Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“A thousand things,” I told him.

Gerda looked up from her cooking. “We’re in your way, ain’t we, sir?”

I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

“If you’d want to ride ahead tomorrow, sir, and tell us where to meet up with you...?”

I shook my head again.

“Org ain’t hit, sar? Ya worried how Sir Svon might be takin’ care a’ him. So’m I, sar. Org ain’t bad like they say. On’y he ain’t good, neither,’n do take handlin’.”

“No,” I said. “Can I give you and Berthold some help?”

Uns looked shocked. “Us got hit, sar, ‘less ya think us ain’t doin’ right.”

“You’re doing better than I would, I know.” I seated myself on the ground and stared into the flames. Gylf lay down beside me.

“‘Tis the boy.” Gerda’s tone was that of one who knows. “Young Toug. I’m worried ‘bout him too, sir.”

“You don’t have to listen to this,” I said. “You have work to do, all of you. I realize that. I have work to do, too, and I’ve been trying to do it. Thinking, not worrying. We thought very little in Skai, or at least I didn’t think much. The Valfather, the Lady, and Thunor were very wise, and that was enough for us. We served them whenever we could, and ate and drank and jousted and sang when we couldn’t. Now there’s nobody to think except me, and one of the things I’ve got to think hard about is whether the Valfather foresaw it.”

I picked up a stick, snapped it, and tossed it on the fire. “I’m sure he must have. The real question is whether it affected the restraints he laid on me when he let me come. And if it did—I think that it must have—how.”

“Too much thinkin’ leads to drinkin’,” Gerda warned me.

“Too much worry, you mean. Too much circular thinking in which the mind turns around and around, shaking the bars again and again. Yes, it does, but I try not to think like that. I try to think as the sea flows. I miss it, by the way, though I doubt the rest of you do.”

Gylf laid a paw in my lap.

“I’ll tell you what I was thinking about in a moment, it’s no secret. Let’s dispose of Sir Svon and Toug first.”

Bold Berthold, having finished staking the poles of the makeshift pavilion, came to sit beside Gylf, feeling his way with a peeled stick.

“You’re concerned that the Angrborn may kill them, and so am I. But if I’d stayed, Toug would have remained my captive and Sir Svon would have remained my squire. Those outcomes were certain, not problematic. Once, long ago... Though it is not long ago to you. Once Sir Garvaon told me I was a hero, the sort of knight men sing about.”

Berthold said, “Aye.”

“That’s the sort of knight Sir Svon longs to be, and Sir Svon’s right, because it’s the only sort who should be called a knight at all. I don’t mean that songs must be sung about every brave knight. There’ll always be many whose greatest deeds no one knows. Before I made him Sir Svon, Svon charged a score of bandits, sword in hand. He killed some, and the rest beat him senseless and left him for dead. No song will be made about the bruised and bleeding lad who woke and saw Sir Ravd’s body torn by wolves, who routed the wolves with Ravd’s broken lance and buried Ravd alone in the forest. Yet he deserves a song, and I’m giving him a chance to earn one. A chance to feel pride in himself, not just in his ancestors.

“Toug’s a peasant who wants to become a knight, and will become a knight if he’s given room to grow. Uns, you know him better than Berthold or Gerda do. Am I wrong?”

“Dunno, sar.” Uns, who had been straightening a pole the ropes had pulled out of line, paused. “Dere’s Pouk ta, ain’t dere? Dat was wit you at da farm?”

I nodded. “The Angrborn have him.”

“You was dead set on gettin’ him free.”

“I was. I am. He was my servant, and a good one. I’ve sent him rescuers, and I feel they’ll succeed.”

Gerda said, “That’s not what was worryin’ you, sir?”

“No.” I looked up from the fire. “First and always, I was thinking about Queen Disiri, as I always do. When the Valfather’s mead had washed me clean of every other memory, I still recalled her name. She won’t come to me. Therefore I must go to Aelfrice to seek her, as soon as I can.”

“‘N me wit ya,” Uns declared.

“Perhaps, but I doubt it. Time runs more slowly there. Have I told you?”

Berthold said, “My brother did, sir. He’d been took, or thought he had, and when he come back I was old, though I had my eyes. Dizzied sometimes, like now. But him! He wasn’t but a lad like when he was took, though he did talk high.”

“Why was he taken, Bold Berthold? Do you recall that?”

“To talk for Aelfrice up here’s what he said. ‘Cept he never did.”

“I’ve wondered about that.”

“You know ’em, sir,” Gerda ventured. “There was that one come to you when we was under the tree, me and Bert. I said you shouldn’t trust her, but you said you had already.”

“Uri.”

“That was her, sir. You knew her.”

“Yes. I know her and Baki fairly well, I’d say. I used to think I knew Garsecg, too, and better than either of them. But I know better now, and know Garsecg’s no Aelf.”

Gylf said, “Wow!,” but they thought it a mere bark.

“He’s a demon,” I explained, “a dragon in human form.”

“Ya goin’ ta kill him, sar?”

I shook my head. “No, Uns. Not unless I must. But we’re drifting away from the riddle of Berthold’s brother, and that riddle’s one of the things I’ve been considering. Do you still want to hear about those?”

Berthold said, “I do, sir, if my brother’s in it.”

“Of course. Your brother couldn’t recall anything that happened to him in Aelfrice.”

“No, sir.”

“Then we have three mysteries. First, why could he not remember? Second, why was he taught fair speech? And third, why has he not spoken?”

Gerda asked, “Don’t you know the answers, sir?”

“Not all of them. The second we can all guess easily, I believe. He was taught to speak well so he could deliver the message he had been given effectively. Uns, you’ve a sound head. Can you enlighten us as to the other mysteries?”

“Wy he coont remember, sar? Dint ya say dat first? Dey magicked him. Dey’s handy wit spells, all dem Aelfs.”

I nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. But why do it?”

“Somebody give him a message,” Berthold muttered.

“Yes.”

“He never said who ‘twas,’cause he didn’t know.”

I nodded again. “I think you must be right. The sender wished to keep his identity secret, and his message as well.”

Gerda pushed one of the forked sticks that would support her cooking pot into the ground. “Then he hasn’t said what they told him. He’s forgot it.”

Berthold’s groping hand found my arm. “Somebody here.”

I looked down at Gylf, who raised his head, sniffed, and seemed puzzled. “You heard him?” I asked Berthold.

“Aye, sir. I do.”

“There’s a breeze.” I rose, my hand on Eterne. “He must be coming upwind. That’s why Gylf hasn’t caught his scent.” I stalked away, downwind, with Gylf at my heels.

Berthold and Uns were sleeping soundly when we returned, but Gerda had stayed awake and sat warming her hands. “It’s good for somebody to keep watch,” I said as I sat down, “but you can go to sleep now. I’m going to sit up, and Gylf wakes at the least sound.”

“You didn’t find him?”

I shook my head.

“I kept listening, sir. I thought if you killed him he’d cry out, most like. My ears ain’t what they was, and I worried you’d do it so quick there wouldn’t be no noise.”