EVEN THE BEAUTIFUL MUST DIE.
Alfaro was baffled. He was confused. In moments of honesty, he could admit that he was not a good man, just a man who excelled at self-justification. He was not a man made in the style of the Good Magician.
There was a trap here, somewhere.
COMES THE DAY, COMES THE MAN. THE CHALLENGE CREATES THE MAN. I HAVE STRIVEN, ACROSS AGES, TO PRESERVE KNOWLEDGE AND PROLONG THE HOURS OF THE SUN. THE STRUGGLES OF THE 18TH AEON COST ME MY POWER AND AFFLICTED WOUNDS THAT GNAW ME TODAY.
Could the snare be emotional?
EVEN HIDDEN, UNKNOWN, WITH ALL THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE AGES, I COULD NOT RECLAIM WHAT HAD BEEN RIPPED AWAY. BUT NOW CHANCE OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY. I CAN PREPARE A REPLACEMENT.
Alfaro concealed all cynicism. He did not believe. He could envision reality only through his own character. Te Ratje must be another Alfaro Morag, ages subtler and craftier.
Even so, Alfaro sustained his resolution to honesty. “I’m not the man you need. The best I can be called is rogue or scoundrel.” And he did have obligations elsewhere.
YOUR BROTHER. OF COURSE. YET I HAVE ALL THESE DELICACIES. TEN THOUSAND OF THE SWEETLINGS, WHO LIVE BUT A DAY OF EACH HUNDRED YEARS. I HAVE THE WORLD, WHERE THE SUN’S TIRED OLD LIGHT WOULD BE EXTINGUISHED BUT FOR TE RATJE’S MIRACLE ENGINES.
“You read minds?”
SOME, I DO. YOURS IS OPEN. THOSE OF MY ANCIENT ANTAGONISTS, THOSE PRINCELINGS OF CHAOS AND SELFISHNESS IN THE SQUARE, NO. BUT I KNOW THEM. AND THE ENGINES UNDERSTAND THEM.
IT IS DETERMINED. AFARO MORAG WILL BEGIN TRAINING TO BECOME THE GOOD MAGICIAN.
Alfaro’s companion snuggled close and purred.
14
Ildefonse stepped into the library. The girls squeaked in surprise. The Good Magician shimmered.
The Preceptor asked, “Morag, what is this?”
Alfaro blurted, “What happened? How did?…”
“Mune the Mage arrived. He broke the stasis. Only, I’m sure, after making sure there were no loose treasures in need of pocketing. Answers, please.”
“Te Ratje would like me to become his assistant.”
The Preceptor chuckled wickedly, his mirth echoed by the other magicians, outside. Ildefonse turned to the doorway. “I spent my Forthright Option of Absolute Clarity. Does anyone have a spell meant to disperse illusion?”
Vermoulian the Dreamwalker pushed forward. “I have a charm, not a true spell, which will distinguish illusion from waking dream.”
“Try it. Young Alfaro needs to see how far in he has been drawn.”
“That seems profligate.”
“We were all young once.”
“Very well. The charm is renewable.” The Dreamwalker gestured, said a few words.
Ildefonse asked, “Is it time release? Nothing happened.”
“The effect is instantaneous.”
“Nothing has changed.”
Not strictly true. Nothing he wanted to be illusion had changed. Ildefonse himself reverted to his natural form. The change lacked drama. He developed a paunch and lost some looks, hair, and his avuncular warmth.
A brief disturbance arose outside the library, where the magicians saw one another clearly for the first time.
The library remained precisely unchanged. Likewise, the three beautiful girls. But an odor pervaded the scene.
“Ach!” Alfaro gasped. “Te Ratje!”
The Good Magician’s response to the charm was to grow old again, to become the wizened gnome, then to stop moving.
Nearest, Alfaro pronounced, “Dead! A long time dead. A mummy. Have we been dealing with a ghost?”
A shimmer formed about the husk. A voice inside Alfaro’s head said,
“Not a dream,” Vermoulian opined. “A nightmare, brought to life.”
Ildfonse nodded. Alfaro failed to comprehend. His kitten slithered up him and nipped at his left earlobe. “I lack key information. Te Ratje did not discuss his old feud. He dismissed it as of consequence only insofar as it might interfere here.”
“Te Ratje was a zealot, of the narrowest focus, prepared to wreck civilizations to enforce his concept of right. The city outside, the gray, is the gift the Good Magician planned for us all.” Ildefonse spoke passionately.
“And yet, after the excesses of Grand Motholam, he ceased intercourse with mankind. He focused on sustaining the sun.”
“For which we must express gratitude, of course. But…”
The nymph had a hand inside Alfaro’s coat and shirt. He had trouble concentrating.
The Good Magician — or the machine inside which his ghost still conspired — read his mind.
Alfaro disagreed. “The truth is different for each observer. Even the laws of nature are protean in some circumstances.” He eased the hand from beneath his shirt, pushed the girl far enough away that her warmth no longer heightened his blood. “Forces try to enlist me, by seduction or implied threat. Why?”
Ildefonse betrayed a momentary surprise.
“The seducer is easily understood. My wants and fantasies will be fulfilled. The Preceptor, on the other hand…”
Ildefonse visibly controlled his tongue.
“Even to the cost of the sun?”
Why did the magicians so hate the Good Magician’s vision?
The engines showed him the world Te Ratje would have made, first according to his truth, then according to neutral machines capable of calculating the sum vector of all the stresses presented by the ambitions of the beings within that world. There was little resemblance.
Morag rode the engines’ memories, observing incident and fact, absorbing the truths lurking between the biases.
15
Time had fled. Ildefonse had gone into a stasis again, his mouth open to protest. Likewise, the girls and the mummy.
Who had not been the Good Magician. Te Ratje had perished in the ancient conflict. He had been replaced by a follower with a lesser grasp of magic.
And had been replaced himself, in time.
