The Warlock's Last Ride (21 page)

"I see nothing, Rod, except a small clearing in the woods, like any other. You must tell me where to bite."

Illusion! Rod realized. But was it in his own mind, his old delusions returning, or was it the work of a projective telepath? Or even a witch-moss construct that was visible only to living creatures? Rod had no idea how such a thing could be made but didn't doubt that it could.

"You are liable to me, as are all living things," Decay told him. "You cannot turn me any more than you can turn that invader who roars across the land and whom even the Crown with all its soldiers cannot divert."

"The wind," Rod interpreted, "and we may not be able to turn it aside, but we can certainly harness it with windmills. Will you do as much work for us as it does?"

"I shall work upon you." All at once, the spirit darted forward, lunging to touch.

Rod ducked and said, "I have it! You yourself are a riddle!"

"Foolish human, I am nothing of the sort," Decay answered, still drifting toward him. "I am inevitable, if you are born to meet me."

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"Not since DNA surgery was invented," Rod said, "and since my great-grandparents all had it, I'm exempt from your domain."

"Do you mean to say you are not human?" Decay kept drifting even as it spoke. "Then you are truly a fool! But how can a man not be a fool and still be a man?"

"When he's dead and gone," Rod said, then leaped aside to avoid another lunge. "All men are fools in some way— the more so because we can't agree on which behavior is foolish. Some of us are fools about money, some are fools about power and status, some are fools over women… The list is endless."

"Then cease your folly and hold still to receive my touch."

"Ah, but that would be the greatest folly of all." Rod still backed away, feeling an idea germinate.

"After all, it's clear you're trying to distract me with riddles so that I'll slip and let you touch me. I've no desire to waste into an imitation of you."

"How shall you avoid me, then?" Decay asked. "All living things must age, and age is wasting."

"Yes, but you're the spirit of wasting disease, aren't you?" Rod countered. "More particularly, of inborn wasting conditions." Out of the corner of his eye, Rod saw Fess standing stolidly opposite him and knew that he had come half-way around the clearing. What a sight he must have made, backing away from a nonexistent creature!

"All must wither, soon or late."

"Later, thank you." Rod leaped high and far.

The spirit lunged forward with a cry of rage in one last attempt to touch Rod and infect him, but he landed outside the circle of mold on the glistening ground amid the crystalline trees, out of the shadow and back in the light of the moon.

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"You cannot truly escape!" the spirit cried. "You must come to me some day!"

"No I won't," Rod countered, "because I have a friend to transport me beyond your reach. Over here, Fess."

The robot horse paced toward him across the darkened circle. With a glad cry, the spirit of Decay surged toward him, reaching out to touch—then crying out in dismay and rage. "This is no living horse, but a thing of metal!"

"Beneath the synthetic horsehair, yes," Rod confirmed, "and he's built to last considerably longer than I am."

"Even things of Cold Iron must rust away!" the spirit threatened, and floated beside Fess, darting its touch at Fess's withers, backbone, flanks.

"Well, yes, but Fess's body is a rust-proof alloy," Rod explained. "He's only metaphorically of Cold Iron—and even then, when this mechanical body breaks down, we can always get him another one. The computer inside him may be long outmoded, but it's made of materials that don't erode."

The spirit made one more lunge at Fess's retreating form and cried in anger, "You have cheated me!

But one day I shall have my due!"

"You already have," Rod said grimly. "You've taken my wife, and with her, my heart. Be assured, if I could find a way to rid the universe of you, I would—and my children just may learn how."

"None can defeat me! Even you and your contraption have only avoided me!"

"I know," Rod said. "You're an aspect of Entropy and are inherent in the universe itself. But we can make humanity immune to you—and some day, someone will."

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"You speak like Tithonus, foolish mortal!"

"What, to be wanting eternal life and forget to ask for eternal youth?" Rod shook his head. "Other way around, haunt of humans. I ask to be immune from the ravages of age—but I don't exactly want to live forever." His laugh was short, bitter, and sardonic.

"You laugh at nothing, Rod," Fess pointed out.

"Or at something that will come to nothing," Rod said, "and try to take me with it. Come on, Fess. We have moonlight enough to find a road through this wood."

He mounted and rode off, leaving the spirit to gnash its teeth and wail.

NEARBY A DOZEN elves sat spellbound among the crystal leaves, watching Rod ride away. Puck looked up at Evanescent. "Well done, strange creature. You have given him a foe to outsmart when he needed one. I did much the same myself, when he was young and had need of a dragon to combat."

"It was nothing," Evanescent answered. She certainly wasn't about to tell Puck that she spoke only but the truth. The illusion of the moonlight-filled, crystalline wood she had indeed made for Rod—but where Decay and its mouldering circle had come from, she had no idea.

GEOFFREY WENT OUT the door, and Magnus sat completely still for several minutes. Then he took a very long breath and turned back to the books and papers spread out on his desk. He studied them for half an hour with nothing registering; his mind kept going back to Geoffrey and their confrontation. He was finally beginning to be able to concentrate on the print instead of the problems with his siblings when he heard a knock. He sat very still for half a minute, then looked up at the sentry with a bland smile. "Yes, trooper?"

"Your brother, Sir Magnus."

Magnus stared, his thoughts still on Geoffrey, then smiled with relief as Gregory came in. Magnus
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stood, raising his arms—then lowered them as he saw Gregory's frown. He came around the desk slowly, smile still plastered on his face, and said, "Good morning, brother. Some tea?"

"Not now, I think, Magnus." Gregory took a chair without being invited.

Magnus took the point and sat across from him. Of course, Gregory couldn't know he was sitting where Geoffrey had only half an hour before. Well, actually, he could know, but he wouldn't—none of the siblings went in for mental eavesdropping without very strong cause; they'd been reared better than that. "You are well today, I hope— and Allouette, too?"

"I am well enough, brother," Gregory said, "but Allouette is very concerned."

So much for social pleasantries. "Concerned about me? I should be of no consequence to her—far away and unseen."

"She fears that you shall begin giving me orders and drive a wedge between us."

Magnus gazed at his youngest sib with bent brows for a few seconds, then said, "She still does not understand the depth or intensity of your love, then."

Gregory blushed and looked away. "She is very insecure, brother. I have told you of her past; you cannot wonder that she is slow to learn to trust again."

"Then I think she has made remarkable strides, considering how thoroughly Cordelia and Quicksilver have bonded with her."

Gregory nodded slowly. "They adventured together, and common enemies have a way of making faster friends quite quickly—as I am sure you know."

"Friendship grows slowly for me," Magnus said, "but I am fortunate in having made two close friends."

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"Shield-mates."

Magnus nodded.

Gregory frowned at him, then said, "You seemed open enough to her until you heard her name, brother. Then, well though you tried to hide it, all of us could see how you hesitated. Why?"

It wasn't like Gregory to be so direct, but Magnus had heard love could cause such changes. "

'Allouette' was also the name of the woman who recruited me into SCENT, brother—not entirely by reason alone."

"Her beauty?" Gregory asked.

Magnus nodded. "I would scarcely say I was swept away, but I was very much aware of the attraction. Finister did that much for me, at least—that I became very slow to fall in love."

"Which is to say that you never have." For the moment, Gregory was full of sympathy. "I cannot tell you how deeply Allouette regrets what she did to you, brother. Whenever she thinks of it, she is filled with anguish again."

"Then it is a wonder she can bear to look upon my face." Magnus smiled. "This scarcely needed telling, Gregory—but I am glad that you did."

"I do not merely show concern," Gregory said anxiously. "I am concerned for your emotional welfare, brother."

"I have always managed to keep my wits about me," Magnus hedged, "so I was well aware that the other Allouette meant to use me and was enraged when I disobeyed orders and did what was right for
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the people of the planet I was supposed to subvert, rather than what was right for SCENT."

"So," Gregory said softly, "two women to whom you were attracted, hurt and abused you. No wonder you chilled on the sound of the name."

Magnus nodded. "But it is certainly no fault of your bride's, nor do I hold it against her."

"But her actions toward you ten years ago?"

"I can forgive, Gregory, and have. In time, I am sure I will forget them completely."

After a moment, Gregory nodded, though reluctantly, then sat forward, suddenly even more intent.

"Understand, though, brother—even were you to attempt to command us, neither of us would obey."

"Then I shall give no orders."

Gregory's brows drew together; his intensity sharpened. "Do not think to use us as your magical tools, Magnus. You cannot know anything of our research."

"Absolutely nothing," Magnus admitted cheerfully, "and for that reason, I would not dream of telling either of you what to study and what not."

"And would not ask us to study certain uses of magic for the Crown?" Gregory asked suspiciously.

"I think the Crown can do its own asking," Magnus said. "After all, you are not exactly unknown to our sovereign and her husband, not to mention their younger son. Is your friendship with Diarmid still close?"

"We have drifted somewhat apart," Gregory admitted, "though we still share the occasional game of
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chess."

Magnus nodded. "Then I am sure he could mention any problems his parents thought needed investigation before he said 'Check.'"

Gregory smiled. "Before the game, rather. Studying the next move would drive it completely out of his head."

"Ever the scholar," Magnus said, amused, "both of you. I wonder how he manages as Duke of Loguire."

"Quickly, as I understand it," Gregory said. "He is very efficient, clearing up administrative details before midday so that he can spend the afternoons in study."

Magnus raised a skeptical eyebrow. "And his peasants are none the worse for it?"

"He has an excellent steward," Gregory said, "who is always out among the people—but I suspect Diarmid's tenure lacks the personal touch."

Resolved that easily, the conversation passed to updating Magnus on events in the kingdom, and Gregory finally accepted tea. When the cup was empty and he rose to go, though, he paused at the door to look back, suddenly intent again. "I have your word on it, brother? That you shall not try to command us, nor to come between us?"

"My word of honor," Magnus said gravely, "and I shall swear an oath to it if you feel the need."

Gregory gazed into his eyes a few seconds, then nodded. "I do not think we will. Good night, brother." He went out the door.

Magnus stood immobile a minute, then lowered himself carefully into his chair and placed his hands on his knees. After a few more minutes, he tilted his head back against the upholstery and closed his
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eyes.

ROD LET FESS choose their path and concentrated all his attention on pumping strength back into that withered arm. Its maiming had to have been an illusion, though a very powerful one; whatever latent telepath had unwittingly created Decay to embody his worst fears, had made it projec-tive, too, and if the mind could be convinced that the body was wasting, why, waste it would.

So Rod's first purpose was to convince himself, very thoroughly, that his arm was sound and healthy. He fell into the trance he had learned early in his training as a secret agent, working downward to the bedrock of his beliefs and discovering anew that, even at the most fundamental level, he knew Decay to be only an illusion. Unfortunately, all his emotions between that foundation and the superstructure of intellect believed the spirit to be real.

So Rod began to work on convincing himself that the illusion was only that, an illusion, and nothing real—further, that his arm hadn't really withered, that the illusion was only an extremely convincing projection.

When morning came, his arm was whole again, and he was so exhausted that he barely managed to spread out his blanket roll before he fell on it and slept.

MAGNUS WAS STILL sitting in the same posture when Alea strode into the room. "Are you still poking into mouldering books, Gar? It's high time …" She broke off, staring at him, reading the great soul-weariness of his posture. She studied him a moment, then brought the straight chair from the desk to sit beside him. Gently, she covered his hand with her own.