We had stopped walking and were facing each other. I had always assumed he was taller than I and was surprised when I had to incline my head to meet his eyes. “And has it tried to seize you?”
“Yes. That always was a problem. That’s why, young whipper-snapper, I needed to give it my full attention the time your young wizard friend tried to let it out.”
His magic must have gone even more badly out of control than I had thought if something he had created turned on him. “The great horned rabbits,” I said, “dissolved when I put a binding spell on them, or for that matter when they were shot. Is there any similar way we can dissolve your new creature?”
“You and that magic-worker of the duchess’s can play children’s games with rabbits if you like. This is different.”
As I talked to the old wizard, he seemed almost the same as I had always known him-except marginally more civil. The aging, the loss of control over his own magic, I thought, were temporary, passing events. He would be himself for many more years to come, as long as we were able to catch his monster successfully. I wished I believed it.
“I know that a simple binding spell won’t dissolve your creature,” I tried again, “because I already attempted one without success, but are there other spells that might work?”
“I’m not at all ready to ‘dissolve’ it, as you say. And don’t get any bright ideas about trying to transform it into a fuzzy squirrel either; transformations spells won’t work on a magical creature, as I hope you know. This is the best thing I’ve ever made, far better than those illusions that used to impress the royal court over dessert. I’ve got a spell that will hold it, all right, but it has to be standing still.”
The sweat began again running down my back in spite of the cold mist around us. “Is there something from which you made this creature which might help account for its behavior?”
He turned abruptly. “I always did wonder about those bones.” And he started up the valley again without giving me a chance to answer.
There was no mist around the Holy Grove, but I did not at first see anyone. But then I spotted the youngest of the priests, talking to an apprentice hermit. The other two priests, the old hermit, and Joachim were in prayer at the shrine. I didn’t disturb them but went out of the grove again, following the river upstream. The water seemed much lower than I remembered. I decided to see how Evrard was coming with his lifting spells.
Even at this end of the valley, where the mist did not yet reach, it was rapidly growing dark. The old wizard was outlined against the white of the valley wall, crouching over his herbs. These last two hours, the steep walls had begun to seem the walls of a prison.
I walked toward the mouth of the cave, where I could still see Evrard’s flaming red hair in spite of the shadows.
But then there was a deep and hollow boom, a sharp grating of rock on rock, and a giant burst of water shot out from the cliff, propelling him in front of it.
“Evrard!” I shouted. He managed to find the magic to break his fall and landed on the soft ground near me. “What happened?” I cried. “Are you all right?”
“My plan didn’t work,” he said, dripping wet and in despair. I quickly determined he was more mortified than hurt. “But it seemed like such a good idea!”
“What didn’t work?” I demanded.
“Blocking the cave mouth. It might have kept the monster in, but it also kept the river in. But now I find the river was stronger than my rocks!” He shook his head, sending drops of water flying, and started squeezing water from his clothes. “And I’d just gotten dry from falling in earlier.”
That explained, then, why the river had seemed so low and quiet the last hour. Obviously if Evrard tried to fill the entire cave mouth with boulders, the force of the river would push them aside. Even a former city boy like me knew something about the power of running water. I was about to try to explain it to him when I saw my predecessor approaching.
He had pulled up his hood so I could not see his face in the shadows, but his voice emerged with its old strength. “Trying to make a noise loud enough to frighten my creature, is that your plan?”
“Well, no, Master,” Evrard began. “I didn’t think it had ears anyway. And you see-”
The old wizard waved his explanations aside. “I have the right herbs now, and the right spell.” I noticed then his fingers glowing with a pale blue light, as though the spell itself was held in his hands. “No more time for nonsense. We’re going in after it.”
Evrard, who had ducked behind me, pushed himself forward again in spite of obvious reluctance. “We’re ready,” he said, with a calmness I admired.
“Not you, young whipper-snapper.” I could sense Evrard wavering between indignation and relief. “This is a job for the Royal Wizard and me. That is,” the old wizard added after a long pause, with unexpected gentleness, “we both think we need someone to stay at the entrance of the cave, to make sure my creature doesn’t get past us and get out, and we think you’d be best for the job.”
“Of course,” said Evrard, still calmly.
“Find Joachim,” I said. “He and the other priests are all at the shrine. Tell him we’ve gone.”
Evrard patted me surreptitiously on the shoulder as I followed my predecessor toward the dark cave mouth. It felt as though he were saying good-bye.
PART SEVEN — THE CAVE
I
We had to pick our way around several small boulders that now littered the bank, and the limestone at the cave entrance was chipped, but the river flowed as swiftly as before. The evening light was at the point at which one imagines one can still see, but when the old wizard illuminated the silver ball at the end of his staff with magic, it showed how poorly I had been able to see a moment before. His face emerged from the shadow of his hood, looking determined and quite rational.
But his light also made all our surroundings darkly black, though seconds earlier they had only been dim. And where we were going it was black all the time.
“Don’t slip,” said the old wizard. He bent over and led the way along the narrow ledge that paralleled the river. I scrambled through the cave entrance after him, a hand on the rough wall to keep my balance, trying to find a footing in the crazy patchwork of light and shadows as the soft glow from his staff was repeatedly blocked by his body.
Now that we were in the cave, there could be no return until we found the monster. The prison of the valley seemed wide open in comparison with the pressing walls around me now.
But our cautious, bent advance only continued for two dozen yards. Abruptly the crouching figure before me straightened. “This is as far as the ducal wizard and I got before,” he said. I reached cautiously over my head, felt only emptiness, and stood up.
The magic light showed we were in a broad chamber, that would have seemed tall if it had not been so very wide. Near at hand, I could see several tunnels leading away, but farther from us the gravel floor and the smooth ceiling both disappeared into darkness.
After a quick magic probe indicated that the monster was not nearby, I looked at the walls. As Nimrod had said, they were spectacular. The slow dripping of water over the eons had left behind what looked like waterfalls frozen into stone, colored with reds and blues that reflected and shot back the magic light. If the old wizard had told me the walls were covered with precious stones, I would have believed him.
“This is lovely,” I said. “Can anything live here, without light?”
The old wizard was not interested in the walls. I wondered if he might, during his close to two centuries in Yurt, have come here many times. “Not much lives here,” he said absently. “Deep in the cave there are blind fish in the river-not just with unseeing eyes, but with no eyes at all.”
But he was also not interested in cave fish. “Now, which way did he go?” he added, half to me and half to himself.
