A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 (25 page)

The horses stamped and snorted clouds of white breath. "The count is planning to lead a body of knights to attack the demon," I said.

"Does he know it's a demon?"

"No, but I don't think he'd care. He has no respect for magic and probably has none for the supernatural either. What am I going to do?"

"Stop him, I presume," she said thoughtful y. "You know, you shouldn't real y be surprised. There have scarcely been any wars in the western kingdoms since there started to be school-trained wizards in al the chief political courts. If you wizards want to stop al fighting, you certainly have my support; too many people without any sense end up leading the battles. But you've got to realize that the knights are starting to seem almost superfluous, even to themselves. They're trained as warriors, and the most war-like activity they normal y have is escorting someone like me to the king's castle for Christmas. No wonder they're excited at finding someone to attack!"

I thought briefly that the same might be said about her. "The demon wil destroy them."

"Of course," she said. "That's why you have to stop them. The king would miss his knights, and I'd miss mine, even if the young count isn't a favorite of any of us." She chuckled, but I was unable to join in.

I had thought I had a week to decide what to do. Now I had less than a day.

"They won't want to leave for Yurt until the boar hunt is over," said the duchess, echoing my thought but much calmer about it. "I wonder if we ever are going to flush this boar!"

As if in answer, there was a far away blast of horns, and a much closer barking. We had been riding at the edge of the woods, and now there was a tremendous crashing in the blackberry thickets at the trees' margin. A hundred yards from us, a dark shape suddenly burst out into the fields, at least twice as big as I had expected. I had also not been counting on the vicious tusks.

I pul ed my horse up so sharply it reared, but the duchess kicked hers forward. "Head it off!" she yel ed. "Try to corner it down in the streambed!" At the moment, the demon was much less interesting to her than the boar.

I couldn't expect her to help me, I thought. Turning to her was only a last-ditch effort to find someone else to share the weight of the problem, when it was mine al along. I turned my horse to fol ow the hunt, turning over for the thousandth time in my mind the list of the people in Yurt. I kept coming up with the same answer as I had al the other times, that I could not imagine any of them deliberately bringing evil into the kingdom and putting a curse on the king.

Although the duchess tried to corner the boar in the streambed, it broke through the other side, rushing up the bank with the force of a winter storm and kil ing two hounds in the process.

Normal y I would have been very interested in the hunt. Now I fol owed it because I did not know what else to do. I noted without much interest that the boar's bristles were soon streaked with blood, and that its sheer strength made it able to break away several times when someone thought he had a spear in it.

The king and queen stayed out of the center of the action, for which I was glad; it would be no use, I thought, having had the king miraculously cured if he was then attacked by an enraged beast.

The Lady Maria also stayed in the background, her eyes excited, but more timid of the boar than she had been of the dragon.

"I can't remember the last time we had boar meat for dinner in Yurt," she told me. "I'm quite sure it was before you came, maybe even before the chaplain arrived. I do know I thought it very exotic the first time I tasted it--my brother's castle is too close to the City for such wild animals!"

Since I had absolutely no interest in boar meat, in exotic flavors, or her brother's castle, I grunted, doubtless very rudely.

She noticed my lack of interest and apparently decided to draw me out. "You were born in the City, weren't you? This country life must al seem foreign to you."

I was touched enough by her interest to manage a smile. "I always thought of myself as city boy until I came to Yurt, but I'm starting to think that I'm not one anymore."

"The queen herself isn't real y a city girl now," said Maria agreeably.

"I at least grew up in the City," I said, "but I don't have any family there anymore."

"I knew you were an orphan," she said, turning wide blue eyes dramatical y on me. "We orphans must keep together."

Even the hunt itself, the long spel s of watchful inactivity, the sudden yelps and shouts, and the massive form of the boar shooting out of sight again, seemed appealing in comparison to listening to her chatter. "Let's try to catch up with the others," I said. "They're sure to corner it soon, and we want to be there when they do."

We trotted along a streambed overhung by leafless branches, passing several men on foot from the vil age who were leaning on massive spears and looking disgruntled.

"Is the boar up ahead?" Maria asked them.

They shrugged. "Could be anywhere, my lady. It's the devil's own boar, that one."

Although I knew this was only a figure of speech, I didn't like it and kicked my horse. "Come on," I said. "The others should be just over this hil ."

And then, with a roar, the boar burst out directly in front of me. With riding skil s I did not know I had, I pul ed my horse aside, managed to stay in the saddle, and used my hands and weight to help the horse keep its feet on the slippery stones.

The Lady Maria was not so lucky. As my horse came down, hers reared up, and the boar shot under its hooves. She gave a despairing scream and scrabbled uselessly at the reins. Her sidesaddle perch gave her no chance to save herself. She flew twenty feet and crashed into the blackberry bushes.

The boar was gone. I was off my horse and beside her in a moment. My heart was pounding so hard it seemed its sound ought to summon the others.

She was lying absolutely stil . Her face was dead white, except for the drops of startlingly red blood beginning to ooze from the scratches where the thorns had caught her on the way down. Her arms and legs were spread out as limply as a dol 's.

Furiously I unbuttoned her jacket and felt for her heartbeat. Blue eyes flipped open. "Fresh," she said.

The Lady Maria insisted on riding back to the castle. Although her horse had fal en after it threw her, it had leaped up again immediately, and it did not seem to be favoring any of its legs. The vil agers helped me calm the horse, readjust the saddle, and scoop her back up and into it.

"Are you sure you wouldn't want to wait for a litter, my lady?" I tried to urge her.

"No," she said obstinately. "My father always said that if you're thrown you should get right back up, and he was right."

Since she seemed to have no broken bones, it was hard to argue with her. But she showed no interest in rejoining the hunt, and I was able to lead her back toward the castle.

By the time we got there, she was ready to admit that maybe she was slightly bruised, even though she insisted that she did not need a doctor. The duchess's lady's maid went up to help her get ready for a nap, while I sat down in front of the fireplace in the empty great hal . For much of the afternoon I sat there, doing nothing more useful than keeping the fire burning.

Just before sunset, I heard the sounds of the returning hunting party. Even before I could hear the words, I could tel from the sound of their voices that it had been a success. With the boar dead, I feared, there would be nothing to prevent the young count from starting for the royal castle first thing in the morning.

The duchess came in, fresh blood stains on her cloak. "I heard the Lady Maria was thrown. Is she al right?"

"She says she is. She's been resting this afternoon."

"I'l go up to see her." I accompanied the duchess as she strode toward the stairs; I wanted to be sure myself. "You missed a great hunt, Wizard!"

The Lady Maria was awake, sitting up in bed and wearing what I was fairly sure was the fril y pink item I had seen her sewing last month. She blushed when I came in.

"This wizard worries too much," she told the duchess with a pretty laugh. "It was just the merest fal , as both you and I have had many times."

"I hear the boar almost smashed into you."

"I know," she said. "I've especial y noticed these last few months, maybe you'l laugh at me but it's true, I just seem
unluckier
away from home. Nothing bad like this ever seems to happen to me in the castle of Yurt."

"Probably because there are very few wild boars in the castle," said the duchess.

But this went beyond joking. For a moment I was unable to move or even breathe. I had been incredibly foolish, but I thought at last I understood it al .

"Are you going to want to come to dinner," said the duchess, "or wil you want a tray sent up?"

"Oh, I'l come to dinner, of course!" She glanced in my direction. "In a minute, when you're gone, I'l get dressed and come down. I certainly wil want to hear al the details of the hunt. The stratagems, the beast's last stand, who final y thrust the spear home, the heroism of the vil agers-- I'm sure it wil al be terribly exciting."

"I have to wash and change myself," said the duchess gaily. I guessed that she might have thrust in the final spear herself, but at this point I scarcely cared. "Come on, Wizard."

As I careful y dressed in the red and black velvet suit that had been my best suit until a short period on Christmas morning, I realized that I was looking forward to dinner in the assumption it was the last meal I would ever eat on earth.

I I

There were indeed tales of the hunt at dinner, which I scarcely heard. At the servants' table, two of the kitchen maids were giggling and one was almost in tears because the cook, faced with five hundred pounds of pork to deal with, had discovered that her own best butcher knives had not come from Yurt, and she was not at al sure that the duchess's would do.

The Lady Maria had come down with a slight limp and had a smal bandage placed artful y on one cheek. She told the story of her fal several times, with embel ishments, including the despair of "her knight," who was apparently me, when he had thought she might have been kil ed. When the fruitcake had been served, I whispered in her ear, "Could I come see you in your chambers, my lady?"

She laughed and even blushed, though after al this time I would have expected her to realize that my intentions were strictly honorable. As the dessert tray went around a second time, she and I slipped away. I helped nurse the fire in her room back to life, and we were soon cozily settled in soft chairs.

"I don't want you to go riding again," I told her.

She smiled. "You're a dear man, but you real y do worry too much. Everyone who rides gets thrown sooner or later."

"But I think you're in special danger."

"You're thinking of what I told the duchess? Wel , we'l be back in the royal castle soon, and then I'l be lucky again."

I was afraid I knew where her "luck" came from. Since I was also fairly sure she would not answer a straightforward question, I started tel ing her my best guesses, in the hope that she would confirm them. "You told me once, my lady, that you'd seen time run backwards. Was that when you had recently come to Yurt, and you and Prince Dominic tried to get the old wizard to teach you some magic?"

"How did you know?" she said with a laugh.

"Oh, I just guessed," I said cheerful y. "You know I told you time can't run backwards, normal y, so it must have been pretty powerful magic, so I'd like to hear how it worked."

She looked at my face, to see if I was going to accuse her of anything or scold her, but she saw only an interested smile. I did not say that I had at last realized, long after I should have, that the key event that touched off the situation in Yurt four years ago was not the arrival of the queen so much as the arrival of the Lady Maria with her.

"Wel , the old wizard told us to come up to his room in the tower," she said. "It was very exciting and mysterious, because normal y he would never let anyone in his chambers. He wasn't like you that way at al ."

I decided to let this pass. It was far too late for me to become exciting and mysterious.

"And then he said a spel , a real y long spel --and I knew it must be important to get every word right, because he had it written out on a piece of parchment that he looked at just before he said it."

The wizard might want to be sure such a critical spel was said correctly, I thought, but the Lady Maria, with her ear for the Hidden Language and her total ignorance of the dangers, would have needed no such prompting.

"And you'l never guess what appeared!"

"A demon."

"No, sil y!" She slapped at me playful y with a cushion. "First everything grew very dark, and then a man appeared, but a very tiny man, maybe only six inches tal . And you'l never guess!

His skin was bright red."

A demon, I thought, but said nothing.

"The old wizard had drawn a complicated sta

The faint daylight faded away behind me, and I paused to turn on the magic light on my belt buckle. It cast just enough light for me to see a few yards ahead. Motes in the coils of foul smoke danced in the light of the moon and stars. I pushed aside the thought that I should go back for a lantern or a magic globe and walked determinedly onward.

But my determination lasted only for a few steps. The cel ars were absolutely silent except for the sound of my feet. Instead of being half a dozen yards underground, I could have been half a dozen miles. I did not even hear the dripping and scurrying sounds I had heard when last here. Al I could hear was the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears.

"Maybe the demon's gone," the thought popped into my head. "In that case it's sil y for me to be down here." But I dismissed the thought and continued slowly on. I might not be able to hear him, but I was pushing against a wave of evil like pushing against a headwind.

The hal turned, and I put my hand on the wal while trying to peer around the corner. The stone was wet under my hand, and the wet was stickier than water. I held my hand at the level of my waist to look at it in the faint light of the moon and stars. It was dripping red.