Chapter Twenty-Five

HE AWOKE TO THE SMELL OF BURNING INSULATION AND the sound of crackling flames and spitting sparks. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but smoke. Acting from conditioned response, he moved immediately trying to escape the smoke; it could be more deadly than fire itself.

Blinking, his eyes watering, he managed to make out his surroundings. He was still in the control cabin, lying on a pile of battered books; the impact had thrown him off the acceleration couch, but the books had broken his fall. He felt no new injuries beyond a few minor bruises. Some mechanism in the couch had apparently overloaded; it was the base, near where the direct-control cable emerged, that was afire.

He noticed for the first time that he still held the plug from the cable; he must have ripped it free without intending to when flung aside.

The swirling smoke reached him again, and he coughed. He had to get out immediately, he knew; the ventilation systems had shut down or been destroyed in the crash, he guessed, since their hum could not be heard and the only movement in the air was the convection caused by the fire's heat. He scrambled across the room and found that the corridor outside was tilted at an almost unmanageably steep angle.

His lungs ached, and the back of his battered head and neck still roared with agony, but the lingering headache that had plagued him seemed to have faded, and he was able to think with some semblance of clarity.

He struggled his way up the passage on all fours, keeping low where the air would be better, though in fact most of the smoke was still in the control cabin. Storage lockers had been ripped open by the impact, their contents strewn about, and he found himself picking his way over scattered tools and broken machinery.

The inner door of the airlock was also open, and twisted hopelessly out of shape; he squeezed past it The airlock itself was a shambles; shorted connections sputtered, warning lights flashed, and a ruptured supply line was spraying hydroponic nutrient solution across the chamber. The outer door was still halfway open; the computer had been unable to reclose it with the hydraulics uncoupled, and had flown with it as it was. That might have contributed to his poor control of the landing, he thought, by interfering with the ship's trim. He clambered across the sloping floor toward it, ducking under a buckled ceiling plate, and began to climb through.

He stopped himself suddenly. His leading foot had not met resistance where he expected. He looked down and discovered that the entire wing had been sheared off and lay in pieces a dozen meters away.

Cautiously, then, he eased himself through, taking a deep gulp of the fresh forest air, and lowered himself'

down as far as he could before letting himself drop.

Again he landed badly; he had not seen a twisted hull plate, still very hot, beneath him. His knee struck it hard and gave under him, and he rolled forward.

That was nothing, really, he told himself. The pain in his burned and bruised knee and the hands that had unexpectedly had to absorb the shock of the fall was nothing compared to the continuing agony of his neck. He ignored it all as he staggered away from the ship.

The main drive was probably down again, he told himself, and wouldn't blow; if the nuclear warheads hadn't gone already, nothing would set them off now. Therefore, any explosion would be caused by the conventional armaments or the various chemicals stored on board, set off by the electrical fires that were obviously burning all over the ship. Those could make some fairly spectacular little explosions, all right, but nothing that would kill him if he could put a few hundred meters behind him first.

Of course, if the main drive hadn't shut down and was still running unregulated, the plasma might eventually find a way out of its containment vessel and, if there was enough of it, melt down the entire ship. He had no idea what that would do to the warheads, or whether it would happen fast enough to be an explosion in its own right. He hoped the drive was down.

It should be; the impact should have smashed the lasers, or at least thrown them out of alignment, in which case they might burn holes out through the sides of the ship eventually. He would watch for that.

For now, he had limped his way out beyond the last smoldering scraps of metal and splintered fragments of trees, into the undamaged part of the forest. He was at the limit of his endurance and knew it. Once he was safe from explosions, he would settle down and rest, he told himself. Another few meters would do it.

That thought was the last thing he remembered.

When he was aware again, the first thing he was aware of was a voice. Someone was speaking, saying something in a language he knew he should know, but he was still too drowsy to make sense of it.

He rested a moment longer, then tried again. This time he could follow it. He was still on Dest, and the voice was speaking that world's barbaric language. It was commenting on someone's strength of will and potential for the future.

As well as the voice he could hear a breeze making its way through trees, and a set of footsteps somewhere not too far away; he smelled green growing things and rich earth and smoldering plastic, and other odors as well.

He was also aware, in a way he couldn't quite explain, of the presence of four people besides himself, and of the subtle tug of the planet's pull upon him, and of the flowing of the air around him.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes.

"Hello, Slant," someone said. "It's good to see you awake again."

"Hello," he replied. "Where am I?"

Even as he asked, he knew part of the answer; he was lying comfortably on a patch of grass, in the shade of an oak tree, not far from where his ship had crashed. He did not, however, know where the ship had come down. His final maneuvers had gotten him quite lost.

"Oh, we're in the forest somewhere about two days' ride west of Praunce."

It was one of the wizards he had met in Praunce, one who had carried him, who spoke; he thought that man's name was Dekert. He was young, and wore a golden robe.

Two other wizards sat nearby; he recognized one as another member of the group that had carried him but was unsure of the other. The footsteps he had heard belonged to Arzadel, who was approaching at a casual pace. He had apparently been investigating the wreckage.

"Would you like something to eat?" The wizard he couldn't identify held out a crockery vessel and lifted the lid; a savory smell of meat and vegetables emerged. Slant felt his stomach knot itself in response to the odor; he was ravenous.

"Yes, please," he answered.

The wizard handed him the pot, full of hot stew, and a wooden spoon. While he ate the four gathered about him. waiting politely until he had eased his hunger.

When he felt that he could survive awhile longer without stuffing more food into his belly, Slant put aside the stewpot and spoon and asked, "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"We came seeking you," Arzadel answered. "We flew."

He considered that for a moment; then Dekert asked a question of his own. "Is the demon dead?"

Slant looked at the wreckage, visible through the trees. There had apparently been no explosion, but there could be little doubt, nonetheless. "Yes, it's dead."

"That's good."

"How long was I unconscious?"

"Your ship flew here the day before yesterday," Arzadel answered. "You might have awoken sooner, had we let you, but we kept you asleep so that you might heal better, with our aid."

He sat for a moment, considering that, and remembering how his ship had come to crash here. "You people helped me control the ship, didn't you?" he asked.

The wizards looked at one another in confusion. Arzadel replied, "We did nothing to aid you while the ship flew. We knew of nothing we could do, once you were aboard the vessel."

"I don't understand," Slant answered. "There was magic helping me; I couldn't have survived the crash without it." He was certain that it had been wizardry that let him control the ship without the socket in his neck, and that had let him see where he was flying.

"Oh, I see!" Arzadel said. "No, Slant, that was not us. That was your own power."

"What?"

"I told you, back in Praunce, that we had worked on your head for hours after the explosion. One of the things we did, so that you might help to heal yourself, was to give you the gift of wizardry. It was very tricky, with all that extra wiring you carry, but we managed it. We had also thought that as well as helping to heal you the change might be of aid in your battle with the demon, should it continue after you recovered; we did not know then what would happen after the bomb was removed. Some of us felt that it might be unwise, but they were overruled; however, it was decided that, as a compromise, we should not tell you what we had done until we could supervise your training. An untrained wizard can be very dangerous, to himself as well as those around him. Then, when you awoke and told us what the demon intended, there was no time for training—or for much of anything."

"You mean I'm a wizard?"

"Yes, and most likely to be a very powerful one, I would judge. You say you used wizardry aboard your ship—to have used the power without knowing you had it is a very good sign indeed that you will be quite adept, with practice. We will have to find you an apprenticeship immediately." He smiled.

This was rather more than Slant could take in at once; he was silent for a few seconds, sorting it out. It fit, though. The distortion of his vision, he realized, must have been the beginnings of the "wizard-sight"

Kurao had mentioned. The headaches had been caused, he guessed, by his brain's readjustment. Already he seemed to be over those unpleasant side effects; with training, he was sure, they would not recur.

"You're offering me an apprenticeship in Praunce?" he asked at last.

"When one can be found for you, yes. The sooner the better."

That was all right; Praunce seemed as good a place as any to live, now that his ship was gone. He might someday try to do something with the wreckage, but for the present he could not plan on leaving Dest It would be good to have a place, to belong somewhere; he had been a wandering outsider for far too long already.

There was something else that bothered him, though.

"How can you take me in, though? I've killed innocent people, caused untold destruction, slain at least one wizard."

Arzadel made a gesture of dismissal. "You did what ..you had to, while the demon possessed you. We saw you-fight the demon for Haiger's life in Praunce, and saw you struggle, despite your wounds, to do final battle and destroy the demon. We saw you succeed and bring the demon-ship falling out of the sky.

These were not the acts of an evil man. Your old life is behind you, Slant, and forgiven; you have done what you could to atone, and you will repay us further, I am sure. There is no one else on Dest with your knowledge of the old ways, the old magic from before the Bad Times; you will be a great asset to us.

You are one of us now, Slant of Praunce!"

He considered that, and accepted it He would do the best he could for these people; they had already done well for him. There was one more thing, though, to be done, before he could leave his old self behind.

"Call me Sam," he said.

About the Author

Lawrence Watt-Evans was born and raised in eastern Massachusetts, the fourth of six children. Both parents were long-time science-fiction readers, so from an early age he read and enjoyed a variety of speculative fiction. He also tried writing it, starting at age seven, but with very little success.

After finishing twelve years of public schooling in Bedford, Massachusetts, he tried to maintain family tradition by attending Princeton University, as had his father and grandfather. He was less successful than his ancestors, and after two attempts left college without a degree.

During the break in his academic career, he lived in Pittsburgh, a city he considers one of the most underrated in the country. At this time he began seriously trying to write for money, as that seemed easier than finding a real job. He sold one page of fiction in a year and a half.

In 1977, after leaving Princeton for the second and final time, he married his long-time girl friend and settled in Lexington, Kentucky, where his wife had a job that would support them both while he again tried to write. He was more successful this time, producing a fantasy novel that sold readily, beginning his full-time career as a writer.