“Lord Wizard!” Callio exclaimed indignantly. “What proper thief...”
“The kind who has a conscience,” Matt told him, “and the kind who wants to go with me. You want to come along or not?”
“I go.” Callio snatched the silver and shot back over the fence.
Matt watched him narrowly, but the two pieces of silver were still winking under the streetlight as the thief came back, muttering and cursing every step of the way.
“Your talents could be invaluable,” Matt told him, “but we have to use them ethically if we don’t want to get into trouble. Come on, let’s step into the angle of the railroad station while we change.” He handed Callio the smaller set of clothes, not mentioning that they were a child’s size. Callio would have fainted at the thought that children grew so big here.
They stepped out again ten minutes later with Matt’s pack noticeably more full. Callio was still marveling over buttons and zippers. “Whoever would have thought to hold a garment shut with steel!”
“Yeah, it really is amazing,” Matt agreed.
“They must be wealthy indeed, who owned these garments!”
“No, steel is just very cheap here. Be careful going into people’s yards, okay? You were lucky you didn’t run into a German shepherd.”
Then Matt had to explain that the shepherd in question was a large dog, not a sheepherder from Allustria—but that became rather complicated, because the animals had originally been bred to herd sheep, and what’s more, they were originally from Alsace, which Callio stubbornly refused to admit was one of the Germanies—turned out his father had been a native of the district, and had thought himself to be thoroughly a citizen of Merovence. By the time Matt straightened it out, they had reached Main Street.
There Callio stopped and stared. “It is as bright as day!”
“Fewer accidents that way,” Matt told him.
A car came roaring by, and Callio leaped into Matt’s arms with a yip of dismay.
“Oh, get down,” Matt said in disgust, and dropped him.
The thief landed on his feet, eyes round. “Was that one of those carriages of which you spoke?”
“Horseless carriages, yes.”
“Truly they could be dangerous!”
“So could the people,” Matt told him. “Hands in pockets, okay? Your own pockets, Callio!”
“You spoil the whole adventure,” the thief complained. “What is a ‘pocket,’ Lord Wizard?”
They were just getting that sorted out when the big black car pulled up to the curb in front of them. Matt turned to run, but he bumped into Callio, and by the time they’d sorted themselves out, the six-and-a-half-foot-tall heavyweight in the pin-striped suit had climbed out and opened the back door. He jerked his head at it and snapped, “Get in!”
The driver had climbed out, too, his hand inside his suit coat.
“Uh, couldn’t we talk about this?” Matt hedged.
“You talk with the boss! Inside!”
The driver brought out his gun. Matt didn’t like the way Callio was eyeing him, then thoughtfully studying the bulge under the armpit of the thug who was holding the door. He reminded himself that he had wanted to find Groldor anyway, but before he could give in, the thug snarled “Go on, get in!” and virtually tossed him into the backseat.
Matt rolled with the throw, tucking his head in, then crashed against the far door anyway as Callio jolted up against him. The thug got in beside Callio and slammed the door shut. Heavy clunking noises sounded from all four doors, and the car moved away from the curb. Experimentally, Matt tried the door latch, but sure enough, the panel didn’t budge, and there weren’t any lock releases in sight, electronic or mechanical.
“Why do you let them treat you so, Lord Wizard?” Callio asked, wide-eyed.
“Why not?” Matt said. “They’re taking me where I want to go, anyway.”
“But I cannot abide being in so small a space!” Callio turned on the thug, grabbing his lapels and yanking himself close. “You must let me out! I cannot stand to be so shut in! It is too much like gaol!”
“We all got that problem,” the thug snarled, and jammed him back in his seat.
Matt protested, “Hey, you don’t have to be so rough with...”
But Callio shot over the seat and next to the driver, grabbing him by the lapels. “You must let me out! I fear this monster will digest me whole! This is no coach, it is a ravening raptor!”
The driver swerved, narrowly missing a semi on his left, then swung the wheel too far to the right, almost colliding with a parked car, and jammed on the brakes. Callio slammed up against the windshield and bounced back into the seat, sobbing.
“The car won’t hurt you, mac,” the driver grunted, “but I will! Now get back in that seat and stay there!” He grabbed the little thief and shoved hard. Callio vaulted over the seatback and landed on the guard’s lap. The man cursed and jammed him back between himself and Matt.
“Let up on the kid, will you?” Matt snapped.
“The boss said not to beat on you if we didn’t have to,” the man growled. “Do we have to?”
Matt opened his mouth for a sharp retort, but Callio looked up at him, still sobbing, and winked. The words evaporated on Matt’s tongue as a chill of dread seized him. Just what was the little thief planning, anyway?
Papa walked through a village of hide tents and brush huts, laid out in neat circles with a common center. That was where he was going, escorted by a Percheron with a steel suit containing a man on its back.
Foot soldiers looked up from sharpening spears and polishing armor. More people boiled out of the tents and came running to see. Many of them wore only peasants’ jerkins and leggings, but had the hard-bitten look of veterans nonetheless.
Papa was aware that, although the knight who rode the huge horse wasn’t holding a lance or sword to his back, he was nonetheless alert to the slightest questionable movement. Papa had no doubt that his sword could be out and stabbing in a second.
“Here is far enough,” the knight directed him.
Papa stopped about thirty feet from a silken pavilion—soiled and patched, but silken nonetheless. The guards saw, and one ducked inside. He came out a moment later and said, “The king will see you in a moment.”
So this was how far the King of Ibile had fallen! But he was nonetheless a king, and perhaps his finest accomplishment was that he was still fighting. Certainly the presence of his troops spoke well of him, for they could have deserted easily at any time. They definitely seemed to care about their sovereign—Papa could see at least four drawn bows, and many naked swords, all with him as their targets. Apparently any stranger was a possible assassin.
Out he came, tall and handsome, but dressed in the leather and broadcloth of a hunter. Nonetheless, there was a nobility about him that left no doubt as to his station. Papa bowed. “Your Majesty!”
“You are well-mannered,” King Rinaldo said with a smile. “I greet you, goodman. What is your name?”
“I am Ramón Rodrigo Mantrell, Majesty.”
The king seemed to go still somehow. “I know that name Mantrell.”
“It is not rare,” Papa said, “but in this instance, it is the name you know indeed, for I am the father of Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence.”
“Are you indeed!” But the king was not convinced. “If you are indeed his father, and have come to seek me out, he will have told you something of our adventures together. Can you tell me what he might have to say that none others would know?”
“Yes, Majesty. He told me to ask if you were keeping an eye out for him.”
King Rinaldo winced, remembering that, when he had met Matt, he had been locked by a wicked enchantment into the form of a dwarf cyclops; his other eye had been in a bottle on a shelf in King Gordogrosso’s workroom. “Not exactly uncommon knowledge, but surely only Matthew would stoop so low as to give a watchword like that! How is it you are here, Master Mantrell? Your son told me he was very far fro
m home!”
“He was, Your Majesty.” The thought of just how far made Papa shiver. “But we ran into difficulties, my wife and I, so Matthew came back to fetch us here. He has gone back again, to fight an enemy who, he says, is an agent of the sorcerer who lies behind this war that troubles you so.”
“What sorcerer?” Rinaldo lost his smile. “I know nothing of a sorcerer, only of an army of Moors who have swept over my land, led by a boy who calls himself the Mahdi!”
“Matthew has discovered that one man, a Nirobus by name, has caused the troubles that beset us both. He it is who excited a small group of sorcerers into inciting the Moors to conquer, and convincing a shepherd that he could lead them.”
“Indeed!” King Rinaldo frowned. “He has learned much, our Matthew!”
“It is learning in which he is trained more than in anything else, Your Majesty.” Papa couldn’t quite stifle a smile of pride.
King Rinaldo grinned. “Now I know that you are his father, for only a proud papa would glisten so, simply because his son has learned how to learn. Come, enter my pavilion, Master Mantrell—but I pray you, keep your hands in plain sight, for my retainers are horribly suspicious.”
“As they should be.” Papa bowed, then followed King Rinaldo into the pavilion.
The king sat on a portable throne, rather ingeniously contrived. Everyone else stood, in accordance with protocol. Besides, that made it easier to draw their swords, or swing their halberds, in case Papa tried anything violent.
“I have fought and retreated with my army only once, Master Mantrell, and realized that we could not stand against the might of the Moorish army and the power of their magicians’ magic.” A shadow crossed his face. “I would say it was evil magic, but it seems to have wreaked no more suffering than any other form of war, and the Moors, by all my spies’ reports, are as devoted to their faith as any Christian. I know their religion is untrue, but I cannot say it is evil.”
“Nor would I, Your Majesty,” Papa answered, “and although I think it contains many mistakes and allows many actions that I believe to be wrong, I must admit that the core of its beliefs is very much like our own.”
“Save that they do not recognize Christ as God,” said Rinaldo, frowning.
“That above all,” Papa agreed, “but they do honor him as a prophet.”
“They do. No, I could not call them evil.”
“Nor can I,” Papa agreed. “However, as with Christians, wicked men can lead them astray. Certainly evil sorcerers can use magic to gain the victories that might of arms alone could not.”
“Even so,” King Rinaldo agreed, “and because of that, I have bidden my people to leave their houses and farms and follow me into the hills. Fifty thousand of them have seen fit to obey. The others stayed to take their chances with Moorish mercy. I cannot say that I blame them, for to uproot one’s whole life is no small thing. I have left a garrison in each city, putting up enough resistance to bog down the Moors’ advance, but I fear that any citizens who trust too much in those soldiers will be horribly disappointed.”
Papa frowned. “I had heard that the land was in the Mahdi’s hands, but that many of the cities were still free.”
“So my spies say, and I am amazed the invaders haven’t sent parties to rout my garrisons and occupy the cities. Instead, I am told they have thrust straight through to the Pyrenees.” King Rinaldo smiled bleakly. “Perhaps the citizens who chose to stay in their cities have chosen rightly after all.”
“Perhaps, if the food and water last,” Papa said. He frowned, thinking of typhus and cholera.
“I hope they will be well, my people,” King Rinaldo sighed. “My spies say that the Mahdi keeps his soldiers on a tight rein; we have heard very little of looting or rapine, or any others of the sorts of random brutality that so often accompany an army on the march.”
“He is a very devout man in his own religion, Your Majesty,” Papa said.
King Rinaldo frowned. “Have you met him, then?”
Papa launched into an account of his and Matthew’s visit with Tafas bin Daoud, leaving out only Lakshmi’s contribution; he merely attributed their arrival and escape to magic, which was true enough as far as it went. King Rinaldo listened in complete silence, only nodding now and then or uttering an expletive at the Mahdi’s complete and utter self-confidence. When Papa was done, the king said, “He is young and naive, then, but a man of good heart, and a genius in battle.”
“He is,” Papa agreed, “but the sorcerers behind him may be evil, and were most certainly persuaded to embark on this campaign of conquest by a man who posed as a sage, a holy hermit—but did not profess a religion.”
“And you say the same man has upset your own homeland?”
Apparently Matt hadn’t told the king about alternate universes. “He has, Majesty, as well as we can discover—and has addicted many of our young people to a drug that allows him to leach energy from them, to use for his magics.”
King Rinaldo shuddered. “That is a most evil form of magic! Yes, I have done well to avoid outright battles.”
“Very well indeed,” Papa said, in pleased surprise. “How have you fought, then, Your Majesty?”
“By harassing the foe, Master Mantrell—cutting down their laggards, ambushing their food caravans, striking them hard and fast with raids that stampede their horses and slay a few soldiers, then disappearing into the night. We have slain only a few hundred, but the rest are beginning to live in fear that we may swoop down upon them at any moment.” He forced a hard smile. “I had hoped for help from Merovence, but the queen has not even replied to my appeals.”
“She has,” Papa said, surprised. “Her messengers, then, have not reached you?”
Rinaldo only stared at him for a minute, digesting the news, then said, “No, they have not. We were afraid there might have been couriers who were captured by the Mahdi’s scourers. What does Her Majesty?”
“She has marched against the Moors,” Papa said, “but the Mahdi awaits her on Ibile’s side of the mountains. While he does, he has sent a quarter of his force by sea, to besiege her capital, Bordestang.”
“So that is why the Moors have made only a token attack on the north country!” King Rinaldo cried.
“And will not do more, until they have fought Queen Alisande—after which, they may not be able to fight you,” Papa said.
“I cannot let Queen Alisande fight my war for me!”
“Nor do you,” Papa said evenly. “She fights to save her own country as much as yours, for the Mahdi is driving to conquer Bordestang and Merovence first. Then, when they are secure, he will turn back to finish the conquest of Ibile.”
King Rinaldo frowned, puzzled. “A strange strategy.”
“Only if you are fooled into believing that the Mahdi is the true enemy,” Papa said.
“Who else could be?” King Rinaldo asked, frowning. “You mean this Nirobus fellow?”
“The same, Majesty. If he is truly a servant of Evil, trying to reconquer Ibile and Merovence for his master the Devil, he might well deem Merovence to be the worst danger.”
“Yes, because I would not have regained my throne and expelled the evil sorcerer from my kingdom without the help of the queen and your son!” King Rinaldo cried. “Galling though it is to admit, they are a far greater danger to the Conquest of Evil than I am! I think you have hit upon it, Master Mantrell—or your son has! Explain to me the working of this campaign!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Papa explained about Groldor and the drug that was sweeping the cities of his home world, explained how that drug allowed Nirobus to steal energy from young people for his magical conquests.
“Merovence must be the greater danger because it has been ruled by good and godly kings during all the centuries that the lands around it were ruled by servants of evil,” Papa guessed, “with only a year’s lapse before Queen Alisande won back her throne.”
“You are too modest, Master Mantrell,” Rinaldo said, with
a sardonic smile. “I doubt not it is the presence of your son beside a legitimate monarch devoted to Goodness and Righteousness that makes Merovence a greater threat than Ibile. We must prevent the fall of Queen Alisande at all costs! I shall ride to attack the Mahdi from the rear!”
“By your leave, Your Majesty, I doubt the wisdom of that course,” Papa said quickly. “My son made it quite clear that Queen Alisande has turned back to defend Bordestang. If you wish to ride to her aid...”
“I must ride to Bordestang. Yes, I see that.” King Rinaldo frowned. “Surely the Mahdi will already be marching to attack her there! But he will leave a force to harry these northern lands, so that I will not suspect he has taken the greater part of his army out of my kingdom.”
“Then leave a small part of your own force,” Papa counseled, “a garrison large enough to ride quickly here and there about the Northlands, to keep the illusion that the whole countryside is up in arms.”
“An excellent device!” Rinaldo thumped the arm of his throne in delight. “While they scour the border, I shall take the bulk of my army to raise the siege of Bordestang!” Then he frowned. “It shall be perilous, though. I ride against a force buoyed by sorcerers, but I have no wizard to counter them!”
“You do now,” Papa said.
Tafas was unhappy. Tafas was angry and scornful. “What, more of this nonsense?” he asked Sharif Haifaz. “Why should the men fret because of a dream?”
“No reason at all, if it only comes once, and to one man, my lord,” Sharif answered, “but when it comes night after night to a hundred men at a time, and has always the same persons in that dream, men begin to whisper of witchcraft.”
“Only for a dream?” Tafas scoffed. “Dreams can hurt no one! What cowards are they to be so frightened?”
“It is not that the knight in the dream is so frightful, my lord,” Haifaz said carefully, “but that he is so ludicrous, so poorly armed, yet so fearless. He is ferocious in his enthusiasm, and strikes doubt in the hearts of our countrymen.”
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