Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle (23 page)

The hound sent up a yowl of pain and terror, screeching to a halt barely a yard from the two small creatures who had been slated for a cruel attack.

A second hound charged into the lead. Again Shriek pulled hairs from her back. Clive knew that the arachnoid alien could control the chemical secretions of her own body. She could choose the chemicals with which the tips of her barbed hairs would be coated, and thereby choose the reaction she would provoke in her enemies.

For a fleeting instant, Clive wondered how Shriek had been captured. More to the point, how she had been held captive, when she might have used her arsenal of emotion-inducing chemicals against the cruel Crrd'f and the drooling, subservient Nvv'n. Perhaps she had been captured unawares and held in a sealed chamber that prevented her from hurling her barbs. Perhaps… well, now was not the. time to speculate. She
had
been captured, as had Clive, and now was their moment to die—or to escape!

Nvv'n was slobbering, wild-eyed with puzzlement and distress at the backfiring of his master's plan. The nearly mindless servant capered first to one side, then to the other. He made gestures with his hands, repetitive gestures that seemed at first to be meaningless, even mad. But Clive realized that he was in fact patting his clothing, looking around, searching for the pipe and ground material to which he was obviously addicted.

Poor Nvv'n, Clive thought. Double enslaved: to his master N'wrbb Crrd'f and to the foul stuff that he smoked in his pipe!

As for Crrd'f himself, the man was hopping about nearly as wildly as was his brainless lackey. First Crrd'f would yell at Nvv'n to bring the Finnboggi back to the attack, then he would bypass the slobbering dolt and urge on the dogs himself, slapping and shouting at them to attack. He backed away, ran from the room, returned in just seconds with a shortsword, and used it to poke the dogs' rumps, screaming at them to renew their attack.

And the Finnboggi, caught between Shriek's maddening barbs and Crrd'f's poniard, were yelping, cringing, tumbling upon themselves and one another.

What would Clive do to gain advantage of the situation? The tumbling hounds were indistinguishable from one another, but one of them, he hoped, was his own friend Finnbogg. If he could only do something to stop the mad tumbling, to get the attention of the hounds—especially of his friend!—he might yet turn the tables on the wicked Crdd'f and the buffoonish Nvv'n.

Finnbogg had loved songs, Folliot remembered. He'd loved singing. But Clive's mind went blank. Of all the hundreds of hymns, art songs, popular ditties, and soldier's marching tunes he'd ever known, not one could he summon up! Then he remembered. This whole mad adventure in the Dungeon had begun with a visit with his sweetheart to a music hall, as the guest of his friend du Maurier.

The play was
Cox and Box
by Sullivan and Burnand. And there was a tune that Clive had particularly liked, a ditty with lyrics that went around and around in the hearer's head. Yes! They were coming back to him!

In a tiny, piping voice he began to sing:

 

Not long ago, it was my fate,

To captivate a widow

At Ramsgate…

 

And from one of the Finnboggi, astonishing in its canine yowling and yet clear in every syllable, the counterpoint:

 

I, 'tis odd to state,

The same at Margate did, oh!

 

And then Clive and six Finnboggi, in triumphant chorus and glorious harmony, concluded:

 

The happy day came near at length
—

We hoped it would be sunny;

I found I needed all my strength

To face the ceremony.

 

Shriek had ceased throwing her barbed hairs. The cruel N'wrbb had drawn back, nonplussed. Even the slobbering Nvv'n stood, awestruck. "Finnbogg!" Clive Folliot cried.

"Folliot!" The canine who had sung most vigorously of all that vigorous chorus leaped to the fore. In one pawlike hand he scooped Clive up and held him before his face. "Clive Folliot, what happened to you!"

Before Clive could reply, Finnbogg looked around, an expression of canine bafflement on his face. "What happened to me? To all of my littermates—to my own mate and our pups?"

"Your littermate and pups?" Clive echoed.

"I wed, Folliot. Of course, you'd never have known. I found my mates, and I wed and sired six splendid pups on my lady-love. Three splendid males, as stout and active as their sire. Three splendid females, as fetching and affectionate as their dam. But—but after that, Folliot, more tragedy befell." He began to croon a mournful dirge, something that Clive recognized as "Addio, Mia Bella Napoli."

And even as Clive watched in amazement, the light of awareness and of recollection brightened in the eyes of all the Finnboggi. Hastily, Finnbogg placed Folliot on the floor near Shriek. Then, as if by plan, the six canines turned in their tracks. A sound unlike any ever before heard by Clive rose from six canine throats. It was an amalgam of grief and rage as six minds, six beings descended from a doglike ancestor but raised to human intelligence and sensitivity, regained the lost awareness of maltreatment meted out to them and their kind, to them and their loved ones.

And before Clive Folliot could so much as move, the Finnboggi had leaped upon N'wrbb Crrd'f. There were cries from the slender man, sobs and pleas for mercy. But there was no mercy.

What Crrd'f had done to the Finnboggi and their kin, Clive Folliot could not know. But what the Finnboggi did to N'wrbb Crrd'f was painful… and bloody… and final.

When it was over, when all that remained of N'wrbb Crrd'f lay still and steaming before the throne that Crrd'f had himself affected, Finnbogg—the original Finnbogg whom Folliot had met at the bridge on Q'oorna—came to Folliot.

"He made you little, eh?" Finnbogg sniffed at Folliot, then at Shriek. "Made you both little, eh?"

"I—I think Nvv'n was involved, too, old friend."

"Huh—Nvv'n. Nvv'n stupider as slug. Bad Nvv'n, but very stupid. Crrd'f smart. Bad, smart Crrd'f, hurt Finnboggi no more."

 

Clive Folliot blinked, shook his head, and gazed around him. The sounds of alien voices and distant places faded from his ears. Although no blinders had been placed before his eyes, the visions he had seen were similarly exotic. He had left this room in company of Horace Hamilton Smythe. With Horace he had visited the London headquarters of the Universal Neighborhood Improvement Association.

With Horace he had visited Hell—and brought about the demise of his rogue cousin, Tomàs—and very nearly perished—and been rescued by the Baron Samedi. He wondered, for a moment, what would become of the soul of a person who had already achieved Hell, and died there. That conundrum he would gladly leave to the theologians.

And from Hell he had been transported to the exotic world of Djajj, home of the green-haired villain he had first met so long ago in the Dungeon. How, he wondered, had he and Horace been transported back to this room? Had Sidi Bombay summoned them by means of some psychic energy?

Would he even have survived his latest trials, had he not previously been tempered in the Dungeon? Had he ever been able to stand up to his elder twin, Neville? Was he ready at last to meet that test?

Clive had grown in the Dungeon. The emotionally stunted and deprived younger brother had come into his own. Yes, he realized—he was ready to face whatever lay ahead.

Rising, Clive said, "Sidi Bombay, Horace Smythe—we have made a terrible mistake."

"Mistake, sah?"

"Yes, Sergeant. I share the blame for it. We all share the blame for it. But I, most of all—for my blood and my position call upon me to furnish leadership, and I have instead awaited the breezes and the buffets of fate to direct my course."

"What do you propose to do then, sah?"

"We have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by the Chaffri and by the Ren, by Father O'Hara and Philo Goode and N'wrbb Crrd'f and by my brother Neville Folliot. N'wrbb Crrd'f is no more—he came to a painful but not undeserved end. Still, my friends, we have suffered, and our companions and allies have suffered and some of them have died."

"I understand your feelings about the Lady 'Nrrc'kth, sah."

"Yes. I shall never forget that lady, and I shall not forgive myself for leading her into the situation that brought about her death. She is avenged, now, I suppose." He closed his eyes and conjured up for a fleeting moment a face of pale grace and tenderness, then banished it with a sigh. "And our other friends, Horace, Sidi," he resumed. "Faithful Finnbogg, Shriek, Chang Guafe. The Baron Samedi—a strange being, but with a noble heart at the last. They, too, I have seen. Horace—you were with me when I saw Baron Samedi."

"Aye, sah—that I was! And a welcome sight the fellow was, for all that he's an odd one! But for the Baron and his magical cheroot, you and I would have been meat for those winged demons, I'll take my oath on that, sah!"

Clive nodded. "And my own descendant, Annabelle Leigh. Where is she now? Horace Smythe, Sidi Bombay—where is she now?"

Before either could reply, Clive resumed. "We must take the initiative, my friends. We must not wait for the enemy to attack, for our friends and allies to cry out for our assistance. What we must do is strike to the heart of the problem. We must carry the attack to our foes."

He rose to his full height and shot a piercing look into the faces of his companions. "Whatever weapons may be turned against us, we must not flinch! Neither fang nor claw nor venomous barb shall halt us!"

Sidi Bombay said, "What do you propose, then, Major Clive Folliot? And might I ask, Major—where have you been?"

Clive smiled. "I stepped out with Sergeant Smythe for a few moments of relaxation at a neighborhood pub. Would you not agree with me, Horace?"

"Yes, sah. But I might say, sah—we had a hellish time leaving the establishment."

The two Englishmen, one of noble birth and one of penurious farm stock, shared a hearty laugh.

Sidi Bombay looked on in puzzlement.

"But after we left the hot region, courtesy of Baron Samedi and his magical cheroot," Horace Smythe said, "I found myself back here, while you, sah, did not return for some time."

"Some time indeed," Sidi Bombay interjected in an annoyed tone. "In addition to the investigation in which I engaged myself during your absence, I also prepared a repast for the three of us, to be consumed upon your return. Your dinner had grown cold before your return, Clive Folliot. Where were you in the interim?"

"Indeed, sah!" Horace Smythe added. "Where were you for all that time?"

"You never were able to locate our lost companions, were you, Sidi Bombay?"

The Indian shook his head sadly. "I was not, Clive Folliot. I do not know whether the limitation lies within the mechanism at hand, or within my own poor intellect. Perhaps with unlimited time in which to work…"

"Perhaps my descendant Annabelle Leigh could solve the problem with one of her—now, what was the term she used? Yes! One of her drygoods schedules." He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. "No, not drygoods schedules—
software programs
, that was the term she used. But she is not here either."

"We did see Baron Samedi," Horace Smythe said. "And the Major's distant cousin Tomàs. I think we shall never see Cousin Tomàs again—and good riddance say I. Begging the Major's forgiveness, sah."

"Losing a kinsman is never a happy event, Horace. But in this case, I cannot truthfully claim any great sense of bereavement."

"As for Baron Samedi," Smythe continued, "why, that gentleman says that he visits the Earth now and then. If any of us ever set foot upon the island of Hayti—a tropic paradise, I believe it to be, covered with lush rain forests from primeval times—we might encounter him there. Or even in the American city of New Orleans."

"At the moment Samedi waved his cheroot, Horace," Clive said, "do you recall your final thought before leaving Hades?"

"I thought of the London station of the U.N.I.A, Major. In fact, as I recall it, sah, I had quite a vivid mental image of the front door of the establishment."

"Indeed." Clive nodded. "And that was where you found yourself, I should think."

"Yes, sah."

"Whence you returned here directly?"

"I stepped back inside the pub for a moment, sah. In fact, I stayed for a while in hopes of Your Majorship's own return."

"Yes. I would imagine that you even partook of a sip of the establishment's wares. No, there's no need for excuses." He held up a hand, precluding a rush of explanation. "I did not return there, so in due course you returned here. Is that correct, Horace?"

"It is, sah."

Clive paced in a circle, the energy of concentrated thought translating itself to physical movement. "At the moment that Baron Samedi waved his cheroot, I was thinking of Finnbogg. And I found myself transported to the world where Finnbogg was at that very moment."

"His home world, Clive Folliot?" Sidi Bombay's interest had clearly been piqued.

"No, Sidi Bombay. He was on the planet Djajj—the original home of N'wrbb Crrd'f and the Lady 'Nrrc'kth. Finnbogg was there, and so also was our old friend Shriek. Both were prisoners of N'wrbb Crrd'f. By the time I left there, both were free—and the unspeakable crimes of N'wrbb Crrd'f had been avenged upon their perpetrator!"

"But how did you return here, Clive Folliot? And where are Shriek and Finnbogg now?"

Clive shrugged. "I cannot answer either question, Sidi Bombay, with assurance. Although I would guess—and only guess—that since I was returned to Earth, then Shriek and Finnbogg are now back upon their own respective planets. I cannot tell for certain."

There was a long silence in the room. The mechanisms that filled so much of it flickered and glowed in their own arcane rhythms. Outside, in the streets of modern London, Clive Folliot could imagine the sights and sounds and smells of a million men and women, horses and dogs and cats, steam railroads and iron-wheeled drays.