The Oathbound Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  "It's all right, now. He's gone." Matt couldn't help noticing how nice the young woman felt in his arms, the little hands clutched about his neck, the contours of her body molding into his, their movements as she sobbed...He pulled his mind off the subject abruptly. "There, now, the ghost is gone, and no one's going to hurt you. We're nice guys, here, really, if you don't mind how we look..."

  "What's a matter with how we look?" Narlh demanded.

  "I haven't shaved in three days," Matt improvised, "and I haven't seen a pool large enough to bathe in for a week. You'll have to pardon us, young woman..."

  "Oh, nay!" Finally, she pushed herself away from him and began to wipe at her cheeks with a sleeve.

  Matt hauled out a handkerchief. "Here, now, you'll soil your gown." He finally took a quick look at her by firelight and decided that might have been the wrong thing to say; her gown hadn't had a good afternoon, what with the forest brambles and a few stumbles in the dirt. "That must have been horrifying, a thing like that happening when you were alone...you were alone, weren't you?"

  She burst into tears again. "Oh, aye, so very alone, since Lord Bruitfort took my father's castle! I escaped by the postern, but I've been wandering alone all this day and night! Bless you, kind sirs—but know that I'm pursued!"

  At a guess, Matt decided the siege was over—not that its ending boded any improvement for the peasantry. "We saw—but the ghost's gone. Take a look, if you don't believe me."

  "Oh, not the specter only—the soldiers! And a sorcerer, I doubt not. They'll not let me flee in peace, I assure you! Nay, good sirs, I must away from you, ere you share in my misfortune."

  " 'Tis they shall have misfortune," Fadecourt growled, "if they seek to take you from us! Fear not, fair maid—we shall not let them seize you!"

  Narlh opened his mouth to disagree, but Matt said quickly, "Right! We couldn't abandon a maiden in distress, to pursuers who're trying to ravish her!"

  The dracogriff shut his jaws with a snap. "Right. No way. Couldn't think of letting a lady go out alone."

  Especially not one who looked like that, Matt thought. He finally had a chance to take a good look—and what he saw was riveting. The "creature" had a heart-shaped face amid long chestnut hair held by a hennin. She wore a bliaut of blue and a kirtle of buff wrapped around a figure worth killing for. Matt locked his eyeballs onto her face and held them there by pure willpower—he was an engaged man.

  Fadecourt, however, didn't seem to suffer from that problem, though this certainly must have been a moment when he'd wished he'd had two eyes. The one he had was riveted on the young woman, wide open. Matt elbowed him in the shoulder, and the cyclops shook himself out of his hormonal trance to bow gallantly. "Where we can aid, maiden, we shall delight. What is your plight?"

  "And, if you wouldn't mind," Matt added, "would you tell us who we're protecting, milady?" Privately, he wondered just how Fadecourt could be so sure the lady wasn't just bait for another trap. But she was explaining her danger, which did sound plausible—and Fadecourt's instincts did seem to have proved accurate.

  So far.

  "I am hight Yverne, sirs," the maiden said. "I am the only child of the Duke of Toumarre. The Duke of Bruitfort, whose estates adjoin ours on the north—in truth, a vile neighbor!—did war upon my father. Through treachery of our garrison, he did defeat him and capture him, locking him in his deepest dungeon." The reminder of the day's horrors caught up with her, and she bowed her head, trying to stifle the sobs.

  Fadecourt stepped up to clasp her shoulders, murmuring, "There, now, lass, 'twas terrifying, aye, but you are safe now...

  When her sobs had slackened, Matt asked gently, "That mention of treachery reminds me—can we trust anybody, in this country?"

  "The Duke of Toumarre is a good man, by Ibile's lights," Fadecourt said slowly. "He kept troth so long as his seigneur kept troth with him, and maintained order within his demesne, albeit with cruelty and ruthlessness."

  Yverne looked up sharply and stepped away from Fadecourt, face tear-streaked but outraged. "He was harsh, mayhap, but did no cruelty for its own sake!"

  "Which is not entirely avoidable, in this country?" Matt asked.

  "Even so," Fadecourt said. "And it may be that, like many fathers, he wished his daughter to grow into a woman devoid of the vices common to his fellows."

  "Which would reveal an inner yearning for virtue." Matt studied Yverne so closely that the maiden blushed and looked away—which could have indicated her being a becoming innocent, or an accomplished dissembler.

  A hunch led him to choose innocence. "So what it comes down to is that her father's enemies thought he was weak, because he wasn't depraved enough."

  "Aye—and seem to have judged well, by Ibile's lights. Only the wicked are counted strong here."

  "Well, let's see if we can't change that notion, shall we?" Matt turned back to Yverne. "I take it this Duke of Bruitfort is trying to catch you for his dungeons, too."

  "He seeks to apprehend me," Yverne agreed, "but not for his dungeons. He wishes to take me to wife, whether I will or no."

  Fadecourt spat an oath, and Matt felt his blood run cold at the thought of this pure maiden in the hands of a depraved sadist. Even Narlh gave a squawk of outrage. "Go tie him in a knot, Lord Matthew!"

  "Well, we can put a hitch in his plans, anyway. How close is this duke, Lady Yverne?"

  "I know not—though 'tis but this day since I've escaped from his men." She advanced, hands outstretched in pleading. "Oh, sirs, I beg of you, turn not away from me—for without your kind protection, I am lost!"

  "Oh, you're coming with us, there's no question about that," Matt said quickly. "What kind of troops did the duke send looking for you? We confused a couple of knights, but that might not be all that are on your trail."

  She spread her hands. "I know not."

  "She did not stay to see him command pursuit," Fadecourt rumbled. "Natheless, I would think he has sent at least a dozen knights, and perchance even his sorcerer."

  Then the horn sounded behind them.

  Matt looked up in alarm and saw a man in a robe standing at the edge of the clearing, gesticulating and, presumably, chanting—but his gestures were lengthened by a three-foot, glowing wand. Matt frowned—this was new. Fear chilled him, but he tried to remember everything he'd heard about magic wands—why they were magical; what they could do.

  To either side of the sorcerer stood men in plate armor, seeming inhuman and certainly impersonal behind their iron helms. As Matt watched, they kicked their horses into motion and started down the slope.

  "Move!" Matt shouted. "Here come the bloodhounds!" His friends started forward out of sheer astonishment. Then Fadecourt looked back. "Lord Matthew! You, too, must flee!"

  "Be right along," Matt assured him. "I just have to counter whatever our friend in the robe is doing back there."

  He found out as his voice slowed, taking several seconds for the last two syllables, and his voice slid down an octave. The sorcerer had thickened the air about them, somehow; his friends could scarcely move through the molasses! And to make it worse, Matt could scarcely get out a single word, let alone a whole poem!

  Meanwhile, here came the Knights of Evil, hurtling toward them like express trains...

  And grinding down to near immobility, as they hit the perimeter of the spell, where time slowed down to a treacle.

  Matt's spirits soared—the sorcerer had almost paralyzed his quarry, but his buddies couldn't get to Matt and his friends any faster than the fugitives could get away! And it might take Matt a long time to get a spell out, but it would take the knights even longer to reach him.

  Matt took a deep breath, or at least a very slow one. Now there was time to think up a counterspell.

  "Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race!

  Call on the lazy-stepping hours, and let them limp in place!

  Let minutes blossom, seconds stem,

  Let time flow on at normal pace,

  Bu
t for us only, not for them!"

  His friends began to move faster, but the enemy knights were still fighting their way through treacle. All well and good—but the duke's sorcerer would catch on and call off his own spell any minute. He was already staring—at a guess, no one had ever countered that enchantment before.

  "Vile thing, I think I hate you!" the sorcerer screamed.

  "Evil king, now hark and hear!

  Make these rebels quake with fear!

  Hear me, mark us, circumspect!

  Lend me your aid, your power direct!"

  "Beware!" Yverne clutched at Matt's arm. "He calls on his master, dread Gordogrosso! 'Tis the power of the sorcerer-king you now must face!"

  "Maybe, but it will be wielded by a journeyman." Matt spoke up bravely, in spite of the shot of dread that trickled through him.

  Fadecourt gently disengaged Yverne from Matt's arm. "Let him be, milady. He must think of naught but countering the sorcerer's power."

  The sorcerer lifted his wand and shouted a spell in the unknown language, then cut the air with his wand overhand, ending pointing it at Matt.

  "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" Matt shouted.

  A gout of light sped from the tip of the wand, widening as it neared Matt, breaking into a pack of hyena heads, gibbering with insane laughter as they reached for him with bloody fangs.

  Matt realized he hadn't made a rhyme. He added, "From those who with ill charm would rend us!"

  Light seared, and a troop of spectral monks was suddenly there between the two-forces—a whole choir, lifting its voices in a hymn. Behind it, the arches and frescoes of a church could be seen dimly.

  The hyenas screamed and went tumbling back toward the wand, biting and chewing at each other in their haste. But through the monks, Matt could see the knights and men-at-arms, charging full out. His heart leaped into his throat—he couldn't do anything to stop them! For even as the hyenas hit the wand, the sorcerer banished them with a couplet and a riposte, then shouted another rhyme as he moved the wand slowly back and forth from side to side—and the choir began to waver and thin.

  "Stay and sing!" Matt cried. "Thy blessings bring!"

  Suddenly, he understood that the choir of monks wasn't really here—it was only intervening, lending the power of the hymns it was chanting; it was really in a monastery somewhere in Merovence, and his appeal for help had only sent the defending power of its prayers. But the soldiers charged right through the vision with a howl of blasphemous curses. Fadecourt stood ready, with Narlh beside him, mouthing bad names. But the cries of blasphemy suddenly turned to cries of alarm, and knights and footmen alike plowed up the ground in their haste to stop, gibbering with fear at the sight they beheld. For all of a sudden, the ghost was there again, the same one who had been chasing Yverne, three times as large as he had been—but he was facing away from her now, reaching up and snatching off his head. With one hand, he thrust it out at the soldiers, eyes and mouth filled with fire, the other hand swelling monstrously, fingers flickering out into tentacles as it reached for the soldiers.

  They screamed and ran, like the proverbial bats. Only their captain actually changed form, though—and he was flying away as fast as his leathery wings could take him. The choir disappeared, its heavenly song eclipsed by the howls of fear. The soldiers barreled back up to the top of the rise, knocking the sorcerer spinning in their flight. He wailed, flailing about for support, and caromed into a tree, clutching the bark with both hands. Then he looked up at the ghost again—and saw it shooting straight toward him. His mouth widened in an unheard scream, and he turned tail and ran, tripping and stumbling over his robe.

  "Amazing!" Fadecourt stared after them. "You are indeed a doughty wizard, Lord Matthew!"

  Matt shook his head. "Not that much. Oh, I called up the choir, sure—but the ghost came entirely on his own!"

  "I had feared he had come to seize me!" Yverne shuddered.

  "Nay, not a bit, lady!" Fadecourt protested, reaching up to clasp her hand with both of his. "He did protect us, not prey upon us! Ne'ertheless, an he did chase you, I doubt not the Lord Wizard would banish him."

  "Looks as if he already did," Narlh growled.

  "Huh?" Matt looked up. "Hey, wait a minute! I didn't mean..."

  But the ghost was gone. Completely.

  "Well, that's a puzzle." Matt scratched his head, frowning. "Whose side is he on, anyhow?"

  "Ours, at the moment," Fadecourt answered.

  "Yeah, but don't be too quick to think he's a good guy," Narlh growled. "Could be he just wants the sweet and tender thing all to himself."

  Yverne shrank back at the gleam in the dracogriff's eye.

  "Oh, don't worry, I don't eat your kind," Narlh snorted. "You don't even smell good."

  Yverne stilled, conflicting emotions warring in her face. Matt could sympathize—after a line like that, he wouldn't know whether to feel reassured or insulted himself.

  Then a nasty suspicion seized him. He stepped out over the talcum circle, carefully, prowling into the night.

  "Hey!" Narlh leaped to catch up with him. "Where you goin' ?"

  "To make sure that scouting party really did run," Matt snapped. "They could just be hiding over the top of the rise, waiting for us to follow."

  "Yeah, sure, and you're walking right into their hands if they are! No way, human! Wait for your guardian monster, y' hear?"

  Matt slowed and waited, smiling. "Very reassuring, y' know?"

  "Don't get mushy," Narlh warned. "Okay, up to the top, now—but only the top! Right?"

  "Only the top," Matt agreed. Together, they stomped up to the top of the rise and looked down the other side. The moonlight glinted on an empty glade.

  "I didn't think they looked as though they were about to stop," Narlh grunted.

  "I'm delighted they didn't," Matt assured him. "That was the first taste I've had of Ibile's sorcerers—and I don't like the flavor."

  "Oh?" Narlh looked down at him. "Different from the bad guys in Merovence?"

  Matt nodded. "There's a—slimy feeling about this one, somehow. As if he'd been soaked in evil for a few years."

  "Try a few centuries."

  "I think he did. Besides, he used a wand."

  "You don't?" Narlh stared, shocked. "That's right, you don't! Better get one fast, bucko. They all use 'em, here."

  "They do? What for?"

  Narlh just stared at him. Then he said, "If you don't know, then we're all in trouble. Do me a favor, huh? See if you can take a few lessons."

  "I don't think they'll be in any mood to teach me," Matt said slowly. "Besides, if they were, I'm not sure I'd want to learn. C'mon, I saw a knife one of those soldiers dropped. That'll do me more good, I bet."

  The queen called down her nobles all, being careful to leave the ones who had suffered while the usurper ruled her Merovence.

  "But, Majesty!" protested the Duke of Montmartre, "what reward is this, for the loyalty of our service? Are we to have no share in the glory of this campaign?"

  "You shall have the greatest share, esteemed Duke," Alisande answered, "for you and your fellow lords must bide, and ward this land of Merovence from the evil raptors who must surely pounce as soon as I am gone to the war, with the lords whom I trust only to follow their own self-interest."

  "How shall you be safe, with such beasts at your back!"

  "Such men as the Earl of Norville cannot be beasts, milord," Alisande explained, "or they would have been elevated, and given power, by the false King Astaulf."

  "And would have died with him, I doubt not, as the Duke of Lachaise and Count Ennudid," Montmartre muttered. "Yet most of the others were numbered in Astaulf's army, Majesty, and fought against you at Breden Plain."

  "As they were constrained to do," Alisande replied. "Only yourself, and the handful of lords who accompanied you in your dungeon cell, did refuse to march."

  "Whereupon Astaulf took our armies and marched with them, in spite of us."

  "Aye
, but thereby did I know you for my most staunch adherents."

  "Yet we should therefore guard your back in battle!"

  "As you shall, my lord—for my royal city of Bordestang is my back, and Merovence is the rest of my body. My arm will be weakened, if you ward me not."

  The duke capitulated with a sigh. "As you will have it, Majesty. Yet who will guard your person? For God forfend that a hair of your head should be touched!"

  "I thank you, Lord Duke," Alisande said, smiling, "though I have hairs a-plenty. Yet be of good cheer—I will take your erstwhile cell mate, Baron D'Art, to command my bodyguard."

  "Take also my eldest son, Sauvignon!"

  Now it was the queen's turn to capitulate. "As you will have it, my lord," she sighed. "Though I think his fiancée will thank me not."

  CHAPTER 11

  Technical Wizardry

  It was a problem, Matt had to admit; in fact, it gnawed at him, hollowing him out with an ache he hadn't realized was there, as he gazed at Yverne's blanket-shrouded but shapely form glowing in the light of the camp fire. Was he really a heel to find Yverne attractive? Or was that just a normal, and unpreventable, reaction?

  He was engaged to an equally beautiful woman—but the "engaged" part was what made him feel like a monster. Though you have to admit, his amoral self insisted stubbornly, that your beloved can be a little intimidating.

  Which was true—especially since, being his sovereign, she could have his head chopped off any time she wanted, and he couldn't ethically do anything about it.

  So the hell with ethics?

  Not quite—that had led him into more than one bind, in this world where magic came from either Good or Evil. He had a notion, though, that if it came to disobedience or execution, he wouldn't stick around to find out how sharp the headsman's axe was. Not that he would strike back at Alisande—he felt a stab of alarm at the mere thought. But he could go off on his own.