The Witch Doctor

Alarm sizzled through me. I'd only solved one-third of the problem! Quickly, I started muttering,

"Triad, by the rule of three,
Multiply this spell for ..."

Too late. The other two heads were fading, disappearing, and the loose grin on the one in the noose was tightening as intelligence came back into the eyes. The forehead moved up-and it was Suettay's normal face again! The lips writhed in a snarl as she hoisted her hands up to grab the chain above her head. She pulled, got her throat clear of the links, and took a deep breath.

I grabbed for another verse.

"They plucked the entrails of an offering forth,
And could not find a heart within her breast!"

Suettay looked up, grinned, and started chanting.

I froze. It hadn't worked! Okay, it was only a couplet, and it didn't rhyme - but it was Shakespeare! It should've shown some result!

Then I remembered an old medieval tale, transformed into a modern fairy story, about sorcerers who, afraid of death, put their hearts outside their bodies for safekeeping - say, in an egg, which was inside a duck. Or an amulet. How that could work, I couldn't see, unless ... yes ... wait a minute ... Assume a hyperspatial link, so that blood could flow from the sorceress to the heart in another dimension, and back ...

I came to myself with a jolt. Too much thinking! Suettay was spitting out the last phrase, and I had lost the initiative. Suddenly my whole body went rigid. I couldn't move! And the paralysis was creeping over my chest to seize heart and lungs, then trickling up over my shoulders toward my neck. If I didn't get a quick spell out, I'd have lockjaw! Plus death.

And Suettay was spell-weaving again!

Chapter Thirteen

I took as deep a breath as I could and spat out:

"Can't freeze my bones or rot my spleen,
'Cause I've been shot with Salk vaccine!
So I'll hang loose from stern to prow
Paralysis can't touch me now!"

My knees suddenly flexed, and my hands relaxed at my sides. I tried a step and managed it-but slowly and painfully. Well, you couldn't expect a cheap spell like that to work wonders ... But Suettay hadn't wasted the time. She was back on the ground, the silver noose still hanging above her head, and was finishing up another chant, her hands pantomiming yanking something up from the earth.

And four lions leapt out of nowhere, straight at me, roars shaking the plain.

But a greater roar drowned theirs out, blasting from behind me and Gruesome thudded past me, straight at the lions!

They hit the brakes, plowing up sod with iron claws and terrified howls-or three out of four did. The fourth bellowed all the louder and leapt straight at the troll. I couldn't help thinking that this was how evolution put an upward limit on courage.

Gruesome was very direct; he slammed in an uppercut. His timing was just right; he caught the lion under the jaw. It went flipping up over his head and down in an arc, its head flopping at an unnatural angle.

The other three decided their initial instinct had been right, and fled out across the plain with howling yips of fright.

Suettay's hands flew; crooked syllables clanked off her tongue. Gruesome turned slowly toward me, a hungry glint in his eye.

"What's the matter?" I backed away. "Look, I didn't mean to get you into this!"

"Juicy." Gruesome's slab of tongue came out and smacked around his chops. "Taste good."

I yelped and whirled to run; Suettay had canceled the fairies' antihuman-eating spell.

Gruesome's feet pounded behind me, coming closer, and I knew that, though his legs were much shorter in relation to his body, they were longer than mine, since he was so much bigger-and he could move them faster, no matter what he looked like. I wasn't going to get out of this by running-just by talking. Or rhyming, rather. I swerved around behind the biggest boulder I could find in that barren land and started chanting.

"You cannot eat but little meat
For your stomach, I'm not good.
Obey elf-prince and wizard friend,
Not sorceress in hood!
Why then should you seek quarry more,
And still seek friends anew,
When change itself can give no more'tis easy to be true!"

A huge fist came down and smashed the boulder to smithereens. Gruesome loomed up, huge eyes lit with glee, mouth spread in a horrible, drooling grin, upraised hands hooked to pounce, and I turned to run. Huge nails clawed my back, and I howled with pain, tripping and falling. I rolled to my feet, and I was just in time to see the glee dim from his eyes as his mouth puckered in confusion. "Wizard? What I do?"

"Nothing." I went limp with relief. "You chased away some lions for me, Gruesome. Thanks."

But beyond his bulk, I saw Suettay, hunkered down on her knees, belt over diagrams she was drawing in the dirt, and intoning a long, diconing chant.

My heart sank. Whatever she was whopping up, it was big - if symbolic gestures increased magical power, symbolic drawing would be even worse!

Then full inspiration hit me, and I realized that a sword can cut both ways, no matter how clumsy. "Gruesome!" I cried. "There's another one!" I pointed at Suettay.

" 'Nother one what?" the troll rumbled, turning to look. I chanted quickly,

"What you see amid the waste,
See as something you would taste!
Be it horse, or cat, or bear,
Or a sorc'ress, kneeling there. in your eye it shall appear
As a morsel sweet and rare!"

Slant rhyme again, but I hoped it would work.

It did. Gruesome let out one gusty "Yum!" and started running straight at Suettay.

The sorceress looked up, startled. Then she sprang aside with a howl of fear, in the nick of time - Gruesome thundered by, plowing up her diagrams with his great taloned toes. Suettay howled in rage and frustration - and I seized the moment, my mind shifting into high gear. I knew better than to waste a single second by this time. While she was on the run, I chanted,

"Be reversed from Galatea;
May your limbs and joints betray ya!"

I ripped a thread loose from my shirt, frantically tying knots in it as I went on:

"Knot the stomach, bind the head
Let your limbs go weak with dread!"

The sorceress collapsed, falling back on the ground with a howl of anger and fear.

Gruesome bellowed victory and stooped for the kill.

"Be as thou wast wont to be!"

I shouted.

"See as thou wast wont to see!"

Gruesome froze.

Then his face wrinkled, and he turned away in disgust. "Yugh! Sorceress! Tough! Sour!"

Suettay stared, not knowing whether to be insulted or relieved. The fear spell was still on her, but she started muttering anyway.

Gruesome whipped about, looking from side to side in total bewilderment. "Where goody,' Where juicy piglet?" So that was what he had seen, instead of Suettay.

"It got away," I said quickly. "Why don't you go back to the camp fire and see if Gilbert has any leftovers from dinner?"