Warlock's Last Ride

"Yes, and it makes me feel positively ancient."

"Old man nearing thirty, eh?"

She was rewarded with his old sardonic smile. "Yes, a doddering antique." Then his face clouded. "I should have been here to help, been here to insist Mama go to a hospital while there was still time!"

Alea frowned. "You don't know that much about medicine, do you?"

His face twisted, and his eyes hardened with the most intense anger she had ever seen in him. Frightened, she braced herself for a fight—but the anger faded as quickly as it had come, and Magnus bowed his head. "No, I've never been interested in more than a few field cures. Certainly I wouldn't have known what to do about such an exotic disease—and Papa told me that it seemed nothing but fatigue, at first.. ." His voice trailed off.

Alea waited, still shaken by his moment's anger but resolved to show the same patience that he had shown so often with her—though surely her anger could have been nothing like his own!

Could it?

She pushed the thought away and asked, "Why did you leave home, anyway?"

'To become my own man." Magnus raised his head, looking into her eyes again. The intensity returned, but now imploring her understanding.

"My father's very important here, you see," Magnus said, "the most prominent man in the kingdom after King Tuan, and my mother's perhaps even more important. It's hard to think much of yourself with them towering over you. I had to go away where no one knew me, didn't even know my name, and find what my own talents were, test my abilities, find out how much I could do by myself, without their having paved the way for me."

"And you couldn't do that here, where everyone knew who you were," Alea said slowly.

"Two feet taller than most men? I am rather hard to miss," Magnus said sourly. "So I went home to Maxima, the asteroid where my father was raised, to meet the relatives and find out what kind of people I'd come from."

"They must have been delighted to meet a kinsman they'd thought lost."

"No, they were afraid I'd come to claim part of the estate as inheritance," Magnus said sourly. "When they found out I hadn't, they gave me Herkimer out of guilt. I found the nearest red-light district then and went on a binge. I woke up in jail, then blundered my way into the very organization that my father belongs to."

Alea's breath hissed in. "Out of the frying pan … No, wait! That gave you the chance to find out how important he was off-planet!"

"Yes, it did—and he turned out to be one of their heroes." Magnus shook his head ruefully. "But I went along with it, absorbed their training, went out on a mission— and found I couldn't accept their trying to subvert the planet's government into their own form of democracy, whether or not it was right for the people there."

Alea lifted her head. "So you decided to go free people from bondage, but to help them develop whatever form of government was right for them."

Magnus nodded. "I've become fairly good at it, too, though I haven't become famous, the way my father had when he wasn't much older than I."

"No, you haven't." Alea smiled. "If you became famous, that would mean you'd failed, wouldn't it?"

Six

MAGNUS STARED AT HER A MINUTE, THEN BROKE into a genuine smile. "You're right. I am a secret agent, aren't I? And a secret agent who's no longer secret, isn't much use."

"No, he isn't." Alea shared his smile. "But you have built an amazing record—nine planets having developed stable governments of their own—governments that guarantee human rights."

"Well, eight," Magnus said. "You can't count Oldeira, after all."

"No—theirs wasn't our doing," Alea admitted. "A secret government is still a government, and it even guaranteed their rights. So you'll have to settle for having reformed eight worlds so far."

"Eight worlds—eight revolutions." Magnus nodded. "I suppose that's not such a bad record after all."

"Nearly superhuman, if you ask me," Alea said. "I see what you mean about becoming your own man. You've done different work than your father did, but done it just as well."

"Thank you." Magnus bowed his head, acknowledging the compliment—and angering Alea by his return to formality. It helped that he gave her his sardonic smile again. "Of course, my father was intent on turning every planet onto the path toward democracy, and each of the eight I've touched is developing its own local variation of democratic government."

"Yes, well, you've only succeeded in finding out that any government that guarantees civil rights is going to develop some way for its people to govern themselves," Alea said. "No, all in all, I'd say you've done quite well with your time away from home."

"It does seem to have served the purpose," Magnus admitted.

"But not for your brothers and sister," Alea said, frowning. "Hasn't your absence given them the same problem, left them in your parents' shadows?"

"One shadow." Magnus raised a forefinger. "My parents work so closely together that I've never been sure whether Papa was only successful because he had Mama behind him, or whether she wouldn't have made any difference to this land at all if he hadn't inspired her."

Alea felt her pulse quicken with hope and did her best to ignore it. "All the more difficult for your siblings to find out their true nature."

"That really seems to be more a problem for the eldest than for anyone else." Magnus gazed off into space, his smile turning nostalgic. "I remember when I was a teenager and my brothers were straining at the bonds of childhood, bursting into young manhood, that I felt a burning need to prove I knew more than they did, every time, every day—at the slightest sign of their having any knowledge beyond grammar school."

Alea's eyes rounded; she already had some notion of the younger Gallowglasses' abilities. "How long did that last?"

"Until I saw Geoffrey lead a troop of soldiers for the first time," Magnus said, "and until I overheard Gregory discussing the theory of magic with one of the monks from the monastery."

"Cordelia?"

"Well, she wasn't a boy, so I didn't feel her to be challenging me," Magnus said with a bleak smile. "Silly, isn't it? But I learned the truth of it when she healed me—or gave me the first stage of healing, I should say."

Alea could sense the revulsion, the turning away from the memory of the need for that healing, and knew it was something vital, something she would have to ferret out of him sooner or later.

Later. "So you can accept them as equals now?"

"Well, the impulse to argue and prove I know more is still there," Magnus admitted, "and probably always will be—but I've learned to fight it. I can accept the fact that Gregory has more knowledge of magic than I do, and Geoffrey more knowledge of war—and women."

Alea tried to ignore the anxiety the words raised. "And Cordelia?"

"More about people, more about healing, more about telekinesis," Magnus said, "and the list goes on. It isn't pleasant, but I've accepted it"

"You know more about subverting governments, though," Alea pointed out, "and about rebuilding them— with all the other kinds of knowledge that involves."

Magnus was still, staring into her eyes. Then he nodded slowly. "Yes, I do, don't I? Thank you, Alea. Thank you very much."

"My pleasure." Alea smiled, and finally dared to lean forward and catch his hand. "Who should know better than one who has learned with you?"

For a moment, they shared a smile, gazing into one another's eyes. Then that moment passed and Magnus stirred, looking away and breaking the co

Alea sighed with regret but forced a smile. "And I you. Good night, Gar. I hope you find a soft bed."