"Enough of this!" the Gremlin cried, exasperated, and jumped down into the cave of the Bear.
"No!" I cried in alarm, but the Gremlin was muttering something as he dashed in a circle around Ussrus Major.
The Bear suddenly let out a howl. "What are these leaves? What are these-gooseberries?"
"What ails the beast?" Frisson asked, wide-eyed.
"He supposes he is a bush," the Gremlin answered, hopping back up onto the pathway. "But the spell will not endure forever, Wizard. The Bull must find some way to bring this path up high, where the Bear cannot reach, or he will surely drag us down."
"Right." I pulled myself together, racking my wits for some verse about a rising path. The first thing that came to mind was,
"I'm out of rhymes!" I shouted. "Take it, Frisson!" The poet adlibbed as easily as a stream flows:
"Walk!" the Gremlin commanded us, and we scrambled to our feet, swayed a moment in the motion of the rising path, then managed a sort of bowlegged gait, leaning into a hike that had suddenly become a climb, as the path rose up at an angle and kept rising. Below us, the Bear roared in impotent fury, clawing in vain at a curve that had risen so high that it exceeded his grasp. He stood below us, flailing away at those whom he would drag down, until his voice was lost in the mists that rose up to obscure him, mists that rose even higher until they were all about us, then hardened-and we found ourselves walking in an enclosed tunnel once again.
"You have succeeded, Wizard," Frisson whispered.
"Yes, but only because I had a lot of help. The tunnel has changed a lot, though. Are we still on the right path?"
"Aye," the Bull said, "for we have but discovered the way to the Spider King, in spite of all the deceptions with which the Bear sought to enshroud us."
"Yet it seems to differ so," Angelique objected. And it did, for the curve was much sharper, and rose in an incline. We toiled upward through a torus that became a hollow expanding helix, ascending and ascending until it suddenly opened out into a great room, so vast that its ceiling glowed in an opalescent mist, a fabric of gossamer threads. it had no walls, but columns as numerous as the trunks of a forest, with vistas of hills and meadows and groves visible between them, bathed in sunlight and vividly green. We walked out in wonder, across a floor that was a mosaic of marble so huge that our eyes couldn't even begin to discern the picture it formed.
Directly before us, in an archway, stood a stocky figure with a flowing cloak, silhouetted against the sun.
"Gentlemen and lady," the Bull said, in a hushed, almost reverent tone, "we have attained our goal. We stand in the palace of the Spider King.
Chapter Nineteen
The dark form came forward. As he left the sun-dazzle, his face became visible. At first glance, he wasn't a terribly prepossessing figure - only a man of middle height, wearing tunic and hose of dark gray broadcloth, a hip-length coat with wide sleeves, and a cap encircled by a band of leaden medallions.
Then I saw the face, as rough as if it had been hewn from stone, with fire in the eyes and a grim set to the lips, and I quailed for a moment.
Only a moment, not even long enough for my natural mulishness to arise - because I looked at his eyes again and decided that if this man told me to follow him into a battle we couldn't win, I probably would.
"Be welcome in my palace," the Spider King said. "If you have found the means to come to me here, the stoutness of heart to win through, you must be good folk."
I glanced around, but nobody else seemed inclined to answer, so cleared my throat.
But Gilbert spoke up first. "You must be sure indeed of your power, Majesty, to greet so unseemly a crew as we, with no guardsmen or knights about you."
The Spider King's lips quirked into a smile, apparently ignoring the element of threat in Gilbert's words - was the squire out of his mind?
He started to answer, but before he could get out a single word, a horrifying apparition came dashing from behind a pillar. He was only a man, but incredibly ugly. His eyes and nose were surrounded by a huge tangle of red hair and beard. His tunic and leggings were of good cloth, but irretrievably rumpled. He ran hunched over, a standing cup of dull white metal in his hands. "The cup, Majesty! The antimony cup! You must drink!"
The king glanced at him, irritated. "Away, Oliver. I have affairs in train."
But, "You must drink!" the shaggy man maintained, and he set himself beside the king like a tree that had suddenly taken root. The king gave him a look of exasperation, but took the cup and drank off the draught. Then he pushed the cup back and said, "Now begone! I shall summon you at need!"
"As your Majesty pleases." The vagabond bowed and scurried off.
"As you see, I am attended," the Spider King said to Gilbert. The squire had not moved, but somehow gave the impression of having shrunk away in loathing as Angelique had very definitely done, and the rest of us had backed away a pace or two.
"He could repulse a squadron by the mere look of him," Frisson murmured.
"Not that he would have need to." For some odd reason, Gilbert seemed to relax. "We have come in peace, Majesty, to beseech your aid."
"None would come for aught reason else," the king said, with a sardonic smile. "You seek aid against the queen of Allustria, do you not?"
Something clicked in my mind. "Yes, we do," I said slowly, "and I think you know all about it - starting with my being transported to this universe."
"To the universe of Allustria and Merovence," the Spider King corrected me. "We stand between all universes, here. Yet I cannot be certain that I know all your grievances. Therefore, tell me them." For a moment, Gilbert looked lost. "There is so much . . ."
"I am a poet whose verses wreak evil, Majesty," Frisson said, "even though I intend it not. Yet this wizard . . ." He nodded toward me. ". . . has taught me to write, so that my verses no longer need to be spoken, and no longer wreak havoc."
Gilbert took his cue. "The people of Allustria have suffered at the hands of Queen Suettay, Majesty, and I was of the band of the Order of Saint Moncaire sent to free one good yeoman and his family from her oppression. Yet my general did command me to accompany this Wizard Saul, for he had a vision that showed Saul to be the salvation of Allustria."
I still didn't like the sound of that.
"He wrested me from my prison cell," the Rat Raiser said, "where I had languished for years, since Queen Suettay consigned me there for no crime but fulfilling my function too well."
"And seeking to rise higher?" The Spider King fixed him with a gimlet stare.
The Rat Raiser bore it as long as he could; then he lowered his gaze and muttered, "I was ambitious, aye. Yet I did not seek her throne."
"That would have come," the Spider King assured him. He turned to Angelique. "And yourself, lady? Have you, too, suffered at the hands of this Queen Suettay?"
Angelique straightened, lifting her chin. "She did sacrifice me to evil, majesty, and did attempt to ensnare my ghost to be her slave, but the Wizard Saul did remind me that I had but to repent my sins, and I would be Heaven - bound. He thus freed me from her power - but she kept my body between life and death, so that I must yet linger on this Earth."