The Warlock's Last Ride Read online

  "With Cordelia's approval." Geoffrey frowned. "You do not think he will ask your advice, do you?"

  "Oh, I think he may ask," Magnus said, "but he will make his own decisions. Alain has as much a genius for good judgement as you have for warfare."

  Geoffrey stared in surprise; then his brow furrowed in thought as he studied the careful neutrality of his brother's face. "I had not thought of it in those terms," he admitted, "but I have realized his good sense and given my word to heed his commands when he becomes king."

  Magnus nodded. "As have I."

  They were silent as Geoffrey absorbed the implications of that simple statement.

  Then he sat down, crossing his legs, eyes narrowing again. "So you do not mean to command your sibs or manipulate the Crown. What then do you plan to do in this land? Sit here and write your memoirs, and rot for the rest of your life?"

  "Well, not for all of it," Magnus said, "and I suspect there will be problems enough arising that I can lend a hand in solving—but for the moment, perhaps even for a year, a long rest sounds very attractive."

  "I thought you'd had ample time to rest between the stars."

  "So had I," Magnus said frankly, "but I find, now that I am here where I grew up, and suddenly have no responsibility, an amazing lassitude has taken me."

  "Depression?" Geoffrey's voice sharpened with concern.

  "No, it is very pleasant, actually," Magnus said, "rather like a waking sleep."

  "Then beware of dreams."

  "Well cautioned." Magnus nodded. "I find myself mulling over the events of the past ten years, trying to make sense of them."

  Geoffrey's frown deepened; he didn't understand.

  "Is there a purpose to my life?" Magnus asked. "Perhaps even only a pattern? You have no need to ask yourself that question—you have Quicksilver, after all, and a blind man could see that she is all the purpose you need, at least for the present."

  Geoffrey was reluctant to admit that. "A battle now and then would be pleasant."

  "And I've seen you drilling the troops to be ready for it." Magnus nodded. "After all, you must always be prepared to fight off an attack, must you not?"

  Geoffrey finally smiled. "Enemies do not usually send warning."

  "No, the honorable old custom of declaring war seems to have fallen into disuse," Magnus agreed. "Somehow I feel sure you will have all the opportunity you need to practice your profession."

  "Well, it would be better for all that I did not," Geoffrey said with a sigh, "so I am seeing to building a tournament circuit that will keep men in fighting trim even should peace prevail—and may leach from them the need for war."

  "For which we both devoutly hope," Magnus said, "but it certainly answers your need for purpose."

  "Well, Papa has handed you one, whether you like it or not." Geoffrey was surprised to realize the truth of what he said.

  "True, brother—but like yourself, I must wait for the opportunity and hope it does not come."

  "Perhaps it would be well if it did not, at least for a year or so, if you are as much in need of rest as you say."

  Magnus nodded. "Of rest, and of trying to understand the land of my birth."

  "What is there to understand?" Geoffrey frowned. "We are a most simple nation, when all's said and done."

  "But I have not been here to hear it said, nor to watch it done," Magnus pointed out. "Believe it or not, brother, it will take me some time, and considerable study of the recent history of Gramarye, before I have the feel of my native planet again."

  "Surely you cannot have become so much an alien!" Geoffrey protested.

  "I keep thinking I have not; I look about me at familiar sights, hear familiar sounds, walk through a peaceful town and think all is as it was when I was a youth," Magnus said. "Then something will happen, someone nearby will speak of some event that I know nothing about or of some public figure whom I've never heard of, and I realize all over again that the land has become strange to me."

  Geoffrey frowned, still not understanding. "Gramarye could never be strange."

  "More than you know, brother," Magnus sighed. "Thomas Wolfe was right in saying 'You can't go home again.' "

  Geoffrey's frown deepened. "You are home."

  "Yes, but in the years I've been gone, home has changed, and I have changed, and it will take some time for me to find myself a new place and become a part of the kingdom again."

  Geoffrey decided that, all in all, Magnus finding a new place, rather than trying to bull his way into his old one, might not be a bad thing. "How shall you find that place, then?"

  "By approaching Gramarye the way I approached any planet on which I landed—as a new world, one which I'll have to study before I try to do anything. I've always taken a few months to get the feel of a place and learn the basics of its culture before I ever thought of any kind of action."

  "What sort of action might that be?" Geoffrey asked, on his guard again.

  "Well, first, to discover if my interference was warranted, or if things were all right as they were," Magnus said, "but I had judged well from such historical records as I had, and from my reconnaissance in orbit; only one of those planets did have a government that suited the people, though it was very hard to discover."

  "And the rest?" Geoffrey demanded.

  "I set out to overthrow their tyrants, of course," Magnus said, "and to make planets proof against SCENT's machinations. With the sublime audacity and supreme arrogance of youth, I never stopped to think that I had no more right to meddle than SCENT had—but, like them, I was certain I was doing it for the people's own good."

  "Supreme arrogance indeed." Geoffrey frowned.

  "At least I chose planets on which the bulk of the population were clearly oppressed," Magnus said. "The first solo I tried was on a planet called Melange, where the colonists had made their own try at the ideal society—essentially an eighteenth-century culture, periwigs and kneepants, panniers and pompadours—and had cloned the few servants they had brought along into a massive underclass. Having made them, of course, they feared them, and ruled them with iron oppression. They kept modern technology, but only for themselves."

  "Which rather negated the advantages of any gadgetry you might have brought along!"

  Magnus nodded. "Therefore I went down to the planet with only a peasant's clothes on my back and my spaceship in orbit."

  "Foolishly strolling into danger, brother!"

  "Of course," Magnus said in surprise. "Don't try to tell me you would have done anything else, Geoffrey."

  Geoffrey stared at him a moment, then broke into a shamefaced smile. "Well, but that is me, brother. I would not see you imperilled."

  "No more than I would you," Magnus returned. "After a week of skulking about like an outlaw, trying to learn the inside of the society and failing, I had the good luck to make a local contact—Dirk Dulaine."

  Geoffrey frowned. "I thought you said he was a spacer."

  "He was, but he had been born a churl—that's what they called their clones—and escaped as a boy, whereupon he had been recruited into an organization of other escaped churls, one that had been going on for well over a century. Their founders had managed to hitch rides off-planet, work their way up to riches, and buy a foundering interstellar cargo line, which bought out the supply rights for Melange—so Dirk was a local boy from a backward culture, but had a modern education. He was also a trained commando…"

  "Like yourself," Geoffrey interjected.

  "There were a few similarities," Magnus admitted. "We strolled the land looking for ways to overthrow the lords. Dirk told me the time was right; there was a prophecy that DeCade, the leader of a centuries-old rebellion, would rise from the dead to lead them again, and if he was ever going to wake up, the time was near. Unfortunately, I was captured by a lord who decided I would make a perfect gladiator…"

  He went on, telling of his battle in the arena, and Geoffrey listened, enthralled, as his brother told a fantastic tale of a pitche
d battle between gladiators and lords, of automated hideouts for aristocrats, of hidden outlaw colonies deep in the woods, and a sojourn in a madhouse—a horrible place for a telepath; it had driven Magnus into catatonia—and of Magnus himself finally becoming DeCade.

  Thrilled and shocked by turns and appalled at the dangers Magnus had faced, Geoffrey cursed himself for not having been there to protect his big brother—never stopping to think that he had been far too young.

  "A minstrel! There's a minstrel come to the common!"

  "New songs! News!"

  Suddenly all the young folk were running back to the village, leaving the grain to stand unharvested another day. Diru dropped his scythe and went to run with them, but Hirol elbowed him in the ribs and Arker kicked a foot between his ankles, saying, "Keep your place, lummox!"

  Diru stumbled and fell; Hirol and Arker laughed and ran on. Lenar and her friends ran past, giggling. Diru heard one say, "He can't even keep on his feet!!"

  Face crimson, Diru struggled up and lumbered after, limping now. He managed to ignore the shoots of pain that went up his shin every time his left foot hit the ground; it wasn't really much, certainly less than the embarrassment of having the girls watch him fall—tripping over his own feet again, they probably thought.

  Diru was a little shorter than the other boys but a great deal more bulky. It was all muscle—well, mostly—but it didn't look that way. Too much muscle—he was slow; all the other boys could punch much faster, and did. He was moon-faced with a snub nose, small thin-lipped mouth and narrow eyes with sparse, dun-colored hair—certainly no prize to look at, as his mother kept reminding him. He knew she was right, because the village girls looked right past him and never seemed to see him unless he was being more clumsy than usual.

  He hated them for it. Hated the boys, too, for making fun of him and beating him if he dared talk back. Some day he'd find a way to get even, some day…

  But not now. The young folk fell silent as they dodged between huts into the village common, and Diru could hear the plucking of strings. Way behind the others and only a little ahead of the grown-ups, he lumbered into the common, slowed, and stopped, gasping for breath but already listening.

  "When the wind blows cold o'er the stream at night,

  (All along, down along, out along lea!)

  The Monster King gathers his swords for the fight,

  Horsemen and pikemen and catmen with glee!

  Then when the mist rises o'er the river at dawn,

  (All along, down along, out along lea!)

  His legions burst forth, every dire dreadful pawn,

  Boneless and ogres and redcaps they be!

  But they cannot come nigh of their own desire,

  (All along, down along, out along lea!)

  Unless some fool asks them, they're bound to their mire,

  Every fang-toothed and sword-clawed nightmare we see!"

  The minstrel went on; describing the horrors that had burst from the mist over their nearby river the year before. He didn't mention how they'd been chased home—everyone knew the Gallowglasses had defeated them, with the king's army right behind to cut down the few monsters who had escaped. It was a tale that made Diru's blood sing, that called up wonderful pictures of heroic young folk like himself—but the minstrel didn't sing of that, he sang only of the deed that had allowed the monsters to burst out of their mist-bound realm, the foolishness of the villagers who had sought to appease the hideous creatures by inviting them to come, thinking they would be spared by showing friendship—but their leader hadn't; the giant cat Big Ears had killed him where he stood before the wizards could send it back where it had come from.

  "So never invite, never think to appease," the minstrel sang,

  "For the Monster King's favored ones swing in the breeze!"

  But Diru was suddenly fired with inspiration. That wasn't true, couldn't be true! Anyone these spiteful villagers feared had to be Diru's friend! And a way to gain revenge on them all…

  He shuddered and thrust the idea from him; even they didn't deserve to be torn apart by nightmares. He paid closer attention as the minstrel began to sing a happier song and hoped the horrid vision would fade.

  Allouette rose from lotus position and went silently away. Instantly concerned but delayed by the depths of his trance, Gregory let his consciousness drift upward until, minutes later, he surfaced and raised his head, frowning. He rose and went after his wife, soft-footed.

  He found her by a window in their solar. "What troubles you, love?"

  Allouette kept her back turned to him, only waving him away—but even without reading her mind, Gregory could feel the apprehension radiating from her. He came up behind her, arms open to embrace, but had the good sense not to touch her. "Is it Magnus?"

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "You must not read my mind if I do not invite you!"

  "I do not," Gregory said, "nor do I need telepathy to guess the cause of your concern. Love, be sure—Magnus forgives you as completely as any man may. As he comes to know you, even this current… awkwardness… between you will pass."

  "You cannot mean he will learn to trust me!"

  "I mean exactly that," Gregory said, "for you are as unlike the woman who hurt him as any could be, save for your beauty and your spirit."

  Allouette strangled a sob.

  "Yes, I know you did not consider yourself a beauty then—but you were, even without projecting any idealized image. Still and all, you did project it, and it is that image he associates with hurt, not your true self."

  "Then why is he still so chill toward me?" Allouette spun about, and Gregory saw her cheeks were wet and her eyes red. "How can we possibly go on in our lives with my unspoken guilt hanging between us?"

  "It will pass," Gregory assured her. "It is only there now because, in all ways, you are a stranger to him."

  "A stranger and a horrid memory!" Allouette finally came into his arms and buried her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Gregory, how shall we fare with your family now? I had begun to believe your sister and brother had really begun to accept me, and their spouses, too! This throws it all agley!"

  "If I know them," Gregory said drily, "Magnus's dislikes will have no effect. His pain might, but you are no longer a cause of that."

  "But I am!" Allouette raised her head, staring into his eyes. "He and Alea so clearly care for one another, but he will not admit it even to himself—and why? Because of the hurt I gave him ten years ago!"

  "It cannot be your hurt alone that chains him," Gregory protested. "Besides, what of Alea? Why will she not admit her attraction to him?"

  "There are signs." Allouette's own fears became secondary as she spoke of someone else's. "Even without reading her mind, I can see that she was hurt, and deeply—more than once, or I miss my guess."

  Gregory studied her, frowning. "But they have journeyed together for four years. Would the hurt throttle her for so long?"

  "Oh, yes! So I have no doubt it still troubles your brother." Her eyes brimmed again. "Oh, Gregory, he will poison the others against me, even if he does not mean to do so!"

  "Against us," Gregory said firmly, "and if for no other reason, he will learn to like you for my sake."

  "But if he holds true to his promise to your father, he will become chief of you all and turn Cordelia and Geoffrey away from me!"

  "You and Quicksilver have become the sisters Cordelia never had," Gregory said firmly. "She will not give you up at Magnus's order—nor will he give such orders, for he knows that would set us against him. He may have ruled us when we were children, or thought he did, but he certainly will not now that we are grown."

  "Gregory, the man has immense power, I can feel it! More than he did ten years ago, much more! And he has learned subtlety and manipulation on his travels. I shall not dare to go to court while he is there."

  "Then we shall stay here in our ivory tower." Gregory pressed her closer. "You are certainly world enough for me. What need have I for anything else,
so long as you are by me?"

  Trembling, Allouette lifted her head. "Oh, you and this tower are certainly all I need, too. I have had enough of the world, and I shall let it have no more of me!"

  They gazed into each other's eyes a moment, then kissed. Allouette closed her eyes and let Gregory's embrace be her universe, concentrated on nothing but the feel of his lips, his arms, his hands…

  Hours later, when she was soundly asleep, Gregory rose from their bed and dressed quietly. He left a note assuring her he would be back the next day, only had to attend to a brief errand. Then he went down the spiral stair to the base of the tower and, with several floors between them to absorb the noise, disappeared with a bang of imploding air.

  Evanescent became aware of the sounds around her but lay still a while longer, probing her surroundings with her mind. Satisfied that there was no danger near, she opened her eyes and lifted her head. Stipples of moonlight floored the glade where she had chosen to sleep for the day. She admired the beauty of the scene until her stomach reminded her it was time to hunt. She rose, stretched, then padded out into the glade and stood, mind questing for something edible. Though her visible teeth were those of a carnivore, the molars behind them were adapted for plants. The small people were so very protective of their forest that she decided it might be the course of prudence to seek out some nuts and berries.

  Not that she was afraid of those diminutive beings, of course—well, not much. Her own extrasensory powers were so strong that no single one of them, not even the one who called himself the Puck, would stand much chance against her—no, not even if he drew on the powers of five or six of his fellows.

  The trouble was that he was apt to come with twenty or more.

  No, the course of prudence dictated a vegetable diet for a while—at least, until Evanescent was more certain of the Wee Folks' intentions. She padded in among the trees, night-vision alert for anything that looked edible. Leaves, shrubs, fungi…