Her Majesty's Wizard #1 (25 page)

   Matt stood, staring after it.

   "Well done, Lord Matthew!" Sir Guy's hand clasped his shoulder.

   "Aye," Alisande admitted, climbing to her feet. "Though I could wish... what do ye?"

   Matt didn't answer. He sprinted on past her, out into the night. He heard Stegoman bellow something slurry after him and a shout from Sir Guy, but he kept on running. Somehow, he was certain he didn't dare let the wolf get away.

   It was a fine night for a chase, with a bright, full moon and wide-open country. There wasn't a bit of cover for the wolf to hide in, except for an occasional clump of boulders. Matt ran at a jogging lope, keeping the moving dot of the werewolf in sight.

   The wolf was running on three feet, but it showed no sign of weakening. Werewolves were supposed to have amazing recuperative powers. The wound from silver would be slow to heal, but fatigue was no problem; it would recoup as quickly as it tired.

   Matt wasn't so lucky. He was already tired.

   He stopped to catch his breath. Then the idea hit. He'd projected those townmen fifty feet, right after he arrived. If he could do it to them, he could do it to himself. He thumbed through an imaginary rhyming dictionary in his head.

   "The wolf is fast-moving, and so must be I, Till I'm far out in front, 'neath this bright midnight sky. He must be to me as the fish to the lure. At the front, have me waiting, far over the moor!"

   Matt felt a slight jolt and was looking across a different section of the empty plain. As he turned, he could see a black dot limping along, far behind him.

   Matt sighed. He'd overshot. Well, he hadn't exactly been specific. Maybe he could do better this time.

   "The wolf is the reference to which I relate For position, direction, and also the rate; And since I need time to set adequate guards, I should be to his front by an even ten yards."

   And he was. Thirty feet away, the wolf was suddenly slamming on brakes. It jarred to a stop six feet from him, snarling. Matt dropped to a crouch, knife out and ready.

   With a snarl of fury, the wolf leaped in, feinting. It hopped to the side and leaped in at his face. Matt dodged to the left, swiping with the blade, but he missed the wolf by an inch. It landed and spun to face him, rage grating in its throat, stalking around him stiff-legged.

   Now Matt was faced with a problem. He was pretty sure who the wolf really was, so he didn't want to kill it; but somehow he knew he didn't dare let it get away, either.

   The wolf sprang, dodging out, then in again, in a series of dazzling leaps. Matt fell back, but teeth slashed his hand and claws raked his arm. The wolf danced about him, snarl rising to a high, manic pitch, never missing a chance to draw blood. And this with just three legs! Matt felt he'd underestimated the man under the fur. He swore, trying to keep the knife between himself and it; but as soon as he pointed the blade, the wolf was gone to the side.

   It could keep this up all night. But Matt couldn't; his endurance was improving, but he was still mortal. He had to end it, and soon.

   Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a tall cluster of boulders, cutting a swathe of inky shadow across the moon-silvered turf. He dropped back, retreating a foot at a time. The wolf's growl rose exultantly, and it pressed the attack. In and out, in and out, and Matt fell back and back. He stepped into shadow and readied his verse. Then the wolf leaped in after him, out of the moonlight. He called out,

   "Be as thou wast wont to be, See as thou hast wont to see! Shadow, after moonlight's hour, Hath such blessed force and power!"

   The wolf howled in anguish as it fell, scrabbling in the dust. Its form blurred, seemed to lengthen, then to shrink in on itself, and a naked man lay writhing in the dust.

   He saw the arm in front of his face and froze. Then he rolled up to his knees, staring up at Matt in horror and shame.

   Matt scowled, feeling the fun go out of the night. "Good evening, Father."

   The priest clapped his hands over his face, bowing his head. "Turn away! Do not look at me! I am a thing too foul for human sight!"

   Matt's mouth hardened at the comers. He turned a little away, so that he wasn't looking directly at the priest. Might as well spare him as much embarrassment as he could.

   "Gird his loins and hide his shame! Let him seek and find his name! Spare his face and let him stand. Even now, this is a man!"

   Father Brunel dropped his hands, eyes widening, startled. He looked down at his midriff and saw a loincloth bound in place. He looked up at Matt. "I thank you," he said slowly. "But it can only cover my shame, not remove it."

   Matt frowned, puzzled. "If it shames you, why didn't you guard against its happening?"

   The priest rose slowly, shaking his head. "It is not so easily done, short of locking myself in my chamber when the moon rises-and I could not do that tonight."

   "No, I mean about going were at all. Or can't you do anything to stop it?"

   The priest managed a tight, ironic smile. "Aye-purge myself totally of all lusty wishes. But if there's even the thread of such a coveting left, I go were."

   "And with Sayeesa nearby...?"

   "Aye." Brunel's voice was tight and bitter. "Yet the princess commanded me to come."

   "Okay, so you had to go were. But couldn't you have just run out across the moor and chased rabbits all night?"

   Brunel shook his head. "When I am wolf, there is nothing of conscience, pity, or remorse left within me. All that's left are appetites."

   Matt pursed his lips, digesting that. "Under those circumstances, doesn't your ... choice of vocation ... seem a little..."

   "False?" Brunel shook his head, with a sardonic smile. "I fled to the Church for a purification, Lord Wizard. I sought to banish this hidden nature-for look you, 'tis a thing of evil, to be such a beast with no conscience; and evil must therefore begin it. So I bethought me of purification-if I could keep my heart clean, I would not turn wolf. What else could I do, not wishing to wreak anguish? Suicide's a sin. Nay, when I found what I was, I fled to the Church."

   "`Found what you were?"' Matt looked up sharply. "You didn't grow up knowing it?"

   The priest frowned, puzzled; then his brow cleared with a rueful smile. "Why, did you think I was born thus? Nay; or, if I was, it did not show in my childhood. I was a peasant's son, like any other, playing with my fellows and doing children's work. I did not fear the full moon's light till I began to be a man."

   Matt pursed his lips. "About thirteen?"

   "Twelve, for me. 'Twas then the sight of a neighbor lass quickened first my blood and shot heat through my loins. But I had been raised by chapel, bell, and Book; so when I caught myself at the bare beginning of wondering what lay beneath her bodice, I spurned the thought and turned it from me. Yet 'twas a struggle to do so, a struggle that became more difficult; and at last I yielded, staring, and lay awake that night to dream of answers and of actions."

   "A night with a full moon?" Matt suggested.

   Brunel nodded. "I wakened suddenly in the moonlight. The house seemed strange and fearsome. I bolted from my bed and leaped out through the window. I noticed that I had four feet and fur; yet it seemed not strange at all. I scarce had space to think of anything, save to seize the lass, to taste her flesh, to roll my tongue over that fair body, and ... no!" He buried his face in his hands, fingers clenching in his hair.

   "You're in the shadow." Matt clasped the priest's shoulder, shaking him. "You can't turn without moonlight, can you?"

   Brunel swallowed thickly and shook his head. "And dawn transforms me back again. When the morning came and sunlight touched me with its blessed, healing wand, I became myself again, horrified at that which I had sought to do."

   "Sought?" Matt seized on it. "No luck, eh?"

   Brunel shook his head. "Her father, bless him, kept his house secure, the door and shutters barred. I crept back to my parents' house by day, knelt beside my bed, and wept with manhood's tears the whiles I vowed I never would become a fell and vile beast again."

   Matt nodded thoughtfully. "So you went to the Church to purge the sin from your soul."

   "For that, and more. I would devote my life to goodness and Godliness, to live within the shining mantle of God's Grace, so fixing all my thoughts on longings for eternal Heaven that, even in my most secret heart of hearts, I would never more seek sin."

   Matt pursed his lips, turning the silver knife over and over in his hands, wondering if he could even have the heart to use it now. "I take it you got an `A' for effort, but it didn't work."

   "It succeeded fully," Brunel said sharply. "The monastery welcomed me. All there were strict and Godly men, devoting every minute of each day to piety and prayer, to body labor that would both feed them and tire the body, lessening its demands. I fasted and I prayed; I chanted hymns to God. I prospered in pursuit of Godliness and grew to my full manhood in His favor. Any sin of thought or wish I confessed at once, and never, ever, for ten years and five, did my heart betray me; never once did I turn wolf."

   "Only fifteen years?" Matt looked up, surprised. "But that means.. . Wait a minute! How long ago was that?"

   "Scarce five years." Brunel smiled bitterly. "I have aged quite quickly and harshly, though. I would have dwelt within the monastery all my life-and gladly; but our abbott died, and a new and younger one took his place. Hardly had he been elected then he summoned us to conclave, to tell us that the forces of Evil once more clustered thickly about the land. He said that there must now be one priest for every village, to guard each tiny flock with never-sleeping vigilance. Then we trembled, for we knew we must go out from safety to the world of sinners-priests among them."

   He buried his face in his hands. "You cannot know the torment in my soul when the abbott commanded that I go out into the world, bereft of holy fellowship, to guide a flock. I shuddered in my heart of hearts, knowing the trial laid upon me."

   Matt frowned. "Then why'd you go?"

   The priest looked up, astonished. "Why, I had sworn obedience! And if it please the Lord my God to place me in temptation so much greater than any I had known, He must have done so as much for my own perfecting as for that of my fellows."

   "Your faith does you credit." Matt tried to keep the sarcasm he felt out of his voice; he'd meant what he'd said-or his mind had.

   "But my strength of will does not." The priest bowed his head. "Yet while the old king lived, I held my soul secure. I chanted psalms and prayers each moment that I spared from duty; I labored in my garden and among my flock. I worked and prayed and learned how to see only faces when I looked at women in my parish. And I stood fast! While the old king lived, my sins were small and not of fleshy lust! Even then, I quickly found a fellow priest, a village away, to hear my sins. For four long years, I never turned to wolf!"

   "But the old king died," Matt said softly.

   Brunel nodded, mouth hard and bitter. "And the usurper took the throne, the vile sorcerer Malingo climbing up behind him. We were weakened, and temptations grew ever more severe. The faces of the women in my parish seemed to dim, the contours of their bodies seemed to glow through their thick, homespun gowns. I strove; I fought, I say. But one lass flaunted herself ever before me, took each moment that she could to seek me out alone. I rebuked her; still she pressed herself upon me. At last, fearful of my own weakness, I fled the village, vowing that if I should sin, 'twould not be with one entrusted to my care. And..,"

   His voice hung in the air, eyes staring forward, glassy, lower lip protruding, moist.

   Matt finished it for him. "You sought out the lust-witch."

   Brunel squeezed his eyes shut, nodding, shoulders sagging. "Thus I fell from Grace-and I turned wolf. Time and again I sinned; time and again I ran to my brother priests, for shriving. And time and again, I became a wolf." .

   It had only been a year. How often could `time and again' be? "How many times have you gone were?"

   "Three times," the priest said bitterly, "and now 'tis four. I sinned in my heart; and the moon rides high tonight. I knew that I had sinned, but there was no priest nearby. I could not confess my sin, nor therefore purge it from me; so I became a wolf."

   He turned slowly to Matt, face brittle, eyes empty. "Oh, friend, if you have within you any vestige of mortal, human kindness, take that silver knife and stab me through the heart! Stay my breath! Let me die, that never more may I profane the earth with evil! Kill me now, I beg you! For only one like you, a wizard with a silver knife, can end my sinful life!"

   "And one like me won't do it," Matt grated.

   Brunel grabbed Matt's collar with both fists and shook him like a rat. "Slay me, wizard! Or, if I turn wolf again, I'll seek you out and tear your throat!"

   A furnace roared, and a huge form blocked out stars.

   Brunel whipped about, to see a miniature mountain in reptilian form bearing down on him, jaws gaping wide to blast.

   "No, Stegoman!" Matt shouted, leaping up. "He didn't mean it! He was exaggerating!"