Brittain, C. Dale - A Bad Spell in Yurt 
A WIZARD'S GOTTA DO WHAT A WIZARD'S GOTTA DO
"So you have a new wizard," said the young count to the king in a high and 
rather nasal voice. "I myself would never have one. Fd been hoping that when 
your old one retired you'd have the sense not to get another."
Since I had just finished bowing to him, and my predecessor was standing only a 
few feet away, this struck me as unusually rude, even for a member of the 
aristocracy, but he kept on talking about us as though we weren't there. "My 
father kept a wizardor he said he was a wizard, someone I think my father had 
picked up at a carnival somewherebut as soon as I inherited, I sent him packing 
right away, you can be sure."
"We've always been very happy with our wizards," I said the king stiffly.
"Is there anything in particular you object to about wizards?" asked my 
predecessor with a calmness that he was having trouble maintaining.
"Everything about them is so, well, on the sur-
face!" said the young count, waving his beautiful
white hands. "Once you've seen an illusion or two,
you have nothing left but vague talk about the pow-
ers of darkness and light, which someone like me sees
through at once."
"I think you're underestimating real wizardry," con-
tinued my predecessor, with an evenness of tone I admired.
"You're the wizard who used to be here, aren't you? My father told me about your 
illusions over dessert, back when he used to visit the king. But really, when f 
you go beyond illusions, what do you have?" I turned him into a frog.

A BAD SPELL IN YURT

Copyright  1991 by C. Dale Brittain

THE CELLARS

PART ONE
Yurt
I
I was not a very good wizard. But it was not a very big kingdom. I assumed I was 
the only person to answer their ad, for in a short time I had a letter back from 
the king's constable, saying the job was mine if I still wanted it, and that I 
should report to take up the post of Royal Wizard in six weeks.
It took most of the six weeks to grow in my beard, and then I dyed it gray to 
make myself look older. Two days before leaving for my kingdom, I went down to 
the emporium to buy a suitable wardrobe.
Of course at the emporium they knew all about us young wizards from the wizards' 
school. They looked at us dubiously, took our money into the next room to make 
sure it stayed money even when we weren't there, and tended to count the items 
on the display racks in a rather conspicuous way. But I knew the manager of the 
clothing departmenthe'd even helped me once to pick out a Christmas present for 
my grandmother, which I think endeared me to him as much as to her.
2                         C. Dale Brittain
He was on the phone when I came in. "What do you mean, you won t take it back? 
But our buyer never ordered it!' While waiting for him, I picked out some black 
velvet trousers; just the thing, I thought, to give me a wizardly flair.
The manager slammed down the phone. "So what am I supposed to do with this?" he 
demanded of no one in particular. "This" was a shapeless red velvet pullover, 
with some rather tattered white fur at the neck. It might have been intended to 
be part of a Father Noel costume.
I was entranced. "I'll take it!"
"Are you sure? But what will you do with it?"
"I'm going to be a Royal Wizard. It will help me strike the right note of 
authority and mystery."
"Speaking of mystery, what's all the fuzzy stuff on your chin?'
I was proud of my beard, but since he gave me the pullover for almost nothing, I 
couldn't be irritated. When I left for my kingdom, I felt resplendent in velvet, 
red for blood and black for the powers of darkness.
It was only two hundred miles, and probably most of the young wizards would have 
flown themselves, but I insisted on the air cart. "I need to make the proper 
impression of grandeur when I arrive," I said. Besidesand they all knew it even 
though I didn't say itI wasn't sure I could fly that far.
The air cart was the skin of a purple beast that had been born flying. Long 
after the beast was dead, its skin continued to fly, and it could be guided by 
magic commands. It brought me steeply up from the wizards' complex at the center 
of the City,- and I looked back as the white city spires fell away. It had been 
a good eight years, but I felt ready for new challenges. We soared across 
plains, forests, and hills all the long afternoon, before finally banking 
steeply over what I had been calling "my" kingdom for the last six weeks.
A Bad Spell in Yurt                     3
From above, there scarcely seemed to be more to the kingdom than a castle, for 
beyond the castle walls there was barely room for the royal fields and pastures 
before thick green woods closed in. A bright garden lay just outside the castle 
walls, and pennants snapped from all the turrets. The air cart dipped, folded 
its wings, and set me down with a bump in the courtyard.
I looked around and loved it at once. It was a perfect child's toy of a castle, 
the stone walls freshly whitewashed and the green shutters newly painted. The 
courtyard was a combination of clean-swept cobbles, manicured flower beds, and 
tidy gravel paths. On the far side of the courtyard, a well-groomed horse put 
his head over a white half-door and whinnied at me.
A man and woman came toward me, both dressed in starched blue and white. 
"Welcome to the Kingdom of Yurt. I am the king's constable, and this is my 
wife." They both bowed deeply, which flustered me, but I covered it by striking 
a pose of dignity.
"Thank you," I said in my deepest voice. "I'm sure I will find much here to 
interest me." The air cart was twitching, eager to be flying again. "If you 
could just help me with my luggage"
The constable helped me unload the boxes, while his wife ran to open the door to 
my chambers. The door opened directly onto the courtyard. I had somehow expected 
either a tower or a dungeon and wondered if this was suitably dignified, but at 
least it meant we didn't have far to carry the boxes. They were heavy, too, and 
I had not had enough practice with the spell for lifting more than one heavy 
thing at a time to want to try it in front of an audience.
The air cart took off again as soon as it was empty. I watched it soar away, my 
last direct link with the City, then turned to start unpacking. Both the 
constable and his wife stayed with me, eager to talk. I was
4 ,                  C. Dale Brittain
just as eager to have them, because I wanted to find out more about Yurt.
"The kingdom's never had a wizard from the wizards' school before," said the 
constable. I was unpacking my certificate for completing the eight years' 
program. Although, naturally, it didn't say anything about honors or special 
merit or even areas of distinction, it really was impressive. That was why I had 
packed it on top. It was a magic certificate, of course, nearly six feet long 
when unrolled. My name, Daimbert, was written in letters of fire that flickered 
as you watched. Stars twinkled around the edges, and the deep blue and maroon 
flourishes turned to gold when you touched them. It came with its own spell to 
adhere to walls, so I hung it up in the outer of my two chambers, the one I 
would use as my study.
"Our old wizard's just retired," the constable continued. "He must be well past 
two hundred years old, and when he was young you had to serve an apprenticeship 
to become a wizard. They didn't have all the training you have now."
I ostentatiously opened my first box of books.
"He's moved down to a little house at the edge of the forest. That's why we had 
to hire a new wizard. I'm sure he'd be delighted to meet you if you ever had 
time to visit him.'
"Oh, good," I thought with more relief than was easy to admit, even to myself. 
"Someone who may actually know some magic if I get into trouble."
I took my books out one by one and arranged them on the shelves: the Ancient and 
Modem Necromancy, all five volumes of Thaumaturgy A to Z, the Index to Spell Key 
Words, and the rest, most barely thumbed. As I tried to decide whether to- put 
the Elements of Transmogrification next to Basic Metamorphosis, which would make 
sense thematically but not aesthetically, since they were such different sizes, 
I thought I should have plenty of quiet evenings here, away from
A Bad Spell in Yurt                    5
the distractions of the City, and might even get a chance to read them. If I had 
done more than skim those two volumes, I might have avoided all that 
embarrassment with the frogs in the practical exam.
"You'll meet the king this evening, out he's authorized me to tell you some of 
our hopes. We've never had a telephone system, but now that you're here we're 
sure we'll be able to get one."
I was flabbergasted. In the City telephones were so common that you tended to 
forget how complicated was the magic by which they ran. It was new magic, too, 
not more than forty years old, something that Yurt's old wizard would never have 
learned but which was indeed taught at the wizards' school. How was I going to 
explain I had managed to avoid that whole sequence of courses?
He saw my hesitation. "We realize we're rather remote, and that the magic is not 
easy. No one is expecting anything for at least a few weeks. But everyone was so 
excited when you answered our ad! We'd been afraid we might have to settle for a 
magician, but instead we have a fully trained and qualified wizard!"
"Don't worry the boy with his duties so soon," the constable's wife said to him, 
but smiling as she scolded. "He'll have plenty of time to get started tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! A few weeks!" I thought, but had the sense not to say anything. I 
didn't even have the right books. If I did nothing else, I might be able to 
derive the proper magic from basic principles in four or five years. I was too 
upset even to resent being called "the boy"so much for the gray beard!
"We'll leave you alone now," said the constable. "But dinner's in an hour, and 
then you can meet some of the rest."
I had seen faces peeping out of windows as we went back and forth with the 
luggage, but no one else had come to meet me. While I unpacked my clothes, I
6                          C. Dale Brittain
tried gloomily to think of plausible excuses why Yurt could not possibly have a 
telephone system. Nearby anti-telephonic demonic influences and the importance 
of maintaining a rustic, unspoiled lifestyle seemed the most promising.
II
Dinner was formal. Freshly washed and brushed but still wearing my red and black 
velvet, I was led by the constable out across the courtyard and to the castle's 
great hall. On the way out, I stopped to put a magic lock on the door to my 
chambers, a lock that would recognize only my own palm print. It took me only a 
second, even though it's fairly complex magic; I had needed it on more than one 
occasion in the City, living among an unruly group of other wizardry students. 
The constable was impressed, as I knew he would be; that's why I had waited to 
do it until he came back.
We walked under a tall archway, through studded doors that looked as though they 
stood permanently open in the summer, into a hall whose high roof was four 
stories above us. The walls were hung with brightly colored pennants, and a 
cheerful fire burned in the great fireplace at the opposite end, in spite of the 
warmth of a summer evening. The room was well-lit by a series of suspended 
globes. I peeked at them surreptitiously as we advanced across the flagstones, 
and my opinion of my predecessor went up; I didn't think I could make magic 
lamps that burned so well.
A group of people waited at the far end of the hall, made to seem almost 
insignificant by the height of the room. Their talking faded away as we 
approached. My attention went of course to the throne, pulled close to the fire, 
where a stoop-shouldered, white-haired man watched me coming with surprisingly 
sharp eyes. The
A Bad Spell in Yurt                     7
velvet of his ermine-decorated robes was even more brilliantly red than my 
pullover.
"His majesty, King Haimeric of Yurt!" announced the constable. "Sire, I wish to 
present the new Royal Wizard."
I did the full bow in the proper stages, first the dipping of the head, then the 
wide-spreading of the arms, then the drop to both knees with my head still 
lowered. They had taught us etiquette in the first few weeks after we arrived at 
the wizards' school, while I was still attending all classes.
"Rise, Wizard, and advance to the throne." The voice was thin and quavery, but 
the eyes regarded me shrewdly as I lifted my head. I came toward him, holding 
out my hands palm up. He placed his hands on top of mine; they were dry and so 
light I almost didn't feel them. "Welcome to Yurt."
This seemed to end the more ceremonial part of the introductions. The constable 
now came forward and began introducing the rest of the party. There were a 
number of knights and ladies and two boys. The queen, it turned out, was not 
there, having gone to visit her parents. "I wonder how old they can De!" I 
thought.
The most important person there, after the king, was Dominic, the king's nephew 
and, I presumed, the royal heir. He didn't look like someone you'd want for an 
enemy. His golden hair had gone sandy with the first streaks of gray, and his 
doubtless once heavily muscled body was pushing out his tunic in places where 
muscle didn't grow. But there was a hard look about the eyes and a twist to the 
lips that made me glad he didn't seem to resent me.
After Dominic came an assortment of other knights, ladies, and more distant 
royal relatives, none of whose names I caught. The boys, it seemed, were there 
to be trained in knighthood. I did the formal half-bow to each of the men and 
the full bow to the ladies. "He
8
C. Dale Brittain
looks, so ... young!" I heard one of the ladies whispering to another. She was 
very young herself, but I feared it was not a compliment.
Last came the chaplain. Even though he was young, probably no older than me, he 
had a maturity about him that made my own one-inch beard seem rather trivial. He 
had a gaunt face, enormous black eyes, and a mouth that looked as though it 
rarely smiled. In short, he looked like a good chaplain should look.
I wrung his hand with enthusiasm. His was the only hand that was offered for me 
to shake. His responding squeeze was both stronger than I had expected and much 
stronger than my own. "I'm delighted to meet you," I said, and meant it. 
Calculating quickly, I decided he was the only person in the court I would be 
able to talk to, really talk to, about interesting topics. I was used to a 
social life in the City and had no intention of spending every evening with my 
books if I could help it. Priests and wizards traditionally do not have cordial 
relationships, but I never let something like that stop me. "I hope we can 
become closest friends."
He looked a little taken aback, which I thought of as a good sign; at least he 
was paying attention to me. But he only said gravely, "I hope so. I regret that 
I never enjoyed a particularly amiable friendship with your predecessor.
While I was being introduced, servants in blue and white livery had been setting 
up the two long tables. The king now rose from his throne, leaned on Dominic's 
arm, and led the rest of us to dinner. As he reached the table, a brass quartet, 
on a balcony above us, began to play. I thoroughly approved. Several of the 
other young wizards had left to take their posts at about the same time as I, 
and although all of them had bigger kingdoms, I was sure none was as charming.
The king's party, consisting of his relatives, the other knights and ladies, the 
chaplain, and me, sat at
A Bad Spell in Yurt
9
one table, with the king at our head, while the constable and his wife took the 
head and foot of the other table. The brass quartet changed to a different, even 
livelier, tune, and through the arch at the far end of the hall came more 
servants in procession, carrying huge steaming platters. They served the king a 
portion from each, placed the platters on the table, and stood back. He took a 
bite of the fowl, looked up, and nodded. The music came to a close with an 
abrupt flourish, the servants all rushed, smiling, to sit down at the 
constable's table, and in a moment the trumpeters joined us, laughing and wiping 
off their instruments. The platters were passed up and down. I took much bigger 
helpings than anyone else.
Conversation at our table tended to be rather refined, but at the other table 
the constable and his wife, the servants, and the trumpeters were talking and 
joking. I tried to keep my attention both on my neighbors at table and on what 
the servants were saying. They were talking about the day's events, work done, 
fields almost ready for haying, news from the forest, gossip about someone they 
all knew who had been away but might be back soon. It was insider conversation, 
where each only had to make a passing reference to something before the others 
all knew what he or she meant. I wondered how soon it would be before I too knew 
without even thinking what they were talking about. This was, after all, my 
kingdom.
At my own table, of course, everyone was well-schoolea in manners and was 
explaining things for the benefit of the outsider, me. "One becomes so aware of 
the agricultural cycle out here,' the lady at my right was saying. I dragged my 
attention back to her from a pretty servant girl at the next table who had given 
me a saucy look over her shoulder, while chewing enthusiastically on a 
drumstick. Wizards, like priests, never marry, but unlike priests we're allowed 
to look at girls.
10
C. Dale Brittain
"All our food, or almost all, is produced right on the castle estates. At this 
time of year they're winnowing the cockerels out of the young fowl, so we'll 
have chicken very regularly. I hope you don't miss the greater choice of the 
City."
"Well, this is delicious," I answered, wiping my lips and wondering if I could 
reach the platter or if I would have to interrupt Dominic in his conversation 
with the lady on his far side to get him to pass it.
"I spent three seasons in the City myself when I was younger, much younger."
"Then you must have been an infant," I said gallantly. I slid my hand 
nonchalantly to the left along the table, calculating the distance. I guessed 
her as perhaps half again my age, in spite of the big pink ribbons with which 
her braids were looped and the myriad flowers and flourishes of lace on her 
gown.
"On, no," she said with a tinkling laugh. "I'm so much older and wiser than you 
might think. I may have kept my youthful looks, but they conceal a wealth of 
experience. You may not realize it, but it can be a serious disadvantage to 
still have golden curls when one has passed twenty summers. It's so hard to be 
taken seriously!"
Although my curls were not golden, I actually realized it quite well, having the 
same problemexcept that I didn't have the wealth of experience either. 
Dominic's wine glass was unfortunately placed; I was afraid I'd catch it with my 
elbow. I wondered if I dared use a lifting spell on the platter.
"Go ahead, see if you can guess my age," she continued. I was tired of this 
topic, but she was just wanning to it. "Come on, everybody, guess!"
"Twenty-five?" I said judiciously.
"My goodness, you're getting close, but you're still too low." She laughed 
again. "Anyone else?" looking around the table.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
11
Dominic looked toward us. "Pass the chicken, please," I said quickly.
The chaplain, sitting across the table from me, had been following our 
conversation in silence. "Forty-eight," he said, just as everyone else had 
stopped talking.
My companion blushed up to the roots of her hair (if she dyed her hair, she was 
careful; the roots were as golden as the rest). The chaplain resumed eating, 
and, after a brief embarrassed pause, so did everyone else. I reloaded my plate 
with more clattering of spoons than was strictly necessary.
"'While you were in the City," I said, "did you ever go on the tour of the 
wizards' school? Did they show you the dragon in the basement?"
Conversation resumed around us. I glanced over again at the chaplain. I was 
afraid he didn't have a sense of humor, which could be a problem for him if he 
was going to be friends with me, but on the other hand he didn't seem to have 
any tact either, which could have advantages.
I don't know why I kept expecting Dominic to be my enemy, but the burly royal 
heir was trying to be friendly. "There's a story we ve heard even out here," he 
said, "that if you go far enough north, thousands and thousands of miles, you 
come to a land that's nothing but dragons and other magic creatures. Is this 
true? A wizard came through once, to visit our old wizard, and he said he'd been 
there."
"Oh, it's real enough," I said. "The magic is wild up there." Other people were 
turning toward us, and I was enjoying the audience. "It's the same magic we use, 
because it too grows out of the power that shaped the earth." I caught the 
chaplain's eye across the table and winked. He made no response.
"But the magic there is more primitive," I continued, "not formed into the deep 
channels that generations of wizards have made for it down here. It's a
12
C. Dale Brittain
land of dragons, of giants, of unspeakable monsters. The air cart you saw me 
arrive in today"I knew some of them must have been peeping at me from the 
windows"is the skin of a beast from the land of dragons. Anything could happen 
there; it can be a highly dangerous place, even for those most experienced in 
wizardry.
"Have you been there yourself?"
I had been hoping Dominic wouldn't ask that. Of course I hadn't been there. 
There had been a field trip from the wizards' school, but only the best students 
were invited to go.
"I am not yet worthy of the voyage," I said in what I hoped would be a 
mysterious voice. Surprisingly, the chaplain sat up straighter and fixed me with 
nis enormous eyes at that. Several ladies further down the table smiled as 
though they saw right through me. "Has your old wizard ever been?" I said 
disingenuously, knowing the answer from what Dominic had said but wanting to 
make it clear that I at any rate had company.
"Not mat he ever told us," said the lady on my right, but much more uncertainly 
than I had expected. Several things several people had said about the old wizard 
made him seem like a more distant and more shadowy figure than someone should be 
who had lived in the court for years, and even now, apparently, lived just 
outside the castle. I was both going to have to work on my own aura of shadowy 
mystery and visit him.
There was a clearing of a throat at the upper end of the table. Everyone fell 
silent at once. ' Wizard!" said the king. "How are you finding Yurt? Do we have 
company to make up for the pleasures of the City?"
The chaplain might have said "No." I instead answered only the first but not the 
second question. "I like it very much!" I said with perfect honesty.
"But already you're worrying that the evenings will
A Bad Spell in Yurt
13
be quiet," said the King with a smile. How had he known that? "This will be an 
incentive for you to work on our telephone system, so you can talk to your 
friends again."
The disadvantage to studying wizardry, instead of religion, is that you don't 
learn good curses. Everything you learn is in the powerful language of magic and 
will have an effect if you say it, even if the effect is not the intended one. I 
really didn't want to propel King Haimeric and his talk of telephones across the 
hall and into the fire, so I couldn't even think it. "The constable's already 
mentioned that to me!" I said with cheerful noncommittal. If I already had a 
telephone, maybe I could call up some of my teachers, the ones who still liked 
me even at the end, and ask them how to put one in. But this line of thinking 
clearly was not going to get me anywhere. "Do the neighboring kingdoms already 
have their systems?"
' Ours will be the first in the region," said the king proudly.
Ill
Dessert came at that point, providing a welcome distraction. A few minutes 
later, the king rose, and everyone rose with him. He left the hall, again on 
Dominic's arm, presumably bound for bed. Some people stood talking, and others 
started to disperse. I touched the chaplain on the shoulder. "Would you like to 
go to my chambers for a last glass of wine?"
He looked slightly surprised but nodded, and we walked together back out into 
the cobbled courtyard. The long summer evening was still lingering, and the air 
was Hke a caress on the skin. My magic lock was glowing softly. I pressed with 
my palm to open the door, men threw the casements open to let in the air.
The chaplain took a seat by the window, eyeing my
14
C. Dale Brittain
diploma and books. I opened one of the bottles of wine I had brought with me. 
Tomorrow I would have to ask the constable about getting some of the local wine 
for my chambers; it was better than what I had been able to afford in the City 
on a student stipend.
"You seemed surprised that I asked you in," I said as I handed him a glass. "Why 
was that? Were you and the old wizard enemies?" I knew at least that he would 
give me a direct answer.
"No, not enemies," and he held the glass up to the light. "I trust this isn't 
magic wine," he said and smiled for the first time since I'd met him. He took a 
sip without waiting for the answer to what was obviously meant to be a joke. 
"But your predecessor resented religion. I don't know whether he thought there 
shouldn't be a court chaplain at all, or whether he thought that the fact that 
religion demands a higher standard of human behavior than does magic put nim at 
a disadvantage. I have only been here three years myself, and clearly something 
happened between the old wizard and my own predecessor. I have never heard what 
it was; I had too much Christian tact to ask."
"You didn't have too much Christian tact to guess the lady's age tonight!" I 
said with a laugh. If he could make a joke, so could I.
"The Lady Maria?" He considered for a moment. "Maybe it wasn't tactful at that." 
I began to wonder if he would be as good a person to talk to as I had hoped.
'Did the old wizard have these same chambers?" I said to change the subject.
"These chambers? No. In fact, I was rather surprised when I heard the constable 
was putting you here. The queen's old nurse lived here until she died last year; 
the rooms were then shut up until last week. The old wizard had his chambers in 
the north tower.'
I knew it. They weren't taking me seriously. I could
A Bad Spell in Yurt
15 the
be ten times more powerful and mysterious m north tower than in the old nurse's 
chambers!
As though reading my thoughts and wanting to contradict them, the chaplain said, 
"Everyone was enormously impressed when a wizard trained in the great school 
answered the constable's ad. The queen started talking at once about a telephone 
system."
"Why a telephone, in the name of the saints?" I cried, using an exclamation I 
trusted he would understand.
He lifted his eyebrows at me. "The queen has found telephones extremely 
convenient the times she has been in the City. She thought that if we had a 
system here, she could phone here and talk to the king wherever she is, in the 
City or visiting her parents, rather than having to rely on carrier pigeons.'
The queen was clearly an important presence here in Yurt. I wondered if she 
could possibly be as old and bent as the king, and, since she seemed to take 
frequent trips, when she would be returning.
The chaplain hesitated for a moment before speaking again, taking unnecessarily 
long over a sip of wine. It was probably Christian tact failing again to control 
his words. "I don't like this talk of telephones," he said brusquely.
"Neither do I," I said cheerfully, but he didn't hear
me.
"The queen herself tried to persuade me that it's only white magic, that it 
involves no dealings with the devil, but I can't be sure. There must be black 
magic in being able to hear someone else's voice over hundreds of miles."
Since it could have been pink or purple magic for all I knew about telephones, I 
responded to a different aspect of his comment. "If you had been more friendly 
with my predecessor, surely he would have persuaded you there s no such thing as 
either white magic or black magic. That's only a popular perception. Didn't
16
C. Dale Brittain
they teach you that at seminary? Magic is neither good or evil in itself, only 
natural, part of the same forces as the world and mankind. The only good or evil 
is in the people who practice it."
"And you don't practice magic with evil intent?"
"Of course not," I said self-righteously. A few student pranks hardly counted.
"Then why do you have a well-thumbed copy of the Diplomatica Diabolica if you 
don't converse with demons?"
He was looking at my shelf. The volume's spine was cracked; it did look 
well-thumbed. But that was from the time I had been reading it late at night, 
the night before the demonstration, and had become so terrified I had slammed it 
shut and it had fallen on the floor. That book gave me the willies.
"One prefers not to talk with demons," I said. It didn't seem appropriate 
somehow to tell him about that demonstration, about how two other wizards were 
there to help our instructor if they had to, and how when a very tiny demon, 
maybe a foot tall, had appeared in the pentagram, the room had gone totally dark 
and some of the students (not me!) had fainted in fear. "But one meets them 
occasionally," I continued airily, "and if one does one had better know exactly 
what to say and how to say it. Otherwise, as you know yourself, one's immortal 
soul is in danger."
"But why practice magic at all?" he cried, his black eyes burning. "You put your 
souls in danger, and for what? Your predecessor used to entertain us with 
illusions during dessert, but that's the only magic I ever saw him do."
Illusions! Clearly I was falling down already. It hadn't even occurred to me to 
produce special entertainment at dinner; I had enjoyed the brass quartet and the 
food too much to think anything else was needed.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
17
"There's lots of magic besides illusions," I said. "You saw the magic lock I 
have on my door."
"My door locks with a key. It works just as well."
He had emptied his wine glass and was spinning it in his fingers. I said two 
quick words in the Hidden Language and the glass spun away from him, rose 
majestically, and slid across the air to my own hand. I refilled it and sent it 
sliding back without spilling a drop.
He had to smile at that. "Very deft," he said. "But you could also have gotten 
up."
"But wizards have known about magic since the beginning of human history," I 
protested, feeling that I was not the person who should be having this 
discussion. I was also rapidly running low on the spells- that I knew always 
worked. "You can't turn away from knowledge." He opened his mouth to speak, and 
I knew he was going to say something about Eden and the Tree of Knowledge. One 
thing they taught these priests in seminary was how to have quick answers to 
everything. "And magic works!"
"Every single time? You've never had a spell that didn't work perfectly?"
Maybe they taught them to read minds too at seminary. "Well, r. lybe just once, 
or twice, or a few times . . .' But I realized that, if I was going to have him 
for a friend, I was going to have to be honest. "Don't tell anyone else, but a 
lot of the time things don't work out exactly as I expected. But that's not a 
problem with magic. That's a problem with me. If you do it right, magic always 
works."
"You're implying religion doesn't?"
"You know it doesn't!" I protested. "Lots of people pray to the saints all the 
time and never get anywhere, whereas if they consulted a competent wizard they'd 
always get results."
"The saints don't listen to formulae. The saints listen to pure and contrite 
hearts. You spoke at dinner
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C. Dale Brittain
of a voyage you thought you were not yet worthy to take. Doesn't even magic make 
absolute demands on your mind and your soul?"
I felt I was being backed into a corner instead of sitting comfortably in my own 
study in my own kingdom, with the stars coming out through the window. "So what 
would you do if you met a demon and you didn't know how to speak to him? Have 
you ever had to do an exorcism?" I paused briefly before continuing, taking his 
silence as a negative answer. "You can't very well practice and study ahead of 
time to make sure you have a pure and contrite heart when the time comes. 
Suppose you meet a demon and you've had an impure thought a few minutes ago and, 
never having studied the Diplomatica, don't know the words to say to keep the 
demon from being annoyed?"
"We have the liturgy and the ritual of exorcism."
"See?" I said triumphantly. "You have to learn magic words too, even if you 
don't call them that."
He changed the topic abruptly away from demons. I was just as glad. I didn't 
like talking about demons with it now full dark, even though one of my 
predecessor's excellent magic globes was shedding a soft light in the roomI 
hoped the chaplain didn't consider that an illusion.
"You say that magic always works," he said. "But they must have taught you at 
the very beginning of your studies that there are only limited areas in which 
magic works at all." For someone who claimed to have no Knowledge of or interest 
in magic, he seemed to be able to guess remarkably well. "Since magic is part of 
the earth's natural forces, it can modify them but never alter them 
irrevocably."
I nodded ruefully. "The cycle of birth and death, sickness and health. We can 
lengthen life, but not indefinitely. We can't cause someone to be born, and we 
can't bring them back when they're dead."
He smiled for the third time that evening. "For
A Bad Spell in Yurt
19
twinkling lights and fairy gold, see a wizard. For a miracle, see a priest." 
That must be something else they had taught them at seminary, a handy phrase to 
confound wizards.
"Would you like more wine?" I stood up this time to get his glass.
IV
Bells were ringing out in the courtyard. Snuggled down ii, my pillows, I opened 
one eye. Early morning light was coming in the window, too early, I decided, to 
make it worth thinking about yet. I closed the eye again.
My door handle rattled, then the door swung open. I wished again for a good 
curse to use, this time against myself. I remembered now forgetting to lock the 
door when I let the chaplain out, well past midnight. I sat up straight, both 
eyes wide open.
I was, however, somewhat mollified when I saw it was the pretty servant girl who 
had given me a saucy look at dinner the night before, and that she was carrying 
a steaming tray. "Good morning, sir. Are you ready for your tea and crullers?"
I pulled on my robe and tried to push my hair into line with one hand.
She set the tray on my table. "The crullers are still warm; I just finished 
making them."
I took a drink of scalding tea and a bite of cruller. They were just the way I 
liked them, with lots of cinnamon. "These are wonderful."
"Thank you, sir. As well as bringing you your breakfast, the constable's wife 
said I should explain to you how to get to the chapel for service. You go back 
through the great hall"
"Church service!" I cried. "That's why they're ringing the bells. I'm going to 
be late."
20
C. Dale Brittain
A Bad Spell in Yurt
21
"You have plenty of time. They always ring the bells half an hour early, to give 
slack-a-beds time to get up and dressed."
"I forgot it was Sunday," I said somewhat sheepishly.
"We nave service in the chapel every morning," she said primly. "Anyway, you go 
through the great hall, and at the far right-hand corner there's a door into a 
stairway. Go up to the third landing, and there's the chapel. You shouldn't get 
lost; just about everyone else should be going there too." But though she spoke 
formally and correctly, as a servant should address even someone who was fully 
dressed and combed, she gave me a wink as she left me to finish my breakfast and 
get dressed.
Twenty minutes later, dressed and reasonably tidy, though I was still licking 
crumbs from my lips, I walked through the great nail and joined a large group of 
people going upstairs. The stairs were dark and badly fitno magic globes 
hereso it was with surprise and pleasure that I emerged into a very tall 
chapel, whose walls were made almost entirely of stained glass. The eastern 
light illuminated the Bible stories and the saints, and blue and green shadows 
were cast across us.
The chaplain was already at the front. The white and black linen of his 
vestments was immaculate. He looked sober and shaved, not at all like someone 
still feeling shaggy from being up half the night. And he had not even had the 
benefit of excellent fresh-made crullers; priests are not supposed to have 
breakfast before service.
The king was already seated in the first row, surrounded by his knights and 
ladies, but I sat down with the servants and attendants. They kindly passed me a 
copy of the hymnal and gave me no odd looks when I didn't know the tune and 
discovered that my ability to sight-read music was even worse than I remembered. 
Everyone else's singing, however, was lovely.
As the service ended, I wondered why they had assumed that I would go, and if my 
predecessor had ever come to chapel.
The constable fell into step beside me as we filed out. He asked, "So how are 
you finding Yurt so far?"
"I like it very much. I'll have to see how well I can do once I really take up 
my duties; so far I've been a guest on vacation." This was to forestall any 
remarks about telephone systems.
We groped our way down the stairs, our eyes almost blind after the brilliance of 
the chapel's colored light. He cht. jkled and said over his shoulder, "Maybe you 
could get some lights put in here. Your predecessor made our lights for the 
great hall, but he never wanted anything to do with the chapel. The roof here is 
too low to hang regular lamps, so we've always had to stumble as best we could."
Magic lights were something I was fairly sure I could make, though it might be 
tricky making them bright enough while also making them small enough to fit in 
the restricted space. "I'll try to manage something in the next few days," I 
said cheerfully.
We emerged at the bottom of the stairs. "I must say," said the constable in a 
low voice, "that I was delighted to see you inviting the chaplain to your 
chambers last night." He glanced about quickly to make sure we were not 
overheard. "I hadnt wanted to say anything at first, but there had been a 
certain . . . tension between him and your predecessor, and when we hired a new 
wizard one of the things I had been hoping was that that might be resolved. Your 
predecessor really was an excellent wizard, and I wouldn't want to be thought to 
speak ill of him, but in a small kingdom one doesn't need these petty enmities. 
That's why I knew you wouldn't mind being brought breakfast in plenty of time to 
get to service.
"Of course not," I said noncommittally. I really was going to have to meet the 
old wizard.
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C. Dale Brittain
The constable started to turn away. "Oh, just one thing," I said, and he turned 
back at once. "Where do you get the Sunday paper around here?"
He looked surprised. "We don't get the Sunday paper. We don't get papers at all 
in Yurt."
'But your ad for a wizard was in the Sunday paper."
"Yes, that. The queen had brought a cop> back from her last trip to the City, so 
we had the address to which to write. Now, if you'll excuse me."
He walked briskly away. "Well," I said determinedly to myself, "if I'm not going 
to waste half the morning reading the color supplements, maybe I can see if 
there's anything in any of my books about telephones."
With my casements wide open, and red and white climbing roses peeking in, I 
settled myself in the most comfortable chair in my study and put my feet up. 
Thaumaturgy A to Z had nothing to offer, but the first volume of Ancient and 
Modern Necromancy, the volume I had never looked at because most of it was just 
a history of wizards and wizardry, gave a brief description of the discovery of 
telephones. "The person's voice actually enters the flow of magic. The spells 
attached to each telephone find the voice's way through magic's four dimensions, 
so that even a person without magic skills can operate it. All he has to do is 
to speak the name attached to the telephone instrument with which he wishes to 
communicate, and that instrument's bell will ring, summoning someone to answer."
Well, I had vaguely known that already. The part this historical snippet seemed 
to pass over was now one created spells and attached them to the telephone, to 
localize the instrument in both space and time, and then set up the permanent 
channels through the flow of magic for the voice to travel. I closed the book 
and would have frowned if the summer breeze hadn't been so soft on my cheek.
Clearly I was going to have to try something differ-
A Bad Spell in Yurt
23
ent. The thought of going back to the City and stealing an instrument occurred 
to me briefly, but it would never work. The instrument would have to have all 
its spells redone or it wouldn't function. The times I had seen a new telephone 
installed, it had always seemed to take several days and require several 
wizardsusually of the serious, pale-faced sort with whom I had not associated 
much at school. A kingdom didn't hire a new Royal Wizard and then pay enormous 
sums to import other wizards who might know more than he did about telephones.
I stood up and yawned. Maybe Yurt didn't need a complete telephone system. Maybe 
it would be possible just to work out a way to communicate with the City and 
with wherever the queen's parents lived. I stopped in mid-yawn and thought about 
this. It seemed to have possibilities.
I found a piece of string that had been used to tie up my luggage and strung it 
between my bedroom and study. I already knew how to communicate, without 
speaking, to another wizard, at least if he was next to me ana willing to listen 
to the thoughts I sent him. Therefore it should be possible to attach a 
communications spell to a string. An object with a spell attached became a magic 
object, and anyone could operate it.
"It's like invisibility," I said to myself cheerfully. A ring of invisibility 
will always work, even though invisibility is one of the harder spells. For some 
reason, even though it is straightforward to make the empty air take on solidity 
in illusions, it is very hard to make solidity look empty. There is probably a 
good theoretical explanation, but I have never paid much attention to theory, 
preferring the practical.
I paused to see how well I could make myself invisible. I had been working on 
the spells intermittently for almost a year now. Concentrating hard, breaking 
off pieces of the flow of magic and controlling them with the Hidden Language, I 
watched my feet disap-
24
C. Dale Brittain
pear, first the left one, then the right one. At this point, however, things 
stopped. My knees remained obstinately visible. I snapped my fingers in disgust 
and my feet came back. Just last week I had made it almost all the way up my 
thighs.
"But I'm not trying to make a ring of invisibility anyway," I told myself 
firmly. "I'm making a communications string." I put both hands on the string and 
concentrated on it, thinking of how one reaches out, slides just the corner of 
one's mind into the stream of magic while leaving most of it firmly anchored to 
one's body (one of the most dangerous moments for young wizards is discovering 
how to slip one's mind out without losing oneself forever). I alternated the 
spells that seek another mind with attachment spells, and suddenly the string 
stiffened and glowed pink.
I rushed out into the courtyard. Since it was Sunday, the servants were only 
doing necessary chores, and a number of them were now playing volleyball while 
the others watched and cheered. I found my own saucy servant girl, flushed and 
laughing after having just been replaced at the net.
"Come on," I said, "I need your help with a magic spell."
She looked over her shoulder at the others, said, "I'll be back in just a 
minute!" and came with me, straightening her skirt. "What sort of magic spell? 
You're not going to turn me into a frog or anything!"
Ever since that practical exam, I had tried to avoid mention of things being 
turned into frogs, but she wouldn't know that. "No," I said, "I think I've 
invented a new kind of telephone, and I want to test it."
In my chambers, I stationed her in the study, at one end of the string, and went 
into the bedroom. "You listen," I said, "and see if you can hear me." Then, with 
my mouth close to the other end of the
A Bad Spell in Yurt
25 rs of earth
string, I said in my deepest voice, "All powe and air must obey the spells of 
wizardry."
To my surprise, she burst into peals of laughter. "You're the funniest person 
I've ever met!" she said when she had caught her breath. "Are you sure you're 
really a wizard?"
"Did it work?" I said with irritation. "Could you hear me?"
"Of course I could hear you. You were only standing ten feet away! All powers of 
earth and air!" Still laughing, she went back out to rejoin the game.
I looked at my piece of string in disgust. It was still glowing. I snapped my 
fingers and said the words to break the spell, but nothing happened. I seemed to 
have a piece of string permanently able to convey words over the same distance 
one could hear them anyway.
"Except that it may not even do that," I thought. "All I know for sure is that 
it's pink now." Besides, the more I thought about it, the more strings seemed 
like an impractical idea. One couldn't run a string two hundred miles to the 
City. It was with relief that I heard the gong for dinner.
My good humor was restored by another excellent meal. At the end, King Haimeric 
said, "Come with me. I want to show you my rose garden."
He walked on his nephew's arm out of the great hall, through the courtyard, and 
out through the great gates of the castle. Since I had arrived in the courtyard 
by air cart, I had not before been through the gates. The portcullis was up and 
looked as though it had not been lowered for years. Swans were swimming 
peacefully in the moat.
A red brick road ran down the hill from the castle gates toward the forest 
below. Next to the road was a walled garden, with roses creeping over the tops 
of
26
C. Dale Brittain
the walls. Dominic swung the barred gate open, and we went in.
I had thought the roses in the castle courtyard were good, but these were 
spectacular. "You can leave us, Dominic," said the king. "I'm sure this young 
man can see me back safely."
His burly nephew gave me a slightly sour look, but left. The king seated himself 
on a bench while I wandered up and down the rows, admiring the different colors, 
the enormous blooms, the vibrant green of the foliage.
"I m too stiff to work on them much anymore, but I planted every bush you see," 
said the king. "Most ofthem are hybrids I developed myself, though I've also 
picked up a few cuttings over the years. The newest one is that white bush; I 
planted it the day I married the queen."
It was smaller than the other bushes but growing vigorously. The white blooms 
faded to pink in the shadows of the petals. When I bent to smell it, the 
sweetness was almost overwhelming.
"I'm looking forward to meeting the queen," I said, realizing that she must be 
substantially younger than the king and wondering why I had ever thought 
otherwise.
"I've been king of Yurt a long, long time. It's been a good run of years, but in 
many ways the last four years have been the best, even though I can't crawl 
around with a trowel anymore."
So they'd only been married four years. I had to readjust several of my 
assumptions. It seemed most likely that the king had found a pliant young 
princess to marry, someone to adore him and do his bidding and fulfill the 
adolescent fantasies he had never been able to fulfill in his years in the rose 
garden. The only difficulty with this picture was that it was hard to see the 
king as the old goat. "You may think me silly," I said, "but when I heard the 
queen was visiting her
A Bad Spell in Yurt
27
parents, I'd somehow thought of them as extremely old."
"Old?" he said and smiled. "No, they're not old. The Lady Maria, who lives here 
with us, is the sister of the queen's father. And you know from a remark at 
table last night how old she is." He laughed. "Give meyour arm; I want to look 
across my kingdom."
Though he needed my help to rise, he walked unaided back out of the walled 
garden. I swung the gate back into place, and we stood looking down the hill 
toward the plowed fields and the variegated green of the woods beyond.
He stood without speaking for several minutes. Somewhere down there, I thought, 
was the old wizard. I was startled out of conjectures about him when the king 
said suddenly, "Can you transport me by magic?"
"Transport you?" I said with some alarm. This was worse than telephones.
"Lift me off the ground so I don't have to walk. I've always wanted to try it."
"I think so," I said, and "I hope so," I thought. "Lifting spells become more 
difficult the larger the object one is lifting," I explained. I didn't tell him 
that he was a lot larger than a wine glass. Inwardly I was wondering how, if I 
hadn't been sure I could magically pick up a heavy box or an awkwardly placed 
platter of meat, I was going to manage my liege lord. "We'll take it slowly. Ill 
just lift you a little way, and I'll walk right next to you so you can take my 
arm if you're feeling unsteady. Or," I added silently, "if I start to drop you."
The king, I decided as I started pulling the spells together in my mind, was 
actually not much heavier than a box of books. He stood looking at me with a 
faint smile as I concentrated, feeling my way into the magic, making sure each 
word of the Hidden Language was right. Slowly and gracefully, as though he
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C. Dale Brittain
were thistledown blown by the wind, he rose four inches, so that his toes just 
brushed the grass.
We started toward the castle gates. I walked immediately next to him, just 
barely not touching him. Fortunately he was silent and let me concentrate. When 
we reached the drawbridge I had a sudden panic, picturing myself dropping him 
into the moat, and with my wavering in concentration he started to slip. I found 
the words just in time to set him down as gently as he had been lifted up.
We walked together across the bridge and under the portcullis. Dominic was 
waiting for us just inside. "That was extremely enjoyable," said the king. 
"Could you teach me to do that myself? Not today, but soon?"
This earned him an odd look from Dominic, who had no idea what we were talking 
about. "I've never taught anyone," I said honestly, "but I could try."
Back in my chambers, I spent the rest of the afternoon practicing lifting 
things.
V
After two days of loving my kingdom, I woke up the next morning hating it. Bells 
awakened me again. When I lifted my head I could hear hard rain on the 
cobblestones outside. The windows were streaked with water. My door handle 
rattled and didn't open, since I had remembered to lock it last night, but there 
was immediately a loud and persistent knocking.
When I opened the door, the servant maid stood there, trying without great 
success to shield both herself and a tray with an umbrella. I took the tray and 
half pulled her inside. "You're going to get soaked!" I said.
Her umbrella streamed water on my clean flagstone floor. My tea seemed to have 
been diluted with rain, and the napkin on the basket was damp. When I
A Bad Spell in Yurt
29
pulled back the napkin, I found not crullers but cake donuts, which I don't like 
nearly as well. They weren't even warm.
"I just wanted to make sure you were up in time for chapel," she said without a 
smile or any sign of friendliness. She put the umbrella back up and started out 
again.
"Thank you very much!" I said quickly, wondering if everyone went to chapel 
every single day. "You know, I don't even know your name."
"Gwen, sir," she said and was gone. I wondered as I ate if she didn't want to 
associate with someone as foolish as I must have seemed after the incident with 
the string. The donuts tasted as though they had been made several days before.
My mood was not improved when I banged my head on the dark stair going up to the 
chapel and then found, when I reached the top, that the king and the chaplain 
were the only other two people there. I rubbed my head surreptitiously all 
during service. At the end, I offered the king my arm, but he shook his head.
"A prerogative of being king is that I don't have to use those stairs." A small 
door which I should have noticed before opened halfway down the inner wall of 
the chapel, presumably into the royal chambers. He went through it and left me 
alone with the chaplain.
The chaplain fixed me with his dark eyes. ' Don't think I don't welcome you in 
the chapel," he said. "But don't come because you think you have to. I hold 
service every morning for anyone who needs spiritual refreshment, and the king 
usually comes, but the rest of the castle mostly come on Sunday." He turned away 
without waiting for a response.
"In that case," I thought, "maybe I can start sleeping later." I would have to 
tell Gwen, if she was still speaking to me. I wished I could talk to some of my 
friends at the wizards' school. The chaplain still
30
C. Dale Brittain
seemed like the only person at the castle I could hold a conversation with, and 
at the moment he was to me profoundly strange and distant.
"There's incentive for me," I thought bitterly, groping back down the stairs. 
"All I need to do to talk to them is get the telephone working."
Back in my room, I was looking glumly at the backs of my books, wondering which 
ones I should try next, when there was a knock. I hoped it was Gwen, come to 
apologize for the dry donuts, but to my surprise it was Dominic, the royal heir.
He lowered his umbrella and pulled off his coat. He looked around my study for a 
moment in silence, paused for a longer look at my diploma, and closed the door 
behind him. "May I sit down?"
"Please do," I said, wondering what he could want.
He planted his solid body in a chair by the window, set his elbow firmly on the 
arm, and leaned his chin on a massive fist. "I've come to talk to you about your 
duties."
This was it. I knew my problem wasn't the rain or the lack of crullers. I had 
spent two days on vacation, but now I was going to have to start work on 
projects I didn't think I could do. I tried to look intelligent and alert.
Surprisingly, he hesitated for a moment before beginning. ' You're an outsider,' 
he said at lastsomething I already knew!"and maybe I shouldn't prejudice your 
mind with too many details. But you have to know one thing now. The king is 
under a spell."
This was not at all what I had expected. "Under a spell? What sort? I talked to 
him in the rose garden yesterday afternoon, and he never said anything about 
it."
"He wouldn't have, of course. He doesn't realize it himself. But the spell was 
one of the major reasons we decided to hire you."
He didn't say who we were. He looked at me from
A Bad Spell in Yurt
31
under heavy lids, waiting for my answer. "But what sort of spell? Do you know 
the source?"
"The king is growing old and feeble. This can only be the result of enchantment. 
We don't know the source of the spell, but we want you to overcome it."
"But that's silly!" I protested. "Of course he's getting weaker as he gets 
older. And besides," thinking that the chaplain should hear me now, "wizardry 
can't reverse natural aging."
"The king isn't as old as you may think. When he married the queen, only four 
years ago, no one thought of them as an extremely ill-matched couple."
A sudden vision flashed into my mind of a girl married to a much older man, 
excited at first at the power of being queen, but soon made irritable when she 
discovered she was not supposed to have a mind of her own, but only be the 
king's pliant companion. It shouldn't be hard for her, on one of her trips to 
the City, to find an unscrupulous wizard willing to sell her a powder or spell 
to sicken her husband.
"It must be the queen, then," I said. "She has bewitched him somehow."
A low rumble began somewhere in his barrel chest and emerged in an angry, "No! 
It's not the queen. It couldn't be anyone at court. It must be a malignant 
influence from outside."
I modified my vision to have the queen and the royal heir secretly in love, 
plotting to have the king die so that they could rule together. But I stopped 
myself. This made no sense. If Dominic were partially responsible for putting an 
evil spell on the king, he certainly wouldn't tell me about it.
"Thank you for this warning," I said in a deep voice. "The power of magic to 
conceal itself is often great, but the skill of the forewarned wizard is potent 
indeed."
To my surprise, he treated this statement perfectly
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C. Dale Brittain
seriously. "Good. I knew we had done well to hire you." He started to rise.
"But how about my other duties? The lane's talked to me about a telephone 
system, the constable's said you need more magic lights"
He waved these away with his broad hand. I was fascinated by the ruby ring on 
his second finger. Its setting was a gold snake supporting the jewel on its 
coils. It looked like a perfect ring for a wizard, and I coveted it for myself. 
"Those are a facade for your real work." He pulled his coat back on, picked up 
his umbrella, and left without saying good-bye.
I stood by the open door, looking across the rain-drenched courtyard. The paint 
and the flowers were bright in spite of the dark sky. Could there actually be 
dark powers at work here in such a perfect little castle?
I closed my eyes, probing past the closed doors and shuttered windows. There 
were plenty of minds there, most of which I did not know well enough to 
recognize, though I could tell the king and Gwen. Oddly, I didn't find the 
chaplain. I stayed well outside their minds, slipping by so lightly they 
wouldn't even feel me there. I found no powerful evil presence.
But when I opened my eyes a sense of foreboding lingered. Dominic might be 
right. If not the queen, then who wanted the king dead, and how were they doing 
it? Was the constable, with his talk of lights and telephones, deliberately 
trying to mislead me? Had Gwen been warned against me?
I shook my head. This would get me nowhere. Maybe while everyone else was 
sheltering from the rain I should take the opportunity to explore the castle; so 
far I had seen very little of it. I remembered a spell I had seen once, and 
reached for my shelves. I found it in only the second book I consulted, the 
spell to keep dry in the rain. "Why didn't I leam this one beforer' I asked 
myself. It was only a variation
A Bad Spell in Yurt
33
of the lifting spell, creating a diversion for all the raindrops before they hit 
one s head.
I set the spell in place and stepped outside. It worked perfectly, although I 
immediately stepped in a puddle and got water in my socks. But this was not the 
fault of the magic. My good humor restored, I turned back to lock the door to my 
chambers, then started across the courtyard.
I stopped in the stables, where the horses whickered at me and the cats came to 
rub against my legs. It was warm and dusty with the smel of hay. The sound of 
rain seemed faint and faraway in the comfort and dim light. I stroked the horses 
on their noses and laughed when they tried to nuzzle my pockets. "No carrots," I 
told them. Also no malignant influences. I readjusted my spell and stepped back 
into the courtyard.
This time I walked to the north end of the courtyard, where a massive tower 
rose. The stones of the tower, unlike the stones of the rest of the castle, were 
not whitewashed, but were so dark they were almost black. There were no windows 
for the first thirty feet. It was in this tower, according to the chaplain, that 
my predecessor had had his study.
A heavy oak door was the only way in. I tested the handle, but it wouldn't open. 
With my eye to the crack along the doorjamb, I thought I saw a bolt on the 
inside. Delicately I tried a lifting spell on the bolt, or rather a sliding 
spell, to push it back in its track. Although I had to abandon the spell against 
the rain to rive all my concentration to the bolt, my sliding spell actually 
worked. With only the slighest squeak, the bolt slid back, and I was able to 
pull the door open. Damp but delighted, I went in and closed the door behind me.
Inside it was completely black, except for tiny streaks of light around the door 
frame. I needed a light; I wondered if maybe I should start carrying a wizard's 
staff. I could make a light, at least temporar-
34
C. Dale Brittain
A Bad Spell in Yurt
35
ily, but I needed something to attach it to. I found a piece of hay sticking to 
my trousers and tried that, but it made only a faint firefly glow. So I took off 
my belt and used the buckle. It was still not very bright, but it was 
serviceable, and since the design of the buckle was the moon and stars, it was 
rather dramatic. I wondered why I had not thought of making the buckle glow 
earlier and wondered if it would be possible to attach the light permanently.
Pleased with myself, I started up steep, uneven steps. It wasn't until I had 
spiraled up at least halfway, I estimated, to the first window, that a sudden 
thought brought me to a halt. If the tower was empty, why had the door been 
bolted on the inside?
I listened for a moment, hearing nothing but my own heartbeat, and probed with 
my mind, without finding another intelligence in the tower. I shrugged, telling 
myself that there was perhaps a connection to the rest of the castle from an 
upper level, but I had again the goose-bump feeling of evil.
Shortly I reached the first window and looked out across the wet courtyard. 
Except for the smoke from the chimneys and a distant sound of voices and 
laughter, the castle looked deserted. From here on up there seemed to be windows 
enough that the stairs were never black. I had been walking with my belt held 
out ahead of me to watch for uneven places in the stairs, but now I put it back 
around my waist. To my disappointment, the moon and stars of the buckle slowly 
faded once I turned my attention from keeping them bright.
My legs were just starting to ache when I reached another oak door. I admired my 
predecessor if he had walked up and down from here for every meal. "But he 
probably flew," I thought. "And that's why the door was bolted on the inside; 
the last time he was here, he closed it down below and then left through a 
window."
For some reason I had never liked flying. I could
do it if I had to, at least for short distances, but I
Ereferred my own feet on the ground. The king with is aching joints might prefer 
to skim above the grass, but I likea to feel my shoes among the blades. I was 
quite sure my dislike for flying had nothing to do with my experiences that 
first day our instructor had tried to teach us.
This door was not locked. It opened smoothly, letting me into a large and airy 
room. There were cupboards, desks, benches, and boxes, but all the cupboard 
doors were open, and there was nothing inside.
"So he took it all when he left," I thought, and then wondered what it might be. 
The room was almost disappointing. After the dark climb and the length of the 
stairs, it seemed as though there ought to be something significant here, rather 
than a room from which someone had removed his possessions and which he had 
swept thoroughly before leaving for the final time. I realized I did not know 
how long the old wizard had been gone; I had been acting and thinking as though 
it were a very long time, but in fact it might only have been a few days.
There was nothing else to see. One of the casement windows had had the glass 
broken out, but the rest were closed. I looked out the southern window toward 
the second highest tower in the castle, on the opposite end of the courtyard. It 
had a dovecote on tne roof and was doubtless where the carrier pigeons came in. 
I opened the casement and climbed up on the sill, hesitated a moment, and 
stepped out into the air.
The rain had let up, but the damp cool air swirled around me. Although I would 
not have joined the king in characterizing flying as "extremely enjoyable," 
there was a certain sense of power in holding oneself up against the tug of 
gravity, of letting oneself drift slowly down, so that the ground sometimes came 
too soon. This time, however, I was glad to be back on the ground. I rebolted 
the outer door to the tower from
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the outside, as I had unbolted it, and started back toward my chambers.
With my door in sight, I stopped abruptly. The handle should have been glowing 
softly from my magic lock, but it was not glowing at all. I was certain I had 
locked it. I stepped forward, tried the door, and it opened at once. Someone had 
taken off my lock.
I stepped inside cautiously, but all seemed undisturbed. My books were as I had 
left them, and my clothes seemed untouched. I probed for a trap, both with magic 
and by lying down and looking under the bed.
Finding nothing, I sat back on my heels. Although it was impossible to say where 
it was coming from, and although it disappeared if one tried to sense it 
directly, the dark touch I had been feeling all day was here in my room. It was 
like trying to see something that could only be glimpsed from the corner of the 
eye.
To remove my lock, someone would not only have to know magic, but a lot more 
magic than I did. It was probably possible to break a magic lock, but a lot of 
the young wizards, including me, had tried to find the spell and never done so. 
I tried to dispell the chill that came from more than the rain. "Maybe I should 
be glad he or she left it unlocked; they couldn't have duplicated my palm print, 
which would mean that if they relockea my door it would only open to them." But 
who in the castle besides me knew magic?
PART TWO
The Queen
I
It took me a week to figure out how to do the lights. During that week, Gwen 
continued to bring me breakfast every morning, though not quite so early. I had 
told her that, in spite of my friendship for the chaplain (or maybe, I thought, 
in order to preserve that friendship), I would not be attending chapel every 
morning. Once or twice she brought me crullers, but usually it was cake donuts.
Although she was perfectly cordial, I got no more winks or saucy looks. I 
wondered if she had been warned against me, and if so by who. The constable, who 
oversaw the castle staff, seemed the most likely person, except that I couldn't 
picture him doing it. I preferred to think that she had found out that wizards 
are not supposed to marry and was trying to rein in her affections before she 
developed a broken heart.
My initial problem with the lights for the stairs was finding something suitable 
to which to attach the magic. The headroom was so limited that I decided
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to use a flat surface rather than the more normal globes. My first thought was 
to do something with glass.
The constable introduced me to the young man who blew glass for the castle. I 
recognized him as one of the trumpeters who played at dinner. Once he had his 
livery off and his leather smock on, however, I would never have known him.
When he had his fire burning so hot that his glass was liquid and I had to stand 
back at the far side of the room, he dipped a long tube into the molten glass 
and began to blow. I was fascinated; I had never seen glass being made before.
He blew a large, thin bubble, brilliantly red, then laid it down and rolled it 
flat before it could cool. He stepped back, wiped his forehead with the back of 
his arm, and waited for comments from me.
It was exactly what I had asked for, an oval piece of glass a little thicker 
than a window pane. But I had had an awful thought. I had knocked my head on the 
ceiling going up the stairs to the chapel, and I was not the tallest person in 
the castle. I didn't want my magic lights shattered into shards of glowing glass 
the first time Dominic raised his head too quickly.
"I'd like to try something a little different," I said. "Maybe this time could 
you make something hollow, like a flat-bottomed bottle that tapers toward the 
top" I waved my hands in the air, sketching the shape. I was describing the 
base of a telephone.
"These are going to be strange-looking lights," he said with a grin when he had 
blown it. "How many do you want?"
"Just one more, I think," I said, looking at my telephone; it was still glowing 
hot. "And then I'll want some more parts in different shapes." For the next 
hour, he blew different shapes to my specification. The mouthpiece was the 
trickiest part. At the end, I
A Bad Spell in Yurt
39
had a glass oval and two very lovely though very unusual glass telephone 
instruments.
"These actually aren't all going to be lights," I told the young man. "Have you 
ever seen a telephone?"
"Those are telephones?" he said with interest. "And I made them? Can I make a 
call and tell my mother?"
"Does she have a telephone?" I said quickly, hoping that she didn't and wanting 
to forestall explaining that these were far from operational.
"No," he said and frowned. "I hadn't thought of that. You need two of them, 
don't you, one for each person. I expect that's why you made two. She lives in 
the next kingdom, about fifty miles from here; maybe I'll send her a message by 
the pigeons."
"You do wonderful glassblowing," I said. "And I also very much like your playing 
at dinner." I hurried back to my room with my prizes.
The telephones I set carefully on a high shelf, but I sat down with the oval of 
glass to try to make it glow. This piece, I thought, I could use for just inside 
the door from the great hall, where the ceiling was still high. Once I had been 
able to attach magic light permanently to it, I would talk to the armorer about 
getting some pieces of steel made in the same shape, tor farther up the stairs.
At first I was no more able to make my piece of glass shine permanently than I 
had been able to do with my belt buckle. I had been spending much of the day 
with my books of spells when, in the middle of the week, Joachim, the chaplain, 
invited me to his room after dinner.
I think I was the only person who called him Joachim. I had in fact known him 
for some time before even learning he had a name. Almost everyone else in Yurt 
called him Father, which I resisted doing, both because he wasn't my father and 
because I was afraid that to do so would let down the dignity of wizardry. He 
didn't seem to mind.
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As I sipped the wine he poured me, I looked around his room. It was lit with 
candles, no magic globes here. He had only the one room, rather than the two I 
had, and his bed looked hard. The walls were unadorned, except for the crucifix 
over the bed, and all the books on his shelf seemed well-thumbed.
"Have you started feeling comfortable with your duties yet?" he asked, setting 
down the bottle and sitting on another hard chair opposite mine. The air from 
the window made the candle flames dance and his shadow move grotesquely behind 
him.
"I keep on hoping 111 find out what my duties are," I said. I was wondering if I 
could trust him with my climb up the north tower and the sense of evil I had 
first felt there. "They hired me as Royal Wizard, and they've given me some 
tasks, but these aren't going to keep me busy foreveror I hope not. Do you know 
exactly what your duties are?"
"A chaplain's are a little clearer. I perform the service in the chapel every 
day, or oftener if needed, I encourage the sick, give solace to the dying, write 
treatises if treatises need writing, and am here whenever I'm wanted. But maybe 
a Royal Wizard's duties are not much different; I would think your principal 
responsibility is to be at hand whenever magic is needed."
"Is that what our predecessors did, perform useful tasks if called upon and 
spend the rest of the time waiting to be needed?" I had a vision of spending the 
next two hundred years of my life trying to make glass glow, and I didn't like 
the picture.
"I think that's what your predecessor did, at least part of the time, though he 
spent much of his time alone up in his tower. He sometimes wouldn't emerge for 
days. He always said he was trying to gain new knowledge. Certainly his 
illusions at supper were livelier when he'd been gone for a few days. As for my 
predecessor, I don't know; he was dead when I came.'
A Bad Spell in Yurt
41
"He was dead? I hadn't realized that."
"He's buried in the cemetery out beyond the gate. I think he was very old. But 
as I told you before, mere had clearly been some sort of disagreement between 
him and the old wizard, and though it colored the wizard's attitude toward me, I 
never found out what it was."
I slowly drained my glass, giving myself time to think. I had a vague 
recollection of hearing that young priests were rarely sent out to their first 
positions alone. Usually they went where older priests could guide them for a 
few years before retiring themselves. Everyone knows that we wizards fight with 
each other all the time, which is why a new Royal Wizard only takes up his post 
when the old one is well out of the way, but priests are supposed to show each 
other Christian charity and support.
The shadows from the candle made my companion's eye sockets enormous and so dark 
that his eyes were invisible. I shivered involuntarily, not liking what I was 
thinking. Four years ago, the king had married, and, according to Dominic, had 
still been strong and vigorous. Three years ago, probably after their old 
chaplain had died unexpectedly, the kingdom had had to send for a new one. Not 
long afterwards, the king began to grow weaker.
It was a small kingdom. When they wanted a wizard, the best they could do was 
me. When they wanted a chaplain, they got a young man, who perhaps had a dark 
stain they had already suspected at the seminary, and who took up his duties 
without all the fatherly guidance and assistance that was normally considered 
necessary. I liked to give the impression that wizards were familiar with the 
powers of darkness; priests had to deal with them every day.
Joachim seemed content to let the silence stretch out. "The other day I came 
back to my chambers," I
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said suddenly, "and the magic lock on my door had been broken."
He didn't seem as shocked as I thought he should have, but then he wouldn't know 
how hard they are to break. He didn't look guilty either, but I found it hard to 
read his face. "It doesn't sound as though a magic lock has any advantage over 
cold iron, then."
This, I realized, was supposed to be another one of his jokes. "You don't 
understand. Someone would have to know a tremendous amount of magic to break it. 
It can't be done with brute force."
He leaned forward, and his eyes reemerged from darkness. "But I didn't think 
there was anyone else in the castle who knew magic."
I looked into my empty glass. "Neither did I."
He had no ideas about who might have known such a powerful spell, and I went 
back to my own chambers not much later. The bright glow of the magic lamp left 
by my predecessor was very reassuring. I sat up for several more hours, reading 
about such lamps, and by the time I went to bed I thought I had worked out the 
spells, though I was too exhausted to do them then.
I set to work on the spells in the morning. I had known how to make something 
shine before, but the attachment spells and especially the spells to make the 
magic respond to the voice were much harder than I had imagined. After one more 
glance at my books, I closed the windows, pulled the drapes, and put the volume 
away. It takes too much concentration for the complicated spells to be able to 
look at anything else, even a book of magic.
I started with my belt buckle, not daring to risk my oval of glass. First I 
started it shining, then slowly, in the heavy syllables of the Hidden Language, 
I pronounced the words to keep the spell attached. The moon and stars shone 
brilliantly, and I closed my eyes
A Bad Spell in Yurt
43
against them. I was alone in a deep tunnel where magic flowed, but as long as I 
kept on saying the words and saying them correctly the flow obeyed me. This was 
the most difficult part of all, to set up the translation between the Hidden 
Language and the language of men. "On. Out," I said aloud, and my words were so 
loud that they startled me into opening my eyes.
My chambers were dark, and the buckle in my hands was lifeless. "On,' I said, 
and the full moonlight shone. "Out," and all was again night.
I jumped up and pulled open my curtains. I wanted to tell someone about my 
triumph. But when I looked out the only people I saw were the stable boys, 
currying the horses. I thought of telling them but didn't want to interrupt 
them. While putting my belt back on, I also decided against interrupting the 
chaplain just to show him my buckle; after all, since I had told him magic 
always worked, it would be silly to be this elated over having it work once.
I pulled the curtains shut and started on my oval of glass. I knew the spells 
now, and everything went smoothly. As I stood at the edge of the river of magic, 
I knew exactly what to say, to have my mind control the spells without ever 
endangering myself.
At the end I opened my eyes. "On. Out." The piece of glass obediently shone out 
with a brilliance far beyond what I had expected, then darkened again. This, I 
thought, would make a remarkable improvement in the chapel stairs. I hoped 
Joachim would be suitably grateful.
"On," I said again, reaching for the curtains. My belt buckle lit up, but the 
glass stayed dark. I tried again, changing the modulation of my voice, but 
nothing happened. I tried probing the spell attached to the glass with my mind, 
but there was no magic there at all.
I sat down. Somehow I must not have attached the
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spell properly, so that it had withered and returned to the deep channels of 
magic as most spells do. But I could not see where I had gone wrong. Magic 
really should work all the time if the wizard does it correctly.
I shook my head, then shook my shoulders as well, dispelling the chilling unease 
that suddenly gripped me. I would try again.
This time there was no problem at all. I threw open the windows and opened the 
door to my bedroom, where I had taken my predecessor's magic lights so they 
wouldn't come on and break my concentration.
The spells had taken all morning. I tucked the oval of glass under my arm, 
planning to show the constable at lunch. I would let him find a way to attach it 
to the ceiling in the staircase. My predecessor might have been able to make his 
lamps hang suspended in the air, but at this point I thought glue would work 
just as well.
As I pulled my door shut and attached the lock, I wondered again why my spell 
had not worked at first. Had I just said one of the many words wrong in setting 
up the spell, or had an outside magical force broken it for me?
The seating arrangement at dinner the first night was maintained, and I ate 
every noon and evening between Dominic and the Lady Maria. Occasionally Dominic 
would be away in the middle of the day, but she and her golden curls were always 
at my right. The Lady Maria seemed, if possible, to be growing younger. She 
liked to engage me in lively conversation, punctuated with girlish laughter. If 
I tired of her laughter, I had only to look across the table to meet the 
chaplains completely sober eyes.
But in fact I started to like the Lady Maria. As long as I could keep her off 
the topic of how young and charming she still was, she had a lively mind that 
was hungry for new ideas and information. She repeatedly
A Bad Spell in Yurt
45
pressed me for details on the dragon in the wizards' school cellars. I decided 
to have her help me with the telephones.
During the two days that the armorer was making steel plates for my lights, I 
set to work trying to derive the right spells. I decided that the first step 
would be to make it possible for two telephones in the castle to talk to each 
other; if that worked, then maybe I could start on the much more complicated 
task of starting communication with telephones elsewhere.
The king seemed stiff and said nothing more about learning to fly, and Dominic 
asked no questions about malignant spells, so I devoted full time to the 
telephones. It occurred to me that I was becoming obsessed with them, but at 
least at every meal the others all asked me interested questions about how I was 
coming and seemed, I thought, to be drawing comparisons between the old wizard 
and myself with the comparison favorable to me. I tried not to think what they 
would say when I gave up the project in despair.
At first nothing worked at all. With one telephone in my study, I put the other 
out in the courtyard and had the Lady Maria listen while I tried to communicate. 
The knights and ladies, the boys who were being trained as knights, and the 
servants tended to flock from all over the castle to watch my latest attempt. At 
least they weren't laughing at me, yet.
"Did you hear anything?" I'd yell from the door of my chambers.
"Nothing that time," she would call back in what were meant to be encouraging 
tones.
Then my steel ovals were ready, and I had an excuse to put the glass telephones 
back up on the shelf while I worked the spells of light. Since I had to do each 
individually, it took all day, and it took another day for the servants to 
attach them inside to the ceiling of
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the stairway. But on Sunday, in time for service, they were ready.
I had Gwen wake me early and was at the bottom of the stairs before anyone else. 
"On," I said in my deepest voice, and all the lights blazed on. The glass light 
inside the door was the brightest of all, but the steel plates gave a rich and 
somber light that I thought most appropriate. I stood modestly outside the 
stairwell, letting everyone else precede me, smiling in spite of myself when I 
heard their admiring comments.
But the telephones continued to elude me. After two more days of studying my 
books, I thought I had found the spell, and again set the Lady Maria in the 
courtyard with one instrument while I talked into the other. "All powers of 
earth and air must obey the spells of wizardry," I said into my own telephone. 
Gwen had laughed at that until she could hardly stand up, but it seemed safe to 
say, since no one seemed able to hear me anyway.
I hurried out into the courtyard. "Could you hear that?"
The Lady Maria didn't answer at first. The people with her were smiling, either 
in amusement or encouragement, but she looked both puzzled and somewhat 
concerned. She came toward me, carrying the glass telephone.
"It's very strange," she said. "Nobody else could hear you, but I could."
"You could? You mean it worked? You know that, with a telephone, you have to 
hold the receiver to your ear, and other people don't hear what's being said." I 
almost laughed with excitement. At last, I thought, I was making real progress.
But she shook her head. ' I didn't hear you through the receiver. I don't think 
I even heard you with my ears. It was as though you were talking inside my 
brain."
"Bring the telephone into my study," I said in
A Bad Spell in Yurt
47
despondency. I put both instruments back up on the top shelf. While I thought I 
was attaching communications spells to the instruments, I was instead 
discovering that, even though the Lady Maria was not trained in wizardry, it was 
still possible for me to communicate with her, mind to mind. While I had begun 
to like her, I didn't want to do it again. Anyone else's mind is always acutely 
strange if met directly.
She started to leave, then hesitated. "Is it true that all powers of earth and 
air must obey the spells of wizardry?"
At least she had heard what I'd said, rather than whatever random thoughts I may 
have been having. "Yes, if the wizardry is done right," I said.
"So a wizard can, if he knows his spells, exercise ultimate control over every 
being on earth?" It would have been more flattering if she had not still looked 
so puzzled.
' No," I said honestly, "not ultimate control. Wizardry is a natural power. Like 
anything else on earth, it can be overcome by the supernatural.'
"You mean by the saints?"
"Or by demons."
"But who controls the saints and demons?"
I shook my head and tried to smile. When I was at school, I had known I wasn't a 
very good wizard, but at least I had believed in wizardry. Here in Yurt everyone 
seemed to want to remind me of wizardry's limitations. "You'll have to ask the 
chaplain about that. But no one really controls saints and demons. At best the 
priests learn how to ask them favors."
At dinner that night I told the constable that I was going to have to pause in 
my work on the telephone system for a while, until I had discovered the source 
of the anti-telephonic demonic influence.
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II
I rode out of the castle on an old white mare. Although I had only been in Yurt 
a little over two weeks, my life in the City had begun to fade into the distant 
past. Life in the castle had settled into a comfortable pattern once I abandoned 
work on the telephones. The queen was spoken of every day, but she was still 
gone, and I found it hard to imagine what the castle would be like when she 
returned. To me, to whom two weeks seemed like a year, she had been gone 
forever, had indeed never been in Yurt, but to the others she was just a little 
over halfway through the month-long visit to her parents that she took every 
summer.
Some of the knights and the boys were riding out at the same time. Their horses 
were much livelier than mine, but as I had not ridden in a long time I was happy 
with my mount. She walked steadily and placidly down the brick road that led 
from the castle gates. While the knights turned off to the field where they were 
teaching the boys jousting, my mare and I continued past the little cemetery, 
dotted with crosses, where the chaplain's predecessor and presumably all former 
kings and queens and chaplains and servants were buried, and down the hill 
toward the woods. I was going to visit the old wizard.
Although the "anti-telephonic demonic influences" I had used as an excuse to the 
constable had been my own invention, I didn't like the cold touch that was never 
there when I looked but might surface, unexpectedly and fleetingly, while I was 
thinking of something entirely different. My predecessor should have some ideas.
The green of the leaves in the forest below me had gone dusty in the heat of 
late summer, and the breeze across the hill made silver ripples in the grass. I 
was
A Bad Spell in Yurt
49
enjoying being out near fields and forest, and real forest, too, not the 
manicured parks I was used to near the City. I hadn't told anyone where I was 
going, only that I was out for a ride. As my horse and I reached the edge of the 
woods, I was wondering again how I should address the old wizard.
Casual conversation with the constable's wife had informed me where his house 
was, but protocol was still a problem. I, now, was Royal Wizard, and he was only 
an old retired spell-caster. But he was two hundred years older than me and 
certainly knew a lot more about Yurt than I did. I had dressed formally in my 
red and black velvet but decided to address him with deference and respect.
In the cool shade of the woods, birds sang in the treetops far above us and 
insects hummed closer to hand. The mare shook her head, making all the bells on 
her bridle jingle. I whistled as I rode, a little tune in minor that the 
trumpeters had played at dinner the night before. We were going parallel to the 
edge of the forest, and occasionally I could see the fields through a gap in the 
trees. The long summer's day stretched before me, leisurely and lingering, with 
no thought of the night.
After half an hour's easy riding, I found the trail mark I had been looking for, 
a little pile of white stones. Just beyond, a narrow grassy track wandered away 
from the road, off between the beeches, and disappeared over a rise. I would 
never have spotted it except for the stones.
The branches here were low enough that I dismounted and led the mare. We should 
be almost there. I stopped at the top of the rise, looking down into a valley 
with a stream at the bottom. Even the sound of the water on stones was 
sparkling. The grass was richly green on either hand, and the trees that 
surrounded the little valley cast dancing shadows.
My horse snorted and made for the grass. I pulled
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her nose up and continued toward a little bridge. We passed a branch that had 
half-shielded my view of the bridge, and sitting on the far side was the most 
beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.
She had thick golden hair that made the Lady Maria's seem thin and lifeless, and 
it rolled in rich waves down her back and ten feet out behind her. She was 
wearing a dress of brilliant sky-blue, and when she lifted her head and looked 
toward me, her eyes were the same color. And most marvelous of all, an 
alabaster-white unicom was kneeling beside her, with his muzzle in her lap.
I dropped the reins and approached slowly, not daring to take my eyes from her. 
She lowered her gaze again but did not speak. "Um, hello," I said. Gently she 
lifted the unicorn's muzzle from her lap, rose to her feet, and began to walk 
away, her arm around the creature's neck. Her hair floated in a weightless cloud 
behind her.
"Wait," I told myself sharply, resisting the initial impulse to run after her. I 
put my hand over my eyes, said two magic words, and looked again. She was gone.
I recovered my horse and started forward again. As we crossed the bridge, I told 
the mare, "If that's a typical sample of his illusions, the old wizard must 
really have impressed the castle over dessert." The mare seemed uninterested, 
but I took a deep breath and wondered how abjectly it would be appropriate to 
address the wizard.
The grassy valley continued to follow the stream. Within a hundred yards it 
turned and descended a steep hill, where the water foamed white. I was easing 
the mare's steps down the hillside when I heard a twanging noise. The sound was 
repeated, and then again.
I looked forward. Flying across the width of the valley in front of us, one 
after the other, was a series of golden arrows. I finished getting the mare off 
the
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51
hill, dropped the reins to let her graze, and walked a little closer. I probed 
them gently with my mind. Unlike the lady with the unicom, these arrows were 
real.
No one was shooting them, however. They were being propelled by magic. Our 
scrambling on the hillside must have triggered a magic trap.
I thought about this for several minutes, waiting to see if the supply of arrows 
would become exhausted. When the steady twanging of an invisible bow and the 
whirr of each arrow continued, I decided that the arrows must be circling around 
somehow and coming back. The mare grazed unconcernedly.
I carefully put in place what I hoped was a protective spell against arrows, a 
variation of the spell that had kept me dry in the rain but needing twice as 
much concentration. Leaving the mare behind, I went slowly forward, going down 
on my hands and knees to crawl under the flight of the arrows. Ten yards farther 
down the valley, I heard the twanging cease.
I stood up, brushing the grass off my velvet trousers, and looked back. The 
valley was quiet and peaceful. For a moment I hesitated, wondering if I should 
go back for my mare, and then decided she would be fine where she was; she was 
unlikely to retreat back up the steep hill, and if she came forward she would be 
following me. If I went back, I was afraid I would set off the arrows again.
The valley took another twist and suddenly widened into a clearing. On the far 
side, half rucked under the drooping branches of an enormous oak, was a small 
green house, and sitting in front of the door was an old man with a white beard 
down to his knees.
I came three-quarters of the way across the clearing and then did the full bow, 
ending with my head down and my arms widespread.
"Welcome, Wizard," said a rasping voice.
"Greetings, Master," I answered.
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I surprised myself by calling him Master. At the wizards school, the only wizard 
who had that title was the oldest wizard of all, the one in whose castle the 
school was held, who was reputed to have been in the City since the City was 
founded.
He accepted the title. "So you weren't taken in by the Lady and weren't 
frightened by my Arrows," he said. His voice was rough, as though he had not 
used it for weeks. "I know who you are. You're the new Royal Wizard of Yurt, and 
probably think you're pretty fancy."
I rose and came toward him. "I have come to seek the guidance of my 
predecessor."
"You aren't going to find much help from me if you're after what I think you 
are. I can tell from your clothesand especially that ostentatious belt buckle 
that you fancy yourself to have authority over the powers of darkness." I 
guiltily turned off the glow 01 the moon and stars. "I may not have studied in 
the City, but / am a wizard of air and light."
I sat down at his feet, determined not to be insulted.
"Or is that pullover supposed to be a Father Noel costume?"
I was mortified. I had of course taken the tattered white fur off the collar as 
soon as I bought the pullover and had hoped all suggestions of someone fat and 
jolly were long gone. But I was going to have to be polite to this crotchety old 
wizard who clearly knew ten times as much magic as I did. I took a deep breath. 
"I've greatly admired your magic lamps in the castle."
"Of course you have. I'll bet you couldn't make anything that nice."
"I made some very nice magic lamps for the chapel stair!" I said, stung into a 
reply.
"And the chaplain didn't tell you to mind your own business?" he said, 
apparently surprised.
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53
"The chaplain and I are friends," I said stiffly, then wondered why I was 
defending him when one of the reasons I had come was to find out if my 
predecessor had ever thought the chaplain was turning toward evil.
"Young whippersnapper," pronounced the old wizard, which was probably his 
opinion of me as well.
There was a pause while I tried to find something diplomatic to say. "Do they 
miss me up at the castle? the old wizard said suddenly.
"They always speak well of you," I said with my best effort at Christian tact. 
"They've told me many times how much they admired your work and your illusions. 
The Lady down in the valley is certainly the finest example I've ever seen, even 
in the City."
I probably shouldn't have mentioned the City, because it made him snort. 
"Illusions!" he said. "Things were different when King Haimeric's grandfather 
was king. Then a Royal Wizard had real responsibilities. The harvest spells were 
just the start of it."
"Harvest spells!" I said in panic. I knew I didn't know anything that could be 
considered a harvest spell. In an urban setting, we learned urban spells.
"And now they don't even want harvest spells anymore," continued the old wizard, 
paying no attention to me. "They say that hybrid seed is more effective. The 
closest I've come for years is the weather spells when they're cutting the 
wheat."
This was a relief. Weather spells I could probably manage. I had even gone to 
the lectures. I tried a different approach. "Have you ever taught anyone how to 
fly?"
"Fly? You mean someone who isn't a wizard? Who wants to learn magic now?"
"The king mentioned it," I said, but I was struck by the suggestion that someone 
else had apparently wanted to learn magic.
"Well, he never mentioned it to me. And with good reason. He knew what I'd say. 
Haimeric's not half the
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man his grandfather was, or his father either. Never marrying all those years, 
and then marrying late. If he expected an heir, he's certainly disappointed. But 
I must say, I don't think he married in the hope of having a baby. I think he 
married because he was just besotted."
I tried to return the topic to the question of who in the castle, besides me, 
might know magic. "So some of the others had asked you to teach them magic?"
"Well, Dominic and Maria did," he said shortly. After a somewhat long pause, he 
added, "Never got anywhere with it."
"Prince Dominic and the Lady Maria?" Somehow I would not have expected it.
"There was talk of them making a match four years ago," continued the old 
wizard, in a more pleasant tone. "Maria's the queen's aunt, you know."
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
"When the king got married four years ago, the queen brought her old maiden aunt 
to live with her probably thought she needed a change. And then Dominic's only 
a few years younger than she is. He's been heir presumptive for years; the 
king's younger brother, at least, had the sense to get married when he was 
young. But he's gone now too, and Dominic's not half the man his father was."
Apparently I had reached Yurt in a decadent time.
"But she was too flighty for someone that phlegmatic. If the queen was waiting 
for a match, I think she gave up waiting some time ago."
While these insights into the people in the castle were extremely interesting, I 
could not help but notice that he had again deftly turned the topic away from 
the question of to whom he had taught magic.
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55
While we had been talking, the brilliant blue of the sky was darkening. An 
abrupt clap of thunder, apparently coming from just behind the wizard's house, 
startled me so much that I jumped to my feet. "It looks like rain," said the old 
wizard complacently. "You'd better get your horse; it will stay dry enough under 
the oak here. And don't worry about my Arrows!" he called after me as I hurried 
back up the valley. "You won't be shot this time."
It certainly wouldn't be hard for him to guess that I had been wondering if I 
could bring my mare safely past that shower of arrows. And I didn't think it 
could nave been much harder for him to bring on a thunderstorm to demonstrate 
his power.
My mare had her head up, waiting for me. Chill little breezes flicked her mane, 
and there was a steady low rumbling from the sky. I led her by the bridle back 
down the valley, past the place where the arrows had been shooting, and around 
the final twist to the clearing where the wizard's house stood under the 
sheltering branches of its oak. The first drops pattered on the leaves above us 
as I led the mare under the branches. The old wizard was no longer sitting in 
front of his house, but the green door was open.
I took off the saddle and bridle and rubbed the mare down. Being under the tree 
was like being under a tent. I could hear the drum of drops on the leaves, and 
the air became damp, but we were safe in a bubble made of branches. I finished 
with the horse, tapped at the door, and went into the house.
I had been expecting shelves of books; after all, every wizard I had ever known 
had books on his shelves, books piled on his desk, even books in heaps on the 
floor. But there were very few books in the old wizard's house.
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Instead there were cones of light, gently swirling masses of stars, forms that 
changed from tree to man to beast and back to tree as one watched. I ignored 
them all assiduously and concentrated on the old wizard, who had just lit a fire 
in the small fireplace. Bolts of lightning flashed outside the window, and 
thunder rumbled continuously. But inside all was peaceful. "Come sit by my 
fire," said the old wizard in the friendliest tone he had used to me yet.
I sat down on the hearth, thankful for the warmth; the summer's day had grown 
cold. We sat in silence, except for the thunder, for several minutes while I 
triea to decide how to ask him what I had come to find out.
"We heard a lot about the old magic at the wizards' school," I began. I had 
considered saying that we had been taught to respect the old magic, but decided 
it would sound as though I were being condescending to someone more than seven 
times my age. "And I grew more and more convinced that there is magic that 
wizards all used to know that has never been put in our books."
"Well, you're right," he said almost reluctantly, as though not wanting to admit 
that I was right about anything.
"And yet the old magic is the basis for all the new magic of the last hundred 
and fifty years," I continued. "The wizards who learned by experimentation and 
apprenticeship channeled the power of magic, made it possible for magic to be 
organized, to be written down in books, made it less wild, made it something 
that could actually be taught in a classroom."
I had been going to go on from this brief history of modern wizardrynearly 
everything I remembered from a whole course!to explain that I needed his 
special and ancient magic talents to help me find out what was happening in 
Yurt, but he interrupted me.
"And look what's happened!" he cried in his rasping
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57
voice. "With all you young wizards and magic workers, the channels of magic have 
been wom so deeply in some areas that any fool can work a simple spell. You say 
you've made magic less wild, but all you ve done is make it easier for the wild 
magic of the north to come in!"
I was horrified. I would normally never have thought that the wizardry that 
tamed magic also invited wild magic into the land of men, but in the old 
wizard's dimly lit room it seemed most probable.
"Or didn't you ever think of that?" he said with a sneer. I decided no answer 
was best. "You and your books! You think you've made magic easier for the 
simple-minded who shouldn't be doing magic anyway, but by cutting deep ruts in 
the channels of human magic you've just made it easier for wild magic to come 
pouring in. How would you like to see a dragon in Yurt?"                         
                                    8
I considered and rejected the possibility that there was a dragon in the castle 
cellars already.
"And now you can't go anywhere without some fool claiming he or she knows 
magic."
"Does anyone in the castle know magic?" I said quickly, trying to get in at 
least one of the questions I had.
"Of course not," he said brusquely. "Unless you'd consider counting yourself!"
I wondered if his brusqueness was concealing a lie, but between his manner and 
the insult it was impossible to ask him again. Instead I tried to be 
conciliatory. "I was just wondering because a strange thing happened when I 
first arrived. I'd put a magic lock on the door to my chambers, and when I came 
back it was gone."
Unlike the chaplain, the old wizard would surely know how hard it is to break a 
properly constituted magic lock. But he just snorted at me. "Did the spells 
wrong, I reckon," he said. His insults scarcely even strung anymore.
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"But while you're speaking of locks," he added abruptly, "you haven't tried to 
get through the locked door of the north tower, have you?"
"The north tower?"' I said ingenuously.
"Don't play the fool with me. I used to have my study in the north tower, as 
they must certainly have told you. The constable seemed to think you'd have your 
study there, too, but I straightened him out fast enough."
"They gave me a very nice set of chambers," I said cheerfully.
"When I left I locked the door and windows to the tower with both magic and 
iron."
I sat up straighter but managed to cover my surprise with a fit of coughing; 
tiny tendrils of smoke from the fire were whirling into the room, and I was 
sitting very close to the hearth. There had certainly been no magic lock on the 
tower door when I pulled back the bolt, and all the windows had also been 
unlocked.
"That sounds pretty secure, then," I said blandly, then fell to coughing again. 
The smoke really was getting in my nose, and it had an unusual, almost spicy 
quality.
"No one shall go in that tower again while Yurt survives," the old wizard said 
grimly. 'Did you notice that I even ordered them not to whitewash it? I don't 
want any young men on scaffolding peeping in the windows."
"I noticed that the tower walls are dead black while the rest of the castle is 
white," I responded, wild with curiosity in spite of the headache the smoke was 
beginning to bring on. "But Master," I continued tentatively, as long as I'm 
living in the castle, don't you think it might be better if I knew why you 
locked up your old study? That way, in case any"
"NO!" he interrupted, leaving it quite impossible for me to ask again what he 
thought he had locked up. "I've taken care that no problems shall ever arise,
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59
for reasons of my own, and by methods of my own. Why should anyone else ask me 
about it?" He glared at me so fiercely that I retreated to the far side of the 
room, where I finished coughing as quietly as I could. The air was better 
farther from the fire.
After a moment I caught my breath and looked at the table next to me. As well as 
a constant cascade of ice-blue stars, it contained piles of leaves and roots, 
some in earthenware bowls, some loose on the table. There were also mortars and 
pestles, fire-blackened pots, and bits of stone rubbed into dust. In spite of 
his boast about being a wizard of light and air, I thought, the old wizard was 
not too proud to be a wizard of earth as well.
Modern wizardry uses very few herbs and roots. We keep our magic technical, 
straightforward, capable of being attached to such simple substances as steel 
and glass and of being reduced to written spells. But all wizards know, even 
those, like me, who tended to skip the lectures on the history of wizardry, that 
there is a natural affinity to magic in some growing things. In the days when 
books were few and apprenticeships long, young wizards learned how to recognize 
and gather plants with magical properties, even discover new ones. It occurred 
to me that, since I hadn't exactly been a huge success as a wizard taught from 
books, maybe I should give apprenticeship a try.
That is, of course, if the old wizard would be willing to teach me. So far 
everything I had said seemed to infuriate him. I looked across the room to where 
he sat rocking by his hearth. The room had darkened, but the fire's glow 
reddened his face. The rain's beat fell steadily on the oak leaves above the 
roof.
"Master," I began, and he whirled toward me abruptly, as though, deep in 
thought, he had almost forgotten my presence. "Master, I was glad to see that 
you had brought at least some of your apparatus from
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the castle to be able to continue your research into magic properties."
' What do you mean, at least some? I brought everything I had and swept out my 
study when I was done. If you're trying to find out by hints and insinuations 
what might be in my study, you must not have been listening to what I said. 
There is nothing left in my study, but for reasons of my own I want it locked 
while the kingdom remains! Can I make it any clearer than that?"
He stirred the fire vigorously, and the smoke found me again. The old wizard 
coughed a few times as well. I realized I had almost been hoping he had left 
something in his study that it had escaped, but now I just felt disappointed. It 
was likely only an old man's pride that had made him not want any other wizard 
ever to use the room where he had studied and done his research for so many 
years. If he had put a magic lock on the door, well, even City-trained wizards 
like me didn't always get the spells just right.
We sat and listened to the rain for several more minutes. Time seemed to stretch 
out endlessly in the dark room. I wasn't even hungry, even though it must have 
been long past dinner time. A small calico cat appeared suddenly from behind a 
chair, startling me for a second into thinking it was a large rat, rubbed 
against me, then crossed the room to hop up on the old wizard's lap. He stroked 
it absently, staring into the fire.
I tried again. "Master, in spite of my degree from the wizards school, which 
seemed to impress them up at the castle, I'm really not a very good wizard."
"You didn't need to tell me that.'
"But I want to learn! If I came here regularly, could you teach me about the 
magic of air and herbs?"
He glared at me so fixedly that I was sure he would refuse. The cat in his lap, 
unconcerned, gave a wide pink yawn and settled itself more comfortably. But
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61
then the old wizard's shoulders seemed to relax a little. He rocked in silence 
for a moment while I held my breath, then answered at last. "Maybe. Just maybe. 
After the last time, I'd determined I'd never teach anyone again."
This must be the time that Dominic and the Lady Maria had tried to learn magic, 
I thought, but did not dare speak.
"But I don't think you're as stupid as you seem at first." This was apparently a 
compliment. "I'll have to consider it. I haven't had an apprentice for many 
years, maybe for a century."
If he was trying to pretend an old man's forgetful-ness, he wasn't fooling me; I 
was sure he knew exactly who his last apprentice had been and when he had taught 
him.
' No one wanted to be an apprentice anymore after that wizards' school started." 
This thought roused him into a new glare. "But the old magic cannot be 
forgotten. You young whippersnappers are going to need it when your 'modern 
magic gets into trouble. Ill think about it for a while."
I was delighted but dared not show it. This was virtually a promise. During his 
"while," as he thought about it, I could teach myself a lot of the magic I was 
supposed to know already if I spent every evening with my books. Then if I 
started coming down here regularly, maybe I could actually become a competent 
wizard. I imagined myself going back to the City for a visit and showing off all 
my new skills.
He interrupted my imaginings with almost a shout. "But would you then go back 
and tell everything I taught you to that chaplain friend of yours?"
This had never occurred to me as a possibility. "No, of course not! Why should I 
do that? He doesn't even really approve of magic."
"But you said he was your friend," said the wizard with a grunt.
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"Just because he's the most intelligent person my age in the castle. It's nice 
to have someone to talk to over wine in the evening."
"And you like your wine, don't you?" If I wasn't careful, he was going to 
rescind his offer to think for a while about teaching me the old herbal magic.
"He seems to think even ordinary magic is black magic. I might have a glass of 
wine with him, but I certainly wouldn't tell him anything I'd learned."
This seemed to irritate the old wizard, but I realized it was not something I 
had said but something I reminded him of. "His predecessor was just the same. 
Accusing honest wizards of pacts with the devil. As though I didn't know better 
than to deal rashly in black magic!"
In spite of what I had told the chaplain, wizards do in fact talk among 
themselves of "black magic." There is no evil in magic itself, only in the 
intention of those who practice it, but in the few cases (very few, I hope) 
where a wizard has summoned a demon to add supernatural ability to his evil 
intentions, we refer to mm as practicing black magic.
It is of course always difficult to draw the line. No one at the wizards' school 
would call it black magic to summon a demon (and a very small one at that) to 
demonstrate to the class what to do if you meet one, but I hardly found it 
appropriate to discuss this with the old wizard any more than I had with the 
chaplain.
"Interfering old busybody! Frustrated old maid!" The old wizard sank back in his 
chair with a snort. He was apparently referring to the old chaplain.
I tried to think of something to say to change the subject and decided silence 
was best. Besides, my head was starting to ache fiercely. There are magic spells 
to minimize pain, and I decided to try one, very delicately and surreptitiously, 
hoping that he wouldn t notice.
But I couldn't help but wonder why the old chaplain
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had thought the wizard had been practicing black magic, and in what he had tried 
to interfere.
The old wizard went back to rocking, the cat asleep in his lap. What seemed like 
several hours passed. The fire kept on burning steadily, though he added no more 
wood. If he noticed that the smoke from his hearth had given his guest a 
headache, and that the guest had had the poor taste to practice magic in his 
face, he didn't deign to mention it.
I roused from a reverie to notice the rain had stopped. My head felt fine. I 
stood up from next to the table where I had been sitting, stiff in all my 
joints. Horizontal rays from the sun came through the narrow window, lighting up 
the piles of herbs and making the swirls of light and illusion seem rather 
insignificant.
Almost sunset, I thought, suddenly ravenously hungry. The old wizard was looking 
up at me, a half smile on his dry lips. The cat was no longer on his lap.
Then I realized what was wrong. The sunlight was coming from the wrong 
direction. Even a city boy like me knows that the sun rises and sets on opposite 
sides of the sky. I wasn't seeing the sunset but the sunrise. I had passed all 
night in the old wizard's house without even realizing it.
"I'd better get back to the castle," I said, hoping I'd be able to make it back 
in time for breakfast. "I was very glad to be able to meet you, and I'm sorry if 
I overstayed my welcome."
"You think you passed the night here, don't you?" said the old wizard with a 
chuckle. "In fact, you spent two. Maybe your friend the chaplain will be worried 
about you."
Two nights! Whatever magic powder he had put on his fire must be powerful 
indeed. "Good-bye, Master," I said and rushed out the door. My mare, cropping 
grass contentedly, seemed no worse for having spent two nights under the 
wizard's tree. I saddled her with-
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out looking back. As I led her out into the grassy clearing and mounted, the 
calico cat came bounding after us, dropped down to lurk behind a clump of grass, 
and lashed its tail. "Good-bye, cat," I said
fravely, and rode as quickly as the mare would go ack up the valley.
At first I was worried that I would have upset them at the castle by being gone 
for so long, but then I decided it was probably time anyway that I started 
seeming mysterious in my movements. I was more concerned about the old wizard's 
motives, and what I might find when I got back. Was he just showing off his 
power to me again, or had he had some reason for keeping me away from the 
castle?
IV
The queen was coming home.
I looked at myself critically in the mirror. In the month I had been at the 
castle, my beard had grown out enough that I didn't think the clothing 
department manager at the emporium would laugh at it anymore, but it was no 
longer uniformly gray. The roots were definitely chestnut brown. I would have to 
touch it up before the queen arrived.
Being gone for two days without explanation had, as I had hoped, actually made 
me seem rather powerful and mysterious. Even the chaplain had had the tact not 
to ask me directly where I had been, but he did raise his eyebrows at me most 
markedly at dinner.
Now, two weeks after my visit to the old wizard, I wondered, as I got out my 
bottle of gray dye, if it was too soon to ask him to start teaching me his form 
of magic. In the last few days, I had started trying to teach the king how to 
fly, and I had new respect for the teaching process. So far, in spite of the 
king's hopes to impress the queen with his new ability when
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65
she arrived, he had managed to lift himself from a chair about one inch for 
about one second. I, on the other hand, had become much better at flying than I 
had ever been. It hardly even bothered me anymore.
As I rubbed the dye, which stung, into my beard, I absently wondered if the Lady 
Maria had to do this every day. In all the meals sitting next to her, I had yet 
to see a gray hair or root.
There was a sharp knock on my door. "Just a minute!" I called, finished rubbing 
in the dye, rinsed it out, and went to answer the door with my chin in a towel.
It was Dominic. He always seemed to be crouching to fit into my chambers, even 
though there was plenty of headroom. "Please have a seat," I said brusquely and 
retreated into my inner chamber to finish drying my beard, trying to retain some 
of my dignity.
When I emerged again a few minutes later, I was amazed to see that he nad taken 
my copy of the Diplo-matica Diabolica down from the shelf. It was still closed, 
but he was holding it in his huge hands and staring at it.
I whisked it away from him and returned it to its place. "Don't you know how 
dangerous it is for those not trained in wizardry to look at magic's spells?" I 
said, trying to hide my fear behind anger.
He dropped his head in almost comical embarrassment at being found out. The old 
wizard, I thought, must have caught him doing something similar, and that was 
why he had been so reluctant to want to teach his form of magic to anyone else.
"Have you still not learned your lesson, Prince Dominic?" I said very gravely. 
"You first tried to interfere with the forces of magic four years ago, and in 
spite of the warning you received then you have begun again."
This speech had a much better effect than I had hoped. Dominic, who was shorter 
than I when sitting
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down, looked up with what seemed genuine terror in his eyes.
"If you value the kingdom of Yurt," I continued, seizing the advantage while I 
had it, even though I wasn't sure why I did, "or even your own life, you won't 
try to interfere in magic processes again."
"All right," he said, almost grudgingly. He shot me a look that was part fear 
and part resentment of my authority over him. I decided to leave the topic.
"So what can I do for you?" I said in a more normal voice.
He leaned back, as though casually. "Since the queen is coming home today, I 
wanted to find out what progress you've made in your duties, finding out who's 
put a spell on the king. Or haven't you gotten anywhere yet?"
This last, though said in the same light, conversational tone as the rest, was 
clearly meant to be a jab.
"Actually I have made significant progress," I said, wondering how much I dared 
say to him; I still hadn't ruled out an illicit love-pact between him and the 
queen. I hurried on because he looked dubious. "There is definitely an evil 
influence here in the castle, but it's not tied to any one person. I'm going to 
need a complete list of all visitors to the castle in the last four years. It's 
possible a spell was put in place by someone who's now gone."
For a moment he looked as though he were going to object. But then he nodded 
slowly. "That's a very good idea. You should ask the constable; I'm sure he can 
provide it for you. Since it's clear that no one in the castle wishes to harm 
the king, it must be someone from outside. Although," and here he paused for a 
look at me, "if you found it too difficult to examine four years of guests, 
maybe it would be easier just to get rid of the evil spell, without worrying 
where it came from." He lurched to his feet. "Well, I won't
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67
keep you any longer from your special preparations to meet the queen.'
With this last jab, he opened my door and was gone. I stared thoughtfully for 
several minutes at the inside of the door. I hoped I would not in fact have to 
go through a long list of visitors to the castle; I had suggested it primarily 
to see how Dominic would react. He clearly believed that this evil influence, 
which I was quite willing to accept as real, came from those now at the 
castleif one included the queen. If he believed it, so did I.
But in the meantime, the fact that I had been able to frighten him, even 
momentarily, made him resent me. I had felt all along that he would not be 
comfortable to have as an enemy, and I feared that now I was going to find out 
just how uncomfortable that could be.
Later that morning, I stood outside the castle gate with everyone else. A chair 
had been brought for the king, but the rest of us stood on tiptoe, walked 
around, peered into the distance, and tried to listen through the sounds of 
conversation and the whisper of the wind for the sound of distant hooves.
One of the boys who was training for knighthood had the sharpest eyes. "There 
she comes!" he snouted. There was a surge forward, and several of the younger 
servants made as though to run down the brick road, but the constable motioned 
them back. In a moment all of us could see the little procession, emerging from 
the woods and starting up the hill toward the castle.
There was a crowd of white horses, with one black horse in the middle. White 
pennants, emblazoned with a bright pink rose, fluttered above them. As the 
horses ascended, a trumpeter with a long silver trumpet came to the fore and 
blew a swirl of notes. The riders kicked their horses into a run for the last 
hundred yards, and then they had arrived.
They were all around us, knights and ladies on
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horseback, servants leading the pack animals, everyone swinging down from their 
mounts and laughing and shouting at the people from the castle, who were 
laughing and shouting back at them.
I spotted the one I thought was the queen, a delicate, pale blonde, with a 
beatific smile. But as she pulled up her white mare, one of the knights from the 
castle took the bridle with a smile of delight all over his face, and she slid 
from the saddle and into his welcoming arms.
And then I did see the queen, and wondered how I could have been so mistaken.
Based on the features of the Lady Maria, her aunt, and on the white rosebush 
which the king had planted on their wedding day, I had expected someone blushing 
and fragile. But she looked no more like the Lady Maria than she looked like the 
old woman I had thought her to be when I first arrived in Yurt.
She was riding a black stallion, and her hair was the same midnight black. Her 
eyes were a brilliant and startling emerald beneath dark lashes. A crimson cloak 
swirled around her as she tossed the reins to one of the servants and leaped 
off. She and the king met with outstretched hands, much too dignified to kiss in 
front of all their subjects, but looked into each other's eyes with joy.
I had been wrong in the old wizard's valley. This was the most beautiful woman I 
had ever seen. She made the illusory unicorn lady seem rather insipid in 
comparison. As she leaped from her stallion, I had for a moment thought her a 
hard woman, but her face when smiling was the sweetest thing I had ever 
experienced.
She turned that smile toward me. "The new wizard!" she cried in what seemed 
genuine delight. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here to greet you when you arrived! My 
parents had been counting on my coming ever since last summer, and the old 
wizard retired so
abruptly that it was too late to change my plans. Has everyone been treating you 
well? If I know them, and I do, I'm sure they have! Are you happy in Yurt?"
I stammered that I was very happy in Yurt. I was in love at once.
While I stood staring at herbesotted, the old wizard would have saidI thought 
that here truly was a creature of fire and air, finer than anything illusion or 
imagination could create. She was beautiful, energetic, and loving-hearted. She 
took the king's arm; I was relieved to see that he showed no intention of trying 
to fly for her benefit, being too happy to see her to think about anything else.
We all started up the last slope to the moat and the castle gates. The king and 
queen, arm and arm, were beside me. "The king has been telling me in his letters 
that you're developing a telephone system for us!" she said, the perfect 
hostess, complimenting her guest on his accomplishments.
This brought me back somewhat to reality. "I've been working, but it's proving 
more difficult than I expected," I said, realizing it had been some time since I 
had had my glass telephones down from the shelf, and resolving to start with 
them again tomorrow, or even today.
The royal pair kept moving, as she spoke a few words to first one person, than 
another. I found myself near the back of the group, walking with Joachim, as we 
entered the castle courtyard.
"Why didn't you warn me?" I said.
"Warn you against what?"
"The queen!'
"But there is no evil in her.'
I gave him up. "It's a good thing you're a priest," I said, left him wondering 
what I meant, and went into my chambers.
I pulled down one of the books I had not tried yet, because it was all advanced 
spells that assumed you
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71
already understood the basics without having to think about them. This seemed 
like the best place to start anew on the problem of the telephones.
But I had trouble concentrating on the pages. I kept thinking about those 
emerald eyes. Since I wasn't such a wonderful wizard anyway, maybe I could give 
up magic altogether when the king died, and then she and I
This was clearly an unprofitable line of thought. I wished I had had the sense 
to watch Dominic, to try to judge his reaction to her homecoming. But I had been 
too busy staring at her, doubtless open-mouthed, to pay attention to anyone 
else.
Neither the king nor queen was present at the table at noon nor again in the 
evening. The queen, we were told, was resting from the fatigues of her journey, 
although she had appeared to me to have too much energy ever to be fatigued. I 
didn't want to think what the king might be resting from.
Instead I talked animatedly to the Lady Maria. Everyone at both tables was 
delighted to have the queen home, so she was the chief topic of conversation, 
except for the couple farther down my table who were just delighted to see each 
other again.
Lady Maria was happy to discuss her niece. "That's right, she and I came to Yurt 
together when she was a Diide, a mere child really. Her mother is a cousin to 
the duchess, or maybe they're second cousins. Haven't you met the duchess? You 
will, I'm sure. Yurt has two counts and the duchess. Anyway, the king was 
visiting his subjects, and he came to the duchess's castle at the same time as 
the queen's family was visiting, including me. Of course she wasn't the queen 
then. But as soon as the king met her he started making his plans, you can be 
sure!"
There was a sort of grunt from behind me where Dominic was sitting. He had not 
spoken to me again all day.
"Dominic remembers," the Lady Maria said in a teasing voice. "I think my 
brother, that's the queen's father, of course, had some hope of marrying his 
daughter to the royal heir, when he first heard the royal party would be 
visiting the duchess's castle at the same time we were. Did the royal heir have 
some plans that way himself, Dominic?"
She laughed, a light, tinkling laugh. I turned my head just in time to catch an 
extremely surly look from Dominic. I felt much more affectionate toward the Lady 
Maria than I ever had before.
"But imagine our surprise," she continued, "when it turned out the king's plans 
were quite different! Everything worked out so beautifully. Except," she paused, 
looked around, and dropped her voice. "Except," so low that only I could hear 
her, and I thought for a moment that she was going to say, except that she had 
never been able to make the hoped-for match with Dominic herself, "except that 
the queen has so hoped to provide the king a little prince, and she hasn't been 
able to."
"What are you two whispering about?" one of the ladies called to us from down 
the table. I realized that we had our heads bent together as though engaged in 
intimate secrets, certainly more secret than what everyone else must long have 
guessed about the king and queen. I sat up almost guiltily and caught the 
chaplain's dark, sober eyes on me.
"We're talking about the telephones!" I said gaily. "Now that the queen's back, 
I'm sure she's eager to be able to telephone her parents, and I have some ideas 
for the next step to try. The Lady Maria has graciously agreed to assist me 
again." If anyone giggled, they were polite enough to turn it into a cougn.
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I stayed up late that night with my books and was up again after only a few 
hours' sleep, and was almost too engrossed in the spells to hear Gwen's knock. 
But I heard it the second time and went to answer. This morning the breakfast 
tray held hot cinnamon crullers as well as my tea.
"Sir, could I speak with you?" she said somewhat timidly.
"Of course!" I said, motioning her to a chair. Gwen hadn't seemed to want to 
talk to me since the first days I had been in Yurt. She now seemed subdued, not 
at all inclined to laugh at me. Maybe seeing me gaping at the queen had had the 
salutary effect of making her jealous.
Her first words destroyed any hope I might have had in that direction. ' Sir, do 
wizards make love potions?"
"Love potions! My dear, why would anyone so charming as yourself need a love 
potion?" I realized I sounded as though I were her uncle and about forty years 
older than she was, but I couldn't think of what else to say.
She ignored the compliment if she even noticed it. "No, I don't need a love 
potion myself. But I'm afraid Jon is going to use one on me."
"Jon?"
"You know him. He's one of the trumpeters, and he also does the glassblowing. He 
made you your glass telephones."
"He does very good work, too," I said, wondering why she would need a love 
potion used on her. "He seems a very nice young man." Now I was sounding like an 
uncle again, trying to persuade the coy niece to accept her gallant suitor.
"I like him, sir, I really like him a lot. But he wants
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73
to get married, and I'm not sure I'm ready. Maybe not ready to marry anybody, 
and certainly not to marry him. He gets so jealous! Can you imagine, when you 
first came he even was jealous of your He made me promise not to speak more to 
you than absolutely necessary."
This, of course, was devastating. At first I had thought someone had warned her 
against me, and had speculated whether this might have something to do with the 
strangely distant yet evil touch I felt in the castle. Then I had decided she 
had had to restrain her affections before her heart broke. And now it seemed it 
was all due to a jealous glassblower, who she thought should have known better 
than possibly to be jealous of me!
"I guess I'm breaking my promise talking to you now, but I really do feel I have 
to."
"If you're worried he'll use a love potion to make you many him," I said with as 
much dignity as I could, "where do you think he'll get it?"
"At first, of course, I was worried he'd get it from you, that he might even 
have asked you for it the day he blew that glass for you. But a month has gone 
by, and I know he hasn't tried to slip me a potion yet, and I haven't seen him 
talking to you again, except a few words in front of a lot of other people."
"I don't make love potions," I said honestly. "That's not something they teach 
us in the wizards' school. That's more something for magic-workers at carnivals 
than real wizards."
"I think the old wizard, your predecessor, might have made love potions."
This was entirely possible, but I didn't say so. "I don't, at any rate, so you 
need fear nothing from me."
"But he might get it somewhere else, then, at a carnival, or even from the old 
wizard. How can I tell if he's put it in my food?"
A good question, and the same question I was won-
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dering about the king. A wizard can recognize another wizard at once, but since 
magic is a natural force, someone simply carrying a magic potion is not 
particularly obvious. If someone could poison the king, then Jon could try to 
make Gwen love him.
"Don't ever eat or drink alone with him," I said, which was not a particularly 
useful answer, but was all I could think of. "He wouldn't mind taking the love 
potion himself, since he's already in love with you, but I don't think he'd dare 
have anyone else fall in love with him." Gwen looked at me skeptically, as 
though disappointed that such obvious advice was all I could give. "And smell 
your food," I said. "Love potions are made of herbs and roots and usually smell 
rather nasty."
"Thank you, sir," she said, rising and taking my now-empty tray.
"Thank you for the crullers!" I called after her. "They were delicious."
A little later that morning, I sat with the Lady Maria in my outer chamber, the 
curtains drawn, and the telephone instruments before us. I didn't really need 
her for what I was trying, but after what I had said at dinner I felt I ought to 
include her. Besides, she had been talking to Dominic in the great hall when I 
went to find her, and he had given me an almost furious look when I interrupted 
and asked her to join me. If Dominic had turned against me, I wanted him as 
uncomfortable as possible.
"Now keep perfectly silent while I work this spell," I said. "I'm trying 
something different this time. It's a far-seeing spell, and extremely difficult. 
They never even taught it to us at the wizards' school." They might have taught 
some of the other students, but they most certainly had never taught me. "I'm 
going to try to attach it to the telephone."
The Lady Maria did as she was bid, even breathing
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75
virtually without a sound, as I checked the spell one last time in the book, put 
it away, and closed my eyes to begin. The heavy syllables of the Hidden Language 
rolled from my tongue. It was a long spell.
I opened my eyes and looked at my glass telephone in the dim light of the room. 
It looked exactly the same. I was about to try speaking a name to it, to see if 
it might respond, when I was almost knocked from my chair by the surprise of 
another voice speaking the Hidden Language.
It was the Lady Maria. Her eyes closed, she was resting her hands on the 
telephone instrument in front of her and repeating the long spell I had just 
given, word for word.
In ten minutes, at the last syllable, she opened her eyes and gave me a saucy 
look that Gwen could not have equaled. "There! You probably didn't think I could 
work magic."
"But can you?" I cried, flabbergasted. I hadn't thought anyone could say a 
spell, except one of the very simple ones, without actually learning the Hidden 
Language, knowing what the words meant as well as how they were pronounced. And 
I was quite sure there was no way to leam the Language other than a lengthy 
apprenticeship or years in the wizards' school.
' If your spell works, mine should too," she said complacently. "I just said 
everything you said, the same way you said it."
"Let's try yours, then," I said and pulled the curtain open. I picked up the 
receiver and spoke the name attached to the telephone at the wizards' school in 
the City.
Very faintly, from the receiver, I could hear a distant ringing. "Triumph at 
last!" I thought, but dared say nothing. I held the receiver so Maria could hear 
as well. She leaned close to me, her hair brushing my cheek.
"Look!" she said with indrawn breath. The glass
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base of the telephone had lit up. Inside was a miniature but very real scene, a 
room at the wizards' school, a telephone sitting on a table, and one of the 
young wizards, one I knew but not well, picking up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Hello!" I cried. "Can you hear me?"
"Hello?" somewhat more dubiously. "Is anyone there?"
The tiny figure inside the telephone base turned his head, as though talking to 
someone else. "No, I can't hear anyone. It's just silent."
"We're here! We're here! Hello?" I shouted.
"Maybe someone's idea of a joke." We watched his hand move to replace the 
receiver, and then our telephone went blank.
"We did it!" said Maria, giving me a hard hug that startled me so much that I 
couldn't answer at once. "We made the telephones work!"
"In fact, we didn't," I said, trying to catch my breath.
"Let me try this time." Before I could say anything she had picked up the 
receiver and spoken another name. Again I could hear the faint sound of ringing. 
Then, once again, the telephone base lit up with a miniature scene within it. 
This time, it was a liveried servant picking up the receiver.
"Thats a servant in my brother's castle," she said. "We can tell them the queen 
got home safely. Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"
As I expected, the servant could not hear us and replaced the receiver in a 
moment. "We don't need to tell them," I said. "The queen sent a message by the 
pigeons when she got home yesterday."
"But why can't they hear us?"
"I was trying to tell you," I said, drawing my chair away from hers. "A 
telephone, if it's working, is a communications instrument. Our telephones don't
A Bad Spell in Yurt
77
communicate at all. I've taken the far-seeing spell and attached it to the 
instruments, but it's not working right. Now it only means that someone using 
our telephones can see a distant telephone, not that he or she can talk to 
anyone far away.
"But couldn't you still use our phones for communication? You could send a 
message by the pigeons that you were going to telephone, and then when the phone 
rang and they couldn't hear anyone, they could just say whatever they wanted to 
say, knowing you could hear them."
This was too elaborate for me. "No; all it means is that I'm not closer to the 
telephone system they wanted. On the other hand," feeling more cheerful, "I 
don't think anyone's ever attached the far-seeing spell to an object before. 
This means someone, even if not trained in magic, could see far away, as long as 
he only wanted to see a distant telephone room."
But this brought me back to an earlier concern. "Lady Maria, how do you happen 
to know magic? Usually women don't know any. Have you been trained?"
"Of course not; all you male wizards refuse to teach women magic. Are there 
really no women wizards?"
"Not really."
"But why not? I've heard of witches; aren't they women wizards?"
This was going to be difficult to explain. "Of course there are witches in the 
world. They're women who've learned magic on their own, for the most part, or 
from other witches. But there have never been women in the wizards' school."
"Is there a real reason, or just a silly tradition?"
"Tradition's not silly," I told her. "Anything that has functioned well for 
centuries must have some validity. But you're right, it is a tradition, rather 
than a written law, such as that barring women from the priesthood."
I didn't want to be distracted from my original ques-
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tion of where she had learned magic, but she kept on pushing me about women 
wizards. "But what validity can a tradition have that keeps women from learning 
magic?"
' You're not the first to ask this. It's actually a question that's being raised 
by some of the wizards of the City. The real reason, the original reason, is 
that women already have a creative power that men don't have, the power to 
create life within their wombs." If I hoped to embarrass her by my frankness, I 
should have known better; this was the same woman who had been whispering to me 
at dinner about the queen's attempts to have a baby. "It would be too dangerous 
to link wizardry with that kind of creation. Witches are always teetering, about 
to go over into black magic, unless they know so little magic at all that their 
spells are useless. If you've heard of witches, you must have heard that some of 
them are said to create magic monsters in the womb."
Maria paused for a moment; she clearly had heard something of the sort. "But 
that wouldn't apply" She broke off. That wouldn't apply, she had been starring 
to say, to someone already forty-eight, but she wasn't going to say it. Instead 
she said, "In that case, wouldn t it be better to train the women properly, so 
they would know how magic should be used? Isn't that training why the wizards' 
school was started originally? That's what we were told when we started looking 
for a new wizard."
This argument too I had heard in the City. But instead of answering I changed 
the subject back to my question. "So how did you learn the Hidden Language?"
"Is that what it's called? When I first came to Yurt, I was terribly excited at 
the opportunity to learn magic, when I found there was a Royal Wizard here; 
there was no wizard in my brother's castle. And then, at most, he let me be 
there while he worked some
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79
spells! But I found out I had the ability to say spells myself, if I'd heard 
them even once, and then I started making requests of my own!"
"Requests?" This sounded dubious. "What were you requesting?"
"Don't ask a girl all her secrets!" she said with a smile which was indeed 
positively girlish.
She seemed, I thought, to be one of the rare persons born with a flair for 
magic. This was why, weeks earlier, she had been able to hear my voice speaking 
within her mind.
"The old wizard wouldn't teach me anything. Could you, might you, teach me 
wizardry?"
There was actually no reason why I shouldn't. But I hesitated. Magic was a 
powerful tool, and the old wizard had been right in calling her flighty. But no 
one would have called me sober and stable either when I first came to the 
wizards' school.
"You'd have to learn the Hidden Language first," I said at last. "You can do a 
few spells by saying the words, but to create your own spells you need to 
understand them thoroughly." I reached for the first-grammar from my shelf. It 
was heavy, and the cloth binding was starting to fray badly. "Take this if you 
want, but I will need it back again. Start studying, and if you're still 
interested I can help you further."
She took the volume eagerly, but her face fell as she leafed through it. "But it 
doesn't tell how to do spells."
"As I said, you can't create your own spells unless you understand the Language 
first. But tell me," as a thought struck me, "how you've been able to make magic 
'requests' without knowing magic."
There was no doubt now that she didn't want to answer me. She stood up rapidly, 
clutching the first-grammar. "I'll try to work through this," she said. "I'd 
better go now. But wasn't it fun that it was my tele-
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phone that worked?" She rushed across my room and was gone before I could 
answer.
I sat down again and leaned my face on my fists. I had imagined being a Royal 
Wizard was exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. So far, I had actually 
promised to teach wizardry to a woman, one who was positively flirting with me; 
another woman, who came to ask my wizardly advice, left thinking of me as a 
rather dim-witted uncle; and I was in love with a third woman, this one married 
already.
PART THREE
Carnival
I
I came up the hill toward the castle on the white mare, exhausted and 
exhilarated. It was midmorning, and I had again spent the night at the old 
wizards house without intending to do so when I arrived. But this time I had 
known the night was passing (and it was only one night, not two) and had stayed 
because I decided to, not because the old wizard had used his magic herbal smoke 
to put me to sleep.
The harvest was over, now, although the turnips still lay in the ground, 
awaiting the first real frost. For two weeks I had stood out in the fields with 
the harvesters, wearing a wide-brimmed hat against the sun and doubtless looking 
much more like a fanner than a wizard. I had kept my eye open for thunderstorms, 
or the hailstorms that could destroy the ripe grain, but for the most part the 
weather had stayed clear, and the weather spells I had assiduously reviewed were 
only needed once. With my harvest responsibilities over, I had gone back to the 
old wizard's house under the giant oak.
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
83
Yesterday he had begun to teach me herbal magic. I smiled ruefully at myself, 
arriving yesterday morning, doubtless very like the Lady Maria expecting the 
first-grammar of the Hidden Language to be a tidy list of useful spells. I had 
expected a quick listing of different herbs and their properties. Instead he had 
begun teaching me to know the herbs, as well as I already knew the Language, to 
recognize the possible properties in each and to determine how to combine them 
and how to find the words that would reveal their potency.
It was only twenty-four hours ago that I had naively said, "You mean that you 
have to do something with magic herbs? Anyone can't just pick them and use 
them?" The old wizard had snorted and looked at me as though he were going to 
send me back to the castle at once, but he hadn't.
The exhilaration had come just before I left, while the old wizard was slicing 
me some coarse bread and vegetables for breakfast. I stood next to the table 
where he had different herbs laid out, trying to picture what each might do, 
while the calico cat rubbed against my ankles.
"You didn't tell me you had a stickfast weed," I said.
"I don't," he said from the other table without turning around.
'This one," I said, holding it out until he did look back over his shoulder.
"That isn't anything," he said, returning to the vegetables. "It got into my 
basket with a lot of other herbs."
This, I decided, was a test. "But look!" I said. I squeezed the sap from the 
stem onto my palm, said two words, and reached down to pat the cat. When I stood 
up, it was firmly attached to my hand.
The cat didn't like being suspended from my open palm. It yowled and extended 
its claws. I said two
more words and it was free. It dropped the short distance to the floor, gave a 
short hiss, and disappeared under the old wizard's chair.
Then I realized it hadn't been a test. The old wizard stared at me, the knife 
forgotten in his hand, without speaking. After a long minute, as though he had 
finally won the struggle to avoid praising me, he said, "Stickfast weed/' and 
grunted.
He put the bread and vegetables on a plate and handed it to me without another 
word. But I knew. I had discovered an herbal property he had not known. While I 
ate, I kept tossing little crumbs toward the cat until it emerged. Then I 
scooped it up and settled it on my lap, where in a minute it settled down to 
purr to show we were friends again.
"Maybe 111 be able to teach you some real magic after all," said the old wizard 
as I saddled my mare. "Even if you did get some fancy notions at that City 
school." The excitement lasted all the ride back through the woods, even though 
the exhaustion of staying up all night hit me as soon as I left the wizard's 
valley. I had even learned a simple spell that someone not trained in magic 
could say, to detect magic potions in food. I couldn t wait to tell Gwen.
I wondered again, as the castle came in sight, what had happened during the day 
I had passed in a trance in the wizard's house last month. Yesterday, as I 
ducked under the volley of magic arrows to reach him, I had been wondering if he 
had used the time as an opportunity to come back up to the castle without my 
knowledge. But if so, no one had seen him, and he had said nothing about it, 
either then or now. If he had come to the castle, I now thought, he would have 
seen at once that his magic locks were gone from the north tower and would most 
certainly have held me to blame. That his manner now sometimes verged on 
friendly showed he did not yet know what had hap-
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pened there. But sometime I was going to have to tefl
As I started across the drawbridge over the moat, I almost collided with the 
queen coming out.
"I'm so pleased you're back!" she cried with the smile that made my heart turn 
over. "The king told me to meet him in five minutes in the rose garden. I'm sure 
he'd like you to be there as well. He said it was a magic surprise! The five 
minutes are almost up."
I dismounted to walk with her. She was wearing a long white dress with a 
standing crimson collar mat framed her face, and her eyes flashed with delight 
at me from under an errant wave of hair.
We stopped at the garden gate. "I'm here!" the queen called. "And I've brought 
the Royal Wizard with me!"
"Come on in!" came a faint call, and we entered.
Coming toward us between the rosebushes, his toes just brushing the grass, was 
King Haimeric. His face was so tight with concentration that he seemed not to 
see us. I could tell he wasn't even breathing. When he was within three feet of 
the queen, he lifted his eyes, took a sudden breath, and dropped to the ground. 
She steadied him with her strong young arms.
"You were flying!" she cried. "When did you learn to fly? I know you said it 
would be a magic surprise, but I hadn't imagined it could be anything so 
wonderful!"
The king winked at me over her head, a wink of triumph.
He leaned on her arm as they walked toward the bench, and I followed behind.
"I've been having the wizard teach me," he said.
"And you've clearly been practicing on your own!" I added. "You've made much 
better progress than I would have expected. But you do have to remember to 
breathe."
"I noticed that," he said, sitting down and breathing "But it seems to interrupt 
my concentration.
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85
hard now.
"All it needs is a little more practice."
"I'd had no idea you were learning to fly," said the queen in admiration, and 
for one bad moment I was afraid she was going to ask me to teach her too. "When 
did you start learning?"
"It was while you were at your parents'. Originally I was hoping to show you 
when you first got back, but I wasn't as quick a pupil as I'd hoped. Not that 
our wizard isn't a good teacher!" They both turned wide smiles on me. "One of 
the many, many things I like about having you here is that it makes me less 
dependent on Dominic. As you know, since my legs started to get weak I haven't 
always been able to walk as well as I'd like, and he'd baby me unmercifully. I 
thought that if I learned to fly, I'd be able to move around as I liked without 
him always hovering. The boy means well, but ..."
He didn't finish the sentence. I was very pleased to see that I was not the only 
person in the castle referred to as a boyespecially since Dominic was half 
again my age.
I was also pleased to see how much more cheerful the king had seemed since the 
queen came home. When I first arrived, he was looking back over his years as 
king as though they would shortly be coming to an end. Now he acted as though he 
were only in the middle of them. I began to wonder if the mysterious ailment 
that Dominic thought someone had given the king was nothing more than some 
stiffness in the knees combined with loneliness. If she had been my queen, I 
would certainly have been lonely when she was gone.
We looked at the roses while the king finished catching his breath. Some of the 
bushes had already finished blooming for the season, though late roses still 
bloomed defiantly on others.
"You know," said the king, "it's been several years
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
87
since I've been to the harvest carnival. Would you like to go?"
' Oh, could we?" said the queen with that smile.
"I'd be delighted," I said, since the question seemed to include me as well, and 
suddenly had to stifle a yawn.
"The carnival starts in two days," said the king. "Well leave first thing in the 
morning." With the tact I was pleased to see even a sometimes incompetent wizard 
deserved, he added, "You'll have plenty of time before then to recover your 
strength after your magic activities."
While I napped that afternoon with my curtains drawn, the rest of the castle 
must have buzzed with activity, for in the morning all was ready. The constable 
and his wife were staying behind with a few servants, but the rest of us rode 
out just after dawn: the knights first, led by Dominic, then the king and queen, 
surrounded by the ladies of the court, then the boys, the chaplain, and me, all 
followed by the servants, who led pack horses loaded with food, supplies, and 
the tents.
The queen rode her black stallion, but the rest of us were on the white or bay 
mares and geldings of the royal stables. Bells on our harnesses jingled as we 
waved good-bye to those staying behind and rode down the brick road toward the 
forest. The air was crisp, with a faint haze, and there were spots of orange 
leaves among the green before us.
"Have you been to this harvest carnival before?" I asked the chaplain. He was 
riding beside me, his horse the only one without bells.
"Not since I came to Yurt," he said. "The carnival was already past the fall I 
arrived, and the king has not felt well enough since then to go. But of course I 
know the city well where it is held."
Clearly I was missing something. Since I didn't even
know where we were going, I kept on with my questions. "Why do you know it 
well?"
Joachim looked at me in surprise, then nodded. "That's right, you wouldn't know. 
It's my cathedral city, the city of the bishop. Yurt isn't big enough for its 
own bishop, or for that matter its own harvest carnival, so for both the kingdom 
must rely on the nearest city of the next kingdom over. That's where we're 
going."
"Then you'll get to see your old friends at the bishop's school," I said, 
thinking I would like to see some of my friends from the wizards' school. But 
this small city where we were going was still a long, long way from the City by 
the sea, where the wizards trained, and I knew that most of my best friends were 
by now off in various parts of the western kingdoms in their own posts as 
wizards.
Joachim looked at me a moment in silence, then smiled. "I still don't always 
recognize it when you're making a joke," he said. As I hadn't been making a 
joke, this naturally surprised me. "I'd been about to say, you must not know 
very much about the way the Church is organized to think that a priest would 
take up his first post in the same diocese as his seminary."
Since I had no idea what he was talking about, I decided to say nothing.
"But I am going to see the bishop. It would soon be time for my annual visit 
anyway, so it seemed easiest to come with the party from Yurt. I sent him a 
message by the pigeons yesterday so that he would expect me."
'That will be nice to see him, if it's been a year," I said to keep the 
conversation going.
" 'Nice,' " said Joachim, as though testing the word. "You know, I don't always 
understand you. Are you still joking? Or is it really 'nice' for you to explain 
to the old wizard of the wizards' school your progress in the last year in 
combating evil?"
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
89
"Oh," I said, understanding at last. "I'm sorry, I don't think I'd realized that 
you had to undergo an annual assessment."
"How else would the bishops of the western kingdoms be able to be sure that the 
priests under them had kept the pure faith?"
We reached the edge of the forest and passed into the cool shade. The early 
morning light was dim, but I could see Joachim's dark eyes glaring at me.
"Don't you wizards from the wizards' school have to do something similar?"
If so, no one had ever told me, or at least I hadn't heard. I missed my friends 
and I missed the City, but I certainly hoped I would never have to explain to 
the Master of the wizards that I had spent the past year adeptly aiding mankind 
with benign wizardry. "Maybe it's because wizards tend to fight all the time," I 
said, "but they leave us alone once we've left the school."
"Maybe it's because the worst you can do is endanger your own souls," said 
Joachim with a snort that would have done credit to my predecessor in Yurt.
We would soon be reaching the little pile of white stones that marked the 
turnoff for the old wizard's hidden valley. I decided not to point it out.
We rode in silence for a few minutes. What he said seemed to dismiss the theory 
I had once had that a young, untried and unsupervised priest had somehow let 
evil loose in Yurt. I was happy to see the theory go. Although Joachim seemed 
short on tact, even for him, this morning, I could not be irritated. He was not 
only going to have to explain why everything he had done was good, but make it 
clear that he had done it with a pure heart. Whatever wizardry demanded, a pure 
heart didn't seem absolutely necessary.
Reflecting on the lack of purity in my own heart made me think of Gwen. I hadn't 
yet had a chance to tell her I had a spell against love potions. I excused
myself, reined in my mare so that others could pass me, and dropped into line 
again as Gwen came even.
"Hello, sir, she said in evident surprise.
"I'd like to talk to you a minute," I said. "Privately, if we could."
She had been riding next to Jon. Although the young trumpeter and glassblower 
had always been perfectly friendly to me, he now shot me a brief but 
unmistakable look of jealousy. "Don't worry," I said with a grin. "We can't 
possibly get into trouble on horseback."
This did not improve his expression, but Gwen laughed and reined in her own 
horse, so that the two of us fell to the back of the procession.
"You were asking me about love potions," I said as soon as I thought no one else 
would hear us. Jon was riding a short distance ahead, but his back was turned 
toward us stiffly, as though to say that he would not deign to turn around. 
"I've learned a spell you can say to detect one."
As I'd hoped, Gwen was delighted at this helpful advice from her elderly uncle. 
As we rode, I taught her the three simple words of the Hidden Language that 
would reveal such a potion and made her repeat them until I was sure she Knew 
them. "Say them over any drink or dish you suspect," I said, "and if there's a 
love potion it will turn bright red."
"That should make the danger clear, then," she said with a smile.
"Very clear. And remember: I know the spell too, so don t try slipping anything 
in my crullers!'
This attempt at flirtation was met with highly amused laughter. The elderly 
uncle was clearly cute and quaint. She kicked her horse and hurried forward to 
rejoin Ton.
We rode on all that day, stopping for lunch at the border where we left the 
kingdom of Yurt. In late afternoon, when the king was clearly exhausted, Domi-
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nic called a halt at a meadow next to a stream. The servants unloaded the horses 
and set up the tents with the knights' assistance, then started fires to cook 
supper. The ride had made me ravenously hungry, and the smoked sausage they were 
grilling smelled delicious long before it was ready. The king and queen retired 
to their tent even before supper was ready, but the rest of us strolled around 
the meadow, glad to be on our own feet again after a day on horseback. Even the 
more reserved ladies of the court were talking and laughing about the events of 
the harvest carnival, which we would reach tomorrow, and die Lady Maria was 
positively giddy.
n
The first sight we had of die city was the spire of the cathedral, seeming to 
rise out of die golden stubble of the wheat fields. The forests of Yurt were far 
behind, and all afternoon we had been riding past wide fields. As we came 
closer, we could see that the cadiedral spire was surrounded in turn by a small 
walled city, and that the city was surrounded with the colorful striped tents of 
other people who had come to the carnival. As we approached, I could see 
crenellated towers rising on the opposite side of the city from the cadiedral, 
directly against die walls. The city gates stood wide open, and a crowd hurried 
in and out. Distant sounds of shouting, of laughter, and of song reached us on 
die wind.
We rode dirough the encampments, dirough the city gates, and were plunged into 
narrow streets bustling widi humanity. We had to ride carefully to be sure our 
horses did not bump into anyone or knock over tables set out with everything 
from fresh vegetables to tooled harnesses to bales of fabric. I had expected 
diat we would be camping again, but instead
A Bad Spell in Yurt
91
we proceeded through the streets toward die small castle whose towers I had seen 
from outside the walls.
"This casde belongs to Yurt," explained die Lady Maria, riding beside me. "Our 
king's grandfather, I think it was, nought the land outside the old city walls, 
built die castle, and rebuilt the walls to go around it. He wanted to have a 
place to stay when ne came for one of die carnivals or to visit the cathedral. 
Now even die king of this kingdom has to ask our king's permission if he wants 
to stay here!"
Before reaching the castle, we had to pass die wide open square in front of die 
cadiedral. Here, in die long shadow of die spire, the market tables were 
diick-est, and die music was die loudest. Ahead of us, I saw die chaplain speak 
for a moment to the king, dien pull his horse out of line.
"I'm leaving you now," he said as I came even. "But 111 be widi you when you 
go." He dismounted before I could say anything and led his horse dirough die 
tangle of tables to die cathedral steps, where I saw him talking to a boy and 
handing him bodi die reins and a coin. I looked over my shoulder before we left 
the square to see him going, straight-backed, up the cathedral stairs and in the 
tall door.
"The king and queen were married in die cathedral," said die Lady Maria. "It was 
the sweetest ceremony, widi roses brought from the king's own garden, and the 
queen just radiant. I always like to visit the cadiedral when we come here."
In a few more twists of the street, we had reached the gateway which led into 
the courtyard of die king's httle castle. The constable of this castle and his 
wife were at die gate waiting for us, wearing die same blue and white livery as 
the constable back home in Yurt. There were only a few chambers besides die 
royal chambers, so my little bundle of clean clodies ended up in die same room 
with Dominic and the knights. But none of us wanted to stay in the castle's 
narrow
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rooms when the sounds of carnival were right outside the windows. Within a few 
minutes, everyone but the king and queen was out in the city streets.
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 well. It had always been full of interesting news, ads, and 
information, whereas this paper was all full 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 that covered piles of newsprint with black ink were powered by wizardry. 
But I hadn't thought before how localized newspapers were, all 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
A Bad Spell in Yurt
93
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 stall 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 all.
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 spilled out of tavern doors. Although this was a small 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
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was doubtless at this moment describing the purity of his heart to the bishop.
But I was enjoying myself. I tried all 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 wall as six 
people collectively wearing a dragon costume came running around the comer. For 
one horrible moment, I was afraid it actually was a dragon.
They certainly made a spectacular beast. 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 selling leather and bolts of cloth and the farmers selling loads of 
vegetables were all gone. The musicians and dancers were thicker, however, and 
at least half the people in the square were wearing some land of costume. I saw 
no priests, even though we were next to the church; I guessed they stayed well 
inside during carnival.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
95
And then I saw the most startling thing I had seen all 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 illusion, 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 synibol imaginable, from the zodiac to a crucifix to a gleaming sun. On 
his head was a tall, 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 oncenot him personally, because I had never seen him 
before, but as a type. He was a magician, the sort of fellow 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 gray 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
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eight years were up, and old wizards who had never gone to the school were 
always recognizable.
"Shall 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 illusions 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 excellent dragon eyes.'
"Well, thanks for your exalted opinion."
I wandered off through the crowd without saying anything more. I should have 
known better than to risk appearing to be condescending. Wizards fight all the 
time with one another 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
A Bad Spell in Yurt
97
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 bothwhat do 
you think?'
"I think this is a marvelous carnival," I said. "But it's getting late, and the 
crowd will be getting wild soon. Do you think it's quite, well, safe to be out?"
They both laughed. "No one will bother the King of Yurt," he said. "Not knowing 
the swift retribution that would follow 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 was back, though I could hear the voices of several of the 
ladies down the hall from the chamber where I was staying. I was delighted to 
see the king so well. What I couldn't decide was whether he was just improved by 
the pleasure of the queen's companysomething I had already seen happeningor 
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 tell him there was a 
malignant influence there that I couldn't find, but that meant he would have to 
leave.
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The carnival continued all the next day, but I surprised myself by becoming 
bored. Maybe it was because I was there for pleasure alone, and pleasure seemed 
to pall 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 ana spices, to flagons, to bed linens, to pots and pans, to 
a new volleyball 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 originally planned to wear my red 
pullover to the carnival, but after looking at it critically in the light of my 
predecessor's magic lamps, I had decided it really did look like an old Father 
Noel outfit. I also searched for, but did not see, anyone selling books that 
would interest me.
The king and queen didn't seem at all 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 still at the carnival; 
one time I thought I saw a cascade of glistening stars rising from farther 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 still 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
A Bad Spell in Yurt
99
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 unwilling 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.
m
The king was ill. He took to his bed the night we got back to Yurt, saying he 
was exhausted, and ne 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
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
101
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.
With little to do, I set myself the goal of reviewing everything 1 had 
supposedly learned: at the wizards school. Within a week, I had finished all the 
assignments from the first year. I was both pleased to see that I really had 
progressed in my eight years at the school, from an audacious but (in 
retrospect) shockingly ignorant young man from a merchant family in the City to 
someone recognizable as a real wizard, at least to an illusion-weaver at a 
carnival; and embarrassed to see what truly basic information I had managed not 
to learn. At the end of the week, I sat down to write Zahlfast a letter.
It was hard thinking what to write, out of all that had happened to me since 
leaving the City. It would in fact nave been easier to write a twenty-page 
letter, but I was restricted by the size of message the pigeons could carry. 
Unless one was willing to wait to send one's letter by someone from Yurt, or 
someone stopping by Yurt, who was traveling to the City, the only alternative 
was to write one's letter on one of the tiny, lightweight pieces of paper the 
pigeons could carry. There were postal stations spread in a semicircle, fifty 
miles from the City, where carrier pigeons from all the western kingdoms brought 
messages and dropped them into the greater urban postal system. The postal 
system itself could handle almost any size letter, but only if mailed within 
fifty miles of the City.
' I am enjoying being Royal Wizard," I finally wrote, "and at last I may be 
learning some of the magic you tried to teach me. So far I've made a series of 
magic lights. I am even learning some of the old herbal magic as well. My king 
is sick now, however, so I don't know what will happen. If you are ever near 
Yurt, it would be nice to see you."
The last line surprised me, as I had not intended to write it. Just getting 
lonely for company, I said to myself, but I let the sentence stay. I folded the 
tiny piece of paper I was allowed, wrote the address on the outside, rolled it 
up and slipped it into the cylinder that would be attached to the pigeon's leg, 
and took it across the slick courtyard and up to the south tower. The pigeon 
keeper assured me my letter would be delivered in the City the next dayor 
certainly within two days.
Back in my chambers, I found the book in the front of which I had written the 
schedule of courses and readings at the beginning of my second year at the 
school. Some of the courses I had no recollection of, and I was quite sure I did 
not own all the books.
I was sitting, frowning at the list, when I heard running feet outside. My door 
swung open without even a knock, and Gwen burst in. "Sir, oh sir, excuse me, but 
you must come at once!"
The book fell from my hands unheeded as I leapt up. My heart fell with as heavy 
a thump, for I was sure the king was dead.
"Someone s trying to poison the king with magic! You must find out who it is!"
At least it sounded as though the king was not dead yet. "But how do you know?
"Please come!" she cried, tugging at my hand. "The others don't believe methey 
say I don't know any magic.
We hurried across the rainy courtyard to the kitchens. I was too confused and 
upset even to try a spell to stay dry.
In the warmth and steam of the kitchen, the cook was standing looking thoroughly 
angry, her ample fists on her aproned hips. The rest of the kitchen servants 
hovered in the background, looking worried.
"So, Wizard," saia the cook. "Now maybe we can have the real story! Gwen has 
been trying to tell us
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
103
you've taught her magic, and now she's accusing us of wanting the king dead!"
"I didn't say that!" Gwen cried. "I never thought it! I'm not accusing any of 
you, but someone's doing it!"
"Wait, wait," I said. "I never taught Gwen magic."
"Yes you did!" she countered. "That spell that turns food red! Only in this case 
it turned green."
There was a babble of voices, but I tried to stay calm. "Let's start at the 
beginning. What food are you talking about?"
"This, sir," said Gwen. From the table she picked up what appeared to be a bowl 
of chicken soup, except that it was a brilliant greenalmost the same color, in 
fact, as the queen's eyes. "I was going to take it to the king; the queen 
thought a little soup would do him good. And then I remembered that you had 
taught me a spell to say to see if someone had slipped a potion in your food."
Jon was standing next to her, but she looked determinedly straight ahead. "You 
said if someone had, the food would turn red. And then I wondered, suppose 
someone had tried to slip a potion to the king? So I decided to say the spell 
over his soup. But it didn't turn red, it turned green. That's probably just 
because it's a different kind of potion, but I know someone wants to kill him!" 
At this she burst into tears. Jon tried to put his arms around her, but she 
pulled herself away.
I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that the old wizard had told me this 
spell would detect a love potion. When I learned it and taught it to Gwen, it 
had never occurred to me that it might be a way to detect the spell that Dominic 
said someone had put on the king.
It still might not be the way, but I could not hesitate. "We've got to get the 
king out of the castle," I said. They all looked at me as though I had lost my 
mind.
"But it's cold and it's raining! He can't travel in this weather! Where would he 
go?"
"Not far," I said, hoping what I was saying was true. "His rose garden should be 
far enough. Wrap him up well, and put hot irons in the wrappings to keep him 
warm. Pitch a tent in the garden, and set charcoal braziers in it. And you," to 
the cook, "will have to make him some more soup, but don't make it here. Make it 
outside the castle.'
"What? You expect me to leave my warm kitchen and make a campnre in this rain 
and"
"It may be the only way to save the king's life," I said. The cold touch of evil 
I had been feeling since summer was stronger in the kitchen than ever before, 
though I still could: not tell where it was coming from. It might be Gwen, the 
cook, or one of the other servants, but I thought I would have been able to tell 
if it had been. "Come on!" I said. "There isn't enough time to waste any of it."
Almost to my surprise, they obeyed me. Within a very short time, the king, 
heavily wrapped and shielded from the rain, was being carried out into his rose 
garden. The few last blooms dripped wet.
Joachim came up to me, made as though to grab me by the arm but stopped himself 
in time, and instead drew me out of hearing range of the others with a jerk of 
his chin.
"Are you trying to kill the king?" he demanded, his black eyes glowing fiercely 
at me.
"I am not," I said back, just as fiercely. "I'm trying to save his life. I think 
there's an evil spell in the castle that's killing him, and I'm trying to see if 
he'll improve if he's outside."
'So now he'll die of pneumonia instead of magic? Is that your intention?"
"I hope he doesn't die," I said, fierce no longer. I had not seen the king in 
two weeks and had oeen shocked by his appearance. The shape of his skull was
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
105
clear beneath the skin of his face, though he had tried to smile and speak 
normally.
"It will take a miracle to save him."
"I thought you said, if you need a miracle, see a priest," I retorted, and 
almost felt triumphant as he blinked and drew back.
When the king was settled in his tent, the queen sitting beside him, and when 
the cook, still grumbling but beneath her breath, had started a new batch of 
soup on a small fire lit with coals from the kitchen, just outside the garden 
walls, I drew Gwen to one side.
"I have to go somewhere," I told her. "Stay with the cook. Check the new batch 
of soup with the same spell. If it doesn't change color, the king should have 
some."
"But where are you going?"
"Not far. Ill be back soon."
Without giving her a chance to speak again, I rose from the ground and flew down 
the hill toward the forest, swifter than a horse could carry me.
I didn't know why I was embarrassed to tell her I needed to ask the old wizard 
for help, except that I never had told anyone I had been visiting him.
I was thinking very bitter thoughts about my own abilities and responsibilities. 
Although Dominic had told me he thought there was an evil spell on the king, and 
although I nearly believed him, I had done nothing to discover the source of 
that spell. For two weeks, while the king grew weaker and weaker, I had been 
concerned only with my own education, as though it was going to be useful to 
know wizardry even though I never practiced it in the service of the king who 
had hired me as his Royal Wizard. I had originally visited the old wizard to 
find out if he knew anything about this spell, but instead I had allowed myself 
to become distracted into learning the magic of herbs. It wouldn't be much good 
showing off my herbal magic to my friends in the City if I also had to tell them 
I had
allowed my king to die of a magic spell when I hadn't bothered to find out its 
source.
The concentration needed for rapid flying beneath low-hanging branches made it 
difficult to carry this line of thought much further. I burst into sunshine as I 
entered the old wizard's valley. The lady and the unicorn were sitting by the 
little bridge, but today I saw no golden arrows.
I dropped to the ground outside the green door. The wizard was sitting in the 
doorway, the cat on his knee, enjoying the sunshine. He looked surprised to see 
me.
"Decided to skip the horse today, eh?" he said. "I just hope you weren't trying 
to impress me. We wizards trained in the old way have always been able to fly 
better than you young whippersnappers when we wanted to."
I swallowed my irritation. "I'm not trying to impress you, Master," I said. "I 
need your help. Quickly I explained to him about the soup that turned green when 
subjected to the spell to detect a love potion.
His brows furrowed, and he tossed the cat roughly from his lap as he stood up. 
"That spell just detects herbal potions," he said after a long pause, as though 
wondering what to tell me. "It turns food red if there's an herbal potion in it. 
There's no reason the spell should turn anything green. The girl probably got it 
wrong; maybe she said a spell of illusion by mistake."
"I don't think she got it wrong."
"Then it's detecting something else," he said abruptly, as though he had made a 
decision. "It might also detect the presence of the supernatural."
"You mean there's been black magic worked on the king's soup?"
"No, that's not what I mean, as you'd know if you listened properly! I meant 
that there's a supernatural presence in the castle. It might have nothing to do 
with the soup in particular, but in the right circumstances it might be 
detectable in food. No one need
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have put any potions in the soup for it to respond to that spell."
"Dominic said that he thought an evil spell had been cast on the king," I said. 
'Did he ever mention it to you, Master? Might this be the supernatural
presence?"
"I don't know what Dominic's been telling you," said the old wizard, sitting 
down again. "There certainly weren't any supernatural presences in the castle 
when / was Royal Wizard."
"Then I'd better see if I can find the source," I said and flew back up the 
valley without even a proper farewell.
As soon as I left the wizard's valley, the rain started again. I was furious 
with myself as I realized that, if he could create an island of good weather, I 
ought to have been able to do the same for the king. And the thought kept on 
nagging that the green of the chicken soup really was the same color as the 
queen's eyes.
I had never flown so fast for so far before, and the concentration required left 
me no attention for a spell against the rain. I was wet through when I dropped 
to the ground outside the rose garden.
Gwen, standing under an umbrella, met me by the gate. "The cook finished the new 
soup, sir," she said eagerly, "and the spell didn't affect it at all. The 
queen's giving him some now."
"Good/' I said, though I feared it would take more at this point than the cook's 
excellent chicken soup to heal the king. Hoping that drier weather might also 
help, I set to work at once on a weather spell.
But I realized immediately that I didn't know the spell against slow and steady 
rain. The spells I had prepared during the harvest were all against sudden 
storm. I could go back to my chambers and try to work it out, but I felt a 
desperate sense of urgency and decided to improvise. If I could turn this rain 
into a thunderstorm, I could then dissipate it quickly.
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107
"You'd better go inside, my dear," I said to Gwen, as she stood, hesitating, 
beside me. "Don't get any
wetter."
She went back into the castle, and it was just as well, because my first attempt 
to transform the rain into a real storm was so successful that a lightning bolt 
struck with a blazing flash and an acrid smell within ten feet of me, nearly 
taking off my eyelashes.
Peal after peal of thunder rolled around my head, and the air was blinding with 
repeated lightning flashes. I looked up and saw bolts of lightning dancing from 
turret to turret, hitting every tower in the castle and the spire on top of the 
chapel. I seemed to have created what must have been the worst thunderstorm in 
Yurt in a hundred years. My only hope was to make sure it was also the shortest. 
Setting my teeth grimly, I proceeded with the spells against thunderstorms, and 
abruptly the sky was clear. Both the thunder and the clouds rolled back, leaving 
a square mile of sunshine smiling down on the castle and the rose garden.
I checked my forehead to be sure I still had my eyebrows. Startled faces were 
looking at me over the garden gate, but I turned without saying anything and 
crossed the bridge into the castle. Since I had not in fact actually killed 
anyone with my lightning, it hardly seemed worth discussing the event at the 
moment.
As I crossed the courtyard, shivering in my wet clothes, I started toward my 
chambers to change, but decided instead to look for Joachim. I had been very 
rude to him and should probably show Christian tact by apologizing. He had been 
rude to me as well, but he had had more cause.
I hadn't seen him in the rose garden, but I hadn't actually gone into the 
garden. To save time, I probed with my mind to see where he might be in the 
castle. I couldn't find him.
Feeling uneasy, I started searching. It should be fairly straightforward for a 
wizard to touch the mind
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of someone he knows, as long as that person is not too far away. I went up to 
the chaplain's room, but it stood empty. I wandered around the castle aimlessly 
for a few minutes, not quite ready to go back out to the garden and face the 
inevitable questions about the thunderstorm, then realized I had not looked in 
the obvious place, the chapel.
I went up the stairs without the heart to turn on the lights, keeping my head 
low. So far I had been able to remove the king, at least temporarily, from 
whatever supernatural influence in the castle was harming him, and had been able 
to change the weather so he shouldn't get very damp out in his rose garden, but 
in my bones I feared it was too late.
Candles were burning on the chapel altar. A figure in black and white linen was 
stretched on his face on the floor in front of the altar, arms outstretched. I 
started to step forward, started to cry out, terrified that now Joachim had been 
struck deadperhaps by lightning.
I stopped myself in time. He was praying. No wonder, I thought, I hadn't been 
able to touch his mind. Magic is, as I kept telling people, a natural force, and 
he was in company with the saints.
He was totally still, except for the slight rising and falling of his shoulders 
as he breathed. I tiptoed back out, though I doubted that even my thunderstorm 
had disturbed him.
I returned slowly to my rooms, physically and mentally exhausted, from flying, 
from working spells, and from fear for the king. I changed my clothes, intending 
to go back out to the rose garden to see if I could be of any assistance, but 
first I stretched out on my bed, just for a moment.
The next thing I knew, I woke up, ravenously hungry, confused at finding myself 
fully clothed. My magic lamps, which I had turned on yesterday afternoon,
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109
were still burning, though natural daylight made them seem pale. The angle of 
the sunlight through my window showed it was long after Gwen usually brought my 
breakfast.
I swung my feet to the floor, then remembered. If no one had come, then that 
meant
I didn't know what it meant. I was afraid to probe for the king's mind because I 
might not find it. I brushed a hand across my hair and found my shoes, then 
opened the door to the courtyard.
Assembled in the courtyard, in a semicircle around my door, were most of the 
people from the castle. As my door swung open, a shout went up. "The Wizard! 
Hail the Royal Wizard! His magic has saved the king!"
I concentrated on the important point. "The king's alive?"
"Yes, and he's not just better, he's completely better! He's stronger than he's 
been in months, in years! You saved him! You saved him! Our Royal Wizard saved 
him!"
They had clearly been preparing themselves for hours while I slept. I didn't 
even begin to know what
to say.
And then I saw King Haimeric himself, coming across the bridge to the courtyard, 
arm in arm with the queen. I had never seen him so vigorous, or her
so beautiful.
I ran across the cobblestones to greet them. Not even bothering with the formal 
bow, I dropped to my knees before them.
The king took me by the shoulders to pull me up. "Let's not nave any of your 
modesty, Wizard," he said with a laugh, "when you've just saved my life!"
I was still stronger than he was and remained determinedly kneeling. "I had 
nothing to do with saving your hie."
"After your long night's vigil of magic? They told me your light was never 
extinguished au night.'
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Even though I knew that my orders that he be moved into the rose garden and be 
given fresh soup could not have saved him, it hardfy seemed worth explaining 
that I had spent the night not in magic but in sleep.
"It was the chaplain," I said. "Even the best magic cannot save human life, when 
that life is truly draining away, as I fear yours was, sire. Only a miracle can 
save a man then."
"The chaplain?" said the king in some surprise. "I've spoken to him, of course, 
but he said nothing about a miracle."
"He's showing Christian humility," I responded, "but he spent the night in 
prayer, and he interceded for you with the saints."
The people around heard me and, after a murmur of surprise, seemed to believe 
me. However, it did not seem to make them feel any less favorable toward
me.
"Then we have both the best Royal Wizard and the best Royal Chaplain a kingdom 
could have," said the queen. 'We were all just going to go to the chapel for a 
service of thanksgiving to God. Won't you join us?"
"With greatest pleasure," I said, scrambling to my feet and brushing off my 
knees.
IV
I was sitting in my chambers, quizzing the Lady Maria on the first points of the 
Hidden Language, when a knock came at the door.
She was not doing well on the first-grammar. Her enthusiasm for learning magic 
was as high as ever, and I think she really wanted to study hard, but she seemed 
distracted.
Maybe, I thought, she was the only other person in the castle, besides me, still 
to be worrying about the
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111
king. A month after his recovery, he seemed to be growing even stronger. After a 
week in the rose garden, he had moved back into the castle, so far without any 
ill effects. But I still sometimes felt that lurking sense of evil and worried 
that he might weaken again. Or maybe the Lady Maria was not worrying about 
anyone else, but only about the three gray hairs I had spotted that morning 
among the golden curls.
"Come in!" I called, thinking it might be Gwen with tea. She often brought a pot 
if I had someone visiting in my chambers, but if she was jealous and checking up 
on what the Lady Maria and I were doing, she certainly gave no sign.
But it was the constable. I was surprised; he rarely came to my chambers.
"Excuse me, sir, I hate to interrupt you and the lady, but there's a ... person 
here who wants to see you at once."
Maria jumped up. "I can't concentrate this afternoon anyway," she said, before I 
could tell the constable to have this mysterious person wait a few minutes.
"Shall I see you later today?" I asked. But she had rushed out already. "Show 
him in," I said to the constable.
"Excuse me, sir, but he wants you to go outside."
Shaking my head, I went out, stopping only long enough to put the magic lock on 
my door, and followed the constable across the courtyard to the main gate and 
the bridge.
Waiting on the bridge was an unmistakable figure: tall, lean, with a tall red 
hat and a long white beard. It was Zahlfast.
I rushed forward, hands outstretched to greet him, and although he tried to give 
me a look of stern dignity I could see a smile already lurking at the corner of 
his lips. That was why I had chosen to write to him.
"Welcome to Yurt!" I said inanely. "Come in! Did
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you have a good trip? Are you just stopping by, or can you stay for a while?"
He returned my handshake vigorously but resisted being drawn into the castle. 
"It's such a beautiful day," he said, "and there won't be many more this fall. 
Didn't I see a little garden over there where we could sit?"
We proceeded to the rose garden, where only the queen's rose bush, of all the 
bushes, was still blooming. I continued to chatter to hide my surprise at his 
arrival.
"I was glad to get your letter," said Zahlfast when we were seated on the bench 
where the king often sat. "Is your king still sick?"
"Oh, no. He was cured by a miracle a month ago."
Zahlfast shot me a sideways look, then looked away. "Good," he said and then 
added, "We never talk much about miracles at the wizards' school."
This of course I already knew. "The chaplain cured him. The chaplain's my 
friend," I added, feeling the same need to justify my friendship that I had felt 
with the old wizard. I started to say, "That is, I think he's my friend," but 
decided not to raise doubts.
But I should have remembered Zahlfast was the sharpest of my teachers. "You 
sound somewhat dubious about this friendship."
"Not dubious. But he had insulted me, and I insulted him, and I tried to 
apologize but, in a way, he wouldn't let meespecially since, I'll admit to you, 
I'm almost in awe of him after the miracle."
"Don't stand in awe of those who deal with the supernatural," said Zahlfast as 
though making a key point at the front of the lecture hall. "Wizards too can 
deal with forces beyond the natural, indeed have the special training to do it. 
And always remember, those who can heal with supernatural aid can always 
sicken."
Abruptly he changed the subject. "Anyway, it sounded from your letter as though 
you might be
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113
lonely, so, as I was flying in this direction anyway ..." I was surprised to 
realize he was having almost as much trouble feeling at ease as I was. He was 
still my teacher, but this was my kingdom, and I was no longer a student. "It 
really wasn't time yet for your first
checkup"
"My first checkup!" I cried, devastated. "You mean you go around checking on us 
after we leave the wizards' school? No one ever told me! Or is that just one 
more thing I missed?"
"We don't tell the young wizards," said Zahlfast with an amused smile he tried 
to suppress. "In fact, many are checked and never even know it, at least for 
some years. But I knew you were sharp enough to guess it wasn't just friendly 
interest in seeing an old student that brought me here, after I got your 
letter."
The compliment softened what would otherwise have been another devastating blow. 
And I had even hoped he remembered me fondly! But now I began to wonder what 
ulterior motive he may have had in passing me in that transformation 
practicalwas this an experiment to see just how badly a young wizard
could do?
"So what are you checking for?" "In your case, I was interested in your 
progress. In general, it's a continuation of the school's original purpose, to 
organize and rationalize the practice of wizardry, to be sure it doesn't go 
astray. That's why I wanted to learn more about your study of herbal magic and 
who has been teaching you."
"It's my predecessor. He lives not far from here, and he's taught me the 
rudiments," I said, feeling somewhat defensive, whereas I had expected to be 
proudly demonstrating an unusual accomplishment when I first met a wizard from 
the school again.
"He's your friend, too," said Zahlfast. It was a statement, not a question. 
"There aren't many young wiz-
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ards who are even on speaking terms with their predecessors."
"Is that what you mean when you say I'm sharp?" I said, hoping for another 
compliment.
"Why do you think you were hired as Royal Wizard of Yurt?"
"I'd assumed I was the only person who applied."
"You may have been; I'm not sure. But when I heard you'd applied, I talked to 
the Master, and we agreed. I wrote to the constable of Yurt and told him not to 
hire anyone else."
"That was the constable who you met at the gate," I said, wondering again why 
Zahlfast had not wanted to come in. But another question took precedence. "Why 
did you want me in Yurt? Was it to keep me out of the way?"
"Not at aU. We knew something was happening in Yurt, something odd, and it 
needed someone who combined your intuitive flair for magic with the potential, 
at least, to work hard and master academic magic. Neither careful mastery of 
spells nor innate ability would have been enough without the other. Also, of 
course, we hoped that here, away from the distractions of the City, you might 
meet enough challenges and find enough leisure that you really would set 
yourself to learning the magic we had tried to teach you."
There was not nearly enough of a compliment in this to mitigate the sting. "You 
mean you knew all along what was going on in Yurt? Why didn't you tell me?
"Actually," said Zahlfast, with a snort that could have been amusement, "I have 
no idea what's going on in Yurt. I was hoping you would tell me."
"There's an evil presence in the castle," I said slowly, looking at my hands. "I 
don't know where it's coming from, and sometimes I can hardly even sense it. 
Most of the time I think it's a person, but I don't know how to find out which 
one. Once or twice I've
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115
thought it could be a demon, but the old wizard says there was never any evil 
presence in the castle before I arrived, and I don't think even I could have 
summoned a demon by mistake."
"An evil presence," said Zahlfast, as though this answered a question. "We've 
known in the City for several years that there was a supernatural focus here in 
Yurt, or at least nearby, but it was impossible to localize it precisely or even 
to say whether it was for good or evil. Several of the wizards at the school 
thought it might be a witch living in the forest who had taken the step into 
black magic."
"It's not in the forest," I said positively. "It's here in the castle. It was 
coming home to his kingdom that nearly killed the king."
"I knew it was here in the castle when I got your
letter."
"But how could you know that? I didn't say anything
about it."
"The very paper your letter was written on was permeated with the supernatural. 
Didn't you know that? That's why, when I arrived and discovered that the 
supernatural influence stopped at the moat, I asked you to meet me outside."
"But how could you tell anything from the paper?" I demanded, intensely 
frustrated, thinking the wizards of the school had been deliberately withholding 
information from me. But then I saw Zahlfast smiling and said in a lower voice, 
"Was that maybe in one of the lectures I missed?"
It turned out that it was. There was a rather simple spell to recognize the 
presence of a supernatural influence, a modern, more universal spell than the 
one the old wizard had taught me for detecting magic potions. I glanced over the 
garden walls at the turrets of the castle and felt my heart sink. I didn't want 
to try the spell. Yurt was my kingdom, and I loved it,
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and if I confirmed my fears I might never feel the same about it again.
"Do you think the king will become sick again?" I said.
"You think he was made ill by supernatural forces?"
"Dominic thought an evil spell had been put on
him," I said, "even though I didn't believe him at
first." I gave Zahlfast a quick summary of the king's
three-year illness and miraculous recovery.
"If he really was healed miraculously," said Zahlfast somewhat dubiously, "he 
should be safe from black magic, or at least from the effects of the particular 
evil spell that was put on the castle."
"But will the spell now turn against someone else?" I said. "Such as the queen?" 
This was not a possibility I had contemplated until I said it, but it suddenly 
seemed fearfully likely. "Or do you think it's not merely a spell, but a demon 
loose in the castle?"
Zahlfast did not answer for a minute. "I'm not the person to ask," he said at 
last. "I specialize in transformations, not demonology." I remembered then a 
conversation I had had with him in the City several years ago, during which it 
had become clear that he was just as terrified of demons as I was. But he stood 
up. "Ill come into the castle with you and see what I can tell."
But the first thing he said, as we entered the courtyard with its whitewashed 
walls and green shutters, was, "What a lovely little castle! None of the other 
young wizards can have as charming a kingdom."
In my chambers, however, he looked around quickly, then said, "The supernatural 
influence is quite strong here."
I was about to demand to know whether he thought I was practicing black magic 
myself, but then I looked at his face and decided it was safer not to ask.
Instead I said, "Let me show you my glass telephones. They don't work, but they 
re very attractive."
A Bad Spell in Yurt
117
At this he actually laughed. "Somehow, when you left the school, I never 
imagined that you were the type of wizard who becomes a telephone technician."
"Neither did I," I said cheerfully. "That's why they don't work. But the queen 
wanted me to try." I thought guiltily that it had been some time since I had 
tried anything new.
"I'll show you something, though," I said, reaching one of the telephones down 
from the shelf. "Watch the base." I set the instrument down, lifted the 
receiver, and spoke the name attached to the wizards' school.
"Pretty amusing, isn't it?" I said as the faint ringing came through the 
receiver and the base lit up to snow the school's telephone on its table, with 
someone reaching to answer it. "Wait; it gets even funnier. Try to talk.' I 
handed him the receiver.
Just as the Lady Maria and I had done, he shouted, "Hello? Can you hear me?' to 
an unhearing wizard at the other end, even though that wizard's voice came 
through faint but clear.
But when the other wizard hung up and the telephone base went dark, Zahlfast was 
not laughing. "You realize, of course," he said with what I might even have 
imagined was awe, "that no one's ever been able to do this before: attach a 
far-seeing spell to an object."
"But it doesn't work as a telephone. Sometimes I've even thought that whatever 
evil spell was put on the castle was hindering my magic."
"I think you'll be able to make it work," he said in his schoolteacher voice. 
"Keep working at it."
At that moment we were interrupted by a knock. I opened it, expecting the Lady 
Maria ready to resume her lesson, and was surprised to see Joachim.
I tried to draw him inside, to introduce him to Zahlfast, but he wouldn't let 
me.
"I'm going," he said, "and I wanted to let someone
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know I probably won't be back for morning service. The king and queen aren't 
here."
"I think they went hunting. But where are you going?"
He paused as though unwilling to say, but his enormous black eyes steadily met 
mine. "A girl down in the village, five miles from here, was bitten by a viper 
last week," he said at last, as though there had been no pause. "The doctors 
have tried all their draughts and potions, but nothing has availed. She's near 
death. They want me to pray for her."
He turned and was gone before I could answer, striding across the courtyard to 
where one of the stable boys had a horse saddled and ready. A man in a brown 
tunic was mounted and waiting by the gate.
"Is that your friend the chaplain?" said Zahlfast behind me.
I nodded, watching the two ride through the gate and away. I knew, without the 
chaplain telling me, that the news of the king's miraculous recovery must have 
spread at once throughout the kingdom, and that anyone now who needed a miracle 
would not be satisfied with their local priest but would want the castle 
chaplain.
"So tell me more about herbal magic," said Zahlfast. Although I had had some 
success teaching a little magic to the king and the Lady Maria, it was extremely 
odd to be suddenly explaining something to my former teacher. It was also 
difficult to do with no herbs at hand; the sense that the old wizard had taught 
me, of how to determine a plant's properties just by handling it, was difficult 
to put into words.
But I had been able to explain at least some of the basic principles when I 
heard voices, the sound of hooves, and the queen's laugh in the courtyard, and 
realized the hunting party had returned. "You'll have to stay for dinner,' I 
said, "and I'd be delighted to have you stay with me if you are willing to spend 
the
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119
night. Even for you, a two-hundred-mile flight can't be easy."
To my surprise, he agreed. At dinner, \ie took ^ne chaplain's chair across the 
table from me, which kept on startling me, as I would look up from my plate to 
see a face I had stopped being accustomed to see, in the context in which I had 
recently become accustomed to seeing another's. He kept our table highly 
entertained, with gossip from the City and stories about the northern land of 
dragons, which he had visited. I saw even the servants at the next table leaning 
to catch his words.
"I'll have to tell you something I tell all the young wizards after the first 
checkup," he said as he prepared to leave the next morning. We were standing 
outside the castle gate, looking down at the red and golden foliage of the 
forest. "I doubt this would be a problem for you anyway, but some of the young 
wizards, when they find that the school is still interested in what they're 
doing, feel they can ask for help for every little problem. We certainly want to 
make sure that magic is being practiced well throughout the western kingdoms, 
but we just don't have the time to keep helping out fully qualified wizards who 
should know how to do magic on their own."
But then his smile came out. "In your case, write me whenever you want. There 
were some of the teachers who had doubts you'd even learn enough magic to become 
a magician, but I knew from the beginning you'd someday be capable of becoming a 
good wizard."
This would have been more of a compliment if it hadn't been for the implication 
that "someday" had not yet arrived.
"Well, it was delightful to see you," I said, inane once more. Zahlfast rose 
from the ground and sped away, west over the treetops toward the City. It really 
had been very nice to see him, even though I contin-
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ued to feel extremely irritated that he and the Master had apparently engineered 
my position at Yurt for me, for reasons he had perhaps still not told me 
completely.
As I watched his flying figure disappear in the distance, I wondered again if he 
had in fact even told me the real reason for his visit. I realized there were a 
number of questions I had not asked him, or if I had asked he had not answered. 
He had never said where he thought the evil spell on the castle might come from, 
and I had not had a chance to ask nis opinion of the old wizard's empty tower 
room. Well, if I was supposed to be fully qualified to practice magic on my own, 
I would have to do so.
As I turned to start back into the castle, I saw a another distant figure, this 
one on horseback, coming up the road toward the castle. In a moment, I 
recognized Joachim and waited for him to reach me.
I became alarmed at his appearance when he came closer. His usually smooth hair 
was rumpled, his vestments wrinkled and stained, and his hand slack on the 
reins. The accentuated gauntness of his cheeks and his unseeing stare made me 
realize he was exhausted from more than riding five miles home after staying up 
all night.
I took the horse's bridle to lead it across the bridge and helped him dismount. 
He seemed to notice me for the first time.
"Do you think it's too late for me to hold chapel services this morning?" he 
asked, clearly concerned about this lapse.
"The king and queen have already left to go hunting again," I told him. 
"Tomorrow's Sunday; service can wait until then."
"All right," he said meekly and started moving slowly toward his room. He 
stopped then, looked back, and told me what I had already guessed. "The little 
girl died."
PART FOUR
The Duchess
I
The first snow had reached Yurt. It wasn't very much snow, a light dusting in 
the courtyard, but as evening came on it rose and whirled in the wind, and made 
all of us in the great hall linger around the fireplace after supper. Through 
the tall windows, I could see the moon, slightly orange and half obscured by 
whipping cloudswhat Gwen told me they called in Yurt a witch's moon.
The Lady Maria had been talking about dragons at supper. The combination of 
Zahlfest's visit and the first volume of Ancient and Modern Necromancy, which I 
had given her to read when the first-grammar continued to prove frustrating, had 
given her enough information about the northern land of wild magic that she was 
talking as though she wanted to go there herself.
"But Maria, it's terribly cold even here!" said one of the other ladies with a 
laugh. "Think how much colder it would be so much farther north."
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"Than maybe I'll try to go there in the summer," she said, undeterred. "Or maybe 
a dragon would come here."
The other ladies, who clearly did not believe in dragons, or if they did 
certainly believed they had nothing to do with Yurt, all laughed thoroughly at 
this.
I at least knew dragons were real, and maybe it was to support the Lady Maria 
that I decided to make an illusory dragon. I had never tried to match my 
predecessor by producing illusions over dessert, but while most of the castle 
was lingering by the fire it seemed a good time to start.
Illusions are among the first things they teach at the wizards' school, and they 
are so much fun that wizardry students tend to stay up late challenging each 
other with different effects, which is why even carnival magicians are 
proficient at them. At any rate, even though I knew I could never equal my 
predecessor's skill at lifelike creations, I started on a dragon.
It stayed rather flat-looking, and at certain angles one could see right through 
it, but that didn't deter me, as I set out to make a dragon that would fill our 
entire end of the hall. It certainly didn't hurt my efforts that the queen came 
over at once, eyes dancing, to watch the dragon being constructed.
First I did the tail, long and reptilian with a double row of spines down the 
center. When I had the tail lashing nicely, I started on the body, massive and 
scaled, with six legs and long, scaled wings. It was only coincidence, I told 
myself, that I made the iridescent scales emerald green. By now most of the 
castle was watching; even the servants who had taken the dishes down to the 
kitchen came back.
The head was the hardest part. I gave my dragon a gaping mouth with several 
hundred teeth, long fringed ears, and eyes of fire. It actually looked more like 
the dragon costume at the harvest carnival than like the rather small blue 
dragon in the basement of the wiz-
A Bad Spell in Yurt
123
ards' school, the only real dragon I had actually seen. But since no one else 
there had ever seen a dragon at all, this did not matter. They stood well back 
from its slowly lashing tail and watched with growing excitement.
And I decided to make it especially exciting. As soon as I had finished the last 
detail, the long forked yellow tongue, I gave the whole dragon the order to move 
and stood back to catch my breath. It was a dozen times larger than any illusion 
I had ever made
before.
It moved spectactularly. Eyes burning and mouth opening and closing in frenzied 
snaps, it whirled away from me and started toward my audience.
It moved totally silently, but that was all right, because the screaming of 
ladies, servants, and even knights made plenty of noise. People raced for the 
walls or fell down flat. Dominic stood for ten seconds alone, deserted by the 
rest of the knights and apparently paralyzed, before he gave a shriek like an 
injured rabbit and dived under the table. My dragon kept on going. Its long tail 
and heavy body naturally passed through real human bodies without having the 
slightest effect, but they did not notice this, as they were too busy trying to 
avoid the head.
Even the king took refuge behind his throne. But the Lady Maria, sheltering in 
the doorway that led to the kitchen, with half the castle staff behind her, was 
watching in what I could only describe as avid delight.
Almost frightened by what I had done, I said the words to slow the dragon down, 
intending to make it curl up placidly before the fire before I broke the spell 
of illusion.
And then I saw two people advancing on the dragon from opposite directions. One 
was the chaplain, who held a crucifix at arm's length before him, and whose eyes 
glowed with almost the same intensity as my
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dragon's. The other, armed with a poker from the fireplace, was the queen.
This had gone far enough. I said the two words to break the illusion, and the 
dragon was gone, leaving nothing but a shower of sparks that lingered for five 
seconds and then were gone as well.
The hall was suddenly very silent, and I held my breath, wondering how I had 
managed to make my magic go so thoroughly astray. But then the silence was 
broken by the king clapping.
"Marvelous, Wizard, marvelous!" he cried. "I've never seen anything to match 
that!"
After only a second's hesitation, the queen dropped the poker and began to 
applaud as well. The knights and ladies came slowly back toward the center of 
the room and joined in. Dominic came out from under the table as though trying 
to convey the impression he had never been there.
Everyone started talking at once, most apparently trying to persuade each other, 
themselves, and me that they nad not in fact been in fear for their lives. The 
king did it most convincingly.
' Our old wizard used to do illusions all the time," he told me, "and they were 
beautiful. I thought when he retired that I'd never see anything like that 
again. But his, well, they never moved like that!"
There was a general laugh, and people started gathering up their hats and cloaks 
for the short trip from the great hall back to their chambers.
I looked around for Joachim. Although we had remained cordial since the king's 
recovery, we had somehow never shared a bottle of wine in the evening again. If 
I had owed him something of an apology before, I was afraid I owed him one even 
more now. But he had already gone.
I glanced across the hall toward Dominic. He was standing next to the fire, 
talking to one of the knights with great laughs and many hand gestures, on a 
com-
A Bad Spell in Yurt
125
pletely different topic. I had originally been hoping to talk to him this 
evening, but now I decided it would be better to wait until the next day.
The next morning, when the sun was melting the light layer of snow, I went to 
find Dominic. I had decided I had to be systematic, and even though I didn't 
like the thought of talking to him just now, he had what I needed.
It seemed fairly clear that a spell had been put on Yurt. It was the-spell that 
had nearly killed the king, and while the chaplain had broken its hold on him in 
particular, the spell was still there. I could still not sense the evil touch 
except obliquely, when least expecting it, but I was now armed with Zahlfast's 
magic formula for detecting the supernatural.
So far, I had found high concentrations of supernatural influence in my own 
chambers, the chapel, and the chaplain's room. I didn't like this at all until I 
decided that the spell was just detecting a saintly presence from the chaplain, 
who had after all spent a number of evenings during the summer in my chambers.
But no wonder, I thought, that Zahlfast had wanted to visit me. When he received 
a letter reeking of the supernatural, and knowing there was already something 
odd happening in Yurt, he must have wondered if I had plunged into black magic. 
I was irritated enough with him for this lack of trust that I had not written 
him again.
The two other places I had found the supernatural influence strongest were up in 
the north tower, in the old wizard's now empty and windswept chambers, and in 
the dank passage that led down to the rusty door of the cellars.
I found Dominic in the stables, checking on one of the geldings that had come 
back slightly lame from hunting. He was whistling as he and the stable boy
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lifted the animal's foot, which today seemed much better. But the whistling 
stopped as he saw me.
"Greetings, sire," I said with enough good humor for both of us. "I have a favor 
to ask you, about my mission here in Yurt."
He pulled his mouth into a tight line, then nodded. "We can talk in the 
courtyard," he said curtly and walked out, leaving me to follow behind. Neither 
one of us said anything about dragons.
"I thought the chaplain accomplished your mission for you," said Dominic, when 
we were standing in the center of the courtyard, well away from any windows. 
"The evil spell on die king's been broken." The implication seemed strong that 
now that my single mission had been taken care of, especially as it was done by 
someone else, it was almost superfluous for Yurt to have a wizard.
"But it's not gone," I said.
He had been glancing around, not meeting my eyes, but at this he turned toward 
me with a look that could either have been hatred or fear. "What do you mean, 
it's not gone?"
"Whoever or whatever put the spell on the king," I said, "made the spell strong 
enough that it remained in Yurt even when the king was miraculously freed from 
its influence. I haven't been able to determine yet who might have cast it, but 
I think I may be able to tell, if I can determine where it's strongest."
"And how are you going to do that?" he demanded.
"We wizards can detect the presence of the supernatural," I said with dignity. 
"Any evil spell will have been cast with evil intent, and possibly even demonic 
influence. We wizards can tell where demons have been."
"And where do you think they might have been?" His tone was enough to make the 
straightforward question an insult.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
127
"I was wondering if they had been down in the cellars."
This clearly surprised him. The sour expression disappeared for a minute. "Why 
the cellars?"
"I have no idea. It's the only part of the castle 1 haven't been able to get 
into. The constable told me the cellars are damp and haven't been used for many 
years. I asked him for a key, but he said you had the only one."
"That's true," said Dominic in a puzzled voice. Although I didn't tell him, I 
had already tried to open the locked door using the same spell I had used on the 
bolt on the north tower, but a complicated lock had proved impervious to my 
magic, as a simple bolt had not.
Dominic took the heavy bunch of keys from his belt and flipped through them 
until he came to one stained with rust. "Here's the key. You'd better take a can 
of oil, as I doubt it's been opened in years." He paused then and glared at me 
again. "I hope you weren't planning to ask me for the key to the north tower, 
because I don't have it. When your predecessor retired, he bolted the doors and 
put on magic locks that he said even another wizard couldn't break."
It was my turn to be surprised. "But I don't need to go up in the north tower," 
I said blandly, neglecting to mention that I had already been there twice.
Dominic said something under his breath. When I asked him to repeat it, he 
denied having said anything, but it had sounded to me like, "Maybe you should."
With the key and a can of oil, I went down the narrow stairs behind the kitchen 
to the cellar door. It was iron and blotched with damp and rust. There was a 
small opening at eye level, too small for anything much larger than a cat to 
have climbed through, and a dank odor came out into the stairwell. Even with the 
oil and energetic turning, it took me almost five
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minutes to get the lock to open. Clearly no one had been in the cellars in 
years.
The door swung open with a protesting screech. I had tied a magic globe to my 
wrist with a piece of string. Its light bobbed eerily along the walls as I 
stepped inside.
It seemed to be nothing but abandoned storage cellars, damp because they had 
been dug too close to the castle well. The small rooms opening off the hall were 
littered with the unidentifiable remains of what might once have been stored 
there. Several of the rooms smelled as though used by cats or rats or both.
But permeating those innocuous dark stone rooms was an almost overwhelming sense 
of evil. I stopped and listened. I heard a very faint pattering noise, which 
could have been dripping water, could have been rats, and could have been 
nothing.
I tried to think clearly and calmly to combat the irrational fear that 
threatened to overwhelm me. Dominic had known there was an evil spell on the 
king, I told myself, forcing my feet to proceed down the passage. He didn't just 
think the king was sick, but thought magic must be implicated. Therefore, he 
knew more than he had told me about how that spell was cast.
I paused and listened again. There was no sound other than my own breathing. 
Even though Dominic knew something about the spell, I continued my reasoning, he 
still wanted it overcome. Therefore, he himself had not been responsible. I 
returned to a thought I had had long ago, that he was sheltering someone, most 
likely the queen. Could she have tried to put an evil spell on the king, which 
Dominic then wanted to overcome, even though he loved her too much to accuse 
her?
But Dominic might not know as much as he thought. He clearly believed, with the 
old wizard, that
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129
the north tower was still locked, and had no inkling of the evil now settled in 
the cellars.
I forced my feet to start moving again, although at this point I was starting to 
feel what could only oe a terminal illness, caused by black magic, sweeping 
through my body. This of course is the weakness of being a wizard; we are much 
more susceptible to magic influences than ordinary people. Water splashed onto 
my socks with the next step; I had been following the passage slightly downhill, 
and the floor had gone from being damp to being flooded.
I murmured the spell that should have lifted me six inches above the water, to 
continue down the passage suspended in air. Nothing happened at all.
At this point, rationality lost. I turned and ran back toward daylight, the 
magic globe bouncing madly at the end of the string. At the door, I hesitated. I 
could not hear anything behind me, but I didn't want whatever was in there 
coming out. I made myself gather up some of the debris from the first storeroom 
and stuffed it into the small opening in the iron door. I held it in place with 
the best magic lock I could manage.
With the sight of daylight before me, I was able to control my heartbeat enough 
to wait one more minute. I called, 'Kitty, kitty, kitty," not wanting to leave 
any cat trapped in the cellars. But when no cat appeared, I slammed the door, 
turned the iron key, and put an additional magic lock on the latch as well.
Back out in the narrow staircase, leaning against the stone wall, I slowly 
stopped feeling as though I were about to die. But in a minute even the 
staircase seemed oppressive, so I hurried back up the stairs. The smell of bread 
baking came to me from the kitchen like a benediction.
I didn't want to return to my chambers right away but instead went to the great 
hall, telling myself I needed to return the key to Dominic but really in
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search of human company. The king and queen, along with several of the ladies, 
were seated around the fire, talking animately.
"Wizard!" called the king when he saw me. "We've just been making plans. How 
would you like to go visit the duchess?"
After a second in which I couldn't imagine what he was talking about, I 
remembered the Lady Maria once telling me that Yurt had, besides that king's own 
castle, the castles of two counts and a duchess.
"I ought to visit my liege vassals more often," said the king.
"The king and I met at the duchess's castle," the queen told me, smiling at him.
"I would be very interested in visiting the duchess," I said. If Zahlfast was 
right (and I hoped he was, rather than believed he was), the king should now be 
safe from whatever black magic was lurking in the cellars. But no one else was 
safe. Until a supposedly fully qualified wizard, me, could find a way to 
overcome that spell, it might be better if we all went visiting.
II
The duchess's castle was closer than the city where we had gone to the harvest 
carnival, being only one long days ride away. Therefore we didn't need the 
tents, and the pack horses were less burdened as we started out early on a 
frosty but sunny morning.
The king's party was also much smaller, as most of the servants were not 
accompanying us.
I had talked to the queen about this. "Don't you think it would be better if we 
brought everyone along?"
But she laughed. "The duchess won't have nearly enough room for all of us. Her 
castle is smaller than
the royal castle, and she has her own staff, of course. If I didn't know better, 
I'd say you were getting too attached to that saucy girl who brings you 
breakfast!" It was bad enough being hopelessly in love with the queen without 
having her tease me about Gwen. I tried the constable instead.
"Don't you think it might be better, while the king is gone, to send the 
servants away?"
He looked at me in amazement, as well he might, because the arrangement of the 
household staff was certainly no part of a Royal Wizard's duties. For a minute I 
could see that he was about to resent my interference, but then he remembered 
that it was, after all, me.
"Usually when the royal household is away, I give most of the staff their 
vacation," he said. "Some go to visit their families, although some of course 
stay here." "But I don't want anyone to stay here." This was clearly going too 
far, even for a wizard who had already proved himself to have an odd sense of 
humor. "My principal responsibility," the constable said with great dignity, "is 
the well-being of the royal castle of Yurt, including its people. My wife and I 
at any rate will not leave, certainly not on a wizard's whim."
It would have been hard to explain that I feared an evil influence was down in 
the cellars, especially as I had checked that morning and found my magic locks 
still in place. Since everyone in the castle, not just the king, seemed happy 
and well, I tried to tell myself that there was no danger. The night before we 
left, I spent hours with my books until I found what I hoped was a suitably 
strong protective spell. I put it on the castle and its inhabitants before we 
left.
The Lady Maria rode next to me. I had noticed that, in the last few weeks, she 
had stopped wearing as much lace and ribbon. This morning she was wearing a 
conservatively cut, dark-green riding habit, and
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
133
her golden hair, rather than tumbling in ringlets around her shoulders, was tied 
up into a bun on the back of her head.
But her laugh and her conversation had not changed at all. "I think I explained 
to you once," she said, "that the queen's mother and the duchess's mother are 
cousinsor is it second cousins? When the old duke died in that terrible 
accidentI was just the tiniest girl then, but even so I remember it wellhe 
left only a daughter to inherit. She grew into quite a beauty, I can tell you!"
"Does she look like the queen?" I asked, that being my standard for beauty.
"She does, a little,' said Maria almost reluctantly, and I knew her well enough 
to realize that, while she loved to discuss charm and beauty in the abstract, 
she didn't like the implication that midnight hair could be more beautiful than 
golden.
"Ill bet she had a number of suitors!" I said, knowing that was what she wanted 
me to say.
"She certainly did!" she replied, her good humor restored. "But she wouldn't 
have any of them! She was too proud for any but the best, and maybe she hasn't 
met the best yet! She'll soon be getting old, however, so she may shortly have 
to lower her standards! Of course, she isn't as old as me."
I was flabbergasted. I had never before heard Maria admit that she might be old. 
Together with the pulled-back hair, this made me start to wonder if she had been 
affected by some variation of the spell that had nearly killed the king.
But her manner was unchanged. She continued >11 morning to tell me stories that 
I had already heard and to point out all the places in the landscape with any 
romantic associations.
"See that spire?" she said at one point. A sharply pointed spire rose from 
behind a snow-sprinkled hill, half a mile back from the road. The hill nearly
obscured the low tiled roof of its church. "That's the Nunnery of Yurt. It's 
made up of widows who grieve for their dead husbands, and of young girls who 
have tragically renounced the world with broken hearts." I decided to try to 
ride with someone else that afternoon.
After our lunch break, which we took standing up because the half-frozen ground 
was too cold for sitting, I managed to position my horse next to Joachim's, at 
the end of the procession. This, I thought, might be the best chance I had had 
to talk to him in weeks.
"I owe you an apology," I said, starting there because this way he couldn't move 
away or change the subject before I'd had a chance to say it. "I was norri-bly 
rude to you when the king was ill."
I probably should also apologize for terrifying him with my dragon, but I was 
afraid of insulting him more by reminding him that he had believed in an 
illusion even if he and the queen were the only people prepared to do something 
about it.
Joachim pulled up his horse slightly, so that we were soon riding fifty yards 
behind the rest of the party. Although he did not answer at once, he was clearly 
thinking over his response. Then he gave me a sideways glance from his enormous 
dark eyes that would in anyone else have been a look of amusement.
"You weren't rude," he said. "I needed someone to remind me of my 
responsibilities." We rode for several minutes in silence, then he spoke again 
as though there had been no pause. "I think I had still been feeling inadequate 
from my meeting with the bishop."
Since such a confession on his part seemed to call for something similar on 
mine, if I wanted to rebuild our friendship, I said, "Do you remember seeing the 
wizard in my chambers?"
He clearly did not.
"You might have seen him, just for a second, the
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day you stopped to tell me you were going down to the village to see the little 
girl."
There was the slightest flicker of emotion across his face. "Yes. I remember 
seeing him now."
"That was Zahlfast, one of my old teachers. He'd come to give me what he said 
was my first checkup."
This time the chaplain actually did smile. "I thought you told me you wizards 
were left on your own, once you'd finished at the school."
"Well, that's what I'd thought. I guess it shows how mistaken a wizard can be. I 
think he meant to be encouraging, but by the time he left all my inadequacies 
had been made clear to me."
"And are you therefore feeling paralyzed, almost fearing to act because you 
don't want to turn to evil?" As he spoke, Joachim turned to face me so abruptly 
that he brought his horse's head around as well. We had to stop and disentangle 
the bells on my horse's harness from the harness on his. When we started again, 
the rest of the procession was far in front of us, and we pushed our mounts to 
start catching up.
At first I thought Joachim was accusing me of being paralyzed in the face of a 
threat to Yurt, but then I realized he was only speaking from his own 
experience. Someone whose own inadequacies had been pointed out very recently 
might indeed feel unworthy to plead with the saints.
I told Zahlfast you'd saved the king's life," I said as we drew closer to the 
rest of the party and slowed down again.
"I myself didn't save him," he answered quickly, looking straight ahead. "My 
merits had nothing to do with it." I should have realized that he'd say this. 
Since the saints could not be manipulated, one's only hope was to have a pure 
and contrite heart, and a contrite heart wasn't proud of its merits.
But then he said something else that surprised me. "What did Zahlfast say when 
you told him that?"
A Bad Spell in Yurt
135
I stammered, not sure how to answer, but almost immediately decided on the 
truth. "He reminded me that wizards don't talk very much about miracles, and 
that those who heal also have the power to sicken."
It sounded even worse than I had expected it to sound. While I was trying to 
frame a new apology, he kicked his horse forward, not even looking at me again, 
and pulled into line next to the Lady Maria. Since he, like me, had not been at 
Yurt yet when the king and queen happened to meet for the first time at the 
duchess's castle, she started to give him all the details. I was sure he had 
heard it all before; he had, after all, gone to visit the duchess with the royal 
party the first year he was in Yurt, while the king was still traveling at least 
short distances. But he listened intently, even smiling at the right places, and 
did not once look back at me.
The short early winter day had ended, and the sun was gone when we saw the 
lights blazing out from the duchess's castle in the valley before us. The 
knights had lit lanterns so that we could see the increasingly icy road, 
although I myself thought that the wildly flickering shadows from the swaying 
lamps made it even harder to guide one's way. We all Kicked our horses and 
hurried down the last hill, bells ringing loudly. The bridge was down, and we 
surged across and into the courtyard.
Servants hurried forward to help us dismount, and the duchess's constable took 
the bridle of the king's horse. But the king waved away the servant at his 
stirrup and instead, with a look of intense concentration, rose slowly straight 
into the air, until he could swing his foot easily over the horse's back, then 
just as slowly descended to stand on the cobblestones.
Very few of the people from the royal castle of Yurt, and certainly no one from 
this castle, had seen the king flying before, so there was a stunned silence
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before the applause broke out. The queen laughed with delight as she dismounted 
in the more normal manner and took his arm. His back straight and a 
not-very-well-concealed grin of pride on his face, the king walked toward the 
wide doorway leading into the great hall.
I was about to follow him, extremely proud of my pupil, when I caught a baleful 
glare. It was Dominic, and he was glaring at me with eyes that were nearly red 
with fury. I didn't know why, but I certainly didn't need a second person 
furious at me today, so I turned my face from him and hurried after the king and 
queen.
They stopped just inside the hall, and I, following closer than anyone else, 
nearly ran into them. Coming to meet them was the duchess.
She did indeed look a lot like her cousin, the queen, although the duchess was 
at least ten years older. Her hair too was black and her features beautifully 
shaped, but she did not have the queen's smile, which always seemed to be 
hovering near her lips even when she was sober or thoughtful.
The duchess did the full bow. "Welcome to my castle, which is your castle, my 
liege lord and king." And it toas the full bow, not the curtsy that women 
normally performed. The duchess, in spite of her feminine features and the long 
hair braided into a graceful coif, was dressed like a man, in a man's tunic and 
boots.
"Rise, my faithful subject," said the king. He drew her up, his hands on her 
shoulders, and kissed her on both cheeks. The queen kissed her as well, but, I 
noted, not nearly as enthusiastically.
"And who is this?" the duchess said, peeking at me past their shoulders.
The queen brought me forward with a hand on my elbow. I was glad I was wearing 
my new velvet jacket.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
137
"This is our new Royal Wizard! He joined us this summer from the wizards' school 
in the City."
The duchess gave me a look of frank and highly interested appraisal, which 
startled me more than I wanted to admit; no woman had looked at me like that 
sincewell, at all that I could remember. Fortunately, she appeared to like what 
she saw.
"I haven't had a wizard in my duchy in years," she said. "My father, the old 
duke, used to keep a wizard, but he had retired even before I inherited, and the 
old royal wizard of Yurt never deigned to visit me."
"That's why I wanted to bring him along," said the king. "Wait until you see his 
illusions!"
Although I was naturally crushed to discover that I had been brought along as an 
exhibit rather than as a necessary member of the king's personal retinue, I was 
too intrigued by the duchess to give this much thought. Back before I had 
entered the wizards' school, the women I had met in the City who dressed like 
men had for the most part, and ironically I always thought, not liked men. But 
the way this woman had looked at me suggested otherwise.
"Your rooms are all prepared, my lord and lady," she said. "My constable will 
show you and your companions. Dinner will be served as soon as you've had a 
chance to rest from your trip." As we all followed the constable out of the 
great hall, I glanced back to see her looking after us with a wide grin.
There were a number of different courses at dinner, all elaborate, but none, I 
thought, as good as those produced by the cook at Yurt. I also missed the brass 
choir before dinner. The chaplain sat across from me, as at home, next to the 
duchess's chaplain. But he did not meet my eye. I myself was surreptitiously 
watching the queen. I had wondered more than once why she, a woman of fire and 
air who should have been able
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to many anyone in the western kingdoms, had married the king of Yurt.
Now that he was no longer ill, he did seem much younger than he had when I first 
met him, but he was still undeniably more than twice her age, and no taller than 
she. Here in the duchess's castle, as the Lady Maria had been reminding the 
chaplain this afternoon, was where the king and queen had first met, and I 
wondered if I might find some clue here.
We finished up with spicy cakes frosted in vivid colors, and while I was trying 
to decide if I liked them or not, the duchess called to me down the table. 
"Wizard! I hear you do excellent illusions. Would you care to entertain us?"
"He's tired, as we all are," said the queen quickly. "Maybe ask him another 
day."
I was surprised to find her suddenly so protective of me, and when I looked 
toward her I saw that she was not smiling. But the duchess's eyes met mine in an 
amused challenge.
"All right," I said, putting down the half-eaten cake which I had decided I did 
not like at all. "But I warn you, my illusions may be frightening."
"I don't frighten easily, Wizard."
But the lords and ladies from Yurt were nudging and smiling at each other, 
clearly hoping that the party here, who had not seen my dragon, would be 
frightened of it as they now pretended not to have been. Several of the 
duchess's attendants, seeing the winks, did indeed begin to look uneasy.
I went to stand by the fireplace, thinking quickly. I didn't want to become 
repetitive by doing another dragon, and although the magician at the carnival 
had not hesitated to make an illusory demon, I didn't want to terrify myself 
with my own magic. Besides, I only wanted to titillate the duchess and her lords 
and ladies, not send them screaming from the hall as I had almost done at Yurt.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
I decided on a giant, one about twenty feet tall, which would leave his head (or 
headsI rather liked the idea of a two-headed giant) only a short distance below 
the ceiling. I worked quickly, sketching in the different parts but not yet 
giving them substance, so that a ghostly pair of legs, a nearly invisible club, 
and a suggestion of massive arms took shape between me and the fire.
I glanced at my audience. The queen's eyes were dancing, and the duchess 
continued to look amused. The last detail was the double head, one smiling 
horribly, and one suffused with fury. The second head, even while half 
invisible, looked, I realized, a little like Dominic, but it was too late to try 
to change it. With a few quick words in the Hidden Language, I gave my giant 
visual solidity and put it into motion.
The giant spun around from the fire to face the table and raised its enormous 
club. The mouth of the furious face opened in a silent roar. The club swung 
downwards, and the king, showing an agility I had not realized he had, sprang 
from his chair just before the club passed down through the chair and the table.
There was a cacophony of noise, chairs scraping and falling backwards and the 
duchess's people shouting. The party from Yurt was doing fairly well, in that 
none of them were screaming, but they still sprang from the table as the giant 
started down it. The enormous hairy legs were buried almost knee-deep in the 
table, through which it seemed to wade like a man wading through water. The club 
descended again and again, passing without effect through glass, china, and 
wood, as one head roared and the other laughed. The only person who did not move 
was Dominic, who sat stone-faced, his arms folded, as one of the giant's thighs 
passed directly through him.
I stopped the giant just short of the duchess. She, like the others, had jumped 
up, but she was watching its approach with a broad smile. I had the giant stop
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roaring and grinning, drop its club, and go into the full bow before her. The 
effect was a little spoiled by the fact that, as it went down on its knees, much 
of it disappeared under the table, but the duchess still began applauding wildly 
as soon as the double head was lowered. I said the words to end the illusion.
The duchess ran to grab me by the hands. "Well, Wizard, I can see that, with you 
there, Yurt must be a much livelier place than it ever was before!"
People were straightening their hair and clothing and coming toward the fire 
with as casual an air as possible. The castle servants, who had been watching 
open-mouthed from the passage to the kitchen, disappeared again.
"I told you we had a fine wizard!" said the king. "Maybe you ought to send to 
the City for one yourself!"
. But I couldn't be sure of getting one luce this one!" she said with a laugh. 
She was still holding both my hands, which was starting to make me feel 
uncomfortable. "Well, I don't think we'll have any more entertainment to top 
this tonight."
As though this were a signal, the lords and ladies of her party immediately 
started to leave. The king and queen glanced at each other. "If you don't mind, 
said the queen, "we'll retire now. We've had a long
ride today."
"But you," said the duchess, looking at me, "you I'd like to take to my chambers 
for a final drink."
in
The queen turned sharply toward the duchess, as though about to say something, 
then changed her mind. "Good night, then," she said, leaving on the king's arm. 
For a moment I even hoped she was
alous.
The servants returned to clear the table as both
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parties dispersed. The chaplain was almost the last to go, and before he went he 
fixed me with a burning stare that might have been a warning.
The duchess had released my hands, but I seemed to have no choice but to follow 
her, up the wide staircase at the end of the hall to the great ducal chamber.
To my relief, she stopped here and motioned me to a seat. A small fire was in 
the grate; she added first some sticks, then a log, and soon had it burning 
brightly. I felt I ought to help, but she seemed to want no help.
With the fire now burning, she went to a cabinet for two glasses and a bottle. 
She poured us each an inch of golden liquid and brought me mine, then sat down 
in the chair opposite me, one booted leg hooked over the arm.
I took a sip. "Excuse me, my lady, but this isn't wine. It's brandy."
"Yes," she said, as though wondering at my dimness.
"But brandy is a medicine."
"It's also an excellent after-dinner drink, as I discovered some rime ago."
I took another sip. It was extremely powerful. "Very nice," I said.
Her face, which was close to being the queen's face, lit up with a smile that 
was not the queen's. "Enjoy it. There aren't many I invite to share a glass of 
brandy with me."
I started talking, in part to take control of the atmosphere, in part because 
that way I had an excuse for drinking more slowly. "This is the first time since 
I came to Yurt that I've accompanied the king on a visit to his subjects. It's 
hard to tell in the dark, of course, but as we came in it seemed that you had a 
beautiful little castle. I hear there are two counts in the kingdom as well. Are 
their castles as lovely?"
"The king's castle is of course considered the best in the kingdom of Yurt," she 
said, as though taking
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my inane comments seriously. "But the ducal castle, mine, is not rated far 
behind. Tomorrow I can show you all its features, inside and out. I don't have a 
rose garden like the king's, but if it were summer I could show you the flowers 
I do grow."
With any luck, I thought, we could talk about gardening until I could decently 
make my excuses and leave.
But she took control of the conversation back from me. "Wizard, I have a 
proposal to make to you."
I had been taking a sip from my glass and ended up swallowing suddenly much more 
than I meant to. "Indeed?" I said as blandly as I could, once I had stopped 
coughing. My eyes were drawn, against my will, to the door at the far end of the 
great chamber, which must lead to her bedroom.
"I know you wizards don't take oaths, but what I'm asking may still be hard for 
you." She was watching me, a look of amusement playing on her features.
"Indeed," I said with dignity. She seemed to be saying that we wizards did not 
take oaths of chastity, as did priests, which was true, but she also seemed to 
be insulting me.
"I know that, as short a time as you have lived in Yurt, your affections may 
already be fully engaged."
How did she know I was in love with the queen?
"Although," she said thoughtfully, "I would have thought a wizard with your 
flair wouldn't want to live his entire life ruled by someone with as soft a 
disposition as your queen."
Being too amazed to reply properly, I said nothing.
"Given a tempting opportunity, one's affections may change their focus,' she 
continued with that same almost detached look of amusement.
"Possibly," I said, as noncommittally as I could.
"Therefore a woman may have to make her proposal as attractive as possible to 
woo a wizard," she continued, swinging her foot down and standing up.
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I watched her approaching, almost in panic.
"That's why, Wizard, I need you to tell me what you like best."
She was standing directly in front of me, hands on her hips. I tried to buy time 
by seeming to drink my brandy, but it was gone.
"If I can offer you something the king does not offer you, then maybe I can woo 
you away from your affection for his castle and household and persuade you to 
give up being the Royal Wizard of Yurt and instead become my own ducal wizard."
In my relief at realizing that she was only offering me a position, not making 
an indecent proposal, at first I could only stammer. Then I caught her eye and 
realized she had been doing it deliberately.
"I am very happy as the Royal Wizard," I said, searching desperately for the 
remains of my dignity. Someone like the old wizard, someone who actually seemed 
to personify mystery and darkness, would not have been teased like this! "I'm 
not interested in alternate ... proposals."
"But I'm quite serious, Wizard," she said, with a smile that was merely 
friendly. "I know it might seem like a step down to leave a king for a duchess, 
but I can offer you whatever you nave now, and even more-your own tower, 
assistants to help gather herbs, freedom to come and go as you please."
For a brief moment I wondered what would happen if I left the king to become the 
duchess's wizard. Yurt would need a new Royal Wizard, of course, and this time 
they might be lucky and get someone competent. I would never have to deal with 
whatever evil force was lurking in the cellars.
Of course, they might get someone even less capable, and even a competent wizard 
wouldn't know about the empty north tower, about Dominic's veiled warning, or 
about the king's illness and recovery. The new wizard would resent anything that 
seemed like
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interference and certainly would not welcome hints from me.
Besides, Zahlfast would think I was running away. "I'm sorry, my lady," I said, 
"but even though I haven't taken an oath of loyalty to the king, I still feel 
that I am his man."
She nodded a little ruefully. "I'd been afraid you'd say that. I ve been 
thinking for some time my duchy needed a wizardmy father's old wizard, whom I 
barely remember, was not, I believe, very highly qualified, but he had not been 
trained in the wizards' school. I was therefore very eager to meet a young 
wizard from the school, but as soon as I met you I realized there can't be many 
like you. Are there?"
She had, to my relief, gone back to her own chair. "Probably not," I said, 
"although the teachers at the school would tell you that's just as well."
"Maybe I should advertise and see who answers," she said thoughtfully. "But that 
was a wonderful giant! And was it deliberate that its second head looked just 
like Prince Dominic?"
I laughed and denied any such intention. After a few more minutes' conversation, 
I felt able to rise and tell her how tired I was after a long day.
She took my hands affectionately. "Thank you for sharing a glass of brandy with 
me. Think about my offer, if you grow tired of the royal court." Though not the 
queen, she certainly was an attractive woman. I wondered briefly what she would 
have done if I had taken what she seemed to be offering literally and had 
immediately begun to act on it.
"Thank you, and good evening, my lady," I said gravely, then left her great 
chamber to return to my own room. As I went, I wondered if the queen had, at 
least in part, decided to marry the king to keep him from marrying the duchess.
Since the duchess's castle really was smaller than the royal castle, and since 
it was already full of her
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own household, there had not been much room for the rest of us, after the king 
and queen and a handful of their closest companions nad been lodged in a suite 
of rooms which apparently were always kept ready for them. As Royal Wizard, 
however, I had been given the dignity of a room of my own, the room the old 
ducal wizard had used thirty years earlier, which had apparently scarcely been 
used since then.
As I spiraled up the narrow tower stairs toward the room, ducking my head and 
wishing either for my predecessor's or my own magic lights, I thought I might 
look at the ducal wizard's old books for a minute before going to sleep. I had 
noticed a few books in the room before dinner and hoped that he might have 
written down some interesting spells that had never been known in the City.
As I came around the last turn, I was surprised to see the door of my room 
standing half open, and candlelight flickering within. I pushed the door slowly 
open and faced the deep black eyes of the chaplain.
He put down the Bible he had been reading and stood up. "Close the door," he 
said, as though this were his room, not mine.
I closed the door. "Look," I said. "What I said this afternoon. I realize I 
didn't make it clear enough" this was an understatement!"that I didn't think 
you were responsible for the king's illness." Most of the time this was even 
true. "I wish you'd given me a chance to explain. I really am sorry that I 
sounded as though I was accusing you."
But he didn't seem to be listening. "I don't enjoy doing this," he said, "but I 
have to. I'm afraid you're forgetting your duties, and I have to remind you of 
them."
"My duties?" I said in surprise. It would have seemed like a joke except that 
there was not even the hint of a smile on his face.
"Sit down," he said. "I didn't want to tell you this
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when we spoke this afternoon, but the bishop was very unhappy about the possible 
influence on me from a wizard my own age."
I sat down obediently on my bed, as he had the chair.
"I told him what you had suggested to me in conversation, that the organization 
of the wizards' school is patterned on the organization of the church, and that, 
like the church, organized wizardry hopes ulti- ' mately for the salvation of 
mankind."
I knew I had never actually said this, but it was close enough to what I myself 
considered the goals of wizardry that I only nodded.
"That's why I have to speak to you now. I had to take responsibility with the 
bishop for your soul."
"I thought my soul was doing well," I said in a small voice, overawed by those 
burning eyes. I could not break my own glance away from them.
"If it were only playing with magic, I might not have to speak," he continued, 
unhearing. "Even when you used magic not to help but to terrify, as you did both 
at the royal court and again here tonight, tact kept me from speaking. But now!" 
He leaned sharply forward, as though wanting to make sure he had my full 
attention, although he had had it since I came in the room.
"I will not accuse you of immorality. Only the saints and God can truly judge a 
man's soul. But when you began to behave as though you have a licentious 
freedom, using casuistic reasoning to argue with yourself that a tradition 
against wizards' marrying is not enough to stop a man who has never had to take 
an oath of chastity, then I realized that you were in danger of applying this 
casuistry to other areas, to"
At this point I had to interrupt him. "Stop. Wait. You don't understand."
"I fear I understand all too well."
"You don't. The duchess and I had a small drink together."
"And that was all?" he demanded. "She told me that she admired my illusions so 
much that she wanted me to leave the royal court of Yurt and come be her ducal 
wizard. I turned her down." Joachim sat back in the chair as though deflated. 
"And that was all?"
"That was all." I myself found the situation quite amusing. He must have sat in 
my room for close to an hour, waiting for my return, preparing both the 
accusations and the spiritual counsel he would give to me, and then he found out 
that, at least at the moment, I didn't actually need any spiritual guidance. But 
a look at his face told me he didn't find any amusement in the situation.
"Then I will apologize for disturbing you," he said stiffly. "I hope you sleep 
well." He rose and left the room, taking the candle with him.
I started to protest, then realized it was undoubtedly his candle, brought from 
his own room. I turned on my belt buckle to get enough light to find a candle of 
my own. I stared gloomily at the flame, once I had it lit, wondering how I was 
going to become friends again with the only person in Yurt who seemed to have 
the potential to be my close friend. At this rate, he'd soon be suspecting me of 
having poisoned the king.
But I still had to chuckle, thinking of him sitting here, imagining me embracing 
licentious freedom, at the exact same time as the duchess's teasing was almost 
driving me in panic from her chamber.
The next morning was Sunday, and I was in the ducal chapel early, sitting down 
in the front row while the duchess's chaplain and the royal chaplain conducted 
services together. Neither one of them seemed to notice my presence.
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TV
We stayed at the duchess's castle for a week. Both because I feared being teased 
again and because I didn't want the chaplain worrying about my soul, I tried to 
avoid the duchess. Instead I devoted myself to the Lady Maria, always speaking 
to her at dinner, positioning my horse next to hers when we went out riding, 
standing as an attendant at her shoulder in the evening in the great hall. She 
was, I realized, the only person in Yurt to whom I spoke regularly with whom I 
did not always feel myself sparring.
But she could turn the conversation to her own purposes as deftly as anyone else 
if she wantedsomething I had already known, and of which I was reminded when I 
tried to find out more about her previous experience with magic.
The king, the queen, and the duchess had all decided to go huntingthat is, the 
duchess asked the king if he would accompany her, and when he agreed the queen 
said that she wanted to hunt as well. They rode across the stubble of the 
duchess's fields and along the margins of the woods, hawks on their fists, 
hoping for a goose. Some of the rest of us, including the Lady Maria and I, went 
out with them primarily for fresh air.
The air was cold and slightly damp, although the gray sky did not immediately 
threaten rain. The Lady Maria seemed to enjoy my attentions and always raised 
her chin a little when the duchess glanced at the two of us together. Now, as we 
rode, I was amusing her by telling her again about the dragon in the cellar of 
the wizards' school.
"So, my predecessor agreed to teach you magic?" I asked suddenly, with no 
reference to what I had just been saying, hoping to catch her off-guard.
Her big blue eyes held mine for an instant, more
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intently than they ever had before. Then she looked away with a small laugh. "I 
already told you; he refused to teach me anything because I'm a woman."
"Come now, you can reveal your little secrets to me!" I continued in a tone I 
hoped she would like. "You certainly learned to make magic requests somewhere!" 
When she did not answer, I added, "And have you requested the perpetual youth 
and beauty that adorn you, or was that given you at birth?"
She surprised me by seeming to take my fatuous comments entirely seriously. At 
any rate, her shoulders first stiffened, then sagged, and she looked straight 
ahead without any of the amusement I had expected.
"I asked for a while," she said in a very low voice. I could barely hear her, 
but I did not dare tell her to speak more loudly for fear she would say nothing 
at all. "But now all that I asked for has gone."
"My lady," I said in almost as soft a voice, "who did you ask?"
She suddenly became very involved with her horse's mane. We had reined in and 
were standing under a leafless tree, but a dead oak leaf had been carried on the 
wind and caught behind her horse's ears. She glanced at me once, a glance I was 
apparently not supposed to notice.
"You said you'd teach me magic," she said at last. "I don't need all that 
grammar. All I need is a simple spell, a spell to make me young."
"I'm afraid there isn't a simple spell like that," I said gravely, trying not to 
reveal how surprised I was at her admission that she needed a spell of youtlior 
apparently had once had one. "There's a difficult spell, which the young wizards 
don't even learn until we've been at the school for several years, that will 
slow down aging, but it won't make one any younger than one already is."
"Even if it's difficult, I know I could learn it," she
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said with the trace of a smile. "After all, I learned your telephone spell after 
hearing it once!"
"It's a different kind of spell, and much more difficult," I said, which was 
partly true, but in part I felt a sense of panic that I had introduced her to 
magic at all. Our duty as wizards is to help mankind, but every spell, however 
small, has consequences far beyond the spell itself. It was for this reason that 
all the teachers at the school agreed, and impressed on us strongly, that part 
of our responsibility as wizards was not to freely extend the lives of everyone 
we met.
"You're teasing me because I'm a woman," said the Lady Maria, facing me 
squarely. "I know I could learn your spell, and I know that magic can make time 
run backwards."
"Time cant run backwards. It's the most powerful force in nature, and magic can 
never ultimately change anything natural."
Tears of frustration appeared at the corners of her eyes. "But it can\ I've seen 
it work! Why won't you tell me the truth?"
I was swept with a terror so sharp and sudden that my lips were almost too 
paralyzed to speak. "My lady, have you been dealing in black magic?"
"No! There's nothing evil in wanting to be young! And all you do is laugh at 
me!"
She really was crying now. She kicked her horse savagely and galloped away. My 
own mare turned her head to look at me in inquiry, then, when I continued to sit 
with the reins slack, started nosing again among the half-frozen grass.
After a minute, I managed to gather up both the reins and my mental strength 
enough to start back toward the castle. I could see neither the Lady Maria nor 
the rest of the hunting party, but I wanted to be inside near a fire.
I wondered how it could have taken me so long to realize that the Lady Maria had 
become involved with
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black magic. First her extreme youthfulness, then the abrupt loss of that 
youthfulness, should have made me realize that she had found a magic that mixed 
truly supernatural power with magic's own natural power.
What I found difficult was to imagine her involved in evil herself. Could the 
supernatural that gave her magic the power to turn time backwards have been the 
supernatural power of the saints?
The difficulty here, I told myself, was that the saints seem to have little 
interest in magic. I wished I had paid more attention in my course on the 
supernatural to the part about the saints. There had been wizards in the past, 
as I dimly remembered hearing, who had tried to develop a "white magic" that 
would be as powerful as black magic, but those wizards must not have had 
sufficiently pure hearts and motives, for the saints had never listened to them.
Demons, on the other hand, love wicked hearts and perverted motives, and are, at 
least sometimes, even tractable if one knows precisely what to say. That was why 
black magic is not only possible but the single biggest danger, as they 
repeatedly warned us, for overly ambitious young wizards.
The answer must be that Maria had become involved in someone else's black magic, 
undoubtedly the same spell that had blighted the King and still suffused the 
cellars with a sense of evil. This put me back where I had been before, 
wondering who of the people of Yurt, all of whom I liked, could have been 
willing to give themselves to the devil.
"Let's be calm and rational," I told my horse, who had responded to a lack of 
commands from me by slowing first to a walk and then to a complete stop. Maria 
came to Yurt four years ago with die queen. She and Dominic, who some people 
thought might make a match, amused themselves during their courting by asking 
the old wizard to show them some magic tricks. Had ne introduced them to black 
magic?
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I didn't feel I knew my predecessor well, but I thought I had spent enough time 
with him to be able to say, fairly confidently, that he himself had not 
succumbed to evil. In some ways it was easier to tell with a wizardI had spent 
eight years surrounded by nothing but wizards, and even someone trained in the 
old magic was not as strange to me as the duchess or the Lady Maria.
But who else could it be, if not the stray visitor to the castle that Dominic 
would have had me believe? I kept on coming back to the chaplain, who had come 
to the castle a year after the Lady Maria, just about the time that the black 
magic first had its effect, if I assumed the king's illness was indeed part of 
that effect.
"No," I said out loud. "Zahlfast is wrong." Maybe theoretically someone who 
healed could also sicken, but I refused to believe it here. I had paid very 
close attention in the part of the course that dealt with demons, and I knew 
that demons would not listen to a request to do good to someone else. A demon 
would happily do evil to others, but would only be helpful to the person whose 
soul he claimed.
Therefore, as I had thought all along, the supernatural power that had healed 
the king had been the power of the saints. Would the saints have listened to 
Joachim if his heart had been full of evil?
"Unless he'd since repented of that evil," I answered myself, "and his heart was 
truly contrite." I startled my mare by suddenly digging in my heels. I was not 
going to allow myself to take this reasoning any further. But then I was 
suddenly struck by the thought of the old chaplain, the one who had died 
unexpectedly. Could he have turned to evil, worshiping the devil in his heart 
while his lips addressed God?
This was a truly terrible thought, and I felt myself go cold and stiff again. If 
a castle's chaplain had invited in the powers of darkness, had died with his
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immortal soul in the devil's grasp, would a castle ever be able to recover?
I reassured myself with the thought that a chapel where a man could pray to the 
saints for a miracle was not a chapel where imps and demons frolicked unchecked. 
This left me Dominic as my final suspect. I wished I did not feel so much 
righteous pleasure in suspecting him.
In spite of the highly intermittent nature of my riding, I had at last arrived 
at the castle gates. I crossed the bridge into the courtyard, with more 
questions than I had had before but fewer answers. I needed to ask Dominic about 
his and Maria's attempts to learn magic from the old wizard, and I had no idea 
how I was going to ask him.
I was nearly as startled as I would have been to meet a demon to find Dominic's 
slightly red face looking; at me as I entered the stables with my mare.
"Prince Dominic!" I stammered. "I thought you were out hunting!"
He frowned, clearly wondering what I could have been doing to make me react so 
guiltily to his presence. "I'm still worried about my horse's leg,' he answered, 
"so I came in from the hunt."
The thought passed wildly through my mind that the horse's leg might recover 
more quickly with a lighter rider, but fortunately I was able to suppress any 
such comment. "I'm glad to see you here, as I'd wanted to ask you some 
questions,' I managed to say instead, wondering what I would ask him.
"But first I have some questions for you," he said, standing up. He always 
seemed when I was close to him much larger than I remembered. "A royal wizard is 
supposed to use his powers to serve his king and kingdom, and I'd like to know 
what you think you're doing with yours."
"Serving the king and kingdom," I said promptly, with as much of a smile as I 
could manage.
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He seemed to find neither humor nor reassurance in this. "All you've done," he 
said, scowling down at me and speaking slowly and distinctly as though I were 
slightly demented, "ever since you've come to Yurt, is to produce illusions that 
terrify the women"
Fortunately I managed to keep a perfectly expressionless face.
"and, I discover now, recklessly try to teach the king to fly."
"Didn't you know that?" I said inanely. "He asked me to months ago, back during 
the summer while the queen was visiting her parents. He wanted to surprise her 
when she came home."
"I most certainly did not know it," he said, his face growing darker red. This 
explained, then, the look of fury he had turned on me when we had first arrived 
here and the king had used his rather limited flying powers to dismount. 
Thinking quickly, I realized that Dominic had never been there before on any of 
the very few occasions when the king had shown off his ability.
"But what's the harm in it?"
"The harm," he said, still in that careful voice in which rage seemed to boil 
barely suppressed, "is that any interference in magic processes, as you tried to 
tell me once yourself, can lead to terrible consequences, and the king's too 
much oftoo trusting to recognize the dangers. I shouldn't have to remind you of 
this, Wizard."
I was quite sure he had been going to say that the king was too much of a fool 
to realize magic's dangers. I wondered if some of Dominic's resentment of the 
king's flying was that it freed the king from the dependence on his nephew he 
had had when the queen was away. But now that the king was welland Dominic had 
seemed as delighted as anyone elsethis dependence would not be at issue anyway. 
Maybe Dominic
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himself had already experienced some of the terrible experiences of misused 
magic.
'And I shouldn't have to remind you," I said, making myself as tall as I could, 
"that you yourself once interfered in magic processes, and have refused to tell 
me about what happened then. It's my duty as Royal Wizard to know all the magic 
being done in the kingdom."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Dominic, taking half a step 
backwards.
I hesitated. My immediate reaction was to push my advantage, to call him a liar 
to his face, but if he openly denied ever having been involved in magic I knew 
he never would tell me about it. "Then I'll bid you good day," I said calmly and 
left the stables.
So far, I thought, crossing the wet cobblestones of the courtyard, I knew no 
more than I had known that summer. The only advance I seemed to have made was in 
somehow leading the duchess to believe that I was a well-qualified wizard.
The Lady Maria was at dinner that night, which almost surprised me, but she 
seemed very cheerful. Since we had been sitting next to each other all week, it 
would have looked very odd if either of us sat elsewhere, and I also felt it 
necessary to reestablish our light banter.
"You know everyone's romantic secrets, my lady," I said in a low voice to her 
during the soup. The soup was made of fish and herbs, actually one of the better 
productions of the duchess's kitchens, but I could tell that it was ocean fish, 
not local river fish, and therefore must have been packed up from the City on 
ice at a remarkable cost.
"But I still don't think I know all your secrets," she replied with a smile, in 
the same tone, clearly eager to pretend that our afternoon's conversation had 
never taken place.
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"There's one person's secret I hope you might tell me," I said coyly while the 
soup dishes were being cleared, taking advantage of the rattle of china to mask 
our conversation. "When the king and his party met you and the present queen's 
party for the first time, here at the duchess's castle, had there been a rumor 
that the king might be about to marry the duchess?'
"Oh, no,' she said with a little tinkling laugh. "It wasn't like that at all." A 
servant leaned between us at that point to place the silverware for the next 
course, and I had a sudden fear that the rumor had in fact been that the king 
would marry the Lady Maria, and that I had just deeply insulted her by never 
before having considered this possibility.
But she bent toward me as soon as the servant stepped back and whispered in my 
ear. "The rumor had been that Dominic was going to marry the duchess."
I came within half a breath of saying, "Dominic?" out loud but stopped myself in 
time. He was sitting only four places down the table and would certainly have 
reacted to the sound of his own name.
"Yes," she continued in my ear, clearly enjoying the fact that everyone else at 
the table noticed we were whispering. "The duchess's servants told our servants 
that the king wanted to ensure the inheritance of Yurt past his own death, so he 
felt his nephew and heir had to marry. They had come here expressly to arrange a 
marriage, when our party fortuitously happened to arrive at the same time, and 
the king met the queen! I don't need to tell you what happened after that!"
"Wizard!" called the duchess from the end of the table. "Does a woman have to be 
blond for you to let her whisper sweet nothings in your ear?"
"As long as she's as lovely as all the ladies here present," I said gallantly, 
ignoring what I could tell was a warning stare from the chaplain, "I don't care 
what color is ner hair."
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This remark seemed to amuse most of the ladies, and the Lady Maria and I went 
back to eating. This meant, therefore, that the queen had not married the king 
to keep him from the duchess, my original and only half-serious thought, even 
though there was clearly no deep affection between the cousins.
From something that the Lady Maria had told me that summer, I could guess that 
Dominic had hoped, once he met her, that ne and the queen would make a match, 
and that even the queen's father, Maria's brother, had made some plans in that 
direction. I didn't know for certain why the original plan for a marriage 
between Dominic and the duchess didn't go through, but I could guess: he had 
never been extremely enthusiastic about the plan in the first place, and then 
when he met the queen he had decided not to take the one cousin when he could 
not get the other. The king, hoping for a little son of his own, would have 
stopped worrying about finding a wife for his nephew.
So was that the answer to why the queen had married the king, that she wanted to 
get away from her father's plans to marry her to someone suitable, when some of 
these suitable persons might have been even worse than Dominic? It seemed a 
plausible answer, but it did not answer the real one: who in Yurt had been 
practicing black magic?
PART FIVE
The Stranger
I
I was relieved to be heading home again. The queen seemed also to be glad to go, 
although the king, bidding the duchess an affectionate farewell, appeared to 
have enjoyed his visit thoroughly. I guessed that he had no idea the cousins 
were not highly fond of each other. But while the queen was merely happy to be 
leaving the duchess behind, I was eager to get back to the castle of Yurt and 
reassure myself nothing had happened in our absence. We had received no messages 
via the pigeons, and had not expected to, but if the castle had been swallowed 
by a giant hole in the earth they might not have had time to release the 
pigeons.
Packed in my saddlebags were the books I had found in the room of the old ducal 
wizard. I had quite brazenly stolen them, reassuring myself that it was not 
theft to take something no one wanted. They had clearly been undisturbed for 
thirty years, and if the duchess did indeed hire someone from the wizards'
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school, as she had threatened to do, he would probably throw them out 
immediately.
At dusk we came out of the woods and up the hill toward the castle. A chill wind 
mixed with a little sleet whipped about our ears, and our horses were eager for 
the stables. I looked up, expecting to see welcoming lights shining out, and 
instead saw only the castle's dark shape against the dark sky.
"The constable knew we were coming home today," said the queen in surprise.
"Everyone may just be sitting warm in the kitchen," said the king.
A chill had gone through me far colder than the sleet. I looked toward Joachim 
and saw that a similar fear had gripped him, for he had reached into his 
saddlebag and taken out his crucifix. He too, I thought, must have been feeling 
that elusive sense of evil in the castle, and he must have been worried about it 
in ways that he never told me.
"At least the drawbridge is down," said one of the knights. The king's optimism 
was not shared by the rest of our party.
For a brief moment we hesitated by the bridge, looking in through the gates 
toward the dark and silent courtyard. Then the king said cheerfully, "They'll 
light the lights as soon as they hear us. Just don't let your horses slip going 
in!" He led the way, the rest of us following single-file behind.
No one spoke as we crossed the bridge and then the courtyard toward the 
lightless stables, out our horses' hooves on the cobblestones and the bells on 
their bridles made a sound that should have awakened any sleeper. There was an 
abrupt clattering sound from the direction of the great hall, then to my intense 
relief I heard the constable's voice. "On!" he shouted, and all the magic lamps 
in the hall blazed into light.
More lights came on then around the castle, and the constable ran out to meet 
us, disheveled and
embarrassed. "Forgive me, sire," he said, holding the king's stirrup while he 
dismounted. "I don't know what happened to me. I must have fallen asleep. I 
didn't mean for you to come home to a dark castle."
Everyone else was now talking and dismounting, and a stable boy started taking 
the horses. The others seemed to have dismissed whatever fears they had felt 
looking up at the lightless bulk of the castle against the twilight sky. But the 
chill I had felt then was still with me. I caught Joachim's eye and knew that he 
too was not completely satisfied.
The cook came rushing into the hall from the kitchens, highly flustered, at the 
same time as we came in from the courtyard. She spoke quickly to the constable 
and rushed out again. "We'll have a hot dish for you very quickly, my lords and 
ladies," said the constable apologetically. "The cook somehow has let the fire 
go out, but she ll have it going again in just a minute.
The hall fire too was quickly built up again. We all stood around it, warming 
ourselves after the ride, waiting for supper. While we waited, I wondered what 
could have happened to cast everyone in the castle into slumber, and what had 
awakened them again. Only a small part of the staff was there, as the rest 
including Gwen and Jonwould not be back from their vacations before tomorrow, 
but it was certainly not natural for all of the staff present to have been 
overcome with sleep at the same time.
And had it merely been the sound of our horses that awakened them? I put my coat 
back on and slipped away, taking one of the magic lamps with me. As I went by 
the kitchens, I could hear loud clattering and the coolc giving rapid orders, 
and could smell supper cooking, a smell so delightful after a long day's cold 
ride that I had to stop myself from going in for a sample bite.
Instead I went down the dank staircase behind the kitchens, forcing my unwilling 
feet forward and doing
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my best to ignore the plausible reasons that kept popping into my mind why it 
would be much better to wait until morning.
It was as I feared. The rusty iron door was still shut, but my magic locks were 
gone, and the debris with which I had blocked the small window in the door had 
all fallen to the ground.
I went back up the stairs much faster than I intended and crossed the courtyard 
to my own chambers. To my intense relief, the magic Iock on my door was glowing 
softly, undisturbed. I went inside to be out of the wind while I found my 
composure again. If this lock too had been gone, I would have had to believe 
there was a demon loose in the castle.
But a new thought also struck me. Someone who knew very powerful magic had 
apparently been at work while we were gone. This person had his or her 
headquarters in the cellars, a place where spells were cast and books and herbs 
kept. When I locked the cellars with magic, he or she had had to break my locks 
to get back in.
And this person, I reasoned, would have to be someone on the castle staff: the 
constable and his wife, the cook, the stable boy, or the kitchen maid, the only 
people who had been here when we arrived. But why would one of those five have 
put the others to sleep and pretended sleep himself or herself? I shook my head, 
realizing it could have been any other member of the staff, who would have 
perhaps come back "early" from vacation, entered the castle without any 
challenge, put the rest into a sleep that would make them forget he or she had 
been there, and left again. In this case, the sleep could have been intended to 
ensure there were no witnesses to whatever the person was going to door people 
to hear the screeching of the iron door being opened.
I left the lights on in my chambers and hurried back to the hall, arriving just 
in time for a light supper of
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soup and omelet, served with some of the cook's excellent bread. Hungry and 
tired, we all ate without more than the briefest snatches of conversation. As 
the food was being served, I had briefly considered trying the spell that had 
turned the king's soup green before his recovery, but I did not have the heart 
to do so, fearing what it might show. Besides, I was almost too hungry to care.
But in the morning, after chapel service, I went to talk to Joachim. He looked 
surprised to see me. We had barely spoken two words since he had nearly accused 
me of seducing the duchess. But that all seemed distant and trivial now.
He was sitting in his room, drinking tea and eating a cinnamon cruller. Since 
the kitchen maid had only brought me a cake donut this morning, I was wildly 
envious, but I forced myself to overlook it. I had something more important on 
my., mind.
"You and I both Icnow," I said, "that someone has put an evil spell on Yurt. It 
doesn't seem possible that such a charming castle should be touched by evil, but 
it is. I don't know who has cast the spell, but you and I have to do something 
about it. I don't think it was you, and I hope you don't think it was me."
"I try not to accuse anyone of evil, even in my thoughts."
"Tell me: How soon after you came to Yurt did you begin to feel the presence of 
an evil mind?"
He put down his teacup carefully. "I have never felt an evil presence here."
I didn't say anything for a moment but met his grave and slightly puzzled eyes 
in silence. Maybe only someone trained in wizardry would be susceptible to that 
oblique sense of evil magic. Or maybe, surrounded as he was by the aura of the 
saints, nothing wicked could approach him.
"But you too were worried last night when we arrived and found everyone asleep."
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"Of course I was. There have been odd magical forces in Yurt as long as I have 
been here. At first I thought it must have something to do with your 
predecessor, since I knew he and my own predecessor had not gotten along well. 
But when he left and you came, the same disruptive magic forces were still 
there." He startled me by taking my arm in a sharp grip. "I decided you were not 
behind themthat was why I was willing to tell the bishop I would take the 
responsibility for your soul.'
I eased my arm out of his fingers and did my best to smile. "It's ironic, isn't 
it? I feel something wrong in Yurt and assume it's part of the conflict between 
angels and demons. You feel the same thing and assume it's something to do with 
magic. But it's not just someone casting silly spells. There's an evil mind 
behind it."
"I try not to accuse anyone of evil," he said again.
I thought about this for a moment. "All right. I too don't want to think of 
anyone being absolutely evil. But I do think someone, deliberately or not, has 
involved the powers of darkness in his or her magic. Therefore, we"
Joachim interrupted me, his intense black eyes blazing. "You speak much too 
lightly of someone 'being absolutely evil.' Don't you realize that, if you 
believe that, you are denying the power of redemption?"
"Well, I didn't really mean it in theological terms, so much as"
But he was not listening to me. "All of us are God's creation. Therefore none of 
us can ever destroy the good within us, or not destroy it totally. We priests do 
our best to keep that spirit of good a living flame, but even those who are 
wicked and depraved in this life may still be redeemed in the next."
"But how about someone who gives his soul to the devil?"
As soon as I asked I wish I had not, because I didn't want to hear the answer.
Joachim's shoulders slumped slightly as he dropped his eyes. "Then that person 
is beyond the prayers of either mortals or the saints. He will still be redeemed 
when the devil himself is redeemed, but that will not be before the end of 
infinite time."
The bright sun on the ice and snow outside the chaplain's open window seemed dim 
for a moment, and the chill in my bones was not due to the air coming through 
that window.
If someone in the castle had made a pact with the devil, giving up his or her 
soul after death for advantages in this life, then that person's only chance was 
to trick or negotiate the devil into breaking the pact. His or her best hope was 
to have the negotiations done by someone else, someone who really understood the 
supernatural. The saints do not negotiate, which meant that a wizardthat is me, 
and not the chaplain who had already proved himself by healing the kingmight 
have to deal with this.
All that any wizard in the Cityor probably in the worldknew about dealing with 
the devil had been distilled into the Diplomatica Diabolica, which meant I was 
going to have to read it, even though every time I even looked at its spine I 
was struck with the same fear that had gripped me when I first bought it: that I 
might endanger my own soul by summoning a demon by mistake, when I had only 
intended to leam how to deal with one who was already there.
It was almost with a sense of light and ease that I thought again about the 
specific problem of who in Yurt might be practicing black magic. "I need your 
help," I told Joachim. "Someone's immortal soul may be in danger. I think that 
last night a sleeping spell had been put on the castle, though I don't know why. 
But if we can determine who did it, then we may be
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able to find out where the odd magic forces you mention are coming from."
"It cannot be your predecessor, because he's gone," said the chaplain 
thoughtfully, looking at his hands. "And I don't think it's you." He gave me one 
of his intense looks, then returned to his hands. "It must have been someone who 
was here in the castle while we were visiting the duchess." He clearly was not 
used to this way of reasoning, but I waited impatiently while he worked it 
through for himself.
Then he surprised me by asking, "From what distance can a spell be cast?"
I should have thought of this myself. "I really don't know," I said, "but I 
don't think it's very far. I at any rate have never been able to cast a spell 
farther than I could see." I stopped, thinking of my glass telephones, but 
decided not to confuse the issue by mentioning them. "Do you think it could be 
someone who lives down in the village?"
"Or even someone in our party."
I had been about to ask Joachim for his spiritual help against the constable, as 
the most likely of the people who had stayed in the castle, but now I was back 
to suspecting everyone in Yurt, perhaps everyone in the entire kingdom.
Then I remembered that the supernatural influence Zahlfast had first noted 
stopped at the moat. Someone in the castle itself must be casting the spells, as 
I had always assumed. This meant
Joachim interrupted my thoughts. "Is it possible to cast a long-lasting spell, 
one that will continue to have effect when one is far away?" Apparently they 
taught them to ask sharp questions at the seminary.
"It depends on the spell," I said. "Some of the elementary spells, like 
illusions, will fade fairly shortly unless constantly renewed. But some of the 
complicated spells, like lamps or magic locks, should last
indefinitely." I decided not to mention the broken locks on the cellar door.
"So someone who isn't even here anymore, such as your predecessor, could have 
put an evil spell on Yurt that is still having an effect."
I shook my head. "It's possible, but not very likely, even if the person is a 
master in wizardry." It was going to be hard to explain that the long-lasting 
spells, although the most complicated, were when completed often the simplest 
and most static. A spell that could sicken the king and make the apparently 
ageless Lady Maria start to age seemed too involved to be maintained from any 
distance, in space or time.
"Let's assume," I said, "that the magic is being practiced by someone here in 
the castle, someone here now. I need your help because it isn't just ordinary 
magic, which I could deal with myself. Someone is acting with evil intent, or 
the king would not have come so close to dying, and he or she may have involved 
the supernatural, for the Lady Maria told me she had seen time run backwards."
"I didn't think magic could make time run backwards."
"It can't. Only the truly supernatural can do that. That's why I'm so 
terrified." I hadn't meant to tell him I was terrified, but he did not seem to 
mark the comment.
"Where had she seen this happen?" he asked.
"She won't tell me."
"Did you want me to try asking her?"
I contemplated the chaplain trying to pry the Lady Maria's secrets out of her 
with what he would consider tact. "No," I said, "it might frighten her to know 
that two of us realized she was involved in some sort of magic gone astray. It 
would be just as well for only me, the wizard, to ask her about it."
"Are you suggesting that she is practicing with evil intentr
magic
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"No, but somebody must be doing so."
"We'll have to think about this systematically," said Joachim. I noticed he was 
not meeting my eyes and wondered if he was starting to suspect me of evil 
intent. "Of those who stayed in the castle while we were gone, certainly the 
constable is the strongest individual. I have never thought of him as other man 
good."
"Neither had I," I said, "but he stays so much in the background that I realize 
I don't know him very well.'
"But what possible motive could he have for putting the others to sleep?"
I was about to explain my theory of the person involved in black magic needing 
to get back in the cellar when there was a sudden knock at the door. "Come in!" 
called Joachim.
I must have jumped six inches when the constable himself opened it and addressed 
the chaplain. "Excuse me," he said, "but there's someone to see you."
II
Joachim stood up and followed the constable out at once. I sat for a moment, 
looking at the backs of his books on his shelf, then, feeling it was not polite 
to stay here while he was gone, wandered out into the hallway.
I had just had an idea about the constable. He had the keys to every room in the 
castle, yet he had told me that only Dominic, who had duplicate keys for most 
rooms, had the key to the cellar. Did this mean that he really did have die 
cellar key, but had wanted to deny it, knowing all too well what was down there?
The challenge of trying to figure out what was happening in Yurt would have been 
highly enjoyable if I
had not kept being overwhelmed with terror. I was glad to think that Joachim and 
I were probably friends again, at least for the moment; he might have some good 
ideas. By the time he came back, I had a theory to account for the north tower.
The old wizard, I reasoned, liked to consider himself a wizard of light and air, 
but at some point he had dabbled in black magic. The old chaplain had suspected 
something of this, and so had the constable. The wizard had repented and gotten 
out with his soul intact, but when he retired he left all the paraphernalia of 
black magic behind him, locked up in his tower. The constable, however, who had 
somehow learned how to break magic locks, had gone in, taken everything down to 
his own den of evil in the cellar, and swept out the tower room to leave no 
traces.
This was quite an appealing theory, other than the gaps of where the constable 
might have learned how to oreak locks and what, exactly, the "paraphernalia of 
black magic" might be. Having tried to avoid such things, I actually had no 
idea, except perhaps some books of evil spells.
Joachim came swiftly back up the hallway and went into his room without speaking 
to me. But since he left the door open, I went in too after a minute. He had his 
saddlebag on the bed and was tossing a few things into it.
He looked up at me. "There's a sick boy in the village. They want me to pray for 
him."
I did not answer, feeling that "How nice," the all-purpose comment, was highly 
inappropriate.
"Fortunately, I don't think he's very sick, and the doctor is already with him." 
He threw his Bible in on top and strapped up the bag. "It's the brother of the 
little girl who was bitten by the viper."
"Dear God," I startled myself by saying.
"If I were the father, I wouldn't send for me," said Joachim with what would 
have been grim humor in
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anyone else. "But he did." He stood up, pulled on his jacket, and swung the 
saddlebag over his shoulder. I followed him as he strode down through the castle 
to the courtyard. The same man in brown that I had seen before was waiting on 
his horse. In a moment, the chaplain was mounted and the two rode away together.
I went out onto the drawbridge, although I was cold without a coat. The morning 
sun glittered on the icy snow. I watched until the two riders disappeared into 
the edge of the forest and felt very glad that I was not a priest.
I hurried back inside and went in search of the constable. I found him in the 
kitchen talking to the cook. "Is something wrong?" she said, seeing me over his 
shoulder. "I know Gwen says that you always like crullers, but I'd only made a 
few this morning. She should be back from her vacation this afternoon."
"It's not about the crullers," I said, although another time it would have been. 
I didn't even mention how stale the donut I had gotten had tasted. "I wanted to 
talk to the constable."
"All right," he said, turning to smile at me. "Well, we can order whatever we 
don't have," he said over his shoulder to the cook. "Just start making a list of 
what you'll need. We can talk more later.' Turning back to me, he said, "Shall 
we go to my chambers?'
I had never actually been in the constable's chambers, and I immediately agreed, 
although if I had expected to see the paraphernalia of evil I was sadly 
disappointed. His chambers, in fact, looked a lot like mine, without the rows of 
books on magic. Instead he had big leather-bound manuscript books that I guessed 
were the castle accounts and inventories. There were rows of plants inside on 
the windowsills, and the furniture was all painted blue and white.
The constable's wife was mopping the stone floor, the outer door open, as we 
came up. "Oh, excuse me, sir," she said, putting the bucket outside. She ran to
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close the bedroom door, but not before I had caught a glimpse of a wide, 
turned-back bed, the white pillows and comforter fluffed out to air. "I'll just 
go over to the kitchen for a moment, if you want to talk in private," she said.
I realized the chief difficulty with my theory of the constable having sold his 
soul to the devil was the constable's wife. It appeared on the face of it much 
more likely that he had given himself to her, heart and soul, many years ago, 
and had been happy enough with the arrangement that he wanted nothing else, or 
at least nothing else that a demon could promise.
"It makes such a happy difference having the king well again," he said. "But 
part of that difference is that we on the staff are kept much busier! The king 
told me this morning that he wants to have a big party here for Christmas. The 
cook will have to start planning immediately, as it's only three weeks away, and 
well have to send in our order by the pigeons in a day or two if we need to 
order anything special from the City. He wants the duchess and both counts to 
come, which means we'll have to clean out all the spare rooms and have them 
ready. I can't remember when he last had so many people at Christmas!"
This was the difficulty with all my theories about anyone in the castle. 
Everyone always seemed so good-hearted and happyexcept for Dominicthat it was 
impossible to suspect them of practicing black magic. I would have concluded I 
was imagining the whole thing, except that both Zahlfast and the chaplain, in 
their own way, had sensed it too.
"The king must be feeling very social," I said, "to be planning to have a large 
party here when he's barely gotten back from visiting the duchess." Privately I 
wondered what the queen thought of this plan. "But I wanted to ask you 
something." It was probably pointless to ask, but since I had interrupted
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him anyway I might as well. "Are you sure you don't have a key to the cellars?"
He looked surprised, as well he might, and took the heavy bunch of keys from his 
belt. ' I'm quite sure I don't," he said, nipping through them. "Dominic took 
the key some years ago, when we decided just to lock the cellars up rather than 
trying to use them anymore. They always were very damp. I'm not sure we ever had 
a duplicate key, because before then the door had always stood open." I 
certainly saw no key on his ring that matched the rusty iron one I had borrowed 
from Dominic. "Why do you ask?"
I had been afraid he would say that. "I'd been thinking it might be possible to 
dry the cellars out and use them for my own purposes," I improvised. "We wizards 
need rooms that wont be hurt if one of our experiments in fire and light goes a 
little astray. I understand the old wizard had the north tower, but that he 
didn't want the tower room used again, so I thought the cellars might be a 
possibility. Id looked at them a little the other week, but I hated to bother 
Dominic for his key again, so I . . ."
The constable smiled knowingly. "I understand. You and Prince Dominic don't 
always see eye to eye, and you're almost afraid of him now. Don't be insulted!" 
seeing me about to interrupt. "It's not your fault. He's a hard man for anyone 
to get along with, as well I know."
I nodded, not wanting to say anything for fear I'd start laughing. It made a 
much better excuse for talking to the constable rather than Dominic about the 
cellar key than anything I could have invented. But this made me think again 
that I ought to suspect Dominic. Suspecting him of evil intent, however, seemed 
so easy that I was worried that my personal feelings might cloud my judgment.
"But are you sure you really want to try the cellars anyway?" said the 
constable. "We'd hoped you'd find
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the chambers we gave you satisfactory" ("The old nurse doubtless found them 
delightful!" I commented to myself), "but if you need something more we should 
at least be able to find you a room that's drier than the cellar. Could you 
wait, however, until after Christmas?"
The constable looked really troubled that he would be too busy to find me a good 
room for my experiments in light and fire during the next three weeks. Now I 
supposed I would have to find some such experiments to do. Remembering that I 
was keeping him from his work, I reassured him that January would be fine, and 
rose to my feet.
"Wait a minute, sir, if you don't mind," the constable said, and I sat down 
again. "There's something I wanted to ask you." He frowned and looked away. 
"When the king told me the people he wanted to invite for Christmas, he 
mentioned the duchess and the two counts, as I'd already said . . . but he also 
said he wanted to invite the old wizard."
"Yes?" I prompted when he fell silent.
"I wanted to ask if that was all right," the constable said, still not looking 
at me. "He lives very near here, down in the forest, and the king thought he 
would love coming up to the castle for Christmas, rather than spending it alone, 
that is, if you don't mind."
"Of course I won't mind.'
The constable looked up then, smiling. "I'm sorry to bother you, then, but one 
hears rumors of how young and old royal wizards are always at odds, and even 
though I hinted to you when you first came that you might visit him, I knew you 
hadn't, so though I'd hoped that in your case ..."
I interrupted before he could make his statement any more involved. "Actually, I 
have visited him two or three times. We've probably become as good friends as 
old and young wizards ever do."
The constable was positively beaming now. "Well!
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That's very good news. I hadn't wanted to pry into what you'd done, knowing that 
a wizard needs his privacy, but I'm delighted to hear that! Now, if you'll 
excuse me.' He was whistling as he took down an account book while I went back 
out.
I paused in the center of the courtyard, trying to think whom I should suspect 
next of having a den of evil magic in the cellar, since it was so difficult to 
suspect the constable. The constable's wife, the cook, the stable boy, and the 
kitchen maid, the only other people who had been in the castle when we arrived 
to find it dark, seemed even less viable alternatives. I briefly considered but 
rejected the possibility that Dominic had put everyone to sleep from far away. I 
didn't know of any spell that would do such a thing from a distance, and could 
think of no reason why he would want to do so. Besides, I always kept coming 
back to the fact that Dominic was the one who had first warned me against the 
evil spell on the castle.
I shivered and was starting back toward my chambers when I was startled by 
seeing a tall, thin form standing motionless just inside the castle gates. 
"Joachim's back already,' I thought in surprise. Then the man turned to look at 
me and I saw it was not the chaplain. It was someone I had never seen before.
He did not in fact look like Joachim at all, except that he too had enormous 
black eyes, in a face that was almost inhuman in its pallor and 
expressionless-ness. He stared at me without blinking.
"Excuse me," I said, "can I help you? Have you just arrived?" For a moment I 
thought it might be a new member of the caste staff, signed on by the constable 
while the royal party was away, and arriving to take up his duties this morning.
But the stranger turned away again without speaking and, with long strides, 
started toward the south tower.
I went after him, but he had a large lead, and he
disappeared around the tower's base. When I came up, there was no sign of him.
This, I thought, was very odd. There were several doors he could have gone into, 
so his disappearance was not very mysterious, but no stranger coming to a castle 
should flee before the Royal Wizard.
m
I went back to the constable's chambers and knocked. He was working on the 
accounts as his wife finished her mopping. Both looked surprised to see me again 
so soon.
"Did you hire a new member of the staff while we were gone?" I asked. "There's a 
stranger here, someone I've never seen before, and when I tried to talk to him 
he went across the courtyard and into a doorway."
"I certainly haven't hired anyone new," said the constable. "It must be a 
visitor. But I don't know why he wouldn't talk to you."
I had been concentrating so much on fears of black magic that I realized I had 
been overlooking something obvious: a thief sneaking into the castle. ' Do you 
think it could be someone trying to steal something?"
"Let's hope not," said the constable, putting his account book back and jumping 
up. "We'd oetter find him."
We checked the doors leading off the corner of the courtyard behind the south 
tower. These were rooms that were rarely used, and only one of the doors was 
unlocked. The constable opened the others with his bunch of keys, to make sure 
the man had not gone in and locked the door behind him, but all the rooms were 
empty.
"I'll get Dominie," I said. "He should be able to help us."
While the constable headed toward the main store-
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rooms to see if they had been disturbed, I located Dominic in the great hall, 
talking to the king and queen. "Can you help the constable and me?" I asked. 
"I've just seen a stranger in the courtyard, and we're worried it might be a 
thief. He ran away when I spoke to him."
There were advantages of having someone large and burly beside you when looking 
for someone who might be dangerous. Dominic came at once, but I felt uneasy as I 
saw the queen putting on her shawl with a smile of excitement. I knew she loved 
hunting, but I didn't think she should be hunting this person.
Nevertheless, she came with us. We met the constable in the middle of the 
courtyard. "I haven't seen any sign of break-in or tampering with the locks," 
said the constable. "Maybe the wizard frightened him off."
"There he is!" I said. At the far end of the courtyard, near the kitchens, the 
tall thin form appeared for a moment and then disappeared again into a doorway. 
We all ran that direction, but when we arrived he again was gone.
"He can't have gone far," said Dominic. "We'll have him in a minute."
But he was wrong. All morning we pursued the stranger, and all morning he eluded 
us. Sometimes we thought he was gone and sat down to rest, only to see him 
again, striding across the far end of the courtyard, or standing on the parapet 
far above us, or looking out a window with his enormous black eyes. Dominic 
recruited the rest of the knights, and as the servants came back to the castle 
some of them as well joined in the pursuit.
I was glad the others saw him too, or I would have begun to worry that I was 
losing my mind.
'Are you sure you aren't playing one of your tricks on us, Wizard?" a knight 
asked in one of the pauses in which we thought we had lost him. We were sitting 
in a row on a bench in the courtyard, panting in spite
of the cold air. The queen was the only one who still looked eager for the 
chase.
"I'm certainly not responsible," I said. "And I don't think there are any other 
wizards near here who might try something like this." But I did consider the 
possibility that this person might only be an illusion.
A few minutes later, the queen spotted a dark head peering down at us from the 
parapet. I probed quickly with my mind to see if this person was indeed real, 
furious at whoever might have pulled such a trick.
A wizard can normally only meet directly the mind and thoughts of another 
wizard, one who is willing for such contact, even though the Lady Maria had once 
been able to hear my thoughts. But one should still be able to find and 
recognize another mind, to tell at least if it is the mind of a man or a woman, 
reality or illusion.
I found the stranger's mind and almost fell over backwards with the impact. This 
was no illusion. The man's mind was looking for my own, ready to meet it, and 
his was totally evil. The distant, oblique touch of evil I had been feeling for 
months was no longer distant; it was here.
The rest ran after him, but I broke my mind away from that contact and sank back 
on the bench. Where had he come from? Why had he appeared in the castle now? 
What did he want with us?
I heard a step immediately next to me and whirled around. But it was not the 
stranger, only Gwen and Jon, coming toward me hand in hand.
"We wanted to tell you first, sir," said Gwen. "We've gotten engaged!"
It took me several moments to recover my composure enough to be able to say, 
"Congratulations!" without fearing it would sound luce the gaspings of a fish. I 
decided it would be tasteless to ask if Jon had resorted to the long-threatened 
love potion or if he had won her with his own unaided charms; I assumed the 
latter.
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"I know you may be a little surprised, after a few things I've said," said Gwen 
with a smile up at Jon. "But when all of you left for the duchess's castle, Jon 
asked if I wanted to spend my vacation with him, visiting his mother, and I said 
I would. We worked everything out pretty quickly, then! Now, we'll have to tell 
the constable and get his permission to stay on once we're married. We'll want 
the chaplain to marry us in the castle chapel, of course."
"Of course," I said inanely.
"I just wanted to say something," Jon interjected. "A couple of times, sir, I 
was jealous of your attentions toward Gwen. I know it sounds silly, and I'm 
really embarrassed about it now, so I just wanted to apologize."
"That's quite all right," I said, feeling even more inane, and watching the 
courtyard beyond them for a tall, thin form.
"Well, I'm glad you don't hold it against me," said Jon with a grin. "I told my 
mother all about our glass telephones. I told her I'd let her know as soon as we 
had them working!"
"Yes, indeed," I said, standing up. I thought I saw a flicker of motion and 
wanted to investigate.
"We won't keep you, sir," said Gwen. "And I'll still be bringing you your 
breakfast in the morning."
"In that case," I said in my gravest voice, "I want you to know that the girl 
who brought me breakfast this morning brought me a stale donut. And the tea was 
cold."
This sent both Gwen and Jon into gales of laughter, and they went off, still 
holding hands, while I started walking as quietly as possible down the 
courtyard.
Here there were outside staircases leading up to some of the ladies' chambers. 
The angle of the sun was such that I was dazzled, looking up toward the chamber 
windows, shading my eyes and blinking. But
A Bad Spell in Yurt
179
between two blinks, I thought I saw the door of the Lady Maria's chamber opening 
and closing.
I ran up the stairs two at a time, rapped on the door, and opened it without 
waiting for an answer.
She was sitting by the window, sewing something lacy and pink. It appeared to be 
something a man shouldn't see, so I carefully kept my eyes from it.
She was, quite naturally, very startled. "What is it? What's happening?"
"Did someone just come in here?"
"No! Of course not," she said, staring at me with wide blue eyes.
I did not believe her. But I saw no one there now, and I couldn't call her a 
liar to her face. "Excuse me, then," I said and backed out the door.
I scanned the courtyard from the landing but saw nothing. I refused to believe 
that the Lady Maria was acting from evil intent. I had touched her mind when we 
were experimenting with the telephones, even if very briefly, and I thought I 
should be able to tell if she had embraced the powers of darkness. But how did 
she know the stranger, and why was she lying?
I went slowly down the outside stairs, shivering again; I never had gotten my 
coat. Maria might perhaps be trying to shield somebody. She had told me she had 
"requested" certain magic favors, and I presumed she had requested them from 
someone in the castle. It would be that person, then, who had enlisted the 
stranger's help in practicing black magic. I still had no idea who the stranger 
was, but I was suddenly convinced I knew who had wanted to cast the evil spell 
on the castle.
It had to be the queen. Ever since I had met her and had fallen in love with 
her, I had refused to harbor any suspicions against her, but there was no 
rational reason why I shouldn't. The Lady Maria, even if she guessed that her 
beloved niece was mixing dark supernatural powers with her magic spells, would
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never allow anyone else to suspect her. There still seemed to be no easy 
explanation why the queen had married the king, unless she hoped in a few years 
to be a widowed queen, able to rule Yurt as she wished, never again having to 
fear being married off to someone she detested.
There was a cry of, "There he is!" from the far side of the castle, and the 
group of pursuers shot into view. The queen was in the lead, her skirts and 
shawl billowing. Her long black hair had come unpinned and was flying out behind 
her. Dominic, the constable, and a group of knights ran close beside her. In 
another context, I would have found it hilarious.
I didn't see the stranger, although they had. He must have gotten by me, if 
indeed I had seen him here by the Lady Maria's door, and had not imagined it 
while dazzled by the sun. He clearly was able to make himself invisible if he 
wished, and he did not have my problem of invisibility stopping at the knees. He 
was certainly finding the chase hilarious.
It was well past time for it to stop. I saw him then, walking quickly but 
unconcernedly along the parapets. I set my teeth and began preparing a paralysis 
spell.
A paralysis spell is complicated, and I had only ever cast one successfully 
once, over a year ago, when I had frozen another young wizard in the middle of 
the classroom. Then it had worked spectacularly well, even though the instructor 
had spoken to me very firmly after class. I put the words of the Hidden Language 
together as rapidly as I could and cast it toward the stranger's retreating 
back.
This time the spell did not work at all. The stranger kept on walking, just as 
unconcernedly, and then either slipped into a doorway or made himself invisible 
again. I ran down into the courtyard to intercept the others.
They were all panting, even the queen, and quite willing to stop. "This person 
is a wizard," I said, even
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181
though I did not think of him as a wizard in the sense that I was one, or 
Zahlfast was, or the old Master in the City or my predecessor down in the 
forest. But it was too complicated at the moment to explain that this was 
someone able to walk through my best spellsand probably responsible for 
breaking my magic locks. 'He's deliberately making us chase him, to tease us, 
because he knows he can always disappear when we get close."
"But can't you stop him with magic?" said the constable.
"His magic is nearly as strong as mine," I said. This was a wild understatement, 
but Dominic was glowering at me as though it were all my fault. "I'm trying to 
stop him, but it may take me a while. At the moment, I don't think he's doing 
any damage to the castle. But we don't want him to escape before I've had a 
chance to capture him and find out who he is and why he's come here."
I turned to Dominic. "Let me have the cellar key. If I catch him, I'll lock him 
down there. Meanwhile, rather than amusing him by running around the courtyard 
any longer, let's stop until I've found a way to break down his magic defenses. 
But put a guard on the gate, to be sure he doesn't sneak back out."
Privately, I was rather hoping he would sneak back out. If he made himself 
invisible, he would have no trouble slipping past guards at the gate, unless 
they put the drawbridge up, which I didn't think they would do. I had never seen 
the bridge raised since coming to Yurt, and the rest of the castle servants 
weren t all back yet. And even then, this stranger who was impervious to a 
paralysis spell, which had taken the instructor five minutes to break the last 
time I used it, would have no trouble flying over the walls.
The pursuers all agreed readily. Dominic handed me the rusty cellar key without 
comment. Even the queen had had enough of this fruitless chase. But as
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she stood next to me, her bosom rising and falling with her rapid breaths, I 
again found it impossible to suspect her. If she had married the king in the 
hopes of being a widow soon, why had she nursed him so tenderly when he was ill 
and been so grateful when he was healed?
The others went in search of lunch, but I got a coat from my chambers and sat 
down on a bench in the courtyard, where I could watch the gate. Dominic put two 
knights there to guard as well. I wished the chaplain would come back soon.
Several times during the afternoon I caught a glimpse of the stranger. New 
attempts at casting a paralysis spell on him had no more effect than had the 
first attempt. I did, however, miss with one of my efforts and catch one of the 
stable boys. He froze, as unmoving as wood, in the middle of the courtyard, and 
it took me ten minutes and a quick trip to my books to break the spell and free 
him. Fortunately, we were around the corner from the guards at the gate, and 
when motion suddenly returned to him he just shook his head, looked at me as 
though embarrassed to have gone into a sudden reverie in my presence, and 
hurried back to the stables.
At one point in the afternoon I became so desperate that I decided to try to 
telephone Zahlfast. I got down one of my glass telephones, added a few spells 
that I hoped might make it work this time, and spoke the number of the school 
telephone. But it worked no better than it had for Maria and me. I could see a 
young wizard answering it, but he could neither hear nor see me, and in a moment 
he hung up with a gesture of irritation.
All right, I thought. Zahlfast had told me that they didn't want the young 
wizards asking for help with every little problem anyway. I would have to solve 
this one myself.
I realized that, by refusing to chase the stranger, I
was giving him the opportunity to talk at leisure to the Lady Maria or anyone 
else he wished, but I was fairly sure he would be able to do whatever he wanted 
anyway, even with me close at his heels.
Several times, when he had not shown himself for twenty minutes or more, I hoped 
that he had gone, slipped back to wherever he had come from. But when, with 
trepidation, I tried probing for him, he was always there, a mind so evil that I 
was always shaken even when expecting it. He seemed deliberately to be mocking 
me. My spells did not have any effect on him, but nis very presence nearly 
paralyzed me.
And then, very suddenly, he was gone. I did not see him, and I did not feel him. 
I probed delicately, then boldly, and found only the same oblique evil touch 
that I had long felt in the castle. Not knowing whether to be jubilant or wary 
at this abrupt departure, I looked up and saw Joachim crossing the bridge into 
the castle.
I ran to meet him, looking with some apprehension up into his face.
He was actually smiling. "The little boy is fine," he said as I helped him 
dismount. "I do not think he was ever dangerously ill. The doctor's draught had, 
I believe, already put him well toward recovery, and the village priest's 
prayers had assisted him long before I even arrived."
"That's wonderful," I said. It sounded inadequate, even in my own ears, but at 
least it was better than, "How nice," or, "Congratulations!"
"It looks like I'm even in time for supper," said Joachim, still smiling. "I 
don't know about you, but I'm in the mood for one of our cook's excellent 
dinners after the overspiced food we were served at the duchess's castle."
I carried his saddlebag up to his room for him, then left him to change and wash 
for supper while I
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returned to my chambers to do the same. At first I only felt an intense relief 
that he was back and the stranger gone. But while I was drying my face, I began 
to wonder how the two events were related. Perhaps his saintly presence was 
enough to drive away someone embroiled with evil, in which case I never wanted 
him to leave the castle again, no matter who might be sick in the village.
But perhaps in some way he was the stranger. This was such a terrifying thought 
that I froze with my face in the towel. I had never known of such a thing 
directly, but one heard stories and rumors. When he left, as the good, pious 
chaplain, perhaps he left behind his twin, evil self, who then was alble to run 
wild through the castle until the good self returned and the two were again 
united.
I shook the towel out with much more than necessary energy. This was the kind of 
story the young wizards liked to tell the new students when they first arrived. 
In any event, I was going to do my best to see that the good, pious chaplain did 
not leave again.
IV
The morning of the day of Christmas Eve dawned snowy, but by the time I had 
eaten my cruller and drunk my teaboth brought to my door satisfyingly hot by 
Gwen, who had a sprig of holly in her hair the sun had come out, and the snow 
in the courtyard sparkled like diamonds. It seemed almost a shame when the 
stable boys came out with big brooms to sweep it aside.
The duchess, the two counts, and the old wizard were coming that evening. 
Preparations for Christmas had kept everyone busy enough that they seemed to 
have forgotten about the elusive stranger and to be satisfied with my statement 
that he had vanished magi-
A Bad Spell in Yurt
185
cally in the late afternoon, and that while I still did not know where he had 
come from, I was fairly confident he was not coming back.
An enormous fir had been cut in the forest the day before and set up in the 
corner of the great hall overnight, while the snow dried from its branches. Now, 
under the queen's supervision, the servants hoisted it upright at die head of 
the hall. Boxes of ornaments were brought out, and the queen and the Lady Maria 
spent much of the morning running up and down stepladders hanging the 
decorations. There were glistening silver stars, angels made of lace and velvet, 
colored balls that reflected the light, tiny wreaths made of straw, red velvet 
bows, and scores of tiny magic lights, made years ago by my predecessor. The 
king himself climbed on a ladder to help hang these deep in the branches of the 
tree, where they shone with a pure white gleam.
I brushed my best clothes and worked on the magic tricks I knew I would be 
called on to perform in the next few days. Since the old wizard was going to be 
there, with illusions much more solid and realistic than anything I could 
produce, I was going to have to find other ways to keep the royal party and 
their guests amused during the twelve days of Christmas.
I decided to try some transformations. I spent much of the day with Basic 
Metamorphosis and Elements of Transmogrification, actually realizing at last 
exactly where I had gone wrong with the frogs.
In the three weeks since the stranger's appearance and subsequent disappearance, 
I had been able to make no progress in determining who he was or where he had 
come from. I suspected everyone in the castle in turn, except for the kingeven 
the boys being trained as knights in Yurt. I wished I dared tell Joachim my 
fears, but every time I decided that he was the presence of good that was 
keeping evil at bay, I
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
187
found myself suspecting that the stranger might have been the manifestation of 
his own evil side.
I remembered when I had first come to Yurt I had wondered what I would be doing 
to fill my time away from the City. Somehow my days had become so busy that I 
had not even made any progress on the telephones, even though I had 
intermittently tried one or another new spell. At one point I had promised 
myself to complete them for the queen for a Christmas present, but that was 
impossible now.
In the late afternoon, we started looking out for our guests. The cook and the 
kitchen maids had been baking for days, and the smell of pies, cakes, crullers, 
and bread, mixed with the piny smell from the Christmas tree and the evergreen 
boughs hung throughout the castle, was almost overwhelming. I stood by the gate, 
looking out toward the sunset. The air was clear and still, and the sun was 
framed by the red and ice-blue
of winter.
The stable boys went out with lanterns and poles, which they pushed into the 
ground at intervals along the road up the hill, so that the lanterns could light 
our guests' final approach. At the bottom of the hill, they met a figure on 
foot.
I recognized the old wizard, even at a distance, and went down to meet him. In 
his tall white hat, leaning on his oaken staff, he was unmistakable. As I came 
closer, I could see that he had brought the calico cat, perched on his shoulder.
"Welcome, Master," I said, doing the full bow in spite of the thin layer of ice 
on the road under my knees. I gave the stable boys a stern sideways look, and 
they ran back up to the castle, doubtless eager to tell the rest of the staff 
about the meeting between the old and new wizards.
"Greetings, young whippersnapper," he said in what was for him a cordial tone. 
"Getting too high and
mighty in the castle to come see me much anymore, unr
"I've been busy all fall," I said. "I'm delighted to see you. We'll have plenty 
of time to talk while you're here." Although I did not mention it immediately, 
the principal topic on which I had to talk to him was the north tower. He would 
certainly find out very quickly that his magic locks were gone. Although he 
would have to admit, once I had told him about the stranger, that I had not been 
personally responsible, he would still certainly feel it had somehow been my 
fault for letting supernatural influences into the castle in the first place. He 
had told me unequivocally that there had been no supernatural powers in Yurt in 
his day, and although I didn't actually believe this, he might think it was 
true.
"I notice no one thought of sending a horse for me," he said, leaning on his 
staff going up the hill. "Just because I'm a wizard, no one remembers that I m 
also an old man, and walking for miles in the winter is not easy."
I had already noticed that his white hair was windblown beneath his hat, in 
spite of the still air, and had concluded that he had flown most of the way, 
only setting down on the ground once he was within view of the castle. I decided 
not to mention this.
The constable and his wife met us at the bridge, with kind greetings to which 
the old wizard responded primarily with snorts, although I knew him well enough 
to see that he was actually extremely pleased to be remembered so fondly. "Let 
me show you the
fuest room we've prepared for you," said the consta-le, leading the way toward 
the rooms beyond the south tower.
"Perhaps I could have a word with you now, Master?" I said, hurrying beside him. 
It would be much better if I could tell him about the empty tower before rather 
than after he found out for himself.
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189
"Later, young wizard, later," he said. "An old man gets tired after walking for 
miles, and I have to prepare for some really spectacular illusions over dessert. 
You probably haven't been able to equal anything of mine, have you?"
Since this didn't seem to call for an answer I didn't give one. Here, at the 
farthest point in the castle from the north tower, he would not accidentally 
notice the missing magic locks. Perhaps I could wait and tell him after dinner. 
My only fear was that he would slip out of his room to check them himself as 
soon as I was
gone.
He turned on some of his own magic lamps in his room and closed the door behind 
him. As I was wondering whether I should leave him alone or knock in a few 
minutes, there was the sound of horses' hooves, jingling bridles, and voices 
calling from the gate. The rest of our guests had arrived.
The two counts and the duchess had apparently met on the road, and they all 
arrived together. For several minutes, there was a jumble of greetings, 
laughter, people running to and fro, and the constable taking the guests and 
their parties to the rooms prepared for them. The king and queen came out into 
the courtyard to welcome them. I stayed out of the way, wandering over to the 
north tower and its door locked only with a bolt, not with magic. I stayed there 
for half an hour while it grew darker and colder, but the old wizard never came.
After half an hour, I heard the brass choir start playing Christmas carols and 
knew that dinner would shortry be served. The secret of the tower was safe for 
now from the old wizard. I hurried to the great hall to be formally introduced 
to the counts.
One of the counts was fairly old, about the king's age, and his wife was a round 
and smiling middle-aged woman who looked as I had originally expected the queen 
to look. Their sons, they told me, were off
adventuring in the eastern kingdoms and had not been able to come home for 
Christmas.
The other count was young, probably my age, and had come into his inheritance 
just last winter. He had beautiful alabaster skin, wavy chestnut hair (about the 
color mine would be if I hadn't dyed it gray), and gold rings on every long 
finger. Looking at me imperiously from wide-spaced brown eyes, he had the look 
of mystery and authority I had always hoped I projected but knew I did not.
I did the full bow to him as I had already done to the old count and his wife 
and to the duchess. The latter had actually put on a dress in honor of Christmas 
Eve. It was a lovely dark wine color that suited her well, but it was also 
exactly the same shade as what the queen was wearing, even though the two 
dresses were styled very differently. I noticed the cousins looking at each 
other sideways with little flar-ings of the nostrils. The duchess looked at me, 
however, with a small and somewhat ironical smile, as though interested in 
seeing my reaction to the counts.
"So you have a new wizard," said the young count to the king in what I was 
pleased to note was a high and rather nasal voice. "I myself would never have 
one. I'd been hoping that when your old one retired you'd have the sense not to 
get another."
Since I had just finished bowing to him, and my predecessor was standing only 
ten feet away, this struck me as unusually rude, even for a member of the 
aristocracy, but he kept on talking about us as though we weren't there. ' My 
father kept a wizard or he said he was a wizard, someone I think my father had 
picked up at a carnival somewherebut as soon as I inherited^ I sent him packing 
right away, you can be sure."
"We've always been very happy with our wizards," said the king stiffly.
"Is there anything in particular you object to about
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wizards?" asked my predecessor with a calmness that he was having trouble 
maintaining.
"Everything about them is so, well, on the surface!" said the young count, 
waving his beautiful white hands. "Once you've seen an illusion or two, you have 
nothing left but vague talk about the powers of darkness and light, which 
someone like me sees through at once."
"I think you're underestimating real wizardry," continued my predecessor, with 
an evenness of tone I admired.
"You're the wizard who used to be here, aren't you? My father told me about your 
illusions over dessert, back when he used to visit the king. But really, when 
you go beyond illusions, what do you have?"
I turned him into a frog.
There was total, horrified silence in the great hall as everyone stopped 
breathing. The only sound was the crackling of the great logs in the fireplace. 
Where the young count had stood a minute ago, a large green bullfrog squatted on 
the flagstones, looking up at us with human eyes. The eyes seemed confused and 
rather alarmed.
The frog's wide, pale throat pumped with its breathing. It took one hop toward 
me, then paused to look around again.
The old wizard's cat broke the silence with a hiss. Immediately there was a 
babble of voices. The wizard took the cat firmly in his arms. "Hold on," I said 
cheerfully. "I'll have him turned back into a count in just a minute. I've been 
working on transformations all day, so this shouldn't give me any trouble. I 
chose a frog because frogs, who metamorphose naturally during their lifetimes, 
are very easy subjects for the magic of transformation."
No one seemed particularly interested in this insight into wizardry. They had 
all stepped backwards and were looking at me in trepidation.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
191
But it did indeed take only a few seconds for me to return him to himself, once 
I had decided he had been a frog long enough to respect wizards more in the 
future. But as I said the words to restore him, I also added a few words to 
create an illusion of pale green color on his alabaster skin. It would fade 
shortly, but I thought it would be a healthy reminder of the powers of wizardry. 
If I had done this well in the transformation practical, there never would have 
been a question about Zahlfast passing me.
The count, restored, stared at me with eyes that seemed much more appropriate in 
a human's face than they had in a frog s, but he said nothing.
"Well," said the king in in his best jolly voice. "I can see the after-dinner 
entertainment has already begun, but shall we eat before we have any more? I 
know the cook has been busy today!"
The brass players had stopped playing to stare down from their greenery-hung 
balcony, but they quickly resumed as we all went toward the tables. Several 
extra tables had had to be set up, all glittering with the best silver and 
crystal.
As we jostled and found our places, I discovered the chaplain at my elbow. "Are 
you sure this wanton meddling with God's creation does not endanger your soul?" 
he said into my ear.
I laughed and shook my head. I personally thought the young count's soul might 
be improved by a wholesome lesson in humility, but decided not to mention this. 
I was suddenly very hungry.
I noticed at dinner that no one talked to me as freely as they normally did, not 
even the Lady Maria, who was, as usual, seated at my right hand, though one 
advantage of having guests was that Dominic had
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been positioned at a different table. Being freed from having to provide 
entertaining conversation gave me more attention to pay to one of the cooks 
finest efforts. By the time the mince pie was brought in, I was so full that I 
found I could only take two pieces.
When everyone was down to about half a piece of pie, from which they 
periodically extracted a raisin or a flaky piece of crust to munch with a sip of 
tea, the king said, "Well, Wizard!" to my predecessor. "Are you going to provide 
us some entertainments like you used to? I noticed that the servants who had 
been taking empty dishes down to the kitchen had all returned to the seats at 
their table.
The wizard nodded, giving a rather smug smile. "I think I might be able to 
provide something to while away a few minutes."
He rose, leaving the calico cat sitting on his chair with its tail wrapped 
tidily around its paws. From his pocket the wizard took a dozen gold rings and 
arranged them carefully in front of the fire.
I realized what he was doing. Complicated illusions might take up to an hour or 
more to create, but it was possible to perform most of the spell, stopping short 
of the end, and then tie that spell to an object, where it would last a day or 
so. An unfinished spell would start to fade after that time, but if one did 
one's illusions fairly soon, one would have the advantage of being able to 
perform something highly spectacular with only a few words of the Hidden 
Language. The object to which the unfinished spell was attached could be almost 
anything, but the wizard's rings certainly added a nice touch. I never did 
illusions that way myself, except once for a class exercise, always being too 
impatient.
The old wizard picked up the first ring, held it toward the company, and said a 
few quick words. Immediately a light green sapling sprang up from the flagstone 
floor. It grew and grew, reaching branches
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now covered with pale pink blossoms toward the ceiling. For a second there was 
even a whiff of rose petals. I determined to ask him to teach me how to do that 
at the next possible opportunity; they had never taught us how to do illusory 
scents in the City.
Now the blossoms were changing, becoming long green leaves, as the tree was 
gently buffeted by a summer breeze, and for a second the hall was filled not 
with the smell of evergreen but with the scent of new-mown hay. Then the leaves 
darkened, became crimson and blood-red, and fell in silent showers, accompanied 
by a dark, woodsy smell of wood and earth. But the tree was not bare, for now 
white stars glistened in its branches. As the smell of the Christmas tree again 
returned, the stars cascaded to the earth, and the whole illusory tree quietly 
dissolved.
The company had been watching silently, except for a few murmurs of "Oooh" or 
"Onh" from the ladies. But now loud applause burst out. I glanced toward the 
young count and saw that even he was applauding with great assiduousness. I was 
glad I was not going to try to match illusions with the old wizard.
He acknowledged the applause with only a bob of the head, but I could tell ne 
was highly gratified. He positioned his next two rings, said the words to finish 
the spell, and stepped back.
This time two winged horses appeared, life-size and alabaster whitewhiter than 
the young count's skin had ever been, even before I tinted it green. Flapping 
their enormous, feathered wings, they rose in absolute stillness, hovered over 
our heads for a moment while striking at each other with their hooves, then, 
side by side, soared the length of the hall and back again, to land lightly by 
the fire and dissolve in a shower of sparks.
Then the wizard changed the mood, making his next illusion a clown. It looked at 
first like a person, wearing baggy multicolored clothing, its face painted 
differ-
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ent colors. But then it began to dance, kicking enormous feet high into the air, 
and as it danced its neck suddenly grew to six feet long and shrank back again, 
its shoulders sprouted first wings and then rosebushes, and an extra two legs 
grew from its hips and danced harder than ever. The eyes winked hugely, the wide 
mouth leered and grinned. The whole parry was weak with laughter when the clown 
did a final bow and disappeared with a pop.
The olu wizard kept us entertained for close to an hour. Some of his illusions 
were beautiful, some funny, and all finer than anything I had seen produced in 
the City. For his final one, he started with a small Christmas tree, which grew 
toward the ceiling and was suddenly transformed into a giant red Father Noel, 
who smiled and bowed to us all before dissolving away.
As the thunderous applause died down, the wizard returned to his place, doing a 
fairly good job of hiding his pleasure. "Any more of that pie left?" he said! 
"Illusions are hungry work."
People stood up then, stretching and talking. There were still nearly two hours 
until midnight service in the chapel. I wondered if the old wizard might take 
advantage of the interval to go check the north tower. But he seemed content, 
after a final piece of pie, to sit down in a rocking chair the queen Drought out 
for him, and doze by the fire with the cat on his lap and a small smile on his 
face. He must have risen before dawn, I thought, to start preparing those 
illusions and have them attached to the rings before he started for the castle.
The rest of the royal party and the guest stood or sat near the fire, chatting 
while the servants cleared the tables. The king was talking to the two counts 
and the duchess with great animation, but I noticed the queen sitting by 
herself, near the base of the Christmas tree. I took a chair and went to sit 
next to her.
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She looked up at me with a smile. "I hope you realize we are very happy with you 
as Royal Wizard," she said, "even if you don't do illusions like your 
predecessor!"
I personally thought that my dragon and giant had been at least as impressive in 
their own way, even though they had lacked the visual solidity of the old 
wizard's productions, especially since I had created them entirely on the spot. 
But I looked into the emerald eyes and knew that this comment had been meant to 
be reassuring.
"I'm very happy being at Yurt, so I'm glad you think that," I said. We were far 
enough from the rest of the party, and everybody else was talking loudly enough, 
that our conversation was highly private. I had drunk quite a bit of wine with 
dinner. 'You know," I said, ' I'm very much in love with you."
This confession was met with a pleased laugh. She clearly did not believe a word 
of it, but she did take and squeeze my hand. "When you turned the count into a 
frog," she said, "he really was a frog, wasn't he? That wasn't just an 
illusion."
"No, he really was a frog. If I hadn't changed him back, or another wizard 
changed him back, he would have stayed a frog for the rest of his life. Of 
course, inside, he would still be himself. He just wouldn't be able to talk or 
make insulting comments about wizards."
She laughed again. "You are a fine wizard, but it's probably just as well you 
changed him back."
"Could I ask you something, my lady?" I said. I actually wanted to ask if she 
could ever love me too, but I was fairly sure I already knew the answer to that. 
"I'm afraid it's a fairly personal question."
"Well, what is it?"
"I want to know why you decided to marry the king."
If it hadn't been for the wine, I would have been
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quite shocked at my boldness. She did not seem however, but looked fondly toward 
him, as
he talked to his subjects in front of the fire.
"Was it to keep him from marrying the duchess?"
She turned back toward me, laughing again. "Oh dear, is it that obvious? No, I 
don't think he was ever in danger of marrying her, so that wasn't the reason. I 
just fell in love with him."
I did not reply. This answer seemed quite inadequate.
But she had drunk quite a bit of wine at dinner as well. "You know I'm my 
parents' only child," she said at last. I nodded, waiting for her to continue. 
"They of course eager to see me married. And of
were
course, like parents everywhere, they wanted me to marry well, marry at least a 
castellan like my father, but preferably a count or duke."
I thought I could guess what was coming.
"They kept on introducing me to young men from throughout the western kingdoms. 
Maybe my Aunt Maria was the worst. She always tried to make the young men seem 
romantic, charming, wonderful, to the point that I already despised them before 
I met them. I actually enjoyed being introduced to lots of young men, because 
mere were all sorts of opportunities for dances, for hunting parties, for buying 
new clothes, but I couldn't imagine actually marrying any of them. They were 
all, frankly, silly, vain, or shallowor all three.
"We'd exhausted several kingdoms already before we came to Yurt. The last man 
they tried was the young count of Yurt." She nodded in his direction. The green 
had by now worn off his skin.
"He wasn't count yet, as his father was still alive four years ago, when my 
parents tried to persuade me to marry him. But his personality was alreadyshall 
we sayfully developed." She went into a series of giggles at this point that 
made several people look in our direction.
After a moment she regained her composure. "I told my parents I was going to 
become a nun, that I would enter the Nunnery of Yurt and spend the rest of my 
life in prayer and pious devotions. They were horrified, of course, and as I 
look back I'm quite horrified myself at my determination. I almost managed to do 
it."
"I have trouble seeing you as a nun, my lady."
"So do I, now. But I told them they had one final chance, to introduce me to a 
young man I would like before I took my vows of chastity. We were on our way to 
meet somebody, I don't even remember who, now, when we stopped at the duchess's 
castleher mother and my mother were second cousins.
"As it turned out, the royal family of Yurt was visiting the duchess at the same 
time. I think my father had some idea of making a match between Prince Dominic 
and me, which would certainly have been more advantageous than whoever, in the 
next kingdom over, he had originally chosen for his final effort Dominic is, 
after all, royal heir to Yurt.
"But my father reckoned without the king! He fell in love with me, and since 
nobody at all was trying to persuade me that he was young and gallant and 
charming, I fell in love with him! He actually is more gallant and charming than 
anyone I've ever met."
She looked toward him dreamily, even though he appeared at the moment to be 
telling an especially hilarious joke to the duchess. I was quite sure she would 
never call me charming and gallant.
"That's a wonderfully charming story," I said. This seemed to put a final end to 
the theory that she had put an evil spell on the king, and I was delighted to 
see the theory go.
"What are you two laughing about over there?" called the king. "Come here, my 
dear. The countess says she has some very interesting news you would like to 
hear, some gossip from the City."
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The queen gave me a quick smile and sprang up, and in a moment she and the old 
count's wife were talking with their heads together. I guessed that the 
interesting news was about the new winter fashions, since the countess drew out 
a newspaper folded open to a page of sketches.
I sat back, my feet stretched in front of me, and did my best, in a spirit of 
Christmas-time charity, not to suspect Joachim of almost having killed the king. 
It seemed ironic that the queen and the chaplain, the two people in Yurt whom I 
liked the most, were the two people to whom my thoughts kept returning whenever 
I wondered who might have become involved with renegade magic.
Just before midnight, we all started up the narrow stairs to the chapel. I was 
worried that the old wizard would take the opportunity of being alone to slip 
off to the north tower, but to my surpriseand I think almost everyone else'she 
said he would join us at service. "I've been wanting to see these lamps you told 
me about, young whippersnapper," he said affectionately.
For Christmas Eve, even the chapel was decorated with evergreen boughs, and some 
of the candles on the altar were red and green as well as white. Everyone in the 
castle was there, crowded together compan-ionably on the benches. The chaplain's 
vestments were brand new, brought up from the City on the pack train with all 
the constable's orders just a few days ago. He read us the Christmas story, 
which while we all knew it well was always worth hearing again, before 
proceeding to the service itself.
The only way I could suspect him was to assume that he had done something truly 
evil, such as dealing with a demon, but that he had then just as truly repented, 
because otherwise his prayers would not have healed the king. But if he was 
truly repentent, he could have nothing to do with the stranger, and
his presence could not be related to the sense of evil I still sometimes felt. I 
was left being forced to think that the stranger was someone totally foreign to 
the castle, who had come here to practice black magic perhaps in our 
cellarsfor his own purposes, but this was a very unsatisfactory explanation. 
The queen had come to Yurt, the king had grown ill, the old chaplain had died, 
and the present chaplain had arrived, all within a year, and there had to be 
some connection. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" we all told each other as 
we separated after service. The stars were bright and incredibly distant in a 
black and icy sky. I watched as the old wizard, his face holding the same 
determinedly skeptical expression it had had throughout the service, went toward 
his room. He showed no sign of going to inspect the north tower. "Sweet dreams 
of presents!" somebody called, and there was a general laugh as the guests 
retired to their chambers and the castle party to theirs.
PART SIX
Christinas
I
Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. Since there were so many guests in 
the castle, rather than having the serving maids bring us our breakfasts 
individually we all assembled in the great hall. Here the cook had produced 
another masterpiece. Whole hams, platters of steaming sausages and eggs, donuts, 
crullers, and giant silver teapots were set out on the tables. Everyone was in a 
jolly Christmas mood; I even saw the chaplain smiling at a joke.
Once we had eaten, it was time for the presents. Packages wrapped in red and 
green paper, presents from the king and queen to everyone in the castle, were 
piled under the Christmas tree. The queen distributed these with smiles and 
laughter. Most of us received gifts of gold coins, or rings, or clothing. I 
received a new velvet suit, of midnight blue, which I wished I could try on at 
once. Even our guests received small presents, and the old wizard had to smile 
when he pulled out a gold ring shaped like an eagle in flight,
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holding a tiny diamond in its beak. The calico cat played in the scattered 
ribbon, chasing and biting it
Then the husbands and wives and lovers gave each other gifts, some of them 
apparently jokes that they wouldn't let the rest of us see, although they 
giggled quite a bit. I tried unsuccessfully to spot what was in the box Jon gave 
Gwen, though it made her smile and blush a most becoming pink oefore she slammed 
the lid back on. Most of the ladies received such a present, though not the Lady 
Maria.
At this point on Christmas morning, it was usually time for Father Noel to come 
in with presents for the children, except that we had no children in the royal 
castle of Yurt. The serving girls and stable boys, even the boys being trained 
in knighthood, were all old enough that they would have been acutely embarrassed 
to receive a gift from Father Noel. But I knew someone who would love such a 
gift.
I slipped out while the knights and ladies were still teasing each other over 
their presents. In my room, I hastily put on my old red velvet pullover, stuffed 
the stomach round with socks, and draped a piece of rabbit fur I had gotten from 
the constable's wife around my neck. A little illusion made my eyebrows and 
beard bushy and white.
"Ho, ho, ho, boys and girls!" I cried as I reentered the hall. "And have you all 
been good little boys and girls ttris year?" They recognized me at once, in 
spite of the disguise, and everyone except one of the boys, who clearly thought 
he was about to be embarrassed publicly, laughed heartily.
"I've just got one present today, for an especially good little girl," I said, 
in my best jolly tone. "Lets see, there's a tag on this present, it will tell 
you who's the lucky girl!"
I made a major production of reaching into my sack and slowly pulling out a 
large box wrapped in red. "Let me see," reading the tag, "I think this says the
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present is for, let me be sure here, for someone named Maria. Is there a very 
good girl named Maria here today?"
She laughed with delight, as I knew she would, and came forward for the box. I 
let the white bushy beard fade back to my own beard as we watched her open it.
Inside the first box, which she opened with giggles of anticipation, was, not 
the present she was expecting, but another box, this one wrapped in green. 
Inside the second box was a much smaller one, this one golden. But inside the 
third box was the present.
She drew it out slowly, unfolding it to gasps of appreciation from the other 
ladies. It was a white suk shawl, printed with irises, which I had had packed up 
from die City earlier in the week. It was big enough to drape over her entire 
upper body, but delicate enough to be folded into a bundle smaller 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 pullover and put on my new blue velvet suit. It fit perfectly. As I 
turned in front of the mirror, I thought diat 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, above the courtyard, looking out 
across the snowy 1
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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 all"
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 hills, 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 illusion.
This was, unfortunately, no illusion, but a real dragon. "Get down!" I yelled. 
"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 all the ladies began screaming at once, I did manage to get them herded into 
the center of the hall. "Keep them calm," I told the duchess. "I've got to try 
to stop it."
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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 illusory 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 intelligence.
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 kill us all!"
"Of course it could, and it probably will. 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 
still 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
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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 walls 
down, we were fairly safe, because I did not think it could reach all the way to 
the center of the great hall, 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 lolled 
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 was 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 
illusion 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 all armed with swords, spears, and 
shields, and several carried bows. Dominic may have bolted in terror from my 
illusory dragon, but he seemed to have no hesitation in facing a real one. I was 
ashamed that he, at least, seemed to have an excellent idea what to do.
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With a roar from Dominic, the small 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 this 
spear until it fell, 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 
knocked several into the courtyard, where they landed with metallic crashes. 
Then the dragon sprang upward 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 hall.
All of them were scorched, and several were badly wounded. Dominic, who had been 
knocked off the wall, seemed to have several broken ribs. He was the worst, but 
all had suffered in one way or another. The duchess was not directly wounded, 
but all 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
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was helping deal with the wounded. Most of the women in the castle were clinging 
together in the center of the hall, all with white faces and many sobbing 
uncontrollably. 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 cant 
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 syllables 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 spell. But at the waist I became stuck. The top half of my 
body remained obstinately visible.
"Cover me with illusion," I told the old wizard. "I've got to get close enough 
to the dragon's throat 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 still maintaining the invisibility spell on my lower 
body.
"All 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 small 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 claws, and opened its mouth. I darted upward as a tongue of fire 
snot under me. But, uninterested, the dragon returned
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my not
at once to scratching. I considered chirping to ; birdlike form an air of 
verisimilitude but decit 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 all 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 wall, 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 hall.
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 all around the dragon was a new cloud of red balls, 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 illusory red ball.
With my new spear newly invisible, I rose into the cloud of balls. Furiously 
angry, the dragon clawed at the balls and roasted them with fire, but both his 
talons and his breath passed harmlessly through them.
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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 balls, the dragon's 
throat appeared before me, the tiny wound in the center and all 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 
aD 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 
walls, so that my invisibility spell 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 spell might have failed me as well.
I dropped gently to earth, looking back toward the castle. The dragon was in its 
death throes, still sprurt-ing blood. It managed to pull out the spear, but too 
late, for it had penetrated its heart. Pieces of the castle went flying as it 
rolled in agony. Then, with a final roar, it slumped lifeless over the wall.
I took a deep breath and gathered up some snow to scrub my face. My hands were 
rubbed raw, all 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.
n
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
A Bad Spell in Yurt
211
myself a competent wizard. This was my worst failure ever. I had never before 
managed to destroy hah0 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 killed as I had done. For all I knew, there was a simple spell 
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 well.
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 enthusiastically if I had 
not been so surprised.
In a few seconds she pulled herself away. "Oh, excuse me, I don't want to seem 
forward, but I'm so grateful! You're our hero! You saved Yurt!" Maybe, I 
thought, I would not have to resign after all.
The rest of the people in the castle who could still walk were mobbed around me, 
laughing and jumping to get a better look at me. "Our hero! The savior of Yurt! 
He killed the dragon!"
"Well, yes, but it took me an awfully long time to do it!" I protested. "Don't 
thank someone who almost let the castle be destroyed! The old wizard is the real 
hero."
They pulled the old wizard forward. "What are you talking about?" he said 
irritably. "Don't go putting your blame on me!"
"But you're the hero," I said. "You're the one who distracted the dragon long 
enough so that I could spear him! I never could have gotten close enough without 
your illusions."
"Took you long enough to do the business, too," he grunted, which was actually 
my assessment as well.
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
213
The king was checking the outer walls, but most of us went into the hall, where 
several of the wounded were already bandaged. Dominic was groaning steadily. "I 
wonder if the pigeons are still alive ana flying, so that we could send for the 
doctor," said the constable, and hurried off to the south tower to see.
The hall had escaped much better than I had feared. The chimney had collapsed 
into the fireplace, and several of the windows were broken, but I was pleased to 
see that the Christmas tree was untouched.
"Well, I guess we'll just all have to squeeze into the kitchens for Christmas 
dinner!" said the queen.
"It's going to be hours late," said the cook.
"I must say," said the young count, who had not said anything since the dragon 
first appeared, "that I think this affair was all handled very sloppily. Castles 
should have established procedures to deal with emergencies." But no one paid 
him any attentionthough I thought I heard one of the stable boys make a sound 
like a bullfrog just before he dissolved into hysterical giggles.
The queen stayed by my side. I was beginning to wish I had paid more attention 
while she was kissing me, but she showed no signs of starting again. "I'm afraid 
you've gotten dragon's blood on your dress," I said, as a hint that I had 
noticed how close she had been, only moments before. "And I feel terrible about 
my velvet suit, just after you and the king gave it to me."
She smiled. "I don't mind about my dress." I wondered if this was because it was 
the dress that was the same color as the duchess's dress. "We'll order you a new 
suit at once. I can see we'll have to order quite a few things in the next few 
days. Do you want midnight blue again, or would you prefer a different color?"
"One just like this would be exactly right."
I lowered myself into a chair, feeling more bruised
than I had originally thought. The king was back and talking to the constable 
about arranging for repairs.
"Come here, Master," I called to me old wizard, and he came toward me, frowning. 
He had the calico cat in his arms, but all the cat's fur was standing on end and 
its eyes were wild. "I want to thank you for saving my life. I can't thank you 
for saving the castle, but only because it's not my castle."
"At least you took advantage of what little magic you knew," he said grumpily.
"Also I wanted to ask you something," I said, starting to feel more cheerful. If 
the king did not think Yurt was irredeemably destroyed, maybe it had not been. 
After all, he had already been out to make sure his rose garden had not 
suffered. "I've heard that being bathed in dragon's blood makes one's skin 
harder than steel. Is this true?"
The queen excused herself to talk to the cook, who was showing no signs of 
starting dinner.
The wizard snorted. "I don't know what kind of old witch's story they tell you 
at that school, but all dragon blood does is make you stink. You'd better take a 
bath. And that reminds me. You there!" to the constable. "You'd better get the 
dragon's body cut up and dragged away from the castle right away. It will start 
rotting in a few hours, and the castle will become unbearable."
The constable sent out some of the young men with saws. I decided I was enough 
of a wounded hero not to have to join in. "I'm going to take a bath right away, 
Master," I said. "But before I do, I want to talk to you about that dragon."
'I'd warned you what all this loose wizardry would come to."
The hubbub of the hall was all down at the far end, and no one was near us. 
"That dragon didn't just come by itself. That dragon was summoned."
He thought about this for a moment in silence. "So
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A Bad Spell in Yurt
215
who do you think summoned it? You're not accusing me, are you?"
"No. But I think you know far more about what's happened in Yurt in the last 
three years than you've toul me, and I think the dragon's coming is part of 
that. Did you know that your magic locks were gone from the north tower?"
"I found out this morning. Went out to inspect them while you were flirting with 
the duchess after breakfast."
So much for my efforts to keep an eye on the wizard!
"Why didn't you tell me, young whippersnapper? Were they just broken today?'
"They've been gone since I first arrived. I didn't dare tell you because I was 
afraid you'd blame me, and you'd said there was nothing up in the tower anyway. 
Master, you've got to tell me. What's escaped from the tower?"
For a minute I was afraid he would say nothing. He kept \patting the cat, which 
was gradually calming down, although it clearly did not like the smell of blood 
on me. At last he said, "Well, you're Royal Wizard of Yurt now, and I'm retired, 
so it's your problem." And he told me.
Even though I had been expecting this, my veins turned to ice. I would have to 
get into a hot bath before I died, but I knew I would never have another chance 
to talk like this to the old wizard. "How long has it been here?"
"I first found it three years ago."
I decided it would be undiplomatic to remind the old wizard that he had 
categorically denied any supernatural presence in the castle while he was Royal 
Wizard.
"I don't know who summoned it to Yurt in the first place," he continued, "but 
finding it wasn't very difficult, once it arrived. The old chaplain, this one's 
pre-
decessor, found it too. He blamed me for it, even though I'd never imagined to 
myself that the powers of darkness were romanticnot like you!"
I nodded, not daring to protest.
"Interfering old busybody! He tried to catch it himself, with his bell and 
candle. Pretty ineffective, I thought. No wonder it killed him."
He must have seen the horror on my face, even though his eyes were directed 
toward the cat, for he snorted. "I'm sure the old priest died with his soul 
'intact,' if that's what you and your friend the young chaplain are worried 
about. He was chasing it around the parapets, and he fell off. Nobody knew how 
he'd fallen, except for me, and I didn't see any reason to say. Terrible 
accident, they all agreed. You can imagine I didn't tell that young priest 
anything about it!
"But you caught it?" I said in a low voice, as he stopped and did not start 
again.
"It took me close to three years. It took all the magic I knew, and then some. 
But I finally cornered it in my study and put the binding spells on it. It had 
been out far too long for me to send it back, but at least I could bind it so it 
couldn't move."
Except that it had moved.
"I locked the tower so the person who had summoned it couldn't get in to free 
it, and, just in case it did break loose, I put separate spells around the 
outside of the castle, so it couldn't cross the moat."
"Did Dominic know about this?"
The old wizard glanced at me sideways. "How did you guess that? He did. I needed 
his help, near the end. He's not the person I would have chosen, but he'd 
somehow already found out about it. He was the one who did the drawing while I 
held it down with my spells."
The cat was almost asleep on the wizard's lap now. "We caught it just in time, 
too. I was afraia black magic was starting to kill the king, so I was pleased
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to see him so much better when I arrived yesterday. Maybe he's hoping for that 
baby boy again!'
The wizard stood up abruptly, scooped up the star-tied cat, and settled it on 
his shoulder. "Well, young wizard, it's your castle and your problem now. 
Capturing it once wore me out so thoroughly I decided to retire at once. 
Catching it again is the job for a youngster with fancy magic from the City."
He started stumping toward the door.
"Where are you going?" said the king. "You can't be leaving already! We haven't 
even had Christmas dinner!"
"I'd rather eat my vegetables at peace in the woods than eat a fancy dinner to 
the smell of dragon's blood!"
I turned toward my own chambers, in search of a bath, without waiting to see the 
end of the argument, for I already knew now it would end. At least I was pleased 
that the old wizard's hand, with which he was gesturing, wore the king's 
Christmas ring.
Lying in the bathtub, completely submerged except for my face, I could feel my 
bruised muscles starting to relax, but I did not dare relax too much. The old 
wizard had clearly guessed more than he had told me. But even he might not know 
why the dragon had appeared today.
As long as I stayed in the tub, I imagined, I would not have to deal with this. 
After all, evil had been loose in the castle for three years, without permanent 
damage to Yurt, so maybe another three years wouldn't matter much either.
But I could not persuade myself of this, because I knew it was not true. The old 
wizard had known that too, and that was why he had returned abruptly to the 
forest, before I could enlist his aid.
The bathwater was cold. I surged up and out of the tub, reaching for a towel. 
This was my kingdom and my problem.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
217
III
The hall, with its fireplace destroyed, was unusable for dinner, but the kitchen 
was just about big enough to squeeze in the tables, and it was certainly warm 
enough. Pushed companionably close together, so that the smell of singed hair 
was all around us, we ate oyster stew, roast beef, and plum pudding.
Several of the kitchen maids had broken down completely and were unable to help, 
and the cook's own stability had lapses, so dinner was served in a leisurely 
manner, with pauses between courses while the next course was prepared. The 
queen, the Lady Maria, and several of the other ladies helped, all of them 
considering it quite a joke.
"Well, this will certainly be a Christmas well always remember!" said the old 
count.
Since everyone had survived, and even the worst of the wounded looked as though 
they would mend without grave danger, the mood had become cheerful. Several of 
the knights seem positively to have welcomed the rare chance to do something 
warlike, even though their swords and spears had been useless against the 
dragon. The terrors of the morning and the repair work of the weeks to come were 
primarily subjects for triumphant mirth.
While waiting for the courses, we sang Christmas carols. I did a few illusions, 
since the old wizard was no longer there with his much better ones. I made sure 
that all of mine were simple and pleasant, such as a shining golden egg that 
broke open to reveal an adult peacock. Even the young count managed to smile 
fairly amiably. I had never seen the Lady Maria so gay and lighthearted, even 
before the gray hairs had started to appear.
Only Dominic, heavily strapped around the body and needing help eating because 
his right wrist was
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broken, sat silent and glowering. He, at any rate, seemed unlikely to have 
summoned a dragon that had nearly killed him.
When the blazing plum pudding had been brought from the stove to the table, 
served and eaten with more cries of appreciation than normal, the duchess said, 
"Why don t all of you come to my castle for the rest of the twelve days of 
Christmas?"
"But we couldn't possibly leave the royal castle during the holidays!" protested 
the queen.
'You can't possibly enjoy a happy holiday in your castle the way it is now,' 
said the duchess with a laugh. "Bring everybody along! I sent my whole staff 
home to their families for vacation, so there should be plenty of room in my 
castle if we double up in the chambers. It's going to take a while to repair 
this castle, and you're going to have trouble hiring any carpenters or masons 
for the next two weeks anyway. You don't want to have to start work just when 
everyone wants to relax and enjoy the festivities."
"But everything's here!" continued the queen. "The food, the decorations, even 
the tree!"
"Bring them all along!"
"And if you like,' said the old count, "we can spend New Year's with the duchess 
and go on to spend Epiphany at our castle!"
I was delighted with this suggestion. Even though I knew now what had been in 
the old wizard's tower room, I still did not know who had summoned it. If we 
could get everybody, really everybody, out of the royal castle of Yurt while I 
tried to figure this out, we might all be much safer.
What a wonderful offer, my lady!" I said, even though the decision was certainly 
not mine to make. "A week of relaxing is exactly what we all need!"
While the queen was turning to me in surprise, startled at the loss of someone 
she had expected to be her ally against the duchess, the king said, "The wiz-
A Bad Spell in Yurt                 219
ard's right. Thank you for a most generous offer! Well go tomorrow!"
As it turned out, we did not leave until the second day. We all awoke late and 
irritable. Christmas was over, and the lighthearted mood of the night before was 
gone. The wounded complained about their cracks and bruises, and I was covered 
with blisters from the dragon's blood. Clearly my predecessor had no firsthand 
knowledge of dragons. The wounded knights, the doctor from tine village told us, 
needed a day to rest and become at least a little less stiff before they could 
be loaded into horse litters.
The king directed the repairs that absolutely had to be done before we could 
leave: the boarding up of broken windows, the replacing of slates where the roof 
was only minimally damaged, the rigging of covers in those areas where it was 
clear that authe slates would have to be removed and some of the beams replaced.
I spent much of the day in the kitchen, my feet up before the main fireplace, 
while the cook and the kitchen maids packed up the two weeks' worth of food they 
had stocked for the holidays. The cook got into a prolonged quarrel with the 
constable's wife, insisting that she had to take along her own pans, not 
trusting the duchess's kitchen to have what she needed. Most of the staff in the 
kitchen were too busy to pay any attention to me, but Gwen put poultices on my 
face and changed them assiduously every hour. By evening, the blisters were 
almost gone, even though my ribs were aching worse than ever.
The queen reconciled herself to the trip to the duchess's castle by taking 
literally her suggestion to bring everything along. She and the Lady Maria spent 
much of the day on the stepladders, taking down all the ornaments they had put 
up just two days earlier, and packing them ready to go. Even the Christmas
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tree itself was gently lowered and strapped to a sledge with a tarpaulin over 
it.
Supper was a simple meal, except for the fruitcake. Everyone was too tired to 
talk very much. The chief conversation was between the queen and the constable.
"But, my lady, someone has to stay here in Yurt."
"No, I won't allow it. You deserve a cheerful holiday as much as the rest of 
usmore, in fact."
"If the castle stands empty, a thief might break in."
"This is a castle," she said with an exasperated laugh. "When we go, the last 
person out can raise the drawbridge and leave by the postern gate, and then not 
even an army will be able to break in. Even with the damage to some of the 
parapets, the walls are still sound. There used to be wars in the western 
kingdoms, after all, and castles were built to withstand concerted siege! 
Certainly this castle will be inpenetra-ble to a common thief!"
"In the days of sieges, there were defenders in the castle to push back the 
scaling ladders from the walls."
I stayed out of the discussion. There was no way I could pretend to have the 
authority to decide this, and, besides, I was fairly sure the queen would 
prevail.
She did in the end, but only because the constable's wife finally said, "Please, 
dear, I'd like to have a few more days of merry holidays myself."
I felt relieved as I crossed the dark courtyard to my chambers, carrying a 
candle, even though I was aching in every bone. My breath in the candlelight 
made a frosty cloud around me. Zahlfast had first noticed that the supernatural 
influence stopped at the castle's moat, and the old wizard had told me he had 
put special binding spells at the castle's periphery. At the duchess's castle, 
we should at least be free of the direct influence of black magic, and maybe my 
mind would work better than it seemed to be doing today.
Beyond the castle walls, I could hear foxes barking over the dragon's carcass. I 
still did not know what to
A Bad Spell in Yurt
221
make of the stranger. He had refused to let me find out anything about him by 
turning that sensation of evil against me like a weapon. But I was beginning to 
wonder if the old wizard knew something about the stranger that he was not 
telling me.
The old apprenticeship system for learning wizardry had never actually been 
ended. It had merely withered away over the course of the last hundred and fifty 
years, as it became obvious that it was quicker and easier for a young man to 
study with the wizards in the City, where all of modem wizardry was arranged in 
books and coursework, than to put up with the crotchets of a single teacher. 
When I had asked the old wizard about studying herbal magic with him, he had 
referred extremely vaguely to his last apprentice.
I had thought at the time that he must know exactly who that last apprentice had 
been, and now I had a suspicion why he had not wanted to talk about him. That 
apprentice may have taken the plunge into black magic, and the old wizard knew 
it.
He must have been living in the woods near Yurt for years, maybe with the old 
wizard's knowledge, and maybe not. At any rate, I speculated, he hadf taken 
advantage of the few days between when the old wizard had retired from Yurt and 
I had arrived to move into the castle and establish himself in the cellars. When 
he realized I was a young, relatively incompetent wizard, he had become bold. He 
had broken the magic locks to get into the north tower, and had had to break my 
lock on the cellar door when I had inadvertently locked him outor in.
I lit all the magic lamps from both of my rooms and arranged them near my 
shoulders. I did not like to think of a wizard who had given his soul to the 
devil standing there in the dark, waiting, perhaps avidly, as I had blundered 
down the wet cellar corridors.
But how had he squeezed in and out the small window in the iron door? In a 
moment, I realized this
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wouldn't be a problem for a highly competent wizard. He could temporarily 
transform himself into something much smaller, if necessaryeven, / could 
probably do so now, though I preferred not to try. In the first transformation 
class they always told the story of the young wizard who had turned himself into 
a purple bird who couldn't form the words of the Hidden Language with its beak. 
It had therefore been unable to turn himself back, and it had flown away in 
panic before any other wizards could help.
Someone I knew, I thought, someone in the castle, must have become involved with 
the evil wizard. This was the point where my speculations became very difficult. 
This evil wizard, even if he had been living near the castle, could have no 
reason I could think of to put an evil spell on the king three years ago and 
summon the supernatural into the castle. Therefore, someone else must have 
wanted that spell, someone else must have asked for his help. I was brought back 
again, in spite of my best efforts, to the arrival of the queen in Yurt.
I stood up determinedly to start getting ready for bed. If the stranger had been 
a former apprentice of the old wizard, I was impressed with the power of his 
magic, stronger than anything I had seen, even at the school, in its 
imperviousness to my best spells. The old magic still had something to offer 
someone trained in the City.
With my red velvet jacket in my hands, I stopped to consider again. There ought 
to be some record of the old wizard's apprentices, who would after all have had 
to live in the castle. I pulled my jacket back on and hurried out into the 
night.
The constable and his wife were not yet in bed, but they were naturally 
surprised when I banged on the door of their chambers. "A list of the old 
wizard's apprentices? You need that tonight, sir?"
A Bad Spell in Yurt
223
"Yes, I do. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you why, other than that it has to do 
with the dragon.'
"It might take a while to find the information. He never had an apprentice in 
the time that I've been at Yurt. I'd have to go through my predecessor's 
records."
"I'm sorry, I know you're very tired, but I really need that information now."
"I'll help you find the right ledgers if you want," the constable's wife said to 
him. "Can't you see how worried the boy is?"
I was glad enough for her support not to mind being called a boy, although I did 
wonder if she would ever think of me as a man. The constable unlocked a cabinet, 
and he and his wife started taking out old ledger books.
Previous constables, it turned out, had kept very careful track of everyone who 
lived in the castle; the present constable, I assumed, had noted just as 
assiduously the day that I had first arrived. When my predecessor had first come 
to Yurt a hundred and eighty years earlier, he had quickly acquired apprentices. 
Usually he had only had one at a time, but there were periods in which he had 
had three or even four. Some left after only a short period; one stayed for a 
dozen years.
Then, a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty years ago, the supply of 
apprentice wizards had dwindled. This would have been, I thought, at the time 
when the reputation of the wizards' school in the City had begun to spread. I 
bent close over the ledger, squinting to read the faded brown ink of the then 
constable's tidy handwriting. For a long time the wizard of Yurt had had no 
apprentices at all.
And then he had a final one, one who stayed in Yurt for nearly ten years. 
"That's right," said the constable. "He was the last. He left eighty-two years 
ago. The final indication we have was that he had taken up a post of his own."
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This was it, I thought. It would be impossible to give the stranger a precise 
age, but, even though he must certainly have slowed down his own aging with 
powerful magic, I doubted he could be older than a hundred and twenty. "Where 
did he go?"
The wizard's last apprentice, according to the ledgers, had left Yurt to become 
the wizard in a count's castle in one of the larger of the western kingdoms, 
located a hundred and fifty miles away. Even that long ago, I thought, someone 
without a diploma from the school would have had to be satisfied with less than 
being a Royal Wizard.
I thanked the constable and his wife profusely and went back to my own chambers. 
My bones, I noticed, seemed less stiff. As soon as it was light enough for the 
pigeons to fly, I would send a message to that kingdom and begin to track down 
what had nappened to the old wizard's last apprentice.
IV
We prepared to leave early in the morning. The sky was gray and the wind damp 
and chill. I sent my message by the pigeons, asking that an answer be sent to 
the duchess's castle. Since my message would have to be relayed through the 
City's postal system, I could not expect an answer for several days.
When we had all ridden out, the drawbridge was raised, the first time I had seen 
it done since coming to Yurt. The gears turned with a rusty screech. The two men 
who nad raised the bridge then came out of the tiny postern gate, and last of 
all the constable came after them. He locked the postern carefully and balanced 
on the stepping stones across the moat to join us. The castle looked dark and 
forbidding under the dark sky; I doubted very much that any thief would try to 
cross the moat and scale those high walls.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
225
If the old wizard's last apprentice was in the cellars, I thought, let him enjoy 
the empty castle. He'd certainly be able to break into the main storerooms if he 
needed food, but at least he wouldn't be able to enjoy any of the cook's 
fruitcake or Christmas candy, all of which was coming with us. I hadn't wanted 
to tell anyone else that someone who had sold his soul to the devil might be 
rummaging through their rooms while they were gone. But I myself, as well as 
putting magic locks on my door and all my windows as carefully as I knew how, 
had brought along several of my most important books, including the DiplomaHca 
Diabolica. The stable boy who helped me load a pack horse had not commented; let 
him think that wizards needed mysterious heavy objects wherever they went.
We rode as quickly as we could go with the horse litters; no one wanted to 
linger in the bitter wind. I rode next to Joachim, but we barely exchanged a 
word. He, I suspected, was wondering it I had had anything to do with the 
dragon's appearance. I didn't know how to reassure him that I hadn't without 
also confessing that I had only a guess as to who had. At least, I thought, what 
the wizard had told me about the old chaplain's death made it clear that the 
beginnings of evil in Yurt must have preceded, rather than coincided with, 
Joachim's arrival.
Considering that I had been hired as the chief magic-worker in Yurt, I thought, 
there seemed to have been a very large number of people in the castle already 
who had become involved in magic. There was the stranger, who I was starting to 
assume was identical with the old wizard's last apprentice; there was whoever 
had first put the spell on the king, who I kept fearing might turn out to be the 
queen, in spite of what she had told me on Christmas Eve; and there was the Lady 
Maria, who had certainly seen or been involved in black magic at some point.
The Lady Maria managed to position her horse next
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to mine after the brief lunch break. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you for 
two days," she said. "But I've been wanting to tell you how exciting and 
romantic it was to see you defeat the dragon."
Since there didn't seem to be any good answer to this, I merely nodded gravely.
"If the dragon had Tailed you," she said in great seriousness, "I would have 
always treated the shawl you gave me, such a short time earlier, as a sacred 
object."
If the dragon had killed me, I thought, it probably would have gone on to kill 
everybody else, unless one of the knights had been able to get in a lucky spear 
thrust. In this case Maria, being dead, would not have been able to treat the 
silk shawl or anything else as a special object. But all I said was, "Don't let 
the chaplain hear you referring to a simple shawl as sacred.
She laughed as though this were a highly witty remark and went on to tell me how 
excited and how terrified she had been by the dragon. Since I had seen her then, 
I thought excitement rather than terror had been the dominant emotion on her 
part, but I was not at all unwilling to confess how terrified I had been myself.
By riding rapidly and taking the shortest rests possible, we were able to reach 
the duchess's castle just before the early sunset of midwinter. Her constable 
and chaplain, the only members of her staff to stay at the castle over 
Christmas, had been warned we were coming and met us at the gate.
Our cook with her kitchen maids put together a quick supper, slowed down 
somewhat by her insistence that all the pans she found in the kitchen be packed 
up and the pans from Yurt unpacked and put in their places, before she could 
begin. Although every effort had been made to position the injured knights 
carefully in their litters, several were bleeding from wounds that had reopened 
during the ride, and Dominic was telling
A Bad Spell in Yurt
227
anyone who would listen that he was sure there were several fresh cracks in his 
ribs from the jostling.
But it was still a relief to be warm and snug in a castle without any damage 
done to it at all, and the next morning we all awoke more cheerful, in spite of 
a steady fall of sleet outside. Several of the younger ladies announced that 
they had been looking forward for months to a Christmas dance, and they intended 
to have one.
The morning was spent setting up the Christmas tree, rehanging it with all the 
ornaments, including my predecessor's miniature magic lights, and putting up the 
rest of the decorations. The brass players had brought their instruments and 
could be heard practicing snatches of dance carols.
In the middle of the afternoon, the dancing began. The ladies had unpacked their 
brightest dresses, curled their hair, and perfumed their shoulders. The 
unwounded knights were dressed more uniformly, in the formal blue and white 
livery of Yurt, and all seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely. I sat in a 
little balcony above the great hall, watching and wondering when I might expect 
to receive an answer to my message.
In spite of the liveliness of the music, which had the other watchers tapping 
their toes and swaying their shoulders, I scarcely paid attention to the 
brightly lit scene below. The best I could expect, I thought, was an answer from 
whoever was now count in the castle where the old wizard's last apprentice had 
gone, and perhaps some indication of when that apprentice had left. But the 
records in another castle might not be as good as the records of the royal 
castle of Yurt, and, besides, the count might see no reason to pull out dusty 
ledgers to answer the letter of a wizard of whom he'd never heard.
Even if I received a detailed answer, I was not sure what it would tell me, 
other than that the apprentice
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had left there, which I thought I already knew. Two nights ago, finding him in 
the constable's ledgers, I had thought I was well on the way to tracking down 
the mysterious stranger, but now I wasn't sure what good it could do me to 
follow his movements before Be became established in Yurt's cellars.
In the first break in the dancing, while the dancers caught their breaths and 
the brass players shook the moisture from their instruments, the cook brought 
out punch and Christmas cookies. In the second break, however, they called for 
me.
"Come on down, Wizard!" called the young count, who had been leading the last 
set. "Show us some Christmas-time entertainments!"
Since this was asked almost politely, and he had suppressed any comments about 
entertainments being all wizards were suited for, I decided to oblige. For the 
most part, I made cascades of colored stars and a selection of red and green 
furry animals that scampered and played for a minute in the middle of the hall 
before disappearing with a pop. I also did a trick with two red bails, one real 
and one illusory, in which I mixed them up and made members of my audience guess 
which was which. Since they guessed wrong more than half the time, reaching out 
for what they thought was the real ball only to find that their hand passed 
right through it, this trick was considered a great success. To complete my 
entertainments, I made an illusory golden basket, piled high with colored fruit 
that shone uke rubies and emeralds, and presented it to the Lady Maria.
She had been sitting by herself, not taking part in the dancing. Instead she 
smiled and nodded in an almost matronly manner, as though she were an old woman 
remembering the dances of her youth. Even when the old court tried to lead her 
out on the dance floor, she laughed and refused. When the dancing started again, 
I sat with her.
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"Why don't you ask one of the young ladies to dance?' she inquired.
"I'm sdl too bruised from the dragon," I said, loud enough that the young ladies 
could hear me too. Since there was a shortage of men, I was worried about being 
pressed into service. "Besides, I'm just enjoying sitting here with you."
I expected her to smile, as she normally did at all my gallant and meaningless 
sallies, but she was looking at the illusory basket I had given her, which was 
perched on the table beside her and gradually fading. 'Perhaps that's what I'm 
like," she said, but so softly I was fairly sure I was not supposed to overhear. 
As irritated as I had sometimes been at her fecklessness, I liked this even 
less.
Supper was announced after the next set of dances. As we were finishing eating, 
there was a clatter in the courtyard, and a group of people in disguises raced 
into die hall. "Good," said the duchess. "It s the mummers from the village. 
They must have heard I was back."
There were about a dozen of them, all wearing ordinary working clothes that had 
been transformed by the application of beads and sequins, or by combining 
different items of clothes in unusual ways. Their faces were painted, and they 
wore foil crowns, unusual hats, and, in one case, goat's horns.
They ran around the hall twice, gabbling and waving their arms. One of the girls 
was wearing a man's tunic and was apparently intended to represent the duchess 
herself. At first she stepped out boldly, but then on the second pass around the 
hall she became shy and tried to conceal herself behind her companions. The 
duchess seemed to find it hilarious.
Then the men in foil crowns and enough beads and sequins to suggest kings came 
forward, challenged each other, blew shrill blasts on tin horns, and began 
giving each other great blows with wooden swords.
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Racing around them, prodding them into even fiercer action, was the man in the 
goat's horns. He was dressed entirely in red, and I had trouble laughing and 
applauding after I realized he was supposed to represent a demon.
The wounded "kings" fell back from the fight and collapsed into the arms of the 
sequined women who were supposed to be the queens. The girl who had been wearing 
the man's tunic now pulled on a white shift and foil halo to come forward as an 
angel, whose touch caused the kings to jump up with a clapping of hands and race 
once again around the hall. All of us applauded and dropped a few coins in the 
chief king's hat as he circled the tables.
"Now we're starting to have a properly Merry Christmas," said the duchess after 
the mummers had raced out. "Tomorrow, let's celebrate the Feast of Fools!"
Good, I thought. A festival just for wizards like me.
I had of course heard of the Feast of Fools, even though we had had nothing 
similar in the City when I was young. At some big country houses, on a day 
between Christmas and New Year's, for the whole day the ordinary social 
structures were reversed, and a boy became the lord and the lord a stable boy.
But while I knew what happened in a general way on the Feast, I was still 
startled to wake and find the queen in my bedroom, as a dark, sleeting morning 
began outside the window. I pulled the blankets up to my chin.
"Here's your breakfast, Chaplain," she said with a laugh, presenting me with a 
breakfast tray.
I reached for it hesitantly. It contained a donut,
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rather stale, but also a hot cup of tea. "Why are you calling me the chaplain?"
"We're all backwards today," she said with a smile. "I'm the kitchen maid; Gwen 
and Jon are the queen and king; and you and the chaplain are taking each other's 
positions. When you're ready to get dressed, get some of his vestments and give 
him some of your clothes to wear."
Neither of the chaplains, the duchess's nor Joachim, liked this plan at all. 
"Chaplains never take part in the Feast of Fools," said the duchess's chaplain 
loftily.
"But this is an unusual Christmas!" the queen insisted. She seemed to be taking 
direction of the Feast, perhaps, I thought, to wrest control from the duchess. 
"You won't have to do anything evil."
I ended up having to go into the chapel for morning service in the chaplains 
place, wearing an old set of robes from the duchess's chaplain. If the members 
of the staff who came to the chapel, dressed in finery, had expected me to give 
a satirical version of the service, however, they were disappointed, for I 
merely laid the Bible on the altar, lit the candles, and went out again. Until I 
had decided what to do about Yurt, I did not dare risk offending the powers of 
the supernatural.
In the great hall, Gwen and Jon, wearing very fancy and very old draperies that 
I assumed had come from chests in the duchess's attic, sat on tall chairs next 
to the fireplace. Both held rods that apparently represented scepters, something 
I had never seen the real king and queen use, and both were shouting orders.
"Go weed my roses!" yelled Jon in a high, cracked voice that did not sound at 
all like the king's voice. "And do it right, this time! Don't start breaking off 
the branches like you did last time!" Since the king did almost all his own 
weeding, I was surprised at this, but the assembled staff seemed to find it 
hilarious.
"Why aren't you feeding my stallion?" cried Gwen
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in a voice that actually did sound a lot like the queen's. "Why aren't you 
exercising him? Cook!" to one of the ladies. "We're going to have a hundred and 
fifty extra people for supper. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but you'd 
better get started. We have to eat in twenty minutes!"
I stood at the edge of the hall, leaning against the wall and watching. I found 
this disturbing, and was even more disturbed when one of the stable boys started 
shouting back at the "royal pair." "Why don't you let the cook alone? Why don't 
you and the hundred and fifty guests go dig in the fields for a while and work 
up an appetite?"
Gwen, as the queen, replied, "Don't bother me with your complaints! Can't you 
see the king and I are busy?" and threw herself into Jon's arms, to his evident 
approval.
The staff laughed uproariously. The real queen came to stand next to me. "Are 
you sure allowing this is wise, my lady?"
She smiled. "We did it every year when I was growing up, and I started the 
practice when I came to Yurt. The staff are somewhat limited, being away from 
home, but some years they have elaborate props and even whole episodes they act 
out."
"But aren't you encouraging them to think badly of you?"
"Not at all. That's why it's called the Feast of Fools; you have to remember not 
to take anything seriously."
"They're saying insulting things to you!"
"If they say insulting things to the false king and queen, they won't need to 
say those things to us. And sometimes we can pick up an indication of a real 
problem, something with which we had started burdening the staff without even 
realizing it. King Haimeric and I like to think that we treat our staff as well 
as anyone in the western kingdoms, but as long as they're in our
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pay they're always going to be a little inhibited about speaking up about their 
problems."
I nodded, somewhat dubiously. She seemed quite calm about the proceedings, even 
complacent, but if the queen thought this was all fun and harmless, maybe it 
was. I was still quite shocked when one of the trumpeters came running into the 
hall, wearing a ripped red velvet tunic. "The powers of darkness must obey me!" 
he shouted. "I am stronger than trees and rocks!"
There was a great deal of shouting. "No! You can't be the wizard!" "The chaplain 
has to be the wizard!" "But he said he doesn't want to be!" "Let him be the 
wizard if he wants to be!" I was especially mortified to see the queen herself 
struggling with only minimal success to keep from bursting into laughter.
"Maria and I are making lunch today," she said abruptly, straightening her face. 
"We'd better get started." I could tell from the back of her shoulders as she 
hurried away that she was laughing again.
The cook, who had found a blond wig and apparently represented the Lady Maria, 
came over to talk to me. "We want to have the 'wizard' do magic tricks at lunch. 
That boy is useless; we're going to have to have the chaplain do it. Can you 
teach him a good trick between now and lunch?"
"All right," I said. Maybe concentrating on the reckless activity of the Feast 
of Fools would keep me from worrying when, if ever, I would hear what had 
happened to the old wizard's last apprentice, much less how I was going to deal 
with him.
Both chaplains were sitting in their room, reading their Bibles as though 
determined not to hear the laughter and running feet in the castle all around 
them.
"They want you to do a magic trick at lunch," I said to Joachim, deciding that 
the older man who served
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the duchess was hopeless. "I'll make one you can do very easily."
"Don't you think the dangers of black magic are close enough to us already?"
"There's certainly nothing wicked in the spell I'll work for you. It would only 
become black magic if you approached it with evil intent." As soon as I said 
this I wished I had not, because it sounded like an accusation, but he just 
looked at me from his enormous eyes in silence.
I sat down next to him, to show that nothing I was doing was hidden or even 
morally questionable, and started preparing an illusion ahead of time, as the 
old wizard had done. I murmured the words of the Hidden Language just under my 
breath, while the two chaplains kept looking at me surreptitiously and tried to 
keep on reading.
"Do you have anything I can attach this spell to?" I asked brightly when I had 
it almost completed.
The duchess's chaplain snorted but found and handed me a button. I would have 
preferred something more inherently interesting than an old black button from a 
priest's vestments, but it would certainly do. I finished the spell and handed 
the button to Joachim.
"There. You won't actually have to do anything magical. Just wave this 
mysteriously, say a few things that sound arcane and deeply wise, and I can say 
the magic words to finish the spell. All you'll have to do then is drop the 
button and step back."
He took the button reluctantly, as though afraid it might come alive in his 
hand, and delicately slipped it into his pocket. This would have been much 
easier, I thought, with someone who had a sense of humor. "Ill see you at 
lunch," I said with a smile as I went out.
In the hall, one of the servants had heavily padded the stomach and arms of his 
tunic and was clearly
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235
meant to represent Dominic. "I'm the bravest man in the kingdom!" he announced 
in a roar. "Nothing can hurt mel Wait! What's that?" with a trembling of terror. 
"Oh, no! It's an illusion! It's got me!" He fell to the floor, fought off an 
imaginary attacker, rolled to the feet of the "king and queen," and stood up 
stiffly. "Oh, no! It's pain! I've been hurt a scratch! I can't bear a second of 
pain!"
I laughed as hard as anybody, but I was very glad that the real Dominic was not 
there.
The queen announced lunch not long afterwards. It was only heated-up soup that 
the cook had made the day before, cheese, bread, and Christmas cookies, but even 
if prepared by women who normally never cooked it was an excellent meal. 
"Wizard!" bellowed Jon to the chaplain as we finished the cookies. "I want to 
see some magic and I want to see it now! None of your normal foolish magic. 
Let's have something really spectacular!"
Joachim took a deep breath and stood up, with a look at me as though it were all 
my fault. At this point there was a pause as several people at the table noticed 
he was wearing his ordinary vestments; since I was still wearing the older 
priest's robes, we had three chaplains at the table and no wizard.
"He's got a have a costume." "He's got to look like the wizard." "What shall we 
do?"
"Here," I said and pulled off my belt, which I had been wearing around my 
trousers under the robes. "You can wear this. It's the chief insignia of 
wizardry."
While of course it was not, the moon and stars were impressive enough, once I 
set them glowing, that the rest of the table clapped and approved. Joacnim 
buckled it around himself with the look of someone who just wanted this episode 
over.
But I was pleased to see that he had the sense not just to pull out the button 
and show everyone how ordinary it was. Instead he cupped it in his hands,
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looked down on it as though it were something exciting, and began to speak in a 
low tone. "Abracadabra," he said, which he must have known as well as I did was 
not a word of the Hidden Language, only the way the Language was represented in 
children's fairy stories. "Let the magic begin!"
He whirled around, holding the button over his head. I started putting the final 
pieces of the spell I wanted together, but he was not done yet.
"Magic is all powerful," he cried. "The supernatural is superfluous! Wizards are 
the kings of the universe!" There was a good deal of laughter at this. While I 
was delighted that he still might be able to develop a sense of humor, I wished 
he had not started at my expense. He threw the button in the air, and as it came 
down it stopped being a button.
Instead it was a pack horse, slightly smaller than lifesize, a defect for which 
it made up by being brilliantly violet. On its back was a giant sack, from which 
brightly wrapped Christmas presents protruded. As Joachim unbuckled my belt and 
sat down again, the presents tumbled from the sack, their ribbons untying 
themselves, the gifts inside shooting out. There were diamond necklaces, a 
golden sword, silk dresses, whole hams, a book bound in red leather, cascades of 
coins, highly lifelike bluebirds, and, in the final box, a rosebush that grew, 
opened violet blooms, and faded away as the whole illusion disappeared into 
sparks.
There was a brief moment of appreciative silence, with no sound but the sleet 
against the windows. "Very good, Wizard!" Jon then called. "It's much better 
than our usual wizard's productions!"
I was actually very pleased myself. It was certainly the most elaborate and most 
realistic illusion I had ever done; maybe I would have to try more often the old 
wizard's method of starting an illusion ahead of
time.
But my good humor was no more permanent than
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237
the illusion and faded again in the afternoon. I was now convinced that I would 
never hear anything about the old wizard's apprentice. Although there was still 
over a week to run on the twelve days of Christmas, my time for deciding what to 
do about the stranger in the cellars was very limited. Since he had already 
called down a dragon on us, I hated to imagine what he would do for his next 
effort.
The rest of the party also seemed to grow tired of the game as the afternoon 
wore on. At one point Gwen took off her draperies and left the hall and did not 
come back. When, toward the end of the afternoon, someone from the village came 
to the door to announce that a boar had been spotted in the woods, conversation 
quickly shifted from a mockery of the royal castle's ordinary life to the 
question of a boar hunt.
"If the weather's clear by tomorrow," said the duchess, "we can start first 
thing in the morning. What do you say, Wizard? " addressing me. "Do you know 
some weather spells to make sure it's a good day for boar hunting?"
I had never seen a live boar and knew that I would normally have been very 
interested; now I just wished I had some ideas of how to proceed at home. How 
could I try to get the stranger and his evil out of Yurt when I did not know who 
he was, why he was in the castle, or who of the royal party was working with 
him?
"The Feast of Fools will be over at sunset!" announced the duchess. It seemed to 
be over in fact well before then. The young count, the unwounded knights, and 
the men servants were already checking the duchess's armory to see what she 
might have for boar spears.
At the very end of the afternoon, when the icy rain was clearing up even without 
a weather spell, the duchess's constable came into the hall and approached
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me. "A message just came into the pigeon loft," he
said. "I think it's for you."
I snatched the tiny rectangle from him and unfolded it carefully, my heart 
pounding. Would this be the answer to the question of why the stranger had 
settled himself and his black magic in Yurt?
I had to read the message twice to understand it. "I was delighted to hear from 
the new Wizard of Yurt. I still remember my years in the kingdom fondly, even 
though it's been eighty-two years since I left. Let me wish you a happy New 
Year."
The message was from the old wizard's last apprentice. He had apparently spent 
his entire life in the count's castle where he had taken up his first post. If 
he was a hundred and fifty miles away, sending me messages, he could not 
possibly also be sitting in the cellars of the empty royal castle.
I was back where I had started from. If the stranger was not an apprentice 
wizard gone evil, who was he, and who in Yurt had invited him in?
PART SEVEN
Lady Maria
I
At supper that night, cooked again by the cook and served by the serving maids, 
the duchess stood up between courses and came to lean over the back of my chair. 
I was sitting next to the Lady Maria, eating glumly and scarcely tasting what I 
was eating.
"Could you come to my chambers after dinner for a glass of brandy?" the duchess 
said in a low voice.
Maria, who overheard, pursed her lips and shot the duchess's back a sharp look 
from narrowed eyes. This seemed to be the first time that I had made any woman 
in Yurt jealous on my behalf, and it was not the woman I would have selected for 
jealousy.
"I'd be glad to come, my lady," I said, "but your brandy is perhaps a little 
strong for a wizard. Could I join you in a glass of wine instead?"
"Of course," she said and returned to her seat. I just hoped she was not going 
to start teasing me again. I wasn't sure I could manage to be polite if she did.
But as she poured me some wine and herself an
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inch of brandy, she showed no sign of making provocative suggestions. "There's 
something wrong, Wizard," she said, hooking her leg over the arm of the chair. 
"Even I know that dragons don't normally leave the northern land of magic to 
come attack one of the smallest of the western kingdoms. What's happening?"
"I wish 1 knew what was happening," I said ruefully. "You're probably glad I 
didn't agree to become ducal wizard, since I didn't even know what to do with a 
dragon. Does everybody here realize something's wrong?"
"I think the rest have been too busy thinking about the Christmas festivities," 
she said, "but that's part of the reason I felt I had to get everyone out of the 
royal castle of Yurt and bring them here. And it's clear to me, watching you, 
that you're deeply worried."
I looked at her face, serious and very attractive, even if after the dragonfire 
she had had to cut her hair as short as a boy's, and even if it was not the 
queen's face. I decided to confide in her. "I'm worried because the dragon was 
summoned. And the person who summoned it is involved in black magic."
"Black magic? You mean they're doing evil spells?"
"I mean they're working with a demon."
"A demon? You mean there's a demon in Yurt?" She looked at me incredulously and 
went to pour herself more brandy.
"The old wizard told me, but I'd already guessed. There's a demon in the castle, 
one who roamed the world freely for three years. The old wizard caught it and 
imprisoned it, but it's broken free, and now it's stronger than ever."
"How do you imprison a demon?"
"It's hard to do,' I said slowly, feeling as pinned down by her rapid questions 
as I would have been by a boar spear. Everything she said brought home to me 
again what the old wizard had told me, that this was my kingdom now and my 
demon. "In this case, the
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old wizard held it down with magic spells while Dominic drew a pentagram around 
it."
"That may explain a lot," said the duchess. "I wouldn't trust Dominic to draw a 
good pentagram."
"Normally, neither would I," I said, trying to smile. "But I know my predecessor 
would have checked it over thoroughly."
"Pentagrams have to be drawn in chalk, don't they?" she said, putting down her 
glass. "I remember asking my father s old wizard about demons years and years 
ago, while I was still young enough to think they sounded exciting and 
mysterious."
"That's right.
"And chalk can dry up, blow away, wash away in the damp, be rubbed out by the 
bold foot of a demon who has already been free in the world for three years."
"It shouldn't be that simple." I looked down at my glass, realized I had not 
been drinking my wine, and took a sip. It seemed to have no flavor. "Even a 
partially worn-out pentagram should still keep a demon from movingand it can't 
rub out the chalk itself."
"But could a demon who'd gathered strength from three years in the world still 
cast a magic spell if there was any flaw in the pentagram? Would it be able to 
call the person who nad summoned it originally and ask him or her to free it?"
She was posing questions as though this were the oral exam at the end of the 
demonology courseand I hadn't known the answers then, either.
"Who did summon it, Wizard?"
Now she was sitting with her boots planted solidly on the floor, gripping the 
arms of her chair, ready to spring into action. But there was no one against 
whom I could tell her to spring. "I don't know, my lady. I wish to the saints 
that I did."
"But you'll have to imprison it again." I didn't even try to smile. "Hard as it
may be to
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capture a demon that has been happily loose in the world for three years, it 
will be a thousand times harder to catch one who has already once escaped from a 
pentagram."
"Does this have anything to do with the message you got by the pigeons this 
afternoon? You looked terribly eager to get it, and then very disappointed."
"It was a theory I'd had, which might have accounted for a lot. I had suspected 
that the last young wizard to serve an apprenticeship under the old wizard, over 
eighty years ago, might have returned to Yurt to practice black magic. But from 
the letter I just got, he's been wizard in a count's castle for eighty-two 
years, a hundred and fifty miles away, and can have no relationship with what's 
happening in Yurt."
"What evil is happening in Yurt, aside from the
dragon?"
"The king was very ill and almost died before the chaplain miraculously healed 
him."
She nodded. "I hadn't seen Haimeric for over a year, before all of you came this 
fall, but he looked better then than I'd seen him in ages. One of Yurt's 
servants told my lady's maid that a miracle had cured him, but I wasn't sure if 
I should credit that."
"There can be no doubt that the chaplain saved his
life."
"But what else has been happening in Yurt, besides the king's illness and the 
dragon? As though that weren't enough!"
"Well," I said slowly, "we saw a mysterious stranger in the castle, right after 
we got back from here last month. He had apparently put the whole castle staff 
to sleep before we came, and the next day he kept slipping around the castle, 
appearing and disappearing, knocking me backwards with evil whenever I tried to 
touch him with magic. I don't think he did any damage, but he disrupted the 
castle and terrified me."
"And has this 'stranger' been seen again?"
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243
"He disappeared that afternoon, when the chaplain returned from a trip to the 
village. I think he's afraid of the chaplain, but he's probably enjoying the 
empty castle now. I think he lives in the cellars. Since he's already summoned a 
dragon, I don't want to think what he'll decide to do next."
The duchess picked up her empty glass as though to refill it, then set it down 
again, still empty. Watching her, I thought that she did not want another drink 
so much as an opportunity to act, and listening to me talk about the stranger 
provided no good opportunities for her to begin her attack.
"So," she said, "the problem is primarily that you have a demon living in the 
cellars, and he may be afraid of the chaplain. That means"
"But, my lady, just because I think the stranger is afraid of the chaplain 
doesn't mean the demon is."
"Oh," she said with a quizzical look. "I'd assumed the 'stranger' was just a 
physical manifestation of the demon."
I had not thought of this and was furious at myself for not doing so. If I had 
actually read the LHplomatica Diabolica more carefully, it might well have told 
me that demons did not need to keep the small size, the red skin, and the horns 
of the one demon I had ever seen, the one in the pentagram at the school.
"It may be," I said thoughtfully, my mind trying to race through the 
implications of this to make up for its previous slowness. "It would certainly 
explain a lot. I had been thinking there were actually two people practicing 
black magic in the castle, the stranger and someone else, and it would be much 
simpler if there were only one person."
"But who is that person? Why do you think it's someone in the castle?"
She wasn't going to let me get away from that question, the one I could not 
answer. Even though I was confiding in her, I didn't want to mention the coinci-
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dence that the old wizard had first discovered the demon not long after the 
queen arrived in Yurt. "Demons don't normally appear by themselves," I said, "at 
least not in this part of the world. They have to be called."
"So you have to find out who called it and find a way to imprison it, even with 
its new strength?"
She haa summarized my problem very nicely. I was thinking rapidly. If the 
stranger was, as the duchess suggested, the physical manifestation of the demon, 
then I should be able to find him in the cellars, and I should be able to 
negotiate with himI had, after all, already spoken to him once, even if he had 
not answered.
"But how can you imprison it? How can I help you?"
"You've helped by getting everyone out of the castle," I said, smiling and 
answering the last half of her question first. "I'll nave to check my books, but 
I don't think there's any way I can imprison it again. Instead I'll have to 
treat with it, negotiate with it, persuade it to return to hell."
"But isn't treating with a demon dangerous? Couldn't you endanger yourself?"
She asked as though this wasn't something I had already thought about, many, 
many times.
"If you negotiate, what will it demand?"
It crossed my mind that the duchess, with her rapid-fire questions, might be 
able to pin the demon down on a technicality and persuade it to leave 
empty-handed. But this was only an idle hope. "Their chief currency is human 
souls. When I thought that the old wizard's last apprentice might have become a 
renegade, I'd even hoped I could persuade the demon to take the soul it had 
already been given and be content to leave with that. But now I don't know what 
I will do."
She leaned her chin on her fist, faced, I assumed,
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245
for one of the few times in her life, with a problem which her rapid mind and 
forceful nature could not readily solve. "Should you get some help from that 
school in the City?"
"No, I really can't. My old instructor visited me this fall to check on how I 
was doing and to remind me that, once we leave the school, we have to solve our 
own problems. My predecessor at Yurt told me it was my problem now, and he was 
right."
"How about the chaplain, if the demon is afraid of him?"
"That's part of the reason I couldn't ask for his help. We might be able to 
chase the demon around the castle forever, but at some point someone has to talk 
to it, someone trained in wizardry." I was amazed to hear the calm tone of my 
voice, as though I actually believed I was going to do it. "I don't think the 
demon is afraid of the chaplain personally, anyway, but only of the aura of the 
saints. If the chaplain was able to put off that aura long enough that the demon 
was willing to approach him, he would be destroyedhe doesn t know magic, and he 
wouldn't know the words to say."
"Are you sure, in that case, that another wizard couldn't help you?"
"When the chaplain saved the king's life, he didn't ask for help from the 
bishop. When I go against the demon, I have to be able to do it alone." I 
lowered my wineglass, which I had finally emptied, and stood up. "Thank you, my 
lady. I think, from talking to you, that my mind is clearer." Not that it could 
have been any more confused than it already was!
She rose as well. I put my hands on her shoulders, bent down, and kissed her 
gravely on the cheek.
As I went down the broad staircase from her chambers to the great hall, I 
noticed that almost everyone else had gone to bed. But Dominic and the young 
count were sitting in front of the fire, talking intently.
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As they heard my step, they looked up hurriedly, even guiltily.
But I had too much on my mind to worry about them. All I had to do, before the 
twelve days of Christmas ended and everyone decided it was time to go home and 
start repairs on the castle, was to read the Diphmatica Diabolica properly at 
last, learn to deal with a demon as I had ooasted to the chaplain when I first 
came to Yurt that I had been trained to do, find out somehow who had summoned 
the demon in the first place, and discover if that summons had involved asking 
the demon for the special advantages in this world which will destroy one's soul 
in the next.
II
The sunrise brought a clear and cold day, perfect, several of the knights 
assured me, for a boar hunt. The morning also brought the departure of the old 
count and his wife.
"At our age, all this excitement and upheaval become a little wearying," the 
countess explained to the duchess as they pulled on their gloves in the great 
hall.
"But we're still willing to have everyone come after New Year's, if you want!" 
the count assured the king. "Just send us a message so we'll expect you."
No one in fact believed this, and it was not meant to be believed. I was fairly 
confident that the duchess would be able to keep the party here for another 
week, through Epiphany, but at that point the king and queen would insist on 
returning home. Considering that I had been wondering since summer who had been 
practicing magic with evil intent, a week did not seem very long to discover who 
had summoned the demon and how to send it back again.
The old count's departure caused some shuffling in
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rooms. The Lady Maria, as royal aunt, took the chamber the count and countess 
had shared for herself, while some of the ladies who had been squeezed in 
together took up the space that she vacated. The ladies insisted that they had 
to be along to see the boar captured, so the hunt did not actually leave until 
midmorning.
"Don't expect pork for supper even if you do catch it," the cook said darkly. 
"Game's got to be hung at least a few days, as I hope you know, or it will be 
too chewy to eat."
"We'll have it for New Year's, then," said the young count.
I rode out with the hunt because almost everyone healthy enough to ride was 
going, and I had some vague hope that someone might reveal his or her evil 
nature in the excitement of the chase. The duchess was wearing a disreputable 
man's cloak, already stained with the blood of scores of hunts. The queen, as if 
in response, mounted her stallion wearing an extremely elegant scarlet riding 
habit that I knew she had ordered packed in from the City.
We were joined by several men from the village, both mounted and on foot. The 
duchess's hounds were loosed and raced off across the stubble and into the 
woods, sniffing intently. I wondered absently if it would be possible to breed a 
hound who would have a nose to sniff out black magic.
For half an hour almost nothing happened. Then I discovered I was riding next to 
the young count, who was wearing a beautifully tailored riding jacket and whose 
very horse seemed to be looking at mine with
scorn.
But he spoke without scorn. "Look, Wizard, we've been talking, and it's clear 
you need some help."
My first thought was that the duchess had betrayed me. "What kind of help?" I 
said as casually as I could.
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I certainly did not want the young count trying to
meddle with the demon. "Sir Dominic told me your problem," he continued.
At least, I thought, I could retract my bitter thoughts
about the duchess. "He said there's a renegade wizard
back in the royal castle.'
I had, I remembered, told the knights of Yurt that the stranger was some type of 
wizard, but I had hardly expected Dominic to start telling the young count
about it.
"He told me you'd been having some trouble with it, and we guessed that it might 
even have summoned
the dragon."
I didn't like the way his guesses were getting closer and closer to the mark, 
and I especially didn't like the slightly patronizing air in which he said it, 
an air calculated to stop far short of the insult that might bring on another 
transformation but present nonetheless. I tried to adopt an air of mysterious 
wisdom and
nodded in silence.
"Well, do you want my help, or don't you?" he said. My silence was beginning to 
irritate him.
"Wizards can only be combatted by other wizards. Surely Prince Dominic 
understands the powers of magic even if you don't."
"Well, I hope you don't mind my saying this," in a tone that implied that he 
certainly hoped I did mind, "but Prince Dominic suggested that you were still a 
fairly inexperienced wizard, which was why you hadn't been able to make any 
progress against this other wizard. So my plan was go to Yurt and catch him." 
"Go to Yurt and catch him?" I repeated idiotically. "Of course," he said, 
clearly thinking Dominic was right about me. "It was my idea. Even a wizard 
won't be able to stand up against an army of knights!"
"You'd be surprised at what a wizard can do. Did Dominic tell you that he and 
the other knights already
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249
spent most of one day chasing that 'wizard' without being able to catch him?"
He dismissed this with a wave of his elegant hand. "This time, I'll be leading. 
There's no need to thank me; as the king's loyal vassal, I'm always eager to 
assist." He kicked his horse and rode away, toward the baying of the hounds, 
before I could answer.
Last month, I thought, the demon had only showed itself to us because it wanted 
to taunt me. If a body of knights suddenly tried to roust it by force from the 
cellars, it would be furious, furious enough that I would never be able to 
negotiate with it, even assuming I knew what to say. And a noncooperative demon 
was going to be the least of my problems. If the count led a band of knights 
toward Yurt tomorrow morning, I was quite sure they would all be dead by night.
In desperation, I sought out the duchess. She was having an argument with her 
master of hounds, which argument she was apparently enjoying hugely, but when 
she saw my face she told him, "Then blow whenever you like," and pulled her 
horse over next to mine. The master blew his horn to summon the hounds, put them 
on their leashes, and led them over the next hill while we sat on our horses, 
talking.
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. 1 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 thoughtfully. "You know, you shouldn't really be 
surprised. There have scarcely been any wars in the western kingdoms since there 
started to be school-trained wizards in all the chief political courts. If you 
wizards want to stop all fighting, you certainly have my support; too many 
people without any sense end up leading the battles. But
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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 warlike activity 
they normally 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 will 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 faraway 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 pulled my horse up so sharply it reared, but the duchess kicked hers forward. 
"Head it off!" she yelled. "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 all along. I turned my horse to follow 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 all the other times, that I could not
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251
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 kuling 
two hounds in the process.
Normally I would have been very interested in the hunt. Now I followed 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 itmy 
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 all seem foreign to you."
I was touched enough by her interest to manage a smile. "I always thought of 
myself as a city boy until I came to Yurt, but I m starting to think that I m 
not one anymore."
"The queen herself isn't really a city girl now," said Maria agreeably.
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"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 dramatically on 
me. "We orphans must keep together."
Even the hunt itself, the long spells of watchful inactivity, the sudden yelps 
and snouts, 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 village 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 hill."
And then, with a roar, the boar burst out directly in front of me. With riding 
skills I did not know I had, I pulled 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 still. Her face was dead white, except for the drops of 
startlingly red blood
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253
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 doll'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 
fallen after it threw her, it had leaped up again immediately, and it did not 
seem to be favoring any of its legs. The villagers 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 hall. 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 tell 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 bloodstains on her
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cloak. "I heard the Lady Maria was thrown. Is she all right?"
"She says she is. She's been resting this afternoon."
"I'll 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 frilly 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 fall, as both you and I have had many times."
"I near the boar almost smashed into you."
"I know," she said. "I've especially noticed these last few months, maybe you'll 
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 all.
"Are you going to want to come to dinner," said the duchess, "or will you want a 
tray sent up?"
"Oh, I'll come to dinner, of course!" She glanced in my direction. "In a minute, 
when you're gone, I'll get dressed and come down. I certainly will want to hear 
all the details of the hunt. The strategems, the beast's last stand, who finally 
thrust the spear home, the heroism of the villagersI'm sure it will all 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 carefully dressed in the red and black velvet
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255
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.
HI
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 all sure that the duchess's would do.
The Lady Maria had come down with a slight limp and had a small bandage placed 
artfully on one cheek. She told the story of her fall several times, with 
embellishments, including the despair of "her knight," who was apparently me, 
when he had thought she might have been killed. 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 all 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 really 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? Well, we'll be back in the royal 
castle soon, and then 111 be lucky again."
I was afraid I knew where her "luck" came from.
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Since I was also fairly sure she would not answer a straightforward question, I 
started telling 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 
cheerfully. "You know I told you time can't run backwards, normally, so it must 
have been pretty powerful magic, so Id 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.
"Well, the old wizard told us to come up to his room in the tower," she said. 
"It was very exciting and mysterious, because normally he would never let anyone 
in his chambers. He wasn't like you that way
at all."
I decided to let this pass. It was far too late for me
to become exciting and mysterious.
"And then he said a spell, a really long spelland 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 spell 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 youil never guess what happened!"
"A demon appeared."
"No, silly!" She slapped at me playfully with a cush-
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ion. "First everything grew very dark, and then a man appeared, but a very tiny 
man, maybe only six inches tall. And you'll never guess! His skin was bright 
red."
A demon, I thought, but said nothing.
"The old wizard had drawn a complicated star on the floor, and the little man 
appeared right in the middle of the star."
No wonder, I thought, that the old wizard had at first denied that the 
supernatural had ever been active in the castle. He would not have wanted to 
admit, even to me, that he had been showing off for Dominic and the Lady Maria. 
After all those years without an apprentice, and nothing more than dessert 
illusions to
occupy him . . .
"And then the little man asked if we wanted anything! The old wizard said we 
wanted a demonstration of time running backwards." "And did you get it?" "Well, 
I thought his was a pretty sill' tion, but he did it! We each drank a 1
and then, it was the strangest thing,______
coming back up our throats and into our glasses, and then we had to drink it 
again. And even when we poured the water on the floor, the little man made it 
run back up into the glass!"
A demon, firmly within the pentagram, will, if asked correctly, perform a few 
very basic tricks. I personally thought even the trick with the glass of water 
might have been skirting the danger-line; at school they had sent the demon back 
as soon as it appeared, without asking anything at all. A demon may be willing 
to make a brief demonstration of its power for free, but very soon it will be 
demanding payment in human
souls.
"And what happened next?"
"That was actually it. I'd been hoping that maybe I could ask it for something, 
and I was certainly planning to ask for something better than a trick with
demonstra-
ss of water,
water was
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glasses! But the old wizard said some words, really quickly, and it was gone, 
and he rubbed out the star.'
"And what happened next?"
"Nothing at all, * she said complacently.
Since I knew this wasn't true, I took a teasing tone. "Well, I know something 
else happened. You decided to try the spell yourself, didn't you! You can't hide 
your secrets from wizards!"
Making jokes and coy statements was the last thing I felt like at the moment, 
but it worked. She laughed. "I should have known you'd guess it sooner or later. 
After all, you saw me repeat your spell with the telephones! By the waydid you 
ever get them working?"
"No," I said, refusing to let her distract me. "Go on about how you summoned the 
little man yourself."
She giggled. "Do I really have to tell you? Well, since you ve already guessed 
most of it, maybe I do, though it's actually rather silly. I'd asked Dominic, of 
course, if he wanted to help me, but he seems to have turned against magic for 
some foolish reason, and he didn't want anything more to do with it."
Dominic, I thought, had had the good sense to be terrified of a demon. It was at 
last clear to me why the hoped-for match between Dominic and the Lady Maria had 
never come about. Aside from the differences in their personalities, he would 
never have allied himself with someone he feared might at any time foolishly 
summon a demon.
"So I had to do it myself. I made the star, just like the wizard had, and I 
repeated the spell."
"And the little man appeared," I said through frozen lips.
"And I told him I wanted to see time run backwards, but not just as a silly 
trick. That is, I"
"You asked to become younger," I said, because she seemed to be having trouble 
saying it herself.
She nodded, grateful for my understanding. "And the man explained that I didn't 
really want time to
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259
run backwards, as that would just make everything exactly as it had been years 
ago, but that instead I wanted to get some extra youth."
"And he said he could do it." 
"First, though, he said I had to rub out the star, so he could move about more 
easily. When I did it, he grew so that he was the size of a normal man, and his 
skin wasn't red anymore. He said he had to find the extra years for me."
"And he found them."
When the old wizard had discovered the demon, I thought, Dominic had offered to 
help him catch it. He had managed to keep secret the Lady Maria's responsibility 
for summoning it, but he had more of a problem with me, since I was too obtuse 
even to realize what was happening in Yurt. The old wizard had retired, 
convinced that the demon was locked safely away, and Dominic had no reason to 
think it had escaped, but he could tell the king was continuing to grow weaker. 
He would have had to admit his own original involvement to tell me openly that 
there was a demon in the castle, but he certainly hoped I would be able to 
overcome its evil magic, prompted by his hints.
The Lady Maria looked at me with eyes that were suddenly brimming with tears. 
"He found some extra youth for me for a few years. But when I talked to him most 
recently, he said that it was too late for that"
I had been a fool since the day I arrived at Yurt. It should have been obvious 
at once where the demon had gotten the extra years he had given the Lady Maria. 
He had taken them from the king.
When the saints had intervened and saved the king from death, her years had been 
reclaimed from her, and the demon couldn't get them back again. This was when 
she had decided to ask for something entirely
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different. This was when she had told the demon she
wanted to see a dragon.
"You fibbed to me," I said, shaking my finger at her
until she giggled. "You told me no one had been in
your chambers that day, when actually you were requesting things from your magic 
man."
Did she realize that her ' request" had nearly destroyed the castle? Since the 
dragon's presence had been extremely exciting, even romantic, and since, as it 
turned out, no one had been killed and the damage to the castle all seemed 
reparable, she was just delighted to have been able to see a real dragon.
"Maybe he couldn't make me younger anymore after he had been back in that star," 
she said
thoughtfully.
"Was that just before I arrived?"
"It was, actually," she said, surprised. "The old wizard had left two days 
earlier, and the constable told us you were coming at the end of the week. It 
was a very strange experience. I hope you won't think I
imagined it."
"Wizards are used to strange experiences," I said
encouragingly.
"It was late at night, and I'd been in bed, so at first I thought it must be a 
dream, except that my bathrobe was all damp from the rain, so I knew it couldn't 
be
a dream."
"Go on," I urged her when she seemed to be
stopping.
' As I say, I was lying in bed. And then I heard this voice, almost inside my 
brain. He was calling me. You reminded me of it, that time you spoke inside my 
brain with the telephones. He told me to come stand at the base of the north 
tower, and so I put on my bathrobe and I did."
"But the door was locked," I provided.
"That's when the second strange thing happened," she said. "I started rising 
into the air. At first I was
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261
terribly frightened, but then I decided it was only a dream and that I should 
enjoy it. When I got up to the top, I was able to look in the window and see my 
man in there. He'd been shrunk back down, and he was caught in the star."
"So what did you do?"
"I kicked out the glass in the windowI'd put on my riding boots when I left my 
room, because of the
rain."
So much, I thought, for the magic locks on the
casement latches.
"And I went inside and talked to him. There was one little flow of rainwater 
that had cut across the chalk lines, but he said he needed me to rub it all out 
so he could help me again. So I did, and then, maybe he put me to sleep, but the 
next thing I remember it was morning and I was back in my own bed. That's why I 
thought it was a dream at first."
"You've only had the one magic man here in the castle, haven't you?" I said as 
casually as I could.
"Well, yes." There was something in the way she said it that made me break out 
all over in a cold sweat. "You didn't send for any others who might be able to 
find some extra years for you?"
"Well, I tried, early this fall," she said, looking at me accusingly. "At first 
when I freed him from the star everything seemed fine, but then it seemed he 
couldn't make me young anymore. You'd promised to teach me magic spells, so I'd 
hoped I wouldn't have to rely on that manand, frankly, sometimes he made me 
feel a little, well, funny. But then you just gave me all that grammar. That's 
why I decided I would have to call on a different magic man."
"And did you?" I managed to croak, even though
my tongue felt paralyzed. If there were twoor even
moredemons in Yurt, we were all moving to the
City and never going back.
"No," she said, with the tears of frustration at the
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edge of her eyes. "I tried, but it's been three years
since I said the spell, and I could only get partway
through it."
I said the best prayer of thanksgiving that I knew.
But there was something else, even more important, that she probably did not 
know and which I myself had only just admitted. Sweet, silly, pretty Lady Maria, 
sitting comfortably in her chair by the fire, wearing the white silk shawl I had 
given her for Christmas, had sold her soul to the devil.
It felt like the middle of the night, though I knew it was much earlier, as I 
staggered from the Lady Maria's chambers toward my own. If she had died in her 
fall this afternoon, if we all had died in the dragon's attack, she would have 
gone straight to hell. If the dragon had destroyed Yurt, probably some of the 
rest of us would have joined her in hell, including me for all I knew, but for 
her there could be no doubt.
In my room, with the fire blazing, I pulled out the Diplomatica Diabolica with 
nerveless fingers. As I read, the duchess's castle grew silent around me. The 
only sounds were the crackling of the fire and my own heartbeat, which grew 
louder and louder in my ears as night wore on. As the first morning light came 
in the window, I closed the book and tried to stretch the knots from my 
shoulders. I knew what I had to do and just hoped I knew how to do it.
IV
I swung the door of the chaplains' room open with a bang. The duchess's 
chaplain, whose room this actually was, had been on the point of opening it from 
the inside, and he jumped back, startled.
"Excuse me," I said, as calmly as I could. He went
A Bad Spell in Yurt
263
past me with a concerned look and hurried down the corridor.
The royal chaplain, Joachim, reached down to pick up his Bible, which he had 
dropped at my abrupt entry. The remains of the priests breakfasts were on the 
table, and he had been reading after service.
"There's a demon in the cellars of Yurt," I said.
"Dear God," he said without any expression at all.
"I'm going back to negotiate with it, to persuade it to return to hell. But in 
return it's going to demand a human life. Now you and I have to decide who we'd 
be happiest to sacrifice. The young count? One of the ladies? Would anyone ever 
miss Dominic?"
He rose, shaking his head. "You really frightened me there for a minute. I think 
you'd joke if your immortal soul was in danger."
"I think it is."
At this point reaction set in, and I collapsed on his bed, trembling so hard 
from fear and exhaustion that I was nearly blind.
Joachim kicked the door shut and knelt beside me. "You mean it, don't you," he 
said quietly. "There really is a demon in the cellars of Yurt."
"And it's got the Lady Maria's soul." I heard his sharply indrawn breath and 
with difficulty opened one eye to look up into his own blazing black eyes. I 
told him the story in a few halting sentences.
"I think 111 be able to negotiate for her soul, because she never intended to 
sell it. She has in fact done so, in return for a few years of youth and a 
chance to see a dragon, but because her intention was never evil I have a 
bargaining loophole. But somebody will have to die."
Joachim rose purposefully. "Don't go away!" I called weakly. "Hold my hands."
He returned at once. Though it would have been far better to have the queen 
holding my hands, I was very glad for the human contact.
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"So when will this person have to die?" he asked
quietly.
"Right away. Immediately. As soon as I've completed the negotiations."
"It should take me no more than a few minutes to
prepare to go."
I managed to struggle to a sitting position. "Not you! It's going to have to be 
me. You can pray for my soul, but the saints would never listen if I tried to 
pray for yours."
' But I can't let you do it."
"Please don't argue," I said, blinking and feeling ashamed of my fear when he 
was so calm. "If you give up your life, who will minister to the people of Yurt? 
Since you've taken responsibility for my soul, you have to be alive to pray for 
it."
He said nothing, which I hoped meant he agreed. "I read the whole Diplomatics 
Diabolica," I said, "and I think I know how to do all the negotiations. But just 
in case I can't, and the demon kills me but refuses to go back to hell, you'll 
have to be here to stop it. The demon's already afraid of you. Beg the old 
wizard for his help. He caught the demon once, even though it was much weaker 
then. Send a message to the wizards' school in the City. They might be willing 
to assist you, since with me dead you'd have no qualified wizard here trained in 
the modern methods."
"This all sounds as though it would be better to have a live wizard and a dead 
priest."
"Please, don't think I'm insulting your abilities. Call for the bishop instead 
of the Master of the wizards' school if you want. But my life will be the life 
it will
want."
Neither of us said anything for several minutes. "It seems so silly, in a way," 
I said. "When I was young, back before I became a wizard, I always thought it 
would be romantic to die for the woman I loved. Now I'm going to have to die for 
the Lady Maria."
A Bad Spell in Yurt
265
"Christ died for all of us, most of whom have much worse sins than folly and 
vanity." "Yes, but I'm not Christ."
"I'd already noticed that." Maybe, I thought, my dying would at last give the 
chaplain a sense ofhumor. "There's something I have to ask you. I must go soon, 
very soon, because the Lady Maria has insisted she's going to go riding again, 
and the young count is going to lead the knights back to Yurt, and all of them 
will be in horrible danger. But you have to tell me. I shall offer the demon a 
life for Maria's soul, not another soul. But when it kills me, will it take my 
soul as well?"
"I don't think so," said Joachim slowly, and much more hesitantly than I would 
have wished. "Usually, if a person disinterestedly gives his life to save 
another, his soul is saved. But in this particular case, I would have to ask the 
bishop. I could send him a message by the pigeons."
"There's not enough time. I'll just have to risk it." We sat in silence For 
several minutes more. I kept hoping that if I waited I would either start 
feeling brave or think of an alternate plan. "It's probably too late for proper 
spiritual instruction now, I said with an attempt at a smile. "I just wish I 
wasn't so scared." "Courage is doing what you have to do, no matter how 
frightened you are."
"Even / know that. But I still wish I wasn't so scared."
Outside the chaplains' window, we could hear voices and clattering as the castle 
began to go about the day's business. I waited for but did not yet hear the 
sound of a mounted party preparing to head out.
"I suspectea you of evil once," I said. "Will you forgive me?"
' Yes, of course. I suspected you of evil more than once. Please forgive me as 
well." I stood up at last. "I have to go now. Ill leave it to
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your judgment what to tell the others. Just please don't let the Lady Maria know 
I had to die because of her; it would upset her too much. But do try to warn her 
against future experiments with pentagrams. Let Zahlfasthe's the teacher at the 
wizards' school I told you abouthear the whole story, whatever happens. And 
tell the queen I love her.'
"I'm going with you," said Joachim, suddenly and intensely.
"You can't. It's thirty miles, and it would take you most of the day on 
horseback. I can make it flying in
i ir L       "                                                  JO
halt an hour.
"But I could"
There was a sharp rap on the door, causing us both to jump. It swung open, and 
Gwen came in for the chaplains' breakfast tray.
"I'm so sorry," she said, "but with everything so different in this castle, I 
lost track. I should have gotten it an hour ago."
"It's all right,' Joachim said gently. She hurried away, closing the door behind 
her.
The interruption made me realize that the precious moments were draining away. I 
tried taking deep breaths. "Good-bye," I said. "I have no right to imperil 
anyone except myself. Pray for me."
Joachim was about to say something else, but he did not have a chance. I leaped 
out the window and was gone, flying back home.
I dropped from a gray sky in front of the castle. A cold rain was starting to 
fall. After leaving the duchess's castle with burning determination half an hour 
earlier, I now felt reluctant to go inside. The cracked parapets where the 
dragon had writhed in death looked like a row of broken teeth.
I wandered toward the king's rose garden, arguing unsuccessfully with myself 
that I needed to go inside at once. The individual rosebushes were all mulched
A Bad Spell in Yurt
267
and carefully covered, but the lawn was dead and sodden. I donned a protective 
spell against the rain.
My eye caught a glimpse of something just beyond the garden. I went around to 
investigate and found a pile of white stones, rounded pieces of chalk, emerging 
from the last of the snow. The stones were positioned half under a shrub, where 
they would never be noticed in the summer.
I continued on around the castle. There were four more of the piles of white 
stones. This, then, was the giant pentagram the old wizard had erected around 
the castle. The demon had escaped from the tower room, but it had been unable to 
escape from the castle.
The thought passed wildly through my mind for the second time in twelve hours 
that perhaps I could leave the demon in the castle and fina some reason to 
persuade the king and queen never to return home again, but to start a new life 
with their household somewhere else.
I shook my head hard to dismiss this thought. Besides the unlikelihood that I 
could persuade them of any such thing, I knew that the piles of stones could be 
disturbed some day, whether anyone was living here or not, releasing the demon 
from its temporary prison. And the Lady Maria's soul was in jeopardy no matter 
where she was. I shivered, set my jaw, and rose to fly over the castle walls.
I dropped into the courtyard and stood still for a moment, listening. There was 
no sound but the dripping of water. But the cobblestones in the courtyard seemed 
unnaturally warm, like the surface of a stove. Something whizzed silently by my 
face. I jumped back, throwing up my arms, and realized it was a bat. More bats 
wheeled around the castle towers. What were bats doing out in the middle of the 
day?
For several minutes I walked through the empty castle. Giant gray toads squatted 
in several of the
268                      C. Dale Brittain
rooms, and heavy flies buzzed against the windows. Small dark shapes that I 
recognized as rats scattered as I opened doors. The door to my own chambers was 
closed, but the magic lock was gone.
I opened the door and stepped inside. Nothing looked disturbed, although the 
supernatural influence was very strong. I had worried about a stranger reading 
my books of magic, but a demon, whose own power could cut right through the 
natural powers of magic, would have no need to do so.
It occurred to me that perhaps what I needed to do was to light a fire in my 
fireplace, sit down and get warm for an hour or two, and make sure I actually 
knew what I was going to say to the demon. Almost by force I dragged myself from 
the fireplace, where I was already reaching for the kindling.
I knew perfectly well what I was going to say to the demon. The negotiations 
were straightforward. If what the world's demonology experts had to say in the 
Dip-hmatica Diabolica was correct, at the end the demon would agree to release 
the Lady Maria's soul, would agree to return to hell, and would look around for 
the life it had been promised. And the life would be there. I went back out into 
the courtyard, closing my door and putting on a magic lock. They would remember 
me in future years by the rooms that no one could
enter.
I started walking toward the great hall, thinking vaguely that I might meet the 
demon there, but stopped myself. I knew perfectly well where I would
find it.
But I wanted to do one final thing. I went to the little room by the main gate 
and worked the winch to lower the drawbridge. Even if the royal party did not 
return until the end of the twelve days of Christmas, someone from the village 
would see the bridge down and come in to investigate. The constable might be 
worried about the storerooms, in spite of the heavy
A Bad Spell in Yurt
locks on the doors, but I was more worried about my body. I hoped someone would 
find it before it was too badly nibbled by the rats.
The bridge went down with a clang that vibrated through the whole castle. I 
opened the main gate wide enough to admit a man ana forced my feet to cross the 
courtyard.
Thin swirls of foul smoke were wafting up the cellar stairs. More bats flew up 
as I reached the top of the stairs. They flew back and forth, blind and 
disoriented. I took a final breath of clean air and went slowly down.
The key I had taken from Dominic a month ago, when we had been chasing the 
stranger, turned with a rusty screech in the lock. I propped the door open and 
started down the long, black corridor.
PART EIGHT
The Cellars
I
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 cellars 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. All 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 
silly 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 walking into a headwind.
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272                      C. Dale Brittain
The hall turned, and I put my hand on the wall 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.
I gritted my teeth and forced myself onward against a terror that threathened to 
overwhelm me. Soon I had proceeded farther than I had gone before, past the spot 
where the floor had been flooded. Now it was dry and ominously warm.
My knees began to tremble so hard that each step became an effort of will. My 
steps came slower and slower until I found I had stopped completely. The smoke 
made me cough, as my lungs desperately sought purer air, and the sound of my 
coughing seemed to echo throughout the cellars. "Where are you?" I almost 
shouted but bit my lip just in time.
"You know that's not the way to open a conversation with a demon," I told myself 
firmly. This was not a time for improvisation, for using good ideas and flashes 
of inspiration to cover up for a lack of preparation. If I was going to save my 
kingdom, I would have to be the wizard I never had been and proceed absolutely 
according to the rules.
But I wished I would find the demon before I lost my nerve. I made my feet start 
moving again. "Merciful saints," I breathed, then shook my head. The Lady 
Maria's soul was beyond the prayers of even the saints. Her only hope of any 
kind, and the only hope for the life and happiness of all the people living in 
the castle of Yurt, was for a negotiated compromise with the demon. And as I had 
reminded myself once before, the saints do not negotiate.
The corridor turned again and continued downwards. I glanced sideways at some of 
the rooms I was passing, afraid of what I might see in them. They no
A Bad Speix in Yurt
273
longer looked like storerooms. They looked like prison
cells.
Once again, I had to keep myself from shouting, "Come out! Let's get this over 
with!" If the demon wanted to drive me back out of the cellars with terror, he 
was close to succeeding.
I stopped, trying to steady my ragged breathing. I had no idea how much farther 
the cellars went. The absolute stillness seemed to bear me down as though under 
a physical weight. But barely had I thought that any noise would be better than 
this silence when I discovered just how wrong I was.
A cloud of bats, squeaking frantically, rushed up the corridor toward me. Their 
wings flapped all around my head, and I felt the brush of tiny, hairy bodies 
against my face. At that I would have fled, heedless of the consequences, but my 
foot slipped and I crashed to the floor. Here the paving stones were damp, and 
as I sat up I could hear for the first time the dripping of water.
The bats were gone. I stood up, rubbing my bruises. It didn't matter if I had 
cracked any bones, because I would soon be dead anyway. All I had to do was keep 
moving until the demon showed himself. Now the air was thick with scurrying 
noises, with unidentifiable reptilian calls, and with distant and ominous moans. 
Emboldened by any change from the deadly silence, I walked on as quickly as I 
could make my
feet move.
Rats scampered down the corridor in front of me, and several times I nearly 
stepped on a scorpion or a snake that slithered across my path. Another cloud of 
bats burst out of a side room, but this time I was ready for them. But I did not 
like the moaning sound, and I was drawing closer to its source.
A flutter of movement caught my eye, just on the edge of my peripheral vision. I 
jerked around so fast I nearly lost my footing. It disappeared as I turned,
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but I had had a faint glimpse of an apparition with a
human face.
I braced my back against the stone wall and felt more dank blood seeping through 
my clothes. Giant roaches scuttled by my ears. The light from my belt was very 
faint, but I managed, after a few panic-stricken moments, to increase the 
brightness
momentarily.
I was standing at a widening of the corridor where many doorways opened on 
either side. In each doorway was a barred gate, rusted open. There was no 
possibility of imagining that these were storerooms. These were prison cells.
A white form moved in the cell I was facing and started toward me. It wailed as 
it came, with a cry that melted my bones. It was a skeleton. It rattled with 
every step, and its eye sockets were gleaming. I tried the two words of the 
Hidden Language to break an illusion, and it kept on coming.
Fingers made of dozens of tiny bones reached toward me. My arms went up over my 
face, and I pressed back hard against the wall, waiting for the skeleton's 
deathly touch.
The touch did not come. I opened my eyes again.
The skeleton was gone. I did not know if it was an
illusion, given voice and propelled by stronger magic
than mine, or if it was a real skeleton, given life by
black magic. All I knew was that the demon apparently
did not intend to kill me by proxy. Either he still
hoped to frighten me away, or he was saving me to
kill himself.
This thought gave me the confidence to glance around at all the other barred 
cells. Skeletons or ghostly apparitions were in most of them. I had never known 
much of the history of Yurt and was unlikely now to learn more, but I remembered 
that, generations ago, there had been wars in the western kingdoms. These then 
would be manifestations of the souls
A Bad Spell in Yurt
of traitors, of prisoners, of men broken under tortuTe. I shuddered as a ghostly 
hand passed through me, insubstantial but leaving a chill as an illusion never 
did. These apparitions might not be planning to kill me, but they could be 
drawing my soul toward hell
with theirs.
I pushed away from the wall and staggered onward. Maybe I was being 
presumptuous, I thought, to try to save the Lady Maria's soul when she herself 
had willingly sold it away. Maybe I could keep the cellars locked up, since I 
had the only key, and talk the young count and the knights out of their mad plan 
to attack the "renegade wizard." Maybe, having nearly killed the king and then 
nearly lolled us all with the dragon, the demon would now be satisfied and cause 
no more
trouble.
But these thoughts scarcely slowed my steps. I had already had all these 
arguments with myself many times and had wonor lost, depending on whether or 
not one thought my own life worth preserving.
The dripping was steadier, and I had to step carefully, because a thin film of 
water was coursing over the floor. I had no idea how far I had come or how long 
it had been since I left the courtyard. It briefly occurred to me that I might 
be dead already.
The corridor turned again, and I paused, for ahead I thought I could see a light 
burning. Again, I barely stopped myself from calling out, 'Who's there?" I knew 
perfectly well who was there. The floor grew warmer and drier with every step I 
took, and the noxious fumes grew thicker.
I turned another corner and found myself looking into a wide chamber, at the 
very end of the cellars. I walked warily into the room. The walls were glowing 
red, and the heat was nearly unbearable. The room
seemed empty.
A voice spoke behind me. "Were you looking for
me?"
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C. Dale Brittain
0            ft            
I made myself turn around slowly and deliberately. The demon was standing in the 
doorway. I was struck dumb. He was only about a foot high, bright red, and had 
horns and burning eyes. If he hoped to lull me into complacency by appearing 
small, he was mistaken. He smiled, which gave his face the final touch
of absolute evil.
"Greetings, Daimbert," he said in a high voice. Since everyone in the castle 
called me Wizard, it was extremely startling to have someone use my name again, 
especially a demon.
I found my voice and closed my eyes against his face so that I could concentrate 
on the words of the Hidden Language. "By Satan, by Beelzebub, by Lucifer and 
Mephistopheles," I said, as this was the correct way to begin a conversation 
with a demon. "I have come to offer you a bargain." I spoke rapidly, before the 
pervasive evil could drain from my mind the memory of the words I had to say, 
before I could change my mind. "In return for a soul to which you may not be 
fully entitled, I offer you a life."
A laugh forced me to open my eyes again. The demon was taller now, and he was 
not so red. "Come, Daimbert," he said in the language of men, not in the Hidden 
Language. "Before you say anything you may regret, shall we talk for a moment?"
'Non-binding conversation," I said, choosing the correct words of the Hidden 
Language carefully. I made it a demand, not a request. One is less likely to be 
tricked by a demon if what one says has been declared non-binding, but the 
LHplomatica Diabolica was very clear that one should never request anything
from a demon.
"Non-binding conversation," the demon agreed formally. He had continued to grow 
as we spoke, and he was now the tall, gaunt-faced stranger I had first seen when 
we returned from the duchess's castle.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
277
Now that it had at last begun, I was almost relieved, though rivulets of sweat 
were running down my face from the heat. The demon stepped into the room, 
conjured up two chairs with a wave of his hand, and offered one to me. "Then let 
us talk!"
II
"You want me out of your castle, Daimbert," said the demon conversationally, 
crossing his long legs. I reminded myself not to trust his friendly demeanor for 
a second and repeated over in my mind the phrases I had selected from the 
Diplomatica Diabolica.
"I myself rather like Yurt," he continued. "But I'd be willing to consider 
another castle. You know I won't go back to hell empty-handed if I can help it, 
and I presume you didn't even bring the chalk to try to capture me. Am I right? 
I knew you'd have too much sense even to try."
"In return for a soul to which you may not be fully entitled," I tried again. "I 
offer you a life."
"We're having a non-binding conversation, remember?" he said with a laugh. I 
could almost have borne it had it not been for the laugh. "Why do you have to be 
so melodramatic? Do you think anyone will appreciate it if you kill yourself 
senselessly? How much more sensible to move the chalk from outside the castle."
"Move the chalk," I repeated, not understanding. In a moment, I thought, my mind 
would go, and then he would be able to do whatever he wanted with me.
"You've seen, surely, the five piles of white stones outside the moat, forming a 
pentagram to keep me in the royal castle of Yurt. If you move the stones, I'll 
leave Yurt and never bother you again."
"But where will you go?"
"Does it matter?" he said with a wave of his hand.
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C. Dale Brittain
He fixed me with his enormous eyes. It looked as though he had tiny flames where 
a human should have pupils. "I'll be gone, and I won't try to capture anyone 
else's soul. I promise!"
I reminded myself that this was a non-binding conversation. Besides, his words 
were not even close to the words which, according to the DiplomaHca Dwbol-ica, 
would actually engage a demon.
"A demon loose in the world is too dangerous," I said. "And the Lady Maria's 
soul would still be forfeit."
The demon leaned forward and touched me on the knee. I had somehow expected his 
touch to be insubstantial, that of an apparition, but it was solid as iron and 
hot as fire. If he had touched my bare skin, I think it would have blistered.
"Why are you so worried about the Lady Maria?" he asked in tones of 
reasonableness. "If she didn't know the consequences of asking favors of a 
demon, she certainly should have. She may have 'imperiled' her soul by talking 
to me, as you might put it, but there's something you ought to know."
"What's that?' I said as he paused.
"I can see the future. Even if you romantically throw your life away for her, in 
two years she will commit a mortal sin so great that even the saints will turn 
their backs on her.
"And what's that?" I burst out.
"Are you asking for information?"
"No/ I cried, adding quickly in the Hidden Language, "I seek no help or 
information from you!" This was too close an escape for comfort.
He fell silent for a moment, watching my face. I tried ineffectively to wipe my 
forehead with a wet sleeve. If he tricked me into asking for knowledge beyond 
that possible in the natural world, I would be well on the way to selling my own 
soul.
But could he be right about the Lady Maria? There
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279
was no way to know, but I had to act as though he were wrong. "You're lying," I 
said firmly. "I don't want to have a conversation with a lying demon."
"I'm telling the perfect truth," he said easily. "Even if you don't believe me, 
you certainly should realize I have the power to discover such things."
"You can't know the future, even you," I said, trying desperately to remember a 
fragment of a conversation I had once had with the chaplain. "Only the past is 
knowable and repeatable. If the future were fixed, that would deny free will."
The demon dismissed this. "If you'd rather believe a priest than someone who has 
actually seen what will happen But think, Daimbert. Even if you could 'save' 
the Lady Maria's soul, why throw away your life for someone you don't even 
particularly like?"
"I'm responsible for her and for everyone else in my kingdom," I said 
stubbornly, "and you imperil them all."
"But you've asked yourself the same thing, haven't you, Daimbert?"
I didn't dare answer.
The demon leaned back in his chair. "You're surprisingly obstinate,' he said in 
a macabre parody of good-fellowship. "I gave you a good excuse with my 
apparitions to go back without having to meet me, but you kept coming anyway."
"I should have known all along you were here," I said. "From the moment you 
first broke the magic lock on my chambers, you've been teasing me, eluding me. 
I'm not going to let you do it anymore."
The demon shrugged. "Why don't we leave for the moment the question of 'saving' 
a soul that will fall into mortal sin in a short time anyway. Instead, if you're 
determined to die, maybe you and I can agree on something that will make your 
final days of life more pleasant."
"I'm not agreeing to anything," I said cautiously.
280                      C. Dale Brittain
"Let me offer it before you agree!" he said
pleasantly.
"I came to make a different bargain!" Although I had long since despaired of my 
life, and my body would not stop trembling, my mind was momentarily clear. I was 
almost beyond terror. The demon had first tried to frighten me away before I had 
even reached him, I told myself, and now was trying to distract me with 
pointless conversation, because he knew that my bargaining position was sound.
The demon seemed to be growing again, and the chair he was sitting on with him. 
"Suppose I accept your bargain, Daimbert," he said, "your life for Lady Maria's 
soul. That is what you're offering? Good. Now, why should you have to die today? 
I'd be happy to put off your death if you would."
Against my will, I felt hope surging up. "Think what you could do if you and I 
just added a few details to our bargain. It would be easy enough for me to offer 
you whatever you want." "I don't want anything."
He laughed again. "You know that's not true. You're just being stubborn. I know 
perfectly well what you want, Daimbert. You want to be a master wizard." He had 
me there. I closed my eyes and clamped
my jaw shut.
"Why should you and I be enemies? You and I are so similar in so many ways. 
We've both failed: you in being a competent wizard, and me in being an angel. 
You knew, didn't you, that demons are fallen angels?" "I have nothing in common 
with you," I said through clenched teeth.
"You've had to get by with halfway knowledge and the occasional brilliant 
improvisation," the demon continued, his high voice almost gentle. "Think about 
it: with me working with you, you could have magic powers beyond the imaginings 
of any of the other students
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281
of your wizards' school, even beyond that of the teachers."
I kept my eyes closed, but a series of images raced across my unwilling mind. I 
could see myself returning to the school in triumph, performing magic that would 
stun Zahlfast and the other teachers. "No," I said to these images, and "No," I 
managed to say out loud. "I'm not becoming involved in black magic. I want to 
save the Lady Maria's soul, but I'm not going to lose my own."
"And why are you so sure about that?" asked the demon, softer than ever. "Did 
you ever think that you might belong to the devil already?"
At this I had to open my eyes, although I immediately wished I hadn't, for the 
demon smiled at my expression, and his mouth was full of dozens of razor-sharp 
teeth. As he grew, he looked less and less human.
"Yes, Daimbert," he said companionably, "your soul is already 'lost.' You can't 
give me an argument about free will there. I know your soul, and I know the sins 
you have already committed."
"You're lying." I felt I was rapidly losing whatever advantage I might once have 
had, but there seemed no way to stop this conversation.
"Not at all. Think about it for yourself: have you always had the impossibly 
'pure' mind and heart that your religion laughingly makes the condition for what 
it calls salvationr As long as you belong to the devil anyway, why not take 
advantage of it during the next two hundred years?"
I almost believed him. But the Diplomatica Diabol-ica made it clear how full of 
trickery a demon could be. I had no more competence or good ideas; all I had 
left was stubbornness. "No," I said again. "You wouldn't now be offering me 
anything for my soul if you already had it."
"So you aren't interested in the powers black magic
282                      C. Dale Brittain
could give you," the demon said thoughtfully. "Maybe
this will interest you. I can offer you the queen."
I gasped so suddenly that my mouth was full of the evil fumes I had been trying 
hard not to breathe. By the time I had finished coughing, I was able to make my 
lips say, "No," although at the last moment they
almost said, "Yes."
"But think about it!" I was thinking about it. "That
head of midnight hair lying on the pillow next to yours,
those emerald eyes and that smile greeting you every
morning, those soft arms greeting you every night'
"You can't know what I think! I cried.
"And you could prolong her life to match your own.
Two hundred years of bliss together! And for what?
Agreeing to give up a soul you've already thrown away
years ago. I'd even let the Lady Maria go."
"Butwhat about the king?'
"He's an old man already. He won't be a problem."
I breathed very shallowly, feeling I was choking.
"You've made a mistake there, Demon. I'm not going
to do anything that would jhurt the king. You lost your
chance that the Lady Maria gave you, to take the rest
of his years from him, and you're not going to get a
second chance from me."
"So wait a little while, and the problem will solve itself anyway," said the 
demon casually. "When he dies naturally, as you know he will within a few years, 
I can make sure the queen's affections turn at once
toward you."
"No,' I repeated, looking at the floor because I did not dare look at him. A 
viper was crawling near my foot but I didn't even bother to move. "I would not 
consider two hundred years with her as two hundred years of bliss if I knew I 
owed her love to you."
The demon laughed, a deep laugh now that seemed to resonate in his belly. "If I 
didn't know better, I'd think you liked the Lady Maria better than the queen!'
A Bad Spell in Yurt
283
The viper moved away. I forced myself to look up again. His mention of Lady 
Maria brought me back to the knowledge of why I was here in the first place. 
"I'm only making one bargain with you," I said. I had to drag this discussion 
back to the reason I had originally come, before the demon tricked me out of my 
soul without conceding anything, or he simply killed me with fear.
He was now more than twice as large as I was. An enormous belly hung over his 
knees, and he leered down at me from near the ceiling. "You can't bargain for 
the Lady Maria. She sold herself to the devil.
"One can always bargain with the devil," I said with as much confidence as I 
could. I was moving back now toward the points set out in the Diplomatica 
Dia-bolica. But I wondered how I could ever have imagined the negotiations would 
be straightforward.
"A soul for a soul, of course," said the demon in deep, resonant tones. "But why 
should the devil make any bargains for your soul when it already belongs to
him?"
"I do not offer my soul," I said formally in the Hidden Language. "Besides," I 
added firmly, "my soul does not belong to the devil." The black despair in the 
pit of my stomach did not believe that, but maybe the demon did. "I offer only 
my life." "A life for a soul is not a good bargain." "It is if the soul isn't 
really yours to begin with!" I stopped myself. This was not the prescribed 
negotiating language, but I did not think I had made any serious mistakes so 
far. "Binding negotiations!" I remembered then to say.
The demon nodded his enormous head. He once again had grown horns.
I put my hand over my eyes, visualizing the page in the book. "First and most 
importantly, her intention was never evil. A soul is judged on intent, and if 
you took her soul you took it on the flimsiest grounds.
284                      C. Dale Brittain
Secondly!" as the demon seemed about to interrupt. "She may have gained some 
advantages for herself, but she brought no evil to anyone else."
"She nearly killed the king," said the demon with
another leer.
"No, you nearly killed the king. She has never
wished any harm to anyone."
The demon did not answer. Taking his silence for agreement, I pushed desperately 
on. "Her soul may be yours, but only on the slimmest technicality. Therefore!" I 
paused to make sure I had the words absolutely right before I spoke. "I have 
come to offer you the following bargain. You shall release the Lady Maria's soul 
and return at once without it to hell. Before you go, you can take my Me, but my 
soul must be judged on its own merits."
"But I like it here in Yurt," said the demon with what would have been petulance 
in a smaller being.
The last of my strength gathered itself into fury. If the demon was able to 
delay for only a few more moments, I would throw myself at his feet and promise 
anything in return for my Me, and he knew it. "Binding negotiations!" I cried. 
"You have to answer!" "All right,' he said with a slow smile. "I would be 
delighted to take your Me. I agree."
"Formally!" I shouted as the enormous mouth opened, revealing more teeth than 
ever. "You must
agree formally!"
The mouth closed slowly, and long flames darted from the demon's eyes. "By 
Satan, by Beelzebub, by Lucifer and Mephistopheles," he said finally.
This at last was the beginning of the correct terms of a binding engagement. I 
concentrated as hard as I could through the roaring in my ears, watching for the 
slightest deviant word.
"In the space of what you in the natural world call one minute, I shall return 
to hell, not to return to
A Bad Spell in Yurt
this world unless deliberately summoned by woman or
man.
tan.
Joachim had told me, I reminded myself, that he thought that someone who gave 
his life for another would save his own soul. But I also remembered that he 
would have to ask the bishop to be sure in a case like this.
"I release, give up, and free the soul of the Lady
Maria."
So far, so good.
"But before I go, you shall die." The demons last semblance of a human form was 
going fast, but he still had a face that grinned at me. "Agreed and accepted?"
I started to speak, could not, swallowed twice, and tried again. "Agreed and 
accepted."
My eyes went black as the enormous mouth full of razor-sharp teeth bent toward 
my neck. The last thing I heard was the demon's booming voice. "See you in the 
afterlife, Daimbert!" The last thing I felt, even before the jaws reached me, 
was his iron forefinger burning against my chest. It passed effortlessly through 
skin, muscle, and bone, until it touched my heart, which leaped once more and 
was still.
in
The afterlife was wet and extremely cold. For a long time, which could have been 
hours and could have been monthsalthough I expected they reckoned time 
differently herethere had been nothing but confusion, of colors, black, white, 
and red, of giant wings, of spaces in which I knew nothing and spaces in which I 
could hear myself screaming. But now everything was calm and completely dark.
I wondered with mild curiosity where I was. Purgatory, probably, which meant 
that they hadn't yet decided what to do with me. At least hell would have
286                      C. Dale Brittain
to be warmer than lying in purgatory in half an inch
of icy water.
Very far away, I heard a door creaking. Maybe they had made up their minds. 
Steps were coming toward me, deliberate and slow. I turned my head stiffly, 
interested enough to want to know if it was an angel coming for me or the devil. 
To my surprise, it was carrying a candle. Somehow I had not expected them to 
need candles in the afterlife.
I couldn't see the angel's or devil's face behind the candle, although the fact 
that I couldn't keep my eyes open properly may have had much to do with it. I 
lay back and awaited my fate.
The candle was put down by my head. I could see its light, pink through my 
closed eyelids. There was a slight creak of joints as the angel or the devil 
knelt
beside me.
He put his hand lightly over my heart, and then I could feel his hair tickle my 
nose as he put his ear to my mouth. He was so gentle that I decided he had to
be an angel.
"Thank God," said the angel in Joachim's voice. "He
is alive."
I tried to speak but managed only a faint croak. I moved one of my arms 
experimentally and was able slowly to reach up to feel a pair of clasped hands 
and a cheek wet with tears.
Joachim put his arms around me, under my shoulders, and drew me partly up and 
out of the water. "Can you hear me?" he asked quietly. "I've got to get
you out of here."
I tried again to speak. This time I was more successful. "I thought I was dead."
"I think you were. But it's no good your coming back from the dead if you then 
die of pneumonia."
"Did you ever contact the bishop?' I croaked. It had been my final thought.
"Yes; I asked him to send me an answer here in
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287
Yurt, and it was here when I arrived." He tried to ease me into a sitting 
position. "He said that if someone lets himself be killed, even killed by a 
demon, for completely pure reasons, his soul will go straight to heaven."
Just my luck. Probably the only time in my entire adult life my soul would ever 
be completely pure, and I'd wasted my chance by coming back to life.
"But how did you get here? I asked, realizing I had last seen him thirty miles 
away, in the duchess's castle.
"When you flew away, I knew at once I had to follow you. As soon as I'd sent the 
message to the bishop, I went to the stable and took the queen's stallionI 
didn't give the stable boys a chance to argue. I was here by midafternoon." 
There was a sound that would have been a chuckle from anyone else. "I've never 
been on a horse that went that fast. I found the drawbridge down when I 
arrived." "I'd lowered it."
"I had intended to rush down into the cellars after you. But great choking 
clouds of yellow brimstone were billowing out, and vipers and scorpions were 
crawling up the stairs. It was clear that no one could walk a dozen yards into 
the cellars and live. I got as far as the door and couldn't go any farther. I 
knew then the only way I could help you was through prayer.
' So I rubbed down the stallion, went to the dovecote in the south tower for the 
bishop's answer, and then to the chapel, and I've been there ever since."
He tried to pull me farther out of the water. "Do you think you could walk if I 
supported you? I could probably carry you, but I'm afraid of dropping you with 
the floor so slippery."
"Help me up." Although all my joints ached excruciatingly, I could actually 
stand. I checked my throat for fang marks and my chest for a hole and found 
nothing.
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C. Dale Brittain
But my red velvet jacket streamed with water, now as thoroughly ruined as my new 
suit.
"But why did you come down now?"
"Just now, fifteen minutes ago, I felt a sudden certainty that whatever was 
going to happen was over. Whether the demon would go or stay, or you would live 
or dieand when I reached the cellars, most of the brimstone was gone."
We proceeded slowly up a long slope, out of the standing water, me half 
collapsed against Joachim and both his arms around me. Abruptly I stopped, and 
he stopped with me. "Oh, no," I said. "I've broken the agreement by coming back 
to life. The demon must still be here."
"Is he?" asked Joachim, very low in my ear.
I took a breath and managed to find enough words of the Hidden Language to probe 
for evil. There was none. When I had walked down this corridor into the cellars, 
the air had been so permeated with evil I had barely been able to move. Now 
there was nothing but abandoned storerooms whose floors flowed with icy water. I 
probed further. There was no evil mind in the castle, not even the oblique touch 
of the demon when he had been hiding from me. He was indeed gone.
"It's all right," I said, fairly complacently considering that I was now 
shivering so hard I had trouble speaking through chattering teeth. "I thought 
I'd done the negotiations right. The demon killed me and went back to hell 
without either the Lady Maria's soul or
mine.
"Let's keep moving, then," said Joachim gently.
We staggered on to the front of the stairs. A big silver crucifix leaned against 
the open cellar door. Here Joachim did have to carry me, lifting me with a grunt 
over his shoulder. "Thank you for bringing me back to life," I gasped.
A Bad Spell in Yurt
289
"I had nothing to do with it. The saints had mercy on you and interceded with 
God for a miracle."
I had my own ideas about who had enough influence with the saints to bring that 
about, but it was too hard to argue. Joachim carried me up the cellar stairs to 
the courtyard.
The sky was dark, except for some faint streaks of light in the east. Swung 
across Joachim's shoulder, I took as deep a breath as I could of the cold winter 
air.
As we came into the courtyard, I saw a swirl of faces, of people I had believed 
thirty miles away, and heard a sudden incoherent murmur of voices. This was all 
too confusing to me in my present state, so I let my eyes fall shut again. 
Joachim paused, and the voices were all around us.
"He's alive!" he said in a tone of command that carried over all the rest. "Now, 
in the name of God, step back and let us pass!"
They fell silent, and Joachim strode on, while I wondered without much curiosity 
what had happened.
But when we reached my chambers, he had to turn and bend down so that I could 
reach out and touch the magic lock with my palm to free the spell. With the 
demon gone, my locks should be safe after this, and I would be able to write 
letters without the paper being permeated with the supernatural influence of a 
demon who had been rummaging through my possessions.
Inside, Joachim pulled my drenched clothes off and wrapped me in blankets while 
he found me some pajamas. He pulled my bed close to the fire and knelt to 
rekindle the blaze. As I fell among the pillows, I saw that his clothes too were 
filthy ana soaking.
"I'm afraid you've ruined your new vestments coming for me," I said. At the 
moment it seemed inexpressibly sad that he had done so.
But he shook his head and smiled. "Ill go change
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C. Dale Brittain
and come right back to sit with you. I want to make sure you don't develop 
pneumonia."
"What day is it?"
"It's dawn of New Year's day, the morning after you went to meet the demon."
"I think I'll go to sleep now," I said indistinctly, feeling warm waves of sleep 
breaking over me as I slowly stopped shivering. "But I think when I wake up I'm 
going to be very hungry."
IV
I had of course done everything wrong. I thought about this with pleasant 
detachment some twenty-four hours later, from what seemed a great distance, 
lying comfortably propped up in a warm bed with the sun pouring through my 
windows, eating cinnamon crullers and drinking scalding tea. My breakfast tray 
was decorated with holly.
Joachim had gone to celebrate morning service in the chapel, but I had managed 
to wake up enough to speak briefly to him before he left and to order my 
breakfast. Everyone, it turned out, was home again.
The first place I had gone wrong was in being too frightened for months to admit 
the obvious to myself, that a demon was loose in Yurt. Nothing else, not even a 
master wizard, could have repeatedly broken my magic locks as though they were 
cobwebs, or filled the cellars with such a powerful sense of evil that even a 
first-year wizardry student would have felt it. I should have realized at once 
what was happening, rather than waiting until it brought a dragon down on us.
My second mistake was going down alone to face the demon, when I could no longer 
ignore its presence. With the duchess's assistance, I doubtless could have 
persuaded the Lady Maria to stay safely inside, at least for a few days, and the 
knights to delay their
A Bad Spell in Yurt
291
attack. That should have given me enough time to send a message to the City, to 
ask for help from one of the experts in demonology. Someone else might have been 
able to persuade the demon to leave in return for far less than a human life. In 
retrospect, this had probably not been one of the "little problems" that 
Zahlfast had said I would have to solve on my own.
Finally, even if it was going to take a human life to return the demon to hell, 
I should have demanded at least a short period of grace. If I had had a day or 
two before what had almost been my death, I might have been able to use my own 
natural charms to win many more kisses from the queen.
Gwen came in at this point in my deliberations. She did not meet my eyes. "I'd 
like about that much again," I said, handing her the empty breakfast tray.
She took it with a little duck of the head, not with a saucy look, not even with 
the smile an elderly uncle might deserve. I realized she had not said anything 
or even looked at me directly when she brought me my food originally. She was 
treating me with the same reserve she showed the king.
"You can talk to me, Gwen," I said, holding on to my end of the tray until she 
had to look up. "I'm not so weak that I must have absolute silence.
Her eyes were very wide when they finally met mine. "Excuse me, sir, I don't 
want to seem rude," she said hesitantly. "ButI never knew anyone who 
miraculously returned from the dead before."
I hadn't either, of course, but I saw no reason that she should treat me with 
awe on that account. "That has nothing to do with me personally," I said 
hurriedly. "It was the chaplain's prayers that worked the miracle." I realized I 
was as anxious as Joachim to disavow any personal meritwith the important 
distinction that he was wrong to do so and I was right.
"But how did you know I was dead?" I asked when
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she remained silent. "Were you out there in the courtyard last nightor I guess 
it was night before last?" She stared at me without speaking, so I smiled and 
said, "All right, Gwen, I'll ask you something simpler. Sit downyou can bring 
the chair closer than that! How about if you tell me why all of you left the 
duchess's castle to come back here?"
She examined one of her thumbnails with apparent fascination but spoke clearly. 
"We realized something was wrong when our chaplain took the queen's stallion 
from the duchess's stables. The stable boys couldn't stop him. They ran to tell 
the^constable, and he told the king. Nobody could imagine why he'd done it. They 
asked me if I knew anything, since I had just been up for the chaplains' tray a 
few minutes earlier, and when I said that you'd been with him, they realized 
that you were gone too."
"But how did you know we'd come back to the royal castle?" I prompted when she 
fell silent.
"Prince Dominic and the young count guessed it," she continued with a quick 
glance at me. "They said there was an 'evil wizard' here in the castle, who had 
summoned the dragon. And they said that you must have gone back to fight him all 
by yourself, even though they'd offered to help you. And the count said I 
really would just as soon not repeat it, sir."
"It's all right, Gwen. Go on."
"He said'she paused, then went on defiantly "he said that you would make 
matters with the evil wizard even worse through your 'incompetence'! I knew you 
weren't incompetent, sir. But they wouldn't listen to me. The count started to 
gather the knights at once."
"But they listened to the duchess?"
"That's right," she said in surprise. "How did you know? She told them it wasn't 
another wizard at all, but a demon in the cellars! She said that you and the 
chaplain must have gone without telling anyone because
A Bad Spell in Yurt
you were afraid that the knights would imperil their souls by trying to fight it 
without realizing what it was."
I considered this for a moment. "Did she say where the demon had come from?" I 
asked casually.
"Well, from hell, I assume," Gwen said in confusion and fell silent.
So the duchess had not revealed everything I had told her. With luck, no one 
else had guessed that demons were unlikely to appear without reason in one of 
the smallest of the western kingdoms. I thought very affectionately of the 
duchess. Someone would have to have a long and private conversation with Lady 
Maria; I would ask Joachim to do so. Maria might guess her own role in bringing 
both the demon and the dragon to Yurt, I thought, but I did not want to say 
anything to her myself. Besides, matters of the soul's salvation were the 
chaplain's responsibility.
"It's back in hell now," I said to Gwen, who was giving me a wide-eyed stare 
again, "and I'm alive and still own my soul. But you haven't told me yet why 
you're all here."
"It was the king and queen. They said that if the two of you were fighting a 
demon to save their kingdom, it was their responsibility to be here with you. In 
the end, everyone came, though we had to leave the boar and the Christmas tree 
in the duchess's castle. It was late evening when we got here."
"And what happened then?" I asked when she fell silent.
She shook her head as though to shake off a strong emotion. "The castle was dark 
and empty, and strangethe stones were all oddly warm, and there were rats and 
bats and roaches all over the place'
She gave a shiver of disgust. I nodded; I knew exactly what it had been like.
"I think the count would have gone straight into the cellars after the demon if 
he could have, but he
M                      C. Dale Brittain
iouldn't even get down the stairs. There were big yel-
,bw clouds pouring out of the cellar door; the duchess's chaplain told us it was 
brimstone, from the
lemon."
I I didn't know whether to admire the young count's |*ourage or wonder at his 
foolhardinesshe had pru-
ilently stayed inside during the dragon's attack.
"Ton and I found our royal chaplain. He was lying |ji front of the altar in the 
chapel and for a minute We were afraid he'd been killed! But when Jon touched 
him on the shoulder, he sat up suddenly Ijll never forget the way his eyes 
looked."
It sounded as though the castle had been an exciting
>lace while I was dead. I was sorry to have missed it. "He said" Her voice 
dropped so low I could Uardly hear it. "He said that you were dead, sir. And ] 
hen he said that, in the name of Christ, we had to leave him alone to pray for 
you, and not to go into  he cellars if we valued our immortal souls!
"Ton and I told the king and queen at once. The ;luchess's chaplain wanted us 
all to leave the castle fpimediately, but they said they wouldn't run away, <4nd 
besides it was too dark and too cold to go anywhere else. We didn't even know if 
the demon was ittill in the cellars, or if you had been able to defeat jt before 
it killed you, but there wasn't much we could
lo but wait.
"Nothing happened for most of the night. We were illl too sad and frightened to 
go to bed. We sat in the
n'tchens or else went out in the courtyard to see if ilnything had changed. Even 
when the clouds of brim-jttone started to clear, we didn't dare do anything. 
Then suddenly, toward dawn, our chaplain appeared
n the courtyard. He was carrying the big silver crucifix jj-om the chapel altar, 
and he went right by us as jnough we weren't even there. When he came back from 
the cellars, an hour later, he was carrying you." I She fell silent, and I lay 
back in bed. This explained
A Bad Spell in Yurt
295
the faces and voices I had half perceived in the courtyard.
"We knew then that his prayers had been answered," she continued quietly after a 
moment, "and that you had been returned to life. All day yesterday, he sat with 
you and wouldn't tell us anything, except that thanks to God you were alive. I 
think the duchess may have tried to speak to him briefly, but everyone else, 
even the king, stayed away from your room. But this morning, before service, the 
chaplain stopped at the kitchens to say you were better."
Gwen suddenly jumped up. "I'm sorry to keep you talking, sir. I'll get your food 
right away."
"Maybe ask the cook for a cheese omelet this time, to go with the crullers," I 
said. "And bring another pot of tea. By the way, are you ever going to tell me 
what Jon gave you for Christmas?"
She shook her head, blushing, and hurried out.
Joachim came in as she was leaving, taking the door from her. "There were a lot 
of people at chapel service this morning," he commented.
"I'm not surprised," I said. "I'll go tomorrow myself if I can walk that far, or 
the next morning for sure."
He sat down on the bed next to me and gave me a long look from under his 
eyebrows. "Whenever you can come to chapel, I'll celebrate a special 
thanksgiving service for your return to life. You already look better."
"I feel better. Could you hand me the washbasin and a comb?"
I scrubbed my face, getting the last of the aura of brimstone off, and looked 
critically at the roots of my beard and hair while I was combing them. Three 
days ago, at the duchess's castle, I had seen chestnut-colored roots starting to 
appear and had thought I would have to apply the gray dye again once I was home. 
But I had no dark roots now. My hair and beard were coming in white.
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C. Dale Brittain
"But how about you?" I asked Joachim. "Haven't you let anyone else sit with me?
He shook his head. "I'm responsible for you."
"Have you even gotten any sleep in the last two days?" Several times, during the 
day and the night that I had slept, I had awakened, but always to see him 
sitting nearby, to hear his voice saying something, although I had always been 
asleep again before he had completed the sentence. Now his eyes looked as 
peaceful as I had ever seen them, but the skin was drawn tight over his 
cheekbones.
"A little. I dozed in your chair last night. But I didn't want to leave you.'
"You should go get some rest now," I said. "Ill be all right by myself.'
He stood up, yawning. "Maybe I will."
"But there's one thing I want to ask you, before Gwen comes back. Since I've 
already died once, with a pure heart, does that count? When I die again, will 
they have to assess my soul again, or will the previous assessment still stand?"
He smiled, even though I had been perfectly serious. "Maybe someday I really 
will understand your sense of humor. To answer your question, I don't think 
enough people have ever come back from the dead to make this point theologically 
clear. There are things that none of us will ever know on this earth. But if 
you're asking for my opinion, not the theologians' position, as long as you live 
you can do good and you can sin, and your soul will be judged accordingly."
"Or will I maybe never die again? Doesn't the Bible say that, after Lazarus was 
brought back to life, he became immortal?"
This time he laughed. "You're not Lazarus. Besides, that story isn't in the 
Bible, which only tells us that Christ raised him. It's the kind of story young 
priests like to tell but it's not true. All of us are going to die, and you're 
not an exception."
A Bad Spell in Yurt
297
He smiled cheerfully, as though he had just said something very comforting; and 
in a way he had. He went out as Gwen came in with my second breakfast.
She hurried away without a word, and when I heard a step outside a few minutes 
later, I assumed Joachim was returning, having forgotten something. "Come in!" I 
called, when the step seemed to hesitate.
My door swung open, but it was not the chaplain. It was two wizards, one in a 
tall red hat and the other with piercing blue eyes and an enormous white beard: 
Zahlfast ana the Master of the wizards' school. "May we indeed come in?"
"Yes, yes, come in," I said, flabbergasted. I struggled to raise myself from the 
bed, to make the wizards the full bow, but fell back without success. "What are 
you two doing here?"
They entered in a stately manner, closed the door, and found chairs. "The 
supernatural influence is gone, I note," said Zahlfast. "We saw the remains of 
the dragon's carcass down by the edge of the forest as we flew in, and then your 
constable told us you'd overcome a demon! He took us for an escorted tour of the 
cellars, including the hole he said the demon made when it returned to hell."
"The hole?" I had no idea what he was talking about.
"It's at the very end of the cellars," said Zahlfast soberly, "a black hole 
about two feet across, and it's still smoking. When you look down, you can't see 
anything, only darkness so black it's almost solid, and when you drop something 
down, you can hear it hit. We put a triple pentagram around it. As you know, 
nothing should come back up unless summoned, but it seemed to make your 
constable feel better, and we
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C. Dale Brittain
wanted to save you the trouble. He plans to cover everything over.'
That sounded like an excellent plan to me.
"Now," said the Master, "could you tell us exactly what's been happening?"
I told them, although when I had left the City for Yurt and imagined someday 
telling the Master of my triumphs, I had not imagined doing so sitting up in bed 
in yellow pajamas. Besides, it wasn't a triumph I was describing.
"So I guess it's all right now," I finished, "even though I'll know, if it ever 
happens again, to get a demonology expert right away. Someone else, more expert, 
might have been able to negotiate a settlement with the demon without having to 
offer it his own life. But what are you doing here? Did the chaplain send you a 
message?"
"No," said Zahlfast, "we got no message, unless that was you calling a month 
ago. The phone rang at the school, yet there was no one on the line. When I 
heard about it, at first I just thought someone had called us by mistake, or was 
doing so for a joke, but then I remembered you and your far-seeing but inaudible 
telephones."
"That was me," I said. "The demon had grown bold and was teasing us by running 
around the castle in daylight, while the chaplain was away. It was afraid of the 
chaplain.
Zahlfast and the Master looked at each other, the same slightly skeptical look 
they had given each other when I tola them Joachim had miraculously brought me 
back from the dead. "I want to show you these telephones, Master," said 
Zahlfast. He reached one of them down from their shelf and spoke the name 
attached to the wizards' school instrument.
This time it worked perfectly. The base lit up, as it always had, but when the 
tiny figure of a young wizard picked up the receiver, he could hear Zahlfast.
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299
They spoke for several minutes. "Yes, that's right," said Zahlfast. "So we'll 
probably be home tomorrow or maybe the day after. No, there's no problem now."
"Congratulations, young wizard," said the Master, his frost blue eyes sparkling. 
"You've made an original contribution to wizardry and will probably have your 
name in the new edition of Ancient and Modern 'Necromancy. Not bad, for someone 
not yet thirty."
"It works!" I gasped. "I'd told the constable an anti-telephonic demonic 
influence was affecting my phones, and I was actually right!"
"You'll have to teach us that spell," said Zahlfast.
I thought ruefully that they seemed more impressed by my telephones than my 
return to life. "But what are you two doing here?" I asked, returning to my 
original question, wondering if I could possibly reconstruct the sequence of 
spells I had tried on the telephones over the past few months. "Were you just so 
busy it took you a month to get here after my call?"
"Well," said Zahlfast, looking surprisingly embarrassed, "at first I didn't 
think anything of it, though I should have realized immediately it was you 
asking for help. It wasn't until we heard about the dragon going over on 
Christmas day that I began to think there might be something seriously wrong in 
Yurt.
"First we got telephone calls from the wizards in courts with telephones, and 
then the next day the messages started coming in from the pigeon relay station. 
When we plotted them on a map, it became clear that the dragon had been heading 
for Yurt, for no one south of Yurt had seen it."
"And even then," said the Master with a chuckle, "we had an idea that you might 
be a competent enough wizard to handle a dragon, although we probably should 
have considered the likelihood of a demon as well."
"Didn't you," I said accusingly, "even for a minute,
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suspect that I was practicing black magic and might have brought the dragon down 
for my own purposes?"
Zahlfast blushed, which I had never seen him do before.
"Not at all," said the Master. "At most, one or two people had momentary doubts. 
Besides, we knew there was another wizard here, the retired wizard of Yurt, who 
could help you."
"He did help me with the dragon. I never could have killed it without him. But 
what do you know about the old wizard?"
"I've only met him once," said the Master, "this summer. That's when he came to 
the City to try to find out about you."
"He came to the City?" I cried in amazement. "You didn't tell me this, 
Zahlfast."
"That's because I only found out about it myself the other day."
The Master laughed. "He said when he arrived that he would talk to the head of 
the school or to no one, so he had to talk to me."
"But I always thought he didn't want to have anything to do with the wizards' 
school."
"I don't think he ever does. But he wanted to know about you. He said he'd left 
you sleeping among his herbs for the whole day, while he flew down to the City. 
Said he'd never been to the school before, hoped he'd never come there again, 
but he thought this was the fastest way to find out about someone he called a 
'young whippersnapper.' Took me a few minutes to realize he meant you."
"So what did you tell him?" I asked, feeling highly inadequate. Once again, 
everyone else seemed to know my business much better than I did.
"I told him you had flair and promise, if you ever applied yourself. And from 
the look of the telephones, it's clear that you have. To say nothing of killing 
a
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301
dragon and defeating a demon, even if you nearly got yourself killed in the 
process."
"Did get myself killed," I corrected, but they pretended not to notice.
Zahlfast stood up. "You look tired. I think we should let you rest."
"Just don't leave Yurt yet," I said. "Most of the guest chambers are still 
sound, in spite of the dragon. And you'll want to try our cook's excellent 
holiday meals. I hear they had to leave the boar at the duchess's castle, but 
I'm quite sure she wouldn't have left the Christmas cookies."
"We'll stay tonight at least," said the Master. "Sleep now, and we'll talk more 
later."
I still did not feel strong enough to climb the chapel stairs the next morning, 
but the following morning, leaning on the constable's arm, I ascended by the 
light of my own magic lamps. The others respectfully stood aside for me and made 
sure I was comfortably seated in the front pew. Joachim led the thanksgiving 
service, and while I had good reason to be highly thankful myself, I was rather 
surprised to see mat everyone else in the castle was also delighted to have me 
alive. Even Dominic smiled at me, and the queen gave me a radiant look that made 
my heart turn over.
The winter sun burned red through the chapel's stained glass. Listening to 
Joachim read from the Bible, I decided I was not worthy either of a miracle on 
my behalf or of the friendship of all these excellent people. When the 
congregation sang the final hymn, I did not trust my voice and stood silent.
Once Joachim had pronounced the final benediction, every person there, from King 
Haimeric down to the stable boys, came up to me. Most said a few words, of how 
glad and grateful they were to have me again with them, though a few just 
touched my arm hesitantly and turned away as though overcome with
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profound awe and wonder. Not daring to speak, I nodded at all of them and tried 
to smile.
But my foray into sentimentality was cut short by talking to Zahlfast and the 
Master of the school. They had ended up staying two nights in Yurt, but this 
morning they were ready to go, waiting only until I returned from the chapel to 
say good-bye. We stood by the castle gate, talking for a minute, with me well 
wrapped up in two coats and a muffler. The two wizards were the only people in 
the castle who had not been at chapel service.
"We're delighted you're feeling better," said Zahlfast briskly. "Now that your 
telephones are working, I hope you realize you should call us if you run into 
any other problems this serious. I hadn't realized you'd take my warning against 
calling the school for every little problem so literally!"
I nodded glumly.
"Though I must say I should have credited you with more courage than I did," 
Zahlfast continued. "Most wizards wouldn't have gone down alone to face a demon, 
even those who did a lot better on the demon-ology exam than I happen to know 
you did. I hope you aren't going to turn into one of those rash young wizards 
who think of themselves as indestructible."
There didn't seem to be much danger of that. I had never expected to have a 
second chance at life, and I knew I would never get a third.
"Just remember you're a wizard," said the old Master. "Don't start relying too 
much on the priests."
"This makes it all very symmetrical," I said. "The bishop is worried about my 
possible evil influence on the chaplain."
The two glanced at each other. "Coming close to death doesn t seem to have 
changed you very much," said Zahlfast.
I had noticed the same thing myself. One might have hoped that if I came back 
from the dead I'd
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303
come back better, but I was too happy to be back at all to care.
The old Master looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. "I hope you realize we 
are very glad to have you still alive. In a few weeks, after all of you here 
have had a chance to repair some of the damage to the castle, we'll send up some 
wizards from the technical division. They'll take down the details of how you 
put the spells on your telephones so we can start putting far-seeing attachments 
on other instruments."
After watching them fly away, I sat on the bench in the courtyard for a few 
minutes to catch my breath, wondering how soon the new edition of Ancient and 
Modern Necromancy would come out and what it would say about me. I hoped it 
wouldn't say that I had made a brilliant invention but that no one could ever 
duplicate it because I hadn't kept good notes. The sunlight was almost warm here 
in the shelter of the castle wall, even though there was still a dusting of snow 
on the ground, left behind by the stable boys brooms. But in ten minutes, as 
soon as my strength returned enough to walk again, I went inside in search of 
Joachim.
He was sitting in his room, finishing breakfast. "Thank you again for 
interceding with the saints for me," I said, sitting down and breathing hard. 
"I've just been seeing off the wizards; they're on their way back to the school. 
But I wanted to find out if you'd spoken to the Lady Maria."
"Yes, I spoke to her yesterday. I told you I would."
When he seemed unwilling to continue, I said with an exasperated laugh, "What is 
this, Joachim, the secrets of the human soul that a priest can never reveal? 
Since I realized she'd sold her soul to the devil long before either you or she 
did, and then got myself killed negotiating for her soul, I should at least be 
able to find out what she's going to do now that her soul is safe again."
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Joachim looked at me gravely a moment, then slowly started to smile. "You're 
right this time; but I may have difficulty explaining this to the bishop.
"She had worked much of it out for herself already," he continued after a brief 
pause. "So when I sent her a message to come to my room, she had a good guess 
what I was going to say. She seemed to have the strangest idea, however, of how 
to act in such a situation. She came in as though she were a naughty schoolgirl 
caught in some mischief."
I could have told her this would never work with Joachim. It wouldn't even work 
with me.
"But it all seemed to be a facade, behind which she was genuinely terrified and 
repentant at what she had done. Even though she kept referring to the demon as a 
'little magic man,' she realized how close she had come to damning her soul for 
eternity. She agreed at once when I explained to her that a few years of vain 
youth and beauty in this world could never be worth an eternity in hell. She had 
also had a chance to realize that asking to 'see a dragon' was not the innocuous 
request she had originally imagined.
In fact," continued Joachim, looking somewhat uncomfortable, "once she stopped 
pretending she thought of it as a naughty joke gone wrong, she broke down and 
sobbed. I was trying to impress on her the need to beg God's forgiveness, and 
she kept on asking if I thought you would ever forgive her."
"I hope you told her I would."
"I told her that you were not angry with her personally, that you had been 
willing to die to save both her and the kingdom because you were following the 
high purposes of God."
Joachim's black eyes were completely sober, and I began to wonder uneasily if he 
was going to start treating me with the awe and reserve that everyone else in 
the castle seemed to be demonstrating. Of course, in his case it was harder to 
tell. But it was no use coming
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305
back from the dead if I then spent the next two hundred years being treated like 
some saint. In the next few days, I would have to think of something outrageous 
to do to remind everyone that it was, after all, only me.
"I did warn her very sternly against further experiments with pentagrams."
"I'm sure you did," I said, "and I'm sure you imposed some suitable penance on 
her. You don't need to tell me about tnatthat really should be a matter kept 
secret between a sinner and her priest." I changed the subject abruptly because 
I did not want to talk about the Lady Maria anymore; I was just glad that he had 
spoken with her, so I didn't have to. cut tell me, Joachim, how did you do it?"
He lifted his eyebrows at me.
"First you saved the king's life and then you saved mine. I want to know how you 
do it. It can't be a very common ability. Everybody seems in awe of me for being 
alive, whereas they really ought to be in awe of you for having worked a 
miracle."
"Prayer is available to anyone," he said, more soberly than ever, "who calls on 
God with a contrite heart. I already told you that the saints had pity and mercy 
on you for your sacrifice. It had nothing to do with me."
I considered suggesting that in that case maybe I had been sent back to this 
world because neither heaven nor hell wanted me in the next, but I decided not 
to. Joachim had limits.
He was still looking at me, as though in assessment. "You yourself don't seem to 
be taking spiritual issues as seriously as one might expect."
I was glad I had not spoken. "But I am serious," I assured him, which was true. 
"It's just that I'm joyful as well. Isn't someone who's come back from the dead 
allowed to be joyful?"
Joachim took a slow, deep breath. He had leaned his chin on his hand, so I 
couldn't see his mouth, but I could swear from his eyes that he was smiling.
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VI
Gwen came in at that point to get Joachim's breakfast tray, and she gave a 
little jump, as though remembering the last time she had found us together like 
this.
"It's all right, Gwen," I reassured her. "Neither of us is going anywhere." She 
rushed back out, clutching the tray, without a word.
Since we had been interrupted anyway, I stood up to thank Joachim again and to 
go back to my chambers. I was still weak, and my head was beginning to ache 
badly. But I wanted to go to lunch with everyone else todaythe cook had been 
sending very small meals to my room, apparently not realizing that someone who 
has been miraculously restored to life needs to eat a lot, and she hadn't even 
given me any Christmas cookies. A little nap before lunch, I thought, was just 
what I needed.
But as I reached for the handle to my chambers, I felt a hand on my arm and 
turned around to face the duchess. "Can I come in for a moment?'
"Well, my lady, I was just going to lie down"
"I won't keep you a minute," she said, stepping inside before I could protest 
further. I wondered what had become of awe and respect just when I needed them. 
"But I'm about to go home, and I couldn't leave without finding out what really 
happened."
I noticed then that she was dressed for travel, in tall boots and a heavy cloak, 
and as she shut the door behind her I could see the stable boys starting to 
bring out the horses.
"If I leave now, I can celebrate Epiphany comfortably at home," she said. "The 
household here doesn't need any more people underfoot, now that the holidays are 
almost over and you're going to start repairs to the castle. Besides, my own 
staff will be returning
A Bad Spell in Yuht
3O7
from vacation, and I need to be there to explain to my cook why she can't find 
anything in her own kitchen and why she has five hundred pounds of boar that 
need immediate processing."
I stretched out on my bed and she sat beside me. "I gather you suggested to the 
others," I said, "that the demon had decided on its own to come live in our 
cellars. Thank you for doing so; I wouldn't want everybody to start suspecting 
each other of black magic."
' But that's why I had to talk to you," she said. "You told me that someone here 
had summoned a demon, and I've been wild with curiosity the last three days to 
work out who it could be."
I hesitated. Having decided that I would have to do my best from this point on 
to keep my soul pure, I didn't want to start lying. On the other hand, I did not 
want to give away the fact that Lady Maria had heedlessly sold her soul without 
even realizing she was doing so. Repenting of her actions would be painful 
enough to her, without feeling that everyone in the castle knew her for a sinner 
and a fool. I was glad again that Toachin had spoken to her, instead of me.
"I talked to your chaplain right away, of course," she continued, just after 
he'd brought you back from the cellars. I wanted to be sure that he knew someone 
here had been working with a demon. He gave me the strangest lookhe's so dour, 
you can't tell half the time what he's thinking."
I let this slur on Joachim pass without comment.
"All he'd say was that the person who had summoned the demon had done so 
unintentionally, without evil purpose, and that that person's soul was now safe. 
So I've had to work it out for myself. I remembered that King Haimeric first 
became ill within a year of his marriage, about the same time his old chaplain 
died. So my first thought was that the new royal chaplain must have been 
responsible. But then I realized
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that since he'd been able first to heal the king and then bring you back to 
life, he couldn't possibly be in league with the devil."
I was interested to see how the duchess's reasoning had paralleled my own. It 
had taken her much less time than it had taken me, but then she had the 
advantage of knowing from the beginning that there was a demon involved.
"So I started thinking who else it might be, and it didn't take me long to 
realize that it had to be the
queen!"
"No!" I said involuntarily.
The duchess looked at me appraisingly. "Not my cousin, eh? You're certainly 
quick enough to defend her." I wondered how much she guessed of my feelings for 
the queen. "But the problems all started not long after she moved to Yurt. And 
it occurred to me that the demon might not have summoned the dragon all by 
itself, but rather that someone here might have been silly enough to think that 
a dragon would be fun. She's become more level-headed since becoming queen, I'll 
give her that, but she always did do just what she wanted to do."
She paused and looked thoughtfully out the window. Then slowly she started to 
smile, as though seeing something that made everything clear. "Of course! It 
wasn't the queen at all. I should have realized at once! It was the Lady Maria."
I didn't answer, but the duchess took my silence for assent. "Good. I couldn't 
have gone home without knowing. Don't worryI won't say anything to Maria, or to 
anyone else. At least I can be sure, knowing her, that she didn't do it out of 
evil intent. It was only because she didn't know any better!"
The duchess slapped her knees in satisfaction. "Now I'll leave you alone, as 
soon as you tell me one more thing. Did the demon kill you while you were 
fighting
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309
with it, or did you have to offer it your life to save Maria?"
There didn't seem to be any way to get rid of her without answering. "You can't 
fight demons, my lady," I said. "All you can do is negotiate."
She stood up. "Now I really ivill let you rest. It looks like my knights and 
chaplain are ready to go. But if you ever decide you'd rather be ducal wizard 
than stay on here, let me know immediately."
The door slammed behind her as she left, and in a minute I could hear a clatter 
of hooves and farewells being called as the duchess's party left.
But just as I was fluffing my pillows to settle down properly, there was a knock 
at the door.
" Come in," I said wearily. At this point more awe and respect seemed highly 
desirable.
My door opened to admit the Lady Maria.
Except for my white silk shawl, she was dressed entirely in black. I remembered 
now that she had been in black for church service. She was not a naughty 
schoolgirl now, but rather a melancholy and penitent matron, looking back in 
sorrow at a life ill-led. Her golden hair was pulled tight into a severe bun; 
there were quite a few gray hairs at the temples.
But even though I was sure she had enjoyed picking out a suitably repentant 
outfit to wear, there were quite genuine tears at the corners of her eyes. She 
sat down next to my bed, pulling off her black gloves, apparendy unable to speak 
at once. I sat up, rubbing my aching forehead with my knuckles, and waited.
"I wanted," she said at last, a catch in her voice, "I wanted to thank you, and 
I wanted to ask you if you could ever forgive me."
"Certainly I forgive you," I said, speaking very seriously and holding her eyes. 
"I didn t go to deal with the demon either hoping for thanks from anyone or 
feeling die need to forgive anyone. I went because it was my duty as a wizard."
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It sounded horribly self-righteous in my own ears, but it seemed to be what she 
wanted to hear. It was also true. She wiped her eyes with a black-trimmed 
handkerchief and attempted a smile. "Then you and I can still be friends?"
"Of course we can." With any luck I could have her out of here in a few more 
minutes.
But she had much more on her mind. "Then if you're my friend," she said 
intently, "I need you to tell me something. Are they Is everyone Is everyone 
laughing at me?"
' Laughing at you?" She was entirely serious. "Maybe it's just part of the 
penance I need to bear, but I nave to know! Is everybody chuckling behind my 
back at the silly Lady Maria, who didn't even recognize a demon when she 
summoned one, and who happily sold her soul just so she could act girlish for a 
few more years?"
"Certainly not," I said without hesitation. Joachim did indeed seem to have 
explained matters to her most clearly. "The chaplain and I are the only people 
in the castle who know that you summoned the demon, that it didn't just appear 
in Yurt by itself." I told my conscience mat this was, strictly speaking, true; 
the duchess was by now well out of the castle.
"Then you didn't have to tell the king and queen" Dominic, I remembered, had 
known all along that she had summoned the demon originally, even though he had 
not wanted to give her away, and even though he did not realize the demon had 
broken out of the pentagram that he and the old wizard had drawn to imprison it. 
But since he was highly unlikely to say something now, I felt safe in not 
mentioning him. So much for my pure soul!
"I didn't say a word to the king and queen about you. Everyone was just too 
delighted to have the demon sent back to hell to worry very much about how it 
got here in the first place.
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311
The tears appeared at the corners of her blue eyes again. I pretended to be 
looking out my window; I had quite a nice view of much of the courtyard. If the 
Lady Maria had been standing in a doorway, waiting for the duchess to leave 
before she came to talk to me, the duchess would have had no trouble spotting 
her. Perhaps her clever guess had not been as clever as I had thought.
"I tried to explain something to the chaplain," Maria said after a moment, 
bringing out the black-trimmed handkerchief again, "but I think he's too 
high-minded to understand something so foolish, so I'd like to try to tell you 
instead."
Oh, well, I thought. It was too late to become awe-inspiring anyway.
Of course it was silly to want to be young again even I knew that. But it was 
funfun to think about what I might do if I were to be young, even more fun 
actually to find myself growing younger. Of course, Yurt doesn't offer much 
scope, but when the queen and I went to the City I was able to go to the dances 
as a participant, not as a chaperone. I had more fun three winters ago at the 
City balls than I've ever had before or since in my life! And then you came to 
Yurt."
"Of course you, my gallant knight! Not that I had any real intention of making 
you fall in love with me!" she added hastily, as an expression I tried to 
suppress must still have appeared on my face. "I knew wizards never marry, and 
you knew that I was quite a bit older, even though I liked to imagine we looked 
about the same age."
Apparently the gray beard had fooled no one at any time. Maybe I could do better 
now that my beard was coming in white.
"And then, of course, it quickly became clear that
u had given your heart to my niece. But still I"
you
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I interrupted her. "You knew I was in love with the queen? Was it that obvious? 
Does everybody in Yurt
know?"
She looked at me with her head cocked to one side, then a surprising and quite 
genuine smile appeared on her face. ' You're as worriea about everybody laughing 
behind your back as I am!"
"I'm afraid so, my lady," I said ruefully. "But do
they all know?"
She gave a tinkling little laugh. At least I had been able to cheer her up. "No, 
they don't all know. Certainly my niece has no ideashe's never had eyes for 
anyone but Haimeric. And I don't think anyone else has guessed, either. There 
are advantages of being single and forty-eightone has had plenty of practice in 
spotting both romance and unrequited love." I said nothing but felt very 
sheepish. Maria returned to her thread, much more cheerfully. "Even though I 
knew you would never fall in love with me, I truly enjoyed the opportunity of 
having someone to flirt with, and of looldng young enough that my flirtations 
would not simply seem pathetic. I've been in Yurt for four years now, and I 
presume 111 live here for the rest of my life, and I'm not going to get very 
many more opportunities for maidenly
amusements.
"I know it was wrong to deal with a demon, even if I didn't realize then that 
was what I was doing. And I know it was wrong, as the chaplain told me in great 
detail, to want to get extra years rather than being profoundly grateful for 
those years God does give us. Butmaybe you can tell meit's not wrong, is it, 
just to want to have fun sometimes?"
I took both her hands in mine. It was no use referring her back to Joachim on 
this issue. "Maria, I've always been extremely fond of you, ever since I came to 
Yurt, and, no, it's not wrong sometimes to want to have fun."
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313
She smiled rather complacently. "I knew you liked me. I knew you didn't just 
think of me as a silly old woman. Otherwise you wouldn't have let me help with 
your telephones, wouldn't have tried to teach me that hard old Hidden Language, 
wouldn't have given me this beautiful shawl for Christmas, and wouldn't have 
been willing to lay down your life for me."
I kept hold of her hands and looked deeply into her eyes as I spoke. I wanted to 
make sure that she understood exactly what I was saying, that she recognized my 
genuine sympathy while having absolutely no seeds of possible future romance 
planted in her mind.
"You're right that I'm in love with the queen, even though I know perfectly well 
she'll never look at me, and you're right that wizards never marry anyway. But I 
hope that you and I can continue to be good friends over the years. After all, 
I'm going to be living in Yurt too, and I like to have fun sometimes myself?'
"I will try to act more mature and wise," she said thoughtfully. "In fact, I may 
not have to try very hard. Coming this close to losing my soul has made me 
well, think about things I never used to worry about. I think 111 start going to 
chapel every day."
I remembered the demon saying that in two years she would fall into horrible and 
mortal sin. Even in the cellars, it had seemed a probable lie. Sitting in my 
warm room, I wondered how I could have even half believed it.
"If you notice me falling into sin again," she said, "do let me know."
"I will if I notice," I said, sitting back and releasing her hands. "But this 
time I had no inkling, until just a few days ago. I suspected almost everybody 
in the castle at one time or another of working black magic, but I never 
suspected you."
I smiled then and stood up. As I hoped, she stood up too. "Over the months to 
come, some people in
the castle might wonder if you had something to do with the dragon, but no one 
will ever suspect you of evil intent. You're just going to be the mature, wise 
though fun-lovingLady Maria."
I bent to give her cheek a very chaste kiss and opened the door for her. She 
waved with her black-trimmed handkerchief as she hurried away.
I turned back to my room, reaching for my curtain to draw it shut so I could 
take a nap at last, but instead I stood at the window for several minutes, 
looking after her even when she was out of sight.