Instead I went down the dank staircase behind the kitchens, forcing my unwilling feet forward and doing my best to ignore the plausible reasons that kept popping into my mind why it would be much better to wait until morning.
It was as I feared. The rusty iron door was still shut, but my magic locks were gone, and the debris with which I had blocked the small window in the door had all fallen to the ground.
I went back up the stairs much faster than I intended and crossed the courtyard to my own chambers. To my intense relief, the magic lock on my door was glowing softly, undisturbed. I went inside to be out of the wind while I found my composure again. If this lock too had been gone, I would have had to believe there was a demon loose in the castle.
But a new thought also struck me. Someone who knew very powerful magic had apparently been at work while we were gone. This person had his or her headquarters in the cellars, a place where spells were cast and books and herbs kept. When I locked the cellars with magic, he or she had had to break my locks to get back in.
And this person, I reasoned, would have to be someone on the castle staff, the constable and his wife, the cook, the stable boy, or the kitchen maid, the only people who had been here when we arrived. But why would one of those five have put the others to sleep and pretended sleep himself or herself? I shook my head, realizing it could have been any other member of the staff, who would have perhaps come back “early” from vacation, entered the castle without any challenge, put the rest into a sleep that would make them forget he or she had been there, and left again. In this case, the sleep could have been intended to insure there were no witnesses to whatever the person was going to do-or people to hear the screeching of the iron door being opened.
I left the lights on in my chambers and hurried back to the hall, arriving just in time for a light supper of soup and omelet, served with some of the cook’s excellent bread. Hungry and tired, we all ate without more than the briefest snatches of conversation. As the food was being served, I had briefly considered trying the spell that had turned the king’s soup green before his recovery, but I did not have the heart to do so, fearing what it might show. Besides, I was almost too hungry to care.
But in the morning, after chapel service, I went to talk to Joachim. He looked surprised to see me. We had barely spoken two words since he had nearly accused me of seducing the duchess. But that all seemed distant and trivial now.
He was sitting in his room, drinking tea and eating a cinnamon cruller. Since the kitchen maid had only brought me a cake donut this morning, I was wildly envious, but I forced myself to overlook it. I had something more important on my mind.
“You and I both know,” I said, “that someone has put an evil spell on Yurt. It doesn’t seem possible that such a charming castle should be touched by evil, but it is. I don’t know who has cast the spell, but you and I have to do something about it. I don’t think it was you, and I hope you don’t think it was me.”
“I try not to accuse anyone of evil, even in my thoughts.”
“Tell me: How soon after you came to Yurt did you begin to feel the presence of an evil mind?”
He put down his teacup carefully. “I have never felt an evil presence here.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment but met his grave and slightly puzzled eyes in silence. Maybe only someone trained in wizardry would be susceptible to that oblique sense of evil magic. Or maybe, surrounded as he was by the aura of the saints, nothing wicked could approach him.
“But you too were worried last night when we arrived and found everyone asleep.”
“Of course I was. There have been odd magical forces in Yurt as long as I have been here. At first I thought it must have something to do with your predecessor, since I knew he and my own predecessor had not gotten along well. But when he left and you came the same disruptive magic forces were still there.” He startled me by taking my arm in a sharp grip. “I decided you were not behind them-that was why I was willing to tell the bishop I would take the responsibility for your soul.”
I eased my arm out of his fingers and did my best to smile. “It’s ironic, isn’t it. I feel something wrong in Yurt and assume it’s part of the conflict between angels and demons. You feel the same thing and assume it’s something to do with magic. But it’s not just someone casting silly spells. There’s an evil mind behind it.”
“I try not to accuse anyone of evil,” he said again.
I thought about this for a moment. “All right. I too don’t want to think of anyone being absolutely evil. But I do think someone, deliberately or not, has involved the powers of darkness in his or her magic. Therefore, we-”
Joachim interrupted me, his intense black eyes blazing. “You speak much too lightly of ‘someone being absolutely evil.’ Don’t you realize that, if you believe that, you are denying the power of redemption?”
“Well, I didn’t really mean it in theological terms, so much as-”
But he was not listening to me. “All of us are God’s creation. Therefore none of us can ever destroy the good within us, or not destroy it totally. We priests do our best to keep that spirit of good a living flame, but even those who are wicked and depraved in this life may still be redeemed in the next.”
“But how about someone who gives his soul to the devil?”
As soon as I asked I wish I had not, because I didn’t want to hear the answer.
Joachim’s shoulders slumped slightly and he dropped his eyes. “Then that person is beyond the prayers of either mortals or the saints. He will still be redeemed when the devil himself is redeemed, but that will not be before the end of infinite time.”
The bright sun on the ice and snow outside the chaplain’s open window seemed dim for a moment, and the chill in my bones was not due to the air coming through that window.
If someone in the castle had made a pact with the devil, giving up his or her soul after death for advantages in this life, then that person’s only chance was to trick or negotiate the devil into breaking the pact. His or her best hope was to have the negotiations done by someone else, someone who really understood the supernatural. The saints do not negotiate, which meant that a wizard, that is me, and not the chaplain who had already proved himself by healing the king, might have to deal with this.
All that any wizard in the City-or probably in the world-knew about dealing with the devil had been distilled into the Diplomatica Diabolica, which meant I was going to have to read it, even though every time I even looked at its spine I was struck with the same fear that had gripped me when I first bought it: that I might endanger my own soul by summoning a demon by mistake, when had I only intended to learn how to deal with one who was already there.
It was almost with a sense of light and ease that I thought again about the specific problem of who in Yurt might be practicing black magic. “I need your help,” I told Joachim. “Someone’s immortal soul may be in danger. I think that last night a sleeping spell had been put on the castle, though I don’t know why. But if we can determine who did it, then we may be able to find out where the odd magic forces you mention are coming from.”
“It cannot be your predecessor, because he’s gone,” said the chaplain thoughtfully, looking at his hands. “And I don’t think it’s you.” He gave me one of his intense looks, then returned to his hands. “It must have been someone who was here in the castle while we were visiting the duchess.” He clearly was not used to this way of reasoning, but I waited impatiently while he worked it through for himself.
Then he surprised me by asking, “From what distance can a spell be cast?”
I should have thought of this myself. “I really don’t know,” I said, “but I don’t think it’s very far. I at any rate have never been able to cast a spell further than I could see.” I stopped, thinking of my glass telephones, but decided not to confuse the issue by mentioning them. “Do you think it could be someone who lives down in the village?”