12
“Te Ratje?” Rhialto asked.
The old man inclined his head. After a pause. He did not seem quite sure. More girls gathered to support him. Their touch did not inconvenience him.
“Their concern is intriguing,” Ildefonse murmured. “They exist at his will. And he isn’t healthy.”
Rhialto opined, “Even my formidable resources would be taxed were I tasked to entertain so many gems.”
Alfaro asked, “Who are they? They’re exquisite. Does he create them himself?” His own such efforts always turned ugly.
“No. Long ago he traversed time, harvesting the essences of the finest beauties and most accomplished courtesans, each at her perfect moment of ripeness: firm, unblemished, and a trifle green. He decants their simulacra at will.”
Ildefonse added, “Youth’s fancy.”
Rhialto said, “The girls are not precisely aware of their status, but do understand that they have been fished from time’s deep and are dependent on his affection for their immortality.”
Alfaro wondered, “Why is he so old?” By which he meant: Why had Te Ratje let himself suffer time’s indignities?
According to Rhialto, “His mind never worked like any other. Belike, though, this is just a seeming, like Ildefonse, or Haze, or Zahoulik-Khuntze with his illustrated iron fingernails.”
Alfaro examined the Preceptor. As ever, Ildefonse seemed a warm, plump, golden whiskered grandfather type. Had he a truer aspect?
The Good Magician became someone dramatically less feeble. He stood tall, strong, hard, saturnine, and entirely without humor. But his eyes did not change. They remained ancient and half blind. Nor did he speak.
Te Ratje stabbed the air with his left forefinger. His fingernail glowed. He wrote: WELCOME, ALL. ALFARO MORAG. SCION OF DESTINY. YOU HAVE BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. His lines were thirty characters long, floated upward to fade in tendrils and puffs of yellow-lime vapor.
“Always a showoff!” Herark the Harbinger sneered.
TIME HAS BETRAYED ME. MUST YOU SABOTAGE MY GREAT WORK AGAIN?
Rhialto was skeptical. “I see no sign of work, great, trivial, wicked, or otherwise. I see the dust of abiding neglect.”
I HAVE ABANDONED ALL EFFORTS TO IMPROVE MANKIND. THE BEAST IS A SHALLOW, SELFISH, INNATELY WICKED INGRATE. I LEAVE HIM TO HIS SELF-DESTRUCTIVE AMUSEMENTS. I FOCUS SOLEY UPON THE PRESERVATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND MINISTRATION TO THE SUN.
The Good Magician gestured. The air between himself and the magicians resolved into a diorama six feet to a side and three deep. An exact replica of the space they occupied revealed itself, with miniscules of magicians and girls at its center.
Te Ratje’s illuminated forefinger extended to become a slim four foot yellow-green pointer. LIBRARY. INCLUDING EVERY BOOK WRITTEN SINCE THE 13TH AEON.
Ildefonse actually winked at Alfaro.
THESE ENGINES DETECT CREATIVE WORK IN PROCESS. WHEN A WORK IS COMPLETED, A SUITE OF SPELLS INTERRUPTS TIME, AN ASSOCIATE TRAVELS TO THE CREATION POINT AND RENDERS AN EXACT DUPLICATE. NO POEM, NO SONG, NO ROMANCE, NO MASTERWORK OF MAGIC OR HISTORY IS EVER LOST, THUS.
Alfaro detected a taint of madness.
The magicians had ignored the books in their haste to find more worldly treasures. But, now, every book written for eight aeons? Including the lost grimoires of Phandaal, the Amberlins, the Vaspurials, and Zinqzin? Three quarters of all magical knowledge had been lost since Grand Motholam.
A blind man could smell the greed beginning to simmer.
Deliberately provoked? Alfaro wondered.
Inside the diorama several engines turned a pale lilac rose. THERE BEATS THE HEART OF AMULDAR. THOSE DO THE GREAT WORK OF TIME. THOSE REACH OUT TO THE STARS AND DRAW THE SUSTENANCE FOR WHICH OUR SUN HUNGERS.
Gesture. A sphere of denominated space appeared overhead, the sun a bloody pea at its center. A scatter of latter age stars blazed at the boundary, true scale of distance ignored. Threads of black touched those and lashed the empty regions between. Every thread pulled something unseen into one of the two green tails spiraling out from the sun’s poles.
AS I GIFT MY ANGELS LIFE, SO DO I GIFT LIFE TO ALL THAT GOES UPON THE EARTH. COME.
Alfaro blurted, “Me?”
YOU. YOU ARE THE ONLY INNOCENT HERE.
Morag gulped air. He felt like a small boy caught with his hand in a purse that was not his own. A situation in which he had found himself more than once. A glance round showed him none of the magicians moving, or even aware. “A stasis? One that exempts me, though I’m at a distance and did not initiate it?”
YES. Wicked smile. The Good Magician continued to grow stronger and younger. THERE IS LITTLE TO DO HERE BUT TEND THE ENGINES, STUDY, AND INDULGE IN RESEARCH. He smiled more wickedly as two of his pets slipped under his arms. Another, a sleek black-haired beauty wearing a pageboy cut like a visorless bascinet, who roiled Morag’s thoughts from the moment he spied her, sidled up beside Alfaro. Her wicked eyes told him she knew perfectly well that she could make him her slave in an instant.
Te Ratje said, WITH ALL THE GREAT MAGICAL TEXTS AT HAND, AND TIME IN NO SHORT SUPPLY, EVEN A DILITANTE CAN FIND CLEVER NEW WAYS TO USE MAGIC.
Distracted by the nymph and natural flaws in his character, Alfaro followed Te Ratje’s speech only in its broadest concept.
The story Te Ratje told was dubious even to a naive youth just beginning to grasp how far out of his depth he was with the magicians of Almery and Ascolais. Who had begun to understand that he needed, desperately, to rein in his natural inclinations, lest he suffer a fate not unlike that enjoyed by his miniscules.
From glances caught, he knew that Byzant the Necrope had something in mind.
13
The nymph rubbed against Alfaro like an affectionate cat. He asked, “Is this distraction necessary?”
I CANNOT CONTROL THEIR AFFECTIONS.
Alfaro remained unsure of how he had moved from the plaza of the engines to a cozy little library rich with comfort and polished wood. It could not possibly hold all the books created across eight aeons. It was crowded by two magicians and three girls.
WHAT BOOK WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?
Because a lust for its possession had brought him to this pass, Alfaro said, “Lutung Kasarung’s
Te Ratje extended an arm impossibly far, retrieved a volume. He presented it to Alfaro. It was a pristine copy, never opened. Alfaro placed it gently on a small teak table featuring a finish so deep the book seemed to sink. Shaking, he asked, “What are you doing to me?”
I WANT YOU TO BECOME MY APPRENTICE.
“Why?” Morag blurted.
YOU ARE THE FIRST TO FIND AMULDAR IN AEONS. YOU COME BURDENED BY NEITHER PREJUDICE NOR GREEDS FROM THE PAST, ONLY BY PICAYUNE WEAKNESSES EXAGGERATED BY YOUR TALENT.
“Why would Te Ratje want an apprentice?”
