The Witch, the Cathedral

“Someone’s certainly been working magic up there. But I’m hoping he may have left with the Romneys.” I told him about the Romney woman’s eagerness to chase the children away and the abrupt departure of the entire camp that afternoon.

“That would indeed solve the problem,” said Joachim thought fully, twirling the stem of his glass and looking somewhere over my head. “But you say the children expected to see something spectacular, as though the last magic worker they had seen had not been a member of their band but an outsider like yourself. They hoped for as good tricks from the new wizard they had just spotted as they had from the last.”

I ignored his implication that my scarlet illusory dragon had been less than spectacular. “If the magician or wizard is still here,” I said, “the most direct approach would be to put a spell on the tower, a magical shield that would keep any further spells from working.”

“And could you do it?”

I knew he’d ask that. “Actually, no. I know such spells are possible, but it’s very advanced magic, and I don’t have my books with me.”

“What else can you do?”

“The other possibility would be to sit on the construction site every night, watching for signs of magical activity, and then go up and confront the magician if he reappears.” Joachim did not answer at once, and I hoped he was not summoning his small supply of tact to ask me to spend the summer with the watchman. “Why are the members of the cathedral chapter so concerned anyway? The crew foreman said it hasn’t been much of a problem. He told me he thought it was Little People.”

Joachim fixed me with his enormous dark eyes. “I thought fairies were just a story.”

“Down here, in the western kingdom, they probably are, but I’d believe anything of the land of dragons.”

“Fairies or wizards,” said Joachim, “it’s sacrilegious. The bishop feels that someone is violating the sanctity of a new edifice that will be consecrated to God.”

“And that’s why he didn’t like it when you sent for me? He felt that being saved by wizardry is scarcely an improvement over being violated by wizardry? I hope you explained to him that bringing in a wizard to deal with a magical problem is much more effective than trying to pray it away. The saints have better things to do than to worry about whether the new cathedral has fairies living in it. Besides, it may even be good for the bishop’s soul to have to deal with magic, and I’m sure the saints know that.”

Joachim gave me a look without answering, having had long practice in ignoring my humor.

“Do you want to go out and see if we can spot the magician tonight?” I asked.

It was now full dark, and we had been slowly finishing the cheese. Joachim pushed back his chair and rose at once. He lit a lantern, and we stepped out his door under the low porch into the street.

“How long is it going to take to finish the cathedral?” I asked. We walked slowly because of the unevenness of the cobble stones; neither the lantern nor the shuttered windows of the other priests’ houses did much to light up the street. Shadows danced crazily around our feet.

“Originally they had spoken of being done within fifteen or at the most twenty years. But I think the provost may have changed his calculations. The workmen are certainly working hard, but there is a limit to how fast anyone can erect that much stonework. Some of the supplies are proving much more expensive than the chancellor had hoped; it’s possible construction may have to stop for a time while we raise more money. It is good that it was decided to leave the old cathedral intact, within the circle of what will be the new one, as long as possible-it may even be generations before the new edifice can be dedicated.” His voice was troubled. Since Joachim was dean, I reminded myself, the cathedral was his as much as Yurt was my kingdom.

We came around the side of the cathedral to the edge of the construction site. So far, they had completed half a tower. I didn’t want to think what this part of the city would be like once they had to start tearing down houses and moving streets to accommodate the new, wider size of the rebuilt church.

“I like your cathedral,” I said. “Why not just leave it as it is?”

“It’s six hundred years old,” replied Joachim. “It’s dark, it’s old-fashioned, and its roof is too low, even compared to some of the regional parish churches that have gone up in the last decade or two. A cathedral is the heart of the Church’s administration and care of souls, and it must reflect the glory of God.”

The watchman on the construction site came toward us when he saw our light, holding up his own lantern to illuminate our faces. “Good evening, Father,” he said, recognizing the dean. “There have been no disturbances so far tonight.”

“I have brought a wizard to check for the presence of magic,” said Joachim.

We made our way through the maze of materials, even more difficult to negotiate at night than during the day. Quick, cool breezes, twisted and turned by the piles of building materials, whirled around us. There were lights in the workmen’s huts at the far side of the site, but the bulk of the tower was completely dark. We leaned our heads back, looking up to where it blocked out the stars.

“Maybe I’ll go up again to where they’ve got the scaffolding,” I said. “Do you want to come?”

“I’m not going to climb up in the dark, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m going to fly. I can take you with me.” I knew this was audacious. Not only had I never suggested such a thing to Joachim before, but it was potentially dangerous to lift anything heavy while concentrating on one’s own flying. But the night breezes and the wild shadows cast by our lantern had made me reckless.

Although I expected him to refuse at once, instead he hesitated so long that I started to wonder if he was outraged or indeed had even heard me. “The bishop would not like it,” he said at last.

“But the bishop isn’t here. No one will see us.” The watchman had not followed us, and the workmen were out of sight.

Maybe the night had made him reckless too. “Just don’t drop me,” he said, setting down his lantern with what might have been a chuckle. “It would be hard to explain in the morning.”

I paused for a few seconds to find the right words in the Hidden Language, then rose slowly and majestically up the face of the tower, Joachim at my shoulder. His vestments fluttered slightly in the breeze. I had been right that afternoon. Without the process of climbing, my body had no sense of how high we had risen and no irrational fear of hurtling downwards. I set us on the ledge at the top of the last flight of wooden stairs with a sense of triumph.

“All you all right?” I asked Joachim. He had not made a sound while we were moving upward, perhaps not even breathing.

He let out his breath all at once. “Yes. I’m fine. It’s a strange sensation. It- It must be what ascension would feel like.”

As there had been earlier, there was a hint of someone’s magical spell, but faint and distant, as though cast several days earlier. “Certainly no one but me is practicing magic here at the moment,” I said. “Maybe the magician did leave with the Romneys.”

I turned back toward Joachim to ask if he wanted to catch his breath for a few more minutes or if we should go even higher, then suddenly staggered. Delicately, fleetingly, another mind had touched mine.

I stumbled against a wooden brace, leaned on it, and probed in return, but found nothing. Holding on hard to the brace, I let my mind slip lightly from my body, searching more widely while never allowing myself to forget for a second where I was standing. Below us in the city were a great mass of minds, many of them already asleep. A few I could recognize, such as the crew foreman, but most were unfamiliar and hence indistinct. None of them seemed to be practicing magic.

Had I imagined it? Far beyond the old cathedral, a half moon rose slowly above the eastern horizon. The wind was rising. With the workmen talking of fairies and Joachim of ascension, it was possible to imagine anything tonight.

V

The dean was whistling almost soundlessly, but I could recognize the hymn the organist had played that afternoon. “Are you ready to go back down?” I asked. If the magician or wizard was somewhere in the city, probing for my magic as I was probing for his, he was at any rate not up on the tower.

Our descent was again silent. I was glad that I had not felt that fleeting touch while trying to lift Joachim, or