“A chaplain’s are a little clearer. I perform the service in the chapel every day, or oftener if needed, I encourage the sick, give solace to the dying, write treatises if treatises need writing, and am here whenever I’m wanted. But maybe a Royal Wizard’s duties are not much different; I would think your principal responsibility is to be at hand whenever magic is needed.”
“Is that what our predecessors did, perform useful tasks if called upon and spend the rest of the time waiting to be needed?” I had a vision of spending the next two hundred years of my life trying to make glass glow, and I didn’t like the picture.
“I think that’s what your predecessor did, at least part of the time, though he spent much of his time alone up in his tower. He sometimes wouldn’t emerge for days. He always said he was trying to gain new knowledge. Certainly his illusions at supper were livelier when he’d been gone for a few days. As for my predecessor, I don’t know; he was dead when I came.”
“He was dead? I hadn’t realized that.”
“He’s buried in the cemetery out beyond the gate. I think he was very old. But as I told you before, there had clearly been some sort of disagreement between him and the old wizard, and though it colored the wizard’s attitude toward me, I never found out what it was.”
I slowly drained my glass, giving myself time to think. I had a vague recollection of hearing that young priests were rarely sent out to their first positions alone. Usually they went where older priests could guide them for a few years before retiring themselves. Everyone knows that we wizards fight with each other all the time, which is why a new Royal Wizard only takes up his post when the old one is well out of the way, but priests are supposed to show each other Christian charity and support.
The shadows from the candle made my companion’s eye sockets enormous and so dark that his eyes were invisible. I shivered involuntarily, not liking what I was thinking. Four years ago, the king had married, and, according to Dominic, had still been strong and vigorous. Three years ago, probably after their old chaplain had died unexpectedly, the kingdom had had to send for a new one. Not long afterwards, the king began to grow weaker.
It was a small kingdom. When they wanted a wizard, the best they could do was me. When they wanted a chaplain, they got a young man, who perhaps had a dark stain they had already suspected at the seminary, and who took up his duties without all the fatherly guidance and assistance that was normally considered necessary. I liked to give the impression that wizards were familiar with the powers of darkness; priests had to deal with them every day.
Joachim seemed content to let the silence stretch out. “The other day I came back to my chambers,” I said suddenly, “and the magic lock on my door had been broken.”
He didn’t seem as shocked as I thought he should have, but then he wouldn’t know how hard they are to break. He didn’t look guilty either, but I found it hard to read his face. “It doesn’t sound as though a magic lock has any advantage over cold iron, then.”
This, I realized, was supposed to be another one of his jokes. “You don’t understand. Someone would have to know a tremendous amount of magic to break it. It can’t be done with brute force.”
He leaned forward, and his eyes reemerged from darkness. “But I didn’t think there was anyone else in the castle who knew magic.”
I looked into my empty glass. “Neither did I.”
He had no ideas about who might have known such a powerful spell, and I went back to my own chambers not much later. The bright glow of the magic lamp left by my predecessor was very reassuring. I sat up for several more hours, reading about such lamps, and by the time I went to bed I thought I had worked out the spells, though I was too exhausted to do them then.
I set to work on the spells in the morning. I had known how to make something shine before, but the attachment spells and especially the spells to make the magic respond to the voice were much harder than I had imagined. After one more glance at my books, I closed the windows, pulled the drapes, and put the volume away. It takes too much concentration for the complicated spells to be able to look at anything else, even a book of magic.
I started with my belt buckle, not daring to risk my oval of glass. First I started it shining, then slowly, in the heavy syllables of the Hidden Language, I pronounced the words to keep the spell attached. The moon and stars shone brilliantly, and I closed my eyes against them. I was alone in a deep tunnel where magic flowed, but as long as I kept on saying the words and saying them correctly the flow obeyed me. This was the most difficult part of all, to set up the translation between the Hidden Language and the language of men. “On. Out,” I said aloud, and my words were so loud that they startled me into opening my eyes.
My chambers were dark, and the buckle in my hands was lifeless. “On,” I said, and the full moonlight shone. “Out,” and all was again night.
I jumped up and pulled open my curtains. I wanted to tell someone about my triumph. But when I looked out the only people I saw were the stable boys, currying the horses. I thought of telling them but didn’t want to interrupt them. While putting my belt back on, I also decided against interrupting the chaplain just to show him my buckle; after all, since I had told him magic always worked, it would be silly to be this elated over having it work once.
I pulled the curtains shut and started on my oval of glass. I knew the spells now, and everything went smoothly. As I stood at the edge of the river of magic, I knew exactly what to say, to have my mind control the spells without ever endangering myself.
At the end I opened my eyes. “On. Out.” The piece of glass obediently shone out with a brilliance far beyond what I had expected, then darkened again. This, I thought, would make a remarkable improvement in the chapel stairs. I hoped Joachim would be suitably grateful.
“On,” I said again, reaching for the curtains. My belt buckle lit up, but the glass stayed dark. I tried again, changing the modulation of my voice, but nothing happened. I tried probing the spell attached to the glass with my mind, but there was no magic there at all.
I sat down. Somehow I must not have attached the spell properly, so that it had withered and returned to the deep channels of magic as most spells do. But I could not see where I had gone wrong. Magic really should work all the time if the wizard does it correctly.
I shook my head, then shook my shoulders as well, dispelling the chilling unease that suddenly gripped me. I would try again.
This time there was no problem at all. I threw open the windows and opened the door to my bedroom, where I had taken my predecessor’s magic lights so they wouldn’t come on and break my concentration.
The spells had taken all morning. I tucked the oval of glass under my arm, planning to show the constable at lunch. I would let him find a way to attach it to the ceiling in the staircase. My predecessor might have been able to make his lamps hang suspended in the air, but at this point I thought glue would work just as well.
As I pulled my door shut and attached the lock, I wondered again why my spell had not worked at first. Had I just said one of the many words wrong in setting up the spell, or had an outside magical force broken it for me?
The seating arrangement at dinner the first night was maintained, and I ate every noon and evening between Dominic and the Lady Maria. Occasionally Dominic would be away in the middle of the day, but she and her golden curls were always at my right. The Lady Maria seemed, if possible, to be growing younger. She liked to engage me in lively conversation, punctuated with girlish laughter. If I tired of her laughter, I had only to look across the table to meet the chaplain’s completely sober eyes.
But in fact I started to like the Lady Maria. As long as I could keep her off the topic of how young and charming she still was, she had a lively mind that was hungry for new ideas and information. She repeatedly pressed me for details on the dragon in the wizards’ school cellars. I decided to have her help me with the telephones.
During the two days that the armorer was making steel plates for my lights, I set to work trying to derive the right spells. I decided that the first step would be to make it possible for two telephones in the castle to talk to each other; if that worked, then maybe I could start on the much more complicated task of starting communication
