Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 (22 page)

The caravan was silent except for the crackling of the fire. The smoke in the room seemed to become denser. At last she spoke, so suddenly and loudly that I jumped. “Someone is coming. Someone from far away. Someone who travels by night.”

She spoke with such conviction that I stared into the crystal myself, seeing nothing. Irrational fear made the cold day even colder. “Is this anyone I know?” I asked after a minute when she seemed reluctant to add anything more. “Wil he be here soon?”

“He comes slowly, and he comes by night,” she said again. Abruptly she rose and put the crystal bal back into the cupboard. “And that,” she said loudly, a poorly concealed nervous tremor in her voice, “is al the fortune you wil have from me.”

She swung open the caravan door in case her point wasn’t clear enough. I thanked her and left, glad to breathe fresh air again, even if damp and cold, after the smoky atmosphere of the caravan. As I retrieved the air cart I wondered if this was recent information the Romneys had acquired, or if they had heard while stil in the Eastern Kingdoms of someone heading this way. The Romney children had told me Cyrus had asked them about Yurt; had someone else in the East also inquired about us?

As the air cart flew slowly against a dank wind I thought about the princely wizard Vlad and his obsidian castle, guarded by wolves. Once I had been reassured that Cyrus was not Vlad in disguise, I had tried to dismiss fears of the dark wizard I had made my enemy many years ago. But suppose Cyrus had been sent as Vlad’s agent, to find me, even to kil me? Cyrus however had shown no sign of wanting to kil me on the two occasions when I met him.

But somebody had sent unliving warriors to attack Yurt, warriors that had dissolved in daylight although a spel had lingered in their bones, a spel to drive men— and women—mad. And Vlad’s black castle in the East lay under a permanent bank of clouds, to make even day as dark as night Sunlight was the one thing he could not bear, even with al his powers.

I leaned back against the edge of the air cart and shouted the heavy words of the Hidden Language at the black clouds overhead. If Vlad was trying to make the twin kingdoms of Yurt and Caelrhon as dark as his own principality, he would not succeed.

The wind swirled stronger, and a smal scudding cloud dumped hail on my head. But then the sky split open, and the sun’s rays shone placidly down. The thick clouds started to swing togedier again, regrouping, but I replied with more shouted spels, and they scattered, dissolving as they slid away over the horizon.

There, I thought, looking down at the fields below washed with light. That was better. The air was becoming warmer by the moment. If Vlad came to Yurt after me, we would meet on my terms.

The air cart flew faster now with the wind no longer against us. The sun beat down on my hair. Now that summer weather had returned, it was easy to think of the cold and the clouds as sometiing trivial. I smiled, recaling how quick I had been to assume that some enemy would attack the castle as soon as I took off after Antonia. In fact, there had been no problems at al since I overcame the undead warriors, other than those directly due to Antonia's high spirits.

As the air cart and I flew on I tried to plan my next move. The Romney woman had certainly wanted to warn me against somebody, and there might be other spels I could try in order to detect a distant, evil presence. Certainly I could telephone some of the other wizards stationed closer to the Eastern Kingdoms to see if they had heard of someone who came by night.

We came over the forests and fields that surrounded the whitewashed royal castle of Yurt. Looking ahead, I saw that the drawbridge was up, which seemed overly cautious for daytime.

But then I saw the wolf.

It was a fenris-wolf, huge and white, as tal at the shoulder as a man. The only shading on its coat was a ruff of black guard hairs around the neck. Long yelow teeth protruded from the jaws, and its eyes were a light china blue. It paced before the moat, ears forward, growling low and steady. I had seen a wolf like this in the Eastern Kingdoms, in fact outside of Vlad’s obsidian castle, but this was no time for reminiscences.

I dropped the air cart fast into the middle of the castle courtyard. The knights, heavily armed, stood along the battlements, watching. The wolf stared back at them, sunlight flashing like fire from its pale eyes.

King Paul came up to me, looking very serious, though an expression lurked at the corner of his moudi that suggested he was enjoying this. “Has anyone been hurt, sire?” I asked urgentiy. “Where did the wolf come from?”

“No one’s hurt. The saints only know where it came from, though it must be another attack on the Lady Justinia. It first appeared when I was out riding about an hour ago. The sky was so dark it could have been evening, and it was getting darker and colder by the minute, so I had just turned Bonfire back to the castle when I heard a howl.” Down below the wals the wolf howled, and inside the stables Justinia’s elephant trumpeted wildly.

“Like that,” said Paul. “Bonfire was spooked, of course, and in the darkness I couldn’t even tel where it was.” It sounded to me as if he had come extremely close to being kiled, but he seemed almost cheerful about it. “But then the sun broke through the clouds, and I saw that beast looking at me. It didn’t take much persuading to get Bonfire to run! What’s most impressive is that the wolf was—almost—able to keep up. But I was fifty yards ahead when I reached the moat, and they’d seen me coming and were cranking up the drawbridge even before I was off it.” It looked as though I had saved my king’s life with my weather spels. I took a deep breath and let it out again. “We should be safe then. It won’t be able to get over the wals unless it can fly.”

“That’s al very wel for us,” said Paul, no longer sounding as though he was enjoying this. “But there are no stone wals around the vilage. If it gets bored here it can trot down and have its pick of the vilagers’ herds—or of them.”

“Has anyone tried shooting it?”

“We did. But it seems to be able to dodge arrows easily.” I had been probing the wolf as we spoke. It was a real wolf al right, but with a faint magical aura about it. Bigger and stronger than a normal wolf, it also appeared to have faster reflexes—and doubtless stronger jaws. I could try transforming it into something innocuous, but if it was a creature from the land of wild magic the spel would blow up in my face.

“Now that you’re here,” said Paul, “we’l try a sortie against it. If you could put a binding spel on it we should be able to capture or kil it. But we’d better move fast in case those clouds come back—or before it realy becomes night.”

“Not you, sire,” I said. “I’d certainly like a few sword arms at my back, but not yours. As your mother keeps on teling you, you don’t have an heir. If you get yourself kiled by a wolf, who’s going to be king? You don’t want Yurt run by some fourth cousin from somewhere who doesn’t even worry about his vilagers.”

Paul frowned, but I wasn’t going to wait for an argument. I might be pledged to his service, but a wizard could never be expected to obey with absolute, unquestioning loyalty. Our highest oaths were not to our kings. “Let’s get a few people down to the postern gate,” I caled to the other knights. Hildegarde was among them and turned eagerly at my voice, but I ignored her. “You, you, you! I’l distract the wolf on this side of the castle while you get out the back.”

“Wizard,” Paul began ominously, but then he stopped without countermanding my order. The three knights, delighted to be chosen, ran to let themselves out the smal postern gate and to cross the moat on stepping stones while I flew over the wal to meet the wolf.

I needn’t have worried about keeping its attention while the knights came around. It sprang at me with a howl, and only by rapid midair backing was I able to avoid getting my throat ripped out.

“That’s right,” I told myself, hovering twenty feet above it. The red gulet and teeth were improved by distance, but not by much. “Remember that it has fast reflexes. And can jump.” I lifted to thirty feet.

I started on a paralysis spel, something to freeze it in place. From the corner of my eye I spotted the knights coming around the corner of the castle, spears at the ready.

The wolf plunged through my paralysis spel as though it wasn’t there and tore toward the knights. Flying madly behind, I tried a quick and dirty binding spel with no better result. This wolf had been sent here with counterspels al ready to foil a wizard.

The startled knights had their shields up and spears braced for the onslaught. Abandoning my binding spel, I turned the air to glass in front of the wolf.

It bounced back with a snarl of pain and rage. So you weren’t quite ready for that spel? I thought in grim triumph.

But already it had sprung up and around the solid air, again toward the knights of Yurt. They might not be the king, but I couldn’t let them get kiled either. Easily dodging the spears with which they tried to impale it, the wolf knocked the first one down and went for his throat.

I yeled behind it, trying to remind it that it had been sent to kil a wizard. It whirled away from the falen knight and at me, a mass of furious teeth and fur. I snatched up the spear the knight had dropped and flew rapidly backwards.

The wolf ran right along with me. This was a beast, I reminded myself, able to match paces with the fastest stalion in a dozen kingdoms. Taking long bounds, it snarled again, baring vicious yelow teeth. I tried to fly faster, but it stil had no trouble keeping up.

Once al the way around the castle. I was almost back to the knights. Should I go around again and try to tire it out? I could hear faint distant cheers from the battlements. But this wolf might not tire in twenty circuits of the castle, while I myself would long before then. This was no spectacle or race where the viewers cheered for me—or the wolf? I stopped fleeing and stood my ground.

One last bound and it was on me, trying to evade the spearpoint and going for my face. The two quick words of the Hidden Language that should have knocked it backwards had no effect, and it was a struggle to keep clear in my mind the words to speed my own movements. Whoever had sent this wolf had speled it against western school magic.

My magicaly aided reflexes were nearly as fast as the wolfs, but it was appreciably heavier. It ran straight up the spear, not even seeming to feel the point driving into its chest, and knocked me flat.

Protection spels seemed to have no effect. Dropping the spear I threw both arms across my face and throat, feeling the wolfs hot breath and the slash of fangs cutting into my flesh. For a second there was no pain at al, then the wounds began burning like fire.

What an ignominious way for a wizard to go, I thought, feeling a rush of hot blood pouring past my ears. An enormous weight landed on my chest, and as consciousness left me I realized that I could no longer hear the wolfs growls. Maybe I’d kiled it after al. My last thought was that at least now I might deserve the Golden Yurt.

IV

I did not get better.

I regained consciousness while being carried into the castle, just enough to realize that the wolf was dead. In the evening, after the vilage doctor had salved and bound up the slashes on my forearms, the king came and sat beside me on the bed, long booted legs stretched out before him. He told me how the knights had struck the wolf from behind with sword and spear while it was trying to kil me; the blood I had thought came from my own diroat was in fact the beast’s.

“Damnation, Wizard,” finished Paul, sounding relieved and irritated at the same time, “aren’t you ever going to let me do anything?” Groggy but comfortable, I fel asleep, resigned to general stiffness for a few days and bandages for a little while longer. I had realy worn myself out the last week or two, I thought, and being heroicaly wounded was a good excuse to catch up on my rest.

But in the morning the fire was back in the wounds and my head ached so badly I could barely think. The doctor, returning, pronounced that there might be “some infection.” When I tried to explain to him in a voice that didn’t sound anything like my own that there was a certain blue-flowered plant he had to find, one good for healing infection through herbal magic, he shook his head, told me to try to stay calm, and went to talk to Gwennie at the doorway without even listening to the plant’s description.

Al that day I kept sliding in and out of evil dreams in which the wolf leaped at me again and again, causing me to jerk convulsively, throwing off the blankets and almost faling out of bed. Behind the wolf I could now clearly see Vlad’s face, dead white and with eyes of stone.

“The Romney woman told me he’s coming,” I told Gwennie when she put cool cloths on my brow. “You have to keep watch for him. Tel the wizards’ school he’s coming.”

“Of course we’l tel them,” she said in the voice of someone humoring a child.

“And stop putting cold water on me,” I said irritably, stirring a bandaged arm enough to throw the cloth away. It felt like the scab had ripped free under the bandage. Just as wel. I didn’t trust the doctor and whatever he had been putting on me, and I would tel him so. “This room is freezing already!”

“This room is very warm,” said Gwennie. “But you have a fever.”

Unconsciousness washed over me again. When I again felt cold water dripping into my ears—maybe later that day, maybe the next day—I tried to tel Gwennie that Vlad and the doctor had conspired to kil me. But it wasn’t Gwennie bending over me. This time it was Celia.

Nuns, I thought vaguely, nursed the dying. If I died from my wounds, would that count as having been kiled by the wolf? But there was something wrong with Celia being at my bedside in Yurt.

“You’re not here,” I told her. “You’re a nun.”

“Not according to my mother and father,” she said with a sad smile. “Do you feel any better?”

“No.” And I passed out again.

Later I was never sure how long I wandered drrough fever and nightmare. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but when I closed them demons leered at me while my body, especialy the arms, seemed to grow distorted and enormous. Elerius kept slipping through my dreams, always one step ahead of me, looking back from under his peaked eyebrows and giving an ironic smile. Various people nursed me and tried to feed me soup as I slumped, only slightly conscious. At one point I became convinced that Theodora sat beside me, holding my hand, but when at last I was able to open my eyes al my fist clutched was the edge of the pilow.