A Wizard and a Warlord Read online

  She gave him a glare but was too excited to do it well. "They can't be as tall as we are, can they?"

  "Well, they can, of course," Magnus said, "but they may also be much shorter. We don't have any way of judging size there-not by the height of their houses. They'll have built them to their own scale. We can be fairly sure, though, that they'll speak some variation of Terran Standard speech."

  "Do all the colonies speak that way?"

  "Most, though there are a few that deliberately revived an older language. The general rule is: the closer the dialect is to Terran Standard, the more rigid its government."

  Alea frowned. "Then my peo-the Midgarders must have spoken an almost pure form."

  "It had drifted a bit they had worked in quite a few words from old German-but it was very easy to understand. It was interesting that the dwarves and giants had thicker accents than the Midgarders, though."

  "Well, yes." Alea kept the frown, thinking. "Their governments weren't anywhere nearly as strict, after all."

  Magnus replied, "By that rule, I suppose these people should have developed a dialect that's halfway to being a new language. Neolithic societies didn't usually have central governments, after all."

  "I thought the Sumerians and the Egyptians were Neolithic."

  "They were, but they don't seem to be the model's these colonists used," Magnus said with a smile tight with irony. "They seem to have been more inclined to the practices of Native American and prehistoric Northern European cultures."

  "Didn't like cities, I suppose," Alea said, "but I can't blame them-those pictures you showed me of a real city were enough to make me shudder."

  "They have their disadvantages," Magnus admitted. "Great fun if you're rich, I understand, but I wouldn't know personally."

  Alea stared at him, "You have a ship like this and you don't think you're rich?"

  "It's my only asset," Magnus explained. "I'm what they call `cash poor.' "

  Herkimer's voice intruded. "Atmospheric testing complete. The oxygen-nitrogen mixture is quite breathable, though a little thinner than my shipboard atmosphere, and has no organisms that are likely to resist your broadband inoculations."

  "Then we can go out?" Alea asked, eagerness barely restrained.

  "You can." The air lock door slid open. "Enjoy your stay. "

  She waited impatiently for the local air to replace the ship's-in spite of his assurances, Herkimer didn't want to risk contamination of their only possible refuge. Magnus looked down at her fondly, remembering his own early excitement at visiting strange worlds.

  "Should I call you `Gar' again, now that we'll be ashore?" Alea asked.

  "That would be wise," Gar agreed. "There's only a slight risk that there might be agents from an advanced society among these people, but I'd rather not take the chance that anyone here has heard of Magnus d'Armand."

  Alea thought he was being silly-since he had been Gar Pike on six separate. planets now and started some sort of revolution on each of them, the chances seemed greater that rival agents would have heard of Gar than of Magnus. Still, it was his choice. "There shouldn't be any problem with my using my own name, should there?"

  "No," Magnus agreed. "I don't think anyone is tying the name Alea Larsdatter to rebellion and turbulence yet."

  Alea was about to ask about that "yet" when the door slid open before her. With a shout of joy, she ran down the ramp into the fragrant spring night and the calf-high grass, swinging her traveler's staff end over end and whirling about in an impromptu dance of joy at being outside again.

  Gar followed more slowly, smiling with pleasure at . her delight.

  Alea spun to a halt, hands on her hips, eyes flashing, teeth bared in a grin. "What monster shall we hunt, Gar Pike?"

  "Why, whatever we find." Gar returned her grin. "A dictator or tyrant will do, though I'd rather have a corrupt king. Let us walk the night road and listen with our minds to the people in that little village half a mile away. Perhaps their dreams will tell us what sort of government rules this world."

  "I could use the practice." Alea pivoted to stand by his side, chin high, smile tight with amusement. "After all, you've only just taught me how to read minds."

  "You've only just learned," Gar corrected. "It's not the sort of thing one can teach-either you have the talent, or you don't."

  "Still, it was good of you to let me practice on you. I wonder if I'll be able to read anyone else's mind yet."

  "Oh, I think so." Gar felt the familiar half sickness, . half elation at the thought that she might be so bonded to him as to be able to read only his own mind. He pushed the thought down into the depths from which it had come-he wanted a companion, not a lover.

  He straightened, eyes losing focus as his mind opened to others' thoughts. "Let's listen here. See if you can pick up any thoughts from the village."

  Alea straightened and stilled, too, letting her thoughts drift, stray, die down, and yield to those of the others on this planet. "Dreams," she said after a while, "a jumble of images that make no sense.... Well, no, that one makes sense, though I doubt any living woman was ever built like that ... and a woman who misses her husband badly, though I doubt he was ever so handsome; what happened to him, I wonder?"

  "Is there an overtone of grief to the thought?" Gar asked.

  "Not really, only longing."

  "Can you work into her dreams a wondering as to where he is?"

  Alea stared up at him. "Is that right to do?"

  "Not really," Gar said, "though there's no harm in listening to the thoughts people let slip, if they're not too personal."

  "I skipped past those three-though this one is a bit more personal, in its way."

  "Then let it pass, too," Gar said, "but work into someone else's dream a picture of a wanderer coming into the town."

  Alea frowned. "That still seems like meddling."

  "It is, but no more so than guiding a conversation toward information you want revealed."

  "I suppose that's true," Alea allowed, and formed a mental picture of Gar walking into the village, his staff rising and falling. She was careful to imagine him a bit shorter than he was.

  The dreamer's reaction startled her-a surge of delight, of anticipation, wondering what goods the peddler carried in his pack. Needles, perhaps, and sugar from the north, a few spices, seeds for strange varieties of maize and soybeans, pictures of exotic farm tools for the smith to make, and news, word of what passed in the rest of the world, perhaps even a new fable....

  "He certainly isn't afraid of a wanderer, this dreamer," Alea said. "It doesn't occur to him that a traveler could be anything but a peddler."

  "Not even a minstrel? Sounds like a dull land," Gar said. "Let me try it on another dreamer." He frowned a moment, then said, "Another ... another.. ." He turned back to Alea. "It's even as you say. Apparently peddlers are the only wanderers they know of."

  "Let me try another possibility." Alea chose a teenage girl and worked a quartet of young men and women into her dream, entering the village with laughter and cries of greeting. . . "Well! I made the wanderers young and the whole village turned out in welcome. Apparently young folk are expected to wander and see a bit of the world."

  "How do the younger locals react to them?"

  "With flirtation," Alea said immediately. "I wonder how many of those young wanderers return home, and how many settle down in a village they discover in their travels."

  "A good way of mixing the gene pool and avoiding inbreeding." Gar nodded approval. "Still, I would assume you and I are a little old for a Wandejahr."

  "Speak for yourself, mine has just begun," Alea said. "But I do think the villagers would see us that way, so peddlers we'll be." She plucked up her nerve and demanded, "Husband and wife?"

  "Or brother and sister, if anyone asks," Gar said. "For all we know, they may not see anything unusual in a man and a woman choosing to travel together. Was your band of young wanderers all of one gender?"

  "No, I was careful
to make them evenly split."

  "We'll let experience teach us, then." Gar turned back to the spaceship. "Let's go collect a couple of packs of trade goods."

  Packs they already had, for they had used them on Midgard. Alea told Herkimer what sort of trade goods her dreamer had wanted and the computer fabricated them in minutes, then added a few that had proved popular down the centuries-ribbons and beads, knives and pots, small bars of copper and tin.

  "Do you play a musical instrument?" Gar asked. "Why?" Alea looked up at him with a frown that cleared quickly. "Oh! The villagers' hunger for news and stories. I suppose peddlers here would have to be minstrels, too, wouldn't they?"

  "It would probably give us an edge," Gar agreed. "I can manage a flute." For a moment, Alea's eyes filled with tears at the memory of the lovely pipe with its inlaid flowers that the magistrate had taken from her when her mother and father had died. He had given it, along with herself, to the neighbors who had hated her parents. She thrust the thought to the back of her mind with impatience; there was no time to muse about such things now.

  Equipped with everything they could think of, Gar and Alea went forth to conquer the retail trade. Gar turned back at the foot of the ramp and said, "Up and away, Herkimer."

  The ramp slid back into the ship and the air lock hatch hissed shut as the computer's external loudspeaker asked, "Shall I stay in geostationary orbit, Magnus?"

  "Please do," Gar said. "We have our communicators if we need them, but we may need you to relay." He didn't say that they might also need to have the ship drop down and save them from a real predicament-it was an outside possibility, and there was no need to alarm Alea unduly.

  The great golden disk rose silently into the night, drifting upward, then suddenly shooting away into the clouds. Gar and Alea watched it go. When it had disappeared, Alea turned away, giving herself a shake and saying, "Three months ago, I never would have believed such a sight."

  "Six months ago," Gar countered, "I never would have believed in actual living giants. Shall we see if the local folk believe in mixed peddlers?"

  They had to wait a few hours for sunrise, of course. Gar brewed coffee, assuming it would be their last taste for some time, but Alea was too excited for more than a few sips. When false dawn came she looked up, listening, then nodded in satisfaction. "They're up and about."

  Gar nodded; they had both been reared in medieval societies, so it never occurred to either of them that there was anything unusual with people waking at first light. Gar had spent some time in modern cities and knew many people slept later, but to him, they seemed the odd ones. He stood up and walked to the brow of the hill and saw it was part of a long rise in the land. "We can see the village from here."

  Alea came to stand beside him and nodded. "Herkimer chose our landing site well."

  Gar noticed she didn't mention who had given Herkimer the criteria for the site. To give Alea her due, she probably didn't notice, either.

  They watched the people moving about their cottages for a while--going out to milk the cow, slop the hogs, feed the chickens, and gather eggs. After a while, Alea said, "There doesn't seem to be any pattern to who does which task."

  "Pattern?" Then Gar understood what she meant. "No. Some of the milkers are men, some are women. I wonder who's doing the cooking."

  They were both quiet for a few minutes; then Alea guessed, "The old folk?"

  "Seems possible," Gar allowed. "Come to think of it, I wonder how many teenagers are doing those morning chores."

  "Where I came from, you started grown-up work at twelve," Alea said. "Not all of it, mind you-only men had the muscle to guide those heavy plows-but any teenage boy could chop wood."

  "Here, it seems that the girls do it, too." Gar nodded toward one long-skirted figure who was wielding an ax.

  "There's one who wishes she had done her chores before dinner!" Alea said. "Well, let's see what kind of welcome they'll give travelers."

  The welcome was rude and abrupt, though it might have been a bit better if they had reached the village.

  They managed to find a road by the simple expedient of going downhill and following the sound of water; the trackway ran beside the river, as farmers' roads often did. They had been following it for only ten minutes when Gar stiffened.

  "What's the matter?" Alea asked in alarm. "Company coming," Gar said, clipping off the words. "Armed and looking for trouble. Hide, quickly!"

  Alea turned toward the brush at the roadside, then realized he was standing still and turned back. "Didn't you hear yourself? Come on!"

  "Someone has to talk to them," Gar said, "or we'll never learn anything."

  "Then I will." Alea came back.

  "Believe me, companion, you have more to fear from them than I do," Gar said grimly, "and I shall be stronger for-an ally in reserve when they think I'm alone. Hide, I beg you, or I shall have to flee with you, and we'll lose this chance for information."

  "All right, be a fool if you must!" Alea said, exasperated, and turned to slip in among the underbrush. Still, he had a point if they tried to harm him, she could leap out and strike from behind. Her heart quailed at the thought, but anyone who had fought wild dogs could summon the courage to fight wild men. Not that it would do her much good, probably, but it might give him a chance.

  There they came, six men riding, with crude wooden shields slung from their saddlebows and spears in their hands. Alea shuddered at the sight of them; they were rough-looking men, all dressed alike in brown leather jerkins and trousers, several days overdue for a shave, and all glowering. They saw their quarry and yelped like hounds on a scent, kicking their horses into gallops.

  Gar stood, leaning on his staff and watching, apparently tranquil and interested-but Alea knew that he was really putting no weight on the wood, that the pose was only an apparently harmless way of having both hands on a weapon.

  The riders drew rein with savage cries, surrounding him and grinning. It was hard to gauge their height when they were mounted, but Alea could tell they were much shorter than Gar.

  "Well, here's a big enough catch!" said one. "You're meat for the general now, fellow!"

  "For the general what?" Gar asked, interested. The riders guffawed, and the spokesman said, "General Malachi, that's what! What d' ye have in that pack there?"

  "Only the usual goods," Gar said, "ribbons and needles and the like."

  "Girls' stuffs," one of the men sneered, but the leader said, "Off with it, then, and hand it over!"

  Gar shrugged out of the straps, changing his staff from one hand to another to do so, then dropped it at his feet. He frowned at it for a few seconds as though thinking it over, then looked up and said, "I don't think so."

  Alea felt a thrill; he had taken off the pack to free him for a fight. It was a good tactic, but what would happen if they stabbed at him?

  "What did you say?" The leader's eyes narrowed. Alea was wondering the same. What did the big galoot think he was doing? Didn't he know that kind of reaction would incite them to use those spears? Yes, of course he . did. Though why on earth he should be picking a fight with six mounted, armed men was more than she could say-until she remembered how much he could do with his mind.

  "Hand it over, the sergeant said!" one of the men snapped.

  "I'd rather not," Gar said.

  "Then we'll take it!" The loudmouth drew back his spear.

  "No, hold." The leader held up a hand, eyes narrowing. "What kind of man would talk back to six spears?"

  "Someone who's big enough to carve up between us," another man grunted, leveling his weapon. "And someone who's sure he can handle the lot of us," the sergeant said. "He can't, of course, but I'd like to know why he thinks so."

  "The lot of us?" the other man scoffed. "He can't handle one!" He jabbed at Gar with his spear halfheartedly.

  Gar whirled, the man yelped, and there was a loud crack.

  3

  Somehow Gar was standing with his back to a horse whose saddle was empty be
cause its rider was struggling with Gar's arm around his neck, holding him as a shield.

  "Yes, I thought it might be something like that," the leader said conversationally. "Good moves, fellow, but you don't really think you can take all six of us, do you?"

  "I could have a lot of fun trying," Gar said with a grin.

  The leader leaned back, looking down his nose at Gar with a weighing gaze. Then he nodded slowly. "A fighter like that, with a size like yours, would be just what the general wants. Gawn, take his pack."

  One of the riders leaned down as his mount stepped forward and yanked at the pack. His eyes widened at the weight but he managed to swing it up in front of him anyway.

  "There now," said the leader, "all this because you wouldn't give us your pack, and here we have it anyway."

  "Only for the moment," Gar said.

  "A bit more than that, I think," the leader returned, "but I'm not here for a few trinkets, I'm here recruiting. We'll let General Malachi bargain with you. Off up that track, big man, or we'll leave you here looking like one of your pincushions."

  For a moment, Alea was afraid Gar was going to defy the man again-but he grinned and let the rider loose. "All right, I'll meet your general. He sounds as though he might be more of a match than this pollywog."

  "Pollywog, am l?" the man husked, and coughed. "Don't worry, your throat will be good as new within the hour," Gar assured him.

  "You won't be, if I have anything to say about it! This pollywog has teeth!"

  "Not until you've grown a bit."

  The man mounted his horse, snarling, "This big enough for you?"

  "Not really," Gar said. "Besides, I'll keep your tooth." He held up the spear.

  The rider yanked a hatchet from his belt and swung it up.

  "None of that!" the sergeant barked. "He's for the general! "

  The rider froze, blood in his eye, then lowered his spear with a muttered obscenity.

  "You shouldn't say such things about yourself," Gar admonished. He turned to the leader. "You take good care of your men."

  "Meaning that even if we'd done for you, he wouldn't have seen the end of the fight?" The leader grinned. "We'll see how your boasts work in battle. What's your name, anyway?"