In the field below the castle’s hill the first event began, a horse race. I noted that Paul had had the good taste not to participate; Bonfire could easily have outrun any horse there.
“I’ve just talked to Prince Vincent. I’d believed all summer that he and a renegade wizard were planning a joint attack, but I realize now that this belief wasn’t the product of wizardly insights, only of jealousy. Everything I saw as signs of a despicable plot-the way he and the queen behaved toward each other, the fact that Yurt and Caelrhon were once one kingdom, even Vincent’s gift of a stallion to Paul-had a simpler and more innocent explanation. All my suspicions were so incomprehensible to Vincent that he decided I must in fact fear he would turn the young king against me. He forgave me. But while I’ve been wasting my time worrying about an attack on the queen and on Paul, the wizard may be doing something horrible down in the City.”
I told him about the mass exodus of the teachers from the school. Joachim nodded slowly. “But these lizards show he’s not ignoring Yurt,” he said. “He may be attacking on two fronts.”
The wind cut silver paths through the long grass on the castle’s hill and the fields below. The area of the tournament was already becoming trampled and muddy.
“But where is he?” I burst out. “Is this all? If he’s here, what will he do next?”
The knights in the tournament lists were now preparing for the tests of skill; mounted men would gallop at top speed toward a ring dangling from a thread and try to thrust their lances through it.
“Theodora’s looking for him,” I added, then stopped, realizing that I couldn’t tell him more without revealing that she was a witch.
“I was glad to have a chance to talk to her yesterday while we were riding,” said Joachim. “At first she seemed shy of me, almost awe-struck. I had hoped that if I became bishop I could make people realize that bishops are not like princes, men of authority and command. Rather, we are shepherds, sinners ourselves but chosen by God to help and guide other sinners. But I’ve been bishop for over a week, and I’m still being treated as a lord of men.”
This was much too complicated to try to explain to him now. Shouts from the base of the hill showed that one of the riders was doing very well; it appeared to be Vincent.
“Theodora reminds me somewhat of you,” Joachim continued, “especially you twenty years ago, when I first knew you. You both have the same sense of humor, where it’s often difficult to tell if you’re making a joke or not.” Normally I would have been afire with curiosity to know if they had talked about me, and what they had said, but now I was too worried to care.
“What’s my priest doing?” said Joachim in quite a different tone. I looked down toward some of the spectators milling around at the edge of the lists. The young priest who had come with the bishop was in the middle of a crowd of Romneys. I didn’t know what it looked like to Joachim, but to me it looked like he was placing a bet.
“Maybe I should go down there for a little while anyway,” said the bishop. “I cannot approve of battles, even mock battles, but I do not want to appear to be avoiding the festivities deliberately.” He brushed himself off and walked quickly down the hill.
I watched him go, feeling increasingly uneasy about Theodora. But then I saw a dark lilac dress approaching rapidly from the direction of the deserted Romney caravans. At the same time a servant in Yurt’s blue and white livery shot out of the castle and over the bridge. He was running and reached me before she did.
“Come right away!” he cried. “It’s a telephone call from-from someone named Zahlfast! He said he must talk to you at once, about the safety of the wizards’ school!”
“Theodora!” I shouted to her, jumping up. “Stay here and watch these lizards!”
“Wait! I have to tell you-”
“Tell me when I get back.” I flew straight up and over the castle wall, the quicker to reach the telephone.
PART NINE — RENEGADE
I
Zahlfast’s face looked as haggard as I had ever seen it, and he breathed hard. He stared at me blindly; he must be calling from a telephone without a far-seeing attachment.
“Thank you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you we got the warning in time.”
“What warning?” I appreciated the thanks but I had no idea what he was talking about.
“When I got back to the school from dinner last evening, the young wizard relayed your message that the phone in the watch-station up in the borderlands was broken. That fool hadn’t told us, of course,” meaning good old Book-Leech. “Instead he thought he’d try to fix it himself, though he’s not competent to do so.”
Zahlfast paused, then continued in something closer to his normal school-teacher tone. “Maybe we should make a series of courses in technical magic a required part of the curriculum, rather than an elective option. Because I’ve never found that kind of magic congenial myself, I’m afraid I haven’t pushed for it, but in modern times all young wizards really should know modern magic.”
“But what’s happened?” I demanded. “Where are you?”
“I’m not sure. We’re in the royal castle of-” Someone behind him provided a name. “I think we’re about a thousand miles north of the City.”
“You and all the teachers?”
“Just three of us are here; the rest are spread out over hundreds of miles. It didn’t take us long, once we’d heard that something was wrong with the phone at the watch-station, to guess that the weak attempt of a very small dragon to fly south was a feint and that something much worse would soon follow. So we tried to telephone to the watch-station at once-and got through. We could always phone him, which was why we hadn’t realized there was a problem.”
Zahlfast wiped the sweat off his brow. I almost danced with impatience. “As I’m sure you already guessed,” he went on, “a whole horde of dragons had just flown up over the mountains and started south. Maybe a hundred of them.”
I froze in horror. This was even worse than I expected. “Were they heading for Yurt?”
“No. They were heading for the City.”
“And that’s why all the teachers went.”
“The dragons scattered when they met us,” Zahlfast continued. “One did come close to Yurt-it was finally killed a quarter mile from the cathedral city of Caelrhon.”
Then those waiting to protect Joachim’s cathedral from danger had seen something worth waiting for. I paused. “All of you overcame them all, I assume?”
“Well, yes,” said Zahlfast, with a flicker of a smile. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to you. Thank you again.”
“Wait, before you hang up! I have to ask you something. This spring when I left the school, you gave me a warning. You said that priests hated and feared the wizards and sought to destroy them. I know we’ve never gotten along well with the Church, but this was different. You were trying to keep me out of the affairs of the cathedral of Caelrhon. You have to tell me: had Sengrim, the royal wizard of Caelrhon, given you that warning before he died?”
“Yes, he did,” said Zahlfast in surprise.
“He must have had an apprentice,” I said grimly, “someone none of us even knew existed. Find him. He might be here in Yurt, or he could be anywhere. He’s the one who disabled the telephone, and he’s the one who summoned the dragons.”
For one of the few times since I’d known him, Zahlfast looked shocked. I hung up and ran back outside. Even if the hundred dragons had not been successful in destroying Yurt or the school-or both-they had effectively kept me from having any help here from another wizard for at least another day.