7:56pm June 29, 2013

Young Wizards meta: Wizardry and zombies

A question came in:

My roommate just finished Young Wizards, so now she’s in musing mode. So, the latest wondering is how would the wizards react to zombies. If you go by the virus mode of zombie, changing them would violate the Oath, and using wizardry to kill them is just feeding the Lone One. (unless directly threatened, we suppose)

Wow, that’s a fabulous question. And not something I’ve thought about much.

Let’s go ask Tom.

***

It’s such a nice house, especially in the good weather. The patio doors are open: I wander in through the living room, then into the kitchen. And of course there he is, staring into the fridge with the look of a man contemplating a potential sandwich.

“Why are you always in the kitchen when I show up here?”

“Would you rather I was in the bedroom?”

“No, no, let’s not go there. Literally or figuratively.”

“Just as well. Carl would give me one of those plaintive looks and say ‘Are you trying to confuse me again?’”

Snickering. “God forbid. Where is himself, by the way?”

“Saturn at the moment. There’s some kind of issue, he had to go confer with the Planetary: something secondary to the War. Nothing serious, though, I’m told. What’s your pleasure? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?”

“Is the Sun over the yardarm here?”

“It’s your yardarm. You tell me. Got a nice Spätburgunder weissherbst in here somewhere.”

“Oh God. Please and thank you.”

He goes back to rooting in the fridge. “So what brings you out all this way?”

“Got a question for you.”

“So what else is new.” He comes back with two glasses. “Here.” He pours them each a third full, hands me one. It’s that perfect eye-of-the-pheasant color, caught between rosé and gold: if it were a US wine it would be thought of as similar to a white Zinfandel, the skins removed early from the must of a big-bodied grape to keep it from going all the way to red.

We touch glasses. “Ne’gakh emeirsith,” Tom says, which is one of many local variants in the Speech for the sentiment “Your health”. Probably it would render closer to the Swiss-German usage “En guete”, “may it do you good”.

“Back at you, “ I say, “thank you,” and have a sip. It tastes like summer in a glass, and way down among the tangled flavors of peach leather and vanilla and faint sunwarmed brass there is just a hint of something extra going on. “Of course there are wizards who’re vintners,” I mutter. “Silly me. Kaiserstuhl?”

“Somewhere on the Rhine, anyway. Anyway: what can I do you for?”

“Zombies.”

He rolls his eyes quite hard. “Oh God, do not tell me you’re planning on inflicting that on us.”

Read More