the message rescrambled themselves, the lid of the box slammed shut, and even the seam that marked the opening disappeared.
I took two deep breaths and squared my shoulders, then walked back into the great hall.
“I’m afraid it really is an unreadable message,” I said, handing the box to the chancellor. “No wonder none of the young wizards from the school had any luck with it. The wizard who created it seems to have gotten his spells wrong. The one thing I could determine from it, sire,” turning to King Haimeric, “was it was left here by Sir Hugo’s wizard.”
“That’s right,” he said in high good humor. “We were just hearing how his party had stopped here.”
“You all remember Evrard,” I said, “from when he served as ducal wizard of Yurt that one summer. I think he’s developed into a fairly good wizard, but he always used to like improvising new spells, and not all of them worked.” I apologized silently to Evrard for impugning his abilities. He would understand.
Ascelin, who had spent our whole visit to Arnulf deeply suspicious, now laughed reminiscently. In this castle he appeared to find nothing to fear. “Well, his rather unorthodox magic gave me the excuse I needed to woo my lady the duchess,” he said.
I looked at King Warin from the corner of my eye. Could he really be a sorcerer? He was certainly no wizard, and, as far as I could tell from a few delicate spells that I hoped he wouldn’t notice, he didn’t even have as much magical training as most carnival magicians. But there was something about him, a latent power, a suggestion that he might be appreciably older than his grizzled hair would indicate, that could mean that here was someone who knew just enough of the Hidden Language to take both him and those around him into deadly danger.
Although he was talking animately with Hugo about his father’s visit, he seemed to feel my eyes on him, for he turned his head just enough to meet my glance. His smile reached nowhere near his eyes.
His chancellor slipped away to arrange accommodations for us. A whole maze of chambers, passages, and stairs led off the great hall. This castle, I thought, had been built and added to for centuries. We all ended up in a large chamber with more than a dozen beds, intended, I expected, to put up the knights of a visiting dignitary.
I was relieved to see that our saddle-bags had already been brought into the room, and that the corner of Claudia’s foil-wrapped present was just visible under the flap of Joachim’s bag. At this point, whatever it contained, I did not want to lose it.
In spite of the marble floor and the heavy, silk-worked tapestries on the walls, the wide room felt grim. The fire burning at one side seemed to cast no heat. King Warin was wealthier than Joachim’s family could ever imagine being, but there was nothing here of the sybaritic feel of the Lady Claudia’s guest chambers.
“I think Warin’s as old as I am,” said the king, “but he looks at least twenty years younger. The air must be healthy this close to the mountains!”
I had another explanation, but I didn’t want to voice it here. And if King Warin was a sorcerer who dabbled in black magic, what did that say about the man who had been his Royal Wizard for twelve years?
We were served dinner in the middle of the great hall, with no other members of Warin’s court present except his ever-present chancellor and the stony-faced knights ranged behind the king. The platters and even the bowls by our places for bits of rind and bone were made of heavily-worked silver. Not only did Warin not have a royal wizard, he didn’t seem to have a royal chaplain either. King Haimeric talked as we ate about the blue rose, which I had been surprised to hear Warin knew about, as nothing about this castle suggested a rose fancier. Then the king moved on to the topic of the Black Pearl.
“King Solomon’s Pearl?” said Warin, with that same good-humor and openness, floating on top of a bitter cold which only I seemed to feel. “I certainly haven’t heard anything about it, although since the main trade routes all run west of here, rumors from the East wouldn’t reach me quickly. After all, the mountains are full of bandits, so the luxury caravans stay well clear if they can.”
Evrard, I thought, had heard here “very strange” rumors coming out of the East.
“In fact, I’m not sure I ever knew anything about the Pearl, beyond that old legend that the caliph had had it hidden in the sea, what would it be, a good millennium ago.”
“Well, we’ve heard enough stories that it’s been found again,” I put in, “that I’d like to call the wizards’ school to see if they have any more accurate information. Would it be possible, sir, to use your telephone this evening?”
“Of course, of course,” said Warin, the perfect host. “Ask them too when that new wizard they promised me is likely to arrive!”
Several young wizards sent back as unsuitable-especially since one or all of them would have told the school about Evrard’s message-would be good enough reason for the Master of the school not to send Warin any more. That is, I thought, unless Elerius had told them the king was not a sorcerer, just someone with very high standards for his employees.
I would very much have liked to ask the school about Elerius, but when the dour chancellor led me to the telephone room he showed no sign of leaving. He leaned against the wall, his arms folded and his eyes on me, as I waited for someone to answer. I could see the telephone in the wizard’s school, a tiny image in the view screen. Elerius might have installed the phone here in three days, I reminded myself, but I had been the first wizard to invent a far-seeing attachment for telephones.
A young wizard answered, and in a few more minutes I was talking to the school’s librarian. “I need all the information you have about King Solomon’s Pearl,” I told him. “How soon do you think I could get it?”
He seemed surprised. “Is that the Pearl that was hidden in the sea all those centuries ago? I’m not sure we have very much on it.”
“I need whatever you have, especially information about its powers and attributes.”
I had hoped the librarian could give me the information immediately, or at least by tomorrow morning, and my heart sank when he said he hoped to have something for me within twenty-four hours. “Oh, yes, that will be fine,” I said as unconcernedly as I could. I should have realized that it would take a while to find references to an old story that had come to an end a thousand years ago. I didn’t like spending another day in this castle, but once we crossed the mountains into the eastern kingdoms we might not have access to any more telephones at all. “Let me talk to Zahlfast.”
“So you’re in Elerius’s former kingdom?” my old teacher asked me a minute later. “Evrard and his party got there too, we hear.”
“That’s right,” I said, glancing at the chancellor. I hoped Zahlfast could see him in his own view screen. “He even tried to leave some sort of magical message here, but it’s all garbled.”
Zahlfast opened his mouth and closed it again. “I gather the king there has been spoiled by Elerius for any other young wizard,” he said after a very short pause. “He still wants a Royal Wizard, so we’ll have to see if there’s an experienced wizard somewhere who’d jump at the chance of serving in such a wealthy kingdom, even if it is somewhat isolated.”
There was no way to speak directly, mind to mind, over the telephone. I tried to read in Zahlfast’s face whether he thought the king here might really be a sorcerer, or if it was all Evrard’s imagination, but such information was too complicated to be conveyed by facial expressions.
“The librarian tells me you’ve been asking him about some of the old stories,” Zahlfast continued. “If Evrard has disappeared due to old stories coming to life, we’ll have to reconsider the efficacy of modern, organized magic.”
As a joke, it was a fairly weak attempt. Zahlfast, I thought, must really be worried. I wondered if he had any information about the Pearl himself that he didn’t dare tell me.
“Give my greetings to the Master,” I said inanely and rang off.
The rest of our party had already gone to our wide, cold room. “Did the telephone work well, Wizard?” the king asked. “I’ll ask Warin tomorrow if I can call the queen.”
I nodded and drew Ascelin to one side. I had not yet told anyone my suspicions. “You knew the king here, years ago,” I said quietly. “Tell me: do you trust him?”
“I don’t trust very many people in this kingdom,” said Ascelin with a glance toward the others, “and all of them are in this room.”
I took a deep breath. So his ease in the great hall had been a facade for King Warin’s benefit-it had certainly been good enough to fool
