Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

Toug considered the matter for a minute or two, then pointed. “Look! That’s the bridge over the moat. See it?”

“We’ll be safe in there?”

“Safer than we are out here. What else did your mother say? You said there was a lot.”

“Well, I forget. Be nice to you ‘n make people like me, ‘n go south where people like us come from, ‘n tell ‘bout the manticores ‘n marigolds.”

“About what?”

“The manticores ‘n marigolds, only I don’t know what they are. Mama used to talk ‘bout them.”

“What did she say about them?”

“I don’t know. What are they?”

“You’ve got to remember something.” Toug insisted. “What did she say?”

“On dresses, I guess, ‘n a scarf. Mostly she’d just say the words. Manticores ‘n marigolds, manticores ‘n marigolds, like that. Don’t you know what they are?”

“Marigold’s a kind of flower,” Toug said slowly, “yellow and really pretty. I don’t know what a manticore is.”

Unchallenged, they strode over the snow, across the bridge and through the gate. Etela halted for a moment to look up at Utgard, vast as a mountain and black against the chill stars of winter. “Well, I knew it was real, real big, only I didn’t know it was as big as this.”

“It’s easy to get lost in,” Toug told her. “You’ve got to be careful ‘til you know your way around.”

“Uh-huh.”

“My sister’s got a room way up high. Maybe you could sleep with her. I’ll ask.”

“With you,” Etela declared firmly,” ’cause Mama said.”

“We’ll see. Maybe you could help me take care of Mani. I’m supposed to do that, too, but like when I’m gone. Like now. Somebody ought to be taking care of him and nobody is, unless the witch will do it.”

“A witch?”

Toug nodded. “Her name’s Huld, and she’s a ghost besides being a witch. I don’t know if ghosts take care of anybody, really.”

“There was a ghost where Mama used to live,” Etela declared. “Only he was real scary ‘n he took care of the house but not people. Mama said he didn’t like anybody much ‘n there were a whole lot he hated. I don’t want to hear ‘bout this witch ’cause I’ll be scared tonight anyhow.”

As he led her to the sally port through which he had left Utgard, Toug reflected that he had been frightened, and often badly frightened, ever since Able had forced him to accompany him into the forest. Always afraid, save for one or two occasions on which he had been too tired to feel fear or anything else.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he told Etela.

“What doesn’t?”

“Being afraid all the time. Being afraid ought to be a special thing. You should be afraid just once in a while. Or maybe never. You used to sleep in that Angrborn’s house, didn’t you? With your mother?”

“Uh-huh. Every night.”

“That would scare me. Weren’t you afraid?”

“Huh-uh, it was just regular. It was where we lived.”

“So I’m going to stop being scared, or try to. If somebody kills me, they kill me, and it will be all over. Only they’re not going to make me scared all the time.”

In the pitch darkness of the entrance, Etela whispered, “Weren’t you scared when you killed Master?”

“Afterwards I was, but when it happened I was trying to do everything too fast—get this sword, and not get rolled on.” With the pommel of the dagger he had taken from Logi, Toug tapped the iron door, three knocks followed by two.

Those two were followed by the grating of the bar, and a muffled grunt as the lone archer struggled with a weight that any of the Angrborn could have moved without difficulty.

The door swung back and Arn said, “There you are, Squire. Sir Able wants to speak to you right away.”

Ulfa opened the king’s door, and for a moment we stood staring. At last I said, “I know you, and you know me.”

She shook her head. “What’s your name, sir? I—I’d like to hear you say it.”

“I’m called Sir Able of the High Heart.”

She curtsied. “Your servant is Ulfa. Your servant is the wife of your servant Pouk.”

“You made a shirt for me once.”

“And trousers, and followed after you when you and your dog, with Toug my father, wiped out a Free Company.”

I nodded. “I have to speak to you and Pouk when I have more time. Is he here?”

“I’ll get him, sir,” she said, and slipped past me.

The king’s bedchamber seemed as vast as the Grotto of the Griffin, cavernous, its ceiling (painted with scenes of war and feasting) lost in the air overhead, its bureaus and chests, its tables and chairs like cottages. In its center, on a black-figured crimson carpet larger than many a meadow, the bed under which Toug had conferred with Baki and Mani seemed small until one saw the slaves waiting there, women whose heads were well below the surface of the bed, so that they had to mount ladders to serve the king, and walk upon the blankets that covered him, blankets over a sheet that might have served as the mainsail of the Western Trader.

Beside that bed, Beel stood upon the tapestried seat of a gilt chain and spoke with Gilling, who sat nearly upright, propped with immense pillows. Beel looked around at me in surprise, and I halted and bowed. “My Lord.”

“He’s here,” Beel told Gilling. “I’d don’t know how that’s possible, but here he is.”

Feebly, Gilling raised a hand. “Sir Able. Approach.”

I did, climbing to a rung of the chair and from there to the seat upon which Beel stood.

“How kind to us are our ancestors,” Gilling muttered. “They favor us, their unworthy son. Schildstarr came, now you. The queen—do you know our queen?”

“I have that honor, Your Majesty. It was Queen Idnn who sent me to you.”

“She was here but a moment ago. A lovely girl.”

I supposed that Gilling had been dreaming. “A beautiful woman indeed, Your Majesty. You’re to be envied.”

“She’s consulted the stars.” Gilling sighed. “She divines with stars and cards and by the flight of birds, for she is wise as well as beautiful. Sir Able will save us. Sir Able, she said, would come tonight. You are Sir Able?”

“I am, Your Majesty.”

“There is no other?”

“No other known to me, Your Majesty.”

“Nor to me,” Beel said.

“It was you who slew our Borderers?”

“Had I known them for yours, Your Majesty—”

Gilling’s huge, pale hand waved them away. “Forgiven. Pardoned. We’re beset by rebels.”

“So I have heard, Your Majesty.”

“Thus we say...” Gilling fell silent. His eyes closed, and for a time that seemed terribly long there was no sound in that vast chamber save the whispers of the slaves, a soft soughing like willows in a summer breeze.

“Beel...”

“I am here, Your Majesty.”

“You said he was far away. So did Thiazi.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I thought it true. I have no doubt Lord Thiazi thought it true as well.”

“This is Sir Able? He is really here?”

“He is, Your Majesty. He’s standing at my shoulder.”

“Come, Sir Able. Approach. Do you fear our touch?”

“No, Your Majesty.” I stepped from the chair to the bed, finding it firmer than I expected.

Gilling’s hand found me, and Gilling’s eyes opened. “Helmet, mail, and sword. Have you a shield, Sir Able?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, and my lance, bow, and quiver, too. I can fetch them if Your Majesty wants to see them.”

Beel said, “A forest-green shield, Your Majesty, with a black dragon on it.”

“They said you were far, Sir Able. Only this afternoon we were told you were remote.”

“I was, Your Majesty.”