C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 01 Read online

  The carnival continued all the next day, but I surprised myself by becoming bored. Maybe it was because I was there for pleasure alone, and pleasure seemed to pall faster than I remembered. The lords and ladies were busy buying supplies, new saddles and harnesses, shoes and boots, bolts of cloth for winter outfits, decorative tapestries, jewelry and chests. The servants too were busy at the merchants' tables. The constable had sent a purse and a long list with them, and they were comparing, pricing, and buying everything from fabric for new curtains, to tea and spices, to flagons, to bed linens, to pots and pans, to a new volley-ball net. The pack horses, I thought, would be heavily-laden when we started for home.

  I myself bought a new red velvet jacket. I had originally planned to wear my red pullover to the carnival, but after looking at it critically in the light of my predecessor's magic lamps, I had decided it really did look like an old Father Noel outfit. I also searched for, but did not see, anyone selling books that would interest me.

  The king and queen didn't seem at all bored, even though they made no purchases. But they had each other, and that seemed to keep them happily occupied.

  I didn't see the magician again, though I was sure he was still at the carnival; one time I thought I saw a cascade of glistening stars rising from further down the street, and turned and went another way. I kept thinking about him, however. If I had done only a little worse in my studies, if Zahlfast had not given me a passing grade on the transformation practical in spite of my problem with the frogs (and I still did not know why he had), then I too would be working the corner for coins at carnivals.

  The next morning, after the carnival was over, Joachim came to the castle very early, as the servants were packing the horses. I saw him from my window, walking down the narrow street with a much older priest, who paused, his hand on the younger man's shoulder, to give him what appeared to be last-minute advice before turning back toward the cathedral. Joachim came in looking serious, as always, but did not look like I imagined someone would who had been accused of evil.

  I wanted to talk to him about the magician, but was not sure he would understand. He, for his part, seemed unwilling to say anything about the last two days. As we mounted and rode through the empty and littered city streets toward the gates, I thought that I might send Zahlfast a letter.

  III

  The king was ill. He took to his bed the night we got back to Yurt, saying he was exhausted, and he did not get up again, not for chapel service, not for meals, not to work in his rose garden.

  The queen seemed driven to new levels of energy. She was constantly in motion, and from the windows of my chambers I kept seeing her cross the courtyard, from the king's room to the kitchen, where she herself tried to concoct a soup that would tempt him, back to his room again and then to the chapel to pray, to his room and then out to confer privately with the doctors she had sent for from the next kingdom. Although she did not say anything, I knew she was thinking that the doctors would have come more quickly if she had been able to telephone rather than relying on the pigeons. The pigeons were rapid, being able to carry a message to any of the nearby kingdoms in an afternoon, but not as fast as a telephone.

  I mostly stayed out of the way. I did not know how serious the king's condition was, but since I doubted the queen was someone who panicked easily, I feared the worst. The rest of the castle seemed gripped with a similar fear. No one came to my chambers, not even the Lady Maria for her lessons in the first-grammar, and meals tended to be hurried and silent. At this point, the dank autumn rains began.

  With little to do, I set myself the goal of reviewing everything I had supposedly learned at the wizards' school. Within a week, I had finished all the assignments from the first year. I was both pleased to see that I really had progressed in my eight years at the school, from an audacious but (in retrospect) shockingly ignorant young man from a merchant family in the City to someone recognizable as a real wizard, at least to an illusion-weaver at a carnival, and embarrassed to see what truly basic information I had managed not to learn. At the end of the week, I sat down to write Zahlfast a letter.

  It was hard thinking what to write, out of all that had happened to me since leaving the City. It would in fact have been easier to write a twenty-page letter, but I was restricted by the size of message the pigeons could carry. Unless one was willing to wait to send one's letter by someone from Yurt or someone stopping by Yurt who was traveling to the City, the only alternative was to write one's letter on one of the tiny, light-weight pieces of paper the pigeons could carry. There were postal stations spread in a semicircle, fifty miles from the City, where carrier pigeons from all the western kingdoms brought messages and dropped them into the greater urban postal system. The postal system itself could handle almost any size letter, but only if mailed within fifty miles of the City.

  "I am enjoying being Royal Wizard," I finally wrote, "and at last I may be learning some of the magic you tried to teach me. So far I've made a series of magic lights. I am even learning some of the old herbal magic as well. My king is sick now, however, so I don't know what will happen. If you were ever near Yurt, it would be nice to see you."

  The last line surprised me, as I had not intended to write it. Just getting lonely for company, I said to myself, but I let the sentence stay. I folded the tiny piece of paper I was allowed, wrote the address on the outside, rolled it up and slipped it into the cylinder that would be attached to the pigeon's leg, and took it across the slick courtyard and up to the south tower. The pigeon keeper assured me my letter would be delivered in the City the next day—or certainly within two days.

  Back in my chambers, I found the book in the front of which I had written the schedule of courses and readings at the beginning of my second year at the school. Some of the courses I had no recollection of, and I was quite sure I did not own all the books.

  I was sitting, frowning at the list, when I heard running feet outside. My door swung open without even a knock, and Gwen burst in. "Sir, oh sir, excuse me, but you must come at once!"

  The book fell from my hands unheeded as I leapt up. My heart fell with as heavy a thump, for I was sure the king was dead.

  "Someone's trying to poison the king with magic! You must find out who it is!"

  At least it sounded as though the king was not dead yet. "But how do you know?"

  "Please come!" she cried, tugging at my hand. "The others don't believe me—they say I don't know any magic."

  We hurried across the rainy courtyard to the kitchens. I was too confused and upset to even try a spell to stay dry.

  In the warmth and steam of the kitchen, the cook was standing looking thoroughly angry, her ample fists on her aproned hips. The rest of the kitchen servants hovered in the background, looking worried.

  "So, Wizard," said the cook. "Now maybe we can have the real story! Gwen has been trying to tell us you've taught her magic, and now she's accusing us of wanting the king dead!"

  "I didn't say that!" Gwen cried. "I never thought it! I'm not accusing any of you, but someone's doing it!"

  "Wait, wait," I said. "I never taught Gwen magic."

  "Yes you did!" she countered. "That spell that turns food red! Only in this case it turned green."

  There was a babble of voices, but I tried to stay calm. "Let's start at the beginning. What food are you talking about?"

  "This, sir," said Gwen. From the table she picked up what appeared to be a bowl of chicken soup, except that it was a brilliant green—almost the same color, in fact, as the queen's eyes. "I was going to take it to the king; the queen thought a little soup would do him good. And then I remembered that you had taught me a spell to say to see if someone had slipped a potion in your food."

  Jon was standing next to her, but she looked determinedly straight ahead. "You'd said if someone had, the food would turn red. And then I wondered, suppose someone had tried to slip a potion to the king? So I decided to say the spell over his soup. But it didn't turn red, it turned green. T
hat's probably just because it's a different kind of potion, but I know someone wants to kill him!" At this she burst into tears. Jon tried to put his arms around her, but she pulled herself away.

  I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that the old wizard had told me this spell would detect a love potion. When I learned it and taught it to Gwen, it had never occurred to me that it might be a way to detect the spell which Dominic said someone had put on the king.

  It still might not be the way, but I could not hesitate. "We've got to get the king out of the castle," I said.

  They all looked at me as though I had lost my mind. "But it's cold and it's raining! He can't travel in this weather! Where would he go?"

  "Not far," I said, hoping what I was saying was true. "His rose garden should be far enough. Wrap him up well, and put hot irons in the wrappings to keep him warm. Pitch a tent in the garden, and set charcoal braziers in it. And you," to the cook, "will have to make him some more soup, but don't make it here. Make it outside the castle."

  "What? You expect me to leave my warm kitchen and make a campfire in this rain and—"

  "It may be the only way to save the king's life," I said. The cold touch of evil I had been feeling since summer was stronger in the kitchen than ever before, though I still could not tell where it was coming from. It might be Gwen, the cook, or one of the other servants, but I thought I would have been able to tell if it had been. "Come on!" I said. "There isn't enough time to waste any of it."

  Almost to my surprise, they obeyed me. Within a very short time, the king, heavily wrapped and shielded from the rain, was being carried out into his rose garden. The few last blooms dripped wet.

  Joachim came up to me, made as though to grab me by the arm but stopped himself in time, and instead drew me out of hearing range of the others with a jerk of his chin.

  "Are you trying to kill the king?" he demanded, his black eyes glowing fiercely at me.

  "I am not," I said back, just as fiercely. "I'm trying to save his life. I think there's an evil spell in the castle that's killing him, and I'm trying to see if he'll improve if he's outside."

  "So now he'll die of pneumonia instead of magic? Is that your intention?"

  "I hope he doesn't die," I said, fierce no longer. I had not seen the king in two weeks and had been shocked by his appearance. The shape of his skull was clear beneath the skin of his face, though he had tried to smile and speak normally.

  "It will take a miracle to save him."

  "I thought you said, if you need a miracle, see a priest," I retorted, and almost felt triumphant as he blinked and drew back.

  When the king was settled in his tent, the queen sitting beside him, and when the cook, still grumbling but beneath her breath, had started a new batch of soup on a small fire started with coals from the kitchen, just outside the garden walls, I drew Gwen to one side.

  "I have to go somewhere," I told her. "Stay with the cook. Check the new batch of soup with the same spell. If it doesn't change color, the king should have some."

  "But where are you going?"

  "Not far. I'll be back soon."

  Without giving her a chance to speak again, I rose from the ground and flew down the hill toward the forest, swifter than a horse could carry me.

  I didn't know why I was embarrassed to tell her I needed to ask the old wizard for help, except that I never had told anyone I had been visiting him.

  I was thinking very bitter thoughts about my own abilities and responsibilities. Although Dominic had told me he thought there was an evil spell on the king, and although I nearly believed him, I had done nothing to discover the source of that spell. For two weeks, while the king grew weaker and weaker, I had been concerned only with my own education, as though it was going to be useful to know wizardry even though I never practiced it in the service of the king who had hired me as his Royal Wizard. I had originally visited the old wizard to find out if he knew anything about this spell, but instead I had allowed myself to become distracted into learning the magic of herbs. It wouldn't be much good showing off my herbal magic to my friends in the City if I also had to tell them I had allowed my king to die of a magic spell when I hadn't bothered to find out its source.

  The concentration needed for rapid flying beneath low-hanging branches made it difficult to carry this line of thought much further. I burst into sunshine as I entered the old wizard's valley. The lady and the unicorn were sitting by the little bridge, but today I saw no golden arrows.

  I dropped to the ground outside the green door. The wizard was sitting in the doorway, the cat on his knee, enjoying the sunshine. He looked surprised to see me.

  "Decided to skip the horse today, eh?" he said. "I just hope you weren't trying to impress me. We wizards trained in the old way have always been able to fly better than you young whipper-snappers when we wanted to."

  I swallowed my irritation. "I'm not trying to impress you, Master," I said. "I need your help." Quickly I explained to him about the soup that turned green when subjected to the spell to detect a love potion.

  His brows furrowed, and he tossed the cat roughly from his lap as he stood up. "That spell just detects herbal potions," he said after a long pause, as though wondering what to tell me. "It turns food red if there's an herbal potion in it. There's no reason the spell should turn anything green. The girl probably got it wrong; maybe she said a spell of illusion by mistake."

  "I don't think she got it wrong."

  "Then it's detecting something else," he said abruptly, as though he had made a decision. "It might also detect the presence of the supernatural."

  "You mean there's been black magic worked on the king's soup?"

  "No, that's not what I mean, as you'd know if you listened properly! I meant that there's a supernatural presence in the castle. It might have nothing to do with the soup in particular, but in the right circumstances it might be detectable in food. No one need have put any potions in the soup for it to respond to that spell."

  "Dominic said that he thought an evil spell had been cast on the king," I said. "Did he ever mention it to you, Master? Might this be the supernatural presence?"

  "I don't know what Dominic's been telling you," said the old wizard, sitting down again. "There certainly weren't any supernatural presences in the castle when I was Royal Wizard."

  "Then I'd better see if I can find the source," I said and flew back up the valley without even a proper farewell.

  As soon as I left the wizard's valley, the rain started again. I was furious with myself as I realized that, if he could create an island of good weather, I ought to have been able to do the same for the king. And the thought kept on nagging that the green of the chicken soup really was the same color as the queen's eyes.

  I had never flown so fast for so far before, and the concentration required left me no attention for a spell against the rain. I was wet through when I dropped to the ground outside the rose garden.

  Gwen, standing under an umbrella, met me by the gate. "The cook finished the new soup, sir," she said eagerly, "and the spell didn't affect it at all. The queen's giving him some now."

  "Good," I said, though I feared it would take more at this point than the cook's excellent chicken soup to heal the king. Hoping that drier weather might also help, I set to work at once on a weather spell.

  But I realized immediately that I didn't know the spell against slow and steady rain. The spells I had prepared during the harvest were all against sudden storm. I could go back to my chambers and try to work it out, but I felt a desperate sense of urgency and decided to improvise. If I could turn this rain into a thunderstorm, I could then dissipate it quickly.

  "You'd better go inside, my dear," I said to Gwen, as she stood, hesitating, beside me. "Don't get any wetter."

  She went back into the castle, and it was just as well, because my first attempt to transform the rain into a real storm was so successful that a lightning bolt struck with a blazing flash and an acrid smell within ten feet of
me, nearly taking off my eyelashes.

  Peal after peal of thunder rolled around my head, and the air was blinding with repeated lightning flashes. I looked up and saw bolts of lightning dancing from turret to turret, hitting every tower in the castle and the spire on top of the chapel. I seemed to have created what must have been the worst thunderstorm in Yurt in a hundred years. My only hope was to make sure it was also the shortest. Setting my teeth grimly, I proceeded with the spells against thunderstorms, and abruptly the sky was clear. Both the thunder and the clouds rolled back, leaving a square mile of sunshine smiling down on the castle and the rose garden.

  I checked my forehead to be sure I still had my eyebrows. Startled faces were looking at me over the garden gate, but I turned without saying anything and crossed the bridge into the castle. Since I had not in fact actually killed anyone with my lightning, it hardly seemed worth discussing the event at the moment.

  As I crossed the courtyard, shivering in my wet clothes, I started toward my chambers to change, but decided instead to look for Joachim. I had been very rude to him and should probably show Christian tact by apologizing. He had been rude to me as well, but he had had more cause.

  I hadn't seen him in the rose garden, but I hadn't actually gone into the garden. To save time, I probed with my mind to see where he might be in the castle. I couldn't find him.

  Feeling uneasy, I started searching. It should be fairly straightforward for a wizard to touch the mind of someone he knows, as long as that person is not too far away. I went up to the chaplain's room, but it stood empty. I wandered around the castle aimlessly for a few minutes, not quite ready to go back out to the garden and face the inevitable questions about the thunderstorm, then realized I had not looked in the obvious place, the chapel.