The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah)

by Morgan, Mackenzie

  “Can’t it wait, Kalen? Theresa and I need to gather herbs this morning. They take a while to dry and we don’t have a lot of time left if they’re leaving in ten days.”

  “That’s my point. I feel like Theresa needs to spend some time learning to protect herself. She hasn’t been in any of the training sessions since you got here, and she can’t use any of the weapons. How is she going to defend herself?”

  “Kalen, I’ve traveled all over Calandra and I’ve never needed to defend myself against any type of attack. I really don’t think she needs to worry about that.”

  “Dru, you’re a Sister! Your pendant protects you! No one would dare attack a Sister.”

  “I know. So why are you pushing self-defense for Theresa?”

  “She’s not a Sister!”

  Drusilla just raised her eyebrows and looked at Kalen.

  After a couple of moments, Kalen said softly, “You mean she is?”

  “I would never share all my knowledge and skills with anyone who had not pledged to the Sisterhood. You should know me better than that.”

  “How? When? I mean …”

  “I initiated her when I first got here. I didn’t have to spend more than a couple of hours with her to know that she’s a healer.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t think it was necessary to inform you. You asked me to come, didn’t you? ‘To work with her’, I think your message said. What did you expect?” Drusilla was on the verge of anger.

  “No, no, that’s quite all right. A Sister of Healing. Does she understand her obligations as a Sister – no, never mind. That was a stupid question. If you initiated her, you made sure she knew what she was doing,” Kalen said. Then he leaned back against the counter to watch Drusilla prepare lunch for herself and Theresa. She was beautiful. He’d never been attracted to any other human female, and in the 500 plus years of his life, he’d been around plenty of them. But Dru was different. The sun made her hair look like spun gold, and her eyes were the blue of an October sky. She was slim, delicate, almost fragile in appearance, but fierce as a tiger when riled. She was kind and tender to those who needed her help, but stubborn and shrewd when opposed. Kalen had felt that Dru should have been born a dwarf ever since he’d first met her.

  Drusilla finished packing their lunch. Then she turned to Kalen and said, “A healer rounds out the group pretty well, don’t you think? If she’s ever in any danger, the Sisterhood will come to her aid, and to the aid of those she protects.”

  “While that’s usually good, it could be bad in this case.”

  “Not really. We don’t tell our secrets. You know that,” she said as she walked out the door.

  When Kalen stepped out into the yard, Duane looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

  “Don’t worry about Theresa. She’ll be fine,” Kalen said in answer to his unasked question.

  Duane nodded and went back to grooming the horses.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  The work on the minstrel act was going better than anyone had expected. Steve was their source for legends and stories. Theresa and Chris made a pretty good lyrics team, and Joan found tunes to fit the lyrics. Drusilla taught them four popular folk songs and served as a music critic for the ones they wrote. After ten days, they had a collection of about twenty songs on paper.

  While the others were busy writing songs, Karl, Darrell, and Kevin worked on instruments. So far, they had a fiddle and bow, several flutes, a couple of drums, a set of bongos, and a cymbal, but the guitar was proving to be a challenge. All of them, except Kevin, were beginning to identify with the new roles they were playing. They weren’t just preparing a minstrel act; they were becoming minstrels.

  All of them except Theresa and Kevin were performing better physically than ever before, and they were improving more in one day on Terah than they would have in a month on Earth. They were becoming adept at hand-to-hand combat and competent with all of the weapons, but each of them had discovered that they had special talents in one or two areas.

  Darrell adapted his talent for throwing a football to throwing spears and knives, and his martial arts skills made him a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Chris’s boxing background gave him an edge with the sword and with all types of close combat. Thanks to his experience as a sharpshooter for the military, Steve excelled with all of the bows, but he was especially proficient with a long bow. Joan’s skill with the long bow was second only to Steve’s, but she really came into her own when she was fighting with a dagger. Karl had used a crossbow on Earth, so he preferred that over the other bows, but like Steve, his aim was true with all of them, and his skill with throwing knives was second only to Darrell’s. Along with their new skills came a conviction that they could handle whatever Terah had to offer.

  Theresa was learning how to use the power in her hands to heal, and knowing that her skills were recognized and valued gave her a level of self-confidence that she had never experienced before. She had not simply adjusted to Terah; she felt that she belonged more to Terah than to Earth.

  One morning near the end of the second week, Kevin walked out into the yard a little earlier than the others.

  Xantha said, “You don’t really want to work out this morning, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. I know I’m not any good at any of this, but I have to try.”

  “None of this has anything to do with you.” Xantha pawed the ground and tossed his head. “Come on. We need to talk. I’ll tell Kalen we’re going off for a while. You need to learn more about your family.”

  “You know my real family? Why haven’t you said anything before?”

  “Didn’t think you were ready to listen.” Xantha walked over to the edge of the clearing. “Get on my back and hold on. You can’t fly yet.”

  Kevin wasn’t sure that this was such a good idea after all. He had enough trouble trying to ride a horse that stayed on the ground.

  “What do you mean, can’t fly yet?” Kevin asked as he tried to get up the nerve to mount Xantha. “Am I going to have to learn how to fly?”

  “Sure, if you’re good enough.”

  That didn’t sound too good to Kevin either, but since he could never tell whether Xantha was serious or not, he decided to assume that the pegasus was joking. He took a handful of Xantha’s mane and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a lovely meadow with some sweet grass not too far from here. We won’t be disturbed there. Come on, let’s go.” Xantha knelt down to make it easier for Kevin to mount.

  As soon as Kevin was settled, Xantha spread his wings and Kevin shut his eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Kevin. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Xantha said with a snort. “We need a live sorcerer, not a dead accountant.”

  A few minutes later, Kevin slowly opened his eyes and looked around. They were soaring above the clouds. Calm settled over Kevin as memories flooded back. He’d done this before, but only in his dreams. As a child he’d always felt safe and free on Xantha’s back, and some of that feeling of contentment settled over him now. It was the first time he’d relaxed since landing on Terah.

  All too soon, Xantha swooped down and landed in the meadow. He started grazing while Kevin stretched out on the ground in the sun.

  “I’m expecting to wake up and find out that this has all been a dream. Maybe I’m unconscious. Maybe I’m the one in a coma,” Kevin said. “I might be lying in a hospital bed right now, hooked up to monitors, waiting to come back to life, my life, my reality.”

  “I’d worry if I thought you really believed any of that,” Xantha said.

  “The day that you arrived with Duane, our first full day on Terah …”

  “Yes?”

  “Were you reading my thoughts then? Is that why you showed up outside the window?”

  “I was in your mind. I knew what you were trying to do.”

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t work,” Kevin said quietly. Then he added, “I recognized you as soon as I sa
w you. Were you really there, in my dreams all of those years, or were you just a memory from long ago, from the time before I went to Earth?”

  “You were on Earth before you were a week old. I seriously doubt that even a sorcerer’s memory goes back to the first week of life,” Xantha said with a snort. “But to answer your question, yes, I was actually there, at least mentally. The first time I appeared in one of your dreams, you were only a couple of years old. Something was chasing you and you couldn’t get away, so I helped you out. Since then, I’ve dropped in on a fairly regular basis. I’m not sure how much humans remember about their dreams, but I knew you’d recognize me when you saw me.”

  “Why were you reading my mind when I was two years old?”

  “I set up a mind link with you before you left the castle.”

  “Do you have to have a mind link to read someone’s thoughts?”

  “No. I can read anyone’s thoughts if I want to. A mind link means that the channel is always open. I’m always in your mind. All of your thoughts flow through to me.”

  “You’ve always known every thought I’ve ever had? How I’ve felt about everything in my entire life?” Kevin sat up and stared at Xantha.

  “Of course. I had to be sure that you were all right and that you were coming along as you should. You had to be worthy of your destiny.”

  “What about my rights to privacy?!”

  “I respected your privacy. I never once told anyone what you were thinking or feeling. All I did was reassure your father that things were going along just fine.”

  “As if he cared.”

  “He does, very much. You’ve never been far from his thoughts.”

  “If he cares, why did he give me away when I was born? Just because my mother died?”

  “No. That had nothing to do with it. If she had lived, you would have stayed with them until you were about a year old, but he would have had to foster you out by then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are a sorcerer’s son. Sorcerers have to foster their children out to keep them away from magic while they’re growing up.” Xantha wandered over to a fresh patch of grass and began grazing again. “Children tend to mimic adults, and a sorcerer uses magic on a daily basis. If a child were around magic all the time, and had the ability, he would just have to experiment. And uncontrolled magic is not a pretty sight. Control, absolute control, is necessary to make magic safe, and children just do not have that much control. Most sorcerers don’t even begin to study magic until they’re about twenty-five years old.”

  “Do all of the sorcerers put their children on Earth?” Kevin asked.

  “No. As far as I know, you’re the only one that’s ever been sent to Earth. Most of the time children are fostered with non-magical friends. Seated sorcerers have to be a little more careful about protecting their children while they’re growing up, but since there are usually quite a few of them, they’re relatively safe. Of course, not all of the children inherit the magic strain, like Laryn, your father’s sister. When it became obvious that she was non-magical, her parents brought her back home to live with them, but Badec had to live with his foster parents until he turned twenty-five. If you had not been an only child, Badec would have done the same with you.”

  “Wasn’t he an only child as far as magic was concerned?”

  “No, he has three brothers and two sisters who are sorcerers, too.”

  “Why didn’t my father remarry after my mother died? Doesn’t this world allow it?”

  “Yes, but no other woman has ever interested him for more than a few days, and since you were safe on Earth he didn’t feel like he had to remarry.”

  “But anything could have happened to me, a car accident, a fire, anything.”

  “I know. I tried to tell him, so did Laryn, and probably quite a few other people, but apparently Yvonne had told him that you would be the heir, so he didn’t worry about it. The rest of us did though.”

  “Laryn is his second, right? I don’t really understand the idea of a ‘second’.”

  “A second is ‘second in command’. A second’s more than a secretary, more than an advisor, more than a best friend. A second is the highest position a non-magical human can achieve. Even the governor of a province answers to the seated sorcerer and to the second.”

  “Will Laryn become my second?”

  “No. Whenever a sorcerer dies or retires and the heir takes over, the second must retire. The heir has to find his or her own second.”

  “Then I’m going to have to find someone else?”

  “Eventually, but not yet. You don’t have to formally declare a second until you have an heir. Then you have to register your second with the council. That way, if anything happens to you, there’s someone to hold the chair for a year to give your heir time to get ready to take over, unless your heir is thirty years old or older.”

  “What if the heir is a child? What happens then?”

  “The child has one year to learn how to use magic, or he or she will die at the end of that year.”

  “What?! What do they do? Execute them?”

  “No, of course not! They’re not barbarians,” Xantha snorted. “The child will almost certainly be challenged at the end of that year, and if he isn’t good enough, he’ll lose, and to lose a challenge is to die. Just another incentive to make sure you’re good enough, and careful enough, to hang around until your children grow up. Your second is supposed to help out on that score, too. One of a second’s duties is to watch the sorcerer’s back.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get married. I don’t want to subject any child of mine to all of this.”

  “Don’t even start to think that way. As Master Sorcerer, you’re responsible to all of Terah, not just one child. You have to make sure that the line of succession is clear and that your powerful strain of magic survives.” Xantha paused as he glanced around the meadow, searching for another tasty spot. “Actually, you’ll need several children, just to be on the safe side. Badec took quite a chance, never marrying again and having more children. You should not do the same. You cannot leave the highest chair on the council up for grabs. But foster them well, or they’ll fight amongst themselves to inherit the Master’s Chair.”

  “Why? You mean someone might actually want all of this?”

  “You are so naïve. You have no idea how much power you’ll have, and most humans will do anything to get power.”

  “From what I’ve seen, with power comes responsibility, and the more the power, the more the responsibility. Who wants it?”

  “I’m afraid you may find out all too soon just how many others do want it.” Xantha turned his head towards Kevin and took a good long look at him. “At least you see the drawbacks. Most humans are hypnotized by the power.”

  “Is my father one of those?”

  “No, he’s more like you. He never really wanted it, but he knew it was his destiny, so he accepted it, same as you will.”

  Xantha found a new spot and grazed some more while Kevin thought about the future. He felt like he couldn’t get a clear grasp of what his life would be like in a month, in a year, or in ten years, should he live that long. For the first time in his life, things were not neatly mapped out.

  Finally he said, “I have no idea what I’m heading into. Even with everything you and Kalen have said, I don’t know.”

  “And you won’t, not for a while. Sometimes being a sorcerer is really fun, and sometimes your magic will help people, and sometimes it will protect them, but sometimes it won’t be enough. Sometimes bad things will happen, no matter how good or how careful you are. It’s just the way it is. You’re going to have to accept that, and you need to start now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got to stop feeling responsible for everybody else. Pallor was the one who assembled the team. You didn’t force them to come here. You didn’t put them in danger. You even tried to give them a way out by refusing to go along with all of t
his.”

  “A lot of good it did,” Kevin mumbled. Then he said, “Xantha, I don’t think they realize what Kalen is saying. They could all die. I figure I’m dead regardless, but they don’t have to be involved. Or at least they didn’t at that point.”

  “Well, first of all, I don’t figure you’re dead regardless, and I wish you would try to have a little faith in us, and a lot of faith in Glendymere. And as far as the others are concerned, they feel like they’re doing something important. That’s why they’re all working so hard. They have a reason to get up every morning, and that reason is a lot more important to them than anything they had back on Earth. They’re happy right now, and I’m not picking up any regrets. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Some of them may die, but they think it’s worth the risk. When you take that chair, they will have done their part in averting a disaster, and no one can ever take that away from them. That’s the way they see it.”

  Xantha walked over to the far side of the field and continued to graze. Kevin felt a little better at first; then a new responsibility started to sink in. If they were willing to risk their lives to get him to his tutor and then to Camden to take the Master’s Chair, he owed it to them to be good enough to hold it.

  “Now you’re getting it,” Xantha chimed into his thoughts. “You were feeling guilty because you couldn’t use those weapons or sing. That’s nothing. Your responsibility lies in a totally different direction. You have to become the most powerful human sorcerer on Terah. That needs to be your focus.”

  After Xantha had left Kevin to his thoughts for a while, he added, “And you do have to do one other thing.”

  “What’s that?” Kevin asked.

  “Produce heirs! Lots of them! And soon!”

  “Not until all of this is settled.”

  “Never too soon to start looking for a mate. Want me to help?”

  “No, I do not! I’ll find my own ‘mate’, thank you. Just not yet. There will be time enough for that later.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Well, I’ll just keep reminding you in case you forget.”

  “Are you ready to go back?”