"It is a little late to start your apprenticeship, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said gravely.
"Apprenticeship be damned!" Said Wiz, taking slight satisfaction at the way the wizard started at the blasphemy. "I’ve spent the last five months building tools. I’ve got an interpreter, an editor, a cross-reference generator and even a syntax checker. They’re kludgier than shit, but I can make them do what I need. The didn’t call me Wiz for nothing!"
"Remember what happened the last time you tried."
Wiz’s face twisted. "You think I’m likely to forget?" He shook his head. "No, I know now what I did wrong. I knew it then, really. The next time I call up a hurricane it will be on purpose."
"Will you then compound your folly?" Bal-Simba asked sternly. "Will you add fresh scars to the land just to satisfy your anger?"
"Will you get Moira back any other way?" Wiz countered.
The Wizard was silent and Wiz turned back to the wooden tablets scattered over the rude table.
"Hurting us further would be an ill way to repay our hospitality to you," Bal-Simba said.
Wiz whirled to face him. "Look," he snapped. "So far your ’hospitality’ has consisted of kidnapping me, making me fall in love with someone who hates me, getting me chased by more damn monsters than I ever imagined and nearly getting me killed I don’t know how many times. When you get right down to it I don’t see that I owe you much of anything."
He glared at Bal-Simba, challenging him to deny it. But the giant black Wizard said nothing.
"There’s another thing," he went on. "You’re so damn worried about the effects of magic on your world. Well, your world is dying! Every year you’re pushed further back. It’s not just the League. There’s Wild Wood too. How long do you think you have before the whole North is gone? Do you really have anything to lose?
"All right, maybe I’ll screw it up again." He blinked back the tears that were welling up in his eyes. "I’ve done nothing but screw things up since I got here. Maybe I’ll make that scar on the land you keep talking about. But Dammit! At least I’ll go out trying."
"There’s no maybe about it," Bal-Simba said sharply. "You will ’screw it up.’ You have no magical aptitude and no training. At best you can destroy uncontrolled."
"Patrius didn’t think so," Wiz shot back. He turned to his tablets again.
"I could forbid you," Bal-Simba said in a measuring tone.
"You could," Wiz said neutrally. "But you’d have to enforce it."
Bal-Simba looked at him and Wiz stayed hunched over the tablets.
"I will do this much," he said finally. "I will not forbid you. I will not commit the resources of the North to this madness but I will send word to watch and be ready. If by some chance you do discomfit the League, we will make what use of it seems appropriate."
Wiz didn’t turn around. "Okay. Thanks."
"I will arrange for some protection for you in case the Shadow Warriors return. I will also pass word for everyone to avoid this place. I think you will scar the land and kill yourself unpleasantly in the process."
"Probably."
Bal-Simba sighed. "Losing a loved one is a terrible thing."
Wiz grinned mirthlessly, not looking up. "Even that wasn’t a free choice."
"Love is always a free choice, Sparrow. Even where there’s magic."
Wiz shrugged and Bal-Simba strode to the door of the hut. The black giant paused with his hand on the doorjamb.
"You’ve changed, Sparrow,"
"Yeah. Well, that happens."
Wiz did not see Bal-Simba leave. He stayed in the hut most of the day, scrawling on wooden tablets with bits of charcoal. Twice he had to go out to split logs into shingles for more tablets.
The second time he went to the woodpile Shiara approached him.
"They tell me you will make magic against the League," Shiara said.
Wiz selected a length of log and stood it upright on the chopping stump. "Yep."
"It is lunacy. You will only bring your ruin."
Wiz said nothing. He raised the axe and brought it down hard. The log cleaved smoothly under the blade’s bite.
"Where will you work?"
Wiz rested the axe and turned to her. "Here, Lady. I figure it’s safe enough and it seems appropriate."
"You will need help."
He hefted the axe and turned to the billet. "I can manage alone."
He raised the axe above his head and Shiara spoke again. "Would it go better if I were here for—ah—a core dump?"
Wiz started, the axe wobbled and the log went flying. "You’d do that? After what happened?"
"I would."
"Why? I mean, uh…"
"Why? Simple. You mean to strike at the League for what they did here when even Bal-Simba himself tells us we can do nothing. I owe the League much, and I would hazard much to repay a small part of that debt."
"It will be dangerous, Lady. Most of what you said about this thing is true. It’s a kludge and it’s full of bugs. I could kill us both."
For the first time since Wiz had known her, Shiara the Silver laughed. Not a smile or a chuckle, but a rich full-throated laugh, as bright and shining as her name.
"My innocent, I died a long time ago. My life passed with my magic, my sight and Cormac. The chance of dying against the chance of striking at the League is no hazard at all."
She glowed as bright and bold as the full moon on Mid-Sumemr Eve and held out her hand to Wiz. "Come Sparrow. We go to war."
Donal and Kenneth entered Bal-Simba’s study quietly, respectfully and with not a little trepidation. It was not every day that the Mightiest of the North summoned two ordinary guardsmen and even Donal’s naturally sanguine disposition didn’t lead him to believe that the wizard wanted to discuss the weather.
"I have a service it would please me to have done," Bal-Simba rumbled.
"Command us, Lord," said Kenneth, mentally bracing for it.
"That I cannot do," Bal-Simba told them. "This service carries a risk I would not order assumed."
Oh Fortuna, we’re in for it now! thought Kenneth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Donal looked unusually serious.
"May we ask the nature of this service?"
"There is a Sparrow whose nest needs guarding," Bal-Simba told them.
"Have you got any tea?" Wiz asked Shiara. They were sitting by the fire in the hut which had been the kitchen and was now their home. Both of them were hoarse from talking and Wiz was surrounded by a litter of wooden shingles with marks scrawled on them in charcoal.
"Herbs steeped in hot water? Are you ill?"
"No, I mean a drink that give you a lift, helps you stay awake."
Shiara’s brow furrowed. "There is blackmoss tea. I used to use it when I was standing vigil. But it is vile stuff."
"Do you have any?"
"In the larder, if it was not burned," she told him.
The tea was in a round birchbark box which had been scorched but not consumed. Wiz put a pot to boil on the hearth and watched as Shiara skillfully measured several spoonsful of the dried mixture into the hot water. The stuff looked like stable sweepings but he said nothing.
Shiara proferred the cup and Wiz took a gulp. It was brown as swamp water, so pungent it stung the nose and bitter enough to curl the tongue even with the honey Shiara had added.
"Gaaahhh" Wiz said, squinching his eyes tight shut and shaking his head.
"I told you it was vile," Shiara said sympathetically.
Wiz shook his head again, opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath. "Whooo! Now that’s programmer fuel! Lady, if we could get this stuff back to my world, we’d make a fortune. Jolt Cola’s for woosies!"
"That is what you wanted?" Shiara said in surprise.