The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 23 Well Wast Well-Wist

They landed fifty miles away, though Stegoman insisted he was good for twice that much. "No," Matt said firmly. "I want some energy reserves, not utter exhaustion. You can never tell what we're going to have to deal with when we land."

Stegoman grumbled something about lack of confidence, but glided down in a spiral. His wings roared as he hovered and slowly settled the last ten feet, griping every inch of the way about it being unnecessary.

"Then why are you panting?" Matt asked.

"The Demon could...lend me energy if...I had need of it...Wizard!"

"Yes, but you'd have to pay it back when the emergency was over," Matt pointed out. "Not even magic can get it for you free, Stegoman. Wholesale, maybe, but not free."

The dragon struck earth, flexing his legs to take up the shock, but it still jarred Matt's back teeth. He swung down to a scaled knee, calling, "Okay! Everybody off except the lady! Give the dragon a break before you break the dragon's giving."

Fadecourt was ahead of him, leaping nimbly from knee to grass, then looking back up at Yverne—and stiffening. "Wizard, 'ware!" He pointed at the sky. "What great bird is that who stoops upon us?"

"Down, damsel!" Stegoman snapped. "I must be free to rise in battle!"

"Wait a minute, no." Matt put out a hand to Stegoman's leg, and could almost feel the adrenaline rising. "I think I recognize that silhouette. At least, I haven't seen too many birds with four legs."

"Is't a dragon, then?" Still, Stegoman craned his neck back, looking up. "Nay, thou hast it aright—the beast hath a bird's tail and talons. Could it be that irresponsible excuse for a monster, come home at last?"

The winged form swelled amazingly fast, and Narlh struck earth a hundred yards behind. He galloped toward them, wings cupped, slowing, and skidded to a halt beside them. "There y' are! Wadda ya mean, taking off like that without waiting for me?"

"Waiting!" Stegoman cried. "Thou great lumbering lummox, wherefore didst thou fly from us and desert us?"

Narlh tossed his scaly snout, dismissing the point. "I kept looking and looking, but I couldn't find you in all that clammy gray stuff. By the time I found the edge where it was clearing, you guys were just getting hauled through the gates. I figured the best idea was to lay low and wait for a chance. Then, first thing I knew, here was the dragon, scorching the parapets, and I figured it was now or never, so I started dive-raking the gate tower. Got all the sentries cleared out, too, and I held it for an hour at least, but you never showed up! What took you so long, anyhow?"

"We found the back door," Matt explained. "But you helped more than you knew—all of a sudden, none of the guards had time to worry about us. When did you decide to let them have their walls back?"

"When the duke came staggering out of the keep—and you know how I feel about sorcerers. So I made a quick exit, thank you, and climbed up as high as I could to get out of range. Then I saw wings off to the east, and I figured it had to be the dragon, if I could see him that far away. Not as fast as he used to be, though."

"Nor wouldst thou be, if thou didst carry four, one in full armor!" Stegoman retorted.

"No matter how, I'm awfully glad to have you both back," Matt said quickly. "I'd like to get as far away from the duke as I can, and I don't think Stegoman could carry us all very far. Think you could take Fadecourt and Yverne together, Narlh?"

The dracogriff growled low in his throat and shook his wings. "Sure, nothing to it. But can scaly-face there carry you and the knight-in-armor both?"

"Scaly-face, indeed," Stegoman snapped. "And what hast thou for a visage, birdbrain?"

"Takes one to know one, right?"

"I prithee." Yverne stepped up to Narlh, nicely short-circuiting the insult match. "Wilt thou carry me, good beast?"

"Well, for you, lady..."

No one wins like the winsome, Matt decided. He turned away to Stegoman. "Mind trying again, old saur? Or do you need some rest?"

"Rest? Phaugh!" Stegoman lifted tired wings. "A dragon flies so long as there is need! Mount, knights!"

They did—and Matt noticed that Sir Guy wasn't looking as enthusiastic as he would have expected. He began to wonder if his courtesy to Yverne was just good manners, after all.

He had also noticed that she didn't seem to mind having both the knight and the cyclops being very solicitous of her. He began to revise his opinion of the damsel, then remembered how steadfast she had been in the torture chamber. After all, he had to admit she hadn't exactly been flirting with either man or cyclops—and there was nothing wrong with enjoying the situation, after all.

Was there?

They took off in a thunder of wings, and Stegoman growled, "Whither away, Wizard?"

"I hope that was a question, not a wish." Matt turned back to the knight. "Any idea how we can find Gor—the king's castle, Sir Guy?"

"Castle?" Sir Guy snapped out of a first-class brood. "Oh, aye! I have not seen it, but my allies have told me much of it. The royal castle is by the sea, on a small tongue of land that is surrounded on three sides by ocean."

"Sounds easy enough to recognize." Matt nodded. "Hear that, Stegoman?"

"Aye." The dragon sounded less than enthusiastic. "Thou shalt wish to be set down near to that, I conjecture?"

"As near as is safe, yes."

"If aught can be said to be safe, in Ibile," the dragon grumbled—but he arrowed ahead into the west, anyway.

The castle was there, all right, a huge triangle of curtain walls containing a trio of courtyards, a brooding old keep, and a whole town of support buildings. But there was a sulky, sullen feeling of having gone to seed, of having been darkened by centuries of soot. "Max," Matt said softly, "what's wrong with that place?"

The spark appeared beside him in midair, then hummed, "Precisely what you suspected, Wizard, or you'd not have summoned me. Entropy has taken it, and none has fought it off."

"But I don't see any visible signs of decay."

"Nor would you. The rot is not physical, but spiritual."

"Castles don't have souls!"

"Nay, but a house reflects its owners' spirits, Lord Wizard. The denizens of that house have let their souls subside in decay; 'tis why they are termed 'decadent.' This is only the outward sign of that corruption."

It did seem corrupt, now that Max had said the word—like the corpse of a great fortress, rotting unburied. Matt shuddered and turned to the practical aspect of the situation, which meant talking backward over his shoulder. "See any way to get in, Sir Guy?"

"Nay, Sir Matthew. 'Tis impregnable, unless it chooses to be otherwise."

Matt toyed with the notion of trying to get in by ruse and disguise, but discarded it quickly. "We'd better get out of the sky, then—I don't relish having their sentries see us and watch to find out where we go. Think you've seen all you need?"

"For what purpose?" Sir Guy shrugged. "I have seen its overall plan and can draw it for you from memory, now—yet how will that serve? We shall not take it, though we camp about its walls for ten years."

"Let's mull that over at leisure, shall we? Stegoman, find us a safe place for relaxing."

The dragon banked away toward the east. Matt scowled down at the ocean below, trying to figure out how to take a castle on a headland. Then he sat up straight, eyes widening. "Down there, on that island! What castle is that?"

It was much smaller, only a curtain wall, an outer bailey partitioned off from the inner bailey surrounding the keep, and four towers situated around its irregular, ellipsoid shape. It was dilapidated to the eye, though not to the inner eye, and surrounded by the long slopes of a hill, barren and blackened—almost, Matt would have thought, charred.

" 'Tis the Castillo Adamanto," Sir Guy answered. "I have heard of it—how it has restrained past kings from tyranny, by welcoming such barons as disagreed with the king. If enemies opposed those earlier monarchs from across so narrow a stretch of ocean, and were able to blockade them by sea whilst others might wall off their peninsula on the landward side, they might bid fair to starve the kings out—as the counts of that castle have done, ever and anon through these five hundred years. Always has the king had to come to terms with his barons, and his tyranny has never been absolute—till now."

"Oh? The sorcerer king managed to conquer it?"

"Nay—but his ships have penned it up. None may come there, now, and 'tis likely that the last of the counts is dead. Yet his spells endure, to sear invaders with fire if they approach his walls."

Could that explain the charred look to the hillsides? But how could the count keep a spell going after his death?

By embedding the command in a poem, naturally. Literature endured, after all. Matt nodded. "Well, we're not approaching by land, and we don't want to conquer—we just want a bed for the night, and shelter while we try to figure out what we can do about the king. This strikes me as the ideal location—if we can come in without getting fired. Do you suppose your cohort could find out?"

"The Puck? What say, goblin, can you tell?"

"Aye, that can I," Puck's voice said behind Matt, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. "What matters fire to a spirit mercurial? Nay, if flames come, I may change my form and burn them out!"

Matt didn't doubt that he could.

A breath of breeze fanned the back of his neck, and he saw the elf diving down toward the castle. He held his breath, but nothing happened.

"How long must we tarry?" Stegoman demanded.

"Till he tells us it's clear," Matt answered. "Sorry about the weight, old friend."

" 'Tis not so bad as all that—there are updrafts here, and I but glide from the one to the other. Natheless, Matthew, I shall be glad of a chance to lay me down."

"Just wait till we're on the ground, okay?" A dot was shooting up toward them, swelling into a diminutive human form—and Puck landed on Sir Guy's shoulder. "There is naught, not so much as a spark."

"Let us attempt it, Matthew."

"As you say. Gently, Stegoman."

"Indeed. I've no wish to be crisped." The dragon began to circle lower, a little at a time, very warily.

He brought them in to a thundering descent that was vertical for the last fifty feet, stretching his hind toes down to touch the granite, then taking up his weight as he sank down to crouch on all fours, folding his wings. Narlh wasn't quite so graceful—he came in at a low angle and landed running fast, cupping his wings to brake and trying to dig in his claws to come to a stop. He almost had to leap off the other side and try again, but at the last moment, he skidded to a halt, slewing around and bringing himself up sharply against a merlon.

"Done with excellent grace," Stegoman said dryly. "In truth, thou hast scant need to fly, thou dost run so well."

"Oh, put it in a bucket and drop it in a well!" Narlh growled, coming back to them. "If you're such an expert, maybe you could teach me that neat vertical landing, huh?"

Stegoman eyed the dracogriff's feathered wings with doubt. "I will essay it, surely, an thou dost wish."

Fadecourt clambered down and helped a very pale Yverne to dismount.

"But you just don't think I'm up to it, huh?" Narlh bristled.

"I have no basis for judgment," Stegoman confessed. "Ne'er before have I seen a creature like to thee."

Narlh's head snapped up, stung, and Matt leaped in to pour balm on the wound before the bomb exploded. "Quite a compliment, to think you're unique—and you wouldn't deny that you are rare."

"Well...special, anyway," Narlh grumped.

"Unique," Matt confirmed. "Now, do you two guys want to try to squeeze down that stairway with the rest of us, or do you want to stay up here and hold a mutual gripe session?"

"I will come," Stegoman said quickly. "I mislike the look of that dark maw of a staircase. Nay, Matthew, thou mayest have need of my flame."

"I'll beg off, thank you." Narlh eyed the hole in the roof with loathing. "I have this thing about tight places. Besides, you're going to need a sentry up here, just in case."

Matt couldn't have agreed more, though he couldn't think what "in case" might be. "Great. Hope you get bored, though."

"I kinda think I've had enough interesting times to hold me," Narlh agreed.

"Okay. Off to the lower depths, folks." And Matt strode away toward the dark doorway at the base of the north tower, trying not to show the qualms he was feeling.

They filed through the door and turned the first curve of the spiral into darkness, and Matt said, "I think maybe a small flare, Stegoman."

But before the dragon could comply, light burst ahead of them, several steps down. Matt stared in surprise, instantly tensed to face an enemy—but the light was coming from a sconce on the wall. It was an empty sconce, though, one that should have held a torch, but didn't. Instead, it held a bluish flame.

"What enemy awaits us?" Sir Guy demanded.

"None—only an automatic lighting system." But Matt frowned at the sconce, knowing that bluish flame was familiar, wondering why, and where he'd seen it before.

"Let us go further," Stegoman rumbled, and Matt went on, under the sconce and down into the next curve of darkness.

Light flared in front of them again.

"Is't another unseen torch?" Yverne asked, voice not quite steady.

"Yes." Matt gazed at the flame in the sconce, musing, then decided it was nothing threatening. "It's just a very good system for lighting this stairway only when it's needed. Fadecourt, tell me when that first torch goes out."

"I will," the cyclops answered, and Matt went on down the spiral. Another sconce burst into flame before him.

"The light has gone from the wall behind me," Fadecourt reported.

Matt nodded. "Each torch comes on as we near it, then fades as we pass it. Very efficient spell—and one that also warns the inhabitants that we're here, no doubt."

"If there are any to heed it," Sir Guy pointed out.

"There must be. The flames have burst forth from the hillside, whene'er the king has attacked." But Fadecourt was frowning, too, uncertain.

With good reason. If the torches could be automatic, why not the castle's defenses? "We'll find out in a few minutes," Matt said. "Let's go."

They went on down the tower stair with no more discussion, moving as quietly as they could on the stone.

Finally, the stairway opened out, and the last torch showed them a broad chamber beyond. Matt stepped out into that great room and saw faded tapestries covering the walls, an elaborate carved chair on a distant dais, and a fireplace with roaring flames. Beside it, hands locked behind his back and gazing at the fire in contemplation, stood a short, plump man with baggy hose and a threadbare doublet, high forehead shading into a bare scalp fringed with long, gray hair that hung down about his shoulders. His face was wan and wrinkled, with a brooding, thoughtful look, lit from below by firelight.

He seemed unaware of their presence. If his spell on the tower stair had given warning, he had paid it no heed.

It seemed a little rude to call out, so Matt cleared his throat.

The old man spun toward the sound, eyes wide in horror. He gave a little cry and cowered back, hands upheld to ward them off, quavering, "Enemies! My friends, come! We are beset!"

Suddenly the air was thick with gauzy, translucent shapes with huge gray moth wings and stunted, gnarled, almost-human forms. Wispy beards adorned faces like oak burls, and clenched fists pounded the companions. One blow struck through and into Matt's head; he heard nothing, but a blinding pain shot through his skull. "Max! Disperse them!"

But Puck was already in action, shooting from one creature to another, countering blows with his own, tiny, upraised palm—and the force of the punch rebounded, knocking the moth-men awry. Max danced out to join him, singing in glee as he shot through and through the translucent forms; the moth-men began to keen with pain.

"Cold Iron!" Sir Guy roared, whipping out his sword and whirling it over his head. The spirits scattered, pulling back from his blade, but hovering just beyond its reach, and their keening took on the tone of anger.

"Behind us!" Fadecourt called, and Matt whipped about to see more moth-men closing in from the rear. "It's a trap after all!" he cried. "Gordogrosso set an ambush for us! I should've known!"

"Gordogrosso, do you say?" the old man cried in surprise. "Nay, desist, my friends! The enemy of my enemy is my ally!"

The moth-men pulled back, simmering with anger, and Puck shot toward them.

"Nay, hold, goblin!" Sir Guy called. " 'Twould be pity of my life, if we were to slay friends!"

Puck hovered, trading glares with a moth-man, but held his station.

"Patch 'em up, Max," Matt called. "Wait a minute—no. Just stop hurting them. If they are friends, we'll heal them."

"You have the power to undo the harm you've done?" the old man asked, amazed.

"That much, I can do," Matt confirmed. "The question is, should I?"

The old man spread his hands. "That's to say, am I your friend? And to that, I can only reply that I have resisted the king's armies and magic all my life, as did my father before me, and his father before him."

"Are your moth-men that strong?"

The moth-men set up an angry buzzing, and the old man frowned. "Call them well-wists, for they wist of all wells and other depths beneath the earth. They do flit through rock and soil as birds do fly through air, and thus learn all the secrets of the hidden places beneath the ground."

"Oh." Matt lifted his head, understanding. "It's not just their power to hurt that gives them strength—it's their knowledge."

"Aye. 'Tis they showed my grandsire how to defend his castle with flame, in return for some service he had done them."

Matt was suddenly very interested in the nature of that service—but the old man was asking, "Are you not the king's henchmen, sent here to slay me and seize my castle?"

"Never!" Fadecourt snapped.

Yverne lifted her head, indignant at the insult. "I have suffered too much from this vile monarch who broke faith with my father, good sir."

"None of us would even think of siding with Gord—uh, the king," Matt explained, without apparently attracting their enemy's attention.

Or had they attracted his attention, but without risk? Certainly the castle seemed impregnable, even from magic. Matt felt more confident, but also felt the heavy weight of an obligation to be honest. "Myself, I'm out to assassinate the king." It sounded ugly, when he came right out and said it—but that was what he intended, after all, and if there were anything wrong about it, he'd better find out ahead of time. "Not that I usually advocate murder, you understand, but he deserves it if anybody does, and it's the only way to save the people of Ibile from him. I'd prefer to kill him in open battle, of course, but I don't think I'll get the chance."

"Nay, surely not." Finally, the old man smiled. "And if you are indeed his enemies, you are welcome in my castle. But how came you hither?"

"Looking for a hiding place from the king," Matt explained, "but one where we could keep watch on him and try to lay some plans about invading his castle. Our dragon friend—" He nodded over his shoulder at Stegoman. "—brought us to your roof, and we came down the stairs. You don't seem to keep many guards, sir."

"I am the Don de la Luce, and I keep no guards indeed, save these my friends, who will come at my call—yet I would not trouble them without need."

"Neither would I." Matt gave the indignant well-wists a guilty glance. "I hadn't meant to hurt friends—but I didn't know you were on my side."

The biggest well-wist buzzed angrily.

"He says that they did not know you were not assassins sent by the king," Don de la Luce interpreted. "They knew only that you were intruders, and as such, sought to protect me by driving you away."

"Yeah, I can understand how I must have looked from their point of view. Well, uh, I'm sorry, well-wists."

Another moth-man—or was it woman?—stepped up beside the biggest, buzzing in an indignant tone.

"She says you might show your contrition by healing them," the don explained.

"Oh, yeah! What's wrong with me? No, don't answer that! Yeah, I should have fixed them up in the first place." Matt turned away, frowning while he tried to dredge up the appropriate verse, then turned back to the well-wists, spreading his open palms to include them all, and chanting,

As he spoke, the very air began to shimmer. The well-wists buzzed and sang, churning together in consternation, just beginning to become alarmed when the coruscation died. The creatures looked at one another, their tones turning into chimings and flutings of delight.

"They are healed indeed!" the Don de la Luce said, staring. "You are a wizard brave and doughty!"

For a moment, Matt thought he had said "knave and dotty," and was about to agree with him. Fortunately, he realized what the old don had said, just in time to change his comeback to, "Glad to be able to make amends. Have we hurt any guardian spirits on your stairway, too?"

"Nay; there is only a charm laid on it. In truth, I should have guessed that you were not malignant, for the stairwell is enchanted only against those with evil magic."

Matt shook his head. "For all you knew, we might have been king's sorcerers who had managed to disable your spell."

"True, though none such have ever been able to rise to such heights within this stronghold."

"Sounds like you could use a few human guards. Don't you have any flesh-and-blood retainers?"

"Nay, I dwell alone in this great old stone pile; all our soldiers and servants fled, in my grandfather's time, to serve the evil tyrant." He shook his head at the memory. "I was but newly come to manhood then, yet I remember well the ferocious battles of my boyhood, when my grandfather strove against the king with his knights and men-at-arms, keeping the shores of this isle secure by sword and steel, even as his wizards battled with the king and his sorcerers. But they died, the wizards—they died, and the people fled to the mainland, sick and weary of battle, and afeard of the king's sorcery. I hope they fared well, yet I misdoubt me of it." His mouth tightened. "Ah me! What may have happened to them! Some we knew of, for their tattered ghosts spoke to my grandfather of torture and degradations as they flew past on their way to Heaven or Purgatory, and not a one but did not wish he had stayed to fight and died a clean death. Oh, yes, oh, yes! 'Tis better far to die in battle, than to fail by inches, serving the king's pleasure! Yet there were none to battle by our sides, my father and my grandsire and myself, save my mother and her ladies, yes, but no bride for me, no, for the ladies had fled and gone, fled and gone." A tear trembled in his eye; he blinked it back.

"But I remembered, aye, the well-wists, and the tale my grandfather told, of the time of his grandfather, when the land was newly sunk in evil, oh, yes, and our most doughty ally sunk beneath the wave, the waves. Oh, 'twas then the well-wists came flocking, filling our castle with aimless anger, and folk would have fled their haunting had not my grandfather's grandfather seen 'twas fear that moved them, and not anger. He found they feared the sea, oh yes, and fled to find a roost for their mates, since the sea was claiming their caverns below. He showed them the caverns 'neath this castle, yes, and gave them all his dungeons, and at this they rejoiced, for they do not like the light, you know."

"No," Matt said. "I hadn't known that."

"Had you not? They do not, you know. They are creatures of the under-earth, who need no light, but see by the essence of each stone and grain of sand. Nay, the dungeons were their delight, and the caverns beneath—the dungeons that are now their home, and there they dwell, to keep me safe in my loneliness."

The solitude, Matt realized, had touched the poor dotard's brains. How much of what he was telling was truth, and how much demented imaginings?

"Safe?" Yverne asked, pity underscoring her tone. "I can see that they are company for you—but how do they keep you safe?"

"Did I not tell you? Oh, I see—I did not, did not. But you, pretty child—who are you?" The old man advanced, hand reaching out to touch Yverne's.

She did not shrink. "I am the Lady Yverne, daughter of the Duke of Toumarre."

"Ah, yes! I knew them well, or knew of them, I should say, for never have I gone forth from this island"

That hit Matt with a jolt. To have spent his whole life on this miserable piece of rock! No wonder the poor old guy had never had a girlfriend.

But how could he have left? Sorcerers hemmed him in on all sides, waiting to smear him into paste and gobble his island and castle. Not much choice—though Matt wondered if he'd have the courage to keep living, in the old man's place.

"They were good men, your ancestors." The old man patted Yverne's hand reassuringly. "Or as good as they could be, when they had sworn allegiance to the king. Nay, they must needs then have given themselves over to the evilness of his reign—yet by all reports and all the tales my grandfather told of those days, they strove for goodness in spite of all. Oh, the king would have haled them down and slain them root and branch, had he dared—or so my grandfather said. Slain them, but he dared not, for only they knew how to keep the borderlands safe from the soldiers of Merovence, yes, the soldiers who were hot to bring down the sorcerer then, they were."

"He dared do it in the end," Yverne informed him. "I am the last of my line, unless my father still endures, languishing in his enemy's dungeon."

"Oh, poor child!" The old man's head lifted, eyes huge. "But he must still live, must he not? For the king cannot gain full power over those lands of yours, unless one of your line gives them to him, yes. Without that, oh, he may hold them, but the magic of them he will never master, no. And failing that power, the land itself will welcome the champions of Merovence. Oh, yes, it will."

Yverne turned to Matt and Sir Guy, eyes wide. "Is that how you came unharmed through my father's lands, then?"

"Are they of Merovence? Oh, delight! Delight! Then mayhap the king's last hour is at hand. Could we not hope it? Yes, of course we could." The old man released Yverne's hand and turned to the cyclops. "What is your house and station, sir?"

"Call me Fadecourt," the cyclops replied, "and my house and station are of no consequence, while the reign of evil endures—for I am of Ibile."

"I see, I see!" The old man nodded wisely. "And you wish to live a good and godly life. Indeed, of no consequence—save that they make you a staunch ally, yes! But you are not of Merovence?"

"Nay, though my companions are."

"They are, they are!" The don turned to Sir Guy. "Your name, Sir Knight?"

"Sir Guy de Toutarien, and I am honored by your hospitality, Milord de la Luce."

"It is given, it is gladly given! And I am honored by your company, yes. You are welcome, well come indeed."

"And my friend, of whose tongue you have already made acquaintance, is Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence, and a knight of honor."

"The Lord Wizard!" The don turned to Matt, eyes wide. "I had never thought to find so eminent a magus so deep in Ibile. Though..." His eyebrows drew down in thought. "You have not the look of the Lord Wizard of whom I have heard."

"If you're talking about my predecessor, he was assassinated, along with his king," Matt answered. "I, uh, attached myself to his daughter, helped her out of a few rough scrapes and such, so when she got her throne back, she made me her Lord Wizard."

"He speaks too modestly," Sir Guy interposed. "It was he, more than any man, who haled the usurper Astaulf from the throne of Merovence, and overcame his sorcerer, Malingo."

"Yeah, with you and Stegoman and a loyal giant to back me up—not to mention a few thousand monastic knights and a lot of loyal footmen!"

"Yet 'twas you who brought them all to her, Sir Matthew, and you who—"

"Milords! Good knights!" The old don spread his hands. "Enough, I pray! I see that the Lord Wizard was indeed a mighty ally of the queen's—yet thinks himself less than he was."

"Well—I certainly am not the great cure-all they seem to think. The queen's beginning to realize that, too, now."

"Is she truly?" The old man gave him a keen look that Matt felt all the way to his liver and lights. "Nay, I think there is more than a matter of faith and allegiance in this. And I have heard something of this struggle, too, yes—heard of a wizard who waked a giant made of stone, who brought down the castle of a witch who had enchanted hundreds of youths and lasses, then fought off a besieging, sorcerous army, not once, but twice—"

"With a lot of clergy to back me up! Not to mention the knights and men-at-arms."

"I shall not, since you ask it. But I doubt not you merit your title, Lord Wizard—I see that you are dedicated in your loyalty."

He saw a bit more than Matt wanted him to, so it was time to change the subject. "Well, I'll have to consider the source—and from what I see, you must be no mean wizard yourself. After all, you're attended by a flock of well-wists and holding firm against a sorcerous army next door."

But the old man was shaking his head. " 'Tis only cleverness and goodwill, Lord Wizard, and as much my grandfather's as mine. Nay, all I can claim is having befriended the well-wists, and my grandfather's grandfather did that for me."

"But you were the only one who did more than know they were there?"

Again, that glance that cut through to his marrow. "There is no wonder in that. I was a young man, restless and unused to solitude—and the well-wists' cavern was the only strange land in which I could wander, the only folk to whom I was other than the don's son. Their friendship given, they showed me the marvels of their domain—and when I saw the great store of black water, and how they could make it flame, I could not help but realize how the fire could repel the sorcerers."

"Couldn't help it, huh?"

"Could any man?"

"Many, I doubt not," Fadecourt rumbled, "myself included. What did you with this "black water' you speak of?"

"I drew it off, with the aid of my well-wist friends—drew it off into a great wheel of pipes that we pushed through the earth to surround the castle. Then, when the enemy marched upon us, we let the black water flow, and it spilled out to soak through the ground all about. It killed the grass, aye, and the bushes, more's the pity—but when I did shoot fire-arrows down into it, a curtain of flame sprang up, and the sorcerers could not douse it. Oh, if they had known it was rock oil, I doubt not they would have found a way...but who would have thought it? Nay, not I myself, had I not learned of it from the well-wists. Yet I had, I had."

"Maybe." Matt frowned. "Or maybe when the sorcerers tried, the well-wists were able to counter their spells. This is within the domain of their powers, after all, and they're obviously magical beings."

The old don looked up, surprised, and smiled. "There, now, do you see? You may well be right—but I would never have thought of such by myself, never! Nay, I am no sorcerer, but only a clever man."

" 'Tis the work of genius," Fadecourt assured him, "to see a defense 'gainst sorcery, where others saw naught but a lamp."

"A wick and a fuel." Matt nodded. "You've fought off the king's army several times, haven't you?"

"Oh, a dozen, yes, twelve, and a few more, for I am old, milords and lady, old."

Matt had a notion the old man was exaggerating again. "After all that burning, the soil is probably so calcined by heat that it's providing capillary action, and functioning as a sort of wick."

"A wizard! A wizard, surely!" De la Luce shook his head in admiration. "There, you see it? Never would I have thought to phrase it so!"

No, but he'd certainly had the concept, and the insight to apply it—and without any more background than having learned how an oil lamp worked. It took immense brainpower to make that kind of cognitive leap. Matt didn't doubt he was in the presence of a genius. He shook off the shiver the thought gave him and said, "Pushing the oil into the pipes must take some kind of power source. How do you do it? It can't be just gas pressure, if you're drawing it from a seepage pool."

" 'Tis not, 'tis not. The well-wists aided me in making a pipe, and a way of pushing rock oil through it, as a lad shoots a bean through a straw. Will it please you come see it?"

He seemed pathetically eager to show off his handiwork, but it would have taken a giant octopus to hold Matt back. "Oh, you bet I would. Which way?"

The way was down. They passed the dungeon early on, and the lower dungeon a little later. That surprised Matt; he'd expected that the tour would be in the lower depths, but he had thought they'd bottom out fairly early. He was getting tired just walking downhill; he was beginning to dread the thought of going back up. To make things worse, the old man kept up an enthusiastic monologue every inch of the way, pointing out minerals they were passing through, for all the world like a paid tour guide—and one who really loved his subject, too, to the point of never having any idea that anyone else might not find it at all interesting. Matt grew tired of the virtues of limestone very quickly and was actively resenting the gloss on celebration of sedimentaries, when he heard the old man say something about shale. He pricked up his ears and really looked at the wall passing by him. Sure enough, it had a darker look; it was oil-bearing.

Then the old man turned off the stairway into a dark tunnel mouth. Matt had a very strong urge to keep on going, but the well-wists were crowding closely around them, and they weren't exactly eyeing him with favor, still seeming to harbor some resentment at his earlier conduct—so he followed.

They came out into a cavern, so hemispherical that it looked as if it had been formed by a bubble in the rock. One look at what it contained, and Matt had no doubt that was what it had been—a gas bubble. For the light of a thousand well-wists reflected a thick-looking dark liquid, gently rippling under the breath of semisubstantial wings, and Matt knew by the aroma that it wasn't water.

Yverne wrinkled her nose. "Phew! What is this fluid, Milord de la Luce?"

" 'Tis the rock oil, milady—oil seeped from the rocks themselves. 'Tis as light as any lamp oil, but I would not set a wick to burning here."

Too right he wouldn't! If he tried, they'd probably all go up in a bang that would knock the huge old stone pile above them into pebbles. "Stegoman," Matt called, "don't come in."

"I cannot," the dragon's voice called from outside the tunnel. "The cave mouth is too small."

"That's just fine." Matt turned to the don. "Seepage, you say?"

"Aye. There is no spring—it seems to rise from a thousand cracks in the stone."

"All light stuff, then—kerosene, gasoline, light oil." Matt turned away. "It's an awe-inspiring sight, your lordship—but if you don't mind, I'd rather do my admiring from a distance. I'm already feeling a little light-headed."

"Aye—'tis not good to breathe in the presence of the pool for overlong." The old don ushered them out of the chamber.

As they came out, Sir Guy asked, "You channel this stuff to the land about your castle, then?"

"Aye. There is a pipe let into the wall of the pool, below its surface." De la Luce turned away down even more stairs. "Its own weight makes it sink down into the tube."

"But what brings it up?" Matt asked, following.

"Hark!" The old don held up a hand. "Do you hear?"

They were quiet,. and heard, afar off, a hissing sound that rose and fell.

"The sea!" Fadecourt breathed.

"Aye. It moves my oil for me. Will you come?" De la Luce led the way down, and down again, and again.

Finally, the stairwell brightened with daylight. A few more steps, and they came into a low sea cave, perhaps ten feet high. Its floor was only a narrow ledge, alongside a twenty-foot-wide channel of seawater, five feet below them. "The tide is flowing," de la Luce observed. "At its height, it will be scant inches below this track."

But Matt was looking at something else. "How on earth did you get the idea for that?"

It was a huge paddle wheel, almost as high as the roof, its lower arc already immersed in the seawater. With each surge of the tide, the wheel turned, but the ebb didn't turn it back. The old man had rigged an escapement, in a world that hadn't invented anything more elaborate than the water clock.

"From a mill wheel, naught but a mill wheel." The old man smiled, obviously pleased by the praise. "Though I did need long hours of pondering upon it, ere I seized upon a means of holding the wheel against the backwash of the tide's surge, yes, and longer hours yet to dream of a means by which that device could be reversed, so that the wheel could give me power at both ebb and flow."

Matt shivered, more certain than ever that he was in the presence of a genius. To make clockwork is no big deal, when someone else has shown you how—but to invent it yourself is quite another matter. "How do you harness the power of the wheel, so that it raises the oil to the soil?"

"By a thickened disk of metal, pushing the fluid up through a pipe. There are holes at top and bottom, the one to let the oil in, the other to let it out. 'Tis simple enough, once 'tis seen."

Simple, sure—but he hadn't seen it. Except in his mind's eye...

The old man stepped closer to the paddle wheel, frowning and reaching out to touch a slab of wood. " 'Tis cracked; I must replace it soon." He turned to Matt. "For it turns, day and night, to keep it fit, even though I've no need of its power, no, not more than a dozen times these fifty years. But I make it work once each year at least, yes, to be sure it will bring the oil when I want it."

"Wise precaution." Matt swallowed. "And still you're going to tell me that you're not a wizard."

"Certes! For surely, I am not!" the old man said in surprise, then smiled gently. "Be not deceived, Lord Wizard—there's naught of magic in this."

"Only in your mind," Matt muttered. He had a brief vision of an attack on the castle—enemy troops charging forward with scaling ladders, as the pump pushed hundreds of gallons of inflammable fluid into the ground around the castle, now charred as porous as pumice. Then a fire-arrow would come arcing up from the battlements, stabbing down into the earth—and a wall of flame would explode all about the assault troops. Matt winced at the imagined sound of their screams, and mentally cheered them on as they charged back into their own lines. Then he remembered what their officer-sorcerers would probably do to them, and forced the vision away. "No wonder it's been awhile since you had an assault."

"Aye." The old man nodded with a sad smile. "Why waste troops, when the king has simply to wait? For I have no heirs, no, nor anyone else dwelling with me here, save the well-wists—and the sorcerer could deal with them quickly enough had I not bade them flee when I die. Nay, they think I am alone here, all alone, though I thank Heaven I am not. There is a lovely lass who visits me, bless her—aye, and not once a year, but once a day and more!" He gave Matt a keen look with a knowing smile. "You shall think her to be but a vision of my fancy, and myself but a crazed old fool." The sorrow evaporated from his smile. "None will believe that she is real, as real as I myself—so mine enemies think that I must die the sooner for want of company. Well, let them learn their folly! I shall endure, thanks to her friendship—and, God willing, I will survive them all, to see the deliverance of Ibile, and the destruction of its sorcerers!"

"Amen to that," Fadecourt said fervently, and Sir Guy and Yverne echoed, "Amen."

For his own part, Matt agreed with the sentiments, but wasn't too sure about the means. He didn't doubt for a second that the "lovely lass" was every bit as imaginary as the old man's enemies doubtless said. Loneliness could do that to a person.

Yverne, however, took him at his word. "A lass who visits you? When all other folk have fled this island? Nay, whence could she come?"

"From the sea," the old don explained, "from the sea itself. Betimes she does in truth come up out of the sea, to converse awhile with me—but nothing more." The sad smile returned. "Nay, surely nothing more, though I had some hope of that when I was younger, a lad of forty or so—yet I aged, and she did not. She is my friend still, and anon takes me with her down under the waves to visit with her father, where they dwell forgotten in their watery palace. Ah, 'tis sad! 'Tis sad!"

Yverne looked up at Matt in alarm, but he shook his head. There was nothing he could do; the poor don was sunk in illusion. Sure, Matt might be able to banish the delusion with the appropriate spell—in fact, one was nudging at his mind right now-but would he really be doing the old man a favor? None of his business, for sure.

But Yverne looked so forlorn.

Then she mustered a brave smile as she turned back to the old man. "Is she a beauty, then, this lass of yours?"

"The queen of beauty to me," he said, then surprised Matt by adding, "though I doubt if others would find her fair, for her skin shimmers with scales ever so delicately wrought, and her hair is green, as are her eyes. Yet she is no mermaid, no, for she walks upon feet as delicate as shells, and her lips are coral."

Matt made one try at dispelling the illusion, though it earned him a glare from Yverne. "How could she come in, milord? She can't very well come knock on your raised drawbridge."

"Heaven forfend! Nay, she comes in yonder." He pointed back to the cavern they had just left. "Where the seawater rises, so rises she, riding upon the waves, then comes from the water and comes up to warm herself at my hearth, and warm my old heart with gladsome talk. Merry is she, and ever full of cheer, and her laugh is the chiming of silver bells."

"Through the sea door?" Matt stared. "And she climbs all those stairs, once a day?!"

The old man's mouth tightened, and he gave a single curt nod. "Be assured she does! This is no delusion, Lord Wizard, but only honest fact!"

"She must love you more than you think, then," Matt sighed, "to be willing to go up all those stairs. No way around it, though, is there?"

The old don gave a ghost of a smile, his good humor reviving. "Nay. As we have come down, Lord Wizard, so we must rise up."

For a moment, Matt was tempted to try a transportation spell—but there was always the chance that it might go wrong, and besides, he was going to need every ounce of magical energy he had. He started climbing.

The don bustled around, finding them some cold meat and bread—which, he claimed, the well-wists gave him. He also opened a bottle of wine which the sea-maid supposedly brought, and Matt could almost believe it—it certainly had an odd flavor. Then the don excused himself and bustled away, with an air of repressed anticipation that Matt didn't trust. He tried to relax, assuring himself that the old man was trustworthy—but he stayed on his guard in spite of himself.

"At last, a moment of tranquility!" Yverne sighed—and with surprise, Matt realized that she was right; since their escape from the duke's dungeon, they hadn't had a moment to relax.

Then she turned to Matt, and those limpid blue eyes suddenly held his gaze, unwinking. "Now, Lord Wizard, you must tell me—how did you bring Fadecourt and yourself forth from that dungeon cell?"

Matt stiffened, then forced himself to lean back and look casual. "Oh, just the ordinary escape spells."

"Aye, and they did not work," Fadecourt reminded him.

Matt spared him a quick glare. Shut up, Fadecourt! But the cyclops' mental telepathy wasn't working that day. "Surely you cannot have forgotten so quickly! You had need to attempt a more powerful verse, and it brought you not escape, but the three weird sisters."

"No, wait a minute," Matt was getting desperate now. "You've got the wrong story; the weird sisters belong in that play about the Scottish usurper..."

"Nay, they surely did come from the far north..."

"South. Definitely south. I keep telling you, they were the Fates, not the Norns."

"The Fates!" Yverne gasped, eyes huge-and Matt mentally cursed, because he really had no one to blame but himself; Fadecourt may have egged him on, but it was he himself who had let the fateful word slip. "Oh, they're not really so terrible as that. Wouldn't take any beauty prizes, mind you, but—"

"You summoned the Fates!" It was almost a scream. "The Fates themselves! Nay, surely they have now conspired against you!"

"Be of good heart, maiden." Fadecourt was patting her hand. "They did naught against him; nay, in truth, 'twas he overcame them."

"Surely not!" Yverne was about to cry. "You did not bait the Fates themselves!"

"That's right, I didn't," Matt said quickly. "I just recited a quick spell to protect us from them."

"But they shall have revenge! They shall not brook a mere mortal man to balk them!"

"Can't do any harm." Matt's reassurances were beginning to sound a little frantic. "I was planning on a short life, anyway. I positively shudder at the thought of growing up...I mean, old!"

There was a cackle from the far end of the great hall.

Every hair on Matt's head tried to stand on end, but he forced himself, slowly, to turn and look.

A globe of light shimmered in the gloom at the far end of the great hall, and within it stood the three old ladies, spinning, measuring, and, most especially, clacking scissors. Matt squinted, but he couldn't see through the shimmer clearly enough to notice any particularly devastating results from their last encounter. Whatever their screaming had signified, apparently it hadn't done any real damage. That beam of sunlight may have hurt—or had it just shocked them? Maybe even just startled.

"So! The upstart gives boast, sisters!" Clotho cried.

"Is't a boast to say he wishes a short life?" Lachesis demanded.

"Aye, since 'tis as much as to say he does not fear us!" Atropos snapped. "Come sisters! What shall we do with the braggart, eh?"

"Oh, now it comes!" Yverne cried.

"Why, take him at his word!" Clotho cackled. "If he wishes a short life, give him a long one!"

"Very long!" Atropos nodded sagely. "He shall wither in his age; his sight shall fail, his teeth shall fall out."

Clotho squinted at her web. "Nay, I cannot give him all of such infirmities, for I see he knows the counter to the most of them. Howsoe'er, a long life is by no means a peaceful one."

"Aye!" Atropos cried. "Fill his life with strife! If death is slow in coming, what matter? That does not preclude horrendous wounds in battle, maiming cuts, and dire mischances!"

"He shall beg for death," the youngest crooned. "He shall seek it! It shall become his most ardent quest!"

"A quest he must resolve himself!" Clotho cried in a fit of inspiration, her fingers flying. "He shall have to earn his death!"

"Alack!" Yverne cried. "How can they be so cruel?"

"Comes with the job." Matt's brave front was wearing thin.

"He shall attempt the impossible, he shall achieve the improbable!" Atropos shrieked. "And then, only then, when he has suffered to save his world, may he die!"

"Then he shall save Ibile?" Fadecourt cried.

"The saving of Ibile shall be the least of his labors," Clotho chanted, as if she had heard him. "He shall discover the ways in which the world is threatened to be engulfed by evil..."

"As it ever is," the youngest added. "He shall confront the most evil of men, he shall suffer at their hands! And when he has saved all of Europe, aye, and half of Asia, then may he die!"

Matt's skin crawled. She wasn't really siccing him with having to wait until Genghis Khan showed up, was she? That would be hundreds of years! Matt felt every instinct he had balking. "That's not for me to say! Shouldn't the people of Europe choose their own fate? Shouldn't the common folk of Ibile choose their own government?"

Now, finally, Clotho looked up, eyes boring into his—and, for a moment, the mist thinned; Matt saw a swath of smooth, flawless skin across her ravaged countenance. And, finally, she spoke directly to him. "Foolish mortal! How much choice have those people now?"

"Well...I suppose the sorcerers are pretty strict dictators...

"The people are but slaves!" Clotho's lip curled in contempt. "The king and his sorcerous nobles dictate every step, every act their people make! And they are cruel, most horribly cruel, in their enforcement."

"The poor folk dare not even embrace one another in the solitude of their huts," the youngest said, "for fear the sorcerers might be watching in their crystals. Nay, 'tis the foulest, most oppressive tyranny ever known!"

Matt was about to ask them about Herod and Nero, until he remembered that he was talking to experts. If anyone knew, it was the Fates. He hid a shudder at the thought of just how bad the sorcerers must be. "But that doesn't give me the right to impose a government on them!"

"Can you free them, yet leave them in anarchy?" Clotho challenged. "Nay, then surely sorcerers will rise among them again! Yet be truthful, Wizard—had you not meant to take the throne for yourself?"

Sir Guy and Yverne looked at him, startled.

"Well...yeah," Matt admitted, "but I was going to give them a good government."

"With no tyranny nor oppression? No taxes, no torture?"

"Well...there have to be some taxes, or the government doesn't have any money to provide even the most basic social services. But torture? No! Definitely not! And I'd honor the basic human rights, even if I wouldn't tell them about them all at once."

"Then you, too, would steal their freedom!"

"Not at all! I'd start an educational campaign first thing—well, second, after I'd taken care of basic administration-and build it, slowly and gradually, until they understood the basics of government. Then, in about twenty years, I'd start a national assembly, and slowly turn it into a real parliament."

"Why so long?" Atropos demanded.

"To let a generation grow up learning self-government. That's absolutely essential."

Atropos nodded. "Aye. You must live a long life."

"But it's not up to me! It's up to them!"

"Even were you a tyrant," the youngest said, "you would give them more freedom than they now have. Do your best to rule justly, and you shall open their dungeon cell. Nay, Wizard, you must do your best."

"Shall he be king of Ibile, then?" Fadecourt's eyes were burning.

Clotho glanced at her web, then shook her head. "I have not yet determined that. There are many other strands to the weave, and the pattern has not yet emerged."

Emerged? Matt wondered who really controlled her loom.

"However," the Fate went on, "you shall be vital to giving them their freedom. Only do as you think right, and you will set their feet on the road to wise choice. They shall someday choose their own government, I promise you."

Matt wasn't entirely happy about that; it sounded too much like saying that people get the kind of government they deserve. "Why? Why does it have to be so slow? Why does it have to be me?"

"Because that is as we wish it!" Atropos snapped, her eyes glowing. "You are the man chosen by Fate, the man of destiny! Your own actions and choices led you to becoming our instrument, of your own free will! Do you say you do not like it? Pity! For it is what you chose!"

"Yes, in a moment of anger, in a fit of temper! Come on—there have to be other reasons, better ones!"

"Even so." The youngest smiled like a vixen. "There are, and many, and good ones—but we do not choose to tell you of them."

"Surely not!" Atropos said. "And seek not to know! Beware of hubris, youngling, of overweening pride! Do not seek to challenge the gods, and expect death!"

Which meant, Matt decided, that they weren't about to tell a young upstart like him.

"Not such a young upstart as yourself!"

Matt clamped down on his temper—mustn't let them know they were getting to him! Or did they already? Either way—they were egging him on, trying to make him do something rash again.

Indeed they were. All three leaned forward in expectation, their eyes glowing through the mist.

Matt forced himself to settle back, to relax. "No, of course I wouldn't do a thing like that. I'm not about to forget that I have to put on my pants one leg at a time, after all. I make too many mistakes for that."

Sir Guy frowned, not understanding, but not liking the tenor of the remark—and the three sisters relaxed with a sigh of disappointment. "Well enough, then," Atropos said, though she sounded as if she didn't mean it. "Wend your way through your life, weak and foolish one—but do not expect us to save you from the consequences of your own folly!"

The globe of light shrank abruptly, as if it were receding at an incredible rate, and winked out. The room was very silent, and the only motion was the flickering of their shadows on the wall, cast by firelight. Matt became uncomfortably aware that all his friends were staring at him.

So he pretended a nonchalance he certainly didn't feel. He turned away to the fire with a sigh that he hoped sounded like disappointment. "Too bad. I half hoped they were going to slip and tell me something useful."