by S. J. Ryan
Before Ivan could answer, Matt said aloud, "Let me ask a question I need a specific answer for. Did the people who came with the box ride outside the box, or were they . . . inside the box?"
"I memorized the ballad from my father,” the storyteller said. “He memorized it from his father. The words have always been, of all that was inside the Box: '. . . the plants and animals, and humanity itself, and even the air.'"
"The people came with the box? Not afterward?"
"Except for the prophecy of your coming, Wizard, there is no mention of people coming after the Box in any of our books."
Matt gestured at the books. "And how do you know all this? Who gave you the information for the books?"
"The mentors."
"Who are the mentors?"
"The mentors are people of this world, who are given the ancient knowledge, so that it may be told and used by all."
"Who gives the mentors the 'ancient knowledge?'"
The storyteller shook his head helplessly. "The mentors never told us that."
"Can I meet the mentors?"
"The mentors have been gone from the land of Britan for many years. No man or woman living here has ever met one."
“All right, what about me? What do the prophecies say about the coming of the wizard?”
“You do not know yourself? Are you not the Wizard? We have been told that his name is Matt, which is your name, is it not?”
“Uh, well, I just want to know what you know.”
The storyteller looked at the others. “It – it is not written in any of the books. But it is common knowledge, it is foretold, the Wizard came and did many wonderful things, and is to come again in our time of need.”
Matt became aware of the crackle of the fire, and their credulous eyes. He realized he had a lot to think about before he dared ask any more questions.
"I, uh, I'm still tired. I think I'll go back to bed."
Matt said goodnight and returned to the hut and sprawled onto the mattress, and tried to think, but his thoughts were a jumble.
“A seeder probe,” he said. “Ivan, is there any record in the Star Seed Project archives of a program to send a seeder probe to Delta Pavonis?”
Ivan, whose memory spanned petabytes, replied, "There is no official program but there was an ongoing feasibility study called, 'The Pandora Program,' which addressed potential missions of seeder probes to several candidate star systems, including Delta Pavonis.”
“Feasibility study, my ass. It's all deception and cover-up! They pretend to just be doing a feasibility study so that they can expend budget and resources to learn how to do it. Then they ask permission to do it after they've done it, just to carry on the deception. And if the people who came to this world were inside the 'Box' – well, that means the Pandora Program sent human DNA here in a seeder probe. That would have been a much bigger scandal. It would have shut down the Star Seed Project.”
“I have anticipated your request to review the Pandora Program Feasibility Study documentation, but it is not in my copy of the archives.”
“I'll bet it's not in the original archives back on Earth either.”
“I lack sufficient information to assess that conjecture.”
Matt gazed at a random star through the cooking-fire hole, and his thoughts started to laze.
"I guess . . . I guess it was all just an intellectual exercise in the beginning. But they must have realized they were responsible for millions, billions of lives that would be created. Or maybe they just thought, 'It's centuries from now and light years away, so it doesn't affect us personally.' It was just an abstract game to them."
The star gleamed and drifted slowly out of the aperture. Without benefit of Ivan's artificial stimulation, Matt drifted into semi-consciousness.
"What I really want to know . . . but I'm afraid to ask more . . . why do they call me a wizard . . . and why do they act like . . . I'm some kind of savior? How did . . . they know . . . I was coming . . . to this planet? What was . . . that bit about me . . . being here before? Do you think . . . that they think . . . that I'm one of their . . . mentors? And . . . who are . . . the mentors?"
“I lack sufficient information to assezzzzzzzzz – ”
Or that was how the reply sounded to Matt as he drifted into sleep once again. But then, abruptly, automatically, he sat up in bed, fully awake in a cold sweat. He found himself staring at a shadow in the dark. He found himself recognizing contours of the face. And so he blurted:
“Mom?”
"I'm sorry, Wizard," the village woman said, setting down a blanket. "I did not mean to awaken you."
She left and Matt lay down again and thought that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep without Ivan's help. But he was wrong.
15.
Carrot's patrol passed through the Dark Forest without incident, and then entered a tavern near the village of Salsbury by dusk the next day. There, amid jubilant hubbub, travelers from the Westlands related the tale of 'The Wizard From Aereoth' who had fallen from the sky and was curing the Plague with a mere touch.
As someone who possessed real healing power, Carrot knew what was possible and what was not, and besides, how often did charlatans prowl on the gullible in these hopeless days?
"Britanians preying on the false hope of other Britanians," she seethed over dinner at their private table. "Is anything worse?"
"But he's not asking for gold or silver," Geth said.
"Then it's a free introductory offer," Dran said, quaffing his flagon. "As we merchants would call it."
"Sergeant, ma'am," Jran said keeningly. "The pain seems to have returned. Could you check my leg again?"
Dran swatted him. "Your leg is fine. And your moon-like eyes need to stop checking her legs."
The next afternoon saw them in Berry Glen, a village half-deserted because, said an old man, the rest were 'off to see the wizard.'
"Fields unploughed!" Carrot said. "Children will starve because of this knavery."
Still, Boudica's orders had been to explore in the Westlands and not return in less than a week, and in that time they easily reached the locus of the madness, a non-descript, smaller-than-average village called Fish Lake. The line of patients, Carrot noted, seemed to include a great many people whose complaints amounted to nothing more than a boil, or a mere scrape.
In the village center was a young man no older than Carrot. He was dressed in an iridescent blue garb that covered him from ankles to neck. There was nothing otherwise remarkable about his appearance, although he did seem to have all his teeth. Carrot thought ruefully that from the rapt attention that he was garnering from the onlookers, he might have been a giant blue troll juggling flaming logs. Instead, perfectly normal-sized, he was merely sitting on a stool and conversing with a young maiden as he examined her wrist.
"Are you sure it's sprained?" he asked the maiden. "I'm not sensing anything wrong."
"Oh, it twinges terribly!" the girl exclaimed. She leaned toward him and tapped her neck. "I seem to have a pain here as well. Could you touch there also?"
Carrot sighed. The young man turned instantly and stared. It was Analysis at First Sight.
"You're not from around here," he said to Carrot, frowning. "I mean, your men aren't wearing the little round hats that everyone around here does. And you're – "
Along with their wizard, the villagers at last saw the swords, spears, bows, and body armor borne by the travelers A hush fell over the crowd.
"We are warriors from the Eastlands," said Geth in a voice that carried. "We serve in the Army of Boudica who is the Queen of Britan, and who fights the Roman invader!"
The crowd erupted in murmurs. The maiden took back her arm and looked over Jran and Croin. Judging from his expression, Carrot mused, the 'wizard' didn't enjoy not being the center of attention. Especially when the villagers crowded around the travelers, demanding news of the 'Rebellion.'
"Roman soldiers come through every harvest," said one farmer. "They demand a
portion of crop from every village, and they set fire to your homes and fields if you don't give them what they feel is enough. An Emperor's Tithe, a Governor's Tithe – and then every soldier has his tithe too. It's got to stop!"
"That's what we're fighting for," Carrot said. "It will stop!"
The villagers cheered. Several men came forward and volunteered. Carrot turned them down. "Our orders are not to recruit but to scout, and we must return soon to the army in the Midlands."
The Wizard slipped through the crowd.
"Midlands," he said. "That's on the way to Londa, isn't it?"
"Yes," Dran replied, with Carrot wishing she could have stopped him.
"I'm heading for Londa. I'd like to come with you."
Carrot blurted, "We are on a mission by Queen's orders. We really can't – "
Geth touched her arm and said softly, "Arcadia, look. Do you see signs of Plague?"
She looked hard. No blotches, no ghostly complexions, and most of all, no piles of the dead. Berry Glen had been like that too, she recalled.
Geth continued, "If we can persuade him to go with us back to the army, and heal – and what of the Northlands? The Plague is starting to reach our home villages as well."
"No, no," she said. “We can't take him. We don't have the resources, the time – “
She wasn't sure why she was certain that he was a fraud or a fool or both. It was just . . . his soft face with those cow-eyes gave the impression of a life without hunger or danger or the sweat of a single season's plowing.
Then she had an idea. She would put an end to this nonsense with literally a single stroke.
"So," she said. "You're a healer."
The Wizard shrugged. "Yeah, I – well, yeah. Sure."
I've not much experience with their ilk, but shouldn't a charlatan sound more confident?
Undeterred, she unsheathed her knife, held out her arm, and cut. A line of red followed the blade and trickled. The Wizard backstepped, almost stumbling. Everyone else gasped.
"Heal this," she said.
The Wizard gaped for a moment, then breathed deep, and touched her arm. Carrot waited and felt no sensation of tingling or warmth. It was as she had thought. He was just another –
"How's that?"
The skin was smooth and clean. Not a trace of a scar, not a trace of blood. She grabbed his hand and inspected his fingers. They too were bloodless.
"I was bleeding! What happened to the blood?"
"I, uh, put it back in your arm. Could you please stop squeezing so hard?"
She dropped his hand. She sputtered, "You, you – "
Geth clamped her shoulders and whispered, "Let's get going before he changes his mind."
Little over an hour later, the Wizard was equipped with a burgeoning backpack of food from the villagers, who bade him tearful good-byes. Despite snorting at that cliche, Carrot was struck by the intensity of their sincerity. And so her entourage-plus-Wizard headed east on the Oksiden Road, back to the Dark Forest.
After a few minutes, he came alongside and smiled, "By the way, my name is Matt."
Of course, she thought. Just like the Star Child. Exactly what a charlatan would declare.
He added, "What are all your names?"
She made introductions of the others and finished, "And I'm Ar – you can call me 'Carrot.'"
"Carrot?"
"Like the vegetable."
"There a reason you're called that?"
Geth said, "Because her hair is – " He saw her expression and stopped.
"Because I'm thin as a carrot."
"Really? You don't seem that thin."
Not a wizard with words, she thought.
And indeed, he didn't have much else to say over the hours that followed. Or rather, not to her. He spoke with Geth and Croin about the Northland, but when he heard that Dran was a merchant who worked out of Londa, he chatted up a storm. Oddly, he asked questions about Londa as if he'd never been there, but then he would make a comment as if he knew the exact lay of the city.
"And then there's Rome," he said. "What is the deal with the Romans?"
"They've been in Britan for over twenty years," Dran said. "At first they limited themselves to the occupation of Londa, then they expanded into the Lowlands. Now they're extending everywhere. They seem to have become especially active since the appearance of the comet."
"The comet?"
"In the southern seas there was a strange comet that appeared about two years ago. Personally, I put nothing in celestial portents, but the Romans are a superstitious lot, what with their Sisters of Wisdom and all."
"Who are the Sisters of Wisdom? Are they like the mentors?"
"I know next to nothing certain of the Sisters, except that every Roman is afraid of them."
Whatever his powers of healing were, the Wizard seemed to lack stamina. He was always asking for a rest stop. At this rate, Carrot thought, we'll be lucky to make fifty kilometers a day.
By afternoon they entered the Dark Forest, and the Wizard slowed even more, eyes darting about while he frowned at the tree tops.
“Something wrong?” Carrot asked.
“The trees,” he muttered. “They're blocking the view. I can't see where we are.”
Carrot observed that only the tops of the towering evergreens had obscuring branches. Near ground level, trunks were bare of branches and as brush also was sparse by their particular section of the road, the view was uninterrupted for half a kilometer in every direction.
“I can see fine,” Carrot said. “I would think anyone with normal vision can.”
“Some people cannot see well in gloom or shade,” Geth volunteered. “That's why it's called the Dark Forest.”
The Wizard grunted. Carrot looked at Geth and rolled her eyes.
The brush did thicken after that, and dusk brought a dark that even Carrot's eyes had difficulty penetrating. Despite still being in the forest, Carrot ordered camp to be pitched and made a small fire. After their evening meal, the alleged Wizard staggered off, leaned against a log, and became so still that Carrot half-suspected that he had died from exhaustion.
Late at night, however, she heard him stirring. From a distance, she watched him tilt his head and raise his eyebrows and speak in half-whisper while touching invisible points in front of him as if there were a wall there.
"Mutant?" he said. "Are you sure? Huh. I guess if they were going to violate ethics by putting human DNA in the probe, they'd also include genetic experiments on humans. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. At least she doesn't act psycho. Okay, well, but that was just a test to see what I could do. Anyway, she looks completely human – but wow, that grip! You're kidding! That much? Okay, now show me a graph of – "
She looked around. Who is he talking to? She smelled no one and sighed. So the man was mad. She went back to sleep.
Hours later, she bolted wide awake and reflexively sat up. From the turn of the stars and how they blazed, she knew it was wee morn. All was still and silent. The men were dozing, the campfire was crackling embers. But from the woods adjacent to their clearing and opposite the road – the smell!
The Wizard was sitting up too, and gazing in the same direction.
She crawled alongside.
"There are ten to the north," he said before she could speak. There was no doubt in his voice now. "They have weapons."
She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Yes, her metal-sense detected objects the size and shape of short swords. But she barely sensed them at this distance. How could he already know their number?
He was pointing at spots in the wood, sweeping his arm in a semi-circle from west to east. She perceived the flicker of human-sized traces in her infrared vision. She pushed his arm to his side and faced him from centimeters.
"Take cover behind the log," she said. "And be quiet."
She woke Geth, who woke Croin. Then she woke Dran, who woke Jran. They unsheathed swords. Carrot opened a bag and snapped together the segments of her long-
spear
Then from the woods came a cry, and then ten cries, and their attackers converged on the fire. Her party sprang to their feet and countered blade for blade with deafening clangs. Carrot jabbed her spear, nicking one attacker in the shoulder. She yanked the weapon the other way and planted the blunt end into the belly of a man who didn't know she could sense his heavy clopping from meters behind her back. Another attacker charged. Carrot leaped aside, grabbed his arm, twisted and flung him against two others. Then it was a flurry of bodies, dodging of blades, vaulting and tackling and jabbing and poking.
And then one of them shouted and they were fleeing, and just like that, her patrol was alone in the clearing once again.
Dran was propped against a tree, laughing between puffs as he gazed at Carrot. "You're not even out of breath! I saw you toss them about like twigs, and wondered if I and my brother should go back to sleep!"
"Is anyone injured?" Carrot demanded.
No one raised a hand at first. Then timidly Jran did, but Dran swatted again and he lowered it.
Geth stood alongside her, surveying the darkness. "Regardless of their dress, their swordsmanship was too practiced for ordinary highwaymen."
"The legions apply a distinctive oil to polish their blades and preserve from rust," Carrot said. "I smelled it even when they were in the woods."
"Soldiers, then. Yet in such number, they could raid villages and caravans. Why bother with us?"
"Could it be they were after the Wizard?" Dran asked.
Surely, she thought, that costume of his can be seen from the mountains. But she replied, "They came from the east. They would not have known about the Wizard."
She became aware of the Wizard's attention.
"I trust you are unharmed, Wizard."
"Your hair. It's – "
"Never mind my hair. We must break camp and move. We'll stop for breakfast after dawn, but we need to be on our way out of the forest now."
