The Magician of Hoad

by Margaret Mahy

  Linnet interrupted him. “It was my father,” she declared in a voice half sob, half sigh. “He longs to make Hagen powerful, and it makes him… unreliable. And I had to choose.…”

  “There’s a lot to say,” Heriot put in, “but right now we need to act and use our time well. The city is filled with the Hero’s men… but I think there are just as many of the King’s, all uncertain about what’s going on and what to do if it comes to a battle for Diamond. There are the men who normally guard the city, all waiting to be illuminated… waiting to be led… waiting to be told what to do. Your father just came sailing in with his troop earlier today, but so far he has issued no instruction.”

  “Why have they let this happen?” cried Dysart furiously. “Their duty is to protect Diamond—and me, for that matter.”

  Heriot put his finger across his lips. “Quietly!” he said warningly. “The Hero is the twin to the King, and Betony, who was left in his father’s place, welcomed him. Attack the King’s son and you might be cutting into the King himself. Attack the Hero, and once again you’re attacking the King’s other self. It’s a finely poised dilemma, and we both know Carlyon wants to escape from the prison that being a Hero has become for him. He wants to be an active King like your father, a married King. He wants to have children.”

  The Wellwisher laughed. Dysart couldn’t remember ever having heard a Wellwisher laugh, and he looked in some astonishment at the figure behind Heriot. He frowned with puzzlement that deepened into incredulity.

  “Is that your boy Cayley?” he cried.

  “And he isn’t a boy anymore!” said Linnet.

  “I am what I am,” Cayley said quickly, in that familiar damaged voice, “And right now I’m not boy or girl! I am a Wellwisher, but not the King’s Wellwisher. I belong with the Magician, just like always.”

  “Move on!” said Heriot, looking at Dysart. “Your father hesitates to command his own men, because he knows you and Lord Glass and others are hostages. We’ve already set Lord Glass free, and by now he’s in the Tower of the Swan, as safe as is possible. Defended, anyway. We’ll stroll over there now. And then—why, then we might drop in on Lord Carlyon and Betony Hoad and point out that yet another adjustment has taken place. They’ve pushed things around over the last few days. Now it’s our turn.”

  “But what about Betony?” asked Dysart. “Perhaps he has guards and supporters all the way through Guard-onthe-Rock.”

  “I don’t think he has many supporters, but I’ll deal with Betony,” Heriot said. “Can’t you tell? I’m more than I was. I’m most of the way toward being what I was meant to be in the first place.”

  Dysart stared at him, perplexed, half smiling, half frowning.

  “I can tell you’ve changed,” he agreed at last. “What’s happened to you?”

  “I’ve become a true Magician,” Heriot said. “I’m the one man now.”

  “A Magician with a broken nose,” commented Dysart, grinning a little hesitantly.

  “That? Well, I can still sniff out trouble. And anyhow, that’s between me and the Hero,” said Heriot, grinning too. “I’ll probably remind him of it in due course. But come on now!”

  “Heriot, there’ll be guards everywhere,” Dysart said. “I think…”

  “Yes,” Heriot agreed. “But Cayley and me, we walked here past them, didn’t we? Because I have the power to change what they think they’re seeing. So I’ll wrap us around in dreams, and we’ll walk by like the servants of Guard-on-the-Rock or attendants to Lady Linnet. Dysart, just tell yourself you are in charge now, because Cayley will talk to the King’s Wellwishers, reminding them that their first and only connection is to your father, and as for you— never forget that the straggling old friend at your elbow is the Magician of Hoad.”

  QUICKER THAN QUICK

  The golden throne room had changed. A second grand chair had been set up beside the King’s throne, and Carlyon the Hero now sat beside Betony Hoad, looking so much taller, so much more powerful than the slighter Prince. Izachel, dark as a shadow, hovered behind Carlyon, and it wasn’t difficult for those who had known him before to understand that he was a shell of what he had once been… a mere decoration. Once he had radiated force, but now, even though his face was invisible, his hunched shoulders along with his long, frail fingers revealed weakness rather than power. The King, displaced, sat in the subject’s chair in front of his son, and the Hero, who leaned forward, was speaking forcefully and eagerly.

  “You see,” Carlyon was saying, “you are without allies here in Diamond.”

  “I knew there were many possible dangers when I left my son in charge,” the King replied. “But for some reason I did not anticipate such a degree of treachery from you, Carlyon. I knew that Betony longed for some impossible glory, and I thought that perhaps, if he took over the role of the King for a while, that the throne, the crown might—”

  “How could you begin to think the crown or the throne would ever be enough for any man of imagination?” Betony cried passionately. “We live in a world that spins around a central mystery. And all we can do is dance and fight, gesticulate and parade ourselves like puppets stuck out on the edge of things, while up there the stars—” He broke off, shaking his head. “We play like stupid children,” he cried despairingly. “We’re always congratulating ourselves on our own glory and never admitting that, even at our grandest, we’re nowhere near the heart of true wonder. Even grains of dirt have more true glory than we do.”

  Not only the King, but Carlyon himself, now stared at him uneasily.

  “We must do what we can within our limitations,” the King said at last. “Do you fancy you could ever break out of your human condition to become a star?”

  “Or a grain of dirt, for that matter,” Carlyon added.

  Betony turned his head to one side, sneering at the long images of earlier Kings, stitched into tapestry and hanging on the wall. He twisted a little to look back at Izachel.

  “He’s nothing but a scarecrow these days, but perhaps he could still edge me toward transformation,” he said, not, however, as if he thought there was any possibility of this. “In the meantime, you could step back from the throne, and I could play the game of Kings for a little longer. Carlyon would be my brother King, set free from all the rules that have reduced him. We could arrange a wife and probably a war or two for him. He’d be able to ride in true glory once more.”

  As he spoke, there was a curious change in the room. Its very light seemed to change… to darken a little… to take on a different quality as it stroked the gilded surfaces of the thrones, or sank into rich fabrics. Betony wasn’t looking at the figures in the tapestries or the carved faces above him, but Carlyon must have caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to stare at the wall, only to find the figures of the Kings, sewn into cloth, had all turned their stitched heads to look back at him.

  “Maybe we could even arrange rebellion out in the counties,” Betony was saying, and then he broke off, for the altering light was not to be ignored. “What’s happening?” he cried to his father. “Don’t think you can—”

  He was interrupted. The door of the throne room sprang open and Carlyon leaped to his feet, like a man preparing to face an enemy. Betony Hoad’s face froze, then he, too, rose, though rather more slowly. The door was swinging wide, and Heriot Tarbas, the Magician of Hoad, came into the room. He edged in quite gently, nodded to Betony Hoad and Carlyon, and then stood to one side, making way for Prince Dysart and Linnet of Hagen, who, both disheveled, both alert, crowded in close behind him.

  “Well,” said Heriot, smiling and speaking into the silence at last. “Here we all are. How nice.”

  Carlyon, his face twisting with fury, leaped toward him, clutching at his sword, only to find he couldn’t draw it from its sheath. And as he struggled furiously with his recalcitrant blade, he became somehow locked in on himself. He couldn’t release the hilt and found himself staggering around in a ridiculous circle.

&n
bsp; “Lord Carlyon,” Heriot said. “I know you can hear me, and I’ll tell you this. Move back to that throne you were occupying and sit quietly there, because I won’t let you take a step toward me or anyone else. So give up the struggle.”

  “And what about me?” asked Betony Hoad. His voice trembled a little, but it was still mocking. “Do you promise to freeze me, too?”

  Heriot watched Carlyon settling back into his throne, watched his cramped fingers unlocking from the hilt of the sword.

  “You!” he said, not looking directly at Betony Hoad. “I’ve thought about you. I’ve got a plan for you. I promise you’ll love it.”

  The King spoke. “My son may be a traitor,” he said, “but he is still a Prince of Hoad. I don’t want him to come to harm.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to hurt him,” Heriot said. “I am going to fulfill him. I can’t make a Magician of him, and I wouldn’t even if I could. But I can make a work of art out of him. I can make him king of his own dreams. Now, that really is kingship.”

  Betony’s expression was altering. His confident voice was changing. “What are you offering me?”

  “I’m not going to offer it,” Heriot said. “I’m going to impose it. But it won’t hurt.”

  Carlyon hitched himself around to stare up at the black shape behind his chair. “Do something!” he commanded. “Now! Now!” But as he cried out there was a strangely fluid roar in the air. Briefly a huge image of the broken aqueduct, asking its eternal question by thrusting its curving stream of water into the air, dominated the golden room. And then things changed again. Dysart moved convulsively from Heriot to Betony, who now lay entirely collapsed in his chair.

  The King sprang to his feet. “Magician, if you have harmed my son… ,” he began.

  “He’s not dead,” Heriot said. “Be grateful, Lord King. He’s nothing but asleep… a special sleep in which he can examine and fulfill the extremity of his own dream, and you—well, you are released from a trap. After all, if you want a Magician, you’ve got to put up with his magic.”

  Carlyon had turned desperately to shake Betony Hoad, and shake him again.

  “He is dead,” he yelled. “You’ve killed him.”

  “He’s asleep,” said Heriot. “Don’t bang his head now.”

  Carlyon released Betony Hoad, who flopped back into his chair. Everyone stared at him, and in the profound silence that followed the only sound that could be heard was the sound of Betony’s even and relaxed breathing.

  “He’ll sleep and dream for a long time,” Heriot said at last. “He’ll make a land for himself, a land of the glories and nightmares he’s longed for but a land of exaltation, too. And then we’ll see, because one day he might want to wake as a transformed and fulfilled man.”

  At this moment there was a familiar sound. The doors of the reception room were opening yet again, and a cluster of figures with whitened faces and scarlet braids flowed into the room. Only the last in the line presented a bare face to the world.

  “Lord King,” said the first of the Wellwishers. “We rejoice at your return.”

  The King stood. He inclined his head. “I am glad to see you,” he said. “As you may know, these have been troubled times.”

  “And I am the trouble,” Carlyon announced, his voice filled with confidence and scorn. “But remember, according to the tradition of the land the Hero is the King’s equal. My acts are as legitimate as yours, Lord King.”

  The Wellwisher with the naked face moved forward.

  “Lord Carlyon, equal of the King, Hero who is anxious to father other Heroes,” the Wellwisher said, speaking in a curious, damaged voice. “Look at me very carefully.”

  Carlyon frowned, staring at the naked face. “You’re the boy who used to follow Heriot Tarbas,” he said at last. “You’ve moved up in the world.”

  “I’m more than that,” said Cayley. “I’m a forbidden quantity. It was forbidden that I should ever be conceived. It was forbidden that I should ever have been born, but here I am, and damn everything that’s tried to stop me. Because me, I was born in Senlac. Remember Senlac and the brave way you saved it? I’ve been told about it, but more than that, I actually remember Senlac, so that’s you and me both. I was born there nine months after you left it the first time. And, being a child of Senlac, I am challenging you—the one who destroyed it. I am challenging you to a confrontation in the Arena on Cassio’s Island.”

  Carlyon’s expression was changing. He was looking more and more incredulous, like a man confronted by an impossibility. Then his first incredulity was replaced by an expression totally alien to the Heroes of Hoad. Suddenly Carlyon was terrified. “Who are you?” he now asked, whispering as if he had been confronted by a horror.

  Cayley smiled. “Look at me closely. Your reflection, perhaps, though twisted a bit, and mixed in with another face you might remember from a long time ago. But forget looking. Did you hear me? I challenge you as Hero.”

  Carlyon continued to stare at her as if they were the only two people in the room. “I refuse the challenge,” he said at last, speaking thickly. “How can I possibly accept a challenge from you, of all people? A girl! A young girl!”

  “Yes, but how can you turn it down? You! A man! An old man!” asked Cayley. She moved forward to stand over him. She struck him on one cheek and then on the other. “Some Hero!” she said. “And some act of heroism that was, back by the gate of Cassio’s Island all those years back. Remember?” She struck him again. “Shall I tell them all?”

  “Did I ever hurt you?” Carlyon yelled.

  Cayley laughed. “Through what you did to others you damaged me forever,” she cried. “And then the world—that city out there—hurt me over and over again, toughening me up. But you’re supposed to be better than the ordinary world, aren’t you? I challenge you.”

  Carlyon turned to Izachel. “Magician… ,” he began, but Izachel suddenly crumpled sideways, collapsing into a pile of blackness at the foot of the King’s grand throne.

  “There’s a Magician finding his limitations,” Heriot said.

  Now Carlyon moved suddenly. Leaping up, he tried once more to draw his sword. Once again it remained obstinately sheathed.

  “I’m strong,” Cayley said, as if she were reassuring him. “I’ve practiced being strong. And maybe being strong is in the family. And I’m not only strong. I’m quick, too. Quick beyond quick!”

  Carlyon stepped back, as angry with himself for his brief loss of control as much as he was with Cayley. They looked into each other’s eyes, but Carlyon looked away first. When he spoke again, his voice was flat and expressionless. “I accept your challenge,” he said. “If the King,” he added, his voice touched now with savagery, “if the King of Hoad allows it.”

  “Of course I do,” said the King. “To accept challenges is part of the function of the Hero. To witness and celebrate them is part of the function of the King.”

  IN THE ARENA

  And so, in due course, that bright procession wound along the road and across the Causeway to Cassio’s Island. Once again Heriot found himself looking around that arena, at its space and its white walls—those pale hands cupped to catch blood. Once again he saw those curving seats ascending like stairs as the men and women of Hoad and Cassio’s Island took their places… the Lords of the counties and their wives and children… the merchants and bankers from the Second Ring, whole households from Diamond, along with soldiers from the Hero’s City and Diamond, too. Above the crenellated rim of the arena the sky was blue, pure, cloudless, and remote, rather as if the day was somehow holding itself off at a distance, preparing itself as a witness while standing back from the challenge and from a conclusion that must end inevitably in blood and death.

  Dysart took his new place as heir to the throne to the right of the King’s chair, but on his left sat Linnet, attended by young women and girls from all the counties of Hoad. Heriot stood behind Dysart at first, but then Dysart had another chair carried in so that Heriot could sit,
looking over his shoulder, and they could easily talk. There was so much they had talked about already over the last incredible weeks, and each discussion made the recent furious and violent happenings more manageable. Little by little those happenings were being classified and filed as history.

  “Congratulations! You’re fulfilling your dream,” Heriot murmured to Dysart, smiling rather mischievously.

  “But are you fulfilling yours?” Dysart murmured back.

  “Who said I had any dreams?” asked Heriot.

  “I’m guessing,” said Dysart dryly. “Mind you, if the worst looks as if it’s coming to the worst you’ll be able to intervene, won’t you? Freeze the Hero’s arm? Melt his sword?”

  Heriot stared out into the arena.

  “It won’t work like that,” he replied at last. “This is the climax of a nightmare that is in her very bones. She has to live through this part of the dream in order to be set free of it. And she has to do it all herself. If I intervene, I’ll ruin it all for her.”

  “But why?” Linnet said, leaning across Dysart.

  “Revenge for an old injury,” said Heriot lightly. “Things she once saw. Something that happened to her as a child, and it’s twisted itself through and through her. But she’s never really told me.”

  “She’s tall and strong,” Dysart said restlessly, “but not as tall and strong as the Hero, even though Carlyon isn’t a young man anymore. It’s not too late to—”

  “It’s always been too late. And these moments are so much a part of her they have to be lived through so they can be over and done with.”

  The trumpets sounded. The great ridged gates on one side of the arena opened, and the Hero of Hoad advanced with men on either side of him, one carrying a shield and one a sword. The trumpets sounded again. Doors on the opposite side of the arena opened, and Cayley came through alone. She had no shield, and her own sword swung at her side. She was dressed in close-fitting clothes that seemed to be made of links of silver. Trumpets sounded yet again, and once again Heriot saw the King of Hoad, attended by Lord Glass and an elaborately dressed marshal, ride into the arena.