Then the old man turned off the stairway into a dark tunnel mouth. Matt had a very strong urge to keep on going, but the well-wists were crowding closely around them, and they weren't exactly eyeing him with favor, still seeming to harbor some resentment at his earlier conduct—so he followed.
They came out into a cavern, so hemispherical that it looked as if it had been formed by a bubble in the rock. One look at what it contained, and Matt had no doubt that was what it had been—a gas bubble. For the light of a thousand well-wists reflected a thick-looking dark liquid, gently rippling under the breath of semisubstantial wings, and Matt knew by the aroma that it wasn't water.
Yverne wrinkled her nose. "Phew! What is this fluid, Milord de la Luce?"
" 'Tis the rock oil, milady—oil seeped from the rocks themselves. 'Tis as light as any lamp oil, but I would not set a wick to burning here."
Too right he wouldn't! If he tried, they'd probably all go up in a bang that would knock the huge old stone pile above them into pebbles. "Stegoman," Matt called, "don't come in."
"I cannot," the dragon's voice called from outside the tunnel. "The cave mouth is too small."
"That's just fine." Matt turned to the don. "Seepage, you say?"
"Aye. There is no spring—it seems to rise from a thousand cracks in the stone."
"All light stuff, then—kerosene, gasoline, light oil." Matt turned away. "It's an awe-inspiring sight, your lordship—but if you don't mind, I'd rather do my admiring from a distance. I'm already feeling a little light-headed."
"Aye—'tis not good to breathe in the presence of the pool for overlong." The old don ushered them out of the chamber.
As they came out, Sir Guy asked, "You channel this stuff to the land about your castle, then?"
"Aye. There is a pipe let into the wall of the pool, below its surface." De la Luce turned away down even more stairs. "Its own weight makes it sink down into the tube."
"But what brings it up?" Matt asked, following.
"Hark!" The old don held up a hand. "Do you hear?"
They were quiet,. and heard, afar off, a hissing sound that rose and fell.
"The sea!" Fadecourt breathed.
"Aye. It moves my oil for me. Will you come?" De la Luce led the way down, and down again, and again.
Finally, the stairwell brightened with daylight. A few more steps, and they came into a low sea cave, perhaps ten feet high. Its floor was only a narrow ledge, alongside a twenty-foot-wide channel of seawater, five feet below them. "The tide is flowing," de la Luce observed. "At its height, it will be scant inches below this track."
But Matt was looking at something else. "How on earth did you get the idea for that?"
It was a huge paddle wheel, almost as high as the roof, its lower arc already immersed in the seawater. With each surge of the tide, the wheel turned, but the ebb didn't turn it back. The old man had rigged an escapement, in a world that hadn't invented anything more elaborate than the water clock.
"From a mill wheel, naught but a mill wheel." The old man smiled, obviously pleased by the praise. "Though I did need long hours of pondering upon it, ere I seized upon a means of holding the wheel against the backwash of the tide's surge, yes, and longer hours yet to dream of a means by which that device could be reversed, so that the wheel could give me power at both ebb and flow."
Matt shivered, more certain than ever that he was in the presence of a genius. To make clockwork is no big deal, when someone else has shown you how—but to invent it yourself is quite another matter. "How do you harness the power of the wheel, so that it raises the oil to the soil?"
"By a thickened disk of metal, pushing the fluid up through a pipe. There are holes at top and bottom, the one to let the oil in, the other to let it out. 'Tis simple enough, once 'tis seen."
Simple, sure—but he hadn't seen it. Except in his mind's eye...
The old man stepped closer to the paddle wheel, frowning and reaching out to touch a slab of wood. " 'Tis cracked; I must replace it soon." He turned to Matt. "For it turns, day and night, to keep it fit, even though I've no need of its power, no, not more than a dozen times these fifty years. But I make it work once each year at least, yes, to be sure it will bring the oil when I want it."
"Wise precaution." Matt swallowed. "And still you're going to tell me that you're not a wizard."
"Certes! For surely, I am not!" the old man said in surprise, then smiled gently. "Be not deceived, Lord Wizard—there's naught of magic in this."
"Only in your mind," Matt muttered. He had a brief vision of an attack on the castle—enemy troops charging forward with scaling ladders, as the pump pushed hundreds of gallons of inflammable fluid into the ground around the castle, now charred as porous as pumice. Then a fire-arrow would come arcing up from the battlements, stabbing down into the earth—and a wall of flame would explode all about the assault troops. Matt winced at the imagined sound of their screams, and mentally cheered them on as they charged back into their own lines. Then he remembered what their officer-sorcerers would probably do to them, and forced the vision away. "No wonder it's been awhile since you had an assault."
"Aye." The old man nodded with a sad smile. "Why waste troops, when the king has simply to wait? For I have no heirs, no, nor anyone else dwelling with me here, save the well-wists—and the sorcerer could deal with them quickly enough had I not bade them flee when I die. Nay, they think I am alone here, all alone, though I thank Heaven I am not. There is a lovely lass who visits me, bless her—aye, and not once a year, but once a day and more!" He gave Matt a keen look with a knowing smile. "You shall think her to be but a vision of my fancy, and myself but a crazed old fool." The sorrow evaporated from his smile. "None will believe that she is real, as real as I myself—so mine enemies think that I must die the sooner for want of company. Well, let them learn their folly! I shall endure, thanks to her friendship—and, God willing, I will survive them all, to see the deliverance of Ibile, and the destruction of its sorcerers!"
"Amen to that," Fadecourt said fervently, and Sir Guy and Yverne echoed, "Amen."
For his own part, Matt agreed with the sentiments, but wasn't too sure about the means. He didn't doubt for a second that the "lovely lass" was every bit as imaginary as the old man's enemies doubtless said. Loneliness could do that to a person.
Yverne, however, took him at his word. "A lass who visits you? When all other folk have fled this island? Nay, whence could she come?"
"From the sea," the old don explained, "from the sea itself. Betimes she does in truth come up out of the sea, to converse awhile with me—but nothing more." The sad smile returned. "Nay, surely nothing more, though I had some hope of that when I was younger, a lad of forty or so—yet I aged, and she did not. She is my friend still, and anon takes me with her down under the waves to visit with her father, where they dwell forgotten in their watery palace. Ah, 'tis sad! 'Tis sad!"
Yverne looked up at Matt in alarm, but he shook his head. There was nothing he could do; the poor don was sunk in illusion. Sure, Matt might be able to banish the delusion with the appropriate spell—in fact, one was nudging at his mind right now-but would he really be doing the old man a favor? None of his business, for sure.
But Yverne looked so forlorn.
Then she mustered a brave smile as she turned back to the old man. "Is she a beauty, then, this lass of yours?"
"The queen of beauty to me," he said, then surprised Matt by adding, "though I doubt if others would find her fair, for her skin shimmers with scales ever so delicately wrought, and her hair is green, as are her eyes. Yet she is no mermaid, no, for she walks upon feet as delicate as shells, and her lips are coral."
Matt made one try at dispelling the illusion, though it earned him a glare from Yverne. "How could she come in, milord? She can't very well come knock on your raised drawbridge."
"Heaven forfend! Nay, she comes in yonder." He pointed back to the cavern they had just left. "Where the seawater rises, so rises she, riding upon the w
aves, then comes from the water and comes up to warm herself at my hearth, and warm my old heart with gladsome talk. Merry is she, and ever full of cheer, and her laugh is the chiming of silver bells."
"Through the sea door?" Matt stared. "And she climbs all those stairs, once a day?!"
The old man's mouth tightened, and he gave a single curt nod. "Be assured she does! This is no delusion, Lord Wizard, but only honest fact!"
"She must love you more than you think, then," Matt sighed, "to be willing to go up all those stairs. No way around it, though, is there?"
The old don gave a ghost of a smile, his good humor reviving. "Nay. As we have come down, Lord Wizard, so we must rise up."
For a moment, Matt was tempted to try a transportation spell—but there was always the chance that it might go wrong, and besides, he was going to need every ounce of magical energy he had. He started climbing.
The don bustled around, finding them some cold meat and bread—which, he claimed, the well-wists gave him. He also opened a bottle of wine which the sea-maid supposedly brought, and Matt could almost believe it—it certainly had an odd flavor. Then the don excused himself and bustled away, with an air of repressed anticipation that Matt didn't trust. He tried to relax, assuring himself that the old man was trustworthy—but he stayed on his guard in spite of himself.
"At last, a moment of tranquility!" Yverne sighed—and with surprise, Matt realized that she was right; since their escape from the duke's dungeon, they hadn't had a moment to relax.
Then she turned to Matt, and those limpid blue eyes suddenly held his gaze, unwinking. "Now, Lord Wizard, you must tell me—how did you bring Fadecourt and yourself forth from that dungeon cell?"
Matt stiffened, then forced himself to lean back and look casual. "Oh, just the ordinary escape spells."
"Aye, and they did not work," Fadecourt reminded him.
Matt spared him a quick glare. Shut up, Fadecourt! But the cyclops' mental telepathy wasn't working that day. "Surely you cannot have forgotten so quickly! You had need to attempt a more powerful verse, and it brought you not escape, but the three weird sisters."
"No, wait a minute," Matt was getting desperate now. "You've got the wrong story; the weird sisters belong in that play about the Scottish usurper..."
"Nay, they surely did come from the far north..."
"South. Definitely south. I keep telling you, they were the Fates, not the Norns."
"The Fates!" Yverne gasped, eyes huge-and Matt mentally cursed, because he really had no one to blame but himself; Fadecourt may have egged him on, but it was he himself who had let the fateful word slip. "Oh, they're not really so terrible as that. Wouldn't take any beauty prizes, mind you, but—"
"You summoned the Fates!" It was almost a scream. "The Fates themselves! Nay, surely they have now conspired against you!"
"Be of good heart, maiden." Fadecourt was patting her hand. "They did naught against him; nay, in truth, 'twas he overcame them."
"Surely not!" Yverne was about to cry. "You did not bait the Fates themselves!"
"That's right, I didn't," Matt said quickly. "I just recited a quick spell to protect us from them."
"But they shall have revenge! They shall not brook a mere mortal man to balk them!"
"Can't do any harm." Matt's reassurances were beginning to sound a little frantic. "I was planning on a short life, anyway. I positively shudder at the thought of growing up...I mean, old!"
There was a cackle from the far end of the great hall.
Every hair on Matt's head tried to stand on end, but he forced himself, slowly, to turn and look.
A globe of light shimmered in the gloom at the far end of the great hall, and within it stood the three old ladies, spinning, measuring, and, most especially, clacking scissors. Matt squinted, but he couldn't see through the shimmer clearly enough to notice any particularly devastating results from their last encounter. Whatever their screaming had signified, apparently it hadn't done any real damage. That beam of sunlight may have hurt—or had it just shocked them? Maybe even just startled.
"So! The upstart gives boast, sisters!" Clotho cried.
"Is't a boast to say he wishes a short life?" Lachesis demanded.
"Aye, since 'tis as much as to say he does not fear us!" Atropos snapped. "Come sisters! What shall we do with the braggart, eh?"
"Oh, now it comes!" Yverne cried.
"Why, take him at his word!" Clotho cackled. "If he wishes a short life, give him a long one!"
"Very long!" Atropos nodded sagely. "He shall wither in his age; his sight shall fail, his teeth shall fall out."
Clotho squinted at her web. "Nay, I cannot give him all of such infirmities, for I see he knows the counter to the most of them. Howsoe'er, a long life is by no means a peaceful one."
"Aye!" Atropos cried. "Fill his life with strife! If death is slow in coming, what matter? That does not preclude horrendous wounds in battle, maiming cuts, and dire mischances!"
"He shall beg for death," the youngest crooned. "He shall seek it! It shall become his most ardent quest!"
"A quest he must resolve himself!" Clotho cried in a fit of inspiration, her fingers flying. "He shall have to earn his death!"
"Alack!" Yverne cried. "How can they be so cruel?"
"Comes with the job." Matt's brave front was wearing thin.
"He shall attempt the impossible, he shall achieve the improbable!" Atropos shrieked. "And then, only then, when he has suffered to save his world, may he die!"
"Then he shall save Ibile?" Fadecourt cried.
"The saving of Ibile shall be the least of his labors," Clotho chanted, as if she had heard him. "He shall discover the ways in which the world is threatened to be engulfed by evil..."
"As it ever is," the youngest added. "He shall confront the most evil of men, he shall suffer at their hands! And when he has saved all of Europe, aye, and half of Asia, then may he die!"
Matt's skin crawled. She wasn't really siccing him with having to wait until Genghis Khan showed up, was she? That would be hundreds of years! Matt felt every instinct he had balking. "That's not for me to say! Shouldn't the people of Europe choose their own fate? Shouldn't the common folk of Ibile choose their own government?"
Now, finally, Clotho looked up, eyes boring into his—and, for a moment, the mist thinned; Matt saw a swath of smooth, flawless skin across her ravaged countenance. And, finally, she spoke directly to him. "Foolish mortal! How much choice have those people now?"
"Well...I suppose the sorcerers are pretty strict dictators...
"The people are but slaves!" Clotho's lip curled in contempt. "The king and his sorcerous nobles dictate every step, every act their people make! And they are cruel, most horribly cruel, in their enforcement."
"The poor folk dare not even embrace one another in the solitude of their huts," the youngest said, "for fear the sorcerers might be watching in their crystals. Nay, 'tis the foulest, most oppressive tyranny ever known!"
Matt was about to ask them about Herod and Nero, until he remembered that he was talking to experts. If anyone knew, it was the Fates. He hid a shudder at the thought of just how bad the sorcerers must be. "But that doesn't give me the right to impose a government on them!"
"Can you free them, yet leave them in anarchy?" Clotho challenged. "Nay, then surely sorcerers will rise among them again! Yet be truthful, Wizard—had you not meant to take the throne for yourself?"
Sir Guy and Yverne looked at him, startled.
"Well...yeah," Matt admitted, "but I was going to give them a good government."
"With no tyranny nor oppression? No taxes, no torture?"
"Well...there have to be some taxes, or the government doesn't have any money to provide even the most basic social services. But torture? No! Definitely not! And I'd honor the basic human rights, even if I wouldn't tell them about them all at once."
"Then you, too, would steal their freedom!"
"Not at all! I'd start an educational campaign fir
st thing—well, second, after I'd taken care of basic administration-and build it, slowly and gradually, until they understood the basics of government. Then, in about twenty years, I'd start a national assembly, and slowly turn it into a real parliament."
"Why so long?" Atropos demanded.
"To let a generation grow up learning self-government. That's absolutely essential."
Atropos nodded. "Aye. You must live a long life."
"But it's not up to me! It's up to them!"
"Even were you a tyrant," the youngest said, "you would give them more freedom than they now have. Do your best to rule justly, and you shall open their dungeon cell. Nay, Wizard, you must do your best."
"Shall he be king of Ibile, then?" Fadecourt's eyes were burning.
Clotho glanced at her web, then shook her head. "I have not yet determined that. There are many other strands to the weave, and the pattern has not yet emerged."
Emerged? Matt wondered who really controlled her loom.
"However," the Fate went on, "you shall be vital to giving them their freedom. Only do as you think right, and you will set their feet on the road to wise choice. They shall someday choose their own government, I promise you."
Matt wasn't entirely happy about that; it sounded too much like saying that people get the kind of government they deserve. "Why? Why does it have to be so slow? Why does it have to be me?"
"Because that is as we wish it!" Atropos snapped, her eyes glowing. "You are the man chosen by Fate, the man of destiny! Your own actions and choices led you to becoming our instrument, of your own free will! Do you say you do not like it? Pity! For it is what you chose!"
"Yes, in a moment of anger, in a fit of temper! Come on—there have to be other reasons, better ones!"
"Even so." The youngest smiled like a vixen. "There are, and many, and good ones—but we do not choose to tell you of them."
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