The Philosophical Strangler

by Eric Flint

  My humor vanished entirely. Half in a daze, I heard Greyboar's rumble.

  "The story's true? There is a Place Even Worse Than Hell?"

  "Bah!" oathed Zulkeh. " 'Tis a truth known to savants in swaddling clothes! Indeed, the most recent scholarship leads us to the conclusion that there are any number of transfernal territories. The Place Even Worse Than Hell being only the first in line of descent. Beyond—'tis certain, this!—there is the Snowball's Last Laugh and Can You Believe This Shit Is Really Happening? Past those regions, our knowledge becomes less precise. The currently accepted hypothesis, of course, is that—"

  A miracle! Zulkeh shut himself up! He cleared his throat noisily; and then muttered: "But perhaps for a later, less pressing time. For the moment, Sirrah Greyboar, rest assured that I was able to ascertain the artist Benvenuti's whereabouts. He is, indeed, in the Place Even Worse Than Hell. And, I regret to state, has fallen into Even Worse Hands. The soul-wracked demonic specter whom I conjured up and whose soul I wracked still further was quite specific on the matter."

  Again, he cleared his throat. "And I dare say he was telling the truth. I wracked his soul quite thoroughly, if I say so myself."

  "Nasty bugger was squealing like a pig by the end," piped up Shelyid cheerfully. "The professor had him begging for mercy. Well, sort of. Actually, he was begging for eternal damnation. But with soul-wracked demons that's pretty much the same thing."

  I was very light-headed by now. Almost fainting, to tell you the truth. I could see what was coming a mile away. But I made one last desperate attempt to restore sanity to a world gone mad. I started mumbling and muttering fiercely, trying to get words out past Jenny's hands.

  "Oh, let him talk, Jenny!" snapped Angela crossly. "We're going to have to listen to it sooner or later anyway."

  Jenny snorted, but she released her grip.

  "S'nuts!" I gasped. "Fer pity's sake, Gwendolyn! I know he used to be your boyfriend and all, but that's ancient history. I mean, I'm sorry things turned out badly for the guy—nice guy, I'll admit it, even if he was so disgustingly good-looking—but, hey—it's over! You gotta get on with life, you know. Let bygones be bygones. Put it all behind you and—"

  No use. Tears started welling up in Gwendolyn's eyes and I felt my throat closing. Damn woman. I never could bear to argue with Gwendolyn when she started crying. Probably because she almost never did, even when she was a little girl.

  Damn woman.

  "I never stopped loving him, Ignace," she whispered. "Not for one second. Even though it was I who insisted we break it off."

  "Why did you, then?" asked Greyboar quietly. His eyes lurked under the overhang of his brow like two black mice studying a morsel of food.

  Gwendolyn pinched the tears from her eyes. "Oh, come on, brother. D'you really need to ask? You?"

  She managed a chuckle that even had a bit of humor in it. "Benvenuti's an artist. It's what he lives for, nothing else. Me—" Again, she shrugged. "You know me, brother. Ignace. My whole life is devoted to the revolution. There's no place in there—not for either of us—for some damned fairy-tale romance. And I knew if we stuck with it, Benvenuti would sooner or later run into trouble with Church and State."

  "Which he did anyway," snorted Magrit. "And managed to piss off the Devil so much in the bargain that he got booted out of Hell. Silly girl! You shoulda—"

  "Magrit!" barked Gwendolyn. "Do you have to second-guess everybody about everything?"

  Magrit smiled sweetly. "Just trying to help, that's all."

  Gwendolyn scowled, but let it go. She took a deep, almost shuddering breath, and fixed her eyes on Greyboar. Then, on me.

  "There's still no future in anything between Benvenuti and me. But I can't bear the thought of him where he is. So I'm going to try to rescue him. Me and Hrundig. Zulkeh and Shelyid agreed to help, and so did Magrit."

  "I didn't!" snapped Wittgenstein. "But—nooo—does a witch's familiar ever get any say in these thing? Fat chance! If you ask me—"

  "Salamander soup," grunted Magrit. "I got the recipe right here in my pocket." Wittgenstein blinked; shut up.

  Gwendolyn took another of those deep, shuddering breaths. "But Zulkeh says we really don't have much chance at all, without you along. Even then, it's going to be touch and go."

  "To say the least!" piped up Shelyid, as chipper as could be. "Actually, the professor said it was a desperate and foolhardy adventure which he strongly recommended against except for the fact that it's the only chance anyone's ever had to study the Place Even Worse Than Hell at first hand so of course it was imperative that we do it."

  Then the tears started leaking out of Gwendolyn's eyes again. The next thing you know Greyboar's got his sister enfolded in his arms and he's whispering promises and assurances.

  Disaster!

  * * *

  Naturally, it went downhill from there.

  "Oh, that sounds like fun!" cried Jenny.

  "Sure does!" agreed Angela. "Let's get Eddie, Lester and Frank in here. They'll be a big help!"

  I started protesting right off—not about the dwarves, but the role which Jenny and Angela obviously foresaw for themselves in this madness. But the two girls ignored me and charged out of the room.

  "Who are Eddie and Lester and Frank?" asked Magrit suspiciously.

  Still embracing Gwendolyn, Greyboar turned his head and explained. Wittgenstein goggled.

  "You let dwarves stay here with you? For no good reason except the so-called milk of human kindness?" The nasty little salamander whistled. "Boy, are you a sorry excuse for a strangler!"

  "Shut up!" snarled Gwendolyn, glaring over her brother's shoulder. Wittgenstein snapped shut its mouth and scurried into Magrit's blouse. A moment later, the witch hauled the creature out and tossed it onto the floor.

  "Get away from my tits, you miserable amphibian."

  "She'll beat me," whined Wittgenstein. "She'll twist my tail off."

  I was impressed. I'd never seen Wittgenstein intimidated by anyone before. Then I thought about Gwendolyn's temper and studied her.

  Greyboar's sister hadn't changed in the slightest. She looks a bit like Greyboar, what with her eagle nose and her dark, kinky hair and her black eyes. Except that Gwendolyn's kind of beautiful—in a scary, Amazon kind of way—while Greyboar's almost as ugly as Shelyid.

  Don't let her good looks fool you. For a woman, she's a giant. Over six feet tall and built like a tigress. Well . . . if a tigress had a build. And she's got incredible reflexes for someone as big as she is. Better than Greyboar's, even. I suspected that Wittgenstein had discovered that the hard way. The thought cheered me up a bit.

  Jenny and Angela charged back into the room, with the three dwarves in tow. Eddie and Lester and Frank were kind of confused, at first. But after the situation was explained to them, the confusion vanished.

  "Can't be done," pronounced Eddie.

  "Impossible," agreed Lester.

  "Out of the question," concluded Frank. "Even if you were willing to get anywhere near Even Worse Hands, you couldn't get near them in the first place. They're in the Place Even Worse Than Hell, you know."

  I beamed. "Well, that's that. Sorry, Gwendolyn, but you just heard it from the experts. Miners, you know, all three of them. Know the tunnels like the back of their hand."

  "Shut up, Ignace," snarled Magrit.

  "Yes, do!" snapped Jenny.

  Angela made an apologetic shrug to the crowd. "Don't mind Ignace. He's not really a coward. He's just so greedy that he can't bear the idea of doing something for free."

  "And that's another thing!" I cried. "Greyboar's got a professional reputation to maintain! The Standards Commission won't—"

  "Shut up, Ignace," growled Greyboar.

  Shelyid gave me a wounded look. "You helped steal the Rap Sheet for free, Ignace."

  A stab to the heart. But I rallied. "That was in another country. And besides, the Crud is dead."

  My protests, alas, were ignored. Greyboar plowed right
over them.

  "Why do you say it can't be done?" he asked Eddie. "Doesn't sound all that difficult to me. From what you've told me before, all those tunnels link up sooner or later. Sure, it might take awhile. But if we plug away at it, we ought to be able to find him eventually."

  The three dwarves shook their head in unison and began to speak, but the wizard cut them off.

  "I fear not, sirrah Greyboar. Indeed, 'tis the very impossibility of the task which has led us to your door."

  Greyboar looked to Zulkeh. The mage spread his hands apologetically.

  " 'Twas my recommendation, that, when Gwendolyn approached me in the Mutt with her proposal. She had thought it would be a simple matter of continuing down the tunnels past the place where the dwarves broke off their search. But I was forced to open up to her understanding certain inauspicious realities of tunnelics and cave lore. Not the mundane aspects of the science"—here, a dismissive wave of the hand—"which any miserable engineer can handle, but the more arcane branches of the study. I speak, of course, of monstrology and beastics. Subterranean devilism, and the like."

  An apologetic cough. "Not to mention the more abstruse problems posed by the Joe relics we might possibly encounter. Which, of course, explains to a degree my own willingness to assist her in this otherwise ridiculous affair of the heart."

  Another apologetic cough. "So, naturally, I thought of you at once. I was quite impressed by the talents which you displayed in the course of our adventure with the Rap Sheet. In an adventure such as this, one really does require more than a modicum of brawn."

  "Why?" demanded Greyboar. "What's in those tunnels?"

  As one dwarf, Eddie and Lester and Frank shuddered.

  "For a start," explained the mage, "we may encounter tunnel snarls."

  "I'll take care of that!" exclaimed Shelyid. Proudly: "I'm a snarl-friend."

  Greyboar eyed him skeptically. "How sure of that are you, Shelyid? Rock snarls, yes. I know you've dealt with such. I was there. But—"

  "And forest snarls!" piped the dwarf. "I met them when we went through the Grimwold."

  His face scrunched, injured. "Any kind of snarls, Greyboar," he said in a hurt little voice. "You shouldn't doubt me. It's not right, you shouldn't."

  Greyboar smiled. "All right, Shelyid. I'll take your word for it."

  He looked back to the wizard. "What else?"

  The mage stroked his beard furiously. "What else? Say better: what else is there not? In terms of monstrology, we are certain to encounter any number of noxious specimens. Devils, too, of course. If I misdoubt me not, our expedition will most certainly require penetrating into divers of the divers regions of that diverse realm known to the ignorant as the Inferno, but more properly titled—"

  Greyboar interrupted, frowning. "I've never tried to choke demons and devils."

  "Bah!" oathed the mage. "Your talents shall not be needed with that tripe. I shall deal with any such who might make so bold as to confront our puissant presence. Besides, I have a stratagem in mind which may enable us to circumvent the problem of the passage through the Inferno, and even many of the other horrors of the underworld. But stratagems—even my own—do go awry from time to time."

  If I hadn't seen him in action, I would have laughed right there. Zulkeh's not only the world's greatest pedant, he looks the part. Picture a middle-aged scholar, then imagine a caricature of one. That's Zulkeh. Oh, yeah—don't forget the ridiculous robe covered with obscure signs and runes, the tall pointy wizard's hat and the staff.

  But—fact is, I had seen him in action. A truth: when it comes to real actual sorcery, there probably isn't a better thaumaturge in the universe than Zulkeh of Goimr, physician. Except for maybe God's Own Tooth, the dreaded master of the Godferrets.

  "No, no," continued the mage, "your physic skills will be required to deal with the less ethereal denizens of the underworld. I speak, of course, of the deadly Worm of the Deep—"

  As one dwarf, Eddie and Lester and Frank wailed.

  "—the dreaded Beast from Below—"

  Another wail.

  "—the Slathering Sanguine Skulker—"

  A great wail, there.

  "—the Creeper from the Crevasse—"

  A pure howl.

  "—the Undulant Umbellant from Under—"

  A shriek.

  "—and, of course, the It and the Thing and the Them and the They."

  A cacophony of pure terror, from the dwarves. Shelyid piped up cheerfully:

  "You forgot the Torrid Terror, professor. And the Kankr Connection and the Flaying Crutchman and the Minions of the Minotaur—and the Minotaur himself, come to think of it—and—"

  "Enough, my loyal but stupid apprentice!"

  Less cheerfully: "And the Switches."

  "I say—enough!"

  Not cheerfully at all: "And the Nun."

  "Desist, diminutive wretch!"

  Gloomily: "Attila the Nun."

  * * *

  Suddenly, the Cat spoke up. As often, I had forgotten she was there. The woman had a way of disappearing without actually doing it.

  "Any chance Schrödinger might be down there?"

  The wizard frowned. "Of course. Schrödinger might be anywhere."

  "Who's Schrödinger?" asked Magrit.

  "Who are you, for that matter?" shrilled the salamander. "You got a name, lady? Or should we just call you Four-Eyes?"

  That was the only bright moment of the whole day. An instant later Wittgenstein was clutched in the Cat's hand, its eyes popping, its tongue bulging out.

  "Schrödinger's supposed to be a slimy sort of creature," muttered the Cat. She inspected the salamander from a distance of two inches, peering at the wretched amphibian through her telescope lenses.

  Greyboar cleared his throat. "That's actually not Schrödinger, love. Its name's Wittgenstein."

  Wittgenstein tried to splutter. The Cat drew her sword.

  "Maybe he's in disguise," mused the Cat. Magrit tried to say something, so did Greyboar. I just grinned.

  The Cat chopped off Wittgenstein's tail. The deed done, she dropped the salamander and inspected the tail. Closely, as only she can do.

  "Nope," she concluded. "It's not a disguise. Real tail."

  Wittgenstein was scurrying about, cursing a blue streak. "Of course it's a real tail, you fucking idiot blindwoman! It was a real tail, I should say!"

  Wittgenstein inspected his stub mournfully. Everyone else in the room started laughing.

  Then the laughter died, and disaster finally struck.

  "Sure we'll do it," rumbled Greyboar. Gwendolyn started crying again and he took her in his arms. Then she even kissed him on the cheek and I knew we were lost.

  And that's how it happened. A slimy salamander, inspecting his lost tail. An honest chokester's agent, inspecting his ruined life. His wrecked world.

  Chapter 24.

  The Gripster in the Grotto

  If you've never participated in one of these insane adventures,

  you probably have all kinds of weird ideas about how they get started. Solemn councils, plotting strategy; sage advice proferred, modified, adapted; tactics developed; preparations made; re-made; re-made again. Then, a great ceremony when the heroes depart on their quest.

  Crap. That's the way it should have been, of course—and you can be sure that I so advised, every step of the way. Lengthy councils, I advocated. Well-planned strategies, I called for. Elaborate preparations, I counseled. And re-counseled. And re-counseled.

  I might as well have been talking to the wall. The only one who listened to me was the wizard, and even Zulkeh demurred.

  "As a general rule, my dear Ignace," allowed the sorcerer, "I am inclined toward your approach to these matters. But in this instance, alas, time presses."

  "Why?" I demanded. "Benny struck me as a competent chap. I'm sure he'll manage well enough until we can get there."

  Zulkeh stroked his beard, shook his head. "I fear not. Regardless of his competence—and w
e should remember, in this regard, that the man is after all an artist, a breed not noted for their practic skills—he has no chance of survival if we do not rescue him from Even Worse Hands within a fortnight. The oscillation of the galactic plane, you understand."

  "The what?"

  Zulkeh stared at me as if I were a moron. "Is such ignorance possible?" he demanded.

  "Just answer the question," I growled. (I didn't take offense. I'd dealt with Zulkeh before.)

  The mage stroked his beard furiously. "But, my dear illiterate, the matter's obvious! As our solar system rotates through the galaxy, we move slowly up and down across the galactic plane. The cycle time is thought to vary between sixty-two and sixty-seven million years. I myself, of course, opt firmly for the latter figure, inasmuch as the Law of Gravity—properly so named only by myself, as I am its discoverer despite the preposterous claims advanced by—"

  "Yes, yes!" I cried. Let Zulkeh get started on the "Law of Gravity, properly so named only by himself," and you'll die of old age. "Continue!"

  "Well! As I said, well—in the event, we are even now approaching the equinox of our oscillation. Within a fortnight, our solar system will cross the exact center of the galactic plane."

  He fell silent, exuding scholarly self-satisfaction.

  I waited. Waited. Finally:

  "So?"

  The wizard glared furiously. "So? So?" He stretched his hands to the heavens. "Is such cretinism possible?"

  "Just answer the question!"

  "The thing's obvious, Ignace! The moment we cross the exact center of the galactic plane, the entire planet will undergo a momentary shuddering in its geologic equilibrium. The tremors, needless to say, will emanate outward from the precise center of the core. Everything will be stirred up!"

  A wave of his hand. "Oh, to be sure, the denizens upon the surface will note little beyond a slight haziness in the sky. Minute dust motes, agitated upward from the soil. But in the interior! Oh, no, a different matter altogether. The most ancient creatures will be stirred to sullen life!"

  He frowned, stroked his beard.

  "Troglodytes, of course—both of the Mesozoic and earlier branches of that noxious order. 'Tis the more evolved Mesozoic breeds which are to be feared. The primitive specimens can be handled with a few cantrips from H.G. Sfondrati-Piccolomini, the which should suffice to cast them back into the abyss of time from which they emerge."