by Rick Cook
From a window above the practice yard, Ebrion watched them pass. It would go hard on the hedge witch when the Sparrow disappeared, and looking at them walk arm-in-arm, that thought troubled him. With an effort he shook it off. The good of the many was much more important than the feelings of one hedge witch. Besides, there were rumors that the two were not getting along.
She’ll get over it quickly enough, he told himself. Then he concentrated on what he knew was about to happen in the courtyard below.
“Look, there’s Donal,” Moira pointed to a tall dark-haired guardsman who was using a short spear—actually, a padded pole—against a man with a sword and shield.
Donal was one of the guardsmen who had accompanied Wiz on his foray into the dungeons beneath the City of Night to rescue Moira. He was skillfully using the length of his weapon to keep his opponent at a distance and flicking the spear out in quick thrusts, searching for a weakness in the man’s guard. As they watched, he executed a fast double thrust and parry that swept his opponent’s sword to the side and finished with a solid thrust to the face.
“Oh, well done!” Moira said, laughing and clapping.
Wiz smiled. In the back of his head a small voice was nagging him about all the work he had to do, but the evening was lovely, the place was pretty, and it was pleasant to walk with a beautiful woman, especially when she was your wife.
As they ambled along, a man stepped out from behind one of the pillars and ran into Wiz, nearly knocking him down.
“Hey, watch it.” He saw it was the apprentice who had nearly run into him in the hall the night before.
Pryddian curled his lip. “Clumsy Sparrow. Why not use your magic to fly out of the way?”
Moira gasped. Wiz wanted to smash his sneering face. Instead he stepped around Pryddian and walked toward the opposite side of the drill field.
“Wiz, you shouldn’t let him talk to you like that,” Moira hissed once they were out of earshot.
“What should I do? Turn him to stone?”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said angrily. “But at the very least you should put him in his place.”
“How?”
Moira considered. Wiz did not have the wizard’s manner that came with years of practicing magic. He could not freeze an apprentice with a look the way a real wizard could. Short of using magic on him—a thing unthinkable—there really was nothing he could do.
“I will speak to Bal-Simba about him.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. It will be all right, really.”
Moira pressed her lips together and kept walking.
“Ah, Sparrow, My Lord.” They turned and saw Juvian coming toward them, a fussy, balding little man who was always in a hurry.
Wiz nodded respectfully. “My Lord.”
“Ah yes,” Juvian came panting up. “My Lady, I wonder if you could excuse us for a moment. There is a matter of Council business we must discuss.” He took Wiz by the elbow and led him off to the reviewing stand that stood on poles at one side of the field. Wiz threw Moira a helpless look over his shoulder, but he did not try to break the wizard’s hold on his arm.
“He’s a lucky man,” said a voice behind her.
Moira turned and saw Shamus.
“I doubt he would agree with you at this instant.”
“Nonetheless, lucky.” He smiled with an infectious warmth that Moira remembered from her student days and extended his arm. “While he is occupied, would you do me the honor of accompanying me?”
Moira smiled back. “Gladly.”
Shamus was a lithe, compact man whose shock of sandy hair was dunning with the approach of middle age. His face was deeply tanned and a little windburned with tiny crinkles of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Moira had had a minor crush on him when last she stayed at the Capital, but her studies left her little time to pursue such things.
“We do not see you out here often enough.”
“Wiz’s work keeps him busy,” Moira said with a trace more acid than she intended.
“True, but a wife does not have to walk only with her husband.”
“I suppose so,” Moira sighed and looked around at the strolling, chatting people. “It would be pleasant to be out more.”
“It could be pleasant indeed,” Shamus said with a smile. “I would be happy to show you.”
Moira understood exactly what he was offering. Such things were accepted in the Capital and as long as the affair was carried on discreetly no censure attached to any of the parties.
Moira glanced over to where Wiz was finishing his conversation with Juvian. It would serve him right! She thought. Then she buried the notion with a guilty start.
“I am sorry, My Lord, but I must decline.”
“Ah,” said Shamus, looking across the drill yard. “A very lucky man indeed.” He sighed. “You’ve broken my heart, you know.”
Moira followed his eyes to Wiz standing beneath the reviewing stand. “I feel it will mend by the time the next pretty face comes along.”
###
The object of this by-play leaned back against one of the posts, oblivious to the things being said about him. In the rings, the guardsmen whirled and dodged in mock combat. As Wiz put his weight against the post it shifted and the entire marshal’s stand teetered.
“Look out!” Moira screamed.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The guardsmen and strollers froze. Wiz looked up, mouth open, to see the entire mass toppling down on him. He started to move out of the way, but he was obviously too late.
An armored body hurtled into him, knocking him sideways and slamming him into the earth. Behind them the stand crashed to earth, raising a cloud of dust off the practice field. A few boards fell across the pair, but the guardsman was on top and his armor protected them both.
“Are you all right, Lord?”
Wiz opened his eyes and realized that the man on top of him was Donal. “Fine,” he gasped. “I’m fine.”
Donal rolled off Wiz and climbed to his feet. Wiz started to rise and fell back, gasping in pain.
“My shoulder. I’ve done something to my shoulder.”
Moira came running across the drill yard, skirts flying.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve hurt my shoulder.”
Moira knelt beside him and ran her fingers lightly over the injured joint. “It is separated.” She looked up at Donal. “Help me get his tunic off and I will fix it.”
“It would be better if we let the healers handle it.”
Moira’s green eyes flashed. “Are you saying I cannot heal a shoulder separation?”
Donal met her gaze levelly. “No Lady, only that Bronwyn or one of the others can do it better.”
Moira started to snap back, then with a visible effort, she relaxed. “You are right, of course. Send one of your men for her, and quickly.”
“Already done, My Lady.”
“Oh shit,” Wiz muttered, “this hurts.”
Moira rested her hand gently on the injured shoulder. “I know, my love. But Bronwyn will be here quickly enough. Try to relax and do not move.”
Behind them Shamus was examining the post where it had snapped off. “Rotten wood,” he said, wrinkling his nose. He broke a piece off and crumbled it in his fingers. “This needed replacing months ago, and probably all the rest besides.”
Arianne knelt by the post, her brown eyes fixed on the break. “Yes,” she said and reached up with slender fingers to caress the broken spot. “Yes, they should all be examined most carefully.”
###
Bal-Simba was in his private study when Arianne found him a few hours later.
“You heard that Wiz nearly brought the marshal’s stand down on himself on the drill field this afternoon?” she said without preamble.
Bal-Simba grunted. “I heard. Besides all else, our Sparrow is clumsy.”
“He is that,” she said tonelessly.
Bal-Simba looked up and gave his lieutenant his full a
ttention. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I examined that post just after the accident. The wood was old and beetle-bored, waiting to fail. So I went back and looked at the place on the parapet where he slipped the other day. It was damp and somewhat slick. There was nothing obviously unusual about either the post or the place on the parapet.”
Bal-Simba waited.
“I could find no definite trace of magic about either the post or the damp spot. There seemed to be a hint of—something—about the post, but if it was indeed there it was so faint I could not be sure.”
“You obviously think there is more to this than simple accidents,” Bal-Simba said. “What?”
Arianne paused, choosing her words carefully. “Lord, I think someone is trying to kill Wiz by magic.”
###
When Bronwyn finally released him, Wiz went looking for Donal. He found him alone in the armory, replacing a strap on his chain mail hauberk by the light of a magic globe.
“I wanted to thank you for this evening,” Wiz told him. “You saved my life, I think.”
“So clumsily you needed the attention of a healer to put your shoulder right,” Donal said wryly.
“I’m alive and that’s the important thing. Thank you.”
Donal stared down at the new strap. “As you saved mine beneath the City of Night.”
“Still . . .”
“Lord, if you wish think of it as payment of a debt.” He turned back to the job of threading the strap into place.
“You know, I think about the time we spent at Heart’s Ease. You, I, Kenneth and Shiara.” His mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Back when there was a clear, simple job to do and all we had to do was do it.”
“Yes, Lord,” Donal said without looking up from tying the strap into the chain mail.
“Now everything’s so complicated and there’s so much more to it.” He sighed. “What do you do when you’re overwhelmed?”
“You do the best you can for as long as you can, Lord.”
“And then?”
Donal jerked the strap tight and looked up. “Then, My Lord, you put your back to something and go down fighting.”
“I don’t think that really applies here,” Wiz said.
Donal fixed him with his icy blue eyes. “Lord, I hope you are never in a situation where it does apply.”
###
“Subtle,” Bal-Simba said at last. “Subtle indeed. But so subtle it is not sure.”
Arianne smiled nervously. “If you mean to make me doubt my suspicions, Lord, you may spare yourself the effort. I do not know if I believe this or not.”
“Oh, it is believable,” Bal-Simba rumbled. “Overt magic in this place would be too easy to detect—and to trace back to its source. Wiz is known to be clumsy and an accident would be easy to accept. An attack using just the tiniest of magics to set up a mischance could perhaps pass unnoticed. And if the first one did not succeed, the next one might, or the next after that.”
“That is my thinking, Lord.”
He shook his head. “We have grown lax, Lady. With the Dark League broken we have let down our guard.”
“You suspect the Dark League?”
“Who else? They are not all gone, after all, and those who are left would have ample reason for harming our Sparrow.”
“There is one other thing, Lord.”
“Eh?”
“I did not come by this on my own. Another first suggested the idea to me—before today.”
“Who?”
“June, the orphan servant girl. She is convinced Wiz is in danger.”
###
“How is your shoulder?” Moira asked as soon as Wiz came in.
“Fine now.” He windmilled the arm. “See?”
“I am glad,” she said quietly.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, dreading the answer.
Moira bit her lip. “Wiz, we have to talk.”
“All right.” I’m losing her, he thought. I’m blowing it and I’m going to lose her.
“I am sorry, I cannot go on like this.”
“I know. I’ve got to stop ignoring you.”
“Wiz, you are killing yourself,” Moira said desperately. “You ignoring me, that I could live with—I think. It is in a good cause. But you are burning yourself out trying to do too much.”
“I’ve got to do it. Bal-Simba won’t let me off the Council and we’ve got to have a version of the spell compiler anyone can use.”
Moira bit her lip and considered. This wasn’t just about her needs. As a hedge witch she had been inculcated with the idea that service to the community came before personal needs. The whole World needed Wiz and what he could do. She pushed her feelings to the back and tried to look at the situation as the helper of one of the Mighty with an important task to perform.
Wiz, lost in his thoughts, missed the shift completely. “I dunno,” he sighed. “Sometimes I think it’s getting worse instead of better.”
“Worse than you know,” the redheaded witch said. “There are some who claim you hide your secrets from us behind a veil of deliberate obscurity. That in this way your power among us grows.”
“Oh, bullshit! Look, I’m doing the best I can, all right? But I’m a rotten teacher and these people are so dense.”
“Some of the wisest and most powerful of our wizards have placed themselves under your tutelage,” Moira said sharply. “Are you so superior that they cannot learn the most elementary matters?”
“Of course not! But you people don’t think the way we do. I know they’re trying but they just don’t pick up the concepts.”
“I understand that,” Moira said more gently. “I remember what it was like when you tried to teach me this new magic. But Wiz, it makes problems for everyone.”
“At least the ordinary people seem to appreciate what I’m doing. We’ve already got a few spells out there that anyone can use. ddt, the magic repellent spell, is everywhere and that’s solved a lot of problems. But I can’t do many more of those until I get the tools built. Meanwhile, I’m trying to teach the system to people who hate it and wasting time sitting in Council meetings listening to endless debates on nothing much.”
Moira nodded sympathetically. Wiz was like a blacksmith with a good supply of iron and charcoal but no tools. Given time he could make his own tools, but until he got them made, there was very little else he could do. She wasn’t used to thinking of a spell as a thing built up of parts like a wagon, but by analogy she could understand the situation.
“If I could just get the other wizards to see that and take me seriously, I’d be a lot further along. Instead I have Ebrion claiming the spell compiler doesn’t work at all!”
“But doesn’t ddt show Ebrion and the others that your way of magic works?”
“It doesn’t penetrate. They see it as a clever hack and claim it’s like a non-magician using an enchanted item.”
“But you created it!”
He shrugged. “So I’m a great magician. Any great magician could come up with something like that, they say. It’s all an accident.”
“They should have been in the dungeons beneath the City of Night when you broke the Dark League single-handed!”
“They weren’t. Most of them didn’t find out about the attack until the day it happened and they never had a really clear picture of what was going on. Besides, they claim it only proves my magic was so alien the Dark League didn’t know what to expect.”
Moira said something very unladylike under her breath.
Wiz made a face. “Look, the truth is they don’t see it because they don’t want to see it. I can’t fight that—at least not until I’ve got better tools and can teach some more people to use them.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I feel as if I’m being nibbled to death by ducks. If I could just put everything else aside and concentrate on writing code I could get this done. But the way it is now . . .” he waved his hand helplessly over the books. “The way it is now I’ve got so many other things
happening I just can’t stay with anything long enough to accomplish anything.”
“Perhaps you could.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got to have trained helpers. Until I get some people who understand this kind of magic I can’t do half the critical stuff.”
Suddenly Moira brightened. “I have it!” She turned to Wiz excitedly. “You need help, do you not?”
“Yeah,” Wiz sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I need help.”
“And there are many in your land who can do what you do?”
“More or less.”
“Then the thing to do is to have the Council bring others to your aid. With the Dark League broken they can do a Great Summoning easily enough and—”
“No!” Wiz snapped around, shaking her arm off his shoulders.
Moira turned white and flinched back as if he had struck her.
“I’m sorry,” Wiz said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. But no, I’m not going to have that on my conscience.
“Look, what Patrius did to me was a damn dirty trick.” He took one of her hands in both of his. “I’ll admit it worked out well in the end, but it was still a terrible thing to do. Even with you and all the rest I still get homesick sometimes.” He grinned lopsidedly. “There are times I’d trade almost everything for a sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza.”
He took her in his arms. “Look darling, I know you mean well, but I can’t let you do that to someone else. Promise me you won’t try to yank someone else through.”
Moira blinked back tears. “Very well.” She tapped herself on the chest with her fist. “I swear I will not use a Great Summoning to bring someone else here from your world.”
“And that you won’t influence anyone else to do it either.”