Below the Wizards' Tower (The Royal Wizard of Yurt Book 8) (16 page)

Voima

Count Scar
(with Robert A. Bouchard)

And, for something completely different,
Contested Christmas
[essay]

Keep reading for a special sneak
preview of
A Bad Spell in Yurt,
and learn how Daimbert first
became Royal Wizard of Yurt.

A BAD SPELL IN YURT

by
C. Dale Brittain

Part One - Yurt

I was not a very good
wizard.
 
But it was not a very big
kingdom.
 
I assumed I was the only
person to answer their ad, for in a short time I had a letter back from the king's
constable, saying the job was mine if I still wanted it, and that I should
report to take up the post of Royal Wizard in six weeks.

It took most of the six weeks to
grow in my beard, and then I dyed it grey to make myself look older.
 
Two days before leaving for my kingdom,
I went down to the emporium to buy a suitable wardrobe.

Of course at the emporium they
knew all about us young wizards from the wizards' school.
 
They looked at us dubiously, took our
money into the next room to make sure it stayed money even when we weren't
there, and tended to count the items on the display racks in a rather
conspicuous way.
 
But I knew the
manager of the clothing department—he'd even helped me once pick out a
Christmas present for my grandmother, which I think endeared me to him as much
as to her.

He was on the phone when I came
in.
 
"What do you mean, you
won't take it back?
 
But our buyer
never ordered it!"
 
While
waiting for him, I picked out some black velvet trousers, just the thing, I
thought, to give me a wizardly flair.

The manager slammed down the
phone.
 
"So what am I supposed
to do with this?" he demanded of no one in particular.
 
"This" was a shapeless red
velvet pullover, with some rather tattered white fur at the neck.
 
It might have been intended to be part
of a Father Noel costume.

I was entranced.
 
"I'll take it!"

"Are you sure?
 
But what will you do with it?"

"I'm going to be a Royal
Wizard.
 
It will help me strike the
right note of authority and mystery."

"Speaking of mystery,
what's all the fuzzy stuff on your chin?"

I was proud of my beard, but since
he gave me the pullover for almost nothing, I couldn't be irritated.
 
When I left for my kingdom, I felt
resplendent in velvet, red for blood and black for the powers of darkness.

It was only two hundred miles,
and probably most of the young wizards would have flown themselves, but I
insisted on the air cart.
 
"I
need to make the proper impression of grandeur when I arrive," I
said.
 
Besides—and they all
knew it even though I didn't say it—I wasn't sure I could fly that far.

The air cart was the skin of a
purple beast that had been born flying.
 
Long after the beast was dead, its skin continued to fly, and it could
be guided by magic commands.
 
It
brought me steeply up from the wizards' complex at the center of the City, and
I looked back as the white city spires fell away.
 
It had been a good eight years, but I
felt ready for new challenges.
 
We
soared across plains, forests, and hills all the long afternoon, before finally
banking steeply over what I had been calling "my" kingdom for the
last six weeks.

From above there scarcely seemed
to be more to the kingdom than a castle, for beyond the castle walls there was
barely room for the royal fields and pastures before thick green woods closed
in.
 
A bright garden lay just
outside the castle walls, and pennants snapped from all the turrets.
 
The air cart dipped, folded its wings,
and set me down with a bump in the courtyard.

I looked around and loved it at
once.
 
It was a perfect child's toy
of a castle, the
stone walls
freshly whitewashed and
the green shutters newly painted.
 
The courtyard was a combination of clean-swept cobbles, manicured
flower beds
, and tidy gravel paths.
 
On the far side of the courtyard, a
well-groomed horse put his head over a white half-door and whinnied at me.

A man and woman came toward
me,
both dressed in starched blue and white.
 
"Welcome to the Kingdom of
Yurt.
 
I am the king's constable,
and this is my wife."
 
They
both bowed deeply, which flustered me, but I covered it by striking a pose of
dignity.

"Thank you," I said in
my deepest voice.
 
"I'm sure I
will find much here to interest me."
 
The air cart was twitching, eager to be flying again.
 
"If you could just help me with my
luggage—"

The constable helped me unload
the boxes, while his wife ran to open the door to my chambers.
 
The door opened directly onto the
courtyard.
 
I had somehow expected
either a tower or a dungeon and wondered if this was suitably dignified, but at
least it meant we didn't have far to carry the boxes.
 
They were heavy, too, and I had not had
enough practice with the spell for lifting more than one heavy thing at a time
to want to try in front of an audience.

The air cart took off again as
soon as it was empty.
 
I watched it
soar away, my last direct link with the City, then turned to start
unpacking.
 
Both the constable and
his wife stayed with me, eager to talk.
 
I was just as eager to have them, because I wanted to find out more
about Yurt.

"The kingdom's never had a
wizard from the wizards' school before," said the constable.
 
I was unpacking my certificate for
completing the eight years' program.
 
Although, naturally, it didn't say anything about honors or special
merit or even areas of distinction, it really was impressive.
 
That was why I had packed it on
top.
 
It was a magic certificate, of
course, nearly six feet long when unrolled.
 
My name, Daimbert, was written in
letters of fire that flickered as you watched.
 
Stars twinkled around the edges, and the
deep blue and maroon flourishes turned to gold when you touched them.
 
It came with its own spell to adhere to
walls, so I hung it up in the outer of my two chambers, the one I would use as
my study.

"Our old wizard's just
retired," the constable continued.
 
"He must be well past two hundred years old, and when he was young
you had to serve an apprenticeship to become a wizard.
 
They didn't have all the training you
have now."

I ostentatiously opened my first
box of books.

"He's moved down to a
little house at the edge of the forest.
 
That's why we had to hire a new wizard.
 
I'm sure he'd be delighted to meet you
if you ever had time to visit him."

"Oh, good," I thought
with more relief than was easy to admit, even to myself.
 
"Someone who may actually know some
magic if I get into trouble."

I took my books out one by one
and arranged them on the shelves:
 
the Ancient and Modern Necromancy, all five volumes of Thaumaturgy A to
Z, the Index to Spell Key Words, and the rest, most barely thumbed.
 
As I tried to decide whether to put the
Elements of Transmogrification next to Basic Metamorphosis, which would make
sense thematically but not aesthetically, since they were such different sizes,
I thought I should have plenty of quiet evenings here, away from the
distractions of the City, and might even get a chance to read them.
 
If I had done more than skim those two
volumes, I might have avoided all that embarrassment with the frogs in the
practical exam.

"You'll meet the king this
evening, but he's authorized me to tell you some of our hopes.
 
We've never had a telephone system, but
now that you're here we're sure we'll be able to get one."

I was flabbergasted.
 
In the City telephones were so common
that you tended to forget how complicated was the magic by which they ran.
 
It was new magic, too, not more than
forty years old, something that Yurt's old wizard would never have learned but
which was indeed taught at the wizards' school.
 
How was I going to explain I had managed
to avoid that whole sequence of courses?

He saw my hesitation.
 
"We realize we're rather remote,
and that the magic is not easy.
 
No
one is expecting anything for at least a few weeks.
 
But everyone was so excited when you
answered our ad!
 
We'd been afraid
we might have to settle for a magician, but instead we have a fully-trained and
qualified wizard!"

"Don't worry the boy with
his duties so soon," the constable's wife said to him, but smiling as she
scolded.
 
"He'll have plenty of
time to get started tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!
 
A few weeks!" I thought but had the
sense not to say anything.
 
I didn't
even have the right books.
 
If I did
nothing else, I might be able to derive the proper magic from basic principles
in four or five years.
 
I was too
upset even to resent being called "the boy"—so much for the
grey beard!

"We'll leave you alone
now," said the constable.
 
"But dinner's in an hour, and then you can meet some of the
rest."