“Joe Magarac was born in Iron Mountain,
And therefore as he grew, he turned to steel.
Let our bandit chief bathe in his fountain;
Turn his skin to iron. so he’ll no longer steal!”
Malambroso and Chalmers finished their verses in a dead heat with his — and just in time. The executioner placed a huge spike against the bandit’s wrist, drew back a hammer, then drove it forward with all his might.
The spike struck the robber’s skin and glanced off, burying itself in the wood. The executioner stared in amazement, then shook himself obviously thinking he had missed his stroke. He placed the spike again, struck again — and watched it skid again.
The robber, watching, grinned. “What is the difficulty? Is my skin too strong for your weak muscles?”
But the other executioner was having the same problem with the other wrist The first firmed his lips into a straight line, placed the spike, and, with great determination, drove his hammer as hard as he could. The spike skidded again and flew out of his grasp.
The robber chieftain gave a low, mocking laugh.
The executioners each snatched up another nail and hammered at them with fury. They couldn’t even dent the bandit’s skin. His laughter grew louder and louder as their frustration mounted. Finally they threw down their spikes. crying, “He is bewitched!”
At the word “bewitched,” Randhir’s eyes automatically swiveled to Shea and Chalmers — but Harold only returned a gaze of blank innocence, while Chalmers stood with head bowed. Of course, his head was bowed to keep the king from seeing his lips move as he chanted a verse while he pulled a thread from his cuff and stretched it between his hands until it snapped.
The rope fell from the robber’s waist He looked down in surprise, then grinned and stepped forward, holding up unmarked wrists in a gesture of triumph.
“The gods have spoken!” cried a woman in the crowd. “The God of the Golden Spear protects him!”
“Or perhaps the Goddess of Brides,” another woman countered.
“Yes, it would seem that the gods have given their judgment, and that the thief is to live,” Randhir looked as though he had bitten down on a rotten nut, but he managed to force the words out.
“Praise Heaven!” Malambroso cried, going limp — then straightening in alarm as Florimel gave a cry of delight and ran to throw her arms around the thief’s neck. Grinning, he caught her up and whirled her about. “He cannot many her!” Malambroso cried.
“I did not say that he would,” Rajah Randhir grated, “for though he shall live, he shall not go unpunished. He shall be a common soldier in my army, and I shall send him to the border, so that when my greedy neighbor invades, this robber chieftain shall be the first whom arrows strike! If the gods still protect him then, if he comes home from the battle alive and well, I may permit him to pay court to the maiden — or I may find more tasks for him to do, many more, until he has proved his worth and made amends, at least in part, for all the misery he has caused.”
The thief put down Shobhani and turned to salaam to the Rajah. “Whatsoever you wish, O Diamond of Justice, I shall do! Indeed, if I had known virtue might win me the hand of so beauteous a maiden as this, I would have forsaken my evil ways long ago!”
Shobhani threw her arms around him again, and the people cheered as Malambroso moaned — in harmony with Chalmers.
“Stand away maiden!” the Rajah commanded. “He must go forthwith to the border, this very night! Soldiers! Take him to your barracks and equip him for the journey!”
The soldiers surrounded the bandit and marched him off, back into the city.
“I wonder how many beatings he will sustain between the city and the border?” Chalmers muttered.
“Accidents will happen,” Shea said virtuously. “Hey, it’s gotta be better than dying, Doc — and he’s proved he can take it.”
As the crowd moved off, cheering the same man they had cursed only an hour before, the Rajah turned on Shea and Chalmers, “Well enough, magicians! I cannot prove it, and I certainly do not know why you did it — but I could swear his escape was your doing, and not the work of the gods at all!” He gave Malambroso a narrow glance. “He is one of you too, is he not?”
“I assure you, O Gem of Insight,” said Malambroso, that I have no wish to see my daughter Shobhani many a thief!”
“No, but you would rather that than see her commit sati would you not? Come, Shea, admit it!”
“Okay, we’re guilty,” Shea sighed.
“Harold!” Chalmers snapped in alarm.
“Fear not,” Randhir said grimly, “I have already spoken, and I shall not reverse my judgment again. However, it is not my judgment you need fear now, but that of Shiva — for it is with his justice that you have interfered!”
“Perhaps,” Shea said slowly, “or perhaps I have been sent here by another god, whether I knew it or not. Who knows but that I may have been the instrument of Heaven?”
“Oh? And what god would choose a foreigner for his tool?” Randhir said, not quite sneering.
“Oh . . . one who likes to see handsome young men sporting with beautiful young women,” Shea said slowly.
Randhir frowned, “Krishna, you mean?”
At that point, Shea was open to all suggestions. He shrugged. “He loved playing with the milkmaids himself; didn’t he?”
The Rajah’s eyes narrowed, “If you truly believe that,” he said, “I challenge you to prove it by coming with me to Krishna’s temple and standing before his statue. If you are not struck down by Krishna’s anger, I may begin to believe you are sent by a god, and are not liable to punishment yourself, for interfering with the king’s justice.”
A look of alarm spread over Chalmers’ features, but Shea felt only a wash of relief. Statues were only sculptures, after all — lumps of wood or rock fashioned into something resembling human form. He bowed. “As you wish, O Scale of Justice.”
“But,” Malambroso said hastily, “since the maiden Shobhani is the cause of this difficulty, should she not also stand by us before the statue?”
“She shall,” the Rajah promised. “Come!” He turned away, and his soldiers stepped up behind the three enchanters, spears out to prod.
As they followed the King Chalmers muttered to Malainbroso, “You colossal idiot! Admittedly, a statue is only a statue, but you never know what tricks priests can work, especially in a magical universe! Do you want Florimel to be struck by lightning, too?”
“Come, Chalmers.” Malambroso had regained his former aplomb. “You do not truly believe such a thing can happen, do you?”
“Well . . . no,” Chalmers admitted, “and it does keep her from getting lost.” But a gleam had come into his eye, and Shea wondered what he was planning.
He found out when they stood before the image of Krishna — wooden, apprently, for it was painted, and the blue face of the boy-god looked down upon them as Chalmers reached out to stroke Shobhani’s black hair, muttering a verse. Alarmed, Malambroso spun to prevent him — but too late. The woman looked up, blinking in confusion, then saw Chalmers and cried, “Reed! Oh, thank Heaven! But where are we?”
Malambroso groaned, “I shall win her yet, Chalmers! You shall regret this!”
“Maybe sooner than you think.” Shea eyed the statue nervously.
Chalmers turned to him with a frown, “Whatever can you mean?”
“Only that this universe has its own rules,” Shea reminded him, “and Krishna might be more than a myth, here.”
Chalmers stared, and alarm was just beginning to show in his face when a shaft of light burst from the statue, engulfing them all.
Shea flailed, catching Chalmers’ hand, then stood, frozen by the glitter that dazzled him and filled all the universe about him, He could only hope Chalmers had been able to catch hold of Florimel. Then Shea found room to wonder if this was really what it was like to be hit by lightning, and if it was, it was odd, because he felt no pain.
Then the da
zzle died, the ground seemed to push itself up under his feet, and he looked around him, blinking in confusion — Florimel, arms around her husband’s neck, cried, “Oh, Reed, praise Heaven! We am home!”
Belphebe started to struggle up from the chair where she sat watching, but Shea reached her in two steps, dropped to one knee, and enfolded her in an ardent embrace. The room was very quiet for a few minutes, as the two married couples celebrated the travelers safe return with a kiss and a promise — of more kisses to come.
Finally, Shea came up for air and turned to Chalmers to ask. “How did you do it, Doc?”
“I did not, really,” Chalmers still looked rather dazed. “I only reached out for Florimel’s hand — I remember thinking that if I were going to die by electrocution, I could at least die holding her. I reached out for your hand, too, but the hand I touched was quite bony — I am certain it was Malambroso’s. and I let go at once. Even as I did, though, I felt his hand pulling away from mine, but even as I caught yours. I could swear I heard him cry out in fright.” He shuddered. “I could wish the man many evils, but none so bad as that cry seemed to express.”
“You don’t think he . . .” Shea couldn’t finish the question.
“No, I do not.” Chalmers collected himself with a visible effort. “I think it probable that Krishna — or his priests; they may have been magicians who resented the competition — sent our old adversary back to his home, as he seems to have sent us to ours. And oh, Harold, I am mightily glad he did!”
“You can say that for me, too,” Shea turned to watch Belphebe and Florimel, chatting as merrily as though they had seen each other only last week. “So Florimel didn’t get herself lost by trying to work a syllogismobile spell on her own?”
“It would seem not. Certainly Malambroso appeared in my house for the purpose of kidnapping her, but before he did, he no doubt took advantage of the opportunity to update himself on our researches. Thank Heaven he is so untidy that he did not bother to clean up the evidence, or we should never have been able to track him!”
“But we did, and we won Florimel back, and we’re home. Just to be on the safe side, though, Doc — maybe you’d better give her the full syllogismobile course, so that if somebody kidnaps her again, she has a fair chance of escaping?”
“An excellent thought.” Chalmers gazed at his wife, but his face was grim. “I assure you, Harold, I intend to guard her very closely from now on! She shall never be stolen from me again!”
Shea glanced uneasily from husband to wife, and hoped Chalmers was right.
Part III:
Sir Harold Of Zodanga
L. Sprague De Camp
I
“So, Doctor Malambroso,” said Professor Doctor Sir Harold Shea to the man who faced him across his desk at the Garaden Institute, “what do you want of me?”
The man facing Shea was a tall, lean person with a close-cut graying beard. His graying hair hung to his collar. He wore a cheap suit with a loud checked pattern and an eye-blinding cravat, tied in a way suggesting that Malambroso had never learned to tie a necktie. The last time Shea had seen Malambroso, in the universe of Hindu myth, he had worn white pyjamas embroidered with gold thread. Malambroso had, Shea thought, made a not altogether successful effort to adopt local coloration on the mundane plane.
“I want the Lady Florimel back!” said Malambroso in a rasping, growling voice, as if he hated asking any favor of anybody.
“Gods, what crust!” exclaimed Shea.
Malambroso frowned. “You puzzle me, Sir Harold. Methought ‘crust’ meant the hard covering or integument of something softer, such as the outer surface of a loaf of bread or a pie.”
Colloquially, ‘crust’ is also used for . . .” Shea paused to think. “ ‘Obtuse aggressiveness’ is close to the colloquial meaning. That you should ask my help to regain possession of the Lady Florimel, who seems quite happy to be back with her husband, my colleague Reed Chalmers! . . . If that be not a case of obtuse aggressiveness I don’t know what is.”
“I can explain,” growled Malambroso.
“Then pray do so, and I hope concisely. I need to get back to these term papers.”
“The fact, Sir Harold, is that, for the first time in a long and active life, I am in love. Methought I was far beyond such petty, juvenile mortal sentiments; but in that, lo, I erred. I would never admit this, save that I know you for a man of exceptional abilities, at least for a native of this stupid, brutish mundane plane.”
“Thanks. But I always thought you hated everybody?”
“So I did, before the tender passion awakened a side of my nature that I did not know I possessed. Anyhow, the gist is that I must have the lady for mine own paramour. I must and shall have her!” Malambroso smote the desk with a bony fist.
“Don’t be silly, Malambroso,” said Shea. “For one thing, you’re too old for her.”
“No older than Doctor Chalmers. What reason have you to think that he can perform his connubial duties to the satisfaction of all concerned?”
“He’s been giving himself magical rejuvenating treatments.”
“How can he, when magic does not work in this continuum?”
“I didn’t say he performed the treatments here, and it’s none of your business anyway. What makes you think that, after he and I went to so much trouble and risk, surviving dangers both natural and supernatural, to reunite the lady with her lawful husband, that I would help you to snatch her again?”
“Because if you do not, I will turn you into an insect of an especially loathsome kind!”
“You can’t. Spells don’t work here.”
“Think ye so?” Malambroso pointed bony fingers at Shea and muttered an incantation, ending with a shout of: “. . . be thou a lowly Geophilus!”
Nothing happened. Malambroso’s face took on expression of petulant frustration, muttering: “The Incantation of Sorax has always worked for me before! You should be a little crawler, on a hundred-odd legs.”
Shea laughed. “Told you. Wrong universe. I seem to have only the two legs I started out with. Besides, if I had a hundred-odd. I couldn’t be an insect. They all have exactly six.”
“Oh, curse your silly pedantry!” snarled Malambroso.
“By the way,” said Shea, “how did you get here from the world of Hindu myth?”
“By the Spell of the Tipulidae, which worked perfectly well in that universe. But think not that I failed to consider means of exit from this miserable, magicless world of yours. I read your publications in the Institute library anent the manipulation of symbolic logic. ’Twas right shrewd of you to have worked out your system. The papers revealed what a formidable fellow you could be, whether as foe or ally. I shall convince you that it were better for you to be mine ally rather than mine enemy. I know of universes where you could be a great man — belike an arch-wizard or an emperor. I could furnish you with mighty assistance towards those goals, Sir Harold.”
“You may skip the Sir, Malambroso. American citizens are not allowed titles of nobility, so it doesn’t apply in this world. Anyway, I have no desire to be an emperor or even an archimage. I am quite satisfied to he a well-established academician, a fond husband, and a doting father. I’ve adventured enough on other planes to do me for the rest of my life.”
Malambroso argued further, but Shea remained firm in his refusal, until Malambroso said: “Is this your final word? You refuse to discuss practical arrangements between us?”
“Yes and yes. Good afternoon, Doctor Malambroso.”
The wizard rose. “You shall regret your contumacy, good my sir!”
“We shall see,” said Shea.
Malambroso took a topcoat from the rack, picked up a cheap suitcase, gave Shea a stiff nod, and stalked out.
* * *
Some hours later, Shea looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly time to go home. Then the intercom said: “Doctor Shea? Call your wife, right away!”
“Darling?” said Belphebe, breathlessly. “That wi
zard Malambroso has kidnapped Voglinda!”
“Good God!” said Shea. “Have you called the cops?”
“First thing I did. Sergeant Brodsky’s here now.”
“I’ll come right home.”
“Fine, but drive carefully!”
* * *
“Pretty little thing!” said Pete Brodsky, passing back the photographs. “About three, isn’t she? Now, Belle, suppose you tell Harold what you told me, about how this Doctor Malefactor got away.”
“Malambroso,” Belphebe corrected. “He came to call, he said, ever so politely. When we sat down in the living room, he gave me a sales pitch, trying to get me to persuade you to throw in with him in an attempt to win Florimel away from Reed for his own — ‘paramour,’ I think he said. When I said no, he tried to sway me with tales of the wonders of other universes he could take us to and make us big shots in, where I could have all the fancy clothes and jewels any girl could want. He didn’t realize that my taste runs to simple, outdoorish garb. suitable for running through the greenwood.
“When I persisted in saying no, he seemed to give up. He said he wanted another look at Voglina, who was having her nap. He stole up to her bedroom door and slithered in as quietly as a cockroach. I was right behind him; but he shut the door, in my face and shot that little bolt we put in high up. I beard him reciting a sorites and called the emergency number. I couldn’t break down the door myself, but Pete drove up and gave the door a good push with his shoulder, and away went the bolt. You’ll have to do some carpentry, dear, to mend it.
“Well, there was nobody in the room, and the window was latched on the inside. So here we are.”
Shea said: “Did you hear enough of the sorites to tell where Malambroso was going?”
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