Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

There were too many unanswered questions, and in the silence they were ganging up on him. He peered into the kitchen again, and saw a second door. He went to it, tapped and called softly,

“Cassie?” There was no reply. He turned the knob and pushed it open.

A black wind was blowing past it, its whistle rising and falling in pitch. All beyond the door was dark, with a total darkness deeper than any he had ever glimpsed before. He stared out into it, petrified and fascinated. He felt neither cold nor warm in the wind that passed him, but neutrally at peace.

Breathing took a little more effort, but somehow he didn’t really mind that. His lungs pumped deep and steady, and he finally saw, infinitely far in the darkness, a pinprick of light. He gripped the edges of the doorjamb and leaned out, trying to see it better. It reminded him of the snowflakes in front of the streetlamp. There was that feeling again, of journeying rapidly to a place so far away that despite one’s dizzying speed, one might never get there. Or was the pinprick of light actually getting smaller? He leaned further out.

She gripped him, not by the collar of his shirt, but by the back of his neck. Her hand was cold and strong, her nails sharp. He felt himself drawn firmly back from the pinhole of light, pulled back into light and kitchen fragrances and warmth on his skin. She jerked the door shut as soon as he was completely within it. Then she turned to him, shaking her head.

“Is there any kind of trouble you don’t get into?” she asked with some asperity.

“I was looking for you. What was that?”

Cassie shrugged. “The part of the Seattle we’re in has gaps like that. No one understands them, but we all know they’re dangerous. If we open a door or a window and there’s nothing there, we shut it. That’s all.”

“I know,‘ he said, and then stopped suddenly.

“That’s right. And I know that you know, too. You probably really knew it before you even turned the knob. So back to question one. Is there any kind of trouble you don’t get into?”

He felt suddenly foggy again, lost and confused as he had felt for so many days—or was it weeks? “I was only looking for you,” he said, trying not to make it sound like an apology.

She looked disappointed. “You’re going to fight it all the way, aren’t you? I can tell you there’s no going back, but you aren’t going to believe me. Look, Wizard. Nothing is going to get any easier until you start accepting things, and being who you are now. It’s natural to be a bit confused at first, when your potential starts making you aware of it. Hiding from it and denying it won’t make it go away; it will only make it take longer for you to reach your capacity, and possibly cause you a lot of pain in the process.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand what the hell is going on at all. Who are you, anyway, and why did you bring me here?”

She shook her head and turned away from him. He trailed behind her into the living room. She dropped onto one corner of the couch and sat looking up at him. He started to sit down on the other end, but then retreated to the far side of the room, to lean on a mantelpiece and return her stare. He felt he had scored a small victory when she finally gave a sigh and then spoke.

“We’ll do it one more time. I’m Cassie- And you are Wizard, And I went out tonight, through a hell of a lot of dangers that you refuse to recognize, and dragged you back here in the hopes that you’d live long enough to be worth something. It could be so simple, if you’d only let it. Just relax, man, and be yourself. The city will take care of you. And you take care of the city- That’s all Seattle wants of you. That’s all any of us want from you. Why are you being so damn stubborn?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Frankly, lady, I think you are almost as crazy as I think I am.”

“How crazy is that?”

“I don’t know!” he roared, exasperated with the conversation.

“Is Acre anything you do know?”

“I don’t know!” The screech tore his throat. A rush of fear engulfed him, followed by the adrenalin strength that knotted his muscles and made him capable of anything. He took two steps toward her, knowing he could spindle that fragile body, smash the delicate skull that housed the pulpy gray brain, put an end to her and to her questions and statements that made no sense.

She looked up at him, eyes wide with curiosity, not fear. A twitch was jumping in his cheek and there was the sound of roaring wind in his ears. “Harness that, and you’d have something,” she said at last.

Her voice wrapped itself around his chafed nerves, soothed and calmed him. As quickly as his anger had risen, it drained from him. “Can’t you start at the beginning, and go slowly?” he found himself asking.

“There are no beginnings,” she said, almost sadly. “It happened the same way to all of us. Perhaps that’s the only universal thing about it. You wake up the day after, and know that nothing will ever be the same. Some hear voices, and some are suddenly aware of the total silence of the world. Some of us are filled with awesome purpose, and some of us are emptied of ambition and opened to time. I can tell you a story, if you like. That was one of the things given to me. Sometimes they help. Listen. Once upon a time there was a young girl who lived in a crude hut on the edge of a great forest. Her parents were dead, and though she was not quite old enough to live by herself, she was too old for anyone in the village to feel they had to take her in. So she lived alone. She made a marginal living with her small flock of chickens and the herb garden that she tended. Her mother had possessed a gift for herbs, so the girl had plants there that were quite rare, with virtues unknown to many more learned folk. So not only the folk of the village cams to her for herbs and spices, but also me Great Folk that could afford to travel afield for such luxuries.

“One day a great company of the folk, with some of the men dressed in rich robes, and some dressed in shining metal, and the women clad in rich dresses that near trailed the ground, even from the backs of their horses, rode past. They were talking and Jesting among themselves, and three minstrels were singing, so that they made a fine noise and dust as they passed the little hut. None noticed the little maid in her garden, until at the very end of the company there came an old man, dressed in robe and mantle of blue. His hair and beard were as gray as sword metal, but he carried no such weapon. He stopped at the gate and sat his horse, looking down at her, while the rest of the Great Folk followed the King’s Road into the forest. He was so quiet that at first she didn’t even notice him. When he spoke, she started, and nearly uprooted the tiny plant she was weeding around. ‘So you’ve been chosen, and I see you’ll do very well indeed,’ he said. He came down from his tall horse and entered the maid’s garden and life. No harm did he offer her, but taught her much of herbs and all that grows, things beyond the teachings of any other mortal. Rules he gave her that she recognized as her own. ‘You can offer,’ he told her, ‘but not with words, and until what you offer is accepted, you cannot give it. You must tend the plants wherever they may grow, and what you must ask of others is the most they can give. You can take all, except for the things you desire most, and those you must not touch until they are given freely.’ These were the sort of things he taught her. For five years and a day he stayed with her. and neither of them ever regretted a day.

Then one day they both knew that he had to go, for there were portentous events brewing, and a place in them for him. And so he left her, and never again was she the same person.“