Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (40 page)

it was tied over my head.

I bit down against anger, and called up a verse:

"Unravel the cord, and untie the knot!

Loosen the binding, for bind it shall not!"

I felt a writhing about my wrists and ankles that made my innards twist in revulsion. Sternly, I schooled my stomach; it was only the ropes untying themselves-I hoped. I lifted the arm with the soda in it, experimentally ...

it lifted. And was instantly filled with a hundred hot needles. I let the arm fall back, groaning with agony. But I had to get at that soda. I lifted again, but the effort made my body roll, and I finished up scraping the can across the stone toward my mouth. I made it, and my teeth closed on aluminum.

just aluminum. No soda.

I had forgotten to open the can.

I just lay there a second, marveling at my own stupidity. Then, with another groan and a great deal more stabbing pain, this time in the upper arms, shoulders, and chest, I managed to work my way up onto my elbows and achieve the stupendous feat of hooking a finger through the ring. I pulled; the top popped; I bowed my head and lifted, and a splash of soothing, chilly Sass-Pa-Rilla flowed into my mouth. Most of that first shot ran down my chin and sizzled onto the rock, but enough of it sloshed into my mouth to fill me with the blessed, icy taste, burning the cut where I'd bitten my lip. My throat worked, and I felt the trail of cold all the way down into my stomach.

I sighed, lifted the can, and took a real swallow. I had never known a commercial product could taste so good and decided I'd never make a joke about Sass-Pa-Rilla again.

Which was very good because, as I lifted the can, it disappeared. I stared at my cupped and empty hand as if it had betrayed me. Then I curled it into a fist, feeling the anger rise. Not my hand, but somebody else, some person, had betrayed me-and I had a notion who. The duke had decided he didn't want the rules changed. I didn't feel sorry

for him; after all, I'd told him I was a wizard before he tried hanging me out to dry. He shouldn't have been so sure I couldn't survive@yen though, come to think of it, I wasn't all that sure of it, myself.

But I was also a wizard who was going to need a little help to fight back-and whatever I was going to do, I was going to have to do it quickly, before the spurt of energy from the cold drink wore off. Already, I could feel the searing heat enveloping me again, and the first tendrils of a headache were rising to meet it. Where could I get reinforcements?

Of course! The local spirits. Every little location had them-the nature spirits, the sprites and dryads and nixies and pixies, the spirits of trees and streams and even grass!

"Ye elves of desert, rocks, and wind-blown dunes, And ye that on the sand with printless foot Do chase siroccos, and do fly them, Whose aid, weak masters though ye be, I now require, to bedim the noontide sun, And save my hide from furnace winds!"

Well, Shakespeare would forgive me.

Tendrils of mist started to rise from the ground around me, from the boulders and the sand-mist, where there was no moisture. I breathed a sigh of relief and croaked, "Let's hear it for animism." Then the spirits finished taking form.

There wasn't much of them-just tenuous, smoky-looking, hulking shapes about knee-high. Behind them was a miniature whirlwind filled with sand-a dust devil?

"You have called," one of the rock-faces croaked. "We have come."

"What manner of spirits are you?"

"You have called for the spirits of the land," another boulder-type grated. "We are they-spirits of rock and sand."

"I should have realized," I groaned. "Mineral spirits."

"We will aid you, if we can," the first rock-ghost growled. "How may we do so? " "Hanged if I know," I muttered. "You wouldn't have anything cool about you, would you?"

"At midday?" hissed the whirlwind. "Nay! We all are heated through and through."

"I figured as much." The rock under me was getting hot even in my shadow. "And none of you have any moisture, do you?"

"You cannot get water from a stone," a boulder grated. The whirlwind drifted closer. "Shall I fan you with my breeze?" The first tendrils of moving air caressed me, and I gasped, drawing back. "Uh, no thanks! I appreciate the intention, but you have all the charm of a furnace!" A horrid notion crossed my mind.

"Uh-what do men call your kind of spirit? " "A dust devil," the whirlwind answered.

"I thought so." I swallowed, painfully. ,You, uh-haven't come hot from Hell, have you?"

"Nay!" The tone was indignant. "You asked what men call me, not what I am!"

I nodded. "I thought so. What's in a name? Not much, in this case.

You're no more a part of the Hell crew than-" I broke off, my eyes widening.

"Than what?" the dust devil pressed.

"Than something I learned about in general physics! Of course!

If I'm hot and I want to get cool, who should I call for but Maxwell's Demon?

"I know of him," the dust devil hummed. "We dwell in neighboring realms and are much alike in that we are neither evil nor good, but much maligned by men."

"Can you get him here? He's an expert in air conditioning! If anybody can save me, he can! " "I shall try," the dust devil said, and whirled faster and faster until it had flung itself to bits, disappearing.

I stared. That was going home? in dread. MaxThen I realized what I had asked for, and waited

well's Demon was a gimmick James Clerk Maxwell had dreamed up, in an attempt to get around Newton's laws of thermodynamics. Being from the never-never land of scientists' whimsy, he wouldn't be either good or bad-he'd be an impersonal force. So he wouldn't be one that could be ordered around-and might decide not to help me. In fact, there was no guarantee he would be here; he came if he wanted to, and didn't if he didn't.

Maybe I hadn't made the situation clear. I tried again.

"Entropy personified,

I will soon be mummified if your power retrograde Comes not eftsoons unto my aid!"

I wasn't sure about the "eftsoons" part; after all, Maxwell had invented his Demon in the nineteenth century, not the

Air split with the sound of gunshot, and the Demon was there, a point of unbearably intense light, with the dust devil rising from the sand again behind it. The Demon was singing and humming, "What have we here? What other mortal knows of me in this universe of magic? "

"The name's Saul," I said, with my most ingratiating smile. Then the implications of the spark's remark hit me like a ton of books.

"Other mortal?"

Aye. I have a friend who knows my name, though he learned of it in another realm within the curves of time and space." I forced myself not to ask; first things first, and right now, survival was kind of the top priority. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to lend a hand to another know-it-all, would you?"

"Mayhap," the Demon hummed, "if it strikes me as amusing. Know, mortal, that the bane of existence of immortals is tedium. if you can offer me respite in the form of some unusual event, I shall be quite pleased to intervene on your behalf, What diversion can you offer me?"

"How about saving my life?"

"I have saved mortals before." The Demon seemed irritated.

"What is new in the fashion in which you would have me save you?" I began to realize that I was really dealing with an embodiment of physical principles-impersonal, like a computer, and therefore needing explicit instructions that it would follow to the letter. Unlike a computer, though, it wanted to be amused.

I would have to be very careful of what I said.

"I specialize in paradoxes," I told the Demon. "You might have fun watching."

"Paradox?" The Demon sounded interested. "In what fashion?"

"Well, for openers, I contradict myself every five minutesespecially since I came to this universe. Not my own idea, by the way. " "I doubt it not." The Demon's hum deepened to a lower pitch. "In what manner do you contradict yourself?"

"I'm bound and determined not to be committed, you see-not to a woman, not to an idea, not even to myself, if I can help it-but especially not to good or evil."

"Amazing," the Demon murmured. "How have you endured more than thirty seconds in this universe in which all action stems from either good or evil, from God or Satan?"

"By pure dumb luck, I guess, until I found out what was going on. But as soon as an emissary from each side had tried to recruit me, I dug my heels in and turned mule-headed. I was bound and determined not to be a tool for either one-so every time I accidentally did something a little bit good, I tried to follow it with something a little bit bad. " " 'Tis a set of poles, not a continuum," the Demon corrected me in an abstracted tone. "Indeed you live in contradiction-not in thoughts or words alone, but in'deeds. Yet do you dare no more than

little bits?"

Indignation hit, along with the age-old alertness that someone was trying to infringe on my identity, to twist me into his own path. "I'm me," I said, "not an extension of somebody else, natural or supernatural. I have to be me; I can't be anybody else. If I go in for big gestures, stupendous feats of nobility, I'm committing myself to good so thoroughly that I become just an extension of it. Worse, I'd have to counteract that by doing something really vile, which would mean I'd have to infringe on someone else's identity, destroy their integrity, ittle bits of good and evil, and that's just flat-out wrong. No, I'll do I thank you, but all I'll go for in a big way is being me."

"Excellently stated!" the Demon hummed. "You have grasped the essence of paradox!"

I had?

"I cannot allow a mind such as this to be wasted and withered," he went on. "What would you of me?"

"Shelter!" I gasped-then, afraid of seeming too eager, I tried nonchalance. "As you can see, I'm in the kind of a bind only you can save me from."

"Save?" The Demon hummed, surveying the situation. The local spirits groaned and winked out, vanishing into their boulders and sand grains.

"Kin!" the dust devil gusted. "Source and lord!"

"In some measure, mayhap," the Demon hummed, and to me, "wherefore seek you my aid? Here is one with power enough!"

"Only to make things hot," I groaned, "and my species doesn't do too well at temperatures above ninety degrees Fahrenheit."

"Aye-I had forgotten you were so fragile," the Demon answered.

"I ken not how your kind has survived so long, balanced on so fine a line of energy."

"Cultural evolution! Artificial temperature control! Technology!

But the duke and his men stranded me out here without any machines, and I'm just not built for it! Please, Demon-take me some place cool! About seventy degrees Fahrenheit," I added quickly. Somehow, I didn't think I wanted to be where it was cool for the Demen.

"Someplace that is neither hot nor cool, rather," the Demon corrected me, "a barrier between heat and cold. Aye, I know of such a place. But 'tis such a realm as would drive a mortal mad." Ingrained caution welled up. "How so?"

"Why, for that 'tis a realm of paradox incarnate, where a mortal would be lost in confusion . . ." The Demon's voice trailed off, then ignited with enthusiasm. "Aye, we shall put you to the test of yourself! Do you think that you are so wholly dedicated to paradox as to withstand the confrontation of it?"

I hesitated-but he was putting me to the test of my self-image.

"If I'm not," I said, "I want to know about it." Then the counterimpulse ma e me say, "Besides, if I can't, you can always drop me back in the real world-preferably at some point a little less extreme in temperature.

The Demon keened with delight. "You contradict yourself indeed!

t Nay, let us see how you withstand the test that you yourself conceive! Come, mortal, away!"

The landscape tilted and slid-or was it I who was sliding? I didn't know, but suddenly, blessed coolness surrounded me. In fact, I shivered.

"Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit," the Demon informed me.

"I'll get used to it," I promised, "fast. Thank you, Demon. You're a lifesaver." I looked around, and found myself in a realm of formless gray. Mist seemed to fill all the volume about me, and beyond it were only clouds. I looked down and, for all I knew, I could be sitting on another cloud. "Where are we?"

"Where you have wished to be," the Demon said, "the barrier between the cold and the hot. I looked up, startled, finally recognizing the reference.

"Welcome to my home," the Demon sang.

"Uh-thanks." I looked around, feeling kind of weird-new boy in town, and all. And a town there was; shapes were beginning to show through the mist-houses, or things that my mind was interpreting as houses; it occurred to me that I probably wasn't seeing what was really there-or, rather, that I was seeing it, or my eyes were, but my mind couldn't accept it or comprehend it, so it was giving me familiar analogs. If that was the case, then the mist would be the fog of my own confusion. One way or another, it was thinning as I began to be able to recognize forms, and I was feeling a bit better at being able to see houses-in the shapes of geometric solids, and with polygons for windows and doors, but definitely houses. And a street-though it looped about in a funny way, and I couldn't see anything supporting it. And some strange, amorphous masses of greenery that kept fluxing and flowing and changing shape, like vegetable amoebas; I figured they had to be analogous to trees and bushes.

And there were animals.

Or should I say, "creatures"? The first ones to come ambling up were a pair of cats that hadn't quite made it into twins-there were two of them from the middle forward, but at the end of the rib cage, they joined, and only had one set of hindquarters. A single tail snaked around and tickled the ear of the head that had its eyes shut; they opened, and the other head's eyelids closed.

That unnerved me, not to mention its offending me -how would you feel if someone sauntered up to you and fell asleep? "What's the matter?" I asked the wide-awake head. "Early morning last night?"