A Guile of Dragons (32 page)

“You should—” Baran tried to interrupt.

“—should I see but Illion wrestling with a snarling bloodcat—”

“Mountain cat,” Illion observed.

“—(a mewling mounting cat, then) to the ground with the horse in question rearing and screaming over both their heads!”

“What was the question?” Thea asked.

“Thinking quickly, actually not thinking at all if you can believe it of me, I handsprung over the friendly pair (yon cat and Mount Illion there) and snatched the horse by one ear. I shouted . . . but I won't mention it here, you get the idea, and so did he. I braced him as he staggered in a quarter circle on his hind feet, letting his feet fall—”

“Feet? And feet again?” cried Thea. “What sort of monster was this? Did it wear shoes or sandals, now?”

“—letting its front
feet
fall to the ground when he was facing away from Illion and his catamite. Then I whacked him on the rump and told him the way to the safe path.

”Then I heard this scream, and the next thing I knew I was halfway up an oak tree and fighting to get higher. I heard something rustling in the foliage near me and, assuming it to be Illion, said, ‘Was that the
cat
? What did you do to it?'

“Away down below me I hear Illion's voice say, ‘No, it was me. Been experimenting with some of the Silent Words.' At about this time, the leaves part like a curtain, and the cat, with whom I am sharing the tree, says—” and Jordel threw back his head and roared, in inaccurate but spirited mimicry of a mountain cat. “I snatched my left hand from the branch just
after
the cat's claws had landed atop it. My hand I mean. It amounts to the same thing, hand or branch, and—Thea must you make those faces? To make matters worse, my other hand was holding air at the moment and my feet were swinging free—”

“As usual,” Baran muttered.

“—but I caught a branch with my legs before I had fallen too far. Then I heard Illion squeak, ‘There's a few more horses in the wood, Jordel, I—I'm just sure of it. You take care of that monster and I'll go find them!' And then the victor of Kaen runs like a rabbit for home!”

Baran grunted. “With the horse out of danger and you hanging upside down in front of a cat in heat, everything had obviously returned to normal.”

“Normal—” Jordel began.

“The word seems inapt, I grant you,” agreed Thea. “Now Baran, admit Jordel is not normal.”

“Normal—” Jordel repeated, then paused.

“We seem to have run aground,” said Illion. “But here are Naevros and Aloê to give us a tow.”

Those Guardians had indeed entered the room, just as Jordel had last begun to speak.

“Have you noticed,” Thea said to Baran, “how everyone in Jordel's stories talks exactly like Jordel? Can you imagine Illion screaming ‘that monster'—?”

“Baran's imagination is not an inexhaustible resource,” Jordel observed, with a shade too much force. “Ah, hello Aloê. How was your ride north?”

After the round of greetings Thea deliberately led Aloê away from the group. It was, perhaps, not so deftly done. It was clear to Aloê that Thea was acting with some sort of purpose in mind. From the expression on Baran's and Jordel's faces Aloê guessed that they knew what the purpose was. She herself had no idea, and the matter did not become clearer as Thea engaged her in drifting conversation.

Thea was tall and pale, with long strong limbs and dark hair. Like Jordel, Baran, and Illion, she was a Westholder. She was a great favorite of Jordel's; they were often together, laughing and joking. But when Aloê asked her how things were between them, Thea looked puzzled.

“What a memory you have, Aloê!” she said, smiling and frowning at once.

“Memory?” said Aloê. “But you were always together, during the Station.”

“What a memory you have,” Thea repeated, and Aloê could not but understand. She became a little angry on Thea's behalf. She hated the sort of man who chose and discarded women like cut flowers, and Jordel was just that sort of man.

By way of changing the subject she asked when Noreê would be joining them.

“She went to the Healing Wood this morning,” Thea replied. “She didn't know when she'd be back. ‘The flight must take its course.'”

“So they say,” Aloê agreed. “Is it true? I've rarely ascended to rapture, never in solitary flight.”

Thea looked troubled. “It's difficult to know, much less explain. I've only flown through solitary rapture once, and I am still remembering and forgetting things about the experience.”

Soon they were deep in conversation, sharing what they knew about visionary flight and tal. Presently Aloê sensed that Thea was distracted, in the middle of a remark she was making. Glancing around she saw why. Jordel was standing next to them. An expression of earnest intellectual interest lay across his features like a mask.

“You'll forgive me for saying so, Thain Aloê,” he interposed smoothly, “but I disagree with you. Tal is not wholly nonphysical. It is a metaphysical medium with physical effect. Therefore it is, in some sense, as physical as it is nonphysical. It exists as an instrument for awareness in the physical world.”

“I seem to remember the vocate Noreê saying the same thing,” Aloê remarked, “in somewhat fewer words.” Why had he come over here? Simply to annoy Thea? It irked her.

“Oh, indeed, I learned all I know from Noreê,” conceded Jordel, smiling. “I was her thain-attendant when she and Illion walked against the Dark Seven of Kaen, as you may remember.”

This was the equivalent of a maker modestly admitting that he had been tutored by Merlin Ambrosius, or a swordsman reluctantly conceding he had been trained by Naevros syr Tol. The man was strutting like a rooster. Aloê opened her mouth to speak, but hardly knew what she would say.

Then Naevros himself was there—dark, graceful, somber. His very presence lit up Jordel's new seriousness as an outrageous affectation. “Yes, Jordel, perhaps,” he allowed. “But your point of view had certain teleological difficulties.”

Jordel's smile did not change. But in him, the ever-changeable, this was a sign of deep distress. “I don't see what you mean,” he admitted, finally.

“You imply, when you say ‘instrument,' that tal is a deliberate creation, an instrument, of awareness—like an idea, or a volitional act, rather than a necessary consequence of, I should have said a necessary condition for, self-aware physical beings. You see the distinction, I'm sure.”

“Not quite.”

“Then. Uncounted beings have lived and died without the knowledge of tal, the link between physical and spiritual planes. They never used tal to experience visionary flight outside the body, as we do. Neither did they exploit a knowledge of it to sustain physical life beyond its natural term, as the Dead Corain are said to do. But tal itself, without their knowledge of it, made possible their lives as physical beings who could think, feel, and know.”

“Yes, yes, I see,” said Jordel, unquestionably irritated. “Is anyone else hungry? I'm hungry. I'm a physical being.”

“Champion Naevros!” Aloê whispered, as they followed the others to the dining hall. “Imagine him trying to inflate himself like a frog in front of Thea!”

Naevros glanced at her and, a measurable moment later, smiled. “Yes. What will irritate him most, when he rethinks the conversation, is that he will find the objection to be trivial.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn't actually disagree with the substance of what he said. I simply made an argument out of one of the possible implications of one of the words he used.”

Aloê smiled in turn. “If the objection had been more substantial—”

“He might have answered it more easily. Yes. He will be
very
irritated.”

“You speak as if you know.”

“I do. I once quoted Noreê on tal to Morlock, using much the same words as Jordel did just now. He gave me the argument that I just gave Jordel. It was three days before I realized what bothered me about Morlock's objection; by that time your mushroom had left the city.”

“He's not
my
mushroom,” Aloê protested, and laughing, they went into supper.

Noreê was imprisoned in a sheath of flames. There was fire all about her. Yet—she sensed a presence, and spoke to it.

Who are you?
The words fell dead, without sound.

But a response came, of a kind. It had no more sound than her own words, yet she could hear it.
That does not matter. Listen—

It matters!
she said, and exerted her will, the will of Noreê. The flames began to dim.

Listen!

She did not even bother to respond.

Very well. It really doesn't matter. I am Merlin Ambrosius.

Astonishment caused her to relax her effort.
What is . . . this?

He replied,
You are where you were. But I have imposed my fetch, the talic projection of my self, upon yours. You can move and speak as you like, but these actions will not affect your body until I release you.

She was bemused by the implications.
I had no idea such a thing was possible.

She felt his pride in his skill, received an impression (like a quick glance down a long, dimly lit corridor) of the long process of invention, driven by purpose.
Knowing that it is, you will soon be able to practice it—

She interposed:
That is not my desire.

—or defend against it,
he added placatingly, irritatingly.
I have told you much worth knowing already. All I ask in return is that you listen a little longer.

Her rejection was more than verbal.
No! I do not intend to join you in exile.
She was reasonably intrigued, but she was not inclined to sit at Merlin's feet. She exerted her will, the will of Noreê.

You think to discourage me,
the voice in the flames said.
But I have tried to address two other persons in this way, one of them more than once, and failed. You hear me and respond; that is victory in itself. I will speak. You will not be able to ignore what I say.

Already she could not; she sensed a danger to the Guard.
Whom have you talked to?
she demanded.

Merlin laughed. She heard nothing but felt his amusement with painful directness. In a timeless time, he replied,
I reached the summoner Earno several times. He was not willing to perceive my identity—there is a weakness in that man, Noreê; you should see to it—but he received my warning, more or less. I have also tried to communicate with my son. However—it proved to be insurmountably difficult.

From what Noreê knew of Morlock, this did not strike her as unlikely.

I have been in Tychar,
the master of all makers continued,
at the Place of the Two Powers.

Noreê mocked him, hoping to lessen his control:
So you have progressed from atheist to pagan, Ambrosius?

Merlin was difficult to irritate, though.
They really exist, Noreê. Read it in my mind. But I am no devotee of theirs; you will read that, too. I will open my memory to you presently. They offered me the kingship of the Wardlands—

—which you accepted.
Mock him, she thought. Weaken his hold on her.

I refused! I come to tell you that the danger to the Guard . . . is very great, very near. I'm growing weary. Your awareness is powerful, difficult to contain in this way. . . . The Two Powers would destroy the Wardlands; their agents are now in the North. . . .

Why does this concern you?
Noreê demanded coldly.

I am still a Guardian of the Wardlands!
Merlin replied, defiant.
What I did, I did to maintain the Guard, not destroy it! Spare yourself the effort; I sense your disbelief more pungently that you could express it.
He paused, then continued,
Believe what you like: that I am corrupt, and seek only power. Even so, especially so, I would not seek to rule over a conquered realm as the viceroy of Torlan and Zahkaar.

Almost unwillingly, and nonverbally (the mental equivalent of a nod) Noreê acknowledged the likelihood of this.

I am nearly exhausted,
Merlin admitted.
I am going to open my understanding to you now. Brace yourself. It encompasses many deaths. . . .