of water. He left the jar on the bank of the stream while he looked for firewood.
Fresh pine, he knew, smoked and spat. Any wood was less than ideal when green, but pine was especially unsatisfactory. He looked about in hopes of finding something better.
The best, he could do was a fallen limb, perhaps once the top of a tree but now a crooked, dried-out chunk of wood as long as he was tall and as thick as his forearm. Broken up, with kindling beneath, he judged it would serve well enough.
He gathered a pouchful of twigs and dry needles to start the fire with, then tucked the full jar in the bend of one arm, hefted the limb in his other hand, and headed back toward the marsh.
The journey back was even more difficult than the trip out. Although he knew better where he was going and what terrain he faced, he had the added problems of keeping the water in the inverted half of a jar and keeping the wood, already wet from the night’s rain, from becoming even wetter. This last proved virtually impossible in crossing the marsh, but he managed to reach the crater with only one end of the branch newly soaked and with several inches of water still in his makeshift container.
The old man did not immediately acknowledge his return; the wizard was bent over the sword, inscribing blue-glowing runes in the air an inch above the blade with the tip of his finger. His false wounds appeared to be healing, Valder noticed, and some color had returned to his face. Valder dropped the tree-limb on a convenient mound of earth, placed the water container nearby, and glanced around.
Some semblance of organization had been created, turning the crater from simple desolation to a camp among the ruins. A small pile of crabs lay to one side of the wizard; that, Valder guessed, would be breakfast, though he could not imagine how anyone could have found so many crabs so quickly in such northern waters as these. Arranged about the wizard were various elements of his arcane paraphernalia — a fragmentary skull, small glittering stones, shards of this and that, and five broken candle-stubs. Valder marveled that any candles could have survived the preceding night’s inferno.
After a long moment, as he was beginning to wonder whether there was anything he should be doing, the wizard looked up at Valder and said, “Cook the crabs, why don’t you? Boil them, if you think that thing will hold water well enough.”
Valder looked at the crabs, then looked at the broken jar, and then looked back at the wizard. “I thought you were thirsty,” he said.
“No, I’m hungry; you were thirsty. Cook the crabs.”
Annoyed, Valder scooped four of the crabs into the broken jar and set about building a fire. He had no trouble in breaking the wood into suitable lengths and arranging it over the tinder, but found that the twigs and needles were still damp from the rain, though he had chosen the driest he could find, and would not light readily. He knelt, smothering curses lest he accidentally say something that might let demons interfere with the wizard’s spell-making, and struck spark after spark without success.
After several minutes he sat back on his haunches and found the old man standing beside him. Without a word, the wizard extended a forefinger that flamed at the tip like a candle, his nail serving as the wick, as he had the night before when lighting the lamp. He thrust it into the little heap of tinder, which flared up immediately.
That done, he snuffed his finger by curling it into his palm, then used his other hand to flick a yellowish powder on the young flames. He said one unfamiliar word. With a sudden roar, the fire leaped up and engulfed wood and jar alike; a second later the wood was burning steadily and naturally, the water beginning to steam slightly.
“Call me when they’re ready,” the old man said as he turned back toward Valder’s sword.
Valder watched him leave, trying to tell himself that the wizard was not accustomed to dealing with people and could not know how annoying his behavior was. When the old man had settled cross-legged beside the sword and begun making a new series of mystical gestures, Valder turned back to the improvised cooking pot and poked at the crabs with his dagger far more viciously than culinary concerns required.
He tried to force himself to relax. He had escaped the northern patrol — in fact, the old fool had saved his life with his spells. The wizard had told him where to find water, had provided food, and had lighted the fire when Valder could not. There was no cause for annoyance save for the old man’s utter disregard for the little diplomacies of everyday life. Valder had always had a healthy respect for such niceties and had used them to forestall a few barracks brawls; he wondered whether two months alone in the woods and four days of desperate flight might have impaired his own behavior sufficiently to justify the hermit’s rudeness.
By the time he judged the crabs to be fit to eat, he was calm again. The heat of the fire had dried most of the rain, mist, and marsh out of his hair and clothing, and the improvement in his comfort had contributed to his improvement in mood.
He called, “Wizard! Breakfast is ready!”
For several seconds the only reply Valder received was the bubbling of the water in the broken jar, and the crackle of the flames. Finally, the wizard paused in his mysterious gesturing and called, “Keep it warm, will you? I can’t stop here.”
Valder shrugged. “Please yourself,” he answered. He fished out a crab with his knife and sat down to eat.
When he had eaten three of the four — as might be expected so far north, none were very large — he threw three more in the pot and settled back against a hillock, feeling reasonably content. Settled comfortably, he watched the old man.
The candle-stubs were burning, and the smoke was weaving about unnaturally, forming something resembling blue tatted lace hanging in mid-air; his sword stood upright, unsupported, in the center of the tangle. Valder had no doubt that the wizard was doing something to the weapon, though he had no idea what.
The old man barked a single word that Valder didn’t quite catch, in a voice surprisingly powerful for so short and thin a body; the sword and smoke froze, hanging immobile in the air. The wizard rose to his feet, arms spread wide, walked sideways around the column of petrified smoke, then turned away from it and strolled over to the cookfire.
“Let me use your knife, soldier; all mine are either lost or in use.” He gestured, and Valder noticed for the first time that the wizard’s own dagger was balanced on its tip below the sword, spinning about and gleaming more brightly silver than the light of the sun could explain. He shrugged and handed the old man his knife.
The wizard ate all four of the cooked crabs in silence, wolfing down the flesh eagerly. When he had finished and tossed the shells in the marsh, he remarked, “Magic is hungry work, and that smoke is making my throat dry. Go for some more water, soldier, if you aren’t doing anything else.”
“Give me back my knife first,” Valder replied. He saw no point in wasting argument or courtesy on the old man.
The wizard handed back the dagger, and Valder reluctantly set out for the stream.
He spent the rest of the day alternately sitting doing nothing, and fetching wood or water — or, once, three black pine cones, an item the wizard needed for his spells. Valder discovered that black pine cones were a scarce item; most were brown or gray. Eventually he located an odd bluish tree that yielded the desired objects.
The sun crawled across the cloud-strewn heavens and sank toward the sea, and still the wizard continued with his spell-casting. Glowing runes and weaving smoke were just two of the myriad odd effects Valder observed, and he wondered more and more just what the old man was doing to the sword.
Well after the sun went down, Valder finally dozed off, not far from the fire, while the wizard was etching fiery red lines in the dirt with a golden something-or-other that was oddly unpleasant to look at.
He was awakened suddenly by a loud whooshing sound and a shout. He started up, reaching automatically for a sword that wasn’t there. He glanced about wildly.
The fire had almost died, and there was no longer any magical glow anywhere — no runes in the air nor lines on the earth nor glittering blades. It took him a few moments to interpret the dim shapes he could make out.
The wizard was walking toward him, the sword sheathed and cradled in his arms.
“Here, soldier,” he said, thrusting the weapon forward. “Take your damned sword and get out of here!”
“What?” Valder was not at his best when suddenly awakened. He looked blankly at the completely ordinary-looking scabbard and hilt in the wizard’s arms.
