Magician’s End (20 page)

‘Slice?’ Nakor’s expression was now very curious and lacking the usual delight he showed faced with a conundrum.

‘There was an … echo, for lack of a better word. A similar cut of cold.’

Nakor was silent and then said, ‘I think I understand.’

‘What?’ asked Borric.

‘If I am right, a tiny sliver of your existence, the briefest moment of your life, was captured, and kept, for this meeting. It was your life, cut so thinly, that your existence jumped that infinitesimally small space, so your life didn’t end there. But a bit of that life was taken from you.’

‘Odd,’ said Borric. ‘How is it, then, my memories after that time are with me, from then to taking the Crown when Uncle Lyam died, to my marriage, children, all the palace years … to my own death?’ He looked around, the wind picking up a little. He turned his face to the sun, smiled, and extended his arms. ‘If I am only to remain for a moment, at least my last memory will be of sunshine on my face, wind carrying the scent of tall grass, and a conversation with the most amusing man I ever encountered.’

Nakor said, ‘Thank you, but beyond amusing, I am also very curious. If I understand what is occurring, your presence was arranged to impart knowledge to me.’

‘Ah,’ laughed Borric. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what I could ever teach you, Nakor.’ He shook his head and said, ‘You know, Erland and I always regretted that you never left the west to come visit.’

Nakor shook his head. ‘After our adventure in Kesh, I’d had enough of palaces for a while.’ He sighed. ‘I did visit Krondor, once, when Jimmy was duke. That’s a nice palace.’

Borric’s expression turned thoughtful. ‘That was my home, where I grew up.’

‘Very nice place. Lots of rooms.’

Borric laughed again and looked around. ‘Is …? Did you hear something?’

Nakor cocked his head. ‘A pipe … and a drum, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Odd,’ said Borric, casting around. ‘This way, I think,’ he said, pointing up a rise. He took two steps, then stopped. ‘I remember this place.’ He pointed behind Nakor. ‘Shouldn’t there be a river that way about a quarter of a mile?’

Nakor nodded, ‘On the other side of the road that isn’t there, either. Yes.’

‘So on the other side of this ridge is that nice little vale where we camped the night after you joined the caravan with Ghuda and me!’

Borric was about to walk up the rise when Nakor said, ‘Wait.’

‘What?’ said the one-time King of the Isles.

‘After we parted, what was the most important thing you learned? You know, when you went from being prince to king?’

Borric was silent for a moment. ‘I was Borric conDoin, son of a prince, nephew of a king, a king myself, father to a king. I was a son, a husband, a brother, and a father. I made decisions every day that changed lives, sometimes cruelly. I threatened wars, and fought them, and in the end I was an old man in bed when death came.’

‘What did you learn?’ asked Nakor, his voice almost entreating.

Borric motioned for the little man to walk with him. As he headed towards the sound of pipes and drums, he said, ‘My true education began when I was captured in the Jal-Pur, Nakor.’ His expression turned thoughtful. ‘Being in the slave pens, fighting my way through that brothel with Suli, stealing a boat, serving aboard ship as a common sailor, all the things I did before I met you, then all we did after. Losing Suli.’ His eyes turned to scan the horizon. ‘I learned true courage watching a frightened boy try his best to do what needed to be done despite being terrified right up to the moment he died.’ He shook his head as he reflected on these things. ‘People talk about honour and duty and respect, and a host of other things to dignify their acts. In the end it’s this: you have love or you don’t.’

‘Love?’

‘Have you ever loved something so much you’d gladly die to preserve it?’

Nakor was silent.

‘Honour without love is a pose, a hollow justification for your acts. It’s not what you’re willing to fight for, but what you’ll gladly die to preserve: a brother, a wife, or your child.

‘The same holds true with nations. I would die for my nation, because I loved it. The Isles is a place, like Kesh, or Roldem, just earth and rocks, trees and bushes, pastures and streams.’ He waved his arm. ‘Grasslands and mountains. It’s just another place until you understand it’s where your family lives, where the people who matter to you live, and the people who matter to them; those other places, that’s where people you don’t care about live. Given a choice, you’ll fight to defend your people. More, you’ll die to protect them.’

Nakor felt a glimmer of understanding begin to take form. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s a bond like no other, Nakor. Until I travelled to Kesh with you and Ghuda and Suli Abul, I didn’t understand, truly. Erland and I had a difficult time learning about the responsibility that comes with privilege. My father loved my mother so much he let her indulge us, my brother and me, our sister, our little brother.’

Nakor said, ‘Nicholas.’

A sadness passed over Borric’s face. ‘Erland and I were terrible to him before that journey, Nakor. I was changed by that journey.’ He then laughed. ‘Erland, too, but not so much.’

‘You were in a slave pen. He was in a palace with lots of pretty girls who didn’t wear much.’

Borric’s smile faded. ‘But we lost Uncle Locky there, along with Suli. Erland felt that.’ The wind strengthened and the music in the distance grew a bit louder, then faded. A scent of sage and flowers touched them and fled.

‘In the end, you lose everyone, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Borric. ‘Let’s see who’s playing that music.’

Nakor was a step behind Borric when the former King of the Isles said, ‘It’s about touching lives, Nakor. It’s about sacrifice because you love something more than yourself. It’s about making a difference.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘It’s about a farmer who can get his crops safely to market without being murdered by bandits because I made the roads safe – me, King Borric of the Isles. And because I did, he gets safely home with his tiny pouch of coins and those things his wife asked him to fetch back from market, and a sweet for his little girl, or perhaps a toy for his little boy, and their lives unfold as they do.’ Borric’s eyes grew moist with emotion. ‘But I didn’t make the roads safe so that farmer would love his king. I made them safe because his king loves him and his family.’

‘I’ve known men of power, Borric. Some before I met you, others after, but your family is unique. Most rulers … the farmers are there to grow crops, pay taxes, and make them rich.’

Borric said, ‘Nothing lasts forever, but this I know. If a conDoin sits on the throne of the Isles, no matter how talented or flawed the man is, somewhere inside of him is a love for his people that comes from the foundation of my family. When the first conDoin king put a rude circlet of gold on his brow, he did so thinking, “This is my land. These are my people. I am their servant.” Even my uncle’s predecessor, poor, sad Rodric, “the Mad King”, loved his people.’ Suddenly he laughed. ‘Maybe that’s your lesson, Nakor.’

‘Maybe it is.’

‘Come, let’s see about that music.’

They hurried up the rise and when they reached the ridge, they both stopped.

‘It’s a fair!’ said Borric in delight.

Below were colourful tents, a large striped red-and-white one, and one Nakor particularly remembered: a hideous combination of grey and purple with a green fringe; and half a dozen wagons arrayed in a semi-circle, behind which was a camp, cook-fires, and horses.

Nakor took a step down the slope. ‘I know this fair,’ he said in disbelief. ‘It’s Bresandi’s travelling fair!’

He turned to find his companion was gone. Nakor stood motionless for a moment, then softly said, ‘Goodbye, King Borric.’

When he turned back, a woman was standing before him. ‘Jorma,’ he said in wonder.

She smiled a rueful smile. ‘As good a name as any. How are you, Nakor?’

‘You know I’m not Nakor,’ he replied.

‘Close enough,’ she said, moving to his side and slipping her arm through his. ‘Still with the bag of oranges, I see.’

‘Always,’ he said, trying to force a lighter tone. The woman who now walked slowly down the hillside with him, arm in arm, had once been Nakor’s student, then his wife. The demon known as Belog had never been so overwhelmed by the identity of Nakor as he was at this moment.

Nakor knew her as Jorma, but she had many other names, the last being Lady Clovis, then the Emerald Queen. Now she looked as she had when he first met her, not looking young due to powerful magic, but young in truth: an ambitious girl with raven hair and piercing eyes that seemed to see inside him.

‘Last thing I remember about you,’ she said, ‘was you ruining my master’s plans to infect the Kingdom of the Isles with a plague.’

‘I wondered how willing you were in that plot,’ said Nakor.

‘I had illusions then. I thought I could wield any power and command it. The arrogance of youth, you could say. Or perhaps I was always just full of myself.’

She had always been a striking woman. Born of common farmers, she had carried herself like a queen since girlhood. She was slender, but strong, her features lovely, yet hard. She had beguiled him at first, seduced him, then abandoned him. ‘What was the last thing you remember before you got here?’ he asked.

‘It’s quite odd, actually,’ she replied as they approached the fair. ‘I was negotiating with a demon – always a tricky business – and suddenly the demon was inside me.’

‘Not in a good way,’ quipped Nakor.

‘You evil little man,’ she said. ‘I was fond of you, you know.’

‘Until you wrung every secret out of me you could, then ran off and found Macros.’

She smiled and there was little in it that was mirthful, but for the first time Nakor saw a hint of regret in her eyes. ‘From some people’s point of view, I got what I deserved, and perhaps they were right, Nakor. This demon, Jakan, he was a wily bastard. Having one slowly eat away at your mind to drain it of knowledge – and I mean literally eat – wasn’t pleasant. Seems devouring people is a demon’s fastest way to gain knowledge and power. I was alive perhaps as long as twenty minutes while he slowly picked my brain apart.

‘The odd thing, you know, is that once he tore open my skull, the pain stopped. I was helpless, unable to move, and very angry, as you might imagine, but the actual eating didn’t hurt. What hurt was losing … everything. I knew knowledge was vanishing – memories and abilities – but I didn’t know what they were. Just toward the end when there wasn’t enough left for any sort of cohesion, there was just this overwhelming sense of loss.’

Nakor said, ‘There are those who would say you did, indeed, get what you deserved.’

‘You among them, Nakor?’ She lowered her lashes slightly, reflexively flirting with him as she had when they first met, a habit more than an overt attempt to change his view of her; they had too much history for that to ever be possible.

‘Perhaps it’s just we are so different in outlook, Jorma. I never understood your thirst for power.’

‘And I never understood your endless curiosity to know things without a goal.’

He laughed. ‘Haven’t you ever had a moment where coming to understand something, how something works, or what its true nature is, whatever you learned, in and of itself was the joy?’

‘I can’t say as I have.’

‘Your loss, then,’ said Nakor.

‘The thing about death is, you learn that nothing is really important, in the end. I mean, will anyone care who we were or how we lived and died a thousand years from now?’

‘Very interesting question,’ Nakor said. ‘If one is important enough to be included in a history, perhaps. But maybe the question is what is important about knowing that in a thousand years no one cares who you were or how you lived and died?’

She looked as him as if she didn’t fully understand his point.

‘I mean, knowing what you know now, if you could start again, say this day,’ he waved his hand around, ‘when you first arrived at Bresandi’s travelling fair, and met all of us …’ He glanced away a moment, expecting to see some familiar faces – Totun the juggler; Batapol the knife-thrower and his wife and usual target Jantal; Subo the wrestler who would pay a gold coin to any man who could best him in the ring. This was the carnival where Nakor the Isalani, the card-cheat and swindler, had first discovered his tricks, and this is where he had met the young village girl, Jorma, whom he had cared for, trained and educated, then married. ‘Would you do the same things as before?’

She was silent and said, ‘You’re not asking that. You’re asking, would I be a better person?’ She sighed. ‘Probably not. I left those concerns for others. I would probably seek the same things – power, eternal youth, and the safety to enjoy my power and youth – but would seek different avenues of achieving those goals.’

He sighed. ‘There were moments when I saw … glimpses of something more in you.’

‘Or moments when you wished you had seen more.’

‘I’ve spent a lot of time with your daughter. She’s who you could have been, I think.’

‘Miranda,’ she said softly. ‘I was never a good mother. My best choice for her was to leave.’

Nakor shrugged. ‘The Miranda I know wouldn’t disagree. Still, you left her alone with a father who was hardly an ideal parent.’

‘Macros,’ she said softly. ‘He was … magnificent.’ She sighed. Gripping his arm tightly, she hugged it to her. ‘But you, my funny little Isalani card-cheat, you amazing magician who doesn’t believe in magic, you were as close as I ever got to really caring for another. I know this means little to you, but I did think of you kindly from time to time.’

‘You hardly appeared to when we last spoke,’ he said with a chuckle.

‘Well you and that half-elf and the fat pirate had just destroyed my plans for world conquest. I wasn’t happy.’

‘Necromancy,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Always a bad choice.’

‘You’re right. One thing I learned from Dahakan before he finally, truly died, was that being undead tends to make one insane. Apparently, just working necromancy does the same, but slowly. That’s why the second time I decided to try my hand with demons.’