The Village That Had Never Seen a Wizard

Three days after leaving the temple, Theron the Wanderer found himself standing at the edge of a village so unremarkable it had no name he could discern. All there was at the town's border was a wooden sign at the entrance that looked like it might have once displayed some letters. To Theron's disappointment, time and weather had reduced them to barely visible faded scratches.

The village consisted of perhaps thirty buildings clustered around a small square. Theron saw smoke rising from chimneys, but the streets were mostly empty. Chickens wandered between houses with the aimless confidence of creatures who had never encountered a predator. In the square, a woman was selling eggs from a wooden cart while two old men argued about something that involved extensive hand gestures.

Theron decided that this run-down town was exactly what he had been looking for. In other words, a completely ordinary village with nothing interesting about it.

He walked into the village at a pace that felt almost awkward in its slowness. For three centuries, he had moved through the world with purpose. Every step had been a step toward something: a battle to fight, a darkness to defeat, a world to save. Now he simply walked, and the absence of urgency felt strange and wonderful, like wearing clothes that fit properly after years of garments that had always been slightly too tight.

The egg woman noticed him first. She stopped mid-transaction to stare, one egg suspended in her hand like a frozen moment of commerce.

"Good morning," Theron said.

The woman did not respond. She continued to stare at his robes, his staff, the faint shimmer of ancient enchantments that clung to his clothing like dust. He supposed he should have expected this. Wizards were not common outside the major cities, and when they did appear in small villages, it usually meant trouble.

"I'm not here to cause problems," he added. "I'm simply passing through."

"Passing through to where?" the woman asked, puzzled. "This is the only town in this part of the world."

It was an excellent question indeed. In fact, Theron had been asking himself the same thing for three days now.

"I haven't decided yet," he said honestly. "I thought I might stay here for a day or two, if that's permissible. I can pay for lodging."

The egg woman exchanged a glance with her customer, an elderly farmer with dirt-stained hands and the wary expression of someone who had survived long enough to be suspicious of anything unusual. Theron fumbled with his money pouch, which hung from the belt of his robe, to show that he really did have money. This was apparently enough to convince his audience, as their expressions immediately brightened.

"There's the Sleeping Goat," the farmer said slowly. "Marta runs it. She might have a room."

"The Sleeping Goat," Theron repeated. "A charming name. Is there a story behind it?"

"The sign has a goat on it," the farmer said. "The goat is sleeping."

"Ah. Very straightforward."

The Sleeping Goat was a stone building at the edge of the square, distinguished from its neighbors by a hanging sign that did indeed depict a sleeping goat. Theron made his way there while the villagers watched from doorways and windows, their curiosity evident but their feet firmly planted at safe distances.

The interior was dim and warm, lit by a fire that had been burning so long the stones around it were blackened with permanent soot. A woman stood behind a wooden bar, polishing a cup that was already spotless. She was perhaps fifty, with gray-streaked hair and the kind of face that could warm your heart or burn your soul, depending on how you behaved.

"You must be the wizard," she said.

"Word travels quickly, it seems. But yes, yes I am."

"It's a small village, in case you haven't noticed." She set down the cup. "I'm Marta. I run this place."

"Nice to meet you. My name is Theron. I was hoping for a room."

Marta studied him with the careful attention of someone sizing up a complicated situation. "For how long?"

"A day or two. Perhaps three."

"We don't get many wizards here."

"No, I imagine you don't."

"In fact," Marta said, "I don't think we've ever had a wizard stay at the Goat. Not in all the years I've been running it, and not in all the years my mother ran it before me."

Theron nodded. It made sense. Villages like this existed in the spaces between great events, places where history happened to other people. Wizards had no reason to visit because there was nothing here that required wizarding.

He found that thought remarkably comforting.

"I'll try not to cause any trouble," he said, and wiggled his money pouch to see if the same trick would work twice.

Something that might have been a smile flickered across Marta's face. "Room's up the stairs, second on the left. Two copper a night, breakfast included. Dinner's extra."

"That seems reasonable. Thank you, Marta."

"And I'll ask you not to do any..." She waved her hand vaguely. "Wizard things. Whatever it is that you wizards do."

"I shall endeavor to be remarkably ordinary," Theron said, trying to be convincing.

The room was small and clean, with a bed that creaked and a window that looked out over the village square. Theron set his staff in the corner and sat on the bed, listening to the bed frame protest. The sounds of the village drifted up through the window. Theron could hear various voices, footsteps, the clucking of chickens, and the creak of cart wheels.

He couldn't remember the last time he had simply sat somewhere without a purpose. There had always been something to do, some task demanding his attention. Even rest had been strategic, a necessary recovery period before the next crisis. But here, now, there was nothing that required him. The world would continue turning whether he acted or not.

The realization was both terrifying and liberating.

He decided to try to sleep for a bit.

When he woke, the sun was already setting. He had slept for most of the day, something he hadn't done in decades. His body felt strange, loose in a way that suggested muscles finally relaxing after years of tension he hadn't consciously felt.

The evening was cool and golden. Theron walked through the village, nodding to the people he passed, most of whom nodded back with varying degrees of nervousness. He found himself at the eastern edge of the settlement, where the last houses gave way to rolling fields and distant mountains.

He sat on a stone fence and watched the sunset.

It was not a particularly spectacular sunset. The colors were muted, ordinary oranges and pinks fading to purple. There were no dramatic clouds, no special celestial arrangements. It was simply the sun going down, as it did every evening, as it had done every evening since before Theron was even born.

But he watched it anyway, because he realized he couldn't remember the last time he had.

A boy appeared beside him. He was perhaps ten years old, with the dirt-smudged face and perpetual energy of farm children everywhere. He had apparently decided that curiosity outweighed caution.

"Are you really a wizard?" the boy asked without any hesitation.

"So I've been told."

"Can you do magic?"

"On occasion."

The boy's eyes widened. "Can you show me?"

Theron considered the request. He had told Marta he would be as ordinary as possible. In addition to Marta, using magic here felt like breaking a promise to himself, too—like a return to old patterns he was so hard trying to escape. But the boy was looking at him with such hopeful expectation, and there were some forms of magic that barely counted as magic at all.

He picked up a small stone from the ground and held it in his palm. A whisper of will, a touch of transformation, and the stone softened and stretched, becoming a tiny gray bird that sat on his hand and cocked its head at the boy.

"It's not real," Theron said. "Just a stone shaped like a bird. It can't fly or sing. But it will last, if you want to keep it."

The boy reached out with reverent hands and took the stone bird. He held it up to the fading light, turning it this way and that, studying every detail.

"I've never seen magic before," he said. "Not real magic, I mean. Not from a real wizard."

"Magic is rarer than stories suggest. Most people go their whole lives without encountering any."

"Then why are you here?" The question was guileless, a child's simple curiosity. "If magic is rare and you're a wizard, shouldn't you be somewhere important? Fighting evil or something?"

Theron watched the last sliver of sun disappear below the horizon. The sky was deepening to purple, stars beginning to emerge one by one.

"I have been fighting evil for a very long time," he said. "And I have been to a great many important places. But lately I've been wondering if perhaps I've missed something along the way."

"Missed what?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Theron gestured at the darkening sky. "Sunsets, perhaps. Conversations with curious boys. Stone birds. All the small things that happen while you're busy saving the world."

The boy frowned, processing what he had heard. "My father says you should do your duty first and rest later."

"Your father sounds like a wise man. But I've been doing my duty for three hundred years, and I've come to suspect that 'later' never actually arrives unless you make it arrive."

"Three hundred years?" The boy's eyes went wide. "You're three hundred years old?"

"Somewhat more, actually. Wizards age differently."

"That's ancient."

"Thank you for that observation."

The boy grinned, and Theron found himself smiling in return. It was strange. He had held councils with kings, had negotiated with demons and dragons, had spoken words that reshaped the fabric of reality. And yet this simple exchange, this moment of connection with a farm boy in what he now knew was called Millbrook, felt more genuine than any of it.

They sat together in comfortable silence as the stars started to appear one after another. Eventually, a woman's voice called from one of the houses, and the boy jumped up.

"That's my mother. I have to go." He clutched the stone bird to his chest. "Thank you for this. I'll keep it forever."

"I'm sure you will," Theron said. "Goodnight."

The boy ran off. Theron remained on the fence, watching the stars multiply until the sky was thick with them. He thought about all the times he had looked up at night skies and seen only strategic considerations: the position of celestial bodies for ritual purposes, the weather patterns that might affect a battle, the cosmic alignments that heralded apocalyptic threats.

Tonight, he simply saw stars. Beautiful, meaningless, eternal stars.

He stayed until the cold drove him back to the inn. Marta had saved him a plate of bread and cheese, which he ate by the fire while she pretended not to watch him. The other patrons—a handful of locals drinking quietly—gave him a long look but seemed to have decided he was probably not going to destroy anything.

"The roof on the elder's house leaks," Marta said eventually.

Theron looked up from his bread. "Does it?"

"Has for years. He's too proud to ask for help, and the village carpenter is too old to climb properly anymore."

"I see."

"I'm not asking you to fix it," Marta said quickly. "I'm just... mentioning. In case you were looking for something to do."

Theron thought about it. Fixing a roof was not wizardry. It was simple labor, the kind of thing anyone could do with two hands and a willingness to climb. He could probably fix it with magic, but that felt like cheating.

"I might take a look at it tomorrow," he said.

Marta nodded and went back to polishing her already-spotless cups.

That night, Theron lay in his small bed and listened to the village settle into sleep. There were no wards to check, no rituals to prepare, no cosmic threats to monitor. There was only the creak of settling wood and the distant hoot of an owl and the simple fact of being alive in a place where nothing required saving.

Tomorrow, he might fix a roof. Or he might just sit somewhere and watch another sunset. Or he might walk to the next village and see what he found there. The possibilities felt infinite in a way that saving the world never had.

For the first time in three centuries, Theron the Wanderer felt like he could relax.