Chapter 20
They watched the herald out of sight. Then Alisande turned to Sir Guy, resolutely banishing thoughts of a strange chill-white concoction in a clear glass standing cup, with some sort of dark brown sauce oozing over the top of it, and said, “How now, Sir Guy? How shall we save Matthew without bringing a war down upon our heads?”
“I would say,” the knight said slowly, “that we must first discover how Matthew may be in dire danger, but not in Latruria.”
“Is he gone from Latruria?” Stegoman rumbled. “A good thought.” Alisande turned to Ortho the Frank. “How say you, Wizard? Is your teacher in Latruria, or not?”
“He is not.” Ortho’s gaze still probed a distance only he could see. “Yet he is nonetheless in dire peril.”
The ice of fear enveloped Alisande’s heart. Ice! That was the stuff in the standing cup! But not really ice, either… “He… he is not in… a realm of the Afterlife?”
“No,” Ortho said with complete certainty. “He is not in Hell, nor Purgatory, nor any of the realms of the dead. He is in a place that both is and is not…” He shrugged, his eyes coining back into focus. “I cannot explain it more clearly than that, your Majesty; we have not the words. It is a wizard’s realm; let it rest at that.”
Stegoman scowled. “A wizard’s realm, and Matthew cannot break free of it?”
“Not by himself, no.”
“And can you not aid him?‘ Sir Guy demanded. ”Alas, no,“ Ortho sighed. ”I am a willing wizard, Sir Knight, but not a terribly powerful one.“
“Then we must bring a terribly powerful one.” Stegoman swung his head toward Sir Guy. “Is this not the emergency of which the Witch Doctor spoke?”
“It is,” Sir Guy agreed, and turned back to Alisande. “A clear and present danger,‘ he said. This is a present danger, though its nature may not be clear.”
“Yet it is clearly a danger.” Alisande turned to Ortho. “Is it not?”
“Most clearly indeed, your Majesty, and if it is not present now, it will most quickly become so!”
“Then there is no more time to wait,” Alisande said to the Black Knight. “Summon the Witch Doctor!”
Sir Guy loosened his gorget and drew a most unspectacular bauble out from the protection of his breastplate. “This is the amulet he gave me.”
Alisande frowned at the ball on its length of dull iron chain. It was a globe of metal perhaps two inches across, perforated with dozens of tiny holes arranged in diagonal rows-serried ranks. “ ‘Tis most unprepossessing, Sir Guy.”
“It is,” the Black Knight agreed. “The Wizard Saul says appearances are of no importance-only function and substance do matter.”
Alisande shuddered. “I pity his lady, Angelique!”
“Be assured, she has their cottage well in hand,” Sir Guy told her, “and he rejoices in its appearance as he does in hers.”
Alisande frowned. “Does he not see that his pleasure in her beauty, and the loveliness she creates about her, give the lie to his claims not to care about the outsides of things?”
“With respect, your Majesty,” Ortho said, “Lord Matthew has told me that the wizard Saul has never been troubled by his contradicting of himself. What does the amulet do, Sir Guy?”
“It will take my words to him.” Sir Guy pressed a little nubbin on the side of the cylinder that held the amulet. “There is a charm I must recite, to make it carry my voice… ‘Breaker, breaker! Nine one one! Come in, Wizard Saul! Mayday! Mayday!’”
Alisande frowned. “But ‘tis mid-June, Sir Guy, nigh to Midsummer’s. ’Tis long past May Day.”
Sir Guy shrugged. “Who can comprehend the ways of wizards, Majesty? He told me that it means ‘help me’ in a language called French-muh aid-ay-but that makes scarcely more sense, for I have never heard of such a tongue.”
Alisande glanced quickly at Ortho, but he only shrugged, looking as baffled as she. “Nine one one! Mayday, Wizard Saul!” Sir Guy said again, then, “Oh! I forgot! He said I must loose the nubbin when I am done speaking!” He lifted his thumb, and the button rose. Saul’s voice crackled out of the amulet, surprising Sir Guy so much that he dropped it. Fortunately, it swung by its chain, reverberating with the little tinny voice that somehow they could recognise as Wizard Saul’s. “You’ve gotta let up on me button, Sir Guy! I’m talking, but you can’t hear me if you don’t let go! Raise your thumb! Lift up your finger!” Then, oddly, the voice broke into song. “I lift up my finger and I say,‘tweet, tweet, now, now, come, come,’
“Am I sounding as daffy as I think I am? Hey, wait a minute-how can you answer if I’m still talking? Okay, Sir Guy, I’ll give you a chance-I’ll shut up for ten seconds. You press the little button again and tell me if you can hear me. Remember the incantation? It’s, ‘I read you loud and clear.’ Got that? Okay, let’s try it.”
“He might give me a chance,” Sir Guy said, annoyed, then pressed the button. “As it happens, I do remember that-I read you loud and clear, Wizard Saul! Though I do not read you, truly, only hear you, and why you think this spell will work when it has neither meter nor rhyme, I cannot think!”
He let up on the burton just in time to hear Saul say, “Well, I knew that. Don’t worry about the verse, I enchanted it when I built it, and it will keep working unless you break the indicted thing. Over.”
“He says ‘over’ to signal that he is done talking,” Sir Guy explained, and pressed the button. “Wizard Saul, we have just received word that Matthew is in danger. He seems to be imprisoned, but we cannot say where-it seems to be some sort of wizard’s realm!”
“We pray you come to his aid, and quickly!” Alisande called into the amulet, men added as an afterthought, “Over.”
For a moment mere was no sound Sir Guy frowned, and war just about to press the button again when Saul’s voice sounded; from the bauble. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a good reason for putting my experiment on ice. It will take a few minutes to shut down, then a few more to square things with Angelique, but give me, oh, half an hour, and I’ll be with you.”
“There is no need to be with us!” Alisande protested, and Sir Guy pressed the button in time for the amulet to catch her words. “Only find a way to be with him!”
“Over!” Sir Guy said, and let go of the button. “Be with him- Gatcha,” Saul’s voice said. “I’ll work on it. Any other instructions? Information, maybe?”
Alisande glanced questioningly at Ortho, who shook his head, and Sir Guy said, “You know all that we know now, Wizard Saul-except that word came from King Boncorro’s chancellor, Lord Rebozo, saying that Matthew is no longer in Latruria. The knowledge that he is in danger came from Ortho, who has been Matthew’s assistant for some years. Ortho also tells us that Matthew is in a strange sort of wizards’ realm that is neither part of this world nor of any domain of the Afterlife-but cannot explain what he means. Over.”
“Well, if anybody would be wise to him, it would be his research assistant,” Saul’s voice said, “at least, when it comes to magic. How did you know, Ortho? A dream? A waking vision? A hunch? Excuse me, I mean ‘a feeling.’ Over.”