The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (18 page)

"Maiden, wake!"

He, Matt thought, had a very bad case.

Yverne rolled onto her back, eyelids fluttering, then opening. She looked up at the three males gathered about her, then sat up, staring in alarm. "Is aught amiss?"

They just stood there, staring.

"Nay, tell me!" she demanded. "Are enemies nigh upon us?" Narlh looked away, expelling a long breath, and Fadecourt said gently, "

'Tis past now, milady. We only waked you to be sure you were well."

"Wherefore ought I not be?"

Fadecourt gazed into her eyes before he said, "You remember naught?" Yverne shook her head. "I lay me down, and prayed, and thought upon the day's events--and slept. What chanced whiles I dreamed?" Fadecourt exchanged a glance with Matt, who shook his head. The cyclops turned back to the lady. "The sorcerer who pursued you came again, milady--but the wizard drove him off."

"No, be fair!" Matt turned to Yverne. "I just distracted the villain, lady. It was Fadecourt who knocked him out with a rock."

"Oh, you have saved me!" She looked from one to the other of them--but it was Fadecourt's hand she squeezed.

Matt turned away, seething. Here he'd fought for her, risked being frozen and having his mind blasted, saved her from being melted into a puddle--and she hadn't even known about it! He'd been the hero who had saved the maiden--and she couldn't remember a bit of it! There was, he decided, no justice in matters heroic.

Narlh nudged his shoulder.

Matt looked up, hauling himself out of a nice, soothing wallow of self-pity.

"What's up?"

The dracogriff pulled something from under his wing, biting it by the end, then opened his mouth and let it fall at Matt's feet. "Found this out there, where the sorcerer was. He left in too much of a hurry, forgot to take it with him. Thought you might want it."

Matt stared down at the sorcerer's magic wand.

"Go on, go on!" Narlh urged. "You got to have a wand around here, Wizard, or we're all done for!"

Remembering how the wand had held his eyes and been on its way to burning out his mind, Matt was tempted to agree--but he felt reluctant. "It's a dead man's tool, Narlh. Besides, it's been used for witchcraft."

"Mayhap," Fadecourt said, tearing his gaze away from Yverne, "but when all is said and done, Wizard, 'tis only a stick of wood. I pray you, take it up and learn the use of it."

"Well--okay." Matt bent down and picked up the stick, alert for the slightest feeling of wrongness--but there was only a lingering sensation of faint unpleasantness, like the musty odor of a shut-up room. "I don't promise to be able to learn how to use it, though."

"Oh, you shall," Fadecourt said, with full confidence. Much more confidence than Matt felt. "To tell you the truth, Fadecourt, I'm not exactly eager to use a thing of evil."

" Tis neither good nor evil in its own right," Fadecourt assured him.

"I think I've heard that argument before--that no object is good or evil in itself, just in how we use it."

"Oh, no, friend Matthew! In this world, at least, there are some things that are evil in themselves, such as demons and lamias, and things that are good in themselves, such as churches and bells. A good thing can be profaned and turned to evil uses, it is true, yet a wand of holly branch is not among these, though it is a tree of power, like the rowan and the hazel."

"And the oak, and ash, and thorn? Not to mention the mistletoe, and the ivy, and the brier rose and..."

"I take your point; it may be that each wood has its own certain power. I would not know of such things--I am not a magic-worker," Fadecourt said, aggrieved.

Matt felt instantly contrite; a friend did not deserve that of him. "Sorry, Fadecourt. I just get nervous with things I don't understand."

"You shall come to understand it presently, friend Matthew, I am sure." Matt looked down at the wand. It was almost certainly a powerful gadget, to be used for good or ill. He hefted it, making slow, experimental passes toward the darkness as the night murmured about him.

He was careful not to say anything, though--not yet.

Work in Progress

Fortunately, the one wand spell Matt finally decided to try that night was putting people to sleep. He pointed it at each of his friends in turn and recited,

"Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,

Wake with smiles when you arise!"

And in each case, the friend in question promptly grew heavy-lidded, started yawning, and was asleep in minutes. Matt didn't sleep himself, though--he wasn't too sanguine about pointing the wand at himself. He had a notion it might set up a feedback cycle, and that was one magical equivalent to physics that he didn't want to find out about--t least, not from the inside. Besides, somebody had to stand watch.

It was a good excuse. The reality of the matter, of course, was that after that attack, he didn't feel much like sleeping. Neither had his friends, he supposed, but he hadn't been about to give them much choice. They had to be fresh and alert for tomorrow. So did he, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it--though not until after he'd checked under the boards.

It was a good thing Matt had specified that they wake with smiles on their faces, for as soon as they remembered the night's events, they began to feel nervous again. By joking and forcing laughter, they managed to keep each other halfway cheerful; but as soon as they set out, they began to sag. Everybody was eyeing the low grass and scrub around them suspiciously. Matt made a few tries at light conversation, but they sank without a trace.

When Fadecourt figured out that they weren't having much luck trying to bolster their spirits, he began telling them the tale of Worlane, greatest of Hardishane's paladins--of his unrequited love for the eastern princess Lalage, and how that love drove him mad when he learned she had married. He turned out to be an excellent storyteller, so the tale caught them up and out of their own predicament very quickly.

They had hiked perhaps an hour when they topped a rise and saw a dark line shadowing the western horizon, with flashes of green where leaves tossed. Matt halted. "What's this--a major forest on our line of march?"

"It would appear so." Fadecourt frowned, perplexed. "I came this way not five days ago, and there was naught but meadow and thickets."

"Your thickets have thickened." Matt felt his scalp prickle. "I think I smell sorcery at work."

Yverne looked up, startled. "Can you smell it, then?"

"Well, not literally," Matt admitted, "though there is a sort of...Well, no, it's not a feeling either, it's..." He ran out of words and threw his hands up in exasperation. "What can I tell you? There isn't any word for it! It's a sixth sense, I guess--the one I use to do magic with." He frowned down at Yverne.

"Does that explain anything?"

"Enough," she answered, but her eyes were glazing. Matt turned away. "Come on. I want a closer look at that forest." Narlh and Fadecourt exchanged looks of misgiving, but they all went forward. Matt stopped a few hundred feet from the forest. He didn't like what he saw. It was a dark, somber place of gnarled oak trees and bristling thorns, set against the backdrop of huge old evergreens. Matt mistrusted it on sight--any forest that was halfway between conifers and deciduous trees would have had relatively young oaks and elms. Whatever kind of forest it was, it wasn't natural.

In fact, it fairly reeked of sorcery, filled with menacing shadows and gnarled, evil-looking trees. Fadecourt could only scowl, shaking his head. "I could have sworn this forest was not here, Lord Matthew."

"And you would have been right, too." Matt pointed at a huge old trunk. A vine was writhing up through the underbrush at its base, moving even as they watched, rising and thickening as it wrapped itself around the huge old bole. It wasn't the only one--other vines were twining up around other trunks and sagging down from the branches.

"Work in progress," Matt explained. "This forest is still under construction."

Fadecourt said slowly, "It is true, by all the stars! The wood is not quite finished yet; it is still a-building!"

Yverne tore her gaze away and turned to Matt. "Yet how can it be new-made, and still be aged?"

"It just looks that way," Matt explained. "I suspect that, in reality, if the term applies, it only came into existence last night, after I managed to win that little clash with the local wand-waver and pull Yverne back together."

"Wherefore?" Fadecourt asked.

"To stop us, of course." Matt frowned. "My only question is, what to stop us for?"

"To kill us," Narlh growled, half opening his wings.

"How?" Matt asked, feeling very practical. "They could have sent an army against us back uphill--they could have caught us in any of those gullies."

"Yes," Fadecourt said, "but the armies could not have come to us in time." Matt absorbed that for a minute before he answered, "Then this forest is just here to hold us up while they mobilize the militia." Fadecourt nodded.

"So the last thing we want to do is stand still."

"Well said." Fadecourt strode resolutely toward the forest wall.

"Uh, maybe not." Matt held out an arm, to bar the way. "I don't know if I'm eager to go into a place when I'm being invited."

Fadecourt turned back to frown. "What do you mean? I see no one who gives us invitation."

But Yverne gasped, and Matt just nodded toward the trees. Fadecourt turned back to look.

A faint trail had appeared, not much more than a deer run. By its side stood an old man in a robe that must have been at least two hundred years out of date. Matt squinted, but he couldn't make out the details of its decoration--nor of the oldster's face, though he could see a long, gray beard.

Fadecourt frowned. "Odd."

"Yes, isn't he?" Matt joined him in his frown. "You don't suppose he grew up in there, and hasn't heard that fashions have changed, do you?"

"Nay, I spoke not of his garb, but of his face. I have seen him somewhere--or his portrait, at least. I could swear to it."

"Don't." Matt laid a hand on his shoulder. "Strange things happen when people swear things around here. Believe me, I know. Don't do it if you can possibly avoid it."

"But what of this fellow in gray?"

"He shouldn't, either." Matt stepped past the cyclops. "But I think I'll see what he wants."

The old man held up a hand, palm out, arm straight toward them. Matt paused. "I don't think he wants me to come on."

"Mayhap we should heed him," Yverne said nervously.

"Maybe." Matt frowned. "I think I'll try to get a more complete picture from him. If you'll excuse me, folks?"

He stepped past Fadecourt's jaundiced gaze and went up toward the old man. He had only taken five steps before the oldster quite calmly reached up and took off his head.

Matt froze, staring, waiting for the wash of horror to finish running through him.

While he was waiting, the old man tucked his head under his arm, turning into a ghost of his former self--not the old man, but the self they had seen chasing Yverne.

The damsel gave a little scream before she managed to clap a hand over her own mouth. Fadecourt was back and by her side in an instant, patting the other hand and murmuring reassurances.

Matt was wondering why the ghost could be seen in the daytime, until he realized the apparition was standing so far under the leaves that the gloom was almost nightlike. He set his jaw with determination and pressed onward. The ghost began to make excited gestures. Matt stopped again, frowning, and called out, "Fadecourt--do your people have a system of sign language?"

"Nay," the cyclops snapped, and went back to comforting Yverne. Matt frowned, remembering every bout of charades he'd ever played--not that it would have done any good to ask, "What category?" or "How many words?" But some of the ghost's gestures did seem to be on the verge of making sense, if you understood them as pantomime--the curled hand with two fingers extended downward scissoring could indicate somebody walking. But why was it walking in a U turn?

And why that diagonal cut of hand across chest? Was he threatening to cut their heads off, too?

Then something almost clicked. Matt squinted, on the verge of understanding...

A brisk breeze stirred the leaves; a ray of sunlight lanced into the ghost's shelter. With a moan, he faded out, disappeared.

Matt stood, listening to the breeze and the summer insects, letting normality fill him again.

"What's it mean, Wizard?"

Matt looked up at Narlh. "I was just beginning to make sense of it."

"But you didn't quite get there?"

Matt shook his head.

"Shall we go, Lord Matthew?" Fadecourt came up with Yverne.

"Into the forest, or away from it?'' Matt asked.

"Was not the ghost indicating that we should go in?" the damsel asked, glance flicking nervously toward the leaves.

Matt shook his head. "I couldn't even make out that much. That upraised arm could have just meant that we should stop because he wanted to talk to us--or it could have meant that we should stop and not go into the forest."

"He did afright the damsel and make her run before him." Fadecourt's jaw hardened as he glowered at the forest. "Are we to let him bar us now? I say nay!" And he stepped off toward the trees. "Let us dare this forest to do its worst!"

Matt made a long arm and caught his shoulder. "Hold it, friend. Its worst could be very bad indeed. Notice all the little yellow eyes in the shadows, giving us the evil look? And I don't like the way that tree is staring at me."

"Nonsense, Lord Matthew! A tree cannot..." Then Fadecourt caught sight of the oak Matt was pointing at. He gazed at it for a moment, then said, "I catch your meaning. It does look at us, does it not?"

"Indubitably," Matt assured him. "And it does not have beneficent intentions."

"Yet how can a tree do harm?" Yverne asked.

Matt skipped the visions of trees falling on houses and twiggy fingers grabbing somebody by the throat. "This is a magic forest, remember--raised by sorcery, activated by malice. What couldn't a tree do, in there?" Yverne apparently had a more graphic imagination than he did, to judge by the way she shuddered.