't move! And the paralysis was creeping over my chest to seize heart and lungs, then trickling up over my shoulders toward my neck. If I didn't get a quick spell out, I'd have lockjaw! Plus death.

And Suettay was spell-weaving again!

I took as deep a breath as I could and spat out:

"Can't freeze my bones or rot my spleen, 'Cause I've been shot with Salk vaccine!

So I'll hang loose from stern to prowParalysis can't touch me now!"

My knees suddenly flexed, and my hands relaxed at my sides. I tried a step and managed it-but slowly and painfully. Well, you couldn't expect a cheap spell like that to work wonders ... But Suettay hadn't wasted the time. She was back on the ground, the silver noose still hanging above her head, and was finishing up another chant, her hands pantomiming yanking something up from the earth.

And four lions leapt out of nowhere, straight at me, roars shaking the plain.

But a greater roar drowned theirs out, blasting from behind meand Gruesome thudded past me, straight at the lions!

They hit the brakes, plowing up sod with iron claws and terrified howls-or three out of four did. The fourth bellowed all the louder an eapt straight at the troll. I couldn't help thinking that this was how evolution put an upward limit on courage.

Gruesome was very direct; he slammed in an uppercut. His timing was just right; he caught the lion under the jaw. It went flipping up over his head and down in an arc, its head flopping at an unnatural angle.

The other three decided their initial instinct had been right, and fled out across the plain with howling yips of fright.

Suettay's hands flew; crooked syllables clanked off her tongue. Gruesome turned slowly toward me, a hungry glint in his eye.

"What's the matter?" I backed away. "Look, I didn't mean to get you into this!"

"Juicy." Gruesome's slab of tongue came out and smacked around his chops. "Taste good."

I yelped and whirled to run; Suettay had canceled the fairies'

antihuman-eating spell.

Gruesome's feet pounded behind me, coming closer, and I knew that, though his legs were much shorter in relation to his body, they were longer than mine, since he was so much bigger-and he could move them faster, no matter what he looked like. I wasn't going to get out of this by running-just by talking. Or rhyming, rather. I swerved around behind the biggest boulder I could find in that barren land and started chanting.

"You cannot eat but little meatFor your stomach, I'm not good. Obey elf-prince and wizard friend, Not sorceress in hood!

Why then should you seek quarry more,

And still seek friends anew,

When change itself can give no more'tis easy to be true! " A huge fist came down and smashed the boulder to smithereens. Gruesome loomed up, huge eyes lit with glee, mouth spread in a horrible, drooling grin, upraised hands hooked to pounce, and I turned to run. Huge nails clawed my back, and I howled with pain, tripping and falling. I rolled to my feetAnd I was just in time to see the glee dim from his eyes as his mouth puckered in confusion. "Wizard? What I do?"

"Nothing." I went limp with relief. "You chased away some lions for me, Gruesome. Thanks."

But beyond his bulk, I saw Suettay, hunkered down on her knees, belt over diagrams she was drawing in the dirt, and intoning a long, diconing chant.

My heart sank. Whatever she was whopping up, it was big-if symbolic gestures increased magical power, symbolic drawing would be even worse!

Then full inspiration hit me, and I realized that a sword can cut both ways, no matter how clumsy. "Gruesome!" I cried. "There's another one!" I pointed at Suettay.

'Nother one what?" the troll rumbled, turning to look. I chanted quickly, "What you see amid the waste, See as something you would taste!

Be it horse, or cat, or bear, Or a sorc'ress, kneeling there. in your eye it shall appear As a morsel sweet and rare!" Slant rhyme again, but I hoped it would work.

It did. Gruesome let out one gusty "Yum!" and started runningstraight at Suettay.

The sorceress looked up, startled. Then she sprang aside with a howl of fear, in the nick of time-Gruesome thundered by, plowing up her diagrams with his great taloned toes. Suettay howled in rage and frustration-and I seized the moment, my mind shifting into high gear. I knew better than to waste a single second by this time. While she was on the run, I chanted, "Be reversed from Galatea; May your limbs and joints betray ya!"

I ripped a thread loose from my shirt, frantically tying knots in it as I went on: