The Wizard’s Mule

by Charles C. Cole

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

From behind the stained glass, the breeze-man vainly implored his mischievous counterparts to cease their disruptions, another vocal exhibition of Windy’s unqualified loyalty to his newly discovered liberator. Windy’s tragic impotence made the old man’s work light by comparison. There was an even sadder drama before him, if Kisa believed his doubts. He wondered if the voice were perhaps the spirit of a man gone raving mad by years of solitude in the tower. Kisa frequently painted over the world with his own imaginative version.

He dumped a tray of dusty magic into the trough as suggested by the image. The dirty gray wisp settled on the surface like a cloud on the horizon. To Kisa, it symbolized the negligible product of an ineffectual career. Wistfully, he bent over the floating tuft and sailed it along the water with an extended sigh.

“Don’t worry!” called Windy encouragingly. “The winds will no sooner separate the magic from the water than you and I would separate the wizard from the palace.”

“In your earlier words,” said Kisa, “he is already separated from the palace. I thought he was roaming the Wastewoods.”

“That’s true,” Windy replied. “I can sometimes see his wandering figure from the top of this teasing window. It’s a vengeful game I play. He may be the hawk or the vulture. I pretend to flatten his minuscule shape like a fly against the thick pane, but he always returns. He’ll search every night till he finds it.”

“The door to another world? The door exists?”

“You’ve heard of it,” answered the image. “It doesn’t exist just yet; that’s why he is still seeking it.”

Kisa frowned impatiently at Windy’s confusing explanation. “Wasn’t he banished through this fabled door to our world?” he asked sarcastically.

“A rumor. It seems much more likely he conjured the door himself, creating an avenue to a whole new world. Distracted by his infatuation with our novel resources, he didn’t hear the door shut behind him. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

As a hasty and unctuous afterthought, he added, “As I’ve witnessed, using magic is a tiring affair. After Brelauger stole my body, I watched him rest, as if entranced, for all of a day, like a snake digesting a meal. The effort needed for one wizard to use his sorcery against another wizard would be fantastic. I have heard Brelauger grumble about Malthane’s dabbling in magic. It becomes increasingly difficult to displace the demanding Overlord should a power struggle warrant it.”

“Doesn’t it worry you to share these secrets with me?” wondered Kisa.

“You won’t tell anyone,” responded the image nervously. “The wizard has very sensitive hearing. You cannot imagine how the voices of the village carry at night. Besides, it’s part of our deal. You agreed to help me escape, remember.”

“I said I would decide later. I have said neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no.’ And you have yet to explain the fates of the other mules.”

“But I have told so much already,” whined the alarmed image. “This is the first you have asked of the others. I’ve kept nothing hidden from you. You must help me! I’ll condemn you if you deceive me. There is one mule crucified on the roof now, and there is room for two.” The old man shivered convulsively before his disfigured reflection.

“The wizard,” began Kisa boldly, “condemned you to this imprisonment, not I. I promise to safeguard your secrets so long as you safeguard my life. I am an old man, too close to death to want to rush into its cold embrace. In the town below us, I have been suppressing my passions for years, but I have recklessly kept nothing hidden from you. With you, I’m revealing my emotions as you do your secrets, so that we can depend on each other’s honesty. I wish to flee Marshire as sincerely and quickly as you wish to flee the wizard and this tower.”

The two stared, unblinking, at one another; neither retreating in any fashion, but stubbornly standing their ground. The silence finally, mercifully, broke as the image shattered with a tension-relieving roar of laughter. Kisa chorused along, relenting to Windy’s overwhelming split-second buffoonery. The compounded image in the stained glass suddenly subdivided into a score of cackling miniatures. The picture was disarming. Kisa roared with a purging release.

As the outburst settled, the image reverted to its former composition. Windy nodded slowly, silently, like a solemn judge who had just deliberated a delicate decision.

“Maybe,” said Kisa quietly, “you’re more my reflection than we think. At least our wants are identical. Though my cell is larger, we even share the same prison. However, we don’t yet share trust, and that’s why I need a week to tailor my decision.”

“A week,” echoed the azure-faced reflection gloomily. “Another week. In the spacious sky, my capricious counterparts have ample room for changing their minds and moods. A free breeze sinks only with moody concentration. An imprisoned breeze is its own betrayer, because no thought can be suppressed. I have no place to shed my emotions. You see me blue with woe, yet I can as quickly turn red with fiery impatience, green with hateful envy, and tattletale gray. My only defense is my cluttered mind; it confuses the wizard. He avoids it, but I can keep no secrets from him.”

“You informed on the other guards,” Kisa surmised. “They were killed by your indiscretion.”

“Not the last one!” exclaimed Windy quickly. “They died by their own rash convictions. I’m warning you to be noncommittal. I’m pleading with you to trust me, while I’m cautioning you to be dishonest. Procrastinate for six days and be impulsive on the seventh, when you release me. Free me, but surprise me when you do.”

“You have more faces than a cut diamond,” spoke Kisa. “I think I should leave now while a friendly one is exposed.”

There was a noticeably rising whine to the winds circling the tower walls. The bodiless man searched expectantly. Kisa turned to follow his reflection’s gaze. In the distance, he saw a vast, dark green ocean of leaves. He had never seen them from above before. The trees were so thick with foliage, that from the eternal twilight below, the leaves seemed black. This was a beautiful Wastewoods beyond his imagination!

“My friends,” began Windy, “say the wizard is returning. Whatever prey he sought in the thick boughs of the trees has eluded him today. We could have done the same. For the price of a small hole in this window, I can open the world to you. When you walk down those stone stairs, remember that, and when you stagger up those selfsame steps tomorrow morning. You will want the change of pace by the end of a week.”

The image roared with sadistic cachinnation at his private vision of the weakening old man. It was not a contagious laugh this time. It was one of the uglier faces of the diamond, one of the moods Kisa could not trust. The old man left.

Undistracted by companionship as he descended, Kisa was once more aware of the pungent smell dripping from the roof. He knew now it was not the wizard’s herbs, but something formerly human.

A small group of gawking villagers pointed in his direction as he descended, though he sensed it was the corpse they were staring at. Management was once again commemorating the rule of law with a simple monument of flesh and wood.