Is This Apocalypse Necessary? - Wizard of Yurt - 6 (20 page)

That's done it, I thought. I had faked my own death knowing that Elerius would want to manipulate me in life. But with this letter he now had a genuine motive to find and kill me.

The bishop spoke into the silence. "The statue of Saint Eusebius is no longer pointing," he said. "He seems satisfied that we have received his message."

Everyone had shifted away from Elerius, even Zahlfast, leaving a wide empty space around him. "The statue means nothing," he said harshly.

"Maybe the lady just imagined she saw it move. Or maybe somebody moved it by magic," with a scowl for Theodora.

But then he took a breath, straightened his shoulders, and I could see him becoming calm and reasonable again through sheer will. "And this letter is not the startling document you all seem to think it is. I'm sure the Master was only here confirming something I had already determined for myself: that Daimbert and I should jointly head the wizards' school. I know that my own abilities are such that no other candidate will presume to present himself to oppose me, but I also wanted Daimbert, with his flair for improvisation, to assist in my tasks. Doubtless the Master worried that the other wizards might feel uncomfortable with having someone as their co-head who had as weak an academic background as Daimbert did, and that is why he thought this letter was necessary. Didn't Daimbert tell you he had agreed to rule jointly with me?"

"No," said Theodora and Joachim together, clearly not believing a word of it—though I could have told them that parts were true.

But Zahlfast's reaction was the most pronounced. "You cannot decide for yourself, Elerius, that you are going to head the wizards' school, with or without a co-ruler! We have yet to elect the man to replace the Master, and you cannot simply assume it will be you!"

Elerius's peaked eyebrows gave a sharp twitch; he had miscalculated, something he rarely did, and he knew it.

"I have been second in command at the school for years," Zahlfast continued, almost in a growl, his face close to the other's. "Yet you do not see
me
making any such presumption!" With an open quarrel between powerful wizards, this was going to be the liveliest funeral Yurt had ever seen. "I would have thought your position as regent for your kingdom would have disqualified you for the permanent leadership of the school—especially since you have been widening your activities lately with your campaign for City mayor. I cannot speak for the other wizards, Elerius, as you seem to think you can, in believing that they will all choose you: but I can certainly speak for them in saying that you are presuming far too much!"

Antonia, watching them, was again playing with something in her pocket. She took it out, and it glinted a moment in the candlelight. My attention was momentarily jerked away from the two wizards, for I recognized it. Antonia was holding her mother's old ring of invisibility.

And then she slipped it on. Normally one invisible person cannot see another—in a room full of wizards practicing their invisibility spells one would see nothing but shadows. But I could still see my daughter, seeming to shimmer slightly around the edges as she tossed back her braids.

Everyone else was staring at the two wizards. Antonia looked straight at me and slowly started to smile.

I raised a finger to my lips. Theodora's ring not only made the wearer invisible but, because it had a spell to reveal that which is hidden carved into the gold, it allowed the wearer to see through others' spells of invisibility. Antonia smiled wider and nodded, a finger to her own lips.

Then she slipped back into visibility, just as her mother took her sharply by the arm, muttering, "Give me that ring, now! I told you not to play with it."

While I had been distracted, Elerius and Zahlfast had clearly exchanged further remarks, because both were now flushed. "Why fight me, old man?" Elerius was saying, almost in a shout. "Why fight the new ways, in which wizardry will rule the earth? If you don't want to be part of it retire, as you should have years ago. We wizards have served society for centuries with our magic—now we'll dominate society for its own good!"

The older wizard did not like this at all, but he did not answer. Instead I realized with dismay that he was trying to turn Elerius into a frog.

He was not going to be successful by himself. Even as I recognized that, even as I tried to shape a spell to assist him that would still leave me invisible, Elerius broke free of the other's magic.

And the statue of the saint raised both hands in horror, dropping his staff, as a great wall of fire rose in the middle of the chapel. Elerius rose with it, laughing defiantly, then both he and the fire disappeared with a shower of golden sparks— and I felt him rush past me, not seeing me any more than I could see him, as he flew from the room and from the castle.

Part five * Xantium

This was no longer me against Elerius. This was a split within institutionalized wizardry.

As I flew rapidly back toward Caelrhon, where I had left Hadwidis and the purple flying beast, I tried to imagine what Zahlfast was telling the rest of the wizards back in the City. I didn't dare get close enough to the telephone room to catch more than an occasional word, but he had shot straight there as soon as Elerius disappeared, missing Joachim's only partially successful efforts to restore the dignity of my funeral long enough for a somber hymn. Zahlfast was talking loudly into the telephone and waving his arms wildly when I left.

Elerius should most definitely not, I thought, have tried to defy him.

The older wizard had never been flashy, but he had not become second in command at the school without an enormous amount of magical ability.

And he also had the respect of the schools' teachers —of whom Elerius had been by far the youngest. And now Elerius was suddenly no longer the Master's apparent heir and no longer had the school's resources to draw on, but would have to operate from in hiding.

Shadows were long as I dropped from the sky into the grove where Naurag and Hadwidis were hidden. First thing tomorrow, I thought with renewed spirits, it was off to the East. If I could escape dragons, I should be able to master an Ifrit, and with the latter's power I would easily discover Elerius's hiding place and bring him bound in magic fetters to the school.

Where by now everyone knew that the old Master had wanted me to succeed him. I pushed this thought aside as Hadwidis sprang up to meet me.

It was a little embarrassing to realize how delighted she was to see me, considering I had not thought of her even once all day. There was, I thought, a tinge of relief in her happy smile, but she spoke as though she had never doubted I would return.

"Naurag ate all the melons while you were gone," she told me cheerfully,

"and I ate almost everything else, so I hope you had something for lunch wherever you went!" I hadn't but let it pass. The purple flying beast pushed his snout into my chest in a welcoming way, and I rubbed his head above the bony eye ridges. "Did you know, Wizard, they hardly ever let us eat meat at the nunnery? Only when we were sick—though I must say, some of the older sisters seemed to get 'sick' pretty often!"

"I'm going to have to take you someplace safe," I told her, "someplace where you'll have plenty to eat and a warm place to spend the nights until your hair grows out. You know you can't keep on sleeping under bushes—the next person you meet might not wish you well as much as I do."

"That's no problem," she answered, handing me the remains of the bread and cheese. There was what appeared to be a fang mark on the cheese, as though she had tried feeding it to the flying beast but he hadn't liked it. "I'll just stay with you."

I knew she'd say that. I broke off the corner of the cheese where Naurag had nibbled and ate the rest. "I'm afraid I'm going someplace too dangerous for you. But I've thought of a wonderful spot for you to stay.

The royal castle of Yurt isn't far from here, and the people there are very friendly—or so I've heard," I added quickly.

Gwennie, I thought, would take care of her. Now I just had to make sure that Hadwidis didn't drop any clues that would allow Gwennie to deduce she had been with the recently deceased wizard of Yurt—without telling Hadwidis that that was who I was.

Her face fell, and she put both arms around Naurag's neck, suggesting that if I left her behind I wouldn't be taking my purple companion either.

"But you
can't
leave me, Wizard," she said stubbornly, eyes downcast.

"Saint Eusebius wanted me to find you, and there's no telling how cranky he'll be if you take off without hearing the information I'm supposed to give you."

"And have you remembered it?" I asked hopefully.

She gave me a quick, coy look from under her eyebrows— as if, I thought, she had been spending the day practicing to be a tavern wench.

"I
might
remember if you took me along."

It was going to be dark soon, and I didn't have time for this. I gathered some fallen wood without saying anything, stacked it to burn against the cold and the night, and used a quick spell to light it. Only then did I remark, "So I gather you remembered during the day the information the saint wants me to have?"

She wanted to say that she had, she wanted to tease me some more, but she had been an absolutely honest nun far too long. "No," she mumbled, head down. "But I might if you took me along!" she repeated defiantly.

"How about if you tell me everything you
do
know," I suggested,

"relevant or not, and maybe it will be in there somewhere."

Somehow I had imagined there wasn't a lot to be known about a nunnery and the women who lived there. It turned out I was mistaken.

Hadwidis was more than eager to tell me all sorts of things that I would doubtless have found fascinating if I had been planning to take the veil myself. One thing she never said explicitly but I could figure out easily enough: nuns weren't supposed to talk most of the time, remaining silent to be able to concentrate on their prayers. For a lively young woman coming out of years of enforced silence, being invited to speak at length was as refreshing as being given water would be to a thirsty man.

I learned the history of the nunnery of Yurt, which went back to the days of the long-dead Empire, centuries before the Black Wars, long before the Western Kingdoms even existed as independent entities. I learned the names—both the original names and the names they took as brides of Christ—of all the other nuns in the house. I learned which ones had come there as widows, which as young girls offered by their parents, and which ones, like Hadwidis, had decided for themselves in girlhood that they wanted to avoid the world—the decision she had since regretted. She told me which psalms they sang at which hours of the day on the different days of the week and offered to sing me all of them; I declined, saying I could look them up in the Bible if they turned out to be relevant.

Hadwidis had started off sitting across the fire from me, but after a short time, shivering, she came around and sat close beside me, both our backs against Naurag's warm flank and our shoulders together. As she detailed the differences between fast days on which one was allowed lentils and fish broth and the ones where one was allowed only bread and water, my mind started wandering. The principal conclusion I had reached so far was that the life of a nun disciplined the body and the mind so that a woman would not be distracted from God by the affairs of this sinful world, but that I personally thought a young woman ought to be given a little more scope for action. It was impossible to imagine Antonia in the situation Hadwidis described.

It was also impossible to imagine sending Hadwidis to stay with Theodora and Antonia while her hair grew out and she decided how to break the news, both to the abbess and to her family, that she wasn't going back. So far I hadn't heard anything about her family during her monologue, but I felt sure that would be coming soon. Antonia knew I was still alive, and if the two girls got together it wouldn't be long before Antonia extracted enough information from Hadwidis to realize that she knew me too—and to tell her that the wizard with whom she had spent a couple of evenings was Antonia's missing father. At that point, everyone would know.

I glanced up at the stars, wheeling slowly overhead. "It's getting toward midnight," I said, breaking into an account of how to measure a nun for a new habit. "I'm afraid this isn't going to work after all. We need to get some sleep."

Hadwidis stopped in the middle of a sentence, then pressed herself closer against me. "It's cold," she whispered. "I don't want to sleep on Naurag's other side from you."

"He's a lot warmer than I am," I started to say, then stopped dead.

Hadwidis had taken one of my hands in both of hers and started to kiss it passionately.

Gratitude? Loneliness, or a fear of being left alone? I desperately attempted to come up with innocuous explanations, all the time trying to ease my hand out of her hers.

It didn't work. She had me in a grip like iron and had climbed halfway into my lap. Her cap had fallen off again, and her bare scalp brushed my cheek. "Hadwidis, don't be silly," I said, much too loudly. "It's been lovely getting to know you the last day or two, but—"

"Don't, Wizard," she murmured, halfway between sensu-ousness and tears. "Don't push me away from you. Don't treat me like a child."

"You're young enough to be my daughter!" Pretty weak, but it was all I could think of. A quick jerk, and my hand was free.

So instead she threw both arms around me. "Lie with me," she whispered into my beard, and I realized that she had been planning this ever since I left that morning. Apparently I wasn't responding the way I was supposed to in her plan. "Lie with me and show me what it's like to be a woman—and make sure I never have to go back to the nunnery."

Joachim was right. Man
was
born to trouble as the sparks to fly upward.

I managed to get a grip on her shoulders and pushed her back so I could see her face in the flickering light. "Hadwidis, this is a tremendously flattering offer you're making. But you're being far too hasty." She shook her head hard and tugged at me again.