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,

    "Where steel and fire have torn and singed,
    Gossamer strands shall mend and knit,
    Making whole what's torn and tattered.
    What friends unknown have broke and shattered,
    Shall meld and mend, and heal what's split,
    Now setting firm what came unhinged!"

    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."

     

CHAPTER 24

The Maid from the Sea

     

    The old don came back into the room, nodding happily and murmuring to himself. "Oh, very pretty, yes, my little one, very pretty! Yet 'tis so pleasant to have guests, yes, and ones who wish to challenge the king! Ah, I am so concerned for them, little one, yes. Who knows what will become of them, when they approach..." He came within the range of firelight and broke off, seeing his guests. "Ah, my friends! Have you rested, then? Shall we converse?" Then he frowned, peering at them. "Yet something has discomfited you, has it not? Come, tell me! In mine own house! Nay, it cannot be! Only tell me what 'twas, and I will chastise it sorely, nay, even send it away, an I must! Was't a well-wist? Nay, tell me! I know they are slow to forgive, and you did pain them, though 'twas understandable, yes, quite understandable. Nay, tell me, and I'll remonstrate with them!"

    "No, it wasn't the well-wists." Matt finally managed to get a word in edgewise. He could understand it--if he'd been alone with no one to talk to for twenty years, he'd probably run off at the mouth, too, when he had the chance. "Nothing you could have done anything about, milord--and nothing that concerns you, really. Our fault--no, mine, I suppose."

    "Not concern me? How could it not concern me, when 'tis in mine own house? Nay, tell me, for..." He broke off, his eyes widening; then he began to tremble.

    Matt spun about, staring off into the shadows where the old don was looking.

    It was gathering substance, still a dim, gauzy cloud, but wavering and fluxing--and its outlines clarified as it pulsed and brightened.

    " 'Tis a ghost!" the old don shrieked. He staggered to the wall, pulled down a broadsword, and held it up as an improvised cross. "Shield me, my Lord, from vile and vicious specters who walk by night!"

    The ghost's face, newly formed, quirked into a look of horror, thinning as it stared.

    "No, my lord!" Matt was up and leaping in between the sword and the ghost. "He's not vile and vicious--he's a friend! And he doesn't walk by night--well, that, too, but he walks by day when he needs to. He just doesn't look his best."

    "He will come by daylight?" The old don peered at the misty face across from him, craning to see around Matt's shoulder. "Then he cannot be completely a thing of evil."

    "Hardly evil at all. He's been a big help--and he knows what we intend to do."

    "Then if he seeks to help you, he must needs be on the side of Good." The old don nodded, his chin firming. "He is welcome, then--though I will confess 'tis the first time I've been host to a ghost. Yet though I may welcome him, he must make his own peace with the other nightwalkers; for there be other ghosts within this castle."

    "What respectable castle would be without them? If you wouldn't mind, though, I think I'd better find out why he's here." Matt turned to the ghost. "Good to see you again, friend."

    A smile appeared on the ghost's face, tentative at first, then a little more definite.

    "You are our friend, I know now," Yverne put in. "Forgive my fright when first I saw you."

    The ghost shook its head with a look of distress that as much as said the fault was all his. He pointed at his mouth, opening and closing it silently.

    "Ah. You could not tell me, because you cannot speak." Yverne smiled, somehow at her most charming. "Then let me guess. Have you come to warn us of new enemies come against us?"

    The ghost shook its head with a wisp of a smile.

    "Probably just trying to find us. Our force got split up in a bad fog sent by a sorcerer-duke, and..."

    "A sorcerer and a duke!" De la Luce shook his head "How sadly sunk is Ibile, when even men of rank sink to evil magics!"

    "'Fraid so. And I expect our friend, here, has been trying to round up the forces ever since...Say!" Matt looked up with sudden hope. "I, uh, hate to point this out, milord, but your castle would make an ideal staging ground for an attack on the king, and--"

    "You wish to have your army rally here?" De la Luce answered with a wisp of a smile. "Well, wherefore not, after all? I am secure against attack, and even should the sorcerer batter down my walls--well, I have lived a long life, and will yield it gladly in the service of God and goodness."

    "I hope it won't come to that..."

    "It will not, if you act quickly. Yet be warned, young man--though you may gather your men here, how will you send them to the king's castle?"

    "A point," Matt admitted. "I'll think of something. The early rounds will be magic against magic, after all, and that might be my opening salvo." But he doubted it--he shied at the notion of trusting men's lives to one of his spells. "Well, then, since you don't mind, let's see if I can get the idea across to our ectoplasmic messenger." He turned to the ghost.

    "Can he understand you?" Fadecourt asked.

    "Who cares? Whether he's reading thoughts or hearing us, he's getting the message." But Matt wished he hadn't mentioned mind reading--now he was wondering just which thoughts of his the ghost was tuning in to. He watched the misty face closely, but its look of intent attention didn't waver. Either it had very good self-control, which didn't seem to go with its genial disposition, or it couldn't hear thoughts--at least, not private ones. "Friend," Matt went on, "we need to get all our people back together. Think you can find them?"

    The ghost broke into a smile, nodding vigorously.

    "Great! Can you tell them where we are?"

    The smile faltered; the ghost frowned. Then it shrugged and made shooing motions with its hands.

    Matt nodded, satisfied. "You'll lead them or shoo them, but you'll get them here. Great. Especially since that means they'll be coming by night, when it's easier to get past Gor--the king's sentries."

    The ghost frowned and shook its head.

    "Oh. Not the supernatural ones?"

    The ghost nodded.

    "Well, Friar Tuck can shepherd Robin and his band past them--but it would be better if you could get them aboard boats, far enough away so the king isn't too much aware of it, and get them to row over here. Too tall an order?"

    The ghost frowned in thought, then shook its head.

    "Not too tall an order? You can get them to boat over here?" The ghost nodded.

    "Great! Bring them in...uh...Milord?" Matt turned to de la Luce.

    " 'Tis well planned," the old don assented. "The most secret point of embarkation is through a small ravine that runs far behind the king's castle, well out of sight of the sentries. Board them at the pier, where the fisher folk will turn their backs at the loan of their boats." His eyes twinkled. "Wherefore should they not? For it seems to me that you may find a score of boats there that belong to no one. Then have them row with feathered oars, and bring your friends in the sea gate, certes, where the tide comes in to turn my wheels. If 'twill do for my sea-maid, 'twill do for your friends."

    "Well, they have to come in above the water--but there should be room, at low tide." Matt was beginning to get an eerie feeling about the way the old don talked so confidently of unlikely events--but he definitely wasn't about to ask where that score of boats was supposed to come from. He just hoped the ghost wouldn't count on their really being there. "Okay, ghost?"

    The ghost nodded, grinned, and winked out. Matt exhaled sharply and turned to his friends. "End transmission. Now, Milord de la Luce--if we may impose on you a little further?"

    "It is no imposition, but my pleasure." De la Luce frowned. "How may I aid?"

    "We're going to need whate'er kind of supernatural aid we can get. Could you call up a few of your well-wist friends?"

    "To ask them to aid?" The old don stared, then slowly smiled. "Aye, they might indeed ward you as they have me--if you can win them. Nay, surely I will call up such of them as may come." He raised his voice. "By mist and flight and gist and light! Come, friends of mine, and hear!"

    Mist seemed to fill the center of the great hall, swirling and coalescing even as it appeared--and three well-wists stood before Matt, humming angrily.

    "Yes, I know I offended you." Matt swallowed to fill the sudden emptiness in his belly. "But look at it from my side--we thought you were attacking us!"

    The smallest well-wist quivered, and a deep rasping tone scored the air.

    "Yes, I know, I know! We had no business being there. You had every right to think we were intruders--especially since we were intruders. We had just escaped from the dungeon of the Duke of Bruitfort, and we were looking for a safe place to hide. We thought this castle was deserted, because it was so close to the king's and didn't show any signs of having an army living in it."

    Another tone rattled at him; the well-wist glared.

    "You are an army, I know. But you don't leave any of the obvious signs of habitation--troops drilling in the bailey, horses stabled against the curtain wall, haystacks on one side and manure pile on the other. We didn't think we were invading." Matt took a deep breath. "So. I'm sorry. We didn't mean to hurt you."

    The well-wists glowered at him, but their chord sounded more like a grumble than an explosion. Then the smallest stepped forward, still scowling, and opened its mouth. A rising tone skewed upward.

    "Yes, well, I am going to ask a favor of you," Matt admitted.

    "How can you tell what they say?" Fadecourt asked, in the hushed tones of wonder.

    "Just good guessing." But privately, Matt wasn't so sure. He reminded himself that he was intrepid and wise, and pressed on. "It isn't anything out of the ordinary, actually--not for you, I mean. After all, you're guarding the castle anyway, aren't you?"

    Cautious bleeps answered him.

    "Right. Well, I'm just asking you to guard it a little farther away. I mean, if the king is locked up inside his castle, he can't get over here to attack your friend the don, can he?"

    The well-wists stared, astounded, and their tones soared in delight.

    This was much better. Matt hadn't really thought they'd become enthusiastic about the idea.

    Then the smallest frowned and blatted a denial.

    "Sure, I know he's powerful," Matt argued. "But I'm not talking about a frontal assault, alone--I'm just asking you to pitch in when the rest of our forces attack. If you can just flit around and confuse things, even, you'll be giving us a tremendous boost."

    The well-wists exchanged glances, conducting a quick, private conversation that sounded like a symphony played at tripled speed. Then the smallest turned to the don, sounding an interrogatory tone.

    "Yes, I wish this, too, my friends," the old don said. "But mind you, there is danger. The sorcerer-king has fell and puissant sorceries, and might hurt you sorely. Nay, he might slay you, dispersing your substance to the winds."

    The well-wists looked at one another, buzzing in dark tones.

    The old don nodded. "Aye, even so. He did despoil the land, filling the people with evil by his mere example and his cruelty, and they have tortured the animals and torn at the soil. The malice of the folk has filled the land, poisoning the source from which you sprang. Yet therein lies no reason to go blindly to the slaughter."

    The smallest well-wist faced him squarely, emitting a series of angry chords with his companions.

    "Why, as you will," de la Luce answered. "The death is not certain, no, and you may well prevail against his sorceries, with the aid of these good folk and their allies--how many did you number, Lord Wizard?"

    "Maybe two hundred," Matt answered, "but two of those are wizards, and two more are a dragon and a dracogriff. Also, one of us has the strength of ten or so, and another is the Black Knight."

    The smallest blatted back at him.

    "Small enough, to challenge a king? Yes, I know--but we're going to try anyway." For himself, he didn't have much choice--and for Yverne and Fadecourt, it was better than going it alone. Sir Guy, of course, was Sir Guy, and ready for any challenge, no matter how overwhelming.

    The smallest well-wist flapped its wings smartly and sang a high, clear tone.

    "You are allies, then," Don de la Luce said, with a smile of satisfaction. "Gather your forces, Wizard. The well-wists will number amongst them."

    

    The first allies to arrive were Robin Hood's band. Matt and his friends were waiting in the sea cave, shivering in the chill of the salt air and watching the water level drop with each outward rush of water. Then the chamber darkened, and they looked up to see a boat, crammed with men, filling the cave's mouth--and a wisp of a ghost drifting before them.

    Fadecourt and Sir Guy let out a cheer. Matt and Yverne managed to join in while it was ringing.

    So it was the old don who stooped and threw a rope at the prow of the dinghy. Maid Marian caught it and pulled them in to bump against the rock ledge. An outlaw caught the ring set in the stone at the stern and held them against the rock as Robin sprang out, followed by Little John and Will Scarlet. "Lord Matthew!" He clapped Matt on the shoulder with a grip that made the wizard wince and think about bone doctors. " 'Tis right good to see you again! We had feared you lost, and were lurking about the duke's castle with a thought to breaking through, when we saw the dragon rise with you on his back. You are well, then? And the cyclops and the maiden?" He nodded to Sir Guy, apparently assuming that a steel suit was a sign of good health.

    "Came through it almost unscathed." Matt found himself grinning; the man's enthusiasm was infectious, almost contagious. "We were worried about you, too."

    "You need not have been." Marian was out of the boat and towering behind Robin. "None could best my lord and dear."

    "I don't doubt it. Uh, Maid Marian, Robin Hood, this is our host, the Don de la Luce."

    "My lord!" Robin seized his hand and began pumping. "How good of you to take us in!"

    "Is it truly the Robin Hood of fable and legend?" Aristocrat or not, the don was staring round-eyed.

    "The same, dragged hither by this good wizard to aid the poor against the proud and mighty." Robin was still pumping.

    Matt reached out and disconnected their hands; Robin was closer to striking oil than he knew. "And therefore feeling responsible for you, which is why I was worried. Did you have a chance to look at the king's castle on your way?"

    "Aye, and 'tis not a fair sight." Robin frowned and was about to go on when the old don interrupted.

    "This has the sound of the start of a conference of war, and such should be held seated around a roaring fire with mulled wine, not tarrying on a rocky ledge whiles your men shiver with the chill and damp. Nay, Lord Wizard, conduct them up to my hall. You know the way by now."

    "Yes, I do." Matt turned away, then turned back. "But you, milord! Surely you're not going to stay here in the damp!"

    "Only for a brief while, I assure you," de la Luce answered. "My sea-maid will come soon, or not at all; 'tis nigh on the hour of the day when she approaches."

    Matt gazed at him for a moment, then smiled. "Sure. See you soon, then, alone or in company. Speaking of companies, Robin, shall we go?"

    "What maid is this?" Marian asked as they turned the first bend in the staircase.

    "A delusion," Matt answered. "The poor old geezer has been alone most of his life, and his subconscious has manufactured a pretty girl who lives in a mysterious underwater castle and comes to visit him now and then."

    "That has the sound of Ys," Marian said

    Robin asked, "Wherefore do you think it a waking dream?"

    That halted Matt for a moment. To him, it had been pretty obvious. He checked back for signs, and said, "For one thing, she stays young while he gets older--and for another, she isn't a mermaid, but just somebody who can breathe either water or air, which is highly unlikely."

    "In a world of magic?" Robin asked, with a grin, and Matt started to answer; but Marian touched his arm with a smile of sympathy. "Say no more till I've told you of Ys," she said, "but not here, I pray you. Let us speak of it above."

    And they did, around the roaring fire the don had spoken of.

    There was a cask near the hearth now, no doubt courtesy of the well-wists, and the merry men dug flagons out of their packs.

    Curled up on a few cushions, Marian looked surprisingly dainty, and Yverne was, beginning to look a little jealous. "Ys," the maid said, pronouncing it Eess, " 'twas a city to inspire awe, so legend says--a clustering of towers, with golden streets between, its palaces of jasper built, and jade, and ancient, oh! So ancient! Ys was old when Egypt was young, so legend says, yet vital still."

    "Legend says many things," Robin murmured to Matt, "and adds the gloss that fact would scorn."

    Well, Matt figured, he should know if anybody should. Nonetheless, he paid close attention to Marian's tale.

    "Yet most wondrous of all," the maid said, "was its situation--for Ys stood below the level of the waves."

    "How can that be?" Yverne asked. "The sea would have drowned it in an instant."

    "Nay," Marian said, "for the sea was held out by a soaring wall, with massive gates. There ruled the king of Ys, over a court of constant mirth, his courtiers dazzling in their finery and glittering with jewelry--yet none shone so brightly as his only daughter."

    Allan-a-Dale began to caress his harp, bringing a breath of melody to underscore the maid's words.

    But Sir Guy frowned and said, "I have heard something of this demoiselle of Ys. I mind me that she was not kind-hearted."

    "Nay, quite otherwise," Marian said, "for she was mean of spirit, froward, shrewd, and cruel. Yet all deferred to her, for the sake of her royal father--and fear of her sorcery."

    "Ah, then! She was a sorceress!"

    Marian nodded. "A witch of great power--and one who could bend any man to her will. Yet therefore did she disdain all males, regarding them with ridicule and contempt--till she found one who was proof against her wiles, yet loved her for her beauty. Then at last did she become betrothed, and dallied with him a year and more--till love's sweet spell began to wane, and he came to some notion of her true and twisted nature."

    "Then she broke him for her pleasure?" The minstrel wrung a discord from his harp.

    "She would have, aye, and did brew potent magics against him--but he threw himself on her father's mercy, and the king spread his aegis over the poor wight, commanding his daughter to spare him. She withdrew from the palace, hate and rage commingling in her breast, for puissant though she was, she could not match her father's magic. Yet that night, whiles he slept, she cast a spell of deepened slumber over all the palace and stole back in, to pluck the keys to the city from her father's neck, and she opened the gates to let in the sea."

    "Why, I cannot credit this!" Fadecourt scoffed. "Such a one would have valued her own safety and comfort above all else, and would have known that she would perish with her citizens!"

    Marian shrugged. "She may have sought to bargain with the Sea King, may even have thought she had compelled his mercy with her spells. Yet if she did, her magic once more could not match a king's, for his sea horses destroyed her."

    Matt frowned, trying to pick out the root of fact beneath this tree of legend. A port city, then, that had erected dikes to hold back a rising waterline, but was finally flooded by the sea it had depended on for its wealth--or buried by a tidal wave, more likely, considering the reference to the wall and the gates.

    "So perished Ys," the maid murmured, and the harp rippled and was silent.

    The merry men stirred, sighing, and began to talk to one another again.

    Sir Guy asked, "Does our host, then, think this buried palace lies beneath his own?"

    "So it would seem," Matt replied, "and if a legend like that is standard in this countryside, it's no wonder--it would be just the thing for a lonely old man to fasten his imagination to. But we can't depend on dreams to help us now."

    "Nay, surely," Robin said with a grin, unaware of his own irony. "How shall we invest this castle, Lord Wizard? For surely, its walls must needs be proof against mine arrows."

    "A trebuchet might make some mark upon its walls," Fadecourt offered.

    "A mark," Sir Guy allowed, "but no break--scarcely a gouge. No, my friend, that castle has never been taken by force of arms, and never will be."

    "Never, by force of arms?" Matt pricked up his ears. "That means it has been taken. The only question, is: How?"

    "By treachery," Robin answered, "by a traitor opening its gates from within. Surely, Milord Wizard, we shall not stoop so low!"

    "No," Matt said slowly, "but if one of us were able to get in and open the gates, that wouldn't be treachery."

    "True," Robin allowed, "yet how shall we achieve that?"

    "I might know a friend or two who could do it. Uh, Puck?"

    "Aye, Wizard?" The other Robin popped his head out of a joint in Sir Guy's armor.

    "A thought," the knight agreed. "Hobgoblin, can you penetrate the castle of the sorcerer-king?"

    But Puck shook his head. "I have tested it already, knight, in such wise that none could detect. There are fell and puissant spells that guard that keep, and a miasma of old corruption throughout it. Elves have been slain there, slain wholesale. I have asked of the sprites of this land, and they tell me that, when the sorcerer took the castle, his second act was to annihilate every sprite that was not evil and would not serve his ends."

    Yverne and Marian shuddered, along with most of the men. Matt managed to shelve the shudder and ask, "His second act? What was his first?"

    "The slaying of the rightful king, and all his adherents."

    "Pardon his innocence," Sir Guy told Puck. "He is a man of magic, after all, not of war."

    "And you are a man of honor," the Puck pointed out.

    "True, and therefore do I ken dishonor and shameful acts. I thank you, elf."

    "At your bidding." Puck popped back in to Sir Guy's armor. "Well, that lets one out." Matt sighed. "Max?"

    "Aye, Wizard?" The arc spark danced before him, and the whole band drew away with gasps of horror.

    "Don't worry, folks," Matt called out. "He's neither good nor bad in himself, and he's on our side."

    "How foolish some mortals are, not to know!" the Demon scoffed. "What would you with me, Wizard?"

    "Just some information. Do you think you could get into that castle, across the strait, and dry-rot the gates?"

    "While rusting the portcullis? Nay. I had felt some strangeness there, and did go to investigate--but the place is wrapped about with some force that contains its corruption into some semblance of form. It is entropy bound, and anathema to me."

    Interesting aspect of evil--chaos held together long enough to wreak disaster. Matt sighed. "Okay, thanks. I won't ask the next question--the answer's obvious."

    "Should you not test it anyway?"

    "Not by experiment, thank you. I only bet on sure things."

    "Any number must play," the Demon droned.

    "Not in my park. I'll call you when it's time for roulette."

    "Baccarat," the Demon snapped, and disappeared.

    Robin Hood frowned. "Wherefore would you back a rat?"

    "Because he might be able to gnaw through the king's defenses." Matt leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "I'm stonkered, Sir Guy. There may be a way into that castle, but if there is, I don't see it."

    "Of course you may see!"

    Everyone turned at the sound of Don de la Luce's voice coming from the archway that led down into the dungeons.

    The old don stood in the pool of light from the torches that flanked the arch, holding the hand of a beautiful young woman, gazing down at her flawless features with a fatuous smile.

    Matt stared. Her green gown had every appearance of being woven of living seaweed, leaves and fronds creating the look of a feathered cloak. Golden rings sparkled on her fingers and a golden coronet in her blonde hair--hair that was not really quite yellow, but faintly tinged with green. Her complexion was pale, but her lips were rubies, and her eyes the deepest green of the sea. She turned to gaze at them, those magical eyes wide and huge, her nose tip-tilted, her heart-shaped face composed and tranquil. Her lips curved with a smile. "They are, milord! Mortals, and not evil! I can feel their wonder! 'Tis a marvel!"

    Matt felt an eerie tingling down his spine, and his skin prickled. He stood up carefully and turned to bow to the young lady. "Your servant, mademoiselle. Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?"

    The girl clapped her hands and laughed with delight. "He is so impatient, this one! Milord, will you introduce us?"

    "With pleasure." De la Luce beamed. "Lord Wizard, this is the Lady Sinelle, the maid of whom I told you. Lady Sinelle, this is Matthew, Lord Wizard of Merovence."

    Matt looked up at the old man with a stab of panic. Was he out of his mind, disclosing Matt's real identity to someone who might not be sympathetic to their plot!

    No. Of course he wouldn't. Matt forced himself to relax; the lady must be on their side.

    Her eyes were round and huge as she looked about the hall. "Never have I beheld so many mortals, foregathered in one place! Though 'tis goodly to see this great hall no longer resounding with its emptiness. I had wondered, when you told me of it, my lord. Why do they come?"

    The old don started to answer, but Matt beat him to it. "That's an issue that might be answered at some length--but only after you have met the rest of my friends." He took a quick glance, weighing who should be introduced first.

    Fadecourt was still sitting dazed, holding the hand of a staring Yverne, both astounded to find that the old man had been speaking the truth. Sir Guy and Robin Hood, though, had recovered in an instant and rose, ready for anything--as usual.

    "This is Robin Hood, the rightful Earl of Locksley, currently posing as a forest outlaw because he opposes tyrants," Matt said. "Milord Earl, the demoiselle...uh, Lady Sinelle."

    "I am the demoiselle d'Ys, too," the lady said, pressing Robin's hand but withdrawing her own before he could kiss it. "Not she of legend, no, who brought disaster on my poor city, but her descendant. Yet she is dead, and the title has come down to me."

    She turned to Sir Guy, and Matt said quickly, "Sir Guy de Toutarien, the Black Knight--the Lady Sinelle, demoiselle d'Ys." The lady inclined her head, but regarded Sir Guy with a smile of amusement. "A simple knight bachelor, you would have us believe? Surely, Sir Knight."

    Sir Guy kissed her fingertips before she whisked them away, and regarded her with a steady gaze. "Methinks milady knows more than she speaks."

    "As should any wise demoiselle," the lady returned, "or any prudent man, for that matter. My ancestress was not, though she thought she was--yet that was only vainglorious contempt of those around her, in another guise. It was for that pride that she drowned her island and city."

    "Surely," Yverne protested, "so many folk did not die for one single woman's pride!"

    "There were few enough good folk in Ys," the lady returned, "for my ancestress's influence had been wide-reaching and pervasive. Nay, my grandfather gathered those few good souls together within his castle, so that only they who merited the Sea King's wrath were drowned. We keep a merry court in our castle beneath the waves, where there is never want nor sorrow, for none of us need die, and my grandfather has taught the sea creatures to provide for us. This they do, in return for his protection. Tell your fellows, and beware--this cove is sacrosanct from all who fish or dive!"

    "Even so," the don confirmed. "None will fish in my bay, nor in the strait between mine island and the mainland, for dire things have happened to they who have taken living creatures from these waters."

    Matt didn't think he wanted to hear what. "You mean you haven't had any trouble with the current king?"

    Sinelle made a moue. "Some irritation, when first he took the throne and sought to fish our waters for his supper--but a heavy sea capsized his sailors' boats, and a kraken cracked his ships. Since then, ever and anon we feel the power of his fell magics, like a bit of metal on the tooth, or a tone that grates upon the ear--but my great-father repels him with ease. Yet sea creatures flee to us in fear, and loathsome monsters prowl the waters without our cove, ever testing my great-father's warding spells. It is not in our power to smite this gross kinglet, yet if it were, we should not hesitate."

    "Oh, really!" Matt looked a little more sharply at her. "That's our aim, too--and that's why we've gathered here. Don de la Luce is kind enough to grant us his hospitality, though he knows it increases his own danger--and the rest of these brave folk are as determined as I am, though we haven't the faintest idea how to get into the king's castle."

    "Are you truly!" The lady stared, then smiled with delight. "Yet there are few enough of you."

    "Only a hundred or so," Matt admitted, "but that's more people united against the king than you'll find anywhere else in Ibile."

    "True, and well spoke." There was something a little more guarded about the lady now, a bit more wary. "Yet allies should meet and talk. Will you come to converse with my great-father?"

    Matt stared, and stood frozen while panic rolled over him. Finally; he shook it off and croaked, "Under water? Uh, thank you very much, ma'am, but I don't breathe liquids too well."

    "Nor do I," she assured him. " 'Tis the Sea King's spell that withholds the water from my lungs and lets the air surround me--yet I can extend that spell to anyone I wish, simply by touch." She held out her hand. "Will you come to meet the king of Ys?"

    Matt stared, thoroughly aware of the corollary--that all she had to do was let go, and he would drown.

    "Wizard, 'tis too great a risk!" Sir Guy exclaimed. "Without you, we are lost, and our cause is dead." He turned to Sinelle. "I shall go in his place, milady."

    "You are not asked," she retorted, a merry glint in her eye, "in spite of your hidden station. Nay, Lord Knight, it must be leader to leader here--and valiant though you are, you have not come into your kingdom."

    "That's okay, we'd be shot without him, too." Matt nerved himself up and took her hand "But as you say, milady, this is something that I have to do." He raised his other hand to quiet Fadecourt's and Yverne's protests. "Never mind why. I got myself into this, and there's only one way out. My lady, will you walk?"

     

CHAPTER 25

The Castle of Ys

     

    She did, as it turned out, though how she kept her feet on the ground with so much water pressure around her, Matt didn't know. For that matter, he didn't know what was keeping him down, but he chalked it up to magic. He had expected to swim, but he found that, as he stepped into the water in the cave, he sank like a stone. He shivered like an iceberg, too, but forced his way down into the water, took a deep breath, then took the plunge and was in over his head.

    And, suddenly, he was surrounded by air. He looked around him, startled, and saw fronds of seaweed drift up past him. That's how he knew he was sinking--but where was the light coming from?

    There--the mouth of the sea cave. Daylight filtered in through the murky water. He looked about for the demoiselle, saw her in front of him, beckoning, and followed her down the pathway.

    For it was a pathway--very narrow, but very clearly laid out. It was covered with white gravel, and bordered by corals and sea anemones. Matt could see clearly for a foot or so on either side, before the murk of the sea took over--and he moved freely, without the resistance of water. The path, it seemed, was the bottom of a tunnel of air, winding down along the sea floor.

    And down, and down, following the sea-maid. She had released his hand as soon as his feet had touched the gravel, and he had to hurry now to keep her in sight. There was no light here, other than what filtered down from above--and less and less of it came through as they went deeper and deeper. Matt was just beginning to wonder if he was going to lose sight of the maid, when a light burst forth from her upraised hand. Looking closely, he saw that the light came from a huge, fantastic seashell, shaped like a cornucopia. He felt a thrill of apprehension as he realized that the mollusk that had made that shell had been dead for millions of years.

    At least, in his world.

    They were hundreds of feet down, and the path wound its way among the hulks of sunken ships--the rocks surrounding de la Luce's castle must be treacherous. In fact, Matt suddenly realized, that's why de la Luce's keep was a tower, and was so much taller than the curtain wall--it had been a primitive lighthouse!

    They rounded the bulk of a rotting trireme galley--just how long had this port been in use, anyway?--and there it was before them, in all its eldritch splendor.

    The royal castle of Ys may not have been terribly spectacular in its day, but it was extremely impressive down here. A central keep thrust up from the center of a vast bowl, cylindrical, and surrounded by four more cylinders that grew out of it--but so slender that they seemed to be needles, with long lancing tips, instead of the towers they were. A low wall, perhaps twelve feet high, fenced in a wide courtyard all about the keep, decked with corals and other bright sea life, while the central keep glowed with the phosphorescence of the deep.

    Matt caught his breath, then forced it out and reminded himself how unimpressive this stronghold would look on land. It didn't do much good, of course, because he wasn't on land--and within that circular wall, the absence of seaweed and the glow of the stone told him that a dome of air protected the castle and its environs. Whatever the magic, the sea did not enter the royal stronghold of drowned Ys, but formed a circle around the palace and its gardens.

    And inside, true to legend, the ancient king still lived, preserved by the magic of the Sea King.

    Matt followed the maid through the open gates.

    Suddenly, the pressure of the water was gone, and he felt air all about him, saw trees and flowers nodding in the faint breaths of convection currents. He shuddered with the release of tension--he hadn't realized just how much stress he'd been under during that submarine passage. Then he realized that there were people around him, boys with switches loitering near herds of goats and sheep, men and women working in sheds along the insides of the walls, girls stitching embroidery under the trees. He looked again and realized that the men and women were painting, sculpting, fashioning musical instruments, and playing them.

    Strains of music murmured all about him. A sudden, piercing longing struck him--to be able to spend his life working at his art!

    Then he remembered that he was doing exactly that, more or less--only under greater pressure. His art just wasn't the tranquil sort that could be pursued in solitude. He sighed and followed the maid through the great leaves of the keep's portal.

    There was a short passage of glowing, semiprecious stone that ended in two smaller doors of cavern wood with gilded highlights. Two courtiers loitered before them, long rapiers at their belts, exchanging gossip.

    "No, good Arien, that is not Plato's meaning!"

    "Meaning? Forsooth, Ferlain, 'tis his very words!"

    "Nay, for you've translated the Greek very poorly! His true meaning is..."

    Just idle gossip.

    "Gentlemen," the lady murmured.

    They looked up, startled, then drew themselves up. "Milady!" Then they saw Matt and stared, forgetting their poise.

    Also their manners. "He is a guest," Sinelle reminded them, and they shook themselves out of their amazement. "Why, certes! Be welcome in the castle of Ys, O stranger!"

    "We would speak with his Majesty," the demoiselle hinted.

    "Certes, milady! He is within, debating the merits of the dulcimer and the lyre with the musical brethren!" His deprecating smile revealed the philosopher's old condescension toward the musician.

    Sinelle tactfully forbore to mention it and gestured toward the doors. The courtiers drew them open.

    The Great Hall glittered with a hundred candles, its walls damasked and tapestried, its floor gleaming malachite, its lofty ceiling painted with frescoes that Matt wished he had time to study--but the demoiselle was leading him toward a high dais topped by a gilded throne and flanked by two flaring lamps. At the top of the steps sat the king, wrinkled and silver-haired, but with a lively expression on his hawk-nosed face, and eyes that glinted beneath his golden crown. He interrupted the disputants with a polite smile and waved them away. They withdrew to the far side of the chamber, still arguing.

    "My lord and ancestor," the maiden said, "this mortal is hight Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence."

    Matt bowed. When he straightened up, he saw a trace of humor in the old king's eyes--but the royal face didn't crack a smile, much less start talking.

    This was going to get nowhere. Matt needed some kind of a conversational opener. "I am honored by your hospitality, your Majesty."

    "It is gladly given," the majestic face proclaimed, in a voice of a grandeur to match its appearance. "I am intrigued by your presence, Lord Wizard."

    "Oh?" Matt smiled, but was very wary inside. "Am I so rare a thing as that, your Majesty?"

    "For a mortal to enter into Ys? Aye--yet that is explained by the presence of my great-daughter." He smiled fondly at the maid, who bowed her head in a gesture that managed to combine demureness with sauciness; then he turned back to Matt. "Therefore, 'tis not your presence in Ys that is remarkable in itself, but your presence in Castillo Adamanto, so near to the lair of the sorcerer-king."

    "Oh, that?" Matt waved away the problem. "I spoke rashly, and in anger, Majesty--but I thereby bound myself to do all I could to unseat the sorcerer."

    "Oathbound, though a wizard?" The king looked askance.

    "I have this little problem with my temper," Matt confessed.

    "More than a little, I should think." But the king's eye twinkled. "Do you always go about losing control of your words thus? Or is there one who can provoke you more easily than others?"

    "All right, all right, so I was talking to the woman I love! Can you blame me for tackling a sorcerer?"

    "For love's sake? Surely not, milord." The king chuckled. He exchanged a glance with the maid and said, "Yet I am rude in so questioning a guest. Come, examine me in my turn. Is there naught you would know about Ys?"

    "Well, now that you mention it..." Matt glanced around at the courtiers, then back to the king. "The demoiselle does seem to be a little young to be your granddaughter..."

    "Nay, my great-daughter--my daughter's daughter's daughter's daughter's...She is removed from me by some thirty generations, Lord Wizard."

    Matt nodded. "I kinda thought it would be something like that. Was your daughter..." He broke off, chagrined.

    "You think to make me grieve, in speaking of my child." The king shook his head with gentle sympathy. "Fear not, Lord Wizard. The years have flowed into centuries, the centuries into millennia, and the pain grows dim. I will not deny that it cannot be raised, but I am well consoled in my old age. Know, then, that the first demoiselle, my daughter, found a man to follow her."

    "With her magic, she found many," Sinelle said with scorn--the quick judgment of the young, and quicker intolerance. "Every man that she desired, she enchanted--and felt only the greater contempt for them, in that they succumbed to her spells."

    The old king nodded. "Yet at last, she met a nobleman's son, journeying with a merchant crew, who fell in love with her as soon as he saw her--and she with him, for that he loved her without the aid of her own artifice. With him she wedded, and did breed a babe--yet her true nature was ever there, no matter how well she hid it from him; I doubt not that, even as she carried the child, she planned the vile use which she intended."

    "There was a spell of great power, which she could not attempt," said the demoiselle, in a hushed voice, "for it required the sacrifice of a babe, of the sorceress' own body--for know, Wizard, that it is the dedication to such wickedness that is the essence of evil magic, to exclusion of all else."

    Matt could believe it; from his own experience of the magic "field," its manipulation was a matter of intent and will, expressed through symbols. He felt a chill at the thought of the kind of results the witch might have intended. "She sounds as if she deserved her reputation, all right. Was there anything that could have saved the baby?"

    "Her father," the old king said, "for he learned of the wickedness his wife intended."

    "His eyes were open at last to her corruption," Sinelle said with a shiver. "Knowledge that she intended such wickedness made the good man see her for what she was. 'Twas for the child's sake that he fled to my great-father, the king, and bore with him the babe--and for her sake that Ys was drowned."

    "For in her wrath," the king said, "my daughter did raise up all manner of evil spirits from the sea, and hurled them 'gainst mine Ys--yet I had been ever steadfast in my devotion to the Sea King Poseidon, had ever done my best to govern well and wisely, and regularly made suitable offerings to his Oceanic Majesty. So while the sea pounded Ys elsewhere, the Sea King came to me, and we struck a bargain."

    "Bargain?" Matt stared. "Why would a being who could control the whole sea, and everything in it, need to make a bargain with a mere mortal? Sure, being merciful I can understand, maybe even rewarding you for having been a good king..."

    "In truth, I think he did even so--yet did wish to allow me to preserve some poor shreds of my pride." The king smiled. "Yet there was some need of it. For the Sea King hated my daughter's magic and wished all memory of it erased--but most especially all her implements of witchcraft destroyed, and all her books of spells. Some of those were warded 'gainst him, and the sea could not approach them. These, he proposed, I should destroy--for my daughter had not thought to ward them 'gainst mere mortal folk, sin that the door to her chambers was guarded by fierce spells and fell. For all that, she had left it unlocked in her anger, the whiles she went out to the tower's brim to summon her spirits--so I came in, and burned her books, and threw her alembics and crucibles upon the fire. Even as I did, I heard her scream in rage--but she could not turn aside from her work to punish me, for the fell spirits she had raised would have torn her asunder. In revenge, she turned them against my land--but the Sea King, for his part, had promised that my castle would remain inviolate, and he came to mine aid in that hour, defending me and mine from the avalanche of the waves. So as the surf pounded Ys to bits, all others of my people died..." His voice became somber, his darkened gaze drifting away from Matt. Sinelle laid her hand on his; he looked up, focused on her face, forced a smile, and turned back to Matt. "But this castle endured, sheltered by the vasty bubble that lends us breath. By some Sea King's magic, this air is ever renewed, and we who dwell here never die--so long as we do dwell here."

    "But if you go out, you die?"

    "We may die," Sinelle corrected, "if we go outside of the Sea King's realm; and protection cannot extend to us on land. Then will we age; then can we be slain."

    "But if you don't, you're immortal?" Matt's brain swam at the thought--and at the magnitude of the cabin fever that could develop among these self-willed captives! No wonder the ones who stayed were the ones who valued tranquility and the life of the mind.

    "In such fashion did my granddaughter grow," the king spoke up again, "dwelling beneath the water, and only knowing of the human realm above through my tales--for none of my courtiers chose to stay, of such few as had been near me when my daughter struck. Nay, as soon as Poseidon had turned against her the waves she had summoned, and she had drowned in her own evilness, my courtiers left me, by ones and twos, and finally in a body. But my granddaughter was my delight, and her father my boon companion--though he died at last, worn out with living. His daughter grew into a comely, good-hearted girl and found a husband among the folk on the shore, and brought him down to dwell with us in love. She birthed three children, who went above the waves to seek spouses, as her descendants have ever done. Yet one of my granddaughters chose to return to my palace here beneath the sea, and her children also followed the call of love to the land. One great-granddaughter brought her husband down here to me--and I have been fortunate, most fortunate, in that there has been at least one of each generation who has seen fit to join me here beneath the sea."

    Matt marveled at the tale--then frowned at an inconsistency. "But weren't there ever any boys?"

    "Aye, but they became restless, as boys will, and went out into the world to seek their fortunes--and their wives. A few wed happily, some never came back--but most lived the lonely life of the alien, for they were silkies and, as such, made rather ugly men, though they were very handsome seals. Some found seal wives, of course, and their daughters were silkie women, and their sons silkies still--but those who sought human women to wive were seldom happy with such matches and left their mates for their own kind."

    "Their own kind?" Matt frowned. "You mean humans?"

    "Nay--other silkies. There were some few others, and my grandsons heard word of them. They roamed the world, like seeking like--and found their silkie mates. Some came back to rear their families here, near my protection; some stayed with the folk they had found. Yet even of them, as often as not their children would seek me out when they came of age--and wed with my great-grandchildren. This isle above is peopled with several thousand of my descendants living all around the isle, though you will not see them--they hide in caves and rocks, for fear of the sorcerer-king and his hunters, who chase them with powerful spells to ward off mine. Here on the rock, he cannot touch them--but we do not wish to tempt him more than we must."

    "They hide very well." Matt frowned. "I didn't see any of them--coming in. Of course, it was kind of dark..."

    "And so are they. A few of them come down to visit with me, now and again--so I dwell here, in the midst of thousands of my descendants. I count myself richly rewarded for having led a blameless life."

    A prickle kneaded Matt's back. He glanced sidelong at the courtiers. "Then all these lords and ladies..."

    "Are my great-daughters and their mortal husbands, become exceeding long-lived here in Ys." The king nodded. "Aye, Lord Wizard, 'tis so. My youngest, though, has not yet found a landsman to her liking."

    Matt glanced at her apprehensively, but before he could ask, the current demoiselle laughed like the clear chime of a running brook. "Nay, Lord Wizard, I am not enamored of you. In truth, by the reckoning of mine own people, I am yet too young to seek a husband. Be of peaceful mind; I have not yet met my one true love. I will own that romance does fascinate me, though, and I am intrigued by a man who would risk life itself to win his lady's hand."

    Matt's mouth tightened with chagrin; then he forced it to smile. "Well, then, look your fill, lady, for I doubt you'll ever see such a fool again."

    "Ah, but I will," she said, "whenever I look on the sons and daughters of men. You are rare, Lord Wizard, in that you will admit to your folly."

    Matt frowned. "I have a notion you've just said something very profound, if I could understand it--but the fact of the matter is, I have sworn to oust the king of Ibile or die trying, and I have to figure out a way."

    "Why," the king said, "take his castle."

    Matt looked up at him, brooding. "Easily said, Majesty--but I've only two hundred fighters, and his castle is stout. We've figured out that the only way to make it is to get a sally party inside his walls and have them open the gate--but we're still trying to figure out how to get a few of our men inside."

    "Why," the king of Ys said, "you may go through my domain."

    Matt stared.

    "I, too, wish this foul king gone," the king explained, "for the detritus of his noisome magics and his tortures fouls my waters, and his hunters slay my descendants. Nay, Lord Wizard, I am with you in this."

    "I...I thank your Majesty..."

    "Do not. You are the first in centuries to dare to challenge him. I honor you, milord."

    "I thank you again." Matt ducked his head. "But how would going through Ys get us into Gordogrosso's castle?"

    "I have told you that my people may go up to the land at will," the king explained. "That, too, was a part of my 'bargain' with the Sea King--that he would grant me a way to travel to the surface on the island, and a way to come up to land upon the mainland."

    Matt lifted his head, feeling like a hunter when the fox has just come into sight. "And, uh...just where on the mainland did this passage come out?"

    "Within an outcrop of rock atop a hill, that its entrance might be easily disguised; yet 'twas hidden too easily, for after a space of some thousand years, a king chose that hill for the building of his fortress, that it might ward the harbor mouth; and some two centuries agone, the sorcerer-king did hale down that king's descendants, to establish his ill rule there."

    "You mean...you have a tunnel to the surface that comes out in Gord--uh, the king's cellar?"

    "Even so."

    Matt caught his breath. "I...don't suppose I could interest you in letting me bring..."

    "Your army? Nay." The king smiled sadly. "That would, I think, strain the Sea King's bounty over much. This outlet for my people he did grant me, when he truly had no need to; and I am loathe to overstrain his kindness. He would, I think, be much wroth if you did bring an army through my domain and his cleared ways."

    "Well, actually--I was thinking of a sally party. Say--twenty?"

    "A score?" The king frowned, thinking it over, then shook his head. "Too many, I fear. Mayhap a dozen."

    "Twelve it will be!" Matt fairly shouted. "I thank you, your Majesty! For the rest of my life, I'll thank you! For--"

    "The rest of your life will be enough." The king smiled, amused. "I trust it will not be short. Godspeed, Lord Wizard. Gather your men."

     

CHAPTER 26

Passing Review

     

    "People," he should have said--there was no way Maid Marian was going to be left behind. Matt would have liked to make it "beings," but he thought the king might draw the line at Stegoman and Narlh.

    Of course, that meant he still had to explain it to them.

    "You're opposite elements, you see," he said. "He's a king of water, and you're spirits of fire."

    Stegoman exchanged a jaundiced glance with Narlh.

    "Right, fire-breath," the dracogriff grunted. "He's making excuses."

    "No, now, really! I mean, how would you feel if a water monster came into your nest and..."

    "Lord Wizard." Sinelle touched his arm. "My great-father will not object to one of these beasts, if you truly wish it."

    Matt stared.

    "See, now?" Narlh grinned. "Should've asked, shouldn'cha?"

    "Well...I just assumed..."

    "Natheless,--'tis only the one of us," Stegoman snorted, "which I can comprehend readily enough. Nay, Wizard, say which it shall be."

    Matt swallowed and turned back to look from monster to monster.

     "I have more of fire in me," Stegoman allowed, "and am the stronger flier."

    "Stronger?" Narlh yelped. "Look, lizard-brain--who's got the feathers here?"

    The dragon turned, scowling. "Dost thou think to best a dragon in the far reaches of the air?"

    "Hey, just because I don't enjoy it, doesn't mean..."

    "Gentles, gentles!" Sinelle held up a hand, repressing a smile. "Did I not sense that the dragon did mean to be so gracious as to step aside and let the dracogriff have the place of honor?"

    Narlh's head swiveled to stare at Stegoman.

    The dragon shifted restlessly. "In truth, I had liefer go than stay.--'Twill be a glorious exploit, live or die, and--"

    "Yeah, that's right!" Narlh snapped his beak for emphasis. "And I need the reputation more than you do!"

    "And are not the dragon's equal in courtesy," Sinelle said sweetly.

    "Hey, now, wait a minute! You can't say he's willing to be more self-sacrificing than I am! i'm just as humble as he is! And I'll prove it! Dragon, you can go jump in the pool! I'll stay with the siege!"

    "I would not rob thee of so rich a courtesy," Stegoman began.

    "Then do not." Sinelle snapped both hands wide in a gesture of finality. "Allow him the gallant gesture. Do you let him ride the high air, whiles you do accompany us beneath the sea."

    Narlh stared, as if wondering if he'd been tricked out of something good, after all.

    Matt wondered, too. Sinelle had managed it very deftly--he had to keep reminding himself that she was twice his age. And she had definitely wanted Stegoman on the submarine raid. He wondered why.

    Not that he had time to think about it. Robin Hood touched his arm, saying, "Lord Wizard, we are in readiness. Do you pass in review, and say if anything lacks."

    He was going to tell Robin Hood if everything was ready for a raid? He, the little boy who had read Howard Pyle with the reverence due the Bible?

    But he was the resident wizard, and it was the magical side of things Robin was asking him to check, not the physical. Matt dutifully paced the line of recruits, merry men and peasants, knights and squires, all the defenders who had stood together against the siege of evil at the castle, about to become besiegers in their own turn.

    They looked ready. Very. If there was any flaw, Matt certainly couldn't spot it.

    Then the irony struck--Robin Hood asking him for a magical review, when he had a wizard of his own handy. Or did he realize it? Slowly, Matt turned to Friar Tuck. "Good Father, may I ask you to survey us all and say if you see any defect of spirit that might weaken us before the army of evil?"

    Robin and Marian both looked startled, and Tuck fairly blushed. "I am only a meek and humble friar..."

    Little John nearly choked on a smothered laugh.

    "It's part of your office," Matt nudged.

    Tuck stood still for a moment. Then he lifted his head with a sigh and stepped forward to scan the troops.

    And, suddenly, there was a great deal of tension in the room. Either these men knew Tuck's powers, no matter how modestly he disguised them, or they were taken by surprise--for everyone in the room felt a sudden, searching pressure pass over them all.

    It vanished as Tuck turned away, eyes unfocused, as if still in a trance.

    "Is all well?" Matt asked softly.

    "With them, aye," Tuck answered, as if from far away. "Lord Wizard, step aside with me."

    The troops stared, and Matt felt a thrill of alarm pass through him--but Friar Tuck was stepping over into a small chamber that opened off the great hall, into a screened passage, and what could Matt do but follow?

    There, the monk slipped his stole out of his pocket, kissed it, and slipped it around his neck. He folded his hands, bowing his head, and waited.

    Matt realized it was time for confession.

    Trouble was, he had no idea what to confess. Sure, he'd made a lot of mistakes since he'd come to Ibile, but he hadn't exactly been absent from the confessional, and surely his chat with the angel had counted as reconciliation. He hadn't committed any major sins since then, if you didn't count killing sorcerers and their henchmen in self-defense. "Father...I have no idea..."

    "Why have you come to Ibile?" The friar's voice seemed wafted to him on a breeze from distant places.

    Matt began to realize he was talking to more than just Friar Tuck. "Why, to unseat the usurper from the throne and restore goodness to Ibile." A sudden urge for truthfulness overwhelmed him. "Or, at least, to open the way to goodness. I don't know if I can do any restoring myself."

    "In essence, that is good. But your motive may contaminate your purpose, Lord Wizard. Why? What is your personal desire in this? Have you come to be a king?"

    "Well...yes," Matt admitted. "I had planned on taking the throne. What's wrong with that? I'm certainly better than the current inhabitant. On the other hand, that doesn't take much--"

    "Yet it requires a great deal, to be a good king." The monk sighed. "You are not of the blood royal, Lord Wizard; you have not the qualities required of a prince."

    Anger sprouted, but Matt recognized that Tuck was not entirely speaking for himself alone. Maybe he had no right to catechize Matt, but Whoever was speaking through him did. "You're saying that I am no more the rightful monarch than the current king."

    "Even so. Ask of yourself, Wizard-'Why do I seek to rule? Is it for the good of the people, for the greater glory of God?' "

    "No--it's so that I can qualify to marry Queen Alisande." The words were out almost before Matt realized he was saying them, and he stood there, appalled at what he had just heard.

    Tuck made a sound like the air expiring from a concert organ and said, "You must not take the throne for your own personal purposes, Lord Wizard, no matter how worthy. It is of the people we speak, and what is best for them. Know, too, that the rightful heir to the throne of Ibile stands within this Great Hall hard by us."

    That was hard--it jolted Matt like a short circuit. His head snapped up, and he stared at the monk--who was staring past Matt at something that he couldn't see. No, he didn't doubt for a moment that Tuck had spoken the truth. "The...real heir? Not Sir Guy de Toutarien!"

    "Nay. 'Tis the maiden holds clear title."

    Yverne? Matt stared. Sure, she was noble--but he couldn't quite see her as a reigning monarch. Alisande, she wasn't.

    Then he stood stock still, letting that last thought filter down through all the layers of his consciousness. No, she wasn't Alisande, was she? Beautiful, gentle, kind--but not his Alisande.

    The pang of loss was sudden and huge. "But Father! All my plans, all my pain--and I still can't marry the woman I love?"

    "If it is best for the kingdom and the people, you will wed." But Tuck went on inexorably, "If it is not, you will not. You must chance that loss, wizard. For you to seek to win a throne is hubris."

    Matt knew the term. The ancient Greeks had used it, for the overweening pride of a man who sought to rival the gods. In his own time and place, it had meant a man who had thought he was something he wasn't--who had sought to become something that was alien to his true nature. Hubris--overweening pride, stemming from lack of self-knowledge.

    "Neither a throne, nor a queen," the monk droned. "If you are not born a king, you cannot become one--you can only usurp, which is a heinous sin as well as a heinous crime."

    "Usurp...a wife?" Matt croaked.

    "Even so. If she is yours, God will bring you together. If she is someone else's, or no man's, He will not."

    The rage boiled up, and for a moment Matt was on the knife's edge, near the point of bellowing his frustration at Friar Tuck and telling them all where to go...But he caught himself at the last moment, held back the words, let the rage fill him and start to slacken...

    And remorse rushed in to fill the void where the anger had been. Matt bowed his head, realizing how close he had come to being untrue to himself, and therefore to Alisande; how close he had come to making both their lives miserable, and those of hundreds of thousands of common people, too. For a moment, he had almost played into the hands of the lord of evil; but thanks to Tuck, he had sheered off at the last second.

    That didn't mean he had to like the friar for it, though.

    "Thanks, Father," he muttered. "I abjure the throne. I will unseat the sorcerer if I can, even as I've sworn--but I will seek to place the rightful monarch on the throne, not myself."

    "It is well." Tuck sketched the Sign of the Cross in the air. "Go in peace, my son--and in hope, for she may yet be yours. I assure you, I shall search without rest, to seek a way to justify the marriage of a lord born a commoner, with a monarch reigning. But though you may be a consort, you shall never be a king."

    "All I want is to be her husband," Matt muttered. "Put the titles on the shelf, Friar. I'll read them later."

    

    The field was empty of foemen, except for the dead. There were no enemies wounded or dying--their own knights had slain them as they retreated.

    "But wherefore?" Sauvignon's agony of soul was written in his face. "Why would they slay their own men?"

    "Wherefore not?" the sergeant said dryly. "These were of no more use to the sorcerer, after all."

    "But they might have escaped! They might have gone back to the sorcerer's army!"

    "None go willingly to Gordogrosso's armies, I think," Alisande said slowly. "Belike they would choose to stay and fight for us, if they could surrender."

    "Would they slay these men for treachery that they might commit?"

    "They would," the sergeant confirmed. "Wherefore give strength to the enemy? Yet I think 'tis more than that, milord."

    Sauvignon turned to him, scowling. "What should it be?"

    But the sergeant only glanced at him, then glanced away.

    " 'Tis their souls, Marquis," Alisande said gently. "If they had not slain them, these men might have repented on their deathbeds and have cheated Hell of a few more souls."

    Sauvignon only stared at her, then turned away. The sight of bloody entrails and torn limbs hadn't sickened him, but this did.

    "Peace, milord," Ortho murmured. " 'Tis not the speaking that matters, nor e'en the unvoiced words in the mind, but the thought itself, the upwelling of repentance in the single sharp surge that takes but a moment; and such could have come to each of these, in the moment of their deaths."

    "And if it did not?" Sauvignon grated.

    "If it did not, they have gone where they chose."

    "But how if they did not so choose?" Sauvignon rounded on him. "How if many among them would have repented, if they'd known of their deaths--but did not, for the blow that laid them low came from behind! As, look you, it did, for most among them."

    Ortho didn't bat an eyelash. "How if they would have repented, if they could have? Ah, my lord!" He heaved a sigh. "Were not most of these constrained to fight, whether they would or no? How many among them did already repent, and secretly asked forgiveness of God for not having courage enough to face the death by torture that would have come of saying no to the sorcerer's press-gang?"

    Sauvignon stared at him for a moment, then said, "Well asked. How then?"

    But, "I know not," was all Ortho could answer. "These are questions for a priest, my lord, not for a poor sexton whose soul was too wild to stay in cloister long enough to become so much as a deacon."

    Sauvignon held his gaze, then nodded with gruff apology. "'Tis even so. I thank you for this much hope, at least." He turned to the queen. "Majesty, may we summon the chaplain?"

    "We may, my lord, when he is done with the work of his office." Alisande gestured down-slope, and Sauvignon turned, surprised, to see the priest who had accompanied the expedition on his knees in the mud, his vial of blessed oil in his hand, marking the Sign of the Cross on each dead soldier, reciting the words of the last annointing in a quick mutter before he rose and went on to the next corpse.

    "They may be damned," Alisande said, "but he, at least, finds room for doubt."

    Sauvignon saw, and his eyes gleamed. He straightened, and she could almost see his spirit rise.

    Ortho saw, too, and smiled. "The sorcerer may have dominion in this world, my lord, but not in the next."

    "Why, then, let us reave him of even that!" Sauvignon clapped a hand to his sword hilt and looked up at Alisande with the lust for battle in his eyes. "Let us march, Majesty! Unleash us 'gainst the tyrant!"

    Alisande decided that even the ugliest man might have a beautiful soul.

     

CHAPTER 27

Submarine Raid