The Secular Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  A scrabbling and a thump, and a troll popped up from beneath the drawbridge, fangs guttering in its watermelon-slice mouth. Fingers with talons of steel reached for Matt. He backed up, but heard a splashing behind him, with a thrashing and thumping as something aquatic was climbing up onto the bridge, while two more trolls climbed up behind the first one, gibbering with insane glee, and two sea serpents reared their heads up from either side of the drawbridge, mouths yawning wide as they came toward him.

  All he could think was that whoever owned the castle had really overdone it. The fear was remote, not even pressing—this couldn't be real, it was just too much.

  "Fooood," said the smallest troll, the one only seven feet tall.

  "Toll!" the foremost troll demanded. "One arm!"

  "Toll!" the second echoed. "One leg!"

  Matt cried,

  "Be that toll our sign of parting, troll!

  All trolls and monsters without thanks!

  Keep thy teeth from off my arm,

  And get thy forms off of these planks!"

  The trolls howled in surprise and anger, and the sea serpents hooted in rage—but they disappeared, fading into the mists, and whatever was behind Matt gave a honk like an eighteen-wheeler in dire distress, but it only managed two more approaching thumps before its voice seemed to dwindle like a spray of mist. Matt turned quickly, but was only in time to get a vague impression of a bloated, elongated shape with lots of teeth in its tail—as well as all the hundred or so in front—before it, too, was gone.

  Matt just stood there blinking for a minute. He had expected the spell to do some good, but not this much! Maybe to knock the monsters back for a minute or two, to give him time to figure out a plan of action—or even to have sent them all running away. But to just fade? As if they'd been made out of the mist itself?

  Illusions. They had to have been illusions, mere illusions and nothing more. No wonder he'd felt that the lord of the castle had been overdoing it!

  He strode into the castle a bit more confidently—if all he had to worry about were illusions, he was perfectly safe. On the other hand, he'd been trying to banish his own illusions for a dozen years now and hadn't had too much success. Of course, these were somebody else's illusions...

  He stepped in under the portcullis, but it didn't crash down on him at the last second, and no giggling microcephalic giant tried to bisect him with an axe. There wasn't even a huge and horrible black hound from Hell pouncing on him with a howl.

  It made him very nervous.

  He ran through the entrance tunnel, then, very cautiously, he stepped through the archway at the end. Still no terrors attacked him. He looked about him and found he wasn't in a courtyard, as he had expected, but actually inside the castle proper—the great hall, in fact. There weren't any windows, but there were torches in sconces along the walls, sending up trails of greasy smoke—and, at the far end, a dais with a canopy. But it looked old, almost rotted; if it hadn't been for the torches, Matt would have thought he was in an abandoned ruin.

  Suddenly, twinkling lights glimmered on the dais and in the center of the room. Matt braced himself as the light turned into a coruscation, clouds of sparks that pulled together and settled and became...

  Gorgons. Matt didn't turn to stone, but he almost wished he had—they had snakes for hair, and their mouths opened into grins with fangs. Lamias joined them, and harpies, and something rustled and chirruped above his head. It was almost as if he had confronted the male monsters outside and the female monsters inside—except for the half-dozen old men with yellowed beards and obscenely carved staffs, who cackled and discussed him with gloating grins, then pointed at him all together and shouted, "Destroy him!"

  With a shout of delight, the lamias and the gorgons charged, and whatever it was that was chirruping swooped.

  Matt dodged, just in time for a huge black widow spider to swing through the space where he'd just been and slam into the charging mob of monsters. They screeched, and the giant spider emitted a shrill blast of sound that sent the gorgons' snakes stiff and made them clap their hands to their ears.

  It gave Matt time enough to sort them out.

  "Uncommon kinds of monsters! Whose breath I hate

  As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize

  As the dead carcasses of unburied men

  That do corrupt my air—I banish you!"

  The monsters all screamed, the spider loudest of all. Matt clapped his hands over his ears as he repeated the verse again, and louder, just for good measure. The monsters blew apart in showers of sparks, showers that faded, except for all the scrawny old men. They turned to Matt, pointing at him and shouting something in that blasted archaic language that he didn't understand. He suddenly found himself sinking; the floor had become quicksand and was sucking him down—or was that himself melting from the feet up? He looked down, decided he was melting, and sang,

  "Solidity, it's creeping up on me!

  My thighs are like granite,

  My knees, they began it.

  Solidity, it's creeping down o'er me!

  My shins strong and steady,

  My ankles quite ready.

  My feet stout for kicks,

  My toes like small bricks!

  Solidity! I'm all at one for me!"

  The pack of wizened men flung up their arms and started chanting, but Matt beat them to the punch line.

  "All your likenesses must go

  And banished be, to leave you so

  Alone, original, unfeigned,

  And only your own substance gained."

  He just hoped none of the men were having an identity crisis. Of course, they were probably all just illusions, too...

  All the ugly men gave a chorused single squawk of outrage that diminished rapidly as they faded, shredded, blew away...

  Except for one.

  Matt frowned at him. "Scat! Scoot! Go on! Get away!" He underscored it with shooing motions.

  "Get away yourself," rasped the survivor. "This is my castle!"

  Matt stared. "Oh! Sorry." He tried to recover his aplomb and not stare—but really, the little old man looked as imaginary as any of the other monsters—scrawny, yellow-eyed, his beard grungy from lack of washing...

  Matt frowned and looked more closely. He wasn't really that old, actually—more like middle-aged. He just looked old, because of the white beard, and the white hair flowing down around his shoulders—only it wasn't yellowed from lack of washing. That was its natural color. And he wasn't really short or little or stooped with age—his shoulders were hunched up defensively, his head pulled down to glare. Sure, he was holding his staff in both hands, but he wasn't really leaning on it—he was ready to wave it like a magic wand, which it probably was.

  He had to have done all that deliberately, to look like less of a menace than he really was. Didn't he?

  But those yellow eyes were huge, with the whites showing all around them, and glittering with malice. His garments were soiled and faded, but they were sumptuous, or had been once—brocade and velvet. Matt couldn't help thinking that they were just the right thing for the climate; the only thing that would have been even better was a raincoat.

  The owner jabbed a finger at him and shouted something unintelligible, and Matt suddenly felt an irresistible interior urge, one that would ordinarily have sent him on a frantic search for the garderobe, only he was sure he didn't have time, and besides, it was all just an illusion anyway, so he called out,

  "The cheese stands alone,

  In my blood and bone,

  All throughout my viscera,

  The cheese brings me home!"

  The urge went away, but the yellow eyes sparked with anger, and the staff snapped out as its owner spat another indecipherable verse. Sparks glittered all over the floor and turned into cockroaches, scurrying toward Matt; he could almost hear them thinking, Yum! He wondered what they thought he was—but while he was wondering, he was chanting.

  "Hey! Where y' going,
y' crawling ferlie?

  Not to me—too big and burly!

  Run to him, who seems decayed!

  His scent is yours, so make a raid!"

  For a moment he blushed with shame—how could he be so gauche as to mention Raid around a cockroach? But if the insects had noticed, they gave no sign—only turned and ran toward the lord of the castle.

  The old man cursed, then spent a few minutes in an anti-cockroach spell of his own. Matt used the time to think up an all-purpose anti-disgustant verse—but when the bugs had coruscated and effervesced into nothingness, the yellow eyes turned back to Matt with undisguised loathing and said, "I shall not be rid of you so easily, shall I?"

  "I don't think you'll be rid of me at all," Matt said, "except maybe by asking me nicely to leave."

  "Will you not leave?"

  Matt sighed. "Well, that's not quite what I meant by 'nicely,' but I guess it will have to do. Okay, I'll walk out—but I would appreciate answers to a few questions first."

  "I give nothing to any man!" The grubby one raised his staff as if to strike and began to recite something in that confounded antiquated tongue again.

  Matt got his counter in fast and first.

  "His heart is turned to stone;

  He strikes it, and it hurts his hand.

  His hand therefore, is stone,

  And all his body banned

  From flesh and bone.

  All is rock! His head alone

  Is live!"

  The owner's voice ran down into a croak and stopped. He stood poised, staff raised to strike, but unable to as his body turned grayish.

  "Well, now, that's a bit better attitude!" Matt strolled up to go slowly around the man, inspecting him from every angle. "Actually, that posture isn't really the best attitude in the world, but it could be worse."

  "You could not!" The man's voice had an undertone of gravel. "Loose me, Wizard, or it shall be the worse for you!"

  "Oh, I don't think so," Matt said casually. "You're a wand slinger, see, so I doubt any verse you come up with will have much effect without that stick to direct it—and what little power your spells might have, I'm sure I can counter."

  The yellow eyes gleamed with fury, and the sorcerer began to recite again.

  "Everything considered," Matt said quickly, "it would be a lot easier for you just to answer a few questions for me. Then I could unfreeze you and go away."

  The sorcerer paused in mid-syllable.

  "Of course, if you do manage to do something lethal to me," Matt pointed out, "I won't be here to unfreeze you."

  "I can deal with that myself!"

  "Sure. You could unfreeze somebody you had turned to stone," Matt said, "but could you counter a spell of mine?"

  The sorcerer just gave him a very black look.

  "Let's start with: how did you get here?" Matt asked. "The king sent you, for openers."

  "Openers indeed! I was the first—but only the first of a dozen! And there shall be more!"

  Matt nodded. "Makes sense. However, what the king didn't explain to me, before he blasted me here, was why he didn't just execute anybody who wouldn't come to heel. You know, off with their heads, then burn the body just to make sure. Why not?"

  "He did that with the worst of them," the sorcerer grated, "they who sought to overthrow him."

  "But you were no threat to him personally? You just didn't want to stop torturing your peasants?"

  "Something of the sort," the sorcerer admitted. "I had no designs upon the throne."

  "Yes, I noticed it wasn't terribly ornate. I thought Boncorro was tolerant, though. All you had to do was live by his laws."

  "And cease to slay priests?" the sorcerer demanded. "Cease to despoil nuns? Cease to seek to bring about the misery of every soul near me, that I might send them to Hell? What use would there be in living, then?"

  "So. You were incorrigible and unreformable." That put in a thought. "Did the king even try to reform you?"

  "Oh, aye. He bade me mend my ways three times. At the last, his fool of a reeve shrank quaking from my sight, so I knew 'twas not he who told the king how I had amused myself with the peasant lass—so I know that King Boncorro must have had other spies within my castle, perhaps even the cat I had bought to attend to his other spies."

  Matt decided he did not like this man.

  "He appeared in my hall with the sound of thunder and with fires gushing away from him—the showy fool! 'What?' I said. 'Will you send me to a monastery?' 'Nay, nor even presume to tell you to renounce your pact with Satan,' said he, 'for your soul is your own affair, and no reform will affect your Afterlife save that which you work yourself.' "

  Matt listened closely. This didn't sound like the atheist the king professed to be. "Sounds like common sense."

  "The more fool he, to presume to find laws that govern the consequences of the soul's deeds! He commanded me to forgo my pleasures, though, 'For what you do to my subjects,' he said, 'is my concern.' The conceited prat! I spat in his face. It was for that he sent me here."

  "Three strikes and you're out of his kingdom." Matt nodded. "In fact, out of his whole world. Interesting that he still honors the number three."

  "There is nothing mystical in that!"

  "That's what they tell me. And you just happened to find this castle sitting here?"

  The sorcerer stared. Then he laughed, a nasty, mocking sound. "Why, you understand nothing of the nature of this realm, do you?"

  "Oh. So you built it yourself?"

  "Aye, with my own two hands," the sorcerer said, sneering. "There is a quarry not far from here, and I am stronger than I seem."

  "Yes, that's why I don't want to get too close. Did you make the quarry, too?"

  The sorcerer eyed him narrowly, finally beginning to realize who was mocking whom. "What a fool's remark is that! How can one make a quarry?"

  "I thought that here you could make anything—like that." Matt pointed at a wall, imagined a pickaxe, and willed it to appear. Sure enough, it did, swinging at the granite.

  "No!" the sorcerer cried in alarm, and a huge hand appeared, seizing the pickaxe and throwing it at Matt. Quickly, he willed it to disappear, and it faded into thin air. Then he imagined an even bigger hand holding a ruler, willed it to appear, and made it strike the sorcerer's construct on the knuckles.

  "Well enough, then," the sorcerer said with disgust. "I will banish mine if you will banish yours."

  Matt nodded. "On the count of three."

  "Nay—five!"

  "Okay, five," Matt sighed. He considered telling the man that five was a holy number in some religions, then thought better of it—apparently it didn't matter, as long as the religion wasn't Christianity. After all, this part of this world ran on Christian concepts, or against them. "One... two... three..."

  "Four—five!" the other sorcerer counted, and Matt's hand disappeared. The sorcerer laughed as his giant hand rushed at Matt's head. Matt did some quick imagining, and a huge chain appeared fastened to a ring in the wall. The other end was fastened to a chain in the hand. It slammed down onto the floor and scrabbled its fingers furiously, trying to reach him. Matt's hand appeared over it with the ruler again.

  "As you will," the sorcerer sighed, and his hand disappeared. Matt nodded and banished his. The sorcerer growled, "If you know that all here is illusion, why did you ask?"

  "I come from a school that likes to have its guesses confirmed," Matt explained. "So this whole realm is a pocket universe so thoroughly saturated with magic that I can dream up anything I want?"

  "Even so," his enemy grunted. "This whole castle is the product of my imagination."

  Matt decided that this boy really needed a psychiatrist.

  "In this realm-between-worlds to which King Boncorro has banished us," the sorcerer explained, "anything imagined can appear to be real."

  Matt shuddered. "The ideal place for people who want to delude themselves!"

  "Oh, they need not come here," the sorcerer said with a c
url of the lip. "They who wish to find their Paradise on Earth are doing exactly that. Now that there is money enough, they are looking away from the Afterlife and toward the here and now, forgoing their families to seek only pleasure."

  Matt remembered the roisterers he'd met on the road south, and shuddered.

  The sorcerer gave him a toothy grin. "That pleasure is fleeting, of course—and only builds up a debt that must be paid. After summer's plenty comes winter's famine, and fools follow the search for pleasure into ways that lead them here—or to death and damnation. What an idiot is King Boncorro! For in seeking to make his folk happier, he has only given them the means of their own destruction!"

  "He claims he doesn't care, as long as it means more money for him." But Matt frowned. "Are you trying to tell me that the king's new order has actually produced more Hell-bound souls than King Maledicto's reign?"

  "Aye, for in place of the fear of old Maledicto and his devilish masters, Boncorro has given them—nothing. He does not punish the priests, but he has not brought them back, either." The sorcerer grinned, savoring the idea. "The people have no guide in the use of their newfound prosperity, nothing by which to decide what to do and what to avoid."

  "You mean that because the people have lost any sense of religion, they can't have faith in anything?"

  The sorcerer winced. "Spare the words that burn, Wizard! You have almost the sense of it—it is not that they cannot have faith in anything, but that King Boncorro has given them nothing to have faith in! In place of the fear of Hell, he has given them no hope of anything beyond this world—so they pursue only worldly joys and pleasures. Not knowing what to do with the sudden leisure that has befallen them, they have themselves fallen prey to the temptation that comes their way."