The Enchanter Reborn

SIR HAROLD AND THE GNOME KING L. Sprague de Camp

"Darling," said Belphebe, "will you please stop worrying! The doctors all confirm that it be nought but a normal, healthy pregnancy."

"I know," said Harold Shea. "But I just can't help—"

"And you really must go off on your syllogismobile to fetch back Walter. If you do it not soon, he'll lose his tenure; the committee meets next month."

"What sort of husband goes off on some goofy quest when his wife's time is getting near?"

"Oh, cease your fussing and get along with you! Marry, I shall be just as pleased if, when you return, the babe's born and I have my wonted shape. Besides, the police are prey to ever-waxing suspicions—"

"Oh, all right," grumbled Shea. "But if anything goes wrong, I'll never forgive myself ..."

Thus it came to pass that Harold Shea, incomplete enchanter, sat on the floor of his study arrayed in boots and breeches for his journey through other space-time dimensions, with a feathered hat on his head and a saber by his side.

He had decided that the épée, which he had used on other journeys to mythological worlds, was too specialized a weapon. It had served him well against opponents afoot and unarmored; but even so, it was more by luck than by management that the slender blade had not been snapped in parrying the ferocious cuts of edge-men, nor bent to breaking against stout armor.

His present weapon was a nineteenth-century officer's saber, with the blade shortened by a few inches. The original thirty-six-inch blade, suitable for a horseman, was too unwieldy for combat on foot. The swordsman who swung it might swing himself right off his feet.

As a backup weapon, Shea wore a bowie knife in a sheath at his belt. Moreover, whereas he had formerly scorned protective devices, he now wore beneath his outer garments a shirt of fine mesh-mail.

The last he had seen of Walter Bayard before his recent brief visit to mythical Ireland, his fellow psychologist at the Garaden Institute, was in the hut wherein he, Bayard, Belphebe, and Detective Peter Brodsky had been imprisoned by the chiefs of the world of the Finnish Kalevala. Shea's spell, with help from Belphebe and the cop, transferred them all to the world of mythical Ireland, with Cuchulainn and Queen Maeve. But Bayard, if indeed he came through the dimensions, was nowhere to be seen. Shea thought that he had probably been dumped somewhere else in the same world of myth.

But should Shea go back to Cuchulainn's Eriu to look for his colleague? The search might take years, with no end in sight. Moreover, these quasi-Irishmen showed a disturbing fondness for collecting people's heads as trophies.

There was, however, a plausible shortcut: the Land of Oz, as chronicled by L. Frank Baum and later by Ruth Plumly Thompson. In Oz, a major magical artifact was the Gnome King's Magic Belt, confiscated by Dorothy Gale of Kansas alter the King had treacherously tried to imprison her. The Belt was effective as a tele-transporter. If Shea could enlist the help of the Belt's present custodians, he could fetch Bayard from mythical Eriu to Oz, whence the custodians could send the two of them back to Ohio.

Shea launched into the sorites that, he hoped, would bring him to the world of Oz: "If P equals not-Q, then Q implies not-P, which is the same as saving either P and Q or neither, but not both. But the counter-implicative form of the proposition ..."

On went the sorites, adjusting Shea's senses to the stimuli of the other world he sought.

At length the study around him dissolved into a whirl of spots of color. He seemed suspended in nothing, as if in free fall. Then things solidified.

Shea found himself standing on a pavement of onyx squares among several small buildings of boxy shape. Behind these structures rose towering crags, in which yawned large black openings. Paved paths led up to these aperatures. Up and down the paths walked figures in ankle-length gowns, with hoods drawn over their heads.

Shea stood still, trying to orient himself. Wherever he was, he did not think that this was the land of Oz—at least, not any section of it in the books by Baum and Thompson. Of course it had been years since ...

He began to sort out the pedestrians. Some were of normal human stature and aspect, in hooded gowns of various colors, running strongly to somber purple, Others, inhumanly tall and lean, wore black; these had a single horn emerging from each hood. A closer view showed that those in black walked on hooves instead of human feet.

Looking around. Shea saw, rearing against the surrounding cliffs, a single lofty spire. Overhead the sky was overcast and so dark as to imply a dawn or a sunset. Flames of cressets and torcheres mitigated the gloom. The orange light flickered, making it hard to be sure of anything.

Pedestrians walked past Shea without evincing interest. The hooves of the homed ones went clop-clop on the sable flagstones. Some of the walkers passed in pairs, conversing in quiet tones.

A shriek from the direction of the slender tower brought Shea about, he turned in time to see a gown-clad figure falling, doubtless from high in the tower. The garment fluttered with the body's rising speed, and the arms and legs thrashed the air. The figure landed with a sound that reminded Shea of hitting a melon with a mallet.

The hooded pedestrians continued their ways without even looking around. Soon a pair of homed, black-gowned beings picked up the corpse and bore it off.

Unable longer to stand the suspense. Shea touched a passerby on the arm. "Excuse me, sir."

The passerby, in a purple gown and holding a walking stick, turned and threw back his hood. "Eh? What is it?" He was a tall, handsome, swarthy, black-haired young man.

At least, thought Shea, the sorites had worked to give him fluency in the local language, whatever that was. From its wealth of gutturals, Shea suspected Arabic. He said:

"Could you please tell me where I am?

The tall youth stared. "Do you mean you don't know?"

"No, I don't. A magical journey just dropped me here, but I don't think it's where I wanted to go. Could you set me right?"

"All right. You are on the campus of the University of the Unholy Names, in Death Valley."

"But what world?"

"You mean you don't even know that? You must be a little touched here ..." The youth tapped his forehead.

"Maybe so, but I really must know. Please!"

"Well," said the tall youth, "this is the world called sometimes Dej, an acronym of Dal Ay Jim—or, as the infidels say, Delta Epsilon Gamma."

"And you, sir?"

The youth ducked a little bow. "Bilsa at-Talib, an undergraduate at good old UUN, at your service. And you? You must be a pretty good magician, to go flitting from world to world."

Shea smiled warily. "Oh, I know a trick or two. My name's Shea, Harold Shea."

Shea almost put out a hand before realizing where he was. Recovering, he touched his fingertips to his heart, lips, and forehead. Bilsa, he was relieved to see, did likewise.

"What about that fellow who just fell from the tower?"

"Failed his exams and was dropped." Bilsa shrugged, then continued with an eager rush of words: "Sav, you see this stick? I was on my way to show it to the dean. When I throw it down, it turns into a snake, which gets bigger and bigger until I hit it with this little wand, and it shrinks back into a walking stick again. I've got a swell idea! I'll turn this stick into a snake, see, and you conjure up your own monster; and we'll see which one of 'em wins!"

The youth was evidently of the kind that, in a college chemistry laboratory, starts mixing chemicals at random to see which mixture will go boom. Before Shea could protest, Bilsa threw down the stick, which instantly turned into a snake of the python kind. It grew and grew, soon reaching a size beyond that of any earthly serpent. It reared up and swung its tapering head, now as big as that of a horse, toward Shea. It opened fangsome jaws and hissed like the safety valve of a steam boiler.

Shea had no monster-conjuring spell to hand and did not wish any such contest. lie must, he thought, have substituted a Q for a not-Q in the sorites. Against such a foe, his sword was of little avail. Frantically he again began the series:

"If P equals not-Q, then Q implies ..."

The monstrous head, now of tyrannosauric size, swooped. The jaws came down upon his head and snapped shut like the door of a bank vault, cutting off the meager light. Shea felt himself snatched off his feet as the jaws clamped on his midriff. The mailshirt kept the teeth, now spikes the size of fence palings, from piercing his body, but the pressure of the jaws blew the wind out of him. By a mighty feat of concentration, he continued the spell:

"... which sets down Harold Shea near the abode of Dorothy Gale in the Land of Oz!"

The agonizing pressure on Shea's midsection let up. Again he seemed to be suspended in nothing and surrounded by a galaxy of whirling colored dots.

Then he landed on solid earth, rolling over and over as if he had fallen at a slant from a height. The scab-barded saber banged and poked him.

He sat up, wincing at the pain of the places bruised by the pressure of the reptile's jaws. Every movement of his trunk was painful. Around him rose a forest of green-leaved cornstalks, several of which he had broken in his fall. They were just coming into ear.

Battered, bruised, and sore, Shea gathered his legs and rose. His head and the upper part of his torso were covered with gooey serpent saliva, to which the brown dirt clung in patches. He must, he thought, look like nothing on Earth. He was bareheaded; his hat must have gone down the sorcerous serpent's gullet. Had he not finished the correct sorites, he would surely have followed the hat. He was thankful that, more by luck than by management, the spell had translocated him alone and not both him and the super-snake.

He had begun to thread his way out from the cornfield when a man shouted: "Hey, you there! What are you doing in my field?"

"Trying to get out without damaging anything," said Shea, picking his way among the cornstalks.

"The blazes you ain't! You mean without doing any more damage. You've knocked over a dozen stalks already!"

"I'm very sorry. In going from world to world, one can't always count on a soft landing."

"Jeepers Cripus, what world do you claim to come from?"

The speaker was a man of medium size, with work-roughened hands and a sun-wrinkled neck. He wore yellow knee breeches and a yellow shirt, both faded and patched, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. He gripped a cultivator like a weapon.

"From Ohio, in the United States of America," said Shea.

"Oh, the mundane world," said the man. "Well, now, that's interesting ..."

"Is Dorothy Gale's house near here?" asked Shea.

"Huh? Oh, you must mean my wife! She was Dorothy Gale before she became Mrs. Stidoth. Well, now ..."

"Stidoth!" came a woman's voice.

"Yeah, honey? Hey, come on over here! We got a visitor from your world!"

A woman approached—a blonde of middle years, well-featured and a little plump.

"Says he's lookin' for Miss Dorothy Gale," said Stidoth.

"Okay, mister, you found her," said the woman. "Where in my world did you come from?"

"Ohio. Shea's the name."

"Back east, eh? Well, another real American's always welcome. We don't see 'em around all that often, since we moved out from the Emerald City. Come on in the house. You look like you could do with a bit of a cleanup."

"If you'd been half swallowed by a giant snake— well, you know what I mean. Lucky for all of us I didn't bring the super-serpent with me. A magician conjured it up and sicked it on me."

"Come along; you can wash up in the house and tell us all about it. We got running water and everything."

Cleaned up, Shea had finished the tale of his adventure, saying: "Things look different from what I expected."

"How different?" said Stidoth, who without his straw hat proved somewhat balding.

"I thought people in Oz stayed the same age forever, until some accident took them."

Stidoth explained: "That's how it was, more or less, before the big change."

"Big change?"

"Yeah. Seems there was this kid, Dranol Drabbo, who couldn't wait to grow up. The way things were, he'd have growed up, all right, in a couple of hundred years; but he was one of these here flibbertigibbets who can't wait five minutes for anything they happen to want.

"Well, now, this here Dranol Drabbo went to Wogglebug College and majored in magic. And one of his experiments canceled the spell that some queen of the fairies laid on Oz centuries ago. People say that there spell got rid of death, but it ain't really so. All it did was to slow down the normal business of aging to a crawl, like a snail walking. Aging was already a lot slower for us Ozians than for you mundanes. You seem to us like them there bugs that flit around for a day and then die."

"Must have been a tragedy for the Ozites."

Stidoth shrugged. "Got advantages and disadvantage! both ways, like most things in life. As 'twas, the population was getting out of hand, with the old folks hangin' on forever.

"Anyway, I was Dot's age at the time. So when we growed up we got hitched, and here we are. I didn't much like the idea of our boys going to Wogglebug, on account of what happened with Dranol Drabbo. Besides, too much book-learning can spoil a good farmer. But they sold Dot on the idea, and—well, you a married man, Mr. Shea?"

"Yes," said Shea. "Quite happily—but I know what you mean."

Stidoth chuckled. "The older boy'll be out in a couple of months, looking for a way to earn his three squares. Claims he's invented some sort of calculating machine." Stidoth's eyes narrowed. "All right, Mr. Shea, now tell us just what you came here for, and in particular why you wanted to see Dot.

Shea told of Walter Bayard's predicament. "... so I thought that, if I could persuade whoever's in charge of the Gnome King's Belt to fetch Bayard here and then send us both back to what you call the mundane world ..."

Stidoth sat in silence for several seconds, then said: "Mr. Shea, if you owned one of them there atomic bombs we hear about, would you keep it in the cellar, where some kid might set it off accidental like?"

"Of course not!

"Same way here. That there belt could be just as dangerous, in the hands of some amateur piddler in magic like Dranol Drabbo, as one of them bombs. So it's kept locked up in the palace in the Emerald City."

"What happened to Dranol Drabbo?'

Stidoth sniffed. "Queen Ozma's a fine woman, and don't let nobody tell you different. But when she was a girl, she was full of airy-fairy impractical ideas. One was you shouldn't hurt nobody or nothing, even to save your own life. She almost let Oz be conquered several times, because she wouldn't believe anyone was so wicked as to plot agin her. Even when she was warned, she wouldn't fight, because that meant hurting or killing people. Each time she was saved by some lucky, last-minute magical trick; but you can't count on that kind of luck forever.

"So the question was, what to do with young Dranol Drabbo? I'd have called in Nick Chopper and had him operate with his ax on Dranol's neck. But no, the Queen decided the worst punishment she'd allow was to send him to exile in Ev.

"Well, you know the gnomes live under the ground where Ev is, and it didn't take long for Dranol to get in cahoots with the Gnome King, Kaliko—the one who followed Ruggedo. They say Kaliko fired his chancellor, Shoofenwaller, and gave his job to Dranol. Don't rightly know what sort of devilment they're cooking up; but I'm sure it's something.

"Course, when Ozma growed up and married King Evardo, it steadied her down. He's got plenty of hard common sense."

Shea thought. "This king—is he of the royal family of Ev?"

"Sure; he's King of Ev. But he lives here in Oz and lets his brother Evring run the kingdom as regent. That way, Evardo gets the fun of being king without the headaches."

Shea grinned. "Reminds me of a song from a show back in my world;

Stidoth chuckled and slapped his thigh. "Hey, that's good! Wouldn't mind seeing that there show. Anyway, Evardo also got the duty of providing the most beautiful woman in Oz with heirs to the throne. Boy, that's one job plenty of men—"

"Stidoth!" said Dorothy sternly.

"Sorry. Anyway, they've only got two kids so far. The older's a boy—young man, almost—and I hear he's away visiting kinfolks in Ev. The other's a girl, just starting school. But a royal family needs a whole raft of heirs, in case something happens to the older ones. So I guess Evardo has lots of fun trying—"

"Stidoth!"

"Anyway, reckon you'll have to get to the Emerald City and hand a petition to some flunkey at the palace."

Shea shook his head. "It just doesn't seem like Oz somehow, those young fairyland girls growing up and having children of their own."

"Well, that's what they do in your mundane world, ain't it?"

"Yes; I'm an expectant father myself. It's just—well, it somehow spoils the magic." How logical, Shea thought, that Dorothy, though here ranked as a princess, should wed a man of background like her own!

"Don't you believe it, Mr. Shea. We got plenty of magic left. It's a matter of this here now mental attitude. When you was a kid, didn't your mundane world seem like a kind of fairyland to you, full of exciting things you later found out didn't exist? But when you growed up, you had to trade in those exciting things for the exciting things of the real world, even if they want so pretty.

"As for Ozma's getting spliced, I mind me some years ago, before Dranol worked his spell, some little princeling named—let me think—Pomp-something. Anyway, he asked Ozma to marry him. Course, he got turned down flat. Lucky young fella found another princess, who took him on.

"Then there was that there Baron Mogodore, who captured the capital by surprise and said he was going to marry Ozma whether she liked it or not. Since the law says a marriage has got to be with the free will of both parties to be legal, there ain't really no such thing as a 'forced marriage', leastaways in Oz. It's just a fancy name for plain old—"

"Stidoth!"

"Oh, all right, Dot honey, if you won't call things by their right names. I'll say he was going to 'subject her to an indecent personal assault'. That fancy enough for you?"

Shea reflected that the Stidoths had a very normal marriage, solid but not without occasional rifts and irritations. He changed the subject: "If I have to go to the capital, how do I get there?"'

"You can walk, but it's quite a piece. Don't have no magic carpets or broomsticks or nothing here."

Dorothy spoke: "Dear, why don't we lend him Alis? He can ride her to the city, turn her loose, and tell her to go home. She knows the way well enough."

"Reckon that's a good idea. How about it, Mr. Shea?"

"Who is Alis?"

"One of our mules. I forget; you mundanes ain't used to animals that talk and understand like people do. But it's too late to start now. You better stay overnight with us and set out at sun-up."

"You're much too kind, really—"

"Think nothin' of it, Mr. Shea! Anybody that's got legitimate business with the Queen, it's only right to give him a hand to get him there."

From what he recalled of the Oz books. Shea believed that Ozma's court did not go in for elaborate formalities, such as requiring presentees to prostrate themselves or knock their heads upon the floor. But his travels through alternative universes had given him a fair command of protocol. The flunkey announced:

"I present to Your Majesty Doctor Sir Harold Shea, a mundane with a petition."

She put his hand over his heart and bowed to the horizontal, flourishing an imaginary hat with a sweeping gesture. When he straightened up, he faced Queen Ozma on her throne. She must have been about Dorothy's age in terms of mundane maturity; but she was still one of the most beautiful women Shea had ever seen. A circlet of gold, to each side of which was fastened a large red blossom, confined her midnight hair. After scrutiny, Shea decided that the blossoms were artificial.

"Master Shea," said Ozma. "Your pardon, Doctor Sir Harold Shea. Do not, pray, take offense at our curiosity; but we should like to know whence you obtained those appellations of rank, 'Doctor' and 'Sir'?"

Shea smiled easily. "Your Majesty, the 'Doctor' was awarded in consequence of my studies at the Garaden Institute in the mundane world, and I was dubbed a knight by the warrior lady Britomart in the world of The Faerie Queene."

"Of what sort were these studies whereof you speak?"

"In the workings of the human mind, Madam."

"Perhaps we should keep you with us, to unravel the mystery of why people, living secure and comfortable lives, persist natheless in acts of mischief, dishonesty, and violence. But now tell us what you would of us, pray."

When Shea had again told the story of Walter Bayard's stranding in mythological Ireland, Ozma sat quietly for some time. Twice she leaned forward and seemed about to speak but then sank back on her throne. At last she spoke, not to Shea but to a flunkey:

"Where is our consort?"

"My last knowledge, Your Majesty, is that he was on the tennis courts."

"Kindly request him to join us in the Audience Room." She turned back to Shea. "Sir Harold, you appear to have led a lively career, leaping from world to world. Whilst we wait, will you tell us of one of your adventures?"

"Gladly, Your Majesty," said Shea. "When I sojourned in the iron castle of the enchanter Atlantes, in the world of the Orlando Furioso Shea was telling how he and Polacek had bribed the goblin Odoro to fetch them a bottle of liquor in the nonalcoholic Muslimoid environment, when the consort entered, carrying a tennis racquet. King Evardo was a tall, lean, well-muscled man, with blond hair streaked with gray. He wore shorts and a T-shirt, and sweat beaded his features.

The flunkey made introductions, and Shea repeated his bow. To his surprise, Evardo thrust out a large hand. Shea shook it and got the impression of a crushing grip, deliberately held back from its full power.

"A pleasure, Sir Harold!" boomed the consort, wiping his face with the towel a flunkey handed him. He turned to Ozma. "What's the problem this time, darling?"

On request, Shea repeated the tale of Bayard's stranding. He ended: "... So I thought that if Your Majesties would use the Belt to fetch Bayard here and then send us both home ..."

"I see." said King Evardo. looking through narrowed lids.

Ozma spoke: "It sounds like a praiseworthy enterprise—"

She broke off as Evardo raised a hand. The consort said: "My darling is sometimes a trifle impulsive, perhaps a bit over-accommodating. This is a lovable quality in a spouse but unrealistic in a ruler. Assuming that we can, with the Belt, accomplish these feats, wherein lies the benefit to the Kingdom of Oz?" After a pause, he added: "To put it in the mundane vernacular, what's in it for us?"

"I—I hadn't thought," said Shea. "What could I possibly do for Your Majesties?"

"One task stares us in the face, namely: the rescue of our son Oznev from captivity by the Gnome King."

"Huh? Do you mean old Ruggedo? I thought you had turned him into a potted cactus!"

Evardo gave a grim chuckle. "So we had; or to be exact, so our friend the elf Himself had. But Ruggedo's former chancellor, Kaliko, succeeded him. Kaliko's a less contrary, cantankerous character than old Rug. but you trust either at your own risk.

Anyhow, we sent Oznev off to visit his cousins in Ev, during his summer vacation from Wogglebug U. Then, when we looked in Ozma's magic picture to see how he was getting on, it showed us poor Oznev chained in an underground cell. Next we got a note from Kaliko, delivered by messenger bat, saying he would trade the boy for the Belt. If we didn't agree, he would send Oznev home—but a piece at a time.

"So, what do you expect me to do?" asked Shea.

"We'll transport you to Ev by the Belt, dropping you off near the Gnome King's western palace, which is actually a glorified cave. We'll give you a chart, showing how to find the entrance to the Kingdom of Gnomicia. Once inside, you're on your own."

"If you know where Oznev is, why can't you fetch him home by the Belt?"

"Because the Gnome Kingdom is so well protected by magical barriers and counter-spells that no device like our Belt can get through into it. We can just barely bring it into focus in our magic picture. The Royal Wizard of Gnomicia, Doctor Potaroo, set them up and keeps adding new ones. Other wizards call Potaroo a fifth-rater, but there's nothing fifth-rate about his magical defenses."

Shea said: "I understand that Gnomicia is a labyrinth of caves and tunnels, in which an outsider could easily get lost."

"Right you are!" said Evardo.

"Then how do you expect me to find my way around it? Wandering through miles of tunnels wouldn't do your son a bit of good. Do you know a trustworthy guide?"

Ozma spoke: "The only person in Oz who knows the tunnels is Ruggedo—"

"What!" exploded Evardo. "We mustn't even think of turning that villainous old scundermuch loose on an innocent world!"

"Perhaps, if he promised to reform—" began Ozma.

"Darling! He's promised that before, more than once, and each time he backslid. It's out of the question, Sir Harold."

"Then," said Shea, "I'm sorry, but I really don't see how I can help you in this matter. Of course, Your Majesties and several of Her Majesty's subjects, like Princess Dorothy, have been in the caverns and come out again, but I don't suppose—"

"You don't suppose correctly, snapped Evardo. "It's true that the Queen and some of our friends have visited Gnomicia, but only briefly, seeing but a small fraction of the complex. Your chances of finding Oznev were as good if you went in cold as they would be with, say, the Scarecrow or Tik-Tok as guide ..."

The argument growled on and on, Shea refusing to agree without a sure guide, living or documentary; the royal couple refusing to help recover Bayard unless Shea undertook the mission. At last Shea suggested:

"Maybe Ruggedo would be so pleased by a chance to oust Kaliko and get his throne back that he'd be glad not only to show me around but also to stay there, without further conditions. I believe he did once recover his kingdom but wasn't allowed to keep it."

Evardo sighed. "I still wouldn't trust him any farther than I could throw a chimney by the smoke. Sometimes you mundanes are too sharp for us poor, simple fairylanders. Let's drop the subject and take it up again tomorrow, when the Queen and I have discussed it. You are welcome to dine and pass the night in the palace."

The audience resumed at ten the next morning. Evardo said: "Sir Harold, the Queen and I have decided to take you up on your proposal to give Ruggedo back his gnomish form. Then we shall see if hell fall in with our scheme. Pray come with us to the conservatory, good my sir!"

Following the royal couple and a brace of guards. Shea ducked right and left to avoid masses of greenery. The air was steamy. Evardo and Ozma stopped at a long bench on which were lined up flowerpots containing spiny and prickly plants, such as cacti, agaves, and thistles.

"Here they are," said Evardo, indicating two pots at the end, in which stood prickly-pear cacti of the genus Opuntia. "Are you sure you know which is which, my dear?"

"Certainly," said Ozma. "The tall one is the King of Silver Mountain, and the short is Ruggedo. He used to be fat and tubby, but all his efforts to best the Ozites wore him down."

"All right, my dear," said Evardo. "Just a minute while I fetch some more guards to grab Ruggedo. in case he tries something ..."

Evardo was gone for several minutes. During this time, Ozma showed Shea the rare plants in the conservatory, explaining the provenience and properties of each. Evardo returned with another pair of stalwart, sword-armed guards in palace livery. He handed Ozma a wand and a small phial, saying:

"Number three-forty; isn't that the one you wanted?"

"Yes. Everybody quiet, now."

The Queen made passes with the wand, speaking words of power in an undertone. At last she poured the contents of the phial over one of the cacti, crying:

"Awaken!"

The flowerpot burst into fragments, spilling dirt across the bench and on the floor, as the cactus changed into an aged gnome, sitting on the bench amid potsherds and the dirt in which he had been planted. His first word was:

"Ouch!"

Ruggedo pulled a large, jagged potsherd out from beneath him and threw it away. Then he slid down from the bench and ducked a bow to the royal couple, saying in a creaky voice:

"Well, well! Queen Ozma, or I'll be egged! But how you've grown! I should hardly know you but for that fancy fillet you always wore. What in Oz has been happening? Have centuries passed while I was under that villainous leprechaun's spell?''

"No," said Ozma. "A few years after Himself enchanted you and the King of Silver Mountain, a youth studying magic accidentally canceled the aging-stasis spell."

"So now Ozites die of old age as other folk do, without waiting for an accident to get them?" Ruggedo gave a sneering laugh.

"That is right. It makes less difference than one might think, because our natural lives are longer than those of mundanes to begin with."

"And what befell the King of Silver Mountain? Did he become a plant, too?"

Ozma pointed her wand. "Your fellow cactus."

"Well, strike my topsails! You will have to give me some time to gather my wits. And who are these other people?"

Shea remembered that Ruggedo had led a brief career as a pirate captain; the locutions of that milieu had evidently remained with him. Ozma said:

"My beloved husband, King Evardo of Ev, and Doctor Sir Harold Shea, a mundane."

Ruggedo chuckled. "Well, well, little Evardo! You've grown even more than she has!"

"And you've lost a lot of weight," said King Evardo, "since the time you turned me into a piece of bric-a-brac on a shelf in your palace." He added: "As you have already guessed, Sir Harold, you behold the former Gnome King, Ruggedo the Rough, a.k.a. Roquat the Red, a.k.a. the Metal Monarch. He used to be as round as a grapefruit."

Ruggedo sighed. "Life has been hard, especially that five-year stretch as a mute peddler. You have no idea how difficult it is to give customers a hard sell without a voice. No wonder I was starved down to a skinny old swabbie! The things that have befallen me in trying to recover my just rights!"

"You look better skinny," said Evardo. "You used to resemble a grape or an olive with toothpicks stuck to it."

Ruggedo put his fists on his hips. "Very funny, ha-ha. Now then, don't tell me you've revived me just out of the goodness of your hearts. Ozma just might, but I judge you, fellow monarch, to be a tougher character. You were as a boy. So what do you want of me?"

The gnome glared defiantly. Evardo said: "Just to act as a guide to Sir Harold into Gnomicia, that's all. And to help him to rescue our son—Ozma's and mine—from captivity by your successor Kaliko."

"So Kaliko worked a snatch on royalty?" Ruggedo snickered. "As chancellor, he was always warning me against overreaching; and here he's done the same fool thing himself! The last thing I said to him, when he threw me out of my kingdom the second time, was not to mess with the Ozites. I had tried every way I could think of and come a cropper each time. But some people don't learn from others' experience."

"And power corrupts," added Evardo. "Well, how about it? Will you undertake this quest?"

Ruggedo looked sly. "Yes, if you will give me back my Belt."

"Out of the question! We'll use it to send you and Sir Harold to your western entrance."

"No Belt, no guide," snapped Ruggedo, crossing his arms on his chest.

"Of course," said Ozma casually, "I can always turn you back into a cactus."

"Go ahead! At least it's painless, though life as a potted plant is pretty dull. Almost as tedious as being a walnut or a crockery jug, both of which I know from experience."

Shea spoke: "King Ruggedo, this trip would give you a chance to oust Kaliko and resume your kingship."

"Hmm. I'll think it over. If you offered the Belt along with this rescue mission, I'd say 'yes' like a shot."

"Forget the Belt!" roared Evardo. "Guide and help Sir Harold, and you shall have a chance at your former kingdom. Otherwise, not."

Ruggedo's normally gray complexion flushed an angry red. "You mean," he shouted, "that even if I do you a vital service, you still won't return my own hard-earned property?" The gnome began to hop about, and his voice rose to a scream. "You're all just a band of bandits, thieves, robbers! You pretend to be so noble and virtuous, but it's all a sham! Hypocrites! Plunderers!"

The gnome seized a small flowerpot holding a plant, raised it high, and hurled it to the floor with a mighty smash, sending dirt and potsherds flying.

"Grab him!" said Evardo to the guards. Two stalwarts seized Ruggedo's arms and held him fast despite his yells and struggles.

"Oh, my poor Ragbadian daffodil!" cried Ozma, stooping to pick up the remains of the plant.

"You two," said Evardo to the remaining guards, "find another flowerpot, put the dirt back in—as much as you can—and replant the bulb. We may save it."

Shea said: "In the mundane world, back when monarchs really ruled, anyone who spoke that way to a king or queen would soon find himself shorter by a head."

Ozma smiled. "We know old Rug." Then to the gnome: "You might as well calm down, Rug. You make much of your property rights in the Belt. But, you see, we know the story of how you obtained it in the first place."

"That was entirely different!" said Ruggedo. "You haven't heard my side of the tale—"

Evardo interrupted "Later; some other time. We're getting off the subject. Do you accept our deal or not? Don't hope that, once in Gnomicia, you can hatch another plot against us. We shall watch you."

Ruggedo looked hurt. "What, me plot against Your Majesties? Perish the thought! I tried that several times without success and hope I have learned a few things in my centuries. Since I have this time really resolved to reform, I will agree to your terms, unfair though I deem them."

"Very well," said Evardo. "When shall we send you off? Tomorrow?"

"just a minute, Your Majesty!" said Shea. "You haven't fetched Bayard yet."

"After you have released Prince Oznev," said Evardo. "Not before."

"But Bayard is a big, strong fellow, and very smart I'll need his help, especially if it comes to a fight "

"No."

"Then no rescue mission. You can turn Ruggedo back into a cactus "

"Dear," said Ozma, "we had better consult on this. Will you gentlemen excuse us?"

She swept out, followed by Evardo and two guards. The other two guards remained, glowering uneasily at Ruggedo. The gnome said to Shea:

"Who is this Bayard? What's this all about? Since I've been a dumb plant for I don't know how long, you can't expect me to sound very intelligent."

Shea repeated the tale of Bayard's stranding in Eriu. Answering Ruggedo's questions, he was in the midst of a summary of twentieth-century mundane history when the royal couple returned. Evardo said:

"How is this, Sir Harold? We will get out the Belt and fetch Bayard from that barbarous world wherein he dwells. Rut we will not send him to Gnomicia with you. On such a mission, two is fine but three is a crowd, more likely to be discovered.

"Instead, Bayard shall remain here until you return from your quest. If you perish in the attempt or, despite valiant efforts, fail from circumstances beyond your control, we will send him—or the twain of you, as the case may be—back to your mundane world. Fair enough?"

"In other words," said Shea, "you'll hold Bayard as a hostage."

"That's a crude way of putting it, he'll be very well treated. And I would not insult a dubbed knight by implying that he might slip away and run out on his obligations.

"I'll buy it," said Shea, "provided you equip me with enough magical gadgets to enable me to succeed."

"The Queen and I shall consider the matter and outfit you in the morning."

On a small table before Ozma's throne lay two round, woollen, peakless caps. When Shea picked one up, he found it so much like the common Mediterranean beret that, when he looked inside, he expected to read Fabriqué en France or Producto de España.

"Don't put it on yet," said Evardo, standing beside the throne. "They art; the best we could find in the magical arsenal. Most of our magical devices will not work in Gnomicia because of Potaroo's counter-spells. These tarncaps will, I am sure. They are set for full charge, so they will render your clothes as well as your body invisible."

Shea: "The lesser charge, which would affect only my physical person, wouldn't be very practical, would it?"

Evardo smiled. "We wouldn't ask you to strip naked before invading the Gnome Kingdom. I can think of base uses to which persons of low morals might put a tarncap—

"Evardo!" said Ozma sternly.

Evardo sighed. "My dear! I was only thinking of the loot an invisible thief could garner, and that therefore we must keep these headpieces under strict control. What had you in mind?"

"Never mind!"

She suppressed a grin. Ozites, he thought, had some remarkably Victorian attitudes. Ozma and Dorothy Gale, close friends as girls, had evidently matured with similar ideas on the management of husbands. He said:

"Your Majesties! We'll need three caps, one for Oznev when and if we release him and are on our way out. You said yourselves you couldn't use the Belt to snatch us away until we're free of the caves. Hadn't we better take a look in your magic picture to see what we'll need?"

"Right on both counts, Sir Harold," said Evardo. "Let's take a look, my dear."

Looking at the magic picture, Shea said: "We mundanes have a thing somewhat like this, called a television screen. But we can't always see what we wish, and much of what is shown gets pretty tedious."

Ozma, facing the picture, placed her fingers against her temples and whispered. Presently the scene in the picture, a conventional landscape with trees and a waterfall, faded. Instead, the picture darkened, showing an adolescent youth on a bench in some sort of crypt or dungeon. Stout chains joined the gyves on his wrists and ankles to massive staples set in the masonry.

"Is the cell barred?" asked Shea.

Ozma whispered some more, and the view moved back from the prisoner. There was indeed a set of bars with a door closing the front of the cell, but the door stood ajar.

"Shiver my strakes!" growled Ruggedo. "Kaliko's a careless sort of king. When I ruled, any jailer who left cell doors open would be fed to the slicing machine!"

"Next," said Shea, "assuming we gain entrance to the cell, how do we dispose of the chains and handcuffs?

Picking locks is not one of my skills. Haven't you a wand or something I could zap the chains with?"

"I fear not," said Evardo. "If we had, it probably wouldn't work in Gnomicia."

"Is there a bolt cutter in Oz?"

"I know not, but I shall find out."

The next day saw Shea at the royal smithy, trying to explain to the royal smith, with the help of a diagram, the principles of a bolt cutter.

Back in the informal reception room of the palace Shea told the royal couple: "I think I got the idea over, but his first try at a bolt cutter may not work. The last I saw, he was muttering spells over a piece of bar stock. Are you going to fetch Bayard now?"

"Yes; we were waiting for you," said Ozma. She wore a wide belt that reminded Shea of the belts favored by motorcycle gangsters. She leaned forward, closed her eyes, waved a wand in an intricate pattern, and whispered. With a floomp of displaced air, something bulky landed with a bang on the carpet. Blinking in surprise, Shea realized that the object was a large bed of primitive construction, with a rough-hewn wooden dame and a network of rope in lieu of a mattress.

Moreover, the bed was occupied by two persons, who thrust up heads beyond the end of the blanket. One was that of a big man with a bushy brown beard; the other, that of a red-haired, pale-skinned young woman. As they sat up, the blanket fell down to reveal that both were naked, at least to the waist. The woman snatched up the edge of the blanket to cover herself, emitting a shriek:

"Fomorians! 'Tis a pair of dead corps that we are!"

The bearded man blinked, stared around, and finally said: "Hi, Harold! I thought you'd get me out sooner or later. But where did you get us out to?

"The Land of Oz," replied Shea. "These are Queen Ozma and her consort, King Evardo of Ev. This is Ruggedo, the former Gnome King. Doctor Walter Bayard, Your Majesties. Sorry to have snatched you at an inconvenient time, Walter."

Bayard bowed as best he could sitting up in bed. "Pleased to meet Your Majesties. Excuse my not getting up, but as you see I don't have on my court dress. This—" (he indicated the red-haired girl) "—is my caile dhonn. otherwise Mistress Boann Ni Colum. Tell me, Harold, are the people here as fussy about exposure as those of mythical Ireland?"

"We observe the normal decencies," said Ozma.

"Then," continued Bayard imperturbably, "may we borrow some clothes? Had we but known in advance ..."

Ozma gave orders to a bodyguard, who departed. Shea said: "I didn't know you with the whiskers, Walter."

"A druid without a beard is no druid at all."

"You're a druid now?"

Bayard smiled. "I got to the third degree in the order of Vates or wise men. A little modern psychology, tactfully applied, put me so far ahead of the competition that it was no contest."

The guard came back with four muscular flunkeys, who carried out the bed. Ozma explained:

"I'm putting them in the fourteenth guest room, with clothes to don. Do they wear clothes in this mythological Ireland, Sir Harold?"

"Indeed they do! In that climate, without them everyone would die of pneumonia."

Bayard appeared in green knee breeches, shirt, and vest; Mistress Boann, in a gauzy gown that Shea suspected of being one of Ozma's castoffs. Bayard bowed ceremoniously saying:

"I thank Your Majesties with profound gratitude." After a gracious royal dismissal, Bayard asked:

"Harold, where's Belphebe? I'd have expected to see her with you."

"Home having a baby," said Shea.

"Congratulations. I'm surprised she let you go, even to spring me from the land of poetical headhunters."

Shea frowned. "On the contrary, it was she who insisted I go. I think she feels somehow guilty over the fact that it's to be a girl. She comes of a culture that rates sons far and away above daughters. I explained about Y chromosomes and told her over and over the gender didn't matter, and I'd be delighted whichever it was; but she feels she's somehow failed me. So she practically bullied me into going before the kid was due. Silly, but there it is."

Later that day, King Evardo said: "Sir Harold, may I speak with you privily, whilst the Queen shows our new guests around the palace? In my cabinet, pray. This way. "

"Okay, Your Majesty," said Shea. "Spill it."

Seated behind a big desk, Evardo twiddled his fingers uncertainly. "This subject is a trifle awkward, but the Queen insists. Your comrade Bayard and his— ah—Mistress Ni Colum are plainly on intimate terms. But—ah—is their union legitimate;?"

"You mean, are they married?"

"Precisely, Sir Harold. You see, the Queen insists on the strictest standards, at least in the palace. Our new arrivals seem to expect assignment to the same quarters, but our rules cannot be stretched to cover— ah—irregular unions. Which is it in this case?"

Shea suppressed a snigger. "I don't know how they do it in the world of Irish myth. From what I recall of the legends—which may or may not accurately describe conditions in Eriu—they were pretty free and easy about sex, although puritanical about nudity. A chief could demand that a subject lend him his wife for a few nights.''

"Galloping Growleywogs!" cried Evardo in horrified tones. "We can't have that sort of thing here!"

"Of course not," said Shea soothingly. "Erin's a pretty barbarous world; I've been there. But my impression is that if a man and a woman set up house together, they were married by definition. You could say Walter and Boann were married by the local laws and customs of the place where they met."

Evardo frowned. "I know not how far that tale will go to convince the Queen, but I'll try. I was a little surprised when Doctor Bayard made no objection to being left here, as a kind of polite hostage, whilst you and Ruggedo set forth on your adventure."

Shea shrugged "Walter's an easygoing fellow who takes things as they come, and he's seen enough adventure not to feel a need to seek it for its own sake. I'm sure he'd have come if he'd been asked. And he'll have certain—ah—amenities here that I shall lack."

Evardo smiled. "I take it you mean Mistress Ni Colum. I deem myself broad-minded, but pray do not speak thus lightly on such matters to the Queen. She might take offense.''

As you say, sir. I, too, have a strong-minded wife."

"How goes your bolt cutter?"

"The first one worked badly. The smith says he has trouble spacing the pivot pins correctly. He's familiar with scissors and pincers with a single pivot, but five in one tool baffle him. He's working on another model now."

"If I remember aright," said Ruggedo's creaky old voice, "the entrance ought to be just over yonder ridge."

"That's what the chart shows," said Shea.

Shea finished his lunch, while Ruggedo put away the concertina on which he had been playing a melancholy tune.

"Then let's go," said Shea, with a pack on his back and his saber at his side. "You lead, since you know the country."

The somber crags of western Ev rose all around them, occluding the cloudy sky to right and left and before and behind. Ruggedo tramped ahead, seeming to gather strength from contact with his native soil. He briskly poled along with a bill from the royal armory of Oz, well stocked by King Evarelo after he became Royal Consort.

This was the weapon Ruggedo had chosen over an assortment of swords, axes, maces, pikes, halberds, crossbows, and arquebuses. (When Shea saw these primitive firearms, he regretted not having brought a pistol with him, since it might work in this milieu.) When Shea had questioned the choice of the bill, Ruggedo, drawing himself up to his full four and a half feet, challenged him to a practice bout, quarterstaff against wooden sword.

Padded and masked, the two squared off. In no time, Ruggedo poked Shea in the belly with the end of the quarterstaff. Shea demanded two out of three. On the second bout, he managed to drag out the match until Ruggedo began to pant and weaken, when Shea got him in the chest with a lunge.

Shea thought he had the third bout in the bag. But it had hardly begun when he received a crack over the head, which made him see stars despite the padding.

"You see, my boy," grinned Ruggedo, "it's not the particular kind of weapon so much as knowing how to use it."

Ruggedo's bill was a six-foot spear with a head that included, besides the foot-long steel blade, a hook on one side and a point on the other. It was shod with a pointed bronzen butt, which could be thrust with. Shea was girt with his saber. Ruggedo, marching ahead, snarled:

"Klumping Kaloogas, Sir Harold, hold that thing so it doesn't clank! The Long-Eared Hearer could hear us a mile away."

Shea grasped the scabbard in his left hand. This silenced the clank but also made his footing less certain. He stumbled over a rock and cursed beneath his breath, wishing he had something he could use as a walking stick. lie could have drawn his sword, but the thought of marring the needle point and razor edge he had painstakingly given it dissuaded him.

"Clumsy clodpate!" muttered Ruggedo.

They plodded along a winding trail, which led zigzag up one side of the ridge and down the other. Something flew overhead with harsh screams. It was neither a bird, a bat, nor a pterosaur but combined a little of all three.

The distance was greater than Shea had thought. After a time they stopped for a respite.

"Sir Harold," grated Ruggedo, "isn't 'Shea' an Irish name in the mundane world?"

"I believe it is. But my people have been American SO long it doesn't matter."

"Humph! That's what Himself the elf used to say. Claimed he was an American leprechaun from New Jersey. I'll never trust any being more than one-sixty-fourth Irish, after what that treacherous elf did to me. What did you do for a living in the mundane world?"

"Psychologist," panted Shea.

"What's that? And don't try to confuse me with fancy words!"

"A man who studies the workings of the human mind."

"Humph! If you be so learned and all, then tell me: Why does everybody hate me so?"

"That's a hell of a question to spring on a poor innocent foreigner!"

"Well? Do von mean that, with all your studies, you still can't answer a simple question?" Ruggedo snorted contempt.

"Well, now," drawled Shea, gathering his mental forces, "let's look into the matter. From all I've heard about you, you are two things that, together, account for the phenomenon. One: You're an unscrupulous, treacherous, selfish. greedy, lying, thieving scoundrel.

"You've been reading what those mundanes wrote!" cried Ruggedo. beginning to dance with rage. "They got half the story wrong and the rest distorted. That writer couldn't even spell 'gnome' right. A farrago of half'-truths, errors, and outright lies—"

"Hold on!" said Shea, raising his voice. "You haven't heard the rest, yet. If you want my answer, then shut up until I finish!"

Ruggedo, grumbling, subsided. Shea continued: "In the mundane world, we'd call you a paranoid sociopath. At the same time you're an irascible, ornery, cantankerous, ill-mannered, bad-tempered old grouch. Now one—"

"Lies! Vile calumnies!" yelled Ruggedo.

"Do you want the rest of my answer or don't you? All right, then, hold your tongue until you hear it! I was saying that some scoundrels are successful, provided they are also polite, affable, obliging, winsome charmers. In the mundane world we had a charming scoundrel of that kind, who knew something of the world I accidentally touched down in on my way to Oz. He became enormously rich despite being an even bigger villain than you've ever been.

"On the other hand, even a cantankerous grouch can be admired if he also practices honesty, kindness, generosity, and unselfishness long and hard enough. Why, do you wish no longer to be hated?"

Ruggedo grunted a vague assent. "Suppose so."

"Then you must either stop being a treacherous etcetera scoundrel or stop being an irascible etcetera grouch. If you managed to cure both, you might become as beloved as Queen Ozma."

"Humph!" growled Ruggedo. "You give me one Hades of a choice. It's not easy to change at my age; but I'll think it over. I tried to reform before, several times; but my good resolutions never seemed to stick. Still, it would be nice, just once, to be known as a good king. Come on!"

Off went the gnome, poling himself along with his bill. They crossed the crest and picked their way down the other side of the ridge. Ruggedo halted in front of a recess in the rocks, which looked like the entrance to a tunnel blocked by a granite door.

"Sure you remember the way?" asked Shea.

"Of course, nitwit! I once got my throne back from Kaliko, and I'd have had it yet but for that sanctimonious little meddler Ozma." Ruggedo flourished his beret. "Time to put em on," he whispered, donning the tarncap.

At once the gnome disappeared, save that by staring hard in the gloom, Shea could just make out a pair of disembodied eyeballs hanging in space. Shea put on his own cap, saving:

"How shall we keep together?"

"I'll raise this pike high enough so the point shows," said Ruggedo. "Keep your eye on it!"

The gnome then rapped the door with his knuckles in a peculiar pattern and uttered a warbling whistle. The door groaned open.

"Come on, stupid!" whispered Ruggedo. "Hurry!"

Shea started after the gnome but, trying to keep his eyes on the barely visible spearhead, tripped and fell full-length, tearing a hole in his breeches' right knee. The scabbarded sword struck the ground with a clank.

"Awkward ass!" groaned Ruggedo. "If that doesn't alert them, an earthquake wouldn't!"

Shea felt stringy but powerful arms invisibly helping him up. In they went.

The tunnel was not so dark as Shea had feared. Along the walls, enormous faceted gems—or at least prismatic glassy objects that looked like enormous gems—were set in the rock and shed soft lights: ruby, emerald, and other hues. The footing became more even, but Shea still had to look down with every limping step to avoid another fall.

Rasping voices wafted from ahead. As the invaders approached, Shea saw a pair of gnomish sentries, each standing in a recess in the sides of the tunnel. They held halberds somewhat like Ruggedo's bill, slantwise so that their shafts intersected at about man-height. The gnomes complained in growls:

"... that cursed sergeant has it in for me. Nothing I do pleases him."

"Trouble with you, Ungo, is that nothing pleases you. If you were told you had no duties at all, you'd crab about that ..."

"How shall we get past?" whispered Shea.

"Crawl, idiot!" The eyeballs sank down to within two feet of the tunnel floor.

Shea got down to hands and knees, wincing at the pain in his injured knee. He would, he thought, leave a trail of blood wherever the knee touched ground.

Silently Ruggedo and Shea crept beneath the halberds and past the sentries, one of whom said: "I feel something's going on, Ungo. We both heard that clank."

"Too much imagination," rasped the other. "You'll get ulcers, worrying over every little sound.

Past the sentries, Ruggedo and Shea arose and resumed their way. For an hour they stole through tunnels, now and then choosing among alternative branches. Shea tried to remember the choices, since he depended for guidance on Ruggedo. He kept repeating to himself: right once, left twice, past three side tunnels ... But soon the number of forks and branches surpassed his ability to remember which was which. A few times, groups of gnomes approached them from the tunnel ahead, and they had to slip into side passages until the parties had gone past.

They passed chambers in which gnomes were noisily at work: mending weapons, polishing gems, and other gnomish tasks. A smell of cooking came from one cavern, in which female gnomes, no prettier than the males, bustled about.

They passed a huge assembly room, lined with doors of gleaming metal and commanded by an overhanging balcony. The hall was empty save for a few gnomes polishing panels of gold and silver in the doors.

At last they turned into a downward-sloping, foul-smelling corridor. A few steps brought them to a spacious chamber, against the far wall of which yawned a row of cells. At the entrance, a gnome sat on a high chair and smoked a long-stemmed pipe.

Ruggedo walked briskly to within reach of the seated gnome and smote him over the head with the shaft of his bill. The pipe fell clattering, and the gnome slumped and fell after it.

"Come on!" hissed Ruggedo. "There's the cell we want, Number Six! The lazy bastards have left 'em all open, to save the trouble of locking and unlocking."

On the bench at the back of the cell sat the stripling whom Shea had seen in the magic picture. As the rescuers entered the cell, Shea spoke:

"Prince Oznev, can you hear me?"

The youth sat up with a start. "Who—what—where are you?"

"In your cell, invisible. We've come to get you out. Don't shout or do anything foolish!"

Shea reached into his pack and putted out the bolt cutter. If it had worked on small-gage bar stock in the smithy in Oz, it ought to function here. He snipped off the chains near the cuffs on Oznev's wrists and ankles.

"But who are you?" said the youth. "All I see is two pairs of eyes floating around."

"I'm Sir Harold Shea, and this is ex-king Ruggedo," snapped Shea, snipping the final link. "Now come along, son; no time to lose. Here, put this on your head!"

"What is it?"

"A tarncap, to make you invisible like us."

"It seems a cowardly sort of trick. A prince should face his enemies in plain sight!"

"Oh, lord!" said Shea. "Rug, we've got a terminal case of chivalrous scruples."

"Leave the brat if he won't come sensibly," growled the gnome.

"Can't." Shea stepped close to Oznev and, with a quick motion, jammed the third beret down on the head of the young prince, who disappeared. "There, Your Highness. I put it on you, so it's not your fault you're wearing it."

"I'll take it off!" muttered the invisible Oznev.

"You do, and I'll knock your royal block off!" snarled Shea. "Now come along like a good princeling!" Shea felt around and caught Oznev's wrist.

"Sir Harold!" rasped Ruggedo. "The sentry's gone!"

"Must have come to and gone to spread the alarm," said Shea. "Better run for it. Pick up your feet, Your Highness, if you don't want a tumble!"

From another cell came a rattle of chains and a cry: "Hey, get me out, too!" Similar cries and chainy sounds came from other cells.

Ignoring these appeals, the three dashed up the sloping passage and then along the labyrinth of tunnels, turning right and left at forks. The ex-king, trotting ahead, made the turns without hesitation. Shea hoped Ruggedo's memory of his kingly days did not play him false.

They passed more work rooms, all of which, earlier lull of gnomes, now yawned empty.

"Where have they all gone?" Shea called, as loudly as he dared.

"Kaliko's probably making a speech," panted Ruggedo. "From what—I hear, lie's gotten pompous. You know—how it is with us kings, surrounded by flunkeys—and flatterers. Flattery—rots the brain."

"Better save your breath, Rug," said Shea.

On and on they went. Shea heard a buzz ahead, indicating a crowd of gnomes. The light grew, and the fugitives came in sight of the hall of assembly.

They glanced inside, where thousands of gnomes now crowded the floor. On the balcony, picked out by spotlights, stood a beardless gnome in glittering regalia. Gnomes in gleaming armor, holding spears and swords, flanked the central figure.

"Wait!" said Ruggedo. "I want to hear him."

The robed and crowned gnome, evidently King Kaliko, had just launched into a speech. To Shea it sounded like a thousand other soporific political speeches that he had heard or read:

"... We must seize the moment ... Productivity must rise ... Family discipline; should be tightened ... We must be alert against foreign influences, especially of the subversive' plots of the skulking Ruggedo ... We must rid ourselves of bureaucratic waste ... Beware those who plot against us ... My reign has brought prosperity, despite the damage by my foolish predecessor and the grumbles of malcontents ..."

Another gnome, in gnomish working clothes, pushed through the attendants on the balcony. "Your Majesty! I have news of moment!"

The newcomer looked like the jailer whom Ruggedo had stunned, although Shea did not know gnomes well enough to tell one clearly from another. Kaliko turned upon the newcomer, shouting:

"What mean you, knave, interrupting my speech?"

"But, sire, this is important! Surfacers have invaded—"

Kaliko roared: "Here, I decide what is important! Take him away!

Shea glanced at Ruggedo, or at least at what he thought were Ruggedo's eyeballs. Ruggedo was muttering and, from the jiggle of the eyeballs, dancing about in a rising paroxysm of rage. Then Ruggedo's beret came off in the gnome's hand.

Before Shea could interfere, Ruggedo hurled the tarncap to the floor and dashed into the chamber. He ran a few steps along the wall, past some of the golden and silver doors, until he came to a plinth, on which stood a statue of a gnome in combat with a monster. With a muscle-cracking effort, Ruggedo tipped over the statue, which crashed to the floor. The old gnome vaulted atop the plinth, waved his bill above his head, and screamed:

"Gnomes! I am Ruggedo the Rough, your rightful king! Rally to me against that pompous fool of a usurper!"

For a few seconds, silence fell. A stout gnome clashed to the plinth and knelt, crying:

"Hail, King Ruggedo! It is I, former chancellor Shoofenwaller! Hail to our true and rightful king!"

The audience burst into a roar of talk, questions, and argument. Kaliko yelled from the balcony and Ruggedo shouted from his plinth, but their words were lost in the din. Calls to arms resounded.

More and more gnomes clustered round Ruggedo's plinth. The gnomes had at first been unarmed, but now weapons began to gleam. Steel clanged and wounded gnomes screamed.

"Come on, Oznev," said Shea, pulling the prince after him. The hall of assembly, he thought, was near enough to the western entrance to enable them to find their way out without Ruggedo.

"Wait!" said Oznev's voice. "A prince should stand by his comrades! I must help Ruggedo in his fight for the throne!"

The prince wrenched loose and pulled off his tarncap. As he raised his arm to throw it away as Ruggedo had done, Shea, who had half drawn his sword, whipped out the weapon and smote Oznev on the head with the pommel.

The prince collapsed. Shea sheathed his blade, snatched up the discarded tarncap, and jammed it down on Oznev's head. Then he picked up the stripling and slung him over one shoulder. This took all of Shea's strength, because Shea was of no more than average size. He could not have done it if Oznev had been as big as, say, Walter Bayard.

Inside the chamber, partisans of Kaliko and Ruggedo coalesced into discrete masses. Other gnomes passed among them, handing out weapons. A roar of combat drowned all other sounds. Shea stumbled over a gnome's head, which rolled, trickling blood, out of the hall of assembly and into the corridor.

Shea limped and staggered along the tunnel, away from the hall. His battered knee hurt like blazes.

Then a figure popped out of a side tunnel. As it neared, Shea saw, by the light of the luminous gems, a human being in gnomish costume.

"Halt!" shouted this one. "I see your eyeballs! You cannot escape!"

The man advanced, swinging a sword right and left, high and low, to keep anyone from slipping past him.

He was a huge man with long arms, so that he covered the entire tunnel with his sweeps. Closer he came.

"One of Ozma's tricks!" roared the man. "Well, she can't fool Dranol Drabbo! Have at you, spook!"

Another step would bring the man within swords length of Shea, who let the limp Prince Oznev slide to the floor. He had not completely drawn his own sword when Drabbo aimed a slash that, had it gotten home, would have sent Shea's head rolling like that of the gnome.

Shea did a quick squat. The sword whistled over his head, sending his tarncap flying.

"I knew it! yelled Dranol Drabbo, making a running attack. Shea parried and backed, backed and parried. Dranol Drabbo was a stout fighter and a skilled cut-and-thrust swordsman, who wielded a long, heavy blade as easily as if it had been a flyswatter. In parrying one mighty downward cut, Shea's sword, on which he had lavished such care, broke off a hand's breadth from the hilt.

Dranol Drabbo threw himself forward in a lunge. His point struck Shea's chest, and the force of the blow knocked Shea off his feet. His mailshirt, however, kept the point from piercing his skin.

Shea scrambled up, reaching for his bowie knife. But Dranol Drabbo was hopping about, clawing at something invisible that clung to his back.

Shea sprang forward and whacked Dranol Drabbo's skull thrice with the flat of his oversized, machete-like knife. Dranol Drabbo sank to a sitting position, not completely unconscious.

"Good!" cried Oznev's voice as the prince untangled himself from Dranol Drabbo. "I couldn't desert you in a fight, either. Here's your cap."

"Just a second," said Shea. Reaching down Dranol Drabbo's back, he sawed through the man's belt with his knife.

"Okay," he said. "Now run for it!"

Soon they reached the western entrance, with Shea limping heavily. A glance back showed Dranol Drabbo, small in the distance, staggering to his feet. When the man started in pursuit, his breeches fell down, and Drabbo went to hands and knees. His roars of frustration echoed down the tunnel.

"My head aches like fury," said Oznev. "What hit me?"

"The force of destiny," said Shea. "Why didn't you kill him?"

"Wasn't necessary, and experience teaches that today's friend may be tomorrow's foe and vice versa. Waste not, want not."

Shea hobbled along the trail. They had not gone a hundred paces outside the caves when Shea felt the now familiar symptoms of magical teleportation—the fading of the scene, the misty whirl of colored dots ...

"Well!" said Queen Ozma when she and King Evardo had embraced their son. "You, Sir Harold, appear to have had a time of it!"

"Your Majesty is a mistress of understatement," said Shea, handing over the two surviving berets. "Hi, Walter! Who won?"

"Ruggedo," said Bayard. "At least, just after the Queen actuated her Belt to fetch you, we saw Kaliko and his chancellor pop out the western entrance, in flight with a few followers."

"Demonstrating," said Shea, "that gnomes show no more wisdom in picking leaders than we mundanes."

"Oh, dear!" said Ozma. "I'm sure old Rug will start plotting to conquer us again."

"He told me," said Shea, "that this time he was really determined to reform. Whether he'll succeed, your guess is as good as mine. But permit me to suggest that Your Majesties hire someone to keep him under constant surveillance in your magical picture."

Evardo: "Sir Harold, we are greatly in your debt. We should like to honor you with a fine banquet in celebration. Oz is renowned for its parties."

Shea gave; his courtliest bow. "I appreciate the courtesy, Your Majesty. But back home my wife is about to give birth. So, if you will forgive me ..."

"I see," said Evardo. "In other words, you would prefer to be sent home forthwith, as soon as your hurts have been mended. It shall be as you wish. Do you also speak for Doctor Bayard and his—ah—wife?'

"No, sir. If they wish to remain, that's fine by me."

Shea lay stretched out in the bathtub. Bayard came in and sat on the toilet lid, saying: "Just been watching Ruggedo in Ozma's picture. We hear from our spies he's telling the gnomes that monarchy is obsolete. So he's proclaimed himself Lifetime President and Founding Father of the Gnomic Republic."

Shea replied: "Like one of those pipsqueak dictators we have in the Third World, eh? What are your plant?"

"The Queen will send us home after you as soon as the party is over. It promises to be a real blowout, with all the famous characters, such as Ozma's father, ex-king Pastoria, hauled in from his elegant tailoring establishment. Boann will play the harp and sing sad songs. Now give me the blow-by-blow.'

Shea narrated his adventures. Bayard said: "Of course we watched you in the magic picture. But it's not wired for sound, and we couldn't watch every minute. When Kaliko's chancellor—that fellow with a name like a drain-cleaning compound—got you with his lunge, we thought you were a goner. What saved you?"

"How do you suppose I got this big purple bruise on my chest? If you look yonder, you'll see a mailshirt of alloy-steel mesh."

"You, wearing armor? You used to brag you never touched the stuff."

"Circumstances alter cases," said Shea. "Do you know a verse by Kipling, called The Married Man or something? It begins—I won't try to imitate the cockney dialect Kipling used—but it goes something like this:

"If you ever get married, you'll find out what Kipling meant. Speaking of which, how's it with you and Miss Ni Colum?"

Bayard pondered. "I suppose I could fare further and do worse. Guess we probably are married in the sight of Crom Cruach, or whomever these bloodthirsty quasi-Celts worship. Good thing you didn't fetch us to Oz in the midst of our quasi-nuptials, might have been downright embarrassing.

"When I explained that she might either be sent back to Eriu or go to America with me, as he liked, she threw a shoe at me and burst into tears. Thought I was trying politely to 'cast her off', as she expressed it. So I guess Boann is Mrs. Bayard henceforth. It gets us all sooner or later, I suppose."

"Your enthusiasm overwhelms me," said Shea, rising from the water. "If you do it right—and I speak from experience—it's the very best thing around. Hand me that big towel, will you?"

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