Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (32 page)

" 'Tis the salvation I1 of the land we speak of," Gilbert explained.

"Besides," I said, there. " you don't know what's waiting for us back

"Tell me," the Gremlin coaxed.

"Oh, all right." I sighed. "An evil queen and a torture chamber, not to mention a dungeon."

"You have reason to wish to go on," the Gremlin admitted. "Yet

'tis not so simply done as that. There are greater dangers than this maze, look you."

"If you think they're bad, you should see what we left behind us."

"I have." The monster leered. "Or ones much like them. So you think, then, that you are on the road to his palace, this Spider King?"

"Well, to his kingdom, maybe."

The Gremlin shook what passed for his head, with certainty.

"His kingdom runs throughout the heart of the continent between the Northern and the Middle seas; it overlies your own, like a saucer on a plate. You seek his palace, not his kingdom alone. I will take you there, for I'll need his aid against this woman who usurps my prerogatives." He grinned. "And, too, I'm minded of the mischief you will wreak in Allustria, if the Spider King lends his strength to your cause.

I didn't remember mentioning a cause-and I certainly didn't remember mentioning Allustria. The prickling feeling moved over my shoulders and the back of my head again, as I began to feel the tendrils of a conspiracy waft around me. The worst of it was that I suspected that I might be part of the conspiracy, not just its object-but I wasn't exactly in a position to be picky. "Then you will help us?"

"And gain a chance to help confound the self -important and harshruling ones? Aye, and gladly!" The Gremlin leapt to the fore.

"Follow me!" He strode off into the darkness. "Do You follow close!" I hurried after him, and the gang followed, but I don't think any of us was convinced that it was entirely a good idea.

Lead us the Gremlin did. How, I couldn't have said-but every time my sense of direction told me I should zig, the Gremlin zagged, and every time I thought we should turn left, the Gremlin turned right. Archways and corners swooped past us in dizzying array, for the little monster never faltered. How he could tell where to go, I couldn't guess, but I wasn't about to argue.

Then, finally, the tunnel opened out. I looked up, with a notion of what I might see-and I was halfway right, at least. I saw a convex wall curving up and away from me, continuing onward in a great circle. It was as if we stood in the center of a doughnut.

But what was above that doughnut was a surprise.

"Wizard," Angelique said softly, "what is that darkness all about?"

It was dead black, flat, total darkness, without the slightest hint of light. It seemed to dim everything near it.

"The void," I answered. "That's what lies outside of space and time."

"Then what," Frisson said, "is that great curve that rises above us", it was like a huge corkscrew, rising up over the rim of the doughnut, slanting upward into the void and out of sight.

"Yonder lies your path," the Gremlin informed him. Angelique frowned. "Yet how are we to come to there,"' "Through yonder gate." The Gremlin pointed. On the far side of the circle,

the wall curved inward, forming the mouth of another tun nel.

"If we must, we must," Gilbert growled. "Lead on."

"Even so," the monster murmured; but he had taken scarcely one step when a huge roar sounded, a roar that shook the very walls, a roar that pained our ears and hit us with almost physical force.

" There are impediments," the Gremlin murmured. Forth it came from the darkness of the tunnel mouth-a monster who stood upright on hooves and switched an oxtail, whose body swelled into the deep, muscular chest of a bull, merging into huge, human arms and shoulders. The mouth opened and loosed another closely, I realized there was no muzzle, but only a great russet beard roar; I thought, at first, that it was a lion's head. Then, looking more

and mustache, and that the face was human, though with a huge mane of tawny hair.

But those were fangs inside that human mouth-fantastically elongated canines.

Angelique moaned and shrank back against me; I reached out a protective arm.

"Wizard," Gilbert said, "what manner of creature is that?"

"He is the Bull," the Gremlin answered, "and he is set to slay any who come herein."

The Bull charged, arms reaching out for easy meat.

"Scatter!" I shouted, leaping away to my left, Angelique darting with me. Gilbert dashed off to the right, and Frisson leapt out ahead, then veered around in a circle.

The Bull turned to follow him.

But the Rat Raiser popped up in front of the monster, crying,

"Hold! Show me your permit!"

The Bull screeched to a halt, forgetting Frisson in its amazement at the sheer arrogance of this overweening human. Then it lowered its head, shoulders rising, and let out a bellow of tripled rage, lunging toward the bureaucrat.

The Rat Raiser turned and fled, crying, "Summon the men-atarms!

"Why, then, here am I!" Gilbert cried, and threw himself at the Bull's hocks in a perfect flying tackle. The monster slammed down like a tidal wave hitting shore, letting out a roar like an earthquake. I winced, and hoped there'd be enough of Gilbert left to hold a ceremony over.

One way or another, the squire had bought us some time, enough for me to search my memory.

But Frisson got in there before me:

"Gazing down from Olympian heights, Zeus beheld the Phoenician maid,

Whose face and form with beauty bright Awoke desire in the Jovian blade.

He changtd himself into a Bull; He mingled with her father's herd With gentle mien, and hide all white, His breast with ardent passion stirred As he watched the maid; his heart was full.

Europa saw, and in delight,

Plaited a garland of blossoms while Each graceful movement made him sigh Her beauteous face, her glowing smile, Sweet curves of breast and cheek and thigh, And thresh of limbs as she came nigh!" Something glimmered in the center of the circle, glimmered and took form, that of a tall, voluptuous woman in a chiton, blond hair piled high, with a face of pure innocence. She whirled and ran, revealing smooth ivory thighs.

Of course, if you looked closely, she was a little translucent. Maybe transparent-the Bull saw right through her, anyway. He stampeded straight past the illusion, shaking the whole chamber with his bellow, and the Gremlin gibed, "You have mistaken quite, if You wish a female for his taste."

And, suddenly, the illusion-woman wasn't there any more; in its place was a young and shapely heifer, slender-for a cow-and, even to my eyes, somehow alluring. She sauntered out between the humans and the Bull, who dug in his hooves and jolted to a halt, its eyes fairly bulging. The heifer turned, switching her tail in his face, ambling away from me and my companions.

Bewitched, the Bull followed.

Gathering my wits, I dashed over to Gilbert, but the squire had pulled himself together and was sitting up, shaking his head. I stopped by him with a sigh of relief. "You okay?" Gilbert looked up with a frown. "What is 'okay'?"

"Uh-sound, in this instance," "Aye." Gilbert caught my arm and pulled himself up. "Sound, and ready for another round. Where is our foe?"

Another wall-shaking roar answered us. We whirled and saw that the Bull had finally caught the heifer-but she had turned into a Spanish fighting Bull, head lowered and pawing the earth. The halfhuman Bull bellowed his bafflement and rage, and charged. Somehow, he missed.

And, somehow, the Spanish Bull was a heifer again, scampering away with a playful moo. But the Bull, fully aroused, roared his wrath and pounded hot-hoof after her.

I saw our chance. "Now! While he's too mad to think at all!"

"Even as you say." Gilbert hurled himself forward again.

"Hey, no!" I cried, appalled; but the squire did even better than before. He landed in a crouch right in front of the Bull and, with its next step, surged upward, arms wrapped around the monster's knees, pitching upward with his full strength, slinging the Bull high and hard. The monster's bellow took on a note of bafflement; it flailed about as it flew, and Gilbert turned with it, hands still on its hooves, then slammed it down with all his might. The Bull hit the ground with an impact that shook the whole cavern, and Frisson yanked off his wooden shoe, leapt in, and swung hard. The crack! of wood on bone was almost as loud as the roar, and I winced, hoping the Bull wasn't dead even as I wondered if I'd have to conjure up a new shoe for Frisson.

But the Bull only sagged, pushing itself halfway up, then tilted over and fell heavily again. He lifted his head, looking about, then rolled over to his belly and got his legs under him.

"He has a hard head," Frisson noted, pulling his shoe on again.

"Yet he will recover, and soon." The Gremlin was there by me.

"Quickly, Wizard! Conjure tea!"

"Tea?!" I stared, totally taken aback.

"Aye, tea and scones, with a silver service and a linen cloth!

Quickly! Lose no time!"

"But what good will tea and "Do you not hear me? I tell you, I know this Bull! High tea, and promptly, for even now he regains his senses!"

I gave up trying to make sense out of it, and recited:

"Oh I some are for the red wine, and some are for the white, And some for guzzling moonshine by the pale moonlight; But I'm for tea and crumpets, for high tea just sets me right!"

The air thickened; then light glittered off shiny surfaces, and a linen picnic cloth was there, with cups and saucers next to a bonechina teapot. Hot scones nestled in a linen napkin lining a silver basket; another held crumpets, with butter dish and jam pot close by.

"Maiden, pour!" the Gremlin urged.

Angelique stared, startled to be told to do something for which she'd had no training; but she turned, gamely stepping in with her upbringing as a proper hostess, and sat gracefully by the pot.

"One hand keeps the lid on," I whispered. Angelique took the cue as if she hadn't even noticed it, pouring tea into a cup and burbling, "How pleasant the weather is! Quite cool for August, do you not think? Lemon, Sir, or milk?" The Bull looked up, sighting an island. staring at the service like a shipwrecked sailor

"Sweetening, perchance?" Angelique prompted. or two? "One lump,

"She picked up on that awfully fast," I muttered at the Gremlin with a hint of accusation.

The little monster looked up at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "There are more ways than one to put a notion into a body's head, Wizard."

"Two lumps,"

legged. the Bull rumbled, pulling himself up to

sit cross

Frisson and Gilbert exchanged a look of amazement, but Angelique didn't even bat an eye. She dropped two lumps of sugar into the cup with silver tongs. "Will you take milk, or lemon?"

"Milk, if you please, the Bull answered, with a good public-school accent. "And perhaps a scone?"

"Surely.

" Angelique presented him with a cup and saucer, then turned to take a bit of scone from the basket. "Butter?"

"Of course."

"So I had thought." Angelique spread butter, set the cake on a plate, and handed it to him, then looked up at me. "Saul?"

"Milk and sugar." I folded myself into a tailor's seat, surprised to find I was hungry. "And a scone, if You please./i "Most certainly.

" Angelique poured, chattering, "I think we will have an early fall, do you not? And you, Sir Bull, what fine chance brings you our way?"

The Bull frowned. "I might have asked the same."

"Then do, I prithee! And might you have a name?"

"John," the Bull said.

Of course.

Then, obligingly,

"And what chance brings You my way?"

Slowly, Frisson and Gilbert came up and sat down. Angelique poured tea with milk and sugar for them as she answered, "We flee a wicked tyrant, who would imprison us, abuse each of us in ways as foul as she can imagine, then slay us by slow torture. And yourself?"

"I have been here as long as I may remember," the Bull answered slowly, land that is long, maiden, very long."

"Centuries," the Gremlin breathed.

"Even so." The Bull bowed his head to the monster in acknowledgment. "I know not who sent me here-only that his voice did echo all around me as I woke, saying, 'Here you stand, and here you must remain, slaying all who seek to pass until fair Chance may send you

they who seek to rise for good.' Angelique exchanged a glance with me. "Mayhap we are they."

"Mayhap," the Bull said slowly, trying to throttle hope. "Where do

you seek to go, and why?"

"To the castle of the Spider King," Angelique answered. "We seek his aid in defeating a foul sorceress who has laid a whole land 'neath a grid of rules and clerks. indeed, her people scarcely dare to stir out

of doors without her say-so."

The Bull frowned. "Why should the Spider King aid you?"

"Why," Angelique said, "we have heard that he is a good man, who aids those who seek to help the poor, and yearn for justice."

"He does that, aye, does both. Yet what advantage is there for him in thus aiding you to give aid?"

I do not know," Angelique admitted.

"Maybe we could tell, if we knew what he wants," I said slowly.

"Do you know?"

"He lacks nothing," the Bull said.

I shook my head. "If that were the case, he'd either help people just for the fun of it, or he'd be getting something out of it. A sense of purpose, maybe?"

"How old is he?" Frisson said.

"Centuries," the Bull said firmly. "As long as I have been here, at

the least."

"Mayhap, then," the poet offered, "he has need to justify his con tinned existence?"

I looked up, startled. Where had this country bumpkin taken his philosophy course?

But the Bull was nodding. "I could think that, aye. Why else does he constantly seek out human misery and invent ways to assuage it? I1

"Does he so?" Frisson fastened on the words, his eyes keen. I wondered at it, but the poet didn't seem inclined to expand upon