What will you do now, new young king? We are waiting…
Manservants dressed in quieter versions of Roshaun’s “normal” clothes, the Wellakhit long tunic and soft trousers, appeared from the front of the aircar and came around to bow before the two of them and touch the car’s surface. It opened before them, and Roshaun turned to Dairine and nodded; she picked up Spot and stepped in. Inside were luxurious cushioned seats that followed the curved contour of the aircar, and as Dairine sat down and Roshaun sat across from her, she saw that the aircar’s surface was selectively transparent—they could see out, but no one could see in. As the car rose, Dairine looked out past the palace and toward the horizon, clutching Spot to her, gazing out a little desperately across the widening landscape to see where the people ended and the landscape began. It took a long time before she got a glimpse of the plain stone of the “sunside,” golden colored or striated in blood and bronze, barren and desolate.
Turning back to Roshaun, she was surprised to see him looking at her with concern. “Are you all right?”
“They scare me,” Dairine said after a moment.
“You would not be alone,” Roshaun said.
The aircar kept rising past the face of the palace; terrace after terrace, building after building fell away beneath them as the peak into which the palace was built narrowed almost to a needle. Beneath the final height was one last terrace, and the aircar made for this, lifting just slightly above it and settling down onto the polished paving.
The door opened for them. Roshaun got out first, and then turned to help Dairine down. She was surprised to feel, as he took her hand, that his was sweating.
Without warning, she found herself starting to get angry. Here’s one of the most arrogant, self-assured people I know, she thought, and just the thought of going to see his father has him freaked. That’s not the way things should be! As she stepped onto the paving, she squeezed his hand a little.
He gave her a look she couldn’t read. Dairine dropped the hand, unsure whether she’d misstepped, and followed him toward the pair of huge bronze doors that faced the sunset and were emblazoned with the sun.
That sun split before them as the doors ponderously swung open. Dairine put Spot down, and they all walked in.
Their footsteps rang in the huge and echoing space they entered, and their shadows ran far before them down the length of the polished floor, to merge with the dimness at the far end of the severely plain great hall. Use the time to compose yourself, Roshaun said silently.
Like you’re doing? said Dairine. She could feel all too clearly what was going on inside his head. But then that had started to be a problem lately.
Roshaun didn’t reply. But by the time they were actually getting close to the throne, the racket inside his head had started to die down somewhat.
Throne was not the best word for the chair in which that very tall man sat waiting for them. It was backless and had arms that rose from its seat on curving uprights; it sat not on any dais, but on the floor. However, the man sitting in it made it look like a throne by the way he sat, both erect and somehow completely casual about it. He watched them come without moving a muscle, and as they got close enough to get a decent impression, Dairine tried to size him up. His clothes were like Roshaun’s, though in a darker shade of red-orange; his red hair was shorter than Roshaun’s by a couple of feet, and he wore it tied back, so that the angles and planes of a face very much like Roshaun’s, sharp and high-cheekboned, were made more obvious. His eyes, as emerald as Roshaun’s, were more deeply sunken, a little more shadowed by the brows; his face looked both more thoughtful and more dangerous.
Roshaun stopped about six feet from the throne. Dairine half expected him to bow, but he simply stood there, silent, waiting.
Slowly the man stood up. Roshaun locked eyes with him as he did so. His height astounded Dairine; meeting this man’s eyes for long would give even her father a sore neck.
“You came more quickly than I thought you might,” said the man. The voice was like Roshaun’s, a light tenor, somewhat roughened by age.
“This promises to be a busy time for us all,” Roshaun said, “and it seemed discourteous to keep you waiting any longer than necessary.”
Roshaun nodded, and glanced at Dairine. “I would make you known,” he said, “to Nelaid ke Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Teriaunst am Antev det Nuiiliat; Brother of the Sun, Lord of Wellakh, the Guarantor—”
Roshaun fell suddenly silent, as if not knowing quite what to say next.
“Guarantor that was,” Nelaid said, looking at Dairine. “It does sound strange, the first time one says it.” And now his eyes were on Roshaun again.
Roshaun swallowed. “Father, this is Dhairine ke Khallahan,” he said, “wizard.”
It’s title enough for me, she thought. She gave Nelaid a very slight nod, thinking that between wizards, even if they were royalty, that was gesture enough. Besides, if I nod too hard, this crown could fall right on the floor. “I am on errantry,” Dairine said, looking up at Nelaid, “and I greet you.”
“I greet you also,” Roshaun’s father said in the Speech. He stepped away from the throne, looked at Roshaun.
“Well, son,” he said, “you were not long in donning the Sunstone, as is your right. This only remains to complete the accession.” And he glanced at the chair.
Roshaun swallowed again. “I wanted to talk to you about that,” he said.
His father tilted his head a little to one side. “I fail to see what could still need discussion,” he said.
Roshaun turned to look back down the length of the hall, toward the doors and straight into the light of the Wellakhit sun, still slowly setting. The light caught strangely in the great gem at his throat, washing out its amber fire and leaving it as colorless as water.
“I will not be staying,” he said, turning back toward his father. “Errantry takes me elsewhere.”
Nelaid nodded, just once, very slowly. “What the Son of the Sun says is, of course, law.” But Dairine could hear something else coming. “From the sound of it, however, you came not to ask me what you should do, but to tell me what you had already made up your mind to do. I suspected as much.”
“Royal sire,” Roshaun said, “I would hardly make such a choice without consulting with the Aethyrs.”
It was Roshaun’s name for both his people’s version of the manual—a small sphere of light into which a given wizard gazed—and for the Powers that spoke through it. “The Aethyrs speak to you in a different voice than they do to me,” Nelaid said, “which is perfectly normal. But I must question your interpretation of their position.”
“Royal sire,” Roshaun said, “once you could question that. But you gave up that right when you abdicated as Sunlord in my favor.”
“I remain the ranking Senior on Wellakh,” Roshaun’s father said, “and that right of questioning I have not abdicated. You have yet to satisfy me as to how much of this decision is yours.”
And he looked at Dairine.
Dairine instantly flushed so hot that she knew she must be clashing horribly with her dress.
“If you assume I’ve been unduly influenced in my decision, royal sire,” Roshaun said, “you’re in great error.”
“Better believe it,” Dairine said softly. “Paying attention to anything I say is hardly one of his favorite things.”
Nelaid gave Dairine a look that was genuinely amused. “Forgive me, hev ke Khallahan, but I have known my son longer than you have.” He turned back to Roshaun, the look in his eye more challenging now. “It’s the mark of a noble heart to want to help friends in trouble. But when that help distracts you from those you already have a duty to help…” He glanced toward the great barren plain outside, all covered with people.
“Father,” Roshaun said, “staying here in obedience to our people’s insecurities will solve no problem that faces us now. We must not waste precious time doing the same old things; they will not avail us. I will be protect
ing our people, regardless of how it looks to them.”
“They will not ask you for explanations,” Nelaid said. “They will simply watch what you do. And if they do not like your actions, they will keep their counsel … until one of them finds a way to come at you on some visit to the liveside. An energy weapon, a bomb or a knife, an unguarded moment…” Roshaun’s father shrugged. “Even you must sleep sometimes. As must I. And your mother.”
Roshaun’s eyes were on the throne. “I know the fear you’ve both lived with, all these years,” he said. “The knife that almost took you. The bomb that missed you and nearly took the Queen. Do you think I’m trying to shirk my turn?”
Dairine could feel the slow burn beginning. “Excuse me,” she said to Nelaid, “but in case you haven’t heard, your son put his life on the line to fix our Sun while he was on excursus. He saw the problem with it before any of us did. He helped us design the wizardry to deal with it. And when stuff got rough up there, he walked straight into my star wearing not much more than a force field and a smile. That looks like ‘brave’ to me, so if you’re seriously suggesting he doesn’t have what it takes to deal with being king here—”
Roshaun’s father put up his eyebrows. “You are outspoken,” he said.
“Speaking truth to power,” Dairine said, “is never ‘out.’”
The slightest smile appeared on Nelaid’s face. “There are problems associated with this course of action—”
“Royal sire,” Roshaun said, “you were the one who taught me that sometimes, as wizards, we have to make choices that fly in the face of what looks like common sense. ‘Reason is not always everything,’ you’d say. There remains that other voice that speaks, sometimes, in accents we don’t understand. Or understand perfectly well, and violently disagree with.”
“My words exactly,” Roshaun’s father said. “Unusual to hear you agreeing with them. This would not have been your normal mode… before you went away.”
“Nor would it have been your mode to produce so sudden a surprise as your abdication,” Roshaun said, “when I left thinking that everything here was going smoothly, and an excursus would do no harm.”
“Things change,” said the former Sunlord, “as we see.” And once again he looked at Dairine. “You arrive for your people’s first sight of you as Sunlord, and what do they also see, standing at your side? An alien, garbed in raiment much like that of Wellakhit royalty, wearing some other world’s life-color, gemmed like a Guarantor. The rumors are flying already. Does another world have designs on the rule of ours? Either by straightforward conquest, or more intimate means?”
Dairine’s eyes went wide as what he meant sank in. “You mean they think that we—that I— You tell those people that they are completely nuts! Even if I were old enough to think about stuff like this, which I seriously am not, I have zero interest in being anybody’s queen! Especially not his—”
And then Dairine stopped short as she saw the peculiar look that had appeared on both Roshaun’s and Nelaid’s faces.
“Uh,” she said then, and blushed again. “Maybe there was a less tactful way I could have put that…”
That small smile reappeared on Nelaid’s face. “Well,” Nelaid said after a moment, “I perhaps am reassured. But as for our people—”
“Father,” Roshaun said, “you taught me that a wizard turns away from the Aethyrs’ guidance and his heart’s at his peril. Yes, our people may misunderstand either Dhairine’s presence here or the fact that I will now immediately leave. For either eventuality, I’m quite prepared. And when we come home from this errand, perhaps they will assassinate me for what they consider a betrayal. It would not be the first time that kind of thing has happened. Or the last.”
“And, meanwhile, you mean for me to assume the burden of Sunwatch once more, even though I’ve formally laid it down.”
When Roshaun spoke at last, his tone was surprisingly gentle. “You said it yourself, Father,” Roshaun said. “What the Son of the Sun commands is law. As a wizard, you know where your duties lie. But if I must—”
Nelaid stood there silently for a few moments. “No,” he said. “A King’s first command should be less painful. I will stand the Watch … though Thahit is once more showing signs of instability.”
“That I saw when I returned,” Roshaun said. “I examined the star briefly a little time ago, while testing the Stone to see if it interfered with my perceptions. The instability is the one we predicted together before I left.”
“What we did not predict was the increased acceleration of the stretching effects in space,” Nelaid said. “The sun’s instability is increasing accordingly.”
“I noted that, Father,” Roshaun said. “So while I am gone you must intervene if necessary.” He paused. “That said, I should not be taking this into harm’s way. I prefer that you keep it for me while I am gone.” And Roshaun reached up and started to unfasten the great golden collar around his neck.
Roshaun’s father stood silent for a moment, and then made a sidewise gesture with one hand, which Dairine read as “no.” “Wizardry is the reality at the heart of the Watch, my king,” he said. “I have no need of a mere symbol to do what needs to be done.” The tension in the air fell away very abruptly as Roshaun’s father spoke. “But the Stone makes you king … so its place is with you. If you young ones fail, it will not matter for long whether the Stone is lost or not. We will all follow you into the dark soon enough.”
“And if the star stammers, what of it?” said a voice from the floor.
Startled, the three of them looked down. Spot was regarding Roshaun’s father with several eyes.
“Lean times of barren hope
Wait on the composite’s daughter,
Sharpening the edge of life.”
Spot fell silent. Roshaun and Nelaid exchanged speculative glances.
Dairine felt like swearing. “Couldn’t you have waited half an hour?” she said under her breath, and looked up at Roshaun and his father. “Would you two hold that thought?” She felt down toward where the memo pad should have been, in her jeans pocket… then remembered that there was no pocket there anymore, not to mention no jeans. She let out an annoyed breath. “Spot—”
“What?”
“The notepad!”
“In your claudication, along with everything else that was in your pockets.”
“Thanks.” She reached sideways, pushed her hand into the empty air, and groped around, coming up with the pad and a pen.
Roshaun’s father was looking at Roshaun in mild confusion. “When one has manual access, even in alien idioms,” he said, “can one not usually take notes by—”
Dairine looked up from her scribbling to throw Roshaun’s father a look that should have singed even a Sun King around the edges. “Everything changes—isn’t that what you were just saying? You were right. So don’t rub it in.”
The two Wellakhi looked at Dairine with exactly matching expressions of superior amusement, then turned back toward each other. Nelaid said, “Where will you go now?”
“Dhairine’s associate is affiliated to a species of sentient, wizardly computing devices,” Roshaun said. “Mobiles, they call themselves. Both their reasoning power and their wizardry are tremendous, according to the Aethyrs. We go to consult with them on ways to attack the expansion. Meanwhile, the people outside should be told that I am gone on their business—and the universe’s. I will come back as soon as I can.”
Roshaun’s father held his son’s eye for a few moments, then bowed slightly to him. “As the King commands,” he said. He glanced at Dairine as she finished with her scribbling, nodded to her. “Dai stihó,” he said, and with a soft clap of displaced air, he vanished.
Roshaun let out a breath and turned back toward the doors. “Come on,” he said.
Dairine turned, too—and then stopped, hearing footsteps. She paused, looked over her shoulder.
Coming toward them was a woman—not as tall as Roshaun’s father, but so b
eautiful that the sight of her made Dairine simply stop where she was. She wore the Wellakhit long overtunic and soft trousers, but in flowing hazy blue; and her hair was the original of Roshaun’s, except longer and fairer, and so feathery light that it seemed to float around her as she came toward them. Dairine was immediately devoured by a desire to have hair like that, even though taking care of it would leave her with no time for a social life, and buying the necessary amount of conditioner would destroy her college fund. “Uh,” she said, “Roshaun—”
He had already brushed past her, hurrying. Dairine had never seen Roshaun hurry before. He went straight to the woman, reached out, and took both her outstretched hands and pressed them against his forehead.
The woman smiled and pushed Roshaun a little away. “Are you taller?” she said.
“Motherrrrr…!” Roshaun said.
She smiled past Roshaun at Dairine. “Roshaun tekeh,” she said. “What about your friend?”
“Ah,” Roshaun said. He let go of his mother’s hands and glanced over at Dairine.
She smiled, too, and headed over to them, immediately impressed by anyone who could make Roshaun sound like he wanted to roll his eyes. Roshaun looked at Dairine as he put an arm around his mother and said, “I would make you known to Miril am Miril dev ir Nuiiliat, the Sister of the Sun, the Lady of the Lands of Wellakh. Mother, this is Dhairine ke Khallahan.”
Her smile was so friendly and kind that Dairine was tempted to simply say, “Hi, Roshaun’s mom.” But for the moment she did what Roshaun had done, and took the hand held out to her, pressing it to her forehead.
“You’re very welcome, young wizard,” Lady Miril said in the Speech. “And you also, sir,” she said to Spot, who was peering out from behind Dairine. “I heard you say you were in a hurry, Roshaun, so I won’t keep you.”