Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 (3 page)

One was Prince Paul, who had been sitting quietly beside his mother. He now leaped up with an eager shout. “Oh, please, Father, please, may I come along?” The other person was the chaplain. At the mention of the Holy Land, Joachim s dark eyes caught fire and he started to rise from his chair. He stopped himself then, but I could tel that the king was no more going on pilgrimage without his Royal Chaplain than without his Royal Wizard.

Prince Pauls shout, even though he was immediately overcome with shyness when he found everyone looking at him, shook loose reactions from the rest.

“Ascelin and I wil come with you, of course,” said the duchess. “After al, Sir Hugo’s wizard was once my own ducal wizard.”

“And I’l come!”

“And I’l come!” cried al the knights present.

King Haimeric waited until the hubbub died down a bit, then turned first to his son. “I would love to have you with me, Paul,” he said solemnly. “But this quest is too dangerous to risk both the king of Yurt and the royal heir to Yurt. If I don’t come back, you’l need to be here to take care of your mother and to succeed to the throne.” Paul nodded, as solemn as the king. “Al right, Father,” he said, swalowing disappointment with visible effort. “I’l try to be a king you can be proud of.” He paused. “But when I grow up, I’m going on a quest and no one wil stop me then!”

King Haimeric smiled at his son and turned to the rest of us. Behind him, I could see the queen quietly and thoroughly ripping a lace-trimmed handkerchief to pieces.

“I appreciate everyone’s wilingness to accompany me,” said the king. “But I can’t possibly take you al. We’l have a better chance of finding the queen’s uncle if we can move quickly and unobtrusively. I’m not even going to travel as king of Yurt, but only as a simple pilgrim. I might take two or three of you, perhaps ....” There was a new outbreak of voices as al the knights pleaded to be among the two or three. The servants had long since given up any pretense of clearing the tables and hovered at the edges of the group, listening.

Mage Quest

The king looked genuinely troubled to have to disappoint so many people.

But he made his choices quickly. “You come with me, Dominic,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together over the years, and it seems right that we should share this quest.” Prince Dominic was the king’s nephew and had been heir apparent until Paul was born. He had come to the royal castle of Yurt as a young boy, almost fifty years ago, and had been there nearly ever since.

Since I planned to be along on this quest as wel, I would not have picked Dominic. like his stalion, he tended to be surly, and I had never been one of his favorites.

But he might be a good person to have along in a tight spot. There was stil plenty of muscle on him, even if he now had to brush his sandy hair carefuly to hide the thin spot.

“Thank you, sire,” he said gravely, twisting the ruby ring on his second finger. “I probably know Sir Hugo better than anyone else here, from that year I lived with him in the City. And I am delighted to serve my king.”

“And me?” said the duchess, irrepressible.

“No,” said the king regretfuly. “Not you. I can’t take the queen because she needs to be here to bring up Prince Paul, and I can’t take both you and your husband for the same reason. Someone has to bring up those twins of yours, and they’re quite a handful from everything I hear. If I took the duchess of Yurt, then both my counts would hear about it and insist on coming, too. No, my lady, I’l take your husband if he’s wiling, but I can’t take you.”

The duchess started to frown but stopped herself in time. There was a brief pause while everyone remembered that, while the rest of the knights present were the king’s liege men, Prince Ascelin, the duchess’ husband, was prince of his own principality as wel as duke of Yurt by marriage. He would accompany the king as an equal.

Ascelin rose to his feet. He was by far the talest man in Yurt, being wel over seven feet. Another man might have been overshadowed by the force of his wife’s personality, but Ascelin had always been a formidable person in his own right. He bent into the formal bow, trying not to smile. “I shal folow you with pleasure, Haimeric,” he said in his deep voice.

Good, I thought. Between his height and Dominic’s bulk, our group should present an imposing enough appearance that no cutthroat would try to sneak up on the slightly built king.

King Haimeric looked around the room. “Two knights,” he said thoughtfuly, “especialy warriors like you two princes, should be enough.”

“You’l need servants with you, certainly,” said the assistant constable quickly. I’l gladly come with you, sire.

But the king smiled again and shook his head. Thank you for the offer, but this wil be a pilgrimage as wel as a quest, and we wil travel very simply, without servants.” The assistant constable nodded reluctantly, but the cook, to whom he was married, positively beamed.

T shal, of course, ask the Royal Wizard to accompany us,” the king added.

That was a relief. When he turned down servants, I was afraid for a moment he was going to turn down everyone in his pay. “And the Royal Chaplain,” I said quickly.

The king looked slightly surprised, then nodded. Years of my company had made him used to me speaking up without what the finicky might consider proper respect. “Since our trip wil take us to the Holy Land, we should certainly have our chaplain with us.”

The chaplain’s eyes were stil ablaze, but he replied calmly. “Thank you. I shal ask the bishop to send another priest to serve the castle while I am gone.” Tf the chaplain’s going,” said Prince Paul, trying desperately to salvage something, “does that mean I won’t have to have any lessons until al of you come back?”

“No, you’re old enough for a tutor now,” said the queen, speaking for the first time since the end of dinner. She smiled as she spoke and seemed to have her voice wel under control.

The king looked around slowly at the assembled court. “There are five of us, then,” he said, “a good number for a dangerous mission. We’l start preparations at once, and I shal write to other royal courts in the western kingdoms to tel them to expect us. We’l leave right after Easter.”

But we ended up with six people in our party, not five. Two weeks later, while the constable and assistant constable were stil making lists of what we needed and puling boxes out of the storeroom, a lone horseman rode up to the castle at sunset.

I had been out walking, trying to harden my body enough to be ready for a trip of hundreds, indeed thousands of miles. Even the best magic can only do a limited amount to compensate for physical weakness. As I walked, I ran through spels in my mind, deciding what magic I should review because it might be useful in a strange land.

It was so cold that the snow squeaked underfoot. I came back to the castle as shadows became deep blue and the sun tinted the western sky crimson.

I paused before the drawbridge, breathing hard and enjoying the view, then noticed a figure emerging from the woods below the castle hil. He had a long sword slung from the saddle, and his horse was lathered in spite of the cold day.

Yurt was so peaceful that normaly I would have assumed that it was a friend coming to visit. But thinking about people captured by bandits had made me uneasy enough that I started putting a paralysis spel together just in case.

Halfway up the hil, the horseman noticed me. He was silhouetted against the sunset so he was only a shape, not a face, but he looked like a young man. He swept off his hat and waved with it. “Helo, Wizard!” he caled as though he had known me al his life.

Even when he reached the top of the hil and puled up next to me, I did not at once recognize him. He had jet-black hair, was dressed in black leather, and had a gold hoop in one ear in the latest fashion for young aristocrats. Were it not for the friendly smile, he would have appeared intimidating as wel as strange. And yet there was something oddly familiar about him.

“Hugo!” I cried suddenly as recognition came.

“Glad you remember me,” he said with another smile, swinging down from his horse and wringing my hand. “You didn’t think you’d be able to leave on this trip without me, did you?” Hugo had been a tal and rather gangly youth, learning knighthood in the royal court, when I first came to Yurt ten years earlier. He had returned home to his family a year or two later, but other than his beard, the earring and increased musculature, he looked very much as I remembered. He was related to the king or the queen in some way, I recaled. He was—he was the queen’s cousin, the son of the man who had disappeared.

“I expect the Old Man is sitting on a warm beach somewhere,” said Hugo, grinning, “surrounded by scantily clad dancing girls. He said he wanted to go on pilgrimage to contemplate the state of his soul, but I hear the East can be distracting! I can’t approve, of course, I’m much too fond of Mother. It’s high time he came home. But in case he’s not al right”—and for a second his cheerful mask cracked a fraction

—“I’d better do my best to find him.”

I accompanied him into the castle, thinking that he would make a good addition to our company. As a youth, I remembered, Hugo had had an excelent sense of humor. The chaplain stil didn’t, in spite of years of my trying to teach him, and the king had a sweetness of temper that precluded many of my best jokes. I had never known Ascelin wel enough to joke with him and Dominic was out of the question.

These cheerful thoughts reminded me of something much less cheerful. Evrard, lost on the same expedition as Hugo’s father, had also had an excelent sense of humor. And somewhere along the miles of road between here and the Holy Land his bones might be lying, bleached white by the same sun that shone on the azure sea.

IV

Easter came early that year. Patches of snow stil lingered in the woods, although buds on the trees gave their branches a slightly fuzzy look against the pale sky. On Easter Monday, the last preparations were finaly made for our expedition to find the elder Sir Hugo, his wizard Evrard, and the knights who had accompanied them.

Al of us had new gray cloaks with scarlet crosses embroidered on the shoulder. Tents, blankets, rope, clothing, food, pots, weapons, armor, maps, shovels, boots, water bottles, and the king’s spare eyeglasses were al organized and packed, so systematicaly that I wondered if we would dare actualy use anything. In the morning, al we would need to do would be to strap the packs onto our horses. The night before leaving, I asked the chaplain to my chambers after dinner for a last glass of wine.

He sat quietly by the fire, long legs stretched out before him. My study was so neat, tidied and straightened in preparation for my absence, that I hardly felt it was mine anymore. I wondered if I should put a magic lock on the door when I left and decided against it. It would open only to my own palm print and, if we didn’t come back, the queen might want these chambers for her new wizard.

“It’s strange, Joachim,” I said as I poured out the wine. “I’m ready to go, I’ve been eager to go for more than six weeks, yet now that we’re about to leave I feel a curious reluctance. We’re going off into something so different from our life here in Yurt, so hard to imagine in advance, that it could almost be death. It’s as though I won’t exist after tomorrow.” He sipped from the glass I handed him and looked at me from deep-set eyes. “I wil not drink again from the fruit of the vine until I drink it new in my father’s kingdom,” he said. “Is that it?” That was the problem with having a priest as my best friend. He was always saying incomprehensible things. “Maybe,” I answered cautiously.

Then I added, “But it’s a good thing we’re going, because I’m afraid I was on the point of going stale. A lot of wizards these days change posts after eight or ten years, going back to the school to serve as assistants and guest lecturers or moving up to a bigger kingdom that wants an experienced wizard.”

“And are you going to move up then, Daimbert?”

The chaplain was the only person in Yurt who used my name rather than caling me Wizard; but then I was the only one who caled him Joachim rather than Father.

“No, of course not. I like life here in Yurt, and besides, I’m not nearly a skilful enough wizard that a bigger kingdom would want me. And the school is unlikely to consider me a good person to guide the student wizards.”

“I talked to the bishop on the telephone this afternoon,” the chaplain said in an apparent change of subject. “You’l be pleased to hear that he finaly agrees with you, that magic telephones use perfectly innocuous magic and involve no pacts with the devil.”

“And what else did you and the bishop talk about?” I asked, deciding not to comment that the bishop was certainly slow enough to grasp the obvious, especialy since it was almost a year since his own provost had had a telephone instaled in the cathedral. I wasn’t particularly interested in the bishop, but it was better to talk than to sit in silence, feeling the emptiness of the unknown voyage before us.

“It realy has been easier communicating with the cathedral this last year, rather than having to rely on the carrier pigeons,” said Joachim, not answering my question. I wondered if he and the bishop had discussed some spiritual issue which they thought was unsuitable for a wizard’s ears.

But after a moment of staring into the fire, Joachim spoke again. “He confirmed that the new chaplain wil arrive here within the week. It’s always hard to get one on short notice, but he thought that this young priest would do very wel here. I’m sorry I won’t be able to help him settle into his duties.”

The wizards’ school would certainly not send out a substitute wizard to Yurt while I was gone. For one thing, unlike priests who claimed to show each other Christian charity, wizards were wel known for fighting al the time and I would never have alowed it.

“I shal miss Yurt,” added Joachim. His comment didn’t seem to have anything to do with the bishop, but since it fitted in wel with my own mood it seemed appropriate.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. The castle was quiet around us. My chambers opened directly onto the main courtyard, but no one came or went on this dark, damp night.