A Wizard in the Way

11

Gar and Alea looked up at the screams. So did Mira—and her blood ran cold, for a wyvern-master had come to confer with her magician-lord Roketh once, and these were the sort of little monsters he had used to terrorize his serfs into submission. No one could fight even one such creature, let alone half a dozen!

But Alea didn’t know that. She glared at the wyverns, glared harder, the tendons in her neck standing out with the strain of concentration, then shook a fist in frustration.

One wyvern swerved to follow that gesture. Three others suddenly plummeted ten feet straight down, then flapped their wings frantically to regain altitude—but the other two still stooped upon their targets. Ten feet away from Gar and Alea, they suddenly shot three-foot tongues of flame from their mouths. Attacking her friends! Imperiling the kind protectors who had saved her! Something snapped inside Mira. She dashed out in front of her two mentors, slashing the air to wave aside the two aerial flamethrowers, screaming in rage. “Away! Leave us! Go back and pounce upon him who sent you!”

The two wyverns swerved aside, then circled high, arrowing back toward their magician. He stared, dumbfounded.

So did Mira. They had obeyed her!

Then the magician recovered and pointed at his wyverns with menace. They sheered off, circling high again, and shot back toward Gar and Alea.

They had listened to her once—they might again. “Go away! Go far from here! Go home!”

Obediently, the wyverns turned as one and glided toward the east.

“Come back!” the magician shouted. “Attack!”

The wyverns turned again, beginning to look confused. “They don’t fly as well when the air sinks beneath their wings,” Gar said.

Suddenly the flock plummeted straight down, screeching in surprise and distress, and this time Mira saw grass and leaves shooting outward in a circle beneath them. But there was no time to wonder—the wyverns were flapping mightily, trying to regain altitude, clawing their way back into the air.

“Tell them to roost and sleep,” Gar said helpfully.

Mira didn’t stop to protest that the little dragons wouldn’t listen to her, only threw her hands up, crying, “Sleep! Let slumber shield you from confusion! Each seek a perch! Roost! Sleep!”

The wyverns managed to catch enough air beneath their wings to start gliding again. For a minute, they milled about in the air, uncertain what to do.

“Attack!” the magician screamed. “Fall upon them!”

“Sleep!” Mira cried.

The wyverns churned in a wobbly globe, completely confused now.

“Sleep untangles the knot of confusion!” Mira called. “Sleep sends you peace! Sleep frees you from the commands of the tyrant!”

The flock turned and shot off toward the trees.

Mira lowered her arms, staring after them. Had she really done that? What? And how? There their master stood, howling at them and waving his arms, but they paid him not the slightest heed! Had she freed the wyverns from his spell? Impossible!

Livid, the magician pointed at her. “It is you who have done this, unnatural wench! Men of mine! Set upon her!”

His guardsmen looked up in trepidation, then struggled to their feet, still green-faced and stumbling—but stumbling toward Mira.

“Well now, we can’t have that,” Gar said.

“Indeed not,” Alea agreed. “But what can we do? Smoke was all I could handle yet, and I was surprised I could do that.”

“It would seem you are telekinetic after all, but it will take a while before you can trip a dozen men like these.”

“Why not?” Alea asked practically. “They’re nearly falling as it is.”

“A good point,” Gar said. “Try twisting the back foot as it comes forward, so the toe catches on the heel of the front foot—like this.” He pointed at the man on the right-hand end of the line, who promptly tripped and fell.

“Like that, is it? Well, now, let me see.” Alea’s face went tense with concentration again, and another man stumbled.

“Very good,” Gar said. “Let me demonstrate again.” The man on the left end tripped and went sprawling. “Oh-lead foot, you mean!” Alea glowered again at the man who had stumbled. This time, he tripped and fell.

“Very good!” Gar cried with delight. “You’ve learned the trick of it! Again, now?” He pointed at the left-hand end of the line once more and the next man tripped and fell.

Alea nodded and glared. The third man on the right went face-first in the grass. Then, in rapid succession, the other seven stretched their lengths on the greensward. Some of them looked up, glancing around apprehensively, but most didn’t even do that. They had been fairly felled and felt no obligation to stand up and put themselves in the path of magic again.

“Up, you cowards!” their master screamed, turning purple. “Up, whoresons! Up, or face the whip!”

“I can’t trip him,” Alea said, her voice strained with effort. “He’s not moving.”

“Yes, but he’s not all that steady on his feet, either,” Gar pointed out. “His stomach might start twisting again.”

The magician suddenly clapped his hands to his midriff, bending forward, face turning from purple to green.

“Then once he’s off balance, it doesn’t take much of a push to knock him down,” Gar explained.

The magician tottered and fell. He clawed his way back to his feet, still bent over and holding his belly, then turned and stumbled away toward the eastern road.

One of his soldiers saw him and croaked, “We must follow and ward our lord!” He pushed himself to his feet and staggered after the magician. Faces lighting with hope, the others clambered up and followed, tottering.

Gar and Alea stood watching with satisfaction as the last of the magicians and soldiers beat a very undignified retreat. Mira and Blaize watched, too, in utter astonishment.

“Of course, they won’t be willing to let it go at that,” Alea told Gar.

“Indeed not,” Gar agreed. “They’ll be back with several more magicians and a much larger number of soldiers.”

“Then what will we do?” Blaize asked, suddenly realizing the enormity of what he had already done.

“Fight them,” Gar said simply, “or help them to fight themselves, which is pretty much what we did today.”

Blaize’s gaze drifted off as he reviewed the events of the last half-hour. “You’re right! We didn’t really attack them, did we? Just turned their own foul tricks back on them.”

“That’s how the Way defends you,” Alea said, smiling. “Restore harmony, restore the beginning state of things, and the ones who clash with it fall down.”

“After all,” Gar said, “you seem to have a far greater number of allies than you realized.”

“You mean the ghosts? Why … I simply thought that the ancestors of the village might want to defend their great-grandchildren,” Blaize said.

Gar nodded. “You thought. That’s the main thing. You seem to have acquired a much stronger knack of persuading phantoms.”

“I … I have, haven’t I?” Blaize said, nonplussed. “Does that have anything to do with the Way?”

“Maybe a little,” Gar said judiciously. “You’re beginning to see everything as connected, part of a single vast system—stopped seeing people and houses as being alone and separate. You looked for connections, for ghosts who had an interest in the villagers, and saw how to incite them to help defend their descendants.”

Alea turned to Mira. “You didn’t tell us you were a wyvern-handler.”

“I didn’t know,” the girl said, feeling numb. “My … my lord Roketh … perhaps I watched more closely than I knew when his visitor managed his wyverns.”

“Or had a talent you didn’t know about.”

“I don’t want it!” Mira cried. “Wyverneers use their creatures to torment serfs! The people in the cities are all witches, and each has a familiar in the form of a wyvern riding on his shoulder! I won’t be one of them!”

“Maybe it’s like other kinds of magic,” Alea suggested, “not evil in itself, but only a power, able to be used for good or for ill. They’re not demons, no matter what the rumors say about the cities—they’re just animals.” She turned to Gar. “I still say they’re pterodactyls, even though they have muzzles instead of beaks.”

“And breathe fire?”

Alea shrugged. “Terra only produced fossils. How do we know pterodactyls didn’t?”

“And how?” Gar mused. “I suppose their bodies manufacture methane and they exhale it to get it out of their systems.”

“For all we know, pterodactyls might have,” Alea said. “Monitor lizards belch a horrible-smelling gas when they fight.” Mira and Blaize stared at them, completely lost. Blaize fastened every word into his memory, though. It was magicians’ talk, and someday he would understand it.

“They do have tails with broad triangular points at the ends and ridges along their backbones,” Gar said. “Rudders and stabilizers, no doubt.” He shrugged. “Who said evolution had to produce the same life-forms on every planet?”

“But it would produce the same ecological niches,” Alea said, “and similar creatures to fill them.” She turned back to Mira. “You really should develop that gift.”

“Yes, you should,” Blaize said, with heartfelt emotion, “for all our sakes.”

Mira turned to stare at him, feeling flattered and amazed. “I—I’ll try.”

“So should you,” Gar said to Alea. “I thought you had some ability for telekinesis.”

“But it didn’t work with their weapons!” Alea objected.

“Just a matter of practice,” Gar said airily. “You were able to control the smoke because its particles have so much less mass. Start making breezes, then ripples in ponds.”

“I think we’ve been making enough ripples as it is! Did you see the look on Pilochin’s face when that tornado of ghosts hit him?”

“Yes, and I was wondering about that.” Gar frowned. “If he’s the man who defeated Blaize’s master, he should certainly know what ghosts can and can’t do.”

“Oh, he knows all right,” Blaize said darkly, “knows that ghosts can scare you and read your mind and make you feel emotions you’ve never felt, but he didn’t know they could knock him down.”

He swallowed heavily. “Neither did I.”

“Yes, you did say they couldn’t do physical harm,” Alea mused. “They were awfully angry, though.”

“And there were a great many of them,” Mira reminded. Gar nodded. “That much emotion coming from that many ghosts—no wonder it seemed to have a physical impact.”

“And if those specters could strike him down,” Alea asked softly, “what else could they do?”

They looked at one another in silence for a moment, letting the question sink in. Then Gar said, “Probably not much, or they would have done it before this. But it was a very useful surprise.”

“Once,” Alea pointed out. “Next time, they’ll be braced for it.”

“Yes, but they’ll also be a great deal more cautious.”

“More circumspect even than these?” Gar nodded toward a handful of villagers who were coming toward them, hats in their hands.

Alea turned to them with a smile. “Come closer, friends. We are only the neighbors who have been talking with you these past weeks, nothing more.”

“A great deal more,” said an older woman as she stepped up. “Either that, or this Tao you speak of has much greater power than we realized.”

“It has immense power,” Alea said carefully, “because it is all around you and within you. Knowing how to let your enemies turn that power against themselves, though, is another matter altogether.”

“Then teach it to us!” said a middle-aged man. “That could take years,” Gar cautioned.

“We can’t stay among you that long,” Alea added. “We have other villages to visit.”

“But we can teach you how to build the foundation,” Gar said, “show you ways in which you can become a stumbling block to your enemies.”

“We will learn!” the woman avowed. “Only show us!”

“Then you must remember that you are all parts of one whole,” Alea told her, “and treat one another as parts of yourselves.” The villagers frowned, nodding, struggling to understand. “Come, then!” Gar turned and started back up the hillside. “Those who want to learn, come and listen!”

Half the village followed him and Alea as they climbed. Mira and Blaize waited until the villagers had passed, then brought up the rear. They climbed beside each other in an awkward silence.

Finally Mira broke it. “I—I was amazed that you were so very angry with that tyrant Pilochin.”

“He slew my master, and that not in fair combat but by an underhanded trick.” Blaize’s face set in hard lines. “That outraged me.”

“But you seemed enraged by all of them.”

“Why not? They’re all just as bad as Pilochin. Any magician is who uses his powers to grind down his peasants and make them give him every luxury they can.”

Mira stared at him in wonder. “You mean it!”

“Of course I mean it,” Blaize said bitterly. “I am the son of serfs and would have been a serf myself if Arnogle hadn’t taken me for his apprentice. He taught me more than his magic—he taught me compassion and respect for the poor. He taught me to help them make their lives as comfortable as lord and serf together could manage. He taught me to live modestly myself so that there would be more left for my people.”

Mira didn’t dare say it aloud, but she found herself wondering if he might be honestly dedicated to the welfare of the poor. “If you truly think that,” she said, “why have you worked to master such weak creatures as ghosts, when you might have managed such mighty beings as wyverns?”

Blaize looked up in surprise. “Because I have no gift with wyverns, and I have with ghosts. It is not a matter of knowledge alone, but of talent.”

“If you have talent with the one, you have talent with the other!”

“No wyvern has yet come to my call,” Blaize said dubiously, “though I will admit I have only shouted at them to be gone, never to come. Still, I think this night has proved that ghosts can be as mighty as beasts.”

“Only by frightening people, and soldiers grow harder and harder to frighten!”

“They grow harder and harder armor, too.” Blaize was beginning to be irritated; he had done nothing to deserve this attack.

Mira, on the other hand, was surprised to discover that she no longer feared him well, not much, anyway. “They have not yet armored their faces and would be nearly blinded if they wore iron masks to protect them from wyverns’ claws!”

“There is small reason,” Blaize countered, “when they can shoot down wyverns with their arrows. You cannot shoot down a ghost.”

“Oh, so now you would shoot down my poor little dragonlings, would you?”

“Not I,” Blaize said, totally taken aback. “But ghosts need not fear arrows.”

“Then your ghosts will shoot my wyverns?”

Blaize wondered when they had become “her” wyverns. “Ghosts have nothing against the little dragons—well, I suppose there might be one or two who suffered at their claws when alive. Most phantoms are more likely to attack soldiers than wyverns.”

“Maybe you should have your ghosts protect my fliers, then,” Mira said with full sarcasm.

“What a splendid idea!” Blaize turned away to gaze off into the distance. “They have a common enemy, after all: magicians. How could I fashion that alliance?”

Mira stared at him, astounded. He seemed to have totally forgotten her, to become immersed in a new problem. She turned away, fuming, and hurried on uphill away from Blaize.

He came back out of the clouds to stare at her back, feeling sadness settle upon him. For a moment, he had thought she had forgiven him for being a magician, or for wanting to be one. Now, though, the anger and disgust seemed to be back. Certainly she couldn’t have argued so hotly against his ghost leading if she didn’t have even more contempt for him than for other magicians—no doubt because she knew him personally.

He sighed and plowed on up the hill, trying to find refuge in the new problem of a wyvern-ghost alliance, but failing. Mira’s face kept coming into his mind no matter how he tried to banish it—her lip twisted with scorn, her eyes flashing anger. She was the loveliest creature he had ever met, but he would have to give up all hope of winning her. She clearly didn’t even like him, let alone love him.

It was definitely better to pledge his life to his art. With an immense effort, he began to contemplate the natures of ghosts and wyverns. For one thing, they had both been here on this world before his ancestors had come from the stars—or at least the wild ghosts had, though not their Terran forms. Could that be bond enough?

He felt the fascination of the problem dosing over him like a shield and strode uphill, following his teachers.

The subject came up again that evening, when the villagers had gone home to prepare their evening meal. Alea said, “You know, we might have lost that battle if Mira hadn’t been able to turn the wyverns away.”

“We might indeed.” Gar didn’t seem completely confident in his own ability to have dealt with the reptiles. He turned to Mira. “You really must develop that talent.”

“Become a magician?” Mira said, horrified.

“For your own defense, and to protect these villagers? Yes, I think you should,” Alea said.

“But I don’t want to become a tyrant!”

“Then don’t,” Gar said simply. “Having power doesn’t mean you absolutely must abuse it, after all.”

“I suppose there is truth in that.” Mira tried to ignore the gleam in Blaize’s eyes. “But how could I go about learning?”

“I would say trial and error,” Gar said, “but the errors could prove very painful. The wyverns’ teeth looked sharp and their claws rather strong.”

“They say a flock of them can tear apart an armed soldier,” Mira said, and shuddered.

Blaize nodded gravely. “I saw it happen once, before Arnogle’s ghosts put the creatures to flight.”

Mira turned to him in surprise. “Ghosts can banish wyverns?” Blaize spread his hands. “It must be as you said—both are native to this world, and like listens to like, even if the ghosts’ guise is human.”

“Ghosts…” Alea said thoughtfully. “What if we could bring the ghost of a wyvern-handler here?” She turned to Mira. “Would you be willing to learn from such a one?”

Mira shrank back, then mustered her courage, tilted her chin up, and said, “I would, if you could find such a ghost who had a good heart.”

“It’s worth trying,” Gar said slowly. “Blaize, see if any of our friendly neighborhood ghosts are hanging around, would you?” Blaize’s eyes lost focus as his mind called, Conn—Ranulf—if you are near, please appear.

“Should we let them know we were listening?” Conn’s voice asked out of the dusk.

“No. Let them think we only come if they ask.” Ranulf’s form began to coalesce against the darkness of the cliff face.

“Let me guess.” Conn appeared near the fire. “You wondered if we knew any wyvern-handlers who happened to be conveniently dead.”

“I wouldn’t think death could be convenient,” Gar said, “but other than that, yes. You’re very skilled eavesdroppers.”

“It comes naturally, when you can be invisible,” Conn said airily. He turned to his friend. “What do you say, Ranulf—Goedelic? That little old outlaw who haunts the diff face in the Brogenstern Mountains?”

“He’s crusty but kind.” Ranulf nodded thoughtfully. “Of course, no one ever called him a magician. You don’t, generally, when it’s an outlaw who has discovered he can work magic.”

“Yes, but there was Lord Starchum,” Conn reminded. “He took over the whole forest, then used the outlaw army to overthrow Lord Imbroglio.”

“Well, Yes,” Ranulf conceded, “but he was a fire-caster. Outlaws in the greenwood pay attention to that kind of thing. Still, are you sure Goedelic is the best teacher for the lass? That middle-aged woman’s ghost by the River Ripar—wouldn’t she be a better teacher in this case?”

“Well, she’s honest and no tyrant,” Conn said thoughtfully, “but she’s not very pleasant. Abrupt, too. I don’t think she’d be very patient with a beginner’s first fumbling steps. No, I’ll go find Goedelic.” He started to fade.

“No, please!” Gar held up a hand. “Just connect with another ghost who can connect with a third ghost to whom he can pass the message. Then the third can add a fourth and so on, until Goedelic hears and answers.”

“Ah! Your ghost-to-ghost network!” Conn said brightly. “Yes, why not put it to the test?” He gazed off into space for a moment, then smiled. “Roigel answered. The message is on its way.”

Suddenly the fire belched a massive cloud of smoke, which thickened as it drifted aside and took on the contours of a human form and face. “Why would you be wanting to contact Goedelic?” a booming voice asked.