Wizards At War

It was Roshaun’s name for both his people’s version of the manual—a small sphere of light into which a given wizard gazed—and for the Powers that spoke through it. “The Aethyrs speak to you in a different voice than they do to me,” Nelaid said, “which is perfectly normal. But I must question your interpretation of their position.”

“Royal sire,” Roshaun said, “once you could question that. But you gave up that right when you abdicated as Sunlord in my favor.”

“I remain the ranking Senior on Wellakh,” Roshaun’s father said, “and that right of questioning I have not abdicated. You have yet to satisfy me as to how much of this decision is yours.”

And he looked at Dairine.

Dairine instantly flushed so hot that she knew she must be clashing horribly with her dress.

“If you assume I’ve been unduly influenced in my decision, royal sire,” Roshaun said, “you’re in great error.”

“Better believe it,” Dairine said softly. “Paying attention to anything I say is hardly one of his favorite things.”

Nelaid gave Dairine a look that was genuinely amused. “Forgive me, hev ke Khallahan, but I have known my son longer than you have.” He turned back to Roshaun, the look in his eye more challenging now. “It’s the mark of a noble heart to want to help friends in trouble. But when that help distracts you from those you already have a duty to help…” He glanced toward the great barren plain outside, all covered with people.

“Father,” Roshaun said, “staying here in obedience to our people’s insecurities will solve no problem that faces us now. We must not waste precious time doing the same old things; they will not avail us. I will be protecting our people, regardless of how it looks to them.”

“They will not ask you for explanations,” Nelaid said. “They will simply watch what you do. And if they do not like your actions, they will keep their counsel … until one of them finds a way to come at you on some visit to the liveside. An energy weapon, a bomb or a knife, an unguarded moment…” Roshaun’s father shrugged. “Even you must sleep sometimes. As must I. And your mother.”

Roshaun’s eyes were on the throne. “I know the fear you’ve both lived with, all these years,” he said. “The knife that almost took you. The bomb that missed you and nearly took the Queen. Do you think I’m trying to shirk my turn?”

Dairine could feel the slow burn beginning. “Excuse me,” she said to Nelaid, “but in case you haven’t heard, your son put his life on the line to fix our Sun while he was on excursus. He saw the problem with it before any of us did. He helped us design the wizardry to deal with it. And when stuff got rough up there, he walked straight into my star wearing not much more than a force field and a smile. That looks like ‘brave’ to me, so if you’re seriously suggesting he doesn’t have what it takes to deal with being king here—”

Roshaun’s father put up his eyebrows. “You are outspoken,” he said.

“Speaking truth to power,” Dairine said, “is never ‘out.’”

The slightest smile appeared on Nelaid’s face. “There are problems associated with this course of action—”

“Royal sire,” Roshaun said, “you were the one who taught me that sometimes, as wizards, we have to make choices that fly in the face of what looks like common sense. ‘Reason is not always everything,’ you’d say. There remains that other voice that speaks, sometimes, in accents we don’t understand. Or understand perfectly well, and violently disagree with.”

“My words exactly,” Roshaun’s father said. “Unusual to hear you agreeing with them. This would not have been your normal mode… before you went away.”

“Nor would it have been your mode to produce so sudden a surprise as your abdication,” Roshaun said, “when I left thinking that everything here was going smoothly, and an excursus would do no harm.”

“Things change,” said the former Sunlord, “as we see.” And once again he looked at Dairine. “You arrive for your people’s first sight of you as Sunlord, and what do they also see, standing at your side? An alien, garbed in raiment much like that of Wellakhit royalty, wearing some other world’s life-color, gemmed like a Guarantor. The rumors are flying already. Does another world have designs on the rule of ours? Either by straightforward conquest, or more intimate means?”

Dairine’s eyes went wide as what he meant sank in. “You mean they think that we—that I— You tell those people that they are completely nuts! Even if I were old enough to think about stuff like this, which I seriously am not, I have zero interest in being anybody’s queen! Especially not his—”

And then Dairine stopped short as she saw the peculiar look that had appeared on both Roshaun’s and Nelaid’s faces.

“Uh,” she said then, and blushed again. “Maybe there was a less tactful way I could have put that…”

That small smile reappeared on Nelaid’s face. “Well,” Nelaid said after a moment, “I perhaps am reassured. But as for our people—”