A Barnstormer in Oz

by Philip José Farmer

  The torches had been blown from their sconces and were burning on the floor. The huge glass bottles and retorts and the copper and silver tubing on the tables had been fragmented or twisted. Smoke rose from pools of acid eating away the floor.

  Hank yelled as loudly as he could.

  "Glinda! Behind you! Behind you!"

  Thirty feet behind her, the air had quivered, boiled, red steam or smoke rising from the whirling, and then the air had gotten darker, the boiling and steam had suddenly ceased, and a great brown bear was there. It was a short-faced bear, a descendant of the monstrous creatures which had roamed the American southwest until ten thousand years ago and then had died out. This one was a third smaller than its ancestors, but it still was massive enough to take on a Siberian tiger.

  Glinda must have heard him through the opened windows. She turned in a half-circle and, without hesitation, pointed one finger at Erakna and the other at the bear. The animal charged, its roar audible to Hank.

  Another glowing globe was on its way from the end of Erakna's umbrella. It met an equally large sphere ejected from the end of Glinda's middle finger, but her sphere traveled only a few feet from her when it coalesced with the North Witch's and blew up. The fiery globe expelled from Glinda's left middle finger seemed to strike the bear on the nose, but the brightness blinded Hank again. He could not be sure of the sequence of action; it was too fast for him.

  When the darkness slid away, he saw that the bear was slumped on the floor, its nose and lips burned away. It almost touched Glinda, who was lying on the floor. The impact of the charging beast, probably dead when it struck her, had knocked her down. She seemed to be unhurt, however, and she got to her feet just as Erakna shot from her umbrella a huge bubble which shimmered with colors like gasoline on water.

  The bubble sprang toward Glinda but slowed in proportion to its nearness to her. She seemed to hold it away with the finger pointed at it. Her left-hand middle finger jabbed at the corner where the bed stood, and from the finger shot a whirling many-angled shining object. It struck the corner above the bed and banked—a magical billiards shot—toward Erakna's back.

  Erakna half-turned and pointed the umbrella at the polygon. It bounced as if hitting an invisible wall and struck the wall of the room. At the same time, the glowing sphere sped on a straight line back toward Erakna. Her right hand rose, the thumb and all fingers except the middle finger clenched, and the sphere slowed, stopped, and hung rotating tiredly in the air. It emitted a screeching like an unlubricated bearing.

  The shimmering polygon bounced off the wall and shot across the room and out a window.

  All this happened so swiftly that Hank could barely follow the offensive and defensive moves. Now he had to quit watching the two because the sphere which had bounced through the window was curving upwards toward him. Though intensely concentrating on her battle with Glinda, the North Witch had seen him. And, now that Glinda had deflected the sphere from the room, Erakna was using it to get rid of him. He was certain that he was the target for the glowing ball.

  But it was not swift. The North Witch could not put much energy or thought behind its projection. She had lost much energy when she had transported herself from her castle into Glinda's. She had lost more when she had moved the great mass of the bear from its forest into the room. And she was trying now to cancel the white queen's moves while simultaneously destroying him.

  If Hank had had time to consider, he would have admired, however grudgingly, the powers of magic and mental control and nerve-coolness of the Uneatable. He did not have that time, though. He had to do something about the death sliding through the air toward the balcony.

  He ran by the flaming mattress, plunged through the smoke carried by the wind, slammed the two doors behind him, stopped, turned, drew his sword, and waited. Sweat soaked his clothes and ran into his eyes. He wiped the stinging fluid away with his left sleeve. His heart beat like the tattoo of a drum just before the trapdoor was sprung by the hangman.

  The front of the sphere bulged—oozed—through the door. Smoke roiled from the wood at its edges. Hank threw the sword point-first into the door and in the middle of the sphere. The blade quivered there while the sphere continued to move until it was almost free of the door. Flames burst from the wood around it, and the sword turned from gray to dull red. Hank could feel its heat.

  He ran down the hallway to where another angled across it. When he whirled, he saw that the door was blazing and that the sword was bending, the weight bringing it down as the metal inside the sphere softened. Then the sword fell with a clang on the bare stone floor. Smoke from the fire-enlarged hole mingled with smoke from the fire on the inner door caused as the globe had passed through it.

  The globe was gone, its energy dissipated by the sword.

  He ran headlong down the hallway and down a spiralling staircase until he came to Glinda's floor. He ran until he came to the very tall but very narrow massive door to her laboratory. There he stood, panting, his brain also panting as it raced. What could he, weaponless, do to help Glinda? There would be swords and bows in the armory, but that was on the first floor, and he might not be able to get into it because the explosion of the dump may have blocked the armory entrance. If the armory door was unblocked, it still might be—probably was—locked. He did not have the key nor did he know where the keykeeper was.

  He became aware that he was clutching the big housekey hanging from the chain.

  The key! There had to be a key to this problem.

  He pulled on the handle of the door. Unexpectedly, it swung out. Glinda had not locked it. Had she done so because she had anticipated his coming here? Or had she not locked it because she might have to try to escape through it? Or both?

  Thick red smoke swirled out through the half-opened doorway, choking him and burning his eyes. He smelled acid and something else in the smoke. He coughed, but he doubted that he had warned Erakna with its sound. Something or some things bellowed like a bull in the room. That ceased but was succeeded by a series of poppings like firecrackers exploding.

  He managed to suppress his coughing just as a six-inch tall creature spurted like catsup from a bottle through the door. He jumped back, crying out, as the thing brushed against his leg. The catsup simile was correct; it was covered with what would have been blood if the blood had been brighter and not so thick. It sped wailing down the hallway, its thin legs and huge webbed froglike feet a blur and a slapping, its thin arms pumping, its froggish saberteeth-armed mouth open, its eyes on top of its hairless and blood-spattered head bulging.

  Before it got to the end of the hall, it collapsed with a noise like a wet towel thrown against a wall. It quivered, legs kicking, and then began to swell. Horrified, Hank watched as the thing ballooned and then burst open as if it had been gas-filled. The thick heavy blood and organs spattered the floor and the walls. From it came an odor that seemed to curl the hairs in his nostrils.

  Something half the bulk of the dead creature crawled out of the organic ruins and croaked. It grinned at Hank and then scuttled on many legs around the corner, leaving little wet footprints behind it.

  Hank gulped and fought an impulse to throw up. Conquering that, he stooped low through the door so that he could not be seen. As he ducked behind a desk, eleven creatures like the unidentifiable but undeniably horrible things that had crawled out of the frog-like thing ran by him, their feet splatting wetly. They stank like mildewed potatoes with rotting chicken, but they were not the source of all that he had smelled at the door. Peering around the desk at the room after the things were gone, he saw stalactites of some whitish, greenflecked, doughy stuff hanging from the ceiling. One dropped, and it quivered for a moment and then began undulating slowly across the floor. The globs were also on the wall here and there as if they had been dough hurled by an explosion. It was their odor, he thought, which was almost making him gag.

  They stank like a mixture of dried blood, dog excrement, decayed gardenias, witch hazel, beer farts
, Limburger cheese, and an odor that was strange to him and one which he hoped would remain a stranger.

  He counted six of the froglike things dead and exploded on the floor. He supposed that if he could see the whole room there would be six more. One of the witches had summoned them in the hope that they would be too many for her foe to deal with. But the other witch had summoned the many-legged things to appear inside the batrachians. Also, one of the witches had brought the mobile doughy things from whatever hellish place they lived.

  The witches must be desperate indeed to expend so much energy in these maneuvers.

  Breathing through his mouth, Hank went on all fours around the desk and looked around its comer. For the moment, both women seemed to be taking a rest break, an undeclared but silently agreed-upon truce. Glinda, near the windows, was breathing hard, and she was sweat-soaked. Her auburn hair was smoke-streaked, the side of her face looked seared, as if it had come close to a flame, her bare arm was bleeding from many places as if tiny shell fragments had struck her. Her dress was blackened in many places and ripped as if claws had caught it, and she had either kicked off her shoes or been torn loose from them by an impact or explosion.

  Her arms hung down as if she were completely exhausted. Her mouth was open, but that might be because of the odors.

  Erakna was far from untouched. She looked as if she had been ground through a people-mill. She might be uneatable but something had chewed on her before spitting her out. Her helmet lay on the floor, its goat's horns cut in half. Her white hair, which had been in a Psyche knot when she appeared, was flying loose. It, too, was smoke-smeared, and blood welled from a scalp wound. Her dress, sweat-permeated, clung to her magnificent body, and it was so torn that it was about ready to fall off. A red and blistered sear mark was just above her breasts. One eye was swelling and rimmed with red. A rip from the waist through the hem of her skirt showed a beautiful but tattooed leg. Hank recognized some of the red and purple symbols.

  There was silence except for the women's loud breathing. Then Glinda said, "Your power is waning, Erakna. The darkened sun is beginning to brighten. He is emerging victorious from the mouth of the Wolf. Just as I will emerge victorious, and you will go where the Bargainer waits for you."

  "But your power has weakened even more than mine, White Witch," Erakna said. "When you thrust those wilna inside my helyafroskaz, you used far too much energy for your own good. You are weakened, White Witch, and it is too late for you to profit from the rebirth of the sun."

  "You are as wrong now as you have been all your life," Glinda said. "Which is near its end—in this world, anyway. Where the Bargainer will send you is where only a soul sick with evil would have agreed to go."

  One of the things hanging from the ceiling dropped. Neither of the women looked at it. Hank, however, saw that the first one to drop was oozing very slowly toward Glinda. It was behind her, and she seemed unaware of it.

  The second glob did not move. Perhaps it was dead; Glinda may have killed it, though it bore no signs of a wound. Or maybe it had been summoned here by Glinda, and Erakna had slain it. No. If that were so, Erakna surely would have mentioned that transporting the things would also have lowered Glinda's powers.

  A third dough-mass plopped on the floor. That also did not move.

  Greasy puddles were forming along the edges of the last two dough globs. They were dwindling, melting. But the first one was still undulating toward Glinda.

  "What do you know of the Bargainer and the agreements She makes?" Erakna said. "I have made a very good compact with Her."

  Glinda smiled and said, "Yes, She told me about that. No, it was not so good. It was better than any other of your slimy kind have gotten, but it will put you where there is no hope. And it will be soon filed away in the Bargainer's unspeakable archives."

  For the first time, the Red Witch lost her composure. Eyes wide, she said, "What do you mean?"

  "You are not the only one who has walked the dread way to the Bargainer. I, too, have gone there, and I have talked with She Who Broods In The Heart Of The Moon. I, too, have agreed on certain terms with Her."

  "You're crazy!" Erakna screamed. "No white witch would go to Her! None could even approach Her! You lie! You lie!"

  "I am more red than you know," Glinda said.

  "You're lying!"

  The white mass was now within a few inches from Glinda's bare heels. Erakna must see this, but she seemed to have forgotten it in her fury.

  He hesitated. If he leaped up and shouted at Glinda to warn her, he would be exposed, defenseless, against whatever the Red Witch might hurl at him. On the other hand, Erakna would have to divert some of her force at him, and that might leave her with a part of her defenses down.

  The glob was only an inch from Glinda now. He did not know what it could do to her, but he was sure that it was not desirable. Though it might be capable only of startling her, that would give Erakna a momentary edge. That was probably all she needed to strike Glinda dead.

  Erakna—still shrilling, "You lie! You lie!"—gripped the handle of her scarlet umbrella with both hands and pointed it at her enemy. A glowing red cloud sprang into being from the end, swirled, and then formed a blood-red face which undulated but still had definite features. It was that of an old, old, toothless woman with unusually deep eye-sockets and unusually large eyes. They glowed; one green, one red. A scarlet tongue slid out out from greenish gums.

  "Look upon the face of the Bargainer!" Erakna screamed. "It's a face you've never seen before, you lying bitch! But it'll be the last face you'll ever see!"

  "I have seen it," Glinda said calmly.

  Hank bit his lip so savagely that it hurt him. He had to divert Erakna's attention to him, but he knew that he would die.

  The face was moving as slowly as a sick sloth towards Glinda. Both her hands were up with the fingers extended towards it. She was fighting against it, but she could not stop its inexorable advance.

  "She will eat you alive!" Erakna screamed. "Bit by bit!"

  Her face was twisted, and sweat poured down her. But the umbrella was as unmoving as if it were in the hand of a statue.

  The blob had halted; it moved again. He could not even see the floor between it and Glinda's heel.

  He sprang up with a hoarse yell. At some time, he did not know when, he had lifted the chain from his neck. Now he held the housekey in his left hand. His unconscious had done it for some reason, a reason that he knew a second after he was aware that it was in his hand.

  Erakna turned slightly, her skin paling, her eyes becoming even larger. She must have thought that he was dead. But she still pointed the umbrella at Glinda. One hand loosened its grip and pointed at Hank.

  Glinda flung her arms up as the doughy thing touched her heel, and she jumped forward.

  The face shot forward, but it stopped when it was within a few inches of the fingers Glinda held outwards again. Glinda was looking into the eyes of her death, and they were again moving very slowly toward her.

  Glinda shouted hoarsely, "If you use your power against him, I will turn the Bargainer against you! She has promised me that I will win! I will go where no one wants to go, but I will have sent you to a worse place, and I will have saved my people!"

  Yelling like a Comanche, Hank ran toward the Red Witch.

  Erakna screamed, and from her finger sped a fiery globe. It was far smaller than the others, the size of a baseball, and it did not travel as swiftly.

  He pitched the key at it, unsure that its path would intercept that of the destroying thing because it was so small. And he did not know that the key, if it passed through the sphere, would do anything. The sphere was ungrounded.

  He was aware that Erakna was still screaming, but the cries sounded different. They were not born of hate but of horror and pain.

  The key arced and touched the sphere.

  Hank was deafened and thrown back by the explosion. His head struck a table, half-stunning him. He got up groggily, saw the key on th
e floor, and saw what Glinda had done to Erakna.

  The face had been turned around and pushed back during that very brief time when Erakna's attention and power had been divided. It was attached to the Red Witch's now. At least, Hank assumed that it was. He could not see it clearly. It was almost invisible from behind and did not look like the back of a head. He did not know what it looked like.

  Erakna rolled on the floor and tore with both hands at her own face as if she were trying to rip the thing off. Suddenly, she quit screaming. Her hands fell off her face and lay motionless by her sides. Her eyes looked fixedly and unblinkingly at the ceiling. Her mouth gaped. Her skin turned gray.

  Two wisps, wavering and semi-transparent, rose from her head and floated through the ceiling. They looked to Hank— surely, it was his imagination—as if Erakna's face was against the Bargainer's, and the horrible old woman was kissing Erakna.

  Hank jumped, and he swore as the corpse gave a tiny scream.

  "An echo," Glinda said. "Poor woman."

  Her voice was faint, and she looked too exhausted to move.

  He leaned on the table, but it was not enough support. He sat on the floor and looked numbly at Glinda. She moved now, though slowly and stiffly.

  "It is over," she said. "I knew that you should stay in the castle."

  "I'm not sure that you did not plan all this."

  She smiled slightly. "No, Hank. I did not know what would happen when she came here. If it hadn't been for you I'd be dead."

  The light outside was getting a little brighter.

  "Did you... really make a compact with the... Bargainer?"

  "No, Hank. I lied to Erakna to shake her up, make her less confident, confuse her."

  "Glinda the Good," he murmured.