Her Majesty's Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  The Demon didn't, and Matt went on at some length, explaining the intricacies and ramifications of the situation, as far as he knew them.

  After an hour, the Demon declared, "I chose aright. You truly comprehend perversity."

  CHAPTER 14

  "Awake."

  Matt swatted at the steel hand and rolled over on his back, glaring up at Sir Guy. "It's too early."

  The knight only pointed to the sky, and Matt realized Sir Guy was silhouetted against a brightening ceiling. Looking out, he saw the hellhounds still slavering and clawing at the force-field, without the slightest slackening of berserk ferocity.

  "They will flee with sunrise," the knight explained, "but we must be ready to ride when they do, to make as many miles as we can by daylight."

  Matt nodded. "So we have to start early." He clambered to his feet, sighing, and helped Sir Guy waken Alisande and Sayeesa. They breakfasted on journey bread, huddled in their cloaks and watched the dogs clawing at the eastern space between stone blocks.

  The sky grew rosy as they watched. They finished breakfast and saddled up. The hounds went crazy as they mounted and rode to the center of the Ring, watching the east.

  A sudden line of burning red bulged above the horizon. Scarlet rays stabbed out, flooding through the eastern portal.

  The dogs screamed, wheeled about, and fled out over the moor.

  But they'd overstayed; they seemed to grow thinner as they ran, translucent, and transparent, then ...

  "Gone." Matt exhaled a long, shaky breath.

  "Back to whatever lightless place gave them being." Sir Guy nodded heavily. "Now let us ride."

  They turned their horses, setting their backs to the sun, and rode out of the Stone Ring-quite reluctantly, with the possible exception of Sayeesa. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and slumped in her saddle as they passed between huge sarcens.

  They rode west, alternating between walk and canter again. Alisande rode beside Sayeesa, chatting; and there was nothing particularly royal about her manner. She seemed only a young woman, wanting a good gossip. Sayeesa was wary at first, but she thawed quickly.

  Matt kept trying to catch the princess's eye, but she always seemed to be looking the other way at just the wrong moment. After a while, he began to suspect it was more than coincidence. Finally, about midmorning, he managed to cut in between the two women during a canter and was next to Alisande when they slowed to a walk. "Good morrow, your Highness."

  "Good morn." Her neck was ramrod stiff, and she didn't quite meet his gaze. "Lord Wizard, I must ask you to forget any words that passed between us yesterday. You will understand that, due to the nature of the Stone Ring, I was not myself."

  It hurt. It stabbed in and twisted, letting anger spurt out. "Of course-I should have expected remorse this morning. After all, you'd never felt like a woman before."

  Her head snapped back as if she'd been slapped, and anger flared in her eyes-but beneath it, he could see the hurt. She inclined her head with cold courtesy. "I thank you for instruction, Lord Wizard. I assure you, I'm schooled-never to risk personal converse again."

  She straightened in her saddle with the dignity of a glacier and rode away, turning her back to him.

  Matt watched her go, cursing under his breath.

  A spark hovered near him, visible even in sunlight, humming, "You may understand perversity, Wizard, yet you cannot prevent it."

  "Oh, go make a hotbox," Matt growled.

  By late afternoon, they were out of the plains, into a rolling, hill-and-gully land. Sir Guy was in excellent spirits. "We shall not lack for shelter this night, praise Heaven! We shall be well-housed indeed, at the monastery of Saint Moncaire!"

  "Moncaire?" Matt frowned. "Hardishane's war wizard? What kind of monks live in his house?"

  "A warrior order." Sir Guy gazed off into the distance with nostalgia. "Worthy men, sworn to holy orders as well as to arms, devoted to the protection of the helpless against the wicked. For years they maintained themselves in readiness, with fasting, drill, and marches, as if the time of their need should come on the morrow."

  "And tomorrow's here." Matt chewed at his lower lip. "But isn't war a rather strange profession for a monk, Sir Guy?"

  The knight shook his head. "'Tis a matter of whom the arms are borne against, Lord Wizard."

  "Malingo." Matt nodded. "I keep forgetting that, in this universe, it really is possible to tell the good from the bad-and without much likelihood of rationalizing. Let's have a look at this monastery."

  The monastery was there. So was an army!

  It was a rather motley horde, falling into definite groupings by uniform color; but it surrounded the monastery on all four sides in a vast, sprawling circle.

  Sir Guy drew in a long, whistling breath. "We have been anticipated."

  "It is the army of evil," Alisande confirmed.

  Matt frowned, brooding. "How far from the mountains are we?".

  "Two days' ride," Alisande answered.

  "What now is our order?" Sayeesa demanded. "Can we go around them?"

  "We can," Sir Guy said judiciously. "But if we do, night will catch us far from any habitation."

  "No." Matt shook his head sharply. "We might not find a convenient Stonehenge this time; and I somehow suspect Malingo hasn't run out of hellhounds."

  "We go in, then." Alisande's sword hissed out of its sheath. "Come, gentles. We shall hew a way to those walls, or die with our swords reaping a harvest of evil about us."

  "Very commendable." Matt touched a restraining hand to Alisande's hilt. "But personally, I'd prefer not to die. There's a better way. Max!"

  "Aye, Wizard." The dot of arc light hovered in the air before him. Sir Guy and Alisande pulled back involuntarily, and the stallion shifted restlessly. Matt ignored them. "Does your power extend to time, Max?"

  "Things move in time as in space. Thus there is energy spent; and where it is spent, I can hoard. 'Tis in my province."

  Matt took a deep breath, sure of his words this time.

  "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time."

  The dot of light winked out. Matt swallowed and settled in the saddle, motioning the others forward.

  They rode down the hill at a trot and came to the rear of an army strangely stalled; all about them, soldiers and animals stood frozen in mid-movement.

  "What has happened, Lord Wizard?" Alisande's voice was hushed. "Have you and this Demon of yours frozen this whole army in death?"

  "No, Highness. They are not dead, but frozen in time, so that it might take a day for one to blink his eyes." Matt looked around him, trying to suppress a shudder. "But do not touch them. They move so slowly that each must seem as immovable as a whole mountain of granite."

  They went through the army at a crawl, moving very carefully. It was slow going. Finding ways for the horses to move through the bunched soldiers was difficult, and they often had to backtrack and try another way. But they persevered and were almost to the wall when the men about them began to move again, very slowly, but getting faster.

  "The spell's broken!" Matt bellowed. "Ride, and don't count the bumps!"

  Horses lurched into a run as a midnight-blue figure thrust up above the crowd, its hands weaving an unseen pattern.

  "Faster!" Matt called. "There's a sorcerer with a whammy back there!"

  But the footmen were coming alive, with groans that rose to howls. Pikes thrust up at them from all sides. Sir Guy shouted and plowed ahead, bowling them out in a bow-wave; but the more adroit soldiers sprang back, then leaped in again, thrusting. Matt whipped out his sword and parried a pike, slicing its haft in the process. On the far side, Sir Guy dished out death, cut-and-parry.

  The sorcerer's arm swung down in an arc, forefinger stabbing out at the company.

  "Fight!" Alisande cried. "They are no longer helpless!"

  Matt turned toward her, startled. Her voice had deepened, grown husky. Her body
had thickened; laugh lines cupped her mouth. As he watched, crow's-feet sprouted, and silver salted her hair.

  "You're aging!" Matt cried, and turned to Sir Guy. The knight was hewing and hacking, but more slowly now, and his hair was grizzled. Matt yanked his hand up in front of his eyes and felt his joints resist the movement. The hand was blue-veined and wrinkled. "He's hexed us! We're aging a year every second! Max!"

  "Aye, Wizard?" The Demon danced before him.

  "Make us younger, fast! Back to our natural ages! The sorcerer over there has speeded our time up!"

  "Then I shall reverse it," the Demon chuckled. "What words will you give me?"

  "Forward to yesterday! `Turn back the hands of time!' 'I have a mandate from the people!' And while you're at it, drain that sorcerer's power!"

  "I go, I go!" the Demon sang, and exploded into a sheet of flame, to clear some working space. Soldiers sprang back, screaming and beating their clothes. Matt felt his joints loosen and saw Sir Guy and Alisande quicken their movements as the wrinkles faded from their faces.

  A despairing shriek rose over the battle; Matt yanked his head around in time to see the sorcerer collapse. Max had drained the magician's power-all of it.

  A pike jabbed up at Matt's eyes. He flinched, pulling back, and it grazed his shoulder instead. Matt bellowed as pain seared him, and thrust with his sword. The pike head went flying, but two more jabbed in, and more soldiers were following from Matt's blind side. He swung his monofilament-edged sword like a scythe, reaping pike heads. "Your Highness! Get the gate open!"

  "Aye; 'tis my task," Alisande cried, turning her horse. The Demon blasted some space for her as she rode to the fore, leaving Sayeesa sandwiched between Sir Guy and Matt.

  Alisande cupped a hand around her mouth and called out, "Open to friends! Open the gate!"

  Matt heard a shouted command above, and a torrent of crossbow bolts plummeted down all around them. Soldiers screamed and fell back, and few seemed disposed to replace them. A knight swore in the background, swatting at his men with the flat of his sword; but they pressed back away from the company, for the crossbow bolts continued to fall in a drizzle.

  "Who cries for entry?" a basso voice bawled above.

  Alisande's mouth hardened. "Alisande, Princess of Merovence, commands you to open!"

  The basso swore a startled, but very pious, oath, and the huge doors bowed outward on the instant, swinging wide. The besiegers howled and surged forward. But bolts hailed down, slowing them. Alisande galloped in through the gate with Sayeesa behind her, and Sir Guy tuned his horse, facing outward, pulling in against Matt's side, retreating toward the gate while he hacked and slew about him. Matt admired his endurance; his own arm was ready to fall off.

  They backed toward the gate. Within the archway, Sir Guy tuned and galloped in. Matt slewed about, blocking the door. He clipped three pike heads with one last weary chop before he cried, "Max! Flambea!"

  The Demon blasted a ten-foot half circle of charred earth clear around the gate. While the enemy was trying to rally, the rear ranks trying to shove through the huddle of moaning men in front, Matt pivoted and lurched into the monastery.

  A moment later, the huge doors boomed shut behind him, and the foot-thick bar crashed home to hold them. Something huge and heavy slammed against them, rattling the bar; then howls of frustration filled the air outside the wall. Matt went limp in the saddle. Let them bring up a battering ram, now; his party was safe.

  "Where's she that does claim to be Princess of Merovence?" the stern basso voice cried out above them. A tall, heavy figure in full plate armor clanked down the steps from the battlement, his breastplate embossed with a bright green cross. A cloak of the same green, with a gold border, snapped in the wind behind him.

  "My Lord Abbot!" Sir Guy cried cheerily, saluting with his sword. "Well met in a dark hour!"

  "Who speaks so?" The tall knight rumbled, lifting his visor to disclose a glowering face with a bush of moustache.

  Sir Guy threw up his own visor, and the abbot's stern face broke to a slight smile, a warm glow in his eyes. "Sir Guy Losobal! It is long since I beheld your countenance. Have you come, to strive by our sides in our hour of need?"

  "Nay, Lord Abbot-we have come to cry sanctuary from a house of God! And as to her whom we guard, look and see-can you hold doubt of her lineage?"

  The abbot turned, frowning down at Alisande. His eyes widened slightly. "Nay-I cannot," he breathed. "Her parentage is written in her features."

  Matt was amazed that so huge a man could move so quickly. He was at the bottom of the stairs in an instant, kneeling by Alisande's horse. "You honor our house, Highness, and have come to give heart to your most loyal liegemen in the darkest of hours! Forgive my rash doubts of your person!"

  "Your caution was well-founded, Lord Abbot." Alisande sat straight in the saddle, royalty enfolding her like great, closing wings. "The thanks and praise of a princess, for all you and yours, who have held out 'gainst all hope."

  "Thus we have ever done; thus we shall ever do," the abbot responded, rising. "Yet we fought with little heart, for we thought our cause doomed. But we know, now, that you live and are free! Nay, let them batter our gates! With their own swords, we shall dig them their graves!"

  Alisande beamed, basking in the glow of his homage. "I am greatly blessed to have such vassals! Yet I err in etiquette. Lord Abbot, may I present my worthy companions." She indicated Sayeesa. "A penitent bound for the convent of Saint Cynestria."

  The abbot bent an armored glance on Sayeesa. "Women are forbidden within these precincts; yet any attendant upon her Highness is welcome. Still must I bid you to the guest house in the eastern tower, milady."

  "I cry grace for your courtesy." Sayeesa bowed her head. "Yet you have no need of such chivalry; I am lowborn."

  "Your speech denies it," the abbot said, frowning. "Naetheless, you are welcome to such sanctuary as we can offer." He turned away, studying Matt. "And this, your Highness."

  "This is Matthew, Lord Wizard of Merovence." Alisande's voice rang out.

  The abbot stared, taken aback. "Lord Wizard! You dare to proclaim this, with the usurper's foul sorcerer claiming the title?"

  "I do," Matt said grimly. "I have an ace up my sleeve."

  "An ace?" The abbot turned to the princess with a frown. "What is this he speaks of?"

  "I have not heard the term," she answered. "He is a rare scholar, Lord Abbot, and much that he speaks is quite strange. Yet I think that he speaks of the small bit of light which he term--" She hesitated. "-a Demon."

  "But be assured, Lord Abbot-he's not of the Hell-crew," Matt added quickly.

  "How could that be?" the abbot growled. "A Demon, and not of Hell?"

  "Well, that's just a label fastened on him from the outside, mostly, I think, because he wasn't human and produced heat."

  "Nay, that cannot be!" the abbot said sternly. "None but God can create!"

  "You're right! But you can take what heat is available and concentrate it in one place. That's really all you do when you boil water, isn't it?"

  "Aye, in a manner of speaking." The abbot still frowned. "Is it thus your familiar does its work?"

  "Not all that familiar," Matt said judiciously. "But yes, he does-and he sticks with me because I understand how men are basically self-defeating."

  "Ah." The abbot nodded, his face clearing. "That the fault is not in Creation, but in man. Yes, I see-and if your spirit declares that, it could not be of the Hell-breed." He took a deep breath, his shoulders lifting. "Well, then-what would you say to hot meat and good wine?"

  For the first fifteen minutes, they were rapt in total silence, broken only by the clink of knife on plate-the kind of silence which was the hungry man's highest tribute to good cooking.

  After two pounds of beef, some scallions, and a glass of wine that out-burgundied Burgundy, the abbot heaved a satisfied sigh and set down his glass. "Tell me what you have seen as you rode from the East."

  "Banditry
and lawlessness," Alisande said darkly. "Poor folk striving still to be good, but with sad moral weakness come upon them." She looked up at the abbot. "Which should be little surprise to you-for I see many coats, other than those of your monks, here in your monastery, Lord Abbot."

  It was a monastery, Matt had to admit-he'd found that out as they came through the inner gate. Suddenly it had been spread out before him-a collection of low-lying buildings, dormitories, cloisters, common hall, chapel, brewery, bakery, armory-all the buildings of a medieval monastery, with a few martial additions. Even an orchard, and a large truck garden. But the whole thing was enclosed by the great curtain-wall, turreted and battlemented. The House of Moncaire was a strange hybrid between monastery and fortress. It said a lot about its inhabitants.

  "Aye, many liveries, Highness," the abbot answered. "The Duke of Tranorr is here, and the Duke of Lachaise. Earl Cormann has come, and Earl Lanell and Earl Morhaisse. Beneath them are Barons Purlaine, Margonne, Sorraie -- the list is long, Highness."

  "Tranorr, Mochaisse, Purlaine ... those estates are near to Bordestang." The princess frowned.

  The abbot nodded. "When the usurper's armies closed about them, they could choose only death or flight. They fled, that they might fight again for your cause. They came here, where the power of God strengthens the power of arms. Here, too, have come peasants made homeless by banditry, or by wars between barons men who live now only to strike down the emissaries of Evil. We have footmen aplenty, and knights; those whose lords died in the war have come to us, masterless, seeking a suzerain, for they disdained to serve the usurper."

  "Then your numbers are adequate?" Alisande inquired.

  "They have been, till now." The abbot's face darkened. "Your presence here is a blessing, Highness-yet 'tis also cause for concern. Many of our men have fallen to wounds, and more than a few to vice. Our arrows and bolts are spent faster than our fletchers and smiths can renew our stock. We are weakened, in truth; for we've been here besieged nigh onto a twelvemonth. Till now, the usurper and his sorcerer have had to fight in many places at once; the troops before our walls are, therefore, a moiety of their force. Yet with your Highness here guesting, I doubt not they'll bring all their horses and men to this place and strike us with all their weight here this night."