The Coming of Wisdom

by David Duncan

  "The sorcerers are using it?"

  The lad nodded.

  "Where else does it go, apart from Aus?"

  "Nowhere. There is supposed to be an old mine along here somewhere, but I thought it was abandoned."

  "What did they mine?" Wallie asked automatically.

  But Garadooi did not know, and obviously the first task was to cross the bridge. The water was axle-deep on the cart when they reached the gentle ramp leading up to the deck. The bridge quivered and trembled as the travelers crossed, but finally they all stood on the far bank―not exactly on dry ground, but beyond the reach of the flood.

  Both upstream and downstream the valley seemed to narrow, and there the River would move more swiftly. "I think this is where we must try to block the road," Wallie said. "And we must stop soon, anyway." Honakura was blue-lipped with cold and exhausted by the jolting of the cart. Even Jja and Cowie looked close to their limits, and Nnanji and his brother were not in much better shape. And the light was failing.

  "In about half a league, my lord, there is a cave."

  "Good! Then Nnanji and I will deal with the bridge. Leave us the axes and pinch bars. You go on and get a fire going."

  Garadooi nodded, teeth chattering. "The chains, also?"

  Wallie shook his head. "I could not get a horse back out there again. No―there's no need," he added as the youth was about to offer to try. "I'm sure we can manage with bare hands."

  "I'm sure you can, my lord!"

  Wallie laughed and thumped him on the shoulder. "You have done a great service for the Goddess this day, builder. Tonight I'll tell you just how great. And don't worry if we're some time―I shall keep watch here until dark. Now be gone!"

  So Wallie and Nnanji remained and the rest of the party headed off into the trees. Two abandoned horses whinnied anxiously and jerked at their tethers.

  Wallie laid ax and bar over his shoulder and studied the bridge for a moment. The piles stood in pairs, each pair topped by a heavy crosspiece. In dry weather, of course, he would simply chop down those piles, but he could not get at them now. Three long and massive wooden beams connected each set, like girders, and the corduroy decking was lashed on with tarred rope. The decking would be easy. After that was removed no horse would be able to cross, but a foolhardy man might walk one of the beams, so those would have to come down, also.

  "Let's go, then!" he said, setting out.

  "My lord brother" Nnanji sounded wistful as he fell into step, "would this not be good place to set an ambush?"

  It would, of course, if an ambush made sense. The trail was a greasy-floored canyon through thick pine woods, already gloomy and about to become very dark. It was little wider than a footpath, and a rope strung at knee height would almost certainly bring down the lead horse, perhaps several.

  "For gods' sakes!" Wallie said. "Yes. But why ambush when you can be certain of stopping them? That's stupid!"

  "Why?"

  "Because―you said it yourself―there's no honor in fighting sorcerers. This is murder, Nnanji! Brigands, swordsmen killers! I wouldn't run from a challenge―"

  "I know you―"

  "But I'm sure as hell not going to take on impossible odds if I don't have to!" They were back at the water, and Wallie began to wade, testing every step, already feeling the cold through the leather of his boots. "You're a Fourth now. You're supposed to be competent to give orders to Thirds, qualified swordsmen, so think! Don't be so brainless."

  His right boot filled with an icy rush, and he winced.

  Softly Nnanji said, "Teach me, mentor?'

  Wallie shot him a rueful glance. "Sorry!" He was tired and worried and jet-lagged, but he ought not to be taking it out on Nnanji. His left boot filled and tried to fall off as he lifted his foot. "All right. So you're a Fourth. I assume you want to go on and try for Fifth?"

  "Seventh!"

  "Why not? Well, you'll have to start thinking about responsibility, now―judgment and planning. The sutras will help, of course. You're up to eight hundred and three. You've noticed how they change? The early ones deal with practical things, like looking after your sword. The later ones have begun to teach you tactics, right?" The water was lapping Wallie's kilt and tugging hard at him. He reached out a hand and gripped Nnanji's arm so that they could support each other. The river was certainly still rising.

  "From here on, you're into strategy, in fact I'll give you the next sutra right now!"

  With icy water halfway up his thighs, Nnanji turned to grin. "Do we have to sit down, my lord brother?"

  "I think we'll dispense with―oops!" Wallie recovered his footing, and they pushed on through the sadistic cold torrent. "I shall try to dispense with sitting down. I didn't mean the whole sutra, anyway, just the epigram: 'Only cats fight in the dark.' "

  "Explain, mentor."

  "You tell me." Wallie stumbled again. The bridge stood higher than the banks, ending in low ramps of dirt and corduroy, but now the current was sucking away the fill, and most of the logs had gone, also. He scrambled blindly up the remains to get out of the water. Then be helped Nnanji up. He bent his legs to tip water from his boots, wondering if his toes had died.

  "What's it called?" Nnanji was doing similar gymnastics.

  Wallie chuckled. " 'On Evaluation of Opponents.' "

  "Oh!" Nnanji was silent as they squelched along the shivering bridge to the third support. "It means 'Don't fight without knowing who you're fighting'?"

  "More or less. You take that side, I'll do this." They began chopping the bindings that held the wooden deck. "Who, or what, or how... appropriate, is it not?"

  They soon established a pattern. The pinch bars were not needed, for only lashings held the logs to the beams. Wallie cut one side and Nnanji the other. Then Nnanji hit the center tie and Wallie pushed the freed log sideways, away into the stream. The water was halfway up the beams now.

  "We need to know more about sorcerers?"

  "Much more."

  Of course! Now he saw. That was why Wallie Smith had been chosen to succeed Shonsu. True, he had a deeply ingrained prejudice against believing in sorcery, but he had already accepted that it could exist in this World. The evidence of Kandoru's murder was convincing, and Garadooi had been telling of demons loose in Ov. So Wallie would believe in sorcerers. But he also had scientific training. He could analyze a problem in a way that no other swordsman ever could.

  Half the center span had been stripped, exposing the three long beams. A circus horse might cross on one of those in dry weather, but the bravest of riders would never risk such a feat in rain, above a roaring torrent. Yet an agile man on foot might try it.

  "We need to know what they can do?" Nnanji asked, pausing to catch his breath. Bridge smashing was warm work, even in heavy rain.

  "Yes. But we need even more to know what they can't do."

  The bridge uttered a loud warning. Wallie stopped and regarded it warily. He did not intend to go down with the ship, and the gods might be about to complete his work for him. There was a definite sideways sag now, the structure starting to fail under the combined efforts of men and river. Flotsam had collected thickly on the upstream side, creating drag. Piles were tilting as their supporting rubble was washed away.

  "Let's go!" The two of them began to run. They had barely reached the ramp when an even louder creaking announced the end. Weakened by their work, the center span succumbed. Beams split, lashings snapped, spars splintered and sprang skyward. An instant's foam, and the middle of the bridge had vanished. Floating debris showed momentarily, rushing away downstream.

  "That ought to hold them," Wallie said with some satisfaction. Quite likely the rest of the structure would follow of its own accord now. Perhaps the whole thing would have gone anyway, but gods were well known for helping those who helped themselves.

  That left the problem of returning to shore, and it proved to be harder than the journey out. Twice Nnanji's feet were swept from under him, and only Wallie's stout grip saved him from
following the center of the bridge away into the unknown. Once Wallie stepped in a hollow, sat down, and submerged completely. But eventually they staggered out of the water, shivering and coughing.

  They emptied their boots again and began jumping up and down and thumping arms to get warm. The sky was darkening, and they had a cave to find, but some hunch told Wallie that he ought to wait around a little while yet.

  "What did you mean, 'Need even more to know what they can't do'?" The question came out in puffs as he jogged in place, but Nnanji was notable for his tenacity.

  "One of your minstrel ballads told how a sorcerer changed himself into an eagle, didn't it?"

  "Yes, my lord brother."

  "Well, they didn't fly from Ov; they rode horses. And that's why I'm waiting here. Maybe they can fly across the river."

  "Oh!" said Nnanji.

  "There must be a way to fight sorcerers. The Goddess wouldn't have given me an impossible task, would She?"

  "No."

  "So they must have a weakness, and I have to find it. Forty men died in Ov."

  Garadooi had told them. He had not been present, but he had been awakened by the noise―half the city had. A line of sorcerers had appeared in the main square before dawn and sent a challenge to the reeve. The Honorable Zandorphino had marched out with his entire force. The sorcerers had begun a chant. The swordsmen had charged. Fire demons had appeared and slaughtered them to the last man. No one had survived. Even trees and statues had been demolished by the demons' fury, walls and storefronts smashed in, blood splattered over upper-story windows. In minutes the whole garrison had been shredded. Garadooi had found the body of his friend Farafini, charred and chewed and mangled, with one leg ripped off and his sword broken.

  But there had to be a way to fight sorcerers.

  "Look!"

  Wallie's hunch had paid off. Against a dark sky, across a darker skyline, figures moved―three or more. He might have missed some, but riders had just come over the top of the opposite ridge and vanished down into the gloom, heading his way.

  "They're coming!" Nnanji said, unnecessarily.

  "They are! Let's move the horses―quick!"

  Wallie ran for the mounts, with Nnanji close behind, inevitably asking, "Why?"

  "Because they'll whinny!"

  That might not be true. Rain might stifle tine scent, but it would be a wise precaution. So they rode the wet and unhappy horses farther away from the river and tethered them again. Then the two men hurried back along a trail that was rapidly becoming a stream in its own right.

  Wallie removed his sword and laid it by his feet, then made Nnanji do the same―another precaution, against reflections. They stood shivering in the shadows and waited to see if sorcerers could fly across rivers. Could they sense watching swordsmen and send demons against them?

  Nothing seemed to happen. Another span of the bridge had gone, and the third was awash. The light was so poor now that the forest on the opposite bank was a black wall, and the roar of the bright silver river drowned out everything except the thumping of Wallie's heart and a faint chattering of teeth from Nnanji.

  A whisper: "My lord brother?"

  "Yes?"

  "I don't think I would mind a small fire demon, right now." Wallie chuckled softly.

  "Get two."

  Then light blazed on the far side of the river, among the trees. Nnanji hissed.

  Sorcery!

  In a world of flint and steel, there was no way to make fire appear like that―no matches or cigarette lighters. It flickered between the trunks, and Wallie thought he caught a glimpse of cowled figures, a flash of orange that might mean a sorcerer of the Fourth. Then the glow faded away, and darkness returned. "A demon?"

  "I don't think so," Wallie said. "I'm only guessing, but I think they were checking our tracks. They've seen the bridge. Now they know they've lost us. Unless they can fly."

  Another sorcerer ability―they could magic up fire at will. But why so brief? In a dark, wet forest, light would be useful. Why let it go out so soon? Was that a limit to their ability, even if not a very useful one to know?

  There was no more fire. There were no more signs of the sorcerers among the trees. Time crawled like glaciers. Frozen to his soul, Wallie was about to give up when Nnanji muttered and pointed. Vague figures crossed the skyline again. This time they counted four of them and a pack horse, retreating. The sorcerers had departed, balked of their quarry, heading home on a long ride over the hills.

  Whereas the two chilled swordsmen could now go in search of warmth and shelter only half a league away. They were coming off best this time.

  "Let's go," Wallie said. "It's been an instructive day, but don't overlook that last lesson, my young friend!"

  "What's that, my lord brother?"

  Wallie laughed. "Never trust a dancing girl."

  BOOK TWO:

  HOW THE SWORDSMAN BLUNDERED

  †

  "So that's what a mountain looks like!" said Nnanji, emerging from the ground at Wallie's side.

  Morning was dawning, clear and fresh and virginal, with not a cloud in sight. Light flashed on distant whorls of the River to the east. To the north the view was blocked by a great humped peak, snowcapped and majestic, while its brothers and sisters stretched out beyond the limits of sight to the south. The travelers stood on the flank of a long range of volcanoes, a saddle to the west showing where the crossing must lie.

  Wallie had guessed about volcanoes from the black rock he had seen the night before. Garadooi's cave was a lava tube, a portion of whose roof had fallen in, providing a rubbly access slope. Obviously it had been used by generations of hunters and traders, for a fair path had been cut in the debris, smooth enough for the horses to descend, and the interior was roughly fitted out as a stable in one direction and human quarters in the other. When the two swordsmen had arrived the previous night―guided by Katanji, who had been shivering to death on the trail, waiting for them―there had been a blazing fire and hot food and crumbly old boughs to sleep on.

  "That's a mountain," Wallie agreed. "And a good big one to start with! The Goddess be with you, builder!"

  Not formal enough―this was a new day. "I am Garadooi, builder of the third rank..."

  Salute and response completed, the lad stretched and looked around, then pushed fingers through tousled curls. "You will ask Apprentice Quili to lead us in prayer, my lord?"

  He had called for prayers the previous night, also. Wallie could believe in gods now, but he was still not a great praying man, being mildly embarrassed by even the swordsmen's dedication that he performed every morning with Nnanji. Garadooi was the first religious zealot he had met in the World. Honakura and Jja and Nnanji were all pious servants of the Goddess, but they did not flaunt their beliefs as the young builder did. After being told about Wallie's mission and the sword, he had prayed loudly and publicly.

  Still, Wallie had much to be grateful for. "I have no objection to prayers, provided they are brief. We must hurry, I fear. How long until that river is fordable?"

  "About a day, I suppose?"

  Perhaps not even that, Wallie thought. These rubbly volcanic rocks would absorb water quickly. He turned to study the slope ahead and the trail faintly visible on it. It would be a long climb to the pass, and there was no cover. Any watcher with good eyes would be able to keep them in sight, without using sorcery.

  "The western side is more wooded, my lord," Garadooi remarked, clearly thinking on the same lines.

  "Then I shall be happy to reach it."

  * * *

  They crested the pass around noon, hot and already tired by the climb. Ahead the sun beat down upon a flat, barren upland that showed more rock than grass, with a few pustular cinder cones here and there, and some widely separated cairns to mark the trail. Wallie turned in the saddle for a last glimpse of the distant River, then waited anxiously for the western slopes to come into view. Every bone ached, and he felt sure that he had blistered the blisters on his bli
sters.

  He had passed time during the ascent by questioning Garadooi about sorcerers. Rather reluctantly, the lad had admitted that the citizens of Ov did not seem to be greatly oppressed by them, nor even very resentful of the new regime. Even more reluctantly, and in reply to direct queries, he had confessed that the late Reeve Zandorphino had been disliked. He had not kept his men under firm control. Swordsmen, as Wallie well knew, could be arrogant bullies.

  The elderly king of Ov had been left in charge, the only change being that now sorcerers kept order for him, instead of swordsmen. He had imposed a tax to finance the building of a tower for the sorcerers and had demolished buildings to make room for it. That had been an unpopular measure and was believed to be the result of a spell cast upon the old man by the chief sorcerer, a Seventh. But Garathondi was the contractor and was waxing even richer than before. Then the discussion had naturally come around to slavery. The family fortune was fertilized by the sweat and blood of slaves, and young Garadooi's conscience tortured him over that. There was the source of his rebellion, and of Wallie's present salvation.

  "So a slave is a slave, my lord! He is still a child of the Most High. It is no reason to treat a man as an animal, is it?"

  Wallie had not previously met antislavery sentiment in the World to match his own and he agreed wholeheartedly.

  Nnanji had listened with open disgust to the tales of sorcerers. Probably he had never concerned himself with the ethics of slavery before, but his hero disapproved of it, so he had been adjusting his views to match. Now he intervened to tell how Lord Shonsu had befriended a slave in the temple and had thereby been assisted to escape. Wallie would just as soon not have had the incident mentioned, but Garadooi heard it with great approval.

  On another point he set Wallie's mind at rest and enraged Nnanji. Soon after the massacre―or so he claimed―Garadooi himself had slipped away by ship to Gi, the next city downriver. He had personally informed the reeve about the destruction of the Ov swordsmen. He had not been the first to do so, and no action had followed, for Gi was a much smaller place, and the garrison was neither able nor willing to attack the sorcerers now entrenched at Ov. Wallie was relieved to hear that there had been no cover-up. If he ever returned to the Garathondi estate, he would not have to judge a concealment, Nnanji muttered angrily about cowardice in Gi.