My Son, the Wizard

Chapter Four

Matt’s stomach lurched and tried to climb up through his esophagus. He fought it down, telling himself he wasn’t really falling, was just in free fall in a weightless void, but it was hard to believe, for all he could see was a flux and flow of colors all about him, colors that broke into tiny particles and intermingled, swirling together until they all seemed to be a sort of dirty white, making his stomach rebel against the lurch and swing and the primordial fear of the endless plunge.

Then hardness slammed against his side and arm, pain shot through him, and the stomach-sickness vanished into that pain as the colors fell into their places, coalescing into gray stone and the blue denim of Saul’s jeans as he dropped to his knees beside Matt. “Hey, man, are you all right?”

“Good… training,” Matt managed to gasp.

“Good training?” Saul stared, then grinned. “Yeah, you fell on your side, just the way I taught you. Welcome back!”

“Th-thanks,” Matt managed, then closed his eyes and started a prayer of thanks to St. Moncaire before he passed out.

He was almost feeling restored an hour later. Of course, that was probably due as much to his having changed back into doublet and hose as to the brew that Saul had prepared, standing by his elbow to be sipped every few seconds.

Saul sat across from him, eyeing him critically. “Yeah, I guess you’re doing better.”

Matt took another sip. “When did you become a doctor?”

“When I found out people expected me to be one,” Saul retorted. “I’ve been studying herbs as well as trances.” He turned to Alisande. “I think he’s almost ready for duty.”

“Praise Heaven!” Alisande still clasped Matt’s hand firmly; she had scarcely let it go to help him dress.

Even now, her voice sounded shaken, the more so because he had done the best he could to explain what had happened. It had come out as confusing, but harrowing. “I never dreamed into what danger I was sending you, husband, when I bade you visit your mother!”

No mention of Papa, Matt noticed. “There wasn’t that much danger as long as I was there, darling. It was the time-squeeze that worried me… that, and the fact that I couldn’t get back. And you know paranoid me … right away, I was worrying about conspiracies against you.”

Alisande exchanged a glance with Saul, and Matt frowned. “So I was right! What’s been going on while I was away?”

“It is nothing beyond our ability to cope,” Alisande hastened to say, “or at least, that Saul has not… “

The room shook, and something boomed outside.

Matt was on his feet in an instant. “An earthquake!”

“No, not really.” Saul was up too, reaching out for Matt’s arm.

“I can walk,” Matt said testily, and turned toward the door. “Come on! We’d better get up to the battlements and see what’s going on.”

Thunder slammed in bursts, and the walls shook.

Matt grabbed the nearest tapestry and held on, managing to stay on his feet. When the floor steadied, he sprinted for the door. “Let’s go! Something’s badly wrong!”

“Wait a minute,” Saul called, running after him. “We wanted to fill you in, you know, kind of gradually… “

“Fill me in about what?” Matt asked, and stepped out onto the battlements… into a vast roaring that he finally recognized as laughter so huge that it shook the stone blocks under him. He fell to his knees, grasping the nearest crenel, and stared upward, paralyzed by what he saw.

At first he thought it was a hot-air balloon, a huge, tan, canvas teardrop… but as his eyes began to make sense of its scale, he realized that it was a humanoid form, a huge, turbaned, bare-chested man who rose above the battlements, reaching out to the tallest tower and shaking it as he laughed. The whole castle vibrated with it. His arms were as long as a whole team of horses, his face was as broad as a house, his beard a black hedge, and his chest expanded like the widening front of a baron’s castle.

But if it expanded, it dwindled, too, in the other direction. Matt glanced down and saw that the huge torso narrowed quickly, looking like the tail of a teardrop indeed. He could make out some sort of belt, the beginning of trousers, but below that, the body narrowed quite quickly to a long, flowing tentacle that ended in a point, floating fifty feet or more above the earth.

Matt looked back up, eyes wide in awe, and breathed, “A genie!”

“Look, man, I told you to get away from here!” Saul shouted at the genie, but his anger was clearly diluted by fear.

The genie roared another laugh, but one that had an edge to it, and pointed at Saul. A fireball shot from his fingertip.

Saul leaped aside, and the fireball exploded where he had been. But he didn’t even look at it, just pointed at the genie, narrowing his eyes and chanting,

The genie’s beard burst into flame. He howled, batting at it, roaring a verse in his own language. Matt frowned; it didn’t quite sound like Arabic…

Then rain roared down, soaking Matt in an instant… but going around or through the genie, drowning the fire in his beard on the way. He threw back his head and roared with laughter, laughter that made the walls shake again…

Matt thought of the walls of Jericho and knew he had to stop that torrent of sound. The torrent of rain, too, of course, but that could wait.

The genie kept laughing, but the sound no longer rang or boomed about them; it stayed with the genie himself. The walls stopped shaking, and the genie caught his breath, staring in surprise.

Saul cried,

The rain slackened, but didn’t stop. Well, Saul hadn’t told it to, really.

Matt called out,

Well, a djinni wasn’t properly a fey, but the unwelcome visitor apparently didn’t know that… he gave a very disconcerted howl, shooting downward as though a huge hand had just yanked him. He hit the “cropped slope” below the castle and slid straight downhill.

“I hope he doesn’t hit the town wall,” Saul said, craning his neck downward, “at least, not too hard.”

He needn’t have worried. The genie slowed, then floated back into the air, windmilling his right arm.

“Here it comes!” Saul called. “Hold tight!”

As the genie’s arm swung in a circle, mass gathered in his hand until he had enough to throw. The missile shot from his hand, arcing toward the castle… a boulder four feet in diameter.

Matt realized the sense of what Saul had been saying. He hugged the crenel as though it were his wife.

His wife! He spun to look, saw Alisande hanging on to a torch sconce that was very securely bolted to the granite… but his own hold was loosened.

An earthquake hit. Matt’s hold tore loose, and he went sliding toward the gap between two crenels.

“Matt!” Saul shouted, and reached out toward him… then lost his own hold and came sliding after Matt as the ramparts shook them loose like fleas when a dog scratches.

Alisande screamed and dove after them.

Matt spread his feet and braced himself against crenels to either side. Saul slammed into the left-hand crenel and wrapped an arm around it, clamping the other hand on Matt’s ankle. Alisande caromed into the block on his other side, and Matt seized her ankle.

The ramparts stopped shaking, and Saul levered himself up to peer over the crenel. “There’s more of them!” he called. “Hold tight!”

Matt saw that Alisande had a firm grip on her crenel. He let go and pulled himself up to look. Sure enough, three more genies had appeared, hurling rocks that they apparently conjured just by winding up.

“Can’t throw worth beans!” he called to Saul. “Satchel Paige would have smeared us over the stones by this time!”

“I know!” Saul called back. “But I gotta time this just right!”

A boulder whirled loose from one of the middle genies. Saul chanted quickly,

The boulder exploded in midair. The biggest piece shot back at the genie who had thrown it. He squalled and disappeared. The shard struck the slope where he’d been and started rolling down toward the plain… but as it rolled, it faded as its master had.

“Keep reciting that verse!” Saul called. “If we can spout it fast enough, over and over again, none of their boulders will ever hit home!”

“Will do!” Matt had never thought he’d actually like “Casey at the Bat,” but he loved it right now. He started chanting the words, one line behind Saul, and each boulder exploded, its largest fragment heading back toward its genie almost as soon as he threw it. Saul chanted, Matt chanted, Alisande chanted, and Casey piled up more strikes than any batter in living memory.

Finally Matt realized that there were three other people reciting: his assistant sorcerer, Ortho the Frank; the Captain of the Guard; and a knight whose surcoat identified him as a member of the Order of St. Moncaire. Fleetingly, Matt thought it was odd for him to be there, then recognized Sir Gilbert, but turned the thought aside… what really mattered was that he himself could stop chanting and work on making all the djinn disappear.

A huge gust of wind blew up out of nowhere and tossed the genies turning and whirling with appalled shouts, out over the town, off to the horizon, and out of sight.

Saul stared. Then he said, “Yes.” Then, “Well, I guess.” Then, finally, he turned to Matt and said, “How the blazes did you do that, man?”

“Just comes from knowing a few poems,” Matt said, abashed… especially in view of what he’d done to Stephen Foster. It occurred to him to hope that none of the poets whose works he mangled ever showed up in this universe.

“Husband, you are amazing!” Alisande clung to him, her voice shaking.

“So are you,” Matt said, turning to stare into her eyes.

She stared in surprise, then lowered her gaze, blushing faintly, but smiling.

Matt was amazed… he’d just managed to remind the queen that she was a woman, and at the end of a battle, at that! Of course, for her, it had been months since she’d seen him…

But he had been at least as frantic, worried that he’d never see her again. Suddenly desire crashed through him, so violently that he had to brace himself against it.

Alisande felt his trembling, and her smile widened as her eyes seemed to swallow him. “Master Saul.” she called, “can you stay the watch here? I wish to acquaint my husband with events that have happened in his absence.”

Saul looked up in surprise, then saw the looks on their faces and managed to suppress a grin of his own.

“Yeah, sure, Your Majesty. Just remember, he ought to be in bed.”

“Indeed,” Alisande agreed, and led Matt back indoors.

It occurred to Matt that this ought to weaken his magic. Then he remembered that, within the bonds of marriage, it wasn’t a sin, but a virtue.

Two hours later, she laughed, softly and deeply, at one last compliment, then grew serious. “I must tell you what has happened indeed, my love.”

“Well, if we must, we must,” Matt sighed. He slipped out of bed and pulled on his robe. He turned to find his wife similarly robed, and turning to sit in an hourglass-shaped chair.

“It is wrong of us to delight in one another while our people are under attack.” But the rosiness of her face, the glow of her smile, denied her words.

“I wouldn’t go feeling guilty about it.” Matt sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand, again struck by the impossibility that a loser like himself should have won the love of so beautiful a woman. “After all, the harmony of the land depends on the harmony within the monarch, and I certainly hope I’m contributing to that.”

Alisande frowned. “What wizard’s talk is this?”

“I suppose it is,” Matt said thoughtfully. “Wizard’s talk, I mean. Look at it this way… a happy queen will make a happy country, and I hope I’m doing my part to keep you happy.”

“More than any other living being,” Alisande said fervently, and kissed his fingers.

The touch of her lips sent desire thrilling through him, astonishing him that it could recur so soon.

“You’re distracting me again.”

Alisande looked up in surprise, then gave him a wicked grin. “Should I not delight in being a success as a woman, sir, in addition to being a success as a queen?”

“Oh, you certainly are,” Matt breathed, and lowered his face for a kiss.

Alisande interposed her hand, then turned to straighten her robe, looking prim. “Still, there is some question as to whether or not the people may continue to be happy if we cannot banish these spirits for once and for all.”

“I think I recognize them,” Matt said slowly. “They’re called ‘djinn.’ That’s the plural… one male is called a ‘djinni,’ and a female is called a ‘djinna.’ “

Alisande looked up, startled. “They have females?”

“Of course,” Matt answered. “How do you suppose they make more djinn? Some of them are relatively good, but some are very, very bad.”

“I did not know you knew so much about them,” Alisande said, frowning. “How is it Saul did not?”

“Well, he was a philosophy major… wouldn’t recognize a genie unless it came out of a bottle, preferably wearing a bolero jacket and harem pants.”

“Oh, he did recognize them as genies… but he said nothing of there being males and females.”

“Odd, for somebody who grew up watching TV,” Matt mused. “Well, it’s not his field of study… though I suspect he read the highlights of the Arabian Nights.”

“They are Arabs, then?” Alisande asked, wide-eyed. “Mohammedans?”

So the Prophet had been born in this universe, too. Matt nodded. “Some of them, yes, though I understand many djinn haven’t converted. But I’m not sure this batch are all that Arabic. They look different somehow, and they don’t quite sound like the few Arabs I’ve known.”

“Have you met a genie before?”

“Well, no,” Matt admitted. “How long have they been coming?”

“Since the night you left.” Alisande turned grim. “In their first attack, they managed to breach the wall; the masons are still rebuilding it. Then the Witch Doctor found the spell you heard him use and chased them away. But they came back near dawn, and for every one Saul chased, another took its place. The people of the town showed great courage; they climbed the walls and hurled stones at them, but the genies only laughed and began to appear inside the city to collapse houses and pluck horses and people kicking and shouting into the air. Saul and Ortho the Frank had to work frantically to drive them off.

They disappeared an hour after sunrise, as though to say that they did not fear daylight, and were going of their own free choice.”

“Did they kill anybody?”

“Not that we can tell, though there have been several aged folk who died during this siege.”

“There always are, though.” Matt frowned. “So they’re just trying to scare you, not really hurt you… but Saul was tougher than they thought. Pretty good, for a philosopher… but something tells me they could get a lot worse if they wanted to. How frequently have they showed up?”

“Once or twice a week. The priests and monks are praying to strengthen Saul and his wizards… he has taught the verse to several students… and many of the people are praying, too.”

That was no idle gesture, in this universe in which magic worked by rhyme, song, and gesture, but drew its strength from either good or evil, God or the Devil. The power of prayer was more obvious here than in his own universe. Matt was surprised to hear that Saul had taken on students, and wondered if they were really doing any good. He’d noticed that virtually anybody could do some magic just by reciting a verse, but that it just didn’t have much punch coming from the average citizen. Powerful magic seemed to require talent, a certain twist of the mind, and there weren’t all that many people who could do it… or who had the determination to learn the rules and all the spells. To a few, like Matt and Saul, it came naturally. It had to, or they wouldn’t have been able to come to Merovence.

“Well, any help is better than none,” Matt said. “Does Saul have any ideas about how to keep the djinn away more or less permanently?”

“He tells me he is trying to set a magical, unseen shield around the city, as King Boncorro has set his Wall of Octroi along the border of Latruria.”

“It keeps out flying magical critters but lets anything slower-moving, like horses or people, walk across.”

Matt said, nodding. “Might work on flying djinn, too, though I suspect they can transport themselves in here without flying. Still, it’s certainly worth a try. I’ll have to see if I can help any.”

“Even if he succeeds, that is only a temporary measure,” Alisande said, with the certainty of Divine Right; sometimes Matt wondered if she could ever have an attack of Divine Wrong. “We must seek the source of these… djinn, did you call them?”

“The source is probably an evil sorcerer who has set them on us,” Matt told her. “At least, that’s the way it always is in the stories. I suppose there are some djinn who are still free agents, not drafted by any sorcerer anywhere, but they wouldn’t have any reason to come here.”

“Unless someone in the city has angered them?”

“Possible, but not probable… and it’s just too much of a coincidence that they should show up right after I left, especially since it was so easy for me to go, and so hard to come back.” Matt frowned. “Easy go, hard to come back, djinn besieging the city while I was gone… that makes three events. I suspect enemy action. Just how bad has this siege become?”

“Not truly yet a siege,” Alisande said slowly. “Courageous merchants and farmers still bring in foodstuffs, and folk from the town go out to forage.”

“Sort of warning us,” Matt guessed, “letting us know they could cut us off pretty thoroughly if they wanted to.”

“The djinn, you mean? But why?”

“Interesting question, dear,” Matt said. “Now that I think of it, I’m kind of surprised that Fadecourt’s… I mean King Rinaldo’s… people hold all of Ibile. Who lives in North Africa? The land right across the strait from Ibile?”

“Across the Middle Sea, you mean?”

Matt started to describe Gibraltar, then realized that Alisande’s knowledge of geography didn’t have that much detail. Besides, for all he knew, the Rock wasn’t there in this universe. “That’s right.”

“We call them ‘Moors,’ ” Alisande said slowly, “though I have heard that is not what they call themselves.”

Matt nodded. “That much is like my home universe, anyway. And they’re Muslims?”

Alisande frowned. “What are ‘Muslims’?”

“Mohammedans,” Matt translated.

“Ah!” Alisande nodded. “Yes, they are paynim.”

With a mental wrench, Matt remembered that the medieval Christians had thought of the Muslims as pagans… and the Muslims, of course, had returned the compliment, referring to the “Franks” as “unbelievers.” No reason to think it should be different here. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that both religions believed in the God of Abraham.

“Sounds like the ones I had in mind,” he said. “Have they conquered any part of Ibile?”

“Aye… they hold the far south, and have for hundreds of years.”

Matt frowned. “Funny I didn’t see any sign of them when I was wandering across their countryside.”

“They hold only the far south, husband… scarcely more than what would be a count’s holdings, in Merovence. There is a Moorish nobleman in the city of Aldocer who calls himself an emir, and rules that countryside.”

There spoke the queen… didn’t know about Gibraltar, but knew the political situation thoroughly. Matt frowned. “What kept them from advancing farther?” In his universe, the Moors had conquered most of Spain, except for the northern kingdoms.

“Emperor Hardishane’s grandfather,” Alisande answered. “The paynim made a sortie through the mountains and struck at the folk in Merovence. Then they began to pour through the passes in their thousands. Cortshank the Hardy raised an army here in Bordestang and marched south to meet the Moors. Peasants who fled north from the burnings and bloodshed joined his army, and as it swelled, folk who feared the paynim might reach their own villages came to join him, too. They marched all day, then rested in the evenings, when Cortshank’s sergeants trained them in fighting. Many knights came, too, to protect their homesteads and wives by preventing the paynim from coming near.

“They met the Moors at a bridge and fought, but the Hardy mowed down all before him and took the bridge. His army poured across it and arrayed themselves against the heathen host. Then, with a mighty shout, the two armies clashed together… but the Moors fought only for conquest and the forced spread of their religion, whereas the knights and peasants fought for their homes, wives, and children. Cortshank the Hardy carried the day, and the Moors fled. The Hardy marched after, but the Moors sped before him.

“They made their stand in a mountain pass, where a dozen men might stop an army, so long as there were men to take their places when they fell. But Cortshank’s men fought with zeal as great as that of the fanatic Moors, and their armor was far heavier.”

“Not such a great advantage, since the Moors could ride circles around them,” Matt said, frowning.

“True, but there was no room to maneuver in that mountain pass. The knights charged and broke the line by sheer weight, then proved the keenness of their swords on the Moors. While they did, the mountaineers threw rocks down upon the paynim. Some did strike the knights, aye, but as I’ve said, their armor was stronger, their helmets above all. The Moors fled, their numbers sorely depleted, and some of the mountaineers, fearing their revenge, joined with Cortshank. As they rode down into Ibile, more knights and peasants joined them, so that with every battle, the Moors’ army grew smaller, while the Hardy’s army grew greater.”

“So Cortshank didn’t see any reason to stop chasing them?”

“None at all, till they came within sight of Aldocer. There, more Moors came riding to join in the battle… they had been coming up from Africa as soon as word of Cortshank’s victories reached them. There they fought the army of Merovence to a standstill. The Hardy stayed in that country six more months, fighting many more battles, but for each he won, he lost another. While he fought, though, the knights of Ibile built strongholds and gathered armies of their own, so that, when Cortshank and his men grew weary and yearned for home, they were able to retreat, leaving the holding of the line to the men whose land it was. Thus they marched back through the mountains in triumph, and the mountaineers among them saw that they were honored.”

“Meaning nobody threw rocks down on them.” Matt pursed his lips. “This wouldn’t have had anything to do with Hardishane becoming emperor, would it?”

“Everything! For when the people of Merovence realized who had saved them, they rose in a body to demand that the last weak king of the decadent line abdicate his throne and yield it to the Hardy. Cortshank was nothing loath, and thereby became king.”

Quite a bit faster than Charles Martel and his son Pepin had managed it, but with the same result… though Charles Martel had never done so well in Spain. Matt nodded slowly. The parallels between the universes were unmistakable. The same historical forces seemed to open the way for the same kind of man to come riding in to greatness… and dominion. “Did Hardishane ever have to go into Ibile and help beat the Moors back inside their own borders?”

Alisande frowned. “Why should he? The knights of Ibile proved equal to the task. That first great surge of conquest was the worst the Moors ever tried. After that, they settled down to farm the lands they’d conquered, and study the arts of peace.”

More effectively than the Merovencians had, if Matt’s own Middle Ages were any guide. The Moors of his own universe had built universities and developed a far-ranging, cosmopolitan commerce while the Franks were still clearing forests and fighting each other at every chance. “The Moors never tried to conquer again?”

“Oh, there were raids,” Alisande said, “but the knights of Ibile held the border, and raided in revenge… so the Moors held their places until the first Gordogrosso came to power.”

“The first and only, as we know now,” Matt said, with a wry smile. “I take it they attacked the king?”

“No… he attacked them. The Moors were hard put to hold their province against him, and certainly never invaded Ibile again.”

“Ironic!” Matt said. “The evil that held Ibile in abasement was so bad that it kept the Moors from attacking!”

“Even so,” Alisande agreed. “They wanted no part of Gordogrosso or his wickedness.”

“Well, there’s your evidence that they were godly men, in their own way,” Matt told her, “if a devil-pawn like Gordogrosso was as much an enemy to them as he was to your own ancestors.”

“Godly!” Alisande cried, scandalized. “But they do not pray to the Christ!”

“True. But they worship God… “

“But their god is Allah!”

“That is their word for ‘God,’ ” Matt acknowledged. “They worship Him, and abhor Satan, whom they call ‘Shaitan,’ but it’s basically the same word. If Shaitan was their sworn enemy, so was Gordogrosso.”

“Do you say they were our unwitting allies?” Alisande asked slowly.

“Only by accident, dear.” Matt stood up and began to pace. “We had a common enemy. Now that Gordogrosso is gone, though, I think they’ve decided to get back to what they think was their true mission all along… conquering Europe so that everyone would have to worship Allah.”

“We cannot permit that!” Alisande was on her feet and, dressing gown or no, gave the impression of having a sword in her hand.

“I don’t think we should,” Matt agreed. “Personally, I have a very dim view of anybody conquering anybody else. It always involves killing people and making the survivors miserable, and I can’t believe God wants that.”

Alisande frowned. “But you have yourself slain men in war.”

“Yes, but I’ve left the civilians alone, which is more than I can say for the monarchs I’ve fought. They were true agents of evil, killing and torturing their own people even in peacetime, and generally doing their best to make everybody miserable. The only people they tried to make happy were themselves, so of course they failed.”

“But succeeded in bringing agony to everyone about them,” Alisande said bitterly. “Do you say that the Moors themselves are good, but whoever leads them in conquest is evil?”

“I wouldn’t even go that far,” Matt said. “It’s more likely that their leader is a good man who has been tricked into doing evil things.”

Alisande frowned. “But who has tricked him?”

“Ah!” Matt held up a forefinger. “That is what we have to find out.” He reached for his clothes. “Let’s go discuss this with the Witch Doctor.”