It seemed as though we should have reached one of the very narrow parts of the cave by now, and I knew we had not. On the other hand, it was almost impossible to judge distances, especially since I was now proceeding so much more slowly than we had coming in. Should I turn around and go back until I found one of my marks again?
But if I were still headed correctly, backtracking would only waste time and energy. And there would not be any magic marks anyway in a section of the passage like this, where no side tunnels branched away.
I lifted the old wizard again, and determinedly started forward, then stopped, suddenly unsure if I might now be heading in the direction from which I had just come. The gravel showed no footprints, and there were no landmarks to give direction.
I would have suggested the Devil could take the direction, but I did not want this thought to be construed literally. I tried a prayer instead, with little hope for an answer. But one direction now looked right, so I walked that way as quickly as I could.
Within a hundred yards I came to an intersection, where three passages came together, all equally broad. Stalactites, colored the palest green in the magic light from the staff, hung from the roof. I was quite sure I had not seen them before, and there were no magic marks here.
"Then I did miss my way while worrying what I could have done differently," I said aloud, and started back again. This time at least I recognized the short straight stretch of tunnel where I had stood and hesitated.
The way back was longer, but in ten minutes the magic glow of the staff showed an intersection before me. Here, I thought, was where I had gone wrong before.
But there were no magic marks here either to show the way.
I put the wizard's body down and rubbed my pounding head, trying to think. If I had come through this intersection without noticing, then I only had to choose the passage which was most likely to have brought me here, and continue following it back. But suppose I chose wrong? And suppose I really had gotten turned around when I stopped, and the three-way intersection where I turned back was where I should be now?
I had no answers, only the need to get out of the cave. I put a new magic mark on the wall, lifted the wizard's body, chose the passage that seemed to lead upward rather than downward, and began to walk again.
After a while, it was hard to remind myself to put magic marks on all the intersections I passed. I knew I was lost, hopelessly lost, perhaps lost forever, but going back seemed no better, for that would have been to descend again into the stone heart of the earth. I had again grown thirsty, but returning to the river would have meant going down rather than climbing. My only decision at each intersection, whether the tunnels were wide or narrow, twisting or straight, so low I had to bend or so high that the light from the silver ball did not reach the ceiling, was to take the passage that seemed more to lead upwards.
Even when the angle of the floors seemed exactly the same, I did not hesitate. My head now hurt too much for any thought beyond keeping my spells going, but at every intersection I decided as rapidly as if someone else were deciding for me, and I had only to obey.
And then, just when my mind was beginning to feel as closed and dark as the cave tunnels, a breath of air touched my forehead. I stopped dead, not daring to believe, but it was no illusion. Somewhere, not far away, was the outside world.
I staggered onward almost at a run. The air was growing fresher and fresher, a mixture of the real smells of trees and grass, not the cold absence of anything but damp which had for so long surrounded me.
And then I heard a voice. I stopped again, wondering wildly if it might be the spirit of the old wizard, and if I should answer him, for the voice was calling my name.
But it was not the old wizard's voice. It sounded like a woman. "Upward, Daimbert," it called. "Look upward."
I raised the staff and looked above me. In the ceiling of the tunnel was a crack, just wide enough for a person, which I never would have noticed if the voice had not stopped me. But it was from this crack that the fresh air was blowing.
I took a deep breath, then another, to get that air into my lungs and gather the extra strength I needed. I flew slowly upward, squeezing through the crack and dragging the old wizard's body after me. I was now in a split as though the earth had shifted, and as I rose I looked around feverishly, but there was still no light. If the earth shifted again, I would be crushed so thoroughly that I would not even have time to realize what had happened.
My head bumped on stone, and I raised a trembling arm to aim the staff's light. I saw that I had reached the top of the crack in the stone, but a short tunnel now led horizontally before me.
I pushed into it, forced my feet along it for ten yards, then stopped again.
But this time I had stopped with joy, for before me was a sky hung with stars.
The relief was so great I could have sobbed. I realized now, as I stood with the wind in my face, that it had been the wood nymph calling me. "Lady!" I said softly, but she did not reply.
Off toward the east, the dim beginnings of dawn faded out the stars, but to the west they still shone bright. Below the sky lay the valley of Saint Eusebius, partially shrouded in mist. To eyes that had strained to see in the complete blackness of the cave, the darkness of land under an open night-time sky did not seem dark at all.
After a moment, I determined I was looking out of a crack perhaps thirty yards up in the wall of the limestone valley. A few gnarled trees clung to the slope below me. I had been in the valley long enough that I quickly recognized the different limestone formations, even if it all looked slightly different seen from above. I was near the head of the valley, no more than half a mile from the Holy Grove.
I gathered the last of my strength, which wasn't a lot, put the old wizard's body over my shoulder, and pushed myself out into open air. Very slowly, falling gently as I flew, I proceeded in the direction of the apprentices' huts.
I must have been in the cave for well over twenty-four hours. The priests would have finished their business at the shrine by now and left, but the apprentices would know where they had gone. At the moment I could not plan what to do next, indeed could think no further than collapsing into sleep, but I managed to tell myself sternly that at some point, very soon, I would indeed have to do something.
I was just thinking that the apprentices had already had enough trouble with strangers at the shrine without me waking them up this early, when I saw a yellow glow flick into existence. Someone had lit a fire.
I dropped to the ground in front of the hut where the fire burned, tried to speak, and managed only a parched croak on the first attempt but a passable "Hello?" on the second.
I expected one of the apprentices, but the figure that appeared at the hut door was dressed in black linen. It was Joachim.
He looked almost as overjoyed to see me as I was to see him. But he did not say anything at first, only pulled me into the hut. I let him lower me and the old wizard's body to the dirt floor and press a cup of water into my hand.
In spite of the nearly euphoric sense of relief, drinking the water gave me enough of my senses back to remind me how thoroughly I had failed.
"He's dead, Joachim," I said, although the chaplain had doubtless determined this for himself. "I couldn't save him. And the monster is still somewhere in the cave—unless it's found its own way out."
"The monster has not come out into the valley again," said Joachim with a sober look toward me. "Thank God one of you is back alive." The kettle of water he had put on the fire began to steam, and he turned to pour it into a teapot. "Drink some tea as soon as it's brewed, and I'll say the last rites for him."
Between sorrow and despair, I gulped down the tea, feeling it heating my throat and chest all the way down. A second cup, I thought, would finish taking the cold of the cave off me.
But sleep caught me in the act of reaching for the teapot. I slumped back against the hut wall, my eyes closing against the dawn light, just hearing Joachim's voice softl
y speaking the words of the liturgy as I fell into unconsciousness.
V
When I awoke it was full daylight, and Evrard was sitting beside me. I lay motionless for a moment, conscious of the heavy wool of a horse blanket spread over me and tickling my chin, but otherwise almost devoid of sensation. All my limbs would start to complain, I knew, as soon as I tried to move, but if I remained still forever this would not be a problem.
But I was now the senior wizard in Yurt, and there was still a magical creature on the loose, one that had killed a man. I forced myself to sit up and immediately felt so weak that I almost collapsed again.
"Good morning," said Evrard. "You look terrible."
"I feel terrible," I agreed. I leaned against the wall and rubbed my temples. At least the headache was virtually gone, but I was horribly hungry. "I don't think I've had anything much to eat for the last week, except for berries."
Evrard produced bread and cheese and a rather wizened apple. "This is about the end of the food the three priests brought with them." So the priests were still here after all.
I ate ravenously, thinking that I had never properly appreciated the meals in the royal castle. Then, no longer feeling I was about to faint, I pushed the horse blanket away and staggered to my feet.
"You're covered with blood!" cried Evrard in dismay.
I glanced down at myself. My clothes were indeed filthy, ripped, and stained with quantities of blood. "Not my own," I said. "The old wizard's." But then I looked around in panic. "Where is he? Where have they taken him?"
"They took his body up to the shrine," said Evrard, not entirely as though he approved but not wanting to disapprove either. "The apprentice hermits and the youngest of those priests were all going to wash the body and lay it out."
"We'll have to take him back to the royal castle and bury him in the graveyard there," I said. "Evrard, the monster killed him. And it's still loose, probably stronger than ever. It has a real face now."
"Your chaplain told me you hadn't been able to catch it," he said in a low voice, as though afraid to suggest that he was belittling my efforts.
But I knew perfectly well I had failed, failed to catch the monster and to save the old wizard. I had to accept that now.
"I can't go up to the shrine like this," I said. "See if I have enough spare clothes in my saddlebag to keep me decent."
I walked down to the river, peeled the rags from my body, and slid into the water. It was as cold as the cave, but bubbling beneath the brilliantly blue summer sky the water was only invigorating. I splashed and tried to rub off the worst of the grime and blood, then let myself sink to the river bottom. It was not deep enough for swimming, but lying on the stones two feet beneath the surface, with my eyes open, I could see the green and white of the valley walls transformed into rippling slabs of color.
I jerked back to the surface, caught my breath, and pulled myself up on the bank. Evrard had found me some clothes; I rolled on the grass to dry myself and pulled them on. For a minute I sat quietly, letting the sun beat on my wet hair, enjoying the fleeting sensation of peace.
"I'm trying to decide," I said then, "if we dare leave the valley while the monster's still in the cave. The old wizard said that he knew his creature would be drawn here, so it may not be able to get out. I would appear horribly disrespectful if I didn't attend the old wizard's funeral."
"Maybe it's lost forever in the cave," suggested Evrard.
"The creature can't see in there, certainly," I said, "and the cave itself is a labyrinth."
"It's terribly easy to get confused," Evrard agreed, "even with torches and a thread to find your way out." When I looked at him questioningly he added, "Didn't the chaplain tell you? When you and the old wizard hadn't come back by yesterday morning, he and I spent much of the day trying to find you. We unraveled my old tunic for thread." I noticed then that Evrard, too, had been improved by a change into spare clothing. "We didn't know which tunnel you'd taken off the large chamber, which made it difficult. I'd hoped you'd have left a magic mark to show where you'd gone, but if so you didn't use any spell I know."
I was touched that Evrard and Joachim had looked for us and wished that I myself had had the sense to unravel a thread as I went. "I'm sorry! I did use magic marks, but not until we were well into the cave. I only wanted to mark the way back out, even though, as it turned out, I missed some of them and became lost anyway. I never thought anyone would try to come after us."
"We started by exploring the tunnels closest to the river, but they all went underwater very quickly, or else became so small that we knew you wouldn't have been able to go through, unless of course you transformed yourselves into frogs."
"In fact, we left the great chamber by a passage on the farthest side—it's a wide, fairly straight way, at least at first."
Evrard shook his head. "We never got there."
I stood up carefully. "Even if we had dared transform ourselves into frogs, in the knowledge that our croaks would not be able to approximate the Hidden Language and that we'd have to be frogs forever, we wouldn't have needed to. The monster is human size, and all we were trying to do was catch it."
"Could you have summoned it, forced it to come to you?" asked Evrard, falling into step beside me as I started toward the grove. I had brought the old wizard's staff and leaned on it when even the short walk began to tire me. "Maybe a true summoning spell rather than the more general calling spell that got me all those sparrows?"
I shook my head. "It wouldn't have done any good to summon its mind if its body couldn't follow. And you know they always taught us that to summon a human mind, against its will, was the greatest sin a wizard could commit. I don't know about you, but the teachers refused even to teach us the spell." I and a few other young wizards had managed, on a late-night expedition to the Master's study, to get around that prohibition, but I didn't want to mention this.
"But in this case," said Evrard reasonably, "you wouldn't be summoning a human mind. That could mean, however, that there might be nothing there to summon! Not knowing the spell would certainly be an additional disadvantage . . ."
His voice trailed away. I didn't tell him that the monster had almost had the old wizard's human mind transferred into it.
As we approached the grove, I heard a distant hammering. I looked up toward the top of the cliff to see if the entrepreneurs were at work at their windlass, but if so I could see nothing from below.
"How did you get out of the cave?" asked Evrard.
"I'm not sure," I said slowly. "The last few hours, it was almost as though someone else was guiding me. Then, at the very end, I heard the wood nymph calling me. If it hadn't been for her, I would have walked right by the way out and never even seen it."
"The wood nymph? Did she come into the cave?"
"No, but I think she must have been right outside, calling. Had you sent her to look for me?"
Evrard shook his head. "Maybe she just likes wizards."
When we reached the Holy Grove, the first thing I saw was the old wizard's body, lying near the pool with his eyes closed and his hands crossed on his breast. He had gone very far beyond the help of the wood nymph.
The apprentices had done a good job. The worst of the stains had been washed from his clothes, and his hair and beard were clean and combed. His twisted limbs had been straightened out, so that, at least at first glance, he could merely have been asleep.
His dignity had been restored to him, but he would not have cared about his body's appearance when he was gone. He had wanted to create an undying monster and to live on in it, and if he had succeeded he would have discarded this body deep under the earth.
I put my hand over my eyes and stood quietly for a moment to compose myself. I would have to live for the rest of my life with the knowledge that my abilities had been too weak to save him.
We continued the short distance to the Holy Shrine itself, where we found the old hermit and all the priests. Joachim managed to look delighted
to see me without smiling in the least.
"Good," said the thin priest. "You are here at last."
Before I could find anything to say in reply, the apprentices arrived, carrying a roughly made coffin. This, then, explained the hammering. I helped them to lift the old wizard's body in and to arrange it. He still looked as though he were sleeping, but his flesh felt as cold as the stone a quarter mile beneath the earth.
Wizards, as a matter of professional pride, do not speculate about the afterlife, leaving that to the priests. But even the Church, with its prayers and liturgy, cannot say for certain what will happen to an individual's soul. The wood nymph might think mortality liberating, but I myself thought that a lifetime, even the long life of a wizard, might never be enough to finish with the questions, much less start on the answers.
He had died not fearing death, not worried about his soul, but irritated that he had failed in his spell. Looking at my predecessor's still face, I wished him well on his journey, wherever he was going.
"Were you going to bury him with this ring?" asked the round priest.
I had been staring without seeing and came back with a start. "No, he wouldn't want us to. In fact, he said I should have it."
The priest pulled the ring from the wizard's finger and handed it to me. I took it reluctantly, with the sense that it symbolized enormous responsibility.
It was quite a striking ring, made in the shape of an eagle in flight with a tiny diamond in its beak, but it did not in fact symbolize anything, being only a Christmas gift from the king after the old wizard retired. But I slid it onto my own finger as though taking up even heavier burdens than I already carried. Behind me, I could hear the apprentices nailing the lid on the coffin.
Joachim touched me on the shoulder and looked at me with his enormous dark eyes. "You're not a priest," he said quietly. "You're not responsible for anyone else's soul but your own."
C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 02 Page 24