Pathspace: The Space of Paths (41 page)

Aria stared at her. “He didn't want to marry
you?”

“
Actually, he did. But try
to understand. The General had just died, and everyone was looking
for someone to hold it together. Looking to me. If I'd married
Xander, then instead of a Governor or a General, people would think
that some weird magician was running the country. It wouldn't have
worked, dear. We'd have had civil war. The officer's wouldn't have
taken orders from Xander, and probably not from me, either, since
they'd have thought he was pulling my strings like a
puppet.”

Aria was shaking her head, her fists
clenched, but she didn't interrupt, so Kristana went on. “Your fa--
the General, he had been grooming me to take his place, believing
that I could keep the Dream alive. So I did.” She paused. “Xander
settled for being my loyal advisor, and you became a symbol of
hope, a remnant of their beloved General. That's what we decided to
give the people. Hope. It wasn't easy. If you'd been a late birth,
it might not have worked. But you weren't. You came early, just
early enough that we could let everyone think that the Old Man had
been strong enough, even near the end, to father a child.”

“
But it isn't true! It's
all a lie!”

“
Yes. But try for one
moment to think about Rado, instead of your family and your
conscience. What was better for the people who depend on us? The
truth would have helped no one. The lie helped the country go on
without a civil war.”

Aria scowled. “It's still a lie. Don't you
care about the truth? How do you sleep at night? Doesn't it bother
you, lying to your own people?”

Kristana sighed. “More than you know. But I
made my peace with it. It's just another of the sacrifices I've had
to make over the years. Maybe I don't always feel good about it,
but what we avoided would have made me feel even worse. All of the
General's plans, all of his preparations for me to take his
place...it was all for Rado. Try to put yourself in my place. What
would you have done? Told the truth and felt all warm and cozy,
proud of your honesty, watching everything the General built fall
apart in a bloody power struggle?”

She opened her mouth to
shout YES! But then her mind heard the end of her mother's sentence
and she closed her mouth again.
What would I have done,
really?
“But now you're trapped,” she
complained. “After all this time, you still can't tell them, can
you?”

The Governor of Rado frowned. “No,” she
said. “I still can't. Even though we made it through the crisis of
succession, all those years ago, and it makes no difference now, I
still can't tell them. There's always another crisis, like the
Honcho's upcoming invasion, and I can't let everyone be distracted
by feelings of betrayal and outrage.”

“
So that's it? You're
never going to tell the truth about it?”

“
I just did, to you.”
Kristana looked off to one side, remembering. “Oh, yes maybe I can
make a deathbed confession, something like that, for the history
books. After you've taken my place, that is. I can't possibly say
anything until then. We'd have the same problem as before – a civil
war. They're not ready to accept the daughter of a wizard as the
next Governor. But the daughter of a legend, the daughter of the
General, well, that's another thing entirely. His success attached
itself to me, and you'll inherit that mystique. You can keep the
Dream alive.”

“
How do you know I won't
tell them?” A thought struck her. “What about the doctor? Have you
sworn Daniels to secrecy, too? Does anyone else know?”

“
No one else knows, except
Daniels and Xander himself, and we're going to keep it that way.
Daniels won't say anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality is
something he believes in, and he'll keep the secret for us. I had a
conversation with him, a little like this one, years ago. He's
accepted the situation.”

Aria put her face in her hands. A legacy
based on a lie? Was that what she had been raised to take on? How
could she do it?

But the real question, she realized, was:
how could she not?

He walked out of the hospital room,
concealing his bandage under a Stetson. His head still throbbed
when he exerted himself, as he was doing now, climbing the stairs
to the Honcho's offices.

He tried not to think of the cause of it,
that damned Rado wizard who'd snuck up behind him at the
rail-banger station, No time for that now. He would let the rage
simmer out of sight, like a blacksmith's forge banked for the
night, the ash-covered coals lying in wait for another day's work.
The rage would be there when he needed it. He'd teach the bastard
what real pain was.

Martinez was waiting for him with a shot of
bourbon. “How's your head?” the Honcho asked him, after he'd taken
a swig and seated himself in front of the leader's desk. “Ready for
some payback?”

“
What you got in mind?”
Brutus asked, tossing down the rest of his drink. He couldn't see
the point of sipping the stuff, not when its best work was done in
the gut, not the nose.

“
We need to try out the
new motorized weapons in Abilene. By now, Rado knows about them,
but they're counting on us to wait until spring before we
attack.”

“
And you're not going to.”
Brutus allowed himself a smile.

“
Hell no. Not giving them
that long to prepare. If we give them enough time, who knows what
that wizard of theirs might come up with. We're not going to find
out, because we're not waiting. But the boys need some practice,
I'm sure, and with all that we're expecting from them, I think it
would be better to have a seasoned officer in charge.”

He looked at his empty glass. “Not sending
your son?”

The Honcho grimaced. “I need him there too,
and that's another thing we need to talk about. I know you two
don't get along.”

Brutus's face twisted. “That's putting it
mildly. The word I heard is, he wanted to bring me up on charges.
Me! How am I supposed to do my job with him behind me worrying
about every farmer we run into?”

Martinez looked at the bottle, then back at
Brutus. “We both know he's young and full of opinions about how
things should be done. He hasn't seen the things you and I have, so
I won't deny he gets himself worked up about things that don't
bother old soldiers like us.” He paused, as if weighing his words.
“But he's still my son, and someday he'll be sitting at this desk.
I need you to make peace with him, Colonel. Maybe he doesn't know
it yet, but he'll need you when that time comes.”

“
He's a hothead, that one.
What do you expect me to do if he loses his temper and draws his
sword? I know technically he outranks me, but
even
so,
I can't let him push me around too much
in front of the troops. You know that. Bad for
discipline.”

Martinez sighed and poured them both another
glass of the bourbon. “No one said it was going to be easy,” he
said, after they both swallowed. “You're my best field
commander...but he's my only son. I need you you to make it work. I
don't expect you two to be friends, but I can't have you fighting
in front of the troops. No good will come of it. Keep the
peace.”

“
How?”

Here the Honcho shrugged. “Distract him. He
thinks the two of us are obsolete, so let him play with something
that isn't. Put him in charge of one of the tank crews. That should
give him plenty to learn and focus on.”

Brutus finished the second glass. “It
might,” he granted.

“
It has to, for now. Once
the invasion starts, he'll have enough to keep him busy. Let him
get a couple of real battles under his belt, and you two might not
be so far apart in viewpoints any more. War has a way of putting
personal squabbles in perspective, once the arrows start
flying.”

Brutus set his glass down. “I won't be the
one to start trouble,” he said. “I can be in Abilene in two days,
unless you need me to really push the horses.”

“
That's fine. There's no
rush, yet. And I'll be having a talk with Jeffrey before you leave,
Colonel. I'll make it clear to him that you're in charge of the
men. His job will be to learn how to use the new weapons, so he can
pass it on to the junior officers.”

“
What do you want us to do
with 'em?”

Peter appeared to relax, now that they could
talk soldiering and not personal shit. His finger came down on a
spot on the map on his desk, and Brutus leaned forward to get a
better look.

“
This town's abandoned,
but most of the buildings are still standing. You'll be using them
for target practice. Leave nothing standing.”

Brutus frowned. “One of our own towns?
Shouldn't we head over the border into Zona and take out one of
theirs, instead?”

“
No.” The Honcho's voice
was flat. “Rado's first on the list. And I don't want anyone but
our own troops knowing what we can do, until we do it. Zona can
wait.”

“
What if squatters have
moved into the abandoned buildings? “

The Honcho met his gaze. “Then too bad for
them. If they're not willing to move, don't let them keep you from
doing your job. Flatten it...and don't leave any witnesses that
could talk to Rado spies.”

Panting, he stroked the new everflame down,
extinguishing the glowing point of blue, and tossed the metal disk
into the box beside him. With a ringing SNAP a hammer came down
behind him, cutting out another disk from the unhardened iron
plate, whose surface was holed like a slice of cheese. Resting his
weight on the table for a moment, the old wizard reached out
blindly and snatched up another of the iron disks. He had no idea
if it was the one just cut or one of its predecessors. No matter.
He slapped it on the table and took another breath, trying to fight
off a wave of dizziness as he strove to weave the pattern he
needed.

Sweat ran down into his eyes, the salt
stinging them. He blinked and drew a sleeve cuff across his face.
He had stopped bothering to count the everflames he was making.
There was no point. If there were any extras, they could help heat
homes in the winter to come.

Lester's face swam into focus. “You'd better
take a break, old man, before you fall down.”

Xander tried to laugh and coughed. “Think I
can't keep up with you?”

“
What I think,” his
apprentice said, “is that you will be no good to us if you pass out
now.”

Xander stood up, holding onto the edge of
the table. “Unless you've learned how to make everflames, I'm the
only one who can do this.”

“
Then take some time and
show me how.”

“
You're not ready. You're
getting good with pathspace, sure. But making an everflame requires
you to manipulate
tonespace
, and we
don't have time for you to stop what you're doing and spend time
learning that now.” Xander let go of the table and straightened.
“Once we stop the invasion, you can consider starting on spinspace.
Tonespace comes after that.”

He could see Lester wasn't
happy with his advice. The colt wanted to be a stallion. Xander
tried to remember what it was like being so young. Had he been that
impatient? Well, not quite...but that was because, back then, he
had no one to be impatient with.
You should be glad you
have me to help you learn this stuff. I had nobody. Takes a lot
longer when you have to figure it out all on your own.

Still, he had to give the
kid credit. His pathspace manipulation was really coming along
now.
He's gone from weaving invisibility to sculpting a
swizzle on his own, a lot quicker than I did. Am I jealous of his
quickness?

“
Look, I know you/re
learning fast,and you want to know it all. And I want you to. I
want to teach you all I've learned.” He paused. “If we live through
this, I mean. If we do, you're going to learn things I've never
mastered, never even heard of. But to get to that point, you'll
have to survive. And not just you. People are depending on us to
make a difference.”

Lester sighed. “Tell me something I don't
know.”

“
Oh, I'll tell you lots of
things you don't know. But first you have to help
prepare.”

“
Well, I'm all out of pipe
for swizzles. What now, O wizard?”

“
I've got another idea.
How good is your invisibility weave?”

“
Pretty good. But I have
to keep re-weaving it if I move around, or I step into
view.”

Xander led him to a corner of the smithy
where the smith had stacks of metal plate as tall as a man. An
apprentice smith was striking one with measured, patients hammer
blows, curving the metal like a section of a cylinder, or a
drinking glass, so that the plate could stand on its own.

“
What are those
for?”

Xander ran his fingertips along the edge of
one. “Shields. Henry, these need handles.”

The apprentice smith with the hammer stopped
hammering. “Yes, you said that before,” he grunted. “I figured it
would be more efficient to curve the metal first, then cut the eye
slits and rivet the handles on 'em last.”

“
Wouldn't wooden shields
be a lot lighter?” asked Lester. “You could make them thick enough
to stop arrows and crossbow bolts without making something so heavy
for the troops to carry around.”