Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (13 page)

“You know,” said Dominic, leaning back as though comfortably relaxed, “I feel as though I’ve been blind al these years, not to realize before how lovely you are.

Al other conversation at both tables had stopped. In both the chambers of knights and ladies and in the kitchens, I knew, there would later be extended speculation and discussion of what Dominic could be doing. But now everyone was too interested to see what he might say next—and how she would respond.

She gave a quick glance down the table, though I could not tel u she were looking toward Nimrod or me. “That’s very dear of you to say, Dominic,” she said, “but at our age, we scarcely need detain ourselves with these adolescent cooings, do we?”

Dominic took his hand back and frowned. The duchess, her head cocked, smiled sweetly at him. I knew she was teasing him, as apparently aid Nimrod, but Dominic was stm working it out. Given a choice between interpreting her words as a rejection or as a suggestion that he should speed up his courtship of her—which was indeed proceeding much too slowly for a couple past their first youth—he fel into silence. His silence became embarrassing when no one else at the table spoke, either.

“Did Daimbert tel you we visited the old wizard of Yurt today?” asked Evrard abruptly.

He was too far down the table for me to lack. I

tried speaking to him directly, mind to mind, but he had his thoughts wel shielded.

It took the rest of the table a second to remember that I was named Daimbert, but then several seized on the conversational topic because, fascinating as the interchange between Dominic and Diana had been, it had also Become very awkward.

“We haven’t seen the old wizard since Christmas, I think,” said one of the knights. “Is he stil wel?” The servants’ table had given up any pretense of not listening to the head table.

I tried glaring at Evrard, but he was not looking in my direction. Turning him into a frog would certainly divert the conversation, but that seemed a little too drastic.

I did not, I told Evrards unresponsive mind, want the royal court to hear how the old wizard was losing control at least of his housekeeping, probably of his magic, and perhaps of his mind. I certainly did not want to cast them into panic at the thought of an undead creature stalking the night. I’d calmed down enough to decide I should be able to handle the thing if, by chance, it did get loose, but a terrorized population could be very hard to deal with.

But Evrard, who perhaps could hear my silent shouts after al, initialy fixed on a different aspect of our visit. “He’s got some spectacular magic effects,” he said. “Did you know that he has the most beautiful lady in the world sitting by the bridge into his valey?”

Most of the court had seen the ilusory lady and her unicorn at some point. “Better than what they have at your school, Wizard?” the same knight askea.

“A lot better,’ said Evrard. Zahlfast would not have been pleased to hear a recent graduate running down the school so casualy. “And He’s working on something new, too.” No, stop, you idiot! “He wouldn’t let us have a real look at it because he’s stil hammering out the details, but this one’s as frightening as his Lady is beautiful.”

“He never used to create frightening ilusions,” one of the ladies said thoughtfuly. “Sometimes they’d be amusing and sometimes dramatic, but mostly they’d be beautiful and even moving.”

“It’s our present Royal Wizard who creates frightening ilusions!” said someone else and they al laughed, remembering how everyone—except of course themselves—had been thrown into a blind panic the first time I had made an enormous ilusory dragon in the hal. Dominic glowered down the table without joining in the laughter; it was not one of his own better memories.

I relaxed a little, though stil keeping my eyes on Evrard’s face. He knew as wel as I that whatever the old wizard had in his cottage was no ilusion, but he seemed content to let the others think it was.

“Wefl, if old Daimbert’s frightened you in the past,” said Evrard, “he certainly learned his lesson today. You should have seen him run!”

“You ran first,” I said, coldly and levely, then realized from the looks I was getting that Evrard had succeeded even better than he might have intended in covering up an awkward silence. Speculation about why Dominic should suddenly start courting the duchess was one thing, but an open quarrel between two wizards was an even more titilating lunchtime entertainment for the court.

But Evrard answered good-naturedly. “Of course I did,” he agreed with a laugh. “And I’m afraid I gave a very undignified shriek, too.” I would have caled it a squeak rather than a shriek, but I let this pass. I smiled for the onlookers. Come to think of it, we had left in a very undignified hurry for two supposedly qualified wizards.

“That’s the problem with being a new graduate,” said Evrard, giving his charming smile. “When they hand you the diploma, you feel you know everything but, in just a few days, you’re off at a new post and realize you don’t know anything at al, compared to more experienced wizards.’

The duchess, now giving Dominic no attention at al, leaned her elbows on the table and looked at her wizard in approval.

General conversation started again as the servants started gathering up the empty platters and bringing out the clean plates for dessert. ‘So the old wizard is starting work on a new and terrifying project,” said Nimrod in a low voice next to my ear.

I jumped, having almost forgotten him.

“My guess is that two young wizards with the latest training wouldn’t have been so frightened of something tnat was only an ilusion,” Nimrod added. He waited a moment for an answer but, when I said nothing, he took my silence for confirmation and continued. “Horned rabbits are bad enough, but I gather he’s made something else. How big is it? Does it move like a man?” I stared at him. “Have you seen anything like this before?”

He did not answer for a moment, as dessert was now being served. It was fresh raspberry pudding. I caught a pleased look from Gwen at the servants’ table—she knew it was my favorite and had doubtless made it herself—and decided I had better not push it away untasted, my initial reaction. I plunged in my spoon determinedly and looked at Nimrod.

“Some years ago,” he said, stil in that voice just low enough that no one else could hear, but not so low that we might be thought to be whispering secrets, “in the mountains over toward the eastern kingdoms, a renegade wizard made a whole horde of soldiers out of hair and bones.”

“And what happened?” I breathed.

“Some other wizards stopped him—ones from your school, as I recal.” He ate half his pudding with apparent enjoyment. “I helped track down the horde,” he added as though there had been no pause.

I considered his use of the term “renegade,” which I was afraid might wel be applicable to my predecessor at this point. Nimrod could have chosen the word even if he nad never helped the school, but it was a term with a specific meaning among wizards. It meant someone whose magic had gone dangerously out of control because he had deliberately rejected the ethical principles of wizardry. There was clearly more to this huntsman than I’d first thought and that could be useful.

“Don’t leave the kingdom,” I said. “I may need you.” I attacked my own pudding, relieved to think that wizards from the school might have dealt with something like this before, even though those creatures of hair and bone had doubtless been made by something closer to the spel with which Evrard had made his rabbits than whatever “improved” spel my predecessor had used. I felt much more cheerful, especialy since the pudding realy was delicious.

As the meal finished and everyone rose from the table, the chaplain touched me on the elbow. “Could you come to my room for a few minutes?” As I folowed him upstairs, I thought that during the last two years I had mostly discussed issues both weighty and trivial with Joachim. But only a few days of Evrard’s company haa reminded me that a priest and a wizard wil never have much in common. Wizards may argue violently, but at least they agree on the fundamental issues. The chaplain, I fearedT would have no interest in what I had glimpsed through the cottage door once he was reassured that the old wizard’s spels had not put his soul in peril.

V

Joachim sat down on a hard chair across from me and looked at me thoughtfuly. His eyes were so dark and deep-set that they merged with the shadows of the room.

“I gather from what your friend said that the old wizara has progressed beyond horned rabbits and is now making something far more serious,” he said. He paused briefly, but when I did not reply, he continued as though in answer to my unspoken question, “I doubt two wizards would have been frightened by mere ilusion.” I shook my head ruefuly. “Nimrod said almost exactly the same thing. I’d hoped it wasn’t that obvious.”

“I think the rest of the court remembers your predecessor primarily for his ilusions, and they’re nappy to believe that whatever frightening thing he’s working on now is no more real than lis winged horses at Christmas dinner.”

“But if you and Nimrod saw through Evrard’s dissembling at once, it may not take some of the others much longer. Even Dominic’s not nearly as thick as he sometimes seems. By the way, the duchess seems to want to keep this secret, but it turns out she had asked Evrard to make her the horned rabbits.”

“You stil haven’t told me what frightened you,” the chaplain replied, uninterested in the duchess and in rabbits.

“Two things,” I said slowly. “First was the creature that both Evrard and I glimpsed through the old wizard’s cottage door. It was six feet tal and had human eyes. It moved, but it wasn’t alive. It moved by magic,” I added hastily as Joachim started to speak. “There was nothing supernatural about it. The old wizard may be acting very strangely, but he’s not become evil.”

“Surely you know,” said Joachim quietly, “that falen man is always capable of doing evil on his own, without invoking the supernatural powers of darkness. Tel me what else frightened you.

“This is something Evrard doesn’t know about.” I paused. The castle seemed nearly silent. Elsewhere, people were doubtless laughing and talking, but their voices did not cany to us. “I touched the old wizard’s mind, very briefly. It’s got a bend or a twist or, at any rate, something I’ve never seen. I hadn’t tried before today communicating with him mind to mind, so I don’t know whether he’s always been like this, or if this is related to whatever mental breakdown he may be experiencing.”

“Could it be a manifestation of an evil wil?” asked the chaplain, his dark eyes burning.

“I just don’t know,” I said, thinking irritably that priests always seemed to want to turn magical problems into part of the struggle between good and evil.

Joachim said nothing more for a moment. “Something six feet tal with human eyes,” he repeated at last. “If it’s not alive or was never alive, it won’t have a soul.” That might reassure him somewhat, but I didn’t find it much help.

“The old wizard does seem to have it very wel locked up,” I said. “Certainly there’s a danger that it could turn on him but, at the moment, I’m hesitant to do anything that might distract him from what appears to be an excelent binding spel.”

We were both silent for a moment. “But I stil don’t understand why he would do it, Joachim,” I said then. “He’s retired, highly respected. He has nothing more to prove. I know he’s been acting rather peculiarly, but why should he want to make a monster?”

“Pride,” said Joachim as though it explained it al. “Jealousy.”

“Jealousy? Of whom? He’s never had anything but scorn for my abilities and he thinks even less of Evrard.”

“Isn’t that a little strong?” asked Joachim with a slow smile. “I thought he’d been happy to teach you herbal magic.”

“He’s always been quick to point out my failings. I think he was only wiling to teach me a little because he felt my school training had been so inadequate.”

“I stil think he is jealous of you,” said Joachim, not

smiling any longer. “At first he was jealous of your youth, your ability to learn rapidly, the fact that you were Royal Wizard, a position in which he no longer felt competent. And then the one problem he couldn’t solve, the one that made him decide to resign so abruptly, you came in with your own courage and wizardry and solved it.” I shivered. “With your help,” I said. That experience was something else I didn’t like to think about.

“And now there are not just one, but two, young wizards here in Yurt. He needs to do something to demonstrate, both to you and to himself, the superiority of his magic. Ana that’s where he has been captured by the sin of pride.”

Joachim, I thought, could bring any conversation back to sin.

“I know wizards have spels to give them long life,” he said with a quick look in my direction. “But even a long life may not give a man the opportunity he needs to come to terms with his own mortality.”

“But what does this have to do with pride?” I asked when Joachim paused.

“Since you’re a wizard, too,” he said after a moment, ‘I don’t want to say anything that would sound like an accusation against you. But I think it must be even harder when one is used to wielding enormous power al one’s life to realize that, at the end, one has no more power over one’s life than does a newborn baby.”

I was probably supposed to be gratified to hear that wizards could wield enormous power.

“Although one cannot live forever,” Joachim went on, “someone may try to create something that wil live on beyond one’s short span. In one form, this desire for creation is God’s power reflected in His creatures, the impetus to produce and cherish children, the basis for philosophy and art—even wizardry. But carried too far it becomes pride, the desire to become God’s equal. In trying to duplicate God’s act of creation, your predecessor endangered his soul.

“When facing his own death, when facing a young wizard with surprisingly good abilities, he needed to demonstrate that his powers of creation had not faltered. And he went beyond the limits ordained for mortal men because he tried to make a new living creature, to imitate God Himself.”

“You’ve got al the answers,” I said grumpily.