Warlock's Last Ride

Now Alea did let herself stare. "Jester? But how …"

"Actually, they all know he's her privy counselor," Magnus explained, and turned back to Brom. "I don't think anyone has thought of you as a jester for thirty years."

Now Alea began to understand why Brom had thought his daughter's death was his fault. After all, he bore at least half the responsibility for her being alive in the first place, and if she hadn't lived, she wouldn't now be dying, would she?

Pure sophistry, of course. She wondered why a king would desire to take so much blame on himself, especially one who was king of elves, then realized that every good king had accepted responsibility for all his people's welfare, all his life. "It seems, Your Majesty," she said slowly, "that I must thank you for my life, too, and certainly thank you for saving it from ruin."

Brom stared, taken aback. "Why, how is that?"

"Because this young man wouldn't be alive without you." Alea nodded at Magnus. "He's the one who saved me when I was ru

Brom relaxed and looked Magnus up and down with approval. "You have done well, lad."

"Very well indeed," Magnus agreed, "for she has saved my life at least once on each of those worlds, not to mention the one on which she was born."

"Oh, I didn't save you there!"

"I seem to remember a pack of wild dogs, and the two of us standing back to back with our quarterstaves whirling …"

"Oh, that." Alea dismissed it with a wave. "He also realized I was a latent telepath, Majesty, and taught me how to use my talent—or at least, he has made a good begi

Brom stared at her, eyes glazing for a moment, and Alea felt his own thoughts brushing hers. Before she could object, the touch was gone and Brom was nodding. "Only a begi

"Then I have brought her to the right school," Magnus said with a smile.

"You have, and I will leave you to your lessons." Brom turned back to Alea. "He has not slept in thirty hours, has he?"

"Only in fits and starts," Alea admitted.

"On tenterhooks hoping you would not come too late?" Brom gave Magnus a penetrating glance. "Well, now you know you are here in time. Sleep, lad, and be sure we'll wake you if there is danger."

Magnus bowed his head gravely. "I thank Your Majesty."

Brom gave him a curt nod in reply and turned away, striding down the hall. Alea thought she heard him grumble, "Majesty, forsooth!!" before he turned a corner and was gone from sight.

Alone with Magnus, she couldn't keep the exhaustion from showing. "Have I a chamber of my own, Gar? I admit to feeling rather weary."

"Of course." Magnus offered his arm and led her to the end of the hall. "This is only a cottage, though a rather large one. At the castle, you would have your own suite, but here there's scarcely room. Don't worry, I'll sleep in the parlor."

It won't worry me if you don't, Alea thought in exasperation, then caught herself in horror. But it disappeared in an instant, for she noticed that Gar's arm was like wood, so tight was his self-control. Yes, definitely she needed to close a door between him and the rest of the world.

At the end of the hall, Magnus led Alea into a slope-ceilinged room with a narrow bed, a table and chair, and a wardrobe. The tapestries hiding one wall depicted knights in battle; another showed a scholar at his books, while behind him, the wall faded away into a view of an enchanted realm in which unicorns grazed and Pegasus flew. A third tapestry showed the ornate, powdery pinwheel of a spiral galaxy. She turned slowly, staring at the decorations, then realized that the hairbrush on the dresser was only a rectangle of wood, though polished and waxed. "This is the room where you grew up?"

"Till I was a teenager and we moved to the castle, yes."

Well, that explained why there was no crudely-drawn portrait of a pretty girl—though the presence of younger brothers and a sister who would surely have delighted in teasing might have explained it well enough.

With relief, Alea detached herself from Gar's arm and closed the door behind her.

Gar sank into one of the chairs and went limp.

Alea repressed the urge to kneel at his side and give what comfort she could; she knew that would only snap him back into his shell of self-control. Instead, she moved to the foot of the bed and sat opposite him, glad that the room was so small as to keep her near him. "It isn't just the lack of sleep."

"No," Magnus admitted. "It's all a bit of a shock, seeing my mother and father so much older, my little brothers and sister complete adults, and married…" His voice trailed off; he leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

He had never let that much weakness show in her presence—nor, she suspected, in anyone else's. More, she could feel him reaching out to her for reassurance, even the simple comfort of knowing he didn't have to face this ordeal alone.

It shocked her, though it only confirmed what she had known all along—well, after their first month of journeying together: that Magnus was only human, that he wasn't really a man of iron with no emotional needs, but a man who had locked himself into an iron shell—and that shell had cracked open now. Careful, she warned herself. An angry word, even a hint of mockery, and that shell would slam closed so tightly that she'd never be able to pry it open again. She didn't ask herself why she didn't want that—she only said, "I know it feels as though you're standing on the brink of an abyss, Gar—but you're not, really."

"Is that how you felt when your mother lay dying?" His eyes opened again.

Alea remembered that horrible day and shuddered. "That, and worse. But there was my father, that strong man so thoroughly terrified by the thought of losing her, so I had to hold myself together to be there for him."

"Yes." Magnus's eyes softened with compassion, and she knew he was thinking how horrified she must have been a few months later, when her father had died, too. "Yes, a grief-stricken parent is a lifeline for the daughter, isn't he? Or the son."

"We're not completely alone, no." Alea glanced at the door with a rueful smile. "Not that you would be in any event, with three siblings to keep you company." She started to mention their spouses, then remembered that one of them had been the cause of his leaving Gramarye, and stopped.

"Yes." Magnus followed her gaze. "It's odd to see them grown—but odder still to feel they're so much younger than I."

"Well, you have had a bit wider experience."

"Yes, but I can't say it's all that much more than they've had." Magnus shrugged. "Who knows what they've been going through?"

"I thought Gregory kept you abreast of the news."

"Yes, when he could establish a mind-link—an hour or so three or four times a year, if I was lucky. He let me know everything he thought important—but how much happened that he thought too minor to mention? Now here he is, no longer the teenager I've been seeing in my mind's eye— never mind that I knew he must have grown; that's how I remembered him."

Alea nodded. "It must be quite a shock to see him a young man now."

"Twenty-two—and that's quite mature in a medieval society."

"Yes, I know," Alea said drily.

Magnus frowned, suddenly aware of her needs again. "That's right, you were that age when we met, weren't you?"

Alea could have cursed; she wanted Magnus talking about himself for a change. "No, somewhat older. I was twenty-four—your sister's age, now, isn't it?"

"No, if I'm twenty-eight, Cordelia is twenty-six," Magnus said.

Alea breathed a sigh of relief that the topic had shifted back to his family. "Then Geoffrey is twenty-four."