They came back into the great hall, Friar Tuck folding his stole and putting it away, Matt trying to straighten his shoulders and put something resembling a smile on his face.

    He didn't do too well, of course.

    "Be of good heart, Wizard," Maid Marian murmured, stepping close. "She may yet be thine."

    Matt looked up at her, startled. How had she known?

    Marian smiled and gave him a gentle punch on the arm. "I have seen your face when you have spoken of the queen of Merovence--and you have told us why you have embarked on this quest. Nay, if a man is a-love, what else can make him so glum?"

    Quite a few things that Matt could think of--but he couldn't knock it; the lady had read him rightly. The shock did help pull him out of himself, though. He straightened his shoulders and smiled at the stalwart woman. "Thank you, milady. Let's see about setting a siege now, shall we?"

    "No," Robin Hood said. "This venture is mine, with my merry men. We must undertake the risk. You must wait until we have, at the least, begun to take up our positions before the castle, before you go below the waves. Only when the sorcerer is assured that we mean to front him outright, may we hope to surprise him from within."

    "But while I'm submerging, you'll be dying! He'll haul out his mightiest spells and pulverize you!"

    "We shall place our faith in Tuck, and God," Robin answered. "Be of good cheer, Wizard--and be quick. If you strike swiftly, most of us will live."

    "'Most' includes some dead bodies," Matt grumbled.

    "How did you say?"

    "Nothing--just grumbling."

    "He is envious, in that he may not join you in the assault." Yverne laid a hand on Matt's arm. "Go, my lord Earl, and may you prevail."

    Robin doffed his hat and gave her his most gallant bow, then turned on his heel and strode out of the tower room.

    Marian stared after him, her eyes glistening. "He cannot die!"

    "Right." Matt nodded. "He can't. He always rises again, doesn't he?"

    "He ever has before..."

    "Then he will again." Matt turned away to the window, trying to hide his feelings. "Come, ladies, gentlemen. Let's watch for our cue."

    They looked on in trepidation, waiting, almost breathless, but there was nothing to see--their tower faced the mainland and the castle, and the fishermen were smuggling Robin Hood and his band around behind the forest on the point. They waited, the minutes trickling away until, finally, some spots of green separated themselves from the darker gray-green of the somber forest--Lincoln green, a dozen, a score, a hundred, filing out to take up stands before the castle. They were just a little too far from the walls for crossbow or mangonel to reach them--but not, Matt suspected, too far for Robin Hood's clothyard shafts to strike, driven by longbows.

    They were scarcely in position before a fireball lofted from the castle wall. and roared toward them.

    Force of habit--Matt started to mutter a fire-quenching spell.

    "Nay," Fadecourt rumbled at his elbow. "They shall have to hold off the sorcerer without your aid, Wizard. At the least, wait until you are sure your help is needed."

    Matt held the final line on the tip of his tongue in an agony of suspense, aching to say it.

    Suddenly, the fireball darkened and slowed. Its flames died, and it crashed into the sere grass of the dusty meadow, well short of Robin's lines.

    Matt stared.

    "What spell was that?" de la Luce asked.

    "One I don't know." Matt didn't blame the old don--anything that could quench fire put de la Luce in danger.

    "Don't worry, milord--the one who put it out is on our side." Privately, he suspected Tuck had just prayed. Matt could only be glad his desires coincided with the Almighty's.

    But then, Saint Iago had blessed this whole enterprise, hadn't he? Now it was his turn to help out.

    "They come!" Fadecourt cried, pointing to a file of men trooping out of the forest.

    Matt frowned. "So what's so great about that? Those are Sir Guy's people from the castle. We knew they were being ferried out right after Robin's band."

    "They are not my stalwarts," Sir Guy said, peering keenly at the distant dots. "Nay, those are peasants' clothes, Lord Wizard, and peasants' weapons--scythes and flails. They have not the look of those who dwelt with us, and that knight at their head is not one of my friends; I know all their arms, but his are new."

    "Another comes!" Yverne pointed off toward the north.

    "And another!" Marian called from the southern window. "Yet these are stout burghers, from their look, with tradesmen and the city's poor behind them."

    "None such labored with us at the castle." Sir Guy turned to join her, frowning out at the file of men marching up from the south.

    "Where are they all coming from?" Matt asked, goggling.

    "Why, from all about!" Fadecourt crowed. "Word of your stand has spread, Lord Wizard! These are those with old grievances 'gainst the sorcerer, and good folk who have the courage of their faith! From hither and yon, all about Ibile, have they come, needing but a man of courage to stand against the king! They will rise up in support of such a one, where they would have feared to come singly! Robin Hood and his band will not stand alone in this!"

    "Talk about miracles," Matt said, his voice gone shaky. He turned away from the window. "Come on, folks. We've got to do our share in bailing them out."

    As they came down into the Great Hall, Stegoman looked up, frowning. "Can none talk to this man o' gossamer? I speak, and he doth profess to fail in understanding."

    Matt looked and saw the ghost, huddling in the darkened corner, staring at Stegoman with wide, frightened eyes.

    "He can't hurt you, you know." Matt stepped over to the ghost. "You're ectoplasm, and he's protoplasm. No interaction."

    But the ghost shook his head, eyes still on Stegoman.

    Matt frowned. "What's the matter? Does he remind you of someone?" Then a hunch crunched, and he stared. "It was you! You're the one who spread the word to all the people with a shred of goodness left in them! You're the one who brought them out to join the siege!"

    The ghost lowered his eyes, and Matt could have sworn he saw a faint tinge of rose to the ghost's translucency. Then the phantom looked up with a smile, gesturing and mouthing words.

    "Not just you, but a lot of other ghosts you knew?" Matt nodded. "Makes sense. The specter network. But that's no reason to be afraid of a dragon."

    "What, have other folk come forth in aid?" Stegoman waddled forward, scales clashing, and the ghost shrank back. "Nay, be of good heart, faded phantom. Be mindful, dragon folk, too, wish the foul sorcerer haled down, and all his ilk; there will be many fewer hatchling hunters abroad, I promise you! Nay, but send word to the Free Flyers, and I doubt not that a score or more will answer your call!"

    "It'll be dangerous," Matt warned, "even for dragons."

    "What matter danger to those of stout heart?" Stegoman thundered. "Go to them, ghost! Or send one of your number who fears them not! What--are there no dragons' spirits among your kind? Send word! Or I promise you, they will be wroth to have been cheated of the glory of this battle!"

    "Well, we wouldn't want them to feel offended." Matt nodded to the ghost. "Can you call them?"

    The ghost nodded, but he didn't look happy about it. His eyes flicked from Matt to Stegoman and back; then he flicked out.

    Matt still found it unnerving, but put a happy face on it. "Great! We'll have an aerial arm."

    "If the specter brings word to my kinsmen in time," Stegoman reminded him.

    "Good point." Matt frowned. "How fast can a ghost travel, anyway?" Then the thought of another reason for speed chilled him. "The siege can't last long."

    "Nay," Sir Guy agreed. "The sorcerer will destroy them ere the sun has set."

    "Therefore, let us be quick, that they may live." Fadecourt turned to the demoiselle. "Pray lead us to the castle, milady."

    They all turned to follow--and Matt jammed on the brakes. "Now, hold it, Lady Yverne! This is a bit too dangerous for your gentle self!"

    But Yverne held her place, chin up and firm. " 'Tis my own father that his henchman has slain or imprisoned, Lord Wizard. And, too, I have better reason to risk all with you than you know."

    "Or than you can tell me?" Matt shook his head "No, milady. We'd all be breaking our necks trying to protect you, instead of getting that gate open."

    "I shall defend myself, Lord Wizard! You need not be afeard for me!"

    "Easily said," Sir Guy said gently, taking her hand, "but impossible to do. Nay, milady, I should have no thought for aught but your safety."

    Fadecourt seemed to bristle, but Yverne looked into Sir Guy's eyes and started to melt.

    So the demoiselle intervened. "She must come. Nay, gentles, do not object--there be cause, and good cause. You must all be together in this, or you will be sorely weakened."

    Sir Guy and Fadecourt both turned on her, reddening, but Matt leaped into the breach before either of them could say anything. "Well, if we have to, we have to. Don't argue, gentlemen--we're guests, remember? And we mustn't disagree with our hostess, must we? No, of course not. Lead the way, milady."

    And she did, down and down, deeper and deeper--but it was a route they had all traveled before. Only Stegoman had difficulty, squeezing around the corners, but again he turned out to be more flexible than they had thought he could be. He did start looking a bit nervous, though, and Matt cursed silently to himself. All he needed was to be caught in a tight spot with a claustrophobic dragon.

    Then they were through, down to the rock pier that ran along the ocean inlet. The demoiselle leaped in with a cry of delight, but the rest of the party regarded it with doubt.

    "This takes a little courage," Matt admitted, "especially for those of you in full plate armor." That only applied to Sir Guy. "Just take a deep breath and jump in--and don't worry about getting in over your head. That's when the air supply starts."

    To demonstrate the point, he jumped in and hoped the others would follow. He was almost touching bottom before he heard and felt the jolts of the others splashing down. Then his feet touched sand; the demoiselle lightly touched his arm; the water rushed away from his face, then his body--and once again, he found himself walking, his clothes completely dry, down the anemone-bordered path, following the demoiselle. He looked behind him and saw Yverne, wide-eyed and wondering, with Sir Guy marching behind her, his visor open, his eyes flicking nervously from side to side. Maid Marian towered behind him, looking frazzled but delighted, and behind her, Stegoman lumbered, with Fadecourt astride his neck just behind the head. In fact, the row of fins along the dragon's back was hazy, seen through water; the fluid line came down about halfway along his back. Fear seized Matt for a moment, fright that the dragon might have broken the surface tension of the tunnel, and that tons of water might come cascading down on them--until he remembered that surface tension couldn't possibly hold that tunnel of air open by itself. If magic could make a tunnel, it could let that arch be interrupted and still hold out the water--and, sure enough, Stegoman's sinuous neck looped up above the tunnel roof, then back down into it, and his nose and eyes were close enough to the path for him to breathe. The dragon was looking a little wild-eyed, but he was holding steady.

    Matt didn't blame him. He remembered how he had felt, the first time he had gone flying without an airplane--on Stegoman's very back, in fact. He wasn't especially eager to repeat the experience, considering the evasive maneuvers Stegoman had been running, trying to escape a fiery salamander--but he had survived. So would the dragon.

    They came up to the jade palace, and the old king stood at the gate, watching them come. When he saw Stegoman's bulk looming up out of the darkness, he stared. "My great-daughter! A beast of fire, here within its element opposed?"

    "The fire is within him, great-sire, just as we dwell within our bubble of air," the demoiselle returned. "He will offend the Sea King no more than we do--and it is vital that he ascend with them."

    She held her ancestor's gaze with a strong, steady look of her own, and after a few moments, he nodded, looking grave. "Let him pass, then. But usher them quickly, demoiselle--through my precincts and up the passage. Let them not linger long in Ys."

    Matt could only agree with the sentiments, though perhaps not for the same reason. He followed the demoiselle as she led the way around the palace, glimmering in its eldritch light. The party all stared, as they passed, at the spires and arches done in a style that had been forgotten before their own had arisen, gazing in wonder and awe.

    "Ahead," Matt called softly, and they all snapped out of their trances and turned to look forward as the demoiselle passed out of the light of the castle precincts, into a huge maw of a dark and lightless tunnel.

    Yverne and Fadecourt halted involuntarily, shivering at the miasma of evil that seemed to brush their spirits, even so far removed. The demoiselle must have been expecting the reaction, for she turned back and called softly to them, "Aye--'tis a blemish on the face of the earth, is it not? Even here beneath the sea, we sense its evilness. This pathway has not been trod for more than an hundred years, though I have ventured along it till I saw the castle's base. That far, I have gone, confident in the Sea King's power, that the sorcerer's sway cannot extend into Poseidon's domain--but I will not pass above his waters."

    "We will, then." Matt nodded with grim certainty. "That's what we came for, isn't it? Although, come to think of it, anyone who wants to go back, go with my blessing--I wouldn't blame you for a second. Just because I have to march ahead is no reason the rest of you should"

    They all turned to meet his eyes, and he almost flinched at the silent accusation they leveled at him. "All right, all right! No offense intended. Come on, let's go." He turned away to the demoiselle and nodded, before he had to listen to their rebukes.

    The demoiselle led the way down a passage that grew steadily darker and darker. After a few hundred paces, only the sea anemones were giving light, and that only as colored dots that marked the borders of the path. Then their light grew dim and disappeared, and Matt realized with a shock, that something was killing off any creatures that lived beyond this point.

    He hoped he wasn't included.

    Light glowed suddenly, and he saw that Sinelle was holding up the gem that had nestled at her throat. It gave off light now, dim and chill, but far better than the darkness that had enshrouded them. She beckoned with the jewel. Matt nodded and pressed forward. His commandos came after him.

    It couldn't have been more than about ten minutes of groping in that dimness, but it felt like a year. Matt slogged ahead, testing the ground with every step--then suddenly realized that the demoiselle had stopped. He looked up and saw a huge brass-bound door blocking their way.

    "Yon is the dungeon of the sorcerer's castle," Sinelle said in a low voice, for there was something about this place that discouraged speech. "Farther I cannot go. I wish you well, my friends."

    Matt swallowed through a throat gone suddenly thick, and nodded. "Thanks, milady. We're grateful for everything you've done. Hopefully, we'll be seeing you soon, to celebrate."

    His companions muttered assent.

    "I will rejoice," she said, trying to sound positive. "Fare ye well, good folk."

    She stepped aside, and Matt reached out to grasp the huge ring set in the door. He twisted, and the latch mechanism groaned. Then he threw all his weight against the portal, and, slowly, it swung open.

    The companions moved into the darkness. Marian murmured, "I am amazed it was not locked."

    "Perchance the sorcerer does not even know it is here," Fadecourt said softly. "Wizard, can you bring us light?"

    Matt shook his head in the darkness, then remembered nobody could see him. "I'd rather not use magic this close to the sorcerer--it'll let him know at once that we're here. Stegoman, can you manage some fire?"

    A gout of flame roared out, showing them the blackened cones of old torches held in sconces against the walls. Matt reached up and plucked one down. "This will do--we can't keep the poor beast breathing fire all the time." He held its tip in Stegoman's flame until it caught, then raised it aloft. The dragon's flame shut off, and Matt stepped out into the middle of the chamber, holding up the torch.

    Its light fell on the foot of a stairway that curved along the outside of the circular room, disappearing up into the darkness.

    Matt swallowed and moved toward it. "Okay, friends. Here we go."

    The way was long and tortuous. Matt had climbed enough steps so that his thighs began to ache, before it occurred to him to count--to break the monotony, if nothing else. But, of course, by then it was too late. It seemed to be a simple spiral staircase--but it was a very long one. Matt found himself beginning to wonder about architects inspired by the DNA molecule.

    Then, suddenly, there were no more stairs; Matt slammed into a rock wall. Fortunately, he wasn't going very fast; unfortunately, Yverne, Marian, and Fadecourt slammed into him before he could tell them. "Dead end," he said, low-voiced in case something was listening in the darkness.

    How paranoid can you get? Very--in a sorcerer's castle.

    "If you'll back up just a touch, I'll see if there's a way out."

    The pressure on his back eased up; he pulled his chin out of the wall and started groping around.

    " 'Tis here." Marian, at least, wasn't worried about who might hear them. "A hole in the wall--a masonry archway, from the feel of it."

    Matt moved the torch around and saw the archway, ten feet away at the end of a landing carved into the rock. "Right. Well, at least there aren't any more steps." He marched through the archway.

    They rattled. They buzzed. They came scurrying on little, chitinous feet, tails curved up over their backs, holding their stings ready to stab.

    Matt leaped backward with an expletive deleted. "Scorpions! Get back, ladies!"

    Yverne jumped back with a little scream, but drew her sword and began chopping at the little blighters.

    "Nay, brave lady!" Sir Guy cried. "Let me essay it--this menace is mine!" He shouldered past; Marian gave an indignant cry as he elbowed her aside. But as his iron-shod feet began crushing sinister insects, she started cheering him on. "Aye, sir knight! Slay them, crush them! Let none survive to plague...Ah! Beware!"

    A huge scorpion, stronger than the others, managed to leap atop Sir Guy's foot and scuttled up his leg, stinger probing for a weak spot in his armor.

    "Watch out!" Matt shouted. "Behind the knee, he's--"

    Maid Marian's quarterstaff swung, knocking the arthropod to the floor. Sir Guy's heel came down on it.

    But other large scorpions had blundered into the same technique; a stream of insects was running up his legs, and some of their mates were getting past him, heading for softer prey.

    "This is too slow!" Stegoman snapped. "Aside, ladies, knight! Let me reach unto them!"

    Matt flattened himself against the wall. Marian knocked the last scorpion off Sir Guy and leaped aside. The dragon's huge head snaked through, knee-high, and a blast of fire lit the tunnel with a glare that seemed like that of the noontime sun. The air filled with cracklings and poppings. The companions turned to stamping out the few insects that escaped the fire.

    Then Stegoman's blast winked out, and they blinked in the sudden dimness. Frantic to make sure, Matt leaned over, holding the torch close.

    There was nothing left but powder.

    "I thank you, stalwart friend," Sir Guy said. "I should have called upon you sooner."

    "I would I could take the lead," the dragon growled, "but I misdoubt me an I could tell the way. Nay, Wizard, let us go on."

    "Right." Matt stepped gingerly through the mass that had lately been angry insects, watching carefully for any more, but they seemed to have caught the whole nest. Either that, or the survivors had sense enough to hide.

    Just past the last scorpion ashes, the tunnel narrowed--not enough to trap Stegoman, but enough to make Matt feel claustrophobic again. The hallway turned a little this way, then a little that way, ambling off into the bedrock as if it hadn't a care in the world. It seemed to have been laid out by some very careless workmen--or as if it were another form of life. Matt had a fleeting thought of the kinds of monsters that might have been able to make this tunnel at the Sea King's behest, and swallowed his heart down out of his throat. Then he pressed on, sorely wishing he could take Stegoman up on his offer and let him take the lead--just for the light, of course. The torch was burning down, and Matt didn't want it to get close to his fingertips. He knew that Sir Guy had collected the other, unlit, antique torches from their sconces below, and every so often, he'd found another one to add to his bundle, but still...

    The torchlight flickered on something that glinted. Matt stopped. "Be wary, folks!" Then he inched forward, torch thrust ahead.

    The glimmering light revealed two recesses, niches in the walls directly opposite each other, four feet deep, four feet wide, and four feet high. In each lay a skeleton with an empty jug beside it, rags of ancient cloth still lying about its hips. Matt halted, apprehension creeping over him.

    "The poor creatures!" Yverne cried. "Why were they caged here?"

    "Punishment, I would say." Sir Guy scowled at the matched sets of bones. "I have seen this done aforetime--an unruly, disobedient one set with just such a cage in a wall, not high enough to stand in, or even to sit comfortably, and given little to eat or drink. 'Tis a punishment two-edged, for he is exposed to the jibes and mockeries of his fellows, even as they see him and are reminded of the reward for insolence."

    "Yes," Matt said, "but prisoners like that are usually set free, aren't they?"

    "They are only skeletons, Lord Wizard," Maid Marian said gently. "They cannot harm us now."

    But Matt shook his head. "I'm getting a very bad feeling about this. If this were a public punishment, as Sir Guy said, there would have had to be a public to witness the punishment--wouldn't there? But there weren't any files of soldiers passing through here--this was a secret passage, not a thoroughfare."

    "Dost say they are sentries?" Fadecourt demanded.

    "Maybe worse." Matt pointed. "I don't trust the way they're set exactly across from each other, so that we have to pass between them."

    "A trap, then?" Maid Marian asked.

    "Could be. But I've run into things like this, back where I came from." Matt dropped to hands and knees; he was thinking of electric-eye photocells, with infrared light beams. "Down, everybody. Maybe we can put ourselves beneath their notice." And he crawled forward, wondering what he was going to do about Stegoman.

    He needn't have worried. The skeletons screamed.

    They sat bolt upright, fleshless jaws parting, emitting a clear, high tone that rasped right through Matt's head from one ear to the other. He was already clawing his way up the grid of bars before he realized that the screams had turned into a single, repeated word: "Master! Master!"

    "Get 'em out of there!" he bellowed. "Shut 'em up!" Too late, he realized that the bars weren't there to keep the skeletons in--they were to keep intruders out, to keep them from getting to the bones and breaking them.

    Fadecourt shouldered him aside, laying hold of the bars and wrenching them out of the stone., Matt reached for the skull...

    And the bony hand reached down and came up with a sword.

    The skeleton sprang out of its niche and swung, still screaming, "Maaaaster! Maaaaaster!"

    Matt just barely managed to get his dagger out in time to block the swing. The skeleton whipped the sword around for an undercut...

    And Maid Marian's quarterstaff cracked into its skull, knocking it against the wall. Then the staff knocked apart the bones of the hand; the sword clanged to the stone floor. The skull rolled against the stones, still screaming, while the headless skeleton leaped for her, its remaining hand clawing for her eyes.

    The quarterstaff slammed into the rib cage, jarring the whole collection of bones back against the wall. Then Marian whirled and brought the tip of her staff down on the skull, cracking it open. The struggling bone dropped back to the floor, lifeless, and the screaming suddenly stopped.

    But another scream still went on, then broke off. Matt turned to see Fadecourt rising from a jumble of bones, with a long line of blood across his chest.

    "You are hurt!" Yverne cried.

    The cyclops only looked down and wiped at the blood in irritation. "A scratch. We have greater matters to be concerned with."

    "Darn right we have." Matt glanced ahead at the tunnel. Had he heard a faint sound? "Those things were calling for their master--and if these were the servants, I don't want to meet the boss."

    It was a sound-a clicking, a clattering, growing louder.

    "There is small choice." Fadecourt glared ahead at the sound. "We must retreat and give over our enterprise, or forge ahead and chance all."

    "Maybe you have the choice, but I don't." Already, Matt could feel his geas pushing him onward. "I'm going as fast as I can. If their `master' is coming for us, our best chance is to catch him before he expects us. Good luck!" He ran ahead, torchlight swaying. Behind him, his friends cried out, startled, and came running.

    Matt rounded a curve and slammed into a jumble of bones.

    The passage had widened into a small court, and it was filled with dancing skeletons, glowing coals in their eyes, rusty swords in their hands. Just looking at the weapons gave Matt lockjaw. He shied, daunted for a moment, then shouted, "Out of the way! Let Stegoman at `em!" And he sprang aside, plastering himself back against the wall.

    Marian leaped aside, too, but her style was with her quarterstaff whirling like a windmill, cracking bones and knocking skeletons apart. Fadecourt leaped over beside Matt and tore at the articulated bones, catching a femur to use for parrying sword blows, and Sir Guy stepped up beside Maid Marian, blocking and cutting, dispatching foe after foe. Yverne was slicing around her with one of the fallen skeletons' swords. Matt finally drew his own blade.

    Then a roaring gout of fire surged past him, lighting up the chamber. Dry bones crackled and snapped, filling the whole passage with glaring flames. The jet of fire went out as Stegoman caught his breath, but the blaze kept on, though the skeletons still struggled toward the living people. Then the flame blasted again, and the few sets of bones that had still been standing keeled over, threshing even yet in a mindless homicidal impulse. The companions stepped forward, staves and swords ready to clear up the last few opponents...

    And the whole cave darkened. Not into total night, but as if the chamber had suddenly filled with thick black smoke that dimmed the light and made every outline barely discernible. Stegoman's flame gouted out again, but it was reddened, growing more feeble, dimming as the darkness deepened, and Matt could feel the energy leaching out of him, weariness growing, weighing down his limbs like lead, while all about them, a giggling sound grew to a chuckle, then laughter, swelling and beating at their ears--and Matt suddenly understood how the skeletons had come to be there. The first usurping sorcerer had set a spirit to guard this place, a spirit who drank raw energy and was always hungry. Any living being stumbling into the midst of the monster staggered and swooned as the life energy was sucked out of it. Then the meat of its muscles oxidized, giving up more energy, and more, until even the marrow was gone.

    But the monster could send energy back into the skeletons to send them against intruders.

    "Wizard!" Yverne cried in despair. "Magic, or we are lost."

    Not much choice, now. Matt had to risk alerting Gordogrosso to their raid, or atrophy. But there was one slender hope. A magical creature, just exercising its natural processes, might not attract attention, any more than this dark energy-drinking monster did. "Max! Get us out of this!"

    "How, Wizard?" The bright spark danced before him, and the laughter halted. Then it redoubled, and the darkness thickened about the spark. But Max blazed brighter, and the darkness thinned and was gone, while the laughter suddenly transformed to a shriek.

    "There!" Matt shouted. "Just what you did! Leach the energy out of that creature! Dry it up!"

    The shriek turned to a snarl of rage, echoing all about them, and the darkness drew in to form a black ball in the middle of the passage, hiding Max from view--but the Demon's voice carried clearly to them. "Even as you say--though I am loathe to do it, to a creature so much akin to me. Still, it has no conscience, and knows only how to destroy. It shall be done."

    The snarl soared back into a shriek again, and kept on rising and rising until it seemed as if it would shred Matt's brain--but the ball of darkness grew smaller and smaller, then thinner, till Max could be seen through it, growing brighter and brighter...

    Then the monster was gone, with a final, echoing scream.

    "It is finished," Max said.

    Then suddenly, he began to vibrate, then to give off streamers of light-colored mist that radiated away from him and were gone.

    "They are free now," the Demon said, "the souls he held imprisoned, the spirits of those skeletons you destroyed. So long as the bones endured to anchor the souls, the mortals were imprisoned here. But you have freed them."

    "Us?" Matt gasped, astounded. "No way! It was you who zapped him, Max!"

    "I?" the Demon vibrated with delight. "I can do naught, Wizard! I am only a force, a personification of a concept! I must be directed, commanded--and it is you who have loosed me. Nay, 'tis your doing; I am but your tool."

    "If you say so." But Matt had his doubts. "Care to guide us the rest of the way?"

    "I cannot. Summon me at need." And Max winked out.

    Matt sighed in the sudden darkness. "Have any torches left, Sir Guy?"

    "I have dropped them," came the knight's voice. "Let me see, now...where...No, that is a bone...Here! Stegoman, if you will?"

    Flame brightened the gloom, showing Sir Guy holding a torch in Stegoman's flame. Then the dragon's glow shut off, and torchlight flickered on the walls of the chamber. "Four left," the knight said.

    "That ought to get us there--we can't have far to go now."

    Matt took the torch and turned away down the tunnel, trying to be careful about stepping over the bones.

    The passage ran straight for about sixty feet, then took a sudden, right-angled turn. Matt slowed down, instinctively wary of a next step where he couldn't see ahead--but as he came around the corner, his torchlight flickered off oak planks and iron straps. "A door! We've made it through! Come on, folks!" And he leaped ahead, just as Fadecourt shouted, "'Ware!"

    Matt's foot came down--and down, and down! He was falling, and he howled in fright--then jerked to a halt, slammed against a rock face.

    He caught his breath, amazed to find he was still alive and not falling. Then he looked back up over his shoulder and saw Fadecourt, lying flat against the edge of the drop-off, one huge arm knotted and bulging with strain. "I saw," he grated. "Reach up and grasp the edge, Wizard. You must aid me in drawing you up."

    "Yeah, right!" Matt reached up, as Fadecourt pulled, and caught the edge. Then he strained with every ounce of strength, and the cyclops yanked him up and over. Matt rolled away from the edge and sat up, wild-eyed and panting. "Thanks, Fadecourt. Guess I was right to invite you to join us."

    "As I was, to ask." The cyclops squeezed Matt's shoulder. "Are you restored, Wizard? For we still must pass this pit."

    Looking up, Matt saw that they stood on one side of a huge hole, filling the tunnel from wall to wall, and at least twenty feet across. Beyond it was about ten more feet of stone floor, then the door. "Somebody really didn't want visitors, did he?"

    Then the smell hit him, and he gagged. The pit emitted a dank, fetid aroma, and far below, he heard suspicious rappings.

    "Let us be gone, and quickly," Sir Guy said. "Whate'er dwells here, it may rise, and I have no wish to meet it by torchlight."

    "Me neither." Even unseen, the thing was giving off vibrations that made the hair rise on the back of Matt's neck. "But I wouldn't try a broad jump."

    "I would." Fadecourt stepped up to the edge.

    The scrapings below became faster, more eager.

    "I pray you, do not!" Yverne cried, reaching out to catch his arm. "We cannot bear the loss of you; 'tis not worth the risk."

    Sir Guy didn't look all that sure about the last part, but he dutifully shook his head. "We must be all together to attack the sorcerer, good cyclops. We cannot spare your strength."

    Fadecourt hesitated, flattered, then smiled up at Yverne and stepped back. She breathed a sigh of relief. "I thank you, good Fadecourt."

    "At your pleasure," he murmured, and Sir Guy bristled.

    The bulls were pawing the ground, and Matt definitely didn't need them to butt heads here. "Flying," he ventured.

    Stegoman wagged his head from side to side. "I can barely squeeze through this passage, Matthew. Assuredly, I could not open my wings."

    "Well, I might try...but no, I'd rather do this without magic." Matt glanced down to the pit, felt the emanations, and shuddered. Whatever was under there just might be able to cancel his spell in midflight. No, he didn't think he wanted to try levitation.

    And the scrapings were coming closer.

    "An arrow." Maid Marian took out her bow and strung it. "Can you lash a line to it?"

    "Sure, if we had one!"

    " 'Tis bound to my waist." Marian pulled a rope end loose. Fadecourt caught the coil, took an arrow, and began to tie the one to the other. "But to what shall you affix the arrow?"

    "The door," Marian said simply.

    Fadecourt and Matt exchanged glances, both feeling like idiots for not having thought of the obvious.

    "But who shall draw the rope across, and make it fast?" Yverne asked.

    Maid Marian smiled, tying the light line to her arrow. "There is a ring upon the door, milady, and 'tis set into a plate---see you?"

    Yverne looked and saw the huge iron circle set into the door in place of a knob. She frowned. "Aye. What of it?"

    Marian aimed and loosed.

    The arrow sped out over the pit, slammed into the metal plate with a clank like a boiler meeting a sledgehammer, and ricocheted down.

    "Oh, well done!" Yverne clapped her hands. "But how shall you draw it back to us, to make it fast?"

    "There is no need; 'tis a four-barbed head, and the shaft is iron." Marian drew back on the rope; the barbs of the arrowhead caught on the ring and held. She handed the line to Fadecourt. "Brace it well, cyclops." Then she took hold of the rope.

    "Hey, no!" Matt cried "Let one of the guys take the risk!"

    "Wherefore?" Marian gave him a challenging glare. " 'Tis my arrow, and my shot; 'tis my risk. Do not think to--"

    With a roar, a huge gout of flame erupted from the pit, and the rope burned through.

    Marian stared. So did Matt. Then he whispered. "That, too. Yeah."

    "Back!" Stegoman thundered. "It comes! Stand back against the walls; leave me room!"

    Nobody argued; they plastered themselves against the rock. A head poked over the pit, a huge, blunt, questing snout with faceted eyes, under which were two huge clashing pincers. Behind them came a pair of crooked bowlegs--and another pair, and another. Up it came with a slither of scales, foot after foot, yard after yard, leg after leg.

    Yverne screamed. Matt might have, too--he remembered all the little scorpions they had roasted back at the beginning of the tunnel. Their big brother had come for revenge.

    It opened its jaws and blasted flame.

    Stegoman roared, with a gout of fire that met the centipede's. Flame blasted against flame and splashed off the walls; the companions scrambled out of the way.

    "He holds it!" Sir Guy cried. "Attack!"

    Matt jolted out of his trance, whipped out his sword, and leaped forward, stabbing. His sword point skidded across the chitinous shell--then lodged between segments. Matt leaned on it with every ounce of his strength, and the blade went in.

    The monster screamed and thrashed, four sword points skewering it, and the segments closed on the sword, twisting it out of Matt's grasp. He dove for the hilt, but it danced mockingly before him as the monster gyrated in pain, and it turned its snout back toward him...

    Fadecourt threw his huge strength against the body, holding a length of it still just long enough. Matt seized his sword and yanked it out, found another gap, and plunged it in again. So did Marian--she was on her third or fourth stab, and Sir Guy and Yverne weren't far behind. The monster shrieked and drew breath...

    Stegoman blasted, his flame catching the centipede broadside.

    Its scream veered toward the supersonic; it whipped about, blasting a return at Stegoman. But the dragon held his flame steady, till the centipede's slackened--and slackened more and more, for the five companions were stabbing and stabbing. Matt tried to remember his freshman zoology class, figuring where a heart might be, and stabbed and wrenched, trying to avoid the green slime that welled between the segments, but not succeeding too well, remembering, with a sick, sinking feeling, that basic life-forms like this took an awfully long time to die...

    But breathing fire took a lot out of the worm. It gave a last, feeble puff of flame; then its legs folded, and its faceted eyes began to dull.

    "It dies!" Sir Guy cried.

    "Back!" Fadecourt bellowed. "It falls!"

    For the first time, Matt realized that, no matter how much of the huge centipede had come out of the pit, there was more down below, and it was hanging loose from the side now, dead weight, the slackened claws having lost their hold on the niches in the rock. It slid backward faster and faster. The companions leaped aside just before the head whipped back over the edge of the pit and shot down out of sight.

    They stood silent, staring down into the darkness, not quite believing the battle was over.

    Then Matt felt a burning pain on his upper arm. "Yow!" He looked down and saw that the ichor had eaten through the cloth of his tunic. "It's acid! Everybody out of your clothes, quick!"

    He scrambled out of his garments and shivered in the chill, glad that he had held to the habit of wearing underwear--in defiance of this world's custom. The ladies shed their dresses, standing almost as decently clad in their shifts, and Fadecourt and Sir Guy caught up the cloth to wipe the slime off skin and armor, respectively. Sir Guy inspected some mild etching and said, "I am nearly unscathed." He turned to Fadecourt. "And you, friend?"

    Yverne saw the raw patches on the cyclops' skin and cried out.

    "I will endure," he grated. "It is painful, but I am not hindered. Quickly, let us come out of this place! Then the wizard may mend me!"

    "I may do so now." Marian took the belt off the remains of her gown and reached into a pouch. She took out a small jar, opened it, and began to rub the cream inside onto Fadecourt's burns. " 'Tis an herbal compound I learned to craft, from a monk. 'Tis a sovereign remedy for small wounds of all kinds--does it aid you?"

    "A blessing," Fadecourt said, with a huge sigh of relief. "I thank you, maid."

    As she finished anointing him, Matt said, "I hate to rush things--but do you have another one of those iron arrows?"

    "Aye." Marian took up her bow, drew a new arrow, and tied the remains of the rope to it. She drew and loosed, and in a very short while, Fadecourt was swinging hand over hand along the rope--having claimed that he owed it to her for the salve. Then Stegoman braced the other end of the line, and Matt and Marian between them figured out how to make a fireman's chair. They swung across one by one--and, when they were all standing on the far side, they looked back at Stegoman, with a sudden shock of realization.

    "How," Matt said, "are we going to get the dragon over here?"

    "I can leap with ease, if I have room enough to land," Stegoman answered. "But yon dozen paces is nowhere nearly enough. Open the door, Wizard, and all of thee go through it; then I'll have room enough indeed, and shall be with thee straight."

    On the word, Fadecourt turned and lashed a huge kick at the lock. Metal snapped, and the door slammed back.

    There was darkness behind it. They stood in silence, waiting, until they heard distant voices calling.

    "What sound was that?"

    "The door, fool! Belike the warders bring another luckless soul to join us!"

    "Or," a third, and nervous, voice said, "have they come to take one of us away to the gibbet?"

    " 'Tis the dungeon," Maid Marian breathed, "and no guards."

    "Surely," Sir Guy agreed. "Wherefore would they ward a door that has not opened in hundreds of years?"

    Matt frowned. "You'd think somebody would have remembered."

    "Their guards were on this side of the door," Yverne pointed out. "If such a monster as this failed, what use would be human guards?"

    She definitely had a point. Matt thrust the torch out and stuck his head behind it, inspecting for booby traps, then leaped through the door, just in case--but no nets fell, no barbs sprang out. "It's safe. Come on, friends."

    They filed through. Then, with a whoosh, a huge thud, and a scrabbling of claws, Stegoman shot through the door and skidded to a halt, jolting against the far wall. Matt glanced at the floor; the dragon's claws had gouged grooves in the granite. "Glad you're on our side. Now--where do we go?"

    "Yon." Fadecourt turned, pointing, then strode ahead.

    He seemed very sure of himself. Matt wasn't about to argue--but he did wonder. He followed the cyclops while he wondered, though.

    They followed a sloping floor up, where the rock was no longer quite so rough-hewn. They tried to walk as quietly as possible, but as they neared a door of planks, a low voice called through its small grate, "Who brings light in the darkness?"

    They stopped, all looking at Matt. He swallowed and answered, "A friend. What are you doing here?"

    "I performed pantomimes in village squares, and mocked the king," the voice answered dryly. "And you?"

    "We have come to help those who deserve it." It was a justified gamble--Gordogrosso punished only goodness, not evil Matt nodded to Fadecourt, who laid hold of the latch and shoved. There was a crack of breaking metal, and the door swung open.

    There was a minute's silence.

    Then a middle-aged man, with hair almost white, crept out of the cell, blinking in the torchlight. "You...you would not mock me?" Then he saw Stegoman; his eyes widened, and so did his mouth.

    Maid Marian clasped a hand over his lips. "Softly, goodman--he, too, is a friend."

    "I am not a-hungered," Stegoman rumbled. "Even if I were, I prefer my food clean."

    The man looked indignant, so Marian removed her hand and he growled, "I'll have you know I was most fastidious, till I was locked down here!"

    "I understand," Matt sympathized. "They don't exactly provide running water." But a thought was hatching. "Think you can tell us who's down here for what?"

    "Nothing easier," the actor said with confidence. "In the cell next to mine is a tax collector who let some poor folk, who could not pay, escape the whip. Next to him is a farmer, who sought to prevent the soldiers from taking his daughter. Farther on--"

    "That's fine," Matt interrupted. "Tell us about them as we come to them. You go first."

    The actor was only too glad to go, partly because Stegoman was bringing up the rear. He gave them a running commentary, and as they came to each door, Fadecourt bashed in the lock and let out the prisoner. Matt and Sir Guy herded them along in front, though Sir Guy gave Matt a questioning glance. Matt only gave a short shake of the head in answer.

    It was very simple, really. He didn't want possible criminals coming behind his back--and he didn't mind letting them have first chance at the guards. He felt a little guilty at the idea that he was throwing the prisoners to the wolves, but he reminded himself that it was a better chance than they ever would have had otherwise--but the stab of conscience made him warn them, "Take up whatever weapons you can find. We're apt to have to do some fighting, if we want to get out of here."

    The prisoners were only too glad to cooperate, wrenching table legs loose in the few well-appointed cells--the ones that contained more than moldering straw. Fadecourt took to yanking chains out of the walls in cells that had them; as they neared the door to the castle, half of the prisoners were armed with links.

    There were also a lot of them--fifty or more, and others had begun clamoring for release, in the distance.

    It gave Matt an idea. "Hold on! Don't hit that door--stand back!"

    "Wherefore?" One of the prisoners glared at him as if suspecting treachery.

    Matt couldn't blame him for a little suspicion. He explained quickly, "Your fellow prisoners are making a fair amount of noise. If there's a jailor on duty..."

    "There is."

    "He could be coming through that door any second."

    The portal slammed open, and a hulking, barrel-shaped man, who would have given Quasimodo a beauty prize, came shambling through, with a squad of soldiers at his heels. "What clamor is this? What ails the fools? Have some..." Then he saw the prisoners, and his eyes went wide. The guards began to lower their pikes--

    With a yell like a dam breaking, the prisoners swamped the guards. There were a few horrified yells and the dull, sick thud of steel against skulls; then the doorway was still, and the prisoners rose up, grinning.

    Suddenly, Matt knew what was coming next, and tried to stop it. "Quietly, now! And slowly! We--"

    They ignored him. Very loudly, they ignored him. With a shout of triumph, they ignored him and poured out through the dungeon door, howling for revenge--and freedom.

    

    As they came out of the forest, relaxing and beginning to think the danger of ambush was over, the roof fell in.

    Or at least Gordogrosso's soldiers did. They fell from overhanging branches and leaped out of the underbrush like living bushes, but ones with spear points. They made no sound, though, other than the scrape of metal and the clash of steel. They would have taken the queen and her men completely by surprise, if Sauvignon hadn't been watching, suspicious of magic.

    He let loose a yell that could have waked the dead and whipped his sword out. Startled, Alisande looked up, saw a man leaping toward her, shouted, "Above!" and whipped out her blade as she kneed her horse aside.

    Behind her, her men looked up, too, then let out a fearful shout as they crowded into clumps, trying to avoid the living projectiles.

    So, of course, some of the enemy soldiers fell right atop the clumps.

    Ugly cracking sounds came from their landings--before the broken ones' mates stabbed down with a bellow of anger. Other ambushers fell on the road, and the few that survived the fall were dazed and easy meat for Alisande's pikemen.

    But the road before them filled in with mounted men, behind three ranks of foot soldiers.

    "Retreat!" Alisande cried. "Back, in good order! We will come at these in another fashion!"

    Emboldened, the enemy knights roared a command and rode slowly down the roadway behind the running ranks of their men.

    Alisande set a good example by chopping down a few in the front rank even as she urged her horse backward. Behind her, grudgingly, her men gave way--save for a few who ducked around her to stab at the enemy. Still, foot by foot, the forces of Merovence retired, but thinned the ranks of their attackers as they went.

    At the rear, Sauvignon bawled orders, and the more-alert footmen began to climb the trees.

    Ten more paces, and the enemy army halted, seeing Merovencian soldiers perched up high among the branches. One or two of the climbers were hefting stones experimentally.

    Ibilian men went scurrying up the trunks again, and the Army of Evil withdrew, slowly.

    Alisande's footmen roared with delight and leaped in pursuit.

    "Hold!" she bellowed. "That way lies death!"

    Unconvinced but obedient, her men came to a surly halt.

    "Retire to the edge of this wood," Alisande ordered, "for we cannot pass the night here."

    "But, Majesty!" a sergeant protested, "we shall lose what we have gained!"

    " 'Tis better than losing our lives," the queen rejoined. "Take your men and go."

    The Ibilians drew back out of sight--but Alisande had no doubt they were there, crouched and ready.

    As her men came back into the little meadow before the woods, Sauvignon bawled orders to pitch camp. Reluctantly, they turned to obey. Everyone knew right where to go--to the buried embers of last night's fire.

    "How shall we dislodge the enemy from these trees, Majesty?" Sauvignon asked.

    "Why, by sending rangers above, to find and strike down at them," Alisande said wearily, "and all the footmen to follow them. Then, when we have taken the heights, may we bring the horses through."

    " 'Tis well." Sauvignon grinned beneath his visor. "Myself, I think I shall become a footman anon." And he turned to spread the good word.

    Alisande watched him go and felt a pang of regret as she watched his athletic, mail-clad figure moving among the men. She turned away, murmuring, "Ah, Matthew! Wherefore could you not have been well born?"

    It would be so easy if he were only here--or did it just seem that way? No, surely her Matthew could have wrought a spell that would have sent these hedge sorcerers packing, and would have made the Ibilian soldiers fall from their trees like ripe fruit before her army, ready for the gathering.

    "Where are you now, my love?" she murmured, gazing off toward the woods and Orlequedrille. "Of what do you speak?"

    Or to whom?

    She felt a stab of panic at that--had he met another woman, one softer and more compliant? She had not forgotten how completely Matt had fallen victim to the charms of the lust-witch Sayeesa, nor how she had needed to hew her way in to rescue him. Even then, it was only his oath of fealty that had saved them all, not his love for her.

    "What a fool I was," she swore, "not to make sure of him whiles I could! Ah my love, my love--an I find you again, be certain I shall wrap you quickly to an altar and a priest, ere you may make your escape from me again!"

    But her heart sank at the very words. Did he truly think of his quest as an escape? Given his free choice, would he really choose her?

    And would his choice be free? Would he, himself? Or did he, at this moment, languish in the dungeon of the sorcerer-king? Had he been put to the torture? Her heart began to race as she pictured him on the rack--though Heaven knew he deserved some pain, for abandoning her so!

    But it was Heaven's doing after all, was it not? If Heaven had not wished him to sally forth against Ibile, surely his foolish oath would have had no effect.

    Could Heaven strengthen him enough, against Ibile's sorcerers?

    What blasphemy even to think it! If Heaven wished to scour the land of sorcery, assuredly it had the power...

    But did the people wish it? The common folk, and the sorcerers who led them? For surely, God had given people the power to choose their own destinies, wisely or foolishly, and would not compel folk to choose well.

    As Heaven would not constrain Matthew to choose wisely.

    A stab of pure panic pierced her. Could her Matthew have wearied of virtue? Could he have fallen prey to the temptations of carnal pleasure and worldly power? For he was, surely, in a land where they who worked magic held dominion over all their fellows. Could Matthew have succumbed?

    But no, he did not seek power...

    Or did he?

    All her old suspicions welled up again. Did Matthew want her because he loved her, or because he loved her power? Did he seek a love match, or a throne?

    If only he had been well born, like Sauvignon!

    Or, said the nasty voice of conscience, like Duke Astaulf? Duke Astaulf, who had usurped her father's throne, then slain him. His soul toiled in Purgatory now, though it had wrought enough evil here on earth, in its time. Surely birth could yield as much ambition as its lack. Nay, more, for it had an easier channel for its striving.

    Might Matthew, then, have sought the easier channel? Might he, perish the thought, have joined with the sorcerers in their government of evil?

    "Heaven forbid!" Alisande whispered with a shudder, and drew her cloak more tightly around her as she sent up an earnest prayer that her love would still be free when she found him, still devoted to God, Good, and Merovence...

    And to Alisande, of course. Pray Heaven he had not found another woman!

     

CHAPTER 28

Offensive Defenses

     

    They burst out into the keep, a mob of filthy skeletons in tatters, wide-eyed and howling.

    "After them!" Matt shouted. "There's still a chance!"

    They charged up the dungeon stairs, nearly tripping in the dim light of the sconced torches, but by the time they reached the top step, it was too late. The huge oaken doors were broken; two mangled guards and a dying prisoner lay on the floor. The ground floor was an armory, and the prisoners were catching up weapons and turning on the guards like maniacs--which many of them probably were, by now. More guards came running, from the upper stories and from the courtyard.

    "They blew it," Matt groaned. "What can we do for them now?"

    "See that their sacrifice is not in vain." Sir Guy gripped his shoulder. "Use the diversion they have given you! Outside, Wizard! To the gate!"

    Matt pulled himself together and stepped out into the armory. In the center of the huge room, guards were flailing at the riot of prisoners. Matt beckoned to his crew and sidled along the wall, heading for the main door.

    They made it without a hitch, swinging around the side of the great portal--and coming face-to-face with a huge captain who was just running up with a dozen guards at his back. He put on the brakes and shouted, "Seize them!"

    The soldiers dived for Matt and his people.

    Maid Marian brought around her quarterstaff, the others raised their swords, and Fadecourt prowled forward, arms out to grab--but Matt shouted, "Hold, good guardsmen! Is't not enough that your king has scourged us forth with derision? Admittedly, our performance may not have been the most amusing--but are we to be pilloried for bad acting?"

    He had an answer for that, but fortunately the captain didn't. He held up a hand to halt his troops, frowning. "What manner of vagabonds are you, then, who go armed in the king's castle?"

    "Wandering players," Matt improvised, "and our weapons and armor are lath and buckram." He forced a laugh. "O worthy Captain! Would you believe that such poor folk as we could bear the weight of real armor?"

    The captain glanced at Sir Guy, unsure--then his gaze lit on Fadecourt, and he relaxed. Matt didn't--he was waiting for the man to ask about Stegoman. He risked a glance back--and there was no sight of the dragon! Matt felt a moment of panic, afraid for his friend, then reminded himself that dragons can take care of themselves, and Stegoman probably had his reasons for hiding out.

    Matt had to admit, it had been a good idea.

    " 'Tis bad enough to have been cuffed and kicked for our pains," he grumbled, "when we had hoped for silver, and expected copper at least--or dinner, if naught else!"

    The captain grinned. "The king is hard to please." He looked up over their heads, frowning. "What noise is that?"

    "Critics." Matt sighed. "A disappointed audience. What, are they still shouting after us?"

    The captain didn't look all that sure, but one of his men volunteered, "They are naught, Captain. Let us cuff them on their way."

    "Aye," another said. "Only a few blows with a truncheon, Captain!"

    But an evil grin spread over the captain's face as he looked over the motley crew before him. His eyes sparked as he looked at Yverne and Marian in their shifts, but the hullabaloo inside deterred him, and he only said, "Nay. We shall escort them to the gate. Will it not be pleasant to see them step out?"

    His men frowned--but one of them, a little brighter than the rest, suddenly got the idea. His lips spread into a very nasty grin, and he elbowed his fellow, who turned to him, frowning, caught his wink, and suddenly grinned with him.

    "Ladies!" The captain gave them a mocking bow and stood aside. "Gentlemen! After you!"

    They stepped forward, seeming very uncertain--and Matt knew their hearts were thudding just as his was. The gate? Perfect.

    But why were the soldiers so happy to guide them?

    Because they knew there was an army of archers outside! They expected the vagabonds to be turned into pincushions!

    "That one, at least, is too good to waste," a soldier muttered to his mate as Yverne passed by, pale but resolute.

    "Damn your eyes!" the captain barked, and the soldier started with horror. No wonder, considering what words could do here.

    They almost made it; it almost went without a hitch. But, about twenty yards from the gate, a man in a dark blue robe sprinkled with zodiacal signs turned to see what was going on--and his eyes locked on Matt.

    Matt could feel the sorcerer's magical field probing his own, clashing with his own, saw the man's mouth opening, heard him shout, "Seize them! Slay them! That one is a white wizard!"

    The captain jerked to a halt, startled, but Fadecourt knew what to do. He slammed into the officer, bawling, and ran right over him as he fell, diving toward the sorcerer--who made a small motion with his hand as he chanted a quick rhyme, and Fadecourt's trajectory abruptly swerved to miss. Instead, he slammed headlong into the gate.

    Almost headlong--he managed to flip over in midair, landed feet first, and bounced to the ground.

    Maid Marian was there by that time, heaving at the bar--and Yverne was stepping up to the sorcerer with a seductive smile and saying, "Why do you worry over such nothings? Nay, have you no time for a vagabond lass?"

    The sorcerer looked startled, then began an, uncertain smile--and Yverne's little fist hooked up in an uppercut, slamming him back against the soldiers behind him.

    But another sorcerer stood guard at the gate, and shouted, "Hold!" as he performed some elaborate gestures, ending with finger pointing stiffly at Marian and Fadecourt--who suddenly slowed, almost stopping, the huge bar in their hands.

    Matt leaped up between them. The time for secrecy was over. He held up a hand like a traffic cop, shouting,

    "Let the blow return unto the giver!
    Turn and to its source deliver!"

    It didn't quite make sense, but it was enough--Marian and Fadecourt staggered with sudden release as the sorcerer shot back against the wood of the gate. The cyclops and the maid heaved the bar up and out, and Matt shouted,

    "Open locks,
    Whoever knocks!"

    The huge iron lock groaned as its innards turned; Fadecourt and Maid Marian threw their weight against the huge leaves, and the doors boomed open.

    Sir Guy was fencing madly with sword and dagger, holding off three guardsmen who were frantically trying to hew their way to the portal, to close the doors. More guards came pounding, and Fadecourt and Marian turned to grapple with them. The maid's staff whirled like a flail, threshing a human crop, and Fadecourt picked up two soldiers at a time, hurling them back against their fellows. Yverne's sword was a blur, holding two soldiers at bay.

    But two more minor sorcerers came running, their hands windmilling.

    Matt decided to get the jump on them, and started reciting verses of his own--but he could see a veritable human wave building up inside the keep, about to fall on them...

    Shouts of triumph pealed behind him, but he didn't dare to look until he saw the knights ride past him, men who had fought beside Sir Guy at the siege. Right behind them came a tide of Lincoln green, quarterstaves slamming out to break swords and pates, and a mob of commoners behind them with scythes and staves. Matt was caught up and borne by a human tide. He turned, bobbing in it like a cork, saw Robin's army streaming in through the gates, more soldiers thundering up behind him, and something towering against the sky, but he couldn't make out what it was before he was spun about to face front, as the human river slammed into the tidal wave of guards.

    Then, for a few minutes, all was bellowing and screaming and confusion. Crossbow bolts hailed down from the walls, and attacking peasants fell, but so did defenders--the men of evil weren't worried about how many of their own they killed, as long as they wiped out the invaders. But Robin's merry men were already swarming up the stairs to the battlements, leaping on the crossbowmen and dispatching them with well-aimed blows of the quarterstaves. They didn't fire down into the courtyard-too much chance of hitting their own men--but they did blockade the stairs and hold them against the king's troops rushing up to charge them. Quarterstaff met pike in a furious, staccato concerto, and the king's soldiers fell like the spume of a river running into rapids.

    The other half of the merry men were following Robin back into the keep, or trying to--guards kept getting in their way. Robin squared off against the big captain; there was a furious clanging of swords; then the captain was falling, and Robin was turning to help Little John against a band of five. His men echoed him; throughout the courtyard, pairs of foresters stood back-to-back, dispatching soldiers left and right. Blood stained the Lincoln green, and here and there a man fell--but very few.

    The peasants bellowed with ferocious joy. They had weapons in their hands, and the hated king's livery in front of them; they were busy paying back old scores. Many of them died, but the frenzy was on them, and they scarcely seemed to notice.

    "I can't believe it!" Matt stared, then had to turn quickly to parry and cut. But it was incredible--his troops were winning!

    Then the king began to call up his reinforcements. With a bellow, a horrendous lion, with the face of a man and several sets of jaws, came stalking out of a tower, roaring. It set upon the peasants, chewing them up and tossing them aside. From the opposing tower, another lion stalked--only this one had wings, and a dragon's tail.

    "A manticore and a chimera!" Robin drew his bow. "Aid me, Tuck!"

    Friar Tuck gave a last blow of his sword, dispatched an opponent, and made the Sign of the Cross over him as he stepped back, sword down but buckler up, lips moving in a quick prayer for the soul of the fallen man. Then he looked up at the manticore, held up his hilt as a cross, and looked up to Heaven, saying something Matt couldn't hear--but Robin loosed, and his arrow slammed into the manticore's breast. It howled and leaped into the air, clawing and biting at the arrow--and fell back, dead.

    Robin drew another arrow--but Matt's attention was diverted by a shout from the walls. Tentacles slapped over the battlements, drawing up after them huge, loathsome forms, half squid and half man, reaching out to catch and crush. The merry men and peasants chopped off arms with swords, but the monsters only hissed in fury and squeezed harder.

    But other forms sprang up behind them, small, dark, and darting--and changing form even as they attacked, metamorphosing from seals into naked men who struck with spears taken from dead narwhals. The squid-men hooted and turned to strike back at them, but the silkies danced back; this was an old and familiar game to them. Matt shouted with delight; the old king of Ys had sent his descendants against the abomination who fouled his waters. The merry men shouted, too, rallying and striking the monsters from behind.

    Matt would have loved to watch them turn the squid-men into chowder, but he had to spare some attention for the guardsmen who were trying to carve out his liver. He was just getting them under control when a tearing snarl filled the sky, and defenders and attackers looked up in alarm, then stared in fright. Matt spared a quick glance and saw a host of gnarled dark forms scuttling across the sky, with a clattering of wings. For a moment, he thought he was in The Wizard of Oz, looking at winged monkeys--then he saw the faces and realized he'd done the monkeys a grave injustice. The faces were distorted visages out of nightmare--or off the roofs of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. They were more gargoyles come to life, but the flying kind this time, a hundred of them, swarming down at the defenders.

    But a tawny streak split the sky, screaming as it dove into the herd of gargoyles, shrieking with rage, catching the monsters in its beak, raking them with its claws in a fury--Narlh, letting himself go without the slightest trace of inhibition, finally striking back at the force that had bled him for so long. But there were many of them, too many, and they pounced on the dracogriff from all sides. He went into a frenzy, snapping and biting all about him--but they were overwhelming him by sheer force of numbers. Matt started to form a spell to help him, but just then, two guards jumped him with whirling pikes, and he had to fall back and pay attention to fighting. When he had knocked them out of the way and cut off their spear heads, he looked back up to see the sky darkening, and felt a thrill of fear at the weather effects the king could call up--until he realized there was something glowing up there, off to the east, something that was growing larger very quickly, with a swarm of darker, huger shapes behind it. "Ghost!" Matt shouted in relief, then turned to parry a halberd, chop off its head, and swat the guard aside with a shield he grabbed up. When he looked up again, the ghost was swooping toward the top of the keep, but the dragons had dived into the battle with all claws out and flames roaring. The gargoyles shrieked as iron-hard scales shouldered them aside and glittering claws raked them from the skies. They fought back with ferocity, biting and clawing, and dragon blood misted the air--but the sorcerers were too busy to try to gather it up.

    Ichor was raining, too, though, and gargoyles hurtled down like cannonballs. A shout went up, and guards and invaders danced aside as the skies cleared of enemies, the dragons swooping and roaring. Narlh screamed with delight, in his element at last, on the same side as the dragons.

    Then the gargoyle ichor struck, and men howled as it spattered them and burned. With unvoiced accord, the soldiers and attackers both left off fighting and ran for cover.

    "Come!" Sir Guy pulled Matt away toward the door of the keep. "This is not your place! Peasants and outlaws can hold only so long against evil magic--you must cut out the corrupted heart of this corpse!"

    They turned, but they could scarcely push through the jam-up--with a caustic rain falling from the skies, every man was struggling to get indoors. They shouted and flailed, the king's guards trying to cut their way through, making a din that drowned out the battle above--until a huge roar boomed out, and men screamed and shouted and scrambled aside from the tongues of flame that slashed out at them. Matt stumbled to his feet, facing the door of the keep, and found it filled with a dragon. "Stegoman!" he yelled with relief--just before the merry men caught him up as they streamed through the doors to either side of the dragon, swirling him into the armory where the current broke up into eddies of merry men fighting Gordogrosso's guards.

    Matt leaped aside, refusing to let himself be sidetracked. He ducked and dodged between fighting groups, heading for the broad main staircase, some strange compulsion pushing him on and up. There wasn't time! He had to hurry, not forget what the core of this battle was all about. On and upward he ran, up the stairs to find and fight the king. Guards leaped out to challenge him, huge men in rococo armor--but Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Sir Guy dispatched them with a few cuts and parries each, finding the weak points in their armor that decorations hid. Fadecourt heaved the huge men up and tossed them crashing behind him, where Yverne jabbed between gorget and breastplate with her sword and ran on, her face set into stone, her eyes burning.

    Then, suddenly, they were out of the stairwell and into the throne room. Matt stopped, suddenly awed by the huge space and the gloom that clustered above, hiding the dark ceiling--and quailing, for a moment, at the sight of the huge armored figure, a twelve-foot-high ogre with four arms and the ugliest face he could imagine, who bellowed laughter and shouted, "Fools! To think you can come against Gordogrosso the king, and live! Now die!"

    Fireballs filled the air, hissing toward each of the companions.

    Matt shouted,
    "E'en the last ball of fire
    Is faded and done!
    All its blazing companions
    Have flamed out and gone!"

    And the balls faded and disappeared before they could reach his friends.

    The sorcerer snarled and gestured, shouting a rhyme in a language that seemed to slide around the consonants, hissing and clacking--and a forest of spears sprang up from the floor, shooting toward Matt and his friends.

    But Matt was ready for that one. He shouted another verse:

    "Nine and twenty knights of fame,
    Lend your shields to this wide hall!
    That all these spears, with points of shame,
    Shall be deflected, and downward fall!"

    A wall of shields suddenly blocked their sight of the throne room; the spears slammed into them and rattled back harmlessly. Then Matt called out,

    "Thanks, nine and twenty knights of fame!
    Take back your shields to whence they came!"

    The shields disappeared--but the king was hissing another enchantment, his fingers weaving sinuous patterns in the air. The spears turned into snakes, writhing toward the companions with fangs bared.

    They all had swords; they all started chopping--except Fadecourt, who seized vipers by the handful and threw them back among their fellows. But Matt shouted,

    "At the hole where he came in,
    Red-Eye said to Wrinkle-Skin
    (Hear what little Red-Eye saith!)
    Snake, come out and dance with Death!"

    The floor was suddenly filled with small furry bodies, dancing and red-eyed. The snakes turned from the humans to these much more dire threats, hissing and weaving, each faced with a mongoose.

    Gordogrosso reddened and howled another spell. The air glittered and glimmered, forms becoming apparent, and Matt watched, waiting with apprehension--and wondered why the huge man didn't wade into physical battle while he was spellcasting.

    Unless he wasn't really all that physical?

    Then the glittering hardened into a thousand diamond points.

    Matt saw what was coming, and shouted,

    "The boss comes along, and he says, "Keep still!
    And come down heavy on a diamond point drill!
    And drill ye Tarriers, drill!' "

    The points shot toward the companions like buckshot-but a swarm of men was suddenly there, catching the diamonds out of the sky and slamming them into the stone with sledgehammers.

    Gordogrosso barked a command, and the Tarriers disappeared--but so did the diamond points.

    Matt managed to get a verse started while he was barking, though.

    "Now is an end to all confusion--
    Now is an end to all illusion!
    What truly is the king, we now shall see,
    For such as we are made of, such we be!"

    The king screamed; his huge form grew cloudy and shrank, then was suddenly gone--and in its place was a little, gnarled, ancient figure, hunched over, with a huge nose and thin wisps of mustache. His chin receded so badly that it was scarcely there, and his eyes were glittering beads of malevolence.

    "Why, how is this?" Yverne gasped.

    "It was illusion," Matt snapped, "the ogre. This is what he really is."

    "But so old..."

    "Yes." Matt nodded, with grim certainty. 'They were all illusions--Gordogrosso the Second, Third, and Fourth. There was only the one of them, all along--two hundred years old, and more. This is the original usurper we're looking at."

    "Then he never was legitimate!"

    "Vile creatures!" the ancient screamed. "Stinking traitors!" From out of his gorgeous brocade robes, he drew a shriveled hand that was almost a claw, wrapped around a glowing ring. "Let the hellfire have ye!"

    He hurled the ring like a quoit, and as it sailed toward them, it grew larger and larger, settling about the six companions before they could run--and burst into flame.

    Its searing heat hit like the belch of a blast furnace. The women screamed as their hair and dresses smoked, and a tongue of flame licked Sir Guy. He howled as the heat conducted through his armor. Fadecourt took a valiant chance; he leaped high, arcing over the tops of the flames toward the king--but a flare shot up and wrapped him in fire. He fell, bellowing in pain, rolling in agony and batting at the tongues.

    "They will not die!" the old king cackled in vindictive glee. " 'Tis hellfire!"

    Inspiration struck, and Matt shouted out,

    "The quality of mercy is not strained;
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven
    Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
    It is mightiest in the mightiest;
    It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown;
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
    It is an attribute to God himself!"

    Moisture filled the huge chamber, condensing and falling in a soft but continuous rain. The fire hissed with the tongues of a thousand snakes, but slackened and died under the rain of mercy--and where the drops touched, charred flesh healed. The ladies cried out in relief, and Fadecourt rolled to his feet with a shuddering sigh.

    The king screamed in fury and gestured.

    Suddenly, the air was filled with offal.

    But Matt had put up with enough. He whipped the wand from his belt and whirled it about his head, shouting a protective spell.

    The garbage pelted toward them--and bounced back off the unseen wall of the wand's force.

    "Max!" Matt shouted. "Make the monarch need new clothes! Unbind his bonds!"

    "As you will, Wizard!" The Demon streaked toward the king, who howled in frustration and batted at the darting spark--but even as he did, his luminous brocade fell apart, leaving him naked. His wrinkled, emaciated body was elongated, with short bowlegs; his arms were much too short for him, ending in claw-hands. Sir Guy and Robin Hood laughed at his nakedness.

    The king searched them out with a murderous glare and shouted a spell, directing its energy with both hands cupped toward them.

    Sparks sprang up all about the companions, raw energy striking Matt's wand-shield, coruscating in a million sparks--and growing smaller as the king droned on like a buzz saw in a high, shrill, nasal whine. Matt clamped his jaw and swung the wand more swiftly, putting every ounce of energy into holding the warding circle. It held, but he could feel the strain and knew he couldn't keep this up forever--and defense doesn't win wars. Worse, the king must have been preparing an even more dire spell, because there was suddenly a huge thumping sound, outside but growing closer, as of some huge monster looming toward them...

    Then the wall caved in.

    Blocks of stone shot out into the middle of the room, caroming off the walls and slamming into the floor. The king screamed and whirled, eyes wide, to face this new menace--and the shower of sparks ceased in his distraction.

    A huge fist had slammed through the outer wall. It withdrew, and a vast face filled it, calling, "Wizard! I come!"

    "Colmain!" Matt shouted, joy filling him at the sight of the ugly face of the giant who was bound to protect the Royal House of Merovence. "And the queen?"

    "She comes." The huge face swam away, replaced by the huge hand--but spread flat this time, as a gangplank for the noble horse that sprang through the breach with a bright-haired figure in full armor astride, a blazing sword whirling about her.

    The sorcerer screamed, and a hundred guardsmen were suddenly there, looking about them in confusion, then seeing the queen and turning their pikes toward her with a shout--but she howled back, hewing her way through them toward Gordogrosso. Behind her, ladders thumped against the hole, and soldiers started pouring into the throne room. Another knight swung up on the giant's palm and sprang through the hole, cutting his way quickly to Alisande's side. Then the other huge fist slammed-through the wall, and stone blocks showered the guards; some fell, crushed, and the others retreated in terror.

    It was long enough for Matt to recite the most devastating spell he could think of. He thundered the verse, wand leveled toward Gordogrosso, directing the spell. The ancient sorcerer spun to face him, eyes wide in horror as the magic bounded into his mind, restoring the conscience that he had so long ago expunged and giving him an instant and starkly truthful view of himself and his actions. "Nooooo!" the king screeched, falling to his knees with his fists knotted in his hair. "I cannot have been so vile a man! A pollution upon the earth! A desecration in creation! Ah, let me undo it! Give me the time back, the years that I have despoiled with my cruelty!"

    "What magic is this?" Sir Guy cried, staring.

    "The only real check on the worst parts of human nature," Matt said grimly. "It's called the "moral impulse'!"

    "I repent me!" the king shouted, tearing off his crown and hurling it from him. "I abjure the throne! I will divest me of all my ill-gotten gains! I will say where the true crown of Ibile is buried, that it may be bestowed upon a rightful king!"

    The crown exploded.

    It burst into dark, roiling smoke shot through with flames, a huge towering cloud that boiled up to the ceiling and churned in upon itself, with the flame at its heart hardening and forming into the shape of a vast, fiery rat.

    "A demon!" Yverne shrieked.

    "No, no, my master!" Gordogrosso howled. "I did not mean it, I but prattled without thought!"

    But a huge, claw-tipped finger jabbed down at him out of the cloud, and the giant rat boomed, "You have failed! Enough, Gordogrosso! You swore to bring Hell on earth, and you have brought nought but nightmare!" A huge hand followed the finger, opening and wrapping itself around the huddled form of the king.

    "No, master, no!" the king shrieked. "I will not repent, I will not do good! I swear it! I will be your faithful servant, as I have ever been! I will defile, I will forswear, I will betray!"

    "You are forsworn already, and have betrayed me!" The huge snout opened, revealing a fiery maw lined with steel dagger-teeth. The clawed paw lifted the screaming king and pushed him, with deliberation, into the flaming mouth. Steel teeth clashed shut; the demon swallowed.

    Then its whole form burst into flame, and it turned, bellowing, "What my servant has failed to do, I will effect! You, Wizard, shall die in the torment of flame--and you also, Cyclops! You, maiden!"

    Flaming claws reached for them.

    Sir Guy shouted and darted in front of Yverne, but the vast paw knocked him aside as the demon snarled like nails on glass.

    "No!" Matt leaped in front of Yverne and leveled the wand. "I don't know why you're picking her out, but you can't have her! Back off!"

    The rat-demon bellowed, "So much the easier! Two in one catch!" and reached for them with wicked laughter.

    "Never!" Alisande kicked her horse; it shied away, so she leaped to the ground, planting herself in front of Matt. "Avaunt thee!"

    The demon's cackling filled the hall. "Richer and richer!" The huge paw scooped toward them, the other reaching out for Fadecourt...

    Then the ghost appeared, a pale wraith in the light of the fire--but the being behind him was a blaze of light that burned white against the orange of the flames, and its voice was a trumpet blast. "Get thee gone, devil! Thou mayest have no place here! As the Almighty commanded thee, begone! Get back to thine own place, and burn!"

    The demon shrieked, rearing back, its whole face contorted by rage--but the glowing figure snapped out an arm, forefinger pointing, and a searing beam of white light shot out, spearing the demon through the brain, then moving downward inexorably. The rat-devil screamed and disappeared in an explosion that deafened them all as it passed. Then it was gone, only a charred circle on the floor showing where it had stood.

    They turned to look, but the glowing presence was gone, too.

    The whole room was silent.

    Then Yverne began to weep, softly, and Sir Guy gathered her in his arms.

    "Gentlemen, uncover," Friar Tuck said into the hush. "We have been blessed with a visitation of spirit who dwells in the presence of God, a holy saint--the patron of this land."

    "Saint Iago!" Alisande breathed.

    Friar Tuck nodded. "Know that, in two supernatural entities of equal rank, the good one will ever be more powerful than the evil. The demon knew all was lost, but it had nothing further to lose by the attempt, so it manifested itself and sought to do, by its own force, what its agents had failed in yet again. But God has forbidden the spawn of Hell to interfere themselves in human matters--we mortals must be left to work out our destinies for ourselves, to choose salvation or damnation as we will. Therefore did God send one of His saints as a channel for His own Power, that Grace might stand against Evil--and, as it always must, Grace stood triumphant. For Good is stronger than Evil, and will always win in the end."

    The people stood in silence, dazzled by what they had seen, exalted and humbled at the same time, and rejoicing that they had been there to see it.

     

CHAPTER 29

Masks and Matches

     

    The air was split by a howl. Shocked, the crowd turned to see who had cried.

    Fadecourt was up on the dais, hurling the cushions away from the throne, searching all about on his hands and knees, sifting through the dust that had been the king's robes, howling, "Where is it? Where? It cannot have been turned to powder with his robes! It cannot have burned with him--he was naked!" He leaped to his feet. "His workroom! It will be in his workroom!"

    "His workroom was here," muttered a stunned guard. "He never moved from out of this chamber."

    Matt looked up, startled; he'd have to check for warding spells.

    "Then 'tis yon!" Fadecourt ran toward a tapestry, yanked it down. There was only blank wall, so he yanked down another, and another.

    "Has he lost his wits?" Sir Guy said in a low voice.

    "Assuredly, the sight of the demon has driven him mad," Maid Marian said. "Wizard, can you cure--"

    " 'Tis here!" Fadecourt tore down another tapestry with a cry of triumph, revealing a long workbench with towering shelves above it. He leaped up onto the table and began to yank at jar after jar, scanning the labels, then hurling them aside. Glass crashed, pottery shattered. Dark and noisome things littered the floor; stench filled the air.

    "Wizard, stop him!" Robin Hood coughed. "He will poison us all!"

    Matt hated to do it, but he thought up a spell to sedate the cyclops--it was just a matter of time before he broke a jar that held some really toxic charm...

    Then Fadecourt held up a small jar with a cry of triumph. "I have found it! 'Tis mine again!"

    They all stared; trying to make out what was in the jar, but all they could see was a murky fluid with a lump floating in it.

    Fadecourt yanked the lid off and scooped out the lump. Yverne cried out, but before they could stop him, he had pressed it against his forehead.

    "He is surely demented!" Sir Guy moaned--but Yverne gasped, staring.

    For Fadecourt was growing.

    Growing, and swelling--his huge muscles redistributing themselves, the stone of his arm becoming living flesh, and his single eye moving over to leave room for the lump where Fadecourt had set it. As they stared, it came alive, gaining luster, and sank into his skin, the bone hollowing itself into a new socket--and two eyes stared out at them. Fadecourt cried out in pain, but also in triumph--and he stood before them, tall and straight, a normal human man, arms upraised in thanks. The ghost hovered beside, smiling.

    This man was still very muscular, though--and very handsome. Alisande and Yverne both blinked, then stood a little straighter, and Maid Marian purred, "What a fine figure of a man is this!"

    "Not too fine, I trust?" Robin looked up sharply.

    "None could ever compare to you, my lord," she answered, taking his arm. "But I rejoice to see the man returned to his natural form."

    "But is it his natural form?" Matt frowned. "Let's have it, Fadecourt! What happened? And what does the ghost have to do with this?"

    "Call me not Fadecourt, friend Matthew," the tall man said, still in the cyclops' voice. He grinned as he jumped down to the floor. "That is the name the sorcerer gave me, in mockery, when he stole my eye by his magic. Call me the name I was given at birth--Rinaldo del Beria."

    "The prince!" Alisande cried. "The rightful heir to Ibile, dead these many years!"

    "Nay, lady and Majesty, to whom I stand in debt." The prince turned and bowed to her. "I had gone into hiding, many years ago, when still a child--and those who loved me gave out news that I was dead, the better to protect me till I was grown. But the sorcerer set hounds upon me, single-minded sorcerers, who rested not till they had found me. Then his soldiers came to take me prisoner, though I slew a dozen of them--I was no child then, but a man grown, though very young--and haled me here, to the king's throne room, there to transform me into a shape that my countrymen would never honor as a king."

    "Thanks be to Heaven he did not slay you!" Yverne cried.

    "Thanks to Heaven, indeed--but he said he would gain magical strength by my living in humiliation, and spurned me from him with his foot. My eye he kept as a charm--and I thank Heaven again, that he had not yet seen fit to use it in a potion! All these years since, I have sought a means of overthrowing him--and thanks to yon knight and the Lord Wizard, I have found it!"

    "Yet here is a pretty mess." Sir Guy had turned somber, but he said the words as one who has to do a duty he would rather shirk. "This lady is the daughter of the Duke of Toumarre, the only lord left who was not one of the sorcerer's pawns, and great-great-grandchild of the last king! She is the rightful heir!"

    Alisande looked as if she were about to ask how Sir Guy knew, but she held her peace; nobody really doubted the Black Knight's word, or wondered about the source of his knowledge.

    They all turned to stare at Yverne.

    " 'Tis true," she said. " 'Twas not for my father's lands alone, that the sorcerer and the Duke Bruitfort wished to catch me."

    "Bruitfood" Alisande turned and beckoned to her knights. They parted, and two of their number hustled a man to the front and hurled him to the floor at the queen's feet.

    "The duke!" Yverne gasped.

    "Even so," Alisande said. "The wicked duke, none other, whose castle I invested whiles he lay unconscious, and his men rode willy-nilly in search of something that had evaded them."

    Bruitfort looked up at them, drawn and forlorn, his massive shoulders slumped, his arms and legs loaded with chains. He looked about him, saw the final death of all his ambitions, and turned gray.

    "Speak, sirrah!" Alisande commanded. "Is't true, what the maiden says? Did you seek her hand to assist you to the throne?"

    The duke looked up, read the death notice in her face, and said, "Aye. Her claim is legitimate; she is the rightful heir. Thereby would I have gained the people's favor, as I sought to overthrow the sorcerer!"

    "Wait a minute." Matt frowned. "Somebody else seems to have some doubts."

    They all followed his gaze and saw the ghost, standing by the throne, shaking his head violently, looking appalled.

    "He does not wish it--and, since he is party to the wisdom of the Afterworld, I should think he has good reason." Fadecourt, now Prince Rinaldo, turned back to Sir Guy. "I, too, am the great-great-grandchild of the former king, Sir Guy, and by the male line."

    "She, too, is of the male line, and of the elder branch," Sir Guy said. "Milady, tell them your lineage."

    Yverne looked at him with wide, frightened eyes--almost hurt, Matt thought--but she spoke. "Tomas, the last rightful king, had two sons. Of the elder am I descended, for he was my father's father's father's father's father."

    "And I am descended from his younger son." Prince Rinaldo frowned. "From the elder sons of the younger son."

    "But of the cadet branch nonetheless--and here's a stew!" Alisande looked from the one to other, frowning. "The lady is of the elder's line, but is herself a woman--and the male line holds strongest claim! While the prince is of the cadet branch, but is a man!"

    "Their claims are equal." Sir Guy's mood seemed to be lightening.

    The ghost drifted forward, making hand signals, pantomiming.

    "She." Matt frowned, following the pointing fingers. "He...and she?"

    The ghost joined his two hands in front of him.

    "He means that they should wed!" Alisande cried. "Aye, here's the way to unravel the coil! Two claims of equal strength, united--and Ibile's throne is secure! None could doubt that their offspring would be rightful heirs!"

    Sir Guy turned away, looking thunderous.

    Yverne glanced at him, then turned back to Alisande, wide-eyed. "By your leave, Majesty--I had liefer abdicate."

    "Abdicate?" Alisande stared. So did Rinaldo--wounded.

    "I will forswear my claim to the throne." Yverne lowered her eyes demurely. "I will forswear it for myself, and for all heirs of my body that I may bear."

    "Why, how is this, lady?" Prince Rinaldo cried, woebegone. "You cannot wander homeless!"

    "She cannot, nor can she take up again her father's estates, for her mere presence within Ibile will be a focus for discontent, and an impetus toward rebellion," Alisande said. "Lady, you must wed or be exiled."

    "Then I shall be an exile," Yverne answered, without a moment's hesitation. "I shall retire to some hidden hermitage where none shall ever find me, provided..." She glanced up at Sir Guy's back.

    "Provided?" Alisande prompted. "What is this proviso? Mind you, the idea itself is excellent--you would be removed from contention for the throne, but you, or your heirs, might be found if there were need. But what is your proviso?"

    "That Sir Guy de Toutarien shall escort me to my place of exile," Yverne said, "and shall himself choose that hiding place, so that none other may ever know of it."

    Sir Guy looked up in surprise.

    Yverne met his eyes, then looked down and blushed.

    Prince Rinaldo stood taken aback, amazed, elated--and crestfallen. "Milady, do not! 'Twould be hard, immensely hard on you, to be shut away from the world so, never to return to your home! You are too vibrant, too filed with joy of life, and take too much delight in company to endure such solitude! And will there not still be the promise of rebellion? For no one will believe that anyone would willingly give up a kingdom to become a hermit! I am your friend, at least, and would not see you miserable!"

    "I will not be miserable," she said quietly, and glanced at Sir Guy.

    He met her gaze, and his face fairly glowed. She blushed again and lowered her eyes once more, but he did not take his gaze from her face.

    "What say you, Sir Knight?" Alisande demanded. "Will you escort the lady hence, far from Ibile, and find her a hermitage secure? Will you swear never to reveal it to any soul, living or dead."

    "I will," Sir Guy said, "and will ever keep faith with her!" Rinaldo looked woebegone, and Matt's heart went out to him. To labor so long on the slenderest of hopes, to be exalted with victory one second, and cast down to despair the next!

    "All wounds shall mend," Friar Tuck said gently, "those of this land--and those of its people. All wounds shall mend, and joy shall fill them once again."

    "Mine, too?" Alisande turned slowly to Matt. "And yours, Lord Wizard? Nay, have you cast me so much into grief that your own is assuaged? Have you healed the hurt to your vanity by the wounds you have given my heart? Are you so lofty now, knowing that you have trod on a queen? Are you--"

    "My lady, enough!" Matt stepped forward, hope budding in his heart. "You mean you care?"

    "Care! Would I have fought my way across all of Ibile, aye, and grieved my soldiers and their wives, and all of Merovence belike, if I did not care? Would I have gnawed out my heart, hollowed my breast, stained my cheeks with rivers of...Oh!" She caught his arms in a fierce, iron-coated grip. "Matthew! I was so a-frighted that harm would come to you, that I would find your tattered corpse, that I would come too late...or that you might...might have..."

    "I didn't." After all, she was a queen, and in public--but the last thing Matt would have wanted would have been to see her humiliated, even if they'd been in private. He looked long and deeply into her eyes and wished he would never have to look away. "I'm still here," he murmured. "I'll always be here--and I'm free of my rash oath now, free to take another. Only this time, I'll mean it."

    She stared at him, her face paling. Then, abruptly, she let go of him and turned away, her face reddening.

    But Matt understood, now, the pride of a queen. He smiled and couldn't take his eyes off her.

    There was a huge hullabaloo from the hole in the wall.

    Everybody spun about just in time to see three huge forms hurtle past and hear voices saying:

    "Let me be, I tell you!"

    "Nay! Thou art wounded sore!"

    "Not as sore as your head! Look, I can fly--see?"

    "He does not fall quite so fast, 'tis true..."

    "He cannot lift. We must!"

    The three forms pulled back into sight--two dragons with a dracogriff in the middle.

    "I can land, at least!" Narlh squawked. "Let go--I can land!"

    "Don't listen to him!" Matt called. "Bring him inside!"

    The dracogriff was horribly burned. Wing feathers were scorched all along his left side, and large patches of his hide were missing. He squalled in sudden pain. "Easy, there! Y'didn't have to jam me against the stones, y'know!"

    "I regret," Stegoman huffed. " 'Tis so small a hole, do you see...Aside, small and soft ones! Our comrade is wounded; we must come unto the wizard who can cure him!"

    "Aside!" Alisande called. "Stand aside! Let them pass!"

    The soldiers crowded back, opening up an aisle from the stairwell--and two huge dragons limped into sight, Stegoman and a stranger. Between them, supported by their upraised wings, growling and protesting and complaining every inch of the way, limped Narlh. "Look, I...I can make it on my own...all...all right? I...don't need any help, I...Ouch! Go easy, there!"

    "Narlh!" Matt cried. "You're wounded!"

    "A scratch," the dracogriff snapped. "A little burn. So what? Look, it's not as if I can't fly, y'know!"

    "He cannot," Stegoman explained to Matt. "He has chased off the last of the gargoyles--in truth, I should say he fought half of them himself."

    "He is a doughty fighter," the other dragon said in tones of awe, "and wondrous in his valor. He is a source of great pride to us, that the blood of dragons flows in his veins!"

    "I just did what I had to," Narlh muttered, lowering his eyes.

    "As do any of us! But thou didst fight, with never a thought for thine own safety--or life! Nay, thou shalt dwell in honor in Dragondom for as long as thou shalt wish, whenever thou dost wish! We shall be elevated by thy presence."

    Narlh looked up at Matt, an incredulous joy in his eyes.

    "The last was the most huge," Stegoman explained to Matt. "He was half again my bulk, and his wings were granite. He struck me with them, battered me, would have knocked me out of the sky--had not this berserker pounced upon him with a scream of fury, struck at him again and again, enduring his flailing attack and his flame whiles the dragon folk beset the gargoyle and tore him apart. I take my life from thee this day, Narlh! I will be mightily honored if thou wilt let me claim brotherhood with thee, among all Dragondom."

    "Well...if you really want to..."

    "Let's see to those wounds first," Matt said briskly.

    "By your leave, Lord Wizard." Friar Tuck stepped forward. "I have some small skill at this. Good monsters, will you step aside with me?"

    "Awright, awright!" Narlh grumbled. "Just make it fast!"

    Matt grinned and turned back to his favorite view, Alisande's eyes. "Looks as if we came out of it all right, Majesty."

    "Aye," she said, returning his gaze, full depth. "We have."

    There was a sudden fanfare. Everyone looked around, startled--nobody had a trumpet to his lips. They looked at the throne...

    And saw the ghost, standing beside the gilded chair, beckoning to Prince Rinaldo.

    "Why, I know you now!" the prince cried. "Ever since I first saw you, I have known I had seen the resemblance to your face before!"

    "Yeah--in a mirror." Matt looked from one to the other. Allowing for age and another fifty pounds, the family resemblance was unmistakable.

    " 'Tis Tomas!" Rinaldo cried. " 'Tis the last rightful king!" The ghost hung his head.

    "Why do you stand ashamed! You have done naught to regret!"

    The ghost looked up, tears streaming from his eyes, and Sir Guy, that repository of all the lore of this alternate Europe, said softly, "He has--though he has now, at long last, set it aright. For look you, Tomas IV was a kind king, a just king, a good king--but the legend speaks of him as unbearably clumsy. He was ever stumbling, spilling, lurching about--"

    "Still kind of clumsy, about his materializations." Matt frowned. "Though lately he does seem to be getting them right, his timing could be better..."

    "Regrettably," the Black Knight said, "his clumsiness extended to matters military, and therefore did he not trust in his own instincts. He took for a counselor the infamous Gordogrosso, who advised him to be less harsh in his soldiers' training, and to keep fewer men under arms. King Tomas hearkened to these false words, and when his army was weakened, the sorcerer brought in his own hellish troops to seize power. He cut off King Tomas' head and threw his body into the dungeons, that his humiliation might be complete--for the good king did not live long enough to be shut living in a cell."

    "And he blamed himself for Ibile's fall to the powers of Evil, so he's been hanging around ever since, looking for a chance to kick out the sorcerer!" Matt cried.

    The poor ghost nodded, then looked up, brightening.

    "And we gave him that chance." Sir Guy clapped Matt on the shoulder. "Now he can he in peace."

    But, "No," Friar Tuck said, "not till he has had Christian burial."

    "Why, that shall he have!" Prince Rinaldo cried. "It shall be my first act as king, the building of his tomb, and his poor remains shall have a solemn burial with the honors due a hero! You shall be free, Majesty, free to find your way to Heaven!"

    The ghost turned a radiant smile upon his descendant.

     

CHAPTER 30

Leave it to Fates

     

    The choir broke into song, and the Dies Irae rang through the lofty dome of the huge cathedral. The crowd standing before the altar separated as people stood back to make room, opening an aisle from the altar to the doors, and the Archbishop followed the pallbearers down the length of the nave with an altar boy swinging a censer before and two more carrying candles behind.

    Matt glanced to each side as he carried his corner of the coffin, impressed all over again by the number of faces lining each side of the long center aisle. He had really been startled, two days ago, when so many had trooped into the huge church and begun scouring the dirt and graffiti from its pillars. Then he had looked again and realized that most of them were poor; dirt poor. Many were beggars; many more bore the marks of the king's justice: a missing finger or ear, or even a limb. For two hundred years, so many people had kept their faith in God! Even though they were crushed into the dirt for it. But there were more substantial citizens there, too, the burghers and master craftsmen, who had given aid and shelter to their less fortunate fellow parishioners; for all, all, had been driven to worship in seclusion and keep their faith secret for so many, many years.

    But now the cathedral was clean again, and whitewashed, with new linens on the altar and a new carpet before it. A crucifix stood over the sanctuary again, albeit it was made of wood, and had been quickly carved; and priests followed the Archbishop down the aisle.

    It was flabbergasting, how many priests had risked slow death by torture to keep ministering to their flocks, well hidden--but Friar Tuck had found out a dozen of them within twenty-four hours, and others had stepped forward. It was even more astounding that young men had chosen to become priests under such circumstances--though Alisande had told him that Merovence had sent its share of missionaries to the benighted land. Incredible, that men who could have dwelt securely and in comfort at home should be willing to condemn themselves to a life of fear and misery, should risk death and torture, all because they had felt a call from God!

    Of course, Matt had done that, too--but he hadn't been watching his language.

    They marched in solemn procession down the full length of the nave, then back up a side aisle to one of the many chapels that opened off the passageway behind the altar--a chapel that bore the catafalques of dead kings and queens.

    One of these low tombs was open.

    As the priests intoned the De Profundis, the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the empty tomb, then stood back as the masons spread mortar and hefted the huge stone cover back into place. The Archbishop said a final blessing, and the procession returned to the main altar, where the prelate blessed the congregation and sent them forth. Then he left the altar, and Matt and the other pallbearers--Sir Guy, Prince Rinaldo, Robin Hood, and three of the knights who had stood by Sir Guy--filed down the aisle to a chamber near the door.

    There, though, they doffed their black cloaks and robes and put on clothes resplendent with scarlet and gold. Then Matt and Sir Guy turned to help Prince Rinaldo with his coronation robes.

    He seemed somber, nervous. "I am not worthy of this honor, Lord Wizard."

    "You are," Sir Guy said, with such total certainty that the prince looked up at him, astonished. "You have proved your worth in adversity, in suffering, in loyalty to a cause that seemed lost, and in striving when all seemed hopeless. You have been tried in the flames and found worthy."

    Prince Rinaldo looked directly into his eyes and nodded slowly. "I thank you, my friend. I shall do all that I may, not to disappoint you."

    " 'Tis not myself to whom you must answer," the Black Knight said, "but to God, and your people."

    Not quite true, Matt knew--but Prince Rinaldo didn't. He didn't know that Sir Guy was the descendant and legitimate heir of Hardishane, the emperor who had brought all of Europe into his empire five hundred years before. If any living man knew who had the right to rule and who didn't, it was Sir Guy de Toutarien--for he had the right, but chose not to assert it. Instead, he had spent his life laboring unseen and unknown, to prevent the dominion of evil that would require his ancestor to wake and reestablish the Empire.

    The choir's massed voice rang out again, but this time in a joyful hymn.

    "Your people call," Sir Guy said.

    Prince Rinaldo swallowed heavily and turned to the door.

    Down the aisle they marched, with Sir Guy bearing the scepter and Matt carrying the true crown--found buried in the deepest dungeon and restored to its rightful place. Before them walked Alisande, garbed in gold and purple, her cloak bordered with ermine, every inch a queen.

    The throne stood on the altar now, with the Archbishop behind it. Prince Rinaldo stepped up to it, but turned to his people, not yet sitting.

    Alisande turned to face the crowd. "It is not the custom for one monarch to present another to his people," she cried, "but all King Tomas' noblemen are dead, and their descendants only newly come from obscurity to their estates. One alone of the old houses has remained in his demesne. Milord!"

    The Don de la Luce, blinking and round-shouldered, stepped up to the altar and stood blinking at the huge crowd before him, bemused.

    "You have abided in faith, though you suffered in loneliness," Alisande cried. "To you belongs the honor."

    But the old don shook his head and held out his hand. Yverne stepped up and took it; then both turned to Alisande, with a curtsy and a bow, and stepped aside.

    She looked from the one to the other, then back at the people. "They will have me speak for them. Look, then, upon the faithful lords who are left to you! Lords, look upon your people! O faithful of Ibile, who have kept troth with your God and your royal line through centuries of adversity, look now upon your king!"

    She turned, one hand outspread, and the choir burst into song.

    Rinaldo sat then, ramrod straight, hands gripping the throne, eyes on his people--as the Archbishop took the crown from Matt and lowered it onto the prince's head.

    Then Yverne turned and knelt before the throne, took Rinaldo's hand, and swore fealty to him, acknowledging him as her suzerain.

    

    The celebration was still going on, and the new king had to wave to the cheering throngs that lined the way as he rode with Sir Guy and Yverne to the great gates that guarded the town. At his signal, the porters opened the huge leaves. Then the king, who had been Fadecourt, took the maiden's hand. "I had liefer you stayed to rule with me, a queen of Ibile."

    "I thank your Majesty." Yverne lowered her eyes. "I will ever be your true vassal and will come if you have need of me--but my destiny lies elsewhere."

    "I had feared as much." King Rinaldo turned to clap Sir Guy on the shoulder. "I need not bid you ward her well--she could have no more stalwart a guardian. But I can bid you find a priest together, ere you have journeyed too far along your road." For a moment, Fadecourt's insouciance lit his eyes again. "Or I'll pry you out of your armor with my own hands!"

    "I warrant your Majesty." Sir Guy inclined his head gravely.

    "Farewell, comrade-at-arms!" Rinaldo clasped him by the shoulders. "I will miss your wise council, your good cheer!" He turned to Yverne. "Farewell, milady! Whom I shall never leave off missing."

    "I pray," she said softly, "that there shall come a one who shall make you forget me."

    He only gazed at her, as if to say it was impossible; but all he said aloud was, "Farewell, good friends both!"

    Alisande nodded to her heralds, and the trumpets pealed. Sir Guy and Yverne rode forth beyond the gate, turned back to wave once, then rode away side by side.

    Now Rinaldo turned to the two huge monsters who stood flanking the gate. "You need not go, lordly ones! Ever will there be welcome for you, in Orlequedrille!"

    "I thank your Majesty," Stegoman rumbled, "but we must needs see the knight and his lady safely to the mountains, that none of the Free Folk seek to harm them as they pass through--and I must needs take this orphan back to his long home, that his people may honor him as ever they should have done."

    "Orphan!" Narlh said indignantly. "So what are you, my papa?"

    And your mother, too, if ever thou hast need of our care," Stegoman returned, "though I would liefer be your brother."

    "Yeah, I'd love it." But Narlh's eye glinted. "Gonna find someone to be my godfather?"

    "I do not doubt that my sire will delight at the honor. You shall be acclaimed as the dragon you are, and all shall hail your name, for my kin have gone before us to the land of the Free Folk, to spread word of your glory."

    Matt wondered about sibling rivalry.

    Stegoman's jaw lolled open in a grin. "Come, good-sib! The road is long, and already the knight and lady have the long start! Majesty, farewell! And Majesty of Merovence--again, till I see thee once more, God be with thee!"

    Then, wonder of wonders, both monsters managed something resembling a bow. They rose, turned, and went off after the couple on horseback, as the trumpets rang out once again. Alisande signaled, and the huge portals closed.

    King Rinaldo turned back, blinking only twice, and saw Robin Hood and his band standing before him. "Will you, too, leave me?"

    "Aye, when we weary of peace and soft living." Robin smiled. "Yet we will accept your hospitality some little while longer, till we see you secure with a loyal band of knights and men about you, and lords to keep your countryside secure."

    Rinaldo clasped the outlaw on the shoulder. "Why, then, I shall have to see to the fomenting of rebellions! Maid, I thank you for your good intercession."

    "Pooh, Majesty," Marian answered. "He would have thought of it himself, in time."

    Rinaldo turned to Alisande. "You, though, I cannot importune. Your kingdom cannot endure too long without you."

    "Even so," she agreed. "Another day, and I, too, must leave you."

    "Ibile shall ever be friend to Merovence, while I live!" Rinaldo swore. "I cannot repay what you have done for me!"

    "There shall come a chance," she said evenly. "For the nonce, you might speak to your comrade of the duties he owes his sovereign."

    "Duties!" Matt squawked. "When have I ever been less than totally faithful to you? When?"

    She favored him with her best glare. "Why, when you went dancing off to Ibile and left me to mourn!"

    Matt's defenses melted. "Well. I'm glad to know you weren't celebrating."

    "Celebrating! My love and my life! How could I ever be aught but grim, when you are not by me!"

    Matt bowed his head, then looked up with a forced and weary smile. "It's not that I don't believe you..."

    Alisande's face hardened. "A queen cannot lie!"

    "Not about public matters, no..."

    "Majesty," Prince Rinaldo said softly.

    She froze, then turned to him slowly. "Aye, Majesty?"

    "If you love him," one of her few peers in the whole world said, "why do you not marry him?"

    She stared at him so long that Matt was afraid the silence would crack. But she finally answered, low-voiced, "You know well, sovereign Majesty, that we of royal blood may not marry as we choose. I cannot wed a man who was not born a lord."

    "Not so," the king contradicted, with Fadecourt's old glint in his eye. "Your duty as queen is to marry so as to strengthen your kingdom--and to give your heirs noble blood, that will make them worthy monarchs."

    She stared at him, paling--but she nodded slowly. "Even so. Thus much do we learn at our sires' knees."

    "And Lord Matthew's magic strengthens Merovence," Rinaldo said. "Indeed, who should know that better than I, who was a gnarled cyclops, a creature of contempt, but who am now made a king, through his wizardry and your force of arms? And how should Merovence fare without his enchantments?"

    Alisande seemed suddenly unsure; she glanced at Matt out of the corner of her eye.

    "To wed him would be a diplomatic victory unparalleled," the king murmured, "for it would bind him to the service of Merovence for all his life."

    Alisande bit her lip, suddenly vulnerable, suddenly very much a woman. "There is merit in what you say. But all of tradition, the weight of common law--"

    Rinaldo saw her uncertainty. "Good friar!" he called.

    Friar Tuck looked up, surprised. "Aye, Majesty?"

    "This poor woman stands in need of such magic as her wizard cannot provide--the more so since he is the source of her quandary. Do you give her aid!"

    "Why, that I will." Tuck joined his hands and raised his eyes to Heaven. "Father above, help this poor woman to know both her heart, and Your will! Send her some sign that will show us her fate!"

    There was a clap of thunder, and everyone drew back in horror--for three women stood between the two monarchs suddenly, one spinning, another measuring, and a third standing with shears poised--but all three had young, beautiful faces now.

    "What!" Clotho cried, staring at Matt. "Is it not enough that you have repaired the damage you did us! Must you torture us again? We shall not brook more of your impudence, I warn--"

    "Sister." Atropos nudged with her elbow. " 'Tis not he who seeks us, but the woman."

    "What?" Clotho glanced up at Alisande and said, irritated, "Well, follow your heart, woman! Or has your crown squeezed out your brain?"

    "Not her brain, but her heart," Lachesis pointed out. "She hesitates to follow the course of love, for fear it will not be the course of wisdom."

    "Wisdom, forsooth!" Clotho scoffed. "Where can there be wisdom, when folk speak of wedding? None of you mortals can see the future! But this much shall I tell you, damsel--you shall wed this man, will you or nill you, though you may take years to settling on it! And when you have wed, you shall bear two children--a son and a daughter who, together, shall lead all of Europe into an age of peace, prosperity, and devotion."

    Alisande sat stiff and said through numb lips, "She speaks truth. My sovereign's heart has felt it--and my woman's heart aches for it!" She whirled to Matt. "I shall wed you, Wizard, if you still wish it!"

    "Wish it? I'd die for it!" Matt grabbed her and, forgetting about her royal dignity, kissed her right there in front of all the people.

    They cheered.

    Alisande was rigid for a few moments, then forgot about the people and melted into the kiss.

    Prince Rinaldo finally smiled again.

    They came out of the kiss, moving a little apart, staring at each other in surprise and wonder.

    Then Matt whirled to Friar Tuck. "Good father! Marry us, quickly!"

    "What, on the instant?" Tuck asked, his eyes round.

    "Yes! Right now this instant! Before she changes her mind!"