The Incorporated Knight (35 page)

             
"It hath gone for reinforcements," said Tsudai. "This feeble person cannot hold them all off with little stick. Must summon aid from superadjacent world." He threw back his head and cried in a high voice:
"Lungjin! Lungjin zher!"

             
A crowd of marids appeared in the corridor, running towards Eudoric and the magician. Their hooflike
toes clop-clopped upon the marble. Amid the clatter, Tsudai cried out again. The foremost marids halted their charge and flinched back, although the pressure of those behind shoved them forward.

             
Aware that the marids were staring goggle-eyed at something beside him, Eudoric looked around and also flinched. Next to him, almost touching his shoulder, had appeared the head of a reptilian monster somewhat like Druzhok but smaller, with scales of a vivid vermillion, tendrils sprouting from the sides of its muzzle, and a pair of stubby antlers above its eyes.

             
As Eudoric watched, the head advanced, followed by a scaly neck, then one five-clawed forefoot, then another. The creature seemed to be crawling through a hole in an invisible barrier between its world and Eudoric's.

             
As more and more dragon came into view, its scales made an unpleasant scraping sound against the edges of the hole. A pair of hindlegs pushed their way into visibility, and a crested tail scraped after. The new arrival bulked huge in the hallway.

             
The marids at the forefront shouted and struggled to melt back into the pushing throng, but the pressure of the crowd still drove them onward. The scaly, horned head shot out, and the fanged jaws clamped shut on the foremost marid, which shrieked as it was hoisted high above the floor. There was a horrid sound of crunching bones.

             
The marids in the rear, at last realizing their danger, ceased to press forward. In a flash, they turned as one and fled down the hall, around a corner, and out of sight.

             
The dragon tossed the mangled body of the still-struggling demon into the air and caught it as it descended head-first, like a cormorant eating a fish. The reptile jerked its head in a series of colossal gulps; with each gulp, more and more of the marid disappeared until only its hoof-toed feet protruded from the slavering jaws. With a final jerk, these, too, vanished. A bulky bulge traveled slowly down the dragon's throat, merged with the creature's trunk, and disappeared.

             
Eudoric, a little shaken, asked: "Is that the demon you would have evoked when you were attacked in Letitia, save that you had promised it a holiday?"

             
"Nay. This person doth not oft evoke the
lung,
for on this plane I must find aliment wherewith to feed it, lest I risk becoming such myself. That were no small task; but with a whole marid within its belly, my bodyguard should not hunger again for several days." Tsudai addressed the dragon:
"
Si zhu zher!"
He explained: "It will secure us against further interference."

             
The Serican resumed his work on the lockless door. The second try followed its course without interruption; the wand flashed blue and the door swung open.

             
"Forthred!" said Eudoric. "Fetch a couple of candles."

             
When the apprentice returned with two candlesticks, the three went into the cryptic chamber. The light of the candles shimmered on the iron and brass and silver and gold of pieces of magical equipment stored here and there on dusty tables and shelves. But Eudoric's attention was riveted on three life-sized human figures standing stiffly in the center of the room.

             
When Eudoric moved his candle closer, he saw that one of the trio was the figure of a massive man, stocky of build like Eudoric but larger in every direction. He wore a coat of chain mail and had a huge two-handed sword slung across his back.

             
The second statue was that of an older man, lean and stooped, whose wispy gray hair and beard framed wrinkled, aquiline features. Were he alive, Eudoric guessed, the man would be in his fifties.

             
The third, the youngest-looking mannequin, was a tall, slender, blond man garbed in doublet and hose of a gaudy green-and-purple pattern. With surprise in his voice, Eudoric said:

             
"I know this one: a poet and troubadour, hight Landwin of Kromnitch. He guested at our castle at Arduen a few years past. I thought him a bit of an ass, but I'll warrant he deserved not being turned to a statue. These three must be Yolanda's prior husbands. She told me their names, but I forget."

             
"The warrior hight Gontran of Tolosa," said the Serican. "The graybeard is Count Sugerius. This person never met either of them but hath heard much about them all. Then your noble self knows of your predecessors? I forebore to speak of them, lest I stir up a whirlwind of strife."

             
"Are these my lady's three authentic husbands, or simulacra of wax or plaster?"

             
"The veridical spouses, held fast by a spell of stasis."

             
"Can they be returned to life?" asked Eudoric. "Yea, that they can. Wouldst do so?
"

             
"
Let me consider."

             
"If they regain consciousness, there might arise discord as to who shall have rights to the lady."

             
"Hmm," said Eudoric. "Landwin may be a bit of a fool, but he's an amusing fellow who means no harm. Whilst I'm not famous for softness of heart, 'twere cruel to leave these poor abjects hanging betwixt life and death. Restore them, if you'll be so kind."

             
"Art certain? The responsibility is yours."

             
"Aye, I'm sure. Proceed, I pray."

             
Tsudai scratched his straggly gray goatee. "How long have we ere Her Highness return?"

             
"Perhaps two hours. She said she'd not be back till dinner time."

             
"Very well, this unworthy one will do his best." Tsudai prowled the room, looking over the magical gear. "Ah, it doth appear that this be what we need. Help this inferior person to move the object."

             
The object was a kind of multiple brazier, with seven little brass dishes hung by chains from a framework of slender rods of a similar alloy. Tsudai shuffled and puttered and mixed his powders. At last he lit a small fire in the base of the apparatus. As varicolored smoke ascended from the dishes, he mumbled and chanted. Whisking a fan from his purple sleeve, the Serican fanned smoke towards the three ensorcelled husbands.

             
" 'Tis done," he said at last. "Abide a moment; they will not leap to full vitality at once."

             
As Eudoric watched, the chain-mailed warrior blinked his eyes and began to stir, at first moving slowly as if his joints had rusted. Then the scholar likewise stirred, and finally the troubadour. Voices came slowly and creakingly from parched throats, the first words pitched so low that they were almost inaudible. At length, slowly, their speech waxed intelligible.

             
"Where—am—
I?"
creaked Landwin of Kromnitch.

             
"What—hath—befallen?" grated Count Sugerius. "Water!"

             
"Fetch them water, Forthred," said Eudoric. "Who—are—ye—scrowles?" groaned Gontran of Tolosa.

             
"You have been released from an enchantment," said Eudoric, "which my—which your wife, the Princess Yolanda, cast upon you."

             
"And who are
ye?"
said Gontran, glowering.

             
"Sir Eudoric Dambertson of Arduen. This is the room in Yolanda's palace where she keeps her magical equipment."

             
"And what do ye here?" persisted Sir Gontran.

             
"I've brought Yolanda back from captivity in Armoria."

             
"Where's the hussy now?"

             
"She's in Letitia but is expected home for dinner."

             
Gontran's forehead wrinkled in thought. "Count Sugerius! Methinks I know you from aforetime. What do ye here?"

             
"The same as ye, Sir Gontran. I was her third husband; and when she tired of me, she cast a spell of immobility upon me and set me up here with you and Master Landwin, the sweet singer ye see beside me."

             
"Sir
Landwin, if you do not mind," said the troubadour.

             
"By the toenails of the Holy Trinity!" roared Gontran. "Meanst that ye twain enjoyed her after my ensorcellment?"

             
"If'enjoy' be the word precise," said Landwin. "I know not the full tale of your several tenures as Yolanda's husbands, but from mine own experience I'll warrant it was no bed of rose petals. You are Eudoric Dambertson, are you not?"

             
"Aye. Sir Eudoric, now."

             
" Tis an unanticipated pleasure to meet you again, if under such strange circumstances. How fare your family?"

             
"Alive and reasonably well," said Eudoric, "albeit my sire has given up the hunt."

             
The troubadour turned to the scholar. "Count Sugerius! Your servant, sir. What befell you in wedlock with Yolanda?"

             
Sugerius replied: "She found the role of a scholar's wife prolixious and took a lover. When I learned of this, in a rage I slapped her. 'Twas as ill-chosen an act as punching the nose of a tigress; she beat me to a jelly ere casting a spell upon me. How was't with vou?"

             
"Much the same," said Landwin, "but I never struck her. She caught me futtering a chambermaid and threw me out the window; she hath the thews of a blacksmith. I essayed to flee the grounds, but she sent marids after me. Being swifter than greyhounds afoot, they caught me and dragged me back. She threatened to cast upon me a spell of impotence. When I essayed a second time to flee, she did unto me the same as to you."

             
"I had strife with her, too," said Gontran. "She sought to confine me to this palace, save when we rode abroad together. When I defied her, she bloodied my nose with her fist; wherefore, being a hardened warrior, I knocked her down. Howsomever—Sir Eudoric, what do ye here, in Yolanda's absence? Are ye her hireling?"

             
"Nay," said Eudoric. "I should have departed for my home in Locania, but that she keeps me mewed up here, guarded by her demon servants."

             
"And why should she do that?" asked Sugerius. "Are ye her lover?"

             
"Nay, her current husband. Methinks that—

             
"By the gods of the Saracens!" cried Landwin. "Four husbands! Here's an intrinse knot to unravel! The Franconian laws permit but one spouse at a time, to my mind a foolish, archaic prejudice. The Saracens are wiser. Sir Eudoric, has it ever come to fisticuffs betwixt you twain?"

             
Eudoric shook his head. "I was brought up never to strike a woman, albeit at times with Yolanda the temptation has been strong. I daresay I could hold my own in a box match with her, for all that she has the advantage of height and reach, I've seen her knock down a man of my size."