The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (27 page)

"Uh...well, yes, I know I owe you a lot of thanks, but..."

" 'Tis more than thanks," Puck said with a wolfish grin. "Know that, when you accept aid from one such as I, you do incur an obligation to us--and we husband our resources; we stay hard by you, seen or unseen, until you've done by us as we've done by you."

Matt groaned. "Meaning that, unless I get a chance to save you from as much grief as you've just spared us, that you're my permanent companion?"

"Till debt do us part--or its discharge, at least. Yet I, more than any other sprite, grow restless in boredom. You must find occupation for me, Wizard--and if you can find no better diversion for me, I shall have to find my pleasure in tormenting you!"

Matt swallowed heavily, frantically trying to think of a way out. It was Yverne who found it. "Can you not be patient for a short while? For surely King Gordogrosso will find new terrors to set upon us, and right soon."

"Yes!" Matt agreed with vehemence. "Now that he's finally taking us seriously enough to notice us, we'll probably have one monster after another to fight. At least one a day!"

Puck pursed his lips around a smile, eyeing Matt and considering." 'Tis a better offer than I've had this last hundred years..."

"Take it, I prithee!" Yverne begged. "We shall have need of you right soon, I doubt not--and we would be so very wearied of staying within this shrine, for dread of you."

That decided the issue; Puck's smile disappeared as he glanced up at the statue of the saint, then quickly glanced away. When he looked back, his impish grin had spread across his face again. "Well, since it is a beautiful damsel who doth ask it of me, and a virgin to boot, with all the powers of enchantment that brings..."

Matt tried not to look surprised. He had wondered if a grown woman could be a virgin in Ibile, but Puck had just settled the issue. Considering the elf's earthy connections, he didn't think Hop 'o My Thumb could be wrong about such a thing.

"I shall travel with you!" Puck said magnanimously, then quickly held up a palm, modestly closing his eyes. "Nay, do not thank me--I shall be glad to aid you. Only find work for me, or..." He gave Matt a keen look. "I shall find my own amusements."

Matt didn't have to ask who would be the butt of the elf's humor. But he made himself smile anyway, and beckoned his friends out of the shrine. He turned back to Puck with a smile of welcome, feeling as though he had just tucked a nuclear bomb into his pocket. He promised himself that he would never ask Puck for another favor--owing him one was bad enough.

Goblins in Bondage

Matt checked to make sure his wand was stuck in his belt, then turned back to his companions. "Okay--sun's up. Let's..."

"Shh!" Narlh glowered at him, then turned back toward the shrine, bowing his head.

Matt's voice trailed off; he saw Yverne kneeling at the railing of the shrine, head bowed in prayer. Fadecourt came up silently and knelt on the other side of the gateway.

"What holds you?" Puck demanded, arms akimbo. "Let us be off! The night will come too soon, and with it, the spirits of evil!"

Narlh gave him a glare. "We're thanking the one who protected us from the monsters."

"Why, thanks are welcome, though the victory cost me little effort! But I hear you not."

"They're thanking Saint Iago," Matt explained. "We wouldn't have been alive to call you, if he hadn't kept the gargoyles out of his shrine." But Puck had already shied away at the mention of the saint. "Wizard, please! Have a care for my ears!"

"He should have a care for his allies," Narlh snorted. "What's the matter, Wizard--think you're too good to give credit where it's due?" Matt balked; praying at statues ran against his grain. In fact, praying to anything had kind of disgusted him, ever since he'd learned about the development of religion in his freshman college courses.

On the other hand, that attitude had softened a bit, since he'd been in Merovence...

"Kind of hard to take credit, under the circumstances, isn't it?" He sighed.

"And calling it `coincidence' is stretching things a bit--here. Sure, Narlh, I'll pitch in." He went back to the gateway.

Yverne and Fadecourt looked up in expectation from either side. So this had to be a public spectacle, did it?

Of course--he was the leader.

Since when? He didn't remember standing for election. Since he came to Ibile. The whole expedition was his idea. Admittedly, an idea hatched in a moment of very dubious inspiration, but his own, nonetheless. He took a deep breath, looked up at the tranquil face above him, then reminded himself that the statue wasn't the saint, but only a reminder of him. Deliberately, Matt turned his eyes up to the sky. "I thank you, Saint Iago, for your protection and aid. I thank you with all my heart and pray you'll ever be with me!" The shrine was awfully quiet.

Then Narlh sniffed. "Kinda cheap, isn't he?"

Matt turned, frowning. "What do you mean? Saints don't want bribes."

"Of course not," Fadecourt said slowly, "but it might be polite to at least indicate willingness to return the favor."

Matt frowned at him while his meaning percolated in. Then he sighed and turned away, calling out, "Stand by me, Saint Iago, while I do all that I can to save Ibile! Only guide me, and protect me, and show me the way to God that you have already followed!"

And, of course, that meant he was even more tightly bound to do or die than he'd already been.

Matt set a hard pace that day--Narlh had to stretch his legs to keep up with his demands, and started grumbling even earlier than usual, about noon. Matt called a halt for lunch then, somewhat against his will. As they finished off the leftovers from two nights before, Fadecourt asked, "Wherefore your haste, Lord Wizard? Have a care for the damsel."

Matt looked up at Yverne, startled. "I'm sorry, milady. Since Narlh's giving us a ride, I thought--"

"Rightly." She cut him off with a weary smile. "And, truly, you must be far more wearied than I."

Matt frowned, his brain clicking over. "But even a saddle can be tiring, right?"

"I am accustomed to riding," she assured him, "and we have matters of greater moment than comfort."

"Yes. Kind of what I was thinking, too." But Matt frowned, brooding. "I want to move as fast as I can, now that the King seems to have found us. Once he has us spotted and analyzed--"

"Any lies?" Narlh frowned. "Sure, I know he'll lie every chance he gets, but what's that got to do with you?"

"No, 'analyzed'--meaning he has challenged me, tested me, found out some idea of how much magic I can do and can't."

"You do mean he has taken your measure," Fadecourt interpreted.

"In a manner of speaking--and I'm hoping the spells he's knitting will be a bad fit. But now that he does have some idea of my magical strengths and weaknesses, and what kind of allies I have, he'll probably be doing everything he can to make things tough for us. So the longer we take getting to Orlequedrille, the more chances he has to eliminate us before we can do any damage--and the more time he has to prepare his defense." Fadecourt almost choked on his cup of water. Wheezing, he looked up at Matt.

"Wizard, what defense has he need or. Even if we came to his castle this instant, what could we do?"

"I don't know yet," Matt admitted, "but there must be something, or he wouldn't be trying to stop us."

"There is truth in that," Yverne agreed. "Yet he is quite likely to smite you simply because you are not evil--but even more likely to strike, because you have saved me from his minions. Worse, you now keep me safe from him. Nay, gentlemen, surely 'twould be the course of wisdom to--"

"We would not think of it," Fadecourt cut her off. Matt nodded. "Don't you think of it, either, milady. Please."

"We're all together on this," Narlh growled. "Besides, he'd strike us out of sheer revenge, milady."

"That's decided, then," Matt said quickly, giving Yverne no chance to interrupt.

Puck appeared in the middle of their circle. "Not so quickly, mortal! I have not spoken yet!"

Matt eyed him askance. "You really feel the need to?" Puck took a breath.

"On this topic, I mean!"

Puck deflated. "Nay. You cannot abandon the maiden." Yverne dimpled.

Matt took it as a sign of acceptance. "Fine, then. I do wonder, though, why Gordogrosso isn't causing us any more trouble. I mean, now that he's found out where we are..."

"Speak his name, and he will hear you," Fadecourt corrected him. "Let us speak merely of "the king."

Matt frowned. "What difference does it make? We know he's found us now, and he can track us with that magic mirror of his."

"In all likelihood," the cyclops said slowly. "Yet 'tis also to be marked, Lord Matthew, that there be rumors..."

Matt hated it when people didn't finish sentences. "Rumors of what?"

"That there do be places into which the king cannot see," Yverne explained. Narlh nodded. "Nobody knows where they are, though."

"Interesting." Matt's gaze drifted as he considered the idea. "Logically, we should have been in one of them last night..."

"Well, true," Fadecourt admitted. "Evil magic could not probe into holy places--but belike the king saw all around the shrine."

Matt nodded. "True, true. I mean, if the gargoyles could be there, why not the king's eyes?" He straightened as the implications hit him. "Hey, wait a minute! What's to keep him from having spies, for the places his minor can't see into?"

"Naught," Fadecourt said grimly, "and sorcerers are reputed to have many such."

"You mean, besides the men and women they've corrupted for the purpose?"

"Oh, assuredly." Puck grinned, apparently reveling in the problem. "There are spirits a-plenty who delight in such service--and many more who can be coerced in some manner."

"Like familiars, you mean?"

"Aye, though sorcerers' familiars are oft demons disguised, bound to serve the foolish mortals who trade worldly power for eternal torment. Yet there are many who are not of Hell, but who care not who they hurt, or who are malicious by nature."

Matt stared. "You don't mean elves would work for the king!"

"Nay, surely not!" Puck dismissed the notion with a toss of his head. "Yet there are kobolds, though they rarely come so far to the west, and they delight in pain and harm--and lamias, and basilisks, and ghouls..."

"I get the point." Matt nodded, frowning. "Goblins, too, and all manner of cobblies. Which means that our every move will be shadowed, unless I can figure out some way of chasing off any spies that come near us." Or unless he found some way to use those spies for his benefit--some way to have them report where he was, when he wasn't really there. He began toying with notions of stocks, artificial images of him and his friends--and doppelgangers, and analogues, and flat-out copies...

His friends noticed his sudden silence and abstracted gaze. They exchanged glances, finished their lunches, packed up, and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Lord Wizard," Yverne said, "we must walk."

"Huh?" Matt snapped out of his reverie. "Oh! Sure. Sorry, I seem to have drifted off there..."

But he was no sooner on his feet and trudging westward, than he lapsed back into the daze of thought. His friends took the burden of conversation on themselves--and of keeping watch.

Toward evening, the road came parallel to a small river. It made sense--agricultural roads frequently followed the rivers, which had done the great service of cutting through the hills for the farmers. Here and there, though, the hills did indeed rise up--and as the sun was setting, they came to a high bluff, with the road rising up beside it, so that there was a steep hillside to the left, and a steeper hillside falling down to the water on their right.

Fadecourt stopped. "I like this not."

Matt jolted out of his daze. "Huh? Don't like what?...Oh."

"Be a great place for an ambush," Narlh rumbled.

"Aye," Fadecourt agreed. "The slope is too steep for bandits to run down without a great risk of falling--though they might rain arrows upon us."

"Bad enough."

"Aye--but what I truly am wary of is the chance of entrapment between a force before us and one behind."

Matt studied the road, then said, "We have to go through here some time, right?"

"Well," Narlh said, "we could climb the hillside before we get to the road. Or..."

Matt didn't make him finish the offer; he didn't particularly want to be in the air, if archers were going to be shooting at him. "We'd be sitting ducks on the hillside, too, wouldn't we?"

"Surely," Fadecourt agreed.

"How about flying ducks?" Narlh grunted.

Yverne turned a beaming smile on her mount. " 'Tis sweet of you to offer!

But I would as lief not be a target, afoot or aloft."

"Flying out of a jam, though," Matt said, "has definite possibilities. So, all in all, our best course of action is to keep going--but carefully."

"I fear so," Fadecourt growled.

"Then forward we go." Matt set off. "At least this way we'll find out whether or not the king really is watching us."

"There must be a better way to get news," Narlh grumbled, but he followed Matt down the road.

In trepidation, they came up to the crest of the hill. Malt's heart thudded so loudly that he was expecting an accompaniment as they passed the top and started down the other side, but no enemies sprang out at them. Still, he didn't breathe easily until they were all the way down, and fifty yards farther along the road. Then Matt relaxed with a sigh, wiping his brow. "Thank Heaven! Maybe the king can't see us, after--"

A horn sounded behind them.

Matt whirled about and saw a man in a robe standing at the crest of the hill road, gesticulating and, presumably, chanting. To either side of him stood men in plate armor, seeming inhuman and certainly impersonal behind their iron helms. As Matt watched, they kicked their horses into motion and started down the slope.

Then Fadecourt shouted, and Matt spun back to the front just in time to see a phalanx of pikemen spilling out of the woods with an armored knight at their head.