"Then let ush sheek out the otherzh!" Stegoman slammed down on all fours, searing a blowtorch arc across everything near him.
"You're wasting time, you loony lizard!" Matt had begun to put the clues he had together, now that his mind was clearing. "They must be in the dungeons-probably being tortured. We've got to find a way down..."
"Torture? I'll torch them! Vile hatchling hunterzh!" Stegoman reared back his head and blowtorched the floor. The marble cracked with a series of bursts and explosions. He let out another blast-furnace breath, and the floor gave way with a roar.
A huge shock jarred Matt's bones. He gasped and flung the battle-axe over his head, holding it broadside, like an umbrella. A few last shards of charred marble clanged off the improvised shield. Then things were relatively quiet.
Light from the huge hole overhead showed undressed stone walls and floor. They'd fallen at least thirty feet. "We're in the cellar," Matt said. "You all right?"
Before Stegoman could answer, a clamor of battle cries sounded from their right. Sayeesa's troops were probably gathering to protect the last stronghold.
Stegoman turned toward the noise, breathing torches. Fifty feet ahead, light gleamed off armor. The dragon jumped into a gallop, sending flame gouting twenty feet ahead. The lurid glow of his fire lighted tall, slender soldiers in golden armor. They shrieked, jamming into the second row behind them. In a moment, the hall was packed solid with struggling bodies.
Matt glanced at the ceiling, twenty feet overhead, and yelled, "Up and over, Steogman! Up and over!"
The dragon grunted and leaped. Matt pressed himself back against the fin, hearing howls of agony as the great claws tore at heads.
They burst into a huge room, lighted by a score of torches and a huge fire in a pit near the far wall. The place was cluttered with objects. Matt recognized a few: a tall coffin lined with spikes; the pallet and drum of a rack; and thumbscrews and whips lining the walls.
Alisande and Sir Guy were there, chained to the left wall, their arms manacled over their heads. Sir Guy was stripped to his shirt and hose, and Alisande to her shift. One of the huge guards was approaching with a six-foot branding iron, but they looked untouched, so far.
Sayeesa stood at the side, but she whirled as Matt and Stegoman burst in. Her eyes widened in terror, but she swung to seize the branding iron. "Now, Lady!" she screamed at Alisande. "Command them to stand fast, or you shall know the taste of hot iron!"
"I obey no foul minion of Evil," Alisande snapped.
The branding iron stabbed out. Matt bellowed, and Stegoman charged, roaring fire. Sayeesa dropped the iron and jumped as the flame seared the guards around her. Matt leaped down and ran toward the princess.
"Who movezh," Stegoman rumbled, "diezh!"
Sayeesa froze as Matt slid to a halt near Alisande, swinging his axe over his head.
"You come late, sir," the princess said. She moved her wrist along the wall, stretching out the six inches of chain.
Matt took a deep breath and chopped. The chain parted with a snap, and he circled to the opposite side. He chopped the second chain off. "Yeah, sorry I couldn't come sooner. I had a pressing engagement."
"And I know well what you were pressing," Alisande said between her teeth.
Sayeesa was screaming at her troops as Matt turned to free Sir Guy, and they were forming up again. Matt wasted no time in chopping through the chains that held the Black Knight.
"Late come-but well come," Sir Guy said. He turned to Sayeesa. "And now, what of the witch?"
"Witch?"
"Aye. What else could you think her?" Alisande had picked up the branding iron and was swinging it tentatively. "A foul lust-witch, who inflames men with desire-to their ruin. Already she has ended the lives of half a hundred, draining them of all energy." She glared at Sayeesa.
Sayeesa returned the glare with bitterness. Her voice rose. "Guards! Out upon them!"
The guards started forward, while Sir Guy snatched a poker from the fire. But Stegoman thundered, "Hold!" He scored the stone floor with fire in front of the ranks.
"Go! Upon them!" Sayeesa screamed. "Will you let them ruin all?"
Matt began chanting.
"Metal rods in the hands of the pure, Change to swords, both sharp and sure, With edges honed, keen as Saladin's blade, Damascened swords, by wizard-smiths made."
The irons twisted, growing and flattening into slender swords. Sir Guy grinned and cut at the air. Alisande threw a glance at Matt and turned to Sayeesa.
The witch shrank back. "Kill them now! Attack or I'll return you to nothingness!"
Despair washed over the faces of the soldiers, to be replaced by hopeless determination.
Stegoman let out a blast, sweeping the lines. But when his fire winked out as he paused for breath, they charged forward, pikes and swords slashing. Alisande and Sir Guy met them back to back, threshing death all about them.
But Sayeesa's threat to return the men to nothingness touched a response in Matt's memory. He chopped a guard aside and sprang to join the princess and the knight, laying about with the axe and crying, "They're only illusions. They seem solid, but they're made from nothing!"
"Then this illusion will have your head," a soldier howled. "Make me vanish, if you can!"
"Nothing easier," Matt shouted, blocking the blow.
"Your revels now are ended! These your actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a wrack behind!"
Sayeesa gave a long-drawn-out wail of heartbreak, and other voices caught it up, keening in unison, as everything about them began to waver and ripple. Colors faded; shapes flowed and merged into the rippling. The rippling itself faded, until it was a cloud of mist that thinned and disappeared, leaving only a heat haze.
Even that faded and was gone.
Matt's axe fell from numbed fingers. He stood in an empty crater with a causeway thrust in from the edge. At the lip of the crater, a double line of youths and occasional girls stood shivering, looking about them uncertainly. A few still forms lay among them, very still. Around the crater stretched a blasted heath. And in the center, Sayeesa knelt in a plain tunic and cloak, doubled over with grief, sobbing her heart out.
Suddenly she screamed and yanked a knife from her robe. She swung it high, then slashed it down toward her heart.
Matt leaped and caught her wrist, just as the knife grazed her flesh. Sir Guy grabbed her from behind in a bear hug and pinioned her arms, and Matt twisted the knife free.
Sayeesa loosed one last ear-piercing scream and collapsed, slumped in Sir Guy's arms and sobbing. "Let me die! I am damned beyond saving. My sins are too terrible ever to be shriven. Let me die!"
"Nay. You still have a part to play." Alisande strode up grimly. "For your sins you must atone." She yanked Matt's sash loose. He gave a startled squawk, holding his robe shut.
"Oh, try me not with your mockery of modesty!" she snapped. "Bind her hands." Sir Guy held Sayeesa's arms, and Matt began pinning her wrists together behind her back. The princess cut a ragged strip from Sayeesa's homespun gown and bound the witch's feet. Sir Guy let the girl down gently upon the scorched earth.
Alisande was gazing at the muddle of young people near the causeway. Matt followed her gaze. "Where did they come from?"
"Her victims. Lured to her and bedazzled by pleasures untold. Tales are recounted of the vile degradations she heaped upon them, till they were drained and could no longer please her. Then she turned them to stone statues-monuments to what she no doubt thought of as her 'power of womanhood'." The princess's mouth was tight.
"And now they've come alive again-most of them." Matt frowned at the milling group. "It seems impossible that I could have broken so many spells with only one verse."
"Ah, but you broke
the master-spell on her," Sir Guy explained.
"A spell on her?" Matt's eyebrows raised.
"Aye, or so rumor has it." Alisande stood glaring at the sobbing woman. "She was naught but a simple peasant wench once, though of much beauty and charm-and far too much sensuality."
Sir Guy nodded. "She was a lass for all men, though 'tis said she was goodhearted withal. She was a lass for all men, seeking always to give more, until she ceased to have self."
"You don't mean that promiscuity destroyed her identity, do you?" Matt asked. "Maybe that was her identity."
"The identity goatish men wished for her!" Alisande glared at him. "She tried to be what they wanted, thereby losing what she was. Her sinning gave Evil power over her, so that an ancient, depraved sorcerer could cast a spell to transform her into the lust-witch you met-for his own pleasure, no doubt. He died in flames shortly after, but she still had power over men, and the power to cast the glamours that arise out of desire."
"Then all these illusions and powers-her fairy palace and her servants-were only outgrowths of the sorcerer's spell?"
Sir Guy nodded.
"What about her door guards?"
"Mandrake plants," Alisande said, with a trace of contempt. "Did you not recognize them, Wizard?"
"No, never saw one before." Matt considered carefully. "Then she's no longer a lust-witch-just an ordinary girl again."
"Aye." Alisande speared him with another glare. "But beware, Wizard. She still has the power she was born with-which has proved sufficient to ruin the strongest of men."
Sayeesa lifted her head from the dirt. "Give me the knife, loose my hands, and let me die! For I am too foul to live!"
"You are not, if you still can think so." Alisande stared at the girl, her look almost sympathetic. Then her face hardened as she turned to Matt. "Thus have men done to her!"
"Well, it wasn't my spell that did it!" Matt didn't know what was bothering the princess, but he was getting tired of her attitude. "Control your tone, Lady!"
Sir Guy's eyes widened, and Alisande froze, paling. Then she spoke in a low tone, quivering with anger. "We will speak of that anon, sir, when your duties here are done."
"Duties? I didn't hear anyone blow assembly."
"Did you not?" Alisande's finger stabbed out, pointing to the naked, bewildered young folks. "There stand those poor victims, stripped to their skins in the cold night air. If you claim to any morality, Wizard, you must clothe them. I, too, am lacking, and Sir Guy is without armor."
"Nay. After they bound us in our ensorcelled sleep and brought us here, they took all from us." Sir Guy turned away. "But perchance I may find them here."
He strode off, while Matt stood with his eyes locked on Alisande's. Then he sighed. "All right, I'll try. But don't expect miracles, Lady. I'm beat."
He thought for a moment, but memory was no help. This would have to be something original, good or not.
"The wind is too cold at this time of year, And overexposure may bring on the flu. Let whatever each wore when entering here Reclothe now the wearer, without more ado."
There was a rustle, and the feeling of cloth against his skin. He looked down to see his clothes back on him under the robe. Alisande was again wearing the garments he'd first given her. And now Sir Guy was coming back, again clad in his black armor. He looked up, and the youths were all dressed.
`Reclothed,' eh? His spell hadn't just supplied the garments, it had dressed everyone with them instantly.
"Satisfied?" he demanded of Alisande.
She made no answer. Stepping forward to the edge of the crater, she held up her arms and called, "Hearken! Attend me!"
The youngsters quit "oohing" over their clothes and looked down at her, startled. They obviously hadn't realized she was there.
"I am Princess Alisande," she called out, proud and grave in the moonlight. She had the dignity and authority that could only come from being raised to it, from an impregnable sense of self. "I and my liegemen have saved you. We have broken the spell that chained you. You are clothed, and most of you live. Thank your God for that! Now stay not to marvel or doubt. Find a church to be shriven, to be granted new hope of salvation. Then return to your homes. Now depart!"
As he watched the youths begin to leave, bearing their dead with them, Matt felt a touch on his arm. He turned to see Sir Guy beside him, holding out his silver ballpoint pen. "I have never seen the like of this. Surely it must be yours. Perchance your magic wand?"
"My what?" Matt pocketed it automatically. "Uh -not exactly. Thanks, Sir Guy."
"And this?" Sir Guy held out the black sword in its scabbard. "A wondrous-seeming blade. Is it also yours?"
Matt nodded uncertainly. "Well, partly. I made it from your dagger. I suppose it's really yours."
"Nay, 'tis now yours." Sir Guy smiled. "Already I have two swords, mine own, and that which you magicked here for me."
Alisande had been watching the last of the youths depart, but now she came back, turning scornful eyes on Matt. "And now, Wizard, are you recovered from your night of revels?"
"What revels?" Matt demanded. "We'd hardly begun!"
"Begun the road to your death!" Alisande blazed. "But for your oath, you'd have been drained to a husk."
Matt stiffened... "Oath? What are you talking about?"
"The oath of fealty you swore when I created you Lord Wizard. Had it not been for that, I could not have broken the foul spell that bound you. Be assured, the words that you spoke gave me power over you."
"And me some power over you! I remember your saying a word or two."
"Aye, certes. My oath bound me to you, as did Sir Guy's to draw us into your danger. Or did you not realize, sirrah, that your lust led us all into peril?"
"Whoa! It didn't start with lust. There was a damsel in distress.. ."
"A comely damsel, no doubts and one not overly clad."
"Oh, well. But you can't think I went off fighting trolls because I was hot for her body."
"Say, rather, you fought an illusion of hers under her total control," Alisande corrected him. "She was in no danger."
"But I couldn't know that." Still, it must have been true. And if he'd had no sword to fight with, she'd probably have brought up her guards in time to rescue him, then been all sympathy as she took him to heal his wounds.
"If there had been no sin in your soul, she could not have seduced you to her," Alisande said, with scathing scorn. "When free from sin, the minions of Evil have no power over you!"
"So what am I supposed to be? A saint?" Matt cried, exasperated. "And as forgetting us into danger-why didn't you warn me that there was a lust-witch around?"
"Because, from the best we knew, her lair was a day's ride to the north," Sir Guy answered.
"It should not have mattered," Alisande declared. "And it would not, had you been a knight, not a slight country wizard!"
Matt bridled. "And just what could a knight have done that I didn't?"
"He could have known Evil when he saw it-and resisted it!"
Matt reared his head back, staring at her. "Sure, Lady! Knights never give in to temptation. Oh, never! I suppose Astaulf wasn't a knight before he usurped the throne!"
Alisande started to answer. Then she turned pale and snapped her jaw shut. She swung on her heel and stalked off into the night.
"What's the matter with her, anyway?" Matt asked Sir Guy. "Does she think I should be made out of marble?"
"She is, perchance, distressed to learn that you are not." Sir Guy pursed his lips, but there was a hint of amusement in his face. "If you can be tempted to sin by a woman's body, Lord Wizard, the princess's cause is imperiled."
Matt's brows drew down. "How do my lapses endanger the cause?"
"Because, Lord Wizard, you and I are her only true assets in the war for her throne; and of us two, you are the more vital."
"Seems to me wars really boil down to which side has the strongest fighters," Matt objected.
"Not so. For at root,
this is a struggle between Good and Evil. And most potent for those forces are the wizards and sorcerers. Sorcerers must remain celibate-no human feelings must possess their attention. But even more must a wizard be virtuous, since the smallest sin weakens his power for the Good. Thus our Princess Alisande must have concern for your soul."
"Yes, I see," Matt admitted grudgingly. "But I also see that it is an invasion of privacy."
"Indeed. She most truly invaded your privacy when she summoned you by your oath, saving you from the witch." Sir Guy smiled in gentle mockery, then sobered. "Your oath was a bond, Sir Wizard, and protection against all but the most potent magics. No matter the charms the witch used on you, it would find a way to protect you against them-for a time, at least."
So that was why somebody had come bursting in on him and Sayeesa just when things started to get interesting. Then another thought occurred to him. "If I'm so important, could that have anything to do with Sayeesa's castle being suddenly so far south of where it's supposed to be? And could Malingo have anything to do with the sending of both witches against me?"
Sir Guy's brows knitted in thought. "'Tis not impossible. And that would mean more traps might be set for your soul. Were I you, Lord Wizard, I should spend much time in prayer! But come, the lady is ready to depart. Summon your friend Stegoman, and I will seek my good steed where he was left after bearing our bound bodies here."
CHAPTER 8
Matt rolled over on his bed of pine boughs, unable to sleep because of Sayeesa's heartbroken sobbing. She hadn't stopped crying since her dream castle had vanished.
They had come back to the campsite, with the witch trussed before him on a sobered-up Stegoman, while Alisande rode behind Sir Guy on his horse. Alisande had cut a new bed of pine boughs, and they had settled into salvage what sleep they could. Now she and Sir Guy were deep in slumber.
It must be nice, Matt thought, to have a clear conscience, though hers seemed a little too clear.
He turned over, trying to shut out the sobbing and clear his mind of what kept gnawing at it. Again, he failed.
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