The Warlock's Last Ride (28 page)

Alea found herself staring at a stout little man in a bottle-green coat and battered top hat, with ruddy cheeks and a rum-blossom nose, who cried, "A rag, a bone!" then turned a very angry glare on Evanescent. "And just who do you think you are to call me awake out here in the middle of a forest?"

"Who do you think you are," the alien responded, "to go hiding in the depths of a man's mind?"

"That's where I was born, catface," the tubby little man answered. "That's where I live!"

"Magnus's brain?" Alea asked, staring.

"In his most secret depths." The man turned his glare on her. "Where you'd like to be yourself, wouldn't you, and evict me or make me cease to exist!"

"I… I bear you no ill will," Alea said, taken aback.

"No ill will, she says! When my home's becoming so crowded I can scarcely move, there's so much
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of you there already!"

"Is … is there really?" Alea asked, wide-eyed.

"Oh, there'd be more, if he could open his heart," the rag-and-bone man told her, "but he locked it away years ago, he did, in a box of golden, and can't open it!"

"Did he, now!" Alea's eyes narrowed. "With no help from you?"

The rag-and-bone man shrugged impatiently. "I'm just a figment of his imagination, a personification of his fears and desires. To say I did it to him is as much as to say he did it to himself."

"Are you sure that she-wolf Finister didn't call you into being?" Alea demanded.

"Oh, she did the most," the rag-and-bone man said, "but she wasn't the first and wasn't the last. He had a knack for falling in love with women who wanted to use him, he did."

"And … that's why he hasn't fallen in love with me!" Alea felt anger growing. "Because I don't want to use him!"

"No, it's because his heart is locked up, and he doesn't know how to unlock it," the rag-and-bone man said cheerfully. "Don't put on airs, young woman. Don't think you're rnore than you are."

"Meaning he isn't in love with me!" Alea said, seething.

The rag-and-bone man rolled his eyes over to Evanescent. "Bound and determined to believe the worst of herself, isn't she?"

"She's growing out of it," the alien said. "These humans seem to cling to their illusions, even when
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they're destructive."

"All right, then, if you know so much," Alea said, "how can I free his heart?"

"Ask the one who did the most to imprison it," the rag-and-bone man said. "Ask the she-wolf!"

"Never!"

" 'Never' can be a long time," Evanescent warned.

"I couldn't stand to ask anything of her! I'd rather die!"

"Well, then, you will," the rag-and-bone man said, "alone."

Alea rounded on him in a fury. "Who asked you?"

"You did," he answered. "Go ahead, don't listen to the answer. It's better for me if he lives alone all his life, anyway."

Alea stood with fists clenched, fuming but silent, searching for some scathing retort but finding nothing. It made her feel helpless, powerless, and her fury built in silence.

"I'd love to help you, if I could," Evanescent said, "but I haven't the faintest notion how to generate this emotion you call 'love.'"

Alea stared at her in disbelief. "Don't your kind fall in love?"

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"No—we come into season and smell the other's interest," Evanescent said. "Once we know, we do something about it. It's enjoyable while it lasts, but it never distracts us for long."

"And of course, distractions are what you most need," Alea said with disgust.

"Of course." Evanescent gave her a toothy smile. "Most of us die of boredom, quite literally. You promise to give me a good long life, you and your male."

"He's not mine!"

"And you can't change that," the rag-and-bone man said.

Alea rounded on him. "You be still! You can disappear!"

"Can I really?" he asked, and turned away, turned soft around the edges, soft all the way through, his form blurring, then thinning as it turned back into dust motes that blew away. A last whisper of beery voice cried, "I can!"

"That didn't accomplish much, did it, dearie?" Evanescent asked. "But I suppose you'd learned all you needed from him, anyway."

"Not a thing!" Alea said.

"Of course you had," Evanescent said. "You learned that it's no lack in you that keeps that silly male from—'falling in love,' do you call it? The fault's in him, not in you."

"That's no help!"

"Oh, it's help you want, is it?" the alien asked. "Well, I'll be delighted to do what I can. Your
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species' courtship ritual is quite amusing—you make it so much more complicated than it needs to be, especially you and Magnus."

Something in the statement rang false. Alea eyed the alien narrowly. "Have I really fallen in love? Or have you just been manipulating my emotions for your own diversion?"

"How could you think such a thing!" But the alien's toothy smile was less than convincing. "Your emotions are real—though I must confess I find them a great source of diversion. No, if I were going to manipulate anyone's emotions, it would be his—but you just saw what I'm up against."

"A funny little man and a golden box?" Alea frowned. "Scarcely daunting adversaries."

"They wouldn't be, if they were real," Evanescent said, "but when they're buried in the mind, it's another matter entirely."

Alea heaved a sigh and sat down on a stump. "Does it really happen? I don't just mean people falling in love—I mean staying in love, even after they're married!"

"Well, I know of one couple that will probably manage to be in love until death does them part," Evanescent said, "though I suspect they're cheating by making death come sooner. She's only twenty-six and he's twenty-eight, but he's about to hang for the capital crime of feeding his people. She's more in love with him than ever, so I think they'll make it through life—his life, anyway."

"But that's terrible!" Alea was back on her feet again. "Who are they? Where? How can I help them?"

"In the south," Evanescent answered. "She's bound for Castle Loguire to make one last plea for his life. His case looks clear, though. He doesn't deny he slew all those deer."

"The poor woman!" Alea said. "What is her name? Tell me how to find her!"

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"You have only to ride the forest road that runs from the west toward Castle Loguire and follow the sound of sobbing," Evanescent said. "After all, the poor thing hasn't been trained to war, as you have."

"We have to find a way to help her!" Alea spun about, looking helplessly at the trees. "How, though? There must be lawyers on this planet!" She looked around at the empty clearing and did wonder for a moment how she'd come to know of the young man's arrest. Well, that was what came of practicing on other people, of trying to see how far away she could read minds. She deserved every bit of anxiety she was feeling.

But she had to find a way to help! She turned and started back up the trail toward Castle Gallowglass, never thinking for a moment that she hadn't learned of the young couple's plight by anything but her own telepathy—for of course, she didn't remember meeting Evanescent at all, nor even a hint of their conversation.

AS ROD RODE, the woods thinned out. By noon, Fess brought him out of the last trees onto a long ramp of grassland—but as they climbed, the grass grew thinner and more yellow until Rod rode across an upland of scrub and tufts. "We've come onto a moor, Fess."

"Yes, Rod, but it is surely the most barren moor I have ever seen."

"They're not exactly known for being fun places." Rod shivered as a sudden gust of wind chilled him. "Well, if it's barren, there's that much less to catch fire if my campfire shoots out sparks." Rod dismounted. "And if it's cold, I could use the warmth for a little while. Time for lunch."

"Where will you find wood to burn, Rod?"

"Good question—but as I remember, moors have pockets of peat." Rod scouted about. "Though we may have to ride a bit farmer before we … Hey!"

Fess came closer. "Mud, Rod?"

"Mud that won't let go." Rod tried frantically to pull a foot loose. "And it's getting deeper!"
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Nineteen

"NO, ROD—YOU ARE SINKING." FESS STARTED for him.

"Stop!" Rod cried. "I don't want you sinking, too!"

"But I cannot let you …"

"You won't! Go forward a step at a time, and if the ground goes soft, step back!"

Fess edged toward him, tossing his head to make the reins fly forward over his ears. "Catch the reins, Rod."

Rod flailed, missed—and sank another two inches. "Isn't there a branch…" Rod broke off, staring, as the mud began to bubble. "No! There can't be anything living in this!"

The ooze heaved upward, higher and higher into a sloppy sort of column. At its top, pockets appeared with a sucking sound, two holes of darkness over a much larger third that yawned wide and said, "Foolish mortal, to have dared come into the Barren Land!"

For a moment, Rod wondered crazily if he had stumbled into mud or a pool of witch-moss. Then he realized that it wasn't crazy at all if the bog could take on a face and talk to him. "What manner of spirit are you?"

"I am the Spirit of the Waste," the mud-monster intoned, "and I spread sloughs for the unwary."

"I'm not sure you can actually spread a slough." Rod looked down at the mud. "But I'm not exactly in a position to argue."

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"Nay, nor to struggle." A muddy hand shot out from the monster's body to touch Rod on the forehead. He shouted and recoiled, trying to avoid the oozing finger—but the mud sucked at his feet, and he fell on his back.

Fess neighed a protest, and Rod felt the mud pulling at his back and hips, dragging him down—but he saw no reason to resist. When he stopped and thought about it—and what else could he do, lying on his back in a bog?—there was no reason to struggle. Sure, there would be a few minutes of unpleasantness … well, pain … when the mud choked his lungs and he could no longer breathe, but if he went into a trance here and now, he wouldn't mind all that much—and what reason was there to live?

The kids didn't need him any more—they had their spouses, all but Magnus, and he had Alea, a devoted companion who would give him all the emotional support he was willing to accept. The Crown didn't need Rod, either—Tuan was still amazingly devoted to Catharine, and she to him—nor did the nation; Magnus would defend it as well as he ever could, especially with his brothers and sister to back him up.

And Gwen was gone.

So why not just lie here and let the bog take him?

Rod felt as though a thin black cloud had fallen over him, dimming everything about him—not that he could see much from this point of view. Even the broad and cloudless noonday sky above him seemed dulled, its blue almost gray. Dimly, he was aware that there had been reasons to live once, but he couldn't remember them now. No, he could—they had been Gwen and the kids, and protecting Gramarye from the futurians. Even before that, the dreams that had kept him going were freeing oppressed peoples and finding a woman he could fall in love with, who would fall in love with him, something he had come to believe could never happen.

Then he had met Gwen.

Gwen, it had always been Gwen—even before he met her, there had been the hope of finding her.

Now she was gone.

So why not let the mud take him? There was no purpose in life any more, no reason for living, and
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certainly no joy, not without her. Sink down and die, and see her much sooner!

Something slapped his chest. Rod scowled down at it, resenting any interruption, now that he had finally made up his mind to die. Dimly, he was aware of someone ranting and raging at someone else who was poking in where he had no business, but he didn't really care. He saw the two-inch-thick stick lying across his doublet; it took him several seconds to realize it would probably hold his weight. Following it back, he saw the robot holding the other end in his mouth; Fess had somehow managed to find a fallen branch after all. He smiled sadly; it was a nice idea, but kind of tardy, after he had finally come to realize where his life really stood.

'Take hold of the end of the branch, Rod," the robot's voice said through the earphone embedded in the bone in front of his ear. "It will bear your weight, and I will pull you to firm ground."

"Why bother, Fess?" Rod said. "There's no point in going on. Go back to Magnus; he needs you. Go back to the ones who have reason to live."

"That is not your own thought, Rod," the robot explained. "It is a projection of this earthen elemental who seeks to drag you down."

"A projected thought?" Rod frowned. "Why would it bother?"

"For the same reason it spreads bogs for the unwary, Rod. It detests all life and seeks to purge the earth of living things. It sees all life as corruption, as obscenities that should not exist, and it seeks to cleanse its own element of all that grows or moves. It is the Spirit of the Waste because it makes wastelands. It finds in them a kind of purity."

"In my present state of mind, that almost makes sense." Rod turned to frown at the bulge in the bog.

"Are you sure it's wrong?"

"Quite sure, Rod, but you will not be able to evaluate the idea objectively as long as you lie within its power. Take hold of the stick."