A Wizard in Bedlam

CHAPTER 16

The moon had risen; picking out the glints of metal and jewels in the clothing of the lordly prisoners who stood huddled together in the center of the courtyard again. High above them, Lapin sat on a jury-rigged scaffold, hands flat on her knees. Hugh and the Guildmaster stood to one side of her. Now and again, they glanced furtively at the shadows of the northwest corner, where Gar sat hunched over, staring at the broken fragments of the staff.

Dirk stood apart from both, with Captain Domigny and his officers. From time to time, he glanced at Madelon where she sat at the foot of the scaffold with Father Fletcher and several other men and women whom Dirk had never seen. He assumed they were other junior “officers” and provincial captains.

“We cannot kill so many out of hand,” Lapin said with a flat finality that left nothing open to debate. “What, then, shall we do with them?”

The Guildmaster growled, “There are some who do deserve death, Lapin—the slowest and most painful death we can devise.”

“Must we try them one by one?” Hugh demanded. “It will take a year; and, like as not, some with slick tongues will escape unscathed when they truly deserve some great punishment.”

Captain Domigny stepped forward. “If I may speak here—”

“You may not,” the Guildmaster said curtly. The Captain stared, speechless. Then he scowled and started to speak again.

Lapin turned her head slowly toward him. “Do not misunderstand, sky-man—we are grateful for all you have done. Indeed, we could have done nothing without you, and well we know it. But you have not suffered as we have suffered; most of your lives you have been free, and away from this sink of misery. You have not tried to feed a family beneath a Lord’s heavy hand; you have not seen your wife or your daughter taken for a lordling’s lust, nor your son taken to the arena. You cannot know how these things stand here, nor hove the people feel—not truly.”

“I think I might have a halfway decent idea.” Dirk’s voice crackled through the courtyard. “Just in the last week, I’ve come a hairsbreadth from death a dozen times. I’ve been in the arena. I’ve run and hidden like an outlaw. And this isn’t the first time. I’ve served seven missions on this planet, and I’ve shaved death every time. We all have. And there’s a little matter of the rest of my life—all our lives.” He gestured to his companions. “We’ve spent our lives for one thing only; to keep the line between Mélange and the rest of the universe in churl hands so that, when this day came, the Wizard’s tall towers could come dropping down from the skies. Nice, safe, easy job—crammed cheek by jowl with twenty other men in a fragile shell of a ship, floating in emptiness, where any one of a hundred tiny things could go wrong and kill us. Our dangers have been as great as yours, our trials as painful. Few of us have married—why do you think we always brought up new recruits? We knew a wife and children would divide our loyalty, and we couldn’t risk that—we devoted our lives completely and solely to someday—someday—winning your freedom! We condemned ourselves to lonely lives full of backbreaking work, for one purpose, and one purpose only—your freedom!”

“I know you have been tried, perhaps as sorely as we,” Lapin said judiciously, “but they were different trials, different pains—and, withal, you all were free.”

Dirk’s lips pressed into a thin, straight line. “Free! Never a one of us was free! We’ve been slaves to you, all of you, all our lives—and the lives of the men who came before us—for five hundred years! Working for this day—the day when the churls would be free and we could come back to our home!

“And now you tell us our home is not here for us to come back to!”

“We do.” He could hear the pain in Lapin’s voice; nevertheless, she spoke the words. “For the fact remains, you have become apart from us, Dirk Dulain, you and all the sky-men. You are no longer really of us, here. The things you want are no longer the things we want.”

Beside her, Hugh nodded. “We do not deny you home—you may settle among us; we will give you lands, and any aid that we can, and shares of the lordlings’ loot to start merchant shops and workshops—we know, at least, that we need that, and that none but you can begin them. We will build you schools where you may teach; we will give you honor and respect—”

“But you will not give us a voice in your government,” Domigny said grimly.

Hugh met his eyes and nodded. “We will not.” But Domigny wasn’t looking at him. He had stepped apart, arms folded, staring at Lapin.

She returned his stare, unwavering.

Dirk stepped up to him, hissing in his ear, “They can’t do this, Captain! All our work, all our waiting—”

“They can do it,” Domigny ground out. “They are the rightful government.”

“But we’ve got ships, we’ve got cannon! Give the word, and we’ll—”

“We will not kill our own,” Domigny said heavily, still watching Lapin.

“Yes, and she knows it, too; she’s taking advantage of our goodness! There’s no justice to it, Captain—not after all our years, all our work, just for them!”

Then Domigny turned, with a sardonic smile. “What did you expect, Dulain? Gratitude?” Dirk could only stare at him.

“And what of me?” demanded a rumbling voice from the shadows.

All eyes swung to the northwest corner.

Gar stood, the broken halves of the staff in his hands, glaring at Lapin.

He strode forward to the foot of the scaffold. “Me, what of me? Shall I also have no voice here among you?”

“You are DeCade,” Madelon breathed, eyes shining and worshipful, and Lapin echoed her: “You are DeCade. Your voice shall always be heard.” She rose with the majesty of a mountain, stepping to the side. “Come, take the seat of judgment here among us; it is yours, as is the final voice in any decision of our affairs, if you wish it. You are DeCade.”

“I am not,” Gar said harshly.

Total silence hit the courtyard. Every eye fastened on the giant.

Slowly, he raised the broken halves of the staff. “DeCade lived in this. It is broken; he is gone. I am only myself again, the man you knew as Gar.”

Lapin’s eyes widened, and Madelon’s were huge and glistening with tragedy. But as Dirk watched, she managed a tremulous smile through her tears, gazing up at Gar with warmth and trust.

“There is more,” Gar said grimly, with a bitter smile. “I have said it; you have known it: I am an outworlder. Now—have I a voice in your councils?”

“You have not,” Lapin said, as though the words were dragged out of her.

Gar nodded, as though pleased with the bitter answer. “No voice for the bearer? No voice for the man who gave you victory by bearing DeCade within him?”

“Cease to torment us!” Lapin cried. “You know that you merit it, but you know we cannot give it!” Gar nodded slowly, drawing himself up, mouth a grim, satisfied line. “Yes, I know it, and now I will free you. Know that my name is d’Armand, and that I am the son of a cadet branch of a noble house!”

The churls froze, staring at him. Then a slow, anguished hiss escaped from the Lords. Their guards looked up, bracing their weapons; but the burning in the Lords’ eyes faded back to a dull glow, and the guards relaxed.

Lapin still stared down at the giant. Finally, she demanded, “Where is DeCade?”

“His task was done, his thirst slaked; for a moment, he was weak, his purpose gone. In that moment, I rose up, burst out of the lock he had on me, and broke his staff. He has gone, faded—back to his centuries of sleep.” Gar held up the broken halves of the staff. “I have my own life again; I am master of my own body again.”

He stood in the midst of a sea of burning eyes. A low, ugly mutter began around him and grew, swelling to fill the courtyard. But Lapin held up a hand, still staring down stonily at Gar; and the mutter slackened, faded, and died. Into the stillness, the huge woman spoke. “If DeCade is gone, he is gone. Was it needful to break his staff?”

“It was; for if I had not, I would be a prisoner within myself still. It was needful; for if any man lesser than I sought to take up this staff, DeCade would have killed him.”

Hugh and the Guildmaster glared down at him. Gar stared back, unmoved.

So did Lapin. Slowly, she held out her hand. “Then give us the parts of his staff.”

Dirk stiffened, electrified by a vision of churl after churl trying to mend the staff and being fried by a lifetime of memories of a very passionate man.

Hugh echoed Lapin. “Give us the staff!” And his guerrilla outlaws stepped forward, toward Gar. The big man whirled, setting his back against a balk of timber, holding up the two staff-ends like mated clubs.

The outlaws hesitated, eyeing the clubs in awed fascination.

The courtyard held silence while they stared at one another, at an impasse.

Then Gar smiled sourly. He stepped forward and knelt, laying the two halves of the staff on the ground, rose, and stepped back. “Let him who wishes take them up!”

The courtyard was still. Every man stared at the staff-ends with avarice, and fear. Even Hugh, looking down, took a half-step forward, then hesitated.

The moment held taut; then, slowly, Dirk could feel the tension begin to bleed away.

Gar straightened, relaxing a little, nodding with a sour smile. “I had thought not.” He turned back to the scaffold, raising his eyes to Lapin. “I am an outworlder, like these to whom you have just denied voice—but I have borne your hero within me; he was no light load, and without him, you would all still be bondsmen. You would have no freedom without me, but you have denied me a voice. Now I ask: am I welcome among you?”

Madelon started up, eyes full of tears, her lips parted; but she hesitated, then sank back down in misery.

“No,” Lapin pronounced, and the pain was harsh in her voice. “We owe greatly to you, but we cannot have you among us, for you are Lords’ blood.”

“So I had thought,” Gar said grimly. He turned to look out at the assembled churls. “I have come among you. I have fought and bled for you, and you have cast me out. But I have accomplished my purpose, and now I will go.” In one quick motion, he knelt, caught up the broken staff, and stood straight again. “And I will take this staff with me, for it is a thing of greater power than any of you know.”

A frenzied mutter started up, but Gar barked out into it, “He who thinks he can stop me, let him try!.”

On the scaffold above, Hugh leveled a laser pistol; but Lapin struck his hand down. “Fool! You might hit the staff!”

Good point, Dirk thought. If a laser beam caught that circuitry, who knew what would happen? It would be instructive to find out; but personally, Dirk had no wish to determine it empirically.

The churls had all seen Lapin’s action and seemed to be equally fearful; lasers were half-raised, then lowered again.

Gar surveyed them, and nodded once, with a sardonic smile. Then, slowly, he began to stalk across the great courtyard. He approached the skirmish line of outlaws; they tensed, swords coming up.

Gar kept coming, clubs raised, ready for the fight, eyes glowing.

The churls stood steadfast, but their eyes were sick.

Gar was ten feet from them. Five feet.

At the last moment, Hugh signed to the outlaws. They gradually lowered their swords, and stepped aside to leave a channel for Gar to pass through, with surly growls, but they looked relieved.

So did Hugh.

A long, hissing sigh passed through the courtyard.

Gar stalked on toward the main gate, smiling grimly. He came to the front rank of the crowd; at the last second, men pressed back from him, and a passageway opened for him through the throng, opening only a few feet ahead of him as he strode on; but in a minute, it was a long avenue, stretched out to the gate.

Gar stalked down that avenue, passed beneath the portcullis, out across the drawbridge, and was gone.

Madelon stared after him, eyes huge, huddled in on herself, forlorn.

Dirk saw, and the bile rose in his throat.

He rounded on Captain Domigny, demanding, “Will you do as he has done, Captain? Or will you stay here, to slave for the people you’ve freed, and be a second-class citizen?”

Captain Domigny turned slowly, looking Dirk full in the eye. “I’ll stay.”

Dirk’s mouth hooked down in contempt. “Is this what we’ve waited for, then? Why we’ve worked our whole lives, what we’ve given up house and home for—to be highly trained serfs? ‘Oh, surely, sir, we’ll set up industries for you! Certainly, madame, we’ll organize your commerce. Thank you, thank you kindly, for giving us the chance! Schools? Oh, delighted! We’ll start them right away—no problem at all. All the things you can’t do for yourself, we’ll be oh-so-glad to do for you. Just give us a pat on the head now and then, and maybe a bone, and we’re happy!’ Is this why we gave up our lives?”

Domigny reddened. “I’ve worked my whole life for the good of my people, Dulain—and I’ll keep doing it!”

Dirk stared at him.

Domigny turned his head from side to side. “No, Dirk Dulain. Do as you will; but for myself, I did not do what I did for gratitude or adulation—or for power! I did it because I believed it right—and whatever the consequences of that action, I accept them!” He turned to Lapin and called out, “I will stay here among you, Lapin, and gladly! The wealth and position you offer I accept, and will not seek voice in your affairs.”

“What will you do, then, among us?” she demanded.

“What you will. If you want schools, industry, commerce, I will build them for you—or whatever else the people want done. I will work for the good of the churls of this planet!”

A huge cheer exploded all about him, filling the courtyard. Dazed, the officers looked at one another; then they looked at their captain and began to grin.

Dirk turned away, sickened. He looked up at Lapin and Hugh, both smiling, satisfied; then his eyes dropped down to Madelon. She looked up, meeting his gaze with a long, pleading look. He turned his face away and looked at the Captain again. Then, as the cheers began to fade, he turned on his heel and stalked toward the gate.

The courtyard fell silent about him. Then he heard the quick patter of heels. He looked back as Madelon caught his sleeve, looking up at him breathlessly. “You will not go now! Stay here among us!”

Dirk looked down at her, his mouth twisting. “Why? Why should I?”

She looked up at him, her face grave. “Do I mean nothing to you?”

He looked into her eyes for a long, wordless moment. Then he leaned his weight on one hip, cocking his head to the side. “How is this? A moment ago, I saw your face filled with the tragedy of Gar’s leaving.”

“True,” she said gravely, “but when he said that the spirit of DeCade had left him, I began to remember what had happened, and to wonder why it had come about as it did—and it was you, all of it. It was you who paved the way for the churls in the arena to call him leader, you who prepared him to receive DeCade and guided the staff to his hand, you who guided him when his plans seemed to fall apart, you who guided his arm and called down the tall towers; and I think it is you, Dirk Dulain—you more than any other—who has brought us our freedom, as surely as though the Wizard’s spirit moved in you!”

“It is not true,” Dirk denied, “none of it. I was moved about like a chess piece on a board. How can you see it that way? Is it because, now that the giant has left, you must find reasons for turning to another?”

Madelon winced but retorted, “I say what I see. Like any man, you are too blind to see yourself truly!”

Dirk nodded, heavy with irony. “So now you want me.”

“Yes, I want you!” she hissed fiercely. “Can you blame me?”

“Yes,” he answered, “for if DeCade came alive again, you would turn from me in an instant.” He saw the sick, stricken acknowledgment of what he had said in her eyes and was instantly filled with remorse. He touched her face gently, spoke softly. “Forgive me—I’ve spoken too harshly. But you must see that I cannot accept being second choice.”

He held her eyes a moment longer, then turned and walked away.

The ranks of the churls parted for him, as they had for Gar, and the courtyard was silent as he marched down that long avenue, looking neither to the right nor the left. Memory hemmed him in on both sides, likeness of kind clung to him, but he strode through it as though it was a room full of cobwebs. Every face turned to him in silent respect; every eye followed him as he passed under the portcullis and was gone from their sight.

He strode across the drawbridge and out onto the barren hillside.

There he stopped and took a slow, deep breath. He let his shoulders slump and bowed his head, feeling the adrenaline ebb from his system.

There, far below him, lay the town, its lights warm and few amidst the darkness.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, composing himself. There was no time to let go now; there was a man he had to catch, and Dirk had a strangely certain idea of where that man would be. He turned away to find a horse.

He stepped under the stone archway and into the great cavern, his footsteps totally silent. It was the dark, chill hour before dawn; a few shafts of crystalline moonlight streaked down from the crevices high in the walls, bathing the great skeleton in frozen light.

A shadow bent over it—a tall, black-cloaked figure, gazing down at the silvered, almost-living skeleton. He stood that way a long time, unmoving, meditating; and Dirk knew enough not to make the slightest sound.

Then at last, the tall, black figure moved. Slowly, he drew two oaken sticks from beneath his cloak and laid them, gently, one on each side of the great skeleton. Then he stood back, head bowed; and Dirk saw the glint of light and shadow on the eagle face, silvered on the brow and nose, hollowed at the eyes and cheeks.

Gar sighed, lifting his head and squaring his shoulders, turned toward the archway—and saw Dirk.

Dirk braced himself.

Gar gazed at him, his face grave.

Then he stepped forward, grasping Dirk’s shoulder, and murmured, “Let us go out from this place; for I knew this man, and he is dead.”

Dirk turned with him; together, they passed under the archway and into the spiral.

As they came out into the lower cave, Dirk murmured, “That was not an easy thing to do.”

Gar nodded. “His staff is a thing of awesome strength, Dulain—it would magnify every power I have—a hundredfold. With it, I would be the mightiest psi in the galaxy.”

“Then why did you put it down?”

“Because it is not mine,” Gar said without hesitation. “It is DeCade’s; and while he is dead, it belongs to his people.” He lifted his head, gazing thoughtfully at the pale dawn-light in the cave mouth ahead. “Then, too, I think it would be an addictive thing. Holding power like that, I would use it and use it again till I could not bear not to use it. If it cried for blood, it would have it.”

They came out at the base of the hill, and Gar threw his shoulders back with a sigh, looking up at the moon, drifting palely in the sky of false dawn.

Dirk watched him, brooding. “Is that why you broke the staff?”

“No, not quite.” Gar frowned. “But like it. DeCade was a great man, but he was like his staff—he could never stop fighting. Even as it is, I have all his memories, the print of his personality—and I think I’ll always have to be on my guard for the rest of my days, to be sure that personality doesn’t overwhelm me. But with his staff whole, I wouldn’t’ve had a chance—it pumped power into him; it made him a superman.” He turned his head slowly, looking down at Dirk. “It was a great temptation to leave his staff whole, Dirk Dulain—but it would have destroyed me.”

Suddenly, he squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his middle finger and thumb against his temples. “And, oh, I hope to tell you, may I never have to live through something like that again! It was horrible, at first; another man’s mind inside my own, thought-tendrils reaching out, grappling. We fought on a figurative plain, beneath a symbolic sky, in the country of the mind; and we came close to killing each other. But at last we made peace and became friends of a sort; though there was always the tension, always the wariness—for we both wanted life, in the body. It was a constant threat—another fight for survival—there, in the midst of my own mind, my own flesh and body.”

“But it didn’t come,” Dirk murmured.

Gar shook his head. “No. We were allies; we worked together for a dream we both burned for. And now—he is gone, no vital power, no soul left, only a set of memories. He died of his own accord, almost; when he’d had his revenge, the power drained out, and he went back where he’d come from—but he couldn’t have lain easy if that staff had remained whole. Of course I laid him to rest—no man wishes to be a ghost.”

“No,” Dirk said slowly, “including me.”

“Ah.” Gar nodded; that seemed to explain a lot to him.

He lifted an arm, pointing to the top of the hill. “Come, let us climb. I cannot think of a better place to survey this world, than the top of DeCade’s tomb.”

They turned their faces up and began to climb. Gar turned to Dirk, his eyes probing keenly. “She had that deep a hold on you, then?”

“Yes,” Dirk said sourly, “and you had that deep a hold on her.”

“I? Or DeCade?”

Dirk shrugged. “Either. It didn’t really seem to matter. Any way you looked at it, I came in last.”

Gar strode upward in silence. Then he said, “That’s a pretty weak reason for leaving a planet.”

Dirk shrugged irritably. “Her, or the rest of them—it came out the same. Half-liking is a pretty poor sequel to loyalty.”

Gar shook his head. “That still rings hollow.”

Dirk stopped, scowling. “What are you getting at? The Wizard? The unseen hand that’s moved me, every step?”

“No, of course not.” But Gar was suddenly a little too casual about it.

Dirk frowned, puzzled; then he smiled, amused. “Oh, don’t worry, I figured that one out long ago. You were the source of the rumors, weren’t you? You started the discontent running through the land—the feeling that it was about to happen—and the word of the Wizard being seen, here and there.”

Gar nodded. “Just the usual whispering campaign—and a little projective telepathy, of course.”

Dirk raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you list that among your talents, too?”

“I am nothing if not versatile.”

“Yes, very.” Dirk frowned. “When Lord Core’s men found Madelon and me dead, and took you away—how’d you manage that, faking our deaths? I don’t know of any psi power than can swing that one.”

Gar flashed him a grin and turned away. Dirk waited for the answer.

He was still waiting when they came to the hilltop.

Gar planted his feet firmly and heaved a sigh, looking out over the countryside, slumbering in the false dawn. “Peaceful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Dirk agreed. “Now.”

“And yourself?” Gar raised an eyebrow.

Dirk looked back at him, his face carefully neutral. Then he nodded. “Not bad, now that you mention it. Surprisingly.”

Gar shrugged. “You’ve got it mostly threshed out now. She doesn’t really mean that much, does she?”

“No,” Dirk said after a few minutes, “she doesn’t. The people do—but not right now. Not yet.”

Gar nodded. “They’re done with their need for you—and you don’t need them yet. Not really.”

“No,” Dirk said slowly. “I’m young. I don’t need it. There’ll be time for a home.”

“Oh?” Gar cocked an eyebrow at him. “What were you planning to do in the meantime?”

“Clear out,” Dirk said, with a sour smile. “Epsilon Eridani, for starters—that’s the nearest main port. Trouble is, I’d rather not travel with my own crew, things being as they are; they don’t seem to be in any great rush to lift off. Can you stand a hitchhiker?”

Gar laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad to have you, Dulain. We can spend the trip trying to figure out what happened back here.”

Dirk found himself grinning, in spite of himself. “Hey … I thought we were supposed to be rivals.”

Gar shook his head. “Friends, Dulain—right from the start. But I couldn’t tell you that then, could I?” He rolled up his sleeve to the armband and put his finger on the stud to call his ship.

“No, I suppose not,” Dirk said, amused. “Tell me—when did you realize you’d become the Wizard?”

But Gar only gave him a grin as he pressed the stud.

The golden ship fell down from the sky.