Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (53 page)

him.

And it was driving me crazy, because our progress was slowing to ten miles a day.

"Is it my mistake," I asked Frisson, "or are we running into the whole harvest of the Gremlin's epidemic of witch diseases?"

"It may be," Frisson said slowly, "or it may be simply that those who are ill and in terror of death and Hellfire have begun to hear of you and have come to seek you out. Those who fell ill would never have thought to attempt to survive, if they had not heard of your work; they would have died in despair, forgetting that they could repent. " I stared. "Come on! Word can't have spread that fast!"

"You underestimate the power of rumor," he returned. "Yet there is another explanation."

"Probably much more believable."

Frisson shrugged. "The witches were bound to Suettay's service by

their demonic master, and I would hazard the guess that some of the power that maintained them came from her. Now, though, the land has begun to rise against her, and she has withdrawn the power that upheld them, gathering all her strength unto herself, for her final battle with you."

"Just what I wanted to hear," I muttered, "that she'll be worse than ever, next time I meet her.', "It is a compliment, in its way," Frisson assured me.

"Then I think I could use a few insults. Well, let's move on." We did, but they kept coming. I hadn't really registered the fact that the whole bureaucracy here had been corrupted-or recruited from corrupt individuals, all having sold their souls to Satan. And of course, it took a lot of people to run a completely oppressive totalitarian regime. They came in all shapes and sizes, some of them young, some even young and beautiful, but most middle-aged or just plain aged. Frisson explained it to me.

"Most despair late in life," he told me. "Till the middle of their lives, they cling to the notion that God will give them worldly success of one sort or another-whether they deserve it or not-even if it be nothing more than the kind regard of other folk. But when they do look back on their lives and realize that nothing has come of their attempts to live virtuously, that they have not gained fame or love, many then do turn 'gainst God in bitterness and swear themselves to the Devil's service, if he will give them some advantage over their fellows while they live," "And they stop aging", "Their bodies, aye. Few think to have their lost youth back, and Satan will not give it to most who ask, for he has their souls already; they yearn so strongly for power or wealth that they will sell themselves to him even without the inducement of youth or beauty. But some are tempted by no other lure than that-though once corrupted, they turn to greed for power and wealth quite easily, even to the illusion of strength that comes from deliberate cruelty."

To me, of course, all this was just part of the massive hallucination in which I found myself. But even in my terms, I was beginning to understand that "selling your soul" could be more than a metaphor, or even a literary image; it represented dedicating yourself totally to yourself, to the gratification of your own drives and urges, to getting what you wanted no matter what it took, no matter who you had to hurt or betray or grind down-and no matter who you had to flatter,

or whose boots you had to lick. No matter, indeed-you planned on getting back at them when you'd climbed over their dead bodies to get their power. It made me shudder: I knew too many people like that, even in my own world.

Not that any of our successful treatment cases were any great argument for youth culture. There were a few women who must have looked really beautiful before they were hit by the smallpox that brought them to us-or the cancer, or the mild stroke-and there were a few men, too, who still looked so good, even in the grip of tuberculosis or syphilis, that they made me think of Dorian Gray. But after they repented and recanted, they looked more like his picturefor a few minutes. Then they aged rapidly, very rapidly. Fortunately, the pretty ones usually made it out of sight before they collapsed. The others just turned to dust right before our eyes. It made me shaky, I can tell you.

Most of them, though, just confessed and came over for healing, which we usually managed before they'd aged too badly. Then they went their way, jubilant if old and ugly. Beauty didn't matter to them much by then-they knew they didn't have long to live and were only interested in making amends.

Gilbert and I started getting very tired of fighting crabs, though fortunately the giant crustaceans didn't get any smarter. Gruesome didn't, either, but he developed quite a taste for crunching shells. He almost developed a taste for shellfish, period, but I managed to stop him in time and get him to realize that whatever the crabs had been doing inside the sick people, they were apt to do inside Gruesome. He started getting really angry at them then, with very salutary results.

Actually, I had to admire the repentant witches for their courage. To haul themselves for a week's stumbling journey, or more, took a lot of determination in itself, even if most of them did use the tatters of their authority to press peasants into giving them rides; some even managed to intimidate the gentry into express trips with horse-drawn vehicles. Some had to come on foot, though, and they did-but no matter how they traveled, they made the journey with their private demons hounding them every inch of the way. It must have taken enormous grit-though the fear of Hellfire may have helped there. The devils never showed themselves to anybody but the remorseful witches, though, after those first few encounters with my guardian angel. They knew that, as soon as one of the Heavenly Host stepped into the picture, they were bound to lose.

So the devils' only real chance of keeping the frightened witches to their contract was to intimidate them into staying away from priests and healers-or to hit them with so much despair that they would figure they couldn't possibly be forgiven, or had no way out of the contract, that they were going to Hell and there was nothing, but nothing, they could do about it. I suppose that worked on quite a few of them, but of course we never saw any. We heard about it, though, from the ones who lasted.

The witches weren't the only ones who showed up. The first nonoutlaw volunteer showed up our second morning. All he carried was a flail and a pack of journey rations, but he looked grim and told us he had come to fight the queen. Turned out the local warlock had ruined his family with taxes, debauched his sisters, and driven himself and his parents into living in a shelter that was basically a large basket, working from sunup to sundown to pay the taxes he claimed they still owed-and they didn't dare fight back.

"With you, however, I dare," he told me. "I may die, but I will at least bring down a soldier of evil before I do."

" 'Twas not the fear of death that held your arm, then?" Gilbert demanded.

"Nay, but the thought that my death would accomplish nothing, What have I to live for? But I would die for a purpose!"

"Come with us," Gilbert said.

There were three more waiting at the outskirts of the next village.

By evening, two more groups had joined us.

After that, they came in constantly. At every traffic circle, every milestone, there was another group of three or four, waiting to join us with scythes, flails, and stony expressions. Gilbert cross-examined them while Frisson muttered spells that tested them for truth. We found a few ringers, sent in by Suettay's ministers to infiltrate us, of course. They didn't last long.

"Don't kill him!" I shouted as a dozen peasants fell on the spy.

"You can't fight evil with evil-you'll just be selling out to it!" But the spy pulled out a knife as long as your arm and lunged at the nearest peasant, shouting a spell. The knife took the peasant in the chest, and the spell sent the rest of them writhing on the ground in agony.

Gilbert stepped in and chopped the man's head off. After that, I didn't argue.

The next day, a peasant came in, doffed his cap, and showed us his

tonsure. This time it was Friar Ignatius who did the cross examination, including handing the man a crucifix and listening to him say the Apostles' Creed. He passed the test, then helped hear confessions. The next day, another showed up, and by the end of the week, we had six monks. They saw the chance to unseat Suettay and came to add the strength of their prayers to our magic and Gilbert's army. Friar Ignatius assured me that they would multiply our effects tenfold. Given the crazy set of natural laws at work-or should I say, supernatural-I didn't doubt him.

Then a peasant showed up, wild-eyed and white-lipped. "They come, my masters, they come!"

"What do you speak of, man?" Gilbert grasped the man by both shoulders, holding him still. "Who comes?"

"The Army of Evil!" he cried. "Footmen and knights! There are too many to count, and they have two sorcerers to strengthen them!

My ragtag army broke into a hullabaloo-but I didn't see anybody who looked like running. They were all grim, most eager-even a few who were trembling with fear but determined.

There were only a few hundred of them, though.

"How many is 'too many to count"" I asked Gilbert.

"For a peasant?" He shrugged. "It could be a few hundred, or many thousand." He turned back to the man. "Were they on the road"'

"Aye! I heard them coming afar off and hid in the bracken to watch!

They came on and on and on, four abreast! I waited till they passed, counted as high as I could, yet still they came on!" Gilbert nodded. "How long was it till they passed?"

"How long?" The peasant looked startled; he hadn't really thought about it.

"As long as it takes you to go from your hovel to your field' Or as long as a Mass?"

"Between." The peasant's brow furrowed. "Not so long as the Mass, but longer than the journey to my field."

"A thousand at least." Gilbert released him. "You have done well.

How have you managed to come to us before them? " "They go by the road. I know the land and have come across the fields. They march; I ran."

Gilbert nodded. "They will be here within the hour, surelyprobably far sooner. You have done well, fellow. Go whet your scythe among the others; we will need it to be sharp ere long."

"I will!" Battle lust gleamed in the youth's eye-enough to make me shudder. He hurried away to join the others.

I stepped into a quick huddle with Frisson, Gilbert, and Friar Ignatius. "We knew this was coming, I suppose." Aye," Frisson said, looking as scared as a cat who has used up eight lives. "We set out to march 'gainst the queen, did we not?

"And we knew we would face her army, soon or late," Gilbert said.

"In truth, 'tis amazing they have not come upon us before; I have expected them with each nightfall."

"Nightfall?" I looked around. "Yeah, it's almost sunset, isn't it?"

"Assuredly," Friar Ignatius said. "The Army of Evil is at its strongest in the hours of darkness."

"So we have to hit them hard and fast and roll them up before night." I looked around at our peasant encampment, frowning.

"You have an idea," Frisson stated.

"Well," I said, "if they're being so polite as to come straight down the road, they must be expecting an ambush, mustn't they?"

"They would not fear it," Gilbert said grimly, "not with their numbers."

I nodded. "All the more reason to give them what they're expecting. What's the best kind of ambush you could prepare under the circumstances, Gilbert? " The squire frowned, thinking for a few minutes, then turned away to the peasants. "Ho! How many among you can strike a bird on the wing with a sling?"

"I," a dozen men said at once, and fifty more were only half a beat behind them. By that time, all the rest caught up, and the word

"I" rolled through the whole camp.

Gilbert nodded, satisfied. "So I had thought; small birds are the only game that is not forbidden to a peasant." He raised his voice.

"Seek out sling-stones, and be sure your pouches are full! Then get you up into the trees on either side of the road, and hide you well!"

The excited murmur rose to a surf roar as the peasants got busy hunting up pebbles.

"Good idea." I nodded. "Put them where the troopers can't come to grips with them."

"Aye," Gilbert said darkly, "but they are sure to have archers. It would take but a volley or two to fell all my men." I/Oh, I think we can provide them some measure of protection. just have a squad ready to block the road in front of them. That's where it's apt to get messy."

Frisson stared. "What manner of protection can you craft thus?"

"An invisible shield," I said. "Let them batter themselves against it and wear themselves out."

"A good thought!" Gilbert looked surprised. "Whence came that notion, Master Saul,"' "Oh, just a kind of fable I heard once." I didn't think I should try explaining about television and toothpaste commercials.

"But not for long." Frisson looked disappointed. "Surely their sorcerer will dissolve it."

"Yes," I said, "but we could build a wall within a wall within a wall.

Now Frisson looked startled. "That could hold-yet not long enough for the whole of the battle."

,Yes, but I think it'll keep their sorcerer busy long enough for us to get the drop on them."

Frisson frowned. " 'Get the drop"" "Take them by surprise," I said. "Sneak in an extra punch. Gain an advantage. " "All!" Frisson nodded. "And how shall you do that"'

"Too complicated to explain. I'll have to show you-after we've finished making the shield." I turned away. "So let's get busy-we need to stake out a very long perimeter."

it turned out we had just the boys for the job; somebody ran and borrowed a plow, and Gruesome pulled it -,vhile another fellow guided, following Gilbert. He paced off a line five hundred feet long, which didn't seem like enough for an army that took fifteen minutes to walk past, but he assured me they'd all come cramming in at the first sign of action. When they had plowed up one side of the road and down the other, then across to make an H, I took a verse Frisson had started some time before, but that had stayed in my mind rather oddly-probably because the rhythm of its meter was the kind of thing you can't get out of your mind for an hour, and when you do, it keeps coming back. I had scrounged up six feet of string while they'd been plowing, and now I sat down by the camp fire and wove a cat's cradle while I chanted: