The Wizard (5 page)

them here." Toug said, "What about us? How did we get here?" "The Most High God raised us from the animals. Does that sound horrible?" Mani said, "Well, I certainly don't think so." "Neither do I," I told him. "You're innocent, always, and often brave and loyal. No one who has known Gylf as I have could be ashamed of being related to him, though there have been many times when he must have been shamed by us." Toug exclaimed, "But he's a magic dog!" At which Mani shook his head. "We will talk about Gylf later," I told Toug. "In fact, I hope Gylf will talk for himself." Gylf looked at me like I had sold him out. "We're talking about Baki now, and how you healed her. Or if we aren't, we should be. How did Aelfrice come to be, Baki? You must know." Toug said, "You said we were raised from the beasts. Like they grew up and became us. But you didn't say why." "Because the Most High God willed it. Do you think He discussed the matter with me? He discusses His decisions with no one." "He must have had some reason." "No doubt, but we can only guess. Mine is like Mani'swe're to preserve Mythgarthr from the Angrborn. They're cruel for cruelty's sake, and destroy for the sheer love of destruction. The animals He put here don't do such things, and He may have hoped that if He gave us reason and the power of speech we'd serve as a check on the Angrborn. As we do." "But we do those things sometimes, too." Toug looked at Baki for confirmation, and she nodded. "We do. We build houses and barns as well. How do you think the Angrborn learned to do those things?" "By copying us?" "You got it. Way too often, we turn around and copy them." I turned to Baki. "You talk." She cleared her throat. "First I would like to thank Toug again for healing me." Toug muttered, "You don't have to." "I want to. I also want to thank Sir Able for bringing you and teaching you to do it. You would not have if he had not urged you. I know that. "As for the creation of Aelfrice, it is obvious, surely. It is a dump for the refuse of Mythgarthr." Baki sighed. "If you spit upon me, I will be honored by your attention." I said, "You still resent us, though you reject Setr?" "I suppose I do. While we remained elemental spirits, Toug, we could do little harm. Do you think spirits, ghosts, and all such all-powerful?" "I guess I did." "You were wrong. But once Kulili had given us bodies we did all sorts of harmthere, and here. She remonstrated with us, and we turned on her and drove her under the waves. We wanted to be free, and to us that means free to do what we want, judged by no one and nothing." "I wouldn't judge you," Toug said miserably. "You must! You are our gods! Try to understand." Toug could only gape at her. When several seconds had passed, Mani said kindly, "The gods of each world are the people of the next one up. That's Skai for us, and us for Aelfrice." I added, "Aelfrice for Muspei, the sixth world." Baki signed again. "You know all about it." There was resignation in her voice. "Not all. No one knows all there is to know about a thing except the Most High God. The Valfather once told me that if anyone ever learns all there is to be learned about anything, it'll be found that he or she is the Most High God and always has been. You renounced Setr and accepted Toug. What harm can my knowledge do after that?" "I am ashamed for my people. For the Fire Aelf." "Their shame's no worse because I know. Do you want to repay Toug for healing you? Tell him." Mani added, "If you don't, we will." Baki shrugged. "There is not much to tell. You know we can visit your world?" Toug nodded. "The Queen of the Wood did." "And your kind can visit our Aelfrice?" He nodded again. "I've been there." "We saw you up here, and saw how rarely you heeded our prayers. How foolish you were, and how cruel. We visited the world below our own. It is a beautiful place, a place of fire, and there are wonderous beings there, beings powerful and wise. We proclaimed them our gods." "You can do that?" Toug's eyes were wide. "We did. We prayed to them, sacrificed our own folk on their altars, invited them to come to Aelfrice to aid us in our struggle against Kulili." Toug said softly, "Your mother." "Our mother, yes. We were trying to kill her, as we had for centuries. The gods from Muspei were to help us in that, forging a unified plan." Toug shivered. "But it wasn't all of you, was it?" I said. "It was only you Fire Aelf at first." "We were the leaders, and we followed Setr." "And Grengarm?" Baki raised her eyebrows. She was squatting in the straw with her knees pressed to her breasts; yet it seemed that she was about to flee. Toug said, "Did you know that Sir Able killed Grengarm?" "No." When no one else spoke, Baki repeated, "No. . . ." "You weren't among those who danced for him here in Mythgarthr," I said. "Where were you?" "It was hard for him to come here." It seemed she spoke to herself. The yellow fire in her eyes was smoky. "Some of us still prayed up, even after we worshipped them. It was a triumph for him that he could get here at all." "The Osterlings sacrificed us to the dragons," I told her, "casting the victims into the Mountain of Fire. I saw their faces screaming in Grengarm when I killed him." Toug said, "I won't ask about Gylf any more. I know you don't want to talk about that." "Not now," I told him. "Later, perhaps." "But I want to ask about Grengarm and the other one. Why is it they're so much stronger? Stronger than we are, and stronger even than people like her?" "The Aelf," Mani purred. "You worshipped them," I reminded Toug. "Don't you even know their name?" "They're supposed to be great. They could do anything. She doesn't seem like that." "Baki," I told him. "Her name is Baki, and she's your worshipper, the only one you've got. The least you can do for her is use it. Would you explain, Baki, why Toug finds you so disappointing?" "We were never meant to be your gods," Baki said. "Have you ever built a house?" Toug shook his head. "But you must have seen all the things that are left over when the building is done, the odds and ends of wood, the warped shingles, and the cracked stones." Slowly, Toug nodded. "We are what was left when the Highest God finished building your world. What He piled together and buried." "It's getting late," I said. "We should sleep, all of us, and now that she's whole, Baki will want to go home." Mani said, "I love this. I could do it all night." "I'll bet, and sleep all day afterward. But Toug and I will have to ride, and Gylf will have to run. We may have to fight, too." I turned to Baki. "How were you hurt?" "I was scattering the mules for you, Lord. Uri and I found twenty or so. When we tried to scatter those, they broke into two groups. She followed one, and I the other. One of the Angrborn came for mine." I nodded. "I should have run, but I tried to scatter them. He caught me and threw me on the rocks." "I'm sorry. Terribly sorry." Toug added, "But you're all right now?" "Better than ever!" Baki smiled, then grew serious. "It was a long time before Uri found me. I wanted her to take me to you, Lord, so you could heal me. She would not do it. She carried me back to Aelfrice, and came back here to find one of the new gods to do it." Toug looked at me, but I said nothing. "Then she said the new god was dead, and nothing could be done. But I saw you up here . . ." Baki sighed. "It took a lot of searching, Lord, but I found you and came as close as I could." I stood and blew out the lamp. "Go back to Aelfrice. Tell Garsecg I haven't forgotten my promise." "But, Lord" "Do what I told you." I turned to Toug. "We've got to sleep, or we'll be good for nothing in the morning."

CHAPTER FIVE CONFIDENCES

Much later, when we lay in the crowded house that had been Bymir's and he sensed that I, too, was awake, Toug whispered, "Will you tell me one more thing, Sir Able? Just one more." "Probably not." "Why wouldn't you heal Baki yourself?" At length I said, "You told me Lady Idnn had promised you a shield. Has she given it to you?" "Not yet," Toug whispered. "There hasn't been time to paint it anyhow." "You'll have to remind her," I told him, "and both of us have to sleep." Obediently, Toug closed his eyes; but as soon as he did, he saw sunshine, waving grass, and distant vistas of mountain and plain. He opened them again at once; but there was only darkness, and the flickering firelight. "This is better," I said. I was standing beside the cloud-colored mount I had come back on, and the wind that whipped the plumes on my helmet sent her mane and tail streaming across the sky. "Where are we?" Toug asked. His own mount, Laemphalt, was cropping grass some distance off. "Most people think there's only one world on this fourth level," I explained. "Isn't that true?" Toug took a step toward me and found that there was a shield strapped to his arm, a shield rounded at the top, with a long tapering point at the bottom, such as knights use. Its background was green, like that of my own shield, and on it was a white griffin with wings spread wide. "The highest level, and the lowest, have only got one," I said. "The rest have several. This is Dream. It's on the midmost level, with Mythgarthr. Cloud brought us here." She looked up at the sound of her name, and her head and back were as white as the whitest clouds, but her feet and legs remained as dark as storms. Gray were the mane and tail streaming from the hilltop in the warm wind of Dream. "She's a magic horse . . ." Toug said, and his mind was filled with wonder. "She's not a horse at all," I told him, "and a good one. She's as wise as a woman, but she's not like a woman, and it will be well for you to understand her." "She can take you from world to world?" I nodded solemnly. "Can your horse?" Toug shook his head. "What of the horses of Aelfrice?" Toug thought before he spoke. "I don't know about those, Sir Able. I've never seen one." "There aren't any. I don't mean you'll never see an Aelf on horseback. For that matter, Uri and Baki rode some of the horses and mules they scattered. But any horse ridden by an Aelf, here or in Aelfrice, will be one of ours, a horse taken by the Aelf as a man or a woman may be." Toug nodded. "I think I understand. Are you going to tell me about your dog now?" I shook my head. "You don't have to. You could tell me later, or not tell at all. I already know he can talk like Mani." "Yes," I said, "and no. He can speak, but not like Mani. Mani speaks because he's a freakish combination of spirit and beast, though the spirit and the beast do not belong together. Gylf speaks of himselfof his nature. He has a spirit, of course, and an animal body. But they are parts of one whole. Can you write, Toug?" Toug shook his head. "You may learn someday. When you do, you'll find out that your hands speak just as your lips do now, and that the things they say are a little different. Still, you're one whole, lips and hands." "You're saying he talks like we do, but Mani doesn't." "Close enough." I raised my voice. "Gylf! Here boy!" Toug looked around and caught sight of a running animal far away. It grew smaller as it approached, until a panting Gylf threw himself down at my feet. "We were talking about you," I said. "When I go back to Skai, will you go with me?" Gylf nodded. "That's good. But maybe it won't be allowed. Or you may want to stay here awhile before you join me there. In either case, you'll belong to Toug. Is that understood?" Slowly, Gylf nodded again. "I want you to talk to him. I won't make you, but I ask it. Just to Toug. Will you speak?" There was a long silence. At last Gylf said, "Yep." "Thank you. Toug wonders how you change size. Will you tell him?" "Good dog." We waited, and at length he added, "Dog from Skai." Toug exclaimed, "You had him before you went there!" "I did. He was given to me by the Bodachan. Their reasons for making me such a gift were good but complicated, and we'll leave them for another time. Do you know the Wild Hunt?" Toug nodded. "It's when Hern the Hunter hunts up in the air, like a storm. I'm not sure it's real." "Hern's the Valfather. It's one of his names." Toug gulped. "I heard him when I was little. Thehis horse galloping across Skai, and his hounds." "Then how could you not be certain it is real?" "I thought maybe I dreamed it." "You're dreaming this," I told him; and although Toug considered the matter for a long while after he woke, there seemed to be no adequate answer to it. "I've talked about the Giants of Winter and Old Night. When I did, you must have thought them human-shaped, like the Angrborn. I think I told you about one wearing a glove, and if you hadn't thought them like us before, you'd surely have after that." Toug nodded. "Many are. Others are not. There's one with a hundred arms, and more than a few who have or take on the shapes of animals. Fenrir's the worst. You've got to understand that there's no big distinction among the kinds." Reluctantly, Toug nodded again. "Ones or two at a time wander away from their sunless kingdom to steal and kill. When they do, the Valfather hunts them down, sometimes alone, sometimes with his sons or men like me, or both. But always with his hounds, who course them and bring them to bay. You heard them, you said." Recalling how frightened he had been, Toug said nothing. "It sometimes happens that one of the bitches of that pack gives birth before her time. The exertions of the hunt are too great, and the pup is dropped. It doesn't happen often, but it happens. Once in a hundred years, maybe." "Isn't that thousands of years in Skai?" "Right. When a puppy is dropped like that, or lost some other way, it may fall or wander down into Mythgarthr. Then someone finds it, helpless and alone, hungry and cold. He can kill it then, if he wants to. He can leave it to starve. Or he can take it in as the Bodachan did. Feed it, and keep it alive. If he does, he'll have his reward eventually." "You mean when the Valfather comes to get it?" "You're pale. Would that be such a terrible thing?" Trembling, Toug nodded. "I guess you're right. But a wonderful thing, too. If he finds the hound he lost loved the man who saved it, do you think he'll hate that man? That's not his way." "I hope not," Toug said fervently. "It isn't. It's the sort of thing the giants do, not the sort of thing Overcyns do, and it's sure as heck not the sort of thing the Valfather does." When minutes had passed, Toug said timidly, "It's really beautiful here." "Beautiful and terrible. Have you noticed how bright the colors are?" Toug looked around, and it seemed that he looked with new eyes. "Yes," he said. "I hadn't paid any attention, but they are wonderful, like you say." "They are yours, and if ever you give them up this will be a land of blacks and grays. But that's not what I brought you here to tell you. Nor did I bring you to explain Gylf." "Where is he?" Toug looked around. "Where he was. I brought you so I could tell you about the Valfather." I sighed. "He's very kind and very wise, and in his kindness and his wisdom he's a man who stands on two legshis wisdom makes him kind and his kindness makes him wise. I told you I'd been in Skai for twenty years, even though it seemed a few days to you." "It was hard to believe," Toug mumbled. "I guess it was. It wasn't exactly true, since years are things of Mythgarthr; but twenty years takes us as near the truth as we're likely to get. After twenty years the Valfather spoke to me privately, something he hadn't done since I came. He began by asking about my first life, and he saw that even when we talked about my battle with Grengarm, I recalled very little. The mead of his hall has that effect, and it spares us a lot of pain. He asked me then whether I wanted those memories restored, and I said no. The Valfather is wiser than we are." Slowly, Toug nodded. "From the way I had answered him, he knew there was something more, and he asked whether I'd go back to your world if he let me. I couldn't remember Disiri, but I was haunted by her name and the feelings I got when I said it, and said I would." I stopped talking; but Toug did not say anything more though minutes passed, only watching the clouds of Dream fly overhead, and a castle like a star that flew among them. "We went to the spring Mimir," I said at last. "I drank its water and remembered you and Gylf, and a lot of other things. I visited myself, watching myself drink water in the ruins of Bluestone Castle. Afterward the Valfather laid his condition on me. You're a god to Baki and all the Aelf. You know that now." "They don't like us being gods, and I don't blame them." "Nor do I, because the fault is ours. There's evil and folly even among the Overcyns; but it's less, much less, than ours." I stopped again to think. "Baki sacrificed herself to me. Did we tell you?" "I don't think so." "She did. I drank her blood and was made well. That should have showed me how things stood, but it didn't. I didn't want to believe I was a god to anybody." "I understand," Toug told me fervently. "In the same way the Aelf have refused to be gods to the world below theirs, preferring to give them the worship they owe you. But that's not the point. The point is that the Valfather bound me not to use the authority that is mine. I was not to return as an Overcyn from Skai." "You mean you have to act like one of us?" Toug asked. "No. I mean I have to be less than one of you. I no longer have the authority of Mythgarthr. That can never be mine again. My authority's that of Skai. I swore not to use it, and if I break my oath I have to go back at once." Poor Toug could only gape. "I think it better if you know." I tried to keep my voice level. "From time to time I may need youneed somebody who can wield the authority of Mythgarthr for me, the way you did tonight. You need to understand why I need you." Toug swallowed. "In the meantime, you're not to sacrifice to me unless I ask. Neither are you to treat me differently in any way." "N-no, sir." "I'm glad you understand. Don't tell anyone. This is only a dream, after all." "Uns is coming, Sir Able. See there?" Toug pointed; Uns' bent figure was only just visible as it topped a rise, hurrying along crab wise, but making good time for all that. "We must go," I said, and the green hills of Dream, crowned with poplars and drooping cypress, were visible only as the reflection of the sun in water. Toug blinked and sat up. The fire was scarcely more than embers. Cloud stood over Uns' twisted form, her noble head bent until their lips nearly touched. A moment more and Cloud had faded to mist and was gone. Toug rose and put more wood on the fire, then knelt by me. "Are you still going for my sister?" "I'm sending you," I said. "I have the right to raise others to knighthood," I told Beel's followers. "If anyone doubts me, let him challenge me now." Nobody spoke, though faces were turned toward Garvaon. "I wish I could say I have lands to give as well, fair manors to bestow on such knights as I make. I have none, but Lord Beel has most nobly offered to make up the deficiency." The watchers murmured, their voices less forceful and distinct than that of the wind. I raised my hand, and they quieted down. "There are those who become knights in the great castles of the south," I continued. "There's a ritual bath, at which three knights stand near to counsel them. From dark to dawn they watch their arms. There are banners, prayers, and songs, and there are ladies in silk to watch it. We have a lady here, but she wears leather, and a quiver on her back." Toug turned to look at Idnn, and saw that everyone else was as well. Her head was high, her eyes as bright as those of the big black cat on her shoulder. "When the ceremonies are done, and the knight-to-be has been properly admired and gossiped about, a carpet is spread before the giver of the accolade. The knight-to-be kneels on it, and for that reason those who are knighted this way are called carpet knights." Crol laughed, but fell silent almost at once. "There are knights of another kind, too. Those who've watched the weapons of foes instead of their own, knights who get the accolade because all who know them know they're knights already, brave and honorable and skilled at arms." A bar of sunlight raced across the plain, and was gone. I had spoken loudly enough for everyone to hear; now I let my voice fall. "Come forward, Svon, and kneel." Svon advanced, neither quickly nor slowly. For a moment that only seemed long he stood, before dropping to his knees. Maybe it was the wind that made his eyes water. Eterne sprang from her jeweled scabbard into my hand, and I no longer stood alone. A score of knights, old and grim or young and gallant, stood with me. A woman who was not Idnn screamed among the onlookers. The long black blade touched Svon's right shoulder, then his left. I said, "Arise, Sir Svon." Svon stood up, looking dazed; Eterne shot back into her scabbard, and the phantom knights vanished. I said, "Toug, step forward, please." Proudly, Toug took his place beside Svon. His clothes were those of the village boy he had been, but on his arm was a beautiful green shield bearing a white griffin. "Here stands a squire, Sir Svon. Will you have him?" "Gladly," Svon answered, "if he will have me." "Will you serve this knight loyally, Toug? As your father once served me?" "I swear it!" Toug's voice was loud, and possibly for that reason cracked as he spoke. No word of mine summoned Cloud. With Gylf at her heels, she cantered through the onlookers to stand before me. I mounted. "I'm going south, taking Uns and two more. I promised Duke Marder I'd take my stand in a mountain pass, and have yet to do so. When you free my servant from the Angrborn, send him to me. He'll know where to find me." That night Toug hoped to dream as he had when we slept side by side. No such dreams came to him, but the warm pink tongue of a cat instead. He rolled onto his back. "Hello, Mani. What is it?" "Come with me," Mani said softly; and when Toug rose he led him from the camp to a place not greatly different from any other on that haunted plain, save that Idnn was there on a little folding stool, with another such stool before her. "I need to speak with you, Squire," she said, "you and I have not been great friends until Sit, please. I brought that stool out here for you." Toug bowed and sat. "You gave me my shield and made me your friend as long as I live." She smiled, a smile just visible in the moonlight. "That was courteously said." "I don't know anything about manners. How to talk to a lady or a nobleman like your father, or any of that. I just said the truth."