A Wizard and a Warlord

11

Alea caught up to Gar and demanded, “Just how do you think we’re going to get down?”

“How do the deer get down?” Gar returned.

She eyed him narrowly. “You’ve been listening to that sage too much.”

“I never disdain good advice,” Gar said piously, “no matter the source.”

He seemed so sure of himself that Alea felt an irresistible urge to needle. “How do you know it’s good advice?”

“Why,” Gar said, “when it’s the kind of thing I would think of myself, of course.”

“You might consider the source,” Alea said with dry sarcasm.

“I have been known to make a mistake or two now and then,” Gar admitted.

“Such as looking for a government where there isn’t any?”

“That’s not a mistake until I think I’ve found one,” Gar protested.

Alea turned to stare ahead. “Speaking of finding things…”

They had come down into the trees while they had been jibing. Now the pines opened out into a clearing—a new one; there were low stumps all around the edges and three log buildings at its center. Nearby, two young men were sweating over shovels, digging out the roots of one of the stumps. In the cleared ground, other young people were plowing while still others were up on top of the long house, thatching its roof. Others were hanging doors in the dozens of doorways.

“There must be a hundred of them!” Alea said. Gar nodded, frowning. “That’s an awfully high concentration of teenagers—and no chaperones!”

“Oh, I think most of them are in their twenties,” Alea demurred.

“Then your eyes are better than mine.” Gar lifted his head, stilling for a moment to listen to thoughts, then relaxing. “You’re right—they’re young, but they’re grown.”

Alea was listening, too. “Most of them are … what did they call it, bonded?”

“They’ve paired off, anyway,” Gar said. “I wonder how many of those pairs will last… Well! Let’s test their hospitality”

They went forward to meet the youthful builders. One of the stump-pullers saw them coming and called out. His fellow worker looked up and dropped his pry bar. They both grabbed their tunics, pulled them on, and came running to meet the new arrivals.

Voices sang out, passing the word from mouth to mouth, and in minutes everyone in the clearing had converged on the companions.

“Peace, my friends, peace!” Gar crackled in his old man’s voice. “We’ve goods aplenty!”

“We have not, I’m afraid,” said a plump young woman. “We’re only beginning to plow, as you see, and have little enough that we have gathered from the forest.”

“Or hunted and smoked,” a young man agreed, “though I expect we could spare a ham or two.” Alea laughed. “We wish to eat, friends, but not to be weighed down! Have you found amber in the streams or rubies at the base of a tree’s roots?”

“No such luck, I’m afraid,” said a bony brunette. “Still, we can offer you a night’s food and lodging in exchange for news and songs!”

Gar glanced at Alea; she nodded and turned to the young woman. “We’ll accept your trade, and gladly.” The young people cheered and turned to escort their guests toward the buildings. A few ran on ahead.

As they went, they pointed out their accomplishments proudly. “There’s our barn,” said a tall young man, “and the two longhouses are our dwellings.”

“Crel, you’re so silly!” a young woman scoffed. “Anyone can tell that if they’ve ever been to a new village!”

“To tell you the truth, we haven’t,” said Alea. “We’re from very far away.”

“Yes, I thought you had something of an accent,” the young woman said with a little frown. “Don’t they have new villages where you come from?”

“Rarely,” Alea said, “and when they do, they just grow—one person builds a house by a crossroads, then a few years later another person builds nearby, then another and another until you have a village.”

“What an odd way of building!” the bony young woman said.

“Now, Honoria,” a blond young woman reproved her, “they may like the way they build.”

“Well, it’s just not sensible, if you ask me.” Honoria sniffed. “We, now, we wait until there’re enough young people in three or four villages to start a new one. Then we all march out into the forest together and clear some land for ourselves.”

“Don’t your parents give you any help?” Alea asked, wide-eyed.

“Oh yes, they all came to help us build the longhouses and the barn when spring began,” Crel said, “and they stop by from time to time.”

“Which means there’s a parent coming to visit every other day,” the redhead said with a smile.

“Of course,” said a young man who seemed as broad as a door, “they gave us cattle and tools to start with.”

“And linens and featherbeds and tableware,” the blonde reminded him. “You shouldn’t forget that, Umbo.”

“Well, no, I shouldn’t,” Umbo agreed. “After all, we needed them as soon as we arrived here. But once we had built our homes and began plowing, the old folk were happy enough to leave us on our own.”

Alea rather doubted that, but she had to admit the parents were being quite restrained about their supervision.

“Of course, we won’t be doing any more building until midsummer,” Honoria explained, “not until the crops are in and growing. Even then, we’ll have to do the hoeing ourselves—won’t we, Sylvia?”

“Well, since we don’t have any children to do it yet,” the blonde said with a smile, “I suppose we shall.”

“I’ve never seen buildings like these,” Gar said in his rusty old man’s voice. “Why so many doors?”

“Oh, these are just temporary, until we have time to build separate houses,” Umbo said. He led Gar and Alea toward the longhouses. “When we do, of course, we can take down the inside walls and have a meeting house—but until then, everyone has their own two rooms.”

“With their own outer door.” Alea nodded. “Very good. And those inner walls—they’re logs, so they’re thick?”

“Very thick,” Sylvia said, “so they’ll keep the heat in.”

“When we’re done with them, we’ll have time to saw the inner walls into planks,” Honoria said. “They should be nicely seasoned by then.”

“Especially if we hang herbs from the roof beams,” Crel said, and everybody laughed.

Spirits were high; everyone seemed to be excited about the adventure of setting up their own village. Several of the villagers proudly showed the travelers their apartments—all the same in size and proportion, but each decorated differently. Some things were the same in every room, such as the herbs truly hanging from the roof beams—and Alea recognized several that she hadn’t seen in other villages, so the young folk did have something to trade with, after all. They spent half the day exclaiming over the peddlers’ wares but in the end bartered only for needles and pans and a few other useful things; they gazed at the porcelains and figurines with longing but were too poor for luxuries at this stage. Alea resolved to make them presents of several of the exquisite little items when they left.

In the afternoon, the plowers went back into the fields and half a dozen others started to roast a boar and prepare the rest of the evening meal, but all the other villagers sat around and traded stories with Alea while Gar sat watching with twinkling eyes, drinking in every word, every sound. He had to admit that Alea did a much better job adapting Snow White and Siegfried than she had with Cinderella—but then, she knew the pitfalls now. He was intrigued to see how well the villagers responded to the notion of a hero fighting a dragon and wondered if there had been local monsters in the early days of the colony.

Then it was time for dinner, which everyone ate with laughter and bright conversation. Alea noticed a great deal of flirting and wondered if perhaps some of the pairings weren’t really settled yet. She did see some jealous glances and wondered if the colony would survive until its members had sorted out who should stay with whom.

“What if you find you’re paired with someone you don’t like after all,” she asked Sylvia, “or if you fall out of love?”

“Oh, that happens all the time when you’re our age,” Sylvia said. “If two people can’t get along or the woman falls in love with somebody else, she just puts the man’s gear outside the door and that’s the end of it.”

“The end?” Alea stared. “Doesn’t the man object?”

“Of course not.” Sylvia looked at her strangely. “The house is the woman’s, after all.”

“Even though the man built it?”

“We all build the houses,” Sylvia said. “Isn’t that how it’s done in your homeland?”

“No, it’s not,” Alea said, “but I’m beginning to think it should be. What if it’s the man who falls out of love?”

“Oh, then he takes his things and moves into the bachelors’ house,” Sylvia said. “That’s what the other longhouse is for.”

All in all, Alea liked the system.

When dinner was done, she volunteered to help the dozen people who did the washing up and putting away while someone brought out a small set of bagpipes and others brought out flutes and fiddles. The young folk danced for an hour or more, laughing and chatting and flirting. Then as the sky darkened, they went indoors—some to the bachelors’ house, many couples to the main longhouse.

“There is one dwelling for two still empty,” Crel offered.

“No, thank you,” Gar said in his oldest voice. “I think my daughter would rather sleep by herself. Wouldn’t you, my dear?”

“Of course I would, Papa,” Alea said demurely while she directed a thought at Gar—that it was a very good thing he hadn’t accepted the first invitation.

He looked up at her in surprise; then his eyes crinkled in amusement. He disguised it by covering his mouth for a yawn.

“Yes, I don’t manage late nights as well as I used to. A bed would be very welcome right now.”

Alea noticed that he hadn’t said whose.

Alea woke in the night, wondering what had roused her. She looked around the small room the young folk had given her—the glow of starshine through the window and the answering glow from the hearth both illuminating a small table with a jug and a basin, the chair beside it with her clothes draped over it, and the great eyes with crinkled corners that seemed to glow in the darkness of the room.

Alea sat bolt upright, fear churning upward to become a scream—but before it emerged, she recognized the huge globe of fur and the toothy grin. She relaxed somewhat and thought, So you can come indoors, too. I thought you were creatures of the forest.

This village is very much in the forest, Evanescent reminded her. If it were in a town, now, there might have been somebody awake, and I would have had to have been much more circumspect.

Alea had a notion that in that case, “circumspect” would have meant lulling people to sleep telepathically. You could give a body some warning. I can’t breathe well with my heart in my throat.

You know I mean you no harm. Evanescent seemed spectacularly undisturbed by the notion. Besides, rapid heartbeats and deepened breathing increase the health of your kind.

Only when they come from exercise, Alea thought caustically. It seemed amazing to her that she hadn’t thought of the native alien since their first encounter. Why, she might have forgotten Evanescent completely!

Then she realized that she had.

I don’t like anyone playing with my mind, she thought, keeping the anger an undertone.

What of your heart? Evanescent replied. Do you still deny that the big one is your mate?

I deny it most strenuously! Even Alea thought that was a strange word, but it was out and there was no helping it.

Then why do you aid him so?

I don’t aid him—I’m sharing his adventures and letting him aid me!

To what purpose?

To learn—to see new things—to meet new kinds of people! The glory of it seized Alea all over again—the tremendous excitement of actually being on a different world!

What have you learned, then?

A fantastic amount. The whole complex of new and strange ways of thinking and behaving jumped into Alea’s mind in an instant. She tried to steady them, to focus them; the easiest was to say what she hadn’t learned. But we still have not found their government.

What a strange concept that is! Evanescent marveled. Ordering and making methodical the ways of living beings! Is it not simpler to let each follow her own path?

People don’t work that way; Alea explained. We’re social creatures—we have to have others of our kind about. Strange, very strange. Evanescent seemed delighted by the notion. But why is your mate so upset not to find this government that he sees as some sort of great barren tree?

He thinks it is the only way to save people from famine, disease, and oppression. Without it, he sees only that strong people will hurt weaker people and make them miserable.

There is some truth to that, Evanescent mused, but a government like that which General Malachi wishes to make would hurt and oppress people even more.

Gar thinks that is what happens where there is no better form of government to stop such a man.

Ah! His true concern, then, is to prevent the suffering of his fellow creatures! Why … yes, I suppose so. Alea hadn’t thought of it in quite that way before.

And he seeks to protect the people from such as General Malachi, Evanescent thought, exulting. He must seek out the Scarlet Company then.

He has tried, Alea thought. He cannot find it.

Find it for him, then. The alien grinned, sending shivers down Alea’s spine. What kind of mate are you?

Not a mate at all! Alea fairly screamed—in her mind, of course.

Seek to find the Scarlet Company for him, Evanescent advised, but seek to know your own heart first.

The coals flared up on the hearth and Alea turned to look at them, heart pounding—but the flame died down as quickly as it had risen, and she sagged back onto the strange bed, wondering that so minor a thing should have wakened her. Well, she could find sleep again easily enough. She looked around the small, empty room once, to remind herself where she was, then rolled over on her side and closed her eyes.

There was an undercurrent of excitement at breakfast the next day. When they were done eating, people circulated, talking with one another, and Alea began to feel guilty. Finally she went to Sylvia and said, “We’re planning to go on with our journey. Your people really mustn’t stay home just for us.”

Sylvia stared at her in astonishment, then laughed and caught her hands. “Don’t feel badly—it’s not you we’re waiting for.”

“Who, then?” Alea asked in surprise.

“The priestess! She’s coming to bless the fields this morning! That’s why the plowers had to finish yesterday even though they were dying to stay and coax you into telling another story!”

Gar looked up with interest, then came tottering over. “Surely this will be a festive event, Daughter. Let us stay to honor the goddess.”

“Of course, Father.” Alea wondered if the goddess would really feel honored by Gar’s curiosity.

The priestess arrived in midmorning, accompanied by two junior priestesses and two priests who led a cart pulled by a donkey and filled with bulging sacks tied at the mouth.. She smiled at the greetings of the young folk and accepted their plaudits. When she and her entourage had rested and taken some wine, she rose, assuming dignity like a garment, and intoned, “Are all the fields plowed?”

Honoria stepped forth, a clean white robe belted over her everyday homespun. “Indeed, Reverend Lady, they are.”

“Let us go to them, then.” The priestess spoke with the cadence of ritual, then turned to glide toward the fields. Her acolytes followed, a man and a woman to each side and a little behind in an inverted V. The people trooped along, singing a tune that managed to be both solemn and joyful. With a shock, Gar recognized the ode from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

When they came to the plowed land, the acolytes fanned out to the sides and brought shoulder bags out from under their cloaks. Slipping the straps over their heads, they marched down the furrows, sprinkling powder with circular sweeps of their hands.

Don’t you dare! Alea thought at Gar.

But it’s so hard to resist, Gar thought back.

Alea turned to glare daggers at him and saw that he had somehow managed to hobble to the fore, swinging his hands in time to the music—and could he help it if the swing of his hand crossed the spray of powder?

Yes, of course he could help it and had. Alea saw the hand go into his pocket even as he slowed, as a tired old man would, and let younger people pass him, dropping back toward the rear of the crowd.

Is nothing sacred? she thought angrily.

Of course, Gar replied, and I can tell you exactly what’s in my people’s sacred oils and powder and incense. Surely there’s no sacrilege in my finding out what’s in theirs.

True enough on the face of it, but somehow Alea felt that the spirit was lacking.

The procession paced off every furrow of each of the four fields, then came back to the common between the longhouses.

“You have plowed well,” the priestess intoned. “How shall you plant?”

“Soybean in the northern field,” Sylvia replied, with the same ceremonial cadence, “maize in the southern, tomatoes in the eastern, and potatoes in the western.”

What are you smiling about now? Alea demanded. Only because none of those crops was known in medieval Europe, Gar thought in answer.

Alea felt angry without knowing why. Who says these people had to be modeled after Europeans?

No one, Gar admitted. In fact, a lot of their styles are a very nice blend of every early culture I’ve heard about. Alea felt the glow of a minor triumph.

“What will you plant next year?” the priestess intoned, and with a start of surprise, Alea realized one of the junior priestesses was writing down the answers.

“Maize in the northern field,” Sylvia replied, with the same ceremonial cadence, “tomatoes in the southern, potatoes in the eastern, and soybeans in the western.”

“What shall you offer the goddess to ward against weeds?”

Alea saw Gar tense up. What worries you?

Human sacrifice, Gar thought back, especially since they have a couple of handy strangers to offer.

“We shall plant pumpkins and squash amid the corn,” Sylvia answered, “whose broad leaves shall stifle weed-shoots—and of course we shall hoe.”

Alea saw Gar relax and thought a gibe: Don’t you feel silly now?

No, I feel alive, Gar thought back, and very nice it is, too. You should feel ashamed of yourself, Alea rebuked him. Why would you suspect something so gruesome of such nice people?

They are Neolithic, after all.

Alea’s lips tightened. Don’t you think you should apologize?

How, without letting them know what I was thinking? “How shall you ward your crops from ravening insects?” the priestess demanded.

“We shall plant blooming asterones and blossoming meromies,” Sylvia answered.

Alea frowned. What are asterones and meromies? Flowers that the original colonists brought, Gar replied. I have heard of them—they were first bred on Terra when her people began to colonize other planets, and a great boon they’ve been to farmers all over the Terran Sphere.

“Well done, daughter of the goddess,” the priestess said. “Do thus every year.”

Crop rotation and central coordination of production, Gar thought, but it’s not a government.

Well, of course not! Alea thought indignantly. They’re choosing to do it.

Choosing to do as they’ve been taught, Gar qualified. There’s no crime in that!

None at all, Gar agreed.

Why did Alea feel she had lost another round? Gar was insufferable! Perhaps she shouldn’t suffer him after all. These people seemed nice enough; perhaps she should stay with them, and let Gar go on without her.

For some reason, the mere thought raised panic in her.

The priestess raised her arms and turned slowly so that she swept all the villagers with her gaze as she intoned, “Well have you begun, well may you continue! The blessing of the goddess be upon you, and upon all that your earth and you yourselves shall bear!” She lowered her arms and in a more normal voice cried out, “Celebrate, children! Celebrate life and the gifts of the goddess!”

The villagers shouted with joy, and the music and dancing began.

The priestess and her entourage left in midafternoon with a cartful of empty sacks. As dusk gathered, Alea came back from the dancing to her “aged parent,” sat down by him, and asked, “Did Herkimer analyze the powder yet?” She knew he carried a dagger whose sheath transmitted and identified the molecules of any substance by sonic reflection and beamed that identification up to the spaceship.

“He did,” Gar told her. “It was mostly nitrates of organic origin—nothing that a real Neolithic society couldn’t have manufactured, but something that none of them would ever have thought of.”

“It was fertilizer, then?”

Gar nodded. “Nice way to get them off to a good start. After all, they don’t have enough cows or horses to do it the more primitive way. I have a notion it’s a good supplement even when they do have a full complement of livestock.”

“You’re trying to tell me the priestess isn’t working any real magic,” Alea accused.

Gar stared at her in surprise. “I certainly am not! I didn’t even think of it as magic—just a ritual to focus and direct people, make them feel the rightness and purpose in their work, and give them confidence in the outcome.”

“Only what any religious ritual gives?” Alea said slowly.

“Well, yes, but that’s just the side effect,” Gar said. “The real purpose is worship, of course, and I saw a great deal of sincerity in that.”

There wasn’t much to argue about there. Still, his skepticism seemed vaguely blasphemous. “You mean you’re not trying to say their religion is a sham?”

“No, I’m not,” Gar said, “no more than the medieval monasteries and convents were shams simply because they kept alive a little of the learning of the Greeks and Romans.”

Alea could accept that and felt a bit better for it. “Still, I do think it was very clever of the original colonists,” Gar said. “One more way of keeping alive the benefits of civilization in a Neolithic society”

Alea bridled once more. “You mean you think they were cheating again.”

“Of course.”

They left the next morning, leaving presents of flower vases, amber, and figurines, to the delight of their hosts. The young people waved as they left, calling good-byes and making them promise to return someday. When the trees swallowed up the clearing, Alea stopped waving and turned back to Gar. “They’re not so very much younger than us. I think I could stay with them many years and be happy.”

“That would be pleasant.” Gar sighed. “And if you wish to, of course, you must—but I’m afraid there is still more work for me to do.”

Alea frowned up at him. “Why? No one’s making you go wandering around the galaxy!”

“No one but my inner self,” Gar told her. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll recognize it when I find it.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Alea asked, “A place where you won’t feel like a stranger?”

“I suppose so,” Gar admitted.

“Then you’ll finish by going home someday.”

“That would indeed finish me,” Gar said sardonically, “but a wise man once said that you can’t go home again, and I’ve heard it confirmed by many émigrés who have tried.”

“Why can’t they?” But Alea thought of returning to Midgard and shuddered at the thought. A wave of loneliness swept her—if she couldn’t feel at home on her native world, where could she belong? To bury the feeling, she said, her voice harsh, “Anyone can return, can retrace the steps they’ve taken and come again to the place where they began!”

“They can,” Gar said, “but while they’ve been gone, home has changed and they have changed. The people who stayed home have changed with their homeland, but the travelers have changed in different ways. They’ve grown apart, and the wanderer must find a new home…”

He left the sentence hanging, and Alea couldn’t help finishing what he did not: Or wander forever. Panic threatened again; she stifled it by objecting, “This is a new place with people from many different villages. They would accept us. They’re all building a new home.”

“But they have family who visit,” Gar said gently. “They are all members of one culture. I could learn new ways, but they would never be native to me.”

Anger wakened, covering the loneliness, and Alea snapped, “The day may come when you have to go back and make your birthplace home again!”

“It may,” Gar sighed. “It may indeed.”

He didn’t have to finish the thought that he would never again be able to feel at home on Gramarye. Nor Alea on Midgard, or any other world. Finally the panic roared through her; her knees weakened, and she seized Gar’s arm to brace herself. He covered her hand with his—and she was surprised to realize he was clinging as tightly as she. Even more amazingly, the panic began to recede.

So they went on down the road, holding to one another until Alea began to feel embarrassed. Gar must have sensed her feelings, because he recited softly,

Thus he murmured, heavy-hearted:

“Not friendless,” Alea said, her voice thick. “Not friendless.”

When they stopped for the midday meal, Alea asked, “Who was the friendless one?”

“Kullervo,” Gar answered, “the anti-hero of the Kalevala, the Finns’ Land of Heroes.”

“My … the Midgarders have tales of the Finns,” Alea said, frowning with the effort of remembering. “They were a nation of sorcerers, weren’t they?”

“I would prefer to think of them as wizards and magicians.”

“What’s the difference?”

“In my homeland,” Gar said slowly, “sorcerers work evil magic. Wizards and magicians work good magic.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Good magic defends people and helps them to grow and prosper. Evil magic hurts people and destroys them.”

Alea thought that over, then asked, “So you only know the two by the effects?”

“No. There’s a matter of what the magic-worker means to do, and what symbols and words he uses to bring it about. A sorcerer uses symbols such as skulls, blood, and knives—things of death and pain—but a good magician uses such things as plants and feathers, earth and water.”

“This Kullervo—he was a sorcerer, then?”

“He could be rather unpleasant,” Gar said slowly, “but he was reared as a captive and a slave and grew up to become vengeful and vindictive. That was what brought him down eventually—that and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having grown up far away from his own people, so that he didn’t know them when he saw them.”

“Did they want him when he came home?” Alea asked, her voice low.

“At first,” Gar said.

He was silent for a few moments. Alea waited. “One man, long ago, said that when you seek revenge,” Gar said, “you begin to destroy yourself.” He thought for a moment, then added, “It was the only truly wise thing he ever said.”

“He wasn’t a sage, then?”

“No, he was a governor, a man who ruled, though he had to share the authority. Rulers may be intelligent and shrewd, but they use their minds to gain power, not to try to understand the universe and our place in it. I think very few of them are really wise. Maybe that’s why we remember the ones who are.”

Insight came, and Alea said, “So you don’t seek revenge.”

“No, I don’t.” Gar smiled. “I seek the greatest good of the greatest number instead. I think that if I had stayed home and sought revenge I wouldn’t have accomplished much else.” He thought a moment again, then said, “Not that I’m sure I have after all.”

“There are tens of thousands of people on half a dozen worlds who think you have,” Alea said. That much, at least, he had told her of his past.

The next village greeted them with the usual delight; again, they were the occasion for an impromptu holiday. Here the people used the long winter days to weave luxurious woolens and linens as fine as silk. They were glad to trade, and Gar and Alea came away feeling they had made a considerable profit with the last of their porcelains and figurines.

One young woman was so obviously near delivery that Alea commented on it to an older woman, who glanced anxiously at the mother-to-be. “It’s her first. We’re all praying for an easy delivery.”

“Of course,” Alea said. “Is there reason to worry for her? More than for any first time mother, that is.”

“Only that our midwife has died and her apprentice has never delivered a baby by herself. She’s quite nervous.”

“Small wonder,” Alea said with a smile. “Well, I’ve helped with many a birth, and I’ve learned a thing or two about troubles, so call me if there’s need.”

The woman looked at her in surprise, then smiled and pressed her hand. “Bless you, good soul! My name is Masha.”

“Mine is Alea.” She returned the pressure.

“We won’t have need to call you, please the goddess—but if we do, be sure we shall.”

They did.