"Mostly because I had a friendly ghost trying to lead me somewhere—and when Max showed up beside him for a minute, I knew he was showing me the way toward you." Matt grinned, massaging his hand and trying to ignore the sudden ache in his shoulder. "So how's the quest been? Doesn't look like a total bust."
"Well, we are alive," Sir Guy said, "and that's no small task, after three years' sojourn in this land of evil."
"It's well-nigh impossible! But that was always your kind of job. Was Max any help?"
Sir Guy opened his mouth, but the spark was there, dancing in the air between them and humming, "Not a whit! This great lout of a knight kens no more the use of my powers than he knows of the shape of the earth."
Sir Guy reddened. "The earth is flat, Demon, as all do know!"
"He will not believe 'tis round!" the spark keened in exasperation. "Nay, the best he can think to have me do is to kindle fires in siege engines—a task that he could achieve with an arrow and a bit of tow!"
Matt shook his head in commiseration. "Sounds like a rough three years for both of you." He'd never seen Sir Guy run out of patience before. "Maybe it's a good thing I came."
"Aye, if he will give me back into your direction again!"
"Done!" Sir Guy snapped, with as much relief as anger. "Go you again to your old master..."
"Friend!" Max snapped
"Friend, then." Sir Guy eyed Matt as though he doubted the term. "Let him direct you—and I will cleave to the steel that is my heritage!"
"Shoemaker, stick to thy first." Matt held out a hand, and Max darted up his cuff. He turned back to Sir Guy. "Maybe I can be some help here, after all."
"First?" Sir Guy frowned. "Wherefore should a cobbler adhere to a first?"
"Think about it. In the meantime, though, let me compliment you on three years of amazingly good work." Matt surveyed the tents pitched against the walls, the overflowing stables, and the stalwart peasants who were just now getting back to their evening chores, almost certain the monsters were done fighting.
Sir Guy nodded. "I thank you. And, yes, this is a worthy accomplishment—to gather together these few of Ibile's four estates who as yet live free of corruption."
"All four?" Matt looked up, alert for implications. "Clergy, nobility, commoners, and serfs? You found a few priests still alive?"
"Some dozen, from a proud Archbishop, whom Stegoman and I succored from a siege of evil that would surely have been his death, to a humble trio of nuns—all that was left of their abbey—who did come to us in the guise of beggars, to seek shelter among us. Yet their prayers gave us more strength than they took, 'gainst evil sorcery."
"Nice gleaning," Matt said, amazed. "But how about the nobility? I thought Gord—uh, the king, had been busy kicking out any lords who looked to be virtuous."
"He did, but some few hacked and hewed their way free, and roamed the countryside, defending the poor where they could and eluding his sorcerers and knights as well as they might. One by one, they came to us, estranged and dispossessed, but alive, and still a mighty force in the land."
Matt remembered the link between the land of Merovence and its people, and how the land virtually repelled a usurper—or sickened under his rule. "Well, between them and the common folk, you have a fair amount of strength concentrated here."
"Aye, if we can endure."
"I'd guess you could hold out for years." Matt looked at the fortifications around him. "This castle looks pretty sturdy."
"It is, a valiant maiden. She has guarded this confluence of waterways for three hundred years, never taken. Twice has she withstood siege and emerged victorious—but never against a host so wicked and so powerful as Penaldehyde."
"Penaldehyde?" Matt frowned. "What kind of weapon is that?"
Sir Guy smiled without mirth. "A living weapon, Sir Matthew, and as mighty a one as resides in the king's arsenal. Nay, Penaldehyde is a sorcerer most truly steeped in wickedness, whom the king wields as the sword of his right hand."
"Oh." Matt frowned. "Gord—uh, the gross one's chief assistant?"
"Even so," Sir Guy confirmed. "And he is mighty in magic, and devious. We are hard pressed, Matthew."
"But alive." Matt raised a finger. "Considering the sink of debauchery this kingdom is in, I'd say you haven't done badly."
"Yet not so well as I had thought to do," Sir Guy said with a sardonic smile. "I had wished to ride into Ibile and cleanse it in a month, aided by such doughty companions as the marvelous Demon and Stegoman."
"Even with them in your arsenal, you were outgunned by evil. But how about my idea for having you and Max get along? He was supposed to provide you ideas that you could turn into orders."
"It fizzled like a match with no fuel." The spark was there suddenly, dancing between them in midair. "I had not known that this medieval muscleman knew little of molecules, and less of atoms. Indeed, he knows so little of operations at atomic and subatomic levels that the words mean nothing to him. He thinks that Schrodinger's Cat is a German house pet."
Sir Guy reddened, but said, " 'Tis true. I can comprehend not one word in five of his mystical phrases."
"Not mystical, you dolt! Mysticism, is conjecture about matters not subject to testing! 'Tis of matters physical we speak, not metaphysical!"
"You sure about that?" Matt said. "I mean, considering quantum mechanics and general relativity..."
The spark ceased its usual Brownian movement and hung still in midair. Slowly, its voice hummed, "You may speak more truth than you know..."
"Or can understand," Matt finished. "How about you retire and consider the matter?"
"Well said." The spark of light winked out.
Sir Guy heaved a sigh. " Was well for me that the ghost appeared."
Matt looked up, startled. "Medium-size guy? Hangdog expression? Gray clothes? Kinda dumpy? Head in his hand?"
"Ah," Sir Guy said, "you know him well."
"I do indeed," Matt said. "Had a bit of a communication problem, though. I take it you didn't?"
"Not greatly," Sir Guy said, puzzled. "I did encounter him not long after my advent into Ibile. Near close of day, he did appear—and I own, I was fearful, though I let it not be seen..."
That, Matt could believe—at least, the part about not showing it. He wasn't so sure Sir Guy had really been afraid. Ever.
"Yet it made no threat, but only seemed to wish that we follow—so we did, though ever-wary of traps and snares. The ghost did lead us to a shrine, overgrown and ruined, but intact. We made our devotions; then, upon our outgoing, we were beset by a band of gargoyles."
"You were?" Matt stared. "Must be a local condition, then. Hm! And we thought they were just for us!"
"In truth?" Sir Guy asked, horrified. "Ah, Matthew! I repent I did not battle with them! They must have lurked about the landscape, to your peril!"
"Don't worry about it. But how did you get out?"
"Ah. There, at least, I managed a thought that Max the Demon could twist to some purpose. I but asked him to turn the gargoyles once again to stone, and he did—though he informed me he could not make the condition endure without his presence. That sufficed, of course, because when he had quit their environs, so had Stegoman and I—and I had thought they would disappear, having been summoned only to fight us. My apologies."
"Accepted, and not needed. We finished them off."
"You...?" Sir Guy stared and almost choked. He turned aside to cough, then managed a weak smile. "Nay, surely wizardry accomplished what force of arms could not! Yet how, Matthew? What magic did you work, that could overcome such embodiments of savage urges?"