Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

I waited, telling myself that at the next meal they would come again, and that if they did not come, I would call Baki and have her free me. They did not. I called her, and called again until I had called a score of times, and she did not come. And at last I realized that chained as I was she no longer feared me. The service she had entered on the stair of the Tower of Glas was done, and she whose love I had so often refused was free at last. She would live the life of a Fire Aelf now, and give no thought to me, dead in the dungeon of Thortower.

What I would have done then, I cannot say. I might have broken my oath and saved myself. I would like to think I would have come to that in the end. I might have died, as I resolved to; I was not much tormented by thirst in that cold, and hunger had ceased to trouble me.

I might also have asked Org to bring me whatever meat he could find and united myself with the Osterlings, who eat the flesh of their foes, and howled in my madness.

Lights in that utter darkness, and the clank of weapons. I told Org to hide himself, but it was already too late. My cell door opened, and the glare of torches blinded me.

A remembered voice: “By the Lady’s crotch...”

The king’s: “What’s that by him?”

I laid my hand on Org’s arm. “Something it were better you had not seen, Your Majesty.” I choked, for my mouth was dry. “Go back up the steps. Return, and you won’t see it.”

There was excited talk, to which I paid scant attention. They left, and I told Org I had, to have water. He brought a little, warmed in his cupped hand; I drank and sent him out.

The torches and the knights who bore them returned. I stood, fell, and stood again with Beel helping me.

The king looked me in the face, for we were of a height. “I love my queen,” he said.

Perhaps I smiled. “And I don’t. Your Majesty, I ask no leave to speak freely. Those who ask leave of you do it out of fear of your displeasure or worse. Your displeasure means nothing to me, and any torture you might inflict would be a relief. I speak for Aelfrice and myself. You are a tyrant.”

“I love her,” Arnthor repeated. “I love Celidon more.”

“You treat them the same. You abandoned Aelfrice and taught your folk to. No doubt Queen Gaynor wishes you had abandoned her as well, and Celidon is blessed every moment you neglect her. You’re of royal birth. Queen Gaynor is of noble birth, and your knights boast their gentle birth. I’m a plain American, and I’ll say this if I die. Your villages are ravaged by outlaws, by Angrborn, and by Osterlings, because they’ve been abandoned too. The Most High God set men here as models for Aelfrice. We teach it violence, treachery, and little else; and you have been our leader.”

He nodded, which astounded me. “You say you’re of low birth. Are you not a knight? I let you keep your spurs.”

I nodded. “I am.”

The knights who had come with him stood silent, though I knew that if the chance came they would kill me. I smelled their torches, and saw in the hard, flat planes of Arnthor’s face, the cold and filthy cell where I had shivered so long and in which I shivered still.

Beel said, “I had hoped to free you, Sir Able.”

If Arnthor heard, he gave no sign of it. “You are a knight. A knight of my kingdom?”

“I am.”

“You worked wonders in Jotunland, and only wonders will save us.”

“Strike off these chains,” I told him, “and I’ll try.”

He spoke, and my chains fell clanking to the floor.

My story has almost ended; before I end it, I want to say that had it not been for Org, whom Arnthor glimpsed in my cell and whose terror was such that even Arnthor retreated, I do not believe he would have freed me.

I was bathed, dressed, and fed. “I’m to send you to His Majesty as soon as you can ride,” the Earl Marshal told me. “Meanwhile, I’m to arm you. What would you like?”

“For you to leave. I’ve my helmet and mail, which our king lets me keep. My sword he lost trying to regain the passes, when the army was overwhelmed.”

“Wait,” the Earl Marshal told me, and hurried away.

In his absence I plotted against him—against Gaynor and Idnn, too. Plotted, and mocked myself for plotting, for I was too weak to stand.

Days passed in which boys waited on me, pages scarce old enough to hold bows. Once they asked whether the Osterlings would conquer us, and what would become of them if they did; I told them I had no doubt they would, but if they wanted to escape I would take them to the dungeon, where they would be devoured at once. “It would be better for Celidon,” I told them, “if it were left to the trees. There’s an isle called Glas. There the great dragon Setr put lovely women to lure seaman ashore. The women died, killed by one another or the seamen they tricked. The last took poison, and it’s a place of beauty, silence, and clear light. Have you poison?”

Swearing they had none, they fled.

The Earl Marshal returned, bearing the sword Baki had found for me. He was as fat as ever, with fear in his shrewd eyes. “It does me honor,” he said, “to give you this.” He bowed as he held it out.

I took it and belted it on. “For this,” I said, “we’ll go to Aelfrice.”

He cannot often have been surprised; but he was then, astonishment that showed plainly in his face.

“It won’t take long,” I promised him, “though time runs slowly there. Come with me.”

He would have argued for an hour. I drew the sword he had just given me and pricked him with it, and although he shouted for guards, none came.

“The king has taken every man fit to hold a spear,” I told him, “from the castle and the city too. Leaving you.”

“Someone must be in charge,” he said.

“Why, no. Where’s Queen Gaynor, who sentenced me? The boys said she had gone, but they did not know where.”

“She’s with the king.” The Earl Marshal’s voice shook. “There’s no one left to protect her here.”

“Besides,” (I urged him forward with my sword) “I’m free again, and he fears I’ll lie with her. Move!”

“Where are we going?”

“To Aelfrice as you wished,” I said. “To Aelfrice, as I promised. It’s down those stairs, and you’ll go quicker than your age and weight permit or feel my point.”

I took him to the dungeon, discovering in the process that I was more afraid of it than he was. It seemed to close around me like the grave. If the Earl Marshal’s face was white, mine was whiter; I kept him moving, so he could not see it.

Dandun had gone; Colle remained, locked in his cell. I freed him, and with his help freed such other prisoners as we could find until we had cleared the twelfth level.

“They don’t go down there,” Colle said, as the Earl Marshal and I started down. “There’s no one there.”

“That’s not the same thing,” I told him, and prodded the Earl Marshal with my sword.

“Please,” he said. “I’m twice your age, and there is no railing.”

“You’re four times my age,” I told him, “and there’s no railing.”

“If I had known the conditions under which you were being held, I would have come to your rescue, believe me.”

“Sure you would have. You were careful not to know.”

There was a fourteenth level, and a fifteenth below that. After it, I did not count; but we soon stepped out onto a rocky plain where the breeze smelled of the sea.

“There is a draft,” the Earl Marshal said. “The dungeon must connect with caverns larger still.”

“There’s a wind,” I told him.

“Didn’t Lord Colle come with us?” The Earl Marshal looked behind us. “I thought he was coming, too.”