He led me to a room that was strangely familiar—Vlad’s old sitting room. It was hung with folds of velvet, worked black on black, that seemed to absorb the light. Bodiless hands floated around the room’s periphery, holding more candles, but nothing could penetrate the shadows. And then on a black marble table I saw it, what I had hoped to find: the face section of a skull, the eye sockets set with crystals.
Putting itchy fingers into my pocket, I sat down on an uncomfortable chair by a cold fireplace, thrusting out my sore leg before me. “Glad to meet you too, Count,” I mumbled, much too late.
Basil didn’t seem to mind. “You see, Daimbert,” he said, sitting across from me and leaning forward, “I owe you a debt of gratitude. I understand that you were responsible for the death of Prince Vlad.”
I jumped at the name but tried to appear calm.
“Well, not exactly,” I said, half an octave too high. “I didn’t actually kill him myself.”
He waved my objections away with a slim white hand. The nails, like his lips, were a deep blood red. “The details are unimportant. He left here to pursue you, but instead of your death he found his own. Not merely the half-death with which he had long lived, but a final one, ” with what was probably supposed to be an ironic chuckle. “And with his castle empty, I was able to claim it for myself. “In years past,” he continued, “I had had to give myself in miserable service to older wizards, but now, though younger than most, I rule as equal to them all. Do you remember Vlad’s apprentice Cyrus?” I nodded without speaking, remembering all too well. “When Cyrus left for the West, Vlad took me on as his assistant, which was an improvement from where I had been.” I didn’t like to imagine where he had been if Vlad was an improvement. “I even hoped that within fifty years or so I might be able to succeed to this castle. But then Vlad went west himself and died in Yurt! So my success begins with you, Daimbert, and I have spent much time in thinking how I might express my gratitude.”
I made what was supposed to be a humble and dismissive noise, but not too dismissive—I wanted that crystal-eyed skull.
“Those of you from what you call the Western Kingdoms cross the mountains into our lands but rarely,” he continued, “unless you are on some sort of quest or pilgrimage. Are you on your way to Xantium, Daimbert, or even to the Holy Land? Perhaps I could accompany you, to add my store of magic to yours, for I am sure there are spells known to me that are unknown to you. Certainly you are expert in your western magic of glass and steel, but there is much in this earth which responds best to a different magic.”
I turned my face away so he wouldn’t see the expression of horror. I was not going to face Elerius accompanied by a dark eastern wizard, who would be stopping to find corpses for his pet every time I looked for melons for Naurag. At my funeral Joachim had said I was good at making friends; if this was the result of my personal charm, I would have to try harder to make enemies.
He misinterpreted the turning of my head. “He’s looking at the skull, Bone,” he commented to the lizard on his shoulder. I was looking at the skull so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “This,” he continued to me, “is a good example of powers I believe you western wizards do not possess. Take it, hold it to your face, and look at the map.”
This was what I wanted, but I still felt heavy reluctance as I rose and held the face of someone long dead up to mine and looked through the crystals in his eye-sockets. On the table was spread a map of the Eastern Kingdoms, and as I looked through the enchanted skull it came to life before me. In spite of the room’s dimness, it now seemed brightly lit. No longer a mere detailed map, it became a surface on which I could see motion, merchants and troops moving on the highways, smoke rising from chimneys, forests bending in the wind.
It took a minute to get used to the skull, to learn to control where one looked, for a quick flick of the eyes could send one’s vision shooting across scores of miles. The closer I looked the more detailed the map became. At last, peering, I could make out a tiny red rectangle, which must be the flying carpet, lying beside a stream where three people splashed. They seemed unconcerned that they might be watched by wizardry. Then the hill just above that stream must be where I was now. I shifted my gaze cautiously. The hill was there, all right, and the miniscule form of a flying beast floated just above it, but the hilltop was empty: no black castle, but only barren rock.
“Marvelous, is it not,” said Basil as I pulled the skull abruptly away from my face. “He seems quite impressed,” he added to his pet.
“We’re not on the map,” I said accusingly. I still hadn’t managed to make my voice come out right.
“Of course not, Daimbert,” his purple eyes very round. “My castle is not drawn there, and most of the time I keep it invisible. It reduces the number of unwanted guests,” with another chuckle.
And usually you want guests only if Bone is hungry, I thought but didn’t say. Instead I commented, quite truthfully, “This is wonderful magic. We have nothing like it in the West.”
“I shall certainly bring it with us,” he said, then added, as though in sudden concern, “But it only works with the magic map of this region. Perhaps I shall be able to modify it so that it may assist you in your quest.”
I too hoped it could be modified—it wouldn’t be much use to me otherwise, because I really didn’t want to know what was happening in the Eastern Kingdoms. But in the meantime I had to dissuade him from coming along. “I appreciate your offer of assistance,” I said airily, “but you really need to stay here. After all, you don’t want another wizard moving in while you’re gone!”
He gazed at me as though not quite trusting my tone. “I can leave protective spells in place,” he said. “Vlad’s worked until his death. Now, tell me, Daimbert, where are you going?”
It was easiest to tell the truth. “I’m not on a quest. I’ve been in the East, but I’m heading home to face an enemy. He’s a school-trained wizard like me, so I’m afraid your magic wouldn’t be much help.”
Basil bent toward me. I wished he wouldn’t—his face, up close, appeared horribly artificial, as though he were not even really a man but perhaps a lizard in disguise—and a hungry lizard at that. “But that is exactly how I can help, Daimbert.
As I understand—and you realize that the stories which came back from the West were very confused—you were able to overcome Vlad with magic different from anything he had expected. We can overcome your enemy with the same sort of surprise. After all, when all of you in the West have worn grooves into the flow of magic through all working the same spells the same way, what would be more devastating than discovering magical forces coming from an entirely new direction?”
I didn’t like to admit it, but he was right. I had known all along that I wasn’t going to be able to succeed against Elerius by matching him spell for spell. That was why I had first tried to find the Dragons’ Sceptre, and why I had then gone looking for an Ifrit—whose bottle was currently hidden among some rocks a mile away. Access to magic different and more powerful than anything Elerius knew was my only hope.
My imagination leaped ahead, seeing myself at the head of a disparate army: the Ifrit, Count Basil, Kazalrhun armed with all the magery of Xantium, maybe some witches with fire magic, a few more flying beasts if I could tame them, even one of the old, retired wizards whose training predated the school, wielding his herbal spells— Basil must have seen that he was persuading me.
“You see, Daimbert,” he confided, “I perhaps know more about this enemy of yours than you may suppose. One of my old friends lives in the kingdom where your opponent was once Royal Wizard.”
I went stiff, my backbone feeling as though an icicle had just been drawn down it. All this suddenly had the feeling of an elaborate trap which Elerius had prepared for me. “Just how much,” I said through stiff lips, “do you know?”
V
Back before he had taken up his position in a powerful kingdom with an aging king and an all-too-pliant queen, Elerius had been
Royal Wizard in a kingdom on the western slopes of the mountains: an enormously wealthy kingdom whose royal court was deeply sunk in evil. The chancellor of that kingdom had kept in touch with Vlad, in fact had helped steer our party toward this very castle when Vlad had decided he wanted something from us.
Though Vlad was gone, and the evil king was gone, and even Elerius had resigned as wizard there over twenty years ago to accept his present post, the chancellor must be maintaining his contacts in the Eastern Kingdoms. This explained how Basil knew what had happened to Vlad and knew that I had had a hand in it.
“I understand that one of you western wizards is trying to make himself the absolute ruler of all of your kingdoms,” said Basil, showing dozens of pointed teeth—either a grimace or an unsuccessful smile. “He would not have minded my assistance, either.”
In a sickening second I could see it all: Elerius enlisting the aid of someone like Vlad, to help him go up against Zahlfast and the school. In return he would promise full access to his own magic. Because he believed his goals were ultimately good, Elerius would not hesitate to forge an alliance even with someone so evil that Hell itself might hesitate to take his soul. And then, after a war that would make the Black Wars seem like a carnival tournament, just when he and this demonic eastern wizard were settling in to rule jointly, Elerius would have a curious accident…
“But I do not trust him,” said Basil.
I stopped looking at the pictures my imagination was producing and looked fully instead at Count Basil: a white-faced wizard sitting in a dark room with a man-eating white lizard on his shoulder, but not Vlad, not a demon incarnate, perhaps only someone who genuinely wanted to help.
“Of course, I don’t trust him either,” I said. Basil, I realized, must be about my age. If I had grown up in the Eastern Kingdoms instead of the City in the West, would I now have a pet named Blood who terrified the visitors? “But what is the basis of your distrust? Surely your gratitude toward me for my small role in securing you this castle could not outweigh what he must have offered you.”
As I spoke I fought against the irrational fear that there was no point whatsoever to this conversation, that Basil was merely keeping me talking long enough for Elerius to capture my friends and the flying beast and discover where I had hidden the Ifrit’s bottle. “I heard that he was present when Vlad died but did not play the role you did in overcoming him.”
I shook my head slightly. That was not nearly enough.
Basil smiled again—and this time I was fairly sure it was meant as a smile. “Someone who needs help on his road to power will always promise a partnership. But somehow, it is curious how often it happens, the man awarded with the partnership will have a strange accident …”
I thought this over. Apparently Elerius had been here before me, and Basil had rejected his offers. This wizard had spent his whole life surrounded by the intrigues of the Eastern Kingdoms and had served at the courts of cruel and bloody wizard-princes. This kind of distrust must be second nature to him.
“Then why are you willing to trust me not to kill you the way you believe I killed Vlad?”
“Because you are reluctant to take my help—even though I know you would not be here if you did not want it.” He paused to slip a morsel to his pet lizard. “If you planned to kill me soon anyway, forgetting the oaths I gather all wizards trained in the West have to take against bloodshed, then the distaste you wizards of glass and steel always feel for our magic would have been in comparison very easy to overcome.”
He understood me far too well. Even assuming I could ever capture Elerius, what could I threaten him with? Apparently everyone throughout the civilized world knew that good old Daimbert wouldn’t really hurt a fly. I took a deep breath and tried harder not to show what Basil discreetly called my “distaste” for him, his magic, his castle, and his pet. I would have called it horror and revulsion myself, but one had to be polite. “You are right, Count, that I need help, and you may be in a position to offer it.
But before I accept your assistance, welcome as it might be, I need to know: what will you want in return?”
His blood-red lips twitched in a small smile: proud of me for being cautious. But then he leaned forward, white hands clasped together, lightless eyes extremely sober. “A promise from you, sworn on magic itself: when you are the head of organized wizardry in the West, you will not, as I realize that other wizard plans to do, use the conjoined forces of all of you school-trained wizards to conquer our kingdoms east of the mountains.”
I didn’t need to hear this again. Everyone from the old Master to Elerius to this strange pale-faced wizard seemed convinced I could become head of the school. Just because I wanted to stop Elerius didn’t mean I wanted to make his ambitions my own—in fact, just the opposite, as I would have hoped would be self-evident. Apparently not. I smiled as genuinely as I could.
“I will be happy to swear such an oath, because I have no intention of heading organized wizardry. Even if I did, our school’s purpose is to help mankind, not invade other parts of the world. “But—” I added quickly, before Basil could jump up and start his packing to come with me, “—you may be able to help me best from right here.” The white lizard cocked a disapproving eye at me, but Basil’s face stayed dead still. “You were reluctant, I know,” I hurried on, “to let your castle be seen by the people who were with me yesterday, and yet they’re going to be with me for the rest of the trip. I would much rather have you here than someone like Vlad, and you don’t want to take chances on another wizard moving in.”
“You know, Bone,” Basil commented to his pet, “I do not think he wants us to come with him.”
Now I had hurt his feelings. I knew from his insistence that his castle stay invisible that he was deeply reluctant, when it came to it, to leave darkness and solitude for sunlight and other people. Yet it must be lonely sometimes even for him, with no company but a white lizard. “You could help me best,” I said brightly, “by letting me have this magic skull.”
He insisted for several minutes that he would not mind associating with other people—though I tried to suggest, without actually saying so, that many of these people would feel enormous “distaste” for his pet. He was also reluctant to part with the skull, especially since he remained convinced that all it would show me was the Eastern Kingdoms. But Vlad himself had made it, not Basil, and Basil might not know all its tricks—or so I fervently hoped.
But after a quarter hour of discussion, during which I tried to convince him that I personally would be delighted with his company, even though my companions might be a bother, Basil agreed to stay where he was but to let me have his magic artifact.
“After all,” he said to his lizard, looking on the bright side, “making a new one will keep me happy and busy for a while. And finding a new skull for the face section shouldn’t be too hard, should it, Bone?”
I swore the oaths he wanted, hating the solemnity of swearing to something which I knew would never be an issue anyway, and took the skull in both hands. As I looked at it I tried to reassure myself that since Vlad had not sold his soul to the devil, the one bit of evil he had never undertaken, I would not be endangering my own soul in using it.
“Now you have made me feel guilty, Daimbert,” Basil said suddenly. “You helped me gain my castle by killing Vlad, and you have promised not to invade our kingdoms, and all I am offering you in return is an artifact which may not serve your purposes. Here. Let me give you this instead. I am hoping for an apprentice of my own some day, so I have started composing a primer of the magic of blood and bone. It will be easy enough for me to write out a new one. This one is for you.”
Startled, I took it and pushed it in my jacket pocket with no more than a glance. Another handwritten book of old spells. Maybe I would have done better all along if I had just concentrated properly on studying modern technical magic.
“Thank you very much,” I said as graciously as I could manage on short notice. “And one last thin
g. Everyone in the West thinks I’m dead. Please don’t mention my visit to your old friend the chancellor.” Or, I added silently, to Elerius. The pit of my stomach remained convinced that this was all an elaborate plot to capture me.
But Basil smiled. “Of course not, Daimbert. It would be returning evil for good to betray you when you have just sworn to leave me my castle and my peace. Do come by when you have finished defeating this other wizard and tell me of your adventures.
Perhaps, for you, even Blood will agree to come out during the day.”
His pet lizard Bone was taking another morsel of something, clearly thinking it was not so tasty as I would be, as I staggered down the corridor toward the doors. They swung open at mytouch, and I was back blinking in the sun, as the obsidian castle faded into invisibility behind me.
We were at least a hundred miles from Basil’s castle before I waved to Maffi on the flying carpet that we should set down for the night. Evening was coming earlier and earlier these days, and the western sky, above the mountains we could now see rising to the west, was streaked with red.
“I’m going to have to adjust the skull’s spells,” I told Maffi as we munched on the last of the cucumber salad Kazalrhun had sent with us. Just as well; the salad had become limp, and the flat bread into which it was packed was stale. “I’m sure it was designed to work only with the enchanted map of the Eastern Kingdoms, but I need to make it show me the West.”
I had kept the account of my visit to the obsidian castle to a bare minimum, and now, with Basil far behind us and Naurag’s warm flank between us and the wind, I could speak almost casually.
Is This Apocalypse Necessary? Page 23
