Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“I didn’t heal you!”

Baki sighed. “Begin again.”

Ulfa looked to Toug, who nodded urgently. “If I’ve got to,” she said. “I, Ulfa, as I am by rights a free peasant of Glennidam, though at present a slave of King Gilling’s, swear by those who are in Skai, by the Lady who mustn’t be named, and by the Valfather and his sons, that all that lies in my power shall be done for my brother Toug and my worshipper Baki, in order that they may achieve their hearts’ desires. Will that do it?”

“It will. I, Baki, as I am a true Aelf of the fire—”

Ulfa gasped.

“Do swear by those who are in Mythgarthr, by Toug and by Ulfa, and if he excuse the impertinence by Sir Able himself, that all in my power shall be done for these sublime spirits of Mythgarthr Toug and Ulfa, that they may achieve their desire. So swear I, Baki, who does by this oath and others renounce the false and deceitful worship of Setr forever.”

Ulfa stared. Toug said, “Who’s Setr?”

“Of that we shall speak presently. First we must name the one thing we most desire. You swore first, and thus should speak first. Or so I feel. Will you dispute it?”

Toug said, “Well, we were going to look for Mani...”

“For this woman’s husband, too,” Baki said. “For Pouk. But finding neither can be your heart’s desire, surely. Your heart is larger than that.”

“I need time to think.”

Ulfa said, “Are you really an Aelfmaiden?”

“Of the Fire Aelf. Would you see it?”

Ulfa nodded. A moment later, she caught her breath.

Toug looked up. “What is it?” Ulfa was on her knees.

“You have seen more,” Baki told him. She helped Ulfa rise. “It was very wrong, what you were doing. I am greatly honored, but honors one does not deserve are only crimes by another name. In my heart I kneel to you.”

“I—I...”

“Have no need to speak, unless you will speak first. Will you? Or is your brother ready?”

“I’m not,” Toug said.

“I didn’t know.” Ulfa gulped. “My old gown. It’s not even fit to wear.”

“But I wear it proudly,” Baki told her, “and believe we shall have better by and by.”

Ulfa gulped again, and bowed her head.

“Now we will have your heart’s desire. Please. Name it. Toug and I have sworn to do all we can to help you.”

“We just want to get out of here.” Ulfa spoke so softly Toug scarcely heard her. “Pouk and me. We want go back to Glennidam. Or anywhere. Help us to get out, both of us.”

“We will,” Baki told her. “Toug? Your desire?”

“This isn’t it.” Toug tried to keep his voice steady. “I have to say something else first.”

“Then do so.”

“I want to be a knight. Not just a regular knight. It would be wonderful to be a regular knight like Sir Garvaon or Sir Svon. But what I truly want—this isn’t my heart’s desire, not yet—is to be a knight like Sir Able. I want to be a knight that would jump on the dragon’s back.”

Neither woman spoke, although Ulfa raised her head to look at him.

“I’m a squire now.” Toug squared his shoulders. “I really am, Ulfa, and probably I’ll be a knight sooner or later unless I get killed. So I have to learn fast. I know that if I wait ‘til I’m a knight and try to be like Sir Able then, it won’t work. I have to start before I’m knighted.”

Baki’s voice was just above a whisper. “Even so things may go awry, Lord.”

“I know. But if I don’t start now, they won’t ever go right. Well, Lord Beel and Sir Svon want me to get King Gilling to let them in here, into Utgard, so Lord Beel can be a real ambassador like our king wants. So that’s my heart’s desire. I want to do my duty.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed a new voice. Mani was seated on the gray stone windowsill, as black and shiny as the best-kept kettle, with a gray winter sky behind him and the winter wind ruffling his fur.

“Bravo!” Mani repeated, and sprang from the windowsill, and then, with a bound that would have done credit to a lynx, onto Toug’s shoulder. “I bear glad tidings.” He looked at the women with satisfaction, his green eyes shining. “You shall have them in a moment, but first I’d like to hear the rest of this.”

“Yes.” Toug reached up to stroke him. “What’s your heart’s desire, Baki? You’ve heard ours.”

“Do you really wish to hear it, Lord? Recall that you have sworn to help me get it.

He waited for Ulfa to speak, but she was gaping at Mani, and he said, “We can’t, unless we know what you want.”

“Not consciously, perhaps. The politics of Aelfrice are complex, but I must talk about them if you are to understand my heart’s desire. My race, whom some of you worship, was brought into being by one we name Kulili. She created us to love her, but we came to hate her and rebelled against her, and at last drove her into the sea. We are of many clans, as perhaps you know.”

Mani said, “I do.”

“I am of the Fire Aelf, and we Fire Aelf hated Kulili more than any. We led the advance, and we were the last to retreat. When she disappeared into caverns beneath the sea, it was we, more even than the Sea Aelf, who urged that she be extirpated to the last thread. This though we saw her no more, and our land no longer spoke with her voice.”

Toug, who could not imagine a being of threads, opened his mouth to ask a question, but closed it without speaking.

“We and others followed her into the sea and fought her there, when she could retreat no longer. I am a maid and not a man. Will you believe that I, too, fought?”

Mani said, “Yes,” and Ulfa, “If you say it.”

“I do. I did. ‘Spears of the maidens!’ we shouted as we joined the melee. ‘Spears of the Fire Maidens! Death to Kulili!’ I can voice those cries, but I cannot tell you how faint and weak and lonely they sounded under the dark waters. We charged her sharks as we had been trained to charge, and after a moment or two we few who still lived fled screaming. You, Lord, would not have fled as I did.”

Toug said nothing.

“You would have died.”

“Continue.” For once Mani seemed subdued.

“In the days after that terrible day, our king tried to rally us. Many would not come, fearing we would be asked to fight again. It was a year before the assembly was complete, and it was complete then only because it was inland. There were many—I was one—whose spirit would have failed if they had been asked to venture within sight of the sea.

“Our king spoke of those who had died, first praising his bodyguard, of whom three-fifths had perished, then our clan in general. We had been one of the most numerous. We were fewer than any, and he told us so. ‘We cannot fight her again,’ he said; and we whispered when he said it, and sighed deep, and few cheered. Then he revealed his plan—a plan, he said, by which we might yet triumph.

“We no longer paid reverence to this world of Mythgarthr and you who dwell in it. You, we felt, were dull and sleepy and stupid, unworthy gods who no longer credited us even when we stood before you. There was no help to be had from you, he said. I doubt that there was anyone who did not agree.”

Ulfa looked at Toug, her eyes full of questions.

Mani smoothed his whiskers with a competent paw. “We’re their numina, you see. I am a tutelary lars in animal form myself, a totem. My images confer freedom, and what’s always essential to freedom, stealth.”

“Yet there were others who would help us gladly,” Baki continued. “He had summoned them. Among them was Setr. For a time our king continued to rule, relaying the commands of Setr. With Setr and the rest to lead us, we stormed Kulili’s redoubt again, and were defeated even as we had been defeated before. Not all our tribes fought, and some sent only a few score warriors. Such were the Bodachan and others. Setr said this was the reason for our defeat, and we believed him. We would not fight again, he promised, until every clan was ready to fight as we had.”