The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 (16 page)

" "Good monarchs, at least," one of the younger ladies murmured-to herself, she thought, but Alisande turned to her, nodding. "We all remember the days of the usurper who slew my father and had no feeling for the welfare of the land or the people! We must not see such days come again!"

"Therefore you must not risk yourself," Lady Constance scolded, or the heir!"

"I must." Alisande pushed herself to her feet. "if I do not, if I let my-self be shorn of my wizard, the realm shall be imperiled. I must ride! " But how, Alisande wondered, would she ever fight a battle, if she was to start each morning with her head over a basin!

The "clandestine route"-presumably known only to every smuggler in the territory-was really pretty good; it consisted of a series of caves, joined by sizeable tunnels. They had to be sizeable, after all, since the goal of developing the route had been to smuggle not people, but goods. Matt could see, by the light of his torch, the marks of pickaxes where some of the passages had needed a bit of widening-maybe more than a bit. But from a functional point of view, it was marvelous-Pascal led him behind a small waterfall on the Merovencian side of the border and into a cave that widened as they went farther in. They had to stop to light torches, of course, but there was a whole stack of them, with jars of oil to soak their tow-wrapped ends, sitting about ten feet in from the mouth of the cave-far enough to stay dry, close enough to still be in the light. There was even flint and steel. All they had to do was open one of the jars, dunk the torch ends in, and strike a spark with the flint and steel-recovering the jar first, of course. Then Pascal set off into the lower depths with Matt following, wondering how many of the royal customs agents on both sides of the border knew about this route.

After all, a secret known to two people is compromised, and a secret known to three is no secret at all, so with this route being common knowledge to the border families, it was scarcely possible that the excise men wouldn't know about it-which led to the interesting question of why they ignored its use. At a guess, Matt hazarded, a trickle of trade was to the mutual advantage of both countries-after all, the La-trurian lords no doubt wanted Merovencian wines, and the aristocracy of Merovence probably prized the spices and silks brought in by La-trurian merchants. On the other hand, open and widespread commerce would have robbed the royal exchequers of tariff income. Matt saw the light at the end of the tunnel and reached out to touch Pascal's elbow. "Remember the manticore."

"Never fear," Pascal assured him-but he went ahead a little more cautiously, reciting:

"When the Merovencian smuggler meets the manticore in pride, He will shout to scare the monster, who will quail and turn aside. 99 Then the monster will remember where his

true allegiance lies, And will hearken to the orders of the man who bids him rise!"

As a verse, it was good, but it didn't sound like much of a spell, and Matt was amazed that the young man still went on without trembling. He began to mutter his slow-down spell under his breath again, getting it ready just in case ...

Then Pascal stepped out of the cave, and a yowl split the world. At the last second Matt found he didn't have it in him to let the kid die alone. He jumped out of the cave, yanking his sword out, seeing the speed-blurred brindled mass hurtling toward them, all teethThen Pascal shouted, "Down, monster! Down, to a son of the wizard who tamed you! " Matt had never before seen a beast put on the brakes in midleap. It was really quite a sight-the manticore twisted in midair as if it were trying to change directions. It did, actually, swerving aside from Pascal and plunging right toward Matt, teeth first.

Matt yanked a sugarplum out of his pocket and threw it, bull's-eye, as he could right between the serrated teeth. Then he jumped, as far to the side-right, in fact, on the other side of Pascal. The manticore's jaws clashed shut automatically, and its throat throbbed with a single swallow even as it twisted in midair again, to land on all four feet. The monster looked very surprised, actually closing its lips for the first time since Matt had met it. Then it began to look very, very pleased.

"Delicious! What part of your anatomy was that, O' Wizard?"

"Not part of me at all," Matt said, "just some leftover dessert from the banquet two nights ago. I was saving it for a treat."

"I must give you thanks! Perhaps not enough to spare your life, but thanks nonetheless! Quite the most delicious tidbit I have ever munched." Then the manticore began to stalk toward Matt again.

"Hold!" Pascal held up a palm, and Matt had to give him maxi-mum points for bravery, but absolutely none for intelligence. Then he deducted from his own score, because the monster stopped on the instant, then crouched down and rubbed its head against Pascal's leg, making an appalling grating noise that Matt vaguely recognized as a gigantic purr. The youth trembled, but stood his ground resolutely. However, he didn't take his eyes from the monster for a second as he asked Matt, "When did you pick up that sugarplum?"

"Right after dinner, while you and Charlotte were settling your futures, " Matt answered. "How did you get that cat to obey?" Pascal glanced down and shrugged. "I know not; 'twas truly my grandfather's verse. He it was who first tamed this manticore and for-bade him to eat human flesh or steal food of any sort, in return for which Grandfather gave him a bullock a day, or two sheep when the cattle were all eaten."

"Delicious!" The manticore looked up eagerly. "I had never eaten so regularly before! I mourned when the old man died, but grew him-gry within a day. Still, in honor to his memory, I would not eat cattle, sheep, or people within his parish-so I fared south to Latruria, and have been here ever since! But it has been a dog's existence, young marmay, not even fit for a dog! Taking what meat I may, then fleeing with it before the knights or sorcerers come ... Fighting with armies of peasants for my meals, which is painful, though tasty ... Enslaved to one sorcerer after another, to feed on grain and their enemies only! Have you come to free me, then?"

Pascal hesitated, and Matt leaned close to mutter, "If you don't, he has to serve whatever sorcerer sicced him on me-by eating me! Not your problem, I know, but . . .

"But if I free him completely, he may turn on me!" Pascal muttered back.

Not softly enough; the manticore said, "Never! I would never munch the flesh and bone of my Master Fleuryse! Nor drink his blood, no matter through whose veins it flows!"

"You really must have liked the old geezer," Matt observed.

"Vastly! He could have slain me, aye, slain me as easily as tamed me! Yet he chose to spare my life, and moreover to feed me!" Matt could have pointed out that the spell probably would have stopped working if the old wizard had stopped feeding the manticore-hunger has a way of breaking down inhibitions-but it didn't seem like the most politic comment at the moment.

"Then I free you from any other spells or geasa that have been laid upon you," Pascal said, but he cast a worried glance at Matt.

"Still, I had only planned to walk safely past you, not to have you accompany me." "Where you go, I shall bound!" The monster leaped to its feet. "Your paths shall be my paths, your enemies my dinners!"

"But you have to provide alternative menus when there aren't any enemies handy," Matt reminded.

"How shall I do that?" Pascal wailed. "I have no money to buy cattle, no magic to conjure them up!"

"Oh, you'll think of something." Matt clapped him on the shoulder. "And if you don't, I will. Don't look so worried, Pascal-I have a few ducats in my purse. Besides, you never know when a voracious monster might come in handy. Think anybody's gonna try and charge us tolls?"

He turned the young man away, sheathed his sword-and together they set off for the south, the manticore following a few yards behind.

"You do not understand!" Pascal hissed to Matt. "For this beast, fondness for people is tied to fondness for food! If we do not feed it, it will feed on whatever comes first to fang! I shall be safe, for I am of the blood of the Wizard Fleuryse, but you shall not!" Matt noticed that the day had suddenly grown chilly. "So I'd better really deliver on that promise to find him food, huh?

"Aye, or discover a way to part with him!" There was a growl behind them.

Careful," Matt breathed, "I think he's got very acute hearing. Haven't you, Manny?"

"Aye," the beast answered, full-voiced, "though 'Manny' is a strange name for me."

"Do you have any other?"

"Nay. None have spoken to me as you do for decades. Even the Wizard Fleuryse called me only 'manticore.

"Okay, so 'Manny' is short for 'manticore -or would you rather I called you 'Ticky'? " "Manny will do," the monster said quickly.

,Thought so." Matt looked up and saw a peasant shambling down the road, driving a gaunt and spavined cow with lackadaisical flicks of a switch. "Well, look what came to order!

Say, fellow, that cow for sale?" "Sale?" The peasant looked up hungrily, then saw the manticore and froze.

The monster licked its chops.

"That's for the cow, not you," Matt said quickly. "Here, I'll buy it

for a silver penny."

The peasant stared at the silver coin, then snatched it.

"Take the cow, and gladly!" Then he turned on his heels and ran, as Manny leaped on the cow with a howl of joy. It didn't even have time to moo. Matt firmly turned Pascal away. "I could tell it was dying of

hunger; why not put it out of its misery? " "it is tough," the manticore complained.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Matt called back, then to Pascal, "Don't look so sad. Cows turn into food every day."

"It is not that-it is the price! Three coppers would have been enough, and generous!"

"Think so? Well, maybe you're right. I'll haggle a little next time-but there wasn't time just now. Manny looked really hungry." "I was," the manticore mumbled around a bone.

"It was the cow, fast, or the peasant," Matt explained.

"Fortunately, I've got enough silver to turn into lots of coppers." "We shall need them," Pascal said with an apprehensive glance at the feeding manticore. "I hope your purse is never empty!"

"Good wish," Matt approved, and decided to see if he could work up the appropriate spell. For his part, he hoped that the stories he had heard about the prosperity of Latruria were trueespecially the ones about food being plentiful.

Unfortunately, Matt was really very skeptical about the claims of good living in Latruria. The sight of that apathetic peasant and his spavined cow had been enough to remind him that up until a few perty of a sorcerer with a years ago, Latruria had been the private pro reputation for delighting in human suffering. Matt had done a little homework before he started south, spending an hour or so reading up on what little history of Latruria Alisande's library held, and had talked to oldsters he met on his journey about what the southern country had been like during their youth. He couldn't talk to recent travelers, because there weren't any-King Maledicto had closed the border as soon as he seized the throne.

The only Merovencians who had been to Latruria between that time and King Boncorro's coronation were smugglers, and so far Matt hadn't had much luck finding any of those-until he met Pascal, of course. Privately, he wondered if this was really the young man's first trip down this way.

But what he had heard from the oldsters was hair-raising. He had decided right away that if he ever got back to his own universe, he could make a living just writing them up and calling them fiction. The only problem was that he couldn't decide whether he should market them as horror or pornography. He ended by deciding that he'd be mortally ashamed if he wrote them at all.

of course, it could be that his informants had been making up those awful tales. Atrocity stories always grew up around the en-y-like the early stories about Phoenicians throwing babies into

the fiery furnaces built into their idols. Only trouble was, archaeologists had found some pretty convincing evidence that the Carthaginians had done exactly that, and they had been a Phoenician colony ...

So, applying his scholar's caution and training, Matt had made a stab at sifting fact from fancy in the reports of Maledicto's reign, coming to the sad conclusion that most of what he'd heard could have been stone-cold fact. Even after allowing for exaggeration and propaganda, he still thought there was probably some truth in them. Male-dicto had delighted in cruelty and encouraged it in his noblemen.

But if that had been true, could King Boncorro really have reversed the state of affairs so thoroughly in just six years?

He decided to check his findings under the guise of idle gossip. Be-sides, he needed to get Pascal's mind off their faithful following monster. "Is it true that King Maledicto indulged in human sacrifice?"

Pascal shuddered. "Aye, from all I hear! He conducted obscene rituals to pagan gods of evil. Their names are only whispered, never spoken aloud."

"Such as Kali and Hecate?"

Pascal shied as if he had just seen a rattlesnake pop up under his feet. " Forfend, Sir Matthew! I told you they are never spoken aloud!" "Doesn't do any harm, in a Christian universe." But Matt wished he could be sure of that; the names he had mentioned could be powerful symbols in their own right.

"Probably includes Satan in there under another guise. I also hear tell that he held a party every night, just himself and a few close friends."

Again Pascal shuddered. "Aye, and vile carouses they were, too!"

"Mixing sex and torture?"

Pascal nodded. "And imbibing vile brews that drove them mad with lust. "Real sweethearts. Matt glowered at the roadway in front of them. "I've also heard that King Maledicto came down with the pox now and then, but got rid of it by transferring it magically to some poor innocent peasant."

"Not always innocent, I will say that for him," Pascal answered, hard-faced. "Innocent folk of any rank became harder and harder to find, the longer he reigned. Must we talk of this, Sir Matthew? I find it distasteful in the extreme."