A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 (7 page)

My horse snorted and made for the grass. I pul ed her nose up and continued toward a little bridge. We passed a branch that had half-shielded my view of the bridge, and sitting on the far side was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

She had thick golden hair that made the Lady Maria's seem thin and lifeless, and it rol ed in rich waves down her back and ten feet out behind her. She was wearing a dress of bril iant sky blue, and when she lifted her head and looked toward me, her eyes were the same color. And most marvelous of al , an alabaster-white unicorn was kneeling beside her, with his muzzle in her lap.

I dropped the reins and approached slowly, not daring to take my eyes from her. She lowered her gaze again but did not speak. "Um, hel o," I said. Gently she lifted the unicorn's muzzle from her lap, rose to her feet, and began to walk away, her arm around the creature's neck. Her hair floated in a weightless cloud behind her.

"Wait," I told myself sharply, resisting the initial impulse to run after her. I put my hand over my eyes, said two magic words, and looked again. She was gone.

I recovered my horse and started forward again. As we crossed the bridge, I told the mare, "If that's a typical sample of his il usions, the old wizard must real y have impressed the castle over dessert." The mare seemed uninterested, but I took a deep breath and wondered how abjectly it would be appropriate to address the wizard.

The grassy val ey continued to fol ow the stream. Within a hundred yards it turned and descended a steep hil , where the water foamed white. I was easing the mare's steps down the hil side when I heard a twanging noise. The sound was repeated, and then again.

I looked forward. Flying across the width of the val ey in front of us, one after the other, was a series of golden arrows. I finished getting the mare off the hil , dropped the reins to let her graze, and walked a little closer. I probed them gently with my mind. Unlike the lady with the unicorn, these arrows were real.

No one was shooting them, however. They were being propel ed by magic. Our scrambling on the hil side must have triggered a magic trap.

I thought about this for several minutes, waiting to see if the supply of arrows would become exhausted. When the steady twanging of an invisible bow and the whirr of each arrow continued, I decided that the arrows must be circling around somehow and coming back. The mare grazed unconcernedly.

I careful y put in place what I hoped was a protective spel against arrows, a variation of the spel that had kept me dry in the rain but needing twice as much concentration. Leaving the mare behind, I went slowly forward, going down on my hands and knees to crawl under the flight of the arrows. Ten yards further down the val ey, I heard the twanging cease.

I stood up, brushing the grass off my velvet trousers, and looked back. The val ey was quiet and peaceful. For a moment I hesitated, wondering if I should go back for my mare, and then decided she would be fine where she was; she was unlikely to go retreat back up the steep hil , and if she came forward she would be fol owing me. If I went back, I was afraid I would set off the arrows again.

The val ey took another twist and suddenly widened into a clearing. On the far side, half tucked under the drooping branches of an enormous oak, was a smal green house, and sitting in front of the door was an old man with a white beard down to his knees.

I came three-quarters of the way across the clearing and then did the ful bow, ending with my head down and my arms widespread.

"Welcome, Wizard," said a rasping voice.

"Greetings, Master," I answered.

I surprised myself by cal ing him Master. At the wizards' school, the only wizard who had that title was the oldest wizard of al , the one in whose castle the school was held, who was reputed to have been in the City since the City was founded.

He accepted the title. "So you weren't taken in by the Lady and weren't frightened by my Arrows," he said. His voice was rough, as though he had not used it for weeks. "I know who you are. You're the new Royal Wizard of Yurt, and probably think you're pretty fancy."

I rose and came toward him. "I have come to seek the guidance of my predecessor."

"You aren't going to find much help from me if you're after what I think you are. I can tel from your clothes--and especial y that ostentatious belt buckle--that you fancy yourself to have authority over the powers of darkness." I guiltily turned off the glow of the moon and stars. "I may not have studied in the City, but I am a wizard of air and light."

I sat down at his feet, determined not to be insulted.

"Or is that pul over supposed to be a Father Noel costume?"

I was mortified. I had of course taken the tattered white fur off the col ar as soon as I bought the pul over and had hoped al suggestions of someone fat and jol y were long gone. But I was going to have to be polite to this crotchety old wizard who clearly knew ten times as much magic as I did. I took a deep breath. "I've greatly admired your magic lamps in the castle."

"Of course you have. I'l bet you couldn't make anything that nice."

"I made some very nice magic lamps for the chapel stair!" I said, stung into a reply.

"And the chaplain didn't tel you to mind your own business?" he said, apparently surprised.

"The chaplain and I are friends," I said stiffly, then wondered why I was defending him when one of the reasons I had come was to find out if my predecessor had ever thought the chaplain was turning toward evil.

"Young whippersnapper," pronounced the old wizard, which was probably his opinion of me as wel .

There was a pause while I tried to find something diplomatic to say. "Do they miss me up at the castle?" the old wizard said suddenly.

"They always speak wel of you," I said with my best effort at Christian tact. "They've told me many times how much they admired your work and your il usions. The Lady down in the val ey is certainly the finest example I've ever seen, even in the City."

I probably shouldn't have mentioned the City, because it made him snort. "Il usions!" he said. "Things were different when King Haimeric's grandfather was king. Then a Royal Wizard had real responsibilities. The harvest spel s were just the start of it."

"Harvest spel s!" I said in panic. I knew I didn't know anything that could be considered a harvest spel . In an urban setting, we learned urban spel s.

"And now they don't even want harvest spel s any more," continued the old wizard, paying no attention to me. "They say that hybrid seed is more effective. The closest I've come for years is the weather spel s when they're cutting the wheat."

This was a relief. Weather spel s I could probably manage. I had even gone to the lectures. I tried a different approach. "Have you ever taught anyone how to fly?"

"Fly? You mean someone who isn't a wizard? Who wants to learn magic
now
?"

"The king mentioned it," I said, but I was struck by the suggestion that someone else had apparently wanted to learn magic.

"Wel , he never mentioned it to
me.
And with good reason. He knew what I'd say. Haimeric's not half the man his grandfather was, or his father either. Never marrying al those years, and then marrying late. If he expected an heir, he's certainly disappointed. But I must say, I don't think he married in the hope of having a baby. I think he married because he was just besotted."

I tried to return the topic to the question of who in the castle, besides me, might know magic. "So some of the others had asked you to teach them magic?"

"Wel , Dominic and Maria did," he said shortly. After a somewhat long pause, he added, "Never got anywhere with it."

"Prince Dominic and the Lady Maria?" Somehow I would not have expected it.

"There was talk of them making a match four years ago," continued the old wizard, in a more pleasant tone. "Maria's the queen's aunt, you know."

I nodded, waiting for him to go on.

"When the king got married four years ago, the queen brought her old maiden aunt to live with her--probably thought she needed a change. And then Dominic's only a few years younger than she is. He's been heir presumptive for years; the king's younger brother, at least, had the sense to get married when
he
was young. But he's gone now too, and Dominic's not half the man his father was."

Apparently I had reached Yurt in a decadent time.

"But she was too flighty for someone that phlegmatic. If the queen was waiting for a match, I think she gave up waiting some time ago."

While these insights into the people in the castle were extremely interesting, I could not help but notice that he had again deftly turned the topic away from the question of to whom he had taught magic.

I I

While we had been talking, the bril iant blue of the sky was darkening. An abrupt clap of thunder, apparently coming from just behind the wizard's house, startled me so much that I jumped to my feet. "It looks like rain," said the old wizard complacently. "You'd better get your horse; it wil stay dry enough under the oak here. And don't worry about my Arrows!" he cal ed after me as I hurried back up the val ey. "You won't be shot this time."

It certainly wouldn't be hard for him to guess that I had been wondering if I could bring my mare safely past that shower of arrows. And I didn't think it could have been much harder for him to bring on a thunderstorm to demonstrate his power.

My mare had her head up, waiting for me. Chil little breezes flicked her mane, and there was a steady low rumbling from the sky. I led her by the bridle back down the val ey, past the place where the arrows had been shooting, and around the final twist to the clearing where the wizard's house stood under the sheltering branches of its oak. The first drops pattered on the leaves above us as I led the mare under the branches. The old wizard was no longer sitting in front of his house, but the green door was open.

I took off the saddle and bridle and rubbed the mare down. Being under the tree was like being under a tent. I could hear the drum of drops on the leaves, and the air became damp, but we were safe in a bubble made of branches. I finished with the horse, tapped at the door, and went into the house.

I had been expecting shelves of books; after al , every wizard I had ever known had books on his shelves, books piled on his desk, even books in heaps on the floor. But there were very few books in the old wizard's house.

Instead there were cones of light, gently swirling masses of stars, forms that changed from tree to man to beast and back to tree as one watched. I ignored them al assiduously and concentrated on the old wizard, who had just lit a fire in the smal fireplace. Bolts of lightning flashed outside the window, and thunder rumbled continuously. But inside al was peaceful.

"Come sit by my fire," said the old wizard in the friendliest tone he had used to me yet.

I sat down on the hearth, thankful for the warmth; the summer's day had grown cold. We sat in silence, except for the thunder, for several minutes while I tried to decide how to ask him what I had come to find out.

"We heard a lot about the old magic at the wizards' school," I began. I had considered saying that we had been taught to respect the old magic, but decided it would sound as though I were being condescending to someone seven times my age. "And I grew more and more convinced that there is magic that wizards al used to know that has never been put in our books."

"Wel , you're right," he said almost reluctantly, as though not wanting to admit that I was right about anything.

"And yet the old magic is the basis for al the new magic of the last hundred and fifty years," I continued. "The wizards who learned by experimentation and apprenticeship channeled the power of magic, made it possible for magic to be organized, to be written down in books, made it less wild, made it something that could actual y be taught in a classroom."

I had been going to go on from this brief history of modern wizardry--nearly everything I remembered from a whole course!--to explain that I needed his special and ancient magic talents to help me find out what was happening in Yurt, but he interrupted me.

"And look what's happened!" he cried in his rasping voice. "With al you young wizards and magic workers, the channels of magic have been worn so deeply in some areas that any fool can work a simple spel . You say you've made magic less wild, but al you've done is make easier for the wild magic of the north to come in!"

I was horrified. I would normal y never have thought that the wizardry that tamed magic also invited wild magic into the land of men, but in the old wizard's dimly-lit room it seemed most probable.

"Or didn't you ever think of that?" he said with a sneer. I decided no answer was best. "You and your books! You think you've made magic easier for the simple-minded who shouldn't be doing magic anyway, but by cutting deep ruts in the channels of human magic you've just made it easier for wild magic to come pouring in. How would you like to see a dragon in Yurt?"

I considered and rejected the possibility that there was a dragon in the castle cel ars already.

"And now you can't go anywhere without some fool claiming he or she knows magic."

"Does anyone in the castle know magic?" I said quickly, trying to get in at least one of the questions I had.

"Of course not," he said brusquely. "Unless you'd consider counting yourself!"

I wondered if his brusqueness was concealing a lie, but between his manner and the insult it was impossible to ask him again. Instead I tried to be conciliatory. "I was just wondering because a strange thing happened when I first arrived. I'd put a magic lock on the door to my chambers, and when I came back it was gone."

Unlike the chaplain, the old wizard would surely know how hard it is to break a properly-constituted magic lock. But he just snorted at me. "Did the spel s wrong, I reckon," he said. His insults scarcely even stung any more.

"But while you're speaking of locks," he added abruptly, "you haven't tried to get through the locked door of the north tower, have you?"