Angela and Jenny led me into the "salon," as they liked to call
it.
Disaster, sure enough.
Not just one calamity, either, but a whole collection. There they were:
Zulkeh, the pedant from perdition.
Shelyid, the dwarf from disaster.
Hrundig, the mercenary from—never mind. (And just what the hell was he doing in that company, anyway?)
Magrit, the proper witch. And her familiar—the salamander Wittgenstein.
Finally, of course, Gwendolyn.
Greyboar was already there, standing in one of the other doorways leading into the salon. The Cat was pushing her way past him, drifting her way into the room.
" 'Lo, Gwendolyn," I heard him mumble.
The chokester seemed in a bit of a daze. He looked around for a place to sit, but there wasn't any. The couch and the two chairs we had were already taken by the guests. (I kept a tight lid on frivolous expenses, you understand.)
" 'Lo, brother," came her response. She wasn't quite frowning—you've never seen a real frown until you've seen Gwendolyn's, let me tell you—but she certainly didn't seem overjoyed to see her long-lost brother. Tense as a coil of steel.
The ice was broken by Shelyid. The dwarf sprang off his chair and raced over to Greyboar, squealing his happy greetings. A moment later, he was hugging the strangler's right knee.
Greyboar winced. You wouldn't think it, looking at the little guy, but Shelyid's as strong as an ogre. Strange dwarf. Ugly as sin, for one thing. Hairier than a musk ox, for another.
"Hey, take it easy, Shelyid."
"Oh! Sorry." The dwarf released Greyboar's leg and grinned up at him. Greyboar grinned back. He's really very fond of that dwarf.
So am I, actually. A bit to my regret, then, because Shelyid raced over and gave me the same hug. I thought my ribcage was going to go, but I was surprised at how happy I was to see him.
Then Wittgenstein piped up and I wasn't surprised at how much I hadn't missed the slimy creature. "Isn't that sweet, Magrit? Midgets meet again."
"Shut up, Wittgenstein," growled the witch. "We're supposed to be on our best behavior."
"That is my best behavior," groused the salamander. "What am I supposed to do? Be polite?"
Greyboar nodded to Magrit. "I see you escaped the Cruds. I was a little worried when we heard the Ozarines had invaded Prygg."
The witch sneered. "Those chumps? They couldn't have caught me even if I hadn't had the Rap Sheet."
I made frantic little waving motions with my hands. You know the ones: shuddup, shuddup, shuddup.
Magrit's sneer deepened. "And what's your problem, Ignace? Don't want any mention of the Rap Sheet in your presence?"
Very frantic waving motions: shuddup, shuddup, shuddup.
"You remember the Rap Sheet, don't you? You ought to, Ignace. You helped steal it."
"Absolutely!" shrilled the salamander perched on her shoulder. Wittgenstein reared up like a herald. "Ignace was deeply involved! Totally! Integrally!"
SHUDDUP, SHUDDUP, SHUDDUP.
Jenny and Angela were staring at me, wide-eyed.
"You stole the Rap Sheet?" gasped Angela.
"Is that what you were doing in Prygg?" demanded Jenny. She stared at Greyboar. "So that's why you won't ever talk about it!"
I clutched my head. The whole world would know!
"Shut up!" I cried.
"Whatever for, Ignace?" demanded Wittgenstein. As always, the high pitch of the familiar's voice grated on my ears. "Since when have you become so modest?"
Wittgenstein swiveled his neck and peered intently at Jenny and Angela.
"Yes, yes, ladies! You are in the presence of terrible desperadoes! The very men who were complicit in the theft of Ozar's Rap Sheet which drew down the wrath of that mighty empire upon poor, downtrodden Grotum. Responsible, I say, for the invasion of Pryggia and the ensuing horrors and atrocities."
He rose to his full height and pointed at me. "J'accuse!"
"Oh, stop it," said Magrit.
Wittgenstein snickered. "But it's all true, Magrit! You know it is. You were there, after all." Snicker, snicker. "It was your plot in the first place."
Wittgenstein's beady red eyes rolled back to Jenny and Angela. Again, that nasty snicker. "From subtle hints, I'd say the two of you have formed a romantic attachment to this Ignace fellow. Dummies."
Jenny and Angela nodded. Gwendolyn frowned. Magrit sneered. Shelyid looked confused. Zulkeh didn't.
Wittgenstein snickered again. Then, hissed: "Cradle robber. Bigamist cradle robber."
"He is not a bigamist!" snapped Jenny.
Angela giggled. "More like a trigamist." She put her arm around Jenny, and smiled seraphically. "As for the charge of robbing the cradle—well—"
"It's true," pronounced Jenny. "We are but lambs, led astray by this lustful beast." She put her arm around me and rubbed her hip against mine. The motion involved was not, uh, lamblike.
For the first time, the wizard Zulkeh spoke.
"Do I understand correctly? Is it true that this wight has engaged in carnal intercourse with both of you hoydens? Who have, in your turn, transgressed the well-established bounds of heterosexual propriety?"
Jenny and Angela nodded happily.
"Like I said," piped up Wittgenstein. "A bigamist cradle robber." The salamander goggled the girls. "And dykes, to boot."
"Bah!" spoke Zulkeh. The wizard stroked his beard. "You would do well, Magrit, to silence that unnatural beast. Its ignorance is beyond belief. The charge of bigamy is utterly specious, inasmuch as bigamy presupposes the sundering of lawful bonds through subterfuge, whereas we have, in this instance—I misdoubt me not—neither lawful bonds to be sundered nor any subterfuge utilized in not so doing. This—" he continued, while everyone was trying to catch up with the tortured logic—"being due to the fellow Ignace's well-known disdain for all moral precepts."
He waved his hand in judgment.
"As well accuse a wolf of moral turpitude for being a carnivore. Now, as to the charges of cradle robbing and perversion, it seems to me, at first glance, that we have to deal with more substantive matters. I would remind all present, in regard to the first, of the well-known precepts of Nabokov Laebmauntsforscynneweëld. Then, dealing with the problem of perversion, we can begin with the texts of Sappho Sfondrati-Piccolomini, in whose execrable verses are clearly—"
"Enough!" bellowed Magrit. She planted her hands on the arms of the chair and swiveled her ample figure toward Zulkeh. Her plain and modest long dress fit her middle-aged matronly appearance. But the scowl on her face was as ferocious as you'd expect from one of the world's down-home, no-fooling, proper witches. "Enough already!"
The wizard glared at her. I expected another of the mighty wrangles between the two of them which I had gotten used to—sort of—while we were in Prygg.
But Greyboar interrupted. "Why are you here?"
Silence fell. All eyes turned to Gwendolyn.
"Oh, no," I moaned. (Very softly, mind.)
Sure enough: "I need your help, brother."
The words were choked out, as if she were trying not to say them. The next words, even more so: "And yours too, Ignace."
She wasn't even looking at me when she said it. Just slumped in her chair, staring at the floor.
My temper started to rise. "What's this? All of a sudden I'm not the little scuzzball what ruined your brother's moral fiber? All of a sudden—urfff!"
Angela's elbow hit me like a rocket, right in the wind. An instant later, Jenny's hands were clapped over my mouth.
"Just ignore him," she said to Gwendolyn, very sweetly. "Keep talking. Please."
Gwendolyn raised her head. When she caught sight of the three of us, she barked a laugh. "What a picture! My congratulations—Jenny, isn't it? And you too, Angela. I was never able to shut him up that quick."
I snapped back a hot retort. "Grrrmrrgrnrrbrr!" Jenny's hands clamped down, and I fell silent. Not so much from the pressure, but from the sight of Angela's elbow. Cocked, and ready for another shot.
Gwendolyn shook her head ruefully. "You are a piece of work, Ignace. Only person I know who gets angrier when he gets a compliment than an insult."
She ran the fingers of her left hand through her thick mass of long, black hair. It was a gesture which I remembered well, from the years back. As always, her fingers got a bit tangled up. Gwendolyn's hair wasn't quite as kinky as her brother's. But, then, she had a lot more of it.
The gesture drained away all my anger in an instant. I felt myself slumping a little. Damn woman! I never had been able to maintain a proper spite against Gwendolyn. Not when she was in my presence, anyway.
"The reason I need you too, Ignace," she said softly, "is because Greyboar's always a little lost without you. You and your fussing, and your mother hen routine."
She emitted a chuckle that was more in the way of a sigh. "Missed it myself, tell you the truth, all these years."
She stared at me for a moment, as if she were studying something. Then, sighed again and squared her shoulders, turning her head toward Greyboar.
"You heard about Benvenuti?"
The strangler nodded. "Yeah. Not much. He got caught, and then seems to have escaped."
Gwendolyn shook her head. "Not exactly. He escaped from the dungeons, yes. But after that—" Her hand waved about, vaguely. "We're not sure what happened. I asked my dwarf friends to see if they could find out anything. They were able to pick up his trail, eventually. He must have gotten lost in that labyrinth under the Pile, and kept going downward. But—"
She fell silent, tightening her lips. Then: "The dwarves tracked him to one of the entrances to the netherworld. Further than that, they wouldn't go. Dwarves stay clear of those depths. Always."
"And rightly so!" exclaimed Zulkeh. "Dwarves are expressly forbidden any congress with the netherworld. Both in Holy Writ and in all the prophetic commentaries. 'Tis because they are damned in the Lord's eyes, of course."
I tried—failed—to follow the logic. But Zulkeh was steaming right along.
"The Lord's decree, needless to say, is rigorously enforced by the powers in the netherworld. As a result, your average dwarf is firmly convinced that he can under no circumstances survive a journey into the infernal regions. Superstitious dolts! The truth, of course, is quite otherwise. I have studied the problem extensively, and I can assure you—"
"Enough!" bellowed Magrit. "Let Gwendolyn finish, for the sake of all creation, before you bore us all to death!"
Gwendolyn spoke hurriedly. "I finally asked Zulkeh for his opinion. He consulted—something—and said that Benvenuti apparently had some trouble with the devils—"
I couldn't suppress a sudden hysterical laugh, gurgling up past Jenny's fingers. Apparently had some trouble with the devils! Gee, no kidding?
"—and wound up getting pitched out of the infernal regions altogether. Into—into—you know."
My humor vanished entirely. Half in a daze, I heard Greyboar's rumble.
"The story's true? There is a Place Even Worse Than Hell?"
"Bah!" oathed Zulkeh. " 'Tis a truth known to savants in swaddling clothes! Indeed, the most recent scholarship leads us to the conclusion that there are any number of transfernal territories. The Place Even Worse Than Hell being only the first in line of descent. Beyond—'tis certain, this!—there is the Snowball's Last Laugh and Can You Believe This Shit Is Really Happening? Past those regions, our knowledge becomes less precise. The currently accepted hypothesis, of course, is that—"
A miracle! Zulkeh shut himself up! He cleared his throat noisily; and then muttered: "But perhaps for a later, less pressing time. For the moment, Sirrah Greyboar, rest assured that I was able to ascertain the artist Benvenuti's whereabouts. He is, indeed, in the Place Even Worse Than Hell. And, I regret to state, has fallen into Even Worse Hands. The soul-wracked demonic specter whom I conjured up and whose soul I wracked still further was quite specific on the matter."
Again, he cleared his throat. "And I dare say he was telling the truth. I wracked his soul quite thoroughly, if I say so myself."
"Nasty bugger was squealing like a pig by the end," piped up Shelyid cheerfully. "The professor had him begging for mercy. Well, sort of. Actually, he was begging for eternal damnation. But with soul-wracked demons that's pretty much the same thing."
I was very light-headed by now. Almost fainting, to tell you the truth. I could see what was coming a mile away. But I made one last desperate attempt to restore sanity to a world gone mad. I started mumbling and muttering fiercely, trying to get words out past Jenny's hands.
"Oh, let him talk, Jenny!" snapped Angela crossly. "We're going to have to listen to it sooner or later anyway."
Jenny snorted, but she released her grip.
"S'nuts!" I gasped. "Fer pity's sake, Gwendolyn! I know he used to be your boyfriend and all, but that's ancient history. I mean, I'm sorry things turned out badly for the guy—nice guy, I'll admit it, even if he was so disgustingly good-looking—but, hey—it's over! You gotta get on with life, you know. Let bygones be bygones. Put it all behind you and—"
No use. Tears started welling up in Gwendolyn's eyes and I felt my throat closing. Damn woman. I never could bear to argue with Gwendolyn when she started crying. Probably because she almost never did, even when she was a little girl.
Damn woman.
"I never stopped loving him, Ignace," she whispered. "Not for one second. Even though it was I who insisted we break it off."
"Why did you, then?" asked Greyboar quietly. His eyes lurked under the overhang of his brow like two black mice studying a morsel of food.
Gwendolyn pinched the tears from her eyes. "Oh, come on, brother. D'you really need to ask? You?"
She managed a chuckle that even had a bit of humor in it. "Benvenuti's an artist. It's what he lives for, nothing else. Me—" Again, she shrugged. "You know me, brother. Ignace. My whole life is devoted to the revolution. There's no place in there—not for either of us—for some damned fairy-tale romance. And I knew if we stuck with it, Benvenuti would sooner or later run into trouble with Church and State."
"Which he did anyway," snorted Magrit. "And managed to piss off the Devil so much in the bargain that he got booted out of Hell. Silly girl! You shoulda—"
"Magrit!" barked Gwendolyn. "Do you have to second-guess everybody about everything?"
Magrit smiled sweetly. "Just trying to help, that's all."
Gwendolyn scowled, but let it go. She took a deep, almost shuddering breath, and fixed her eyes on Greyboar. Then, on me.
"There's still no future in anything between Benvenuti and me. But I can't bear the thought of him where he is. So I'm going to try to rescue him. Me and Hrundig. Zulkeh and Shelyid agreed to help, and so did Magrit."
"I didn't!" snapped Wittgenstein. "But—nooo—does a witch's familiar ever get any say in these thing? Fat chance! If you ask me—"
"Salamander soup," grunted Magrit. "I got the recipe right here in my pocket." Wittgenstein blinked; shut up.
Gwendolyn took another of those deep, shuddering breaths. "But Zulkeh says we really don't have much chance at all, without you along. Even then, it's going to be touch and go."
"To say the least!" piped up Shelyid, as chipper as could be. "Actually, the professor said it was a desperate and foolhardy adventure which he strongly recommended against except for the fact that it's the only chance anyone's ever had to study the Place Even Worse Than Hell at first hand so of course it was imperative that we do it."
Then the tears started leaking out of Gwendolyn's eyes again. The next thing you know Greyboar's got his sister enfolded in his arms and he's whispering promises and assurances.
Disaster!
Naturally, it went downhill from there.
"Oh, that sounds like fun!" cried Jenny.
"Sure does!" agreed Angela. "Let's get Eddie, Lester and Frank in here. They'll be a big help!"
I started protesting right off—not about the dwarves, but the role which Jenny and Angela obviously foresaw for themselves in this madness. But the two girls ignored me and charged out of the room.
"Who are Eddie and Lester and Frank?" asked Magrit suspiciously.
Still embracing Gwendolyn, Greyboar turned his head and explained. Wittgenstein goggled.
"You let dwarves stay here with you? For no good reason except the so-called milk of human kindness?" The nasty little salamander whistled. "Boy, are you a sorry excuse for a strangler!"
"Shut up!" snarled Gwendolyn, glaring over her brother's shoulder. Wittgenstein snapped shut its mouth and scurried into Magrit's blouse. A moment later, the witch hauled the creature out and tossed it onto the floor.
"Get away from my tits, you miserable amphibian."
"She'll beat me," whined Wittgenstein. "She'll twist my tail off."
I was impressed. I'd never seen Wittgenstein intimidated by anyone before. Then I thought about Gwendolyn's temper and studied her.
Greyboar's sister hadn't changed in the slightest. She looks a bit like Greyboar, what with her eagle nose and her dark, kinky hair and her black eyes. Except that Gwendolyn's kind of beautiful—in a scary, Amazon kind of way—while Greyboar's almost as ugly as Shelyid.
Don't let her good looks fool you. For a woman, she's a giant. Over six feet tall and built like a tigress. Well . . . if a tigress had a build. And she's got incredible reflexes for someone as big as she is. Better than Greyboar's, even. I suspected that Wittgenstein had discovered that the hard way. The thought cheered me up a bit.
Jenny and Angela charged back into the room, with the three dwarves in tow. Eddie and Lester and Frank were kind of confused, at first. But after the situation was explained to them, the confusion vanished.
"Can't be done," pronounced Eddie.
"Impossible," agreed Lester.
"Out of the question," concluded Frank. "Even if you were willing to get anywhere near Even Worse Hands, you couldn't get near them in the first place. They're in the Place Even Worse Than Hell, you know."
I beamed. "Well, that's that. Sorry, Gwendolyn, but you just heard it from the experts. Miners, you know, all three of them. Know the tunnels like the back of their hand."
"Shut up, Ignace," snarled Magrit.
"Yes, do!" snapped Jenny.
Angela made an apologetic shrug to the crowd. "Don't mind Ignace. He's not really a coward. He's just so greedy that he can't bear the idea of doing something for free."
"And that's another thing!" I cried. "Greyboar's got a professional reputation to maintain! The Standards Commission won't—"
"Shut up, Ignace," growled Greyboar.
Shelyid gave me a wounded look. "You helped steal the Rap Sheet for free, Ignace."
A stab to the heart. But I rallied. "That was in another country. And besides, the Crud is dead."
My protests, alas, were ignored. Greyboar plowed right over them.
"Why do you say it can't be done?" he asked Eddie. "Doesn't sound all that difficult to me. From what you've told me before, all those tunnels link up sooner or later. Sure, it might take awhile. But if we plug away at it, we ought to be able to find him eventually."
The three dwarves shook their head in unison and began to speak, but the wizard cut them off.
"I fear not, sirrah Greyboar. Indeed, 'tis the very impossibility of the task which has led us to your door."
Greyboar looked to Zulkeh. The mage spread his hands apologetically.
" 'Twas my recommendation, that, when Gwendolyn approached me in the Mutt with her proposal. She had thought it would be a simple matter of continuing down the tunnels past the place where the dwarves broke off their search. But I was forced to open up to her understanding certain inauspicious realities of tunnelics and cave lore. Not the mundane aspects of the science"—here, a dismissive wave of the hand—"which any miserable engineer can handle, but the more arcane branches of the study. I speak, of course, of monstrology and beastics. Subterranean devilism, and the like."
An apologetic cough. "Not to mention the more abstruse problems posed by the Joe relics we might possibly encounter. Which, of course, explains to a degree my own willingness to assist her in this otherwise ridiculous affair of the heart."
Another apologetic cough. "So, naturally, I thought of you at once. I was quite impressed by the talents which you displayed in the course of our adventure with the Rap Sheet. In an adventure such as this, one really does require more than a modicum of brawn."
"Why?" demanded Greyboar. "What's in those tunnels?"
As one dwarf, Eddie and Lester and Frank shuddered.
"For a start," explained the mage, "we may encounter tunnel snarls."
"I'll take care of that!" exclaimed Shelyid. Proudly: "I'm a snarl-friend."
Greyboar eyed him skeptically. "How sure of that are you, Shelyid? Rock snarls, yes. I know you've dealt with such. I was there. But—"
"And forest snarls!" piped the dwarf. "I met them when we went through the Grimwold."
His face scrunched, injured. "Any kind of snarls, Greyboar," he said in a hurt little voice. "You shouldn't doubt me. It's not right, you shouldn't."
Greyboar smiled. "All right, Shelyid. I'll take your word for it."
He looked back to the wizard. "What else?"
The mage stroked his beard furiously. "What else? Say better: what else is there not? In terms of monstrology, we are certain to encounter any number of noxious specimens. Devils, too, of course. If I misdoubt me not, our expedition will most certainly require penetrating into divers of the divers regions of that diverse realm known to the ignorant as the Inferno, but more properly titled—"
Greyboar interrupted, frowning. "I've never tried to choke demons and devils."
"Bah!" oathed the mage. "Your talents shall not be needed with that tripe. I shall deal with any such who might make so bold as to confront our puissant presence. Besides, I have a stratagem in mind which may enable us to circumvent the problem of the passage through the Inferno, and even many of the other horrors of the underworld. But stratagems—even my own—do go awry from time to time."
If I hadn't seen him in action, I would have laughed right there. Zulkeh's not only the world's greatest pedant, he looks the part. Picture a middle-aged scholar, then imagine a caricature of one. That's Zulkeh. Oh, yeah—don't forget the ridiculous robe covered with obscure signs and runes, the tall pointy wizard's hat and the staff.
But—fact is, I had seen him in action. A truth: when it comes to real actual sorcery, there probably isn't a better thaumaturge in the universe than Zulkeh of Goimr, physician. Except for maybe God's Own Tooth, the dreaded master of the Godferrets.
"No, no," continued the mage, "your physic skills will be required to deal with the less ethereal denizens of the underworld. I speak, of course, of the deadly Worm of the Deep—"
As one dwarf, Eddie and Lester and Frank wailed.
"—the dreaded Beast from Below—"
Another wail.
"—the Slathering Sanguine Skulker—"
A great wail, there.
"—the Creeper from the Crevasse—"
A pure howl.
"—the Undulant Umbellant from Under—"
A shriek.
"—and, of course, the It and the Thing and the Them and the They."
A cacophony of pure terror, from the dwarves. Shelyid piped up cheerfully:
"You forgot the Torrid Terror, professor. And the Kankr Connection and the Flaying Crutchman and the Minions of the Minotaur—and the Minotaur himself, come to think of it—and—"
"Enough, my loyal but stupid apprentice!"
Less cheerfully: "And the Switches."
"I say—enough!"
Not cheerfully at all: "And the Nun."
"Desist, diminutive wretch!"
Gloomily: "Attila the Nun."
Suddenly, the Cat spoke up. As often, I had forgotten she was there. The woman had a way of disappearing without actually doing it.
"Any chance Schrödinger might be down there?"
The wizard frowned. "Of course. Schrödinger might be anywhere."
"Who's Schrödinger?" asked Magrit.
"Who are you, for that matter?" shrilled the salamander. "You got a name, lady? Or should we just call you Four-Eyes?"
That was the only bright moment of the whole day. An instant later Wittgenstein was clutched in the Cat's hand, its eyes popping, its tongue bulging out.
"Schrödinger's supposed to be a slimy sort of creature," muttered the Cat. She inspected the salamander from a distance of two inches, peering at the wretched amphibian through her telescope lenses.
Greyboar cleared his throat. "That's actually not Schrödinger, love. Its name's Wittgenstein."
Wittgenstein tried to splutter. The Cat drew her sword.
"Maybe he's in disguise," mused the Cat. Magrit tried to say something, so did Greyboar. I just grinned.
The Cat chopped off Wittgenstein's tail. The deed done, she dropped the salamander and inspected the tail. Closely, as only she can do.
"Nope," she concluded. "It's not a disguise. Real tail."
Wittgenstein was scurrying about, cursing a blue streak. "Of course it's a real tail, you fucking idiot blindwoman! It was a real tail, I should say!"
Wittgenstein inspected his stub mournfully. Everyone else in the room started laughing.
Then the laughter died, and disaster finally struck.
"Sure we'll do it," rumbled Greyboar. Gwendolyn started crying again and he took her in his arms. Then she even kissed him on the cheek and I knew we were lost.
And that's how it happened. A slimy salamander, inspecting his lost tail. An honest chokester's agent, inspecting his ruined life. His wrecked world.