“It is a lost fragment of a much larger crystal which was shattered long ago,” he continued, his voice as remote as his eyes. “This original crystal polarizes all the magic of this realm-it makes the magic work in particular ways, along specific lines and following specific rules. Do you understand this so far?”
“I think so,” Xylina replied. She had never before thought of magic as following rules, or being governed by anything. It justwas . And she had certainly never had the notion that there was some relic of ancient times behind it all.
“Where is this crystal?” Faro asked. “Are we going to be trying to find it, too?”
“The main crystal is hidden in the heart of a fortress in the center of the realm. It is heavily guarded.” Ware raised an eyebrow. “Although the Queen is not aware of it, the guards are descendants of the very first Mazonite Queen and a select number of her Guard. They are there, not to keep the crystal from being stolen, but to keep a new fragment from coming near it. Not surprising, since whenever a missing fragment is brought to it, its polarity changes- and that causes the magic of the entire realm to change.”
“Change?” Xylina said, puzzled. How on earth could magic change? “What do you mean?”
Ware grimaced. “It is difficult to explain. The last addition brought about the present order, the one that you and all Mazonites believe that has been in place forever. Once, my dear, women were not the rulers. Men were not slaves. Your order is not the ‘natural’ order, it is only one of many possibilities.”
She blinked. Where did that leave the words of the historians, who recorded nothing but female superiority since time began? Where did that leave the priestesses, who told their followers that the Supreme Power was, of course, female?
“Since that addition,” Ware continued, “magic has been that of conjuration, and is channeled only through women. And since I am sure that you are curious, yes, I do know what the previous order was like.”
Xylina hung on his words, avid with curiosity.
“Before the moment of that addition, it was a kind of magic that could make events occur,” Ware told them. “What I mean is that this magic would force things to happen that would not otherwise have occurred, and it was controlled not by women, but only by virgin children under the age of puberty. The next addition-” He shrugged. “Who knows what that will bring?”
“What do you think?” Faro asked shrewdly.
“Well-” Ware lowered his eyes for a moment. “Let us say that I do not yet have an opinion. Many of my kind believe that it will bring about a complete reversal of the current order, and that magic will then be channeled through men. I do not think I need to tell you what that will mean.”
Faro’s eyes gleamed, and Xylina held her breath. Really, the only thing keeping men subservient to women was the women’s ability at conjuration. If that were lost-if, in fact,men got magic power of some kind, the entire world would change. And she had no doubt how it would change….
“They would make us their slaves,” she murmured, awed and horrified. “They would force us to serve them in every way, to wait upon them, bear them child after child, to serve their pleasures whenever, wherever they pleased-”
She shuddered. She knew that although she cared for and respected Faro, as she had Marcus, she could not live under a regime of that sort.
“I do not know that this will be true,” Ware cautioned. “Just because such a reversal seems logical, it does not follow that it will be so. The last change did not follow such a logical reversal-the next may grant magic only to those who are blue-eyed, or those with golden hair, or to virgins, or those past bearing children. Or to those with a particular birthmark, or of a particular lineage! I cannot say. This magic is not even remotely logical.”
Xylina let out a sigh of relief, and Faro looked disappointed for a moment. Then, oddly, his face cleared. She thought she understood why. No matter what the change was, it would mean that power was no longer completely in the hands of women. That would be enough for him….
“The new magic will also be more powerful, because the main crystal will be closer to being complete,” Ware continued. “Just as the magic of Mazonite conjuration is more powerful than the magics that preceded it. The more of the crystal that is added, the stronger magic grows. When it is complete-perhapsall humans will have magic, and all forms of magic will be in effect. We do not know. Or perhaps-there will be no magic, and every human will have to rise or fall only on his or her own efforts.”
Xylina tried to imagine a world without magic, and failed. But Faro nodded thoughtfully. Perhaps it was easier for him, magic-less, to imagine a world without it.
“We demons have known of this all along, of course,” Ware said, matter-of-factly. “This is why so many of my kind are ‘courting’ the freedmen; frankly, we expect this change to take place within the next fifty years. And if magic goes to men, then the demons will be ready to remind them of all the favors we did them in the past.”
“Favors?” Xylina said, doubtfully, distracted for a moment. “What do you mean?”
Faro bent and hid his face, and from the strangled sounds that came from him, she had a strong suspicion he was choking down laughter. She could not imagine what was so funny. Ware simply looked at her, with an enigmatic smile on his face, as if he too found something amusing.
“We treat the freedmen as equals,” he said gently. “You know this to be true, for you have seen how I treat Faro, and you will see how I treat my own slaves-as servants, but not as inferior to myself. We are their conduit to the world of the Mazonites, as I explained to you earlier. We contract to them for goods and services, then contract in turn to the Mazonites. We also take their goods to the world outside Mazonia, and trade there for them. But the service that I believe Faro is so amused by is that we supply them with-hmm-bed-companions.”
Bed-companions? Did he mean? He couldn’t have meant-
Some of Xylina’s shock must have showed on her face, for Faro looked up briefly, and doubled over again. Evidently he found all this very funny. She blushed, feeling her ears grow hot, her cheeks burning.
“But-” she said, then stopped in embarrassment. She did not know what she wanted to say, but she burned with curiosity as well as embarrassment.
“There are female demons as well as male,” Ware pointed out, obliquely. “Succubi as well as Incubi. But the main-ah-trade is in simulacra. Creatures made from other living things, that look human, but are not. Created ‘living dolls,’ if you will, with no souls and no more mind than a rodent. Many of them are made from mice, or other lower creatures. They are created for pleasure, and nothing else. These are-well, let me just say that they are very popular with slaves and freedmen who can not afford foreign women.”
Well, that certainly explained some things that Marcus would not tell her about the sounds coming over the wall, from what had once been her mother’s house! Xylina flushed even deeper, and decided to change the subject quickly.
“What of the change that this new fragment would bring?” she asked. “Why are your kind so certain that magic would go to males?”
“Oh, they are hardly certain,” Ware replied lightly. “That is simply what most of my kind think the most likely, or so they try to tell themselves. I-my opinions vary from day to day.” His tone turned to one of warning. “But no matter what happens, Xylina, you must realize contemporary society will suffer extreme changes, dislocation-without any doubt at all, power will go to some group that does not currently have it. That means that there will be a revolution, and whatever leaders are in charge at that time will be deposed. Probably, they will be killed. That is what happened a millennium ago, when the last change occurred. Of this, none of my kind has any doubts. And when the change occurs, we will vanish from your ken until the chaos is over. It will be a catastrophe that will make every natural disaster, every war, every disruption your people have endured seem tame by comparison.”
And Adriawanted this shard? Xylina was incredul
ous. Was she insane?
“Why on earth would the Queen wish to possess this thing?” Xylina asked, aghast at the visions that Ware’s words invoked in her all-too-active imagination.
Ware smiled, a smile of deceptive gentleness. Xylina saw the smile, and was reminded of a hawk basking in the sun, who could turn into a deadly killer in the time it took to spot a rabbit in the grass. “Ah, but Adria does not know the stone’s true nature,” he said, a feral gleam in the back of his ever-changing eyes. “She knows only what she has been told: that when properly mounted in gold, it enhances the power of its possessor, and keeps the possessor eternally young. She wants that, more than she let you know. She wants it more than anything she has ever wanted before in her life. Physically, at least, she would be immortal-if she could keep a rival from killing her over it. Anyone who knew she had such a thing would of course want it herself. On the other hand, with her already formidable powers enhanced, Adria would be the single most powerful conjurer in the history of Mazonia. It would be very difficult to challenge her.”
“And of course, you had nothing to do with her learning this,” Faro put in, his voice dense with irony. “The fact that all those restrictions on demon-kind would be gone if this change of yours takes place would have nothing to do with Adria learning of the shard.”
Ware contrived to look innocent. “I? Why should I have told her these things? Of course, an ambitious person of my kindwould have every reason to let this information slip, if he already had an extensive network among the freedmen. Although you are correct; the vows to serve and obey the Queen and the other laws we must obey would no longer be in effect if there was no longer a Mazonite government.”
“Hmm.” Xylina grimaced a little. She did not in the least believe his innocent ploy. As he had pointed out, one had to be very careful when dealing with demons, who had centuries in which to learn the ways of bypassing oaths. Nothing Ware said could be taken at absolute face value. Perhaps he had told Adria nothing directly-but he could have brought a document to her attention, or something of the sort. He could even have planted such a document where he knew she would find it.
She did not particularly like those repeated references to the fact that the laws governing the demons’ behavior would no longer bind them when the change took place. And what if the change gave thedemons all power of magic? All of humanity could wind up being their slaves!
“I don’t suppose this is true,” she said, “this tale of immortal youth-”
“Ah, but it is,” Ware replied, his eyes gleaming. “Remember, dear Xylina, we may not lie to the Queen. It is entirely true. It is simply not the entire truth.”
Xylina tried to think what was wrong with this-there must be something that Ware had not yet told them. “But if that tale is true, the realm is in no real danger. She can simply keep the shard forever, and never take it to the main crystal. In fact, she would not want it out of her possession for even a moment! What on earth could ever induce her to take the shard to the greater crystal?”
But something in Ware’s sly and anticipatory expression told her that she had not heard the entire story. Her guess that he still had something to tell them was right. And he was waiting for her to ask.
“All right,” Xylina said, finally. “How would or could this shard be brought to the great crystal against the Queen’s wish and will?”
Ware smiled again, showing the sharp tips of his teeth. “Because the shard is a subtle thing, as is the parent crystal,” he told them. “It has a will of its own. It slowly corrupts its wearer to its will. While it would take something like a hundred years for the shard to wholly subvert its wearer, it does not actually need to wholly subvert someone to get her to do what it wills, as I am sure you realize.” Once again, his eyes went strange and full of otherness. She shivered, looking into them. “When it prevails, the person wearing it is compelled to take it to the larger crystal so that it can be merged with the great stone. Once it prevails, the bearer will make up some reason why she wishes to do what the stone wants. It is possible that Adria will convince herself that if a small shard of the crystal is a good thing to have, the greater parent crystal would be better. So you see now, the shard will inevitably prevail, if it has a bearer.”
“So unless it is kept hidden away from people so that no one can mount and wear it, the shard will have its will,” Xylina said, after a long moment. “There is nothing that can be done that will stop that.”
“Quite true. And the present order has endured for so long only because the fragmenthas been hidden,” Ware said, his eyes slowly returning to normal. “But the end of the era is in sight. The Queen discovered the existence of the shard, and now she knows where it is, and she means to have it. She desires eternal youth, immortality, and enhanced power-and I think that even if she knew the whole truth, she would convince herself thatshe could withstand the will of the shard.”
He looked carefully into Xylina’s face, as if he was reading her mind from her expression. “Do not think that you will stop her from this by simply not fetching the stone for her, Xylina. She will merely send someone else, as she has been sending others all along-Guards, adventurers, fortune-seekers. She has had power for so many years that she has become corrupted by it, able to convince herself that what she wants will be good for her people as a whole. And having succumbed to one sort of corruption, she is ripe to be corrupted by another. She will have the shard, and when she does, she will soon have to merge it. She will persuade herself that the will of the shard is her will, and go to find the parent crystal. And when she does-”
Silence. Then Faro spoke. “It will be the end of their world,” he said, his voice like the thunder presaging a storm.
Xylina stretched, slipped off clothing she had not, until this evening, considered shabby, and stepped into a simmering white-marble cauldron of hot, soothing water.
At last she was alone. Now she could review recent events and perhaps come to terms with them.
After much discussion, Ware had brought them both to his villa, and housed them in luxury Xylina could not have imagined enjoying a day before. He pointed out that there was no point in keeping the hired guards-Faro could complete the training of his current crop of students anywhere-and if Adria changed her mind, they would be much more secure with his slaves to guard them. And, he added rather pathetically, “Since I must be with you at all times, it would be much more comfortable to be housed in my villa, than in your home.” He added hastily, “It is a very good home, Xylina, but it is not what I have grown used to. It will be a bit crowded, I think.”
Faro laughed, and even Xylina had to agree that her modest dwelling could not compete in luxury with Ware’s villa. So they traversed the city and entered the massive gates-
And Ware showed them the true extent of his wealth.
Within moments, Xylina gave up trying to imagine how much wealth was represented there, and simply enjoyed it all.
True to his word, Ware had not made any advances toward Xylina, although Faro watched him in much the manner of a dog scenting someone suspicious. Instead, Ware treated them to a fine dinner, served as they reclined on fine upholstered couches in his sumptuous, rose-silk-paneled dining room. As he had told Xylina, he treated Faro as an equal, and he treated his own slaves with a courtesy normally shown only by one citizen to another. His slaves were all uniformly good-looking, with graceful bodies. They served Ware and his guests without a sound, though with no sign of the kind of cowed subservience Xylina had seen in other slaves of their type.
She could not identify half of what they were served, but everything she tried was so savory that her own attempts at cooking seemed like childish scrawls compared to Faro’s writing. She made a comment, and Ware smiled.
“I also train cooks,” was all he said, but the slave serving him at that moment smiled.
When they finished, Ware bid them good night, then had one of his silent, handsome slaves show them to their chambers.
They ha
d a suite of three rooms, the whole larger than her entire house. There were two chambers set up for sleeping, with a private bath that led into both rooms. In order to reach the second of the bedrooms, one had to pass through the first. There was clothing laid out for them, apparel with which Xylina wished she could have found fault. But though the fabric of her waiting outfit was luxurious, the cut was just as severe and modest as she could have required. That was when her own clothing seemed suddenly shabby. She was just vain enough to enjoy looking attractive, and the rich blue silk of this raiment was her favorite color.
She and Faro exchanged a glance; he shrugged, and gestured at the bathroom. “If you would like a bath, little mistress, I can ring for a slave, or I can draw the bath myself.”
She really didn’t want to don the new clothing until she had bathed-and it had been a long and tiring day. The more she thought about it, the better she liked the idea, and she nodded.
The white marble bathroom was larger than her rear garden, and the tub deep enough to swim in. The large bath was already full of hot water, and steam rose from it in wispy plumes. There was a smaller bath designed for washing in, which Faro filled with hot water for her; the larger bath was meant to soak away muscle aches and relax one’s mind. While Faro busied himself with it, she took a look around. There had been a variety of scented soaps and bath oils laid ready for her, and in a cedar cabinet she found a selection of thick, fluffy towels and robes. There was even a silver pitcher of cold water and a half-dozen goblets. Water beaded up on the side of the pitcher, fogging the bright gleam of the metal, but she had no doubt that it was real silver.
If I Pay Thee Not in Gold Page 19