"Leave the worrying to the High Command, huh?" Matt nodded judiciously. "But you might have been a little deceptive yourself, the way you sang my praises."
The dragon fixed him with burning eyes. "I was not," he said. "When wilt thou learn?"
It might have been Matt's imagination, but he could have sworn that Alisande had been trying to avoid him all day. To test the theory, he sat down next to her at dinner time.
Her back stiffened. She seemed to pull in on herself and inch just the slightest bit away from him. "Good even, Lord Wizard."
Good even? They'd been riding in the same company all day! Matt clamped his jaws on a tough strand of partridge. "Good evening, your Highness."
Off to a great start, wasn't it? Where did he go from there? "Pardon my ignorance, but-is this the Plain of Grellig?"
She seemed to think it over before she answered. Then, unwillingly, she nodded her head toward the two peaks to the west. "Nay, 'tis beyond-a high plateau."
"Just over there, huh?" Matt raised his eyebrows, looking across her. Sure enough, what he'd thought was a long saddle between the peaks was actually a bit beyond them, and was the lip of a high tableland. "Why did you make that the rendezvous point?"
"'Twill likely be the scene of our final battle," Alisande said offhandedly. "Malingo must know why we are here and also that, once we wake Colmain, he must crush us ere we can begin to march back towards Bordestang; for then, with every mile we march, we'll gain a hundred men."
Matt sat there, letting the chill of her words sink in. As soon as the giant turned back into flesh, then, they'd be facing a set of stacked odds that would make Crecy and Agincourt look like an even match. "That soon, huh? Well, I hope we'll be tooled up."
"The abbess and her warrior nuns ride to meet us." Alisande's face was stone. "And the abbot of the Moncaireans comes with all his men."
"Shouldn't we wait a little for them to catch up with us?" Matt asked.
The princess shook her head. "Malingo may try to crush us ere we wake Colmain - if he can."
It wouldn't take much, Matt knew-and something just as dangerous was shaking his confidence. "Uh, your Highness..."
She seemed to steel herself. "Aye?"
"We may have a grave interior weakness at this last battle.. ."
"We will not." She said it with utter finality, like the crash of steel doors-but there was a hollowness behind them. That unquestionable conviction with which she spoke on public matters was lacking.
Therefore, it had to be a private matter.
"That's not what the Reverend Mother thought," Matt reminded her.
Alisande's chin tucked up another notch. "I am mindful of her admonition, Lord Wizard - and I mind me there were two courses of action for me."
For her? Did she really think she could make this a unilateral decision? Come to that, did she think she could resolve it by a simple decision? "There were two," Matt agreed carefully. "That we pledge, or finish."
"I choose the second." Alisande bit the words off. "Purge any feeling you have for me, Lord Wizard, as I have done regarding you."
"Oh, really? You've totally canceled any emotions you might have toward me?"
"Completely," she answered, her face like flint.
"Just by an act of will, eh? You just kicked out anything you felt for me, except possibly regarding my strategic value. Right?"
"Indeed." She seemed to be wilting inside the armor of her skin.
"Well, there's a word for that, where I come from ..."
"I care not to hear it."
"Repression," Matt grated. "It's bad business, your Highness, very dangerous. Repressed emotions tend to leap out at you when you least expect them - and usually at the worst possible moment!"
"They are not repressed," Alisande ground out, "but banished."
"An interesting theory." Matt tossed away a pheasant bone and stood up. "But for myself, I don't like going into battle on the strength of an hypothesis. You're the solar plexus of this army, Princess; so if there's a weakness in you, there's a weakness in the whole body of us!"
"But there is no weakness in me." She glared up at him.
"Oh? In case it hasn't occurred to your Highness, this isn't a public concern - that's only the fringe of it, the side effect. This matter is personal - and your infallibility just failed!" He turned away into the night, stalking past Sir Guy's raised eyebrow with a snarl.
CHAPTER 18
It had been a low blow, he had to admit an hour later, when everyone was bedded down and only the embers of the campfire lighted the site: When would he learn to control his tongue-and his temper? If Alisande had ever had any notion of admitting any feeling for him, she certainly couldn't now. He'd spoken in anger born of hurt - and now, alone in the dark, looking for the roots of that hurt, he had to admit his care for her was a lot more than he'd wanted to feel about anyone. He'd never permitted himself to want anything beyond the physical level, and that not strongly or often-because he'd known, instinctively, that any physical act would pull emotion in with it. There were people, he knew, who could split themselves so that desires of the body didn't touch the heart-but he wasn't one of there.
He stared out into the darkness, unseeing, trying to blank his mind until he could sleep.
His eyes focused on a spark.
He went rigid, nearly jumping out of his skin. Max - the Demon! What was it doing, out of his pocket?
Then his eyes adjusted to the contrast between the brilliant dot and the face next to it. It was Sayeesa, sitting up with her blanket about her, watching the spark intently - almost, it would seem, happily. The faint humming stopped, and she nodded eagerly. Her lips moved, and he could hear the low murmur of her voice. It went on for awhile; then the spark hummed again. The Demon seemed to be striking up quite a rapport with her.
That worried Matt.
He was still worrying about it an hour later, when the spark finally winked out, and Sayeesa lay down, rolling over in her blanket and drawing the fabric up about her shoulders.
Matt lay still, feeling the tension prickle through him, feeling like a lightning rod just before the lightning struck. What was going on here? He could feel huge forces gathering around him, vast, grinding, groaning, welling up about this valley and the plain beyond, ready to smash in, twisting, rending, destroying anyone who got in their way.
Which force would win? Good? Or Evil? Both were probably really quite impersonal-but not from his viewpoint.
They rolled down over his soul, wrapping him in a thick, unseen, dark cloud. He felt as if he were lying at the bottom of a well of molasses-felt he could almost hear the gnashing and grinding of those great forces, louder and louder...
He sat bolt-upright, staring out into the darkness, heart hammering. He was hearing a huge, slow, grinding sound, like a glacier chewing its way through a quarry.
Then he began to detect a pattern to it, a dipping, swinging, modulation that slowly formed itself into a word:
MMMAAATHHHEEEWWW
The hair on his head tried to jump at the stars. He sat very still, digging his fingers into the grass, trying to hold himself down.
MMMAAATHEWWW! the groaning voice ground out again. W W WIZZARRDD MMAATHEW W !
He looked around him wildly. The rest of the company was asleep - and he should know better than to go out alone at night. Something bad always happened when he did. But...
He shook his head and slowly climbed to his feet, knees trembling. Whatever it was that was calling him, he had to find out. He picked up his helmet, fastened it on, picked up his shield, and turned away toward the sound of the voice with one hand on the hilt of his sword.