Equal Rites

eroded not by wind or rain in this weatherless place but by the soft sandpaper of Time itself.
    No one else seemed to have noticed. No one else, in fact, seemed alive. Esk was surrounded by people as still and silent as statues.
    And they weren’t alone. There were other—Things—behind them, and more were appearing all the time. They had no shape, or rather they seemed to be taking their shapes at random from a variety of creatures; they gave the impression that they had heard about arms and legs and jaws and claws and organs but didn’t really know how they all fitted together. Or didn’t care. Or were so hungry they hadn’t bothered to find out.
    They made a sound like a swarm of flies.
    They were the creatures out of her dreams, come to feed on magic. She knew they weren’t interested in her now, except in the nature of an after-dinner mint. Their whole concentration was focused on Simon, who was totally unaware of their presence.
    Esk kicked him smartly on the ankle.
    The cold desert vanished. The real world rushed back. Simon opened his eyes, smiled faintly, and gently fell backward into Esk’s arms.
    A buzz went up from the wizards, and several of them started to clap. No one seemed to have noticed anything odd, apart from the silver lights.
    Cutangle shook himself, and raised a hand to quell the crowd.
    “Quite—astonishing,” he said to Treatle. “You say he worked it out all by himself?”
    “Indeed, lord.”
    “No one helped him at all?”
    “There was no one to help him,” said Treatle. “He was just wandering from village to village, doing small spells. But only if people paid him in books or paper.”
    Cutangle nodded. “It was no illusion,” he said, “yet he didn’t use his hands. What was he saying to himself? Do you know?”
    “He says it’s just words to make his mind work properly,” said Treatle, and shrugged. “I can’t understand half of what he says and that’s a fact. He says he’s having to invent words because there aren’t any for the things he’s doing.”
    Cutangle glanced sideways at his fellow mages. They nodded.
    “It will be an honor to admit him to the University,” he said. “Perhaps you would tell him so when he wakes up.”
    He felt a tugging at his robe, and looked down.
    “Excuse me,” said Esk.
    “Hallo, young lady,” said Cutangle, in a sugarmouse voice. “Have you come to see your brother enter the University?”
    “He’s not my brother,” said Esk. There were times when the world had seemed to be full of brothers, but this wasn’t one of them.
    “Are you important?” she said.
    Cutangle looked at his colleagues, and beamed. There were fashions in wizardry, just like anything else; sometimes wizards were thin and gaunt and talked to animals (the animals didn’t listen, but it’s the thought that counts) while at other times they tended toward the dark and saturnine, with little black pointed beards. Currently Aldermanic was In. Cutangle swelled with modesty.
    “Quite important,” he said. “One does one’s best in the service of one’s fellow man. Yes. Quite important, I would say.”
    “I want to be a wizard,” said Esk.
    The lesser wizards behind Cutangle stared at her as if she was a new and interesting kind of beetle. Cutangle’s face went red and his eyes bulged. He looked down at Esk and seemed to be holding his breath. Then he started to laugh. It started somewhere down in his extensive stomach regions and worked its way up, echoing from rib to rib and causing minor wizard-quakes across his chest until it burst forth in a series of strangled snorts. It was quite fascinating to watch, that laugh. It had a personality all of its own.
    But he stopped when he saw Esk’s stare. If the laugh was a music-hall clown then Esk’s determined squint was a white-wash bucket on a fast trajectory.
    “A wizard?” he said; “ You want to be a wizard?”
    “Yes,” said Esk, pushing the dazed Simon into Treatle’s reluctant arms. “I’m the eighth son of an eighth son. I mean daughter.”
    The wizards around her were looking at one another and whispering. Esk tried to ignore them.
    “What did she say?”
    “Is she serious?”
    “I always think children are so delightful at that age, don’t you?”
    “You’re the eighth son of an eighth daughter?” said Cutangle. “Really?”
    “The other way around, only not exactly,” said Esk, defiantly.
    Cutangle dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.
    “This is quite