Is This Apocalypse Necessary

by C. Dale Brittain

  Antonia was in most ways the same little girl she had always been, but her legs had become startlingly long in the last year or two, and her shape had begun subtly to change; before too long it would be a woman's, not a girl's. She was flushed and laughing from the game and did not at first notice me.

  A player on the other side spiked the ball downward, apparently a sure point, but just before the ball touched the ground it abruptly stopped and reversed itself. Another player on Antonia's side batted it up and toward her. She and the ball rose majestically into the air, waiting until the opposition had jumped and come down again. Then she struck the ball hard and true over the net and slowly descended to the ground while her side cheered.

  That was interesting, I thought. She'd used a lifting spell on the ball, but it was not the standard school spell. It looked like something she'd improvised herself.

  A stable boy spotted me. "Wizard! Antonia's cheating again! Make her stop!"

  She saw me then and ran toward me, pushing loose hairs away from her forehead. "There you are! Did you go somewhere exciting? Why didn't you take me along? And I'm not cheating! I told them I wouldn't work spells any more than once every five minutes, and I didn't."

  "I just had to go to the City," I said, taking her comments in order, "and you wouldn't have found it exciting. Antonia, I think they'd really prefer if you played without working any magic at all, so why don't you try it that way for a while?"

  "But she can't stop now!" a serving maid called to me. "Your daughter worked lots of spells when she was playing for the other side, so now it's our turn!"

  "Make her stop, Wizard!" the stable boy protested again. "Can't you cast a spell that will keep someone from working any magic?"

  "Well, yes, but it's a very complicated spell, and I don't want to take risks on its side effects just for a game." This was something I really didn't need to get into. "Besides," I said to Antonia, "you're all hot and sweaty from playing—I'm tired just looking at you! Why don't you take a little rest?"

  She gave me a saucy look that could have been her mother's. "And are you hungry as well as tired? Shall I have a little snack too?" When I couldn't help laughing—probably undercutting months of conscientious fatherly discipline— she added, "And what are you still doing in your pajamas? Did you wear them to the City? If so I'm glad I wasn't along! It would have been so embarrassing."

  I and the last shreds of my dignity retreated into my chambers to wash and change. The volleyball game started up again behind me.

  * * * *

  Antonia and her mother lived in the city of Caelrhon, but I visited them and Antonia visited me frequently. Theodora still made her living as a seamstress and always insisted that the kingdom of Yurt didn't need a Royal Witch to go with its Royal Wizard, especially not one who would always be expected to sew on other people's buttons for them.

  Two days later I took Antonia back home, her visit to Yurt over for this month. She hadn't seemed to notice that I was saddened and sober; now all I had to do was try to keep it from Theodora. She would be very sympathetic to hear that my old teacher was dying, but how was I going to explain that I had been offered the position of Master of the wizards' school and had refused?

  I had an air cart of my own, in which we flew under the late summer sun toward the cathedral city of Caelrhon. Antonia's flying abilities might allow her to cheat at volleyball but were not yet up to a forty-mile flight. But she insisted on saying the spells herself to direct the skin of the purple flying beast, as it carried us across woods and ripening fields.

  The old ledger with the centuries'-old spells was hidden behind other books at the back of my shelves. I was not even going to look at it, I told myself. I had seen enough books of spells out of the old magic over the years to know that between over-optimism on what a few herbs could do, a tendency not to bother writing down the steps that seemed self-evident to the writer, and badly-faded ink, most of them wouldn't work at all without extensive revision. Even aside from the impossibility of facing Elerius, I had no intention of going into the lair of dragons and using a defective spell in an attempt to reveal a Scepter that would, theoretically, make them treat me as their master rather than swallowing me in one gulp. Being swallowed whole remained by far the most likely outcome. The second most likely outcome was that a dragon would chew me up a little first.

  Since this made such good logical sense, why did I feel so miserable?

  But in the meantime I should try to enjoy being with Antonia. "Isn't your school starting up again soon?" I asked to make conversation.

  She pulled her mouth into an expression of disgust. "I wish I didn't have to go to school in Caelrhon. I already know all the things they want us to learn! And they never teach us anything interesting, like about the land of dragons or secret treasure. I bet I could start at the wizards' school already if you and Mother would let me." I started to say something and changed my mind. "Besides, she says I can't do even the tiniest little spell while I'm at school. She says she doesn't want people to know that we're witches! I told her that I was a wizard instead, but it didn't make any difference."

  "Um, well, at least nobody minds if you work spells in Yurt," I said. I wasn't going to get into the volleyball issue again.

  "I know," she said thoughtfully, "but Mother still told me not to turn anybody there into a frog, not even for practice. But there's this bully at school," she added with new enthusiasm, "and I bet lots of people would be happy if I turned him into something. Do you think I could transform him into someone who wasn't a bully? Do you think I could do it in a way that no one would know it was me?"

  "Spells can be traced," I said quickly and evasively, "and a transformations spell won't change someone's character. Besides, I think your mother would figure it out pretty quickly even if no one else did." How, I wondered, had a daughter of mine gotten so good so young on transformations spells? She would never have had trouble at Zahlfast's practical exam. But then I remembered. Elerius had taught her.

  * * * *

  Theodora was sitting by the open casement window, sewing, when I brought the air cart down into the quiet cobbled street where she lived. Timbered house-fronts leaned over the street, but a ray of sunlight shone on the sea-green silk she was embroidering.

  "Is that a skirt?" asked Antonia, kissing her mother. "Who is it for?"

  "One of the mayor's daughters," Theodora answered. Then, when Antonia took her little bag off to her room, she added to me with a smile, "It is in fact not a skirt but, if you'll believe it, a dress. It's the latest style for young women at fashionable late-night dances. This skirt-part sits on her hips and keeps her legs decently covered, though the slit on the left side is designed to make sure that no one speculates in an untoward and uninformed way that those legs might be unattractive! And then this rather filmy part I'm embroidering now makes a tactical advance northward from the waistband, just about keeping her decent, as long as she doesn't dance too hard and disarrange the straps. And lest you fear that too much bare skin might be exposed, you'll be pleased to hear that she'll wear it with green ribbons wrapped around her left leg and both arms."

  "Wow!" I exclaimed. "Is she coming by soon for a fitting? Do you need a helper?"

  Theodora laughed, gave me a push, then relented and kissed me. So far, I thought, I was doing a good job of suggesting nothing was wrong.

  "How about this black crepe?" I asked, noticing a pile of scraps on the table. "Are fashionable young ladies of the merchant class now wearing black for dances?"

  "No, that was for a funeral just two days ago," Theodora said more soberly. "One of the masters of the dock-workers' guild was killed when a whole pile of crates fell on him. Apparently he lived just long enough for his wife to get down to the docks, and he told her, there in front of everybody, about this illegitimate son he'd had years ago! It turned out the lad knew perfectly well whose son he was, but they'd always kept it from the wife. But she was very gracious about it, even invited the son to the fune
ral."

  "Would you invite my illegitimate son to my funeral?" I asked teasingly.

  Theodora gave me a quick look from amethyst eyes. "If I learned you'd had a child I hadn't known about, of course I'd invite him or her to your funeral: a funeral which would happen very soon!"

  We both laughed, and I was kissing Theodora properly when Antonia came back. "When I get married," she pronounced, "you aren't going to catch me doing that mushy stuff all the time."

  * * * *

  After Antonia had gone to bed that evening, Theodora and I sat a little while by the dying fire, me on the couch and she on the hearth-rug, her head leaning against my knee. I worked my fingers through her curly hair to find and trace the edge of her ear, staring the while into the red and orange coals before us.

  "At least Antonia isn't interested in boys yet," she commented. "A good thing, too. Even if she's just been away for a few days she always surprises me when she comes back by how grown-up she looks. She's going to be a lovely young woman."

  "A young woman who's going to be locked up for ten years from the time she first looks at a man with interest," I said firmly.

  Theodora laughed and squeezed my leg, although I had been at least partially serious. "Have you spoken recently to the bishop?" she asked.

  "Joachim? No. Is there something I can do for him?"

  Theodora embroidered altar cloths and sewed vestments for the cathedral, and it sometimes seemed these days that she saw my old friend the bishop of Caelrhon more than I did. "Apparently he's worried about something to do with the bishop of the great City," she said. "I was just wondering if you'd heard about it, since the wizards' school is also in the City. I told him you were coming today, and he left a note for you."

  Affairs of the Church held no interest for me. "The Master of the school is dying," I said suddenly.

  Theodora turned then to look up at me. "I'm very sorry. Is that what's been bothering you?" When I cocked my head at her she added, "You should know me better than that, Daimbert! Did you expect your light-hearted joking this afternoon would make me think everything was fine?"

  I touseled her hair. "Well, everything in Yurt is fine. And the Master is very old—we all knew he couldn't live forever." I was thinking, if I had agreed to pursue the Master's idiotic dying scheme, I would be here telling Theodora good-bye forever.

  "So will they just elect a new head from among the faculty?" Theodora asked thoughtfully. She shook her head and squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, I know in some ways the old Master was like a father to you, but I'm afraid I'm thinking not about him so much as how the school might change. You know you've said several times that some members of the faculty seem open to the idea of starting to accept women as students as well as men."

  "Well, by the time Antonia would be ready to go to the school," I said noncommittally, "there may well have been some changes." Elerius might once have taught my daughter some magic, I thought, but I was absolutely determined that he would not have a chance to get his hands on her again. Theodora and I would train her ourselves.

  "I visited the Master the other day," I continued slowly, "probably the last time I'll ever see him. And I—I told him I was married to you. We've always kept this from the school, and I'm sorry I didn't ask you about it first, but I thought for various reasons that I should tell him now."

  Theodora rested her chin on my knee, her amethyst eyes dark in the shadows. "But you don't sound as though the school is planning to cast you out of institutionalized wizardry."

  I shook my head. "No, no," I said, not meeting her eyes. "In fact, just the opposite! I think," I added in a rush, "that the Master considers this a temporary situation, and that I'll tire of you sooner or later. He is, of course, completely wrong."

  Theodora smiled and rose to her feet. "Time for bed," she said, taking my hand and pulling me up with a tug. "You can show me just how tired you are or aren't of me!" I slipped an arm around her waist, but she paused by her cloth scraps. "Here," she said, digging among them. "I should give this to you before I completely lose track of it."

  It was the note from Joachim. I stuffed it into my pocket and nuzzled Theodora's hair, wanting distraction from thoughts of the school.

  But she stepped away. "I won't think you're tired of me if you want to read your letter first. After all, it's from the bishop!"

  I pulled her toward me again but obediently broke the seal on the letter with the thumb of my free hand. "Didn't anybody ever tell you," I asked with a chuckle, "that witches aren't supposed to have any respect for the Church? It can't be anything very important or he would have telephoned."

  Joachim's note was short—he had never had any use for chit-chat. But it turned out to be very important after all.

  "There is a problem with the election of the new bishop of the City," it read, "and the cathedral there has asked other western bishops for assistance. Normally I would never bother you with this, but there seems to be a difficulty with the wizards' school trying inappropriately to influence the election. I need your advice on the wizard Elerius."

  Part Two:

  Naurag

  I

  "So now that he's effectively a king, is about to become the leader of the wizards' school, and also mayor of the City, it sounds as if he also intends to dominate the Church."

  I sat in Joachim's office at the cathedral, the morning sun shining on the polished woodwork as if nothing was wrong. Faint in the distance were the rumble of winches and workmen's shouts from the ongoing construction of the new church. I had just been filling the bishop in on the approaching death of the Master and on Elerius's intention to work it into his schemes. All I omitted was the Master's desire to make me his successor, which, because I was not going to do it, was irrelevant.

  "This is even more serious than I had thought," Joachim commented gravely.

  "So is Elerius trying to get himself elected as bishop of the great City?" I asked, feeling both furious and helpless.

  "It's not quite that simple, Daimbert." Joachim drummed his fingers on his desk, something I had never before seen him do. He must be wondering if it was appropriate for a church leader to be asking the advice of a wizard. Not that I had any good advice to give him. "Normally the cathedral priests of each diocese elect new bishops on their own," he continued, "with little if any advice from outside. And when the old bishop of the City died two years ago, that is just what they did. They had a dispute within the cathedral chapter for a while, with two if not three contenders as I understand it. Eventually they compromised, taking a path many cathedral chapters have taken before them. They elected none of the various candidates, but instead a holy hermit from up in the hills, one whom some people were already calling a saint."

  "Don't tell me," I said bitterly. "The holy hermit has decided that being the head of the most important diocese in the West is much too active a life for somebody who wanted to devote himself to solitary prayer. Especially since an angel has been showing up, telling him it's fine to step down: an angel with a black beard and illusory wings."

  The sun was a glint in Joachim's dark eyes. "I do not believe Elerius has been quite that blatant. But when the hermit indeed did, as might have been expected, return to his hermitage a few months ago, the cathedral chapter was faced with resolving the same internal split they had been unable to resolve two years ago. And Elerius, expressing what he says is a deep yearning for the wizards' school and the Church to work together for the betterment of humanity, has thrown his support behind one of the candidates."

  "Where is he getting these ideas?" I demanded.

  For a moment Joachim looked amused. He could find amusement in the strangest places. "He may have gotten this idea from you and me."

  If Elerius intended to turn even my friendship with Joachim into part of his schemes, there was nothing he would not do. "So is it too late?" I asked quietly.

  The bishop stopped smiling. "His candidate has not yet prevailed. Too many of the cathedral priests are uncomforta
ble either with the man himself or with his backing from the wizards' school. As much as I myself believe that some of my colleagues are too quick to dismiss the idea that any good can be found in a wizard, in this case their caution is salutary."

  I didn't answer. For all I knew he was being amused again.

  He turned his enormous black eyes on me. Even after all these years, I still sometimes found Joachim's gaze disconcerting. "So, Daimbert, what are you planning to do to stop him?"

  * * * *

  First the Master, now the bishop. What had I ever done to make the two men I respected most think I might somehow be able to stop the best wizard ever to come out of the school? "I'm not going to do anything," I snapped. "You priests can try to find a way to keep his influence out of the Church, but there's nothing I can do to keep him out of the direction of the wizards' school. I guess there's still a chance that the citizens of the City will have too much sense to elect him mayor, and maybe King Paul and some of the other western kings can prevail upon his royal family to have someone else act as regent there, but all the faculty at the school will be delighted to have him as their new Master."

  "I can see this will be very delicate," said Joachim thoughtfully. "I am sure you wizards don't think of God as speaking through the electors, as cathedral priests do when they elect a new bishop, but it may still be difficult, at least at first, to persuade others to join you in opposing a man whom they have just chosen to head organized wizardry."

  "Didn't you hear me?" I burst out. "I just said I wasn't going to oppose him. Even if I didn't know perfectly well that any magic I tried against him would blow up in my face, at least I'd recognize the horrible danger—to Theodora and to Antonia, and for that matter to everyone in Yurt, as well as to me. I'm going to stay quietly at home and hope he doesn't think about me at all."

  "Yes," said Joachim as though I had made a different comment altogether. "I understand that you might not want to trust even me with your plans, at least at this early stage. Secrecy may be vital, though I rather doubt Elerius has spies here in the cathedral. But I do want you to know that I shall always pray for you and will help you in any other way that I can. All you need do is ask."