A Wizard In Peace Read online

  Orgoru fell asleep that night hoping that they would come back soon, and wondering what they were really like. He mulled over the question whenever his mind had time free, and his mother soon took to scolding him for his daydreaming, too. But Orgoru didn't mind-he had found a much better world than hers, in his imagination. He daydreamed of parents who were wise and kind.

  When puberty hit, and he began to notice how lovely some of the girls were, he shyly began to try to talk with them, but they only laughed, amused, or let him talk long enough to find something they could mock in his words. The other boys began to pick fights with him even more often, which always ended in disaster, for if he ran away, he was too slow-because his legs were too short-they caught him and pummeled him all the worse.

  Then Mayday came, and the boys stood in a line, waiting for the girls to each choose a boy for the dancing. The young men stood waiting, and one by one they went to step to the fiddle. Althea chose Burl the handsome with the boyish smile, her bosom friend Nan chose Am of the broad shoulders and bulging muscles, their crony Seli chose Gori who won all the races, and so it went, the prettiest choosing the most handsome, the strongest, the most skilled.

  Finally Orgoru remained standing alone and turned away quickly, for Ciletha was chatting and giggling with two older girls but glancing at him with concern, and he didn't want her choosing him out of pity. Truth to tell, he had no great wish to dance with her, either, for she was almost as plain as he, though not so misshapen.

  Misshapen! Who was to say he was shaped wrong? So he had a long torso and short legs, whereas the rest of them had long shanks and short waists-what of it? He stumped up to the village pond and stood glaring at his reflection. Yes, his face was round where theirs were long; yes, he had a snub of nose where they had long, straight blades; yes, his eyes were too large for a man's but too small for a woman's, and dark brown where theirs were blue or green or gray-and yes, he was plump, but that didn't make him worse than they!

  Then it was as though light exploded in his mind, and Orgoru suddenly understood. No, it didn't mean he was worse-they were! He was so different because he was so much better! After all, they were only peasants, all of them, but he had known for a long time that they who raised him were not his real parents! He must be of a higher station, the son of parents who were gentry at least, but more probably noblemen, such as the ones who figured in the stories grandmothers told their grandchildren, those who were lucky enough to have grandmothers.

  Once he realized that, it all made sense. Of course his parents resented him-they knew what he really was! Of course he didn't fit in-he was different indeed! Of course none of these peasant girls would choose him, for he was so far above them that they couldn't even recognize him for what he was!

  He turned away from the pond a new man, vibrating within at the wonder of it all, aching to tell someone-but of course, there was none he could speak to, not about this.

  There would be, though. One day they would come back for him-or he would find out where they had gone, his parents.

  Then he would go to them, and no silly law or magistrate's command would stop him!

  He went back among the roistering, the drinking, the singing. The other boys shoved him, yanked the last tankard from before his reaching hand, sneered at him, mocked him, but he smiled up at them with an amazing new serenity. He didn't care what they did, these peasants, these lowborns. He knew what he really was, and one day he would know who!

  CHAPTER 2

  The huge golden disk glided down in the darkness, its outer edge revolving around a stationary center that held gun turrets, sensor dishes, ports-and people. It spun down into a meadow just beyond a forest, a few miles from a town whose lights had blinked out several hours before. It sat immobile for a few minutes as its guiding computer sampled the air, analyzing it to make sure there was enough oxygen for its passengers-and no toxic gases or microbes to which they weren't immune. The ship's edge spun more and more slowly until it hissed to a stop; then the ship extended a ramp, and two men came down, dressed in broad-shouldered jackets over bell-sleeved shirts, and balloon trousers gathered into high boots. If worse came to worst and some poacher saw them, he wouldn't think their clothing odd, though he might wonder about their transportation.

  "The ruling class on this planet would wear robes," Dirk grumbled. "They're very awkward when it comes to action." He glanced down at his loose-fitting, square-shouldered jacket and equally loose-fitting trousers, both garments gathered tight at wrists or ankles. "At least the military dresses sensibly. A little extravagantly, but sensibly."

  "Don't let the clothes worry you, Dirk," Gar said soothingly. "We'll probably wind up naked, filthy, and pretending to be madmen again, anyway."

  "Well, it works on most planets," Dirk admitted. "I keep hoping, though, Gar, that we'll find a planet where they keep the mentally ill in decent housing of their own."

  "If they did, we wouldn't need to be there," Gar returned. He gazed at the countryside about him. "It looks peaceful enough, and the people certainly have their physical needs fulfilled."

  "Yeah, but once they're well-fed and well-housed, they have time to pay attention to other needs," Dirk sighed. "We're a very ungrateful species as a whole, Gar."

  "Yes, we keep wanting unreasonable things like happiness and love and self-fulfillment," Gar said with a wry smile.

  "No government can guarantee those."

  "No, but the wrong kind of government can certainly block them." Gar took a firmer grip on the pike he carried as a staff. "Let's see which kind we're dealing with here, shall we?" He stepped down off the ramp. Dirk followed suit, and the metal walkway slid quietly back into the huge gleaming hull.

  Gar pulled a locket from inside his jacket and said into it, "Lift off, Herkimer. Wait for us in orbit."

  "Yes, Gar," the locket replied, and the huge golden disk rose slowly, then shot up into the night until it was lost among the stars-but the locket said, -"I will keep you under surveillance whenever I can."

  "Yes. Please do," Gar said. -"After all, you never can tell when I might lose my communicator."

  "Surely, Magnus. Good luck."

  "Thank you, Herkimer. Enjoy the rest." Gar tucked the locket away, ignoring the difference between his birth-name and his professional name, and turned toward the forest.

  "Lose your communicator?" Dirk scoffed. "What difference would that make? You were born with one!"

  "Yes, but it's so demanding, sending thoughts on UHF frequencies," Gar said mildly. "Do you think we can find a road, Dirk?"

  "There's a pathway over there that might lead to one." Dirk pointed. "You don't suppose we could land during the day sometime, do you?"

  "Of course, if you enjoy attracting a great deal of attention."

  "Uh ... no, I think not." Dirk gave a somewhat theatrical sigh and asked, "Why do we do this, Gar? Why do we hunt down planets where the people are oppressed, just so we can go in and free them? What business is it of ours, anyway?"

  "I have the perfect reason," Gar said, somewhat smugly. "After all, I'm an aristocrat, and our occupational disease is ennui. I'm fighting off boredom. What's your excuse?"

  "Me?" Dirk looked up. "I'm an exile. You know that-you landed on my planet and linked up with me so you could start the revolution there!"

  "Yes, but you're a self-exile," Gar corrected.

  "Speak for yourself," Dirk countered, "and I think you do. Me, I was born a serf, you know that, and when the other escaped serfs helped me get away, they recruited me into their high-tech, space-cargo company, to spend my life the way they did-working from off-planet to free my fellow serfs. But once I gained some education and became part of the modern world, I lost touch with the people I'd been born among-and lost my home." He looked up with haunted eyes. "I have to find a new home now-and find a woman who's enough like me to fall in love with me, which isn't going to be easy-a lowborn lady of culture and education."

  Gar nodded, eyes gentle with sympathy. "Which
is more important, Dirk? The woman, or the home?"

  "I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end. How about you?"

  "I?" Gar shrugged and turned away, seeming suddenly very restless, though he took only a few steps. "I have a home, at least, but I have no purpose there-no woman for me, I found that out the hard way. Besides, I'd always live in my father's shadow."

  "But you don't really think you'll find another home," Dirk said softly.

  "I don't." Gar turned back, meeting Dirk's gaze. "I don't think I'll find another home, and I don't think I'll find a woman who can be gentle enough to trust but strong enough not to be afraid of me. But a man has to have some purpose in life, Dirk, and if I can't find love and can't rear children of my own, I can at least spend my days trying to free slaves and make it possible for them to find their true mates and be happy."

  "As good a reason for staying alive as any," Dirk said, "and better than a lot I've heard." He grinned. "So we're just like boys hanging out on a street corner in a modern city, aren't we? Trying to find some way to pass the time while we wait for the girls to come by."

  "I suppose." Gar smiled in spite of himself, Dirk's optimism was catching. "And as long as we're helping other people, we aren't wasting our time."

  "They aren't going to thank us, you know."

  "Yes, we found that out the hard way, didn't we? But gratitude doesn't really matter, does it?"

  "Why, no," Dirk said. "I suppose all we really want is to feel we've put the time to good use."

  Miles came panting up from the stream's ford, careful to walk on the gravel of the road that led down to it. Dogs might pick up his trail, but no one would see footprints-and the hounds would have a long time casting about for his scent, since he had waded and swum for almost a mile.

  Now, though, every muscle screamed with fatigue, and his feet felt like lumps of lead, so hard did he have to strain to lift them. His head ached, and spells of dizziness took him now and again. He had jogged all night and traveled all day, alternating between wading, swimming, and walking the gravel of the riverbank. But there was no sound of pursuit--either no one in his village had noticed his absence, everyone thinking he was at some other chore, or the foresters were being uncommonly merciful, pretending to take even longer about finding his trail than was necessary. He had heard rumors that they would do that, if they thought the fugitive's cause right and just-and Salina's cousin was a forester. Still, it was only a matter of time before the thrill of the chase caught them up and, sympathetic or not, they would be hunting him in earnest. They probably were already.

  But he was so bone-tired and weary that he felt as though he couldn't take another step. The thought penetrated the murk in his brain enough to make him realize that he would have to sleep soon, or he wouldn't be able to run anymore-he would fall down where he stood, and lie unconscious till the dogs found him.

  So, when he saw the haystack standing high in the field, he felt a surge of relief that washed him up onto its prickly sides and left him beached, to burrow his way in. With the last strands of consciousness leaving him, he pulled a few wisps of hay down to cover the hole he had made, then collapsed into sweet and total oblivion.

  Gar and Dirk strolled down a broad road, lined with thick old trees that shaded the sides well. The traffic was light, but they were scarcely alone-there were two others going their way: a hundred feet behind, a woman driving a cart with a man walking beside it, and a hundred feet ahead, a lone man with a pack on his back and a staff in his hand. Both men wore trousers, scuffed boots, and smocks belted at the waist. The woman wore a long, dark blue skirt and a light blue blouse under a black shawl.

  "Working men-farmers, at a guess," Dirk said. The others were so far apart that there was no chance of being overheard. "I'd place the one ahead as being a tradesman of some sort," Gar mused. "No clay on his boots."

  "Sharp eyes," Dirk said. Then, a little more loudly as another traveler passed them, "No, the storm clouds are too far ahead-it won't rain before sunset."

  "Oh, I think it might," Gar said, equally loudly. "Stiff breeze in our faces. It'll bring the thunderheads sooner."

  The carter looked up, startled, and frowned at them as he went by before he had to turn back to tend to his team of oxen. "Not too hard saying what he is," Gar muttered. "Fullscale wagon crowded with barrels-he's a delivery boy for a vineyard."

  "Or for the wine seller," Dirk said. "Of course, those barrels could hold ale."

  "They could. At least we're both agreed he's not the merchant himself."

  "Of course-not well-enough dressed." Dirk nodded at another man with a wagon, a hundred feet farther down the road and coming toward them. "Now, he's a merchant."

  Gar looked; the man wore tight-fitting trousers and a tunic, like the carter, but his were clearly of better fabric and livelier color-deep blue for the trousers and light blue for the tunic. More importantly, he wore an open coat over them, and it was of brocade. "Yes, I'd say he's a bit more affluent, but still has to be on the road with a wagon. Besides, he has hirelings."

  Two other wagons followed, each with a driver wearing the usual earth-toned trousers and belted tunic.

  "O-ho! Here comes somebody important!" Dirk pointed. Around a curve in the road ahead came a small closed carriage, square and Spartan, painted a somber black. Before it rode two men on horseback with another two behind, dressed alike in dark red jackets and trousers with broad-brimmed, flat hats of the same color. They carried spears stepped in sockets attached to their saddles and wore swords and daggers very obviously at their belts.

  "Soldiers, wearing the livery Herkimer used as models for our costumes." Gar frowned. "Presumably, ours being brown only means we work for a different boss."

  "Yes, but ours isn't here, and theirs is inside the carriage," Dirk pointed out. "This might be a good time to see what the backs of the roadside trees look like."

  "I think we'd be a little obvious," Gar replied. "We'd better brazen it out. I hope they speak our language."

  The thought hit Dirk with a shock. "My lord, we did come down here unprepared, didn't we?"

  "Not hard, when we didn't have any information," Gar said dryly. "But their ancestors spoke Terran Standard, so there's no reason to think they don't."

  "Yeah, and it'll give us a way of guessing how restrictive their culture is," Dirk said, smiling. "The worse their accent, the more permissive the culture-the closer to Standard, the more their authorities insist everything be done just right."

  "We should be in an excellent position to study the authorities," Gar said, "considering who's in the coach."

  As they passed, the soldiers saluted them. Each held his arm straight out to the.side and bent up at the elbow, hand a flat blade. Gar and Dirk copied the gesture, careful to smile no more than the real soldiers did. As the coach passed, they caught a glimpse of a man in his thirties with a square black hat, and a robe that matched the color of his soldiers' livery. He had spectacles on his nose and was trying to study some papers in spite of the coach's lurching and swaying. Then the rear guards were saluting, Dirk and Gar were returning the salutes, and the coach was rumbling off down the road.

  "Well, we passed the first test," Dirk sighed.

  "Now we know how the local military salute works," Gar said. "Not much more than a ritualized wave of the hand, I'd say."

  "I'll view that as a hopeful sign, if you don't mind. What do you think of the local ruling class?"

  "Professional administrator, by the look of him-not a part-timer, like the merchants of Venice or the Athenian citizen-assembly."

  "I think I prefer amateurs . . ."

  "Oh, give this one the benefit of the doubt. At least he's probably trained for the job."

  "Yeah, and has figured out how to hand it on to his son, definitely not his daughter. At least the amateurs don't have a vested interest in bloating the bureaucracy."

  "You're being unfair," Gar chided. "One look at the man is scarcely enough proof to convict him of so
many crimes."

  "Why not? He's old enough to have children. And if he's a trained paper-pusher, he's part of a bureaucracy."

  "Aren't you using a rather broad definition of 'bureaucracy' . . . ? Wait, what's this?"

  The torrent of babble from the curve ahead had finally become loud enough to force itself on their attention.

  "A crowd," Dirk said. "Don't look at me that waysomebody had to state the obvious. They don't sound threatening, anyway."

  "No, rather happy-a holiday sound, in fact. Let's see what's going on."

  They rounded the curve and saw peasants lining both sides of the road, chattering and gesturing to one another, smiling, bright-eyed, excited. Some had packs over their shoulders and were sharing food and drink with one another. There was a sprinkling of merchants, carters, and other wayfarers among them, laughing and sharing their own provisions.

  "You were right," Dirk said, "it is a holiday. When does the parade start?"

  "Let's join them and see if we can overhear anything." Gar stepped off the roadway, leaning on his staff and looking about with a gentle, interested smile. Dirk followed, growling, "Why do I feel conspicuous?"

  The peasants glanced up, and conversation muted for a few minutes-benign smile or not, Gar was still a scary figure. But he offered no harm, only spoke quietly with Dirk-so quietly that none of them could hear-and the people went back to chatting with one another. Dirk could almost see Gar's ears prick up, and wondered what his own looked like-but he was hearing words that he recognized. Yes, there was an accent, broader vowels and lazier consonants, but he had no difficulty at all eavesdropping.

  "I can understand them," Gar muttered.

  "Me too," Dirk said. "That's not a good sign."

  "No, not at all," Gar said, with a casualness that made Dirk's skin crawl. "It bespeaks a very rigid government, one that's stonily conservative."