Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“She’ll swear fealty to you, if I spare her. And betray you at the first opportunity. Won’t you, Baki?”

“I was your s-slave because Garsecg wished it, Lord. I will be his, if you wish it.”

I spoke to the Earl Marshal. “We’re going up, aren’t we? It’s obvious that neither of them are down here.”

Baki said, “There is a stair to your left, Lord.”

“Thanks. I could kill you here, Baki. Cut your rotten throat. I’m going to take you where I can see to make a clean thrust instead. Want to talk about the blood I drank when I was hurt? Let’s hear you.”

Perhaps she shook her head—it was too dark to see.

The stair opened into a pantry, the pantry into a wide hall hung with shields and weapons. Night had fallen while were in the tunnel, but candles guttered at either end of the hall, more than enough light for a good thrust.

“May I speak, Lord? I know you will kill me, and it will be no use to defend myself. But I would like to say two things before I die, so you will understand when I am gone.”

Perhaps I nodded—doubtless I did. I was looking at her through the eyes of the old helm, a thing like a woman molded of earth, blazing coals, and beast-flesh.

“You have refused me a hundred times. I have been bold, and you have refused. I have been shy, and you have refused. I have helped you over and over, but when my back was broken you would not mend me yourself, bringing a boy to do it. I knew that if I came to your cell and freed you, you would refuse again. I hoped that if I left you there until you were nearly dead, you might feel gratitude. I would have come before you died. I would have demanded oaths before I fed and freed you. That is the first thing.”

The Earl Marshal said, “I don’t know whether I should envy you or laugh, Sir Able.”

I released Baki and removed the helm; I had seen her too well, and the sight sickened me. “Would it help you to know I’m just a boy playing knight, My Lord? I’ve seen you as you are and Baki as she is, and if you saw me the same way you’d know. Men don’t mock boys—or envy them either.”

“Then I’m no man,” the Earl Marshal told me, “for I’ve envied a thousand.”

I turned to Baki. “Why don’t you bolt? You might save your life.”

“Because I have more to say. We pinched and tweaked you in the tunnel. How many of us could you catch?”

I had heard the soft steps of scores of feet; I made no reply.

“Only me, because I was trying to draw you to Aelfrice and safety while the others only wished to tease you.”

I believe I might have stabbed her if I had been granted another second; Osterlings burst in, and there was no time. Baki snatched a sword from the wall and fought beside us, an Aelf a maiden, and last a living flame. The sword Uri had stolen sifted our foes and drew me on and on, but Baki was always before me, cutting men as harvesters cut grain.

When the last had fled, she confronted me, her stolen sword ready. “Who carried the day, Lord? You?”

“No.” I had on the helm but would not look at her.

“Will you meet me? Sword-to-sword?”

“No,” I repeated. “I’d kill you and I don’t want to. Go in peace.” Her sword fell to the floor; she had vanished.

“We’d better not stay here,” the Earl Marshal said; I agreed, and he showed me a narrow stair behind an arras.

Describing our search of Thortower would be weary work—indeed it was weary work itself. We had to stop more than once to rest; and in the end I searched alone, and returned for him (hidden in his library) when I was sure that neither Payn nor Wistan were to be found.

“They are dead, I suppose.” He rose stiffly. “I was trained with the sword as a boy. It had been twenty years and more since I’d handled one.” He held his out although I had seen it earlier. “Do you know how many men I had slain with the sword?”

I shook my head and dropped into a chair, exhausted.

“None, but I killed four today. Four Osterling spears, with one the Aelf and I killed together. How long can such good fortune endure?”

“Until we reach Sevengates, I hope, My Lord. East?”

“Five days ride.”

“Then three or less if we hasten.” I was hopeful, for I thought Cloud might rejoin me soon.

“We’ll be hurrying into the teeth of the army the Caan will send to recover the Mountain of Fire.” The Earl Marshal wiped his face and stared at the ceiling. “If we take the direct route, that is. You know the north?”

“Tolerably well.”

“So do I. It might be better for us to turn north at first, then east, then south.” This we set out to do, tramping away from Kingsdoom unopposed, although we had left Thortower in an uproar. The first night, while the Earl Marshal, Uns, and the beggar woman Galene slept, I lay awake staring up to Skai; once I believed I glimpsed Cloud among the stars, and sent urgent thoughts to tell her I was below. They cannot have reached her, for there was no thought from her.

Next day we encountered Osterlings everywhere. Twice we fought them. We had to leave the road, and when we returned to it, to leave it again. They had striped the countryside, burning every village and farm, and devouring people and livestock. That night we finished the bread and bacon we had carried; and although we continued to feed our fire when they were gone, we would much rather have fed ourselves.

“I have dined well throughout a long life,” the Earl Marshal remarked. “I’ll die now with an empty belly. It seems a shame. Do they eat well in the Lands of the Dead? Queen Idnn told me you spent some time there.”

“Only as a visitor. No, My Lord, they do not.”

“Then I won’t go, if I can help it.”

Galene looked at Uns, but he only grinned and said, “Ya feed dem Os’erlin’s, if’n ya die, sar. Yar belly be emp’y, on’y not deirs, nosar.”

“May I speak openly of the last place in which we were well fed, Sir Able?” I nodded.

“Might we not go to Aelfrice again? All of us?”

“Are you asking if I could take so many? Yes, I think I might. But food is uncertain there, and we might lose a year while we ate.”

“Better to lose a year than to lose our lives,”

“We might lose those too. You didn’t see the dangers, My Lord, but there are many. Dragons come there often, and there are many others, of which the worst may be the Aelf themselves. Don’t you remain there?”

He nodded.

“Let that be enough.”

Galene muttered, “You know nothing of hardship.”

Uns corrected her. “Sar Able do.”

“A knight, with servants? I don’t think so.”

The Earl Marshal told her to mind her tongue; I said that if I could endure the swords and spears of our enemies, I could surely endure anything a woman might say—provided she did not say it too often.

“I don’t know what you might have gone through, that’s fact. Wounds and all. Fighting’s a knight’s trade, but the rest shouldn’t act like it’s just a trade like a butcher’s. I been poor my whole life and what I had was taken ’cause you knights didn’t fight enough. I’d a man. We’d a baby...”

“Many of those knights paid with their lives,” the Earl Marshal muttered.

Uns put his arm around Galene and held her hand in his, which seemed more sensible. Looking into the fire, I saw Baki’s face. She mouthed a word I could not catch, pointed to my left, and vanished. Excusing myself, I rose.

Deep in the shadows, a woman with eyes of yellow flame wrapped me in such an embrace as few men have known. I knew her by her kiss, and we kissed long and long. When at last we parted, she laughed softly. “The wind is in the chimney.”

I agreed that it was.

“I had better go, before the fire burns too bright.” I stepped back and she vanished, although her voice remained. “News or a promise—which would you hear first?”