The Oathbound Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  It seemed a little rude to call out, so Matt cleared his throat.

  The old man spun toward the sound, eyes wide in horror. He gave a little cry and cowered back, hands upheld to ward them off, quavering, "Enemies! My friends, come! We are beset!"

  Suddenly the air was thick with gauzy, translucent shapes with huge gray moth wings and stunted, gnarled, almost-human forms. Wispy beards adorned faces like oak burls, and clenched fists pounded the companions. One blow struck through and into Matt's head; he heard nothing, but a blinding pain shot through his skull. "Max! Disperse them!"

  But Puck was already in action, shooting from one creature to another, countering blows with his own, tiny, upraised palm—and the force of the punch rebounded, knocking the moth-men awry. Max danced out to join him, singing in glee as he shot through and through the translucent forms; the moth-men began to keen with pain.

  "Cold Iron!" Sir Guy roared, whipping out his sword and whirling it over his head. The spirits scattered, pulling back from his blade, but hovering just beyond its reach, and their keening took on the tone of anger.

  "Behind us!" Fadecourt called, and Matt whipped about to see more moth-men closing in from the rear. "It's a trap after all!" he cried. "Gordogrosso set an ambush for us! I should've known!"

  "Gordogrosso, do you say?" the old man cried in surprise. "Nay, desist, my friends! The enemy of my enemy is my ally!"

  The moth-men pulled back, simmering with anger, and Puck shot toward them.

  "Nay, hold, goblin!" Sir Guy called. " 'Twould be pity of my life, if we were to slay friends!"

  Puck hovered, trading glares with a moth-man, but held his station.

  "Patch 'em up, Max," Matt called. "Wait a minute—no. Just stop hurting them. If they are friends, we'll heal them."

  "You have the power to undo the harm you've done?" the old man asked, amazed.

  "That much, I can do," Matt confirmed. "The question is, should I?"

  The old man spread his hands. "That's to say, am I your friend? And to that, I can only reply that I have resisted the king's armies and magic all my life, as did my father before me, and his father before him."

  "Are your moth-men that strong?"

  The moth-men set up an angry buzzing, and the old man frowned. "Call them well-wists, for they wist of all wells and other depths beneath the earth. They do flit through rock and soil as birds do fly through air, and thus learn all the secrets of the hidden places beneath the ground."

  "Oh." Matt lifted his head, understanding. "It's not just their power to hurt that gives them strength—it's their knowledge."

  "Aye. 'Tis they showed my grandsire how to defend his castle with flame, in return for some service he had done them."

  Matt was suddenly very interested in the nature of that service—but the old man was asking, "Are you not the king's henchmen, sent here to slay me and seize my castle?"

  "Never!" Fadecourt snapped.

  Yverne lifted her head, indignant at the insult. "I have suffered too much from this vile monarch who broke faith with my father, good sir."

  "None of us would even think of siding with Gord—uh, the king," Matt explained, without apparently attracting their enemy's attention.

  Or had they attracted his attention, but without risk? Certainly the castle seemed impregnable, even from magic. Matt felt more confident, but also felt the heavy weight of an obligation to be honest. "Myself, I'm out to assassinate the king." It sounded ugly, when he came right out and said it—but that was what he intended, after all, and if there were anything wrong about it, he'd better find out ahead of time. "Not that I usually advocate murder, you understand, but he deserves it if anybody does, and it's the only way to save the people of Ibile from him. I'd prefer to kill him in open battle, of course, but I don't think I'll get the chance."

  "Nay, surely not." Finally, the old man smiled. "And if you are indeed his enemies, you are welcome in my castle. But how came you hither?"

  "Looking for a hiding place from the king," Matt explained, "but one where we could keep watch on him and try to lay some plans about invading his castle. Our dragon friend—" He nodded over his shoulder at Stegoman. "—brought us to your roof, and we came down the stairs. You don't seem to keep many guards, sir."

  "I am the Don de la Luce, and I keep no guards indeed, save these my friends, who will come at my call—yet I would not trouble them without need."

  "Neither would I." Matt gave the indignant well-wists a guilty glance. "I hadn't meant to hurt friends—but I didn't know you were on my side."

  The biggest well-wist buzzed angrily.

  "He says that they did not know you were not assassins sent by the king," Don de la Luce interpreted. "They knew only that you were intruders, and as such, sought to protect me by driving you away."

  "Yeah, I can understand how I must have looked from their point of view. Well, uh, I'm sorry, well-wists."

  Another moth-man—or was it woman?—stepped up beside the biggest, buzzing in an indignant tone.

  "She says you might show your contrition by healing them," the don explained.

  "Oh, yeah! What's wrong with me? No, don't answer that! Yeah, I should have fixed them up in the first place." Matt turned away, frowning while he tried to dredge up the appropriate verse, then turned back to the well-wists, spreading his open palms to include them all, and chanting,

  "Where steel and fire have torn and singed,

  Gossamer strands shall mend and knit,

  Making whole what's torn and tattered.

  What friends unknown have broke and shattered,

  Shall meld and mend, and heal what's split,

  Now setting firm what came unhinged!"

  As he spoke, the very air began to shimmer. The well-wists buzzed and sang, churning together in consternation, just beginning to become alarmed when the coruscation died. The creatures looked at one another, their tones turning into chimings and flutings of delight.

  "They are healed indeed!" the Don de la Luce said, staring. "You are a wizard brave and doughty!"

  For a moment, Matt thought he had said "knave and dotty," and was about to agree with him. Fortunately, he realized what the old don had said, just in time to change his comeback to, "Glad to be able to make amends. Have we hurt any guardian spirits on your stairway, too?"

  "Nay; there is only a charm laid on it. In truth, I should have guessed that you were not malignant, for the stairwell is enchanted only against those with evil magic."

  Matt shook his head. "For all you knew, we might have been king's sorcerers who had managed to disable your spell."

  "True, though none such have ever been able to rise to such heights within this stronghold."

  "Sounds like you could use a few human guards. Don't you have any flesh-and-blood retainers?"

  "Nay, I dwell alone in this great old stone pile; all our soldiers and servants fled, in my grandfather's time, to serve the evil tyrant." He shook his head at the memory. "I was but newly come to manhood then, yet I remember well the ferocious battles of my boyhood, when my grandfather strove against the king with his knights and men-at-arms, keeping the shores of this isle secure by sword and steel, even as his wizards battled with the king and his sorcerers. But they died, the wizards—they died, and the people fled to the mainland, sick and weary of battle, and afeard of the king's sorcery. I hope they fared well, yet I misdoubt me of it." His mouth tightened. "Ah me! What may have happened to them! Some we knew of, for their tattered ghosts spoke to my grandfather of torture and degradations as they flew past on their way to Heaven or Purgatory, and not a one but did not wish he had stayed to fight and died a clean death. Oh, yes, oh, yes! 'Tis better far to die in battle, than to fail by inches, serving the king's pleasure! Yet there were none to battle by our sides, my father and my grandsire and myself, save my mother and her ladies, yes, but no bride for me, no, for the ladies had fled and gone, fled and gone." A tear trembled in his eye; he blinked it back.

  "But I remembered, aye,
the well-wists, and the tale my grandfather told, of the time of his grandfather, when the land was newly sunk in evil, oh, yes, and our most doughty ally sunk beneath the wave, the waves. Oh, 'twas then the well-wists came flocking, filling our castle with aimless anger, and folk would have fled their haunting had not my grandfather's grandfather seen 'twas fear that moved them, and not anger. He found they feared the sea, oh yes, and fled to find a roost for their mates, since the sea was claiming their caverns below. He showed them the caverns 'neath this castle, yes, and gave them all his dungeons, and at this they rejoiced, for they do not like the light, you know."

  "No," Matt said. "I hadn't known that."

  "Had you not? They do not, you know. They are creatures of the under-earth, who need no light, but see by the essence of each stone and grain of sand. Nay, the dungeons were their delight, and the caverns beneath—the dungeons that are now their home, and there they dwell, to keep me safe in my loneliness."

  The solitude, Matt realized, had touched the poor dotard's brains. How much of what he was telling was truth, and how much demented imaginings?

  "Safe?" Yverne asked, pity underscoring her tone. "I can see that they are company for you—but how do they keep you safe?"

  "Did I not tell you? Oh, I see—I did not, did not. But you, pretty child—who are you?" The old man advanced, hand reaching out to touch Yverne's.

  She did not shrink. "I am the Lady Yverne, daughter of the Duke of Toumarre."

  "Ah, yes! I knew them well, or knew of them, I should say, for never have I gone forth from this island"

  That hit Matt with a jolt. To have spent his whole life on this miserable piece of rock! No wonder the poor old guy had never had a girlfriend.

  But how could he have left? Sorcerers hemmed him in on all sides, waiting to smear him into paste and gobble his island and castle. Not much choice—though Matt wondered if he'd have the courage to keep living, in the old man's place.

  "They were good men, your ancestors." The old man patted Yverne's hand reassuringly. "Or as good as they could be, when they had sworn allegiance to the king. Nay, they must needs then have given themselves over to the evilness of his reign—yet by all reports and all the tales my grandfather told of those days, they strove for goodness in spite of all. Oh, the king would have haled them down and slain them root and branch, had he dared—or so my grandfather said. Slain them, but he dared not, for only they knew how to keep the borderlands safe from the soldiers of Merovence, yes, the soldiers who were hot to bring down the sorcerer then, they were."

  "He dared do it in the end," Yverne informed him. "I am the last of my line, unless my father still endures, languishing in his enemy's dungeon."

  "Oh, poor child!" The old man's head lifted, eyes huge. "But he must still live, must he not? For the king cannot gain full power over those lands of yours, unless one of your line gives them to him, yes. Without that, oh, he may hold them, but the magic of them he will never master, no. And failing that power, the land itself will welcome the champions of Merovence. Oh, yes, it will."

  Yverne turned to Matt and Sir Guy, eyes wide. "Is that how you came unharmed through my father's lands, then?"

  "Are they of Merovence? Oh, delight! Delight! Then mayhap the king's last hour is at hand. Could we not hope it? Yes, of course we could." The old man released Yverne's hand and turned to the cyclops. "What is your house and station, sir?"

  "Call me Fadecourt," the cyclops replied, "and my house and station are of no consequence, while the reign of evil endures—for I am of Ibile."

  "I see, I see!" The old man nodded wisely. "And you wish to live a good and godly life. Indeed, of no consequence—save that they make you a staunch ally, yes! But you are not of Merovence?"

  "Nay, though my companions are."

  "They are, they are!" The don turned to Sir Guy. "Your name, Sir Knight?"

  "Sir Guy de Toutarien, and I am honored by your hospitality, Milord de la Luce."

  "It is given, it is gladly given! And I am honored by your company, yes. You are welcome, well come indeed."

  "And my friend, of whose tongue you have already made acquaintance, is Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence, and a knight of honor."

  "The Lord Wizard!" The don turned to Matt, eyes wide. "I had never thought to find so eminent a magus so deep in Ibile. Though..." His eyebrows drew down in thought. "You have not the look of the Lord Wizard of whom I have heard."

  "If you're talking about my predecessor, he was assassinated, along with his king," Matt answered. "I, uh, attached myself to his daughter, helped her out of a few rough scrapes and such, so when she got her throne back, she made me her Lord Wizard."

  "He speaks too modestly," Sir Guy interposed. "It was he, more than any man, who haled the usurper Astaulf from the throne of Merovence, and overcame his sorcerer, Malingo."

  "Yeah, with you and Stegoman and a loyal giant to back me up—not to mention a few thousand monastic knights and a lot of loyal footmen!"

  "Yet 'twas you who brought them all to her, Sir Matthew, and you who—"

  "Milords! Good knights!" The old don spread his hands. "Enough, I pray! I see that the Lord Wizard was indeed a mighty ally of the queen's—yet thinks himself less than he was."

  "Well—I certainly am not the great cure-all they seem to think. The queen's beginning to realize that, too, now."

  "Is she truly?" The old man gave him a keen look that Matt felt all the way to his liver and lights. "Nay, I think there is more than a matter of faith and allegiance in this. And I have heard something of this struggle, too, yes—heard of a wizard who waked a giant made of stone, who brought down the castle of a witch who had enchanted hundreds of youths and lasses, then fought off a besieging, sorcerous army, not once, but twice—"

  "With a lot of clergy to back me up! Not to mention the knights and men-at-arms."

  "I shall not, since you ask it. But I doubt not you merit your title, Lord Wizard—I see that you are dedicated in your loyalty."

  He saw a bit more than Matt wanted him to, so it was time to change the subject. "Well, I'll have to consider the source—and from what I see, you must be no mean wizard yourself. After all, you're attended by a flock of well-wists and holding firm against a sorcerous army next door."

  But the old man was shaking his head. " 'Tis only cleverness and goodwill, Lord Wizard, and as much my grandfather's as mine. Nay, all I can claim is having befriended the well-wists, and my grandfather's grandfather did that for me."

  "But you were the only one who did more than know they were there?"

  Again, that glance that cut through to his marrow. "There is no wonder in that. I was a young man, restless and unused to solitude—and the well-wists' cavern was the only strange land in which I could wander, the only folk to whom I was other than the don's son. Their friendship given, they showed me the marvels of their domain—and when I saw the great store of black water, and how they could make it flame, I could not help but realize how the fire could repel the sorcerers."

  "Couldn't help it, huh?"

  "Could any man?"

  "Many, I doubt not," Fadecourt rumbled, "myself included. What did you with this "black water' you speak of?"

  "I drew it off, with the aid of my well-wist friends—drew it off into a great wheel of pipes that we pushed through the earth to surround the castle. Then, when the enemy marched upon us, we let the black water flow, and it spilled out to soak through the ground all about. It killed the grass, aye, and the bushes, more's the pity—but when I did shoot fire-arrows down into it, a curtain of flame sprang up, and the sorcerers could not douse it. Oh, if they had known it was rock oil, I doubt not they would have found a way...but who would have thought it? Nay, not I myself, had I not learned of it from the well-wists. Yet I had, I had."

  "Maybe." Matt frowned. "Or maybe when the sorcerers tried, the well-wists were able to counter their spells. This is within the domain of their powers, after all, and they're obviously magical beings."

&nbs
p; The old don looked up, surprised, and smiled. "There, now, do you see? You may well be right—but I would never have thought of such by myself, never! Nay, I am no sorcerer, but only a clever man."

  " 'Tis the work of genius," Fadecourt assured him, "to see a defense 'gainst sorcery, where others saw naught but a lamp."

  "A wick and a fuel." Matt nodded. "You've fought off the king's army several times, haven't you?"

  "Oh, a dozen, yes, twelve, and a few more, for I am old, milords and lady, old."

  Matt had a notion the old man was exaggerating again. "After all that burning, the soil is probably so calcined by heat that it's providing capillary action, and functioning as a sort of wick."

  "A wizard! A wizard, surely!" De la Luce shook his head in admiration. "There, you see it? Never would I have thought to phrase it so!"

  No, but he'd certainly had the concept, and the insight to apply it—and without any more background than having learned how an oil lamp worked. It took immense brainpower to make that kind of cognitive leap. Matt didn't doubt he was in the presence of a genius. He shook off the shiver the thought gave him and said, "Pushing the oil into the pipes must take some kind of power source. How do you do it? It can't be just gas pressure, if you're drawing it from a seepage pool."

  " 'Tis not, 'tis not. The well-wists aided me in making a pipe, and a way of pushing rock oil through it, as a lad shoots a bean through a straw. Will it please you come see it?"

  He seemed pathetically eager to show off his handiwork, but it would have taken a giant octopus to hold Matt back. "Oh, you bet I would. Which way?"

  The way was down. They passed the dungeon early on, and the lower dungeon a little later. That surprised Matt; he'd expected that the tour would be in the lower depths, but he had thought they'd bottom out fairly early. He was getting tired just walking downhill; he was beginning to dread the thought of going back up. To make things worse, the old man kept up an enthusiastic monologue every inch of the way, pointing out minerals they were passing through, for all the world like a paid tour guide—and one who really loved his subject, too, to the point of never having any idea that anyone else might not find it at all interesting. Matt grew tired of the virtues of limestone very quickly and was actively resenting the gloss on celebration of sedimentaries, when he heard the old man say something about shale. He pricked up his ears and really looked at the wall passing by him. Sure enough, it had a darker look; it was oil-bearing.