The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 14 Negative Narcissus

When they started out the next morning, patched up and refreshed, they chatted happily with each other, in perfect accord. Matt decided that he must have made up for his lapse with the stick and restored his companions' faith in him.

The slope was angling downhill, and the land they had ridden yesterday was now discernible as a mountain behind them—but a mountain without the plateau that would have held the enchanted forest they had marched around and around. That forest had disappeared, and their path wound down in switchbacks through a maze of evergreens, dark and massive to either side of the path, but the roadway filled with light, due to the angle of descent. This forest had very little underbrush, and certainly no aura of evil; it filled their heads with the clean scent of pine and spruce.

But they came out of the forest about noon and, as they rode on after the midday meal, they began to see deciduous trees. They were stunted and gnarled, though; every other tree seemed to be smothered by a vine whose leaves were so fine they resembled fungus, and between the trunks, the underbrush was a waist-high tangle of thistles, thorns, and leprous-looking blossoms.

"Ugly-looking plant life they have around here," Matt noted.

Fadecourt nodded, looking around him with heavy brow, and his tension was almost palpable. "We have come down out of the borderland, Lord Matthew. We are in Ibile now."

Then he saw the flat-topped boulder ten yards down the hill and halted so suddenly that Matt almost bumped into him. Matt stared at the rock in surprise—and saw a lizard sunning itself. It was pointed away from them, so he couldn't really see much of its face, but he had certainly never before seen anything like the fleshy excrescence that bulged out of its head, ending in five points that glistened like polished horn. Matt stared—never before had he heard of a lizard with antlers!

Yverne gave a little moan, and Fadecourt rasped, "Be still! 'Tis a cockatrice—and woe upon us if the creature turns to show its face!"

Matt decided to keep the stare. The basilisk, or cockatrice, could turn them to stone just by looking at them. In fact, it couldn't help turning them to stone, and you couldn't blame it if it looked around every now and then to see what might be coming up behind it, in case it was threatened. Of course, it never was—at least, no longer than it took to spot the threat—though Matt supposed the occasional lizard had been lost to predators that could sneak up from behind.

Fadecourt waved them back, and as silently as possible, the companions did their best to slip behind the stunted trees available. But not quite quickly enough; a stick cracked under somebody's foot, and the little monster whipped about.

"Hide!" Fadecourt bellowed, and everybody leaped for the leaves.

Then things became very quiet.

Finally, Matt whispered, "Everybody safe?"

"Yeah," Narlh grunted nearby. Matt heaved a sigh of relief. Then he heard a stifled sob from Yverne, and Fadecourt said roughly, " 'Tis naught. I'm yet alive."

"What happened?" Matt bleated. A hiss answered him from up the road, and he throttled it down to a whisper as he peeked around his tree. "Fadecourt! What's..." Then he saw the cyclops and broke off.

"Oh, be still, Wizard!" The cyclops shook a stone fist at him. "I am not hurt! I can walk, I can fight!"

Matt swallowed and turned away. "I think the danger is clear and present. How far back do we have to go before we can find a detour?"

"We cannot." Fadecourt picked up a rock, left-handed. "This is the only road down from the heights. Stay hid till I have done." And he stepped out from behind the oak.

"Whoa!" Matt caught his shoulder. "Hold on there, boy! If that beastie spots you, we'll be taking you for granite!"

"And how can man die better?" Fadecourt challenged him. "Yet though I die, mayhap I'll clear the monster from the pathway first." He started to go, realized Matt's hand was still there, and frowned back at him. "Unhand me, Lord Matthew."

"Don't be silly; without your hands, you wouldn't stand a chance. Let's try a better way."

The cyclops turned back, glowering—and just in time; behind him, Matt caught a glimpse of the lizard starting to turn. He yanked Fadecourt back behind the trunk. "Don't look now, but our igneous iguana just turned around to see what all the fuss was about."

Fadecourt paled, but he stuck to his guns. "You spoke of a way. What way is that?"

"Uh...well..." Matt's brain kicked into high gear as he started to improvise. "Something that would appeal to the essential vanity of the beastie."

Fadecourt kept his frown. "I had not heard that they were vain."

"Neither have L" But Matt's mind had fastened on the word beastie and wasn't letting go. "Look at it this way—if a perversion of nature like that ever really had to confront itself, it wouldn't be able to bear it." He wondered why Fadecourt stared, but plowed ahead. "So let's let him have a look." He raised his voice a little, and chanted:

The air in front of the basilisk fogged up, coalescing and hardening into a gleaming disk.

Fadecourt stared. "What engine is that, Lord Matthew?"

"Why," Yverne said, " 'tis a mirror."

The cockatrice stared, wide-eyed, at its own image—and, as it stared, its greenish-gray skin became steadily less green and more gray.

"Why don't it turn away?" Narlh wondered

"Why, for that it cannot," Yverne said, with a smile of whimsy. "It is fascinated by its own image; look you—it is transfixed!"

The basilisk was almost completely gray now, and its eyes were filming over—but as much with a look of ecstasy as with silicon.

"Can it truly think it is beautiful?" Yverne wondered

"Of course," Matt murmured. "Only advanced creatures can be self-critical."

The cockatrice trembled with a single, protracted shiver, and a crinkling sound filled the clearing. Then it stood, frozen, totally gray.

"Stoned," Matt breathed. "Frozen in ecstasy."

Then he raised his hand, palm flat, and moved it in a circle as though he were wiping a hole in the frost on an invisible window.

Yverne frowned. "Why did you banish the mirror, Lord Matthew?"

"Because," Matt said, "I didn't want to leave it hanging there."

"Could we not have taken it with us?"

"Well, yes—but it might have broken."

Yverne stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, and Narlh hissed. Fadecourt nodded. "Ah. Yes, we have no need of seven years' ill fortune."

"No, we don't." Matt frowned at the frozen monster.

"Do not pity it," Fadecourt rumbled. "It had no more than it would have done to us."

Matt shook his head. "It wouldn't have meant evil—it would only have been following its nature."

The cyclops looked up, frowning. "Why, how is that?"

"The instinct to look at any threat is inborn," Matt explained. "I've seen machines that could do anything just by reacting to what people do, according to the instructions of the, ah, `wizards' who built them."

Fadecourt shuddered at the notion. "Dost'a mean these sorcerers made suits of armor live?"

"Not live, no, though you'd think it to look at them. They could even fight a warrior by automatically blocking his thrusts and cuts, so people think they were alive. But they weren't, not really—they were just following their programming." He stopped, seeing the blank, wary looks all about him, and gave it up with a sigh. "Never mind. Just take my word for it."

"Why, certes," Fadecourt said. "It is you who are the wizard."

"If you say so." Matt sighed. "But while we're on the subject, how about I turn that fist back into flesh for you?"

Fadecourt frowned, lifting the fist and gazing at it. Then he looked up at Matt with a wicked grin. "Nay, I think not—but I thank you. I have some notion it may prove of use."

"Well, it's your hand." Matt tried not to think too hard about what kind of "use" the cyclops had in mind. "Back to the immediate peril, then. Let's just make sure the spell worked." He caught up a stick and pitched it at the little monster. Fadecourt and Yverne gave yelps of dread, but the cockatrice only tipped over onto its side and lay frozen, legs holding their poses in the air.

"Yeah, it's safe," Narlh opined.

"Well, you're the reptile—at least partly." Matt looked up, frowning—the dracogriff had sounded shaken. "What's the matter—genus loyalty?"

"Loyalty, my tail! No way, Wizard! Why would I be loyal to a jinni? It's just...well..." Narlh took a breath. "Do you have any idea how dangerous those beasties are?"

"Well, I've heard something about them, yeah."

"Something about them, he says," the dracogriff muttered. "Why didn't you tell me you were that strong a wizard?"

Matt spread his hands, at a loss. "Hey—it's not that big a deal!"

Then he wondered why all four of his friends eyed him so strangely.

It made him feel a little odd, so Matt shook off the moment and stepped up to the basilisk, albeit gingerly. He stepped right in front of its face—and stayed fleshly. "All safe, folks."

The joint hiss of four pent-up breaths answered him, and the companions stepped forth. "Hey, Wizard," Narlh grunted. "Next time let one of us take the risk, huh?"

Matt frowned. "But it was my spell."

"And therefore, if the first to pass had turned to stone," Fadecourt explained, "only you could have restored him."

Yverne nodded. "Yet if you'd been frozen, Lord Matthew, how could the rest of us have passed the basilisk?"

"It makes sense," Matt grudged, "but I should take my share of the risks."

"I do not doubt you shall," Fadecourt said, with some asperity, "since there will be many you cannot avoid. Yet I must ask you, Lord Matthew, to avoid such chances as you can."

Matt grumped and turned away to lead them past the boulder.

They swung on down the winding path. After a while, Yverne stepped up beside Matt, giving him a look of concern. "Why are you so silent, Lord Matthew?"

"Is it that rare?" Matt asked, astonished.

Yverne managed a smile. "Why, no, I think not—yet you do seem troubled."

"Oh, that." Matt shrugged, trying to hide his reaction to her proximity. "Just trying to figure out the logic of this land, that's all. Before it figures out me."

"Logic?" Yverne frowned. "How can there be such, in a land of evil?"

"Just what I needed to hear! Sorry, milady, but I'm the kind who tries to work magic by good sense. How can I counter something I don't understand?"

"By virtue," she responded simply, "since there is none of that here."

"That almost makes sense. But...do you mind if I ask how come the supernatural creature I ran into, back in the mountains, wasn't necessarily evil, but the monster of the foothills seems to be a hybrid of foul and unnatural origins?"

"Foul I do not doubt—yet how was this cockatrice unnatural?" Yverne looked up at him, puzzled.

Matt looked down at her clear, innocent face and hesitated.

She saw his embarrassment and laughed. "Do not think to shock me by saying how two creatures may make two more, Lord Matthew. I am the daughter of a country lord; I have seen the couplings of spring."

"Well...this isn't exactly a coupling..." Matt took a deep breath and decided to risk it. "Let me tell you how to make a cockatrice. First, you take a rooster's egg..."

"Oh, my lord!" she cried, pursing her lips with amusement. "It is hens who lay eggs, not roosters!"

"Yeah, that's just the first unnatural thing about it. So you take this egg laid by a rooster, see, and I can just imagine what kind of spells of perversion it takes to produce that! And you put it where a toad can fertilize it, and you bury the fertilized egg in a manure pile, and some time later, by the light of a full moon, out comes a cockatrice!"

As he had feared, Yverne looked slightly green. Matt hurried to change the subject. "So you see why I'm curious to know why the monsters of the foothills are unnatural."

" 'Tis well asked." Yverne bore up gamely. "I had thought naught of it, thinking it natural in creatures of evil—yet I had ne'er lived in a milieu of virtue."

"Mayhap I can make sense of it." Fadecourt stepped up on Matt's other side.

Matt turned to the cyclops in surprise. "Well, sure. I mean, I'd appreciate the information—but I'd think it was a little out of your line."

"It may be, yet it is a part of life for all who grow up in Ibile. Nay, more—'tis a condition of life, for not to know it may lead one to toy with fell and dangerous monsters who do not appear so terribly threatening, as this little monster did not. It is a condition of life, for not to know it may bring death."

Matt could imagine a bunch of rowdy village boys coming, up to torment the basilisk by poking it with long sticks and jeering—and the basilisk freezing them out. "Great. So it's part of the basic equipment of life, and I don't have it."

" 'Tis easily gained," Yverne said, "for 'tis only that the foothills we now wander are most certainly within Ibile, which has been corrupted by the rule of Evil. The mountains, though, are not wholly within the domain of Satan."

Matt frowned. "But I thought Ibile claimed territory halfway into the hills. In fact, I'm sure of it, because I came by way of a spell that was supposed to put me over the border."

Yverne nodded "Yet Ibile's king cannot enforce his rule so near to Merovence—nor can your queen lay the border country under her sway. When all is said and done, the mountains belong to the mountain folk."

Matt lifted his head as understanding dawned. "Of course! They're the gray area, aren't they?"

Yverne frowned. "Gray stone, do you mean? But their slopes are well watered, for the most part, and quite green!"

"No, no! I mean the place where neither good nor evil has total power!"

"Ah! That is true—yet it is more true, praise Heaven, that Evil can never have total power; for there will always be some few souls with courage so great as to stand against it."

"True, true—and there will always be some people so warped and selfish as to dedicate themselves to Evil, even within a realm governed by those dedicated to Good. But what about the montagnards themselves? Who are they dedicated to?"

"Why, to one another, for all I hear of them, and therefore do they guard their independence with ferocious zeal, harrying any army so foolish as to come within their hills."

Matt frowned. "But if they're dedicated to one another, that means they're dedicated to Good."

Yverne nodded "Aye, from all that I have heard of them. They are fierce toward those who wish them ill, yet are kindly to one another. They do demand a toll of any who seek to pass through their hills, yet do not ravage caravans nor despoil wayfarers."

"Probably smart enough to realize that no merchants means no tolls," Matt mused, "and that banditry would kill the trade."

Yverne frowned. " 'Tis an odd notion, and one not entirely charitable, methinks."

"No, but probably accurate."

"I misdoubt it." The lady frowned. "For they are hospitable folk, look you, and have been known to succor travelers caught by storm within their domain."

Matt nodded. "Sound like good guys, all right—and not entirely unfamiliar, either; I've heard of people like them, in mountainous countries. But if they're good people, doesn't that make them part of Merovence, for all intents and purposes?"

Yverne smiled. "They do not harken to the commands of Merovence's queen."

"Well, no—but in the battle of Good and Evil we're concerned with, they're on the side of the angels." He had a brief and poignant vision of Alisande.

" 'Tis true," Fadecourt agreed, "and even in countries where Good rules, Evil is continually at work, tempting souls to ruin. Therefore the forces of Evil and Good are at something of a balance within the mountains, and Evil cannot exercise so harsh a sway as to pervert the very nature of the animals within it."

"But in the foothills, Evil's rule is dominant, so foul things like cockatrices are made." Matt nodded. "Not that it's any fault of theirs, of course. But there's one problem with this whole explanation, milady."

"What is that, Lord Matthew?"

"The minor difficulty of which action belongs to which power. Could you trust a wizard who wasn't sure of the difference between good and evil?"

Yverne and Fadecourt stopped and stared at him, appalled.

Matt nodded. "I thought not."

"But who could mistake?" Yverne gasped.

"Many, lady," Fadecourt said, his face grim, "the young and innocent most especially, for bad things can be made to seem good. But, Wizard, our Lord hath said, `By their fruits ye shall know them.'"

Matt nodded. "If it has evil results, then it's probably evil, yes. But how can you tell before it has done its damage?"

"There are signs," Fadecourt said, frowning.

"Yes, if you can learn them." Matt smiled bleakly and turned back to the road. "Well, on we go. Hopefully, we won't run into anything we don't already know about."

He was sunk into contemplation before his friends began to follow him. Fadecourt's definition certainly did make the issue simple. Now all Matt had to do was figure out what the signs of devotion to God were—well, he'd grown up with the usual list—and how to tell the real thing from the fake.

He sighed, settling into the march again. It shouldn't be too hard—after all, a con man was a con man, no matter what the culture.

"Not so many soldiers as all that," the peasant told her. "They have clerks stationed by the path from the pass, Majesty, and there are but a handful of soldiers to guard them."

"How large is that `handful'?" Sauvignon demanded.

The peasant shrugged. "Ten awake and at arms, milord. Another ten refurbishing their weapons or asleep."

"Why, this will serve but to whet our appetites," Sauvignon said with disgust.

"Bide in patience, my lord," Alisande soothed. "There shall be more anon; for when King Gordogrosso knows our Lord Wizard is within his borders, he shall strike against Merovence with all his strength."

"So that is why we are here! How could the Lord Wizard desert us in so cavalier a fashion?"

Actually, Alisande had been wondering about that, too, though on a more personal level—and that, in spite of her very vivid memory of their parting. But all she said was, "He serves God, milord, as do we all, and must go where the Lord directs." She turned back to the peasant. "How shall we come through the mountains? Will not the montagnards resent our intrusion?"

"How can this man know?" Sauvignon protested. "He is not one of them!"

"Mayhap not." The peasant gave him a gap-toothed smile. "Yet my wife's cousin's aunt is wed to a montagnard, and 'tis his cousin's sons who have spied out the clerks and soldiers for ten miles along the foothills of Ibile."

Alisande hid a smile at Sauvignon's surprise. "The common folk have respect for the border, milord, but never overmuch."

"Borders are for nations," the peasant agreed, "but pathways are for kin."