"I wish I knew how to find out what it is!"

"Could you do a divination?"

"The Church really doesn't approve of such magic. In any event, the scale of operations is so vast that I would hardly know how to approach it. It is necessary to have a most specific question in mind, or divination is virtually useless. Many people are worse off with divination than without it, because they misunderstand what it reveals."

"Perhaps I could look," she suggested. "I can travel far now, and swiftly."

Parry knew that was true. She had labored over the decades to extend her range, and now could fly to any region of the mortal world. But he remained negative. "Where would you look? You face the same problem as the divination."

"I might watch Lucifer's mortal minions. If they abruptly stir, that might be a clue."

Parry nodded. "That may be our only chance."

"But of course I'll have to spend most of my time away from you. Can you endure that?"

She was teasing him, but there was substance in it. "Your presence and company have sustained me all these years. I will miss you-but for the preservation of our society from evil, I am prepared to endure it."

She smiled, and brushed his lips with the image of hers, and faded out.

In December Jolie brought news: the minions were stirring. They were active in a pattern of locations forming a rough shield toward the east.

"Surely they aren't trying to stop the Mongols!" he exclaimed.

"No, they are operating well within the Mongol sphere, behind the armies. They seem to be alert for something from the east, though. They are at the stations of the major trade and travel routes."

"They must expect something from the east," he said. "But it is winter; the trade routes are mostly shut down. Only a few hardy travelers are abroad now, and the Mongol messenger cadre-"

He broke off, staring at her. "A message!" he exclaimed. "They want to intercept a messenger!"

"That must be it," she agreed. "But why? What message?"

"We must find out! That is surely the news Lucifer fears!"

"I will go look," she said excitedly, and faded out again.

She was gone for several days, and Parry was lonely. He had not realized how much he depended on her company! He had been devastated when she died, but her return in spirit had alleviated much of his grief and enabled him to follow his present course. He wondered how the other friars managed, without spiritual women. Some, he knew, cheated, seducing innocent girls on the sly, but others seemed genuinely uninterested in such relations. Did other friars wonder about him? He had been true to Jolie throughout-because she was always with him. But sometimes he dreamed of living women. He knew he was not a natural celibate; had it been feasible for Jolie to resume mortal form, he would have had to leave the Order to rejoin her. Sometimes he almost wished she would animate the body of a mortal girl for a few hours, so as to- But such notions were forbidden! He steeled himself and went about his business, which at this stage was mainly paperwork. Had he not known better, he would have been tempted to think that the parchment and quill were works of Lucifer, devised to destroy men with sheer tedium.

At last she manifested. "Parry, I found it!" she said excitedly. "The Great Khan is dead! The messengers are riding out to all parts of the Mongol empire with the news!"

"The Khan Ogedei?" he asked, amazed. "The leader of all the Mongols?"

"The same! Batu is chief only of the Golden Horde; he owes allegiance to the Great Khan! He will have to return to help elect a new Great Khan!"

"Then what of the thrust against Europe?" Parry asked, and answered it even as he spoke. "It will have to halt because their leader is dead, and the new one might have different notions! This is what Lucifer has been waiting for. But-"

"But why should Lucifer be so interested in the stopping of the thrust against Europe?" she put in. "He wants it to continue!"

"Which means Lucifer intends to stop the message from getting through!" Parry concluded. "Then the thrust will continue, and by the time the news of the Great Khan's death gets through, it will be too late for Europe!"

"Yes, even if the Mongols withdraw, the damage will be so great that there will be chaos, and Lucifer will reap a monstrous harvest!"

He nodded. "Now we know. Now we must act. How much time do we have?"

"Those riders are professionals," she said. "They are using horses in relays, and galloping from station to station. But the stations are farther apart in the wilderness, so they have to rest their horses more. I think it will take about a month to get all the way to Poland; it's over a thousand leagues."

"But for a message of this importance, they might move faster," Parry said. "Also, they could have magicians to transmit it instantly across some sections."

"Yes. Lucifer's minions are acting as if they expect the messengers in just a few days."

"So we may not have much time at all. We have to stop Lucifer's minions from ambushing those messengers."

"But wouldn't Lucifer be on guard against that?" she asked. "Lucifer has been setting up for this for many years, ready to take advantage of the situation; surely he will not readily be balked."

"You're right, Jolie! He will be watching! In fact, he will probably be subtle; he won't waylay the messengers, he will simply distract them momentarily and subst.i.tute false doc.u.ments for the originals. Ones that say that the Great Khan is preparing a celebration and wants Europe conquered as swiftly as possible for the occasion. The messengers of course will not know the contents of their packets; those would be only for the eyes of those in charge. We shall have to be as clever as he is-and switch back the original messages."

So they agreed. Jolie went out again, and used her ability to penetrate the message packet of one of the riders, and memorized the content of the key doc.u.ment. It was written in Uigur script, which complicated matters; she had to describe parts of it, and return for more, in a number of stages. Parry drew on the services of a scholar monk who understood the language to re-create the doc.u.ment.

By the time they had a reasonable imitation, their deadline was close. Lucifer had made the exchanges, and the messengers were riding toward Europe. It would be impossible to intercept each messenger; they were widely separated, taking different routes, using the major trade lanes. Lucifer, with his many minions and many years of preparation, had been able to cover every one, but Parry could only do one.

He decided on the one who was now pa.s.sing through the chief city of the Russian Princ.i.p.ality of Novgorod. That was the northernmost trade route, the one that connected to the Baltic Sea. Sections of that route would be virtually impa.s.sable in midwinter; if Lucifer's minions were to be careless about any messenger, it would be that one. He might not even get through in time to have any effect; one of the more southerly messengers would be there first.

"But if false messages arrive first. Prince Batu won't believe the true one!" Jolie protested.

"He's no fool, and certainly General Subutai isn't! They will know something is amiss, and will investigate before acting. That's all we need!"

"I hope so," she said doubtfully.

"It is all we can do on this short notice. We are going to have to work closely together, and your part is vital."

"Oh?" she asked archly.

He explained the plan he had worked out. "Oh," she repeated, no longer archly.

He changed to duck form and set off. The duck was not the most impressive of birds, but was equipped to fly steadily over a long distance, and so represented his fastest and least conspicuous mode of travel.

He flew all day, and came to roost exhausted; he had tried to remain in condition, but he had few opportunities as a monk to fly, and he was now fifty years old. The night was freezing. His down insulated him, but foraging and roosting was no fun.

In the morning, tired and stiff, he resumed his flight, north-west toward Novgorod. He made less progress than the prior day, because of his fatigue and the rising winds, but he fought on. He knew that the fate of Europe was at stake; this was his only chance to blunt Lucifer's malicious device.

So he continued, struggling, Jolie floating along with him. Every so often she vanished, going to verify the progress of the Mongol rider. That man, too, was cold and tired, but he was toughened to it, and closed inevitably on the city of Novgorod.

As Parry flew, he reflected on what he knew of Novgorod. About four hundred years before, the Vikings from Sweden had thrust up the river routes of northern Russia, establishing colonies and a trading empire throughout the region. The town of Novgorod became their headquarters, and then the town of Smolensk farther south, and finally Kiev to the south of that, on the approach to the Black Sea. Kiev became the capital of a flourishing empire with strong links to the Byzantine empire of the Mediterranean region. When Kiev broke up, the other cities formed princ.i.p.alities, and Novgorod developed a vast northern fur-trading empire. In recent years, under Prince Alexander Nevski, Novgorod had aggressively extended its domains-until the Mongol onslaught. In 1238, during their winter campaign against the northern princ.i.p.alities, the Mongols had come within twenty leagues of the city of Novgorod. But Alexander had been saved by the luck of the season: the Mongols were steppe fighters who flourished in dry country and in the frozen steppe regions, but were wary of being bogged down and trapped in the marshes by the spring thaw. So they had retreated, sparing Novgorod. Prince Alexander, however, no fool, had yielded sovereignty to the Mongols and paid tribute. Thus they had spared him their next season for campaigning, and moved instead to the west.

Parry nodded internally. Prince Alexander had been wise indeed, for Novgorod retained its strength while the other states were being sliced to bits. Similarly the Princ.i.p.ality of Polotsk, now taken over by the Princ.i.p.ality of Lithuania, had been spared-but no one doubted the power of the Mongols here, and the Mongol agents were unquestioned. So this was Mongol territory, though it had not felt the Mongol sword directly. Just as much of Europe would be, if Parry's present mission did not succeed. Lucifer had planned well!

By the time Parry reached the border of the Princ.i.p.ality of Lithuania, he knew he was not going to make it. The doc.u.ment packet, light enough for a duck to carry, now was weighing him down intolerably. But Jolie hovered with him, spurring him on with words and gibes, so that he dragged himself onward. But soon even her encouragement was not enough, and he had to come to ground at the frozen-over waters of the Western Dvina River. He had not quite made it to the Republic of Novgorod. He was exhausted, and dared not change from his duck form because as a man he would be naked to the snows. Meanwhile, the Mongol rider had reached the town of Novgorod and delivered his message packet to the next rider, who was now riding southwest. Parry's chance to make the exchange in the night was gone.

"But the messenger must pa.s.s this river!" Jolie said. "We can intercept him here!"

"In the form of a duck?" he asked dispiritedly. He did not actually speak; he merely thought it, and she was able to hear, being hardly more than thought herself. This was another refinement of their interaction they had developed over the years.

"You said that I would have to make the actual exchange," she reminded him. "That I would have to find a local woman and arrange to animate her body long enough to do it. Why can't I do it here?"

"Because there is no woman," he replied. "And if there were, it still wouldn't do, because the messenger will be riding right across the river without pausing. He will be a professional, not stopping for anything until he meets his relay in Vilna. No hope to make the subst.i.tution here!"

"Surely there is!" she persisted. "If I can find a woman, and intercept him here-"

"He would not stop. Not even if you stood naked in the snow. These men simply do not dally; their heads would be forfeit if they did. It is discipline, perhaps more than anything else, that makes the Mongols so formidable."

"There has to be a way," she said. "Maybe you could use magic to stop him."

"I lack the strength to do more than mild illusion or Avination."

"Illusion," she said, musingly. "Much can be done with that, properly applied."

Now at last her att.i.tude struck a spark. "The semblance of a barrier!" he thought. "If the way seems impa.s.sable-"

"The river!" she responded. "If there seemed to be a thaw, so that he could not cross-"

"Except by boat, which his horse could not manage-"

"Unless a local girl knew the only safe route across the loosening ice-"

Parry would have kissed her if he could. She had found the key!

In a moment they had their plan. Parry marshaled his strength for a suitable effort of illusion, while Jolie ranged out to find a suitable local peasant woman for her purpose.

Soon a figure approached, swathed in furs. Parry, foraging at the snowy bank as well as he could, tried to hide, but it hailed him in French. "Parry! It is Jolie!"

Already! Amazed, he came out to meet her. This was a young woman, a maiden, with girlishly fair features. Even the bundled fur clothing was unable to mask completely the healthy lines of her.

"She has agreed to let me use her body for this occasion," Jolie said. "She doesn't speak our language, but I was able to make our need plain. But we must give her something."

Parry nodded his duck head. No one did something for nothing. "What did you promise her?" he thought warily.

"I'm afraid it was a pretty important gift. The ability to form a ball of ice, and gaze into it, and see the best location for good firewood under the snow. That way her family will not be cold this winter."

Parry nodded again. How cleverly Jolie had managed it! This was in fact a minor thing to do; he could readily craft it, even in his present state. But of course it would loom important to the peasant girl, whose horizons were limited. "It shall be done," he agreed. "I shall instruct her now, before the rider comes."

So he did. If the girl thought it strange to be educated by a duck, she did not show it; evidently Jolie's presence in her mind rea.s.sured her. Parry thought his instructions to Jolie, who relayed them to the girl. Because they were concepts rather than words, the girl could understand.

She formed a ball of ice. Actually, it was a ball of solid snow, but that was sufficient. She stared into it, and Parry showed her how, via the channel of Jolie's understanding, to see the visions in it. When she pictured the kind of wood she wanted, the spell enabled her mind to range out ethereally, much as Jolie's did, and orient on that substance. It was borderline magic, actually more of an extension of the natural power latent in every person; they were merely showing her how to exploit it. It was much easier to train her in this, because of Jolie's presence and experience; they accomplished in an hour what might have been difficult in a lifetime for a person instructed only by words.

"But now we must prepare for the interception," Jolie said. "The rider is approaching."

Parry crafted his prepared illusion: the air seemed to warm, the fog coalesced, and the ice of the River Dvina developed seeming cracks through which clear water welled. It looked dangerous for a horse to attempt to cross. He gave Jolie the doc.u.ment packet.

The Mongol messenger arrived; Jolie had tracked him all along. He drew up at the sh.o.r.e and peered ahead, dismayed. He had understood that this river was completely frozen over, and here it was half liquid. He did not want to ride around it, for that would take him many leagues out of his way and cost him time, ruining his schedule. He could go upstream to the city of Polotsk, where a ford would certainly be available, but then he would have to ride extra time to return to his route.

Jolie, in the guise of the peasant girl, walked by, carrying an armful of wood.

The horseman's thought processes were almost visible. A local girl who lived along the river; she would have intimate news of this inexplicable thaw. "Girl!" he called gruffly, in his own language.

Jolie paused, as if startled; she had not, it seemed, realized that a man was near. She backed away, frightened.

The rider guided his horse to intercept her. Terrified, she dropped her bundle of sticks and stared at him.

"The river-you know it?" he demanded. His gesture made his meaning clear: he wanted to get across.

She nodded affirmatively, making a gesture to signify that she lived on the other side, and was only an innocent maiden gathering wood for her family's hovel.

"You know where to cross? Where the ice is tight?"

Again she nodded.

"Show me!"

Now she hesitated, glancing here and there, signifying that the route was tortuous, hard to describe to a stranger.

Abruptly suspicious that she meant to mislead him, perhaps getting him onto thin ice where the weight of his horse would break through and cause them both to drown, he acted with dispatch. He gestured her onto his steed, behind him. That way she would face the same danger he did, and would not betray him.

Afraid to deny him, she approached and suffered herself to be hauled roughly up. She clung to him, afraid of this height. But she indicated the correct route.

Sure enough, she did not betray him. She guided him through the fog without mishap; nowhere did the ice thin and break. He watched carefully throughout, perhaps not unmindful of her arms clasping his body and her pneumatic front pressed so firmly against his back. Indeed, it was almost like affection, the way she pressed so closely in to him. It would be nice to pause, to get her to embrace him face to face, to open their clothing enough to- But no, he was disciplined, and refused to yield to such a distraction. He only thought about it, enjoying the way her arms moved against his torso, the way her front rocked against his back as the horse moved. He was alert, but he fell into a kind of secondary reverie, thinking about what he might have done had his mission not been so pressing.

And by the time he was safely across, the packet had been exchanged for the one in his travel pouch, he none the wiser. He set her down on the ground, gave her a small coin, and urged his horse onward. He had not after all lost his schedule. Perhaps the girl would meet him again on the return ride, when he would have more leisure.

Parry had followed, staying hidden in the fog, and rejoined her. "That was beautiful!" he thought.

She smiled. "My host agrees. I have explained to her how important this matter is. She doesn't like the Mongols; already their tax agents are driving the farmers to ruin. She asks whether you would like to come to her house, where it will be warm, to rest in your natural form."

The girl must have had considerable prompting for all that! But he was so tired and cold, and aware of the forbidding distance to France; he needed restoration before he attempted that trip. Perhaps he could reward the girl's family in some additional manner for their hospitality; rested, he could perform more formidable magic. "Yes, if she offers it freely," he thought.

"I have told her what a good man you are," Jolie said, still speaking through the body of the girl. "But not the nature of your profession."

Because it might be awkward having a Dominican friar visit, he realized. He appreciated her discretion. By being anonymous, he could accept the family's hospitality and repay them with some additional favor, and not only would he not make it unduly awkward for them, he would be away from the notice of Lucifer. For Lucifer should be furious when the "wrong" message made it through, and Lucifer would be scouring the route for some hint as to what had happened. Better to have everyone involved anonymous!

Jolie picked him up and carried him under her arm, walking back across the frozen river toward the peasant girl's home. Who would have believed that the duck was actually a man, and the girl actually a ghost who resided in a drop of blood on the duck's wing? Fortunately no outsider needed to believe it!

Actually, no outsider was present. They were alone on the river as the evening closed and the chill of winter intensified. The illusion of melt had dissipated, leaving only the troubled landscape of ice. He was glad they would be getting inside; the very prospect restored his strength somewhat.

In due course they came to the residence. It was a typical hut, fashioned of wood and thatch, largely buried under the snow. "Oh, we forgot the wood!" Jolie exclaimed.

"Perhaps I can make a heat spell for this night," Parry said. "But first you had better get me something to wear, so that I don't shock the good peasants when I revert to my natural form."

"Why not use illusion for clothing?"

"Illusion isn't very warm."