But once I calmed down a little I realized that transporting Norbert up to the top of the new tower and dropping him off would not help the dean. Joachim, I was afraid, would be sorrowful but forgiving when I told him about this. I somehow had to find a way to reveal Norbert’s plot in a way that would discredit him so thoroughly that he would not try something similar again, but I would have to do so without warning Joachim ahead of time.
Norbert’s plan was fairly clear. He had brought the book here, with the marker carefully in place, and threatened Joachim’s servant with revelation of his old shame if he even mentioned the cantor’s visit. He intended to “accidentally” discover it that evening, in the presence of all the cathedral officers, thus casting the dean under so much suspicion regarding the old bishop’s illness that he would no longer be a viable candidate for bishop himself. Even if Joachim convincingly denied all knowledge of the book, the suspicion would fall on me, and hence reflect very poorly on the dean who should have known better than to harbor a wizard who had probably already brought a bat-winged monster to attack the new cathedral.
Should I, I wondered, weighing the worn magic volume in my hand, suspect Norbert himself of calling the monster? But it was hard to imagine someone who had resorted to a rather petty if despicable trick like this of being behind something so spectacular as having a creature five times the size of a man land on the tower.
On the other hand, where had he gotten the magic book?
I examined it again. Nothing about it gave any clue. It must long predate the school and its cleanly-printed books on magic. Unless I was going to assume that Norbert himself, a cathedral priest for decades, kept a collection of arcane tomes, he must have gotten it somewhere on purpose to discredit Joachim. Perhaps he had been able to overcome his aversion to wizardry enough to find and deal with a wizard-but who? And could it be the same one who had been behind the monster, the one I still couldn’t find?
Suddenly I smiled. Joachim, if I told him about it, would have called it totally inappropriate, but I had a plan.
I lurked, invisible, while the cathedral officers assembled that evening. I had started to think that Joachim was growing old, but compared to the rest of them he was positively youthful. Most had white hair and faces that had started to sag around the jawbones, but they all seemed conscientious, polite, and genuinely concerned about the welfare of the diocese. They did not go into the study as I expected but instead passed into the dining room, with a rustle of vestments and a faint scent of incense and talcum.
While they ate dinner I retreated into my own room to take a break from invisibility-always a difficult spell to maintain. Besides, I really didn’t want to hear all the details of diocese management. An hour passed. Listening to the distant clinking of plates and silver, I started growing hungry enough to wonder if I could slip out to an inn for a bite and be back before anything happened.
But then I heard the scraping of chairs and the sound of feet moving toward the study. I quickly wrapped myself in a spell of invisibility and took the old magic book out of the bottom of the box where I had hidden it under my own books. Silently I slipped out into the hall, sliding the book above me along the high ceiling.
“You certainly have a good theology collection, Joachim,” I heard Norbert’s voice. “I might like to borrow some of your books sometime.”
I stopped outside the study door, afraid of having one of the cathedral officers bump into me, but peeked around the edge as I continued the book’s progress into the room. No one looked up to see it.
Norbert bent toward the bottom shelf of the wide bookcase. “Now this work, for example-I haven’t seen it since seminary!” His voice was just a little too loud and his manner nervous; he was clearly unused to plotting and deception. For a second I even allowed myself to feel sorry for someone so desperate as to resort to plots he would have denounced if presented to him in the abstract. This went far beyond jealousy of the dean-he must be genuinely worried about the church’s welfare. “Let me see,” he continued, pulling out a large theological volume. “But wait! Joachim! What’s this I see behind it?”
Joachim politely bent to look. “There is nothing behind it.”
“Of course there- Don’t tell me he-” Norbert dropped to his knees to look for himself. The other priests glanced at each other in surprise.
The cantor, bent over with his face thrust into Joachim’s innocuous theology collection, presented much too tempting a target for me to resist. I dropped his magic book from the ceiling and hit him square on the fundament.
He jerked, banging his head on the shelf, and spun around. “Here it is!” he cried, picking it up. “Joachim! I am deeply shocked!”
The priests all looked at each other again. “Where did that book come from?” several asked in surprise, and “The dean didn’t do it,” added several others.
“But look what he has on his shelves!” Norbert cried, vicious and triumphant, pushing himself to his feet and opening the volume. “Joachim, you know I don’t shock easily, but I am deeply disappointed! It’s- Why, look!” holding up the title page to show the others. “It’s a book of magic!” He leafed through. “And here, marked with his own marker-” He stopped, unable to find the poison spell because I had taken the marker out.
There was a short silence. Norbert seemed to realize that this wasn’t coming out quite the way he intended. One of the priests, the one I thought was the chancellor, asked quietly, “Why did you think the dean had such a book in his study, Norbert? And how did you know even before you opened it that it was a book of magic?”
The cantor looked around desperately. “That servant of yours-” he tried.
“I hope,” said Joachim mildly, “that you did not bring this book in here earlier and threaten my servant with exposure of what he still believes is a secret, to keep him from informing me of your visit.”
In the subsequent uproar everyone seemed to forget the magic book’s abrupt arrival on the scene, except for Joachim, who looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. I slipped back to my room as Norbert, apparently deciding that at this point full confession would work better than denial, threw himself at the dean’s feet, quite real tears running down his cheeks.
This I didn’t need to see. I quietly opened my casement window, stepped out into the air, and flew off, still invisible, in search of supper.
IV
Even with a magnifying glass, it was hard to read the inscription in Theodora’s ring by candle light. I tipped the ring back and forth and wished for one of the excellent magic lamps from Yurt.
“It’s a spell, certainly,” I told Theodora. We sat by her hearth, where she had been trying to teach me the spell for a cloak of fire.
“It’s really very easy,” she had said. “Make yourself a net of anything that will burn quickly-dry grass works very well. Then ignite it while simultaneously saying the spell against being burnt.” We practiced while sitting almost all the way into the fireplace. She had moved her piles of cloth well away to keep them from sparks.
“My hands do all right,” I said. “You know you used to scold me about drawing them back, but I hope you notice how much better I’ve become. But my head still worries; my hair and beard know they’re going to catch fire at any second.”
This she found hilarious, and by the time she recovered her breath I decided I had had enough for today of trying to establish the same sort of authority over my body that she seemed to have without the slightest effort over hers. These recent weeks felt to me like something flaring and flashing just barely within my control, but so far-I hoped-I had avoided being scorched.
Even though Theodora’s magic and mine were so different, I felt a companionship with her that I had never felt with anyone else. Now that I had admitted to myself that I was in love with her, I kept wondering what would happen next. I found it difficult to imagine being back either in Yurt or at the wizards’ school with Theodora at my side. But it was equally difficult to imagine being anywhere without her.