A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 (3 page)

"But one meets them occasional y," I continued airily, "and if one does one had better know exactly what to say and how to say it. Otherwise, as you know yourself, one's immortal soul is in danger."

"But why practice magic at al ?" he cried, his black eyes burning. "You put your souls in danger, and for what? Your predecessor used to entertain us with il usions during dessert, but that's the only magic I ever saw him do."

Il usions! Clearly I was fal ing down already. It hadn't even occurred to me to produce special entertainment at dinner; I had enjoyed the brass quartet and the food too much to think anything else was needed.

"There's lots of magic besides il usions," I said. "You saw the magic lock I have on my door."

"My door locks with a key. It works just as wel ."

He had emptied his wine glass and was spinning it in his fingers. I said two quick words in the Hidden Language and the glass spun away from him, rose majestical y, and slid across the air to my own hand. I refil ed it and sent it sliding back without spil ing a drop.

He had to smile at that. "Very deft," he said. "But you could also have gotten up."

"But wizards have known about magic since the beginning of human history," I protested, feeling that I was not the person who should be having this discussion. I was also rapidly running low on the spel s that I knew always worked. "You can't turn away from knowledge." He opened his mouth to speak, and I knew he was going to say something about Eden and the Tree of Knowledge. One thing they taught these priests in seminary was how to have quick answers to everything. "And magic works!"

"Every single time? You've never had a spel that didn't work perfectly?"

Maybe they taught them to read minds too at seminary. "Wel , maybe just once, or twice, or a few times. . ." But I realized that, if I was going to have him for a friend, I was going to have to be honest. "Don't tel anyone else, but a lot of the time things don't work out exactly as I expected. But that's not a problem with magic. That's a problem with
me.
If you do it right, magic always works."

"You're implying religion doesn't?"

"You know it doesn't!" I protested. "Lots of people pray to the saints al the time and never get anywhere, whereas if they consulted a competent wizard they'd always get results."

"The saints don't listen to formulae. The saints listen to pure and contrite hearts. You spoke at dinner of a voyage you thought you were not yet worthy to take. Doesn't even magic make absolute demands on your mind and your soul?"

I felt I was being backed into a corner instead of sitting comfortably in my own study in my own kingdom, with the stars coming out through the window. "So what would you do if you met a demon and you didn't know how to speak to him? Have you ever had to do an exorcism?" I paused briefly before continuing, taking his silence as a negative answer. "You can't very wel practice and study ahead of time to make sure you have a pure and contrite heart when the time comes. Suppose you meet a demon and you've had an impure thought a few minutes ago and, never having studied the
Diplomatica,
don't know the words to say to keep the demon from being annoyed?"

"We have the liturgy and the ritual of exorcism."

"See?" I said triumphantly. "You have to learn magic words too, even if you don't cal them that."

He changed the topic abruptly away from demons. I was just as glad. I didn't like talking about demons with it now ful dark, even though one of my predecessor's excel ent magic globes was shedding a soft light in the room--I hoped the chaplain didn't consider
that
an il usion.

"You say that magic always works," he said. "But they must have taught you at the very beginning of your studies that there are only limited areas in which magic works at al ." For someone who claimed to have no knowledge of or interest in magic, he seemed to be able to guess remarkably wel . "Since magic is part of the earth's natural forces, it can modify them but never alter them irrevocably."

I nodded rueful y. "The cycle of birth and death, sickness and health. We can lengthen life, but not indefinitely. We can't cause someone to be born, and we can't bring them back when they're dead."

He smiled for the third time that evening. "For twinkling lights and fairy gold, see a wizard. For a miracle, see a priest." That must be something else they had taught them at seminary, a handy phrase to confound wizards.

"Would you like more wine?" I stood up this time to get his glass.

IV

Bel s were ringing out in the courtyard. Snuggled down in my pil ows, I opened one eye. Early morning light was coming in the window, too early, I decided, to make it worth thinking about yet. I closed the eye again.

My door handle rattled, then the door swung open. I wished again for a good curse to use, this time against myself. I remembered now forgetting to lock the door when I let the chaplain out, wel past midnight. I sat up straight, both eyes wide open.

I was, however, somewhat mol ified when I saw it was the pretty servant girl who had given me a saucy look at dinner the night before, and that she was carrying a steaming tray. "Good morning, sir. Are you ready for your tea and crul ers?"

I pul ed on my robe and tried to push my hair into line with one hand.

She set the tray on my table. "The crul ers are stil warm; I just finished making them."

I took a drink of scalding tea and a bite of crul er. They were just the way I liked them, with lots of cinnamon. "These are wonderful."

"Thank you, sir. As wel as bringing you your breakfast, the constable's wife said I should explain to you how to get to the chapel for service. You go back through the great hal --"

"Church service!" I cried. "That's why they're ringing the bel s. I'm going to be late."

"You have plenty of time. They always ring the bel s half an hour early, to give slack-a-beds time to get up and dressed."

"I forgot it was Sunday," I said somewhat sheepishly.

"We have service in the chapel
every
morning," she said primly. "Anyway, you go through the great hal , and at the far right-hand corner there's a door into a stairway. Go up to the third landing, and there's the chapel. You shouldn't get lost; just about everyone else should be going there too." But though she spoke formal y and correctly, as a servant should address even someone who was ful y dressed and combed, she gave me a wink as she left me to finish my breakfast and get dressed.

Twenty minutes later, dressed and reasonably tidy, though I was stil licking crumbs from my lips, I walked through the great hal and joined a large group of people going upstairs. The stairs were dark and badly lit--no magic globes here--so it was with surprise and pleasure that I emerged into a very tal chapel, whose wal s were made almost entirely of stained glass.

The eastern light il uminated the Bible stories and the saints, and blue and green shadows were cast across us.

The chaplain was already at the front. The white and black linen of his vestments was immaculate. He looked sober and shaved, not at al like someone stil feeling shaggy from being up half the night. And he had not even had the benefit of excel ent fresh-made crul ers; priests are not supposed to have breakfast before service.

The king was already seated in the first row, surrounded by his knights and ladies, but I sat down with the servants and attendants. They kindly passed me a copy of the hymnal and gave me no odd looks when I didn't know the tune and discovered that my ability to sight-read music was even worse than I remembered. Everyone else's singing, however, was lovely. As the service ended, I wondered why they had assumed that I would go, and if my predecessor had ever come to chapel.

The constable fel into step beside me as we filed out. He asked, "So how are you finding Yurt so far?"

"I like it very much. I'l have to see how wel I can do once I real y take up my duties; so far I've been a guest on vacation." This was to forestal any remarks about telephone systems.

We groped our way down the stairs, our eyes almost blind after the bril iance of the chapel's colored light. He chuckled and said over his shoulder, "Maybe you could get some lights put in here. Your predecessor made our lights for the great hal , but he never wanted anything to do with the chapel. The roof here is too low to hang regular lamps, so we've always had to stumble as best we could."

Magic lights were something I was fairly sure I could make, though it might be tricky making them bright enough while also making them smal enough to fit in the restricted space. "I'l try to manage something in the next few days," I said cheerful y.

We emerged at the bottom of the stairs. "I must say," said the constable in a low voice, "that I was delighted to see you inviting the chaplain to your chambers last night." He glanced about quickly to make sure we were not overheard. "I hadn't wanted to say anything at first, but there had been a certain--
tension
between him and your predecessor, and when we hired a new wizard one of the things I had been hoping was that that might be resolved. Your predecessor real y was an excel ent wizard, and I wouldn't want to be thought to speak il of him, but in a smal kingdom one doesn't need these petty enmities. That's why I knew you wouldn't mind being brought breakfast in plenty of time to get to service."

"Of course not," I said noncommittal y. I real y was going to have to meet the old wizard.

The constable started to turn away. "Oh, just one thing," I said, and he turned back at once. "Where do you get the Sunday paper around here?"

He looked surprised. "We don't get the Sunday paper. We don't get papers at al in Yurt."

"But your ad for a wizard was in the Sunday paper."

"Yes, that. The queen had brought a copy back from her last trip to the City, so we had the address to which to write. Now, if you'l excuse me."

He walked briskly away. "Wel ," I said determinedly to myself, "if I'm not going to waste half the morning reading the color supplements, maybe I can see if there's anything in any of my books about telephones."

With my casements wide open and red and white climbing roses peeking in, I settled myself in the most comfortable chair in my study and put my feet up.
Thaumaturgy A to Z
had nothing to offer, but the first volume of
Ancient and Modern Necromancy,
the volume I had never looked at it because most of it was just a history of wizards and wizardry, gave a brief description of the discovery of telephones. "The person's voice actual y enters the flow of magic. The spel s attached to each telephone find the voice's way through magic's four dimensions, so that even a person without magic skil s can operate it. Al he has to do is to speak the name attached to the telephone instrument with which he wishes to communicate, and that instrument's bel wil ring, summoning someone to answer."

Wel , I had vaguely known that already. The part this historical snippet seemed to pass over was
how
one created spel s and attached them to the telephone, to localize the instrument in both space and time, and then set up the permanent channels through the flow of magic for the voice to travel. I closed the book and would have frowned if the summer breeze hadn't been so soft on my cheek.

Clearly I was going to have to try something different. The thought of going back to the City and stealing an instrument occurred to me briefly, but it would never work. The instrument would have to have al its spel s redone or it wouldn't function. The times I had seen a new telephone instal ed, it had always seemed to take several days and require several wizards--

usual y of the serious, pale-faced sort with whom I had not associated much at school. A kingdom didn't hire a new Royal Wizard and then pay enormous sums to import other wizards who might know more than he did about telephones.

I stood up and yawned. Maybe Yurt didn't need a complete telephone system. Maybe it would be possible just to work out a way to communicate with the City and with wherever the queen's parents lived. I stopped in mid-yawn and thought about this. It seemed to have possibilities.

I found a piece of string that had been used to tie up my luggage and strung it between my bedroom and study. I already knew how to communicate, without speaking, to another wizard, at least if he was next to me and wil ing to listen to the thoughts I sent him. Therefore it should be possible to attach a communications spel to a string. An object with a spel attached became a magic object, and anyone could operate it.

"It's like invisibility," I said to myself cheerful y. A ring of invisibility wil always work, even though invisibility is one of the harder spel s. For some reason, even though it is straightforward to make the empty air take on solidity in il usions, it is very hard to make solidity look empty. There is probably a good theoretical explanation, but I have never paid much attention to theory, preferring the practical.

I paused to see how wel I could make myself invisible. I had been working on the spel s intermittently for almost a year now. Concentrating hard, breaking off pieces of the flow of magic and control ing them with the Hidden Language, I watched my feet disappear, first the left one, then the right one. At this point, however, things stopped. My knees remained obstinately visible. I snapped my fingers in disgust and my feet came back. Just last week I had made it almost al the way up my thighs.

"But I'm not trying to make a ring of invisibility anyway," I told myself firmly. "I'm making a communications string." I put both hands on the string and concentrated on it, thinking of how one reaches out, slides just the corner of one's mind into the stream of magic while leaving most of it firmly anchored to one's body (one of the most dangerous moments for young wizards is discovering how to slip one's mind out without losing oneself forever). I alternated the spel s that seek another mind with attachment spel s, and suddenly the string stiffened and glowed pink.

I rushed out into the courtyard. Since it was Sunday, the servants were only doing necessary chores, and a number of them were now playing vol eybal while the others watched and cheered. I found my own saucy servant girl, flushed and laughing after having just been replaced at the net.