A Wizard in Bedlam

CHAPTER 13

The churls had slept for six hours and come awake as the sun was going down. Most of them brought out biscuits and cheese from their wallets and made a supper. A small army of old men moved among them, distributing food from nearby estates, to those who hadn’t brought any; but they were bitter about being too old to contribute more than food. As they went, they reminded the churls to eat lightly; there was hard work coming.

Hugh, Lapin, and Madelon came pacing up to DeCade, where he sat alone on his log. Dirk looked up, saw, and hurried to join them.

“There are five thousand Lords and their men come into Albemarle,” Lapin was saying as he came up. “There were a thousand before; now there are six.”

DeCade nodded. “What of their churls?”

“They went out when the Bell was rungen,” Hugh reported, “though they longed to stay and turn upon their Lords.”

DeCade shook his head firmly. “No. We must have a baited trap for our rats.”

Hugh shrugged. “Most of them are here among us. We have eleven thousand churls within this wood and spread throughout the fields around and about.”

“Eleven thousand to six?” Dirk frowned. “Not good odds when they’ve got laser cannon.”

DeCade shook his head. “Their cannon cannot shoot straight down, and we shall be beneath their walls before they realize we have come. Indeed, their cannon should be ours before they sound the alarm.”

Dirk scowled. “Don’t have much faith in their sentries, do you?”

“Not greatly, but I have great faith in my outlaws.” DeCade turned to Hugh. “Did you discover how their cannon are mounted?”

“Aye, we have many of the King’s Soldiers here, now.” Hugh sounded a little nervous as he said it; old habits die hard. “They will not turn about.”

DeCade grimaced with exasperation. “Then we can only capture them; we cannot use them to keep the courtyard clear.”

Lapin shrugged. “We will do well enough, Grandmaster. Once our outlaws have scaled the walls and taken out the sentries, they may shoot down upon the courtyard with their new lasers.”

“And the Lords may fire down on them from the central keep,” DeCade said dourly. “Still, it will be some cover, and it may give the churls time to charge the gate.”

“We will have it open for them,” Hugh promised. He grinned. “There will be great fighting in the King’s grand hall.”

“And in the courtyard,” DeCade pointed out. “Once our own men are there, we cannot fire upon it.”

“Neither shall the Lords,” Lapin said grimly. “Our firebeams shall keep them from their Tower windows—never fear.”

DeCade nodded sardonically. “So they shall come out to the courtyard, to give us welcome.” He turned to Dirk. “That is when your towers must drop down, to overawe them.”

Dirk shook his head. “Won’t work. They’ll know we wouldn’t fire on our own.”

“But we shall,” Lapin said harshly. Dirk stared at her.

The huge woman shrugged impatiently. “If we die, we die. Death in battle, or death from a lordling’s whim—what difference?”

“That is a source of strength,” DeCade agreed. “Are all our people divided up by bands, and captains and lieutenants appointed?”

Hugh nodded and Madelon said, “We have made a chart of the castle from the servants’ memories. Each troop is appointed a hall, and each band a chamber.”

Dirk listened numbly, trying to decide whether it was fanaticism—or logic.

DeCade nodded. “Then all is ready—save one thing.”

Dirk came out of his daze. “I can’t imagine what.”

“The King.” DeCade’s eyes burned. Dirk stared at him.

“We must take the King.” DeCade stood up, pacing. “This is the keystone of the Wizard’s plan. Even if we slew every Lord but let the King live, he could escape, and forces gather round him.”

Dirk thought of some of the interplanetary freebooters and soldiers-of-fortune, and realized the Wizard’s wisdom. If the King escaped and managed to get word off-planet, a whole mercenary army would come blasting in to win back his kingdom for him—and just incidentally, for themselves.

“But if we take him,” DeCade went on, “and show him, bound, to his Lords, they may lose heart and surrender.”

Dirk scratched behind his ear. “I wouldn’t put too much faith in that. They strike me as a pretty independent lot. Matter of fact, I don’t think there’s a one of them who wouldn’t cheerfully watch the King hang, if it’d save him a few pennies.”

DeCade shrugged. “In that case, we can kill him and be done with it. Still, ‘tis worth the try.” Dirk wondered if he was the only man there who didn’t have callouses on his conscience.

“Well, it sounds good,” he said dubiously. “But aren’t you going to have to cut through all the Lords anyway, to get to him?”

DeCade cupped his hands over the tip of his staff and propped his chin on them. “I shall tell you a tale.”

“Oh goody!” Dirk sat down and propped his chin on a fist. “I’m just in the mood for a bedtime story.” Lapin scowled at him, but he ignored her.

“Many years ago,” DeCade intoned, “when first this land was peopled, our noble King’s first forefather set ten thousand churls to building his castle. A hundred of them slept and ate apart, the while they built his bedchamber; and, when it was done—he killed them.”

Dirk stared back at him for a moment. Then: “Nice guy… You’d almost think he had something to hide.”

“Aye,” DeCade agreed. “But alas, poor King! One churl, before he died, had managed to tell a churl outside the hundred, who told a churl who told a churl … and thus the word came to his son.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do. And, before he died, the son told his son, who told his son, who told his son …”

Dirk held up a hand. “Let me guess. There was still one of them around the first time you tried this project.”

DeCade nodded, his eyes glowing.

Madelon, Lapin, and Hugh stared. Then they began to smile.

Dirk noted it with foreboding; whenever they got happy, he got worried. “Let me guess again. The secret was a tunnel.”

DeCade nodded. “A tunnel leading to a passage, which leads to a door that opens on the King’s private chamber.”

“And he told you where to find it.”

“Nay; he showed it to me.” DeCade’s eyes unfocused as he looked off into a distance centuries long. “One dark night, when we’d come close to Albemarle, he and I crept out, behind the King’s own lines, and found …” He shook the mood off. “No matter. It is there, and I can lead you to it.”

“If it’s still clear,” Dirk said dubiously.

DeCade shrugged. “If not, I’ll clear it.”

He did have one thing in common with Gar, Dirk decided. He was so damn sure of everything.

The outlaws moved out about an hour after sunset. The churls stayed longer, sharpening their weapons, talking to one another in low, hushed voices, and generally working up a good case of nerves.. Then, finally, they began to move out, by squads. Their faces were grim and their eyes were hard. Soon there was no one left in the clearing but DeCade, Dirk, and the twenty most skilled outlaws with staves in their hands, knives and laser pistols in their belts, and mayhem in their hearts. DeCade looked them over, then nodded curtly. “Put out the fire.”

The youngest outlaw stooped to throw dirt on the campfire. Its light dimmed and was gone. The troop stood silent in the soft light of the stars.

Without looking at them, DeCade turned and strode away. Dirk leaped to catch up with him. DeCade led them through the forest to a wooded gully that once must have housed a small river. But it had come down in the world woefully; a mere brooklet chinked and chattered its way over rocks at the bottom. DeCade turned to follow it downstream. Dirk turned with him, suppressing the impulse to look back over his shoulder. He knew what he would see—a score of outlaws following them in lockstep.

He looked up at DeCade. “Has it occurred to you that the King might have an unpleasant surprise waiting for us in that chamber?”

“There will be many surprises this night,” DeCade said dourly. “Have no fear; I have one of my own for each of theirs.”

Dirk pursed his lips. “Care to let me in on the secret?”

DeCade shook his head. “You would understand mine no more easily than I understand yours, Outworlder.”

Dirk thought that one over. Considering that DeCade had full access to Gar’s memories… However, it was a moderately polite way of saying no. Even so … “Surely our secrets cannot be so alien, one to another, DeCade. We are, after all, of one blood.”

“Yes, but both of us are alienated from that blood, Dirk Dulain—you in one direction, I in another. The sum and total is too wide a gap for talk.”

Dirk frowned, telling himself he had no reason to feel rejected. “Don’t tell me that, DeCade. Because, if it were true, I could never find a home.”

“Only by forcing yourself to fit into one,” DeCade agreed. “Which would you rather have, Dulain—the contentment and acceptance of a home, with the gnawing certainty that you are not really like yourself as long as you are in it, that you live a lie and are not like really like the people about you? Or to be able to live without pretense, being as you really are, but with the loneliness of the stranger forever hollowing your bowels?”

Dirk tried to swallow that one, but it stuck in his throat. He swiveled his head forward and strode down the gully in silence. DeCade was companionably silent, too, for a time; then, he stopped abruptly and pointed to a shadow in the wall of the gorge. “There it lies.”

Dirk came out of his brown study and looked, but all he saw was brush and grass. “Where?”

But DeCade was already climbing the slope, and Dirk had to hurry to keep up with him.

Finally DeCade stopped and lashed out at the grass with the tip of his staff, ripping out greenery and uncovering a heap of humus. He wielded the staff like a great broom, and peat and mulch went flying, till Dirk saw a round cave-mouth, just large enough for a man of normal height. DeCade turned, gesturing to the outlaws; a laser pistol sizzled, its ruby beam slicing the darkness to kindle a pine knot. Torchlight flared and the laser beam winked out. DeCade nodded, turned, and stepped into the tunnel, stooping. Dirk nodded to the outlaws and followed. The light came behind him, wavering on the wall.

“Has it occured to you,” he said carefully to DeCade, “that there might be booby traps in here?”

DeCade came to a half and stared down at him. “What manner of traps?”

“Well,” Dirk said slowly, “from the tale you tell me, the first Kind built this place; and that means he was an, ah, immigrant, from Terra. He’d have been very up-to-date on the latest burglar-proofing technology, and paranoid enough to use it.”

“And just what kinds of machines are these?”

Dirk shrugged. “Oh, I expect you know them as well as I do—or part of you, at least. Hidden lasers, sonic beams to jelly your brains, that sort of thing.”

DeCade’s mouth was tight with amusement. “And how are these pleasant toys triggered?”

“Oh, the usual—pressure-sensitive plates in the floor, ultra-violet electric eyes, sonar, infrared detectors, brainwave analyzers… like that. So if you can manage to weigh nothing, keep from walking through any light beams you can’t see, not reflect any sound waves, stop thinking, and cool your body down to eighty-five degrees, you won’t have a thing to worry about.”

“None at all,” DeCade agreed. “Thank you for the timely warning; I’ll bear it in mind.” And he turned away to start up the tunnel again.

Dirk stared at him.

Then he jumped to catch up with him. “After all that, you’re just going to march ahead? What are you, a walking death-wish?”

“A nice hypothesis, now that you mention it. Still, I don’t plan to die till the Lords are dead.” DeCade gestured ahead. “Look there.”

Dirk looked ahead, frowning, trying to pierce the darkness beyond the circle of torchlight. Then he saw it—a shimmer, filling the tunnel from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, like a heat haze, although the tunnel was dank and cold. He glanced at DeCade’s face, saw the tension, the telltale look of pain—but very slight, now; he was adapting to it—and a chill went down Dirk’s spine. Apparently Gar had some abilities Dirk hadn’t known about. “What is it—a force field?”

DeCade smiled through the headache. “You shall see quickly enough. These may be an outworlder’s powers, but I think they are beyond most outworlders’ ken. He has lost none of himself, this one—and I think he has been lonely. Very.”

“ ‘Think?’ ” Dirk frowned. “Don’t you know?” DeCade shook his head. “His most important memories he keeps locked away from me, in a small, dark, hard shell at his core. He is wise. He knows he is alien; he will not try to be otherwise.” “So he loses none of himself?” Dirk shook his head. “That can’t be the only choice a man has—to lose part of himself, or to be lonely.”

DeCade shrugged. “Many men adjust their behavior to those around them and keep their true selves locked away safely, in a small, dark part of their souls. They feel that part in them and cherish it; thus they know who they are and lose nothing of themselves while having all benefits of company—but I think such men always yearn for just one soul who is like them. They die with that yearning. Still, most men seem to have no difficulty at all; they are enough like their fellows so that they need not think about it. You and I, though, who are of our people, but not like to them…” He shrugged. “We may try to become as much like our fellows as we can, to completely change ourselves so that we are like them.”

Dirk shook his head. “That doesn’t work. You can’t change who you are; all you can do is a good job of acting, good enough to fool your fellows and maybe even fool yourself—but that’s all you’d be doing. Fooling. And sooner or later, what you really are would roar out to loom up over you, demanding retribution.”

“Yes.” DeCade said promptly. “That is the trouble with the third way, is it not?”

Dirk thought that one over as they paced ahead through the tunnel. Then he said slowly, “I think I know another way; to search and keep searching, till you find people who are like you.”

DeCade smiled politely. “True, that is possible …”

Dirk didn’t like the emphasis.

“But why do you speak of this, friend Dulain?” DeCade rumbled. “Are you not like other skymen?”

“Yes, of course.” Dirk frowned. “But that’s begging the question. It’s saying that you can stop being a wanderer by becoming a part of a group of wanderers.”

“Yes.” DeCade nodded, with full conviction. “And I think your question has been answered, Dirk Dulain; it—” Suddenly he froze, staring ahead of him.

Dirk came to a halt, frowning up at him; then he turned to look forward…

Ruby light spat out from both walls, gouging holes in the stone three feet in front of them. Dirk could feel his eyes trying to bulge out of their sockets.

The beams cut off, leaving no light but the torch. Behind Dirk, the outlaws muttered fearfully. “Triggered by the force-field we passed through.”

DeCade’s voice cut through the mutters. “It is no matter. They told me it was coming. Follow.” And he stepped forward again.

Dirk frowned up at him. Then, hesitantly, he stepped forward himself. He took the second step a little more surely; with the third step, he felt a gush of fervent faith in DeCade that threatened to overwhelm him. He suppressed it quickly—almost in panic—as he caught up with DeCade. He looked up at the giant, frowning. “Who told you it was coming?”

“The men who built this place.” DeCade licked his lips and swallowed; sweat sheened his forehead. “There was suffering between these walls, Dirk Dulain.”

Of course, Dirk thought, chagrined. If the workmen who put the lasers in had been men of any conscience, they would have been in agony over what the devices they were installing could do to human beings—and, they must have realized, human beings of their own kind; who else would want to sneak into the King’s castle through the back door? Echoes of that guilt would still linger near each installation—for a psychometrist.

Then the other implication hit him. Dirk stared up at DeCade, appalled.

The giant nodded. “Yes, Dirk Dulain. When they killed them, they buried the workmen in the walls.”

“Odd gods, man! You must be in agony!”

“It … is not pleasant,” DeCade admitted.

Dirk peered up at him in the torchlight, looking closely. “Are you sure you’re—”

“I am,” DeCade said curtly. “I can bear it easily, Dulain; there were only a hundred of them.” And he marched ahead.

Dirk followed slowly, mentally revising his estimate of the giant’s strength upward; and it had been high to begin with. Or was it Gar’s strength he was estimating?

DeCade jerked to a halt again. In a low, soothing voice, he called out, “Steady. It comes now, once again.” He scowled; an uneasy murmur rose behind him. DeCade ignored it, glowering straight ahead. Dirk wondered what he was doing—putting greater weight on the floor with a force-field, pushing out heat in front of himself, stopping a stream of photons? Whichever one it was, Gar must have also been a telekineticist; by speeding up the motion of the molecules, he could raise the temperature of the air. By slowing them down, he could free energy to bind into a force field—and if he could do that, he was some kind of psi Dirk had never even heard about. Dirk found himself wondering if there had been anything psionic Gar hadn’t been able to do.

A thundering crash, and a huge portcullis slammed down to bite into the rock of the tunnel floor.

Dirk started back, scared half out of his skin. The tunnel was totally silent.

Then a low, frantic muttering began.

DeCade’s voice cut through it like a buzz saw. “It is done; they have shot their bolt. Now let us tear this iron from our path.” He nodded to Dirk. “Your laser.”

Dirk pulled out his pistol and held down the firing stud. The ruby beam sizzled out to the top corner of the portcullis and began to shear through the iron. Behind him, three outlaws unlimbered their own pistols, gaining confidence now that they had something to do. Four ruby beams slashed out, moving slowly, one along each side.

Dirk couldn’t help a moment of admiration for the first King. Just in case time deteriorated his electronic defense, he’d had a primitive mechanical one as a fail-safe. Primitive, yes, but effective—unless you happened to have an all-purpose psi along.

Each pair of laser beams met at a corner and winked out. DeCade stood waiting a few moments, watching the glowing metal; then he raised his staff with both hands clasped at the top, swung it high above his head like a battering ram, and shot it forward. The tip hit the iron grille, a little above center. The last few strands of iron snapped, and the huge gate slammed back and down with a crash.

DeCade stood staring at it a moment. Then, slowly, he said, “The way is clear, good lads. Follow.” And he stepped onto the grille, carefully avoiding the hot edges, and strode ahead. Dirk followed. So did the outlaws.

As the torchbearer cleared the far edge of the portcullis, the light fell on a steep, narrow flight of stairs, thick with dust. DeCade grinned down at Dirk. “Only a long climb now, friend Dulain, and we will have come to the place we seek.” Then he frowned, his head snapped up, as though he had heard something.

Dirk had felt it, too—that sudden inner certainty that now was the time.

“We are laggard,” DeCade said grimly. “They are storming the walls. Come.”

He turned and strode away up the stairs.

The young Lord on sentry duty at the northeast point of the wall leaned on the battlement, staring down at the wide talus slope below him, newly sprinkled with lime, white even in the starlight. He smiled at the sight, nodding with satisfaction; not a single churl could creep across that expanse of whiteness without being as clear as a hot woman’s hunger. The rabble had pushed their rightful lords back into Albemarle, but now the pushing was done; the Lords were here in the King’s castle, and here they would stay while Core and the King summoned an army from across the galaxy—there were always mercenaries for hire, and any aristocracy was a good credit risk. A fleet of ships would be on its way before morning; and the Lords could stay, safe and snug, in this castle, until the great ships came thundering down. There was plenty of food, and Albemarle had never been taken.

The young Lord failed to remember that Albemarle had never been attacked.

Below him, in the fringe of forest across the white talus slope, churls cherished new laser pistols given to them by sky-men. Directly below the young Lord, a sky-man lay prone, cradling a sniper’s laser rifle to his shoulder, centering infrared scope sights on the sentry. Next to him knelt an outlaw, his hand on the sky-man’s shoulder, waiting.

On the wall above, eight sentries watched, hawk-eyed and nervous, alert for the slightest sign of attack, wishing their watches were over.

Below each of them lay a sky-man with a rifle, and a churl with his hand on the sky-man’s shoulder—almost immobile, scarcely breathing—waiting.

Then somehow, each churl felt it within him—now was the time.

Eight hands tightened on shoulders.

Eight beams of ruby light lanced out at the same moment; eight sentries fell, with holes burned in their chests. One screamed and another managed a rattling bark; then all was still. Each lordling lay next to the huge laser cannon that had been his charge.

On the white talus slope, eight groups of outlaws appeared, running toward the wall with long ladders, grappling hooks, and cables. The butts of the ladders grounded just outside the moat; their tops swung up, over, and thudded home high on the castle walls. Outlaws scrambled up the ladders. They stopped at the topmost rungs, slipped the grappling hooks from their shoulders, swung them seven times about their heads, and let fly. Eight irons arced up through the night, over the wall and down, to clatter on stone. Below, on the ground, other churls caught the trailing ropes and pulled. The grappling irons clattered along the stone and caught in crevices. More churls threw their weight on the ropes, and steel points bit deep into stone.

Above on the ladder, the climbers caught the ropes again, pulled on them, rested their weight on them, then swung out, and set their feet against the walls, and started walking upward. A few minutes later, they hauled themselves over the top and onto the battlements. They pulled themselves to their feet, pulling out hammers and ringbolts, and turned to drive the ringbolts deep into the granite. Then they loosened the grappling irons and pulled up the ropes. At their ends came rope ladders. They made the ladders fast to the ringbolts, then leaned over the outer wall, waving down. A few minutes later, sky-men clambered up and over the walls, dropped to their knees next to the laser cannons, pulled out small tool kits, and got busy taking out a few vital parts. The climbers hadn’t waited; they were already down in the courtyard, running, converging on the main gate. As they ran, they unlimbered truncheons and drew laser pistols.

The Lord of the Watch sat at a table with three other Lords, playing cards by the light of an oil lamp. Its light flickered on the great windlass that operated the drawbridge, but didn’t quite penetrate to the door and corners. Three outlaws eased silently through the door.

One of the Lords threw down his cards in disgust and leaned back in his chair, looking up. His eyes widened and his mouth opened to shout.

The outlaws sprang, and five more leaped in behind them.

One Lord went down as a club caught him behind the ear. The other three stared, then leaped to their feet, shouting and yanking at their swords. One went down with a bad dent in his skull; a truncheon stabbed into another’s solar plexus. The last screamed as a club broke his wrist; then another caught him at the base of the skull, and his scream cut off, his eyes rolling up as his knees collapsed and he folded to the floor.

The outlaws stood panting a moment, staring down at their erstwhile masters, not quite believing. Then four of them whipped ropes and gags from their belts and knelt to get busy wrapping the Lords for storage. The other four turned to the great windlass.

Outside, an army of churls streamed up across the white talus slope with Hugh at their head. The great drawbridge groaned, then swung slowly down with a rattling of chains. It thudded home on the bank, and the portcullis creaked up as a vanguard of a thousand churls came charging across the bridge, their eyes burning with silent triumph. They burst into the courtyard. Behind them, thousands more swelled up out of the woods in an orderly, quick-moving column.

The brazen bellow of a gong split the night, rolling out from the great central keep.

Hugh cursed under his breath; some lordling had looked out a window, and seen what was happening in the courtyard, and raised the alarm. It wouldn’t be quite a clean sweep, after all.

But close enough …

He charged the great door of the keep, leveling his laser to burn out the lock; but the door boomed open, and a double column of Lords charged out, formed into a skirmish line, and opened fire as other Lords came running out onto the battlements from upper doors. Hugh and his men threw themselves flat and dived for cover behind carts, water troughs, anything, as the sky-men on the battlements opened fire on the Lords up above, and a thousand churls came vaulting up stone steps to join them. Laser beams embroidered the night with bright geometric patterns. Churls and Lords screamed and died, but others leaped to fill their places. The churls pressed forward foot by foot; but a thousand Lords were now spread out by the base of the Keep, and half again that number warred on the battlements. More pressed behind them.

Then a score of churls together blasted ten Lords out of the line and charged up to three feet of them before other Lords could replace them. The replacements came out firing, but wildly; ten churls survived to burn into the center of the packed mass of Lords, and a hundred followed them. The Lords turned on the invaders, but realized that a laser was as apt to burn a fellow Lord as a churl. They threw their pistols down with curses and whipped out their swords.

The churls met them with long knives.

In a few minutes, a knot of chaos had formed in front of the keep door as Lords paired off with churls in hand-to-hand combat. Other Lords charged in to help their fellows, and hundreds of churls ducked laser fire to plunge in to have a personal chance at a Lord. The whole courtyard became one huge melee, Lords bellowing and howling as they fought silent, flint-eyed churls. And still the Lords poured out from the keep, and still more churls poured in through the gate.