The Wiz Biz

by Rick Cook

  She glared at him, but she swore.

  “I’ll have to ask Bal-Simba to swear that oath tomorrow,” he said, releasing her arms.

  She stood up straight. “Very well then. What will you do?”

  “It’ll work out,” Wiz mumbled. “I’ll think of something.”

  “What? What will you do?”

  “Something! Look, leave me alone, will you?” He shook her arm from his shoulder angrily.

  Moira stood stiff and straight. “Very well, My Lord.” She turned and ran from the room.

  Wiz half-rose to follow her and then thought better of it. He sank back to the bench and turned his attention to the book in front of him.

  Let her work it off, he told himself. She’ll come back when she’s calmed down some. It wasn’t a very attractive solution but it was the best he could think of at the moment.

  ###

  Moira slammed the door behind her and stormed down the hall, the cloak she had hastily grabbed slung over her arm. By the time she reached the stairs she was crying openly. She paused at the landing to throw the cloak about her and raise the hood to hide her tears, then swept out into the main court.

  She did not see the figure in the shadows at the foot of the stairs.

  Well, well, Pryddian thought as Moira went past. Trouble in the Sparrow’s nest. He smiled to himself and continued down the corridor.

  Five: Shiara Again

  Living with a programmer is easy. All you need is the patience of a saint.

  —programmers’ wives’ saying

  Like the original Heart’s Ease, the new one was a stone tower with an attached hall. The stones of the tower still bore traces of the fire which had destroyed the original and the hewn logs of the halls shone white and new. The freshly raised building exuded the odor of woods; the faint sweet smell of oak from the floors and paneling, the resiny tang of pine from the walls and rafters and the perfume of cedar wafting down from the shingles that roofed the hall.

  Gliding through the hall like a swan, Shiara the Silver absorbed it all. She could not see, but she could smell and she could touch. What she sensed pleased her very much.

  The warmth streaming in through the diamond-paned windows told her the day was bright and sunny. Perfect for sitting outside and enjoying the feel of the summer breezes.

  She smiled. It was somewhat lonely here without Ugo, her goblin companion killed in the raid that destroyed Heart’s Ease. Then Wiz and Moira had gone. But the forest folk took good care of her and Heart’s Ease was still well-named. It would be pleasant to sit in the sun, feel the breeze and smell the growing things.

  Suddenly she stiffened as the presence of magic sent a sharp pain through her.

  Either very near and very weak, or not too near and stronger. She considered again. The Forest Folk were careful of her and would not allow magic to approach Heart’s Ease without warning her. Further away, then. She heard the light pit-pat of tiny feet on the floor.

  “A visitor, Lady,” the little creature said. “She is asking for you.”

  Shiara nodded, stately and graceful. “Make her welcome then. I will receive her here.”

  As the sound of tiny feet faded into the distance Shiara smiled once more. She had company. Obviously one of the Mighty since she had come on the Wizard’s Way. It would be pleasant to talk magic and lore once more. Shiara was no longer of the Mighty. The accident that had deprived her of her sight left her hypersensitive to magic. Living as she did in the deadest Dead Zone in the North, Shiara was spared the pain of magic, but it also meant she was isolated from the World. Still, she enjoyed sitting and talking about what had once been so central to her life. Besides, it was a chance to catch up on the news from the Capital.

  “Lady?” came a tremulous voice from the door.

  “Moira?” The voice was so strained it was hard to recognize. “Merry met indeed.”

  “Merry met.” Then a pause. “Lady, I need help and I did not know where else to turn,” Moira said miserably.

  ###

  “. . . and there you have it, Lady. I could not stand it, so I went away.”

  Moira and her hostess sat on a log bench outside the rebuilt keep of Heart’s Ease. The night was mild and the moon near full above them. Both had cloaks, but they were only sitting on them rather than wrapping up in them. The moonlight picked out the glistening tear streaks down Moira’s cheeks.

  “Lady, I do not know what to do. There is no living with him and I’m miserable without him.”

  Shiara could not see the tears, but she heard them in Moira’s voice.

  “Do you love him?” she asked gently.

  Moira sniffed. “You know I do, Lady. And I know he loves me. But that doesn’t solve everything.”

  “It never does,” Shiara said with a sigh.

  Moira hesitated and Shiara heard her skirt rustle against her cloak as she turned toward her.

  “Lady did you and Cormac . . .”

  Shiara paused at the mention of her dead lover and quest companion, killed in the same accident that took her sight and magic. “. . . ever fight?” Shiara finished the question. “Oh, aye. Often and fiercely. He would stamp and bellow and bang his fist and I would scream like a fishwife and throw things. Crockery mostly.” She smiled at the memory.

  “That is not part of the legends, is it? Still, it is true. I think a necessary part of loving someone—loving them enough to share your life with them—is being able to have it out with them when needs be.”

  She put her hand on Moira’s shoulder. “You are strong willed, both of you, and neither is easy. I would be surprised if you did not fight.”

  “But it doesn’t seem to settle anything,” Moira said despairingly. “We argue and nothing gets any better.”

  “Now that is another matter,” Shiara said.

  Shiara turned her sightless eyes to her guest. “I do not know that I am the person to advise you. I had little experience in such matters.”

  “You and Cormac were as famous for your love as for your deeds.” She saw the look that crossed Shiara’s face. “I’m sorry, Lady, I did not mean to pain you.”

  “Little enough pain in remembering the times you were happy, child.” She shook herself.

  “Since you want my advice,” she went on practically, “the first thing I suggest is that you start with yourself.”

  “I have done all I can, Lady.”

  “Forgive me, that is not quite what I meant. From what you say, it sounds as if you have submerged yourself in the Sparrow and his work. You have told me much of him and his problems, but near nothing about you and what you do. It seems that as Wiz has risen in the World you have come down.”

  “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 h
is 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, he thought. 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 Wizard’s 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 project 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.