The Philosophical Strangler

by Eric Flint

  Okay? Got the picture?

  These were Even Worse.

  They were prancing around on their fingertips, like giant tarantulas. (Oh, yeah. Of course they were hairy.) Lunging back and forth, working together like—well, like a pair of hands—one of them trying to feint the Cat out of position while the other one got itself around her. After that . . . it'd be all over. As huge and powerful as Even Worse Hands were, either one of them could have crushed the Cat in seconds.

  Greyboar flew through the air and landed on the right Hand. A moment later he had the thumb in a half nelson and was giving it the old hip roll. The hand went skittering across the cavern. Greyboar followed, like a hound after his hare.

  The Cat was still backed up against the wall, flailing away at the other Hand. "Thanks a lot!" she snarled. "The damn thing's a leftie!"

  Greyboar skidded to a stop and came rushing back. "I'll get him! I'll get him!" He pointed his finger at the right Hand. "Hrundig! Ignace! You take care of that one!"

  Hrundig paused just long enough to toss the bag he was carrying up to Benvenuti. "A present from Gwendolyn!" he shouted. "She said you'd know what to do with it!" Then he drew his sword and charged at the right Hand.

  Benvenuti snatched the bag with his left hand and upended it. A bullwhip slid out into his right.

  "She remembered!" he cried gleefully. "What a woman! Nonpareil!"

  Honest. That's what he said, hanging upside down over a kettle of boiling oil. Nonpareil. Crazy artist. He seemed as ecstatic over a bullwhip from an ex-girlfriend as he would have been if she'd presented him with a negative pregnancy test.

  A moment later, I discovered why. I knew Benvenuti was accounted an expert swordsman. What I didn't know was that his skill with a bullwhip was even greater. His weapon of choice, as it happens, being as he'd been trained in its use by his uncle Larue Sfondrati-Piccolomini.

  Good thing they don't allow bullwhips in dueling, all I've got to say. Still hanging upside down, Benny cracked the thing once and the bullwhip parted the rope holding him by the ankles like it was a thread.

  On the way down—I believe I've mentioned his grotesque physical condition—Benny not only managed to twist himself around so he was falling feet first, but he did some kind of bizarre little quick rubbing motions with his feet like he was trying to take socks off and shed the rope altogether. His feet now free and unfettered, he landed right on the rim of the kettle. Balanced there perfectly, for an instant, before springing to the ground and racing off to the Cat's rescue.

  Moments later, he and the Cat and Hrundig were battling away with the right Even Worse Hand while Greyboar and the left were scrabbling around in a melee that would give delirium tremens to a drunken wrestler.

  * * *

  And me? What was I doing?

  Thinking, of course. What else?

  * * *

  Give me a break. I stand four feet, eleven inches tall when I climb out of bed in the morning. By nighttime, I'm probably an inch shorter. Soaking wet, with a full meal in my belly, I claim a hundred pounds.

  That's a lie. Jenny and Angela once forced me onto a scale after a feast. Ninety-eight and a half pounds. After I whined, they poured a basin of water over me and weighed me again. Ninety-nine pounds.

  So. We've got two gigantic hands each of which outweighs me by what your mathematician types call an order of magnitude. Not even going to talk about relative strength. Each of them—not to mention both together—are so vile and insensate and ferocious and wicked that Whoever Decides These Things had relegated them to the Place Even Worse Than Hell.

  Nor was Whoever Decides These Things any kind of dummy, either, let me tell you. Outnumbered two-to-one, Even Worse Hands was holding its own against:

  The world's greatest strangler;

  The world's most unpredictable female slasher;

  The world's second-most-accomplished artiste with a bullwhip; and,

  Hrundig of Alsask, Barbarian Master-at-Arms.

  * * *

  And you want to know what Ignace was doing?

  Thinking, that's what. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it on these asinine adventures.

  I set my pack down and squatted beside it. Then, dug out a flask of whiskey. And a corned beef sandwich. A bit on the stale side, maybe, but it was the best I could manage.

  Munch, munch; take a sip; think.

  The first thing I considered were the darts I still had on me, which I'd retipped with poison after the scrape with the Ogre. But I discarded that idea right away, because it was obvious at a glance that the dosage was hopeless. Even with all the blood pouring out of the right Hand from the various wounds the Cat, Hrundig and Benny had managed to inflict on it, the thing was still going as strong as ever. While I watched, a jab of the thumb sent Hrundig flying and Benny barely managed to avoid a murderous flick of the pinkie by a prodigious leap in the air that would have had the audience at the ballet bringing down the rafters with applause. Especially the women, what with Benvenuti's physique so exposed to view. All of it, for practical purposes. That loincloth was pretty much a joke.

  I spent even less time thinking about my throwing knives. Might as well try to bring down an elephant with tavern darts.

  Munch, munch. The sandwich really was pretty stale. At that moment, the smell of the boiling oil hit me. Olive oil, by the Old Geister!

  "Say what else you will," I muttered happily, rising to my feet, "but at least Even Worse Hands have a decent sense of cuisine."

  I ambled over to the kettle and dipped the sandwich into the oil. Just a quick dip, enough to soften up the bread and give the dry beef a bit of flavor. As I munched on the now-much-improved sandwich, I contemplated the problem further.

  A solution was going to be needed pretty quickly, so much was obvious. No sooner had I dipped the sandwich than I saw Greyboar go sailing through the air. The left Even Worse Hand had a pretty mean half nelson of its own. Fortunately, Greyboar was back on his feet and met the scuttling charge with a roar and a grapple.

  Still, things were not looking good. Hrundig's right arm must have been badly bashed up—maybe even a greenstick fracture—because he was now wielding his sword left-handed. Benny had picked up so many bruises that he looked like a leopard. The Cat had a black eye and a gash on her arm, probably from one of those horrid fingernails.

  To make things worse, all of them—even Hrundig—were starting to show the first signs of fatigue. Whereas if Even Worse Hands were feeling weary at all, I couldn't spot it. Something was going to have to be done quick, or the conclusion of this brawl was, as they say, foregone.

  Thinking, thinking . . .

  My eyes fell on the tray on the opposite side of the huge kettle. The one holding all the implements for flaying Benvenuti's hide.

  It was a huge tray, of a size to match the kettle. Necessary, of course, to hold all those implements—which were themselves of a size to fit Even Worse Hands.

  Fit Even Worse Hands . . .

  * * *

  One of your big-and-burly-type adventurers would have shrieked "Eureka!" at that point. Assuming they could manage a word with three syllables. But when you're my size, the first thing you learn is "couth." So I daintily finished up the sandwich—okay, I wolfed it down, but it was a suave kind of gulping—and raced around the kettle to the other side.

  To my delight, the tray was one of those folding things. You know, the sort where the legs have hinges and can be tucked away for storage. (Though why anyone would need to store something in a cavern is a mystery. It's not as if, judging from the detritus, Even Worse Hands was what you'd call a meticulous housekeeper.)

  Just to make things perfect, the tray was a tripod. With the third leg being the one away from the kettle.

  Ah, the joys of quick thinking! It didn't take me three seconds under the thing to figure out how the mechanism worked. Pop this; push in that; give the hinge a good kick.

  Down it came, the whole side of the tray, spilling the flaying imple
ments onto the cavern floor. When everything settled down, the lip of the tray was still leaning against the kettle, held there by the two legs still solid.

  Only it wasn't a "tray," now. It was a ramp.

  I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled. I've got a damn good whistle, if I say so myself. Not in Abbess Hildegard's league, maybe, but pretty close.

  And I was probably—hate to admit this, since it casts a poor light on the state of my suave couth at the moment—what they called "hopped up." So the whistle penetrated even the din of the battle.

  Hrundig looked up. Using a few words and some gestures, I indicated my plan. (Well. Okay. Hopping up and down and shrieking like a maniacal monkey, I indicated my plan.)

  As I've said before, despite appearances Hrundig is no dimwit. An instant later he was bellowing his own directions.

  Benvenuti got the gist of it right away. Before you knew it, he had the middle finger of the Even Worse Hand snatched up in the bullwhip and was dragging the Hand toward the kettle.

  Trying to, anyway. One of the Even Worse Hands doesn't drag easily, even for a man as big and strong as Benvenuti. Hrundig tried to help him along by driving his sword into the meat of the Hand's thumb and pushing. But another jab of the thumb sent him flying again.

  Fortunately, the Cat stopped flitting around in her usual whimsy and got with the program. Uttering a she-wolf shriek, she drove the lajatang like a spear right through the skin and sinews on the back of the Hand. The lajatang was now sticking out from both sides, as if the Hand had been pierced by a huge pin.

  Quick-witted as always, Hrundig scrambled back onto his feet and grabbed the other end of the lajatang, just below the ferocious blade. A moment later, he and the Cat were each heaving up and half-carrying the Hand toward the kettle while Benny kept dragging it.

  And so it went, according to plan. Of course, in the real world these things never work as neatly as they sound. The Hand was squirming back and forth, and Hrundig and the Cat had their own hands full to keep from getting slashed to ribbons by the blades of the lajatang. Before too long, both of them were bleeding from several nasty gashes. Nothing bad enough, fortunately, to put them out of the action.

  Then, things got a bit awkward when Benny bumped against the kettle while he wasn't looking because he was concentrating on his drag-work. The kettle was almost as hot as the boiling oil inside it. So Benny got a really nasty burn on the bare skin of his back.

  But, although he let out an operatic-quality yelp, he didn't let go of the whip. And, being so incredibly quick and well-coordinated (is there no justice?), he managed to scuttle around to the other side of the kettle without once even allowing any slack in the tension of the whip holding the Hand's finger.

  The finale was a great series of grunts and a muddle. Up the ramp, up the ramp went the Hand, jittery as a nightmare. At the end, I got so excited I even pitched in for the final heave.

  Over it went, plop, into the oil. With a great flourish and "huzza!" Benny did something tricky with the whip and managed to disentangle it. The Cat, almost as smooth, yanked the lajatang out of the skin. Fortunately, Hrundig saw it coming in time to get his hands out of the way of the blade.

  Oh, sure, the Hand still put up a fight. Nasty looking, it was, trying to scrabble out of the boiling oil. Imagine a tarantula trying to claw its way up a jar.

  Ptah!

  Advantage—heroes. Even something as huge and nasty as one of the Even Worse Hands can't survive long when its flesh is peeling off and its tendons are going soft as butter. The Cat and Hrundig and Benvenuti took turns holding it under with the lajatang, pinning the horrid thing to the bottom of the kettle. Meanwhile, I stoked the coals in the brazier.

  Five minutes later, it was all over.

  * * *

  And, in the meantime, what about Greyboar?

  Well, what about him? Haven't I told you a thousand times he's the World's Greatest Strangler?

  Still was, too, even though he'd officially abandoned the trade.

  At first, of course, the Cat and Hrundig and Benvenuti were all for racing off to his aid. I tried to restrain them with reason, but it was soon enough obvious that was pointless.

  The problem, you see, was that they were suffering under what's called a "misapprehension." Even in the midst of their own melee, they'd gotten enough glimpses of Greyboar and the other Even Worse Hand to get the idea that Greyboar was in what's called "desperate straits." Barely "holding his own," as they say.

  Heh. This is what's called: Doesn't have a clue.

  I knew the truth. The real problem was that Greyboar had been preoccupied with the Cat's plight. (Well—and a bit with Hrundig's and Benny's, sure; but mostly the Cat's.)

  So he hadn't really had his mind on what he was doing, you see. Half the time he was looking over at the Cat, worrying and fretting and fussing, trying to deal with the left Even Worse Hand as quickly as possible so he could Come To The Rescue Of His Beloved.

  Everything, in short, which the world's greatest professional strangler wouldn't normally touch with a ten-foot pole.

  But, now—

  Again, I whistled. "She's safe!" I hollered. "So are the rest of us!"

  I saw Greyboar's head pop up between two of the Fingers and stare at us. I gave him the thumbs-up. (If you'll pardon the expression.)

  Greyboar grunted. Then—

  Something seemed to heave inside the palm of the Even Worse Hand and the next thing you knew the monstrosity was sailing through the air. Whump! against the stone wall of the cavern; then, collapsing into a heap at the bottom. Like a stunned tarantula.

  Greyboar shook himself like a wet dog and started advancing upon it. In—

  The Stance.

  Not too many people had ever seen The Stance. And precious few of them were still around to talk about it. Greyboar never bothered with it for the average job, you'll understand. The Stance was pretty much reserved for the Finals at the Barbarian Games, and such jobs as the famous burke he put on the Comte de l'Abattoir and his entire party of knight-companions.

  Hrundig and Benvenuti, once they saw The Stance, had enough sense to leave off any further idea of "rescue" and concentrate on finishing off the Hand in the kettle. Even the Cat, after bouncing around the cavern a bit, settled down and took her turn at the chore.

  Of course, everyone couldn't stop watching. Annoyed the hell out of me, that did, since it meant I had to concentrate on keeping their minds on The Task At Hand.

  So I didn't get to see much of it myself, since I had to keep my eyes on the Hand at hand and keep the others steady at their work. Which annoyed me even further, until I realized that it really didn't matter whether I could give a detailed and accurate report to the Records Committee since Greyboar and I were no longer members in good standing of the Professional Stranglers' Guild anyway.

  Which really annoyed me.

  So, here's how it went, as best as I can tell you:

  Crunch, crunch. That was the pinky, going first at both joints. I could tell it was the pinky from the—comparatively speaking—delicate sound. I knew then that the Even Worse Hand was in for that they call a "Bad End," because Greyboar doesn't normally trifle around with curlicues. This was one of the rare occasions when his temper was up.

  But even when he's pissed Greyboar doesn't really let his professionalism lapse. So the next thing he did was take care of the middle finger—CRUNCH; broken in half—and the index finger. YERK! Torn out of its socket, no doubt about it.

  From there it was all denouement. There was a lot of crunching and yerking, and a stretch of about a minute or so with a lot of thumping when Greyboar put the Hand through a series of what they call "body slams" when it's an actual body instead of a giant Hand.

  Then, silence—except for the sound of Greyboar's heavy breathing and something which, for lack of a better term, we'll call a scrinnnch.

  At that point, I risked a look. And saw what I expected to see. The Hand itself was nothing more than a pulpy mass,
now, and Greyboar was going in for the Final Big Squeeze on the Even Worse Thumb.

  Horrible thing to watch, it really is. The Final Big Squeeze, I mean. But I didn't tear my eyes away until the very end, when Greyboar—

  He doesn't usually do this kind of thing, honest. It's not like him at all. But the Even Worse Hands had attacked his girl, you see, and even Greyboar can get kinky about stuff like that.

  So he finished by tearing off the Even Worse Thumbnail and brandishing it like a trophy. (He's still got it, too. But at least he keeps the damn stinky thing packed away in a chest somewhere in the cellar.) Then, after the Cat wafted over and steadied him down a bit, he hoisted the Hand's corpse (is that the right term?) onto his back and brought it over to the kettle.

  Plop. Bubble. And it was all over.

  "Hand stew," I announced. "Anybody hungry?"

  * * *

  And that's another thing about heroes. No sense of humor at all. They even took away my flask and drank all that was left in it.

  Said I hadn't done enough to deserve a drink!

  Chapter 31.

  Marvelous

  There was a spot of trouble getting Benvenuti back through

  the Evil Horizon. The first time he tried the leap, the Horizon bounced him right back out. Fortunately, Hrundig was there to catch him before Benny went sailing into the kettle of oil.

  Greyboar and I had already made the leap, so we weren't aware of the problem right away. Greyboar was preoccupied with reassuring Gwendolyn that we had, indeed, found Benvenuti and that he was, indeed, in splendid condition. I was preoccupied, of course, with giving Jenny and Angela the same reassurances concerning myself. Deeply distraught, they were.

  "Sure, and it got a bit dicey before I took care of the first Hand what with the way it was advancing on me and all, but after I told Greyboar to distract the lefty while I—"

  "Ignace!" barked Greyboar. I turned and saw that the Cat had appeared and was jabbering away in the strangler's ear. (For the record, he's still "the strangler" as far as I'm concerned. I'll use "the Hero" for official reports, but not here where I'm telling the straight truth about everything.) "Benny's having some kind of problem! Go see what it is, will you?"