Read Ebook: Wizard by Janifer Laurence M Schoenherr John Illustrator

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Ebook has 272 lines and 10477 words, and 6 pages

"Your sympathy may endanger you," Scharpe said. "My son is gone; I pray that there is an end to it."

Jonas peered once into the mind of the man, and recoiled violently; but he had enough, in that one glimpse, to tell him the reason for Scharpe's misery. And it was quite reason enough, he thought.

"Herr Knupf--"

"We do not mention that name," Scharpe said. "My wife has resigned herself to what has happened; I am not so wise."

"I promise you," Jonas said earnestly, "that you will be in no danger from me. No, more: that I will help you out of your difficulties, and ensure your peace."

"Then you are an angel from Heaven," Scharpe said bitterly. "There is no other help, while the Inquisitor remains and our sons become suspect to his rages."

Jonas shook his head. "There is help," he said, "and you will find it. Your son is gone; accused, questioned, confessed and burnt. But there will be no more."

Scharpe looked at him for a long time. "Come with me," he said at last, and led the way into his mud house. Inside, there was only one large room, but it seemed spacious enough for four. Three pallets lay against the far right wall, a single one against the left. Scharpe went to the back of the house, near the single bed. "This will be yours," he said, "while you are with us. It is poor but it is all we can offer."

"I am honored," Jonas said.

"Here we are alone," Scharpe went on, his voice lowering. "My wife and daughter have gone to visit a neighbor, for they have not yet closed us off entirely from all human contact."

He grimaced. Jonas peered into the mind again, very gently, but the mad roiling of pain and memory there was too strong for him, and he returned.

"If you have anything to say to me," Scharpe said, "tell me now. No one can hear us, not Herr Knupf himself."

"To say to you?"

"Regarding your plan," Scharpe said. "Surely you have a plan. And if I may play any part in it--"

Jonas blinked. "Plan?" he said.

"Of course," Scharpe said. "You speak of an end to troubles, an end to the Inquisition and the burnings, an end to the question. And so you must have a plan for ridding us of Herr Knupf; one which you will tell me."

Jonas shook his head. "I have no plan," he said.

"It means danger," Scharpe pressed him. "But I do not mind danger, in such a cause. I am not vengeful, but my son was no wizard. Yet the Inquisitor took him and had a confession from him; you know well the worth of such confessions. And soon there will be others, for when the curse strikes a family it does not stop with one member." He tightened his lips. "It is not for myself I am afraid," he said.

Jonas nodded. "Were there such a plan," he said, "be assured I would tell you."

"But--"

"There is none," Jonas said. "Herr Knupf shall remain, for all that I can do, while the earth remains."

Scharpe opened his mouth, shut it again, and then shrugged. "I see," he said at last. "You do not trust me. Perhaps you are wise. I might talk foolishly; I am an old man; older, in this last month, than in all my other years."

"Believe me," Jonas began. "I--"

"Let it be," Scharpe said quietly. "I believe you. If that is what you want, I believe you." He shrugged again, moving out toward the door of the hut. "And, in any case," he said, "the money is needed. For there are fines to pay, and costs of the Inquisition."

"I understand," Jonas said helplessly.

Scharpe turned and looked him full in the face. In the big man's eyes, bitterness and hopelessness glittered. "I am sure you do," he said, and turned again toward the door.

The others he met only briefly. Frau Scharpe was a little woman with the face of a walnut, who looked as if she had never really been cheerful. Her son's death, he saw when he looked into her mind, had not come as a surprise to her; it was one more unhappy event, in a lifetime in which she had expected nothing else. Unhappiness, she told herself, was her portion in this life; in the Life Above, things would be different.

Jonas had met the type before, and was uninterested in going further. But Ilse Scharpe was something else entirely. She did not say a word to him, coming into the house that evening, a pace behind her mother, like an obedient slave. She was about seventeen, and her mind was as fresh and clean and pretty as her face and figure. Jonas started musing on Heroes again, but he never had the chance to make a move toward her. She had a very nice smile, and from memories in the others' minds he could hear her voice, low and quiet and entirely satisfactory.

Jonas sighed. The job, he told himself sternly, came first. And afterward--

Though, come to think of it, there wouldn't be an afterward.

The evening meal was simple. There was a single dish of meat and some sort of beans; after it had been eaten, and the darkness outside grew to full night, it was time to retire. Jonas went over to his pallet, removed his jerkin and shoes, and lay down. He heard the others readying themselves for sleep, but he did not look into their minds. Soon they were asleep and breathing heavily.

But Jonas stayed awake for a while.

"It's really too bad we can't work this sort of thing at a distance," Claerten's voice said suddenly. "But then, none of us has ever met the man, and you can't read a mind if you haven't had some physical contact with the man who owns it."

"It is too bad," Jonas agreed politely. Five hundred miles away Claerten chuckled, and the linkage of minds transmitted the amusement to Jonas.

"You don't think so, at any rate," the director said. "You're having adventures--and a fine time. It's the sort of thing you like, after all."

Jonas shrugged mentally. "I suppose so," he said. "I like to work on my own, do my own job--"

"And it's got you into trouble before," Claerten said. "But you can't afford any mistakes this time."

"I know the risk perfectly well," Jonas thought back.

Claerten's thought carried a wry echo. "You know the risk to yourself," he told Jonas, "and you've accepted that. You rather like it, as a matter of fact. But you haven't thought of the risk to the rest of us--and to the town you're in."

Jonas sent a thought of uncertainty: "What?"

Claerten transmitted the entire picture in one sudden blow: the chance that Jonas would not be killed immediately, but would be discovered; the chance that the Inquisitor would get from him the secret of the Brotherhood--

"That's impossible," Jonas said.

Claerten sounded resigned. "Nothing's impossible," he said. "And if the secret is let out--why, the Brotherhood is finished. Finished before it's barely started. Because you can read a man's mind doesn't mean you can defeat him, Jonas."

"But you know what he's going to do--"

"And if he's got you in a wooden house and he's going to burn it down, what good does your knowledge do you?"

"But you can transmit false thoughts--"

"And confuse him," Claerten said. "Fine. Fine. If you've ever met the man before. And suppose you haven't? Then you can't transmit a thing to him; you're trapped in the house, remember, and the fire's started. What good's your telepathy?"

"But--"

"It's a sense," Claerten said. "Like any other sense. But it isn't magic any more than your eyes are magic. They're ... given by God, if you like; they grow, they develop. So the ability to read minds, to transmit thought is given by God. No one knows why or how. Fifteen of us have developed it; fifteen who are members of the Brotherhood. But there are others--"

"Of course," Jonas thought impatiently. "I know all that."

"You know a great deal," Claerten said, "which I sometimes find it necessary to bring to your attention."

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