"Why not?" I shrugged. "We're in the dungeon already; we can't go much lower."
"But you can! Are we to step into the underworld, then?"
"Nay," Gilbert said slowly, "for therein dwell Suettay's masters. Yet I, too, have heard of this Spider King, and his kingdom is a realm apart, neither underworld nor afterworld."
I recognized an allusion to an alternate universe. I frowned.
"You're talking about going through another dimension to gain access there. How do we do that?"
They were quiet again. Then Gilbert said, with deference, " 'Tis you are the wizard. if you cannot say how to come to this Spider King, which one of us can? "
"But I've never heard of him before!"
"You had not heard of Suettay, either," Angelique reminded me, "Yet you countered her."
I glanced at her in annoyance. "When did you switch to pushing for this travelogue? All right, I suppose I could work up a longdistance projection spell using this Spider King as the focus Frisson took on a faraway look.
"Write it down," I said quickly.
The poet sighed, coming back down to earth. "If I must - yet 'tis such labor, to carve words with a pen when they are so easily spoken aloud."
"Yeah, but it takes us so long to clean up the mess afterward!"
"As you say," Frisson said, with rue. "Yet we cannot simply spell ourselves a long way to this enchanted realm, Wizard."
"Aye," the Rat Raiser agreed. "The Spider King's realm is said to be everywhere, but nowhere."
"Overlaid on ours like an egg on a flapjack." I nodded. "That's a description of an alternate universe if I've ever heard one!" Gilbert frowned. "Then how can we come there, Wizard, if 'tis all around us, yet beyond our ken?"
"Through another dimension," I explained. "No, don't ask me what a dimension is - you already know. Length, breadth, and depth - those are the three dimensions, and they're all at right angles to one another." The squire frowned. "But there is no other!"
"Yes there is, though we can't perceive it - and not just one, but many. How we go through the fifth dimension in order to come back to the third, though, is a problem I haven't tackled before."
"Then do," the Rat Raiser urged.
I pursed my lips. "Other dimension or not, we won't get there by standing still. We have to start walking somewhere." Gilbert, Angelique, and Frisson glanced around us, perplexed, but the Rat Raiser said slowly, "There do be sewers underlying all this town - huge old drains, small tunnels, left to us from the empire great Rome spread throughout this middle earth."
I nodded. "That'll do. Do you know your way around them?"
"No," the Rat Raiser said, "yet I have friends who do." He made a peculiar kind of squeaking noise, and Angelique let out a very funny, throaty noise, like the sound of a scream being stifled. We men stiffened, hackles rising, as a troop of huge gray rats scampered into the pool of torchlight, coats filthy, fangs gleaming.
The Rat Raiser knelt, holding out a hand and crooning. The rats came up to him, nuzzling his fingers. "Nay, I've no food for you now, little friends," he said with regret, "but there shall be feasting, if you can bring us where we wish to go. Lead us down below ground, yet through tunnels high enough for us to walk without stooping. Lead us down, and bid all like you withdraw, to let us pass." Angelique shuddered.
"Not the most salubrious notion in the world," I agreed, "but it's better than staying here and waiting for Suettay to catch us, isn't it?"
Angelique swallowed and nodded. Gilbert murmured, "Be brave, lass. However long it may be, we shall pass through; it shall end."
"All right, we're ready now," I said to the Rat Raiser, softly.
"Off, little ones!" the bureaucrat commanded with a wave of his hand. He rose as the rats scampered away. "Follow," he said over his shoulder, and stepped off after his pets.
"Ready?" I asked. "Well, we're going, anyway." And I followed the Rat Raiser.
Off we went into the gloom, the poet and squire bunched protectively around the lady's ghost, leading onward and downward, following the wizard-me-who was mumbling some very strange verses indeed as we descended into the lower depths.
Chapter Seventeen
I wasn't entirely sure where the cave in the dungeon wall had come from-I could have sworn it hadn't been there when we had come down-but I wasn't about to object. If the rats knew where it was, it had to be real-at least, assuming the rats themselves were real; which made me begin to wonder about the Rat Raiser.
While I was wondering, we were going downhill; I couldn't help but think of Hellmouth in the old mystery plays, and wonder if this was its throat. It was certainly dark enough - and growing warmer; and the aromas rising were anything but life-giving. Trickles of water glittered in the torchlight here and there, becoming broader as we descended deeper.
Time to start the active part. I took a deep breath-and regretted it - and began to recite:
We moved down, our pool of torchlight coming with us, until water glistened below, black water, and the Rat Raiser whispered, "We have come into the sewers. Carefully, now, children - the water is deep, and the way is narrow."
He turned to the left, following his pets. I saw a spark off to the side and frowned, glancing at it; then I glanced again. There were two sparks, a pair, and, as I watched, another pair appeared, and another.
"We are regarded," Gilbert said, indicating a bank of little jewel-eyes glowing at the edge of our torchlight.
Angelique gave a strangled gasp, but the Rat Raiser crooned, "Gently, children, gently. 'Tis only the small ones who dwell hereand, no matter what you think of them, they will not hurt you while I am here."
It was a gentle reminder of who held the power at the moment, and I didn't trust it. I thought up a protecting verse and held it ready on my tongue. I also glanced at Angelique, to make sure she was okay - then glanced again.
She was solid!
Apparently, her incorporeality was right in phase with whatever nonexistent realm of nonreality we were in.
My lord, that woman was beautiful! None of the bruises or wounds showed on her ghost - only a hollowness of the cheek, a darkness around the eye, that spoke of the harrowing experience she had been through. Even that enhanced her beauty, rather than diminished it - or was I so much the captive of my own binding spell, so much in love with her, that nothing could lessen her beauty in my eyes?
I shook off the notion with a shudder and turned away. Women were for enjoying, nothing more - and since you couldn't just enjoy them without hurting their hearts, I was determined not to notice them. Never mind that Angelique already knew my true feelings for her - that didn't mean I had to let them show. I resolutely turned my back and followed the Rat Raiser into the unknown - and surely that couldn't have been a small, very self-satisfied smile I had glimpsed on her lips as I had turned away, could it?
We paced the narrow path, scraping the stone wall on our left, with a host of bright beady eyes watching us. To our right, torchlight reflected off thickened, tainted water. The aroma had become almost unbearable; we breathed through our mouths, but I could have sworn I was tasting the air.
The surface heaved, and a huge clawed hand broke through with a long, scaly, tooth-filled snout behind it. The hand groped toward us, and the Rat Raiser shrank back with a squeal that had the ring of command - but also of fright; and his pets answered him with a squealing and skittering as they disappeared into the darkness.