Rick Cook: The Wizardry Quested

"Who is Calvin?"

"He designed genes," Wiz said absently, "and he gave you the heavy-duty kind." Moira did what she usually did when she didn’t understand her husband, which was to change the subject.

"You’re a fine one to talk about duty. All a dragon has to do is show up and make some threats and you go off with him and we don’t hear from you for weeks."

"That was different," Wiz said with some dignity- hoping reverently Moira wouldn’t ask him how it was different. She settled for cocking a coppery eyebrow and fastening the cloak at her throat.

Then, seeing his expression, Moira reached out and took his hand. "Please, Wiz." Wiz hesitated and then relented. "As long as it’s safe."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Oh, we’ll be fine," she told him. "You worry too much."

Far and far away, in a place below the earth, a thing considered.

It was enough. It had found what it needed. Now there was only the harvest. Danny and Wiz stood at a window and watched the group cross the courtyard and pass out the castle gate.

"I guess they’re right," Wiz said, as much for his own reassurance as Danny’s.

"It’s perfectly safe." He sighed. "I wonder if I’m getting paranoid in my old age."

"I know I’m paranoid," Danny said grimly. "I just don’t know if I’m paranoid enough."

The fair was very different in the afternoon than it had been that morning. Intermittent clouds hid the sun and the air that had been crisp and invigorating in the morning was now chill and damp. Even the mud seemed deeper.

All of which could have been her imagination, Moira admitted, but there were other changes which clearly were not.

The crowds of gawkers were gone, leaving only the fair workers, merchants and here and there a knot of guardsmen, armed and alert. There was less shouting and no laughter as people struggled to get their goods unloaded and their tents up. None of which mattered to the children. Ian and Caitlin went whooping and shouting among the booths, avoiding most of the uninteresting mud puddles and seeming to be everywhere at once. Fluffy trotted along with them, head high like a show dog in the ring. Shauna puffed along behind, calling out admonishments and generally trying to keep them under control. June floated along near Ian, close and silent as always.

It would have been a perfectly normal scene, Moira thought, if June didn’t keep one hand always on her knife.

She dug Jerry in the ribs with her elbow. "Smile," she commanded out of the side of her mouth. Then, putting on her best beauty-pageant smile, she and Jerry began to stroll among the booths.

Moira paused frequently to admire goods on display or to chat with someone she knew. Jerry contented himself with smiling until his jaw ached and responding to any pleasantries directed to him.

Ian and Caitlin were disappointed at the pace, especially since June and Shauna would not let them get too far ahead of the others. Still they managed to find all sorts of interesting things to look at and interesting questions to ask. They even cajoled a chestnut vendor into blowing up his fire to roast some nuts for them.

They had gone perhaps halfway down the main aisle when Shamus, the captain of the castle’s guards, separated himself from a knot of his men and came over to greet them.

"A pleasure to see you, My Lady," he said loudly as he smiled and bowed. His eyes never stopped moving.

Moira nodded to the guard captain. "Good afternoon, Shamus," she said equally loudly. "Oh, I would not have missed it."

The guardsman took her hand as if to loss it and used that as an excuse to move closer.

"Thanks for coming," he muttered. "The whole place is nervous as a bunch of half-wild dragons. Want an escort?"

Moira dimpled as if she had been paid a compliment "It would ruin the effect," she said without moving her lips.

Shamus bowed as if taking his leave. "Need anything just sing out." With that he turned and strolled away as if he had not a care in the world. Moira noticed his sword was loose in its sheath.

What with one thing and another it took them the better part of two hours to tour the fairgrounds. Moira stopped and chatted with everyone she knew even casually and Jerry thought he’d never get his jaw unclenched. Even when Fluffy knocked over a pile of baskets with a careless twitch of his tail, Moira managed to turn the gaffe into a social triumph, getting down on her knees to help the stall owner gather up her spilled merchandise and talking gaily all the while. By the time the group turned back toward the castle the mood in the fairgrounds had lightened perceptibly. Ian had fallen asleep on Shauna’s shoulder with Fluffy’s leash still clutched tight in his fist. Caitlin was chattering away, but she was content to walk alongside her mother instead of scampering everywhere.

The older members of the party were doing no better.

"My feet hurt," Jerry said as they picked their way up the muddy main aisle back toward the town gate.

Moira smiled at him. "It was in a good cause, My Lord. Thank you for coming." Something in the way she said it made Jerry look at her more closely. "You’re really wiped, aren’t you?"

A vagrant breeze drew a lock of coppery hair over the hedge witch’s cheek, emphasizing the paleness of her skin. "I am rather tired, but very content." She sighed.

"You’d better rest up tonight if you want to be in shape for the ceremony tomorrow."

The breeze turned suddenly chilly and Moira shivered and drew her green wool cloak closer around her. "I will," she promised. "Just now nothing sounds so good as a hot bath and a warm bed."

"Momma, I’m cold." Caitlin pressed herself closer to Shauna.

"That’s what you get for not wearing so much as a cloak, like I told you to." Then she hugged her daughter close against the cold wind. "Never you mind. We’ll be home soon enough."

Jerry shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. "I wish I’d brought something heavier. This wind’s picking up."

Even Fluffy seemed to notice the wind. The dragon lowered his neck and turned his head to shelter from the full force behind Shauna’s bulk. Ian stirred and whimpered on Shauna’s shoulder.

Moira looked at the tents beginning to flap against their ropes and squinted her eyes against the sting of wind-borne dirt. "Perhaps we had better rest a few minutes inside the city gate," she said. "I think I need to sit down." Jerry raised his voice to be heard over the wind. "We’re only halfway there. Want to rest in one of the pavilions?"

"Let us go on. It is only a few hundred paces."

They had reached the spot in the center of the fairgrounds where the main ways crossed. Here the aisles widened out into an impromptu square and the wind tore at them as they stepped out of the relative shelter of the narrower ways. It tore and howled at them, kicking up dirt and debris until they could hardly see the far side of the square. The wind moaned through the tent ropes and made the canvas boom until it sounded like a chorus of lost souls. Jerry put his head down and pushed forward against the wind, clutching Moira’s arm to help her along.

He felt Moira stiffen and slow in spite of his efforts to help her along.

"Jerry:" she began, and he looked up.

There were things in the wind. At first Jerry thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but they seemed to grow darker and more solid as he watched. Then they were black clouds within a lighter cloud, indistinct forms that grew and writhed as they moved toward him.