The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (13 page)

He eyed the monster warily, wondering why it was that all the supernatural beasties in this alternate universe could speak fluent Human, when the genuine animals didn't seem to be able to manage a word. Probably because the monsters were magical, and magic seemed to permeate the very air here-they were communicating in their natural medium, so to speak.

"Okay," he said, and turned away.

"What!" The monster stared at him, affronted. "No challenge, no insults, no combat?"

"No sweat," Matt assured him. "I'll just find another way in. This particular pass may seem like the whole world to you, but I'm sure there are other doors."

"What manner of knight are you?" the manticore howled.

"A knight who happens to be a wandering minstrel." Matt pointed to the lute slung across his back. "Do I look like a knight?"

"You wear a sword!"

"It's a dagger," Matt corrected. "A big one, sure, but still a dagger." Actually, it was a very good reproduction of a Roman gladius-with a few modifications. Queen Alisande's smith had forged it very carefully, according to Matt's design, and the two of them together had done their best to sing a lot of magic into it. But Matt was a little uneasy about using it-he knew the quality of his own singing. "I'll follow you!" the monster averred. "Wheresoever you seek to cross the border, I shall be waiting!" It began to stalk toward him, @ing from ear to ear.

"Nay, on second thought, why should I wait? I'll pounce on you now, in Latruria or not."

Matt spun about, alarmed, and swung up his staff, on guard.

"Hey, now, wait a minute! Isn'that against the rules?"

"Whose rules?" the manticore demanded, and sprang. It slammed into an invisible wall, so hard that it seemed to crumpled before it fell. It hit the ground heavily-with that much mass, it would have to-and answered itself. "King Boncorro's rules, of course! I should have known!"

"What rules?" Matt frowned. "Why should you have known?"

"Because the king has laid a Wall of Octroi along the border, and enchanted it to keep all monsters out! I never thought he would have been so careless as to craft it in such a way that it would also keep all monsters in!"

Matt eyed the beast judiciously and decided King Boncorro hadn't been careless at all. "Makes sense to me. You look as if you could be very useful to a Satanist king. Why should he let his rival monarchs get their hands on you?"

"He is no Satanist, but a vile equivocator!" the manticore spat.

"And if I cannot go out, I cannot terrorize the peasants in the border-land at his will!"

Matt was liking Boncorro more and more. "Maybe he's saving you for choice assignments."

"Aye." The multiple grin widened. "Such as devouring a knight named Sir Matthew, who comes in the guise of a minstrel!" Matt's blood ran cold. Boncorro had an excellent spy system.

"The king himself sicced you on me?"

"What king ever did anything himself, that could be a source of blame?" the manticore said impatiently. "Nay, 'tis a subordinate to a subordinate who has laid this geas on me-but think not to over-throw it simply because it comes not from the king himself! I shall be your Nemesis, man!"

For a moment Matt was tempted-it would be interesting to test the strength of his magic against that of Boncorro's minion, and since the Latrurians already knew where he was, he wouldn't change any-thing if he attracted their attention by using magic.

But he remembered that they probably weren't sure he was a wizard, and certainly not the Lord Wizard himself. Better to keep them guessing. "What could I do? I'm a mere minstrel!"

"Aye, a minstrel in a world in which magic works by verse and is strengthened by music! Did you think the bards of old Gaul were ac-counted men of power only for the pleasure their voices gave their tribesmen? " This was certainly one well-educated monster. "there did you learn so much history?"

"Learn it? I witnessed it, mortal! Do you think me a mere kitten of a hundred years' growth?"

Matt felt a chill; he had always tended to react to age with too much respect. "What keeps you going?"

"Only that no sorcerer has commanded my death!"

"Staying alive because you believe you can, huh? " "Nay-because all of your kind believe I can, and no magician has made it otherwise!// "Then how come you're antagonizing me, if you think I'm a magician? " The grin loosened into silent laughing. "Why, do you think I would fear a sapling's magic, when the power of century-old oaks sustains me?" "No, I guess you wouldn't," Matt sighed, //and that means it's use-less for me to try to get around you. Guess I'd better give up." He turned away.

"Do not think to cozen me, mortal!" the manitcore called after him. "I know you plan to lie low, then cross the border when you think I have forgotten! Be sure you cannot find a crossing point that I cannot! Be sure I shall not forget!"

Matt took a deep breath, counted to ten, then turned back slowly.

"Look, Manny-I might have some magical power just by virtue of being a minstrel, but do you really think I'd be dumb enough to take on a manticore? " "Frankly," the monster told him, "yes." Not only educated, Matt decided, but also perceptive. "Okay, then-just tell yourself I'm going back to get some stronger spells." And he paced away, toying with the idea of conjuring up a battery-powered amplifier and an electric lute.

He didn't, of course-he already had enough high-powered verses. However, he did put a ridge between himself and the border and hiked a few miles farther east, until he came to a river. It wasn't much, as rivers went-maybe twenty feet wide, not much more than a stream-but it was going in the right direction: south. So Matt set-tied down to wait for night, rehearsing a few verses and polishing his magic wand.

When dusk had fallen, Matt started out for the border again, following the little river. It cut through the ridge in shadow, and provided the cover of occasional wind-stunted pine trees. Matt followed it down to the border itself-or at least, what he thought was the border: a row of the wind-stunted pines growing across his path, too close to a straight line to be accidental. He thought some long-ago border guard must have planted them, to make his job easier. There were no border guards in sight now, of course. Not in sight ... Matt wondered how fast manticores could move. He started muttering as he came up to the row of evergreens, so that he was actually reciting his spell as he went through them.

"I leave the trodden paths with mighty heart Too near the manticore, within his ken. . .

He felt a sudden tingling all over his skin-nothing major, certainly nothing painful, but enough to let him know he had passed through some sort of magical barrier. He knew he had just crossed the border, and King Boncorro's Wall of octroi. Alarm-he felt alarm, and knew he had triggered one; not a bit of doubt that Boncorro knew he was a wizard now, and exactly where he was!

But the king must have known that already, as the manticore had demonstrated. Matt kept on reciting-but he felt unseen forces wrap about him as he did. He always had, but this time they were worse, clamping down on him, fighting him: he found himself struggling to set one foot in front of the other as he called out,

"Safe as when I rode in armor, for my art Does enclose me as a shield, as it did then!"

A roar seemed to buffet him from all sides, and glowing eyes with multiple glowing teeth beneath came zooming at him out of the gloom. Matt held his ground and started reciting the verse again, waiting for the manticore to collide with his own unseen magical shield ... It didn't.

It slowed down a little, very suddenly-but it kept coming. Matt stared foolishly, the verse hanging on his lips, seeing the scimitar claws inch forward, the gaping band-saw teeth glitter as they began to speed up again ...

That did it. He turned and ran. The tingling alerted him to his re-crossing of the border, but he didn't stop to look-he kept running until a splat and a fortissimo yowl told him the manticore had collided with the Wall of Octroi again. Then Matt turned, chest heaving, and risked a look.

The manticore was just picking itself up off the ground, glaring at him. "Brave knight indeed, to flee rather than fight!"

"I told you, I'm a minstrel," Matt panted.

"Oh, aye! A wizard who chants magical verses!"

"So how many knights do you know who do that?" Matt retorted.

"None." The manticore narrowed its eyes, watching him. "What meat do your thoughts chew, mortal?"

"Tough and stringy," Matt answered. "If you're right, and a minstrel reciting verse is going to make magic happen-and it does, I know that from past experience-how come-" "Your spell only slowed me, but did not stop me?" The manticore's teeth flashed in the moonlight.

"Why, Latruria has been steeped in magic for nearly a century, mortal-but you forget what sort of magic that is!"

I, So you're figuring I use Heaven-based magic, and it doesn't work so well in a Hell-focused environment?"

"Why else?" the manticore retorted.

"Good question," Matt admitted-but it was better than the manticore knew. His magic had worked well enough in Ibile, and that des-olated country had wallowed in the mire of evil magic far longer than Latruria had-at least, going by what little Matt had heard. No, there had to be some other reason.

"Cease to gnaw at it," the manticore advised. "Your magic will brew no foam here, and that is enough to know."

"For all intents and purposes," Matt admitted-but he knew it wasn't enough. The scholar in him may have been stunted, but it was still there, and wanted to discover the answer just for its own sake-but there was a practical side, too. If he could find out why, he might be able to reverse the effect. Suddenly, he was itching to cross the border and try another spell, just to see what happened. But not with the manticore there. "You're a very repressive presence, you know?"

"Aye." The steely teeth flashed. "And I shall press you into keeping for supper as well as dinner if you cross again."

"Oh, yeah?" Matt felt a stroke of inspiration. After all, he hadn't really used the wand. He stepped forward again, going carefully, and fired a broadside-meaning he pointed his wand to concentrate the magic, and tried singing the spell.

"Go away from my border, go away from my door, Get away from my bankside, and bother me no more!"

it seemed to be working! The manticore's eyes narrowed; it yowled in protest; but it backed away step by step as Matt advanced. He set a foot near the border, set the other foot across it ...

With a yowl of triumph the manticore sprang.

Matt gave a yowl of his own and leaped back-but steel teeth clanged, and pain seared his finger. In a panic, he looked downbut all five were there, though his index finger was coated with blood. He waggled it, still feeling the sink of horror-but the nail didn't fall off.

"Aagg! Ptooie! " Matt looked up and saw the manticore spitting and coughing, then sticking a paw between its jaws and wiping. "Faugh!

What manner of man are you?" The monster glowered up at him and accused, "You

sought to poison me!"

"Oh, no." Matt felt a surge of renewed confidence. "Believe me, I wasn't really planning on having you take a strip of skin off my finger." "Rejoice that I took no more than skin!"

"I do, I really do." Matt whipped out a handkerchief and wiped off his finger. "But if that's what just a piece of my skin does to your system, imagine what the rest of me would do!"

" 'Twas not your flesh, dunce, but your wand!"

"My wand?" Matt stared down at the stick he had dropped. Sure enough, there was only a stub of it left-and the end was as clean as if it had been polished. "No wonder you got a tummyache!

"Vile poisoner," the monster snarled.

"Hey, you didn't have to go biting where you weren't asked." But Matt stared at the stub, severely shaken. That could have been his arm-or his neck!

Worse, he had lost one of his most potent magical aids-and virtu-ally his only chance of piercing the magical inertia of Latruria!

Wait a minute-what chance? Obviously, the wand hadn't worked too well, either.

"Do not come," the manticore snarled. "Be advised, be warned!

Come not into Latruria! " Matt summoned shreds of resolve. "If I were a peasant or even an ordinary nobleman, you wouldn't talk that way to me!"

"Aye." All those teeth curved in a grin again. "But you are neither peasant nor ordinary, are you? And the flavor of your wand notwithstanding, I believe I would find you to be a man of excellent taste!" "That's a very old line," Matt objected. However, he had to admit it was effective.

Queen Alisande stepped out onto the battlements to gaze at the rising sun, feeling the loneliness and the sense of abandonment that came with the aftereffects of a bout of morning sickness in her husband's absence. She was going through all this for him, and he was not here to support her through it!

Her lady-in-waiting hurried after her with a fur robe, tucking it about her and clucking. "Your Majesty, no! Not in naught but your shift! And the air so brisk! You shall catch a chill!"

"Oh, I shall thrive, Lady." But the robe was welcome, Alisande had to admit. She clasped the edges and said impatiently, "Thank you, good Elise, but I would be alone to compose my thoughts in the sunrise." "Majesty, you are not well! You were but now seized with a spasm of vomiting!"

"It has passed," Alisande said in a tone of steel, "and I must needs clear my head with the freshness of the air. Nay, stay near me if you must, but do not speak, for I would have silence."

"As your Majesty wishes," Elise murmured, and fell back a pace, wringing her hands.

Alisande gathered the robe more tightly about her and stared off to-ward the sunrise, then automatically turned to her right, gazing southward, as her thoughts turned angrily to Matthew, who should have been here to hold her royal head, to hold and soothe, to ... Then she saw the spread of vast wings, black against the burgeoning rose of the morning sky, and the long sinuous neck that thrust