A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 (12 page)

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 wel . It had always been ful of interesting news, ads, and information, whereas this paper was al ful 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, al 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 stal 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 al .

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 spil ed out of tavern doors. Although this was a smal 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 al 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 wal as six people col ectively wearing a dragon costume came running around the corner. For one horrible moment, I was afraid it actual y 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 sel ing leather and bolts of cloth and the farmers sel ing loads of vegetables were al 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 wel inside during carnival.

And then I saw the most startling thing I had seen al 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 il usion, 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 tal , 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 personal y, because I had never seen him before, but as a type. He was a magician, the sort of fel ow 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.

"Shal 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 il usions 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 excel ent dragon eyes."

"Wel ,
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 al 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 wil be getting wild soon. Do you think it's quite, wel , safe to be out?"

They both laughed. "No one wil bother the King of Yurt," he said. "Not knowing the swift retribution that would fol ow 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 hal from the chamber where I was staying. I was delighted to see the king so wel . 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 tel him there was a malignant influence there that I couldn't find, but that meant he would have to leave.

The carnival continued al the next day, but I surprised myself by becoming bored. Maybe it was because I was there for pleasure alone, and pleasure seemed to pal 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 vol ey-bal 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 original y planned to wear my red pul over to the carnival, but after looking at it critical y in the light of my predecessor's magic lamps, I had decided it real y did look like an old Father Noel outfit. I also searched for, but did not see, anyone sel ing books that would interest me.

The king and queen didn't seem at al 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 stil 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 stil 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 unwil ing 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.

I I

The king was il . 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.