The room was, if possible, an even greater mess than when I had seen it last. I looked around quickly, hoping wildly there might be something here to help. Most of the old wizard’s books were dusty and appeared long-unopened, but a massive register was propped up on the table, ready if he ever came back. I glanced at the page to which it was open, then began to read. Here was the spell, written out in the old wizard’s spidery hand, that had created his creature from dead bones. In the first three lines were two mentions of herbs of which I’d never heard.
I flipped forward. The spell went on for fifteen pages.
A wordless roar sent me diving for the window, which turned out to be locked. But the creature did not come in. In a moment, I looked cautiously out the door.
It was in the clearing in front of the cottage, circling below Evrard and ignoring me, at least for the moment. Evrard remained twenty feet off the ground, concentrating on holding himself up. “Keep it looking at you,” I said quickly, “but don’t do anything to excite it. If you can hold its attention for another two minutes, I’ll try to find the herbs for the spell to bind it.” I shot behind the old wizard’s cottage.
My predecessor had always had an herb garden where he grew the most common magical herbs. I had thought I knew it well, but this summer over half the garden was given to a low, leafy plant I never remembered seeing here before. I plucked one, looked at it closely, and probed it with magic. This was the same herb the old wizard had found in the valley.
I flew back to Evrard and the monster, my fingers already starting to glow blue. “I’m going to try to put a special binding spell on it, but this will only work if the creature is absolutely still. Let’s go over to the tree.” Trying to fly and cast a complicated spell at the same time was too much for me. We flew to the enormous oak tree that sheltered the old wizard’s cottage.
Evrard collapsed against the trunk, the sweat running down his face. In spite of my own greater practice in flying, I was not in much better shape. I wondered uneasily how well the monster could climb.
At least at first, it seemed content to circle the tree, appearing and disappearing from our sight. Its search for life had not been blunted by killing the old wizard. I hoped the cat had had the sense to hide.
I started trying to put the wizard’s binding spell together, though if the monster kept on moving it wasn’t going to do much good. In the cave, I had been able to bind it only with the old wizard’s help. I realized that I should have taught Evrard the spell immediately. Once again I had failed, this time in being too caught up the last two days in my own exhaustion and sorrow and sense of responsibility. I had neglected to look for help from someone who was, at least potentially, a perfectly competent young wizard and had, after all, once made a man-like creature himself. “Stop moving!” I muttered in the monster’s direction. “Otherwise I’ll never be able to bind you.”
In a moment, Evrard had caught his breath enough to sit up again. He turned to face me, his jaw set. “Well, Daimbert, I guess this is my problem, and there are two ways to solve it.
“My calling spell has made it interested only in me. You said it was searching for life, and the life it wants is mine. Either I can leave Yurt, which would make it follow me-” I started to speak but he didn’t give me a chance. “-or I can go down to meet it. While it does to me whatever it wants to do, you can try your binding spell.”
IV
“Good God, Evrard,” I cried, “you can’t be serious! You certainly can’t spend the rest of your life flying around the western kingdoms with it on your tail, but there must be a solution short of letting it kill you!”
“Such as?”
“If it would just stand still for a minute, I’d try this binding spell. It did work before.”
Evrard looked at me from behind lowered eyelids. “I’ve got another idea. How about if I try dropping things on it? I know I can’t kill it that way, but with a boulder lying across it, it might be more susceptible to your binding spell.”
“Good idea,” I said, taking him by the shoulders to look at him and urgently hoping he had not been serious a moment before.
“As soon as I finish catching my breath, I’ll go collect some rocks. The monster can’t be stronger than a river, and I was able to block a river’s course, even if only for a little while.”
In a minute, Evrard flew off toward the stream, and soon he was back, carrying a good-sized stone with magic. He dropped it in the middle of the clearing and went back cheerfully for another. The monster poked at the stone with its hand, then hurried after him. It pushed straight and unhesitatingly through the dense brush.
In fifteen minutes, while I desperately worked on spells, Evrard had accumulated a fairly good pile. Twice he stopped on the oak’s wide branch to rest, and all the time the monster prowled back and forth, following him from below. I did not trust its intent expression.
It was some of the hardest magic I had ever done. Not only was the spell itself fiendishly difficult, but I constantly had to hold steady the part I had already completed. A spell I had worked very quickly with the old wizard now appeared interminable when I tried it alone.
Evrard’s voice suddenly cut through the words of the Hidden Language. “Do you think this is enough rocks?”
I came back abruptly to myself, realized that it was probably very foolish to try such a complicated spell balanced on a tree branch, and shouted, “Let’s try it!”
Evrard, still hovering, took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and began lifting his rocks with magic.
I couldn’t help him and still keep the binding spell ready, and he could only manage one rock at a time while flying, but very rapidly he started lifting and dropping rocks on the monster’s upturned face.
The first few missed, and as the next bounced from its shoulder the monster began to run in circles. But then Evrard got into the rhythm, saying the words of the Hidden Language so rapidly that the spell was almost self-sustaining, and two lucky shots in a row knocked the monster off its feet. With a whoop of triumph, Evrard piled another dozen rocks on top if it, so that, at least momentarily, it lay still.
My turn now. This spell was too difficult to do while flying or even sitting in a tree. I came down to the ground, ignoring Evrard’s warning shouts, and threw the binding spell at the monster.
The loops of the spell caught and held. Crushed by stone and held by the old wizard’s magic, it lay looking at me with unblinking eyes.
Evrard’s feet hit the ground beside me. “So is that it? We’ve done it? We’ve done it!”
“It’s still very much alive,” I said, “and if we aren’t careful it-”
But I couldn’t speak and work magic at the same time. And the monster’s arm was starting to twitch, pushing upward again the stones that imprisoned it.
I threw another loop of the binding spell around it, and again it lay still. But it was no longer looking at Evrard. It was looking at me.
We darted back up into the oak. We had a second to catch our breaths, but a very precarious second. Even the old wizard, who had created this binding spell in the first place, hadn’t been able to keep his creature pinned down for long. I wiped my forehead with an arm. “We have to find a way to destroy it before it breaks free.”
“Can you teach me the binding spell?” asked Evrard eagerly.
“I’ll teach you the magic to keep it going.” The monster twitched again, and again I renewed the binding loops. “There, did you see what I did?” I pushed drooping bits of plant into his hand. “Just keep saying that spell.”
“Let’s hear it again.”
After hearing it once more, and after one abortive attempt of his own in which both of the monster’s arms threatened to break out, Evrard knew enough of the spell to strengthen it whenever it started to weaken, which seemed to be constantly.