The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (12 page)

From the neck up, of course, he was quite well formed, if you could overlook the ocular arrangement. Handsome, in fact--if Matt imagined him with two eyes. Also, of course, he wore a pretty heavy beard. That could hide a lot. All in all, he looked pretty trustworthy.

"You're softening," Narlh pointed out.

"Why not?" Matt sighed. "I've been hungry enough to steal, myself--though I never had the opportunity. We'll stand you to a good meal, stranger. Or trade, rather." He smiled at a sudden idea. "Maybe you can tell me a bit about the countryside."

"Why, gladly, sir! By the by, whom have I the pleasure of addressing? As for myself, I'm called Fadecourt."

Matt caught the use of the phrase "I'm called." Apparently, the cyclops wasn't about to tell his real name. Wise, in a world where magic worked by words. "Pleased to meet you, Fadecourt. I'm Matthew Mantrell." The cyclops' eyebrow rose. "The Lord Wizard of Merovence?"

"The same." This guy was a bit too quick for Matt's liking.

"Well! I am honored!"

"You don't say." Matt wasn't sure he wanted allies who were impressed with him--but a little kindness never hurt. "We were just about to start supper. Know anything about camping?"

"A smattering," the cyclops said, with a touch of irony. "I've done a great deal of it in the recent past."

"And not entirely willingly?" Matt led the way back to the campsite. "Any particular reason?"

"Oh, a few minor things taken from me, such as my station and my home." Fadecourt was trying to sound casual. "And a small matter of soldiers all over the kingdom apparently having been told to be on watch for me. I've only to step into a village before there's a hue and cry--and from some of the missiles coming my way, I gather I'm outside the protection of the law."

"Oh?" Matt looked up, interested. "There's law in Ibile?"

"To be sure--the king's will. Or whim, I should perhaps say. Still, Gordogrosso does seem to regard the taking of human life as his prerogative; it's forbidden to most other people. From the zeal with which I'm pursued, I gather he's decided to exercise that privilege, in my case--but at second hand." Matt winced at hearing the king's name spoken aloud, and waited for an answering stir of the magical field--but none came. He relaxed. "I'm enough of a marked man as it is, Fadecourt. I'm not sure it's all that much in my interest to have a companion with a price on his head." Then another aspect of the issue hit him. He cocked his head to the side. "Just what did you do to get the king down on your case, anyway?"

"Oh, just the usual sorts of crimes--you know."

"Not in Ibile, I don't. Enlighten me."

"Well, the common run of things--saving virgins from evil lechers, slaying hideous giant snakes that were preying on villagers, protecting the weak from the strong--that sort of thing."

It made sense, Matt decided. Actions that were good deeds in Merovence would naturally be crimes here--especially if the lechers were in good with the king, and the snakes had been sent to punish the villages that had somehow offended him or his nobles. Matt made a decision and called back over his shoulder, "You might as well go hunt, Narlh. I think we'll be okay here." The dracogriff mumbled something along the lines of sneaking back-stabbers, but he prowled off into the night.

Fadecourt looked after him in surprise, then turned back to Matt. "I appreciate your confidence."

"You've got the right enemies." They'd come into the campsite. Matt reached down the sack of provisions. "What's your preference--ham, or venison?"

"Anything!"

Matt pulled out the half haunch of game and handed it to him. The cyclops all but fell on it, slavering.

"Easy, easy!" Matt called, alarmed. "You'll give yourself a bellyache!" Fadecourt froze. Then he said, "My apologies. Hunger is no excuse for bad manners. If you don't mind, though, I will have a few more bites."

"Sure, sure! Just don't overdo it, okay?" Matt turned away and began prowling around the clearing.

Fadecourt swallowed and called, "What do you seek?"

"Stones," Matt called back, "for the fire pit." Fadecourt put the deer leg down--a major act of will--and came to join Matt.

"This much, at least, I can do! There's one that would be good." He bent down and picked up a two-foot boulder. Then he saw another one, a little larger, so he shifted the first one into the crook of his elbow and scooped up the second boulder with his other hand. "Where did you want them?"

"In--in the center of the clearing." Matt pointed.

"Right-o." Fadecourt stepped lithely over to center and set the first stone down gently, then the second. "Leave this to me, old chap. You scout up the kindling, eh?"

"Yeah...sure." Matt just stared. Each of those boulders had to weigh a hundred pounds, at least--and they weren't exactly carved for ease of carrying. Matt might, just might, have been able to carry one of them with both hands, if he'd absolutely had to. More likely, he'd have rolled it--with the aid of a lever.

He turned away to hunt up kindling, wondering if he should maybe have asked Narlh to put off the hunting a little longer.

He laid the kindling, shaved a fuzz stick, and struck a spark with flint and steel, then breathed it alight.

"Will you not light your blaze with magic, Wizard?" Matt shook his head. "Spells are like money--you shouldn't spend them unless you have to." For some reason, he was a little reluctant to tell this stranger about the problem of attracting sorcerous attention by using magic. He pulled out a ham, drew his knife, and started to cut a slice--then stopped, amazed. It was like cutting wood. He struck it with his knuckles, and heard a definite knock.

"You might want to boil it," Fadecourt suggested. "It's dried, you see--and quite salty."

"I suppose I'll have to use a spell, then." Matt sighed. "I don't happen to have any pots with me."

"Come, sir! Have you never made a bark bucket?" Matt looked up, surprised. "No, can't say that I have."

"Only the work of a few minutes! I'll be back in a jiff." The cyclops uncoiled, ending up standing, and prowled off into the night, slipping a flint knife from his belt.

Matt watched him go, pleasantly surprised--he'd expected the stranger to be panting with eagerness to see Matt work a spell. Apparently, he didn't have too many doubts about Matt's powers.

Or didn't it matter to him?

Matt shrugged, and rummaged around among the firewood he'd collected to start lashing together a tripod.

A long throat cleared itself off to his left.

Matt looked up, surprised, then smiled. "Thanks for the warning, Narlh." The dracogriff came up and dropped a wild boar by the fire. "Why you humans can't hear a guy making a racket coming through the brush, I'll never know."

"Small ears," Matt answered. "How come you can find game when nobody else can?"

"They don't seem to want to stay hid when they see me coming." Narlh walked around a half circle, letting his hindquarters lie down and ending with his front section recumbent, too. "You might want to turn your back a little--I'm not big on table manners."

"Might help if you had a table." But Matt did hike himself a little way away.

"Where's the uninvited guest?"

"Oh, I took care of that--I invited him. He's off making a bark bucket for me, so I can boil some life back into this ham."

"Trying to butter you up, huh? Look, if you want some pig meat with the juice still in it, hack off a slice!"

Matt turned back, overcoming revulsion, and took out his knife. "Don't mind if I do, thanks." He skinned a hindquarter and cut off several foot-long wedges of meat. Then he skewered them on green sticks and hung them over the fire. "I appreciate it."

"I'll never miss 'em."

"Oh! I see you've managed!" Fadecourt came up to the fire, hauling a bucket.

"Yes, but we can fry the ham for breakfast--if we can make it chewable." Matt reached up, took down the bucket, and hung it from the tripod. "Thanks for filling it."

"Don't mention it." The cyclops folded himself and eyed the pork hungrily. He took up the hindquarter of venison, cut a strip, and munched. The fact that he made some try at table manners impressed Matt more than the bucket.

"If you'll excuse me." He got up, went to rummage in the provisions sack.

"Certainly." Fadecourt's gaze followed Matt as he lifted out the can of talcum powder and went to the limit of the firelight, shaking out a white stream as he went backward around the camp fire, completing the circle, then making a second one. When he finished, he put away the powder and came to sit down by the fire again. "Just like to have it ready if we need it, you see."

"But of course." Fadecourt looked a little puzzled. Trees whipped in a sudden wind Matt shivered and pulled his cloak over his shoulders. "Looks as though we may be in for a wet night."

"Ah, yes. The advantage to my sort of raiment is that it dries out rather quickly."

"Why not keep it from getting wet in the first place? A brush hut isn't that hard to cobble."

"So I see." Fadecourt eyed Matt's shelter. "I just may imitate you in that."

"Be my guest. I take it you were heading for Merovence, to get away from being chased?"

"Yes, but only until I had gathered the wherewithal to return."

"And what would that be?"

The cyclops' shoulders sagged. "I haven't the foggiest, really. I'm not in a position to hire an army--and I don't really imagine too many citizens of Merovence would be ready to march against the sorcery of Ibile. I suppose the best I could find would have been a wizard, who might have been willing to teach me some spells."

Matt definitely didn't like the sound of that. "It takes time to learn enough magic to protect yourself in this kind of country, you know." Fadecourt heaved a sigh. "Well, if years it takes, then years I must give to it--but I'll not forsake my fellow citizens in their extremity!" He looked up at Matt. "And how do you come to be in the middle of a tearing wilderness on such an ugly-seeming night?"

"I'm questing. You know--it's really in fashion."

"No, I don't." The cyclops frowned. "Certainly not in so hazardous a place as a mountainside in Ibile, in the company of a dracogriff--deuced prickly, the beasts are."

A snort answered him from behind Matt.

"No offense," the cyclops said easily. "I'm in something of the same position myself, d' you see."

"Being very prickly?"

"No--being engaged in a search. It's a quest, in its way. A lost article, you might say."

"Oh." Matt frowned. "Where was it lost?"

"At the king's court," the cyclops said. "I had word of it from a friend who has some acquaintance there."

Matt remembered that he might be the target of an effort to impress, and automatically demoted the "acquaintance" from a courtier to a servant. "I gather the party who lost it will reward you handsomely for its return?"

"Oh, quite! Or, rather, he'll reward me rather unpleasantly if I return with no chance of retrieving it." Fadecourt gave him a toothy smile. He had very large, very even, very white teeth.

"I see," Matt said with great originality, trying not to think about those teeth. "Is it of intrinsic, sentimental, or aesthetic value?"

"Oh, of only sentimental and practical value, I assure you." The cyclops'

eye took on the gleam of delight that comes from recognizing a kindred soul--and, just possibly, a good conversation. "At least, I don't believe anyone would pay more than a few coppers for it."

"I take it," Matt said, "that if you discover its whereabouts, it might be rather dangerous to go after it."

"It might that, yes. You see, I've little magic and less sorcery."

"Is that all?" Matt stared, frankly amazed. He recovered quickly and managed a smile. "I'd think you might have a problem with, um, guards, if there are any."

"Oh no, not a lick! I mean, yes, there probably will be men-at-arms, but I'm not at all concerned about them. Strength of arms, don't you know."

"No," Matt said, taking in the nearly naked form before him, "I don't know. You don't have a weapon on you, except for that little flint knife."

"No, I meant my actual arms--limbs, do you see."

"Oh, yes." Matt remembered how Fadecourt had collected boulders for the fire ring. "But don't overestimate your strength. Sheer lifting power won't help you against armed guards."

"There's a bit more to it than you've seen. Have a look." The cyclops rose and turned in one lithe, fluid motion, then stepped away to a four-foot boulder that must have weighed half a ton. He didn't even set himself, just took hold under the curve on both sides, hefted it up over his head (Matt ducked aside, panicked by the backswing), and tossed it off into the night. Matt just stared, gaping.

There was a long hiss behind him--Narlh, with eyes glittering. Somewhere out in the darkness, there was a faint crash.

The cyclops turned back to them with a shrug. "That's the way of it."

"Very impressive," Matt murmured, eyes glazed.

A little too impressive, in fact--not the kind of display calculated to win you a welcome to a stranger's fireside. From the sound of him, the cyclops must have been able to realize that; did he really think he was so engaging that Matt would chum up to him when he'd just proved he could probably tie Matt's guardian dracogriff in knots?

Or did he think Matt needed his strength badly enough to strike an alliance?

He just might have been right on that one.

"But that's all." The cyclops sat down again. "I can knock down any army, if need be. Of course, I'd rather not hurt the poor chaps, but I can if I have to. Or knock a hole in a castle wall, for that matter. But if they send the most junior of apprentice sorcerers after me, I'm lost."

"And," Matt said slowly, "you've taken the notion that I can counter a sorcerer."

"Quite. You do have something of a reputation in wizardry."

"But I could be lying--you don't know that I'm really the Lord Wizard." Matt frowned. "What gave you the idea I might really know something about magic?"

"Partly the fact that you're riding a dracogriff, a beast so scarce that any sorcerer would quite willingly kill for its blood--kill not just it, but anyone nearby."