A Wizard In Absentia

by Christopher Stasheff

  "If he can stand to drink," someone said, but orange only snarled and shoved Magnus away, then tottered back toward the bar. Magnus was about to go after him when he realized he was hearing a high, shrill sound, and the men with the noteboards stopped their collecting and paying-off to call, "Peace-ers!"

  The crowd melted on the instant, leaving Magnus standing alone, looking about him, startled.

  "Time to disappear, friend," said one of the men as he passed, stuffing his noteboard into one pocket and currency into another.

  Magnus took his advice and hurried away. Glancing back, he saw an armed and uniformed man with a pack on his back, floating through the air and descending toward the bar where Magnus had just been.

  Another man with a noteboard passed in the other direction, punching numbers and advising, "Stay out in the open, and the bystanders will point you out to the Peace-er. Better find another bar, pal."

  Magnus did. He found three more. And three more fights. He was drawing larger and larger crowds, and more and more of the little men with the noteboards—until the last fight turned into a full-fledged brawl. That was when he found the Peace-ers. Or they found him.

  He didn't remember it, though. He only remembered ducking, but not fast enough, and the fist exploding in his face.

  Then he was coming to, his head and chest one huge ache. He tried to sit up, which was a definite mistake, because his stomach suddenly convulsed, and everything he had downed the night before started back up.

  Someone shoved a bucket under his face and growled, "In here, slob. I'm not cleaning up after you."

  Magnus was horrendously sick for what seemed an inordinately long time. When his stomach finally stopped contracting, he managed to straighten up and lean back against something very hard, fumbling out a handkerchief and wiping his face, feeling much better inside but very, very shaky.

  "Improved," someone said critically, and Magnus looked up to see a uniform with a face at the top. Over the breast pocket were the letters "E.D.G.A.R."

  "Go 'way, Edgar," he groaned. "Come back for m' funeral."

  "That's not the way you check out of here, pal," the guard said, "and the name's not 'Edgar.' "

  Magnus frowned, trying to make sense out of that. "Says so on y'r pocket."

  The guard's face came closer, frowning. "Boy, you are from out of town, aren't you? E.D.G.A.R. stands for the Eleusinian Drinking and Gambling Addiction Reformatory."

  "Eleusinian?" Then Magnus remembered—in Classical Greece, the cult of Ceres centered around the Eleusinian Mysteries. He wished he hadn't thought of it—the effort made his headache worse. He aimed himself at the bunk and fell, groaning, "Jus' wanna die."

  But the guard caught him and turned him around so that he sat instead of lying down. " 'Fraid not just now, pal. You've got a visitor. Here, drink this." A rough hand hauled his head back and shoved a cup at him. Magnus opened his mouth to protest, but fluid gushed over his tongue, and he had to swallow or choke, then swallow again, and again. When the flow stopped, he pushed the cup away with a grimace. "Iyuch! What was that stuff?"

  "H and I."

  Magnus peered up at the man's face, squinting his eyes against the light. "What? H and I?"

  "Gemini Hangover and Intoxication Oil, from Castor Epsilon. You had yourself a real time last night, spacer."

  "I'm not—" Magnus cut the words off—he was a spacer now! The realization gave him an odd feeling, perhaps even an exhilarating one—but his body felt so horrible, he would never have noticed. "Analgesic?"

  "You just had one," the guard informed him. "It'll take effect in a few minutes, but time's the only thing that's going to wipe out the aches from the punches you took. On your feet, spacer—you've got company."

  "Company?" Magnus looked up, frowning, then clamped his jaw against the urge to cry out as the guard yanked him to his feet. He almost slumped onto the man's shoulder, but managed to catch hold of the bars and hold himself upright.

  Bars?

  Magnus finally looked up at his surroundingsbare plasticrete walls, uncovered toilet, sink, and freshener. "I'm in prison!"

  "Jail," the guard told him. "Just the drunk tank—for prison, you get a trial first. Not that you won't, if anybody gets serious about those brawls last night. Let's go see your guest, now."

  Magnus stared. "I'm a stranger! Who'd want to talk to me?"

  "About a dozen lawyers, considering how many brawls you wound up in, and how much furniture and glassware got wiped out. Don't worry, though—the bookies will probably put up your bail."

  Magnus let the man lead him out of the cell, befuddled. "Bookies?"

  "You are green, aren't you? Every time you got in a fight last night, the bookies laid out odds and took bets. As the night went on, they had to give higher and higher odds in your favor, but they started betting on you themselves. Oh, they made a pile off of you, all right, up until the last fight—and even then, they won, because you downed the guy who started the fight with you, before his friends piled in and swamped you. Not that you were alone—everybody who laid their bets on you piled in on your side. It was one hell of a brawl, from what I hear," he said reverently. "Wish I'd been there."

  Magnus decided that the people of Ceres City were very, very strange. So was the Castor oil—it was taking effect, and the pain of his bruises was dulled, the pounding in his head almost gone. "Who is this who wishes to speak with me?"

  "Dunno," said the guard, "but she's one hell of a looker. If that's what they sent every time you got drunk and disorderly, there wouldn't be a man in Ceres City who wasn't in jail." He opened a plain metal door. "In you go, spacer. You sit in your chair, she sits in hers. Don't try to go over to her, or you'll trigger the alarm in the force-screen. Good luck."

  Magnus stumbled into the blank, featureless room, started to turn back toward the guard with a protest on his lips—then out of the corner of his eye, saw the woman who was waiting for him, and the protest died aborning. He turned slowly, staring—she was easily the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, save one. Of course, he had been saying that about every woman who had caught his fancy in the last few months—but it had always been true. How unfair of the women, to keep becoming more and more beautiful! How was a man to hold himself back from them?

  But even at the thought, he could feel the shield closing about his heart. It still ached at the loveliness of long blonde hair, retrousse nose, huge dark eyes, and full red lips—but he could contain himself; his heart stayed in his chest, not on his sleeve, and he was able to hide his feelings behind an imperturbable mask. He bowed slightly. "Good day, madame—or mademoiselle."

  "Mademoiselle." She smiled, amused, and her voice was a husky breath of sensual speculation. "You're very formal, spacer."

  "Until I have been introduced, or we come to know each other well." Magnus's knees were trying to turn to jelly—hopefully only from the aftereffects of his night on the town. "May I sit?"

  "Of course." The woman waved to the chair facing her, surprised. "You certainly are rigidly formal!" Magnus frowned as he sat; he didn't consider good manners a matter of rigidity—but, then, he had grown up with them. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" He regretted the word "pleasure" as soon as it was out of his mouth, and rightly—the woman caught it and smiled lazily, her eyelids drooping. "I hope it will lead to . . . pleasure . . . for both of us—even though I don't know how to address you. What is your name?"

  Magnus opened his mouth, but caution made him hold back his real name. He substituted the first one that came to mind. "Ed . . . " he started, then realized it was the initials over the guard's pocket he was giving. But it was too late to change now, so he finished, " . . . gar."

  "Ed Gar." The woman nodded, but didn't write it down. Frowning, Magnus looked more closely at her.

  The brooch she was wearing ostensibly served no purpose other than decoration; but he was willing to bet it was a recording device. She said, "I am Allouene. You carry no identification."
r />   "I left it aboard ship," Magnus told her. "I did not wish to chance losing it."

  She smiled as though she did not believe him, then let the smile soften into a lazy, sensuous sultriness as she looked him over more closely. When she lifted her gaze back to his eyes, the sultriness had become an invitation, though not a burning one.

  It came to Magnus, with a surge of outrage, that the woman knew exactly what she was doing, knew each intonation and lilt and shade of expression and what its effect would be on him, and was turning them on and off as though they were the keys of an organ—but it wasn't an organ she was playing, it was him.

  The anger was good—it annealed the seal around his heart, strengthened his guard against her. "I am not aware of having met you previously, mademoiselle—to my regret."

  The laziness focused with amusement. "You haven't. I'm only an interested bystander—or I was last night. I saw you fight Orange at the Shot and Bottle, and I was impressed with your style."

  Style? Magnus had been deliberately trying for clumsiness, to make the fight last! "I was scarcely at my best."

  "So I noticed. I joined the crowd that followed you from bar to bar. The drinks only affected your temper, not your reflexes. Your style improved with the quality of your antagonists."

  "My antagonists improved?"

  "Oh, yes." Allouene smiled, moistening her lips and shifting in her chair. "Word spread along the street, you see, and all the toughs with reputations came out to try you. They had to wait in line, I'm afraid, and they finally grew impatient and all piled in at once at the end."

  "I don't really remember much of it," Magnus confessed.

  "Of course not; the last bartender handed you a loaded drink to get you out of his place. I watched it all closely, though."

  Magnus tried to hide his disgust. "You must be quite the aficionado of martial arts."

  "Not at all," she said. "I'm a representative for a secret agency—quite legitimate, I assure you—and your display, and the emotions that seemed to accompany it, made me think you might be just what my employers are looking for."

  Magnus stared, amazed.

  "If you are interested in joining us," Allouene said, "we'll take care of any damages you owe, and whisk you out of this jail and off to one of our training centers." Her tone dropped to load the offer with double meaning: "Are you interested?"

  His hormones thrilled, but so did the wariness of alarm. Magnus held himself immobile and asked, "What is the name of your agency?"

  "The Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent Totalitarianisms," she answered.

  Magnus stared at her, frozen with shock. She had named his father's organization! Had they followed him here from Gramarye? Had the time-travel organization that worked with SCENT alerted them to his presence here?

  But no, she had asked his name, had said he was unidentified. Suddenly, Magnus was very glad he had given a false name, had left his identification aboard his ship. She was interested in him for himself alone—or at least, for his ability as a fighter.

  If she was telling the truth.

  "You seem shocked," Allouene said. "I assure you, we're not a bunch of bloodthirsty sadists. We're rather idealistic—our mission is to help backward planets develop the institutions that will enable them to eventually evolve some form of democratic government, and make it last. We have a strict code of ethics, and we work hard at maintaining it." Magnus nodded. "I have . . . heard of you."

  "We are a legitimate department of the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal," Allouene went on, "and if the government of the Terran Sphere isn't enough of a recommendation, I don't know what is."

  Magnus had plenty of recommendations of his own to bring. He had known SCENT from birth, at least by what his father and Fess had told him of it, and had secretly treasured the notion of someday joining them himself, and going forth to free the oppressed. But as he'd grown older, he'd begun to be concerned about living in his father's shadow.

  Now, however, he was being recruited in his own right—perhaps. "Is SCENT so hard-pressed for agents that you must recruit every brawler you find?"

  "Certainly not," Allouene said, with a contemptuous smile. "You're a rather exceptional brawler, you know, and not just because of your size. You show a great deal of skill—and there's an intensity about you that speaks of the disillusioned idealist."

  Magnus sat rigid, amazed. Had the woman some psionic gift of her own, that let her see into his heart? Or was she just unusually perceptive? "I have become bitter of late," he admitted.

  Allouene nodded with satisfaction. "You have seen too much of human selfishness and selfseeking. But we try to use those urges, to channel them into some sort of system that makes people protect the rights of everyone, in order to protect their own interests."

  Magnus frowned. "An interesting goal. Have you ever succeeded?"

  "Never perfectly," Allouene admitted, "but we have managed to harness self-interest into workable systems again and again. We console ourselves with the thought that no system can be perfect, and we have made progress."

  "Fascinating," Magnus murmured, holding himself very carefully. All his own near-despair, his disgust with his relatives, his disillusionment in discovering how few people really seemed to care for anyone else's good—it all came together and stabbed, white-hot, toward an organization that was at least trying to put ideals into action. But some lingering caution made him say, "I should think you would find a great number of recruits."

  Allouene's expression showed some bitterness of her own. "It would be wonderful—but very few people seem to be interested in working toward anyone's welfare but their own. Of those who are, many of them aren't strong enough, either emotionally or physically, to last through our training. The rewards, after all, are only in knowing that you have left a world better off than you found it—and we aren't even always successful in that."

  "You must have been recruiting for a long time, to have seen enough cases to generalize," Magnus said. "Every time I put together a new mission team," Allouene assured him. "When we are appointed Mission Leaders, you see, we are given the responsibility of finding our own agents, of recruiting them and training them."

  Magnus stared. "You mean that if I join SCENT, I will be working with you?"

  "After your training," Allouene said, "yes." And that, of course, decided the matter.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ian froze. Then, before he could catch up his staff and bolt, the man smiled and laughed. It was a warm, friendly laugh, and Ian relaxed a little. Surely the man could not be an enemy if he behaved in so friendly a fashion. Besides, he wore no livery; he could not be a keeper, or any other servant of Lord Murthren—at least, no more than anyone was. He was a broad-shouldered man, and his arms and legs were thick with muscles. Ian could see this easily, for he wore a tight-fitting jerkin and leggings. His body looked very hard underneath the gray, belted tunic, and his leggings were so smooth they might have been a lord's hose. His black hair was cut short, no longer than his collar. His face was craggy, with a long, straight nose and lantern jaw. His eyes were large, but above them, his brows seemed knit in a perpetual frown. It was a harsh face, and grim—but when he smiled, as he did now, it turned into friendliness. Somehow, Ian felt he could not fear such a man, or had no cause to—this, in spite of the sword that hung belted at his hip, and the dagger across from it. These, and his short hair, told Ian the man's profession, as surely as though it had been written on his forehead. He was a free-lance, a soldier who wandered about the country and sold his services to whatever lord needed him that month. He was not a serf, but a gentleman, free to travel where he wished, as long as he did not offend the great lords. His boots came up to his calves and had high, thick heels—a horseman, then. But where was his horse?

  Dead, of course—or the property of some lord. Like as not, he owned no mount of his own, but rode whatever nag was given him by the nobleman who employed him. He might leave, but the horse would stay.


  "Look carefully before you drink," he said to Ian, "and listen more closely. If you had, you would have heard me step up to the stream and sit down." Then he frowned, and Ian shrank back from the sudden grimness of his face. "What are you doing, out here in the middle of the forest, alone at night? Your parents will be worried."

  Ian heaved a sigh of relief. This soldier did not even know that his parents were dead, so he could not have been sent here to search for a runaway serf boy.

  The soldier was looking impatient. "Come, boy—how is it you are out here late, and alone?"

  "I . . . " Ian bit his lip. "I came out to . . . to gather nuts." He didn't even sound convincing to himself.

  Nor to the free-lance. "So late at night?"

  "It was this morning, sir," Ian improvised. "But I lost my way, and try as I would to find my home, I think I'm even further lost. So I have no idea where I am, or where my home is."

  The free-lance scowled, like a thundercloud. "You are a very poor liar," he said severely. Suddenly, he smiled again. "Well, I am properly served. It is no business of mine, why you are out here—and if you lie about it, you seem to feel no need of my help to get home again." He looked Ian over, puzzled. "Too young to have a brand on you. Still, there is no doubt you are a serf's son. If the soldiers catch you here, late and alone at night, it will go hard with you." He seemed to come to a decision, and stood. Ian stared up at him, awed, for the process of standing seemed to go on and on as the man unfolded and expanded. He was a giant, or at least, much taller than any man Ian had ever seen!

  He held out a hand. "Walk with me, then, boy, and I'll be your protection from them. You are my apprentice, accompanying me to polish my armor and mend my clothes."

  Ian seized the hand with relief and gladness—here was a friend where he had least expected to find one, his passport out of the forest and to safety.

  But . . .

  "Sir," he said, "will the foresters believe it?"

  The free-lance smiled. "It is rare, true. Few blankshield soldiers would wish to burden themselves with a child. Still, it is not unknown, and when we've come out of the forest, I will buy you some clothes that befit your new station. We will say that you are my nephew."