“Yeah, but I don’t trust your mind.” Matt struggled to his feet and looked down at his sodden, muddy clothes. “This isn’t what I’d call assistance.”
“Ah, but that was when I meant you ill,” the bauchan said, grinning, “to show you what can happen if you seek to be rid of me. If I mean you well, it will be just as striking.”
The look Matt gave him verged on mayhem. “Don’t talk to me about striking.”
“Nor to me,” Sergeant Brock groaned, struggling to his feet. “Why did you not use your magic against them, Lord Wizard?”
“I thought of it,” Matt admitted, “but I remembered that they’re good plain folk, fighting to defend a friend and his inn. They didn’t deserve to be blasted.”
Brock looked up at him in surprise. “You’re an odd lord, to be so caring about the common folk.”
That’s because I’m really a commoner, too. But Matt couldn’t say that out loud. Instead he said, “I’m married to a queen who cares for every single one of her people, Sergeant, and that’s one of the qualities that made me fall in love with her.”
Sergeant Brock turned away, looking very thoughtful, and helped Sir Orizhan to his feet. The bauchan asked, “What sort of spell would you have used on them, wizard?”
“Oh, one like this,” Matt answered.
Buckeye squalled in shock and surprise as an invisible hand caught him up and whirled him into a tiny dot that winked out. They listened to the sudden peaceful susurrus of rainfall. Then Sergeant Brock quavered, “He seemed to stay where he was, yet was also whisked far away.”
“Very perceptive, Sergeant That’s exactly what happened.”
“How can that be, Lord Wizard?”
“Oh, it’s not hard. It’s just a question of where he was being whisked, and in what direction.”
“Where?” Sir Orizhan asked, staring in awe.
“Into another dimension,” Matt said, “and as to direction, it was at right angles to the three we know.”
“How can that be?” Sir Orizhan asked with foreboding.
“I… don’t know,” Matt admitted. “Hey, look—I just cast the spells. That doesn’t mean I understand ‘em.”
“How can you not?” Sergeant Brock asked.
Matt shrugged. “It’s like driving an automobile. I know how to make it go where I want, but I don’t know how it works inside—not in detail, anyway.”
“Oh.” Sergeant Brock seemed to be thinking that over.
“I suppose that makes sense,” Sir Orizhan allowed. “But, Lord Wizard…”
“Yes?”
“What is an ‘automobile’?”
They found a barn, peeled off their wet clothing and set it to dry, rubbed themselves with hay, then put on their spare clothes and rolled up in more hay to sleep. Sir Orizhan took first watch, and Matt had absolutely no trouble dropping off to sleep. Unfortunately, he dreamed. At least, he hoped it was a dream.
In the darkness of slumber a voice ranted, “Pay attention, blast you! I haven’t been shouting at you all these days for my pleasure!”
“Well, then, why have you been shouting?” Matt demanded.
There was a brief silence, but somehow Matt could feel the astonishment in it. Then the voice erupted with delight. “I’ve broken through! He has heard me! Do you know who I am, Lord Wizard?”
“I haven’t the faintest.” Matt was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.
“I am Gaheris! I am Prince Gaheris of Bretanglia! And I may be dead, but I’m not deaf! I heard you say you would find my murderer! Who is he?”
The bad feeling was proving true. Matt reassured himself that he must be dreaming and said, “Don’t you know?”
“Know? How could I know? The villain came at me from behind! I felt the sword go in, felt a pain that seemed to rip the world apart—then all went dark. At last a dot of light broke that darkness and swelled to a hollow. I could see a long way into it, saw it was a tunnel with a sublime light at its end. I thought I heard voices that I knew calling from it, and my heart went cold within me. I turned my back on it with a shudder and fought to sit up, but my body would not answer. I thought I must have fallen asleep, and fought to waken, fought and fought—and bit by bit I regained my senses, but found myself looking down at my own body and hearing folk talking of who had slain me! I snapped at them that I wasn’t dead, shouted at them that I wasn’t dead, roared and bellowed at them that I wasn’t dead—but they did not answer, and my stomach sank as I realized they had not heard me. Then I saw the wound in my own back, and knew that I was dead indeed.”
Matt felt rather than saw the shudder. In fact, so far he wasn’t seeing anything. “Why did you come to me?”
“I came to everyone! Mother, Father, Brion, John, Sir Orizhan—waking and sleeping, I came to them, ranted to them, howled at them, but none seemed to hear me! Well, I was scarcely surprised when it came to Mother and Father—if they hadn’t heard me alive, why should they hear me dead? But I had always been able to rouse Brion’s anger, or John’s fear—yet now even they seemed not to hear!”
“Why me?” Matt said again.
“Because you’re a wizard, blast you! And it worked!”
“Sure—all you had to do was catch me when I was asleep. How many nights have you been trying?”
“All day. This is the first night.”
“Must be because ghosts are a sort of magic, or related to it;” Matt mused.
“Never mind the why! Only tell me who slew me!”
“I’d love to,” Matt told him sincerely. “Even more, I’d love to tell your parents, and rob them of their excuse to attack Merovence. Unfortunately, everybody seems to have had a reason to want you dead—”
“Aye. They all hate me, the jealous sods!”
“—and everybody has an alibi.” From what Matt knew of Gaheris alive, jealousy hadn’t entered into it. When you try to hurt people, they tend to resent you. “Can you think of any way I can tell who was there that I don’t know about?”
“Whom do you suspect?”
“Everyone who was in the inn that night.”
“How the devil should I know who was in the inn that night?”
“That’s right,” Matt sighed, “you were only there. Well, if you don’t have a notion who killed you, how can you expect me to know?”
“Because you’re a wizard, damn your eyes!”
“I’d be kind of careful with that word ‘damn’ if I were you,” Matt advised. “Has the tunnel appeared to you again?”
“Aye, twice more.” Gaheris’ voice was hollow with fear. “But I ranted and railed at it, cursed my murderer aloud, and it went away.”
“Unfinished business,” Matt muttered.
“What did you say?” the ghost-prince demanded.
“Nothing important.” Matt had a notion that if he found and punished Gaheris’ murderer, the light-tunnel wouldn’t go away the next time it appeared. All that was holding the prince’s ghost to this universe was his anger at his murderer, and his thirst for revenge. On the other hand, Matt didn’t particularly want the ghost to know that. He didn’t like being haunted, dreaming or waking, and wasn’t about to let Gaheris know he had a way of avoiding the afterworld. “Look, nobody can see you, right?”
“True.” The ghost sounded wary.
“Well, then, you can flit around and watch them when they think they’re safe and alone.”
“Who would you have me watch?”