C. Brittain: Mage Quest

I switched tactics. It was no use trying to make him realize the unnecessary danger he had put himself in if he was happy to have been in danger. “Why do you think the king brought his Royal Wizard along?”

Hugo shot me a quick look. “To deal with dragons or whatever magical creatures we run across.”

“And also,” I said, giving him a wizardly stare, “to deal with bandits. You saw me paralyze the three of them. If you’d given me fifteen seconds before you attacked, I could have had them all tied up neatly with magical spells.”

“You wizards take all the fun out of everything,” said Hugo grumpily. “I know perfectly well why there haven’t been any decent wars in the western kingdoms for close to two centuries, not since the Black Wars. You don’t want to let the aristocracy do what we’re trained to do.”

“We certainly don’t want you killing each other,” I said.

“Our own wizard would never scold me for saving us all from bandits.”

I realized he meant Evrard. But if he had seen much more of Evrard in the last few years than I had, I thought I still knew the red-headed wizard better. “Didn’t your wizard ever tell you that he’d decided to study wizardry in the first place because he was fascinated by the history of how wizards had stopped the Black Wars?”

Hugo didn’t answer, which I took as an affirmative.

“I don’t doubt your courage, Hugo,” I continued. I thought, but decided it would be tactful not to say, that he was still young enough that his own death would not seem a real possibility to him. “And there will be ample opportunity on this trip for you to show it. But if you don’t mind putting yourself in danger, you might at least think about the bandit leader. You would have killed him if he weren’t wearing armor.”

“It’s nice armor, too,” said Hugo thoughtfully, “much higher quality than you’d expect to see on a highwayman. It’s even better than mine. I wonder if it would fit me.”

I was not about to be distracted. “Doesn’t death seem like a rather stiff penalty for trying to rob a silk caravan?”

“Don’t go all moralistic!” Hugo cried. “The castellan to whom we’re taking these bandits may well hang them all if they’re multiple offenders. I know King Haimeric never hangs anybody, but justice is sharper a lot of places outside of Yurt.”

“You still can’t act as judge and executioner yourself,” I said sternly. I was rapidly starting to feel out of my depth. Since I, unlike Evrard, had not become a wizard out of fascination with the end of the Black Wars, and because Yurt really was very peaceful, I tended not to think about the morality of judicial execution, or for that matter much about deep moral issues at all.

“Even the Church recognizes killing in self-defense and the possibility of a just war,” said Hugo.

“This was not self-defense,” said Joachim.

I had been wondering when the chaplain was going to join this conversation. Priests were supposed to worry about morality. Wizards just try to keep as many people as possible alive and well.

“And killing someone,” Joachim continued soberly, “even in self-defense or to save another innocent life, still leaves a stain on the soul.”

Hugo, who had turned toward the chaplain, seemed abashed. I myself sometimes still found Joachim’s burning dark eyes intimidating. “Well, I didn’t kill him, and I didn’t mean to kill him.”

I expected he was telling the perfect truth-at all the tournaments in which he had taken part, everyone would have been wearing armor, and he would not have even thought about the effects of a razor-sharp sword on a man who did not have mail under his cloak.

But I was tired of worrying about morality myself. So when Hugo suddenly looked up and said, “What a castle!” in an entirely different voice, I was happy to change the subject.

And it was quite a castle. Among the tumbled hills before us rose a high ridge of red sandstone, at least a hundred feet tall. Cut into the sandstone were narrow windows, and perched on top, staring sternly down at the fields surrounding it, was the castle itself. Pennants whipping in the wind from the tops of the towers looked tiny, making us realize how high the castle really was.

We all pulled up for a better look. The castle was so well situated for war that we were momentarily stunned. “It would be impregnable,” said Ascelin. “There’s no way to scale the sandstone cliffs, especially with men inside shooting out. And I expect the stairs inside, going up to the castle, are very narrow and could easily be blocked against an enemy.”

“I’m sure the castellan there does indeed have rights of high justice,” commented the king with a chuckle.

The castle rose higher and higher above us as we approached. Encircling the base of the sandstone ridge was a tall curtain wall, also built of red stone, but the gate stood open. Two soldiers stepped forward menacingly as we approached.

“Greetings,” said the king. “We would like to see the lord of this castle. We have captured some bandits.”

The soldiers took a good look at us and our pack horses and then abruptly fled with startled cries. Giving each other surprised glances, we dismounted and came through the gate on foot.

“It’s a good thing we caught these bandits,” said the king, “if even the sight of them bound terrifies the people here.”

“It’s a good thing the castellan has such a fine castle if his soldiers are all cowards,” replied Dominic.

Inside the walls were all the working parts of a castle that someone would not want to transport up narrow stairs cut inside a cliff: the stables, the kennels, the armor shop, the mews, the kitchens, and the big grain storage bins. Down at the far end stood a set of gibbets; this castellan did indeed practice high justice.

We waited politely for someone to come meet us, but for a few minutes there was only panicked shouting and scurrying. I even wondered momentarily if some bizarre spell had made everyone here think that we were dragons. But a quick probe found no spells other than my own.

After a while, one of the soldiers came back. “Are- Are they dead?”

“Of course not,” I said. “I paralyzed them with magic.”

He hesitated. Something very odd indeed, I thought, was happening here. Did they think we were another band of ruffians ourselves? But if so, why did they make no effort to resist us?

“You’d better go up to the castle,” the soldier said at last, “and talk to the constable.”

There was a brief pause while we tried to decide if it was possible to carry the bandits up the stairs. Finally I broke the spells that held them. They looked disoriented and confused as we untied them from the pack horses, then pulled them to their feet and tied their hands behind them. As we started up toward the castle, Ascelin, Dominic, and Hugo each had a bandit in front of him, a dagger point resting against the back of his neck.

The first flight of stairs was wide enough to give us few problems, even though the steps were uneven and extremely dark. There were no windows, and we had to feel our way. The sandstone walls were gritty on either hand, and I heard Dominic cursing quietly as he bumped his head.

We came out into what appeared to be a guard room cut into the stone. A single window gave a little light. On the far side, the stairs started up again, much narrower and even darker.

The soldier leading us glanced at Dominic and Ascelin. “We’d better take the outside stairs,” he said.

The bandits, who had said nothing, all turned toward a door set in the room’s outer wall, next to the window. The soldier opened the door, which led to wooden stairs built on scaffolding on the outside of the cliff. These were much wider than the inner stairs though the gaps between steps made them potentially treacherous.