Craig Shaw Gardner - Ebenezum 03 - A Night in the Netherhell

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WHAT TO DO WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
When there appears to be no hope; when all around you are screaming like lost souls, and
every spell you try fails to work; when it appears that chaos and evil will at last triumph over
good—then, it is truly time for a vacation.
—from the teachings of ebenezum, Volume XXXV
“Gardner has a fine sense of just when to deflate an apparent threat into slapstick.”
—Peter Heck, Newsday
“There are few fantasy writers possessing anything approaching genuine wit. Craig Shaw Gardner is
one of them.”
—Marvin Kaye, author of The Amorous Umbrella
“The field needs more humorists of this caliber.”
—Robert Asprin, author of the MYTH series
Don’t miss the first volumes of
THE EBENEZUM TRILOGY
by Craig Shaw Gardner:
A MALADY OF MAGICKS
A MULTITUDE OF MONSTERS
Ace Books by Craig Shaw Gardner
The Ebenezum Trilogy
A MALADY OF MAGICKS
A MULTITUDE OF MONSTERS
A NIGHT IN THE NETHERHELLS
A DIFFICULTY WITH DWARVES AN EXCESS OF ENCHANTMENTS A
DISAGREEMENT WITH DEATH
(coming in February 1989)
Craig Shaw Gardner
ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is an Ace original edition, and has never been previously published.
A NIGHT IN THE NETHERHELLS
An Ace Book/published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace edition / June 1987
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1987 by Craig Shaw Gardner.
Cover art by Walter Velez.
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without
permission.
For information addcess: The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-02314-2
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10016.
The name “ACE” and the “A” logo are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 98765432
The wizard and I go back a long way. I started writing about Ebenezum “way back” in 1977. (In fact,
my first major published story was “A Malady of Magicks” in the October 1978 issue of Fantastic.)
Now, almost ten years later, the Ebenezum Trilogy is finished and in your hands. I couldn’t have done it
without the help, encouragement, and general all-around browbeating of a lot of people, including Ted
White, Orson Scott Card, Marvin Kaye, Lin Carter and Jim Frenkel, who bought the original short
stories; my ever-encouraging agent Merrilee Heifetz; and my editor with the great sense of humor (i.e.
she likes my stuff), Ginjer Buchan-an—along with the rest of the incredibly helpful editorial staff at
Ace/Berkley. Thanks, and a tip of Hubert’s top hat, are also due to Mary Aldridge, Michael Barton,
Stephanie Bendell, Victoria Bolles, Richard Bowker, Jeffrey A. Carver, Amy Sue Chase, Caryl Fox,
Charles L. Grant, Heather Heitkamp, Maggie Ittelson, Spike MacPhee, Jonathan Ostrowsky, Alan
Ryan, Charlotte Young and Tina Zannieri, for services above and beyond the call of duty.
And then there’s my dedication:
This one’s for Elisabeth especially without whom . . .
ONE
Contrary to rumor, working side by side with a group of fellow wizards is not the most
unpleasant task in which a magician might participate. In fact, I can think of numerous other
experiences, such as breaking both arms and legs while being pursued by a ravenous demon,
which, under certain conditions, could conceivably be even worse.
—from The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume XXII
Vushta was gone.
We stood on the rocky shore of the Inland Sea and stared at the spot where once the greatest city in
all the world had reached its towers to touch the sky. How could an entire city simply vanish? I had
looked forward all my short life to visiting Vushta, city of a thousand forbidden delights, where great
knowledge and great temptation go hand in hand. How I had longed to see the great University of
Wizards, and walk the whole length of the Grand Bazaar, and, just perhaps, skirt a corner of the
Pleasure District, where, it is whispered, brave men had yielded to their baser drives and had never been
seen again. But no, the university, the bazaar, even, yes, the Pleasure District, were beyond me now. Of
all the cities in the world, why was Vushta the one to go?
The boatman had left the seven of us here, on the shore which once led to the city that was the goal of
our quest. Each of us had had a reason to come on this perilous journey to come at last to Vushta, a
place where we might realize our hopes and cure our ills. Now we were all silent, staring at the empty
sky, waiting, perhaps, for the wind to tell us what to do.
“Doom,” intoned Hendrek, the large warrior at my side. His great bronze breastplate, which housed a
girth fully as wide as he was tall, glinted blindingly in the midday sun. All shade had gone with the city and
the wind brought nothing but choking dust.
Hendrek nervously stroked the bag that held his weapon, the cursed warclub Headbasher, which no
man could own, but only rent. His mood, I could tell, fit the rest of our small party. The wizard
Ebenezum, once the greatest mage in all the Western Kingdoms, and the leader of our quest, stroked his
long, white beard reflectively, the tattered remains of his once tasteful robes flapping in the unnatural
breeze. The others in our party watched his grim countenance—the demon Snarks, Hubert the dragon
and his beautiful companion, Alea, and Norei, the wondrous young witch—all looked at my master,
waiting for a decision, or a sneeze.
But the sorcerer breathed deeply, his malady unaffected. If magic had taken Vushta away, it had gone
with the city.
The warrior Hendrek took a deep breath in turn. Once again his great voice reverberated across the
wasteland.
“Doom!”
“I beg your pardon?” answered a voice from somewhere.
My master waved us All to silence. I held my breath, anxious to hear other words rise from the dust.
But the mysterious voice said no more.
“Hendrek,” my master said after a moment. “Repeat your curse.”
The warrior did as the wizard instructed.
“Doom!”
“Oh!” called the mysterious speaker. “Doom! You see, I thought you were saying ‘dune’! Well, there
certainly are a lot of them around now, nothing but sand. You’d hardly believe there was a city here only
the other day. Still, I didn’t know if I wanted to start a conversation with someone who pointed at piles
of sand and said ‘dune’! But ‘doom’? Well, that’s another matter. Doom implies angst. I’ll always talk to
somebody about angst!”
The demon Snarks muttered darkly from deep within his robes. The stranger’s monologue had
returned the rest of us to shocked silence.
“There!” Ebenezum pointed. From out of the dust before us a figure emerged, clad all in robes as red
as blood.
Hendrek pulled his enchanted weapon from his sack. Ebenezum rapidly retreated and held his nose.
“Doom!” Hendrek repeated.
“Yes, isn’t it?” the approaching man replied. “Or at least it was the doom of Vushta. I assume that’s
what you folks came for, to visit Vushta. It’s a pity you weren’t informed that it was no longer here. But
then again, none of us were informed that it was going. One minute there it was, just over the hill, and the
next. . .” The newcomer waved a bony hand.
Ebenezum gestured at Hendrek to rebag his club. The wizard stepped forward as the warrior
complied.
“Indeed,” Ebenezum said. “Have we not met before?”
The newcomer paused a few paces before us. He was a gaunt man, well on in years, his weathered
skin pressed tight against skull and finger bones. His whole body—face, hands, and clothes—was
covered by a fine layer of dust, which made him appear more ancient still.
“It is possible.” The newcomer nodded. “For have we all not met, if not in this life, then on some other
plane, or in some prior existence, or perhaps even in the future? For what is time, but an arbitrary
structure we mortals—”
“Yes, of course we have met!” Ebenezum cut the other’s rambling short. “Are you not an instructor at
the Greater Vushta Academy of Magic and Sorcery?”
“Instructor?” The man frowned. “I am a full professor in the college of wizards!”
“Ah, yes.” Ebenezum scratched his mustache in thought. “Pardon my oversight. I had forgotten your
eminence.”
“Quite all right.” The old professor smiled again. “Oversight, unfortunately, is common to us all.
Reaching for the stars, we lost sight of what is within our grasp. Did I mention that I might have been able
to save Vushta? As you see, even a full professor is capable of occasional error. What matters, though, is
how we cope with our shortcomings once we discover—”
“Indeed,” Ebenezum said with somewhat more force than usual. “And is your name Snorphosio?”
“Why, yes,” the elder replied in surprise. “Although what is truly in a name? Is it but a label we hang
upon our souls, or do those few syllables somehow imbue us with their essence, in order that we—”
“Indeed!” Ebenezum cried, clasping his hands together so that they might not accidentally do some
damage to the old gentleman “And is not your field of expertise theoretical magic?”
“Why, yes.” Snorphosio’s smile grew even broader. “I like to look at magic in the broadest possible
sense. Just what is magic? How does it differ from real life? Or is magic just real life under another name?
Or are we just imagining that magic exists? Or are we imagining that real life—”
“I was a student of yours,” Ebenezum cut in this time.
“Really!” Snorphosio was delighted. “Did you take ‘Basic Theory” or ‘Conjuring the Unconjurable’?
Do you remember my famous lecture: ‘If a Magician Pulls a Rabbit From a Hat, But There Is No Hat, Is
There Then No Rabbit?’ Oh, I tell you, I always was one for catchy titles.”
“Perhaps,” my master remarked, “you can tell us what happened to Vushta.”
“Vushta?” The professor coughed. “Oh dear, it’s gone. The entire city, buildings, streets, people,
animals, every single one of the forbidden delights, sucked into the earth. I could hear their screams when
it happened. Horrible!”
“Indeed.” My master fixed the professor with his best interrogatory stare. “How did you manage to
escape?”
“Easy enough.” Snorphosio’s smile returned. “I wasn’t there. I was visiting East Vushta. Charming
little town.” The old man peered at Ebenezum. “Hmm. You’re getting on in years. Probably a senior
wizard by now? East Vushta hadn’t really grown up yet when you were in school, had it? Lovely place.
Many people have been building small castles there to get out of the rush of the city. That was always a
problem with Vushta, you know. It’s not easy living in the middle of a thousand forbidden delights, let me
tell you!”
“If you could,” Ebenezum suggested, “perhaps go into the details of the city’s disappearance?”
The frown reappeared on Snorphosio’s face. “I’ll tell you what little I know. I was sitting in a tavern at
the time, in East Vushta, that is. Of course, what I know about this situation is probably more than most
other people know. Degrees of knowledge are always relative, aren’t they? It reminds me of the parable
about the blind men and the dragon—”
Hubert snorted from where he stood some distance down the beach. “Must we?” the dragon
remarked. “I really detest those old stories. Talk about species stereotyping!”
The professor waved cheerfully at the dragon. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there. My eyes, you know, are
not as strong . . . Still, I suppose that’s no excuse for spreading ancient tales.” Snorphosio sighed. “The
world has changed so much in my day. Once dragons did nothing but hide in caves and collect maidens.
Now”—the old man wheezed with laughter—”can you imagine, I actually saw one of the big lizards try
to sing in a vaudeville act?”
“Big lizards?” Hubert rumbled. “Alea, if you would hand me the satchel?”
The dragon’s beautiful assistant bounced over to him, her blond curls dazzling in the sun. Hubert
rummaged quickly through his case, extracting a top hat with one purple claw. He placed the hat atop his
head and snorted a cloud of smoke.
“Does this look familiar?” Hubert remarked dryly.
Snorphosio scratched at his chin in consternation. “Damsel and Dragon?” He cleared his throat and
looked about as if he might disappear back into the dust. “Oh dear. Well, perhaps I didn’t catch you on
one of your best nights. AH criticism is subjective, as you know. One man’s opinion—”
“Indeed!” Ebenezum broke in again. The wizard had backed off for a moment when Hubert stepped
in. Because of the nature of his malady, he had to keep his distance from the dragon. Still, this was an
emergency. If the old man got off on enough of a tangent, we’d never find out what happened to Vushta.
“I’m sure you can both discuss the merits of the Vushta stage with more enlightenment once we have
discovered what happened to Vushta!” the wizard continued. “Snorphosio, if you would be so kind?”
“Of course!” The professor self-consciously brushed the dust from his all-too-red robes. “I did not
mean to offend. Still, those in the performing arts must remember that the audience views them
subjectively, and inasmuch—”
“Subjectively!” Hubert roared. “That’s the problem with you intellectuals. Great art appeals directly to
the emotions! Listen to this! Number seven, damsel!”
Alea began to sing in a high, clear soprano as Hubert beat time with his tail.
“Oh, there might be a thousand forbidden delights, but my favorite delight is you—”
“Enough!” Ebenezum cried as he ran between professor and dragon. “Can’t you see—can’t you—”
My master, the great wizard Ebenezum, fell to the ground in a sneezing fit.
Snarks had his hood off in an instant. “This is impossible! I’ve known both humans and demons to be
longwinded, but this fellow has the lungs of an elephant! And talk about bad taste in clothes!”
My beloved Norei touched my left shoulder. My heartbeat raced.
“Wuntvor!” she cried in a voice more musical than the Vushta stage might ever produce. “We have to
do something!”
“A demon’s work is never done.” Snarks pushed back his sleeves to reveal thin green arms. “Let’s
drag the wizard out of there.”
As briefly as possible, I pointed out to Snarks why this might not be such a good idea. Some weeks
past, in the Western Kingdoms where my master maintained his practice, he had accidentally loosed a
particularly fierce demon by the name of Guxx Unfufadoo. My master had managed to send that foul
fiend back to the Ne-therhells from whence he had come, but it had cost the wizard dearly. Now,
whenever he encountered anything demonic or magical in nature, he would break out in a fit of
uncontrollable sneezing. Thus had his current situation been brought about by his proximity to a dragon. If
the wizard’s proximity to magic ailed him, it did not make sense to have another magical creature come
to his aid.
Snarks rolled his sleeves back down. “A demon’s work is never appreciated. ‘Twas ever thus. Why
do you think they kicked me out of the Netherhells in the first place?”
I knew the answer to that, but my master was sneezing far too much for me to reply. I turned to
Hendrek for aid. The large warrior and I dragged Ebenezum to a safe distance.
Both Snorphosio and Hubert looked temporarily abashed at what they had caused to happen to my
master. Now, I thought, it was time to get to the bottom of all this. And since my master was indisposed,
I would have to act in his stead.
“Indeed,” I began. “And just what has happened to Vushta?”
“In a physical, or in a metaphorical, sense?” Snor-phosio inquired. “Inexact questions, I am afraid, are
one of the pitfalls of modern civilization. How many wars could be avoided if we might only learn—”
“Indeed!” I said, rather more loudly. I feared that, should the professor go on at much greater length, I
would not be able to match my master’s restraint. I glanced meaningfully at Hendrek. The warrior pulled
the doomed club Headbasher from its restraining sack.
“Where did Vushta go?” I asked.
Snorphosio looked at the warclub with some alarm. “Now see here, you wouldn’t think of using—”
“Doom!” Hendrek remarked. He let the tip of Head-basher fall to the ground. The earth shook.
“Oh,” Snorphosio intoned. “Vushta went down.”
“Doom!” Hendrek reiterated. “Down?”
“Yes, down. Beneath the earth.” The professor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I fear it has been
taken by the Netherhells.”
Snarks gave a muted cheer. The rest of our company glared at him.
“Sorry,” the demon said, embarrassed. “Old habits.”
“Oh, Wuntie!” Alea ran up to me breathlessly. “What a diplomat!”
I smiled somewhat foolishly. Alea was an attractive young woman, and, as a professional vaudeville
entertainer from Vushta, much more worldly than myself. And yet, long ago, when I was first apprenticed
to Ebe-nezum, Alea and I had shared an innocent young love. Even now, gazing deep into her blue eyes
—
“Wuntvor!” Norei was at my side again. “We must have a plan. What shall we do?”
“Yes, Wuntie!” Alea chimed in. “You’ve gotten us this far. What next?”
I cleared my throat. The young women pressed on either side of me, both far too close. Norei
sometimes had trouble with Alea’s pet names for me, or the way Alea would refer to things the two of us
had done long ago, or the way Alea occasionally treated me as her own personal property. It didn’t
matter how often I explained that everything that had happened with Alea occurred before I had even
met Norei. Well, almost everything. Could I help it if Alea was an attractive and enthusiastic woman?
According to Norei, I certainly could.
Norei pinched the flesh of my upper arm in a manner almost too hard to be playful. But I knew that
the events around us here had taken a great toll on the young witch, as surely as I knew that she was my
own true love. And, unlike my childish infatuation with Alea, what I felt for Norei was a truly mature love,
for in the weeks we had been on our quest I had gained experience, responsibility, and insight.
“Doom!” Hendrek said to the three of us. “What shall we do now?”
I had no idea.
“Indeed,” I said, stalling for time.
There was a honking sound behind me. I spun about, my stout oak walking staff ready to be used as a
weapon if need be. Ebenezum blew mightily into his robes.
“Indeed,” the wizard remarked, looking past our party to the somewhat befuddled Snorphosio. “So, if
I heard you correctly, the Netherhells have captured Vushta?”
The aged professor nodded rapidly. “That is my surmise. Of course, I am basing this theory upon
incomplete evidence. Perhaps my fears are ungrounded. Perhaps something less dreadful has happened
to my city than I suspect, some other rationale may be divined from the evidence at hand. For you see”
—Snorphosio paused, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper— “there is one final event that has
not yet occurred, one last bit of evidence that, were it to be untrue, would show me for the pessimist that
I am. Without this last event, there is still hope. Perhaps Vushta can still be saved. Perhaps all of the city’
s inhabitants will not be cursed to eternal, unspeakable damnation, the true extent of which is probably
beyond human imagining. If this final catastrophe does not occur, we can still hold onto a thin ray of hope
that perhaps the great city, with all its learning, its diverse people, its thousand forbidden delights, might
yet be rescued. But, should this event occur . . .” Snorphosio’s voice dropped away, as if the final
consequences might be too horrible to even say aloud.
The silence that followed was shattered by a great rumble beneath our feet. We had been through
Nether-hells-inspired earthquakes before. I looked for something to hold onto, but there was nothing
around us but piles of sand.
The quake ended before I could even lose my footing. As I turned to the others, another loud noise
erupted from beyond the dunes, a great, belching roar, as if the earth itself had swallowed something and
found that it disagreed with its digestion.
Snorphosio had fallen to the dirt. Although the quake had passed, he was still trembling violently.
“That was the event I was waiting for,” the old man managed after a moment.
“Doom,” Hendrek replied.
Snorphosio pushed his hands against the sand to stop his spasms. He nodded at last.
“All is lost. Vushta is gone forever.”
TWO
Why don’t you conjure a legendary city, full of magic spells and mystic beasts, out of thin air?”
the uninformed client asks. “Well, where would you put it?” the wise wizard replies. “Have
you seen the price of real estate?
—from Ebenezum the Wizard’s Handy Guide to Better Wizard/Client Relationships, fourth
edition
Vushta was gone forever.
“Indeed,” my master said to the cowering Snorphosio. “Are we then the only wizards left in all of
Vushta?”
“In all of Vushta, yes, we are the only wizards that remain.” The old professor regained his feet
somewhat unsteadily. He dusted at his sleeves half-heartedly. “Of course, there are also wizards in East
Vushta, some two hills over, but whether East Vushta is part of the greater metropolis has always been
open to debate. At the moment, I would imagine that East Vushta is quite separate from the rest of the
city.” He paused to stare off into the dust. “Yes. Quite separate indeed.”
Ebenezum nodded and scratched beneath his wizard’s cap. “Wuntvor, shoulder your pack. We all
need a place to spend the night. I think East Vushta shall do nicely.”
I did as my master bade. The pack, which had once bulged with a large number of sorcerous tomes
and arcane paraphernalia, was now much lighter due to the loss of almost the entire contents when I was
carried off by a large, mythological bird in one of our more recent adventures. Ebenezum had hoped to
replace what he had lost once we reached the fabled centers of learning in Vushta. But that, along with
most of the rest of our plans, now seemed futile.
I looked to my master, once the greatest mage in all the Western Kingdoms, as he led our party in a
march across the sand. Even though his clothes were torn, his beard matted, his skin burned red by the
sun, still he looked every inch the master magician. The casual observer would never have guessed the
sorcerer suffered from a malady so great that he must shun all magic; indeed, that the malady affected him
to such an extent that he had embarked on a long and arduous journey to seek a cure, even if he had to
travel to far, fabled Vushta before he found the knowledge he sought.
And now that there was no more far, fabled Vushta? You would never know it in the way he strode
across the dunes, trailed by Snorphosio, who continued to discuss various fine points of sorcery as if
some of the others in our party could understand him. Hendrek came next, ever wary, his hand constantly
on the sack that carried his enchanted club, a weapon that saw him forever plagued by demons
demanding rental payments. He had sought Vushta as well, to free him from Headbasher’s dire curse.
All of us had had similar hopes and plans embodied in Vushta. But there had been a further bond
holding us together, for, as we won our way closer to Vushta, we discovered an insidious plot on the part
of the Nether-hells. No longer were these demons satisfied with ruling the world below the earth. No,
now they plotted to conquer the surface world as well and subject us all to their fiendish tyranny. Our
only hope to stop them was to reach Vushta and alert the Greater Vushta Academy of Magic and
Sorcery of the danger. Only with the massed might of the greatest wizards in all the world could we hope
to defeat the Netherhells.
A chill ran through my sun-drenched frame. Until now, I had not realized the true enormity of our
catastrophe. Vushta was no more. Was there no hope? Had the Netherhells won?
Then we climbed to the top of the second hill and I saw the most magnificent city in the world.
“East Vushta,” Snorphosio remarked. “I never realized how small it was until Vushta disappeared.”
Small? I might call the vista before us many things, but “small” was not among them. The city seemed
to take up the whole valley. Graceful towers of a dozen different colors rose a full three stories above the
earth. Furthermore, these great structures were interspersed among literally hundreds of smaller
dwellings. There might be a thousand people living here, maybe more. It was enough to take your breath
away.
Still, I felt a pang of loss through my sense of wonder. If this vast expanse was only East Vushta, what
had the greater city looked like? I felt a prickling sensation at the back of my neck, as if I were being
tickled by the ghost of the last, lingering forbidden delight. I was so close! Now, perhaps, Vushta was
gone forever!
So intent was I on the sight before me that I did not watch my feet. It was perfectly natural, then, that
I should bump into Hendrek’s massive bulk, the same bulk that prevented both of us from losing our
balance and tumbling down the hill.
“Doom,” Hendrek remarked dourly, not noticeably fazed by my abrupt arrival. “Now I will never be
free of my cursed warclub.”
Snarks walked up and removed his hood. “Don’t fret there, Hendy. My demon-trained senses tell me
we have not yet found out all we need to know about Vushta’s disappearance.”
摘要：

WHATTODOWHENALLELSEFAILSWhenthereappearstobenohope;whenallaroundyouarescreaminglikelostsouls,andeveryspellyoutryfailstowork;whenitappearsthatchaosandevilwillatlasttriumphovergood—then,itistrulytimeforavacation.—fromtheteachingsofebenezum,VolumeXXXV“Gardnerhasafinesenseofjustwhentodeflateanapparentth...

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