Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 (39 page)

"It is not," Gilbert said. "Smite them down with a blow; stun them, no more. But if you wait, we may be so beset that you cannot choose your verses with care."

"A point," I admitted, "but I notice none of them is holding weapons."

They weren't. Each of them wore a knife as long as his forearm, but all the knives were still thrust through the peasants' beltsthough their hands, clapped to their waists, weren't exactly far from the hilts. They were broad-shouldered, thick-chested men, dressed in belted tunics and loose pantaloons, with brightly colored kerchiefs tied around their heads. Their faces were swarthy and hard, and most of them wore mustaches that drooped down around their mouths. if I had been the kind to judge by looks, I would have thought they were pirates.

"No fighting," I decided. "We're not enemies yet." I pursed my lips, gazing at the man directly in front of me, who stood a little in advance of his comrades, and made up my mind. "You folks stay here." I stepped forward, ignoring Gilbert's shout of alarm, and inclined my head in greeting. "Sorry to intrude-but we didn't have much choice. There was a storm, you see "Indeed. We saw." The man's voice sounded like a hacksaw chewing through old iron. Even so, I looked up in surprise. The words were heavily accented, but he spoke the language of Allustria. "We saw, too, that the ship left you in your longboat and sailed away. What plague do you carry, that the sailors should wish to be rid of you?

I stared at the man. Suspicious, weren't we? I glanced at the hardfaced peasants to either side of him, remembered the ones behind us, and decided on the truth. "We are enemies of Sue ... of the Queen of Allustria. Are we also enemies of you?"

The man's brow drew down in a scowl, and his whole body tensed, but he said, "Mayhap-though it may also chance you are not." Then he stood still, just glaring at me.

My mind flipped through alternatives and decided I didn't want the ball in my court. I held my best deadpan, looking right back in the man's eye.

It did as much good as anything. Finally, the peasant nodded and turned away. "Come," he said back over his shoulder. "This is a matter for the duke."

The castle he took us to was hundreds of years old, to judge by the weathering and the thickness of the crust of salt spray. it was squat and thick, with Roman arches and thick, Doric columns. If I'd been in my own world, I would have guessed that it had been built by adventurous Normans, and would have called it Romanesque. For all that, though, it wasn't especially menacing. It was made of some light-colored stone that had a touch of red in it, warm with the stored sun-heat. It might be forbidding, but it wasn't gloomy. Its owner was very much like it.

The duke, as it turned out, was somewhere in his fifties, grizzled but still powerfully built, looking about as aristocratic as a rugby serum. Certainly he fitted right in with his men-except that he was wearing a midnight-blue robe decorated with the signs of the zodiac and girded with a belt that held a heavy-looking broadsword. He carried a six-foot staff made of some hard, gleaming wood, so dark as to be almost black, carved into the form of a serpent. Instinctively, I braced myself; the astrological gown was neither black magic nor white, but the staff was definitely tending toward symbols of evil. In European culture, the snake was, if not always a sign of Satan, at least usually a sign of menace.

"I am Syrak, duke of this island," the martial magician said.

"Who are you, who come unbidden to my shore?" I decided on the most general truth. "We are wayfarers, seeking to come to an island near Allustria, milord."

"Vincentio tells me you were cast adrift by the ship that brought you here.

"That was by our own request."

"Request? Why would you request to be set adrift from a ship, hey?" The duke's gaze sharpened. "Did you not tell Vincentio you were enemies of Queen Suettay?"

I winced at his use of the queen's name, but maybe it wouldn't matter-if she noticed him, she might not notice us. I nodded, still carefully deadpan. "We did. We did not wish the captain and crew to suffer for having brought us."

"And you also wished to go secretly from Allustria, did you not?

You did not care whether you would bring the queen's wrath down on us, hey? " "We weren't really planning to land on an island with people on it," I admitted. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Gilbert's scowl had darkened, and that he had noticeably #erked up a bit. I did not think that was an entirely favorable sign.

"But you have landed on an island with people! And if we let you go free, Suettay's wrath will fall on us! Will it not?" His men stirred around him, muttering.

"There's a chance of it," I admitted. "But, if we get some fresh water, and a little rest, and food, we can be away before dawn tomorrow.

The queen doesn't even have to know we were here." And to Gilbert, "We're outnumbered, you know."

"When has that ever given you pause?" Gilbert asked. The duke scowled, but decided not to notice him. "There is something in what you say-if you speak truly."

"Oh, I do!" I said, with alacrity. "Believe me-there is absolutely no reason to doubt my veracity!"

"Yes," the duke said. "And surely you would say just that if you

lied. In truth, the more false your words, the more you will swear they are true."

I drew myself up with maximum indignation. "Are you saying I'm a liar? " "I am saying that I wish you to prove the truth of your words. I stared at him, trying to think of a proof. Finally, I shook my head.

"I can't. I am telling the truth, mind you-but, prove it? Short of bringing the queen here to testify, I can't think of a way."

"No, and I think she would be a grumbly guest," the duke said, with grim humor. "Yet if you cannot think of a way to prove your truth, be assured that we can."

"And that is?" I asked, with foreboding. Somehow, I had a notion that the duke's idea of proof wouldn't exactly delight Euclid.

"The Ordeal," the duke said, and I could hear the capital. "One of you must undergo the Ordeal, that the others may go free."

"Me," I said, without even stopping to think-which was a good thing, because Gilbert was one syllable behind me.

"I shall!"

The duke nodded, a slight smile curving his lips. "You have said it," he said to me. "It is your portion!"

"But I-" Gilbert started, before Angelique drowned him Out.

"Ohhhh, nooooo!" She threw herself between me and the duke, her substance wavering, growing brighter and dimmer as she tried to hold his attention. "You have no way of knowing what manner of horrible things this Ordeal may hold, my love! Oh, nay, Lord Duke, do not submit him to the torture! You cannot, you must not! He is a good man, he is truthful in all he says and does, he is not deserving of such horrid treatment!"

Gilbert stared, flabbergasted.

"Gently, gently," I soothed. I caught her hands, wishing I could feel them, and summoned up every ounce of reassurance I could. "I'll survive, never you fear. And as to pain and torture, why, I expect I've withstood worse. Right, milord?"

The duke stood with a face of flint. "What manner of man are you, that you have won the love of a ghost?"

"A wizard," I answered.

"But one not wise." Nonetheless, the duke nodded. "Still, it speaks well for you that your friends are so quick to leap to your defense."

"There, I knew it," I said quickly. "You see? It'll be all right

...

Gilbert, help the lady, will you? There now, darling, don't worry. I've been though tortures before."

"But there is no need! You are an honorable man!" she cried, then collapsed weeping into Gilbert's arms. He held her up and turned her away, his face a study in consternation.

"You will take them to their boat," the duke informed Vincentio.

"Bid them sail, and watch till they've gone from sight." Vincentio nodded, and his band closed around my companions, hiding them from view.

I didn't even get to watch them out of sight, myself; the duke took me by the elbow and turned me away, leading me back across the drawbridge and into the castle. "So, then, you come. And begin your Ordeal, yes?"

"Of course," I said, feeling somewhat numb. At least the duke wasn't gloating about it. I took that to mean he wasn't a sadist-so things could have been worse.

Couldn't they,' As we passed through the huge portal into the keep, a shadow moved, and I thought I recognized the Gremlin's silhouette-but I hoped I was wrong. I'd far rather he was with Angelique and the boys.

I didn't think the sprite could do much for me, but he could make the difference between freedom and capture for my friends. But it would have been nice to know I wasn't completely alone. Besides, how bad could the Ordeal be? I eyed the duke, again taking in the astrological signs on his gown and the snaky staff. He wasn't completely gone over to black magic, that was obvious. Using some aspects of it, maybe, but not wholly dedicated to it yetplaying the old game, thinking he could take what he wanted of the Devil's power without giving anything of himself.

I halted, shocked. Was that what I was trying to do?

Certainly not. There had to be a distinction. Had to. That was it-I wasn't trying to use the Devil's power. Or God's, for that matter, though I wasn't doing as well there-I had called on a saint or two, now and then, and even recited a prayer or two directly to the Top. As an equivocator, I wasn't doing so well. Could be the duke was better at the balancing act.

Or maybe he wasn't even the equivocator he seemed to be. Maybe he was a white magician who was only borrowing a few diabolical symbols. And being tempted. Sorely.

The duke led me up to the battlements so I could watch the longboat put out to sea. I could just barely make out the little black dots that were heads, but the duke was true to his word. My friends, at least, were safe.

"Now you come," the duke said, and led me down the stairs. And down.

And down.

Somewhere below the dungeons, in a pool of torchlight, we stopped. Before us, a stone slab rose up from the floor, knee-high, six feet long, and four feet wide. I eyed it warily and decided it was too low to be an altar. Which was a definite comfort to me, as the peasants stripped off my shirt and started tying me down.

The duke hit the floor with the heel of his staff. It struck with a huge, booming reverberation, out of all proportion to its size. Then he thrust it up high, swirling its tip above his head in a widening he lix and calling out. The call became rhythmical, settling into a chant.

I frowned, straining to understand; the language sure wasn't the one I'd been hearing. It seemed older somehow, kind of like Latin. Latin! Once I realized that, I was able to catch the occasional cognate. "Sun," that word had to be, and "heat," which made senseand sure as taxes that next one had to be "water," or a near relative. days" after it? Wasn't that That was a number-five! And was that

"

a negative suffix, though ? But why negative? ... The duke finished his chant, brandishing his staff again, and the peasants repeated the verse; the cavern boomed with it. Then all of a sudden they went quiet, and the duke shouted out a last sentence, punctuating it by slamming his staff against the floor again ... Where the heel struck the rock, an explosion blossomed in silence, a burst of searing white light against the cavern's gloom, swelling, expanding, filling the chamber ...

it was the sun.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the glare; afterimages danced. I gave my eyes time to adjust to the crimson, then opened them just a little, squinting.

I was still lashed to the rock-but it was surrounded by miles of sand. Heat waves shimmered about me, and the sky was a brazen coin in pitiless blue. There wasn't a cloud in sight, and the heat baked me as if I were in an oven. I could have sworn I could feel the rock heating up below me, and I was already bathed in sweat. Suddenly, the significance of the duke's "five days" hit me-I was supposed to stay bound to this stone bed for a hundred and twenty hours! And the negative suffix was about water!

In panic, I realized Frisson had been right-like it or not, I'd have to try to work magic on my own. Call it working within the frame of reference of the hallucination, call it selling out, call it whatever you like-I was going to have to do it, or die. Preferably without drawing on either the powers of good, or of evil.

I tried to think of some verse that would stop my sweat glands-I was going to need every ounce of water my body held. Then I remembered that without sweat, I would overheat in an hour.

Decisions, decisions!

It was going to be a long day.

I decided it had been a long day already, but the sun was still ominously close to the zenith. My tongue felt like a piece of leather, and my skin felt about right for writing. How long had it really been-an hour? Maybe less?

No matter-I wasn't going to last the day, and I had a notion my body was going to stay there without me for at least twenty-four hours. I had to have water, fast-or something to drink, anyway. What I wouldn't have given now, for a cola ...

Inspiration struck. Commercial jingles! Could I remember one?

Could I ever forget?

Could I talk enough to recite it?

I smacked my lips, or tried to-and found I couldn't get them to open. In desperation, I worked my cheeks, trying to pump up some saliva-but nothing came. Panic began to grow, but I forced it down sternly while I kept working my cheeks ...

Pain lanced through my lower lip. Blast! I'd bitten it again. It hurt, on top of everything else, and I tasted blood ... Blood.

Moisture.

I moved the tip of my swelling tongue against the inside of my lips, pushed hard-and they opened. I took a deep breath ... And the blood dried up.

Quickly, before my mouth could seal up again, I cried,

"Drink Sass-Pa-Rilla, like a man,

In the bottle, in the can!

Right from the store, into my hand!"

Something slapped into my palm, something cold and wet. I breathed a sigh of relief and started to bring it to my lips ... My hand wouldn't move.