I was sitting in my chambers, quizzing the Lady Maria on the first points of the Hidden Language, when a knock came at the door.
She was not doing well on the first-grammar. Her enthusiasm for learning magic was as high as ever, and I think she really wanted to study hard, but she seemed distracted.
Maybe, I thought, she was the only other person in the castle, besides me, still to be worrying about the king. A month after his recovery, he seemed to be growing even stronger. After a week in the rose garden, he had moved back into the castle, so far without any ill effects. But I still sometimes felt that lurking sense of evil and worried that he might weaken again. Or maybe the Lady Maria was not worrying about anyone else, but only about the three gray hairs I had spotted that morning among the golden curls.
“Come in!” I called, thinking it might be Gwen with tea. She often brought a pot if I had someone visiting in my chambers, but if she were jealous and checking up on what I and the Lady Maria were doing she certainly gave no sign.
But it was the constable. I was surprised; he rarely came to my chambers.
“Excuse me, sir, I hate to interrupt you and the lady, but there’s a — person here who wants to see you at once.”
Maria jumped up. “I can’t concentrate this afternoon anyway,” she said, before I could tell the constable to have this mysterious person wait a few minutes.
“Shall I see you later today?” I asked. But she had rushed out already. “Show him in,” I said to the constable.
“Excuse me, sir, but he wants you to go outside.”
Shaking my head, I went out, stopping only long enough to put the magic lock on my door, and followed the constable across the courtyard to the main gate and the bridge.
Waiting on the bridge was an unmistakable figure: tall, lean, with a tall red hat and a long white beard. It was Zahlfast.
I rushed forward, hands outstretched to greet him, and although he tried to give me a look of stern dignity I could see a smile already lurking at the corner of his lips. That was why I had chosen to write to him.
“Welcome to Yurt!” I said inanely. “Come in! Did you have a good trip? Are you just stopping by, or can you stay for a while?”
He returned my handshake vigorously but resisted being drawn into the castle. “It’s such a beautiful day,” he said, “and there won’t be many more this fall. Didn’t I see a little garden over there where we could sit?”
We proceeded to the rose garden, where only the queen’s rose bush, of all the bushes, was still blooming. I continued to chatter to hide my surprise at his arrival.
“I was glad to get your letter,” said Zahlfast when we were seated on the bench where the king often sat. “Is your king still sick?”
“Oh, no. He was cured by a miracle a month ago.”
Zahlfast shot me a sideways look, then looked away. “Good,” he said and then added, “We never talk much about miracles at the wizards’ school.”
This of course I already knew. “The chaplain cured him. The chaplain’s my friend,” I added, feeling the same need to justify my friendship that I had felt with the old wizard. I started to say, that is, I think he’s my friend, but decided not to raise doubts.
But I should have remembered Zahlfast was the sharpest of my teachers. “You sound somewhat dubious about this friendship.”
“Not dubious. But he had insulted me, and I insulted him, and I tried to apologize but, in a way, he wouldn’t let me-especially since, I’ll admit to you, I’m almost in awe of him after the miracle.”
“Don’t stand in awe of those who deal with the supernatural,” said Zahlfast as though making a key point at the front of the lecture hall. “Wizards too can deal with forces beyond the natural, indeed have the special training to do it. And always remember, those who can heal with supernatural aid can always sicken.”
Abruptly he changed the subject. “Anyway, it sounded from your letter as though you might be lonely, so, as I was flying in this direction anyway-” I was surprised to realize he was having almost as much trouble feeling at ease as I was. He was still my teacher, but this was my kingdom, and I was no longer a student. “It really wasn’t time yet for your first checkup-”
“My first checkup!” I cried, devastated. “You mean you go around checking on us after we leave the wizards’ school? No one ever told me! Or is that just one more thing I missed?”
“We don’t tell the young wizards,” said Zahlfast with an amused smile he tried to suppress. “In fact, many are checked and never even know it, at least for some years. But I knew you were sharp enough to guess it wasn’t just friendly interest in seeing an old student that brought me here, after I got your letter.”
The compliment softened what would otherwise have been another devastating blow. And I had even hoped he remembered me fondly! But now I began to wonder what ulterior motive he may have had in passing me in that transformation practical-was this an experiment to see just how badly a young wizard could do?
“So what are you checking for?”
“In your case, I was interested in your progress. In general, it’s a continuation of the school’s original purpose, to organize and rationalize the practice of wizardry, to be sure it doesn’t go astray. That’s why I wanted to learn more about your study of herbal magic and who has been teaching you.”
“It’s my predecessor. He lives not far from here, and he’s taught me the rudiments,” I said, feeling somewhat defensive, whereas I had expected to be proudly demonstrating an unusual accomplishment when I first met a wizard from the school again.
“He’s your friend, too,” said Zahlfast. It was a statement, not a question. “There aren’t many young wizards who are even on speaking terms with their predecessors.”
“Is that what you mean when you say I’m sharp?” I said, hoping for another compliment.
“Why do you think you were hired as Royal Wizard of Yurt?”
“I’d assumed I was the only person who applied.”
“You may have been; I’m not sure. But when I heard you’d applied, I talked to the Master, and we agreed. I wrote to the constable of Yurt and told him not to hire anyone else.”
“That was the constable who you met at the gate,” I said, wondering again why Zahlfast had not wanted to come in. But another question took precedence. “Why did you want me in Yurt? Was it to keep me out of the way?”
“Not at all. We knew something was happening in Yurt, something odd, and it needed someone who combined your intuitive flair for magic with the potential, at least, to work hard and master academic magic. Neither careful mastery of spells nor innate ability would have been enough without the other. Also, of course, we hoped that here, away from the distractions of the City, you might meet enough challenges and find enough leisure that you really would set yourself to learning the magic we had tried to teach you.”
There was not nearly enough of a compliment in this to mitigate the sting. “You mean you knew all along what was going on in Yurt? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Actually,” said Zahlfast, with a snort that could have been amusement, “I have no idea what’s going on in Yurt. I was hoping you would tell me.”
“There’s an evil presence in the castle,” I said slowly, looking at my hands. “I don’t know where it’s coming from, and sometimes I can hardly even sense it. Most of the time I think it’s a person, but I don’t know how to find out which one. Once or twice I’ve thought it could be a demon, but the old wizard says there was never any evil presence in the castle before I arrived, and I don’t think even I could have summoned a demon by mistake.”
“An evil presence,” said Zahlfast, as though this answered a question. “We’ve known in the City for several years that there was a supernatural focus here in Yurt, or at least nearby, but it was impossible to localize it precisely or even to say whether it was for good or evil. Several of the wizards at the school thought it might be a witch living in the forest who had taken the step into black magic.”
“It’s not in the forest,” I said positively. “It’s here in the castle. It was coming home to his kingdom that nearly killed the king.”
“I knew it was here in the castle when I got your letter.”
“But how could you know that? I didn’t say anything about it.”
“The very paper your letter was written on was permeated with the supernatural. Didn’t you know that? That’s why, when I arrived and discovered that the supernatural influence stopped at the moat, I asked you to meet me outside.”
“But how could you tell anything from the paper?” I demanded, intensely frustrated, thinking the wizards of the school had been deliberately withholding information from me. But then I saw Zahlfast smiling and said in a lower voice, “Was that maybe in one of the lectures I missed?”
It turned out that it was. There was a rather simple spell to recognize the presence of a supernatural influence, a modern, more universal spell than the one the old wizard had taught me for detecting magic potions. I glanced over the garden walls at the turrets of the castle and felt my heart sink. I didn’t want to try the spell. Yurt was my kingdom, and I loved it, and if I confirmed my fears I might never feel the same about it again.
“Do you think the king will become sick again?” I said.
“You think he was made ill by supernatural forces?”
“Dominic thought an evil spell had been put on him,” I said, “even though I didn’t believe him at first.” I gave Zahlfast a quick summary of the king’s three-year illness and miraculous recovery.
“If he really was healed miraculously,” said Zahlfast somewhat dubiously, “he should be safe from black magic, or at least from the effects of the particular evil spell that was put on the castle.”
“But will the spell now turn against someone else?” I said, “such as the queen?” This was not a possibility I had contemplated until I said it, but it suddenly seemed fearfully likely. “Or do you think it’s not merely a spell, but a demon loose in the castle?”
Zahlfast did not answer for a minute. “I’m not the person to ask,” he said at last. “I specialize in transformations, not demonology.” I remembered then a conversation I had had with him in the City several years ago, during which it had become clear that he was just as terrified of demons as I was. But he stood up. “I’ll come into the castle with you and see what I can tell.”
But the first thing he said, as we entered the courtyard with its whitewashed walls and green shutters, was, “What a lovely little castle! None of the other young wizards can have as charming a kingdom.”
In my chambers, however, he looked around quickly, then said, “The supernatural influence is quite strong here.”
I was about to demand whether he could think I was practicing black magic myself, but then I looked at his face and decided it was safer not to ask.
Instead I said, “Let me show you my glass telephones. They don’t work, but they’re very attractive.”
At this he actually laughed. “Somehow, when you left the school, I never imagined that you were the type of wizard who becomes a telephone technician.”
“Neither did I,” I said cheerfully. “That’s why they don’t work. But the queen wanted me to try.” I thought guiltily that it had been some time since I had tried anything new.
“I’ll show you something, though,” I said, reaching one of the telephones down from the shelf. “Watch the base.” I set the instrument down, lifted the receiver, and spoke the name attached to the wizards’ school.
“Pretty amusing, isn’t it,” I said as the faint ringing came through the receiver and the base lit up to show the school’s telephone on its table, with someone reaching to answer it. “Wait; it gets even funnier. Try to talk.” I handed him the receiver.
Just as the Lady Maria and I had done, he shouted, “Hello? Can you hear me?” to an unhearing wizard at the other end, even though that wizard’s voice came through faint but clear.
But when the other wizard hung up and the telephone base went dark, Zahlfast was not laughing. “You realize, of course,” he said with what I might even have imagined was awe, “that no one’s ever been able to do this before: attach a far-seeing spell to an object.”
“But it doesn’t work as a telephone. Sometimes I’ve even thought that whatever evil spell was put on the castle was hindering my magic.”
“I think you’ll be able to make it work,” he said in his school teacher voice. “Keep working at it.”
At that moment we were interrupted by a knock. I opened it, expecting the Lady Maria ready to resume her lesson, and was surprised to see Joachim.
I tried to draw him inside, to introduce him to Zahlfast, but he wouldn’t let me.
“I’m going,” he said, “and I wanted to let someone know I probably won’t be back for morning service. The king and queen aren’t here.”
“I think they went hunting. But where are you going?”
He paused as though unwilling to say, but his enormous black eyes steadily met mine. “A girl down in the village, five miles from here, was bitten by a viper last week,” he said at last, as though there had been no pause. “The doctors have tried all their draughts and potions, but nothing has availed. She’s near death. They want me to pray for her.”
He turned and was gone before I could answer, striding across the courtyard to where one of the stableboys had a horse saddled and ready. A man in a brown tunic was mounted and waiting by the gate.
“Is that your friend the chaplain?” said Zahlfast behind me.
I nodded, watching the two ride through the gate and away. I knew, without the chaplain telling me, that the news of the king’s miraculous recovery must have spread at once throughout the kingdom, and that anyone now who needed a miracle would not be satisfied with their local priest but would want the castle chaplain.
“So tell me more about herbal magic,” said Zahlfast.
Although I had had some success teaching a little magic to the king and the Lady Maria, it was extremely odd to be suddenly explaining something to my former teacher. It was also difficult to do with no herbs at hand; the sense that the old wizard had taught me, of how to determine a plant’s properties just by handling it, was difficult to put into words.
But I had been able to explain at least some of the basic principles when I heard voices, the sound of hoofs, and the queen’s laugh in the courtyard and realized the hunting party had returned. “You’ll have to stay for dinner,” I said, “and I’d be delighted to have you stay with me if you were willing to spend the night. Even for you, a two-hundred mile flight can’t be easy.”
To my surprise, he agreed. At dinner, he took the chaplain’s chair across the table from me, which kept on startling me, as I would look up from my plate to see a face I had stopped being accustomed to see in the context in which I had recently become accustomed to seeing another’s. He kept our table highly entertained, with gossip from the City and stories about the northern land of dragons, which he had visited. I saw even the servants at the next table leaning to catch his words.
“I’ll have to tell you something I tell all the young wizards after the first checkup,” he said as he prepared to leave the next morning. We were standing outside the castle gate, looking down at the red and golden foliage of the forest. “I doubt this would be a problem for you anyway, but some of the young wizards, when they find that the school is still interested in what they’re doing, feel they can ask for help for every little problem. We certainly want to make sure that magic is being practiced well throughout the western kingdoms, but we just don’t have the time to keep helping out fully-qualified wizards who should know how to do magic on their own.”
But then his smile came out. “In your case, write me whenever you want. There were some of the teachers who’d had doubts you’d even learn enough magic to become a magician, but I knew from the beginning you’d someday be capable of becoming a good wizard.”
This would have been more of a compliment if it hadn’t been for the implication that “someday” had not yet arrived.
“Well, it was delightful to see you,” I said, inane once more. Zahlfast rose from the ground and sped away, west over the treetops toward the City. It really had been very nice to see him, even though I continued to feel extremely irritated that he and the Master had apparently engineered my position at Yurt for me, for reasons he had perhaps still not told me completely,
As I watched his flying figure disappear in the distance, I wondered again if he had in fact even told me the real reason for his visit. I realized there were a number of questions I had not asked him, or if I had asked he had not answered. He had never said where he thought the evil spell on the castle might come from, and I had not had a chance to ask his opinion of the old wizard’s empty tower room. Well, if I was supposed to be fully qualified to practice magic on my own, I would have to do so.
As I turned to start back into the castle, I saw a another distant figure, this one on horseback, coming up the road toward the castle. In a moment, I recognized Joachim and waited for him to reach me.
I became alarmed at his appearance when he came closer. His usually smooth hair was rumpled, his vestments wrinkled and stained, and his hand slack on the reins. The accentuated gauntness of his cheeks and his unseeing stare made me realize he was exhausted from more than riding five miles home after staying up all night.
I took the horse’s bridle to lead it across the bridge and helped him dismount. He seemed to notice me for the first time.
“Do you think it’s too late for me to hold chapel services this morning?” he asked, clearly concerned about this lapse.
“The king and queen have already left to go hunting again,” I told him. “Tomorrow’s Sunday; service can wait until then.”
“All right,” he said meekly and started moving slowly toward his room. He stopped then, looked back, and told me what I had already guessed. “The little girl died.”