Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons

He had no idea how many roosted in his room at night. The idiot things struggled against his rescue, hopping out of his reach as the gray ceiling pressed ever closer.

At last he had them all. His cloak was a heavy sling over his arm, his bird-stuffed hat tossed in as well. The cooing, rustling, struggling load dragged beside him, snagging on the old flooring- He could feel heat on his bare legs. The air in the room was warming up, the temperature rising every second.

He would have to crawl for the hall door and down the corridor and try to find a way to escape.

Outside his room in the foreign corridor, he kicked the door shut behind him. He came cautiously to his knees. But the smoke was thick here as well, stinging his eyes and choking him. He dropped again and resumed his frantic crawl. He didn’t know this part of the building. He had never explored it other than to determine that it and the stones above him were unoccupied. Now he regretted his lack of curiosity- The loose fabric of the robe dragged and tangled around his knees, snagging against the floor. The sling full of pigeons occupied one arm completely. But at last he reached a door and felt cautiously up the wood for the knob. The cold brass refused to turn.

Locked. He banged his fist against the solid wood panels.

Good, sturdy, old-fashioned door. No exit this way.

He coughed heavily and could draw in no clean air to calm his lungs. To breathe now was to choke. His belly scraped the floor as he wriggled along with his cooing, rustling load- His eyes were running tears, and even if there had been light he would have been blind. The smoke smelled acrid and poisonous; he wondered what was smoldering. The basic structure of the building was brick, but the interior, with its hardwood floors and fine old paneling, would bum merrily. His groping fingers encountered another doorframe. He was so horribly tired. If only he could lie still for a moment and catch his breath. One cool breath of air and he knew he could keep going. His leaden fingers walked up the door panels. His wandering hand finally encountered the knob. He rattled it, but it did not turn. Locked., But above it he felt the smoothness of a pane of glass. This room had been an office of some sort once.

He dropped back to the floor and sucked in a long breath of the marginally cooler air. His lungs tried to cough it out, but he held it- down as he reared up, a fold of the cloak looped over his free arm. The glass was thick, frosted stuff, but two blows of his elbow shattered it. He thrust his arm into the opening to turn the knob from the other side. The hot air of the corridor was flowing past him into the cooler room like smoke seeking a chimney.

He staggered into the room and stumbled into heaped boxes piled nearly ceiling high. He pushed toward where the windows must be, wriggling between towers of boxes and over lower stacks. He began dragging boxes away from the wall of them that blocked his way. Behind him, he heard the boom as his room ignited and me laughing roar of the fire as it rushed down the comdor after him. He threw boxes awkwardly, one arm still encumbered by the sling of pigeons. If he dropped them, he could… He choked, and then the pane before him was reflecting the orange of flames in the hall behind him. He didn’t bother with the window catch. His elbow took out the glass and then he was struggling out the snaggle-toothed opening into the blessed cold of the night air. The sirens began. The fire department was only a few blocks away. They’d be here almost instantly, with the police right behind them. The iron railings of the fire escape were icy against his hand as he rushed down two flights, his sling of pigeons thumping against him as he fled. The next set of stairs was only a half set. He halted, some nine feet in the air above the Great Winds Kite Shop.

The bright kite was still tethered to me platform of the fire escape. Its gay streamers tangled around him as he made his leap. His stockinged feet met the cement too solidly, jolting him to the very base of his skull, but he could not have rolled without crushing his pigeons. The sirens weren’t more than half a block away, screaming and wailing. He took a tighter grip on his sling of pigeons, hiked up his robes and ran. his bare legs flashing in the night. His socks became soaked ai once, so that he splotted with every step. The lighted expanse of Occidental Square offered him no hiding place, but at least it led away from the firemen and police.

He looked back over his shoulder at orange and yellow flames shooting out the upper-story windows of the Washington Shoe Manufacturing Company building. The whole thing would be gutted. All his fault. On his next stride, the cold iron lamppost leaped out of the darkness before his fire-blinded eyes.

Cold iron smacked his left temple and thumped his ribs. He fell into a windy darkness full of the whirring of wings.

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, will you please quit crying!”

Wizard yelped like a kicked dog as the book bounced off his shoulder and skidded across the Indian prayer rug on the floor. He raised astounded eyes to Cassie. silenced by the sheer shock of her outburst. As she retrieved her book, he rubbed at his stiff face and wet eyes and took a deeper breath. His head felt less foggy, but he was still more than half-stoned. He knew there was nothing more unpleasant to be around than a drunk on a crying jag, but he was too confused to be ashamed- Cassie sagged back into her overstuffed chair and regarded him as if he were a wet dog in a freshly made bed.

They were in the library, a pleasantly dark room with bookshelves growing up to an unseen ceiling and fat furniture crouching on thick rugs. Floor lamps cast their puddles of yellow light near the chairs. It was a cozy room, if you ignored the cobwebs and the rustling of mice in the comers- Cassie did. So did Rasputin, who sat flat in a corner, swaying softly in his eternal dance as he teased Ninja with a string. They were ignoring Wizard, too. Or had been.

Euripides had left hours ago, right after he helped Rasputin drag Wizard up the endless stairs. After they had dumped him in the middle of the floor, he had looked at Wizard sadly shaking his head. “I don’t think it was entirely his fault ”

Euripides had begun cautiously, but the looks Cassie and Rasputin gave him silenced the defense. Euripides had tossed a shrug at Cassie and left. Wizard wished he had stayed No one had spoken a word to him since then, though he vividly recalled Rasputin shaking him violently just before they dragged him in. “Acting like you the last wizard in the world, and the only one going to get hurt by your crap. You dumb shit fuck-head!”

“I know, I know!” Wizard had wailed, and that was when he had begun to cry. He hadn’t wanted to, had been ashamed of it, but he was too drunk, stoned, and disoriented to do anything else. That was when Rasputin had slammed him up against the wall, not hard enough to really hurt him, but forcefully enough to let him know that he could just as easily have put Wizard through the wall. Only Euripides’s hand on the black wizard’s arm had stopped me demonstration. Euripides was the only one who had shown any sympathy at all for Wizard’s plight. Fresh tears stung his eyes at the thought, but Cassie’s glare dried them

She set her cup of tea down on the lamp stand by her chair and rose to cross the room to him. She towered over him, a sturdy woman in her thirties dressed in jeans and a faded cotton shirt. “Get up!” she ordered him sternly.

He sniffed and dragged himself to his feet. “You are a mess,” she observed without rancor. He bowed his head. The robe was torn from (he jagged window glass and bloody where he had cut his elbow on (he second window glass. Pigeon droppings streaked the fold of cloak where he had carried them, and he stank of smoke. When he rubbed his face again and looked at his hands, he saw stains of damp soot. “What happened to you?” she demanded, and he knew she was not asking about the fire.