Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (36 page)

“I might be able to improvise a way to dissolve the monster if I knew the spel that created it,” I panted. “Quick, teach me the spel you used for the rabbits and I’l try to extrapolate.” It took twenty minutes for Evrard to teach me the spel, not because it was terribly complicated for someone who already knew a fair amount of the old magic, but because we had to keep stopping to rebind the monster.

I kept listening as we worked, wondering if the others were coming and praying that they weren’t. Evrard and I, sitting nigh in trie tree, were relatively safe but, if the monster broke loose from a spel that was becoming increasingly tattered, it could kil half the knights of Yurt.

Though I now could have made horned rabbits—or a soldier of hair and bone without even using dragons’ teeth—I stil couldn’t dissolve this monster. The spel Elerius had taught was shot ful of gaps, bridged almost tentatively oy a few words of magic, so that anything made from it could be readily destroyed. The late Royal Wizard of Yurt had found a way to fil those holes.

I frowned in concentration, sifting through phrases of the Hidden Language. “Maybe ifl looked again at the old wizard’s spel, I started to say, then looked down to realize the monster had managed to kick al the rocks off one leg and was starting on the other. I couldn’t take the time now to pore over the written spel, to find in it a way to dissolve the monster. I had to make do with what I already knew.

Al I knew was the spel that had given the creature its facial features, and that I had heard only partialy. But dissolving a spel might require only an understanding of its general lines, not al its details. Trying desperately to remember theoretic discussions of spel structure from lectures through which I had dozed, I tried reversing the spel, hoping that this might generalize enough to affect the entire creature. If not, I was completely out of ideas.

It was almost too late to try repairing the binding spel. I clung to the branch of the oak with both hands as the heavy words of the Hidden Language rang through the clearing.

Much more quickly than they had formed, the monster’s ears, nose and mouth disappeared. The roaring stopped and, for a moment, it stopped kicking, but the eyes stil glowed at us.

“Keep going, Daimbert!” yeled Evrard, renewing the binding spel. He piled on a few more rocks for good measure.

But I was temporarily halted. I looked toward Evrard. He was as exhausted as I was; only sheer wil was keeping him going. I had maybe a minute before our weakening magic and the monster’s strength freed it, either to climb the tree after us or go to meet the knights of Yurt.

I puled together everything I knew, the spel to create facial features, the spel to make great horned rabbits, and the first few words of the spel I had seen in the old wizard’s register; put on the twist that reversed spel structure; and tried it al in combination with the words that would break a normal spel.

It probably shouldn’t have worked and, indeed, I coulcf see no immediate change, but there was a sharp

swirling in the local field of magic that suggested that a spel much more powerful than anything of mine was beginning to break up.

I tore my attention away from the spels just long enough for a glance at Evrard. Consciously or unconsciously, he had left the tree to move closer to the monster, as though trying to hold it immobile with the force of his personality as wel as the spel that he was now working nonstop—or maybe he was now so tired that he didn’t trust his ability to project a spel any distance.

“Now!” I shouted and threw what should have been the spel of final dissolution onto the monster.

And trembling, burning, spreading like fire, it began to dissolve the spels that held the old wizard’s creature together. But first it destroyed the binding spel that had held it down.

The creature rose with a crash, stones and pieces of its body both flying from it. It flung out an arm toward me, started to take a step, and colapsed into a heap of bones—but not before the largest boulder that had lain across it had struck Evrard.

I had the boulder off him in a second, but he did not move and his eyes were closed. Trembling al over, I dropped beside him and tried to listen for his breathing.

Two wizards gone in three days and I couldn’t save either one of them. I had a sudden, vivid and very painful vision of telephoning Zahlfast and teling him that Evrard was dead.

If I had been more systematic, if I had tried to instruct Evrard in a rational way instead of first assuming that he would be better at magic than I had been two years ago, and then scorning his quite real abilities when it became clear that he was not, he might have had a long and happy career.

But he was breathing, shalowly and rapidly. As I tried to brush back the hair from his face, darkened from red to brown by sweat, he moaned and opened his eyes.

“Daimbert,” he whispered, “I couldn’t hold it. What happened?”

‘It’s gone. I’ve turned it back into bones.”

He closed his eyes again and weakly held out his arms. I was terrified that by shifting him I might kil him, if he was not kiled already, but I could not hold out against that appeal. I puled him toward me, trying to make reassuring sounds. I did not want to hold a dying wizard in my arms ever again in my life.

“It’s my leg,” he said faintly. “And I can’t fly. Al my magic has been knocked out of me.”

“Your leg? Just your leg?” I said with dawning hope. Maybe I wouldn’t have to make that telephone cal to Zahlfast after al.

“I was trying to hold it down with that spel and, suddenly, it seemed to rise up and hurl a boulder at me. It hit me right below the knee.” He stopped as his teeth began to chatter in spite of the warmth of the day.

“You’re in shock,” I said calmly, as though I knew exactly what to do. I let go of him for a moment, peeled off my now ripped and filthy velvet jacket, and put it over him. “Lie here quietly and get warm. In a short while, when you’ve rested, I’l figure out a way to get you up to the castle. Then we can send for a doctor to set your leg.” In a moment, Evrard gave a breathy snort and either fainted or slept. I looked up then for the first time at the pile of white bones that had once been the monster.

If the old wizard’s magic had been a little more powerful, if he had found a way to hold the monster physicaly together and to transfer his mind into it at the same time, then those bones might have been the wizard’s body. The creature would never now be able to receive the human life it had spent its short existence seeking.

At the edge of my thoughts I became aware of voices. I glanced up to see a group of riders emerging from the trees, led by Prince Ascelin, Dominic and Diana.

The duchess was stil wearing her wedding dress, the skirt of which had become al bunchea up by riding astride. She gave a cry of dismay as she saw Evrard and leaped from her horse.

“It’s al right, my lady,” I said, trying to smile. “He’s stil alive and we’ve destroyed the monster. It wounded him as we overcame it, but I could never have succeeded without him.” After Gwen and the cook had worked feverishly to have the wedding feast finished on time, it turned out to be delayed over four hours. The old cook was furious, but Gwen, recovering from the shock of meeting the monster in the great hal, used her nervous energy and the extra time to make cinnamon cookies. She had made them for her own wedding and had sent every person off afterwards with three wrapped in gold foil and she thought it would be a nice touch to do the same for the duchess.

In spite of the cook’s dire remarks that the dinner was spoiled, everyone seemed to enjoy it hugely. It turned into a combination wedding feast and triumphal dinner in honor of the monster’s destruction.

Once Evrard’s leg was set, he talked the doctor into letting him be carried into the hal to be hailed as a hero.

Late that afternoon, when the sunlight lay golden and heavy in the center of the courtyard but the shadows of the wals already stretched long, I went up to Joachim’s room. Evrard was asleep in my bed and the rest of the castle was sitting around lazily, talking in

some amazement of the day’s events, feeling they had already eaten too much, and nibbling on cinnamon cookies.

Joachim threw his casements wide open and looked out into the courtyard. I had something important to ask him, something that I had managed to forget during the past few days.

Now that it appeared that Evrard was certainly going to live and indeed, according to the doctor, would be able to walk easily in six weeks, I had begun to feel that I might someday soon be cheerful again.

Even the memory of the old wizard’s death could not remain constantly before me, though I continued to feel I was more responsible than the chaplain seemed to think. But Evrard would be moving to the duchess’s castle, which would leave me again as the only wizard at the royal castle. And even if Evrard stayed here, it would not be the same. Frustrating as Joachim sometimes was, he was stil the closest friend I had ever had.

“What are you going to do?” I asked his back. “Does the bishop stil want you to go to the episcopal city and join the cathedral chapter? How soon wil you have to leave Yurt?” He turned around, looking genuinely distressed. “Didn’t I tel you when I met you down in the valey? That’s why I felt so peaceful then. I know I said I’d talked to the bishop, that he’d reminded me that God does not give us burdens heavier than we can bear if we turn to Him. But didn’t I tel you the rest?”

“What didn’t you tel me?”

“I told the bishop that I hoped I had not falen into the sin of pride, but that it seemed he might be preparing the way for inviting me to join the chapter. And if he was, I told him, I must request that he not do so. I explained that I felt I could do more in Yurt as Royal Chaplain than serving in the cathedral, where there are already many far better qualified priests.”

“And what did he say?”

Joachim smiled. “It’s not a desperate matter, Daimbert. He told me he understood and must agree with my decision.” I could see it al, even if the chaplain’s humility kept it from him. The bishop was wiling to let him remain in Yurt for now, but sooner or later, when they wanted a cathedral officer or even a new bishop, they would come looking for him again.

But that should be many years in the future. Almost reassured, I asked, “And he didn’t try to tel you that you should guard against the untoward influence of friendship with a young wizard?” Joachim smiled again and shook his head. “I think he s become reconciled to the idea. I should introduce you to him sometime.” I had one last question. “Could I possibly have been as calow as Evrard when I first came to Yurt?”

The chaplain smiled slowly but thoroughly. “Yes,” he said.

I put my hand in my pocket and found Gwen’s foil-wrapped cookies. “I’d thought after that feast we had that I wouldn’t want to eat again for days, especialy since I wasn’t even hungry at the time. But these suddenly seem appealing. Shal we split them?”

The duchess and her new husband left early the next morning for her castle and were gone for a week. In the meantime, I went down to the vilage to find the young couple whose chickens the monster had kiled ana to compensate them.

They seemed delighted to see me and to talk about the resolution of the earlier quarrel even before I had a chance to ask them how much a new flock would cost. I decided not to mention that whatever cousin or uncle had been dug up and hidden in the woods as part of that quarrel had probably formed the bones of the monster.

At the end of the week, Diana and Ascelin were back at the royal castle. Prince Ascelin was now going

home to his city, taking his bride with him, to tel his people about his marriage and to make the arrangements for the city to be governed by someone else For the six months of each year he and the duchess would live in Yurt.

In the morning, the duchess went into my chambers with Evrard. She talked to her wizard for over an hour before coming back out into the courtyard. “So, do you think you can keep an eye on Dominic by yourself?” she asked me.

“Of course I can. Now that he’s decided that the big change he needs is a year in the City once his regency is over, rather than a wife, he seems fairly contented. He’s so relieved that he didn’t have to marry you after al that he shouldn’t give us any trouble.”

The duchess laughed. “If it had been up to me, I would have waited to go until the king and queen came back, but Ascelin is understandably in a nurry to get home himself.” He came across the courtyard toward us and she looked at him affectionately. “It wil be interesting seeing his City.”

I was not fooled by her comment about waiting for the king and queen’s return. Diana had always done exactly what she liked and what she liked right now was making her new husband happy.

In a few minutes she and her knights rode out over the drawbridge, Nimrod—as I stil couldn’t help but think of him—striding beside her saddle as he had the first time he came to Yurt. I wondered if they would ever find a horse big enough to carry him.

In my chambers, Evrard was hobbling back and forth, making a pile of some of my books lay my best chair. “As long as I won’t be able to move around much for a while,” he said with a smile though not meeting my eyes, “I thought I should make use of the time and learn some of the magic the teachers at the school think they’ve already taught me.” But then his freckled face became sober. After al, it wil be embarrassing always to have to ask them things I ought to know.”

I sat down rather abruptly. “Wait a minute. I think I’m missing something.”

“I’ve resigned,” said Evrard, much too seriously to be joking. “I told the duchess just now and she agreed.”

“But she thought you were a hero when we overcame the monster!” I protested, but Evrard wasn’t listening.

“She never realy needed a ducal wizard in the first place and she’l need one even less now that she’l be gone from Yurt for half the year. And let’s be realistic, Daimbert. You and I both know that I’m realy not competent to be out trying to practice magic on my own. I only graduated by trie skin of my teeth and I could never have stopped the monster without you.