Warrior (The Key to Magic) (28 page)

Mar did not smile.  "I see that you've been earnest in your duty.  They will give you three sons and two daughters."

Llylquaendt felt considerable surprise.  Even his portable kit had not been able to tell him that.

"Thank you for the information, good magician.  I take it that you stepped from out a glamour?"

"Yes," Mar replied in a curt tone that Llylquaendt took to mean that the magician would offer no further clarification.

"You seem older than I remember.  My original impression was that you were quite young.  Is that gray I see in your hair?"

"I've seen difficult times."

"Perhaps it's just my faulty memory.  I'm happy that you have come to meet us, for it's saved me many steps, I'm sure, but how is it that you knew we had come?  Did the guards at the gate inform you by some magical means?  Perhaps a
comm
?  You might call the device a
telecommunicator
?"

The magician's cheek twitched minutely.  "No, the monks have those, but we don't.  I saw your arrival through the ether.  Since you've seen me last, I've learned new magics."

"Ah, well and good, I suppose."

Llylquaendt lost his train of thought for a moment as his eyes drifted over a young child peering at them from under a set of wooden stairs leading up to the second storey of a tenement across the way.  The child had wide green eyes and wore a faded dress but seemed healthy and well fed.  It took him a moment or two to gather his focus, but Mar only waited.

"Oh, I beg your pardon.  My mind wanders these days.  I had to come warn you about your bowman, Eishtren.  You mustn't let him break his bow.  The Gheddessii seers have foreseen a great disaster if this occurs.  Also, you mustn't trust your
n'loomq,
your spirit guide.  The Seer did not name this person, but I would imagine that he or she is someone you perceive as a mentor or tutor."

The magician looked unmoved.  "Thank you, Llylquaendt, I'll do what I can."

Having come so far at no mean expense to his own health and time, both quantities of which he had an exceptionally limited supply, Llylquaendt felt a moment of pique at the magician's lack of urgency, but exercised some of the wisdom that he had garnered in a century of existence and let it pass.  It had seemed eminently right and necessary to warn Mar, but it was beyond Llylquaendt's power to see that the warning was followed.

"Is there any chance that you might have need of a
medic?
  I've sojourned with the descendents of my city and, as you said, done my duty to them.  I'd like to see a bit of Khalar and perhaps Mhajhkaei before I return."

"I'm afraid that I'm going to have to decline your offer.  The war has restarted in the east.  Neither Khalar nor Mhajhkaei will be safe and you are too valuable to the Gheddessii for me to place you in danger."

Llylquaendt had not expected this rebuff, but he took it in stride.  "We'll not tarry here then.  I've no desire to see more war.  After I've rested a day or so, we'll return to the tribe."

"I'd recommend that you go out today and camp beyond the walls.  There are some rebel adherents still about."

This was clearly an order.  "I suppose that you're right.  That would be safer."

Mar nodded and then looked, unaccountably, sad.  "I've thought about it a great deal, Llylquaendt, but I've found no way around it.  I'm afraid that I have to repay the kindnesses that you have done me with a curse.  You must have a very long life."

The magician waved his hands in an obviously arcane gesture and Llylquaendt felt an ethereal shock course through him, one that he had not experienced in a great long time but one that was immediately familiar to him.

"That was a
medical
spell!" he gasped out.  "What have you done to me?" 

He fumbled in the pouch at his waist, drew out his kit, and turned the sensor on himself.

"I've removed seventy years from your age," Mar replied in a severe tone, "and reduced the rate at which age will attack your body.  The normal lifespan that you have ahead of you is now very long.  As a sudden transition would've killed you, I've caused the strengthening to take place over a few days."

Llylquaendt read the ethereal vibrations of his kit and saw that indeed changes had been made to his body on a cellular level.

"That's amazing!" he burst out, aghast.  "There were only a handful of highly skilled
physicians
who would even
dare
attempt that sort of spell even in my own time!"

The magician's brooding deepened.  "As I said, I have learned new magics."

"But ... why?  Why me?"

Mar gestured at the intent and glowering Gheddessii women.  "So that you will see your children born and have many more.  The Gheddessii will become a people of great magicians because of you."

"What is wrong, husband?" Myleu demanded in her own tongue, eyeing Mar with suspicion.

Llylquaendt shook his head, partially to clear it of his own confusion, and told her, "Nothing is wrong.  The magician has given me... a blessing, I suppose I should call it."

He looked back at Mar.  "I don't think I understand."

The magician's sadness deepened.  "You will.  I'm sorry, but I have to leave you now.  Good luck, Llylquaendt."

Mar took a step to his right and vanished.

Disturbed and pondering the odd meeting, Llylquaendt told Myleu, "I've finished my business here.  We're going back."

"Back home?"

"Oh, yes, back home."

In the small plaza, it came to him why Mar had seemed
different.
"Myleu, in the Waste, did Mar have two hands and two legs?"

"No, husband."

"He has been playing with time, I think."

Though she clearly did not comprehend his meaning, she did not comment.

At the gate, Ceannaire Abaegwyrd looked surprised.  "That was a quick deal."

"I spoke with the man that I had come to see," Llylquaendt replied.  "There was a misunderstanding.  He's buying horses, not selling."

"Oh, tough break."

About an hour up the highway, a sudden burst of unfamiliar energy made Llylquaendt lengthen his stride and he realized that he felt better than he had in years.

Then, to his utter surprise, he caught himself admiring the way Myleu's backside swayed as she walked ahead of him. 

It had been at least two score years since he had last appreciated the feminine figure in such an
interested
way.

FORTY-TWO

17th Year of the Phaelle’n Ascension, 345th Day of Glorious Work

Year One of the New Age of Magic

(Seventhday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

Assembly field before the Plythtwaelndt Fortress, north of Mhevyr

Whorlyr heard the first covey of Shrikes pass overhead and raised his head and shoulders through the observation hatch.  For a few seconds, he looked with pride upon the host of the Brotherhood.

Currently shrouded with the long shadows cast from the walls of the fortress by the rising sun behind, the algars, as he had taken to calling them, were, one thousand strong, lined up in precise rows of fifty, each fully manned and supplied.  The cargo carriers for each drove were embedded within the formation and the ground crews had all retired back through the gates.  A league to the southwest down a broad, hard-packed gravel road was the Imperial Highway, the artery that would see him race across the entire continent within a fortnight.

When the moving sunlight gleamed off the algars of the first rank, he called down an order to Brother Zsii to send the signal to advance and his creation began to shift into column and trundle down the road in near silence.

Whorlyr's conquest of the world had begun.

FORTY-THREE

The 1645th year of the Glorious Empire of the North

(Seventhday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire)

Plaza of the Empire, Khalar

A file of Mhajhkaeirii marines under the command of a subaltern with a face like a hatchet had come to his home to snarl that the Emperor required his presence and Erskh had practically run all the way to the Plaza of the Empire.

Puffing and sweating, he did not slow until he had climbed up through the hatchways to the main deck of Number One.  He immediately felt hemmed in.  Marines and legionnaires were stationed on guard all along the rails of deck.  Lord Purhlea, Legate Stromhaeldt, the surviving officers of the Guard, and several other Mhajhkaeirii officers stood in a rough semi-circle behind the emperor.  The Grand Commandant realized that the setting had the unmistakable semblance of a military court.

To one side, a scribe sat at a round table working industriously on several documents that were the size of broadsides.  The intent, balding and heavy fellow had a number of pots of colored illustrative inks and a variety of nibs, brushes and pens laid out on a satchel.  From what Erskh could see in a stolen glance, the documents were some type of proclamation, with two columns of compact print and a precise facsimile of the Imperial Seal limned in the upper right corner.

Sitting behind a simple table covered with piles of paper and a few books, the emperor wore his working attire of battered brigandine, simple trousers and boots.  As Erskh covered the last few steps, Mar I scribbled a note on a page and shifted it to his left onto a already tall pile of mismatched sheets and cards.

At two paces, Erskh dropped to his knees so fast that he almost lost his balance and threw up his fist in salute.  "Hail Emperor Mar, King of the Mhajhkaeirii and Khalarii!"

Despite his best efforts, he had not been able to keep the quiver from his voice.

The emperor turned unkind eyes upon him.  "Get up, Grand Commandant."

Erskh rocketed to his feet and fear restricted his throat so much that any platitudes that he might have attempted were choked off.

The emperor turned and beckoned the scribe who rose, gathered up the finished proclamations, sorting as he did so, and crossed to the emperor's table.    Holding the rest in the crook of his arm, the scribe placed the top proclamation in front of the emperor.

Erskh was only an armlength from the table and while he could not make out the print in the columns, he could easily read the upside down grand point majuscules of the name written at the top:  ERHTRYS, MERCHANT HOUSE RHESDIN.

Glancing over the document in a casual fashion as he reached for a pen protruding from an inkpot, the emperor said, "Grand Commandant, in order to prevent future difficulties here in Khalar, I find it necessary to issue warrants of execution that may be enacted by the Viceroy should the need arise."

Fixated, Erskh watched as the emperor scrawled a large, ornate signature at the bottom, sprinkled a pinch of sand from a small box, used a blotter, and then moved the complete proclamation to the side.

"This is an odious task, but I am sure, given recent events, that you can well understand the need for such action."

Erskh unclenched his teeth long enough to say.  "Of course, my lord emperor.  Traitors to the Empire deserve no less."

The scribe put the second warrant in front of the emperor.  The name at the top of this one was MWYRLZHRE, HOUSE OF SER

This time, the emperor only glanced down long enough to sign and lay the warrant aside.

"Choosing the names to append to these warrants has been difficult.  As I cannot know with certainty who I may trust and who I may not, I have had to add persons to the list that may be perfectly innocent."

The third warrant named SEORALYE, TEMPLE OF MIYRA and Erskh found his hands shaking as the emperor dealt it the same fate.

"In the interests of justice, I am however minded to appoint an extraordinary prosecutor to keep watch over persons who are deemed suspect," the emperor told Erskh, not even bothering to look this time as the scribe whisked the third warrant aside and placed the fourth bearing the name LHYT, TRADER IN METALS under his hand.  This he also signed in a careless fashion.

Erskh watch as the fifth warrant landed on the table.  On this one, the spot where the name of the condemned should be was blank.

Erskh watched with unmitigated terror as the emperor's hand dipped the pin in the inkpot, and then moved toward the top of the warrant and stopped, poised just a fingerlength above the paper.

Then, finding a strength that he did not know that he had, Erskh pried his mouth open to speak.  "My lord emperor, it would be my great honor to immediately volunteer for this duty!  I pray you, allow me to devote myself to this service!  I will root out any disloyalty that may linger in Khalar.  I swear this by the names of all the Gods!"

The emperor's hand returned the pen to the inkpot.

FORTY-FOUR

Ready to depart, Number One awaited naught but Mar's command.  Sitting at a table on her main deck with his lap desk and yet another stack of reports, he had only to finish dealing with this final matter.

"You're sure that the old Gheddessii said that his name was Llylquaendt?" Mar asked, looking up from a list that summarized daily activity at the city's gates.  On the page, the name was spelled
Lillekayne,
and the fact that this was neither a common Gheddessii'n forename nor a Khalarii'n one had instantly triggered Mar's curiosity.

"That's right, my lord king, Llylquaendt, just like you say it," the marine ceannaire confirmed.  His routine account had found its way to Mar's attention a day after Llylquaendt had come and gone.

"Very old man?" Mar persisted.  "White hair and very well kempt beard?  About your height?"

"That's him, my lord king.  Looked old enough to be my grandfather's grandfather.  He entered through the gate on our watch, saying that he had horse trading business in the city, but then just a few minutes later he came back and said that they had spoken to the man that they had come to see and that the deal fell through.  The last I saw of them, they were headed west on the highway."