My Son, the Wizard

ChapterTwenty-Seven

The Moors, in their lighter army and more agile horses, tried to swing wide to catch the knights from the sides… but the road fell into a ditch on one side and rose sharply into the hillside on the other. Funneled into staying on the road, lightly armored Moors rode against veritable human tanks, howling with rage at the trick, never thinking to flee or shrink.

Fifty feet from their leader, Alisande shouted her war cry, “For God, St. Moncaire, and St. Iago!”

“St. Moncaire!” the knights echoed.

The Moors called upon Allah to witness their valor and rode harder.

The two armies met with a crash. A few knights fell, but their comrades crushed hundreds of Moors in front of them, up against the hillsides, down into the ditch… where “peasants” coming up from the fields struck down hard with their pikes, and Moorish warriors died screaming with the Name on their lips.

The peasants vaulted the ditch and struck into the Moorish army.

Too late, the Moors realized the trap and turned to repel the “peasants”… but they were packed too tightly to fight well; their scimitars needed room. The defenders, though, jabbed and stabbed with their pikes and halberds. Someone began to sing Sir Guy’s war song, and the troopers who came running down the hillside joined in as they struck and struck again, hardened pikes ramming through boiled-leather armor and stabbing unarmored horses:

Chanting, Alisande’s army hewed its way through the wall of Moors.

At the head of the column, Alisande did the best she could to hew, too, but Lord Gautier and his knights were always there before her. The Moors, who could ordinarily dance rings around the “Franks,” were packed too tightly to do more than try to render blow for blow. The heavier swords and axes of the knights cleaved through the lighter Moorish armor and left a wake of blood as they churned through to the center of the army, and the commander.

Suddenly they were there. Tafas bin Daoud sat waiting on his horse with buckler on one arm and scimitar in the other hand, a comely youth flanked by grizzled, grim veterans. The knights halted, awed by his self-possession, by the sheer charisma of the Mahdi.

Alisande rode out between her courtiers and reined in her horse, amazed by her opponent’s youth. She swung up her visor out of courtesy to a gallant foe.

Tafas inclined his head in respect. “Your Majesty, our hour has come.”

“It need not,” Alisande returned, touched and stricken by the thought of having to strike down a man so young. “I am loath to smite you, boy.”

Tafas’s eyes flashed at the term, but he remained all courtesy. “And I am loath to strike a woman, especially one so fair… but it seems I must.”

“Not at all,” Alisande returned. “You may yet withdraw your armies to Morocco.”

But Tafas shook his head and raised his blade in salute. “I am Tafas bin Daoud of the Rif, and I pray that you may surrender to Allah before the life leaves your body.”

“I am Alisande of Merovence,” the queen returned. “I commend my soul to Christ, and pray that He will grant you the grace to believe in Him and seek baptism ere you die, so that He may receive your soul into Heaven this day.”

Tafas inclined his head again. “I thank you for your good wishes, Your Majesty. Now defend yourself!”

In the mountains behind them, the sorcerer in white gestured and chanted, then cried out in anger as the power he sought to command deserted him.

Tafas howled his ululating war cry and spurred his horse into a gallop, scimitar swinging high.

Someone pressed a lance into Alisande’s hand. She kicked her horse into motion, crying, “For Merovence and Ibile!”

She charged at Tafas, lance level, a ton of force focused on that point… but the Moor danced aside at the last second, chopping down at her lance arm with a blade of Toledo steel. It glanced off the finest armor Merovence could boast and chopped into the lance itself instead. Tafas wrenched it out, almost pulled off his horse by Alisande’s momentum, and the queen reined in. Moors scattered before her, but not one sought to interfere between Queen and Mahdi, nor did a single one of her knights. All understood that this must be a battle of the two commanders.

Tafas rode madly at Alisande’s back, but she managed to turn her horse in time… as he had planned, for his stroke slashed down even as her gaze fell upon him. But Alisande had turned her horse counterclockwise, so that it was her shield at which he swung. The Moorish blade slid off it. Tafas recovered and swung his blade high again, but Alisande’s own sword flashed out, and the Mahdi had to abort his own stroke to turn and take her blow on his buckler.

For a moment, they circled one another, swords raised, each seeking an opening. Then Alisande struck, and sword rang on sword, blows rained on shield and helmet. At last the two opponents drew back, both breathing heavily, both wary and watching for the slightest opening… but neither bleeding from even the slightest wound.

The knights and Moors shouted with joy. Slowly, the footmen stopped their slaughter, turning to watch.

Tafas slashed at Alisande’s waist, and her shield moved too slowly; one hip plate fell, its thongs cut through. The Moors shouted at this sign of victory, and Tafas galloped around Alisande’s horse with blinding speed. She tried to turn with him, to keep her shield between them, but he came up on her right, feinted high, then struck low, at the joint exposed by the lost plate. Alisande dropped her point as quickly as he slashed, though, parrying, then stabbing at him so quickly that he couldn’t lean aside fast enough, and a trail of blood gleamed on his cheek.

The knights of Merovence roared approval; the cavalry of Morocco shouted in rage.

Tafas drew back, face darkening in anger, but he knew the score was even again… his cut was equal to Alisande’s lost plate. Then he leaped his horse forward, blade slashing and circling too fast for eye to follow, until it stabbed straight at Alisande’s eye-slits. But the queen ducked at the last moment and the scimitar glanced ringing off her helmet. She came up stabbing, and Tafas barely managed to drop his buckler in time to deflect her sword… but it scored a long groove in his breastplate.

Both sides were shouting so constantly now that neither Mahdi nor queen could hear their own strokes.

They circled each other, gasping in hoarse gulps and wearying, each seeking an opening, neither finding any.

Then Tafas shouted, “O Nirobus! Grant me power now, I pray, that I may strike down this enemy of Islam!” He held his sword high, waiting.

Alisande stared, spellbound by the action, dread creeping over her as she waited for magic to strike.

Then she recovered, realizing what an opportunity Tafas had given her, and struck at his undefended side.

Tafas swept his sword down with a cry of dismay, barely managing to parry. “Nirobus! Why do you desert me now?”

He was meat for her cleaving, Alisande realized, weakened by fatigue and now by despair… and if she could just summon the energy to strike, she could finish him with one blow.

She tried to lift her arm, but she was just too weary.

On the road half a mile away, Mama suddenly straightened in her saddle. “Ramon! She needs us!”

“Sir Guy!” Papa cried. “We must race!”

“No!” Mama held up her hand, then caught his. “We will come too late! It is energy she needs now, not an army!” Her eyes glazed and she chanted in Spanish, then went limp. So did Papa. He felt suddenly weary. He hoped his strength had saved his daughter-in-law.

Energy suddenly gushed through her. Alisande swung her sword up with a cry of triumph and slashed at the Mahdi. The sword went flying from his hand.

The Moorish knights shouted in anger and started to move in… then froze as they saw the queen’s sword, unwavering, fixed directly before the Mahdi’s eyes. “I charge you yield, my lord,” Alisande panted, “and all your army with you.”

“I cannot,” Tafas said, pale and taut “Strike.”

A shout went up, Merovencian troopers pointing out across the fields. Alisande spared a quick glance and saw men in European livery running across the furrows toward the rear of the Moorish army. “It is the King of Ibile!” Lord Gautier cried. “King Rinaldo rides!”

“Your army is half of what it was, my lord,” Alisande panted, “between those you have sent to Bordestang, and those we have slain this day. Now another army charges down upon you, and they have little cause for chivalry. I charge you yield, not you alone or for yourself alone, but for all your men, that they may live!”

“Any soldier of Allah who dies in war wakes in Paradise,” Tafas said through stiff lips. Alisande could have screamed in frustration. How could she show mercy if the Moors would not surrender? Then inspiration struck. “But who will defend Morocco, my lord? The knights of Ibile shall lead their army across the Strait, and Islam shall lose a province! I charge you yield, for the sake of your faith.”

Tafas’ glance was full of bitterness and anger, but he opened his mouth. And a dust-devil boiled up between their horses, boiled up to the shoulders of their mounts, pulled in on itself, and was gone… but Matt stood there, dressed in strange loose clothing, looking about him in surprise with a strange little man, similarly dressed, clinging to him and moaning, and another fellow, even more outlandishly dressed, at his feet. For a split second, Alisande thought she saw a strangely dressed woman behind them, arms about their shoulders, but it must have been a trick of the light. In joy, she cried “Matthew!” even as she fought her horse, which tried to rear in panic. So did Tafas’ mount, but he reined it in, snatching his dagger from his belt and crying, “Islam!” But the dagger fell… he was too exhausted to hold it up.

Matt looked up, smiling in sympathy. “Tired? I’m afraid there won’t be any extra energy flowing into you … I just closed off its source.” Then he blew his wife a kiss, but instantly turned back to keep his eye on the enemy. Alisande fought to keep her sword still… that one kiss threatened to turn her to jelly inside. Matthew was beside her after all!

“Lord Wizard,” the little man said, “she brought Groldor with us!”

Matt looked down, then caught the fallen man by the collar with a cry of satisfaction. He scanned the line of Moors for a moment, then strode off purposefully toward a man in a purple turban, dragging Groldor behind him. Alisande cried out in alarm, but Matt only threw Groldor at the other’s feet. “So you’re the chief battle-sorcerer, huh? How’s the magic working lately?”

The Moor stared at him in speechless fury. “Not too well, huh?” Matt said sympathetically. “Recognize this one?”

The Moor looked down and his face went pale. “It is… ” Then he clamped his jaw shut.

“It’s Groldor, the sorcerer who was supposed to feed you the life energy of young men and young women he ensnared with his drug of enchanted salt,” Matt snapped. “There won’t be any more deliveries. I canceled his spell, and him with it.”

The Moor raised his arm, trembling with anger and shouting a verse in Arabic, then snapped his forefinger down to point at Matt. Nothing happened. “A cockroach?” Tafas cried, astonished. “Why would you wish to turn him into a cockroach?”

“The easier to crush, my lord,” Matt said, gaze still on the sorcerer. Alisande fought down a surge of fear for her husband… after all, the danger had passed before she’d known what it was… and glared at Tafas, raising her sword again. “Once more I charge you yield, my lord, not out of fear or despair, but in the sure knowledge that your strength is gone.”

“She’s right,” Matt said, “and it’s because you’re fighting against people who are devoted to goodness.”

“We of Islam are even more certainly devoted to Good!”

“You are,” Matt agreed, “and you thought you fought with the might of the Lord to strengthen your arm … but I have learned that you were deceived, my lord, most grievously deceived, and all your people with you.”

“Deceived?” Tafas demanded warily, even as his heart leaped with hope that he might live “How is this?”

“You thought you fought for Allah,” Matt explained, “but you had been tricked into fighting for Shaitan’s cause.” He raised a hand to forestall the youth’s objections. “Think of the results of your invasion… misery and suffering, and not many conversions. If you had conquered Ibile, the sorcerer who deceived you would have slain you by magic, then taken all your lands to rule them for Satan.”

The Moorish captains cried out in indignation “Shaitan!”

“No!”

“Never!”

“Who else could be the source of magic that addicts young people, even children, to a drug that allows him to drain their life energy slowly in order to strengthen your forces?” Matt demanded. “And if your victories are bought with such stolen life, whose victories are they?”

“You lie!” Tafas cried, shaking with anger… and fear that Matt might be right. “I fought only for Allah!”

“But the man who talked you into fighting served a different master,” Matt told him. He shook his head sadly. “Sorry, my lord. He used his magic to hunt up a shepherd boy who could convince men to follow him and had the genius to win battles, then bedazzled him with talk of the victory of Islam… when all along, he only cared about his own conquest, and manipulating you into conquering for him.”

“You lie!” Tafas cried in despair. “You must! Nirobus is a holy man! He would never promote the cause of Shaitan!”

“But perhaps the cause of himself.” Matt shrugged. “Have you ever heard him call upon Allah, my lord? Oh, to speak of Allah, certainly, even to quote the Koran, for the devil can quote scripture to his purpose … but to actually pray? He is no muzzein or imam, my lord, nor a quadi, nor a clergyman of any sort.”

“He is a holy hermit!”

Matt shrugged again “Prove it, my lord. Go ask him… but take me along.”

“Oh surely, lead my armies back to Morocco! Do you think me a fool!”

Matt’s eyes lost focus, he turned slowly, gazing off toward the mountains. “I don’t think we need to go that far.”

Alisande looked up at the patch of white on the distant mountainside. She had thought it only a sorcerer!

Could it really be the man who stood behind all this, come to see what he had expected to be a victory!

But he had seen his own army vanquished! Why had he not fled! “My Lord Wizard,” she said slowly, “I pray you, take care. Why would the genius who has wrought this all stand to await your coming, if he did not still expect victory!”

“Good point.” Matt seemed to tense a little, to grow a trifle more bulky, but looked up to smile at the Mahdi. “I’m willing to take the chance, Lord Tafas. Are you?”

How could the Mahdi have refused the challenge, there in front of all his troops?

They climbed the trail to the cave, a dozen Moorish captains and a dozen knights of Merovence, with King Rinaldo and Sir Guy. Matt rode a captured Arabian stallion with Groldor slung over the pommel before him, bound, gagged, and gurgling with fury. The white-robed man stood waiting for them… but as they came closer, they saw that his robes weren’t really white, but a light gray, and the turban on his head was pinned with a blood-red ruby. Matt glanced at it narrowly as they approached, he didn’t trust jewelry anymore. He recognized the man, of course, though he did look a bit different without his gray three-piece suit and bowler hat. They drew up in front of him Nirobus was smiling at them, amused… even when Matt shoved Groldor off the horse to fall in front of his boss, red-faced and gabbling. “I thought I’d be a nice guy and return your minion,” Matt told him. “No charge, no ransom.”

“Why did you bother?” Nirobus didn’t even look at Groldor. “He failed.”

“So did you, Nirobus.” Matt jerked his head downhill. “Your army has lost the war. Without your draining my world for energy, they can’t win.”

“They still outnumber you,” Nirobus reminded, “and the Moors are ferocious fighters. They only need to change their tactics.” Then he smiled, and the gentleness, even tenderness of that smile was even more chilling as he said, “Besides, there are other lands in your world… and other worlds. What I have done once, I can do again.” He turned to Tafas. “Be sure, you can still gain the victory.”

“With energy drained from youths and maidens?” Tafas was a youth himself, or close enough to take it personally. “I will not lead an army with such a force!”

Nirobus shrugged. “You must take power where you can find it, Lord Tafas, or you will never truly be the Mahdi, never conquer Europe for Allah!”

“You do not deny that you strengthened my army with stolen lives?” Tafas cried, paling. “What if I did conquer Europe? What then?”

“Why, you would rule it under my guidance, and the wild horsemen from the steppe would conquer all of Asia and rule it.”

“They are not Muslims!”

“They can become so,” Nirobus said agreeably.

“Must we fight them, too?”

“No,” Nirobus lectured, “for if you did, neither of you would win; you are both too strong, and would only chew one another to bits. You would rule Europe, and their khan would rule Asia.”

“Under whose guidance?” Tafas demanded.

“Why, mine, of course,” Nirobus said mildly.

“Then you do seek to conquer the world!”

“How else may all the world surrender to Allah?” Nirobus returned.

“There’re an awful lot of souls in Africa,” Matt reminded him. “You haven’t started work there yet.”

Nirobus turned to him, and his mild smile was chilling. “What makes you think that?”

For a moment, Matt’s head reeled with the enormity of it. He wondered if the kingdom of Benin had mounted a campaign of conquest into the interior. He had a vision of warriors floating down the Congo River on barges, then coming ashore to burn villages and towns.

He forced himself to pay attention to the here and now… and found Nirobus gazing at him shrewdly. He shook himself, summoning a glare… the sorcerer could have slain him with a single spell while he was distracted.

“You care,” Nirobus murmured, in tones of incredulity. “You actually care! You care about people whom you have never seen, of whom you have scarcely even heard!”

“Of course I care,” Matt said, glowering to hide how the words had shaken him. “They’re human, aren’t they?”

“And you care for all who are human.”

“Yes, I do!” Matt snapped. “Don’t you?”

“Oh, I do, Lord Wizard,” Nirobus said softly. “I definitely do… very much.”

Matt stared. “Then why are you trying to conquer us all?”

“To keep you from fighting one another,” Nirobus explained, “to establish a fair and rational system of laws that will restrain the strong and wealthy, protecting the poor and weak.”

“You’ve brought down all this misery, all the bloodshed and pain of war, in the name of peace?” Matt cried.

“It is nothing compared to the centuries of security, happiness, and prosperity that a world order will bring,” Nirobus returned.

The hell of it was that he very obviously believed what he was saying.

“And the junkies?” Matt asked. “The kids, even grade-school kids in New Jersey? Can the peace of your empire make up for leaching their lives away?”

“They were nothing,” Nirobus said impatiently. “They had become slaves of the poppy already, and would have died young in any case. Why not put to use the life force they were squandering?”

“Because they might have been saved!” Matt snapped.

“Saved?” Finally Nirobus’s lip curled in scorn. “I became a physician to save lives and alleviate suffering, then had to watch people die because my knowledge was not enough to save them. That, I could accept… but seeing people whose lives I had saved come to blows over a woman, a purse, a horse, to see them wound one another and come back to me to heal those wounds, to see them slay one another wasting the lives I had given back to them… it was enough to make me disgusted with all of humankind!

I nearly despaired of our breed! But I finally did despair when I saved a young king from a flux that would have killed him, then saw him march off to make war upon his neighbor… and because I had healed him, a thousand peasants died, two thousand soldiers expired in agony!”

In spite of himself, Matt’s heart twisted. “The guilt wasn’t yours, Doctor.”

“But it was! From that time forth I vowed to save only those who were worthy… then despaired of finding any way to detect them! Muslim, Christian, or Jew, there were good people and bad people of each religion, of every country! I thought that good people were weak and exploited, evil people wealthy and grasping… until I helped poor people become rich and gain power, then saw them turn on their weaker neighbors to gouge them of every penny they could find!”

“Didn’t any of them give money to the poor?”

“Oh, yes, a few here and there!” Nirobus said angrily. “A few Muslims remembered their obligation to give alms, a few Christians remembered that their Savior had commanded them to feed the poor, a few

Jews remembered that their Talmud told them to care for widows and orphans… but so few, so few, and for each of them, there was another who used those poor and defenseless as a woodcutter uses trees!”

“But that’s why we have to try to persuade people to be good,” Matt objected.

“I stopped believing in Good and Evil, Lord Wizard.” Nirobus shook his head, eyes glittering. “You are an educated man who has read accounts telling how people have used one another and betrayed one another down through the centuries. You are a man who has traveled widely, you must have seen such abuse with your own eyes!” Nirobus shook his head slowly, gaze locked with Matt’s. “I began to see that there is good in some people, evil in many, some good and some evil in most! I began to see that good and evil exist only within living beings, in people most of all! I saw that the good often remain poor and oppressed and are rarely rewarded, the evil rarely punished and often prosperous!”

He gasped for breath, a little wild-eyed now, and Matt took advantage of the pause to comment. “So you stopped believing in divine punishment or reward, and set out to dispense both yourself.”

“Who else would do it?” The question was a challenge as well as a defense. “Mind you, at first I only exploited people who were themselves exploiters, rewarded the virtuous a little but not enough to make them able to hurt others… but so few, so very few! I began to realize that I would never be able to reward or punish on a scale that meant anything if I were only myself, Nirobus the physician, a man alone. I saw that to make any difference worth making, I would have to have power, be able to govern a nation… and if I sought to avoid war, I would have to govern many nations!”

“So to achieve peace, you declared war,” Matt interpreted.

“Do not mock me, Lord Wizard! You shall discover my meaning all too soon, if you live a few years longer and truly watch the people around you! Yes, I delved through my books and discovered a way to gain enough power to conquer; yes, I set up a channel for bringing that power from the mean-spirited and doomed! Yes, I found a man who could conquer the world, then found sorcerers so self-seeking as to be completely predictable, sorcerers who would help my Mahdi by channeling the energy I’d found into his troops, his victories! But think how few people have died in this war, how few atrocities Tafas has permitted! As to those youths in your homeland, can you honestly say that even one of them would not have bullied or beaten or raped or exploited his fellows, if he could have?”

Matt’s mouth went dry. “I didn’t know them all. Only a handful.”

“Judge by that handful, then! Can you honestly say that even one of them was virtuous?”

“They could have been… “

“Could have been, but chose not to be! They sought their own dooms, they deserved their own fates! I have been as merciful as a conqueror may be, exploiting only those who deserved it, rewarding only those who did my work, turning human cruelty against itself in order to conquer the world and establish peace and order!”

“What about Papa and Mama?” Matt demanded.

“Ah!” Nirobus turned instantly from acid cynic to sympathetic mourner. “That, I regretted, and deeply, for they are scholars, and two of the very few really good people, whose happiness comes from helping those about them.”

“Well, if you like them so much, how come you sidetracked Papa into buying the store, then drove him into bankruptcy?”

“Why, because it was the only way.” Nirobus spread his hands. “You are their son, and I needed to lure you into the world of your birth so that I could trap you there. Besides, your father was blocking me from addicting more than a dozen young folk by making his store a haven. No, if my scheme was to succeed, your parents had to go.” He glanced at Papa with a sardonic smile. “How could I have guessed that they themselves would prove to be wizards so powerful as to tip the balance, and send me sliding toward a temporary defeat?”

“Oh, surely not!” Mama protested. “Matthew would have triumphed without us!”

“Thanks, Mama, but I think he’s right.” Matt kept his gaze on Nirobus. “He was prepared for anything I might do, and watched me like a hawk. But he never thought to watch you two, until you’d already fouled up his plans good and proper.”

“I fear it is so.” Nirobus bowed to Mama and Papa. “Your pardon, lord and lady. I underestimated you severely.”

“De nada,” Mama said automatically, then blushed.

“I think we will be more happy here than in New Jersey,” Papa said, “so it has all worked out for the best.”

“Besides, here we have not only our son, but also his wife and child,” Mama said with a happy smile.

“Yes, best for you.” Nirobus still wore the sardonic smile. “But I? I shall have to flee to the barren lands and begin my plans anew.”

“Oh, and come back with a small horde, to start killing people and burning their means of livelihood?”

Matt asked grimly. “Begin plans to leave people victims to the famine and plague that always follow war? Plans to slaughter a hundred thousand or so?”

“My warriors slay no more than they must, to conquer,” Nirobus said, affronted. “Is this not so, Lord Tafas?”

“I have made sure that my soldiers treat all enemies with courtesy, even when defeated,” the Mahdi admitted.

“Okay, so you’re only going to slay fifty thousand,” Matt said, “and let famine and plague finish off the other fifty.”

“I have told you that the people I have hurt are only those who would willingly have injured others!”

“Interviewed each one of them personally, have you?”

“I have no need… I know the breed!” Nirobus snapped. “I have hurt only those who are too ignorant and too vicious to matter, Lord Wizard!”

“No,” Matt said softly. “You have slain thousands of good people along with the wicked, Doctor. Even you have admitted that they exist, though they are rare. If you let people die wholesale, as they always do in war, you murder those few good ones along with the rest.” He shook his head. “You have become the oppressor and exploiter you claim to despise. I’m sorry, but we can’t let you go free to start this all over again.”

“No,” Alisande said, with total conviction. “We cannot.”

King Rinaldo nodded.

“Fools, do you think you have any choice in the matter?” With a vindictive smile, Nirobus raised a hand to his forehead in salute… and rubbed the ruby in his turban.