The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 2 Free Thinker

The blacksmith finished riveting the manacles chaining Malt's wrists behind him and stepped back with a look of trepidation. "You know we wouldn't have done this on our own, Your Lordship."

Matt glowered at him, but he couldn't keep it up. Reluctantly, he nodded. It wasn't just fear of his magic—the common folk all liked him too well to do anything against him. Most of them, anyway. He gargled something that sounded like grudging acceptance.

Relief washed the smith's face. "Godspeed you, Lord Wizard. Heaven knows, you have served her Majesty too well to deserve such as this!"

" 'Tis not for you to say, Smith!" the captain of the guard snapped. "Out with you, now. 'Tis enough for you to know the Lord Wizard will not seek revenge."

Matt muttered and nodded. He couldn't really blame a man for doing his job properly. He shrugged.

The smith broke into a grateful smile, hoisted his portable anvil, and went out the door.

"We shall leave you now, milord," the captain of the guard said. "Yet I, too, would have you know, 'tis not by my wish you are here."

Matt didn't know whether he was trying to mend his fences, or give support—but again he shrugged the apology away. The man was just doing as he was bound to do, by his oath of service. Alisande was his queen, after all.

The captain seemed faintly relieved. Had he understood Matt's thought so well as that? But no, Matt hadn't recited a telepathy spell. How could he, bound and gagged?

"Even so, I mislike coming between a man and his leman," the other guard growled.

Matt understood—domestic disputes were always rough on the cops. But don't worry, boys, I won't hold it against you, he thought as hard as he could.

Again, the look of relief. "Is there aught to make you comfortable, milord, ere we go?"

Matt nodded, working his mouth around his gag, then miming the act of drinking water.

"Aye." The captain hefted a wineskin. "There must be two of us for when you wish to drink henceforth, must there not? Unstop his mouth, soldier—and stand ready to smite him if he should speak a single word."

The guard nodded as he untied the sash, face hard. "I would I did not have to, Lord Wizard, yet such is the queen's command."

The gag came out, and Matt drew a long breath of clean air with relief. The captain held out the wineskin, and Matt leaned back and drew a long draught. Eyeing his jailers warily, he decided not to try speaking even to thank them, and opened his mouth with a sigh.

It was a new and more comfortable gag they put in—no doubt the captain wanted his glove back—but to say a gag is "more comfortable" is to say a torture is "less painful." Matt resigned himself and slumped back against the wall with a sigh. It was going to be a long existence, with a very dry mouth and aching jaws.

The guard finished tying the gag back in place, Matt sat down with a groan, and the captain nodded, turning to go. "May all be as well for you as it may, Lord Wizard."

The door slammed shut, but there was still a torch, since the remaining guard needed light. After all, there wasn't much point stationing him there with his short cudgel, if he couldn't see whether or not Matt had worked his gag loose.

And Matt was certainly in a mood to try, feeling angry, vengeful, betrayed, rejected, and bewildered. Where had he gone wrong? How had he lost Alisande's love? Or had he ever had it in the first place? Was it class paranoia, the nobleman's antipathy toward the social climber? Or was it just friction between man and mate, telling her what she wanted to hear but in the wrong way?

No, it couldn't be that. He had told her he loved her in fifty different ways, fifty times at least in the last three years, some of them as ardent and romantic as any woman could want—and she had certainly responded; he could have sworn she was burning to answer his fervor with her own. But something had held her back...

She had even worn green sleeves when they were questing together!

The guard shifted nervously and glanced down at Matt, commiserating. Matt felt an irrational flash of gratitude toward the man, and tried to smile reassuringly. But his mind strayed back to Alisande—didn't it always? He tried to pull himself out of the slough of despond, but the betrayal weighed on his spirits too heavily.

Again, the guard turned to him, and this time his expression would have done credit to a bloodhound. Matt tried to smile bravely, but he wasn't really up to it.

This was ridiculous! Here he was, just making the guard and himself both miserable. He had to jolt himself out of this self-pity and get back in action! It was a time to be doing, not moping!

Do what?

Good question. In Merovence, magic worked by chanting poetry, sometimes reinforced by gestures—and he couldn't chant very well if his mouth was stuffed with a gag. Gesturing was possible with chains on his wrists, but somewhat limited. Besides, gestures couldn't do anything alone.

He broke off with a shudder. He had a momentary vision of his future...

The guard sniffed and wiped a tear as he glanced at Matt out of the corner of his eye. Matt plucked up his spirits to wink, and take a playful kick at the man's knee with the ankle that was not fastened to the wall. The guard looked surprised, then grinned down. "Eh, your Lordship! I should ha' known naught would keep 'ee down for long!"

Matt winked again, though he felt like crying, before his attention strayed back to his dilemma. Finally, he began to feel indignant, a very healthy sign. Definitely better than moping. The ignominy of it! He, the topmost wizard in the land—thanks to all the verses he knew that this land had never heard of—chained in dungeon vile and not able to do a thing about it! And all because Alisande had been quick enough to think of a gag before he did! She may have tired of him, but she wasn't about to let him go—oh, no! Salt him away in storage in case he suited her whim again! How like a woman, always to want a new beau for her string!

For a moment, his resentment submerged in admiration of her. What a woman! Such presence of mind, such quickness of wit, to realize in a split second that, gagged, he couldn't work magic, and so couldn't escape. Such determination, such tenacity, such selfishness!

Well, that wasn't really fair. Her kingdom came before herself, in her own mind—that's why she was a good monarch. But could he really manage having a wife who thought her kingdom was more important than her husband?

She appeared again before his mind's eye, and he knew in a moment that he could. After all, that devotion to duty was part of what made her admirable.

But did she always have to be so damned right?

Yes, she did—at least, in public matters. The "Divine Right of Kings" really worked, in this universe. Nice to know he ranked as a public issue. On the other hand, it might have been nice if, to her, he'd been more than a national asset.

Or was he? Come to think of it, if she was in love with him, it was a personal matter—and, in personal matters, her judgment could be flawed.

The old scientific instinct stirred in him. How about the empirical test? After all, who knew for sure that he couldn't escape?

Everyone, that's who. In this universe, magic worked—and it worked by poetry. But a spell had to be recited aloud in order for it to work—everyone knew that!

His spirits slumped again and, for the first time in three years, he found himself wishing ardently that he was back in the old, familiar, dead-end college-campus life he'd known before.

The guard turned to him, startled, alarmed. Matt frowned up at him. What was there to be alarmed about?

Matt's going.

Excitement spun through him. The guard had picked up his sadness before—that's why he'd been looking sympathetic. And he was resonating Matt's feelings of longing to go, now!

And why not? Matt had been thinking in verses!

Then why didn't all his thoughts make spells happen?

Because they usually weren't in verse—and when they were, they were fleeting verses like these, all emotion with no action, no imperative!

So if he did silently say a verse with an imperative...

But everyone knew a spell had to be recited aloud.

Sure—but just because everyone knew it, didn't always mean it was true.

Matt set himself and tried to think of the verse that he had used to free himself and Alisande from imprisonment in this very castle, those long three years ago.

He waited expectantly for the disorientation of physical projection, waiting, waiting...

Disappointed.

He glowered up at the guard, feeling an irrational resentment of the man for still being there. Apparently verses did have to be spoken out loud.

Then a still, small voice seemed to speak within him, encouraging, but with a suspicion that some other power was operating here, that his spells would have to be in harmony with that other power before they could work.

It made sense. He knew very well that he would have gone down in defeat more than once, if his magic hadn't been supported by the spiritual guidance of Saint Moncaire, the patron of Merovence. And if Saint Moncaire had other plans for him right now than just breaking free to go wandering around feeling sorry for himself...

On the other hand, did he really want to do Saint Moncaire's work for him again?

Well, he could at least find out what the contract said before he signed it. He threw himself on the figurative mercies of the angels, asking where they wanted him to go.

The answer welled up in him, feeling uncomfortably like a compulsion. But about all you can do for a geas is go where it tells you, so Matt shrugged in surrender and recited an old, folk hymn:

Light glared, and he found himself somewhere else entirely. This time he stayed still, but his stomach flipped over. He staggered, taking a deep breath against nausea, and put out a still-manacled hand to steady himself.

He felt rough bark beneath his palm. He turned, surprised, to see a tree behind him, and decided he wasn't in the dungeon anymore! He was free, in the sunshine and the open air! He took a deep breath of breeze, grinned wide, and looked about him.

Then he saw his surroundings, and his stomach felt a little queasy again.