The Witch & the Cathedral Page 8

  At the moment it was still my castle, but I did not know for how long. I had resigned as Royal Wizard, although the queen may not have heard me. Even if she had not, I did not see how I could go on living in Yurt. In a minute she took my arm. I would have told her she wasn’t helping any, but then she would have let go again.

  As we came up the hill toward the gates, we heard someone whistling, and a dark shape came across the bridge to meet us. “There you are,” said Paul’s voice. “I knew you’d be along soon.”

  The queen let go of my arm. “I hope you haven’t been waiting all this time.”

  “Vincent told me you’d gone off to talk about me, so when you weren’t here for dinner we knew it must be something important.” His voice managed to be casual, but I could hear the intense curiosity lurking under the surface.

  “It wasn’t particularly important; it just took more time to discuss than we’d expected,” the queen lied cheerfully. “The wizard wanted to go over all his duties with me, to review what might change and what might stay the same once you become king.” She, at any rate, did not seem to realize I had resigned.

  “And I have a message for you, Wizard,” said Paul, seeming to accept this account. It was too dark for him to see the tear smudges on his mother’s face. “The dean of the cathedral telephoned for you, maybe an hour ago. I told him I’d have you call as soon as you returned.”

  I excused myself and hurried off to the telephone with relief. To return to the cathedral city would give me an excuse not to face the queen again.

  Joachim’s black eyes burned at me a moment later, even though I knew he could not see me. “How soon can you come?”

  “What’s happened?” I asked, startled out of my own concerns by the intensity of that stare.

  “The lights are back. And this time it’s not just lights.”

  “What is it?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  He paused for a moment as though wondering if he dared tell me, then plunged on. “It lit on the tower at twilight. Dozens of people saw it. It’s enormous, five times the size of a man, and it has the wings of a bat.”

  PART THREE - THE WITCH

  I

  Prince Paul came into my chambers. Books were scattered across the room, their pages marked with pencils, scraps of paper, and the covers of other books. Leaning on my desk with a magic globe glowing at my shoulder, I madly scribbled spells.

  “So you have to return to the cathedral city?” he asked. “I’d been hoping you were back home for good.”

  “So had I,” I said without looking up.

  “Do you need to take a lot of books?”

  I slammed one book shut and tried to find my place in another. “I have to go now, tonight, and my books are too heavy for me to carry them all and fly at the same time.”

  Paul was clearly not interested in my books. I checked another spell, folded up the paper on which I was writing, and stuffed it into my pocket. I assumed he was hoping to hear more about the conversation I had had with his mother, but he was certainly not going to hear it from me.

  “Even if you have to stay away a long time,” he said, “you will be here for my coming of age ceremony, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said, trying to sound jovial. “You didn’t think I’d forget something that important?” I had completely forgotten about it. I tossed a few of my most basic books into a box with a change of clothes, began to reshelve the rest, then decided just to leave them.

  “Did you know it’s starting to rain?” asked Paul.

  I hadn’t, but at least it couldn’t make my mood any worse. I turned off the magic lights and stepped into the dark courtyard. A fine rain made the cobblestones slippery. I turned to Paul. “Good-bye. Tell your mother I was very sorry not to see her again before I left.”

  This too was a lie. As I flew up into the black sky, I wondered what she had told Vincent. I said a prayer to whatever saint might listen to wizards that she would not tell him the real story.

  It was a long way to the cathedral city. On horseback it took a day or more, and it was more than an hour’s flight even in daylight, not carrying anything. But I was constantly concentrating on keeping my small box flying with me and on finding my way. The moon was hidden, and if I flew high enough to avoid the trees I had trouble picking out the road. The wet countryside was dark, spotted only occasionally with the lights of a house or village. I flew in and out of fog, of sudden rain showers. At first I tried to maintain a protective spell against the rain but I didn’t have the concentration for it. I gave up and got wet.

  Constantly running through my mind, interfering with my spells, were all the things the queen and I had said to each other. They burned in my brain as though written in fire, and turning them over did not improve them. I wondered if she, lying alone in bed—that is, I hoped she was lying alone—was awake and thinking the same thoughts.

  At least she had no reason to feel my bitter shame. I was ashamed that I had tried to tell her I loved her, even though I had had nineteen years in which to realize it was foolish to do so, and ashamed that I had made her cry. The time for impetuous avowals, I told myself, was many years past. Paul was more accurate than he realized when he said there were people in the castle who should know enough to act their age.

  The rain was letting up and the eastern sky was gray as I finally approached the cathedral city. Its streets were dark and quiet. I rose to the height of a quarter mile and swooped over the new construction, though I saw nothing unusual in the murky light of early dawn. Just as well—I was in no shape to meet a monster. But even at this height I could feel the presence of wild magic.

  I descended to the street behind the cathedral, staggered under Joachim’s porch, and knocked on his door. In a moment he answered it himself, dressed in a long nightshirt and carrying a candle. He looked understandably startled but pulled me through the door and closed it against the damp.

  “When I asked if you could come at once,” he said, “I meant tomorrow. I never intended you to come tonight.” The candle made light and shadow flicker across his face.

  “I had to. If you can give me a dry jacket, we’ll go find out what was on the tower.”

  “Did you see something?”

  “I saw nothing, but it’s still nearly dark.”

  “It wasn’t there at midnight.” Joachim pushed me into a chair. “You should go to bed at once. You’re exhausted. We can talk about it when you’ve had some sleep.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t there at midnight?”

  “I went up, of course,” he said, giving me a sharp look. “The head of the municipal guard, the crew foreman, and I all climbed up with torches.”

  “It’s a long climb.”

  “I know. Especially in the dark.” He gave a wry smile. “Flying was a lot easier. But we were able to ascertain that, whatever it was, it had left under cover of night.” He pulled me back to my feet. “I’m putting you to bed. I’m cold and you must be frozen. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

  “But I can’t stay here with you,” I said, weakly holding back. “I’ve probably gotten you into enough trouble with the bishop as it is. I should stay across town in the royal castle.”

  Joachim didn’t even bother to answer but propelled me into his spare room and threw in extra blankets after me. I peeled off my wet clothes and fell into bed. In spite of the contradictory voices clamoring through my mind I fell asleep at once.

  I awoke several hours later to the smell of bacon frying. Outside the window the sun was sparkling. The clothing I had left in sodden heaps on the floor was gone, but my box had resisted the rain and my spare clothes were dry. The contents of my pockets, including my spells, were arranged neatly on the desk. I got dressed and went to find breakfast.

  In the kitchen, wet clothes hung in front of the fire, and Joachim’s servant was setting plates on the table. He smiled and motioned me to sit down. When I aske
d where the dean was, he simply nodded and started serving.

  I remembered on my second serving of bacon and fourth piece of toast that I never had gotten any dinner last night. I wondered why, since food and a few hours sleep could not change what I had said to the queen, they seemed to have made it an experience I might still survive.

  The front door opened and Joachim came in, dressed in his formal black vestments. He sat down across from me and poured himself some tea. He looked, as always, composed and well-brushed, not like someone who had been scrambling around on a rain-soaked tower at midnight looking for a monster, or who had had his sleep interrupted after only a few hours by a wizard arriving on his doorstep.

  “I certainly hadn’t expected to need to call you again so soon,” he said, “but it’s always good to see you.”

  “I had to come right away,” I said lamely. “You have a magical problem and no wizard here to take care of it.”

  The servant put breakfast in front of the dean and disappeared. “I’ve just come from morning service in the cathedral,” Joachim said. “There’s no sign of any damage to the tower according to the workmen, and with the sun shining like this one could almost imagine all of us were seeing things—but not quite.”

  “Even if it was only an illusion, someone with enormously powerful magic is operating in the city. Tell me, did it roar or bellow?”

  “It just looked at us—it had eyes like coals, very visible even at a distance.”

  I shivered in the warm sunlight and took a hasty gulp of hot tea. “With bat wings, it could be some kind of dragon—or a demon.”

  Joachim met my eyes levelly. “If a demon appears in a church, it means that one of the church’s priests has sold his soul to the devil.”

  I too hoped it was not a demon. It had been entirely on purpose that I had left my copy of the Diplomatica Diabolica behind in Yurt.

  “Could you tell if there was a supernatural presence here?” Joachim asked.

  “The whole church is full of the supernatural,” I said, “but one would expect that anyway, from the presence of the saints. Magic can only indicate if there’s something present from outside the natural world, not if it’s good or evil.”

  “And a dragon?”

  “Dragons are natural—wild, deadly, and unlike anything else, but natural nonetheless. They’re not even, strictly speaking, magical, because they aren’t formed by spells. If you do have a dragon, we might do better overcoming it by force than by magic.”

  Unaccountably, I suddenly felt almost cheerful. A dragon I thought I could deal with. It might very well kill me, but it was the sort of problem any competent wizard should be able to face with some hope of success, unlike a ruined love affair. And if I failed, I told myself, at least I would not spend the next two hundred years being melancholic.

  “I told the workmen to proceed with the construction,” said Joachim. “I hope I have done right.”

  “Of course you have. To let something like this stop the work would be to give it control over you. Oh, I was trying to tell you, rather than staying here I should go across town to the castle. It does after all belong to the royal family of Yurt.”

  “Stay here with me. I think even the bishop now realizes we need a wizard. Anyway, the royal heir is in the castle.”

  “The royal heir? You mean Paul? But he’s home in Yurt!”

  “I don’t mean the heir to Yurt. I mean Prince Lucas, the heir to Caelrhon, this kingdom. He arrived in town early this morning, just in time for service. The chancellor is worried that he may be hoping to play a role in the first election of a new bishop here in forty years, although I discount that.”

  “That reminds me.” I was uninterested in the political relationship between a hypothetical new bishop and a kingdom’s heir but wondered if it was only coincidence that a bat-winged monster had appeared just before Vincent’s brother Lucas arrived in the city. I reminded myself firmly not to let my dislike for Vincent cloud my judgment. “The queen is planning to marry the younger son of the king of Caelrhon.” I tried to keep my voice casual and natural.

  But I should have known better. Joachim looked at me sharply. “Is Prince Vincent in Yurt now?”

  “He arrived the day after I did.”

  “And you do not approve of him?”

  At least, I thought, whatever Joachim suspected it was highly unlikely to be me kissing the queen at twilight. “It’s hard to think of her married to someone else, after the old king,” I said. This was something I wasn’t even going to try to explain. “Paul feels the same way, I think, although he seems to like Vincent personally.”

  Joachim appeared to accept my words at face value. “It’s just as hard for me to imagine Paul as king of Yurt,” he said. “You know, I’ve scarcely seen him since I left the court.”

  “You may not recognize him,” I said. “He’s really grown.”

  “I may go to Yurt for his coming of age ceremony,” said Joachim. “The queen invited me, and I would enjoy seeing everyone again.”

  Paul I could talk about with no problem. For a moment, the apparition on the cathedral tower seemed comfortably far away. I mentioned Vincent’s gift to Paul of a roan stallion.

  “I wonder if it’s the same horse,” Joachim surprised me by saying. “I may have seen it earlier this spring. For a while the Romneys had a magnificent red roan for sale.”

  “Does anyone know where they’ve gone?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.” He paused, then looked at me soberly. The monster was not going to be far from his thoughts for long. “I know we’d hoped that whatever wizard was here had left town with the Romneys, but if so he must have returned on his own.”

  “I’ll find him,” I said with my best effort at confidence. “A wizard—much less a magician—shouldn’t be able to hide for long from another wizard. By the way: is your servant mute?”

  Joachim shook his head, a faint amused glint in his eye. “He served the old dean before me, and one night many years ago, having I believe drunk unwisely, he stood in the middle of the market square shouting the most scandalous things. Since that one lapse he has spoken as little as possible. He imagines that I never heard about the incident.” He rose. “I have to get back to the cathedral.”

  “And I need to begin my search for renegade magic.”

  We were interrupted by a banging on the door. “Father Joachim! Come quickly! It’s back!”

  II

  Joachim took the young man at the door firmly by the shoulders. “Tell us exactly what you saw.”

  He wore the uniform of the municipal guard. “Maybe it wasn’t the same one,” he said, breathing hard, “but it was horrible! It was a whole lot smaller—maybe the size of a hound.” I could see him trying to concentrate under the dean’s intense eyes. “It was red, like an enormous red lizard, with maybe eight legs. It had wings—and when it saw me and reared up, I could see that on its front legs it had hands.”

  A red winged lizard with hands. No wonder the young guard’s eyes were so round. “Go on to the cathedral,” I told Joachim. “Keep everyone calm. I’ll deal with this.” I might not be Royal Wizard of Yurt anymore, but when it came to magical apparitions I was still in command.

  The construction site swarmed with activity as the guard and I pushed our way through. No one else seemed aware of the winged lizard. Cartloads of cut stone were arriving, drawn by oxen, and workmen unloaded and stacked them, easily levering the stones up and down ramps. The new tower’s light-colored stonework was almost white against an azure sky. There was nothing ominous here in daylight. But it did not need very complex spells to realize that the whole city was permeated with magic.

  “It was on the docks by the river,” the young guard panted as we hurried through the narrow streets. “The dean led the climb up the tower last night, so I ran for him at once. I didn’t tell anyone else except my captain.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. “We don’t want panic.”

  But the docks were no more om
inous than the construction site. We wove between stacks of cargo crates, coming into the city or ready to leave. I probed for magic and found very little. The aura that lingered seemed wild and unfocused, nothing like the tightly-constructed spells used for illusions—but then I had never expected any of this to be illusion.

  An older guardsman joined us, lifting his eyebrows at me. “So the mayor’s sent for a wizard,” he commented.

  I didn’t have time to correct him. “What happened to the winged lizard?” I probably would have called it a small dragon myself, but “lizard” did not sound as horrible.

  He shook his head. “It’s gone. It disappeared with a pop, right into the air. I tried thrusting with my sword into the space where it might be, but I didn’t hit anything.” He paused. “Just before it disappeared, I had the impression it was picking up some of the cargo crates …”

  “A sword won’t find it,” I said grimly. “It’s going to take magic. Stay on guard here in case it returns, and tell the dean at once if it does. I’ll search the rest of the city for it.”

  As I hurried away from the river, I asked myself if a winged red lizard, the size of a hound, could have been what they all saw on the cathedral last night. But I rejected this idea—Joachim would certainly know the difference. But why should terrifying magical creatures suddenly be appearing in Caelrhon?

  I turned a corner and thought I saw Prince Vincent.

  After a startled second I realized the lord coming toward me could not be Vincent himself. He was slightly taller and quite a bit heavier, as well as several years older. He had the same burnished copper hair, the same wide-spaced eyes and firm jaw, but not the same easy and confident way of walking.

  I gave all my suspicions free rein and stepped into his path. “Excuse me, let me introduce myself. I am Daimbert, the Royal Wizard of Yurt. You’re the heir to Caelrhon, Prince Lucas if I recall correctly. We met several years ago; I don’t know if you remember.”