A Wizard in the Way

15

Instantly the whole party stilled. The carriers laid down the pig and took up their bows. Some nocked arrows to their strings, others set small rocks in their slings. Spear carriers slanted their weapons to guard.

The baffling thing was that there was no one in sight. As silently as the ancestral ghosts who had trained them, the band glided over broken pavement and around the corner.

A dozen people very much like them, in almost identical tunics and hose but with their hair combed high and stiffened into crests, stood around one of the doors while two of their number struck it with axes.

“Corbies!” one of them shouted.

The axe wielders turned, brandishing tools suddenly become weapons. Others drew their bows. One or two even had a sword. “What do you think you’re doing, coming into our wedge like this?” Longshanks yelled, striding toward them. “Trying to break into one of our buildings! Do we come sneaking into your alleys? Do we try to chop down your doors?”

“Yes!” shouted a squat, broad man who looked to be all muscle. He waddled forward, bullet head thrust out pugnaciously. “So we come marching into your boulevards, right out in -the open, no sneaking for us! What if we do? What’s so precious you keep it locked up?”

“Jewels and gold! Silver candlesticks and plates!” Longshanks boasted from behind his sword as he went nearer, a step at a time. “But you can’t have them, not an ounce! They’re ours and only ours!”

“Only your imagination, you mean!” the broad man hooted. “If you’ve so much finery, open your door and show us!”

“If I opened my door as much as you open your mouth, I might as well throw it away, for it would never be shut!”

As Gar, Alea, Blaize and Mira watched, amazed, the two bands shouted insult after insult at one another, the Corbies edging closer, the Hawks retreating a step at a time, until finally, with much growling and shaking of weapons, the Hawks departed, withdrawing across the boulevard and into the leaves of what was, presumably, a park of their own.

“Well, that’s why we patrol the borders every day,” Solutre told Alea. “If we’d let them get into that building, it would have cost blood and lives to get them out.”

It was very clear to Alea that only good luck had brought the band in time to prevent just that. “Weren’t you worried that they might have started shooting?”

“If they’d loosed arrows, so would we,” Solutre said grimly. “Now and again we find a building opened like that, so we lie in wait and make sure they’re not coming out again. If they don’t, we track them to their border and leave them a sign to tell them we’re on to their tricks.”

“What if they do come out while you’re there?” Mira asked, troubled.

“Then we fight,” Solutre boasted, “until they run like the cowards they are, run the way they did today!”

Alea hadn’t seen any running, but she hadn’t seen any blood spilled either. “I’m glad it works,” she said, feeling numb.

“Works right well, and you’d better believe it!” Solutre shook her bow for emphasis. “They don’t want fighting with the Corbies because they don’t want to have to bury the ones who would die! A band needs every member it’s got!”

Alea reflected that was surely true of the Corbies themselves, too.

She went for a walk with her companion, while dinner was cooking.

“Can they fight as well as they claim?” she wondered.

“If they can fight at all,” Mira said with conviction, “they’re far better off than we serfs!”

“There’s truth in that, I’ll wager,” Gar said thoughtfully, “and they do seem to be trained in the use of weapons, even if they never use them against other people.”

Alea gave him a quick and incisive glance. “You’re planning to use them yourself!”

“Why, no,” Gar said equably, “only to let them use us—or our knowledge, at least.”

So after supper, he and Alea went apart, but still well within sight of the band, and sat down to meditate. It only took fifteen minutes before Solutre came over to Mira and demanded, “What are they doing, just sitting there like that?”

“Meditating,” Mira told her.

“Meditating?” Solutre said in disbelief. “What kind of magic is that?”

“Only concentration,” Mira said. “They’re trying to understand how everything fits together. It’s sort of like dreaming when you’re awake.”

Solutre could see the sense in that. She watched Gar and Alea, her face thoughtful. Then she went and spoke with some of her clansfolk, who also turned thoughtful.

Mira turned to Blaize, amused. “How long do you think it will be before they’re pestering Gar and Alea to teach them?”

“Tomorrow.” Blaize glanced around at their hosts. “They pride themselves on their magic, even though they pretend there is no such thing. I don’t mind telling you, I won’t sleep easily tonight.”

Mira stared at him, feeling his apprehension; it awakened fears she had been trying to quell. “But they seem so ordinary, once you look past the oddness of their bodies and hair and ornaments! Surely they can’t really be the monsters of the old wives’ tales!”

“I wouldn’t think so, but they’ve had so many surprises for us already,” Blaize said. “I can’t get those old stories out of my mind, that the cities held only diseased madmen whose mere touch would infect you with a horrible illness!”

Mira shivered at the memory of just such a tale but said, stoutly, “Well, they haven’t tried to touch us yet—and as to their being mad, I’ve seen a few whose eyes are too bright and whose laughs are too shrill, but most of them seem as sane as a magician’s guard.”

“They seem so, yes.” But Blaize’s doubt was almost palpable. “I don’t see much evidence of disease, though.”

“Maybe the sick ones died out,” Mira offered.

“That would make sense,” Blaize agreed. He glanced over at the band around the fire pit, laughing and joking now at the end of the day. Several young couples were holding hands. “They’re as hard handed and muscular as any serfs,” Blaize mused, “but there’s a dignity about them, an assurance that I don’t remember from my village.”

“They’re free,” Mira said, her voice low. “That’s the difference.”

“It comes at a price, though,” Blaize said thoughtfully. “They can’t be sure there will be enough game to keep them fed from one day to the next.”

Mira shrugged. “What happens to the serfs when there’s a drought?”

“Famine,” Blaize said, his voice flat. “The lords still have enough, but the serfs starve. Maybe these folks don’t have it so badly after all.”

“And they have a home.” Mira’s eyes filled with longing. “A home, and people to help them if they need it, and defend them if they need that, too.”

Blaize felt the echo of her yearning within him. He’d had two homes, one with his parents and one with Arnogle, and he missed them both very strongly.

Dawn saw a dozen city people sitting in a circle with Gar and Alea. Within a week, the two had taught them the basics of Taoism and they were beginning to wonder about their intermittent strife with the Hawks and the Hounds. But they were shocked when a Hawk party came into their home block carrying a flag of truce.

Longshanks went forward to meet them with half a dozen heavily armed warriors. “Good hunting to you,” he said warily. “And to you,” the Hawk speaker said. “May the game in your wedge multiply.”

“And in yours.” Longshanks forced a smile. “What’s the occasion for this chat? Not that it’s unpleasant, mind you, only surprising.”

“Well … ah … we’ve heard you have some shamans visiting, who are teaching you wisdom. We’d like to share it, if we may.”

“They call themselves sages, not shamans.” Longshanks frowned. “Who told you of them?”

“Our ancestors.”

There was nothing else to wonder about—they all knew that ghosts talked to ghosts. There was some discussion as to whether or not Gar and Alea were willing to go, but since they were, Longshanks tried to put Taoism into practice by exchanging gifts with the Hawks, then the companions go teach.

The Hawks learned as quickly as the Corbies. At the end of the week, they proved it by inviting their neighbors to a banquet. Corbin told his descendants to go bearing gifts, and with double game to roast, the two tribes had a high old time of it.

The next day, the Hounds sent emissaries to ask the teachers to visit. By the end of the month, Gar and Alea had visited each of the six tribes, and all were beginning their days with meditation and trying to find ways to practice Taoism in their daily lives, including martial arts practice. The feuding stopped, but they weren’t quite ready for Gar’s suggestion that they merge their clan meetings into a citywide council.

Gar was positively ecstatic. “Success beyond my wildest hopes!” he told Alea. “I never dreamed they could learn so quickly!”

“They’ve been wanting to find a way to end the fighting for a long time,” Alea answered, “and the meditation is strengthening the powers that they say they don’t have.”

That night, she couldn’t sleep. Feeling restless, she wandered off into the concrete canyons by herself. Somehow she forgot that it might be dangerous.

Then she turned a corner and met a giant globe of a cat head with a toothy grin and an afterthought of a body.

“I might have known it would be you!” Alea jammed her fists on her hips. “Why don’t you let me remember these meetings? It would make my work a great deal easier!”

“You’re doing quite well remembering the ideas we discuss,” Evanescent said easily. “No need to remember where you found them.”

“And what ideas am I ‘finding’ tonight?”

“The cure to this planet’s problems,” Evanescent told her. “There are enough of these city people to beat the magicians’ guards. They even have the combined psi power to muzzle the magicians themselves.”

“I don’t like the idea of starting a war,” Alea said darkly. “You won’t be,” Evanescent assured her. “Some ghost told the magicians about you. They’re horrified at the idea of the city barbarians uniting. They’re already on the march—ten magicians with five hundred guards.”

Alea felt a chill, one that was swamped by the heat of anger. “That ghost wouldn’t have had the idea from you, would he?”

“My dear!” Evanescent said in wounded tones. “How could you think I would even consider such a thing? Besides, I didn’t have to—the ghost was a power-hungry shaman who tried to make this whole city his own little kingdom during the Collapse. He’s outraged to see the barbarians unifying without a lord.”

“So he’s bringing in lords to divide them up?”

“Yes, but I’m sure your clans can fight them off. Don’t worry, dear, I’ll help. You can be sure the magicians’ magic won’t work very well.”

Alea looked down, frowning in thought, then looked up at the empty courtyard, wondering how the broken fountain could still be spouting water—an artesian well, no doubt. Like the human spirit, it welled up again and again, even in the midst of the ruins.

Well, the spirit of these barbarians wouldn’t be ruined, she would see to that. She went back to the empty lobby the Corbies had assigned herself and her companions as sleeping quarters. She wondered if she should wake Gar with this galvanizing news or wait till morning.

She decided to wait.

They were wakened by angry shouts and the clatter of shields and spears being taken up. With a sinking stomach, she knew she shouldn’t have waited.

“What is it?” Gar sat up, blinking sleep out of his eyes. “The alarm.” Alea scrambled up. “The magicians are marching on the city. Quickly! We’ve got to remind the Corbies about the Way! They’re forgetting it completely and going back to their old mob fighting!”

Gar grabbed his clothes, stuffed his long body into them, and ran out into the street.

Blaize and Mira looked up blinking and confused.

“Call every wyvern you’ve got!” Alea told Mira, and to Blaize, “Organize the ghosts and tell them to look for traitors! Maybe they can’t hurt one another, but they can keep the enemy’s phantoms busy!”

They dashed out. Alea was right behind them, completely unafraid of the magicians.

The barbarians were another matter, though. They could lose by sheer lack of discipline—but Gar was already there, calling, wheedling, cajoling. “Remember the Way! Don’t attack them—make them come to you! Use their own violence against them!”

“Nice phrases,” Longshanks scoffed. “How do you do it?”

“This is your land, your terrain,” Gar told him. “You know where to hide, how to appear and disappear. Show yourselves long enough to make them chase you, bait them into a courtyard, and trap them there. Lead them down a narrow street where you have people at the windows with rocks to throw. Entice them down into cellars, lock the doors, and station guards to keep them in. Don’t kill them if you don’t have to—when we let them go and chase them out, we want them spreading the word that you’re merciful as well as unbeatable.”

Longshanks stared at him, startled. Then he turned to Solutre with a grin.

The invasion was a disaster—for the invaders. With their lords threatening and blustering, they came marching down a rubble-strewn avenue, but they eyed the buildings to either side with great trepidation shaking in their boots.

“Cowards! Poltroons!” shouted one magician, following behind his troops. He shook a fist at the empty window to either side of him. “Come out and show yourselves! You can’t hide from us forever!”

Half a dozen bowmen ducked from behind a corner and loosed a flight of arrows. A sergeant saw them and shouted, “Shields up!” The soldiers obeyed and were rewarded with the sounds of arrows thudding into wood and leather.

“See?” the sergeant bellowed. “They can’t hurt you! After them!”

The soldiers cheered and charged.

Around the corner they went, just in time to see the last of the bowmen ducking through a hole in a wall. “There they go!” the sergeant shouted, pointing.

“What’s on the other side of that wall?” a guard asked nervously.

“Nothing, you fool! Can’t you see the daylight? It’s just a shortcut—they were too lazy to go around, so they knocked a hole in it! Come on, men!”

The troopers whooped and ran after him.

Through the hole they charged—then skidded to a halt as they saw the blank wall ahead of them. Whirling, they saw a wall on each side, too. They turned back to the hole—and found it filled with bowmen, arrows leveled. Each had a wyvern on his shoulder.

“Lay down your arms and we’ll let you live.” The leader’s grin held a hint of madness. “Don’t think you have a choice, either. Look up.”

“Not all of us!” the sergeant kept his glare on the bowmen. “Roark, tell me what you see!”

“Windows, Sergeant,” the trooper said nervously, “way up high, and every one has a madman with a sling.”

“We’re not mad!” the leader snapped. “We do have some odd talents, though. Lay down your arms, or we’ll loose our pets—and call in our ancestors.”

The troopers shuddered but the sergeant chose bluster. “We’ve a magician lord only a step behind us, and he’ll make your wyverns into fireballs if you dare loose them!”

“Your lord has his hands full at the moment,” the spokesman said with a gloating smile. “He’s fighting the ghosts of three magicians who have been dead a hundred years—and learning more about magic every day. You’re on your own, lads.”

A rock clattered on the tiles of the courtyard. The soldier nearest shied away.

“Stop that!” the leader called sharply. “We’re still giving them the chance to surrender!”

“We surrender, we surrender!” the sergeant declared in disgust. He threw down his pike. His troopers imitated him on the instant and the courtyard filled with the clatter of falling arms. “Kick them over here,” the bowman said.

The soldiers kicked their pikes and halberds into a pile near the hole in the wall.

“Good. Now back away.”

They did, and a couple of city dwellers ducked in through the hole, gathered up the weapons, and carried them out “This is your prison now,” the bowman said. “Don’t try to get out until we tell you. Your guards will be watching you with stones to hand. You won’t see them, but they’ll be there.”

For emphasis, a stone cracked into the pavement two yards in front of the sergeant. It bounced several times. He saw how it had split the flagstone.

The bowmen stepped back and a rusty iron grid slid over the hole in the wall—obviously two old gates welded together. “It might be weak,” Roark muttered in the sergeant’s ear. “We might be able to break it.”

A stone whizzed through the air and struck one of the bars. Roark shivered. “Those boys throw straight.”

“That one was a girl,” the soldier behind him said. “Pretty ugly, too.”

Roark glanced up to see for himself, but the window was empty.

“Don’t think I want to take the chance of going near those bars,” the sergeant said. “Too bad, boys—looks like we’re here for the duration.”

“Yeah, too bad.” Roark sighed. “I’m really going to miss the scrimmage.”

“Yeah, so am I,” another trooper said happily. “Who’s got the cards?”

Two streets away, another score of soldiers crouched under their shields while a constant stream of rocks rained down on them. Three of them were covering their magic-lord and wincing at the occasional pebble that bounced up to strike their shins.

“They have to run out of rocks sometime!” the sergeant called.

“No we don’t!” a voice shrilled above him. “We’ve got whole buildings stuffed with stones!” It broke into an eerie laugh that echoed down the concrete canyon, joined by many other cackling voices.

A soldier shuddered. “It’s bad enough being ambushed, but ambushed by madmen is worse!”

“Smite them with fire, my lord!” the sergeant implored.

“I can’t!” the magician snapped. “Someone’s dousing the flames as quickly as I start them.”

The sergeant blinked. “Who?”

“I’m not sure he’s alive anymore,” the magician admitted. All his men shuddered. One asked in a quaver, “What happens if we’re still stuck here at night?”

“Lord Kraken will call ghosts of his own to match these!” the magician blustered.

The soldiers took that in silence, suspecting that there were a great many more city ghosts than the number Lord Kraken could call.

Suddenly the drumming of stones ceased.

The soldiers looked up, stupefied. Warily, the sergeant peeked out around the edge of his shield. Sure enough, the bombardment had stopped.

“We’ll let you go,” the shrill voice skirled, “if you march back the way you came and keep marching till you’re home.”

“And if we don’t?” the magician called truculently. “Then we’ll keep you here till we need you.”

“Need us?” The sergeant stared. “For what? And how long?”

“Until we run out of meat,” the voice called back. “That won’t take long—we can’t hunt while we’re pinning you here.” The soldiers put two and two together and shuddered.

“All right, we’ll retreat!” the magician shouted. “But you’ll regret this! I’ll be back with five times this number!”

“We’ll look forward to it,” the voice called. “Bring plenty of food—you’ll be here a while.”

As dusk fell, the cellar window opened and a waterskin came flying through. The soldiers trapped inside caught it, blinking in surprise. “Thanks!” the sergeant called.

“We’re nothing if not hospitable,” a gruff voice answered. “Watch out for the food, now!”

The men jumped back as three huge sacks sailed in, one after another.

“You’ll have to mix it with the water and bake it yourselves,” the gruff voice growled. “Just build the fire close to the window so the smoke can get out.”

“Uh … right…” the sergeant said. “How long you planning to keep us here?”

“As long as you want,” the barbarian answered. “You can go anytime, as long as you go and don’t come back.”

“We can’t,” the sergeant said heavily. “Our lord won’t let us.”

“Oh, I think he’ll be ready by morning,” the barbarian answered. “He’s arguing with our ancestors, and they have his ghosts outnumbered three to one already.”