The Secular Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  Matt saw the light at the end of the tunnel and reached out to touch Pascal's elbow. "Remember the manticore."

  "Never fear," Pascal assured him—but he went ahead a little more cautiously, reciting:

  "When the Merovencian smuggler

  meets the manticore in pride,

  He will shout to scare the monster,

  who will quail and turn aside.

  Then the monster will remember

  where his true allegiance lies,

  And will hearken to the orders

  of the man who bids him rise!"

  As a verse, it was good, but it didn't sound like much of a spell, and Matt was amazed that the young man still went on without trembling. He began to mutter his slow-down spell under his breath again, getting it ready just in case...

  Then Pascal stepped out of the cave, and a yowl split the world.

  At the last second Matt found he didn't have it in him to let the kid die alone. He jumped out of the cave, yanking his sword out, seeing the speed-blurred brindled mass hurtling toward them, all teeth—

  Then Pascal shouted, "Down, monster! Down, to a son of the wizard who tamed you!"

  Matt had never before seen a beast put on the brakes in mid-leap. It was really quite a sight—the manticore twisted in midair as if it were trying to change directions. It did, actually, swerving aside from Pascal and plunging right toward Matt, teeth first.

  Matt yanked a sugarplum out of his pocket and threw it, bull's-eye, right between the serrated teeth. Then he jumped, as far as he could to the side—right, in fact, on the other side of Pascal.

  The manticore's jaws clashed shut automatically, and its throat throbbed with a single swallow even as it twisted in midair again, to land on all four feet. The monster looked very surprised, actually closing its lips for the first time since Matt had met it. Then it began to look very, very pleased. "Delicious! What part of your anatomy was that, O Wizard?"

  "Not part of me at all," Matt said, "just some leftover dessert from the banquet two nights ago. I was saving it for a treat."

  "I must give you thanks! Perhaps not enough to spare your life, but thanks nonetheless! Quite the most delicious tidbit I have ever munched." Then the manticore began to stalk toward Matt again.

  "Hold!" Pascal held up a palm, and Matt had to give him maximum points for bravery, but absolutely none for intelligence.

  Then he deducted from his own score, because the monster stopped on the instant, then crouched down and rubbed its head against Pascal's leg, making an appalling grating noise that Matt vaguely recognized as a gigantic purr. The youth trembled, but stood his ground resolutely. However, he didn't take his eyes from the monster for a second as he asked Matt, "When did you pick up that sugarplum?"

  "Right after dinner, while you and Charlotte were settling your futures," Matt answered. "How did you get that cat to obey?"

  Pascal glanced down and shrugged. "I know not; 'twas truly my grandfather's verse. He it was who first tamed this manticore and forbade him to eat human flesh or steal food of any sort, in return for which Grandfather gave him a bullock a day, or two sheep when the cattle were all eaten."

  "Delicious!" The manticore looked up eagerly. "I had never eaten so regularly before! I mourned when the old man died, but grew hungry within a day. Still, in honor to his memory, I would not eat cattle, sheep, or people within his parish—so I fared south to Latruria, and have been here ever since! But it has been a dog's existence, young man—nay, not even fit for a dog! Taking what meat I may, then fleeing with it before the knights or sorcerers come... Fighting with armies of peasants for my meals, which is painful, though tasty... Enslaved to one sorcerer after another, to feed on grain and their enemies only! Have you come to free me, then?"

  Pascal hesitated, and Matt leaned close to mutter, "If you don't, he has to serve whatever sorcerer sicced him on me—by eating me! Not your problem, I know, but..."

  "But if I free him completely, he may turn on me!" Pascal muttered back.

  Not softly enough; the manticore said, "Never! I would never munch the flesh and bone of my Master Fleuryse! Nor drink his blood, no matter through whose veins it flows!"

  "You really must have liked the old geezer," Matt observed.

  "Vastly! He could have slain me, aye, slain me as easily as tamed me! Yet he chose to spare my life, and moreover to feed me!"

  Matt could have pointed out that the spell probably would have stopped working if the old wizard had stopped feeding the manticore—hunger has a way of breaking down inhibitions—but it didn't seem like the most politic comment at the moment.

  "Then I free you from any other spells or geas that have been laid upon you," Pascal said, but he cast a worried glance at Matt. "Still, I had only planned to walk safely past you, not to have you accompany me."

  "Where you go, I shall bound!" The monster leaped to its feet. "Your paths shall be my paths, your enemies my dinners!"

  "But you have to provide alternative menus when there aren't any enemies handy," Matt reminded.

  "How shall I do that?" Pascal wailed. "I have no money to buy cattle, no magic to conjure them up!"

  "Oh, you'll think of something." Matt clapped him on the shoulder. "And if you don't, I will. Don't look so worried, Pascal—I have a few ducats in my purse. Besides, you never know when a voracious monster might come in handy. Think anybody's gonna try and charge us tolls?"

  He turned the young man away, sheathed his sword—and together they set off for the south, the manticore following a few yards behind.

  "You do not understand!" Pascal hissed to Matt. "For this beast, fondness for people is tied to fondness for food! If we do not feed it, it will feed on whatever comes first to fang! I shall be safe, for I am of the blood of the Wizard Fleuryse, but you shall not!"

  Matt noticed that the day had suddenly grown chilly. "So I'd better really deliver on that promise to find him food, huh?"

  "Aye, or discover a way to part with him!"

  There was a growl behind them.

  "Careful," Matt breathed, "I think he's got very acute hearing. Haven't you, Manny?"

  "Aye," the beast answered, full-voiced, "though 'Manny' is a strange name for me."

  "Do you have any other?"

  "Nay. None have spoken to me as you do for decades. Even the Wizard Fleuryse called me only 'manticore.' "

  "Okay, so 'Manny' is short for 'manticore'—or would you rather I called you 'Ticky'?"

  "Manny will do," the monster said quickly.

  "Thought so." Matt looked up and saw a peasant shambling down the road, driving a gaunt and spavined cow with lackadaisical flicks of a switch. "Well, look what came to order! Say, fellow, that cow for sale?"

  "Sale?" The peasant looked up hungrily, then saw the manticore and froze.

  The monster licked its chops.

  "That's for the cow, not you," Matt said quickly. "Here, I'll buy it for a silver penny."

  The peasant stared at the silver coin, then snatched it. "Take the cow, and gladly!" Then he turned on his heels and ran, as Manny leaped on the cow with a howl of joy. It didn't even have time to moo.

  Matt firmly turned Pascal away. "I could tell it was dying of hunger; why not put it out of its misery?"

  "It is tough," the manticore complained.

  "Don't talk with your mouth full," Matt called back, then to Pascal, "Don't look so sad. Cows turn into food every day."

  "It is not that—it is the price! Three coppers would have been enough, and generous!"

  "Think so? Well, maybe you're right. I'll haggle a little next time—but there wasn't time just now. Manny looked really hungry."

  "I was," the manticore mumbled around a bone.

  "It was the cow, fast, or the peasant," Matt explained. "Fortunately, I've got enough silver to turn into lots of coppers."

  "We shall need them," Pascal said with an apprehensive glance at the feeding manticore. "I hope your purse is never empty!"

  "Good wish," Matt appro
ved, and decided to see if he could work up the appropriate spell. For his part, he hoped that the stories he had heard about the prosperity of Latruria were true—especially the ones about food being plentiful.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Unfortunately, Matt was really very skeptical about the claims of good living in Latruria. The sight of that apathetic peasant and his spavined cow had been enough to remind him that up until a few years ago, Latruria had been the private property of a sorcerer with a reputation for delighting in human suffering. Matt had done a little homework before he started south, spending an hour or so reading up on what little history of Latruria Alisande's library held, and had talked to oldsters he met on his journey about what the southern country had been like during their youth. He couldn't talk to recent travelers, because there weren't any—King Maledicto had closed the border as soon as he seized the throne. The only Merovencians who had been to Latruria between that time and King Boncorro's coronation were smugglers, and so far Matt hadn't had much luck finding any of those—until he met Pascal, of course. Privately, he wondered if this was really the young man's first trip down this way.

  But what he had heard from the oldsters was hair-raising. He had decided right away that if he ever got back to his own universe, he could make a living just writing them up and calling them fiction. The only problem was that he couldn't decide whether he should market them as horror or pornography. He ended by deciding that he'd be mortally ashamed if he wrote them at all.

  Of course, it could be that his informants had been making up those awful tales. Atrocity stories always grew up around the enemy—like the early stories about Phoenicians throwing babies into the fiery furnaces built into their idols. Only trouble was, archaeologists had found some pretty convincing evidence that the Carthaginians had done exactly that, and they had been a Phoenician colony...

  So, applying his scholar's caution and training, Matt had made a stab at sifting fact from fancy in the reports of Maledicto's reign, coming to the sad conclusion that most of what he'd heard could have been stone-cold fact. Even after allowing for exaggeration and propaganda, he still thought there was probably some truth in them. Maledicto had delighted in cruelty and encouraged it in his noblemen. But if that had been true, could King Boncorro really have reversed the state of affairs so thoroughly in just six years?

  He decided to check his findings under the guise of idle gossip. Besides, he needed to get Pascal's mind off their faithful following monster. "Is it true that King Maledicto indulged in human sacrifice?"

  Pascal shuddered. "Aye, from all I hear! He conducted obscene rituals to pagan gods of evil. Their names are only whispered, never spoken aloud."

  "Such as Kali and Hecate?"

  Pascal shied as if he had just seen a rattlesnake pop up under his feet. "Forfend, Sir Matthew! I told you they are never spoken aloud!"

  "Doesn't do any harm, in a Christian universe." But Matt wished he could be sure of that; the names he had mentioned could be powerful symbols in their own right. "Probably includes Satan in there under another guise. I also hear tell that he held a party every night, just himself and a few close friends."

  Again Pascal shuddered. "Aye, and vile carouses they were, too!"

  "Mixing sex and torture?"

  Pascal nodded. "And imbibing vile brews that drove them mad with lust."

  "Real sweethearts." Matt glowered at the roadway in front of them. "I've also heard that King Maledicto came down with the pox now and then, but got rid of it by transferring it magically to some poor innocent peasant."

  "Not always innocent, I will say that for him," Pascal answered, hard-faced. "Innocent folk of any rank became harder and harder to find, the longer he reigned. Must we talk of this, Sir Matthew? I find it distasteful in the extreme."

  "I'm not exactly happy about it myself, but I really do want to find out if there's any truth in it."

  "Oh, be sure there is truth there! Through all those dark decades, our family did manage converse with relatives, or at least letters, borne by brave smugglers."

  "Weren't they afraid King Maledicto would punish them for telling on him, if his agents captured the letters?"

  "Tell on him? He boasted of his cruelties! Nay, he wanted them noised abroad, that all might shudder and obey him!"

  That unnerved Matt for a minute—but only a minute. Then he plucked back his composure and maintained, "They couldn't know whether or not the rumors were true, then. The king might have been spreading them himself, just to intimidate everybody!"

  "Do not doubt their truth! My father's cousin was taken for the king's army, then wrenched from their ranks to be mutilated for his Majesty's sport! There is no question that they would have slain him, had they not already had a maiden for the sacrifice. Nay, they let him go, with stern injunctions to tell all that he had seen!"

  That unnerved Matt, for longer than a minute or two. A blood relation was as strong a piece of evidence as he was likely to get, and pretty thoroughly validated all the rumors. It was having to confront the fact that they were true that shook him.

  "I had wondered why you carried a lute on your back," Pascal said. "Is it to trade songs of virtue for news of King Boncorro?"

  "Something like that," Matt admitted, "and because of that, I'd appreciate it if you'd lay off the 'Sir Matthew' sobriquet. Just plain 'Matthew' will do very nicely, for the nonce." He looked back over his shoulder. "You, too, Manny!"

  "My lips are sealed," the manticore promised.

  "Somehow I doubt that. I'll settle for you watching what comes out of your mouth a bit more closely than what goes in." He turned back to Pascal. "Mostly I had in mind picking up gossip about the last few years in Latruria—and the current state of affairs. I find it difficult to believe that the new king could have reformed the land so completely, after almost a century of corruption."

  "I doubt it, too, and I intend to be extremely cautious as to whom I trust, and into whose power I let myself fall. The king may have forsworn needless cruelty himself, but his noblemen have been trained to it, all their lives, and may not so cheerfully forsake the old depraved ways."

  "My thought exactly," Matt said grimly, "and though a knight might be treated with a certain amount of courtesy, a minstrel would not."

  Pascal stared at him, appalled. "You have deliberately made yourself their target?"

  "Call it bait for the trap." Matt just hoped he would be able to spring that trap if he needed to; he was getting very nervous about how weak his magic seemed to be in Latruria. "As long as there are only one or two knights against me, I can give them a very unpleasant surprise. I just hope I won't have to sing."

  The chancellor laid another sheet of parchment in front of the king. "As you commanded, your Majesty—a summary of what we may expect to receive in the various taxes and levies, set against the monies we anticipate having to pay out in the next twelve-month."

  "Neatly done." King Boncorro scanned the columns of figures. "Give the clerk an extra ducat's pay—this was new to all of us, and he has invented a very good way to draw it up." He laid the paper down with satisfaction. "It is well, Rebozo! For the third straight year our surplus shall increase—if we hold to this plan. The royal granaries shall be full, even the new score we are building. Famine shall not catch this country again."

  "No, your Majesty." The chancellor didn't sound all that happy about it. "Still, the surplus is due more to your own economies than to any increase in revenues. Surely you might now increase the taxes again!"

  King Boncorro shook his head. "With taxes low, people spend more, thus giving work to others—who thereby gain money to pay their taxes. Merchants are using the money saved to set up new ventures, bringing me more tax money than they did five years ago, even though Grandfather demanded two parts in three, where I only demand one." He nodded, pleased. "Yes, my conjecture is proved true—lower taxes yield higher revenues, though it did take some few years of tight living before the increase began to show. In fact, I see it is t
ime for another experiment."

  Rebozo's blood ran cold. "Majesty! Let us recover from your last! Whenever you say 'experiment,' I have premonitions of disaster!"

  "This one is easily undone, if it fails," Boncorro said, amused. "Have letters drafted to the noblemen who hold patents of monopoly on commerce in grain, timber, and wool. Tell them that henceforth, any man who wishes may traffic in those commodities."

  "Majesty, no! They shall rebel, they shall bring armies!"

  "I think not." King Boncorro lounged back in his chair. "They may still be active in the trade themselves, of course—and having held the monopoly and the means of transporting the goods, they shall have a huge advantage over any who wish to enter the trade. But if they have been charging extortionate prices, they shall find they have no buyers."

  "Exactly, Majesty! Their fortunes shall evaporate!"

  "They have fortunes enough to maintain them in luxury for the rest of their lives, Rebozo—aye, and their children's lives, too. We speak of counts and dukes, after all, who have vast estates to maintain them. No, they shall not starve—but they shall have to strive if they wish to continue to dominate the commerce of the realm."