The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (46 page)

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

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

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

"She must love you more than you think, then," Matt sighed, "to be willing to go up all those stairs. No way around it, though, is there?" The old don gave a ghost of a smile, his good humor reviving. "Nay. As we have come down, Lord Wizard, so we must rise up."

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

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

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

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

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

"Aye, and they did not work," Fadecourt reminded him. Matt spared him a quick glare. Shut up, Fadecourt! But the cyclops' mental telepathy wasn't working that day. "Surely you cannot have forgotten so quickly!

You had need to attempt a more powerful verse, and it brought you not escape, but the three weird sisters."

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

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

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

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

"You summoned the Fates!" It was almost a scream. "The Fates themselves!

Nay, surely they have now conspired against you!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Aye, since 'tis as much as to say he does not fear us!" Atropos snapped.

"Come sisters! What shall we do with the braggart, eh?"

"Oh, now it comes!" Yverne cried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Then he shall save Ibile?" Fadecourt cried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The poor folk dare not even embrace one another in the solitude of their huts," the youngest said, "for fear the sorcerers might be watching in their crystals. Nay, 'tis the foulest, most oppressive tyranny ever known!" Matt was about to ask them about Herod and Nero, until he remembered that he was talking to experts. If anyone knew, it was the Fates. He hid a shudder at the thought of just how bad the sorcerers must be. "But that doesn't give me the right to impose a government on them!"

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

Sir Guy and Yverne looked at him, startled.

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

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

"Well...there have to be some taxes, or the government doesn't have any money to provide even the most basic social services. But torture? No!

Definitely not! And I'd honor the basic human rights, even if I wouldn't tell them about them all at once."

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

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

"Why so long?" Atropos demanded.

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

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

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

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

"Shall he be king of Ibile, then?" Fadecourt's eyes were burning. Clotho glanced at her web, then shook her head. "I have not yet determined that. There are many other strands to the weave, and the pattern has not yet emerged."

Emerged? Matt wondered who really controlled her loom.

"However," the Fate went on, "you shall be vital to giving them their freedom. Only do as you think right, and you will set their feet on the road to wise choice. They shall someday choose their own government, I promise you." Matt wasn't entirely happy about that; it sounded too much like saying that people get the kind of government they deserve. "Why? Why does it have to be so slow? Why does it have to be me?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Not such a young upstart as yourself!"

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

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

Matt forced himself to settle back, to relax. "No, of course I wouldn't do a thing like that. I'm not about to forget that I have to put on my pants one leg at a time, after all. I make too many mistakes for that." Sir Guy frowned, not understanding, but not liking the tenor of the remark--and the three sisters relaxed with a sigh of disappointment. "Well enough, then," Atropos said, though she sounded as if she didn't mean it. "Wend your way through your life, weak and foolish one--but do not expect us to save you from the consequences of your own folly!"

The globe of light shrank abruptly, as if it were receding at an incredible rate, and winked out. The room was very silent, and the only motion was the flickering of their shadows on the wall, cast by firelight. Matt became uncomfortably aware that all his friends were staring at him. So he pretended a nonchalance he certainly didn't feel. He turned away to the fire with a sigh that he hoped sounded like disappointment. "Too bad. I half hoped they were going to slip and tell me something useful."

The Maid from the Sea

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

Nay, tell me! I know they are slow to forgive, and you did pain them, though

'twas understandable, yes, quite understandable. Nay, tell me, and I'll remonstrate with them!"

"No, it wasn't the well-wists." Matt finally managed to get a word in edgewise. He could understand it--if he'd been alone with no one to talk to for twenty years, he'd probably run off at the mouth, too, when he had the chance.

"Nothing you could have done anything about, milord--and nothing that concerns you, really. Our fault--no, mine, I suppose."

"Not concern me? How could it not concern me, when 'tis in mine own house?

Nay, tell me, for..." He broke off, his eyes widening; then he began to tremble. Matt spun about, staring off into the shadows where the old don was looking. It was gathering substance, still a dim, gauzy cloud, but wavering and fluxing--and its outlines clarified as it pulsed and brightened.

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

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

"No, my lord!" Matt was up and leaping in between the sword and the ghost.

"He's not vile and vicious--he's a friend! And he doesn't walk by night--well, that, too, but he walks by day when he needs to. He just doesn't look his best."

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

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

"Then if he seeks to help you, he must needs be on the side of Good." The old don nodded, his chin firming. "He is welcome, then--though I will confess