“Yet peasants’ homes do ever burn in wars,” Flaran cried, “ever and aye, when the lords do seek to resolve some private quarrel with their armies! This time, at the least, the war may bring them some benefit, for he who wins will have been born among them!”
“Excuses,” Rod said again, “rationalizations!” He turned to look squarely at Flaran. “Let me tell you what that is—a rationalization. It’s giving something the appearance of rationality, of reason, when it doesn’t have the reality of it. It’s finding a way to justify what you want to do, anyway. It’s finding an excuse for something you’ve already done—a way to make it seem to be good, when it really isn’t. That’s all you’re doing here—trying to find a way to make the wrong things you want to do, seem right. All your arguments really boil down to, ‘I want power, so I’m going to take it.’ And the real reasons are envy and revenge!”
He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that the peasants had stopped, staring up at them, on both sides of the cart. All the better—let witnesses hear it!
“Yet how canst thou speak so?” Flaran frowned, cocking his head to the side. “Thou hast thyself an enormous power!”
Rod froze. How had he let his cover slip? “What… power… is… that?”
“Why, the talent of not being seen by the mind! Our friend Simon hath said it—to a thought-hearer, thou dost not seem to be here at all!”
“Nay, then!” the younger man cried, “even I have noticed it, weak though my powers are!”
Rod shrugged; that was explanation enough, for the moment.
“How great a talent that is!” Flaran cried. “What great advantage must it needs give thee, if one doth seek thee with evil intent! If thou wert of Alfar’s band, he would surely create thee Duke of Spies!” He smiled, leaning forward, eyes glittering. “Would that not be most excellent, Master Owen? Wouldst thou not be delighted to be a duke?”
“I’d say it would be horrible,” Rod grated. “Do you realize what that would mean? I’d be helping to enforce one of the harshest tyrannies humanity has ever known! Stop and think!” He held up a forefinger. “Even under the tightest dictatorships Old Terra ever knew, people have still been able to have one thing that was theirs, alone to themselves—their minds. At least their thoughts were free. But Alfar’s trying to change that; he’s trying to set up a tyranny so complete that nobody can even call his thoughts his own!”
“How small a thing that is!” Flaran waved away the objection. “Thoughts are naught, Master Owen—they are gossamer, mere spiders’ webs! What are free thoughts against a filled belly, and an ease of grinding toil? What is freedom of thought, against freedom from want? What worth hath the secrecy of the mind, when weighed against the knowledge that the King doth hold every least peasant to be his own equal? But think!” He gazed off into space, eyes glittering. “Think how sweet this land could be, an witches ruled it! What an earthly paradise we could make here for ourselves, an folk of good heart could labor freely with their minds, to build it!”
Rod stared, astounded by the younger man’s enthusiasm.
Then he leaned back, letting his mouth twist to show his skepticism. “All right—tell me.”
“Why! What could they not do, an witches could use their power openly? Never would there be drought or flood, for witches could move the storms about so as to water all the land! Never would murrain slay cattle or other stock, for witches could be open in their curing! Nor, for that matter, would folk need to die from illness, when witch-physicians could be by to aid them! Never would the peasants go hungry, to give their substance unto their lord, that he might deck himself with finery, or gamble through the night! Never would the people grumble in their misery, unheard, for a warlock would hear their thoughts, and find a means of ending that which troubled them!”
“Yeah, unless those peasants were grumbling because the king-warlock was doing something they didn’t like! Then he’d just shut them up, by hypnotism!”
“Oh, such would be so few!” Flaran gave him a look of disgust. “Why trouble thyself for a mere handful of malcontents? Ever will some few be discontented with their lot!”
“Right—and Alfar’s one of them! But it wouldn’t be just a few malcontents, if the witch folk ruled—it’d be the vast majority, the normals, who’d be feeling like half-humans, because they didn’t have any witch power! And they’d resent the governing ones who did—but they’d know the witches would wipe out anybody who dared utter it! So they’d keep quiet, but live in terror, and their whole lives would be one long torture! Just ordinary people, like these men around us!” He gestured at the peasants, who were pressing close all about them, eyes burning. “Better move along, boys. I’m having trouble keeping my temper; and when warlocks fight, bystanders may get hit with stray magic.”
“Ah, art thou a warlock, then?” Flaran cried.
Rod ground his teeth in frustration, furious with himself for the slip he’d made; but he made a brave try at covering. “According to you, I am. Didn’t you just say my invisible mind was a great talent?”
“In truth I did—and if thou art a warlock, then art thou also a traitor!” Flaran leaped to his feet, face dark with anger, suddenly seeming bigger—almost a genuine threat.
Rod wasn’t exactly feeling pacific, himself. “Watch your tongue! I’m a King’s man, and loyal to the bone!”
“Then art thou a traitor to witchhood!” Flaran stormed. “Naught but a tool for hire, and the King’s pay is best! Nay, thus art thou but a tool of the lordlings, a toy in their games—but it is we who are their pawns and moved about the land for their mere amusement! And thou dost abet them! Thou, who, by blood, ought to join with Alfar and oppose them! Nay, thou’rt worse than a traitor—thou’rt a shameless slave!”
“Watch your tongue!” Rod sprang to his feet, and the cart rocked dangerously. But Flaran kept his footing easily, and, for some reason, that ignited Rod’s anger into a blowtorch. “Beware who you’re calling a slave! You’ve fallen so far under Alfar’s spell that you’ve become nothing but his puppet!”
“Nay—his votary!” Flaran’s eyes burned with sudden zeal. “Fool thou art, not to see his greatness! For Alfar will triumph, and all witch folk with him—Alfar will reign, and those self-sold witches who do oppose him, will die in torments of fire! Alfar is the future, and all who obstruct him will be ground into dust! Kneel, fool!” he roared, leaping up onto the cart-seat, finger spearing down at Rod. “Kneel to Alfar, and swear him thy loyalty, or a traitor’s death shalt thou die!”
The thin tissue of Rod’s self-control tore, and rage erupted. “Who the hell do you think you are, to tell me what to swear! You idiot, you dog’s-meat gull! He’s ground your ego into powder, and there’s nothing left of the real you! You don’t exist anymore!”
“Nay—I exist, but thou shalt not!” Flaran yanked a quarterstaff from the peasant next to him and smashed a two-handed blow down at Rod.
Rod ducked inside the swing, coming up next to Flaran with his dagger in his hand, but a dozen hands seized him and yanked him back, the sky reeled above him, framed by peasant faces with burning eyes. He saw a club swinging down at him—and, where the peasants’ smocks had come open at the necks, chain mail and a glimpse of green-and-brown livery.
Then pain exploded through Rod’s forehead, and night came early.
13
A blowtorch, set on “low,” was burning its way through Rod’s brain. But it was a very poor blowtorch; it seemed to go over the same path again and again, in a regular, pulsing rhythm. He forced his eyes open, hoping to catch the bastard who was holding the torch.
Blackness.
Blackness everywhere, except for a trapezoid of flickering orange. He frowned, peering more closely at it, squinting against the raging in his head, and figured out that it was the reflection of a flame on a rock wall. There were stripes up and down—the shadows of bars, no doubt. There were a couple of other stripes, too, zigging and zagging—the trails of water droplets. Then Rod became aware of fragile orange webs, higher up—gossamer niter, lit by the firelight.