Kingdom Of Argylle - A Sorcerer And A Gentleman Part 19

'Efiza&etfi Sorcerer and a (jent&man 177.

and he felt the rippling approach of Prospero's whirlwind. He was nearly to the first break; he would be vulnerable as he carried the plough over it, not digging, and so he tried to hurry the horse, so as to be past when the wind struck. The whirlwind st.i.tched and kinked, delaying; was Prospero controlling it from wherever he was? Dewar came to the pole; the whirlwind's roar was behind him, approaching swiftly, and the sorcerer jerked the ploughshare out of the ground and walked slowly forward.

The storm hit with a pummelling wind. Dewar screwed his eyes shut. The horse stumbled and caught his footing. The plough was pushed toward the ground; Dewar held it higher and pressed on, feeling the line of the Well's Fire burning from the center of his Bounds outward (the spell now suspended between his plough and the point where it had left the ground), drawing more power from the Well than before, and chanting still as the power built up and then shot into the whirlwind.

A rus.h.i.+ng implosion shook the plough in Dewar's hands. The whirlwind was gone; moreover, the rain had stopped. Panting, feeling hollow and light-headed, he arrived on the other side of the gap and dropped the plough to the ground again.

There came no further overt opposition. He had been tested and had pa.s.sed. Prospero had learned that he was facing a sorcerer, not a fool trying to plough a Bound without knowing what he did. They would meet again, later. Dewar wrestled the plough through the half-frozen earth, feeling the ground part before the bite of the blade, and pressed on, his mouth automatically continuing the Summoning chant, his hands beginning to bleed from the chafing.

He had never forged such a large Boundary before. Protecting the city Lys from Sa.r.s.emar had been far less difficult, because of Lunete; of Lys blood, a virgin, and the mistress of the city, she had gone around the ancient, weakened Bounds with him, dragging a half-peeled green staff on the gra.s.s, and that had been all: a festive occasion, a procession with flowers and drums and afterward a picnic and dancing.

Dewar had had to do nothing strenuous, and neither had blus.h.i.+ng Lunete, for the fortuitous combination of innocence and power in her person had made for a textbook-perfect Bounding. In this weather-blasted waste, fighting Prospero's wind, battered by bushes and stones, he seemed to be taking forever to reach the third gap, and then he must go even further to reach the end, the last pole.

The sorcerer was stumbling and the horse was barely lifting his hooves by the time he lifted the plough and set it back in the center of the first gap he had made, which now let on a causeway through the ditch-and-dike thrown up by the plough.

Dewar leaned on the plough's handles with his forearms, his knees locked, his back aching wretchedly, and hoped that someone would have the decency to bring him wine. The temperature was falling. He could feel the air drying, a different kind of weather blowing in.

"I am knackered," he told Herne's horse. The horse had halted when Dewar did, his head hanging wearily downward, his back probably aching as much as the sorcerer's. Dewar began picking splinters out of his hands.

"Dewar!" someone yelled, and he nodded, not wanting to turn and look. Ottaviano shouted again; hoofbeats pounded nearer.

"Lord Dewar," said the Prince Marshal, dismounting.

"How do you like it?" Dewar asked, pus.h.i.+ng himself up, his spine creaking.

"Well done," Gaston said. "It is nightfall, nearly."

"Of course," Dewar said. "You must bury the plough here. Here. Tonight. Midnight. Don't forget."

He and Gaston stood eye-to-eye for a minute. "The rope?" Gaston asked.

Dewar half-laughed, a sharp sound, and jerked the rope sharply. Ashes blew away on the breeze.

Ottaviano galloped up now, and Herne on Dewar's horse, and Golias. Dewar gazed at Gaston, noticing with his Well-sharpened vision that Gaston was illuminated from within, that flame streamed in his every gesture. "Forgive my lack of conversation," Dewar said. "I am imminently 178.

'ECizaftetfi asleep. Good sorcery is pleasantly tiring."

"Like s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, eh?" Herne said. Otto guffawed, throwing Dewar's cloak around his shoulders as Dewar's eyes closed.

"Sorcery's better," Dewar mumbled, and sighed, and slept, still standing balanced.

"Well," said Gaston. He had not expected such exhaustion; Panurgus had never seemed wearied by sorcery- rather, invigorated, rejuvenated-on the few occasions when Gaston had seen his father ply the Art.

"Leave him there," muttered Golias. Herne was grumbling about his heaving horse.

"Baron, do thou bide here with him," Gaston said, "and I'll send a litter. Let us move him aside until there is a tent for him. Hath done as honest a day's work as any man in the Empire today." And he took off his cloak, and they tipped Dewar into it gently to carry him slung in it, and he stirred as much as a log might.

All night, unearthly lights played up and down, earth to stars and higher, at the edge of the Bounds Dewar had made. Gaston stood and watched a long time, and he saw that the lights were made by shapeless dark things from Prospero's direction striking the Bounds and immolating themselves on Dewar's defenses.

"For the nonce are we more evenly matched," the Fire-duke whispered to the faraway sparks of Prospero's camp-fires. "Let us see what cometh now."

16.PRINCE PROSPERO STOOD TO RECEIVE HIS gUCSt.

Ariel's arrival made the flames in all the candles flatten and gutter; the door swung open and the cloak-tangled man stumbled in.

"Here he is, Master," said Ariel triumphantly.

"Well done, Ariel. Tis all for now."

"Shall I go and-"

Sorcerer and a gentleman 179.

"Aye, do that. I'll Summon thee later."

Ariel left with a gust and a bang of the door.

"A Sylph," said the windblown man, shaking himself out of the blue-green wool, turning to watch Ariel go.

"Aye," Prospero said.

"And powerful."

"Aye."

He ran his hands through his hair, and looked at Prospero. "I find myself fairly ba . . ." His voice trailed away, and he stared at Prospero.

Prospero regarded him steadily. Now that he saw this fellow face-to-face, in the same room by the still-trembling light of the candles, now that he traced the line of brow and nose and jaw with his own eye directly, there was something to him Prospero knew he knew.

The young man closed his eyes and shook his head as if dizzy.

He looked at Prospero again with a new expression of wonderment.

"It was you," he said. The dream-memory, brief and intense, ringing with the clarity of a true experience, flickered through his mind.

"Was't?" Prospero blinked, feeling the Well purl and catch at him.

"You. Your tomb. Strange custom they have here."

"Barbaric. I'd Hever be composted in a mushroom farm than trapped in one of yon ego-fattening marble mausolea. What of my tomb?"

The other was surprised. "Do you not remember the geas?"

Prospero caught at the Well, which, he recognized, knit the two of them together in an ancient pattern. "A geas." He moved closer to the man, studying his face in the calmed candlelight for a clue, and found it in his remarkable eyes. But once before he'd seen such eyes, their intense color matched by their intense intelligence; he had seen them in a dream, a portentous dream on an important day, the memory now dredged from its bed beneath the sediment of intervening years. Yes, they had met after a fas.h.i.+on. "Aye. The ISO.

Itfttey geas," he repeated. "Other things too," he muttered, stilt studying the younger man's face. "I do remember. Indeed. Come sit down.'1 "Why did you lay that geas on me?"

"I desired to know why 'twas I should have seen thee in my dreaming, and I guessed that we were bound one day to meet: thus I wished to know thee. For such visions are never insignificant. Now. I trust Ariel did not drag thee through ditches nor drown thee in streams?"

"Not at all. Not at all." Slowly, Dewar sat down. The geas was strong. It rose in his throat and seized him, and before he could halt himself he stood, bowing, and said, "Dewar." He sat again, fighting down the compulsion to say more. Some of the geas-pressure was gone; the rest could be put off.

"I am pleased to know thee, Dewar. I'm Prospero. Allow me to offer thee some of this port. Art hungry?" He poured, the deep-faceted decanter sparkling in his hand; the goblets were transparent frail crystal too, made solid by the golden port they held.

Dewar shrugged noncommittaHy, but accepted a goblet, and Prospero laughed gently and rose. He pulled a bell-cord and returned to his chair.

"I-" began Dewar, the word exploding from him, and Prospero held up his hand with a piercing look.

"Not yet. Let us savor this moment. There is no knowing, for me or thee, what cogs thy geas's release will set a-mov-ing. Let us enjoy a moment of peace."

Dewar nodded, self-commanded again after the surge of the geas. His thoughts wheeled away from the past; he spoke without thinking, simply to speak and distract himself. "A strange thing from a man who has taken Landuc to war."

Prospero snorted. "I suppose. I am old enough to contradict myself when't please me." He tasted his port. Dewar did the same. It was very fine stuff.

"Good," Dewar murmured, his mouth warming and the rest of him beginning to thaw.

Sorcerer and a Cjentteman 181.

"I daresay even Gaston would agree with thee. How fares he."

"I daresay you know, but he's well." Dewar found that he didn't mind Prospero's speaking down to him, and he thought it was for the same reasons he never minded Gas-ton: the men were ancient of days, wiser than Dewar, and superior to most everyone alive. And they were both courteous otherwise.

"Uninjured."

"Not lately. No-pardon, he took an arrow in the knee joint of his armor. Twelve days ago."

"Ah. I hope he's up and about." Prospero was smiling.

"Well, naturally."

"Naturally," chuckled Prospero, and his smile faded. "I would like to spend another afternoon with Gaston and his palate," he said, "one such as we had long ago, going through the wine cellars, tasting-never mind. Such mawk-ishness will kill me someday."

"Not if you guard against it."

"That's a young man's notion," Prospero said, eyeing him. "A man who believes he commands himself and the world around him to whatever degree he cares to do so."

Dewar flushed and set down the port.

"Thy work hath made an impression on me," Prospero went on.

"Thank you."

"I will further flatter thee by telling thee I cannot fathom how thou'rt contriving much oft."

Dewar smiled, pleased though knowing the blandishment for what it was. "That's good to hear."

Prospero looked at his guest, who had leaned back in his chair slightly now, relaxing, comfortable. "May I ask a professional question?"

"I may not answer."

"Of course. I've wondered what thy fee might be."

Dewar began to speak and stopped, appearing embarra.s.sed-at least, he looked away, at the tapestry of the 182.

'Elizabeth laughing girls with their garlands of flowers held high. "I'd rather not say."

"Thy pardon for asking. Avril in the past hath refused absolutely to barter with sorcerers in any way, as thou'rt doubtless aware."

Dewar nodded. "He expressed a vehement dislike of me on principle-"

Prospero snorted.

"-I'm told. Of course he might have personal reasons for that," and Dewar grinned mischievously, for although the Emperor might have personal reasons to dislike Dewar, the Emperor himself could not be aware of them. "No telling. Is he sane?"

"Avril?"

"The Emperor. Avril."

"Why, I know not. An thou hast doubts, perhaps not. I've never seen more than cold self-interested reason in his deeds: could call it sanity. On t'other hand, many of his habits could be considered symptoms of madness, the madness of the over-focused mind that seeth but one purpose. Ask Gaston. He'll answer thee or not."

"He is good that way."

"Aye. He never lies. He'll tell thee naught-sin of omission-but he'll never utter untruth. He's the last honorable man in Landuc."

"You have been away. Perhaps there are new ones."

The door opened and a shuffling, brown-robed and hooded servant entered pus.h.i.+ng a serving-cart of covered dishes. Dewar glimpsed a long-was it furred?-nose within the cowl, and the hands that rested on the cart's handle were short-knuckled, oddly twisted, and grey. His host was de-monstrably a gentleman, and a dangerous sorcerer nonethe-less "Thank you, Ulf. Twill be all."

The servant bowed wordlessly and shuffled out.

Dewar shuddered, and his geas twisted again in his throat as half-drowned memories of other such creatures rose to perturb his mood. Aie ... the geas pressed upon him; Aie Sorcerer and a (jentkman 183.

oppressed him, suddenly close. He drew his breath in sharply.

"Cold?"

Dewar mastered himself. "No. The fire is very pleasant."

"Winter . . ." murmured Prospero, uncovering dishes, rising and setting them on the table between them. "Nay, thou'rt my guest, sir; permit me. The lavabo's through there," he added, "shouldst thou care to recover thyself from Ariel's attentions to thy person."

"Thank you, yes." Dewar went through the indicated door; there was a chill, dark-paneled hallway with doors in the paneling to either side and another door, ajar, at the end. The lights were yellowish candles in reflective sconces shaped sensually like flowers, the candles glowing stamens emerging from the half-wrapped cones of the petals.

Prospero laid out the meal and added wood to the fire. He stood at the flames, watching the new logs catch and burn.

Dewar joined him there a few minutes later. Prospero glanced at him sidelong, and an odd feeling gripped him: antic.i.p.ation, excited dread. This young man was barely a finger's-breadth shorter than Prospero himself, and the haze of power around him was intoxicating. Prospero again felt the thrill of recognition, bone-deep, as if he had known Dewar for years and had but awaited him. Was it his death he saw here, blue-eyed and fair to behold?

Dewar looked from the flames to Prospero inquiringly. In that moment of preoccupation, the geas rose up to claim him. He swallowed, teeth clenched, seizing control of his throat again. He would not let it rule him.

"Let us dine," Prospero suggested.