by Rick Cook
"It is no small thing to be the wife of a member of the Council of the North and the mightiest wizard in the land," Moira said.
"Aye, but that is reflected glory. What do you do yourself?" Shiara asked gently.
Moira stiffened.
"It is no small thing to be hedge witch of a village and have everyone look up to you," Shiara went on. "You are someone in your own right and you do important work. At the Capital you have no such work and your place is less clear, is it not?"
"There is something in that," she admitted grudgingly.
"One of the reasons Cormac and I were so in love was that we both had important work. Neither of us was identified by what the other did."
Moira considered that. "So you are saying I should change?"
"It is easier and more certain to change yourself than to change another person."
"And Wiz?"
"He must change too, in his own way." Shiara frowned. "This may not work. You cannot do all the changing, nor will he change simply because you nag at him. You must both strive, and hard, to succeed."
"I will try, Lady. I think he will also. But he is so weighted down with his work it will be difficult."
"It sounds as if the Sparrow is trying to take all the weight of the world upon his shoulders," Shiara said. "Like a certain hedge witch I once knew."
Moira blushed.
"But Lady, there are none in the World who can help him and he has forbidden us to Summon another from his world."
"Then you must give him the help he needs," Shiara told her.
"But how, Lady? I have no talent at all for this new magic."
"You are resourceful. You will find a way, I think. But that is not the worst of it, is it?"
"No," Moira sighed. "He gets lost in his work and it is as if his soul were stolen away. His body is there, but Wiz is gone."
"Then finally, you will have to train him to stop ignoring you. You must make him take time away from his work to spend with you."
"But how do I do that?"
"Seduction is one way," Shiara said judiciously. "More commonly, you simply must tell him when you feel slighted."
Moira sniffed. "I would think that anyone would recognize the signs."
Shiara sighed. "Anyone but a man."
Wiz sleepwalked through the whole day. He couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t work and he knew his teaching was worse than usual. Even Malus noticed and approached him diffidently to ask what was wrong.
Bal-Simba hinted delicately that he was available if Wiz wanted to talk, but Wiz wasn’t in the mood. He liked the giant black wizard as much as he respected him, but for the first time since coming to the Capital it was borne on him that he really had no close friends here. He thought about Jerry Andrews, his old cubicle mate, and some of the other people he had known in Silicon Valley and missed them for the first time in months.
He broke off in mid-afternoon and raced back to the apartment, his mind full of all the things he wanted to say to Moira. But there was no one there when he arrived.
Wiz sat down heavily at his desk and tried to work. After shuffling things around for half an hour or so, he gave up even the pretense.
Then he moped about the apartment, trying to think and take his mind off things at the same time. With no stereo, television or movies, it was hard to kill time, he discovered. There weren’t even any books to read except a couple of grimores he had borrowed from the wizard’s library.
And they don’t have much of a plot, he thought sourly.
Finally he opened the sideboard and poured himself a large cup of mead from the small cask Moira kept there. Moira preferred the mead of the villages to the wines of the Capital and she liked to have a cup after supper. Wiz hadn’t eaten yet, but it looked to be about supper time to him.
Normally he didn’t care for mead, finding its sweetness cloying. But tonight it wasn’t half bad. He had a second cup and that wasn’t bad at all. The mead didn’t exactly make his thinking clearer, but it did seem to narrow down the problem and focus him on the major outlines.
"Priorities," he said, hoisting his third cup to the dragon demon sitting atop his books. "I’ve got to start setting priorities." He drained the cup in a single long draught and went to the cask to refill it again.
"Moira’s priority one," he said waving the cup in the general direction of the demon. "I’ve gotta get Moira back." He slopped a little mead from the cup and giggled. "Screw the wizards, scroo’m all. Moira’s what’s important."
He poured half the contents of the cup down his throat in a single swallow.
"Then the compiler. Never mind the Council. They’re not important anyway. I finish the compiler and where’s the Council, hey? Poof. All gone. Don’t need them no more."
It took him a while, but sometime early in the morning he finished the cask of mead.
Well, he thought muzzily as he staggered into the bedroom, it’s one way to pass the time.
The morning was death with birdsong.
Wiz’s head was pounding, his eyeballs felt like they had been sandpapered and his mouth felt as if something small and furry had crawled in there and died.
Now I understand why they invented television, he thought as he splashed cold water on his face and neck. No hangover.
There was no food in the apartment and the only things to drink were water and a bottle of mead. The thought of the mead nearly made Wiz lose his stomach and the water wasn’t very satisfying.
Somewhere in the back of his head, buried under several layers of pain, he remembered that the wizards had a spell that cured hangovers. He needed that more than he needed anything else right now, except Moira. Afterwards he could get breakfast in the refectory with the inhabitants of the castle who chose not to cook for themselves.
He groped his way toward the Wizards’ Day Room where he expected to find someone who could put him out of his misery.
Naturally the first person he met was Pryddian.
The ex-apprentice took in Wiz’s condition in a single glance. "A good day to you, My Lord," he said, much too loudly.
Wiz mumbled a greeting and tried to step by the man.
"What is the matter this morning, Sparrow?" Pryddian boomed, moving in front of him again. "Suffering from an empty nest?"
"Leave me alone, will you?" Wiz mumbled.
Pryddian was almost shouting now. "Poor Sparrow, his magic fails him this morning. All his mighty spells cannot even cure a simple hangover." Again Wiz tried to move around him and again the man blocked his way.
"You need the help of a real wizard, Sparrow. Maybe he could make you a love philtre while he’s at it, eh? Something to keep your wife home at nights."
Suddenly it was all too much.
Wiz whirled on his tormentor. Pryddian caught his look and stepped back, hands up as if warding off a blow.
"backslash," he shouted.
The lines of magical force twisted and shimmered.
Wiz froze with his arm extended and his mouth open.
Pryddian shrank back, his face white.
Wiz dropped his arms. "cancel."
"I’m sorry," he mumbled. I didn’t mean to…"
Pryddian gathered himself and beat a hasty retreat.
Wiz became aware that a dozen people were watching him from doors along the corridor. His face burning, he turned and fled.
Wiz had little less than an hour to contemplate the enormity of what he had almost done before Bal-Simba came calling. The giant black wizard was obviously not in a good mood.
"I must ask you this and I compel you to answer me truthfully," he said as soon as he had closed the door. "Did you threaten to use magic on Pryddian?"
"Yes, Lord," Wiz said miserably.
"And he did not threaten you first?"
"Well, he got in my face."
"But he offered you no threat?"
"No, Lord."
Bal-Simba looked as if he would explode.
"Lord, with the problems with the pro
ject and Moira gone and then him… Lord, I am sorry."
Bal-Simba scowled like a thundercloud. "No doubt you are. But that would not have saved Pryddian if you had followed through with your intent. Magic is much too powerful to be loosed in anger. You above all others should know that."
"Yes, Lord. But he has been riding me for days."
"Is that an excuse?" Bal-Simba asked sharply. "Do you hold power so lightly that you will loose magic on any person who annoys you? If so, which of us are safe from you?"
"No, Lord," Wiz mumbled, "it isn’t an excuse."
The huge wizard relaxed slightly. "Pryddian’s behavior has not gone unnoticed. He will be dealt with. The question is what to do with you."
He looked at Wiz speculatively until Wiz fidgeted under his gaze.
"It would be best if you were to absent yourself a while," Bal-Simba said finally. "I believe matters can be smoothed over but it will be easier to do if you are not here."
"Yes, Lord," said Wiz miserably.
"In fact, this would accomplish two things," he said absently. "I have received a request from the village of Leafmarsh Meadow. They have asked for one of the Mighty to assist them. That is sufficient reason for you to be gone, I think.
"Also, we have many reports that this new magic of yours is already at work on the Fringe of the Wild Wood."
"That would be ddt, the magic protection spell I hacked up," Wiz told him.
"The reports of the hedge witches and other wizards are somewhat confusing. I want to see what is going on through your eyes."
"Yes, Lord. Uh, what about Moira?"
"I am sure she is safe. If she returns while you are gone, I will tell her where you are.
"I will send a journeyman wizard with you. You will leave tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, it would be best if you were to stay out of sight." He looked down at Wiz. "And take something for that hangover."
This close to the Capital, the woods were carefully tended tree lots rather than the raw forest of the Wild Wood. But the trees still shut out prying eyes and the relative isolation made prying magic easy to sense. That was the important thing.
Ebrion made his way to the middle of the grove. He looked around cautiously, extended his magical senses for any hint of watcher and then extended his arm, finger pointing south.
As if on cue, a tiny bird flickered through the trees and landed on his outstretched finger. To the eye it was an ordinary wren, speckled brown on brown. A magician would have sensed instantly that it was no ordinary bird, but part of the reason for meeting in the woods was to keep the bird away from other magicians.
The bird cocked its head to one side and regarded the wizard with a beady eye.
The Sparrow has left the Capital, Ebrion thought at the bird. He is to be gone perhaps four days and then he will return along the Wizard’s Way. Be ready for him.
He paused and then continued.
One thing more. Your attempts to arrange an accident for the Sparrow have been discovered. I told you I would not have him harmed. Persist and our bargain is broken.
The wren took wing and flashed through the trees. The wizard waited until it rose above the treetops and turned straight south. Then he nodded and started back to the Capital.
Six: Applications Magic
Applications programming is a race between software engineers, who strive to produce idiot-proof programs, and the Universe which strives to produce bigger idiots.
software engineers’ saying
So far the Universe is winning.
applications programmers’ saying
Wiz’s travelling companion was a wizard named Philomen, a slender young man with an aristocratic bearing and a reserved manner. Wiz had met him briefly, but he didn’t know him and he couldn’t remember seeing him in any of his classes.
As was custom, they did not walk the Wizard’s Way straight into the village. Instead they arrived on a hill where the road topped the rise to look down at Leafmarsh Meadow. From here the village looked neat and peaceful, spread out along the road that ran to the Leafmarsh Brook and crossed to run deeper into the fringe. This side of the river was a neat pattern of fields and pastureland. The Fringe started on the other side of the water and there the land was mostly forest, although Wiz noted a number of fields, obviously freshly hacked in the ancient woodland.
Towering over the village was a hill of naked gray granite. It seemed to be a single enormous boulder, placed as if a careless giant had dropped it next to the river. Even to Wiz’s relatively untrained senses there was something about the huge rock that hinted of magic.
"This will be my first real trip out of the Capital in almost a year," Wiz said in an effort to make conversation as they started down the hill toward the village.
"Indeed?" Philomen said. "You will find much changed, I think."
Wiz didn’t have any good answer to that, so they walked along in a silence for a bit.
"Do you have any idea why they wanted help from the Council?"
"None, Lord. If they did not tell one of the Mighty, do you think they would tell one barely raised from apprentice?"
"No, I guess not," Wiz said. "Well, we’ll know soon enough. That’s the hedge witch’s cottage there."
The place was on the outskirts of the village, a single-story house of whitewashed wattle and daub with thatched roof. The whitewash needed renewing and the thatch was turning black in spots. It was surrounded by a rather weedy garden and all enclosed by a ramshackle fence. The cottage wasn’t exactly run down, Wiz decided, but it looked very much like the owner had other things on her mind than the condition of her property.
They came up the flagstone pathway to the door and Philomen rapped sharply upon it with his staff.
"Keep your britches on, I’m coming," came a cracked voice from inside. Then the door was flung open in their faces.
"What the…" She stopped dead when she saw her visitors in wizard’s cloaks with staffs in their hands. She blinked once and her whole manner changed.
"Merry met, Lords," she said, bobbing a curtsey. "I am Alaina, hedge witch of this place."
She was older than Moira, but how much Wiz couldn’t tell because people aged so fast here on the Fringe. Her hair was gray and a greasy wisp had escaped the bun on the back of her head. She was shaped like a sack of potatoes. Her skin was coarse and her teeth, what were left of them, were yellow. From this distance it was obvious she hadn’t bathed recently.
On the whole, she didn’t look much worse than the average middle-aged peasant woman, but to Wiz the contrast with the hedge witch he knew best was striking.
Well, Wiz thought, it would be too much to expect all hedge witches to be like Moira.
"Merry met, Lady," Wiz and Philomen chorused.
"What brings you to Leafmarsh Meadow?"
"We were sent by the Council in answer to your request," Philomen said.
The hedge witch looked blank. "Request? Oh, yes, the request. Well, what can I be thinking of to keep such guests standing in my garden? Come in, Lords, come in and be welcome."
The place was even more run down and messier on the inside, but it managed to be homey at the same time. The cottage was a single large room with a fireplace at one end and an unmade bed in the corner. At the opposite end was a low work table with rows of shelves above it. Dried herbs and other less identifiable things hung from the rafters, giving the place an odor like hay with anise overtones.
"Please excuse the clutter," Alaina said and she moved piles of things off chairs to give them places to sit. "The girl only comes in three days a week and things do pile up in between times.
"Can I offer you refreshment? I have some very good mead. But of course gentlemen such as yourselves from the Capital do not drink mead."
There was an undercurrent of resentment, Wiz realized. As if she didn’t want them here.
"Mead would be most satisfactory," Philomen said.
"None for me, thanks," Wiz said and from the way they both looked at him
he realized he had committed some kind of social error in refusing the hospitality.
"I can’t drink just now," he said quickly.
Alaina’s expression smoothed. "Ah, a vow. I understand those things, of course. You are saving power for a special spell."
"More like doing penance," Wiz said wryly.
Once they were settled into the somewhat dusty chairs and Philomen and Alaina were clutching cups of mead Wiz decided it was time for serious talk. Alaina was keeping up a steady flow of conversation on inconsequential topics, as if she was trying to ward off discussion. Philomen was responding to her with bored civility, but making no move to come to the point.
"Your pardon, Lady," Wiz said, cutting off an anecdote about the profusion of dragon weed this year, "could you tell us about your problem?"
"My problem, ah yes," Alaina said, draining the rest of her mead in a single gulp. "It is nothing, really. Nothing at all." She reached over for the pitcher and refilled her cup.
"I am honored that you have come to us, do not misunderstand me," she waved an admonitory hand. "But it really was not necessary. Not necessary at all to send two such great wizards from the Capital for this."
"I thought you had asked for help," Wiz said.
Alaina made a dismissing motion, as if shooing off an insect. "That was Andrew, the mayor. He wouldn’t give me a minute’s peace until I sent off to the Council for aid." She smiled at her visitors. "You know how non-magicians are, My Lords, always frightened around magic and such. But I never dreamed they would send someone so soon. And two of you!"
Meaning you expected to have this all wrapped up before the council took notice, Wiz thought sourly. Now here we are and you won’t get the additional prestige out of this you thought you would.
"I am sure your skill is up to the task, Lady," Philomen said soothingly. "It just happened we were coming this way on other business so the Council asked that we come to assess the situation. Consider us merely observers."
That seemed to mollify the hedge witch.