Free Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 by C. Dale Brittain, Brittain Page B

sweat on me was cold now that I had finished my spels, but it was more than that that made me shiver.
    “Demons incarnate!” gasped the chaplain, clutching his crucifix. He took a quick look and then retreated The whole castle was roused and miling around the courtyard—everyone, that is, except the Lady Justinia whom no one had seen.
    “Not demons,” I said slowly. Several lay on the ground by my feet, no longer struggling against my spels but watching me with glowing eyes. “Demons would no! have been stopped by my spels. But they’re not alive either. They look like they’re made from hair and bone.’
    “Can magic do that?” asked the chaplain, hovering a short distance behind me as though not wanting to approach but not wanting to appear to retreat any further either. “Can it make life?”
    “Not life. But there are spels in the old magic o\ earth and stone that can give the semblance of life They don’t teach those spels at the wizards’ school but back in the old days of apprenticeships wizards used to learn them, and I think they stil use them over in the Eastern Kingdoms, beyond the mountains.”
    “How would you make such creatures?” asked the chaplain, coming one step closer and sounding interested in spite of himself.
    “The traditional way,” I said, then paused for a second to renew a binding spel that seemed tattered, “was to use dragons’ teeth.” There was a long silence. “You didn’t make them, did you?” asked the chaplain as though trying to make a joke. When I turned to glare at him, in no mood for a joke, he added hastily, “Wel, I trust you did not, my son, but in that case who did?”
    “I have absolutely no idea.” It must be linked with the Lady Justinia’s arrival, I thought, but I was not about to say so until I had better evidence—no use having everyone in the castle treating with suspicion someone whom the mage had entrusted to me.
    Then I remembered who else had been entrusted to me. Antonia! Where was she in al this? Yeling at one of the knights to cal me the second any of these unliving warriors showed signs of breaking out of my spels, I raced back into the castle and to my chambers.
    She had lit the magic lamp and was sitting in my best chair with a blanket wrapped around her. “What happened?” she asked, round-eyed. “And why,” with a wrinkling of her chin as though trying to keep back tears of terror, “did you leave me al alone?”
    I snatched her up and held her close. “I’m so sorry, Antonia,” I murmured, stroking her hair. She was shaking and clung to me—no cool self-possession now. “But right here was the safest place for you.
    Some warriors tried to invade the castle, and I had to stop them.”
    Slowly she stopped shaking as I held her. “I could have helped you,” she said then, pushing herself back to look me in the face. “I can do al sorts of spels. While I was waiting for you I turned Doly into a frog.”
    A quick glance at her dol showed it unchanged: a rag dol, embroidered with a smiling face I found almost aggressively adorable, wearing a silk dress doubtless made from the scraps of something Theodora had sewn for a fine lady of Caelrhon. “Soon you’l be a witch like your mother,” I said encouragingly.
    For some reason I didn’t like the way that sounded, but we were interrupted by a shout from the courtyard. “Wizard!” I bounced Antonia back into bed. “Go to sleep,” I said, trying not to sound too rough. “I may be busy the rest of the night.” And I darted out across the drawbridge to find one of the armored warriors pushing itself to a sitting position and raising its sword.
    A few quick words of the Hidden Language restored the binding spel, but I thought, looking at the twitching colection of creatures before me, that there was a limit to how long I could keep them imprisoned. I had worked my spels fast, using shortcuts wherever I could, and the spels that made unliving hair and bones—and maybe