Powers of Detection

Cold Spell by DONNA ANDREWS

“Murder by magic?” Master Radolphus exclaimed.

Gwynn wasn’t actually trying to eavesdrop on the headmaster. But how could she help overhearing when his study door hung wide open?

Just then he looked up and saw her.

“You wait here,” he said to someone Gwynn couldn’t see. “I’ll talk to Master Justinian.”

What did a murder-even a magical murder-have to do with the Maestro, Gwynn wondered.

But she didn’t dare ask. Radolphus strode out of his study, beckoned for Gwynn to follow, and set off in the direction of Justinian’s quarters at a half run, his voluminous black robes billowing behind him. When they arrived outside the familiar carved wooden door, Radolphus stopped. He fished a handkerchief out of his sleeve, pushed up his thick spectacles, and wiped his red and sweating face.

Gwynn bent down to put her ear to the door.

“Is he out?” Radolphus said, panting slightly.

“Oh no, headmaster; the Maestro doesn’t feel well enough to go out,” Gwynn said softly. “I just don’t want to wake him if he’s sleeping.”

Radolphus nodded approvingly and patted her head. Gwynn sighed. At twelve, she’d considered it an incredible honor, being apprenticed to Westmarch College ’s most powerful mage. She still wouldn’t trade with any of her fellow students, but after two years, she’d begun to wonder if she owed her assignment to her superior magical talent or her reputation for working harder than any of the other students. Justinian did create a lot more work than the other masters. And needed more looking after than a first-year student.

Suddenly a loud “Achoo!” rang out inside.

“Oh, bother,” the Maestro exclaimed.

“He’s awake,” Gwynn said, pushing open the study door.

The tall diamond-paned windows, normally open wide even in January to let in sunlight, breezes, and any interesting bugs that might be passing by, were closed. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight, though a lot of light leaked through the places where the Maestro’s cat had shredded them. A mysterious haze drifted through the room from a burning brazier just inside the doorway. Though the healer had assured Gwynn that burning this particular assortment of herbs would ease a stuffy nose, it didn’t seem to have had much effect, apart from evicting the goblins who had made a nest under the dining table. To her surprise, Gwynn missed the goblins, if only because they normally kept the place moderately tidy by devouring anything organic that fell on the floor.

The Maestro’s great chair stood so close to the hearth that he was in serious danger of setting his slippers on fire again, and he sat, his long frame wrapped in several blankets, frowning at a selection of vials, jars, and flasks arranged on the table beside him. His hair, uncombed for several days, stuck out in random directions, making him look far younger than his thirty years.

And just in case anyone doubted how sick the Maestro was, a small mechanical cigar-cutter in the shape of a gargoyle lay on the table among the medicines, still in one piece. Under normal circumstances, it would take all of fifteen minutes for Justinian to begin disassembling any mechanical object unlucky enough to fall into his hands. The gargoyle had lain on the table untouched for three days.

A teacup teetered in midair in front of Justinian, levitating just beyond his grasp.

“Take care of that, Gwynn, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Gwynn glanced around to see if the Maestro’s latest sneeze had done any other accidental damage. No, nothing that she could see. No singing andirons, talking cats, invisible furniture, or randomly summoned demons. She sighed with relief. Then she grasped the teacup firmly, removed the levitation spell with a few quick gestures, and set the cup back on its saucer.

“Thank you,” the Maestro said. “My head feels twice normal size, with about a tenth of its usual speed.”

He sank back into the chair and closed his eyes.

“Oh, dear,” Radolphus said. “I was so hoping you only had a slight chill. Because I’m afraid you’re needed up at the castle.”

“Whatever for?” Justinian muttered.

“There’s been a murder,” Radolphus said. “It’s magical. And also political. The duke asked especially for you to come and deal with it.”

“Magical how?” Justinian asked. “Was someone killed by magic? Or did someone kill a mage? Or-achoo!”

A few blue sparks twinkled through the room.

“Bother! What now?” the Maestro asked, appearing to brace himself.

“The bats,” Radolphus said, pointing to the archway between the study and the workroom, where the fledgling bats usually slept.

The bats were now brightly colored. Some had stripes.

“Oh, bother.” Justinian sighed.

“I think they look very festive,” Gwynn said. “I’ll change them back later; they’re not hurting anyone now.”

She was relieved when neither mage objected-she already had the faint beginnings of a headache, the kind you got from doing too many spells in too short a time. Or undoing them, in this case.

“I know you’re in no shape to do magic,” Radolphus said. “But-”

“We have to at least look as if we’re doing something,” Justinian said. “Put up a good show for a day or so until my powers are back to normal, and I can actually solve this.”

He snagged his glasses from the nearby table and shoved them onto his nose in a determined fashion. Gwynn realized, with dismay, that he’d apparently sat on them again, then mended them with bits of sticking plaster. Ah, well; she’d fix them for real later.

“That’s the spirit,” Radolphus said. “The duke’s manservant’s waiting in my study-shall I bring him down? He can tell you more about the problem.”

“Might as well,” Justinian said. “Just give Gwynn a few minutes to tidy up.”

Fortunately, Justinian’s definition of tidying only meant throwing an old tablecloth over the cold medicines and helping him into the velvet smoking jacket he liked to wear to impress visitors. Gwynn decided not to mention that at the moment its burgundy color brought out the chapped red condition of his cheeks and nostrils.

“Try not to sneeze while he’s here,” Radolphus said as he hurried off.

“Mind over matter,” Justinian muttered, standing and looking polite as Radolphus escorted in the manservant. Who didn’t seem the least bit awed or even curious at being allowed to enter the study of a master magician. He planted himself on the hearth with his back to the fire and stuffed his hands in his pockets-blocking the path to Justinian’s favorite chair. The Maestro had to clear the books from one of the other chairs to sit down. Radolphus, long familiar with the condition of Justinian’s furniture, chose to stand.

“You Justinian?” the manservant said. “If you are, the duke sent me to fetch you.”

“I am,” Justinian said. “Welcome to my study.”

His dignity was only slightly undermined by the fact that all his m’s came out as b’s.

“Young for a wizard, aren’t you?” the manservant said. “I thought you were all supposed to have long gray beards and warts.”

Gwynn glanced at Master Radolphus, who fit the stereotype perfectly.

“Master Justinian is the most gifted mage of his generation,” Radolphus said, in his sternest and most dignified headmaster’s voice. “Indeed, of our age.”

The manservant shrugged.

“And you are?” Justinian asked.

“Name’s Reg,” the manservant said. “Been working for the duke a month now.”

“What seems to be the problem up at the castle?” Justinian said.

“Duke’s men caught a pair of anarchists skulking about,” Reg said. “Notified the king, and a party of royal guards comes down to take them back to the capital. Duke goes down to oversee the transfer, and one of the prisoners suddenly falls down bleeding and dies. Duke’s personal physician checks him over and finds a fresh stab wound in his chest. Only nobody in the room had a sword, or even a large knife, just muskets, and anyway, there’s no hole in the bloke’s clothes. We figured a magical attack, but the duke’s personal magician says he can’t detect any magic. So he says for you to come and figure it out.”

Gwynn saw Radolphus and Justinian exchange a grave glance. Even she could guess at some of the worries Reg’s story stirred up. The possibility that this incident would disrupt the always fragile relationship between their duke and the king. Or worse, that it would cause one or both to become less enthusiastic about protecting mages. The anarchists who’d killed the late king and plagued the current one throughout his reign were as violently opposed to magic as they were to royalty and the hereditary nobility. And so far the king, unlike many of his fellow monarchs, had supported or at least tolerated the mages within his realm. But if the king thought magicians were taking the law into their own hands, his tolerance could vanish overnight. Gwynn shuddered. They’d heard tales of mages hanged or burned at the stake in neighboring kingdoms, and some of the masters had begun to mutter that the college should go underground again.

She saw the Maestro nod to Radolphus. Then he pulled up the collar of his smoking jacket and shivered.

“Of course Master Justinian will come and deal with the problem,” Radolphus said.

“Oh, and the duke says while you’re at it, you should fix the castle warding spell,” Reg added.

“What’s wrong with it?” Radolphus asked.

“Stopped working,” Reg said, with a shrug. “At least, stopped working reliably. Goes off when there’s nothing in range then doesn’t do a thing when a bunch of Gypsies wander right through the portcullis. He’s pretty worked up about it.”

“He could hire some guards,” Justinian said.

“He has guards,” Reg said. “He wants a warding spell. He’s beginning to wonder out loud what good it does him to have a whole college full of mages in the province if he can’t get a simple spell done properly when he needs it.”

Gwynn wondered if the sudden hint of venom in Reg’s voice was an echo of the duke’s tone or reflected his own attitude toward magic.

“Of course Master Justinian will investigate the problem with the castle warding spell as well,” Master Radolphus said. “Why don’t you come with me and take some refreshment while Master Justinian is packing.”

Reg pried himself away from the hearth, stuck his hands in his pockets, and ambled out. Justinian reclaimed his chair with an injured air.

“I’m sorry, Jus,” Radolphus said, pausing in the doorway. “Pack so you can stay a few days if need be.”

Actually, Gwynn did most of the packing, filling a large trunk with the magical supplies the Maestro would require and a small carpet bag with what she might need for an overnight stay. The Maestro packed his medicines, in a satchel nearly as large and easily as heavy as the trunk.

It was midnight by the time they set out, and the six-hour trip seemed interminable, despite the relative luxury of the duke’s coach. Largely, Gwynn decided, because of Reg. Although he appeared to sleep through most of the journey, his presence prevented any interesting conversation. And even asleep, his sour face and the memory of his brusque, almost rude manner cast a pall over the party. Or perhaps it was that Reg fell asleep so easily despite the jolting of the coach while the Maestro’s attempts at much-needed slumber failed miserably. Justinian finally gave up trying and sat, glowering at Reg and muttering under his breath whenever the manservant’s snores grew particularly loud.

The Maestro put on his most gracious manner again when they arrived at the castle.

“At least we’ll have a good breakfast,” he murmured to Gwynn, when Reg had deposited them in the duke’s entrance hall and gone to announce their arrival. “The duke’s personal chef is legendary.”

“Finally,” the duke said, dashing into the hall. “Let’s get straight to work. Reg, go have the kitchen fix a couple of cold plates and bring them down to the dungeons.”

Justinian sighed and followed the duke’s stout figure down a forebodingly long, steep stairway. Gwynn trailed behind them, glancing nervously from side to side. But apart from being uncomfortably cold and damp, the maze of stone corridors beneath the castle held no particular horrors. From the length of their journey and the number of stairs they descended, the dungeons must be at the other end of the castle from the main gate and at least halfway to the center of the earth.

They finally entered a large, low-ceilinged room with a straw-covered floor. A dozen soldiers stood inside, and even in the flickering torchlight Gwynn could see that they had split into two distinct camps-the black uniforms of the king’s guards to her left and the duke’s red-and-gold colors to her right. The two groups eyed each other without liking.

“There’s the blighter,” the duke said, pointing.

Gwynn, who had never seen a murder victim before, stared curiously. It-or should that be he?-hung from one of the sets of arm and leg irons bolted to the room’s walls at regular intervals. He was slumped so Gwynn couldn’t see his face, only the blood that glistened on his body and the surrounding straw. Surely no one could lose that much blood and live.

Wait-the blood was still wet. Should it be, after the half day it had taken for Reg to fetch them?

Justinian stepped over to the body and examined it briefly, glancing once or twice with irritation at the torches. Was he annoyed by the low visibility-or was he, like Gwynn, wondering why the duke wasn’t using some form of magic light? Was this a sign that the duke’s tolerance for magic was waning?

A figure stepped out of the shadows to the Maestro’s side. From his worn black robe, Gwynn deduced he was the duke’s personal magician.

“So, what have we here?” Justinian asked.

“Dead prisoner,” the magician said. He was a thin, balding man with a look of habitual anxiety etched into his sharp features. “I cast a stasis spell on the body, soon as I could, so you could see it as near as possible to how I found it.”

“Stasis spell?” the duke shouted. “I authorized no spells! There’s been enough magical skullduggery already!”

“But surely your grace ordered him to preserve the evidence as well as possible for my arrival,” Justinian said. “That’s what a stasis spell does. It’s a lot like what happens when something’s frozen. But frozen in time instead of temperature.”

“Ah,” the duke said. “I see.”

He still looked baffled, but apparently decided to let the matter drop.

The stasis spell, Gwynn thought, would account for the still-damp blood.

“So, tell me the features of the case,” Justinian said.

As he and the castle mage talked, Gwynn decided that this magical murder was doing the Maestro good. Oh, he’d complained about the cold air and the night journey. But the puzzle before him seemed to keep him from dwelling on his cold. He coughed and sneezed a lot less often, and without any magical side effects.

And she was glad it wasn’t her job to figure out what had happened. The evidence was sparse. In fact, apart from the blood-smeared body of the dead anarchist, nonexistent. His live confederate, still chained to the opposite wall, tried to look fierce, and occasionally muttered under his breath about damned unnatural spellcasters. The dozen guards readily demonstrated that their muskets and pistols had not been fired, and the few knives they carried were free of blood, not to mention far too small to have produced the prisoner’s wound. And anyway, nothing physical could have produced the wound without piercing the prisoner’s shirt and doublet which were, apart from dirt and bloodstains, undamaged.

“Filthy black magic,” the surviving anarchist muttered, when Justinian and the castle mage had confirmed this.

“Fascinating,” Justinian murmured, as he examined the doublet.

He gestured and murmured a few words. Gwynn recognized the incantation that would strip away the stasis spell. And then another spell, less familiar to her.

Justinian paused as if listening to a sound inaudible to the rest of them, then looked around with unfocused eyes.

“No taint of magic,” he murmured, with a puzzled look.

“As I said, my spells couldn’t detect anything either,” the castle mage said, a little defensively.

“Your spells couldn’t detect a turd in your soup tureen,” the duke said. “Leave this to a real mage.”

But the duke’s tone made Gwynn glance in his direction. The duke looked-scared would be an exaggeration, perhaps. But definitely uneasy. It was one thing to see his personal mage baffled. No spellcaster of any real power would settle for a post as a mere castle mage. But to see the powerful Master Justinian baffled-that would make anyone uneasy. Gwynn’s own stomach tightened a bit at the thought.

“A fascinating puzzle,” Justinian said.

He gestured again, then frowned. Gwynn and the castle mage were probably the only ones who realized that his spell had fizzled. They looked at each other with alarm.

Justinian sighed and rubbed his forehead as if it hurt. Gwynn felt a little reassured. Obviously his stuffed-up head was bothering him. He’d do better when he felt better.

Although he could be in for a miserable few days in the meantime.

“So what are we standing about for?” the duke asked.

“Your grace-” the castle mage began.

“Now that the expert’s here, shouldn’t you be seeing about the wards?” the duke asked.

The castle mage looked, if possible, even more anxious.

“I’ve already tried everything I know,” he protested. “I was hoping Master Justinian…”

“Of course,” Justinian said. “My assistant will go and… um… begin running the tests I’ve planned to diagnose the problem with the castle warding spell, while I work on the murder.”

“Me?” Gwynn wanted to squeak, but she managed to hold her tongue in front of the duke.

“Ah, there you are, Reg,” the duke ordered, seeing that his manservant had arrived carrying a covered platter. “Show her to the gatehouse.”

“Just pretend it’s a class exercise and try to find out what’s wrong with the wards,” Justinian murmured, picking up her small carpet bag and handing it to her as carefully as if it were full of volatile potions. “If the duke’s magician hasn’t brought down the castle walls trying to fix it, you’re not likely to do any harm. If you fix it, marvelous; if not, I’ll deal with it when I’m finished with this.”

Gwynn nodded and followed Reg back to the gatehouse. It took fifteen minutes-the castle was more like a small city.

“Latest expert on warding spells,” Reg said, turning her over to the captain of the guard, who, after quirking one eyebrow, seemed to accept Gwynn’s expertise. Or perhaps he was just happy to see Reg leave.

“Not sure what you can do about the damned thing,” the captain said. “Works one minute and not the next. Apparently that’s a lot harder to fix than if it just flat out didn’t work.”

Unfortunately, he was right, Gwynn soon realized. Intermittent problems were the worst. She ran tests all morning, and the warding spell worked perfectly. The guards could come and go at will without setting off the alarm bells, but they rang furiously whenever an intruder entered the castle-intruders being represented, for test purposes, by a motley collection of peddlers, minstrels, and Gypsies unfortunate enough to show up at the castle that day.

Gwynn hated to disappoint the Maestro, but she was beginning to think he’d have to solve the problem. Though she’d keep trying for a while, since obviously his own work on the murder wasn’t going well. She saw him crossing the courtyard occasionally, always with a slightly more worried look on his face. She didn’t want to bother him yet.

Besides, she was a little worried about what would happen when Justinian saw the warding spell’s control device: a perfect little miniature of the duke’s castle, complete with a working drawbridge and portcullis. Justinian’s intense passion for disassembling small mechanical objects was matched only by his complete inability to reassemble them. What if the Maestro decided he needed to take the model apart to repair the spell? Gwynn tried not to think about it.

If she hadn’t been so worried, she’d have found the model castle fascinating herself. You could keep track of everything that went on in the castle-outdoors, at any rate-by watching the small, ghostly figures that moved around in it. Gwynn spotted the tiny image of Master Justinian standing on one of the ramparts and paused to watch. From the slumped set of his shoulders, she deduced that things were still going badly. She sighed, turned her back on the model, and tried to think.

“There really doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it,” Gwynn muttered.

“Useless things, these magical devices,” said Reg, from the doorway. Gwynn jumped; she hadn’t heard him come in. And his presence was the last thing she needed. He had a personality like a cold, wet drizzle.

Suddenly the bells began ringing. Gwynn and the captain ran to the front of the miniature castle. They could see a group of small, ghostly figures entering it. A troop of wood trolls, armed with scythes and machetes. And yet, glancing out of the window of the guardhouse, which overhung the real gate, they saw no trolls entering the castle. Nothing was entering the castle, not even a chipmunk.

“It was working fine a minute ago,” the captain said.

“If you say so,” Reg said, with a shrug. “I’ve never seen it work right myself.”

“Send some of the Gypsies in and out of the gate,” Gwynn said.

The captain shouted some orders down into the courtyard. The wards ignored the Gypsies plodding in and out, though they continued to show the purely imaginary trolls wandering about the courtyard.

Or were they imaginary? Gwynn decided to cast a quick illusion-stripping spell on the courtyard. Permanently dispelling illusions was a job for a master mage, of course, but Gwynn thought that if any magically cloaked trolls lurked in the courtyard, she could probably make them visible for a second or two.

“Watch the courtyard and tell me what you see,” she told the captain and Reg.

And then she gestured.

“I don’t see anything,” Reg said. The captain shook his head as well.

Of course they didn’t see anything, Gwynn thought. The spell had fizzled. And yet, this morning, when she had cast the same spell on the courtyard as part of her tests, it had worked perfectly. The only illusion she’d dispelled this morning was a passing courtier’s toupee spell, but her illusion-stripping incantation had worked, just the same.

What was different now?

“I don’t hold with magic,” Reg said, lounging in the window. “Useless stuff. Never works the way it’s supposed to.”

Gwynn suddenly remembered how the Maestro had been able to sneeze without ill effect when Reg had been in his study. And in the coach, all the way from the college to the duke’s castle.

“I want you to help with something,” she told Reg. She rummaged through her carpet bag and handed him a small crystal. “Here, take this. Go down to the gate, walk out and keep going in as straight a line as you can until I call for you to stop.”

“Whatever you like,” Reg said, with a sneer. He shoved the crystal in his pocket and sauntered out.

“Keep the Gypsies going in and out,” Gwynn told the captain.

Gwynn glanced back and forth between the miniature castle and the outside world as Reg left the castle and ambled toward the edge of the wood. The tiny trolls appeared to be setting the model of the stables afire. The Gypsies were nowhere to be seen in the model, although she could see them well enough in the real world, marching back and forth through the gates with resigned expressions on their faces. When Reg was about a thousand yards from the castle gate, the phantom trolls suddenly vanished from the model and the Gypsies appeared.

“Do you see that?” she asked the captain.

“Now it’s working,” he said.

“Let him get to the edge of the woods, then call him back.”

The captain did so. When the manservant got within about a thousand yards of the castle, the images of the Gypsies winked out in the model, and the phantom trolls reappeared. They seemed to have captured the keep and were throwing tapestries and furniture into the moat.

“I think you may be on to something,” the captain said. “What is that crystal?”

“An excuse to get him out of range,” Gwynn said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Could you send someone to fetch Master Justinian?” Gwynn asked.

From the cloud of camphor that arrived with him, Gwynn deduced that the Maestro’s cold was no better, and judging from the expression on his face, Gwynn suspected his investigation was still going badly, too. She winced when she saw the duke trailing in his wake, looking like a thundercloud about to spew lightning.

“This better be important,” the duke snapped as he entered the room.

“A moment, your grace,” Justinian said, and drew Gwynn to one side.

“I’m sorry I’ve interrupted your work,” she began.

“I’m not,” Justinian said, rubbing his forehead again. “I’m in no shape to be doing magic. One minute my spells work, the next they fizzle. And even when they work, I’m not finding anything that could account for that poor benighted man’s death.”

“Perhaps this will help,” she said.

She showed him the model castle, where the triumphant miniature trolls were now roasting tiny castle guards on spits and eating them with gusto.

“Fascinating,” Justinian said, fingering a model catapult on the castle walls.

“Typical,” the duke said, with disgust. “Damned useless piece of junk.”

“Patience, your grace,” Justinian said, toying with the miniature drawbridge. “Something of great import is afoot.”

He looked at Gwynn and nodded.

While the duke and the captain of the guard looked on with puzzled expressions, Gwynn demonstrated how the wards worked again when Reg was out of range.

“Of course,” Justinian said. “He’s been hovering over me all morning. That explains everything. Follow me!”

He dashed off at a breakneck pace. Gwynn, Reg, and the duke followed him back to the dungeons.

“What are we here for?” the duke asked, when he’d caught his breath.

“I need to question your surviving prisoner,” Justinian replied.

The remaining anarchist flinched. Obviously, he was more used to the duke’s style of interrogation than the Maestro’s.

“You saw the wound in your comrade’s chest, did you not?” Justinian asked.

“Filthy magic attack,” the anarchist muttered.

“He was wounded before in just the same fashion, wasn’t he?” Justinian asked.

“Aye,” the anarchist said, looking puzzled. “Stabbed in the chest in a scuffle with the king’s guards-must be five years ago. We thought he was a goner, for sure, but we had this mage with us-”

“A mage? With you?” Justinian said.

“A hostage, more than likely,” the duke said.

“Something like that,” the anarchist said. “Anyway, the mage fixed it. Healed the wound so you couldn’t even see it, and we managed to get out of the city that night. Guards were looking for a wounded rebel, not a healthy one.”

“Aha!” Justinian said, dramatically. “Most helpful. Now I know how he was killed.”

“Some kind of magic,” the anarchist muttered.

“No,” Justinian said. “He was killed by the complete absence of magic.”

“I beg your pardon?” the duke said.

“We already know the castle warding spell has been… temperamental,” Justinian said. “Have you noticed problems with any other spells? Food preservation spells wearing off prematurely? Healing potions not working as designed? Cosmetic spells not performing reliably?”

The duke nodded and narrowed his eyes. From the murmurs Gwynn could hear from several other people nearby, she suspected that there had, indeed, been many magical malfunctions recently-probably more than the duke ever dreamed.

“The light globes haven’t worked for weeks,” the castle mage said, glancing up at a flickering torch.

“It’s him,” Justinian said, pointing at Reg.

“Me?” Reg exclaimed. “I’m no bloody mage.”

“We’ll see about that,” the duke said, gesturing to his guards to seize Reg.

“No, Reg is right, your grace,” Justinian said, waving the guards back. “He’s no mage. He has no magic whatsoever. Probably born that way. He’s what we call a magic null.”

“A what?” the duke said.

“A null-he cancels out magic by his very presence. Like water and fire. Pour water on a fire, and it fizzles out. Pour water on gunpowder, and you can’t even light it. That’s what he does to magic. Snuffs it out like a candle.”

“Explains why the warding spell wasn’t working, but not how he killed my prisoner,” the duke said. “Unless you’re trying to tell me that anarchist was a mage. Which doesn’t make sense; they hate mages. Besides, you aren’t harmed by him.”

“It goes back to that wound your prisoner got five years ago,” the Maestro said. “The one his confederate here says their captured mage healed. They probably had a knife to his throat, poor man. But he was clever. He didn’t perform a healing spell at all.”

“That’s rot,” the remaining anarchist said. “I saw it. One minute he had a great bleeding wound, and the next he looked perfectly fine.”

“Precisely,” Justinian said. “You said he escaped the city that same night? Healing spells don’t work that fast. What I suspect your captive mage did was cast a stasis spell just along the outside of the wound, to stop the bleeding.”

“Like the one my spellcaster did before you came?” the duke asked.

“Precisely,” Justinian said. “And probably finished it off with an illusion spell, to hide the wound.”

“Now I’m not sorry we offed him,” the surviving anarchist muttered.

“With a stasis spell, the wound wouldn’t bleed or fester,” Justinian explained. “It also wouldn’t heal. It would stay just as it was the moment that poor captive mage cast his spell. And he probably conjured better than he intended; his stasis spell remained in place these five years until our magic null here walked into his cell and erased it. Reg was there, wasn’t he, when the prisoner died?”

“Yes, he was,” the duke said.

“So it wasn’t really murder after all,” Justinian said. “Your prisoner was wounded by the king’s guards in the lawful dispatch of their duty. It just took five years for the wound to kill him.”

“Of course, we still don’t know who sent him to me,” the duke said, staring at Reg with narrowed eyes.

“Sent?” Reg said, looking worried. “Nobody sent me. I just needed a job.”

“Maybe,” the duke said. “Or maybe someone wanted all my magical defenses to fail. We’ll see what a little questioning reveals.”

“Oh, not much use doing that,” Justinian said.

“Why not?” the duke said. “You’d be surprised how well a little close questioning works.”

“Yes, but whoever sent him probably bespelled him to make sure he was impervious to torture,” Justinian said.

“Torture?” Reg squeaked.

“But Maestro, if he’s a magic null,” Gwynn began, then stopped herself.

“Then I’ll just hang him and be done with it,” the duke said.

“Hang him, when he’s merely an unwitting tool of something else?” Justinian exclaimed.

“Unwitting? I’ll do him one better,” the duke said. “Unbreathing-that’s more like it.”

“And when, with a little effort, the College might discover who sent him… and how to turn his abilities to your benefit?” Justinian continued.

“Hmmm…” the duke said, looking thoughtfully at Reg, whose earlier smug manner had vanished entirely at the first sign of danger.

It took all of the Maestro’s considerable powers of persuasion, but the duke finally agreed to turn Reg over to the college for study.

“We’ll waste no time getting him at a safe distance from your wards,” Justinian said, beckoning to Gwynn and Reg to follow him as he bowed his way out of the room.

“Thanks,” Reg said, when they reached the corridor. “You never know when the old goat will change his mind. Best for my safety if we leave as soon as possible.”

“Bother your safety,” Justinian replied. “I just want to get home as soon as possible so I can be sick in peace and quiet. I’ve never seen such a drafty castle.”

–

“A genuine magic null!” Radolphus said, wide-eyed, when Gwynn and Justinian had finished telling the headmaster about their expedition. Although Gwynn did most of the telling, while Justinian lay back in his chair, wrapped in three blankets, announcing at random intervals that he’d probably caught his death on the trip back. And, Gwynn noticed with dismay, toying idly with the miniature catapult he’d filched from the duke’s model castle.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing,” Gwynn said. “But I knew there was something odd about Reg.”

“I’m not sure I’d have figured it out all that quickly myself,” Justinian said. “It’s easy to identify something you know about, and a damned sight harder to deal intelligently with the unknown.”

Gwynn glowed at the implied compliment.

“And at least the duke is happy, and can probably keep the king happy,” Radolphus said.

“For now,” Justinian added.

Gwynn could see that both of their faces looked somber for a moment. Then Radolphus smiled.

“Now’s good enough,” he said. “And the magic null-they’re quite rare! I don’t think anyone here has seen the like for a century! Think of the opportunities for research! Of course, we’ll have to find him someplace to stay where he’ll be harmless. At the very edge of the grounds. But that won’t be any trouble, really; not when you consider the benefits.”

“Yes,” Gwynn said. “To start with, the benefits to Master Justinian.”

“To me?” Justinian said, puzzled.

“You’ve been having such an awful time with this cold,” Gwynn explained. “Especially when you sneeze.”

“Yes, I’m sorry to be such a burden,” Master Justinian said, flourishing his handkerchief dramatically. “It’s not fair, asking you to take care of me this way.”

“I don’t mind, Maestro,” Gwynn said, suppressing a smile. “Only the, uh, side effects of the sneezing do seem rather dangerous. But if Reg were around, you could sneeze all you wanted, and nothing at all would happen!”

“I don’t know,” Justinian said, taken aback. “I’m not sure I’d want having him around all the time. It would be like having a dead squid in the room. And besides he-he-he-”

The Maestro sneezed. It was a loud, hearty sneeze, and both Gwynn and Radolphus ducked and covered their heads by instinct.

“Oh, all right,” came a squeak.

Gwynn and Radolphus opened their eyes. There, sitting in Master Justinian’s chair, almost lost in the pile of blankets and robes, was a tiny blue goblin with watery eyes and a red, chapped nose.

“Change me back, quick!” squeaked the goblin Justinian. “And then bring in Reg. Anything’s better than this!”