"I know. And between the two of us, I agree." He shrugged and spread his hands. "But who am I? The Sparrow sits on the Council of the North and has Bal-Simba’s ear. He can see to it that apprentices either learn the new magic or are no longer apprentices."
"How is this? I thought apprenticeship was a matter between the wizard and pupil alone."
"And so it is," Ebrion assured him. "But a wizard must consider relations with his fellows. You understand these things, surely."
Pryddian nodded. "I suspected there was a favor involved, in spite of what everyone says."
"Oh, not favor," Ebrion said hurriedly. "We prefer to think of it as maintaining harmonious relations."
"Call it what you will, I am blackballed by the Sparrow."
"Well," the wizard admitted, "it would be—hmm—difficult for any wizard to take you as an apprentice."
"And my ability counts for nothing?"
"Times have changed. It seems the Sparrow’s new magic is more important than talent for the old."
"So I am forever barred from becoming a wizard. Unless you… ?" He trailed off hopefully.
"The Sparrow knows how I feel about him and his new magic. I would do you little good, I fear."
Pryddian nodded knowingly. "And doubtless it would do you little good to have me."
Ebrion shrugged.
Pryddian finished his beer in a single long pull. "This Sparrow rises above himself," he said darkly.
"Perhaps, but he is of the Mighty." The wizard rose. "In any event, I felt you should know. I cannot speak openly, of course."
"Of course." The would-be apprentice looked up. "I thank you for the information, Lord. And as to this Sparrow, perhaps he needs his feathers plucked." He dropped his eyes to scowl at the now-empty mug as Ebrion left.
Outside the door of the day room, Ebrion allowed himself a smile.
Under any circumstances Pryddian would never have become a wizard. Talent he had, and stubbornness to persist in the face of gentle hints and not-so-gentle discouragement, but he was undisciplined and he had a vindictive streak that ran both broad and deep. If he had started his training in the villages he probably never would have been sent to the Capital. But Ebrion was very glad he was here. His combination of talent, frustration and a viperish tongue made him ideal. Yes, the wizard thought, he is the perfect choice to bait the Sparrow into some heedless action.
Four: Fenceposts and Falling Rocks
Those who can’t do, teach.
And vice-versa.
Malus was waiting impatiently when Wiz arrived, obviously fuming.
To salve wizardly pride, Wiz did most of his teaching of actual wizards in private sessions. Malus was one of his least-favorite pupils. As a person, the pudgy little wizard was nice enough, always merry and joking. But he had particular trouble in grasping concepts and the thought that he was a slow learner made him even more resistant to the new magic.
Malus didn’t even let Wiz finish his apology for being late.
"This spell you showed me," he said accusingly. "It does not work."
Wiz sighed inwardly. "Well, let me see your code."
Grudgingly, the plump little sorcerer produced several strips of wood from the sleeve of his robe. Laid in the proper order the characters on them would list out the spell. Putting them on separate pieces of wood was a safety precaution against activating the spell by writing it down.
Wiz arranged the wood strips on the table and frowned briefly at what was written there.
"Oh, you’ve got a fence post error."
"Fence post?" the wizard asked.
"Yeah. Look, say you’ve got a hundred feet of fence to put up and you need to put a post every ten feet. How many posts do you need?"
"I am a wizard, not a farmer!" Malus said, drawing himself up to his entire five-foot-four.
"Well, just suppose," Wiz said half-desperately.
Malus thought hard for a minute. "Ten, of course."
"Nope," Wiz said triumphantly. "Eleven. Unless you strung your fence in a circle."
"But one hundred taken as tens is ten."
"Yeah, but if you’ve got a hundred feet of fence and only ten posts in a straight line, you leave one end of the fence hanging free. If you put the posts in a closed figure, you only need nine because you start and end on the same post."
"And how am I to know such things? I told you I am not a farmer."
"Well, just keep it in mind, okay? Boundary conditions are always likely to give you trouble."
"Borders are always unchancy places," Malus agreed.
"Uh, yeah. Let’s leave that for a minute. Do you have any other problems?"
"There is this business of names."
For about the fiftieth time, Wiz wished he hadn’t been so cavalier in choosing names for the standard routines in his library. To wizards, a thing’s name was vitally important and they took the name to be the thing.
"I told you that the names I used aren’t necessarily representative."
Malus looked at him like he was crazy. "Very well. But even granting that, why must the names change haphazardly? That is what I do not understand."
"They don’t change at random. They don’t really change at all. It’s just that an object can be a member of more than one class."
"Classes again!"
"Look at this," Wiz said, dragging out a couple of sheets of parchment and laying them out side by side so all the spell was visible. "Okay, here this variable is called ’elfshot,’ right?"
"Why is it named that?"
"It’s not named that. That’s only what it’s called in this routine. Its name is ’dragons_tail’."
"Well," demanded the wizard, "if it is ’dragons_tail’, why do you call it ’elfshot’? And how do you add a ’dragons_tail’ to this, this loop variable."
"No, no," Wiz said desperately. "It is actually seven at this point in the program and that’s what gets added to the loop variable."
"Well, if it’s seven then why don’t you just say so?" roared the wizard.
"Because it isn’t always seven."
The wizard growled in disgust.
"Look, I think I’m getting a headache. Why don’t we leave this for right now, okay? Just try working the program through again and we’ll go over it in our next session."
The early end to the tutorial with Malus left Wiz with time to spare and a completely ruined temper. He wanted someplace quiet where he could be alone to think. Leaving his workroom door unlocked he left the central keep, threaded his way through two courtyards and climbed a set of stairs to the top of the wall surrounding the entire complex.
The parapet was one of his favorite places. It was usually deserted and the view was spectacular. The Capital perched on a spine of rock where two rivers met. From the north the ridge sloped gently up to drop off precipitously in cliffs hundreds of feet high to the south and along the east and west where the rivers ran.
On the highest part of the ridge stood the great castle of the Council of the North, its towers thrusting skyward above the cliffs. Here the Council and most of the rest of the Mighty had their homes and workshops. Behind the castle and trailing down the spine came the town. In the cliffs below the castle were the caverns that served as aeries for the dragon cavalry. As Wiz stood and watched, a single dragon launched itself from below and climbed out over the valley with a thunder of wings.