The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (22 page)

"So," Matt said, "did he."

Fadecourt resolved the argument by stepping forward and kicking the sword out of the knight's hand. "Your life is the lady's, sir. Beg her indulgence, or die."

"I yield me," the knight groaned. "Claim what forfeit you will. Triumph gleamed in Yverne's eye, but she kept the spear poised "Why, then, my forfeit is this--that you kneel to God and swear to lead a life of virtue, defending the weak and punishing the wicked, as a knight should!" The knight groaned. "Mercy, lady! To seek to live virtuously in King Gordogrosso's Ibile is to seek one's own death!"

"Not to mention the loss of your house and land, of course?" Matt put in, as Narlh gave a disgusted snort.

"That also," the knight agreed morosely.

"You have but to choose," Yverne said sweetly. "A short life of virtue, or a long death in Hell."

"Maybe not," Matt said thoughtfully. "We're not all that far from the border--if you move fast, you might be able to make it into Merovence before King Gor--before the king catches up with you."

The knight shuddered. "You know not Gordogrosso's power."

"I know he doesn't dare do anything in Saint Moncaire's domain," Matt said sharply. "Get far enough into Alisande's territory, and the king can't touch you."

"Even in Ibile, there is some defense," Fadecourt advised. "Seek the sacraments of your faith, sir, and maintain your soul in a state of Grace, and you put yourself beyond the reach of the evil king."

"My soul, perhaps," the knight said mournfully. "Not my body."

"Even your body may be protected, by sacramentals--by the wearing of scapular and crucifix, by the carrying of holy water and rosary."

"It is, at least, a chance, sir," Yverne said with pity. The knight lay immobile for a moment.

"Of course," Matt said, "you could let him repent, then kill him instantly."

"For shame, sir!" Yverne cried.

"Wouldst kill in cold blood!" Fadecourt demanded, shocked. "I gave the other his death wound in battle, Lord Matthew! The coup de grace only finished more quickly what had been wrought in hot blood!"

"I suppose so." Matt sighed. "It was just an idea."

"One well intended, I am certain, sir," the fallen knight said, "but I quail at the thought of the centuries in Purgatory awaiting one who has lived so vile a life as I have. Nay, I thank you all and will accept your kind offer. I will brave the king--and if I die in torment, at least it will be brief." Matt had a vision of a medieval torture chamber, and what he had heard about making the pain last for days. But the knight was right, it was brief--compared to his probable sentence in the domain of the spiritually deficient.

"Kneel, then." Yverne withdrew the spear point. The knight rolled up to his knees, joined his hands in prayer, and bent his head.

The companions waited.

After a short while, the knight raised his head "I have made my peace with God, as well as I may. And I swear, by all that is holy, to try with all my heart to live a virtuous life henceforth, defending the weak and punishing the wicked. Now I must needs find a priest"

"Rise," Yverne said.

The knight stood, and Fadecourt clasped him by the hand, slapping his shoulder. "Welcome back to the world of the living in spirit, brother!"

"I thank you." The knight managed a smile. "Yet forgive my abruptness, but I must ride as soon as I may."

"Aye." Fadecourt stepped back. "Away with you, then!" The knight looked about him, at something of a loss. "Wizard...if I may..."

"Oh, sure." Matt snapped his fingers.

"I have many spells--what say they?

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

A sharp whinny split the night, and the knight's charger came trotting up. It pulled up beside its master and blew. The knight managed the ghost of a smile, patted the beast's neck, and mounted.

"Ah," Yverne breathed, "so there was hope for him, ere he met us." Matt wasn't quite sure what she meant, unless it was that love for a horse was better than no love at all.

"I shall chance finding sanctuary, ere the minions of Satan find me," the knight said, turning his horse's head toward the west.

"Remember the sacramentals," Matt advised.

The knight gave him a sardonic smile. "And what such may I take from here, Lord Wizard?"

"Hymns," Matt said. "After all, the lyrics rhyme. There's a definite chance that singing holy songs will protect you, at least a little." The man looked startled, then nodded slowly. "Aye, there is truth in what you say. At the least, it cannot hurt me. I thank you, Wizard."

"You're welcome. Uh, do you know any hymns?"

"One or two, from my childhood. Hail, Wizard, lady, cyclops! Hail, great beast! Hail, and farewell!" And he turned, riding off into the darkness, disappearing in the murk. But they could still hear him, chanting a Latin hymn in a loud, off-key baritone.

Fadecourt winced at the man's grating voice. "Nay, I doubt not he will be quite safe indeed."

"You can say that again," Matt agreed. "Who'd want to come anywhere nearer any singing like that than they had to?"

Privately, he suspected that the knight would renege on all his promises as soon as he was out of sight and return to his lord's castle--what difference did honor make, in Ibile?

But he hoped he was wrong.

Negative Narcissus

When they started out the next morning, patched up and refreshed, they chatted happily with each other, in perfect accord. Matt decided that he must have made up for his lapse with the stick and restored his companions' faith in him.

The slope was angling downhill, and the land they had ridden yesterday was now discernible as a mountain behind them--but a mountain without the plateau that would have held the enchanted forest they had marched around and around. That forest had disappeared, and their path wound down in switchbacks through a maze of evergreens, dark and massive to either side of the path, but the roadway filled with light, due to the angle of descent. This forest had very little underbrush, and certainly no aura of evil; it filled their heads with the clean scent of pine and spruce.

But they came out of the forest about noon and, as they rode on after the midday meal, they began to see deciduous trees. They were stunted and gnarled, though; every other tree seemed to be smothered by a vine whose leaves were so fine they resembled fungus, and between the trunks, the underbrush was a waist-high tangle of thistles, thorns, and leprous-looking blossoms.

"Ugly-looking plant life they have around here," Matt noted. Fadecourt nodded, looking around him with heavy brow, and his tension was almost palpable. "We have come down out of the borderland, Lord Matthew. We are in Ibile now."

Then he saw the flat-topped boulder ten yards down the hill and halted so suddenly that Matt almost bumped into him. Matt stared at the rock in surprise--and saw a lizard sunning itself. It was pointed away from them, so he couldn't really see much of its face, but he had certainly never before seen anything like the fleshy excrescence that bulged out of its head, ending in five points that glistened like polished horn. Matt stared--never before had he heard of a lizard with antlers!

Yverne gave a little moan, and Fadecourt rasped, "Be still! 'Tis a cockatrice--and woe upon us if the creature turns to show its face!" Matt decided to keep the stare. The basilisk, or cockatrice, could turn them to stone just by looking at them. In fact, it couldn't help turning them to stone, and you couldn't blame it if it looked around every now and then to see what might be coming up behind it, in case it was threatened. Of course, it never was--at least, no longer than it took to spot the threat--though Matt supposed the occasional lizard had been lost to predators that could sneak up from behind.

Fadecourt waved them back, and as silently as possible, the companions did their best to slip behind the stunted trees available. But not quite quickly enough; a stick cracked under somebody's foot, and the little monster whipped about.

"Hide!" Fadecourt bellowed, and everybody leaped for the leaves. Then things became very quiet.

Finally, Matt whispered, "Everybody safe?"

"Yeah," Narlh grunted nearby. Matt heaved a sigh of relief. Then he heard a stifled sob from Yverne, and Fadecourt said roughly, " 'Tis naught. I'm yet alive."

"What happened?" Matt bleated. A hiss answered him from up the road, and he throttled it down to a whisper as he peeked around his tree. "Fadecourt!

What's..." Then he saw the cyclops and broke off.

"Oh, be still, Wizard!" The cyclops shook a stone fist at him. "I am not hurt! I can walk, I can fight!"

Matt swallowed and turned away. "I think the danger is clear and present. How far back do we have to go before we can find a detour?"

"We cannot." Fadecourt picked up a rock, left-handed. "This is the only road down from the heights. Stay hid till I have done." And he stepped out from behind the oak.

"Whoa!" Matt caught his shoulder. "Hold on there, boy! If that beastie spots you, we'll be taking you for granite!"

"And how can man die better?" Fadecourt challenged him. "Yet though I die, mayhap I'll clear the monster from the pathway first." He started to go, realized Matt's hand was still there, and frowned back at him. "Unhand me, Lord Matthew."

"Don't be silly; without your hands, you wouldn't stand a chance. Let's try a better way."

The cyclops turned back, glowering--and just in time; behind him, Matt caught a glimpse of the lizard starting to turn. He yanked Fadecourt back behind the trunk. "Don't look now, but our igneous iguana just turned around to see what all the fuss was about."

Fadecourt paled, but he stuck to his guns. "You spoke of a way. What way is that?"

"Uh...well..." Matt's brain kicked into high gear as he started to improvise. "Something that would appeal to the essential vanity of the beastie." Fadecourt kept his frown. "I had not heard that they were vain."

"Neither have L" But Matt's mind had fastened on the word beastie and wasn't letting go. "Look at it this way--if a perversion of nature like that ever really had to confront itself, it wouldn't be able to bear it." He wondered why Fadecourt stared, but plowed ahead. "So let's let him have a look." He raised his voice a little, and chanted:

"Ah, would a power the giftie give us

To see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many an error free us,

And foolish notion!"

The air in front of the basilisk fogged up, coalescing and hardening into a gleaming disk.

Fadecourt stared. "What engine is that, Lord Matthew?"

"Why," Yverne said, " 'tis a mirror." The cockatrice stared, wide-eyed, at its own image--and, as it stared, its greenish-gray skin became steadily less green and more gray.

"Why don't it turn away?" Narlh wondered

"Why, for that it cannot," Yverne said, with a smile of whimsy. "It is fascinated by its own image; look you--it is transfixed!" The basilisk was almost completely gray now, and its eyes were filming over--but as much with a look of ecstasy as with silicon.

"Can it truly think it is beautiful?" Yverne wondered

"Of course," Matt murmured. "Only advanced creatures can be self-critical." The cockatrice trembled with a single, protracted shiver, and a crinkling sound filled the clearing. Then it stood, frozen, totally gray.

"Stoned," Matt breathed. "Frozen in ecstasy." Then he raised his hand, palm flat, and moved it in a circle as though he were wiping a hole in the frost on an invisible window.

"Let the power take away

That which it has left astray.

Recall the mirror-surfaced pane;

Remove afar the silvered plane."

Yverne frowned. "Why did you banish the mirror, Lord Matthew?"

"Because," Matt said, "I didn't want to leave it hanging there."

"Could we not have taken it with us?"

"Well, yes--but it might have broken."

Yverne stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, and Narlh hissed. Fadecourt nodded. "Ah. Yes, we have no need of seven years' ill fortune."

"No, we don't." Matt frowned at the frozen monster.

"Do not pity it," Fadecourt rumbled. "It had no more than it would have done to us."

Matt shook his head. "It wouldn't have meant evil--it would only have been following its nature."

The cyclops looked up, frowning. "Why, how is that?"

"The instinct to look at any threat is inborn," Matt explained. "I've seen machines that could do anything just by reacting to what people do, according to the instructions of the, ah, `wizards' who built them."

Fadecourt shuddered at the notion. "Dost'a mean these sorcerers made suits of armor live?"

"Not live, no, though you'd think it to look at them. They could even fight a warrior by automatically blocking his thrusts and cuts, so people think they were alive. But they weren't, not really--they were just following their programming." He stopped, seeing the blank, wary looks all about him, and gave it up with a sigh. "Never mind. Just take my word for it."

"Why, certes," Fadecourt said. "It is you who are the wizard."

"If you say so." Matt sighed. "But while we're on the subject, how about I turn that fist back into flesh for you?"

Fadecourt frowned, lifting the fist and gazing at it. Then he looked up at Matt with a wicked grin. "Nay, I think not--but I thank you. I have some notion it may prove of use."

"Well, it's your hand." Matt tried not to think too hard about what kind of

"use" the cyclops had in mind. "Back to the immediate peril, then. Let's just make sure the spell worked." He caught up a stick and pitched it at the little monster. Fadecourt and Yverne gave yelps of dread, but the cockatrice only tipped over onto its side and lay frozen, legs holding their poses in the air.

"Yeah, it's safe," Narlh opined.

"Well, you're the reptile--at least partly." Matt looked up, frowning--the dracogriff had sounded shaken. "What's the matter--genus loyalty?"

"Loyalty, my tail! No way, Wizard! Why would I be loyal to a jinni? It's just...well..." Narlh took a breath. "Do you have any idea how dangerous those beasties are?"