"Uh, that's a bit of a misconception." Matt pulled up a rock and sat down. "There's a certain contrariness to them, Max, and even more to our relationships with them."
"Indeed!" The Demon sounded extremely interested. "Explain this, Wizard!"
"As far as I can." Matt grinned. "Let's take Alisande, for example. She's a princess, see, and I'm a commoner - but an interesting one. You see..."
The Demon didn't, and Matt went on at some length, explaining the intricacies and ramifications of the situation, as far as he knew them.
After an hour, the Demon declared, "I chose aright. You truly comprehend perversity."
CHAPTER 14
"Awake."
Matt swatted at the steel hand and rolled over on his back, glaring up at Sir Guy. "It's too early."
The knight only pointed to the sky, and Matt realized Sir Guy was silhouetted against a brightening ceiling. Looking out, he saw the hellhounds still slavering and clawing at the force-field, without the slightest slackening of berserk ferocity.
"They will flee with sunrise," the knight explained, "but we must be ready to ride when they do, to make as many miles as we can by daylight."
Matt nodded. "So we have to start early." He clambered to his feet, sighing, and helped Sir Guy waken Alisande and Sayeesa. They breakfasted on journey bread, huddled in their cloaks and watched the dogs clawing at the eastern space between stone blocks.
The sky grew rosy as they watched. They finished breakfast and saddled up. The hounds went crazy as they mounted and rode to the center of the Ring, watching the east.
A sudden line of burning red bulged above the horizon. Scarlet rays stabbed out, flooding through the eastern portal.
The dogs screamed, wheeled about, and fled out over the moor.
But they'd overstayed; they seemed to grow thinner as they ran, translucent, and transparent, then ...
"Gone." Matt exhaled a long, shaky breath.
"Back to whatever lightless place gave them being." Sir Guy nodded heavily. "Now let us ride."
They turned their horses, setting their backs to the sun, and rode out of the Stone Ring-quite reluctantly, with the possible exception of Sayeesa. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and slumped in her saddle as they passed between huge sarcens.
They rode west, alternating between walk and canter again. Alisande rode beside Sayeesa, chatting; and there was nothing particularly royal about her manner. She seemed only a young woman, wanting a good gossip. Sayeesa was wary at first, but she thawed quickly.
Matt kept trying to catch the princess's eye, but she always seemed to be looking the other way at just the wrong moment. After a while, he began to suspect it was more than coincidence. Finally, about midmorning, he managed to cut in between the two women during a canter and was next to Alisande when they slowed to a walk. "Good morrow, your Highness."
"Good morn." Her neck was ramrod stiff, and she didn't quite meet his gaze. "Lord Wizard, I must ask you to forget any words that passed between us yesterday. You will understand that, due to the nature of the Stone Ring, I was not myself."
It hurt. It stabbed in and twisted, letting anger spurt out. "Of course -I should have expected remorse this morning. After all, you'd never felt like a woman before."
Her head snapped back as if she'd been slapped, and anger flared in her eyes - but beneath it, he could see the hurt. She inclined her head with cold courtesy. "I thank you for instruction, Lord Wizard. I assure you, I'm schooled - never to risk personal converse again."
She straightened in her saddle with the dignity of a glacier and rode away, turning her back to him.
Matt watched her go, cursing under his breath.
A spark hovered near him, visible even in sunlight, humming, "You may understand perversity, Wizard, yet you cannot prevent it."
"Oh, go make a hotbox," Matt growled.
By late afternoon, they were out of the plains, into a rolling, hill-and-gully land. Sir Guy was in excellent spirits. "We shall not lack for shelter this night, praise Heaven! We shall be well-housed indeed, at the monastery of Saint Moncaire!"
"Moncaire?" Matt frowned. "Hardishane's war wizard? What kind of monks live in his house?"
"A warrior order." Sir Guy gazed off into the distance with nostalgia. "Worthy men, sworn to holy orders as well as to arms, devoted to the protection of the helpless against the wicked. For years they maintained themselves in readiness, with fasting, drill, and marches, as if the time of their need should come on the morrow."
"And tomorrow's here." Matt chewed at his lower lip. "But isn't war a rather strange profession for a monk, Sir Guy?"
The knight shook his head. "'Tis a matter of whom the arms are borne against, Lord Wizard."
"Malingo." Matt nodded. "I keep forgetting that, in this universe, it really is possible to tell the good from the bad - and without much likelihood of rationalizing. Let's have a look at this monastery."
The monastery was there. So was an army!
It was a rather motley horde, falling into definite groupings by uniform color; but it surrounded the monastery on all four sides in a vast, sprawling circle.
Sir Guy drew in a long, whistling breath. "We have been anticipated."
"It is the army of evil," Alisande confirmed.
Matt frowned, brooding. "How far from the mountains are we?".
"Two days' ride," Alisande answered.
"What now is our order?" Sayeesa demanded. "Can we go around them?"
"We can," Sir Guy said judiciously. "But if we do, night will catch us far from any habitation."
"No." Matt shook his head sharply. "We might not find a convenient Stonehenge this time; and I somehow suspect Malingo hasn't run out of hellhounds."
"We go in, then." Alisande's sword hissed out of its sheath. "Come, gentles. We shall hew a way to those walls, or die with our swords reaping a harvest of evil about us."
"Very commendable." Matt touched a restraining hand to Alisande's hilt. "But personally, I'd prefer not to die. There's a better way. Max!"
"Aye, Wizard." The dot of arc light hovered in the air before him. Sir Guy and Alisande pulled back involuntarily, and the stallion shifted restlessly. Matt ignored them. "Does your power extend to time, Max?"
"Things move in time as in space. Thus there is energy spent; and where it is spent, I can hoard. 'Tis in my province."
Matt took a deep breath, sure of his words this time.
The dot of light winked out. Matt swallowed and settled in the saddle, motioning the others forward.
They rode down the hill at a trot and came to the rear of an army strangely stalled; all about them, soldiers and animals stood frozen in mid-movement.
"What has happened, Lord Wizard?" Alisande's voice was hushed. "Have you and this Demon of yours frozen this whole army in death?"
"No, Highness. They are not dead, but frozen in time, so that it might take a day for one to blink his eyes." Matt looked around him, trying to suppress a shudder. "But do not touch them. They move so slowly that each must seem as immovable as a whole mountain of granite."
They went through the army at a crawl, moving very carefully. It was slow going. Finding ways for the horses to move through the bunched soldiers was difficult, and they often had to backtrack and try another way. But they persevered and were almost to the wall when the men about them began to move again, very slowly, but getting faster.
"The spell's broken!" Matt bellowed. "Ride, and don't count the bumps!"
Horses lurched into a run as a midnight-blue figure thrust up above the crowd, its hands weaving an unseen pattern.