Wizard
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."
"I've done all right," Jonas thought sullenly.
Claerten agreed. "Of course you have," he thought, "but you're not the
most careful of men; and great care is needed. The Brotherhood must
grow. This new sense is of great value; perhaps we can learn to teach it
to others in time, though we have had little success with that. But at
the least we can maintain our numbers, pass the gift on to our
children--"
"If it is possible," Jonas said.
"We must try," Claerten said. "And your job is enormously important."
"I know that," Jonas thought wearily.
"You have accomplished the first step," Claerten said. "Do nothing
rash."
"Of course not."
"You will not accept help--"
"I will not," Jonas thought.
"Very well, then," Claerten thought. There was the ghost of another
idea; Jonas caught it.
"I know perfectly well that you wouldn't have sent me if there were any
other available member," he thought. "There is no need to remind me."
"I'm sorry," Claerten thought. He radiated caution, worry, patience;
Jonas turned in the bed and cut off from the director with a grunt. He
was tired; long-distance linkages were a drain on the body's energy,
even when the person involved was easy to visualize. But Claerten had
insisted on intermittent contact.
If there were such a thing as total contact, constant contact over a
period of days, Jonas thought, Claerten would use me for a puppet, a
veritable Punch among men; he would override me and take me over the way
a traveling entertainer rules his jointed dolls.
And that would be a fine thing for a hero, wouldn't it?
He grimaced in the darkness. Constant contact was simply impossible; any
reaching out used energy, and linking up for a long period simply burned
the body up like a long starvation; it was as bad as a penance.
Jonas was thankful for that.
And for the rest--well, he thought resignedly, what was a hero without a
quest? And what was a quest without someone to set it?
But that the someone had to be Claerten, with his caution and his
old-woman worry--
Jonas sighed and set about the business of falling asleep.
* * * * *
The days passed slowly, with great boredom. Jonas made contact twice
with Claerten, who told him over and over to wait, to do nothing: "The
next move is coming soon; do nothing to hurry it. You can only upset the
natural course of events."
"Which is unwise," Jonas thought bitterly, "and risky, and very probably
impious as well."
"As for the piety," Claerten thought, "I leave that to the priests and
the women. But wisdom and caution are my task, Jonas, as they must be
yours."
"I--"
"You are a hero, out on an adventure," Claerten thought witheringly.
"But set your course with sense, travel it with caution; you will the
more certainly arrive."
"Philosophy for a dull plodder," Jonas thought.
"Philosophy for one of the Brotherhood," Claerten thought back. "We are
tiny as yet; we have no force. You can add to that force, add greatly;
but you must be wise."
"I must be slow, you mean."
"I mean what I have told you," Claerten thought. "And--one more thing,
Jonas."
"Yes?"
"The daughter," Claerten thought. "I have seen her in your mind. Ignore
the wench. Is she worth what your task is worth?"
"I never--"
"Then my caution is unnecessary," Claerten thought. "But, in the
unlikely case that she might tempt you to folly--remember it."
Jonas, who disliked irony, sighed and cut off.
That was the third night. During the days he had done the things he had
planned; he did no work with the Scharpes, but let them find him, when
they returned to the hut of an evening, reciting strange words. Once he
built a small outdoor fire and walked around it, widdershins, for
several minutes. Then he put the fire out and went inside. He wasn't
sure whether or not anyone was watching him, that time.
But sooner or later it had to happen.
And it happened, as Jonas had suspected it would, through the wife. Mrs.
Scharpe came back to the hut early one day, threw a frightened glance at