A Wizard In Midgard Read online

  A heavier man, with a bruise from her staff already purpling on his forehead, shouldered his way through to her and cracked a slap across her face. Alea screamed and, as the hand came back, bit at it, but the man yanked his hand aside and slammed a fist into her stomach. She doubled over in agony, struggling for the breath that wouldn't come, but he yanked her chin up and stared into her face-face to face, for he was a good foot shorter than she.

  "Six and a half feet, big dark eyes, straight nose, brown hair-this is the one that ran from Karke Village, right enough," the slave-hunter said. "Back you go to your owners, woman, and harshly may they punish you."

  Breath came back in a rush. Alea used it for a wordless shout and lunged at the man, lashing out with her free foot. He cracked another slap across her face and snarled, "We can hurt worse than you, my lass!"

  "We should, too," one of the other men growled. "She's given me a harsh knock, and I'll be limping for a week!"

  "You're right there, Harol," the leader said with an ugly glint in his eye. "After all, we have to take her back to her village for judgement, but no one says what kind of condition she has to be in when she gets there-and she has to be taught not to run, doesn't she?"

  "She does!" One of the men moistened his lips, eyes greedy. "And what's the worst hurt you can give a woman, eh?" The others answered with a shout of agreement. Someone caught at Alea's free foot, but she screamed in terror and kicked, wrenched a wrist free, and lashed out with a fist. It connected, but the men roared and descended on her in a body. She fought desperately, afraid of death but suddenly not caring, as long as the nightmare didn't happen again.

  But they were falling back away from her, something was making dull thudding sounds, and men were crying out in rage and alarm. As breath came back, Alea saw a huge man laying about with a proper quarterstaff, knocking her tormentors aside. They shouted with anger and leaped away from the madman, and she saw her chance. She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the trees.

  "Catch her!" the leader bellowed.

  Alea heard feet pounding behind her, but she heard something crack too, then heard the knocking of wood against wood, and the trees closed mercifully about her as she ran, gasping and sobbing, trying to find a tree big enough, a cave deep enough, anywhere to hide, to be safe.

  Behind her, Gar laid about him with his staff, taking his share of knocks but dealing out five for each one he received. More importantly, though, he reached out with his thoughts and struck terror into the minds of each of the hunters. One or two had the courage to come back at him a second time, though dread was surging up from their stomachs. The rest ran, howling in sheer terror, away from Gar and from the poor woman they'd been wrestling.

  "Giants!" someone shouted. "Giants!" But none seemed to remember that they'd been trained to fight the huge man.

  Gar lashed out at the last two with virtual explosions of panic as his staff whirled to strike first one, then the other. They spun away, fear finally mastering them, and ran down the road, back the way they had come.

  Gar stood watching them go, chest heaving with exertion, filled with the elation of victory, even if he'd had to cheat a bit-but when it was one man against half a dozen, using projective telepathy to scare them into running was fully justified. He was quite willing to let them think he was a small giant. After all, by the time they reached home, he would have grown three feet in their memories anyway.

  They went around the bend in the road and were gone from his sight, and from his mind, too. Gar looked around for the woman they'd been manhandling. He didn't see her and, all things considered, he didn't blame her, either. He went on the way he'd been going, noticing where her tracks ran off the road, then where her steps began to shorten. She had run to hide in the woods-wise, under the circumstances. He hoped she was good at covering her trail, for the hunters had dogs. True, with the scare he'd given them, they might not stop running till they were home-but then again, they might. In fact, they might even try to cover up their fear with anger, and come back to take, revenge on the vulnerable one.

  Of course; they wouldn't try to attack her if Gar were with her, or even nearby.

  He had a notion he'd have to settle for nearby-after the shock the woman had just suffered, she wouldn't be likely to trust any man again. She'd seemed unusually brave, though, fighting back every inch of the way. She hadn't caved in for a second.

  Gar was surprised at the admiration he felt, and told himself he would have admired that kind of heart just as much in a man. Nonetheless, he decided to dally a while, to stroll down the road and take his time pitching camp. The woman would make an excellent ally, after all, if he could win her friendship. On every planet on which he'd landed, he had always tried to team up with a local-how else was he going to learn all the details that had developed since the last computer entry about the world? In most cases, that last datum had been entered hundreds of years before, and almost everything had changed since.

  He definitely needed a local, and the woman was at least aware that he was on her side-if he could find her. In addition, if he really wanted to try to heal the wounds of this world, she might be the key to the puzzle of making peace between the three nations-dwarf, giant, and Midgarder.

  He remembered how the situation had looked from the bridge of his spaceship in orbit, when he and Herkimer had been surveying the world via telephoto scanners, and he'd still been thinking of himself as Magnus. They'd watched Vikings battling giants, then dwarves battling Vikings, all in so short a period of time that Gar could only think the warfare was constant.

  "So we have a land of pseudo-Teutonic Viking-type people of normal height," he'd summarized to Herkimer, "with a land of dwarves to the west and a land of giants to the east, tundra to the north and an ocean to the south."

  "The Teutons seem to outnumber both other nations by a considerable margin," Herkimer pointed out, "even if we don't count their slaves."

  "Rather odd to leave your biggest men at home when you go off to war," Magnus mused, "but the Teutons might figure that the big ones would be apt to desert to the giants-not surprising, considering how they're treated at home. By the way, Herkimer, what was the name of this planet? Other than Corona Gamma Four, that is."

  "The records of the plans for the original expedition are more scanty than usual," the computer told him, "but they do include the information that the intended local name for the planet was Siegfried."

  "So somebody was planning on the Teutonic theme from the beginning," Magnus said. "Were they planning on breeding three separate sub-races, or was that an accident?"

  "It could hardly have been an accident, Magnus," Herkimer reproved. "The Terran government insisted on very stringent safety precautions for colonial expeditions, including having a gene pool large enough to prevent inbreeding."

  "Yes, even private expeditions had to pay lip service to the regulations, at least," Magnus agreed. "If they didn't have enough colonists, they had to bring frozen sperm and ovabut once they had landed on a new planet, there was no one to guarantee they would use what they had brought."

  "Surely you don't think the original colonists actually planned this state of affairs!" "No, I think it far more likely that they had a horrible accident," Magnus said, "something that killed off half the colonists or wiped out the gene bank-or that in spite of their precautions, genes linked up to cause unusual effects."

  He thought of his home planet, whose original colonists had contained an extremely high proportion of latent telepaths and other kinds of latent espers, though nobody had realized it at the time. Because of that, their descendants had more operant psi talents than all the rest of the Terran Sphere combined.

  Magnus was proof of that himself. "Nature has strange ways of achieving remarkable surprises, and you can't always foresee every problem. I'm voting for no malice intended by the original colonists, just inbreeding reinforcing genetic drift. After all, it makes sense that if a few giants were born, they'd want to marry other giants."


  "And dwarves would wish to marry other dwarves," Herkimer agreed. "But why would they seek out separate territories?"

  "That, I leave to normal human cussedness," Magnus said. Now, Gar reflected that he had guessed more rightly than he knew, in using the word "cussedness." Maybe "perversity" would be more fitting-but either way, if he really wanted to bring peace to this world, he needed a local ally, and Gar thought he might be able to forge an alliance with the woman he'd rescued-if he could win her confidence enough to talk with her. She would be a valuable information source and a possible peacemaker-but even if she weren't, she was a person who needed help. He didn't usually make a practice of adopting waifs and strays, but he had a notion this one needed a friend more than most.

  Besides, he needed a friend, too-preferably one whose brain wasn't made of silicon.

  From her tracks, their direction, and the rate at which she'd been going plus the panic that had impelled her, Gar estimated where she would have gone to ground. He strolled along the road for another fifteen minutes, then stopped and looked around as though judging the place's fitness for a campsite.

  In reality, of course, he was listening with his mind.

  5

  There. He could hear her thoughts, quite loudly and clearly-but only surface thoughts. Monster's looking for me hurt me have to freeze so he won't see me be ready to run if he does. Then a sudden undercurrent of doubt: Why'd he help me? But suspicion overwhelmed it in an instant: Wants me for himself.

  She was watching from somewhere, absolutely still and watching him, trying not to breathe, ready to run at the slightest hint of pursuit-but under her tension, Magnus could feel an utter bone-weariness and a massive dejection, an impulse to just sit down and die.

  He couldn't let that happen, of course, and was absolutely determined not to give it a chance. He started walking again, went on another hundred feet, then stepped off the road. He could feel the sharpness of her burst of panic, but also the caution that went with it and held her frozen in place, terrified at the thought of making a sound or a movement that might attract his attention. Deliberately not looking in her direction, Magnus stopped in the center of a small clearing and surveyed it. Fifty feet of leaves and underbrush hid him from the road, but the open space was wide enough to light a fire safely. He nodded and started searching for rocks, picking up one in each hand and carrying them to the center of the clearing to build a fire ring.

  When the ring was made and the plants and dead leaves cleared from it, he found the driest sticks he could and kindled a fire. All the while he was aware of the woman's thoughts, wary and watchful, wondering what he was doing, testing his every movement for menace, trying to puzzle out whatever trap he was laying for her. She hadn't yet thought of the trap called friendship, which could hold her more surely than any snare.

  Magnus made a frame of green branches, notched one to make a pothook, took the little kettle out of his pack, filled it with water from his skin canteen, and hung it over the fire. Then he took out two tin mugs with wooden handles, crumbled tea leaves into each, and waited for the water to boil.

  While he waited, he took out bread and cheese and slowly, carefully cut his slices and laid a thick slab of cheese on the bread. He ate slowly, too, savoring each morsel, and feeling the answering pang of hunger in the watching woman. He guessed she'd had very little to eat in the last few days.

  The water boiled, and Gar poured some into each mug, then took out salt beef and dried vegetables to add to the water. He stirred it and waited, sipping first from the one mug, then the other. The fragrance of the tea rose into the morning, strange to the woman, but to judge by her thoughts, very enticing. Soon the aroma of the stew reached her, too, and the pang of hunger became a stab.

  Now Gar caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye. She was crouching behind a bush, peering through a gap in the leaves. Giving no sign that he'd seen her, Gar cut a thick slice of cheese and broke off some bread, then rose and went around the fire, put the wooden platter on a rock with a mug of sweetened tea beside it, and went back to his own. place some ten feet away.

  Alea had run as fast as she could, too frightened to consider whether the stranger was a friend or an enemy. She had nearly panicked again when she saw him coming her way, but the childhood fables of the wisdom of the rabbit had made her freeze where she hid. She had watched him, ready to bolt in an instant, and had felt great relief when he settled down to his campfire. But the sight of the bread and cheese had started hunger gnawing at her belly, reminding her that she'd eaten only handfuls of berries and a few raw roots since she'd finished the bread she'd taken when she ran away, three days before. Then the delicious scent of whatever it was in those cups had almost undone her, almost pushed her to go to him and beg a morsel-but fear held her in place. After all, it was a strange smell, and who knew what he had put in those cups? But she had watched him drink out of first the one, then the other, and had decided that whatever it was, it wouldn't hurt her.

  Also, the message was clear-Come share a cup with me, my fair!-and when she realized it meant he knew she was watching, she had almost run away. But her fear had begun to slacken, for she had never seen a slave-hunter who tried to entice rather than pursue. Curiosity roused as strongly as her hunger, and held her watching until the aroma of the stew made her weak at the knees. Now, though, the invitation was undeniable indeed-a plate of food and a mug of drink for her, far enough away to give her a head start, and with a fire between to slow him down. She didn't trust him for a second, of course, but oh! How she needed a friend! Besides, he had chased away the hunters-and he was as tall as she, taller. Like her, he needed to fear the Midgarders, but wouldn't be welcome among the giants.

  Then, too, he was wearing slave clothes.

  She made up her mind; food and companionship were worth the gamble. Clutching her staff, she moved slowly around the bush, rising a bit but still crouched, and prowled around his campsite toward the bread and cheese. He gave no sign of seeing her, didn't look her way, even kept his eyes on his own plate, but somehow she knew he was aware of her every movement. Slowly, ready to bolt at the slightest threat, she came closer, then snatched the plate and retreated back among the leaves, eating while she watched him.

  Even out of the corner of his eye, Gar saw her clearly, and was amazed at her tallness-well over six feet, when most of the women he had met in his life had been a foot shorter. He was also struck by the voluptuousness of her figure-she was perfectly proportioned, but on a larger scale than most women, and looking under the dirt and lines of fatigue on her face, Gar saw that her features, too, were perfectly proportioned, almost classical, like those of a Greek statue-but the haunted look, the shadows of fear and bitterness, kept her from being beautiful. Still, she made him catch his breath.

  She finished the bread and cheese, and he still had not made a move in her direction, only raised his cup to drink, then poured the stew into two bowls. She came close enough to take the mug of tea and sip, holding her improvised staff at guard and ready to run. "Why did you save me back there?"

  "I don't like seeing men manhandling women," Gar told her. "I don't like seeing six against one, either. I've been on the receiving end too often. By the way, my name is Gar Pike."

  Either the double meaning of the name was lost on her, or she was in no mood to laugh. She stood frowning at him, but didn't offer her own name. Instead, she asked, "How did you know I'm not a murderer?"

  "You might have been," Gar allowed. "But more than anything else, you might have been some sort of slave who had managed to escape."

  "Think you know everything, don't you?" she said darkly. Gar laughed, but managed to kept it low and soft. "Know everything? Enough to survive, at least. Beyond that? I don't even know why I'm alive."

  The woman digested that, thought it over, then said, "Who does?"

  "Married people," Gar told her, "the ones who are in love, at least. And the ones who have children."

  She flinched; he could
see he'd struck a nerve, and said quickly, "But I'm none of those, and probably won't ever be."

  "Why?" She was suddenly intent.

  "I'm too big for most," Gar explained, "and too moody for the rest. Besides, if a man hasn't married by thirty, there isn't much chance that he will."

  It was more than true-in a medieval society. Again, she winced. He guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, though allowing for the medieval rate of aging, she could be younger, even in her late teens or early twenties.

  "Why are you living, then?" She asked it with that same intensity, almost a hunger.

  Gar shrugged. "Because I was born," he said, "and I haven't quite given up yet."

  She thought that statement over too, then gave her little nod once more.

  "Back away," Gar warned. "I'm bringing your stew to that rock."

  Her eyes widened, and she darted back into the forest, but stopped when she was fifty feet away, almost lost in the leaves. Gar moved slowly, keeping both hands in sight, rising and crossing to the rock where he'd left the bread and cheese. He set down the bowl and went back to his own place. As soon as he sat, she came back, much more quickly than she had the last time. Good, he thought. She's remembering how to trust, at least a little.

  She knelt, a broken branch ready in her left hand as she lifted the spoon with her right, darting quick glances at the bowl when she had to, but otherwise keeping her eyes on Gar. When she was done, they simply sat looking at one another for a while, and neither seemed to feel the need to be the last to look away. She frowned a little, studying him as though he were a problem she had to puzzle out, almost seeming not to notice his gaze, being too intent on watching him. Her eyes were large and gray and long-lashed, but haunted....

  Gar realized he was holding his breath for some reason, and forced his mind back to business. All this staring was getting them nowhere and yielding no information. There wasn't any need to hurry, of course, but Gar had a whole planet to analyze. Well, if she wanted help, she could ask for it.