To my surprise, he agreed. At dinner, he took the chaplain's chair across the table from me, which kept on startling me, as I would look up from my plate to see a face I had stopped being accustomed to see in the context in which I had recently become accustomed to seeing another's. He kept our table highly entertained, with gossip from the City and stories about the northern land of dragons, which he had visited. I saw even the servants at the next table leaning to catch his words.
"I'll have to tell you something I tell all the young wizards after the first checkup," he said as he prepared to leave the next morning. We were standing outside the castle gate, looking down at the red and golden foliage of the forest. "I doubt this would be a problem for you anyway, but some of the young wizards, when they find that the school is still interested in what they're doing, feel they can ask for help for every little problem. We certainly want to make sure that magic is being practiced well throughout the western kingdoms, but we just don't have the time to keep helping out fully-qualified wizards who should know how to do magic on their own."
But then his smile came out. "In your case, write me whenever you want. There were some of the teachers who'd had doubts you'd even learn enough magic to become a magician, but I knew from the beginning you'd someday be capable of becoming a good wizard."
This would have been more of a compliment if it hadn't been for the implication that "someday" had not yet arrived.
"Well, it was delightful to see you," I said, inane once more. Zahlfast rose from the ground and sped away, west over the treetops toward the City. It really had been very nice to see him, even though I continued to feel extremely irritated that he and the Master had apparently engineered my position at Yurt for me, for reasons he had perhaps still not told me completely,
As I watched his flying figure disappear in the distance, I wondered again if he had in fact even told me the real reason for his visit. I realized there were a number of questions I had not asked him, or if I had asked he had not answered. He had never said where he thought the evil spell on the castle might come from, and I had not had a chance to ask his opinion of the old wizard's empty tower room. Well, if I was supposed to be fully qualified to practice magic on my own, I would have to do so.
As I turned to start back into the castle, I saw a another distant figure, this one on horseback, coming up the road toward the castle. In a moment, I recognized Joachim and waited for him to reach me.
I became alarmed at his appearance when he came closer. His usually smooth hair was rumpled, his vestments wrinkled and stained, and his hand slack on the reins. The accentuated gauntness of his cheeks and his unseeing stare made me realize he was exhausted from more than riding five miles home after staying up all night.
I took the horse's bridle to lead it across the bridge and helped him dismount. He seemed to notice me for the first time.
"Do you think it's too late for me to hold chapel services this morning?" he asked, clearly concerned about this lapse.
"The king and queen have already left to go hunting again," I told him. "Tomorrow's Sunday; service can wait until then."
"All right," he said meekly and started moving slowly toward his room. He stopped then, looked back, and told me what I had already guessed. "The little girl died."
PART FOUR - THE DUCHESS
I
The first snow had reached Yurt. It wasn't very much snow, a light dusting in the courtyard, but as evening came on it rose and whirled in the wind, and made all of us in the great hall linger around the fireplace after supper. Through the tall windows, I could see the moon, slightly orange and half obscured by whipping clouds, what Gwen told me they called in Yurt a witch's moon.
The Lady Maria had been talking about dragons at supper. The combination of Zahlfast's visit and the first volume of Ancient and Modern Necromancy, which I had given her to read when the first-grammar continued to prove frustrating, had given her enough information about the northern land of wild magic that she was talking as though she wanted to go there herself.
"But Maria, it's terribly cold even here!" said one of the other ladies with a laugh. "Think how much colder it would be so much further north."
"Then maybe I'll try to go there in the summer," she said, undeterred. "Or maybe a dragon would come here."
The other ladies, who clearly did not believe in dragons, or if they did certainly believed they had nothing to do with Yurt, all laughed thoroughly at this.
I at least knew dragons were real, and maybe it was to support the Lady Maria that I decided to make an illusory dragon. I had never tried to match my predecessor by producing illusions over dessert, but while most of the castle was lingering by the fire it seemed a good time to start.
Illusions are among the first things they teach at the wizards' school, and they are so much fun that wizardry students tend to stay up late challenging each other with different effects, which is why even carnival magicians are proficient at them. At any rate, even though I knew I could never equal my predecessor's skill at life-like creations, I started on a dragon.
It stayed rather flat-looking, and at certain angles one could see right through it, but that didn't deter me, as I set out to make a dragon that would fill our entire end of the hall. It certainly didn't hurt my efforts that the queen came over at once, eyes dancing, to watch the dragon being constructed.
First I did the tail, long and reptilian with a double row of spines down the center. When I had the tail lashing nicely, I started on the body, massive and scaled, with six legs and long, scaled wings. It was only coincidence, I told myself, that I made the iridescent scales emerald green. By now most of the castle was watching; even the servants who had taken the dishes down to the kitchen came back.
The head was the hardest part. I gave my dragon a gaping mouth with several hundred teeth, long fringed ears, and eyes of fire. It actually looked more like the dragon costume at the harvest carnival than like the rather small blue dragon in the basement of the wizards' school, the only real dragon I had actually seen. But since no else there had ever seen a dragon at all, this did not matter. They stood well back from its slowly lashing tail and watched with growing excitement.
And I decided to make it especially exciting. As soon as I had finished the last detail, the long forked yellow tongue, I gave the whole dragon the order to move and stood back to catch my breath. It was a dozen times larger than any illusion I had ever made before.
It moved spectacularly. Eyes burning and mouth opening and closing in frenzied snaps, it whirled away from me and started toward my audience.
It moved totally silently, but that was all right, because the screaming of ladies, servants, and even knights made plenty of noise. People raced for the walls or fell down flat. Dominic stood for ten seconds alone, deserted by the rest of the knights and apparently paralyzed, before he gave a shriek like an injured rabbit and dived under the table. My dragon kept on going. Its long tail and heavy body naturally passed through real human bodies without having the slightest effect, but they did not notice this, as they were too busy trying to avoid the head.
Even the king took refuge behind his throne. But the Lady Maria, sheltering in the doorway that led to the kitchen, with half the castle staff behind her, was watching in what I could only describe as avid delight.
Almost frightened by what I had done, I said the words to slow the dragon down, intending to make it curl up placidly before the fire before I broke the spell of illusion.
And then I saw two people advancing on the dragon from opposite directions. One was the chaplain, who held a crucifix at arm's length before him, and whose eyes glowed with almost the same intensity as my dragon's. The other, armed with a poker from the fireplace, was the queen.
This had gone far enough. I said the two words to break the illusion, and the dragon was gone, leaving nothing but a shower of sparks that lingered for five seconds and then were gone as well.
The hall was suddenly very silent, and I held my bre
ath, wondering how I had managed to make my magic go so thoroughly astray. But then the silence was broken by the king clapping.
"Marvelous, Wizard, marvelous!" he cried. "I've never seen anything to match that!"
After only a second's hesitation, the queen dropped the poker and began to applaud as well. The knights and ladies came slowly back toward the center of the room and joined in. Dominic came out from under the table as though trying to convey the impression he had never been there.
Everyone started talking at once, most apparently trying to persuade each other, themselves, and me that they had not in fact been in fear for their lives. The king did it most convincingly.
"Our old wizard used to do illusions all the time," he told me, "and they were beautiful. I thought when he retired that I'd never see anything like that again. But his, well, they never moved like that!"
There was a general laugh, and people started gathering up their hats and cloaks for the short trip from the great hall back to their chambers.
I looked around for Joachim. Although we had remained cordial since the king's recovery, we had somehow never shared a bottle of wine in the evening again. If I had owed him something of an apology before, I was afraid I owed him one even more now. But he had already gone.
I glanced across the hall toward Dominic. He was standing next to the fire, talking to one of the knights with great laughs and many hand gestures, on a completely different topic. I had originally been hoping to talk to him this evening, but now I decided it would be better to wait until the next day.
The next morning, when the sun was melting the light layer of snow, I went to find Dominic. I had decided I had to be systematic, and even though I didn't like the thought of talking to him just now, he had what I needed.
It seemed fairly clear that a spell had been put on Yurt. It was the spell that had nearly killed the king, and while the chaplain had broken its hold on him in particular, the spell was still there. I could still not sense the evil touch except obliquely, when least expecting it, but I was now armed with Zahlfast's magic formula for detecting the supernatural.
So far, I had found high concentrations of supernatural influence in my own chambers, the chapel, and the chaplain's room. I didn't like this at all until I decided that the spell was just detecting a saintly presence from the chaplain, who had after all spent a number of evenings during the summer in my chambers.
But no wonder, I thought, Zahlfast had wanted to visit me. When he received a letter reeking of the supernatural, and knowing there was already something odd happening in Yurt, he must have wondered if I had plunged into black magic. I was irritated enough with him for this lack of trust that I had not written him again.
The two other places I had found the supernatural influence strongest were up in the north tower, in the old wizard's now empty and windswept chambers, and in the dank passage that led down to the rusty door of the cellars.
I found Dominic in the stables, checking on one of the geldings that had come back slightly lame from hunting. He was whistling as he and the stable boy lifted the animal's foot, which today seemed much better. But the whistling stopped as he saw me.
"Greetings, sire," I said with enough good humor for both of us. "I have a favor to ask you, about my mission here in Yurt."
He pulled his mouth into a tight line, then nodded. "We can talk in the courtyard," he said curtly and walked out, leaving me to follow behind. Neither one of us said anything about dragons.
"I thought the chaplain accomplished your mission for you," said Dominic, when we were standing in the center of the courtyard, well away from any windows. "The evil spell on the king's been broken." The implication seemed strong that now that my single mission had been taken care of, especially as it was done by someone else, it was almost superfluous for Yurt to have a wizard.
"But it's not gone," I said.
He had been glancing around, not meeting my eyes, but at this he turned toward me with a look that could either have been hatred or fear. "What do you mean, it's not gone?"
"Whoever or whatever put the spell on the king," I said, "made the spell strong enough that it remained in Yurt even when the king was miraculously freed from its influence. I haven't been able to determine yet who might have cast it, but I think I may be able to tell, if I can determine where it's strongest."
"And how are you going to do that?" he demanded.
"We wizards can detect the presence of the supernatural," I said with dignity. "Any evil spell will have been cast with evil intent, and possibly even demonic influence. We wizards can tell where demons have been."
"And where do you think they might have been?" His tone was enough to make the straightforward question an insult.
"I was wondering if they had been down in the cellars."
This clearly surprised him. The sour expression disappeared for a minute. "Why the cellars?"
"I have no idea. It's the only part of the castle I haven't been able to get into. The constable told me the cellars are damp and haven't been used for many years. I'd asked him for a key, but he said you had the only one."
"That's true," said Dominic in a puzzled voice. Although I didn't tell him, I had already tried to open the locked door using the same spell I had used on the bolt on the north tower, but a complicated lock had proved impervious to my magic, as a simple bolt had not.
Dominic took the heavy bunch of keys from his belt and flipped through them until he came to one stained with rust. "Here's the key. You'd better take a can of oil, as I doubt it's been opened in years." He paused then and glared at me again. "I hope you weren't planning to ask me for the key to the north tower, because I don't have it. When your predecessor retired, he bolted the doors and put magic locks on that he said even another wizard couldn't break."
It was my turn to be surprised. "But I don't need to go up in the north tower," I said blandly, neglecting to mention that I had already been there twice.
Dominic said something under his breath. When I asked him to repeat it, he denied having said anything, but it had sounded to me like, "Maybe you should."
With the key and a can of oil, I went down the narrow stairs behind the kitchen to the cellar door. It was iron and blotched with damp and rust. There was a small opening at eye level, too small for anything much larger than a cat to have climbed through, and a dank odor came out into the stairwell. Even with the oil and energetic turning, it took me almost five minutes to get the lock to open. Clearly no one had been in the cellars in years.
The door swung open with a protesting screech. I had tied a magic globe to my wrist with a piece of string. Its light bobbed eerily along the walls as I stepped inside.
It seemed to be nothing but abandoned storage cellars, damp because they had been dug too close to the castle well. The small rooms opening off the hall were littered with the unidentifiable remains of what might once have been stored there. Several of the rooms smelled as though used by cats or rats or both.
But permeating these innocuous dark stone rooms was an almost overwhelming sense of evil. I stopped and listened. I heard a very faint pattering noise, which could have been dripping water, could have been rats, and could have been nothing.
I tried to think clearly and calmly to combat the irrational fear that threatened to overwhelm me. Dominic had known there was an evil spell on the king, I told myself, forcing my feet to proceed down the passage. He didn't just think the king was sick, but thought magic must be implicated. Therefore, he knew more than he had told me about how that spell was cast.
I paused and listened again. There was no sound other than my own breathing. Even though Dominic knew something about the spell, I continued my reasoning, he still wanted it overcome. Therefore, he himself had not been responsible. I returned to a thought I had had long ago, that he was sheltering someone, most likely the queen. Could she have tried to put an evil spell on the king, which Dominic then wanted to overcome, even though he loved her too much to accuse her?
I forced my feet to start moving again, although at this point I was starting to feel what could only be a terminal illness, caused by black magic, sweeping through my body. This of course is the weakness of being a wizard; we are much more accessible to magic influences than ordinary people. Water splashed onto my socks with the next step; I had been following the passage slightly downhill, and the floor had gone from being damp to being flooded.
I murmured the spell that should have lifted me six inches above the water, to continue down the passage suspended in air. Nothing happened at all.
At this point, rationality lost. I turned and ran back toward daylight, the magic globe bouncing madly at the end of the string. At the door, I hesitated. I could not hear anything behind me, but I didn't want whatever was in there coming out. I made myself gather up some of the debris from the first storeroom and stuffed it into the small opening in the iron door. I held it in place with the best magic lock I could manage.
With the sight of daylight before me, I was able to control my heartbeat enough to wait one more minute. I called, "Kitty, kitty, kitty," not wanting to leave any cat trapped in the cellars. But when no cat appeared, I slammed the door, turned the iron key, and put an additional magic lock on the latch as well.
Back out in the narrow staircase, leaning against the stone wall, I slowly stopped feeling as though I were about to die. But in a minute even the staircase seemed oppressive, so I hurried back up the stairs. The smell of bread baking came to me from the kitchen like a benediction.
I didn't want to return to my chambers right away but instead went to the great hall, telling myself I needed to return the key to Dominic but really in search of human company. The king and queen, along with several of the ladies, were seated around the fire, talking animately.
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