Roger Zelazny - Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

"All?" said Ylith. "What do you mean, all?"

"All that he said, mistress."

"I understand that well enough. But what happened?"

"He vanished, Mistress Ylith."

"Vanished?" Ylith said.

"Before my very eyes, he vanished entirely out of sight. I was beside myself, knowing not what to do. He had left no instructions. So I went into hysterics for a time, then decided it best simply to await your arrival."

"Describe to me the manner of his vanishing," Ylith said.

"The manner?" Frike asked.

"Yes. Was it a smoke vanishment, in which he dwindled quickly to nothing? Or was it a flash vanishment, in which he disappeared with perhaps a small clap of thunder? Or did he shrink down to the size of a point first?"

"I know not, mistress. I shut my eyes."

"Shut your eyes! You are a fool, Frike!"

"Ah, mistress, but I peeked."

"And what did your peek tell you?"

"I saw the master become very thin and slide off sidewise."

"Which side?"

"The right side, mistress."

"Did he slide away smoothly or with a sort of up-and-down motion?"

"With motion."

"This is very important, Frike. Did he at any time change color before vanishing completely?"

"You've got it, Mistress Ylith! He changed color indeed, just before he slid away into nothingness!"

"What color did he change into?"

"Blue, milady."

"It is as I thought," Ylith said. "Now let us look at his conjuring book."

Frike lifted the heavy volume to a lectern where Ylith could read it more easily. It was still turned to the page Azzie had regarded just before his disappearance. Ylith bent over it and quickly translated the runes.

"What is it?" Frike asked.

"It is a General Unbinding, Frike," she told him. "This is the spell that demons use when something or someone is trying to conjure them. It is called the Grand Counterveillance."

"Was he too late?"

"Obviously."

"Conjured!" said Frike. "But the master is a conjurer him­self!"

"Of course he is," Ylith said, "and a very good one. But all who conjure, Frike, are subject themselves to conjuration. It is one of the great laws of the Unseen Realm."

"So I have heard," Frike said. "But who could conjure the master away like that?"

"There are many possibilities," Ylith said. "But given the sequence of events, it is most likely that it was some mortal- a witch perhaps-or an alchemist, or some other demon-who had a hold of some sort over Azzie, and thus was able to call him away without his consent."

"But when will we see him again?" Frike asked.

"I have no idea," Ylith said. "It depends on who did the conjuration, the spell used, and the nature of the obligation that Azzie had incurred."

"But will he be back soon?"

Ylith shrugged. "He could be back in an instant. Or he could be gone for days, months, years, even forever. It is dif­ficult to unravel the truth of these matters a posteriori."

"I'd be glad to sacrifice my posterior if it would bring him back!" cried Frike. He wrung his hands in grief and uncertainty, and then a thought crossed the shadowy places of his mind and he called out afresh, "Oh, no!"

"What is it?" Ylith asked.

"The bodies!"

"What about them?"

"They run peril of decaying, lady! For only this morning we used up our last bit of ice, and we're very low on ichor. I reminded the master of this as soon as he arose, and he said, 'Never fear, Frike, I'll call Supply and get some more as soon as I've had my nap.' "

"Nap? But you said he had just arisen."

"He liked a nap soon upon awakening, mistress."

"Now that you mention it, I remember it well," Ylith said.

She went to the part of the laboratory where the bodies slept in their coffin-shaped open boxes, side by side, awaiting resuscitation. The ice of the high Alps was gone. In the bottom of each box was no more than a little pool of ichor.

"Your master has been very slack," Ylith said.

"He had not expected to be conjured, mistress," Frike said.

"I suppose not. Well, first things first. We must refrigerate these bodies, Frike."

"Beg pardon, mistress?"

"We must find a means of lowering their temperature."

"Can you call up glacial ice, mistress?"

"Not I," said Ylith. "Witches' conjurations do not lean to that sort of thing. Fetching things is demons' work. But our demon has been taken from us. This is a tricky situation." She crossed to the couch and sat down. "Stop whimpering, Frike, and let me think."

She returned to the boxes, bent over, and touched the bodies. They were still perceptibly cold, but Ylith could tell that they were warmer than they ought to be. Another hour or two and Azzie's prize specimens would be rotten meat, probably filled with blowflies. And then it wouldn't matter if he came back or not. The contest would be over.

"I'm going to do something about those bodies, Frike," she said. "I'm going to talk to some people. You had better not watch me depart. This is women's magic, not for men's eyes."

"I'll be in the den when you need me," Frike said, slinking away. Ylith turned to her work.

Ylith selected a freshly charged broomstick and, first making sure her protective amulets were in place, flew out of the mansion window and up, straight up, into the empyrean blue of the highest atmosphere. As she went she murmured a protective spell to herself, for she was unhappy over what she was about to do. Still, to keep those bodies cold, her first thought had been to ask assistance of the Harpies.

Harpies and witches were friendly toward one another. The Harpies were female demons inducted into the Powers of Darkness after the collapse of classical mythology. Not only did they do evil, but their very presence was disturbing. Their breath was foul, and their table manners disgusting. But it was to the Harpies that Ylith had decided to go, because, although they were foul, they were quick-witted. There were many other demonic deities she could have called upon, but only the Har­pies and their sisters, the Sirens, could be counted upon to understand at once what was desired, and sufficiently honorable to follow through on what they promised.

She flew hard and fast, soon passing through the crack that separates the realms of the human from that of the inhuman and superhuman.

Immediately she found herself in a vast cloudland of snowy hills and mountains. And there were rivers, too, and little tem­ples along the riverbanks, all made of clouds. She flew on and, dipping low over this land, saw the manticore and the chimaera and, in a little valley of its own, Behemoth snorted and reached for her with a great talon. She eluded the beast easily and flew on, to a region where the clouds were colored blue, and every­thing below was stained with blue and gold, like the borders of a dimly remembered dream. Descending, she saw, very tiny at first, the figures of beautiful women on the banks of a sleepy river, and close to them, a waterfall where they could sport and slide.

Then Ylith directed her flight downward and came to one of the regions where the Harpies and the Sirens lived together. She slowed and came to a stop on the left bank of the river. This was the Styx, the great river that traveled from deepest past to furthest future. There were trees along it of no known variety, for they still awaited their birth on the earth. Beneath these trees were maidens, lolling at their ease on the grassy banks. There were eight of them, Sirens, and several Harpies. The Sirens were famed for luring people, especially sailors, to their doom with their sweet songs. The Harpies were the more advanced stage of Siren, beautiful and golden-haired, with firm, well-shaped breasts, but with table manners that would make a hyena blush. They were in charge of tormenting damned souls of a classical sort, by snatching food from their mouths and splattering them all over with fiery excrement.