The Witch Doctor

Chapter Fourteen

Soldiers came charging out from behind the pillars. Around the edges of the room, knights stepped out from doorways, clanking down on our little group. iced. He swung it with a Gilbert's sword was out before I'd not bloodthirsty howl, as I snapped my staff up to guard. The squire chopped into a helmet, used the rebound to slash at a belly, and snapped the sword straight ahead to fend off the oncoming soldier.

But a huge net fell from the rafters to enshroud him. Gilbert roared and flailed at the net with his sword. He managed to cut a few strands, but more of them entangled the sword.

I howled in anger, yanked out my knife, and sawed at the mesh, trying to free my friend-but soldiers crowded me from either side, and I had to turn to dodge a halberd and lunge at its owner. The soldier yelled with pain and went down under the feet of his comrades, and a pike head jabbed at me from the side. I managed to parry, then remembered I was supposed to be a wizard and frantically tried to think of a verse. Difficult, because I was also dancing around the guardsmen, trying to leap in to cut at them and get out before a sword or halberd hit me. Worse, I was distracted by the sight of Angelique, almost a whirlwind of gauze, swishing across a trooper's eyes long enough for Frisson to thwack him with his staff.

Angelique undulated in front of another trooper long enough to make him stop in his tracks. The man behind him jarred into him, and the two of them turned to fighting each other with shouts of anger. Angelique sped away, flitting through the attackers, causing havoc.

Frisson fought gamely with a staff, though he was clearly getting the worst of it.

A bellow split the air, and the soldiers drew back in fright, for a behemoth strode into the fight with teeth and claws. "Gruesome !" I shouted with relief. The monster must have heard the sounds of the fight and come running back to get in on the pounding.

Then some sixth sense warned me, and I spun around. Someone had managed to get behind me, and a weighted club was swinging down toward my sinuses with a fully armored knight behind it. I took a breath to rattle off a verse, but the club swooped down to fill the world, a huge pain exploded at the side of my head, and I didn't get to see how the fight came out.

The murk cleared enough for me to see something gleaming. I blinked, focused, and saw shining, pale-yellow teeth curving upward in a grin. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head-and immediately regretted it; pain wreathed my brain in fire. I groaned, clutching my poor fevered pate and squeezing my eyes shut.

Something nudged my shoulder, none too gently. "Look up, Wizard! Ere I cut your lids from your eyes!"

There was a certain gloating quality to the words, one that made me think the speaker would just love an excuse to carry out her threat. I gritted my teeth and forced my eyes open. The murk, mercilessly, had fled, forcing me to see the smile in context-and the context was pretty repulsive. In fact, it was Suettay's face.

I winced and turned away, hoping for a better alternative. There was an alternative, all right, but whether it was better or not was decidedly moot. We were in a dank stone chamber, filled with wicked-looking instruments that I vaguely recognized - an iron maiden; thumbscrews; and, beside me, several racks. on one lay Frisson, bound hand and foot - and beside him, Gilbert, who was awake but groggy, and sitting up. Gruesome was missing. Oddly, I felt a spurt of relief - at least one of us had escaped the ambush. Then anxiety reawakened in the wake of the thought, and I hoped the troll wouldn't be so fanatically loyal as to try to rescue us. After all, what could he do?

On the other hand, I was a bit more anxious about Angelique. In fact, she was my prime worry, because she was here, too-in the flesh! Although now that I looked at it, the body's chest was still, none of the gashes were bleeding, and it was deathly pale. Deathly ...

Suettay had put her corpse in with us.

Outrage hit me. How dare Suettay save Angelique's mortal clay like a trophy?

Or was it for some other purpose?

Suddenly, I remembered what the witch-queen had said about preserving Angelique's body, and why. I found myself really hoping my favorite ghost wasn't in that room with us - but I was very much afraid she was, and in some condition I couldn't detect.

No way around it - I decided I'd have to recognize that we were in real, genuine, bona ride predicament, and no matter how ugly it was, I was going to have to face it. I turned back to Suettay. The queen saw my resignation and laughed, a sound like a truck trying to roll with a broken hearing. I sighted and reevaluated her when you got right down to it, the queen was a very ordinary-looking fat woman, if you didn't count the cruel glint in her eye or the gloating, eager smile on her glistening lips.

A scream scoured the air. I turned frantically to my companionsand was hugely relieved to see that none of them had made the noise.

It did, however, jerk Frisson rudely back to consciousness, staring about in instant panic. Suettay laughed again. I turned to look at her and was amazed to see that the queen wasn't looking back. In fact, she was looking off to my right with rapt fascination, nodding slowly and grunting. "Good, good. Again, again! " Sure enough, the scream split the air once more, and Suettay's eyes glistened like a connoisseur regarding a Picasso - or, I revised it, like a voyeur watching a pornographic movie. I turned to follow Suettay's gaze, puzzled.

I turned away again, as quickly as I could. I could tell from the sounds that my companions had made the same mistake.

Suettay, apparently, watched torture for fun.

Fortunately, the victim wasn't anybody I knew. I wondered if the poor man had done anything to deserve torture, or if Suettay's soldiers had just grabbed the nearest passerby.

The queen turned toward me, grinning from ear to ear. "Do you not find this pastime amusing, Wizard?" She said the last two words with so much sarcasm that they might have cracked under the load. But I was in no condition to notice; I was fighting a rising gorge.

"Uh, no thanks, Your Majesty - that's more like my idea of work." The torturer giggled as he turned some minuscule device, and the prisoner screamed again.

Suettay's face reddened on the instant, engorging with rage. "Do you think yourself so much better than me, then? Torturer!" She waved at the official. "Release the prisoner! We will save the rest of his agony for a time of proper leisure!" Then, to two apprentices standing by in leather loincloths and black masks, "Seize this churl and lay him on the table!"

In the middle of the apprentices' giggles and my friends' cries of outrage, all I could think, as they unstrapped me and hustled me over to the table, was that at least I'd spared the poor peasant some pain.

"Fight, Wizard Saul!" Gilbert shouted. "Do not let them doom you without a struggle!"

But I didn't have any time to fight - I was too busy thinking up verses.

The torturers slapped me down on the table. Very effective - it knocked the breath out of me long enough for them to put the shackles on. Then the main torturer advanced, grinning over a glowing branding iron. I tried to forget it was for me and started to mutter, but the torturer nodded at an apprentice, who stabbed the ball of my thumb with a fat pin. I yelped, the verse going completely out of my mind. But it reminded me of another one:

The shackles sprang loose with a clatter, and I bounded up, stiffarming the torturer as I passed. "Sorry, but I don't really have time today, I have an appointment with-"

Gilbert and trisson shouted approval, but the queen stared, appalled; whatever she'd been expecting from me, that hadn't been it.

Her face darkened then, and she barked, "Seize him!" Two guards jumped me and slammed me back down on the table. Suettay gave a curt nod toward the rest of the captives, and other guards backhanded them both across the mouths. Frisson reeled back down, and Gilbert recoiled.

Anger filled me, for which I was thankful. I glared at the queen, who laughed with vindictive pleasure as the torturer came back with the heated iron, its glow dulled to a sullen red. He moved it slowly toward my forehead, his gloating grin growing again. I stared at the horrid, glowing pentacle, as fascinated as I was horrified, trying for the life of me to think of a verse - and I did.

The iron star cooled amazingly, its glow dimming to blackness as it neared. The torturer cried out - was that fear, or just disappointment? - but Suettay's hands moved in some odd pattern while she snarled something with a heavy meter in a tongue I didn't know, and the star glowed into brightness again - not just red, but white-hot. The torturer's grin grew back with it, and I just had time to realize that Suettay had been expecting some sort of cooling spell, before the heat of the iron seared my whole face, then passed beyond my sight, and pain, bright liquid pain, worse than any I had ever known, shot outward from the center of my forehead, drowning out all other sensations - my friends' shouts of horror, Suettay's victorious crowing, my own scream. Gradually, the pain diminished until the things I saw could register again, though my whole head was sill wrapped in agony, and my whole spirit quailed in total, abject, gibbering fear. I could hear Suettay soothing, "Softly, softly. Pain on pain will yield no gain; he will not feel the pins, while he's curled in agony from the iron." Good advice, and I realized the smart thing would be to keep screaming and pretending I was delirious - but I saw Angelique's bruised corpse; Gilbert, a bruise darkening on his cheek; and Frisson, crumpled against his rack, blood trickling from the hand cupped over his mouth. There was no room for anger now; my whole being was filled with fear, horrible fear that the torturer would do that again, and I whimpered, "Please ... please . . ."

"Yes, it does please me." Suettay chuckled. "And will please me for all of this day, and part of this night, I doubt not." Suddenly, her eyes blazed, and her whole countenance contorted. "Fool! To defy my will! Now will you learn the fate that befalls those who oppose Suettay! Now will you learn what it is, to die in torment!" She motioned, and pain lanced through my hands. I screamed; then, as the pain dimmed, the thought fleeted through my mind that at least I didn't have any major sins on my conscience at the moment, so I'd die Heaven-bound ...

The realization blossomed like a flower, even through the pain, and I had no doubts as to where it had come from. By myself, I wouldn't even have thought of those terms, and if I had, I would have thought that because I wasn't holier-than-thou, I couldn't have been good. But the inspiration came, and I realized that, yes, I was in a state of grace at the moment - not perfect, but I'd been doing more good works than bad - enough so that Satan had no power over me. That meant Suettay could only control me with physical force; as far as magic went, her spells were by no means unbeatable. If I could only find the right one. And if I could just get it out of my mouth.

But Suettay saw the hope rising in my face, and screamed, "Lance him!"

Pain bit through my thumbs again. This time, though, I knew it was coming, and I could grit my teeth and ride it out. I held tight to the thought of defense. My mind searched frantically through the verses I knew, rejecting anything the queen might expect, seizing the least likely:

The torturer cried out in alarm as invisible hands wrenched off his boots. A block of stone flipped itself out of the floor, and the unseen hands jammed the torturer into the dirt beneath. Then he howled with pain and fright as his arms stretched out like tree limbs. His fingers elongated like little branches, the tips bulging into buds that sprang open into flowers.

My friends shouted with delight, and the apprentices shrank back with a moan.

"Mercy!" the torturer cried. "Mercy!"

"You're welcome," I muttered. I wasn't thinking too clearly, what with all the pain.

Suettay paled, falling back a pace. I started to flounder up off the torture table, though, and the queen snapped out of her shock.

"Guards! Seize him!"

But all of a sudden, the guards were reluctant, and it gave me time to climb to my feet, searching frantically for another verse.

"Will you not seize him?" the queen ranted. "Must I turn you all into flaming brands?"

The soldiers paled and started forward.

I decided to stay with Gilbert and Sullivan.

An explosion of expanding air rocked the chamber, and there it was, a full-fledged Arabian jinn, complete with turban and beard.

"Your command, master?"

The companions and guards both stared, and somebody made a sick moan-maybe it was Suettay.

"More like a client, actually," I clarified, remembering what one tradition said happened to jinn's masters. "I'd like you to clear the guards and torturers out of this chamber, banish them to some oasis in the nearest desert. But not too lush an oasis," I added, remembering what the torturers had done to me.

"Your wish is my command." The jinn raised his hands ... And Suettay got her mouth working. Her hands twitched through the air as she recited some incomprehensible syllables-incomrehensible to me, but apparently something understood them somewhere, because when the jinn cried aloud some ancient syllables of his own and threw his hands up, the whirlwind that sprang up just as quickly died down. The jinn stared, unbelieving, then suddenly gasped and spat out a string of words, making mystic passes all around himself. His form wavered and thinned, then solidified again.

Suettay grinned, chanting again as her hands stirred the air.

"I cannot," the jinn gasped. "The sorceress moves against me! 'Tis all I can do to fend off her magics! " But I had taken time for a thinking break, and chanted,

The guards cried out as a huge, invisible hand slammed them against the wall. They crumpled to the floor, out cold.

"I cannot prevail," the jinn gasped. "I can at best withhold her might!"

"You're doing just fine," I assured him. "While you're holding her off, I'm free to work on her henchmen. Now, let's see ... a verse about torturers . . ."

Suettay's face twisted, and she snarled, "Seize her!" The apprentice torturers leapt to Angelique's body. Frisson and Gilbert struggled against their bonds, but Suettay snapped, "Hold! Move, and her spirit dies!"

I whirled to her, staring. She was holding a corked bottle over her head - and it looked to be made of very thin glass.

One of the torturers, hearing, whisked out a knife and held it to the throat of Angelique's body.

"So," I said. "When your men knocked me out, you managed to compel her ghost into a bottle."

"Why, how quickly you understand!" Suettay crooned.

"SO break it." I frowned. "All you'll do is free her ghost again."

"Nay, for I'll scream the spell as I do - and as the lady comes out from the flask, her ghost will leap to her body. Look at it! The boot is on!"

I whirled to look. Sure enough, the iron boot was clamped around one of Angelique's feet, and there were thumbscrews on each hand. I knew, with a sick certainty, that they had been there ever since she'd died. If her ghost went back in there, and the body came alive again, it would be in instant agony.

But the explanation had taken time from Suettay's spells, and the jinn shouted what sounded like an oath. A huge scimitar appeared in midair, slicing down at Suettay. The queen answered with a curse, and the huge blade winked out just before it hit her. She broke out in a sweat and snapped, "Banish him, Wizard, or the woman lives!" I was in no shape to appreciate the irony.

Neither was the jinn; he was chanting again. Suettay's face reddened, and her hands sawed the air furiously; she managed to croak a verse ...

The torturer pricked, and a drop of blood welled up on Angelique's pale throat. Frisson groaned, and Gilbert cried out in dismay. I capitulated. "Thanks, O jinn-but I'm afraid we're outflanked. Back to the place of your people, now."

The jinn cried out in relief and delight, and disappeared. Suettay wiped her forehead with a shaking hand, drew a deep breath, and forced a grin. "Now, Wizard. I believe we understand our positions."

"Not quite." My eyes narrowed. "If that slab of beef harms a hair on her head, I'll turn him into a turnip."

The torturer looked up, appalled.

"I think not," Suettay purred, "while I can prevent it."

"True. First, I'll turn you into a pig. Not that it will take much."

Frisson crowed his approval, then caught himself, eyeing the queen fearfully.

Suettay reddened, and her eyes narrowed. "Attempt it, and she will wake into agony while you chant."

"Not if the torturer knows you'll gobble him up the next minute - or do you really think you'd be able to resist the temptation? You're not too good at that, you know."

"I think I shall still be as I am, and you shall be a toad!" I raised my hands, ready to gesture. "Ready to try it? On the count of three "Be still!" Suettay watched me with narrowed eyes. Beyond her, I saw Frisson's abstracted gaze, and knew I could count on magical help from an unexpected quarter. On the other hand, I wasn't sure what the effects of that help would be - if inspiration struck, he was apt to forget practicalities.

"You prevaricate," the sorceress guessed, "for you would not chance the woman's life."

I said slowly, "Not if there's a way to guarantee her safety, and that of my friends, no. Trouble is, I don't see any such way."

"There is one," Suettay said, with a leer. "Ally yourself with myself and with evil, and the maid shall go free." I lay rigid with shock - but beside me, Gilbert called out, "Nay, Master Saul! She would smite the lass nonetheless!"

"I would not," Suettay retorted, "for if I did, the wizard might turn against me."

"That ... makes sense," I said slowly.

"Surely you are not tempted!" Frisson cried.

"Tempted, sure." I shrugged. "Anybody can be tempted, right? Can't avoid that. Giving in to it is another matter - but yes, I am tempted."

"Tempted most shrewdly." Suettay's leer broadened. "Come, Wizard! Swear allegiance to me and to Satan, and the soul of the lass shall go free. Nay, further - I'll remove the spell that keeps her body alive, so that her soul may fly to Heaven."

It was a good deal, and it was very tempting; I loved Angelique dearly, and sending her to eternal bliss would have made her very happy. Unfortunately, it would have made me very sad - I finally admitted to myself just how thoroughly I'd fallen in love with her, and how much I wanted her with me. With me, in body as well as spirit, I might add - I might have been substantially in a state of grace, but I was no plaster saint. I wanted Angelique and I wanted her alive, well, and corporeal.

But that was selfish.

"No, Master Saul!" Gilbert cried. "You must not! Without you, we should all be-" Suettay nodded at a guard, who slapped Gilbert hard across the mouth, then stuffed a gag in, but he'd said enough. Without me, this whole complex of forces that was gathering to oust Suettay and clean up Allustria might falter and fail. I know that sounds conceited, but I didn't really know what my part in the whole scheme was-only that I was definitely a part of it, and if one part failed, all the rest probably would, too.

But more importantly, Suettay still needed Angelique for that virgin sacrifice - and once I committed myself to the power of evil, I would be under her authority, and powerless to stop her.

"He hesitates," Suettay snapped. "He is a fool, and will do us no good." The torturers rumbled agreement - of course - and Suettay stepped up to Angelique's body. She handed the flask to one of her henchmen.

"Pull the cork when I bid you, and the spirit shall be sucked back into the clay." Then she began to weave a pattern of strange, vaguely obscene gestures over the corpse, chanting in that strange, eerie language.

I had a sudden vision of that poor, gentle body coming alive, convulsing in pain, screaming in agony. "No, wait!"

"Will you join me?"

My heart twisted within me, and my whole body twisted with it. All the fears and horrors of the evil I'd seen flitted through my memory, and an intuitive impulse such as i,d never had surged through me, adding up to a panic of denial - but there lay Angelique's body, with her ghost ready to hand

"No."

"Curses!" Suettay spat. "How strong is your love, then, if you will not sell your soul to save the maiden from pain?" That suddenly made everything clear, and I felt the peace of certainty flow back through me - for I realized that selling my soul would be the denial of love. Love is healing, love pulls the soul toward Heaven, because it's a tiny taste of Heaven - so if I sold my soul, dedicated it completely to evil, I'd be locking myself away from love. If I signed up with Suettay, I would no longer really be able to love Angelique.

But I would still desire her - and what might I do to her then, with no conscience and no empathy?

"No," I said. "if I sold my soul, then I'd be placing her completely in your power - there would be no one left to shield her."

"A curse upon the spirit that has told you that!" Suettay snarled.

I suddenly realized where all these inspirations had been coming from. "Won't work. He's curse-proof."

Suettay's eyes narrowed. "Then I'll proffer you another bargain. Cease your hold on this world, and I shall let the girl's ghost go free."

Panic again, at the thought of leaving Angelique - but the logic of it made me hesitate. Sure, if Suettay could augment her power by converting a wild card of a wizard to her side, it would make her that much stronger, and her enemies that much weaker - but if she couldn't subvert me, she could at least get rid of me. That would give her one less thing to worry about.

A return to my own world was what I wanted anyway, right? Except that I was trying to find Matt - but I'd sure found out where he had gone, and there was no particular reason to think he wasn't alive and well. If I really wanted to find out, all I had to do was go back to my own world, find the parchment he had used, and read whatever spell it contained - it would take me to him. Nice double cross for Suettay, too.

But what would happen to my friends in the meantime?

I summoned all my nerve and said, "No."

"That was my final kindness, fool!" Suettay screamed. "Why do you disdain it?"

"Because," I said, "as soon as I'm out of the way, you'll go ahead and sacrifice Angelique, then start in on my friends."

"But you would have no knowledge of that! You would not care!"

"Oh, I would care," I assured her, "very much." Her eyes narrowed to glitters of malice. "Then we shall remove all the sources of that care - by simple murder! I am loath to waste objects of pleasure in quick killing - but if it will speed you hence, I shall do it! Guards! Slay-"

"No!" I shouted. "You kill them, and I'll hang on in this universe just to get revenge on you!" She broke off, looking up at me with a strange, malicious smile.

"'Tis tempting - for revenge is sinful, and in letting yourself be consumed with hatred and the desire for vengeance, you would succumb to the lure of evil, and be subsumed in it."

My heart sank.

"Sweet though that would be," she said regretfully, "it would be of no aid to me, myself - and might hinder me, in your rebellion." I saw my chance. "Yeah! And the sinfulness of my revenge might even be balanced by the good I did in getting rid of you!"

"'Tis even so." Her eyes were back to the nasty glitters again.

"So it would seem that you must join me, or die."

I felt my stomach drop down to the bottom of the shaft, but I set my jaw and said, "Death. Definitely death." And I tried to sneak in one more spell:

"He took the Wine and blessed it,

He blessed and broke the Bread"

"Enough!" Suettay screamed. "Silence him!" A hard hand backhanded me across the mouth. I saw stars, and wondered if I'd need a dentist or an orthodontist.

"To the dungeons with them!" Suettay ranted. "The wench shall remain imprisoned in this flask, till I incorporate her to watch his final agonies! Let them rot in my most dreary cell, while I begin preparations for a revenge dealt in a manner that will most please my master! " Then I was running to try to keep from falling as the apprentice torturers hustled the three of us down the hallway and into a cell.

My skin crawled with apprehension. Somehow, I didn't think the "master" Suettay had referred to was anyone human. I had a nasty, sneaking suspicion that I knew how high up in the nonhuman hierarchy that individual was - and what kind of revenge he would find most pleasing.