It's Magic, You Dope!: The Lost Fantasy Classic Page 7

  "Lorn's in love with a human!” said Timtik, glad to be a primal purveyor of the latest scandal.

  "Do tell,” Maggot muttered toothlessly. Well, not quite toothlessly; she had upper and lower canines yet, and when she yawned, they resembled nothing so much as stalactites and stalagmites in a greasy red cavern. The upper canines protruded over her lower lip when her mouth was closed, and were horribly yellow and rotted. Timtik often wondered if she ever bathed, but he'd thought the topic too delicate to mention to one of her finer feelings. He glanced toward a heap of cobwebby odds and ends on a dusty wooden shelf over the fireplace.

  "How's the Thrake?” he inquired.

  Maggot mumbled scornfully, “If anything had happened to it, would I be wasting my time with this hell-brew?"

  A muted squeal came from the shelf.

  "Patience, patience!” grumbled the witch, throwing a fistful of dandelion fluff into the stew. “I have to let it simmer a bit."

  The squeal repeated, more shrilly, but a bit weakly.

  Maggot shrugged and stuck a dipper into the cauldron, drawing off a slimy clot of hell-brew, steamed and stank, and Timtik averted his nose. With no ceremony, Maggot deposited the dripping cup on the shelf, “There,” she said. “That'll hold you for awhile."

  From out of the heap of refuse cluttered upon the shelf, a tiny blue tentacle snaked. It hovered over the mess, prodded it to make sure it was all it should be, and then a small blue thing popped out its tiny head and sniffed the rancid aroma. It nodded as though pleased, and with a squeal of delight, pounced upon the hell-brew and began to slurp it up with repulsive enjoyment, grunting and gurgling with slowly sated hunger pangs. Timtik suddenly didn't feel much like eating.

  "You haven't touched your food,” said Maggot. “Little queasy about the tummy? Well, old Maggot'll fix that up.” From beside the gobbling Thrake she took a small copper flask and twisted out the cork. “Here, drink."

  Timtik took it carefully, then shut his eyes and swallowed a manly mouthful of it. His eyes widened, and blurred with moisture. “Hey, that's good!” he exclaimed, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “What is it?"

  Maggot smiled a secret smile. “It's called 90 proof, dearie."

  "It makes my ears burn,” said Timtik, holding his slightly pointed extrusions.

  "It's supposed to.” Maggot crooned, running a claw-like hand through his hair. Her eyes flicked the entrance. “But where's Lorn?” she asked. “Not hungry?"

  Timtik paused in his dinner and frowned. “I wonder. She may have gone back, but I didn't think she'd go without saying goodbye, at least..."

  "Back? Back?” Maggot's eyes were suddenly hot red and protruding from their sockets as she leaned over the faun like a hungry hawk. “Back where?"

  Timtik shrank down in his chair thoroughly frightened. “To earth. She was going back with Albert..."

  "With?” grated Maggot, her canines clacking and sparking in her fury. “He's HERE? In DRENDON?"

  Timtik nodded mutely, sliding down in his chair until his shoulder blades touched the seat. Maggot hung over him a moment more, then cracked her palms together. “A human,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Here in Drendon ... Hmmm."

  "We didn't mean to bring him, Maggot.” Timtik had never seen her so aroused before, except once when he'd curiously tried to touch the Thrake. She'd blasted him clear across the room with a bolt of red lightning, and he'd tingled for days.

  "You see,” he said carefully, “Albert grabbed Lorn's drapery just as she was turning the key, and suddenly he popped into Drendon along with us. He almost materialized, on a hotsy, and the frost-flies came and—"

  Maggot was suddenly all over him, prodding, prying, feeling, sensing. “Frost-flies! Oh, my little baby faun, they didn't hurt you? Didn't touch you? You're all right?” Her sudden concern was a relief after her anger, albeit Timtik writhed under her touch, which was clammy and repulsive upon his flesh.

  He kept answering “No, Maggot,” over and over, till she stopped her anxious tactile inspection. Maggot was, in her witch-like way, harsh-appearing on its surface, quite fond of the little creature, and her hot dry eyes would shed their first tears if anything happened to rob her of her beloved apprentice.

  "You're sure, T,” she said, reluctantly releasing him.

  "I'm fine,” Timtik insisted. “I led Albert and Lorn to the other side of the hotsy from the frostflies, and we weren't even touched.” Maggot plopped into a chair and sagged.

  "What a scare you gave me, Tikky. My poor old heart can't take that sort of thing."

  Timtik laughed hoarsely. “Your poor old heart is as strong as solid oak. You did it with a spell. You told me you did it."

  Maggot sniffed and wiped a grimy forefinger across her nostrils. “Well, it's the principle of the thing, Tikky. If my heart were weak, it'd surely have stopped. But where is Lorn?” she said, peering out through the wall of the ‘Wumbl’ which was, of course, quite transparent to her eyes. Timtik shifted uneasily. “She was right behind me,” he mused, “and when Albert tried to spank me—"

  "Spank you?” Maggot reared up. “A mere human DARED to—"

  "It was my fault,” Timtik admitted. “I goaded him into it, because I got mad at Lorn for paying so much attention to him."

  "Oh,” said Maggot, unrearing a trifle. “Oh,” she said, relaxing. Then she shrugged. “Well, if you had it coming ... You say he tried to? What stopped him?"

  "I ducked, and he fell, and I ran here, and...” The faun paused. “You don't think he got hurt? Maybe he fell into a Wumbl or something."

  Maggot shook her head. “Nonsense. Lorn could have saved him from that fate. Any tree would be happy to slash the Wumbl's membrane for a wood nymph. Unless this was out in the open?"

  Timtik shook his head. “No, it was in the deep woods, just between here and the moss fields."

  He stopped speaking, chilled with a terrible thought.

  Maggot had the same thought.

  "My crystal, quickly!” she shrieked.

  Timtik bounded across the room to a great casket of a trunk, and began rummaging within it. Over his shoulder flew the contents as he groped away. A shredded bit of cloth-of-gold, a bottle of grave mold, clumps of leaves from the grey ivy vine, two used mandrake roots, a wax doll bristling with pins, a box of assorted rare earths, liquid herb juices, some bat squeezings, and an old dog-eared copy of Moby Dick. No crystal. Timtik turned to face, the witch. “It's gone!"

  Maggot slapped her forehead. “What an idiot I am! Of course! I lent it to my cousin Hortense, yesterweek, for the Black Carnival."

  "Help!” said a small voice outside the entrance. Maggot hissed a mystic word, and the door opened. In clambered the forest key, struggling across the high sill. “Help!” it giggled dutifully.

  "That might be Lorn's key!” said Timtik. “Come to tell us what happened to her!"

  "Nonsense. Nymphs aren't that brainy. She'd never think to send a message—"

  "But maybe Albert thought of it,” suggested the faun.

  "Hmmm.” Maggot murmurred. “Could be."

  "Help!” the key re-giggled. “This is fun. I've never been in an adventure before."

  "Who sent you?” demanded Timtik.

  "Help?” the key said hopefully. Lorn's estimation of its brain-size was more generous than she knew.

  "Where is Lorn, and Albert the human?” asked Maggot, transfixing the key with a steely gaze.

  "Help?” it offered despondently. “Is that right?"

  Timtik scowled. “This is getting us nowhere."

  "Wait,” said Maggot. “I'll check the serial number in the sign-out book.” She waddled grossly over to a thick ledger on the table and peered myopically at the page that opened to her automatically as she approached. “Lorn's signed out for key number X-54. What's this key's number?"

  Timtik picked it up, turned it over, shook it, then scratched his head deftly with an extended claw. “It's rubbed out, mostly. I can hardly see it at all."

&n
bsp; "Key!” Maggot accused harshly. “You've been scratching!"

  The key sniveled piteously. “But I itched!"

  Timtik pondered the matter.

  "Maybe I could retrace my steps, and see if Lorn fell off the edge of the woods?"

  "Too long!” muttered the witch. “The Kwistians might be feasting on Lorn's spareribs before you found your way back to the same spot. No, this calls for swift measures.” The key whimpered a little. Maggot threw it a piece of pickled ham, and it carried its prize off to a corner and began to munch contentedly.

  "EEEEE!” said a voice from the shelf.

  "The Thrake!” groaned Maggot. “I got so engrossed, I forgot to feed it again. It eats every fifteen minutes lately. I spend all my time making this hell-brew to keep it alive, and all I get for my pains is hunger-tantrums!” The Thrake squealed again.

  Maggot scooped up a fistful of mess from the cauldron and threw it on the shelf. The Thrake quieted. Maggot wiped off her fingers on her dress, leaving clinging bits of the stuff still between her knuckly fingers. Now, where were we?” she asked.

  Timtik jumped up, suddenly joyous. “Maggot!” he said, “Don't you have a Finders-Weepers spell on the crystal?"

  "Of course!” Maggot snapped her fingers and looked annoyed at her own lack of hindsight.

  "Just let me remember the words ... Hmmm.” She dipped into a pocket of her voluminous dress, and pulled forth a pinch of blue powder, which she flung into the flames licking the scorched sides of the cauldron. A brilliant tongue of blue flame shot up, and as it lashed hotly off the ceiling, Maggot chanted:

  "Flame get hotter than a pistol;

  Bring me back my peeking crystal!"

  There was a hum, a twang, and a crackling snap, and the crystal appeared in the air between Maggot and the faun. Both grabbed it before it could shatter on the floor. Maggot picked up her spectacles from the table, got them on upside down, cursed virulently, righted them, and peered into the crystal.

  "Oh my!” she said. Timtik, straining his eyes at the sphere, could detect nothing but cloudy swirlings. He was still three Lessons away from crystal-gazing. It was one of the more advanced courses, hard to master. “Well, my stars!” said Maggot, “They're all right. They did strike the path, but Albert has enough sense not to go any farther, so they'll be safe until that Cort sends someone to find what the delay is."

  "But where are they?” shouted the faun. “What part of the moss field? I can hurry right out there, and—"

  "I could bring them back by spell,” said the witch. “It ‘s only fifteen minutes work to assemble the paraphernalia, and—"

  The Thrake, its shelf once again cleared of hell-brew, started quizzical little whines of hunger. “Damn,” said Maggot. “This just isn't my day! Tell you what, Tikky. You start out looking for them, and in the meantime, I'll try to rig a pickup spell on them. If you get there first, fine. If not, I'll pick them up sooner or later."

  Timtik was dancing up and down with impatience. “Tell me how to do the spell, and I'll get them!” he cried.

  Maggot hesitated, then reached for some more of the blue powder. “Well, I suppose it'd be all—No!” She replaced the powder with decision. “You're too young to learn how to get anything you want. It'd be dangerous to know at your age. I'm sorry, Tikky, but you'll have to go by boat or something over the bog."

  "Oh, all right,” the faun mumbled, scuffing one hoof. “But it's a lot of work, when a few magic words could—"

  "That's enough, Tikky!” said the witch. She had that red lightning tone in her voice. Timtik stopped complaining, made his good-byes, and, after ascertaining the approximate location of his quarry, hurried out into the forest.

  "—and here I am,” he finished, yawning lazily.

  I'd stopped counting my strokes by now. After the one hundred mark, the less accurately my muscles knew of their labors the better. “Maggot sounds charming,” I said. Timtik peered up at me from beneath furry brows.

  "I wouldn't be sarcastic in front of her, if I were you."

  "Now, look,” I said, but was interrupted by a sharp cry.

  "Look!” gasped Lorn, pointing off behind me.

  I turned my head, but the sunlight was in my eyes and made seeing difficult. Then I saw the dark shadows undulating along swiftly over the purple surface of the moss, and high in the sky above them, I caught the glint of a polished brass trident.

  "Kwistians!” rasped Timtik, springing upright. “Pole, Albert! Pole!"

  I shoved and grunted and strained, but our progress was like that of a turtle fleeing a flock of eagles. In another moment, I heard the thump of immense wings on the hot bright air, and the whistling of the cannibals’ rapid passage. I turned about, yanking out the pole from the muck as the only handy weapon to fend off a murderous swoop of the downrushing creatures.

  Even as I raised my mud dripping weapon skyward, I knew I'd made a fatal error. The tugging of the pole had unbalanced me, and my quick grab for the upright stump against which Lorn had been lolling was an even worse mistake. The entire log began to turn slowly on its longitudinal axis, and the three of us started to topple, wood nymph, faun and myself, tottering back toward the deadly bog beneath the purple moss. I expected to be impaled like an olive on one of those tridents even before I struck the moss, so close were our airborne adversaries, but they had plans only for Lorn.

  She shrieked in fright as the tall bronzed Kwistians, their magnificent pinions spread wide to slow their descent, reached out, each with his tridentless hand to clutch her arms as she semaphored for balance. And even as they neared her, Timtik, in mid-air on his way into the bog, waved his fingers in a strange way at her, and shouted a weird, short phrase that buzzed like angry bees through the air.

  Then the Kwistians had Lorn by the arms and were soaring skyward with their catch, and Lorn was still beside me and Timtik, in mid-fall on that twisting log, as the cannibals swooped off with the other her in their grasp...

  All this had happened within a moment of my yanking the pole from the bog, in one bewildering, rushing speck of time. Then my back struck the yielding moss, and black ooze started to close over my face, and—

  Reality shifted, vanished, and reappeared.

  Lorn, Timtik and myself were standing inside a small, musty hut, and I found myself staring into a wizened fanged face, that under its wild grizzled hair could only be, “Maggot?” I said, dazed.

  "Howdy-do!” said the witch. She glanced at me, her eyes giving a shrewd once-over. Then she smiled, as though in approval, and said, “You're knock-kneed!” I blushed in shame.

  CHAPTER 7

  AFTER I had—thanks to a healthy swig from that copper flask—recovered somewhat from the shock of my abrupt transition, I had a few moments of queasy dread about this grizzled creature with whom I was temporarily entombed in the entrails of the false Wumbl. I suppose that Maggot was not at all bad-looking, as witches go, but her appearance clung too tightly to the traits demanded by protocol to suit my esthetic senses.

  Had she wanted, she said, she could have been young-looking, and rather pretty, but she took great pride in her witchiness, tradition being a powerful spur in any union, and there was also the notorious prestige involved in aiming for the title of Most Dreadful. Not that Maggot was yet the ghastliest sight available, but she was always in there pitching, taking ugly-pills, wart sustainer, skin wrinkler, hair greyer, breath-fetidation capsule, and all the latest creams and lotions from the nearest Black Apothecary Shoppe, to keep abreast of the latest fashions in hideousness.

  However, this was her say-so, that she was far from being the worst sight in Drendon. So far as I was concerned, she was the ugliest, most raucous, smelliest, slimiest creature I'd ever beheld in my life, and I'd seen some corkers.

  "Another piece of pie?” asked Maggot, holding out a crisply crusted wedge of peach-choked pastry.

  "Yes, thank you,” I said, wiping my lips on the embroidered linen napkin, and extending my plate with an effort. The plate w
as solid gold, and quite weighty for all its delicately sculptured filigrees. I had to admit she was a damned nice, almost genteel hostess, if a bit horrible to view.

  Maggot beamed as I slowly forked the wedge in wolf-size bites down my gullet and subdued the minor temblor of a sated belch.

  "All through?” she crooned, and at my nod snapped her fingers, and whispered a certain syllable. My dishes and utensils vanished with a sparking crack. I confess I jumped a little. It was still hard to accept sorcery, even given the other odd goings-on in this dimension. Neither Lorn nor Timtik batted an eye. But I figured if they could believe in Drendon, they could believe anything.

  The Thrake chose that moment to squeal, in a sort of crowing sigh unlike its hunger-plaint. “Hot dog!” said Maggot, drawing a transverse line through four upright ones on the rough oaken wall. “That's the fifth today!"

  "Fifth what?” I asked.

  "Another Kwistian knocked out of the sky,” said Lorn.

  "Thrake kind of gloats each time it crimps their wings,” mumbled Timtik, absorbed in his third helping of pie.

  I eyed the tiny blue horror with misgivings. “How does it do it?"

  Maggot pursued her lips and nodded her head sagely. “There's many a one in Drendon Wood wishes he knew the answer to that!” she said, throwing weeds into the cauldron.

  "I take it,” I said respectfully, “it's a secret?"

  "One I shall carry to my grave,” said the witch. “Can't have those Kwistians zooming around here day and night, hooting and hollering, and spearing poor forest folk on their tridents. Makes for unrest."

  I recalled the pair that nearly impaled me back on that log, and shuddered. “Hope the thing doesn't wear out,” I said, looking at the voracious Thrake, slopping up mess from the shelf.

  "What's night?” asked Timtik, looking toward Maggot. “You just said ‘night'."