Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 6 - A Wizard In Midgard

VIP免费

2024-12-12 1 0 370.6KB 105 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

A Wizard In MidgardA Wizard In Midgard

The Sixth Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard

By Christopher Stasheff

ISBN: 0-812-54927-9

Magnus walked down the road, swinging his staff in time to his footsteps and

surveying the countryside. It was a neat patchwork of green and gold, even an.

oblong of red here and there, depending on which crop was growing where.

But as he'd seen from orbit, most of the workers in the fields seemed to be very

big-six and a half feet or taller-or else very short-less than five feet or even

smaller. There were children in the field, some stooping to hoe like the adults,

some running around in play. If it hadn't been for their games, Magnus might

have thought them to be dwarves, too. As it was, he had to look closely to see

if the short people had the proportions of adult dwarves or of ordinary

children. They were all dressed in worn, patched tunics and leggins, most of

which were gray or tan. Some of the garments had once had some color, but were

now worn almost as gray as the others.

As he watched, an overseer spoke sharply to one of the tall men, hefting a

cudgel in a threatening manner. The tall man cringed and nodded quickly, then

turned back to work, stooping and hoeing with renewed vigor.

Magnus was outraged. Bad enough that any man should have to fear another that

way, but worse when the slave was so much bigger and stronger, and easily the

master in an even fightl But he realized that was his own bias, projecting his

own situation into them, for he was seven feet tall himself. Something hard

cracked on the side of his head.

Pain wracked his skull, and Magnus stumbled and fell to his knees, the whole

world swimming about him even as he realized he'd let himself become distracted,

lowered his vigilance-but his staff snapped up to guard position by sheer

reflex. He hadn't even seen his attacker approach, hadn't heard his footsteps

coming up from behindl Another stick swung at him, but he felt it coming and

managed to swing his staff to deflect the worst of it. A fist hooked into his

face, snapping his head up, and rage broke loose. Magnus surged to his feet,

roaring. The world still wobbled, but he lashed out with his staff blindly. It

connected, someone shouted with pain, and Magnus snapped back to guard, head

clearing, pivoting about, ready for the next blow.

There were a dozen of them who had come up cat footed behind him, all about five

and a half feet tall, all grim and hard, dressed in tunics and bias-hosen of

bright colors and stout cloth, each with a staff or a cudgel, three at the back

with swords, two with bows.

Magnus read their intent by their armament alone-to capture him if they could

and kill him if they could not. Half a dozen of them stepped in, sticks

slashing. Magnus caught one on his staff, another, a third, but two more struck

his shoulders and one his head, hard. The world swam again, panic churned up

from the depths, and Magnus realized he was fully justified in using his psi

powers. He projected raw emotion broadcast, a numbing fear, and swung his staff

like a baseball bat. It struck one man in the ribs, knocking him into another;

both fell, bringing down a third, and the rest ran, howling with fear. But pain

exploded on the back of Magnus's head, a thud resounded through his skull, and

as he fell, he realized that one of the hunters was a man of true courage who

hadn't let his fear stop him. Then midnight claimed him.

In the darkness, one single thought rose: that he should have realized the depth

of these people's hatred for anyone bigger than themselves. The thought brought

a dream of memory, of watching from above as a double rank of Vikings bellowed

their battle cry and charged a row of giants, four of them to each titan. The

giants met them with roars and quarterstaves-steel quarterstaves, to judge by

the way the Vikings' axes and swords glanced off them.

The giants fought back to back, staves whirling as they fended off blows from

three sides at once, striking downward at men only two-thirds their height. The

Vikings used their size to advantage, though, leaping in under the giants'

guards to slash and chop at their legs. Here and there, a giant went down, and

the Vikings leaped in to butcher him quickly before other giants could come to

his rescue-which they did, for those steel quarterstaves cracked the Vikings'

helmets and drove their blades back against their own bodies.

Suddenly it was over, and the Vikings were leaping away, retreating back to

their own side, forming a ragged line that turned and fled. One or two giants

roared and started after them, but their mates caught them and pulled them back.

Watching them on his viewscreen, Magnus guessed, "The giants have fallen for

that trick before-chased the Vikings to their own doom."

"No doubt," said a voice from thin air-or from the concealed loudspeakers in the

spaceship's lounge. "I suspect the Vikings led them into swamps, where they

floundered, easy prey for spears and arrows."

"Or led them under trees thick with spearmen." Magnus nodded. "The giants have

learned their lesson. They're holding their line."

On the viewscreen, the giants were indeed standing firm, breathing hard and

waiting for the smaller men to come back. Their mouths moved as they called to

one another, but of course Magnus couldn't hear what they were saying. "I wonder

if they're speaking Terran Standard."

"We can send down a probe with an audio pickup," the voice offered.

"Now, Herkimer," Magnus reproved, "you know I'm not rich."

Herkimer was the name he had given his ship's computer and, therefore, the ship

itself. It navigated and operated the vessel, monitored his life support

systems, cooked his meals, cleaned the ship, and to top it off, dredged up an

amazing variety of facts from its vast memory.

"I'm happy enough with pictures," Magnus told the computer. "In fact, I'm amazed

the electronic telescope can zoom in tightly enough to show a close-up of a

human face from an orbit twenty thousand miles above the planet's surface."

The world was listed by the name of "Siegfried" in the atlas of colonized stars.

That alone had been enough to send Magnus to searching it out. There had been a

record of a colonizing expedition and the general direction in which they

intended to search for a habitable home, but none of where they had landed or

whether they had survived. It had been an interesting search.

"It is impressive." Being a computer, Herkimer couldn't really be impressed by

anything. "But a microphone that could reach so far is completely out of the

question."

"No need, when all we're trying to do is gain an overview of the situation."

The giants waited a long time as the Vikings retreated, step by step. Even when

they were out of sight, half the giants stayed on guard. The other half turned

to tend the wounded.

"Do you suppose some of those giants could be women?" Magnus asked.

"Quite possibly," Herkimer answered, "but it is difficult to say. They're all

wearing the same armor, over similar tunics and cross-gartered leggins."

"But some of them don't have beards," Magnus pointed out, "and the ones who

don't, have breastplates that bulge outward more than the men's do."

"It is possible," the computer admitted. "Odd that their men would not object to

risking them, though."

"Maybe not, when they're so badly outnumbered," Magnus said, "and when any one

of them is big enough to be a match for three of the Vikings. Of course, they

come at the giants in squads of four. . . ."

"We must count it a hypothesis to be examined more closely," Herkimer cautioned.

"We need more data."

"How strange those giants look." Magnus couldn't help thinking of them as

anything but giants, when they were half again as tall as the Vikings and five

times as massive. Their thighs looked to be two feet thick, and their upper arms

more than a foot. Their hips were four feet wide, and their shoulders five.

"They're so broad and thick that they seem short."

"Perhaps they are," Herkimer suggested. "We really have no artifact by which to

judge their scale."

"True enough," Magnus admitted. "I'm assuming that the Vikings are of normal

size for human beings-somewhere between five and six feet tall. If they are, the

giants are nine feet tall on the average. I suppose they need such thick legs to

support all the weight that goes with that extra height."

"Still, we are only assuming," the computer reminded him. "For all we know, the

ones you call Vikings may be only two feet tall."

"Well, yes," Gar admitted. "But they have the proportions of normal men, and if

they were shorter, they should also be more delicate-so I'm betting they're of

normal size. Oh, I and by the way, yes, I know they aren't really Vikings."

The Vikings of Terra's past had been ordinary Scandinavian citizens at home who

had gone raiding the shores of richer countries to supplement their incomes-or,

in some cases, for their whole incomes. A great number of Norwegians, Swedes,

and Danes stayed home and farmed-but when they went to war, they wore the same

armor and carried the same shields and weapons as the Vikings did.

"They do dress like medieval Scandinavians," Herkimer admitted, "and most people

associate horned helmets, beards, and war-axes with Vikings."

"Yes, you'd almost think they had stepped off the screen of a dramatic epic,"

Magnus said. "Of course, they're probably very ordinary farmers and tradesmen at

home, not medieval pirates. They've simply been called up for war."

There certainly was no sea in evidence, except for the coastline hundreds of

miles to the south. Only one central area of a small continent had been

Terraformed; the rest was desert or tundra. This battle had taken place on the

eastern border of the land, assuming that the mountain range on the photographed

map before Magnus was indeed a border. "Zoom out," he told Herkimer, and as the

giants dwindled in the viewscreen, the Vikings came back into sight. Sure

enough, they were out of the foothills where they had fought the battle and into

the meadows and marshlands beyond, carrying their dead and wounded.

"The mountains do seem to be the borderland," Herkimer said. "I think we-can

infer that they are the giants' homeland."

To the east, the giants finally broke their formation and , brought out

stretchers to carry home their dead.

"They must have scouts in the last foothills near the flatland, and some way of

signaling back to the army," Magnus guessed. "How many lost their lives in this

skirmish, Herkimer?"

"Ninety-eight, counting the dead on both sides," the computer reported. "Judging

by the severity of their wounds, I estimate that sixteen more will die within a

few days."

Magnus scowled, the sunlight of discovery and investiga tion dimmed by the

shadow of death. "I wonder how frequent these battles are?"

"We found this one by only an hour's search," Herkimer replied. "Probability

analysis indicates an almost constant state of border clashes."

"Yes," Magnus said, brooding. "If they were rare, the odds of chancing upon such

a battle would have been extremely small. At least their wars seem to be

confined to small battles." Then agony seared through Magnus, and the dream

fled.

Awareness returned in the form of the racking ache in his head. Then a sudden

sharp pain exploded in his side, and a voice commanded, "Up with you, now! I saw

you twitch! You're awake!"

The accent was strong, but it was still Terran Standard. That was bad; if the

language hadn't drifted much from its origin, it meant that the government was

strict, harsh, and stonily conservative. Magnus struggled to rise, but the

effort made the pain spear from temple to temple, and he fell back with a groan,

thinking, Concussion....

The sharp pain jabbed at his side again, and the voice shouted, "Up, I said! By

Loki, you'll do as you're told, or you'll die for it!."

Anger overode the pain, and Magnus forced his eyes open. Light tore at his

brain, and he squeezed his eyelids to slits as he rolled, trying to ignore the

agony in his head and the nausea in his stomach, looking for his tormentor.

The man stood above him with a yard-long wooden stick capped with a metal

point-for all the stars, a cattle prod! "Up!" he bellowed. "Into the field with

you!" He jabbed again. "That for your arrogance, walking down the road in broad

daylight like a real man! Into the field with you, half-giant, and learn your

place!"

Through the raging in his head, all Magnus could think was, Half?

Then he remembered what he had seen from orbitfrom orbit, safe in Herkimer's

cozy, luxurious lounge.

Magnus pored over one photograph, then compared it with another and another.

"There's a pattern here."

"Of what sort?" the computer asked. Its injured tone had to be Magnus's

imagination; Herkimer couldn't really be feeling miffed that Magnus had

discovered something that it hadn't. In fact, Herkimer couldn't be feeling,

period. It was a machine.

"Some form of slavery," Magnus said. "In every picture showing people working,

the real drudgery is being done by the biggest and the smallest."

"Stronger people would naturally do the heavier work," the computer noted.

"It isn't always heavy." Magnus leafed through the pictures. "They're chopping

wood, drawing water, mucking out pigpens, that sort of thing. The medium-sized

women are feeding the chickens, sweeping the steps, and tending the gardens. The

medium-sized men are making barrels, driving wagons, forging iron

implements-crafts and trades. The big ones and the small ones do the unskilled

labor. More medium-sized men are watching them with sticks in their hands."

The computer was silent a moment, then answered, "I have correlated all the

pictures we have taken, including close-ups of photographs we had not previously

examined in detail. Your analysis holds."

"Some sort of slavery? Or a caste system?" Magnus shook his head. "We need more

information."

Well, he was getting that information now, and there didn't seem to be much

doubt about the slavery. What a fool he had been to leave that nice, safe

spaceship just because he thought other people were being oppressed)

The prod goaded him again, and the overseer roared, "Up, monster! Or I'll stab

you half to death!"

The tide of anger almost overwhelmed Magnus-but people were most definitely

being oppressed, and his own mistreatment was proof of that. He fought down the

anger and stumbled to his feet. By sheer bad luck and his own stupidity, he had

fallen into the perfect situation to study their suffering-and to take a look at

this society from the inside. He could play the obedient slave until he had a

clear idea of what was going on. Then he could escape=he had no doubt of that;

for a projective telepath, it only took thinking sleepy thoughts at the guards.

Though he might stop to beat up this particular overseer a bit on the way

out....

Looking down, he was amazed to see that he wore the same sort of worn gray tunic

and leggins as the field slaves. "What did you do with my clothes!"

"Gave 'em to somebody who deserves 'em," the overseer grunted. "His wife will

cut them down for him, never you fear. Half-giants have no business wearing such

finery!"

Finery? The cloak and tunic had been of stout, closewoven wool, good hardy black

travelling clothes, and the boots had been carefully scuffed and worn, but still

sound and waterproof. Instead, he wore sandals, scarcely more than soles

strapped to his feet.

"I am Kawsa, overseer to Steward Wulfsson," the smaller man snarled. "You'll

have cause to remember my name, you great hulk, and my prod too! Now get moving,

or you'll wish you were dead!"

Magnus was tempted to split the man's head with the same agony he felt-but he

couldn't be sure of his telepathic abilities until the concussion healed. He

turned to shuffle toward the field, fighting dizziness and nausea.

The prod whacked him across the back of the knees. Mag nus cried out as he fell.

"What do you ,say when an overseer speaks to you, boy?" Kawsa growled.

"My mother taught me not to say such things," Magnus groaned.

The stick cracked into his buttock. Magnus managed to strangle the shout of

pain.

"You say, `yes, sir!' " Kawsa bellowed. "No smart talk to me, boy! And it

doesn't matter what I say, the only answer is `yes, sir!' You understand that

now?"

"Gotcha," Magnus affirmed.

The stick cracked across his buttocks again. "What?" Magnus steeled himself to

the degradation and reminded himself that he needed to study these people up

close, witnessing how badly they oppressed their slaves and how they chose who

was to be a slave and who free. "Yes, sir." He nearly choked on the words, but

he got them out.

"That's better. Into that field with you, now, and grub weeds!"

Magnus tried to push himself to his feet, but his leg nerves hadn't recovered

yet.

"Aw, can't get up?" the overseer crooned, than snapped, "Crawl, then! That will

remind you what a worm you really are!"

Magnus told himself that the slaves needed the kind of sympathy that can only

come from shared suffering, and crawled into the field. Other slaves glanced up

at him, then quickly glanced away.

"Well, you're close enough to the ground that you don't need a hoe," Kawsa told

him. "Grub with your hands!"

He watched while Magnus pulled a dozen weeds, then walked on down the row, but

glanced back frequently.

A very short man in the next row spoke out of the side of his mouth, carefully

not looking at Magnus. "Whatever possessed you to go marching down the high road

dressed like a freeman in broad daylight, poor lad?"

"I'm from far away," Magnus told him, "very far, beyond the borders of this

land. I didn't know."

"From the North Country?" The man looked up, surprized, then remembered the

overseer and turned his gaze back to his hoe. "Then your parents must have been

slaves who escaped, and should have told you what it was like herel I thought

everyone knew how things were in Midgaad!"

"I'm from farther than that," Magnus told him, but registered the name of the

country well, to remember it. Midgard? Well, it did go with the horned

helmets....

Again the man stared at him, but only for a second. Then studying his hoe blade,

he muttered, "Didn't know there were people farther away."

"I'm real," Magnus assured him. "I didn't know what I was getting into."

And that, he decided, was nothing but the honest truth. At least he had expected

to see dwarves, too. He had seen them in the pictures from orbit, after he and

Herkimer had explored Midgard's eastern border.

"Let's see how the western border compares with this one, Herkimer."

"Initiating acceleration," the computer replied, but the artificial gravity

within the ship was so excellent that Magnus felt no change. "Should we examine

the northern border on the way?"

"No point," Magnus said. "Your photographs show it to be a wasteland with only a

few small settlements." He looked down at the pictures on the table before him,

aerial photos of the planet's one inhabited continent.

Some were large-scale, some small; some showed the country as a whole, some only

single villages, some even closeups of just a few people. "Wattle and daub huts,

thatched roofs, wooden wheels on their wagons, clothing limited to tunics and

bias-hosen for the men, blouses and skirts for the women, hooded cloaks for both

... yes, it looks very much like the Scandinavian Middle Ages."

"Too much so?" the computer supplied.

"Definitely. Someone set about a deliberate imitation, but wasn't a stickler for

historical accuracy." Magnus couldn't rid himself of the feeling that he was

looking at a gigantic stage set.

"We have come to the dawn line," Herkimer reported. "Good." Magnus turned back

to the viewscreens. "Is there a natural border?"

"Yes, a river, and the land beyond it is thickly forested."

"Scan it for signs of battle-there!"

The view on the screen steadied, showing a bird's-eye view of two straggling

lines of dots facing three rings of other dots, smooth with geometric precision.

Behind and between the circles were lines of dots, again straight as though

drawn with a ruler. The two sets of lines faced one another between the river

and the forest.

"Hold this view on one screen and have the other zoom in," Magnus directed.

On the right-hand screen, the dots swam closer. The ends of the lines swept out,

and the dots resolved themselves into Vikings on one side, charging with waving

axes and mouths open to shout. Across from them were three circles of armored

warriors with crossbows, marching around and around. The ones in front aimed and

discharged their weapons as they paced along the front arc, then wound back

their bows and reloaded as they marched along the back arc. Between them stood

other warriors with long shields and short swords. Long spears thrust out

between sword-wielders from the second line of warriors.

As the Vikings came closer, the crossbowmen kept up a continuous field of fire.

The Vikings charged straight into their storm, horn-helmeted men falling left

and right, but the rest running on, shouting. Half their number survived to

reach the stariding warriors. They pushed the spears up with their shields so

that they could chop at the swordsmenwhose heads were scarcely waist high.

Magnus stared in amazement. "The spearmen are dwarves!"

"Relative to the Vikings, yes," Herkimer agreed.

Looking more closely, Magnus could see that the warriors in the formation had

legs and arms that were shorter in proportion to their bodies than those of the.

Vikings-but their shoulders were almost as wide, and their heads almost as

large, as those of their bigger opponents.

Magnus gave a long, low whistle. "No wonder they're fighting with such iron

discipline! It's the only way they can stand against men twice their size!"

"And who outnumber them," Herkimer pointed out. There did seem to be twice as

many Vikings as dwarvesbut that appearance changed as the taller men tried an

outflanking maneuver. On the left-hand screen, the overview of the battle,

Magnus saw the ends of the second line of Vikings split and swing out, to try to

catch the circles of dwarves from the flanks-but as they did, archers rose from

the bushes at the sides and filled the air with arrows. A number of Vikings

fell, and the rest retreated back to the battle line. They found themselves

racing the center, who were fleeing from the crossbow fire. The dwarves,

apparently moved by a chivalrous impulse their larger foes lacked, held their

fire. They seemed to feel no need to kill as long as their enemies were

retreating.

"Reserves hidden in ambush." Magnus stared. "Some of them are almost as big as

the Vikings!"

"They would seem to be traitors," Herkimer commented. "They must certainly seem

that way to the Vikings! Of course, I suppose they could be fugitives given

sanctuary by the dwarves-or even political dissidents." Magnus compared the two

screens. "Still, the Vikings outnumber them by half."

"At least," Herkimer agreed.

The dwarves held their ground, not taking the bait to chase-but a final flight

of crossbow bolts filled the air, hurtling toward the fleeing Vikings. Several

more of them fell. Their comrades scooped them up and carried them back to the

river. There, they slowed to cross a bridge made up of low boats with decking

laid across their centers. The Vikings tramped over those decks, carrying their

dead and wounded, and as soon as the last one passed, the sections of bridge

broke away and began rowing back to the eastern bank of the river. The water was

indeed a border.

The dwarves held their formation until the last boat was well out from shore,

then turned to embrace one another, slap each other's backs, and even break into

an impromptu dance here and there.

Magnus stared at the close-up. "Some of them are beardless. . . ."

"And their cuirasses are very pronounced about their gender," Herkimer finished.

"Many of those warriors are women."

"No wonder, when they're so badly outnumbered, and so small into the bargain!

We're looking at a military society, Herkimer."

"Ii would seem so," the computer agreed. "Holding so tight a formation under the

stress of battle speaks of long training."

"Yes,. from childhood, probably." Magnus frowned. "And as with the giants, if we

could find a battle so quickly, they have to be common-another part of life,

like plowing and reaping."

"A time to sow, a time to reap, and a time for war,"-the computer agreed.

But the dwarf slaves in these fields hadn't learned to fight, and the only time

for them was a time to suffer.

When the sun neared the horizon, Kawsa and half a dozen other overseers lined

them up with shouts and insults, then started them off in a shuffling line back

to the farmstead. They went down through rows of barley and hops to a broad

farmyard of clean tan gravel. Another file of slaves was driving cows into a

milking barn, and three others were pouring swill into the troughs of a huge

pigsty. Gar's file shuffled past them all to a long ramshackle shed of unpainted

boards, and inside.

There the silence ended. Half of the slaves dropped down onto pallets of moldy

straw with moans of relief. Others only sat down on rude benches, but everyone

breathed sighs of relief. Even the older children sat down with groans, their

dusty little faces lined with weariness. The younger children had been able to

nap in the field, though, and still frolicked and quarrelled. Magnus expected

some of the tired adults to snap at the little ones, but they only sighed with

philosophic patience-and a surprising number of them watched the children with

doting smiles. Even in the midst of such misery, they found pleasure in the

innocent squabbles and joys of their children.

Magnus noticed a great lack of water, and a greater need for it.

A tall young woman came up to him with a bucket from which she lifted a dripping

ladle. "Drink, lad, for you'll need it!"

"Thank you," Magnus said sincerely, and drank the ladle dry, thinking it was the

sweetest drink he had ever had during peacetime-if you could call this peace. He

handed it back to the woman with a sigh of relief. "I needed that."

"I'm sure you did," she said, then reached out to touch his forehead, frowning

anxiously. Magnus forced himself to hold still, though the touch of her fingers

hurt. "You've a right ugly bruise there," she told him, "and a few more I can't

see, I don't doubt."

"I'm sure you're right," Magnus told her. "I've a dozen aches at least. Believe

me, I've had hours to count them.", "Don't I know it!" she said. "My name's

Greta."

"I'm honored to meet you, Greta." Magnus inclined his head gravely. "My name is

Gar Pike."

She stared at him in surprise, then gave him a wan smile. "A gar pike, are you?

Gar I don't doubt, and you're a poor fish indeed, to let yourself be caught like

this. But why take such a name for yourself?"

The question brought a sudden wave of longing for his nice, safe spaceship

lounge, and a memory of Herkimer saying, only hours before, "Why do you insist

on using that abominable alias when you go planetside to start a revolution,

Magnus?"

Magnus shrugged. "You never can tell when there are going to be secret agents

around, from SCENT or some other Terran government agency. I'd just as soon they

didn't recognize me by name."

"Surely the name of Gar Pike must be almost as famous as that of d'Armand, by

now."

"Not to SCENT, fortunately-unless they've had agents on every planet I've

visited." Magnus's mouth tightened at the thought of his own brief stint as a

SCENT agent, and his disillusionment with their methods. His father, Rod

Gallowglass, whose real name was Rodney d'Armand, was one of the most famous

agents of the Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent

Totalitarianisms--famous because he had discovered Magnus's home planet of

Gramarye with its potentially explosive population of espers. For three decades

now, he had been holding the planet secure against the schemes and plots of two

futurian organizations, one trying to subvert Gramarye to some form of

totalitarian government so that its telepaths would be at the service ofits

interstellar dictatorship, the other trying to subvert the planet to anarchy so

that the telepaths would help spread its unrealistically idealistic form of

chaos throughout the human-colonized planets. Rod Gallowglass had

short-circuited all their schemes with the help of his native-born wife

Gwendylon and their four children-three, since Magnus had taken to the stars,

unable to accept his father's imposing of democracy on a people who might not

want it. He had joined SCENT under an assumed name, become even more

disenchanted with its methods than with his father's, and gone off on his own to

bring about social change in a way about which he could feel rightwhich meant

that he sought out planets where the majority were really miserably oppressed,

and the only solution was revolution.

So here he was, talking to another miserable one, and trying to explain, "The

name was given me as much as I chose it." He realized he had better think of

himself as "Gar Pike" for the rest of his time on this planet.

Greta's wan smile warmed a little. "Don't you ever talk like a proud lord,

though!"

"Is he all right?" asked another woman anxiously, coming up to them. Gar looked

down and saw she wasn't even five feet tall.

"He seems well enough," Greta answered her. "He walks fairly straight, and his

limp's almost gone."

"I'm past the worst of it," Gar confirmed. .

"This is Rega." Greta gestured to the smaller woman. "Honored to meet you,

Rega."

Rega smiled up at him. "No wonder the overseers set about you so hard, with your

courtly ways. Where did you esape from, lad? I know Groi says you're from far

away, but that can't be, can it?"

Groi, Gar decided, must be the small man who had talked to him out in the field.

"It's quite true. I wanted to see something of the world before I settled down."

"Seen enough yet?" Greta asked with a sardonic smile. They were very surprised

when Gar said, "Too much--but not enough."

Gar was certainly seeing the world of Seigfried, and was regretting every minute

of it-but he and Herkime had tried to reason out the social conditions on the

plane from the evidence of what they had seen, until Herkimer had finally said,

"There simply is not enough information to justify any conclusions about this

culture, Magnus."

"Other than that we need more information," Magnu said with a wry smile. "Still,

we've seen two battles producign dead bodies in a very short space of time. I

think constant warfare is reason enough to help these people make a change in

their form of government, don't you?"

"Help, or incite?" The computer was capable of recognizing irony, if not actual

humor. "Provisionally, I would have to agree. After all, you have engineered one

peaceful revolution already-why not start a revolution to bring peace? But if

the tallest and shortest of the Midlanders are really locked in to slavery and

the misery that almost always accompanies it, would say that was an even

stronger reason."

"War and slavery," Magnus said grimly. "I've helped people who were worse off,

but this is surely bad enough. Yes, I think it's time for Gar Pike to conduct a

fact-finding mission."

And the first fact he had to find was whether or not the people of Siegfried

were really as miserable as he thoughtor if he was reading his own desire for

purpose into their situation.

"Where do you wish to land, Magnus?"

"Near the border of the land of the medium-sized people," Gar said. "Since they

seem to be fighting both of the other nations, they should give me the best

chance of understanding the whole situation at one experience."

"You might not fit in," Herkimer warned him, "and might not be accepted. In

fact, they might take you for an enemy. After all, you are a giant among your

own kind, or have been on every planet you have visited."

Magnus was broad in proportion to his seven feet of height, constant exercise

and martial arts practice having made him very muscular.

"I shall prepare the appropriate garments, Magnus," the computer told him. "You

will find them in the wardrobe of your sleeping chamber."

"Thank you, Herkimer." Magnus rose and went to his suite, to enjoy what might

well be his last civilized shower for a very long time.

Dinner was served by two women from the farmhouse kitchen, from huge buckets

carried by two of the oversized men. Gar expected the slaves to race clamoring

to the doorway and fight one another to be first, but they only pulled wooden

bowls from their pallets and lined up. Their eyes bulged and their mouths

watered, but no one pushed his way past anyone else. Gar was especially

surprised that none of the semi-giants kicked any of the small people out of

line, and the few who tried it were shoved back into place and scolded soundly

by the nearest of their fellow huge ones. Gar took his place at the end of the

queue, even though his stomach growled and his mouth fairly ached with

hunger-but he knew he had eaten better than any of them, and probably just as

recently."

He studied the line, trying to figure out how they decided who had what place.

He would have expected the smaller people to either have to accept last place,

or to be allowed to go first, but they were sprinkled throughout the line. It

wasn't even big person/small person in alternation, but one here, two there,

even three in one place. Finally he cracked the system--the ones in front were

the oldest, with the youngest next; the middle-aged came last, forcing

themselves to wait, presumably because the others needed their food more.

Finally Gar came up, and the server scraped the bottom of the bucket to come up

with half a ladleful for him. She started to hold it out, then stared. "You have

no bowl!"

"I'm new today," Gar told her.

"Are you indeed!" She peered up at him, squinting-she was one of the small ones.

"What's your name, lad?"

"Gar," he answered.

"Well, I'm Lalle." The little woman turned to her partner, a woman two feet

taller than herself. "Vonna, have we an extra bowl?"

"Always." The big woman set down her ladle and fished an empty wooden bowl out

of a huge pocket in her apron. She handed it to Gar. "Scrub it with sand when

you've done, and keep it under your pillow! Here, now." She scraped around the

bucket with her ladle and plopped a half-dipper of porridge into his bowl. Lalle

added her half dipper, and Gar thanked them numbly, then turned away, staring

into his bowl and wondering how he was supposed to survive to do heavy work on a

bowl of thickened pea soup.

He also wondered how he was supposed to eat it, but one look at his fellow

slaves told him the answer. He sat down by the door and dipped two fingers into

the mess, then stuck them in his mouth and sucked off the food. It was crude,

but it worked. The porridge was, at least, reasonably tasteless. He reminded

himself that it could have been worse. In fact, he was so hungry that it

actually tasted good-or felt that way.

When he was done, he followed the others outside to a sand heap where he scoured

his bowl, then went back indoors. He was amazed to hear the slaves beginning to

sing. It was a slow, mournful ballad, even as he would have expected, but it was

full of the promise of the joys of tending the gardens of the gods amid the

fragrance of fruits that made people always young, and where all work seemed

play.

Gar listened, feeling his stomach sink. Were their lives so miserable that this

was the golden afterlife that made the burden of existence bearable-an eternity

of work for a kind master, in a garden where perfume induced euphoria? He

shuddered inside at the thought.

Then a rough voice tore through the song. "Greta!"

The slaves fell silent on the instant, and the girl who had brought Gar his

drink stood up, paling and backing away, hands out to defend. "Not me! It was

only three nights ago!"

"So I find your body pleasing." Kawsa strode into the slave barracks, two other

overseers behind him, grinning eyes gleaming with lust. "Out, girl, and into the

barn!"

"No!" Greta cried. "It's not fairl Not so soon! Choose someone else!" She turned

to her fellow slaves in appeal. "Someone who hasn't been in a while, please!"

Stone-faced, Rega started to rise, but Kawsa just pushed her back down. "It's

you tonight, Greta lass, and none other! Come now!"

"No! I won't!" Greta backed away, then suddenly bolted for the window.

Kawsa caught her in two strides, wrestling her down to the floor, then catching

her wrists. She screamed and kicked, then managed to lever herself up enough to

bite at his hands.

He dropped her with an oath, but one of the other over- . seers caught her

wrists and another her ankles.

Kawsa nursed his bitten hand, growling, "Take her out and tie her to the post."

Then he kicked a very small boy nearby and said, "Run and fetch the steward."

Eyes huge with fear, the boy ran out the door. ' "Everyone out!" Kawsa bellowed.

"All of you! It's been too long since you watched what happens to a slave who

disobeys an overseer!"

They moved with the speed of fear, for all the overseers were red with anger and

watching closely for an excuse. They gathered around the whipping post as Kawsa

tied Greta's wrists to it. She screamed and fought, of course, and another

overseer had to hold her in place while Kawsa bound the rope tight.

As they finished, Steward Wulfsson came up. He was a thick, beefy man in early

middle age with lowering brows and a fleshy face. "What's the matter, Kawsa?"

"This woman Greta, your lordship." Kawsa was breathing hard from binding the

woman. "She refused an order, she argued."

"He had me only three days ago!" Greta protested. "Not so ..."

Wulfsson stepped up and, quite methodically, backhanded her across the mouth. "I

don't care what the order is or what your reasons-you don't refuse one of my

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：

AWizardInMidgardAWizardInMidgardTheSixthChronicleofMagnusD'Armand,RogueWizardByChristopherStasheffISBN:0-812-54927-91Magnuswalkeddowntheroad,swinginghisstaffintimetohisfootstepsandsurveyingthecountryside.Itwasaneatpatchworkofgreenandgold,evenan.oblongofredhereandthere,dependingonwhichcropwasgrowingw...

展开>> 收起<<

Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 6 - A Wizard In Midgard.pdf

共105页,预览21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 6 - A Wizard In Midgard

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: