The Wizard from Earth

by S. J. Ryan

  Bivera's jaw dropped. "You mean – she is on our side?”

  “None other than our good Lady Inoldia.”

  “How can that be? From the reports of Boudica's physical description, they look nothing alike!”

  "Don't let that trouble you, Colonel. I've seen the transformation with my own eyes.”

  “The witch!”

  “No more about the impersonation beyond this room, Colonel. The plan hinges on secrecy."

  "Yes . . . but speaking of the witch, General. She has me assign soldiers under her command."

  "You will comply, of course."

  "I follow Rome's orders, which are to follow your orders, which are to follow hers. But – I just don't like this. The witch is directing our soldiers without intermediaries. She's made herself integral to our battle plans. You tell me the Sisters are providing us with logistics, and I've heard rumors that they are behind the spread of the Plague as well. We rely too much on this . . . this . . . cult. The empire of our father's days was built on soldiering, not sorcery."

  "It's not a cult, she's not a witch, and it's not sorcery. What the Sisters of Wisdom do is a sort of science, but beyond anything Archimedes practices." Valarion's expression became clouded. "And moreover, our fathers are not always to be emulated."

  Bivera knew Valarion's family, and perhaps realizing that he had touched a sore subject, said nothing more.

  Valarion's supper arrived and he bade Bivera to stay. Over bottles, the general became cheerier once more and they exchanged the gossip of two cities. Over more bottles, Valarion's tongue loosened entirely.

  "A victory here will secure my appointment as next in line for the emperorship," he murmured, peering through an empty bottle as if it were a spyglass that could bring the future near.

  "And how is Hadron's health?" Bivera asked.

  "Excellent," said Valarion glumly. He rambled, "Though sometimes I wonder why I would ever want his job. But then, I do know. She's pushing me into it. Well, I suppose I can't complain too much. So far, she's left imperial affairs entirely to me and it seems all she and the Sisters care about is Britan, Britan, Britan. What hidden treasure is so special within this forsaken realm that she casts the rest of the Empire to me as if it were a bone for a dog?"

  Bivera, nursing his mug, said, "They do see us as dogs, don't they?"

  "Colonel, I know them better than anyone. They see us as less than rats."

  "Then why do you serve them?"

  "Those who work with them, prosper. Those who stand against them, die."

  They were interrupted by pounding steps. A major saluted and barked, "Sirs! A matter of urgency!"

  Bivera, the more sober of the two officers, slurred, "Speak."

  The major faced a breathless messenger, who huffed, "I bear news from the signal station at Oksford Prominence, which conveys a report from Birmam Spire."

  Bivera accepted the envelope, slit the seal, and scanned. He said, "The garrison commander at Birmam reports in the west a 'sign among the heavens.' That is . . . a great fireball . . . rending the sky . . . and then . . . falling to land. He asks if he should investigate."

  Valarion slammed the table.

  "GET OUT OF HERE! Can't you see we have important matters to discuss?"

  The soldiers cringed and fled. Valarion chuckled and reached for a fresh bottle.

  12.

  Matt and the native walked south of the meadow to the road, then headed west. The sun slipped behind the mountains, casting the sky into deeper shades of violent and then dark purple. Delta Pavonis II, this planet's morning and evening 'star,' blazed as bright and steadily as Venus from Earth, while other stars twinkled.

  "I don't understand," Ivan said. "Normally, you strongly disapprove of lying."

  "It's a matter of the situation and circumstances," Matt replied.

  "So lying is wrong when we are in the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems but all right when it is done in the Delta Pavonis system. Or is wrong when it is the twenty-second century but all right when it is the twenty-ninth?"

  From experience, Matt refrained from thinking that Ivan was being intentionally sarcastic. "It's more a matter of what keeps me alive. Anyhow, don't be so sure I lied to him. If these people are as technologically backward as I think they are, then technically I am a wizard – to them. And I think when he said 'Aereoth,' he meant 'Earth.' You have to expect some changes in the language over time."

  During the soundless conversation that Matt was having with his Alter Ego (or rather, his Supplemental Ego), the man alongside them continued plodding. Matt had made First Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization going on several minutes, but in that time all the man had volunteered to say was, 'Please come with me.'

  Time to break the ice, Matt thought. "So what's your name?"

  "I am Tret of Fish Lake."

  "So, you're a fisherman."

  Tret glanced at Matt, then at the hoe on his shoulder. "A farmer."

  "But you said you're of Fish Lake."

  Tret's didactic tones were hard to miss, "Fish Lake is the name of my village. It is called that because it is next to Fish Lake. Fish Lake is called that because it has many fish. Even so, I make my living by farming, not fishing."

  "So, Fish Lake. Is that where we're headed now?"

  "Yes."

  "Is there a reason we're going there?"

  "I am hoping that you can help my daughter."

  "How?"

  "She has the Plague. Can you heal the Plague?"

  Matt had no idea of what specifically the 'Plague' was. To the medical science of the era in which he had grown up, the word 'plague' was of historical interest only. But he was well aware that for these people, who might lack any kind of medical knowledge at all, the word could have a frightening impact.

  And Matt had no idea whether he could help. In his shame, he realized he was playing along in the hopes he might wrangle out of this encounter a meal tastier than nettles.

  "I'll see what I can do," Matt replied.

  In the subsequent silence, Matt realized his stock as wizard was likely going down a notch every time he opened his mouth and revealed how ignorant he was of the situation. Tis better to be thought a wizard and remain silent than to speak up and cause doubt . . . .

  "I'm sorry, Matt. I did not catch that. What did you say?"

  Matt hadn't realized he was thinking so loudly. "Never mind. Hey, give me a satellite view of what's up ahead."

  "The station has set and will not rise again for forty-one minutes. I cannot provide real-time telemetry until then. However, I have stored photographs of the immediate terrain in archive."

  The view of the nearby terrain showed no lake. Matt immediately wondered if he'd cast his lot with a highwayman or a brigand or whatever they called them, and was being taken somewhere secluded to be murdered and robbed by a gang. Matt had nothing on his person that equated to tangible money, but they would find out about that only after beating him senseless.

  Then Matt had a sinking feeling, only slightly better than the one he'd felt when he'd thought of robbers.

  "Ivan, zoom out a ways. More. More."

  Kilometers away was an oblong lake just south of the road. It was surrounded by fields and the shore was ringed by tidy huts. The lake was much bigger than the pond that the OSV had landed in, and was fed by streams. It probably did have fish.

  "Looks like we've got a walk ahead of us," Matt said. His stomach growled. "Can you do something about that?"

  Ivan couldn't read Matt's mind, but he could receive intentional thought-impressions, and he understood that Matt meant for him to quell the pangs of hunger caused by the empty stomach.

  "Doing so. How is that?"

  Matt sighed. "Better. Lot better."

  "Matt, you still need nourishment within the next few hours or you will have to stop this exertion. Otherwise, I will not be able to maintain your neural activity in a fully conscious state."

  “I didn't ask for his village to be so fa
r away.”

  Tret was casting another sidelong glance at Matt. Matt doubted that Tret could hear him subvocalize, nor sense Ivan's soundless electrochemical responses, but the farmer seemed to know that something out of his normal experience was going on inside Matt's head. For his part, Matt realized that Tret was the first person he'd ever met who not only didn't have a neural implant but also did not know what one was.

  "Romeo and Juliet," he subvocaled.

  "I'm sorry?" Ivan asked.

  "It's like when I was twelve and my mother took me to see the play, Romeo and Juliet. I wondered how they could fail so much at communicating their plans to each other. Then I realized they more or less didn't have any way to communicate other than face to face."

  "You are speaking of this condition in reference to Tret?"

  "In reference to this whole planet, maybe. It's going to take some getting used to."

  Walking, walking, and more walking. Matt's legs became rubbery. Tret, however, didn't seem bothered at all.

  Eventually, well after dusk, they arrived. The village in aspect was as silent as the satellite-view photographs. No farmers in the fields, no children running amid the huts. A stooped woman with disheveled hair stared at the oddly dressed stranger, then hobbled aimlessly.

  A pair of men carried a limp body wrapped in a blanket out of a hut and set it adjacent to several other bodies on the ground. Despite Ivan's pain management, Matt's stomach turned.

  "Ivan, are your biofilters registering anything harmful, a virus or a bacteria or nanobot or something?"

  "I am registering nothing harmful at this time."

  The man entered a hut and Matt followed. They were met at the door by a woman. She couldn't have been much older than Matt, but the pain on her face added years, all of them of suffering.

  "Layal," Tret said. "This is the Wizard from Aereoth. He will attend to Aralena. Wizard, this is my wife, Layal."

  Reddened eyes gave Matt's jumpsuit a quick appraisal. "And why do you think he's any kind of wizard?"

  "You did not see the ball of fire in the sky? Surely you must have heard the thunder!"

  Layal scowled. "I have been in here all day, attending to your daughter."

  The interior of the hut was lit by a fire in the center, and by then was brighter than the last gleams of twilight outside. Matt saw beds, clay jars, farm implements, a few boxes, baskets, and blankets. Then he saw the little girl.

  She was prone and still, propped against a basket by the fire. Her body was buried under layers of blankets, and she was shivering. Her face was pale and her eyes glassy as they gazed mesmerized by the flames. Matt knelt beside her. She gave no response. He raised his hand to bring his palm near her cheek.

  Layal shouted, "You don't want to touch her! She has the Plague!"

  Matt pressed his palm against the girl's forehead.

  "Ivan, is your basic first aid kit operational?"

  "Yes, Matt."

  "Can you tell what's wrong with this person?"

  "Scanning." As Ivan bridged his micro-tentacles from Matt's hand into the girl's flesh, an AR-window flashed medical schematics and life signs. Respiration and pulse low, neural activity near coma. Blood parameters within spec.

  "Do you know what's causing her to be sick?"

  "I identify this virus as significantly harmful to her physiological health." Ivan displayed a DNA sequence.

  "I assume it's harmful to baseline humans but not people with neural implants, otherwise you would have informed me earlier."

  "Yes, Matt. Was I in error?"

  "In the future, also warn me of environmental conditions that are harmful to baseline humans."

  "I understand."

  Layal knelt alongside Matt and said softly, as if speaking to a dull child, "You realize you have become tainted with the Plague and must now keep your distance from those who remain in health."

  "I need to work," Matt said.

  He didn't bother with the woman's expression, but she was quiet after that. He focused on the readings, particularly the plummeting slope of the health trend projection. The girl had hours to live at most.

  "Ivan, can you counteract the virus?"

  "Yes, Matt."

  "Can you do it fast?"

  "Yes, Matt."

  The biochemical sensors at the tips of Ivan's tentacles read the virus's RNA sequence. Ivan computed a counter-virus sequence. His biomanipulators created the counter-virus in reality and introduced it into the girl's bloodstream by penetrating the skin of the girl's hand which Matt gently held in his own.

  The typical artificially-enhanced immune system of the twenty-second century might not have handled the task, but Ivan had been upgraded for life on a world where otherwise-deadly plague outbreaks could be a routine part of the day during the phases of terraforming that involved genetic engineering.

  The girl closed her eyes and slumped.

  "What have you done?" Layal demanded.

  Tret touched her shoulder. "She was going to live among the stars soon, anyway. It was meant to be."

  Layal sobbed.

  Matt tried to visualize what was happening. Millions of counter-viral molecular mechanisms were being manufactured every second by Ivan's microscopic biological factories. Spread through the girl's bloodstream, they penetrated her cells and then into the nuclei of the cells. They searched and matched viral DNA sequences and snipped them out, then hunted down the viruses themselves, which were then hacked into harmless pieces.

  The counterviruses continued their cell-to-cell search until they detected no more of the targeted viral invader, and then they self-destructed.

  The girl took a deep breath. Her eyes fluttered open. She sat up straight.

  "Can I have soup?" she asked her mother.

  Layal burst into even more tears. She hugged the girl, then she hugged the Wizard. Then Tret, also moist-eyed, hugged the Wizard. He was surprisingly strong and the Wizard felt uncomfortable. Amid her parents' tears and laughter, the girl had to get her own soup.

  "Get me some too," the Wizard called, still trapped in Tret's sobbing embrace.

  13.

  Over the dark terrain glided the human-sized bird, growling at what she surveyed. Villages everywhere, and larger than ever! Surely the Sisters were right to unleash the Plague, for the baselines would soon become so populous as to exhaust the land and starve in their own offal.

  Inoldia located the encampment of the rebel army, glimmering as a constellation of fires upon the Midland Plain. Aided with telescopic night vision, she spotted the ring of fires around the main tent. The headquarters of the rebel army had been pitched against a mountainside, and at the top of the steep cliffs was a clearing that Inoldia had hacked out with bare hands.

  She splayed the immense span of her bat-like wings and rapidly descended. She swooped over the tree tops and landed in the center of the clearing.

  For minutes she crouched, folding and melding her wings into her back, smoothing scales into skin.

  She hobbled to a thicket, dragged out a satchel, and draped a robe over her yet-mishapen and skeletal body. She followed the narrow, winding path to the bottom of the hill, looking ever more human as she did.

  A voice in the darkness shouted, "HALT! Who goes there?"

  Inoldia froze and cursed. Her senses were weak during transformation, otherwise she would have easily seen and heard and (especially) smelled the two bumbling guards who shared a dim torch which they held to her face.

  "Hello, what have we here now?" one of them asked the other. "And what is your name, pretty one?"

  "Pretty?" said the other. "You've had too much to drink. She's barely more than skin and bones."

  "She'll do in a pinch. And pinching is what I'd like to do."

  She wrinkled her nose at their stench. "I bear a message for the Queen. Escort me to her tent."

  "Then what's the password?"

  Inoldia cursed. The password changed every week, and she had been gone longer than a week.
/>   The guard's mouth widened into a half-toothed grin. "Or, we can let you through for a very low price of admission, one that I can promise will be quite enjoyable."

  Inoldia cursed again and considered options. Perhaps she could flee into the forest and come out another way, or perhaps she could make herself so ugly that they would be repulsed. Or perhaps an army of thousands could get by with a pair of bumpkins less.

  Well, they'll all be less, soon . . . .

  She stared straight ahead and walked between them. The one who had spoken growled and slammed her to his chest. She slapped her palm against his face and held it firmly. His eyes widened and his body crumpled to the ground. A trickle of blood oozed from his mouth.

  She turned to the other, but he was already gone. No doubt back to his farm, she mused.

  Inoldia entered the encampment perimeter without further mishap. She undid the hidden straps at the rear of the main tent and slipped inside to the well-lighted interior. In the screened-off dressing area, she shed the robe and inspected herself in the mirror. In better light, she objectively admitted, the guards would have given her wide berth. Her skin was still mottled, her back still had its wing humps, her hands and feet were still claws.

  What she concentrated on transforming first, however, was her hair, for next to size it was Boudica's signature feature.

  From brown to red, she willed. From brown to red, to flaming red, to red of rubies and wine. From root to end, from brown to red . . . she willed in texture and tossed. There now. It did look rather nice.

  Complexion next. Fingers and toes after that . . . .

  Matlid stirred behind her. Inoldia accepted the new clothes without comment, and permitted the maiden to wrap and fasten them. The fabric hung loosely but nonetheless concealed her thinness, and as Inoldia willed body mass to her face, the visage in the mirror began to look human, even pretty.

  Inoldia accepted the comb and said, "I'm hungry as hell. Bring me a feast."

  "Yes, Mistress."

  Inoldia emerged from the screens into the main area of the tent. She sat at the table and Matlid brought platters and plates of grains and meats. Inoldia wolfed and gobbled to embarrass the manners of a barbarian queen . . . or king, for that matter. Her body steamed with caloric heat. Her limbs bulked and lengthened and the chair creaked with the added weight.