Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“Who told you?”

“You did, dear owner. I asked if you could beat Garsecg and you replied that you had killed Grengarm. Grengarm was a dragon—Toug told me about your battle with him. Therefore Garsecg is another dragon. Elementary. You know who stabbed King Gilling, too, don’t you?”

I shook my head.

“Of course you do. I heard what you told Lord Thiazi. You know, you just can’t prove it.”

“I don’t want to,” I told him, and turned to Vil. “Mani here wanted to be the last to talk to me,and both girls have had their shot. What do you want to talk about?”

“Help, sir. That’s all. Can I say first off nothin’ I heard will go farther? I don’t think you’d like me blabbing it, and I won’t.”

I thanked him.

“Master Toug’s talked to me, sir. He says I’m his only I’ll be free once we get south. That true, Sir Able? Seemed like he believed it.”

“As far as I know. I don’t know much more about our country than your master does. Less, perhaps.”

“Well, Sir Able, I’m blind. You wonder why I fought ’em? Why we all did? I can’t ever forgive it. Never. I wish I could, only I can’t.”

“Once I dreamed of returning here with an army and driving them out,” I told him. “I doubt that I ever will.”

“So the thing is, Sir Able...” He groped for me, and I gave him my hand.

“The thing is, how’m I going to eat when we get south? I know the conjuring trade and can still do it some. You see how I worked them coins?”

“No,” I said. “I watched you closely, but I did not.”

“Only I can’t live like that no more. If I was to take their gold boy and run...” He laughed bitterly. “How far’d I get, you think?”

Mani murmured, “You told us you could hide. I do that at times myself.”

“You got eyes. A man that can’t see can’t keep out of sight. If I was to try now, you’d laugh.” Vil’s face had never turned from mine. He seemed to collect himself, and said, “I got my new master, Sir Able. Only he wants to be a farmer like his pa. People like that, they don’t have enough to eat. That’s why I left to start with. What’re they goin’ to do with a slave that can’t see?”

“I would hope them too kind to drive him out,” I said.

“So I thought I might ask him to sell me while he’s still here.” Vil drew a deep breath. “The others, they went to Sir Svon, and he’s goin’ to is what I think. That’s Rowd, and Gif and Alca. He’ll let ’em go cheap and raise what he can. The women ain’t worth much, but Rowd ought to fetch a bit. Only there’s the girl and her mother, Sir Able.”

“Etela and Lady Lynnet? I don’t think you have to worry about Toug’s sellin’ them.”

“How it was at Master Logi’s, Sir Able, was a woman for each man. Gif for Rowd, you know, and Alca for Sceef. So Lynnet for me, it was supposed to be. Only she wasn’t right, Sir Able. Not right... Maybe I ought not say. Sometimes we did, you know? Only not often, and I never did feel right about it. But I tried to keep track of the girl. You won’t trust nothing I say. I know that and don’t blame you.”

“That depends on what it is, Truthful Vil.” Wearied by the hassock, which afforded no rest for my back, I climbed into the chair it served.

“I didn’t touch her, nor let anybody. You take my meaning? It was gettin’ worse as she got older. There’s them that’ll hump a pig. Maybe you think I’m jokin’.”

“No.”

“Makin’ monsters, for what’s born of such you wouldn’t like to meet, and they live sometimes. So there’s them that would’ve jumped her in a minute. I took care and kept her close, and spanked her, too, if she talked back or run off. Said I’d turn her into a doll to keep her close by. So she’s feared, Sir Able, like you said. Only I...”

“Love her.”

He coughed. “Yes, sir. And her mama too. Her mama’s a fine, fine woman. A high-class woman.”

“A noblewoman, the daughter of a baronet.”

“Is she, Sir Able? I didn’t know. You said I loved Etela, and you weren’t wrong neither. Only...”

“I understand. What do you want of me?”

“Help, Sir Able. That’s all. Etela, she’ll stay with Master Toug if she can. But her mama can’t look out for her nor for herself neither. I would if I could. But—but...”

“My owner is a kind and a chivalrous knight,” Mani said; there was a note in his voice I had not heard before.

“If I could work for you, Sir Able? After we get south, I mean. I wouldn’t ask no pay. Not a farthin’. Only that you’d help with Lynnet, and Etela too if she needs it.”

“Lady Lynnet may not want your help,” I told him.

“I know it, Sir Able. Only that’s not to say she don’t need it. She ain’t right. And many’s the time I’ve took care when she didn’t want me, and Etela the same. You ask her, and if you get truth out of her you’ll hear it.”

“No doubt.”

“Only she’ll cry. It’ll be a while, you know? Before she gets over that. Will you help me, sir? All right, I’m blind. But you ain’t, you can see these arms.” He flexed his muscles, which were impressive. “I’ll work hard. If you don’t think I’m working enough, you tell me, Master.”

Mani muttered, “Work hard and steal.”

“You tell that boy to swaller it, Master. Not from you, nor from Master Toug, nor any other friends you got I won’t.”

“All right,” I told him, “you may serve me in the south, provided we can find nothing better.”

He surprised me, not for the last time. Groping toward the sound of my voice, he found my feet, which reached the edge of the chair, and kissed them. Before I could recover, he was at the door. He turned, and where his empty eye sockets had been, there were two staring—in fact, glaring—eyes of bright blue. Then the door shut behind him.

“That was a trick,” Mani said.

“I know. I wish it hadn’t been.”

“Pouk’s was better.” Mani sprang from his windowsill to the floor, trotted over to my chair, and with an astonishing leap caught the upholstery of the seat and pulled himself up. “Pouk made them think he was blind when he wasn’t.”

“He was already blind in one eye,” I said. “He has been as long as I’ve known him. Was that what you wanted to talk about, Mani? The thing so private you wanted to speak last?”

“No.” He settled into my lap.

“If you’d rather not say it, or prefer to wait...”

“I’ve helped you. Haven’t I earned a few minutes?”

I agreed, and sat stroking him for some while. Gylf (who had gone to the stable) scratched at the door; Mani asked me not to admit him; I called to him through the door, asking him to look in on Toug.

“I ducked into that place with you,” Mani began.

“The Room of Lost Love? I know.”

“You went with the madwoman, but I wasn’t interested in whatever love she might have lost. I went looking for my own. That was a mistake.” I continued to stroke him and said nothing.

“Once I was a free spirit. Once I was a normal cat, not troubled by lies.” Mani spoke slowly, and as it seemed, mostly to himself. “The first is the finest of existences, the second the finest of lives. I have lost both.”

He looked up at me, and there was far too much sorrow in his forlorn black face for me to find it amusing.

Schildstarr sat the throne that had been Gilling’s as if he had been there all his life, and Thiazi stood beside him with his gold staff as if he had served Schildstarr’s father before him. It was one of the times when I could see that the Angrborn were foreign, not just to us but to everything; the Valfather was not foreign to us at all: he was ours, as we were his.