The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (23 page)

"Well, I've heard something about them, yeah."

"Something about them, he says," the dracogriff muttered. "Why didn't you tell me you were that strong a wizard?"

Matt spread his hands, at a loss. "Hey--it's not that big a deal!" Then he wondered why all four of his friends eyed him so strangely. It made him feel a little odd, so Matt shook off the moment and stepped up to the basilisk, albeit gingerly. He stepped right in front of its face--and stayed fleshly. "All safe, folks."

The joint hiss of four pent-up breaths answered him, and the companions stepped forth. "Hey, Wizard," Narlh grunted. "Next time let one of us take the risk, huh?"

Matt frowned. "But it was my spell."

"And therefore, if the first to pass had turned to stone," Fadecourt explained, "only you could have restored him."

Yverne nodded. "Yet if you'd been frozen, Lord Matthew, how could the rest of us have passed the basilisk?"

"It makes sense," Matt grudged, "but I should take my share of the risks."

"I do not doubt you shall," Fadecourt said, with some asperity, "since there will be many you cannot avoid. Yet I must ask you, Lord Matthew, to avoid such chances as you can."

Matt grumped and turned away to lead them past the boulder. They swung on down the winding path. After a while, Yverne stepped up beside Matt, giving him a look of concern. "Why are you so silent, Lord Matthew?"

"Is it that rare?" Matt asked, astonished.

Yverne managed a smile. "Why, no, I think not--yet you do seem troubled."

"Oh, that." Matt shrugged, trying to hide his reaction to her proximity.

"Just trying to figure out the logic of this land, that's all. Before it figures out me."

"Logic?" Yverne frowned. "How can there be such, in a land of evil?"

"Just what I needed to hear! Sorry, milady, but I'm the kind who tries to work magic by good sense. How can I counter something I don't understand?"

"By virtue," she responded simply, "since there is none of that here."

"That almost makes sense. But...do you mind if I ask how come the supernatural creature I ran into, back in the mountains, wasn't necessarily evil, but the monster of the foothills seems to be a hybrid of foul and unnatural origins?"

"Foul I do not doubt--yet how was this cockatrice unnatural?" Yverne looked up at him, puzzled.

Matt looked down at her clear, innocent face and hesitated. She saw his embarrassment and laughed. "Do not think to shock me by saying how two creatures may make two more, Lord Matthew. I am the daughter of a country lord; I have seen the couplings of spring."

"Well...this isn't exactly a coupling..." Matt took a deep breath and decided to risk it. "Let me tell you how to make a cockatrice. First, you take a rooster's egg..."

"Oh, my lord!" she cried, pursing her lips with amusement. "It is hens who lay eggs, not roosters!"

"Yeah, that's just the first unnatural thing about it. So you take this egg laid by a rooster, see, and I can just imagine what kind of spells of perversion it takes to produce that! And you put it where a toad can fertilize it, and you bury the fertilized egg in a manure pile, and some time later, by the light of a full moon, out comes a cockatrice!"

As he had feared, Yverne looked slightly green. Matt hurried to change the subject. "So you see why I'm curious to know why the monsters of the foothills are unnatural."

" 'Tis well asked." Yverne bore up gamely. "I had thought naught of it, thinking it natural in creatures of evil--yet I had ne'er lived in a milieu of virtue."

"Mayhap I can make sense of it." Fadecourt stepped up on Matt's other side. Matt turned to the cyclops in surprise. "Well, sure. I mean, I'd appreciate the information--but I'd think it was a little out of your line."

"It may be, yet it is a part of life for all who grow up in Ibile. Nay, more--'tis a condition of life, for not to know it may lead one to toy with fell and dangerous monsters who do not appear so terribly threatening, as this little monster did not. It is a condition of life, for not to know it may bring death." Matt could imagine a bunch of rowdy village boys coming, up to torment the basilisk by poking it with long sticks and jeering--and the basilisk freezing them out. "Great. So it's part of the basic equipment of life, and I don't have it."

" 'Tis easily gained," Yverne said, "for 'tis only that the foothills we now wander are most certainly within Ibile, which has been corrupted by the rule of Evil. The mountains, though, are not wholly within the domain of Satan." Matt frowned. "But I thought Ibile claimed territory halfway into the hills. In fact, I'm sure of it, because I came by way of a spell that was supposed to put me over the border."

Yverne nodded "Yet Ibile's king cannot enforce his rule so near to Merovence--nor can your queen lay the border country under her sway. When all is said and done, the mountains belong to the mountain folk." Matt lifted his head as understanding dawned. "Of course! They're the gray area, aren't they?"

Yverne frowned. "Gray stone, do you mean? But their slopes are well watered, for the most part, and quite green!"

"No, no! I mean the place where neither good nor evil has total power!"

"Ah! That is true--yet it is more true, praise Heaven, that Evil can never have total power; for there will always be some few souls with courage so great as to stand against it."

"True, true--and there will always be some people so warped and selfish as to dedicate themselves to Evil, even within a realm governed by those dedicated to Good. But what about the montagnards themselves? Who are they dedicated to?"

"Why, to one another, for all I hear of them, and therefore do they guard their independence with ferocious zeal, harrying any army so foolish as to come within their hills."

Matt frowned. "But if they're dedicated to one another, that means they're dedicated to Good."

Yverne nodded "Aye, from all that I have heard of them. They are fierce toward those who wish them ill, yet are kindly to one another. They do demand a toll of any who seek to pass through their hills, yet do not ravage caravans nor despoil wayfarers."

"Probably smart enough to realize that no merchants means no tolls," Matt mused, "and that banditry would kill the trade."

Yverne frowned. " 'Tis an odd notion, and one not entirely charitable, methinks."

"No, but probably accurate."

"I misdoubt it." The lady frowned. "For they are hospitable folk, look you, and have been known to succor travelers caught by storm within their domain." Matt nodded. "Sound like good guys, all right--and not entirely unfamiliar, either; I've heard of people like them, in mountainous countries. But if they're good people, doesn't that make them part of Merovence, for all intents and purposes?"

Yverne smiled. "They do not harken to the commands of Merovence's queen."

"Well, no--but in the battle of Good and Evil we're concerned with, they're on the side of the angels." He had a brief and poignant vision of Alisande.

" 'Tis true," Fadecourt agreed, "and even in countries where Good rules, Evil is continually at work, tempting souls to ruin. Therefore the forces of Evil and Good are at something of a balance within the mountains, and Evil cannot exercise so harsh a sway as to pervert the very nature of the animals within it."

"But in the foothills, Evil's rule is dominant, so foul things like cockatrices are made." Matt nodded. "Not that it's any fault of theirs, of course. But there's one problem with this whole explanation, milady."

"What is that, Lord Matthew?"

"The minor difficulty of which action belongs to which power. Could you trust a wizard who wasn't sure of the difference between good and evil?" Yverne and Fadecourt stopped and stared at him, appalled. Matt nodded. "I thought not."

"But who could mistake?" Yverne gasped.

"Many, lady," Fadecourt said, his face grim, "the young and innocent most especially, for bad things can be made to seem good. But, Wizard, our Lord hath said, `By their fruits ye shall know them.'"

Matt nodded. "If it has evil results, then it's probably evil, yes. But how can you tell before it has done its damage?"

"There are signs," Fadecourt said, frowning.

"Yes, if you can learn them." Matt smiled bleakly and turned back to the road. "Well, on we go. Hopefully, we won't run into anything we don't already know about."

He was sunk into contemplation before his friends began to follow him. Fadecourt's definition certainly did make the issue simple. Now all Matt had to do was figure out what the signs of devotion to God were--well, he'd grown up with the usual list--and how to tell the real thing from the fake. He sighed, settling into the march again. It shouldn't be too hard--after all, a con man was a con man, no matter what the culture.

"Not so many soldiers as all that," the peasant told her. "They have clerks stationed by the path from the pass, Majesty, and there are but a handful of soldiers to guard them."

"How large is that `handful'?" Sauvignon demanded. The peasant shrugged. "Ten awake and at arms, milord. Another ten refurbishing their weapons or asleep."

"Why, this will serve but to whet our appetites," Sauvignon said with disgust.

"Bide in patience, my lord," Alisande soothed. "There shall be more anon; for when King Gordogrosso knows our Lord Wizard is within his borders, he shall strike against Merovence with all his strength."

"So that is why we are here! How could the Lord Wizard desert us in so cavalier a fashion?"

Actually, Alisande had been wondering about that, too, though on a more personal level--and that, in spite of her very vivid memory of their parting. But all she said was, "He serves God, milord, as do we all, and must go where the Lord directs." She turned back to the peasant. "How shall we come through the mountains? Will not the montagnards resent our intrusion?"

"How can this man know?" Sauvignon protested. "He is not one of them!"

"Mayhap not." The peasant gave him a gap-toothed smile. "Yet my wife's cousin's aunt is wed to a montagnard, and 'tis his cousin's sons who have spied out the clerks and soldiers for ten miles along the foothills of Ibile." Alisande hid a smile at Sauvignon's surprise. "The common folk have respect for the border, milord, but never overmuch."

"Borders are for nations," the peasant agreed, "but pathways are for kin."

Pack of the Quarry

"Well, at least you can't say the scenery is boring."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Matt eyed the hills to left and right--and ahead. Behind them, mountains towered, blocking the sun; it was midmorning, but they were still moving through false dawn. "Was I complaining? At least we're walking on level ground, more or less."

"We have come out of the foothills," Fadecourt assured them. "It will not be long ere we see little but plowed fields, and must needs go through many towns."

"I'd prefer to go around them, if you don't mind." Matt eyed the nearby slopes with suspicion. "Even out here in the open, I'm constantly watching for Gordogrosso's lackeys."

"His lackeys are noblemen," Yverne pointed out. "Dost'a not mean `the lackeys of his barons'?"

"Well, no, actually, I was kind of meaning what I said. Besides, how many of his barons were born aristocrats?"

Yverne flushed. "Most, though there were always a dozen or so whom he haled down, to make room for his low-born lackeys."

"Let that go on long enough, and there'll only be a handful whose ancestors go back before the sorcerers."

" 'Tis even so." Surprisingly, her eyes filled with tears. "Only a marcher baron is given his due here. And the parvenus are ever eager to seize what is not theirs."

Matt was horrified to realize she'd been talking personally. "Hey, now, I'm sorry! No offense intended. Don't worry, milady--we'll put the old houses back where they belong."

"Do not promise what you cannot assure," Fadecourt rumbled. "Only cadet branches of the old noble houses remain, and even they are so embittered that most have turned to evil ways, seeking to recoup their fortunes." Matt looked up, appalled. "You mean even if I do manage to kick out Gordo--uh, the sorcerer-king, I won't be able to find enough good people to administer the countryside for me?"

"Even so," Fadecourt answered.

But Yverne countered, "You must take them where you find them, Lord Wizard. There be good folk among the commoners, and some may prove able." That rocked Matt. "Uh, you'll pardon my saying it, milady, but--I'm a little surprised to hear a lady of the aristocracy lauding the abilities of commoners."

"Any who have kept their faith in God and kept being good," Yverne answered,

"are noble in heart. Mayhap goodness is the only true nobility left in Ibile, since 'tis done in the face of such adversity."

Somehow, Matt had thought of Ibile as masses of good, poor people, laboring under the yoke of oppression and cruelty imposed by evil magic. He hadn't realized that the licentiousness of the aristocrats would make the common people think that there was no reason in their maintaining honest conduct toward one another, or living by any law other than the aristocrats' selfishness. He hadn't stopped to think how thoroughly the violation of morals could trickle down to permeate every level of society. He should have, of course--Gresham's law applied to any medium, not just to money, and people's media of exchange were only analogies for their real interactions.

They rounded a hill, and Matt found himself confronting the physical image of the rejected virtues he'd just been thinking about.

Where two slopes met, there was a little cave, a grotto, and in it was a statue. But its paint was peeling, and vines had grown over it, almost hiding all but the face and the left hand. Matt looked closely, but didn't recognize the features. "Who's that?"

Fadecourt looked up, surprised. " 'Tis he to whom you have prayed, Lord Wizard--Saint Iago. Dost'a say you have prayed to him, but never knew his likeness?"

Matt reddened. "I'm afraid not. Worse, I don't know anything about him." Nearby were the remains of a small building, roof fallen in, stone walls breached, with soot stains over every place where there had been woodwork.