Her Majesty's Wizard

CHAPTER 17

They had almost come to the end of the pass when Stegoman stopped suddenly, lifting his head and craning it around, looking toward the backtrail. "I hear horses. Two... nay, three, approaching the lip of the pass."

Matt turned a questioning eye to Sir Guy. "Should we hide now and decide whether or not they're. enemies later?"

The knight considered it briefly, then shook his head. "Nay, Lord Wizard. If there be only three horses, we are a match for them. Let us see their faces."

The heads of horses showed above the lip of the pass, then the bald spot of a tonsure.

"I think..." Matt said.

A steel helmet with a wealth of blonde hair cascading out of it poked up on the left, and long black hair came into view on the right.

"That is who I think it is - isn't it?"

Sir Guy nodded. "They have made good time."

Matt frowned. "We did have a twenty-four-hour layover. Even so..."

"They must have ended the broil at the convent quickly," Sir Guy said.

Father Brunel looked up and saw them. Relief and joy flooded his face. He waved frantically.

Then Alisande saw them and stiffened in the saddle. Sayeesa lifted her head, but her posture didn't change.

Father Brunel kicked his horse into a canter and slewed up beside them in a few minutes, breathing heavily. "Praise Heaven we have found you!"

"Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "Someone on your trail?"

"Nay, nay! But 'tis sorely tried I've been, accompanying these two ladies!"

"This is good fortune, Sir Knight, Lord Wizard." Alisande pulled up beside the priest. "I had not thought to meet you till Grellig." Then she looked directly at Matt and stared. "How now, sir! What is this armor! Have you no respect for--"

"Highness, your Lord Wizard is now Sir Matthew, a full knight created," Sir Guy informed her quietly.

Alisande turned back to Matt with a frowning stare. "How can this be? Who has knighted him? Yourself, Sir Guy? You had ought--"

"Not I, and I may not tell who 'twas. Yet be assured, 'twas a lord of high station."

Alisande gazed at the Black Knight while it sank in; then, somehow, she began to look a little, frightened. Matt wondered why she should be so upset at the news.

The princess nodded, turning away. "He is a knight, then." She glanced at Matt's shield. "No arms ... but of course. You have not been granted them; and you are the first of your family to gain this estate, are you not?"

It rankled; Matt couldn't help feeling that his father, as a business executive, should rank with a knight; but, by the book, his family were definitely commoners. "True."

Without the slightest hesitation, she said, "Your arms are those of the Lords Wizard, which are quartered with those of your family, if you wish it. We shall award them to you with due ceremony, once I am crowned queen."

Nice kid! She went by the rulebook, even when it galled her, as Matt's knighthood seemed to. She'd probably be all for his painting the heraldic symbols on right there - if he could find a painter.

"Yet I think," Alisande went on, "we must add to the Lord Wizard's arms some new device, which will cleanse them; for they have been sullied of late."

"Sullied? Who has been?"

They all turned to Sayeesa, who had just come up. She saw Matt, and her eyes widened. "Ah, then, the silvery gleam was more than a mailshirt! Is he a knight, then?"

Alisande nodded.

"My congratulations, sir." Her voice was low, softly modulated; but her lips quirked with humor. "So the title I first accorded you, knowing it to be false, is now yours by right!"

Matt smiled. "Are you a seer, Sayeesa?"

Her face darkened. Her gaze strayed away, brooding. "If I am, I know it not. Still..."

Sir Guy cleared his throat. "We had not looked to see you so quickly, ladies. How has this come, that the siege of the convent was broken? And how is it you journey in Father Brunel's holy company?"

"'Twas your doing." Alisande gave him a wry smile. "When you had fought through the host of the enemy, the Reverend Mother cried, `See, then, what true men can do! Come, will you do less?' Then out we came to the ramparts, to hurl at the enemy arrows and bolts and great balls of fire from the catapult, while this good postulant--" She nodded toward Sayeesa, and Matt realized, with a shock, that the ex-witch still wore a postulant's habit. "-did link hands with the abbess, who turned her power to ward off the enemy's spells. At dawn's light, Sister Victrix, who led the erstwhile bandits, sallied out with her sisters to sweep the field clear."

"Come on!" Matt scowled. "A mere hundred nuns, against that whole army?" Of course, by then the enemy must have been well aged...

Alisande nodded. "'Twas dawn; the power of the sorcerous army was waning, while ours waxed. And in that fortunate hour came knights of Moncaire, with this good priest leading. They rode into the rear of the baron's force and dealt blows about them recklessly - and our good Father Brunel strove as mightily as any of them."

"'Tis true, to my shame." The priest nodded heavily, and Matt realized, with a start, that he had a broadsword slung across his back. "Yet what must needs be done, must be done. Still, I'll carry the screams of the dying to my grave."

"So." Matt pursed his lips. "The enemy fled or got chopped up, according to their taste; and you rode out after us. No chance the army would come back that night?"

Alisande shook her head, but Sayeesa said, "Some chance, surely; but the Reverend Mother would not hear of our staying to aid them. She commanded us forth, saying her Highness's quest was more vital than the safety of the Cynestrians' house. If, as we all expected, the army did not return that night, the Reverend Mother with all her nuns would soon follow us. They may be even now behind us, on the trail. She bade me accompany her Highness; for I've learned some small enchantments of her and might be of use, if sorcerers attacked our rightful queen."

"I hate to agree with her, but it makes very good sense." Matt pursed his lips. "Any chance to test the theory?"

"None." Alisande looked puzzled. "We passed the night in the open, lighted by a campfire; and not a soul did challenge us. Father Brunei slept soundly; Sayeesa and I stood watch-and-watch; we did not wish to waken him. He had ridden long, and warred as heavily as we, and had seen less sleep. Too, the night was still."

"Never a whisper of danger." Sayeesa's brows knitted, perplexed.

Somehow, it ail sounded ominous. "that I don't like."

"Nor I, Lord Wizard," Alisande said darkly. "What does the sorcerer while all is calm?"

"Brews one hell of a storm for us." Matt managed a faint smile. "What else would he be using the time for?"

"Then there is small room for talk." Sir Guy turned his horse's head to the west. "Come, let us ride! We must be nigh Grellig ere nightfall!"

They rode out of the pass in close order. Matt made it a little closer. "Stegoman - bump up against Sir Guy's horse, will you?"

The dragon grumbled, but moved ahead and to the left, almost colliding with the war horse. Matt leaned down to get his head near the knight's ear. "Sir Guy - did you notice the look on Brunel's face?"

The knight nodded, "Aye. He looks like a man on the rack."

"I don't blame him, having to ride twenty-four hours with his main source of temptation right beside him. And she doesn't seem to have gained any charity toward him ... Look, don't you think this calls for a thorough rundown on the military situation? As well as the spiritual?"

The knight flashed a grin up at him. "Will I take the princess and priest aside, do you mean? To question them, purportedly to every last small detail of their day and night? How long do you wish this questioning to take?"

Matt glanced at Sayeesa, then back at Sir Guy. "Maybe half an hour. If that lady can't learn to be at least polite, our little company might disintegrate from internal tension before we come anywhere near seeing a battle."

"There's truth to that. Drop back, Lord Wizard."

Matt straightened, and Stegoman slackened his pace. Sir Guy turned back in his saddle, calling, "Ho! Good Father!"

Brunel looked up; then he nudged his horse up beside Sir Guy's. They chatted in an undertone for a few minutes; then the priest shrugged helplessly and nodded toward Alisande. Sir Guy looked up and called, "Highness?"

Alisande frowned and moved up beside them.

Matt dropped further back, hearing only a faint mumble from the trio ahead, until he was even with Sayeesa.

She rode straight in the saddle, eyes forward, not even glancing at him. The ice was thick this summer. "I'd, uh, like to have a word with you about the security of our little band," he began.

"Security?" Sayeesa looked up, startled. Then her face cleared. "Ah, you mean a way of blending our magics, should need arise, to ward our friends."

"No, I had internal security more in mind. Between you and Father Brunel, you've laid a constant tension on this crew, which just might tear it apart. Couldn't you bring yourself to be at least barely polite to him?"

Sayeesa stiffened, lifting her head and turning straight forward again. "You ask too much."

"Why? You obviously don't find him repulsive."

"What means have you of knowing?" she snapped.

Matt shrugged. "That male succubus in Brunel's form, outside the walls of the Cynestrians. When you saw it, you folded up. Was that because you don't care about him?"

"What I care of him matters not," Sayeesa grated.

"Oh, no! It's just tearing our happy little family apart! If you care about him, why be so insulting? Are you miffed because he escaped your clutches?"

"Be still!" Sayeesa turned on him angrily. "What affair is this of yours? Chide me for my actions toward yourself, if you must, but never any others! What passed between himself and me is my affair and his, but never yours! Do you not know that those who meddle in others' lives may well destroy them?"

"Your own two personal lives might destroy the rest of us," Matt countered. A slow grin spread over his face. "And why would you get so angry if he hadn't escaped you?"

Sayeesa's face slowly set.

"He did, didn't he?" Matt jibed.

Slowly, Sayeesa bowed her head.

"I should think you'd be proud of it," Matt said gently. "Even under an enchantment, you had the goodness to keep a priest from breaking one of his vows."

"I had not," she said, so low that Matt could scarcely hear it, "nor did I wish to." She lifted her face. "There was no way to bring him to it, look you. Scarcely could I witch him into caresses, when he'd turn away and tell me, in long and tedious detail, how foul he was, how weak, how base! And all the while I desired nothing half so much as one light touch of his sweet hand! Yet worse-after speaking to this vein in some length, he'd turn to the door, saying he'd not sully me with his foul presence. Then had I to leap after him, to catch him back, to cozen, coo, and calm him, pouring praise out till he'd ceased to pull away; then slowly, gently, pull him toward embrace again. But no sooner would I touch him than he would shrink back and curse himself anew!"

"And you'd have to start the whole thing all over again?"

"Aye, not that it bore me any fruit! For look you, when lust comes to lust, this man is holy and is good-far too good for me! Lust he had abundantly, but 'twas not enough!"

"With a girl like you," Matt mused, "lust shouldn't have been all that was operating. A certain degree of romantic love would have been almost unavoidable."

She looked up, startled, then nodded slowly. "I thank you, Wizard. Yet you speak from your own heart, not his. Nay, his interest was of the body only."

"No." Matt shook his head, frowning. "There's some interest in you as a person, strong interest, or I mistake completely."

"Mayhap," she said somberly, "but his soul's so filled with God and ghostly duties that there's no room left for any woman. Not even the most beautiful and most holy of females could claim chore than a minor part of his affections; and how much less myself? Ah, if only he'd not been a priest! I might then have claimed him! But no; for at the last, the thirteenth time, he turned away, opened wide the door, and bade me stay, for he'd not defile my beauty with his swinishness. Ah, to be defiled so!" she breathed, closing her eyes, head back. Then the eyes squeezed shut; she trembled, tears welling forth. "Nay, I must not think on this! Yet he blessed me!"

"He what?"

"Blessed me," she said again, with a short, breathless, incredulous laugh. "As he turned away to shut a door between us, he gave me blessing!" Her eyes closed again; she turned her head from side to side, her shoulders shaking. "Ah, if he were not of the cloth! I might then have some chance to win his heart, even now!"

"If only," Matt murmured. "Kind of makes him a challenge, doesn't it?"

She pivoted to glare at him. "What do you say?"

"If he weren't a priest," Matt said softly, "would you have given him a second look?"

"Be still, foul tongue!" Sayeesa turned on him, rising in her stirrups. "Is there nothing of chivalry in you, nor of gallantry? What true knight would even speak so to a woman! Have I held a mirror to you, that showed only the darkest nooks within your soul! Nay! Then why must you do so to me?"

"You haven't answered my question," Matt reminded her.

Sayeesa glared at him, speechless. Then slowly her face darkened to brooding; she turned away. "I cannot tell," she said, so softly he could scarcely hear. "In truth, I cannot say." She looked up at him sharply. "Can you?"

Matt tried to lock eyes with her, but his conscience gnawed at him; it had been a low blow, true or not. He dropped his gaze and rode away.

Sir Guy looked up, caught Matt's glance, and turned back to his conference. After a few more words, Alisande dropped back, looked up, saw Sayeesa's face, and stared, appalled. She moved beside Sayeesa quickly, murmuring to her.

Sayeesa rode stone-faced, ignoring her. Alisande glanced up to give Matt a venomous glare, then lowered her eyes and rode beside the ex-witch, looking very grave.

Sir Guy spoke on with Father Brunel for a while, the discussion apparently growing heavier. The knight seemed to be pressing a question sharply and not getting much of an answer. Finally, Sir Guy shrugged, smiled, said a few parting words, and let the priest ride on, head bowed, shoulders slumped, brooding.

Matt rode up beside Sir Guy. "How's it feel to play father confessor to a priest?"

"Unusual, to say the least." Sir Guy's eyes still held on Brunel. "And to no point. Let me advise you, from this moment: Never seek to tell a priest that he should not blame himself too harshly, for he'll argue you out, verse and chapter, why he should."

"Yeah." Matt eyed Brunel's back thoughtfully. "But from my little chat with Sayeesa, I can't figure out any sins they might have committed together that could account for this much tension between them. In fact, they didn't, which is much better reason why."

"I believe you have the right of it. The best I could piece out from his circumlocutions is that, at the worst, he has kissed her and, mayhap, given her a passing caress; but no more. From all I did hear, and all I can read into his words, he has ne'er bedded her-no, nor any woman."

"What?" Matt whirled about, staring.

"Never." The Black Knight turned his head from side to side, marveling.

"Oh, come on! What was all this garbage he was feeding us, about his being a sinner? One of the all-time greats, the way he made it sound!"

"Ah, but he says that he is. For, though he did not, in actuality, bed any woman, he oft did decide to do so. And all that is needed for the committing of mortal sin is the deciding."

Matt sat still for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I seem to remember something about that, from my childhood catechism-seriousness, knowledge, and will: the three components of a mortal sin. It has to be wrong enough to be mortal; you have to know it's that bad; then you have to decide to go do it."

Sir Guy nodded. "Thus said the priest. The act itself, it seems, is not necessary."

"But he reneged on the decision! He reversed it! He drew back! He didn't do it!"

"Nay; for there came another moment of decision. On the verge of committing the act, he became uncertain; and had he, at that moment, decided again to do the deed itself, he would have committed a second mortal sin."

"Come on!" Matt tossed his head in exasperation. "Two sins for the price of one? What is this, bargain week at the Devil's booth?"

"It would seem that it is."

"So even though he's never been anything but celibate, he considers himself a sink of depravity."

"He does, Lord Wizard, he does. And can you gainsay him?"

Matt started to answer, then remembered which universe he was in, and bit back on the response. Even in his own universe, the traditional theology agreed with Brunei. These days, of course, there was some talk about a sort of relative morality ...

He shook his head. This was Aristotle's universe, not Einstein's. Nothing was relative, here; there were only absolutes.

Father Brunel was educated in local theology, which came perilously close to also being local science. No doubt he was right-in this universe. No doubt, at all-or he wouldn't have turned into a wolf.

The sun was out of sight behind the peaks, firing the Western sky, when they rode down into a small valley nestled among three mountain peaks. Alisande reined in her horse. "Here is our camp for the night."

Matt frowned and looked around. It was a pretty place, but not much by military values. "Have you been here before?"

"Nay; but I know of it, and Sir Guy has doubtless seen it."

"Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow at the Black Knight. "What do you think?"

"That we must see the dawn here, Sir Matthew." The knight swung down from his horse. "Come, setup camp."

Matt clambered down from Stegoman, still dubious. "If you don't mind, Your Highness-why here?"

"Because," said Alisande, "one of two yonder peaks is Colmain."

Matt stared. "Which one?"

"That I cannot say. 'Twill take some time to ascertain it, more than there's light left."

"Oh?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "How are you going to go about it? Ask the natives?"

"None would live near here; 'tis said to be cursed. Yet I will know, wizard, just as I know now that we are near him."

"But how..." Matt cut off the rest of the sentence and turned away to hunt fuel. It made sense, of a sort; and he was sure

Alisande wouldn't be able to tell him how she knew, other than that she'd have a feeling. Which figured. When Saint Moncaire brought Colmain to life in the first place, he'd probably included Hardishane's genetic imprint, or its spiritual equivalent - a sort of psychic fingerprint. And being psychic and therefore of energy, it would resonate to its harmonic waveform-the "print" of Alisande's soul. Just as Matt could feel forces gathering about him when he worked a spell, so Alisande would be able to feel Colmain's presence.

Which meant the spirit still lived, in the rock...

Matt veered away from the idea and laid kindling on a flat stone. "Hey, Stegoman! Got a light?"

"Must I?" the dragon growled.

Matt looked up, frowning. "What makes you so surly all of a sudden? ... Oh. Your tooth."

The dragon nodded miserably.

"I thought it had rotted away, since it hasn't bothered you in so long! Better have it out, or it will really get fierce."

"Must I?" But Stegoman already sounded resigned.

"No question about it." Matt stood up, wiping his hands on his metal pants. "We might be fighting a battle tomorrow - and it would kind of slow you down."

"Well, then, if it must be, it must!" The dragon sighed. "Only be quick about it, Wizard - and render vanished a part of my body!"

"Oh, don't worry, you won't feel a thing - while I'm doing it." Matt pulled up some grass and went over to the dragon. "Lie down and open your mouth."

Stegoman grunted, folding his legs, and laid his head on the ground, opening his great mouth. Matt eyed the huge fangs suspended over his hands and decided that anesthetics were a great idea.

It was easy to tell the bad tooth; it was much darker than the rest. Matt squeezed the grass over it, watching drops of juice strike the bad tooth as he chanted:

The last drop splattered onto the tooth. Matt drew his hand back. "Okay, close your mouth."

Stegoman let his upper jaw close and frowned, lips working. "Wha've 'oo duh? I ca' fee' my hung."

"Hung? Oh, tongue. It worked faster than I thought. Well, let it sit a bit longer." He got up and sent to Sir Guy. "Do you carry a kit for fixing flats-uh, for changing horseshoes?"

The Black Knight nodded. "Certes. What knight would not?"

"Got a pair of tongs for drawing nails?"

Sir Guy nodded again and went to rummage in his saddlebags. He came back with a huge pair of pincers.

Matt took them and returned to Stegoman. He found the Operation had drawn everyone but Alisande to watch. She would probably come, too, when she was done shooting dinner.

Matt knelt, grumbling. "Now I know why they call it an operating theater... Open wide, Stegoman."

The dragon opened his mouth but kept his eyes closed. Matt tapped the tooth with his finger. "Feel anything?"

"Ngo."

Matt put on a little pressure. "Now? ... Now? ... Okay, brace yourself." He took a deep breath, jammed the pincers tight as he shoved with his foot, and threw all his weight against the handles.

He stumbled backward, holding a huge, dripping tooth silhouetted against the evening sky.

"Ow," Stegoman said, but not loudly.

"The tooth-hole bleeds," Sayeesa observed. "Should it not be bound?"

"Bound? Oh, packed. Yes, but..."

"Here." She thrust a wad of lint into his hand. "Torn from my petticoat. I had thought you might forget."

Matt packed the lint into the bleeding socket. "Okay, Stegoman, you can close your jaw now."

The dragon lowered his upper jaw gingerly, letting the full weight onto his lower jaw gradually. Then he opened his eyes. "I feel no pain now." He seemed to have recovered control of his tongue.

"Well, some of the drug's still in you. When it wears off, there'll be some pain. But it will pass - and stay gone!"

"My thanks, Wizard. And fear not-if there's pain, I'll bear it. Guard my tooth."

"Like a diamond." Matt turned to Sir Guy. "You wouldn't have a scrap of leather, would you?"

"Such as would serve for mending a bridle? Aye."

The knight brought it from his saddlebag. He must have belonged to the Coast Guard; he was always prepared.

With a circle of the leather and a thong, Matt fashioned a bag just large enough to hold the tooth. He held it out to Stegoman. "I could tie it around your neck."

"Aye, do so. Then he who would pluck it from me must slay me to get it!"

Half an flour later, Matt finally decided to draw the packing out, muttering:

The wound looked clean. Matt watched it for a time to be sure there was no seepage. He started to throw the lint onto the fire, then stopped, remembering his sympathetic magic and what burning the blood might do to Stegoman.

"I'll wash it carefully," Sayeesa said, appearing at his side. She took the wad and slipped away.

A moment later, Stegoman sighed softly. "Ah, that feels cool and soothing."

Matt turned away, his doubts about sympathetic magic answered. He was feeling exhausted and let down. Playing dentist to a dragon was hardly his idea of fun. Then the appearance of the valley caught his attention, now that he was not concentrating on the tooth. He looked up at the sky, still red and gold in the west. The single eastern peak glowed against gathering gloom. "Hey, this place is beautiful, isn't it?"

"It is," Stegoman rumbled. "'Tis much like my homeland, Wizard, which is not far distant - only a few leagues to westward. Welcome to my country. Welcome indeed, for thou hast given me the chance to come home to it. Now dost comprehend the depth of my thanks?"

"Yeah,- I think I begin to." Matt suddenly stiffened. "Hey! What's a jet doing here?"

A spot of bright fire moved across the sky, golden against azure.

"I know not of a 'jet,' but I know well that sight!" Excitement quickened Stegoman's voice as he rose. "'Tis a dragon, a high riding sentry, gilded by the last ray of sunset!" He set himself and thundered, "Glogorogh!"

The point of light swerved sharply, then swung around in a circle, dimming as it swelled, spiraling down, till Matt could make out the sinuous, bat-winged form. Its voice echoed down, tinny with distance; "Who summons Glogorogh?"

"'Tis I, 'tis Stegoman!" The dragon's wings exploded as he leaped into the sky, flapping heavily till he caught a thermal, then gliding upward. Glogorogh sank lower, crying, "Thou dost lie, for Stegoman is slitwinged and exiled!"

"Nay, I speak truth! For my wings are mended, and I ride the high air again!"

Glogorogh pulled up ten feet above Stegoman, his wings cupping air with a boom that shook the valley. "It cannot be! ... But thou hast his semblance!" And the dragon sentry flapped aside, veering away from Stegoman.

"More than his semblance - himself! Why dost thou flee? Dost not know me?"

"Aye, I know thee! I do nor hold thee ill, Stegoman - but hover far from me! I have no wish to risk thine antics!"

Stegoman banked to a halt, sitting on an updraft, hurt and baffled. "Thou dost shy from me as though I were some unnatural thing!"

"And art thou not?" Glogorogh countered. "How is it thy wings are mended? What foul sorcery is this?"

"Not sorcery, but wizardry! A wizard from another world hath healed me, Glogorogh! And nay, not my wings alone, but all of me - my heady blood and flights of fancy! I could burn a forest now and still be clear of head as any of the elders!"

"If that is so, then I rejoice to hear it." Glogorogh still sounded skeptical. "Yet pardon me, that I do doubt. Thou must needs understand, thou wert a thing of peril!"

"Aye, I know it well," Stegoman rumbled. "Yet if thou dost doubt, then see!"

He whirled away upward, blasting, tracing a great half circle of fire across the sky, then spiraled higher and higher, trailing a fiery gyre.

Matt took a deep breath and crossed his fingers. Showing off had away of canceling out virtues.

But this was evidence, not bragging. Stegoman's torch cut off, and he dropped like a stone through the fading fiery spiral, then slapped his wings open with a thunderclap as he bellowed out, "Now see me! I am clear as any dragon could be!" And he wheeled away in a graceful series of curves. Matt stared, transfixed by the beauty of the flight.

Glogorogh's breath rasped in. "Nay, 'tis the dance of victory! And sure, 'tis warranted - for thou dost fly it without the slightest fault of line or place!"

Stegoman streaked back, hovering near. "Dost still doubt?"

"I cannot; I can but ride amazed! How comes this, Stegoman? A lifelong failing, of more than a century's duration, cured in mere years!"

Stegoman's mouth lolled wide in a grin. "'Tis no work of mine, as I have told thee, but all the gracious doing of this wizard that I spoke of. He came upon me and never once did he spy pity; nay, he's far too chivalrous for that! A lord he is, in bearing and in title, and a maze of scholarship bewildering, a very font of wisdom! He but chanted one brief verse, and my wings boomed wide about me! Then together we did face monster after monster, and, oh, Glogorogh! My spirit quailed within me! For at the last, there came a salamander-"

"A salamander!" Glogorogh shied back twenty feet. "Nay, Stegoman, thou dost jest! How could a dragon meet the very father of our blood and live to speak of it?"

"By wizard's power," Stegoman caroled, "by the aid of a familiar that he lent me! I drove it down with tooth and claw; too late, it saw the waters there below and struck into their bosom with a booming hiss that filled the world! The flowing element overbore the fiery; it lay chilled, damped out, extinguished! And all through the wizard's power!"

"Indeed, he must be wondrous, if his strength through thee could best a salamander!" Glogorogh definitely sounded shaky. "Where does he lair?"

"He has no home now," Stegoman rumbled, "for he fights for the Princess Alisande, to free the land from vile Malingo and Astaulf! He stands below, silver in the gleaming, knight, lord, and wizard!"

Glogorogh looked down, startled, saw Matt, and quickly averted his eyes. "He doth appear so slight - no greater than any other of the Handed Folk. Yet I cannot doubt your words." Reluctantly, he lowered his eyes to Matt again, dropping down to hover, wings rolling like great drums, just twenty feet above. "Great Wizard, thanks, from all the deepest wells of dragons' hearts! If we may ever aid thee, be sure we shall; all Dragondom doth stand within thy debt, for thou hast returned one lost to us!"

"Uh ..." Matt swallowed. "I was just helping out a friend."

"Nay, I'll speak then for him," Stegoman bellowed. "We ride against the sorcerer and his pawn, good Glogorogh - and we ride without an army! Any aid that we may have, we'll need - and do not hover overlong in waiting. Go to the elders and the Council. Ask that I be restored to fellowship and tell them of his deeds! Then if they acknowledge tribal debt, ask that they aid us now, myself and this great man to whom I have sworn fealty!"

"Indeed I shall!" Glogorogh sheered off, winging upward in a high, wide spiral. "I shall lay the matter before them ere tile midnight and demand their aid! I mind some few who owe me debts of battle, and more who stand in blood debt to yourself!"

"Conjure them by debts," Stegoman agreed, wheeling up with him. "Conjure them by honor! Conjure them by every means and bring them to us on the morrow, if thou canst! The storm gathers, and any hour may bring the deluge!"

Glogorogh turned and hovered. "Aye, we have felt great forces about to brew and boil around us. Yet we are loathe to act, seeing no part within this quarrel, and fearing that one act may start that which will force us again to fight for every inch of our high mountains!"

"Fight now, while you've got a few allies," Matt shouted up at him.

Glogorogh looked down, startled, then nodded. "I'll trumpet loud the cry. If the elders will not send a force, I, at least, shall come to aid you, and, I doubt not, several score of good young dragons!"

"My thanks and blessing on you!" Stegoman trumpeted.

"And mine!" Matt shouted, waving.

Glogorogh wheeled away over the mountain and was gone.

Stegoman spiraled down, swung over the valley in a long, great arc, and landed in the meadow before Matt, his wings booming shut. "'Tis done; and my heart sings high within me! Aye, I'll fly in my home mountains once again!"

"He certainly didn't seem to have too many reservations about accepting you." Matt lifted his visor, yanked off a gauntlet, and wiped his brow. "Whew! Your folks don't stop to mull things over much, do they?"

"What need?" Stegoman demanded. "Act, and if thou dost later find thyself deceived, act again to counter it."

"Leave the worrying to the High Command, huh?" Matt nodded judiciously. "But you might have been a little deceptive yourself, the way you sang my praises."

The dragon fixed him with burning eyes. "I was not," he said. "When wilt thou learn?"

It might have been Matt's imagination, but he could have sworn that Alisande had been trying to avoid him all day. To test the theory, he sat down next to her at dinner time.

Her back stiffened. She seemed to pull in on herself and inch just the slightest bit away from him. "Good even, Lord Wizard."

Good even? They'd been riding in the same company all day! Matt clamped his jaws on a tough strand of partridge. "Good evening, your Highness."

Off to a great start, wasn't it? Where did he go from there? "Pardon my ignorance, but-is this the Plain of Grellig?"

She seemed to think it over before she answered. Then, unwillingly, she nodded her head toward the two peaks to the west. "Nay, 'tis beyond-a high plateau."

"Just over there, huh?" Matt raised his eyebrows, looking across her. Sure enough, what he'd thought was a long saddle between the peaks was actually a bit beyond them, and was the lip of a high tableland. "Why did you make that the rendezvous point?"

"'Twill likely be the scene of our final battle," Alisande said offhandedly. "Malingo must know why we are here and also that, once we wake Colmain, he must crush us ere we can begin to march back towards Bordestang; for then, with every mile we march, we'll gain a hundred men."

Matt sat there, letting the chill of her words sink in. As soon as the giant turned back into flesh, then, they'd be facing a set of stacked odds that would make Crecy and Agincourt look like an even match. "That soon, huh? Well, I hope we'll be tooled up."

"The abbess and her warrior nuns ride to meet us." Alisande's face was stone. "And the abbot of the Moncaireans comes with all his men."

"Shouldn't we wait a little for them to catch up with us?" Matt asked.

The princess shook her head. "Malingo may try to crush us ere we wake Colmain - if he can."

It wouldn't take much, Matt knew-and something just as dangerous was shaking his confidence. "Uh, your Highness..."

She seemed to steel herself. "Aye?"

"We may have a grave interior weakness at this last battle.. ."

"We will not." She said it with utter finality, like the crash of steel doors-but there was a hollowness behind them. That unquestionable conviction with which she spoke on public matters was lacking.

Therefore, it had to be a private matter.

"That's not what the Reverend Mother thought," Matt reminded her.

Alisande's chin tucked up another notch. "I am mindful of her admonition, Lord Wizard - and I mind me there were two courses of action for me."

For her? Did she really think she could make this a unilateral decision? Come to that, did she think she could resolve it by a simple decision? "There were two," Matt agreed carefully. "That we pledge, or finish."

"I choose the second." Alisande bit the words off. "Purge any feeling you have for me, Lord Wizard, as I have done regarding you."

"Oh, really? You've totally canceled any emotions you might have toward me?"

"Completely," she answered, her face like flint.

"Just by an act of will, eh? You just kicked out anything you felt for me, except possibly regarding my strategic value. Right?"

"Indeed." She seemed to be wilting inside the armor of her skin.

"Well, there's a word for that, where I come from ..."

"I care not to hear it."

"Repression," Matt grated. "It's bad business, your Highness, very dangerous. Repressed emotions tend to leap out at you when you least expect them - and usually at the worst possible moment!"

"They are not repressed," Alisande ground out, "but banished."

"An interesting theory." Matt tossed away a pheasant bone and stood up. "But for myself, I don't like going into battle on the strength of an hypothesis. You're the solar plexus of this army, Princess; so if there's a weakness in you, there's a weakness in the whole body of us!"

"But there is no weakness in me." She glared up at him.

"Oh? In case it hasn't occurred to your Highness, this isn't a public concern - that's only the fringe of it, the side effect. This matter is personal - and your infallibility just failed!" He turned away into the night, stalking past Sir Guy's raised eyebrow with a snarl.