Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 8 - A Wizard In The Way

VIP免费

2024-12-12 0 0 337.62KB 96 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

A Wizard In The Way

The Eighth Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard

By Christopher Stasheff

ISBN: 0-812-54168-5

Someone hammered on the back door of the hut. Mira turned from the cookpot over

the hearth and opened it, instantly worried-who was ill now?

Little Obol stood there, panting, eight years old, eyes wide with alarm. "Run,

Mira! There are soldiers coming toward your house, and one has a parchment in

his fist!"

Mira's heart lurched; dread weighted all her limbs. It had come at last. She

gave the boy a sad smile. "There's no sense in running, Obol. If the magician

wants one of his people, we've no choice but to go to him."

"You can flee!"

"Yes, to have his dogs sniff me out and his soldiers drag me back to him. No, I

think I'd rather go with my head high and my clothes clean. But thank you, lad.

Run along home, nowwe don't want them to know you've been telling tales."

She bent and kissed his cheek. Obol blushed; he may have been only eight, but

Mira was very pretty.

Too pretty for her own good, Mira thought with a sigh as she closed the door. By

the time she was thirteen, it was clear that the pretty child was going to

become a beautiful womanbut her parents had warned her that Magician Lord Roketh

would command her to his bed if she were beautiful, and Mira suddenly understood

why the prettiest girls in the village wept as they went to the castle with the

soldiers. She had thought it would be a fine life, living in the lord's keep to

cook or clean instead of doing the same work in a peasant but all her life. Now,

though, she understood why, when the girls came back to the village to buy food

or cloth for their master, they seemed either timorous and fragile or hard and

brazen. She vowed it would never happen to her and took pains to hide her

beauty, tying her hair back in a severe bun and staying out in the sun so that

her face would become tanned. She practiced looking spiritless and glum, only

letting her natural cheerfulness bubble up at home.

It had worked well for years, but as she turned eighteen, even the dimmest eye

could see how exquisite she had become, and her magician lord Roketh was

anything but blind.

As were his soldiers. A fist pounded at the door. Quickly, Mira twisted her hair

into a bun, secured it with a bone pin, then hurried to open the door, squinting

against the sun. She didn't need to, but anything that made her look less

attractive would help.

Four of Roketh's guards stood outside, grim in their leather and iron. "Mira,

daughter of Howell?" their leader asked. "I-I am she." Mira tried to make her

voice sound gravelly. "You are summoned to Lord Roketh, maiden. You will present

yourself at the castle tomorrow in your best skirt and blouse."

"Yes ... yes, sir."

"We shall come to accompany you, maiden. Be ready." With no more ceremony than

that, the guard turned, barked a command to his fellows, and led them away.

Mira closed the door, trembling inside. She might be a maiden when she went to

the castle, but only for a day. She wondered how unpleasant that taking would

be, then remembered Roketh's seamed old face, his glittering eye, the touch of

cruelty in his smile as he rode through the village, and shuddered at the

thought. She went to a curtain, lifted a corner, peered up at the castle that

brooded over the town, and shuddered again. The gray stone pile was a fearsome

place of sudden gouts of fire and crackling thunderbolts. Worse, Roketh himself

was ugly and malicious, using his knowledge of healing to bribe and threaten,

using his other magical powers to intimidate.

Mira remembered the neighbor who had not been able to pay his taxes one year

because the labor Roketh demanded on his fields had left the family with no time

to cultivate their own garden. The thatch of their cottage had burst into flame

in the middle of the night. They had all come running out-they were all alive-

but they'd had to watch everything they owned burn to the ground.

Then there was old Ethel, who had sworn a curse against Roketh when he had taken

her daughter. Ethel's cow had gone dry the next day. Her pig had sickened and

died, and her hens had lost their feathers and ceased laying. The next year, of

course, she had not been able to pay her taxes, either.

Those she had known of her own witness, but there were many other tales: a man

who had refused to go out to Roketh's fields because his wife was sick abed and

their child too small to be left alone had seen his own garden wilt and die.

Another had refused to let his daughter answer Roketh's summons and had died of

a strange and disfiguring ailment. Soldiers who displeased Roketh were likely to

have their own weapons turn upon them. None in her village had ever been'rousted

from their pallets in the middle of the night by terrifying, groaning,

sharpfanged ghosts, but she had heard of many who had, if their masters were

ghost leaders.

Mira knew her beauty would not last long if she dared defy Roketh. On the other

hand, she had seen what a night spent with him had done to the other maidens who

had been ordered to his bed, and when he finally sent them home, grown too old

to interest him, they were drained of all enthusiasm, turned into dull-eyed,

spiritless drudges. Any questions about what the magician had done to them

evoked only cries of terror and floods of tears. Rumor said they woke screaming

from nightmares.

What could Mira do? On the one hand, she was terrified at the thought of the

ordeal the other maidens must have endured. On the other hand, she didn't want

her parents or family to have to suffer hauntings, night terrors, or madness

from having tried to protect her.

There was one other choice. She would probably be captured and brought back in

shame, but she had to risk it. The soldiers would not come until the next day,

so that night, Mira slipped out the door and stole into the woods with a pack of

travel rations.

The forest was gloomy and filled with terrifying sounds, but she dared not hide

and wait for dawn-she must be as far away as possible before Roketh could learn

she was missing and send his soldiers searching for her. She could not have fled

during the day, of course, or the soldiers would have been on her trail

immediately-but oh, the night was terrifying! Thoughts of wolves and bears made

her steps drag and the occasional moan that might have come from a ghost sped

her heels amazingly. Thus, now running, now creeping, Mira made her way through

the lightless forest with her heart in her throat and a prayer on her lips.

The peasant paused to lean on his short handled hoe, gazing off into the

distance, his stare so vacant it was hard to believe he was seeing anything. His

legs were wrapped in rough cloth cross-gartered to hold it in place; his shoes

were wooden. The man's only other garment was a tunic of coarse cloth. His mouth

lolled open, his forehead was low, his hair a black thatch.

Then a better-dressed man with boots and a sheepskin jacket, bearing a cudgel,

came by and barked at the peasant. With a sigh, the man lowered his gaze again

and set himself once more to chopping weeds.

Alea couldn't hear his voice, of course-the picture had been taken from orbit,

and though light may travel twenty thousand miles, sound waves have more limited

range. She turned to Gar--well, Magnus, really, but she would always think of

him as Gar--and said, "Bad enough, but I've seen worse. In fact, I've lived

through worse."

"So have I," Gar agreed. "This planet can wait. You must have more extreme cases

on file, Herkimer."

"Of course, Magnus," the ship's computer answered. "How extreme would you wish?"

"The worst first."

"The worst is thirty light-years distant, Magnus, and there are two lesser cases

on the way."

"If they're lesser," Alea said, "they don't need us."

"Let's look anyway," Magnus said. "If the worst is dreadful, the lesser cases

may be horrid. We might not be able to bring ourselves to pass them by."

"Oh, all right," Alea said with a martyred sigh. "Which hard case is closest?"

They sat in the sybaritic lounge of Magnus's spaceship Herkimer, computer and

ship being so tightly interlocked that it would be impossible to tell the

difference. They sat on deeply cushioned chairs that molded themselves to the

contours of their bodies as they shifted positions. Between them was a slab of

jade on legs of porphyry, and if the substances weren't strictly natural, only

an electron microscope could tell. Around them stretched deep-piled carpet of a

dark red. The walls were lost in shadow except for pictures lighted by

camouflaged lamps, as were their two chairs. All the rest was hidden in scented

gloom. Mozart played softly from hidden speakers.

Alea twisted, feeling guilty at such luxury when people dwelt in the squalor

pictured before them in midair, seeming as real as though the people and

landscapes were actually before them in the room.

"These are the people of Beta Taurus Four," Herkimer told them.

Alea found herself staring at a circle of men and women wearing only loincloths

and halters, bent low over the spokes of a turnstile that turned a mill wheel.

An overseer in a leather jerkin and high boots stood watching, whip in hand.

Behind him, oxen wandered, grazing.

"There are far more people than cattle on this planet," Herkimer told them, "so

the men and women labor while the oxen grow fat to provide tender meat for the

lords' banquets. There are fifteen hundred rulers and a million serfs, with

twelve thousand overseers and supervisors to keep them healthy enough to work

and drive them to exhaustion."

Alea shuddered. "Worse than the last by far." She turned to Magnus. "Where did

Herkimer find this information?"

"My father's robot downloaded it into him." Magnus tried not to think about the

details of family and self that Fess had downloaded with it. "My father is an

agent for SCENT, the Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent

Totalitarianisms. After Terra managed to throw off PEST, the Proletarian

Eclectic State of Terra, the reactionary government that cut off the frontier

planets, SCENT surveyed those colony worlds to see how they had fared during

their centuries of isolation. They smuggled in agents who traveled wherever they

could, taking pictures with hidden cameras. When their ships picked them up and

brought them back to SCENT headquarters, they filed these pictures along with

reports of what they had seen." He shrugged. "PEST lost quite a few records of

which planets had been colonized, and later explorers have happened upon some of

them." He didn't mention that his own home world had been one.

"So there may still be a great number left out there?" Magnus nodded. "To be

truthful, no one knows how many. During the last century of colonization, a host

of disaffected groups scraped together enough money to buy and equip their own

colony ships and went plunging off into the galaxy to try to find habitable

planets. Some sent back reports, some didn't. SCENT assumes a large proportion

of those last have died out."

"But some of them survived?"

"Survived, and don't want to be found-or at least, their founders didn't. Some

of the groups who set out from Terra to found their own ideas of an ideal

society were careful not to let anyone know where they were going. Others meant

to but were rather careless. We don't know which colonies survived and which

didn't."

Alea shuddered. "But we can't do anything about them, can we?"

"Not unless we happen upon one accidentally, no."

"And we have no idea what they're like?"

"Well, we know they haven't developed interstellar travel, or we would have

heard from them," Magnus said. "Other than that, we only know that some of the

ones we've found have developed very bizarre cultures."

Alea thought about what "bizarre" could mean and hid another shudder. The dread

made her a bit more acerbic. "If you people in SCENT know-"

"Not me," Magnus said quickly, eyes on the scene before him. "I resigned."

Alea frowned; it was the first he had mentioned of ever having belonged to his

father's organization. She needed to follow that up, find out why he had joined

and, even more, why he had quit-but she could see from his face that the time

wasn't right. Instead, she went on. "All right, those people in SCENT. If they

know lords are oppressing serfs on so many worlds, why don't they do something

about it?"

"Because there are so many worlds," Magnus explained. "There are simply too many

of them for SCENT to deal with all at once. After all, they have limited

personnel, becoming more limited all the time as the old rebels who first

staffed it die off or retire."

"So who's going to take care of the colonies they haven't reached yet?" Alea

demanded.

"We will." Magnus flashed her a grin. Alea stared. Then, slowly, she smiled

back.

"Alert!" the computer's voice said. "I have just received a television signal."

"Television?" Magnus turned back toward the display area, tense as a leashed

hound. "In H-space?"

"I can detect it, but I cannot receive it," Herkimer said. "Shall I drop into

normal space and read it?"

"Please do so!"

Alea didn't understand the terms yet, but she wholeheartedly agreed with the

sentiment There was no feeling of a change in motion-the ship's internal gravity

saw to that but suddenly a woman and two men stood before them dressed in garish

clothing. Behind them was an array of flashing lights and screens with abstract

patterns. The woman had tears in her eyes and was trying to push her way between

the men, who glared at each other as though ready to spring into a fight to the

death. The colors kept blurring and bleaching, though, and the whole picture

kept breaking into a sea of colored dots that lost their hues, then regained

them, managing to pull together into the image again.

"The signal is very faint," Herkimer said. "I shall have to digitize and process

it to make it consistent."

"Do so, please," Magnus said. "What is its source?"

"Extrapolating vector," Herkimer said, then a few seconds later, "There is no

recorded planet in that vicinity."

"No recorded planet?" Gar turned to meet Alea's eyes, and the same thought rang

in both minds: Lost colony!

Arnogle waited until the last glimmer of dusk had faded from the meadow, then

came forth from the forest and stretched his arms upward, palms out. The tall

cone of his hat pointed backward; his white beard and blue robe ruffled in the

breeze, making the golden symbols embroidered there dance and ripple. Arnogle

had told Blaize again and again that stretching the arms wasn't necessary to

call ghosts but did help a man direct his thoughts toward them. It was only a

trick, a technique, but Arnogle needed every bit of skill he could muster.

Only one or two ghosts came in answer to his summons, rising from the long grass

of the meadow like mist, and scarcely stronger than that vapor--rather sorry

specimens of their kind, too minor even to groan. Given enough time, of course,

Amogle could, with great effort and skill, call up a dozen or so middling

powerful specters, but such summoning wasn't Arnogle's strength. That was why he

had tracked down the teenaged boy who was making his village a virtual ghost

town. Arnogle had sent one of his own peasants to trade with the villagers,

making sure to mention what a kind lord his master was and how willing to teach

his art Sure enough, Blaize had found a way to escape from his lord and flee to

Arnogle, who had generously enlisted him as apprentice, thereby winning the

eternal gratitude of both the boy, who escaped his neighbors' wrath and censure,

and of the villagers, who breathed a massive sigh of relief at being rid of all

the specters Blaize attracted. Arnogle had taught Blaize quickly enough how to

control his ability to call the ghosts.

He used it now, surreptitiously adding his own calling to Arnogle's-and sure

enough, it wasn't necessary to spread his arms. The ghosts rose from the trees

at the edges of the meadow, boiled forth from the stream, even materialized from

the air itself. Scores of them flocked toward Arnogle with long, drawn-out

moans.

"Thank you, boy," Arnogle called, then bent to the silent task of cajoling the

spirits, mind to mind, into helping him fight his enemy Pilochin.

Blaize watched in admiration. He could scarcely talk to the ghosts he summoned-

that he could do so at all was a testament to Arnogle's teaching. Given a few

more years of work under the master's expert guidance, he would probably be able

to bargain with the ghosts well enough to achieve his ends, for Arnogle was as

skilled a teacher as he was a ghost leader.

If he survived! There, at the far side of the meadow, Pilochin came forth with a

dozen men-at-arms and five apprentices, bearing the tank, hose, and nozzle of

his magic. For a moment, Blaize entertained his old skeptical doubt that fire-

casting was actually magical at all, but only a very clever use of devices and

potions; its secrets were certainly well guarded. But he shoved the thought

away-mechanics or magic, it could certainly slay himself and Arnogle this night,

and every one of Arnogle's dozen guards to boot. Besides, Blaize couldn't deny

that Pilochin knew all the minor spells for love philters, drying up cows'

udders, disease curses, and all the other day-to-day magics that were necessary

for any magician to keep his peasants in orderand bent to his will.

Blaize understood that the peasants were going to have a master, no matter what,

and if it weren't a kind and just master, it would be a tyrant-so he had

determined to become a magician in order to oust the despot who ruled his home

village and made his parents' lives miserable. Then Blaize would become lord

himself-and would be a kind master.

Tonight, though, he might be without a master himself. He knew that ghost-

leaders didn't usually fare too well against firehurlers. When all was said and

done, specters might be frightening, but fire was lethal.

Arnogle must have finished, for the ghosts turned, howling like furies, and sped

off toward Pilochin's men. The apprentices around the tank held their ground

until the wraiths were almost upon them. Then one or two stepped back, then

another-then all five were running pell-mell away, leaving Pilochin to saw the

air with his arms, shouting in a rage at the ghosts, as though any of his spells

could have stopped them. No, past him they went, chasing his men. Pilochin

turned to glare at his rival, but Arnogle gave a shout of triumph. "Upon him, my

men! Bring him home bound and trussed!"

The guards cheered and charged toward the lone magician. Pilochin stood rigid

with defiance, then wavered, then finally turned to run.

With a hoot of delight, Arnogle ran to take possession of the firetank,

shouting, "Come on, boy! Spoils to the victor!" But Blaize stood a moment

irresolute; it had all been too easy, far too easy. Both wizards brought only

bodyguards, because more men could not be trusted. What use were armies when

this issue would be decided by magic? Pilochin's levies would have run in fright

from the ghosts, and his sheets of flame would have stampeded Amogle's plowboys.

Better by far to bring only the veterans of his bodyguard, who could be relied

on to hold their places no matter how frightful the assault.

But Pilochin's bodyguards had fled like the greenest recruits when any seasoned

soldier would have stood his ground, knowing the ghosts could do little but

frighten. Oh, they could tell tales so gruesome as to make the most hardened

murderer quake inside-but nothing more. They could send tendrils of madness into

a man's mind, make him turn his weapons on those beside him, but they themselves

could do little with their own hands, and any troops used to their assaults

could withstand them.

Then why had Pilochin's men fled?

Arnogle seized the firetank with a cry of victory-a tank to which the hose was

not even connected, and suddenly Blaize realized the trap. He cried out, "No,

Teacher! They would not let their mystery fall into our hands, they would not-"

But Arnogle's bodyguards clustered around to help him with the waist high tank.

All together, they laid hold of the ring at its top, then lifted, and some

premonition of disaster made Blaize throw himself on the ground a split second

before the tank burst into a huge yellow ball of flame, devouring Arnogle and

his bodyguards with a ravening roar. A wave of heat washed over Blaize; he

hugged the ground, eyes shut tight, until cool air followed hot. Then he dared

look up to see Pilochin pointing at him and crying, "There! Seize his

apprentice! Then on to make sure of his lands and serfs!"

The guards came running back, and Blaize scrambled to his feet, turning to run,

tearing off the robe that tangled his legs as he ran stumbling and staggering

over the rough ground, blinking away hot tears that threatened to press out from

his eyes, tears for Arnogle and for his valiant guards.

As he ran, Blaize called out, "Aid me, those who have answered my call! Protect

me from those who chase me, I beg of you!"

His mind went where his voice did. Most of the ghosts ignored it, but a few

understood his predicament and swooped at Pilochin and his apprentices, moaning

and howling with distress and warning-but not enough; Pilochin's guards dodged

and ran around the spirits, who swerved to follow, misty arms reaching out to

seize, brows lowering over hollow eyes in anger. The guards ducked beneath them,

though; one or two even ran right through a ghost. They came out shuddering with

cold but ran all the faster for it.

Nonetheless, the swerving and dodging slowed them badlyslowed them enough so

that Blaize was able to plunge into the cover of the woods. His ghostly friends

had bought him just enough time.

There was no light as he fled, and soon a low limb knocked off the tall cone of

his apprentice-magician's hat. A small ghost sailed before him, though, its glow

just enough to let him see roots and fallen branches in his path. Even so, he

stumbled now and again, but he plowed ahead with determination, certainly

running faster than Pilochin's men, who had no guide and had to thrash about in

strange territory. Blaize could hear their cursing, but it grew fainter with

every passing minute. He risked a glance backward and saw a dozen dots of light

bobbing and weaving. They had brought lanterns, then, but the flames couldn't

possibly cast enough light for them to see the trail very far ahead. Even as he

watched, one lantern dipped suddenly, shooting to the ground, and Blaize heard

the cursing of a man who had tripped.

The ghost moaned in warning and Blaize turned back to his own trail just in time

to see and leap a huge bulging root. He leaped it and followed his spectral

guide, who zigged and zagged so often that in a matter of minutes Blaize was

sure he had lost his pursuers. Still the ghost sailed onward until at last it

stopped, turning back to Blaize with a groan that soared into a laugh of

delight, and Blaize could make out the very faint thought, in the back of his

mind, that he was safe now. He sent a rush of thanks outward to the ghost, who

winked before disappearing.

Alone at last, Blaize sank to his knees, gasping for breath. Still, alarm pushed

him, and he stood up again as soon as he could, no longer panting, but sorely

weakened. He decided to turn toward the southwest and his home village-after

all, Pilochin probably had no idea where Blaize had grown up.

Then he stopped, wide-eyed and apprehensive, looking at the trees about him, and

realizing that it wasn't only Pilochin's men he had lost, but himself, too.

"What does he mean, no recorded planet?" Alea asked.

"Just what you're thinking." Magnus grinned. "And so am I. Which of us thought

it first?"

"Both at the same time." Alea spoke sharply to hide the hope that she might be a

more talented telepath than she knew. "There is such a thing as coincidence, you

know."

"Yes, and similar answers to the same question," Magnus said. "But we both think

it's a lost colony, so let's see if we're right. Vision, Herkimer, please."

The image that appeared was flat, an elongated rectangle in bright colors.

"Rather primitive," Herkimer explained. "The picture was originally displayed on

a screen."

"Yes, we understand that it was television, not holovisionbut this was a colony,

after all, and bound to lack a few of the refinements." Magnus's gaze was glued

to the picture before them.

They saw a man with long black hair and beard, wearing a burgundy robe, standing

in front of a scene showing people in leather jerkins and hose with hawks on

their forearms and shoulders. He was saying, ". . . steady progress in

terraforming and developing the land. The Dragon Clan has perfected the taming

and training of the local wyverns. Watch, now, as the dragoneer sends the beast

hunting."

One of the leather-clad men swelled in the picture, and Alea saw that the

reddish-brown creature on his wrist was no bird, but a sort of pterodactyl,

though its head did look rather like that of a horse and its neck and backbone

sprouted a row of triangular plates that stretched down its tail to an

arrowpoint on the end. Now she realized why its handler wore leather-the claws

were long, hooked, and sharp.

The man tossed his wrist and the wyvem leaped into the air, wings beating until

it found an updraft. The picture stayed with it, following, making it larger and

larger in the screen as it spiraled upward, riding the wind, then suddenly

plummeted to earth. It rose again in an instant with a small animal in its

claws-but grew smaller and smaller in the picture; its handler and his friends

appeared at the edge and zoomed toward the middle, and the narrator swam back in

front of them. He watched them, nodding, as the wyvern settled back onto its

handler's wrist. "The dragoneer tells us the secret to controlling the reptile

is thinking with it, every step of the way. Whether by mind reading or by

training, the little dragons are bringing home dinner for their handlers as well

as themselves."

He turned to smile at his viewers as the picture behind him dissolved into a

scene of a broad wheat field. "Halfway across the continent, the Clan of the

Mantis has succeeded in breeding insect predators that banished the crop feeders

destroying their wheat"

The wheat behind him expanded until a few huge heads of grain filled the screen.

Alea found herself looking at a dozen beetles stripping the grain from the stalk

astonishingly quickly, but a bigger beetle came crawling behind them to gobble

them up like so many pieces of candy.

"Neatly and efficiently done," the narrator said cheerfully. "In this case, big

bugs have little bugs for biting."

He went on, the picture changing behind him as he told all the latest tidbits

with delight. The Khayyam Clan had perfected its geodesic tent; a few people

stood near the structure to show that it was three times their height. The

Polite Barbarian Clan had plotted the grasslands available to each of the

cattle-herding clans during each season. The Appleseed Clan was sending couriers

to all the other clans with seeds for their new insect resistant varieties of

fruit.

Magnus sat, dazed by the variety of clans and the way in which they had split up

the task of developing the planet. "Truly amazing," he murmured.

"But how long has it been? Several hundred years at least." Alea frowned. "And

they're still adapting themselves to their world?" Then she answered her own

question. "No, of course not These pictures are coming to us at the speed of

light, radiating outward from the planet, and the oldest ones reach us first."

Magnus gazed at her, feeling himself swell with pride, even though it was

Herkimer who was her teacher, not himself. But she learned so quickly and

reasoned out so much from it! Really, it was an honor to be her companion.

The narrator before them went on as the scene displayed a picture of a dozen

saffron-robed people, the men bearded, the women without cosmetics and with

simple hairstyles. Most had gray hair; all looked compassionate and concerned.

The narrator told his viewers, "The gurus of all the clans tell us that their

people are paying entirely too much attention to worldly things." Behind him,

the picture changed to a grid with the faces of men and women in small squares.

Most of them were gray haired, too, but they fairly glowed with enthusiasm.

"The clan leaders held a teleconference to consider that issue," the narrator

told his viewers, "and replied that all the clans together were performing a

massive study in ecology, though that may not have been what they intended. By

developing their animals and crops, they're gaining a greater sense of how all

life-forms fit together and interact. The clan leaders claim this is another

route toward achieving harmony with the Infiniteand the gurus agreed! I do have

to say, though, that the Wise Ones didn't seem too enthusiastic about it."

Alea objected, "The people in each of those 'clans' don't look anything like one

another! How could they be related?"

"They probably aren't," Gar replied, "or at least they weren't, until their

mothers and fathers married. I suspect they share interests, not genes. People

concerned with herding cattle band together, people who want to grow oats band

together, and those who want to raise maize gather together, too."

"Well, that makes sense," Alea. admitted. "After all, oats and maize grow best

in different climates-and their farmers would have to live together."

"Besides, village life that way would give them the feeling of belonging to an

extended family," Gar said thoughtfully, "and I suspect these colonists were

very lonely before they formed a group."

The narrator's voice began to crackle and the picture broke up into a swirling

mass of colored dots.

Alea frowned. "What's happening? Oh! We're going toward the planet faster than

light."

"Correct, Alea," Herkimer's voice said. "We have passed the range of the oldest

television signal emitted from the planet There are younger ones, of course. How

many years should I let pass by us before I record one to display again?"

"Let pass?" Alea frowned. "How many are there?"

"An uninterrupted stream, broadcasting over a period of a hundred years or

more."

"Only one century?" Magnus's eyes glittered. "There should be seven. Let's see

what happened." He turned to Alea. "Every twenty-five years?"

"That should give us some idea of their progress," Alea agreed-but she felt

misgivings, felt out of her depth, so she asked, "Why so many?"

"I want a quick overview of the planet," Gar explained. "But we gain it by

moving closer to the planet," Alea objected. "If we decide we want more detail,

it will be too late to go back and find it."

She expected him to argue and felt her blood quicken with the thought, but

Magnus only nodded judiciously and said, "A good idea. Store all the signals,

Herkimer, but show us only those that come in every quarter-century. Then if we

wish to retrieve others, we can."

Alea felt both pleased and chagrined: pleased that he took her thoughts

seriously, chagrined that she had missed a chance for an argument. Magnus knew

how to argue properly-taking her seriously and intending to win, but not too

seriously and not minding if she proved to be right.

For the next hour, Herkimer showed them snippets of dramas, comedies, programs

of singers and dancers, and shows in which ordinary people matched wits against

a master of ceremonies-though they called him a guru-trying to answer obscure

questions such as, "When was the I Ching written?"

Alea stared in blank incomprehension. "Is there any point to these pantomimes?"

"I'm sure the people who watched them thought so." Magnus's brow was creased in

thought "What I find interesting is the peole's appearance, and the subjects

that seem to interest them."

"They all wear such primitive clothing!" said Alea. "Everyone does seem to wear

a robe, unless they're working," Magnus agreed. "But their working gear isn't

all that different from your own people's."

Alea shrugged. "Didn't you tell me that tunics and leggins are timeless?"

"Yes, until the leggins turn into trousers. Strange that there should be so many

ghost stories, though."

"Yes." Alea smiled. "The ghosts seem to have more amusing remarks than the live

people. And they do like stories about magic, don't they?"

"Yes, but I wish we'd seen more of that documentary about wyverns. They seem to

be very interesting beasts. I'm amazed that they managed to survive the

introduction of the birds the colonists brought with them."

"Why?" Alea turned to him with a frown. "With those beaks and claws, even an

eagle would flee them."

"Pterodactyls didn't fare so well against birds on old Earth," Magnus explained,

"though that may have been due to the cold snap that killed off most of the

dinosaurs."

"Yes, dragons by any other name. I haven't seen any sign them on these

programs."

"Something must have killed them off, then-the wyverns didn't evolve in a

vacuum."

"Wait what's this?" Alea leaned forward, frowning.

The picture was rough, grainy, and flashed lines of static now and then-a gaunt

woman in a rough tunic pointing to pictures on an easel, which abruptly filled

the screen as she explained them. "Native plants have begun to grow again, now

tha the Maize Clan has run out of weed-killers from Terra ... th Grape Clan

sends word that their new vines are only root stoc so that the hybrid vines

brought from Terra are the last of the stronger grapes that we'll see. Without

new seeds and shoots from the home planet, they're having to make do with the

weaker strains that are offspring of the old vines, and the native weeds are

choking many of them. People are stockpiling the old vintages. The Equestrian

Clan reports that without imported sperm and ova, many foals are dying from

local diseases, but the survivors are developing hybrid colts and fillies that

are more hardy, though not as tall or graceful. The Aurochs Clan is sending in a

similar report-their new cattle are smaller and stronger, though with much less

meat but all the livestock clans are producing plenty of fertilizer.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be bonding with the soil as well as the Ten-an

fertilizers did, and the yield per acre is down considerably."

She looked up at the camera, drawn and haggard. "Fortunately we have enough food

stocks for the next five years, and the Alchemist Clan reports great success in

developing philters that remove the toxins from native plants." She turned to

pull a picture of strange, broad-leaned plants off the easel, revealing a

picture of a misty humanoid form floating between two thatched roofs. "The Ghost

Clan has confirmed yesterday's report of a new haunting in the Amity Valley.

They haven't, however, confirmed Goren Hafvie's claim that the spirit is the

ghost of his ancestor, Guru Plenvie."

"They can't believe ghosts are real!" Alea exclaimed.

"It's a belief that never seems to die out, even in technologically advanced

societies." Magnus carefully didn't remind her that she herself had believed in

ghosts only two years before.

"In the northeast, the druids of the Quarry Clan have expelled a group of

thirteen men and women for trying to intimidate the rest of their village by

threats of spreading a disease called murrain among their cattle," the narrator

went on. The picture on the easel slid away to expose a scene of four cows and a

bull lying on their sides, swollen as though inflated. "Unfortunately, an

epidemic did spread through the village's livestock. The druids examined the

bodies and concluded that the cause really was magic. They expelled the

sorcerers with a warning to establish their own village and stay away from any

others." The narrator filled the screen again, the picture suddenly small behind

her. "Since Terra has cut us off and is no longer sending cattle embryos,

spreading such a disease has become a serious crime."

The picture broke into colored dots, the voice was drowned in a rush of static,

and Alea stared, feeling numbed. "So that's what happened to the colony planets

when Terra cut them off?"

"To all of them, yes." Magnus nodded. "Some were more self-sufficient than

others, but in most, the PEST regime's retrenchment meant famine and plague-and

war, as the people fought over what food stocks remained." His face was gaunt,

haunted. "I hope we won't have to watch such a bloodbath here."

"It seems we will." Alea braced herself as the picture reformed in front of

them, showing two men in half-armor and high boots, halberds in hand, pushing

two raggedly dressed men into a small mud but lit only by a tiny fire in the

center.

"You can't leave us here, Corporal!" one of the ragged men whined. "We'll

starve, that's what!"

"Do what you please," one of the soldiers grunted. "Anybody who steals from the

soldiers' mess deserves what he gets!"

"You can say that again." The other man sniffed with disdain. "Lumpy porridge

and stale hardtack-no wonder they call it a mess!"

The other soldier swung a punch at him; the man adroitly ducked. "You liked it

well enough to try to steal a bowlful when you were supposed to be peeling

potatoes," the guard growled.

"You can just wait here until the company magus has time for you!"

"The company magus!" The first man shuddered. "You hear that, Charlie? He'll

give us lockjaw so bad we can't even sip!"

"The punishment will fit the crime," the soldier threatened. "You don't mean

he's going to throw us into fits for punishment!" Charlie bleated.

"I could think of someplace better to throw you," the guard growled. "Shut up,

now, and wait your turn."

"A tern wouldn't be half-bad roasted," Charlie mused. "The wings are kind of

bony, though."

"I thought they made a jingling noise," the first rag man said, and turned to

the guard. "Can we wing for service?" Alea stared, unbelieving. "They're

joking!"

"If you can call those jokes," Magnus groaned. "I don't think we have to worry

about seeing a war-they're still making comedy programs."

"Pretty poor program," Alea said, "with only a mud but for a scene."

"Pretty poor comedy," Magnus replied.

"I'll show you service!" The guard yanked a length of rope from his waist.

"Pozzo, go get a bowl of mush."

The other guard grinned and went out the door.

The first guard tied the rope through the bonds on Charlie's wrists, then passed

it through a ring set in the wall and tied the other end to George's wrists. The

other guard came back in with a steaming bowl of porridge and set it just a

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

AWizardInTheWayTheEighthChronicleofMagnusD'Armand,RogueWizardByChristopherStasheffISBN:0-812-54168-51Someonehammeredonthebackdoorofthehut.Miraturnedfromthecookpotoverthehearthandopenedit,instantlyworried-whowasillnow?LittleObolstoodthere,panting,eightyearsold,eyeswidewithalarm."Run,Mira!Therearesold...

展开>> 收起<<

Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 8 - A Wizard In The Way.pdf

共96页,预览20页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 8 - A Wizard In The Way

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: