A tongue of flame licked toward the wooden stands where the spectators were sitting, and in two seconds they were ablaze. The paralysis broke as people screamed and struggled, trying to get out.
I abandoned the spell I had been working on and grabbed at what I could remember of Theodora’s fire magic. The only calm person in the crowd seemed to be Gwennie, directing people down the steps away from the fire. In a moment I was able to reduce the level of the flames enough that everyone was able to get out of the stands, beating at their burning clothes.
They tried to run, but they could not run far. Sengrim had set up an invisible barrier around the lists, as strong as the nixie’s, against which they shoved helplessly. The lizards were within that barrier and drawing dangerously close to the crowd. And then another tongue of flame came toward me and surrounded me. Protected from the blaze after two scorching seconds by Theodora’s magic, I advanced toward the pillar of fire, one arm held out.
“Stop!” I cried out, in a voice amplified by magic. “We both learned wizardry at the school, and we’re both sworn to help humanity!”
The pillar of fire seemed momentarily to contract, and I hoped for an instant that he was listening to me. But then I realized he was not reacting to what I had said. He was under attack by Theodora.
With another blinding flash of light, the pillar of fire was gone and the wizard was back. I realized that Theodora must have helped me put out the fire in the stands. In the five desperate seconds of breathing room which her magic gave me, I managed to cast a new paralysis spell toward the lizards. This time it held.
“So you think you’ve got a witch to help you,” the wizard said with bitter scorn, not even bothering to break my new spell. He waved out the last of the flames with one hand. Clearly fire magic had possibilities I had not yet explored. “No woman can know
“But what are you talking about?” I demanded. “What can you have against me?” Again, I had to keep him talking while I tried to put a complicated spell together. Figuring out what had happened, why he was even alive, would have to wait.
Almost everyone had pressed themselves against the invisible barrier, as far from the wizard as they could go, except for the queen and Theodora, who stayed rooted where they had been when the wizard first appeared, and Paul, who again began a stealthy approach from the rear.
“Brute force is no more useful against me than magic!” cried the wizard. “I know you’re back there, knight!” He whirled and started firing knives toward Paul, real knives, no illusion, powered by magic. They clattered off his armor, sending him staggering back.
I gave up any hope of trapping Sengrim with a binding spell, or even of being able to oppose his spells individually. I briefly considered summoning him, regardless of whether summoning was the greatest wizardly sin, but then I would only have his deranged mind even closer to mine.
My only hope was to build around him a magic structure that would make it impossible for him to practice any magic within it. I had told Joachim, what seemed years ago, that I might have to put such a spell on their cathedral. At the time, I had had no idea how to do so; now, after spending the last week with my books, I might.
That is, if I even had a chance to finish assembling the spell. With Paul out of the way, the wizard turned his magic knives on me. The barrage went on for ten seconds, and I jettisoned my growing spell to repel them.
“Answer me!” I cried when the knives stopped coming. “I had nothing against you! Why are you so set against me?” I snatched up the remnants of the spell I had started building before it faded away completely.
“They always preferred you down at the school,” the wizard said bitterly. This was better. I could listen to him and work on my spell at the same time. But Paul was starting again what I feared was a suicidal advance.
“They made you,
I’d never known a wizard who lost his mind before. Normally I would have been interested in observing the symptoms.
“Even when you abandoned the principles of wizardry by making friends in the Church, the school refused to believe the worst about you!”
I almost had my spell together. If I could keep him talking just a few more seconds, if Paul would only stay back, if the spell even worked-
He didn’t give me a chance to find out. “And you can’t even begin to match spells with me!” he cried. “Can you do this?”
He held both arms straight out, and lightning flashed from each hand. Thirty feet on either side of him, crevices in the earth opened up, opened directly beneath the queen and Theodora.
I had no time to think, only time to react. I couldn’t possibly save them both. I grabbed the queen with magic and tossed her to safety.
As I flew toward the crack where Theodora had vanished, the pillar of fire reappeared, swirling with diabolical laughter. But as I dropped down the crevice I finished my spell and hurled it at him.
The crevice was some twenty feet deep. Theodora lay limp at the bottom. I snatched her up and flew out as the ground shifted with a roar and the crack slammed back shut.
I had him. Highly startled, the wizard stood within my trembling spell, his magic stripped from him. His barrier around the lists collapsed, and with it many of the people who had pressed against it. I dropped to the ground, Theodora in my arms. Her eyes were shut but she was still breathing.
“It won’t work, Daimbert!” roared Sengrim. “I may not be able to work magic while I’m standing here, but I can walk right out of your spell!” And he proceeded to do so.
But he had not counted on Paul. The young king’s long, stealthy advance had finally reached its goal. He sprang forward, naked sword in his hand, and thrust it with all his strength into the wizard’s back.
Blood spurted over Paul’s silver armor. He wrenched off his helmet; a stripe of red across his eyes showed where the blood had penetrated the visor. He slowly pulled his sword back out of the wizard’s body and wiped his face with the other hand.
Clasping Theodora against me, I went to look. The wizard lay without moving. It all came back to me why I had taken Paul to the borderlands: I had wanted his sword arm between me and danger.
The flow of blood from the hole in the wizard’s back slowed to a trickle and stopped. I turned him over with one foot. He flopped lifeless, his eyes open and empty. “Thank God,” I said. “He’s dead.”
“My God,” said Paul, his face under the blood completely white. “I’ve killed him.”
II
The constable had, of course, arranged for a doctor to be present at the tournament. I dragged him away from attending to our guests. Due to good fortune and to Paul, none of the knights or spectators had been killed, although most had burns, bruises, or at least badly strained muscles. The worst off were two knights who had been less quick than Paul at getting off their spooked horses-one had cracked ribs and another had a crushed leg where his horse had rolled on him.
“She’s going to be all right, I should think,” the doctor said sourly, looking at Theodora lying stretched out on the queen’s bed, absolutely still except for the faintest rise and fall of her chest. “She got a bad scare and a bad knock on her head, but her skull’s not cracked, and I don’t think her neck is broken. Sleep’s the best thing for her. Now, if you’ll excuse me-” He escaped back to the wounded knights before I could say anything else.
I had already flown madly around the castle’s hill, ripping up whatever leaves and twigs seemed at all promising for herbal magic, and had made a poultice which I put on the bump on her head. The doctor had shaken his head at it but said nothing.
I took her hand. “Theodora,” I said, both aloud and directly to her mind. “It’s me, Theodora.” There was no response.
Joachim put his head in, as sober as I had ever seen him. “How is she?”
