Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (33 page)

the point, so I said, "If that's his motivation, why does he have you here to keep people out?"

"I cannot say with any surety that 'twas he who set me here," the Bull said slowly. "As to the 'why' of it, I cannot so much as conjecture.

"Not without knowing the 'who,' no," I said dryly. "Well, let's assume for the moment that we're the ones you're supposed to let through.

"Let us not!" the Bull said sternly. "And let us recall that, when this teatime is ended, we shall war again, you and I." Inside, I went cold, but my mouth kept going. "But what if we are the ones you're supposed to help?"

"If you are, why, you shall defeat me, and I shall go on to the Spider King's palace with you." The Bull sounded angry, and I could imagine the anguish he was feeling at the moment of decision. "If you are not, then you shall die in the attempt."

But Frisson had fastened to the first sentence. "If you are to go with us, can you guide us? Have you been to the palace before?"

"No," the Bull said slowly, "yet I have a memory of the route.

'Tis as if I were made with it in me.' "DNA can do such wonderful things," I murmured. Then, louder, "Trust the inborn hunch-and take a gamble on us. After all, how many other groups have ever come this way?"

"Only three," the Bull admitted.

I felt another chill, trying to imagine what the last questers Must have been.

"Yet they were all men," the Bull continued, "and wore the black robes of sorcery. There was a reek of evil about them, which there is not about you."

"We are a force of right," Gilbert said with total conviction. The Bull gave him the jaundiced eye, but I said, "At least we're fighting evil . . ."

"And each of us has suffered from it," Gilbert stated.

"Well, yes," I said, shifting uncomfortably as I remembered a few of my less glorious deeds, then shifting back with apprehension as I remembered my encounter with my guardian angel. "I have to admit I'm out for my own ends, though."

The Bull's head snapped about to stare at me. "How so?"

"I'm trying to find a friend," I explained, "and after that, I'm out

to get back home." But I glanced at Angelique as I said it, and sud

denly found the issue much less pressing than it had been. "It just seems that I'm going to have to defeat the evil queen before I can do

either. " "His gain will be the people's salvation," Gilbert said quickly.

The Bull ignored him, eyes still on me. "That is not the most no ble motive for a quest."

"It's better than a lot of 'em," I answered, reddening, "and its side effects would benefit the people of Allustria. Couldn't very well be worse than what they've got."

"There is that," the Bull admitted. "And, mayhap, it would be less of a bore to assist you, than to guard this gate interminably. It would, at the least, be adventure."

My hopes soared. "Oh, I guarantee it wouldn't be boring!"

"Indeed it will not," the Bull admitted, "for we must pass mine enemy. Will you aid me in fighting him?"

I felt sudden interior brakes slamming on. If this monster felt the need of help confronting the next one, how horrible did it have to be?

"Just what kind of beastie is this?"

"His name is Ussrus Major," the Bull answered, "and he is the Bear.

The tone in which he said it was enough to chill the blood, but Frisson murmured, "Saul, you are a great wizard, surely."

"Yeah, with your verses." I remembered a poem, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay. Count us in."

"I may indeed," the Bull answered, "for the Bear blocks the way to the Spider King."

Suddenly, he straightened, slapping his knees. " 'Tis done; I am with you. If I am wrong, and mayhem strikes, why, then, let it come!

" "You are noble," Angelique murmured.

"I wish escape from my prison."

"You are brave," Frisson qualified.

The Bull stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yet every man fears some thing, and this is mine, this journey. Still, I long for it, too-so let us be about it."

He to le, lithe, twisting movement and set off toward se in one sing his cave. We others sprang to our feet and followed. I glanced back; saw the remains of our picnic; and, with a quick, muttered verse, banished the mess. It twinkled and was gone.

The Bull wrenched open the gate, and we followed him into the cave beyond it-with some trepidation, if truth be known. Me, I was remembering the story of Chicken Little-but the cave extended, going on and on. I realized it was another tunnel.

"What spell you used to seek out the Spider King, use now," the Bull rumbled. The Gremlin nudged me; I took a breath and started chanting, low, almost subvocally.

I had scarcely finished the first recitation when the tunnel started changing. its roof developed a split; then, as we walked along, the split became wider and wider until the roof was gone. I began to eye the dark space beyond it nervously, especially as the walls of the tunnel began to taper down, lower and lower, until they were scarcely knee-high, and we were walking on a concave pathway.

"Now," the Gremlin said, "one might feel dangerously exposed."

"One might," I agreed, with a nervous glance at the darkness around us-then looked again. "Hey! It's getting lighter!"

"We approach his region-mine enemy." The Bull came to a halt, pointing. "Yonder lies the pit of greatest danger for me-the pit of the Bear! Mark it!"

There he came, shambling through the mist, a huge dark shape in a phosphorescent cavern, and my heart sank down to my boots. But the trail led through that huge cave, a floating pathway with no visible means of support, angling through the ghostly cavern, perhaps six feet off the floor.

"Onward," the Gremlin said, face grim. "We gain naught, if we stand to be prey."

"Why, then, pray we must," Frisson countered, and immediately chanted, loudly, 'God of pity, God of wrath!

Save us from the ursine path!"

I looked around in a panic, but there was no visible damage, and I let out a sigh of relief. "Please, Frisson! Write it down!"

"Even a prayer?" the poet cried, amazed.

"Anything," I snapped, "as long as it's original." But the Bear had heard and reared up on his hind feet, forelegs upraised as if imploring. "Comrades, please! I wish only detente!"

"Keep walking," I said grimly, and we did, though our steps had slowed with dread.

"Surely we are too heavy for so fragile a path," Angelique demurred.

"Forward," I commanded, "or he'll take the hindmost."

"Can you not make our weight less?"

,oh, all right," I grumped.

"Afoot and hearted I take to the climbing road, Hea Ithy, free, The world before me,

dismayed

Rising up un Forward the Light Brigade!"

"Volga, mother dear!" the Bear cried, "you have never had such a gift as this!" With that, he swung a huge paw with double eagle's talons at the maiden, to snag her dress. She screamed and shrank back, but the Bull roared in anger and leapt from the pathway, hooves slamming straight toward the Bear.

Ussrus stepped back just in time, and the Bull landed right in front of him, slamming a haymaker into the Bear's jaw. its head rolled back, and its arms came up. "Comrade, please! I come in peace! A truce, I beseech you!"

"Don't trust him!" I called. "Cry no peace with the Bear who walks like a man!"

The Bull only kept his guard up, glowering.

"Bring him up, quickly!" the Gremlin hissed. "We cannot go on without him"' The way ahead was luminescent, glowing with distant fires. I called,

"Up, up and away!

For he who fights and runs away, Will live to fight another day!" he Bull admitted, "yet should I therefore "There is sense in that," t

not give him his truce?"

"No!" I bleated.

"Horrible, hairy, human, with paws like hands in prayer, Making his supplications rose Adam-Zad the Bear ...

When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise, When he veils the hate and cunning of his little swinish eyes, When he shows as seeking quarter with paws like hands in prayer, That is the time of peril-The time of the Truce of the Bear!

over and over the story, ending as it began:

There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that walks like a man!

"

"Betrayal!" the Bear cried. "Our plan is discovered!" His huge paw scythed toward the Bull's face, but the claws tangled in the Bull's long hair, just long enough for John to beat away the attack and counterpunch. The Bear recoiled, then came back roaring, with scytheclaws flailing. "Transform the imperialist war into civil war!" Frisson pressed a piece of paper into my hand. I read it without thinking.

"Raise up our tiring friend!

That we might rise away with him, Up toward our chosen end, Clambering dire to meet the arachnid sire Spiraling higher in a widening gyre!"

The Bull shot up into the air as if a huge hand had grabbed him, then dropped back onto the pathway-but very lightly, as if that same invisible hand was setting him down with the greatest of care. I began to wonder about Frisson's verse of prayer. The Bear recovered, its shoulders hunkering down, an ugly gleam coming into its eyes. "Do not set yourself above us! For surely, all history is that of class conflict!"

"The conflict part, I can believe," I said to the Gremlin, "but he totally lacks class."

"Keep walking, Wizard," the monster answered nervously.

"I sense an uprising," Gilbert muttered. The pathway shuddered under our feet, then pulled itself loose from the ground and drifted upward, curving into a widening spiral that wound up out of sight.

The Bear rose up, both forepaws hammering at the pathway, claws flashing like icicles. "Let us restructure the economy!" He hooked huge talons into the spiral and pulled downward.

The path jolted, and my companions cried out, fighting for balance. Frisson and I fell, but Angelique and Gilbert managed to keep their feet. The Bear dragged the pathway down, roaring, "Scorch the earth and burn the city! Let not a scrap remain to strength the enemy!

It

"Too much anachronism is too much," I growled.

"Oh, hear you not the singing of the bugle, wild and free?

And soon you'll know the ringing of the rifle, from the tree!

oh, the rifle, yes the rifle, in our hands will prove no trifle!

Light gleamed along a length of blue steel, and I found myself holding a Kentucky flintlock.

Well, one shot was better than none. I tucked it into my shoulder and sighted.

The Bear dropped the pathway and backed away, arms up high again.

"Brothers, do not shoot!"

The pathway whipped back up, then sank down, then back up, and even Angelique and Gilbert howled as we tumbled. I squeezed the trigger, and the hammer snapped down-but there wasn't even a flash in the pan. I threw the rifle at the Bear with an oath of disgust. The butt caught Ussrus right across the chops, and he reeled, head spinning.

"Enough of this!" the Gremlin cried, exasperated, and jumped down into the cave of the Bear.

"No!" I cried in alarm, but the Gremlin was muttering something as he dashed in a circle around Ussrus Major.

The Bear suddenly let out a howl. "What are these leaves? What are these-gooseberries?"

"What ails the beast?" Frisson asked, wide-eyed.

"He supposes he is a bush," the Gremlin answered, hopping back up onto the pathway. "But the spell will not endure forever, Wizard. The Bull must find some way to bring this path up high, where the Bear cannot reach, or he will surely drag us down."

"Right." I pulled myself together, racking my wits for some verse about a rising path. The first thing that came to mind was,

"Up and away, Chingachgook' The hunter who follows shall now be shook!"

"I'm out of rhymes!" I shouted. "Take it, Frisson!" The poet adlibbed as easily as a stream flows:

"As we go faster, we slow our pursuer!

The pilgrims rise up, and disdain the lure!"

"Walk!" the Gremlin commanded us, and we scrambled to our feet, swayed a moment in the motion of the rising path, then managed a sort of bowlegged gait, leaning into a hike that had suddenly become a climb, as the path rose up at an angle and kept rising. Below us, the Bear roared in impotent fury, clawing in vain at a curve that had risen so high that it exceeded his grasp. He stood below us, flailing away at those whom he would drag down, until his voice was lost in the mists that rose up to obscure him, mists that rose even higher until they were all about us, then hardened-and we found ourselves walking in an enclosed tunnel once again.

"You have succeeded, Wizard," Frisson whispered.

"Yes, but only because I had a lot of help. The tunnel has changed a lot, though. Are we still on the right path?"

"Aye," the Bull said, "for we have but discovered the way to the Spider King, in spite of all the deceptions with which the Bear sought to enshroud us."

"Yet it seems to differ so," Angelique objected. And it did, for the curve was much sharper, and rose in an incline. We toiled upward through a torus that became a hollow expanding helix, ascending and ascending until it suddenly opened out into a great room, so vast that its ceiling glowed in an opalescent mist, a fabric of gossamer threads. it had no walls, but columns as numerous as the trunks of a forest, with vistas of hills and meadows and groves visible between them, bathed in sunlight and vividly green. We walked out in wonder, across a floor that was a mosaic of marble so huge that our eyes couldn't even begin to discern the picture it formed.

Directly before us, in an archway, stood a stocky figure with a flowing cloak, silhouetted against the sun.

"Gentlemen and lady," the Bull said, in a hushed, almost reverent tone, "we have attained our goal. We stand in the palace of the Spider King.

The dark form came forward. As he left the sun-dazzle, his face became visible. At first glance, he wasn't a terribly prepossessing figure-only a man of middle height, wearing tunic and hose of dark gray broadcloth, a hip-length coat with wide sleeves, and a cap encircled by a band of leaden medallions.