by Dave Freer
“You attack those who did nothing to you, who were unborn at the time,” she said.
“The sins of the mothers, mwhahaa,” cackled Estethius’s brain. “But I am generous. Meet my terms and I’ll return the blood and tears that my sendling demon-prince seducer stole from her for me. I want the body of your finest knight — better than that fool-of-a-boy’s feeble little body, if there is a princess I will have her for my bride, and the Kingdom of Ambyria for my reward. Then I will return the vial of blood and tears. You will never find them without me. No torture, no privation, no means fair or foul will get it from me, ever. And now, I raise my will, I command the demon king Aspore…”
As the needle on the thaumometer moved, the fail-safes cut in, breaking the connection to the mouth, and the ear. The brain plopped back down into the basin, bobbing silent, malevolent. Probably thinking dark thoughts full of rage and revenge and triumph…
Briefly, before it was lifted out by Master Hargarthius, with his largest tongs and put back into its jar of hypo-amniotic suspension fluid, and the heavy lid jammed down. “Well. That was not exactly a success,” said the Master, gloomily. “He hasn’t changed much. And I’m glad to have it proved to me that he planned to take my body. I was quite fond of my body back then.”
Back in the kitchen, which everyone, well, the cat in particular, had decided was a good place to discuss anything, and which both Master Hargarthius and Emerelda had done their best to proof against spying ears. It might, or might not be successful, but at least it was warmer than the tower-top and less crowded and smelly than the garderobe would be. The witch was particularly crabby. “I dislike hurting things, but I think I can make an exception,” she said.
“Hmph. It won’t help,” said Master Hargarthius. “Ask the skull of Mrs Drellson.”
“Oh he thrived on pain,” cackled the skull. “Even his own. It seemed to please him.”
“Er. Could we try some kind of reward? Sort of fish and stick,” Tom was not fond of carrots and couldn’t see why anyone would be.
“He’s not going to negotiate either,” said Master Hargarthius. “I remember that all too well.”
“Could we give him what he wants… and then kill him?” asked Tom to whom Ambyria and knights meant little, and the Princess a lot. It was rather like letting a mouse that wanted you away from its hole think you’d gone…
“He was the foremost magician of the age. Not easy to kill. And anyway, Duke Karst and the other nobles would never agree. The status quo works for them, even if finding a suitable husband for the royal princesses is difficult, when your offspring will be cursed,” said the witch with a sigh. “A lot of work for nothing much. We’re still no wiser, and no better off. And this level of magic will have attracted some attention, I daresay.”
“Well, we are wiser,” said Master Hargarthius. “I now know the curse-spell he’s referring to. It’s in a rather obscure grimoire from Partkticia, on the bottom shelf in the study… If we had the tears and the blood, and the princess I could break it.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” demanded the witch.
“Because we have no idea where to look. And if Estethius hid them… we won’t find them.”
“We will question the demon,” said Emerelda.
“That is worth trying,” admitted Master Hargarthius. “I did not recognise him when he came back here. Better get him a pickle, boy.” So Tom did, and they trooped up to the Master’s study, to where the demon Prince had been moved, to keep him well away from the sphere of Estethius’s influence.
It seemed that Hargarthius was not the only one not to recognise what Prince Hariselden had become. The witch stared incredulously at the Demon — who said “Pieces and lurve, man… woman… cats… cool-cats.”
“What have you done to him?” asked Emerelda.
“Hmph. Nothing. Well, nothing deliberate. But it seems that pickles…make his mind channel something in another dimension. He seems content, as long as we keep him supplied with pickles.”
“It’s outa this world!” said the demon in swirl of pink smoke as he devoured the pickle. The pansies were doing a multi-colored conga-line and then a limbo-dance around the base of the handle.
“I don’t think it is right,” said the witch, shaking her head.
“Hmph. Magicians capture and summons demons who are imprisoned, constrained, used… and that only happens because their very reason for being is a wish to destroy all human life and torture our souls… which, more often than not they manage one magician at time, and you’re upset because this one is happy?”
“Yes, but this one seems… well, it’s… it’s unnatural.”
“We want to find the blood and tears,” said Tom speaking when he probably should have been silent. “I don’t mind how natural the demon is.”
“I’m a denatured chile. I was spawned, spawned to be vile…” yelled the demon cheerfully.
“You don’t know anything about blood and tears.”
“Blood, sweat and tears, yeah. I know. I know, uh huh, uh that’s the way… the child is the father of the man…”
“In other words, he doesn’t know.”
Questioning the demon was exhausting, and confusing. But at last the witch was convinced she had the story: he didn’t know what Estethius had finally done with them. He’d collected the blood and the tears. With trickery the witch had something of a description of the containers, which were absolutely not golden… or in other words, were. Were huge and plain, or in other words, weren’t. It was enough to make Tom’s head hurt, even if the smell from the pot hadn’t been making his eyes water and his nose run.
To Tom’s relief, they returned to the kitchen, and left the demon contentedly to his pot-dreams, so that they could talk about what they’d learned.
“Two small golden containers, with lids, ornate,” said the witch.
“Or at least that’s what they looked like the last time the demon saw them,” said Hargarthius. “And I know I haven’t found or seen such things.” He grimaced. “If they were gold I would have sold them in the early years. They might well have been stolen when I let the knights into the tower, by the back door. There was some looting. I’ve looked for his treasury. For years, I looked. I don’t think it is to be found.”
“Nevermore,” said the raven, gloomily.
“The treasury… where was it?” asked Tom, who had done a fair amount of exploring. The tower was extensive, confusing, but not infinite.
“It went away. It was next to the broom cupboard.”
“So things move around in this tower,” said the witch, leading, coaxing… she did it well.
“Yes, I think it was magically evolved from a much smaller structure. The broom cupboard is a fixture, though.”
“Nasty place,” said Tom.
“Yes,” agreed Master Hargarthius. “Estethius shut me in it once. He used to call it ‘the netherworld’. It isn’t, however. I thought it a likely place. It’s just a small cupboard. The pantry is more alarming. Magical rules are entirely different in there. The milk arrives magically at the back of it. And sometimes there are new cellars and dungeons. I learned how to make it jumble itself up faster, quite accidentally, a few years ago. I still don’t understand how or what happens, though.”
“When I was young gel,” said the skull of Mrs Drellson, “my gramma told me that when the first people come to these mountains, there was a haunted old building here. No one would go near it… Long, long before Master Estethius. He just moved into it and it grew. I remember it growing while I was working here. Nineteen below stairs staff we had, and needed them all. There were always extra dungeons and cellars.” The skull managed a disapproving sniff. “It’d shrunk when Master Hargarthius called me to service here again, with only one boy! But it is growing again. But this time there are more rooms.”
She sounded pleased about that. To Tom it just sounded like more cleaning.
“I saw another study once. I should have gone into it, but I thought
there might be someone in there,” he admitted. “I haven’t found it again.”
“It sounds as if the search may well be harder than I imagined. And I imagined it would be hard, as the actress said to the bishop,” said the witch.
Tom was not familiar with actresses or bishops, but they had it right. “I would have found it by now if it was easy and not hidden. Mrs Drellson makes me clean everything,” he said, with a sigh.
“I am sure it is well hidden,” said the witch. “Fortunately, I have an excellent gold-divining spell. It’s um, more effective and cheaper than turning base metal into gold.”
Master Hargarthius raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Alchemy at its best. I am sure I wasn’t the only one who wondered at your success.”
She chuckled. “You’d be amazed how often the find is in some fellow’s pouch or pocket. And that I could find, without magic. Although,” she looked at Hargarthius’s robe, and then at Tom’s, and winked at Tom, “It might be easier to dig it up than to get them to spend any of it.”
“Hmph. The cost of magical supplies is ruinous,” said Master Hargarthius. “Anyway, apply the spell. Maybe you can find Estethius’s treasury for me, too.
“And I might even tell you if I do,” she said twinkling her eyelashes at him. “If you were really nice to me, that is.”
Master Hargarthius drew breath to go ‘Hmph’ again, and then shook his head, and managed a reluctant laugh. “No wonder you were called the wickedest witch in the West.”
“You have no idea what an effort it was, or how much fun, at times. But the right answer was: ‘Can I get you a glass of wine?’ And my thought would be, ‘What a nice man,’ as I said: ‘white, dry and chilled, Sweetie’.”
Old Grumptious worried Tom by laughing a lot, and telling Tom to fetch her a bottle, unless she’d like two.
“One glass for now,” she said. “Work first, and drinking later.”
And work it was. Messy work too, to Tom’s irritation. He ended up carrying his broom with him, to suck up the mess before someone stood in it and spread it around, as they worked their way slowly up from the cellars. So far they had found one gold Salabar — so deeply wedged down a crack between the stones that only the edge could be seen by reflecting a light down the crack. It was still there, despite Master Hargarthius’s earnest attempts to get to it. “Must be wedged from when the tower grew,” he said at long last, when the witch’s foot-tapping got quite extreme.
They had found Master Hargarthius’s pouch too, but that was a known place. The area around the broom-cupboard yielded to Master Hargarthius’s disappointment, nothing.
And then — at a volume which made all of them — even the cat — cover their ears, came the sound of the ominous chime, followed rapidly by the panicky shrieking of the Skull of Mrs Drellson. “Alarums, Alarums! Invaders on the tower-top. Hundreds of them!”
“A flying attack! They must still have managed to listen in to us,” said Master Hargarthius.
“Or decided that not knowing was too dangerous,” said the witch. “Well. We’d better get to defence… I assume you have defences?”
Hargarthius nodded.
“And an escape route?”
“There’s a hidden door. It leads out to the midden. It’s actually quite some distance from the tower.”
“Right. It’s night out there. I’ll help you. We’ll send the… cat, and the boy out. They see in the dark well enough, and I’ll help you fight, at least a delaying action.”
“It’s my tower,” said Master Hargarthius grimly. “And I suspected… Go boy. Keep the cat close.”
The cat hissed arching its back, the hair on its back standing up.
“I don’t have time for this,” said the witch. “Go girl. You know how to get to the other place from the gate in my demesnes. Go boy. Take her.”
So Tom picked up the cat and ran.
He’d also suspected… but there were things a cat and famulus did not meddle with. “You’re the Princess, aren’t you?” he said, as he ran, towards the hidden door.
Her only reply was a yowl of alarm — which had nothing to do with what he said, but a great deal to do with the burly, armed knights marching down the passage — and him with nothing more than a broom and a cat.
He skidded to a stop and turned and fled — they plainly had found or known the secret door too. In the kitchen he nearly ran into the skull. “Knights!” he panted. “At the back door!”
The skull of Mrs Drellson sighed. “They’ve released something upstairs that is devouring magic, boy. That’s all that holds the tower together. And me. I should have told Old Grumptious that Master Estethius hid the tears and blood in the pantry.”
“Why didn’t you?” panted Tom, hauling the heavy table up to bar the door.
The skull shook itself disapprovingly. “It was the witch. She’s turned his head. He was never really good at being evil, and now she’s got him eating out of her hand.”
“I need somewhere safe to hide the… cat.”
The raven came fluttering down the passage, bringing with it a stench of burned feathers.
It pecked at the pantry door. “Nevermore!”
Mrs Drellson’s skull sniffed. “Last time you went in there, you didn’t come out for ten years.”
There were ominous creaks and explosions from upstairs. Shouts and the sounds of crashing against the door from the back door to the kitchen.
Tom scooped up the cat — who scratched him and hissed. He paid no mind but opened the pantry door, and… closed it completely behind him. He dropped the struggling cat, and hastily lit a salamander and the lamp.
The cheese hummed loudly. Instinctively, Tom leaned the broom against the shelf and reached out and stroked it. It seemed to expect that, now.
Alamaya was furious. How dare Tom! She wanted to fight…
The raven had all but chased them in here, but hadn’t followed.
Now they were trapped, trapped in this tiny room. Trapped with that black-waxed cheese that made her feel odd, just looking at it. The pantry couldn’t be more than ten cubits long. She’d seen the back wall when Tom had opened the door.
Only… where was it now?
The Chief Wizard had been angry at the slowness of the military… but as he was still reliant on Duke Karst, there was nothing much he could do. And, it was true, no-one was that keen on being the first mage into Estethius’s old tower. They might not fear Hargarthius, but it was still Estethius’s tower. A place of dark sorcery and great power… that he intended to possess for himself.
CHAPTER 17
TO GNOME IS TO LOVE ME
The first thing Tom realized when he looked up from the stroking the cheese… was that he couldn’t see the door. Instead there were stout shelves, full shelves, that he’d swear couldn’t be there. But no door to the kitchen. Just a very solid looking stone wall behind them.
He knew a moment’s relief. It looked just like any other stone wall. It would surely fool the attackers… and then it came to him: that was from this side. It wasn’t that no-one could get in from the kitchen. They just couldn’t get out from inside.
He turned to look for the cat.
Only to see her walking off down the long stone passage that was where the back wall of the pantry ought to be. Where the jug of milk always stood.
The jug was still there, the cat was just… on the other side of it. There was a sort of strange mistiness about her. He grabbed his broom and turned to run after her calling… and the cheese made a strange sound. Any sound from it that wasn’t a burring hum was strange. This was an odd ‘meewlp’ sort of noise. It seemed… pleading. But he couldn’t let the cat-princess wonder off… so he picked up the cheese in the other hand and raced after her, past the milk-jug.
Alamaya had been inspired by curiosity when she’s stepped past the milk jug.
And what she found there to her was certainly curiouser and curiouser.
A part of her surprise was realizing that she was both naked and no lon
ger a cat. This was not like her brush with Dr Mirabellus Ontogenetic Reflux Liquid, or Godmama’s somewhat gentler process… this was instant. She stood up, because being on her hands and feet was not particularly comfortable, and while it was easier to look between her legs to see Tom hurrying towards her, it made seeing in front difficult. All she could see were some feet.
Standing up did not particularly improve the view. It was… spectacular, just not what she wanted to see.
Tom, rushing forward, was suddenly and abruptly obliged to drop the broom and the cheese. That was because he suddenly had no hands to hold them with, and his balance required he go onto all four feet.
Added to this was the fact that he was somewhat tangled up in his robe, which had fitted him as an apprentice, but very badly as a cat. He struggled to free his forelegs, and then scrambled out from under it.
He was looking up at the delightful girl he’d gone clubbing with. Now of course she didn’t have white makeup on her face, or, actually, anything else on either. Perhaps that was what they wore — or rather didn’t wear — in this country of chasms, crags and gnomes. They were, from a cat’s perspective, broad, large and angry looking gnomes. That could have been due to the spear the one was wielding or the battle-axe the other swung. It wasn’t the milk-pail that the third, fleeing one had dropped. None of them appeared to be naked. Tom took all of this in, as he leaped to one side, to avoid being hit by the falling broom.
That was a good move. Unfortunately, it nearly landed him on top of the snow-leopard.
Fortunately the snow-leopard seemed keener on chasing gnomes than on eating a tom-cat in one bite.
Alamaya found the sudden disappearance of Tom — who vanished into his robe, which fell to the ground with a startled yowl even more worrying than two gnome-guards and the gnome milk-maid. The snow leopard that landed on its feet next to Tom’s robe bounded past her seconds later, even before she really had time to worry about it. Being human, and naked, and confronted with warlike and angry gnomes, not to mention being hit on the shins by Tom’s broom were quite enough for her to deal with.
