A Wizard in the Way

5

A moan of grief swelled out of the night and wrapped them in its lament. Startled, they broke apart, and Alea knelt trembling, frightened, looking up. A ghost towered over them, an amorphous thing with upright ovals for eyes and a larger one for a mouth, arms spread wide in grief, and Alea told herself it was the specter that made her tremble. Yes, that was it. Surely. The ghost drifted closer, moaning, arms uplifted—in supplication, Alea realized with a shock, then wondered how she knew.

“Beware!” Mira called, awakened by the moans, her voice shaking. “It is a wild ghost, a half ghost! It will be hungry.” The ghost turned away, looking back over the slope that passed for a shoulder, and began to float away from them, its moan becoming piteous. “Such are their tricks!” Mira cried. “It will beguile you into following it, lead you into a mire, then wait for you to sink and die so that it may feed upon your spirit!”

“We’ll have to be very careful, then.” Gar stood, gaze fixed on the ghost. “Will you come with us, damsel? It might not be safe for you here alone. Or perhaps Alea could stay with you.”

“And let you go chasing a will-o’-the-wisp into some swamp?” Alea snapped. “Not a chance!” She glared at the fire; it shrank a little, then flared up again. “Oh, be dimmed to you!” she snapped, and scooped dirt on the flames. They went out, but smoke spiraled up; she tossed more dirt to smother it completely, then pushed herself to her feet, resolving to practice her telekinesis. “Come, lass,” she said to Mira. “We can’t let him go hunting by himself—there’s no telling what kind of trouble he’ll find!”

Trembling, Mira stood and followed them.

The ghost drifted away, its tone changing to one of relief, then to worry. It flitted into the trees.

“I’ll watch the ghost,” Alea snapped. “You watch the ground.”

“And I shall watch before and behind us.” Mira pressed close but kept going, trembling but resolute.

They went into the trees, watching every step. The ghost waited until they were about ten feet away, then drifted onward, staying close enough so that its glow could show them roots and rocks in their path.

“Strange, for a wild ghost.” Mira frowned. “They don’t usually help you see your way.”

“It may only be half-formed,” Gar said, “but it’s not half-smart.”

“Let’s reserve judgment on that, shall we?” Alea asked, “We haven’t come to the mire yet.”

Mira was deeply puzzled. Ghosts didn’t behave like this, trying to keep you from falling—they wanted to trap you, or so everyone said. Why did this one seem to care about them? Why did it sound worried?

They followed the ghost for half an hour before she discovered the reason. The phantom stopped by a huge old oak, with leaves so thick the ground was bare all around it. The tree was so old that a waist high root bulged out of the earth—and beneath that root huddled a man, a young man. The ghost’s glow showed her a strained, frightened, but very handsome face—one smudged with dirt from a dozen falls, a cheek swollen with a bruise, but the large eyes faced them bravely and the square chin firmed with determination that did not quite hide its dimple. His lips were full and supple, promising a sensuous nature. His nose was straight, his forehead high, and his hair tousled. Looking upon him, Mira felt something turn over within her, and knew it was her heart trying to escape to him.

The ghost hovered near the young man, its moan turning to a plea. Gar came slowly to stand across from it, gazing down at the lad. “It would seem our specter has a friend.”

“A friend who needs help,” Alea agreed. “No wonder it wanted to make sure we came here safely.”

They stood close enough so that the ghost-glow fell full upon them, and the young man glanced at Gar, then Alea, but his gaze went past them both to Mira, and his eyes widened in awe. She stirred uncomfortably—why was he staring so?

“I had thought there were no goddesses,” the young man breathed, “but here is one glowing before me!”

“Enough of pretty speeches, boy.” Alea sounded nettled, perhaps because he had not spoken to her. “What is your name, and how have you come here?”

The young man hesitated, then said, “My lord lost a battle and was slain. I tore off my livery and fled. The ghosts shielded me from the enemy’s soldiers, but I lost my way.”

Mira was amazed. He must be a very good man indeed for ghosts to care for him.

“But your name?” Alea pressed.

“He fears we will use it to work magic against him,” Gar told her. “Come, lad, do we look like magicians?”

Mira had to admit that they didn’t, though she knew that they were, but she also knew she could trust them, so she did not betray them to the young man.

“You do not,” he admitted. “My name is Blaize.”

“A good name.” Gar reached down. “Come, lad, on your feet—or have you turned your ankle?”

“No.” Blaize took Gar’s hand and pulled himself upright. “I hide only for fear of Pilochin’s guards.”

He wore a peasant’s tunic and leggins, but not a plowman’s buskins—his feet were cased in well-made boots, like a soldier’s. Mira’s heart went out to him—a poor serf, pressed into service as she had been, though his duties hadn’t been as degrading as those Roketh had intended for her. They might, though, have been just as shattering, or even fatal. She stepped up to take his arm. “You are favoring that ankle. Will it hold your weight?”

Blaize turned to her in surprise, and Mira saw the awe and admiration in his eyes. She began to glow inside and it must have showed in her face, for his gaze was riveted to hers, and his eyes seemed to expand to become the world. Mira shook off the trance, looking down at his foot. “Come now, stand on it.”

“Oh, I can walk.” To prove it, Blaize took a few steps, though with a slight limp.

“You are hiding pain,” Mira accused. “Come, lean on my shoulder.” She looked up at Alea and Gar. “He needs warmth and hot broth.”

“Yes, he does,” Alea said, amused, but Gar only nodded gravely and turned away. “Come.”

“Call if we go too swiftly for you,” Alea told Mira, “and we’ll slow down.” Then she turned away to walk beside Gar.

They kept their pace slow and Mira found she and Blaize were able to match it. “Did your lord press you into his service, or did you volunteer?”

“Volunteered, in a way.” Blaize gave her a sickly grin. “I ran away, found a magician who was kind to his peasants, and enlisted in his service.”

Mira’s eyes widened, and her insides flipped over again. “That was dangerous—and very brave.”

Blaize shrugged off the praise, embarrassed. “I could not stay to see my family ground down further every day, and I would rather have died than serve their lord.”

“You might have died indeed!” Mira exclaimed. She had heard of such daring, but only rarely—if a serf could escape and take service with another magician, his old lord had to let him go; custom as well as prudence dictated such restraint, for there was no reason to go to war over a single runaway, especially since his new lord might prove stronger. “Were you lucky or shrewd? Most who try to escape are usually caught and flogged within an inch of their lives!”

“Sometimes past that,” Blaize said grimly. “I’ve heard of men dying under the lash.”

“Yes, and I’ve heard of others whom the guards have killed outright before they could find a new magician to accept their service! You were very lucky—and very brave.” Her eyes shone.

“I was lucky indeed,” Blaize said fervently, “though there was some sense in it, too. I knew which magician I sought before I fled, you see.”

“You did! But—but I thought that all lords were equally cruel. What point is there in escaping one only to find another who is just as bad?”

“But I had heard of Arnogle and his kindness before I escaped,” Blaize told her.

“Oh … Arnogle. Yes.” Mira’s gaze strayed. Everyone had heard of Arnogle and his generosity. “But he is not the strongest of magicians, is he?”

She regretted the words the moment she’d said them, even more when she saw Blaize wince with the pain of memory. “He was not, alas—though he proved quite a bit stronger with me to aid him.”

“Aid him!” Mira froze. “Aid him in what way?”

“By summoning ghosts,” Blaize explained. “I could do that much, but I could scarcely do anything with them at all once they had come.” He gave her a sardonic smile. “I think that was why my old lord let me escape—he was tired of having ghosts hanging about the village with nothing to do. There was always the chance they would turn mischievous, you see.”

“I see indeed!” Mira dropped his arm as though it were firehot. “You were Arnogle’s apprentice!”

“Why, yes.” Blaize’s eyes widened. “What sort of service did you think I meant?”

“As a guard, of course!” Mira backed away, trembling “What did you think to do once you had become a magician in your own right—capture some peasants to toil for you, whip them when you were bored, and summon their daughters to your bed whenever it pleased you?”

“Not at all!” Blaize said, startled. “I meant to overthrow my old lord and govern his peasants with kindness and generosity!”

“Indeed! And how long would it have been before you began to enjoy the power of making others cringe?” Mira whirled to Alea and Gar. “Send him away! It was not a soldier’s uniform he cast away in his flight—it was a sorcerer’s robe and tall pointed hat! He is one of them, he is a sorcerer’s apprentice!”

The two tall people stopped, turning to her in surprise. “Is he really?” Alea asked.

Blaize stared at her, wounded. “An apprentice I am, and would have become a magician if my master had not been slain in this battle. Is that so bad a thing?”

“Yes,” Mira snapped. “Magicians make people suffer and fear them, then force them to do things they don’t want to do, things they know are wrong!”

Alea looked at her in surprise, then in sympathy, and Mira knew the tall woman had a past much like her own. She said, though, “A man can be a magician and still be good.”

Too late, Mira remembered that these two were magicians themselves, but magicians from far away. “Not in this land!”

“Most magicians are tyrants,” Blaize agreed, “but my master was not. His peasants loved him.”

“They still were peasants!”

“Yes, but they lived comfortably, He was a good man and a kind lord.”

“How long would he have remained so?” Mira demanded. “Even a magician who means to be good gives in to temptation, a little at first, then more and more, until he becomes as wicked as any!”

“There are always a few who manage to withstand the lure of corruption,” Gar said quietly. “He deserves his chance to prove his good will. Certainly he has seen a good example, if his master did indeed rule his peasants with justice and kindness.”

“He did, and they were happy.” Blaize looked away, shivering. “Alas for them! How shall they fare, now that Pilochin has conquered them?”

Mira shivered, too, at the foul name. “I have heard of Pilochin. He burns people.”

“He is a fire-caster,” Blaize said grimly. “He burned my master Arnogle and all his guards.”

A shoot of pity sprouted in Mira’s heart but she did her best to pluck it out. “Why, then, are you left alive?”

“I scarcely know.” Blaize’s gaze drifted away, face racked with grief and guilt. “My ghost warned me at the last second; I drew back and shouted a warning to Arnogle, but it was too late.”

Mira stared. “You are a ghost leader! No wonder the specter led us to you!”

“I called it up and beseeched it to find me help,” Blaize admitted. “It is a very friendly ghost and took pity on me.”

“Friendly to you!” Mira turned to Alea and Gar. “For anyone else, this specter would have stood by and waited for him to die so that it could gobble his spirit and turn itself into his ghost! He must be a powerful magician indeed to be able to command it to do his will!”

“I did not command,” Blaize protested, “only beseeched and persuaded.”

“What did you promise to give it in return?” Mira snapped. “The life of one of the people it brought to aid you?”

Alea stiffened. Gar’s eyes gleamed.

“I promised it nothing,” Blaize said indignantly. “I made it proud to be what it is—a wild ghost, unshaped by human will.”

“Human will! It is the ghost who swallows the human, not the human the ghost!”

“Sometimes,” Blaize said. “Most often, though, the dying spirit seizes upon a ghost as a way to hold on to life. The ghost does not enjoy the experience and is itself extinguished, swallowed up by the human personality.”

“Then why do ghosts cluster around a deathbed?” Mira demanded.

“Because that is when the human spirit cries out,” Baize told her, “some for Heaven, because they have lived long and fully and are ready to die; some because life has tortured them and they welcome death; but many because they have enjoyed life and wish to hold to it, no matter what the cost the cost to others, at least.”

Mira stared “I have never heard any of this.”

“Few have,” Blaize said, “only ghost leaders, and who would believe us if we told?”

Mira was silent, disconcerted.

Blaize smiled sadly. “Even you yourself. Even when I have told you, you do not believe me.”

“I do not!” Mira said hotly. “It is a ghost leader’s lie, to betray us into the hands of your phantoms!”

“I would do no such thing,” Blaize protested, “and if you do not wish to make a ghost of yourself, they would not harm you in any case.”

“Oh, so all the ghosts are harmless, are they?”

“Not all,” Blaize admitted, “especially those who have become shadows of wicked persons. The wild ghosts, though, are mostly peaceful things who avoid humans unless they feel us call.”

“Peaceful? Aye, the peace of the grave!”

“There is peace in the grave indeed,” Blaize said gravely, “and all human souls pass to the Afterlife, but many leave behind their reflections as they go, shadows impressed on wild ghosts—prey more often than hunters.”

“Pray indeed, to save us from them!”

“I have, and have saved nine ghosts already from enslavement to a human’s will.”

“Saved the people’s spirits from being swallowed by the ghosts, you mean!”

“Some,” Blaize admitted, “those who had no wish to hold on to this world. The others I thwarted in their desire to stay here.”

“To stay! Who would wish to stay if they could only look upon the world from a ghost’s eyes, could only look upon food and love and children but never taste or feel or touch? If this is your mercy, save me from it—and from any who argue for the goodness of ghosts!” Mira spun on her heel and stalked away, past Alea and Gar, back the way they had come.

“You had best make sure she comes safe to the campsite,” Gar said. “In the mood she’s in, she could wander quite far from it and lose herself in the wood.”

“I wouldn’t know the way myself if I hadn’t kicked rocks as we went.” Alea picked up a fallen branch. “I’ll need some light other than an obliging ghost, I mean. I don’t think Mira would take well to such company right now.”

“Indeed she would not.” Gar stared at the dead wood for a few seconds. It burst into flame.

“You are a fire-caster!” Blaize cried, shrinking back.

“If I have to be,” Gar said, frowning. “Go quickly, Alea. She’ll lose herself in another minute.”

“Hasn’t she already?” But Alea didn’t stay to explain what she meant.

Gar turned toward Blaize, who cowered against a trunk, hands up to ward as his lips moved soundlessly. Ghosts seemed to rise from the very ground, drifted in from the trees, most shapeless and moaning, one or two in jerkins and hose, bows in their hands and quivers of arrows on their backs.

“Who are you who imperils our wood?” one of them demanded.

“I am Gar Pike, and I cry the sanctuary of the greenwood,” Gar said, “even as you did in life, or I miss my guess.”

“We were outlaws, aye, and ever ready to protect poor folk such as ourselves.” The other human form gave Gar a nasty grin. “If any magic-lord was foolish enough to come within our forest, we dealt with him as best we could, and quickly, too.”

“An arrow through the breast,” Gar interpreted, “while another of you warned all wild ghosts away. Or did you find a way to slay a tyrant’s ghost?”

“No need—the shadows of those who had guarded the woodland before us held the wild ones back.” The first outlaw frowned. “What manner of man are you, who speaks with ghosts?”

“Why, he is a magician, Ranulf!” the other outlaw said. “Who else could talk to us without fear?”

“A magician from far away, yes,” Gar said, “and a lord—but not of any estate, and surely I hold no lands here.”

“You seek them, then.” Ranulf drifted closer, his manner threatening.

“I seek to free peasants from cruel lords, yes,” Gar said, “but I have no wish to stay in one place long enough to be lord of a manor.”

The second outlaw frowned. “I hear his heart’s desire, Conn, and though it seeks what it does not know, it seeks not power.”

“He is sincere,” Ranulf agreed. He turned to Blaize. “Why did you call us, man? This big fellow means you no harm, means only to aid you.”

“He—he is a fire-caster!” Blaize stared at Gar. “And a ghost leader, too—but that cannot be! No fire-caster has ever been a ghost leader, save the vile Roketh!”

“I am both, and have many other magical gifts besides,” Gar told him. “Perhaps you have the talent to learn some of them.”

“Perhaps.” Blaize wavered visibly. “That is a bribe, is it not? Bait for a trap?”

“The promise of knowledge has lured better men than either of us,” Gar told him, “but I do not use it so—the greed for learning is your own. I didn’t put it there. And I don’t promise to teach you, for I don’t know whether you have the talent for it. But I will protect you from the magician who pursues you, aye, protect you as well as I can.”

“What good will that do?” Blaize’s shoulders sagged. “No magician will accept an apprentice whose magician has died—they will think I am no use if I could not help defend my master. I cannot become a serf again, because no lord will trust me not to be a spy, and my old lord would slay me out of hand as a traitor. I may as well lie down upon the ground and die!”

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have asked a ghost to find help for you.” Gar thumped the young man on the back. “Have hope! There is life here yet, and you’re young. As long as you stay alive, you may stumble across a new chance—and you have, for if you have as much talent as you say and need a teacher, you’ve found one.”

“Why?” Blaize stared at Gar, unable to believe in the rescue of his hopes. “Why should you care about me?”

“Because I need all the friends I can gather,” Gar told him, “especially if I intend to free any of the serfs of this land. I may have magic, but I’m also an outlander who needs someone who knows this country.”

Now, Blaize could have protested that Gar seemed far more worldly than himself, but the lure of learning was too strong for him. He stepped away from the tree trunk, saying, “Knowledge for knowledge? Magic for local guidance?”

“Knowledge, yes,” Gar said. “As to magic, you’ll have to see to that yourself. Can you use the knowledge I give you, or will it simply be interesting for its own sake?”

“I shall give you any help I can,” Blaize promised.

“A bargain, then.” Gar clasped his hand, then turned away. “We must go quickly, now. The ladies have a long head start.” Blaize fell in beside him, not even noticing that the tall man shortened his strides to match Blaize’s. He was too much absorbed in his misery; the delight at the thought of new knowledge had faded, submerged under a vision of green eyes and auburn hair. Why had Mira’s interest turned to hatred at the mere mention that he was a magician’s apprentice? Why was she so quick to think him evil? How could he win her regard again? Behind them, the wild ghosts faded back into forest and brush, sensing they were no longer needed, but Ranulf nudged Conn in his mistlike ribs and nodded toward the besotted and dejected young man. Conn answered with a wink and a grin. Together, the two outlaw ghosts drifted along behind the living men.

Conn and Ranulf faded from sight when Gar and Blaize came to the campsite, though. If Blaize had paid attention, he would have known they were there simply by the feel of their presence but he had room for nothing in his mind but the sight of Mira, her graceful movements and delicate beauty.

Gar and Alea could have sensed the ghosts, too, if they’d known what the feeling meant. As it was, they did the best they could to soothe the two young people with tea, then stew, then saw them to sleep on beds of pine boughs. When they were sure the two slept, Alea looked up across the fire at Gar and said, “A runaway serf girl escaping her lord’s command to warm his bed, and a masterless man who is probably the only one of his teacher’s retinue left alive. How are we supposed to keep them safe?”