Packed in my saddlebags were the books I had found in the room of the old ducal wizard. I had quite brazenly stolen them, reassuring myself that it was not theft to take something no one wanted. They had clearly been undisturbed for thirty years, and if the duchess did indeed hire someone from the wizards’ school, as she had threatened to do, he would probably throw them out immediately.
At dusk we came out of the woods and up the hill toward the castle. A chill wind mixed with a little sleet whipped about our ears, and our horses were eager for the stables. I looked up, expecting to see welcoming lights shining out, and instead saw only the castle’s dark shape against the dark sky.
“The constable knew we were coming home today,” said the queen in surprise.
“Everyone may just be sitting warm in the kitchen,” said the king.
A chill had gone through me far colder than the sleet. I looked toward Joachim and saw that a similar fear had gripped him, for he had reached into his saddle bag and taken out his crucifix. He too, I thought, must have been feeling that elusive sense of evil in the castle, and he must have been worried about it in ways that he never told me.
“At least the drawbridge is down,” said one of the knights. The king’s optimism was not shared by the rest of our party.
For a brief moment we hesitated by the bridge, looking in through the gates toward the dark and silent courtyard. Then the king said cheerfully, “They’ll light the lights as soon as they hear us. Just don’t let your horses slip going in!” He led the way, the rest of us following single-file behind.
No one spoke as we crossed the bridge and then the courtyard toward the lightless stables, but our horses’ hooves on the cobblestones and the bells on their bridles made a sound that should have awakened any sleeper. There was an abrupt clattering sound from the direction of the great hall, then to my intense relief I heard the constable’s voice. “On!” he shouted, and all the magic lamps in the hall blazed into light.
More lights came on then around the castle, and the constable ran out to meet us, disheveled and embarrassed. “Forgive me, sire,” he said, holding the king’s stirrup while he dismounted. “I don’t know what happened to me. I must have fallen asleep. I didn’t mean for you to come home to a dark castle.”
Everyone else was now talking and dismounting, and a stable boy started taking the horses. The others seemed to have dismissed whatever fears they had felt looking up at the lightless bulk of the castle against the twilight sky. But the chill I had felt then was still with me. I caught Joachim’s eye and knew that he too was not completely satisfied.
The cook came rushing into the hall from the kitchens, highly flustered, at the same time as we came in from the courtyard. She spoke quickly to the constable and rushed out again. “We’ll have a hot dish for you very quickly, my lords and ladies,” said the constable apologetically. “The cook somehow had let the fire go out, but she’ll have it going again in just a minute.”
The hall fire too was quickly built up again. We all stood around it, warming ourselves after the ride, waiting for supper. While we waited, I wondered what could have happened to cast everyone in the castle into slumber, and what had wakened them again. Only a small part of the staff was there, as the rest-including Gwen and Jon-would not be back from their vacations before tomorrow, but it was certainly not natural for all of the staff present to have been overcome with sleep at the same time.
And had it merely been the sound of our horses that wakened them? I put my coat back on and slipped away, taking one of the magic lamps with me. As I went by the kitchens, I could hear loud clattering and the cook giving rapid orders, and could smell supper cooking, a smell so delightful after a long day’s cold ride that I had to stop myself from going in for a sample bite.
Instead I went down the dank staircase behind the kitchens, forcing my unwilling feet forward and doing my best to ignore the plausible reasons that kept popping into my mind why it would be much better to wait until morning.
It was as I feared. The rusty iron door was still shut, but my magic locks were gone, and the debris with which I had blocked the small window in the door had all fallen to the ground.
I went back up the stairs much faster than I intended and crossed the courtyard to my own chambers. To my intense relief, the magic lock on my door was glowing softly, undisturbed. I went inside to be out of the wind while I found my composure again. If this lock too had been gone, I would have had to believe there was a demon loose in the castle.
But a new thought also struck me. Someone who knew very powerful magic had apparently been at work while we were gone. This person had his or her headquarters in the cellars, a place where spells were cast and books and herbs kept. When I locked the cellars with magic, he or she had had to break my locks to get back in.
And this person, I reasoned, would have to be someone on the castle staff, the constable and his wife, the cook, the stable boy, or the kitchen maid, the only people who had been here when we arrived. But why would one of those five have put the others to sleep and pretended sleep himself or herself? I shook my head, realizing it could have been any other member of the staff, who would have perhaps come back “early” from vacation, entered the castle without any challenge, put the rest into a sleep that would make them forget he or she had been there, and left again. In this case, the sleep could have been intended to insure there were no witnesses to whatever the person was going to do-or people to hear the screeching of the iron door being opened.
I left the lights on in my chambers and hurried back to the hall, arriving just in time for a light supper of soup and omelet, served with some of the cook’s excellent bread. Hungry and tired, we all ate without more than the briefest snatches of conversation. As the food was being served, I had briefly considered trying the spell that had turned the king’s soup green before his recovery, but I did not have the heart to do so, fearing what it might show. Besides, I was almost too hungry to care.
But in the morning, after chapel service, I went to talk to Joachim. He looked surprised to see me. We had barely spoken two words since he had nearly accused me of seducing the duchess. But that all seemed distant and trivial now.
He was sitting in his room, drinking tea and eating a cinnamon cruller. Since the kitchen maid had only brought me a cake donut this morning, I was wildly envious, but I forced myself to overlook it. I had something more important on my mind.
“You and I both know,” I said, “that someone has put an evil spell on Yurt. It doesn’t seem possible that such a charming castle should be touched by evil, but it is. I don’t know who has cast the spell, but you and I have to do something about it. I don’t think it was you, and I hope you don’t think it was me.”
“I try not to accuse anyone of evil, even in my thoughts.”
“Tell me: How soon after you came to Yurt did you begin to feel the presence of an evil mind?”
He put down his teacup carefully. “I have never felt an evil presence here.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment but met his grave and slightly puzzled eyes in silence. Maybe only someone trained in wizardry would be susceptible to that oblique sense of evil magic. Or maybe, surrounded as he was by the aura of the saints, nothing wicked could approach him.
“But you too were worried last night when we arrived and found everyone asleep.”
“Of course I was. There have been odd magical forces in Yurt as long as I have been here. At first I thought it must have something to do with your predecessor, since I knew he and my own predecessor had not gotten along well. But when he left and you came the same disruptive magic forces were still there.” He startled me by taking my arm in a sharp grip. “I decided you were not behind them-that was why I was willing to tell the bishop I would take the responsibility for your soul.”
I eased my arm out of his fingers and did my best to smile. “It’s ironic, isn’t it. I feel something wrong in Yurt and assume it’s part of the conflict between angels and demons. Yo
u feel the same thing and assume it’s something to do with magic. But it’s not just someone casting silly spells. There’s an evil mind behind it.”
“I try not to accuse anyone of evil,” he said again.
I thought about this for a moment. “All right. I too don’t want to think of anyone being absolutely evil. But I do think someone, deliberately or not, has involved the powers of darkness in his or her magic. Therefore, we-”
Joachim interrupted me, his intense black eyes blazing. “You speak much too lightly of ‘someone being absolutely evil.’ Don’t you realize that, if you believe that, you are denying the power of redemption?”
“Well, I didn’t really mean it in theological terms, so much as-”
But he was not listening to me. “All of us are God’s creation. Therefore none of us can ever destroy the good within us, or not destroy it totally. We priests do our best to keep that spirit of good a living flame, but even those who are wicked and depraved in this life may still be redeemed in the next.”
“But how about someone who gives his soul to the devil?”
As soon as I asked I wish I had not, because I didn’t want to hear the answer.
Joachim’s shoulders slumped slightly and he dropped his eyes. “Then that person is beyond the prayers of either mortals or the saints. He will still be redeemed when the devil himself is redeemed, but that will not be before the end of infinite time.”
The bright sun on the ice and snow outside the chaplain’s open window seemed dim for a moment, and the chill in my bones was not due to the air coming through that window.
If someone in the castle had made a pact with the devil, giving up his or her soul after death for advantages in this life, then that person’s only chance was to trick or negotiate the devil into breaking the pact. His or her best hope was to have the negotiations done by someone else, someone who really understood the supernatural. The saints do not negotiate, which meant that a wizard, that is me, and not the chaplain who had already proved himself by healing the king, might have to deal with this.
All that any wizard in the City-or probably in the world-knew about dealing with the devil had been distilled into the Diplomatica Diabolica, which meant I was going to have to read it, even though every time I even looked at its spine I was struck with the same fear that had gripped me when I first bought it: that I might endanger my own soul by summoning a demon by mistake, when had I only intended to learn how to deal with one who was already there.
It was almost with a sense of light and ease that I thought again about the specific problem of who in Yurt might be practicing black magic. “I need your help,” I told Joachim. “Someone’s immortal soul may be in danger. I think that last night a sleeping spell had been put on the castle, though I don’t know why. But if we can determine who did it, then we may be able to find out where the odd magic forces you mention are coming from.”
“It cannot be your predecessor, because he’s gone,” said the chaplain thoughtfully, looking at his hands. “And I don’t think it’s you.” He gave me one of his intense looks, then returned to his hands. “It must have been someone who was here in the castle while we were visiting the duchess.” He clearly was not used to this way of reasoning, but I waited impatiently while he worked it through for himself.
Then he surprised me by asking, “From what distance can a spell be cast?”
I should have thought of this myself. “I really don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t think it’s very far. I at any rate have never been able to cast a spell further than I could see.” I stopped, thinking of my glass telephones, but decided not to confuse the issue by mentioning them. “Do you think it could be someone who lives down in the village?”
“Or even someone in our party.”
I had been about to ask Joachim for his spiritual help against the constable, as the most likely of the people who had stayed in the castle, but now I was back to suspecting everyone in Yurt, perhaps everyone in the entire kingdom.
Then I remembered that the supernatural influence Zahlfast had first noted stopped at the moat. Someone in the castle itself must be casting the spells, as I had always assumed. This meant-
Joachim interrupted my thoughts. “Is it possible to cast a long-lasting spell, one that will continue to have effect when one is far away?” Apparently they taught them to ask sharp questions at the seminary.
“It depends on the spell,” I said. “Some of the elementary spells, like illusions, will fade fairly shortly unless constantly renewed. But some of the complicated spells, like lamps or magic locks, should last indefinitely.” I decided not to mention the broken locks on the cellar door.
“So someone who isn’t even here any more, such as your predecessor, could have put an evil spell on Yurt that is still having an effect.”
I shook my head. “It’s possible, but not very likely, even if the person is a master in wizardry.” It was going to be hard to explain that the long-lasting spells, although the most complicated, were when completed often the simplest and most static. A spell that could sicken the king and make the apparently ageless Lady Maria start to age seemed too involved to be maintained from any distance, in space or time.
“Let’s assume,” I said, “that the magic is being practiced by someone here in the castle, someone here now. I need your help because it isn’t just ordinary magic, which I could deal with myself. Someone is acting with evil intent, or the king would not have come so close to dying, and he or she may have involved the supernatural, for the Lady Maria told me she had seen time run backwards.”
“I didn’t think magic could make time run backwards.”
“It can’t. Only the truly supernatural can do that. That’s why I’m so terrified.” I hadn’t meant to tell him I was terrified, but he did not seem to mark the comment.
“Where had she seen this happen?” he asked.
“She won’t tell me.”
“Did you want me to try asking her?”
I contemplated the chaplain trying to pry the Lady Maria’s secrets out of her with what he would consider tact. “No,” I said, “it might frighten her to know that two of us realized she was involved in some sort of magic gone astray. It would be just as well for only me, the wizard, to ask her about it.”
“Are you suggesting that she is practicing magic with evil intent?”
“No, but somebody must be doing so.”
“We’ll have to think about this systematically,” said Joachim. I noticed he was not meeting my eyes and wondered if he was starting to suspect me of evil intent. “Of those who stayed in the castle while we were gone, certainly the constable is the strongest individual. I have never thought of him as other than good.”
“Neither had I,” I said, “but he stays so much in the background that I realize I don’t know him very well.”
“But what possible motive could he have for putting the others to sleep?”
I was about to explain my theory of the person involved in black magic needing to get back in the cellar when there was a sudden knock at the door. “Come in!” called Joachim.
I must have jumped six inches when the constable himself opened it and addressed the chaplain. “Excuse me,” he said, “but there’s someone to see you.”
II
Joachim stood up and followed the constable out at once. I sat for a moment, looking at the backs of his books on his shelf, then, feeling it was not polite to stay here while he was gone, wandered out into the hallway.
I had just had an idea about the constable. He had the keys to every room in the castle, yet he had told me that only Dominic, who had duplicate keys for most rooms, had the key to the cellar. Did this mean that he really did have the cellar key, but had wanted to deny it, knowing all too well what was down there?
The challenge of trying to figure out what was happening in Yurt would have been highly enjoyable if I had not kept being overwhelmed with terror. I was glad to think that Joachim and I were probably friends again
, at least for the moment; he might have some good ideas. By the time he came back, I had a theory to account for the north tower.
The old wizard, I reasoned, liked to consider himself a wizard of light and air, but at some point he had dabbled in black magic. The old chaplain had suspected something of this, and so had the constable. The wizard had repented and gotten out with his soul intact, but when he retired he left all the paraphernalia of black magic behind him, locked up in his tower. The constable, however, who had somehow learned how to break magic locks, had gone in, taken everything down to his own den of evil in the cellar, and swept out the tower room to leave no traces.
This was quite an appealing theory, other than the gaps of where the constable might have learned how to break locks and what, exactly, the “paraphernalia of black magic” might be. Having tried to avoid such things, I actually had no idea, except perhaps some books of evil spells.
Joachim came swiftly back up the hallway and went into his room without speaking to me. But since he left the door open, I went in too after a minute. He had his saddlebag on the bed and was tossing a few things into it.
He looked up at me. “There’s a sick boy in the village. They want me to pray for him.”
I did not answer, feeling that “How nice,” the all-purpose comment, was highly inappropriate.
“Fortunately, I don’t think he’s very sick, and the doctor is already with him.” He threw his Bible in on top and strapped up the bag. “It’s the brother of the little girl who was bitten by the viper.”
“Dear God,” I startled myself by saying.
“If I were the father, I wouldn’t send for me,” said Joachim with what would have been grim humor in anyone else. “But he did.” He stood up, pulled on his jacket, and swung the saddlebag over his shoulder. I followed him as he strode down through the castle to the courtyard. The same man in brown that I had seen before was waiting on his horse. In a moment, the chaplain was mounted and the two rode away together.
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