The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (44 page)

"Yes." Matt gazed at the flame in the sconce, musing, then decided it was nothing threatening. "It's just a very good system for lighting this stairway only when it's needed. Fadecourt, tell me when that first torch goes out."

"I will," the cyclops answered, and Matt went on down the spiral. Another sconce burst into flame before him.

"The light has gone from the wall behind me," Fadecourt reported. Matt nodded. "Each torch comes on as we near it, then fades as we pass it. Very efficient spell--and one that also warns the inhabitants that we're here, no doubt."

"If there are any to heed it," Sir Guy pointed out.

"There must be. The flames have burst forth from the hillside, whene'er the king has attacked." But Fadecourt was frowning, too, uncertain. With good reason. If the torches could be automatic, why not the castle's defenses? "We'll find out in a few minutes," Matt said. "Let's go." They went on down the tower stair with no more discussion, moving as quietly as they could on the stone.

Finally, the stairway opened out, and the last torch showed them a broad chamber beyond. Matt stepped out into that great room and saw faded tapestries covering the walls, an elaborate carved chair on a distant dais, and a fireplace with roaring flames. Beside it, hands locked behind his back and gazing at the fire in contemplation, stood a short, plump man with baggy hose and a threadbare doublet, high forehead shading into a bare scalp fringed with long, gray hair that hung down about his shoulders. His face was wan and wrinkled, with a brooding, thoughtful look, lit from below by firelight.

He seemed unaware of their presence. If his spell on the tower stair had given warning, he had paid it no heed.

It seemed a little rude to call out, so Matt cleared his throat. The old man spun toward the sound, eyes wide in horror. He gave a little cry and cowered back, hands upheld to ward them off, quavering, "Enemies! My friends, come! We are beset!"

Suddenly the air was thick with gauzy, translucent shapes with huge gray moth wings and stunted, gnarled, almost-human forms. Wispy beards adorned faces like oak burls, and clenched fists pounded the companions. One blow struck through and into Matt's head; he heard nothing, but a blinding pain shot through his skull. "Max! Disperse them!"

But Puck was already in action, shooting from one creature to another, countering blows with his own, tiny, upraised palm--and the force of the punch rebounded, knocking the moth-men awry. Max danced out to join him, singing in glee as he shot through and through the translucent forms; the moth-men began to keen with pain.

"Cold Iron!" Sir Guy roared, whipping out his sword and whirling it over his head. The spirits scattered, pulling back from his blade, but hovering just beyond its reach, and their keening took on the tone of anger.

"Behind us!" Fadecourt called, and Matt whipped about to see more moth-men closing in from the rear. "It's a trap after all!" he cried. "Gordogrosso set an ambush for us! I should've known!"

"Gordogrosso, do you say?" the old man cried in surprise. "Nay, desist, my friends! The enemy of my enemy is my ally!"

The moth-men pulled back, simmering with anger, and Puck shot toward them.

"Nay, hold, goblin!" Sir Guy called. " 'Twould be pity of my life, if we were to slay friends!"

Puck hovered, trading glares with a moth-man, but held his station.

"Patch 'em up, Max," Matt called. "Wait a minute--no. Just stop hurting them. If they are friends, we'll heal them."

"You have the power to undo the harm you've done?" the old man asked, amazed.

"That much, I can do," Matt confirmed. "The question is, should I?" The old man spread his hands. "That's to say, am I your friend? And to that, I can only reply that I have resisted the king's armies and magic all my life, as did my father before me, and his father before him."

"Are your moth-men that strong?"

The moth-men set up an angry buzzing, and the old man frowned. "Call them well-wists, for they wist of all wells and other depths beneath the earth. They do flit through rock and soil as birds do fly through air, and thus learn all the secrets of the hidden places beneath the ground."

"Oh." Matt lifted his head, understanding. "It's not just their power to hurt that gives them strength--it's their knowledge."

"Aye. 'Tis they showed my grandsire how to defend his castle with flame, in return for some service he had done them."

Matt was suddenly very interested in the nature of that service--but the old man was asking, "Are you not the king's henchmen, sent here to slay me and seize my castle?"

"Never!" Fadecourt snapped.

Yverne lifted her head, indignant at the insult. "I have suffered too much from this vile monarch who broke faith with my father, good sir."

"None of us would even think of siding with Gord--uh, the king," Matt explained, without apparently attracting their enemy's attention. Or had they attracted his attention, but without risk? Certainly the castle seemed impregnable, even from magic. Matt felt more confident, but also felt the heavy weight of an obligation to be honest. "Myself, I'm out to assassinate the king." It sounded ugly, when he came right out and said it--but that was what he intended, after all, and if there were anything wrong about it, he'd better find out ahead of time. "Not that I usually advocate murder, you understand, but he deserves it if anybody does, and it's the only way to save the people of Ibile from him. I'd prefer to kill him in open battle, of course, but I don't think I'll get the chance."

"Nay, surely not." Finally, the old man smiled. "And if you are indeed his enemies, you are welcome in my castle. But how came you hither?"

"Looking for a hiding place from the king," Matt explained, "but one where we could keep watch on him and try to lay some plans about invading his castle. Our dragon friend--" He nodded over his shoulder at Stegoman. "--brought us to your roof, and we came down the stairs. You don't seem to keep many guards, sir."

"I am the Don de la Luce, and I keep no guards indeed, save these my friends, who will come at my call--yet I would not trouble them without need."

"Neither would I." Matt gave the indignant well-wists a guilty glance. "I hadn't meant to hurt friends--but I didn't know you were on my side." The biggest well-wist buzzed angrily.

"He says that they did not know you were not assassins sent by the king," Don de la Luce interpreted. "They knew only that you were intruders, and as such, sought to protect me by driving you away."

"Yeah, I can understand how I must have looked from their point of view. Well, uh, I'm sorry, well-wists."

Another moth-man--or was it woman?--stepped up beside the biggest, buzzing in an indignant tone.

"She says you might show your contrition by healing them," the don explained.

"Oh, yeah! What's wrong with me? No, don't answer that! Yeah, I should have fixed them up in the first place." Matt turned away, frowning while he tried to dredge up the appropriate verse, then turned back to the well-wists, spreading his open palms to include them all, and chanting,

"Where steel and fire have torn and singed,

Gossamer strands shall mend and knit,

Making whole what's torn and tattered.

What friends unknown have broke and shattered,

Shall meld and mend, and heal what's split,

Now setting firm what came unhinged!"

As he spoke, the very air began to shimmer. The well-wists buzzed and sang, churning together in consternation, just beginning to become alarmed when the coruscation died. The creatures looked at one another, their tones turning into chimings and flutings of delight.

"They are healed indeed!" the Don de la Luce said, staring. "You are a wizard brave and doughty!"

For a moment, Matt thought he had said "knave and dotty," and was about to agree with him. Fortunately, he realized what the old don had said, just in time to change his comeback to, "Glad to be able to make amends. Have we hurt any guardian spirits on your stairway, too?"

"Nay; there is only a charm laid on it. In truth, I should have guessed that you were not malignant, for the stairwell is enchanted only against those with evil magic."

Matt shook his head. "For all you knew, we might have been king's sorcerers who had managed to disable your spell."

"True, though none such have ever been able to rise to such heights within this stronghold."

"Sounds like you could use a few human guards. Don't you have any flesh-and-blood retainers?"

"Nay, I dwell alone in this great old stone pile; all our soldiers and servants fled, in my grandfather's time, to serve the evil tyrant." He shook his head at the memory. "I was but newly come to manhood then, yet I remember well the ferocious battles of my boyhood, when my grandfather strove against the king with his knights and men-at-arms, keeping the shores of this isle secure by sword and steel, even as his wizards battled with the king and his sorcerers. But they died, the wizards--they died, and the people fled to the mainland, sick and weary of battle, and afeard of the king's sorcery. I hope they fared well, yet I misdoubt me of it." His mouth tightened. "Ah me! What may have happened to them! Some we knew of, for their tattered ghosts spoke to my grandfather of torture and degradations as they flew past on their way to Heaven or Purgatory, and not a one but did not wish he had stayed to fight and died a clean death. Oh, yes, oh, yes! 'Tis better far to die in battle, than to fail by inches, serving the king's pleasure! Yet there were none to battle by our sides, my father and my grandsire and myself, save my mother and her ladies, yes, but no bride for me, no, for the ladies had fled and gone, fled and gone." A tear trembled in his eye; he blinked it back.

"But I remembered, aye, the well-wists, and the tale my grandfather told, of the time of his grandfather, when the land was newly sunk in evil, oh, yes, and our most doughty ally sunk beneath the wave, the waves. Oh, 'twas then the well-wists came flocking, filling our castle with aimless anger, and folk would have fled their haunting had not my grandfather's grandfather seen 'twas fear that moved them, and not anger. He found they feared the sea, oh yes, and fled to find a roost for their mates, since the sea was claiming their caverns below. He showed them the caverns 'neath this castle, yes, and gave them all his dungeons, and at this they rejoiced, for they do not like the light, you know."

"No," Matt said. "I hadn't known that."

"Had you not? They do not, you know. They are creatures of the under-earth, who need no light, but see by the essence of each stone and grain of sand. Nay, the dungeons were their delight, and the caverns beneath--the dungeons that are now their home, and there they dwell, to keep me safe in my loneliness." The solitude, Matt realized, had touched the poor dotard's brains. How much of what he was telling was truth, and how much demented imaginings?

"Safe?" Yverne asked, pity underscoring her tone. "I can see that they are company for you--but how do they keep you safe?"

"Did I not tell you? Oh, I see--I did not, did not. But you, pretty child--who are you?" The old man advanced, hand reaching out to touch Yverne's. She did not shrink. "I am the Lady Yverne, daughter of the Duke of Toumarre."

"Ah, yes! I knew them well, or knew of them, I should say, for never have I gone forth from this island"

That hit Matt with a jolt. To have spent his whole life on this miserable piece of rock! No wonder the poor old guy had never had a girlfriend. But how could he have left? Sorcerers hemmed him in on all sides, waiting to smear him into paste and gobble his island and castle. Not much choice--though Matt wondered if he'd have the courage to keep living, in the old man's place.

"They were good men, your ancestors." The old man patted Yverne's hand reassuringly. "Or as good as they could be, when they had sworn allegiance to the king. Nay, they must needs then have given themselves over to the evilness of his reign--yet by all reports and all the tales my grandfather told of those days, they strove for goodness in spite of all. Oh, the king would have haled them down and slain them root and branch, had he dared--or so my grandfather said. Slain them, but he dared not, for only they knew how to keep the borderlands safe from the soldiers of Merovence, yes, the soldiers who were hot to bring down the sorcerer then, they were."

"He dared do it in the end," Yverne informed him. "I am the last of my line, unless my father still endures, languishing in his enemy's dungeon."

"Oh, poor child!" The old man's head lifted, eyes huge. "But he must still live, must he not? For the king cannot gain full power over those lands of yours, unless one of your line gives them to him, yes. Without that, oh, he may hold them, but the magic of them he will never master, no. And failing that power, the land itself will welcome the champions of Merovence. Oh, yes, it will."

Yverne turned to Matt and Sir Guy, eyes wide. "Is that how you came unharmed through my father's lands, then?"

"Are they of Merovence? Oh, delight! Delight! Then mayhap the king's last hour is at hand. Could we not hope it? Yes, of course we could." The old man released Yverne's hand and turned to the cyclops. "What is your house and station, sir?"

"Call me Fadecourt," the cyclops replied, "and my house and station are of no consequence, while the reign of evil endures--for I am of Ibile."

"I see, I see!" The old man nodded wisely. "And you wish to live a good and godly life. Indeed, of no consequence--save that they make you a staunch ally, yes! But you are not of Merovence?"

"Nay, though my companions are."

"They are, they are!" The don turned to Sir Guy. "Your name, Sir Knight?"

"Sir Guy de Toutarien, and I am honored by your hospitality, Milord de la Luce."

"It is given, it is gladly given! And I am honored by your company, yes. You are welcome, well come indeed."

"And my friend, of whose tongue you have already made acquaintance, is Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence, and a knight of honor."

"The Lord Wizard!" The don turned to Matt, eyes wide. "I had never thought to find so eminent a magus so deep in Ibile. Though..." His eyebrows drew down in thought. "You have not the look of the Lord Wizard of whom I have heard."