A Wizard In a Feud

by Christopher Stasheff

"The New Folk trust us not at all," another elf explained, "nor should they."

  "As we should not trust them," a fairy added. "If it were not for the fear we have inspired in them, I doubt not that they would shoot us out of the air for sport."

  "We would shoot back well enough." An elf caressed his crossbow.

  "Aye, if you could take aim while dodging their boots," a fairy retorted.

  Gar sensed that an old, old rivalry had surfaced. To shove it back under, he asked, "Can you not trust some New Folk simply by the good will you read in them?"

  "We have done so now and again," a fairy hummed. "We have become keen judges of character."

  Gar knew he shouldn't, but couldn't resist. "What is there about my character that lets you trust me, then?"

  "Why, we have told you," a fairy replied.

  "No, you have told me of my circumstances-descending from a spaceship-and of my intentions, which are to forge a peace," Gar corrected. "Have I no defects of character that make you mistrust me?"

  He was astounded when the whole assemblage burst into laughter. He waited it out, somewhat numb, trying not to be resentful. As they quieted, he said sardonically, "I am glad I serve as such a source of mirth."

  "No, you are not, and you are highly indignant," an elf said, "as indeed you should be."

  "We all can see your defects, New Man," a fairy said, wiping tears from its eyes, "but they are not such as to lessen our trust in you."

  "Indeed!" Gar tried to quell his indignation. "May I ask what my defects are, then?"

  "A dangerous question," a fairy warned. "No matter how we answer, you will take offense."

  "I shall not, by my hand!" Gar held up a palm as though taking an oath.

  "Well sworn." An elf nodded approval. "But there is no creature who can fail to take offense when told his defects."

  "Why then, I shall strive to remember that I brought it upon myself." Gar felt inspiration strike. "After all, you may have been adding me to the believers in your supernatural abilities, and your unwilling dupe in carrying them to the clans. You have not yet told me anything that you could not have learned by observation, and by a certain empathy born of centuries of watching my kind."

  "Oho! It's proof you want, then, is it?" an elf hooted. "Learn, then, New Man, that we know you for the coward you are!"

  "I am not a coward!"

  "A coward of the heart," a fairy explained, "and with good reason-for five women broke your trust and mangled your feelings."

  "Yet those five women were all one," an elf amended. "One in various guises-and skilled indeed she was at disguising." Gar felt a chill run through him. How could these creatures have peered so deeply into his memories so quickly?

  But it hadn't been quickly, of course. They had been tracking him for days, no doubt studying him in depth as he went. Nevertheless, how could they have discovered that all five women-the ugliest witch in the north country, the wild fey girl, and all the others-had been only one emotional assassin in several disguises? He hadn't known that himself until ... Until Gregory had told him the other night. The fairies no doubt had eavesdropped on that conversation.

  Anger surged in him; he held himself rigid, waiting for it to pass. What right had these strangers to inspect his most intimate thoughts? Had they no ethics, no standards of telepathy?

  No, of course not. They were faced with aliens much larger than themselves, and very violent in the bargain. They felt no compunction in using whatever weapons they had.

  They were tense now, elves with crossbows raised, fairies with hands cupped (for what? telepathic beams?), knowing his anger, braced for his wrath-but as the rage began to subside, the Wee Folk began to relax.

  "You are angry," one said.

  They still held their crossbows at the ready.

  "Even as you said," Gar answered in a level tone, "none can hear their detractions without resenting them."

  "True," said a fairy "but it is not that which angers you-it is our invasion of what you perceive to be your privacy."

  "Even so." Gar bent his head in acknowledgment. "It is a primitive reflex-but I asked for it. After all, how can I mend my faults if I do not know them?"

  "He swallows the bitter pill," an elf said, staring.

  "He does indeed," agreed a fairy. "It sticks in his craw, but he swallows it down."

  They were all gazing at him in surprise, almost in awe, and Gar realized they had been testing him. Anger boiled up again, but he stood still, waiting for it to crest and subside. If he had passed the test once, he wasn't about to fail it now!

  The Wee Folk had tensed again, reading his anger, but as it began to recede once more, they relaxed a little and stared at him with more awe than ever.

  "Never have I seen self-control so thorough among one of the New Folk," said a fairy.

  "Aye, the more amazing because it stems from his beliefs of what is right and wrong," an elf answered. She made a swirling motion with her hand, saying, "Yet how will he fare when he must stare his fears in the eye?"

  The air seemed to thicken into a fog, out of which came the cry, "A rag, a bone!"

  A chill coursed through Gar. He knew that voice.

  The fog condensed further into a body, one that took on colors-and Gar found himself staring at a portly man dressed like the driver of a Victorian hackney cab in a threadbare taped coat, dented top hat, patched trousers, and Wellington boots, his nose and cheeks ruddy with the tiny broken veins of the chronic drinker, who gave Gar a boozy, cheerful grin. "What of your heart, ardent lover?" the apparition demanded. "Do you hear it knocking to leap free of its golden box yet?"

  Superstitious fear seized Gar, though he knew the man for nothing but a projection of his own deepest drives. It wasn't his heart that heaved against its restraints, but his anger, anger that built and built into rage as he realized that the elves had conjured the rag-and-bone man out of the recesses of Gar's mind to test him. He trembled with the strength of the emotion but controlled it with an iron will, saying in a hard level tone, "It has not, praise Heaven! My heart lies quietly, content to rest in security"

  "You lie to yourself." The ragpicker waved a finger. "You long to have it out of its prison, to be able to love again."

  "Love is a dream," Gar said, his voice still level. "It will come when it comes-but when it does, my heart will swell till it bursts the lock of its own accord."

  "There is no breaking that lock," the ragpicker jeered. "Only one with a key can open it."

  "Then I am forever safe, for you kept the key," Gar said with a sardonic smile.

  "Did I say I kept it?" the ragpicker asked with feigned surprise. "Dear me! If I did, why, I lied-for there is no key!" There was no surge of anger, only a wave of relief, and Gar was appalled, but he took advantage of the surprise and smiled. "Then I shall wait for a woman with a lock-pick, devious creature, or for one who can forge me a key."

  "Then you shall wait all your life," the ragpicker warned. "So be it," Gar said. "It will be worth the wait."

  "Worth it how? Passing your time flitting about the galaxy freeing nations of thankless people? Finishing alone in your old age? Will this make the wait worthwhile?"

  "If a woman comes with a key, she will be worth it. If not?" Gar shrugged. "I may not have a gamesome spirit, but I can find many tasks that will amuse me. My life will not be wasted and at its end, I doubt not I will thank you."

  "So he speaks to the deepest part of himself," the ragpicker said to the elves with deep disappointment. "Worse, he thinks he means it." He turned back to Gar, shaking his head. "He will not rise to the bait."

  "What? To rant and rave at a figment of my own dreammind?" Gar gave him a thin smile. "That would be a waste of breath indeed."

  "It is not that purpose to which I would make you rise," said the ragpicker, but shook his head at the elves. "Let me go, mindrakers. I can be of no use here."

  "As you wish it." The elf held her hand up flat, moved it in a circle, and the ragpicker disappeared like
steaming breath wiped from a cold window pane.

  "We can trust him," the elf said to the fairy. Then her tone took on a note of regret as she added, "Though he cannot trust himself."

  "I trust myself to keep my temper no matter what the temp tation," Gar said with a smile.

  "Aye, more's the pity," a fairy answered, "but can you aim yourself to do what is best for you?"

  "Best for me?" Gar asked with another sardonic smile. "Wh bother? All my worth comes from making the world better f other people."

  "Do you deserve nothing for yourself?"

  Gar frowned, thinking it over, then said, "It's not ,a question of deserving. Making the world a better place makes my life worth living, that's all."

  "Should you not also make it a better place for yourself?"

  "What would such self-indulgence accomplish?"

  "Perhaps a little more happiness."

  "Happiness?" Gar smiled. "Yes, I remember that from m childhood." He shrugged. "It will come if it will come."

  "Do you not think you merit it?"

  Again, Gar shrugged. "If I do, it will find me some day." The fairy stared at him, eyes wide and tragic, then turned to the elves. "Can we mend him in that?"

  "No," said an elf, "nor can his own kind, not even a woman. He can only mend himself."

  "And he will not bother." The fairy turned back to Gar, "Nonetheless, we can wish you well in your peace-seeking, war derer, and will give you whatever aid we can."

  "Aye," said an elf. "If ever you are in danger, flee to any the Keepers of the Mounds and they will give you sanctuary such that no mortal will dare violate."

  "I thank you." Gar wondered what the Keepers of the Mounds were but thought it best not to ask; they would probably be self-evident.

  "You are welcome, so long as your enemy is our enemy." Gar frowned. "But I am of the New People! Are they not your enemies?"

  "No," said a fairy, "they are only a hazard of which we must be wary."

  "It is their warring that hurts us, for when many clansfolk go blasting leaden balls from rifles made of Cold Iron, elves and fairies alike are injured or slain."

  "Even the concussion of their firearms can maim us," another fairy said.

  Gar looked at the gossamer-winged, fine-boned body and found he could believe it easily. "So, then, we do have a common enemy-the feuds."

  "Even so," the fairy agreed. "Labor to end them, mortal, and you shall have the thanks of all the Old People! Farewell." Wing beats exploded, and the fairies were gone so quickly that if Gar had blinked, he would have thought they had simply disappeared.

  "Farewell indeed," an elf seconded, "and be sure that so long as you work for peace, you shall have the aid of the Wee Folk. Good fortune attend you."

  "Good fortune," the elves chorused. Then each stepped behind a leaf or tree or sank down into underbrush, and were gone from view as though they had never been.

  Gar stared, then opened his mind cautiously and felt the presence of a score of other minds so alien he could scarcely distinguish any of their thoughts. "Au revoir," he said softly, then turned to waken Kerlew, thinking all the while that he would have to work at deciphering the thoughts of the Old Folk until it could become automatic.

  He shook the lad's shoulder and Kerlew groaned, but it was only the sort of groan issuing from anyone who sleeps deeply and is reluctant to waken. "Rise, bold woodsman," Gar said softly, "and hunt the sun, or it will be up and away before you can catch it."

  The boy rolled over to squint up at Gar, frowning. "What nonsense is this? Who could hunt the sun-and why should he? It will come to us all sooner or later."

  "It will indeed," Gar agreed, "and you'll want to be awake to see it. Come now, rise and take some breakfast, for we've a long day's journey ahead."

  Kerlew levered himself up, then put a hand to his head, puzzled. "I seem to have slept well . . ." He looked up at Gar. "If sunrise is nearly upon us, then you must have watched all night by yourself! Why did you not wake me for my turn?"

  "I was preoccupied." Gar took a quick inventory of his body and said with surprise, "I'm not tired, though. I suppose I will be halfway through the morning. Then I'll trouble you to keep watch while I nap."

  "Surely, but I would gladly have done so last..." Kerlew's eyes widened as memory caught up with him. "The Wee Folk! We came upon them last night, and they felled me!"

  "So they did," Gar agreed, "though they assured me you would only sleep very deeply and were not hurt in any way."

  "No wonder you did not wake me." Kerlew looked up at Gar anxiously. "Did they keep you talking all night?"

  "I suppose they did," Gar said with surprise, "though it seemed to be less than an hour."

  "That is their way." Kerlew rose, dusting himself off. "They can make an instant seem to be a day, or a day pass in an instant. Come, let's breakfast, and we can tell each other what we know of them while we walk."

  Over journey rations and a hot herbal brew, Kerlew explained that the clans called the elves the Wee Folk or the Old Ones. "Legend has it that they were on this world when our ancestors came from the stars," he said with a sardonic smile, "but who could believe such an old wives' tale?"

  "Who indeed?" Gar reflected wryly that fairies and elves were quite real to the clansfolk, but space travel was a fantasy. "It was rather difficult to know to whom I was talking. I can accept that they all look alike to us, but I couldn't even tell males from females."

  "None can," Kerlew told him. "Indeed, no one is even certain that there are two sexes."

  "They aren't that different from us, surely!" Gar couldn't be certain, but the natives did look rather mammalian, though he hadn't seen any mammaries. "How else would they reproduce?"

  Kerlew spread his hands. "None knows. Some think they may lay eggs, others that they split in half so that each half grows into a new being."

  "Now that I would call a fairy tale." Gar knew that fission only worked on the microscopic level.

  Kerlew shrugged. "Others guess that elves are male and fairies female, but few place much faith in the notion. The elves are too much larger than the fairies."

  "Well, male or female, it matters not," Gar said. "All that matters is that they've said they'll help us, if we seek to bring peace to the clans."

  "That can never happen!" Kerlew exclaimed wide-eyed, then immediately corrected himself. "Though mayhap, with the help of the Old Ones..." His eyes filled with longing. "It would be pleasant to be able to go home again."

  If he did, Gar thought, he would go as a hero, hailed as one of the peacemakers-the very crime for which he had been exiled. He drank the dregs of his tea and stood, kicking dirt on the campfire. "Then let's go find a way to make it happen." Kerlew rose, too. "Which way lies peace?"

  "Everywhere and nowhere." Gar tucked the camping gear back in his pack. "It might lie down any road, so the direction doesn't matter, only the journey."

  They left their campsite in considerably better spirits than they had come to it and set off down the road singing. After all, anyone really wanting to ambush travelers would have set sentries on the trackway, so what did it matter if they made some noise?

  The argument seemed to lose its logic when the roadside leaves parted and half a dozen people stepped out into the road before them, rifles leveled.

  11

  "Can you cure them, lady?" the grandmother asked in a frosty tone. That, plus the sharp anxiety in her eyes, told Alea how hard she was working to maintain her dignity when she was frightened for her children and grandchildren.

  A dozen of the adults and children had sores on their faces and hands. Alea studied the slack jawed faces of the adults, then asked one woman, "Do your gums bleed?"

  "How did you know?" The woman stared at her in amazement, and the others muttered to one another incredulously. "It's part of this disease," Alea explained. "Have your teeth grown loose?"

  "She's a witch!" a man hissed, shaken.

  "No, only a healer." Alea turned to the grandmother.
"It's nothing to fret about, Lady Grandmother. They're not eating right, that's all."

  "Not eating right!" the old woman exploded. "I see to it they've plenty! Cornbread, beans, and molasses, just as their parents and grandparents had!"

  "If they did, you must have seen this sickness before," Alea said, and from the haunted look in the grandmother's eyes knew she had guessed rightly. "What kinds of fruits do you grow?"

  "Why, apples and pears, like every other clan!"

  "No oranges or lemons?"

  The grandmother frowned. "What are those?"

  Alea guessed the climate was too cold for citrus fruit. "What vegetables, then? Do you grow tomatoes?"

  "Aye, for a bit of garnish." The old woman made a face. "Who would want them for anything more?"

  "Like them or not, you'd better serve them with the noon meal and the evening meal every day from now on," Alea told her, "and make sure the young ones finish theirs, too."

  The old woman frowned. "Will that heal them?"

  "Oh, yes," Alea said. "You'll see some improvement in a matter of days, but it will be a month or two before all the symptoms are gone."

  "Tomatoes!" The old woman made it sound like an obscenity, then sighed. "Well, you don't bring in a healer to ignore her advice. We'll try it for a fortnight, at least." She turned to one of the younger men. "Jonathan, till a bed and plant more of the blasted things."

  "As you will, Grandmother." The boy made a face on his way to the door. Apparently he shared her opinion of tomatoes. "Now then, Moira." Grandma turned to the seer, one problem disposed of and out of her mind, another problem before her. "Not that you're not welcome, mind you, but how is it you've come back so soon?"

  "By the good graces of this healer, Grandma." Moira smiled, amusement showing for a second before she throttled it into bland politeness. "She is graciously allowing me to attend her as a traveling companion."

  "Graciously, is it?" Grandma gave Alea a suspicious look, as though tolerating Moira's company automatically made her suspect, but she admitted, "It is better for young women to travel together, though. A solitary road is a long one-and dangerous."

  "We trust that even bandits will not assault a healer, Grandma," Alea said demurely.