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
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?”
“Or even someone in our party.”
I had been about to ask Joachim for his spiritual help against the constable, as the most likely of the people who had stayed in the castle, but now I was back to suspecting everyone in Yurt, perhaps everyone in the entire kingdom.
Then I remembered that the supernatural influence Zahlfast had first noted stopped at the moat. Someone in the castle itself must be casting the spells, as I had always assumed. This meant-
Joachim interrupted my thoughts. “Is it possible to cast a long-lasting spell, one that will continue to have effect when one is far away?” Apparently they taught them to ask sharp questions at the seminary.
“It depends on the spell,” I said. “Some of the elementary spells, like illusions, will fade fairly shortly unless constantly renewed. But some of the complicated spells, like lamps or magic locks, should last indefinitely.” I decided not to mention the broken locks on the cellar door.
“So someone who isn’t even here any more, such as your predecessor, could have put an evil spell on Yurt that is still having an effect.”
I shook my head. “It’s possible, but not very likely, even if the person is a master in wizardry.” It was going to be hard to explain that the long-lasting spells, although the most complicated, were when completed often the simplest and most static. A spell that could sicken the king and make the apparently ageless Lady Maria start to age seemed too involved to be maintained from any distance, in space or time.
“Let’s assume,” I said, “that the magic is being practiced by someone here in the castle, someone here now. I need your help because it isn’t just ordinary magic, which I could deal with myself. Someone is acting with evil intent, or the king would not have come so close to dying, and he or she may have involved the supernatural, for the Lady Maria told me she had seen time run backwards.”
“I didn’t think magic could make time run backwards.”
“It can’t. Only the truly supernatural can do that. That’s why I’m so terrified.” I hadn’t meant to tell him I was terrified, but he did not seem to mark the comment.
“Where had she seen this happen?” he asked.
“She won’t tell me.”
“Did you want me to try asking her?”
I contemplated the chaplain trying to pry the Lady Maria’s secrets out of her with what he would consider tact. “No,” I said, “it might frighten her to know that two of us realized she was involved in some sort of magic gone astray. It would be just as well for only me, the wizard, to ask her about it.”
“Are you suggesting that she is practicing magic with evil intent?”
“No, but somebody must be doing so.”
“We’ll have to think about this systematically,” said Joachim. I noticed he was not meeting my eyes and wondered if he was starting to suspect me of evil intent. “Of those who stayed in the castle while we were gone, certainly the constable is the strongest individual. I have never thought of him as other than good.”
“Neither had I,” I said, “but he stays so much in the background that I realize I don’t know him very well.”
“But what possible motive could he have for putting the others to sleep?”
I was about to explain my theory of the person involved in black magic needing to get back in the cellar when there was a sudden knock at the door. “Come in!” called Joachim.
I must have jumped six inches when the constable himself opened it and addressed the chaplain. “Excuse me,” he said, “but there’s someone to see you.”
II
