“You mean there’s been black magic worked on the king’s soup?”
“No, that’s not what I mean, as you’d know if you listened properly! I meant that there’s a supernatural presence in the castle. It might have nothing to do with the soup in particular, but in the right circumstances it might be detectable in food. No one need have put any potions in the soup for it to respond to that spell.”
“Dominic said that he thought an evil spell had been cast on the king,” I said. “Did he ever mention it to you, Master? Might this be the supernatural presence?”
“I don’t know what Dominic’s been telling you,” said the old wizard, sitting down again. “There certainly weren’t any supernatural presences in the castle when I was Royal Wizard.”
“Then I’d better see if I can find the source,” I said and flew back up the valley without even a proper farewell.
As soon as I left the wizard’s valley, the rain started again. I was furious with myself as I realized that, if he could create an island of good weather, I ought to have been able to do the same for the king. And the thought kept on nagging that the green of the chicken soup really was the same color as the queen’s eyes.
I had never flown so fast for so far before, and the concentration required left me no attention for a spell against the rain. I was wet through when I dropped to the ground outside the rose garden.
Gwen, standing under an umbrella, met me by the gate. “The cook finished the new soup, sir,” she said eagerly, “and the spell didn’t affect it at all. The queen’s giving him some now.”
“Good,” I said, though I feared it would take more at this point than the cook’s excellent chicken soup to heal the king. Hoping that drier weather might also help, I set to work at once on a weather spell.
But I realized immediately that I didn’t know the spell against slow and steady rain. The spells I had prepared during the harvest were all against sudden storm. I could go back to my chambers and try to work it out, but I felt a desperate sense of urgency and decided to improvise. If I could turn this rain into a thunderstorm, I could then dissipate it quickly.
“You’d better go inside, my dear,” I said to Gwen, as she stood, hesitating, beside me. “Don’t get any wetter.”
She went back into the castle, and it was just as well, because my first attempt to transform the rain into a real storm was so successful that a lightning bolt struck with a blazing flash and an acrid smell within ten feet of me, nearly taking off my eyelashes.
Peal after peal of thunder rolled around my head, and the air was blinding with repeated lightning flashes. I looked up and saw bolts of lightning dancing from turret to turret, hitting every tower in the castle and the spire on top of the chapel. I seemed to have created what must have been the worst thunderstorm in Yurt in a hundred years. My only hope was to make sure it was also the shortest. Setting my teeth grimly, I proceeded with the spells against thunderstorms, and abruptly the sky was clear. Both the thunder and the clouds rolled back, leaving a square mile of sunshine smiling down on the castle and the rose garden.
I checked my forehead to be sure I still had my eyebrows. Startled faces were looking at me over the garden gate, but I turned without saying anything and crossed the bridge into the castle. Since I had not in fact actually killed anyone with my lightning, it hardly seemed worth discussing the event at the moment.
As I crossed the courtyard, shivering in my wet clothes, I started toward my chambers to change, but decided instead to look for Joachim. I had been very rude to him and should probably show Christian tact by apologizing. He had been rude to me as well, but he had had more cause.
I hadn’t seen him in the rose garden, but I hadn’t actually gone into the garden. To save time, I probed with my mind to see where he might be in the castle. I couldn’t find him.
Feeling uneasy, I started searching. It should be fairly straightforward for a wizard to touch the mind of someone he knows, as long as that person is not too far away. I went up to the chaplain’s room, but it stood empty. I wandered around the castle aimlessly for a few minutes, not quite ready to go back out to the garden and face the inevitable questions about the thunderstorm, then realized I had not looked in the obvious place, the chapel.
I went up the stairs without the heart to turn on the lights, keeping my head low. So far I had been able to remove the king, at least temporarily, from whatever supernatural influence in the castle was harming him, and had been able to change the weather so he shouldn’t get very damp out in his rose garden, but in my bones I feared it was too late.
Candles were burning on the chapel altar. A figure in black and white linen was stretched on his face on the floor in front of the altar, arms outstretched. I started to step forward, started to cry out, terrified that now Joachim had been struck dead-perhaps by lightning.
I stopped myself in time. He was praying. No wonder, I thought, I hadn’t been able to touch his mind. Magic is, as I kept telling people, a natural force, and he was in company with the saints.
He was totally still, except for the slight rising and falling of his shoulders as he breathed. I tiptoed back out, though I doubted that even my thunderstorm had disturbed him.
I returned slowly to my rooms, physically and mentally exhausted, from flying, from working spells, and from fear for the king. I changed my clothes, intending to go back out to the rose garden to see if I could be of any assistance, but first I stretched out on my bed, just for a moment.
The next thing I knew, I woke up, ravenously hungry, confused at finding myself fully clothed. My magic lamps, which I turned on yesterday afternoon, were still burning, though natural daylight made them seem pale. The angle of the sunlight through my window showed it was long after Gwen usually brought my breakfast.
I swung my feet to the floor, then remembered. If no one had come, then that meant-
I didn’t know what it meant. I was afraid to probe for the king’s mind because I might not find it. I brushed a hand across my hair and found my shoes, then opened the door to the courtyard.
Assembled in the courtyard, in a semicircle around my door, were most of the people from the castle. As my door swung open, a shout went up. “The Wizard! Hail the Royal Wizard! His magic has saved the king!”
I concentrated on the important point. “The king’s alive?”
“Yes, and he’s not just better, he’s completely better! He’s stronger than he’s been in months, in years! You saved him! You saved him! Our Royal Wizard saved him!”
They had clearly been preparing themselves for hours while I slept. I didn’t even begin to know what to say.
And then I saw King Haimeric himself, coming across the bridge to the courtyard, arm in arm with the queen. I had never seen him so vigorous, or her so beautiful.
I ran across the cobblestones to greet them. Not even bothering with the formal bow, I dropped to my knees before them.
The king took me by the shoulders to pull me up. “Let’s not have any of your modesty, Wizard,” he said with a laugh, “when you’ve just saved my life!”
I was still stronger than he was and remained determinedly kneeling. “I had nothing to do with saving your life.”
“After your long night’s vigil of magic? They told me your light was never extinguished all night.”
Even though I knew that my orders that he be moved into the rose garden and be given fresh soup could not have saved him, it hardly seemed worth explaining that I had spent the night not in magic but in sleep.
“It was the chaplain,” I said. “Even the best magic cannot save human life, when that life is truly draining away, as I fear yours was, sire. Only a miracle can save a man then.”
“The chaplain?” said the king in some surprise. “I’ve spoken to him, of course, but he said nothing about a miracle.”
“He’s showing Christian humility,” I responded, “but he spent the night in prayer, and he interceded for you with the saints.”