Gene Wolfe: The Wizard

“Except Sir Able’s old dog,” Mani continued smoothly, “as I was about to say. Sir Able was a noble knight, and Gylf and I have a working truce. We’re sworn enemies. Yet enemies who often find it more useful to work for the common good, though he tries to take more than his share.”

“I don’t understand how a cat can talk,” Toug explained.

“Nor do I understand why the others cannot.” Looking pleased with himself, Mani smoothed his whiskers with a front paw. “Gylf tries with very limited success, I ought to have said. Are you going to take my advice regarding the giants?”

“That I kill them? I couldn’t, and I don’t even know where they are.”

“I do. So does Gylf, I’m sure.”

Gylf nodded and sat down in the long, dry grass.

“When we were up there,” with a wave of his right paw, Mani indicated the hilltop, “I could see a farm away to the north. There were giants around it, as well as a sizable herd of horses and mules. Don’t you think that’s them?”

“It certainly sounds like them,” Toug admitted.

“Then you need only—”

Mani was interrupted by galloping hooves. A young man in a mail shirt and steel cap was cresting the hill.

“Isn’t that Sir Able’s dog you have?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It is. I’d know him anywhere. Hello there, Gif old fellow! Remember me?”

Gylf snarled.

“Lady Idnn said the boy who said he saw Sir Able die had his horse and dog, but that’s not his horse.”

Toug said, “It’s the one her father gave him.”

“Ah! That explains it. You’re the boy.”

“Do you call yourself a man?”

“Certainly!”

“If you’re a man, so am I.” With heels and reins, Toug edged the lame white stallion closer to the newcomer’s black. “Do you want to fight mounted or on foot?”

“You want to fight me?” The stranger did not sneer, but seemed very near it. “You’ll be killed.”

“Mounted? Or afoot?”

The sneer appeared. “Mounted, then.”

The butt of Toug’s crude lance caught the newcomer full in the face, knocking him from the saddle. Gylf was on him in an instant, and both his arms could not keep Gylf’s fangs from his throat.

“No,” Toug shouted. Gylf, who had been growing bigger and darker, shrank again and backed away.

“Danks.” The newcomer sat up and spat blood; much more streamed from his face and neck. “I yield. I—I ask dad you nod leave me widout a ‘orse in dis wilderness. I’ve no more righd do Moonrise—” He spat again.

“Get up, and give me that sword,” Toug said.

Less than steadily, the newcomer did.

Toug handed it back to him. “You can keep your horse, your sword, and whatever else you’ve got.” Struck by a new thought, Toug added, “Except food. Give half of it to us.”

The newcomer nodded. With one hand on his bleeding nose, he opened a saddlebag and emptied it of twice-baked bread, a cheese wrapped in a white cloth, beans, and dried meat. Unwrapping the cheese, he drew a gold-chased dagger.

“You don’t have to cut that,” Toug told him. “Keep it and give me the meat, half the bread, and half the beans.”

The exchange completed, Toug stowed his loot in the saddlebag that had held Mani. “Now tell me who you are.”

“My dame’s Zvon. I’m Zir Abie’s ‘quire, or was. He’s really dead?”

Toug nodded. “What are you doing here?”

“Lookin’ for him.” For a moment it seemed Svon wanted to say more, but he spat blood instead.

Toug decided that his nose was broken. “Why weren’t you with him when I was?”

“Wish I’d been. I’d died wid him. Wanded do.”

“Only you didn’t.” Toug dismounted. “Sit down. I’ll bandage while you talk. Got anything for bandages?”

Svon did, a spare shirt they cut into strips.

“He ‘bandoned me,” Svon said while Toug was winding a bandage about his nose. “He’s angry wid me, an’ I don’ blame him. I was angry wid myse’f.”

“Uh-huh.” Toug was trying to get the bandage tight.

“Wish he’d bead me but he din. Stamped off indo da forest an’ lef’ me wid his servand. Derr’ble fellow.”

“Have you seen my cat?”

“Whad?”

“My cat,” Toug repeated. “Well, it’s really Lady Idnn’s cat, but I was keeping it for her, a really big black cat with green eyes. Have you seen it?”

“No,” Svon told him. “Din zee a cad.”

“Gylf’ll know. Where’d the cat go, boy? Back to her?”

Out of Svon’s line of sight, Gylf shook his head.

“He went into the forest by himself?” Toug asked Svon. “Sir Able, I mean.”

Svon nodded. “He jus’ walked ‘way an’ lef us.” For an instant he seemed to hesitate. “You know ’im well?”

Toug stopped his bandaging to consider the question; neither the dark sky nor the rolling gray-brown grasslands proved helpful. At length he said, “I didn’t know him very long, but I feel like I knew him better than I know most people. We talked a lot one time, and we were hunted by outlaws once, or anyway I think they were hunting us before we went to Aelfrice. And... There were some other things. I couldn’t talk for a while, but he fixed that.”

“He’s wiz’rd. You know dad?”

Toug shrugged. “I heard my sister say he was.”

“Si’der’s righd. Duke gave me do ’im for pun’shmend, I s’pose. Anyway Zir Able cursed me afder ’e lef. Lef ’is zerv’nd an’ me, I mean. ‘Is Graze gafe me do Zir Able, bud Zir Able gafe me do a ‘vis’ble mon’der.”

Toug froze in the act of tearing another strip from the shirt. “What?”

“‘Vis’ble mon’der. Id’s dere bud you har’ly efer zee id. Don’ bel’ve me?”

“No,” Toug said shortly.

“I’m dellin’ da drud.”

“Are you saying that there’s a monster we can’t see here with us now, listening to what we say?”

Svon winced as a bandage was applied to his neck. “Dad dog was goin’ do kill me, wasn’ he? Guf or w’atefer da name is. Zir Abie’s dog.”

“Sure.”

“He’s durnin’ into somedin’ elze w’ile he’z doin’ id. You mus’a zeen id.”

Toug said nothing.

“I dink I could’a held off a ord’nary dog. Efen a big dog. Den he s’arded do change.”

Svon waited for Toug to speak, but Toug did not.

“You wand do know w’eder we god a mon’der wid us? Da answer’s yes. Bud dad isn’d my mon’der—isn’t da mon’der Zir Able gave me do. Id’s your mon’der.”

Toug stared at Gylf, then looked back to Svon. “I want to know about yours. Why isn’t it here?”

“’Cause I been ridin’ hard. Id can’d drafel fas’ as a fas’ horse. But w’enefer I s’op, jus’ for a day, id finds me. I dried do go home w’en Zir Able ‘bandoned me. Did I dell you?”

“I don’t think so.” Toug was inspecting his work while wiping his hands on what remained of the shirt.

“We’d been dravelin’ nord,” Svon explained. “Zir Able was do dake a s’and ad a moundain pass. When he ‘bandoned me, hiz zerfand zed he’d keep goin’, dad he’s zure Zir Able’d come. I doughd Zir Able’d given up on da whole idea. Id wasn’

‘zactly drue, bud wha’ I zaid.”

“Was his name Pouk?”

Svon twisted around to look at Toug. “How’d you know?”

“Was my sister with him? My sister Ulfa?”

Svon started to shake his head, but was dissuaded by his nose. “Dis hurds.”

“Sure, but I can’t do anything about it. Was she?”

“No. Id’d been jus’ Zir Able an’ me, an’ da zerfand. And da mon’der, an’ dad dog. I doughd id had s’ayed wid de servand, w’ich was fine wid me. I dind wan’ do be remin’ed of Zir Able den. I hadn’t lef him, he’d lef me, an’ I was goin’ home. If he wanded me, he’d send for me. Dad’s how I was dinkin’.”