"Hey, no!" I cried, appalled; but the squire did even better than before. He landed in a crouch right in front of the Bull and, with its next step, surged upward, arms wrapped around the monster's knees, pitching upward with his full strength, slinging the Bull high and hard. The monster's bellow took on a note of bafflement; it flailed about as it flew, and Gilbert turned with it, hands still on its hooves, then slammed it down with all his might. The Bull hit the ground with an impact that shook the whole cavern, and Frisson yanked off his wooden shoe, leapt in, and swung hard. The crack! of wood on bone was almost as loud as the roar, and I winced, hoping the Bull wasn't dead even as I wondered if I'd have to conjure up a new shoe for Frisson.

But the Bull only sagged, pushing itself halfway up, then tilted over and fell heavily again. He lifted his head, looking about, then rolled over to his belly and got his legs under him.

"He has a hard head," Frisson noted, pulling his shoe on again.

"Yet he will recover, and soon." The Gremlin was there by me.

"Quickly, Wizard! Conjure tea!"

"Tea?!" I stared, totally taken aback.

"Aye, tea and scones, with a silver service and a linen cloth!

Quickly! Lose no time!"

"But what good will tea and "Do you not hear me? I tell you, I know this Bull! High tea, and promptly, for even now he regains his senses!"

I gave up trying to make sense out of it, and recited: "Oh I some are for the red wine, and some are for the white, And some for guzzling moonshine by the pale moonlight; But I'm for tea and crumpets, for high tea just sets me right!"

The air thickened; then light glittered off shiny surfaces, and a linen picnic cloth was there, with cups and saucers next to a bonechina teapot. Hot scones nestled in a linen napkin lining a silver basket; another held crumpets, with butter dish and jam pot close by.

"Maiden, pour!" the Gremlin urged.

Angelique stared, startled to be told to do something for which she'd had no training; but she turned, gamely stepping in with her upbringing as a proper hostess, and sat gracefully by the pot.

"One hand keeps the lid on," I whispered.

Angelique took the cue as if she hadn't even noticed it, pouring tea into a cup and burbling, "How pleasant the weather is! Quite cool for August, do you not think? Lemon, Sir, or milk?"

The Bull looked up, sighting an island. staring at the service like a shipwrecked sailor "Sweetening, perchance?" Angelique prompted. or two? "One lump, "She picked up on that awfully fast," I muttered at the Gremlin with a hint of accusation.

The little monster looked up at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "There are more ways than one to put a notion into a body's head, Wizard."

"Two lumps,"

legged. the Bull rumbled, pulling himself up to sit cross Frisson and Gilbert exchanged a look of amazement, but Angelique didn't even bat an eye. She dropped two lumps of sugar into the cup with silver tongs. "Will you take milk, or lemon?"

"Milk, if you please, the Bull answered, with a good public-school accent. "And perhaps a scone?"

"Surely.

" Angelique presented him with a cup and saucer, then turned to take a bit of scone from the basket. "Butter?"

"Of course."

"So I had thought." Angelique spread butter, set the cake on a plate, and handed it to him, then looked up at me. "Saul?"

"Milk and sugar." I folded myself into a tailor's seat, surprised to find I was hungry. "And a scone, if You please./i "Most certainly.

" Angelique poured, chattering, "I think we will have an early fall, do you not? And you, Sir Bull, what fine chance brings you our way?"

The Bull frowned. "I might have asked the same."

"Then do, I prithee! And might you have a name?"

"John," the Bull said.

Of course.

Then, obligingly, "And what chance brings You my way?"

Slowly, Frisson and Gilbert came up and sat down. Angelique poured tea with milk and sugar for them as she answered, "We flee a wicked tyrant, who would imprison us, abuse each of us in ways as foul as she can imagine, then slay us by slow torture. And yourself?"

"I have been here as long as I may remember," the Bull answered slowly, land that is long, maiden, very long."

"Centuries," the Gremlin breathed.

"Even so." The Bull bowed his head to the monster in acknowledgment. "I know not who sent me here-only that his voice did echo all around me as I woke, saying, 'Here you stand, and here you must remain, slaying all who seek to pass until fair Chance may send you they who seek to rise for good.' Angelique exchanged a glance with me. "Mayhap we are they."

"Mayhap," the Bull said slowly, trying to throttle hope. "Where do you seek to go, and why?"

"To the castle of the Spider King," Angelique answered. "We seek his aid in defeating a foul sorceress who has laid a whole land 'neath a grid of rules and clerks. indeed, her people scarcely dare to stir out of doors without her say-so."

The Bull frowned. "Why should the Spider King aid you?"

"Why," Angelique said, "we have heard that he is a good man, who aids those who seek to help the poor, and yearn for justice."

"He does that, aye, does both. Yet what advantage is there for him in thus aiding you to give aid?"

I do not know," Angelique admitted.

"Maybe we could tell, if we knew what he wants," I said slowly.

"Do you know?"

"He lacks nothing," the Bull said.

I shook my head. "If that were the case, he'd either help people just for the fun of it, or he'd be getting something out of it. A sense of purpose, maybe?"

"How old is he?" Frisson said.

"Centuries," the Bull said firmly. "As long as I have been here, at the least."

"Mayhap, then," the poet offered, "he has need to justify his con tinned existence?"

I looked up, startled. Where had this country bumpkin taken his philosophy course?

But the Bull was nodding. "I could think that, aye. Why else does he constantly seek out human misery and invent ways to assuage it? I1 "Does he so?" Frisson fastened on the words, his eyes keen.

I wondered at it, but the poet didn't seem inclined to expand upon the point, so I said, "If that's his motivation, why does he have you here to keep people out?"

"I cannot say with any surety that 'twas he who set me here," the Bull said slowly. "As to the 'why' of it, I cannot so much as conjecture.

"Not without knowing the 'who,' no," I said dryly. "Well, let's assume for the moment that we're the ones you're supposed to let through.

"Let us not!" the Bull said sternly. "And let us recall that, when this teatime is ended, we shall war again, you and I."

Inside, I went cold, but my mouth kept going. "But what if we are the ones you're supposed to help?"

"If you are, why, you shall defeat me, and I shall go on to the Spider King's palace with you." The Bull sounded angry, and I could imagine the anguish he was feeling at the moment of decision. "If you are not, then you shall die in the attempt."

But Frisson had fastened to the first sentence. "If you are to go with us, can you guide us? Have you been to the palace before?"

"No," the Bull said slowly, "yet I have a memory of the route.

'Tis as if I were made with it in me.' "DNA can do such wonderful things," I murmured. Then, louder, "Trust the inborn hunch-and take a gamble on us. After all, how many other groups have ever come this way?"

"Only three," the Bull admitted.

I felt another chill, trying to imagine what the last questers Must have been.

"Yet they were all men," the Bull continued, "and wore the black robes of sorcery. There was a reek of evil about them, which there is not about you."

"We are a force of right," Gilbert said with total conviction.

The Bull gave him the jaundiced eye, but I said, "At least we're fighting evil . . ."

"And each of us has suffered from it," Gilbert stated.

"Well, yes," I said, shifting uncomfortably as I remembered a few of my less glorious deeds, then shifting back with apprehension as I remembered my encounter with my guardian angel. "I have to admit I'm out for my own ends, though."

The Bull's head snapped about to stare at me. "How so?"

"I'm trying to find a friend," I explained, "and after that, I'm out to get back home." But I glanced at Angelique as I said it, and sud denly found the issue much less pressing than it had been. "It just seems that I'm going to have to defeat the evil queen before I can do either. " "His gain will be the people's salvation," Gilbert said quickly.

The Bull ignored him, eyes still on me. "That is not the most no ble motive for a quest."

"It's better than a lot of 'em," I answered, reddening, "and its side effects would benefit the people of Allustria. Couldn't very well be worse than what they've got."

"There is that," the Bull admitted. "And, mayhap, it would be less of a bore to assist you, than to guard this gate interminably. It would, at the least, be adventure."

My hopes soared. "Oh, I guarantee it wouldn't be boring!"

"Indeed it will not," the Bull admitted, "for we must pass mine enemy. Will you aid me in fighting him?"

I felt sudden interior brakes slamming on. If this monster felt the need of help confronting the next one, how horrible did it have to be?

"Just what kind of beastie is this?"

"His name is Ussrus Major," the Bull answered, "and he is the Bear.

The tone in which he said it was enough to chill the blood, but Frisson murmured, "Saul, you are a great wizard, surely."

"Yeah, with your verses." I remembered a poem, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay. Count us in."

"I may indeed," the Bull answered, "for the Bear blocks the way to the Spider King."

Suddenly, he straightened, slapping his knees. " 'Tis done; I am with you. If I am wrong, and mayhem strikes, why, then, let it come!

" "You are noble," Angelique murmured.

"I wish escape from my prison."

"You are brave," Frisson qualified.

The Bull stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yet every man fears some thing, and this is mine, this journey. Still, I long for it, too-so let us be about it."

He to le, lithe, twisting movement and set off toward se in one sing his cave. We others sprang to our feet and followed. I glanced back; saw the remains of our picnic; and, with a quick, muttered verse, banished the mess. It twinkled and was gone.

The Bull wrenched open the gate, and we followed him into the cave beyond it-with some trepidation, if truth be known. Me, I was remembering the story of Chicken Little-but the cave extended, going on and on. I realized it was another tunnel.

"What spell you used to seek out the Spider King, use now," the Bull rumbled. The Gremlin nudged me; I took a breath and started chanting, low, almost subvocally.

I had scarcely finished the first recitation when the tunnel started changing. its roof developed a split; then, as we walked along, the split became wider and wider until the roof was gone. I began to eye the dark space beyond it nervously, especially as the walls of the tunnel began to taper down, lower and lower, until they were scarcely knee-high, and we were walking on a concave pathway.

"Now," the Gremlin said, "one might feel dangerously exposed."

"One might," I agreed, with a nervous glance at the darkness around us-then looked again. "Hey! It's getting lighter!"

"We approach his region-mine enemy." The Bull came to a halt, pointing. "Yonder lies the pit of greatest danger for me-the pit of the Bear! Mark it!"

There he came, shambling through the mist, a huge dark shape in a phosphorescent cavern, and my heart sank down to my boots. But the trail led through that huge cave, a floating pathway with no visible means of support, angling through the ghostly cavern, perhaps six feet off the floor.

"Onward," the Gremlin said, face grim. "We gain naught, if we stand to be prey."

"Why, then, pray we must," Frisson countered, and immediately chanted, loudly, 'God of pity, God of wrath!

Save us from the ursine path!"

I looked around in a panic, but there was no visible damage, and I let out a sigh of relief. "Please, Frisson! Write it down!"

"Even a prayer?" the poet cried, amazed.

"Anything," I snapped, "as long as it's original."

But the Bear had heard and reared up on his hind feet, forelegs upraised as if imploring. "Comrades, please! I wish only detente!"

"Keep walking," I said grimly, and we did, though our steps had slowed with dread.