The Magician of Hoad (31 page)

“It’s happiness,” he said aloud, and looked with astonishment at Cayley, hunched in beside the bunk in which he lay. She looked back at him curiously. “I’m not just interested. I’m happy—truly happy!” he exclaimed incredulously.

“Good on you,” she said. “Now me—I don’t know if I’ve ever been that… well, not since I was learning to walk… I was happy back then, I think. But at times I do feel relief. Ease. A sort of sunny ease! I feel it now. For a while. It won’t last, but I’ll enjoy it while I can.”

“Why won’t it last?” Heriot asked curiously.

“I’ve told you. There’s this thing I have to do,” she replied. “Just the one thing, but it’s like a commandment coming out of me… out of my heart. Out of my head. It was laid on me back when I was a child, and by now it’s worked right into me, so it’s in every heartbeat. I even breathe it in from the air. I’ll never be completed until that thing’s over and done. And don’t you try reading it out of me. I’ll tell you when the time comes.”

“I’ve never been able to read you,” Heriot said. “And I’m not even sure if I’m a true Magician anymore. I hung there in chains and I couldn’t help myself.”

And mumbling this, Heriot fell asleep yet again. Cayley sat there, staring at him with an expression of puzzlement and desire.

“Free!” Heriot muttered in his sleep. “Free of it all!”

Out in the far reaches of County Doro, Heriot began walking again, striding along beside the Traveler wagons with Cayley… only for a short time the first day, but more the next, and then more again. As he walked his way back into himself he felt his occupant coming increasingly alive, after its apparent hibernation, stretching itself out through him as it had never done before. Some part of him was responding to this by stretching along with it, by ranging out and briefly inhabiting blades of grass, stones of the road.
I am nothing and everything,
the occupant was saying.
I am a pinpoint in you, yet I am altogether you. I am nowhere and I am everywhere. We have survived so far.

“I’m almost what I am meant to be,” he said to Cayley.

“What’s that, then?” asked Cayley.

A crossover place,
thought Heriot, struggling with an answer.
Everything out there sustains the Magician, and the Magician builds himself back into the world and sustains the world.

“I don’t know,” he said aloud. “There aren’t words for it. Back when I was a baby, the Magician Izachel felt a possibility in me. He had power, but he was greedy for more. And he wanted to use that possibility in some way that was a wrong way. I’ve told you how he fed on me, and part of me went into hiding. It even hid from me—hid from my thinking, understanding, everyday self, though I finally recognized it was there after something happened to me out on the Hero’s Causeway. From then on it’s been alive in my head. I’ve called that torn-away part my occupant, and I’ve been able to call on it when I need to make a Magician of myself. But being a true Magician isn’t just doing astonishing things to take Kings and Lords by surprise. It’s working its way toward an understanding that’s beyond understanding. It’s becoming a true part of the world’s strangeness.”

“You’ve always been strange,” said Cayley.

“Right now, walking along these roads, I’m dissolving into everything along my edges,” said Heriot. “Everything except you.” He took her by the shoulder. She turned toward him, and they kissed.

“What is it?” Heriot asked. “Why do you defend yourself from me? What is that iron secret you have to protect?”

“I could dissolve into you,” Cayley replied. “Those flowers and grasses you say you link into—I think you take them over, but likewise you give them freedom in a funny way. And sometimes I feel you could do that for me.” They kissed again. “You could dissolve me, and being that dissolved creature, I would be completed too. But it’s like I’ve told you. I can’t ever be free until I’ve done what I was made to do.”

“And what
is
that?” Heriot asked yet again.

“Oh, I’m not telling you,” Cayley replied. “You’d only get that old-woman look on your face. Even a broken nose can’t change
that
expression. What governs me— well—it’s an old promise, that’s what it is, a promise I made to the world a long time back. And a promise is a promise.”

The Travelers were following a road that twisted between trees and then more trees.

“These trees!” Heriot said. “They all mean the same as one another, and yet each tree means something different from all the rest.”

“Oh, very clever,” said Cayley derisively. “Very magic-mystical!

“We’ve both got secrets we can’t tell,” said Heriot. “I’d have to invent a language to really tell you mine.” He came to an abrupt standstill. “What’s that? There, through the trees.”

“It’s some old woodcutter’s hut, I’d say,” said Cayley. “Ask Azelma.”

And Heriot took this advice.

“There used to be a town close by,” Azelma told him. “But back in the times of the wars people left… made for Diamond, I think. We’ll be into the village soon.”

And indeed, within another fifteen minutes, they were trailing through a deserted village… tumbledown houses and stalls… the remains of walls and fences. Heriot came to a standstill, staring around him with a curious enchantment.

“We usually stop off here,” Azelma told him. She
looked at him with a knowing smile. “I can tell you’ll like it here.”

“I like it already,” Heriot said. “Do you stay here for long?”

Azelma laughed. “We’re the Travelers. We don’t stop anywhere unless we have something to sell. And there’s no one here to buy what we have to offer. We’ll be moving on tomorrow.”

“You might,” Cayley said, watching Heriot’s expression. “But perhaps we won’t. I think this man might have found a stopping-off place now he’s not bleeding, blinking, and limping. Funny really, that just when he gets the chance to be a real traveler, he wants to give up traveling.”

“It’s in me to like still places,” Heriot said. “And I like this one. It’s my orchard hut all over again.”

“You can stay here,” Azelma said skeptically. “But can you
live
here?”

“We can for a while at least,” Heriot said. “There’s fruit on those trees in between the houses, and my friend here is probably a good hunter.”

“I can outrun rabbits,” Cayley said. “That’s my skill… to be quicker than the quickest. And the quick often survive when the strong tumble over. At least I’ve built a lot of hopes around that idea, and one of the hopes is that I’m right.”

“I’ll find us a good cottage to live in,” Heriot said. “With a roof and all four walls. I’ll collect wood for a fire and be a good family man.”

Cayley smiled the brilliant smile that had first caught his attention—that smile that seemed to celebrate life so joyously.

“A family! Great! I’ve never had one of those,” she said.

***

So the next day the Travelers moved on, leaving Cayley and Heriot in the empty village. There they stood, side by side, watching the wagons jolt off along the road and out of sight. They turned to face each other. Cayley laughed just a little breathlessly.

“You look ruthless,” she said. “Have you caught it from me like some sort of sickness?”

“No!” said Heriot. “This particular ruthlessness is all my own. I don’t think I invented it, but it’s not yours, and it doesn’t belong to the King or the Hero. It’s older than both of them, and right now it’s all mine.”

They embraced.

“Something fierce,” Cayley said indistinctly. “But me—I can be as fierce as you. I’m the Wellwisher, the warrior.”

“But I’m a Magician,” Heriot said. “And I’m putting you under a spell.”

“Only if I choose,” Cayley replied, putting her hands behind his head. “And anyway, if it’s a spell, who’s casting it? It might be me.”

As they kissed it seemed to Heriot that deep in its fortress inside his head, the occupant came sharply alive. Almost as one person, he and Cayley swayed and then collapsed together, gently, into the grass.

Melting,
his occupant was crying as it tumbled with him.
Free at last. Now!
But he hardly paid it any notice.

“Now,” he mumbled. “Remake me, Cayley!”

“Talk! Talk!” said Cayley, taking his ears in her hands
and shaking his head. “Leave words behind, can’t you?”

“Remake me,” he repeated. “And fair’s fair, I’ll remake you.”

They kissed again. And Cayley was right. Their final embraces were beyond all the words that Heriot had ever learned or carried with him over the years.
Melting!
cried the occupant, and Heriot melted as he had never melted before.

Sometimes it seemed to Linnet that she was strong enough to resist her father’s intentions until the end of time. She had stood against him for years, believing herself to be married to Dysart in every true way, despite her father telling her, over and over again, that she would grow out of this particular illusion.

“You wanted me to marry Luce,” she cried. “You wanted me to marry him because he was second in line to the throne of Hoad. But now Dysart has taken his place, and it is Dysart I love.”

“Love!” said her father derisively. “What do you mean by that? And anyway… anyway…”

He paused. Linnet had noticed this expression of uncertainty on his face several times over the last few weeks.

“What’s going on?” she cried. “I know something’s going on and you won’t tell me. Is it because the King has gone out to the Islands?”

And, as she shouted this at her father, she immediately knew that whatever was causing her father’s doubt was
indeed something to do with the King’s strange departure, and she was suddenly filled with fear for Dysart.

“He seems to have left his city, his whole country, so undefended,” her father muttered. “I want to know why. And the couriers who came this morning tell me that now the Magician of Hoad has disappeared.”

For some reason this news sharpened Linnet’s own anxieties, though, once again, she was anxious not for Heriot but for Dysart. The couriers who had brought this news to her father had also brought her letters from Dysart, who seemed to feel that Heriot, anxious to be free from Betony Hoad as ruler, had chosen to vanish for a while.
But when it’s all over he’ll be back again
, Dysart had written confidently.

Even as she argued with her father, Linnet could feel Dysart’s letter, somehow alive with his particular writing, tucked into the waistband of her petticoats, scratching against her skin. It was almost as if the words were dissolving through the skin and into her blood. And once in her blood they were being pumped through her heart over and over again.

“I’ve had enough!” said her father abruptly. “I have always favored the Dannorad. Hoad has history: Diamond is powerful and it has always been a temptation, but it has lately become incomprehensible. Let’s stand back from something so unreliable. Let’s knit ourselves into the Dannorad. I know it’s not your first choice, but…” He hesitated.

“You know it is not my choice at all,” Linnet answered calmly. Dysart’s hidden letter was like an urgent caress. Her
body became a country in its own right, insisting on its own private ambitions.

“My dear,” said her father. “My dear girl… you must understand. It is given to
men
to rule, to make decisions on behalf of their daughters… their women. Men must take on the weight of responsibility. It is a heavy weight… a torment at times. I wouldn’t want you to suffer because I failed to decide. I know I have delayed making a choice for you because of your attachment to Prince Dysart, but it seems to me that his situation is… unstable.”

“What do you mean?” cried Linnet, for she felt there was a sly meaning in what her father was saying—something dark beyond his words.

“Let’s say that I have had some indication that Betony Hoad has an agenda of his own… not necessarily a wise one. His father has left him to rule, and his ruling may take some personal direction. And by the time the King comes back, it may be too late to change that direction.”

It was then that Linnet knew her father was aware of some treacherous intention unfolding all those leagues away in Diamond. It was then she knew she must run away, for Dysart must be warned, and she was the only one who could be trusted to warn him. As her father talked on, using his most reasonable voice, Linnet was pulling up a map of Hoad in her mind… remembering the main roads and towns, though she knew she would have to avoid these. Her journey must be an indirect one… determined but furtive. She must pass through the land like an urgent shadow. So Linnet began a calculation, frightened and yet exhilarated by the adventure she was contemplating. One
horse… she would have to take only the one horse, and it would need to carry food and water as well as a rider. Time! It would take days to reach Diamond, so she would need money, and she would also need to be armed. But, as these thoughts ran through her mind, slowly turning from disjointed speculations into actual plans, she bowed her head submissively, apparently receiving her father’s arguments as a dutiful daughter should.

“After all, Prince Alain has waited very patiently for you to make up your mind,” her father was saying.

“He’s waited for you to make up
your
mind,” Linnet said, trying to keep the sarcasm in her voice as mild as possible. “And he hasn’t exactly gone without women, has he?”

“That is a Lord’s privilege,” said her father quickly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Linnet, just think! If Hagen and the Dannorad unite, we have the prospect of becoming a country in our own right. We won’t have to be a subsidiary in the conglomeration of Hoad. You may—somewhere along the line you may indeed—attain the glory of being a Queen of a new country—Hagen remade. If you were rash enough to marry Dysart, you might never advance so far. Betony Hoad is a young man, even if he replaces his father—even if Dysart becomes the direct heir.…” His voice trailed away. Linnet thought he had closed his argument, but suddenly he spoke again. “I think Betony Hoad might betray his father, but I don’t think Dysart would. So if Betony Hoad made a move… if he chose to exile the King, I feel Dysart’s life might be… modified.”