It was just before dawn when a sound woke me. I lifted my head from Theodora’s couch to listen, unsure at first if it was dream or reality.
It was reality, all right. Faint but clear, from the direction of the docks, came the sound of piping.
As I listened the music grew louder, as though the piper was coming this way. The notes rose and rose again, wild and compelling, a music that entered the brain and called the body. That piping had me swaying on my feet with my hand on the doorknob before I even realized what I was doing. It tugged at the magic within me with a call that overcame all feeling, all will, nearly all thought.
“No,” I gasped, and the sound of my own voice gave me back a little of my senses. I made a desperate effort and pushed away from the door. No magic I knew could oppose this. Theodora emerged from the bedroom in a long white nightgown, her eyes only slightly open, and brushed past me, reaching for the knob.
I seized her and held her to me. She struggled but as though only dimly aware of my presence. Faint light from the curtained window fell on pallid cheeks and tumbled hair. “Theodora. Wait. Stop. Don’t follow it,” I managed to choke out.
But it was Antonia, clutching Dolly and stretching to unlock the door, who seemed to make Theodora aware of where she was. She shook herself, gave me a quick look, and pulled our daughter back into the middle of the room. The three of us clung together desperately as the piping came closer.
“It’s a spell,” I said in a low voice, hoping that the sound of a human voice would keep us anchored here in this room. The notes were mixed with another sound now, almost a squeaking. Antonia had ceased struggling but was crying silently. “Someone is working a summoning spell. I don’t recognize his magic at all, but I think-I hope-it’s not for us.”
Summoning was specifically forbidden by the masters of the wizards’ school as the greatest sin a wizard could commit.
“It’s only because we all know magic that we’re more susceptible than most people to spells,” I tried to continue in a calm, explanatory tone.
But now the piper was directly outside Theodora’s door. I stopped speaking as it took all my effort just to keep myself from abandoning my family and all my reason to follow that music.
There was a moment in which I must have squeezed Theodora’s arms painfully, because she had purple bruises later, but with my eyes tight shut I was unaware of her, only of my desperate need to follow and equally desperate determination not to. But after what seemed an endless time, though it could only have been a few seconds, the piper passed by. I took a deep breath that was almost a sob as the power of his spell diminished.
Antonia plopped down in the middle of the floor, crying hard, and Theodora tried to comfort her. I lifted the curtain to look out. The piper was gone, and I did not see any of Theodora’s neighbors following.
“It looks like that was only a spell for magic-workers,” I started to say, trying to make it a joke.
But then I saw the rats. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, brown rats poured like a river down the middle of the street, their hairless tails arched over their backs. More came scampering out of cellars and alleys to join the stream. Theodora joined me at the window and stared in amazement. I had not realized how thoroughly the city had been overrun with rodents until I now saw them all together.
“Well,” I said when I could speak again. “It looks like Cyrus really has done something about the rats.”
We bathed, dressed, and had breakfast to give ourselves time to calm down. “It wouldn’t have to be a demonic spell,” I said to Theodora as we went out two hours later. I leaned again on my predecessor’s silver-topped staff.
There was a narrow crevice at the center of the cobbled street where rainwater drained. The thin layer of mud on the bottom was marked with the prints of thousands of rat feet.
“The school doesn’t teach summoning any more,” I continued, “in part because such spells are almost impossible to resist, even for a skilled wizard, and they don’t want the students practicing on each other. I wouldn’t even recognize an eastern summoning spell, especially one designed for rats, but it still almost captured us.”
“Where did all the rats go?” asked Antonia with interest. She had cheered up quickly once the music of the piper had passed. “Will they come back? Do you think our pet Cyrus was with them?”
“I thought Jen’s mother and I told you to let him go,” said Theodora reprovingly.
“Well, he probably got out of his box anyway,” said Antonia, skipping ahead.
Everyone in the city seemed out in the streets, talking excitedly about the rats’ disappearance. I caught snatches of conversation as we headed toward the cathedral, and it appeared that, according to the bargemen, an enormous number of rats had appeared downstream from the city this morning, many drowned in the river, the rest looking confused but showing no sign of returning. Although quite a few people had heard the piping, no one had actually seen the piper. That did not keep everyone from assuming it had been Cyrus.
“He tried to tell me he’d given up magic,” I told Theodora. “But it looks like his purportedly religious desire to put his past behind him is less important than his desire for acclaim-especially with Joachim reasserting his spiritual authority.”
No one else seemed to have been lured by the magic. The question flashed through my mind whether it might be not Cyrus but Vlad who had come into Caelrhon with the magic to summon rats. But I could imagine no reason why that dark wizard would care about the city’s rodent population, and piping at dawn would be too dangerous for someone liable to disintegrate in daylight.
We found Joachim in the cathedral office. The acolyte outside the door at first feigned ignorance whether the bishop was even there, then claimed he wouldn’t want to see us-most of the cathedral attendants had looked at me dubiously ever since I burst in on him last month, and that was not even knowing that I had intended to kill him-but I pushed past.
The bishop sat without moving, staring at nothing in particular, and looked up in surprise when we were already halfway across the room. He rose then and came to meet us, his face gaunt and troubled, without even an attempt at a smile. Theodora knelt to kiss his ring, which made me wonder if Cyrus had left some sort of infection on it with his lips, and then of course Antonia had to as well. Joachim rested his hand on her head a moment in blessing.
“Did you talk to him?” I asked, too worried not to be brusque, even though Theodora kicked me in admonishment. “Did you hear about the rats?”
Joachim nodded his head fractionally. “I am not so removed from the cares and concerns of the city as you appear to think, Daimbert,” he said, and just for a second humor glinted in his eyes. I might not be able to do much about black magic, I thought bitterly, but I seemed to be good at cheering up bishops. “Yes, Cyrus came and spoke to me-apparently, as I learned once he left, almost immediately after leading the rats out of town.”
“What did you tell him?” I demanded. “Did you tell him he can’t keep on preaching if he’s going to encourage townspeople into all sorts of excesses, including worshipping him?”
Joachim turned to Theodora, the faint humor again in his eyes. “Do you have the same problem with him?” he asked conversationally. “Does he keep acting as though you couldn’t carry out your own responsibilities without his supervision?”
“But what did he say?” I cried impatiently.
Joachim opened a drawer with infuriating deliberation and gave Antonia some paper and colored chalk. She sat down happily to draw at the far side of the room. It looked as though she was drawing a crowd of rats following a man. The bishop, completely serious now, pulled up chairs for Theodora and me.
“I did tell Cyrus that it was inappropriate for a seminary student to be preaching so regularly,” he said quietly, “especially in a cathedral city where the faithful never lack access to God’s word. But when he pleaded with me it was hard to resist him. It was, after all, his prayers that miraculously restored the burned street.”
“I already told you what I think of that ‘miracle,’” I said grumpily.
“And he did help return the townsmen to the voice of their consciences last evening, when that man tried to turn them against the Romneys.”
“That wasn’t Cyrus, Joachim. The Romneys were saved by you-and the Lady Maria.”
“I could not sleep last night,” the bishop continued slowly, “so I slipped out of the palace in the darkest hour and went toward the Romney camp. I am not sure why I went-perhaps to apologize again or to be sure those old people suffered no serious hurt. But it did not matter. They had left.”
“All the caravans?” I asked, and he nodded. I could see the Romneys’ point; I would have left too.
“Sometimes I have thought,” Joachim went on, “that God sent the Romneys to Caelrhon for a purpose, so that I might be able to win them for Christianity. But now what must they think of a faith in whose name a man would threaten to murder them without cause?”
“But did Cyrus say anything about the rats?” I asked, not wanting to get into questions of God’s hidden purpose and also not wanting to bring up the point that I myself had once threatened to murder the bishop, equally without cause.
“He said nothing,” Joachim replied shortly.
“Well, I still think he’s deceiving you with a pious facade. That was very powerful magic to summon those rats-it almost trapped Theodora and me too.” I paused a moment but then went on, because whatever else I had always tried to be honest with Joachim. “It wouldn’t have to be a demon this time. In fact, I keep being convinced that he brought the undead warriors to Yurt, but that wasn’t black magic either. But if he won’t admit to wizardry of any kind he’s concealing a lot from you.”
“Then I shall speak to him again, Daimbert. You know my concern has always been whether he was truly working miracles or practicing renegade magic in the guise of miracles. A summoning spell is scarcely the work of the saints.”
Theodora had been listening to us in silence. Now she said, “It sounds to me as though he’s confused popular approval with real goodness. He won the friendship of the children by mending their toys and pets, and he received the keys of the city from the mayor for restoring the burned buildings. What will he want for cleansing Caelrhon of rats?”