The Oathbound Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  "Have you more thread upon your spindle, Clotho?" the one with the yardstick asked.

  "Aye," Clotho said. "It could make his life longer—or make another life, anew."

  "What, two lives for one man?"

  The middle sister shrugged. "It would be rare, yet I have known wizard folk to achieve it aforetime. Sorcerers, now, some have spun out their lives to unbelievably long spans..."

  "Yet I have cut them off, natheless," the third lady muttered darkly, "cut them off at last—have I not, Lachesis?"

  "That you have, sister Atropos—and I have shown you where their threads must end, in such fashion that they would have no hint of their end coming."

  "Indeed you have, and well done, too, for such as would cheat Death."

  Matt shuddered. These three hags didn't play around, did they?

  "Yet a wizard who holds to the straight and straitened path has no such cheating done. And, too, this one is young."

  "Who speaks?" Fadecourt hissed in Matt's ear.

  "I'm not sure," Matt muttered back, "but I think it's the Norns."

  "Nay, surely not! I hear Greek names!"

  "Cut him now," the middle sister mused, "and Ibile will surely subside in slavery and misery. Merovence, too, may falter—for see! In my tapestry, the queen will waver 'twixt despair and faith, 'twixt the slough of despond and the iron of duty."

  Well. At least Alisande would miss him. That much was good to know, anyway.

  Atropos clacked her shears impatiently. "Have done! Whether all of Europe succumbs to the rule of the Prince of Evil is not our care! Ours is the destiny of human folk, not nations or races! 'Tis for God to concern Himself with them!"

  "Yet are we not His tools?" Lachesis argued. "Nay, I must listen for His voice, sister."

  "How about my voice?" Matt called out. He shook one of the window bars and demanded, "Only a few more years! Let me finish what I've started, at least!"

  But if the women heard him, they gave no sign. "My care is for the tapestry." Lachesis held out her cloth, frowning at it with a critical eye. "If one forgets that each thread is a human life, and regards the design as a whole, it grows to a harmony of balance. Yet will the myriad threads that must surely spread out from his actions enhance that pattern, or weaken it?"

  "Enhance!" Matt opined. "Definitely enhance!"

  " 'Tis for you to say, sister, not us," the spinner said. "Natheless, I would hazard the notion that the bright strands he will enliven will neatly balance the uncolored throng that have stemmed from the first usurper of Ibile."

  "Can you not stop them, Wizard?" Fadecourt stood at his elbow, ashen-faced.

  "Uhhhh..." Matt's mind raced furiously. "Not 'can,' Fadecourt—'will.' The question is, can I justify lousing up the rest of the world just to save my own life?"

  "If you do not act, you will die!" the cyclops cried. "Ibile will have lost its one chance to be free of the reign of the Devil, and you will have lost the hand of the queen!"

  Matt stood, galvanized by the thought of annihilation—not just of himself, but of all the bright dreams he had ever had of precious private moments with Alisande: the lovemaking he had ached for, the children he had hoped to gather about them, his determination not to let the little princes and princesses be raised by nannies, the physical training he would give them in the guise of games, the love of learning he and Alisande would imbue in them by their conversations...He steeled his resolve, and recited:

  "The raging rocks

  And shivering shocks

  Did break the locks

  Of prison gates,

  And Phoebus' car

  Did shine from far,

  To make and mar

  The foolish Fates."

  Sudden and savage, sunbeams lanced down from the solid rock ceiling as the lock on the door exploded. The shafts of light caressed the women's faces, but wherever they touched, a face flowed like wax. The three women screamed, a horrible ragged cry, and their firelit chamber shrank, as if receding, to a globe, then a globule, still shrinking until it finally winked out.

  "I did not mean you should smite them so!" Fadecourt said, aghast.

  "That makes us even; I didn't mean to." Matt pulled in a deep breath to try to still his inner quaking. "Talk about power! That man couldn't write poorly even when he tried!"

  The cyclops eyed the broken lock, then reached out a forefinger to nudge the door. With a groan, it swung open. "You have indeed taken the first step to bringing us forth from this dungeon, Wizard. Yet how shall you take us up this stair?"

  "The steps should be easy." Matt was acutely aware of the word should. "After all, bringing the Fates here broke the confinement spell. But just to be on the safe side, I think I'd better try to work up a stronger transportation spell."

  "How shall you..."

  "Quiet! I'm being creative." Matt frowned, running over verses from a couple of old, old songs. Then he chanted,

  "The autumn winds blow coldly through

  The castle of Bruitfort.Yet anguish in its deepest depthsIs wrought in chamber darke.Alas, foul Duke! You do her wrongWho never sought to hurt ye,You make her suffer horribly,So we'll be in your company!To beard you is my delight,So I now come for fiercest joy!I come with all my heart and zeal,And shall confront you instantly!"

  He was barely aware of Fadecourt's hand, clamping onto his arm like a vise, and of the room suddenly rocking in a tilt; he was already preparing the next verse in his mind...

  The room jolted straight, but it was the torture chamber they stood in, with Yverne and Sir Guy stretched seminaked on tables, and bulky semihumans standing over them with arcane metal instruments. One was screwing a blocky boot-shaped object onto Sir Guy's foot, and Yverne was screaming at the mere sight of it as the duke, spittle running down his chin, watched another torturer pushing her skirt up, dagger poised over the smooth skin of her thigh.

  Her screaming drove Fadecourt crazy. He bellowed and leaped for a guardsman, wrenching his halberd away with one stroke and felling him with another, then whirling to attack the torturer.

  But Matt's attention was all for the duke, who was just looking up at him in stupefaction.

  "Then reach this lecher-duke a blow!

  Strike with might and maul!

  Force him to reel about and land

  Out cold, against the wall!"

  The duke jolted upright as if he'd been hit with an uppercut, then slumped to the ground. The guards and torturers stared, shocked.

  Savage triumph boiled up in Matt, and he gave in to temptation long enough to pick up the nearest torturer and throw him against the wall. The other snapped out of his daze with a bellow and yanked a poker out of a brazier. As Matt turned back to him, the bigger man leaped, lashing out with the iron. Matt leaped, too, slamming a fist into his attacker's belly. The poker's shaft cracked across the back of Matt's shoulders, then fell from fingers gone limp, its glowing tip bruising Matt's shin on the way down. The pain, coupled with the ache across his back, was enough to make him shout with rage; he slammed the torturer back, away. The man tripped, stumbled, and fell against the brazier, knocking it over and falling across the fire. He screamed and rolled away, then lay rocking and moaning on the stone floor.

  Not that Matt stayed to watch. He whirled and saw that Fadecourt had caught up a torturer's knife and was slitting the bonds on Yverne's wrists as he mumbled soothing inanities. Matt nodded and turned to Sir Guy, frantically unscrewing the boot.

  "My thanks," the Black Knight grunted. " 'Ware the guards." Matt looked up, appalled that he'd forgotten—but saw Fadecourt hurling two guards away, even as Yverne caught up a fallen pike and leveled it at a torturer who skidded to a halt, wavering between danger and the reputation of cowardice.

  A shout from the hall saved him; the door burst open, revealing a senior guard who bellowed, "To the walls! We are beset!" and turned to run away, not even registering what was happening in the torture chamber.

  The guards leaped on the excuse and ran for the doo
r. Matt whirled to look about him—and saw the duke, hauling himself up on the edge of one of the torture benches, giving Matt a look that pierced right through him, promising even greater mayhem. Matt was just readying a verse when Fadecourt stepped up with a cold iron and slammed it against the base of the duke's skull. The duke's eyes rolled up, and he folded back onto the floor.

  Suddenly, the room was silent, with no one moving.

  Then Matt yanked a dagger from the belt of an unconscious soldier and strode over to the fallen duke. He dropped to one knee, raising the dagger...

  Fadecourt caught his wrist. "Nay; Lord Wizard! He is not shriven!"

  Odd as it seemed, that gave Matt pause. To kill the man without giving him a chance to confess his sins would condemn him to eternal torment in Hell—and even Matt didn't think that the monster deserved to suffer for ever and ever, with absolutely no hope of ever getting out. For a few years, yes, maybe even for a few centuries—but he was human, after all.

  Still, there were practical considerations. "If we don't kill him while we can, Fadecourt, he'll attack us again as soon as he can—and next time, he might win. We'll be caught between his army and Gord—the king's, unless we give up and get out of Ibile while we can. The sensible thing is to kill him now."

  " 'Twould be in cold blood, Wizard. 'Tis not needful; you would not slay him to save your own life, or another's."

  "Maybe not at the moment—but a fool could see I'm doing it to save our lives in the future."

  "Then we will deal with him in the future," Sir Guy said calmly. "But to slay him now, when he is unconscious and not a present threat, would be murder, Sir Matthew. 'Twould be a mortal sin—and such a burden on your soul would make you vulnerable to the king. It would put you in his, and Satan's, power."

  "It's not murder, it's an execution! Not revenge, justice! Can you honestly doubt he deserves it? How many people has he already killed—in cold blood?"

  " 'Tis not for us to judge," the Black Knight reminded him. "That prerogative is God's alone. Nay, an you will have him tried by a jury of his peers, when all this war is over and done, well enough—but you may not set yourself up as his judge. That would be the sin of pride, added to the sin of murder."

  "You would imperil us all, Wizard," Fadecourt rumbled, "and give up Ibile's one chance of salvation, through you and us."

  Matt dropped the dagger with a noise of disgust. Satisfied, Fadecourt released his wrist. Then Matt caught up the dagger again, and the cyclops leaped for him with a cry of alarm.

  But Matt rose to his feet and turned away to Sir Guy. Yverne was there before him, though, slipping her dagger between the knight's wrists and severing the bonds, then turning to cut through the thongs binding his ankles. Sir Guy sat up, rubbing his wrists and swearing softly at the pain of moving his shoulders, the stabs of blood being released to recirculate. "By Our Lady! By the blue of her gown! Ah, but I thank you, damsel! An I had lain there any longer, I would have frozen in that posture forever! And I thank you, Matthew and Fadecourt, for timely rescue."

  "Without you, we'd be lost," Matt assured him—"But I wonder to what we all owe the guards' sudden exit?"

  "Whatever it was, it was on our side, whether it knew us or not."

  Matt stepped over to help his friend off the table, then gathered up Sir Guy's gambeson and armor and shoved it at him. "Hold that in one arm, and Yverne in the other."

  "And this for you." Fadecourt handed Yverne the remnants of her dress. She quickly draped them to cover most of her torso and hips.

  "How shall we come out from here, Wizard?" the cyclops demanded.

  Just then, a diminutive figure popped in through the door and gave a cry of triumph. "I have found thee, then!"

  "Puck!" Yverne cried, amazed.

  "Sober, too," Matt noted. "When did you become clear-headed, sprite?"

  "Phaugh! Minutes ago, only! The dragon and I threw off our attackers, but found you gone. We wandered in that damnable fog for hours, till it finally cleared. Then we circled aloft and saw the duke's castle! Instantly I betook myself to the dungeons and heard your chatter! Well, I did discover a bolt hole, first."

  "A hidden tunnel?" Sir Guy's eyes lit. "Nay, take us there, good Robin! Have you found any other mischiefs we might work?"

  "I have given the matter some thought," Puck said, turning and leading them out of the torture chamber—without ever having seen the unconscious duke, which Matt thought was a great pity. He might be troubled by a conscience, but Puck was not.

  Unfortunately, the chance was past, and he couldn't very well call Puck's attention to the duke without virtually committing murder himself—so he followed the chattering elf, the lady, the knight, and the cyclops down the dimly lit hallway and through the section of wall that swung outward. It swung shut behind them, too, but Puck muttered a spell, and a will-o'-the-wisp appeared to light them up the damp stone steps, through a clammy tunnel with mitered walls, up to a dead-end sealed by rough and convex stone.

  "There is the small matter of a boulder blocking the entrance," the elf pointed out

  "What problem is that?" Fadecourt stepped up to the boulder, set his shoulder against it, and heaved—then stepped back, a look of surprise showing faintly by the light of the fox fire. "It will not move!"

  "Considering your strength, it must be enchanted. Let me see." Matt shouldered past and set a hand on the stone.

  Immediately, he felt a web of magical force enclosing his arm with the stone and the mouth of the tunnel—an unseen seal that bonded the boulder to the rocky cavity with all the force of a high-voltage electromagnet.

  " 'Tis dur?" Puck asked, low-voiced.

  "Very durable indeed." Matt took his hand away, suppressing a shudder. "But as the safecracker said, no locksmith can design a lock that another man can't figure out how to open. Let me see what I can do.

  "Ascend the knoll! May this rock roll

  And find its way up to a crest

  Let gravity then take its toll

  Until it brings this rock to rest."

  The rock began to vibrate, then to shake, and finally exploded out and away from them. Matt jumped into the doorway and crashed through the screen of brush that hid it, suddenly worried about innocent passersby.

  He needn't have worried. He found himself looking down into a shallow, grassy bowl. The rock came to a stop about halfway up the other side, paused, and started rolling back down. Matt looked around quickly, saw the castle off to his left, and no soldiers nearby. He turned back to his companions, satisfied. "All clear, and no damage done. Let's hike."

  They came out of the tunnel mouth, Yverne still holding the rags of her gown about her. Matt stopped her with a touch on her arm. "Hold on, milady. Let's do something about that."

  "About what?" she asked, startled.

  But Matt was droning,

  "Of pale blue gems the belt,

  About her throat, like drops of milk,

  Were glowing pearls she scarcely felt."

  Yverne's dress shimmered, turning cloudy, then stilled, having turned into a dress exactly like the one Matt had described. "Oh!" she breathed, eyes wide with delight.

  "I thought you had said magic should not be used for inconsequentialities, Wizard." Puck's lip twisted in a half sneer.

  "Believe me, this was something that could have bogged down our whole party." Matt noted that Sir Guy had taken advantage of the pause to pull on his gambeson. He stepped over to help with the armor. Fadecourt took the other side, and the knight was steel-plated again in no time, managing to stifle his groans as the pressure rubbed on his new welts. Matt frowned; what was a spell or two more, with so much magic in the air?

  "If anything anyone lacks,

  He'll find it all ready in stacks.

  If sickly he's feeling,

  He'll find himself healing,

  By seventy Simmery Axe!"

  "Say, "Seventy Simmery Axe,' Sir Guy."

  "Seventy Simmery Axe," the knight said, almost automatically
. "What is its meaning, Wizard?"

  "It's an address—house number seventy, on a street called Saint Mary's Axe."

  "But Saint Mary would never have borne an axe!" Yverne protested.

  " 'Tis enough that she is mentioned." Puck winced.

  Matt hoped so—that invoking the Blessed Mother would counteract the spell's having been written for a fictitious sorcerer.

  Apparently it did; Sir Guy looked up, eyes wide. "The pain is gone—and the wounds that caused it healed, I doubt not. Sir Matthew, you never cease to amaze me."

  "Well, now that I know what it's like to wear armor, I can sympathize." Matt turned his back on the tunnel. "It's going to be a longer haul, with no obliging monsters to carry us—but I'd still like to get away from here as soon as possible."

  "Aye, certes!" Yverne set off, taking the lead. "Come, milords, and allow me to show you the way; this is, at least, ground I have passed over some several times, in my childhood."

  "Beware!" Fadecourt cried, pointing upward. They all turned to look.

  A small, winged shape swooped toward them, growing larger and larger.

  "Stegoman!" Matt yelped in glee. Then he had to dodge aside, as the buffeting of air from the dragon's wings almost knocked him over. He bounced back, running up to his old friend with a grin. "How'd you find us?"

  "I have been circling about the castle since first I struck at it with boulders carried aloft, then torched the battlements and stooped upon the courtyard," the dragon informed him. "Nay, I had thought thou wouldst never have come out from that place. What kept thee?"

  "Bad spells," Matt explained. "That duke is a more powerful sorcerer than he looks to be. But it helped a lot, having the guards suddenly forget about us."

  "I had hoped some distraction would serve. Nay, I bethought me to ramp through their halls in search of thee, but they brought arrows enough to engender some caution."

  "Wise, and timely." Matt made a stirrup of his hands and boosted Yverne up. "Mind carrying the lady?"