C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 04

by The Witch;the Cathedral

  Very few people not trained in magic can hear a wizard speaking to them directly, mind to mind. But there was an abrupt stir and I returned to myself, knowing he had heard. "He's coming," I said.

  "The mare's a little gentler," said Paul. "You and Lucas try mounting."

  I rose up in the air, bringing Lucas with me, and set us down on the mare's back as gently as I could. Vor came out of the trees, his face ashen and running with sweat but giving us a complacent smile. Paul reached out a hand, and Vor scrambled up behind him.

  "Hold onto my waist," said Paul. "All of you, keep your heads down and tuck up your feet. Let's go!"

  Paul urged the stallion forward, and the mare followed. The stallion was out in the plain again in a second, but Lucas's wounded leg stuck out sideways from the mare's back, and it hung up on the nixie's barrier.

  Lucas grunted with pain, and I caught him just before he was dragged backwards off the horse, just before the mare bolted out from under both of us. With a firm hand on her mane and my best imitation of Paul's voice in her ears, I turned her in a tight circle and tried again.

  And this time we went through, free of our leafy prison. "Run!" cried Paul. "Here comes the nixie!"

  PART SEVEN - THE BISHOP

  I

  The graceful green form stood on the edge of the grove. Waves of sensuous emotion broke around us, but we kept galloping.

  When the nixie's call to us did not succeed in a few seconds, she tried to call the horses. Paul's stallion threw up its head and stopped so suddenly Vor almost slid off. The mare too skidded to a halt and looked back.

  But while a dead flying beast's skin has no choice but to answer a call designed for flying beasts, a living horse can make a choice. Paul shouted to the horses and, almost reluctantly, they turned away from the grove, and abruptly the attraction spell dropped and we ran again.

  Although Paul had been riding these horses hard for several hours, they showed no sign of slowing now. Half my attention had to go to the lifting spell that was all that held Lucas on the mare's back. I was not nearly the horseman Paul was, and I quickly fell behind

  But it did not matter. We were free.

  After five miles, at the hills that ringed the plain, Paul pulled up the stallion. "The horses don't want to go farther," he said. "And I don't want to exhaust them." A light dampness had finally broken out on their coats. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way. Lucas, the wizard can carry you."

  None of us objected, not even Lucas, whose ankle had been healing nicely in the nixie's grove until the slam against the invisible barrier had twisted it anew. We slid to the ground and Paul embraced both horses, putting his cheek in turn against each of their necks. "Goodbye, my beauties, my lovely ones. I'll give your greetings to Bonfire."

  He then turned to the rest of us. "The nixie made us fight among ourselves, but if we are going to make it home again we all have to help each other." All of us nodded soberly. Paul was clearly our leader now. I thought it a nice diplomatic touch for him to blame our disagreements on the nixie. We stumbled up into the rocky hills, Lucas hovering a short distance above the ground due to my magic, and the horses pranced away across the grass to rejoin the herd.

  It took two days to get back to Vor's people's valley. Vor was able to climb up and down even the steepest inclines without difficulty, but on several occasions I had to carry both princes up a nearly vertical slope or across a crevice.

  Late the second day, when cool blue shadows stretched out across the barren land, we finally reached a river, rimmed on either side with verdure, and followed it upstream until we came through a narrow divide into the valley.

  Word spread quickly that we had arrived, and people came hurrying down from their homes in the cliffs to greet us. I was too tired to notice much of what was happening, except that Vor gave everyone a lively account of our exploits. Several long-fingered women brought hot stew, which certainly helped. As the stars came out, lights twinkled on all up and down the cliffs, and, as Paul had hoped, it looked like fairyland. Someone realized that, although Vor seemed prepared to talk all night, the rest of us were about to fall asleep sitting up. We were boosted up ladders and given blankets and dropped into oblivion at last.

  "Vor," asked Paul, "do you want to come back to Caelrhon with us, or do you want to stay here with your people?"

  The air cart, I was happy to discover, had indeed obeyed my last commands after tipping us out, and it had returned to the valley. In the morning we were preparing to fly home.

  "I'll come back with you," said Vor in his normal laconic style. "The lads will want me once they start construction again."

  And they might be starting again very soon, I thought. It had already been three weeks since the old bishop's death, and I did not think they would delay the election of his successor for long.

  Paul echoed my thought. "I wonder if we'll be too late for the new bishop's enthronement."

  "We can telephone from the mountain and find out what's been happening," I said.

  And so once again, after a day of flying, we came up the icy vertical side of old Book-Leech's mountain and landed next to the little blue house. I let Paul tell most of the story.

  "Well, I've heard about nixies, of course, but I've never met one," said the wizard, pouring out tea. "I'm sure you found it all a, well, interesting interlude." Paul blushed up to his hairline. "There was certainly clever of you, young fellow, to find a way out of her grove—guess old ‘Frogs’ has been teaching you his tricks, eh?"

  Paul had tried to downplay his role in saving us, but Book-Leech, of course, had realized what an accomplishment it in fact was. It really had owed nothing to me, and I said so.

  "I'd like to use your telephone," I said in a pause in the conversation. "The priests of the cathedral will want to know that the gorgos has been destroyed."

  I expected him to offer me the phone at once, but he hesitated before answering. "Well, you're welcome to use it, of course, but I'm not sure it's working."

  "Not sure it's working?!"

  "It may be because we're so far away from any other telephone," he said apologetically, "or because there's interference due to the magical influences from the north."

  "But there have been wizards posted here for years—"

  "Well, you see, it used to work. But it didn't use to have a far-seeing attachment. It was just put in this summer, and, well . . . Elerius himself installed it, so I know it must have been working at first, and now I'm afraid I've broken it somehow. I've never been any good at technical magic myself. Could you look at it? It is, after all, your invention."

  I took a deep breath. I had invented the far-seeing attachment essentially by accident and still had no good idea how it worked; wizards from the technical division had had to take apart my rather haphazard spells to be able to duplicate it. "Let's look at it together."

  He took it out of a drawer. "It does work for the school to call me. That's why I didn't realize at first there was a problem."

  A quick glance at his shelves showed that he, like me, owned no books that might have helped. "If you can't telephone the City for help," I asked, "what's the point of having you posted here? I would think they would want to have this fixed immediately."

  "I can usually get it to work once," he said, "so I could call the school if there was any sudden problem up in the land of magic. But— Well, I guess I can tell you this without embarrassment. I don't like to tell the school that I, a thoroughly-trained wizard, can't solve a magical difficulty."

  It was rather reassuring that someone who might in another year have been first in his class could also have patches of incompetence. But I myself had had so many blows to my pride over the years that I might have been willing to admit my failure in a case like this.

  The two of us bent over the telephone, probing its spells, communicating mind to mind. Suddenly I thought I saw the problem. Breaking off pieces of the flow of magic with words of the Hidden Language, I adjusted the spells, reori
enting the telephone within magic's four dimensions.

  "There," I said aloud. "I think it should work now."

  "Of course it will. That's the spell I have to use to get it to work at all. You can make one telephone call now if you like, but you won't be able to make another until tomorrow. So who do you want to call?"

  I considered. I could continue to try different spells on the telephone, but they were as likely to make the instrument stop working completely as to fix it. I wanted reassurance that the queen was alive and well, but whatever Prince Vincent might be plotting he needed her so he could marry her. I needed to talk to the wizards' school, but it would have been much easier to do so without the princes standing there. One call should reassure me that no new monster had appeared in the cathedral city.

  The telephone view-screen lit up, and I saw one of the young priests of the cathedral. "Hello?" He could not see me.

  "I'd like to speak to the dean. Father Joachim," I added as he seemed to hesitate. "This is Daimbert, the wizard who was staying with him." The young priest's face changed slightly. "I know he'll want to talk to me," I said urgently.

  "The dean cannot speak with anyone at the present time," said the priest in icy tones.

  "Then give him my message, please," I said, speaking rapidly. "Tell him that I've destroyed the monster and will be back in the cathedral city in a week." I tried to read something into the young man's motionless face. Could Joachim have left explicit orders that he did not want to talk to me? Had the cantor Norbert decided to get revenge for his humiliation by launching a new, more deadly attack against the dean, perhaps with the active assistance of an evil wizard? "No new monsters have appeared on the cathedral tower, have they?" I asked in panic.

  "No, and I trust you are not disappointed." And then he did ring off, leaving me hoping that he would convey my message.

  "I'll send the air cart back to the City as soon as we're through with it," I said as we were leaving the mountain top. Having not seen any other flying beasts in the borderlands, I had to give up my plan for an air cart of my own. "So the school will be able to send you more supplies whenever you need them. Swallow your pride and ask them to send out some technicians at the same time."

  He nodded ruefully. But during the week it took us to fly home I gave him no more thought.

  Paul and Lucas spent much of the trip working out elaborate methods to trick and overcome whatever renegade wizard was operating in Caelrhon. Vor was unable to give any more exact description of him than that he seemed fairly young and had a black beard. He commented, rather surprised himself, that he could not really recall the man's face, though he did remember his white jacket, emblazoned with yellow suns glowing by their own light, a jacket that I could certainly not remember anyone at the school wearing. The two princes speculated at some length on Vincent's role, concluding that he must have been deceived by the renegade, and drew up plans in which they were able to gallop, formidable and glorious, across all their enemies. I could have told them none of them would work.

  "I'll be eighteen in two weeks," said Paul. "I hope Mother has been going ahead with the preparations without me. You were going to be at my coming of age ceremony anyway, weren't you Lucas? I'll need you now especially, because the wizard may be planning some attack to coincide with the event."

  And if the renegade wizard was planning some outrageous further assault on the cathedral, I needed to warn the Church. Once Joachim was elected bishop I hoped that I could still get in to see him in spite of the other priests' suspicions of magic-workers, suspicions doubtless increased by Norbert's experiences.

  II

  We reached Caelrhon at sunset and saw both the new and the old towers of the cathedral rising before us "The Romneys are back," noted Vor.

  And not just the Romneys. As well as their caravans, I saw a large number of silk tents pitched outside the city walls, far more than one usually saw for market day. I set the air cart down in front of the gates. We climbed out, leaner and much more ragged and dirty than we had been when we left, and smiled to think what we must look like to people in silk tents.

  "The first thing I'm going to do," said Lucas cheerfully, "is to take a very long bath." I was giving the air cart the commands to return it to the City.

  "Don't use up all the hot water," said Paul.

  "I'll need to see how my lads are doing," said Vor and slipped away. The air cart soared upwards into the darkening sky.

  "Save some hot water for me, too," I said to Paul. "I'm going around by the cathedral, to tell the dean not to worry about the gorgos any more. I don't trust that young priest to have given him the message."

  The construction site in front of the cathedral was dark and still, except for the construction crew's huts on the far side. Then I heard sudden loud and cheerful voices as Vor arrived. I saw the watchman's lantern but detoured around him to reach at last the quiet cobbled street behind the church, where thin lines of yellow light came into the street from shuttered windows.

  My footsteps echoed as I hurried down to the house at the end. I stepped up into the dark porch and knocked. For a long moment there was no response. Then there was a click as the door was unlocked, and a candle shone in my eyes as it opened.

  I had expected to see Joachim's silent servant. Instead I saw a man I had never met in my life. "I need to see the dean at once," I said. There was probably a good reason why Joachim had someone else opening his door. "It's very urgent."

  He hesitated, apparently trying to decide if I was dangerous, then nodded. "Wait here, please."

  There was another long pause, and I could hear faint voices. Then the candle appeared again with someone else carrying it. He was dressed in the black vestments of a senior officer of the cathedral, but he was not Joachim.

  After a panic-stricken moment in which I imagined that we had somehow come to the wrong city, I remembered seeing this man last month at dinner at this very house. He was older than Joachim, with an intelligent face if not the dean's intense expression.

  "Excuse me, I expected to see Father Joachim," I managed to say.

  "He is at the episcopal palace, but I am sure I could help you."

  Joachim was alive, but I was too late. I tried to smile and shook my head. "Thank you, but it wasn't important. Sorry to disturb you." The priest stood in the doorway, still holding up his candle, watching me as I slowly walked back down the street.

  At the castle, Paul met me in great excitement. He seemed younger somehow than he had in the past weeks. "We got back just in time! They're going to elect the new bishop and have his enthronement tomorrow! Everybody's here—Mother, Prince Vincent, the old king and queen of Caelrhon. And they say that not only are all the lords of the two kingdoms here—that's why we saw so many tents—and all the bishops of the nearby dioceses, but the bishop of the great City himself! I'm afraid the castle is very cramped with the royal courts of both kingdoms, and there's hardly any hot water."

  I felt swept with relief to hear that the queen was all right. Now all I had to do was find Theodora. "And have there been any more manifestations from the renegade wizard?"

  "No. Lucas told me he was going to talk to his brother immediately, of course. But I've seen Bonfire, and he seems well—my knights did remember to exercise and feed him."

  There was one more important point in what Paul had said. "And they haven't elected the new bishop yet?"

  "Well, not really. I've just been hearing about this. They hold the official election right before the enthronement, but in fact they have to decide much earlier. It would never do to have everyone there for the ceremony and then have a split election! The priests keep the results secret, of course, but there are plenty of rumors."

  "And who is rumored to have been elected?" I asked, but I already knew.

  "You'll never guess. It's Father Joachim, our old chaplain! We'll find out for sure in the morning."

  The morning found us all in the cathedral very early. I kept probing for another wizard
in the city, but I could not find him. I also found no monsters, not even the red lizards with hands, although I had flown surreptitiously over the new tower, repeating the spell to reveal what was hidden. This absence of other wizards and of magical creatures was not the relief it should have been, because I also had not been able to detect the wizard even when Theodora had. I wondered if he planned some outrage for the middle of the ceremony or if, as at the old bishop's funeral, he would save his surprise for the end.

  The church was even more crowded than it had been for the funeral, because as well as all the townspeople there were all the aristocrats of two kingdoms, with their trains. Quite a few wore their swords, a surprising sight in church. I spotted Yurt's two counts and the duchess several rows behind us. The duchess was flanked by her tall husband and their twin daughters. The girls waved at us and Paul waved back. I even saw the Romneys, in their bright red and gold best, squeezed into a back pew.

  Prince Vincent sat with his own family, including his parents, his brother Lucas, the crown princess and their children, in the front pew on the far side of the church, so Paul and I had the queen to ourselves. As we waited for the service to begin, Paul continued telling his mother the story of our adventures which he had started last night. The nixie, I noticed, became changed in the telling into a rather ill-defined although still malignant magical creature.

  I was almost overwhelmed to be sitting so close to the queen again, smelling her scent, seeing her smile, hearing her voice. She addressed me perfectly naturally, as she always had, and I did my best to be equally natural.

  But I still glanced surreptitiously around the church, looking for Theodora. She could have been there but I would not have seen her in the throng.

  Then the organ began playing, and conversation quickly died away as aristocrats and townspeople settled back as well as they could in the crowded pews. Through the great doors of the cathedral came half a dozen bishops in brilliant scarlet robes. All of them seemed quite old and highly venerable. They walked solemnly the length of the cathedral, across the mosaic Tree of Life, to stand around the altar.