The Haunted Wizard - Wiz in Rhym-6 (48 page)

The druids shouted at the peasants, upbraiding and insulting them to move forward, but Niobhyte strode ahead, hand upraised to stop them.

Matt braced himself.

"We can have these men slay one another till only a score is left," Niobhyte called up to Brion, "but in the end it will come to a duel between the Lord Wizard and myself. Why not begin with that, and spare some lives?"

"Beware, Lord Matthew!" Brion said instantly. "This is a maneuver, nothing more. He hopes to best you, and knows if he does, my army is apt to flee!"

"What His Majesty says is true," Sir Orizhan agreed, "but more to the point, if we stand and fight, we shall likely overcome his rabble, who have nothing but greed and cruelty to push them on."

"Both true." Matt's stomach tied itself in a knot. "But what Niobhyte says is true, too. If I can beat him, his side will surrender without any bloodshed. I have to try."

"Are you so sure you can win?" Brion challenged.

"No," Matt said, "but I am sure you can hold your men in place even if I'm beaten—if you start exhorting them now." Then he stepped forward, and was into the ranks of his own men before Brion could call out a command to stop—and once he would have had to make it loud enough for the men to hear, he couldn't make it at all.

A pathway opened for Matt as men pulled back, doffing their caps in respect. He strode down from the front ranks to the level ground between the two armies to meet the leader of the false druids at last. But as he drew closer he recognized the man. He stopped, staring in outrage. "You!"

"Of course, me," sneered the Man Who Went Out the Window, "and if you'd had an ounce of brains, you would have realized it long ago."

Matt could, at least, recognize a gambit for destroying his self-confidence. He replied in kind. "A man with any real power wouldn't have had need for such subterfuge. He would have told me his name straightaway."

Page 245

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Niobhyte flushed with annoyance, even though he, too, obviously recognized the gambit. "You meddling fool! If you had stayed in your own country, you would not now face your death!"

"Be careful what you say," Matt told him. "If you really slew Drustan, you should remember that his son sits atop that hill listening."

"Let him hear then!" Niobhyte shouted. "Drustan was a fool and an incompetent!"

"Meaning that he wouldn't endorse your so-called religion, and even tried to execute you for it!" Matt matched him decibel for decibel. "Who do you think you are, to sit in judgment upon your own king?"

"I am Niobhyte, heir to the last High Druid!" the sorcerer thundered in anger. "Who are you to dispute my judgment, lowborn oaf?"

That stung. "I am Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence. So all along it was you who had slain Prince Gaheris!"

"It was not my plan, but it was of my arranging, though not of my hand." Niobhyte smiled, enjoying himself. "All that I myself did was to steal the prince's purse while he was distracted with his doxy, then set one of my most ardent acolytes the task of actually shoving his blade in the prince's back. But I will admit that it was masterfully thought out. It was upon hearing him say it that I first understood King John's true merit."

His voice rang off the hillside, and Brion started with surprise, his face turning tragic.

But Matt didn't even trust Niobhyte to lie straight. "Don't tell me it was really John's scheme!"

"Oh, yes," the chief druid said. "Don't believe the show of stupidity he puts on. He learned the pretense well while he was a child—it protected him from his brothers' jealousy, and from ambitious courtiers who thought he might be a threat."

"And saw other people punished for his crimes, because no one believed he was smart enough to figure out new ways of killing a cat or making dishes fall to the stone floor," Matt said grimly. Above on the hillside, Brion's face turned gray. He began to walk his horse downhill, and the soldiers opened up an avenue for him.

"Ah, you knew of the last?" the chief druid asked.

Matt hadn't—it had just been an example of a vicious boyhood prank. But he gave a contemptuous shrug, and Niobhyte interpreted it as assent.

"Not only duplicity—he also began to learn magic at a very early age," the chief druid told him. "He fled into the wood when some courtiers humiliated him during a hunt. There, he found the hut of an old witch-woman. He threatened to bring the hunt down upon her unless she taught him magic, and thus he began. Once he had learned all she had to teach, he found grimoires aplenty—but he slew her so there might be no one to tell what he had learned."

Matt shuddered. "Nice kid."

Page 246

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"A lad of great promise, I assure you," said Niobhyte, with a gleam in his eye. "I heard hints and rumors from other sorcerers, and came looking for this prince who had already devoted himself to evil in order to gain power. I tempted John with the notion of stabbing and poisoning his way to power. He seized the idea like a miser finding a gold coin in the dust—but was concerned that the Church might balk him. 'Give me protection from the law,' I told him, 'and I shall build so strong a following that no Church shall be able to stand against it.' He gave me a keen glance and said, 'I had wondered what you expected to gain by helping me,' and we have understood each other perfectly from that day."

"Able to trust one another because you were each able to predict perfectly what the other guy would do," Matt said dryly.

"Whatever would gain us more power and wealth." Niobhyte nodded.

"Perfect prediction, perfect trust."

"Even so—though I still must do as he commands." The chief druid grinned. "But not much longer. I shall soon have so tight a hold on the land that John will virtually have to do my bidding."

"Wait a minute." Matt held up a hand. "He's been giving orders to you?"

"Did you think I was the master?" Niobhyte laughed, with the ring of triumph. "Fool! No, John is quite evil enough to make Bretanglia miserable all by himself—and therefore have I been delighted to take orders from him. But it will be even more satisfying to give those orders when the king has become my puppet."

Brion reined his horse to a stop, his brow thunderous. "John shall never be your servant, for I shall be crowned instead of him, and shall see you and your evil minions stamped out root and branch!" So much for the parley. Matt groaned. Brion may have had honor, but he also had a lousy sense of timing.

"A curse upon you both!" Niobhyte recoiled, raising his staff. "So you thought to lull my suspicions with meaningless chatter while you surrounded my army and your wizard tailored a spell to hold me, did you?"

"I have not surrounded your army!"

"No, not yet! And you shall not!" Niobhyte raised his staff over his head, rattling out a verse in a foreign language that didn't sound anything like Gaelic.

Matt started chanting, too, even faster. He couldn't know what was coming, so he had to pull up something for a general purpose and hope it would give him time to shape a counterspell to match what came.

Of course, he didn't see his parents muttering their own spells and gesturing behind him. Matt called out,

"Then if you plan it, he

Changes organity

Page 247

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

With an urbanity

Full of inanity

Driving your foes to the verge of insanity!"

Niobhyte's staff snapped out, pointing at Matt, shuddering with the discharge of powerful energy—but Matt felt only a wave of weakness that passed him and left him feeling weary but still able. Brion sagged in his saddle, men forced himself upright. Behind him, commoners and knights alike cried out as the wave of fatigue hit them, then exclaimed in wonder as it passed. Matt realized his mother had diffused a spell aimed just at him, so that it widened and broadened to strike the whole army, and only weakened whom it was intended to destroy.

But Niobhyte dropped his staff, clutching at his temples with a cry of anguish, dropping to his knees.

"What have you done, you oaf! You have sent my brain awhirl!" Matt dashed forward to catch up the staff.

But Niobhyte scooped it from the ground and caught Matt by the tunic. He yanked Mart's head close, and Matt found himself staring into a maniac's eyes. "It shall gain you nothing!" Niobhyte screamed. "My power is no less! I shall call the energies from the very trees and grasses to roast your army!" Matt tried to twist away, but Niobhyte held him with hysterical strength, lips curving wider and wider with insane glee as he raised his staff higher and higher, intoning a singsong rhyme. Matt caught the occasional name of a deity, and realized the man was reciting an ancient Phoenician spell. He shuddered within—and without, too; his skin began to crawl with the feelings of titanic energies gathering around Niobhyte, more intense than anything he had ever felt. Nausea seized him as he realized that his own spell, driving the chief druid nearly insane, had vastly increased the strength of his viciousness, even though the power of the spell might burn out his brain.

But it also might burn out Brion and his whole army. Matt couldn't take the chance, He recited the first spell that came to mind, and as he recited, he realized that the fate of all the people in the kingdom really did hinge on that one verse. It actually was the moment of desperation that the real druids had foretold, and he thrust his face closer to Niobhyte's, his own expression becoming more fierce as Niobhyte's became more manic, Gaelic syllables pouring from Matt's lips to clash against those erupting from Niobhyte's, until Matt's voice soared to the finish, triumphantly ahead of the false druid's chant. The earth shook beneath them.

Men cried out.

Niobhyte chanted more loudly, voice taking on a ring of desperation; his spell was nowhere near done.

"Down!" Matt shouted.

But Niobhyte pushed himself up to his feet with a burst of strength, shouting out syllables as he struck Matt's hand away, raising his staff over his head.

The earth buckled beneath Niobhyte's feet. He fell, screaming, the spell unfinished.
Page 248

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Hit the dirt!" Matt shouted. "Before the earth knocks you down!" His parents threw themselves to the ground. The peasants, seeing them, likewise dove for the turf. Brion dismounted, clinging tightly to the reins as he knelt. Whinnying in terror but obeying its training, the war-horse knelt with him. Rosamund and the other knights followed his lead. But Niobhyte's army wasn't about to imitate their foes. With a cry of glee, they charged Brion's men. The earth bucked beneath their feet, then sank a yard.

Niobhyte's men screamed as they fell, kicking and laying about at imagined enemies, stabbing one another in their panic—but Brian's men clung to the grass, some crying out in terror, but a few, then more and more, calling out the words of a prayer, until most of his army was praying aloud to the God who held them all in His hand, and the earth they lay on, too.

"What have you done, you fool!" Niobhyte screamed. "What powers have you unleashed?"

"Tectonics," Matt shouted back.

A huge explosion filled the air, turning into a roaring that echoed all about them, a barrage of sound that made strong men cling to the earth, howling in terror—but that very earth heaved and sank again. Then, in the distance, beyond and above the forest, he saw a huge gray mound rise up, and knew it was the sea.

It fell, and another rose in its place. Only then did the sound of its breaking batter against Mart's ears. He realized there was now a coastline where there had never been one before. The earth stilled.

Matt scrambled to his feet. "Back!" He waved Brion away. "Back to the high ground! This neck of land is sinking, and the sea is coming in!"

"Back, men of mine!" Brion levered himself up to cling to his saddle, then barked a command at his charger, and the horse pushed itself to its feet, dragging him upright. Matt ran to help him get a foot in a stirrup and push himself aboard. All over the field, squires ran to help their knights mount, and the whole army scrambled to its feet and turned as Brion led Matt and his companions back and away from the field of battle that they had striven so hard to find.

"Away!" Niobhyte screamed at his men. "To Merovence! We can be sure the wizard would not devastate his own country! Find the high ground to the south!"

Some of his horde turned to the south, but most howled in fright and ran to follow Brion, leaving their weapons in the grass. Niobhyte whirled, howling with anger, and threw fireballs after them. They exploded, and dozens of men screamed as they died, burned in seconds. The rest ran all the harder north, howling in fear.

"Take them prisoner!" Matt shouted at Brion. "I think they're ready to reconvert!" Brion barked orders at his knights, and peasants and fishermen fanned out to take the enemy into custody. The synthodruids submitted meekly to having their hands tied behind their backs, as long as they
Page 249

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

were allowed to keep walking while Brion's soldiers did the tying. Behind them Niobhyte screamed curses. His former congregation shuddered, but kept on striding north. A cry of alarm went up from the men who were hiking south. Matt turned and looked; they were lifting and shaking their feet, exclaiming in fear. One phrase rose from the hubbub clearly, from hundreds of throats in fear and panic: "Flood! Flood!"

"Seek the high ground!" Niobhyte shrieked. "March quickly, fools, or you'll drown!" The men started running.

"That is well advised," Brion told his men. "March quickly, before the water claims you." Mama and Papa caught up with Matt, panting. "Son," said Mama, "what have you done?"