Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (24 page)

"Knot the stomach, bind the headLet your limbs go weak with dread!"

The sorceress collapsed, falling back on the ground with a howl of anger and fear.

Gruesome bellowed victory and stooped for the kill.

"Be as thou wast wont to be!" I shouted. "See as thou wast wont to see!

Gruesome froze.

Then his face wrinkled, and he turned away in disgust. "Yugh!

Sorceress! Tough! Sour!"

Suettay stared, not knowing whether to be insulted or relieved. The fear spell was still on her, but she started muttering anyway,

Gruesome whipped about, looking from side to side in total bewilderment. "Where goody,' Where juicy piglet?" So that was what he had seen, instead of Suettay. "it got away," I said quickly. "Why don't you go back to the camp fire and see if Gilbert has any leftovers from dinner?"

"Deer haunch." Gruesome nodded sagely and turned away. Yom!

I pulled out my clasp knife, snapped it open, and stepped up to touch the point against Suettay's throat. "Cut it," I snapped, "or I will! " The last syllables of the chant died in the sorceress'

throat as she read the conditional sentence in my eyes. But she saw something else, too, and a slow, mocking smile spread over her face. "You believe you have beaten me, then?"

"I did sort of have that impression, yes." Privately, I wondered how long I could hold the knife still.

"Slay me, then." Suettay smiled, showing teeth. I stared.

I clamped my jaw, narrowed my eyes. She was mocking me, riding a bluff. She should have known better; it only made sense for me to kill her. I braced myself for the thrust-and stayed braced. Suettay's eyes danced, mocking me.

I ground my teeth and tried to summon up the resolution for the fatal blow. "Start a spell."

Suettay shook her head, grin widening.

"Damn"' I whirled away, plunging the knife into the earth. Suettay laughed, a mocking bray. "I congratulate you on your ... honor, Wizard."

I swung about, fuming.

"Aye, slay the helpless old woman," the sorceress jeered.

"When you rendered me defenseless, Wizard, you bound your own hands.

"Nothing," I ground out, "gripes me more than someone who takes advantage of someone else's good nature."

"I could not be more pleased with your ... virtue." Suettay made the word an insult.

I spun away, burning, taking a deliberate step away from the woman so I wouldn't do something I'd feel sorry for in the morning. Behind me, the sorceress sang out a rhyme in that ancient language I didn't know. I spun about in alarm. She was stretching luxuriously.

"Thank you for affording me a moment to recite my

counterspell, Wizard. Be assured, I'll not return the favor." Her hands started weaving.

I. snatched up the knife and turned back to her, shifting from side to side, coming in low. Of course, she could have blocked that with three words, so I chanted,

"Her freedom is gained, Her malice unfeigned!

The blow need not hold, For blood's no longer ...

Suettay stared, alarmed, then broke off her chant to cry, "Hist!" She held up a hand, turning her head a little to the side and frowning, as if listening to a distant sound.

Then she turned back to me, snarling, "How you have worked your vile spells, Wizard, I do not know-but I grant You've been far more formidable than I had thought you would be./' A truce? I wondered if it was wrong of me to feel relieved.

"I would I could stay and finish what we've so lately begun," Suettay spat, "but sudden, urgent affairs have arisen, which require my Personal attention-blast that monk and his obstinancy! We shall meet again, be certain-yet I must own, I've gained some respect for you. When next I see you, 'twill be with an army at my back." Yes, I decided, wanting a truce was wrong. I screwed down my mercy and began reciting.

"Fear no more the heat ol the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages

Suettay looked up in amused surprise. I set my teeth and went on:

"Thou thy worldly task hast done; Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages."

Suettay cocked her head to the side suddenly, as if she were again listening for something.

Trying to distract me, I thought. I focused tightly on her face, chanting:

"Golden lads and girls all must

Suettay turned back to me with a long, gloating laugh that ended abruptly in a shouted, unintelligible phrase as she swung her arms in opposing circles.

"As chimney sweepers!" I shouted.

Suettay disappeared.

I1... come to dust," I finished. "Damn. too!

Then I started wondering what she had been laughing about. Probably just trying to distract me, as I'd thought ... but ... How about if she had seen some trouble coming for me and my companions?

On a wide-open plain? In the dead of night? Ridiculous! After an act like that, what trouble could make any difference?

Then I heard the clank of arms, Gilbert's shouting, and Frisson's howl, faint but clear across the plain. Gruesome roared, and a crowd of voices answered him. Metal clashed on metal.

"She sent an ambush party while she had me out of the way!" I cried. But I didn't answer; I was already running, and trying to figure

out how I could get there faster.

Faster? I skidded to a halt. I was a wizard, wasn't I? At least, that's what they kept telling me. I could get to any place I wanted, instantly-at least, within this hallucination. All it took was the

right spell.

"The trouble's fast-moving, and so must move I, Till I'm set by the fire 'Neath this bright midnight sky. Let me, in an instant, a league or more gain, In the bat of an eye, far out 'cross this plain!"

There was a sudden rush of giddiness-then my head stopped swimming, and I looked up at mud-and-thatch walls, crude plank

furniture, and dirty, unkempt people in ragged, dun-colored home spun.

The man of the house looked up, startled, from his place at the table. He had a long beard and a large axe.

I stared. What had gone wrong?

Terminology. I'd said "by the fire," but I hadn't specified which one. And I had said "across the plain"-so here I was, in a peasant hut presumably on the far side of the plain.

I gave the denizens a toothy grin and tipped an imaginary hat.

"Sorry about the intrusion, folks. just semantics, that's all." The man's lips writhed back in a snarl as he came up from the table, hefting his axe.

Obviously a grammarian. I adlibbed,

I And I had a good excuse,

"The lure missed the fish, and wound up in a shack. I return to the world, 'cross the plain. I go back!" The axe swung down-and I was suddenly in the midst of bright moonlight again. I turned around, totally confused-and saw a bright spot on the horizon. Dimly, I heard clashing and yelling. I sighed. Overshot again! Well, I hadn't exactly had time to get specific.

But my friends were in a jam. I had to come up with a spell while I made it to them.

"The starry welkin cover thou anon With gloomy fog as black as Acheron And lead these treacherous soldiers so astray As each come quickly in the other's way!"

Suddenly, fog rose up from the ground, getting thicker and thicker as it climbed. In two minutes, it had hidden the stars-and the distant clash of arms was liberally interspersed now with shouts of surprised and angry pain, and cursing.

That would hold them for a while. I dredged up an orientation verse:

"Take me back to my new friends At the campsite where they fend And guard themselves with might and care From the foes attacking there!"

There was that moment of disorientation again-then things steadied, and I found myself staring at the coals of our camp fire. I whirled about to see Gruesome tossing soldiers like Indian clubs. Gilbert was laying them about him with his broadsword, and Frisson crouched by the fire, reading scraps of paper aloud. Angelique flitted here and there, trying to scare enemy soldiers, and not terribly worried by their weapons.

But I was-because the fog suddenly lifted. Only ten feet or so, but that was enough for the soldiers to see where we were and turn to center on us with some very nasty oaths.

If their field sorcerer could disperse my fog, he might be able to trap Angelique! I had to find some way to bust up his party.

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen.

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown That host in the morning lay withered and strown."

A huge unseen hand seemed to slap back and forth in the middle of the raiding party, and troopers went flying. That left only a man in a gray robe and pointed cap, frantically dodging the unseen force. He was going to be confused for a few minutes, and I decided to make it worse.

"I'll chant to him in summertime, And in the winter, too!

But the only, only thing That I'll sing for his song is to shroud him in the foggy, foggy dew!"

-and among The fog came down again, all the way to the ground the moans of the soldiers, I heard a tenor cursing. I grinned; that should keep this junior sorcerer confused for a few minutes.

kly. I needed something a But he'd pick up the pieces pretty quic uld scare the symbols off his robe-and little more enduring, that wo his soldiers, too.

And I knew just the thing. I grinned with anticipation as I took a deep breath and recited, with my best attempt at the original pronunciation, "The fierce spirit painfully endured hardship for a time,

He who dwelt in darkness ...

The grim spirit was called Grendel, a rover of the borders, One who held the plains, fen and fastness ...

There came gliding in the black night the walker in darkness, From the plain under the mist-hills Grendel came walking,

Wearing God's anger!"

Night thickened around them, and I took off, following the crashing Gruesome was making. on my third step, I slammed into something hard and furry. A roar resounded around me, and a huge, clawed hand reached down through the darkness toward me. Far above, two little red eyes gleamed. I howled, ducked around the giant shin, and ran.

Grendel apparently wasn't about to change course for so small an irritation, because the crashing of boulders being ground into pebbles behind me, and I didn't think that was just because was going away he was running so fast. A yell of horror confirmed it, followed by the rattle and clash of suits of armor being jumbled together. I slowed and looked back, but all I could see was a black cloud with a horse arcing above it and a sorcerer beyond, sawing the air frantically with

his hands. The horse landed on its hooves, by some miracle, and streaked off in a panic-but the sorcerer had to stand his ground and keep trying. I didn't think he'd have much luck when he couldn't even tell what the monster was-especially since I didn't think the man knew Middle English. Too bad the Dark Age bards hadn't left a few verses with a wider range of applications-but their interests had seemed to be rather narrow.

Wide enough for current purposes, however. I noticed that the crashing seemed to have stopped. So did the sorcerer-he was frozen with his arms half-raised, looking uncommonly as if he were surrendering to a Wild West sheriff. Then he whipped about and disappeared back into the pass. The black cloud drifted after him, leaving huge, clawed, vaguely anthropoid footprints.

I didn't really care about the sorcerer, but I couldn't leave a scourge like that to prowl the countryside. I tried to remember how the fight had gone, decided to be a little more humane, and improvised a different ending:

"Grendel must flee from there, mortally sick, Seek his joyless home in the fen-slopes.

He knew the more surely that his life's end had come, The full number of his days."

The black cloud kept moving up toward the pass-but as it moved, it thinned until, by the time it reached the top, it was almost gone. A vague outline hung in the air for a second, huge and gross, like a monstrous parody of the human form-or was it reptilian?-then was gone, so quickly that I wondered if I'd really seen it. I sighed and turned away-there had been something heroic about the monster, after all.

Gilbert was glancing warily up toward the hilltop, then back to the place where his opponents had been. There was only a dust cloud there now.

I looked at it, surprised. "What did you do-knock them all the way back to the mountains?"

"Nay. They saw that black fog you raised, and turned tail. They fled, and I came near to fleeing after them."

"Near! If I'd had a clear field, I would've been flying out of here so fast, my backwash would have knocked you over!"

"Me, too!" The troll actually looked shaken. "Goosum go, fast!" I looked up at Gruesome, frowning. "I thought trolls weren't scared of anything."

"One." Gruesome nodded vigorously. "Found it."

"And you banished it, Wizard. Gilbert looked up at me, the whites still showing all around his eyes. "Nay, you have certainly cleared our pathway! Have you disbanded them so quickly, then?" I1 'Dismembered' may be more like it," I answered. "You'll pardon me if I don't go back to check."

"Aye, Certes." Angelique looked down from where she wafted around Gruesome's shoulders, eyes huge. "And what monstrous apparition was that which you did raise against them, Wizard Saul?" Being a ghost, she had a professional interest in the question.

"That's a long story." I sighed. "And a very old one. I'll tell it to you some time-but right now, I think we'd better reset the guarding circle that Gruesome broke when he came out to help me-thanks, old monster .

"Help you?" Angelique looked up, ready to fibrillate.

"That's another story," I said quickly. "I thought you wanted to hear the one about the monster while we wait for daylight."

"Aye, but I pulled out my can of talcum powder "Then we'd better get busy.

and stepped over to the break in the circle. Angelique drifted after me anxiously, but by the time she caught up, I was deep in, mumbling the spell. When I finished, I looked up brightly and said,

"Okay. Anybody want to hear?"