Dominion, Fred Saberhagen [uplifting book club books TXT] 📗

“How do you…” Artos let it trail off. There was a little silence. Then he gripped the old man again, and raised him a little, helping him settle into a more comfortable sitting position. The old manure he sat on was as soft and dry as dust.

   Artos remained squatting by the elder’s side. “Father,” he said quietly, and Marge understood that the word used did not denote true parentage. “Father, I want you to speak seriously with me for a little now. Then do whatever you must do.”

   Ambrosius either didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand. “Go ‘way. I gotta get some rest, then it’ll be time for me to leave.”

   “No, hear me first. I won’t try any more to keep you confined. I won’t try to take away your drink. I see now that those efforts did no good.”

   “Speakin’ of drink…”

   “First, tell me something about this young woman you see before you.”

   Those remarkable eyes turned to regard Marge. She felt a nervous shudder, that ceased as abruptly as it had come. It was followed by the strangest sensation, as if some gentle bird the size of a small aircraft, as silent as it was invisible, had just flown over her head, almost brushing her hair with its unseen wingtips.

   “Pretty thing,” said Ambrosius, regarding Marge tenderly. He spoke now in some tongue far older than the one in common use here, but she still understood him perfectly.

   “What’s that?” said Artos, who hadn’t understood. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

   The elder ignored him for the moment. “Little one, do I know you? Lately I’ve been forgetting things.”

   Marge would have bristled at being called “little one” by any man of her own world that she had ever met. But when the appellation came from Ambrosius, and in the particular ancient tongue that he had chosen—well, she would have felt guilty of bad manners, if not worse, if she’d objected. She replied only with a gesture, one she knew would signify agreement to any speaker of that ancient tongue.

   Ambrosius was momentarily intrigued. “How is it you can understand me, one or your tender years? No, forget I asked that. It’s often wiser not to know… tell me one thing only, are you from Nimue?”

   Artos sighed; probably he had caught the name at the end. Marge said: “No, grandfather.” The honorific title came quite naturally.

   Grandfather belched, a brutal sound. Gross manners—but no, here a belch probably had nothing to do with manners at all. On the tip of her tongue Marge had marveling questions for the old man, interrogations about now he’d managed to make it through the centuries to where she’d met him first. If he could do it maybe she could make it back as well. But maybe she shouldn’t mention their other meeting. Often wiser not to know: he might have said that as a warning to her.

   Artos stood up, with another sigh. The old man’s attention, Marge saw, had abruptly gone away from both of them, was somehow turned inward. But she and Artos both had things to settle with the old man, and time was a pressure on them if not on him. She knelt down, put out a hand, and gently touched Ambrosius on the arm. Shifting back to the tongue that Artos could understand, she said to Ambrosius: “On the march here, people were saying that you were dead.”

   That got his attention back, if only briefly. “Ah, little one. Now you’ve seen what I am, do you think I’m still alive?”

   No words spoken in bright daylight, thought Marge, ought to chill the way those did. She could find no answer. Meanwhile the old man’s gaze had once more shifted inward, to the contemplation of some private grief or problem.

   Turning to Artos, Marge said: “He obviously hasn’t been like this all his life. I mean, he can’t have been this way for very long. What happened to him?”

   Artos frowned at her for a moment. “I’ll allow the possibility that you truly do not know,” he said at last. “All right. What happened to him was that he was enchanted by a young woman, a sorceress of surpassing skill. Besotted, by one he doted on—he could never say no about anything to a pretty young girl. That was his weakness, and they found it out. He taught Nimue the secrets of his craft, and he taught too well, by far. She was for a time one of the sacred Ladies, you know—the very one whose place you may be allowed to fill.”

   “I’ve heard her name spoken since I’ve been here in your land. That she is one of your enemies. Beyond that I knew nothing of her until now.”

   The military leader was growing angry. “For the last few months, Ambrosius, when he is not too drunk to do anything at all, does nothing but sit and mope after her, yearning to see her, wondering why she left him for Falerin, begging all the gods to let him hold her once more in his arms.” Artos’ wrathful gaze shifted back to the old man. “There’s nothing strange about the fact that people call him dead. Nimue’s spells have forced him to destroy himself.”

   “Can’t anything be done?”

   “I’ve tried about everything that I can think of. And I have more other work to do than ten men could accomplish.”

   As if his curtain of withdrawal had somehow been penetrated by the viciousness of Artos’ quiet anger, Ambrosius stirred himself, came back to them. Now he too appeared silently angry, at Artos for disturbing his morbid contemplation. But the old man’s feeble rage was hollow and could not last long; presently it was gone. Now he looked once more at Marge, but as if he had already forgotten who she was.

   Artos looked at her too, and when he spoke it was still to her—or to himself. “And yet,” the leader