by Kay Hooper
“According to the stars?” He held her gaze steadily. “Serena, despite your newfound ability to contain your energies, I can certainly see and almost hear your distress. What’s happened?”
She glanced around, realizing only then that they were alone; Rachel had apparently left the kitchen some time ago. Serena hadn’t even touched her breakfast, which was rapidly growing cold. No wonder he had noticed her preoccupation; she never ignored meals.
Looking back at Merlin, she tried to think of some way of cushioning the blow, but finally blurted, “I didn’t know your father was a judge.”
He frowned. Instead of responding to her statement, he held out a hand for the section of the newspaper she’d been reading, and Serena gave it to him.
“It’s not so bad,” she offered as she watched him read the article. “Kane could have done a lot worse. I know you hate publicity of any kind, but he didn’t say anything bad about you. And all that stuff about me is old news. I guess I could have tried to stop him, but he didn’t seem to know anything for certain when he talked to me—”
“When he talked to you?” Merlin raised his eyes from the paper. “At the party?”
“No.” She cleared her throat, unnerved by the mask-like hardness of his face. “It was later. He sort of cornered me leaving work, and—”
“Serena, why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
Merlin swore rarely, and she’d never heard his voice sound so harsh. She didn’t know what was so wrong about the article, but there was no doubt he was seriously upset. She knew then that she should have told him about Kane’s interest while he could have done something to stop or at least deflect the man.
“I … I just forgot about it,” she explained.
“Forgot?”
His disbelief touched a nerve, and Serena felt herself stiffen. A bit tautly she said, “It was on Tuesday. You may remember I had a lot on my mind Tuesday.”
He leaned back in his chair slowly, still gazing at her with grim eyes, the newspaper lying on the table before him, his plate pushed to the side.
Serena’s instincts told her to keep her mouth shut until he calmed down, but this hadn’t been her best week, and she needed to let off a little steam. Being Serena, she opened every valve.
Recklessly, she said, “If you’re so worried about the damned article, zap it out of the paper. Of course there’ll be a rather large blank place, but you can probably fill it with a farm report or something.”
“And am I supposed to zap it out of the mind of everyone who’s already read it?”
“Why not? I may be no good at mind control, but I’ll bet you’re terrific at it. Aren’t you? It certainly can’t be beyond the powers of a Master wizard to create a little amnesia here and there.”
“Kane’s column,” Merlin said evenly, “is syndicated in a hundred newspapers across the country.”
“Including one in Chicago, I’ll bet. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t want His Honor to know you’re living with a woman he knows damned well isn’t your niece.”
Ignoring that, Merlin said, “I can hardly influence the minds of a few million people. I’m not all-powerful, Serena, and certainly not infallible.”
“I know.” She suddenly wanted to cry.
His anger drained away as quickly as hers had, and Merlin looked at her with instant awareness. They were both remembering a blond woman and an all-too-human act, and this time it was Serena who looked away first.
“Sorry I didn’t warn you about Kane,” she said. “It’s obviously a little late to worry about closing the barn door, since the horse is on its way and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. Anyway, the article certainly could have been worse, so we’re lucky there. And maybe whoever it is you don’t want reading it won’t.”
Merlin didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he did speak, his voice was still a bit rough. “Serena, don’t judge me before you know all the facts.”
Her gaze returned to his face, the green eyes guarded. “Sure. You just tell me when I have them, okay?”
He couldn’t blame her for the frustration she clearly felt, nor could he make it easier on her by disclosing a few of those necessary facts. There was far too much he didn’t understand himself, and his own emotions were making it more difficult for him to see the situation clearly.
All he could do was try to keep everything, including Serena, under control until he found the answers for which he’d been searching.
Serena pushed back her chair and left the table, every taut line of her body expressing her vexation with him. Merlin rose, as well, and followed her out into the foyer, intending to say something that would allow them to part for the day on fairly amiable terms. He didn’t like being at odds with Serena; it made him feel uncharacteristically morose and had a tendency to cause the rest of his day to be miserable.
But before he could say anything, the phone on the hall table rang.
She was getting her raincoat from the tree by the front door, so Merlin answered. And even though he’d been half prepared for it from the moment he had read Kane’s article, the matter-of-fact voice on the other end of the line nonetheless caught him by surprise.
“Merlin, this is Jordan.”
Unconsciously, Merlin gazed straight at Serena. “Hello, Jordan. How have you been?”
Ignoring the pleasantry, the other man said, “How soon can you get here?”
An interesting question, Merlin reflected. He could, of course, “get there” instantly, and both of them knew it. But the appearance and demands of his normal life made instantaneous transportation an extremely rare thing, used only during the direst of emergencies.
“I can clear my desk by lunchtime,” he said.
“Good. Take the first available flight after noon. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“I’ll be there.” Merlin listened to the dial tone for a moment, then cradled the receiver. He was still looking at Serena. She had put on her raincoat but hadn’t left the house because his stare and his end of the conversation had caught her attention. So much so, in fact, that she seemed to forget she’d been mad at him.
“Be there?” Her voice was hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Merlin started to tell her he was going out of town for a day or so, but the memory of what had happened last time forced him to be much more specific. “A meeting of the Council of Elders has been called,” he said. “I’ve been asked to attend.” Asked? He’d damned well been ordered.
Serena took a step toward him, still hesitant but probably alerted by some tone in his voice. “Have you done something wrong?”
A bit dryly Merlin replied, “You could say that, yes.”
FOUR
Wizards were born with finite degrees of power, some high and some low. No amount of learning could increase that inherent level of force; instruction and knowledge could only perfect the control, the mastery of what was innately possessed. Merlin was on the high end of that scale, one of the extraordinarily rare beings born with almost unlimited potential. Jordan was at the low end of the scale. He was almost as tall as Merlin, but lacked the other man’s power in almost every respect. Jordan was fair, thin, pale-eyed, soft-voiced. Born with so little ability that he barely qualified as a wizard, he might have grown to resent those farther up the evolutionary scale than himself; instead, he had chosen to put his stronger talents of organization and efficiency to good use, and so served as a kind of administrative manager for the Council of Elders.
He met Merlin at O’Hare Airport, his cool Nordic looks and placid voice an island of tranquillity in a sea of bustling humanity, and led the way briskly to the dark, inconspicuous Lincoln he had left in a no-parking zone. Naturally there was no ticket. Merlin sat in the front beside Jordan, unwilling to give the appearance of being chauffeured, even though he was. He disliked ceremony and avoided it whenever possible. Especially whenever he was in the company of other wizards.
It was
just after six o’clock, and since it was late autumn, it was both dark and chilly outside. A gloomy omen, Merlin thought, and instantly chided himself for the superstition.
“Where’s the meeting?” he asked, even though he was fairly sure he already knew.
Jordan didn’t turn his attention from the road. “The judge’s house, as usual,” he replied.
Merlin glanced at his driver, wondering idly and not for the first time why Jordan referred to the Council members by their positions or tides in the “real” world rather than their names. A mania for secrecy perhaps? If so, it was no wonder. The six men he served had in common a secret that would have rocked this technically advanced and cynical world if it had been made public.
The news wouldn’t have done wizards much good, either. Though Serena had been flippant when she had described another Salem witch hunt, the truth was that the discovery of wizards in their midst could certainly have the powerless population of the world both frightened and up in arms.
Hardly something anyone wanted to happen.
The remainder of the drive out of the city and into the suburbs was spent in silence. Almost an hour after leaving the airport, Jordan turned the big car into the driveway of a secluded mansion. The gates opened to admit them, and moments later the car drew to a stop near the bottom of wide brick steps leading to a front door.
“They’re already waiting for you in the study,” Jordan said as the two men got out of the car. “I’ll see that your bag is taken up to your room.”
In the short time it took Merlin to mount the steps, the massive front door opened to reveal a soberly dressed elderly man, the very image of an old-world butler.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Charles.” He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to the butler, then half consciously straightened his tie and shot his cuffs. Not because he was vain, but because a neat appearance was essential. A meeting of the Council of Elders demanded the semiformality of a suit; Merlin, at a much younger age, had once shown up in jeans, and it had been two years before he’d been allowed to forget that breach.
He wasn’t nervous, but he did pause in the foyer for a moment to collect himself.
“The study, sir.”
“Yes. Thank you, Charles.”
With a deliberate tread Merlin crossed the seeming acres of polished marble floor to the big double doors of the study. He knocked once, purely as a matter of form, and entered the room.
It was quite a room. Sixty feet long and forty wide with a fifteen-foot ceiling, it held two fireplaces large enough to roast whole steers without crowding, a row of enormous Palladian windows, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side of both fireplaces, and a marble floor. A huge, very old and beautiful Persian rug lay beneath the long table and dozen chairs placed squarely in the center of the room, and two chandeliers were suspended above the table. The remainder of the room was furnished with groups of chairs and small tables and reading lamps scattered about as if to invite intimate conversation, but nothing would ever make that room appear cozy.
It practically echoed.
The six men who made up the Council of Elders were seated at the end of the table opposite the door. The judge was at the head; on his right were a senator, a financier, and a diplomat; on his left were a world-famous actor and a scientist. All the men were middle-aged to elderly, with the scientist being the oldest, and all possessed that indefinable look of powerful, successful men. Which they were.
They were the eldest practicing wizards—hence their name. Though from various parts of the world, they all spoke English so well, their national origins weren’t obvious. Each had been selected for his position on the Council by an ancient process that clearly and precisely determined the necessary qualities of wisdom and leadership, and which allowed absolutely no chance that personal ambition could influence results.
Though all were powerful men and powerful wizards, only two had achieved the level of Master wizard. That distinction was rare because it meant, by definition, an individual with total mastery over his powers, and that demanded a strength of will so great, few were able to attain it. In actuality, fewer than one-tenth of one percent of all the wizards who had ever lived had been able to reach that stature.
And even among that exceptional company, Merlin stood out as a unique being, because no wizard in all of history had achieved the level of Master at so young an age.
Which, at the moment, mattered not one iota. The Council of Elders was grim, individually and collectively, and all they saw before them was a wizard who had broken the law.
Merlin walked to his end of the table and sat down. He was wary but not unduly nervous; this wasn’t the first time he had been caught in some rebellion—he and the Council seldom saw eye to eye on even minor matters—and he had every expectation of being able to defend himself. He folded his hands on the table and waited, knowing from experience that he could shape his defense only after he had heard whatever they had to say.
It wasn’t long in coming.
The judge, his expression dispassionate and his voice flat, said, “Is she a woman of power?”
“She is.” Hiding Serena’s existence from these men for nine years was one thing, but Merlin wasn’t about to lie to them now. Defiance could be explained and perhaps understood; stupidity was something else entirely. He felt as well as heard the Council’s collective indrawn breath, and realized that each man had hoped he would tell them it wasn’t true.
The actor, his trained voice particularly effective in the huge room, said, “You know the law. How do you justify breaking it?”
Merlin’s previous offenses had been relatively minor. This time, as he studied the somber faces at the other end of the long table, he realized there was nothing minor about his latest infraction. And the power of the Council was nothing to underestimate. If the Elders felt his offense warranted it, they could destroy him. So he gave himself a moment to think before answering, and when he spoke, he kept his voice calm and reasonable.
“It’s a senseless law, and I could find no reason for it. Why should I turn away from the potential Serena represents simply because she’s female?”
Merlin felt a slight ripple in the room, as if every man present had shuddered inwardly. They were nervous, all of them, tense to the point of being stiff. The reaction baffled him—and yet some part of him understood.
The diplomat, his voice unusually quavery, said, “It’s forbidden to teach any woman. Forbidden for any woman to even know about us. You must stop.”
“Why?” He looked at each of them in turn. “Someone tell me why it’s forbidden.”
“It’s the law,” the scientist said, as if stating an incontrovertible and absolute truth in his universe.
“It’s a bad law,” Merlin snapped, beginning to lose his composure in the face of their inflexible conviction. He had the odd feeling that no one at the table was listening to him, that they wouldn’t—or couldn’t—hear any part of his defense. “We’re hardly rich enough in power to be so eager to squander it,” he added more quietly.
The senator’s voice was grave. “You’re obviously too close to the subject to be able to see it clearly—”
“Her. See her clearly. The subject is a woman, Senator. And I see her clearly enough.”
Several of the men began to speak at once, their voices high and agitated, and the judge held up a hand for silence. Gazing unwaveringly at Merlin, he spoke in a steady voice.
“We’ve lived by our laws for thousands of years, and in all that time no law has ever been renounced by a practicing wizard: You must not be the first. Our ancestors devised the laws because they saw an overwhelming need for us to control our powers, not be controlled by them. If we’re to survive as a race, we must all respect and obey the rules we live by.”
“Except this one,” Merlin retorted. “It’s a senseless law. Why should learning be denied to a female born with power? Why do you—all of you—see that as a threat? Why are you afrai
d of Serena?”
Very softly the judge said, “Why are you?”
Merlin stared down the table into a pair of eyes as black as his own. “I’m not afraid of her.” Despite his effort, his voice lacked conviction.
“No? I think you are. Apprehensive at least. Can you honestly say you haven’t felt yourself drawing away from her? That you haven’t felt wariness, an uneasiness, a sense almost of panic as she has matured in her abilities and as a woman?”
Of all the Council, only the judge had married—only he had even lived with a woman, for that matter—so he was really the only one who could have imagined what Merlin might feel toward his Apprentice. Unfortunately, though that might have made him an ally, Merlin knew better. The judge had been married to a powerless woman, not an Apprentice wizard, and while that was frowned upon and discouraged, it was not forbidden.
“Whatever I’ve felt is beside the point,” Merlin said at last.
“Hardly,” the judge said. “It is the point. That a woman is forbidden to know our craft isn’t simply a moldy old law written in ancient books; it’s written in us. Stamped in the deepest part of us. And we must obey.”
“You must stop teaching the woman,” the actor said inexorably.
“It’s the law,” the scientist agreed.
“Be reasonable,” the financier begged. “Stop this before it’s too late. Don’t force us to do it.”
Merlin stiffened, his gaze again flying to the head of the table. There was a long silence, and then the judge sighed.
“According to the newspaper article, she’s lived with you for years. How many?”
“Nine.”
“Then she’s barely into the training?”
Merlin hesitated, then shrugged. “I accelerated in several areas because of her innate power.” Again there was that odd ripple through the room, and this time the men sat back in their chairs or moved restlessly.
“But her control is imperfect?” the judge demanded.
“Yes. But she’s young and she did begin the training later than usual. I have every reason to believe she can one day achieve the level of Master.”