Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (41 page)

"Nay," the cat answered, which somehow didn't surprise me. "He has died-and I have come alive."

I stared.

Then I said, "Is he going to come alive again, too?"

"Aye, at some odd moment. We can never know when, though. We know that when he lives, I die, for the two of us cannot both be alive at one time."

Something connected. "I thought that only applied when you were in your box," I said.

"Nay," he contradicted me. "When we go home to our box, both become comatose-neither alive nor dead."

"Till someone opens the lid," I said. "You're Schredinger's Cat." Which explained the joined hindquarters-only the front part had split into two time lines yet.

The cat turned to the Demon with a look of surprised approval.

"You have found a mortal with some modicum of sense."

"No," I said, "just a little knowledge."

"Then you are very dangerous."

"More than you know," the Demon sang. "I did not find him-he called for me!"

The cat looked at me and shuddered. "You could visit chaos upon us all! " "I could?" I said blankly, then realized that I was throwing away a bargaining chip. "Oh, yeah, I could! I wouldn't, of course-especially

since your friend Maxwell's Demon has helped me out of a tight spot. " "A hot spot, rather," the Demon explained. " 'Twas like to fry his brains. " The cat looked at me as if that might be an improvement. "Can you not send him back?"

"Aye, when the night has come, and coolness with it/ I glanced around at the alien setting, feeling kind of nervous. "If you don't mind the waiting." I wasn't sure I didn't.

"Oh, we need not wait!" the Demon sang. "From this space-time, we may project you to any point within your own."

"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. "You mean I'm not even in the same universe? I1

"Nay. This realm lies between universes."

"Then it's a universe of its own."

"Mayhap, though I would be reluctant to term it so, when Itis so small. I1

I sat bolt-upright, galvanized by a sudden revelation. "Then you could just as easily send me back to my home universe!"

"I could," the Demon agreed. "Do you wish it?" That brought me up short. I frowned, considering

alternativesAngelique, and the fun I'd been having not working magic, and Angelique, and the adventure, and Angelique, and the friends I'd gained-or companions, at least-and Angelique, and the fact that I felt as if I was worth something. Especially to Angelique. Okay, there was danger in it, too, but at least it wasn't boring. "No," I said slowly, tinot just yet."

After all, I couldn't commit myself to not committing myself, could I?

"Then to the universe of Allustria, whence you came," the cat urged.

But the Demon asked, "Are there many like you, in your home universe?

"Not enough for comfort." I frowned; a long horizontal plane was coming into focus, looking like a fence made out of a continuous sheet of plywood. "Like me in what way?"

"In believing in Maxwell's Demon."

"Oh." I relaxed, shaking my head. "No, not many. Maybe a million.

"A million!"

,Out of three billion," I said quickly. "Even out of the ones who know about you, most of them think you're just a scientific fable."

"But we are," the Demon and the cat sang together, and the Demon went on, "This is the home of all such fables-and of those of logic and reason, too."

But I was distracted by the big eyeballs and the long nose peeking

over the fence. When I glanced directly at them, though, they disap

peared. "What's he doing here?"

The Demon didn't even look. " 'Tis as much his home as Yehudi's."

"Yehudi"' I glanced around, noting a series of level planes rising away off to' my left, like a staircase-but it was empty. "I don't see

him. " "Of course not; the little man is not there," the cat said contemptuously. Behind him, I noticed two guys with saffron robes and bald heads, sitting in lotus position facing each other; each was holding a light bulb, but one was so dark it must have been burned out.

"I suppose that makes sense," I said. "Then the Gremlin is here,

too? " "Shh!" The cat glanced about with apprehension. "Speak not of him, for if he comes, he will make all go awry."

"I don't think so; we/ve been getting to know each other." I felt in still wasn't home-and even better, better, knowing the Greml from the cat's look of surprise. I noticed a guy with medium-length hair and a very bland face, in a powder-blue oxford-cloth shirt, blue jeans, and running sneakers, strolling along the row of polygons.

"Who's he?"

"The Norm " the Demon sang.

"I thought he didn't really exist."

"Be still!" the cat spat, but he was too late. The Norm faded away and disappeared. "Now you have done it." The cat sighed. "It will

take him many days to believe in himself strongly enough to mani fest again." very guilty, so I whispered the next one.

" Sorry, " I said, feeling "Who's the anorexic over there?" I was talking about the guy who was a stick figure, like the ones kids draw-a featureless circle on top, with straight lines for arms and legs and torso.

"The Statistical Abstract," the Demon hummed softly. "You need not fear; he will not go away."

A robot came clanking up and ground to a halt.

I stepped back, ready for trouble. "He doesn't belong here!

Where I come from, he's real-these days!"

"Only my body," a voice said, but the robot's mouth just opened once, and a wispy form drifted out of it to float in midair before us.

"I had wondered how long 'twould be ere you came amongst us!"

"Hey, I know you!" I said. "You're the philosophy assignment I really resented!"

"The Ghost in the Machine," the breezy voice agreed. "Wherefore did you resent me? " "Not you," I said, "just having to prove that you didn't exist, when something inside me told me you did!"

"Indeed I do, but only in this realm that defies all logic, agreed. the ghost "Oh," I said. "So that's why you thought I'd come here some day."

"Indeed," the ghost agreed. "Do you still rail against reason, even as you practice it?"

"Not really," I said with a smile. "Kant got me out of that."

"Even so," said the large, egg-shaped guy who came strolling up. I looked closer and realized he really was an egg. " 'Tis even as I've said about words-only a matter of whether they will master you, or You will master them/ "Right." I nodded. "Logic's just a tool. You can't let it run your life by itself." But I was bothered by the implication of his knowing my inner thoughts so well-was I really as much of a fence sitter as he was?

Yes. I had that sense of balance.

In the distance, I heard a long and mournful whistle, and a locomotive chuffed by drawing a train around a circular track, with so many cars that the engine was both pulling the tender and pushing the caboose, which was pulling it. I didn't have to look; I knew it had no driver. It was going faster and faster the longer it ran, and I looked away.

"Say, you wouldn't know where I can find the Dinganzich, would you?"

"It is not here the ghost lamented.

"We have only its shadow among us," the Demon said.

"No," I said with regret, "I was looking for the real thing. Next dimension, huh? "

"Nay; beyond them," the Demon commiserated. "I fear, mortal, that what you truly seek is not here."

"And probably not anywhere," I sighed, except inside me after all.

"Or in Heaven," one of the monks spoke up. I frowned, looking up at him. "Thought you guys didn't believe in

that state."

"It has many names," the monk explained.

"Look, I gave up on trying to find God a long time ago." The monk shook his head. "Foolish. You must seek while you live, if you would find Him after death."

But that had a false ring to it. "Next thing I know, you'll be telling me the Ultimate Buddha is in Heaven along with Jehovah."

"Nay," the monk contradicted. "They are Heaven, and they are one it t/One what?" I asked, then felt a chill pass over my back and into my vitals. I tried to chase it by saying, "You would think that way," but I shivered and turned to the Demon. "I think maybe I'd better get out of here. I'm not ready for this."

"Will you ever be?" the cat mocked, but the ghost said, "He may be, if he never leaves off seeking."

"Yet for now, you have the right of it," the Demon told me. "Back to your Ordeal, mortal. Are you refreshed?"

"Enough to last," I told him. "Could you send me back to just before sunrise at the end of the fifth night after you found me?"

"Gladly," the Demon said. "Prepare yourself. "Hey, just a minute!" I said. "I almost forgot. This other guy in that universe-the one that you said knew about you, too. Who is he? " "He is Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence. Do you wish

to go to him? " It was tempting-but there was Angelique, and the need to get her body back. "No," I said slowly, "I'm just glad to know he's alive and

well.

"He is," the Demon assured me. "Now let us see to yourself. Lie back and relax, mortal."

I did, closing my eyes.

"Awake," the Demon's hum said right next to my ear. I opened my eyes and sat up-and realized I could sit up. Of course-I had spelled away the ropes. No reason to think they would have come back, was there?

"Thanks, Demon," I said. "I won't forget you for this." I could feel an impulse to laughter somewhere around me, and the

Demon's voice hummed, "I am rewarded in your mere existence, mor tai, so long as you seek to remain poised on the cusp of paradox. Fare->.@ well, for the sun is rising."

I looked toward the east just as the first ray pierced the lightened sky. "Good-bye, Demon," I said into the roseate glory of the new Chapter morning. "And thanks."

Twe n ty-f our

They appeared as black dots on the face of the rising sun, then expanded hugely, seeming to zoom out of the ruddy disk-the duke, with a dozen of his men behind him. Most of the men carried shovels, but one of them was nice enough to be carrying a big water skin-probably for them, not for me.

I debated whether I should play dessicated semicorpse, or just be sitting up obviously alive, well, and nonchalant. That last sounded suspiciously like bragging, but what the Hell, it was the truth, so I went with it.

They loomed dark and darker until they were close enough to begin seeing features. That's when I sat up.

They shied off like elephants confronting a lemming, and the duke took time for some loudly intoned verses in his archaic language, with a few mystic passes. I just sat there and watched, studying his technique-but I didn't feel anything, so he must have been working on de-ghosting a risen corpse. Wouldn't have any effect on me, of course, since I was still alive and in my body ...

The duke finished his gestures and chants, and his eyes widened when I didn't disappear or even waver. He came closer, very carefully, as if I were a rattlesnake that might strike any minute, the whites showing all around his irises. He edged up near enough for a close inspection, reached out toward me as if he were going to prod me to make sure I was really there, but said instead, "You live!"

"That's my main occupation," I agreed.

"He should be dried!" one of the boys in the back row muttered, with a quaver that would have done credit to a vibraphone. "He should be leather!"

"I'm not feeling too chipper," I admitted. "But I'm still juicy.

" 'Tis not unknown." You could see the duke was doing a quick revision on his estimates. "Yet those few who have endured till the second morn were feverish, seeing sights that mortal eyes seldom view I felt a chill; that sounded uncomfortably like the Demon's home.

"They told you about that, did they?"

"Some one or two who endured to reclaim life," the duke admitred.

"Most have not lived to see a third dawn, no matter how gently we tend them, for they are the chattels of the god, look you ... I1

The god? Suddenly I realized why this man's magic seemed to be halfway between good and evil-he was a pagan and didn't realize the source of the powers he was drawing on!

and surely none can speak of the holy sights they have seen, when we find them, for their tongues are swollen." A look of foreboding came over his face. "How is it yours is not.

I didn't see any reason to lie. "I conjured up something to drink."

"That, I did sense-and did seek to block! How is it you were able to go around my wall, and without my knowing of it?" I wondered where he thought I'd brought that drink from-and I began to see what he was afraid I'd been doing. "I went away. I called up some friendly spirits, and one of them took me to one of those places your victims see, but can't tell you about. He and his friends took care of me and sent me back as you see me." I didn't figure I needed to tell him about the time shift-that would just have complicated matters.

The man in the back row spoke up again, his voice trembling.

"What spirits are these he can call upon?"

"Be silent!" the duke snapped, so viciously that I knew he must be scared-and overawed, or he would have thrown a whammy at me.

"In truth," he said to me, "you must be a far more puissant wizard than I had thought. I caught the subtext-that he was afraid I was more powerful than he was. Maybe I could play on that. "I guess so," I agreed. "'I'hings being as they are, maybe you'll go a step further than just letting me live, the way you promised."

"What step is that?" He was braced for the worst.

"A boat," I said. "Nothing elaborate-just a one-man craft, with a sail and a rudder. Say, about twenty feet long."

He looked startled, and another anonymous voice from the ranks muttered, "What will he conjure up to sail it for him?" Now, that was a thought. For a moment, I toyed with asking Sir Francis Drake or Christopher Columbus in for an excursion, but I decided they might be otherwise occupied. "I'll manage," I assured the duke. "You might put in a few goodies, too-say, a week's worth of journey rations. And water."