Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

How far to Aelfrice? No one asks, for all who know Aelfrice, even by repute, know that no man has found the league that will measure the way. How far to summer, sir? How many steps? How far to the dream my mother had?

The trees grew great and greater, until those of the wood we had left behind us in Mythgarthr seemed shrubs. The fog, which had been thinning, darkened from white to yellow. Gylf sniffed the air, and I did the same and said, “The sea.”

“Does it please you, Lord?” Uri grinned at me, and I recalled all the fires we had fed together, the flying horror she had been, and the moaning Aelfmaid who had trembled in the lush grass beside the durian tree, red as sunset and too weak to rise.

I found I was smiling. “It would if I weren’t needed in Mythgarthr. How much time has passed while I idled here in Aelfrice? A year?”

“Not an hour, Lord. You have only walked a few steps.”

“But I’ll walk many more before I find my friends.”

“Not at all. Would you see them? Come with me.”

She led us through trees where no path ran, and out upon a point of naked rock, with swirling fog to either side. I protested that I could see nothing, and Gylf backed away to shelter among the trees again.

“You will in a moment, Lord, when the fog lifts.” Uri linked her arm with mine, perhaps to assure me that I need not fear the height, and I found her no Aelfmaid but a human woman, slender and naked, with a floating mass of hair like a smoky fire. A shower pelted us with rain—and was gone.

The fog parted; through the rent, I glimpsed the stone-strewn beach below, the white-maned waves that pounded it with every beat of my heart, and beyond them (where the water was no longer clear or green, but deepest blue) the head and shoulders, claws and wings, of a snow-white dragon greater than Grengarm. There are no words for the way I felt; if I were to say here that my heart sunk, or that I felt I had been gutted like a deer, what would that mean to you? Nor would it be true, since I felt far worse. Cold sweat ran down my face, and I leaned on my sword, fearful my knees would not support me. Uri spoke, but I did not reply Nor can I recall what she said—her voice was lovely, but the singing of a bird would have conveyed as much or more.

The fog closed, and the white dragon was lost to view.

“Bad! Bad! Bad!” That was Gylf, barking from the shelter of the trees.

“Your master will not think so,” Uri told him. “He has built his fame on the slaying of these creatures. Think of the joy in the Golden Hall!” Her arm held mine more tightly. “I had not meant you to see Kulili so, Lord. And yet—”

“You’re glad I did, so you can bear witness to my fear and shame.” I tried to turn to go, but she grappled my arm, and upon that narrow outcrop I did not wish to oppose her.

“Not glad. Amused. Kulili has defied armies.”

“You would frighten me more, if you could.”

“You are my lord.” She turned to look me in the face; and her own held beauty beyond that of mortal women, though her eyes were yellow fire. “If you fear her you will not fight her, and if you do not fight her you will live. I have bantered with you often, Lord.”

“Too often.” I watched the swirling fog, fearful that it would part again. If I had seen the white dragon when it did, I might have thrown Uri from the precipice and fled.

“As you say. I am not bantering now. A second death for you, here, may mean oblivion. Do you think to ascend beyond your Valfather?” I shook my head.

“Nor will you, Lord, if you die again—here or in Mythgarthr—you may perish utterly. This I hold is that part of the Able who was which survived.”

“Sir Able,” I told her.

“You demean yourself!”

I watched the fog in silence.

“Garvaon and Svon are knights. ‘Sir Garvaon,’ they say, and ‘Sir Svon,’ and bask in your reflected glory.”

“As those who come after us will bask in ours.”

“You’re going to fight Kulili anyway, aren’t you? You’re going to fight her alone and perish from the world.”

I did not speak; but in my mind Gawain knelt again, baring his neck.

“Did you see Garsecg and the rest?”

“No,” I said.

“The Isle of Glas?”

That surprised me. I confessed that I had not, but only the white dragon. Nothing more.

“Then we must stay. Garsecg and some Sea Aelf wait on the beach, but we must remain until you see the isle, so you will know that Garsecg’s words are true.”

“He is a demon out of Muspel,” I said.

“He was your friend, and would be your friend again if you would permit it.”

“Baki wanted me to come here and kill him.”

“I have seen, Lord, that you will not.”

I did not believe then, and do not believe now, that Uri had power over the fog, which had been thinning as we spoke. Whether or not she possessed such power, the fog cleared a little. The white dragon had vanished beneath the waves. Far off I beheld the Tower of Glas, and its top (which had been lost in cloud when I had seen it in Garsecg’s company) was just visible where it rose into Mythgarthr. At the sight I understood as never before that the land we walk on there, and the sea we sail on there, are in sober fact the heaven of Aelfrice. I saw the Isle, the tops of a few trees, and its beach. Five tiny figures waited there; and though they were so small, I knew that they were Vil, Toug, Etela, Lynnet, and another. One waved to me.

Perhaps I should write here of our descent of the cliffs to the beach below. I will not, because I recall so little. Disiri, Gawain, and Berthold swam through my mind, with the Valfather and many another, one of them a boy who had lain in the grass of the Downs and seen a hundred strange things in clouds, a flying castle among them.

Garsecg greeted us, in form a venerable man of the Sea Aelf, as I had first seen him and seen him most often. He embraced me as a father,and I him. “They have slandered me to you,” he said, “and I dared not come to you. You would have slain me.”

I swore that I would not.

“Uri and Baki told you I was Setr, and you believed it.”

“They are your slaves,” I said, “though they pretend to be mine. How could I not believe it?”

Another man of the Aelf (as it appeared) came near. “If he denied it, would you credit him?” His eyes were endless night, his tongue a flame.

“If he is Setr,” I said, “Setr is not as I was told.”

Garsecg nodded. “I am Setr. Let us leave these others, and sit alone for a moment. I will explain everything.”

We left them, walking a hundred paces or so along the beach. When we had seated ourselves upon stones, I whistled Gylf to me.

“It would be better,” Garsecg said, “if we were two.”

“Setr cannot fear a dog.”

He shrugged. “Setr fears interruption, as all do who must unravel complexities. It was I who taught you of the strength of the sea. Do you acknowledge that?”

“I do. I have never denied it.”

“Not even to the Valfather?”

“Least of all to him.” I wished then, and mightily, that he stood at my side. Not because I longed for his spear, but because I longed for his wisdom, which surpasses that of all other men.

“You have said you are my friend, Sir Able, and those words I will treasure always.” Garsecg fell silent, staring out to sea, where mist mingled with white spume. “Let me unravel what has occurred here. There is much that is wrong, and I am to blame for much of it. I had plans. They went awry. Such things, I hope, do not befall you.”

“Only too often they do.” My eyes had followed his, and I was looking at the Tower of Glas; it seemed far indeed, and I could no longer see the isle at its summit. “I am of Muspel. So was Grengarm, whom you slew.” I waited.