Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

"But it doesn’t seem to settle anything," Moira said despairingly. "We argue and nothing gets any better."

"Now that is another matter," Shiara said.

Shiara turned her sightless eyes to her guest. "I do not know that I am the person to advise you. I had little experience in such matters."

"You and Cormac were as famous for your love as for your deeds." She saw the look that crossed Shiara’s face. "I’m sorry, Lady, I did not mean to pain you."

"Little enough pain in remembering the times you were happy, child." She shook herself.

"Since you want my advice," she went on practically, "the first thing I suggest is that you start with yourself."

"I have done all I can, Lady."

"Forgive me, that is not quite what I meant. From what you say, it sounds as if you have submerged yourself in the Sparrow and his work. You have told me much of him and his problems, but near nothing about you and what you do. It seems that as Wiz has risen in the World you have come down."

"It is no small thing to be the wife of a member of the Council of the North and the mightiest wizard in the land," Moira said.

"Aye, but that is reflected glory. What do you do yourself?" Shiara asked gently.

Moira stiffened.

"It is no small thing to be hedge witch of a village and have everyone look up to you," Shiara went on. "You are someone in your own right and you do important work. At the Capital you have no such work and your place is less clear, is it not?"

"There is something in that," she admitted grudgingly.

"One of the reasons Cormac and I were so in love was that we both had important work. Neither of us was identified by what the other did."

Moira considered that. "So you are saying I should change?"

"It is easier and more certain to change yourself than to change another person."

"And Wiz?"

"He must change too, in his own way." Shiara frowned. "This may not work. You cannot do all the changing, nor will he change simply because you nag at him. You must both strive, and hard, to succeed."

"I will try, Lady. I think he will also. But he is so weighted down with his work it will be difficult."

"It sounds as if the Sparrow is trying to take all the weight of the world upon his shoulders," Shiara said. "Like a certain hedge witch I once knew."

Moira blushed.

"But Lady, there are none in the World who can help him and he has forbidden us to Summon another from his world."

"Then you must give him the help he needs," Shiara told her.

"But how, Lady? I have no talent at all for this new magic."

"You are resourceful. You will find a way, I think. But that is not the worst of it, is it?"

"No," Moira sighed. "He gets lost in his work and it is as if his soul were stolen away. His body is there, but Wiz is gone."

"Then finally, you will have to train him to stop ignoring you. You must make him take time away from his work to spend with you."

"But how do I do that?"

"Seduction is one way," Shiara said judiciously. "More commonly, you simply must tell him when you feel slighted."

Moira sniffed. "I would think that anyone would recognize the signs."

Shiara sighed. "Anyone but a man."

Wiz sleepwalked through the whole day. He couldn’t concentrate, he couldn’t work and he knew his teaching was worse than usual. Even Malus noticed and approached him diffidently to ask what was wrong.

Bal-Simba hinted delicately that he was available if Wiz wanted to talk, but Wiz wasn’t in the mood. He liked the giant black wizard as much as he respected him, but for the first time since coming to the Capital it was borne on him that he really had no close friends here. He thought about Jerry Andrews, his old cubicle mate, and some of the other people he had known in Silicon Valley and missed them for the first time in months.

He broke off in mid-afternoon and raced back to the apartment, his mind full of all the things he wanted to say to Moira. But there was no one there when he arrived.

Wiz sat down heavily at his desk and tried to work. After shuffling things around for half an hour or so, he gave up even the pretense.

Then he moped about the apartment, trying to think and take his mind off things at the same time. With no stereo, television or movies, it was hard to kill time, he discovered. There weren’t even any books to read except a couple of grimores he had borrowed from the wizard’s library.

And they don’t have much of a plot, he thought sourly.

Finally he opened the sideboard and poured himself a large cup of mead from the small cask Moira kept there. Moira preferred the mead of the villages to the wines of the Capital and she liked to have a cup after supper. Wiz hadn’t eaten yet, but it looked to be about supper time to him.

Normally he didn’t care for mead, finding its sweetness cloying. But tonight it wasn’t half bad. He had a second cup and that wasn’t bad at all. The mead didn’t exactly make his thinking clearer, but it did seem to narrow down the problem and focus him on the major outlines.

"Priorities," he said, hoisting his third cup to the dragon demon sitting atop his books. "I’ve got to start setting priorities." He drained the cup in a single long draught and went to the cask to refill it again.

"Moira’s priority one," he said waving the cup in the general direction of the demon. "I’ve gotta get Moira back." He slopped a little mead from the cup and giggled. "Screw the wizards, scroo’m all. Moira’s what’s important."

He poured half the contents of the cup down his throat in a single swallow.

"Then the compiler. Never mind the Council. They’re not important anyway. I finish the compiler and where’s the Council, hey? Poof. All gone. Don’t need them no more."

It took him a while, but sometime early in the morning he finished the cask of mead.

Well , he thought muzzily as he staggered into the bedroom, it’s one way to pass the time.

The morning was death with birdsong.

Wiz’s head was pounding, his eyeballs felt like they had been sandpapered and his mouth felt as if something small and furry had crawled in there and died.

Now I understand why they invented television, he thought as he splashed cold water on his face and neck. No hangover.

There was no food in the apartment and the only things to drink were water and a bottle of mead. The thought of the mead nearly made Wiz lose his stomach and the water wasn’t very satisfying.

Somewhere in the back of his head, buried under several layers of pain, he remembered that the wizards had a spell that cured hangovers. He needed that more than he needed anything else right now, except Moira. Afterwards he could get breakfast in the refectory with the inhabitants of the castle who chose not to cook for themselves.

He groped his way toward the Wizards’ Day Room where he expected to find someone who could put him out of his misery.

Naturally the first person he met was Pryddian.

The ex-apprentice took in Wiz’s condition in a single glance. "A good day to you, My Lord," he said, much too loudly.

Wiz mumbled a greeting and tried to step by the man.

"What is the matter this morning, Sparrow?" Pryddian boomed, moving in front of him again. "Suffering from an empty nest?"

"Leave me alone, will you?" Wiz mumbled.

Pryddian was almost shouting now. "Poor Sparrow, his magic fails him this morning. All his mighty spells cannot even cure a simple hangover." Again Wiz tried to move around him and again the man blocked his way.

"You need the help of a real wizard, Sparrow. Maybe he could make you a love philtre while he’s at it, eh? Something to keep your wife home at nights."

Suddenly it was all too much.

Wiz whirled on his tormentor. Pryddian caught his look and stepped back, hands up as if warding off a blow.