The Haunted Wizard - Wiz in Rhym-6 (36 page)

"Don't worry, Ma," Matt said, "I won't wreck the car." She stared at him a moment, then smiled and gave him a mock slap. "Saucy boy! All right, I am silly to worry about a grown man who has survived so many battles. But see you do not let them wreck you!" Then she stretched up to give him another peck on the cheek, and turned her horse away.
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Papa lingered to clasp him on the shoulder, looking directly into his eyes. "Adios—go with God, my son."

"I always try," Matt assured him. "May God be with you, too, Papa." He set off walking beside Sir Orizhan's horse, but glanced back a few feet farther on, of course, and saw them looking, too. Both waved; then a turn of each path cut them off from sight. Matt stopped, and Sir Orizhan reined in—they had insisted Mama and Papa take two of the horses, and that Sir Orizhan ride the third. Sergeant Brock stopped, too.

"I was wondering whether or not you were going to tell them," said Sir Orizhan.

"No need for them to know what might upset them," Matt assured him, then raised his voice. "Okay, Buckeye! You can come out now!"

The bauchan stepped forth from the roadside trees, grinning. "So, wizard! It seems you have a true family after all!"

"So I do," Matt admitted, "but you're only supposed to haunt my descendants, aren't you?" The bauchan lost his smile in consternation. "I have never known a family where I began by haunting the son," he admitted.

"It's no time for innovation, with the country so stirred up," Matt advised, "and my adopted son is back at that convent. By the way, should I scold you or thank you?"

"Why, either one," said the bauchan, "or both, as it pleases you."

"Shouting might do me more good," Matt told him, "and I ought to scold anyone who helped those hunters stay on my trail—but I have to thank someone who scared them away for me. Why'd you do it, anyway?"

The bauchan grinned. "It was great run."

"Wonderful," Matt muttered. "I'm fighting for my life and trying to save the kingdom, and he thinks it's fun to bushwhack me."

"Ah, but also to save you!" The bauchan held up a forefinger.

"I'm beginning to understand why your last family died of nervous prostration," Matt grumbled. "Well, I guess it's 'thank you' this time."

"This time," the bauchan agreed.

Matt thought of threatening, then thought better. Instead he frowned. "Why didn't you pull out all the stops on your magic when I sicced those bedbugs on you the first time?"

"They were mere fly-bites," the bauchan said with a deprecating gesture, "no real threat." Matt wondered if he were better off being a pussycat "Well, we're off to Ireland. Guess you'll have to
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leave my son Dolan back there."

The bauchan's face was a study in consternation. "You're flitting?"

"I'm not a butterfly," Matt said, "but if that's what you call leaving a place, then yes, we're flitting. But we've been flitting the whole time you've known us."

"Well, aye, but not across water—and saltwater at that!"

Hope sprang in Matt's breast. "Don't be glum, chum— we've got a good fifty miles to the seashore."

"I should storm and rant and rave at you with every step!"

"Hey, that's no way to say good-bye." Matt was getting giddy with the thought of being rid of the bauchan.

Buckeye narrowed his eyes to glints. "Nay, neither a rant nor a rave—I'll find a way to plague your every step!"

But he didn't. Late that night, toward the end of his watch, Matt heard a distant sound that he first thought was thunder, then realized was the shouting of men and screaming of horses. He found that very interesting, especially since it was coming from the direction of the convent. He decided it was none of his business, waited with interest until it had died away, then woke Sergeant Brock for his watch and went to sleep. His last vagrant thought was a hope that Dolan would have sense enough to stay inside the convent's walls.

Two uneventful days later, as they were pitching camp for the night in a small clearing, screaming broke out in the woods nearby, mixed with gloating laughter.

"He's back!" Matt leaped to his feet, feeling his heart sink. "I thought we were rid of that bauchan!" Sir Orizhan and Sergeant Brock rose, too, to face the noise—and a young girl burst from the trees, running in terror. Her gown was ripped and tattered, her face turned back toward whatever was chasing her. She turned to look forward just in time to slam into Sir Orizhan's chest. His arms closed about her automatically, and she looked up, mouth opening for a scream that never came as she stared unbelieving at his face.

"My princess!" Sir Orizhan cried.

Then the hunters broke from the brush.

Sir Orizhan stepped past the young woman, drawing his sword. Brock and Matt stepped up beside him, weapons out. The damsel shrank back behind them, eyes wide, hand to her lips. The hunters halted in consternation. They were half a dozen soldiers with a hound, but they hadn't been expecting resistance with swords. They stared at the three companions.

"Too much risk now, boys," Matt pointed out. "Better retreat while you can."

"We are six to your one, and have horses besides," the leader snarled. "Sic him, Belle!"
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The name was hugely inappropriate—the hound had to be one of the ugliest Matt had ever seen. But it sprang at his throat, snarling, and what choice did Matt have but to slash with his sword as he swung aside?

The six riders fell on knight and sergeant, who pivoted back-to-back and thrust upward at unarmored anatomy. Two soldiers screamed and fell off their horses.

The young woman darted forward, snatched a sword from one writhing soldier, and sprang back, sword raised to guard.

The hound fell, writhing and dying, even as the hunters shouted with anger and charged. But a luminous orange form rose from the dead body and threw itself at Matt again, snarling. He fell back, startled, but by force of habit the spell came to his lips even as he chopped at the spirit with his sword.

"Get ye hence to the pit that bred ye!

Turn upon the one who sped ye!

Ere day doth daw,

Ere cock doth craw,

Ere channering worm doth chide,

'Gin ye must get back to your place!

Again ye there must bide!"

The spirit howled in agony, and a jolt like an electric shock numbed Mart's whole arm, but he managed to hold onto the sword anyway.

The spirit faded, transfixed on Mart's sword, and its howling faded to silence. One of the soldiers saw, stared, and cried, "He has slain the demon-spawn!"

The other soldiers turned just in time to see the hound-body fade away, too—and Brock and Orizhan hit them from the side, swords probing under the edges of breastplates. Two soldiers howled in pain of their own, and the Princess Rosamund darted forward to stab at a third. He shouted in pain and swung at her, but she danced back out of reach of his blade, and he turned his horse to chase after his companion, who was already riding for the tall timber. The two wounded soldiers yanked on reins and sped after their mates, hands pressed to flesh, leaving a trail of drops of blood.

"We'll have to find another campsite," Matt panted. "All they'll have to do to come back will be to follow the drops."

"Sir Orizhan!" the young woman cried, and threw herself into his arms, sobbing.

"There, now, my princess, you are safe," Sir Orizhan crooned as though she were still the child she had been when he had brought her to Bretanglia. He stroked her head, murmuring soothing words. Sergeant Brock stared as though he couldn't believe it. "But she disappeared!"
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"Sure, but nobody said she died," Matt pointed out. He examined his sword, but it seemed sound enough, if you ignored the bluing over the lower half, as though it had been held for half a minute in a very hot flame.

"Surely she must have been stolen away!"

"Apparently she stole away all by herself." Matt sheathed the sword.

"How?" the sergeant bleated.

"It would seem your young mistress knows some magic," Matt told him. "How else would that particular kind of hound have picked up her trace?"

Brock stared at the princess as though he were seeing her for the first time. She caught her breath and choked down her sobs, staring at the bright red line across Sir Orizhan's bicep. "Sir Knight, you are wounded!"

"A scratch only," Sir Orizhan protested. His mouth tightened in chagrin. "A foeman drove my own blade back against me."

The princess ripped a strip from her already ragged robe and turned to Matt. "Have you no spirits about you?"

"Far more than I like to think about," he returned, "and I think I just dispatched one—but not the kind you mean." He went to his pack and drew out a small flask. "The kind for drinking, you mean?"

"Aye! Give me!" She held out a hand.

"My lady, surely you recognize this lord," Sir Orizhan said gravely, "Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence. Lord Wizard, you know the Princess Rosamund."

"Of course," Matt said, "though I hadn't quite expected to meet her here." Rosamund stared. "The Lord Wizard? But of course! I should have known you!" She blushed, holding out the improvised bandage. "How silly of me, to seek to heal when you are by!"

"You were doing just fine," Matt assured her, and held out a roll of lint he'd taken out with the bottle.

"You might like a real bandage, though. Go ahead, go ahead!" Rosamund took the roll and the flask hesitantly, then began to clean Sir Orizhan's wound. He gazed down at her with a doting smile, the very picture of an affectionate uncle.

"I would appreciate having my guess confirmed or denied, my lady," Matt said. "Did you disappear by your own magic, then?"

"I did, my lord." She looked up at him, eyes wide in the firelight. "I knew a few spells a wise woman taught me when I was about to leave my home. I crafted a stock in my own image, used it to deceive the guards, and fled into the night. I have fled ever since, in the evening and the false dawn, ever in twilight."

"Not the safest time of day, considering the habits of the fairy folk," Matt said, frowning, "but not the
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most dangerous, either, especially if you have soldiers combing the realm for you. What did you do, sleep by day and keep watch by night?"

"How did you know?" Then Rosamund caught herself. "But of course—you are a wizard. Yes, I hid by day for fear of the soldiers, and by night for fear of the spirits, but when I could travel, I did, always toward the east, where the sea lay and I might somehow find a ship to bear me away from this benighted land."

"Since we're heading for the seacoast, too, we bumped into one another." Matt suspected there was more to it than that, but he wasn't privy to the plans of the patron saints of Merovence and Bretanglia.

"What made you decide to escape? Hearing of Brion's death?"

"Aye, the poor dear fool." Tears gathered in Rosamunds eyes, and nearly in Sir Orizhan's, too, for he seemed to feel as she felt.

But Sergeant Brock stared, scandalized "Fool? Prince Brion was nearly perfect in strategy and tactics!"

"But not in the things that matter most to a woman," Matt pointed out, "not that he could be, while she was betrothed to his brother."

Rosamund stared at him in amazement.

"I'm in love, too," Matt told her. "Have been for years."

"I am not in love with Brion!" Rosamund flared, then calmed instantly to musing. "But he was the only one of that family whom I could trust not to seek to use me in some way." Tears formed in her eyes again.

"And with him dead, you knew life would become unbearable?" Matt pressed.

"I knew the king's plans for me, my lord." Rosamund tossed her head. "I could not endure them. I would rather risk death at the hands of his hunters, or of bandits."

"Which you did," Matt agreed. "Risk death, I mean. Well, I'm glad they didn't find you until you found us." He rolled up his blankets. "Come on, folks. Leave the dead and take the horses. We don't want to be here when their comrades get back."

Sergeant Brock led them through the darkened woods, Sir Orizhan and Rosamund walking side by side, talking in low tones, updating each other on what had been happening. Matt, though, walked backward, sweeping away their tracks and reciting,

"Any taint of my so-powerful art I here obscure,

and shield from their senses My airy charms.

Let all trace of spells I work Be broken,

and any spoor of my strong magic

Be buried certain fathoms in the earth."

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He thought they must have gone a thousand feet when he looked up and saw, by patches of moonlight sifted through leaves, a tall and long-limbed shape a hundred feet away, backing toward him and gesturing with its loosely jointed arms.

Matt's lips thinned; he could just imagine the kind of verse Buckeye was casting, one that would leave a taint of magic so strong that the least sensitive hound in the sorcerer's kennel would smell it a mile away. His eyes narrowed and he chanted,

"Split a trail from this we leave,

And since bauchans can't follow minds,

Make him see naught but that false weave

And track us down that alley blind."

With satisfaction, he watched as the rubber-limbed figure seemed to move along the side of the trail, then farther and farther away from it. The last Matt saw of him, he was backing away far to the left, still gesturing and presumably chanting, as Matt backed up straight, reciting his masking verse over and over again.