Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy

by Gardner Dozois

  “That’s not how the tale is told in Mitherhome, I’m sure,” said Lark. “But it’s how I learned it, back in the—”

  “It’s a pack of lies,” said Demwor.

  Runnel whirled to look at him. He was very angry.

  “She only told it as she learned it, sir,” said Runnel.

  “She doesn’t need you to defend her,” said Demwor. “I see now why she came to work at a stonemage’s house.”

  “No, sir,” she said. “I came because the work was good and safe. I learned this story as a child, it’s a children’s tale.”

  “Then listen to me well, children. Tell this tale no more, not to anyone. It’s a slander of the stonemages against our city. They were traitors, that’s the truth, in league with our enemies.”

  “Then why would they make the cleft that keeps the city safe?” asked Runnel.

  “They didn’t!” shouted Demwor. Then, more softly: “It has always been there. Their plot was to deepen it until it drained the lake and our enemies could get through on dry land. They were barely stopped in time.”

  “Thank you for telling us the truth, sir,” said Runnel. Well he knew that the only way to stave off a beating was to agree quickly with the man who was raging. “We’ll never tell it the other way again. Forgive us for being ignorant children from far away, where truth disappears inside extravagant tales.” It was something his mother had once said, that bit about truth disappearing inside tales—only she had said it about gossip that had a village girl pregnant by a god, instead of by a traveler who gave her a golden fruit that was full of sweet water.

  Demwor peered into Runnel’s face, and then Lark’s, looking for something—defiance, perhaps. But both of them looked as abject as any ruler could ask, and finally he said, “Your chatter has made you late to bed. I’ll have you up as early as ever tomorrow, you understand? And still you must finish washing and wringing and hanging the master’s linens.”

  “Almost done,” said Lark. “I kept working while I talked.”

  “I saw you from the second story of the house, and you were working slowly. That’s why I came out here.”

  Runnel said nothing more, only bowed. He half expected Demwor to cuff him once or twice, just because he had been angry—that was what Father did. Runnel even placed himself between Demwor and Lark, so that if he was one who struck out in his wrath, the blows would fall only on Runnel.

  But there were no blows. Demwor walked away, and Runnel and Lark hurriedly finished the rinsing and wringing and hanging. Then Runnel carried what was left of the water back to the cistern, where he poured it back into the top, where it could join the water yet to be filtered. Nothing wasted…only the soapy water had been poured out onto the stones; the rinse water was cast into the vegetable garden. “We grow the cleanest radishes and yams,” said Lark, but her smile was wan.

  “We’ll speak no more of your tale,” said Runnel. “Your malicious, false, and unbelievable slander. Except to say that I looked down into the crevice, and some malicious, false, and deceptive slanderer has cast stones into the canyon and created the ruins of a nonexistent bridge, just so people will think your version of the tale is true.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re a complete fool, Runnel. I forgive you for mocking me even after we took an oath.”

  “I meant no mockery…”

  But she was already gone.

  Runnel went to the pissery, where urine was saved, and contributed his few ounces to some future slab of soap. Then he went to the cistern and drank again, so he wouldn’t waken with thirst in the night. But not too much, so he wouldn’t waken with a full bladder.

  Mostly, though, he was putting off the climb up those stairs, to try to sleep at the top of a swaying, shaking building. I know how those Verylludden felt, with the ground shaking under them and their bronze swords turning to cheese.

  Inside the house, though, all was still. Wherever Lark slept, she must be there; Ebb, he knew, slept by the door in the outer wall. Demwor might be awake but he wasn’t on watch on the lower floor.

  I can say that I didn’t want to wake anybody by climbing the stair as they were trying to sleep.

  It was a feeble plan, and he knew it—but having formed the idea, he acted on it at once. He found the steps leading down into the cellar.

  It was dark, like a cloudy, moonless night. Even after waiting, his eyes still could not find light enough to make out anything at all.

  His toes, though, found the stone flags of the floor easily enough. But there was something wrong—the stones were trembling almost as much as the wood of the upper stories had been. They also gave under his feet, shifting with his weight. Finally he realized: They had been laid across wood.

  The watermages are so frightened even of this one stonemage that not only do they have Demwor to keep watch over the house, but also they have cut off the stone of the house from the living rock of the earth.

  They’re afraid that even from here, Lord Brickel might be able to do some terrible thing to the stone underlying their city—or, more to the point, the channels through which their precious water flowed.

  Well, it is precious water, thought Runnel. Six hours without water, and I begin to thirst. But when have I ever needed stone to slake my desire? If you have to choose between Tewstan and Yeggut, it was Yeggut who sustained life minute by minute and hour by hour.

  Though if Tewstan hated you, where would you be safe from his wrath?

  Not here in this cellar. You could put wood between the flagstones and the living stone below, but they could not have done that with the walls of the cellar, because they were holding up the upper floors. Walls had to touch the living stone, or the house could not stand.

  Sure enough, the foundation of the great hearth of the common room above was stone that connected fully to the living rock; it was here that Runnel made his bed, his hand touching the stone of the foundation. Here alone the house did not tremble. Here alone he could sleep with the same ease he felt on the packed-earth floor of the hovel he had shared with his family all his life.

  Yesternight I slept in the woods among the moldered corpses of heroes and invaders. And only the night before, with my family. So close is my village, almost a near neighbor of Mitherhome. Yet except for the soldiers who went away to the wars, which man of Farzibeck has traveled as far as I, or learned as much as I’ve already learned?

  He could hear Father’s voice answering him. “Learn? You’ve learned nothing, except how to be a slave in a fool’s house, where a southerman lords it over you and a girl mocks you and you will grow nothing in the earth, only carry water and pour water, and chop vegetables for others to eat.”

  “Shut up,” he said to his father.

  How many times had he thought it, but dared not say the words? He had been slapped and shoved and punched and kicked a hundred times or more, as if he had spoken with such insolence. It was about time he finally said the things that he had already been punished for. He could swear at his father every day for a year and not be caught up with what the man owed him.

  And as he went to sleep, he thought of Lark, so prudish, but so generous; so angry, but such a good storyteller. She talks to the birds, and the birds obey her, yet she doesn’t think that she’s a birdfriend; what could a birdfriend do more than she did, keeping the birds away from the house because she could not serve them well here? A strange world, where someone could be a mage and yet deny it so thoroughly that she did not believe in her own power and therefore could never use it.

  It would be wonderful to be a birdfriend, for it was said that beast-mages could choose a clant, an animal that was like a second self to them. And having chosen a clant, they could learn to put their soul inside the creature, and see through its eyes, and feel all that it felt, and hear all that it heard. A birdfriend could use her clant to spy on people, or just to soar above the earth, or perhaps to take a hare or rabbit and bring it home, if the bird was a raptor. A birdmage would never have to starve.

/>   But since Lark did not think she was a mage, she would have no clant, and thus would never fly or hunt or spy, but just do laundry and keep the birds away more thoroughly than any scarecrow.

  If I were a beastmage, I would ride with my clant every night while my own body slept. I would come to think of my walking hours as a dream, and my sleeping hours as my true life, soaring through clouds or, as a lion or wolf, stalking through the forest or grassland, free and strong and fearless.

  With my luck, though, I’d be a mousemage, and spend my clant-hours fleeing from every predator.

  He slept and dreamed himself a mouse living inside the walls of the kitchen, scampering out in the darkness to steal food.

  And all the night, his palm pressed against the wall of the hearthroot stones, and he could feel the earth beneath, all the deep stone of it, cool and hard near the surface of the earth, but hotter and softer as you went deep, until it flowed like honey, a vast sweet fiery ocean of molten rock a thousand times more voluminous and ten thousand times heavier than the sea. It felt to him as if it were his own blood, and his heart pumped it.

  THE awkwardness of the first day soon faded. Each day Runnel arose before dawn and went to the fountain before most of the women of Hetterferry were up. There he filled the jar and carried it back, returned and filled it again, and then again—enough water for most days’ work. There were even days when he made only two trips, because the cistern was full.

  At first Lark was grateful, for this was her heaviest duty, and since she filled the jar only half-full, she used to take six trips. But after days and weeks of it, she simply took it for granted—as Runnel had meant that she should. Let her work at tasks that required the skill of her clever hands. Runnel had no great skill. The best he achieved was adequacy—but at most household tasks, that was enough.

  He continued in the kitchen, because Nikwiz and Sourwell were good and patient teachers. He soon abandoned their expensive metal knives and used the chipped obsidian that everyone used in Farzibeck. The knives were constantly dulled on the cutting stones and had to be sharpened, but the obsidian never seemed to lose its edge, and it fit into his hand more comfortably than any metal blade, however well wrapped in leather the hilt might be.

  Lark and he became friends, but not eager ones. When they were together on a task, they worked harmoniously, and even bantered together in a comfortable way. But whole days would go by in which they did not see each other, since Lark’s work was mostly indoors, now that Runnel was doing most of the outdoor tasks. Only the laundry brought her out, and Runnel found himself looking forward to laundry days, not because he had any particular yearning for her but because compared to the perfect dance between Nikwiz and Sourwell, which shut out all others, her company was the best to be had in the stonemage’s house.

  Every week or so, there would be visitors who stayed for a night or two, then went on. Many of them were traders and merchants, and Lord Brickel would dine with them and then keep them company as they went out into the Hetterferry market to trade with the downriver, crossriver, and landbound merchants.

  Runnel soon learned that Lord Brickel never did stonework of any kind, not for sale and not for gifts—the Mithermages paid him to work only for them, so that between tasks he was idle. Demwor was ever vigilant.

  And yet, when Runnel went down into the cellar during the master’s dinners with his visitors, he would press against the hearthroot stones and hear snatches of their conversations, for the stone carried sound that wooden doors and floors hid from hearing. Though the conversations were never clear, he began to realize that their language was guarded. Their laughter was out of proportion to things that were said; answers made no sense in relation to their questions. There must be double meanings hidden in their words.

  Why, in the home of the stonemage of Mitherhome, would visitors speak with veiled intent? It occurred to him that these merchants and traders were also worshippers of Tewstan. Perhaps some of them were stonemages themselves.

  Runnel’s curiosity would not leave him alone. What were they saying? More to the point: What weren’t they saying?

  If only Demwor were not always in and out of the great hall: Conversations never took an interesting turn when he was there. Not that Demwor’s spying was inappropriate—perhaps there was some conspiracy of stonemages. But Demwor would never hear of it, not the way he was going about it. Nor would Runnel ever hear the conversation of mages.

  The only hope of it was to get Demwor out of the great hall. And Demwor would never stop spying…unless he had another spy.

  Runnel began to find excuses to be in the kitchen during dinner, then took any excuse to carry this and that into the great hall. This way he could see the visitors, even though he heard less than he did when he listened in the cellar. Gradually, he transformed his own role until he waited in the room throughout the meal, ready to carry messages, run errands, or carry away finished bowls and platters. He remained absolutely silent, except when he had to deliver a message from the kitchen.

  At first Demwor seemed irritated with him, until Runnel came to him one morning and began to ask him about the things Lord Brickel’s visitors had spoken of the night before. In the process of asking him questions, Runnel made it obvious that he had memorized most of the conversation—and his questions were about the very things that seemed to be hinting at stonemagery. “Come to me anytime with your questions,” said Demwor.

  So Runnel was now welcomed in the great hall—by Demwor, anyway. The more Runnel was able to repeat the conversations of the night before, the more Demwor left him alone in the room with Lord Brickel and his guests.

  Runnel’s weekly coin was doubled.

  He felt guilty for his double betrayal. For he was, indeed, spying on Lord Brickel. But he wasn’t spying as well as Demwor wanted. He always reported the kinds of things Demwor himself used to hear. But he never reported when Lord Brickel and his visitors slipped and revealed more than they meant to. So he was taking Demwor’s coin under false pretenses.

  As Demwor began to let Runnel do all his listening, Runnel would catch Lord Brickel gazing at him now and then, studying him. Each time Runnel tucked his head into a properly servile position, hiding the arrogant expression that he now knew his face always bore. Runnel assumed that Lord Brickel knew he was Demwor’s spy; he also guessed that Brickel was pondering just how stupid Runnel might be and how much could be said in front of him.

  Gradually, as Runnel’s reports to Demwor omitted anything unusually incriminating, Lord Brickel grew more candid with his guests. They would glance at Runnel, but Lord Brickel would only smile. He could never speak aloud about Runnel’s new role as ineffective spy, in case Runnel was not an ally but merely obtuse; still, it was clear to the guests that Lord Brickel did not regard him as much of a danger.

  As high summer came, the visitors became more common, sometimes two or three in a week, and sometimes overlapping their visits. Meanwhile, Demwor was often out at night, pursuing his own business, relying on Runnel’s report the next morning to tell him what was said in the great hall.

  One of the guests was a dealer in marble named Stokhos, and it was plain he was important—the other two visitors and Lord Brickel himself attended to his every word, and he was full of inscrutable sayings that must be codes that only stonemages could understand. If Demwor had been in the room, the very meaninglessness of their conversation would have made him suspicious, and Lord Brickel’s interview with him the next day would have been difficult. Runnel would report none of the oddities. But he would remember them, and try to make sense of them later.

  In the midst of the conversation, Stokhos arose from the table to piss into the fireplace; with Demwor gone, they all did this, as if it were some kind of offering to the stone, or perhaps just marking themselves as belonging here, like dogs that peed their way around the fields and fences of Farzibeck. But when Stokhos rested his bare hand against the hearthstone, he suddenly stopped, dropped his tunic back down to cover hi
mself, and turned to face the others.

  “When did this come to life?” he asked.

  The words were too plain, and Lord Brickel glanced at Runnel nervously. Runnel tucked his chin and looked at the floor.

  Footsteps told him that the guests were all going to the hearth and touching it.

  “Alive all the way down to the heart,” said Stokhos. “I didn’t think you had it in you, friend.”

  They called Lord Brickel “friend,” and Runnel had long since guessed that by this they were giving him his title cobblefriend, the lowest degree of stonemage—but still a true mage, and not just a worshipper of Tewstan.

  “Currents hide under still water, brother,” said Brickel, who alone seemed not to have risen from the table. The title “brother” implied that Stokhos was a rockbrother, the middle degree of stonemage.

  “So you do your work under the very gaze of the birds of heaven?” asked Stokhos—which, Runnel guessed, meant, You practice stonemagery here in the house with Demwor watching?

  “The nest is twigs, but the bird still builds it in a sturdy tree.” To Runnel, that meant: I have to live in a wooden house, but that doesn’t mean the stone parts can’t be connected to the deepest living rock.

  The trouble was that Runnel knew the hearth was not alive. Or at least it hadn’t been. It touched the earth, with no wood under it like the flagstones of the cellar floor. Small stones linked it to bedrock. But Stokhos was saying that it was living rock—all of one piece.

  “Clever,” said one of the other guests. “It all looks loose from the surface, but yes, it is all of one piece, deep inside.”

  “Subtle,” said another. The admiration in their voices was obvious.

  “You were never that good a student in school,” said Stokhos, chuckling—but the chuckle was artificial. He was genuinely surprised.

  “A man never stops learning,” said Lord Brickel.

  “But a wise man does not show his enemies what he has learned,” said Stokhos. Runnel understood: You risk being discovered.