The warlock insane (16 page)

Then, suddenly, a low moan went through the throng, and the guards right in front of them drew away. The guards to either side stepped back a pace, holding their weapons at guard, and Beaubras hesitated, glancing up at the parting circle, then looking again as an avenue opened in front of them. He straightened, head high and sword ready, but he left off chopping. Modwis stepped back, too, but with a murderous glare and a ready mace. Rod was feeling a little more ready and lot more murderous, but he held off, anyway.

Fess's voice sounded in his ear. "Rod, why has the fighting stilled?"

"Because," Rod said slowly, "the Grande Dame approacheth." Down the aisle she came, a walking mound of brocades and velvets, a maze of houppelandes and bustles and panniers. Her lantern-jawed horseface was crowned with a lofty headdress surrounded by a chaplet enclosing a coronet, and the amount of veiling that floated about her would have appalled even Salome.

"Nothing succeeds like excess," Rod murmured.

The lady stalked to a halt in front of them, jammed her fists on her hips, and demanded, "Who art thou, who dost come so unmannerly into my castle?"

Her effluvium hit like a ton of atomizers, and Rod understood why she burned all that incense. Having nearly fainted once, he was better able to withstand the onslaught, but Beaubras had had no such
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hardening. The knight staggered back, and Rod had to catch him, throwing all his weight against the knight to shove him upright. Even then, he tilted slowly backward until Modwis jammed a shoulder in under the knight's hip, and the two of them together managed to restabilize him. Unfortunately, Beaubras was still at an angle, and Rod was not inclined to hold up two hundred pounds of knight and a hundred pounds of armor all morning. "The amulet," he hissed. "Pull out the amulet!" Weakly, Beaubras fumbled at his gorget, pulling the bauble out of his armor. "O magic charm," he gasped, "ward me from this olfactory ambuscade!"

The amulet's outlines softened. It seemed to flow, elongating, then became hard and clear again—as a necklace of bulbous, tissue-wrapped lumps. A reek emanated from it, surrounding Beaubras's head like an invisible shield, and spreading out to enclose his whole entourage, all two of them. The knight's nose wrinkled with disdain, but he managed to clamber back upright, protected from the lady's aroma by a necklace of garlic.

"I am the knight Beaubras, and these are my companions, the dwarf Modwis, and the Lord Gallowglass. Art thou the Lady Aggravate?"

"I am." She tilted her head back and somehow managed to look down her nose at a man a good foot and a half taller than herself. "Wherefore hast thou come?"

"Why," said Beaubras, "to free my dear Lady Haughteur from the toils of this keep!"

"Ha!" the lady cried, and managed to follow the syllable with something approximating a laugh. "Toils?

All is lighthearted gaiety, in High Dudgeon! And as for thy leman, she hath not been borne here, nor is held by aught but her own desire!"

"Why," said Beaubras, "then bid her come nigh me."

"I move at no man's bidding, sirrah!"

Beaubras winced at the insult of the "sirrah."

"An she doth wish converse with thee," the dame went on, "she will come of her own accord."

"I misdoubt me of that," Beaubras said, his lips thin, "and I will judge it for myself. In what chamber dwells my lady?"

"Thou shalt not learn of her dwelling, nor shalt thou seek it out!" the dame stated, affronted. "Thou shalt betake thee out as thou didst come in!"

"Nay," said Beaubras, "that shall I not. An thou dost give so little courtesy, thou hast small cause to look for it in others." So saying, he stepped forward, shouldered past the dame, and bulled his way through the guardsmen.

Rod and Modwis leaped to catch up.

Lady Aggravate gave a howl of indignation, and her guardsmen closed ranks with a shout—or tried to. Beaubras slammed into them like a tank with a sword in place of its cannon, all but sending up a bow wave as he plowed through their ranks.

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"Where to, O valiant and noble one?" Rod puffed, blocking a halberd and cutting off its head with the riposte.

"To the tower," Beaubras called back. "My Lady Haughteur would seek the highest chamber.''

"So would everyone else here." But Rod couldn't say it loudly enough to be heard; he was too busy blocking chops and thrusts, and occasionally finding time to wonder why none of the guards was receiving so much as a scratch. A spear point jabbed at him; he struck it up, caught the guard by the front of his doublet, and tossed him back overhead (he was amazingly light). The guard sailed by with his mouth forming a perfect "O," and Rod stabbed up as he went by, experimentally—but the guardsman rose up just enough to miss the point of Rod's sword. He brought it down in time to chop off a halberd head and, on the riposte, to thrust full into the halberdier's midriff—but the man started to turn back, and the sword tip slid past his tunic without the slightest tear. Rod recovered and called out, "How come I can't stab any of these guys?" Not that he really wanted to, but it was frustrating.

" Tis because they dwell in High Dudgeon, and are therefore not of a piece with the world," Modwis huffed.

There was no time to figure out what he meant, because Beaubras smashed through a door at that point (quicker than Modwis's technique, but not advisable for sneak attacks) and charged for the stair. Strangely, they seemed to be going down, not up. Rod and Modwis followed, backing down step by step, fending off thrusts and chops. At least the guardsmen couldn't quite hit Rod and Modwis, either. One missed his footing and fell, shooting upward, with an echoing wail. There was a crash from the landing above, echoed by a low and growing moan from the guardsmen. They lowered their weapons and stopped their advance.

"Can we trust them?"

"Aye," Modwis said with grim certainty. "They have failed in their purpose. They have no need to attack now."

"Well, we're still taking a chance—so, when I say 'Run,' we'll both barrel up the stairs. Okay?"

"As thou sayest," the dwarf grunted. "Save that our 'up' hath become 'down.' "

"Down we go, then. Okay— run!"

They turned tail and shot down the stairs like rockets, but the guardsmen made no move to follow. Rod managed to catch the doorjamb and swing into the room not too many steps behind Modwis, and saw a spectacle of breathtaking beauty and sadness. Beaubras knelt, head bowed, before a lady who stood by the win-dow, clad in a gown of shimmering iridescence—with a collar that rose up in points, along her cheeks to her eyes.

"It's a gown of her own tears," Rod gasped.

"And a sorrow her own making," Modwis explained.

"My lady," Beaubras murmured, "wherefore dost thou weep?"

"Oh, I weep with humiliation, Sir Beaubras! For all here do delight in belittling me!"
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"The churls! How dare they!"

"They cry that they are affronted by my effrontery in coming hither," the lady explained, "and do therefore treat me with contempt and condescension. This chamber is of a piece with it—they pretend to exalt me, yet truly place me beneath them. Oh, how grievous is mine error! And how miserable my penance!"

"They who seek to dwell in High Dudgeon must needs beware of finding their places," intoned a gravelly voice, and they turned to see Lady Aggravate in the chamber door.

"Thou shalt rue the day thou didst thus to my Lady Haughteur!" Beaubras cried, springing to his feet. Lady Aggravate laughed, a harsh and unpleasant bark, but Beaubras's lady moaned, "Oh, call me 'Lady Haughteur' no longer, but rather 'Lady Bountiful'—for surely never again will I think myself above my fellow mortals, nor deny aught that Charity may require!"

Beaubras turned, a delighted smile on his face, but Lady Aggravate screeched as though she'd been mortally wounded. "How durst thou speak so within my keep! Out, out and away! Be gone from High Dudgeon!"

"Thou shalt not so address my lady!" Beaubras bellowed, turning on Lady Aggravate; but she only grinned wickedly, malice and delight competing in her gaze. The knight flushed and stepped toward her, balling one iron fist, but Modwis caught it, crying, "Nay, good knight!

Dost not see? She hath near to caught thee, too, in her net of wiles! For surely, thou dost approach her in High Dudgeon!"

Sir Beaubras blanched, but Rod heard a different voice in his ears. "Rod! I have detected a disturbance!

Come down from that cliff immediately, for your own safety's sake!"

"What kind of a disturbance?" Rod muttered, though his nerves screamed panic. "A mob? An upheaval in public opinion?"

"No, on the Richter scale! Come out, quickly!"

"Out!" Rod shouted. He grabbed Lady Bountiful's arm in one hand and Sir Beaubras's in the other. "Up the stairs and out the door, wherever we can find it—and now !"

"Wouldst thou have me run from conflict?" Sir Beaubras protested.

"No. You can walk. Besides, there won't be any conflict if you go fast enough." He had the right idea, for once—Lady Aggravate saw them coming and dodged aside with an outraged squawk, and the guardsmen were no longer in any mood to argue. They broke before the knight's charge, and the courtiers scattered before them.

"Which way out?" Rod panted.

"Through the Great Hall, then the antechamber!" Lady Bountiful answered. "Yet wherefore must we flee in such haste?"

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"You want to stick around?"

Modwis was cranking up the portcullis by the time they got to it. Beaubras lent his weight, and Rod blocked off the porter. "Six feet is enough!"

Modwis locked the winch, and they stormed out. The porter leaped back to his job, and the portcullis clashed down behind them. Rod didn't slow, though—he led the way across the causeway at a pace that he hoped wouldn't tire a knight in full armor. But when he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw he was worrying about nothing— Beaubras was right behind him, Lady Bountiful in his arms. Finally, they reached the far side and the foothills, but Rod called, "Not yet! Keep going! A hundred yards from the causeway, at least!"

"But wherefore do we flee?" Beaubras panted.

"Just a hunch." Rod finally slewed to a halt and dropped down on the grass. "We should be safe here…" You should, with a hundred feet to spare, Fess assured him.

"Yet whence cometh this premonition of thine?" Lady Bountiful sank down to sit beside him.

"You wouldn't want to know," Rod muttered.

"I assure thee, I would." Beaubras stood over him, frowning. "To leave without chastising that vile dame was galling, and to accept her slights thus was woefully less than honorable. Wherefore have I fled, Lord Gallowglass?"

"Because somehow, all of a sudden, I knew this castle didn't have long to stand. Look at the cleft in the cliff!"

They turned back to look, just as the earth began to tremble, and the cleft beneath the castle began to vibrate along its edges. The vibration grew greater and greater, till the whole cleft was in turmoil, tossing and heaving the castle at its top like a load of potatoes on a lumpy road. The rumbling reached them, then the wholesale roar as the cliff abruptly split asunder, and the whole keep of High Dudgeon came thundering down into a heap of rubble.

They stood staring, appalled, as the earth stilled beneath them and the thundering died away. Then Beaubras said softly, "Gentlemen, uncover," and removed his helmet. Modwis snatched off his hat, a tear running down his cheek.

But Lady Bountiful jumped to her feet and ran toward the winding downward path.

"Whoa, there!" Rod leaped, and caught her arm. "No, milady! The rocks haven't stopped falling! You could still be crushed!"

"Yet we must search to aid any who may still be living!"

"They couldn't be," Rod assured her. "That was a hundred feet, straight down. No one could have survived it, even without the castle falling on top of them."

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"What a horrible death!"

"Yes. It would have been, if any of it had been real."

"How sayest thou, sir! How can they have been otherwise?"

"He doth speak so because all have no substance, who build themselves up through false pride," Modwis answered. "Is't not so, Lord Gallowglass?"

"Or false modesty, either," Rod agreed. "Either way, what little there was of them that might have been genuine is lost. Come away, Sir Knight and Fair Lady—this is no place for such virtuous folk as yourselves."

And slowly, they turned their eyes from the sight of the ruins of High Dudgeon, and came down to a less exalted, but also less spurious, world.

Beaubras's horse was as good as his master's word, and came at his whistle. Fess, of course, had already arrived, holding the reins of Modwis's donkey in his teeth. So, horsed again, and with Lady Bountiful riding pillion, they set off into the sunrise.

Unfortunately, the sun never quite made it that morning, and the rooster lived up to his name. The reason hit them in midafternoon, hit them by the gallon—or a gallon a minute, more likely. The wind lashed them with rain and howled in delight at their discomfiture, without the slightest impediment—they were on an open moor, and the wind was bound and determined to drive them out of its domain. Modwis gasped, "Wizard! Canst thou not find shelter?"

"Yeah—right over there!" Rod pointed toward a dim glow in the murk. "Sir Beaubras! Lady Bountiful!

Head for the light!"

They looked up, saw him veering away, and saw the glow beyond him, too. They turned to follow. It seemed a lot farther than it was, but finally they found themselves pounding on the door of a ramshackle cottage. Rod waited, then pounded again and, finally, the door creaked open a crack, revealing a suspicious yellowed eyeball surmounted by off-white fuzz.