The Haunted Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  "Look at his hands," Sergeant Brock said.

  "He wears gloves with the hair on the outside. What of it?"

  "Gloves with nails?" the sergeant asked.

  Sir Orizhan studied the bauchan's hands. Buckeye grinned and, very slowly, raised the tankard to his lips and tilted his head back to drink, letting the light from the tallow lamps show them his face. Sergeant Brock shuddered.

  "He is quite ugly," Sir Orizhan said, "but surely no spirit."

  Matt's heart warmed to the man.

  "Ugly!" Buckeye slammed his mug down on the table. "Forsooth! I suppose you think you are comely, fellow?"

  "I am a knight." Sir Orizhan frowned and rested his hand on his sword. "I'll not have a varlet call me 'fellow.' "

  "I don't think you want to draw on him," Matt said nervously. "Unfortunately, that face is the most human thing about him."

  "If a sharp edge will not harm him, cold steel will," Sir Orizhan countered.

  Buckeye frowned. "I like ye not, soft man of warm climates."

  "It won't do any lasting good," Matt warned. "I tried to banish him right off the bat, but the spell seems to have worn off."

  "He did not try a bat," Buckeye corrected. "That might have lasted a wee bit longer."

  "A bat for a bit?" Matt turned to him, interested. "I'll remember that."

  Buckeye's glance flashed with malice; then he was all mischievous grin again. "It will do ye no good."

  "It will not that," Sergeant Brock agreed. "When a bauchan attaches himself to a man, he'll never forsake him—nay, neither him nor his family." He shook his head sadly. "I pity you, Lord Wizard. Not all your power will make this spirit flit."

  "Oh, I'll find a way." Matt wished he felt as confident as he sounded. "But I can't ask you guys to suffer along with me while I'm trying. If you want to go off on your own, go ahead."

  "Go off!" Sir Orizhan exclaimed, affronted. "When my queen has commanded me to accompany you? I am a better knight than that, Lord Wizard!"

  "And I have my good name to restore." Sergeant Brock had recovered from his first fright. "I'll stand by you night and day, Lord Wizard, until we've hung the murderer by the heels and proved I fought my best to save my prince." His eyes narrowed and held steady on the bauchan's ugly face.

  "A murderer and a dead prince?" Buckeye asked, interested. "I may have come upon more fun than I expected! Whatsoever it may be like to follow you, wizard, I doubt it will be dull!"

  "You don't know how I've wished for some boredom," Matt sighed.

  "Still, I cannot let you suffer that, can I?" Buckeye reached out with a long arm that stretched even longer and caressed a waitress' bottom as she was passing Matt.

  The girl shrieked even as she turned and whacked Matt soundly across the face.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "And you with a wedding ring!" the serving wench scolded. "My master has thrown men out for mauling girls who don't wish it!"

  Matt glared at Buckeye, but the bauchan only grinned back. His lips moved, but the sound seemed to come from Matt in Matt's own voice. "Lasses who don't wish it, aye—but will he throw me out for stroking those who like it? Might you be one such?"

  "I am none such!" the girl declared, and pivoted away crying, "Master! Here's an unabashed womanizer for certain!"

  The innkeeper bulled his way to the table just as Matt's voice was saying, "None such is nonesuch, and a nonesuch is a thing of great rarity, and a virtuous woman is a rare thing indeed. Next she will be telling me she is a virgin!"

  "I am a virgin!" the serving maid cried.

  "I will not permit harassment, countryman," the innkeeper warned.

  "Meant?" Matt's voice asked. "Well, if her—"

  "I didn't say that," Matt interrupted.

  "Indeed! Then how was it your voice I heard? I tell you, fellow, I'll not have my serving maids touched!"

  "Saving them all for yourself, are you?" Matt's voice asked.

  The innkeeper reddened. "Enough!" He grabbed Matt by the tunic and yanked him to his feet. "I'll serve you no longer! Out of my inn, fellow, and a cold wet night to you!"

  "You may not speak so to a lord!" Sir Orizhan snapped, rising and grasping his sword.

  "A lord, is it?" The innkeeper turned on Sir Orizhan. "A lord, dressed in a peasant's smock? And I suppose you are his knight, and the other your squire?"

  "Don't blow our cover!" Matt hissed.

  Sir Orizhan ignored him. "You have guessed the truth of it, landlord. Now unhand His Lordship or—"

  "Take him, then!" The innkeeper threw Matt at Sir Orizhan.

  Sergeant Brock shouted in anger and swung his staff at the innkeeper, who leaped back, letting the staff swing by—to crack across the shoulders of another patron. The man leaped to his feet with a howl and waded in swinging.

  The serving maid screamed and backed away, her tray up as a shield.

  Matt spun away from Sir Orizhan and blocked the man's haymaker. "Now, wait a minute. We didn't mean to—"

  "A coward!" the man cried, and slammed a punch at Matt's midriff.

  The innkeeper yanked a short cudgel from his belt and swung at Sergeant Brock.

  Matt blocked again and counterpunched. The man's mates howled and leaped into the fight.

  Sergeant Brock blocked with one end of his staff and swung with the other. He caught the landlord on the hip. The steady customers shouted in anger and jumped on Brock.

  The innkeeper stamped on Matt's toe and swung his cudgel. Matt shouted with pain even as he ducked. He heard the stick strike somebody, hoped it was the bauchan, and caught the innkeeper's wrist. He was about to twist when another fist caught him on the cheek. He staggered away, feeling somebody catch him. The spell he'd readied to use on Buckeye hovered on his lips, but he remembered that these were good, ordinary men fighting to defend their own, and choked it down. Whoever had caught him threw him back at the innkeeper just in time to meet the stick swinging down—but Matt doubled over and kept on going, butting the innkeeper in the stomach. The man's breath went out in a whoosh as he slammed back against the wall. The move lacked elegance and finesse, but it did give Matt a softer landing. He scrambled back up, cocked a fist—and felt a dozen hands grab him.

  Five minutes later he landed in a puddle outside the door with a score of bruises. He started to struggle to his feet, but his pack came sailing to strike him square in the kidneys, knocking him full-length in the puddle. Four more splashes told him Sir Orizhan, Sergeant Brock, and their packs had landed, too.

  "And stay out!" the innkeeper bellowed, then slammed the door behind him.

  A hairy hand reached down for Matt. "Let me help you up."

  Matt looked into the ugly grinning face of the bauchan, and snatched his arm away. "No, thanks. I can do without your kind of help."

  "That's unjust." The creature actually sounded wounded. "I can be a great help, when I've a mind."

  "Yeah, but I don't trust your mind." Matt struggled to his feet and looked down at his sodden, muddy clothes. "This isn't what I'd call assistance."

  "Ah, but that was when I meant you ill," the bauchan said, grinning, "to show you what can happen if you seek to be rid of me. If I mean you well, it will be just as striking."

  The look Matt gave him verged on mayhem. "Don't talk to me about striking."

  "Nor to me," Sergeant Brock groaned, struggling to his feet. "Why did you not use your magic against them, Lord Wizard?"

  "I thought of it," Matt admitted, "but I remembered that they're good plain folk, fighting to defend a friend and his inn. They didn't deserve to be blasted."

  Brock looked up at him in surprise. "You're an odd lord, to be so caring about the common folk."

  That's because I'm really a commoner, too. But Matt couldn't say that out loud. Instead he said, "I'm married to a queen who cares for every single one of her people, Sergeant, and that's one of the qualities that made me fall in love with her."

  Sergeant Brock turned away, looking very thoughtful, and helped
Sir Orizhan to his feet. The bauchan asked, "What sort of spell would you have used on them, wizard?"

  "Oh, one like this," Matt answered.

  "Pleasures are like poppies spread—

  You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;

  Or like the snow falls in the river—

  A moment white—then melts forever.

  Thus let be a bauchan's presence,

  Here some minutes, then gone for pleasance."

  Buckeye squalled in shock and surprise as an invisible hand caught him up and whirled him into a tiny dot that winked out. They listened to the sudden peaceful susurrus of rainfall. Then Sergeant Brock quavered, "He seemed to stay where he was, yet was also whisked far away."

  "Very perceptive, Sergeant. That's exactly what happened."

  "How can that be, Lord Wizard?"

  "Oh, it's not hard. It's just a question of where he was being whisked, and in what direction."

  "Where?" Sir Orizhan asked, staring in awe.

  "Into another dimension," Matt said, "and as to direction, it was at right angles to the three we know."

  "How can that be?" Sir Orizhan asked with foreboding.

  "I... don't know," Matt admitted. "Hey, look—I just cast the spells. That doesn't mean I understand 'em."

  "How can you not?" Sergeant Brock asked.

  Matt shrugged. "It's like driving an automobile. I know how to make it go where I want, but I don't know how it works inside—not in detail, anyway."

  "Oh." Sergeant Brock seemed to be thinking that over.

  "I suppose that makes sense," Sir Orizhan allowed. "But, Lord Wizard..."

  "Yes?"

  "What is an 'automobile'?"

  They found a barn, peeled off their wet clothing and set it to dry, rubbed themselves with hay, then put on their spare clothes and rolled up in more hay to sleep. Sir Orizhan took first watch, and Matt had absolutely no trouble dropping off to sleep. Unfortunately, he dreamed. At least, he hoped it was a dream.

  In the darkness of slumber a voice ranted, "Pay attention, blast you! I haven't been shouting at you all these days for my pleasure!"

  "Well, then, why have you been shouting?" Matt demanded.

  There was a brief silence, but somehow Matt could feel the astonishment in it. Then the voice erupted with delight. "I've broken through! He has heard me! Do you know who I am, Lord Wizard?"

  "I haven't the faintest." Matt was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.

  "I am Gaheris! I am Prince Gaheris of Bretanglia! And I may be dead, but I'm not deaf! I heard you say you would find my murderer! Who is he?"

  The bad feeling was proving true. Matt reassured himself that he must be dreaming and said, "Don't you know?"

  "Know? How could I know? The villain came at me from behind! I felt the blade go in, felt a pain that seemed to rip the world apart—then all went dark. At last a dot of light broke that darkness and swelled to a hollow. I could see a long way into it, saw it was a tunnel with a sublime light at its end. I thought I heard voices that I knew calling from it, and my heart went cold within me. I turned my back on it with a shudder and fought to sit up, but my body would not answer. I thought I must have fallen asleep, and fought to waken, fought and fought—and bit by bit I regained my senses, but found myself looking down at my own body and hearing folk talking of who had slain me! I snapped at them that I wasn't dead, shouted at them that I wasn't dead, roared and bellowed at them that I wasn't dead—but they did not answer, and my stomach sank as I realized they had not heard me. Then I saw the wound in my own back, and knew that I was dead indeed."

  Matt felt rather than saw the shudder. In fact, so far he wasn't seeing anything. "Why did you come to me?"

  "I came to everyone! Mother, Father, Brion, John, Rosamund, Sir Orizhan—waking and sleeping, I came to them, ranted to them, howled at them, but none seemed to hear me! Well, I was scarcely surprised when it came to Mother and Father—if they hadn't heard me alive, why should they hear me dead? But I had always been able to rouse Brion's anger, or John's fear—yet now even they seemed not to hear!"

  "Why me?" Matt said again.

  "Because you're a wizard, blast you! And it worked!"

  "Sure—all you had to do was catch me when I was asleep. How many nights have you been trying?"

  "All day. This is the first night."

  "Must be because ghosts are a sort of magic, or related to it," Matt mused.

  "Never mind the why! Only tell me who slew me!"

  "I'd love to," Matt told him sincerely. "Even more, I'd love to tell your parents, and rob them of their excuse to attack Merovence. Unfortunately, everybody seems to have had a reason to want you dead—"

  "Aye. They all hate me, the jealous sods!"

  "—and everybody has an alibi." From what Matt knew of Gaheris alive, jealousy hadn't entered into it. When you try to hurt people, they tend to resent you. "Can you think of any way I can tell who was there that I don't know about?"

  "Whom do you suspect?"

  "Everyone who was in the inn that night."

  "How the devil should I know who was in the inn that night?"

  "That's right," Matt sighed, "you were only there. Well, if you don't have a notion who killed you, how can you expect me to know?"

  "Because you're a wizard, damn your eyes!"

  "I'd be kind of careful with that word 'damn' if I were you," Matt advised. "Has the tunnel appeared to you again?"

  "Aye, twice more." Gaheris' voice was hollow with fear. "But I ranted and railed at it, cursed my murderer aloud, and it went away."

  "Unfinished business," Matt muttered.

  "What did you say?" the ghost-prince demanded.

  "Nothing important." Matt had a notion that if he found and punished Gaheris' murderer, the light-tunnel wouldn't go away the next time it appeared. All that was holding the prince's ghost to this universe was his anger at his murderer, and his thirst for revenge. On the other hand, Matt didn't particularly want the ghost to know that. He didn't like being haunted, dreaming or waking, and wasn't about to let Gaheris know he had a way of avoiding the afterworld. "Look, nobody can see you, right?"

  "True." The ghost sounded wary.

  "Well, then, you can flit around and watch them when they think they're safe and alone."

  "Who would you have me watch?"

  "Everyone in your family, for starters. More importantly, there was a sorcerer in the inn that night—"

  "A sorcerer?" the ghost cried. "Of course it was he who slew me!"

  "Why? Because he had magic? Believe me, I haven't found the slightest sign that he shoved the knife into your ribs, or made a knife stab you by itself. Besides, he denies it."

  "Of course he would, you dolt!"

  "Hey!" Matt snapped. "Do you want me to try to find your murderer, or not?"

  "Of course I do! How dare you even ask?"

  "Because I'm the one who can do it—maybe. You talk to me with respect, or I'm walking off the job."

  "You cannot speak so to a prince!"

  "I can when I'm married to a queen," Matt reminded him. "In fact, if you want to get technical about it, that makes me a prince, too—and one who's got a bit more power in this situation than you do. Just give me a good reason to drop this investigation and I will."

  "If you do, I shall haunt you all your days!"

  "You're a little late," Matt told him. "Somebody already got there—a bauchan. You want to cross horns with him over haunting territory?"

  Gaheris spluttered incoherently, but there was a definite tinge of fear to it. Matt reflected that the superstition of the Middle Ages could be very useful. Here the prince was, a haunt himself, and he was still afraid of the bauchan!

  "Go away," Matt grumbled. "I need my sleep. How can I catch your killer if I'm groggy?"

  "You will rue this one day, wizard!" Gaheris blustered.

  "I doubt it," Matt snapped, and mentally rolled over and pulled the metaphorical blanket over his head. "Go away."

>   Amazingly, Gaheris did—possibly because Sir Orizhan woke Matt for his watch. Half an hour later he decided that after that dream, being awake was very restful.

  The army of Earl Salin, the Marshal of Bretanglia, came striding behind its knights along the high road—really high, for the ground fell away to both sides. Ahead, though, it passed through a cleft in the hills.

  Atop one of those hills, Sir Gandagin, a knight in his forties, sat on his horse, shielded by a great boulder to either side, and counseled Prince Brion, "We may hold the high ground, Your Highness, but they still outnumber us by half, and Earl Marshal is the most excellent knight in Bretanglia. Saving your presence," he added hastily.

  "Spare me flattery, Sir Gandagin," the prince said. "Though I might hope to equal a knight of Earl Marshal's excellence in chivalry, I know I cannot compare in prowess with a man thirty years my senior. I own you have sense on your side—but the marshal is all sense and no nonsense, with great faith in the order in which he has drilled his men. If we come upon him like wild Celts, we may do to him as Queen Boadicea did to the armies of Reme when she found they had cheated her of a whole county, by trading it for gems she discovered to be glass. She chewed them to bits, for they knew not how to counter her disorder."

  "Soundly planned," Sir Gandagin admitted. "Still, my prince, do remember that Reme eventually brought Boadicea to heel."

  "Eventually," Brion reminded him. "I need not win the war—only this battle."

  Below, the vanguard of the marshal's army entered the notch.

  "Out upon them!" Brion commanded, and swung his sword high with the same eerie, ululating battle-cry that had struck fear into the hearts of legionnaires a thousand years before, a battle-cry taken up by five hundred mouths, echoing from both sides of the road as men in half-armor came charging down, spears leveled.

  "Close ranks!" the marshal bellowed, and the double file of soldiers pivoted to face outward, shields coming up to present a solid wall that bristled with spears.

  But the attackers had spears, too, and were striking downward. They hurled their javelins, and a score of soldiers fell dead. Then they struck into the shield-wall, long spears stabbing down over the tops of the shields. Most of the soldiers snapped their shields up, deflecting the spears and striking back with their own, but a few were slow and fell, blood streaming down over their breastplates. The attackers caught the spears of the shield-wall on their own shields, though another score fell in trying. Then the two forces grappled one another in a desperate melee that filled the road. One by one, men fell and rolled down the sides, defenders and attackers alike.