The shrine was awfully quiet.
Then Narlh sniffed. "Kinda cheap, isn't he?"
Matt turned, frowning. "What do you mean? Saints don't want bribes."
"Of course not," Fadecourt said slowly, "but it might be polite to at least indicate willingness to return the favor."
Matt frowned at him while his meaning percolated in. Then he sighed and turned away, calling out, "Stand by me, Saint Iago, while I do all that I can to save Ibile! Only guide me, and protect me, and show me the way to God that you have already followed!"
And, of course, that meant he was even more tightly bound to do or die than he'd already been.
Matt set a hard pace that day—Narlh had to stretch his legs to keep up with his demands, and started grumbling even earlier than usual, about noon. Matt called a halt for lunch then, somewhat against his will. As they finished off the leftovers from two nights before, Fadecourt asked, "Wherefore your haste, Lord Wizard? Have a care for the damsel."
Matt looked up at Yverne, startled. "I'm sorry, milady. Since Narlh's giving us a ride, I thought—"
"Rightly." She cut him off with a weary smile. "And, truly, you must be far more wearied than I."
Matt frowned, his brain clicking over. "But even a saddle can be tiring, right?"
"I am accustomed to riding," she assured him, "and we have matters of greater moment than comfort."
"Yes. Kind of what I was thinking, too." But Matt frowned, brooding. "I want to move as fast as I can, now that the King seems to have found us. Once he has us spotted and analyzed—"
"Any lies?" Narlh frowned. "Sure, I know he'll lie every chance he gets, but what's that got to do with you?"
"No, 'analyzed'—meaning he has challenged me, tested me, found out some idea of how much magic I can do and can't."
"You do mean he has taken your measure," Fadecourt interpreted.
"In a manner of speaking—and I'm hoping the spells he's knitting will be a bad fit. But now that he does have some idea of my magical strengths and weaknesses, and what kind of allies I have, he'll probably be doing everything he can to make things tough for us. So the longer we take getting to Orlequedrille, the more chances he has to eliminate us before we can do any damage—and the more time he has to prepare his defense."
Fadecourt almost choked on his cup of water. Wheezing, he looked up at Matt. "Wizard, what defense has he need or. Even if we came to his castle this instant, what could we do?"
"I don't know yet," Matt admitted, "but there must be something, or he wouldn't be trying to stop us."
"There is truth in that," Yverne agreed. "Yet he is quite likely to smite you simply because you are not evil—but even more likely to strike, because you have saved me from his minions. Worse, you now keep me safe from him. Nay, gentlemen, surely 'twould be the course of wisdom to—"
"We would not think of it," Fadecourt cut her off.
Matt nodded. "Don't you think of it, either, milady. Please."
"We're all together on this," Narlh growled. "Besides, he'd strike us out of sheer revenge, milady."
"That's decided, then," Matt said quickly, giving Yverne no chance to interrupt.
Puck appeared in the middle of their circle. "Not so quickly, mortal! I have not spoken yet!"
Matt eyed him askance. "You really feel the need to?"
Puck took a breath.
"On this topic, I mean!"
Puck deflated. "Nay. You cannot abandon the maiden."
Yverne dimpled.
Matt took it as a sign of acceptance. "Fine, then. I do wonder, though, why Gordogrosso isn't causing us any more trouble. I mean, now that he's found out where we are..."
"Speak his name, and he will hear you," Fadecourt corrected him. "Let us speak merely of "the king."
Matt frowned. "What difference does it make? We know he's found us now, and he can track us with that magic mirror of his."
"In all likelihood," the cyclops said slowly. "Yet 'tis also to be marked, Lord Matthew, that there be rumors..."
Matt hated it when people didn't finish sentences. "Rumors of what?"
"That there do be places into which the king cannot see," Yverne explained.
Narlh nodded. "Nobody knows where they are, though."
"Interesting." Matt's gaze drifted as he considered the idea. "Logically, we should have been in one of them last night..."
"Well, true," Fadecourt admitted. "Evil magic could not probe into holy places—but belike the king saw all around the shrine."
Matt nodded. "True, true. I mean, if the gargoyles could be there, why not the king's eyes?" He straightened as the implications hit him. "Hey, wait a minute! What's to keep him from having spies, for the places his minor can't see into?"
"Naught," Fadecourt said grimly, "and sorcerers are reputed to have many such."
"You mean, besides the men and women they've corrupted for the purpose?"
"Oh, assuredly." Puck grinned, apparently reveling in the problem. "There are spirits a-plenty who delight in such service—and many more who can be coerced in some manner."
"Like familiars, you mean?"
"Aye, though sorcerers' familiars are oft demons disguised, bound to serve the foolish mortals who trade worldly power for eternal torment. Yet there are many who are not of Hell, but who care not who they hurt, or who are malicious by nature."
Matt stared. "You don't mean elves would work for the king!"
"Nay, surely not!" Puck dismissed the notion with a toss of his head. "Yet there are kobolds, though they rarely come so far to the west, and they delight in pain and harm—and lamias, and basilisks, and ghouls..."
"I get the point." Matt nodded, frowning. "Goblins, too, and all manner of cobblies. Which means that our every move will be shadowed, unless I can figure out some way of chasing off any spies that come near us."
Or unless he found some way to use those spies for his benefit—some way to have them report where he was, when he wasn't really there. He began toying with notions of stocks, artificial images of him and his friends—and doppelgangers, and analogues, and flat-out copies...
His friends noticed his sudden silence and abstracted gaze. They exchanged glances, finished their lunches, packed up, and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Lord Wizard," Yverne said, "we must walk."
"Huh?" Matt snapped out of his reverie. "Oh! Sure. Sorry, I seem to have drifted off there..."
But he was no sooner on his feet and trudging westward, than he lapsed back into the daze of thought. His friends took the burden of conversation on themselves—and of keeping watch.
Toward evening, the road came parallel to a small river. It made sense—agricultural roads frequently followed the rivers, which had done the great service of cutting through the hills for the farmers. Here and there, though, the hills did indeed rise up—and as the sun was setting, they came to a high bluff, with the road rising up beside it, so that there was a steep hillside to the left, and a steeper hillside falling down to the water on their right.
Fadecourt stopped. "I like this not."
Matt jolted out of his daze. "Huh? Don't like what?...Oh."
"Be a great place for an ambush," Narlh rumbled.
"Aye," Fadecourt agreed. "The slope is too steep for bandits to run down without a great risk of falling—though they might rain arrows upon us."
"Bad enough."
"Aye—but what I truly am wary of is the chance of entrapment between a force before us and one behind."
Matt studied the road, then said, "We have to go through here some time, right?"
"Well," Narlh said, "we could climb the hillside before we get to the road. Or..."
Matt didn't make him finish the offer; he didn't particularly want to be in the air, if archers were going to be shooting at him. "We'd be sitting ducks on the hillside, too, wouldn't we?"
"Surely," Fadecourt agreed.