Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

But the worst thing of all was that there were no computers. Because of the magical changes that let him speak the local language, Wiz couldn’t even write out programs. He took to running over algorithms mentally, or sitting and sorting piles of things algorithmatically. At night his dreams of Moira alternated with dreams of working at a keyboard again and watching the glowing golden lines of ASCII characters march across the screen.

One morning Moira found him sitting at the table in the hall practicing with broomstraws.

"What are you doing, Sparrow?" she asked, eyeing the row of different length straws on the table before him.

"I’m working a variation on the shell sort."

"Those aren’t shells," Moira pointed out.

"No, the algorithm—the method—was named for the man who invented it. His name was Shell."

"Is this magic?" she demanded.

"No. It’s just a procedure for sorting things. You see, you set up two empty piles…"

"How can piles be empty?"

"Well, actually you establish storage space for two empty piles. then you…"

"Wait a minute. Why don’t you just put things in order?"

"This is a way of putting them in order."

"You don’t need two piles to lay out straws in order."

"No, look. Suppose you needed to tell someone to lay out straws in order."

"Then I would just tell them to lay them out in order. I don’t need two piles for that either."

"Yeah, but suppose the person didn’t know how to order something."

"Sparrow, I don’t think anyone is that stupid."

"Well, just suppose, okay?"

She sighed. "All right, I am working with someone who is very stupid. Now what?"

"Well, you want a method, a recipe, that you can give this person that will let them sort things no matter how many there are to be sorted. It should be simple, fast and infallible.

"Now suppose the person who is going to be doing the sorting can compare straws and say that one is longer than another one, okay?"

"Hold on," Moira cut in. "You want to do this as quickly as possible, correct?"

"Right."

"And your very-stupid person can tell when one straw is longer than another one, correct?"

"Right."

"Then why not just lay the straws down on the table one by one and put them in the right order as you do so? Look at the straws and put each one in its proper place."

"Because you can’t always do that," Wiz said a little desperately. "You can only compare one pair of straws at a time."

"That’s stupid! You can see all the straws on the table can’t you?"

"You just don’t understand," Wiz said despairingly.

"You’re right," the red-headed witch agreed. "I don’t understand why a grown man would waste his time on this foolishness. Or why you would want to sort straws at all." With that she turned away and went about her business.

"It’s not foolishness," Wiz said to her back. "It’s . . ." Oh hell, maybe it is foolishness here. He slumped back in the chair. After all, what good is an algorithm without a computer to execute it on?

But dammit, these people were so damn literal-minded! It wasn’t that Moira didn’t understand the algorithm—although that was a big part of it, he admitted. To Moira the method was just a way to sort straws. She didn’t seem to generalize, to see the universality of the technique.

Come to that, most of the people here didn’t generalize the way he did. They didn’t think mathematically and they almost never went looking for underlying common factors or processes. This is what it must have been like back in the Middle Ages, before the rise of mathematics revolutionized Western thought.

Well, he thought, looking around the great hall with its fireplace and tapestries, this isn’t exactly Cupertino. This is the Middle Ages, pretty much.

So here I am, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Full of all kinds of modern knowledge. And that and a quarter—or whatever they use here for quarters—will get me a cup of coffee—or whatever they drink here for coffee.

If he had been a civil engineer or something he could have put his knowledge to use. He might at least have shown people how to build better bridges or catapults or whatever. But he wasn’t even a hardware type. Strictly software. And the only thing his knowledge was good for was sorting straws.

With a disgusted motion Wiz swept the half-sorted straws onto the floor. He dragged the heavy carved chair from the table to a place by the window and sat with his feet propped on the window ledge staring out.

Back home he could look out over the freeway and housetops to rolling golden hills marked with dark slashes where clumps of oaks and eucalyptus grew. Here all he could see was trees and off in the distance mountains covered with more trees. He missed that combination of open vistas and people close by. He even missed the rivers of automobiles that poured down the freeway.

He did a quick calculation and realized they were coming down to the wire on the project at work. Probably cursing him for disappearing at a critical point. I wonder who they got to replace me? The thought of a stranger working at his terminal, rearranging his carefully piled stacks of printouts made him ache. He got up and started to pace the length of the hall.

He had left half a box of fried chicken in his desk drawer, he remembered. Will they find that before it starts to stink up the office? And what about my apartment? The rent should be due by now. The bills will be piling up in the mailbox. How do they handle stuff like that when someone disappears? Wiz didn’t have a cat because the apartment didn’t allow pets. For the first time he was glad of it. At least there was no one who was really dependent on me.

Ugo came in with a load of wood for the evening’s fire. As he dropped it by the fireplace, he saw the chair against the window.

"You move?" he demanded.

"Yes."

He scowled and pointed at the chair. "Do not move things. It would confuse the Lady." He shifted it back to its place by the table.

"I’m sorry," Wiz said contritely.

"Do not move things," the goblin said sternly and continued on his way.

"Damn!" Wiz said to the empty air.

"Do not curse, Sparrow."

Wiz turned and saw Moira had come back into the hall.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, just a little homesick."

"I am sorry, Sparrow. I, too, wish to go home."

"At least you can get there from here," he said sullenly.

Moira compressed her lips. "Not while the Mighty bid me here to watch over you."

"You don’t do much watching. The only time I see you is at meals."

"Oh? Do you feel the need for a nursemaid, Sparrow?"

"I’m in love with you. I want to be close to you. Is that so hard to understand?"

Moira dropped her eyes. "That was none of my doing."

"All right, you don’t love me," Wiz said bitterly. "Then take this damn spell off me!"

"Do not use language like that." Moira said sharply.

"Sorry," Wiz snapped, "but that’s what it is."

The red-headed witch sighed. "Sparrow, if I had my way you never would have been bound to me in the first place. If it were in my power to remove the spell I would do so in an instant. But I cannot.

" I did not put the spell on you, Patrius did. It is not an infatuation spell I know and I do not have the faintest idea how to release you. Bal-Simba or one of the other Mighty could perhaps remove it. When Bal-Simba comes here I will ask him to take the spell off. More, I will beg him to take it off."

She softened. "I am sorry, Sparrow, but that is the best that I can do."

"Great," Wiz said. "In the meantime I’ve got a case of terminal puppy love combined with the moby hots for you. I’ve got to live under the same roof with you and have nothing to do with you. Da… darnit, before this happened you weren’t even my type! I like willowy brunettes."