Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (9 page)

“Of course it would,” said Joachim, surprised there could be any question.

“I’m a little worried about him. The condition of his house is appaling. But he may just have been concentrating so hard on the spels to create great horned rabbits—if he made them after al—that he had lost track of everything else.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go talk to him?” Joachim asked with a long look from his deep-set eyes.

“No, no,” I said hastily. “I should have the spels worked out soon and then I’l visit him again. By the way,” I went on, “has the saint appeared to you again with any clearer indication of what he wants?”

“No, he hasn’t,” he said, looking somewhere beyond my head.

“And I presume you can’t summon a vision?”

“The bishop’s right,” said Joachim bleakly, standing up and opening my door. “I’d better pray for guidance.

I shook my head as the door closed, glad again I was not a priest. My own inclination would have been to leave the hermit and the toe in the Holy Grove with the apprentices, perhaps finding some way to get the entrepreneurs off the cliff top, but as nearly as I could tel Saint Eusebius had told three different sets of people three different things: He had told the hermit he wanted to stay where he was, the distant priests that he wanted to move to their church, and Joachim that he wanted to leave but not necessarily go there.

I shrugged and returned to the old ducal wizard’s rather racy personal account of how one might deal with a wood nymph, but it had no more practical information than I had already been able to glean. I leaned back, stretching my stiff shoulder muscles. So far, I had found nothing that might in any way apply to great horned rabbits, much less creatures with semi-human footprints, and I had only one volume to go.

If Joachim had been waiting with eagerness and trepidation for his message from the bishop, I had been waiting to hear from the duchess. Someone as good at hunting as she had always been ought to have been able to capture one of the horned rabbits by now—especialy if they were starting to multiply. And I would like a chance to talk more to Evrara, to find out if he knew any spels that might be useful. I wondered again, more uneasily, about Nimrod.

If I didn’t hear from them soon, I’d create a magical excuse and go back to that end of the kingdom. Perhaps I could make it rain moles.

It was late in the afternoon. Dinner would be served shortly. I closed my books and went into the courtyard and out across the drawbridge to get some fresh air. If the old ducal wizard’s last volume was not informative on strange magic creatures, I might have to swalow my pride and telephone the wizards’ school.

A light breeze blew around my ears. The sky above was scaled with high, faint clouds. I thought somewhat wryly that, for someone who had spent al his life in the great City before becoming Royal Wizard of Yurt, I had certainly learned quickly now to find reassurance and repose in nature.

As I looked down toward the woods at the bottom of the castle’s hil, a little group of horses and riders emerged. For two seconds I thought it might be the king and queen, back already, but then I realized it was the duchess.

She was accompanied by half a dozen mounted men, one of whom had bright red hair. Striding by her stirrup was a tal blond man in a green cloak. Nimrod appeared to have no trouble keeping up with the horses.

Evrard spotted me and waved. The riders kicked their horses for the last climb up the hil. “Wel, here we are!” Diana said cheerfuly, including both me and Nimrod in her smile.

I wasn’t sure what evil I expected from the tal huntsman, but so far he and the duchess seemed to be getting on very wel. She no longer appeared flustered as sne had when she first met him, but her usual confident self.

“Did you catch one?” I asked. “One of the great horned rabbits?”

“I finaly shot one this morning,” said Nimrod with a grin for the duchess. “I’ve never before had to hunt

something for three days before I caught it! Now we’l find out what it is, something from the land of wild magic or something supernatural. My lady Diana said that her wizard could analyze it, but I told her I wanted the best. Nothing would do but bringing it straight to the Royal Wizard of Yurt.”

Diana interrupted before I could respond to this implied slur on Evrard’s abilities. “I’m sorry you didn’t get my message on the pigeon that we were coming,” she said loudly. “A hawk must have gotten it!” But she puled me aside as the rest of her party, including Nimrod and Evrard, passed over the drawbridge and into the castle. “Actualy, I didn’t send you a message,” she said with a wink. “I didn’t want to give Dominic a chance to tel me to stay home. I don’t trust him to do a good job as regent without someone like me to keep an eye on him.

The constable, with Dominic behind him, came out to greet the duchess with reasonably wel-concealed surprise. She introduced Evrard and Nimrod and apologized for the loss or delay of the nonexistent carrier pigeon.

‘I had been about to ride over to visit you and the count,” said Dominic. “Have you made any progress?”

“Wel, Nimrod’s got a magic rabbit for your Royal Wizard to look at,” she said. For a second I wondered if she was irritated he had brought it here. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to bother yourself coming to my castle—I know you have so many responsibilities.”

Dominic frowned as though suspecting flippancy and not quite seeing it.

“Let me see that horned rabbit,” I said. Nimrod handed me his gamebag.

As I took the leather bag, I thought that it felt very strange, not at al the way a gamebag should feel. A chil touched me that was not caused by the late afternoon breeze. By feel alone, I would have guessed the bag held not a homed rabbit but sticks and bones.

what’s wrong?” asked Nimrod, catching my concern.

I had been about to take the bag into my chambers, but I now decided to open it here, in the middle of the courtyard. My apprehension became stronger as I slowly unbuckled it. “When did you put the rabbit in here?”

“Late this morning.”

I had the bag open now; a powerful smel emerged in a wave, the smel of decay. Without reaching inside, I held the bag upside down and shook it. Scraps of fur, bones with bits of rotten flesh stil clinging to them, and two long, straight horns fel out and clattered on the cobblestones.

Nimrod reached down and picked up a horn and a piece of bone. “These look like the bits and scraps someone might use if making some sort of artificial horned rabbit.”

“That’s my thought exactly,” I said grimly.

Dinner was lively that evening with the addition of the duchess’ party. Even Dominic, who kept looking thoughtfuly at Diana, seemed to be making an attempt to be witty and charming. I remembered vaguely that there had been a story that Dominic had once intended to marry the duchess, back before the king and queen even met, but nothing had ever come of it. The mere thought of the stolid royal nephew trying to woo the lively duchess made this outcome easy to understand.

Nimrod, with his neatly trimmed beard and cultured speech, appeared to make the transition easily from a rough outdoor life to a royal court. I would have expected him to sit at the servants’ table with the rest of the duchess’ huntsmen, but she took his arm, laughed, and put him next to her at the main table.

“Have you heard the story about the peacock?” Evrard asked the youth next to whom he was seated.

Hugo was a young cousin of the queen’s who was

doing some of his knighthood training at the royal castle. “No,” he said, puzzled.

“You should have,” replied Evrard with a grin. “It’s a beautiful tale!”

“Al right,” replied Hugo with a grin of his own. Other conversation at the table had stopped. “What did the ocean say to the ship?”

“Nothing. It only waved! Why are flowers considered lazy?’

“Because they spend al their time in beds! At which of his battles did King Chalcior say, ‘I die contented’?”

Evrard frowned. “King Chalcior? I remember him from history, but—Is this stil a joke?”

“His last one!” cried Hugo, and the whole table, even Dominic, was convulsed.

I was the only one who did not feel lively. After spending two days persuading myself that I would, very soon, find a spel in the old ducal wizard’s books that would give the semblance of life without supernatural aid, seeing the rotting rabbit’s bones had made me again fear that someone in the kingdom was practicing black magic.

“Wizard!” caled the duchess to Evrard over dessert. “How about entertaining us with a few ilusions?”

Evrard gave a start and shot me a second’s look of panic, then seemed to recover. He began muttering and moving his hands in the air, with far more flourishes than ilusions actualy required. In a moment, a fairly credible baby dragon appeared, about six inches long and colored bright blue. “There!” he said triumphantly.

He held it up for everyone to see and got a polite round of applause. It was not nearly as impressive an ilusion as the last ones I had done to entertain the court, shortly before the king left, but no one was so il-bred as to mention this. I hoped the duchess wasn’t going to demand too much of Evrard too fast; I had been at Yurt three months before doing ilusions before an audience. The baby dragon perched on Evrard’s shoulder until it dissolved into air.

After dinner, he came back to my chambers with me. I had a couch in my outer chamber that folded into a bed; Evrard had happily agreed to sleep there.

It had started to rain gently and the evening air was cool. I kindled a fire, lit the magic lamps, and we drew our chairs up by the hearth. I’m delighted to have another wizard here in Yurt,” I said, “because we’ve got a serious magical problem.”

Evrard looked at me attentively, then spoiled it by stifling a yawn.

“You and the duchess have been tracking the great horned rabbits for three days now,” I said. “Do you have any idea what they are or how they could have been made? I haven’t been able to find any indication of the supernatural about them, but those bones this afternoon didn’t have any magic left clinging to them at al.” Evrard shook his head and smiled—he realy did have a charming smile. “Not now, Daimbert! It s the end of a long day and I don’t need this on top of everything!” I apologized at once. “Of course. I’ve been looking forward so much to having you as a coleague that I’m afraid I’ve gotten over-eager.” I remindea myself that a newly graduated wizard, especialy one who had not been anywhere near first in his class, should not be pushed too much. I myself had not even bought al the books for my own second-year classes and stil had gaps both in my library and in my knowledge as a result. If I didn’t watch out, I would turn into a strict crank like my predecessor—though a much younger one.

In the morning, a steady rain was stil faling—good for the crops, I firmly reminded the city boy I used to be. Evrard went off somewhere, but I settled down to finish the last of the old ducal wizard’s books.

At first, it contained only the same mishmash of odd spels and herbal magic I had seen al along, but after several hours I found something else. I puled the magic lamp closer and squinted at the handwriting.

With growing excitement, I realized that the old ducal wizard had known—or thought he knew—a way to give dead flesh and bones motion and the semblance of life. It required no pacts with the devil, only a detailed knowledge of herbal magic and mastery of what looked like incredibly complicated spels.

Of course, spels which dated from before the advent of modern school magic were often more quirky and complicated than they needed to be—something that could also be said of some of my own spels.

I didn’t have any herbs or bones in my chambers, but I decided to improvise. I pushed the chairs back to leave a clear place on the flagstone floor and assembled a pilow, the poker from the fireplace, and several pencils together in a vaguely reptilian shape. Standing wel back, I read out the heavy sylables 01 the Hidden Language which should give my creature the semblance of life.

Not al the words in the book made any sense, some were ilegible, and I had to add new sections to the spel to compensate for the lack of herbs, but in ten minutes I thought I had it. I said the final words, slammed the book shut, and looked hopefuly toward my creature.

The pilow heaved itself up, tottered, and colapsed again. The poker clattered to the flagstones and roled away. I walked over slowly to see what I had made.

At first I thought there had been no change at al. The poker certainly looked no different. But then I realized that al my pencils had turned pink and, when I picked up the pilow, I discovered it had grown what seemed to be three primordial feet at one end. I

tickled them experimentaly but got no response, not even a twitch.

Oh, wel. I hadn’t realy expected it to work. I said the words that should have returned the pilow to itself, but the feet obstinately remained. I put it on Evrard’s bed and sat down again.

Even if I couldn’t work the spel—and I wasn’t at al sure the old ducal wizard had been able to, either—this was what I had hoped to find. But though I knew now that a wizard could have made the great homed rabbits with natural magic, I stil didn’t know which wizard might have done so.

But I was going to find out. No other wizard could practice magic under my nose like this with impunity.

I caught glimpses through my rain-streaked windows of figures hurrying across the courtyard and realized it must be noon. But I was not hungry. I opened the book again but was interrupted almost immediately by a knock.

The door swung open before I had a chance to speak and Dominic’s massive form stood blocking the doorway, dripping water on my floor. He closed his streaming umbrela. “I would like a word with you.”

“Of course,” I said in surprise and puled up a straight wooden chair for him, not sure it would support nis weight, but not wanting him soaking through the cushions on my bigger chairs. “Is it about the great homed rabbits?”

He glowered at me, puled off his jacket, and sat down. The chair creaked but held. “It’s about that huntsman with the duchess.”