Call of Wizardry, page 28
“I told him we’d be gone for several weeks,” Dianthe said. “But I do miss him.”
“And I do not wish to be parted from my family longer than is necessary,” Perrin said. “We have yet to decide what we will do about our permanent home.”
“I told my mother I would return. I do not know for how long,” Kalanath said.
Sienne felt suddenly as if time had turned on itself, putting her back at the outpost where they’d stopped at the conclusion of their first job together. The impulse she’d had then returned, the desire to shout at them all, reminding them that what they had together was greater than anything they could do separately. But this was different. They’d achieved their purpose, and now…what? Go back to taking small jobs? Nothing could possibly top what they’d done for the Sassaven.
Detlenda’s door slammed open. “Let’s walk,” Alaric said, slamming the door shut behind him. He strode off down the street without waiting to see if they’d follow. Sienne hurried after him, surrounded by her friends. Alaric took up the center of the street, forcing everyone else to make way for him. His shoulders were hunched and taut, and if it had been a wood floor and not one of earth he would have shaken the ground with every hard-booted step.
They reached the river, and Alaric veered to one side and stopped at the riverbank. He stood motionless, looking into the rushing water that foamed along the bank, his hands clenched into fists. Sienne found herself afraid of what he might do if she touched him. “Did it…not go well?” she asked.
Alaric’s jaw tightened. “They want everything to be the way it was eleven years ago,” he said. “Pretend I never had a life outside this valley, that all my desires should fall into line with theirs. And, damn it, they have a point.”
Fear flashed through her. “Oh?” she said, trying to sound neutral.
“We need to build our people up. That means children. I don’t have a right to withhold that if I really care about the Sassaven’s survival.”
The fear returned, lodging in her heart and building to an enormous pressure. “I understand,” she said, feeling as if the words might choke her.
Alaric looked her way. “You don’t,” he said flatly. “They wanted a compromise. They said, if I was so determined to live my life with you, I should at least give Viveka a child before I left.”
Fear turned to horror. “No,” she breathed. “They didn’t.”
“As if I were some breeding animal, able to abandon my child to a fatherless existence.” Alaric looked on the verge of explosion.
“How could they ask that?” Dianthe exclaimed. “You would never—”
“Not under any circumstances,” Alaric said. “I can’t believe they’d even suggest it.”
“Then…” Sienne finally put a hand on his arm. “What will you do?”
“Talk to Lothar,” Alaric said. “I don’t want to walk away if there’s anything left he needs from us.”
“But—”
“But what?”
“Nothing,” Sienne said. It felt so wrong, Alaric parting from his parents on those terms, and yet… She knew him well enough to recognize when he needed time to work something through, and what he didn’t need right now was her blundering in with comments about how they did love him, after all. He’d never said anything like that when her own parents had presented her with a similar ultimatum, and for all she knew, his parents didn’t care anything for him except as a father for their potential grandchildren. So she kept quiet as they walked, less aggressively, to the headman’s house.
Lothar wasn’t there despite the earliness of the hour. “Maybe he went to the tower?” Dianthe suggested.
“They were going to tear it down today,” Alaric said. “But they weren’t sure what to do about the central room.”
“Maybe I can help with that,” Sienne said. “At the very least I can tell them if they’re going to cause an explosion.”
“Is that possible?” Kalanath said, alarmed.
“I have no idea. That’s just the worst thing I can think of, when it comes to dismantling a room that isn’t there.”
“Then maybe we should hurry,” Dianthe said.
The tower still rose far too high above Barholt when they reached the plain. Unicorns and horses milled about it, moving stacks of stone to make a more orderly pile. The Pekkanen, Sienne noticed, stayed out of the plain as if it were surrounded by a wall of force. Alaric made for a black unicorn stallion whose horn was silvery gray instead of black, though it still gleamed as if oiled. The unicorn stood looking up at the tower and didn’t acknowledge them when Alaric led their group to join him. “Lothar,” Alaric said. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
Lothar shook his head, then transformed into a towering human figure. “You can tell us if it’s safe to dismantle the thing,” he said. “We’ve emptied all but the central chamber.”
“It might be possible to disconnect it from the tower,” Sienne said.
Lothar glanced down at her. “You can do that?”
“I don’t know. I can look at it.”
Lothar waved in the direction of the tower. “We’re in a hurry.”
“Why?” Alaric asked.
“You don’t feel it? Nobody wants that thing looming over us one minute longer than it has to.” Lothar’s lips pinched tight shut briefly. “The sooner we can rid ourselves of his memory, the better.”
Sienne suppressed a moment’s fear that the unicorns would begin dismantling the tower while she and her friends were inside. “I’ll be quick,” she promised.
The antechamber was empty of everything, including the horrible masks. “I wonder where they took everything?” Perrin said. “I half expect to see a giant bonfire on that plain.”
Alaric pushed open the central door. “I’d be afraid to inhale any smoke from burning Kyros’s things. Sienne, what do you see?”
Sienne stepped over the threshold, then stepped back again. “I don’t feel anything different,” she said. “The only reason we can tell it’s in a different place is that there are windows, and it’s night.”
“So what will happen if it is gone? If they destroy it?” Kalanath asked.
“I don’t know.” Sienne stepped back into the room. “But my instincts tell me it would be a bad idea for them to simply take it apart. I just don’t know any spell that would disrupt the connection.”
“That is because such magic is a priest’s province, as you may recall from our freeing Jenani,” Perrin said. He pulled out his riffle of blessings and plucked one free. “This is identical to the one that disrupted the ashwar’s connection to the ring that held it captive. I believe it will do the same for this room.”
“I remember that being fairly explosive,” Alaric said. “Is it safe?”
“This time, I have a shield blessing that will protect us.” Perrin removed a second blessing. “If we are in agreement?”
“Do it,” Alaric said.
Sienne hurried back into the antechamber as Perrin placed the first blessing on the floor at the center of the wizard’s chamber. She remembered how effective it had been and how it had temporarily blinded her when they’d used it to free Jenani, and gave it a respectful distance.
Perrin returned and held out the other blessing, murmuring an invocation. A pearly gray shield covered, not the destruction blessing, but the entire inner wall in which the door to the chamber was set. Sienne pictured the shield blessing forming a sphere centered on the chamber and hoped the explosion wouldn’t take the whole tower down with it. “Um,” she said, “maybe we should be prepared for transport, in case the blessing is more powerful than we expect.”
Perrin rested his hand on the curve of the shield. “Form up around me, then,” he said, and the others made a circle that ended with Alaric and Kalanath’s hands on each of Perrin’s shoulders. Perrin bowed his head and said, “O great Lord, protect us now, and grant me this blessing.”
The world went white. Sienne, who’d closed her eyes just in time, felt as if she’d been blinded anyway. A deep rumble shook the floor, nearly knocking her off balance. Alaric’s large hand kept her upright, and she clung to him gratefully. Gradually, the light faded, and Sienne blinked away pained tears and opened her eyes.
The pearly shield still covered the wall, but a thick dark fog lay behind it, concealing the door and the chamber. Perrin drew his belt knife and stabbed it into the shield, making it crumple and part like flower petals wilting. The fog faded and then vanished. Where the doorway had been was nothing but blank white stone matching the rest of the walls. Even the wooden door was gone. Perrin rapped on the stone with the pommel of his blade. “I believe it worked,” he said.
The tower rumbled again, less loudly this time, but the room shook enough that Sienne had to cling to Alaric again. “Time to go,” he said.
They met Lothar at the base of the tower. “It’s safe now,” Alaric said. “At least, it’s just an ordinary tower. No more magic.”
“Join in, if you’re inclined,” Lothar said to Alaric. He transformed once more into his unicorn form and cantered off toward one of the groups.
Alaric watched him go. When it was clear Lothar wasn’t interested in them anymore, Sienne said, “Will you join them?”
Alaric startled. “I—yes, I guess I should,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long. But you all might want to back up.”
They retreated to the edge of the plain and found themselves standing where they had the previous morning, waiting for the Sassaven to provide their distraction. In the distance, groups of unicorns and horses milled about. “I find it difficult to believe they can take down something so large,” Perrin murmured. “One would think its height would militate against its being so easily demolished.”
The tower swayed. Sienne grabbed Dianthe’s hand. It reminded her so much of her dream she almost expected to see Kyros looking out at them, plotting revenge. It swayed the other way, and then the top of the tower popped off its stem and came floating down toward the Sassaven. All the unicorns’ horns glowed bright gold that made a shimmering fog surrounding them and drifting into the air to enfold the falling tower. A breeze came up at that moment, blowing across the field to where Sienne stood. It didn’t disturb the glowing fog, but it carried with it the scent of roses, and Sienne breathed it in and felt some of her tension dissipate.
“Is that their magic?” Kalanath said. He inhaled deeply. “It is beautiful.”
The tower’s top gently came to rest on the ground about twenty yards from where they stood. Then it shivered, and came apart, like an explosion in a dream, blocks and roof tiles floating away from each other in a slow, contemplative dance. The golden fog caressed each piece, guiding them into neat piles near where the wall’s stones had been gathered. In only a few minutes, the tower’s top was gone, and the tower itself looked like a beheaded tulip stem, waving in the rose-scented wind.
“Perhaps I should have more faith in Sassaven magic,” Perrin said. “That was astonishing.”
Now the swaying tower began to come apart in the same diffident manner, stones loosening themselves from the wall and then floating downward, some of them spinning lazily as if they weighed no more than a leaf. The piles of stone grew taller, and new piles formed. “What will they do with it all?” Sienne said.
“Build real houses, I hope,” Dianthe said. “Though that’s not enough to rebuild all of Barholt.”
“No, but it’s a start.” Sienne started counting stones and gave up almost immediately. “I hope they aren’t superstitious about using that material, or about building on this plain.”
“They seem rather pragmatic,” Perrin said, “at least, that is my conclusion after treating so many of them yesterday.”
“They are good, solid stone,” Kalanath said. “I think it is good that they use them.”
Eventually, nothing was left of the tower but the massive iron door. The Sassaven, for some reason, left it standing until it fell over on its own. Then, with a noise like rushing wind, they all returned to their human shapes. Sienne waited for a cheer, or a cry, or something to acknowledge what they’d achieved, but the massed crowds were silent, most of the Sassaven standing with their heads bowed as if in prayer. After a few moments, they turned and made their way back toward the village, dispersing in all directions. Shortly, Alaric appeared. “We’re going to Lothar’s home. He wants to talk to us. All of us,” he said.
The Sassaven surrounding them as they walked took care not to touch them, as if they feared some kind of contagion from their foreign guests. Sienne tried not to take it personally, though she did feel a little irritated that none of them displayed any sign of friendliness. She and her friends had put their lives on the line for them, after all. Then she felt guilty. She reminded herself that they hadn’t done it to be thanked, and the Sassaven’s lives had just been turned upside down; it was natural they wouldn’t be in a cheerful mood just yet. Give them time to get used to freedom.
Lothar was there when they arrived. Instead of sitting in the chair, he stood leaning against the table, which took a few inches off his height so he was no taller than Alaric. If he’d done it on purpose in some attempt to make this a friendly meeting, his neutral expression, more intimidating to Sienne than a scowl for being so unreadable, negated the effect. “Is this yours?” he said, pointing at a book lying next to the candles. “Someone fished it out of the river where it was caught by the bridge piling. We’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Sienne snatched up her spellbook with a gasp. “I can’t believe it. I thought it was lost for good! Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble.” He still sounded so neutral, as if none of this mattered to him—well, the spellbook probably didn’t matter to him, but given the Sassaven’s history with magic, she’d expected him to be less unconcerned about it being left lying around. “You’ve done more than I believed possible,” he said. “The wizard dead, the binding broken…I suppose we should be grateful.”
“And yet you’re not,” Alaric said. His expression matched Lothar’s, making them look like a couple of chess players caught mid-game where neither wanted to be the next to move.
Lothar’s eyes narrowed. “It’s hard to be grateful,” he said, “when we’ve been made to feel like helpless children.”
Sienne opened her mouth to protest and Dianthe stepped on her foot in warning. “Maybe it was impossible for us to free ourselves,” Lothar went on. “Or maybe we just weren’t willing to pay the price. Either way, the plain fact is that a bunch of strangers swooped in and saved us, and most of us are having trouble coming to grips with that.”
“You think I’m a stranger?” Alaric said, dangerously calm.
“I think you’ve been gone a long time, and you don’t think like us anymore,” Lothar said. He nodded at Sienne. “You’ve made alliances like a foreigner. I could make a case for that to be a necessary part of your solution, and I’m not going to criticize you for it. But you’re still no longer one of us, necessary or not. Which brings us back to the central problem.”
“I don’t see how it’s a problem. We didn’t do it to be thanked.”
“No, and maybe that makes it worse, that you aren’t behaving like conquering heroes. That makes us feel all sorts of guilty about not being grateful.” Lothar sighed, and suddenly he looked very tired and surprisingly old. “I don’t know what you had in mind, Alaric, whether you wanted to stay. And nobody is going to shut any of you out. But we’d take it as a kindness if you’d leave.”
Alaric’s hand closed into a fist the way it did when he was trying to control his temper. “So you are shutting us out.”
“But,” Sienne exclaimed, ignoring the increasing pressure of Dianthe’s foot, “but there’s so much you still don’t know! We were going to—”
“You were going to go on being our saviors,” Lothar said. “Teach us poor ignorant fools how civilization really works, is that it?”
“Of course not!” She thought better of her outburst halfway through that sentence. “But wouldn’t you rather know…I mean, what about the coming of age ritual? We know how to use it without the binding—shouldn’t you—”
“We want no reminders of the wizard,” Lothar said flatly. “That ritual is irrelevant.”
“But it opens your full potential! How is that irrelevant?”
“They don’t need it,” Alaric said. “They’ll still have magic, and that’s enough.”
Sienne saw his closed-off, remote expression and decided to shut up.
“I understand,” Alaric said. “We’re too much a reminder of what you believe is your failure, yes? Even though you couldn’t possibly—”
Lothar slammed his fist on the table. “All it would have taken was one man or woman willing to give their life in killing the host. We were too cowardly to try it.”
“It would have killed all of you,” Alaric said. “Kyros had it built into the binding. If he died before it was broken, every adult Sassaven would have died as well.”
“Leaving our children free to rebuild. That’s not too high a price. Even you ought to understand that.”
“Your civilization would not survive it,” Kalanath said. “Too much death—who would teach them to live? To build? You were not cowards.”
Lothar shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re free, and all we want is to build that freedom on our own terms. Which means with no outside interference.”
“I understand,” Alaric repeated. “We don’t want to interfere.” His hand was clenched so tightly the tendons stood out on its back. He turned and walked to the door without another word.
“Alaric,” Lothar said. Alaric stopped, but didn’t turn around. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve already sacrificed much to make this happen.”
“Meaning this is just one more sacrifice?” Alaric said. “Don’t pretend to understand.” He opened the door and left the room.
“You bastard,” Sienne snarled. “He’s thought of nothing but achieving this for the last eleven years, and this is how you repay him?”
“Leave it alone, Sienne,” Dianthe said, taking her shoulder. Sienne shrugged her off.
