Chapter 84
Xander: “And I would do it again”
After Lester fell asleep Xander tried to follow suit but found he could not. Old thoughts and memories had been stirred, and would not settle. That stupid locket! He should have thrown the damned thing away long ago. But he couldn't.
Arising, he groped for this staff and went to the door and threw back the bar on the other side with a mental flick of pathspace.
Karl, the guard on duty, startled, tried to block his path. “Um,” he said, swallowing, “you're supposed to stay here at night. Governor's orders.”
“I'm aware of that. But I need to see the Governor.”
“Can't it wait?”
He could see the guard was nervous. Caught between a Wizard and his Governor. But he had no time for this. “Maybe it can,” he said. “But I can't. Oh, put away your sword, Karl. You don't really want to fight me. If you like, you can come with me.” Seeing the man hesitate, he added “Unless you want me to knock you out with magic. Don't worry, I'll see to it you don't get in trouble.”
Glumly, worry plain on his face, the guard followed him to the stairwell.
After they had gone up a few floors and were resting on a landing, Karl finally has to ask. “What is it that you can't wait for morning to say to her? Is it a new idea for the defenses?”
“No.” Xander didn't volunteer anything further.
“Only it's late and she's probably asleep, you know. She won't thank either of us for waking her. Maybe you're not worried about that, being the court Wizard and all. But I'm just a guard.”
Xander glanced at the man's uniform. “You're only a private,” he said. “She can't demote you any lower.”
“She could throw me out of the Army!”
“When we're about to be invaded? I don't think so. And like I said, I'll make sure nothing happens to you for this. You should trust me, soldier. She does.”
Karl chewed on that the rest of the way up to Kristana's floor.
There was no avoiding another “discussion” with the guards posted outside the Governor's floor. Standing there in the stairwell, Xander could feel himself beginning to lose patience. “I need to see Her Excellency,” he repeated. “We both know she'll see me if you'd just let me in.”
“Actually, I don't know that. Not this late.” The guard did not move from in front of the door.. “And we both know she needs her sleep.”
“I'm tired too,” growled Xander. “But this is important, damn it!” He could hear his voice getting louder but was too tired and annoyed to master his irritation.”
The door behind the guard swung open and a weary Kristana regarded both of them.
“The two of you are arguing about my rest so loudly,” she said, “ that I can't get any. You might as well let him in, Loyd, so we can all have some peace.”
Xander and the guard shared a rueful glance, looking for a moment like unruly schoolboys caught by a teacher, and then Loyd stepped aside, abashed. “You might as well stay here, Karl,” said Xander. “I'll be back shortly “
Karl's face wore a resigned look that said plainly that he doubted that, but Xander had no time for niceties at the moment. It was true that he and the Governor both needed sleep, and the sooner he finished this meeting, the better.
Kristana ambled back into down the hall to her outer office and plopped herself down behind a desk. “So what couldn't wait until tomorrow?”
He grabbed a chair himself and regarded her. He could still see the beautiful woman he had met, so many years before, now trapped behind a mask of authority and tiny wrinkles. “The aftermath,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow, inviting him to continue, so he did. “We've been so focused on how we're going to repel this invasion that we haven't considered what we do next.”
“Speak for yourself,” she yawned. “I meet with my planners every day.”
“You know what I mean,” he said. “Simply avoiding being conquered isn't enough. We have to have a lasting peace, and that means forging alliances.”
“With who?” she snorted. “Wyoming? Those communalists can barely defend themselves, let alone help us.”
“No,” he said. “With Texas.”
“Are you out of your mind? They're the ones trying to crush us!”
“The Honcho is, sure. But he won't live forever. From what I've seen, the Runt appears more amenable to negotiations than his father.”
“They tried to kidnap my daughter. And rescuing her nearly got you killed.” She crossed her arms and lowered her eyebrows. “We don't need Texas.”
“Actually, we do.” Xander coughed and leaned back in his chair. “There is no way to accomplish the General's Dream without it. Unless the new Union encompasses every lost State on the continent, we'll have enemies at our backs when we try to reach out to the rest of the world.” He knew that invoking her memories of the General wasn't exactly fair, but he couldn't help it.
“If we defeat them this time, we can defeat them again later,” she muttered.
“If we can bring them to an alliance, we won't have to fight them again,” he countered.
“Why should they agree to anything with us? They don't need us.”
“Actually, they do. This invasion isn't just about neutralizing us as a potential threat. He wants to expand his armies and territories, and we have the gold he needs to do that.” Xander paused. “If he finds he can't take it by force, by occupying us and our mines, then he'll realize he has to negotiate for it.”
She studied him. “And what does he, or rather, Texas, have that we need?”
“More farmland, for one thing. Our population is growing, in case your planners haven't noticed. Texas has beef and crops. We both now the old Union wasn't held together by force. What glued the United States together was the synergy of trade. Every region has its own peculiarities, its own produce and trade items, and the more States we incorporate into the new Union the better off we will be. Not just to restore the grand Union that was lost. We will all be better off when the internal wars are over and all the areas can trade freely again.”
She shook her head. “All right,” she said. “I'm not crazy either. You know I'd rather have peace than worry about invasions all the time. If we can find a way to conclude an alliance with Texas, we will. Satisfied?”
“It's a start,” he said. “But you need to have your people begin crafting the terms as soon as possible. And the treaty will be a model for many others, so it needs to be expandable when we bring other countries to the table to consider joining. We can't give Texas a better deal than anyone else.”
She frowned but nodded. “is that it? Are we done?”
“One other thing,” he said. “As you know, I can make everflames, and I've been with your chief armorer cranking them as as quickly as I can in case we need to use them to fight.”
“So?”
“When the invasion is over, I want to start giving them away. I'll keep making them, and eventually Lester will be able to help me, but I want us to start distributing them to the people, one per family.”
“Your communalist roots are showing, wizard. Tell me why we should give them away.”
Another coughing fit delayed his answer. “Well, for several reasons. For one thing, winter is coming.”
Kristana rolled her eyes. “We have plenty of firewood.”
“We have trees, true. But with a growing population we will need all the lumber we can get for building. Right now there are a few everflames scattered about Rado in smithies and inns and the like. But if every family had one, our homes would be warm without burning up our trees as firewood.”
“So you want us to just give them away? For free?”
“Free to our citizens, yes. We can also export them as trade goods. Think of the prestige Rado will have when we are the only source of them. People in other countries will envy our citizens. It could even be a way to get more countries to join our Union. Think about it! We could give away some free samples, and then m
ake them pay if they want more. But they'll know they can have all the everflames they need...for free...if they become part of the new United States.”
She snorted at that. “You think big, I'll give you that. But I don't want you working yourself to death to give people free magic.”
“I won't have to do it all. I'll spend a little part of each day making some, and Lester will help me when he learns how.”
“The same reasoning applies to your apprentice,” she said. “I won't have you working him to death, either.”
“Once we get my School up and running, we'll be able to train more apprentices. Right now it's just me, but it'll grow quickly, like a snowball rolling downhill.”
“I smell a hidden agenda. What are you really aiming at, here?”
He shrugged. “Same as I ever was. Making more wizards. I don't know whether it's something anyone can do, or if some people just have a natural aptitude for it, but one thing I do know is that developing the ability to do 'magic' requires long-term exposure to the Gifts. We'll start with everflames and swizzles. When he get enough of them into the hands of the people, then we'll grow a crop of potential wizards in the next generation. In time – “
“Swizzles too?”
“Yes. It was a swizzle back in Wyoming that started me on my path. Your citizens can use them to bring water out of wells and to fan the flames of forges. Your people will be better off, and you'll eventually have more wizards to help defend Rado and make more things.”
“But if we export them to other zones,” she objected, “won't that destroy our advantage? If you're right, they'll be having more wizards too.”
“It takes a long time to make an apprentice,” he said. “We won't export at first, so our own citizens will feel the effects before anyone else. We'll be way ahead of them for quite a while. And Rado becoming known as a source of wizards might make the others countries more willing to ally with us.”
“You're forgetting something,” she said. “The Church will oppose you. They'll tell the people not to accept the Gifts. They'll order families not to let their children near them if they suspect it will lead them 'astray'...into learning magic.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “But every winter that comes will make their members long for the convenience of everflames heating their homes and cooking their food without smoke or having to chop firewood. And every summer will make them wish they had coldboxes to help their food keep longer. We'll win in the long run.”
Pathspace Page 84