Wizard of the Pigeons

by Megan Lindholm

  He heard a test in her question. Did she think he would lie about it? “I broke the rules.” he said simply. “And it went away.”

  Cassie was shaking her head slowly. From somewhere, a bit of needlework had come into her hands. Embroidery. He watched her bite off a thread and select a new color. “You’re wrong, you know,” she said conversationally. He leaned forward to catch her words. “The rules broke you.”

  He bowed his head to that rebuke. “I suppose I never really had the strength, the discipline, to be a wizard.”

  Cassie snorted. “Idiot. No. You knew what would break you. You knew what rules you couldn’t keep, so you made those rules and then you broke them. To get away from the magic. It’s scared you shitless since the first day I told you it was yours.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “No. No, you don’t understand. Cassie, I broke the rules that had brought the magic to me, and so it went away. I kept more than a dollar in change, I’ve lain with a woman, I’ve turned my strength loose upon others.” He was babbling, close to falling apart again. Cassie poked her needle through the heavy linen. He heard the rip-drag of the embroidery floss as it followed. She kept her eyes on her work, making no reply as he catalogued his sins, but only shaking her head. He told her all, all since the night she had done the Seeing for him, croaking out the tale when his mouth grew too dry to speak.

  When be finally ran down. she spoke.

  “Where did you get the rules?”

  “The magic gave them to me.”

  “No. Not those ones. You invented those ones yourself, knowing you couldn’t keep them. You wanted to break yourself so the magic would go away, so you wouldn’t be a wizard and have a duty to it. But even in your desire to be free of it, the magic went too deep in you for you to destroy it. Otherwise you would have taken the easy way out. Stomp one of those stupid pigeons. That would really have done it, really have blown the magic away. Or turn your back and walk away when one came seeking you. But you didn’t. You made up your own rules to break. We all knew you were in trouble the minute you stated putting extra rules on yourself. Rasputin thought be could rattle you out of it. Maybe I should have let him. But I said you would snap out of it on your own. So we watched you, hoping. Until it was damn near too late.”

  He was staring at her, refusing to believe her. She met his eyes calmly.

  “Think back. What rules did Rasputin give you? Hold the pigeons sacred and never harm them. Listen to the ones who came to talk to you, and when you have comfort for them, speak out. Tell the Truth when it comes on you. and when you Know, admit you Know. That was all. Those were the rules of your magic, given you by the only one of us who can look at a wizard, see his magic, and tell him the rules of it. The rest of it was your own petty fences, put up to keep others at a distance. When you came to me for a Seeing, I hoped you would see how silly they were. Even Estrella tried to warn you.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever think of just coming out and saying it?”

  “You being such an easy person to talk to and all?” Cassie asked sarcastically.

  “I’m not that hard!” he replied indignantly.

  “Oh, aren’t you, now?” There was something else in her voice now. A more personal hurt that baffled him. He didn’t want to explore it. Cassie stabbed her needle into the cloth and dragged it swiftly through. She didn’t look at him and he sat without speaking. At last he heard her give a long sigh. When she spoke again, it was in her ordinary, well-modulated voice.

  “Are you still sure your magic is gone now? Remember, you haven’t broken any rules.”

  He hated to disappoint her. “I’m sure. It’s gone, Cassie. I can’t feed the pigeons. When people talk to me, I’m not sure what to say to them. I was helpless against Lynda and what she did to me.”

  Cassie snorted. “Lynda. She’s another matter entirely. Don’t blame it on her. So you’re sure it’s gone. Then you’re a fool and no one can help you.” She finished a leaf and knotted off her thread. She suddenly crumpled her work into her lap and sat up straighter. “I have an idea about you. I may be completely wrong. Want to hear it?”

  “Why not?” What could she say that would be worse than what had been said?

  “This gray thing, this Mir. It scared the hell out of you. So, rather than face it, you tried to pretend it was only imaginary. Something inside your head, some neurotic disorder from your past. It isn’t. It’s as real as I am.”

  “How real is that?” he asked lightly, but she brought a pointing finger to bear on him.

  “Never doubt me, not even in jest. I’m real, real enough to kick your ass if I hear another comment like that out of you tonight. That would have been the next step, wouldn’t it? And you damn near took it. You would have convinced yourself that Rasputin and Euripides and I were all—I don’t know what—imaginary, or fragments of your own disordered mind. I think you could have actually made yourself believe it, too. You’re a very young wizard, as wizards go, and tonight you nearly lost your chance to get any older. But you had better believe this, now. This gray thing of yours, this Mir. It’s real. Real enough to tear you into shreds. Real. And smart enough to start with your mind first, if you leave it an opening. Or it can stand back and watch you chase your own tail until you’re exhausted, and then it can step in and take you without a fight. And use you for its own ugly ends.”

  “I think it’s already begun,” he admitted cautiously.

  “Bullshit.” Cassie smoothed out her needlework and picked up a skein of yellow thread. “You’re scaring yourself. Searching your soul for bogey-men. So you have a temper. So your body has been trained as an effective weapon and steps in to save you when your mind is out to lunch. Maybe you even have a few kinks that the right person can trigger with the right sort of behavior. Well, don’t we all? Don’t blame the gray thing or the magic. Don’t even blame Lynda, though she sounds like she could piss off a saint. Blame yourself. You set it all in motion.”

  “Meaning what?” He demanded. He didn’t like the way this was going. Not matter what he said, Cassie seemed to circle back to where it was all his fault. But she couldn’t know what it was really like. She hadn’t been there.

  “You deliberately unbalanced your magic. When Lynda came to you on the bench that day, she had a problem. You listened to her, but you didn’t tell her what you Knew. Nor did you turn her away. You kept what you Knew to yourself, like it was some ponderous secret. Hell, even I could have told her the answer. I would have said, ‘Lynda, it’s fine to like men, any number of men, as long as you still like yourself.’ But you didn’t. So you owed her, and she became a danger to you. Mir has used her as a channel to get to you. Hell, didn’t you wonder at a waitress that could jump up to a bar and chin herself up to a fire escape? Mir used her to move you away from the rest of us, to get you out on your own. But even though the magic was unbalanced when you didn’t give more than you got, it didn’t go away. Didn’t you Know that Booth would follow and attack?”

  “It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t feed the pigeons.”

  “Did you try?”

  “She took the fucking bag!” he roared in sudden exasperation. “What was I supposed to do? Make popcorn appear out of nowhere?”

  “Exactly. Did you try?”

  “No!” he snapped. “I just knew I couldn’t. And you can’t shrug it off like it’s nothing when I say that I’ve been hurting people. I had stopped doing that.”

  “I know. Because you didn’t need to. Who did you hurt? A mugger? A murderer? A man who attacked you from behind?”

  “And Lynda. And I hurt them all more than I needed to.”

  Cassie shook her head. “You hurt them as much as you had to, to make them stop what they were doing. In the case of the knife-man, not quite enough. And Lynda? Lynda is like a rat pushing a bar to call a feed pellet. She sized you up right away without even being conscious of it. She can push your buttons and you give her a little scare that puts an edge on
things. If you were really a danger to her, do you think she’d stick around? She was already smart enough to dump one man that got too rough. You’re the key to the candy store for her. She sets the scenes and you say your lines. While the gray thing uses her to undermine you.”

  “You don’t understand anything!” He rose so suddenly that he nearly upset the lamp. Fists clenched, he paced the room twice and stopped in front of her chair. “It’s different for me. Maybe you can never understand. I don’t just lose my temper and slug someone. I Know what I am capable of, in a way most people never realize. I’ve killed, Cassie, with a rifle and with my hands. And I’m good at it. Very good. So good that when I am crossed, it’s the first solution I think of, not the last. And Lynda. I don’t like what she triggers in me, what she makes me want to do to her.”

  Cassie shrugged easily. “Then get away from her. Find someone else. But don’t blame it on the magic.”

  He shook his head. It was so simple for her. And so hard for him. “I’m a violent man.”

  “You are also a man sickened by violence. A man triggered by violence to violence. Do you suppose I am so different? If I saw a mugging in progress, do you think I would turn away? If I were attacked, wouldn’t I defend myself? Wizard, there is only one rule about violence. Do whatever you must do to make it stop.”

  He was so far beyond what she could imagine. It made her seem vulnerable and young as be told her, “I can’t agree with that.”

  “I can’t make you. I can’t force you to believe that the magic hasn’t deserted you, either. And because of that, you just may die.”

  His eyes snapped to her face. She suddenly looked very old. He crossed the room to her and sat at her feet, looking up at her. There was something in her eyes he knew. “Were you in Viet Nam?” he asked suddenly.

  “My friend, I have been in them all since the wooden horse was dragged into Troy. They haven’t improved them any.”

  “Viet Nam was the worst.”

  “It was different,” she agreed. She leaned her cheek on her fist and looked at him sadly. “Do you know, since I met you, I haven’t eaten a pigeon.”

  He was touched. “Don’t look so sad. I feel like you’re saying last words to me. I’ve listened to you, I really have. I’m going to go back and get it all straightened out. It’s going to be all right.”

  “Fool,” she said fondly. “The time I can shelter you here is ticking away. Then I must put you out, back into the streets. And Mir will have you. Tonight. This is the night it takes you away.”

  “I’m not ready.” His mouth was dry.

  “You threw away your weapons to pretend there was no war.”

  “Cassie, what am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed. And maybe take down the rest of us as well.” She slid forward off her chair to sit on the floor beside him. “Why didn’t I ever see what a child you are?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You don’t think so, perhaps.” Her fingers traced the pattern on the rug. “But when did you really have the chance to grow up? You were just a kid when they took you. And when you came back, you were older than God, but without the wisdom. Only the knowing. Not adults, but wizards. You and Rasputin and Euripides. The difference is they found themselves sooner, and have put in enough time to do some growing. You’re not going to have the chance.”

  Her words were chilling. He wrapped himself in bravado, leaning back against her chair as he spoke. “And just what makes you so different, then?”

  “Me? I remember the befores.” Soft as a challenge, those words.

  A silence fell. Meaning hummed in the words sinking into the quiet, but Wizard could not quite extract it. He only knew it had immense importance to him. It dangled tantalizingly out of his reach. There were only Cassie’s eyes begging him to pick up on it. He shook his head at her. “So what should I do?”

  “Pick up your weapons. Call out the allies you’ve groomed for this battle. Stop pretending that you’ve been pretending.”

  She was talking in riddles. Despair washed over him. “I don’t know how. I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “The I-Don’t-Know Wizard.” There was no mockery in her voice. She leaned forward to put her hand against his cheek.

  The touch of her skin against his tingled, like an exchange of electricity. It was both heady and familiar. Yet he could not recall that she had ever touched him before. He found himself leaning into it, moving his face against her hand.

  “Why can’t you just tell me?” he begged in frustration, and was surprised at his own words.

  “I’ve tried, in every way that I’m allowed. Don’t you think my magic has its own rules?” A fierce edge to her voice.

  That stopped him cold. “Oh. Then there’s nothing left but for it to happen. I suppose I should leave now.”

  “I suppose.” Her hand fell from his face. She picked up both of his hands in hers and looked at them, as if marveling at their emptiness. A tear fell into his hand and the wet touch galvanized him.

  “Don’t. Please, don’t. I never wanted to make you sad.”

  “You never wanted to make me anything!” she accused suddenly in an anguished voice. She pushed suddenly into his arms and he found himself holding her. She smelled like spices, ginger and vanilla. Closing his eyes, he pulled her closer. She pressed her face into the side of his neck and her arms clung to him. Startled, he loosened his hold. She didn’t. He patted her awkwardly. Her voice came from the hollow of his shoulder, sounding below his ear. “Do you remember the first story ever told you?”

  He cast his mind back. “No. There have been so many. Wait—about a little girl in a garden”

  He felt her nod. It rubbed wetness against his neck. He sighed and pulled her in close again.

  “That’s all you remember of it. You don’t remember the rules she was given,” She probed hopelessly.

  “Not really.” So long ago, and it had seemed like a pointless little story at the time. Her breath caught raggedly as he admitted his lack of memory. Could it have been that important to her?

  “They were all about giving and taking,” he hedged. “She couldn’t take what she wanted most because it wasn’t offered to her.”

  “Until it was freely offered. Not that it makes any difference now.”

  “And she couldn’t offer anything…”

  “She could offer…” Cassie hissed angrily.

  “Right,” he amended. “She could offer, but she couldn’t give, because…”

  “Because no one wanted it.” She pushed away from him abruptly, but he caught at her wrist and dragged her back down to his side.

  “Because someone was too stupid to know what was being offered. And too scared to accept it. And too afraid of what might come of it if he did; afraid of himself.”

  Her eyes met his, stubbornly hurt. Refusing all comfort that he offered now, too late.

  “Cassie,” he said brokenly. “I never meant to refuse what you offered. I didn’t realize it. Or maybe I did, I suppose, but it was forbidden to me. I don’t do—”

  “Yes, you do!” she replied fiercely. “You just refuse to enjoy it. Or to do it with me!”

  “It’s not safe to be with me.”

  “Nothing is safe anymore. And the time is gone.” She began untangling herself from him. The finality of her words slapped him. The feel of Cassie moving away from him was more grievous than the departure of his magic. As she rose, he clutched at her hand.

  “Cassie. Come back.”

  She turned to his words, her face strangely uncertain. Wistful. She looked down at him. “You don’t remember the garden at all,” she said sadly.

  He was confused. “Not the whole story, but—”

  “Never mind,” she said abruptly. For a long moment she stood stiffly apart from him. Colder than frozen. Then she turned to look at him, and a sudden smile flooded her face. A decision had been reached in her mind and her face mirrored
it. She came back to him and he rose to take her in his arms.

  She was trembling.

  “Are you scared?” he asked her.

  “Not as scared as you are. And it’s not you I’m scared of.”

  She was right. He held her and as she put her arms around him, he felt her magic wrap them both like a mantle. Within that shelter, all was safe and right. Her breathing became slow and steady as the sea swells, calming them both. He closed his eyes. This was right.

  And more than right, her magic promised. It was the pathway back to where a touching was not a hurting. It was the missing arc of the circle that took him back to an unspoiled beginning. To a garden on a summer day, with bees buzzing in honeysuckle on the garden wall.

  “Cassie?” he asked, the last of his uncertainty in his voice.

  “I’m right here.” she whispered. “I’ve always been right here.”

  He journeyed to the heart of woman’s magic, and found it was the journey home.

  THE RAINY STREETS shone under the streetlamps. The squall had passed, leaving with an icy wind wandering the streets and alleys. He heard the final click of Cassie’s door as it closed behind him. He turned back to it, but it was already gone, fading into darkness. She had left him alone to face it, turned him out like a stray cat to take his chances with the street dogs.

  He knew that she’d had to. But the night still seemed the colder after Cassie’s warmth.

  At least there was nothing about. Whatever gray Mir was, it wasn’t bold enough to strike on Cassie’s doorstep. He shivered and began to walk. He sensed the city around him, the living entity of each building he passed, the vacant windows that nonetheless watched him. He had not felt it so alive since the night Cassie had come for him through the snowstorm. Nor so ominous. It was as if he walked through a maze of spectators come to witness his execution. “Bring on the hatchetman,” he muttered to himself. He had screwed his courage to the pitch of being able to go forth and meet Mir. But he didn’t know how long it would stand up to the tension of having to seek Mir out. That wasn’t something he had prepared for.