The Witch Doctor

Chapter Three

As I walked, I tried to reason it out-after all, forty credits' worth of philosophy ought to be good for something, and if it wasn't any good in this situation, it never would be, anywhere. I resisted the personal, supernatural view of the local phonemena-angels weren't real, and neither was magic. Well, okay, something that sure looked a lot like magic was going on here-but magic wasn't a person, with emotions and a personality; magic could much more believably be just a force, a kind of energy, impersonal and ...

My train of thought derailed as a flicker at the corner of my eye caught my attention. I glanced that way, but it had disappeared, of course. No, there it was again, like a glitch in my field of view. A wild stab of panic hit; this would be a very, very bad time to lose my vision! But it passed, with a little shove from my common sense and just in time, too, because the glitch widened, and I felt the impulse to reach out and adjust tracking. Silly, of course-because it not only widened, but swelled, turning into a zigzag tearing that reached downward to the ground and churned up a cloud of dust.

Then the membranes in my nose stood on end, and wrung themselves dry as the stench hit them with a rotten egg. "Guardian angel," I muttered, "if you're anything more than an hallucination, now would be a great time to show yourself!"

It didn't, of course-hallucinations don't usually come on demand. But I did feel a surprising surge of confidence, almost reassurance.

Shouldn't have surprised me, I suppose-the mind plays funny tricks on itself, and this was just my subconscious' way of getting itself to believe it could cope with whatever was coming. I suppose. But I happened to notice a tickling in my thumbs.

The dust cloud died down, and there sat an ancient crone in a gown of charcoal gray.

That, I could live with, given the milieu-I had seen her before, in my extreme youth, in dozens of illustrations in books of fairy tales.

What threw me, though, was that she was sitting at a desk, with papers strewn all over it, and a quill pen in an inkwell.

"You have cast two unauthorized spells in the space of half an hour."

Two?

Spells?

The crone wheezed on. " 'Sobaka,' said I to meself, 'there's nothing for it but to come hither and gaze-and aye, there he be! Yonder he stands, flaming with zeal to oust the palsied old witch-woman from her bailiwick and take her peasants for his own! If there's aught I cannot abide, 'tis a bursting new magus!"

"Hey now, wait a minute!" I was beginning to get angry again. "I don't want anybody's 'bailiwick'-and you can't own people!"

"Blasphemy!" she cried. "Not only a magus, but also a liar! As if 'tweren't a plentitude of folk in the art one must struggle with as 'tis!

Aye, a body's no sooner believing she's secure in her place, to lord it over her own trembling churls in easy breath, when, whoosh! Another young'un crops up, with cheek and with challenge, to be put in his place. It's no wonder the land's going to the pigs, with half the peasants turning to bandits, and a good number of them trying to out-evil their own township witch! And all from letting delinquents get out of hand! Abe, for the auld days! When younglings knew their places, or we had leave to fry them!"

"Leave?" I glanced at the desk again. "Who gives you leave to blast people or not?"

"Why, my master, fool, Queen Suettay!"

"Sweaty?" I stared; it struck me as an odd name for royalty.

"Nay, fool - Suettay! And be sure you do not take her name in vain, or she will surely appear to blast you!"

That gave me back some composure. I smiled, not too nicely; I'd heard that before, though usually about a personality a bit higher than an earthly monarch-that you have to talk nicely about Him, or He'll strike you with a lightning bolt. But I've seen and heard an awful lot of people saying nasty things about God, and I've never noticed any of them running afoul of large doses of electricity-except for the one who was working on a live wire at the time, and he didn't start cursing until after he got zapped. "Okay, so she's Queen Suet-ty." I had a mental image of a very, very fat lady looking like an awning pavilion with a crown on top.

"Suettay!" the old witch snapped. "Speak her name properly, crack-pate, or she will wish you ill indeed!"

Now I had it - the French word for wishes, intentions, as in, "I wish you a good day." The pronunciation had thrown me off, that was all. "Whatever. And this Queen Suettay will zap you, if you zap me?"

"Without showing you the error of your ways, aye. I am the bailiff of this bailiwick, given authority to see to its taxes and enforce the queen's laws o'erit! 'Tis for me to see you are noted in its book, and deal you work to do that will give the queen crops-or, if I have no need of you, to another."

I bridled instantly. I mean, had I left my own civilized universe, with running water and modern medicine, just to come to a godforsaken medieval backwater that still made me cope with a bureaucracy? "Okay," I snapped, "so you've got the authority to issue me a travel pass, or whatever, because you're the witch in charge of the local parish ..."

"Bailiwick!" she screamed. "Speak not in the words of the Flock!"

I frowned. Flock? Then I remembered the parable of the Good Shepherd, and that "ecclesia" literally means "flock," and I understood. So anything having to do with Christianity was anathema to her, huh? Maybe I could use that-but I kept it in reserve. After all, calling on the saints, or making the Sign of the Cross, or anything like that, kind of rankled; I hadn't been about to cop out to religion back home, and I didn't intend to here. Besides which, it might require conviction, which I definitely did not have.

She must have seen that in my eyes, because she gave me a gaptoothed grin. "Ah, then! You shy from those words yourself, eh? Well, then, come! Prick your finger, write your name in my book, and swear to serve the queen and her master, or I'll call upon his power, and you'll writhe in flames!"

Outrage kindled. "No way!" I snapped. "I've heard about that book-and I'd end up writhing in flames either way, until this hallucination wears off! I won't be a slave, and I won't accept any master! " She answered with an evil grin. "Excellent," she crooned, "most excellent! For if you'll serve no master, then you cannot be protected by any-and the Other Side will not ward you!" I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.

"I felt your first use of a spell and said to myself, 'Sobaka, what bother is this?' and began to tidy up my work to spare time for a visit-but ere I departed, I felt the nerve-grating shimmer that could only have come from an agent of the Other Side, and withheld my visit till that grinding had ceased . . ."

Translation: she'd sensed the visit from my guardian angel and had been so scared that she'd burrowed under the bedclothes. I felt a little more confident.

"Yet cease it did," she crowed, "and totally - there was no shred of it left! Therefore did I come here, and sure enough, I see no particle of the aura of the Other Side about you! You have not aligned yourself with them, and have not their protection!"

The temperature of my precious bodily fluids began to fall again.

" "Tis an idiot, surely,' I said to myself, 'an idiot who doth think to gather magic as if he were a windmill, gathering power from the gale and wielding it to grind what he will! Ay, such a fool I can twist right easily!' So come, addle-pate, and sign in my master's book, or die in agony!"

Somehow, for a second, I didn't doubt that she could do as she'd said, and my heart sank down to join the caterpillars that were trying to turn into butterflies in my belly-but mostly, I felt the hot anger of indignation. How dare this old witch try to push me around! "No way will I get on your hook!" I snapped. "Keep the fire for your blasted book!"

She let out an outraged squawk, just about three-quarters of a second before her book burst into flames. She screamed, jumping back. All I could do was stand there and stare.

That was too bad; it gave her a chance to recover from her surprise.

"Vile recreant!" she screamed. "The records of all who owe my master are destroyed!" Then she hooked her fingers into claws, chanting, "By the most vile of obscene names, Follow that book into the flames!"

And she threw a whammy at me.

Only this whammy took form very fast, some unseen energy gathering itself together until it materialized about halfway between us as a roaring globe of fire. I shouted and leapt out of the way, but it swerved to follow me. I jumped again, in a forward somersault, but came up to see it still following.

I ran.

Behind me, the hag's cackling almost drowned out the roar of the fireball-and it was gaining. In a rush of adrenaline, I suddenly realized I should be trying verbal acrobatics, not physical-she had brought this phenomenon into being by versifying; I sure hadn't seen her pulling the pin on a grenade. I ducked behind a boulder; it followed me, and it was roaring, but so was I, tapping myself on the chest and chanting,

I had to do a little rewriting there, since rhyme seemed to be important here-but under the circumstances, I didn't think Shakespeare would mind.

The fireball dimmed, darkened, and took a nosedive for the ground. By the time it hit, it was only a smoking cinder.

Sobaka stared at it.

Then she snapped her glare up to me, and I have never seen so much malice in a pair of human eyes. "Villain! Aroint thee! If you wilt not bend to my will, you shall break!" She began to move her hands in some sort of jagged pattern, chanting in a language I didn't know, though it sounded like Latin.

I gave her a grim smile. She must have thought that if I didn't know the words, I wouldn't realize she was versifying - but I could recognize rhymes when I heard them, and the meter was strong enough to slice up for seasoning. Well, if she wanted to have a contest slinging verses, that was okay with me.

Or maybe it wasn't. There was a huge rumble, and the ground heaved beneath my feet. I fell, instinctively turning to land on my side and roll as Sensei had taught me-and saw a jagged crack opening the earth where I'd been standing. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. How had she known an earth tremor was coming?

But it was my turn, and the minor chasm made me remember an old hard-times song. I made a few modifications:

The earth rumbled again, and a hole opened right under the old woman's feet. She dropped like a stone.

I stared.

Sobaka screamed.

I was so flabbergasted, I couldn't think of anything to do until she had disappeared. Then I came to and leapt over to the hole to tell her not to panic, I'd dig her out-never mind that she'd been threatening to kill me-but she was wailing, "Air! Nay, give me air!" I looked down the hole and saw two very wide and frightened eyes peering up out of the darkness about ten feet below me. "The earth, the earth presses in all about me! Spare me, Wizard! I shall trouble you no more! Only release me! Do not let the earth fall in on me, I pray! " "Holy cow!" I gulped. I had just put a claustrophobic in a hole.

"Enough, right now!"

I heard a moo.

I froze. I didn't want to look up.

But the wailing down below roused my guilt; I had to do something. I looked up slowly, straight into the big brown eyes of a leanlooking bovine female. It had a hump on its back - a Brahma cow. Coincidence. Pure coincidence. Obviously, I was closer to India than I had thought.

I turned back to the hole, assured that the cow wouldn't bother me. "Just keep calm! We'll get you out of there!"

"Be quick," she wailed, "before my master seizes the chance to take my soul!"

I froze again.

Then I said "No taking of souls allowed. Not while the person's still living."

"Aye, but death might happen thus! The master needs but a slight chance, a crumbling of the earthen wall, to bring about a natural death! Then he can take me, and I am doomed forevermore!"

"He?" I frowned. "You're talking about the Devil?"

"Do not say his name!" she wailed. "Or you will hear the rustle of leathery wings!

I was about to object, saying that was only a superstition. Then I remembered the cow, and decided I didn't want any more coincidences.

"Look, as long as you've lived a good life by your own beliefs, you've got nothing to be afraid of."

"But I have not!" she wailed. "I have been as evil as I might! I have sold my soul for power over my fellows!"

"Sold your soul?" I stared. "Why the hell-uh, heck?-would you do a dumb thing like that?"

"I was ugly, and small, and shrewish, and all shunned me.

'Sobaka,' they said, 'you are so ugly, even the swine will spurn you! You are stupid, Sobaka - step aside.' ' 'Tis done badly, Sobaka-you can never do anything right!' 'Not even I could love you, Sobaka, and I am your mother!' 'Do not sing, Sobaka, you have the voice of a crow!'

Until, at last, hate waked like a burning coal in my breast, and I swore I would someday have power to make them all suffer, to rue the day they had mocked me! But I could see no way to it, till the master appeared to me in a dream!"

I couldn't believe it. Not only a paranoid with a five-star inferiority complex-it had blossomed into raving delusions. She had actually convinced herself that she had sold her soul! All of a sudden, I could understand how come she had dug herself under when she'd heard my verse-it had fitted into her delusional system and had convinced her subconscious that she'd been overwhelmed by a spell. And since I wouldn't sign up with the Devil, presumably I had the force of good behind me, which is always stronger than evil in the end-at least, in the sort of medieval culture this seemed to be-so she'd been convinced my spell had taken over anything she could dream up. Selling her soul was a metaphor for having dedicated herself to evil, of course. She had probably managed to become a minor bureaucrat just by toadying to the people in power-but she had convinced herself she was damned.

I couldn't let her die in that kind of agony, no matter what she'd been trying to do to me. "Look," I said, "even if you sold your soul, you can still get it back. All you have to do is repent, tell God you're sorry and won't do it again!"

"But what if I should live?" she cried, in an agony of indecision. "If I should repent and live, I would be the lowest of the low! All whom I have wronged would rise to smite me down! The master would send agents to deprive me of what life I'd have left-though 'twould be precious little; I am more than an hundred years old already! " Delusion again-she couldn't have been a day over sixty, judging by looks. This being a medieval culture, she was probably only forty-life aged them fast, back then.

"Look," I said, "just because you were small and plain didn't mean everybody hated you."

"Yet they did! All need to know there is one lower than they!

How could they fail to despise me?"

"By your being good, way down deep," I reasoned. "Sure, they're cruel-but if they saw you were really good inside, trying hard to make up for everything mean you did, they'd start liking you." There was silence down at the bottom of that hole. Then, almost shyly, "Do you truly think so?"

Well, no, I didn't, actually-just from the clues, I had a notion she had been maximally mean to everybody she'd ever known, and people aren't that quick to forgive. So I changed the subject. "It doesn't get done in a day, of course-you have to earn trust, earn forgiveness by proving you've reformed-and proving it again and again for years and years. They'll punish you at first, sure, but you deserve it by now, don't you?"

"I did not when I was a maiden!" she said hotly. "Where was their good will then?"

"That was then," I reminded. "How much punishment do you deserve now? "

It was quiet, down there in the dark. Then she began to cry. I hate the sound of a woman crying. "Please," I said. "Please don't cry. I'll get you out of there somehow."

"I have been so evil!" she wailed. "I deserve death, slow and agonizing death! Nay, what if they were to do to me as I've done to them? "

"Maybe it would be quick," I suggested. inside me, my blood ran cold. just how wicked had this woman been, anyway? "Maybe they'd be so angry, they'd just kill you out of hand."

"Then I would be damned!" she howled.

"Not if you'd repented." Then I remembered my Dante. "Sure, you'd spend a long time in Purgatory-but at least it wouldn't be Hell. Besides, the more they hurt you before they killed you, the less time you'd spend in Purgatory." I hated that kind of logic-I had a notion it had resulted in a lot of people torturing themselves, and certainly refusing painkillers when their last hours could have been a lot less agonizing-but it would help in this case.

"I cannot face it," she wept. "I cannot face the tortures I have meted out."

There was a rustling noise, just in front of me.

I froze. Then, very slowly and much against my better judgment, I looked up.

He was very toothy in the grin, very red in the skin, very black in the wings, and very sharp in the horns.

Sobaka saw him and wailed so hard she almost jarred the earth loose.

I found my voice. "Is this your master?"

"Nay!" she howled. "'Tis his minion!" Or some peasant, I realized, come to get revenge by scaring the life out of her.

"Get back, slave," he sneered. "This soul is forfeit!" And he jabbed at my face with his pitchfork.

I recoiled, but reflex took over; I grabbed the pitchfork and yanked, hard. I took him by surprise; he stumbled into the hole and fell flat on his face.

Dirt cascaded down inside.

Sobaka screamed in terror.

I realized I had to work on her delusional system-nothing else was going to work fast enough. "Get out of here," I snapped. "You can't take her soul till she's dead!"

"I shall see to that, too." The devil bared his teeth in a snarl, rolling up to his knees, crouching to spring. "I shall cave in the hole.

Fear not-she's already buried." And he sprang at me. I leapt to the side, rolling. Oh, well, what the hell-I had a delusional system, too. "Guardian angel! This is where violence is authorized! " "It is indeed!" a steely voice sang. "Avaunt thee, hell spawn! Or I shall rend your ectoplasm asunder!" There he was, my guardian angel, twisting the pitchfork into a pretzel and throwing it at the devil. The horny one howled in terror and disappeared.

I wondered just what had been in those berries.

"Only juice," the angel assured me. "I am real, Saul. Remember." I was thinking at a frantic pace. "Uh, before you go, could you step ver to that hole, for a second?"

"Wherefore?" The angel frowned down at the hole - and then, bless him, he stepped up to the brim and called down. "Sobaka! Call on God, and He shall yet send your angel to ward you! I have banished your demon, but he will not stay gone when I go!"

I couldn't take a chance on any more hesitating. I began to chant,

I swear to this day, I don't know where that verse came from. I mean, if I'm really up for it, I can improvise-but not like that. Then I remembered the tried and true.

"Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."

"I repent me!" Sobaka wailed, deep down in the hole. "Alas, my soul! All these years, I have sought revenge for naught! For insults that need not have hurt me! Ah, what a monster I have been!"

Well. Results already. What had been major wounds suddenly seemed like minor irritations. It didn't matter what people said to her, because she knew she was good.

Now.

But why was my guardian angel looking at me that way-I mean, surprised?

I shoved the question aside. The memories of her cruelties would swamp her newfound self-esteem, if I didn't give her an out.

"What's done cannot be undone, But what's broken can be mended. Remorseful sinners can atone For all the hurt intended."

"Yet there is hope!" the voice cried from the hole. "I can make amends-some, at least! Those whom I've slain, I can give aid to their survivors! And if 'twill restore some faith in goodness to them, to see me suffer as justice dictates, why then, let them hurt me!" I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that-but it would probably give her the strength she needed, to endure the transition back to goodness. Seeing herself as a martyr was better than the fire of her own self-damnation-I meant, condemnation-and if I ever came back this way, I could see to it that she moved on from suffering to service.

"I repent me!" she cried again. "Dear Lord, save my soul! inflict what trials Thou wilt, what sufferings Thou dost deem just! Only let me come into Thy presence!"

There was a howl of rage and frustration somewhere, distant, but ringing. I looked up, surprised, but I didn't see anybody except my angel.

He was smiling a very smug smile, though. "That, Saul, was her personal tempter. You cured her mind, and she saved her own soul." I stared.

Then I gave my head a shake. Whatever sort of dream this was, working within its rules was working very well. "Okay," I said, "but we'd better hurry up and save her life, shouldn't we?"

"Should we? For the longer she lives, the greater the chance that she'll slip back into sin."

I looked up at him, scandalized - but he wasn't even looking at me, he was talking to empty air on the other side of the hole. I felt the gooseflesh rise.

"Indeed, you are right," he said with regret. "If the Lord doth wish her home, naught we can do will save her."

"So if we can save her," I said, "that means it's not her time." He looked down at me in surprise. "Indeed, Saul. You see it most clearly. " Well. I wasn't impressed. I'd figured that one out, long ago. Hadn't he been watching? "So how do we get her out?"

"Try a verse," he suggested.

"Ridiculous!" I snapped. "You can't make things happen just by talking!"

"Is peak of that to Madison Avenue," he retorted. "'Twas you put her down there, did you not?"

I just glared at him. I always hated it when the other guy was right.

But he was right - so I sighed and called down into the hole,

And she was standing beside the hole, looking about her in surprise that very quickly became major fear. "How-how did you achieve that?"

"By poetry," I said impatiently, "or at least a very, very old folk song. What's the matter - don't you even know the rules of your own universe?" She shook her head, faster and faster, stepping away from me, hands coming up to fend me off. "I know only the rules of good and evil! " That stonkered me. "Then how did you work magic?"

"Why, by reciting the spells my mas ... doomer gave me." Rote memorization. Parrotlike repetition. Coincidence and association. She hadn't understood anything about what she was doing. No wonder she was a minor functionary. "There are other rules," I said.

Then I remembered. "But you don't need to know them any more."

"'Tis true." Her hands came down. "All I need now is the justice of God, and the need for faith in Him."

Suddenly, she was on her knees, clutching at my jeans. "And 'tis you who have rekindled that faith! 'Tis you who have cured my soul of the curdled anger called hatred, that did drag it down! 'Tis you who have freed me to suffer for the right and seek to aid my fellow creatures! Oh, a thousand thanks, young Wizard, and a thousand blessings!" Then she remembered herself and dropped her hands. "If the blessings of a corrupted soul may be of benefit to you."

I was hugely relieved. I just don't like having things clutching at me-unless they're young, female, and shapely; and even then I'm wary. This one may have been female, but she was anything but beautiful, and I could have sworn she was growing older by the second.

"Your soul shines like newly minted silver," my angel said. I looked up at him, startled. Compliments were one thing, but this ...

Then I realized he was prompting me. "Say it yourself," I snapped.

"No way am I going to deliver a line like that!"

"To whom do you talk? " Sobaka quavered. I looked down at her, then looked up quickly at the angel. No, he was still there. "Him," I said, pointing. "Can't you see?" She looked where I was pointing, and fear creased her wrinkled face, not that it made much difference. "Nay," she said. "There is none there."

"Well, there is," I sighed, "even if he's invisible to you."

"A familiar!" Her tones quaked.

"No, an angel," I said quickly, and started improvising; anything to give her the guts to keep going. "You've got one, too, and he-"

"She," my angel prompted.

"She," I corrected. Maybe the Quakers had been right. "She is watching you every second."

Sobaka glanced around her, fear turning into wonder on her face.

"Can you see her?"

"No," I said, "but she's there."

"She is very happy just now," my angel informed me.

"She's very happy just now," I told Sobaka. "Don't make her sad again, okay?"

"Oh, I shall not!" She turned away, heading off downslope. "Oh, bless you, unseen angel, for never having despaired of me! Oh, stand by me and lend me strength, for I now must undergo the strongest trials of my life!" She turned back to call to me. "Ever shall I praise you in my prayers, healer of my soul!"

I shuddered, but managed to fake a smile. "Pay it back to other people," I called. "You don't have much time left. Better get busy."

"I shall! Oh, I shall!" And she headed off down the hill, caroling her joy.

I winced; a singer, she wasn't. "At the rate she's aging," I muttered, "I don't think she'll even make it to the bottom of the hill."

"Even if she dies, she will be on the road to Heaven," my angel assured me. "Her angel thanks you, too."

"Tell her she's welcome." I turned to him, frowning. "So angels come in sexes, too?"

"Well, no," he admitted, "but it makes you humans think of us more easily if we seem to. You term it 'identification' and 'selfimage.' Call it 'gender.' "

"Identification!" I looked up, understanding something I'd been wondering about. "So that's why you've dropped the 'thee' and 'thou' form.

"That you might better understand me, aye."

"Understand, my foot! You want me to identify with you, to emulate you! Hey, I'm not even supposed to be able to see you!"

"You did call upon me," he reminded.

"And Sobaka didn't, so she couldn't see her angel? Is that who you were talking to, about whether or not to get her out of the hole or let her die."

"Her guardian angel, yes." He nodded. "You have made three most happy today."

"Three?" I looked around, frowning. "I only count two - Sobaka, and her guardian angel. if you say so."

"Three," he said proudly. "Count me, also. You have struck a blow for the angels today, Saul. You are on our side, after all." Why did that send such a thrill of panic through my veins? Why did I snap out, "No way! If I did something that worked for your side, it's just because it was the right thing to do under the circumstances! Don't bet I'll do it again! If something else comes up that I think is right, I'll do it, even if it's for the other side-by your rules!"

A look of apprehension crossed his face. "Nay, nay! Do not sin for no reason other than my having said you are on the side of the angels!"

"Very funny," I said bitterly, "considering who's talking. If it seems right, I'll do it, even if it's against your side-but don't worry, I won't murder, loot, or rape, just to keep from signing up with your team, either. I won't go out of my way to commit what you think is wrong." I turned on my heel and stalked away.

"You have lied," he called after me, "with that speech."

"See?" I said over my shoulder. "I've started already."