I had been surprised—and, admittedly, annoyed—when I had learned that much of any magic is simple hard work. Muscle and sweat, no different from any pawn digging in a field to grow grain. “All magics must have a starting place,” Murzy had admonished me. “Did you think it an easy thing?” I had thought it an easy thing and was ashamed to admit it. Wize-ardry in all the old tales seems a fine and effortless exercise, like the soar of a flitchhawk, without labor and certainly without sweat. During those early years, I had assumed a day would come when I could stand back from the work and say to myself, “Now the fun begins.”
Not so, according to Murzy. “All magics build upon something, one’s own work or the work of others,” she had said in that firm, unequivocal voice. “’Wall, window, door, roof, bridge or floor, garden or field, each has its yield.’ So we say, we Wize-ards. And we do not destroy what we find already built for our use. There are those who will destroy the work—or the lives—of others to make their own magics, but we do not speak of them unless we must.”
Well, though I’d received some help, I’d done a great deal of it myself and destroyed nothing in the process. I had earned my window magic and summoning.
Dusk had come and I was starved. Bunwit arrived with a cheekpouch full of fruit and nuts. Tree rat showed up with more, and they cheeked at each other about who should feed me. Finally, dark came and they went off into it, leaving me alone.
“All right, forest,” I whispered to myself. “Let’s give it a try.”
Leaving the curtain open, I built a fire upon the hearth. Certain things from my pack were laid out there, in a certain form. A pattern was drawn on the windowsill. Then I leaned from that sill and called, “Come into the light, the warm. Come into comfort. Come where fire is. Come where no shadow may come. Come in such guise as you choose, such shape as you will. Come, forest, come. Where Old Gods Are, a suppliant waits.”
Then I sat down to feed the fire. The summoning was done. It was not long before something began to gather at the window. I fed the fire and kept very still. It was something pale, I think, and tremulous. Something a little clammy, like the night. Something twiggish, leafish. Which reached across the sill and found purchase in the room. Which entered. Which shook itself into shape and stood up, a little taller than I. Twiggish. Yes.
Staying very quiet and calm, I went past it to the window and closed the curtain carefully, closing every gap, laying small stones on the bottom of it to hold it in place.
“Come nigh the fire,” I whispered. “Yet not too nigh.” It sat down near me, cross-legged, holding its hands to the fire in imitation of mine. “You are the forest,” I whispered. “Aren’t you?”
“Forest,” said the twiggy thing in a breeze voice, scarcely articulated. It turned its leafy head to the window behind it. If it had had eyes, it would have looked at the curtain there.
“By the law of dwelling, the shadow cannot enter here.” It was true. Only what was summoned might enter dwelling when fire was present if windows and doors were shut and the proper words pronounced. So all the Wize-ards of the world believed. So I trusted. “Gathers,” it said, moving its hands as windtossed branches move. “Out there.”
“Out there, Not here.” It was silent for a time, then said, “Hears.”
“No. It cannot hear.” I was less certain about this, but it seemed logical. I had laid a closure upon the window when the curtain was closed, a closure upon the roof when the tree rats had finished with it, as well as one on the door when we had propped it in place. “No. It cannot hear.”
Still the thing sat, shifting its shape slightly as its leaves moved, as its parts moved. It was one thing mostly, but could easily be another. And it did not speak. When I had been here last, the forest had spoken clearly. Why, now ... ?
As though it read my thought, it pointed to itself. “Small,” it said.
I nodded. Yes. It was small. It had to be small to avoid notice, perhaps.
It pointed at the window. “Large, out there.”
“Yes,” I agreed, beginning to get the drift. “Small words,” it said, gesturing at itself once more. “Ah.” So the forest had sent a messenger, but the thing it had separated from itself was only a part. A small part. With small understanding, small words.
“Damnation,” I muttered at myself. More riddles and conundrums, more quips and oddities. Why couldn’t someone in the world simply tell me what was going on? The creature reached a finger—a woody protuberance, sharp, pointed—to touch my face, drawing it away with a tear hanging from it. “Sad?” it asked.
“Confused,” I whispered, astonished at its sympathy. One does not expect that from a ... whatever it was. “I only get pieces of things. You don’t tell me. The Wize-ards don’t tell me. Dervishes don’t tell anyone anything. All this mysterious, weird stuff going on, and I don’t understand any of it.”
“Shhh.” It reached to me again, touching the locket that hung at my throat, next to the star-eye. “Please.”
I clutched at it. The fragment? Please what? I didn’t want to take it off, but I did, opening the locket. The thing leaned forward, as though it
