PART THREE - CARNIVAL

I

I came up the hill toward the castle on the white mare, exhausted and exhilarated. It was mid-morning, and I had again spent the night at the old wizard's house without intending to do so when I arrived. But this time I had known the night was passing (and it was only one night, not two) and had stayed because I decided to, not because the old wizard had used his magic herbal smoke to put me to sleep.

The harvest was over now, although the turnips still lay in the ground, waiting the first real frost. For two weeks I had stood out in the fields with the harvesters, wearing a wide-brimmed hat against the sun and doubtless looking much more like a farmer than a wizard. I had kept my eye open for thunderstorms or the hailstorms that could destroy the ripe grain, but for the most part the weather had stayed clear, and the weather spells I had assiduously reviewed were only needed once. With my harvest responsibilities over, I had gone back to the old wizard's house under the giant oak.

Yesterday he had begun to teach me herbal magic. I smiled ruefully at myself, arriving yesterday morning, doubtless very like the Lady Maria expecting the first-grammar of the Hidden Language to be a tidy list of useful spells. I had expected a quick listing of different herbs and their properties. Instead he had begun teaching me to know the herbs, as well as I already knew the Language, to recognize the possible properties in each and to determine how to combine them and how to find the words that would reveal their potency.

It was only twenty-four hours ago that I had naively said, "You mean that you have to do something with magic herbs? Anyone can't just pick them and use them?" The old wizard had snorted and looked at me as though he were going to send me back to the castle at once, but he hadn't.

The exhilaration had come just before I left, while the old wizard was slicing me some coarse bread and vegetables for breakfast. I stood next to the table where he had different herbs laid out, trying to picture what each might do, while the calico cat rubbed against my ankles.

"You didn't tell me you had a stick-fast weed," I said.

"I don't," he said from the other table without turning around.

"This one," I said, holding it out until he did look back over his shoulder.

"That isn't anything," he said, returning to the vegetables. "It got into my basket with a lot of other herbs."

This, I decided, was a test. "But look!" I said. I squeezed the sap from the stem onto my palm, said two words, and reached down to pat the cat. When I stood up, it was firmly attached to my hand.

The cat didn't like being suspended from my open palm. It yowled and extended its claws. I said two more words, and it was free. It dropped the short distance to the floor, gave a short hiss, and disappeared under the old wizard's chair.

Then I realized it hadn't been a test. The old wizard stared at me, the knife forgotten in his hand, without speaking. After a long minute, as though he had finally won the struggle to avoid praising me, he said, "Stick-fast weed," and grunted.

He put the bread and vegetables on a plate and handed it to me without another word. But I knew. I had discovered an herbal property he had not known. While I ate, I kept tossing little crumbs toward the cat until it emerged. Then I scooped it up and settled it on my lap, where in a minute it settled down to purr to show we were friends again.

"Maybe I'll be able to teach you some real magic after all," said the old wizard as I saddled my mare. "Even if you did get some fancy notions at that City school." The excitement lasted all the ride back through the woods, even though the exhaustion of staying up all night hit me as soon as I left the wizard's valley. I had even learned a simple spell that even someone not trained in magic could say, to detect magic potions in food. I couldn't wait to tell Gwen.

I wondered again, as the castle came in sight, what had happened during the day last month I had passed in a trance in the wizard's house. Yesterday, as I ducked under the volley of magic arrows to reach him, I had been wondering if he had used the time as an opportunity to come back up to the castle without my knowledge. But if so, no one had seen him, and he had said nothing about it, either then or now. If he had come to the castle, I now thought, he would have seen at once that his magic locks were gone from the north tower and would most certainly have held me to blame. That his manner now sometimes verged on friendly showed he did not yet know what had happened there. But sometime I was going to have to tell him.

As I started across the draw bridge over the moat, I almost collided with the queen coming out.

"I'm so pleased you're back!" she cried with the smile that made my heart turn over. "The king told me to meet him in five minutes in the rose garden. I'm sure he'd like you to be there as well. He said it was a magic surprise! The five minutes are almost up."

I dismounted to walk with her. She was wearing a long white dress with a standing crimson collar that framed her face, and her eyes flashed with delight at me from under an errant wave of hair.

We stopped at the garden gate. "I'm here!" the queen called. "And I've brought the Royal Wizard with me!"

"Come on in!" came a faint call, and we entered.

Coming toward us between the rose bushes, his toes just brushing the grass, was King Haimeric. His face was so tight with concentration that he seemed not to see us. I could tell he wasn't even breathing. When he was within three feet of the queen, he lifted his eyes, took a sudden breath, and dropped to the ground. She steadied him with her strong young arms.

"You were flying!" she cried. "When did you learn to fly? I know you said it would be a magic surprise, but I hadn't imagined it could be anything so wonderful!"

The king winked at me over her head, a wink of triumph.

He leaned on her arm as they walked toward the bench, and I followed behind.

"I've been having the wizard teach me," he said.

"And you've clearly been practicing on your own!" I added. "You've made much better progress than I would have expected. But you do have to remember to breathe."

"I noticed that," he said, sitting down and breathing hard now. "But it seems to interrupt my concentration."

"All it needs is a little more practice."

"I'd had no idea you were learning to fly," said the queen in admiration, and for one bad moment I was afraid she was going to ask me to teach her too. "When did you start learning?"

"It was while you were at your parents'. Originally I was hoping to show you when you first got back, but I wasn't as quick a pupil as I'd hoped. Not that our wizard isn't a good teacher!" They both turned wide smiles on me. "One of the many, many things I like about having you here is that it makes me less dependent on Dominic. As you know, since my legs started to get weak I haven't always been able to walk as well as I'd like, and he'd baby me unmercifully. I thought that if I learned to fly, I'd be able to move around as I liked without him always hovering. The boy means well, but . . ."

He didn't finish the sentence. I was very pleased to see that I was not the only person in the castle referred to as a boy--especially since Dominic was nearly twice my age.

I was also pleased to see how much more cheerful the king had seemed since the queen came home. When I first arrived, he was looking back over his years as king as though they would shortly be coming to an end. Now he acted as though he were only in the middle of them. I began to wonder if the mysterious ailment that Dominic thought someone had given the king was nothing more than some stiffness in the knees combined with loneliness. If she had been my queen, I would certainly have been lonely when she was gone.

We looked at the roses while the king finished catching his breath. Some of the bushes had already finished blooming for the season, though late roses still bloomed defiantly on others.

"You know," said the king, "it's been several years since I've been to the harvest carnival. Would you like to go?"

"Oh, could we?" said the queen with that smile.

"I'd be delighted," I said, since the question seemed to include me as well, and suddenly had to stifle a yawn.

"The carnival starts in two days," said the king. "We'll leave first thing in the morning." With the tact I was pleased to see even a sometimes incompetent wizard deserved, he added, "You'll have plenty of time before then to recover your strength after your magic activities."

While I napped that afternoon with my curtains drawn, the rest of the castle must have buzzed with activity, for in the morning all was ready. The constable and his wife were staying behind with a few servants, but the rest of us rode out just after dawn: the knights first, led by Dominic, then the king and queen, surrounded by the ladies of the court, then the boys, the chaplain, and me, all followed by the servants, who led pack horses loaded with food, supplies, and the tents.

The queen rode her black stallion, but the rest of us were on the white or bay mares and geldings of the royal stables. Bells on our harnesses jingled as we waved goodbye to those staying behind and rode down the brick road toward the forest. The air was crisp, with a faint haze, and there were spots of orange leaves among the green before us.

"Have you been to this harvest carnival before?" I asked the chaplain. He was riding beside me, his horse the only one without bells.

"Not since I came to Yurt," he said. "The carnival was already past the fall I arrived, and the king has not felt well enough since then to go. But of course I know the city well where it is held."

Clearly I was missing something. Since I didn't even know where we were going, I kept on with my questions. "Why do you know it well?"

Joachim looked at me in surprise, then nodded. "That's right, you wouldn't know. It's my cathedral city, the city of the bishop. Yurt isn't big enough for its own bishop, or for that matter its own harvest carnival, so for both the kingdom must rely on the nearest city of the next kingdom over. That's where we're going."

"Then you'll get to see your old friends at the bishop's school," I said, thinking I would like to see some of my friends from the wizards' school. But this small city where we were going was still a long, long way from the City by the sea where the wizards trained, and I knew that most of my best friends were by now off in various parts of the western kingdoms in their own posts as wizards.

Joachim looked at me a moment in silence, then smiled. "I still don't always recognize it when you're making a joke," he said. As I hadn't been making a joke, this naturally surprised me. "I'd been about to say, you must not know very much about the way the Church is organized to think that a priest would take up his first post in the same diocese as his seminary."

Since I had no idea what he was talking about, I decided to say nothing.

"But I am going to see the bishop. It would soon be time for my annual visit anyway, so it seemed easiest to come with the party from Yurt. I sent him a message by the pigeons yesterday so that he would expect me."

"That will be nice to see him, if it's been a year," I said to keep the conversation going.

"'Nice,'" said Joachim, as though testing the word. "You know, I don't always understand you. Are you still joking? Or is it really 'nice' for you to explain to the old wizard of the wizards' school your progress in the last year in combatting evil?"

"Oh," I said, understanding at last. "I'm sorry, I don't think I'd realized that you had to undergo an annual assessment."

"How else would the bishops of the western kingdoms be able to be sure that the priests under them had kept the pure faith?"

We reached the edge of the forest and passed into the cool shade. The early morning light was dim, but I could see Joachim's dark eyes glaring at me.

"Don't you wizards from the wizards' school have to do something similar?"

If so, no one had ever told me, or at least I hadn't heard. I missed my friends and I missed the City, but I certainly hoped I would never have to explain to the Master of the wizards that I had spent the past year adeptly aiding mankind with benign wizardry. "Maybe it's because wizards tend to fight all the time," I said, "but they leave us alone once we've left the school."

"Maybe it's because the worst you can do is endanger your own souls," said Joachim with a snort that would have done credit to my predecessor in Yurt.

We would soon be reaching the little pile of white stones that marked the turnoff for the old wizard's hidden valley. I decided not to point it out.

We rode in silence for a few minutes. What he said seemed to dismiss the theory I had once had that a young, untried and unsupervised priest had somehow let evil loose in Yurt. I was happy to see the theory go. Although Joachim seemed short on tact, even for him, this morning, I could not be irritated. He was not only going to have to explain why everything he had done was good, but make it clear that he had done it with a pure heart. Whatever wizardry demanded, a pure heart didn't seem absolutely necessary.

Reflecting on the lack of purity in my own heart made me think of Gwen. I hadn't yet had a chance to tell her I had a spell against love potions. I excused myself, reined in my mare so that others could pass me, and dropped into line again as Gwen came even.

"Hello, sir," she said in evident surprise.

"I'd like to talk to you a minute," I said. "Privately, if we could."

She had been riding next to Jon. Although the young trumpeter and glass blower had always been perfectly friendly to me, he now shot me a brief but unmistakable look of jealousy. "Don't worry," I said with a grin. "We can't possibly get into trouble on horseback."

This did not improve his expression, but Gwen laughed and reined in her own horse, so that the two of us fell to the back of the procession.

"You were asking me about love potions," I said as soon as I thought no one else would hear us. Jon was riding a short distance ahead, but his back was turned toward us stiffly, as though to say that he would not deign to turn around. "I've learned a spell you can say to detect one."

As I'd hoped, Gwen was delighted at this helpful advice from her elderly uncle. As we rode, I taught her the three simple words of the Hidden Language that would reveal such a potion and made her repeat them until I was sure she knew them. "Say them over any drink or dish you suspect," I said, "and if there's a love potion it will turn bright red."

"That should make the danger clear, then," she said with a smile.

"Very clear. And remember: I know the spell too, so don't try slipping anything in my crullers!"

This attempt at flirtation was met with highly amused laughter. The elderly uncle was clearly cute and quaint. She kicked her horse and hurried forward to rejoin Jon.

We rode on all that day, stopping for lunch at the border where we left the kingdom of Yurt. In late afternoon, when the king was clearly exhausted, Dominic called a halt at a meadow next to a stream. The servants unloaded the horses and set up the tents with the knights' assistance, then started fires to cook supper. The ride had made me ravenously hungry, and the smoked sausage they were grilling smelled delicious long before it was ready. The king and queen retired to their tent even before supper was ready, but the rest of us strolled around the meadow, glad to be on our own feet again after a day on horseback. Even the more reserved ladies of the court were talking and laughing about the events of the harvest carnival, which we would reach tomorrow, and the Lady Maria was positively giddy.

II

The first sight we had of the city was the spire of the cathedral, seeming to rise out of the golden stubble of the wheat fields. The forests of Yurt were far behind, and all afternoon we had been riding past wide fields. As we came closer, we could see that the cathedral spire was surrounded in turn by a small walled city, and that the city was surrounded with the colorful striped tents of other people who had come to the carnival. As we approached, I could see crenelated towers rising on the opposite side of the city from the cathedral, directly against the walls. The city gates stood wide open, and a crowd hurried in and out. Distant sounds of shouting, of laughter, and of song reached us on the wind.

We rode through the encampments, through the city gates, and were plunged into narrow streets bustling with humanity. We had to ride carefully to be sure our horses did not bump into anyone or knock over tables set out with everything from fresh vegetables to tooled harnesses to bales of fabric. I had expected that we would be camping again, but instead we proceeded through the streets toward the small castle whose towers I had seen from outside the walls.

"This castle belongs to Yurt," explained the Lady Maria, riding beside me. "Our king's grandfather, I think it was, bought the land outside the old city walls, built the castle, and rebuilt the walls to go around it. He wanted to have a place to stay when he came for one of the carnivals or to visit the cathedral. Now even the king of this kingdom has to ask our king's permission if he wants to stay here!"

Before reaching the castle, we had to pass the wide open square in front of the cathedral. Here, in the long shadow of the spire, the market tables were thickest, and the music was the loudest. Ahead of us, I saw the chaplain speak for a moment to the king, then pull his horse out of line.

"I'm leaving you now," he said as I came even. "But I'll be with you when you go." He dismounted before I could say anything and led his horse through the tangle of tables to the cathedral steps, where I saw him talking to a boy and handing him both the reins and a coin. I looked over my shoulder before we left the square to see him going, straight-backed, up the cathedral stairs and in the tall door.

"The king and queen were married in the cathedral," said the Lady Maria. "It was the sweetest ceremony, with roses brought from the king's own garden, and the queen just radiant. I always like to visit the cathedral when we come here."

In a few more twists of the street, we had reached the gateway which led into the courtyard of the king's little castle. The constable of this castle and his wife were at the gate waiting for us, wearing the same blue and white livery as the constable back home in Yurt. There were only a few chambers besides the royal chambers, so my little bundle of clean clothes ended up in the same room with Dominic and the knights. But none of us wanted to stay in the castle's narrow rooms when the sounds of carnival were right outside the windows. Within a few minutes, everyone but the king and queen was out in the city streets.

Most of them went in groups of three or four, but I went alone. At a booth just down the street from the castle I discovered something I had not expected to see but which I had to buy at once: a newspaper. I had not seen a newspaper since arriving in Yurt.

"This is dated five days ago," I said, leafing through it excitedly. In fact it didn't matter when it was dated, because I hadn't heard any news for two months anyway.

"That's when it left the City," said the man at the booth. "It came up here on a pack train, and they hurried, too, to get it here so quickly. You don't expect the pigeons to be able to carry a newspaper!"

"Of course not," I said absently, moving away, avidly turning the pages. But in a moment I paused, thinking something was wrong. When I had been at the wizards' school, I had always read at least the Sunday paper, and often the paper during the week as well. It had always been full of interesting news, ads, and information, whereas this paper was all full of the doings of some rather uninteresting people far away. Then I realized what the problem was. There was nothing in the paper about Yurt.

I laughed and folded it up. At this rate, soon I wouldn't be able to think of myself as a city boy any longer.

I had only a rather vague idea of how newspapers were produced, except that the presses which covered piles of newsprint with black ink were powered by wizardry. But I hadn't thought before how localized newspapers were, all produced in the City, by wizards trained in the school, carrying ads for the City emporia or sometimes ads sent in from distant kingdoms, like Yurt, that were aimed at people in the City, like young wizards. I opened the paper again, and saw that on the inner pages there was some news of political events in some of the western kingdoms, but for the most part the paper was devoted exclusively to topics that would interest people of the City. When I stopped at a stall to buy a bun topped with spices and melting cheese, I held the newspaper under my chin to catch the drips before they reached my clothes.

If I belonged anywhere, I thought, I now belonged to Yurt, not the City. Both my parents had died when I was very young, and the grandmother who had brought me up and operated their wholesale warehouse for a few more years had died my fifth year in the wizards' school. I had made some good friends at the school, but now that we were scattered over the western kingdoms we would not see each other very frequently, and probably not in the City at all.

Even if I wasn't a city boy anymore, I was exhilarated to be back in busy streets, where people on foot and horseback jostled with carts and booths. Competing music rose from every corner. I tossed coins to the best musicians, or at least the ones I enjoyed the most. As the afternoon dimmed toward evening, lamps were hung above the shop doors, and the shadows danced over faces that in many cases now were painted and decorated. Men, and a few women, with glasses in their hands spilled out of tavern doors. Although this was a small city, we were certainly not the only ones to have come to the carnival from far away. This, I thought, compared favorably to the harvest carnival in the City itself.

The relief after a long summer's worry and the work of harvest, of knowing food was stored away for the next year, made people giddy. Or at least I could imagine myself saying that to Joachim, to show him I often thought deeply about human nature, not just magic. On consideration, it didn't appear as deep or unusual a conclusion as I hoped. For that matter, the chaplain wasn't spending the carnival being giddy; he was doubtless at this moment describing the purity of his heart to the bishop.

But I was enjoying myself. I tried all the different kinds of food being served, from sausages to sweet hot pastries. I stopped briefly at a tavern, though the air inside was so thick and hot that I moved back out to the street after a single glass of wine. I admired and tossed coins to a girl doing a fairly provocative dance. I was startled and had to leap back against a wall as six people collectively wearing a dragon costume came running around the corner. For one horrible moment, I was afraid it actually was a dragon.

They certainly made a spectacular dragon. Seeing they had startled me, they paused in their progress and did a dance for my benefit and that of several people near me. The dragon's fringed ears whirled around its head, its twelve legs stamped and weaved, and its eyes glowed red, not, as I realized in a moment, from fire but from magic.

I threw down a few coins, and a hand emerged from beneath the dragon's chest to scoop them up before the dragon continued down the street, roaring convincingly. I felt somehow inadequate. My great triumph at Yurt so far had been making lamps for the chapel stair, and yet a group of people in a dragon costume, who most probably had access to nothing as exalted as a Royal Wizard, were apparently able to make glowing dragon eyes without difficulty.

My steps took me back to the square in front of the cathedral. Since I had been there an hour before, the scene had changed. With the coming of evening, the merchants selling leather and bolts of cloth and the farmers selling loads of vegetables were all gone. The musicians and dancers were however thicker, and at least half the people in the square were wearing some kind of costume. I saw no priests, even though we were next to the church; I guessed they stayed well inside during carnival.

And then I saw the most startling thing I had seen all day. Floating toward me, just over the heads of the crowd, was a glowing red bubble. As it came closer, I could see into it, and there, looking right back at me, was a grinning demon.

I was too struck with panic to think and therefore reacted out of instinct. I said the two words of the Hidden Language that would break an illusion, and the red bubble and the demon with it dissolved first into red dust and then into nothing.

And then I saw the magician. He was wearing a long, flowing robe, covered with every symbol imaginable, from the zodiac to a crucifix to a gleaming sun. On his head was a tall, pointed hat, and in his hand a heavy oak staff.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded. "Those take a long time to make, you know!"

I recognized him at once, not him personally, because I had never seen him before, but as a type. He was a magician, the sort of fellow who might have, in the youth of Yurt's old wizard, picked up a little magic in an abortive apprenticeship. Nowadays he most likely had studied for a year or two at the wizards' school. He was appreciably older than I; he would have left there before I arrived.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know they're hard to make. But it was so convincing you scared me."

He smiled at that, a slightly gap-toothed grin over a scraggly beard in which the grey was real. "Not bad to be able to scare a real wizard," he said with a chuckle.

He would have known of course that I was a wizard. I had tried to explain once to the manager in the emporium how wizards can always recognize each other. He had thought it was some magic impress put on us at the same time we received our diplomas, but I had argued that that couldn't be the case, as many young wizards appeared to be wizards long before the eight years were up, and old wizards who had never gone to the school were always recognizable.

"Shall I help you make a replacement?" I said to the magician, then realized it was tactless as soon as I said it. I had been spending too much time with the chaplain.

The grin disappeared. "This is my corner. If you want to do some illusions of your own, go somewhere else, but don't interfere with my business."

I stepped back without saying anything, watching as he set to work on a new magic bubble. This one he made green, and instead of a demon he put a dragon inside. He was good, I had to admit. In a few moments he had it finished and launched it into the air. A crowd started to gather, and several people tossed him coins, which he snatched up while continuing to concentrate on the next bubble.

"Did you make the eyes for those people in the dragon costume?" I asked.

"Yes," he said with a quick glance in my direction, as though doubting my motives for asking.

"I just wanted to say that they're excellent dragon eyes."

"Well, thanks for your exalted opinion."

I wandered off through the crowd without saying anything more. I should have known better that to risk appearing to be condescending. Wizards fight all the time with each anyway, and it's even worse with magicians, who are constantly imagining an insult or a joke at their expense.

I was walking more or less in the direction of the castle when I was surprised but highly pleased to see two familiar forms coming toward me, the king and queen. I was delighted not to be a carnival magician. There was nothing I could imagine better than being the Royal Wizard of Yurt. I would have to ask the chaplain to teach me a proper prayer of gratitude.

The king seemed rested from the journey and was looking around with enjoyment, while the queen's emerald eyes sparkled with excitement. "I'm sorry I haven't been to the harvest carnival for a few years," the king said as we met. "It's even more fun than I remembered. The king of this kingdom never comes, preferring to go to the big carnival at the City by the sea, but I think he's missing something. You must have seen them both--what do you think?"

"I think this is a marvelous carnival," I said. "But it's getting late, and the crowd will be getting wild soon. Do you think it's quite, well, safe to be out?"

They both laughed. "No one will bother the King of Yurt," he said. "Not knowing the swift retribution that would follow from both my nephew and my Royal Wizard! And besides," to the queen, "you know a few tricks, don't you, my dear?"

She laughed in agreement. I was sure she did.

"We're going to see some of the costumes and maybe have something to eat," she said. "Do you want to join us?"

"I've already eaten quite a bit," I said. "Go ahead--I may go back to the castle and rest a little myself." I watched them as they proceeded down the street, arm in arm, both pointing and laughing as they went. When they disappeared around the corner, I continued to the castle.

None of the knights were back, though I could hear the voices of several of the ladies down the hall from the chamber where I was staying. I was delighted to see the king so well. What I couldn't decide was whether he was just improved by the pleasure of the queen's company, something I had already seen happening, or whether he was further helped by leaving Yurt. I hoped it was not the latter. Yurt was his kingdom, and I didn't see how I could tell him there was a malignant influence there that I couldn't find, but that meant he would have to leave.

The carnival continued all the next day, but I surprised myself by becoming bored. Maybe it was because I was there for pleasure alone, and pleasure seemed to pall faster than I remembered. The lords and ladies were busy buying supplies, new saddles and harnesses, shoes and boots, bolts of cloth for winter outfits, decorative tapestries, jewelry and chests. The servants too were busy at the merchants' tables. The constable had sent a purse and a long list with them, and they were comparing, pricing, and buying everything from fabric for new curtains, to tea and spices, to flagons, to bed linens, to pots and pans, to a new volley-ball net. The pack horses, I thought, would be heavily-laden when we started for home.

I myself bought a new red velvet jacket. I had originally planned to wear my red pullover to the carnival, but after looking at it critically in the light of my predecessor's magic lamps, I had decided it really did look like an old Father Noel outfit. I also searched for, but did not see, anyone selling books that would interest me.

The king and queen didn't seem at all bored, even though they made no purchases. But they had each other, and that seemed to keep them happily occupied.

I didn't see the magician again, though I was sure he was still at the carnival; one time I thought I saw a cascade of glistening stars rising from further down the street, and turned and went another way. I kept thinking about him, however. If I had done only a little worse in my studies, if Zahlfast had not given me a passing grade on the transformation practical in spite of my problem with the frogs (and I still did not know why he had), then I too would be working the corner for coins at carnivals.

The next morning, after the carnival was over, Joachim came to the castle very early, as the servants were packing the horses. I saw him from my window, walking down the narrow street with a much older priest, who paused, his hand on the younger man's shoulder, to give him what appeared to be last-minute advice before turning back toward the cathedral. Joachim came in looking serious, as always, but did not look like I imagined someone would who had been accused of evil.

I wanted to talk to him about the magician, but was not sure he would understand. He, for his part, seemed unwilling to say anything about the last two days. As we mounted and rode through the empty and littered city streets toward the gates, I thought that I might send Zahlfast a letter.

III

The king was ill. He took to his bed the night we got back to Yurt, saying he was exhausted, and he did not get up again, not for chapel service, not for meals, not to work in his rose garden.

The queen seemed driven to new levels of energy. She was constantly in motion, and from the windows of my chambers I kept seeing her cross the courtyard, from the king's room to the kitchen, where she herself tried to concoct a soup that would tempt him, back to his room again and then to the chapel to pray, to his room and then out to confer privately with the doctors she had sent for from the next kingdom. Although she did not say anything, I knew she was thinking that the doctors would have come more quickly if she had been able to telephone rather than relying on the pigeons. The pigeons were rapid, being able to carry a message to any of the nearby kingdoms in an afternoon, but not as fast as a telephone.

I mostly stayed out of the way. I did not know how serious the king's condition was, but since I doubted the queen was someone who panicked easily, I feared the worst. The rest of the castle seemed gripped with a similar fear. No one came to my chambers, not even the Lady Maria for her lessons in the first-grammar, and meals tended to be hurried and silent. At this point, the dank autumn rains began.

With little to do, I set myself the goal of reviewing everything I had supposedly learned at the wizards' school. Within a week, I had finished all the assignments from the first year. I was both pleased to see that I really had progressed in my eight years at the school, from an audacious but (in retrospect) shockingly ignorant young man from a merchant family in the City to someone recognizable as a real wizard, at least to an illusion-weaver at a carnival, and embarrassed to see what truly basic information I had managed not to learn. At the end of the week, I sat down to write Zahlfast a letter.

It was hard thinking what to write, out of all that had happened to me since leaving the City. It would in fact have been easier to write a twenty-page letter, but I was restricted by the size of message the pigeons could carry. Unless one was willing to wait to send one's letter by someone from Yurt or someone stopping by Yurt who was traveling to the City, the only alternative was to write one's letter on one of the tiny, light-weight pieces of paper the pigeons could carry. There were postal stations spread in a semicircle, fifty miles from the City, where carrier pigeons from all the western kingdoms brought messages and dropped them into the greater urban postal system. The postal system itself could handle almost any size letter, but only if mailed within fifty miles of the City.

"I am enjoying being Royal Wizard," I finally wrote, "and at last I may be learning some of the magic you tried to teach me. So far I've made a series of magic lights. I am even learning some of the old herbal magic as well. My king is sick now, however, so I don't know what will happen. If you were ever near Yurt, it would be nice to see you."

The last line surprised me, as I had not intended to write it. Just getting lonely for company, I said to myself, but I let the sentence stay. I folded the tiny piece of paper I was allowed, wrote the address on the outside, rolled it up and slipped it into the cylinder that would be attached to the pigeon's leg, and took it across the slick courtyard and up to the south tower. The pigeon keeper assured me my letter would be delivered in the City the next day--or certainly within two days.

Back in my chambers, I found the book in the front of which I had written the schedule of courses and readings at the beginning of my second year at the school. Some of the courses I had no recollection of, and I was quite sure I did not own all the books.

I was sitting, frowning at the list, when I heard running feet outside. My door swung open without even a knock, and Gwen burst in. "Sir, oh sir, excuse me, but you must come at once!"

The book fell from my hands unheeded as I leapt up. My heart fell with as heavy a thump, for I was sure the king was dead.

"Someone's trying to poison the king with magic! You must find out who it is!"

At least it sounded as though the king was not dead yet. "But how do you know?"

"Please come!" she cried, tugging at my hand. "The others don't believe me--they say I don't know any magic."

We hurried across the rainy courtyard to the kitchens. I was too confused and upset to even try a spell to stay dry.

In the warmth and steam of the kitchen, the cook was standing looking thoroughly angry, her ample fists on her aproned hips. The rest of the kitchen servants hovered in the background, looking worried.

"So, Wizard," said the cook. "Now maybe we can have the real story! Gwen has been trying to tell us you've taught her magic, and now she's accusing us of wanting the king dead!"

"I didn't say that!" Gwen cried. "I never thought it! I'm not accusing any of you, but someone's doing it!"

"Wait, wait," I said. "I never taught Gwen magic."

"Yes you did!" she countered. "That spell that turns food red! Only in this case it turned green."

There was a babble of voices, but I tried to stay calm. "Let's start at the beginning. What food are you talking about?"

"This, sir," said Gwen. From the table she picked up what appeared to be a bowl of chicken soup, except that it was a brilliant green--almost the same color, in fact, as the queen's eyes. "I was going to take it to the king; the queen thought a little soup would do him good. And then I remembered that you had taught me a spell to say to see if someone had slipped a potion in your food."

Jon was standing next to her, but she looked determinedly straight ahead. "You'd said if someone had, the food would turn red. And then I wondered, suppose someone had tried to slip a potion to the king? So I decided to say the spell over his soup. But it didn't turn red, it turned green. That's probably just because it's a different kind of potion, but I know someone wants to kill him!" At this she burst into tears. Jon tried to put his arms around her, but she pulled herself away.

I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that the old wizard had told me this spell would detect a love potion. When I learned it and taught it to Gwen, it had never occurred to me that it might be a way to detect the spell which Dominic said someone had put on the king.

It still might not be the way, but I could not hesitate. "We've got to get the king out of the castle," I said.

They all looked at me as though I had lost my mind. "But it's cold and it's raining! He can't travel in this weather! Where would he go?"

"Not far," I said, hoping what I was saying was true. "His rose garden should be far enough. Wrap him up well, and put hot irons in the wrappings to keep him warm. Pitch a tent in the garden, and set charcoal braziers in it. And you," to the cook, "will have to make him some more soup, but don't make it here. Make it outside the castle."

"What? You expect me to leave my warm kitchen and make a campfire in this rain and--"

"It may be the only way to save the king's life," I said. The cold touch of evil I had been feeling since summer was stronger in the kitchen than ever before, though I still could not tell where it was coming from. It might be Gwen, the cook, or one of the other servants, but I thought I would have been able to tell if it had been. "Come on!" I said. "There isn't enough time to waste any of it."

Almost to my surprise, they obeyed me. Within a very short time, the king, heavily wrapped and shielded from the rain, was being carried out into his rose garden. The few last blooms dripped wet.

Joachim came up to me, made as though to grab me by the arm but stopped himself in time, and instead drew me out of hearing range of the others with a jerk of his chin.

"Are you trying to kill the king?" he demanded, his black eyes glowing fiercely at me.

"I am not," I said back, just as fiercely. "I'm trying to save his life. I think there's an evil spell in the castle that's killing him, and I'm trying to see if he'll improve if he's outside."

"So now he'll die of pneumonia instead of magic? Is that your intention?"

"I hope he doesn't die," I said, fierce no longer. I had not seen the king in two weeks and had been shocked by his appearance. The shape of his skull was clear beneath the skin of his face, though he had tried to smile and speak normally.

"It will take a miracle to save him."

"I thought you said, if you need a miracle, see a priest," I retorted, and almost felt triumphant as he blinked and drew back.

When the king was settled in his tent, the queen sitting beside him, and when the cook, still grumbling but beneath her breath, had started a new batch of soup on a small fire started with coals from the kitchen, just outside the garden walls, I drew Gwen to one side.

"I have to go somewhere," I told her. "Stay with the cook. Check the new batch of soup with the same spell. If it doesn't change color, the king should have some."

"But where are you going?"

"Not far. I'll be back soon."

Without giving her a chance to speak again, I rose from the ground and flew down the hill toward the forest, swifter than a horse could carry me.

I didn't know why I was embarrassed to tell her I needed to ask the old wizard for help, except that I never had told anyone I had been visiting him.

I was thinking very bitter thoughts about my own abilities and responsibilities. Although Dominic had told me he thought there was an evil spell on the king, and although I nearly believed him, I had done nothing to discover the source of that spell. For two weeks, while the king grew weaker and weaker, I had been concerned only with my own education, as though it was going to be useful to know wizardry even though I never practiced it in the service of the king who had hired me as his Royal Wizard. I had originally visited the old wizard to find out if he knew anything about this spell, but instead I had allowed myself to become distracted into learning the magic of herbs. It wouldn't be much good showing off my herbal magic to my friends in the City if I also had to tell them I had allowed my king to die of a magic spell when I hadn't bothered to find out its source.

The concentration needed for rapid flying beneath low-hanging branches made it difficult to carry this line of thought much further. I burst into sunshine as I entered the old wizard's valley. The lady and the unicorn were sitting by the little bridge, but today I saw no golden arrows.

I dropped to the ground outside the green door. The wizard was sitting in the doorway, the cat on his knee, enjoying the sunshine. He looked surprised to see me.

"Decided to skip the horse today, eh?" he said. "I just hope you weren't trying to impress me. We wizards trained in the old way have always been able to fly better than you young whippersnappers when we wanted to."

I swallowed my irritation. "I'm not trying to impress you, Master," I said. "I need your help." Quickly I explained to him about the soup that turned green when subjected to the spell to detect a love potion.

His brows furrowed, and he tossed the cat roughly from his lap as he stood up. "That spell just detects herbal potions," he said after a long pause, as though wondering what to tell me. "It turns food red if there's an herbal potion in it. There's no reason the spell should turn anything green. The girl probably got it wrong; maybe she said a spell of illusion by mistake."

"I don't think she got it wrong."

"Then it's detecting something else," he said abruptly, as though he had made a decision. "It might also detect the presence of the supernatural."

"You mean there's been black magic worked on the king's soup?"

"No, that's not what I mean, as you'd know if you listened properly! I meant that there's a supernatural presence in the castle. It might have nothing to do with the soup in particular, but in the right circumstances it might be detectable in food. No one need have put any potions in the soup for it to respond to that spell."

"Dominic said that he thought an evil spell had been cast on the king," I said. "Did he ever mention it to you, Master? Might this be the supernatural presence?"

"I don't know what Dominic's been telling you," said the old wizard, sitting down again. "There certainly weren't any supernatural presences in the castle when I was Royal Wizard."

"Then I'd better see if I can find the source," I said and flew back up the valley without even a proper farewell.

As soon as I left the wizard's valley, the rain started again. I was furious with myself as I realized that, if he could create an island of good weather, I ought to have been able to do the same for the king. And the thought kept on nagging that the green of the chicken soup really was the same color as the queen's eyes.

I had never flown so fast for so far before, and the concentration required left me no attention for a spell against the rain. I was wet through when I dropped to the ground outside the rose garden.

Gwen, standing under an umbrella, met me by the gate. "The cook finished the new soup, sir," she said eagerly, "and the spell didn't affect it at all. The queen's giving him some now."

"Good," I said, though I feared it would take more at this point than the cook's excellent chicken soup to heal the king. Hoping that drier weather might also help, I set to work at once on a weather spell.

But I realized immediately that I didn't know the spell against slow and steady rain. The spells I had prepared during the harvest were all against sudden storm. I could go back to my chambers and try to work it out, but I felt a desperate sense of urgency and decided to improvise. If I could turn this rain into a thunderstorm, I could then dissipate it quickly.

"You'd better go inside, my dear," I said to Gwen, as she stood, hesitating, beside me. "Don't get any wetter."

She went back into the castle, and it was just as well, because my first attempt to transform the rain into a real storm was so successful that a lightning bolt struck with a blazing flash and an acrid smell within ten feet of me, nearly taking off my eyelashes.

Peal after peal of thunder rolled around my head, and the air was blinding with repeated lightning flashes. I looked up and saw bolts of lightning dancing from turret to turret, hitting every tower in the castle and the spire on top of the chapel. I seemed to have created what must have been the worst thunderstorm in Yurt in a hundred years. My only hope was to make sure it was also the shortest. Setting my teeth grimly, I proceeded with the spells against thunderstorms, and abruptly the sky was clear. Both the thunder and the clouds rolled back, leaving a square mile of sunshine smiling down on the castle and the rose garden.

I checked my forehead to be sure I still had my eyebrows. Startled faces were looking at me over the garden gate, but I turned without saying anything and crossed the bridge into the castle. Since I had not in fact actually killed anyone with my lightning, it hardly seemed worth discussing the event at the moment.

As I crossed the courtyard, shivering in my wet clothes, I started toward my chambers to change, but decided instead to look for Joachim. I had been very rude to him and should probably show Christian tact by apologizing. He had been rude to me as well, but he had had more cause.

I hadn't seen him in the rose garden, but I hadn't actually gone into the garden. To save time, I probed with my mind to see where he might be in the castle. I couldn't find him.

Feeling uneasy, I started searching. It should be fairly straightforward for a wizard to touch the mind of someone he knows, as long as that person is not too far away. I went up to the chaplain's room, but it stood empty. I wandered around the castle aimlessly for a few minutes, not quite ready to go back out to the garden and face the inevitable questions about the thunderstorm, then realized I had not looked in the obvious place, the chapel.

I went up the stairs without the heart to turn on the lights, keeping my head low. So far I had been able to remove the king, at least temporarily, from whatever supernatural influence in the castle was harming him, and had been able to change the weather so he shouldn't get very damp out in his rose garden, but in my bones I feared it was too late.

Candles were burning on the chapel altar. A figure in black and white linen was stretched on his face on the floor in front of the altar, arms outstretched. I started to step forward, started to cry out, terrified that now Joachim had been struck dead--perhaps by lightning.

I stopped myself in time. He was praying. No wonder, I thought, I hadn't been able to touch his mind. Magic is, as I kept telling people, a natural force, and he was in company with the saints.

He was totally still, except for the slight rising and falling of his shoulders as he breathed. I tiptoed back out, though I doubted that even my thunderstorm had disturbed him.

I returned slowly to my rooms, physically and mentally exhausted, from flying, from working spells, and from fear for the king. I changed my clothes, intending to go back out to the rose garden to see if I could be of any assistance, but first I stretched out on my bed, just for a moment.

The next thing I knew, I woke up, ravenously hungry, confused at finding myself fully clothed. My magic lamps, which I turned on yesterday afternoon, were still burning, though natural daylight made them seem pale. The angle of the sunlight through my window showed it was long after Gwen usually brought my breakfast.

I swung my feet to the floor, then remembered. If no one had come, then that meant--

I didn't know what it meant. I was afraid to probe for the king's mind because I might not find it. I brushed a hand across my hair and found my shoes, then opened the door to the courtyard.

Assembled in the courtyard, in a semicircle around my door, were most of the people from the castle. As my door swung open, a shout went up. "The Wizard! Hail the Royal Wizard! His magic has saved the king!"

I concentrated on the important point. "The king's alive?"

"Yes, and he's not just better, he's completely better! He's stronger than he's been in months, in years! You saved him! You saved him! Our Royal Wizard saved him!"

They had clearly been preparing themselves for hours while I slept. I didn't even begin to know what to say.

And then I saw King Haimeric himself, coming across the bridge to the courtyard, arm in arm with the queen. I had never seen him so vigorous, or her so beautiful.

I ran across the cobblestones to greet them. Not even bothering with the formal bow, I dropped to my knees before them.

The king took me by the shoulders to pull me up. "Let's not have any of your modesty, Wizard," he said with a laugh, "when you've just saved my life!"

I was still stronger than he was and remained determinedly kneeling. "I had nothing to do with saving your life."

"After your long night's vigil of magic? They told me your light was never extinguished all night."

Even though I knew that my orders that he be moved into the rose garden and be given fresh soup could not have saved him, it hardly seemed worth explaining that I had spent the night not in magic but in sleep.

"It was the chaplain," I said. "Even the best magic cannot save human life, when that life is truly draining away, as I fear yours was, sire. Only a miracle can save a man then."

"The chaplain?" said the king in some surprise. "I've spoken to him, of course, but he said nothing about a miracle."

"He's showing Christian humility," I responded, "but he spent the night in prayer, and he interceded for you with the saints."

The people around heard me and, after a murmur of surprise, seemed to believe me. However, it did not seem to make them feel any less favorably toward me.

"Then we have both the best Royal Wizard and the best Royal Chaplain a kingdom could have," said the queen. "We were all just going to go to the chapel for a service of thanksgiving to God. Won't you join us?"

"With greatest pleasure," I said, scrambling to my feet and brushing off my knees.

IV

I was sitting in my chambers, quizzing the Lady Maria on the first points of the Hidden Language, when a knock came at the door.

She was not doing well on the first-grammar. Her enthusiasm for learning magic was as high as ever, and I think she really wanted to study hard, but she seemed distracted.

Maybe, I thought, she was the only other person in the castle, besides me, still to be worrying about the king. A month after his recovery, he seemed to be growing even stronger. After a week in the rose garden, he had moved back into the castle, so far without any ill effects. But I still sometimes felt that lurking sense of evil and worried that he might weaken again. Or maybe the Lady Maria was not worrying about anyone else, but only about the three grey hairs I had spotted that morning among the golden curls.

"Come in!" I called, thinking it might be Gwen with tea. She often brought a pot if I had someone visiting in my chambers, but if she were jealous and checking up on what I and the Lady Maria were doing she certainly gave no sign.

But it was the constable. I was surprised; he rarely came to my chambers.

"Excuse me, sir, I hate to interrupt you and the lady, but there's a --person here who wants to see you at once."

Maria jumped up. "I can't concentrate this afternoon anyway," she said, before I could tell the constable to have this mysterious person wait a few minutes.

"Shall I see you later today?" I asked. But she had rushed out already. "Show him in," I said to the constable.

"Excuse me, sir, but he wants you to go outside."

Shaking my head, I went out, stopping only long enough to put the magic lock on my door, and followed the constable across the courtyard to the main gate and the bridge.

Waiting on the bridge was an unmistakable figure: tall, lean, with a tall red hat and a long white beard. It was Zahlfast.

I rushed forward, hands outstretched to greet him, and although he tried to give me a look of stern dignity I could see a smile already lurking at the corner of his lips. That was why I had chosen to write to him.

"Welcome to Yurt!" I said inanely. "Come in! Did you have a good trip? Are you just stopping by, or can you stay for a while?"

He returned my handshake vigorously but resisted being drawn into the castle. "It's such a beautiful day," he said, "and there won't be many more this fall. Didn't I see a little garden over there where we could sit?"

We proceeded to the rose garden, where only the queen's rose bush, of all the bushes, was still blooming. I continued to chatter to hide my surprise at his arrival.

"I was glad to get your letter," said Zahlfast when we were seated on the bench where the king often sat. "Is your king still sick?"

"Oh, no. He was cured by a miracle a month ago."

Zahlfast shot me a sideways look, then looked away. "Good," he said and then added, "We never talk much about miracles at the wizards' school."

This of course I already knew. "The chaplain cured him. The chaplain's my friend," I added, feeling the same need to justify my friendship that I had felt with the old wizard. I started to say, that is, I think he's my friend, but decided not to raise doubts.

But I should have remembered Zahlfast was the sharpest of my teachers. "You sound somewhat dubious about this friendship."

"Not dubious. But he had insulted me, and I insulted him, and I tried to apologize but, in a way, he wouldn't let me--especially since, I'll admit to you, I'm almost in awe of him after the miracle."

"Don't stand in awe of those who deal with the supernatural," said Zahlfast as though making a key point at the front of the lecture hall. "Wizards too can deal with forces beyond the natural, indeed have the special training to do it. And always remember, those who can heal with supernatural aid can always sicken."

Abruptly he changed the subject. "Anyway, it sounded from your letter as though you might be lonely, so, as I was flying in this direction anyway--" I was surprised to realize he was having almost as much trouble feeling at ease as I was. He was still my teacher, but this was my kingdom, and I was no longer a student. "It really wasn't time yet for your first checkup--"

"My first checkup!" I cried, devastated. "You mean you go around checking on us after we leave the wizards' school? No one ever told me! Or is that just one more thing I missed?"

"We don't tell the young wizards," said Zahlfast with an amused smile he tried to suppress. "In fact, many are checked and never even know it, at least for some years. But I knew you were sharp enough to guess it wasn't just friendly interest in seeing an old student that brought me here, after I got your letter."

The compliment softened what would otherwise have been another devastating blow. And I had even hoped he remembered me fondly! But now I began to wonder what ulterior motive he may have had in passing me in that transformation practical--was this an experiment to see just how badly a young wizard could do?

"So what are you checking for?"

"In your case, I was interested in your progress. In general, it's a continuation of the school's original purpose, to organize and rationalize the practice of wizardry, to be sure it doesn't go astray. That's why I wanted to learn more about your study of herbal magic and who has been teaching you."

"It's my predecessor. He lives not far from here, and he's taught me the rudiments," I said, feeling somewhat defensive, whereas I had expected to be proudly demonstrating an unusual accomplishment when I first met a wizard from the school again.

"He's your friend, too," said Zahlfast. It was a statement, not a question. "There aren't many young wizards who are even on speaking terms with their predecessors."

"Is that what you mean when you say I'm sharp?" I said, hoping for another compliment.

"Why do you think you were hired as Royal Wizard of Yurt?"

"I'd assumed I was the only person who applied."

"You may have been; I'm not sure. But when I heard you'd applied, I talked to the Master, and we agreed. I wrote to the constable of Yurt and told him not to hire anyone else."

"That was the constable who you met at the gate," I said, wondering again why Zahlfast had not wanted to come in. But another question took precedence. "Why did you want me in Yurt? Was it to keep me out of the way?"

"Not at all. We knew something was happening in Yurt, something odd, and it needed someone who combined your intuitive flair for magic with the potential, at least, to work hard and master academic magic. Neither careful mastery of spells nor innate ability would have been enough without the other. Also, of course, we hoped that here, away from the distractions of the City, you might meet enough challenges and find enough leisure that you really would set yourself to learning the magic we had tried to teach you."

There was not nearly enough of a compliment in this to mitigate the sting. "You mean you knew all along what was going on in Yurt? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Actually," said Zahlfast, with a snort that could have been amusement, "I have no idea what's going on in Yurt. I was hoping you would tell me."

"There's an evil presence in the castle," I said slowly, looking at my hands. "I don't know where it's coming from, and sometimes I can hardly even sense it. Most of the time I think it's a person, but I don't know how to find out which one. Once or twice I've thought it could be a demon, but the old wizard says there was never any evil presence in the castle before I arrived, and I don't think even I could have summoned a demon by mistake."

"An evil presence," said Zahlfast, as though this answered a question. "We've known in the City for several years that there was a supernatural focus here in Yurt, or at least nearby, but it was impossible to localize it precisely or even to say whether it was for good or evil. Several of the wizards at the school thought it might be a witch living in the forest who had taken the step into black magic."

"It's not in the forest," I said positively. "It's here in the castle. It was coming home to his kingdom that nearly killed the king."

"I knew it was here in the castle when I got your letter."

"But how could you know that? I didn't say anything about it."

"The very paper your letter was written on was permeated with the supernatural. Didn't you know that? That's why, when I arrived and discovered that the supernatural influence stopped at the moat, I asked you to meet me outside."

"But how could you tell anything from the paper?" I demanded, intensely frustrated, thinking the wizards of the school had been deliberately withholding information from me. But then I saw Zahlfast smiling and said in a lower voice, "Was that maybe in one of the lectures I missed?"

It turned out that it was. There was a rather simple spell to recognize the presence of a supernatural influence, a modern, more universal spell than the one the old wizard had taught me for detecting magic potions. I glanced over the garden walls at the turrets of the castle and felt my heart sink. I didn't want to try the spell. Yurt was my kingdom, and I loved it, and if I confirmed my fears I might never feel the same about it again.

"Do you think the king will become sick again?" I said.

"You think he was made ill by supernatural forces?"

"Dominic thought an evil spell had been put on him," I said, "even though I didn't believe him at first." I gave Zahlfast a quick summary of the king's three-year illness and miraculous recovery.

"If he really was healed miraculously," said Zahlfast somewhat dubiously, "he should be safe from black magic, or at least from the effects of the particular evil spell that was put on the castle."

"But will the spell now turn against someone else?" I said, "such as the queen?" This was not a possibility I had contemplated until I said it, but it suddenly seemed fearfully likely. "Or do you think it's not merely a spell, but a demon loose in the castle?"

Zahlfast did not answer for a minute. "I'm not the person to ask," he said at last. "I specialize in transformations, not demonology." I remembered then a conversation I had had with him in the City several years ago, during which it had become clear that he was just as terrified of demons as I was. But he stood up. "I'll come into the castle with you and see what I can tell."

But the first thing he said, as we entered the courtyard with its whitewashed walls and green shutters, was, "What a lovely little castle! None of the other young wizards can have as charming a kingdom."

In my chambers, however, he looked around quickly, then said, "The supernatural influence is quite strong here."

I was about to demand whether he could think I was practicing black magic myself, but then I looked at his face and decided it was safer not to ask.

Instead I said, "Let me show you my glass telephones. They don't work, but they're very attractive."

At this he actually laughed. "Somehow, when you left the school, I never imagined that you were the type of wizard who becomes a telephone technician."

"Neither did I," I said cheerfully. "That's why they don't work. But the queen wanted me to try." I thought guiltily that it had been some time since I had tried anything new.

"I'll show you something, though," I said, reaching one of the telephones down from the shelf. "Watch the base." I set the instrument down, lifted the receiver, and spoke the name attached to the wizards' school.

"Pretty amusing, isn't it," I said as the faint ringing came through the receiver and the base lit up to show the school's telephone on its table, with someone reaching to answer it. "Wait; it gets even funnier. Try to talk." I handed him the receiver.

Just as the Lady Maria and I had done, he shouted, "Hello? Can you hear me?" to an unhearing wizard at the other end, even though that wizard's voice came through faint but clear.

But when the other wizard hung up and the telephone base went dark, Zahlfast was not laughing. "You realize, of course," he said with what I might even have imagined was awe, "that no one's ever been able to do this before: attach a far-seeing spell to an object."

"But it doesn't work as a telephone. Sometimes I've even thought that whatever evil spell was put on the castle was hindering my magic."

"I think you'll be able to make it work," he said in his school teacher voice. "Keep working at it."

At that moment we were interrupted by a knock. I opened it, expecting the Lady Maria ready to resume her lesson, and was surprised to see Joachim.

I tried to draw him inside, to introduce him to Zahlfast, but he wouldn't let me.

"I'm going," he said, "and I wanted to let someone know I probably won't be back for morning service. The king and queen aren't here."

"I think they went hunting. But where are you going?"

He paused as though unwilling to say, but his enormous black eyes steadily met mine. "A girl down in the village, five miles from here, was bitten by a viper last week," he said at last, as though there had been no pause. "The doctors have tried all their draughts and potions, but nothing has availed. She's near death. They want me to pray for her."

He turned and was gone before I could answer, striding across the courtyard to where one of the stableboys had a horse saddled and ready. A man in a brown tunic was mounted and waiting by the gate.

"Is that your friend the chaplain?" said Zahlfast behind me.

I nodded, watching the two ride through the gate and away. I knew, without the chaplain telling me, that the news of the king's miraculous recovery must have spread at once throughout the kingdom, and that anyone now who needed a miracle would not be satisfied with their local priest but would want the castle chaplain.

"So tell me more about herbal magic," said Zahlfast.

Although I had had some success teaching a little magic to the king and the Lady Maria, it was extremely odd to be suddenly explaining something to my former teacher. It was also difficult to do with no herbs at hand; the sense that the old wizard had taught me, of how to determine a plant's properties just by handling it, was difficult to put into words.

But I had been able to explain at least some of the basic principles when I heard voices, the sound of hoofs, and the queen's laugh in the courtyard and realized the hunting party had returned. "You'll have to stay for dinner," I said, "and I'd be delighted to have you stay with me if you were willing to spend the night. Even for you, a two-hundred mile flight can't be easy."

To my surprise, he agreed. At dinner, he took the chaplain's chair across the table from me, which kept on startling me, as I would look up from my plate to see a face I had stopped being accustomed to see in the context in which I had recently become accustomed to seeing another's. He kept our table highly entertained, with gossip from the City and stories about the northern land of dragons, which he had visited. I saw even the servants at the next table leaning to catch his words.

"I'll have to tell you something I tell all the young wizards after the first checkup," he said as he prepared to leave the next morning. We were standing outside the castle gate, looking down at the red and golden foliage of the forest. "I doubt this would be an issue for you anyway, but some of the young wizards, when they find that the school is still interested in what they're doing, feel they can ask for help for every little problem. We certainly want to make sure that magic is being practiced well throughout the western kingdoms, but we just don't have the time to keep helping out fully-qualified wizards who should know how to do magic on their own."

But then his smile came out. "In your case, write me whenever you want. There were some of the teachers who'd had doubts you'd even learn enough magic to become a magician, but I knew from the beginning you'd someday be capable of becoming a good wizard."

This would have been more of a compliment if it hadn't been for the implication that "someday" had not yet arrived.

"Well, it was delightful to see you," I said, inane once more. Zahlfast rose from the ground and sped away, west over the treetops toward the City. It really had been very nice to see him, even though I continued to feel extremely irritated that he and the Master had apparently engineered my position at Yurt for me, for reasons he had perhaps still not told me completely,

As I watched his flying figure disappear in the distance, I wondered again if he had in fact even told me the real reason for his visit. I realized there were a number of questions I had not asked him, or if I had asked he had not answered. He had never said where he thought the evil spell on the castle might come from, and I had not had a chance to ask his opinion of the old wizard's empty tower room. Well, if I was supposed to be fully qualified to practice magic on my own, I would have to do so.

As I turned to start back into the castle, I saw a another distant figure, this one on horseback, coming up the road toward the castle. In a moment, I recognized Joachim and waited for him to reach me.

I became alarmed at his appearance when he came closer. His usually smooth hair was rumpled, his vestments wrinkled and stained, and his hand slack on the reins. The accentuated gauntness of his cheeks and his unseeing stare made me realize he was exhausted from more than riding five miles home after staying up all night.

I took the horse's bridle to lead it across the bridge and helped him dismount. He seemed to notice me for the first time.

"Do you think it's too late for me to hold chapel services this morning?" he asked, clearly concerned about this lapse.

"The king and queen have already left to go hunting again," I told him. "Tomorrow's Sunday; service can wait until then."

"All right," he said meekly and started moving slowly toward his room. He stopped then, looked back, and told me what I had already guessed. "The little girl died."

Part Four

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