The Well-Favored Man

by Elizabeth Willey

  I did not really want to sit down and tell Prospero that Dewar was working with Prospero’s quondam familiar Ariel. I did not want to describe the scene between him and my mother’s apparition or whatever she was in the Spring. It had a feeling of privateness to it, the whole affair. If Dewar had wanted his father Prospero to know, he would have told him. My sorcerer’s professional courtesy demanded that I keep my mouth shut.

  Professional courtesy was putting me on the spot, though. I knew the brief histories of the Independence War inside out, and I knew that Freia had allowed no hint as to the whereabouts of her allies to slip in. In case she needed them again, probably.

  I got out of bed and took a bath, having a thorough scrub and soak to get the accumulated travel grime off me. I tried not to think while I sloshed and lounged, but a thought did occur to me: Dewar, if he had been irritating these people, should perhaps be warned that they knew about his activities, whatever those were. He might have some advice on how I could handle them.

  On climbing out of the bath, I attempted a Lesser Summoning for Dewar. Nothing, as ever. What had he and Ariel done to get themselves in so much trouble? The Battlemaster was not someone I would choose to annoy. They had beaten Landuc’s best, and if they could somehow reach me to talk to me, without being initiated in the Well of Fire …

  I tried a Lesser Summoning of Gaston. Next of kin, after all. Nothing.

  I fingered my Keys. Might I try Ottaviano? No. I didn’t think he knew more than I did about Dewar’s whereabouts. Oriana? No, for the same reason. Prospero?

  If I were to just level with Prospero, tell him everything, he might take it off my hands …

  He might take deep offense, too, because I hadn’t told him in the first place that his daughter persisted, standing on the threshold of life or death. He would certainly be furious that I hadn’t told him about Dewar.

  Belphoebe? She would listen and suggest I tell Prospero. So would Walter. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t want to run into Prospero or Walter just now, and they were very likely both around. I had opened the bathroom window for a few minutes to air it out, and I had heard faint music from another room nearby when I’d done so. The prospect of the long and complicated circumlocutions that I’d have to conjure up was more exhausting to contemplate than the sorcery I planned.

  I wished someone else in our small family had sorcerous talent like my own. I was isolated and without support. If only one of my siblings had taken up the Art as I had, I would have someone with whom to talk things over, to show me the flaws in my thinking as Dewar did when he was here: a trusted colleague, perhaps an apprentice of my own, at least someone who could be relied on not to judge me by lay standards.

  But they hadn’t, none of them. I grimaced in the Mirror and got up and dressed in clean clothes and different boots than the ones I’d been living in. As I dressed I ate the rest of the food from my saddlebags. Then I took a few implements from my workroom: my favorite wand, a triune balance, a little prism and a lens.

  When working with the Spring directly, very little apparatus is used. For one thing, the level of power is such that it destroys most lesser tools—shatters Mirrors, breaks anything of glass or crystal, and heats and deforms metals. Water freezes and then sublimates; fire flares and burns intensely for a split second, leaving no ash behind. Wands such as the one I was using or other tools are made only to fine-tune, not to manipulate the power of the Spring in any substantial way; to place, so to speak, a thread spun by other means in position, not to spin the thread.

  This doesn’t matter, because when working with the Spring directly, if one knows what one is doing, one doesn’t need props. If one does, one shouldn’t be there. Theoretically the Spring will resist or even destroy the unfit itself. I have not seen this happen, but I have read descriptions of the deaths of several apprentices at the Stone of Blood on Morven in Noroison. Dewar made me read them before he would even consider initiating me there. I had never conceived of the Spring as having the same fatal potential until it had slain my mother.

  Mother’s death had seemed sudden, not instantaneous but very fast, and I had wondered, after writing my account of it in my journal, what it had been like for her. What had she felt in that terrible moment of falling, as Dewar had screamed and leapt forward, as I had howled and swung at Tython, as Prospero had thrown the Black Sword? I’d never dare ask even if she were around to question.

  There was music coming from Prospero’s rooms; I heard it as I passed on tiptoe. Sounded like him and Walter both, singing and playing. Furtively, wanting to stop and go in and join them, feeling like a thief in my own house, I went down via a less-used stairway that lets one into the gardens. I didn’t want to run into Utrachet or any others of the household, either. Let them all think I rested yet.

  I left that stair before it ended, passing through a low, knobless door with only a keyhole in its fine-grained, finely-polished dark wood. My Master Key fit that hole perfectly and the door swung open at the touch of my hand. The Master Key is one of my uncle’s little jokes. He was amused by the Landuc custom of Summoning-tokens being key-shaped and when he made Keys in Argylle he made a Key that was a key for opening certain locked things in the Citadel and around Argylle.

  Closing that door behind me, I paused on the landing a moment to conjure an ignis fatuus. With that to show me the way, I continued along a narrow passageway that jogs this way and that around various rooms and segments of plumbing and chimneys and the like. It ends at another door as featureless as the first. I opened that one cautiously, looked left and right, and closed it behind me to go down an equally narrow, steep flight of stairs. Another door at the bottom leads to another passageway, a low one, and ends at a door made of a slab of stone. This one, which pivots on its central vertical axis, lets on a landing on the Black Stair. Down that and into the high-vaulted darkness below the world. I sought the Spring and found it.

  It pulsed and danced in front of me, not dark and passive—active, excited, sparks and miniature comets coming and going in or above its black-opal non-surface. There was a soft, high-pitched sound as of a nearby but miniature waterfall.

  I hadn’t worked it directly since it had killed Freia. Of course I’d tapped it in my day-to-day sorceries, but I’d not used it for the higher levels of spells. I’d avoided them in fact.

  I was sweating. Pure fear. I hadn’t expected this. I set the lantern down with a bang by the bench. Three deep breaths—don’t think about this, Gwydion, I told myself—and I called Virgil to assist me.

  He swooped noiselessly down and perched on my left shoulder, his usual spot, and bit the top of my left ear gently with his hooked beak, a friendly gesture.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Another little bite and he straightened and adjusted his grip on my doublet’s padded shoulder.

  I took my wand from my sleeve and began.

  The Spring felt as I remembered it; the Well and Stone were thin traces of their native might. I moved my wand and chanted loudly and softly and stood silent with concentration and passed power in and out of Virgil as I had ever done, and gradually a shining golden net formed over the Spring, around me where I now stood above it.

  The construction was done. I was wrapped by and suspended within a spherical lacework of power, of different colors to the eye, different … tastes to the mind. A miniature Road-system, in short. The Spring made no special manifestations toward me; Freia, if she were there, was ignoring me.

  Virgil was perched on the back of the Botanical Gardens bench, watching.

  I caught my breath in that perfect, tense moment where all power hangs a moment at zenith, before speaking the final words that would make my spell seek Kavellron, then paused with the syllables unuttered on my tongue.

  Here was one who really ought to know what Dewar had done. Next of kin, hell. Freia herself could decide what to do with him. Knit into the fabric of the Spring by the cords of the finding-spell I had made, I was now more intimately bonde
d to it than any other living thing in the universe which surged from here; the flow of the Spring through my spell and through me was exhilarating, invigorating, and sustaining. Hm. Maybe something could be done. Yes. If I could somehow get her to notice me, to talk to me as Dewar had done so long ago, if she were able, if she were there still as Freia and not some benignly indifferent preternatural force …

  The tension of the energy in my incomplete spell swirled around and around me, pulling as an undertow, straining to return to its natural flow. It was as mighty as the ocean and as indifferent.

  I exhaled and said, softly, “Mother, I need you.”

  No response. I could not hold the spell in suspense much longer; it would destroy me.

  I closed my eyes and thought of her, breathed life into my fading memories. So much is lost in twenty years. I kept seeing the image from the photograph in my bedroom, Freia looking away from me, looking away …

  I built her image before my mind’s eye, yearning for her to look at me, to turn and speak: a Summoning from the heart without words.

  The uncompleted spell snapped as a wire overdrawn. I felt it go; it tore at me to take me with it. Its energy whirled, sizzled, flew apart—and then the spell spun around me again, its force lessened and shape slightly altered; it now had an outlet, was a channel rather than a cul-de-sac.

  “Gwydion,” I heard, softly, a rustle, a whisper. The spell tightened around me, as if it would sheathe me in its cool, rippling satin, then relaxed.

  My heart fluttered. My eyes opened. Startled, I looked around me. Nothing to see, no simulacrum or vision such as Dewar had gotten. “Mother?” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “I need to tell you something and to ask you something.” Talking to a disembodied voice that sounded in my ear was disturbing. I closed my eyes again, trembling violently. She was there, truly there, not dead but transformed. A chilly prickle went up and down my back. My shirt was clammy with anxious perspiration; it stuck to me beneath my doublet, making me feel colder.

  “Ahhh,” she sighed. I could almost feel breath against my cheek, and then I realized it was no breath, but a little pulse of the Spring. “What is it you need? Is not all well with you? Tell me.”

  “Dewar seems to have rebound Ariel.” My voice shook, although I tried to keep it level and matter-of-fact. One doesn’t talk to one’s mother’s ghost every day.

  “That is true. Ariel serves him. Now ask …” The voice, though hers, was not wholly her voice; there was a richness in tone and timbre that no human voice box could have produced: Freia’s voice, enhanced and deepened.

  I moistened my lips, eyes still closed; it was easier to concentrate on what she said thus, not on the wonder of her saying it. “I have been contacted by the Kavellray Battlemaster. Someone has stolen some kind of genetic information about you—”

  “Oh, sun moon and stars,” she whispered.

  “—from them. They wanted to talk to Gaston, but they could not find him and settled on me as the kin they could reach. I thought you deserved to know too.”

  “When was this done?”

  “I don’t know about the theft. They, or Thiorn, contacted me a few days ago my time, when I was riding home from Montgard to Argylle, on the Landuc side of the Border, a Sending, very strangely done. They want me to come to them for further discussions.”

  “Thiorn. That is interesting. To find you must have cost them greatly; I did not think they could do such a thing. Yet it is no small matter to them, nor to me.” She was silent. The Spring-currents in my spell moved over my skin rhythmically. “Thank you, Gwydion. Now, what is your question?”

  I phrased my reply carefully. “Mother, I am fairly certain Dewar did it, with Ariel. It is easily within what I know of Ariel’s abilities. I do not want to lie to them, so I’ll … I’ll betray Dewar unless you wish otherwise. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I truly do not know what he … He is rash. He is so …” The troubled words were delivered without the quaver of emotion I would have expected from a human throat, but she sighed again, a little gust of Spring-force. “I told him to do nothing. He will not listen. He hides from me in Pheyarcet or over the Limen in Phesaotois, and I cannot see what he does.”

  “Stubborn is the word.”

  “It does run in the family, doesn’t it. He came here himself a little time past. That is how I know of Ariel. They were both here.”

  “When the dragon, Gemnamnon—”

  “Yes.”

  “So has he been watching things here? Would you know?”

  “He had Ariel watching you, yes. I said to him that that was uncouth, to forsake Argylle and still to spy so … poor Papa,” she added aside, lower, perhaps not meant for my ear. “Ariel is here no more and Dewar has ceased that. He was worried about you, dear.”

  I had meant Gemnamnon, but this was equally interesting. “Kindly Uncle Dewar. I appreciate his concern. I was dead meat there, Mother.”

  “I was watching that fight too,” she said apologetically. Her voice was acquiring more expression.

  “Really? We ought to have sold tickets.” For her sake now as well as my own, I was glad he’d saved me. Horrible, to watch your son and heir eaten slowly on your own mountaintop.

  She actually laughed softly. “Now then. I must talk to Dewar and the Battlemaster and I would do it here, as the Border makes such a conference impossible there. You must tell the Battlemaster to incarnate and return with you. I shall try to reach Dewar.”

  Incarnate? “Can you do that?”

  “If Ariel is within my demesnes, I can give him a message for Dewar. I know that Dewar is not here now, but I do not know where he is. I cannot pass the Border unless constrained to do so.”

  “What do you mean, constrained?”

  “The Well and the Stone keep me from their demesnes; I cannot reconcile myself to them alone.”

  I nodded. “What if I commanded you to find Dewar after you opened the Way for me?”

  “A moment; let me think on it. —How is Ulrike? She is not here.”

  “She is well. She is visiting Alexander in Montgard; he invited her to go there You do not know?”

  “I do not watch so closely as that.” Pause. “Not usually. When people think about me very hard, it catches my attention.”

  I swallowed, squeezing my eyes tighter shut. Her voice made my heart ache in my chest. I wanted to open my eyes and see her there … “We think about you a lot,” I whispered.

  “Thank you. It keeps me together.”

  “As a personality?”

  “Yes. —I find I must be actively constrained to pass my Border, Gwydion; you must guide me and protect me yourself. I do not think a spell alone would be adequate to the task; it requires a living being to control it. The forces keeping the universe in its present form are very strong.”

  Was that a joke? Hard to tell. “Pity. Very well, so must it be. I’ll find the Battlemaster, get them to incarnate”—whatever that might mean—“and return with them. To the Spring?”

  “Secretly. I would prefer that. I trust Thiorn, and none comes here, so it is safe. I have changed your spell a little, Gwydion, to make it easier for me … I can alter it further and send you to Kavellron, to a place I know they will receive you.”

  I was impressed, but this didn’t seem to be the time to ask how she had learned to do that—although, being the Spring, I supposed she could do almost anything she wished. I said, “Yes. That is a good idea. While I am there, you do what you can to find Ariel. If you cannot, there are rather unpleasant but effective ways for me to haul Dewar in.” I was sure he’d be furious, which was why it had always been out of the question before, but his sister outranked him, even dead. If she wanted his presence, he could not refuse it. Nor would he want to. He was not the Lady’s Champion for no reason.

  “A Great Summoning. Yes. Thank you, Gwydion.”

  I closed my eyes, synchronized myself with the spell’s energy pulses, and spoke the words for Seeki
ng, Opening, and Passage. Nothing more specific than the name, Kavellron, an omission that felt strange to me and that gave me a little twist of fear as I felt the spell act.

  What if Freia made a mistake?

  I brought my hands down in the gesture of termination and finished the spell. It flashed into action around me, and an electric-feeling charge ran over my skin. The air changed as I inhaled, in midbreath. I looked around. I stood alone in a grey, featureless room.

  Almost at once, I hit my forehead with the heel of my hand. Damn it! I should have asked Freia about Gemnamnon! If she could watch me fighting him on Longview, if she knew that Dewar wasn’t in Argylle’s demesnes, she might know where the dragon was now or be able to find out. Distracted by Dewar’s spying activities, I’d lost a chance at perfect information. Hell!

  “Lord Gwydion. We were expecting you. Come in,” sounded a voice, genderless, neutral. A grey doorway dissolved like mist on the Wye on a summer morning.

  I went forward warily, looking around. Behind me, the grey room disappeared as the door reasserted itself. A few abstract-looking chairs and tables of a hard white metal-like substance were scattered around casually. The floor was tiled grey; there was bright, directionless light from the colorless walls. It reminded me of the Eddy where I had gone to study economics and accounting. I had not liked the place and I had not much liked economics and accounting either. Worst of all, their best wines had been only average compared to home.

  I remained standing, looking for someone to talk to. “I have a message from Freia for the Battlemaster.”

  A person, a woman I realized after a few seconds, dark-skinned and dark-haired, appeared opposite me, standing, fading into sight as the door had. “That is us. From Freia?” she said—or seemed to say.

  “Yes,” I replied. “She’s still a distinct personality and it’s possible to talk to her under certain conditions.” I examined the woman cautiously, trying not to be too obvious. She was not really there; she was an illusion of some kind.

  The illusion frowned a little. Very naturalistic. “Indeed. Continue.”