The Witch Doctor

Saul Bremener didn't have so many friends that he could afford to lose one without a fight. So when Matt Mantrell disappeared from the university one day with not a word to anybody, Saul canvassed students, family, and even the police. Nobody had any leads. Then he climbed through a kitchen window into Matt's apartment, where he found festoons of spider webs and a scrap of parchment covered in runes - magical runes...
Like Matt before him, Saul was swept away into a world of magic - and into a maelstrom of desperate danger. For in this world where poetry held the power of enchantment, Saul's love of verse made him a puissant wizard. And his search for his missing friend soon earned him a fearsome foe: a false monarch without peer in the realms of wickedness and corruption.
Queen Suettay was a mistress of magic in her own right. She had entire armies at her beck and call, steeped in evil and ready to obey her every command. And Suettay was determined to break Saul's power - or win his soul for her malefic master...
Saul rallied troops of his own, of course: Gruesome the troll, young squire Gilbert, an overworked guardian angel, a hand of the wee folk, and the beautiful - if insubstantial - Angelique. But it would take much more than a hardy little band to overthrow Suettay's reign of terror. Only with the aid of the legendary and mysterious Spider King could Saul spin a web to trap a tyrant...