“But in this case,” said Evrard reasonably, “you wouldn’t be summoning a human mind. That could mean, however, that there might be nothing there to summon! Not knowing the spell would certainly be an additional disadvantage …”
His voice trailed away. I didn’t tell him that the monster had almost had the old wizard’s human mind transferred into it.
As we approached the grove, I heard a distant hammering. I looked up toward the top of the cliff to see if the entrepreneurs were at work at their windlass, but if so I could see nothing from below.
“How did you get out of the cave?” asked Evrard.
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “The last few hours, it was almost as though someone else was guiding me. Then, at the very end, I heard the wood nymph calling me. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have walked right by the way out and never even seen it.”
“The wood nymph? Did she come into the cave?”
“No, but I think she must have been right outside, calling. Had you sent her to look for me?”
Evrard shook his head. “Maybe she just likes wizards.”
When we reached the Holy Grove, the first thing I saw was the old wizard’s body, lying near the pool with his eyes closed and his hands crossed on his breast. He had gone very far beyond the help of the wood nymph.
The apprentices had done a good job. The worst of the stains had been washed from his clothes, and his hair and beard were clean and combed. His twisted limbs had been straightened out, so that, at least at first glance, he could merely have been asleep.
His dignity had been restored to him, but he would not have cared about his body’s appearance when he was gone. He had wanted to create an undying monster and to live on in it, and if he had succeeded he would have discarded this body deep under the earth.
I put my hand over my eyes and stood quietly for a moment to compose myself. I would have to live for the rest of my life with the knowledge that my abilities had been too weak to save him.
We continued the short distance to the Holy Shrine itself, where we found the old hermit and all the priests. Joachim managed to look delighted to see me without smiling in the least.
“Good,” said the thin priest. “You are here at last.”
Before I could find anything to say in reply, the apprentices arrived, carrying a roughly made coffin. This, then, explained the hammering. I helped them to lift the old wizard’s body in and to arrange it. He still looked as though he were sleeping, but his flesh felt as cold as the stone a quarter mile beneath the earth.
Wizards, as a matter of professional pride, do not speculate about the afterlife, leaving that to the priests. But even the Church, with its prayers and liturgy, cannot say for certain what will happen to an individual’s soul. The wood nymph might think mortality liberating, but I myself thought that a lifetime, even the long life of a wizard, might never be enough to finish with the questions, much less start on the answers.
He had died not fearing death, not worried about his soul, but irritated that he had failed in his spell. Looking at my predecessor’s still face, I wished him well on his journey, wherever he was going.
“Were you going to bury him with this ring?” asked the round priest.
I had been staring without seeing and came back with a start. “No, he wouldn’t want us to. In fact, he said I should have it.”
The priest pulled the ring from the wizard’s finger and handed it to me. I took it reluctantly, with the sense that it symbolized enormous responsibility.
It was quite a striking ring, made in the shape of an eagle in flight with a tiny diamond in its beak, but it did not in fact symbolize anything, being only a Christmas gift from the king after the old wizard retired. But I slid it onto my own finger as though taking up even heavier burdens than I already carried. Behind me, I could hear the apprentices nailing the lid on the coffin.
Joachim touched me on the shoulder and looked at me with his enormous dark eyes. “You’re not a priest,” he said quietly. “You’re not responsible for anyone else’s soul but your own.”
This was probably supposed to be comforting. I nodded, took a deep breath, and turned to the thin priest. “Why did you want me here?”
He took a breath of his own. “Well. We need to determine the desire of the saint, to see if it is his will to return with us to the city where he first made his holy profession.” The priest glanced quickly toward Joachim. “The royal chaplain thought it was important that you be here.” He didn’t add, “God knows why,” but he might as well have.
The hermit, who had not yet said anything, suddenly spoke up. “The saint is very fond of this young wizard.” We all turned toward him, priests, apprentices, and wizards. “I didn’t mention this before to anyone but the royal chaplain,” he said with his gentle smile, “but the saint appeared to me in a vision last night. He had me send my daughter, the wood nymph, to look for him.”
I staggered for a second with amazement, then felt Evrard’s hand under my elbow and regained my balance. My prayers had been answered after all. This was so unexpected that I had to fight my initial impulse to say, “No, wait, I didn’t mean it!”
This, then, explained the strange sense I had had that someone else had directed my path the last few hours in the cave. Someone else indeed had. But, being unaccustomed to listening to saints, I had only turned to his guidance when faced with a clear choice between different tunnels. Voices could have spoken for some time in my mind without making me look up to see the crack that led to freedom. That had needed the voice of the wood nymph.
“I see,” I said, which sounded highly inadequate.
But then I had another thought that made me as irritated with the saint as I had been overwhelmingly grateful a moment before. If Eusebius could save me from wandering to my death in the cave, why had he done nothing to save the old wizard? I leaned against Evrard, frustrated enough with all priests and saints that any wizard, even a marginally competent one, was exactly who I wanted beside me.
“Then perhaps it is indeed best for you to be here, Wizard,” said the thin priest grudgingly. “After all, as Holy Scripture tells us, a little child shall lead them.”
I had no attention to spare him or to feel insulted. I didn’t know what the saints’ plan might be, in which I appeared to feature prominently, but I felt a deep and unshakeable determination not to become a pawn in someone else’s program. I would not be turned by gratitude into anyone else’s creature, not even a saint’s. I had more than motive force; I had a mind and a soul, and they were still my own.
Evrard interrupted my thoughts. “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice, his blue eyes worried. “Can I get you some water or something?”
“Yes, that would be good.” I sat down with my back against a tree, drank the cup he brought me, and closed my eyes. I sent up a brief prayer, so that Saint Eusebius would know I really was properly grateful. The wizard had said at the end that he was glad I had never become obsequious. Well, I hoped that whatever characteristics had endeared me to a cranky old wizard had also endeared me to a cranky saint, because I had no intention of becoming obsequious to someone who let a monster roam his valley, killing respectable wizards.
I opened my eyes to see all the priests and apprentices clustered around. “Listen,” I said. Something had just become obvious to me.
They turned toward me with surprising respect. I stood up on legs that trembled for a moment, then found enough strength to step forward. “This whole problem started when the entrepreneurs first put a booth on top of the cliff, inviting people to see the Holy Toe for a fee. I know why they’re there.”
And I did know. It had come to me not in voices, not through revelation, but through my own reasoning powers. The saint, I thought, had been confident that I would find this answer, and indeed hoped in addition that I would pass judgment, make the final decision of right and wrong. I had no intention of doing the latter. If I was barely competent as a wizard, a regent, and a judge, I was even less qualified to be a religious arbiter.
But the first was important. “This may pain you,” I said to the old hermit, “but they meant it for the best. Come here,” to the leader of the apprentices.
He came toward me slowly but not reluctantly, as though he had been expecting this and was determined to go through with it bravely. He even managed a certain dignity in spite of his rags and badly-shaved head.
The round priest started to speak but I turned my back on him, addressing myself only to the young hermit.
“The first time the chaplain and I came here,” I said gently, “you apprentices asked us if we had been sent by
