The Wizard of Elsewhere

1.3 - Thine Course Is Served

"A Wizard is always a wizard, except when his pants are down. Then, he is doubly a Wizard. For there is never a better time to be more of what you are than when you are not."

— Quote by Wizard (Grandfather) Albernathy Thomas Barnwinkle

* * *

"Sister Leia. Sis —"

Leinan reached out and grabbed Aemon from where she was crouched. She slowly, slowly drew him toward her and beckoned his sister to huddle with them.

"Not. A. Word." She breathed in the children's ears, barely audible even to herself.

"But. We haven't heard the s — "

Leinan winced hard and shook the boy roughly until he stopped. He was trying to speak softly, she knew, but Aemon and Kaimen, were children, and children were never good judges of that sort of thing. Also, he kept speaking with the letter 'S', and the sound 'S' made, her father had taught her, was the easiest sound to make out in the middle of the night.

"It doe'n'" She began to say, but then she stiffened. They all did. It was back. That voice. Beautiful and terrible like the moon shining on hard ice and fresh snow.

A voice which wound and played and sang —

"Oh come now, my children, I'll take thee away,

  into a land of the winterly Fae."

— There was a giggle of raw enjoyment, and the sudden crackling of leaves in what Leinan could swear was a skip and a step.

"The land of snow and ice and cold,

  with summers away and the nights grow bold.

The trolls come out and the centaurs sing,

  for fresh little children the forerunner bri — "

There was a long pause in which Aemon froze staring back at Leinan with eyes as wide as river stones and Leinan had time to think that the whites of his eyes were awfully easy to see in the dark, when that beautiful voice exclaimed —

"Oh. My.... What a wonderful hat."

— and then there really was silence.

Still. Leinan didn't move a muscle — and neither did the children — until she felt the bite in the air just barely lessen.

Then, and only then, did she bring her lips to Aemon and Keimen's ears, so close they brushed the edges and she breathed "'ome. 'Uiedly. Li'e hunding rabi'". The clicking sound tongues made was also rather audible in the dark, and for a moment she worried that the two hadn't understood her, but then they nodded and for all their eyes glowed with fear their faces were set resolutely.

She beckoned and like shadows they crept through the night. Slowly. Ever. So. Slowly. Because 'slow was quiet', as her father would say.

It was also agony.

Where was the village?

* * *

"Oh, I do wonder who you conversed with so, Barnibus. Thy never said." The wheedling tone floated as if on a breeze from the far side of the camp fire where the white haired form of the Forerunner had flopped, for want of a better term.

Barnibus looked up from where he held a skewer of fish over the fire.There were two steaks on the skewer.The fish were rather small after all and so two made sense in so far as it filled up the available skewer space while also not overburdening the thin stick.It was also the number of the present company. which was good, and a prime, which, Barnibus thought, was unfortunate, if only because he would have preferred to keep this experience as low key as he possibly could.