"Enhance!" Matt opined. "Definitely enhance!"
" 'Tis for you to say, sister, not us," the spinner said. "Natheless, I would hazard the notion that the bright strands he will enliven will neatly balance the uncolored throng that have stemmed from the first usurper of Ibile."
"Can you not stop them, Wizard?" Fadecourt stood at his elbow, ashen-faced.
"Uhhhh..." Matt's mind raced furiously. "Not 'can,' Fadecourt—'will.' The question is, can I justify lousing up the rest of the world just to save my own life?"
"If you do not act, you will die!" the cyclops cried. "Ibile will have lost its one chance to be free of the reign of the Devil, and you will have lost the hand of the queen!"
Matt stood, galvanized by the thought of annihilation—not just of himself, but of all the bright dreams he had ever had of precious private moments with Alisande: the lovemaking he had ached for, the children he had hoped to gather about them, his determination not to let the little princes and princesses be raised by nannies, the physical training he would give them in the guise of games, the love of learning he and Alisande would imbue in them by their conversations...He steeled his resolve, and recited:
Sudden and savage, sunbeams lanced down from the solid rock ceiling as the lock on the door exploded. The shafts of light caressed the women's faces, but wherever they touched, a face flowed like wax. The three women screamed, a horrible ragged cry, and their firelit chamber shrank, as if receding, to a globe, then a globule, still shrinking until it finally winked out.
"I did not mean you should smite them so!" Fadecourt said, aghast.
"That makes us even; I didn't mean to." Matt pulled in a deep breath to try to still his inner quaking. "Talk about power! That man couldn't write poorly even when he tried!"
The cyclops eyed the broken lock, then reached out a forefinger to nudge the door. With a groan, it swung open. "You have indeed taken the first step to bringing us forth from this dungeon, Wizard. Yet how shall you take us up this stair?"
"The steps should be easy." Matt was acutely aware of the word should. "After all, bringing the Fates here broke the confinement spell. But just to be on the safe side, I think I'd better try to work up a stronger transportation spell."
"How shall you..."
"Quiet! I'm being creative." Matt frowned, running over verses from a couple of old, old songs. Then he chanted,
He was barely aware of Fadecourt's hand, clamping onto his arm like a vise, and of the room suddenly rocking in a tilt; he was already preparing the next verse in his mind...
The room jolted straight, but it was the torture chamber they stood in, with Yverne and Sir Guy stretched seminaked on tables, and bulky semihumans standing over them with arcane metal instruments. One was screwing a blocky boot-shaped object onto Sir Guy's foot, and Yverne was screaming at the mere sight of it as the duke, spittle running down his chin, watched another torturer pushing her skirt up, dagger poised over the smooth skin of her thigh.
Her screaming drove Fadecourt crazy. He bellowed and leaped for a guardsman, wrenching his halberd away with one stroke and felling him with another, then whirling to attack the torturer.
But Matt's attention was all for the duke, who was just looking up at him in stupefaction.
The duke jolted upright as if he'd been hit with an uppercut, then slumped to the ground. The guards and torturers stared, shocked.
Savage triumph boiled up in Matt, and he gave in to temptation long enough to pick up the nearest torturer and throw him against the wall. The other snapped out of his daze with a bellow and yanked a poker out of a brazier. As Matt turned back to him, the bigger man leaped, lashing out with the iron. Matt leaped, too, slamming a fist into his attacker's belly. The poker's shaft cracked across the back of Matt's shoulders, then fell from fingers gone limp, its glowing tip bruising Matt's shin on the way down. The pain, coupled with the ache across his back, was enough to make him shout with rage; he slammed the torturer back, away. The man tripped, stumbled, and fell against the brazier, knocking it over and falling across the fire. He screamed and rolled away, then lay rocking and moaning on the stone floor.
Not that Matt stayed to watch. He whirled and saw that Fadecourt had caught up a torturer's knife and was slitting the bonds on Yverne's wrists as he mumbled soothing inanities. Matt nodded and turned to Sir Guy, frantically unscrewing the boot.
"My thanks," the Black Knight grunted. " 'Ware the guards." Matt looked up, appalled that he'd forgotten—but saw Fadecourt hurling two guards away, even as Yverne caught up a fallen pike and leveled it at a torturer who skidded to a halt, wavering between danger and the reputation of cowardice.
A shout from the hall saved him; the door burst open, revealing a senior guard who bellowed, "To the walls! We are beset!" and turned to run away, not even registering what was happening in the torture chamber.
The guards leaped on the excuse and ran for the door. Matt whirled to look about him—and saw the duke, hauling himself up on the edge of one of the torture benches, giving Matt a look that pierced right through him, promising even greater mayhem. Matt was just readying a verse when Fadecourt stepped up with a cold iron and slammed it against the base of the duke's skull. The duke's eyes rolled up, and he folded back onto the floor.
Suddenly, the room was silent, with no one moving.
Then Matt yanked a dagger from the belt of an unconscious soldier and strode over to the fallen duke. He dropped to one knee, raising the dagger...
Fadecourt caught his wrist. "Nay; Lord Wizard! He is not shriven!"
Odd as it seemed, that gave Matt pause. To kill the man without giving him a chance to confess his sins would condemn him to eternal torment in Hell—and even Matt didn't think that the monster deserved to suffer for ever and ever, with absolutely no hope of ever getting out. For a few years, yes, maybe even for a few centuries—but he was human, after all.
Still, there were practical considerations. "If we don't kill him while we can, Fadecourt, he'll attack us again as soon as he can—and next time, he might win. We'll be caught between his army and Gord—the king's, unless we give up and get out of Ibile while we can. The sensible thing is to kill him now."