This didn’t help. He wanted an appreciative audience to whom to demonstrate his power, but I could not simply watch. By being here at all I had become responsible for him. I was madly searching for an argument, anything to say to talk him out of it, when my attention was caught by something else.
“Master, your creature— I think it’s breaking out!”
“Nonsense. I cast that binding spell myself.”
I had cast most of that binding spell myself, and it was weakening fast. “When you changed its face, that must have interfered with the other spell, and now—”
I stopped trying to talk, too busy trying to reconstruct my spells instead. For the monster was indeed beginning to move, slowly sitting up, leaning forward, watching us with avid eyes.
The spell wasn’t working. I threw words of the Hidden Language together faster and faster, and then I realized what was wrong. This particular spell, a spell designed for a creature immune to normal binding spells, did not have an effect when that creature was moving.
I desperately tried to find a way to improvise something better, to bridge that gap in the old wizard’s spell, expecting him the whole time to add his magic to mine. But he did not come to my aid.
Instead the forces of magic were suddenly disturbed by a new and even more powerful spell. I came abruptly back to myself, to hear the narrow stone passage ring to words in the Hidden Language I had never heard before and did not want to hear again.
The wizard’s staff blazed so bright that the passage and the river below were illuminated as though the stone had cracked and mid-day had reached us. The monster staggered backwards, throwing an arm across its eyes. My own eyes squeezed involuntarily shut.
There was the sound of something hard falling, and I forced them open again. The old wizard’s staff had fallen from his hands and rolled past the monster, halfway to the river. The silver ball continued to glow, but far less brightly.
He was still on his feet, his arms held out, but wavering. The creature was motionless at last, frozen with one hand reached toward the wizard.
I scrambled to find the spell again, to try to imprison the creature in the seconds before it moved.
But the old wizard stopped me. “Let it come,” he said as though choking. “Let it come to me.”
I hesitated, not knowing if I would do more harm or good by obeying him. Ignoring me, the creature took one step toward the old wizard. For five seconds they stood face to face, their extended hands touching.
Then the silver ball on the wizard’s staff flashed a brilliant white, and his body crumpled to the cave floor beside me.
The monster bent over it while I sprang forward, horrified and unsure which spirit animated this creature of magic and dead bones. It poked at the tangled beard and cloak for a second, then suddenly seized the body and lifted it high.
I grabbed at the old wizard, both with my hands and with magic, but I was helpless before the monster’s strength. It glared at me in mindless fury, and from its mouth came a wordless roar. It whirled the wizard’s limp form over its head, dashed it to the ground, and raced past me, away down the tunnel.
The silver ball on the wizard’s staff still glowed just enough for me to be able to see him. His limbs lay twisted and bent at unnatural angles. I attempted to gather him up and put his head in my lap.
For a second I thought it was my imagination, but then his eyes moved beneath his eyelids and slowly opened. “I should have thought of that,” he whispered, highly irritated, but irritated with himself.
I tried to silence him with a hand on his lips, but he clearly found it important to talk. “That spell’s too powerful to be worked by any but the youngest and strongest wizard. And even then I should have realized I’d need something completely empty into which to transfer. I knew it had no mind of its own, so I thought I should be able to transfer my own mind directly into its body.”
He paused, and the breath rattled in his throat. He had not even tried to move anything except his eyelids and his lips. He went on in a moment, even more softly, so that I had to bend my face close to his to hear him.
“No mind was there, but there was still the motive force. My own spell. There was no room in him for my spell and my spirit at the same time. If you ever try it, young whipper-snapper, remember to get the motive force out first.” He stopped and twitched his jaw as though trying unsuccessfully to cough. “But without that spell it might have dissolved back into old bones, and I’d be no better off than I am now.”
He had been horribly broken, I knew, by being thrown to the cave floor, on top of the destructive final effort to transfer his spirit into the creature. “I’m going to try to lift you, Master,” I whispered. “I don’t want to pain you any more than I have to, but I’ve got to get you out of here. So if you—”
He interrupted me with what might once have been a snort. “I do like you, even if you are a whipper-snapper. But if you’re ever going to mature as a wizard you need more sense. Take my ring, but don’t worry about the rest. I knew all along I would never leave the cave in this body.”
He fell silent as though this speech had taken the last of his strength. I bent even closer and realized I could no longer hear or feel his breath. The light on the magic staff slowly went black.
IV
For a long time I sat motionless in the darkness, continuing to hold him, too full of sorrow to stand up or to cry. I may even have slept a little, for suddenly I jerked to attention as though abruptly waking from a dream.
The cave was still completely dark, so that there was no difference between opening and closing my eyes, and the only sound was the rushing of the river. I feared for a moment that I had heard the monster coming back. Then, when neither my ears nor my magic could find any nearby movement, I decided that a wakeful corner of my mind had recalled me from unconsciousness when the first edge was gone from exhaustion.
I still felt almost unbearably weary. I stood up slowly, easing the old wizard’s now cold body from my lap. When I turned on the image of the moon and stars on my belt buckle, it gave enough light for me to grope a short way down the slope toward the river and recover his staff. I illuminated the silver ball on the end, which gave a much better light than my buckle, and continued down to the river.
There I dunked my entire head under water and opened my mouth for a long drink. I came back up colder than ever and with my hair and beard streaming, but the water had certainly taken the last sleep from my eyes. The drink helped too, especially since I had managed to take it without swallowing a cave fish. For the first time I began to think about getting back out of the cave.
In spite of what he had said, I couldn’t leave him lying here. There was only one thing to do. I put together a lifting spell and raised him slowly. The necessary magic distracted my attention from the staff, so that the light of the silver ball began to dim, but in a minute I worked out a compromise. If I supported him partly with my shoulder as well as with magic, I could keep the staff bright enough that I could find the way.
I started slowly up and away from the river. At least for the moment, the passage was wide enough that the wizard’s body did not scrape against the sides. Because worrying that the monster was coming back would only take more energy, I decided not to think about it at all. But I could proceed only at what felt like a snail’s pace, having to concentrate on my magic, and constantly distracted, in spite of my resolve, by seeing the confrontation between monster and wizard repeated in my mind.
I wondered vaguely what time it was in the outside world. It must be at least the morning after we had entered the cave, maybe the afternoon, maybe even night again.
At the first intersection where the passage forked, I propped the wizard’s body against the wall for a moment while I said the quick words of the Hidden Language to light up my magic marks. They glowed an encouraging blue, showing me that the way back lay in the direction from which I was already sure we had come. Feeling somewhat heartened, I reapplied the lifting
spell and kept walking.
But soon I had to stop again, to work the spell to keep sleep at bay. My muscles found new strength as I lifted the wizard’s body again, even though I knew my head would soon start aching. And the spell against headache would allow exhaustion again to claim me.
As I walked I seemed to see again and again the old wizard reaching out to touch his creature’s hand, and then slumping to the floor. I tried to decide what I should have done differently. Usually I had no trouble, after the fact, in finding my mistakes, but they did not seem as obvious this time. Certainly, I thought, there was something I could have done, even if I had to bind him against his will and carry him away by force.
But even that would not have worked. I might be Royal Wizard of Yurt, but my predecessor’s magic had been substantially stronger than mine, right until the very end.
This thought did not make me feel any less responsible. I tasted salt and realized I had been weeping as I walked, large silent tears flowing unchecked and almost unnoticed down my cheeks.
Suddenly I stopped, lowered the old wizard’s stiffening body as carefully as if I might still hurt him, and increased the intensity of the light. I did not recall having passed any of my magic marks recently.
There was nothing about the stone walls and rough floor of the passage to make it either familiar or unfamiliar. I tried the words of the Hidden Language to show my marks, but saw nothing in either direction, in the short distance before the passage curved out of sight. Could I with my attention distracted have walked right by a turning?
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 softly 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.
The Wood Nymph & the Cranky Saint Page 24