Her Majesty's Wizard #1 (44 page)

   Matt had been so busy staring at the hair, he'd missed the final transformation of the face. "Hey! He looks almost handsome!"

   Breaorgh looked up, fear in his eyes-the kind that can turn to fury. "What fell sorcery is this?"

   "Wizardry," Matt corrected. "Looked in a mirror lately?"

   The ogre glared. "A what?"

   That was right, peasants wouldn't know about mirrors in this culture. "A slowly moving river," Matt suggested. "A pond. A puddle, even! Go look-you'll be surprised."

   Breaorgh started to turn away, then hesitated, glancing at them sidelong.

   "Don't worry, we'll still be here when you get back-not because we want to, maybe; but we'll be here."

   Slowly, Breaorgh turned and started walking toward the slope he'd come from. His stride lengthened, quickened; then he was running up the slope, round a cliff-and was gone.

   Matt heaved a huge sigh of relief and let himself hang limp inside his armor. "Of course, I wouldn't say the operation was a total success."

   "Wherefore not? He is now clean-favored, even comely-if he bathes."

   "Well, maybe. But there's still a little matter of an extra two feet of height..."

   "A small concern," Sir Guy said airily. "Must you demand perfection? I cannot think there's a baron living that would not welcome him with joy into his private army."

   Rock growled in a minor avalance, and Breaorgh came skidding and sliding down the slope. He hit the floor of the pass, pounded toward them, and skidded to a stop ten feet away.

   Stegoman took a quick breath.

   "Swallow it," Matt said quickly; and the dragon gulped, then belched, looking extremely discomfited.

   "'Tis a miracle!" Breaorgh was wild-eyed, mouth hovering on the verge of a smile. "I am clean! My face is as it was before the change came on me! Ye are a wizard sure!"

   "Well, now that you mention it," Matt said, "yes."

   The ogre gave a cry of joy and dove at them, plunging his hands into the rock-pile. Matt shrank back inside his armor, then realized that Breaorgh wasn't reaching for him-he was heaving up boulders and pitching them away like softballs, plowing and digging his way into the talus slope like some monstrous puppy. Rock chips flew, and somewhere in the cloud of granite, Breaorgh cried, "I must see your foot!" He heaved away a last bushel of gravel and fell to his knees, seizing Matt's iron shoe. It was, amazingly, free.

   So was the rest of him, for that matter. He glanced over at Sir Guy; the knight and his horse both stood clear of the rock-slide, too.

   "I swear unending loyalty to ye!" Breaorgh bowed his forehead to the bedrock and jammed Matt's foot down on his neck. "This is the sign of it, your foot upon my head! I am your man, as long as I may live!"

   "Uh, well..."

   "Wizard!" Sir Guy said severely. Matt met his eyes and swallowed. Customs!

   "I accept your service," he said to Breaorgh, "and gladly. I'll have great need of men; we're expecting a major battle any day now."

   "Truly?" Breaorgh dropped Matt's foot and looked up, his face lit with glee. "May I, then, fight for ye?"

   "Indeed you may!"

   "You shall see the way of it," Sir Guy explained, "when you know to whom you have sworn fealty."

   Breaorgh glanced at Matt's blank shield and frowned. "I see no arms."

   "He has not yet been granted them; for he's the first in knighthood of his line. But as you've guessed, he's more than knight is, he is a wizard. This is Matthew, rightful Lord Wizard of Merovence."

   Breaorgh froze, bug-eyed again.

   Matt nodded sympathetically. "You see how it goes. I'm told that, once having accepted the title, I can be sure Malingo will try and do something about it."

   "Be assured he will!" Breaorgh scrambled to his feet. "But ye have no hope of besting him! The royal line to-which ye've sworn lies in dungeon at far Bordestang!"

   "No longer." Sir Guy moved in a little closer. "The wizard hath freed her."

   Breaorgh squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a quick shake. "Do I hear aright?" He turned to Sir Guy. "And the princess wanders free?"

   "Free and toward these mountains." Sir Guy nodded.

   Breaorgh's throat worked; he licked his lips. "Then I have sworn to aid her?"

   "Well, in effect, yes," Matt answered, "if you meant what you said about being my vassal."

   "Aye!" the giant roared. "I rejoice far more now in my oath! For the queen I'll fight!" He whirled away, tossing his sword up, catching the hilt, and slamming it back into the scabbard. "Nay, Lord Wizard! Lead me on! Set tasks before me -- I'll do them all, and more! I'll hew and chop as none has, since Colmain was turned to stone!" He jarred to a halt, a sudden, thoughtful look coming into his eyes. "If I brought ye more ogres, say a round score, and they did aid ye in this fight-would ye, then, serve them as ye've served me?"

   Matt took a deep breath, thinking fast. For all he knew, Breaorgh's colleagues might not even be of human blood. He had a vision of a twelve-armed, ten-foot tree trunk, with a mantishead... "If I can," he said slowly. "I can't promise anything more than that, Breaorgh. If I can figure out ways to change them back to normal, I will-but I can't be sure. I can only promise that I'll give it my best shot."

   "More than that, no creature could ask of ye!" Breaorgh cried. "That the greatest wizard in the land will try his best-'tis hope, at least! Nay, ye'll have a score of ogres battling for ye, Wizard!" He leaped away, sprinting across the pass, up the slope on the other side, and disappeared into a cleft between two cliffs.

   Matt tried to mop his brow, but all he got was a clang that resounded through his head. "Ouch! I keep forgetting!"

   "And have you, then, forgot me also?" A bright spark of light danced out of his armor to hover in front of his face. "I could have felled him and moved the rocks that bound you in an instant, Wizard!"

   It was Matt's turn to be dumbfounded. In the heat of battle, he'd forgotten all about the Demon.

CHAPTER 17

   They had almost come to the end of the pass when Stegoman stopped suddenly, lifting his head and craning it around, looking toward the backtrail. "I hear horses. Two... nay, three, approaching the lip of the pass."

   Matt turned a questioning eye to Sir Guy. "Should we hide now and decide whether or not they're. enemies later?"

   The knight considered it briefly, then shook his head. "Nay, Lord Wizard. If there be only three horses, we are a match for them. Let us see their faces."

   The heads of horses showed above the lip of the pass, then the bald spot of a tonsure.

   "I think..." Matt said.

   A steel helmet with a wealth of blonde hair cascading out of it poked up on the left, and long black hair came into view on the right.

   "That is who I- think it is-isn't it?"

   Sir Guy nodded. "They have made good time."

   Matt frowned. "We did have a twenty-four-hour layover. Even so..."

   "They must have ended the broil at the convent quickly," Sir Guy said.

   Father Brunel looked up and saw them. Relief and joy flooded his face. He waved frantically.

   Then Alisande saw them and stiffened in the saddle. Sayeesa lifted her head, but her posture didn't change.

   Father Brunel kicked his horse into a canter and slewed up beside them in a few minutes, breathing heavily. "Praise Heaven we have found you!"

   "Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "Someone on your trail?"

   "Nay, nay! But 'tis sorely tried I've been, accompanying these two ladies!"

   "This is good fortune, Sir Knight, Lord Wizard." Alisande pulled up beside the priest. "I had not thought to meet you till Grellig." Then she looked directly at Matt and stared. "How now, sir! What is this armor! Have you no respect for--"

   "Highness, your Lord Wizard is now Sir Matthew, a full knight created," Sir Guy informed her quietly.

   Alisande turned back to Matt with a frowning stare. "How can this be? Who has knighted him? Yourself, Sir Guy? You had ought--"

   "Not I, and I may not tell who 'twas. Yet be assured, 'twas a lord of high station."

   Alisande gazed at the Black Knight while it sank in; then, somehow, she began to look a little, frightened. Matt wondered why she should be so upset at the news.

   The princess nodded, turning away. "He is a knight, then." She glanced at Matt's shield. "No arms ... but of course. You have not been granted them; and you are the first of your family to gain this estate, are you not?"

   It rankled; Matt couldn't help feeling that his father, as a business executive, should rank with a knight; but, by the book, his family were definitely commoners. "True."

   Without the slightest hesitation, she said, "Your arms are those of the Lords Wizard, which are quartered with those of your family, if you wish it. We shall award them to you with due ceremony, once I am crowned queen."

   Nice kid! She went by the rulebook, even when it galled her, as Matt's knighthood seemed to. She'd probably be all for his painting the heraldic symbols on right there-if he could find a painter.

   "Yet I think," Alisande went on, "we must add to the Lord

   Wizard's arms some new device, which will cleanse them; for they have been sullied of late."

   "Sullied? Who has been?"

   They all turned to Sayeesa, who had just come up. She saw Matt, and her eyes widened. "Ah, then, the silvery gleam was more than a mailshirt! Is he a knight, then?"

   Alisande nodded.

   "My congratulations, sir." Her voice was low, softly modulated; but her lips quirked with humor. "So the title I first accorded you, knowing it to be false, is now yours by right!"

   Matt smiled. "Are you a seer, Sayeesa?"

   Her face darkened. Her gaze strayed away, brooding. "If I am, I know it not. Still..."

   Sir Guy cleared his throat. "We had not looked to see you so quickly, ladies. How has this come, that the siege of the convent was broken? And how is it you journey in Father Brunel's holy company?"

   "'Twas your doing." Alisande gave him a wry smile. "When you had fought through the host of the enemy, the Reverend Mother cried, `See, then, what true men can do! Come, will you do less?' Then out we came to the ramparts, to hurl at the enemy arrows and bolts and great balls of fire from the catapult, while this good postulant--" She nodded toward Sayeesa, and Matt realized, with a shock, that the ex-witch still wore a postulant's habit. "-did link hands with the abbess, who turned her power to ward off the enemy's spells. At dawn's light, Sister Victrix, who led the erstwhile bandits, sallied out with her sisters to sweep the field clear."

   "Come on!" Matt scowled. "A mere hundred nuns, against that whole army?" Of course, by then the enemy must have been well aged...

   Alisande nodded. "'Twas dawn; the power of the sorcerous army was waning, while ours waxed. And in that fortunate hour came knights of Moncaire, with this good priest leading. They rode into the rear of the baron's force and dealt blows about them recklessly-and our good Father Brunel strove as mightily as any of them."

   "'Tis true, to my shame." The priest nodded heavily, and Matt realized, with a start, that he had a broadsword slung across his back. "Yet what must needs be done, must be done. Still, I'll carry the screams of the dying to my grave."

   "So." Matt pursed his lips. "The enemy fled or got chopped up, according to their taste; and you rode out after us. No chance the army would come back that night?"

   Alisande shook her head, but Sayeesa said, "Some chance, surely; but the Reverend Mother would not hear of our staying to aid them. She commanded us forth, saying her Highness's quest was more vital than the safety of the Cynestrians' house. If, as we all expected, the army did not return that night, the Reverend Mother with all her nuns would soon follow us. They may be even now behind us, on the trail. She bade me accompany her Highness; for I've learned some small enchantments of her and might be of use, if sorcerers attacked our rightful queen."

   "I hate to agree with her, but it makes very good sense." Matt pursed his lips. "Any chance to test the theory?"

   "None." Alisande looked puzzled. "We passed the night in the open, lighted by a campfire; and not a soul did challenge us. Father Brunei slept soundly; Sayeesa and I stood watch-and-watch; we did not wish to waken him. He had ridden long, and warred as heavily as we, and had seen less sleep. Too, the night was still."

   "Never a whisper of danger." Sayeesa's brows knitted, perplexed.

   Somehow, it ail sounded ominous. "that I don't like."

   "Nor I, Lord Wizard," Alisande said darkly. "What does the sorcerer while all is calm?"

   "Brews one hell of a storm for us." Matt managed a faint smile. "What else would he be using the time for?"

   "Then there is small room for talk." Sir Guy turned his horse's head to the west. "Come, let us ride! We must be nigh Grellig ere nightfall!"