A Wizard In Peace Read online

  "Their Guardian computer will probably be willing to give them teaching materials," Dirk said, beginning to be fascinated in spite of his native caution.

  "Exactly! Though we'll have to teach them something about hand-to-hand combat, and strategy and tactics, too-these magistrates seem to have to be minor generals. But when they've learned, we can send each one out to replace a real magistrate who's been reassigned."

  "Yes, and some of them might even work their way up through the bureaucracy!" Dirk's eyes lit with enthusiasm. "But what of the genuine magistrates who were on their way to take up those posts?" Miles objected. The idea was too vast, too audacious for him.

  "The real replacements can be easily waylaid and held captive in Voyagend," Gar told him. "I have a notion I can persuade them that a more liberal government would be in their best interests--especially if they saw the chance to return to their favorite wives and stay with them, and visit their other children."

  "Can magistrates really care so much for wives and children?" Ciletha wondered.

  "Once they're allowed to stay with them? Sure!" Dirk said. "Don't underestimate the paternal instinct."

  "But if these false magistrates of yours come to power, they'll command the bailiffs and the watchmen!" Miles exclaimed. "If they become reeves, they'll command armies!"

  "Yes," Gar said, "and once they have command, they can recruit and train agents who can talk the soldiers into believing in human rights!"

  "What are `rights'?" Ciletha asked, caught between excitement and bewilderment.

  "The idea that there are some things that are right for all people to do or try to do, simply because they're born human," Gar explained. "Everyone has a right to stay alive, or to try to; everyone has the right to be free to run his own life, unless he tries to take that right away from other people-tries to murder or rape them, or steal what they've spent a lifetime saving, or so on."

  "Even the right to choose her own mate?" Ciletha asked with sudden hope.

  "Definitely that! In this country, that needs -to be written down as a separate law!"

  "Throttle your rockets, Space Ranger," Dirk said, suddenly wary. "The Protector reassigns those magistrates on a five-year rotation schedule. Do you really want to spend the next sixty months of your life on this planet? Remember, before you answer, that there are people starving on other worlds while they're waiting for you."

  "No one's waiting for me," Gar scoffed, then suddenly turned sad for an instant before he swept Dirk's objections aside with a broad arm. "If these people can learn to become agents, they can learn how to run a whole network of cells! They can do the day-to-day administration on their own. We'll come back in five years; to oversee the overthrow!"

  "Overthrow!" Ciletha gasped. "Is it really necessary to overthrow the Protector?"

  Gar calmed amazingly, turning to her with a gentle smile. "Absolutely necessary, young woman. The Protector is a dictator ruling an entrenched bureaucracy, and neither will give up a jot of power if it can possibly help it. Indeed, both will fight to their very deaths to hold on to every bit of power they have."

  "But they have given us safety and kept us fed and housed!"

  "Yes." Miles nodded, seeing Ciletha's point. "Surely we can keep what's good in this government!"

  "Why, you can indeed," Gar said, looking at his guide with new respect. "You'll have to change the masters-the Protector and his reeves, at least, and maybe the magistrates and inspectors-general, too-but you can keep the actual machinery of running the country, the `bureaucracy' as we call it. It's so entrenched that you probably couldn't eliminate it, anyway-the local village mayor would ask the city mayor what he should do, and the city mayor would ask the county's governor, and so forth."

  "So why not keep calling them magistrates and reeves? But you can choose who they'll be," Dirk said earnestly. "Everyone gets to say who they want for the post, and the person who gets the most voices, gets the job, too."

  "You would choose the Protector in similar fashion," Gar added, "though you shouldn't call him `Protector'; he might develop ideas about seizing power. No, call him `president' or `premier' or `prime minister' or `First Citizen' or some such, and give him only the power to carry out whatever policy the reeves decide on, when they're all gathered together."

  Dirk nodded. "When they go home, though, each reeve has to answer to a gathering of all his magistrates, and each magistrate has to let the people of his town or village tell him what they want him to do."

  "Is it possible?" Ciletha breathed.

  "It is! I can feel it! It is!" Miles squeezed her hand.

  "But why `him' and `he'?" Ciletha asked, frowning. "Why might not women be magistrates?"

  Miles turned to stare at her, stunned by the outrageousness of the idea.

  "No reason at all," Dirk said promptly, "except that the people have been ruled by men so long that it will take them a generation or two to get used to the idea. By the time you're fifty, though, you should be able to run for office. Probably won't be elected, but your daughter might be."

  Ciletha gave him a wistful smile. "If I ever have a daughter."

  "You must!" Miles declared, and caught her hand, then suddenly turned grave. "It will be very dangerous, though. If the Protector's spies catch us before we overthrow him, we'll be tortured and executed."

  "It's not for the fainthearted," Dirk agreed. "Is it worth your life?"

  Ciletha and Miles looked at one another, hands clasped. Then both cried, "Yes!" together.

  That decided, they found a trail and followed it to a spot where a huge boulder thrust up amidst-the brush and trees, overgrown with lichens and vines. Miles noticed squared-off corners and decided it must be a stone left by the city's builders. Dirk hid him behind it, then climbed to a branch overhanging the trail. Gar stepped into the brush on the other side of the path and disappeared.

  "You won't hurt him, will you?" Ciletha said to Miles in a shaking whisper.

  Miles felt a stab of jealousy, but assured her, "No, lass, for your sake alone, I'd not hurt him. As to Dirk and Gar, they need him alive and well for their own reasons."

  "Could he truly become the first false magistrate?" Ciletha wondered.

  "Hist!" Miles laid a hand on her arm, tensing and looking back along the trail.

  The shouting had stopped abruptly when the mob came to the edge of the woods, but they were muttering to one another so loudly, and cracking so many twigs as they went, that there was no danger of missing them. They came into a patch of moonlight, ungainly, plump men, or ones so scrawny they seemed almost cadavers, oddly graceful in their finery. They crept past the boulder with loud shushing of one another and a veritable racket of crushed sticks and dried brush, Orgoru in their midst. Suddenly he stopped, frowning about him.

  "Go on, Orgoru!" hissed the Earl of March.

  "Pass me." Orgoru stared into the bushes, frowning. "I'll bring up the rear."

  "As you will," the earl grumbled, and went on, beckoning the men behind him to follow.

  Orgoru didn't, though. He stood frowning off into the brush, and Ciletha wondered what he had heard. Suddenly he came to himself, realizing that the mob had moved on down the trail. He turned to follow-and Gar stepped out of the underbrush, catching him with one arm across his chest, pinioning Orgoru's arm and clapping a pad of cloth over his mouth. Dirk leaped out to catch Orgoru's flailing free hand and press something small against the wrist. Orgoru tried to scream through the cloth, then went suddenly limp.

  Ciletha dashed from the underbrush. "Is he ... is he ... ?" "Asleep." Gar hoisted the unconscious Orgoru to his shoulder. "Only asleep, lass. Frightened, I'm sure, but not hurt one bit. We can't cure him here, though, where the others are sure to come back. Let's find a cave."

  They found one halfway around the city wall, where a dead pine had fallen against another huge leftover building-block. Dirk cut away inner dry branches with his sword, then cut fresh boughs from another tree to make a pallet. Gar laid Orgoru on it, and
Ciletha crowded close to see for herself that his color was good, and his chest rising and falling. She relaxed with a sigh of relief-Orgoru did indeed look as though he were asleep.

  "Watch if you wish, but don't talk." Gar sat down crosslegged beside Orgoru and closed his eyes.

  "He's not kidding about keeping quiet," Dirk said. "What he's going to do is very hard, and takes every ounce of concentration he can muster. If you don't want him to hurt Orgoru by accident, be absolutely quiet-and if you can't, go take a walk until Gar's done."

  "I shall be a very mouse," Ciletha promised.

  But the steadfastness of the gaze she fixed on Orgoru lanced Miles with jealousy. As quietly as he could, he crept out of the lean-to and went to walk in the night, trying to calm his heart and find peace for his soul. But he couldn't help glancing back-and saw Dirk standing by the boulder, watching for the mob. It struck Miles as a good idea, and an excellent excuse for staying away from Ciletha and Orgoru. He began to prowl about the lean-to, a self-appointed sentry.

  Little Orgoru tripped, stumbled into the table. His mother's only vase crashed to the floor. "What was that?" she cried, and came running. Orgoru flinched away from her, trying to make himself as small as possible, knowing the beating that was coming....

  But she only said, "Oh! My vase!" and seemed to wilt, as though all the spirit had gone out of her. She sat down heavily on the bench, threw her apron over her head, and began to cry.

  Orgoru stared, unable to believe his good fortune. This wasn't how he remembered it (but how could he remember something that hadn't even happened yet?). Surely she would beat him when she was done crying! But her sobs went on and on, tearing his heart, and he dared to creep closer, finally to touch her and stammer, "I-I'm sorry, Mama."

  Her hand reached out; he shied, but it only rested lightly on his head. "It's all right, all right, Orgoru," she said through her tears. "It was an accident, an accident. These things happen; vases break." Then she wailed into her apron, a whole new torrent of tears.

  Orgoru couldn't bear her grief. He clasped her hand with both of his own. "Don't cry, Mama. I'll make you a new one." He did, too, scooping the clay from the riverbank, molding it with his hands, and drying it in the sun. Something within him knew that it looked a fright, but he preened with the pride of accomplishment anyway, and his mother was delighted. "Oh, what a wonderful boy! How thoughtful of you! How pretty it is!" It must have been his intentions that pleased her, though, not the vase itself. He wondered why she never put a flower in it, but when he grew up, he realized that not having been -fired, the vase would have melted with the water. By that time, though, he had made a few pennies from odd jobs, and from pelts sold after hunting season, and had bought her a new vase anyway. But she packed the old one away for her memories.

  "You've done a good job with the mare's cabbage and thistles, Orgoru."

  Seven-year-old Orgoru lifted his hoe and looked back over the row of plants, feeling pride expand in his chest. "Thank you, Papa."

  "But you still have half the weeds left in that row." Orgoru stared in confusion. "Which ones, Papa?"

  "These, Orgoru." Papa's big hand parted broader leaves from narrow. "These are common grass, but the narrow ones are wheat. Chop the grass stems out."

  "All right, Papa!" Orgoru bent to his task, chopping the grass stems, eager to please his father. Strangely, he. seemed to remember that Papa had screamed at him until he was red in the face, then clouted him on the side of the skull until his head rang and he saw stars-but that must have .been a bad dream, for Papa had just been gentle in his teaching.

  He didn't have a hoe in his hands that fall, when the children came running after the grown-ups, tired from reaping and binding sheaves all day-but the children, in spite of having done their share of binding, still had energy enough to run and shout.

  The blow took Orgoru full in the back. He stumbled, nearly fell, but managed to catch his balance in only a few steps. He turned to see who had struck him, fighting down anger. . . .

  Clyde grinned down: at him, a head taller and two years older, with his friends grinning behind him. "Sorry, Orgoru," Clyde said. "I stumbled."

  Stumbled! It was no accident, and they all knew it-but Orgoru fought down his temper and said, as his mother had taught him, "That's all right, Clyde. I stumble, too, now and then."

  "Stumble like this?" Clyde slammed a fist into Orgoru's chest. He staggered back, and the other boys shouted. So did Orgoru as he caught his balance and charged back at Clyde, fists pumping as his father had taught him. Then anger calmed a little, and he realized that the other boys had formed a circle around the two of them, shouting. His stomach sank as he realized he was going to take a beating, for Clyde was the best fighter in the village for his age. But he couldn't cry off now, for the grown-ups were turning back to supervise, and Orgoru would rather have suffered a hundred beatings than have his father ashamed of him.

  The punch came. Orgoru blocked, but Clyde was so strong that his fist clipped Orgoru's chin anyway. Orgoru staggered back, keeping his guard up and managing to block two more punches while his head cleared, then throw himself into a desperate right cross. It was so unexpected that he caught Clyde on the side of the head, and the bigger boy reeled backward while his friends shouted angrily. Orgoru followed with three quick punches, but Clyde rallied and came back with a punch to the stomach. Orgoru blocked, but the fist came through anyway because Clyde was so much stronger than he. The block had taken most of the force, though, so Orgoru only had to hold his breath while he slammed out two more punches.

  It went on for five minutes before Orgoru fell and couldn't get up because he was fighting for breath. He struggled, hearing Clyde gibe at him-but the boy suddenly went silent, and big rough hands were helping Orgoru up. "Well fought, my boy," said his father. "I'm proud of you."

  "Proud!" Orgoru stared upward at the fond, smiling face, for it hadn't happened this way, Clyde had beaten him to a pulp, and Papa had taken him home, grumbling about his weakling son and demanding to know why Orgoru hadn't fought better. But it was happening, Papa was smiling with pride and saying, "There's no shame in losing, Orgoru, especially when the boy is bigger and older than you. Besides, you'll be a better boxer with each fight. Come home to good beer, lad-you've earned it."

  It was Orgoru's first taste of beer, and the next day; the other boys greeted him with smiles, and treated him with greater respect afterward. They never became great friends, but at least they weren't enemies.

  So it went, Orgoru reliving each harrowing, painful episode from his past and a good many ordinary, everyday scenes with his parents. The other children accepted him as an equal, even if he seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, and if he misbehaved, his parents scolded him, but more often they praised him and told him how special he was to them.

  Each time, what was happening warred with a memory of humiliation and censure, but Orgoru was quick to accept these new and wonderful versions of life. When he left his village, it was to become a forester in the next county, and his parting from his parents was bittersweet, filled with pride as well as tears.

  While patrolling the woods one day, he found Voyagend. The noblemen welcomed him, hailed him as the Prince of Paradime, and the ladies flirted with him, but he found it all less than wonderful somehow, hollow in some way, unsatisfying.

  Then, his first night in the city, he fell asleep, and in the darkness of his dream swirled something small and white, something that swelled and grew until he realized it was coming closer and closer. He began to be able to make out features, then to realize that the swirling was a long beard and longer hair that eddied and drifted like seaweed in the tidebut this was no pier piling or boulder they engulfed, it was a face, lined and old, with thin lips and a blade of a nose, a high forehead and eyes that seemed to pierce right through Orgoru, through him and into his very soul.

  "Who are you?" Orgoru cried in fear.

  The old man's voice echoed inside his head, though his lips neve
r moved: I am the Wizard of Peace, and I have come to tell you the truth about yourself.

  Fear surged up in Orgoru, fear without reason or source, but it rose and rose and crested in panic until he realized he was screaming, "No! No! Never!"

  CHAPTER 13

  But the old man went on mercilessly. "You are not the Prince of Paradime, but only Orgoru, the son of a plowman. You are the true son of that miserable peasant and his wife!"

  "Don't dare to call them miserable!" Orgoru shouted. "They were good and kind, they were wise and patient!"

  "Then you should be proud to be their son."

  Orgoru stared, caught between longings-to really have been the son of two such wonderful people, and to be the Prince of Paradime, whose false parents had ridiculed and beaten him.

  "Yes, you wish to be the son of two such good people," said the Wizard, "and now you see the goodness that was hidden within them, and the goodness that might have been brought out if theirs had been a good and joyful marriage, not a forced coupling that both resented. But you can also see the goodness within Orgoru, that trust and fellowship can bring forth."

  Orgoru hung motionless in his dream, suspended between hope and bitterness.

  "Have the courage to be what you truly are," the Wizard bade him, "and the greater courage to strive to become what you dream of being."

  "There are no lords or ladies in the Protector's land," Orgoru said, with lips and tongue gone suddenly dry.

  "No, but there are magistrates, and their wives and children. You know as well as I that the reeves and ministers live as elegantly as the aristocrats of children's tales, and that their children are almost certain to become reeves and ministers in their own turn, or the wives of reeves and ministers."