A Magic King (19 page)

She didn't know how long she lay there. The ground was damp from her tears, the grass cold, and the world filled with the utter blackness of a night unpolluted by electrical lights. Pressed against her back, she felt a long, warm body. Slowly turning her head, she recognized the panther resting beside her. The cat wasn't asleep. She lay on the grass, her black eyes alert, her ears pricked for sounds, as though she guarded Jane.

She heard what she supposed were all the usual night sounds for the country. An owl hooted in the distance. Something made a cricket-like chirp from a huge weeping willow, and from a nearby stream came the steady drone of a cicada, except Dr. Beavesly's memories told her it was made by an eel-like fish floating on the water's surface.

Jane sighed and dropped her head back down. Even in her grief, she couldn't cut away the relentless presence of alien thoughts in her mind, but she couldn't accept it either. If she did, then she would have to accept that her world was gone, her friends long since dead, and her parents, her brother, and most especially, her mother, all died probably a violent, horrible death.

She wanted to cry again, wanted to bury herself in the numbing relief of blind grief. But her eyes were dry, her face swollen, and her arms numb from being twisted beneath her. She pushed herself upright, flexing her hands as she tried to bring the feeling back.

"Are you ready to go back now?"

Jane looked up sharply, squinting in the darkness. Daken sat nearby, hidden by the draping canopy of the weeping willow. His body was a vague shadow hidden within deeper shadows. All she could really see were his eyes; bright pinpoints surrounded by gold watching her from his hiding place beneath the tree.

"Go away, Daken." Her voice was thick and coarse, and she swallowed to try and force it into some semblance of normalcy.

"Are you ready to go back now?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm not doing anything. I'm just going to sit here until God sends me back home."

"You are home."

"Shut up! Just shut up!" She dropped her head onto her fists, fighting a dizzying, pounding, spinning sensation in her head, and a radiating anguish that tore through her whole body. "Give me a break here, Daken." Her voice broke, making her sound as defeated as she felt. "I'm mourning my entire world."

"And how will you honor their deaths?"

Jane lifted her head, her words a bitter counterpoint to his soft tones. "You don't honor death, Daken. You hate it, you fight against it. You eat right and exercise so you'll never die. And when it comes anyway, you don't go willingly, and you certainly don't thank it when it takes the ones you love."

He was silent as she railed at him. He waited patiently until she'd exhausted herself back into a sullen despair. Then he spoke, his words drifting by, sliding through the heavy boughs of the tree, flowing around her on the sweet night breeze. They surrounded her in the darkness, gently eroding her pain as a stream washes away filth.

"I cried when my parents died. We didn't have their bodies, only the crushed and bloodied remains of their horses. So we buried my mother's favorite scarf and my father's walking stick. It looked ridiculous putting such small things in full-sized coffins, but we did it, and I cried. The next day I returned to the harvest. It was the only time of year when I really worked, and clearly saw the connection between labor and my dinner.

"Then a few months later, my brother was taken too, and I was left with a bitter grandmother and three hundred starving people still in the grip of a cruel winter. Still I did nothing. I was grieving. And I was lazy."

He stopped speaking, the words cut off as he stared into the darkness. Jane found herself straining for the sound of his breathing, wondering when his voice would weave its spell around her again.

It took a very long time.

"There isn't a day I don't think of my parents and my brother. There isn't a moment I don't mourn for their passing. So I honor them by fighting to preserve what they once held dear."

Jane struggled with his words, trying to follow the story as he told it. But something was missing. Something changed him from the empty wastrel he was, to the man with her now—a man filled with courage and determination, a man she loved despite the callous way he described himself.

"What happened?" she asked softly. "What changed you into who you are now?"

His laugh was brief and harsh, filled with a bitter self-mockery. "Nothing happened. I'm still the blundering fool I was then."

Jane didn't answer. She waited, knowing in time he would tell her the rest. Eventually his words came to her, the sounds uneasy, as though he struggled with thoughts he rarely expressed.

"There was a girl from the village. She was sick. So sick I could have poured all that I was and more into her, and still she would have died. I treated her for days, balancing my exhaustion against the planting, pushing both her and myself into sick shades of ourselves."

He stopped, and she knew he railed at himself for his failure. It was an impossible silence, filled with anguish and regret. She gathered all her love into her eyes and offered it to him as she crawled through the boughs to settle beside him. She didn't question the sudden knowledge that she loved him. She only knew that she did, and so she silently presented it to him, knowing he wouldn't take it, couldn't take it until his story was finished.

The panther, too, must have felt the same way as she silently slipped around the tree to settle on his other side. Moving like a shadow, nearly indistinguishable from the night, the panther gave her presence to the king.

Still the silence twisted between them like a living thing contorted into misery.

"Did the girl die?" Jane finally asked. Her voice was low and tentative, but it was enough to push him into speech again.

"After the burial, her father came to me. It is customary to thank the healer at the grave site."

"He didn't thank you?"

"He said, 'You're a poor healer and a worse king, but you are all we have. And so for that, I thank you.'"

Jane gasped, horrified by the pain those words must have inflicted. "Oh, Daken—" she began, but he cut her off, continuing in the same monotone with which he'd begun.

"He was right."

Jane reached forward, touching his arm as she searched for the right thing to say. "You're a great healer. And you're a good king. I knew that the moment I met you."

He turned to her, his expression intense, burning into her through the darkness. "I'm not the healer my father was, or even as good as my brother. I'm not the Keeper of the Knowledge as my mother predicted, and I'm not going to have a seat on the Council. But I'm all my people have. I have strong arms and skill with the weapons the Elven Lord abhors. With them, I will fight to preserve all my forefathers built. I may not be able to improve on it, but I will give all I have to preserve it."

"Daken, you can't—"

He cut off her words, suddenly grabbing her arm and holding her beside him as he pleaded his case. "You can help me honor my dead. As the Keeper, you can convince the Council to help me. My people and I will fight, but we need spells. The fireball and the weapon spells. And guns. As Keeper, you must know how to make guns. With those we'll be unstoppable. I can destroy the Tarveen once and for all."

Jane stared at him, her knotted stomach pushing against her throat as she struggled to contain her horror. Daken wanted guns. He wanted her to unleash modern weaponry on a world still fighting to recover from near annihilation. He wanted her to help him start a war.

She pushed away from him, standing until her head knocked against the peaceful canopy of the willow tree.

"They won't put you on the Council?" She kept her voice level as she stared outward into the black night.

"The Seat is for the Keeper. I am King of Chigan."

"And as King, you will petition the Council for weapons and spells?"

"Your vote could sway them in my favor." He joined her, standing right behind her as he pressed for her help.

"I'm just one confused woman against—"

"A four-man Council." He stroked her arms, pulling her backwards into his embrace. "You can be very persuasive, Jane. You can convince them."

Jane stilled his hands, holding them tightly against her arms, preventing him from continuing his distracting caress.

"Daken," she began cautiously. "Have you tried negotiating with the Tarveen? Maybe they're starving too. If you set up a trade arrangement, land agreements—"

"There is no negotiating with the Tarveen." Daken nearly spit out the name, and his hands gripped her so tightly she knew she'd have bruises.

"But to start a war—"

"Venzi, Jane!" He shoved her away and began to pace, but with the low hanging boughs, the panther, and the two of them, there was little room left for his agitated movements. In the end, the cat moved out from under the canopy while Jane shrunk against the tree trunk. Even then, Daken seemed to fill the peaceful confines with his hatred.

"Sometimes war is the only way," he said. "The Tarveen are vicious monsters bent on destroying my people and taking my lands. They must be killed!"

Jane pressed backward, half hating and half thankful for the hard trunk preventing her from retreating further. "What if the Council turns you down?"

"You must see that they don't."

"But what if I can't? What will you do then?"

He glared at her, his eyes smoldering like blue fire, his body poised like a raised weapon. "Then I will find another way."

'To fight?"

"We can't fight." He resumed his pacing. "Not without weapons and spells. It would be suicide."

"Then you'd negotiate?" She couldn't contain the hopeful note in her voice.

"No." The word was a low growl, feral and menacing in the darkness. "There will be no negotiating."

"Then what—"

"Poison. Or other spells. They are slower and less reliable than a war, but I will find a way."

Jane swallowed, her fear churning like acid in her stomach. She'd only once seen someone so consumed with hatred, so eager to kill. Only once, and even then it had been through the protective shield of a video screen.

There was little to compare that man and Daken. Daken was tall and muscular, his body at its prime, his strength vibrating through every pore. The other man had been older, his body shriveled and mean, as though he had been eaten away by his maniacal zeal. But nothing could hide the driving hatred raging within both men.

Daken was King of Chigan fighting what he believed was a just war. The other had been sovereign of an empire. And he had irresponsibly launched a dozen satellites he did not understand and could not control.

Jane swallowed, turning away from the man she saw and the man she remembered, focusing on the distant buildings silhouetted against the purple hues of dawn. "I'm ready to go back now."

"You're ready to be the Keeper? You'll take a Council seat?" He made no attempt to hide the hope in his voice.

Jane nodded, her heart sick.

"And you'll help me?"

"Yes." The word fell from her lips to land like a stone against her chest. She had found a way to honor her dead. She would take her position of power in this new world. She would use her knowledge to preserve all her forefathers held dear. She would use her abilities for good.

And in doing so, she would actively destroy the man she loved because she would never, ever help Daken start a war.

Chapter 8

They walked back in silence, the panther disappearing into the shadows as they neared the University. Looking at the grounds before her, Jane felt stupid for not making the connection before. The Elven Lord's "palace" was clearly built on the remains of her old campus. It made sense, especially since he dedicated himself and his "courtiers" to the pursuit of knowledge. The only difference now was in the curriculum. The study of "magic" supplanted engineering as the primary focus.

Ginsen met them outside the computer center, his young face impassive, his voice as soothing and as impersonal as a spring rain. "You will want to rest now, Librarian. There will be a celebratory dinner, but for now, let me show you to your room."