“No.” Simon gave a half-smile. “Just the best.”
Bernard chuckled. “No argument there.” He glanced up the trail. “You live nearby?”
The game was up. Simon’s family had located him, at last. So, “Yes,” he said.
“Then grant me hospitality, brother. We need to talk.”
Simon hesitated, then said, “All right.” He gestured with his head. “This way.”
They followed the trail, which wound its way up the hillside. The horses panted and snorted. After a time, Bernard said, “So are you going to tell me why you disappeared?”
“I doubt it,” Simon said.
“We worried.”
Simon stared off into the sky. “My branch is still there, isn’t it? You knew I was all right.”
“We knew you were alive,” Bernard said. “You might’ve been sick, imprisoned—”
“I wasn’t.”
“I see that.” Bernard sighed. “But yes, your branch is still there. Mother’s kept everything just the way you left it. She misses you, Simon.”
“I’ll bet.”
Bernard lapsed into silence. Then he asked, “What the hell have you been doing with yourself all these years anyway?”
Simon didn’t answer. The two of them crested the hill and looked out over the moon-silvered grasses of the meadow below. Simon waited for Bernard to notice the tree.
Finally he did. He gasped. “Is that…?”
“Yes.” Simon couldn’t help grinning. “It’s mine.”
The giant oak was indigo in the darkness, its trunk dotted with small round windows that glowed with warm light from the rooms within.
Bernard stared in wonder. “My god. You did it. You crazy bastard, you actually did it. I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it.” Simon spurred his horse. “Come, I’ll give you the tour. Come see what your clever older brother has wrought.”
They approached the tree, then dismounted and led their horses toward an archway that passed through into its trunk. Above them to either side huge gnarled roots loomed darkly. Simon gestured, and a portcullis made of thick thorn branches lifted open. He and Bernard passed into the stable, where they left the horses feeding happily, and from there the two men climbed a broad staircase that was lit by wall-sconces blazing with faerie fire. All around was spell-forged woodwork that still lived, and grew. They made their way to the kitchen, where Bernard fixed himself a sandwich and stretched out on the windowsill. “It’s a fine tree, brother,” he said. “But still rather… modest, isn’t it? Compared to our inheritance, your birthright.”
Simon leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “I could command it to grow larger, like the other. More branches, rooms.”
“So why don’t you?”
“It’s sufficient to my needs.” Simon had never shared his relatives’ appetite for palatial suites nor for the endless squabbles over who should lay claim to the floorspace of which deceased ancestor.
Bernard glanced about. “And you live alone? Don’t you miss the comforts of family?”
“Brother,” Simon said wryly, “believe me, having lived sixteen years among the scions of Victor Archimagus, the comforts of family are something I’m happy to forego for a good long time to come.”
Bernard chewed his sandwich and stared out the window. He said, “My wife, Elizabeth, has given me a child, at last. A son.”
Simon felt obliged to say, “Congratulations.”
“The presentation ceremony is next month,” Bernard added. “I’d like you to be there.”
Simon moved to the cupboard. “I have a prior engagement. But thanks.”
“Simon, this is serious. Victor’s ghost is displeased by your continued absence, and the branches he’s grown for our brothers’ boys have seemed less grand than they might be. I want my son to have only the best.”
“Please.” Simon poured two glasses of wine. “I doubt that even the spirit of Victor Archimagus would punish your infant child for my transgressions. In fact, this whole line of emotionally manipulative argumentation seems to me to have mother’s fingerprints all over it. Did she put you up to this?”
“What, you think I can’t act on my own?”
Simon passed him a glass. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“All right,” Bernard said, accepting the wine. “Yes. But she has her reasons, beyond the obvious.” He took a sip. “We need you, Simon. Tensions with the descendants of Atherton have never been higher. If it comes to a fight—”
“It won’t.”
“You’ve been away,” Bernard said. “You haven’t seen how bad it’s gotten. Malcolm provokes us constantly.”
Simon shook his head. “The children of Franklin and the children of Atherton have been at each other’s throats for years. It’s never come to bloodshed, and it never will.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Bernard said. “Look, you’re not overfond of your close kin, we know that, but are you really just going to sit back as we die in a feud?”
“I’m confident in your ability to look after yourselves.”
Bernard grimaced. “Ordinarily, yes. But there’s a complication.”
“Oh?”
“Meredith.”
At the name, Simon felt a jolt. He set down his wine glass. “What?”
“Yeah, I guess it didn’t work out with Duke what’s-his-name—”
“Wyland.”
“Yeah, so she’s back. And she scares me, Simon. Her magic has become very powerful.” The fear in Bernard’s eyes was real. “That’s why we need you. To balance things. If you came back it might actually help keep the peace, because they’d think twice about messing with us.”
Meredith, Simon thought. After a time, he said, “Maybe a short visit.”
Bernard grinned, leapt to his feet, and patted Simon’s shoulders. “That’s it. Now you’re talking.”
Later, after Bernard had departed, Simon hiked up to the highest branch of the tree, opened a small door, and strode out onto the balcony. For a long time he sat there in the darkness, clutching his wineglass absently and staring at the mist-shrouded hills, thinking of Meredith.
A month later Simon stood and regarded the tree of Victor Archimagus.
It was gigantic, its trunk as wide around as a castle wall. A good way up, the trunk split into a great V — the two branches that had grown upon the births of Victor’s sons, Franklin and Atherton. From there the branches continued to climb and divide — one for each legitimate male heir — and now over a hundred descendants of the late wizard resided within the tree’s luxurious chambers. (Female children were married off and sent away — Victor had never been a terribly enlightened sort.) The tree was a virtuoso feat of spellcraft, the first of its kind, and upon its creation Victor had been so impressed with himself that he’d taken the surname Archimagus — master wizard. Simon was the only one to have successfully replicated the spell. Families that possessed the rare gift of magic seemed always to be afflicted with low fertility, but the fact that Victor’s tree grew larger and grander depending upon the number of offspring had ensured a frenetic effort to proliferate his adopted surname, and had also — perhaps inevitably — led to a rivalry between the descendants of Franklin and the descendants of Atherton over who could produce the greatest number of male heirs. At the moment it happened that the two halves of the tree were in perfect balance. Today’s presentation ceremony for Bernard’s infant son would change that.
Crowds had come from all the surrounding towns, and other wizards had come from farther afield, and now several hundred people were gathered in the shadow of those soaring branches. The children of Franklin had spared no expense to ensure a spectacle. Wooden poles were set in the earth at intervals, with garlands of sweet-smelling flowers stretched between them, and tables were piled high with cooked quail and poached eggs. Simon made his way past dancers and jugglers and lute-players, and into the roped-off area that was reserved for members of the Archimagus family. Here all the men, and many of the women, wore swords.