Zelazny, Roger - (With Robert Sheckley) Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (v1.0)

by Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming [lit]

  "What'll you have?" a heavyset man in priest's garb asked Azzie.

  "Give me an expensive imported beer," Azzie told him. "And do you have anything to eat?"

  "Nachos," the servitor said.

  "What are they?"

  "Something which François the Expeditious brought back from the New World."

  So Azzie had the nachos, which turned out to be oat chips covered in a smelly Camembert with tomato sauce over them. He washed them down with a piggard of dark ale imported from England and started feeling better at once.

  As Azzie was eating he had the feeling that someone was watching him. He began looking around the room. There was a table in a far corner which was dark, unlighted even by a candle. He could perceive movement in the gloom. The sense of being watched seemed to emanate from there.

  Azzie decided to ignore it at first. He ordered up another plate of nachos and switched to wine. After a while he began to grow tipsy. Then, as the evening rollicked on, Azzie became drunk. Not just pig drunk, but demon drunk. That was very drunk indeed. He began to sing a little song that demons from Canaan sing when they are having a good time. The lines went:

  Oh, I am feeling no pain

  And I haven't any name

  For the fine old fun

  That often doth come

  When I'm drunk and feeling no pain.

  The song had several other verses, but he was having difficulty remembering them, or, indeed, anything else. It was very late. He had the feeling he'd been in this place a long time. Looking around, he saw that the other patrons had fled. What had they put into his wine? He was dizzy now; far more than tipsy, he was staggering drunk. There was an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he wasn't sure he could stand up. Finally, with great deliberation, he brought himself to his feet. "Who's doing this to me?" he said, but the words came out all garbled.

  "Hello there, Azzie," a voice said behind him.

  Azzie had the feeling he'd heard this voice before. He tried to turn around. But just then something heavy crashed into the back of his head, near the left ear, always a delicate spot in demons. Normally he could throw off the effects of a blow like that. You don't put a demon down easily. But this time, com­bined with the strong spirits and with whatever somebody may have mixed into the drink, he had no resistance. Damnation! He had gotten himself into a spot. And that was all he thought at the moment, because he passed out so quickly he wasn't aware of doing so until much later.

  Chapter 10

  Azzie awoke some undetermined time later. He came back to consciousness groggily and not too happily. He had a hangover which was monumental in its size and extent. He tried to roll over to ease the aching in his head and found that he could only move slightly. His arms seemed to be tied. Also his legs. And he himself was strapped to a very large chair.

  He opened his eyes two or three times, experimentally, then opened them definitively and looked around. He was in a sort of underground grotto. He could see the walls of the cave, shining with phosphorescence from the mica in the rocks.

  "Hello!" he called. "Is anyone there?"

  "Oh, yes, I'm here all right," a voice said.

  Azzie strained and after a while perceived a figure in the gloom. It was a small figure, and it had a beard. He recognized the features, such features as were visible under all the facial hair.

  "Rognir!" For it was indeed the dwarf whom he had gotten to give him the felixite and his treasure.

  "Greetings, Azzie," Rognir said. His voice was bright with malice. "Not feeling too good?"

  "Not exactly good, no," Azzie said. "But never mind, I've got great powers of recuperation. I seem to be entangled in something that is holding me to this chair. If you would kindly release me, and give me a drink of water, I think I'd be quite all right."

  "Release you?" Rognir said. His laughter was scornful, as the laughter of dwarves so often is. Others joined in, following it up with mutterings.

  "Who are you talking to?" Azzie asked. Now that his eyes were growing more accustomed to things, he could see that there were other figures in the cavern with him and Rognir. They were small men, dwarves all, and their eyes glittered as they stood in a ring, peering up at him.

  "These are dwarves of my tribe," Rognir said. "I could make introductions, but why bother? You aren't going to be here long enough for small talk and amusing conversation."

  "But what is this all about?" Azzie said, though he had a pretty good idea.

  "You owe me, that's what it's about," Rognir said.

  "I know that. But is this any way to discuss it?"

  "Your servant wouldn't allow us in when we came to talk to you about it."

  "That Frike," Azzie said with a chuckle. "He's so protec­tive."

  "Perhaps he is. But I want my money. And I'm here to collect. Immediately. At this moment."

  Azzie shrugged. "You've probably already gone through my pockets. You know I don't have anything on me but small change and a spare charm or two."

  "You don't even have that anymore," Rognir said. "We took them away."

  "Then what more do you want?"

  "Payment! I want not only the profit you promised me on my treasure, but the treasure itself back."

  Azzie gave a small, amused laugh. "My dear fellow! There was no need for all this. As a matter of fact, I'd come to Paris for the purpose of finding you and telling you how well your investment was doing."

  "Hah!" Rognir said, an expletive which could have meant anything but probably implied disbelief.

  "Come now, Rognir, there's no need of this. Release me and we'll talk it over like gentlemen."

  "You are no gentleman," Rognir said. "You are a demon."

  "And you're a dwarf," Azzie said. "But you know what I mean."

  "I want my money."

  "You seem to have forgotten that the deal was for a year," Azzie said. "The time's not up. You're doing well. When the time runs out you'll get your capital back."

  "I've been thinking this over, and I've decided that I don't trust the notion of putting one's capital out to work this way. It seems it might do something terrible to the working classes - like us dwarves. You know, a jewel in the sack is worth two or three on some foreign market that might go bust."

  "A deal's a deal," Azzie said, "and you agreed to let me have it for a year."

  "Well, I'm disagreeing now. I want my poke back."

  "I can't do anything for you tied up like this," Azzie said.

  "But if we release you, you'll pop out a spell and that'll be it for us and our money."

  That was exactly what Azzie had been planning. To turn attention away from it, he said, "What is this 'us' stuff? Why are these other dwarves involved?"

  "They're my partners in this venture," Rognir said. "Maybe you can talk around me, but you won't get around them so easily."

  One of the dwarves came forward. He was short even for a dwarf, and his beard was white except around the mouth, where it was stained yellow from chewing tobacco.

  "I am Elgar," he said. "You have hoodwinked this sim­pleminded dwarf Rognir, but you're not going to get away with that with us. Give us back our money immediately. Or else."

  "I told you," Azzie said. "I can't do anything with both my arms tied. I can't even blow my nose."

  "Why would you want to blow your nose?" Elgar said. "It's not running."

  "It was a figure of speech," Azzie said. "What I meant-"

  "We know what you meant," Elgar said. "You're not going to put anything over on us. We have plans for you, my fine friend, since you can't pay."

  "I can pay, but not trussed to a chair like this!" He smiled in a winning manner. "Untie me and give me a chance to go after some funds. I'll come right back, and I'll swear any oath you please to that effect."

  "You're not going anywhere," Elgar said. "If we give you an inch, you'll be all over us with your damnable enchantments. No, you have a count of three to produce everything you owe to Rognir. One, two, three. No money? That's th
at, then."

  "What do you mean?" Azzie asked. "What's what?"

  "You're for it, that's what's what."

  "For what?"

  Elgar turned to the others. "Okay, boys, let's take him to the Wheel of Labor."

  That was something Azzie had never heard of before. But it looked as if he were going to learn soon what it was. Small horny hands, lots of them, lifted the chair with Azzie in it and bore it deeper into the cavern.

  Chapter 11

  The dwarves sang as they went down the tunnel, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, around doglegs and over camelbacks, skirting cul-de-sacs and precipices and wading across icy streams. It was so dark that Azzie's eyes began to ache from trying too hard to see something. They went on, and they sang other songs after a while, songs in a language Azzie did not understand, and at last they came to an opening which let out onto a large underground plain.

  "Where's this?" Azzie asked. They ignored him. Many little hands held him tight as they untied him from the chair and tied him to something else. By touch Azzie thought it was a framework of some sort, made of metal and bits of wood. When he tried to take a step, something moved under his feet. He realized after a few moments that he had been tied securely to the inside of a big wheel, like a waterwheel. His feet were free, but his hands were securely bound to handles that came out of the wheel's sides.

  "This," Rognir said, "is a work wheel. You walk inside it and it turns, and through a series of gears, it moves a wheel that turns rods and finally operates machinery in one of the upper chambers."

  "Interesting," Azzie said. "But so what?"

  "You are expected to walk on the wheel, thus turning it.

  "You are expected to walk on the wheel, thus turning it. You will thus help us work and you will pay off your debt that way. It should only take a few hundred years."

  "Forget it," Azzie said.

  "Suit yourself," Rognir said. "All right, boys, open the sluice gate."

  There was a grinding sound from overhead. Then some­thing started falling from above him. It was a rain of excrement, as Azzie's nose quickly told him. But it was not ordinary human or demonic excrement. Azzie had spent plenty of time handling that. This was excrement of an orduosiry so extreme that his nasal receptors tried to commit hara-kiri.

  "What is that stuff?" he cried.

  "Aged fermented dragon shit," Rognir told him. "We're close to a dragon's lair, and we've tapped it from the bottom as an incentive for you to go to work."

  Azzie's feet started moving of their own accord. The wheel turned. After a moment, the rain of dragon shit stopped.

  "The way it works," Rognir said, "the dragon shit starts when you stop treading, and continues until you start up again."

  "But what about rest periods?" Azzie asked.

  "We'll tell you when you can rest," Elgar said, and the other dwarves laughed.

  "But listen to me! I've got important things to do! You must let me out of here so I can make arrangements! I'll pay you back - "

  "You will indeed," Rognir said. "In kind or in labor. Check with you later, demon."

  And so the dwarves departed. Azzie was left alone, pump­ing and thinking desperate thoughts.

  Chapter 12

  Azzie walked, turning the wheel, annoyed at himself for not telling Frike where he'd gone. He'd simply left the house, not giving his servant any instructions. And now, just when there was great need for haste, because it was time and past time for the adventure of Prince Charming to begin, he was caught in the darkness beneath Pans and condemned to turn a wheel for a bunch of stupid dwarves.

  "Hi, there," a voice said. "Are you a demon?"

  "Who's talking to me?"

  "Look down near your right foot and you'll see me."

  Azzie looked down and saw a worm about six inches long.

  "You're a worm?"

  "Yes, I'm a worm. You're a demon?"

  "That is correct. And if you can help me, I can offer you a deal you can't turn down."

  "What is that?" the worm asked.

  "If you'll help me get out of here, I'll make you king of the worms."

  "Actually, we worms don't have a king. We have district leaders, and a high council."

  "I'll put you in charge of the council."

  "First I have to become a district leader in order to become eligible."

  "So all right, I'll make you a district leader. What's your name?"

  "Elton Wormbrood. But my friends call me Tom."

  "Okay, Tom, what about it? Will you help me?"

  "I might. It's been pretty quiet down here. I just might help you in order to relieve the tedium. Then again, I might not."

  "Well, which is it going to be?"

  "I'm not sure. Don't rush me. We worms are kind of sluggish thinkers."

  "Sorry. Take your time. . . . Have you had enough time yet?"

  "No, I haven't even begun to think about it."

  Azzie controlled his impatience. "All right, take all the time you want. Call me when you've decided."

  The worm didn't reply.

  "Is that all right?" Azzie asked.

  "Is what all right?"

  "That you'll tell me when you've made up your mind."

  "That sounds all right," the worm said. "But don't get your hopes up."

  "Don't worry about it. I'll wait."

  And so Azzie began to wait and continued turning the wheel. He could hear the worm moving very softly about the chamber, now on the surface, now burrowing under the earth and rock. Time passed. Azzie couldn't tell how much time. It felt like an awful lot of it. What was annoying was that Azzie's chest itched. An itch is a most uncommonly irritating thing when your hands are tied to a wheel. Azzie found that by arching backward, he could just reach around to the front with his tail. Carefully now, since his tail was very sharp-pointed, Azzie scratched himself.

  It felt wonderful. But annoyingly enough, there was some­thing which blocked a really satisfying scratch. He worked the end of his tail carefully up and around it. Yes, there it was. Clenching it in his tail, he brought it out farther where he could see it. It was a couple of inches long and seemed to be made of metal.

  "I'm still thinking," the worm said.

  "That's good," Azzie answered. He lowered his head and got the cord from which the object hung up and over it. He lowered the object and touched it with his fingertips, first re­tracting his claws for better tactile contact. It seemed to be a key. Yes, it was a key! Azzie remembered now. He had kept a spare key to the castle hanging about his neck, where it would be safe no matter how many times he changed his clothing. It was a common sort of key, and it had a small red gem set into its handle. And inside the gem, he remembered now, there was a small spell that he had put there and forgotten about.

  He said to the spell, "What is your name and what do you do?"

  A tiny voice from the red gem said, "I am Dirigan. I open doorways."

  "Gee, that's great," Azzie said. "How about getting these bindings off me?"

  "Let me take a look at them," Dirigan said.

  Azzie passed the key over his manacled hands. The light within the jewel pulsed softly, throwing out a ruddy glow.

  "I think I can do something about this." The jewel glowed more fiercely, then died out. The manacles fell open.

  Azzie's hands came free. "Now, guide me out."

  The worm lifted his blunt head and said, "I'm still thinking.

  "I wasn't talking to you," Azzie said.

  "Oh. Just as well. Because I still haven't made up my mind."

  "What mind?" Azzie muttered. With his hands free he felt strong, capable of action again. He moved away from the wheel. Let the dragon shit rain down now! He was out of its way!

  "Now," he said, "to find the way out. Spell, give me some light."

  The jewel pulsed more brightly, throwing shadows across the cavern walls. Azzie walked until he came to a branching of the ways. There were five different directions he could go in. He asked
the jewel, "What way should I head now?"

  "How should I know?" said the jewel. "I'm just a minor spell. And now I'm used up."

  The light faded out.

  Azzie had heard about these underground branchings of the dwarves. They held great menace, for often the tunnel floor was undercut so that someone passing over them would fall through. Down below there were pits, noisome places filled with nasty things. If he fell into one of those, he might never get back up. And the worst of it was, Azzie, like many other demons, was virtually immortal. He could stay in the deepest pit for ages, perhaps forever, alive but bored, if no one came to bring him out. There were stories of demons who had been buried by some misadventure or other. Some of them were said still to be trapped underground, where they had been since earliest times.

  He moved forward. He heard the worm rustle, then say, "That's not the right way."

  Azzie stepped back. "What way should I go?"

  "I still haven't made up my mind whether to help you or not."

  "You'd better decide pretty soon," Azzie said. "The offer isn't open indefinitely."

  "Oh, all right," Tom Wormbrood said. "I guess I'll help. Take the tunnel on the farthest right."

  Azzie did so. As soon as he entered it the ground gave way beneath his feet. He was falling. He just had time to scream, "But you said this one was safe!"

  "I lied!" the worm cried. "Ha-ha!"

  Azzie was falling, falling.

  But it was only a short drop. Five feet perhaps. And to his right was a metal door, marked with a faintly phosphorescent EXIT.

  Cursing, he pushed through.

  Chapter 13

  In Augsburg, Frike was wringing his hands, pacing up and down the front yard, watching the sky for a sign of the return of his beloved master. Then he saw a tiny dark speck, which resolved itself quickly into Azzie.

  "Oh, master, at last you have returned!"

  "As quickly as I was able," Azzie said. "I was detained by a family of dwarves, a load of dragon manure, a work wheel, and a schizophrenic worm. I hope you have had as pleasant a time and kept a watch on Prince Charming."