There was a flash of light, so bright as to dazzle us all with afterimages - but a gravelly voice was calling, "What? Where? How came I here?"
In a panic, I blinked and rubbed, trying to clear my eyes before the creature I had summoned could turn on us.
Too late - it was howling, "What benighted son of a sorcerer and a witch has brought me into so bleak a place as this?"
"Guilty!" I shouted. "It's my fault, not theirs! But have the courage to wait until I can see you, you . . . "
"Then clear your eyes!" the newcomer snorted; and suddenly, I could see again. I blinked, asking, "What kind of creature can ... Oh." My friends gasped with shock. The "creature" looked up from the neighborhood of my belt buckle, arms akimbo and his other two arms folded under his shoulder blades, tapping the forward-facing foot while he balanced on the backward-facing one and took aim at my shin with the third. His noseless face glowered up at me in indignation, huge saucer eyes glowing an angry yellow while he twiddled the tentacles on top of his head. Overall, he looked like a mauve cucumber whose vines had decided to turn into legs and arms and prehensile hair. He wore pointed shoes with curling toes and a wide belt loaded with every sort of tool imaginable, plus a few that I couldn't.
And he wasn't happy.
I swallowed. "Hi! I'm Saul, urn, a wizard. And who are you?"
"Who did you expect?" the gravelly voice growled. Yes, its lips moved.
"Just somebody who understands the illogical well enough to get us out of here. Uh-who are you? "
"I," said the little monster, "am the Gremlin."
I stared.
"Saul," Angelique quavered, "what is a Gremlin?"
"An imaginary creature whose goal in life is making things go wrong," I told her. "If anybody can understand the kind of realm we're in, he can."
"But will he aid us?" Frisson breathed.
"Unlikely," the little monster grated. "I delight in foiling and frustrating, not aiding - especially to folk who yank me unceremoniously from my home!"
"My apologies," I said, "but there really wasn't any way I could ask you ahead of time. The Gremlin unlimbered an arcane tool from his belt. "I'm minded to send you back in that time you speak of, to give you space to learn your manners."
"No, please! We really do need your help. We're stuck in this maze, see, and we need to get through it fast. There's a whole kingdom that needs our help."
"What's your kingdom to me, or I to it?"
"You could be its rescuer," I said, "and it's a goodly land that's being laid waste by black sorcery. Forests are being blighted - trees and animals are being twisted out of their natural forms . . ."
"How foul!" the Gremlin cried, outraged. "That is my work, though I would rather work it through machinery, and the more complicated, the better. What bastard of spirits usurps my prerogative in such fashion?"
"Her name is Suettay," I explained, "and her grandmother seized the throne three generations ago. They've been ruining the land ever since."
The Gremlin shook his fists, hopping mad-literally. "So many years? Have my tasks been usurped for so long as that? Why has no one told me of it before?"
I sensed an opening. "Because they didn't know how. I mean, even with me, it was as much accident as intention."
"But you did at least bring word!" The Gremlin stilled, scowling.
"Surely I shall help you, if it will bring me a chance to annihilate this usurper! What do you wish of me?"
"Well, we're trying to get to the Spider King, see - we're hoping that maybe he -"
"The Good Bourgeois King?" The Gremlin stared. "Aye, most surely he could aid you! But how think you to come to him?"
"That's why we're trying to get through this maze, see. I recited a spell that should take us to the Spider King."
"A spell?" The Gremlin rounded on me, looking me up and down.
"Art a sorcerer, or a warlock?"
"Neither, really - I think I'm a wizard. But I don't believe in magic, see, and the spell didn't take us right to him, so ..."
"A wizard who works magic that he does not believe in!" the Gremlin crowed. "Why, this is too delightful! How shall I bollix work for you, mortal? By making your spells all work aright? Oh, this is priceless!" I exhaled a shaky breath. "Surely you wouldn't do anything so perverse."
The Gremlin eyed me shrewdly. "I think you know me by repute, and too well to think there is anything too perverse for me. So you wish to come to the Spider King, eh? "
"Yeah, but my spells haven't been working, and-"
"Nay, I should think not! His realm is too closely guarded, to come at him unawares!"
"Unawares?" I looked at the tunnel about me. "You mean this whole thing is his early warning system?"
"He will know of you when you arrive, aye." The Gremlin tilted his head to the side, looking me up and down. "This much I will do for you - I will lead you back through this maze, whence you've come."
"Nay!" Angelique cried. "We must go on!" The Gremlin looked up, surprised.
" 'Tis the salvation of the land we speak of," Gilbert explained.
"Besides," I said," you don't know what's waiting for us back there."
"Tell me," the Gremlin coaxed.
"Oh, all right." I sighed. "An evil queen and a torture chamber, not to mention a dungeon."
"You have reason to wish to go on," the Gremlin admitted. "Yet 'tis not so simply done as that. There are greater dangers than this maze, look you."
"If you think they're bad, you should see what we left behind us."
"I have." The monster leered. "Or ones much like them. So you think, then, that you are on the road to his palace, this Spider King?"
"Well, to his kingdom, maybe."
The Gremlin shook what passed for his head, with certainty.
"His kingdom runs throughout the heart of the continent between the Northern and the Middle seas; it overlies your own, like a saucer on a plate. You seek his palace, not his kingdom alone. I will take you there, for I'll need his aid against this woman who usurps my prerogatives." He grinned. "And, too, I'm minded of the mischief you will wreak in Allustria, if the Spider King lends his strength to your cause."
I didn't remember mentioning a cause - and I certainly didn't remember mentioning Allustria. The prickling feeling moved over my shoulders and the back of my head again, as I began to feel the tendrils of a conspiracy waft around me. The worst of it was that I suspected that I might be part of the conspiracy, not just its object - but I wasn't exactly in a position to be picky. "Then you will help us?"
"And gain a chance to help confound the self-important and harshruling ones? Aye, and gladly!" The Gremlin leapt to the fore.
"Follow me!" He strode off into the darkness. "Do You follow close!"
I hurried after him, and the gang followed, but I don't think any of us was convinced that it was entirely a good idea.
Lead us the Gremlin did. How, I couldn't have said - but every time my sense of direction told me I should zig, the Gremlin zagged, and every time I thought we should turn left, the Gremlin turned right. Archways and corners swooped past us in dizzying array, for the little monster never faltered. How he could tell where to go, I couldn't guess, but I wasn't about to argue.
Then, finally, the tunnel opened out. I looked up, with a notion of what I might see - and I was halfway right, at least. I saw a convex wall curving up and away from me, continuing onward in a great circle. It was as if we stood in the center of a doughnut.