The fuzzy feeling still gripped him, addling his brains and slowing his actions. He tried to loosen his knife from his belt, thinking he might need it for whatever it was that was happening.
The old man gave him a penetrating look from small dark eyes that seemed to have no pupils, and the smile dropped from his face. He glanced at the nomads and drivers and then took a step forward, raised his hand and pointed his finger at Mika.
Mika pulled back, knowing even in his confused state that something terrible was about to happen. He thought that maybe he should run, but couldn't decide in what direction.
As the old man began to chant, the first of the nomads appeared between the two wagons, swords raised and torches flooding the area with bright light. The instant the light touched him, the old man disappeared, simply faded out of existence as though he had never been!
Mika raised his hand to his eyes slowly and rubbed them, wondering if he had imagined the whole thing. He looked again, but the old man was gone, leaving nothing to show that he had been there, other than the loosened flap of hide on the wagon.
"Mika, what is it! Are you all right?" asked a nomad named Klaren.
"Old man," Mika said thickly, still wrapped in confusion. "There was an old man here. Uh, not here. There, trying, trying to get into… wagon."
"Where is he?" roared a large burly driver who wore a hostile scowl and waved a heavy cudgel above his head. "Must have been a bandit! Which way did he go?"
"Who?" asked Mika, forgetting what they were talking about.
"The bandit! The old man!" shouted the burly driver.
"Oh, was he a bandit?" Mika asked in surprise.
"I don't know. I never saw him! Where is he?" yelled the driver, beginning to get angry at Mika.
"Who?" asked Mika, totally bewildered and wondering why the man was yelling at him.
"Where's the old man?" said Klaren between gritted teeth.
"Oh. Him. Well, he was right there," said Mika pointing to the wagon. "He was a magic-user, I think."
The clamor of voices broke around him excitedly.
"What would a magic-user want with a wagon train?" asked Cob, the driver of the secret wagon, now wide awake, his brow furrowed with suspicion as he stared at Mika.
"I don't mind bandits, but I don't like magic," said the other driver, lowering his club and looking around him carefully as though the magic-user might be secreted among them.
"What's all this nonsense about bandits and magic-users?" said the Guildsman as he pushed his way through the throng. He looked at Mika and said, "Is this some of your doing? I will not allow you to stir up the men."
"No nonsense," mumbled Mika, fighting to shed the dazed feeling that shrouded his brain and tongue. "Old man came. Unlaced wagon. Tried to stop him. Threw a spell. Musta' been a magic-user."
"An old man, hmmm," said the Guildsman, sarcasm dripping from his tongue. "And can you explain just how you happened to be so conveniently nearby to foil his attempt?"
"Uh…" Mika said stupidly, flogging his stricken brain to come up with something, anything that would make sense, but nothing occurred to him.
"Uh…" he stammered futilely, trying to remember.
"I suggest that you had a little too much to drink and decided to have a look inside the wagon yourself," said the Guildsman. "Too bad you made so much noise and got caught."
After a shocked moment of surprise at the tone the Guildsman used, the drivers broke into hoots of laughter, drowning out any answer that Mika might have made, had he been able to think of one.
"By the Great Wolf Mother, you do not speak to a Wolf Nomad thusly unless you wish to guide your own wagons across the plains," roared Hornsbuck, pushing his way up to the Guildsman and spitting his words down into the man's face from his great height. "Apologize!" he roared.
"No offense," the Guildsman said coolly, carefully stepping back several paces. "I merely wondered if our young captain might not have had a little too much to drink and decided to investigate the contents of the wagon. He made some noise and, fearing detection, invented this ridiculous story of an old man who appears and disappears at will. I simply suggest that yon nomad's interest is far more likely than some mysterious magic-user who has most conveniently vanished."
"Mika?" growled Hornsbuck, looking at Mika for words of hot denial. But Mika could barely keep his eyes from crossing much less speak eloquently in his own defense.
Hornsbuck looked at Mika with disgust, Mika's very silence damning him in the older man's eyes. Hornsbuck spat on the ground at Mika's feet, then turned and shoved his way back through the crowd, flinging drivers from him like water off a dog's back.
Klaren gave Mika a shamed look, then followed Hornsbuck, trailing hoots of laughter from the drivers who were not unhappy to see the haughty nomads revealed to be no less human than themselves.
"Wait!" muttered Mika, but nobody paid him any attention.
"Tryin' to steal a little somethin' extry fer 'imself, 'e were," guffawed a rough-looking driver with only one eye. "I allus said them stuck-up sons of a she-wolf weren't nothin' special."
"Wonder if he found anything?" commented another, peering at Mika to see if there were any suspicious lumps concealed on his body.
Finally, Mika was left alone. Sinking to the ground, he cradled his aching head on his arms and tried to put his dazed thoughts in order, but it was impossible. As soon as he focused on one thought, it splintered into hundreds of others trailing confusion in their wake.
Mika sat there for a long time. At last, just as the moon was about to slip below the horizon, the fog lifted from his mind. He stood up shakily and saw the Guildsman leaning against the side of the wagon, arms folded across his chest, watching him.
"You know I did not take anything from the wagon," he said, his anger building rapidly.
"There was an old man, a magic-user, and he put a spell on the wagon, I saw him do it. And I've seen him before. It was at the River Fler. He put a spell on me there that paralyzed me. He tried to kill me this time and would have succeeded had I not protected myself with a spell of my own.
"I can prove I'm telling the truth. Call the driver. The magic-user's spell seemed to affect him, too. Get Cob up here, if he can move. Let's see who's telling the truth!"
"That's not necessary," said the Guildsman, with a wave of his hand. "I've no doubt that you're telling the truth."
"Then why did you make me out a liar and a fool?" Mika hissed angrily.
"Because it would do me no good at all to have my men looking over their shoulders for the remainder of the trip, soiling their pants at every shadow," the Guildsman said harshly.
"Protecting us is your job, Master Wolf. Whether against bandits or magic-users. So do it! That is what we hired you for, to protect us. Or have you forgotten that? And how do I know that this magic-user is not after you instead of the wagon? After all, you are the only one who's seen him and the only one he's hurt.
"It seems entirely probable that you have irritated someone enough that they hired this magic-user and instructed him to turn you into a rock. I wish him better luck next time.
"I urge you to count your enemies and try not to cause any more trouble between here and Eru-Tovar or I shall keep my promise to speak to the Guild!" Fixing Mika with one last cold gaze, the Guildsman turned on his heel and stalked away.
Mika was shaking with fury, and he held his tongue with difficulty, wondering for the first time if it were possible that he himself was the target. Perhaps the wife of the baker back in Yecha had followed through with her tearful threats to tell her husband… No… he had kissed her and she had quite forgotten her complaints. Of that he was certain.
Mentally turning over a list of all who had grievances against him, Mika trudged slowly back to his own bedroll.