Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

deciding not to comment that the bishop was certainly slow enough to grasp the obvious, especialy since it was almost a year since his own provost had had a telephone instaled in the cathedral. I wasn’t particularly interested in the bishop, but it was better to talk than to sit in silence, feeling the emptiness of the unknown voyage before us.
    “It realy has been easier communicating with the cathedral this last year, rather than having to rely on the carrier pigeons,” said Joachim, not answering my question. I wondered if he and the bishop had discussed some spiritual issue which they thought was unsuitable for a wizard’s ears.
    But after a moment of staring into the fire, Joachim spoke again. “He confirmed that the new chaplain wil arrive here within the week. It’s always hard to get one on short notice, but he thought that this young priest would do very wel here. I’m sorry I won’t be able to help him settle into his duties.”
    The wizards’ school would certainly not send out a substitute wizard to Yurt while I was gone. For one thing, unlike priests who claimed to show each other Christian charity, wizards were wel known for fighting al the time and I would never have alowed it.
    “I shal miss Yurt,” added Joachim. His comment didn’t seem to have anything to do with the bishop, but since it fitted in wel with my own mood it seemed appropriate.
    We sat in silence for a few minutes. The castle was quiet around us. My chambers opened directly onto the main courtyard, but no one came or went on this dark, damp night.
    “The bishop once went to the Holy Land himself,” said Joachim as though there had been no pause in the conversation. “It must be over forty years ago, when he was a young priest. He did the pilgrimage thoroughly, too, starting in the great City by the sea and visiting the holy sites there and then stopping at most of the shrines on the way. Last week he sent me the guidebook he’d used, with the shrines he visited al marked. It took him over a year to reach the Holy Land”
    I had met the bishop only once. As a wizard, I was always a little skeptical of claims of great authority by members of the organized Church, and our brief meeting hadn’t made me take to him personaly. But I knew Joachim thought of the bishop almost as a father. I, on the other hand, had lost my parents when smal and certainly didn’t consider the masters of the wizards’ school as substitute fathers—for one thing, I knew they would have resisted any suggestion that I was their son.
    “Wel, it would be sily for us to go west to the City to start our trip,” I said absently. “We know Sir Hugo and his parry were fine when they left home. By going southeast, we’l be able to pick up the pilgrimage route wel along, without a lengthy detour.” But then something the chaplain had said struck me. “Wait a minute. I lived al my life in the City before coming to Yurt. I don’t remember it having holy sites.”
    Joachim looked up at me and smiled, something he didn’t do very often. “Of course it has holy sites, even if a merchant’s son and a young wizard never paid any attention to them. Christianity began in the Holy Land, but the City was the capital of an empire then, and early missionaries tried to establish the true faith there as wel. Many of them were martyred in early years by imperial forces, and the places where their holy bones were laid to rest became shrines for the faithful.”
    “Oh, churches,” I said with a shrug. “Of course the City has a lot of churches. We couldn’t visit every holy shrine in the western and eastern kingdoms anyway. It would take much too long to get to the Holy Land and you’d never keep track of them al. Besides, Yurt has its own shrine, with the Holy Toe of Saint Eusebius the Cranky, if someone just wanted to see a holy site.” Joachim didn’t answer. In the black linen of his vestments, he almost merged into the shadows of the room. I wondered if he had