A Wizard In Chaos Read online

  "I know there are some women who like to keep a spare man around in case they need him," Gar told him, "but I don't think she's one of them-at least, not in quite that fashion."

  "I'll take the chance!" Cort cried.

  "No, you won't," Dirk said firmly. "Look, it's hard, yes, believe me, I know how you feel."

  "No you don't!" Cort cried. "You didn't spend the night with her!"

  Dirk's step faltered, but he kept going. "As long as I hear the occasional hunter's cry behind me, we keep walking!"

  "I don't hear anything," Cort protested.

  They halted, Dirk and Gar cocking their heads to listen. As they did, a ray of sunlight lanced down between leaves, rosy with dawn.

  "He's right," Dirk said. "The Hollow Hill is still."

  "The door is shut," Gar agreed. As one, they dropped Cort.

  He sank to his knees, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

  Cort recovered enough to start walking a few minutes later. Dirk and Gar let him lead the way, talking rather grimly as they went.

  "At least the Fair Folk came out of this ahead by three horses," Dirk said. "Do you still have some gold to buy new ones?"

  "Yes," Gar said, "but if I didn't, we could always have Herkimer drop us some more."

  "Careful what you say." Dirk nodded at Cort. Gar glanced up at their friend, smiling sadly. "I doubt he's hearing anything right now. I'm afraid he's lost in his own misery"

  "Yeah, 'fraid so," Dirk said from hard experience. "It will wear off to the point where he can function again, though."

  "She may someday be only another folktale," Gar sighed, "even to him."

  Dirk nodded. "Say, do you really believe the duke's version of his people's history?"

  "Accurate as far as it goes," Gar said slowly, "but I suspect it's somewhat one-sided. Subtracting the duke's bias and trying to read between the lines, I would guess that some of the original colonists refused to leave the comfort of the domes, just as he said, but he only hinted that they were willing to accept a very low birth rate in order to have comfort and luxury"

  "Sounds kind of selfish," Dirk said, frowning. "Does it? Remember that on overpopulated planets, the people who want large families are the ones accused of selfishness-and since those domes were built for a very limited number of people, overpopulation would be a very real concern."

  "Still, wanting to stay in the domes would select for self-centered people. Having children makes you become other-centered."

  "I'd prefer to say that other-centered people make better parents," Gar said sharply. "I've seen too many children emotionally butchered by selfcentered parents."

  "How many is too many?" Dirk challenged. "One," Gar replied, "but I've seen a lot more than that."

  "It does explain their vanity and preoccupation with pleasure," Dirk admitted. "How about we say that the domes selected the most worldly?"

  "Of the first generation, true. Of the second, I'd say the more worldly, selfish types became bullies."

  "Meanwhile," Dirk said, "the dead grass and leaves piled up, and buried the domes."

  "Over a hundred years or so, yes. Since the colonists erected their domes in flatlands, I suspect they were silted over by windblown soil."

  "More or less," Dirk agreed. "So they became hills-Hollow Hills, with arrogant inhabitants who kept their knowledge of technology and cultureand kept it to themselves."

  "Which made them view their fellow colonists with disdain," Gar agreed. "They learned the old fairy tales from their computerized library, invited minstrels in for the night and taught them the stories, then kicked them out to spread the word among the outdoor colonists."

  "So they planted the seeds of superstitions, nourished them, then exploited the superstitious fears that grew among the peasants?"

  "I would guess so," Gar agreed. "What sort of exploitation did you have in mind?"

  Dirk shrugged. "They had to limit population, right? And they only wanted beautiful childrenso if a child was born ugly, they fed sleeping gas into a peasant but where there'd been a baby born, went in and traded their ugly child for the pretty Milesian infant, and let the grieving parents declare they'd had a changeling dumped on them."

  "And if the villagers killed the changeling as a sign of evil, the Fair Folk didn't have to feel guilty about it," Gar said grimly.

  "I hadn't thought of that," Dirk admitted, "but after a while, I suspect they were so much afraid of the legends of the Fair Folk that they didn't dare kill the changelings just raised them with scorn and blame."

  "Poor things," Gar muttered, "but it did supply the next generation of bullies."

  "And the human babies supplied the Fair Folk with a few servants, and a large enough gene pool to avoid the worst effects of inbreeding," Dirk guessed.

  Gar nodded. "Of course, they kept the children who were good-looking, but had to keep the total number of people at the limit of what the dome would hold."

  "Right," Dirk said, "and if the birthrate fell too low-people more interested in having fun, than babies-the Fair Folk could always kidnap some peasants, babies or full-grown. In fact, there's a tradition of Wee Folk kidnapping new mothers whose babies have died, so that the fairy mothers wouldn't have to nurse their own babies."

  "Nurses conveniently supplied by the mothers of changelings whom the villagers have killed," Gar grunted. "The Fair Folk are looking more and more unsavory by the minute."

  "Hey, these are just guesses! We might be doing them an injustice."

  "I'll try to remember that," Gar sighed. "As the centuries passed, I suspect the Fair Folk began to half believe they really were fairies, or some sort of superior being."

  "They certainly do seem to have a condescending attitude," Dirk agreed. "On the other hand, they can't believe in their own superiority too much, or they wouldn't be so careful to make sure the outside world doesn't hear the truth about their mortality and their `magic.' "

  "They certainly are exploiting the Milesians as thoroughly as they can," Gar said grimly. "They have rejected their responsibility toward their fellow beings, indulging themselves in leisure and pleasure, and are paying the price: inbreeding, decadence, and a diminishing population."

  Dirk nodded. "Given another few centuries of such living, they'll die out."

  "I'd hate to see that," Gar said, frowning. "After all, the Fair Folk have a lot to recommend them."

  "Yes. Culture and education, something resembling a legal code, and a minimal form of government, not to mention connection to the rest of human history. The Milesians have forgotten all that."

  "Including technology," Gar reminded.

  "Yeah, but that includes more than weapons: food synthesizers and medical diagnostic systems, things the rest of the people on this planet really need. Can't we find some way to save them from themselves?"

  "Of course," Gar said. "Persuade them to save the rest of their world."

  "I think I see what you mean," Dirk said slowly. "They could provide the absolute bare minimum of government and law, and enforce it with their high-tech weapons."

  Gar nodded. "They could also look up modern agricultural methods, and boost production of food a hundred times in one generation."

  "Malthus' Law," Dirk warned. "Population increases much faster than food supply."

  "No matter how fast you increase the food supply," Gar said grimly. "But I think the Fair Folk are past masters of population control."

  "Yes, I expect they have that kind of technology, too," Dirk agreed. "You're right-they could save their world from this incessant warfare and the pestilence and starvation that go with it, couldn't they?"

  "Yes," Gar agreed, "if we could persuade them to come out of their hills and involve themselves in the lives of the Milesians."

  "There is that little problem," Dirk sighed. "How do we solve it?"

  Gar stiffened, head cocked as though he were listening. "No time to think about it any more. The Hawks haven't given up. They're still quartering the area, in ca
se we do come out of the Hill!"

  CHAPTER 17

  Dirk grabbed the lieutenant's shoulder and gave it a shake. "Cort! Enemies coming!"

  "The Fair Folk?"

  Cort asked, jarred rudely from his reverie of huge eyes and graceful movements.

  "No, the Hawks!"

  "You two run to the north," Gar said, frowning. "I'll go south. They won't bother you if I'm not there." -

  "I've told you before, don't be ridiculous," Dirk snapped.

  Cort nodded, glowering. "We don't desert friends."

  Gar opened his mouth to argue, but Dirk said, "Besides, they've seen us with you, and they'd probably beat us until we told them where you are-and since we won't know, they just might keep beating until we're dead."

  "All right, we all flee together." Gar flashed them a smile that momentarily lit his face with a warmth Cort had never seen. "I'm blessed with such firm friends."

  "Your life is our life," Cort quoted. "That's the motto of my company. Where do we run to?"

  "Quilichen!" Dirk's eyes lit. "It's the only stronghold that could take us, it's only a day away, and I know Magda wouldn't turn us out!"

  Cort glanced at him through transformed eyes, the eyes of a lover, and knew that Magda would indeed not send Dirk away, for he'd seen the same glow in her eyes that he saw in Dirk's.

  But not, he realized, the same that he'd seen in Desiree's.

  "I hate to bring the Hawk Company down on her head," Gar said, scowling, "but we don't have much choice, do we?"

  "Hey, I didn't think of that!" Dirk said, alarmed. "This is a grudge match now, and the Hawks won't rest until they get you! They'll lay siege to Quilichen!"

  "They may not break it, but they'll wreak a deal of misery in trying," Cort said grimly. "I can send for the Blue Company to come fetch me out, but I hate to put them all at risk just for my skin."

  "Now do you understand why I want you two to leave me?" Gar challenged.

  "Yeah, and I understand why we still won't," Dirk said, jaw setting. "Would you have Herkimer pick you up if we did?"

  Gar hesitated, then said, "I'm not quite ready to give up on this planet yet, and if Herkimer set me down fifty miles away, the Hawks would find me sooner or later. Better to finish it while we're here."

  "Who's Herkimer?" Cort asked.

  "A very strange-looking friend," Dirk answered, "who would start a whole set of folktales going on his own."

  "He could be a major disruption to your culture," Gar agreed, "and I don't think the Fair Folk would thank us for the ideas he might send running rampant through your world."

  Cort frowned, not sure he liked the implication that Gar knew what was good for this world of Durvie and what was not.

  "No, we'll try to face them out, but lead them away from Quilichen," Gar said with decision, and turned to forge ahead through the woods.

  His big body did at least shove the underbrush out of the way, and Cort followed, doing his best to navigate the uneven ground with horseman's boots. They plowed through a hundred yards of dense undergrowth before Gar stopped suddenly, head raised.

  "Worse trouble?" Dirk asked.

  "Yes. They've struck our trail," Gar said. "After all, we haven't been trying terribly hard to hide it, have we?"

  "Go faster," Dirk urged.

  Gar shook his head. "They're ahead of us, closing in from the east-and from the west, too."

  "Back the way we came!" Cort cried, a vision of Desiree dancing before him.

  But Gar shook his head again. "They closed ranks behind us, too, as soon as the sun was up. I think they watched through the night in case we came out of the hill." .

  "Just how sharp is your hearing?" Cort asked in frustration.

  "Most amazingly sharp," Gar told him. "We're boxed in on three sides. The only way open is the mountainside, where it's too steep for horses."

  "And on the other side of that mountain, is Quilichen." Dirk was ashamed of himself; he was feeling jubilant again. After all, if he was thrown on Magda's doorstep through no fault of his own ...

  "Time to climb, gentlemen--if we can reach the mountainside before they do. Let's march!" Gar turned at right angles and plunged off through the underbrush again.

  They were in too much of a rush to try to hide their trail, though when they came to a stream, Gar pulled off his boots and waded its length as far as he could without going in the wrong direction. It took a few minutes to dry his feet and pull stockings and boots on again, but in a matter of minutes, they were across the stream and forging uphill.

  "Have we reached the mountainside yet?" Dirk asked.

  "The grade's not steep enough," Cort told him, then stiffened. "Listen!"

  They did. Faint on the breeze came the belling of hounds.

  Gar cursed. "I'd hoped they'd left those blasted nuisances with the farmer they bought them from. Wading that stream won't slow them by more than fifteen minutes now."

  "That should be time enough," Cort said. "We're almost to the mountainside."

  "You're the one who knows the territory," Dirk grunted.

  They toiled uphill, the ground rising more and more steeply, the hounds howling closer and closer. Finally they halted to rest and breathe at the uphill edge of a mountain meadow, turning back to look out over the countryside. The tall trees of the forest lay below them now, the smaller trees of the mountainside around them. The Hollow Hill lay below, too, past the edge of the forest and almost on the horizon.

  "Yes, I'd say we're on the mountainside," Dirk said.

  Then half a dozen men rode out of the trees at the other side of the meadow, following a peasant who held the leashes of five hounds. The beasts saw the companions and leaped against the leashes, baying eagerly. The horsemen shouted and spurred their horses, leveling their lances.

  "Back behind the trees!" Gar snapped. "Climb if you can! If you can't, trip the horses!" He didn't need to say what to do after that.

  Cort managed to find a low limb and scrambled up to hide among the leaves. Gar caught up a fallen branch and hid behind a tree. Dirk disappeared.

  The horsemen came thundering in. Cort jumped down onto the back of the first, howling as though he were demented, and threw an arm around the man's neck. He wrenched back, and they both fell off to the side, away from the path. Cort twisted as they fell and landed on top. He drew his dagger and struck with the hilt, as he'd seen Gar and Dirk do. Then he scrambled up and spun about, just in time to see Gar leap out and brace one end of the branch against a tree trunk, the other aimed for the midriff of the horseman. He parried the lance with his dagger, and his makeshift staff caught the rider square in the stomach. The Hawk fell, retching.

  Then another rider was galloping down on Cort, yelling, his lance pointed squarely at the lieutenant's chest. Cort leaped aside, but the horse's shoulder caught him and sent him spinning against a tree trunk. His head cracked against the wood, and the world went wobbly. He clung to consciousness desperately, working his way back to his feet by clutching the trunk, then turned, shaking his head, to see the lance shooting toward him again. With his last faint hope, he shoved the lancehead aside. It thudded into the tree trunk, and its butt whipped out of the rider's hands. He cursed, turning; and drew his sword.

  Cort reversed the spear, braced the butt against the tree, and aimed it at the rider's torso. It caught him on the hip; he screamed, falling, and bright blood stained his livery. Cort yanked the lancehead free and stepped out onto the trail, ready for the next man.

  They were all down, and the horses were turning to run back, shying away from the dogs, but sending them into a confused mass. Gar stood over two men, blood streaming from the wound on his hip, but with their lances in his hands, and Dirk had somehow managed to knock out his pair, too, though the side of his face was already swelling.

  Then Gar strode back down the path, face contorted with rage. He raised the two spears and roared.

  The dogs howled and turned to run, their handler hard on their heels.

&
nbsp; "The Hawks will ... catch them and ... turn them back on us," Cort panted.

  "No doubt." Gar came striding back, grinning. "But it will take time."

  "I thought this mountainside was too steep for horses," Dirk said.

  "It is," Gar told him. "As you see, the steeds did them absolutely no good. Come, gentlemenonward and upward."

  "Excelsior," Dirk muttered. "What's that?" Cort asked.

  "A strange device, and Heaven knows we've been seeing enough of them lately. Which way is up?"

  They plowed on toward the top of the mountain, and though they heard the hounds coming closer after an hour, they weren't moving very rapidly. The Hawks couldn't make any better time on horseback than the companions could on foot, and night fell before they reached the top of the mountain.

  When they did reach the peak, Dirk stopped to rest, but Gar said, "You're a very clear silhouette against the stars. Just a few more yards, my friend, to put the mountaintop between us and them."

  They climbed over the ridge and started down. When they had made another dozen feet, Gar called a halt. He asked Cort, "What are the odds the Hawks will keep after us even though it's night?"

  "No question about it," Cort said. "They'll keep chasing. They'll go slowly, though."

  "Especially since they'll be leading their horses," Gar said. "We can go faster than they, for a change. Cort, how far to Quilichen?"

  "Four hours' travel," Cort said, "since we've come over the mountain this time, instead of around it."

  "But that's when we're fresh," Gar said grimly. "We're tired already. If we're lucky, we'll make it before dawn."

  "Only if we can find some way to stall the Hawks," Dirk said. "They're bringing their horses with them, remember?"

  "They will go faster than we will once the ground levels out," Gar admitted, "but still no faster than a walk, in the dark and with no road." He handed Cort one of his captured lances. "Use it as a staff. Let's go."

  It was a long night, with the Hawks coming closer and closer behind them. They laid false trails, breaking them with streams and rock slides. Time and again they hid, and let a squadron of horse soldiers pass them by. As dawn neared, they were plodding along the bottom of a gully, both because it would hide them and because it might slow the hunters a little. They began to hear the belling of the hounds once more.