Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (27 page)

“The magical forces of the valey may make my creature a little harder to catch,” he went on. “Did you see how fast it could run? Even my magic wouldn’t give it that kind of speed anywhere else,” he added regretfuly.

This, I thought gloomily, was exactly what I needed to hear: First, my predecessor had made a creature almost too powerful for his own magic and certainly much stronger than either Evrard’s or mine, and now its strength was increased dramaticaly.

“I’d better go see if I can find some herbs,” said the old wizard. “I’l need them for my binding spel. You and the duchess’ wizard could try putting some kind of barricade across the opening to the cave. I don’t believe my creature wil try to come out again during the day, after we al frightened it, but it might after dark. I’d ask you to help me, but you wouldn’t recognize the right herbs.” His chief concern, I thought as I watched him stump off, was that we might have “frightened” his creature! This left it al up to Evrard and me—which meant, I was afraid, me.

Although I caled the old wizard Master, he was not my real master. If I thought of anyone in the paternal role in which Joachim put his bishop, it was the Master of the wizards’ school, who had been wiling to take on—and even keep—a young man who must have been a very unpromising wizardry student. Since my own parents had died when I was young, the white-haired Master of the school had been the closest I had had to a father.

Yet in the two years I had been in Yurt, I had come to admire my predecessor, in spite of his crankiness. And I had certainly learned a tremendous amount from him, not just the herbal magic they did not teach at the school but, partly out of shame at his example, a lot of the school magic I had not learned properly the first time.

And now something had happened to him, whether he had been pushed into unwise new experiments by Evrard’s creature, overcome by pride, or (quite unaccountably) made jealous of me. Even aside from catching up to his creature, I knew I had to catch him.

Meanwhile Id better make sure of my only other aly. “When you and my predecessor folowed the monster into the cave,” I asked Evrard, “how far back did you pursue it?”

“Not far. He made a light on the end of his staff. It wasn’t very bright, but oetter than I could do and enough for us to see. We got back to where the cave widened, the room that Nimrod mentioned—or, rather, Prince Ascelin. It’s an enormous room and a lot of tunnels open off it. The monster must have taken one of them. I’m afraid, like the prince, we fel into the river on the way back out.”

“I don’t trust the old wizard,” I said, “not his motivations, not even his magic. Catching this monster is going to be up to you and me.”

“Oh, please, Daimbert!” cried Evrard. “Let me catch it myself! Don’t you see, it’s my last chance to impress the duchess, before she gets fed up with me and sends me back to the City in exchange tor a different wizard. And since the monster tried to carry her off, it’s my responsibility as ducal wizard to avenge her.”

“Don’t oe sily,’ I said, feeling that Evrard was more like ten years younger than me rather than two. “Neither one of us could possibly capture it alone. Our only chance is to do it together.”

“I jguess you’re right,” said Evrard, but not as though convinced.

He would become convinced soon enough. “First,” I said, “it would help if we knew what the monster is made out of. Since this creature is no ilusion, it has to be made of something. And it’s not sticks this time. Human bones, maybe?’ In spite of keeping my voice remarkably calm, I could feel a thin trickle of sweat working its way down my back.

Evrard had clearly never thought about this. Now his eyes grew so wide that white showed al the way

around the iris. “But where would he have gotten human bones?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said grimly. “We’ve been worrying about the creature kiling a person now that we know it’s kiled some chickens. But has the old wizard himself already kiled someone?” We both looked involuntarily down the valey where the wizard had gone. I thought I could see him a half mile away, where the valey started to curve, poking about on the river bank.

Evrard hugged himself as though standing in a bitterly cold wind. “But even the wizards trained under the old apprentice system must have taken the oath to help and guide mankind.”

“Exactly. And that’s why I can’t let you even try to go after the monster by yourself.”

Evrard shivered again and nodded. His desire to impress the duchess seemed greatly diminished. But then he looked at me with his head cocked to one side, his eyes almost back to normal. “I know what I can do,” he said. “Your predecessor had a good idea when he suggested we barricade the cave. I can practice my lifting spels by lifting some rocks to block the opening. Once I have them in place, I’l put a binding spel on them, so that even a monster won’t be able to push them aside.”

Good plan,” I told him enthusiasticaly, though I didn’t think this would work for long and there might be other exits to the cave. But it would keep him busy and give me a chance to walk and to think.

Anything was better than waiting here, either for inspiration—which seemed increasingly unlikely—or for the old wizard to come back.

I jumped up and started down the valey. It was late afternoon and a soft white mist had begun to rise.

It hung over the river and sent long arms out over the water’s grassy verges. As I walked downstream, I went into patches of fog so dense I could barely see ten feet in front of me and then went out again under a clear sky. The limestone formations on the valey wals looked even more like the ruins of old castles than

usual.

The old wizard had stil not told me why he had made such a creature in the first place and maybe he didn’t know himself. I wished I could get word to the wizards’ school but, with the creature actualy here, I didn’t dare leave the valey myself. Even Evrard’s spels would be some help if the monster broke out. I stopped in the middle of a patch of mist and looked around. I had not paid much attention to how far I had walked, but it was hard to tel distances with no landmarks. The only solid points in a white world were the road under my feet and the rushing river to my right. But where was the old wizard?

I came out of the mist again and saw him, standing under a tree, staring off down the valey. Heavy drops of moisture hung from the leaves above his head. He gave a start as I came up beside him. He looked as old as I had ever seen him, his ful two hundred and fifty years, and much too weak ever to kil anybody. ‘Did you find al the herbs you needed?” I asked. “Herbs?” he said, as though coming back from a great distance and not sure what I could mean. Then he looked down at his hands which were clenched around a wad of drooping plants. “Oh, yes.” He met my eyes briefly and turned away. “We can return ‘

now.’

ow.

We walked back up the valey without speaking. The fog was growing thicker, so that we would have lost our way if we were not folowing a clearly marked road. Even the river beside us seemed to be running much more quietly. My predecessor, I thought with a sideways glance at him, might already have lost his way.

When the shape of the trees and clearings was again familiar enough that I knew we were close to the Holy Grove, I tried once more. “Maybe I can help you, Master,” I began tentatively. “You know you’ve taught me a lot of herbal magic. I could help you put the spels together if I knew what you were trying to do. What’s driving your creature now and how can we slow it down?

“I already told you,” he said, but without his normal irritated tone, “that it’s the valey itself that’s made it move so fast. As to what’s driving it, I thought even you could recognize magic.” I kept my temper. “But what kind of magic? What purpose is the creature serving? After al, here in the valey it seized two people within two minutes. Did you make it in order to capture people?” He looked at me fuly for the first time since I had found him on the river bank. “No, that wasn’t my purpose. But it does indeed like to put its hands on people.” He gave a malevolent chuckle and went on more vigorously. “It certainly wanted to lay hold of Prince Dominic. You should have seen them al trying to get away! But of course, outside this valey, it couldn’t run as fast as a horse.” We had stopped walking and were facing each other. I had always assumed he was taler than I and was surprised when I had to incline my head to meet his eyes. “And has it tried to seize you?”

“Yes. That always was a problem. That’s why, young whippersnapper, I needed to give it my ful attention the time your young wizard friend tried to let it out.” His magic must have gone even more badly out of control than I had thought if something he had created turned on him. “The great horned rabbits,” I said, “dissolved when I put a binding spel on them or, for that matter, when they were shot. Is there any similar way we can dissolve your new creature?”

“You and that magic worker of the duchess’ can

play children’s games with rabbits if you like. This is

different.”

As I talked to the old wizard, he seemed almost the same as I had always known him—except marginaly more civil. The aging, the loss of control over his own magic, I thought, were temporary, passing events. He would be himself for many more years to come as long as we were able to catch his monster successfuly. I wished I believed it.

“I know that a simple binding spel won’t dissolve your creature,” I tried again, “because I already attempted one without success, but are there other spels that might work?”

“I’m not at al ready to ‘dissolve’ it, as you say. And don’t get any bright ideas about trying to transform it into a fuzzy squirrel either; transformation spels won’t work on a magical creature, as I hope you know. This is the best thing I’ve ever made, far better than those ilusions that used to impress the royal court over dessert. I’ve got a spel that wil hold it, al right, but it has to be standing stil.” The sweat began again running down my back in spite of the cold mist around us. ‘Is there something from which you made this creature which might help account for its behavior?” He turned abruptly. “I always did wonder about those bones.” And he started up the valey again without giving me a chance to answer.

There was no mist around the Holy Grove and I did not at first see anyone. But then I spotted the youngest of the priests talking to an apprentice hermit. The other two priests, the old hermit, and Joachim were in prayer at the shrine. I didn’t disturb them but went out of the grove again, folowing the river upstream. The water seemed much lower than I remembered. I decided to see how Evrard was coming with his lifting spels.

Even at this end of the valey, where the mist did

not yet reach, it was rapidly growing dark. The old wizard was outlined against the white of the valey wal, crouching over his herbs. These last two hours, the steep wals had begun to seem the wals of a prison.

I walked toward the mouth of the cave, where I could stil see Evrard’s flaming red hair in spite of the shadows.

But then there was a deep and holow boom, a sharp grating of rock on rock, and a giant burst of water shot out from the cliff, propeling him in front of it.

“Evrard!” I shouted. He managed to find the magic to break his fal and landed on the soft ground near me. “What happened?” I cried. “Are you al right?”

“My plan didn’t work,” he said, dripping wet and in despair. I quickly determined he was more mortified than hurt. “But it seemed like such a good idea!”

“What didn’t work?” I demanded.

“Blocking the cave mouth. It might have kept the monster in, but it also kept the river in. But now I find the river was stronger than my rocks!” He shook his head, sending drops of water flying, and started squeezing water from his clothes. “And I’d just gotten dry from faling in earlier.”

That explained, then, why the river had seemed so low and quiet the last hour. Obviously, if Evrard tried to fil the entire cave mouth with boulders, the force of the river would push them aside. Even a former city boy like me knew something about the power of running water. I was about to try to explain it to him when I saw my predecessor approaching.

He had puled up his hood so I could not see his face in the shadows, but his voice emerged with its old strength. “Trying to make a noise loud enough to frighten my creature, is that your plan?”

‘Wel, no, Master,” Evrard began. “I didn’t think it had ears anyway. And you see—

The old wizard waved his explanations aside. “I have

the right herbs now and the right spel.” I noticed then his fingers glowing with a pale blue light, as though the spel itself was held in his hands. “No more time for nonsense. We’re going in after it.” Evrard, who had ducked behind me, pushed himself forward again in spite of obvious reluctance. “We’re ready,” he said, with a calmness I admired.

“Not you, young whippersnapper.” I could sense Evrard wavering between indignation and relief. “This is a job for the Royal Wizard and me. That is,” the old wizard added after a long pause, with unexpected gentleness, “we both think we need someone to stay at the entrance of the cave, to make sure my creature doesn’t get past us and get out, and we think you’d be best for the job.”

“Of course,” said Evrard, stil calmly. “Find Joachim,” I said. “He and the other priests are al at the shrine. Tel him we’ve gone.” Evrard patted me surreptitiously on the shoulder as I folowed my predecessor toward the dark cave mouth. It felt as though he was saying good-bye.

We had to pick our way around several smal boulders that now littered the bank, and the limestone at the cave entrance was chipped, but the river flowed as swiftly as before. The evening light was at the point at which one imagines one can stil see, but when the old wizard iluminated the silver bal at the end of his staff with magic, it showed how poorly I had been able to see a moment before. His face emerged from the shadow of his hood, looking determined and quite rational.

But his light also made al our surroundings darkly black, thougn seconds earlier they had only been dim. And where we were going it was black al the time.