Is This Apocalypse Necessary Read online

  This was all a great relief, I told myself the next morning, standing in my dressing gown eating cinnamon crullers and looking out toward the courtyard, through the climbing roses. A spider had died down in the corner of one of my window panes; her legs were sprawled out and body bleached white by the sun.

  It was much better this way, I said to myself again. I wondered absently why the crullers seemed to have no flavor this morning; maybe a new girl was making them. Perhaps I should get dressed, I thought, except that the inferior crullers seemed to have sapped my initiative.

  I opened the old ledger again half-heartedly, but saw nothing I had not seen last night. There was the spell for finding the Dragons' Scepter in the floor of a dragon's cave, a blank page, the word "Afterword" written in a shaky hand, and then nothing more.

  Voices came from the courtyard and the sound of hooves. Princess Margareta, elegant and slim in her riding habit, led her mare toward the mounting block.

  "But you have only just arrived, Margareta!" the queen mother cried, hurrying up to her. "Did you and the king perhaps have some sort of quarrel last night?" she added hesitantly. "Because if you did—"

  "No, no, my lady," Margareta answered coolly. Refusing Paul seemed to have given her a resolution she had never had before; she could now refuse anybody. "Nothing like that at all. I had always intended to spend but a single night in Yurt. My parents will want me home again today. I am sorry if you did not understand or if the brevity of my visit has caused you and the staff any discomfort."

  The knights from Caelrhon who had accompanied the princess here were hurrying to bring out their own steeds. "We are always glad to have you, Margareta," the queen said, worried but not wanting to give offense. "I'm sure Paul will be disappointed not to have been here to say good-bye, but he seems to have ridden out very early this morning. Do you know yet when you might be free to visit us again? Because you do know that—"

  "I will doubtless be very busy at home for some months to come," said Margareta, settling herself into the saddle. "Thank you again for your hospitality. Oh, you might telephone my father's court, just to leave a message with his constable as to what time I left here. They always like to know when to expect me."

  "Of course," the queen started to answer, but Margareta had kicked her mare and was off across the drawbridge, the knights hustling to catch up.

  The queen looked after her, shaking her head, then started in the direction of the room where we kept the telephone. I sipped the last of my tea, wondering what I should do with myself all day. The hours seemed to stretch before me endless and empty. Perhaps I should leave too, since everyone else seemed to be doing so, and go visit Theodora.

  Quick footsteps echoed in the courtyard, and I looked up, surprised to see the queen back from telephoning so quickly. She rapped briskly on my own chamber door and called, "Wizard!" I pulled my dressing gown closer around me and opened the door. "You have a telephone call."

  "I must apologize for having you run my errands, my lady!" I said, trying to cover my embarrassment with dignity, then bowed and swept out past her. Who could be calling me? But by the time I reached the telephone room I was smiling. It had to be Theodora, asking if I could come visit her and Antonia for a week. A week with her and away from Yurt right now would be highly welcome.

  But the face illuminated in the base of the glass telephone was not Theodora's. It was a black-bearded wizard: Elerius.

  I could tell that he had spotted me in his own instrument even before I picked up the receiver—no time to try to disguise my pajamas with illusion or to recreate the frilled white shirt and the cape which had failed to impress the Master. "It must be nice, Daimbert," Elerius commented, "to be the Royal Wizard of such a backwater little kingdom. No responsibilities, nothing to do but sleep 'til noon."

  The Master must still be alive, I told the hard pounding of my heart, or Elerius wouldn't be starting our conversation with a joke at my expense. "In the evenings when you City wizards are all down in the restaurants and taverns," I replied haughtily, "I improve my time with the close study of long-forgotten spells." Now I just had to hope he didn't know I had Naurag's book.

  Tawny eyes considered me thoughtfully. "Perhaps you would like to try the City restaurants again yourself. I know from experience that the kings of Yurt have always kept good cooks, but I expect it's been months since you've had any fresh seafood. How about coming down to the wizards' school for a visit—say, this afternoon?"

  "Why this sudden eagerness to improve my culinary variety?" I asked warily.

  "I think it would be a good chance for the two of us to talk about Antonia and her education."

  "Antonia!" My heart, which had almost resumed its normal rhythm again, gave a great lurch.

  "Certainly. Isn't it almost time for pupils to be returning to their classes for the autumn? I'm sure those teachers in Caelrhon have long since taught her everything they have to teach. But I'm her friend—almost an honorary uncle, one might say." Did he linger a little too much over the word uncle? "I'm very interested in discussing with you what would be best for her and her future."

  "Of course," I gasped. "What a good idea. I'm so glad you brought this up, Elerius. I'll be there in a few hours." He continued to watch me, to see if I recognized the threat implicit behind his words.

  Oh, yes. I recognized it just fine.

  Part Three:

  Eelerius

  I

  As I guided the air cart from the stables, projecting so much fury and despair that the stable boys stayed well out of my way, it crossed my mind that I needed to let my king know I was gone. With no intention of letting him invite himself along, I scribbled him a quick note and pushed it into the reluctant hand of a stable boy. "Unexpected business has come up related to the wizards' school," I wrote. "I expect to be in the City for at least a few days but should be back soon." This last was a lie. I didn't know if I would ever be home again.

  I had decided to take the air cart to the City even though flying myself would have been faster. This, I explained firmly to the nagging voice at the back of my mind, was not due to any reluctance to face Elerius. After all, I had barely taken time to pack, only tossing some clean socks and my old wizard's staff into the cart. Rather I was taking advantage of a chance to test more of Naurag's spells on the cart. His ledger was the only book out of all my library of magic that I took with me to confront the best wizard of this age.

  The spires of the royal castle of Yurt disappeared rapidly behind me. No time to say good-bye, even in my mind, to the kingdom I had served for thirty years. And if I thought too much about the fact that I might never see the castle again, I would not leave at all. As the air cart, zipping along at greater speed than usual due to Naurag's spells, next flew over the cathedral city of Caelrhon, I realized that there was also no time to say good-bye to Theodora and Antonia. I wasn't sure what I was planning to do, even whether I would defy Elerius or seek to persuade him that I was a harmless incompetent who could safely be ignored. My mind kept asserting, obsti-nantly and without good evidence, that I would think of something, but whatever it was my family would be safer if they knew nothing of it.

  The towers of the City rose before me long before I felt mentally prepared. With a history that went back over two thousand years and a modern bustle that came from being the most important commercial center of the West, the City was a spectacular sight. Once I had lived here, one more young man among thousands, but Yurt had for many years been my real home. The school on the peak of the City's highest hill— where, I now realized, Naurag had established himself as ruler centuries earlier—seemed to shimmer with magic: the official spells that protected the school itself, but also the overflow of hundreds of unofficial spells, being worked by serious faculty and by students both studious and carefree. As I directed the air cart down, a flock of insubstantial and rather misshapen bluebirds flew up toward me. One of the classes must be working on illusions.

  As a visiting graduate of the
school who had once even taught a series of lectures here, I was able to get a narrow room at the top of a tower. It was reached by a twisting staircase with broken stone steps—but then the school assumed that anyone who stayed here would prefer to fly up rather than climb. I realized as I closed the door behind me that the simplicity of living arrangements at the school, which had seemed perfectly normal when I was a student here, must have been the result of a deliberate decision by the Master. The organized wizardry he had established was not an organization of either luxury or display.

  My outstretched arms could easily reach across the room from one wall to the window on the opposite side, but the ceiling, shadowy and hung with cobwebs, was at least twenty feet over my head. The window looked out into reaches of air, and by craning my neck I could see the great harbor a dizzying distance below. But I didn't take time to admire the view. I tucked Naurag's ledger behind a few dog-eared books of modern spells which lay forgotten on a shelf, slapped magic locks on both door and window, and went in search of Elerius.

  I didn't have to look long.

  As I hurried out of the residential part of the school toward the classrooms and the library, wondering distractedly if it might be possible to establish some sort of secret base in the maze of tunnels and rooms down below the school, he came around a corner so fast that he almost ran into me.

  "Daimbert! How good to see you so soon!" His lips smiled but not his eyes. He must have had his agents watching for my arrival. "I knew you would be eager to come to the City once I mentioned that we could plan Antonia's future together."

  When I had thought that the Master's student assistants were Elerius's henchmen, come to kill me, I had found a way to overcome them, I reminded myself. So why this paralyzing lack of good ideas when facing Elerius himself?

  "Let's go down to the harbor and find a restaurant where we can have an early dinner," he said as though he were just making light conversation, not threatening my daughter's safety if by any chance I did not cooperate with him. "I'm so busy with the complicated affairs of the school that I'd like a break, and it's too easy to be distracted if one stays here, with wizards and students always running in and out of the office with questions and ideas."

  He did an unconvincing job of suggesting that the responsibilities of supervising so many other wizards was a task he would just as soon give up. I followed him down the corridor and out one of the many doors that gave on open air—much faster to descend to the waterfront by flying than on foot. Roofs, narrow streets, and hidden courtyards showing an unexpected green, all flashed beneath us, all of them sheltering citizens who must know that they were always under the eyes of the wizards, but who had much too much else to do to worry about us.

  As we descended I glanced back toward the tower in the school where I had been given my room. As long as I was with Elerius I knew he himself couldn't be trying to circumvent my magic locks, but there must be people here who would be only too eager to perform little chores for him. My only hope was that he wouldn't know to look for Naurag's book because he didn't know I had it—sitting hidden on a shelf with other books of spells, it would do nothing to draw even a wizard's attention to itself.

  "You're awfully quiet, Daimbert," Elerius commented as we descended, the cool sea air fluttering our clothing and giving me a shiver. "Don't tell me that after all these years and all that we've done together you're still suspicious of me."

  You got that one right, I thought, but I still didn't speak. Even a wizard shouldn't be able to hear another's thoughts unless that other person was trying to communicate mind-to-mind, but just in case I tried to stop thinking too. It didn't work—my brain kept churning.

  "By the way," he added as though casually, "I heard that you visited the Master last week. And you didn't even stop by my office to visit! At this rate I'll start thinking you really don't like my company."

  If he had hoped to surprise me by mentioning my dawn visit to the Master, I was ready for him. Either Whitey or Chin, angry at me for how I treated them, were likely to have mentioned something—if not to Elerius himself, then to someone else who then told him.

  "The Master wanted to tell me himself that he thinks he's finally dying," I replied soberly. A partially true answer would be more convincing than a completely false one. "I expect that in the next few weeks he'll be summoning many more of his former pupils to let them know."

  "So he told you that directly?" Elerius shot back, more sharply than I expected. "Curious, Daimbert, because those of us who work most closely with him have of course recognized that his current illness will surely be his last, but I do not believe that he has yet said as much to any other wizard."

  Jealousy, I thought, almost smugly. The Master loved me more than he loved Elerius, and Elerius knew it. I imagined for a second how even more jealous he would become if he knew the Master wanted me to succeed him, but it was hard to be smug for more than a few seconds about events so sad— and so terrifying.

  The waterfront approached rapidly beneath our feet, and the increase in noise, of shouts, the creaking of pulleys and rigging, the clatter of cargo shifting, and music from the taverns, gave me an excuse not to answer. We reached a street of restaurants a short distance uphill from the harbor, where it was a little quieter. A few people glanced up, startled, as we came down from above to land near them, but then shrugged and continued about their business—flying wizards were after all a common sight here in the City.

  "I've heard fine things about this restaurant," said Elerius, opening a door for me, his good cheer back in place. "It's not cheap—but don't worry, I'll pay. I know a little kingdom like Yurt can't afford very much for its Royal Wizard!"

  I allowed him to act patronizing; I had to save my attention for something much worse. We ate lobster, sitting in an alcove under a low wooden ceiling that appeared to be made from the hull of a dismantled ship, looking out through the front windows toward the sea. Late afternoon sunlight flashed golden on the water and put a halo around the many islands that made the approach to the City docks so dangerous to those who didn't know it.

  Afternoon moved into early evening as we finished lobsters, steamed clams, salad, and apple tart. The harbor itself, inside the breakwater, was calm, with only a few ships now moving: merchant ships rowing in at the slack of the tide, a pilot with a lantern standing at the prow, or small fishing boats preparing to go out for the night catch. Beyond the breakwater, however, white waves splashed high, and for a moment I saw the dolphins riding the swell. It was a curiously reassuring sight. No matter what Elerius did as Master of the school, seeking to bend all of organized wizardry, and eventually the kings, the cities, and even the churches of the Western Kingdoms to his bidding, he was unlikely to have much success against the ocean and the dolphins.

  Elerius didn't mention Antonia once during dinner. Instead he regaled me with a complicated story of a young wizard who had run into all sorts of problems—even a demon—when he took up his first post after graduation, a story which was probably supposed to be funny. That young wizard was fortunate, I thought. No one was ever likely to expect him to become Master of the school and thwart Elerius.

  "Let's go for a walk," Elerius said, wiping his lips. "That was an excellent dinner, but I could use the exercise." The waiter smiled as he accepted payment and didn't detain us while having someone try to make sure our money stayed money even in the next room. But then, though that was the kind of trick student wizards liked to pull, the masters of the school had always been scrupulously honest. And after all, I thought loftily, nodding to the waiter, I had an august white beard even if Elerius didn't.

  We strolled past the chandlers and outfitters, past the coops where the fishermen brought their catch, past noisy inns and disreputable boarding houses that catered to the sailors, past the moorings of cargo ships, fishing skiffs, and pleasure barges. The smells especially, the mixture of fish and salt, were vivid with memories of my childhood. I had known the harbor area well years ago, when my fa
mily wholesaled wool imported from the Far Islands, but it had been a very long time. The boy who had run through these streets, always more interested in peering up at distant magical lights, burning in the windows of the school, than in the shipping schedules that controlled when great loads of wool might arrive, had looked no further than becoming a wizardry student.

  I thrust my hands into my pockets while we walked and found something hard, which startled me until I realized I was still carrying Paul's diamond ring. I glanced over at Elerius, but he seemed content to stroll in silence: apparently I was worth a lot if someone who considered himself so busy with the complicated affairs of the school had this much time to devote to me.

  Sunsets were coming earlier these days, and the low sun sat surrounded by plumes of red and orange. But still we walked, away from the harbor now, and along the strands where the shipbreakers worked. The partially dismantled bodies of ships lay beached like dead whales, their sound timbers and hardware being salvaged, but at this time of day the workshops were quiet. It occurred to me that just as most wizardry functioned the same whoever might head the school, most of the activities of the City continued unaffected by whoever might be elected mayor.

  I had almost persuaded myself that therefore it would not ultimately matter if Elerius took over, when at last he began to speak of Antonia.

  * * * *

  "The school has never admitted women as wizardry students," he said suddenly, looking out toward the sunset. "But I see no reason why that tradition should be continued, and I think your daughter will be an excellent candidate for our first female pupil. When do you think she'll be ready to start her formal studies, Daimbert? Do you want to wait for a few years, or is she ready to begin now?"