The Haunted Wizard - Wiz in Rhym-6 (33 page)

Sergeant Brock opened his mouth to object, then remembered that he'd been raised to the rank of squire.

"Yes, let us walk," Sir Orizhan agreed. "Did not the friar say we should turn west at this crossroads?"

"West it is." Matt followed the S-curve to the left, with the knight and squire beside him.

"Well, there's no help for it then," Buckeye grumbled. "Come, mortal, up with you!" He caught the beggar by the waist and swung him high. Dolan squalled with fright and swung his crutch up as a club—but the bauchan settled the man around his own neck and started after the companions, assuring the beggar, "Fear not, I can carry ten times your weight. You have naught to fear from me—but I'll be revenged on that wizard ten times over!"

"I'm not keeping score," Matt called back.

"I am," Buckeye growled, and hurried to catch up, stretching his legs—literally. Night caught them in the midst of open fields without a village in sight. As they set about pitching camp, Sergeant Brock muttered," 'Just one more village, Sir Knight! Surely there will be another inn only a few miles down the road, good sergeant! Just one more, lads, one more!'"

"Oh, stop grousing," Matt told him. "I thought soldiers were supposed to be used to roughing it."

"When they travel with you, they are."

"Hey, you've had dinner indoors three nights out of five on this trip."

"Yes, but have we been able to stay and sleep? No, for we are four when we set out with three!"

"Careful, there—Buckeye is positively gloating to hear you." Matt told himself the sergeant would feel better with a good hot meal inside him.

While it was cooking, he rummaged in his pack for a scrap of parchment and pulled a stick of charcoal from the fire. Then he sat down next to the beggar and said, "Time we did something about your communication problem. If I make a mark like this, it means I'm supposed to make a sound like this: duh. And this circle means I'm supposed to say 'oh.' Then this boot-shape tells me to say 'luh,' and this backward potbelly is either 'eh' or 'uh.' " He saw the question in Do-lan's eyes and said, "How can you
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tell which sound? I'll explain later, when you've learned more letters. This sign is 'en.' Now, see what happens when I make all those sounds, one after another…"

By the time the partridges were roasted, Dolan was silently mouthing all the letters of the alphabet, eyes round in wonder.

"What silliness is this, to put so much store by chicken tracks on sheepskin?" Buckeye sniffed.

"Aye," Sir Orizhan agreed, "and to show a man how to turn squiggles into speech when he can no longer talk."

"But he knows what the words are supposed to sound like," Matt pointed out. "He can still write out the words he wants to say, if he can just learn the symbols—and if anybody ever had motivation for it, he has."

"It's a fool's task, to spend so much time learning to do so little!"

"It's not little," Matt protested, "and I'll bet he'll be able to write complete sentences in five days."

"Five for the symbols at your door," Buckeye snorted, and disappeared into the forest. Matt had the right number but the wrong unit. Five hours later Dolan was writing complete sentences and working out a system of sign language with Sergeant Brock, too. When he had a large enough vocabulary, he told the sergeant a long pantomime, and Brock came away looking pale and shaken.

"What did he tell you?" Matt asked, concerned.

"What the soldiers did to him," Brock answered, and swallowed thickly. "It was my own fault—I asked. Let us hope I have not given the poor fellow nightmares by dredging up his memories!"

"Maybe," Matt said slowly, "but maybe not, too. Sometimes it helps to talk it through, get it out of your system. Just how bad was it?"

"As bad as anything I've ever heard," Brock told him, and looked up at Sir Orizhan. "They tied him down on the rack for a day or two, and when it had stretched his joints to constant pain, they demanded the names of those who had told him what he had blurted out. Poor lad, he'd been so drunk that he could not even remember what he'd said. They did a dozen things to cause him more pain, and by your leave I'll not repeat them—but I will say that they brought in a sorcerer to work a spell with some of his blood, which wrenched his memories from him with blinding pain. His head ached horribly for days. Then, when they had proved for themselves that he knew no other names of folk who had spoken ill of the prince, they muted him and lamed him as we see, and cast him out to live or die, they cared not which."

"A sorcerer?" Matt said sharply. "Not a druid?" Brock gave him a long, steady look, then said, "I shall ask." He turned away to his pack. Sir Orizhan watched him go, frowning. "How can he ask if the man was a druid, if Dolan has never seen one?"

"His armed band raided a druid sacrifice," Matt said, watching Brock. "He kept a souvenir."
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Sir Orizhan's eyebrows lifted in surprise; then he turned to watch. Brock went over to Dolan and held up his little silver sickle. The beggar frowned at it, puzzled. Brock made some gestures, and Dolan replied with an emphatic shake of his head. Brock gestured again, and Dolan shook his head again.

Then Brock made a third set of gestures, and Dolan's face went stony as he nodded. Brock nodded, satisfied, and came back to his companions. "The man who tortured him did not wear one of these at his belt." He held up the sickle. "Moreover, he laid his spell in a chant that chopped and ground like a mill. The druids' magic tongue flows like a clear brook; I've heard it."

"So the sorcerer used a language that was full of gutturals and consonants, huh?" Matt filed the information away for future use. "What did he nod about?"

"That the sorcerer wore a dark robe with strange signs emblazoned on it. The druids wear white, as you have seen."

"So Prince John is resorting to sorcery," Sir Orizhan said grimly.

"Resorting to, yes," Matt pointed out. "He's got the synthodruids on one side and sorcerers on the other—but he isn't adept enough to do the magic himself, so he has to bring in specialists. I'll bet he doesn't even know how to use them, but has a sorcerous adviser pulling his strings."

"But you said he was in league with the Chief Druid," Brock pointed out, confused.

"I did, didn't I?" Matt said with an acid smile. "Apparently he's trying to play both ends against the middle, sorcerers on one side and synthodruids on the other. What's going to happen to him when they both demand their payoffs?"

The three were silent a moment. Then Sir Orizhan ventured, "Can he truly believe he can set them to fighting one another and himself emerge unscathed?"

"Sounds dumb enough to believe of him, yes," Matt said. "Or it could simply be that he hasn't thought that far ahead. He probably thinks that if he can just get to be king, he'll have power over everybody."

"And while he waits, the false druids and the sorcerers shall tear the land apart between them," Sir Orizhan said grimly.

Sergeant Brock's face set like stone.

Mama and Papa were hiking along the high road when Mama suddenly stopped. She laid a hand on Papa's arm and pointed at a lane that branched off, overhung by tree limbs, a virtual tunnel. "We must take that byway."

Papa looked at it. "Why, my dear? It doesn't look very promising."

"I can't say why, I only know we must," she answered.

"I will never argue with your intuition, especially in a universe ruled by magic." Papa turned off with her, and they strolled under the leafy roof. He looked up and about with a dreamy smile. "If nothing else, you
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have chosen a pleasant route for us."

"There is that." Mama pressed his arm close, smiling.

Then they heard the hound.

It was a strange cry, more howl than bay, and it sent chills down their spines.

"Hurry!" Papa clasped her arm more tightly and started ahead. But Mama pulled back. "No! We must bide instead!"

Papa reined in impatience and exasperation and tried to speak reasonably—but before he could, he heard the sound of hooves approaching with the baying. "You're right—we can't outrun horses. We hide!"

Mama found a small thicket and pushed her way through the underbrush. Papa came after her, walking backward and doing what he could to erase the signs of their passage. Then he lifted his staff to guard position, with the sick feeling that comes with knowing the battle is lost before it has begun— but behind him, Mama drew her wand from beneath her robes.

The howl-baying passed the junction with the main road, though, and kept on going. The hooves thundered up, mixed with the shouting of men's voices, then faded away. Papa let out a long shaky breath as he dropped the butt of his staff. "They're chasing someone else, poor soul!"

"No," Mama snapped, "they are chasing us—don't ask me how I know! It was only this turnoff that deceived them, but their hound will realize he has lost the scent all too soon! Quickly, husband! There is safety at the end of this road, if we can only come there soon enough!" She pushed her way out of the thicket and hurried down the lane.

Papa caught up with her. "What sort of safety?"

"I do not know, but I have never had presentiments so strong as this before! Walk as quickly as you can, and we may come safely through it!"

But twenty minutes later they heard the howling behind them again.

"Quickly, walk backward as much in our own footprints as you can!" Papa turned and retraced his steps.

"Are you mad?" But Mama caught up with him anyway. "You are going toward danger!"

"Only ten minutes or so! I have seen another hiding place! Come!" A few minutes back on the trail, they came to a low-hanging branch. Papa made a stirrup with his hands.

"Up with you!"

Mama knew better than to protest. She stepped in Papa's hands and caught the branch, then scrambled up as he lifted her foot higher. Lying full-length on the limb, she reached down for his hand. He leaped up
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with her help and caught the wood; she scrambled back to make room for him to lie full-length, surrounded by leaves.

They were barely in time. The howling swelled immensely, and the hound came charging by below, following their scent. It was a huge misshapen thing, with a face like a mastiff's behind the upper muzzle of a bloodhound, and legs as bandy as a bulldog's but as long as a Great Dane's. Its massive body was easily the size of a small pony, and its eyes burned with blood lust. It went past below, belling and baying and howling as though it were three beasts in one. Behind it came half a dozen soldiers, their eyes afire with the excitement of the hunt, their faces lit with gleeful anticipation. Mama looked at them and shuddered.

But the last was several lengths behind his fellows, for he was much fatter, and wheezed as he urged his horse onward. As he passed under the limb, Papa dropped to land behind him and struck with the hilt of his knife. The man slumped, eyes rolling up, and Papa shoved him aside. He fell, rolling to the side of the trail, and Papa caught the reins. The horse whinnied in fright, but Papa spoke to it in soothing tones, turned it around and brought it back, then off the side of the trail. Ahead, the hound's belling turned into burbles of confusion. The horsemen cursed, and there was a sound of beating. The hound howled in anger, then yelped in pain, finally coming back toward them, bay-howling again.

Papa turned the horse into the brush beside the road, behind a screen of leaves, then leaped down and ran around to hold the horse's head and stroke its nose, murmuring soothing nonsense to keep it from whinnying.

The hound came charging by, following their back trail, baying as though it were new. The horsemen rode by, cursing, and Papa and Mama caught a single sentence: "Cursed magicians laid us a false trail!" Then they were gone again, not even noticing their fallen comrade under the roadside leaves, and too quickly for the horse to even think of calling to its fellows.

Papa remounted, rode out onto the trail and back to the low-hanging limb. "Quickly, Jimena! Before they realize their error!"

Mama leaped from her perch and ran to him, grasped his arm and swung up to ride in front of him. Papa turned the horse and kicked its sides gently. It sprang into motion again, galloping away down the lane. Far behind them the belling grew fainter—for a few minutes. Then it turned into confusion again, mixed with angry shouting for several minutes, before the hound yelped as the men drove it back into the lane, and its voice began to grow louder again.

"What kind of hound is this, who can follow our scent even on horseback?" Papa asked.

"One who senses magic and those who work it," Mama told him, "and I hate to think where it came from!"

"I used magic as we were laying the false trail!" Papa exclaimed in surprise.

"So did I! Ride as quickly as we can, husband, and pray they go more slowly!" Then suddenly the trail opened out into fields. In the distance the amber and green of crops surrounded the low beige walls of a convent or monastery, golden in the late afternoon sun.
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"There is the safety I sensed!" Jimena cried. "Ride, husband, for our lives!" But the poor horse was carrying double, and no matter how Papa urged it on, it couldn't go as fast as the steeds chasing them. Behind them the howling and hoofbeats grew louder.

"Hist!" Sir Orizhan stopped, holding up a hand, and frowned, looking back over the road they had traveled.

They were all silent, listening. Then Dolan's eyes widened, and he nodded vigorously, beginning to tremble.

"He hears it, too, whatever it is," Matt said.