Roger Zelazny - Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

"Not exactly good, no," Azzie said. "But never mind, I've got great powers of recuperation. I seem to be entangled in something that is holding me to this chair. If you would kindly release me, and give me a drink of water, I think I'd be quite all right."

"Release you?" Rognir said. His laughter was scornful, as the laughter of dwarves so often is. Others joined in, following it up with mutterings.

"Who are you talking to?" Azzie asked. Now that his eyes were growing more accustomed to things, he could see that there were other figures in the cavern with him and Rognir. They were small men, dwarves all, and their eyes glittered as they stood in a ring, peering up at him.

"These are dwarves of my tribe," Rognir said. "I could make introductions, but why bother? You aren't going to be here long enough for small talk and amusing conversation."

"But what is this all about?" Azzie said, though he had a pretty good idea.

"You owe me, that's what it's about," Rognir said.

"I know that. But is this any way to discuss it?"

"Your servant wouldn't allow us in when we came to talk to you about it."

"That Frike," Azzie said with a chuckle. "He's so protec­tive."

"Perhaps he is. But I want my money. And I'm here to collect. Immediately. At this moment."

Azzie shrugged. "You've probably already gone through my pockets. You know I don't have anything on me but small change and a spare charm or two."

"You don't even have that anymore," Rognir said. "We took them away."

"Then what more do you want?"

"Payment! I want not only the profit you promised me on my treasure, but the treasure itself back."

Azzie gave a small, amused laugh. "My dear fellow! There was no need for all this. As a matter of fact, I'd come to Paris for the purpose of finding you and telling you how well your investment was doing."

"Hah!" Rognir said, an expletive which could have meant anything but probably implied disbelief.

"Come now, Rognir, there's no need of this. Release me and we'll talk it over like gentlemen."

"You are no gentleman," Rognir said. "You are a demon."

"And you're a dwarf," Azzie said. "But you know what I mean."

"I want my money."

"You seem to have forgotten that the deal was for a year," Azzie said. "The time's not up. You're doing well. When the time runs out you'll get your capital back."

"I've been thinking this over, and I've decided that I don't trust the notion of putting one's capital out to work this way. It seems it might do something terrible to the working classes - like us dwarves. You know, a jewel in the sack is worth two or three on some foreign market that might go bust."

"A deal's a deal," Azzie said, "and you agreed to let me have it for a year."

"Well, I'm disagreeing now. I want my poke back."

"I can't do anything for you tied up like this," Azzie said.

"But if we release you, you'll pop out a spell and that'll be it for us and our money."

That was exactly what Azzie had been planning. To turn attention away from it, he said, "What is this 'us' stuff? Why are these other dwarves involved?"

"They're my partners in this venture," Rognir said. "Maybe you can talk around me, but you won't get around them so easily."

One of the dwarves came forward. He was short even for a dwarf, and his beard was white except around the mouth, where it was stained yellow from chewing tobacco.

"I am Elgar," he said. "You have hoodwinked this sim­pleminded dwarf Rognir, but you're not going to get away with that with us. Give us back our money immediately. Or else."

"I told you," Azzie said. "I can't do anything with both my arms tied. I can't even blow my nose."

"Why would you want to blow your nose?" Elgar said. "It's not running."

"It was a figure of speech," Azzie said. "What I meant-"

"We know what you meant," Elgar said. "You're not going to put anything over on us. We have plans for you, my fine friend, since you can't pay."

"I can pay, but not trussed to a chair like this!" He smiled in a winning manner. "Untie me and give me a chance to go after some funds. I'll come right back, and I'll swear any oath you please to that effect."

"You're not going anywhere," Elgar said. "If we give you an inch, you'll be all over us with your damnable enchantments. No, you have a count of three to produce everything you owe to Rognir. One, two, three. No money? That's that, then."

"What do you mean?" Azzie asked. "What's what?"

"You're for it, that's what's what."

"For what?"

Elgar turned to the others. "Okay, boys, let's take him to the Wheel of Labor."

That was something Azzie had never heard of before. But it looked as if he were going to learn soon what it was. Small horny hands, lots of them, lifted the chair with Azzie in it and bore it deeper into the cavern.

The dwarves sang as they went down the tunnel, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, around doglegs and over camelbacks, skirting cul-de-sacs and precipices and wading across icy streams. It was so dark that Azzie's eyes began to ache from trying too hard to see something. They went on, and they sang other songs after a while, songs in a language Azzie did not understand, and at last they came to an opening which let out onto a large underground plain.

"Where's this?" Azzie asked. They ignored him. Many little hands held him tight as they untied him from the chair and tied him to something else. By touch Azzie thought it was a framework of some sort, made of metal and bits of wood. When he tried to take a step, something moved under his feet. He realized after a few moments that he had been tied securely to the inside of a big wheel, like a waterwheel. His feet were free, but his hands were securely bound to handles that came out of the wheel's sides.

"This," Rognir said, "is a work wheel. You walk inside it and it turns, and through a series of gears, it moves a wheel that turns rods and finally operates machinery in one of the upper chambers."

"Interesting," Azzie said. "But so what?"

"You are expected to walk on the wheel, thus turning it.

"You are expected to walk on the wheel, thus turning it. You will thus help us work and you will pay off your debt that way. It should only take a few hundred years."

"Forget it," Azzie said.

"Suit yourself," Rognir said. "All right, boys, open the sluice gate."

There was a grinding sound from overhead. Then some­thing started falling from above him. It was a rain of excrement, as Azzie's nose quickly told him. But it was not ordinary human or demonic excrement. Azzie had spent plenty of time handling that. This was excrement of an orduosiry so extreme that his nasal receptors tried to commit hara-kiri.

"What is that stuff?" he cried.

"Aged fermented dragon shit," Rognir told him. "We're close to a dragon's lair, and we've tapped it from the bottom as an incentive for you to go to work."

Azzie's feet started moving of their own accord. The wheel turned. After a moment, the rain of dragon shit stopped.

"The way it works," Rognir said, "the dragon shit starts when you stop treading, and continues until you start up again."

"But what about rest periods?" Azzie asked.

"We'll tell you when you can rest," Elgar said, and the other dwarves laughed.

"But listen to me! I've got important things to do! You must let me out of here so I can make arrangements! I'll pay you back - "

"You will indeed," Rognir said. "In kind or in labor. Check with you later, demon."

And so the dwarves departed. Azzie was left alone, pump­ing and thinking desperate thoughts.

Azzie walked, turning the wheel, annoyed at himself for not telling Frike where he'd gone. He'd simply left the house, not giving his servant any instructions. And now, just when there was great need for haste, because it was time and past time for the adventure of Prince Charming to begin, he was caught in the darkness beneath Pans and condemned to turn a wheel for a bunch of stupid dwarves.