Wizard’s Bane

Thirteen The Beginning

Spring was returning to Heart’s Ease.

Except for the spots in deepest shade the snow was melting, exposing the wet black earth beneath. Here and there the hardiest plants thrust forth brave green shoots and the branches of the trees swelled with the promise of buds. The ground was soggy and chill, and there was still a skin of ice on the puddles in the morning, but the afternoon air was soft and the sun shone more brightly onto the warming land.

Wiz and Moira stood together in the door of his hut, sharing a cloak and looking out over the Wild Wood.

Heart’s Ease was still a gaunt blackened thumb against the blue sky, but the burned parts of the stockade were already down, removed by the forest folk. As soon as the paths through the Wild Wood dried out men would arrive, masons and carpenters who would begin rebuilding Heart’s Ease. As before there would be no magic in its construction.

"We don’t have to stay here, love," Wiz told Moira. "It will take time to make the place habitable and there’s no reason you should live in a log cabin. We could go someplace more civilized. Even the Capital if you prefer."

"I want to stay here, I think," Moira said, snuggling to him under the cloak. "Oh, I’d like to go visit my village after things thaw and dry. But I like it here." She turned her face to his for a kiss and Wiz responded enthusiastically.

"Besides," she went on after a bit, "I think Shiara likes having us." She turned to him. "But where do you want to live?"

"Anywhere you are," Wiz told her. "I’d be happy anywhere with you."

Moira bit her lip and dropped her gaze. "We need to talk about that."

"Fine," Wiz agreed, "but not now. We’ve got company."

Moira looked up and saw Bal-Simba picking his way across the muddy court.

"Merry met, Lord," Moira said as he came up to them.

"Merry met, Lady, Lord," the great black wizard replied as he came puffing up, his bone necklace jangling. "Merry met indeed."

"What’s happening at the Capital?" Wiz asked once they were seated around the log table in the tiny cabin. Wiz and Moira sat holding hands on one side and Bal-Simba seemed to fill the rest of the dwelling.

Bal-Simba smiled "Ah, they are still as roiled as ants whose hill has been kicked over. From the ditherings of the Council you would think it was the Capital which had been destroyed, not the City of Night." Then he sobered.

"But that is not why I am here, Lord. I came to tell you that with the Dark League’s power broken, we may be able to send you home again."

Wiz frowned. "I thought that was impossible."

"With the League in ruins many things are possible. Their wizards are scattered and cannot interfere if the Mighty band together for a Great Summoning. I have consulted the Council and we are willing to perform a Great Summoning to return you to your world."

Wiz felt Moira’s hand tighten in his and caught his breath.

Home! A place with pizza, books, movies, records and music. A place where someone or something wasn’t trying to kill him all the time. A place where he didn’t have to be dirty or cold or frightened. And computers again.

But a place with no Moira. He saw she was staring intently at the table top. Was all the rest of it worth that?

There was something else too. He could help people here. Back home it didn’t matter if he worked on a project or not, not really anyway. There were other programmers who could do what he did, although maybe not as well. Here he did matter. He could make a big difference. And that was worth a lot.

"I will not lie to you, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said. "There will be an element of danger. It will be hard to locate your world out of the multitude and even with all of us working together we are not sure we can send you back. But we believe the chances are very good."

"I don’t think I want to go," he said firmly and drew Moira to him. "Not now." The hedge-witch came close, but he could still feel the tension in her body.

Bal-Simba grinned. "I thought that would be your answer. But I had to make the offer. And remember Sparrow, you can change your mind. The North owes you a great debt."

"You owe a greater debt to Patrius," Wiz said. "It was his idea."

The wizard nodded. "I wish Patrius had been here to see it."

"I wish he had too," Wiz said gravely. "He should have been here to see it. It really was his victory. Besides, I would liked to have known him."

"But you made it happen," Moira insisted. "You did the work. And Patrius made a mistake. He said you were not a wizard."

Wiz sighed. "You still don’t get it, do you? I’m not a wizard. Most likely I never will be."

"There are those among the League who would dispute that—were they still alive to do so," Bal-Simba said, showing all his pointed teeth.

"They’d be wrong." Wiz sighed again. "As wrong as you are. Look, you still don’t appreciate what Patrius did. It wasn’t that he found me and brought me here—and I’m not unique, by the way. In fact I was probably a poor choice if things had gone as Partrius intended them. But he wasn’t looking for a wizard at all."

"I did not know you had added necromancy to your talents, Sparrow."

"No magic, just logic. Although I didn’t work it out until everything was all over." Wiz took his arm from around Moira’s waist and leaned both elbows on the table.

"Your real problem was that you had a magical problem that couldn’t be solved by magic. Every great spell was vulnerable to an even greater counterspell and as the League waxed you inevitably waned. Individually, the League’s magicians were stronger than the Council’s, they had to be because they didn’t care about the consequences of their actions. Patrius knew that a conventional solution, a bigger magician, would only make matters worse in a generation or so when the League learned the techniques."

"That is common knowledge in the council," Bal-Simba rumbled. "Indeed one of the reasons it was so easy to get agreement to attempt to return you is there is a strong faction which wishes to be rid of you. Go on, Sparrow."

"Okay, take it one step further. Patrius must have. He realized what you needed was a completely new approach. He had the genius to see that despite everything you believed, everything your experience showed you, somewhere behind all your magic there had to be some kind of regular structure. He realized that if he could find that formalism you could control magic."

"Eh?" said Bal-Simba. "Forgive a fat old wizard, but I was under the impression that we do control magic."

"No," Wiz said emphatically and then caught himself. "Forgive me Lord, but it is true. Each magician can use the spells or demons he or she stumbles upon and masters, but none of you—Council or League—controls magic. You don’t deal with magic as a whole. You have no coherent theory of magic and you usually can’t generalize from what you do know to what you don’t. That was the root of your problem. The League and the Wild Wood were just symptoms."

Wiz could see Bal-Simba rolling that idea around in his mind. Obviously he didn’t like it, but he was not going to reject it out of hand. "Go on," he said neutrally.

"In my world we have a saying that Man is a creature who controls his environment. You’re in trouble because there’s an important part of your environment you can’t control: magic. Patrius didn’t go looking for a wizard to beat the League. He wanted someone who understood abstract formalisms and how to apply them to complex problems in the hope he could learn to control magic. He needed a computer programmer or a mathematician. Magical ability wasn’t in the job description."

"It appears that he got more than he bargained for," Bal-Simba said.

Wiz shook his head. "No. He got exactly what he bargained for. I’m not a magician in the way you mean.

"I’ve told you about computers, the non-living thinking machines I used to work with? Well, back when they were very new we worked with them the way you work your spells. Every new program was written by cut-and-try and every program was unique. Anyone who wanted to use a computer had to be an expert and it took years of work and study to master a machine.

"Later we realized it didn’t have to be that way. We found the computer could do a lot of the work. We could write programs that would take care of the tiresome, repetitive parts and we could design programs whose parts could be used over and over in many different programs.

"Finally we figured out that you didn’t even have to have a programmer for every computer. You could write programs that anyone could use to do common jobs like word processing or accounting.

"So today anyone can use a computer. Even children use them regularly. You still need programmers, but we work at a higher level, on more difficult or unusual problems—or on writing the programs that those children use."

Bal-Simba frowned. "Well and good for your world, Sparrow, but I am not sure I see what use it is to us."

"Patrius did," Wiz told him. "He hoped he could do the same thing with magic we do with computers. And he was right.

"In the long run the important thing wasn’t that I beat the League with magic. It wasn’t even that I was able to rescue Moira." Although I’ll be damned if I’ll take that long a view, he thought. "The important thing was programs—ah, the ’structure’—I had to build to do it." He leaned forward intensely.

"Don’t you see? With my system you don’t need to be a wizard to work spells. You need programmer-wizards to create the spells, but once they are set up anyone can use them. All you have to do is understand how those spells work and anyone can make magic. Good, controllable magic."

"Magic in the wrong hands is dangerous," Bal-Simba said dubiously.

Wiz smiled. "Don’t worry. Where I come from we have a lot of experience in keeping our systems secure and users’ fingers out of the gears. If the spells are properly designed just about anyone can use them safely.

"And it goes beyond that. I can teach someone to do what I do. It’s not hard, really. It takes an organized mind and a knack for thinking logically, but jut about anyone can learn it. If your magicians have the knack I can show them the tools and teach them how to use them.

"Don’t you see?" he repeated. "It means humans don’t have to walk in fear any more." He thought of a small cabin deep in the Wild Wood and the four carefully tended graves behind it. Of a burned farm near the Fringe and the mound of raw earth among the cabbages. "People don’t have to be afraid."

Bal-Simba sat silent for a long time. "This will require thought," he said at last. "The Council must consider it carefully. No doubt you will be asked to come to the Capital to explain to them." He chuckled. "Oh, we’re in for some rare debates in the Council chantry, I can see that."

The wizard pushed away from the table and rose. "But it will be soonest over if it is soonest started. And I should carry the news to them quickly. For that I will leave you now." He turned toward the door.

"No, wait!" Moira rose from the table. "There is one more thing you must do."

Bal-Simba cocked an eyebrow and waited.

Moira clasped her hands in front of her, took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"Lord, I want you to remove the infatuation spell from Wiz," she said in a trembling voice.

"Eh?"

"Uh, never mind," Wiz told him. "I’m not sure I want it removed. Not now." He put his hands on Moira’s shoulders but she shook them off with an angry gesture.

"Please, Lord. It is not fair to Wiz that I hold him in thrall thus."

"Now wait a minute…" Wiz began, but Moira cut him off. "It is his right, Lord."

"Now how is this?" asked Bal-Simba with a twinkle in his eye. "You wish to be rid of this troublesome Sparrow?"

"No, Lord, I do not. But I love him and I cannot…" she took a deep ragged breath and rushed on. "I cannot accept what is constrained from him. I love him too much to hold him by magic."

"Don’t I have anything to say in this?" Wiz interjected.

Moira turned to him. "No, Wiz you do not. Not now. After the spell is removed, perhaps then. But don’t you see? You feel what you must because of the spell."

"He may not love you once the spell is removed," Bal-Simba said gravely.

"Yes, I will!" Wiz shouted but neither paid any attention to him.

"I know that, Lord." Moira looked as if she would cry. "I know that. But I cannot take by magic what is not mine by right."

"You have treated him very badly, you know."

"Lord, please."

Bal-Simba steepled his hands and rested them on his great belly. "Lady, you ask a thing which is impossible."

"Lord!" Moira gasped, her face white. "But you said . . ."

"I know, but there have been changes since then. Your Sparrow is now the mightiest of the Mighty. His method of magic will likely spread throughout the World and he bids fair to outshine us all from hedge-witch to master sorcerer. And he does not want the spell removed.

"You on the other hand bid to become the Lady to the mightiest of the Mighty and that raises you high indeed. A poor old fat wizard who wishes to live out his days in peace would be well advised to stay in your good graces."

The black giant smiled, showing all his filed, pointed teeth, looking for all the world like an avuncular shark.

"More to the point Lady, I cannot remove what is not there."

"Huh?" said Wiz brilliantly.

"Lord, I saw Patrius cast the spell."

"And I removed it on my visit some months back," Bal-Simba said, still smiling. "It no longer seemed necessary."

Moira dropped her hand to her sides. "Then…"

"Oh yes, your Sparrow has been free for some little time." He cocked his head and eyed Wiz. "Although he seems to show no great interest in leaving his cage."

In response William Irving Zumwalt, the Sparrow grown large as a roc, spun Moira the hedge witch around and clasped her to him. She melted into his arms and their lips met again.

Over her shoulder and through a haze of coppery red hair, Wiz saw the Mightiest of the Mighty ease through the door and close it softly after him.

He moved amazingly quietly for one so large.