"Smallpox, cowpox, all are healed!

French pox, East pox, marks annealed!"

That inspired me; I added a couplet Frisson couldn't have known about: "Spirochetes be rent asunder!

Germs of raddles, be plowed under!

Whatever was rattling in the shadows stopped.

The ex-witch looked up, amazement lighting her face-and even as we watched, the hideous marks of the disease were fading. " 'Tis true! I can feel the sickness leave me, feel the fever abate, my strength reviving!

"It might not last," I said, "if you don't get to confession.

You're out of Satan's power, but not very far out. "Aye! I must seek out a priest without delay!" She scrambled to her feet and headed off into the forest, her thank-you floating behind her. "I cannot bless, for I am too sodden with evil-but I thank you, kind strangers!"

A sudden inspiration hit, and I leapt after her. "Which way to the nearest priest?"

"South! He lives in a village in the plain beyond these woods!"

"Follow that witch!" I shouted to my friends, and we all pelted off through the forest.

The sun was nearing the horizon as we came out of the forest and saw the plain, rolling away under a huge expanse of sky. Even from the edge of the forest, we could see the roofs of three little villages.

Between, the flatland was a jigsaw puzzle of small fields, divided by hedges.

The nearest town was maybe half a mile away. Sunlight glistened off whitewashed adobe houses. "The priest lives yon!" The old witch pointed toward the smallest hovel in town. "oh, how deeply I rejoice that I put off and put off the bearding of him, and the slaying of him for the queen!"

So she had been an official. A nasty thought occurred to me.

"You didn't maybe put a spell on that forest so that anybody trying to get through it would get lost, did you?"

"Aye. It protected me from those who sought to hurt me-they could not find my cottage. Farewell, kind strangers! When I am shriven, I shall bless you! I shall sing your praises throughout the land! " I felt the old familiar chill again. "I'd really rather you didn't. I'm working on a low profile here, you see, and-" "Ever shall I trumpet your virtues!" she cried. "So wise and merciful a wizard is deserving of glory! And when I'm shriven, I shall bless you with my every breath!" She went tottering off to find a priest, and absolution.

I turned to the Gremlin. "Narrow thing, that. You wouldn't have had anything to do with her catching the pox, would you?"

The monster grinned, showing a lot of snaggled teeth. "I did not happen by here so many years ago as that, Wizard."

"Just wondering. By the way, which way to the nymph's house now?

"Yon." The Gremlin pointed due south.

"Yon it is." I sighed. "But only until sunset. We're still in hostile territory, and we'll need some time to pitch camp."

"Shall we never leave Suettay's country?" Angelique sighed. "It was so great a blessing to be free of her, in the palace of the Spider King!

"I'm afraid she knows we're still alive," I said with chagrin. "I shouldn't have cured that last witch."

"Nay, you should have," she said quickly, but her eyes were huge with trepidation in the shadows.

"Mayhap you need not come, milady," Gilbert told her. "Per chance the Spider King would let you remain in his palace. The poet will stay with you-will you not?"

"Aye, if you bid me." Frisson sighed. "Yet I had hoped to witness the end of this sage that unwinds before me."

"You shall," Angelique said quickly. "I shall not be left behind."

I wondered if it was courage, or reluctance to be left alone with Frisson's unharnessed verses. "Okay, then, we're all agreed," I said.

"Southward he!"

"All right, sprite, want to explain this plight?"

We stood between the forest and the seashore, watching the breakers foam up onto the gravel.

"We seek the nymph, Thyme," the Gremlin said stubbornly. "The path to her lies yon." He stood with the setting sun at his right and pointed toward the south-and several hundred miles of waves, sea stretching away to the rim of the world.

"Yeah, I thought it was an island." I sighed. My stomach sank, rehearsing its probable behavior as we crossed the sea. But there was no help for it. We couldn't exactly drive, and though I was tempted to think about flying, I didn't-what would happen if Suettay managed to cancel my spell when we were a thousand feet up over the miles and miles of waves that were all there was between the island of Thyme and this southern border of Suettay's kingdom. I guessed the little port town I saw in the distance would have grown up to be Trieste, in my own world. "At least we get to leave the queen's jurisdiction. " "Then we shall go, and gladly," Gilbert said. "I confess that I, too, rejoice that the nymph does dwell outside Allustria's borders."

The Gremlin shrugged. "For all we know, she may not. Who holds sway over these little islands?"

It was a moot point, and one that hadn't been entirely resolved even in my own universe. "If she lives on an island," I said, "why didn't the Spider King just send us there?"

"Mayhap he has work for us to do on the way," Frisson suggested, "though I could wish he had told us what it was," "You and me both, brother," I muttered.

"Peace, gentlemen," Gilbert soothed. "He could have sent us into the middle of Allustria, to fight our way free again."

"Praise Heaven he has not!" the Rat Raiser said.

"Yeah," I said, "but after we find this monk Ignatius, we have to come back."

ingly philo"What must be, must be." The Rat Raiser was surpris sophical. "Yet be assured, companions-if we must return to Suettay's domain, we are better to do it by sea, where there is less chance of meeting with her wardens."

"Yes, now that she has definitely decided to get rid of us," I agreed.

"And it will be a lot quicker, in any event. We got through from the mountains last time, but it took a great deal of luck."

"Come, then!" The Gremlin turned away. "We must seek out a ship and a captain. Yet I think it best that you be the one to haggle with him, Wizard-he might be shy of my dealings."

"Understandable," I muttered, as I followed the monster. I called back to my friends, "Come on, folks! Gotta hurry!" I forced my tired legs into long strides.

Even so, Gilbert caught up with me. "Wherefore must we hasten, Wizard? " "Because," I said, "Thyme and tide wait for no man. Let's go."

"I carry only cargo," the captain said stubbornly.

It could have been worse-it could have been night instead of sunset, with Angelique totally visible, instead of being washed out by the sun's orange rays. if he could have seen her, he would no doubt have been pointing out that a woman on a ship is bad luck. Come to think of it, he might have extended that notion to ghosts, too, so it was just as well my beloved could stay hidden.

"We're not asking you to take us any great distance," I argued, "just to some obscure little island out in the middle of nowhere."

"But you have no passports." The captain eyed the gold in my hand. No question about it, he was tempted-but he was balancing the danger of breaking Suettay's emigration laws, against the cash in my hand. So I slipped another gold piece from my pocket and added it to the stack. The captain's eyes fairly bulged, and he drew in a sharp breath.

"Guaranteed," I said. "Just an offshore island. We'll even supply our own local transportation-all you have to do is carry us there and lower us over the side in the longboat."

The captain stared at the stack of gold, teetering on the brink.

Then he cried, "Done!" His hand scooped up the coins and made them disappear.

I gaped, wondering if I could make money vanish that quickly. In fact, I hoped his wouldn't. My money never lasted very long, anyway.

"But you must board right now," the captain said, "while my crew is ashore on their last roister. As to the longboat, you shall have mine, for two gold pieces more. I shall buy another in Mycenaea."

He sure would, I reflected as I climbed the gangplank-and for a lot less than even a single gold piece. But I wasn't about to haggle.

Besides, I could make more of the stuff whenever I wanted to. I just had.

We clambered down a ladder and stowed ourselves in the hold, under the captain's cabin.

"How may we be sure of his troth?" Frisson asked, wide-eyed.

"By his own peril," the Rat Raiser answered. "We have but to denounce him to the harbormaster, and he is food for the gulls."

"But he need not take us to Thyme's isle! He need but have us thrown into the sea, as soon as we are too far from land to swim!"

"And what sailor-man would raise his hand against us?" Gilbert retorted. "We are not the most mild-seeming of bands, look you."

"We could make short work of his whole crew," I assured the poet.

"So you might scribble down a verse for giving sailors heart attacksand either you or I will be awake at all times."

Frisson nodded slowly, frowning.

"Then, of course, there are the members of the party they haven't seen." I glanced at a row of hogsheads against the wall of our timber dungeon. "Are you in there, Gremlin?"

One of the barrels wavered, waxed, and transformed itself into a monster. "Aye," the Gremlin answered. "Let this trip be quick, Wizard! I mislike so much water!"

"I'll make certain they have a favorable wind," I assured him. I tried to remember what I'd heard about the Finnish recipe for summoning a breeze.

The ship tossed and heaved, and the Gremlin was green from top to toe. On the other hand, that wasn't that far from his natural color.

"Wizard, you have given them too much wind!"

I held my hands out, palms up. "Not a bit! They were doing fine without me; I didn't even whistle!"

"Yet mayhap," Angelique gasped, "you could find a way to slacken their progress some little."

Chartreuse was definitely not her color, I decided. How she was managing to be seasick without a body, I didn't know; must have been psychosomatic. "I know it's rough, but try to stick it out. Ships always pitch and heave a lot, especially little ones like this."

Gilbert turned away, his hand over his mouth. I decided that I shouldn't have said "heave."

The Rat Raiser frowned at us, puzzled. "I do not ken it. There is excitement in this, truly, but no cause for discomfort."

"It's all right for you," I retorted. "You've got friends here!"

But the Rat Raiser shook his head. "No longer, Wizard. My little furry ones have sought their holes in the keel beam."

I sat bolt-upright. "They have? Then something must be really wrong! " A huge blast of thunder answered me from above. I frowned upward; I seemed to hear yelling.

'Tis a tempest," Frisson moaned.

The trapdoor overhead wrenched open to show the captain's face, laring down at us in the light of a lantern. "What ill luck besets my ship?" Then he saw Angelique, and his eyes went wide. "A woman!

Know 'ee not 'tis bad luck to bring a woman aboard ship?"

"Not really," I said. "She's a ghost." Then I bit my tongue, but I was just a second too late.

"A woman and a ghost!" he howled, wide-eyed with sudden fright.

"Small wonder my ship is beset! Now could my bark founder and all my crew drown on her account!"

Gilbert forced himself to his feet and stepped over to stand-or sway-in front of Angelique.

"Don't plan anything rash." I scrambled to my feet. "Here, let me take a look."

But the captain pushed me back, though not before I had seen a couple of hulking sailors behind him, glowering with resentment and trembling with fear. "Are you daft, man?" the captain demanded. "It is hard enough for a seagoing man to hold his feet above decks. A landlubber would certainly be lost to the waves!"

"You can lash me to the nearest mast," I offered. "Believe me, I can help."

"Oh, aye," one of the sailors sneered. "And who do you think you be-the Old Man of the Sea?"

"No, but I'm sure we'd be on speaking terms, if we met. You see I'm a wizard."

Their eyes widened, and they shied away. Even the captain was startled just long enough for me to push past him. He came back to himself quickly enough to lurch after me, trying for a tackle, but I sidestepped and threw myself toward the mast.

The wind hit me like a sandbag, and thunder blasted my eardrums.

Lightning dazzled me; I almost did go into the sea. But I managed to grab a rope and haul myself up against the sudden wash of icy water as a wave broke over the little vessel. I came up gasping, shivering, and chilled to the bone, but still aboard, and pulled myself a little farther until I could get an arm around a belaying pin.

"See you not the folly of it?" the captain roared in my car; I could just barely hear him. "Do you not see you can do naught to aid?

Nay, get below! "

"Not ... yet," I gasped, and dredged up Kipling's words, with a few quick adaptations: "The tempest caught us out at sea, and built its billows high, Till we heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford, The roar of its wind and sky.

Till we heard the roar of its wind and sky Rise up, die down, and ceaseAnd the heaving waves did all subside Till we sailed on a sea of peace."

It might have been my imagination, but I thought the wind abated u fraction.

u 'Tis not enough!" the captain called. "It will still drag us under!"

"We must throw the ghost-woman to the waves!" the first mate shouted. "Then will they be appeased!"