The Warlock's Last Ride (6 page)

"You are exactly the sort of woman to heal that man," Allouette said with certainty.

"To protect him, at least!" Alea turned on her. "Let none dare to strike at him again, for she shall meet two swords instead of one!"

"There is none here who will seek his hurt," Allouette assured her, voice low, but face composed with a serenity that discarded any possibility of fear.

By her very confidence, she struck doubt into Alea's heart, so that she spoke with more vehemence than she might have otherwise. "How can anyone be healed from wounds such as that!"

"By truth and kindness and forgiveness," Cordelia said, "even as our mother healed Allouette."

Alea turned to stare in surprize.

"She was most horrendously twisted from infancy on," Cordelia explained, "kidnapped from her real mother and reared by those who sought to fashion her as a tool for their own purposes—by people who knew exactly what they did and what pain they inflicted and cared not a whit, as long as it accomplished their ends. They twisted her and warped her into believing the world was far worse than it is, and no goodness possible."

'Twisted for their pleasures, too," Quicksilver said, her voice low.

Alea understood instantly what she meant, understood five possibilities on the instant, and winced at the thought.

"Do not feel sorry for me," Allouette said. "Do not pity me, for I deserve it not. What I did, I chose to do, and it does not matter that those choices were based on lies and on hatreds that were based on
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still more lies. It was nonetheless my decision, my choice, and I deserved every torture wreaked upon me."

"When the deeds came after the tortures?" Quicksilver snapped. "Be not so ingenuous, sister! You had not the ghost of a notion that you had any choice at all." She turned back to Alea. "Pity her indeed, for she was debased and humiliated so badly that I wonder she had any will to live. Forgive her, too, for when she learned the truth, remorse overwhelmed her, and threatens even now to drown her in spite of all the love and praise Gregory lavishes upon her."

Alea stared at Allouette, and the minutes stretched as Quicksilver and Cordelia held their breaths. Then, "I shall forgive you," Alea said, her voice cold, "when Magnus is healed."

"Do you see to it, then," Allouette said, "for only you can."

Cordelia and Quicksilver were still a moment more, then nodded, and Alea stared at the three of them, appalled and feeling completely helpless and inadequate.

A SINGLE CANDLE lit the room, showing the woman who lay propped up by pillows in the wide bed with the grieving, gray-haired man beside her, her hand in both of his, gaze never leaving her face. For a moment Magnus wondered who she was, then realized the shrunken, wrinkled face on the pillow was that of his mother. He froze in shock.

"Speak to her," Gregory said softly at his shoulder. "She will waken for you."

Magnus still stood unable to move as he heard the door close quietly behind him. At the sound, the old man looked up.

Four

ROD LAID HIS WIFE'S HAND ON THE BLANKET and rose with a smile of welcome and pleasure stretching the lines and creases of his face, a smile at the sight of his eldest son—but a muted smile, struggling to emerge through sadness, and through wrinkles that his son had never seen. Rod Gallowglass held up his arms, and Magnus leaned down to embrace his father.
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After a few minutes, Rod's hold loosened; he stepped back to gaze up at his son with pride. "You came," he said softly, "you came in time."

"Praise Heaven." Magnus was surprized to find his own voice shaky. "Are you … are you well, Papa?"

"As well as can be expected," Rod said sadly, and turned to lead Magnus to the bedside. "Sit down, son, and tell her you're home."

Magnus sat. For another moment, he felt he was looking at a stranger again; then he saw the familiar features beneath the ravages of disease and took his mother's hand. But such a frail hand, so wasted and bony! The eyes opened, though; she frowned, puzzled, as she looked up at the hulking stranger beside her bed. Then she recognized her son, and her smile transformed her face. For a moment, the years fell away, and she was as he remembered her from his leave-taking. "You came," she said in the voice he recognized. "You came back." With great effort, she raised her arms a few inches.

Quickly, Magnus slid his arms under hers and leaned close to press her into a very gentle embrace.

Rod hovered near, anxiety warring with joy as he gazed upon his eldest and his wife. For a moment, his eyes clouded as he remembered the boisterous golden-haired toddler bouncing off the walls as he learned to levitate and the anxious young mother who rushed to collect him. Then the reality of the present became more important than memory, and he gazed upon the two with fond concern.

When Magnus let his mother go and laid her gently back on the pillow, she beamed up at him with pride and said, 'Tell me, now. Tell me all that you have done."

"But you know it," he protested. "Gregory must have told you."

'Told me where you have been and what you were doing, yes." She seemed to tire simply with the effort of speaking. "How can a few hours' talk speak of years? He could not tell me how you were feeling, nor of the people who filled your life."

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Slowly, then, Magnus began to tell her—not about the people of Melange or Oldeira or Midgard, but of the emotional ordeals he had passed through on their accounts, of his fellow disillusioned bachelor Dirk Dulaine, of their shared trials and triumphs, of Dirk's falling in love and staying behind as Magnus's ship lifted off to find yet another planet of oppressed souls to free, and finally of Alea and their growing friendship.

His mother listened, her hand in his, opening her eyes now and again to meet his gaze at a particularly telling remark, but always with that little smile of peace and pleasure in his presence—and Magnus knew she was listening as much to the emotions and images that crowded his mind as to the words he spoke. When he could see how badly she was tiring, though, he said, "Well, enough for now. I'll talk to you again tomorrow; there will be time."

"Perhaps." Her eyes opened again, looking directly into his, and for a moment he felt again the old power, the authority of this amazing woman who had borne, birthed, and reared him. "Bring her," she commanded. "This shield-mate of yours, this Alea. I must meet her."

Magnus knew she must be over-tiring herself. "Tomorrow …"

"There may not be a tomorrow, my son." She had to work hard to say the words. "Bring her now."

Magnus stared at her, feeling another wave of the tide of grief, but he thrust it back and closed his eyes, nodding, then reached out with a thought.

In the room below, Alea felt his plea and broke off in mid-sentence, staring at the sisters-in-law before her, then rose and rushed to the door without the slightest excuse or apology.

The women watched her go, then exchanged smiles. "We cannot blame her for lack of ceremony," Quicksilver said, "when he needs her so badly."

"Yes, but does he know that?" Cordelia asked. "He calls for her aid, but does he know he has come to need her?"

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"Does she know she has come to need him?" Allouette countered.

"She will not admit it to herself if she does." But Cordelia was still smiling.

Quicksilver met that smile with one of her own. "She has come a long way toward healing, whether she knows it or not."

Allouette nodded. "She is ready to risk loving again."

"But is Magnus?" Cordelia's smile grew into a grin as she relished the thought of teasing her big brother.

But Allouette's face darkened with guilt. "Will he ever be?"

GEOFFREY ROSE AS Alea rushed out, and paced with her to the stairway. "First door on the left," he told her. "Godspeed."

"Thank you," Alea snapped, and rushed up the stairs, wondering why he bothered to wish her well.

She burst into the room and froze at the tableau that met her gaze—at her friend and shield-mate sitting hunched on a chair that was too low for him, holding the hand of the old woman in the bed, and the aged man who stood hovering across from Magnus. She realized they must be his parents, then dismissed them as unimportant and went to Magnus, light-footed and cautious.

He looked up at her, sensing her presence, and his gaze was a naked plea even as his voice said,

"Alea, I would have you meet my mother, the Lady Gwendylon. Mother, this is my shield-mate Alea, who has fought beside me time and again and always given wise counsel."

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"A pleasure, milady." Alea turned to the old woman. "Your son has been my .. ." There she froze, for the old woman's gaze held her own, the dim old eyes turning youthful and vibrant again, holding Alea in a bond that should have sent her screaming within herself, fighting to tear free—but there was something so soothing in those eyes, so understanding and sympathetic, that Alea almost welcomed the intrusion.

And intrusion it was, for Alea felt Gwendylon's mind blending with her own, reading the history of her life, of the anguish of her lover's desertion, the misery and grief at her parents' deaths, of the terror and rage at the treatment of the neighbors to whom the judge enslaved her, of fear and panic as she ran from them, and her wariness of the young giant who befriended her, a wariness that waned over the five years they traveled together as Alea learned to trust again, but never completely, never without the fear of betrayal, even though they saved one another's lives time and again, even though he withstood her tantrums and replied with reason and patience to her attacks and arguments …

Then the vibrance of the eyes faded, and they were only the rheumy old eyes of a dying woman—but the smile that blossomed beneath them seemed to enfold Alea in a gentle embrace even as Lady Gwendylon said, "I am glad my son has found so true a companion—and I thank you for his life."

"He has thanked me by saving mine," Alea assured her, then wondered why she cared about the feelings of this stranger.

Lady Gwendylon turned to her husband; her fingers twitched in a shooing gesture. "Off with you, with both you men. We must talk of women's matters."

Alarm surged through Alea at being left alone with this stranger so soon after meeting her—but Gwendylon turned to gaze at Alea again, and Alea realized that the woman was anything but a stranger.

Rod came around the bed with a sigh, beckoning to Magnus. "Come along, son. There are times to argue with your mother, but this isn't one of them."

"But… but she is …" Magnus couldn't bring himself to say the word "weak."

"I shall find strength enough for this," Gwen assured him, and her voice was strong again. "Be off and tell your father what you have learned."

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Magnus turned anxiously to Alea. "If there is the slightest need…"

"I will call you on the instant," Alea promised. "Remember, I have learned medicine in three different cultures. Trust me, Gar."

"I will." He pressed her hand.

She almost pulled away, for he seemed to speak of trust beyond caring for an invalid—but she held firm and even managed to smile into his eyes. Then his father took him by the arm and led him away. She watched them go, marveling that this dotard could have fathered a son whose head rose a foot and a half higher than his. Of course, he had probably been a few inches taller once himself, and Gar did tower over his brothers.

"Gar?" the old woman asked.

Alea turned back to her, feeling guilty that she had let herself be distracted. "He calls himself that when we land on a planet—Gar Pike. He began it to confuse spies from his former employers."

"SCENT, yes." Gwen's smile seemed to enfold her again. "I am glad he left his father's organization, though I could wish he had stayed at home. Still, he would not have met you, then, so it is well that he left."

"I am not so special as that," Alea protested, but she sat on the chair Gar had vacated anyway.

'To him you are," Gwen told her. 'Tell me, how is his heart?"

Alea stared, frozen by the question—and its implications. She was only a friend! What should she know of Magnus's heart?

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She could not say that to a dying mother, though. Instead, Alea chose her words carefully. "I can only guess, milady, for he is scarcely one to wear his heart on his sleeve."

"He was till he left here," Gwen said sadly, "but even in those few hours before he left for the stars, he had become … very private."

Alea leaned forward, frowning. "What had happened to him, milady?"

"You must hear that from him," his mother sighed, "for I shall not violate his confidence."

"I think I know some of it," Alea said, "and that it has to do with that witch downstairs."

Gwen smiled with gentle amusement; it seemed to require great effort. "All women in this house are witches, Alea, at least in local custom."

"Is that what your people call espers?" Alea nodded. "Gar has told me something of that—scarcely surprizing, for people who know not how folk fly on broomsticks or read others' minds. Still, it is Allouette of whom I speak."

"Do not blame her for her beauty," Gwen said, still with the gentle, labored smile. "She is not now whom she was then—a murderess named Finister. I learned much of the mind in a few days, then labored mightily to show her how her life had been twisted by lies."