Daughter of Magic

by C. Dale Brittain

  Cyrus and I waited in silence, listening to the approaching footsteps. A tall figure stepped from the shadow of a pillar into the candlelight. It was the bishop.

  Now that I saw them together, Joachim and Cyrus did not look anything alike. The bishop was taller, and his face was alive with the power of good. The same good had burned in the other’s expression when he smiled, but he again was sober and the effect was gone.

  Joachim lifted his eyebrows when he saw us. It must seem to him that I had been showing up all day at the most inappropriate moments. I wondered what to answer when he asked why I was questioning his new seminary student after he had told me not to, especially if Cyrus complained that I had been quizzing him about his experiences with wizardry.

  But the bishop did not ask why I was here. “Forgive me for disturbing your conversation,” he said instead. “I came to offer thanks to God for the safe deliverance from fire of the city’s people, even before the thanksgiving service I shall lead tomorrow. I had not known there was anyone else in the church.”

  “My devotions kept me overlong, Father,” murmured Cyrus, the perfect humble seminary student. He dipped a knee toward the altar and retreated hastily, the side door closing hollowly behind him. It looked like any further conversation with him would have to wait.

  “I’m leaving too, Joachim,” I said. I thought of trying to say again that he shouldn’t do anything rash without giving it more thought, but the outbreak of the fire had put such an effective end to our discussion on that topic that I was not sure how to bring it up again. “I’ll be heading back to Yurt first thing in the morning.”

  “Before you go,” he said, not nearly as embarrassed as I was, “I want to ask you something. The fire died out much more rapidly than anyone had dared hope—was that due in part to your magic?”

  “Mine and Theodora’s,” I said, and was immediately sorry I had mentioned her when the bishop dropped his eyes.

  “Then I am glad I found you to thank you,” he said gravely, not looking at me. “Convey my thanks to her as well when you next see her. More priests should recognize how often God works through human agents, even wizards.” There was an awkward silence for a moment, then he asked quietly, “Are you going to Theodora’s house now?”

  “Yes.” It seemed as though I ought to add more, but I was not sure what. One of the candles on the altar guttered out with a strong scent of hot wax.

  “When you see her,” said Joachim, now in a flustered tone that did not sound anything like him, “I would be grateful if— That is, unless you think there is a need to say—”

  “I did not plan to tell her what you have told me.”

  There was another silence. Confessors are supposed to maintain the secrets of the confessional, but both of us knew that someone who takes his secret sins to a wizard does so at his own risk.

  Joachim raised his enormous dark eyes then to meet mine. “This has been a strange day, Daimbert,” he said at last, which seemed an understatement. “Before you return to Yurt tomorrow, come to the episcopal palace and talk with me.”

  When I walked the length of the nave to the main doors and glanced back, it was to see him kneeling before the altar on the flagstones where Cyrus had lain.

  II

  The sun shone through Theodora’s curtains when I rolled over the next morning, just barely avoiding pitching myself off her couch and onto the floor among the cloth scraps. I had spent quite a few nights on that couch over the last five years, but it really was too narrow. From the kitchen I could hear rattling sounds of someone making breakfast.

  “What time did you get in last night?” Theodora asked as I leaned, rubbing my eyes, against the doorframe. She seemed to be tactfully not recalling that the last time we had met face to face I seemed to have lost my mind. “I was so soundly asleep I didn’t even hear you.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to wake you.” I took the piece of toast she handed me and wolfed it down. When I thought back over yesterday’s confused events, I couldn’t remember eating at any point. “How about if I scramble us some eggs?”

  As we sat at her kitchen table in the morning sun, eating eggs and toast and drinking hot tea, everything seemed so safe and normal that for a moment I could merely have imagined the events of the last week. The light brought out golden highlights in Theodora’s curly brown hair. But one thing was missing. Antonia should have been here with us.

  “Where did you go after the fire was contained?” Theodora asked. “I know I should have tried to help with the families and the children, but I was so exhausted I could hardly stand.” A smile brought out her dimple. “How do you wizards ever manage to practice magic all the time?”

  For a moment I stopped eating to listen to a sound of distant voices carried from elsewhere in the city. They might have been voicing surprise or wonder, but at least it did not sound like fear. “I finally met the Dog-Man last night. His name is Cyrus, and he’s just become an acolyte in the cathedral seminary.” I paused for another bite. “He worries me, Theodora. There’s magic about him, though he’s no wizard, and a hint of the supernatural that seems strangely different than what you’d expect of a devout young would-be priest.” She had finished a much smaller breakfast than mine and watched me with sober amethyst eyes. “And I can’t help wondering what he’s got to do with the warriors who attacked Yurt.”

  “What warriors?”

  I remembered just too late that I had never told her about the attack on the royal castle and had in fact been meaning to let it slide until Antonia was safely home again. But the city of Caelrhon, with its fire, fears of the Romneys, and Cyrus, might be no safer than the castle of Yurt, guarded now by a far better wizard than I. I told Theodora briefly about the attack.

  “There wasn’t enough magic left in their bones for me to learn much about—” I stopped abruptly. “Wait! I just remembered! I handled those bones yesterday—or I guess it would be the day before. I wasn’t paying very close attention at the time, so if there was some kind of latent spell in them, ready to infect a wizard who wasn’t careful, and through him—” I seized her by the shoulders. “Theodora! Are you feeling all right?”

  “Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I?” She looked concerned, as well she might.

  “I think there was a spell in those bones that affected me, and now I’m infecting other people.” I stopped just in time from telling her about Joachim. “You aren’t feeling, for example, a wild conviction that I don’t love you, or that Antonia is in danger? You aren’t fearing that everyone in town knows you for a witch and holds it against you?”

  Now she looked alarmed. “Daimbert, what are you talking about? Is Antonia in danger?”

  “All right,” I said, mostly to myself, gulping down the last of the tea. “Everything’s fine. It didn’t affect you. Maybe it can only infect once. But will the bishop this morning— And I almost forgot, he wanted me to come see him. That reminds me, Theodora. Joachim told me to thank you for your fire magic last night.”

  The distant sound of voices came clearer again as the breezes shifted, and the cathedral bells were ringing as though for service, although I thought it was the wrong time. Maybe it was the special thanksgiving service the bishop had mentioned. Theodora came around the table to put a palm on my forehead. “Are you sure you haven’t become feverish again?”

  I pushed back my chair and stood up. “I’m fine as long as you are. I’ll telephone Elerius from the cathedral office and tell him to check those bones for spells at once. And I’d better get back to Yurt before Antonia starts to doubt that I really am her father.” I kissed Theodora and smiled reassuringly. “In a few days, when I bring her home, I can tell you all about it.”

  As I walked briskly through the city streets, I noticed that all the smoky smell had dissipated overnight. Somehow I had expected it still to linger. The cathedral bells grew louder as I approached.

  The voices grew louder too. Feeling suddenly uneasy, I quickened my pace. There was a disconcerti
ng note to that many people shouting together, a wordless note that could have been the voice of last night’s flames.

  The open area in front of the cathedral was packed. People stood in every available spot between the huts and supplies of the workmen and the piles of stones. All sectors of society and all ages seemed to be there; children darted between legs to try to get closer, or begged to be lifted high enough to see. I spotted Celia near the front, Hildegarde beside her, and then was startled to see King Paul’s Great-aunt Maria trying to scramble up onto a heap of building supplies for a better view. What was she doing here?

  The crowd kept pushing forward like the motion of the sea, with a murmur like the sound of waves, and the shadows of the cathedral’s new towers lay across them. I couldn’t get any closer to either the twins or the Lady Maria without flying. At the top of the cathedral steps, facing the crowd, stood the bishop.

  “The miracle is God’s!” he called out over that wordless murmur. He wore his formal scarlet vestments and tall episcopal mitre and extended his arms wide. “Come into God’s house where we can offer thanks together to Him! Nothing is impossible for Him who rules all!”

  But the crowd was disagreeing with him. What miracle? I wondered wildly. We all had reason to be grateful no one had been killed in the fire, but there was much more going on, and I had somehow missed it.

  “No, my sons and daughters!” the bishop continued, even more loudly and clearly. His gaunt face was intense, and his eyes focused not on the crowd but on the sky. “It is idolatry to speak like that to a living, sinning mortal!”

  What could possibly be happening? I tried again to shoulder my way through toward the front of the crowd, not wanting to practice magic this close to a church with everyone speaking of a miracle. The crowd was too intent on the bishop to pay any attention to me, although several people almost stepped on my toes.

  “So if you didn’t call down the saints to save our homes,” a booming voice shouted from almost next to me, “then who did?”

  “The Dog-Man!” someone else shouted, and a dozen voices took it up. “The Dog-Man, the Dog-Man!”

  “Cyrus!” called a woman’s voice from the front of the crowd. It rose almost to a scream. “Cyrus!” I looked to see the source of the voice and saw that it was Celia.

  One big cathedral door opened, and the seminary’s newest student popped out like the figure in some child’s game. “It was Cyrus who worked the miracle!” screamed Celia as though in ecstasy. I saw Hildegarde take her by the arm, but she shook her sister off. “Praise God! Praise God!”

  Cyrus, his sharp face sober, stood beside Joachim with his arms extended in an identical pose. The bishop turned his head and came as close as he ever did to looking irritated.

  “Give not me the praise, but the saints who heard my humble prayers,” said Cyrus when after a moment the crowd’s wordless shouts died away. “My merits are but meager; it is the sincerity of my heart that the saints have answered. Come, let us worship together!” He spun around, apparently finding nothing wrong with inviting Joachim’s flock into Joachim’s own church, and led the way as the townspeople poured up the steps after him.

  Celia was one of the first through the doors, but I reached the Lady Maria before she managed to descend from the building materials on which she had so precariously perched. She gave me a smile when she spotted me. “Right on time!” she announced and launched herself into the air. I was just able to catch her, both with my arms and with magic, and set her carefully down.

  “How nice to see you, Wizard,” she said conversationally, straightening her dress. “And what a marvelous thing that a miracle-worker has come to the twin kingdoms and that our Celia is studying with him!”

  Things were happening much too fast for me. “So you came because Celia wrote you?” I asked, hoping for at least one solid piece of information. Celia had said something yesterday about telling all the people who had supported her in her religious vocation that Cyrus was going to teach her.

  “And fortunately I got here just in time to see his first big miracle!” continued the Lady Maria cheerfully. “Come on—we don’t want to miss the service!”

  “What miracle?” I demanded, blocking her path.

  “Restoring the burned buildings, of course,” she said blithely. “When I arrived this morning everyone was talking about it. Don’t tell me,” with a playful smile, “that just because you’re a wizard you’re going to pretend it never happened!”

  “Um, go ahead into the church and I’ll catch up,” I said and shot off without waiting for an answer.

  But she was quite right. The burned street had been restored.

  The buildings stood silent and empty now, since everyone was in church, but the charred remnants I had seen late last night were back to their former state, as solid as ever. Wood and plaster structures leaned over the high street, and sunlight glittered on window panes I had seen smashed. I wandered down the street, doubting my own eyes, and tried pushing against the timbers in a half-hearted and futile attempt to persuade myself it was all an illusion.

  I put my head into the doorway of an inn, blinking in the dimness. There was spilled ale on the wooden bar, filth in the straw on the floor, and dirty plates and mugs on the tables. A brown rat poked its nose out of the straw to look at me and scurried away again. Whatever saint had restored this street seemed to have been very literal. If I had been working a miracle, I would at least have cleaned up the place a little.

  Flabbergasted, I leaned against the rough plastered wall outside. This certainly let the Romneys off from accusations of arson. The inn sign, its paint peeling, creaked over my head. Perhaps all the events of the day before had been my imagination, I thought wildly. But if so all the townspeople now at the cathedral, treating a quite willing Cyrus as though this was all due to his own merit, shared the illusion.

  The air around me almost glittered with the force of the supernatural. The city always had a touch of the supernatural anyway, evident to any wizard, because of the presence of the cathedral, but this went much further.

  Mixed with the aura of the saints was the faint but unmistakable imprint of evil.

  III

  Afternoon sun shone on the polished wood of the bishop’s study. Joachim, bareheaded but still in his formal scarlet, sat behind his desk, his enormous dark eyes fixed on me. “I cannot leave my cathedral and my people now,” he said quietly, “not until I know what is happening here.”

  “It’s not complicated,” I said, irritable because my insides felt so cold my legs were trembling. We could hear, faint in the distance, laughing and singing from the high street, where the innkeepers had announced free ale for everyone in honor of the miraculous restoration of their businesses. “Cyrus is working with a demon.” How, I asked myself, could I ever have imagined there was anything good about him? “And as long as you won’t let me take him out of the cathedral there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “It could have been as he says,” Joachim said somewhat uneasily. Whatever else I might have done, I seemed to have made the bishop doubt his own judgment. “The saints might have answered his prayers and restored the buildings.”

  “I thought you just said the saints don’t do things like that,” I shot back.

  He shook his head slowly. “I have never known of such a thing. A saint might act to protect his own shrine, and saints of course keep demons out of the churches as long as the hearts of the priests are pure, but they do not usually concern themselves with the material things of this world.”

  “Then if it wasn’t a saint,” I said firmly, “it’s got to be a demon.”

  “Even a demon could not restore a soul from death,” Joachim objected. He spoke quietly but his gaze was intense.

  “We’re not talking about restoring a soul,” I said, looking away. This could not be any easier for the bishop than it was for me. Fingernails dug into my palms. “I think he’s made time run backwards, very locally. That’s how he rebuilt the hou
ses, how he repaired the toys, even how he brought animals without souls back to life. Let me call the demonology experts at the school.”

  Joachim lifted an eyebrow. “You did not call them from the cathedral office when you said you needed to call Yurt?”

  For all I could tell he might have been making a joke. “Of course not. I don’t lie to you, Joachim. I called Yurt because Antonia’s safety is even more important to me than your demon.”

  “It is not,” he said, no trace of humor now, “my demon.”

  The thought crossed my mind that if Cyrus indeed was working supernatural black magic, then he could not have been behind the undead warriors; that had been perverted but natural magic. Which meant that I had another faceless enemy to worry about as well as the Dog-Man. “Whosever demon it is,” I snapped, “we need an expert to find it and send it back to hell.”

  The bishop rose with a swirl of vestments. “Let us go speak to Cyrus together then, Daimbert. I will not have you or any other wizard bullying one of my seminary students.”

  “He may be infecting the rest of your students with evil,” I said as we went out through the study door, the same one I had slammed behind me yesterday morning as I came to murder the bishop. A fine one I was to talk about infection—although the madness seemed to have passed off him as quickly as it had passed off me.

  “If the saints heard his prayers and truly worked a miracle,” said Joachim, ignoring my comment, “he needs my spiritual guidance so that he does not become puffed up and proud. By now the crowds will have dissipated, and I may even be able to call my cathedral my own again.”

  The only thing I had going for me, I thought as we walked the short distance down the cobbled street from the episcopal palace to the side door of the cathedral, was that the bishop now seemed as disturbed to have the Dog-Man and his purported miracles in his church as I was.

  But the crowds had not yet completely dissipated. Cyrus, a thin black form, knelt in prayer at the high altar, and at least a dozen people, mostly women, knelt beside him. Colored light from the stained glass windows washed over them. Among them were Celia and the Lady Maria.