The Warlock's Last Ride Read online

  "Road companion too, if Gregory's report holds true." The little man sat down opposite her. "I am Brom O'Berin, long a friend of this family."

  "I am honored, sir."

  "I, too." But Brom looked down at the sleeping woman, and his face creased in lines of guilt. "My fault," he muttered.

  Alea frowned. "How can that be?"

  Brom glanced at her in irritation. "Because her whole life is my fault!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Now Alea did stare at him, remembering all Magnus had said about his mother—only a sentence here and there, but Alea had remembered them all and put them together. "If that is so," she said slowly, "she must also thank you for a very happy life and four wonderful children."

  The little man stared at her, amazed, then slowly nodded. "There is truth in that—and aye, I may have had something to do with her meeting a good man. Who charmed your tongue, damsel?"

  Alea blushed and looked down at Gwen. "It must have been you, sir, for left to myself I am sharp-tongued and shrewish."

  "A shrew who digs toward the truth, then."

  The door opened again, and they looked up to see Rod coming into the room. He gave her a reassuring smile and Brom a bob of his head; the little man stood, leaving the chair for him. With a nod of thanks, Rod sat opposite Alea, taking Gwen's other hand. "Thank you for watching, damsel."

  "My pleasure." Alea caught her breath at the irony of the word.

  Rod smiled, seeming to understand. "A pity you couldn't have come a few years ago—but you were just meeting Magnus then, weren't you?"

  Alea nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  Rod glanced at her keenly. "How long since you've slept?"

  "Oh…" Alea counted backward in her head. "Eighteen hours."

  "Better find a bedroom," Rod advised, then when she started to object, "We may need you later. I can't watch her the clock around by myself."

  Flattered, Alea relinquished Gwen's hand. "Good night to you, then."

  "And to you." Rod's smile was far warmer than a stranger should see. "See if you can get that big lug in the hall to lie down, too."

  Alea couldn't help smiling. "He usually recognizes good advice."

  "Gets that from his mother." Rod nodded sagely. "Sleep well."

  "And you, sir." Alea turned away.

  The dwarf laid a fatherly hand on Rod's shoulder. "Be of stout heart, lad. Her life has been good because of you."

  Rod stared at him, then smiled sadly. "Wish I could be sure of that."

  "You have always been slow to believe truth."

  "Only when it comes to myself," Rod said, "but thanks, Brom."

  "It is your due," the little man said, and turned to go with Alea. "If you begin to doze off, lad, call for another to watch in your stead."

  Rod's voice stopped Alea at the door. "Damsel, by what name does my son call himself when he's planetside?"

  "That depends on whether or not he thinks he's made a mistake," Alea answered. "Why? Did you change your name for each mission?"

  Rod nodded. "I always tried to fit in with the local culture—that's why I chose the name 'Gallowglass' when I landed here." He smiled. "Never thought I'd use it for the rest of my life. What's Magnus's nom de guerre?"

  "Gar Pike," she answered.

  Rod gazed at her a moment, then nodded. "Appropriate."

  Somehow, Alea knew he wasn't thinking of the fish. "His real name… it is d'Armand?"

  "No, that's my real name." Rod still smiled. "His is 'Gallowglass.' Does he go by 'd'Armand' now?"

  "Only if I press him."

  "Do that more often," Rod advised. "Good night."

  Alea stepped through the door, closed it softly behind her—and stared as the dwarf went over to Magnus, patting his hand and murmuring in a reassuring tone. Then Alea realized she was being rude and transferred her gaze to the young giant.

  He looked up with a grave smile. "Your Majesty, this is Alea, my companion."

  "We have met," the little man told Magnus.

  Magnus nodded as though that made no difference. "Alea, this is Brom O'Berin, King of the Elves—and my grandfather."

  The dwarf's head snapped back. "How didst thou know!"

  "We figured it out before I was twelve," Magnus told him, amused.

  "The Puck told you!"

  "No, but he didn't deny it when we asked him." Magnus shrugged. "It made sense. Why else would you have visited so often? Especially on holidays…"

  "Never tell thy mother!"

  Magnus's smile faltered. "Wrong phrase just now, Your Majesty. Besides, she figured it out long ago."

  Brom stared, amazed. "How many years?"

  "I think it had something to do with the look on your face the first time you saw me," Magnus said.

  "You were only twenty minutes old then!"

  "Yes, but I saw the way you looked at Gregory when he was born, and I can imagine how much stronger it was the first time."

  The conversation had allowed Alea time enough to recover from the shock. She curtsied as she said, "I am honored to meet Your Majesty."

  "Most excellently done," Brom said with approval, "and you must never do it again, for no mortals know me by that title—save those in this house, of course. To all others, I am only the queen's jester."

  Now Alea did let herself stare. "Jester? But how…"

  "Actually, they all know he's her privy counselor," Magnus explained, and turned back to Brom. "I don't think anyone has thought of you as a jester for thirty years."

  Now Alea began to understand why Brom had thought his daughter's death was his fault. After all, he bore at least half the responsibility for her being alive in the first place, and if she hadn't lived, she wouldn't now be dying, would she?

  Pure sophistry, of course. She wondered why a king would desire to take so much blame on himself, especially one who was king of elves—then realized that every good king had accepted responsibility for all his people's welfare, all his life. "It seems, Your Majesty," she said slowly, "that I must thank you for my life, too, and certainly thank you for saving it from ruin."

  Brom stared, taken aback. "Why, how is that?"

  "Because this young man wouldn't be alive without you." Alea nodded at Magnus. "He's the one who saved me when I was running for my life, fed me and taught me to fight and to read, and took me along to visit half a dozen new worlds."

  Brom relaxed and looked Magnus up and down with approval. "You have done well, lad."

  "Very well indeed," Magnus agreed, "for she has saved my life at least once on each of those worlds, not to mention the one on which she was born."

  "Oh, I didn't save you there!"

  "I seem to remember a pack of wild dogs, and the two of us standing back to back with our quarterstaves whirling…"

  "Oh, that." Alea dismissed it with a wave. "He also realized I was a latent telepath, Majesty, and taught me how to use my talent—or at least, he has made a good beginning."

  Brom stared at her, eyes glazing for a moment, and Alea felt his own thoughts brushing hers. Before she could object, the touch was gone and Brom was nodding. "Only a beginning indeed. This young woman can learn very much, Magnus."

  "Then I have brought her to the right school," Magnus said with a smile.

  "You have, and I will leave you to your lessons." Brom turned back to Alea. "He has not slept in thirty hours, has he?"

  "Only in fits and starts," Alea admitted.

  "On tenterhooks hoping you would not come too late?" Brom gave Magnus a penetrating glance. "Well, now you know you are here in time. Sleep, lad, and be sure we'll wake you if there is danger."

  Magnus bowed his head gravely. "I thank Your Majesty."

  Brom gave him a curt nod in reply and turned away, striding down the hall. Alea thought she heard him grumble, "Majesty, forsooth!!" before he turned a corner and was gone from sight.

  Alone with Magnus, she couldn't keep the exhaustion from showing. "Have I a chamber of my own, Gar? I admit to feeli
ng rather weary."

  "Of course." Magnus offered his arm and led her to the end of the hall. "This is only a cottage, though a rather large one. At the castle, you would have your own suite, but here there's scarcely room. Don't worry, I'll sleep in the parlor."

  It won't worry me if you don't, Alea thought in exasperation, then caught herself in horror. But it disappeared in an instant, for she noticed that Gar's arm was like wood, so tight was his self-control. Yes, definitely she needed to close a door between him and the rest of the world.

  At the end of the hall, Magnus led Alea into a slope-ceilinged room with a narrow bed, a table and chair, and a wardrobe. The tapestries hiding one wall depicted knights in battle; another showed a scholar at his books, while behind him, the wall faded away into a view of an enchanted realm in which unicorns grazed and Pegasus flew. A third tapestry showed the ornate, powdery pinwheel of a spiral galaxy. She turned slowly, staring at the decorations, then realized that the hairbrush on the dresser was only a rectangle of wood, though polished and waxed. "This is the room where you grew up?"

  "Until I was a teenager and we moved to the castle, yes."

  Well, that explained why there was no crudely-drawn portrait of a pretty girl—though the presence of younger brothers and a sister who would surely have delighted in teasing might have explained it well enough.

  With relief, Alea detached herself from Gar's arm and closed the door behind her.

  Gar sank into one of the chairs and went limp.

  Alea repressed the urge to kneel at his side and give what comfort she could; she knew that would only snap him back into his shell of self-control. Instead, she moved to the foot of the bed and sat opposite him, glad that the room was so small as to keep her near him. "It isn't just the lack of sleep."

  "No," Magnus admitted. "It's all a bit of a shock, seeing my mother and father so much older, my little brothers and sister complete adults, and married… and Cordelia a mother, even…" His voice trailed off; he leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

  He had never let that much weakness show in her presence—nor, she suspected, in anyone else's. More, she could feel him reaching out to her for reassurance, even the simple comfort of knowing he didn't have to face this ordeal alone.

  It shocked her, though it only confirmed what she had known all along—well, after their first month of journeying together: that Magnus was only human, that he wasn't really a man of iron with no emotional needs, but a man who had locked himself into an iron shell—and that shell had cracked open now. Careful, she warned herself. An angry word, even a hint of mockery, and that shell would slam closed so tightly that she'd never be able to pry it open again. She didn't ask herself why she didn't want that—she only said, "I know it feels as though you're standing on the brink of an abyss, Gar—but you're not, really."

  "Is that how you felt when your mother lay dying?" His eyes opened again.

  Alea remembered that horrible day and shuddered. "That, and worse. But there was my father, that strong man so thoroughly terrified by the thought of losing her, so I had to hold myself together to be there for him."

  "Yes." Magnus's eyes softened with compassion, and she knew he was thinking how horrified she must have been a few months later, when her father had died, too. "Yes, a grief-stricken parent is a lifeline for the daughter, isn't he? Or the son."

  "We're not completely alone, no." Alea glanced at the door with a rueful smile. "Not that you would be in any event, with three siblings to keep you company." She started to mention their spouses, then remembered that one of them had been the cause of his leaving Gramarye, and stopped.

  "Yes." Magnus followed her gaze. "It's odd to see them grown—but odder still to feel they're so much younger than I."

  "Well, you have had a bit wider experience."

  "Yes, but I can't say it's all that much more than they've had." Magnus shrugged. "Who knows what they've been going through?"

  "I thought Gregory kept you abreast of the news."

  "Yes, when he could establish a mind-link—an hour or so three or four times a year, if I was lucky. He let me know everything he thought important—but how much happened that he thought too minor to mention? Now here he is, no longer the teenager I've been seeing in my mind's eye— never mind that I knew he must have grown; that's how I remembered him."

  Alea nodded. "It must be quite a shock to see him a young man now."

  "Twenty-four—and that's quite mature in a medieval society."

  "Yes, I know," Alea said drily.

  Magnus frowned, suddenly aware of her needs again. "That's right, you were that age when we met, weren't you?"

  Alea could have cursed; she wanted Magnus talking about himself for a change. "No, somewhat older. I was twenty-six—your sister's age, now, isn't it?"

  "No, if I'm thirty, Cordelia is twenty-eight," Magnus said.

  Alea breathed a sigh of relief that the topic had shifted back to his family. "Then Geoffrey is twenty-six."

  "Yes, and it makes me feel positively ancient."

  "An old man at thirty, eh?"

  She was rewarded with his old sardonic smile. "Yes, a doddering antique." Then his face clouded. "I should have been here to help, been here to insist Mama go to a hospital while there was still time!"

  Alea frowned. "You don't know that much about medicine, do you?"

  His face twisted, and his eyes hardened with the most intense anger she had ever seen in him. Frightened, she braced herself for a fight—but the anger faded as quickly as it had come, and Magnus bowed his head. "No, I've never been interested in more than a few field cures. Certainly I wouldn't have known what to do about such an exotic disease—and Papa told me that it seemed nothing but fatigue, at first…" His voice trailed off.

  Alea waited, still shaken by his moment's anger but resolved to show the same patience that he had shown so often with her—though surely her anger could have been nothing like his own!

  Could it?

  She pushed the thought away and asked, "Why did you leave home, anyway?"

  "To become my own man." Magnus raised his head, looking into her eyes again. The intensity returned, but now imploring her understanding.

  "My father's very important here, you see," Magnus said, "the most prominent man in the kingdom after King Tuan, and my mother's perhaps even more important. It's hard to think much of yourself with them towering over you. I had to go away where no one knew me, didn't even know my name, and find what my own talents were, test my abilities, find out how much I could do by myself, without their having paved the way for me."

  "And you couldn't do that here, where everyone knew who you were," Alea said slowly.

  "Two feet taller than most men? I am rather hard to miss," Magnus said sourly. "So I went home to Maxima, the asteroid where my father was raised, to meet the relatives and find out what kind of people I'd come from."

  "They must have been delighted to meet a kinsman they'd thought lost."

  "No, they were afraid I'd come to claim part of the estate as inheritance," Magnus said sourly. "When they found out I hadn't, they gave me Herkimer out of guilt. I found the nearest red-light district then and went on a binge. I woke up in jail, then blundered my way into the very organization that my father belongs to."

  Alea's breath hissed in. "Out of the frying pan… No, wait! That gave you the chance to find out how important he was off-planet!"

  "Yes, it did—and he turned out to be one of their heroes." Magnus shook his head ruefully. "But I went along with it, absorbed their training, went out on a mission—and found I couldn't accept their trying to subvert the planet's government into their own form of democracy, whether or not it was right for the people there."

  Alea lifted her head. "So you decided to go free people from bondage, but to help them develop whatever form of government was right for them."

  Magnus nodded. "I've become fairly good at it, too, though I haven't become famous, the way my father had when he was
n't much older than I."

  "No, you haven't." Alea smiled. "If you became famous, that would mean you'd failed, wouldn't it?"

  CHAPTER SIX

  Magnus stared at her a minute, then broke into a genuine smile. "You're right. I am a secret agent, aren't I? And a secret agent who's no longer secret, isn't much use."

  "No, he isn't." Alea shared his smile. "But you have built an amazing record—nine planets having developed stable governments of their own—governments that guarantee human rights."

  "Well, eight," Magnus said. "You can't count Oldeira, after all."

  "No—theirs wasn't our doing," Alea admitted. "A secret government is still a government, and it even guaranteed their rights. So you'll have to settle for having reformed eight worlds so far."

  "Eight worlds—eight revolutions." Magnus nodded. "I suppose that's not such a bad record after all."

  "Nearly superhuman, if you ask me," Alea said. "I see what you mean about becoming your own man. You've done different work than your father did, but done it just as well."

  "Thank you." Magnus bowed his head, acknowledging the compliment—and annoying Alea by his return to formality. It helped that he gave her his sardonic smile again. "Of course, my father was intent on turning every planet onto the path toward democracy, and each of the eight I've touched is developing its own local variation of democratic government."

  "Yes, well, you've only succeeded in finding out that any government that guarantees civil rights is going to develop some way for its people to govern themselves," Alea said. "No, all in all, I'd say you've done quite well with your time away from home."

  "It does seem to have served the purpose," Magnus admitted.

  "But not for your brothers and sister," Alea said, frowning. "Hasn't your absence given them the same problem, left them in your parents' shadows?"

  "One shadow." Magnus raised a forefinger. "My parents work so closely together that I've never been sure whether Papa was only successful because he had Mama behind him, or whether she wouldn't have made any difference to this land at all if he hadn't inspired her."