The Wizard of Seattle (23 page)

He had no idea if his fellow males would be any more friendly, but approached the table anyway. He was relieved when the other man rose to his feet with a feint but cordial smile.

“A stranger to Atlantia?”

“Yes,” Merlin answered, reminding himself that the population was small enough to make strangers obvious.

“Not many of us venture into the city,” the other wizard said somewhat wryly. “And the first time tends to be hideously uncomfortable.”

“That is putting it mildly. My name is Merlin.”

“I’m Tremayne. Join me?”

“Thank you.” Merlin sat down across from Tremayne, weighing the other man swiftly. A few years younger than himself, he thought. A couple of inches shorter but well built, with dark hair and gray eyes.
Powerful, but not a Master wizard—though possibly Advanced.

“I’m a virtual stranger here myself,” Tremayne said casually. “I’ve only been in Atlantia a few months—and I don’t mind telling you I’m looking forward to my ship returning to take me back home.”

Merlin hoped his sudden tension didn’t show. “Are you leaving soon?”

“A few weeks. And you?”

“I haven’t decided.” Could Tremayne be the witness who would record the destruction of Atlantis from a ship at sea? “Do ships call here often?”

Tremayne shook his head. “Never by accident, and rarely by design. It’s because there’s no harbor, of course, and the reefs are so treacherous. The captain who gave me passage demanded a king’s ransom and then refused to return for me as quickly as I wanted. If I had known of the ship carrying you, I probably would have requested passage aboard her.”

Merlin smiled. “I’m sorry, I had no idea anyone was so anxious to leave Atlantis, though the captain certainly lost no time in setting sail. He said … this place was cursed.”

“I don’t doubt it. There have been tales for years, and since the skies above Atlantia are often lit with the strange glow of the Curtain, some of those tales have assumed mythic proportions.” He hesitated, then added, “That’s why I’m here, really. Some of the wizards outside this continent are growing concerned by what they hear of Atlantia.”

“And you’ve been asked to report to them?”

“Well, to my father. He’s on the Council of Elders.” Tremayne looked at Merlin curiously. “Are you from Europa?”

Long before the “civilized” world had dubbed the land north of the Mediterranean Sea
Europe
, the worldwide society of wizards had named the area
Europa
. There had been more wizards in that area than anywhere else in the world, though they had certainly not been confined there.

Replying to Tremayne’s question, Merlin said, “No, I
come from a land far to the west. It’s called Seattle. I doubt you’ve heard of it.” Like Serena, Merlin saw no point in not sticking as closely to the truth as possible.

“It isn’t familiar, but I’m afraid I can hardly be termed a world traveler. If my family hadn’t been able to claim a distant kinsman in Atlantia, I wouldn’t have come here.”

“Kinsman?”

Tremayne pointed toward the south and to the very mountain where Merlin and Serena had arrived via the gate. “He has a palace up there. His name is Varian.”

Something in the other man’s tone told Merlin that Tremayne had little love for his relation. Carefully he said, “I was rather surprised to find this society so segregated—male wizards in the mountains and females down here in the valley.”

A bit grim, Tremayne said, “So was I. Of course, there’s always been distrust between male and female wizards, but nothing like this. From what I’ve been able to gather, there were some bloody battles fought here generations ago in a power struggle. The males were stronger and might have won outright, but in the war both sides expended too much unfocused energy—and the Curtain was created from the spillover. You know about that?”

“Yes. I’ve felt its effects.”

“It probably prevented this from becoming a male-dominated society, and made it a segregated one. The males, being more powerful, were able to create and defend strongholds in the mountains, keeping the females down here, where every night saw them weakened and vulnerable.” Tremayne shrugged. “If it hadn’t been for Antonia …”

“Antonia?”

“Yes. She organized the females and built this city.” He nodded toward the northeastern section of the city, where one building rose above those around it. “She lives there, looking down on what she built. They call her Leader.”

“So she’s responsible for the laws that prevail here?” Merlin asked.

“More or less. I’ve never met her—or even seen her, for that matter—but I’m willing to bet she’s probably the most intelligent person in Atlantia. She built this city under the very noses of the male wizards, and not one of them realized what it would mean to them.”

“What did it mean to them?”

“A stalemate. With all the female wizards gathered here in one place, they were able to defend themselves effectively even though they were outnumbered. The males stayed away at night because they didn’t want their own powers diminished by the Curtain. During the day it was hardly safe; the females had a nasty habit of ambushing any male they saw, and Antonia had taught them to concentrate on damaging the males’ most vulnerable area, the groin.”

Merlin winced, but said, “That sounds like a very convincing strategy. I assume the males got the point?”

“Oh, yes. Most of them decided, quite logically, that fighting the females—at least openly—wasn’t worth the risk. They were ahead in the battles, after all, especially since the powerless males of the village had developed the practice of systematically raping and killing so many female wizards at night in the valley.”

“But Sanctuary gave the females a safe place,” Merlin said. “The powerless males didn’t dare scale the walls even at night because they were so outnumbered.”

Tremayne nodded. “So things were relatively calm for some time. But then the male wizards began to realize that Antonia was attempting to correct the unbalanced population. She was encouraging the female wizards to bear children even if they didn’t want to marry, and her laws made it possible for breeding to take place with little threat to the females.”

“Ironic. She built this city to shut out the males, wizard and powerless alike, and then had to admit some of them in order to repopulate. What did the male wizards do?”

“They began breeding like rabbits,” Tremayne said flatly. “Seducing powerless women and taking them to the mountains in a concerted effort to breed more male wizards. They slaughter their female children at birth.”

“Yes, I heard that,” Merlin said. “Monstrous.” Serena’s word, and she’d been right.

“It’s also incredibly shortsighted,” Tremayne pointed out, his expression still grim. “With the female wizards using powerless men, and the male wizards using powerless women, there is almost no marrying or mating of powerless couples. And when they do manage to couple, their unions produce few offspring—probably be cause of the effects of the Curtain. Which means that
their
population is now shrinking.”

Slowly Merlin said, “Eventually there’ll be no powerless people at all in Atlantis. Only wizards.”

“And male and female wizards fear and detest each other far too deeply to mate. There may be a few generations still to be born, but after that …”

Merlin knew only too well that Atlantis would not survive long enough to reach that point, but this new information made the inevitability of their doom even more pitiable.

“Even the land’s being torn apart,” Tremayne muttered as if to himself, his gray eyes lifting to scan the buildings and, beyond Sanctuary’s walls, the mountains. “They tell me the ravines in the valley weren’t there ten years ago, but now a new one opens up every few days. The earthquakes are worse, the plant life is stunted, and most of the animals died out long ago.”

“A dying place.”

Tremayne nodded, his gaze returning to Merlin’s face. “I believe that’s exactly what it is, and I don’t know if anything can prevent the death. I think it may be too late for Atlantia.”

The note of bitterness and helpless rage Merlin heard in the other man’s voice was very close to the emotions evident in the written account of the final hours of Atlantis, and he thought Tremayne was quite probably the author of that narrative. The wizard across the table from him might well be the only survivor of what was to come. But there was no way to be sure.

Before Merlin could respond to what Tremayne had said, the sound of a bell rang out over the city, three tones, clear and sharp.

“Our summons,” Tremayne said, getting to his feet. “Every unmarried male is being called to exit the city.”

Merlin rose, as well, and fell into step with the younger man as they left the cafe and headed down the street. “Are you going to return to your kinsman’s … palace?”

“No, not today. I’ve been looking for someone here in the city, and I think I’ll come in again tomorrow. We are permitted to camp outside the walls as long as it’s within sight of the guards. You’re welcome to share my fire.”

“Thank you, I think I will.”
Was
Tremayne the wizard who would report the destruction here to the Council of Elders? And if so, what could Merlin do to change that report without risking the possibility of making the situation in his time even worse than it already was?

“He’s invited me to visit his kinsman,” Merlin told Serena as they stood a few yards inside the city gates early the next morning. “Apparently Varian is the most powerful male wizard here, a Master.”

She had been briefly introduced to Tremayne when the two wizards had entered the city. Tremayne hadn’t questioned the introduction of Serena as Merlin’s “companion”; though he had been obviously puzzled by the term, he was apparently too courteous to ask awkward questions. He had left the two of them alone, continuing into the city after arranging to meet Merlin later at the cafe where they had been the previous day.

Serena nodded. “Then you should certainly go. We’ll probably learn more if we split up, and there isn’t a lot of time to waste. I’ll be all right here. Roxanne is … very informative.”

Merlin studied her face, wishing it didn’t seem so unresponsive. He could hardly blame her for withdrawing from him, especially after he had confessed that he’d been ordered by the Council to take away her powers, but it hurt nonetheless. She had said she trusted him; didn’t she know he could never deliberately hurt her?
Or had her confidence in him been shaken by what he had told her—and by this place?

Christ, was she afraid of him now?

“I think Tremayne might be the witness,” he told her, keeping his voice matter-of-fact. “There’s no way to be certain, of course, but the more time I spend with him, the better able I’ll be to reach a judgment about that.”

“And then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Serena.
If
Tremayne is the witness, it seems to me that our best chance of changing what will happen to the society of wizards in the future is to somehow change his report to the Council. To convince him that male and female wizards
can
coexist peacefully, that what happened here doesn’t have to happen in the rest of the world.”

Serena gazed up at him, remembering what he had told her yesterday, what he had explained about the society of wizards in their own time.

There have been no females trained as wizards for many long centuries. After what happened here, the more powerful male wizards outside Atlantis destroyed the females in some kind of violent purge. And after that the Council made it our most inviolate law that no woman should be instructed in our arts. Ever. The Council enforces that law with an iron fist. They don’t even remember why, but the very concept of any woman with our abilities terrifies them
.

Them.

Quietly she said, “How can you convince him we can coexist peacefully when you don’t really believe it yourself?”

“Serena, I’ve risked everything I am to change that.” His black eyes were suddenly naked. “Everything. At least give me credit for trying. I’ve been fighting my deepest instincts since I looked across a table one night and saw a woman instead of a child.”

She hadn’t expected him to admit that, and it shook her. “At least now I know why sometimes you’d go all cool and distant. I never knew before. I … I thought there was something wrong with me.”

He lifted a hand as if to touch her, but then must have remembered the laws of Sanctuary. His mouth tightened as his hand fell to his side. “No, there was nothing wrong with you. And I didn’t really know what was wrong with me until I had to face the Council.”

Serena tried to hold her voice steady, but it shook with the intensity of her chaotic emotions. “Knowing what’s wrong doesn’t seem to help very much, does it? I know you’ve never tried to hurt me, but now I know you could if you wanted to. You could destroy me with a simple wave of your hand. And knowing that scares the hell out of me.”

“I would never deliberately hurt you, Serena,” he said. “No matter what happens here, that won’t change. Even if I have to fight the entire Council of Elders, I won’t take your powers.”

“But you could. You have the ability to take from me something I cherish. Something I need to survive. I’d die without my powers. You know that, don’t you?”

A muscle leaped in his jaw as Merlin nodded. “Yes, I know that.”

Serena nodded in turn, her eyes never leaving his. “So how should I feel about that? Frightened? Worried? A hell of a lot more vulnerable than I was yesterday?”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“I want to believe that. But how can I be sure? How can you? You can’t even let yourself trust me. And I know … there’s a part of you that can’t even bear to touch me.”

“Serena—”

She shook her head to cut him off. “Like I said, knowing what’s wrong doesn’t help. You go along with Tremayne and try to convince him. Maybe somewhere along the way you’ll convince yourself.”

He knew she was right in the essence of what she was saying; until they got past the tangle of emotions that came of facing barriers neither of them had created, it simply wasn’t possible to find a solution.