A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 (22 page)

It was big enough to drape over her entire upper body, but delicate enough to be folded into a bundle smal er than her hand.

She put it over her shoulders at once. "Thank you, Father Noel! This is the nicest present this good little girl has ever gotten!"

With general laughter and more joking, people now stood up to go outside, to catch a little fresh air and try to find some sort of appetite for the noon dinner that the cook was already preparing. I hurried back to my chambers to take off the pul over and put on my new blue velvet suit. It fit perfectly. As I turned in front of the mirror, I thought that even if I didn't look mysterious in it, at least I looked dignified.

Back in the courtyard, several of the ladies had begun singing Christmas carols in three-part harmony. It would have been more effective if one of the knights hadn't been teasing them, which made them keep stopping, laughing, and losing their place, but the sound of their high, light voices in the frosty air was very pleasant. As I leaned on the parapet, high above the courtyard, looking out across the snowy hil s of the western kingdoms, I thought this was a morning of perfect peace.

A gloved hand closed over mine on the railing, and I discovered the duchess beside me. I had not seen her come up. "Merry Christmas," she said. "I'd been thinking I ought to have a special present for you this morning, but after you gave that shawl to the Lady Maria I realized I'd be wasting my time."

She was teasing me, of course. "Oh, I can love any number of different ladies at the same time," I said airily, gesturing with my free hand. "After al --"

Her grip tightened, but I realized she was not listening to me. "Look, over there. What's that?" she said in an entirely different voice.

I looked. Beyond the forest, high above the hil s, a dark cloud was coming rapidly toward us out of the north. But it was flying too low and moving too fast to be a cloud. For a moment I wondered if it might be the air cart, bringing someone to visit from the wizards' school, even though it was coming from the wrong direction. But as it approached, I realized it was much too big to be the air cart.

It was a dragon.

The duchess and I were not the only ones up walking on the parapet, and several other people had seen it too. One lady screamed, but several other people looked toward me questioningly, and one even laughed a little. They thought it might be another il usion.

This was, unfortunately, no il usion, but a real dragon. "Get down!" I yel ed. "Get inside!" I grabbed the duchess in my arms and leaped off the edge of the walkway, flying us down and landing in the courtyard with hardly a bump. "Don't let it catch you outdoors!"

Although for a second I was afraid that blind panic would replace complacency, as al the ladies began screaming at once, I did manage to get them herded into the center of the hal .

"Keep them calm," I told the duchess. "I've got to try to stop it."

I ran back to the high door out into the courtyard. The dragon had arrived.

It flew to the castle with extreme purposefulness, but now that it was here it seemed to be contemplating its next move with leisurely interest. It was perched on the top of the north tower, looking around with apparent curiosity. Then it looked down at me like a cat observing a mouse. It was too big to fit in the windows or even the door, but if it had wished it could easily reach in a clawed foot to grab us. I was almost gratified to see that it quite closely resembled the il usory dragon I had created last month, down to the emerald scales, even though mine had had six legs and this one four. But the red eyes did not glow with magic: rather, with active intel igence.

What was I going to do with a dragon? My mind seemed incapable of thought. For a moment the dragon and I locked glances, then it shot out a thin tongue of flame from its nostrils, and I had to jump back.

I found Joachim at my elbow. He had his crucifix before him and a grim expression on his face. "Don't go out," I said. "It's not evil; it's just a dragon."

"But it could kil us al !"

"Of course it could, and it probably wil . It's doubtless very hungry after flying for thousands of miles, down from the northern land of magic. In a few minutes it may decide to start dismantling the castle with its claws. But it's stil not evil incarnate, just the wild forces of natural magic, unchecked by any wizardry."

If Joachim was startled to hear this calm, academic statement he gave no sign. I was fairly startled myself to discover that my mind was compensating for a lack of good ideas by the repetition of a phrase from a half-forgotten lecture.

But
why
was there a dragon in Yurt? The dragons never, or almost never, left the northernmost land of wild magic. I caught a glimpse of the old wizard from the corner of my eye and remembered him saying that he thought that too many wizards practicing magic had worn the channels of magic so smooth that anything might come slipping in.

But surely my own magic was rough enough not to invite a dragon! The wizard at any rate did not say, "I told you so." He stood next to the chaplain and me, while we looked out at the dragon and it looked at us, and both sides tried to think what to do next. Until such time as it decided to start ripping the wal s down, we were fairly safe, because I did not think it could reach al the way to the center of the great hal , in spite of its size.

The dragon was truly enormous. Its feet were planted on top of the north tower, its long scaly neck stretched far across the courtyard, and its spiny tail hung nearly to the ground. Its red eyes darted to and fro, and its wide mouth lol ed open, revealing hundreds of teeth and a long forked tongue. It seemed to be wondering which ones of us to eat first.

The old wizard attacked. Suddenly, zipping around the dragon's head, there were a cloud of red bubbles, which darted, touched him, and sprang away again. But if this was intended to distract the dragon or even drive him away, it was ineffective. Clinging to the doorpost, thinking this had to be a bad dream and that Gwen would wake me soon, I watched as the dragon batted the bubbles of il usion away with one clawed foot and looked down at us with growing irritation.

There was a commotion behind us, and then Dominic and the duchess pushed past us, leading a group of knights. They were al armed with swords, spears, and shields, and several carried bows. Dominic may have bolted in terror from my il usory dragon, but he seemed to have no hesitation in facing a real one. I was ashamed that he, at least, seemed to have an excel ent idea what to do.

With a roar from Dominic, the smal war party charged. They ran up the stairs toward the parapet, trying to get closer, and the first archers set off a flurry of arrows.

But these bounced harmlessly from the emerald scales. The dragon turned sharply around, and as its tail swung it ripped roof slates loose. The knights and the duchess had their shields up just in time to protect themselves from a roaring burst of flame. As the dragon readied itself for another breath, they lowered the shields for a second and threw their spears.

Most of the spears bounced off as harmlessly as the arrows had done, but one lodged for a second in the dragon's throat. It reared back, clawing at the spear until it fel , but where it had pierced the skin was a tiny drop of black blood.

"The dragon's throat," said the old wizard in my ear. "It's the one vulnerable point on its body."

But the knights did not have a chance to try throwing their spears again. The dragon leaped at them, beating its scaled wings, and with a swipe of a claw had knocked several into the courtyard, where they landed with metal ic crashes. Then the dragon sprang upwards and circled over the castle, its head back, roaring in pain. In the few seconds before it returned, we ran out into the courtyard, helped the knights gather up their companions, and dragged them into the relative safety of the hal .

Al of them were scorched, and several were badly wounded. Dominic, who had been knocked off the wal , seemed to have several broken ribs. He was the worst, but al had suffered in one way or another. The duchess was not directly wounded, but al her hair, where it protruded from her helmet, had been burned off.

The dragon returned to the top of the north tower, where it lashed its tail and looked down at us with real fury. I glanced over my shoulder. The chaplain was helping deal with the wounded. Most of the women in the castle were clinging together in the center of the hal , al with white faces and many sobbing uncontrol ably. The king and queen, their hands linked, were embracing as many as they could reach, ladies and servants alike, and trying to talk soothingly.

I was shocked to see a dancing pair of blue eyes among the stricken faces. The Lady Maria, with rapt attention, was thoroughly enjoying the dragon.

The duchess was exchanging her shield for another, less scorched, and picking up a spear as though planning to go out again. "Stay here," I told her. "You can't stop it with force." My slow mind had at last given me an idea.

I started to make myself invisible. I started with the feet, pronouncing the heavy syl ables of the Hidden Language as quickly as I could. The feet disappeared, then the knees, then the thighs, and I was further than I had ever before gone with this spel . But at the waist I became stuck. The top half of my body remained obstinately visible.

"Cover me with il usion," I told the old wizard. "I've got to get close enough to the dragon's throat to try to pierce it." The duchess, realizing what I was doing, handed me her spear.

Fortunately, I was able to make the spear itself invisible without difficulty, while stil maintaining the invisibility spel on my lower body.

"Al right," said the old wizard. "Go!" I stepped on invisible legs into the courtyard and launched myself into the air.

I looked down at my upper torso. The old wizard had made me into a particularly ugly bird, clearly too smal to be a person, and, I hoped, too unappetizing for the dragon to eat at once.

The dragon was scratching with whimpers of pain at its throat. When it saw me, it lowered its claw and opened its mouth. I darted upwards as a tongue of fire shot under me. But, uninterested, the dragon returned at once to scratching. I considered chirping to give my birdlike form an air of verisimilitude but decided not to stretch my luck.

I circled delicately, trying to find a good angle for a spear thrust. I couldn't see the spear but I could feel it, gripped tight in my sweaty palms, and I hoped I had the point forward. Twice the dragon reached up to bat me away, and twice I had to duck as deadly razor-sharp claws passed within an inch of my invisible legs.

And then my chance came. Its head back, the dragon was roaring again, and I flew as fast as I could straight toward it, and thrust the spear with al my strength toward the base of the throat.

But just as I thought I had it, the dragon twisted its neck, and the spear, clanging uselessly against the heavy scales, was jerked from my hands.

I dropped to the ground outside the wal , waiting for the dragon to come after me. Maybe at least I could lure it away from the castle. But I knew it could fly far faster than I could.

But it did not pursue me. It sounded instead as though it had decided to start taking the roof off the great hal .

I flew back up in time to see the chimney topple. The screams from within seemed to excite the dragon. But as it saw me its scarlet nostrils flared, and again I was nearly burnt to cinders.

Then al around the dragon was a new cloud of red bal s, bigger than before, swirling, popping, ducking and weaving. I dropped into the courtyard to pick up an abandoned spear and realized that I too had become an il usory red bal .

With my new spear newly invisible, I rose into the cloud of bal s. Furiously angry, the dragon clawed at the bal s and roasted them with fire, but both his talons and his breath passed harmlessly through them. Camouflaged among them, ready to dart up or down, I waited for my opportunity.

When it came I almost missed it. Half obscured by the red bal s, the dragon's throat appeared before me, the tiny wound in the center and al the scratches around it oozing black blood.

Too close for a rapid approach and not daring to back up, I swung my feet up against the beast's neck and plunged the spear with al the force in my body into the space between them.

And the spear went home. A geyser of burning dragon blood covered me, blinded me, so that I was barely able to keep on flying. The roar of the dragon above me could have been my own scream. The tail in its writhing caught me, whirled me far out beyond the castle wal s, so that my invisibility spel was knocked completely from my mind, and if I hadn't been able to free one eye in time to see the ground coming up toward me, the flying spel might have failed me as wel .

I dropped gently to earth, looking back toward the castle. The dragon was in its death throes, stil spurting blood. It managed to pul out the spear, but too late, for it had penetrated its heart. Pieces of the castle went flying as it rol ed in agony. Then, with a final roar, it slumped lifeless over the wal .

I took a deep breath and gathered up some snow to scrub my face. My hands were rubbed raw, al my ribs ached, and I had some lacerations and bruises, but other than that I thought I was unwounded. But my new Christmas suit was completely ruined by dragon's blood.

I

I walked back slowly toward the castle. It was incredible to me that only the evening before, after turning the young count into a frog, I had imagined myself a competent wizard. This was my worst failure ever. I had never before managed to destroy half a castle.

One would have expected, I thought, that a royal wizard would be able to deal with a product of wild magic without coming as close to getting himself and everyone else kil ed as I had done. For al I knew, there was a simple spel against dragons, taught in one of the lectures I had missed. I would certainly have to apologize abjectly to the king and queen. As I reached the castle and crossed the drawbridge, I wondered if I would have to resign as wel .

I was highly startled when, as I stepped into the courtyard, the queen threw herself into my arms, heedless of the dragon's blood, and began showering me with kisses. I would have been able to respond more enthusiastical y if I had not been so surprised.