Too Many Curses (13 page)

"Oh dear," said Yazpib. "You're using me as bait. You're using me as bait!"

Her ears beat with the heavy tick of her pulse. She barely heard him. "I'm sorry. It's the only way."

Yazpib voiced some objections that were lost on her. She only heard her own heart and the clamor of the hellhound's bells.

She dashed through the spa archway with the nurgax at her side and Yazpib floating over her head. The hound roared and gave chase. When the bells had finally faded away completely, the Drowned Woman dared surface. Though she technically didn't need to breathe, she exhaled with relief just the same.

Nessy didn't like to improvise. Not this much. When she acted, she liked to know what she was doing, to have all the details worked out. But there was so much she didn't know. She didn't know how long she could outrun a hellhound. She didn't know how long she could keep Yazpib afloat while running at full tilt. And she didn't know if her destination would be worth the effort. But none of these questions mattered. It was too late for doubts. She'd set her course of action, and the only choice was to see it through.

The dash cleared her head. There were few things faster than a kobold on all fours, and she heard the hound falling behind. She slowed, while plotting her course through the castle. She couldn't run directly straight. There were several ghosts and the Merry Corpse along that path. She stopped at a T-section of hallways. She knew the castle intimately, but it was so difficult to concentrate while levitating Yazpib.

He glanced backward at the snarling beast pursuing them. It bolted down the corridor, a fury of black smoke and red flame and long, pointed teeth. "Uh, Nessy . . ."

"Not now," she hissed, struggling through the haze.

The bells filled the hall. The hound roared. The torches
flickered and dimmed. The nurgax bared its teeth in Nessy's defense. Though it had eaten Margle, she didn't know if it could stand against a hellhound, and she wasn't willing to take the chance yet.

The hound came within a few leaping steps.

"Nessy . . ."

"Quiet!"

The hound pounced as her mental map fell into place. She bolted to the right almost completely unaware of the creature. It smacked into the wall with a loud gong. It staggered a moment before continuing pursuit.

The strain of magic was slowing her. She was still faster than the hound, but only just. She sped through the hall of portraits. The painted prisoners awoke from their sleep in time to see the brown blur of Nessy, the purple whiz of the nurgax, and the crashing blackness of the hellhound. They gagged and choked at the stench left in its wake.

"Where are we going?" Yazpib shouted. He kept one eye on the hound, the other forward.

"Very hungry carpet," she mumbled between heavy breaths.

"Hungry what?"

Nessy ricocheted off a wall to navigate a sharp turn. Next in her route came some steep stairs. If she fell, the tumble would surely be the end of her flight.

Behind her, the hound's breathing was sharp and steady. She couldn't match its endurance. The heat of its flames, the
stink of brimstone, the clatter of bells, all of these signs told her the creature was almost on top of her. If these weren't enough, Yazpib's terrified shouts of "It's on us! It's on us! It's on us!" over and over again confirmed it.

The pursuit sped past her room. The monster under her bed glared. "She'd better not get herself eaten before she finishes my book."

The stairs descended before her. If she leapt correctly, she could take them in two bounds. Once past them, she was certain she could make it to the very hungry carpet. Whether that was the answer to her problem was another matter entirely.

She jumped, and she knew instantly that she'd jumped wrong. Too low. Too late. She was going to land roughly and off balance. She'd tumble. Her levitation spell would end. Yazpib would be devoured. She'd be bruised and battered. The hound would be free to gorge itself on the castle's half-dead.

Jaws clamped around her tail, and she rose into the air. She thought the hound was annoyed enough to chew her up and spit her out before eating Yazpib. But hanging upside down, she saw the monster a few steps behind her. The nurgax held her. Its improbably tiny wings fluttered, somehow bearing the creature airborne.

Nessy's surprise loosened her grip on Yazpib. She tightened it just as he bounced once against the stones, sending chips of glass flying.

"Be careful!"

The nurgax landed at the foot of the stairs and hopped into the air to soar another fifteen feet. It threw Nessy high and caught her on its back. She held tight to its horn and looked back, practically eye to eye with the hound. The hall split in two directions, and the nurgax dashed down the left branch.

"No! Right! Right!" she ordered.

The nurgax snorted and came to a sudden stop. The hound hurled itself at Yazpib. Nessy waved her hand and raised the jar. Yazpib cracked against the monster's head but didn't break. The hound twisted in midair, landed on its feet, and sprang. The nurgax kicked the hound squarely on the nose. the monster was stunned by the audacity of such a blow. It blinked in utter shock. The nurgax slammed one giant foot upon the hound's paw and dashed away. The hound roared and jingled after them. They turned the corner into a long chamber with nothing but an irregular patchwork rug.

"Jump!" she commanded, and the nurgax did. Despite the nurgax's strong legs and surprisingly effective wings, they weren't going to make it, and one step on the carpet would be disastrous.

The nurgax stopped, hovering in midair. The hound sailed forward, and the nurgax raised its feet, planted them on the monster's muzzle, and pushed. The maneuver threw the hound headfirst into the carpet, and the added momentum hurled the nurgax to land gently several feet from the carpet's edge.

The hellhound struggled against the adhesive trap. It tried to claw its way free, but its paws became stuck. Then its tail. Then the rest of its body. The hound snorted fire, but the carpet didn't burn. The rug growled ravenously and folded itself around its prey. The tightly wrapped hound squirmed and snarled weakly.

"My word," said Yazpib. "What is that?"

Nessy smiled. "A very hungry carpet."

Her levitation spell came to a sudden end, and Yazpib dropped. He hit the stone. His jar didn't break, although the lattice of cracks and chips gave evidence of how close it had come. Half his fluid was gone, spilt during the chase. But the thick glass wasn't leaking, and all of Yazpib's parts (except for possibly a tooth or two) were accounted for.

The hound struggled vainly in the unbreakable folds of the very hungry carpet. It growled, howled, and yowled. Smoke billowed from the holes torn by the hound's spikes. But the carpet held tight.

"So it will eat the hound for us," said Yazpib hopefully.

"The carpet consumes cloth and fabric, not flesh. But once it snares its prey, it takes an entire day for it to unfold itself."

"It's only temporary? You nearly killed me for a temporary solution?"

"Sometimes temporary solutions are the only ones available."

"And when it gets loose, just what do you have planned then? I don't think I could take another chase."

"I think I have it worked out."

"You're not inspiring me with your confidence."

She shrugged. Yazpib might be worried about the hellhound and justifiably so. But for twenty-four hours, give or take, she had more urgent dilemmas.

Yazpib said, "For the record, I must admit I'm impressed with your levitation advancement. Most apprentices take months to reach your talent."

"One learns as fast as necessity dictates."

"Let's hope for a little less necessity in the future."

Nessy climbed off the nurgax's back and scratched under its chin. The creature purred. This was twice that it had saved her life, albeit the first time had mostly been a bit of luck.

"Thank you."

The nurgax licked her sloppily and cooed.

The labs were a maze of convoluted machinery. Ponderous devices clicked and creaked at their appointed tasks. One had labored ceaselessly for years to squeeze out a single drop of glowing elixir. Another ground bones in its gnashing teeth, poured the powder into tiny hourglasses, and stacked the hourglasses in a giant pyramid. Another rumbled and quaked, turning gears, blasting steam, counting down toward some shadowy deadline. A sign marked it as
THE DISSOLUTION ENGINE
. A worrisome title except that its counter stretched ten digits, and it only clicked one number a week, if that, and once in a while it even gained time. All the devices were so complex and interwoven that it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began. And in her more imaginative moments, Nessy thought they might very well be a single prodigious mechanism working toward some obscure wizardly end.

She had long ago lost her amazement at the sight, but Yazpib marveled as she carried him through this evening. She didn't have the strength to transport him by magic, but the nurgax and the cart did the job just as well.

Yazpib said, "Where in this world did Margle find an intact chaos clock? I thought they were all destroyed in the Magi Revolt. And a flesh sorter! They don't even make those anymore! How long does it take to disassemble a corpse?"

"A little over an hour." She'd witnessed the machine's many slicing blades, grasping bone removers, and fluid siphons once. While she couldn't help but admire its efficiency, she hoped to never watch it at work again.

Yazpib gasped at another device. "Is that a soul extractor?"

"The latest model," confirmed Nessy, "direct from the Necrotham."

"Remarkable. It's half the size."

"And it only takes ten minutes to remove the spirit." Margle's fondness for the contraption explained the proliferation of ghosts in the castle.

"Ten minutes, you say. It used to take three days. Where's the bucket for the waste?"

The waste to which Yazpib referred was the mutilated remains of the person fed to the machine. His use of a technical term almost made the device sound sanitary and practical.

"The new model doesn't need to destroy the body to distill the soul."

"Marvelous."

"Sounds perfectly ghastly to me," said Echo.

"Yes, yes, ghastly indeed. But one can't help appreciate the genius behind such an apparatus. Misguided as it might be."

Echo whispered in Nessy's ear. "Are all wizards deranged?"

Nessy smiled to herself. She'd served several wizards, a witch, and two enchanters. Not every employer had been maliciously insane, but all had carried unhealthy oddities of personality. The more peculiarities, the more power they seemed to possess, and Nessy assumed that madness and magic went hand in hand.

More than machinery filled the labs. There were shelves upon shelves holding thousands of potions, every one red as blood, Margle's favorite color. One might grant immortality, another might bring painful, lingering death. There was no way to know except to drink because none were labeled.

There were also monsters, creatures of Margle's own creation. He had never been especially skilled at shaping his own monsters, and there were countless horrible failures. Most had died moments after their completion or were killed in Margle's disgust. They were preserved and kept in bubbling vats, hung from the ceiling, or mounted on the walls. Yazpib stood in awe of these abominations too—particularly the scorpion shark that, had it lived, would surely have sown unprecedented terror on both sea and land.

Echo was less impressed, as evidenced by the disgust in
her voice. "This place is so unsettling. Are you positive you need me?"

"Yes." Nessy paused before a shelf full of empty jars. She picked out a heavy clay pot and a glass vessel. "Which would you prefer, Yazpib?"

"The glass one, I guess. Easier to see out of."

She poured him from his old jar to his new one.

"Not as roomy as the old one," complained Yazpib.

A new jar was merely a diversion of opportunity. The real reason for visiting the lab was a yellow-and-green slime bubbling within a cast-iron tub. Not all of Margle's experiments died.

"What is it?" asked Echo.

Nessy stood on her toes to glance over the tub's edge. "The protean sludge."

Nessy found the notebook beside the tub. It didn't belong there, but Margle had always been disorderly. She glanced through his notes, observing even his writing was untidy. But if the sludge performed as well as the findings suggested, then perhaps her plan had some merit.

"What does it do?" said Echo.

"It mimics."

"Mimics what?"

"Practically anything." Nessy squinted at a nearly illegible page. "In theory."

"Can I see it?" Yazpib pressed against his glass. "What's it look like?"

"You're not missing much," said Echo. "It's like rancid pudding. Does it always boil like that?"

"Always. Except Saturdays and every other Wednesday," replied Nessy, "when it swirls."

"Why does it do that?"

Nessy shrugged.

She spent a few more minutes looking over the notebook until she felt ready to begin some experimentation of her own. With the nurgax's help, she overturned the tub, spilling the protean sludge across the floor.

"You were right." Yazpib frowned at the goo spread across the stone. "I wasn't missing much."

Nessy bent down and stuck a single finger into the warm puddle. "Expropriate!" she said with a stern, commanding tone.

The sludge ceased bubbling. Slowly, it drew itself into a kobold-sized lump, and one at a time, details worked themselves into place. First the eyes. Then the ears. Then the feet. Then came the legs, which seemed out of order to Nessy. A muzzle and a mouth extended. Arms grew. Hands and fingers sprouted. And within a few short minutes, a perfect duplicate of Nessy stood before them.

Almost perfect. It was naked and bald with skin that appeared too fresh and new. The lack of fur she'd expected. The sludge had shown a reluctance to mimic hair. But seeing herself in such a state, even if only in a three-dimensional copy, was distasteful. She put a hand on the creature's new shoulder.