The Witch Doctor

Chapter Nine

It gave me a chill, so I turned away, brusque and growling - to see the ghost hovering near the fire, half-invisible because of its light. Her eyes were glowing, though, so I couldn't miss her. In fact, I wasn't sure I was entirely happy about the way those eyes were glowing at me - but I had saved her afterlife, so I supposed I had some responsibility for her. I came over - and she drifted away with a look of alarm, but still with that morbid fascination in her eyes. At least, I thought it was morbid. I remembered the blanket rules for making friends with small animals and sat down, waiting. Sure enough, she began to drift closer - then hesitated as Frisson came up behind me.

"Why's she looking at me that way?" I asked him.

"Why, because she is in love with you, Master Saul," he answered softly. "Do you not know the signs?"

I felt the chill again. "Yeah, but I was trying to pretend I didn't. Why should she be in love with me? Just because I sort of saved her?"

" 'Tis reason enough," he assured me, "coupled with your face and form - but there is a greater. Did you not know that the verse you sang was a binding spell?"

My stomach sank. "Oh. Was it really,"'

"Aye, and a most venerable one."

"What did it bind?"

Frisson stared at me as if I were crazy-or maybe he was seeing through my attempt at self-deception. "It binds her to yourself, Master Saul - or at least, her affections."

That was what I'd been afraid of. "An old one, huh? I take it spells gain power with age."

"Like fine wines, aye."

So that's why each verse ended with, Then she'll be a true love of mine. "But she didn't have time to make me a cambric shirt."

"It worked by intent," Frisson assured me. "She is bound to you now, Wizard, by the spell that most surely binds woman to man." Which would have been great, if it hadn't been synthetic. Her ghost looked harrowed, but the marks of torture were fading even as I watched, and she was really, rarely beautiful. Her dress had even mended itself. I'd heard that love was healing, but I thought it had to be mutual to have that effect ..."

Nonetheless, it was having that effect. I clamped down on the implications. "How did you fall into the queen's hands, lady? You don't look to have sinned enough."

"I have striven not to, Sir Wizard."

"Saul." I held up a hand. "Just 'Saul.' I'm not a knight." I didn't commit myself about the "wizard" part.

"Master Saul," she amended.

I sighed, but told myself it would help keep distance between us.

"Okay, that's my name. What's yours?"

"Angelique," she replied.

I frowned. "Given the local rules, a name like that should have helped protect you."

"That was my mother's intent." A tear formed at the corner of her eye. "She died when I was very small, though." Somehow, that made sense-and seemed ominous. "But if you tried not to commit sins, how come the queen had a hold on you?"

"Because she wrested me from my father, Master Saul, and forced him to yield his authority over me."

My blood ran cold. "What kind of a father would do that to his own daughter?"

"A father in Allustria," Frisson murmured. The ghost hung her head. " 'Tis so. He is a merchant who panders to the queen, immersing himself in every sort of vice to gain her royal favor - and grants of monopolies."

"To the point of giving her his daughter?"

"Not quite so bad as that," she said stoutly. "Nay, he protected and reared me in total innocence, until I had come of woman's years, whereupon . . ." She broke off, with downcast eyes.

"I would not press her," Frisson murmured.

"Right." I slapped my knees. "I didn't mean to get personal-"

"Nay, I must have you know!" She was almost pleading. "No sooner had I come into earliest womanhood than my father attempted to reap the harvest of my innocence himself."

I froze, feeling myself turn very, very cold. "Why, that infernal louse!"

"He did not succeed," she said quickly. "The queen discerned his intentions and stepped in to halt his incestuous advances. I hailed her as my savior - until I discovered that she had taken me only to save as sacrifice to Satan. She told me that fell prince has a great taste for virgin souls, 'tis said, and they are rare indeed, in Allustria."

The inner chill was still there, and getting colder. "I really don't think I like these people at all," I growled. "And I was the cue for her to kill you? "

"There was some other cause," she said quickly.

"I not grasp the whole of it - I could spare small attention for her conversation with her henchmen, the pains of the torture devices being so very severe . . ."

"That would hinder concentration." The chill had hit absolute zero and was beginning to bounce back up, as anger.

"There was some talk of barons rebellious," she said, "and of the queen of Merovence readying her troops to invade." I looked up at Frisson sharply. "I caused all that?"

"I would doubt it," he answered.

Gilbert said, "Nay, Wizard Saul. 'Twas all of a piece with the mission of my order - the mill had been grinding before we came upon you."

Which meant I was only one part of a bigger plan - but whose?

"So she was saving you up for a doozy of a spell that would have given her the power to blast her enemies - and when the time came, she decided to get double mileage out of it, by using you to decoy me out where she could annihilate me." I shook my head. "What a horrible life you had!"

"Oh, nay! It was pleasant, with many causes for joy - until these last six years. I grew restive at never being able to roam the town or frolic through the fields, as I saw others doing from afar - but my home was spacious and comely, and I thrived in my father's love." Her gaze strayed, then turned brooding. "Until it soured." Or until she discovered his real intentions. I wondered if he'd thought incest would score points with the queen. "What about the last six?

"I was a guest of the queen," she said slowly, "though I could not leave my chamber. It was pleasant enough, even luxurious - but it was all the world I saw."

"Then it's a crime that you should have had so little of life! But at least you have Heaven waiting. Don't tarry here, whatever you do - go on to your reward!"

"I cannot," she said simply.

I stared. Then I said, "No! Not just my binding spell!"

" 'Tis not that which holds me to Earth," she said slowly, "though it fends off sorrow and brings rejoicing."

I wanted a change of subject, quick. "What holds you here, then?"

"My body." She moved her hands in aimless seeking. "It has not yet died; there remains some spark of life within it. I can feel it, I can sense it!"

"The queen has preserved her clay," Frisson said softly.

"Of course!" I remembered what Suettay had said when she cast that fox-fire spell over Angelique's body - and it made perfect sense.

"She didn't succeed in sacrificing you the first time, so she's saving your body to try again!"

"But would not the soul need to be within the body, in order for the queen to murder it?" Gilbert asked.

"Yeah, I'd say it would - especially if she wants to make Angelique commit the sin of despair, so Hell can have some claim on her. As it is, her soul's still too pure for Satan to have any hold on it. Angelique's goodness doesn't protect her from physical force, of course, but it does make her ghost immune. That was the whole idea of this horror show the queen just put on - the agony and terror were supposed to make her stop believing in God and Heaven!"

"It would have done so." Angelique bowed her head. "I verged on such despair; I had almost come to think that there was no God, or that the queen was right, and the Devil was stronger than the Creator. It was your words that restored my faith, if only for an instant, but in that instant, the knife fell."

"Glad I could do some good," I said lamely.

"But if she can cram your soul back into your body and torture you again, it might work this time."

"Nay." She gazed directly into my eyes. "You have restored my faith; I shall never despair again."

How about if I told her I didn't love her? That chilled me, too-it meant I didn't dare be honest, which really rankled. But we were right. I'd read enough medieval literature to know the rules, if not enough to make me sympathize with the spirit. "So she's going to be trying to get your soul!"

The ghost paled - or, in her case, turned almost transparent. "Then I must leave you! Or my presence will bring her down upon you!" And she darted away. I jumped up to call out to her to stay - but she slammed into my unseen barrier and rebounded with a cry.

"Sorry about that," I said quickly, "but we can't let you go roaming off by yourself - she'd swallow you up in an instant, and you'd be back in the torture chamber."

"I must chance it! I will not imperil you!" I realized, with a sinking heart, that I could really get to like this girl.

Fortunately, Gilbert spoke up, with quiet certainly. "We would never forgive ourselves, lady, if we abandoned a maiden in peril. Indeed, it would weigh on our immortal souls."

The ghost stilled in her frantic dashing.

"You would not wish to send us toward Hell, would you?" Frisson asked.

The ghost seemed to droop. "Nay, I would not."

"You see," I said carefully, "you've become a crucial element in the future of this country. There seems to be some sort of a campaign kick out the queen and all her ministers, and the evil going on, to that they serve. You were apparently her trump card, her ace in the hole, her secret weapon to give her more power to repel the invaders and the rebellious barons. Now that your sacrifice failed, the Devil and the lords will all drop her as having become too weak - too weak to be of any use to the Devil, too weak to defeat her barons if they rebel. That means that all the nobles will be jockeying for power, each one trying to prove to the Devil which of them is most evil and most ruthless, so that the Prince of Bullies will choose him to be the next king."

Angelique's ghost began to grow brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again, throbbing with anxiety. "But I am only a poor, simple maid of the common folk!"

"Maybe that's why you're so important," I said softly. "Really good people are hard to find, in any age." I should know; I'd been looking for a good woman for years.

"But you must not endanger yourselves for my sake!" she wailed.

"We're already nicely endangered, thank you," I told her. "Why do you think the queen brought you to us? No, I'd already made trouble for her before you came."

Angelique stared, wide-eyed. "Wherefore? 'Tis folly of the worst sort to antagonize her with no cause!"

"She wants me to leave, if I won't serve her cause," I grated, "and to me, that's reason enough to go back in. I'm not about to knuckle under to authority, unless it has won my respect and confidence. I'm going to do what I think is right, no matter what the rules say! And something tells me that trying to get your body away from the queen, and back to you, is right!"

Suddenly the chill within me stabbed all the way to my vitals, accompanying a sudden total sense of the rightness of what I had said. With a sinking heart, I wondered if I had played into the hands of somebody else - the angels. Especially mine.

"I shall accompany you, then," Angelique said slowly, "for there is merit in what you say, and I perceive that you are a good man." But the way she was looking at me said more, much more, and I went into panic. "No, I'm not! I'm a sour old cynic who's bitter about human nature in general and women in particular! I think religion was invented by priests for their own self-interest, and I scorn its rules! I'm an agnostic and a secular humanist, and by the standards of this universe, I'm thoroughly despicable!"

I ran out of gas and stood glaring around at them all, panting. Angelique shrank back, but not much, and just hovered there, staring at me out of those huge, worshipful eyes. Frisson and Gilbert exchanged judicious looks, lips pursed, and finally nodded.

Gruesome, of course, just sat blandly by the fire, looking vaguely interested. Why should he care?

Right.

"And what are you two snickering about?" I growled at Gilbert and Frisson.

"That you lack faith may be true, Master Saul," Gilbert said slowly, "but we have seen your works."

I frowned. "My works?"

"You do not have it within you to turn away from a soul in need," Frisson explained.

I glared at him, but what could I say? It's my biggest failing. It gets me taken for a chump, time and again. Emotional leeches latch onto me like piglets to a sow, and I let them take and take and take before I finally get mad enough to tell them to bug off. I'm a sucker for a hard-luck story and a gloomy face.

Gilbert delivered the final verdict. "You are a good man, and we will follow you to the death."

The chill hit again, and I snapped up a palm like a stop sign.

"Now, wait a minute. Who elected me leader?"

"Why," Frisson said, "who else has the slightest idea as to what we should do, or where we should go?"

It was a good question. But I sure as heck didn't. I was still trying to figure it out as I rolled up in my cloak, to try to eke out a little sleep from what was left of the night. But Angelique was right in my line of sight-deliberately, I was sure, the way she was gazing fondly at my battered, hairy face-and just knowing she was there played hob with my concentration. Every few minutes, I found myself opening my eyes just a little, to drink in the sight of all that lush feminine beauty, that lovely face, those wondrous curves that showed as hints through her long, gauzy gown every time she moved a little, and even when she didn't. I might not have been in love with her, but I sure got a charge out of looking.

Unfortunately, she seemed to have the same problem with me; every time I peeked, she was still gazing adoringly at me.

Suddenly, it hit me with a shock, and I went rigid, fighting to keep my eyes shut. That blasted binding song had worked both ways!

I was just as much subject to it as she was! Like it or not, reality or illusion, I was in love!

My mind reeled, trying to adjust to the facts, trying to understand romantic love as a magical spell-not just the product of a spell, but the spell itself. My mind went over and over that idea, around and around it like a squirrel in a cage, until insight struck again, and I realized what the literature had always said love was-magic.

I relaxed, just a little. Of course, I'd been hearing that since I was a kid, from every adventure novel with a love interest, and half the popular songs on the radio.

Nonetheless, the reality was something of a shock. On the other hand, I'd come to believe some time before that love was nothing but an illusion. I remembered that and got back some peace of mind.

But not much.

We were up with the morning star for a cold breakfast. I longed for a cup of coffee and was tempted to believe in magic long enough to conjure some up-but I turned mulish at the last second. Sunlight and morning had put me back into skeptical mode, and I was discounting all the spells I had worked as being part of the hallucination. Besides, nobody else there needed caffeine. So we were off as the sun rose, following our shadows down the road to the west, not that I really expected to get very far. After about an hour, though, we climbed to the top of a ridge and stopped short, seeing the telltale shingled roof of an official toll station.

"I don't mind paying for the use of the road," I said to Gilbert and Frisson. "Where there's verse, there's gold. But I'm not exactly up for a session of arguing."

"There is no avoiding it," Frisson told me, "and I have wandered far enough to know. Even were we to slip into the high grass or the woods to bypass the hut, the witch within would know of our presence by her spells."

"Magical border alarm system," I grunted, thinking of electric eyes and radar. "Well, if we have to brazen it out, we might as well do it with style." So I strode up to the doorway and knocked. My friends stared, then ran after me frantically, but they skidded to a stop as I knocked a second time, their faces sinking as they realized there was no help for it now.

But by the third knock, they were beginning to look puzzled.

"Nobody home," Gruesome grunted, disappointed; I think he'd been hoping for a quick snack.

"A border station, unmatched?" Gilbert stared. "Surely not!

'Tis unthinkable! " "Then how come you just thought of it?" I turned to Angelique. "I hate to take advantage of your special nature, but do you suppose ... ?"

"Surely, Master Saul." She was only an outline in sunlight, a gossamer strand or two-but she drifted through the cabin door as if it hadn't been there.

We waited. I tried my best to look impatient and annoyed. Gruesome just looked hungry, and Frisson looked apprehensive. Gilbert, though, stood like stone with his hand on his sword hilt. Angelique slipped back out, scarcely more substantial than birdsong. "There is no one within."

I stared. "No one?"

"None," she confirmed.

"But that cannot be!" Gilbert protested, and Frisson seconded him.

"No witch who was stationed to guard a road would dare leave her post while she lived, mademoiselle."

We fell silent at that, exchanging glances. I put it into words.

"But if she's dead, where's the body?"

"There are signs of haste," Angelique said helpfully.

"Let me see." I pushed at the door, but it was locked.

"Lemme." Gruesome hipped me aside-his shoulders were too high-took the door by the handle, and yanked. Wood cracked and splintered; the door came loose, leather hinges flapping. Gruesome grunted and tossed it aside.

"Uh-yes." I eyed the dismembered door and cleared my throat.

"Direct, aren't we? Well, let's have a look." I went in. it wasn't in the world's best condition, that was true, but it wasn't all that bad, either-sort of like somebody had stopped doing the housekeeping a month ago; that rotten smell must have been the dirty dishes in the kitchen. At least, I assumed that was what the curtained doorway in the back wall led to; this part of the house just had a central fire pit under a hole in the roof, shielded by a louver, and a desk with a huge book beside an inkwell with a quill in it. I stepped closer and peered in; there was still liquid in the pot, but you could see the thick line above that showed it had evaporated. There was a fine coating of dust on the book, not all that obvious unless you looked; I guessed it had been a week or so since it had been used. I looked up at that curtain hanging across the doorway. Something inside me balked and protested, wanting to leave well enough alone, but curiosity drew me on. Had to be curiosity, right? Couldn't have been anything else.

I pushed the curtain aside and looked in. The smell got a lot worse, and I wrinkled my nose. I couldn't pretend it was just rotting food any more-it was the stench that goes with sickness, bad sickness. Angelique had been right, though-there was no one there, certainly not in the bed. it wasn't made, though, and the dishes were piled up on the table. This was where the toll-witch lived-but where was she now?

I went back out, shaking my head. "You called it, Angelique. No one home."

Frisson clapped his hands with a smile of delight. "Most excellent! Let us go on past!"

"Yeah," I said slowly, "let's." But it nagged at me, as we went by the tollhouse. I didn't like unsolved puzzles and I liked even less the idea that somebody might be lying around sick, with nobody to take care of him. However, there was every chance that the duty-witch had been taken in for an overhaul, and that her replacement just hadn't arrived yet, so I pushed my misgivings aside and followed Gilbert into the woods. Then I heard the moan from the other side of the trail.