The Exotic Enchanter (14 page)

The Rajah's eyes narrowed. "If you truly believe that," he said, "I challenge you to prove it by coming with me to Krishna's temple and standing before his statue. If you are not struck down by Krishna's anger, I may begin to believe you are sent by a god, and are not liable to punishment yourself, for interfering with the king's justice."

A look of alarm spread over Chalmers' features, but Shea felt only a wash of relief. Statues were only sculptures, after all—lumps of wood or rock fashioned into something resembling human form. He bowed. "As you wish, O Scale of Justice."

"But," Malambroso said hastily, "since the maiden Shobhani is the cause of this difficulty, should she not also stand by us before the statue?"

"She shall," the Rajah promised. "Come!" He turned away, and his soldiers stepped up behind the three enchanters, spears out to prod.

As they followed the King, Chalmers muttered to Malambroso, "You colossal idiot! Admittedly, a statue is only a statue, but you never know what tricks priests can work, especially in a magical universe! Do you want Florimel to be struck by lightning, too?"

"Come, Chalmers." Malambroso had regained his former aplomb. "You do not truly believe such a thing can happen, do you?"

"Well . . . no," Chalmers admitted, "and it does keep her from getting lost." But a gleam had come into his eye, and Shea wondered what he was planning.

He found out when they stood before the image of Krishna—wooden, apparently, for it was painted, and the blue face of the boy-god looked down upon them as Chalmers reached out to stroke Shobhani's black hair, muttering a verse. Alarmed, Malambroso spun to prevent him—but too late. The woman looked up, blinking in confusion, then saw Chalmers and cried, "Reed! Oh, thank Heaven! But where are we?"

Malambroso groaned, "I shall win her yet, Chalmers! You shall regret this!"

"Maybe sooner than you think." Shea eyed the statue nervously.

Chalmers turned to him with a frown. "Whatever can you mean?"

"Only that this universe has its own rules," Shea reminded him, "and Krishna might be more than a myth, here."

Chalmers stared, and alarm was just beginning to show in his face when a shaft of light burst from the statue, engulfing them all.

Shea flailed, catching Chalmers' hand, then stood, frozen by the glitter that dazzled him and filled all the universe about him. He could only hope Chalmers had been able to catch hold of Florimel. Then Shea found room to wonder if this was really what it was like to be hit by lightning, and if it was, it was odd, because he felt no pain.

Then the dazzle died, the ground seemed to push itself up under his feet, and he looked around him, blinking in confusion—Florimel, arms around her husband's neck, cried, "Oh, Reed, praise Heaven! We are home!"

Belphebe started to struggle up from the chair where she sat watching, but Shea reached her in two steps, dropped to one knee, and enfolded her in an ardent embrace. The room was very quiet for a few minutes, as the two married couples celebrated the travelers' safe return with a kiss and a promise—of more kisses to come.

Finally, Shea came up for air and turned to Chalmers to ask, "How did you do it, Doc?"

"I did not, really." Chalmers still looked rather dazed. "I only reached out for Florimel's hand—I remember thinking that if I were going to die by electrocution, I could at least die holding her. I reached out for your hand, too, but the hand I touched was quite bony—I am certain it was Malambroso's, and I let go at once. Even as I did, though, I felt his hand pulling away from mine, but even as I caught yours, I could swear I heard him cry out in fright." He shuddered. "I could wish the man many evils, but none so bad as that cry seemed to express."

"You don't think he . . ." Shea couldn't finish the question.

"No, I do not." Chalmers collected himself with a visible effort. "I think it probable that Krishna—or his priests; they may have been magicians who resented the competition—sent our old adversary back to his home, as he seems to have sent us to ours. And oh, Harold, I am mightily glad he did!"

"You can say that for me, too." Shea turned to watch Belphebe and Florimel, chatting as merrily as though they had seen each other only last week. "So Florimel
didn't
get herself lost by trying to work a syllogismobile spell on her own?"

"It would seem not. Certainly Malambroso appeared in my house for the purpose of kidnapping her, but before he did, he no doubt took advantage of the opportunity to update himself on our researches. Thank Heaven he is so untidy that he did not bother to clean up the evidence, or we should never have been able to track him!"

"But we did, and we won Florimel back, and we're home. Just to be on the safe side, though, Doc—maybe you'd better give her the full syllogismobile course, so that if somebody kidnaps her again, she has a fair chance of escaping."

"An excellent thought." Chalmers gazed at his wife, but his face was grim. "I assure you, Harold, I intend to guard her very closely from now on! She shall never be stolen from me again!"

Shea glanced uneasily from husband to wife, and hoped Chalmers was right.

Part III

I

"So, Doctor Malambroso," said Professor Doctor Sir Harold Shea to the man who faced him across his desk at the Garaden Institute, "what do you want of me?"

The man facing Shea was a tall, lean person with a close-cut graying beard. His graying hair hung to his collar. He wore a cheap suit with a loud checked pattern and an eye-blinding cravat, tied in a way suggesting that Malambroso had never learned to tie a necktie. The last time Shea had seen Malambroso, in the universe of Hindu myth, he had worn white pyjamas embroidered with gold thread. Malambroso had, Shea thought, made a not altogether successful effort to adopt local coloration on the mundane plane.

"I want the Lady Florimel back!" said Malambroso in a rasping, growling voice, as if he hated asking any favor of anybody.

"Gods, what crust!" exclaimed Shea.

Malambroso frowned. "You puzzle me, Sir Harold. Methought 'crust' meant the hard covering or integument of something softer, such as the outer surface of a loaf of bread or a pie."

"Colloquially, 'crust' is also used for . . ." Shea paused to think. " 'Obtuse aggressiveness' is close to the colloquial meaning. That you should ask my help to regain possession of the Lady Florimel, who seems quite happy to be back with her husband, my colleague Reed Chalmers! . . . If that be not a case of obtuse aggressiveness, I don't know what is."

"I can explain," growled Malambroso.

"Then pray do so, and I hope concisely. I need to get back to these term papers."

"The fact, Sir Harold, is that, for the first time in a long and active life, I am in love. Methought I was far beyond such petty, juvenile mortal sentiments; but in that, lo, I erred. I would never admit this, save that I know you for a man of exceptional ability, at least for a native of this stupid, brutish mundane plane."

"Thanks. But I always thought you hated everybody?"

"So I did, before the tender passion awakened a side of my nature that I did not know I possessed. Anyhow, the gist is that I must have the lady for mine own paramour. I must and shall have her!" Malambroso smote the desk with a bony fist.

"Don't be silly, Malambroso," said Shea. "For one thing, you're too old for her."

"No older than Doctor Chalmers. What reason have you to think that he can perform his connubial duties to the satisfaction of all concerned?"

"He's been giving himself magical rejuvenating treatments."

"How can he, when magic does not work in this continuum?"

"I didn't say he performed the treatments here, and it's none of your business anyway. What makes you think that, after he and I went to so much trouble and risk, surviving dangers both natural and supernatural, to reunite the lady with her lawful husband, that I would help you to snatch her again?"

"Because if you do not, I will turn you into an insect of an especially loathsome kind!"

"You can't. Spells don't work here."

"Think ye so?" Malambroso pointed bony fingers at Shea and muttered an incantation, ending with a shout of: ". . . be thou a lowly
Geophilus!
"

Nothing happened. Malambroso's face took on expression of petulant frustration, muttering: "The Incantation of Sorax has always worked for me before! You should be a little crawler, on a hundred-odd legs."

Shea laughed. "Told you. Wrong universe. I seem to have only the two legs I started out with. Besides, if I had a hundred-odd, I couldn't be an insect. They all have exactly six."

"Oh, curse your silly pedantry!" snarled Malambroso.

"By the way," said Shea, "how did you get here from the world of Hindu myth?"

"By the Spell of the Tipulidae, which worked perfectly well in that universe. But think not that I failed to consider means of exit from this miserable, magicless world of yours. I read your publications in the Institute library anent the manipulation of symbolic logic. 'Twas right shrewd of you to have worked out your system. The papers revealed what a formidable fellow you could be, whether as foe or ally. I shall convince you that it were better for you to be mine ally rather than mine enemy. I know of universes where you could be a great man—belike an arch-wizard or an emperor. I could furnish you with mighty assistance towards those goals, Sir Harold."

"You may skip the 'sir,' Malambroso. American citizens are not allowed titles of nobility, so it doesn't apply in this world. Anyway, I have no desire to be an emperor or even an archimage. I am quite satisfied to be a well-established academician, a fond husband, and a doting father. I've adventured enough on other planes to do me for the rest of my life."

Malambroso argued further, but Shea remained firm in his refusal, until Malambroso said: "Is this your final word? You refuse to discuss practical arrangements between us?"

"Yes and yes. Good afternoon, Doctor Malambroso."

The wizard rose. "You shall regret your contumacy, good my sir!"

"We shall see," said Shea.

Malambroso took a topcoat from the rack, picked up a cheap suitcase, gave Shea a stiff nod, and stalked out.

Some hours later, Shea looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly time to go home. Then the intercom said: "Doctor Shea? Call your wife, right away!"

"Darling!" said Belphebe, breathlessly. "That wizard Malambroso has kidnapped Voglinda!"

"Good God!" said Shea. "Have you called the cops?"

"First thing I did. Sergeant Brodsky's here now."

"I'll come right home."

"Fine, but drive carefully!"

"Pretty little thing," said Pete Brodsky, passing back the photographs. "About three, isn't she? Now, Belle, suppose you tell Harold what you told me, about how this Doctor Malefactor got away."

"Malambroso," Belphebe corrected. "He came to call, he said, ever so politely. When we sat down in the living room, he gave me a sales pitch, trying to get me to persuade you to throw in with him in an attempt to win Florimel away from Reed for his own—'paramour,' I think he said. When I said no, he tried to sway me with tales of the wonders of other universes he could take us to and make us big shots in, where I could have all the fancy clothes and jewels any girl could want. He didn't realize that my taste runs to simple, outdoorish garb, suitable for running through the greenwood.

"When I persisted in saying no, he seemed to give up. He said he wanted another look at Voglinda, who was having her nap. He stole up to her bedroom door and slithered in as quietly as a cockroach. I was right behind him; but he shut the door in my face and shot that little bolt we put in high up. I heard him reciting a sorites and called the emergency number. I couldn't break down the door myself, but Pete drove up and gave the door a good push with his shoulder, and away went the bolt. You'll have to do some carpentry, dear, to mend it.

"Well, there was nobody in the room, and the window was latched on the inside. So here we are."

Shea said: "Did you hear enough of the sorites to tell where Malambroso was going?"

"No. Sorry."

Brodsky growled: "Trouble with chasing you dimensional guys is, you can vanish into the goddam world of some jerk's imagination. Like that phony Finland and phony Ireland we visited together.

"See, if you want a guy and know he's somewhere along a line, say a railroad or a bus route, you can start at the beginning and go on to the end. Perps don't often make it that easy for us.

"If you know he's somewhere on a map, that's harder, because you got two dimensions to cover. Then, if he can go not only north-south and east-west but also up-down, it gets pretty goddam impossible, unless you get a tip from a snitch or stoolie. And I suppose chasing a perp through your alternative universes would be using the fourth dimension or something, eh?"

"You get the general idea, Pete," said Shea. "If I can examine Malambroso's personal room, I might find us a clue. Okay?"

"Sure, I can arrange it, if you promise not to touch anything."

Shea stood in Malambroso's rented room, staring at the bookcases. At last he said to Brodsky: "I think I know where he's taken our kid."

"Where's that?"

"To Barsoom."

"Huh?"

"Barsoom, Edgar Rice Burroughs' version of Mars."

"Aw, hell; I know there ain't enough air on Mars to keep a bug alive—"

"Not the real Mars, but the one Burroughs imagined for his John Carter stories—or, to put it another way, the Mars in another universe, which somehow got into Burroughs' mind and formed the basis for his stories. In fact, I suspect Malambroso's already made at least one trial there to test out our syllogismobile. You can see the books. For Barsoom, he's got a collection somebody would give real money for: the old McClurg hardbacks, the Methuen reprints, and the paperbacks: Ballantines from the sixties, the later Ace series, the Del Reys . . . I take it to mean he's a Barsoomian fan. So, knowing about Barsoom already, he'd naturally take off in that direction. Looks as though the only way to catch up with him is for me to go to Barsoom."

Brodsky sighed. "Wish I could go with you. But since I got promoted, seems like I'm buried under a daily blizzard of papers."

"Harold Shea!" said Belphebe in tones of exasperation. "If you think for one minute I would let you go off by yourself after Voglinda, you're as mad as some of your faculty colleagues think you are. She's my daughter, too, you know. From what I've heard of Barsoom, gunmaking there isn't so far advanced that a good longbow wouldn't be useful as a backup."

Shea sighed. "Oh, all right, darling. Get your stuff together."

"What do they wear on Barsoom?"

"Mostly they go naked, except for a kind of harness of straps with pockets and pouches dangling. It doesn't conceal anything."

"You mean—you mean real naked, with everything showing?"

"That's what I understand. They don't seem to have the ancient Hebrew tabu on nudity, inherited by Christianity and Islam. Maybe you'd best stay home—"

"No, sir! If I have to snow the Barsoomians my personal anatomy to get our precious back, I'll do it! And if any Barsoomian makes a pass, I'll make him eat a clothyard shaft for breakfast! But then, you couldn't wear your mailshirt under your clothes, could you?"

"Not and pass myself off as a native Barsoomian, which we may have to do. According to Burroughs," said Shea in his classroom manner, "Barsoomians are pretty puritanical in matters of sex and theft. Where they go on the reservation, from our point of view, is in their permissive attitude towards homicide. If you want to kill somebody, you just up and do it, and nobody gives a damn. At least, so Burroughs says, and I don't know how accurate he was. I wouldn't very far trust any writer who put tigers and deer in Africa."

"Then I'd better pack an extra quiver!"

Shea made a slight face, knowing that it would fall to his lot to carry the extra weight on the portages, however short, that any extensive trip entailed. But he did not dissent, since the proposal made sense. He said:

"And I'll take the old six-shooter. It's not the most up-to-date firearm—everybody goes for automatics nowadays—but it's simple and rugged and has fewer things to go wrong with it."

"Is Barsoom a universe where firearms work?"

"According to Burroughs, yes; though I doubt his story of radium rifles that shoot fifty miles with radar sights."

Harold Shea and Belphebe sat cross-legged on the rug in the center of the Shea living room. Shea, in breeches and boots, with a cowboy hat on his head, sat with a scabbard containing a shortened nineteenth-century saber on his left, a sheath holding a bowie knife in front, and on his right a holster with a big Smith & Wesson.44 revolver.

Belphebe wore green slacks, a similar jacket, and the feathered hat of her home world. Her longbow, unstrung, was slung over her back by its bowstring, passing between her full, young-mother breasts. A laden quiver was also slung to her back, its strap forming an X with the longbow string.

"Okay," said Shea, "let's go!" He grasped her near hand and began: "If P equals not-Q, then Q implies not-P . . ."