The Haunted Wizard - Wiz in Rhym-6 (31 page)

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Matt looked up in surprise, and saw that the sky was indeed lightening. He wondered just how long he and Jord had been fleeing through that nighttime forest Eyelids fluttered; Jord peered upward, frowning against the pain in his head. Then he saw who bent over him, and stared in fear and horror.

Jord shrank into a ball, hands up to protect his face. "Spare me! Forgo your revenge!"

"Why, so I shall," Friar Gode said. "Do you come to attack the church of God, or to pray?" Jord peered over his hands, saw the gentle, grave expression on the friar's face, and lowered his guard.

"I come to pray."

Something howled out there on the village green. Something else answered it, yammering in anger. Jord cringed. "I come to pray! I come to repent! Save me, friar! Save me from the sharp white teeth in the night!"

Heavy panting sounded, coming closer, spreading wide on all three sides. Jord seized the friar's robe and pulled himself up, crying, "Save me! A fury filled my soul only minutes ago, thirsting for blood, shooting agony through every part of me! My soul gibbers at the thought of being so possessed again! Save me from that horror, friar!"

"Why, so I shall." Gently, Gode pried Jord's hands loose and slipped a roll of cloth from his robe. He shook it out into a strip with a cross embroidered at each end, and placed it around his neck. Matt saw it was a stole, the badge of office that every Roman Catholic priest wears when he is administering the sacraments, the sign that he is functioning in his official capacity rather than his private one. The friar looked up at Matt. "Go farther off, goodman. I must see this man reconciled with God before he comes into the church."

Matt nodded and paced away, down the steps to just inside the invisible boundary of the warding circle. He stiffened, feeling the malignant presence return, towering over him, ready to fall on him, but he stood his ground, glaring defiantly upward into the gloom. He never would have had the courage to do it in his own world, but he had plucked up the nerve to face his enemies in Merovence, and was knighted for his pains. With the knighthood had come far more bravery than he had ever known, so he could stand with narrowed eyes, trying to stare down a malignancy he could not see, even though he felt another gathering close to it on one side and a third on the other side, then another and another. But he stared unafraid, for he stood on consecrated ground bordered by his own warding circle.

He paced its arc, hearing behind him Jord's murmured confessing of his sins. Matt tried not to listen, not that he could have understood a word anyway—he was too far from them. The presences moved with him, and he realized it was himself they had come for, though if they did manage to overwhelm him, Jord and the friar would be engulfed right after him. He wished the former false druid would hurry up and finish his confession. He also began to understand why the Devil tempted people to desecrate holy places. Then, somehow, the malignancy seemed to lighten. Matt turned to stare outward, wondering what had happened—and Buckeye stepped out of the gloom. "You could at least thank me for safe conduct." Matt stared in amazement. "So it was you fighting off the monsters I couldn't see!"
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"Yes, and you burned my hide for it," Buckeye said indignantly, and turned his back to show Matt a patch of singed fur. Matt swallowed, feeling horrible. "Sorry. I didn't know my helper was vulnerable to blessings. Look, at least I didn't say whose blessing I was calling for."

"Thanks for small favors," Buckeye sniffed.

Matt felt suddenly apprehensive—if the bauchan had been able to defy the invisible evil entities that surrounded him, it had to have stronger magic than he had thought. Matt hoped Buckeye didn't want to get back at him too badly. "Did you fight off the wolves, too?"

"Wolves!" Buckeye said with contempt. "They are nothing. Know that we creatures of the forest understand one another, mortal, and if I comprehend the viciousness of their packs, they in return know the danger of my magic and my whims. The night-walkers, now, they are another matter, but there is enough malice in me to let me walk among them, and enough goodness to shield me. Spirits fear one another, too, mortal man, and know one another's power."

"Standing up to them must have taken a lot of courage, then," Matt said. Buckeye seemed to still inside, and for a moment there was nothing of the bantering or mischievous about him. "Some bravery, yes. I knew I could master any one of them, after all, but I could not be sure they would not league against me." Then the moment passed, and his grin flashed forth once more. "But they did not—they are creatures made solitary by their spite and jealousy, and will not ally with one another if they can avoid it. In this case, they were too slow to recognize necessity, as I had thought they would be."

"It was still taking quite a chance. Thank you for braving the risk. Were they sent by the Chief Druid?"

"Chief mocker, you mean, if you speak of Niobhyte," Buckeye said with contempt. "Nay. They were sent by an evil far greater than his."

"For Banalix, or me?"

"For you." The bauchan grinned. "They thought to frighten you away from the protections of—" He decided not to use whatever term he'd had in mind, and said instead, "—from your usual protections. They did not know that you had also the protections of a spirit far more earthly."

"Meaning yourself." Matt swallowed thickly. "Why did you help me?" The bauchan shrugged. "I was bored, and it lent the night some interest. Besides, who would I have to torment if you were slain and I had not yet met your family?"

"I see," Matt said dryly. "You were defending your property." The grin turned to a leer. "You might say that, yes."

Matt decided he'd better keep his bauchan amused. Then his heart sank as he realized he'd thought of it as "his."

"Goodman," Friar Gode called, "you may come back within."

"Coming," Matt answered, then turned back to Buckeye. "Thanks for bailing me out."
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"I shall be glad to do so again." The bauchan's eye glittered wickedly. "If the whim should take me." Matt was tempted to wish something else would take the creature, but he had the sense to throttle the thought, if not the feeling. He turned back to mount the church steps in the first rays of sunrise. Matt found Jord inside the church, thoroughly chastened and gazing about him in disbelief.

"He is reconciled with God," the friar said by way of explanation. Matt said to Jord, "You look as though you'd never been in a church before."

"All my life," the ex-druid returned, "until Nio—until the Chief Druid beguiled me away with tales of power and pleasure." A smile lightened his face for a moment. "They were true, too." Then he frowned again. "But he did not tell me what awaited failure." He shuddered. "I cannot say which was worse—those huge padding feet in the night, or the hoarse breathing of they who walked."

"The feeling of them inside your mind and heart," Matt told him.

"Aaiiee!" It was short, but it was a scream, and Jord buried his face in his hands. "Heaven protect me from ever suffering that again!"

Matt set a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. At least, it was meant to be comforting, but Jord gave such a start, Matt would have thought he'd been hit with a jolt of electricity. He took his hand away.

"Don't worry, you're safe from them now, as long as you stay in here." Jord calmed considerably, looking about him and drinking in the tranquillity of the church. "None can come in here?"

"No spirits," Matt told him. "I made sure of that." Friar Gode looked up at him, startled, but Matt gave him a wink.

Jord, though, had caught the qualification. "But things that are not spirits can enter?"

"Evil men can," Matt admitted. "There's always the chance of that. Whenever pagans come to loot, the church is one of the first places they look."

Jord shivered, but said manfully, "Even so, as you say, there is always such danger. I must only hope that the Chief Druid and his followers dwindle and fade."

"They are the pagan threat of the moment, yes," Matt agreed. "The more we know about them, the more quickly we can rid ourselves of them. What can you tell me about this Chief Druid?" Jord was silent and began to tremble again.

"Come on, you know he'll kill you just for losing the gamble to steal the friar's congregation," Matt said,

"if he can. Help me make sure he can't."

"None knows where he came from," Jord said, his voice low, "but he speaks with the manner and accent of a lord."

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That, Matt automatically discounted—such things could be learned, as any good con man would tell.

"And he's a sorcerer?"

Jord shuddered. "Yes, a most powerful sorcerer! He taught us a few spells and promised us more, but we knew he would never teach us even half of what he knew."

"Us?" Matt picked up on the word. "Who?"

"The half dozen of us who sought to become druids in our own right, not acolytes only," Jord explained.

"That's how we began, as a group of worshipers following Nio—his lead. He promised us power, and his glowing accounts of the power and luxury, the silken bodies in our arms and the acclaim of the crowds, swayed us all to become druids in our own right and go out to win more worshipers for the Old Gods. I have converted sixteen villages and four towns already." There was a touch of pride in his voice; then he remembered the preceding night, and hung his head. "No more." Matt wondered how long Jord would stay repentant, how soon the memories of willing women and awe-filled men would sway him out to his own form of preaching again. He wondered, too, how long this Niobhyte would let him live. "He taught you what he claimed was the Old Religion?"

"Yes—the names of the gods; the symbols, such as the golden sickle, mistletoe, and holly; and the ceremony of worship, of drinking to free the impulses of the heart, dancing to please the gods, copulation, and bloodletting."

"Bloodletting, right. Completely voluntary, but when you have a congregation fully committed, the cuts go deeper and deeper and the blood flows more freely and less willingly, doesn't it?" Jord nodded. "We have sacrificed eleven virgins and half a dozen young men already. Niobhyte says it pleases the gods."

"I'm sure it does, except that the only one he's really having you worship isn't a god," Matt said. "The old gods are only dreams, even in this—" He nearly said "universe," but caught himself in time."—land. How does he say you should behave toward one another?"

"Why, that each man should strive for the highest position he can, and beat down those who seek to throw him out— strive also for wealth, and the favors of the greatest number of women." Friar Gode's lips pressed into a thin, angry line. Matt felt the same way, but kept his voice reasonable.

"How about if you want something someone else has?"

"Why, you should take it! If he is too weak to drive you away, he deserves to lose it!" Matt nodded. "How about copulating with someone else's wife?"

"Again, if he is too weak to prevent you, it is the way of Nature, the way of the wildwood, and it is right." Jord's eyes began to glow with the power of it.

"How about if your wife wants to sleep with somebody else?" Matt asked.

"Slay her," Jord said promptly. "Him, too, if you can."
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Gode cried out in protest, and Jord turned to him, instantly contrite. "Your pardon, holy man! I would not speak of such things, but this good man did ask."

"I know, and you must tell him," the friar groaned. "I, too, must know what the enemy teaches—but it is hard hearing of it."

"How do you behave toward other villages?" Matt asked.

"Why, you obey the King's Law—but if he bids you attack, you attack, whether it be another village or the land of Merovence!"

"Just happened to mention Merovence, I see."

"These are no teachings of the old gods, but of the Devil!" Friar Gode burst out. Jord swung to him, surprised, but Matt said, "You figured that, too, huh?" Then to Jord, "The Chief Druid has told you to break every single one of the Commandments, except the one about the Sabbath."

"Oh, on Sundays we are to work while the sun shines, then drink and make merry when it sets!"

"Broke that one, too, I see," Matt said grimly, "and I don't think I have to ask what he taught you about using the name of God as a swear word. You do know who tempts you to do the opposite of what God teaches, don't you, Jord?"

Jord's eyes widened with horror. "It is as you say, it is as you say—he taught us to worship Satan! But why then did he not call the Devil by name?"

"Say it outright, and people would be warned, and stay away in fear and loathing," Matt explained.

"Disguise it, and they'll listen. In the final analysis, though, you watch how they behave, and you'll know what god they really worship in their hearts." He felt rather uncomfortable saying it, thinking of people in his own world, but he knew that the vast majority of people were very easily fooled. He wondered if P T

Barnum spoke of all the people in all the worlds.

He put the thought aside and got back to interrogation. "Since we mentioned the king, let's follow it up. What does King Drustan know about all this?"

"As little as you did before last night, I suspect," Jord answered, "though his son John is another matter."

"John?" Matt stared. "That incompetent loser? He's in on the druid scam?"

"I do not know what a 'scam' is, but I do know that John is a prince, and can aid the cause of the Chief Druid mightily," Jord answered.

"Especially since he's now heir apparent," Matt mused. "Maybe he's not as dumb as he looks."