Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (16 page)

"Yeah." I swallowed thickly. "Yeah, I knew that's what I was doing as soon as I heard her scream. I knew it, but it almost worked on me anyway-and on Gruesome. Thanks, Gilbert. You saved his life-and all of us."

"Surely, Wizard Saul," the squire said, blushing with pleasure at the compliment. "It was little enough I could do."

"It was enough all right. Thanks again, Gilbert."

"My pleasure," he said, then frowned. "Yet there's another you should thank, whose aid was greater than mine."

I frowned ' looking around me. "Who ... ? Oh. Yeah." I remembered my guardian angel. "Well, I'll give him my warmest, next time he shows up."

The night was awfully quiet.

Then Frisson cleared his throat, and Gilbert looked away, abashed. I looked around, frowning. "What's the matter?" Neither of them answered.

Then Gruesome growled, and my hair rose. "All right, all right!

Frisson, what did he mean?"

"I do not speak the troll's language," the poet said with hesitation.

"Still, if I did, I would guess he had said ... that your behavior was rather . . ." He trailed off, looking away.

"Cheap," Gruesome rumbled.

Frisson looked up, startled. "I did not know he knew the word!" I frowned. "What do you mean? Angels don't want bribes."

"Of course not," Gilbert said slowly, "but it might be polite to at least indicate a willingness to return the favor." I frowned at him while his meaning percolated in. Then I went hard inside. "Now listen, and understand this well! I am not committing myself to either side, or any side! Anybody who does me a favor, I'll do a favor for him, if I can-but aside from that, I'm not promising anything! " But it seemed to me that the stars winked, and the sounds of the night began again as the land came to life around me.

it gave me a chill, so I turned away, brusque and growling-to see the ghost hovering near the fire, half-invisible because of its light. Her eyes were glowing, though, so I couldn't miss her. In fact, I wasn't sure I was entirely happy about the way those eyes were glowing at me-but I had saved her afterlife, so I supposed I had some responsibility for her. I came over-and she drifted away with a look of alarm, but still with that morbid fascination in her eyes. At least, I thought it was morbid. I remembered the blanket rules for making friends with small animals and sat down, waiting. Sure enough, she began to drift closer-then hesitated as Frisson came up behind me.

"Why's she looking at me that way?" I asked him.

"Why, because she is in love with you, Master Saul," he answered softly. "Do you not know the signs?"

I felt the chill again. "Yeah, but I was trying to pretend I didn't.

Why should she be in love with me? just because I sort of saved her?"

I1 'Tis reason enough," he assured me, "coupled with your face and form-but there is a greater. Did you not know that the verse you sang was a binding spell?"

My stomach sank. "Oh. Was it really,"' "Aye, and a most venerable one."

"What did it bind?"

Frisson stared at me as if I were crazy-or maybe he was seeing through my attempt at self-deception. "It binds her to yourself, Master Saul-or at least, her affections."

That was what I'd been afraid of. "An old one, huh? I take it spells gain power with age."

"Like fine wines, aye."

So that's why each verse ended with, Then she'll be a true love of mine. "But she didn't have time to make me a cambric shirt."

"It worked by intent," Frisson assured me. "She is bound to you now, Wizard, by the spell that most surely binds woman to man." Which would have been great, if it hadn't been synthetic. Her ghost looked harrowed, but the marks of torture were fading even as I watched, and she was really, rarely beautiful. Her dress had even mended itself. I'd heard that love was healing, but I thought it had to be mutual to have that effect ...

Nonetheless, it was having that effect. I clamped down on the implications. "How did you fall into the queen's hands, lady? You don't look to have sinned enough."

"I have striven not to, Sir Wizard."

"Saul." I held up a hand. "Just 'Saul.' I'm not a knight." I didn't commit myself about the "wizard" part.

"Master Saul," she amended.

I sighed, but told myself it would help keep distance between us.

"Okay, that's my name. What's yours?/) "Angelique," she replied. I frowned. "Given the local rules, a name like that should have helped protect you./, "That was my mother's intent." A tear formed at the corner of her eye. "She died when I was very small, though." Somehow, that made sense-and seemed ominous. "But if you tried not to commit sins, how come the queen had a hold on you?"

"Because she wrested me from my father, Master Saul, and forced him to yield his authority over me."

My blood ran cold. "What kind of a father would do that to his own daughter?"

"A father in Allustria," Frisson murmured. The ghost hung her head. " 'Tis so. He is a merchant who panders to the queen, immersing himself in every sort of vice to gain her royal favor-and grants of monopolies."

"To the point of giving her his daughter?"

"Not quite so bad as that," she said stoutly. "Nay, he protected and reared me in total innocence, until I had come of woman's years, whereupon . . ." She broke off, with downcast eyes.

"I would not press her," Frisson murmured.

"Right." I slapped my knees. "I didn't mean to get personal-"

"Nay, I must have you know!" She was almost pleading. "No sooner had I come into earliest womanhood than my father attempted to reap the harvest of my innocence himself."

I froze, feeling myself turn very, very cold. "Why, that infernal

louse! " "He did not succeed," she said quickly. "The queen discerned his intentions and stepped in to halt his incestuous advances. I hailed her as my savior-until I discovered that she had taken me only to save as sacrifice to Satan. She told me that fell prince has a great taste for virgin souls, 'tis said, and they are rare indeed, in Allustria."

The inner chill was still there, and getting colder. "I really don't think I like these people at all," I growled. "And I was the cue for her

to kill you? " "There was some other cause," she said quickly.

"I i not grasp the whole of it-I could spare small attention for her conversation

with her henchmen, the pains of the torture devices

being so very se

vere . . ."

"That would hinder concentration." The chill had hit absolute zero and was beginning to bounce back up, as anger.

"There was some talk of barons rebellious," she said, "and of the queen of Merovence readying her troops to invade." I looked up at Frisson sharply. "I caused all that?"

"I would doubt it," he answered.

Gilbert said, "Nay, Wizard Saul. 'Twas all of a piece with the mission of my order-the mill had been grinding before we came upon you. It Which meant I was only one part of a bigger plan-but whose? "So she was saving you up for a doozy of a spell that would have given her the power to blast her enemies-and when the time came, she decided to get double mileage out of it, by using you to decoy me out where she could annihilate me." I shook my head. "What a horrible life you had!"

"Oh, nay! It was pleasant, with many causes for joy-until these last six years. I grew restive at never being able to roam the town or frolic through the fields, as I saw others doing from afar-but my home was spacious and comely, and I thrived in my father's love." Her gaze strayed, then turned brooding. "Until it soured." Or until she discovered his real intentions. I wondered if he'd thought incest would score points with the queen. "What about the last six?

"I was a guest of the queen," she said slowly, "though I could not leave my chamber. It was pleasant enough, even luxurious-but it was all the world I saw."

"Then it's a crime that you should have had so little of life!

But at least you have Heaven waiting. Don't tarry here, whatever you do-go on to your reward!"

"I cannot," she said simply.

I stared. Then I said, "No! Not just my binding spell!"

'Tis not that which holds me to Earth," she said slowly, "though it fends off sorrow and brings rejoicing."

I wanted a change of subject, quick. "What holds you here, then?"

"My body." She moved her hands in aimless seeking. "It has not yet died; there remains some spark of life within it. I can feel it, I can sense it!"

"The queen has preserved her clay," Frisson said softly.

"Of course!" I remembered what Suettay had said when she cast that fox-fire spell over Angelique's body-and it made perfect sense.

"She didn't succeed in sacrificing you the first time, so she's saving your body to try again!"

"But would not the soul need to be within the body, in order for the queen to murder it?" Gilbert asked.

"Yeah, I'd say it would

-especially if she wants to make Angelique commit the sin of despair, so Hell can have some claim on her. As it is, her soul's still too pure for Satan to have any hold on it. Angelique's goodness doesn't protect her from physical force, of course, but it does make her ghost immune. That was the whole idea of this horror show the queen just put on-the agony and terror were supposed to make her stop believing in God and Heaven!"

"It would have done so." Angelique bowed her head. "I verged on such despair; I had almost come to think that there was no God, or that the queen was right, and the Devil was stronger than the Creator. It was your words that restored my faith, if only for an instantbut in that instant, the knife fell."

"Glad I could do some good," I said lamely.

"But if she can cram your soul back into your body and torture you again, it might work this time."

"Nay." She gazed directly into my eyes. "You have restored my faith; I shall never despair again."

How about if I told her I didn't love her? That chilled me, too-it meant I didn't dare be honest, which really rankled. But we were

right. I'd read enough medieval literature to know the rules, if not enough to make me sympathize with the spirit. "So she's going to be

trying to get your soul!"

The ghost paled-or, in her case, turned almost transparent. "Then I must leave you! Or my presence will bring her down upon you!" And she darted away. I jumped up to call out to her to stay-but she slammed into my unseen barrier and rebounded with a cry.

"Sorry about that," I said quickly, "but we can't let you go roamng off by yourself-she'd swallow you up in an instant, and you'd be back in the torture chamber."

"I must chance it! I will not imperil you!" I realized, with a sinking heart, that I could really get to like this

girl.

Fortunately, Gilbert spoke up, with quiet certainly. "We would never forgive ourselves, lady/ if we abandoned a maiden in peril. Indeed, it would weigh on our immortal souls."

The ghost stilled in her frantic dashing.

"You would not wish to send us toward Hell, would you?" Frisson asked.

The ghost seemed to droop. "Nay, I would not."

"You see," I said carefully, "you've become a crucial element in the future of this country. There seems to be some sort of a campaign kick out the queen and all her ministers, and the evil going on, to that they serve. You were apparently her trump card, her ace in the hole, her secret weapon to give her more power to repel the invaders and the rebellious barons. Now that your sacrifice failed, the Devil and the lords will all drop her as having become too weak-too weak to be of any use to the Devil, too weak to defeat her barons if they rebel. That means that all the nobles will be jockeying for power, each one trying to prove to the Devil which of them is most evil and most ruthless, so that the Prince of Bullies will choose him to be the

next king."

Angelique's ghost began to grow brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again, throbbing with anxiety. "But I am only a poor, simple maid of the common folk!"

"Maybe that's why you're so important," I said softly. "Really good people are hard to find, in any age." I should know; I'd been looking

for a good woman for years.

"But you must not endanger yourselves for my sake!" she wailed.

"We're already nicely endangered, thank you," I told her. "Why do

you think the queen brought you to us? No, I'd already made trouble for her before you came."

Angelique stared, wide-eyed. "Wherefore? 'Tis folly of the worst sort to antagonize her with no cause!"

"She wants me to leave, if I won't serve her cause," I grated,

"and to me, that's reason enough to go back in. I'm not about to knuckle under to authority, unless it has won my respect and confidence. I'm going to do what I think is right, no matter what the rules say! And something tells me that trying to get your body away from the queen, and back to you, is right!"

Suddenly the chill within me stabbed all the way to my vitals, accompanying a sudden total sense of the rightness of what I had said. With a sinking heart, I wondered if I had played into the hands of somebody else-the angels. Especially mine.

"I shall accompany you, then," Angelique said slowly, "for there is merit in what you say, and I perceive that you are a good man." But the way she was looking at me said more, much more, and I went into panic. "No, I'm not! I'm a sour old cynic who's bitter about human nature in general and women in particular! I think religion was invented by priests for their own self-interest, and I scorn its rules!

I'm an agnostic and a secular humanist, and by the standards of this universe, I'm thoroughly despicable!"

I ran out of gas and stood glaring around at them all, panting. Angelique shrank back, but not much, and just hovered there, staring at me out of those huge, worshipful eyes. Frisson and Gilbert exchanged judicious looks, lips pursed, and finally nodded.

Gruesome, of course, just sat blandly by the fire, looking vaguely interested. Why should he care?

Right.