George Martin - The Way of the Wizard

The wizard didn’t say anything.

“Onion is braver than you are,” Halsa told the door. “Essa is braver. My mother was—”

She swallowed and said, “She was braver than you. Stop ignoring me. What good are you, up here? You won’t talk to me, and you won’t help the town of Perfil, and Onion’s going to be very disappointed when he realizes that all you do is skulk around in your room, waiting for someone to bring you breakfast. If you like waiting so much, then you can wait as long as you like. I’m not going to bring you any food or any water or anything that I find in the swamp. If you want anything, you can magic it. Or you can come get it yourself. Or you can turn me into a toad.”

She waited to see if the wizard would turn her into a toad. “All right,” she said at last. “Well, goodbye then.” She went back down the stairs.

The wizards of Perfil are lazy and useless. They hate to climb stairs and they never listen when you talk. They don’t answer questions because their ears are full of beetles and wax and their faces are wrinkled and hideous. Marsh fairies live deep in the wrinkles of the faces of the wizards of Perfil and the marsh fairies ride around in the bottomless canyons of the wrinkles on saddle-broken fleas who grow fat grazing on magical, wizardly blood. The wizards of Perfil spend all night scratching their flea bites and sleep all day. I’d rather be a scullery maid than a servant of the invisible, doddering, nearly blind, flea-bitten, mildewy, clammy-fingered, conceited marsh-wizards of Perfil.

Halsa checked Onion, to make sure that he was still asleep. Then she went and found Essa. “Will you pierce my ears for me?” she said.

Essa shrugged. “It will hurt,” she said.

“Good,” said Halsa. So Essa boiled water and put her needle in it. Then she pierced Halsa’s ears. It did hurt, and Halsa was glad. She put on Onion’s mother’s earrings, and then she helped Essa and the others dig latrines for the townspeople of Perfil.

Tolcet came back before sunset. There were half a dozen women and their children with him.

“Where are the others?” Essa said.

Tolcet said, “Some don’t believe me. They don’t trust wizardly folk. There are some that want to stay and defend the town. Others are striking out on foot for Qual, along the tracks.”

“Where is the army now?” Burd said.

“Close,” Halsa said. Tolcet nodded.

The women from the town had brought food and bedding. They seemed subdued and anxious and it was hard to tell whether it was the approaching army or the wizards of Perfil that scared them most. The women stared at the ground. They didn’t look up at the towers. If they caught their children looking up, they scolded them in low voices.

“Don’t be silly,” Halsa said crossly to a woman whose child had been digging a hole near a tumbled tower. The woman shook him until he cried and cried and wouldn’t stop. What was she thinking? That wizards liked to eat mucky children who dug holes? “The wizards are lazy and unsociable and harmless. They keep to themselves and don’t bother anyone.”

The woman only stared at Halsa, and Halsa realized that she was as afraid of Halsa as she was of the wizards of Perfil. Halsa was amazed. Was she that terrible? Mik and Bonti and Onion had always been afraid of her, but they’d had good reason to be. And she’d changed. She was as mild and meek as butter now.

Tolcet, who was helping with dinner, snorted as if he’d caught her thought. The woman grabbed up her child and rushed away, as if Halsa might open her mouth again and eat them both.

“Halsa, look.” It was Onion, awake and so filthy that you could smell him from two yards away. They would need to burn his clothes. Joy poured through Halsa, because Onion had come to find her and because he was here and because he was alive. He’d come out of Halsa’s tower, where he’d gotten her cubby bed grimy and smelly, how wonderful to think of it, and he was pointing east, towards the town of Perfil. There was a red glow hanging over the marsh, as if the sun were rising instead of setting. Everyone was silent, looking east as if they might be able to see what was happening in Perfil. Presently the wind carried an ashy, desolate smoke over the marsh. “The war has come to Perfil,” a woman said.

“Which army is it?” another woman said, as if the first woman might know.

“Does it matter?” said the first woman. “They’re all the same. My eldest went off to join the King’s army and my youngest joined the General Balder’s men. They’ve set fire to plenty of towns, and killed other mothers’ sons and maybe one day they’ll kill each other, and never think of me. What difference does it make to the town that’s being attacked, to know what army is attacking them? Does it matter to a cow who kills her?”

“They’ll follow us,” someone else said in a resigned voice. “They’ll find us here and they’ll kill us all!”

“They won’t,” Tolcet said. He spoke loudly. His voice was calm and reassuring. “They won’t follow you and they won’t find you here. Be brave for your children. All will be well.”

“Oh, please,” Halsa said, under her breath. She stood and glared up at the towers of the wizards of Perfil, her hands on her hips. But as usual, the wizards of Perfil were up to nothing. They didn’t strike her dead for glaring. They didn’t stand at their windows to look out over the marshes to see the town of Perfil and how it was burning while they only stood and watched. Perhaps they were already asleep in their beds, dreaming about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She went and helped Burd and Essa and the others make up beds for the refugees from Perfil. Onion cut up wild onions for the stew pot. He was going to have to have a bath soon, Halsa thought. Clearly he needed someone like Halsa to tell him what to do.

None of the servants of the wizards of Perfil slept. There was too much work to do. The latrines weren’t finished. A child wandered off into the marshes and had to be found before it drowned or met a dragon. A little girl fell into the well, and had to be hauled up.

Before the sun came up again, more refugees from the town of Perfil arrived. They came into the camp in groups of twos or threes, until there were almost a hundred townspeople in the wizards’ meadow. Some of the newcomers were wounded or badly burned or deep in shock. Essa and Tolcet took charge. There were compresses to apply, clothes that had already been cut up for bandages, hot drinks that smelled bitter and medicinal and not particularly magical. People went rushing around, trying to discover news of family members or friends who had stayed behind. Young children who had been asleep woke up and began to cry.

“They put the mayor and his wife to the sword,” a man was saying.

“They’ll march on the king’s city next,” an old woman said. “But our army will stop them.”

“It was our army — I saw the butcher’s boy and Philpot’s middle son. They said that we’d been trading with the enemies of our country. The king sent them. It was to teach us a lesson. They burned down the market church and they hung the pastor from the bell tower.”

There was a girl lying on the ground who looked Mik and Bonti’s age. Her face was gray. Tolcet touched her stomach lightly and she emitted a thin, high scream, not a human noise at all, Onion thought. The marshes were so noisy with magic that he couldn’t hear what she was thinking, and he was glad.

“What happened?” Tolcet said to the man who’d carried her into the camp.

“She fell,” the man said. “She was trampled underfoot.”

Onion watched the girl, breathing slowly and steadily, as if he could somehow breathe for her. Halsa watched Onion. Then: “That’s enough,” she said. “Come on, Onion.”