“But the rapists have to live in the daytime, too,” Serena had protested. “If a woman is raped, can’t she go after them later, when she can use her powers?”
“If she survives.” Roxanne’s voice was bleak. “Most don’t. So even though any of the wizards in Sanctuary would destroy the rapists without hesitation, there’s usually no way of knowing the guilty men. And we can’t destroy them all….”
Serena gazed across their darkened camp, thinking, acutely aware that her body was far weaker than she was accustomed to, that the Curtain had drained her strength even though she hadn’t attempted to use her powers. Despite the large branch that she had earlier found and put nearby for defense, the truth was that she was hideously vulnerable to anyone or anything that might attack her.
All her life Serena had been carelessly certain of her strength, her power; it had formed the core of her self-confidence and presence. She had felt vulnerable emotionally, but never physically, and her sense of helplessness now was as alien as this place.
She was afraid and felt very, very alone. Worst of all, the person closest to her was no longer someone she could instinctively and trustingly go to with her fears. Now she hesitated, wary and uncertain.
Because he was a man—and a wizard.
By midway through the following morning, they were no more than a mile from Sanctuary. Roxanne hardly spoke—not at all to Merlin—and kept close to Serena. The fragile blond was pale but controlled; she seemed physically all right, or else was drawing on her wizard’s powers, because she had no trouble in walking steadily with the other two.
Still, Merlin called a halt after they’d been traveling for a few hours. He had carefully avoided getting near Roxanne, but it was obvious to Serena that he’d kept an eye on the young wizard and knew she needed rest, even if she wouldn’t show it or admit to it.
Serena left Roxanne sitting on a fallen tree and moved a few yards away to join Merlin, who stood on the bank of a wide but shallow stream they would have to cross.
“This water’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked.
He nodded. “You can smell the sulfur. I’m willing to bet most of the groundwater’s no good. The wizards can create fresh water, but I don’t know what the villagers do.”
Serena started to suggest that maybe the lake near the village contained drinkable water, but she caught a glimpse of his left hand just then, and all thoughts of water vanished. With a gasp she caught his hand and lifted it between them. His arm tensed as if to draw away from her, but then relaxed.
“What happened?” Cradling his hand in both hers, she stared down at the vicious blisters marking each of his long fingers. Burns, she realized. Then she remembered, and looked up at his face quickly. “Roxanne had burns like these all over her hands when we found her.”
Merlin met her gaze, his own calm. “Yes.”
“You had to find out, didn’t you? You had to try and use your powers last night.”
“Of course,” he answered matter-of-factly. “We couldn’t know for sure that the Curtain would affect us as it does them until I made the attempt.”
“‘So now we know it does affect us.”
“Yes. And I wouldn’t advise you to try. The effects are rather painful.”
Serena looked down at his hand again, knowing that the burns must have been much worse when they were first inflicted than what she saw now. Wizards tended to heal from their rare injuries extremely quickly, but not even a Master wizard could heal himself. Merlin had once told Serena he believed that inability was simply another reminder that no mortal being could be all-powerful.
She very gently traced one blister on his index finger with the tip of her thumb, not even conscious of her desire to heal him until the blister began to fade.
“Serena …”
“Roxanne can’t see what I’m doing.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Healing the skin is simple,” she murmured, touching the blisters one by one and watching them fade away, replaced by healthy skin. “It was the first thing you taught me when I began studying healing.”
“You promised not to attempt to heal anything until I said you were ready,” he reminded her.
Serena looked at his unblemished skin with satisfaction, then met his eyes innocently. “How can I be expected to keep a promise I won’t even make for millennia?”
“You won’t be born for millennia. Don’t split hairs, Serena.” But his low voice was amused rather than annoyed.
They were both speaking quietly, aware of Roxanne’s presence a few yards away.
“It’s still a fact that I can hardly keep a promise I haven’t made yet. That isn’t logical.”
“Logical? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it you who once said that math wasn’t logical?”
She dismissed the memory with a shrug. “Numbers confuse me. But I’m very good with words, you know I am, Richard. And ideas. I may be new to this time travel business, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. And I know that promises I made in our time aren’t valid here.”
His half smile faded a bit. “Even the promise you made to obey me?”
After a moment Serena let go of his hand, rubbing her own down over her thighs in an unconsciously nervous gesture. “Even in our time that promise was reserved for the workroom and my lessons,” she reminded him, striving to keep her voice easygoing. “You’re my Master as a wizard—not as a man.”
Merlin nodded slowly. “I wanted to make sure you remembered that. I haven’t forgotten it, Serena. And I won’t. No matter what happens here, no matter what ideas and customs these people have, you and I are from a different time. We can’t let ourselves be torn apart by what’s destroying them.”
She gazed up at him, and for the first time since Roxanne had talked about this place and its people, Serena remembered all the years that Merlin had virtually raised her. She owed him a great deal, far more than she would ever be able to repay.
Without his willingness to guide her, she probably would have ended up using her inborn powers simply to survive any way she could. Instead he had given her the first real home of her life and had not only taught her the skills of a wizard, but also provided her with an excellent model of what a decent human being should be.
The recent strain between them, strong and bewildering though it was, had not erased her memories of those times or her awareness of how much she owed Merlin, and she couldn’t allow Atlantis to wipe them away, either.
At the very least she owed him her trust—unless and until he did something to betray that trust. What other wizards, male or female, did was hardly something for which she could hold him responsible.
Serena drew a breath and nodded. “Point taken. I’ll try to remember that what happens here doesn’t necessarily have to affect us.”
Merlin didn’t ask her to explain the qualifier. “Good. Now, I’m going to follow this stream a bit father north and see if there’s a better place to cross.”
“You could just conjure a bridge.”
“I probably will, but I hesitate to use my powers too often until we find out just how much these wizards are capable of.”
“That makes sense. I’ll stay here with Roxanne.” She had taken no more than two steps away when he said her name, and she paused to look back at him.
He lifted his left hand, the thumb brushing over the unmarked fingertips lightly. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” She went back to join Roxanne, unaware of smiling until the younger woman’s openly curious stare made her aware of it. “Is something on your mind?” she asked lightly, sitting down on the fallen tree.
After she’d glanced past Serena to make sure Merlin had gone, Roxanne said slowly, “You two are certainly … different.”
“In what way?”
“Sometimes you seem very comfortable together, and other times it’s almost as if you’re strangers. You seem to view each other as equals, and yet you appear willing to follow his lead. I can see now
you aren’t his concubine, but the way you look at him and the way he looks at you makes it obvious there is something between you.”
“You’re very observant,” was all Serena could think to say. The way Merlin looked at her?
Roxanne gazed at her steadily, the wide blue eyes puzzled. “You say you’re his companion?”
Serena felt uneasy, remembering what Merlin had said. “Yes, but maybe you’d better tell me what that word means to you.”
“What it means? It means a comrade, a friend—”
“That’s it,” Serena said, relieved.
“—or a mate,” Roxanne finished. “But you couldn’t be his mate, because male wizards don’t have mates.”
“Well, I’m not his mate, but why do you say male wizards don’t have them? If they have concubines …”
Roxanne frowned. “That’s different. The males want sons, of course, and they want their pleasure, so they have concubines. But never mates. All they have to give to any female is their seed. Even if they possessed hearts, they could never give them to a woman, not even a powerless woman.”
“But a powerless woman couldn’t hurt them, could she?”
“Not the way a wizard could—although I suppose she could cut his throat if he trusted her enough to sleep in her bed.” The idea seemed an interesting one to Roxanne, her eyes going distant and thoughtful as she considered it silently.
“They don’t ever do that? Sleep together in bed?”
With a shrug Roxanne said, “I could hardly know for sure, but according to powerless women who were once concubines, the males always leave the bed once their needs have been satisfied.”
“Oh.” Trying not to feel appalled—this was not her time or her society, Merlin had been right to remind her of that—Serena probed for more information. “You said the male wizards kept concubines partly because they wanted sons; do the mothers raise their children?”
“No, never. Their babes are taken from them immediately after birth. The sons are suckled by older powerless women, and raised by lesser male wizards in a separate house near their fathers’ palaces.”
Serena shook her head in disbelief. “Those poor women lose their children? God, that’s not just cruel—it’s inhuman.”
Roxanne seemed a bit puzzled by Serena’s words, but she merely shrugged. “The males fear their sons’ being influenced by any female, so they take care to avoid it.”
Realizing only then what she was hearing, Serena frowned. “Wait a minute. Sons. What about the daughters?”
“They are killed at birth,” Roxanne replied matter-of-factly.
“What? Just automatically slaughtered because they’re female?”
“Yes.”
Her thoughts whirling and nausea churning in her stomach, Serena couldn’t bring herself to say a single word. It was one thing to tell herself this was not her society, but the knowledge that any society could practice or condone the practice of murdering innocent newborns deemed the “wrong” sex was simply horrifying. And that wizards could commit such a dreadful act tore at Serena.
Unaware of the blow she had dealt, Roxanne returned to her original point. “You and Merlin are something out of the ordinary. Aside from your oddity as a pair, he doesn’t really behave—so far, at least—like any of the male wizards I’ve encountered. And you don’t act like a powerless woman.”
Serena forced herself to respond casually. “How do the powerless women here act?”
“Subservient.”
Startled, Serena frowned. “What, all of them?”
“Outside the walls of Sanctuary, yes. In the city, of course, things are different; the powerless women are never threatened or abused, and they seem content—if somewhat simple and pliable. But out here I suppose they’ve learned that a bowed head is less likely to anger their men.”
Serena cleared her throat. “We encountered a few village men when we first arrived, and I can see how the women might have a great deal to fear. The men looked rather brutal, even though one of them was smiling.”
“A powerless woman’s lot is no better than a wizard’s here in Atlantia,” Roxanne said broodingly. “If she escapes being taken into the mountains by one of the male wizards, she is still liable to endure a hard and wretched life under the domination of some man who is as likely to knock her unconscious as he is to throw her down and take his pleasure.”
Serena shivered.
Noting the reaction, Roxanne reassured her. “As long as you’re paired with a male wizard, you have little to fear from the village men, during the day or night. Very few of them would dare touch you even if they caught you out alone. They couldn’t gain any power from you, and fear of punishment would be stronger than any desire for brief pleasure. Male wizards have been known to destroy powerless men for such an offense.”
“That’s all very well, but how would the men know I was Merlin’s … companion, if they found me when he wasn’t around?”
“He hasn’t marked you?” Roxanne asked in surprise.
“No. That is, I don’t think so. Marked me how?”
Roxanne studied Serena carefully, then shook her head. “I guess I assumed you were marked under your clothes, on a shoulder or your back; some wizards do it that way, although you’re far safer if the mark is instantly visible—”
“Roxanne. What kind of mark?”
“His mark. Merlin’s. Every male wizard chooses how he’ll mark his women, and all who belong to him wear the same sign.”
“Sign? You mean a symbol of some kind?”
“Yes. For instance, some of the marks I’ve seen have been in the shape of animals, letters, or birds. One wizard even marks his women with a constellation—tiny stars.”
“Which constellation?”
“Orion, I think. Why?”
“Just curious.” Serena sighed. “So how will I wear this mark? I mean, is it stamped into my skin?”
“Yes, I suppose. The marks can’t be washed off, I know that. They’re created in different colors, and worn in different places. Most are here.” Roxanne touched the base of her own throat, just below the hollow. “Instantly visible.”
Branded for all the world to see. Sighing again, Serena said, “I think I’ll wait until we reach the city before I talk to Merlin about these marks. I’d rather not wear a brand until I absolutely have to. Unless … will not being marked there, in Sanctuary, matter?”
Roxanne was gazing at her rather curiously, but shook her head in answer. “No. You won’t be harmed by anyone in the city. Wizards and powerless women alike are treated with respect.”
“That reminds me…. When Merlin and I encountered those village men, they knew right away that I was powerless. Was it only because I was traveling with a male wizard, or does some physical sign distinguish a wizard from a powerless woman?”
“Merlin’s being a wizard told them, of course, but they probably checked your hands to make sure.”
“My hands?” Serena lifted her hands and looked down at them, puzzled.
Roxanne held her hands out near Serena’s. “Outwardly a powerless woman looks just like a wizard, except for this. All women of power are born this way in Atlantia, and have been for centuries. It isn’t so in Seattle?”
“No, it isn’t.” Serena hadn’t notice anything odd until then, probably because the difference wasn’t obvious until all ten fingers were held stretched out. But there was a deviation from the norm. On each hand Roxanne’s ring finger was slightly longer than her middle finger.
Before Serena could say anything else, Roxanne murmured, “He’s returning,” and let her hands fall to her lap. Her face closed down, eyes shuttered.
“Serena?”
She got up and went to meet Merlin by the stream. “No better place to cross?” she asked abstractedly.
“No. What’s wrong?”
“Atlantis gets weirder by the minute. We were wondering why those village men assumed I was powerless? Take a look at Roxanne’s hands when you get a chance.
She says all the female wizards have been born that way for centuries.”
“I have already noticed her hands,” Merlin told her, “but I assumed it was an individual trait.”
“No, just inherent to female wizards here. She said it was the only outward difference between wizards and powerless women. God knows what the internal differences are.”
Merlin looked at her steadily and, keeping his voice low, said, “Something else has disturbed you.”
Part of Serena didn’t want to tell him, but a stronger part did. She watched his face carefully when she spoke. “According to Roxanne, one of the reasons the male wizards keep concubines is because they want sons. They murder their female children at birth.”
He didn’t look surprised, but rather as if she confirmed something he had known or guessed. “I see.”
“It’s horrible.”
“Of course it’s horrible.” His voice was level. “It’s also unnatural, and we have to find out what caused them to adopt such a practice. Another question to be answered, Serena.”
She tried to remain calm, but it wasn’t easy. “I’m having a hard time looking at it as just another question we have to find the answer to. If even half of what Roxanne’s told us about the male wizards is true, they’re monstrous—inhuman. That isn’t the way wizards are supposed to be.” The final sentence was almost whispered.
Merlin hesitated, wanting to assure her that whatever wizards in this time were like, those of their time weren’t monsters—but he wasn’t sure that was true. Were his father and the other Elders any less monstrous since they were willing to destroy any woman of power, and avoided offspring of their own simply to avert potential problems? And would he himself have not survived infancy if he had been born female?
He reached out slowly, resting his hands on her shoulders and struggling inwardly between two equally strong but conflicting urges. He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, to banish the look of confusion and fear from her vivid eyes. And he wanted to push her away, to turn his back and close her out in order to protect himself.
The fight went on, but he was able to speak in a fairly even voice despite it.