He glared at Bal-Simba, challenging him to deny it. But the giant black Wizard said nothing.
“There’s another thing,” he went on. “You’re so damn worried about the effects of magic on your world. Well, your world is dying! Every year you’re pushed further back. It’s not just the League. There’s Wild Wood too. How long do you think you have before the whole North is gone? Do you really have anything to lose?
“All right, maybe I’ll screw it up again.” He blinked back the tears that were welling up in his eyes. “I’ve done nothing but screw things up since I got here. Maybe I’ll make that scar on the land you keep talking about. But Dammit! At least I’ll go out trying.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” Bal-Simba said sharply. “You will ‘screw it up.’ You have no magical aptitude and no training. At best you can destroy uncontrolled.”
“Patrius didn’t think so,” Wiz shot back. He turned to his tablets again.
“I could forbid you,” Bal-Simba said in a measuring tone.
“You could,” Wiz said neutrally. “But you’d have to enforce it.”
Bal-Simba looked at him and Wiz stayed hunched over the tablets.
“I will do this much,” he said finally. “I will not forbid you. I will not commit the resources of the North to this madness but I will send word to watch and be ready. If by some chance you do discomfit the League, we will make what use of it seems appropriate.”
Wiz didn’t turn around. “Okay. Thanks.”
“I will arrange for some protection for you in case the Shadow Warriors return. I will also pass word for everyone to avoid this place. I think you will scar the land and kill yourself unpleasantly in the process.”
“Probably.”
Bal-Simba sighed. “Losing a loved one is a terrible thing.”
Wiz grinned mirthlessly, not looking up. “Even that wasn’t a free choice.”
“Love is always a free choice, Sparrow. Even where there’s magic.”
Wiz shrugged and Bal-Simba strode to the door of the hut. The black giant paused with his hand on the doorjamb.
“You’ve changed, Sparrow,”
“Yeah. Well, that happens.”
Wiz did not see Bal-Simba leave. He stayed in the hut most of the day, scrawling on wooden tablets with bits of charcoal. Twice he had to go out to split logs into shingles for more tablets.
The second time he went to the woodpile Shiara approached him.
“They tell me you will make magic against the League,” Shiara said.
Wiz selected a length of log and stood it upright on the chopping stump. “Yep.”
“It is lunacy. You will only bring your ruin.”
Wiz said nothing. He raised the axe and brought it down hard. The log cleaved smoothly under the blade’s bite.
“Where will you work?”
Wiz rested the axe and turned to her. “Here, Lady. I figure it’s safe enough and it seems appropriate.”
“You will need help.”
He hefted the axe and turned to the billet. “I can manage alone.”
He raised the axe above his head and Shiara spoke again. “Would it go better if I were here for—ah—a core dump?”
Wiz started, the axe wobbled and the log went flying. “You’d do that? After what happened?”
“I would.”
“Why? I mean, uh . . .”
“Why? Simple. You mean to strike at the League for what they did here when even Bal-Simba himself tells us we can do nothing. I owe the League much, and I would hazard much to repay a small part of that debt.”
“It will be dangerous, Lady. Most of what you said about this thing is true. It’s a kludge and it’s full of bugs. I could kill us both.”
For the first time since Wiz had known her, Shiara the Silver laughed. Not a smile or a chuckle, but a rich full-throated laugh, as bright and shining as her name.
“My innocent, I died a long time ago. My life passed with my magic, my sight and Cormac. The chance of dying against the chance of striking at the League is no hazard at all.”
She glowed as bright and bold as the full moon on Mid-Sumemr Eve and held out her hand to Wiz. “Come Sparrow. We go to war.”