Wine of the Gods 03: The Black Goats (30 page)

"We rather think they got across the desert and into A
uralia, as did the bulk of the duke's surviving troops." he chuckled, evilly. "And best of luck to them."

"And, of cours
e, there's the question of the duke's daughter. Lady Eltia is just eighteen. Miscarried, thank the old gods. But what am I to do with her?"

So after prowling the border areas and finding no indications that the goats had returned, Oscar and Bran found themselves escorting seven women to the City. Oh, the Sheep Man and the King's mage were there too. But the women, mostly young, were much less afraid of their young escort than the old. Apparently the goats' human forms had been fairly old.

The two older women—both past thirty—turned out to be the Lady's Nanny, recently retired, and her Governess, equally recently hired. They were both well educated, and the Sheep Man, pending the King's approval, offered to hire them for the village school.

"School?" Oscar asked, amazed.

"They were just finishing up the roof, last I saw." The Sheep Man shrugged. "Twenty-something babies." his eyes twinkled mischievously, "I'm sure you heard that Fava and Juli both had twins?"

"Oh, yeah." Bran's eyes slid toward the goat babies.

"One each was fair, and one each was . . . not."

Oscar shuddered. Fava had had a goat baby. Some day he would have to see her again, talk to her. Hold his baby.

***

" . . . so I couldn't just leave them there." Nil explained. The babies, and the mothers of three of them, were tucked up and asleep in the Tavern. He'd have to see about houses near the school. Tomorrow.

"How many children are you planning on raising?" Justice was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

"Umm, I think this makes thirteen." Nil admitted.

"Our three, your Veronian orphans makes six, and these six babies makes twelve. Who am I missing?"

"Dydit. I got a bit of a late start, there, but he's got a great deal of growing up to do yet."

"Umm, he's one of the goats, isn't he?"

"Yes. He was Maleth's apprentice. Twenty-three years of age when he got caught up in that goat spell. I'm afraid I was a bit desperate and didn't switch to a lesser spell for him."

Justice rubbed her temples. "He behaved very well while you were gone. He's afraid of witches and as far as I can tell, terrified of Question."

Nil smirked. "I put that spell on all the goats. Not being a witch, she didn't have the same level of protection they had, naturally."

Justice buried her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled. "Just tell me he isn't my father."

"Oh no, that was the Duke of Mon Sant. Oscar killed him about six months ago."

"I really ought to beat you, the things you've never told me."

Nil slipped an arm around her. "Not my fault. You wouldn't talk to me, after. For about fifteen years."

"Hmm, until you got me alone with about seven bottles of that wine. I'm surprised I didn't have triplets."

"I wanted to keep you around long enough this time to impress you with my brilliant mind and warm personable personality."

"So you've brought back three teachers, and six babies, to keep an eye on an additional nine babies, twenty-seven toddlers and the three boys."

Nil chuckled. "Nina and Fera will be good teachers, and Guti just loves babies. That's half the reason those other women gave their babies to them."

"The other being that they couldn't stand the sight of them?"

"Yes." Nil sighed. "I certainly hope the witch and mage parents are planning on helping out. I know I'll be fielding a lot of the boys' questions. Especially Weg's. What about Juli and Fava? The mage kids have always been well educated, would they like to teach?"

"Now, there's a good thought. They've been feeling a bit useless, not to mention poor." 

Nil hesitated. "Am I wrong to want to keep wizardry alive? The King would have had the babies killed without a second thought. I, umm, messed with the goats' inheritability, all the children will get the wizard genes. None of the girls will be wizards, that'll take another generation. And the boys, well, I don't think I'll mention that castration would allow their brains to develop the ability to manipulate power. But if they are around each other, grow up together, have children, there will eventually be more wizards."

"Like our children."

"Two of them. I rather think Xanthic is going to be the witch daughter you've always wanted."

She looked at him in surprise. "Really?"

"Yes. I'm surprised that so many
—all, in fact—of the witch babies born in the valley inherited the ability, until Question. Historically, only half of all witch daughters got the ability. I think Answer and Blissful may have been cheating."

"Next you'll be telling me that witches can have sons."

"Oh no. That's been the way it is for longer than
I
have ever read about."

"Thank goodness." Justice hesitated. "So, which Wizard King were you? Nil . . .  Nihility?"

He nodded. "Born, bred and raised to be a tyrant, to fight and kill. It took me the longest time to realize what a tool I'd been."

Justice shivered suddenly. "Umm, do you have any idea about the stories they tell about you?"

"Exaggerations, honestly. I don't eat babies," he sat carefully beside her, looking a bit worried. "Never have."

She snorted suddenly, and leaned into him. "Don't start."

"Yes, dear."

"So, whose tool were you?"

"The wizards. My father. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps. The gods. They kept messing with the wizard lines, you see? Wanting to encourage strong magical abilities. And Gisele out-and-out married Lord Neve and gave birth to my mother."

"Gisele is your grandmother?"

"And the Auld Wulf and Harry, and some of the other gods who came around may have been birded and sired several of the other women in my pedigree." A tinge of bitterness sharpened his tone.

"Nil?" she hugged him.

"I was raised to be a horrible person. By my father, my mother, uncles, the Court, the Nobles. Everyone had their own agenda, and they all depended on me being . . . strong, by a definition of strength that I see now was completely wrong. No, not completely. There are times when the iron fist is needed. But it should never lack compassion, and that I was never taught.  And so I was a tyrant.

"
Grandmother wasn't allowed to pollute my mind, but I suppose she succeeded a bit or I wouldn't have had the ability to change. I thought I was walking away from it all. I thought I'd escaped, but I wound up here, with
them
. Oh . . . the gods are almost human, they sort of realize what they've done and sort of regret it. They realize they have to let us go our own way, now. They aren't trying to rule through me or their other creations. They aren't trying to defeat the Goillians or the Sea Kings. They aren't . . . They try to just provide a safe refugee, here in the valley." He blew out his breath angrily. "But 'almost' human
isn't
human. They really don't understand what they did to us as individuals, with that wine. They just thought our society needed a bit of shaking up and some new blood. More magic users." He looked at her uncertainly. "If not for that wine . . . "

She snorted a bit. "I'd never have gotten the nerve to, to break the barrier I'd erected," she grinned
suddenly. "Come up to the hot springs and I'll show you how much I regret that wine."

He laughed, and followed her. Hot springs were an excellent antidote for old nightmares.

***

Never looked at her students in exasperation. The five young women . . . "Particular. First you are too young. You have not finished the lessons you need to know to most easily pass to the next level. If you seduce a man now you stand a very good chance of harming him. All witches do, but the poorer the understanding, the more likely the harm. That's why we usually chose arrogant asses for our first. Anything we destroy is likely to improve them. But what about nice men? Say, a certain storekeeper with handsome looks, a good mind and charming personality. What would you risk destroying, in him? Would you like to see him a drooling idiot for the rest of his life? Or perhaps, sour and mean?" She stared at the girl, gave her time to stew a bit. "You're so randy it worries me. We can't have a witch that deliberately harms men. Answer tells me that it has happened before, and it really gives witches a bad name."

Particular scowled. "But
love
, true love . . . "

Old gods, spare me this!
"In any case, what I wanted to speak to all of you about was the trip to Wallenton next week. Catti? Zam?" Both young women were shaking their heads. "All right. Question? Opinion? Particular?"

Particular, unfortunately, lit up. "Will Brock be going?"

"I haven't heard." Never sighed. She was going to have to talk to Answer about the girl. There was going to be a problem.

There was a problem all the way to W
allenton. Fortunately they only stopped two nights on the road. Particular flirted with Brock, but didn't go so far as to attempt to seduce him. Until they were in the inn they usually used, in Wallenton. Then she tried to cut him out of the male circle, sitting up late fleecing the locals at cards.

Never felt a quick flick of power, was it from the Sheep Man? Particular flounced angrily away, stalking out the front door of the inn.  In a town, this simply wasn't as safe as it was in Ash. Never exchanged glances with Elegant and they both followed the girl. The Moon was full, and they wrapped cloaks of indifference around themselves as they walked down the sparsely inhabited boardwalk that edged the cobblestone streets.

Particular wasn't able to cloak yet, and was probably too angry to have, if she could. She stalked down the boardwalk, and most of the men got out of her way. One richly dressed fat man didn't. He deliberately dodged to block her when she would have gone around him. She stopped then, and glared at him, pulled out of her inward contemplations.

"What's your price, pretty girl?"

Particular stiffened. "I believe you have mistaken me for someone else. Good night, sir." her voice was icy cold in its clean diction.

Two larger men closed in on either side of the fat man.
Bodyguards
Never thought. She and Elegant swapped alarmed looks and hastened their pace, as the fat man gestured at the large closed carriage rattling past them and slowing.

The big muscular men stepped around the fat man, took Particular's arms and heaved her through the door of the carriage as the footman opened it, a maneuver so smooth it must have been practiced. The fat man was next in, and as the door closed, Never and Elegant reached the bodyguards.

One spun with cat-like quickness, a hand whipping around Never's neck. She ripped the power from him in one huge surge, eschewing any delicacy in her haste. He dropped at her feet, and she leaped for the carriage as the groom whipped up the horses. She caught a handhold and leaped up on the footman's step as that worthy swung up to his accustomed place. Never touched his face, and his eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed. Elegant cursed behind her as she tripped over the man, and the carriage sped up. Never couldn't reach the door from her perch, and scrambled over the top to reach the driver. As he slumped, the reins pulled from his hands and the spirited foursome took its collective head and bolted. Never cursed and scrambled, grabbed two reins and pulled. One lead horse swerved right, the rest followed and the carriage scrapped the corner of the building. She hauled again, and the horse, finding itself being turned into the building, slowed. The horse behind crowded it, the two horses on the left still wanted to run. She leaned down precariously and got another rein and pulled on it, too.  The crowding mess slowed and stopped. She tied the reins she had around the narrow bench back, and scrambled down to the door. Locked. The carriage was right up against the wall of the building it had scraped. She collected all the unbroken reins she could see, and urged the horses forward and left, then halted them, reasonably neatly, this time.

The right door opened for her.

The fat man was lying on Particular. Dead. Particular was whimpering, somewhere under his bulk. It took three tries for Never, maneuvering in the awkward confines of the carriage, to pull him off of her. Particular looked . . . odd. Eyes wild and full of power, she attacked Never, hitting her with a burst of power.

Never tumbled backwards, on to the pavement, kicking off her shoes to channel the power back into the Earth. She kept her feet on the ground when she reached back in, trying to shield, and channeling what she couldn't. She jerked Particular out and sat her on the ground. "Channel, Parti. Send the power into the Earth. Open to the Earth, as if you were going to pull in power, but send it back."

She had to repeat her instructions three times before the girl started leaking power in bits and spurts, and finally in a stream as she grew into her new powers and channeled. And collapsed.

Never got her to her feet, unsteady and swaying, and wrapping indifference around them both, headed back toward the inn. The carriage driver was moaning in the street, starting to regain consciousness. Never wasn't sure whether she regretted not killing the man or not, but she certainly wished him serious complications for the night's work. Elegant found them a block later, and took Particular's other side and they half carried her back to the inn, and through the back door, up to their room. Curious and Delight joined them hastily.