"To use thy mind to labor for the good of thy brethren," the angel said. "To never rest until thou hast come to see the Truth of God—and, until thou hast attained that clarity of vision to hold fast in the faith that 'tis there."
I turned very cold. "You're asking me to believe in something I don't know is there."
"If thou didst know it," the angel returned, "there would be no need for faith."
"Nice twist to the logic." I dismissed the argument with a wave. "But if I can't prove it, I won't accept it."
"Yet thou must!" The angel stepped closer, face creased with anxiety. "For this world to which thou hast come is a domain in which spirit rules, and if thou art not dedicated to God and His goodness, thou wilt slip toward Satan and evil."
"Ridiculous!" I scoffed. "I've heard that before, too. 'You've got to commit yourself. There's no middle ground.' "
"There is not, here. With each deed thou dost to any other human being, thou dost commit thyself to good, or to evil! Thou canst not remain poised between! Thy smallest action will doom thee, if thou dost not choose God as thy goal. Thou canst not stand alone!"
"Well, I blasted well intend to!" I snapped. "I'm not about to commit myself to anything, or anybody! All my life, people have been telling me, 'You've got to sign up! You have to join! You can't just stand by yourself!' But I didn't believe them—I learned early that being part of a group always results in having to do things you don't believe are right. I refused to do those things before, and I'll refuse again!"
"And therefore wilt choose to be alone," the angel warned.
"Yeah, I've been ostracized! Sometimes directly and openly, sometimes subtly and covertly, but always cut off, snubbed. If that's the price I have to pay for being my own honest self, I'll pay it, and I have! I've been doing just that for twenty-four years now, thank you, and doing just fine!"
"Thou hast not," the angel contradicted. "Thou dost endure in loneliness and instability."
"Well, if that's the price of freedom, I'll pay it! And if you think you're going to do anything to punish me for it, you'd better just stop talking and get to the thunder and lightning!" I braced myself, ready for annihilation, and found myself hoping that I'd been right about God, and that He was on my side after all.
The angel looked unutterably sad as he studied me, then seemed to rally a little. "Nay. My power may not be spent 'gainst the living, and most especially not 'gainst the mortal who was placed in my care. I shall repel devils who seek to torment thee with all of my power, as I have in the past—but thy choices are thine own to make, by God's decree. And thou hast made them."
I stood still, waiting for the adrenaline rush to wear off.
The angel turned stern again. "Yet henceforth do not rail 'gainst Heaven for thy loneliness, for 'tis thou who hast chosen it."
Suddenly the light exploded outward, enveloping him. It dwindled, rising and soaring upward, but faded out before it had gone very far.
I just stood staring after it, feeling the stiffness ebb from my limbs, feeling the weakness begin, and letting myself realize that I had just seen my guardian angel.
But I intended to go on griping all I wanted. I might have to accept loneliness as the price of freedom and integrity, but I didn't have to be happy about it.
On the other hand, I wasn't accepting it, either. "You can have friends and still be yourself," I muttered to myself. "It's just that friends who like you the way you are, are few and far between."
Which reminded me of Matt.
I turned and started trudging uphill again. If I'd been transported into a different universe, maybe he had, too.
Same different universe?
I hauled up my sinking stomach. There was a good chance of it, wasn't there? After all, I'd been looking for him when that damned spider had bitten me and sent me into this world.
How could a spider bite transport you between worlds?
Death?
Or hallucination. Which reminded me of the angel. Had to be a hallucination. Couldn't possibly have been anything else. The berries, I realized—they may have looked like ordinary raspberries, but they had probably contained a hallucinogen of some sort. They'd just opened up a channel for my subconscious to speak to me, in the form of my guardian angel.
Which meant my subconscious was religious.
I definitely didn't like that notion.
I could almost hear it speaking. Sub to conscious. Come in, conscious.
No. I refuse. I'll stay outside.
And I would, too.
CHAPTER THREE
As I walked, I tried to reason it out—after all, forty credits' worth of philosophy ought to be good for something, and if it wasn't any good in this situation, it never would be, anywhere. I resisted the personal, supernatural view of the local phenomena; angels weren't real, and neither was magic. Well, okay, something that sure looked a lot like magic was going on here—but magic wasn't a person, with emotions and a personality; magic could much more believably be just a force, a kind of energy, impersonal and...
My train of thought derailed as a flicker at the corner of my eye caught my attention. I glanced that way, but it had disappeared, of course. No, there it was again, like a glitch in my field of view. A wild stab of panic hit; this would be a very, very bad time to lose my vision! But it passed, with a little shove from my common sense—and just in time, too, because the glitch widened, and I felt the impulse to reach out and adjust tracking. Silly, of course, because it not only widened, but swelled, turning into a zigzag tearing that reached downward to the ground and churned up a cloud of dust.
Then the membranes in my nose stood on end, and wrung themselves dry as the stench hit them with a rotten egg. "Guardian angel," I muttered, "if you're anything more than a hallucination, now would be a great time to show yourself!"
It didn't, of course—hallucinations don't usually come on demand. But I did feel a surprising surge of confidence, almost reassurance. Shouldn't have surprised me, I suppose—the mind plays funny tricks on itself, and this was just my subconscious' way of getting itself to believe it could cope with whatever was coming. I suppose.
But I happened to notice a tickling in my thumbs.
The dust cloud died down, and there sat an ancient crone in a gown of charcoal gray.
That, I could live with, given the milieu—I had seen her before, in my extreme youth, in dozens of illustrations in books of fairy tales. What threw me, though, was that she was sitting at a desk, with papers strewn all over it, and a quill pen in an inkwell.
"You have cast two unauthorized spells in the space of half an hour."
Two?
Spells?
The crone wheezed on. " 'Sobaka,' said I to meself, 'there's nothing for it but to come hither and gaze.' And aye, there he be! Yonder he stands, flaming with zeal to oust the palsied old witch-woman from her bailiwick and take her peasants for his own! If there's aught I cannot abide, 'tis a bursting new magus!"
"Hey now, wait a minute!" I was beginning to get angry again. "I don't want anybody's 'bailiwick'—and you can't own people!"
"Blasphemy!" she cried. "Not only a magus, but also a liar! As if 'tweren't a plentitude of folk in the art one must struggle with as 'tis! Aye, a body's no sooner believing she's secure in her place, to lord it over her own trembling churls in easy breath, when, whoosh! Another young'un crops up, with cheek and with challenge, to be put in his place. It's no wonder the land's going to the pigs, with half the peasants turning to bandits, and a good number of them trying to out-evil their own township witch! And all from letting delinquents get out of hand! Ahe, for the auld days! When younglings knew their places, or we had leave to fry them!"
"Leave?" I glanced at the desk again. "Who gives you leave to blast people or not?"
"Why, my master, fool, Queen Suettay!"
"Sweaty?" I stared; it struck me as an odd name for royalty.
"Nay, fool! Suettay! And be sure you do not take her name in vain, or she will surely app
ear to blast you!"
That gave me back some composure. I smiled, not too nicely; I'd heard that before, though usually about a personality a bit higher than an earthly monarch—that you have to talk nicely about Him, or He'll strike you with a lightning bolt. But I've seen and heard an awful lot of people saying nasty things about God, and I've never noticed any of them running afoul of large doses of electricity—except for the one who was working on a live wire at the time, and he didn't start cursing until after he got zapped. "Okay, so she's Queen Suet-ty." I had a mental image of a very, very fat lady looking like an awning pavilion with a crown on top.
"Suettay!" the old witch snapped. "Speak her name properly, crack-pate, or she will wish you ill indeed!"
Now I had it—the French word for wishes, intentions, as in, "I wish you a good day." The pronunciation had thrown me off, that was all. "Whatever. And this Queen Suettay will zap you, if you zap me?"
"Without showing you the error of your ways, aye. I am the bailiff of this bailiwick, given authority to see to its taxes and enforce the queen's laws o'er it! 'Tis for me to see you are noted in its book, and deal you work to do that will give the queen crops—or, if I have no need of you, to another."
I bridled instantly. I mean, had I left my own civilized universe, with running water and modern medicine, just to come to a godforsaken medieval backwater that still made me cope with a bureaucracy? "Okay," I snapped, "so you've got the authority to issue me a travel pass, or whatever, because you're the witch in charge of the local parish—"
"Bailiwick!" she screamed. "Speak not in the words of the Flock!"
I frowned. Flock? Then I remembered the parable of the Good Shepherd, and that "ecclesia" literally means "flock," and I understood. So anything having to do with Christianity was anathema to her, huh? Maybe I could use that—but I kept it in reserve. After all, calling on the saints, or making the Sign of the Cross, or anything like that, kind of rankled; I hadn't been about to cop out to religion back home, and I didn't intend to here. Besides which, it might require conviction, which I definitely did not have.
She must have seen that in my eyes, because she gave me a gap-toothed grin. "Ah, then! You shy from those words yourself, eh? Well, then, come! Prick your finger, write your name in my book, and swear to serve the queen and her master—or I'll call upon his power, and you'll writhe in flames!"
Outrage kindled. "No way!" I snapped. "I've heard about that book, and I'd end up writhing in flames either way, at least until this hallucination wears off! I won't be a slave, and I won't accept any master!"
She answered with an evil grin. "Excellent," she crooned, "most excellent! For if you'll serve no master, then you cannot be protected by any—and the Other Side will not ward you!"
I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.
"I felt your first use of a spell and said to myself, 'Sobaka, what bother is this?' and began to tidy up my work to spare time for a visit—but ere I departed, I felt the nerve-grating shimmer that could only have come from an agent of the Other Side, and withheld my visit till that grinding had ceased..."
Translation: she'd sensed the visit from my guardian angel and had been so scared that she'd burrowed under the bedclothes. I felt a little more confident.
"Yet cease it did," she crowed, "and totally! There was no shred of it left! Therefore did I come here, and sure enough, I see no particle of the aura of the Other Side about you! You have not aligned yourself with them, and have not their protection!"
The temperature of my precious bodily fluids began to fall again.
" ' 'Tis an idiot, surely,' I said to myself, 'an idiot who doth think to gather magic as if he were a windmill, gathering power from the gale and wielding it to grind what he will! Ay, such a fool I can twist right easily!' So come, addle-pate, and sign in my master's book, or die in agony!"
Somehow, for a second, I didn't doubt that she could do as she'd said, and my heart sank down to join the caterpillars that were trying to turn into butterflies in my belly—but mostly, I felt the hot anger of indignation. How dare this old witch try to push me around! "No way will I get on your hook!" I snapped. "Keep the fire for your blasted book!"
She let out an outraged squawk, just about three-quarters of a second before her book burst into flames. She screamed, jumping back.
All I could do was stand there and stare.
That was too bad; it gave her a chance to recover from her surprise. "Vile recreant!" she screamed. "The records of all who owe my master are destroyed!" Then she hooked her fingers into claws, chanting,
"By the most vile of obscene names,
Follow that book into the flames!"
And she threw a whammy at me.
Only this whammy took form very fast, some unseen energy gathering itself together until it materialized about halfway between us as a roaring globe of fire. I shouted and leapt out of the way, but it swerved to follow me. I jumped again, in a forward somersault, but came up to see it still following.
I ran.
Behind me, the hag's cackling almost drowned out the roar of the fireball—and it was gaining. In a rush of adrenaline, I suddenly realized I should be trying verbal acrobatics, not physical—she had brought this phenomenon into being by versifying; I sure hadn't seen her pulling the pin on a grenade. I ducked behind a boulder; it followed me, and it was roaring, but so was I, tapping myself on the chest and chanting,
"Put out the light, and then put out the light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
Should I, consid'ring, find it sinister
I can leave it dark and quenched forevermore."
I had to do a little rewriting there, since rhyme seemed to be important here—but under the circumstances, I didn't think Shakespeare would mind.
The fireball dimmed, darkened, and took a nosedive for the ground. By the time it hit, it was only a smoking cinder.
Sobaka stared at it.
Then she snapped her glare up to me, and I have never seen so much malice in a pair of human eyes. "Villain! Aroint thee! If you wilt not bend to my will, you shall break!" She began to move her hands in some sort of jagged pattern, chanting in a language I didn't know, though it sounded like Latin.
I gave her a grim smile. She must have thought that if I didn't know the words, I wouldn't realize she was versifying—but I could recognize rhymes when I heard them, and the meter was strong enough to slice up for seasoning. Well, if she wanted to have a contest slinging verses, that was okay with me.
Or maybe it wasn't. There was a huge rumble, and the ground heaved beneath my feet. I fell, instinctively turning to land on my side and roll as Sensei had taught me—and saw a jagged crack opening the earth where I'd been standing. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. How had she known an earth tremor was coming?
But it was my turn, and the minor chasm made me remember an old hard-times song. I made a few modifications:
"Well, if I had it, why, you could have it,
But I ain't got it—I'm down and out.
And now I've had it—with you, I've had it,
So now I'll send it, and end this bout.
She gave me trouble
On a scale that's Richter,
So from the rubble
Now I have picked her.
And I will drop her
Into a deep hole
That will stop her
From hurting people.
And this old clown
Will be unfound
As she sinks down, down, down."
The earth rumbled again, and a hole opened right under the old woman's feet. She dropped like a stone.
I stared.
Sobaka screamed.
I was so flabbergasted, I couldn't think of anything to do until she had disappeared. Then I came to and leapt over to the hole to tell her not to panic, I'd dig her out—never mind tha
t she'd been threatening to kill me—but she was wailing, "Air! Nay, give me air!"
I looked down the hole and saw two very wide and frightened eyes peering up out of the darkness about ten feet below me. "The earth, the earth presses in all about me! Spare me, Wizard! I shall trouble you no more! Only release me! Do not let the earth fall in on me, I pray!"
"Holy cow!" I gulped. I had just put a claustrophobic in a hole. "Enough, right now!"
I heard a moo.
I froze. I didn't want to look up.
But the wailing down below roused my guilt; I had to do something. I looked up slowly, straight into the big brown eyes of a lean-looking bovine female. It had a hump on its back—a Brahma cow.
Coincidence. Pure coincidence. Obviously, I was closer to India than I had thought.
I turned back to the hole, assured that the cow wouldn't bother me. "Just keep calm! We'll get you out of there!"
"Be quick," she wailed, "before my master seizes the chance to take my soul!"
I froze again.
Then I said, "No taking of souls allowed. Not while the person's still living."
"Aye, but death might happen thus! The master needs but a slight chance, a crumbling of the earthen wall, to bring about a natural death! Then he can take me, and I am doomed forevermore!"
"He?" I frowned. "You're talking about the Devil?"
"Do not say his name!" she wailed. "Or you will hear the rustle of leathery wings!"
I was about to object, saying that was only a superstition. Then I remembered the cow, and decided I didn't want any more coincidences. "Look, as long as you've lived a good life by your own beliefs, you've got nothing to be afraid of."
"But I have not!" she wailed. "I have been as evil as I might! I have sold my soul for power over my fellows!"
"Sold your soul?" I stared. "Why the hell—uh, heck—would you do a dumb thing like that?"
"I was ugly, and small, and shrewish, and all shunned me. 'Sobaka,' they said, 'you are so ugly, even the swine will spurn you!' 'You are stupid, Sobaka—step aside.' ' 'Tis done badly, Sobaka—you can never do anything right!' 'Not even I could love you, Sobaka, and I am your mother!' 'Do not sing, Sobaka, you have the voice of a crow!' Until, at last, hate waked like a burning coal in my breast, and I swore I would someday have power to make them all suffer, to rue the day they had mocked me! But I could see no way to it, till the master appeared to me in a dream!"
The Witch Doctor Page 4