Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

" backslash,"he shouted.

The lines of magical force twisted and shimmered.

Wiz froze with his arm extended and his mouth open.

Pryddian shrank back, his face white.

Wiz dropped his arms. " cancel."

"I’m sorry," he mumbled. I didn’t mean to…"

Pryddian gathered himself and beat a hasty retreat.

Wiz became aware that a dozen people were watching him from doors along the corridor. His face burning, he turned and fled.

Wiz had little less than an hour to contemplate the enormity of what he had almost done before Bal-Simba came calling. The giant black wizard was obviously not in a good mood.

"I must ask you this and I compel you to answer me truthfully," he said as soon as he had closed the door. "Did you threaten to use magic on Pryddian?"

"Yes, Lord," Wiz said miserably.

"And he did not threaten you first?"

"Well, he got in my face."

"But he offered you no threat?"

"No, Lord."

Bal-Simba looked as if he would explode.

"Lord, with the problems with the project and Moira gone and then him… Lord, I am sorry."

Bal-Simba scowled like a thundercloud. "No doubt you are. But that would not have saved Pryddian if you had followed through with your intent. Magic is much too powerful to be loosed in anger. You above all others should know that."

"Yes, Lord. But he has been riding me for days."

"Is that an excuse?" Bal-Simba asked sharply. "Do you hold power so lightly that you will loose magic on any person who annoys you? If so, which of us are safe from you?"

"No, Lord," Wiz mumbled, "it isn’t an excuse."

The huge wizard relaxed slightly. "Pryddian’s behavior has not gone unnoticed. He will be dealt with. The question is what to do with you."

He looked at Wiz speculatively until Wiz fidgeted under his gaze.

"It would be best if you were to absent yourself a while," Bal-Simba said finally. "I believe matters can be smoothed over but it will be easier to do if you are not here."

"Yes, Lord," said Wiz miserably.

"In fact, this would accomplish two things," he said absently. "I have received a request from the village of Leafmarsh Meadow. They have asked for one of the Mighty to assist them. That is sufficient reason for you to be gone, I think.

"Also, we have many reports that this new magic of yours is already at work on the Fringe of the Wild Wood."

"That would be ddt, the magic protection spell I hacked up," Wiz told him.

"The reports of the hedge witches and other wizards are somewhat confusing. I want to see what is going on through your eyes."

"Yes, Lord. Uh, what about Moira?"

"I am sure she is safe. If she returns while you are gone, I will tell her where you are.

"I will send a journeyman wizard with you. You will leave tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, it would be best if you were to stay out of sight." He looked down at Wiz. "And take something for that hangover."

This close to the Capital, the woods were carefully tended tree lots rather than the raw forest of the Wild Wood. But the trees still shut out prying eyes and the relative isolation made prying magic easy to sense. That was the important thing.

Ebrion made his way to the middle of the grove. He looked around cautiously, extended his magical senses for any hint of watcher and then extended his arm, finger pointing south.

As if on cue, a tiny bird flickered through the trees and landed on his outstretched finger. To the eye it was an ordinary wren, speckled brown on brown. A magician would have sensed instantly that it was no ordinary bird, but part of the reason for meeting in the woods was to keep the bird away from other magicians.

The bird cocked its head to one side and regarded the wizard with a beady eye.

The Sparrow has left the Capital, Ebrion thought at the bird. He is to be gone perhaps four days and then he will return along the Wizard’s Way. Be ready for him.

He paused and then continued.

One thing more. Your attempts to arrange an accident for the Sparrow have been discovered. I told you I would not have him harmed. Persist and our bargain is broken.

The wren took wing and flashed through the trees. The wizard waited until it rose above the treetops and turned straight south. Then he nodded and started back to the Capital.

Wiz’s travelling companion was a wizard named Philomen, a slender young man with an aristocratic bearing and a reserved manner. Wiz had met him briefly, but he didn’t know him and he couldn’t remember seeing him in any of his classes.

As was custom, they did not walk the Wizard’s Way straight into the village. Instead they arrived on a hill where the road topped the rise to look down at Leafmarsh Meadow. From here the village looked neat and peaceful, spread out along the road that ran to the Leafmarsh Brook and crossed to run deeper into the fringe. This side of the river was a neat pattern of fields and pastureland. The Fringe started on the other side of the water and there the land was mostly forest, although Wiz noted a number of fields, obviously freshly hacked in the ancient woodland.

Towering over the village was a hill of naked gray granite. It seemed to be a single enormous boulder, placed as if a careless giant had dropped it next to the river. Even to Wiz’s relatively untrained senses there was something about the huge rock that hinted of magic.

"This will be my first real trip out of the Capital in almost a year," Wiz said in an effort to make conversation as they started down the hill toward the village.

"Indeed?" Philomen said. "You will find much changed, I think."

Wiz didn’t have any good answer to that, so they walked along in a silence for a bit.

"Do you have any idea why they wanted help from the Council?"

"None, Lord. If they did not tell one of the Mighty, do you think they would tell one barely raised from apprentice?"

"No, I guess not," Wiz said. "Well, we’ll know soon enough. That’s the hedge witch’s cottage there."

The place was on the outskirts of the village, a single-story house of whitewashed wattle and daub with thatched roof. The whitewash needed renewing and the thatch was turning black in spots. It was surrounded by a rather weedy garden and all enclosed by a ramshackle fence. The cottage wasn’t exactly run down, Wiz decided, but it looked very much like the owner had other things on her mind than the condition of her property.

They came up the flagstone pathway to the door and Philomen rapped sharply upon it with his staff.

"Keep your britches on, I’m coming," came a cracked voice from inside. Then the door was flung open in their faces.

"What the…" She stopped dead when she saw her visitors in wizard’s cloaks with staffs in their hands. She blinked once and her whole manner changed.

"Merry met, Lords," she said, bobbing a curtsey. "I am Alaina, hedge witch of this place."

She was older than Moira, but how much Wiz couldn’t tell because people aged so fast here on the Fringe. Her hair was gray and a greasy wisp had escaped the bun on the back of her head. She was shaped like a sack of potatoes. Her skin was coarse and her teeth, what were left of them, were yellow. From this distance it was obvious she hadn’t bathed recently.

On the whole, she didn’t look much worse than the average middle-aged peasant woman, but to Wiz the contrast with the hedge witch he knew best was striking.