Paul set Gwennie down and abruptly became uncomfortable again. "I am delighted to see you in good health," he told her formally. I realized I still, after all this time, had his diamond ring in the bottom of my pocket, but the middle of a military camp was not the place to produce it. "Won't you introduce me to your friend?" Paul continued. He looked properly at Maffi for the first time, a handsome and rather exotic-looking man the same age as Gwennie, and his eyes narrowed.
I had no time to worry about anyone's love life but my own. If everyone—including, very soon, Elerius—knew I was back, then I could not let Theodora go another night without knowing too. "Where's that telephone you set up?" I asked Chin. "I have to call my wife."
* * * *
King Paul of Yurt, King Lucas of Caelrhon, and a dozen other western kings sat in a circle around a watchfire, talking. On one side was the encampment, starting to settle down again after the excitement of my arrival; on the other was an empty mile that separated their armies from Elerius's castle. Firelight reflected from the kings' armor, and the shadows dancing across their faces made their expressions impossible to read. They were ready for a battle which I knew would leave the fields of Elerius's kingdom scattered with their bloody corpses.
Coming back from talking to Theodora, I squeezed in next to Paul. Hadwidis, Gwennie, and Maffi sat behind him. For a moment I wondered if this kingdom had ever before had so much royalty gathered outside its castle, but then remembered—of course it had, at the time of the old king's funeral. But then the kings had assembled to mourn the passing of the man who had ruled here, and now they were gathered to oppose the man who had set himself to replace him.
Zahlfast, I gathered, had been overcome by the excitement, which meant that the only wizards here were Whitey and Chin, who hadn't even graduated yet. Leadership of the army was thus in the hands of the kings. They were arming several, including Lucas, convinced that an immediate midnight attack was the best course, while others urged caption.
"He's got those things fighting for him, Lucas," one king said darkly. "You weren't here yet when we first attacked,” and for a second I could hear all sorts of other unresolved quarrels behind his words, "but I for one don't want to face them again—and many of my best men will never have a chance to fight anyone again. Let's give the wizards a little more time to disable them with their spells."
"I don't trust those wizards," Lucas retorted. "How do we know they won't turn against us given a chance—or join Elerius the way they tell us so many other wizards have. We wouldn't be hearing so many things about how Elerius is 'stronger' than they are if they just had their minds on their magic for a change."
I looked around surreptitiously for Evrard, King Lucas's Royal Wizard, to see how he was taking this, but didn't see him. I hoped this didn't mean he had joined Elerius. But he might well have, the voice in the back of my mind pointed out. He had always admired him. In which case I wasn't just fighting against Elerius, who I knew as my enemy; I was also against Evrard and doubtless many other wizards whom I had always considered my friends.
"If you are so rash, Lucas," said one of the other kings roughly, "as to want to try unaided steel against black magic, I shall not be ashamed to wait here for you."
Lucas growled and reached for his sword. He had always been touchy, but this went further; it seemed to me that the fierceness and pride he was at such pains to demonstrate were not really his but the product of what he thought a warlike king should be like. It was much too late now to go back and tell his childhood nurse not to let him hear such stories.
Paul put a hand on his arm. "Let's hear what Daimbert has to say."
That stopped Lucas, as indeed it stopped them all. They turned faces suddenly still with awe toward me. In the ten minutes I had been on the phone my legend seemed to have matured. From snippets of conversation I had heard while walking back, the Cranky Saint had redeemed me from death so that I might free the West from the scourge of Elerius and his minions. At least so far, I wouldn't have to cleanse the populace of their sins while I was at it.
How could I possibly lead all these powerful kings? I hadn't even had much luck leading Maffi. But I did know that neither charging headlong against Elerius's castle, nor waiting for Whitey and Chin to come up with better spells than those of the wizards inside, was likely to work.
"The Cranky Saint has sent you a wizard to lead you," I said, thinking that soon I might have to believe it myself. "The wizards in that castle have been misled by Elerius, the same way that his knights have been misled. But when we win," just barely not saying, "if we win," "then we'll have to make our peace with all his followers, wizards and warriors alike."
"So what are you planning to do, besides defend the good name of wizardry?" demanded Lucas, just barely keeping his tone from being insulting. I probably should have been gratified that not everyone was awestruck by my miraculous appearance here, but I wasn't.
"I'm going to go talk to Elerius," I said, firmly and clearly, wondering even as I spoke what I could possibly say to him. "He's always claimed that he wants to rule in order to benefit humanity, and it must have occurred to him that there cannot be any benefit in a repeat of the Black Wars."
"How are you going to get in?" one of the kings asked. For a moment we were all silent, looking off toward the castle, just visible against the evening sky.
"I'll find a way," I said with more confidence than I felt. "And he'll have to listen to me."
"If you think you can reason with him, Wizard—" the king started to say.
"Not reasoning," I snapped back. "Threats. I shall threaten him with my powers. And I hope you don't imagine that I came back from the dead to betray you all!"
The one time I actually had come back from the dead, it had not been with any startling new powers, but none of these kings would know that. I stood up. "I'll go tonight— now. He may have thought he could defeat your armies with his spells and his undead warriors, but he reckoned without me."
With the Ifrit's bottle in my pocket, I rose from the ground and flew toward the distant glowing lights of the castle, wondering what I could possibly do to match my bold words.
* * * *
The spells against flight which Elerius had erected around his castle caught me a quarter mile away. Fortunately I was ready for this and was only a few feet above the ground when all my flying ability evaporated.
It wasn't a true magical shield, I thought, picking myself up and trudging across the dark ground toward the castle gates. It would have no effect, for example, on an army. But— It might slow down dragons. Elerius must fear that I had obtained the Dragons' Sceptre after all.
I allowed myself a small grin. Let him imagine I had a hundred dragons lurking a few hills away. I wondered briefly why the spell hadn't affected Naurag's ability to fly, but then Naurag wasn't a dragon. If Elerius was so concerned about dragons, I might be able to work them into the conversation even while trying to reason with him. In spite of what I had told the kings, I did intend to try reason first, but I was certainly not above threats if I thought they would succeed.
And if that didn't work, I was putting an alternate plan together in my mind. I didn't like it at all, but at least it was a plan.
The ground under my feet might once have been a wheat field. Now it was trampled and ruined. A battle had already been fought here, I reminded myself, and for all I knew I was walking across the graves of some of the west's bravest and most foolhardy warriors.
The castle bristled with magic, and I paused, wondering how I could possibly get past protective spells far more powerful than anything of mine. But I need not have worried. The drawbridge swung down and the portcullis, creaking, rose before me. Clearly I was expected.
I hesitated a moment, trying unsuccessfully to see what was in the black passage beyond the portcullis. This was worse than Basil's castle in the Eastern Kingdoms—there all that awaited me was a wizard with a man-eating lizard on his shoulder. In here was a wizard who imagined he c
ould save the world by destroying it.
Maybe, I thought, still hesitating, I should have had Hadwidis draw a detailed map of the major rooms of her castle, so that I could, by using the ensorcelled skull, have had an idea of what Elerius was up to before I arrived. But then I shrugged and forced my feet forward. My leg twinged, but I ignored that too.
The castle was dark, but as I entered, all around I could sense powerful spells, spells that must be keeping a potential dragon attack away and observing the royal armies. I saw no one, not the queen mother or the young prince about whom Hadwidis was so worried, and none of the dozens of wizards Elerius might have with him. But doors opened before me, magic lights flicked on, and as I strode forward the lights behind me went out and the doors slammed. I kept my head up and one hand in my pocket, trying to walk the way a man would who might at any moment brandish the Dragons' Sceptre.
The halls and the doors were leading me straight up to Elerius's study. I considered improving my appearance with illusion as I had when visiting Levi but rejected the idea; I had looked ridiculous as the illusion faded, and I needed my attention for far more important things than lace cuffs. How many wizards would Elerius have standing by him, I wondered, ready to neutralize any spell of attack I might try, even before the words were fully shaped? Or how many knights might he have positioned, whose swords could pierce me before I could paralyze them all?
The study door opened before me without anyone touching it. Lamplight spilled out into the dark hallway. My feet, acting on their own, stopped moving. "Come in, Daimbert," said Elerius's voice. "I've been expecting you for weeks."
* * * *
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a quick prayer to the Cranky Saint in case he really was trying to help me, and forced my feet forward into the doorway.
No hordes of wizards or knights with drawn swords awaited me—just Elerius. He sat in a large chair in the middle of the room, arms crossed, looking expectantly toward the door.
The only person with him was a boy, a boy Antonia's age. His shock of dark hair was the exact same shade as the wizard's beard. He slid off his own chair as I came through the door, landing somewhat awkwardly—I realized with a start that one of his legs was ever so slightly twisted. But I had no time to think about that now. He looked up at me haughtily but then spoiled the effect by smiling. "Hello, Wizard. Are you the famous Daimbert?"
Elerius answered for me. "So he is, Prince. And he has come to join us."
Join them! Elerius thought I might still be talked into becoming his co-ruler, and he called the boy Prince. So I had two pieces of useful information already, I thought, turning around a chair and straddling it backwards, leaning my arms on the back and doing my best to give him a wizardly glare. He wasn't planning to kill me immediately, and he had not yet told young Walther that he was his father.
"I'm afraid your wizard has misled you, Prince Walther," I said to the boy, who seemed surprised that I knew his name. Now I just had to hope that the pounding of my heart wasn't as loud in the room as it was in my own ears. "It is true that I am Daimbert, but I have not come to join your wizard but to oppose him. And he has not been expecting me for weeks but only for an hour or two."
"You told me Daimbert was our friend, Wizard," said Walther uneasily, stepping back closer to Elerius. He was a tenderly-raised young prince, I thought, with none of his father's supreme self-assurance. I couldn't hurt him myself any more than I could have hurt Antonia, but I might be able to maneuver Elerius by hinting that at any moment I might do so.
Already I could tell that this conversation was not going the way Elerius had planned. I would have smiled if it had not been so deadly serious. He had arranged to meet me alone except for his son, as a demonstration of his goodwill and his trust in me. Instead of being swayed by the loving family picture of the two of them together, I must suddenly seem like someone dangerously likely to say things he didn't want the boy to hear.
"I am ready to be a friend to both of you, Prince Walther," I continued, deliberately not looking toward Elerius because I knew it would annoy him. So far, my voice was staying fairly steady. "But friendship will be on my own terms, or else I am your enemy." I had the initiative and I didn't dare lose it—Elerius's ability to plan and prepare must be slipping, what with trying to run a war, but at any moment he might regain control. "First—and this is fundamental—he must give up his mad plan to dominate the West. You can see all those armies out the window for yourself, Prince. They would happily be friends with you, but not until your wizard yields himself to me."
Elerius interrupted before I could start laying out the terms of surrender. "Come, Daimbert, you're going to give the prince the wrong impression if you keep on talking like that! We cannot be enemies. I mourned as much as anyone when I believed you dead. You certainly did a good job of making the air cart look as though you and it had been chewed by a dragon—I would be interested to learn, some day, if you really were bitten by one. I know you never found the Dragons' Sceptre, or you'd have brought a horde of dragons with you—" Was that real knowledge or just bluff? "— but your trip to the northern lands could easily have killed you. When you came to your own funeral, without dragons and therefore unsuccessful, I realized your death had just been a ruse, and I was delighted to know you had survived your adventures—but then you disappeared again!"
"What do you know about my presence at my funeral?" I snapped, then realized that by going on the defensive I had already given him the chance to regain the initiative in this conversation.
"Your invisibility spell or whatever you were using worked perfectly," he said airily, smiling with his lips while his tawny eyes stayed sober and calculating. "But you're carrying something in your pocket, something with a tracing spell attached to it—you had it in your pocket when you visited me in the City and, I thought, agreed to work with me. I recognized the spell just as I was leaving Yurt, but I left so rapidly that I couldn't investigate."
"Actually I refused to work with you," I mumbled. Paul's ring. I had put that tracing spell on it myself, to help me find it if the women to whom he offered it kept throwing it away. "I may have let you believe I would help you run the world after the old Master died, but that was only be to be able to get away."
But if Elerius had known since my funeral that I was alive, he still hadn't had any idea where I had been. I tried glaring again.
"In spite of your protests, Daimbert," he continued in tones of calm rationality, "it is clear that you wouldn't have walked straight into this castle, all by yourself, if you weren't intending to join us. Do these protests about being my enemy satisfy your conscience over some oath you gave to the kings before you came here?"
I pulled back my lips in the semblance of a smile, which only succeeded in worrying Walther. "That's because you think I'm like you," I said. "I'm not. You should know better." For a second Elerius's confident smile cracked, as he did realize better. "You would have happily lied in my place if you thought that betraying the western kings would have been best for them in the long run. And you would never willingly walk into danger, because who would put your doubtless excellent plans into operation if you weren't around to do so yourself? But I'm surprised you haven't noticed that my own vision of a better future for the world doesn't always require a world with me in it."
"You have always had something of a penchant for self-sacrifice," Elerius said uneasily.
But that was my final plan, which I hoped I didn't have to use. Time to try reason, while I again had him off-balance. "So accept that I'm here alone, but here as your enemy," I said firmly. "But not irredemiably your enemy. There's still time, Elerius, to give up this war. You wanted to become the new Master of the school, and you would have if you had not been so precipitate in claiming the position as your right. Did you ever really think the teachers would elect someone else? But you did make a serious error when you quarreled with Zahlfast. Penitence and submission would have been a much better option—you could still have be
come Master eventually, even if you had to wait another twenty years."
"It's much too late, Daimbert, for me to be penitent," he said with a wizardly glare of his own. "The school will elect you as soon as they hear you're back from your presumed death."
Jealousy, I thought. Completely misplaced, of course. But half a heartbeat later I realized that something was wrong here—or else I had missed something crucial. I didn't want to ask him anything because it would lose me what little momentum I had, but I had to know. Maybe his jealousy would obscure his judgment. "Why would the school elect me? I thought you had all the teachers here, working with you, with the single exception of Zahlfast."
"Most of them are still in the City," he said in a low voice, looking away. I could tell this stung. "They haven't joined the kings, but, unlike a lot of the younger wizards, they have also refused to support me."
"Then think of me as speaking with the voices of those teachers," I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact and sympathetic. If I had drawn a map of the City instead of Yurt I might have known this already. I couldn't dig at the wound to Elerius's pride that the defection of the West's most important wizards must represent—if I did, he would never listen to me. "I'm sure they're as sick at all this as I am. None of us—starting, I know, with you—want to see a disagreement between wizards lead to more bloodshed than we've already had, especially not the deaths of the worldly leaders whom institutionalized wizardry should rather help and guide."
The last was gratuitous, intended to appeal to Elerius's own vision of his mission. But he did not react as I hoped. Instead he shot me a vicious glance. "So what are you offering instead, Daimbert? That if I agree to leave this castle you'll graciously engage to talk to the teachers at the school, to see if they'll agree that, after you become the new Master, they'll allow me to become your helpful little assistant?"
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