The Philosophical Strangler

by Eric Flint

  Alas, it wasn't. But its swipe at Jenny was met with Gwendolyn's cleaver this time, and that was a whole different kettle of fish. Gwendolyn could split logs with that thing. She did split a knuckle, right down to the bone.

  The Ogre howled and swiped at her. Another chunk of the cleaver, then another. One of the Ogre's talons fell off.

  Hrundig and the Cat, meanwhile, were hacking at the creature's legs with sword and lajatang, trying to hamstring the brute. They didn't seem to be having any luck, although they'd turned the legs into a mass of green ichor.

  The Ogre was staggering around the grotto now, bellowing with fury. Greyboar's hands were still locked onto its throat, like a pit bull on a mastiff three times its size. I saw that he'd left off trying to crush the thing's windpipe and had both his hands sunk into the sides of the Ogre's neck, trying to close off the jugular veins. From the dazed look on the creature's face, it looked like the project was starting to yield fruit. As they say.

  As terrified as I was over Jenny and Angela's situation, I gave up any thought of trying to haul them off the Ogre. It was clear enough from the way they were chewing on its ears that both girls had adopted the ancient motto of the midget in a brawl: You may get a meal, bigshot, but I'm damned well gonna get me a sandwich.

  Besides, they weren't in any immediate danger. I could figure out what was coming next. As stupid as it was, the Ogre must have finally realized that Greyboar was the real danger. It stopped trying to swipe at the women and grabbed Greyboar's head in its talons. Then, gaping like the entrance to the Pit, its huge maw descended to bite off the chokester's head.

  My first dart sailed into its mouth and sunk into the soft tissue inside the maw, which should have been pink instead of that nasty, nasty blue-green dripping with saliva. Three more followed, in the blink of an eye, before the horror snapped its jaws shut. The Ogre blinked and gave me a reproachful look.

  "Nasty stuff, ain't it?" I shrieked. I shook my fist at the monster, hopping around with glee. "Try swallowing that, you—you—"

  The monster belched and spit out all four darts. "Yech!" it roared. Again, that reproachful look. "You tried to poison me, you little squirt!"

  The Ogre started lumbering toward me, intent on revenge. Clearly enough, it had forgotten all about everyone else. I discovered, then, a secret about poisoned darts that I'd never known. Even if you can't actually kill something that big, you can sure as hell infuriate it.

  Under other circumstances, of course, I would have been terrified out of my wits. Having a nine-and-a-half-foot-tall Ogre chasing you around a subterranean grotto will do for that. Take my word for it.

  But, at the time, I was practically delirious from joy. As long as the brute was concentrating on me, it wasn't trying to go after Jenny and Angela. Or Greyboar and Gwendolyn, for that matter.

  And, besides, it wasn't the first time in my life I'd been chased by something bigger than me. If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was scramble-duck-and-dodge.

  Oh, I led it a merry chase, if I say so myself, for at least a minute. Then it got sticky, when I slipped on a loose stone and fell flat on my face. By the time I scrambled back to my feet, the Ogre was right there, reaching for me with its talons.

  But there weren't actually that many talons left, just a bunch of bleeding stumps. Gwendolyn's cleaver-work, that. And with Greyboar still hanging on in the front, the Ogre had to stoop to reach me with its gigantic maw.

  Which it did, Greyboar flip-flopping around on its belly. But my two throwing knives went into the gullet, which seemed to discombobulate the monster for a moment. And then—I don't know where he came from—Wittgenstein was perched right on its snout pissing into its eyes.

  Horrid stuff, salamander piss. Especially Wittgenstein's. The Ogre squawled and forgot all about me. Eyes squeezed tight shut, it was frantically pawing at its snout. But Wittgenstein was long gone by then. The familiar scampered off the monster and scuttled through my legs.

  "You owe me, Ignace," it hissed along the way. "Breakfast in bed, twice."

  I wasn't about to argue the point. Fact is, my long-standing dislike for the surly little creature had completely disappeared. Let's hear it for unnatural amphibians!

  I started scrambling away myself. Then, behind me, I heard a great thud. I turned around and saw that the Ogre had collapsed to its knees. Hrundig and the Cat must have finally worked through to the sinews.

  The Ogre's eyes were open again, but they seemed empty of any emotion beyond dull confusion. I realized that Greyboar's death grip was taking its toll. His huge hands were sunk completely into the monster's neck. If the damned thing wasn't so stupid it would have been unconscious by now.

  The Ogre's maw was gaping wide again, but this time it was purely a grimace. A moment later, Magrit waddled up and tossed a handful of some kind of powdery stuff down its throat.

  "Hold your breath, girls!" she called out cheerfully. "One of my special concoctions—you don't want any part of it."

  Some of the stuff, whatever it was, must have drifted onto Jenny and Angela. Both of them reared back from the Ogre's ears—what was left of them—and started hacking and coughing.

  "Oh—yuch!" squeaked Angela. "That's even worse than the ear!" Jenny didn't say anything. She just looked purely nauseated.

  So did the Ogre. Its eyes bulged. Then Gwendolyn released her scissor lock and hoisted herself higher onto the monster's shoulders. An instant later, she plunged her cleaver hilt-deep into the Ogre's left eye. Two seconds later, did the same for the right.

  And that, as they say, was all she wrote. The Ogre swayed back and forth on its knees for maybe five seconds, and collapsed right on top of Greyboar. The strangler still had his hands locked in place. Gwendolyn and Jenny and Angela spilled off onto the floor of the grotto.

  Hrundig took one last vicious hack at the monster's heel tendon—what was left of it—and danced away. He looked as fresh as a daisy, despite the rigors of his swordplay. I would have been amazed, except I knew that Hrundig made a religion out of endurance training.

  The Cat seemed more worn out, but not much. Just breathing heavily.

  "I take it all back," she said, her chest heaving a bit. "That stuff about silly exercises."

  Hrundig grinned. "Stamina, woman. I told you. It's the soldier's best friend."

  The Ogre's body lurched and rolled over onto its back. Greyboar pried himself out from under and stumbled to his feet.

  He was not in a good mood. His head swiveled, bringing the wizard under his hot gaze.

  "Zulkeh!" he roared. "What was the big idea, stirring this thing up?"

  His words triggered off my own temper. "Yeah! And where were you all this time, you—"

  I choked off the words. The mage was ignoring us completely. He was hopping back and forth on one leg, with a huge tome clutched in his hands, reciting from it aloud.

  "—and thus, by the power of the wine-dark sea, do I smite thee with my rosy finger!"

  He pirouetted, lifted his right hand from the tome, and pointed his forefinger at the Ogre's corpse. The finger, I noticed, was indeed rosy. A bolt of something like wine-colored lightning sprang from the fingertip and smote the dead monster in the chest.

  "Yuch!" squealed Jenny and Angela. Pieces of Ogre were splattered all over the grotto.

  "That's great, Zulkeh," growled Greyboar, wiping a fragment of grue from his face. "You just killed a dead Ogre."

  The wizard frowned, examining what was left of the monster. Shelyid took the tome from his hand and tucked it away in the sack.

  "I tried to talk him out of it," he said apologetically. "Sure and the rosy finger's a doozy, but before you can use it you gotta wade through all that stuff about the wrath of what's-his-name and all that squabbling over the girl and that silly business where everybody's racing around in chariots getting in the way of the gods who are doing all the real stuff and—"

  "Silence, dwarf!" barked Zulkeh.

  "Silence yourself!" snapped Magrit.
She waddled toward the wizard, shaking her plump fist. "You damn near got us all killed and then didn't do a damn thing except—"

  Zulkeh didn't seem to be listening. The mage had his head cocked, as if he were listening for something.

  "Silence!" he hissed. "There has been too much noise already!"

  Magrit wasn't about to let Zulkeh shut her up, of course, so she kept squawling her displeasure. But the wizard's obvious disquiet transmitted itself to everyone else.

  "Silence the creature, Greyboar!" hissed Zulkeh. His usual arrogance seemed entirely absent. He waved his hands frantically, urging silence upon everyone.

  Greyboar grunted, and clapped a hand over Magrit's mouth. The witch looked furious, but she seemed to settle down a bit.

  Silence. The strangler removed his hand and frowned. "What's the problem, prof? Why are you—"

  "Silence!" hissed the wizard again. Zulkeh was almost dancing with agitation. "Silence!"

  * * *

  A sound was heard. A deep, faint sound. Like—rocks moving, maybe. Or crunching.

  "As I feared!" cried the mage. "Come! We must be off—and quickly!"

  Matching deed to words, Zulkeh strode across the grotto to the tunnel entrance opposite the one from which we had entered. Shelyid followed.

  Another sound. Much louder. Definitely like rocks moving. Or crunching.

  We all hastened into the tunnel after Zulkeh and his apprentice. Behind us, the sound grew into a crescendo. It sounded like a rock slide—coming from the bottom up.

  "Make haste! Make haste!" cried Zulkeh from ahead.

  We made haste.

  "What's making that noise?" asked Angela. "Another Ogre?"

  "Bah!" oathed the mage. "Do you think a pitiful Great Ogre of Grotum can rip apart the very roots of the mountains? Fie on such witless notions!"

  The noise behind us now sounded like a volcano.

  "Nay, nay!" cried Zulkeh. "The Great Ogre of Grotum is a trifle. Alas, the brutes are doted upon by their—"

  "Oh, shit!" cried Magrit.

  "Good move, guys," groused Wittgenstein.

  "That's just a myth!" protested Hrundig.

  The noise behind us now made a volcano sound tame.

  "The Great Ogre of Grotum's Mother," concluded Zulkeh. "No myth, sirrah! And what is worse is the very real possibility—"

  The volcano behind us was suddenly joined by an earthquake.

  "As I feared! The Peril More Dire Still!"

  Racing down the tunnel, led by the mage's voice:

  "Fly for your lives!"

  Volcano and earthquake were now joined by a tidal wave of rippling rock.

  Again: "Fly for your lives!"

  Chapter 25.

  (Too disgusting to title)

  Well, we escaped. Barely. As time passed, the rumble and

  crumble of collapsing passageways behind us faded slowly into distant thunder. But by the time the wizard got done leading us down about a million twists and turns in the labyrinth, we were hopelessly lost.

  Or so I thought. Zulkeh claimed otherwise.

  We finally stopped in another grotto. A very small one, dank and damp. Nervously, I inspected the moisture-glistening walls in the lantern light. Except for an oval-shaped door on one side—what sailor types call a hatch—and a tunnel maybe fifteen feet from it, the grotto seemed empty.

  Zulkeh was standing in front of the hatch, inspecting it closely. After a moment he straightened, exuding satisfaction. "Just as I planned!" he proclaimed. "My stratagem bears fruit."

  I must have snorted loudly enough for him to hear. He turned a baleful eye upon me.

  "You doubt my words?" he demanded. "Lost, you say? At wit's end, I presume?" Zulkeh rapped the hatch with his staff. The rusty iron rang hollow. "Stymied by this unexpected obstacle in the course of my science, you claim?"

  He was genuinely pissed, I could tell. Not hard, that. Zulkeh was usually genuinely pissed about something.

  "You shouldn't doubt the professor, Ignace," complained Shelyid. A moment later, the huge sack gave a little heave and whumped softly on the floor of the grotto. Shelyid's furry little face stared up at me reprovingly. " 'Tisn't right."

  "What, kid?" I demanded. "Are you still standing up for the tyrant? I thought we cured you of that habit in Prygg. Gave you a labor contract and everything!"

  The dwarf rummaged in one of the pockets of his tunic. "Teach your grandmother to suck eggs," he muttered. A moment later his hand emerged, clutching a well-worn and dog-eared little booklet. I recognized the thing. It was the labor contract which Les Six had negotiated for him in Magrit's house, after the full extent of Shelyid's position had become clear. Most indignant, they'd been—and rightly so. True, Les Six are notorious malcontents, even by the standards of the Groutch proletariat. But there wasn't much doubt, by anybody's standards except outright slavers, that Zulkeh's concept of "conditions of apprenticeship" was, ah, quaint.

  Shelyid's little fingers flicked through the pages with practiced ease. "Here it is!" he piped. " 'Part IV, Section B, Paragraph 3, clause (a): It shall be the responsibility of the short-statured-but-fully-qualified apprentice to rise to the defense of the sorcerer when said mage's sagacity is questioned by ignorant louts.' "

  The nerve of that kid!

  "I know how to read contracts myself, you know!" I flicked a finger dismissively, curling my lip. "Read the next clause, why don't you?"

  Shelyid didn't bother to consult the booklet. He was already returning it to his pocket. "Clause (b)," he intoned. " 'Except when the mage is making a damn fool of himself.' "

  He gave me a half-reproachful, half-derisive look. "Which he didn't, in this case, because this is exactly how he planned the whole thing."

  "Well said, my stupid but loyal apprentice!" spoke Zulkeh.

  My lip curled mightier still. I daresay my mustachios flourished.

  "It's true!" insisted Shelyid. "It all happened exactly like the professor said!" He hesitated. "Well. He gave it an eighty-seven percent probability. But that's awful close!"

  The dwarf pointed back at the tunnel through which we had entered. The rumbling sounds of collapsing passageways had almost faded away completely by now.

  "He said we were bound to meet a Great Ogre of Grotum before too long. And then it was almost a sure thing that somebody would screw up and alert the Great Ogre of Grotum's Mother and the Peril More Dire Still."

  He gave the sorcerer an apologetic glance. "It's true the professor predicted it would be somebody else who'd blow it. Instead of himself."

  Zulkeh started to bridle. So did Greyboar and Gwendolyn. So did Jenny and Angela. Fortunately, Magrit—of all people!—intervened before tempers got further aroused. "Cut it out, all of you!" she wheezed.

  The witch huffed and puffed. Magrit's on what they call the matronly side, which is a polite way of saying middle-aged and plump. The long race through the corridors had clearly put a strain on her.

  But she's a tough cookie, Magrit, no doubt about that. Under all that heft there was plenty of muscle. Not to mention probably the most sarcastic soul in the world, except her familiar. Which, since she's the one who conjured him into sentience, explains Wittgenstein. Like witch, like witchee.

  "And he's right, anyway," she huffed, jabbing a finger at Shelyid. "I heard the old fart say it myself. Then blather on about how the inevitable ensuing destruction of a portion of the labyrinth would disguise our entry from malevolent monsters while he led us to a secret alternate route into the Infernal Regions." Sourly: "Scheming like he always does, even if he calls it thaumaturgical guile."

  Zulkeh started to say something, but Magrit cut him off.

  "So—okay, genius! We're here. Now what?" She nodded at the hatch. "You did notice that the 'secret alternate route' has got no handle to open it, I trust. And by the looks of the thing, we're certainly not going to break it down. So how are we supposed to get in?"

  "Bah!" oathed Zulkeh. He pointed with his staff toward the tunnel not far from
it. "Some of us shall simply take that route, circle around, and open the hatch from the other side." He cleared his throat. "Greyboar and Ignace, to be precise."

  A torrent of protest erupted.

  "Why only them?" demanded Angela.

  "Yeah—we should all go!" yelped Jenny.

  "And how will they keep from getting lost?" added Gwendolyn.

  "We're already lost," groused Wittgenstein. "Don't believe all this wizardly folderol. Probabilities, my ass!"

  "I think we should—"

  "Enough!" thundered the mage. "Is my science to be questioned at every step? My reason doubted at every fork?"

  Again, he jabbed at the tunnel. "Some of us, I say, because all of us may not go. Imprimis, because Gwendolyn and Hrundig are needed to stay behind, in the event some sullen brute insensate to my sorcery should happen to stumble upon us in this grotto. One does require mighty thews upon occasion in these adventures, even when guided by such a puissant mage as myself. Secundus, because it is no fit place for ladies."

  Here, he managed a gracious bow at the "ladies." Magrit snorted. Jenny and Angela stuck their tongues out. The Cat just gave him her patented bottle-glass gaze, followed with: "You're not a lady. Neither's the runt."

  Zulkeh cleared his throat. "Indeed not. But, if you will allow me to continue, madam: Tertius, because Shelyid is needed to carry my sack and, as you can plainly see, the sack will not fit into that pitiful entryway."

  The Cat's cold, unforgiving eyes were still upon him. "Still leaves you."

  Bless the woman! She's nuts, but she's no fool.

  Zulkeh straightened indignantly. "My dear young lady! Surely you don't expect me to advance into danger without my instruments? My scrolls! My tomes! My talismans! My—"

  Wittgenstein blew a raspberry. Zulkeh broke off his expostulation and glared at the salamander. "None of which reasoning requires this odious amphibian to remain behind. Indeed! He would make a splendid addition to the party soon to be advancing into yon tunnel!"