The mud continued to heat and thin. They squished through a level swamp of it, with the canyon walls overhanging threateningly some fifty feet above. They turned a murky corner and found the spring itself.
The chocolate burbled in the center of a pool twenty feet in diameter. At the fringes assorted objects floated—massed fruit-slices, nuts, candy, and solidified chocolate. Overhead the flavored icewater sides arched up into an almost perfect dome. Impossible to scale.
It was warm—seventy or eighty degrees Fahrenheit, here at the dribbling overflow. It might be boiling in the center. They would have to swim around the edge—if there was any viable exit above the spring. There didn't seem to be. The ringwall appeared to have only one aperture—the exit they had entered.
"I swallowed too much chocolate getting in here," Klo said. "I have to use the ladies' room."
"You mean you gotta shit," Black said. "So shit, sister. It'll come out healthy brown. But wait'll I get upcurrent from you."
"He's right," Prior said. "Nothing will show under all this chocolate, and the stream will carry anything on down the mountain."
She looked dubious, but also in dire need. She began squirming about as though loosening her clothing under the surface.
Prior consulted with Black. "Do you have any magic to get us out of this?"
"I'm strictly a summoner," Black said. "Pentagram, chanting, et cetera. I'm no magician. I can't do anything much here."
"Summon a fireman's ladder, then," Klo murmured, wiping brown out of her eyes. Prior wondered whether she had finished her nether business or was still in progress.
"Can't. Has to be a supernatural creature. They're the only ones subject to supernatural summons. And I wouldn't dare let any of them out of the pentagram—even if I could make a decent diagram here on this liquid shit, which I can't. Got your turd put out yet, or do you need help?"
She ignored his last remark. "We could make a pentagram on the surface, you know. Look—this white stuff is marshmallow. String this out between the five points—"
Black fished out an object. "Say, there is a lot of shit floating around here." He squinted, then sniffed. "Shit? This looks just like—"
"I think there's a sidewise eddy," Klo said. "I didn't know it would float."
Black looked disgusted. He hurled the object far downstream and wiped his hand off on his sodden shirt. "Livin' breathin' fecal matter shit!" he exclaimed.
"Healthy brown," she agreed.
Prior was too weary to laugh. At least they knew Klo had finished. "But the current would break up the pentagram lines," he pointed out. "Then the demon would escape—and here we are, chocolate covered."
Black scratched his fuzzy head, smearing more chocolate or similar healthy brown on his scalp. "No—I could keep it tight for the duration with a small subsidiary spell. But it still wouldn't solve the problem. How could a demon in the penalty box do anything for us outside?"
"It could drink up the fudge," Klo said.
"Say, you ain't half stupid, for a whiteass sow," Black said admiringly. "Even if your shit does stink of chocolate. But that still won't get us out of here—we'd just be at the bottom of the lakebed."
"Reverse it, then. Have the demon fill up the place with fudge, and we'll float out the top."
"And get carried down the mountain on a waterfall of boiling chocolate?" Prior demanded. "Too dangerous, and the wrong direction. And if a demon could do that, he'd use it to harm us outside the pentagram, and I'll bet that's forbidden by demonic law. Otherwise every demon ever summoned would circumvent the safeguards and abolish—"
"It ain't that simple, whiteprick," Black said. "Depends on the type of pentagram. Some summoners do get reamed, but I'm more careful. But mainly, some demons are brighter than others. Get a dumb one and the simplest diagram will hold him, depending on his strength. Now a mephistopheles is so clever it don't even need the pentagram to haul your ass into hell; it'll talk you there, and—"
"Maybe we need a demon animal, then," Prior suggested. "One we can talk into—"
"I've got it!" Black cried. "I'll summon a hellephant! Always wanted to conjure one of those."
Klo looked at him. "An elephant? What good would that do? Anyway, you said you couldn't summon a natural creature."
"You and him just form up the diagram while I work up the spell," Black said excitedly. "This'll exhaust my magic, but man, it'll be an experience!"
Klo shrugged, chocolate dripping from her shoulders. "Let's mark off five points around the pool here, and work in opposite directions." She scooped up an armful of floating marshmallow and began spreading a string of it across the gooey crust. Prior did the same, shaping the stuff into suitable lengths. He discovered to his surprise that Black's subsidiary holding spell was already in effect; the lines remained in place as they were laid down, despite the slow current.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It took almost an hour to do the job, but they finally finished with a pentagram twenty feet in diameter, anchored at the corners by icebergs of thick whipped cream. It swayed with the brown eddies, but did not disintegrate and always drew back into place.
"Jism spread on shit," Black said, shaking his head with admiring wonder. "What a pentagram! Should get the award for novelty, even if I don't have power to bring the beast."
He got out his magic powder and candle. He lit the wick, stuck the candle in a floating crust of fruitcake, and sent it drifting into the pentagram. He began to chant:
FII FEE FOO FELL, LET'S GET RELEVANT!
GET THEE TO HELL, FETCH BACK HELLEPHANT!
And he wafted a cloud of powder toward the flame.
As he completed the ritual, a monster materialized. It resembled an elephant as Mr. Hyde resembled Dr. Jekyll.
"Who in the name of Heaven are you?" the hellephant trumpeted, stomping angrily in the muddy fudge and almost dousing the floating candle. "I just cleaned my feet, and look!" It held up a dripping brown extremity.
"All yours," Black said to Prior.
"All mine? But what do I do?" He certainly wasn't going to enter into any fornication contest with this thing!
"Make a deal to get us out of here. That was the idea, wasn't it?"
"But—"
"Oh, for pity's sake!" Klo exclaimed. "You timid men will never get anything done." She addressed the hellephant. "We want to get out of here. Can you help us?"
The hellephant peered down its enormous snout at her. "That depends on where you want to go, madam."
"To the Cherry Tree. Safely."
"There is no safe conduct there for mortals. The guardian demons fornicate—if you'll excuse the uncouth expression—any intruder out of existence."
"We know. We've met a couple. But you can get us to it, whatever else happens?"
"I could bore you a tunnel to the fringe of the Cherry Orchard, as it is not far from here. The tunnel itself will be secure. Will that be satisfactory?"
"See?" Klo said to the men. "Nothing to it." And to the demon again: "That'll be fine. How soon?"
"The construction will require about fifteen minutes. Usual terms?"
"Don't answer that!" Black warned her.
She ignored him. "What are the usual terms?"
The hellephant made a gesture Prior didn't catch. Klo blushed—and so did the demon, strangely. "Oh," she said. "Well, I'm not sure—"