by Jack Sharkey
"Enough of this foolishness,” cried the monster, springing upward, jaws wide for that first horrendous bite.
There was no time to twist off the cap. I just gave a hearty squeeze. Then an even heartier one.
With a soggy pop, the soft metal was riven asunder, and the contents spewed full in the face of the werewolf.
The effect was ... well, magical. Though, by its outer dimensions, the tube could not have held more than a few ounces of caustic paste, under the influence of the spell the volume was greater than could have been contained in a milk truck.
The werewolf, clotted with tons of waxy white depilatory cream, crashed soggily back to the ground, and lay there kicking and screaming for the five minutes it took the goo to do its work. Lorn clutched my shoulder and whispered tremulously in my ear, “What did you do to him?"
"Gave him the full beauty treatment,” I said. “He'll be bald as a peeled onion in a moment."
"But,” said Lorn, “can't he eat us, furry or not?"
"We'll soon find out."
In a moment we had our answer. The spell hadn't stopped with fur. With the sundering of the tube, the grey clouds went soughing away, the breeze sighed with springtime fragrances, the sun turned golden yellow and bright, and even the rocky ground took on a cheerful reflected glow.
I glanced at the spiky twigs of our tree, half-expecting them to be suddenly laden with gay pink blossoms. However, there's a limit even to magic. The trees remained as stark and lifeless as before.
As we entered the next green section of woods to which the werewolf had guided us, he remained behind on a squat boulder, waving us a fond farewell. We waved back at our deluded ‘normal man', then hurried out of his sight into the shrubbery. “Now,” I said, “let's make tracks."
Timtik shuddered. “That was definitely a close call."
"And we lost some time, too,” I said, “up in that tree. We have miles of forest ahead of us, and only three spells left in the wallet!"
"How do you know how much forest there is?” asked Lorn.
"Just guessing,” I lied. I already knew something my companions didn't. If that spot where we'd seen the hotsy represented the Earth-locale of my house, and this petrified place the Drendon-site of Oak Park's Marshall Field's store, where Garvey Baker had night watched, then I had a pretty good idea where we'd meet up with Emperor Kwist and his wizard-scientist-vizier Cort. Right in the relative spot where I'd managed to translate Geoffrey Porkle, his crony Courtland, and his house, into Drendon.
In a sort of haunted, nightmarish way, things were making very good sense.
CHAPTER 10
WE were moving across a vast-deep field of green and straw-colored ferns, when a puzzling memory came back to me.
"Um ... I've been wondering about something,” I said. “How come this lead breastplate I'm wearing didn't hold me down at the bottom of that lake, back in Thrang country?"
Lorn shrugged lightly and continued her graceful progress through the ferns. “It probably floated and helped hold you up,” she theorized, “instead of weighting you down."
"Lead doesn't float,” I protested. “It sinks like lead!"
"It's magic, you dope!” snapped Timtik, up ahead of us. I decided to drop the matter. None of my queries seemed to get beyond that all-purpose explanation of the faun's.
The land broke free of the ferns, abruptly, and we found ourselves on a wide, greenish-grey plain, the ground soft, moist, and springy to the step. Timtik, however, instead of picking up his pace, cut his speed in half, as did Lorn. Each of them watched the ground for a split second before treading, upon it. Having grown considerably wiser in the ways of Drendon, after the incidents with the hotsy, the Snitch, and the Snatch, I was instantly alerted.
"What now?” I said, afraid to step until I knew what it was I had to avoid stepping on.
"Cheesers,” said Timtik, pointing to slightly darker green patches on the ground. “They always live on soil like this. Makes them hard to see."
"Cheesers?” I said. “Those wettish-looking blobs?"
Timtik nodded his curly horned head. “Right. Make sure you don't step on one. They're really fierce.
"What do they do?” I asked.
"They grow,” Lorn explained. “You step on one, and it cleaves to your skin, and starts to get bigger and bigger until you're covered completely. They get at your bloodstream; take out all the sugar."
I looked solemnly at a pulsating blob. It seemed to be not so much one thing as a horde of smaller things, banded together for a common purpose. “They act like a mess of ants without a village,” I observed.
"The Centaurs use them for their orgies,” said Timtik. “They're a surly bunch.” he explained, looking right and left, uneasily, pricking up his pointed ears. “They live around here, and if they catch anyone passing through, they ... Well, they fatten up the Cheesers on them, then stick the remains into a vat, add some kind of wet grain, and—"
"I've got it!” I said suddenly. “These things are molds; yeast plants I should've recognized that sickly-sharp smell. And the Centaurs use them to make moonshine!"
"Hey!” said the faun, freezing.
I didn't hear anything for a second, then my legs felt the shuddering of the earth, a steady ratchet of dull vibration. Somewhere off across the field, I could hear shouts. The Centaurs.
"Run, Albert!” cautioned Timtik, spurting forward.
"Hurry,” pled Lorn, doing the same.
"Right,” I yelped, dashing after them, but keeping one cautious eye groundward lest I turn into some lurking yeast plant's blueplate special.
"Yuh-hoo! Yip-pee!” came from the edge of the plain.
I glanced that way, and was momentarily stopped with surprise. A broad stampede of creatures was galloping my way, at an angle that would soon intersect my line of flight if I didn't start up again and make for the woods. Once there, Lorn's tree-talk could impede pursuers. But out in the open—I shuddered and ran. Lorn and Timtik were already at the first fringe of trees, not even looking back for me.
The thundering hooves were deafening. I ran in panicky flight toward the woods. One look at the Centaurs convinced me they meant trouble. From the chest of the equine body upward, they had the semblance of a man's upper torso. But there was no sharp line of demarcation.
Their arms alone spoiled the illusion of simple malformed horses. They had hands, and the hands had rough hempen lariats, carried at the ready.
"Hurry!” came Timtik's voice, far off ahead of me. I pounded the soft turf with my bare feet in a frantic dash away from those quadrupedal horrors. The hedges of the woods loomed greenly before me. Thirty yards away, twenty-five, twenty—
Then, with a whirring swish, the lariat dropped whiplike about my throat and yanked me to a sprawling, choking halt. The line tugged, taut, brutally tight, and I felt my eyes start from their sockets. I saw Timtik burst from the woods, coming back to me. He'd be massacred. There was only one chance open to me. Even as I toppled, I grabbed the wallet of spells from my shoulder, gave them a quick spin by the strap, and let them fly in a swift arc toward the faun.
"Scram!" I yelled, as the rope grew tourniquet-tight, and the world turned dull crimson before my eyes, then flowed into icy blackness...
* * * *
Consciousness returned slowly, painfully. I tried to recall where I was, what had happened. My neck was raw, but the noose, my swimming mind knew gratefully, had been removed.
I was still prone upon the earth—not, praise God, in the clammy clutch of any Cheesers—but an experimental try at moving showed me that I was bound tightly at wrists and ankles. I opened my eyes cautiously, and saw the huge sweaty flanks of the Centaurs a few yards from where I lay.
They were busy about a vat, a huge vat, of stained wood, onto which one of them, the chief brewer, I expect, was constantly climbing via a sort of roughhewn ramp. The yeast-smell was sickeningly strong, and I noticed that other of the Centaurs were carrying quivering Cheesers, safely upon some
sort of fiber mats, up to the lip of the enormous vat, and dropping them in with a soggy thump.
The vat creaked and groaned at the seams, as from heavy movement within. The Cheesers were hungry. I eased my head from the earth, careful not to attract any attention, and tried to increase the range of my vision, ignoring the aching clamor of my neck muscles.
I was still well clear of the green forest rim, I saw with regret. Even could I have slipped my bonds, I'd never have been able to get within the comparative safety of the underbrush ahead of those swift monsters There was nothing to do but lie back and await what might come. I hoped Timtik would think of something.
Then I was struck by an unfamiliar feeling.
I'd sensed upon awakening that something had changed, but hadn't until that moment been able to isolate the sensation. It was the cool-feeling freedom of my upper torso that brought the truth home to me.
The lead cuirass had been removed.
How, I had no idea. The best I'd been able to do with it was shift it for scratching when I itched, which was often; it seemed months since my last bath. I'd thought that removing the spell-attached breastplate was impossible. But here it was, off.
Curious, I tried to recall Maggot's exact information about the cuirass, and why it would not leave my body by my own efforts. “This,” she'd said, “you must not take off till it's time. You will know when the time comes."
So the removal of the cuirass was definitely something to take into my consideration. I thought the thing out, step by step. If it were not to be removed until ‘the time,’ and it had been removed, spell or no spell, then this must be the time. Mustn't it?
I raised my head to see if it were within sight. It lay almost beside me on the soft earth, the straps hanging limply, the buckles undone. “There it is,” I thought. “Now what?"
A short whispered colloquy between two of the nearer Centaurs drew me back from my meditations. But they were not discussing me. One of them was pointing with a tilt of his head at the forest rim, and I didn't like the cruel smile on the face of the other when he glanced that way. As the two of them surreptitiously slipped up to their companions and passed the word along, I finally got to see the object of their amused discussion, which had been blocked to me by their bodies.
A tree was coming toward us, stealthily, easing along on its thick splayed roots, and pausing every so often in its motion, as a cat pauses while sneaking up on a bird.
"Lorn!” I groaned to myself, shutting my eyes. Lorn, with her influential tree-talk! Her entrance was about as subtle as a tidal wave. I re-opened my eyes and looked hopelessly up into the foliage, and soon espied the greener-than-green shimmer of her “diaphanous drapery', and a flicker of sunlight on coral tresses. The nut! The wonderful, lovable nut! To come to my rescue in a tree, of all things, But I wished she'd chosen a sturdy oak, instead of her present vehicle. It was a silvery aspen, not much thicker across the trunk than a man's arm. The Centaurs could—
Even as I thought it, the Centaurs did.
A phalanx of them suddenly sprang into a gallop and surrounded the tree, cutting off its retreat. Then, with flailing forelegs, they reared up and kicked mercilessly at the slender growth, their hands grappling for its roots and yanking them upward to knock it off balance. And then Lorn came sprawling out through the leaves, the branches trying in vain to ease her fall as she plummeted to the ground, and lay still, face downward.
As the Centaurs surrounded her there, I struggled in vain to sit up, to break free of my hempen bonds. And then I heard light hoofbeats behind me, and Timtik came dashing up carrying the bag of spells. He dropped the bag to the ground, and said urgently, “Roll on your face, quick!"
"But Lorn-!” I choked out.
"A deceptive maneuver!” he growled, trying to push me over on my face when I didn't move. “She's only doing it so I can get the spells to you!"
"But can't you?” she said, rolling over.
"No, damn it!” he interpolated. “The spells won't come out of the wallet for us. That's the way Maggot set the wallet up. It's a one-man bag of tricks."
I felt his fingers struggling with the tough knots, and felt the first thrill of hope since my capture. Then heavy hoofbeats sounded, and I yelled, “Run!” about ten seconds too late. I felt him snatched off the ground behind me, and, as I rolled over, his squirming body was being borne back to the cluster about Lorn, in the muscular arms of a raven-black Centaur, who was laughing gustily over his prize. And the bag of spells was still with Timtik.
We're done for I realized dully. “Nothing can help us now.” Then my eye was again caught by the bulky cuirass. Its color seemed changed. Instead of the leaden grey surface, it was light-colored, almost shiny. And squarely in the center of the breastplate, where there'd been no such thing before, scintillated a blinding diamond, the size of a postage stamp, set into a tight steel ring.
At an earlier period of my life, pre-Drendon, I'd have simply stared. Or admired and then forgotten it. But I knew better after meeting this unearthly dimension. As if possessed by a cognoscentic power, one look at that diamond stud told me what it was for.
Activation of course.
The Centaurs had forgotten about me for a time. They were too busy dragging Lorn from her tree and bringing her and Timtik toward that hulking wooden vat full of Cheesers. I didn't have time to think, only to act.
I arched my back and flipped myself sideways toward the armor, which was glowing whiter and more brilliant by the second. My coordination was luckily perfect; I landed with my back squarely atop the front of the breastplate, the cut surface of the diamond directly under my questing fingers.
"Hey,” cried a voice, “What's he doing?"
The leader of the Centaurs, a thick-bodied roan, had turned his long, bucktoothed face toward me, and was coming my way at a quick canter.
I pressed the jewel, hard.
All at once, my wrists and ankles were free, and I fell back to the ground with a thump. I'd felt something growing out of the base of the cuirass as I'd jabbed the diamond, something that had changed the entire shape of the cuirass into a slim, elongated shape that had severed my bonds with one smooth slice as it came into being. There was something cylindrical forcing itself into my right hand, and I gripped it tightly as I sprang to my feet to face the oncoming monster. The Centaur started to increase his speed, then braked to an abrupt halt as I brought my hand from behind my back.
Set snugly in my fist, the squarish diamond coruscating madly where the crosspiece traversed the handle and blade, was a four-foot silver sword.
The Centaur looked at me, warily. Beside the vat, the others, too, had stopped moving. All stared wide-eyed at the wicked glinting of my magical weapon. The leader hesitated, still shaken, then his face hardened, and he grinned. “It's only, a close range weapon!” he thundered. “Get him from where you are!"
The others, glad somebody had thought of something, began whirling their dangerous lariats, and hurling the looped hemp toward me. For an instant, my vista was made up of nothing but whizzing, spinning rope.
One sweeping stroke of the blade fixed that. Its flashing edge met the tough hemp like an acetylene torch on a strand of cobweb. In frayed, useless clumps, the severed loops fell away.
None of the Centaurs wanted to meet a weapon like that at close quarters. Nor were any foolhardy enough to bother casting another loop. On the other hand, while I could defend myself, now, I lacked the speed and agility I'd need to get Lorn and Timtik before they could be tossed into the vat of hungry yeast-plants. It looked like an impasse. One which was abruptly resolved in a terrified yell.
"Wumbls!” shrieked a Centaur, pointing.
From the perimeter of the plain, as we all held our breaths, came a bone-chilling sloshing sound. I looked toward the source. Something was moving over the ground toward us, something that could not be seen due to near-transparency, but off whose taut-skinned surface the sun glinted in yellow warning. The herd of hungry protoplasm was convergi
ng on the fat, slithering over the ground swifter than water from a ruptured dam. There was a scared, frozen, timeless moment. Then—
Timtik, jerking free from his momentarily numb captor, raced over the ground toward me, waving the bag of spells. I grabbed it from him, slung the strap across my shoulder, and dipped a hand past the dodging flap to come up with the next spell. The label read, "Schlitz Brewing Company, Milwaukee."
"Come on!” I snapped at Timtik, and grabbed Lorn with my free arm. The Wumbls were nearly upon us. The Centaurs were breaking into sporadic gallops, fitfully stopping, turning, terrified as the half-seen glistening enemy slid swiftly inward from all sides.
An opener!” I shouted to Timtik, over the tumult of hooves and cries of hoarse fear.
The leader of the Centaurs reared up nearby, his face strained and terrified. I shot the sword-blade out before him, and he struck the flat of the blade like he'd run into a cement wall.
And as he staggered, dazed, I jammed the stem of the bottle into his tooth-happy mouth, and twisted the edge of the cap against those protruding incisors. It popped off better than with a standard opener.
Then I yelled to Timtik, and he leapt obediently up into Lorn's arms, as I flung the opened bottle into the heart of the onrushing Wumbl herd. As Lorn grabbed Timtik, I grabbed her. My back to the vat, I held her one-armed, and extended the magic blade for what good it might do against that army of ambulant slosh.
But there was no need for swordplay.
Like warm champagne from a shaken flask, golden sparkles of foam and liquid were gushing from the mouth of the bottle. Gushing like a Niagara over the slithering bodies. Rolling like an ocean over the plain, like a monstrous carbonated tidal wave. A surge of frothy lager rose beneath us, up to my armpits before it lifted me clear of the ground with Lorn and Timtik snugly beside me, and carried us on a wave-crest at dizzy speed toward the swaying green boughs of the thick woods ahead.
The comber broke, scattering us onto a springy clump of bushes and high grass, then receded, leaving us high and anything but dry, and smelling like Saturday night in skid row.
