The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (44 page)

"Ah! Then you believe that if you are a scholar, you have the obligation to teach!"

"Only if I am asked." Arouetto smiled. "And I have not been." He seemed relieved.

Matt was not. "Too bad there aren't any universities to confer the degree-you're definitely a PhD. No wonder Rebozo thought you were a threat."

"Yes-for if someone had asked me to teach, my students might have begun to think and question." Arouetto's eyes sparkled.

"But you're no threat at all to King Boncorro's overall plan-in fact, your ideas are just what he's aching for!"

"All the more reason to hide me away here, is it not? No, I am no threat to King Boncorro's goals-but I am a threat to the chancellor's Plans for frustrating his Majesty's efforts, and corrupting the king himself into the bargain.

"Oh?" Matt's attention suddenly focused even more sharply on the scholar's words. "I only met the two of them briefly, you understand. You think the chancellor has a deliberate plan to stop Boncorrols chances of doing good?"

"Not just to stop him-to pervert all his efforts for the good of his people into ways to cause them suffering as great as any they have ever known. Nay, worse, for it will be a kind of agony of the spirit they have never encountered before, and are ill-prepared to endure!"

"That makes sense," Matt said slowly. It really did-the king having his own private in-house brothel, conferring status and legitimacy on prostitution; the organized campaign to seduce country girls into the business, and the men into crime-Matt realized that something

that grew up that fast had to have been planned and encouraged. He wondered if Rebozo had agents leading the runaways south, instigating and twisting their revelry. "You mean Boncorro has a whole strategy mapped out for the enrichment of the commonwealth, but Rebozo has a strategy for corrupting it?"

"That is my guess-though I must confess I have no proof." "Other than observation, generalization, and prediction, no. It's impossible to run a real laboratory experiment on people; you need field studies, and the field is pretty boggy." But Matt was galvanized, excited, and ebullient.

"Your ideas really are what King Boncorro needs-something to temper his secularism with humanism, injecting values that might forestall the worst excesses Rebozo's trying to lead him into!"

"Only the worst," the scholar cautioned. "Humanism is not a religion, after all-though it is not opposed to religion, either." Matt jumped up. "Let's go!"

Arouetto stared at him. "Go? Go where?"

"Why, back to Latruria, of course! You've got no business loafing around here when there's so much work for you at home!"

"But how are we to break out?" Arouetto asked, bewildered. Matt shrugged it off with airy disregard. "With your brains and my magic, we should be able to find a way easilybut not if we don't try! Come on! Time for research! To the laboratory! Let's hit the books!" Arouetto began to rise from his bench, his smile growing, his eyes kindling with excitement. It was too bad that the chimera chose just that moment to attack.

The chimera came flying over the wall of the house on short, stubby wings that could not possibly have home its weight-after all, it was ha-sically a winged lion with a dragon's tail. It dropped down at them like an eagle stooping, if eagles could roar loudly enough to shake a house. Matt bellowed, "Duck!"

"No, a chimera!" Arouetto stood gazing up in wonder.

"I mean get dovrn! Scholars are only supposed to be fascinated by metaphorical chimeras!" He hit Arouetto with a body block. They went flying, and a huge thud shook the ground while an angry roar shook the trees.

"But 'tis Classical!" Arouetto struggled to free himself. " 'Tis a monster from Greek legend, and I never dared to make one myself!" Now that somebody had, of course, he was all eagerness to study it, and probably wouldn't remember why he hadn't made one himself until it bit his head off. He struggled valiantly, and Matt was amazed at the gaffer's strength. But he could feel hot breath on his legs, and the roar was echoing all about him as he rolled aside and shouted,

"Like calculus degenerate, It don't want to integrate!

His parents a re sed to mate!

Let all components separate!"

Teeth clashed shut, and a streak of pain slashed Matt's leg. He howled and rolled aside-just in time to see an eagle struggle loose from the chimera's back, while a small dragon disengaged itself from the monster's rear end, leaving a lion tail behind. The lion fell over, bellowing in pain, and the dragon bellowed, too, scorching the walls. The eagle was smarter-it screamed and flew away.

"We've only got a minute or two while they're disoriented!" Matt snapped. "Then we'll have two monsters to fight instead of one! Quick! Think up something to kill them!"

But Arouetto was out of commission. He was staring at the tableau in front of him, entranced.

Matt turned, brain racing, trying to think up a new cure-and discovered that lions and dragons seemed to be natural enemies. Actually, first he discovered the fear of seeing a lion stalking to-ward him, pausing in its roaring only long enough to lick its chops. But the dragon saw, let out a blast like a steam whistle, and charged to get to the tasty morsel first.

They collided, of course.

Scaly shoulder slammed furry shoulder, and the lion turned on the dragon in instant fury, lashing out with a taloned paw and a bellow. But his claws rattled harmlessky off steely scales, and the dragon blasted him with high-octane halitosis. The lion howled in pain and fury and leaped.

Somehow, the big cat managed to land on the dragon's back. The reptile instantly dove to the ground and rolled, but the charred lion hopped loose, then jumped back in to dig its claws into the soft underbelly. The dragon screamed with agony and locked its jaws on the lion's neck, then started clawing him with its talons. Roaring and clawing, the two beasts rolled over and over, crushing marble benches and knocking over statuary.

"Wizard, stop them!" Arouetto cried. "They are hurting each other!" "That's putting it mildly. Why me? You've had a lot more experience with this illusion stuff than I have!"

"Not with living creatures! Stop them! Annihilate them if you must, but end their pain!"

"Oh, all right," Matt grumbled. He took a good hard look at the bloody scene before him, then closed his eyes, envisioning that same scene, then adding a little touch he'd seen in his childhood ... Arouetto cried out in relief.

Matt opened his eyes and saw a yellow column poking down at an angle, with a rounded pink cylinder on the end that went back and forth across the struggling monsters. The first stroke eliminated the dragon's head and the lion's back; the second took off the top of the

lion's head and the end of the dragon's tail. With each stroke, the pink cylinder removed more and more, not knocking them aside, but simply making them disappear. One last stroke took out the lion's feet and the dragon's spine, and they were gone. A last roar and steam blast seemed to echo in the distance, then faded away. Matt closed his eyes, imagining the yellow column fading away, too. Arouetto ex-claimed in wonder, and Matt opened his eyes just in time to see the last vague outline dissipate. The giant characters "No. 2" lingered a moment longer, then they evaporated, too.

"Most amazing!" Arouetto breathed. "What was that mystical engine, Lord Wizard?"

"We call it an'eraser'where I come from," Matt explained.

"In this case, though, it was just a mental construct."

"Are not all these illusions?" Arouetto turned to him with a frown. "But who made the chimera?"

"Somebody who's out to get you." Matt never minded stating the obvious-after all, he had taught undergraduates.

"But who? I know all the sorcerers and wizards here, and we sorted out our differences long ago!"

Matt had a quick mental vision of that sorting out-the scholar's Greek warriors and Roman legions tearing apart the sorcerers'

synthetic demons. He would have liked to have been on hand for that one. No, on second thought, maybe not-he had become too involved with the conflicts of this pocket universe as it was. "Well, if it's not one of the established residents, it must be somebody new in the neighborhood."

"But how would someone new know that I have an atrium? It is not obvious from the outside of the house."

"A point," Matt admitted, "and it raises a very nasty possibility." "What is that?"

"Well, if it isn't somebody new, and it isn't somebody old, then it has to be somebody from outside this frame of reference."

"From the real world?" Arouetto stared. "But who?"

"Somebody who knows your weakness for anything Classical, and somebody who's used to keeping an eye on things, just in case one of you prisoners wants to make trouble. Add to that: somebody who has enough magical power to see into this pocket universe, and you have-"

"Rebozo!" Arouetto cried.

Matt nodded grimly. "Glad I didn't have to say it. If you came to the same conclusion, maybe it's not just my nasty, suspicious nature." "I should think not! Once you state the evidence, the conclusion is

obvious! But why would he seek to obliterate me now, when he has been content to keep me in obscurity thus ... Of course! I must have become a greater threat!"

Matt nodded. "That would make sense, yes."

"But how?"

"Because there's suddenly a chance that you'll be able to break out of here."

IlWhy Arouetto's eyes glowed. "Of course! Because you are here with me!"

"Right." Matt nodded. "Neither one of us is all that much of a threat alone, but together, we're a time bomb!"

"A time bomb?" Arouetto frowned. "What is-,hat?"

"I'll tell you when we have more time," Matt said. "Right now, I think we'd just better turn our attention to going back to the real world. " Arouetto turned to look at his villa sadly. "It will be regrettable, leaving this charming place."

"I don't mean to push you," Matt said. "If you want to stay-"

"No, no!" Arouetto turned back to him in alarm. "The company of real living people is far more important than this comfort. Of course, it would be pleasant to have both-4ut we never can, you know, Lord Wizard. One thing can only be gained at the price of another." "Yes, I know," Matt said softly, "but you're wise enough to learn the price before you've bought it. I know a lot of people who get what they want, then discover what they've lost in the process-when it's too late to get it back."

"It seems to be a Law of Compensation." Arouetto gave him a conspiratorial smile. "And I am ready to yield this treasure, to gain my freedom."

"Maybe you'll win King Boncorro's favor," Matt said. "Maybe he'll build you a villa just like this, and you can commission sculptors to make these statues for real."

"That would be wonderful, of course," Arouetto sighed, "but no other sculptor could craft these statues, exactly as I have imagined them-for no other sculptor has my mind, and we cannot truly share and mingle our thoughts while we are alive, Lord Wizard. We must make do with the clumsy medium of words, written or spoken, and accept their imperfections."

"Again, compensation." Matt nodded. "Maybe we can figure out a way for you to come back and visit now and then."

"That would be pleasant." But Arouetto didn't seem to care that ar

dently. "Still, as I have said, one must make a choice in life, my friend-and I will choose living people over lifeless marble in an instant."

"Well, it might take a little longer than that," Matt cautioned.

"My spells don't seem to have been working all that well in La-truria-in fact, I've been trying to hold down on the magic, and the reason I haven't been willing to admit it to myself is that it might not work as well as I'm used to."

" Certainly not," Arouetto said. "You are a wizard devoted to Right and Good; your magic is based on Faith."

Matt stared, taken aback by the scholar's instant understanding. Then he shook himself and protested, "But my spells worked before I believed in the power of religion in this universe!"

"You may have believed more than you know," Arouetto explained.

"Besides, even if you did not knowingly believe very strongly in God, you did believe in Right and Goodness, and their power to ultimately triumph."

"Well, sure, ultimately. .

"Then, as I've said, your magic was based on Faith," Arouetto said with satisfaction. "But Latruria is a land steeped in cynicism, even in doubt, at least so far as the powers of Righteousness and Goodness are concerned. Therefore your magic was weakened." Matt sighed. "That makes all too much sense. I wish my friend Saul were here-he's a natural skeptic, so the jaundiced views of the Latrurian people would only strengthen his magic."

"Is he a wizard, too?"

Matt felt a sudden gust of breeze, but answered, "Yes, though he even questions that."

"Who questions what?" said a brittle voice. They spun, staring. Then a grin stretched wide across Matt's face, and he advanced with open arms. "Saul! What a sense of timing!" After the glad greetings and the introductions, Matt had to try to ex-plain to Arouetto why Saul wore a barbarian horseman's loose trousers and short tunic, why it was tucked into his pants instead of hanging over, and why he wore rider's boots when he didn't ride much.

"Inquisitive, isn't he?" Saul asked.

Matt shrugged. "He's a scholar." Then he tried to explain their predicament to his friend-and to Arouetto why Saul wore nothing but blue: light blue shirt and dark blue trousers. Matt did notice that the shirt bore a closer resemblance to homespun than to chambray, that the trousers were obviously monk's cloth instead of denim, and that their blue wasn't the real softness of indigo faded, but some local substitute. Still, he had to admit that Angelique had done a very creditable job of imitating blue jeans and chambray in a medieval setting. He was tempted to wonder why she had bothered-but then, he knew Saul.

Then they settled down to some serious plotting.