The Witch Doctor

Well, Frisson certainly had learned how to do odd things to rhymes and meters-but it worked; the tatters that were Angelique began to pull themselves back together.

Astonished, I whirled and saw Frisson sitting up in his blanket roll, sorting frantically through the scraps of verse he'd been scribbling since we pitched camp. I felt stunned-but I forced the feeling down and turned back to the rope in my magical tug-of-war. She was looking a little more solid than before-but even as I watched, she was shredding again. Grasping at straws, I called,

"Tarry, rash lady!
Am I not thy lord?"

No, I wasn't-and Angelique wasn't growing any firmer, either. The bits and pieces of her ectoplasm were still drifting away from one another, their form only vaguely resembling a woman's now. After all, the couplet hadn't rhymed-but at least she held steady for a minute.

Long enough for Frisson to thrust another verse into my hand, I gave it a quick glance, then read it aloud:

"Thou art too long awaited, for
Thy presence to be 'hated!
Tarry, lady-stay awhile,
Till the sun returns to smile!"

That bought us some time, at least. Angelique's pieces began to pull together remarkably quickly; she was almost an integrated whole again. Frisson really didn't know his own strength. She became so whole that I could see she had wakened from whatever longdistance trance the enemy sorcerer had put her in; she was staring about her in horror.

I preferred something without a time limit.

"Oh, mistress mine,
Where are you roaming,
Oh, stay and hear
Your true love's coming,
That can sing both high
That can sing both high"

I was stretching the truth a bit, but I was sure her true love was coming some time-I just hoped she'd recognize him when he showed up. But it had worked; her shape was almost complete again, as Frisson found another scrap of parchment and held it out. I caught it up, gave it a glance and frowned, but read it anyway:

"Oh, lady fair, never be so wroth
As to part the strong friendships thou hast wrought,
When the spoiler pulls, as now she doth,
Bear in mind the loyalties thou wast taught,
And stay to bind thyself fast to us!"

The verse worked with overdrive; Angelique's form pulled together so fast I could have sworn I'd heard it click.

And was just as quickly shredded again. The enemy sorcerer must have been putting every ounce of his-or her-energy into that spell. I was amazed. I actually began to feel tension in the air around me, growing stronger and stronger, like strands of unseen force, pulling and low, and low.

tighter and tighter, and I was the fly caught in the web. The fleeting thought went through my mind, that this must have been what an electromagnet felt like as you boosted the voltage-and I began to feel an intangible pushing, too, as if another field of force was fighting at my own. Was this how an electron felt, inside a transistor?

The webs of magical force intensified around me; I felt the unbearable tension of another magic field repelling my own, trying to pull Angelique apart. My mind reeled; I felt as if it were being stretched thin between two enormous engines, each pulling away from the other with enough force to bend an I-beam-and, in panic, I felt that Angelique's ghost must be annihilated even if its semblance stayed with Gilbert and Frisson, destroyed by the sheer stress of being stretched between two such huge forces.

In desperation, I bellowed the first verse that came into my mind:

"What can a tired heart say,
Which the wise of the world have made dumb?
Save to the lonely dreams of a child,
'Return again, come!' "

Angelique's tatters began to pull together one more time, becoming more and more integral. Before I could even think about the implications, Frisson thrust another scrap of verse into my hand, and I called it out without even stopping to think:

"Begone, dull tearing of the fair!
Away, false render of the pure!
Abductor vile,
By thine own bile,
Be stunned, and fade,
And loose the maid!"

Something snapped all about us, something we couldn't hear, something that slammed us all to the ground with its recoil. Dazed, I scrambled to my feet, but the tension was gone, the two vast magical fields dispelled, and Angelique was whipping up, arrowing straight toward me to bury her face in my doublet-and into my chest-arms winding about me in a desperate effort to cling, sobbing in terror and fear. Automatically, I folded my arms about her, trying to hold them just outside her form while I murmured soothing sounds, but I was really too shaken to appreciate the contact; I felt some interesting prickling, but thrust it out of my mind. I looked up over her translucent head at Frisson and gasped, "Thanks." Frisson only nodded, though with shining eyes. The look on his face gave me a chill, but Angelique was beginning to gasp out syllables. I turned my attention back to her. "You're safe now," I assured her with more confidence than I felt. "It's gone."

"Aye," she gasped, "yet it was so evil! I feel soiled by its touch, whate'er it was - it was so vile!"

"It was," I muttered. "The magic in this land is of the most depraved sort, all right. Over Angelique's head, I saw Gilbert standing in front of Gruesome, looking at me with outrage. Because he hadn't been able to get in on the fighting, no doubt. I asked, "What sorcerer was that we fought?"

"It could have been none other than Queen Suettay herself," Frisson assured me. "Without doubt, she was humiliated by the lady's escape, and again by your countering of her spells."

"Yes." I nodded. "Since she planned on adding Angelique to her routine of ectoplasmic slaves - it does reflect on her, having Angelique saved at the last stab."

"And to lose all the rest of them to Heaven, too," Gilbert assured me. "It lowers the esteem in which her barons hold her-lowers it drastically; and several may dare to take arms against her, attempting to seize the throne for themselves. We weaken her by protecting the maiden, Wizard Saul."

"And thereby make it vital for Suettay to recover her," I inferred.

"She has to save face, or risk a rebellion."

"A nice little uprising would rather help us," Frisson noted.

"So the queen must slay you, to prevent that revolt," Gilbert summarized.

Angelique looked up, horrified, then stepped away from me, hands warding me off. "Nay, I must leave you, then-for by protecting me, you have made yourself a marked man!"

I felt my stomach sink, but managed to answer gamely, "Don't let it worry you-I've been a marked man for a while now." To keep myself from wondering how much I'd meant by that, I turned back to Frisson and said, "I really appreciate your help."

"I did aid, then?" Frisson asked, eyes glowing. "I truly did aid?"

"Oh, yes," I assured him. "You aided fantastically." But I said it with a feeling of awe verging on fear, and couldn't help wondering if Frisson should be classified as a secret weapon. Apparently so, from the look on his face. His eyes were lit with joy, and his whole emaciated countenance was suffused with the look of a man yanked back from the grave.

"I think," Frisson said, "that I have found my metier."