I rode out of the castle on an old white mare. Although I had only been in Yurt a little over two weeks, my life in the City had begun to fade into the distant past. Life in the castle had settled into a comfortable pattern once I abandoned work on the telephones. The queen was spoken of every day, but she was still gone, and I found it hard to imagine what the castle would be like when she returned. To me, to whom two weeks seemed like a year, she had been gone forever, had indeed never been in Yurt, but to the others she was just a little over halfway through the month-long visit to her parents that she took every summer.
Some of the knights and the boys were riding out at the same time. Their horses were much livelier than mine, but as I had not ridden in a long time I was happy with my mount. She walked steadily and placidly down the brick road that led from the castle gates. While the knights turned off to the field where they were teaching the boys jousting, my mare and I continued past the little cemetery, dotted with crosses, where the chaplain’s predecessor and presumably all former kings and queens and chaplains and servants were buried, and down the hill toward the woods. I was going to visit the old wizard.
Although the “anti-telephonic demonic influences” I had used as an excuse to the constable had been my own invention, I didn’t like the cold touch that was never there when I looked but might surface, unexpectedly and fleetingly, while I was thinking of something entirely different. My predecessor should have some ideas.
The green of the leaves in the forest below me had gone dusty in the heat of late summer, and the breeze across the hill made silver ripples in the grass. I was enjoying being out near fields and forest, and real forest, too, not the manicured parks I was used to near the City. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going, only that I was out for a ride. As my horse and I reached the edge of the woods, I was wondering again how I should address the old wizard.
Casual conversation with the constable’s wife had informed me where his house was, but protocol was still a problem. I, now, was Royal Wizard, and he was only an old retired spell-caster. But he was two hundred years older than me and certainly knew a lot more about Yurt than I did. I had dressed formally in my red and black velvet but decided to address him with deference and respect.
In the cool shade of the woods, birds sang in the treetops far above us and insects hummed closer to hand. The mare shook her head, making all the bells on her bridle jingle. I whistled as I rode, a little tune in minor that the trumpeters had played at dinner the night before. We were going parallel to the edge of the forest, and occasionally I could see the fields through a gap in the trees. The long summer’s day stretched before me, leisurely and lingering, with no thought of the night.
After half an hour’s easy riding, I found the trail mark I had been looking for, a little pile of white stones. Just beyond, a narrow grassy track wandered away from the road, off between the beeches, and disappeared over a rise. I would never have spotted it except for the stones.
The branches here were low enough that I dismounted and led the mare. We should be almost there. I stopped at the top of the rise, looking down into a valley with a stream at the bottom. Even the sound of the water on stones was sparkling. The grass was richly green on either hand, and the trees that surrounded the little valley cast dancing shadows.
My horse snorted and made for the grass. I pulled her nose up and continued toward a little bridge. We passed a branch that had half-shielded my view of the bridge, and sitting on the far side was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.
She had thick golden hair that made the Lady Maria’s seem thin and lifeless, and it rolled in rich waves down her back and ten feet out behind her. She was wearing a dress of brilliant sky blue, and when she lifted her head and looked toward me, her eyes were the same color. And most marvelous of all, an alabaster-white unicorn was kneeling beside her, with his muzzle in her lap.
I dropped the reins and approached slowly, not daring to take my eyes from her. She lowered her gaze again but did not speak. “Um, hello,” I said. Gently she lifted the unicorn’s muzzle from her lap, rose to her feet, and began to walk away, her arm around the creature’s neck. Her hair floated in a weightless cloud behind her.
“Wait,” I told myself sharply, resisting the initial impulse to run after her. I put my hand over my eyes, said two magic words, and looked again. She was gone.
I recovered my horse and started forward again. As we crossed the bridge, I told the mare, “If that’s a typical sample of his illusions, the old wizard must really have impressed the castle over dessert.” The mare seemed uninterested, but I took a deep breath and wondered how abjectly it would be appropriate to address the wizard.
The grassy valley continued to follow the stream. Within a hundred yards it turned and descended a steep hill, where the water foamed white. I was easing the mare’s steps down the hillside when I heard a twanging noise. The sound was repeated, and then again.
I looked forward. Flying across the width of the valley in front of us, one after the other, was a series of golden arrows. I finished getting the mare off the hill, dropped the reins to let her graze, and walked a little closer. I probed them gently with my mind. Unlike the lady with the unicorn, these arrows were real.
No one was shooting them, however. They were being propelled by magic. Our scrambling on the hillside must have triggered a magic trap.
I thought about this for several minutes, waiting to see if the supply of arrows would become exhausted. When the steady twanging of an invisible bow and the whirr of each arrow continued, I decided that the arrows must be circling around somehow and coming back. The mare grazed unconcernedly.
I carefully put in place what I hoped was a protective spell against arrows, a variation of the spell that had kept me dry in the rain but needing twice as much concentration. Leaving the mare behind, I went slowly forward, going down on my hands and knees to crawl under the flight of the arrows. Ten yards further down the valley, I heard the twanging cease.
I stood up, brushing the grass off my velvet trousers, and looked back. The valley was quiet and peaceful. For a moment I hesitated, wondering if I should go back for my mare, and then decided she would be fine where she was; she was unlikely to go retreat back up the steep hill, and if she came forward she would be following me. If I went back, I was afraid I would set off the arrows again.
The valley took another twist and suddenly widened into a clearing. On the far side, half tucked under the drooping branches of an enormous oak, was a small green house, and sitting in front of the door was an old man with a white beard down to his knees.
I came three-quarters of the way across the clearing and then did the full bow, ending with my head down and my arms widespread.
“Welcome, Wizard,” said a rasping voice.
“Greetings, Master,” I answered.
I surprised myself by calling him Master. At the wizards’ school, the only wizard who had that title was the oldest wizard of all, the one in whose castle the school was held, who was reputed to have been in the City since the City was founded.
He accepted the title. “So you weren’t taken in by the Lady and weren’t frightened by my Arrows,” he said. His voice was rough, as though he had not used it for weeks. “I know who you are. You’re the new Royal Wizard of Yurt, and probably think you’re pretty fancy.”
I rose and came toward him. “I have come to seek the guidance of my predecessor.”
“You aren’t going to find much help from me if you’re after what I think you are. I can tell from your clothes-and especially that ostentatious belt buckle-that you fancy yourself to have authority over the powers of darkness.” I guiltily turned off the glow of the moon and stars. “I may not have studied in the City, but I am a wizard of air and light.”
I sat down at his feet, determined not to be insulted.
“Or is that pullover supposed to be a Father Noel costume?”
I was mortified. I had of course taken the tattered white fur off the collar as soon as I bought the pullover and had hoped all suggestions of someone fat and jolly were long gone. But I was going to have to be polite to this crotchety old wizard who clearly knew ten times as much magic as I did. I took a deep breath. “I’ve greatly admired your magic lamps in the castle.”
“Of course you have. I’ll bet you couldn’t make anything that nice.”
“I made some very nice magic lamps for the chapel stair!” I said, stung into a reply.
“And the chaplain didn’t tell you to mind your own business?” he said, apparently surprised.
“The chaplain and I are friends,” I said stiffly, then wondered why I was defending him when one of the reasons I had come was to find out if my predecessor had ever thought the chaplain was turning toward evil.
“Young whipper-snapper,” pronounced the old wizard, which was probably his opinion of me as well.
There was a pause while I tried to find something diplomatic to say. “Do they miss me up at the castle?” the old wizard said suddenly.
“They always speak well of you,” I said with my best effort at Christian tact. “They’ve told me many times how much they admired your work and your illusions. The Lady down in the valley is certainly the finest example I’ve ever seen, even in the City.”
I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the City, because it made him snort. “Illusions!” he said. “Things were different when King Haimeric’s grandfather was king. Then a Royal Wizard had real responsibilities. The harvest spells were just the start of it.”
“Harvest spells!” I said in panic. I knew I didn’t know anything that could be considered a harvest spell. In an urban setting, we learned urban spells.
“And now they don’t even want harvest spells any more,” continued the old wizard, paying no attention to me. “They say that hybrid seed is more effective. The closest I’ve come for years is the weather spells when they’re cutting the wheat.”
This was a relief. Weather spells I could probably manage. I had even gone to the lectures. I tried a different approach. “Have you ever taught anyone how to fly?”
“Fly? You mean someone who isn’t a wizard? Who wants to learn magic now?”
“The king mentioned it,” I said, but I was struck by the suggestion that someone else had apparently wanted to learn magic.
“Well, he never mentioned it to me. And with good reason. He knew what I’d say. Haimeric’s not half the man his grandfather was, or his father either. Never marrying all those years, and then marrying late. If he expected an heir, he’s certainly disappointed. But I must say, I don’t think he married in the hope of having a baby. I think he married because he was just besotted.”
I tried to return the topic to the question of who in the castle, besides me, might know magic. “So some of the others had asked you to teach them magic?”
“Well, Dominic and Maria did,” he said shortly. After a somewhat long pause, he added, “Never got anywhere with it.”
“Prince Dominic and the Lady Maria?” Somehow I would not have expected it.
“There was talk of them making a match four years ago,” continued the old wizard, in a more pleasant tone. “Maria’s the queen’s aunt, you know.”
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“When the king got married four years ago, the queen brought her old maiden aunt to live with her-probably thought she needed a change. And then Dominic’s only a few years younger than she is. He’s been heir presumptive for years; the king’s younger brother, at least, had the sense to get married when he was young. But he’s gone now too, and Dominic’s not half the man his father was.”
Apparently I had reached Yurt in a decadent time.
“But she was too flighty for someone that phlegmatic. If the queen was waiting for a match, I think she gave up waiting some time ago.”
While these insights into the people in the castle were extremely interesting, I could not help but notice that he had again deftly turned the topic away from the question of to whom he had taught magic.