“Exactly. And that’s why I can’t let you even try to go after the monster by yourself.”
Evrard shivered again and nodded. His desire to impress the duchess seemed greatly diminished. But then he looked at me with his head cocked to one side, his eyes almost back to normal. “I know what I can do,” he said. “Your predecessor had a good idea when he suggested we barricade the cave. I can practice my lifting spells by lifting some rocks to block the opening. Once I have them in place, I’ll put a binding spell on them, so that even a monster won’t be able to push them aside.”
“Good plan,” I told him enthusiastically, though I didn’t think this would work for long, and there might be other exits to the cave. But it would keep him busy and give me a chance to walk and to think. Anything was better than waiting here, either for inspiration-which seemed increasingly unlikely-or for the old wizard to come back.
V
I jumped up abruptly and started down the valley. It was late afternoon, and a soft white mist had begun to rise. It hung over the river and sent long arms out over the water’s grassy verges. As I walked downstream, I went into patches of fog so dense I could barely see ten feet in front of me, and then out again under a clear sky. The limestone formations on the valley walls looked even more like the ruins of old castles than usual.
The old wizard had still not told me why he had made such a creature in the first place, and maybe he didn’t know himself. I wished I could get word to the wizards’ school, but with the creature actually here I didn’t dare leave the valley myself, and even Evrard’s spells would be some help if the monster broke out.
I stopped in the middle of a patch of mist and looked around. I had not paid much attention to how far I had walked, but it was hard to tell distances with no landmarks. The only solid points in a white world were the road under my feet and the rushing river to my right. But where was the old wizard?
I came out of the mist again and saw him, standing under a tree, staring off down the valley. Heavy drops of moisture hung from the leaves above his head. He gave a start as I came up beside him. He looked as old as I had ever seen him, his full two hundred and fifty years, and much too weak ever to kill anybody.
“Did you find all the herbs you needed?” I asked.
“Herbs?” he said, as though coming back from a great distance and not sure what I could mean. Then he looked down at his hands, which were clenched around a wad of drooping plants. “Oh, yes.” He met my eyes briefly and turned away. “We can return now.”
We walked back up the valley without speaking. The fog was growing thicker, so that we would have lost our way if we were not following a clearly marked road. Even the river beside us seemed to be running much more quietly. My predecessor, I thought with a sideways glance at him, might already have lost his way.
When the shape of the trees and clearings was again familiar enough that I knew we were close to the Holy Grove, I tried once more. “Maybe I can help you, Master,” I began tentatively. “You know you’ve taught me a lot of herbal magic. I could help you put the spells together if I knew what you were trying to do. What’s driving your creature now, and how can we slow it down?”
“I already told you,” he said, but without his normal irritated tone, “that it’s the valley itself that’s made it move so fast. As to what’s driving it, I thought even you could recognize magic.”
I kept my temper. “But what kind of magic? What purpose is the creature serving? After all, here in the valley it seized two people within two minutes. Did you make it in order to capture people?”
He looked at me fully for the first time since I had found him on the river bank. “No, that wasn’t my purpose. But it does indeed like to put its hands on people.” He gave a malevolent chuckle and went on more vigorously. “It certainly wanted to lay hold of Prince Dominic. You should have seen them all trying to get away! But of course, outside this valley, it couldn’t run as fast as a horse.”
We had stopped walking and were facing each other. I had always assumed he was taller than I and was surprised when I had to incline my head to meet his eyes. “And has it tried to seize you?”
“Yes. That always was a problem. That’s why, young whipper-snapper, I needed to give it my full attention the time your young wizard friend tried to let it out.”
His magic must have gone even more badly out of control than I had thought if something he had created turned on him. “The great horned rabbits,” I said, “dissolved when I put a binding spell on them, or for that matter when they were shot. Is there any similar way we can dissolve your new creature?”
“You and that magic-worker of the duchess’s can play children’s games with rabbits if you like. This is different.”
As I talked to the old wizard, he seemed almost the same as I had always known him-except marginally more civil. The aging, the loss of control over his own magic, I thought, were temporary, passing events. He would be himself for many more years to come, as long as we were able to catch his monster successfully. I wished I believed it.
“I know that a simple binding spell won’t dissolve your creature,” I tried again, “because I already attempted one without success, but are there other spells that might work?”
“I’m not at all ready to ‘dissolve’ it, as you say. And don’t get any bright ideas about trying to transform it into a fuzzy squirrel either; transformations spells won’t work on a magical creature, as I hope you know. This is the best thing I’ve ever made, far better than those illusions that used to impress the royal court over dessert. I’ve got a spell that will hold it, all right, but it has to be standing still.”
The sweat began again running down my back in spite of the cold mist around us. “Is there something from which you made this creature which might help account for its behavior?”
He turned abruptly. “I always did wonder about those bones.” And he started up the valley again without giving me a chance to answer.
There was no mist around the Holy Grove, but I did not at first see anyone. But then I spotted the youngest of the priests, talking to an apprentice hermit. The other two priests, the old hermit, and Joachim were in prayer at the shrine. I didn’t disturb them but went out of the grove again, following the river upstream. The water seemed much lower than I remembered. I decided to see how Evrard was coming with his lifting spells.
Even at this end of the valley, where the mist did not yet reach, it was rapidly growing dark. The old wizard was outlined against the white of the valley wall, crouching over his herbs. These last two hours, the steep walls had begun to seem the walls of a prison.
I walked toward the mouth of the cave, where I could still see Evrard’s flaming red hair in spite of the shadows.
But then there was a deep and hollow boom, a sharp grating of rock on rock, and a giant burst of water shot out from the cliff, propelling him in front of it.
“Evrard!” I shouted. He managed to find the magic to break his fall and landed on the soft ground near me. “What happened?” I cried. “Are you all right?”
“My plan didn’t work,” he said, dripping wet and in despair. I quickly determined he was more mortified than hurt. “But it seemed like such a good idea!”
“What didn’t work?” I demanded.
“Blocking the cave mouth. It might have kept the monster in, but it also kept the river in. But now I find the river was stronger than my rocks!” He shook his head, sending drops of water flying, and started squeezing water from his clothes. “And I’d just gotten dry from falling in earlier.”
That explained, then, why the river had seemed so low and quiet the last hour. Obviously if Evrard tried to fill the entire cave mouth with boulders, the force of the river would push them aside. Even a former city boy like me knew something about the power of running water. I was about to try to explain it to him when I saw my predecessor approaching.