There was no question. My predecessor’s monster had gone this way.
“He’s back in the cave,” I said as the old wizard and Evrard came out of the trees. Let them chase it now. I flew back down the valley to make sure the duchess really was all right.
She had pushed Dominic away and was sucking a barked knuckle. “I would have been able to rescue myself, without help from anyone,” she said angrily, “if it hadn’t put some sort of spell on me.” As Diana was usually a rational person, I knew that this boast was a sign of how really frightened she had been.
So far we had been enormously fortunate. The creature had let both the apprentice hermit and the duchess go without killing them, or even badly wounding them. Next time we might not be so lucky. Had it deliberately chosen these two out of all of us in the valley, or would it seize randomly at different people-and maybe, or maybe not, let them go again-until it found some specific one it sought?
Nimrod-or rather Prince Ascelin-actually was in worse condition than the duchess. The priests and the knights had all come up, and he sat in the middle of an attentive circle, picking grit out of a bloody knee. There were several marks of canine teeth in his lower legs. “None of those dogs had better be rabid,” he said in irritation. “Don’t you knights of Yurt train them better than to bite the person they’re supposed to help?”
“But that’s exactly what we do train them to do!” put in young Hugo with a wink.
The dogs now sat happily panting, not at all repentant. Diana was sitting beyond Nimrod, and I was surprised to intercept an amused glance she aimed toward his hunched shoulders.
The apprentice hermit whom the creature had originally seized did not look physically damaged as a result of his adventure, but he sat a little apart from the others, his knees up to his chin and his eyes enormous. The youngest of the three priests unbent far enough to go sit beside him and say things which I hoped were reassuring.
For a brief moment, like the pause between two claps of thunder, peace had returned to the valley. “I always forget a wizard can fly,” said one of the knights to me in what I hoped was admiration. In times of peace, which was now most of the time, Royal Wizards might do little more than illusions for months at a time. I didn’t point out that flying had so far been useless against an undead monster running across the ground.
“I’m impressed you were able to get the better of the monster,” I said to Nimrod, “even if only for a moment.”
“I never did have the better of it. Wrestling it was like trying to wrestle a boulder! All I could do was throw it off balance for a second. Did you have any better luck with magic? Where is it now?”
“It’s crawled back into the cave where the river comes out.” He looked up briefly and nodded. “My predecessor and the ducal wizard are pursuing it.” But the pursuers appeared a few minutes later, dripping wet and without a monster.
The old wizard took me aside, wringing out the hem of his cloak as he spoke. “It’s far back in there now. We’d better get all these people out of the valley, and then you and I can go in and get it.”
His voice was quiet, and he kept his eyes lowered. I was surprised and gratified he wanted my help, considering his usual opinion of my abilities. But I wondered how he could speak so calmly of catching a monster we had just pursued entirely unsuccessfully around the head of the valley. And then he looked up sharply, and for one second I thought I saw a glimmer in his eye as twisted as the glimpse I had had before of his mind.
IV
I was afraid that Dominic or Nimrod or both would insist on leading the hunt for the monster, but they both seemed eager to escort Diana back to her castle, and her own normal enthusiasm for hunting was greatly diminished.
Joachim and the priests, however, were still determined to stay in the valley. And although I tried suggesting to the hermit that he might want to leave, it was clear that even the dragon that had eaten Saint Eusebius would not budge him or the apprentice hermits.
“We came to assess the will of the saint, and to remove his sanctified relics to a safer place, if necessary,” said the thin priest. “What we have witnessed today may make our task even more needful. Those who fear the righteous wrath of God do not fear the terror by night, or the destruction that wasteth at noonday.”
My predecessor gave a snort and stamped off to watch the entrance to the cave, and the hermit and his apprentices retreated to the shrine. Evrard and I unsaddled our mares again as the others rode up the steep road out of the valley. Dominic seemed badly shaken. I wasn’t even sure if he would insist, now, on the duchess marrying him immediately.
But I didn’t have time to worry about that. The spells of three wizards had so far proved useless in catching the monster. Only brute force, Prince Ascelin’s size and strength, had had any effect at all, and even that had been pitifully slight. I had known all along that catching the creature would be difficult. Now I was faced with the very real possibility that, even with the old wizard’s help, it might be impossible.
For the sake of the priests’ safety, I wished they had gone too, but I was almost ashamedly glad that Joachim was staying. I needed all the support I could get; I felt that I would even welcome a discussion of sinful mortals or of complex moral dilemmas.
“You must be very grateful to have another young wizard here to help you,” said Joachim. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how wrong he was.
The knights, their horses, and the monster had torn up the ground both above and below the waterfall and had broken branches from trees at the edge of the grove. I had just turned away from watching the duchess’s party disappear when a branch creaked and dipped just above me. The wood nymph sprang lightly down, with a swirl of long soft hair, and began to attend to the broken branches.
The priests stared. They had clearly not expected to see a dusky-skinned girl dressed in nothing but leaves in their saint’s grove. Evrard started to speak, but I motioned him to silence.
Not even seeming to notice us, the nymph worked quickly and efficiently on the broken branches. Although I could not see quite how she did it, and she certainly had no pruning shears, she trimmed off dangling twigs quickly and evenly, passed her hand over the wounds so that they stopped dripping sap, and whistled to the birds until they came down from the tree tops and perched again near her. She was in constant motion, moving from branch to branch, springing lightly to higher ones with a flash of graceful legs, dropping to lower ones with no more than a dip and a swish of leaves.
Her violet eyes passed across us as though we were no more substantial than a bit of mist. But as she leaped up to a high branch, seemingly finished repairing the damage to her trees, she suddenly stopped. Her face changed as I had seen it change the first time she had heard my spell, but neither Evrard nor I had said any spells.
And she was not looking at us. She was looking at Joachim.
She swung down again, and hung by one hand from a branch so that her face was at the same level as his. “Are you a hermit?” she asked with a delighted smile.
The three priests of Saint Eusebius seemed shocked beyond the ability to speak, but Joachim answered her calmly. “No, I am a priest. But like a hermit, I serve the will of God.”
She dropped to the ground and looked at him as though puzzled. The rest of us might as well have not been there. “Are you a wizard?”
“No,” said the chaplain. For one second, he caught my eye over her head. “Wizards work with the earth’s natural powers, but I deal with the supernatural.”
The wood nymph thought this over. Evrard frowned at me, and I wondered if he was jealous.