by Dave Freer
That the carpet would still do. Thinking about it, it was probably a sensible protection of its fringes from drunk magicians who wanted to throw up or get rid of some beer. It was whether it would consider that a mere pit-stop on its way home or not, that was worrying Alamaya. She had taken landmarks carefully and worked out precisely the direction they had been flying in — the opposite direction should be ‘home’.
Tom and the leopard did get off and look around but they were plainly unimpressed with the spot, and sat down on the carpet again.
It appeared that the carpet was suitably deceived, and soon they were flying off back the way they’d come. Down the precise line over the same landmarks… Away from the mountains, and unfortunately, towards the clouds. The clouds were boiling up and over a cliff-edge. Whatever lay below was hidden in the cloud-mass pushing and shoving its way to get a chance to rain on the gnomes and their mountains.
The carpet was heading straight towards them. She could see the streamers of rain from here. And she could see what else was riding the updraft. So could the cats. Cats catch birds. But this bird was big enough to catch cats. Or flying carpets.
They’d seen it, and it had seen them, and was closing on them, flapping its enormous wings to gain height. Marcenius panicked. Alamaya had been listening and watching his spell-casting on the carpet. That was the down spell…
Which took them up to meet it.
Emerelda, facing the menace in Hargarthius’s tower, resigned herself to the fact that her reign as the wickedest witch in the west was probably over. She recognised the tide of shimmering, fuzzy looking grey goo seeping down the stairs. She also recognised the sound of armoured men breaking down a door, below. She could only hope Alamaya escaped in time, because the chances of her being spared — even as the princess, let alone as a cat, were not good.
Hargarthius flung a sizzling thunderbolt at the goo.
Had it been almost anything else it would have vaporised. He had an enormous level of power, even if his control was awful. As it was… the goo expanded slightly and the thunderbolt vanished. “Don’t. You’ll only make it come down faster. It is a gel-matrix of thaumato-absorbent nanny-whatsits. It absorbs magic. And I believe it is rather like being trapped in pork jelly, if you get into it.”
“How do we stop it?”
“Mechanically, not magically, I am afraid. If we can get to the magic workers sending it, we could deal with them.”
“Can we levitate…?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It will reach up for magic. In fact we’d better retreat now. If we can hold it out long enough I can set up a hyper-dimensional transfer gate. If not, well we’ll be trapped in it, it’ll set, rather like gelatine, and they can come and haul us out at their leisure.”
“Back to my bed-chamber then,” he said. “It has a very tight-fitting door.”
“And it is suitable place to make a last stand with me,” said the witch, with a shadow of her normal sense of humor.
On the roof of what would always be Estethius’s Tower to Chief Wizard Kolumnus, his team of wizards struggled.
“We need relief!” complained Targonius.
Kolumnus ignored him. Targonius was capable enough, but he had joined the Royal Council of Mages to avoid work. Kolumnus had to admit to himself that the tower must have huge amounts of magic. It was a little draining.
CHAPTER 18
BETWEEN A ROC AND A HARD PLACE
The vast eagle-like Roc swooped at them — amazingly fast, shrieking a challenge, with its talons reaching. Alamaya ducked, knowing even as she did it, that it was too little, too late.
Or it would have been, had the snow-leopard not lunged up to meet it. There was a tumbling chaos of wings and claws…
It was difficult to say which had which — the gigantic Roc had the snow leopard in one talon — but the snow leopard was clawing and biting.
“Turn around! After them!” yelled Alamaya.
“No. Must get away!” panted Marcenius frantically spell-chanting.
The carpet turned sharply in pursuit of the bird. Had she had time to think of it, Alamaya would have realized that in his fear Marcenius had forgotten to reverse the spell. Alamaya was too busy belabouring the head of the Roc with the broomstick to think. It tried to bite her, and Tom, somehow on her shoulder, jumped and clawed at the huge golden eyes. It let go of the leopard, which landed with a bloody thump on the carpet. The roc was blindly flapping, ripping at the carpet, and trying to bite, when it occurred finally to Alamaya that reversing turning it into a frog would be easier to fight.
The green frog wasn’t very good at flying.
At least the carpet, even with the new rips, did keep doing that, although it was losing height, spiralling into the clouds.
Down, down and then down some more.
As she was trying to haul the wounded, bleeding, snow leopard properly onto the carpet, she caught, through the cloud, a glimpse of the cliff they were descending rapidly down. They weren’t quite falling, but it was certainly very fast.
It was an enormous cliff, which she could have worked out without seeing it, because the air got thicker and warmer as they went lower. But Alamaya was too busy ripping pieces off Tom’s robe to try and staunch the bleeding snow leopard’s wounds to pay any attention. They came to a bumpy landing on the scree-slope next to the cliff.
Finally looking up from her task, Alamaya realized they’d landed in the nether-hells — or something rather like it. It was hot, the air thick… and the place dripped and oozed — even the scree-rocks were covered in hanging excrescences like faintly glowing snot. It had to be faintly glowing — the heavy cloud made it as dim as twilight down here. The air was full of the leathery flapping of something flying away and odd slithery sounds came from between the rocks… and Tom leaped off the carpet, stuck his nose in the air and bounded off across the rocks, leaving her to cope with the injured snow leopard. The leopard raised her head and licked the tears from Alamaya’s face as she fought to staunch the blood. The leopard wept too. She was bleeding herself, but that didn’t matter. “Help me,” she yelled at Marcenius.
He unwound from a panicked ball, looked around — as Tom came back, meowing urgently. Tom weighed a fraction of what the injured snow leopard did, but to her surprise, he grabbed the snow leopard by the scruff of the neck and was trying to pull. For a moment, Alamaya wondered what he was doing, whether she should push him away — and then she got it. “Help me carry her!” she snapped at the hapless Marcenius. “Take that end of the carpet.”
“Uh. Where to? We’ve got to get out of here,” squawked Marcenius.
“Tom has found a place,” said Alamaya, keeping her patience with difficulty. “Take that side of the carpet.”
“The beast is dying. Just leave it. We have to find somewhere safe…”
“Pick it up or I’ll turn you into a green frog too,” snarled Alamaya, so he did.
They staggered after Tom who kept turning around and mewing at them. And there it was… an un-natural square cut hole in the cliff-wall. The cat turned and looked at them and stepped into it. A flapping leathery thing — all talons, teeth and lederhosen-with-wings flew out, shrieking. Alamaya ducked, barely in time, dropping her end of the carpet to fend it off with the broom which had been lying on the carpet.
Marcenius screamed and ran, still holding his end of the carpet. The snow leopard slid off. Alamaya looked for Tom inside the opening.
She could dimly see a figure there. A human. “Help me, for Zoryanthus’s sake!” She didn’t think about what a human was doing there or if they would help, she just grabbed the snow-leopard’s front end and hauled into the opening.
And then could not pull any more.
Because she was a cat.
Tom had smelled the broom closet even as they were descending the cliff. To think he’d ever been unhappy about the lavender-and-bleach reek of Long-haired Star (with 98% un-natural ingredients) containing beach, Aunt Chlorine and all sorts of other
nasty things, tested on animals and toxic. Original abrasive cleaning powder! It co-mingled uneasily with the ConifirSoul, and had always smelled like it should be the gateway to the underworld, not the way out of it. Now, not even fish could smell as good.
He’d followed his nose — found the broom closet, and at least the Princess had been quick to catch on.
Things had gone slightly wrong when he’d stepped inside the closet. It wasn’t as wide as the pantry, and turning human had knocked him into a bucket, with a mop and a cloth balanced on the end of the handle —and flung the dry, leathery smelly cloth from its roost to where it assumed its true nature. But looking back into the dimness as he struggled to his feet, Tom saw Alamaya swat it away and pull the injured snow leopard forward. He would have helped, but he knew, out there he’d be a cat.
And in here she was a cat.
And in here the injured snow leopard became a wounded cheese.
A very puzzled cat, who plainly expected him to answer the questions, and to get them out of here. Now. So, Tom, who was now naked, retrieved what was left of his robe, and tried his door opening spell.
The door cracked open — and the netherworld behind them closed, making this place even darker with just a crack of light out there.
Unfortunately what was outside the door into the tower began to ooze in.
And unfortunately the princess-cat was impatient. She put her front foot out claw at the door. Which immediately became a hand.
By the time Tom had managed to pull the door closed as much as possible, she was entirely human and showing him she could swear as well as the witch could. "That hurt! Um… could I have, some of that robe? What happened to the snow leopard?”
Tom bit his lip while he shrugged himself out of the remains of his robe, and handed it to her. He unwrapped the cheese from the other pieces of his robe. “It always was the cheese. It was… just different in that place.” He stroked the cheese instinctively, and got a faint burring purr.
“Well we’re not leaving it in here. Come on, we have to get out.”
“We have to deal with that stuff,” Tom pointed to the puddle. “It’s pressing against the door. Nearly head-high, I guess, and that makes it hard to push open and it’s oozing in here.”
“What is it?” asked Alamaya.
“I dunno. Magical muck,” said Tom who was used to cleaning magical muck up. He tied a piece of his torn robe around his waist — more to give him time to think than anything else. “We can try the ConifirSoul on it. That works on most things, and doesn’t smell as bad as the Long-haired Star. There’s a carboy of concentrate there on the shelf behind you.”
Alamaya grabbed it and poured some onto the grey goo. It hissed and retreated. “Yes! If we can splash some out of this crack… Help me push,” she said, determinedly.
“Um. Let me get my broom going. In my, er, your pocket, there should be a little vial with a couple of neeps eyes in it.”
She fished it it out, handed it to Tom. “Why don’t you put the cheese in your pocket?” he asked. It was a practical thing to do, seeing as he no longer had any pockets.
She wrinkled her nose. You could smell the cheese even above the pine-tar. “It’s cheese. I mean…”
“It saved your life back there. And it’s… sort of a friend.”
“So it did. And I owe it my loyalty even if it does smell funny!” So she took it and put it in the pocket of the robe, as Tom stuck the neep’s eye on with spit and activated the super-hooom-broom. The twigs writhed and reached and hit the patch where the goo had been…
The super-hooom broom made an odd whining noise. For a moment Tom was afraid the muck had killed it. But then it sucked even harder.
“Quick, some ConifirSoul,” he yelled.
Whether it was the ConifirSoul or the sheer power of super-hooom, the broom was forcing its way out into the hallway. Alamaya leaned against the door next to him and poured some ConifirSoul onto her hand and flicked it out of the gap.
With a hissing and a furious hoooming they pushed out into the hall. Tom cleared gelatinous goo, as Alamaya flicked ConifirSoul. “Where to?” He shouted.
“The laboratory? The study? I don’t know,” shouted Alamaya, back at him.
By lack of decision they made their way towards the lab. “Master could be in there,” shouted Tom.
But he was not. The place was awash with the gelatinous goo… and it seemed very close-walled. It was a small crowded room now, no space between the benches. The broom closet had seemed smaller too.
“It’s shrinking,” said Alamaya looking at the walls and roof.
“Like, you’re telling me, dude,” said a voice from the chamber pot. “Who called the fuzz?” asked the demon, peering out at them.
“Hariselden! What’s happened?” shouted Tom above the noise of the super-hoom.
“Uncool stuff,” said the demon actually sounding disapproving. “Like the fuzz didn’t roll in and didn’t break up the party.”
He wasn’t even bothering to lie subtly.
“Don’t you know where the witch and Master Hargarthius are?” asked Tom.
“Like, dude, of course. They’re sitting next to you.”
As they plainly weren’t, that answered the question.
“And this stuff?” asked Alamaya above the hooom —roar.
“It’s a magical mystery tour. Just… put a spell on you. It makes you magic, chick.”
“And you?” she asked.
“Oh yeah cat, it’d kill me.”
Alamaya began drawing the seven circles in chalk on the newly cleared bench-top.
“Don’t waste your time cat-chick,” said the demon… climbing out of the pot. “The binding spells are spells too. That stuff dissolved them.”
“So… what are you still doing here?” asked Alamaya. “I mean don’t you have demon principalities to return to?”
The demon sighed smokily. Looked around as if he was scared he might be overheard. “Look. It sucks down there. Orders, orders, orders, giving them, taking them, step outta line and you’re toast. Hierarchy is everything. And you know how hard it is to lie about everything? Here I got a nice little pad, deflower any flowers I feel like, good vibes, and no one checks to see if I am lying according to the current narrative…”
“So, will you help us to free God-mama and Master Hargarthius? Take this war to our enemies?” asked the Princess, sounding every inch of a Princess.
“Man I wanna make lurve not war,” said the demon putting his feet up.
“I could get you some pickles,” said Tom, finally shutting the super-hooom down, as he’d run out of furry gray goo to hooom up, and it was threatening to clean the ceiling again. “For some help.”
“Now that idea I really dig, cat,” said the demon Prince.
Tom decided that probably meant ‘yes’.
“We’ll go and get them,” he announced.
“If we have enough Conifirsoul,” said Alamaya.
Tom smiled. “There’s several full carboys in the cupboard here. And, hang on, there’s that atomizer — it’ll spray it. We could dilute it a bit.”
Even diluted, the conifirsoul was as tough on grey goo as it was grime and dirt. And the high shelf provided fresh neeps’ eyes.
So they went out of the laboratory and into the passage again. The goo hadn’t returned, and they were able to press on down to the kitchen… which was now not very far. As they got to the pantry door, and Tom shut the super-hooom broom down, Alamaya actually managed a laugh. “Back here… on this side of the door. We’re cats, Tom. We always need to be on the other side of any closed door.”
“But there always might be something better on the other side,” said Tom, with perfect cat logic, opening the pantry door.
The raven flew out of there, with a cry of ‘Nevermore’, before the knight staggered out. Raised his sword, and dropped it to frantically pull at his visor.
Tom just kept repeating the spell, and sending in more mice. He opened the visor,
and seven mice ran out… and then a green frog hopped off as the suit of armour fell over.
“It seems iron stops frog spells, but not mice spells,” said Alamaya. “Look at the goo, Tom — it has come running.” And indeed, it had, tendril of the furry slime flowed towards them.
Alamaya sprayed it, Tom got the hooom broom activated, and pushed it back. “Right. Let’s get the pickles and get back to the laboratory.”
“Do you think I should put the cheese back on its shelf? It’s… it’s gone very quiet.”
“I suppose I could give it some milk,” said Tom doubtfully. “I don’t know much about healing cheese.”
Alamaya stuck her hand into the pocket of what had once been Tom’s robe… And pulled out… not a cheese… but two tiny golden vials, dented and damaged.
“Nevermore! Nevermore! Nevermore!” shrieked the raven triumphantly, flying around the pair of them, like something demented. Perhaps it was. It had plainly been trapped in the pantry for some time.”
“I’ll get the pickles,” said Tom, rather sadly. He’d… got used to the cheese. And he’d recognised the faintest of hints of it about the snow leopard. Worked out that somehow, in gnome-land — where all the spells were reversed it must be what the cheese actually was. But Master Hargarthius had said that spells in the pantry — gnome-man’s land — the place that was somewhere between here and elsewhere, were different again. No matter. He was glad to have found the vials, but rather missed the cheese… and the snow-leopard. That was an ally worth having, and rather feminine and graceful too.
Several jars in the pantry had been broken, more of a mess for a famulus to clean. Tom sighed. He collected an intact jar of pickled… chili peppers, He had no idea what those were or how they got there, but they’d have to do. When he came out again, he found the Raven sitting on Alamaya’s shoulder.
So, armed with the jar of pickles and a raven they made their way back up the broad stairs and long passageway to the laboratory.
Alamaya shook her head. “Am I losing my mind, Tom? It’s a long way now. It couldn’t have been fifteen paces before. And the passage is wider.”
