Well, at least the king had been right about one thing-if he could get out of this one, he would definitely be somebody worth listening to-that is, if he could still talk.
Chapter 19
Ortho the Frank stopped abruptly, holding up a hand. The horseman behind narrowly managed to avoid a collision, and that only by swerving his cantering steed to the side, which made the rider next to Ortho sheer off, and the man behind him rein in with an oath, while the man to the side of the man to the side had to pull over, but not quite as much. A knot in the traffic flow developed, and the army ground to a halt. Fortunately, Queen Alisande had been on Ortho’s other side-in fact, that was why the rider behind had swerved wide though the huge presence of Stegoman the dragon might have had something to do with that, too. But she was nonetheless peeved at having her cantering army coming to a stop. Still, she knew better than to tax a wizard while he was doing his job. After he was done with his job, maybe… She wrenched her mind away from a sudden craving for oatmeal with sauerkraut sauce and asked, ‘What moves, Ortho?“
“Your husband.” Ortho’s voice seemed distant, reverberating from a long journey bouncing off cavern walls. “He is in great trouble, very profound.”
The thrill of fear banished all thoughts of oatmeal, even if that sauerkraut sauce would be delicious right now. “Is he in peril of his life?”
“Nay. There is no danger of death.”
Alisande relaxed a little and couldn’t help thinking that sauerkraut was vastly underrated. She put the notion aside with resolute insistence and focused her attention on the problem. “What danger can he be in, then?”
“Danger that he may be doomed to dwell in a dungeon cell,” the wizard breathed, “that he may never win free again, never return.”
Panic gripped Alisande all over again. To be bereft of her husband, and especially at a time like this… ! She turned in her saddle, waving a clenched fist aloft. “Onward, men of mine! To Venarra! We must pry open the king’s castle as if it were a nutshell!”
A shout of approval answered her, but as it died, a different kind of shout went up from the vanguard. Alisande turned, wondering what it might be. “A courier comes,” said Sir Guy, and beside him the dragon Stegoman lowered his great scaly head to say, “He wears King Boncorro’s colors.”
Alisande turned to the messenger with a glare that could have melted a glacier. “What does your master wish, sirrah!”
The courier pulled in his horse, amazed and frightened by the total absence of protocol. “Your Majesty!” he stammered, and dismounted to kneel. “I bear greetings from King Boncorro, through the mouth of his chancellor, Lord Rebozo!”
Which meant that the king might not know of this errand-but if he did, the words had better be to Alisande’s liking. “What says the Lord Chancellor?”
“He bids you welcome to Latruria, Majesty, and asks if you have come seeking Lord Matthew Mantrell.”
Alisande stiffened. “I have indeed!”i “Then he bids you be easy in your heart as regards the Lord Wizard’s welcome here, your Majesty, for Lord Matthew is no longer in Latruria!”
Alisande stared, feeling the frisson of danger, very sinister danger, spreading icy needle jabs all over her skin. “Is he not, then?”
“Nay, Majesty, though, says the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Wizard was severely lacking in courtesy not to announce himself openly, but to come in secret, like a spy.”
All expression left Alisande’s face; the criticism felt like a slap. “You may tell the Lord Chancellor that my husband has ever had a taste for going in disguise among the common folk, that he may have a truer sense of their needs-and that I am sure it was concern for the relatives of Merovence’s folk that led him across your borders. But where has my Lord Matthew gone?”
“Why… the Lord Chancellor did not say!” the courier stammered. “I would be surprised if he did know, Majesty!”
“He speaks the truth,” Ortho muttered, his gaze still halfway in some other world. The truth as he knew it, Alisande amended. She, however, was quite sure that Chancellor Rebozo did indeed know where Matt had gone, and suspected that what Rebozo knew, his master knew. “You may give the Lord Chancellor my greetings and tell him that I am pleased to learn of the hospitality he has offered my husband. Tell him that I shall find a way to return the favor in equal measure.” There, she thought, let him hear that and tremble. “But tell his Majesty that, since I have come this far, I shall press on to Venarra and make a visit of state. I have not, after all, had the opportunity to congratulate him on his coronation.”
The courier paled, catching the implied rebuke-which, of course, he was very right to do; Alisande was still smarting at not having been invited, though she knew well that inviting the ruler of a kingdom dedicated to the Rule of Right to the coronation of a king dedicated to the Rule of Might was like inviting a dozen wildcats to a dogs’ party. The courier ducked his head in a bow, leaped up and scrambled back onto his horse. If anything, his face was paler than before. He turned his mount… And found himself hemmed in by a sea of hostile faces. “Conduct our guest to the edge of our army,” Alisande purred, “and see him on his way with every courtesy. We would not, after all wish our message to go astray.”
“It has already been heard,” Ortho breathed, like a breeze in leafy branches. Alisande didn’t doubt it for a second; she had dealt with sorcerers before. She had noticed a beetle clinging to the courier’s shoulder and had thought that it might indeed be enchanted to send the sound and sight of this meeting to Chancellor Rebozo, or or least to allow him to focus on the scene in his crystal ball, or a bowl of ink. “Send him forth with all ceremony! For surely, it is ceremony that is our concern now!”
The courier glanced at her with apprehension. She noted with approval that the man must know the ways of the court well, to catch the implication that she knew that King Boncorro knew that she was thinking that he was thinking, so that all that was left to do was to go through the motions. She watched the man ode away, reflecting that he was wise to be apprehensive. Only the motions, yes, but those motions might be the handshake of peace or the blows of war. Her attention turned inward for the moment; reflexively, she pressed her hand to her abdomen, hoping for the first time in her Me that it would not be war, not now. Yes, she hoped indeed that King Boncorro would receive them with outward hospitality, would go through motions that at least said they were not enemies, though also not friends. She found herself hoping that his kitchen stocked sauerkraut. Bad enough that everything was misty-now it was getting dark, too! Matt had finally summoned the willpower to risk a very tentative step, and when the yielding surface had held up as he gradually transferred his weight from one foot to the other, he had risked a second step, then a third. There was a floor there, all right, and occasionally he actually saw wisps of dry grass poking through the mist around his ankles, so he assumed it must be ground. Besides, it was very uneven, and he stumbled a lot. After a while dim shapes seemed to be hulking in the mist, darker gray amidst lighter gray, but when he moved toward them, they faded. Were they really mirages, or was he somehow going astray when he thought he was going right at them? At least he wasn’t going to die of thirst-all he had to do was open his mouth, and in a minute enough moisture condensed to calm his needs. He was definitely getting hungry, though, and very tired. Then the light began to go. The only thing worse than twilight in a strange place is darkness when everything has been twilight already. It did occur to him that he might have been in London on a bad day, but it didn’t seem very likely-unless the whole city had gone on vacation at the same time. Besides, they would have had streetlights, and here he couldn’t see any light at all. So, everything considered, he was overwhelmingly relieved when one of the shadow shapes lasted long enough for him to come up to it, though it filled his whole field of view-even if it was the darkest, gloomiest, most forbidding castle he had ever set eyes on, made of black granite and dripping with rivulets of moisture. As he came up to it, the fog seemed to lift, bec
oming a lowering sky instead of an environment in its own right. Off to his left he saw a brackish, turgid lake that extended a pseudopod to feed the castle’s moat. Looking down, Matt saw dark water with a greenish tinge-the first color he had seen in this alien environment. Now that he thought of it, he glanced down at his own parti-colored clothing, but instead of brilliant red and blue and yellow, it all seemed to be just different shades of gray, with only a hint of hue. Anxiety touched him-this dampness had to be bad for his lute! He had to get it indoors, preferably near a roaring fire-if this strange pocket universe had fire… He looked down at the moat again and thought he saw lumps in it. If he did, they were moving. He looked away with a shudder, thinking that he would have preferred to see teeth and glowing eyes. But the drawbridge was down, the portcullis drawn up, and never mind if its spikes did look like fangs, if the doorway itself reminded him of a hungry mouth, he took a step onto the tongue-no, that was a drawbridge-and another step, and another, until he was nearly at the doorway. 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 anticockroach spell of his own. Matt used the time to think up an all-purpose antidisgustant 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?”
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