Now that was a thought!
“You mean you’ll spend all the time in the great palace as a puppet, doing what Sugasto wants,” he noted. “You have changed, Boquillas. This plot is up to your usual standards, but it’s all so you can become somebody else’s stooge.”
She waved a hand, and many of the yellow bands of magic flowed back into her. He could move again—but not toward her. He could not touch her or make a move in her direction.
“Come over to the window. Yes, that’s it. Come here and look out and tell me what you see.”
He went to the window and looked. Just beyond the tower were other gardens, and, beyond them, the ice pack, and in the distance…
“The Devastation,” he said.
She nodded. “I think you understand some of it now, or you wouldn’t have been able to cross it. A brilliant stoke, by the way, that I admit I didn’t anticipate. You forget that I have the old bodies with many of your patterns. The moment you set foot on this ground, a standing spell informed me that you had arrived.”
“Yeah. So?”
She pointed a slender arm decked with jewels out at the far-off phenomenon. “They’re still there, you know. The battle in full cry. Not just the souls, everything, perfectly preserved. Now, what do you think would happen if this volcano we’re sitting on, a complementary phenomenon to the Devastation you might have guessed, went off? The flow would only reach the edges of the Devastation in most spots, but imagine the heat that would be given off—and the whole frozen valley would warm in proportion. On this world, it would be like the loosing of thousands of hydrogen bombs would be on Earth; An evil that even Hell fears would be loosed once more upon this world.”
“Is that what you want? Still trying to bring about the final war between good and evil?”
“Oh, darling, of course not! Not anymore. I’ve outgrown that, as I told you! But if it’s not me, then it’s them. Sugasto is so conventional, you see. Power-crazed, yes, but his vision is so boring. You see, there is one way to restore all my powers. Only one way. The entire Council, which now includes dear Suggy, would have to reverse their combined spells. Even though not really on it anymore, it would require Ruddygore as well. With my powers” back, in that situation, I would be both temporal and spiritual ruler. My powers would be near absolute. Did you see the tree in the middle of the lava pit?”
He nodded, sickened at her ambitions. “I saw it.”
“It is one of the trees, the original trees, from the Origin of Humanity. Sugasto and the others believe it is the Tree of Knowledge which condemned humanity, as do others, but it is not. It is the Tree of Life. Eat of it, and nothing at all may harm you. With my powers and that fruit, I’ll be a true goddess. I shall walk about my world, worshiped as the one who is truly divine. My reign shall be forever!”
He felt a cold chill. “How do you know which tree it is, or if it’s really one of those?”
“Because, dear one, I’ve done my homework. It is what that battle was about out there. Two Powers, perhaps beyond anything we know, battling to become a third face, not Heaven, not Hell, but beyond and beside it, equal to both. That’s why they got together to stop them, lest one side win and truly become a god.” She shrugged. “I think even supreme beings have Rules, too.”
“There’s only one hole in your grand design,” Joe argued. “Why would Ruddygore and the Council restore your powers? I think they’d rather die first.”
“Indeed? Ruddygore, perhaps, but he knows that, if that were to happen, I’d be freed of the need for him. The others? Die for principle? How amusing you are! The only reason Ruddygore has remained so long is that he has never found a worthy successor, and he won’t. But, you see, he has no choice, and neither will Sugasto. They will all do my bidding, since to toy with me or cast obedience spells upon me or try to do away with me is genocide! I have it rigged, you see—carefully placed mechanisms deep beneath this place, where even I at this point cannot find them. They will blow, this place will blow, the volcano will blow. The heat will melt the Devastation, and the world as we know it will end. Given a choice of that, or restoring me and being allowed to pass on, which do you think your old sorcerer will choose?”
“Aren’t you afraid Sugasto will stop you? He might not be too pleased at this himself.”
“Sugasto, at least, already knows that I’ve wired the place. Right now he thinks we’re partners, destined to be a new god and goddess. He doesn’t think much of women, you know. His own male ego, which I perfectly understand, blinds him to the possibilities.”
Joe turned away from the windows, feeling a cold chill, and saw that heavily armed, mean-looking Bentar now filled the room.
A way out, he kept thinking. The Rules require I have a way out!
He turned back to Boquillas. “Can you answer me one simple question?”
“Of course, darling! A wife to be should have no secrets from her husband!”
“Why are all the zombies gathered around watching Gilligan’s Island?”
She chuckled and shrugged. “Beats me. I, of course, recharged the batteries with a spell to see what someone had on those tapes. I was astonished when I saw what was on them, of course, and, even more, I was absolutely stunned to discover that it seemed to draw every zombie in the palace like a magnet. So far, I haven’t worked out an effective method for turning it off. The spell provides continuous power, and, so far, the zombies will do nothing except prevent anyone from shutting it down. It is a fascinating thing, is it hot? Sugasto will have to take care of it when he returns tomorrow. Inconvenient, but little else. It’s even handy to have something to block Sugasto’s powers a bit. I suspect it’s some broadcast frequency interference that’s acting like a drug to them, but it may be that a zombie retains just barely enough intelligence that it simply entrances them.”
Joe hoped the technical explanation was right. Although he wasn’t feeling all that smart right now, he’d watched the show in the old days now and then himself and found it occasionally funny. He didn’t want to think about what that might say should the second explanation be true.
“Take his sword and lock him in the tower room!” Boquillas ordered the Bentar. “And watch him! He can be tricky and quite resourceful. The one who lets him escape shall feel my anger! The girl I will keep here. She has much to tell me.”
The lead Bentar reached for the sword, then withdrew. “My lady, we cannot take that sword! It’s iron! And so, too, is the belt lined with it!”
Boquillas sighed. “Details, details. Oh, very well.” She withdrew the rest of her spells from him, then walked over to him and began playfully undoing the belt. This is it! he thought.
Joe struck the sorceress with a strong blow, knocking her senseless halfway across the room, then had Irving in his hand in moments. Mia—Tiana—struggled against her magical bonds, still in force, but could not help him.
Suddenly he was in the midst of roaring, howling Bentar and was in a fierce duel. In spite of their numbers and ferocity, the Bentar did not press in, facing the only thing that they were truly afraid of— iron!