led him toward the deserted Street of the Apples.
7 DISCOVERIES
The look on the face of His Magicship, Master of the Order of Valiostr, Archmagician Artsivus boded no good to my own humble personage. The old dodderer received me in his own home, located in the Inner City, right beside the king’s palace. The archmagician was seated in a deep armchair and swaddled in a heap of woolen blankets that would have warmed a dead man in the very fiercest of winters, but that was still not enough for his frostbitten bones. “Harold, may you be torn limb from limb!” the old man screeched. “What have you done? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“What’s happened, Your Magicship?” I really didn’t understand.
“Hmm.” Artsivus cast another keen glance at me. “So you don’t know anything. You’re as innocent as Jock the Winter-Bringer? Hmm . . .”
The old man drummed his fingers on the little table while he pondered something and then asked abruptly, “What were you doing yesterday? Mind, think before you answer me; I shall recognize a lie.”
I wonder what it is I’m suspected of now? Should I confess to stealing the magical scroll? After all, it was lying there unwanted for all those years.
Years?
I strained my memory, trying to remember what the magical spell had looked like. I seemed to recall it was the only one not covered with a thick layer of dust. That was why I’d chosen it from among all the others. But if it wasn’t dusty, that meant it had been put there quite recently. . . .
I began my story in a very roundabout fashion. The archmagician, however, showed no signs of impatience and didn’t interrupt me. He simply knitted his bushy eyebrows whenever I started throwing in unnecessary details or long descriptions in an attempt to divert him. Then I decided to tell him about the scroll after all, and then about the unexpected effect it had when I took a chance and tried the spell on the Doralissians. Surprisingly enough, the old man wasn’t even interested, as if it wasn’t me that had driven all the demons out of the city. The archmagician was only concerned about the Doralissians.
“Say that again, what was it they were shouting?”
“Well, something like: ‘Give us back our horse.’ ”
“Did you hear anything else about horses last night?”
“No,” I lied, deciding not to mention Vukhdjaaz, although he had harped on about some horse or other as well. I was interested to see if the archmagician would notice my lie.
“Good.” Artsivus didn’t spot my fib. “The scroll is very interesting, especially since I’m sure that no one in the Order has ever heard of any such spell.”
The old man squirmed in his chair, adjusted the edge of a blanket that had slipped off onto the floor, and looked at me thoughtfully again.
“So where is the Horse?” he suddenly cooed in a sweet voice.
Only there was nothing sweet about the look in his eyes.
“What would I want with a horse? What would I do with it?”
The archmagician knitted his brows and said nothing for a moment, but a hint of doubt appeared in his eyes. “You mean it wasn’t you who stole the Horse from Archmagician O’Stand’s house last night?”
“He must be raving mad, if he keeps a horse in his house!” I exclaimed in amazement.
“What horse are you talking about, thief? Yesterday a magical stone—the Horse of Shadows—was stolen by persons unknown from the house of Archmagician O’Stand, who came here from Filand. We were planning to use it to drive the demons back into the Darkness. But now it has disappeared!”
“But the demons have gone. I pronounced that spell.”
“Yes, they’ve gone.” The archmagician nodded. “And it worries me very much that you did what the entire Order couldn’t do. How did that scroll, which no one knew about, come to be where it was? Who else paid a visit to this Bolt of yours and asked about plans of the forbidden zone? Who is the Master? Why did the killers attack you and Roderick? Who wanted the Stone, and how could anyone have found out about it?”
“But why did you immediately suspect me, Your Magicship?” I asked, squinting at a nearby armchair.
“Sit down, you might as well,” said the archmagician, spotting my glance. “Who else could have pulled off a trick like that, Harold? Not a single magical trap was activated, the Stone simply disappeared. Any fool can see it was the work of a master.”
“Well, I’m not the only thief in the city. There are at least two more men in the capital who are capable of doing a job like that. But what does O’Stand himself say?”
“Nothing. He’s dead.” The archmagician closed his eyes wearily. “The servants found him with his throat cut. He was killed like some drunk on a spree at Stark’s Stables. An archmagician of Filand! It’s more than just a political scandal, it’s a serious blow to the prestige of the Order of Valiostr!”
“Did he come here especially because of this Horse?”
“Yes. We summoned him as soon as the creatures of night appeared in the city. Filand owns—used to own— the Stone, a great relic that can be used to drive demons into the Darkness.”
“Are you concerned that the dark creatures might reappear?”
“I’m by no means certain that they have gone anywhere,” Artsivus muttered. “What makes you think that the spell worked correctly? Perhaps that demon simply lied to you?”
Actually, it was me who had lied to Artsivus, when I told him that after I read the scroll I saw a demon appear, yell that the spell was dragging him into the Darkness, and then disappear. Of course, nothing of the sort
