Golem in the Gears (14 page)

"Wait!" Grundy cried. "The truth is, I didn't come alone. My friend—he can't face the light."

"Your friend?" she asked. "Who is he?"

"He is known as the—well, he lives under the bed."

"Nobody lives under my bed," she said.

"Under Ivy's bed," Grundy explained somewhat lamely. "He—he's my steed. He can climb better than I can, because he's got more hands."

"Ivy's bed?"

"She's a child, and all children have—things under their beds."

"Oh, you must mean Snortimer!" Rapunzel exclaimed. "Now I remember; she's mentioned him."

"But he can't come out into the light, and we couldn't bring the bed up here, so—"

"He can borrow my bed," she said warmly. "I've always wanted a Monster Under the Bed!"

"I don't know—" Grundy said. "I think he can only live under Ivy's bed."

"Nonsense. I'm her pun-pal. That makes my bed just as good." She moved about in the darkness. "Where are you, Snortimer? Let me show you my bed."

"I don't think—" Snortimer said to Grundy in Monster- tongue.

"Now I'll be most unhappy if you don't try my bed," Rapunzel said, beginning to sound unhappy. "I've never had a Monster Under my Bed, even to visit; Mother Sweetness never would allow it. Whatever will I do, if you refuse?"

"Better at least try it. Snort," Grundy mumbled, feeling awkward. This was the last kind of discussion he had anticipated. But when Rapunzel sounded happy, she sounded very very happy, and when she sounded unhappy,

it was awful.

Grudgingly, Snortimer moved across the dark chamber

to where she indicated her bed was. A surprised snort followed. "I can use it!" Snortimer exclaimed. "It's com- fortable! Grade-A dust!"

"In that case, perhaps we can light the lamp," Grundy

said. "He's safe, under the bed."

In a moment, the light came on; evidently she had a

magic match. At first it was indeed blinding; then he

adapted.

Beautiful was hardly the word to describe Rapunzel;

it was inadequate. She was as lovely a creature as he had encountered. She seemed to be about twenty years old, with eyes that shifted colors in the angles of the shadows, and hair like endless silk, ranging in shade from almost black at her head to bleached white at the end of the tresses. She wore an old-fashioned Mundanian skirt and bodice, with velvet slippers. A series of stout combs buck- led her tresses in place; she was busy hauling them in and fastening them down, hank by hank. Grundy wondered that the weight of it didn't drag her head down to the floor. But her hair seemed to compact as it curled against her head, so that no matter how much of it she piled on, it remained of only ordinary volume. Obviously her magic talent was her hair; it was both infinite and finite. "Oh—I thought you'd be larger," she said. "I guess I forgot to tell you," Grundy said. "I'm a

golem."

"A golem?" "I was fashioned of wood and rag and string," he

explained. "Several decades ago. Later I managed to become alive, but my size didn't change."

"That's all right," she said. "I like you the way you are."

"You do?" This, too, caught him by surprise.

"Of course. There are advantages to being the right size." And abruptly she was his size.

Grundy stared. Where a full-sized human girl had been, there now stood one slightly smaller than he was. She was identical in every respect, and every bit as lovely, only smaller. "How—?" he asked, dazed.

"I'm of mixed elfin/human stock," she explained. "It all started four centuries ago, when my great-to-the-nth- degree grandmother Bluebell Elf met this handsome human barbarian warrior and used adaptation magic on him, for a tryst. Ever since, their descendants have been able to shift from her size to his, and in between, and beyond. So I can be anywhere from your size, which is smaller than an elf, to giant size, which is larger than human, though that's about the limit. Some of my ancestors have married elves, and some human folk, depending on their tastes, but the magic has carried through. Size really doesn't make much difference to me, but I've tended to stick to human size because that's the way Mother Sweet- ness is. Also, my hair might not reach all the way down, if I were too small, though I'm not sure about that; it does keep growing, and I haven't tried it in that size recently."

"Bluebell Elf," Grundy repeated, remembering some- thing. "I know a human man from about that time, named Jordan. He says he—"

"Yes, he's the one!" she exclaimed, clapping her little hands enthusiastically. "I always wondered what became of him, after he left the Elven tree. Because my first female ancestor was elven, she never knew more about

the man, because he was the roving kind, as barbarians

are."

"That I can tell you," Grundy said, pleased. He liked

this woman very well. "But there is something more seri- ous I need to tell you first. I'm afraid it will be very

difficult for you to accept."

"Oh, I don't think so!" she said cheerily. She came to sit by him on the floor, as the furniture was too large for either of them, now. Her proximity had an electric effect on him, for not only was she the loveliest creature of his size he had encountered, she was treating him exactly like a person. "It's so delightful to have company—I've never had a visitor before, you know—and even a Monster Under my Bed, even if it's only a borrowed one. It does get lonely, being alone all the time, when Mother Sweet- ness isn't here. Of course I do correspond, and exchange things with Ivy, though I don't have anything very good to send her compared to the wonderful things she sends

me—"

"The wonderful—?" She jumped up, even prettier in her lithe activity than

she had been when sitting. "See, I have them here on a table. Here, I'll have to change to reach it." She shifted to human size, reached down her hand, and picked Grundy up, setting him gently on the table. Her fingers were soft and fine and smelled faintly of bubblebath. "Now hold my hand," she said, extending one finger.

Grundy took hold of the finger—even the nail was smooth and sweetly shaped—and suddenly she was small again, and with him, holding hands. "I can't do it by myself," she exclaimed. "I have to stand where I change, if you see what I mean. I can get down by jumping and changing in midair, but it's hard to get up without breaking the table." She smiled brilliantly. "But with another per-

son, then I can be with that person—and so here I am, on the table, with you."

Indeed she was, and Grundy was mightily impressed. He had never been with a creature like this before, and he liked it very well. His whole limited life seemed to assume more significance, just because of her presence.

They faced a substantial collection of oddments: bits of string, pebbles, sand, flower petals, fragments of pot- tery, a paperclip, a Mundane penny, a fragment of colored glass, and so on. These were the ordinary things that Ivy had sent in exchange for all the beautiful puns Rapunzel had sent. Yet the woman seemed to be quite pleased with them.

"I'm not sure that what you send her is inferior to what you have here," he said cautiously.

"But these are things of the real world!" she exclaimed happily. "All I have to send are used puns, and they're very cheap. See, there's some piled up in the comer." She gestured, and Grundy saw assorted knick-knacks there. One was a green bottle, another a branch of a tree, and another was a ball formed of fingers and hands.

"What are they?" he asked.

"Oh, one's a club soda; I haven't sent her that because I don't want her to get clubbed. That branch is an ever- green; it turns anything it touches green—you can see how the floor has become green there. And a handball, and tail-lights—"

"I understand," Grundy said, seeing the lighted tails.

"Pun-things hardly relate to the real world," Rapunzel continued. "But these artifacts Ivy sends—each a little bit of her reality—how I wish I could go there! I want so much to join the real world."

"I would like to take you there," Grundy said, hardly believing that it could be so easy.

"Oh, I can't go," she said, frowning, and it was as though a cloud passed over the lamp, dimming the room.

"I have to mind the lamp."

"The lamp," he asked, looking at it as the fog about it

dissipated.

"This is a lighthouse. The beam has to keep swinging

around and around, so that the Monster of the Sea doesn't

crash against the rocks in the dark."

Oh, the big lamp! "But the Monster of the Sea doesn't come here!" Grundy exclaimed. "He's afraid of the Sea

Hag."

"The what?"

"The Sea Hag. She—"

"What is this word 'hag'?"

Was she teasing him? "That's what I have to tell you, that you may not like. Maybe you'd better sit down for

this."

"Very well," she agreed readily enough. "Hold my

hand."

He held her hand, no great chore, and they walked to

the edge of the table. Then she jumped off—and changed to human size in midair. She landed solidly, but Grundy was still clasping one of her fingers. Then she lifted him down, and across to the couch, where she reversed the process. Now the two of them were sitting on the couch,

quite comfortable.

Grundy remained somewhat awed by the facility with

which she shifted size without sacrificing any of her daintyness, but he forced himself to focus on the subject. "It's about the one you call 'Mother Sweetness,'" he said. "She—may not be quite what you believe."

"But I've known her all my life!" Rapunzel exclaimed. "How did you come to be here in the Ivory Tower?"

he asked, hoping to find a way to say what needed to be said without alienating her.

"Well, I don't remember it myself, but from what I have been told, my parents were in trouble, and Mother Sweetness arranged to help them, and so they gave their next child to her to raise, and that was me. And I really have no right to complain, for Mother Sweetness has been very good to me, but sometimes—"

There wasn't going to be any easy way. "Outside, she is known as the Sea Hag," he said. "She takes young women and—and uses their bodies."

"I don't understand," Rapunzel said, her brow furrow- ing prettily.

"She—takes over their bodies. Makes them hers. I don't know what happens to the—the original owners. So instead of being an old hag, suddenly she's young and beautiful. Then she arranges for a new body, for when she gets old again and needs it. That way, she's immor- tal—only not with her own body."

Rapunzel stiffened. "I can't believe that!" "I was afraid you wouldn't," Grundy said. "But if you don't believe it, you may be doomed to a fate worse than death."

"But Mother Sweetness has always treated me so well." "And never let you leave the Ivory Tower." "I explained about thaL-The light—the Monster—" "And I explained that the Monster never comes this way, except this time, to help rescue you. He knows the Sea Hag of old."

She shook her head. "You seem like such a nice person! How can you say such a mean thing about Mother Sweet- ness?"

She refused to believe him. For that he could hardly blame her—yet somehow he had to convince her. "Well,

I understand that she can't take over a person's body unless that person gives permission. So if you don't give permission, then maybe you'll be safe, even if you don't believe. You don't want your body taken over by another person, do you?"

Rapunzel shuddered fetchingly. "No, of course not! But I just can't believe that Mother Hag—I mean. Mother Sweetness would ever do such a thing! She's taken such good care of me!"

"Because the Sea Sweetness—I mean, the Sea Hag wants to have the best possible body to use! She has prepared you exactly for her purpose, telling you only what she wants you to know, preventing you from ever learning the truth. Does she know you've been corre- sponding with Ivy?"

"Of course. I was afraid she would be vexed, but when she learned that Ivy was only a child she decided that it was all right. Children don't know very much. But I'm not allowed any other pun-pals."

"Because she doesn't want you to leam anything about the real world! Not until it's too late!"

Rapunzel shook her head. "I just can't believe—"

There was a voice from outside. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair!"

"Oh, she's back!" the girl exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth in alarm. "She mustn't find you here!"

Grundy felt the same. But he was trapped; he and Snortimer couldn't escape, with the Hag waiting below. What was he to do now?

Chapter 8. The Sea Hag

Kapunzel!" the Hag called more peremptorily from below.

"Oh, I must let her in!" the girl said, jumping off the couch and becoming human-sized.

"You mustn't!" Grundy said. "She and I are natural enemies!"

"I don't know what to do!" Rapunzel exclaimed, dis- traught.

"Whatever you do, don't let her in!" Grundy said. "She is an evil creature."