228

A WIZARD IN ABSENTIA

“To shelter, my lord.” Magnus climbed to his feet and looked down at Lord Aran. “There we shall rest, and consider what we may do. lan!”

“Yes, sir!”

“We’re going to try to travel by night, boy, and there’s an outside chance that we might become sep-arated. If we do, stay with the Lady Heloise at all costs! Do you understand? Guard her at whatever price you must—from this time until we reach safety, your life is hers. If we’re attacked, your first task is to get her to safety; your second task is to fight any who attack her. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” lan’s eyes were huge in the night. “I shall guard her with my head.”

“Good.” Magnus nodded, satisfied with both meanings of the phrase. He clapped lan on the shoulder. “Stout fellow! For now, follow.” He turned away, offering the old lord his arm.

Privately, he wondered where Siflot was. He couldn’t really ask the vagabond to actively help Lord Aran escape, since that was flatly against Allouene’s orders, and would jeopardize Siflot’s whole career. But he was grateful to his friend, already.

They moved out across the plain; campfire coals glowed sullenly ahead. They had a camp to traverse.

As silently as possible, Magnus threaded his Way between tents, hoping against hope that all of the soldiers were in the boats.

They weren’t.

A trooper rose up in front of them, staring, amazed. He was just beginning to open his mouth in 229

alarm when Magnus’s hand closed around his throat.

His fist slammed into the man’s jaw, and the soldier’s eyes rolled up as he dropped.

But another soldier saw and howled, “Enemy!

Captain of the Guard! They’re upon us!”

Magnus leaped to the side and felled the man with a chop—but an avalanche of bodies hit, and bore him to the ground, kicking and punching. He surged back up, throwing men off him like a bear rising from its winter’s sleep, and saw Lord Aran fencing with expert skill against two young officers. Magnus slammed heads, kicked bellies, and troopers fell around him. A club swung at his sinuses, but he leaned aside. It exploded like fire against his ribs, but he held his breath as he caught it and yanked; its owner stumbled after it, and Magnus felled him with a chop. A sword stabbed toward him, but he knocked it aside with the club.

Then the second wave hit.

It hit, but it fell back remarkably quickly. Magnus chopped and punched, rolling with the blows and striking back—and suddenly, he was standing, his head swimming, chest heaving, looking about at a score of fallen men …

And a tattered jester with a quarterstaff in his hands.

Magnus grinned and stepped forward to clap his friend on his shoulder. “Prince of jesters! You stood by me after all!”

“You and the lord,” Siflot returned, grinning.

“Your cause is just, for the lord is, too.”

“Is just?” Magnus smiled, amused. “But your ca/p>

reer, Siflot! If you help me keep him alive, Oswald will have your hide!”

“No, he won’t,” the jester said, with remarkable assurance, “though I don’t doubt he’ll try. The career can go hang, Gar—I never wanted it.”

“Then what did you want with SCENT?”

“Why, to help people who needed it most.” Siflot turned to Lord Aran with a bow. “And at the moment, Your Lordship, that is yourself.”

“I thank you. Fool,” Lord Aran panted. Then suddenly, his eyes went wide, and he looked about him in a panic. “My grandaughter! The Lady Heloise!

Where is she?”

Magnus looked about too, suddenly realizing that the old lord had an Achilles’ heel.

“I saw two small things go flitting away over the plain as I came to join you,” Siflot said, “though truth to tell, the lady did not seem to be all that willing.”

Lord Aran sagged with relief. “Yes, Captain Pike—

you did bid the boy take her to safety.” He looked up, still alarmed. “But how shall we find them now?”

“He will find us as easily as we him,” Magnus answered. “She could have no better guide when it comes to running and hiding. Still…” He turned to Siflot with a surge of relief; he had found one solution to two problems—how to find the children, and how to keep Siflot from active involvement in his own crime. “Siflot, would you go search out the nooks and crannies, and bring them back to us?”

“Why, I will try,” Siflot said slowly, “but even if I find them, they may not come to me.”

Magnus remembered something that he had said half seriously, and grinned. “I told them that if they found a ragtag jester who played the flute and tripped over his own feet while he juggled, they were to trust him with their lives.”

Siflot answered his grin. “Why, I think I can do all that, though perhaps not at once. May you fare well, my lord! We shall meet you anon!” He started away, then swung around on one foot and turned back. “Where are you bound, by the way?”

Magnus glanced at Lord Aran, and the answer sprang full-blown into his head. “Castlerock, Siflot!

The island in the inland sea, where all the serfs have fled!” He turned back to Lord Aran. “You will be safer there, my lord, than any place else in this world! Will you go?”

“Aye, willingly,” the old lord said slowly. “The escaped serfs might welcome me, might they not?

Now that I, too, am a fugitive.”

“They might,” Magnus agreed. “Then, ho! Off to Castlerock!”

He turned away, and Lord Aran gasped beside him.

“The jester—where did he go?”

“Oh, Siflot?” Magnus shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.

He’ll find your granddaughter, my lord, and my apprentice—and they couldn’t be in safer hands. He will assure the Lady Heloise that her grandfather is well, and will meet her at Castlerock. You would not want him to tell an untruth, would you?”

“No, surely not,” said Lord Aran, with the ghost of a smile. “I suppose that, after all, I shall have to live, shan’t I? To Castlerock!”

But they underestimated their enemies. Perhaps Magnus should not have stolen the two horses—or perhaps the soldiers they had vanquished gave the alarm when they came to. At any rate, Magnus and Lord Aran had only an hour’s grace before the sounds of dogs echoed in the distance, and a new moon glided across the heavens, coming from the camp.

“A flier with a searchlight!” Magnus cried, glanc-ing over his shoulder. “Ride, my lord! We’re nearly to the trees!” And he slapped the rump of Lord Aran’s horse.

“What good will the forest do?” Lord Aran called over the pounding of hooves. “The hounds will still follow our scent!”

“Perhaps, but their flier won’t do them much good. Quickly, my lord! At least give them a race!”

Then the trees were closing about them, and Magnus reined in. “Dismount, my lord!” He swung down off his horse.

“Why?” Lord Aran dismounted even as he asked.

“What good will it do? Will we not still need the horses?”

“No, my lord, for they can’t go any faster than we, in underbrush—and if we use the forest trails, they’ll find us in an instant!” He turned his horse about, shouted and spanked it, and the horse broke out of the forest with a startled whinny. Lord Aran imitated him, and the two horses together fled out over the plain.

The flier veered to follow them.

“That will not buy us much time,” Lord Aran said,/p>

but he was turning his back on the plain even as he said it.

“True,” Magnus agreed. “They’ll catch up to the beasts in a few minutes, and see the saddles are empty. Then they’ll start combing the wood for us—

but in that few minutes, we can become very thoroughly lost.”

“I am already,” Lord Aran grunted. “Have you any idea where you’re going?”

“Toward the center of the wood, my lord. The thicker the trees, the better our chances. Have you ever hunted the fox?”

“Why of course!” Lord Aran looked up, startled.

“Many, many times!”

“Then think like a fox, my lord, for you are in his place right now, with the hounds baying after you, leading the lords on their horses. Where would a fox hide?”

“In a dozen places, but ever on the move.” Lord Aran grunted. “I take your meaning, Captain—and you may take the lead.”

They plowed on through the night, breathing in hoarse gasps, thorns and briars tearing their clothing.

After half an hour’s movement, they began to hear the hounds again; ten minutes more, and the baying was closer.

“Into the stream!” Magnus jumped into the water.

“Break our scent-trail!”

The old lord jumped in after him—and stumbled and fell. Magnus was by his side in an instant, hauling him back to his feet—but the old lord still sagged. Magnus hauled an arm about his neck, 234

pushed a shoulder under Aran’s, and half-dragged him along the stream bed, looking frantically for a hiding place. Aran was spent, and Magnus, to tell the truth, wasn’t feeling terribly energetic himself.

The hounds’ voices became louder, closer, then suddenly broke into a quandary of baying. Magnus knew they had found the end of the trail, and that their masters would realize the fugitive lord had fled into the stream. They would be fanning out to either side, searching both upstream and downstream.…

He began to hear voices calling, excited, hoarse.

The excitement of the hunt was catching up even the serfs who had revered Lord Aran from the tales of his kindness and justice. Where, where could they hide?

A huge branch overhung the river. Magnus was tempted, and would have tried it if he’d been alone, but he knew he couldn’t haul the old lord up there.

He kept wading, his legs growing more and more weary, and voices began to echo from the other bank of the stream, coming closer. They would be on him in a minute! Good or bad, they must find a hiding place, now!

“Go to … ground,” the old lord wheezed.

Magnus nodded; like a fox, they had to hide, and soon. “I’m looking for … a bolt-hole … my lord.”

For the first time, he began to think seriously of calling for his spaceship, and to hell with what it did to the mission by letting the lords know that someone else who knew about modern technology was active on the planet.

Then, suddenly, the trees on the left bank fell 235

away into a small meadow. Magnus looked up in a panic—the first forester who came into that clearing would see them! He definitely had to call for Herkimer, now….

Then he saw the ovoid shape in the middle of the meadow.

A stone egg! He remembered the one lan had come out of, remembered what Allouene had told him about the Safety Bases. He waded out of the river, hauling Lord Aran. “We have found it, my lord!”

The old man looked up, blinking. “What… ?”

“A Safety Base!” Magnus knelt slowly, lowering Lord Aran with him.

“But how … why … ?” Panic tinged the old lord’s voice. Could it be, Magnus wondered, that he didn’t know about these stations?

He remembered what lan had told him of his fall into the egg, and pressed along the edge, trying to find the hidden hatch.

“We are lost,” Lord Aran moaned, and slumped against the side of the rock. Then his moan turned into a cry of alarm as the surface gave way beneath him, and he fell into the hole.

Magnus leaped in after him, not giving the hatch time to close. Maybe it was keyed only for people of the right genetic makeup, maybe Lord Aran had just been lucky—but Magnus wasn’t questioning good fortune.

The hatch closed above him, lights sprang to life, and Magnus, in a panic, called out, “No beacon! We need only rest, not rescue! Don’t send for help!”

“As you wish, sir,” a cultured voice replied. “Wel-236

come to Safety Base 07734. What services will you require?”

“Only rest, food, and drink!” Magnus panted.

“Thank you. Safety Base.”

“We exist to serve,” the computer’s voice answered, then was silent.

Lord Aran looked about him, wide-eyed. “A Safety Base! Praise heaven!”

Then he collapsed into unconsciousness. Magnus was very glad—he was quite willing to wait, before Lord Aran started thinking of the inconvenient questions. He stooped to catch the old nobleman in a fireman’s carry again, bore him down the spiral stairs to the nearest couch, then pulled off his boots, stripped off his wet clothes, wrapped him in a blanket, and propped his head on a pillow. That done, he straightened up with a sigh of relief, gazed a moment at his charge, then began to strip his own clothes off as he went into the bedroom, and just managed to aim himself toward a bed before fatigue took him and he fell.

Magnus awoke, bleary-eyed and aching. Looked around him and saw carpet, plasticrete walls, and viewscreens; he felt the smoothness of synthetics beneath his cheek—then suddenly remembered that he was on a medieval planet. Alarm sent him bolt-upright—had they been captured, or … ?

Then he remembered the end of the chase, the stone egg, the Safety Base, and went limp with relief.

He hauled himself to his feet, stepped out of the bedroom, and saw the old lord still asleep on the couch.