Equal Rites Part 14

Esk sat on Treatle's wagon, talking to Simon who was steering inexpertly while the wizard caught up with some sleep behind them.

Simon did everything inexpertly. He was really good at it. He was one of those tall lads apparently made out of knees, thumbs and elbows. Watching him walk was a strain, you kept waiting for the strings to snap, and when he talked the spasm of agony on his face if he spotted an S or W looming ahead in the sentence made people instinctively say them for him. It was worth it for the grateful look which spread across his acned face like sunrise on the moon.

At the moment his eyes were streaming with hay fever.

"Did you want to be a wizard when you were a little boy?"

Simon shook his head. "I just www-"

"-wanted-"

"-tto find out how things www-"

"-worked?-"

"Yes. Then someone in my village told the University and Mmaster T-Treatle was sent to bring me. I shall be a www-"

"-wizard-"

"-one day. Master Treatle says I have an exceptional grasp of th-theory." Simon's damp eyes misted over and an expression almost of bliss drifted across his ravaged face.

"He t-tells me they've got thousands of b-books in the library at Unseen University," he said, in the voice of a man in love. "More b-books than anyone could read in a lifetime."

"I'm not sure I like books," said Esk conversationally. "How can paper know things? My granny says books are only good if the paper is thin."

"No, that's not right," said Simon urgently. "Books are full of www-" he gulped air and gave her a pleading look.

"-words?-" said Esk, after a moment's thought.

"-yes, and they can change th-things. Th-that's wuwuw, that wuwuw-whha-whha-"

"-what-"

"-I must f-find. I know it's th-there, somewhere in all the old books. They ssss-"

"-say-"

"there's no new spells but I know that it's there somewhere, hiding, the wwwwwuwu-"

"-words-"

"yes, that no wiwiwi-"

"-Wizard?-" said Esk, her face a frown of concentration.

"Yes, has ever found." His eyes closed and he smiled a beatific smile and added, "The Words that Will change the World."

"What?"

"Eh?" said Simon, opening his eyes in time to stop the oxen wandering off the track.

"You said all those wubbleyous!"

"I did?"

"I heard you! Try again."

Simon took a deep breath. "The worworwor-the wuwuw-" he said. "The wowowoo-" he continued.

"It's no good, it's gone," he said. "It happens sometimes, if I don't think about it. Master Treatle says I'm allergic to something."

"Allergic to double-yous?"

"No, sisssisi-"

"-silly-" said Esk, generously.

"-there's sososo-"

"-something-"

"-in the air, p-pollen maybe, or g-gra.s.s dust. Master Treatle has tried to find the cause of it but no magic seems to h-help it."

They were pa.s.sing through a narrow pa.s.s of orange rock. Simon looked at it disconsolately.

"My granny taught me some hay fever cures," Esk said. "We could try those."

Simon shook his head. It looked touch-and-go whether it would fall off.

"Tried everything," he said. "Fine wwiwwi-magician I'd make, eh, can't even sss-utter the wowo-name."

"I could see where that would be a problem," said Esk. She watched the scenery for a while, marshaling a train of thought.

"Is it, er, possible for a woman to be, you know, a wizard?" she said eventually.

Simon stared at her. She gave him a defiant look.

His throat strained. He was trying to find a sentence that didn't start with a W. In the end he was forced to make concessions.

"A curious idea," he said. He thought some more, and started to laugh until Esk's expression warned him.

"Rather funny, really," he added, but the laughter in his face faded and was replaced by a puzzled look. "Never really t-thought about it, before."

"Well? Can they?" You could have shaved with Esk's voice.

"Of course they can't. It is self-evident, child. Simon, return to your studies."

Treatle pushed aside the curtain that led into the back of the wagon and climbed out on to the seat board.

The look of mild panic took up its familiar place on Simon's face. He gave Esk a pleading glance as Treatle took the reins from his hands, but she ignored him.

"Why not? What's so self-evident?"

Treatle turned and looked down at her. He hadn't really paid much attention before, she was simply just another figure around the campfires.

He was the Vice-Chancellor of Unseen University, and quite used to seeing vague scurrying figures getting on with essential but unimportant jobs like serving his meals and dusting his rooms. He was stupid, yes, in the particular way that very clever people can be stupid, and maybe he had all the tact of an avalanche and was as self-centered as a tornado, but it would never have occurred to him that children were important enough to be unkind to.

From long white hair to curly boots, Treatle was a wizard's wizard. He had the appropriate long bushy eyebrows, spangled robe and patriarchal beard that was only slightly spoiled by the yellow nicotine stains (wizards are celibate but, nevertheless, enjoy a good cigar).

"It will all become clear to you when you grow up," he said. "It's an amusing idea, of course, a nice play on words. A female wizard! You might as well invent a male witch!"

"Warlocks," said Esk.

"Pardon me?"

"My granny says men can't be witches," said Esk. "She says if men tried to be witches they'd be wizards."

"She sounds a very wise woman," said Treatle.

"She says women should stick to what they're good at," Esk went on.

"Very sensible of her."

"She says if women were as good as men they'd be a lot better!"

Treatle laughed.

"She's a witch," said Esk, and added in her mind: there, what do you think of that, Mr. so-called cleverwizard?

"My dear good young lady, am I supposed to be shocked? I happen to have a great respect for witches."

Esk frowned. He wasn't supposed to say that.

"You have?"

"Yes indeed. I happen to believe that witchcraft is a fine career, for a woman. A very n.o.ble calling."

"You do? I mean, it is?"

"Oh yes. Very useful in rural districts for, for people who are-having babies, and so forth. However, witches are not wizards. Witchcraft is Nature's way of allowing women access to the magical fluxes, but you must remember it is not high high magic." magic."

"I see. Not high magic," said Esk grimly.

"Oh no. Witchcraft is very suitable for helping people through life, of course, but-"

"I expect women aren't really sensible enough to be wizards," said Esk. "I expect that's it, really."

"I have nothing but the highest respect for women," said Treatle, who hadn't noticed the fresh edge to Esk's tone. "They are without parallel when, when-"

"For having babies and so forth?"

"There is that, yes," the wizard conceded generously. "But they can be a little unsettling at times. A little too excitable. High magic requires great clarity of thought, you see, and women's talents do not lie in that direction. Their brains tend to overheat. I am sorry to say there is only one door into wizardry and that is the main gate at Unseen University and no woman has ever pa.s.sed through it."

"Tell me," said Esk, "what good is high magic, exactly?"

Treatle smiled at her.

"High magic, my child," he said, "can give us everything we want."

"Oh."

"So put all this wizard nonsense out of your head, all right?" Treatle gave her a benevolent smile. "What is your name, child?"

"Eskarina."

"And why do you go to Ankh, my dear?"

"I thought I might seek my fortune," muttered Esk, "but I think perhaps girls don't have fortunes to seek. Are you sure wizards give people what they want?"

"Of course. That is what high magic is for."

"I see."

The whole caravan was traveling only a little faster than walking pace. Esk jumped down, pulled the staff from its temporary hiding place among the bags and pails on the side of the wagon, and ran back along the line of carts and animals. Through her tears she caught a glimpse of Simon peering from the back of the wagon, an open book in his hands. He gave her a puzzled smile and started to say something, but she ran on and veered off the track.

Scrubby whinbushes scratched her legs as she scrambled up a clay bank and then she was running free across a barren plateau, hemmed in by the orange cliffs.

She didn't stop until she was good and lost but the anger still burned brightly. She had been angry before, but never like this; normally anger was like the red flame you got when the forge was first lit, all glow and sparks, but this anger was different-it had the bellows behind it, and had narrowed to the tiny blue-white flame that cuts iron.

It made her body tingle. She had to do something about it or burst.

Why was it that when she heard Granny ramble on about witchcraft she longed for the cutting magic of wizardry, but whenever she heard Treatle speak in his high-pitched voice she would fight to the death for witchcraft? She'd be both, or none at all. And the more they intended to stop her, the more she wanted it.

She'd be a witch and a wizard too too. And she would show show them. them.

Esk sat down under a low-spreading juniper bush at the foot of a steep, sheer cliff, her mind seething with plans and anger. She could sense doors being slammed before she had barely begun to open them. Treatle was right; they wouldn't let her inside the University. Having a staff wasn't enough to be a wizard, there had to be training too, and no one was going to train her.

The midday sun beat down off the cliff and the air around Esk began to smell of bees and gin. She lay back, looking at the near-purple dome of the sky through the leaves and, eventually, she fell asleep.

One side effect of using magic is that one tends to have realistic and disturbing dreams. There is a reason for this, but even thinking about it is enough to give a wizard nightmares.

The fact is that the minds of wizards can give thoughts a shape. Witches normally work with what actually exists in the world, but a wizard can, if he's good enough, put flesh on his imagination. This wouldn't cause any trouble if it wasn't for the fact that the little circle of candlelight loosely called "the universe of time and s.p.a.ce" is adrift in something much more unpleasant and unpredictable. Strange Things circle and grunt outside the flimsy stockades of normality; there are weird hootings and howlings in the deep crevices at the edge of Time. There are things so horrible that even the dark is afraid of them.

Most people don't know this and this is just as well because the world could not really operate if everyone stayed in bed with the blankets over their head, which is what would happen if people knew what horrors lay a shadow's width away.

The problem is people interested in magic and mysticism spend a lot of time loitering on the very edge of the light, as it were, which gets them noticed by the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions who then try to use them in their indefatigable efforts to break into this particular Reality.

Most people can resist this, but the relentless probing by the Things is never stronger than when the subject is asleep.