“She was handfast to one who is no more,” Lannach said. “The father of the child.”
“They laid in wait for my Dairmuirgh,” she said. “When he came to the stable to groom their horses, they set their demon upon him and made him no more.” She was crying openly, the tears trickling down her tiny cheeks, and rocking back and forth. “Ay, they murdered him as he sought to help them.”
Back in Silicon Valley Wiz had known a few programmers who refused to work on weapons systems or any other kind of military job. He’d always thought that was a little peculiar. The programmer’s job was to deliver software on time, in spec and functional. It was the job of the designers and managers to worry about what would be done with it. Now he was confronted by the results of his work and those people didn’t seem peculiar at all.
“Oh shit. Look, I’m really sorry.” He stopped. “I’m, well I’m responsible in a way,” he confessed miserably. “It was my spell they took and hacked up to make that thing.”
“We know,” Lannach said. “We also heard what happened when that bitch from the village destroyed the Stone.” He placed a tiny hand on Wiz’s forearm. “Lord, you cannot be responsible for the uses mortals choose to make of your magic.”
That made him feel even worse. “Thanks, Lannach. Where will you go now?”
The brownie shrugged. “We do not know. Unlike dryads and some other creatures, we are not tied to one place. But it was our home.” He looked up and his limpid brown eyes gazed into Wiz’s. “It is hard to lose the place which has been your home for so long.”
“I know,” Wiz said miserably, thinking of smoggy sunsets over Silicon Valley.
“We would not leave even now save for the little one,” he nodded to Meoan’s baby. “He must be protected.”
Wiz understood. Children were rare among the manlike immortals. An infant was a cause for great rejoicing and such children as there were were carefully protected. The adults might be willing to stay and die in a place they loved, but they would not risk the baby.
“Lord,” said the little man tentatively, “Lord, could we impose upon you further and travel with you?”
“I’m not really sure where I’m going.”
The brownie shrugged. “Neither are we, Lord.”
The Wild Wood was still a tangle of ancient forest that abounded with dangerous magic, but Wiz wasn’t afraid. His own magic was potent and very frankly he wasn’t sure how much he cared.
“Sure,” he said, “come on.”
They spent the rest of the morning travelling. In spite of their size, the brownies moved quickly and had no trouble keeping up with Wiz. They found berries to eat along the way and once the brownies located a tree bearing small wild plums, just going ripe.
It was shortly after noon when they topped a rise and looked down into the heavily forested valley beyond. Six or eight thin curls of smoke arose from scattered locations on the valley’s floor and merged to form a thin haze over the whole valley.
Wiz remembered the last time he had come into the Wild wood. The forest valleys had been an unbroken sea of green. Mortals were not welcome in the Wild Wood and the few who came were not gently treated.
“I didn’t know there were so many people out here,” Wiz said, looking down on the scene.
“Mortals, spread quickly,” Lannach observed.
“Aye,” agreed Breachean in a rusty voice. “Give them a few harvests and they’ll carpet this valley like flies on meat.”
“I don’t think we want to go that way,” Wiz said. “Let’s follow the ridge and skirt that place.”
It was harder going along the ridge and they used game trails rather than the well-trod footpath that led down into the valley, but it was more pleasant for all of them. The trees here were huge and old, unscarred by woodsman’s axe. The birds sang and the squirrels dashed about as they had for centuries. Most of the time there was neither sight of a clearing nor smell of wood smoke to remind them of what was going on in the valley.