A Wizard in Chaos

CHAPTER 16

The Fair Men lowered Dirk’s and Cort’s feet, too, but kept hold of their arms. Cort and Gar managed to stand, but Dirk sagged, as though all the stiffening had been taken out of him. “All right, I can’t fight against odds like these! And I have to admit you boys can fight. What the hell, it isn’t death-and whatever I’m planning to do with my life can wait twenty years.”

Gar stared at him, and Cort gaped, scandalized-but it became worse instantly, for Gar’s knees weakened, too, and his head bowed. “He’s right. There’s no point in fighting it.”

“Are you mad?” Cort cried. “You’ll lose twenty years with the people you’ve grown with! When you come out of this place, you’ll still be twentyfive, but they’ll be forty-five! You’ll be bachelors, but they’ll have grown children!”

“Not much loss, in my case,” Gar grunted. “There’s no lady love waiting for me to find her.”

“I know the feeling,” Dirk said, totally despondent—and Cort stiffened, suddenly sure that Dirk was lying.

Dirk looked up, frowning, gaining the energy of outrage, glaring at the duke. “But you were going to kick our buddy Cort out of the hill. He shouldn’t have to lose twenty years of his life just because he was loyal enough to fight for his friends!”

“Indeed he should not!” Desiree cried, unseen behind the wall of men, but a dozen women’s voices clamored in agreement.

The duke scowled, glancing to the side, probably at the women, then nodded reluctantly. “He shall go. After all, he knows very little.”

Desiree’s voice cried out with delight, and the other women cheered with her. Cort felt massive relief, then remembered and frowned at Dirk and Gar. What had they hidden from him?

Nothing, he realized. He had heard them talking openly about the Hollow Hill, but hadn’t understood a word of it.

“Thank heaven for that,” Dirk sighed. “You wouldn’t mind if we go as far as the portal to tell him good-bye, would you?”

The duke eyed him suspiciously, but said, “I see no harm in that—though I warn you, it will only delay your long sleep for the half of an hour.”

“I’ll take every minute I can get!” Dirk said. “Up, then, and out!” the duke slashed an arm toward the stairway.

Desiree ran up to take Cort’s arm, babbling with excitement. “You are saved, then! Luck is with us! You would find me not at all attractive in twenty years, for you would still be as young as you are now! ”

“I will always find you to be beautiful,” Cort said fervently.

Desiree blushed and lowered her gaze. “In twenty years I will be … more bulky, and my face will have its first few faint lines.”

“You’ll still be graceful, and as beautiful as all the songbirds of the skies together—no, far more beautiful!”

They went up the stairs, with Cort heaping compliments on Desiree, and with her drinking them in, flashing him occasional looks that heated his blood. When they came to the airlock, and the duke pressed the patch that made the outer hatch swing open, Desiree pulled back on Cort’s arm, pleading with the duke. “May I not keep him an hour longer?” The glance she gave Cort made it clear what she wanted to do with that hour, and weakened his knees.

“If this coil with his friends had not risen, I would have said yes,” the duke said severely, “but since it has, we must bid him good-bye on the instant!”

“But when shall I hold him again?” Desiree wailed.

“On Midsummer’s Eve. You may catch him up in our rout, as we journey to Rondel’s Hill,” the duke snapped.

Desiree cried out with delight and flung her arms around Cort’s neck. He folded her in his arms, savoring the feel of her body against his for a minute, before she stepped away and said, “On Midsummer’s Eve, be waiting in this meadow, near the pathway into the wood!”

“I shall,” Cort promised with all his heart. “He must go now,” the duke said testily. Desiree held tight to Cort’s arm, protesting, “But he should not go alone!”

“No, he certainly shouldn’t,” Dirk said, and stamped on the foot of the man holding his right arm.

The Fair Man howled, hopping back and letting go. Dirk drove his left elbow into the belly of the man holding his left arm, then spun away, lashing out a kick at the Fair Man who sprang to bar his way.

Gar leaped backward and swung his arms forward, slamming his two captors into one another. He kicked their feet out from under them.

The duke roared with anger and drew his sword. Dirk’s foot caught his opponent in the belly, and he leaped over the falling body, sprinting toward the portal. “Out, Cort! Quickly!”

The duke’s sword flicked out at Dirk, but he was too late, only managing to rip the back of his tunic as he dove out the door. Cursing, the duke spun to lunge at Gar. The big man twisted aside, grunting as the swordpoint grazed his hip, then swung a backhanded fist at the duke’s hand. Something cracked; the duke howled, dropping his sword. Gar caught it as he plunged through the portal.

He landed rolling and came to his feet to see Dirk and Cort sprinting for the woods ten yards ahead of him. He started after them, thundering down the slope of the hill.

Cort’s heart raced as he ran, wondering why he was in such a hurry to leave the hill that held all he had ever desired. But loyalty won over love; Desiree was safe, after all, but Dirk and Gar were not.

A thunderclap split the air behind him. He ran all the harder, not daring to look back. What magic were the Fair Folk using against them now? He dodged and weaved frantically, trying to be completely unpredictable—and must have succeeded, for a bright ray sizzled past him on his right, setting the grass afire. Shouts of rage echoed behind him with more flashes of light.

Then, somehow, he was in among the trees with Dirk still beside him. Dirk dropped behind, and Cort led the way, pelting down the path until the trees grew so thick that he couldn’t see ahead anymore and had to halt, leaning against a tree and breathing like a bellows.

Something light and bright flitted between the trees. Cort straightened, hand on his sword, but a warm body flung itself into his arms, and moist full lips found his. He stood stiff a moment in sheer surprise, then melted to wrap his arms around her, for it was Desiree whom he held.

Finally he had to breathe. He leaned away from her, still gazing down into those wondrous, lustrous eyes—and saw Gar looming over them. His gaze leaped up to the giant. “How did you manage to come here so quickly?”

“Long legs,” Gar answered, but Cort wondered why he wasn’t panting as Dirk was. Of course, Cort was breathing hard, too, but for a different reason.

“You are safe for a few moments here,” Desiree told them. “They won’t use their light rays within the wood for fear of fire, and they’ll go slowly for fear of ambush.”

“You ran past them all to guard me!”

Desiree lowered her gaze. “They wouldn’t have dared shoot if I had stepped between you and them, but I had other reasons in mind.” She turned her face up again, but Gar coughed discreetly, and Dirk said, “I don’t think we have quite that long.”

Cort’s military sense came to the fore. He stepped away from Desiree, but held tightly to her hand. “I can’t believe we won a fight against Fair Folk—but that means our lives are forfeit, for they can’t have us going about among our fellow mortals bragging!”

“I fear he speaks truth,” Desiree said, huge eyes glowing in the gloom. “The Fair Folk will never rest now until they have tracked you down and slain you.” She spun, throwing her arms around Cort and pressing her head to his chest. “O my love, I am so horribly afraid for you! I shall plead on your behalf, but the duke is so enraged, and the Fair Men so jealous, that I doubt they shall heed me at all!”

Cort lifted her chin and gazed into her eyes. “Even if they slay me for this night’s joy, it’ll have been worth it ten times over.”

Desiree seemed to melt in his arms at the same time that she covered his mouth with her own for a long, long kiss—so long, in fact, that Gar finally had to lay a hand on the shoulder of each and part them, saying, “Enough, or the Fair Folk will be upon us before you two come up for air.”

“Don’t worry,” Cort told him, “I’ve just learned how to breathe while I kiss.” He started to lower his head again.

But Gar hauled him bodily away from Desiree. “You know, they’re not going to be terribly pleased with her, either, if they catch her kissing you just now.”

But Desiree lifted her head, looked about her, and said, “The gloom has lightened!”

Gar glanced around, realizing that he could actually make out individual tree trunks. “Is that good?”

“Yes! The false dawn is always our signal to go back inside the Hill! The Fair Folk have no liking for daylight.”

“That sounds like the beautiful people of my own ancestral asteroid,” Gar said, “though I suspect the reasons differ. Your folk aren’t afraid the sun will burn them, are they?”

“In fact, they are,” Desiree said. “Our skins are so fair that any sunlight at all will give us a painful burn in less than an hour. We only dare go abroad in daylight liberally smeared with an ointment that defeats the sun’s rays, and even then with broad-brimmed hats and full clothing.”

“Summer is a good time for you to stay in your hills, then,” Gar agreed, “and fortunately, it’s summer now.”

“But you must go back quickly, my love!” Cort protested. “I don’t want to see you burned!”

“Worse,” Dirk said, “they might close the door to the Hill.”

“They will not be overly quick about it,” Desiree said, “seeing that they have come out hunting. Nevertheless, even as you say, I must go quickly.” She still held Cort’s hand, though, and turned back to him with longing. “Wait for me, my love! It will be long months before they let you come to me again, and I fear we must not look to Midsummer’s Eve as I had hoped—but Harvest Home should see us reunited. Wait by the little brook that runs through this wood every night for a week before that festival, and I’ll come as soon as I can, to tell you where I may meet you!”

“So long as that?” Cort said mournfully. “But it’s better than never being with you again at all!”

“Farewell, then,” Desiree said softly, and their farewell lasted so long that Gar had to separate them again. Then Desiree drifted off into the woods with many a backward glance until she seemed only a wraith of morning mist that faded, and was gone.

Cort stood looking after her, his face stark with loss.

Finally Dirk clapped him on the shoulder. “I know how it feels, my friend—in fact, I’m still feeling the same way myself! But if she’s worth having, she’s worth waiting for.”

“And working for,” Gar agreed, “but if you have any hope of seeing her again, you’ll have to stay alive. Come on, let’s run—the sun isn’t up yet, and the Fair Folk might be pushing their luck and searching the woods for us.”

“Even as you say!” Cort turned and plunged down the trail. “Indeed, I have reason enough to live now!”

“You sure do,” Dirk said, and followed him, thinking, Violet who?

But a dozen steps later, Cort suddenly turned back, crying, “If I give myself up to them, they’ll let me stay with her!”

Dirk caught one arm and Gar the other, lifting and carrying Cort backward. “Oh, they’ll let her see you, all right,” Dirk said, “through the crystal door of one of their upright coffins! She can come down and gaze on your frozen form any time she wants!”

“I know there are some women who like to keep a spare man around in case they need him,” Gar told him, “but I don’t think she’s one of them—at least, not in quite that fashion.”

“I’ll take the chance!” Cort cried.

“No, you won’t,” Dirk said firmly. “Look, it’s hard, yes, believe me, I know how you feel.”

“No you don’t!” Cort cried. “You didn’t spend the night with her!”

Dirk’s step faltered, but he kept going. “As long as I hear the occasional hunter’s cry behind me, we keep walking!”

“I don’t hear anything,” Cort protested.

They halted, Dirk and Gar cocking their heads to listen. As they did, a ray of sunlight lanced down between leaves, rosy with dawn.

“He’s right,” Dirk said. “The Hollow Hill is still.”

“The door is shut,” Gar agreed. As one, they dropped Cort.

He sank to his knees, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

Cort recovered enough to start walking a few minutes later. Dirk and Gar let him lead the way, talking rather grimly as they went.

“At least the Fair Folk came out of this ahead by three horses,” Dirk said. “Do you still have some gold to buy new ones?”

“Yes,” Gar said, “but if I didn’t, we could always have Herkimer drop us some more.”

“Careful what you say.” Dirk nodded at Cort. Gar glanced up at their friend, smiling sadly. “I doubt he’s hearing anything right now. I’m afraid he’s lost in his own misery”

“Yeah, ‘fraid so,” Dirk said from hard experience. “It will wear off to the point where he can function again, though.”

“She may someday be only another folktale,” Gar sighed, “even to him.”

Dirk nodded. “Say, do you really believe the duke’s version of his people’s history?”

“Accurate as far as it goes,” Gar said slowly, “but I suspect it’s somewhat one-sided. Subtracting the duke’s bias and trying to read between the lines, I would guess that some of the original colonists refused to leave the comfort of the domes, just as he said, but he only hinted that they were willing to accept a very low birth rate in order to have comfort and luxury”

“Sounds kind of selfish,” Dirk said, frowning. “Does it? Remember that on overpopulated planets, the people who want large families are the ones accused of selfishness—and since those domes were built for a very limited number of people, overpopulation would be a very real concern.”

“Still, wanting to stay in the domes would select for self-centered people. Having children makes you become other-centered.”

“I’d prefer to say that other-centered people make better parents,” Gar said sharply. “I’ve seen too many children emotionally butchered by self-centered parents.”

“How many is too many?” Dirk challenged. “One,” Gar replied, “but I’ve seen a lot more than that.”

“It does explain their vanity and preoccupation with pleasure,” Dirk admitted. “How about we say that the domes selected the most worldly?”

“Of the first generation, true. Of the second, I’d say the more worldly, selfish types became bullies.”

“Meanwhile,” Dirk said, “the dead grass and leaves piled up, and buried the domes.”

“Over a hundred years or so, yes. Since the colonists erected their domes in flatlands, I suspect they were silted over by windblown soil.”

“More or less,” Dirk agreed. “So they became hills—Hollow Hills, with arrogant inhabitants who kept their knowledge of technology and culture—and kept it to themselves.”

“Which made them view their fellow colonists with disdain,” Gar agreed. “They learned the old fairy tales from their computerized library, invited minstrels in for the night and taught them the stories, then kicked them out to spread the word among the outdoor colonists.”

“So they planted the seeds of superstitions, nourished them, then exploited the superstitious fears that grew among the peasants?”

“I would guess so,” Gar agreed. “What sort of exploitation did you have in mind?”

Dirk shrugged. “They had to limit population, right? And they only wanted beautiful children—so if a child was born ugly, they fed sleeping gas into a peasant but where there’d been a baby born, went in and traded their ugly child for the pretty Milesian infant, and let the grieving parents declare they’d had a changeling dumped on them.”

“And if the villagers killed the changeling as a sign of evil, the Fair Folk didn’t have to feel guilty about it,” Gar said grimly.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Dirk admitted, “but after a while, I suspect they were so much afraid of the legends of the Fair Folk that they didn’t dare kill the changelings, just raised them with scorn and blame.”

“Poor things,” Gar muttered, “but it did supply the next generation of bullies.”

“And the human babies supplied the Fair Folk with a few servants, and a large enough gene pool to avoid the worst effects of inbreeding,” Dirk guessed.

Gar nodded. “Of course, they kept the children who were good-looking, but had to keep the total number of people at the limit of what the dome would hold.”

“Right,” Dirk said, “and if the birthrate fell too low—people more interested in having fun, than babies—the Fair Folk could always kidnap some peasants, babies or full-grown. In fact, there’s a tradition of Wee Folk kidnapping new mothers whose babies have died, so that the fairy mothers wouldn’t have to nurse their own babies.”

“Nurses conveniently supplied by the mothers of changelings whom the villagers have killed,” Gar grunted. “The Fair Folk are looking more and more unsavory by the minute.”

“Hey, these are just guesses! We might be doing them an injustice.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Gar sighed. “As the centuries passed, I suspect the Fair Folk began to half believe they really were fairies, or some sort of superior being.”

“They certainly do seem to have a condescending attitude,” Dirk agreed. “On the other hand, they can’t believe in their own superiority too much, or they wouldn’t be so careful to make sure the outside world doesn’t hear the truth about their mortality and their ‘magic.’ ”

“They certainly are exploiting the Milesians as thoroughly as they can,” Gar said grimly. “They have rejected their responsibility toward their fellow beings, indulging themselves in leisure and pleasure, and are paying the price: inbreeding, decadence, and a diminishing population.”

Dirk nodded. “Given another few centuries of such living, they’ll die out.”

“I’d hate to see that,” Gar said, frowning. “After all, the Fair Folk have a lot to recommend them.”

“Yes. Culture and education, something resembling a legal code, and a minimal form of government, not to mention connection to the rest of human history. The Milesians have forgotten all that.”

“Including technology,” Gar reminded.

“Yeah, but that includes more than weapons: food synthesizers and medical diagnostic systems, things the rest of the people on this planet really need. Can’t we find some way to save them from themselves?”

“Of course,” Gar said. “Persuade them to save the rest of their world.”

“I think I see what you mean,” Dirk said slowly. “They could provide the absolute bare minimum of government and law, and enforce it with their high-tech weapons.”

Gar nodded. “They could also look up modern agricultural methods, and boost production of food a hundred times in one generation.”

“Malthus’ Law,” Dirk warned. “Population increases much faster than food supply.”

“No matter how fast you increase the food supply,” Gar said grimly. “But I think the Fair Folk are past masters of population control.”

“Yes, I expect they have that kind of technology, too,” Dirk agreed. “You’re right—they could save their world from this incessant warfare and the pestilence and starvation that go with it, couldn’t they?”

“Yes,” Gar agreed, “if we could persuade them to come out of their hills and involve themselves in the lives of the Milesians.”

“There is that little problem,” Dirk sighed. “How do we solve it?”

Gar stiffened, head cocked as though he were listening. “No time to think about it any more. The Hawks haven’t given up. They’re still quartering the area, in case we do come out of the Hill!”