Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (31 page)

I shook off the notion with a shudder and turned away. Women were for enjoying, nothing more-and since you couldn't just enjoy them without hurting their hearts, I was determined not to notice them. Never mind that Angelique already knew my true feelings for her-that didn't mean I had to let them show. I resolutely turned my back and followed the Rat Raiser into the unknown-and surely that couldn't have been a small, very self-satisfied smile I had glimpsed on her lips as I had turned away, could it?

We paced the narrow path, scraping the stone wall on our left, with a host of bright beady eyes watching us. To our right, torchlight reflected off thickened, tainted water. The aroma had become almost unbearable; we breathed through our mouths, but I could have sworn I was tasting the air.

The surface heaved, and a huge clawed hand broke through with a long, scaly, tooth-filled snout behind it. The hand groped toward us, and the Rat Raiser shrank back with a squeal that had the ring of command-but also of fright; and his pets answered him with a squealing and skittering as they disappeared into the darkness.

But I was already chanting.

"Room for our shadows on the pathLet us pass!

To the left and right, stay clear!

Or we shall call the Buyer of the BladeBe afraid!

Call upon the great god Tyr!"

The questing talons paused, wavered, then withdrew, slowly sinking out of sight.

"I thank you, Wizard." The Rat Raiser sighed. "I had not known such a monstrous being might rise from this stew."

"Always pays to be ready." I didn't tell him what I'd been ready for. "Frisson, do you think you could hold that verse ready to chant?

And no improvements, mind you! I have another spell to recite."

"Aye, Master Saul," the poet said grudgingly. "But be mindful, I am no wizard."

"Don't worry, I am." Okay, so it was a little white lie-but they needed the reassurance, just then. "I'll join in and chant with you, as soon as I can drop the other verse. But my reaction time will be slow, and I think yours will be fast."

"Be sure of it," Gilbert muttered.

"I shall." The poet sighed.

"Well enough." The Rat Raiser pulled himself together and stepped forth, making little squeaking noises interspersed with words. "Where have you gone, sweetings? Nay, come back, little friends-the monster has fled, and we have need of your guidance.

Slowly, a couple of huge, ragged rats appeared at the edge of the torchlight.

The Rat Raiser nodded with satsifaction. "Lead on, then-we shall follow.

We did-not that we had much choice.

I watched the Rat Raiser's back, gauging him. The man hadn't been quite the abject coward I had expected him to be-but then, he couldn't have been short on nerve, to have dared the climb within Suettay's organization. Sense, maybe, but not nerve.

I started reciting my navigation spell again, with a touch of the frantic. At the end, I repeated, "Turn, turn, turn!" with perhaps excessive force.

Excessive, because the Rat Raiser was just warning us, "Slowly, now, and warily-for this ledge was made only for guardsmen from the castle, who knew its ways. Strongholds have been taken by parties raiding through the sewers, look you, and-" He broke off with a gasp-because the water was dwindling, showing blank stone to either side.

"Keep walking," I grated, and went back to mumbling my verse. The Rat Raiser stumbled as the walkway disappeared, and he cried out. His rats echoed him, squealing with horror and fleeing away; but the sludge had dwindled to a mere trickle, and I demanded, "Go on!"

"Nay, I am no longer master here," the Rat Raiser panted, white showing all around his eyes. " 'Tis you must lead now." I shoved past him with a mutter of impatience. The Rat Raiser fell in behind me, staring incredulously at the stone underfoot. it was completely dry now, but curved, in the middle as much as at the sides. "We are no longer in the sewers!"

"Praise Heaven!" Angelique sighed. "I may breathe again!"

"Yet where are we, then?" Gilbert demanded.

"In the wizard's realm," Frisson answered. "Be patient, my friends, and trust our guide; surely he knows where he goes!"

"Then he must know where we are." The squire had to shift his gait as the tunnel curved to our right. "Ho, Wizard! What place is this?"

"A torus." My voice sounded remote even to me, unconcerned with this mundane reality; but the roof rolled over us, and the tunnel's curve had become permanent. We were walking inside a granite doughnut. Yet not granite either, for it was seamless, and slightly resilient underfoot. What it was, I couldn't have said. My friends muttered behind me, afraid of the unknown-but they followed. I wasn't really perceiving my surroundings all that well-I A,as busy muttering, concentrating on what the next development should be, so intent on where I was going that I wasn't really aware of where I was.

Shadows loomed about us, just outside the circle of torchlight. Then the shadows parted ahead, and I saw two tubes, branching in a fork. I bore to the left with complete assurance, not even thinking about it-almost as if I hadn't even noticed the split-and my companions followed me, mute with astonishment.

After a few minutes, the way branched again, then again.

"Are you sure of your course?" the Rat Raiser husked, but I only nodded once briefly and paced ahead, mumbling.

Then, suddenly, the tunnel ended. We halted, facing a blank, curving wall. My companions muttered with overtones of fear, but I just frowned at the wall, shaking my head, irritated, and turned back, retracing my steps. My companions made way for me, then hurried to fall in behind again-but Gilbert demanded, "Wizard, where are we?"

"In a maze," I answered.

They fell silent again, and I could almost feel their dread. I didn't want to-I had enough of my own. My skin was trying to raise hair where there wasn't any.

"Do you know the way?" the Rat Raiser whispered. I came to a halt, head cocked at a thought. Slowly, I turned back to the Rat Raiser. "Maybe you should take the lead again, come to think of it. Rats are very good at running mazes."

"I am not a rat!" the ex-bureaucrat stammered. "And none of my little friends are here!"

I just gazed at him with an abstracted frown, then sighed and turned away. "Guess it's up to me, all right. Come on, folks." They did.

The tunnel branched, and I chose a way. It branched again, and I took the arm that curved back the way we'd come. Another fork, and I turned to my right, but muttered to the Rat Raiser, "Try and call your pets, will you?"

The Rat Raiser sighed and let out a series of squeaks. We waited.

Finally, the Rat Raiser shook his head. "There are none near us, Wizard. Whatever place this may be that you have taken us to, it has no rats."

Gilbert frowned. "What manner of human place is this, that it has none? I1

My attention caught on the word "human"; it sent prickles down my spine. "Good question. Should we maybe ask, instead-what does live here?"

My friends exchanged quick, apprehensive glances.

"Saul," Angelique said, "if you can lead us through this maze, I pray you, do so quickly!"

"You can, can you not?" Gilbert asked with a worried frown.

"Given enough time, yes," I said slowly. "I was always pretty good

at solving mazes when I was a kid, sick in bed. But I think we may need faster action than that, right now."

"Indeed!" Gilbert agreed. "Bring us out, Wizard!"

"Patience, friend," Frisson counseled. "He is only human, after all, as lost as any among us."

"We could wander here till we die of thirst!" the Rat Raiser cried,

appalled.

"oh, come on!" I protested. "I can always conjure up a good meal, you know."

The tunnel was silent.

Then Frisson said, delicately, "That is not entirely reassuring, Wiz

ard Saul."

"What, because you think it's really going to take that long?" I shrugged. "Look-you knew this wasn't a morning's jaunt. Even without the maze, this could be a long journey."

They looked at one another, and I could feel the apprehension growing. Finally I capitulated. "All right, all right! I'll see if I can't summon a guide who can take us out of this mess!"

"What manner of spirit would that be?" Gilbert still looked wary.

"One good at figuring out mazes, of course." I frowned. "Which means one who could understand how a straight, direct path could become twisted and convoluted."

"Why, I am able to ken that," the Rat Raiser said.

"Yes, you would be, wouldn't you? Any good bureaucrat would. But I had in mind the one who's good at coping with bureaucratsone who knows how to weave in and out of the red tape, how to go around the runaround, how to keep from losing his way in a paper storm." I frowned, rubbing my chin. "Let's see ...

"We need a one who can discover The tortured track that turns and runs Through forest dark and hidden bower, Past concrete towers and Stone Age duns, A spirit who can comprehend The twists and turns it finds inside, And so can lead us past blind ends TO where the monarch hides!"

There was a flash of light, so bright as to dazzle us all with afterimages-but a gravelly voice was calling, "What? Where? How came I here?"

In a panic, I blinked and rubbed, trying to clear my eyes before the creature I had summoned could turn on us.

Too late-it was howling, "What benighted son of a sorcerer and a witch has brought me into so bleak a place as this?"

"Guilty!" I shouted. "It's my fault, not theirs! But have the courage to wait until I can see you, you . . . " "Then clear your eyes!" the newcomer snorted; and suddenly, I could see again. I blinked, asking, "What kind of creature can ... Oh. My friends gasped with shock. The "creature" looked up from the neighborhood of my belt buckle, arms akimbo and his other two arms folded under his shoulder blades, tapping the forward-facing foot while he balanced on the backward-facing one and took aim at my shin with the third. His noseless face glowered up at me in indignation, huge saucer eyes glowing an angry yellow while he twiddled the tentacles on top of his head. Overall, he looked like a mauve cucumber whose vines had decided to turn into legs and arms and prehensile hair. He wore pointed shoes with curling toes and a wide belt loaded with every sort of tool imaginable, plus a few that I couldn't.

And he wasn't happy.

I swallowed. "Hi! I'm Saul, urn, a wizard. And who are you?"

"Who did you expect?" the gravelly voice growled. Yes, its lips moved.

"Just somebody who understands the illogical well enough to get us out of here. Uh-who are you? " "I," said the little monster, "am the Gremlin."

I stared.

"Saul," Angelique quavered, "what is a Gremlin?"

'iAn imaginary creature whose goal in life is making things go wrong," I told her. "If anybody can understand the kind of realm we're in, he can."

"But will he aid us?" Frisson breathed.

"Unlikely," the little monster grated. "I delight in foiling and frustrating, not aiding-especially to folk who yank me unceremoniously from my home!"

"My apologies," I said, "but there really wasn't any way I could ask you ahead of time. The Gremlin unlimbered an arcane tool from his belt. "I'm minded to send you back in that time you speak of, to give you space to learn your manners."

"No, please! We really do need your help. We're stuck in this maze, see, and we need to get through it fast. There's a whole kingdom that needs our help."

"What's your kingdom to me, or I to it?"

"You could be its rescuer," I said, "and it's a goodly land that's being laid waste by black sorcery. Forests are being blighted-trees and animals are being twisted out of their natural forms . . ."

"How foul!" the Gremlin cried, outraged. "That is my workthough I would rather work it through machinery, and the more complicated, the better. What bastard of spirits usurps my prerogative in such fashion?"

"Her name is Suettay," I explained, "and her grandmother seized the throne three generations ago. They've been ruining the land ever since."

The Gremlin shook his fists, hopping mad-literally. "So many years? Have my tasks been usurped for so long as that? Why has no one told me of it before?"

I sensed an opening. "Because they didn't know how. I mean, even with me, it was as much accident as intention."

"But you did at least bring word!" The Gremlin stilled, scowling.

"Surely I shall help you, if it will bring me a chance to annihilate this usurper! What do you wish of me?"

"Well, we're trying to get to the Spider King, see-we're hoping that maybe he-" "The Good Bourgeois King?" The Gremlin stared. "Aye, most surely he could aid you! But how think you to come to him?"

"That's why we're trying to get through this maze, see. I recited a spell that should take us to the Spider King."

"A spell?" The Gremlin rounded on me, looking me up and down.

"Art a sorcerer, or a warlock?"

"Neither, really-I think I'm a wizard. But I don't believe in magic, see, and the spell didn't take us right to him, so "A wizard who works magic that he does not believe in!" the Gremlin crowed. "Why, this is too delightful! How shall I bollix work for you, mortal? By making your spells all work aright? Oh, this is priceless!" I exhaled a shaky breath. "Surely you wouldn't do anything so perverse."

The Gremlin eyed me shrewdly. "I think you know me by repute, and too well to think there is anything too perverse for me. So you wish to come to the Spider King, eh? " "Yeah, but my spells haven't been working, and-"

"Nay, I should think not! His realm is too closely guarded, to come at him unawares!"

"Unawares?" I looked at the tunnel about me. "You mean this whole thing is his early warning system?"

"He will know of you when you arrive, aye." The Gremlin tilted his head to the side, looking me up and down. "This much I will do for you-I will lead you back through this maze, whence you've come. if

"Nay!" Angelique cried. "We must go on!" The Gremlin looked up, surprised.