Secular Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  Prince Casudo only folded his arms across his breast, closing his eyes and tilting his head back in prayer as the flames wrapped about him. But King Boncorro glared at the chancellor, his lips moving, unheard in the midst of Rebozo’s maniacal screams of hatred-and a giant snake coiled up from the floor to wrap Rebozo in its coils. Rebozo stared at the flat wedge head, only a foot from his face, and screamed in horror before the snake’s coils choked off his breath. His staff fell clattering to the floor, and the green fire stopped, showing Prince Casudo’s form still there, shining more brightly than ever. King Boncorro rose from his throne, eyes narrowed under lowering brows, and stalked toward the chancellor, slipping a stiletto from his belt. “No, your Majesty!” Rebozo rasped with the last shreds of breath. “This phantom is not real! It is only a phantasm made by the scholar Arouetto!”

  “How great a fool do you think me?” King Boncorro glanced at the snake. “Loosen enough to give him a taste of breath! He shall die by my knife, not your coils.” Then, to Rebozo again, ‘He is no wizard, but only a scholar-and has nothing to gain!“

  “He has the Knowledge! If he knows the way, he can do the deed! And he has everything to gain, for he is the true and legitimate heir to the throne of Latruria.”

  Boncorro froze. Then he whipped about, glaring at Arouetto. “Is this true?”

  “Be sure it is true.” Sir Guy stepped forward, his hand on his sword, just a step from interposing himself between Arouetto and the young king. “He is the last descendant of the last Caesar.”

  “But I do not wish to rule!” Arouetto protested. “I have no taste for court life and less for intrigue! I abdicate, here and now, where all may hear me, in favor of King Boncorro, for his reign may cure the ills of Latruria! I wish only to be left to my books in peace!”

  “I have heard it,” Sir Guy said, “and I will abide by it. He is no longer the heir. The throne is yours.”

  Boncorro scowled down at them for a very long minute. Then he said, “I thank you, scholar. I shall keep the throne-but you may not have your life of peace, for I require your services and your advice. Rebozo has betrayed me three times over. He shall die for that. You shall be my new chancellor.” Then he turned, raising his knife to execute the sentence. “No, my son!” cried the ghost. “Do not send him to Hell! Let him confess his sins, let him repent!”

  Boncorro hesitated, the dagger poised. “It is foolish to loose a snake to strike at your heel, my father.”

  “Do not loose him! Find him a priest this very day, let him confess, then behead him and burn his body! But do not burden your soul with his damnation!”

  “This is not prudent,” Boncorro said. “The way of virtue is frequently imprudent, but always wise! Do this for me, my son-though I know I do not deserve it of you!”

  “You deserve it ten times over.” Boncorro sheathed his knife. “Your desertion does not outweigh ten years of love and care of a very small child. He shall have his chance for Heaven.” He gestured, shouting a quick verse, and the snake dwindled, turning into iron, and clanking hard about Rebozo’s wrists and ankles as fetters and chains. But Rebozo had been given the respite he had needed to recover. With one quick motion he stooped and caught up his staff, crying, “Now, all my old henchmen! Strike, or know your doom! Smite this princeling, or die at the stake!” Then he shouted an unintelligible phrase, snapping the staff out toward Boncorro-and the snake reappeared, coiling up about the king. Sir Guy shouted, “Havoc!” and sprang up on the dais, his sword whirling toward the serpent’s head. Boncorro saw him and ignored the reptile, gesturing and shouting his own rhyme… But his shout was answered by fifty others, as courtiers stepped forward, slipping wands from their sleeves and chanting verses in the archaic language-even as a fiery monster appeared between Rebozo and the king, blasting Boncorro with its fire as the tailor leaped astride the creature his magic had called. But flame met a thousand glinting points that rushed toward Rebozo, and caught the monster instead. It screamed with rage, thrashing in pain, but leaped at the king… And a score of other monsters, lamias, gorgons, and nightmares of horn and sting and teeth, screamed in delight and converged on Matt and his friends, while another score rushed toward Boncorro. Saul spread his hands, shouting, “Ou sont les neiges d’antan? Les laissez-les faire ces monstres Devienent froids, geles et dursf”

  Matt shouted out, “Into the cradle, endlessly rocking, Go the horrible creatures immediately flocking! Bars o’er those cradles are instantly locking!”

  Half of the monsters slowed, halted, and stood frozen; the others shrank down, their shrieks of dismay rising up the scale as cradles appeared behind them. They fell backward and in; iron grids clashed shut over the tops of the cradles, holding them in. But other sorcerers were shouting other verses, and fires sprang up all about them. The ceiling rained knives and swords, the floor sprouted vipers and scorpions. Matt and Saul spun about and about, trying to quell one horror after another, yanking out verses in a very eclectic blend of classic poetry and TV commercials. Cans of insecticide appeared about them, sprinkling death on the vermin; fire extinguishers sprang into existence to combat the flames; giant steel umbrellas sent the cutlery cascading. But they were on the defensive, scarcely managing to keep up; the sorcerers definitely had the initiative. On the dais, Boncorro was whirling, shouting verses in old tongues and new, sweat running down his face as he countered one nightmare form after another. He made his floor turn from mire back into solid stone, and set up dozens of shields and swords to parry and fence those weapons that Rebozo brought into existence. Meanwhile, Sir Guy was manfully battering at Rebozo’s steed, taking its blasts of fire on a shield that magically dispersed the creature’s flames instead of conducting them. Sir Guy was singed and cut in three places on his face, but the monster was bleeding flame from a dozen, screaming in rage and frustration, for the knight danced about it, never in one place long enough to bite-and, worse, he was singing! “Ran! Tan! Terre et del! Terre et del, et sang vermeil! Ran! Tan! Terre et del! Bois le vin gaulois!”

  It was magic all his own, warrior’s magic, and the courtiers who weren’t wizards paused in their pressing back toward the doorways, heads coming up, wide-eyed. Matt took his cue. “Allons, enfants de la patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrive! Contre nous de la tyrannie! L’etandard sanglant est leve! L’etandard sanglant est leve! Entendez-vous, dans la campagne, Mugir, ces feroces soldats, Qui vienent jusque dans nos bras! Egorgez nos fils, nos compagnes! Awe armes, mes dtoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons, quand le sang impur Abreuve nos sillons!”

  It wasn’t their language, but the words worked anyway, and the zeal imparted by the song. With a massive shout, the courtiers turned on the sorcercers, who turned to blast them… A maddened yowl broke from the archway, and the manticore sprang in, fur bristling. It flew into the sorcerers, double jaws closing on one after another and tossing them aside. The remaining sorcerers screamed with fear and shrank back-but, unfortunately, so did the rest of the courtiers. Then a massed shout thundered from the archway, overriding the noise from within, and a hundred knights strode into the throne room, swords mincing the sorcerers’

  monsters and cutting a way through to the sorcerers themselves. Behind them a golden-haired fury strode, a golden circlet about her helmet, sbouting in rage, “Slay the foul fiends who would imperil my love! Rally to the Lord Wizard, to the Witch Doctor, and to the Black Knight!”

  Behind her, Stegoman’s huge head shot in through the door. A dozen sorcerers shouted and sprang to block his way, wands swirling, but the dragon roared in fury, and the sorcerers howled and fell, rolling in flames. Unarmed courtiers sprang aside, and the dragon charged toward the dais as hundreds of men-at-arms came running into the throne room to strike the sorcerers down. Rebozo’s monster saw Stegoman and sprang to meet him with a howl like a siren. The dragon roared in answer, and flame blasted flame. But behind them King Boncorro, undistracted now, turned on his traitorous chancellor and wove an unseen net in the air as he sang. Rebozo shou
ted in alarm, flourishing his staff and shrieking a verse-but before he could finish it, ruddy flames blasted up about him, freezing him in agony, and for one brief instant a dark horned form seemed to loom behind him before the flames abruptly ceased, leaving only a pile of ashes. The fiery monster disappeared at the same instant, leaving only a fading shriek behind it-and every sorcerer in the hall screamed in pain, back arching, and fell rolling to the floor in agony. Sir Guy lowered his sword, panting, and told the king, “Well struck, Your Majesty!”

  “But I did not,” Boncorro panted, staring at the heap of ashes with widened eyes. “My spell only inspired the agony of my traitorous courtiers! The flame that took him, that was not mine!”

  “Even so,” Sir Guy said grimly. “When the queen’s army burst in, the end was clear, and the Devil gave his old punishment for failure.”

  “Queen Alisande?” Boncorro looked up and saw the blond avenging angel wrapped in the arms of the Lord Wizard, who broke off murmuring endearments long enough to say, “You know, there’s something to be said for an army.”

  “Yes, and I thank your Majesty for its use.” King Boncorro looked up at the ghost, who stood staring down at the carnage, aghast. “Mercy to so depraved a soul as that is unwise.”

  “No,” the spirit muttered, shaking its head in denial. “It is always right, always! And a king must always do what is right!”

  But Boncorro shook his head. “I think that there are times when a king must do what is prudent instead-and you must forgive me, my father, but on this Earth, I am called to be a king, not a saint.”

  Matt and King Boncorro lingered unobtrusively in the doorway of the twenty-by-twenty studio, watching the sculptor at work in the light from the wide northern windows. After a little while, Matt moved onward, beckoning to the king, who nodded and followed. When they were away from the door, Boncorro said, low-voiced, “His progress is amazing! And you say Arouetto has given him only a very little criticism and suggestion this past fortnight?”

  “Only a little,” Matt confirmed, “but the kid paid attention. He respects Arouetto, you see.”

  “Even though our scholar admits he is no sculptor?”

  “No-because he admits he is no sculptor. But he does claim to be a connoisseur, and no one disputes it. At least, not twice-though whether that’s because they’re dazzled by his arguments, or just don’t want to sit through another hour of his explaining the merits of various paintings and statues, I don’t know.”

  At another doorway, they paused to watch several painters at work; at a third to watch a string quartet practicing; and a fourth time to watch singers rehearsing an opera. As they went on, Matt said, “Arouetto even has hopes of persuading the actors from the marketplace to try performing a script one of his students is writing. It will take some doing, convincing them to memorize lines instead of making it up from a scenario as they go along, but I think he might manage it.”

  “He is a most persuasive man,” Boncorro admitted. “He is,” Matt agreed. “I’m amazed that he manages to stop persuading when he’s teaching… here.”

  They paused in another doorway to see Arouetto sitting in a circle with the young men and women from Escribo’s farm, discussing an issue with great earnestness. “But there is as much sense in seeing the world as divided into male and female principles, as in seeing it divided into Good and Evil!” Escribo maintained. “Nonsense!” cried Lelio. “There is good in the world, and there is evil! Our teacher’s recent victory is reason enough to believe that!”

  “No one denies it,” Berylla replied. “It is a question of which is greater, that is all.”

  Lelio stared. “Do you say that the female principle can be greater than Good?”

  “No-that it can exist within the principle of Good!” She turned to Arouetto. “Could that not be valid?”

  “Perhaps,” Arouetto said, “if you remember that, in the Far Eastern dualism, Good proceeds from male and female existing in balance, and Evil springs from one or the other being too prominent.”

  “Evil being a lack of balance, and Good being balance?” One of the girls looked up sharply. “That has a familiar ring! The Greeks?”

  Arouetto nodded, visibly restraining his glee. “Flaminia, you seem to remember the quotation.”

  “ ‘Moderation in all things,’ ” Flaminia said, eyes wide in sudden understanding, “including moderation!”

  “That is it,” Arouetto said. “But tell me, could there be any connection between that principle and the motto, ‘Know thyself’?”

  “Far more than a motto, teacher!” another youth objected. “It is indeed.” Arouetto’s eyes shone. “But how do you see that, Amo?”

  As Amo began to answer, Pascal’s head suddenly snapped up, his eyes widening in amazement. He thrust himself to his feet and strode off to a writing desk in a corner, where he began to scribble furiously. “Thus the poet gains inspiration,” Boncorro murmured, shaking his head in wonder. “This is something I can never truly understand, Lord Wizard!”

  “That’s all right, your Majesty-for all their talk about it, none of them can really understand the ordering of a state.” Matt turned away, beckoning Boncorro out of earshot. “A few other scholars have already begun to hear of this villa and have come to talk and teach-in just two weeks! One is teaching rhetoric, another is teaching logic, and a third is teaching mathematics and music.”

  “An odd combination.”

  “No, he’s the Pythagorean in the bunch. I’m trying to get him to tell me about Pythagoras’

  ideas about magic, but he claims the mystic master didn’t believe in the stuff-he just taught how the world worked and the parts interacted.“

  “But if you understand that, you can work out ways to make wonders happen!”

  “He doesn’t realize that, fortunately. The man’s a genius, but I don’t think he has very good judgment.” He glanced back at Arouetto. “I don’t think your new chancellor is doing a very good job in government.”

  “He has already tried to resign, but I persuaded him to be chancellor only of this new center of study. He is ambitious; he hopes to build a community of scholars who will, together, pursue all human knowledge.”

  “Is he going to call it a ‘university’?”

  “If you mention the word, I am sure he will adopt it. Still, he is generous in his advice, when I ask it-and I have begun to select other men to do the work of the state. But I shall never again give any one man such broad powers as I entrusted to Rebozo-so Arouetto shall keep the title of chancellor, and I shall develop others for the men who do the work of government.”

  “Wise policy. You have very good judgment, your Majesty.”

  “I appreciate the praise, Lord Wizard.” But Matt could see the young king brace himself against flattery. “Well, I’m glad you accepted my challenge and watched Arouetto teach, at least-and even gladder that you seized upon the idea of bringing them all into the castle without my having to mention it.”

  “Which, I am sure, you would have-but there was so much value evident in the idea, that even I could not blind myself to it.” Boncorro smiled. “Already, the noblemen have begun to take artists into their households, and their wives have begun to invite scholars to their social gatherings. There is a positive stampede to catch a tame poet!”

  “Which means there will be a lot of charlatans showing up, very fast. Might I encourage your Majesty to test very thoroughly anyone claiming to be cultured?”

  “Wise advice.” Boncorro didn’t say he had already thought of it-he only said, “I must become as much a connoisseur as Arouetto-but I think the becoming will be a joy, and an excellent means to rest and refresh my spirit after a day of intrigue and striving.”

  “There is something to be said for night school,” Matt admitted. “Uh, I’ve, uh, taken the liberty of strolling through the marketplace in my minstrel’s costume, and out into the suburbs…”

  “Spying again, Lord Wizard?”

  “Yes, but for you th
is time.”

  “And for Queen Alisande, of course.”

  “Well, of coursel And already I’m hearing peasants singing arias while they work, and seeing people really beginning to look at all those pieces of statues left over from the Caesars. People are even beginning to debate what is Right and Virtuous on the street corners. Of course, one of those corners is in the red-light district…”

  “But even there, the discussion should render some improvement in the way they treat one another.” Boncorro nodded. “I can no longer deny it. Lord Wizard-my actions have been aimed at making people good, for my father was good, and that is the quality I will always admire secondmost.”

  “Second? May I ask what the first is?”

  “Strength,” said the king. “Survival. But come, Lord Wizard-we will be late in meeting the pope’s ambassador.”

  Matt exchanged glad greetings with Brother Thomas, then introduced him to the king, and right away the whole meeting had a much less formal tone. Before they could even mention any matters of state or the purpose of the visit, Matt told Boncorro, “Brother Thomas is studying the notion that magical power is not good or evil in itself, and doesn’t come from either God or Satan-that only the knowledge of how to use it comes from Good or Evil, and makes the magic what it is.”

  “Really!” said Boncorro with keen interest. “All-well, yes, but I may not speak of that, your Majesty,” Brother Thomas said uncomfortably. “The pope has not given me leave and is not sure that what I say can be correct.”

  “Correct?” Boncorro gave him a hard smile. “But surely, just between two men who pursue knowledge, we may speak of it! It is not as if you were going to preach it from the rooftops! Now tell me, if magic does not come from God, what are miracles?”

  “Oh, something else altogether!” Brother Thomas fell without even realizing it, and the two of them were off into an hour’s conversation that had overtones of argument, but undertones of keen enjoyment. They finally got around to mentioning the pope’s objectives over dinner. “His Holiness sends his thanks for freeing himself and his clergy, your Majesty, and allowing them to preach openly, without fear of persecution.”