Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

"Simply put, Sparrow, there is no hope of returning you to your world unless we can perform a Great Summoning unhindered and there is no hope of that with the League growing in power."

Wiz’s face twisted. "Damn."

"Even non-magicians should not swear, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said sternly.

"Well, what am I supposed to do? You’ve just told me I’m nothing and I’ll always be nothing. I’m supposed to be happy about it?"

"I did not say you were nothing. I said you have nothing of magic about you. You have a life to live and can make of it what you will."

"Fine," Wiz said bitterly. "I don’t suppose you could use your magic to whip me up a VAX? Or even a crummy IBM PC?"

"I am afraid not, Sparrow. Besides, I do not think those things would work here."

Wiz leaned forward against the parapet and clasped his hands together. "So," he sighed. "What do I do now?"

"Survive," Bal-Simba said. "Live. That is the lot of most."

"That’s not very enticing," Wiz growled. "I can’t go home and there’s nothing for me here."

Bal-Simba followed his gaze down into the garden where Moira was kneeling among the plants.

"Things change, Sparrow. Things change."

"Not much to hope for, is it?"

"Men have lived on the hope of less," Bal-Simba rumbled. "Do you have courage, Sparrow? The courage to hope?"

Wiz turned to face him and smiled bitterly. "I can’t have much else, can I?"

They stood looking out over the battlements and to the forest beyond for a moment more.

"You can stay here for as long as you like," Bal-Simba said finally. "The Dark League still seeks you and it is not safe for you to wander abroad in the world."

"Thanks," Wiz mumbled. "I guess I can find some way to make myself useful."

"That will be your choice, Sparrow."

As he moved to go, Bal-Simba placed his left hand on Wiz’s shoulder and made an odd gesture in front of his eyes with his right. A thrill ran though Wiz’s body and he shivered involuntarily.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"A minor magic, Sparrow," the giant black wizard said. "It is for your own good, I assure you."

He left Wiz staring out over the forest and descended the stairs.

After Bal-Simba left, Wiz looked down at the flagged courtyard spread out below.

It’s a long way, he thought. It would take, what?, five, six seconds to fall that far.

That was one out, anyway. Short and relatively painless. He could just swing a leg over and solve everyone’s problems in an eyeblink. Moira could go back to her village, Shiara and Ugo would have peace again and him, well, he wouldn’t care any more.

He drew back from the edge. No dammit! I’ll be damned if I’ll let this beat me like that! Besides, he thought wryly, with my luck I’d probably just cripple myself. Oh, to hell with it! He went back to staring out at the forest.

Moira met Bal-Simba in the great hall.

"Forgive me, Lord. I do not mean to pry into what is not my affair, but what did you find out about Sparrow?"

Bal-Simba shrugged. "As we suspected Lady. He has no magic and none of the Council can imagine what use he might be to us."

Moira closed her eyes and sighed. "I had hoped…"

"So had we all, Lady," Bal-Simba rumbled. "But do you care so much for him?"

"Care for him?" Moira blazed. "I can’t stand him! Lord, he is not competent to weed a garden! He can barely be trusted within these walls by himself and he needs a keeper if he goes abroad."

"You should not be so hard on him," Bal-Simba said. "He cannot help it that he is as he is. Would you fare better in his world?"

"You are right, Lord," Moira sighed. "But it is so terribly hard when he is making eyes at me constantly. And when I look at him I’m reminded of what he cost us. He cost us so much and he is worth so little."

"Do not presume to judge his worth," Bal-Simba rumbled. "True worth is often hidden, even from the Mighty."

"I know, but… Oh, Lord, let me return to the Fringe and my people," she pleaded. "They need me and Shiara can look after him."

Bal-Simba shook his head. "Your people are looked after, little one. As for letting you go—do you so relish the trip back across the Wild Wood and through the Fringe alone?"

Moira thrust out her chin. "I did it before, and with him in tow."

The black wizard shook his head. "And you made it only by luck and the grace of an elf duke. I do not think Aelric would be so accommodating a second time and you used more than your share of luck getting here."

"You mean I’m trapped here?"

"For a time, little one. When the League’s interest has died somewhat more, we can bring both of you back to the Capital by the Wizard’s Way. From there you may go as you will. In the meantime, try to be kind to our lost Sparrow."

Moira sighed. "I will try, Lord. But it is not easy."

"Very little in life is," the wizard said.

Wiz stood at the top of Heart’s Ease and looked west over the Wild Wood. The sun was going down and already the shadows had stretched across the clearing below. The swallows swooped and wheeled over the keep and Wiz heard the whoosh of their passage more often than he saw one flit by.

"Is it a beautiful sunset, Sparrow?" asked a soft voice behind him. Wiz turned and saw Shiara standing by the door.

Wiz swallowed his misery. "Yes Lady, it is a very pretty sunset."

Shiara moved unerringly to the parapet. "Describe it for me if you would."

"Well, there are a lot of clouds and they’re all red and orange. The sun’s almost down on the horizon, but it’s still too bright to look at directly. The sunlight’s only on the very tops of the trees, so they’re bright green and everything else is a real dark green."

They stood together in silence for a bit.

"Before—before I used to love to watch the sunset," Shiara said.

"I never had much time for sunsets," Wiz told her. "I was always too busy."

"Too busy for the sun?" Shiara’s face clouded slightly. "Too busy for the sun, Sparrow?"

Wiz sighed. "Yeh. Too busy for the sun and a lot of other things. There was always so much to do, so much to learn." He grinned wryly. "You may not believe this, but computer programming really is a discipline. You have to work and study and slave over it to be any good. I did and I was good. One of the best."

"These things sound like hard taskmasters."

"Sure, sometimes. But it was rewarding too. There were always new things to discover and new ways to apply what you knew. Someone was always coming up with a new hack or a user would find some kind of obscure bug—ah, problem."

"And you devoted your life to this. To the exclusion of everything else?"

"Yeah, I guess I did. Oh, I had friends. I was even engaged to be married once. But mostly it was computers. From when I was fourteen years old and my school got its first time-sharing terminal." He smiled. "I used to spend hours with that thing, trying to make it do stuff the designers never thought of."

"This girl you were promised to, what happened?"

Wiz shrugged. "We broke up. She had kind of a bad temper and I think she resented the time I spent with the machines."

"I’m sorry."

"Hey, don’t be. She married someone else and the last I heard they were happy together."

"I meant for you."

Wiz shrugged again. "Don’t be," he repeated. "I wouldn’t have been a very good husband and I had the computers." He turned to face her, away from the forest and the setting sun.

"You know the worst thing about this business? It’s not being jerked out of my own world and plopped down here. It’s not being chased by a bunch of monsters out of the Brothers Grimm’s nightmares. It’s that there are no computers. It’s that I’ll never again be able to do the thing I spent all my life learning to do. The thing I love most doesn’t exist here at all. I can’t have it ever again."