The Secular Wizard Read online

  Alisande opened her mouth to deny, but before she could lie, Lady Julia said, "Her husband goes into Latruria."

  "Oh!" Lady Elise gasped, covering her mouth. "Into that cesspool of evil, where the king is a triple-dyed villain?"

  "The new king may not be," Alisande said with asperity. "I have had reports of the conduct of this young King Boncorro, and many of his works are good. In truth, I hear no evil spoken of himself, barring what any monarch must sustain..."

  "Even yourself?" Lady Elise's eyes went round.

  "Even I have had to order the occasional beheading, and the more frequent hanging," Alisande said grimly. "In truth, I have ordered soldiers to their deaths in two wars now, and I do not pretend there was no evil in it."

  "But it was for a good cause! Indeed, it was to fight Evil itself!"

  "Even so, men slew other men at my orders," Alisande said inexorably, "and I cannot pretend I was innocent of all guilt. No, any monarch must strain her conscience in defense of her people—for the welfare of the commonwealth must be guarded, and where a common man can plead self-defense, a monarch cannot."

  "No—she can plead the defense of others!"

  "I can and do," Alisande agreed, "and so, I doubt not, does King Boncorro."

  "Does he?" Lady Constance said darkly. "Or does he only secure his own power and fortune as well as he may, with least risk to his soul?"

  "There is that," Alisande admitted. "Still, if reports are true, I need not fear for my husband's safety."

  "Then why do you fear?" Lady Constance retorted.

  "Because reports may not be true." Alisande shivered again. "Send for the Lord Marshal, Lady Elise, and summon Master Ortho the Frank, my husband's assistant. I must call up my armies."

  Still pale-faced, Lady Elise bobbed a curtsy and fled out the door.

  Queen Alisande turned to Lady Beatrice. "Do you send a fearless groom to Stegoman the dragon, milady—and send a courier to seek for Sir Guy de Toutarien."

  Lady Beatrice departed, wide-eyed. It must be truly an emergency for the queen to seek the aid of the elusive Black Knight!

  But Alisande and the party she assembled had to go out into the courtyard to meet Stegoman. The dragon could fit through the hallways of her castle in a pinch, but a pinch it was, and quite unpleasant for him, especially since his wings had been mended.

  Stegoman lowered his head and raised it in salute—he was one of the Free Folk, not a subject of her Majesty; never mind that he lived in her castle compound now and scarcely ever saw another dragon, except on vacations. "Majesty! Thou dost wish me to fly and bring back my errant companion, the Lord Wizard, dost thou not?"

  "You are as perceptive as ever, Stegoman," Alisande answered. "Yes, I do ask that of you—for he has sent to tell me that he will cross the border into Latruria!"

  "I knew he would fall into trouble if he did not travel in company with me," the dragon huffed. "But would he listen? Nay, never!"

  "He was supposed to move in secret," Alisande hinted.

  "And is a dragon so rare a sight as all that? Oh, aye, I know—we are, most especially in company with a mortal! Yet I could have laired nearby where'er he sought danger! Then, at least, I would have known where to find him!"

  "That much, I can tell," Alisande answered, "or where he was three nights ago, when he wrote his most recent letter: at the castle of the Count d'Arrete."

  "That is something, at least," the dragon rumbled, "though as thy Majesty hath said, it was three nights agone!"

  "Two days ago he was at the border station near the Savoyard Pass," Alisande offered helpfully.

  "That is something more," Stegoman mused. "There should be a road running south from the pass. At least I know where I shall begin to search."

  Anxiety stabbed Alisande, and she put out a hand to the warm, dry scales. "Go as cautiously as you may, Great One. I would be loath to lose a friend."

  The dragon's mouth lolled open in a sort of laugh. "It is even as you have said, Majesty—the Free Folk cannot travel in secret. Still, I shall fly warily. Fare you well!"

  Alisande barely had time to leap back before the dragon sprang into the air, pounding his way aloft with wing beats that boomed and blasted them all with grit and sand. She shielded her eyes, then looked up to watch him circle the keep and fly off toward the south. "God be with you, great friend," she murmured, "and bring you back safely, with my Matthew on your back." Then she turned to the Lord Marshal. "Have you sent to seek out Sir Guy de Toutarien?"

  "Aye, Majesty." The grizzled old knight smiled. "His path is like the wind, I know—but he cannot be so footloose as once he was, now that he is wed."

  Alisande wasn't altogether sure she liked the tone in which the old knight said that. "If he wed the Lady Yverne," she reminded him. "The Princess Yverne, rather, though none knew that of her till she was about to leave. We know only that she rode off into the mountains in his company, and that they meant to find a priest along the way."

  "I never knew the Black Knight not to do as he had said he would," the marshal told her. "Still, as you have said, he shall be difficult to find. I have sent not one man, but ten, to quarter the mountains and seek him out. Nonetheless, it is a trail two years old, and discovering it will take time."

  "Unless he wishes to be found," Alisande amended. "Send also to Matthew's friend Saul."

  "The Witch Doctor?" The marshal stared in surprise. "I doubt he will come, Majesty. He seems to have little liking for people generally, now that he has found one to dote on."

  "His wife Angelique does seem to be world enough for him," Alisande admitted, "at least to judge by report, for we have not seen the man since the two of them went off into the wilderness together. Still, danger to his friend Matthew may bring him out, just as it brought him to our world—and at least we know where to seek him."

  "Aye, in the Forest Champagne," the marshal grunted, "and surely there was never a place so well-suited to a man! A forest named for open land! A wizard who declares he cannot work magic and will not believe in Good and Evil as sources of magical power! Oh, the contradictions are apt, Majesty, most apt indeed!"

  "He swears by paradox, I know," Alisande agreed, "and to hear him swear at all makes me shiver with apprehension. Still, we shall need his help if Matthew is truly endangered. Send for him, milord."

  "By all Baal's brass!" Rebozo swore. "Could that sniveling young lordling truly be so inept as this?"

  LoClercchi shrank away from the chancellor's anger. "Surely, milord, you did not truly expect the lad to slay the Lord Wizard himself!"

  "No, but I had fondly thought he would at least be a strong enough opponent to force the man into using his magic! Yet what do I find? He was so poor a swordsman that this so-called 'Sir Matthew' scarcely had to work up a sweat, much less resort to wizardry! What do we know now that we did not before? That he poses as a knight and calls himself 'Sir Matthew'—which is a name not uncommon in these lands, even among knights! And that he fares southward, through the Savoyard Pass—which he was almost certain to do, if he came south at all!" He crumpled the tiny note and threw it at the wall. "Nay, this boy Camano has achieved nothing, nothing! Send him a stomachache! Send him a flux! I should give him worse, but pain is fitting for a pain!"

  "He has done no harm, at least."

  "Would he had! Well, at least we know this 'Sir Matthew' will try to cross the border."

  "Shall I send soldiers to set a trap for him, Lord Chancellor?"

  "Nay! Instead send a monster to slay him, if he should set one foot across the borderline! A manticore to gobble him up or a chimera to befuddle him! For whether he does or does not intend treachery, it is most definitely not in the king's interest for the Lord Wizard of Merovence to come into Latruria!"

  "But what harm can he do?" the secretary asked, confounded.

  "What harm?" Rebozo roared. "You ask what harm? The man who stole back Queen Alisande's crown from the sorcerer Malingo? The man who raised the giant Colmain? You know what uphea
val followed his entrance into Ibile, his foray into Allustria—and you ask me what harm he might do, in a kingdom ruled by a king who will not kneel, nor go into a church? True, Boncorro is not as evil as the kings of those countries were—but I, his chancellor, have no wish to see him dethroned. Do you wish all the old ways to fall in this land, and yourself with them?"

  "No, my lord, never!" the secretary said, very frightened. "I shall send to stop him straightaway!"

  But the chancellor wasn't listening. He paced the room, muttering, "Good or evil, my King Boncorro is technically not the legitimate monarch, since his grandfather usurped the throne and slew the ineffectual former king, himself the son of a usurper of a usurper of a man who was an excellent poet, but a very weak king—and that is how low the line of the Caesars had fallen!"

  "Was that poet-king truly descended from the Emperors of Reme, then?" LoClercchi asked, wide-eyed.

  "He was, and they spread their seed far and wide, I assure you! Who knows but what this Lord Wizard might unearth one of their descendants to claim the throne from King Boncorro? Nay, best to take no chances—keep him out of Latruria, LoClercchi! Find a way, find ten ways—but keep him out!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Once again Matt wondered how he got himself into these things, and the reflection that it was his loving spouse and liege who had done it this time didn't help much—especially since it had been his own idea to cross the border, and right now that seemed very dumb.

  He was still in Merovence, technically, but not by much—only a couple of yards at most, maybe less; it was hard to tell, when there was no fence marking the boundary, or even a dotted line along the ground. But the manticore facing him seemed to have no doubt about the demarcation. "Stay back," it said, grinning—it couldn't do much else, with a mouth like that. "If you cross into Latruria, you are my meat."

  Matt eyed the grin and decided he didn't want to take the chance. At least he was talking to a man's head—but it had double teeth, two rows above and two below, and they were all sharp and pointed. Worse, that almost-human head sat on top of a lion's body—if you could count it as a lion's body when it was covered with porcupine quills and had a scorpion's tail arcing up over its back, aiming right at Matt.

  He eyed the monster warily, wondering why it was that all the supernatural beasties in this alternate universe could speak fluent Human, when the genuine animals didn't seem to be able to manage a word. Probably because the monsters were magical, and magic seemed to permeate the very air here—they were communicating in their natural medium, so to speak.

  "Okay," he said, and turned away.

  "What!" The monster stared at him, affronted. "No challenge, no insults, no combat?"

  "No sweat," Matt assured him. "I'll just find another way in. This particular pass may seem like the whole world to you, but I'm sure there are other doors."

  "What manner of knight are you?" the manticore howled.

  "A knight who happens to be a wandering minstrel." Matt pointed to the lute slung across his back. "Do I look like a knight?"

  "You wear a sword!"

  "It's a dagger," Matt corrected. "A big one, sure, but still a dagger."

  Actually, it was a very good reproduction of a Roman gladius—with a few modifications. Queen Alisande's smith had forged it very carefully, according to Matt's design, and the two of them together had done their best to sing a lot of magic into it. But Matt was a little uneasy about using it—he knew the quality of his own singing.

  "I'll follow you!" the monster averred. "Wheresoever you seek to cross the border, I shall be waiting!" It began to stalk toward him, grinning from ear to ear. "Nay, on second thought, why should I wait? I'll pounce on you now, in Latruria or not."

  Matt spun about, alarmed, and swung up his staff, on guard. "Hey, now, wait a minute! Isn't that against the rules?"

  "Whose rules?" the manticore demanded, and sprang.

  It slammed into an invisible wall, so hard that it seemed to crumple before it fell. It bit the ground heavily—with that much mass, it would have to—and answered itself. "King Boncorro's rules, of course! I should have known!"

  "What rules?" Matt frowned. "Why should you have known?"

  "Because the king has laid a Wall of Octroi along the border, and enchanted it to keep all monsters out! I never thought he would have been so careless as to craft it in such a way that it would also keep all monsters in!"

  Matt eyed the beast judiciously and decided King Boncorro hadn't been careless at all. "Makes sense to me. You look as if you could be very useful to a Satanist king. Why should he let his rival monarchs get their hands on you?"

  "He is no Satanist, but a vile equivocator!" the manticore spat. "And if I cannot go out, I cannot terrorize the peasants in the borderland at his will!"

  Matt was liking Boncorro more and more. "Maybe he's saving you for choice assignments."

  "Aye." The multiple grin widened. "Such as devouring a knight named Sir Matthew, who comes in the guise of a minstrel!"

  Matt's blood ran cold. Boncorro had an excellent spy system. "The king himself sicced you on me?"

  "What king ever did anything himself, that could be a source of blame?" the manticore said impatiently. "Nay, 'tis a subordinate to a subordinate who has laid this geas on me—but think not to overthrow it simply because it comes not from the king himself! I shall be your Nemesis, man!"

  For a moment Matt was tempted—it would be interesting to test the strength of his magic against that of Boncorro's minion, and since the Latrurians already knew where he was, he wouldn't change anything if he attracted their attention by using magic. But he remembered that they probably weren't sure he was a wizard, and certainly not the Lord Wizard himself. Better to keep them guessing. "What could I do? I'm a mere minstrel!"

  "Aye, a minstrel in a world in which magic works by verse and is strengthened by music! Did you think the bards of old Gaul were accounted men of power only for the pleasure their voices gave their tribesmen?"

  This was certainly one well-educated monster. "Where did you learn so much history?"

  "Learn it? I witnessed it, mortal! Do you think me a mere kitten of a hundred years' growth?"

  Matt felt a chill; he had always tended to react to age with too much respect. "What keeps you going?"

  "Only that no sorcerer has commanded my death!"

  "Staying alive because you believe you can, huh?"

  "Nay—because all of your kind believe I can, and no magician has made it otherwise!"

  "Then how come you're antagonizing me, if you think I'm a magician?"

  The grin loosened into silent laughing. "Why, do you think I would fear a sapling's magic, when the power of century-old oaks sustains me?"

  "No, I guess you wouldn't," Matt sighed, "and that means it's useless for me to try to get around you. Guess I'd better give up." He turned away.

  "Do not think to cozen me, mortal!" the manticore called after him. "I know you plan to lie low, then cross the border when you think I have forgotten! Be sure you cannot find a crossing point that I cannot! Be sure I shall not forget!"

  Matt took a deep breath, counted to ten, then turned back slowly. "Look, Manny—I might have some magical power just by virtue of being a minstrel, but do you really think I'd be dumb enough to take on a manticore?"

  "Frankly," the monster told him, "yes."

  Not only educated, Matt decided, but also perceptive. "Okay, then—just tell yourself I'm going back to get some stronger spells." And he paced away, toying with the idea of conjuring up a battery-powered amplifier and an electric lute.

  He didn't, of course—he already had enough high-powered verses. However, he did put a ridge between himself and the border and hiked a few miles farther east, until he came to a river. It wasn't much, as rivers went—maybe twenty feet wide, not much more than a stream—but it was going in the right direction: south. So Matt settled down to wait for night, rehearsing a few verses and polishing his magic wand.

  Whe
n dusk had fallen, Matt started out for the border again, following the little river. It cut through the ridge in shadow, and provided the cover of occasional wind-stunted pine trees. Matt followed it down to the border itself—or at least, what he thought was the border: a row of the wind-stunted pines growing across his path, too close to a straight line to be accidental. He thought some long-ago border guard must have planted them, to make his job easier. There were no border guards in sight now, of course. Not in sight...

  Matt wondered how fast manticores could move.

  He started muttering as he came up to the row of evergreens, so that he was actually reciting his spell as he went through them.

  "I leave the trodden paths with mighty heart

  Too near the manticore, within his ken..."

  He felt a sudden tingling all over his skin—nothing major, certainly nothing painful, but enough to let him know he had passed through some sort of magical barrier. He knew he had just crossed the border, and King Boncorro's Wall of Octroi. Alarm—he felt alarm, and knew he had triggered one; not a bit of doubt that Boncorro knew he was a wizard now, and exactly where he was!

  But the king must have known that already, as the manticore had demonstrated. Matt kept on reciting—but he felt unseen forces wrap about him as he did. He always had, but this time they were worse, clamping down on him, fighting him; he found himself struggling to set one foot in front of the other as he called out,

  "Safe as when I rode in armor, for my art

  Does enclose me as a shield, as it did then!"

  A roar seemed to buffet him from all sides, and glowing eyes with multiple glowing teeth beneath came zooming at him out of the gloom. Matt held his ground and started reciting the verse again, waiting for the manticore to collide with his own unseen magical shield...

  It didn't.

  It slowed down a little, very suddenly—but it kept coming. Matt stared foolishly, the verse hanging on his lips, seeing the scimitar claws inch forward, the gaping band-saw teeth glitter as they began to speed up again...