The Oathbound Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  "What nonsense! What has this to do with physics?"

  Matt sighed. "Think of it as analogies. They see the world as being suspended between Heaven and Hell, and everything surrounding the earth was made solely for its benefit, because it's the most important part of creation."

  "What nonsense! When you are only a small planet, far out on the tip of one arm of a quite ordinary galaxy? Wherefore should your world be more important than any other?"

  Now it was Sir Guy who muttered, "Blasphemy!"

  "Because human beings live on it," Matt said simply.

  "How primitive a notion!"

  "I told you we have a long way to go. So to them, see, the world is an analogue of the Church, because it's the most important part of society..."

  "By whose reckoning?"

  "The scholars."

  "And whence come these "scholars'?"

  "From the Church. And the sun is analogous to the king, because it controls the seasons."

  Max hummed without words for a minute, then said, "The knight would thus understand entropy only as analogous to a lack of government."

  "You've got it!"

  "But then all my works, to him, would be..."

  "Incomprehensible." Matt nodded. "Fortunately, European culture has a mental structure for dealing with things it doesn't understand—it calls them magic, and lets it go at that."

  "Then they shall never approach true understanding of their world!"

  "No," Puck said, "but they may understand one another—as well as human folk can be understood."

  Matt threw up his hands. "What can I say? Chaucer understood people as well as anyone did, before we discovered biochemistry and neurology."

  "Faugh!" Puck made a face. "These are but words. One might as well speak of the elf shot and the mad."

  "See what I mean?"

  "Aye, and 'tis unbearable! Wizard, you cannot leave me shackled to one whose skull holds such a vacuum!"

  Sir Guy's scowl turned dangerous. "What is a `vacuum'?"

  "Something for making things pure—or cleaner, anyway," Matt improvised.—"I know how you feel, Max—I'm currently dogged with a companion who rubs me the wrong way, too."

  "Be rid of him, then!"

  Puck grinned. "Let him try!"

  "See what I mean?" Matt sighed "You don't suppose you could counteract him, do you?"

  "This sprite?" Max hummed, drifting closer to Puck.

  The elf scowled. "Do not even consider..."

  His voice ran down the scale, and his movements slowed. His features began working themselves toward an expression of alarm, and one hand began to move in a strange, but very slow, gesture.

  "No, Max!" Matt cried. "I didn't mean..."

  "Leave the elf be!" Sir Guy loosened his broadsword in its scabbard.

  But Puck's hand had completed the gesture, and suddenly an icicle appeared in the air—a glowing icicle, with the Demon trapped inside it.

  Or maybe not trapped—the ice immediately began to melt. Puck's voice soared upscale, finishing the phrase. "...any spell against me! Nay, since you have, deal with this!" He pointed at the ice-coated spark with fingers stiffened into a sort of cylinder, and a jet of darkness sped from his hand to enfold the Demon, shrouding him in a small sphere of night so total as to be absolute.

  Light flared within it, banishing the darkness, and the Demon sang, "Know that I have power over entropy, foolish elf! Do you dare beard me in my own realm?"

  "Foolish indeed," Puck admitted, rolling one hand around another and tossing something invisible at the Demon. He suddenly grew a white beard, shooting down from the spark, longer and longer.

  "What do you do?" Max screeched, just before he took off like a rocket.

  Puck met Matt's accusing glare with a shrug. "Make him a bearded star, and Nature will hurl him back to the firmament, where he belongs."

  The "bearded star" turned into a falling star, and the miniature meteorite spat, "As a comet resembles a meteor, foolish spirit, so can I return unto you! But know that, in embodying entropy, I am also the Spirit of Perversity!" And Puck suddenly grew long ears, his nose stretched out and thickened, and he stood before them wearing a miniature ass's head. He brayed in alarm.

  "There will be no ending to this," Sir Guy confided to Matt, "unless we provide it."

  Matt nodded. "Let's sort this out the way it should be."

  "Aye," Sir Guy said. "Do you take the Demon in hand, whiles I speak with the elf."

  One step ahead of Puck's gesture, Matt chanted,

  "See as thou wast wont to see,

  Be as thou wast wont to be!"

  Puck's head suddenly reverted to normal—with a look of fury. "I asked not for aid, Wizard!"

  "You have abetted mine enemy!" the spark keened. "Are you a traitor?"

  "No, and he's not your enemy." Matt cupped a hand around the spark and, as he turned away, noticed that Sir Guy was doing some pretty fast talking with Puck. "We're both fighting the evil king, after all—"

  " 'Tis no contest of mine!"

  "Okay, then—you're free. I can't ask you to fight in a cause you don't believe in."

  "Ask?" The spark hopped in astonishment. "But the Black Knight—"

  "Fully relinquishes any claim he might have upon you," Matt said firmly. "You're free to go back to the void if you want to."

  "But how boring! Wizard, imagine eternity with no tasks to accomplish, none save to supervise the smooth, even progress of entropy!"

  "Well, of course, if you want to...Heaven knows I'd appreciate your help..."

  " 'Tis done!" The spark snapped. "I am free of Toutarien and bonded to you—till I wish to sever the bond, at least!"

  "You were always free to. But you must understand what you're getting yourself into."

  "Dost truly think this kinglet you fight can do damage to me?" Max said in scorn.

  "No—but Sir Guy is over there trying to talk Puck into staying with the team. Just annexed to Sir Guy, is all."

  The spark danced in midair, humming to itself a while. Then it sang, "I can endure his company, if I need not speak to him save with the strongest of causes."

  "Done." Matt nodded. " In fact, I recommend that if he talks to you, you don't answer."

  "Oh, be assured that I shall!" The singing turned flat and harsh. "And long will he regret it!"

  "Friends, remember," Matt cautioned, "or at least allies.. But at the moment, it would be politic if you got out of sight."

  "A point," the spark agreed, and vanished.

  Matt noticed that his wallet warmed up at his belt, and felt reassured. He turned to Sir Guy. "Any luck?"

  "He is my man," Puck answered, grinning, "and I shall ride on his shoulder. Think naught of such favors as you owe me, Wizard—I shall be too busy brewing mischief with this knight to concern myself with you."

  "Very generous of you," Matt murmured. "Sir Guy, you sure you know what you're doing?"

  "Aye." The Black Knight grinned. "And if you will excuse me, Sir Matthew, we have already begun to brew a coil for the army that sits without our gate." He turned away, holding Puck in a palm and chatting like an old friend.

  Matt gazed after, heaving a sigh of relief, but having a hard time accepting it all.

  "Why do you stand amazed, Lord Wizard? Are you so surprised at your own peacemaking?"

  Matt looked up and was astonished to see Marian standing beside him. For a split second, he was lost in the dazzle of her beauty; then the memory of how she had dented heads with a quarterstaff came to mind, and he managed to pull back to a safe emotional distance. From that vantage point, he noticed that Robin was conducting his band to places around the great fire pit near an inner wall and detailing a few to join the guard on the walls. The net result was that, for the moment, Matt was alone with Marian.

  It wasn't the world's most comfortable feeling. What do you say to a legend? Especially one who had turned out to be rather intimidating? "Uh...don't you get a bit lonely, being the only woman in the
band?"

  "Oh, but I am not." The smile dazzled him again. "There are Allan-a-Dale's wife, and Will Scarlet's leman, and the wives of most of the other men of the band, save those who are too young."

  "Families?" Matt stared, amazed. "But...but...you're a military unit! A guerrilla band!"

  "Guerrilla?" Maid Marian frowned, puzzled; then her face cleared. "Ah! 'Tis a Spanish word, is't not?"

  "Why, yes. I think it means `little war.' " Matt was surprised that the woman showed evidence of education; it hadn't been common for anyone in the Middle Ages.

  But then, Marian was a gentlewoman, a lady—only a generation or two from minor aristocracy. "l, uh—don't see any other women around."

  "Nay. They wait in Sherwood, with the older men and striplings, where they bide in safety. I have not yet a child, so I am free to come venturing."

  At a guess, she and Robin were finally married—but it would be difficult to think of her as anything but "Maid" Marian. "I take it you won't have any difficulty going back to your home, uh, world."

  "Returning, no. Coming..." Marion shrugged. "We must know where there's need of us, ere we can march. But once having traveled the route, 'tis easy enough to go back."

  Matt hadn't realized Robin Hood was himself magical. He should have, of course. "Do you still, uh...serve King Richard, though in his absence?"

  "Ah! You know our tale well, I see. Aye, we served the Lionheart long, and aided in gathering pennies from the poor for his ransom—and jewels from the wealthy. So we labored, and guarded his people, till he was finally returned to England and put down his usurping regent John."

  So. Scott had written better than he knew. But why not? With an infinity of universes, anything Scott had imagined must have really happened, somewhere. "So you all would have been happy to retire, as long as Richard lived?"

  A shadow crossed Marian's face. "Oh, he rewarded my Robin amply, with restoration of his family's estates and two others that were taken from men who leagued with John. But the sheriff of Nottingham he would not punish, claiming he had only been obedient to his lord, as he should."

  "A little shortsighted of him."

  "He was in so many things. Within a few months, we saw he truly held no love for England; he was already dunning his noblemen for more gold, to take him adventuring again. In a year's time he was gone from England, and his brother was regent again."

  "I know." Matt shook his head. "Rights of succession aside, he still should have known better."

  "He did not truly care." Marian's voice hardened. "And John set the sheriff once again to plaguing my Robin, with boundary disputes and taxes on every excuse—yet he could be no more to him than a nuisance. But he could throw Robin's men into prison on the slightest pretext, and he seized upon the first who poached, to put him to death."

  "Robin didn't let him get away with that, did he?"

  Marian shook her head. "He rode against the sheriff in force, and in armor, and wrested his man from the Nottingham gaol. Then did John pronounce him once again outlaw, in that he had moved against the king's law—and Robin and I were off to the greenwood once more, with all our household, and our estates confiscated. But Robin's old band came, one by one, to find him in the forest, and we set ourselves to plague the sheriff as in days of old. Then Richard died."

  Matt nodded. "In a pointless fight, by a virtual accident—but he was good at getting into pointless fights."

  "A parfit gentil knight—but a very poor king," Marian agreed. "England was naught but a treasure house to him. Yet by the time of his death, he had taken all the treasure and left us only the house. And John became king."

  "And you decided to stay in the greenwood," Matt supplied.

  "We have." Marian turned merry again. "We plagued John till he died. Robin carried word of each nobleman's discontent to his peers, so that all knew that few would side with John, if he sought to move against any one of them—and they made him sign a great charter acknowledging their rights. It was Robin's proudest moment."

  "The Magna Carta," Matt murmured. "I'll bet it was. Not that John felt bound to honor it, though."

  Marian waved the objection away, irritated. "John honored naught but force, no matter how often he saw the folly of his efforts to tyrannize his peers. But he died at last, and his heir would have restored Robin's estates."

  Matt frowned. "Robin didn't accept?"

  "Nay, for he saw the poor folk would prosper under Edward. Then the elvin folk offered him life till Doom's Trump should sound, and work to keep him busied all his days."

  Matt shook his head. "Tough choice—family versus career."

  "Ah, but the elves promised lasting life to all his band." Marian raised a finger. "Not one of us has died since, though we've been wounded sore, and have endured great pain till the elves could heal us. Yet all become fit again and are ever filled with zeal to protect the common folk."

  "But I thought the elves left England in the Dymchurch Flit."

  "What of it? There are other Englands—so many, in fact, that they are beyond counting. Nay, somewhere there will ever be a Sherwood, and elves and merry men to fill it"

  Matt grinned. "Comforting to know—especially now."

  "Aye, now." Sir Guy came up to them, wearing a jaunty grin and an elfin shoulder ornament. "Night approaches and, with it, the assault of sorcery. Will it please you to come watch their feints and spells? Then, on the morrow, we can plot their overthrow."

  Matt's blood turned cold, but he nodded, tried to grin, and followed Sir Guy toward the battlements. Marian accompanied them—and, after five paces, Matt realized Robin Hood had joined her.

  Now that the fuss of arrival was over, he had time to take a longer and more thorough look about him.

  The place was a mess. The reek that had been nudging at his consciousness all along finally sank in—maybe it was the relatively clean air at the top of the stairs that made him realize how badly the courtyard stank. Over against the juncture of curtain wall and keep, he saw a maze of crosses, cobbled out of scraps of lumber and not even painted. Bodies lay wrapped in shrouds, piled up along the edges of the little cemetery—they had run out of burial room.

  Looking at the faces of the sentries around him, Matt realized that what he had mistaken for grim purpose was at least partly malnutrition. They weren't starving, but they were very lean—like Sir Guy himself, Matt now realized; he hadn't just hardened from campaigning. There wasn't an ounce of fat on his bones. His cheeks were hollow with hunger as much as stress, and the circles under his eyes came from vitamin deficiency, not lack of steep. Though there might have been something of that, too—and, as Matt watched him, he thought the Black Knight's gaiety was a bit forced. Now and then, for just a moment, a grim desperation showed through.

  Matt shuddered at the implications. What manner of deviltry was he going to see tonight?

  Looking down at the courtyard below, he realized that the masses against the walls were trash dumps. The peasants who moved so silently below were thin as whipcord under their smocks—and filthy. Not that body odor was terribly unusual in medieval society, but they had taken it to new heights here.

  Of course. Water from the river or no, they were rationing. Everyone had enough to drink, but they portioned out the baths.

  Matt resolved to speak to Sir Guy about it. Lack of sanitation could kill them just as quickly as poor nutrition.

  But there wasn't a murmur of protest or of discontent. Matt looked at people stretched almost to the breaking point, and marveled at the grim purpose that kept them moving. He wondered at the events that had brought them here, and if there were a soul in the castle who didn't have a harrowing tale to tell of cruelty and viciousness. Lean as it was, beleaguered as it was, this castle must have seemed a sanctuary to those who had suffered from Gordogrosso—and his imitators.

  "This is a dirty war," he muttered.

  "Aye." Robin nodded beside him, hard-faced—and Matt was startled; he hadn't realized he had spoken aloud.
>
  "It is indeed," Sir Guy agreed, "and no quarter is given, or asked for."

  Matt shrugged. "That was always the way of it, with the army of a sorcerer."

  Sir Guy shook his head. "These lice of Ibile are far worse than those forced soldiers we fought in Merovence, Sir Matthew. There, the greater number of the soldiers were impressed into service and would take any chance to escape their own ranks. Here, though, even the lowliest soldier is thoroughly and completely dedicated to evil, in the anticipation of the power and preferment his lord may grant him. There's not a one of our besiegers but wishes to be here, not a one that would not delight to see us expire in torment."

  Matt turned to look out at the enemy, surrounding them for as far to each side as he could see, and half a mile deep. The sun had set, and the dusk was hurrying on toward night. A strange, growling sound, half mutter and half chant, was rising from the churning mass before him.

  Suddenly, a crimson ball shot up from the circling army, arcing toward the castle. A half-dozen others followed it, all along the walls.

  "It begins," Sir Guy said grimly.

  Surprisingly, Alisande did sleep, though her slumber was interrupted. First had come the attack of the fire snakes, but they were gone by the time she came out of her tent; Sauvignon, prompted by the apprentice wizard they had brought along, had simply told the men to throw snowballs. There followed the plague of rats, to be scared off by the young wizard's quick summoning of a hundred terriers. Finally, near dawn, Alisande was up, feeling moderately rested, and she sent Sauvignon back to bed just before she had to greet the flaming skeletons that came stalking up over the lip of the plateau. The snowballs worked again, of course, and the bones stayed scattered, but it did take her a little while to overcome her footmen's terror enough to get them all to pitch in.

  And their yelling woke the sleepers again. That was the bad part.

  So, all in all, it was a rather creaky army that finally greeted the sun that morning. Alisande paced through the camp, eyeing her soldiers like a worried mother, and murmured to Sauvignon, "Perhaps we should bid them sleep this day, then watch through the night."