Donal and Kenneth entered Bal-Simba’s study quietly, respectfully and with not a little trepidation. It was not every day that the Mightiest of the North summoned two ordinary guardsmen and even Donal’s naturally sanguine disposition didn’t lead him to believe that the wizard wanted to discuss the weather.
“I have a service it would please me to have done,” Bal-Simba rumbled.
“Command us, Lord,” said Kenneth, mentally bracing for it.
“That I cannot do,” Bal-Simba told them. “This service carries a risk I would not order assumed.”
Oh Fortuna, we’re in for it now!
thought Kenneth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Donal looked unusually serious.
“May we ask the nature of this service?”
“There is a Sparrow whose nest needs guarding,” Bal-Simba told them.
“Have you got any tea?” Wiz asked Shiara. They were sitting by the fire in the hut which had been the kitchen and was now their home. Both of them were hoarse from talking and Wiz was surrounded by a litter of wooden shingles with marks scrawled on them in charcoal.
“Herbs steeped in hot water? Are you ill?”
“No, I mean a drink that give you a lift, helps you stay awake.”
Shiara’s brow furrowed. “There is blackmoss tea. I used to use it when I was standing vigil. But it is vile stuff.”
“Do you have any?”
“In the larder, if it was not burned,” she told him.
The tea was in a round birchbark box which had been scorched but not consumed. Wiz put a pot to boil on the hearth and watched as Shiara skillfully measured several spoonsful of the dried mixture into the hot water. The stuff looked like stable sweepings but he said nothing.
Shiara proferred the cup and Wiz took a gulp. It was brown as swamp water, so pungent it stung the nose and bitter enough to curl the tongue even with the honey Shiara had added.
“Gaaahhh” Wiz said, squinching his eyes tight shut and shaking his head.
“I told you it was vile,” Shiara said sympathetically.
Wiz shook his head again, opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath. “Whooo! Now that’s programmer fuel! Lady, if we could get this stuff back to my world, we’d make a fortune. Jolt Cola’s for woosies!”
“That is what you wanted?” Shiara said in surprise.
“That’s exactly what I wanted. Now let’s let it steep some more and get back to work.”
Bal-Simba’s guardsmen showed up the next day. They were a matched set: Dark-haired, blue eyed and tough enough to bite the heads off nails for breakfast. Kenneth, the taller of the pair, carried a six-foot bow everywhere he went and Donal, the shorter, less morose one, was never far from his two-handed sword. In another world Wiz would have crossed the street to avoid either of them, but here they were very comforting to have around.
With their help Wiz moved his things out of the old stable and into one of the buildings in the compound. The accommodations were not much of an improvement, but it was closer to the huts where they now lived and Shiara could come to it more easily to advise him.
“What do you think of this Sparrow?” Donal asked Kenneth one night in the hut they shared. Kenneth looked up from the boot knife he was whetting. “I think he’s going to get us all killed or worse.”
“The Lady trusts him.”
“The Lady, honor to her name, hasn’t been right in the head since Cormac died,” Kenneth said. “That’s why she’s been living out here. Even for a magician she’s odd.”
“Not half as odd as the sparrow,” said Donal. “I don’t think he’s slept in three days. He sits in there swilling that foul brew and muttering to himself.”
“He’s a wizard,” pronounced Kenneth as if that explained everything. “All wizards are cracked.”
“They say he’s not a wizard,” said Donal. “They say he’s something else.”
“That’s all the world needs,” Kenneth said. “Something else that works magic. I say he’s a wizard and I’ll be damned surprised if we come out of this one whole.”
“Well,” said Donal as he stretched out on the straw tick. “At least he keeps things interesting.”