The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 13 The Burning Stake

Friends are friends, so the atmosphere couldn't stay chilly forever. On the other hand, it didn't have to become warm and cozy, either. The conversation gleamed with a veneer of great politeness throughout the meal. Matt could understand—it after all, he was the one who had made the crass, unbelievably basic mistake that had endangered them all. So, under the circumstances, he was more than glad to volunteer for the first watch. He was even gladder when his friends had rolled up in their blankets and left him to his vigil. The coals glowed on their blanket-wrapped forms, and the sound of deep, even breathing filled the air, punctuated by the occasional snore from Fadecourt.

Peace began to fill Matt's soul, or at least calmness; he felt his spirit filling with the elation of the star-filled canopy above him. The stillness of the night was soothing, only the sounds of nature about him, proceeding with their even rhythm. Even the shadowed, looming wall of the forest, bulking dark against the sky, seemed only the vandalism of a petulant child.

Narlh, however, was a little more suspicious of that tranquility, and its effects on Matt—especially as he saw the wizard's gaze drift to the wand lying beside him. When Matt picked it up and started gazing at it, the dracogriff decided it was time for action. He cleared his throat and growled, "You sure you want to take the first watch?"

Fadecourt looked up at the sound of the dracogriff's voice, instantly alert. Even Yverne lifted her head—under the circumstances, she wasn't sleeping too soundly, either.

"Yeah, sure I'm sure." Matt waved Narlh away without looking; his eyes were on the three-foot stick across his knees.

Narlh gave him a doubtful glance, but curled back up on his side of the fire. Yverne and Fadecourt, however, were not quite so sanguine. She looked up from her pine-bough bed to exchange a glance with him where he lay on the grass.

"Does he know the wielding of a wand?" Yverne asked. "For surely, if he does not, he could bring down disaster on all our heads."

"He is a wizard of experience," Fadecourt answered, "yet I share your misgivings." He turned to Matt and called out, "Ho, Lord Matthew! Dost'a know aught of magic wands?"

"Something," Matt answered, his eyes still on the stick. "Where I come from, magicians wave them around as part of the spell." He didn't mention that the magicians in question were illusionists, or that the wands were only there to call the audience's attention away from what the magician was really doing. "And I've read stories in which the magicians made `mystic passes' with them—I assume that meant gestures that somehow reinforced the spell."

Fadecourt and Yverne exchanged a glance that said their misgivings had been confirmed. " 'Tis not that, Lord Matthew," the lady said, turning back to him. " 'Tis simply that, when the wizard casts a spell at someone, he points the wand at that person, and the spell is made far stronger."

Matt stared, his eyes losing focus, as he tried to remember what he'd seen during the magic fight. "That's right—the sorcerer didn't gesture with the wand. He just held it straight up until the last few syllables of the spell, then snapped it down as if he were a fisherman casting."

"Nay." Yverne frowned. " 'Tis a wand, not a net."

"I meant an angler, not a commercial fish-harvester." Matt looked up, frowning. "You sure there's no chance this thing is dedicated to evil?"

Fadecourt spread his hands. "You are the wizard, not we. Yet surely, if it were, you would feel its malice in your hands."

Matt nodded slowly. "That's true, and I don't really feel anything in it, except maybe a residue of nastiness. But I should be able to clear that out with a magical cleansing spell."

"Take it away from us when you do, I pray you," Fadecourt said hastily.

"Don't worry, I'm not about to do anything with it until I have a fairly good idea of how it works." Matt shook his head.

"But I don't see how it could make a spell stronger. I mean, once I conjured up a horde of insects, and they came from all four quarters of the sky. How could I have pointed the wand at them when they came from everywhere?"

Yverne was staring. "You truly summoned a plague of locusts?"

"Bugs, anyway." Matt squirmed, uncomfortable with the awe in her eyes. "Another time, I had to alter the weather a little, summon up a storm—and, of course, I had to control it. How could a wand help with that? I mean, a storm covers the whole sky, so a wand..."

"I have no idea," she said, shaken. "I have told you all that I can—yet me thinks 'twas no need, if you are so puissant a wizard as that. By your leave, I'll retire." And she beat a hasty retreat back to her brush pile.

Fadecourt stayed long enough to shake his head. "And I had dared to counsel you! Your pardon, Lord Wizard."

"Oh, no, I appreciate your help! I mean, it's not as though I had spent a lifetime studying magic, you know. I had to pick it up quickly, and I'm sure there are still a lot of holes in my knowledge."

"I cannot patch them, then," the cyclops said. "Great or little, your knowledge of magic far exceeds my own. Nay, in future I'll stick to my boulders. Good even, Lord Matthew." And he turned away to find himself a nice soft patch of grass.

Matt stared after him, frowning, feeling somehow guilty. He certainly hadn't meant to hurt their feelings, or to make them feel small. He was just being honest—but of course, admitting that he didn't really know what he was doing wasn't exactly going to inspire confidence in people who were depending on him. Besides, though he hadn't been studying magic his whole life, he had been studying the controls for it, without knowing it—literature. He had become a student, though somewhat reluctantly, in elementary school—and Miss Grind, in junior high, had practically killed his love for poetry by forcing his class to read syrupy sentiments by minor versifiers and telling her students they were great. But Mr. Luce and Miss Soleil, in high school, had restored his wonder at the old songs, and a couple of his college professors had helped him to understand the new ones: The rest, at least, he had suffered in silence; their subject matter redeemed their teaching. His whole advantage, against the sorcerers in Merovence, had come from his knowing great poetry that they hadn't known.

Well, no, not just from that. To be fair, a lot of his advantage had come from being able to analyze the workings of magic methodically—being able to ask, "How does that work?" and figure out an answer.

And how had he done his figuring? Well, by the scientific method, really—observation, formulation of hypothesis, experimentation, revision, and conclusion. And where had he learned that? From that wonderful ninth-grade science teacher, and from the other science courses he'd been forced to take in high school and college. No, in a manner of speaking, he'd have to say that he'd been studying the background material for Merovence's magic longer than he had known—which was why he'd been able to learn it so quickly here.

So apply it all again. He'd figured out how magic worked in Merovence with nothing but his own observations to help him. Later on, he'd refined that knowledge with a lot of helpful hints people had given him—but he'd figured out his first purposeful spell on his own.

If he could have done it then, he could do it now. Okay—apply the scientific method to a fantastic object. Figure out how the magic wand worked...

On the other side of the fire, Narlh eyed Matt warily. He could tell from the way the wizard was staring at the smooth stick that he wasn't going to be paying any attention to anything else all evening. Silently, and without Matthew noticing, Narlh uncurled and started prowling. So the wizard would take first watch? Big deal. So Narlh would watch the wizard—and anything else that came up.

His back being guarded without his knowing it, Matt studied the wand, trying to apply the scientific method to magic. After all, it was a method for solving problems, any problems that produced symptoms, which could show the way to a possible solution, which could in turn be checked by experiment.

Okay. First: observation.

Well, Matt had observed that the wand was used, and he had seen and felt the result when it was pointed at him—but the consequences weren't noticeably different from those of any other spells he'd experienced. Of course, they were presumably stronger than they would have been without the wand—but maybe it had just been amplifying the magic of a very weak sorcerer.

Amplifier? No, certainly a stick of wood couldn't function as an amplifier.

But the idea did catch at Matt's attention, at least enough to make an analogy between magic and electronics—and he moved into the next step of the scientific method: hypothesizing. After all, electromagnetism was a field force, and from what Matt felt when he worked a spell, so was magic. Here in Ibile, the feeling of some sort of force gathering all about him was almost suffocating. If the analogy held, the field force could be channeled into a directional force.

Was that what the wand did?

Yes, of course! It was the "antenna" for the "transmission" of magic—and a spell converted the field force into a form that could be "modulated," formed, by a human mind! That modulated force could be radiated in all directions, which was what Matt had been doing—"broadcasting" magical energy. But the wand made the transmission directional, like a parabolic dish concentrating electromagnetic microwaves into a beam. Or like those sharp points of static electricity he once saw in the college laboratory, in his one required lab science course. If that was right, then the wand certainly wouldn't have been useful for summoning a horde of insects, controlling the weather, or anything in which the magic needed to affect everything in sight, in all directions.

Was that why some magicians used gestures, "mystic passes"—for the more general spells? Maybe the sawing of the air did do some good, after all—Matt had imagined it was just sort of an aid to concentration, or a way of boosting self-belief in the magic-worker's own power. But words were symbols, and it was those symbols that modulated, manipulated, the magical field. As Matt had recently proved, just thinking the symbols was enough, if you concentrated on making things happen through them—but for most people, himself included, it was easier to concentrate when you spoke aloud, which was why he had paced his room muttering to himself when he studied for exams. And why, come to think of it, magicians could write books of spells without making natural cataclysms erupt while they were writing—by deliberately not speaking the verses aloud, they'd been choosing to have the spells be ineffective. He'd noticed himself that a poem would concentrate a magical field about him, but that it couldn't discharge unless he put some sort of imperative at the end of the verse. If his analogy to electronics held, the verse accumulated and modulated that field, as a power amplifier increased the strength of a signal and a transmitter modulated it—but the completed radio wave couldn't go anywhere if you didn't route it into the antenna. The imperative at the end of the verse was like pressing the "transmit" button on a CB transceiver. The imperative, the command, was a matter of willing the spell to effect its results.

But if Matt had been broadcasting spells like a spark-gap transmitter, no wonder every wizard and sorcerer within range had suddenly known there was a strange magician in his territory! They'd picked him up, loud and clear.

Which was probably why the Ibilian sorcerers used wands—so that they could keep the king from knowing what they were doing. Of course, it also made spells more powerful, by making them more directional—so as Matt used the wand, it would direct the discharge of magic into a much smaller area, and there wouldn't be any spillover for King Gordogrosso to pick up.

The wand could let Matt work magic without letting the king and his noblemen know Matt was there. Also, by concentrating a field into a beam, it should make the spells much more powerful. Of course, this would only work for a spell that was supposed to happen in a very small area. It wouldn't do any good for fighting a whole army, as Matt had once infected a whole host of besiegers with salmonella, or for anything else that was supposed to apply to everything in the vicinity—but most spells were directed at specific people or things, anyway. With the wand, Matt wouldn't have worried that pushing the rock off Narlh's tail might alert the local magical gendarmes.

If the wand worked as Matt was guessing.

Hypothesizing, rather—he wasn't guessing blind; he had some data to build on.

Okay. The hypothesis was complete—but it was based on an analogy that might not really fit the actual situation. If the two forces only seemed to be analogous, but weren't really so, then the hypothesis would be wrong.

Only one way to find out—test it. Experiment—the third step in the scientific method.

What to try?

Matt looked about him and spied a boulder that Fadecourt had brought over for the fire ring, then found to be too large and tossed away. It was about two feet in diameter, and the cyclops had only tossed, not pitched, so it was only about twenty feet outside Matt's guarding circle. He stared at it and recited a quick rock-moving verse.

He felt the familiar gathering of forces, thickened, oppressive, and pushed back against them with sheer willpower—but not very hard; just a little harder than they pressed in. He only wanted the rock to move a little bit, not become a perpetual motion machine, as the one he'd pushed off Narlh's wing had.

The rock stirred, then moved a little to the right, rolled back, moved a little farther to the left, rolled back and a little farther to the right—and, rocking back and forth, finally boosted itself up over its own shallow bowl, past the rim, and lumped itself over and over for about two feet, then came to rest. This time, there was no slope to keep it going. Matt nodded—all had proceeded as he had expected. So much for the control; now for the experiment. He introduced the variable—the wand. A moment of whimsy seized him, and he decided really to introduce the variable. "Rock," he muttered, "this is the wand. Wand, this is the rock."

The wand bobbed, and the stone wobbled.

Matt felt his hair try to stand on end. There was more power here than he'd realized! He summoned composure, pointed the stick at the stone, and recited the exact same verse again.

The boulder jumped into the air, landed, and jumped again—but only half as high—and went bouncing away toward the forest. It really was rolling, too—but the rolling was happening mostly in the air.

Matt's heart soared. Hypothesis validated! Now, if he tried a dozen or a hundred times and got the same results on every occasion, he could include it in the theory of magic he was developing. By necessity.

Enough gloating. He couldn't take the chance that the boulder might keep on rolling forever—that was what he'd been trying to avoid when he performed the control experiment. Matt pointed the wand in the direction of the rolling rock and tried to remember the verse he'd used to stop the stone that had gone rolling down the mountainside.

Before he could get it out, he heard the crash of snapping brush, a howl of pain, and several loud baritone voices cursing.

He'd hurt somebody! Quickly, he snapped out,

The crashing stopped, and the cursing went on. It finally occurred to Matt to wonder who'd been skulking in his underbrush.

"Up!" Narlh shouted. "Enemies to the northwest! And they might not be alone!"

Fadecourt was on his feet before the dracogriff finished, blinking as he looked about him, crouched, arms spread to fight. Yverne was lifting her head, blinking sleep out of her eyes.

Matt suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be the sentry. He leaped to his feet, shouting, "Fadecourt, up! Fear! Foes! Fight!"

"I am awake," the cyclops snapped. "Yet where is the foe?"

"In the trees." Narlh hissed, wings spreading dark against the night, and Yverne rose with a single, sinuous motion that was so graceful Matt caught his breath for a moment, gazing, before he turned to follow Fadecourt toward the chevaux-defrise, drawing his sword. As an afterthought, he called back softly, "Yverne! Watch the back, the other side of the circle! You never know, they might try to outflank us!"

Hooves filled the night with drumming, and boots rolled under them. Then a war cry cut loose, and a score of footmen dashed out of the trees and hit the barricade. Matt quailed inside, but his body was already running toward the attackers, because Fadecourt was smashing into the front rank as they struggled between the pointed stakes, and Matt was hanged if he'd let the cyclops show him up. Besides, Narlh was right behind him, so he drew his dagger to make it look good and yelled back. Leaping forward he struck a halberd spinning from a soldier's hand. It flipped up into the night, and Matt's heart jammed into his throat, hoping it wouldn't hit Yverne. He risked a quick look back and saw he'd almost been right—it had spun straight toward her! But the frail, vulnerable damsel stepped aside adroitly and caught the halberd by the middle of its shaft. Then it went on spinning, but by her intention—she brandished it over her head, whirling it about two-handed, and charged into the fray with a scream that chilled Matt's blood.

Fadecourt struck another pike out of a soldier's hand, and the man tried to shrink back—but that was very hard to do, sideways, and Fadecourt had set the stakes too close together for a head-on advance. As a result, he had time to turn and clobber the hand of the next pikeman, who was trying to sidle through the stake next door. But the men on either side were almost through, and Matt ran at the left-hand one with a yell that would have done credit to a Georgia rebel, while Narlh advanced on the right-hand one. All he had to do was advance; the man took one look, paled, and tried to pull back. But of course, the pressure of the men behind was too great, and the disarmed ones were being forced, bit by bit, through the fence of stakes—largely because, behind them all, the fully armored and thoroughly protected knights were shouting, "Advance! Smite them down! Or you shall feel my sword in your back!" And, "Charge them and risk death—for if you do not, I'll give you certain demise!"

Matt felt a surge of class resentment, even as he grabbed up a discarded sword, blocked the next pike, and chopped through the shaft. How gung ho would those knights be without their armor and horses, he wondered?

It was an intriguing notion. He jumped back into the clear—but before he could frame the verse, he saw a sight that took his breath away. Yverne was sparring with a pikeman who had managed to squeeze through the barricade. He leaped to help her—but even as he did, she blocked the soldier's jab, pushing his blade down, caught him in the jaw with the butt of her own pike, then jabbed him hard under the sternum and managed to get a foot on his pike so that it pulled loose from his hands as he fell back.

Matt skidded to a stop, with the vague notion that his help wasn't needed. He wondered where Yverne had picked up such skill with a weapon, but it was only a fleeting thought—he had to get back to the battle! Let's see, what had he been about to do?

Oh yes, cast a spell! On the knights. He called out:

The two knights suddenly shot downward, disappearing behind their men with a double crash that told Matt his effort had been successful. The soldiers crowded back from their fallen leaders, and Matt could see them struggling to get up. Their squires hurried in and tried to haul them up, bawling to the soldiers to help.

They would get the knights back on their feet, given enough time—which Matt didn't intend to allow. He added,

He heard two howls of shocked surprise quite clearly over the din of the fight, as the two knights suddenly found themselves devoid of breastplates, protected only by the thick padding of their gambesons. Matt grinned wickedly. Somehow, he wasn't hearing the knights threatening their men any more—and a few soldiers were developing gleams in their eyes, lowering their pikes.

Matt didn't stay to watch. He ran back to the barricade, blocked a pike but found it was a halberd that cut down at his foot. He hopped back, but the blade caught his leg, and pain seared through. He cried out, but muffled it quickly, shifting his weight as he chopped through the shaft and riposted with a thrust toward the halberdier. The man leaped back with alacrity, and Matt was grimly pleased to note that there wasn't any great push to shove him forward.

Then a halberdier on his right knocked the sword out of his hand.

Matt leaped back from the fight—he knew better than to try to pick up the sword. A quick glance showed him Fadecourt with a captured pike, beating back soldier after soldier, Narlh catching soldiers in his jaws and tossing them away, and Yverne, bleeding from two cuts but fighting with the deftness of an expert and a very pale face.

The sight of her blood made Matt's plasma boil. He caught up a fallen halberd and jumped back into the fray just as a pikeman wriggled through the chevaux-de-frise. Matt slammed a chop at him—but the pikeman blocked the blow and slammed the butt of his pike into Matt's knee. Pain exploded as the knee folded, and Matt sank down before his enemy, whose point was spearing right toward him...

A pike butt whistled around and clipped the pikeman under the chin. The man fell back, and Fadecourt leaped up to stab down. The man screamed, then sprawled loose, and the cyclops jumped back to his own sector, crying, "Desist, Lord Matthew! You are not accustomed to the halberd! Devote yourself to spells for our defense!"

Matt staggered to his feet, trying to ignore the pain in knee and shin. He stepped back from the battle, using the halberd as a staff to support his injured leg. His face burned with shame—at having a woman outdo him with a weapon, but also at his failure to aid his friends by fighting with his strongest weapon—magic.

And he'd better get with it—it was very odd that no junior sorcerers had started magical support for the attackers yet. If he moved fast, maybe he could forestall them...

With a meteor.

A roar split the night. Matt stared, mouth hanging open, last line unfinished, because a towering flame swept toward him. The ranks of attackers split with a huge shout to make room for it, and Matt found himself wondering, Oh, no! Did I do that?

Not with the verse about the meteor, at least—for as it came closer, Matt saw a twelve-foot tree trunk, blazing like a Yule log, stamping up on two legs made by a split in its bottom end. Two fiery knots toward its top glared down at him; a gash below them opened and bellowed, "You! Vile sorcerer! Most evil of magi! Never did I do you hurt! Innocent was I of any wrongdoing! Wherefore did you cast me into the fiery furnace?"

Matt was so startled he could only stare back at it and stutter.

The tree blundered into the barricade, and three stakes caught fire. It glared down at them, then sought out Matt again. "Will you now condemn these poor twigs, also, to the eternal flame? Will you damn them, as you damned me?"

"But—I didn't!" Matt bawled. "I've never seen you before in my life!"

"Of a certainty, you have," the flaming tree bellowed, "though the powers of Hell have magnified me so that I may be the instrument of your destruction! I was the twig you set into the earth as a marker, the poor, unoffending stick that you threw from you with a curse!"

Even through his panic, Matt recognized the reference to Gordogrosso. The sorcerer-king had magnified the little stick he had thrown away with a "Damn you!" and pulled it back from Hell to threaten Matt.

Wait a minute...The torture chamber for damned souls...

"You can't have been damned!" Matt cried. "You didn't have a soul!"

The tree froze in place, its fiery eyes widening in astonishment.

Matt pressed his point. "Hell is only for the souls of the wicked! And no other person can send you to Hell—only yourself, by refusing God's help! Did you ever refuse God?"

"Nay..." the tree admitted.

"And you didn't have a soul to send to Hell in the first place! Material things don't go to Hell—not flesh, or stone, or wood! Only souls!"

"If that is true," the tree said, "I cannot have been damned." Its flames began to shrink.

"Right!" Matt cried. "And if you weren't damned, you can't be on fire!"

"Aye...that is true..." The flames guttered out.

"In fact," Matt shouted, "you can't even be alive! Some idiot sorcerer just made you think you were, so he could give you the tortures of the damned!"

That did it. The last spark of light died from the tree's eyes, and it began to tilt.

"Timber!" Matt shouted, and the smoldering trunk came crashing to the ground.

But it left a hole in the defenses, three broken stakes.

On the other hand, those stakes were burning, and the soldiers were staring at the flames in horror and fascination.

Matt saw his chance. "Quick! Flee! Hide yourselves in the hills and repent! Or you, too, will fall into everlasting hellfire!"

The soldiers howled in despair, turned, and fled. They left two men, clad in the padded jackets of gambesons, waving swords at them and shouting frantically, "Hold! Do not believe this madman! Come back! What is the fury of Hell in the next world, against the rage of King Gordogrosso in this?"

Apparently, the men were suddenly much more aware of the next world's perils, because they didn't come back.

The one unarmored knight turned to the other. "I, at least, fear Gordogrosso more than God! I would rather die in battle than face the king!" And he turned to advance with determination toward the burning stakes.

Reluctantly, the second knight started to advance.

"Stop and think!" Matt held up a hand. "If you die serving Gordogrosso, you'll go right to Hell!"

The second knight hesitated.

"Fool!" the first knight cried. "Will you lose all the manor and lands the king has given you? Not I!" And, with a bellow, he charged, leaping the burning stake and whipping his sword down in a huge cut as he landed.

Fadecourt leaped back from the sword, then leaped in again as soon as it had passed. Before the knight could recover, the cyclops stabbed with the pike. The knight tried to block with the shield that wasn't there, and the pike scored his arm, leaving a gash of blood as its point transfixed his throat. Fadecourt yanked the spear out in some agitation. " 'Tis too slow a death! I'll not leave thee to suffer, enemy or no!" And, as the knight's knees folded, the cyclops drew back the pike for the death-blow.

Yverne touched his arm. "His soul!"

Fadecourt froze. "Do you repent of all your sins?"

The knight managed a feeble nod.

"We can save him!" Matt cried. Then he saw how much blood had already pumped out onto the earth, and said, "No, we can't."

The pike flashed down through the heart and pinned the knight to the earth.

Fadecourt released the shaft and turned slowly to the other knight.

The knight stared at him, white showing all around his irises, gave a cry of despair, and lurched into a stumbling run.

Fadecourt skipped aside, only to trip on the dracogriff's tail.

The knight barreled straight on, heading right toward Yverne.

Matt howled and threw himself forward in a flying tackle, just the way he'd seen it done in the movies.

He slammed into his quarry right behind the knees, and the knight went sprawling. Matt's shoulder added its pain to balance that of his opposite leg. He tried to scramble up, but only managed to roll over onto his elbow—where he saw Yverne, standing over the man with a pike point poised over his face, crying, "You bastard! You bully, you false knight! How could you be so dishonorable as to strike at a poor, defenseless maid?"

"Yes," Matt agreed. "Totally despicable."

"You should hesitate to speak for shame, sir!" Yverne reproached him. "You, who do not scruple to strike the lowest blow!"

"So," Matt said, "did he."

Fadecourt resolved the argument by stepping forward and kicking the sword out of the knight's hand. "Your life is the lady's, sir. Beg her indulgence, or die."

"I yield me," the knight groaned. "Claim what forfeit you will.

Triumph gleamed in Yverne's eye, but she kept the spear poised "Why, then, my forfeit is this—that you kneel to God and swear to lead a life of virtue, defending the weak and punishing the wicked, as a knight should!"

The knight groaned. "Mercy, lady! To seek to live virtuously in King Gordogrosso's Ibile is to seek one's own death!"

"Not to mention the loss of your house and land, of course?" Matt put in, as Narlh gave a disgusted snort.

"That also," the knight agreed morosely.

"You have but to choose," Yverne said sweetly. "A short life of virtue, or a long death in Hell."

"Maybe not," Matt said thoughtfully. "We're not all that far from the border—if you move fast, you might be able to make it into Merovence before King Gor—before the king catches up with you."

The knight shuddered. "You know not Gordogrosso's power."

"I know he doesn't dare do anything in Saint Moncaire's domain," Matt said sharply. "Get far enough into Alisande's territory, and the king can't touch you."

"Even in Ibile, there is some defense," Fadecourt advised. "Seek the sacraments of your faith, sir, and maintain your soul in a state of Grace, and you put yourself beyond the reach of the evil king."

"My soul, perhaps," the knight said mournfully. "Not my body."

"Even your body may be protected, by sacramentals—by the wearing of scapular and crucifix, by the carrying of holy water and rosary."

"It is, at least, a chance, sir," Yverne said with pity.

The knight lay immobile for a moment.

"Of course," Matt said, "you could let him repent, then kill him instantly."

"For shame, sir!" Yverne cried.

"Wouldst kill in cold blood!" Fadecourt demanded, shocked. "I gave the other his death wound in battle, Lord Matthew! The coup de grace only finished more quickly what had been wrought in hot blood!"

"I suppose so." Matt sighed. "It was just an idea."

"One well intended, I am certain, sir," the fallen knight said, "but I quail at the thought of the centuries in Purgatory awaiting one who has lived so vile a life as I have. Nay, I thank you all and will accept your kind offer. I will brave the king—and if I die in torment, at least it will be brief."

Matt had a vision of a medieval torture chamber, and what he had heard about making the pain last for days. But the knight was right, it was brief—compared to his probable sentence in the domain of the spiritually deficient.

"Kneel, then." Yverne withdrew the spear point.

The knight rolled up to his knees, joined his hands in prayer, and bent his head.

The companions waited.

After a short while, the knight raised his head "I have made my peace with God, as well as I may. And I swear, by all that is holy, to try with all my heart to live a virtuous life henceforth, defending the weak and punishing the wicked. Now I must needs find a priest"

"Rise," Yverne said.

The knight stood, and Fadecourt clasped him by the hand, slapping his shoulder. "Welcome back to the world of the living in spirit, brother!"

"I thank you." The knight managed a smile. "Yet forgive my abruptness, but I must ride as soon as I may."

"Aye." Fadecourt stepped back. "Away with you, then!"

The knight looked about him, at something of a loss. "Wizard...if I may..."

"Oh, sure." Matt snapped his fingers.

A sharp whinny split the night, and the knight's charger came trotting up. It pulled up beside its master and blew. The knight managed the ghost of a smile, patted the beast's neck, and mounted.

"Ah," Yverne breathed, "so there was hope for him, ere he met us."

Matt wasn't quite sure what she meant, unless it was that love for a horse was better than no love at all.

"I shall chance finding sanctuary, ere the minions of Satan find me," the knight said, turning his horse's head toward the west.

"Remember the sacramentals," Matt advised.

The knight gave him a sardonic smile. "And what such may I take from here, Lord Wizard?"

"Hymns," Matt said. "After all, the lyrics rhyme. There's a definite chance that singing holy songs will protect you, at least a little."

The man looked startled, then nodded slowly. "Aye, there is truth in what you say. At the least, it cannot hurt me. I thank you, Wizard."

"You're welcome. Uh, do you know any hymns?"

"One or two, from my childhood. Hail, Wizard, lady, cyclops! Hail, great beast! Hail, and farewell!" And he turned, riding off into the darkness, disappearing in the murk. But they could still hear him, chanting a Latin hymn in a loud, off-key baritone.

Fadecourt winced at the man's grating voice. "Nay, I doubt not he will be quite safe indeed."

"You can say that again," Matt agreed. "Who'd want to come anywhere nearer any singing like that than they had to?"

Privately, he suspected that the knight would renege on all his promises as soon as he was out of sight and return to his lord's castle—what difference did honor make, in Ibile?

But he hoped he was wrong.