Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (31 page)

But this time I had stopped with joy, for before me was a sky hung with stars.

The relief was so great I could have sobbed. I realized now, as I stood with the wind in my face, that it had been the wood nymph caling me. ‘ Lady!” I said softly, but she did not reply.

Off toward the east, the dim beginnings of dawn faded out the stars, but to the west they stil shone bright. Below the sky lay the valey of Saint Eusebius, partialy shrouded in mist. To eyes that had strained to see in the complete blackness of the cave, the

darkness of land under an open nighttime sky did not seem dark at al.

After a moment, I determined I was looking out of a crack perhaps thirty yards up in the wal of the limestone valey. A few gnarled trees clung to the slope below me. I had been in the valey long enough that I quickly recognized the different limestone formations, even if it al looked slightly different seen from above. I was near the head of the valey, no more than half a mile from the Holy Grove.

I gathered the last of my strength, which wasn’t a lot, put the old wizard’s body over my shoulder and pushed myself out into open air. Very slowly, faling gently as I flew, I proceeded in the direction of the apprentices’ huts.

I must have been in the cave for wel over twenty-four hours. The priests would have finished their business at the shrine by now and left, but the apprentices would know where they had gone. At the moment I could not plan what to do next, indeed could think no further than colapsing into sleep, but I managed to tel myself sternly that at some point, very soon, I would indeed have to do something.

I was just thinking that the apprentices had already had enough trouble with strangers at the shrine without me waking them up this early, when I saw a yelow glow flick into existence. Someone had lit a fire.

I dropped to the ground in front of the hut where the fire burned, tried to speak, and managed only a parched croak on the first attempt but a passaole ‘Helo?” on the second.

I expected one of the appentices, but the figure that appeared at the hut door was dressed in black linen. It was Joachim.

He looked almost as overjoyed to see me as I was to see him. But he did not say anything at first, only puled me into the hut. I let him lower me and the old wizards body to the dirt floor and press a cup of water into my hand.

In spite of the nearly euphoric sense of relief, drinking the water gave me enough of my senses to remind me how thoroughly I had failed.

“He’s dead, Joachim,” I said, although the chaplain had doubtless determined this for himself. “I couldn’t save him. And the monster is stil somewhere in the cave—unless it’s found its own way out.”

“The monster has not come out into the valey again,” said Joachim with a sober look toward me. “Thank God one of you is back alive.” The kettle of water he had put on the fire began to steam and he turned to pour it into a teapot. “Drink some tea as soon as it’s brewed and I’l say the last rites for him.”

Between sorrow and despair, I gulped down the tea, feeling it heating my throat and chest al the way down. A second cup, I thought, would finish taking the cold of the cave off me.

But sleep caught me in the act of reaching for the teapot. I slumped back against the hut wal, my eyes closing against the dawn light, just hearing Joachim’s voice softly speaking the words of the liturgy as I fel into unconsciousness.

When I awoke, it was ful daylight and Evrard was sitting beside me. I lay motionless for a moment, conscious of the heavy wool of a horse blanket spread over me and tickling my chin, but otherwise almost devoid of sensation. Al my limbs would start to complain, I knew, as soon as I tried to move, but if I remained stil forever this would not be a problem.

But I was now the senior wizard in Yurt and there was stil a magical creature on the loose, one that had kiled a man. I forced myself to sit up and immediately felt so weak that I almost colapsed again.

“Good morning,” said Evrard. “You look terrible.”

“I feel terrible,’ I agreed. I leaned against the wal

and rubbed my temples. At least the headache was virtualy gone, but I was horribly hungry. “I don’t think I ve had anything much to eat for the last week, except for berries.” Evrard produced bread and cheese and a rather wizened apple. “This is about the end of the food the three priests brought with them.” So the priests were stil here after al.

I ate ravenously, thinking that I had never properly appreciated the meals in the royal castle. Then, no longer feeling I was about to faint, I pushed the horse blanket away and staggered to my feet.

“You’re covered with blood!” cried Evrard in dismay. I glanced down at myself. My clothes were indeed filthy, ripped and stained with quantities of blood. “Not my own,” I said. “The old wizard’s.” But then I looked around in panic. “Where is he? Where have they taken him?”

‘ They took his body to the shrine,” said Evrard, not entirely as though he approved but not wanting to disapprove, either. “The apprentice hermits and the youngest of those priests were al going to wash the body and lay it out.”

“We’l have to take him back to the royal castle and bury him in the graveyard there,” I said. “Evrard, the monster kiled him. And it’s stil loose, probably stronger than ever. It has a real face now.”

“Your chaplain told me you hadn’t been able to catch it,” he said in a low voice, as though afraid to suggest that he was belittling my efforts.

But I knew perfectly wel I had failed, failed to catch the monster and to save the old wizard. I had to accept that now.

“I can’t go up to the shrine like this,” I said. “See if I have enough spare clothes in my saddlebag to keep me decent.” I walked down to the river, peeled the rags from my body and slid into the water. It was as cold as the cave, but bubbling beneath the briliantly blue summer sky the water was only invigorating. I splashed and tried to rub off the worst of the grime and blood, then let myself sink to the river bottom. It was not deep enough for swimming, but lying on the stones two feet beneath the surface with my eyes open, I could see the green and white of the valey wals transformed into rippling slabs of color.

I jerked back to the surface, caught my breath and puled myself up on the bank. Evrard had found me some clothes; I roled on the grass to dry myself and puled them on. For a minute I sat quietly, letting the sun beat on my wet hair, enjoying the fleeting sensation of peace.

“I’m trying to decide,” I said then, “if we dare leave the valey while the monster’s stil in the cave. The old wizard said that he knew his creature would be drawn here, so it may not be able to get out. I would appear horribly disrespectful if I didn t attend the old wizard’s funeral.”

“Maybe it’s lost forever in the cave,” suggested Evrard.

“The creature can’t see in there, certainly,” I said, “and the cave itself is a labyrinth.”

“It’s terribly easy to get confused,” Evrard agreed, “even with torches and a thread to find your way out.” When I looked at him questioningly he added, ‘ Didn’t the chaplain tel you? When you and the old wizard hadn’t come back by yesterday morning, he and I spent much of the day trying to find you. We unraveled my old tunic for thread.” I noticed then that Evrard, too, had been improved by a change into spare clothing. “We didn’t know which tunnel you’d taken off the large chamber, which made it difficult. I’d hoped you’d have left a magic mark to show where you’d gone, but if so you didn’t use any spel I know.”

I was touched that Evrard and Joachim had looked for us and wished that I had had the sense to unravel a thread as I went. “I’m sorry! I did use magic marks, but not until we were wel into the cave. I only wanted

to mark the way back out, even though as it turned out, I missed some of them and became lost anyway. I never thought anyone would try to come after us.’”We started by exploring the tunnels closest to the river, but they al went underwater very quickly or else became so smal that we knew you wouldn’t have been able to go through, unless of course you transformed yourselves into frogs.”

“In fact, we left the great chamber by a passage on the farthest side—it’s a wide, fairly straight way, at least at first.” Evrard shook his head. “We never got there.” I stood up carefuly. “Even if we had dared transform ourselves into frogs, in the knowledge that our croaks would not be able to approximate the Hidden Language and that we’d have to be frogs forever, we wouldn t have needed to. The monster is human size, and al we were trying to do was catch it.”

“Could you have summoned it, forced it to come to you?” asked Evrard, faling into step beside me as I started toward the grove. I had brought the old wizard’s staff and leaned on it when even the short walk began to tire me. “Maybe a true summoning spel rather than the more general caling spel that got me al those sparrows?” I shook my head. “It wouldn’t have done any good to summon its mind if its body couldn’t folow. And you know they always taught us that to summon a human mind, against its wil, was the greatest sin a wizard could commit. I don’t know about you, but the teachers refused even to teach us the spel.” I and a few other young wizards had managed, on a late-night expedition to the Master’s study, to get around mat prohibition, but I didn’t want to mention this.

“But in this case,” said Evrard reasonably, “you wouldn’t be summoning a human mind. That could mean, however, that there might be nothing there to summon! Not knowing the spel would certainly be an additional disadvantage ...’

His voice trailed away. I didn’t tel him that the monster had almost had the old wizard’s human mind transferred into it.

As we approached the grove, I heard a distant hammering. I looked up toward the top of the cliff to see if the entrepreneurs were at work at their windlass but, if so, I could see nothing from below.

“How did you get out of the cave?” asked Evrard.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “The last few hours, it was almost as though someone else was guiding me. Then, at the very end, I heard the wood nymph caling me. If it hadn’t been for her, I would nave walked right by the way out and never even seen it.”

“The wood nymph? Did she come into the cave?”

“No, but I think she must have been right outside, caling. Had you sent her to look for me?

Evrard shook his head. “Maybe she just likes wizards.”

When we reached the Holy Grove, the first thing I saw was the old wizard’s body, lying near the pool with his eyes closed and his hands crossed on his breast. He had gone very far beyond the help of the wood nymph.

The apprentices had done a good job. The worst of the stains had been washed from his clothes, and his hair and beard were clean and combed. His twisted limbs had been straightened out so that, at least at first glance, he could merely have been asleep.

His dignity had been restored to him, but he would not have cared about his body’s appearance when he was gone. He had wanted to create an undying monster and to live on in it and, if he had succeeded, he would have discarded this body deep under the earth.

I put my hand over my eyes and stood quietly for a moment to compose myself. I would have to live for the rest of my life with the knowledge that my abilities had been too weak to save him.

We continued the short distance to the Holy Shrine, where we found the old hermit and al the priests.

Joachim managed to look delighted to see me without smiling in the least.

“Good,” said the thin priest. “You are here at last.”

Before I could find anything to say in reply, the

apprentices arrived carrying a roughly made coffin.

This, then, explained the hammering. I helped them

lift the old wizards body in and arrange it. He stil

looked as though he were sleeping, but his flesh felt

as cold as the stone a quarter mile beneath the earth.

Wizards, as a matter of professional pride, do not

speculate about the afterlife, leaving that to the

Eriests. But even the Church, with its prayers and turgy, cannot say for certain what wil happen to an individual’s soul. The wood nymph might think mortality liberating, but I thought that a lifetime, even the long life of a wizard, might never be enough to finish with the questions, much less start on the answers.

He had died not fearing death, not worried about his soul, but irritated that he had failed in his spel. Looking at my predecessor’s stil face, I wished nim wel on his journey, wherever he was going.

“Were you going to bury him with this ring?” asked the round priest.

I had been staring without seeing and came back with a start. “No, he wouldn’t want us to. In fact, he said I should have it.” The priest puled the ring from the wizard’s finger and handed it to me. I took it reluctantly, with the sense that it symbolized enormous responsibility.

It was quite a striking ring, made in the shape of an eagle in flight with a tiny diamond in its beak, but it dia not in fact symbolize anything, being only a Christmas gift from the king after the old wizard retired.

But I slid it onto my own finger as though taking up even heavier burdens than I already carried. Behind me, I could hear the apprentices nailing the lid on the coffin.

Joachim touched me on the shoulder and looked at me with his enormous dark eyes. “You’re not a priest,”

he said quietly. “You’re not responsible for anyone else’s soul but your own.”

This was probably supposed to be comforting. I nodded, took a deep breath, and turned to the thin priest. “Why did you want me here?” He took a breath of his own. “Wel. We need to determine the desire of the saint, to see if it is his wil to return with us to the City where he first made his holy profession.” The priest glanced quickly toward Joachim. “The Royal Chaplain thought it was important that you be here.” He didn’t add, “God knows why,” but he might as wel have.

The hermit, who had not yet said anything, suddenly spoke up. “The saint is very fond of this young wizard. We al turned toward him, priests, apprentices and wizards. “I didn’t mention this before to anyone but the Royal Chaplain,” he said with his gentle smile, “but the saint appeared to me in a vision last night. He had me send my daughter, the wood nymph, to look for him.” I staggered for a second with amazement, then felt Evrard s hand under my elbow and regained my balance. My prayers had been answered after al. This was so unexpected that I had to fight my initial impulse to say, “No, wait, I didn’t mean it!”