Earth Magic by Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin Page B

afternoon too. Oliver called a halt now whenever he thought Oliver needed one. His chest tightened and the bag weighed heavily, a fat stone on his back as great as the stone on his mind. His price for being a red peasant.
    In the afternoon, Haldane began to throw off the effects of his spell, the Pall of Darkness, or so it seemed. He was still fey, but more coherent. He continued to peer at Oliver as though to spy him out beneath his strange skin, but he needed to ask less often who killed Hemming or Ludbert or Rolf, and remembered the answers better. He remembered Ivor Fish-Eye without further reminder. He spoke sometimes with great glee about reaching Arngrim and raising an army. He was often silly.
    He began to inquire at his smock with his hands. At last he asked Oliver, “Do I still wear my clothes? When I forget myself in walking, I can feel my belt. But when I reach for it, it isn’t there. And sometimes I feel the wind touch me through the tears in my clothes.”
    Haldane was still following his feet. Oliver, for his part, followed his map and looked about him for what the map told him he could expect to see. Wizards are fools for illusion. That is why they become wizards. Oliver followed maps and believed in them, and he could almost forget that Giles was not a Nestorian peasant boy.
    Oliver said, “You still wear your belt and your old clothes. But men’s eyes are led to see what they expect to see. When they look at us, they will expect Nestorians and see them. The reality is unchanged and the wind is not fooled.”
    “Then why can’t I touch my belt? I know I can really expect it. Can’t I?” Haldane added unwittingly to the illusion he wore by acting the young boy.
    To silence Haldane and occupy him, Oliver said, “You can do it, but only if you clear your mind of all thoughts of yourself. When you cease to think of your belt, your hands will be able to touch it.”
    It was a game that Haldane could not but lose. He played it visibly as they walked along the Pellardy Road through the forest. His hands could not fool his mind. They would try to touch before he could think, and they never could. It made him angry and he gave up in disgust. But natural habit won him what concentration could not and sometime later he found himself for the briefest moment with his thumbs hooked in his belt.
    “I felt my belt, Oliver,” he said. “I did feel my belt.”
    “Noll,” said Oliver. “You are Giles. And speak Nestorian.”
    When Oliver remembered to think of it, he worried of what would happen if they were come upon by Gets. But he had strength only to plod the road.
    “Noll,” said Haldane, and he did speak Nestorian. “Give me my knife back from your bag. I’ll wear it now. My hands will know where to find it when I have need of it.”
    That was why Oliver continued to carry the bag, even though he plodded.
    “We cannot give your hands the chance. We cannot afford to kill. We are safest as simple peasants. Besides, you could not forget yourself long enough to fix the knife in place.”
    “Safest. Safest,” mocked Haldane in Nestorian. “That’s all you can think of. What do I do when I need to unbuckle my pants?”
    “If you wait until your need is great enough, you will find it no problem. Now, by my map there is a bridge over the next hill. Let us rest there.”
    “We cannot rest there,” said Haldane.
    “Why not?”
    “There is no bridge on the other side of the hill,” Haldane said. And laughed as though he had made a great joke.
    “By my map, there is a bridge,” said Oliver, “and I believe my map.” Even though it of occasion embarrassed him.
    When they reached the top of the hill above New Bridge on Rock Run, Haldane said, “As I told you. There is no bridge. It fell down.”
    “That is bridge enough for me,” said Oliver, “My map was right.”
    “Then you walk across your bridge and keep your feet dry,” said Haldane. “I will wade the ford.”
    But Oliver wet his feet too.