Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 (16 page)

I had the oddest feeling that Cyrus had known who I was, perhaps had even expected to meet me. “But you were trained in wizardry,” I said. Now that he was sitting beside me it was unmistakable. He was no more a fuly trained wizard than he was a demon, and he was not actively practicing magic at the moment, but it is virtualy impossible to erase magic’s imprint.

He turned abruptly away, clenching his fists. “Once I thought that magic might impart the power to aid others,” he said in a low voice that hinted at experiences he did not want to recolect, “but I know now that wizardry leads only to darkness.”

I had no leisure to worry about his sensibilities, not with unliving creatures stalking Yurt and assassins from Xantium doubtless searching for Justinia. “You were not trained in the wizards’ school,” I persisted.

“Did you perhaps serve an apprenticeship east of the mountains, where the school’s influence does not extend?”

He turned sharply back toward me, the candle flames glinting in his eyes. “I told you my past is of no importance. And I do not think I should say more to you, Daimbert, about the Eastern Kingdoms. If you have nothing else to discuss, I would prefer to return to my devotions.”

I had quite a bit else to say to him. “Then let us not talk of your past,” I said hastily, “but only of what has happened since you came to Caelrhon. So far I have heard that you have restored to life or wholeness several animals and a little girl’s dol.” I paused, waiting for some response, but he looked away from me in silence. My ears strained for other sounds in the shadowy church, but the faint taps and scurryings did not appear to be anything other than the normal sounds of any large building at night. “This is not any magic I know,” I continued, “and I would be interested in learning how you did it.” He shot me a brief glance, then turned his eyes back toward the crucifix on the altar. His face was dark and sharp in profile. “I am in Caelrhon to learn the ways of God,” he said quietly, “not to teach magic to a wizard.”

Careful questioning didn’t seem to be doing any good. “Listen,” I said harshly, putting a hand on his shoulder. Under the vestments of an acolyte I could feel clearly the shape of his bones. Maybe not the personification of evil, I told myself, but there was evil in this man no matter what he had said to the bishop. “Since you first arrived here my royal castle has been attacked by warriors made by magic from hair and bone, and tonight the high street here in the city burned. Someone with the powerful magic to restore life, even if only the life of an animal, might wel be thought to be behind undead warriors, and even more so be suspected of arson.”

Slowly he turned toward me again, and his gaunt, sober face was transformed by a smile. It built slowly, working its way from his lips up to his cheekbones. The effect was shattering. I had to dismiss at once my thoughts of him as evil, for there was a joy and a deep love in that smile that confounded me again with the similarity to Joachim.

“I have not prayed here in vain,” Cyrus said, putting his own hands on my shoulders. “Whatever il may have befalen the city wil be restored.” I was so surprised that for a moment I could not answer. Then I heard a creak from the hinges of the smal side door of the cathedral, and the smel of smoke became momentarily stronger. Someone else had entered the church.

Cyrus and I—waited in silence, listening to the approaching footsteps. A tal figure stepped from the shadow of a pilar into the candlelight. It was the bishop.

Now that I saw them together, Joachim and Cyrus did not look anything alike. The bishop was taler, and his face was alive with the power of good. The same good had burned in the other’s expression when he smiled, but he again was sober and the effect was gone.

Joachim lifted his eyebrows when he saw us. It must seem to him that I had been showing up al day at the most inappropriate moments. I wondered what to answer when he asked why I was questioning his new seminary student after he had told me not to, especialy if Cyrus complained that I had been quizzing him about his experiences with wizardry.

But the bishop did not ask why I was here. “Forgive me for disturbing your conversation,” he said instead. “I came to offer thanks to God for the safe deliverance from fire of the city’s people, even before the thanksgiving service I shal lead tomorrow. I had not known there was anyone else in the church.”

“My devotions kept me overlong, Father,” murmured Cyrus, the perfect humble seminary student. He dipped a knee toward the altar and retreated hastily, the side door closing holowly behind him. It looked like any further conversation with him would have to wait.

“I’m leaving too, Joachim,” I said. I thought of trying to say again that he shouldn’t do anything rash without giving it more thought, but the outbreak of the fire had put such an effective end to our discussion on that topic that I was not sure how to bring it up again. “I’l be heading back to Yurt first thing in the morning.”

“Before you go,” he said, not nearly as embarrassed as I was, “I want to ask you something. The fire died out much more rapidly than anyone had dared hope— was that due in part to your magic?”

“Mine and Theodora’s,” I said, and was immediately sorry I had mentioned her when the bishop dropped his eyes.

“Then I am glad I found you to thank you,” he said gravely, not looking at me. “Convey my thanks to her as wel when you next see her. More priests should recognize how often God works through human agents, even wizards.” There was an awkward silence for a moment, then he asked quietly, “Are you going to Theodora’s house now?”

“Yes.” It seemed as though I ought to add more, but I was not sure what. One of the candles on the altar guttered out with a strong scent of hot wax.

“When you see her,” said Joachim, now in a flustered tone that did not sound anything like him, “I would be grateful if— That is, unless you think there is a need to say—”

“I did not plan to tel her what you have told me.”

There was another silence. Confessors are supposed to maintain the secrets of the confessional, but both of us knew that someone who takes his secret sins to a wizard does so at his own risk.

Joachim raised his enormous dark eyes then to meet mine. “This has been a strange day, Daimbert,” he said at last, which seemed an understatement. “Before you return to Yurt tomorrow, come to the episcopal palace and talk with me.”

When I walked the length of the nave to the main doors and glanced back, it was to see him kneeling before the altar on the flagstones where Cyrus had lain.

II

The sun shone through Theodora’s curtains when I roled over the next morning, just barely avoiding pitching myself off her couch and onto the floor among the cloth scraps. I had spent quite a few nights on that couch over the last five years, but it realy was too narrow. From the kitchen I could hear rattling sounds of someone making breakfast.

“What time did you get in last night?” Theodora asked as I leaned, rubbing my eyes, against the doorframe. She seemed to be tactfuly not recaling that the.last time we had met face-to-face I seemed to have lost my mind. “I was so soundly asleep I didn’t even hear you.”

“I know. I didn’t want to wake you.” I took the piece of toast she handed me and wolfed it down. When I thought back over yesterday’s confused events, I couldn’t remember eating at any point. “How about if I scramble us some eggs?”

As we sat at her kitchen table in the morning sun, eating eggs and toast and drinking hot tea, everything seemed so safe and normal that for a moment I could merely have imagined the events of the last week.

The light brought out golden highlights in Theodora’s curly brown hair. But one thing was missing. Antonia should have been here with us.

“Where did you go after the fire was contained?” Theodora asked. “I know I should have tried to help with the families and the children, but I was so exhausted I could hardly stand.” A smile brought out her dimple. “How do you wizards ever manage to practice magic al the time?”

For a moment I stopped eating to listen to a sound of distant voices carried from elsewhere in the city.

They might have been voicing surprise or wonder, but at least it did not sound like fear. “I finaly met the Dog-Man last night. His name is Cyrus, and he’s just become an acolyte in the cathedral seminary.” I paused for another bite. “He worries me, Theodora. There’s magic about him, though he’s no wizard, and a hint of the supernatural that seems strangely different than what you’d expect of a devout young would-be priest.” She had finished a much smaler breakfast than mine and watched me with sober amethyst eyes. “And I can’t help wondering what he’s got to do with the warriors who attacked Yurt.”

“What warriors?”

I remembered just too late that I had never told her about the attack on the royal castle and had in fact been meaning to let it slide until Antonia was safely home again. But the city of Caelrhon, with its fire, fears of the Romneys, and Cyrus, might be no safer than the castle of Yurt, guarded now by a far better wizard than I. I told Theodora briefly about the attack.

“There wasn’t enough magic left in their bones for me to learn much about:—” I stopped abruptly. “Wait! I just remembered! I handled those bones yesterday— or I guess it would be the day before. I wasn’t paying very close attention at the time, so if there was some kind of latent spel in them, ready to infect a wizard who wasn’t careful, and through him—” I seized her by the shoulders. “Theodora! Are you feeling al right?”

“Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I?” She looked concerned, as wel she might.

“I think there was a spel in those bones that affected me, and now I’m infecting other people.” I stopped just in time from teling her about Joachim. “You aren’t feeling, for example, a wild conviction that I don’t love you, or that Antonia is in danger? You aren’t fearing that everyone in town knows you for a witch and holds it against you?” Now she looked alarmed. “Daimbert, what are you talking about? Is Antonia in danger?”

“Al right,” I said, mostly to myself, gulping down the last of the tea. “Everything’s fine. It didn’t affect you. Maybe it can only infect once. But with the bishop this morning—And I almost forgot, he wanted me to come see him. That reminds me, Theodora. Joachim told me to thank you for your fire magic last night.”

The distant sound of voices came clearer again as the breezes shifted, and the cathedral bels were ringing as though for service, although I thought it was the wrong time. Maybe it was the special thanksgiving service the bishop had mentioned. Theodora came around the table to put a palm on my forehead. “Are you sure you haven’t become feverish again?” I pushed back my chair and stood up. “I’m fine as long as you are. I’l telephone Elerius from the cathedral office and tel him to check those bones for spels at once. And I’d better get back to Yurt before Antonia starts to doubt that I realy am her father.” I kissed Theodora and smiled reassuringly. “In a few days, when I bring her home, I can tel you al about it.” As I walked briskly through the city streets, I noticed that al the smoky smel had dissipated overnight. Somehow I had expected it stil to linger. The cathedral bels grew louder as I approached.

The voices grew louder too. Feeling suddenly uneasy, I quickened my pace. There was a disconcerting note to that many people shouting together, a wordless sound that could have been the voice of last night’s flames.

The open area in front of the cathedral was packed. People stood in every available spot between the huts and supplies of the workmen and the piles of stones. Al sectors of society and al ages seemed to be there; children darted between legs to try to get closer, or begged to be lifted high enough to see. I spotted Celia near the front, Hildegarde beside her, and then was startled to see King Paul’s Great-aunt Maria trying to scramble up onto a heap of building supplies for a better view. What was she doing here?

The crowd kept pushing forward like the motion of the sea, with a murmur like the sound of waves, and the shadows of the cathedral’s new towers lay across them. I couldn’t get any closer to either the twins or the Lady Maria without flying. At the top of the cathedral steps, facing the crowd, stood the bishop.

‘The miracle is God’s!” he caled out over that wordless murmur. He wore his formal scarlet vestments and tal episcopal mitre and extended his arms wide. “Come into God’s house where we can offer thanks together to Him! Nothing is impossible for Him who rules al!”

But the crowd was disagreeing with him. What miracle? I wondered wildly. We al had reason to be grateful no one had been kiled in the fire, but there was much more going on, and I had somehow missed it.

“No, my sons and daughters!” the bishop continued, even more loudly and clearly. His gaunt face was intense, and his eyes focused not on the crowd but on the sky. “It is idolatry to speak like that to a living, sinning mortal!”

What could possibly be happening? I tried again to shoulder my way through toward the front of the crowd, not wanting to practice magic this close to a church with everyone speaking of a miracle. The crowd was too intent on the bishop to pay any attention to me, although several people almost stepped on my toes.

“So if you didn’t cal down the saints to save our homes,” a booming voice shouted from almost next to me, “then who did?”

“The Dog-Man!” someone else shouted, and a dozen voices took it up. “The Dog-Man, the Dog-Man!”

“Cyrus!” caled a woman’s voice from the front of the crowd. It rose almost to a scream. “Cyrus!” I looked to see the source of the voice and saw that it was Celia.

One big cathedral door opened, and the seminary’s newest student popped out like the figure in some child’s game. “It was Cyrus who worked the miracle!” screamed Celia as though in ecstasy. I saw Hildegarde take her by the arm, but she shook her sister off. “Praise God! Praise God!”

Cyrus, his sharp face sober, stood beside Joachim with his arms extended in an identical pose. The bishop turned his head and came as close as he ever did to looking irritated.

“Give not me the praise, but the saints who heard my humble prayers,” said Cyrus when after a moment the crowd’s wordless shouts died away. “My merits are but meager; it is the sincerity of my heart that the saints have answered. Come, let us worship together!” He spun around, apparently finding nothing wrong with inviting Joachim’s flock into Joachim’s own church, and led the way as the townspeople poured up the steps after him.