Her Majesty's Wizard

"No, never saw one before." Matt considered carefully. "Then she's no longer a lust-witch - just an ordinary girl again."

"Aye." Alisande speared him with another glare. "But beware, Wizard. She still has the power she was born with - which has proved sufficient to ruin the strongest of men."

Sayeesa lifted her head from the dirt. "Give me the knife, loose my hands, and let me die! For I am too foul to live!"

"You are not, if you still can think so." Alisande stared at the girl, her look almost sympathetic. Then her face hardened as she turned to Matt. "Thus have men done to her!"

"Well, it wasn't my spell that did it!" Matt didn't know what was bothering the princess, but he was getting tired of her attitude. "Control your tone, Lady!"

Sir Guy's eyes widened, and Alisande froze, paling. Then she spoke in a low tone, quivering with anger. "We will speak of that anon, sir, when your duties here are done."

"Duties? I didn't hear anyone blow assembly."

"Did you not?" Alisande's finger stabbed out, pointing to the naked, bewildered young folks. "There stand those poor victims, stripped to their skins in the cold night air. If you claim to any morality, Wizard, you must clothe them. I, too, am lacking, and Sir Guy is without armor."

"Nay. After they bound us in our ensorcelled sleep and brought us here, they took all from us." Sir Guy turned away. "But perchance I may find them here."

He strode off, while Matt stood with his eyes locked on Alisande's. Then he sighed. "All right, I'll try. But don't expect miracles, Lady. I'm beat."

He thought for a moment, but memory was no help. This would have to be something original, good or not.

"The wind is too cold at this time of year,
And overexposure may bring on the flu.
Let whatever each wore when entering here
Reclothe now the wearer, without more ado."

There was a rustle, and the feeling of cloth against his skin. He looked down to see his clothes back on him under the robe. Alisande was again wearing the garments he'd first given her. And now Sir Guy was coming back, again clad in his black armor. He looked up, and the youths were all dressed.

'Reclothed,' eh? His spell hadn't just supplied the garments, it had dressed everyone with them instantly.

"Satisfied?" he demanded of Alisande.

She made no answer. Stepping forward to the edge of the crater, she held up her arms and called, "Hearken! Attend me!"

The youngsters quit "oohing" over their clothes and looked down at her, startled. They obviously hadn't realized she was there.

"I am Princess Alisande," she called out, proud and grave in the moonlight. She had the dignity and authority that could only come from being raised to it, from an impregnable sense of self. "I and my liegemen have saved you. We have broken the spell that chained you. You are clothed, and most of you live. Thank your God for that! Now stay not to marvel or doubt. Find a church to be shriven, to be granted new hope of salvation. Then return to your homes. Now depart!"

As he watched the youths begin to leave, bearing their dead with them, Matt felt a touch on his arm. He turned to see Sir Guy beside him, holding out his silver ballpoint pen. "I have never seen the like of this. Surely it must be yours. Perchance your magic wand?"

"My what?" Matt pocketed it automatically. "Uh - not exactly. Thanks, Sir Guy."

"And this?" Sir Guy held out the black sword in its scabbard. "A wondrous-seeming blade. Is it also yours?"

Matt nodded uncertainly. "Well, partly. I made it from your dagger. I suppose it's really yours."

"Nay, 'tis now yours." Sir Guy smiled. "Already I have two swords, mine own, and that which you magicked here for me."

Alisande had been watching the last of the youths depart, but now she came back, turning scornful eyes on Matt. "And now, Wizard, are you recovered from your night of revels?"

"What revels?" Matt demanded. "We'd hardly begun!"

"Begun the road to your death!" Alisande blazed. "But for your oath, you'd have been drained to a husk."

Matt stiffened... "Oath? What are you talking about?"

"The oath of fealty you swore when I created you Lord Wizard. Had it not been for that, I could not have broken the foul spell that bound you. Be assured, the words that you spoke gave me power over you."

"And me some power over you! I remember your saying a word or two."

"Aye, certes. My oath bound me to you, as did Sir Guy's to draw us into your danger. Or did you not realize, sirrah, that your lust led us all into peril?"

"Whoa! It didn't start with lust. There was a damsel in distress.. ."

"A comely damsel, no doubts and one not overly clad."

"Oh, well. But you can't think I went off fighting trolls because I was hot for her body."

"Say, rather, you fought an illusion of hers under her total control," Alisande corrected him. "She was in no danger."

"But I couldn't know that." Still, it must have been true. And if he'd had no sword to fight with, she'd probably have brought up her guards in time to rescue him, then been all sympathy as she took him to heal his wounds.

"If there had been no sin in your soul, she could not have seduced you to her," Alisande said, with scathing scorn. "When free from sin, the minions of Evil have no power over you!"

"So what am I supposed to be? A saint?" Matt cried, exasperated. "And as forgetting us into danger - why didn't you warn me that there was a lust-witch around?"

"Because, from the best we knew, her lair was a day's ride to the north," Sir Guy answered.

"It should not have mattered," Alisande declared. "And it would not, had you been a knight, not a slight country wizard!"

Matt bridled. "And just what could a knight have done that I didn't?"

"He could have known Evil when he saw it - and resisted it!"

Matt reared his head back, staring at her. "Sure, Lady! Knights never give in to temptation. Oh, never! I suppose Astaulf wasn't a knight before he usurped the throne!"

Alisande started to answer. Then she turned pale and snapped her jaw shut. She swung on her heel and stalked off into the night.

"What's the matter with her, anyway?" Matt asked Sir Guy. "Does she think I should be made out of marble?"

"She is, perchance, distressed to learn that you are not." Sir Guy pursed his lips, but there was a hint of amusement in his face. "If you can be tempted to sin by a woman's body, Lord Wizard, the princess's cause is imperiled."

Matt's brows drew down. "How do my lapses endanger the cause?"

"Because, Lord Wizard, you and I are her only true assets in the war for her throne; and of us two, you are the more vital."

"Seems to me wars really boil down to which side has the strongest fighters," Matt objected.

"Not so. For at root, this is a struggle between Good and Evil. And most potent for those forces are the wizards and sorcerers. Sorcerers must remain celibate - no human feelings must possess their attention. But even more must a wizard be virtuous, since the smallest sin weakens his power for the Good. Thus our Princess Alisande must have concern for your soul."

"Yes, I see," Matt admitted grudgingly. "But I also see that it is an invasion of privacy."

"Indeed. She most truly invaded your privacy when she summoned you by your oath, saving you from the witch." Sir Guy smiled in gentle mockery, then sobered. "Your oath was a bond, Sir Wizard, and protection against all but the most potent magics. No matter the charms the witch used on you, it would find a way to protect you against them - for a time, at least."

So that was why somebody had come bursting in on him and Sayeesa just when things started to get interesting. Then another thought occurred to him. "If I'm so important, could that have anything to do with Sayeesa's castle being suddenly so far south of where it's supposed to be? And could Malingo have anything to do with the sending of both witches against me?"