“Heaven does know, and will forestall them, Brother Athenius,” the pope reassured him, then to his guests, “Follow us!”
They hurried after him, Matt catching up and saying, “With all respect, your Holiness, it might be a bit more practical for Wizard Saul and myself to stay here and fight magic with magic.”
The pope screeched to a halt and stared. “But there will be danger!”
“We’re used to it,” Saul snapped, and Matt shrugged. “There will be danger even in the cathedral, your Holiness. We have taken such risks before.”
“Then I shall accept your kind offer, and gratefully! But at least climb to the top of St. Peter’s steeple! You can see all of the enemy from there, and the power of prayer may assist you!”
“The power of prayer!” Saul grumbled as they climbed the steeple. “What good is that going to be?”
“More man you know, here,” Matt said. They came out into a small cupola above the belfry and looked out over the city of Reme. For a few moments both men stood speechless. Then Saul said, “Looks just like Rome to me, man. I can see the Colosseum, and the Forum, or what’s left of it.”
“No Trevi Fountain yet,” Matt noted, “but it looks like the Aqueduct is still working.”
“Give the bandits time, they’ll get to it.” Saul shivered. “Never thought I’d see the Eternal City in the Middle Ages!”
“Never thought I’d be standing on top of St. Peter’s.” Matt looked down a bit and saw a troop of horsemen riding up the slope toward the cathedral. “No wall, not even afence! This place is wide open! What’s been keeping them out?”
“If you dare say ‘the power of prayer…’ ”
Matt shrugged. “Why should I say it? Just try a verse that stops them, and see what happens.”
Saul grinned. “Why not? ”Whoopi-ti-yi-yo! Get along, little horsies! It’s your misfortune, and none of my own! Whoopi-ti-yi-yo, get along, little horsies! You know that you all long to be safe back home!“
He broke off, staring. “What the hey is that?”
Matt had felt it, too-a sudden surge of energy that left him almost giddy with a feeling of power, as if he could pick up the world and use it for a racquetball. “What do you think it is?”
As one, the horses turned and started back down the hill. The horsemen swore and yanked at the reins, and horses tossed their heads and whinnied protest, but they kept on going-and not just the ones on the road, either. As far and wide as they could see, a countercurrent struck the ranks of the condottieri cavalry. The horses had all turned and started back. Saul ran over to the other side of the cupola and stared down. “They’re doing it over here, too!”
“Never knew ‘Whoopi-ti-yi-yo’ qualified as magic words,” Matt said conversationally. Saul turned to glare at him. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Only this time. Look! The sorcerers are fighting back!”
“If you can call this fighting,” Saul grumbled, but he came to look. There was a blue glow in the middle of the condottieri army, and greenish smoke trailed up. The horses suddenly answered to the bit, turning and heading back uphill again. “So. They know they’ve got some resistance.” Saul nodded. “Why do I get the feeling we’re not even needed here?”
“Maybe because those fireballs curved back on the army that threw them,” Matt said. “On the other hand, those riders are halfway to the cathedral, and no one’s stopping them. Do you suppose the Saints are waiting for us to do the job?”
“You mean we shouldn’t have volunteered?”
“No, I mean that Heaven helps those who help themselves.”
Saul grunted. “Those condottieri are helping themselves. They’re all set to help themselves to everything that’s not nailed down.”
“So we have to help the clergy in a way they haven’t been able to do,” Matt summarized, “although it does seem kind of strange that they don’t have even one clerical wizard on hand.”
“In corporate headquarters?” Saul challenged. “All they’d have here are bureaucrats!”
“You might have a point. Okay, what do we do to push the bandits back out of here?”
“Well” Saul said slowly, “they’re presumably all working for Evil, and I’ve heard a lot about the Aroma of Sanctity With a soft burping sound, something exploded in the center of the cupola.
Chapter 23
Greasy smoke poured outward and upward, enveloping the whole top of the steeple. “Gas attack!” Saul managed before he broke off into a bout of coughing that racked his lungs. He stumbled to the side and leaned over the railing, trying to get away from the smoke-but it followed him. Matt stumbled toward the opposite railing, and the smoke tried to follow him, but there was just enough of a breeze to blow it back. A few tendrils did reach him, and the stench was only the precursor-he could feel his innards heaving. He suddenly realized that a person could actually die just from a bad smell-if it was vile enough… He stuck his head over the rail as far as he could and chanted, “So blow, ye winds, heigh-ho! A-roving let it go! We’ll smell no more of this septic sore, So blow it all away! ”To the olfactory membrane Of the one who sent this pain, Stink bomb, return to your sender! Burn His nose, and not our nez!“
He wasn’t sure if throwing a French word in there would work, but nez did rhyme with “away,” at least in its native pronunciation. But work it did; the smoke boiled backward as if it were a genie returning to its lamp, then disappeared with a soft crunching sound. There was only a charred spot in the center of the cupola floor, to show where it had been… And Saul, hanging over the railing, groaning in reverse as he tried to hold his stomach down. Matt called, “Let upheavals pass! One Bromo in your gas- -trointestinal tract Will settle your stomach back!”
Saul straightened up, looking surprised, then turned to Matt with a sigh of relief. “Never thought I’d be glad to hear that jingle.”
“Singing commercials have to rank as one of the curses of civilization,” Matt agreed, “but they work-presumably increasing sales in our home universe, and settling stomachs in this one.”
“Funny, they had just the opposite effect back home,” Saul said. He turned to look out over the condottieri army with a very vengeful look. “Chemical warfare. Full-scale.”
“I can’t say no,” Matt sighed, “since they did it to us. After all, ours won’t be lethal.”
“I’ve smelled enough incense during my time to testify to that,” Saul agreed, “though I will say St. Basil’s nearly smoked me out of my apartment, the one time I tried it.”
“Never trust anything that needs charcoal to keep it going,” Matt agreed, “but we’re out in the open, so the smoke shouldn’t matter-and under the circumstances, I think St. Basil’s is what the doctor ordered.”
Saul snorted. “What doctor?”
“The Doctor of Divinity.”
“Wish we could feed them back their own medicine,” Saul growled. “Sweets to the sweet, after all.”
Matt was watching a small upheaval in the center of the army, right below the main avenue. “We just did, and it didn’t do much. These boys are used to bad smells, and know how to damp them out.”
“Where’d you get that from?”
“They’re Satanists-they must be used to the smell of brimstone by now. Okay, St. Basil’s incense, it is.”
“What else, in the Vatican?” Saul said. “O bandits bending under Evil’s yoke, Feel the steady heat of flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense smoke! Then flee, or die by slow degrees, In vapors wrapped, as if they clasped a crook!”
Smoke billowed up everywhere-from the roads right in front of the riders, all long the bottom of the hill, drifting out over the army. Matt could hear the hacking and coughing all the way up to the top of the dome-but the shrieks of agony and cries of disgust took him by surprise. “We’re hurting them!” He raised his hands to start a counterspell, but felt Saul’s hand on his shoulder. “What do you think they were planning to do to us? Don’t worry, they’ll get away fr
om it very fast.”
Sure enough, the whole army was on the move-away from the smoke. Half a dozen horses carrying robed figures burst out of the far side, riding hard. “There go your sorcerers,” Saul said. “Nothing fatal, worse luck.”
“The rest of the army isn’t hanging around, either,” Matt said. “Somehow, though, I wouldn’t call this a rout.”
“No, not when they’re just going home for the night, and home’s only a few blocks away. I can almost hear some of those footmen saying, ‘All in a day’s work.’ ”
“Yeah, and talking about how the officers messed it up again,” Matt agreed. “Don’t enlisted men always? Look at ‘em go!” They watched as the army boiled, moving steadily outward, away from the Vatican. Already, the leading edge was breaking up into units and going into long, low houses that had a very temporary look. Several of them were inside the Colosseum, which explained why the bandits were making it look like a crowd charging into a football stadium with only ten minutes left till game time. There was a huffing and a wheezing, and Arouetto hauled himself into view. “Arouetto!” Matt stepped over to catch his elbow, giving support. “What are you doing here? You’re in no shape for that climb!”
“I had need to tell you,” the scholar panted, “what you no doubt already know-the condottieri are in retreat! The pope sends his thanks!”
“He’s welcome,” Saul said, “but I think maybe we’d better stay up here for a while and make sure they don’t try to rally again today.”
“Why should they?” Matt shrugged. “They’ve put in their time, and they’ve got some partying coming up. We should come back tomorrow before sunrise, though.”
“Still, Wizard Saul speaks with prudence.” Arouetto found himself a seat on a pile of stone blocks. “We should wait.”
“Then while we’re here,” Saul said, finding another block to sit on, “I’d just like to double-check that history of Reme the pope gave us. You’ll pardon me, scholar, but I’m just automatically suspicious of history as told by a clergyman. Was the pope’s thumbnail history of the empire true?”
“So far as it went, yes,” Arouetto said slowly, “though he did not mention Caesar Decembris, who converted to Christianity and led most of the empire with him, by his example-”
“Only ‘most’?‘
“Aye, he did not insist on converting those who did not wish it. That is why there were so many pagans left for Hardishane to convert. And, of course, there is a great deal that he did not tell you, about what happened after the empire fell.”
“Sounds more like a slow slide than a fall,” Saul said sourly, “but I’ll take what I can get. Let’s start with Hardishane. What was going on in the rest of the world while he was rebuilding the Western empire? Ever hear of a prophet named Mohammed?”
“Of course,” Arouetto said, seeming surprised that they would think he had not. “He arose in Arabia during the last days of the empire, and preached a message from a holy book he wrote himself. It spread among the desert tribes, then became a fire that swept through Asia and North Africa, uniting their peoples in a new belief.”
“Only the Near East and North Africa?” Matt asked. “They never got into Spain-I mean, Ibile?”
“Oh, they tried.” Arouetto smiled. “But Reme would not allow it, and later the Gothic folk who had learned Latrurian civilization and military ways united behind a hero they called ‘the Lord.’ ”
“El Cid,” Saul murmured. “Are those their words for it? They united behind him and drove the Moorish folk back whenever they sought to invade.”
“That explains why the Moorish influence is so much less than it is in our universe,” Matt said to Saul, but the Witch Doctor was already asking, “Did the Moslems set up their own empire?”
“Aye. United in their new religion, they were the first of the southern provinces to break away from the Latrurian empire. Within years, they had founded one of their own.”
“But it was the missionaries who managed the conquest, not the generals?”
“At first, yes. But once Reme fell, the Moslems proclaimed a holy war and conquered what they could-though Heaven knows they had enough already! They battered at the gates of Byzantium itself, but were beaten back. Then, under the conqueror’s sons, they settled down to the wise and enlightened rule of their own Arabian empire.”
“Which hit its peak about the same time Hardishane welded Europe together into a new empire?”
“Aye.” Arouetto frowned. “You really must tell me how you can come from another world that is so like this one, and yet so different!”
“When there’s time, when there’s time,” Matt soothed. “Sounds as if you don’t exactly disapprove of the Moslems.”
“How can I?” Arouetto sighed. “How can I, when they esteem learning and the arts, and it is they who have preserved so many of the Greek and Latin books I so prize?”
“That doesn’t exactly endear you to the Church, does it?”
“I do my best to be discreet,” Arouetto admitted. “After all,” Saul said sourly, “the Latrurian empire may have tolerated all religions, but after Reme fell, the Church didn’t have to be so tolerant, did it?”
“Under Hardishane, the Christian missionaries accomplished great deeds,” Arouetto said evasively. Matt shuddered at the thought of conversion by the sword and hoped Hardishane’s monks hadn’t been quite so brutal-but he didn’t ask. Saul did. “But it was just a matter of good example? It wasn’t forced?”
“Rarely.” But Arouetto wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I will own, though, that some of the conversions may have had more to do with gaining status and wealth than with true faith.”
“Of course-if you want to climb to the top, you have to be the same religion as the guys who’re already up there,” Saul said with a wry smile. “Still, it’s not exactly coercion. But once nearly everybody was Christian, that seed of corruption took root and flowered, didn’t it?”
“A rather noxious flower,” Arouetto admitted. “In truth, it did-and yielded a harvest of intolerance. Then the Emperor of Byzantium-so he styled himself, though his empire had shrunk to the size of a kingdom-began to fear a new breed of Moslems who had come out of the East, the Turks, and called on Hardishane’s heirs to join them in recapturing the Holy Land from the Infidels…”
“The Crusades.” Saul’s gaze was riveted to Arouetto. “So they are called. We must admit, in all charity, that they did keep the Turks from overrunning Europe; they still have not taken Byzantium.”
“Oh,” Matt said. “You don’t think too highly of the Crusaders?”
Arouetto sighed. “Some acted out of true religious fervor, but most went on Crusade for reasons of their own-greed for booty, or the lust for power, carving out a kingdom of their own in the East. Hardishane’s grandsons fell to squabbling over the spoils, and Christian kingdom was pitted against Christian kingdom. Evil was thus given a door through which to enter, and did-and one by one the Christian kingdoms were subverted or seduced to the rule of the sorcerer-kings under the dominion of Evil.”
“Such as Boncorro’s grandfather.” Matt turned to look out over the condottieri. “Or did he usurp from a usurper who-hey!”
“Horses?‘
Saul came to his feet, following Matt’s gaze. “I thought this army was supposed to stay off duty till morning!”
“Do the condottieri march again?” Arouetto was on his feet, face pale. “They do,” Matt said. “Apparently they’re really getting serious about this-and we’re the reason why.” He turned to Saul.“Maybe we should just get out of here, quick as we can.”
Saul shook his head. “That won’t stop them now. Up till now, they’ve only been putting up a token effort to justify their pay and keep the pope hemmed in-but now that they’re making a real push, why not go on and finish the job, whether we’re there or not?”
“If we take off running, maybe they’ll follow us.”
“The whole army?” Saul shook his head. “Not unless we can get to anothe
r fortress before their pursuit band catches us.”
Arouetto gasped. “How can we defend ourselves?”
“By bringing in the guys who got me into this in the first place.” Saul fished a bauble out of his shirt and pressed a nubbin on its side. “Witch Doctor to Black Knight! Come in, Sir Guy! Come in, and come on! I got your wizard out of stir for you- now come get us out of the crunch!”
The whole army drew to a halt as Sir Guy pulled the amulet out of his armor. “Black Knight to Witch Doctor. I hear you, Wizard Saul. In what manner of difficulty do you find yourself?”
“We’re surrounded by an army,” Saul said, “and it’s not enough to break through and escape-we have to get rid of them! Any ideas, Sir Guy?”
“Many, but they require my being with you. What did you have in mind?”
“An aerial assault,” Matt’s voice said, and Alisande’s heart leaped. He was alive and well, then, and in this world-he must be, to speak through that magical device! And there was nothing in his voice to suggest any hurt or weakness. “Where is he?” she asked. “Where are you?” Sir Guy asked. “In the Vatican,” Saul answered. “Surely they must be well-protected there!” Alisande cried with relief. “Surely the Holy Father’s power must protect you,” Sir Guy said. “Other way around, actually. They were content to keep him penned in, until we showed up-but now they’re out to break through. We think they have orders to come and get us.”
“Majesty,” said Sir Guy, “I am loath to leave you, but I believe it is vital to their welfare that Stegoman and I fly to their aid.”
Alisande felt a chill at the thought of being without the support of the Black Knight and the dragon, but she felt a greater chill at the thought of losing her husband. “Go, then,” she said. “Great One, will you come?” Sir Guy asked. “Aye,” the dragon rumbled. “I could wish Matthew had not been so great a fool as to go wandering without me in the first place!”
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