Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

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.”

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 himself—of his nature. He has a spirit, of course, and an animal body. But they are parts of one whole. Can you write, Toug?”