Red Queen

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 28

  Pacts

  Moss walked down a pleasant avenue in one of the southern cities. The wind blew in from the sea and brought a cooling breeze and a pleasant salt smell. The well to do of the town promenaded about, giving his out of date government issue grey cloak the occasional sidelong look. But, mostly, they saved their glances for each other in a subtle ballet of fashion, patronage, and grooming. Amongst them Moss strode, nearly the only one genuinely enjoying the play of late afternoon sunlight and architecture.

  Nearly.

  On his third perambulation he noticed someone else enjoying the scene, rather than trying to be part of it. He was quite sure she had been there all along, and the he had just not been able to see her. She was quite as striking as he had remembered her. She was tall, even seated, with radiant golden hair. But that was only the easiest to measure. The way she sat, the angle of her hands holding the tea cup, the neutral yet polite cant to her eyebrow... all of these drew the attention and made an impression. He smiled broadly and leaned on the railing of the cafe she sat in. “My lady Gwendolyn”, he beamed. “May I join you?”

  “I don't believe I could stop you”, she said easily. The tone of her voice was in that no man's land between coolly dismissive and coyly toying.

  Moss rounded the low railing, bowed deeply, and sat in the accompanying chair. “Tush, tush”, he said dismissively. “You are exceedingly good at not being found when you don't want to be found. And, since I found you, then you must want to be found! I didn't even use any magic.”

  “But you would have”, she said. “From your determined air it was clear. So I thought I would save you the trouble.” She took a sip of her tea. A waiter breezed by and brought Moss a cup. “My, though, you are in a good mood for one with so much weight upon you!”

  Moss held the cup gingerly, pausing a moment to inhale the steam from it. “Yes”, he said quietly. “An uncommonly good mood, considering.” He took a sip, and focused on his first swallow. “Things are changing.”

  She raised her eyebrow, conveying the appearance of curiosity for politeness sake, but not actual curiosity. In response Moss took out a wax note tablet with a diagram of his four polarizers and placed it on the table. “Ah”, she said, glancing at it, “A rectifier.” Her tone was, once again, somewhere implacably between congratulatory and patronizing.

  Moss pursed his lips. “I might have figured you thought of it before the first cataclysm. Were your floating castles all powered by arrays of these, drawing energy from the vortices?”

  “It was a flying city. And there was only one”, she said, possibly distractedly. “And, no, it wasn't. A rectifier was the primary component in a defensive spell to deflect incoming hostile energy. It absorbs it, then the polarizers remove all unique characteristics of it, and it is channeled into your own mana reservoir for your counter spell. We never thought of using them to convert the random energy from a vortex. Very clever.” Moss's sour looked turned to one of surprise. She took another sip of tea. “You are right. This will change things considerably.”

  Moss put down his tea cup. “You're a hard person to impress.”

  Gwendolyn's lips formed a very small smile. “You are right about that too. People have been trying to impress me for three thousand years. It's not easy.”

  Moss sighed deeply and looked out over the avenue. “Once we master this, it'll be time to kick things up a notch. We're going to need all hands on deck.”

  “You know that I'm extremely reluctant to get involved in your politics”, she said, warningly.

  “I do know that. And I do not ask you to. At least not overtly.” She waited. He continued. “Obviously, as someone with the power to turn down godhood, even not doing something involves you in politics. But I'll keep it simple. My wife has been fully occupied combating my... disability. You are the only one alive with any experience with these Ancients. Is there a way to rid myself of this affliction, rather than just keep it in check?”

  “Your wife is most valiant”, said Gwendolyn, looking both at and into him. “I watched her battles and the Ancient's laughter on your face as you walked past twice. I amuse myself sitting here observing humanity passing, reading their thoughts, histories and future in their gestures. Yours was far more interesting than most.”

  “I'm glad if I have provided you diversion”, said Moss.

  She smiled the smallest of smiles again. “I did not mean to trivialize either your wife's efforts or your burden.” Her face grew firm. “Before the new magic all we had was one sided pacts struck with beings of the ancient orders. My generation was spared that, but all my mentors, all my elders... they were not. We broke the world fighting to right that wrong.” Her eyes focused all of their attention on him. “Trust me. Centuries of existence may have left me melancholy, but I hate the Ancients with a passion that still burns hot. If I could do anything to thwart them, I would.”

  “I take it that means you can't”, said Moss.

  She looked down to her tea. “Your mind has been brushed by a trace of consciousness of one of the Ancients. You were lucky to have survived at all. There is no ancient there to fight. Just the reflection of one of its stray thoughts echoing through your mind. Your wife disturbs the ripples, preventing them from twisting your mind to its way. But she cannot stop them.”

  “There must be a way to grasp the pattern. Form a counter spell”, said Moss.

  “Not with our magic”, said Gwendolyn. “The best I can understand is that it is a pattern that, itself, is a pattern of a pattern, which is a pattern of a pattern of a pattern, and so on to infinity. We cannot grasp it with the tools we have. You would need another Ancient to counter it.”

  “Or one of an Ancient Order”, said Moss. “A Dragon or a Grey Elf.”

  She considered. “Dragon pacts were hard to establish. They are traders, and have very odd ideas about relative values of things. If you could get it to comprehend what you wished, odds are it would cost you something nearly as dear. I only ever knew of a single mage with a Grey Elf pact. They were the rarest of all. But are you not already working for a Grey Elf?”

  “We all are. In one way or another.” He made a vague gesture. “This 'Grand Experiment' of theirs. If I knew how to impress him I would.”

  “Well, you've made a start”, said Gwendolyn with a hint of laughter. “Although I am no Grey Elf.”

  Moss sighed and looked up to the sky. “Maybe”, he said eventually. “If it's all about power. The discovery of New Magic, and inability to control its use, lead to the first cataclysm. But that was part of the pattern. Maybe it was necessary to serve as an example to us so that we don't blow it again.”

  “If you can conduct the power of a few vortices to your strategic mana reserve that will certainly increase the potential for things to go devastatingly wrong.”

  He looked at her. “What went wrong? The last time. You were there for it.”

  She sighed. “The most noble of intentions can go awry. We sought to rescue those less fortunate from their pacts with the Ancients. There were a few victories. And there were some disasters. Somewhere along the way tempers became inflamed and arguments lead to magical warfare.” She shook her head. “I joined a movement seeking to eradicate the New Magic from everywhere.”

  “The Hundred and Forty Four”, said Moss.

  Gwendolyn nodded. “We succeeded. We overthrew the Wizards and prepared a great spell to search for the pattern of the Six Books and to destroy everything matching that pattern. Simultaneously we were to erase the specific knowledge of it from our own minds, so we would not repeat the mistake. We were to retain the power of it, to help and lead the survivors, but also limit our memory to a few centuries. So that whatever our disagreements might be, they would be petty.”

  “And a hundred and forty three did so”, prompted Moss.

  “Yes”, she said. “But I did not. It seemed vanity to me. Immoral. All the power and none of the responsibility.”

  “How di
d you convince them to let you abstain?”

  “I don't know”, she said. “I just walked away. I had expected them to obliterate me as a traitor. They did not. I've studied human nature ever since then, wondering.” She indicated the avenue. “I watch them parade up and down. Their thoughts, feelings, ambitions, hopes, fears... all written in their face. It is surprising what you can learn if you learn how to look.”

  Moss surveyed the scene as well. “I wonder if the Grey Elves bet on you.” He drank his cold tea. “Swan said the Grey Elves trusted to the collective nature of humanity. That our species, through the random actions of its members, will follow the trend lines of their Experiment. Swan also said that he had the dissenting view that individuals had a part to play. I wonder if he meant you.”

  “Or you”, she countered. “You may yet impress him as an individual.”

  Moss laughed. “I'm not an individual. I'm a team. Me, my wife, and the echoes of a really pissed off Ancient.”

  They sat watching as the streets emptied. The light faded and candles were lit on the tables. “Moss”, said Gwendolyn suddenly. He looked at her quizzically. “I cannot help you with what you have asked. But I think I may help you with what you have not asked.”

  “You will dip your oar into our politics?” he said hopefully.

  “I will throw a pebble in the pond”, she said, getting up. “And we shall see where the ripples lead.”