by Rick Cook
"I am afraid not, Sparrow. Besides, I do not think those things would work here."
Wiz leaned forward against the parapet and clasped his hands together. "So," he sighed. "What do I do now?"
"Survive," Bal-Simba said. "Live. That is the lot of most."
"That’s not very enticing," Wiz growled. "I can’t go home and there’s nothing for me here."
Bal-Simba followed his gaze down into the garden where Moira was kneeling among the plants.
"Things change, Sparrow. Things change."
"Not much to hope for, is it?"
"Men have lived on the hope of less," Bal-Simba rumbled. "Do you have courage, Sparrow? The courage to hope?"
Wiz turned to face him and smiled bitterly. "I can’t have much else, can I?"
They stood looking out over the battlements and to the forest beyond for a moment more.
"You can stay here for as long as you like," Bal-Simba said finally. "The Dark League still seeks you and it is not safe for you to wander abroad in the world."
"Thanks," Wiz mumbled. "I guess I can find some way to make myself useful."
"That will be your choice, Sparrow."
As he moved to go, Bal-Simba placed his left hand on Wiz’s shoulder and made an odd gesture in front of his eyes with his right. A thrill ran though Wiz’s body and he shivered involuntarily.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"A minor magic, Sparrow," the giant black wizard said. "It is for your own good, I assure you."
He left Wiz staring out over the forest and descended the stairs.
After Bal-Simba left, Wiz looked down at the flagged courtyard spread out below.
It’s a long way, he thought. It would take, what?, five, six seconds to fall that far.
That was one out, anyway. Short and relatively painless. He could just swing a leg over and solve everyone’s problems in an eyeblink. Moira could go back to her village, Shiara and Ugo would have peace again and him, well, he wouldn’t care any more.
He drew back from the edge. No dammit! I’ll be damned if I’ll let this beat me like that! Besides, he thought wryly, with my luck I’d probably just cripple myself. Oh, to hell with it! He went back to staring out at the forest.
Moira met Bal-Simba in the great hall.
"Forgive me, Lord. I do not mean to pry into what is not my affair, but what did you find out about Sparrow?"
Bal-Simba shrugged. "As we suspected Lady. He has no magic and none of the Council can imagine what use he might be to us."
Moira closed her eyes and sighed. "I had hoped…"
"So had we all, Lady," Bal-Simba rumbled. "But do you care so much for him?"
"Care for him?" Moira blazed. "I can’t stand him! Lord, he is not competent to weed a garden! He can barely be trusted within these walls by himself and he needs a keeper if he goes abroad."
"You should not be so hard on him," Bal-Simba said. "He cannot help it that he is as he is. Would you fare better in his world?"
"You are right, Lord," Moira sighed. "But it is so terribly hard when he is making eyes at me constantly. And when I look at him I’m reminded of what he cost us. He cost us so much and he is worth so little."
"Do not presume to judge his worth," Bal-Simba rumbled. "True worth is often hidden, even from the Mighty."
"I know, but… Oh, Lord, let me return to the Fringe and my people," she pleaded. "They need me and Shiara can look after him."
Bal-Simba shook his head. "Your people are looked after, little one. As for letting you go—do you so relish the trip back across the Wild Wood and through the Fringe alone?"
Moira thrust out her chin. "I did it before, and with him in tow."
The black wizard shook his head. "And you made it only by luck and the grace of an elf duke. I do not think Aelric would be so accommodating a second time and you used more than your share of luck getting here."
"You mean I’m trapped here?"
"For a time, little one. When the League’s interest has died somewhat more, we can bring both of you back to the Capital by the Wizard’s Way. From there you may go as you will. In the meantime, try to be kind to our lost Sparrow."
Moira sighed. "I will try, Lord. But it is not easy."
"Very little in life is," the wizard said.
Wiz stood at the top of Heart’s Ease and looked west over the Wild Wood. The sun was going down and already the shadows had stretched across the clearing below. The swallows swooped and wheeled over the keep and Wiz heard the whoosh of their passage more often than he saw one flit by.
"Is it a beautiful sunset, Sparrow?" asked a soft voice behind him. Wiz turned and saw Shiara standing by the door.
Wiz swallowed his misery. "Yes Lady, it is a very pretty sunset."
Shiara moved unerringly to the parapet. "Describe it for me if you would."
"Well, there are a lot of clouds and they’re all red and orange. The sun’s almost down on the horizon, but it’s still too bright to look at directly. The sunlight’s only on the very tops of the trees, so they’re bright green and everything else is a real dark green."
They stood together in silence for a bit.
"Before—before I used to love to watch the sunset," Shiara said.
"I never had much time for sunsets," Wiz told her. "I was always too busy."
"Too busy for the sun?" Shiara’s face clouded slightly. "Too busy for the sun, Sparrow?"
Wiz sighed. "Yeh. Too busy for the sun and a lot of other things. There was always so much to do, so much to learn." He grinned wryly. "You may not believe this, but computer programming really is a discipline. You have to work and study and slave over it to be any good. I did and I was good. One of the best."
"These things sound like hard taskmasters."
"Sure, sometimes. But it was rewarding too. There were always new things to discover and new ways to apply what you knew. Someone was always coming up with a new hack or a user would find some kind of obscure bug—ah, problem."
"And you devoted your life to this. To the exclusion of everything else?"
"Yeah, I guess I did. Oh, I had friends. I was even engaged to be married once. But mostly it was computers. From when I was fourteen years old and my school got its first time-sharing terminal." He smiled. "I used to spend hours with that thing, trying to make it do stuff the designers never thought of."
"This girl you were promised to, what happened?"
Wiz shrugged. "We broke up. She had kind of a bad temper and I think she resented the time I spent with the machines."
"I’m sorry."
"Hey, don’t be. She married someone else and the last I heard they were happy together."
"I meant for you."
Wiz shrugged again. "Don’t be," he repeated. "I wouldn’t have been a very good husband and I had the computers." He turned to face her, away from the forest and the setting sun.
"You know the worst thing about this business? It’s not being jerked out of my own world and plopped down here. It’s not being chased by a bunch of monsters out of the Brothers Grimm’s nightmares. It’s that there are no computers. It’s that I’ll never again be able to do the thing I spent all my life learning to do. The thing I love most doesn’t exist here at all. I can’t have it ever again."
"I know, Sparrow," said Shiara the Silver softly, looking out toward the sunset with unseeing eyes. "Oh I know."
"I’m sorry Lady," said Wiz contritely. "I’ve been thinking of my own problems."
"We each of us dwell on our own lot," Shiara said briskly, "sometimes too much. The real question is what do we do to go beyond it."
They were silent for a bit as the clouds darkened from orange to purple and the shadows crept deeper across the yard below. The swallows were fewer now and a lone brave bat fluttered around the battlements, seeking the insects that had attracted the birds.
"Lady, may I ask you a kind of personal question?"
"You may ask," said Shiara in a tone that implied it might not be answered.
"How do you go about rebuilding a life? I mean I can’t work with computers here and that’s all I know. How do I become something else?"
"The same way you became a—ah, hacker? Yes, hacker. One day at a time. You learn and you try to grow." She smiled. "You will find compensation, I think."
Bal-Simba left them that evening, walking the Wizard’s Wary back to the Capital. For several days Wiz remained sunk in black depression, dividing his time between the battlements and his room and only coming down to eat a hasty and silent evening meal. Ugo took over the woodcutting chores again.
Finally, on the fifth day, Shiara asked for his help.
"We have many things ripening in the garden," she explained. "Moira is busy in the kitchen preserving what she has picked, Ugo has so much else to do and I," she spread her hands helplessly, "I am not much good at harvesting, I am afraid."
Moira looked askance at Wiz when Shiara brought him to the kitchen for directions. But he had been so genuinely miserable since Bal-Simba’s visit that she kept her reservations to herself. Anything to get him out of himself, she thought, even if it means ruining half the crop.
So Wiz took a large basket and set to work picking beans. He worked his way down the rows without thought, examining every vine methodically. The beans had been trained to tripods of sticks, making rows of leafy green tents. As instructed, he took only those pods which were tan and dry, meaning the beans within were fully ripe.
He filled the basket and two more like it before the afternoon was over. Then he sat down outside the kitchen and carefully shelled the beans he had picked.
He was nearly done with the shelling when Moira came out of the kitchen and saw him working.
"Why thank you, Sparrow," she said in genuine pleasure. "That is well done indeed."
Once it would have thrilled Wiz to hear her praise him like that. But that time was past. "Pretty good for someone who’s worthless, huh?"
Moira sobered. "I’m sorry, Wiz. I should not have said that."
"Meaning it’s all right to think it, but not to say it."
"It isn’t right to hurt another person needlessly," she said earnestly. "I spoke in anger and loss. I hope you will forgive me."
The way she said it hurt Wiz even more. She was sincerely sorry, he realized, but she was sorry for hurting his feelings, not for the thought. She was a queen, graciously asking pardon of one of her subjects.
"You know I can’t refuse you anything, Moira."
Moira closed her eyes and sighed. "I know, Wiz. And I’m sorry."
"Well, that’s the way it is. Anyway, here are your beans."
Wordlessly Moira took the basket of shelled beans and went back into the kitchen.
That day in the garden was a turning point for Wiz. From then on he largely took over the job of harvesting the rapidly ripening crops. He spent several hours a day working outdoors while Moira divided her time between the kitchen, pantry and stillroom. Most of the time Wiz picked without supervision, although Moira occasionally came out to instruct him in the finer points of gathering herbs and some of the more delicate vegetables.
A few times he went out into the Wild Wood with Ugo to gather fruits and berries. There were several ancient orchards in the quiet zone, their trees long unpruned and loaded with apples, pears and other fruits. The sight of the trees, so obviously planted and long unattended, made Wiz sad. He wondered if some long-ago Lothar had planted those saplings, full of hope for the future.
Ugo forbade Wiz to gather more than half the fruit on any tree. "Leave for forest folk," he admonished. Still they brought back basket upon basket of crisp pears and small flavorful apples which Moira set about processing in the kitchen or storing in the cellars.
Three of the four "cellars" were not under the keep or hall at all. They were root cellars, small underground rooms a few steps from the kitchen door. One day Moira asked Wiz to help her move several barrels of apples packed in oak leaves from the kitchen out to the furthest cellar.
Huffing and puffing, they tilted the heavy barrels and rolled them out to the place where they would be stored. It took both of them to carry each barrel down the steps into the cool twilight of the root cellar.
"Whoo!" Wiz gasped, standing upright after the last of the barrels had been shifted into place. "I wonder how they did this before we got here?"
"Ugo doubtless did it," panted Moira. "Wood goblins are stronger than they look and they can be very ingenious when needs be."
"Do you think we’ve got enough food here for the winter?"
Moira ran a practiced housewife’s eye over the cellar. "That and then some, if I am any judge. It is the flour, salt and other staples that are the concern. The Mighty bring those to Heart’s Ease over the Wizard’s Way and they have not increased the supply since we came."
"Why not?"
"First because the Wizard’s Way was chancy when the Dark League was in full cry for us. Secondly, because they dared not increase the amount of supplies brought through lest it reveal to the League that there are extra mouths here."
Moira looked around the cellar again and breathed deeply to take in the scent of the apples and other good things stored in the earth. Then she sighed.
"Penny," Wiz said.
"What?"
"A penny for your thoughts. I was wondering what you were thinking."
"What I was thinking was none of your concern, Sparrow," Moira said coldly. "And if you are through prying into my private thoughts, we still have work to do. Come!"
"No, I don’t think I am done," Wiz said slowly. He moved in to block her way out. "There’s still something I want to know and I think you owe it to me to tell me."
Moira stopped, suddenly unsure of herself. She’d seen Wiz bewildered, sullen, lovesick, awestruck, depressed and in the throes of a temper tantrum, but she had never seen him coldly angry as he was now.
"What is it I must tell you then?"
"Why are you so mad at me?"
"Crave pardon?" she said haughtily.
Wiz plowed ahead. "From the moment I met you you’ve disliked me. Fine, I’m not a magician, I don’t know my way around this place and I’m a first-class klutz. But why are you so bleeding mad at me?"
The question brought Moira up short. Wiz had never spoken to her like that before and she had never really examined her feelings toward him deeply.
True, he was inept and he had nearly gotten them both killed repeatedly on the journey. But it was more than that. She had disliked him from the first meeting in the clearing.
"I had to leave people who needed me to bring you here."
"Not guilty," Wiz said. "That was Bal-Simba’s idea, not mine." He paused. "Besides, I think there’s something more to it than that."
"There is," she said bitterly. "Patrius died to bring you here." Her eyes flashed. "We lost the best and most powerful of the Mighty and got you in return."
Wiz nodded. "Yeah, so you’ve told me. But I wasn’t looking to come here and I’ve suffered more from what Patrius did than you or any of the others. Again, not guilty."
Moira drew herself up. "If my feelings do not meet with your approval I am truly sorry! It is perhaps unreasonable of me, but that is the way I do feel."
"I doubt it," Wiz bit out. "Bal-Simba’s loss was greater than yours and he doesn’t hold me responsible. There’s something a whole lot more personal here. Now what?"
"I don’t…"
"Lady, I think the least, the very least, you owe me is a straight answer."
Moira didn’t reply for a long time. "I think," she said finally, "it is because you remind me of my failure."
"What failure?"
"The death of Patrius." Moira’s eyes filled with tears. "Don’t you see? I failed in my duty and Patrius died."
"What I see is you trying to take the whole bleeding world on your shoulders," Wiz snapped. "Look, I’m sorry for what happened to Patrius, all right? But I didn’t make it happen. I was kidnapped. Remember?"
&n
bsp; "You were involved," Moira shot back. "If he hadn’t Summoned you, he wouldn’t have died."
"Wrong. If he hadn’t gotten me he would have gotten someone else—maybe the super-wizard he wanted, I don’t know. But the point is, I had nothing to do with it. He made the choice of his own free will. He knew the risks. I am not responsible."
"No," Moira admitted slowly, "you were not."
"And I’ll tell you something else, lady. You weren’t responsible either."
"Little you know about it! An acolyte’s job is to protect the master."
"You’re not an acolyte. You’re a hedge-witch Patrius stumbled across and roped into his scheme. From what you and the others tell me, there is no way you could have protected him."
"Thank you," Moira said tightly. "All I needed was to be reminded of my weakness."
"Yes, you do need to be reminded of it!" Wiz flared. "You’re not all-powerful and you cannot be held responsible for something utterly beyond your control."
"Ohhh!" Moira gasped, turning from him.
"I’ll tell you something else you’re not responsible for," he said to her back. "You’re not responsible for what happened to your family. You didn’t do it and you can’t undo it and feeling guilty about it is only going to make you miserable."
Moira spun on her heel and slapped him with all the force of her body. Wiz’s head snapped to the side and he staggered back. Their eyes locked. Then Moira’s shoulders heaved and she began to sob silently, hugging herself and rocking back and forth on her heels.
Wiz took a step toward her and stopped. "Look, I’m sorry I said that. I shouldn’t have, Okay?"
"But dammit," he added forcefully, "it’s true!" and he turned and left the cellar.
Moira took her dinner in her room that night, making Ugo grumble and complain about the stairs he had to climb to take it to her. Shiara made a point of not noticing and Wiz picked at his food and muttered.
The argument marked a change in their relationship. Wiz still loved Moira, but he began to notice things about her he hadn’t seen before. She had a temper, he realized, and a lot of the time the things she said to him weren’t justified. She was beautiful but she wasn’t really pretty by the conventional standard of either world. Most of all, he saw, she was terribly involved with her work. She was as married to being a hedge witch as Wiz had been to computers.