Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (20 page)

Something was thrashing in the nets a little further down, something highly charged with magic, yet not alive.

A cry came, a cry that could have been an owl and could have been a soul in torment. It was no less bone-chiling because I knew what it was. My normaly calm mare reared, setting al the bridle bels ringing and even Diana was, for a moment, hard-pressed to stay on her gelding. I kicked my feet out of the stirrups, dropped the reins and flew forward.

Nimrod was there before me. The netted creature’s

tiny red eyes stared from beneath its sharp horns in what looked like living hate and long fangs snapped at him. I dropped to the ground and threw a binding spel onto the horned rabbit. I scarcely dared hope it would work, but the creature fel heavily to its side.

Nimrod leaped onto the stil form at once, adding a cord to the binding properties of my spel. “Good work, Wizard,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ve got it now.” But even as he spoke it began to disintegrate. The eyes went lifeless, and first one and then the second horn dropped from its head. The spel that had given the rabbit the appearance of life was breaking up.

My binding spel was too much for something that was only held together precariously in the first place. In a moment there was nothing but horns and skin and the smel of decay.

Diana came up, leading my mare. “So you caught the last great horned rabbitr” she said to Nimrod. “Pretty good work, Hunter!” She seemed assiduously to be ignoring Evrard.

Nimrod smiled at her mischieviously. “If you do decide to marry Dominic, the two of you wil have a household even the royal court wil envy. Not only wil you have your own castle and your own wizard, but you’l have your own giant huntsman, something even the king doesn’t haver’

II

Nimrod and Diana started winding up their nets. There were many more of them than I had at first realized, al carefuly knotted from thin cords, almost invisible once in place although the spaces between the cords were so smal that only a very powerful creature would have been able to escape. They were certainly much better constructed than my own attempt.

Nimrod moved off, getting the nets he had laid

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down further away. Evrard went with him, carefuly not looking at the duchess. They were soon wel out of earshot.

The day had become hot and the sun made me squint. I eased nets free of shrubs and twigs, leaving the winding and packing to Diana and watching her out of the corner of my eye as we worked.

“My lady,” I said suddenly and she gave a start as though her thoughts had been far away, “I know something you don’t realize I know. The great horned rabbits were made by your ducal wizard, at your request.”

‘He told you?” she said, stopping and putting her fists on her hips. I didn’t know if her steely glare was for me or Evrard.

“I’d worked it out for myself. But he doesn’t know why you’d wanted them. Nimrod clearly thinks he knows. You heard him just now. He’s treating the rabbits as a test—a test which he’s now passed—

with you as the prize at the end.”

Diana had given up any pretense of winding the

nets.

“And you don’t know this either, but Evrard’s horned rabbits—and something else he tried to make—were what decided the old wizard to shake off his lethargy and create a manlike creature. You’ve got to tel me: why did you want horned rabbits? I would even have thought you had known Nimrod before and were going to use the rabbits as an excuse to cal on him for help, except that you were so surprised when he first appeared.’

Her fury dissolved in one breath. Hands stil on her hips, she slowly began to smile. “You know, Wizard, you’re smarter than you like to appear.” I would try to appreciate later what was probably a compliment. I kept staring at her, trying to look severe and compeling.

She stil did not answer my question, but began

again winding up the net she had dropped a minute before.

I tried another approach. “How about the old count? He was terrified by your horned rabbits.”

“We stopped by his castle yesterday,” she said with an amused look. She could be as stubborn as I. “We’d already caught the second rabbit and told him we’d soon have the third. He seemed relieved.” We were interrupted at this point as Evrard and Nimrod came back with the rest of the nets. The huntsman moved easily through the brush, like a giant cat.

I made a sudden decision. I had no more time to waste on the duchess and her games. “Evrard, you and I have to get back to the royal castle at once, to see what Dominic’s been doing and find a way to make the old wizard dismantle his creature. Nimrod, I’d like you to come with us. If by any chance it gets loose, 111 need your help in tracking it.”

“Of course,” he said, with a smile for the duchess. “My lady enjoys watching me track things. But I should tel you, Wizard, that if the creature gets away from your predecessor, it may head this way. When I tracked those soldiers of hair and bone I told you about, up in the eastern mountains, we caught many of them on a peak that was localy reputed to be magical.” He paused and when he spoke again there was a hint of tension in what seemed an offhand request. “But before we go, as long as we’re here, I’d like to see the Holy Grove.”

“The grove?” I wanted to act now, not be a tour guide.

He gestured up the valey. “The ducal wizard was teling me about it while we roled up the nets. I gather there’s a hermitage, and a wood nymph, and a river that shoots directly out of the hilside.

I sensed something behind Nimrod’s casual words—or thought I did. I wished I knew him better. His

words did not, at any rate, seem to have any hidden meaning to the duchess. She smiled. “It’s certainly worth seeing and we won’t be closer anytime soon. Just wait until I get this last net wound up.”

“I must get back to the royal castle,” I said.

“We’l have to go within a quarter mile of the Holy Grove anyway to get out of the valey,’ said the duchess. “I at any rate have no intention of scrambling up these valey wals! It shouldn’t take long to show the grove to Nimrod. He is my huntsman, Wizard. If you want his services, you’l have to wait until I’m done with him.” We rode back up toward the head of the valey, Nimrod striding at the duchess’s stirrup. The sun had moved past noon and we seemed to be progressing very slowly. When we reached the open area below the waterfal, Diana pointed out the toeholds carved in the cliff face.

“It wouldn’t be as dangerous as it looks,” said Nimrod, looking upward with an interested frown. “The cliff is not perfectly vertical but angled, and the toeholds are wel placed.’

“As I know wel,” said the duchess. “When I was about fifteen, I climbed down here myself, just to see if I could do it. Be flattered,” she said to al of us. “I’ve never told anyone about it before.”

“You told me,” said Nimrod with a smile. “That’s part of the reason I’d been eager to see the valey.”

“I told you?” Diana turned toward him with clear surprise. But—” She recolected and laughed. “Of course I did. I’d just forgotten. Al right, then, you already know that the young heiress to the duchy wanted to see the valey, but not to see it the way any ordinary girl would!”

Evrard appeared to have thought of a new way to impress his employer. “Wait until you meet the wood nymph!” he said to the duchess and Nimrod.

“I ve only seen her once before,” said the duchess. “That is, Ive always hoped it was the wood nymph,

although I could never be certain. It was the time I just mentioned, when I climbed down. There was a girl in the grove, who seemed both to be my age and to be a thousand years old. She had remarkable violet eyes. She looked at me a moment without speaking, then disappeared.”

“You have to be a wizard to be able to cal a nymph,” said Evrard confidently. “Or,” he added after a second, “be someone to whom the nymph wants to talk, anyway.” We left our horses and walked up to the pool and the shrine of the Holy Toe. Diana and Nimrod went first, she swinging her riding crop and whistling, and he walking with very stiff shoulders and silent footfals. Much as I wanted to be on our way, his behavior intrigued me. I glanced toward Evrard as we came along behind, but he did not seem interested in the pair before us. The hermit came out and blessed them, as Evrard and I waited a few yards away. Nim-rod’s face was very stil and I could read no expression in it.

“You know,” said Evrard, low enough I hoped that the hermit would not overhear, “I’m not very impressed with this Cranky Saint. Wouldn’t a realy powerful saint make it clear to everybody exactly what he wanted and then blast those entrepreneurs with lightning?”

This seemed more like a question for Joachim than for me, but I was spared from having to answer by the hermit. “I trust your day is going wel, my sons, with God’s help,” he caled to us with a smile.

In spite of the smile and friendly tone, I immediately felt guilty. I took his comment as a gentle reminder of the responsibilities with which he had earlier charged me. But at least he did not summon us to join Nimrod and Diana before the shrine.

They stil knelt at the hermit’s feet, his hands resting lightly on their hair. While the hermit looked toward me, I saw the duchess turn toward Nimrod.

Their eyes met and slowly he began to smile. In return she gave a sudden, secret grin.

I would have liked to conclude she was only mocking the old hermit and his piety. It was better than the alternative, which came with immediate if irrational conviction: that she had decided to treat this blessing as some sort of renegade marriage ceremony.

I shook my head. This was ridiculous. On top of everything else, I seemed to be losing my good sense. Diana and Nimrod thanked the hermit for his blessing, rose and came to join us.

At last, I thought, we could start for the castle. But now Nimrod appeared very interested in the spring, where the river shot out of the side of the cliff. He folded up his tal frame to crawl along the narrow, damp shelf at the edge of the river, back into the cliff. The rest of us watched and waited as his feet disappeared from view into the blackness.

In a moment we heard his voice, echoing holowly. “I think it opens up a little back here. It’s too dark to see wel, but—” A splash cut off whatever else he might have intended to say. In a moment he reemerged, laughing and wet along one side. “Whew, that water’s cold,” he said as he stood up and wrung out his hair. “You’d need a torch to explore the cave properly. Even in the dim light from the entrance, the first big room looked as though it was festooned with colored icicles.”

“There can’t be anything in there very interesting besides rocks,” said Evrard impatiently. “Come on, and you can meet the nymph.” Nimrod’s short visit to the Holy Grove seemed to be growing longer and longer, but I felt powerless to do anything about it. For two days, the valey had beguiled me; now I only wanted to get out of it. I tried to persuade myself that Dominic had paid a short, friendly visit to the old wizard and was now safely back at the castle.

Evrard led the way, along the little pebble-marked

paths through the grove, to the tree that I thought was the nymph’s tree. But here he hesitated. “1 don’t see my footprint.”

“The ground’s damp anyway and it’s rained recently,” I said. ‘ A footprint won’t last long.”

“Or maybe it’s the wrong tree.

Now he had me confused. “You should know better than I,” I said pointedly. We moved back, looking at al the adjacent trees, then at other beeches further away. I caught the duchess giving Nimrod an amused smile.

“No, I think it must have been the first tree after al,” said Evrard after ten minutes. But, somehow, none of the trees now seemed like the tree we had stood beneath only a short time before.

“Try using the spel to cal her,” I said in a low voice. The duchess would not find this amusing much longer.

Evrard frowned, bit his lip, frowned again and started on the spel. He finished with a flourish and looked up expectantly. There was a long silence, broken only by the soft murmur of the leaves and the rushing of the river.

“I thought you were going to introduce us to the wood nymph, Wizard,” said Diana testily.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to so many people at the same time,” I said, then realized that by speaking for Evrard I was giving the impression that he needed my protection.

“Daimbert,” said Evrard, who seemed to realize this, too, “how about if you and Nimrod go back to the horses, and I’l see if the nymph wil come out for the duchess and me alone.” He moved to another tree and, with a good show of confidence, started on the spel again as Nimrod and I left the grove.

“The horned rabbits must have been frustrating prey,” I commented as we scrambled down the path beside the waterfal, “since they disintegrate as soon as you catch them.” I was no longer interested in the horned rabbits but, if he talked, I hoped to be able to see more of the edge of tension I thought I could feel running under the huntsman’s apparent good humor.

He smiled unexpectedly. “For me, they’ve provided highly satisfactory hunting,” he said. “But I must say, it’s been more comfortable since I worked out they were neither monsters from the land of dragons, nor creatures made with black magic, but only something my lady, the duchess, requested from her ducal wizard.

I turned to stare at him. “Did she tel you that?”

“No, but I’m good at guessing,” he answered easily.

We sat down on the grass near our horses. I glanced toward the grove, wondering if Evrard had had any luck. It was rapidly growing late, yet I hated to cal him away from an opportunity to show off his magical abilities to his employer.

I turned back toward Nimrod’s wel-chiseled profile. He seemed deep in thought. “You stil haven’t told me why you came to Yurt,’ I said.

He took a sudden, sharp breath and then his eyes twinkled at me as his shoulders relaxed again. “Maybe I have private reasons for being interested. And, as I told you before, hunters keep track of what needs hunting.”

“But you seemed to know about the great horned rabbits almost before we did.”

He only smiled and shook his head.

If he wanted to be mysterious, I could do some guessing of my own. If he had known the duchess Before, perhaps some years earlier when she had spent several seasons in the City, he might have wanted to enter the kingdom to reestablish their acquaintance, and have preferred for reasons of his own to come incognito. The appearance of the great horned rabbits would have provided a useful excuse for an excelent hunter. But I was stil not sure what, if any, connection there might be between Nimrod, the Cranky