The Wood Nymph, the Cranky Saint woy-2 Page 10

  But not before I had had a glimpse of the creature inside. It was a creature out of nightmare. It was six feet tall and had arms and legs, but other than burning eyes it had no face. The eyes stared at me as though in comprehension. This was no botched student project. It looked as though it might once have been human.

  Evrard clung to me, his head twisted to stare at the house. His face had gone dead white under the freckles. The old wizard, his dirty beard whipping around him, glared at us with eyes of fire. A whirlwind swirled around him and his whole house.

  “Get out,” said the old wizard, his voice magically amplified to carry over the roar of the wind. “Get out if you value your lives.”

  Evrard tugged at my shirt in evident agreement.

  “But we can’t!” I shouted. “Master, we have to help you!”

  “With your weak school spells? Go, and go now!”

  I took a step back. The whirlwind seemed to be diminishing in power. The binding spell, I could tell, held firm.

  It might have been my terrified imagination, but the old wizard seemed to be growing, as tall as his house, taller, until his head disappeared among the branches of the oak that leaned over the roof. Staring fascinated, I let Evrard pull me slowly away. Whatever might be beyond the door, the wizard clearly had the powers to deal with it.

  Evrard turned and bolted, and I was right behind him. Our normally placid mares had retreated back up the valley, tangling their reins until forced to stop.

  They rolled their eyes and bared their teeth as we approached. Evrard, who I had not expected to know much about horses, spoke to them softly and reassuringly, giving them confident shoves on their sweating flanks as he freed the reins.

  Behind us, the sound of the whirlwind stopped. I looked back to see a bent, white-haired figure, restored to his normal size, calmly open his green door and disappear within.

  I hesitated with one foot in the stirrup. “We have to go back and help him.”

  “Didn’t you hear him? He doesn’t want our help!” Exasperation mixed with fear in Evrard’s voice. “Don’t try to show off again.”

  I had not been showing off, but otherwise he was right. He kicked his horse into a rapid trot. I swung up into the saddle and hurried to catch him. “How did you know how to calm the horses?” I asked. “Is it some new spell?”

  “My father ran a livery stable in the City-didn’t you know?”

  After we crossed the bridge-no sign of the lady and her unicorn this time-we had to dismount to lead our horses under the low branches beyond. Evrard’s light blue eyes were still nearly round. “What was that in the cottage?”

  I shook my head. “You saw it better than I did.” I did not say that to me it looked like a dead human body, resurrected by a renegade wizard who had lost control of his own magic, then given living eyes.

  “It looked almost human to me,” said Evrard. “You should have warned me the old wizard knew such powerful magic.”

  I doubted I would ever know that much magic, even if I lived as long as the old wizard had. “I’d had no idea anyone could work spells like that without the aid of the supernatural.”

  Unexpectedly, Evrard smiled. “After you’d warned me so care fully not to antagonize him, you certainly seemed to be trying to do so yourself!”

  I decided I should feel relieved he could still smile after what he had just seen, but my immediate thought was that he was taking all this far too casually. “Evrard, I hope you realize you started this. He only decided to try to make that creature after he’d found yours.”

  “Come on, Daimbert, don’t start talking like a schoolteacher! I’m sure you wanted to impress your king two years ago, just as I’m trying to impress the duchess.”

  He was right; I was starting to sound like a schoolteacher. I tried to make my next comment sound like one student giving a friendly warning to another. “Sorry about that. But I should tell you some thing. The duchess’s father, the old duke, once kept a wizard. Nearly every one, as far as I can tell, considered him fairly incompetent. Yet it was in this fairly incompetent wizard’s books that I first discovered the spell I think the old wizard is using.”

  Evrard shrugged and smiled. “Well, I can use it too, even if I can’t make anything that impressive. I bet your predecessor’s never had problems like horns falling off!”

  Not fifteen minutes ago he had been clinging to me in terror. I was irritated enough with his good humor that I let my mare fall behind, so conversation would be impossible. Wizardry students always played tricks on each other, and wizards outside the school normally did not get along at all, but I had been hoping for better relations with the duchess’s wizard.

  As we came out of the woods half an hour later and started up the hill toward the castle, I glanced surreptitiously over the wall into the little cemetery where kings of Yurt and servants-and chaplains and wizards-of Yurt had been buried for generations. But I saw no sign that anyone had been digging there among the quiet graves.

  IV

  We had left the castle early, and it was not yet noon. The old wizard and his creature would need to be watched, but they were not the only strange events going on in Yurt these days. If I could first determine what the duchess was doing, I told myself, and why her tall huntsman had appeared now, then I’d be able to focus on my predecessor. Left alone for a few days, he might even become less furious with me … At lunch, I made a point of talking to Nimrod.

  Sitting next to him was not the difficulty I had thought it might be, for as we all assembled in the great hall Dominic announced that he had decided that our places ought to be moved around, and he seated himself next to the duchess.

  Nimrod hesitated, then came over when I motioned to him. He walked very gracefully in spite of his height, as if he were holding great strength in check. Sitting down, he no longer towered above me. His long hair was neatly pulled back and tied with a leather thong, and he had excellent table manners for someone who had emerged from the woods looking like a wild man.

  The clattering of dishes and spoons made a good screen for private conversation. But Nimrod spoke before I could. “I’m glad I’m having a chance to talk to you properly at last, Wizard. What are those horned rabbits, anyway? I know every natural thing of woods and field, and there are none like these.”

  He spoke in a low voice. I glanced around the table and decided no one was listening to us. Dominic attentively served the duchess before himself and said something which, from his rather forced smile, was probably meant to be a joke. Knowing Dominic, I doubted it was very funny, but Diana laughed appreciatively.

  “They were made by wizardry, but not mine,” I said. I looked at Nimrod from under my eyebrows, wishing again they were shaggy. “You seemed to know about their existence already when you first appeared in Yurt, and I’d like to hear how you knew.”

  Nimrod gave me a sharp look, and then unexpectedly he grinned. The suntanned skin made little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Did you suspect me of commissioning a wizard to create magic rabbits, just so I’d have an excuse to come into the kingdom?”

  “No,” I said, although in fact at one point I had. I considered giving him an even sterner look and smiled back instead. “You still haven’t said how you first heard about them.”

  He hesitated, then said at last, “News of strange creatures travels fast among huntsmen, and I like to go where there’s a challenge.”

  This rather cryptic statement raised more questions than it answered. I was about to ask him more, when Dominic’s voice, louder than normal, caught both our attentions.

  “Perhaps we should have a ball in your honor, gracious lady,” he was saying to the duchess. “I’m sure the king and queen would have wanted to take advantage of your extended stay in the royal castle to show you some sort of distinction.”

  For a second I thought this was meant to be a hint, rather subtle for Dominic, that she had already outstayed her welcome, but when he smiled again and rested his hand on hers it oc
curred to me that the royal nephew, in his own way, was trying to flirt with Diana.

  I glanced quickly at Nimrod to see how he was taking it. He too was looking at the duchess and seemed thoroughly amused.

  For a brief moment, Diana stiffened, but she did not pull her hand away. “That would be delightful,” she said with what looked like a genuine smile, and warmly enough to make up for her hesitation.

  “You know,” said Dominic, leaning back as though comfortably relaxed, “I feel as though I’ve been blind all these years, not to realize before how lovely you are.”

  All other conversation at both tables had stopped. In both the chambers of knights and ladies and in the kitchens, I knew, there would later be extended speculation and discussion of what Dominic could be doing. But now everyone was too interested to see what he might say next-and how she would respond.

  She gave a quick glance down the table, though I could not tell if she were looking toward Nimrod or me. “That’s very dear of you to say, Dominic,” she said, “but at our age we scarcely need detain ourselves with these adolescent cooings, do we?”

  Dominic took his hand back and frowned. The duchess, her head cocked, smiled sweetly at him. I knew she was teasing him, as apparently did Nimrod, but Dominic was still working it out. Given a choice between interpreting her words as a rejection or as a suggestion that he should speed up his courtship of her-which was indeed proceeding much too slowly for a couple past their first youth-he fell into silence. His silence became embarrassing when no one else at the table spoke either.

  “Did Daimbert tell you we visited the old wizard of Yurt today?” asked Evrard abruptly.

  He was too far down the table for me to kick. I tried speaking to him directly, mind to mind, but he had his thoughts well shielded.

  It took the rest of the table a second to remember that I was named Daimbert, but then several seized on the conversational topic, because, fascinating as the interchange between Dominic and Diana had been, it had also become very awkward.

  “We haven’t seen the old wizard since Christmas, I think,” said one of the knights. “Is he still well?” The servant’s table had given up any pretense of not listening to the head table.

  I tried glaring at Evrard, but he was not looking in my direction. Turning him into a frog would certainly divert the conversation, but that seemed a little too drastic.

  I did not, I told Evrard’s unresponsive mind, want the royal court to hear how the old wizard was losing control at least of his house keeping, probably of his magic, and perhaps of his mind. I certainly did not want to cast them into panic at the thought of an undead creature stalking the night. I’d calmed down enough to decide I should be able to handle the thing if by chance it did get loose, but a terrorized population could be very hard to deal with.

  But Evrard, who perhaps could hear my silent shouts after all, initially fixed on a different aspect of our visit. “He’s got some spectacular magic effects,” he said. “Did you know that he has the most beautiful lady in the world sitting by the bridge into his valley?”

  Most of the court had seen the illusory lady and her unicorn at some point. “Better than what they have at your school, Wizard?” the same knight asked.

  “A lot better,” said Evrard. Zahlfast would not have been pleased to hear a recent graduate running down the school so casually. “And he’s working on something new, too.” No, stop, you idiot! “He wouldn’t let us have a real look at it, because he’s still hammering out the details, but this one’s as frightening as his Lady is beautiful.”

  “He never used to create frightening illusions,” one of the ladies said thoughtfully. “Sometimes they’d be amusing, and sometimes dramatic, but mostly they’d be beautiful and even moving.”

  “It’s our present Royal Wizard who creates frightening illusions!” said someone else, and they all laughed, remembering how everyone-except of course themselves-had been thrown into a blind panic the first time I had made an enormous illusory dragon here in the hall. Dominic glowered down the table without joining in the laughter; it was not one of his own better memories.

  I relaxed a little, though still keeping my eyes on Evrard’s face. He knew as well as I did that whatever the old wizard had in his cottage was no illusion, but he seemed content to let the others think it was.

  “Well, if old Daimbert’s frightened you in the past,” said Evrard, “he certainly learned his lesson today. You should have seen him run!”

  “You ran first,” I said, coldly and levelly, then realized from the looks I was getting that Evrard had succeeded even better than he might have intended in covering up an awkward silence. Speculation about why Dominic should suddenly start courting the duchess was one thing, but an open quarrel between two wizards was an even more titillating lunchtime entertainment for the court.

  But Evrard answered good-naturedly. “Of course I did,” he agreed with a laugh. “And I’m afraid I gave a very undignified shriek, too.”

  I would have called it a squeak rather than a shriek, but I let this pass. I smiled for the onlookers. Come to think of it, we had left in a very undignified hurry for two supposedly qualified wizards.

  “That’s the problem with being a new graduate,” said Evrard, giving his charming smile. “When they hand you the diploma, you feel you know everything, but in just a few days you’re off at a new post and realize you don’t know anything at all, compared to more experienced wizards.”

  The duchess, now giving Dominic no attention at all, leaned her elbows on the table and looked at her wizard in approval.

  General conversation started again as the servants started gathering up the empty platters and bringing out the clean plates for dessert. “So the old wizard is starting work on a new and terrifying project,” said Nimrod in a low voice next to my ear.

  I jumped, having almost forgotten him.

  “My guess is that two young wizards with the latest training wouldn’t have been so frightened of something that was only an illusion,” Nimrod added. He waited a moment for an answer, but when I said nothing he took my silence for confirmation and continued. “Horned rabbits are bad enough, but I gather he’s made something else. How big is it? Does it move like a man?”

  I stared at him. “Have you seen anything like this before?”

  He did not answer for a moment, as dessert was now being served. It was fresh raspberry pudding. I caught a pleased look from Gwen at the servants’ table-she knew it was my favorite and had doubtless made it herself-and decided I had better not push it away untasted, my initial reaction. I plunged in my spoon determinedly and looked at Nimrod.

  “Some years ago,” he said, still in that voice just low enough that no one else could hear, but not so low that we might be thought to be whispering secrets, “in the mountains over toward the eastern kingdoms, a renegade wizard made a whole horde of soldiers out of hair and bones.”

  “And what happened?” I breathed.

  “Some other wizards stopped him-ones from your school, as I recall.” He ate half his pudding with apparent enjoyment. “I helped track down the horde,” he added as though there had been no pause.

  I considered his use of the term “renegade,” which I was afraid might well be applicable to my predecessor at this point. Nimrod could have chosen the word even if he had in fact never helped the school, but it was a term with a specific meaning among wizards. It meant someone whose magic had gone dangerously out of control because he had deliberately rejected the ethical principles of wizardry. There was clearly more to this huntsman than I’d first thought, and that could be useful.

  “Don’t leave the kingdom,” I said. “I may need you.” I attacked my own pudding, relieved to think that wizards from the school might have dealt with something like this before, even though those creatures of hair and bone had doubtless been made by something closer to the spell with which Evrard had made his rabbits than whatever “improved” spell my predecessor had used. I felt much more cheerful, espe
cially since the pudding really was delicious.

  As the meal finished and everyone rose from the table, the chaplain touched me on the elbow. “Could you come to my room for a few minutes?”

  As I followed him upstairs, I thought that during the last two years I had mostly discussed issues both weighty and trivial with Joachim. But only a few days of Evrard’s company had reminded me that a priest and a wizard will never have much in common. Wizards may argue violently, but at least they agree on the fundamental issues. The chaplain, I feared, would have no interest in what I had glimpsed through the cottage door once he was reassured that the old wizard’s spells had not put his soul in peril.

  V

  Joachim sat down on a hard chair across from me and looked at me thoughtfully. His eyes were so dark and deep-set that they merged with the shadows of the room.

  “I gather from what your friend said that the old wizard has progressed beyond horned rabbits and is now making something far more serious,” he said. He paused briefly, but when I did not reply he continued as though in answer to my unspoken question, “I doubt two wizards would have been frightened by mere illusion.”

  I shook my head ruefully. “Nimrod said almost exactly the same thing. I’d hoped it wasn’t that obvious.”

  “I think the rest of the court remembers your predecessor primarily for his illusions, and they’re happy to believe that whatever frightening thing he’s working on now is no more real than his winged horses at Christmas dinner.”

  “But if you and Nimrod saw through Evrard’s dissembling at once, it may not take some of the others much longer. Even Dominic’s not nearly as thick as he sometimes seems. By the way, the duchess seems to want to keep this secret, but it turns out she had asked Evrard to make her the horned rabbits.”

  “You still haven’t told me what frightened you,” the chaplain replied, uninterested in the duchess and in rabbits.