Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 (2 page)

“Have you heard from Evrard?” he asked without preamble.

“Evrard?” I said in surprise. “I haven’t talked to him in, what would it be, a year now. He was leaving on a trip.”

“Wel,” said Zahlfast, “he hasn’t been in touch with the wizards’ school since he left, so I’d hoped you might know where he was.” Now that I thought about it, it was somewhat strange that I hadn’t heard from Evrard in so long. Nearly eight years ago, he had briefly served as wizard to the duchess of Yurt and, although he had soon returned to the City, we had always stayed in at least intermittent contact. “I would have thought he’d be back months ago,” I said

“So would I,” said Zahlfast. “A wizard can normaly take care of himself, but on a long trip to distant lands anything can happen.” I had always been closer to Zahlfast than to any of my other former teachers at the wizards’ school, in spite of al that embarrassment with the frogs in his transformations practical exam. If he was worried, it was with good reason.

“Evrard told us before he left that he’d try to keep in touch with Yurt. He’s been serving as wizard for, who is it, your king’s cousin?”

“My queen’s uncle,” I corrected. “Sir Hugo.” I paused then, trying to remember if the City nobleman in whose elegant household Evrard had been employed for the last few years was indeed her uncle or, perhaps, a cousin once removed.

But Zahlfast did not give me time to try to work out the connection. “Wel, your queens uncle’s wife—” He gave up and started over. “The lady whom Evrard served has just contacted us. She said that her husband, with a smal retinue that included his wizard, have now been gone long enough that she’s become very worried. He sent her messages fairly frequently when they first left, but for some months now she’s heard nothing. And when she finaly got a message from the East today, it wasn’t from him but from the governor’s office in Xantium. They said he’d signed in with them when he came through on his way east, but he’s never gotten back.”

I knew what he was about to say and, thus, why Zahlfast was irritated as wel as worried. Everyone in the City knew that the school trained its wizards to serve mankind, and many people therefore felt that any favor they asked was a fair request

“She asked us if we could find her husband. The governor’s office in Xantium had made it clear that they considered their duty done once they notified her he was missing, so she immediately thought of the school. Of course I told her we couldn’t search for a person hundreds or even thousands of miles away, past al the western kingdoms and even the eastern kingdoms. The school doesn’t even maintain contact with the wizards and mages east of the mountains. But we are worried about Evrard.”

I was touched. Evrard had never been a particularly good wizard—not even as good as me, a comparison from which most wizards would have flinched—but it was nice to see that the school was concerned about al its graduates.

“So I’d hoped you might have heard something, that they were fine but had decided to stay in a warmer climate until winter was over or something of the sort,” said Zahlfast. “But if you haven’t heard—and I think you’re the only person outside the household to whom any of them might have written—we may have to start trying to trace their movements from the Holy City, the last place from which they sent a message home.” He snorted. “School-trained wizards usualy stay in the western kingdoms, and I certainly would have hoped any wizard had enough sense not to go on a pilgrimage.” I had forgotten that until he mentioned it. It wasn’t just an ordinary trip on which the queen’s uncle had gone. It had been a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

“A wizard has to go along wherever his employer needs him,” I said.

“I know, I know,” said Zahlfast. “Of course he had to go, but I stil don’t like it. Wel, if by some chance you do get a message from Evrard, let us know immediately.” And he rang off.

I stood by the silent phone for several minutes, tapping my fingers slowly. If Zahlfast had thought it worth caling me, he must be more concerned than he had wanted to suggest. I wondered if there was something specific he hoped I would do, and then began thinking that, regardless of the school’s plans, I should initiate my own search. Neither Evrard nor I had ever had much respect for each other’s magic, but I was stil better friends with him than with any other wizard of my generation.

I could see him before me in my minds eye. He had fox-colored hair, belied by guileless blue eyes and a large number of freckles, an excelent sense of humor, and a truly charming smile, especialy when he had just gotten a spel wrong. I had the impression that the queen’s uncle was very pleased to have him. I did hope he wasn’t dead.

The phone abruptly rang and I jumped. The constable put his head around the corner, but I had already snatched up the receiver.

But it was not Zahlfast. Instead, it was a servant in livery I did not recognize, asking for the queen.

I found her in the great hal with the king, told her she had a cal, and sat down to wonder what could have happened to Evrard and his employer. They could have been knifed for their purses or been left alive but had everything stolen so that they had no way to pay for then-passage home. They could have been overtaken by an avalanche while crossing the high mountain passes or slipped from an icy track into a cleft hundreds of feet below. They could have been shipwrecked and drowned. They could have been kiled by a lion in the desert. They could have died of thirst and heat while wandering lost. Or they could have been captured by anyone ranging from a bandit, greedy for ransom, to a bizarre magical creature.

By the time one reached the Holy Land, one was far beyond the western kingdoms, where generations of wizards had channeled magic into reasonably orderly and predictable pathways. Since magic is a natural force, part of the same forces that had shaped the earth, it should work wherever one was, but away from the western kingdoms it might be hard to control or might be channeled in unexpected ways.

Pilgrims at the holy sites should probably be safe from dragons and nixies, but those sites were surrounded by cities, deserts, and seas unlike anything in the west. I wasn’t sure I trusted Evrard to react wel to unexpected new spels or magical creatures.

The queen came back into the hal. The smile that normaly hovered on the edge of her lips was, surprisingly, not there.

She was stil worth looking at. With the emerald eyes she had passed on to Prince Paul and her midnight hair, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Even though she was only half the age of King Haimeric, she was so obviously in love with her husband that my intermittent dreams, that she would decide to love me too, had never progressed beyond dreams.

She sat down by the king. “That was my aunt in the City,” she said. “She’s worried about my uncle.”

I sat up straighter, abruptly paying attention.

“It’s been nearly a year since he left on pilgrimage, and months since she’s heard anything from him. She’s frightened and she wanted someone to reassure her that he must realy be al right. She even said that their wizard told her before they left to get in contact with us if she hadn’t heard anything for a while. I’m afraid I couldn’t give her much reassurance. She said she’d already talked to the wizards at the school about searching for her husband, but they said they couldn’t help.”

I was watching the queen, not the king. Therefore I was startled when, after a brief pause, he suddenly spoke with decision.

“If he’s disappeared and no one has heard from him, then the only solution is for someone to go after him. I myself shal go.” The queen took a short, sharp breath, but she did not raise the objections which I myself had to bite back.

“I told you earlier this winter about the blue rose,” the king continued. “According to the rumors—and it was even mentioned in one of my rose catalogs—the rose has been successfuly grown by an emir south of the Holy Land. I can try to find your uncle, try to find the rose, and make a pilgrimage myself. I’ve always wanted to go on a quest.” They had forgotten al about me. The shadows of a winter afternoon darkened the great hal, but they did not bother to turn on the lights. The fire on the great hearth flickered yelow, but its light reached only a short way into the room. I sat in semidarkness, feeling I should not listen to their conversation but shy to remind them of my presence by standing up and leaving.

“I’m afraid it’s no use trying to talk you into letting me come with you,” said the queen. It was not quite a question.

“No use at al, my dear. If I don’t come back, you’l need to be here to act as regent, to make sure Paul grows up to be the excelent king we know he wil be.” I’l miss you. I don’t like to hear you talk about not coming back.”

“And I shal miss you.” He chuckled quietly. “You visit your parents every summer, so I know what it’s like to be left behind. But unless I’m dead, you know I’l be back.”

“I know, but ...”

“And I wouldn’t go if it were only a quest for the blue rose. If your uncle is captured or lost, I may be the only one who can save him. Who else, after al, is there for your aunt to ask?” The queen caught her breath in what just escaped being a sob. But her voice was steady. “You’re right, as always. If even the wizards can’t help her, we’re her best chance to find him.”

“Good,” said the king. “I wouldn’t have gone if you could not have borne it. But I shal tel the court this evening that I’m going.”

“I shal miss you, Haimeric,” the queen said again. She slipped out of her own chair and slid in next to the king on the throne. “I know, I realy know, that you’l be safe and wil come back. But people are changed by travel—they gain new perspectives, new ideas. I don’t want to be left behind when you think new thoughts. I love you just as you are.” There was no chance now that either one would notice me. I rose and tiptoed quietly away.

Ill

Before the king could tel the court that evening that he was going on a quest, we heard a loud clatter of horses’ hooves in the courtyard. The constable jumped up from the supper table and hurried out to see who could be arriving at this hour. When he returned a few minutes later, it was with the duchess and her tal husband.

I should have known. Duchess Diana had a way of turning up unexpectedly. We hadn’t seen her in months; she had in fact not even been in the kingdom over Christmas, being instead with her husband in his principality two hundred miles away. I had the odd feeling that she had somehow known the king was about to announce his quest.

The duchess and Prince Ascelin puled off their travel cloaks by the fire and stamped the snow from their boots. After they had bowed formaly to the king and queen, the constable seated them at the main table; the rest of us moved our chairs to make them room, and the cook hurried in with extra plates.

King Haimeric seemed to have reached the same conclusion that I had, that their arrival was connected with his quest, but to him it seemed perfectly natural. “I’m glad you two are here,” he said. “After you’ve had your supper, I’m going to make an announcement.”

But Duchess Diana and Prince Ascelin did not seem immediately interested in the king’s announcement. They ate heartily, asked what had happened recently in the kingdom of Yurt, and told us stories of their stay in Ascelin’s principality.

It was impossible not to like the duchess. She was some ten years older than her cousin the queen, which made her five years older than me. She had probably the quickest mind in the kingdom and she enjoyed a good laugh at pretension and foly even better than I did.

“The twins are fine,” she said in response to a question. The weather was so bad today we left them in my castle when we decided to ride up to see you. They’re growing so fast they may even catch up with you, Paul!” to the royal heir.

The king took no part in the conversation—nor did I. I watched him surreptitiously as I finished dessert without tasting it. He looked both excited and oddly contented. The queen, on the other hand, sparkled with wit, keeping the conversation going constantly, pressing the duchess for details on everything from the harvest carnival in Ascelin’s principality to what Father Noel had brought the twins for Christmas. But I thought I saw a deep pain at the back of her emerald eyes and wondered if the king saw it, too.

At last the servants began clearing the tables, and the king gathered the knights and ladies around him before the great hearth. The members of the court, who had no idea what the king would announce, looked puzzled as he had them bring up chairs. I considered creating some magical ilusions to help set the mood, perhaps palm trees by an azure sea, but decided to let King Haimeric make the announcement in his own way.

The fire snapped and flared orange. A king could not go off to face unknown dangers without his Royal Wizard, and if he did not realize it then I certainly did. He would have to take some knights with him, too, of course. I glanced at their faces, wondering which ones. Joachim, the Royal Chaplain, cocked a questioning eyebrow at me, but I just shook my head.

“As I said,” said the king when he had everyone’s attention, “I want to tel you al something. I’ve mentioned to several of you at different times that I would like to go on a quest before I the. And now something has happened that indeed makes such a quest imperative. The queen’s uncle, Sir Hugo, who left on pilgrimage a year ago, has disappeared, and with him his wizard and two knights.” The court had not heard this. There was a murmur of concern and surprise.

“My quest, then,” the king continued, “wil be to find him if he is alive, to avenge him if he has been kiled, to rescue him if he is in danger, and if possible to bring him home.” Again there was a surprised murmur. “How are you going to find him?” asked the queens aunt, the Lady Maria.

“The only thing to do,” said the king, “is to folow the route he took, through the western kingdoms, through the eastern kingdoms, to the Holy Land He last sent a message to his wife from the pilgrimage sites.”

Most of the court were stil trying to assimilate the news that their king, who rarely left Yurt, was actualy planning a long journey. But two people reacted at once.