The Haunted Wizard - Wiz in Rhym-6 (46 page)

Then at a crossroads in the wood, a dozen outlaws with bows and staves stepped out of the leaves in front of the king.

Brion leveled his lance and cried, "Declare yourselves!"

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"We declare for King Brion and the welfare of the kingdom," the foremost said. He carried himself like a nobleman, but he knelt, bowing his head.

"For Brion and Bretanglia!" his followers shouted, and likewise knelt even as the same slogan rang from the trees all about them: "For Brion and Bretanglia!"

Matt's scalp prickled. He realized that there were a hundred archers all around them, probably with bows drawn. Worse, he realized what those bows could do, and doubted that anyone else there did. The leader stood. "There is not a man of us who is not sickened by the slaughter and rapine with which this self-named 'King' John treats the common folk. There are already many among us who have fled to the greenwood because his soldiers have beaten the poor to pry from them every copper coin. There are more who have fled to us because the king's druids have tortured and slain their families or sweethearts."

"They are false druids," Matt called out quickly.

Everyone turned to stare at him, but Brion confirmed, "They are false indeed! It is the true druids who saved my life!"

"Why, that makes most excellent sense," the outlaw leader said, "for no true holy man could drench the land with blood as their chief Niobhyte has done! Down with the false druids, and up with the true king!

We hail Brion as the savior of Bretanglia—if you will have us!"

"I welcome you, and am right glad of your allegiance," Brion told them. "I cannot promise a pardon to every man, for I know not what crimes each has committed, or what his circumstances were—but I can promise you justice if we win!"

That didn't seem to faze a single man; apparently they were all sure of their innocence, or at least of their justification. "We will depend upon your justice," the outlaw chief said, "for you shall triumph, and the crown of Bretanglia shall rest upon your brow!"

"That shall be as God wills," Brion told the man. "We can only strive as mightily as we can, and leave the victory to Him!"

"Ah, but a victory for Brion is a victory for God," the outlaw returned. "None could think otherwise, who knew even half of what the soldiers and the druids have done." Then he spun about and punched his forearm straight above his head, calling to his men, "For God and Brion!" The answering shout blasted from every side: "God and Brion!" Somehow, the word spread ahead of them. By the end of the day, every new handful of men at each crossroads greeted them with the cry, "For God, Brion, and Bretanglia!" Still, Matt couldn't help worrying about something the bandit leader had said—that anyone who knew even half of what Niobhyte's minions had done would know them for what they were. He wondered just how bad the situation had become, but wasn't sure he wanted to find out. He learned anyway, for the company passed by a monastery, and the monks streamed out to watch and to cheer. Matt was just hoping that John's agents wouldn't hear about their enthusiasm and burn down their abbey, when he noticed the middle-aged man and woman standing at the forefront of the crowd,
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waving and cheering with the rest, even though they looked somewhat haggard. Matt leaped down with a shout of delight and threw his arms around them.

"Halt!" Brion held up a hand, and the whole column slowed, then stopped. Rosamund looked down at the older couple, who were laughing and hugging Matt with tears in their eyes. "Lord Wizard," she asked, "do you know these people?"

"Since the day I was born, Your Highness!" Matt turned to her and gestured to the couple. "You remember my mother and father, Prof—uh, Lord and Lady Mantrell!" Mama and Papa bowed to Rosamund.

"Your apologies," she stammered. "I did not know you. But why are you dressed in peasant garb?"

"To hear the peasants' grievances, Your Highness," Mama told her, then turned to bow again to Brion, crying, "Your Majesty!"

"I must thank you both for bringing this man into the world and for rearing him so well," Brion returned,

"for without him, I suspect I would still be sleeping in Erin, and the fairest gem in the land might have been lost." He reached out and caught Rosamund's hand. "Will you join our march?" That evening, when they pitched camp, Matt made a separate campfire for his parents and, over dinner, asked what he didn't want to know.

"It has been horrible," Mama said with a shudder. "We have fought it wherever we can, of course, but it sweeps the land like wildfire."

"The false druids are preaching what people want to hear," Papa said, "that they can do whatever they wish without worrying about the consequences."

"But there are consequences," Matt said softly. "There always are."

"Always," Mama agreed, "but by the time they begin to show, the druids are too thoroughly in power, backed by so-called acolytes who are really only bullying sadists who revel in the misery they cause in their false sacrifices to the old gods."

Matt braced himself. "How bad are they?"

"Very bad," Papa said with a shudder. "They practice all the tortures that the real druids used for sacrifice on their feast-days, such as making giant wicker-work statues with living people inside, then burning them alive."

"But they have invented other obscene rites that the true druids never imagined." Mama shuddered. "I have seen the beginnings, but have managed to turn away, then chant my spells and turn their own cruelty back upon them."

"I watched while she chanted," Papa said. "I saw, and hope I shall someday forget." Matt felt panic rising. "You should have gone home to Merovence the minute you saw you couldn't stop them!"

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"We could not," Mama said simply. "There was too much suffering we could prevent."

"How?" Matt cried. "The sorcerers must have been able to tell who was interfering with their own gruesome magic!"

"Ah." Papa almost smiled. "In that, we were fortunate—I think."

"You're not sure?" Matt stared.

"It was, shall we say, double-edged," Mama told him. "You see, a few days after we last saw you, we camped for the night in a grove. Papa went to hunt while I gathered wood, but when we came back, we found a campfire already burning."

"I'm beginning to have a bad feeling about this," Matt said.

"So did we," Papa assured him, "but we reasoned that an enemy wouldn't have done us a favor. So we cooked our dinner, and as we began to eat, a stranger wearing a tunic and fur leggins came up and asked if he could join us."

"We invited him to dine," Mama said.

Matt groaned.

"So it was true, what he told us," Papa said softly.

"If you're talking about who I think you are," Matt said, "yes."

"He said he remembered us from our meeting with you at the monastery," Mama told him, "and said he had followed our auras until he found us."

"He knew we were of your family by that aura," Papa said. "Do you have any idea what he meant?"

"Other than an inborn ability to sense DNA," Matt said, "no. Did he tell you his name?"

"No," said Mama. "He only said, 'Call me what you will.' " Matt groaned again. "What did you call him?"

"They called me 'Whatyouwill'!" said an indignant basso.

Matt jumped a mile without uncrossing his legs—at least, inside himself. When his insides came back down to fill his outsides again, he turned slowly to his left, toward the glowering face under the tunic hood. "Furry leggins, huh?"

"They guessed quickly enough," Buckeye told him.

"So it was well that we did not give him a nickname?" Papa asked.
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"Oh, you bet," Matt said. "I did, and it turned out to act like a spell that bound him to me—until I went across saltwater to Erin."

"Aye." Buckeye grinned in the dark. "But now you are returned, and so am I."

"Now I know why Erin is the land of luck," Matt said.

Papa stared at him. "The potato famine? The British conquests?"

"I didn't say what kind of luck." Matt frowned at Buckeye. "I take it you had to save their lives in order to have somebody to torment."

"Even better." The bauchan grinned. "They led me to scenes I could confuse, places where I could cause havoc."

"No wonder the sorcerers didn't figure out who was lousing up their scripted rituals." Matt couldn't help smiling. "How about I thank you, Buckeye?"

"Do not!" the bauchan said quickly.

Matt suddenly felt much more confident. He remembered the old superstition, that if you thank a helpful elf, it will disappear and never come back. Of course, Buckeye wasn't exactly helpful, at least not always, but it was worth trying—later. For the moment, though, he somehow had a feeling the sprite might come in handy. "You didn't dare treat my mother rudely, did you?"

"He did," Mama sniffed. "I believe he regretted it."

"Your punishments always fitted the crime," Matt said to her, grinning, and said to the bauchan, "What did she do—make you ashamed of yourself?"

"Nay." Buckeye grimaced. "She made a horrible taste form in my mouth whenever I used words she misliked. Even now I dare not say them."

Matt could imagine the flavor of Mama's laundry soap. Only imagine—he'd never pushed it past her warnings. "Disagreeable, but harmless," he assured the bauchan.

"It was not enough to chase me away!" Buckeye said staunchly.

"No," said Mama, "but it did teach you a very healthy degree of respect." Matt reflected that soap, correctly applied, could be very healthy indeed, but that a medieval spirit might not see it that way. Feeling the need of a change of subject, he turned back to Papa. "So the synthodruids never even realized who was putting out the fires on their wicker forms?"

"One did," Papa told him. "He pointed at us, screaming that we desecrated the very ground, and commanded his mob of worshipers to fall upon us."

"I had a few spells to say about that," Mama said primly.

"And I a few heads to knock." The bauchan grinned. "I had them fighting each other in minutes, and struck down those whom their companions did not."

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"When all his men lay unconscious," Papa said, "the druid came up to us, shaking with rage, and told us that their ceremonies were becoming so widespread that we couldn't possibly stop them all, or even most of them. 'Perhaps not,' your mother said, 'but we can stop all those we find.' " He fairly glowed with pride in his wife.

"The next sacrifice we found, I did better," Mama said. "When Whatyouwill set the men to fighting one another, I marched up to the druid and matched him spell for spell. It did not take long; I overwhelmed him easily." She smiled with contempt. "I bound him in his own chains, and when the peasants recovered from their fighting with one another, I commanded them to lock up the druids in a hut with strong walls. They did, and Papa surrounded the makeshift jail with a magical fence that their weak magic could not breach. Then we paced out of the town and called out to thank the bauchan."

"We received no answer, though," Papa added.

"I should think not!" Buckeye snapped. "I had fled far enough not to hear, I assure you."

"Wait a minute." Matt frowned. "I thanked you for helping out once—after that fracas at the monastery, remember? And other times, too."

"Aye." Buckeye gave him a toothy grin. "But I am bound to you by a name-spell. Thank me all you wish."

Again Matt frowned, as that hope crumbled. "The druids didn't stay in jail long, did they?"

"Of course not," Papa sighed. "A week later, when we stopped at an inn for the night, the gossip at the tables was all about us. We heard a glorified account of our own victory, but it ended with the druids escaping from the jail."

Matt frowned again. "But I thought you said Papa put up a magical fence that they couldn't break through."

"They couldn't, no," Papa said grimly.

"I went right out and scolded the bauchan roundly," Mama said, "even though I could not see him. I knew he was lurking near in the night—but he only laughed at me!" Her face darkened even at the memory.

"I found it all a delightful joke," Buckeye retorted. "Those false druids are still looking over their shoulders wondering whether I will help them or hurt them next." Matt knew how they felt.

But Buckeye lost his grin. "Then your mother was most ungracious."

"I wished to remind him which way to choose, if he must decide between helping us and hurting us," Mama said. "You know the verses in which Prospero threatens Caliban with pinches from unseen fingers?"

"Yeah, sure."

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"Well, so does Whatyouwill—now."

The bauchan looked highly offended. "I do not come and go at your bidding, Dame Mantrell."

"Not yet," Mama agreed.

Matt felt it was time for another change of topic. "So John's rule isn't exactly a roaring success for the common people."

"Oh, for the strong ones who have so far survived the sacrifices and the looting, it is excellent," Papa said. "Of course, those are the ones who have not yet realized that there will always be someone stronger than they, and that when all the sheep are dead, the wolves will turn upon one another."

"For most of the common people, though, John's reeves are as bad as the false druids," Mama told him.

"They draft young men into the armies, give their soldiers leave to loot and rape where they will, and take every bit of food the peasants can raise, leaving them only crumbs for the winter. Those who try to hide some produce away are flogged within inches of their lives."