C. Brittain - The Witch, the Cathedral

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.

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 I really would have had a lot to explain to the bishop.

We recovered the lantern and picked our way back out of the construction site. “Good-night,” Joachim said gravely as we passed the watchman, the first thing he had said since leaving the tower. But he whistled again as we walked back to his house.

Inside, however, in the light of the relit candles, his eyes looked distressed. “Would you like some tea?” he asked distractedly.

“Let’s just finish the wine.” I wondered if I should mention a delicate mental touch I was still not completely sure I had felt.

He emptied the bottle into our glasses. “I’m in much too responsible a position to enjoy magical flying,” he said bitterly.

I thought about this, sipping my wine slowly. He had enjoyed flying, and he had telephoned me to come help him in spite of the bishop. “Tell me what’s really troubling you,” I said. I considered adding, “Confession is good for the soul,” but rejected the thought.

He hesitated. I waited, knowing that at a certain level anything he said to me was a betrayal of his position in the Church. For that matter, Zahlfast’s warning to me may have included conversations such as this one.

“The bishop has been bishop for nearly forty years,” Joachim said at last. “He had already been here for many years when I first came to Yurt.”

I nodded, studying his face. It had always been hard to read, and I could only see now how truly worried he was about something.

“This last year, he has become extremely weak. His mind is as clear as ever, and he still directs the affairs of the diocese. But he never leaves his house, even to go to service in the cathedral, and for the last month he has not even left his bed. The doctors say he does not have long to live.”

I contemplated the blow it would be if I heard the old Master of the wizards’ school was dying and nodded again.

“When they made me dean, I knew that most commonly a new bishop is elected by the cathedral priests from among the senior officers of the chapter. Any member of the Church could of course be elected, but cathedral priests usually have a preference for their own officers. But since I’ve only been dean for a few years, I had not thought this would be a concern in my case. I had in fact always assumed that Norbert, the cathedral cantor, would succeed. He is quite a venerable scholar if not a senior officer, and very dedicated to the Church’s welfare-you saw him in the street this afternoon.”

“And aren’t you the youngest of the senior officers?”

He did not seem to hear me. “This last week both the provost and the chancellor spoke to me, separately and privately. Neither mentioned Father Norbert. Both said they were too old and comfortable in their present offices to seek the position of bishop. When the old bishop dies, I fear they may elect me bishop in his place.”

“But that’s wonderful,” I said. “It’s an enormous honor.”

“It is an enormous responsibility,” he answered with a flash from his dark eyes. “And I know I am not worthy.”