“Then you’d better go out with the others,” she said with a smile, “before they all start wondering just how ‘special’ a guest I am!”
But she kissed me before I left. As I went back down the stairs, I realized that in her own way she was as little concerned about public opinion as Joachim. She would always do exactly what she wanted, rather than what she thought others would want her to do, but as a single woman, one without any authority whatsoever, she had to avoid attracting attention to herself that might keep her from her privacy or what she had been intending.
One of the servants found me as I came back out into the courtyard. “There’s a phone call for you from the City.”
My heart pounded rapidly as I picked up the receiver and looked at the face of one of the young wizards of the school. “Zahlfast said that you’d asked us to call you if there was any unusual activity up in the land of magic,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I should call you, since nothing came of it, but then I decided I’d better.”
“What is it?” I asked impatiently. The wizard who had summoned a gorgos to the cathedral city would not be casting spells from which nothing came.
“We had a call about an hour ago from the wizard who’s posted up at the borderlands. He said a very small dragon had suddenly started south, but he was able to fly down and get ahead of it and put a magical barrier in front of it. When it bounced off his barrier, the dragon turned around and went straight back. I wouldn’t have bothered you for such a trivial event, but Zahlfast told me you’d been very insistent.”
I thought rapidly. “Do you know if the school ever got that telephone fixed?”
“The telephone? You mean the one up in the borderlands? I didn’t think it was ever broken.”
I took a deep and ragged breath. “Is Zahlfast there?”
“No, I think he went out to dinner. Shall I have him call you?”
I hesitated a moment, then shook my head. When I had spoken with Zahlfast the day before, he had seemed miffed that I was still worrying myself over what he considered the Church’s problems. I was not going to get any help from him. “Just tell him that phone is broken.” I rang off. I didn’t need any more phone calls to tell me what would happen.
They had put Joachim in his old room off the chapel. He looked up soberly as I came in. “A monster from the land of magic is heading toward Yurt,” I said without preamble.
“How close is it?” he asked quietly.
“Not close, not yet,” I said, sitting down. “But if it hasn’t left yet, it will be doing so shortly.” I told him quickly about the strange problem with the wizard’s telephone in the northern mountains, the phone which could make only one call a day.
“I should have realized then that it had been deliberately broken,” I said. “And I should have insisted that it be fixed. Someone summoned a dragon earlier today, but without using a particularly powerful spell. The wizard up there turned it back, but because he then called the wizards’ school to tell them about it, he won’t be able to make any other calls for another twenty-four hours. In that time, anything else could-and surely will-come over the border, without his being able to give warning.”
“How long will it take the monster to reach us?”
I noticed that Joachim was gripping his crucifix. “That’s not going to be very useful,” I said. “I know I’ve explained this to you before: the forces of wild magic are not the powers of darkness.”
“And I have explained to you before,” he said with a lift of one eyebrow, “that there is plenty of evil in the world that is not embodied in demons.”
He was right, of course, but this seemed to me a situation where magic was going to have to be opposed by magic. “It’s at least three thousand miles up to the edge of the land of magic,” I said. “It took us a week in the air cart, although I’m sure a monster could fly far faster than that. I presume it will reach here sometime tomorrow.”
“If it indeed is heading for Yurt,” said Joachim, and I knew he was thinking of his cathedral.
“You’ve left your church well protected. Besides the king of Caelrhon and various knights, you’ve got Vor and his workmen.”
“We’re even better protected here,” said Joachim. “You’re an excellent wizard.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was wrong.
“Well,” I said, “we’d been guessing something like this would happen. Maybe we should just be glad we were right. Do you think we should have them cancel Paul’s coming of age ceremonies?”
Joachim shook his head. “Your renegade wizard seems to have excellent information on what’s happening in Yurt and Caelrhon. If we hide, he will too. We have to get him out into the open.”
I stood up. “I’m going back to my room to work on my spells. If you’re working on your prayers this evening, pray for me.”
III
The castle was up at dawn on a beautiful late summer day. I had only dozed fitfully after finally putting away my books. I walked out over the drawbridge for a look at the northern sky.
The grass was damp with drops of dew glinting in the rising sun. Bird songs reached me from the meadows and the woods below the hill. The knights’ tents were still quiet, but I saw smoke starting to rise from the Romneys’ camp. The clear sky was absolutely empty, and the fresh air seemed to promise a morning in which nothing evil could possibly happen.
When I walked back inside a few minutes later, the courtyard had already filled with lords and ladies, dressed in their best finery and talking excitedly. The frantic preparations the constable and his men had been making the last few days seemed to pay off. Soon we all found ourselves eased unobtrusively into rows according to our stations. Gwennie, the constable’s daughter, grown-up and formal in blue and white starched livery, helped arrange us.
I caught Theodora’s eye and smiled. Regal in lilac silk, she was attracting both curious and admiring glances.
A clear passage was left down the center of the courtyard. Talking died away as two men came out from the great hall, unrolling a long red carpet. They stretched it out through the gates and over the drawbridge, then onto the hilltop beyond. The castle’s brass choir began to play, clear, bright notes, a song of triumph and joy.
And then Paul appeared. He had come down the narrow stairs from the chapel and through the great hall and now, following the red carpet, he stepped into the courtyard. He wore blue and white velvet and had a white velvet cap on his golden hair. He looked straight ahead as he walked. The brass choir continued to play, but the only other sound was the clinking of the silver spurs on his heels.
As he walked out through the gates, the rest of us moved forward to follow. A clear space had been left on the hilltop, between the drawbridge and the knights’ tents. Here the constable’s men had brought the throne from the great hall. Paul stood beside it, leaning on the arm, looking toward all of us and not quite seeing us.
We wizards do not have public ceremonies, coronations or enthronements, celebrations of critical turning points in one’s life. When our lives changed, as mine irrevocably had, it was due to more private events.
The last notes of the processional faded away, then the members of the brass choir hurried to join the rest of us in a respectful semi-circle around Paul and the queen. The greatest lords, including the royal family of Caelrhon, were at the front, with the rest of the guests and the royal staff behind them. The Romneys, I noticed, were standing in front of their caravans a little way down the hill, watching attentively.
“My people!” said the queen. Her voice and the calls of birds were the only sounds. Even the Romney children, clustered around their parents, were wide-eyed and silent. “For six years I have served as regent of Yurt. It is now time to turn that rule over to your new king. Prince Paul, my son and the son of your late King Haimeric, is eighteen today. Today he comes of age, and today he shall be king!”