Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

For three days and three nights the wind howled and the snow fell. The inhabitants warmed themselves with the wood Wiz had cut and amused themselves as they might in the pale grayish daylight that penetrated through the clouds and snow. They went to bed early and stayed abed late, for there was little else to do.

Then on the fourth day the storm was gone. They awoke to find the air still and the sky a brilliant Kodachrome blue. Awakened by the bright light through the cracks in the shutters, Wiz jumped out of bed, ran to the window and threw the shutters wide.

Below everything was white. The snow sparkled in the mild winter’s sun. Tree branches bore their load of white. Down in the courtyard of the keep, the outbuildings were shapeless mounds buried under the snowdrifts. The whole world looked clean and bright and new that morning from Wiz’s window.

After a quick breakfast Wiz and Moira went outside.

"It appears no damage was done," Moira said as she looked over the buildings in the compound. "The roofs all seem to be secure and the snow does not lie too heavily on them." Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy with the cold, almost hiding her freckles. "We will have to shovel paths, of course."

"Yeah, and make snowmen," Wiz said, sucking the cold crisp air deep into his lungs and exhaling in a huge cloud.

Moira turned to him. "What is a snowman?"

"You’ve never made a snowman?" Wiz asked in astonishment. "Hey, I’m a California boy, but even I know how to do that. Here, I’ll show you."

Under Wiz’s instruction, they rolled the snow into three large balls and stacked them carefully. There was no coal, so stones had to serve as eyes and buttons, while Moira procured a carrot from the kitchen to act as the nose.

"What does he do?" Moira asked when they finished building him.

"Do?" said Wiz blankly.

"Yes."

"It doesn’t do anything. It’s just fun to make."

"Oh," said Moira, somewhat disappointed. "I thought perhaps it came to life or something."

"That’s not usually part of the game," Wiz told her remembering Frosty the Snowman . "It’s something done only for enjoyment."

"I suppose I ought to do more things just for enjoyment," Moira sighed. "But there was never time, you see." She looked over at Wiz and smiled shyly. "Thank you for showing me how to make a snowman."

"My pleasure," Wiz told her. Suddenly life was very, very good.

He spent most of the rest of the day helping Ugo shovel paths through the drifts to reach the outbuildings. For part of the afternoon he cut firewood to replace the quantities that had been burned during the blizzard. But with that done, they were at loose ends again. The snow was still too deep to do much outside work and most of the inside work was completed. So Wiz suggested a walk in the woods to Moira.

"If it’s not too dangerous, I mean."

"It should not be. The storm probably affected all kinds of beings equally." She smiled. "So yes, Wiz, I would like to walk in the woods."

They had to push through waist-high drifts to reach the gate, but once in the Wild Wood the going was easier. The trees had caught and held much of the snow, so there was only a few inches on the ground in the forest.

Although the weak winter’s sun was bright in the sky it was really too cold for walking. But it was too beautiful to go back. The snow from the storm lay fresh and white and fluffy all around them. Here and there icicles glittered like diamonds on the bare branches of the trees. Occasionally they would find a line of tracks like hieroglyphics traced across the whiteness where some bird or animal had made its way through the new snow.

"We had a song about walking in a winter wonderland," Wiz told Moira as they crunched their way along.

"It is a lovely phrase," Moira said. "Did they have storms like this in your world?"

"In some places worse," Wiz grinned. "But it never snowed in the place where I lived. People used to move there to get away from the snow."

Moira looked around the clean whiteness and cathedral stillness of the Wild Wood. "I’m not sure I’d want to be away from snow forever," she said.

"I had a friend who moved out from—well, from a place where it snowed a lot and I asked him if he moved because he didn’t like snow. You know what he told me? I like snow just fine, he said, it’s the slush I can’t stand."

Moira chuckled, a wonderful bell-like sound. "There is that," she said.

They had come into a clearing where the sun played brighter on the new snow. Wiz moved to a stump in the center and wiped the cap of snow off with the sleeve of his tunic.

"Would my lady care to sit?" he asked, bowing low.

Moira returned the bow with a curtsey and sat on the cleared stump. "You have your moments, Sparrow," she said, unconsciously echoing the words she had said to Shiara on their arrival at the castle.

"I try, Lady," Wiz said lightly.

Sitting there with her cheeks rosy from the cold and her hair hanging free she was beautiful, Wiz thought. So achingly beautiful. I haven’t felt this way about her since I first came to Heart’s Ease.

"But not as hard as you used to." She smiled. "I like you the better for that."

Wiz shrugged.

"Tell me, where do you go when you disappear all day?"

"I didn’t think you’d noticed," he said, embarrassed.

"There have been one or two times when I have gone looking for you and you have been nowhere to be found."

"Well, it’s kind of a secret."

"Oh? A tryst with a wood nymph perhaps?" she said archly.

"Nothing like that. I’ve been working on a project." He took a deep breath. It’s now or never, I guess.

"Actually I’ve been working out some theories I have on magic. You see …"

Moira’s mouth fell open. "Magic? You’ve been practicing magic ?"

"No, not really. I’ve been developing a spell-writing language, like those computer languages I told you about."

"But you promised!" Moira said, aghast.

"Yes, but I’ve got it pretty well worked out now. Look," he said, "I’ll show you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jay’s feather he had used in his experiment. "I’ll use a spell to make this feather rise."

"I want nothing to do with this!"

"Just hold up a minute will you? I know I can make this work. I’ve been doing it in secret for weeks."

"Weeks?" Moira screeched. "Fortuna! Haven’t you listened to anything you’ve been told since you got here?"

"I’m telling you it works and I’ve been doing it for a long time," Wiz said heatedly. "You haven’t seen any ill effects have you? In fact you didn’t even know I was working magic until I told you."

Moira let out an exasperated sigh. "Listen. It is possible, just possible, that you have been able to do parlor tricks without hurting anything. But that doesn’t make you a magician! The first time you try something bigger there’s going to be trouble."

"I tell you I can control it."

"Those words are carved on many an apprentice’s tomb."

"All right. Here, give me your shawl."

"No. I’m going to tell Shiara."

"Moira, please."

Dubiously, Moira got off the stump and unwound the roughly woven square of cloth she wore around her neck under her cloak.

The shawl was bigger than anything Wiz had ever worked with, but he set it down on the stump confidently. Mentally he ran over the rising spell, making a couple of quick changes to adapt it for a heavier object. He muttered the alterations quickly and then thrust his hands upward dramatically.

"Rise!" he commanded.

The edges of the shawl rippled and stirred as a puff of air blew out from under the fabric. Then the cloth billowed and surged taut as the air pressure grew. Then the shawl leaped into the air borne on a stiff breeze rising from the stump. The wind began to gently ruffle Wiz’s hair as the air around the stump pushed in to replace what was forced aloft by the spell.