“Only in self-defense,” I said. “We were recently set upon by bandits who nearly killed our chaplain.”
The leader looked at me thoughtfully. I decided not to try to look honest and trustworthy for fear it would appear an unconvincing mask. “If you mean no harm,” he then yelled to the rest of the party from Yurt, “put up your swords and approach slowly.”
King Haimeric, I was pleased to see, kicked his horse forward immediately, and the others were forced to follow. We all met under the arch of the gate where my dragon had stood a moment before.
“We are, as my wizard told you, simply pilgrims,” said the king. “You can see I’m not even wearing a sword myself. At the moment we’re making for the Church of the Holy Twins.”
“The Holy Twins?” asked one of the knights facing us. He hesitated for a moment then said slowly, “They don’t get very many pilgrims there any more.”
“Why not?” said Dominic, quickly and brusquely.
The leader eyed him for a moment. “It’s probably just a foolish story,” he said, “but hardly anyone’s been buried there for a good fifty years.”
“What’s a story?” Dominic persisted. I, like him, had the chilling impression that there was something terribly wrong about the church, and these knights knew it.
“Just a tale of the sort told to frighten children. Supposedly a long, long time ago, in the darkest part of the night, an evil wizard, steeped in the black arts, brought the dead body of a magnificent warrior there for burial. There was something about the wizard, a sense that he might even be able to communicate with the dead, that made other people much less willing to see their relatives lying there … But I told you it was just a silly story,” he finished briskly.
“Our wizard practices only white magic, and we wish no evil to anyone,” said King Haimeric. “Are you going to let us proceed?”
“All right,” said the leader in sudden decision. “But I warn you, Wizard, that you’re going to get your group into trouble if you go through the eastern kingdoms attacking border guards without provocation. At least in this kingdom, we’re not at war right now, and we don’t intend to be.” He wrote us out a pass which he said we should show to any patrols we met.
“I admired your dragon,” King Haimeric said to me as we rode on. “And I know Dominic and Ascelin think it necessary to carry weapons. But shouldn’t you have told the knights we were pilgrims right away, rather than threatening them?”
Given another chance, I would do exactly the same thing. I started attaching a new spell to a new pebble and thought complacently that if I had lived during the Black Wars, and the other wizards had needed me, I would not have embarrassed myself.
II
The church where Dominic’s father was buried was in the center of a small town. Both Ascelin and I kept glancing suspiciously to either side as we rode through the noisy, twisting streets, but it was impossible to pick out potential enemies from so many people.
A final twist of the street led us to a covered passage and then to an open square, with the church in the center. Here, unlike the rest of town, it was quiet and peaceful. I had expected something sinister, but we found nothing of the kind. The church was built entirely of cobblestones, with alternating layers of darker and lighter stone. What should have been the main entrance, under the front porch, was bricked up, but Hugo found a small, unlocked door at the far end.
“The twin saints to which this church is dedicated,” read Joachim from his guidebook, “were soldiers in their youth, until Christ appeared to them in a fiery vision in the middle of battle and they repented of their sinful ways. But soldiers in battle still call on their aid in time of peril, and many are buried in their church.”
The Holy Twins, I thought, must not have listened to Dominic’s father-or, for that matter, to a number of other soldiers either. It was an enormous though rather dusty church, and virtually all the stones with which the floor was paved and many of the lower blocks in the side walls were inscribed with the names of warriors buried over the centuries near their saintly patrons.
“The guidebook suggests this was a very busy pilgrimage church,” said Joachim, “but it must have been written before the incident the border guards mentioned.”
“This end is all old graves,” said King Haimeric. “The inscriptions are almost worn away. Let’s try the other end.”
Hugo, who had gone ahead, suddenly called back to us, his voice echoing under the high stone roof. “I think I’ve found him!”
Set into the wall about halfway down was a stone with newer carving than most in the church. The king fumbled with his eyeglasses and bent closer. Even in the dim afternoon light, we could read the inscription easily. “Hic iacet Dominicus princeps Yurtiae,” it said in the old imperial language: “Here lies Prince Dominic of Yurt.”
King Haimeric stood with his hands folded, silently contemplating the grave of his younger brother.
“We should have come here years ago,” said Dominic after a moment.
The king nodded. “But I always felt more responsible for the living than for the dead. If I had come when your father first died, your mother would have wanted to come too and brought you with her, even though you were a child. And then somehow the years passed, and I never made the voyage.”
“What’s this?” asked Hugo suddenly, bending closer. “It looks like the carving of a snake.”
It certainly did. In the corner of the stone slab was cut a tiny picture of a coiled snake, with what looked like a jewel resting on its coils. The image was strangely familiar.
“Take off your gloves, Dominic,” said the king. His nephew slowly pulled off his riding gloves. Gleaming on his second finger, his ruby ring had as its setting a gold snake that matched the carving. “I thought at the time,” said King Haimeric, “that those bandits were too hasty. They took our horses and our luggage, but they missed the single most valuable object we had with us.”
Excluding whatever Claudia might have given Joachim, I thought.
“This ring was among the jewels my father sent back to Yurt with a faithful servant when he died,” said Dominic. “Why would its image be carved on his tomb?”
“Let me see it,” I said.
Dominic gave me an odd look but started tugging at the ring. He had not had it off for years, during which time he had grown quite a bit heavier, and it took a minute.
As I took it in my hand, Hugo, who was still examining the stone behind which Dominic’s father was buried, spoke again. “I think this stone is loose.”
We all bent down again to look. As the sun moved, a stray beam found its way from the high windows down to near floor level. The stone was not completely flush with the wall around it but protruded ever so slightly on one side. Hugo wrapped his gloved fingers around it and began to tug.
“What are you doing?” demanded Dominic, pushing him away.
But the king put a hand on his arm. “If the stone is loose anyway, perhaps we are meant to open the tomb. I have felt badly all these years that it was impossible to bring my brother’s body back to Yurt to be buried with our parents and ancestors. Perhaps we should take his bones with us now.”
“Excuse me, sire,” said Hugo, “but are you really planning to cross the eastern kingdoms, go to the Holy Land, and then travel all the way home again with bones in your luggage?” But he was again tugging at the stone.
It came loose all at once, and he fell back. The tombstone hit the paving with a bang that echoed through the church. I anticipated a waft of foul air, but there was nothing of the sort. All of us gave each other quick, uneasy looks, then went down on our knees to look in. Since I was holding Dominic’s ring anyway, I lit it up with magic and held it out at arm’s length, reaching into the tomb.
I was not sure what I expected to see, but it was not an untidy pile of tumbled bones. “What have they done to him?” asked King Haimeric in distress. Dominic said nothing, but his color slowly darkened to brick red.