Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

Wiz looked slightly green. "Patrius? The old man back there?"

Moira cast her eyes skyward. "Yes, Patrius. Now come on!"

But Wiz made no move. "I’m sorry," he gasped. "I can’t. Go on without me. I’ll be all right."

Moira glared down at him, hands on hips. "You’ll be dead before nightfall."

"I’ll be all right." Wiz insisted. "Just go on."

Moira softened slightly. He was a nuisance, but he was a human being and as near helpless as made no difference.

"Very well," she said, sitting down. "We rest."

Wiz leaned forward and sank his head between his knees. Moira ignored him and stared back the way they had come.

"That old man," Wiz said at last. "What killed him?"

"Magic," Moira said over her shoulder.

"No really, what killed him?"

"I told you, a spell."

Wiz eyed her. "You really believe that, don’t you? I mean it’s not just a phrase. You mean real magic."

Moira twisted to face Wiz. "Of course I mean magic. What did you think? A bolt of lightning just happened to strike him while he was Summoning you?"

"You’re telling me there really is magic?"

Moira looked annoyed. "How do you think you got here?"

"Oh," said Wiz. "Yeah. Well look, this magic. Can it get me home?"

"Patrius might have been able to do that, but I cannot," she said angrily. She got to her feet. "Now come along. If you have breath enough to talk you have breath enough to walk."

By paths and game trails they pushed on through the forest. Twice more they stopped to rest when Wiz would no further. Both times Moira fidgeted so impatiently that Wiz cut the stop short, barely getting his breath back. There were a thousand questions he wanted to ask, but Moira sternly forbade him to talk while they walked.

Once she stopped so suddenly that Wiz nearly trod on her skirt. She stared intently at a patch of woods before them. Besides a ring of bright orange mushrooms beside the trail, Wiz saw nothing unusual.

"This way," she whispered, grasping his arm and tugging him off the path. Carefully and on tiptoe, she led him well around that bit of forest, striking the trail again on the other side.

"What was the detour about?" Wiz asked at their next rest stop when he had breath enough to talk.

"The little folk danced there on last night to honor the Mid-Summer’s Day. It is unchancy to go near such a place in the best of times and it would be very foolish to do so today."

"Oh come on! You mean you believe in fairies too?"

"I believe in what I see, Sparrow. I have seen those of Faerie."

"But dammit…" Moira cut him off with an imperious gesture.

"Do NOT curse, Sparrow. We do not need what that might attract."

That made sense, Wiz admitted. If magic really worked and there was the burned husk of a man lying under the sod back behind them to suggest that it did then curses might work too. Come to that, if magic worked there was nothing so odd about fairies dancing in the moonlight. He shook his head.

"Why do you call me Sparrow?" he asked, feeling for safer ground.

"Because Bal-Simba called you so. You needed a name to use before the World."

"I’ve got a name," Wiz protested.

"Bal-Simba told you never to speak your true name to anyone," Moira told him. "So we needed something to call you."

"My friends just call me Wiz."

"I will call you Sparrow," Moira said firmly. "Now come along."

Again she set off in an effortless stride. Wiz came huffing along behind, glumly admiring the swing of her hips and the easy sway of her body. He was used to being treated with contempt by beautiful women, but he had never been this taken with a woman and that made it hurt worse than usual.

One thing you have to say about my luck, he thought. It’s consistent.

Finally they topped a small rise and Wiz could see a road through the trees ahead. Off to the left he could hear the sound of running water. Moira crouched behind a bush and pulled Wiz roughly down beside her.

"This is the Forest Highway," Moira whispered. "It leads over the Blackstone Brook and on into the Wild Wood."

"Where we’re going?" said Wiz, enjoying Moira’s closeness and the smell of her hair. Instinctively he moved closer, but the hedge witch drew away.

"Yes, but not by the road. I am to meet someone here. You wait in the woods. Do not make a sound and do not show yourself." She pulled back and continued down the trail, leaving Wiz with the memory of her closeness.

In spite of its grandiose title, the Forest Highway was a weedgrown lane with the trees pressing in on either side. The Blackstone Brook was perhaps ten yards wide and ran swift, deep and dark as its name under a rough log bridge.

As Moira predicted, there was a man waiting under the trees by the roadside. He was tall, lean, long-faced and as brown as the rough homespun of his tunic and breeches. When Moira stepped out of the trees he touched his forehead respectfully.

"I brought the things, Lady."

"Thank you, Alber," Moira replied kindly.

"Lady, is it true you are leaving us?"

"For a time, Alber. A short time, I hope."

"We will miss you," he said sadly.

Moira smiled and embraced him. Watching from behind his bush Wiz felt a pang of jealousy. "Oh, and I will miss you all as well. You have been like a family to me, the whole village." Then she smiled again. "But another will be along soon to take my place."

"It will not be the same, Lady," he said dejectedly. He turned and gestured to the small pile of objects under a bush by the roadside.

"The messenger said two packs. And two cloaks."

"Correct, Alber." Moira did not volunteer and he did not ask.

Quickly she began to sort through the items, checking them and re-stowing them into the packs.

"Shall I wait, Lady?"

"No." She smiled up at him. "Thank you again." The hedge witch made a sign with her right hand, first two fingers extended. "Go with my blessing. May your way home be short and safe and the journey uneventful."

"May you be safe as well, Lady." With that Alber turned and started down the road.

As soon as he had disappeared around a bend, Moira motioned Wiz out of hiding.

"A brave man," Moira said as she tied the drawstring on one of the packs and set it aside.

"Why?" asked Wiz, nettled. "For bringing us this stuff?"

"Don’t sneer, Sparrow," she said sharply. "This ’stuff’ will sustain us on our journey. Alber was willing to chance Mid-Summer’s Day to see that we will eat and be warm in the Wild Wood."

"Nice of him. But brave?"

Moira finished loading the second pack and shook her head. "Sparrow, how did you survive so long?"

"I survived just fine up until this morning," Wiz retorted. "So what about Mid-Summer’s Day?"

Moira sighed in exasperation. "Mid-Summer’s Day is the longest day of the year. All magics associated with the sun and fire are at their most potent this day and magics of green and growing things are unusually potent as well.

"It is a day of power, Sparrow, and not a day for mortals to be about."

"We’re out."

"Not by choice, Sparrow," Moira said grimly. "Now come." She slung a large leather pouch over her shoulder and shrugged one of the packs onto her back. Then she stood and watched as Wiz struggled into the other one. As soon as he was loaded, they started off across the bridge.

Well behind them, Alber stuck to the relative safety of the road. Thus he was easily seen by a soaring raven gyring and wheeling over the green and leafy land.

Alber saw the raven as it glided low over the road. He made a warding sign, for ravens are notoriously birds of ill omen, and hurried on his way.

Above him the raven cocked his glossy black head and considered. Like most of his kind he knew enough to count one and two and one person travelling alone was not what his master searched for. There were two, and the bird’s keen eyes could see no sign of anyone else on the road.