A Magic King (39 page)

How could she ask him to love her in one breath, then demand to infiltrate the Tarveen colony in the next? How could he focus on eradicating the scourge that threatened the survival of his people while constantly trying to protect Jane without insulting her abilities? It was impossible!

Yet, in a little over a week, he would attempt just that.

Oh Father
, he prayed,
reveal to me your divine secrets. Is it a strength or a weakness to be inspired by a woman to hazard the impossible?

* * *

Jane's resolve to learn from Daken, to bow to his greater wisdom, lasted thirteen minutes. The thirteen minutes it took for him to explain his intentions regarding Steve. It began auspiciously enough. Like a stern father on one of her favorite sit-coms, he lectured the boy on responsibility, thinking things through, self-discipline, and all the other stuff she'd completely tuned out as a child.

Then came the ringer. The punishment. It wasn't really a punishment as much as a stupidity, in her opinion. He intended to send Steve back to the University alone.

"You can't be serious," she'd said, tossing aside her resolution as she brushed the dirt off her tunic. "He's a boy. You can't send him back alone."

"He's thirteen, and we don't have the time to waste accompanying him."

"So he'll come with us."

Daken shook his head, clearly wondering how she could be so naive. "How will we feed him?"

"He's brought rations."

"What he brought wouldn't feed a bird."

"You can trap—"

"I'm not spending my nights stalking game."

"Then he can eat my share."

"But—"

"Come on, Daken. You can't send the boy back alone."

"If he can follow us all this way, he damn well can make it back. You seem to forget we're going to a war."

Jane felt her mouth go dry. "I thought you said they just raided every so often..." Her voice trailed off in the face of his grim expression.

"The Tarveen raid nightly. I've established an encampment south of their primary territory to hold the line against them. But make no mistake, Jane. It is a war I wage with what little resources I have."

Jane swallowed, the magnitude of what she planned, of what lay ahead, began to feel like a heavy stone on her chest. She wasn't entering an action movie. This was for real, and as much as she'd wanted to diminish it to the few gruesome raids Dr. Beavesly witnessed, she was very afraid that not only had the problem escalated into a war, but that she would witness it first hand.

"Perhaps you're right. Steve would be safer going back." But when she looked over at the boy, his light blond hair shining in the early morning light, she had her doubts. Though he'd ducked his head just before she'd glanced his way, she'd seen his chin thrust forward in stubbornness, and his eyes narrowed with a fierce determination.

"Steve," she called. The boy raised his head, and sure enough, she saw defiance in every cell of his body. Still, she tried anyway. "We're sending you back." He didn't respond. "But you're going to follow us anyway, aren't you?" He started to smile. "Do you understand you'll be in danger, maybe killed?"

He nodded.

"It will be ugly and violent, and it's no place for a boy." Or a city-bred girl, she thought with a grimace.

Steve nodded. Once. It wasn't a casual shrug or the false bravado she expected from a boy his age. It was a mature understanding, and Jane had the sick feeling he understood more of what was in store for them than she did.

She turned back to Daken, noting the angry twitch in his cheek. "We'll have to take him along. He won't go back unless we hogtie him."

"Well, not now," he grumbled. "Not after what you just said to him. By the Father, not only am I saddled with a fool woman, but now I've got to watch a boy too."

So began their travels. She knew Daken thought of their little party as a man, crazy woman, stupid boy, and the vague shadow of the panther, but she saw them as four souls who became a bridge to the future. Jane and Daken were the middle links, Steve was their step into the future and the Old One/pantar held the link to the past. It was all rather metaphysical for her, but she couldn't help thinking that way in the long hours of the journey.

Even on horses that moved impossibly fast, it took a few more days before they reached a village on the outskirts of what had been a major city. That made sense, of course. If the radiation was now the source of power and magic, the people would naturally gravitate toward the places with the most radiation. And those, of course, would be major cities that were not only the targets, but had abundant quantities of metal to hold the radiation.

"What is this city called?" she asked Daken as they rode in late one afternoon.

"LoUffa."

"LoUffa." She played with the words, changing it around and comparing it to her admittedly not-so-great knowledge of geography. "Buffalo."

"From here on, we travel by water."

Jane nodded, wondering why she hadn't bothered to put it all together in her mind before now. "Daken, what was the name of your lands?"

"Chigan."

"As in Chicago or Michigan?"

"I do not know these things."

Jane shook her head, deciding it didn't really matter as she focused on their travel route. "We're going by water down Lake Erie."

"The water Kree."

"And the Tarveen are in..."

"Troit."

Detroit. It figured.

"And your temporary base is in..."

"Toedo."

Toledo. Great. Now she understood, even though a part of her wished to remain in ignorance. All those great cities—now in ruins. She dreaded the thought of ever seeing New York City, or worse, Washington, D.C. To the casual observer, the land was reborn. Green grass covered the ground, except for the buildings created by the new inhabitants.

But soon they rode through what Daken called Holy Land. "Do you feel the power, Jane?" he asked, his voice suffused with awe. "I feel like I could gather it in one hand like a ball and throw it into the sky."

She didn't doubt him for a second. Even without healer's eyes, she could almost see the radiation filling the old city. Though the land was rich with mutated life, she could pick up the remnants of what must have been Toledo. Melted metal blobs, blunted and heavy, lay just below the ground or thrust upward through the grass, some still straight though dulled with time. Occasionally she caught the outlines of plastic or rubber mixed into the newly constructed houses.

It wasn't until they'd moved well into the holy area that she realized the land was concave, like a huge bowl, probably formed from the force of the explosion. Though they skirted the deepest part of the valley, Jane felt sick when she gazed at the center of the impact. The land was literally hollowed out by a bomb.

She wavered slightly in her saddle, grieving for what once was.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine, Daken," she responded automatically, but her voice was thick and rough with tears.

"You look ill."

"The radiation—Uh, the Power. I'm afraid you'll have to heal..." She let her voice trail off, glancing self-consciously at the silent figure of Steve.

Daken, however, wasn't nearly so self-conscious. His grin was lurid, and wicked, and warmed her to her toes.

"Tonight," he promised.

* * *

She hadn't really thought about what she expected to find at Daken's front line camp in Toledo. A row full of tents perhaps. Knights, warriors, noble men bravely holding the line against an enemy, but that was naive, she realized too late. That was the product of overly romanticized tales of chivalry and romance. And this, Jane now understood, was the brutality of war.

Daken's camp was a dirty, dingy group of farmers eking out a living in a dirty, dingy village already too abused by the Tarveen. The graveyard was full. The children's bellies were empty, and they were universally surrounded by a terror of the night.

The city was fortified, walled around first with stones, then logs that looked more like furniture and tar than cut trees. Soon they would resort to scraps and pieces of whatever they could find. Few went outside the walls, even during the day. And everywhere, it was noisy. Loud, angry, and happy sounds mixed with the cries of the hungry, furious, or ecstatic. Whether it was a child singing as he pumped water or a mother screeching as she hung out the wash or the men bellowing as they repaired breaks in the walls, everyone made sounds.

The Tarveen, apparently, didn't like noise.

It was a deafening clatter, but one that apparently provided some measure of security.

Jane tried not to wince as they moved through town. She tried not to show her disgust at the smell or her horror at the wretchedness of it all. But it must have shown because Daken turned away from her, his jaw muscles clenched, his hands knotted fists where they held on to the reins.

She urged her horse closer to his. "Daken?"

"It's nearly summer. Did you see the fields?"

She nodded. They were blood-stained plots of torn up crops. Every field had been trampled by the Tarveen raids. They would be lucky to feed a single family on what was grown this summer.

"I need an army," he forced through clenched teeth. "I need wizards and men with weapons." Then he turned his burning gaze on her. "And I return with a woman and a boy."

Jane bit her lip and looked away. For the first time ever, she began to see the cost of her pacifism. With one word from her, Daken could have his army—all the weapons and people he needed to finish this war with a decisive win.

But for how long? Daken couldn't be allowed to totally eradicate a race of people, even the Tarveen. So how long before the Tarveen regrouped and war erupted again? No, her way was better. It began a long stalemate that would, she hoped, eventually lead to peace.

But how could she look into the faces of hopeful children, pregnant women, and maimed men and tell them she had chosen the long, hard route instead of the quick, decisive victory? All around them, they turned out to see their king ride by. From the huts and the lean-tos, from within buildings and churches, people gathered, hoping for good news.

After one look at Daken's frozen expression and her apologetic tears, they turned away, muttering to themselves as they went back to their sad, violent lives.

For the first time ever, she seriously reconsidered her position. With painstaking agony, she reexamined every step of her logic, each conclusion as it compared to her knowledge and understanding of history. She rethought it over and over.

Staring at the wall, stained with the dried blood of countless men, the best she could come up with was a non-answer. After the rescue mission, assuming she survived, she would reconsider her position. Again.

Daken took them to a hut. It was hastily constructed and would do little more than keep out the rain, but it was habitable. Inside were a table and a couple of grass mats. In silence, Daken waved her and Steve in, gave the horses to a waiting villager, then walked away. Alone with Steve in the hut, Jane slumped to the ground, only to stare at the dust.

She looked once at Steve, wondering if she needed to comfort the boy against the sights they'd just passed through. But one glance at his face, filled with pity and concern for her disillusionment, brought the truth home to her in a sudden, brutal kick.

He wasn't the child here.

She was.

* * *

They didn't see Daken the rest of the day. They ate from the rations they brought, then Jane returned to teaching Steve. She found a stick and drew English words in the dust. When she tired of that, she told him stories. She dredged up every pacifist hero she could think of, featuring Martin Luther King and Ghandi. He listened politely, and soon other children gathered as well.

Some of the adults stopped to listen too, but she wasn't a skilled storyteller, and her message wasn't what they were used to. Invariably, the men snorted and walked away speaking of women's foolishness. And the women, weak, sagging people with dull eyes, simply smiled vaguely at her and went to their tasks, pleased to have their children occupied for a time. Still, despite it all, the stories gave her some comfort, and she told herself she was exposing the children to the idea that violence was the last solution, not the first.

Then night came. Like a demon it stalked up to the village, lurking over it until it finally pounced. All around, people set up cow bells or wind chimes to keep the noise going while they slept. Torches flared around the walls, fires were lit everywhere outdoors, and after one long look at the grim-faced men, Jane went back into the hut.

She was a coward. She'd seen enough news-vids and fictional bloodbaths to know she didn't want to see the real thing.

Daken came in a moment later and spoke seven words. "Sleep now," he commanded. "We leave in the morning."

She nodded her understanding, but he'd already left. Unrolling her bedroll, she gathered Steve into her arms and pretended to sleep.

She must have dozed off because she woke to a complete darkness filled with noise. She heard the bellows of men screaming into the night, the clang of hammers on metal, and the strange cacophony of a thousand wind chimes set up not to be musical, but harsh and loud. Beneath it all, she caught the occasional twang of an arrow released from a bow.