The Well-Favored Man

by Elizabeth Willey

  Last of all, I finished entering my passage spell in my logbook. Before using it, I went to Prospero’s apartment. He was there by the fire in his study playing a lute to himself, fooling around fugally, his head bent over the instrument, his eyes half-closed, his expression abstracted, distanced.

  “I’m leaving now,” I said, moistening my lips.

  Prospero looked up at me, frowning slightly. “ ’Tis night.”

  “I don’t need light,” I said. “Anyway there is a full moon.”

  He sighed, resigned. “Gwydion, have care …”

  “I will.” I nodded to him and left before he said anything more or forbade me to go. In my own rooms I put on my helmet and cloak, performed the spell, and stepped into the Mirror of Ways.

  There was a Summoning-pull for a moment, which faded. Strange. It had happened before too.

  I was about a hundred meters from the open area at the summit, standing among scrub and stones. I stood allowing my eyes to adjust to the moonlight, and a soft scant weight dropped onto my shoulder. Virgil. This was no place for him, rather for the great war-hawks. I petted him and sent him to wait with Belphoebe.

  The war-hawks had roosted for the night around the base of the mountain in trees which had good views of the summit. I closed my eyes and stirred them. The birds took to the air and begin drifting over the mountain to give me aerial reconnaissance. They showed me that Gemnamnon was curled around the tower ruins again, his left eye socket burnt and blackened. He was alert now, sensing my magical activity nearby. His tail twitched slightly and then stilled.

  The moon was full. I could feel the energy running like water here, rushing through me and seemingly fountaining from the mountaintop. Closing my eyes, I moved with it, letting its pulse become mine. It took just a few seconds because the current was so strong. The poor light hardly mattered now; when I looked around I saw more clearly and with better understanding, with the near-prescience that the Spring-currents of the Node brought. I could readily understand why a magical creature like a dragon would choose this roost.

  Now to the attack.

  Gemnamnon lifted his head and exhaled, “Hoooooo,” as I leapt lightly onto a boulder across from him. The hot breath and deep, musical note blew by me.

  I didn’t bother making conversation, but stood with my hands on my hips. He seemed to gather himself together, and as he rose slowly, gracefully, I hit him with a simple lightning bolt. He jumped and dodged it, though the end of his long tail got singed, and reared back with his wings opening. They seemed as wide as the mountain. He fanned them and I threw another lightning bolt through the membrane of one. A series of snorted fireballs was his reply. As I parried them he half-soared toward me, pouncing.

  He pursued me around the top of the mountain as a cat might a mouse, but in this case the mouse was sending fireworks back into the cat’s face. I was trying to blind him, although it might not inconvenience him severely since dragons have other senses on which they rely more than vision. I did succeed in singeing off the cilia on the right side of his face and behind his head with a Fireflower.

  A blue-white, brilliant Flashbulb incantation dazzled him for a moment when he had cornered me briefly against a fragment of crumbled wall. I vaulted to the top of the wall and followed up with the Locomotive Pile-Driver and Thunder Lance, a classic one-two punch that rocked him back and actually stunned him briefly—perhaps three seconds. He shook his head, recovered, and parried the Bolt of Death combined with Flashbulb again as he swung a clawed foot at me, hissing hot, sulphurous gas. I shielded myself and drew my sword, using it to make a complicated pattern in the air as I said a word. The sword flashed gold-white and the gas became so much settling dust. I pointed the sword directly at his right eye, using it for a focus, and cried the concluding words to Block of Ice, freezing the eye in his head as I jumped from boulder to boulder, getting away.

  He screamed and reared back, wings fully spread, and a volley of fireballs and gouts of blue-white flame followed me, scorching the stones and making them crack and explode. Shielding was all I had time for until I got a small distance away.

  I hurled back a few fireballs myself and also heaved some of the boulders, tossing them with stirrings of the energy of the Node—burping them, one might say, or bouncing them the way one might bounce wads of paper on a piece of cloth held taut and rippled. He batted them aside like cricket balls, advancing on me, driving me back and back with fire. I cast a simple electric-shock spell and Thunder Lance, which didn’t slow him at all, and pitched a golden, tentacled fireball at him. It tangled itself around his leg and he destroyed it with a blast of his own flame.

  I suddenly realized that I was approaching the cliff on the north side of the mountain. He had been herding me—

  Gemnamnon laughed deafeningly and coughed short, intense bursts of fire. Rocks exploded around me. I dodged and shielded and cried the Falling Wall’s keywords. He shrugged it off and pounced. I twisted, trying to roll aside, and his foot fell heavily upon me.

  My head hung back over the edge of the cliff. I was pinned by two of his digits, my legs immobilized. Wind sighed past my ears, and then all was still.

  He stopped flaming to bend his head over me and breathed softly, “Bastard of bastards, I am Elemental. You cannot conquer me, mongrel.” He pinched me slightly, flexing his claws. I felt one of them slide into my left shoulder as if the mail were not there. Bones crunched.

  “You are conservative,” I gasped. I had few spells left. Most of them would certainly kill me and probably not kill him, given what I had seen tonight.

  “Bastardy is one thing,” he said, “but the mixing of two such noble lines is a degradation to both, particularly through such perversion as—”

  A huge, crackling, ozone-stinking bolt of electricity slammed into his head from the left, dazing eye and ear with light and thunderclap. Not releasing me, the dragon reared back and threw flames in that direction. They spattered, hitting a shield, and another lightning bolt followed. Who was this? Prospero? Phoebe? A friendly million-watt generator? No one in Argylle commanded such raw power these days.

  I had my sword in my hand. It had fallen behind me, under me. I drew it forth slowly, with great pain. If he leaned over me again, if I could lift it, I might be able to drive it into an eye, into his brain. Gemnamnon, however, pushed himself up and away, crushing the breath out of me as he reared back to meet this new opponent. I wheezed and gasped, trying not to black out, trying to see what was happening.

  Three more smaller lightning bolts sizzled in, low and fast, splattering on Gemnamnon’s gut. He laughed and crouched again, but he seemed to be slowing down a bit. Possibly that initial whack on the head had had an effect. Flames shot out and played against the newcomer’s shield, a coruscating line of forces undulating and adapting efficiently to the changes in flow from the currents of the Spring. A blue-white sizzling ball drifted toward the dragon, growing as it came, attenuating, becoming a gauzy, curling, jellyfishlike thing: the biggest Salamander I’d ever seen Summoned from its Element. Its heat baked me where I lay. Gemnamnon reared up and blew a shrieking, fine line of ruddy-gold fire at it as its undulating tentacles touched him, tangled around him undamaged by his fire, and he thrashed and wrestled, crushing boulders as he tumbled to one side—

  There followed a brief, violent blast of wind which moved boulders to grind on one another and toppled part of the ruined wall, an earthshaking thunderclap, and then silence. The dragon was gone.

  I managed to suck air into my lungs, although it hurt to breathe. My head reeled. I was not certain that I was really conscious, or that I was not dying. The black edges that had been closing in around my field of vision drew back, though the moonlight was so blue and thin compared to the brilliance of the sorcerous fires that I saw little.

  I couldn’t move, but I could sponge up the loose power on the mountaintop Node, though it was turbulent from the dragon’s recent passage. I did that, floating like a drowning sailor on the ocean’s
breast. A soft wind washed over me, cooling me and whispering sadly among the stones. I felt a strange sense of presence without object.

  Footsteps came near, slowly, rustling grasses, disturbing gravel and rocks. A ruddy ignis came to hover obligingly, illuminating me. My rescuer moved into its light, pushing back his cloak hood, rumpling his dark hair as he did, setting his staff down, flicking an eyebrow as he knelt by my side.

  “Dewar,” I whispered voicelessly, thinking I hallucinated.

  Dewar’s eyes met mine, and he smiled gently. He had a short, neat beard, and his sea-colored eyes held affection, amusement, reassurance. “Shh. Let’s see …” He spread his hands and the Spring shimmered and danced at his fingertips. His breath puffed white in the ignis-light.

  I closed my eyes, nursing my blown-out vitality on the Spring’s energy. Dewar pulled me back from the cliff’s edge and went to work; things began to realign themselves, somewhat painfully, inside me. I hissed once or twice and grunted when he set the bones in my shoulder. The crushed ribs took a long time.

  “Half done,” he said finally. “Let’s get you back to Argylle and finish the job while you’re in shock. Ariel—”

  A gust of wind ruffled my hair and then localized to become a whirlwind, a dimly shining, flowery, graceful shape, not unlike the thing that had removed Gemnamnon from the mountaintop but smaller: a spinning short-throated lily. A sweet, soft, pealing bell-like voice spoke from it. “Yes, Master? What may I do for you?”

  Dewar nodded. “Firewood, Ariel. For a bonfire of departure.”

  I was beginning to guess where Dewar had been, what he’d been doing.

  “Easily done, Master.” Ariel gusted apart and blew off around the mountaintop, picking up branches, twigs, and brush in his whirlwind. Dewar watched, smiling slightly still, holding my hands in his. The woodpile, now big enough for a bale-fire, deposited itself on a flat outcrop ten paces away. Ariel asked, “Is it well done, Master?”

  “Very good.” Dewar hissed a command and pointed; the ignis shot into the pile and it exploded into flame, then settled down to burn more naturally. “No, Gwydion—don’t stand. I’ll carry you.”

  He did, too, and although it hurt like hell when he lifted me after opening the Way, I didn’t black out. Ariel did not seem to accompany us. Dewar had made the Way into my own workroom; he set me down on the table. I’d left a green-shaded lamp burning by the Mirror of Ways. Hazily, by its tinted light, I saw him go and listen at the door for a moment. Then he nodded, satisfied, and returned to pick me up again and carry me to the bedroom.

  “Do you still keep a surgeon’s kit in here?”

  “Yes. Cabinet behind the workroom door.”

  “Hang on then.” Dewar squeezed my hand and whisked out, returned with the medical kit, and pulled a chair over to the bedside. I turned my head—my neck was beginning to stiffen—and looked at him. He smiled faintly and held a goblet of wine to my lips. I sipped and swallowed. It had a sweet taste under the fullness of the flavor: dosed.

  “The dragon isn’t dead, only displaced. Seriously displaced. But he may not care for a rematch,” my tutor said. “You did very well.”

  “Not enough,” I whispered.

  “You could have wiped him out with a vortex,” he agreed. “But I don’t know how good an idea that would be, so close to Argylle City and the Spring.” He stroked my forehead gently. “Rest, Gwydion.”

  Sleep dropped over me like a bag.

  There was light, wan grey snow-filtered light, when I woke. I was alone. My body was cased in bandages and laced with aches and pains and smarts. I fell asleep again after a few minutes.

  My second waking was dark and light. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace and candles were lit around the room, the deep-blue curtains drawn. Prospero was sitting beside me, holding the picture of his son and daughter, looking down at it. He smiled sadly as my eyes opened and set it back on the table.

  “Good to see you,” he greeted me.

  “Happy to be here,” I rasped.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “I’d better restrict myself to liquids.”

  He nodded and produced beef-vegetable broth, spooning it into me carefully, not talking until I had had enough. I sipped a glass of wine between mouthfuls. My arms were splinted and immobilized.

  “You ought to have come to me,” he said then, scrutinizing my face as he spoke. “ ’Twas late, indeed, but I kept vigil on the Citadel and heard naught from you, though your lights and your explosions lit the heavens and shook the stones. I’d have gladly mended you. I’m no novice at treating such wounds as yours seem to be.”

  Had Dewar disappeared without making himself known?

  “I … I wasn’t thinking clearly,” I said. “How long has it been?”

  “Today’s the second day since your assault, and noon’s long past. Errethon has sent a snowstorm north to us, winter ice ’gainst dragon-fire perhaps,” he added. “No connection to your battle, I assume.”

  “None I know of. How are Alex and Marfisa?”

  “Alex mends apace, so well that his accustomed cussed self chafes at the mending and would undo it. Marfisa lies abed yet, in less pain today, also fairly cussed at confinement. Walter is their gentle jailer, warding them from their own inclinations, and Tellin ministers to Marfisa under Walter’s eye.”

  “Good.” I closed my eyes as though tired. I was tired.

  “What befell you?” he asked.

  “Got stepped on,” I said truthfully, if indistinctly.

  “I did so surmise. Your surgeon bound you well. How came you home again, Gwydion? Gwydion?”

  I didn’t answer, taking refuge in invalidism. Silence was better than lying outright, though I’d prefer to tell the truth all the time, and I expect to hear it, too.

  He didn’t say anything more.

  Naturally he realized that I had had help in bandaging myself up. I didn’t think I could tell him who had done it. Had he wanted anyone to know, my tutor would have stayed.

  Dewar was alive and sane and somehow keeping tabs on events back home. And Ariel—that was a strange thing, that Ariel, given liberty by Prospero at the beginning of the world, should call Dewar “Master” now. Strange and wonderful. Dewar …

  I fell asleep again, smiling.

  7

  A NOTE WAS PROPPED IN FRONT of the photograph beside my bed:

  You need but one pair of eyes to sleep. I’m robbing Hounds at cards. Call if you’ve need of me.

  The Hounds is a nickname for Marfisa and Alexander, Gaston’s Warhounds they are called in Landuc sometimes.

  My little bag of magical essentials lay next to the note.

  I tested myself. I didn’t feel wonderful, but I certainly was closer to being in one piece than I had been during the past week-and-a-half of sleeping and waking only to eat, usually attended by Walter or Prospero. I got up very carefully and slid into my dressing gown. My arms still ached, but I took the splints off: by drawing on the Spring as Dewar had taught me to do, I had hurried the process of healing and sustained myself through the period when solid foods were impractical.

  The curtains were closed, but brilliant sun leaked around them; by that light I tottered into my workroom and sat down on a stool. The mirror before me showed that I was on my way to having a beard. I scratched at it and thought I’d let it keep growing. Beards seemed to be the fashion in the family these days.

  For the hell of it, I tried a Lesser Summoning of Dewar, but of course there was nothing, and I wasn’t about to essay anything more elaborate in this condition. I invoked Belphoebe instead.

  “Gwydion! How now? All’s well?” She grinned, delighted, standing on snowshoes in a pine grove, the trees heavy-laden with snow. A candle burned in her hand, to focus my Summoning.

  “Not so ill as I could have been,” I allowed.

  “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? I saw great doings from Little Baldy’s shoulder.” Watching from there, she would not have seen specifics of Dewar�
��s work.

  I had to smile, and I blushed and found half a truth. “No. But I don’t think he’ll return soon.”

  “Fled and not dead. A rout is still a victory! Good work, Gwydion.”

  I felt uncomfortable about taking the credit for this. “That’s what I’m here for, Phoebe. Anything new or unusual happening?”

  “No. Just snow.”

  “Good. Talk to you later.”

  I wanted a pipe, but suspected that smoking was not healthful for my abused lungs. Instead I pulled the bell and asked for soup and applesauce and easy-to-eat food like that, and lots of it please. I was famished. They must have been keeping it warm for me, down in the kitchen; beaming Serge brought an overloaded tray up in less than ten minutes. I sat in my armchair by the fire and ate slowly.

  My first impulse was to drop everything and shoot off to find Dewar, my tutor and mentor. He meant the world to me. My parents had called him in after I had blown up a barn whilst visiting in the Westlands. It was a derelict barn anyway, a local eyesore. But Gaston was furious and Freia was annoyed, and, I realized now, amused. I stared in the fire and, smiling to myself, recalled Dewar’s casual entry into my life.

  “Damn it, Gwydion! Thou hast better sense than that. ’Twas not thy property, for one thing, and the Ellilizeës are wroth, justly so. Thou wast to build ties there, not tear them down.” Gaston has never struck any of us except in training us in the arts martial. However, he has damaged furniture. This time he pounded a fist on the great oak table, which bounced under the blow, adding emphasis to his words as he paced up and down.