"No, I mean this whole business. Dragons. The magic and all. It’s just not like anything I’m used to."
Moira rolled over to face him. "You mean you really do not have magic where you come from?"
"The closest I ever came to magic was working with Unix wizards," said Wiz.
"Eunuchs wizards? Did they do that to themselves to gain power?"
"Huh? No. Not Eunuchs, Unix. Spelled…" Wiz realized he couldn’t spell the word. He recognized the shapes of the letters, but they twisted and crawled in his mind and no meaning attached to them. When he tried to sound the word out only runes appeared in his head.
"Never mind, but it’s not that at all. It’s an operating system."
"Operating system?" Moira said frowning.
"An operating system is a program which organizes the resources of a computer and virtualizes their interfaces," Wiz quoted.
"A computer? One who thinks?"
For the thousandth time in his life, Wiz wished he were better at making explanations. "Well, kind of. But it is a machine, not alive."
"A machine is some kind of non-living thing then. But this machine thinks?"
"Well, it doesn’t really think. It follows preprogrammed instructions. The programmer can make it act like it is thinking."
"Is it a demon of some kind?"
"Uh, no. A demon’s something else. It’s a program that does something automatically when called. Unless of course it’s a daemon, then it’s active all the time."
Moira wrinkled her brow. "Let us go back a bit. What do you have to do with these creatures?"
"They’re not creatures, really."
"These demons, then."
"I told you, they’re not demons. A demon is something else."
"Never mind all that," Moira said impatiently. "Just tell me what you do."
"Well, I do a lot of things, but basically I’m a systems-level programmer. That means I write programs that help applications programs—those are the things people want done—to run. ’’
"What is a program?"
Wiz sighed. "A program is a set of instructions that tells the computer what to do."
"You command these beings then?"
"I told you, they’re not…"
"All right. These creatures, or not-demons or whatever they are. You command them?"
"Well, kind of."
"But you have no magic!"
Wiz grinned. "You don’t need magic. Just training, skill, discipline and a mind that works in the right way."
"The qualities of a magician," Moira said firmly. "And with these qualities you master these—things."
"Well, you try to. Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you."
"There are bears involved too?"
"No, look, that’s just an expression. What I mean is that sometimes it’s easy to get the computer to do what you want and sometimes it isn’t."
"Powerful entities are often hard to control," Moira nodded. "So you are the master of these—whatever they are."
"Well, not exactly the master. I work under a section chief, of course, and over him there’s a department head. Then there’s the DP Administrator…"
"These entities tell you what to do?"
"They aren’t entities, they’re people."
"But you do not master these, what did you call them?"
"The section chief, the department head…"
"No, I mean the other things, the non-living ones."
"Oh, the computers."
"You master the computers."
"Well, no. But I program them according to the tasks assigned me."
"So you are only a low-level servant," Moira concluded firmly.
"No, I’m not! It’s an important job," Wiz said desperately.
"I’m sure it is," Moira said. "Even temple sweepers perform an important job."
"No, it’s not like that at all! It’s…" He realized it was hopeless. "Just forget it, okay? It was an important job and I was damn good at it."
"Do not curse, Sparrow," Moira snapped. "We are in enough danger as it is." With that she rolled over and settled down to sleep.
Wiz didn’t follow suit. He sat there listening to the wind in the trees and the occasional cry of a night animal. Once he heard a wolf howl far off.
Damn!, he thought. Here I am in the middle of a forest with a beautiful girl asleep at my side and I can’t do anything about it. I didn’t think it was supposed to work this way.
Wiz had never read much fantasy, but he knew that the hero was supposed to get the girl. But then he didn’t feel very heroic. He was cold, uncomfortable and most of all, he just felt ineffectual. The same old klutzy Wiz.
And lonesome. Oh my God, was he lonesome! He missed his apartment, the traffic-clogged streets, the movies, the all-night pizza joint on the corner. With a great inrushing pang, he felt utterly lost.
He even missed the goddamn buggy text editor at work. Do you realize there probably isn’t a computer anywhere on this world? He thought. I have probably written my last program.
That hurt worse than anything. All his life Wiz had only been good at one thing. When he discovered computers in high school, he found he was as good with them as he was bad with people. He had put his life into being the best ever with computers and if he hadn’t been the best ever, he had certainly been damn good. Only a lack of money and fascination with immediate problems had kept him from going to grad school and getting the Ph.D. that would have led him to the top rank of computer scientists.
So here he was in a world where none of that meant diddly. What was he supposed to do with himself? He couldn’t earn a living. He wasn’t really strong enough for physical labor and the only thing he knew how to do was useless.
Goddamn that old wizard, anyway. Then he started guiltily remembering Moira’s admonition against cursing. I wonder if it matters if you just do it in your head?
If he was big and strong it might have helped. But he was skinny and gangly. The only difference between him and the classic pencil-necked geek was that he didn’t wear glasses.
Good thing too, he thought. If I did, I’d probably have broken them by now.
It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
Somehow he got to sleep and dreamed uneasily of home and his beloved computers.
The next morning Wiz was sore all over. His legs ached from the unaccustomed exercise and the rest of him hurt from sleeping on the ground.
Moira was already up and seemingly none the worse for the night. Her copper hair was combed and hung down her back in a long braid. Her face was freshly scrubbed and she looked heart-stoppingly beautiful.
She was sitting cross-legged going through the contents of her worn leather shoulder bag. There was already a pile of things on the ground beside her.
"I do not think I can afford to keep all these things," she said in response to his unasked question. "I will have to discard them carefully as we go."
"I’ll carry them for you."
Moira snorted. "The problem is not weight, you idiot. Magic calls to magic and these things," she gestured, "are magical. The League may be able to find us through them."
She looked down at the small pile and sighed. "They cost much time and no little effort to gain. All are useful and in a way they are all parts of me. But," she added with forced cheerfulness, "better to discard them now than to have them lead the League to us."
"Uh, right."
Moira gathered the items back into her pouch. "I will dispose of them one at a time as we go along," she said standing up. "It will make them harder to find, I hope."
Wiz scrambled to his feet, feeling the kinks in his muscles stretch.
"We can make better time today," the hedge witch said. "Mid-Summer’s Day is past and the magic will be less strong. We do not have to move quite so cautiously."