Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 13 - Warlock's Last Ride

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Stasheff, Christopher – Warlock 13 – Warlock’s Last Ride

Prologue

THE CONCERT MASTER WAVED HIS BOW TO TIE up the last note, and the orchestra fell

silent. Then the organ began its murmur, stumbling now and then, causing Rod to bite his lip.

Gwen placed her hand over his. "Patience, husband. The musician had other matters arising in his

life than practicing these pieces you brought him."

"Considering he'd never seen anything remotely like Bach before, I suppose he's not doing a bad

job," Rod admitted.

They stood at the back of the cathedral in Runnymede, waiting for their entrances.

"Think instead upon how well our sons look."

Rod looked up at the three tall young men standing at the side of the sanctuary, his sons and their

lifelong friend the crown prince, resplendent in cloth-of-gold doublets and gleaming white hose. It had

been difficult prying Gregory out of his usual monk's robe for the occasion, but Gwen had prevailed. At

the thought, the scene blurred, and he saw Gregory as he had been before he fell in love with Allouette

and went on a crash course of bodybuilding: thin and pale, seeming almost anemic.

Then the three young men came back into focus, and Rod marveled how much the lad looked like

his muscular brother, though Gregory was still brown-haired and Geoffrey golden.

As his brother Magnus had been when he was small…

Gwen's hand touched his arm, rested there in reassurance. "I would he were here, too, husband,

healed and beside them—but we must settle for three rings, not four."

Rod covered her hand with his own, still marveling at how clearly she could read his mind—even

without using her telepathic powers. "Just so he's healed some day, dear—and this certainly is reason

enough to set my heart singing."

Nonetheless, the old anger awoke and burned—anger at Finister, the woman who had not merely

broken Magnus's heart with her ferociously powerful psi powers, but mangled it, then done so again and

again in different guises. As always, though, he schooled himself to forgive, for her malice had been the

result of systematic brainwashing and emotional abuse by her foster parents—agents of the futurian

enemies of the royal family who sought to forge Finister into a weapon to be used against the Crown and

its main support, the Gallowglass family, and had succeeded far too well—but Cordelia and Geoffrey

had been proof against her plots, and Gregory, though he had fallen in love with her, had still managed

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to defend himself against her. Gwen, seeing his despair and knowing how deeply her execution would

scar him, had examined the woman's mind in depth, seen the sweet child buried under all the

machinations, found the kernel of goodness that could be nourished into health, and in a marathon,

exhausting night of telepathic psychotherapy, had healed her well enough to let her see the world as it

really was, to cast off the false personality her tormentors had grafted onto her and, at last, discovered

the name given her as a baby—Allouette.

Gregory knew it would be a life's work helping her to develop her own true personality, but had

already made great strides—so great that she had finally been willing to wed him publicly, even side by

side with his brother and sister, instead of being forever content with the quiet, almost furtive, ceremony

performed by a monk in a tiny village.

Trying to put the thought aside as unworthy, Rod looked around at the assemblage gathered in the

cathedral, what he could see of it from the rear. The nobility of Gramarye filled the pews—with one

very notable absence. Sadness tugged at him.

Gwen noticed. "What sorrow?"

"That the whole family isn't here," Rod said. "Alain's uncle and cousin should be watching him

marry."

"Aye, but an attainted traitor cannot come nigh the Crown." The thought was the one shadow on a

glorious day.

Rod saw, and was sorry he'd brought up the issue. "Maybe the kids will be able to make peace even

if their parents can't, dear."

Gwen smiled at the thought, then turned all her attention toward the central doorway of the

cathedral, waiting for the brides.

Guards lined the central doorway and the path to it, as much to keep the common folk from

blocking the way as to protect the brides. The commoners clustered at the other two doorways, eager for

a sight of their future king and queen. Shafts of colored light filled the air above them, a shifting array of

colors from the stained glass windows along the sides of the nave and the great rose window above the

choir loft. The noblemen and their wives seemed to vie with one another for the glory and extravagance

of their costumes, shifting restlessly now and then, hungry for a sight of the brides.

So was Rod.

Anxiously, he scanned the three young men waiting eagerly and apprehensively at the stairs to the

altar, then turned to look back into the recesses of the foyer. "We shouldn't have left the girls to dress

themselves!"

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"They have three maids apiece to help them, husband," Gwen said sternly. "We brought them here,

after all. We can allow them some measure of independence." Nonetheless, she was tense enough herself

—poised, no doubt, to dash to answer a daughter's call, to resolve last-minute misgivings.

Then the organ broke from Bach and stilled. The orchestra began again, a joyous but stately

promenade, as the queen herself stepped down the aisle escorted by her younger son, Prince Diarmid.

She was spectacular in embroidered silk, but wore only a few gems, her notion of not outdoing the

brides. She paced the length of the aisle in stately fashion, stepped into the larger of the two carved and

gilded chairs by the altar, and sat as her son went on to stand beside his childhood friend Gregory—

interesting that he was best man for his friend instead of his brother, who had to make do with the young

Duke of Savoy.

It should have been Magnus .. .

Rod threw off the thought and turned to watch as the bridesmaids came down the aisle like a train

of spring flowers, all members of Quicksilver's former outlaw band—and needed, for Quicksilver,

Cordelia, and Allouette would all have served as each others' maids of honor, if they hadn't been

marrying at the same ceremony.

Then came the ring bearer, proud of his place at seven years old and carrying the satin cushion as

though it were the crown itself; after him came five girls of the same age, strewing rose petals. As they

came to the head of the aisle, their mothers steered them toward the altar.

Then ten trumpeters brought their long straight horns to their lips, and the fanfare flared out over

the crowd. As its strains died, the organ pealed out the opening notes of the "Wedding March." and there

they came, a trio of veiled young women in shimmering white, Cordelia in the center and a little ahead.

Rod knew her by the way she walked, the way she held herself, by the hundred and one little signs he

and Gwen had learned over the years of rearing her. Behind and to her right, Quicksilver marched with

head held high, almost defiantly. To the left, Allouette matched her pace, but with a diffident, hesitant

stride, seeming almost to question by her very carriage whether she deserved to be there.

Rod erased that doubt from his own mind as he fell in beside his daughter, beaming down at her,

then over her head at Gwen as she took Cornelia's other arm. They exchanged a brief glance that made

the rest of the world seem to go away for a moment. Then, resolutely, Gwen turned to pace the aisle with

her daughter.

Rod lifted his head as the "Wedding March" filled the cathedral, albeit with a few small errors that

he was sure only he noticed. With avid eagerness, the nobility turned for a glimpse of their future queen.

In stately procession, the three young women paced down the aisle, bouquets clutched tightly in

their hands, Quicksilver flanked by her mother and little sister, now almost as tall as she; each seemed

awed and awkward despite her finery, shooting anxious glances at the grand people about them, for they

were, after all, only a squire's wife and daughter, and unused to such pomp and ceremony.

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Allouette had no one but Gregory—they had never managed to find her true parents, from whom

she had been kidnapped as an infant—so beside her came the king himself, Tuan Loguire, for, ever

quick to prevent embarrassment when he could, he had claimed the right of escort as her liege lord.

Quickly Rod faced front again, trying to give some reassurance of his own by his mere presence.

Cordelia walked with head erect, with pride, but he could feel her hesitance.

Then the young men stepped out to the center of the sanctuary, and Cordelia almost stopped,

staring at Alain's magnificence. Rod gave the lad a glance, saw his eyes wide in amazement at the most

beautiful sight of his life, and with a covert smile urged his daughter forward. Up the steps they went, up

to Alain, who proffered his arm with a look that said he wasn't worthy.

Privately, Rod agreed, of course—no man could be good enough for Cordelia. But he knew she was

really in love with the prince and had decided not to hold his royal blood against him. Not without

reservations of his own, Rod let her walk from his arm and Gwen's, to take Alain's. He stood beside his

wife for a moment, drinking in the sight of bride and groom, then held out his arm to Gwen. She laid

hers on top of his and turned with him to walk back down the steps to the pew that awaited them. As

they entered, she exchanged a tremulous smile with Queen Catharine across the aisle. For a moment,

their eyes held, old friends in league again, and Rod would never have believed the dozen confrontations

the two women had had, over the details of the wedding, Gwen politely and tactfully holding firm for

Cordelia's choices through every one of Catharine's tantrums.

Then Toby stepped up beside Geoffrey, and Quicksilver's mother joined them in the pew as Tuan

took his place beside Catharine in the lesser gilded chair. They turned back to the sanctuary, where the

archbishop was coming down from the high altar, resplendent in gold and white of his own—a gilded

chausable over a snowy alb, his high-peaked mitre also gilded, so that Rod wondered how the man could

hold up his head with all that weight. Maybe he was really leaning on the elaborate crozier, the very

ornate shepherd's crook that is a bishop's staff of office. The three couples drew up before him, Cordelia

and Alain in the center, Gregory beside Allouette at their left, fairly oozing reassurance, and at the right,

Geoffrey offering his arm to Quicksilver, who took it but returned a challenging glance. Her reply was a

look of adoration, and she whipped her gaze back to the archbishop, almost totally unnerved.

Gwen was murmuring to Quicksilver's mother, hand in hand, projecting reassurance of her own.

Rod exchanged a glance with Tuan; as one, both smiled, then turned back to the altar.

The archbishop intoned the old words in a voice that carried through the cathedral. Rod had offered

a tiny microphone and public-address system, but the prelate had refused them. Somehow the words

blurred in Rod's mind—he could tell only that the archbishop shifted from English to Latin and back—

and felt a sudden aching wish that he could have given Gwen a wedding like this. Unfortunately, he had

been a wanted man at the time, scarcely daring to show his face in a village church, let alone the

cathedral of the royal capital. He squeezed her arm, gazing at her with apology—but she gave him a

look that was almost merry, and he knew that she regretted nothing. She might have been married by a

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wandering monk instead of an archbishop, but she'd had a flower-filled glade instead of a cathedral and

a crowd of elves instead of nobility. Her dress had been stitched by a score of elf-wives and had

outshone even her daughter's royal gown, and the King of Elves had given her away.

Rod wondered if, in spite of all his precautions, she had guessed that Brom O'Berin was her father.

Rod glanced around, wondering if Brom was here to see his grandchildren wed—but there he was

by the king and queen, of course, for his elfin nature was secret; they took him for a mortal dwarf, and

he who had been jester to Catharine's father had become her privy councilor. Rod knew the gray in his

hair was carefully contrived, for Brom, like all elves, would still be living when the rest of them had

been a century in their graves.

He turned back to the altar, determined to banish so melancholy a thought—just in time, for the

archbishop had stepped up by Cordelia and was asking, "Who gives this woman to this man?"

Last-minute panic rose in Rod, but he overrode it to say with Gwen, "My spouse and I!"

Then the archbishop moved on to Quicksilver and asked again, "Who gives this woman to this

man?" and her mother and sister answered, "We do!"

On the archbishop went to Allouette, who stood rock-firm but with a trembling bouquet, and

intoned, "Who gives this woman to this man?" and Tuan and Catharine answered, "As her liege and

sovereign, we do!"

Then the archbishop returned to stand between the line of young women and the line of young men

to ask, "Do you, Cordelia, Quicksilver, and Allouette, take Alain, Geoffrey, and Gregory for your

lawfully-wedded husbands, for better or for worse, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, in

sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

Cordelia's answer pealed forth: "I do." Quicksilver answered a beat later, "I do!" Allouette

swallowed thickly but glanced at Gregory and froze, her gaze on his as she whispered, "I do."

Gregory seemed to glow.

The archbishop turned to the three young men. "Do you, Alain, Geoffrey, and Gregory, take these

women Cordelia, Quicksilver, and Allouette, to be your lawfully-wedded wives, for better or for worse,

to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

Alain stammered, "I do!"

Geoffrey, his gaze burning through Quicksilver's veil, said, "I do!"

Gregory, unable to take his eyes away from the veil that hid the face he loved so well, breathed, "I

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do."

"Then I now pronounce you husbands and wives."

The three couples stood, unbelieving, for a few seconds.

Gently, the archbishop explained, "You may kiss the brides."

The women lifted their veils, radiant; their husbands stepped close. As their lips touched, twelve

trumpets pealed their joy. The archbishop cleared his throat and turned away, taking off his mitre and

handing it to an acolyte, then trudging back up the stairs to the high altar to begin the nuptial Mass, as

more acolytes brought out six kneelers for the brides and the grooms.

Either the Mass was short—which Rod doubted, since it was a solemn high Mass—or his time

sense had slowed down, making everything a blur; it seemed only minutes until the three couples were

standing, the women relaxed and joyful with their veils folded back, and the organ burst forth in

Mendelsohn's notes of rejoicing, as the three grooms, laughing and chatting with their brides, descended

the stairs to the aisle and fairly floated down that long avenue to the great oaken portal.

THERE WAS MUCH more, of course—a banquet in the Great Hall of the royal palace for all the

nobility; dancing afterwards, with the three young couples leading and Rod having his first waltz with

Cordelia since she had grown too big to stand on his toes; the wine flowing freely and the younger

nobility becoming rather rowdy, on the verge of bearing the three couples away to a bridal night that

would have had spectators—a must for royal weddings in the middle ages, when virginity was vital to be

sure the heir was really of the royal line. But at that point, Gwendylon wound her way magically through

the throng and assembled all three couples on the dais that held the high table. The bridesmaids and

other young women lined up facing them, chattering eagerly, forcing the young men back a little, and

the throng began to count: "One … two … three!"

All three brides tossed their bouquets high, and the young women pushed and shoved to catch

them. Then, the ceremony of the garter not having spread to Gramarye, the three young couples waved

at their contemporaries, calling their thanks and farewells—and with the resounding of triple

firecrackers, disappeared.

The hall fell silent for a moment, for even the people of Gramarye were still unnerved by

teleportation, or any of the other psi powers they thought of as witchcraft.

Besides, they'd been robbed of the erotic riot they'd been planning.

So talk began, gathering anger—but King Tuan stepped forth, smiling with good cheer, hands

upheld, and the crowd grew silent. "Each bride has gone with her groom to the love nest each couple has

selected," he explained, "but there is wine aplenty and sweetmeats besides, so though they may seek

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their beds, there is no reason why you should. Musicians, play!"

A sprightly tune sprang up from the musicians' gallery, and the nobility turned, not without a little

grumbling, to the quick steps of the dance. In minutes, they had forgotten their disappointment at having

been robbed of their shivaree and were cheering with gladness.

"It is done, then," Gwen said, her hand on Rod's arm. "We have spirited them away to privacy,

thank Heaven!"

"Not without quite an input of psionic power from their mother," Rod said with a knowing smile.

"I may have helped in some small way," Gwen admitted. "Lead me back to our place at the high

table, husband, for I am rather weary."

"Not surprising, with months of planning and fixing and defending," Rod said, gazing down at his

bride, with a look that echoed those his sons had given their brides. "And capped with a day that must

have been the most strenuous of your life."

Gwen gave a little laugh, then said, "Well, there was that night when Magnus was ten, when he

woke with the nightmare, and Gregory had colic and was screaming, and woke Cordelia who joined

him, and Geoffrey was determined to have his share of attention …"

"Yes, but there were two of us to sort that out," Rod said. "This you pretty much had to do alone."

"Not without a great deal of moral support, husband," Gwen said, with a look that renewed her

wedding vows.

But she stumbled as she climbed the steps to the dais. Rod steadied her with his arm and tried to

laugh it off. "More tired than you thought!"

"That may be," Gwen admitted.

But she stumbled again as they were leaving the castle, stumbled only on the single step down from

the drawbridge, and this time Rod had to catch her, not steady her, and she couldn't make her legs bear

her. He held her in his arms while footmen ran for a coach.

" 'Tis only weariness," she told Rod.

"You mean exhaustion," he said, "and you're right—total exhaustion. A few weeks' rest will restore

you."

But it didn't.

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One

ALEA CAME INTO THE LOUNGE AND FOUND IT empty. Impatiently, she looked around,

irritation growing, then put the feeling into words and smiled with amusement that was tinged with self-

mockery. She was feeling, How dare Magnus not be here when I'm wanting company? as though his

only purpose in life were to amuse her!

Well, of course it wasn't. He was there to provide her this wonderful spaceship with its luxurious

furnishings and gourmet food and drink, and to guard her back in battle. What else was a man for?

Loving, something in her seemed to say, but she shied away from that. The parents she had loved

had died and left her alone and defenseless; the neighbors she had thought her friends had turned against

her to gain her inheritance. The boy who had proclaimed his undying love for her and seduced her had

then mocked her and spurned her. What need had she for love? Much better to have a shield-companion

like Magnus, a true friend who was unwavering in his devotion, even though that devotion was so much

less than a lover's—and what did she want with love anyway? There hadn't been any pleasure in it, only

pain. Oh, there had been pleasure in knowing she was making her lad happy, there had been pleasure in

his passion, in the intensity of his longing for her, his need for her—but no pleasure for her body.

Magnus, though, with the sensitivity under his impassive shell, with the leashed fire of the

emotions that he focused only on The People, whatever people they might be at the moment… if he

were in her bed, might not love-making become…

She shut the thought off with anger. The bards lied, the poets lied, there was no pleasure in love!

Besides, why jeopardize the solidity of their friendship for a romance that might turn sour?

Or might grow to greater heights all their lives …

Poetic falsehoods, she told herself angrily, and went to look for Magnus, already angry with him for

leaving her the victim of her thoughts and feelings. Of course, she could ask Herkimer, the ship's

computer, but somehow she thought she knew. If Magnus wasn't in his stateroom and wasn't in the

lounge, he would probably be on the bridge. What need to ask?

So she strode down the companionway, a tall slender woman wearing loose shipboard coveralls to

hide the curves beneath, long-faced with eyes too large and a mouth too wide, with a nose too small for

the chiselled planes of a warrior's face, a latter-day Valkyrie born to a mortal man and woman rather

than to the gods, in token of which her long yellow hair was coiled atop her head in two long braids, as

though to cushion a helmet.

Up the spiral stairs she came, into the hush of the bridge. It was dark, of course, with only pools of

light at the never-used consoles, to let the projected stars show in the dome overhead, that the pilot

might see toward which star he coursed. She looked up herself, caught in the majesty and grandeur of

the galaxy. She gazed for minutes, longer than she had intended, before she lowered her gaze to the

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solitary figure silhouetted against the powder-trail of the Dragon.

She gazed at him for a few minutes, marvelling that his seven-foot form with all its bulk of muscles

should seem small against that starry grandeur, then looked more closely, feeling his unaccountable

sadness, letting it soak into herself until she shared it, wondering.

Wondering? Why? How should it be unaccountable? For as badly as love had treated her, it had

treated Magnus far worse. She didn't know the details, honored his privacy too much to try to read the

depths of his mind, but from a careless word dropped here and there, she gathered that some young she-

wolf had tortured his heart, whipsawing his emotions from love to utter humiliation not once, but again

and again, for the sheer pleasure of abasing him. At least her lad had done it only once, and then more to

taste the pleasures of her body than of her grief, and when he had spurned her, it was to make sure he

wasn't burdened with a great lumbering lass, not for the purpose of tasting her pain.

Though he had seemed to enjoy that, too …

She shook off the memory of him angrily, concentrating fiercely on the great hulk in the

acceleration chair, head back, eyes fixed on the stars. What need had she of the memory of a traitor

when she had the reality of a friend who cared for her far more than any but her parents ever had? And

what right had he to be gazing at the stars and wallowing in his misery when she was here, lively and

vital, to distract him? She stepped forward, angry words rising to her lips to rouse him from his lethargy,

to jolt him back to the life they shared—but as she came close, she saw the unutterable grief in his eyes.

She slowed, letting her gentler emotions well up, sympathy and concern, and asked, very softly, "What

hurts you, Magnus?"

His head tilted, gaze coming down, seeming to wander over the fittings of the bridge until it found

her face, then rested a minute before he said, "My little brother."

Words of anger leaped to her tongue again, anger at the younger man who would hurt his own

brother so, but she contained them, pushed them down, knowing that the younger d'Armand, the titanic

telepath so distant on their home world, would scarcely spend the vast amount of energy necessary for

his thoughts to reach Magnus over so many light-years unless there were good reason. "What news

could a brother have to so sadden one of his own blood?" she asked softly.

"News of our mother," Magnus answered. "She is dying."

ALEA SPOKE BUT little in the days that followed but was never far from Magnus, trying to

reassure and comfort him by her mere presence. She remembered well the death-watch as her mother lay

dying, remembered the greater pain of her father's last days, greater because there was no one with

whom to share it, no one whose pain dwarfed her own.

She never thought that it was unfair that Magnus should have the comfort of a friend when she had

not—she was only glad that he did not have to face this long journey home alone.

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In moments of honesty, she had to admit that she was also glad he finally needed her in a way

neither of them could deny.

So she sat by and waited, watching his profile against the stars or watching him sitting in the lounge

in the cone of light from the hidden lamp, saw him looking up now and then, startled to see her sitting

and reading across from him, remembering his manners enough to ask how she fared, trying to engage in

conversation, and she tried to be reassuring and positive then, smiling and talking of

inconsequentialities, but ones in which she knew he had an interest—art and literature and science—

though before long, his attention would fade, his gaze would wander, and she would let her own

conversation lapse and return to her reading.

Reading! She hadn't even known how, when he met her on the road, on her home planet of

Midgard, where only the nobles were literate. She hadn't known how to fight when she had run away

from slavery, had survived a night or two alone and friendless in a world torn by war and hatred, in a

forest filled with wolves and bears. Magnus had—well, not taken her in, though it felt like that. She was

sure he hadn't thought of it that way, either, though she suspected he knew he was giving her protection.

He hadn't said so, though, only that he was glad of a travelling companion. So he had walked the roads

with her, teaching her how to fight and how to use the talent for telepathy that had been buried inside her

all her life, and that she had never known. Together they had braved the perils of her world and set in

train a course of events that would prevent her own people from their continual attempts to tyrannize the

other peoples of Midgard.

Then, done with the task he had come to do, he had called down his starship, and she had stood

rigid, knowing she would be deserted again—but Magnus had taken her aboard, given her a new life

when her old one had collapsed, taken her to strange and amazing worlds where people labored in need

as great as her own. They had fought off wild beasts and wilder people, guarded one another's backs,

labored to save the weak and the oppressed, come to know each other's needs in battle, then in daily life

—and never once had he put out a hand to try to touch her or uttered a honeyed word to try to coax her

into his bed.

It was almost an insult, really, except that she knew now he had known it would violate the fragile

bridge of trust growing between them—that, and that he didn't really seem to have much interest in her

as a woman, or in any kind of intimacy, for that matter. Now, though, the trust had grown, become solid

in spite of her tantrums and insults, and she found herself wishing now and again that he would put out a

hand to her—but when she caught herself thinking that, she was aghast. She'd had enough of that sort of

thing with the one young man who had used her and spurned her! The friendship she had with Magnus

was far better than that!

Though perhaps it could be even richer…

This was not the time to think of it, though, with Magnus so sunken in gloom, so afraid he might

not reach home in time—so she sat and read, or cleaned and oiled her leathers, then sharpened her

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Christopher Stasheff - Warlock 13 - Warlock's Last Ride

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