The Conjuring Man, page 38
Lilith leaned against him, trying not to cry. She’d broken down completely as soon as they’d gotten the airship to safety, and ... he’d held her, as best as he could, fearing that anything he could say would only make it worse. Master Dagon had been her father and he’d done his best for her, even if they disagreed about what that was, and he’d even died for her and now ... Adam didn’t begrudge the man his daughter’s affections, not now. He deserved to be remembered, even though it was a very mixed legacy. Adam had bruised his hand on a student’s jaw, for suggesting Master Dagon’s body should be dumped in a ditch – never mind that there was no body – and his name be forgotten as quickly as possible. Bastard. Master Dagon had died well, and saved a great many lives, and deserved to be remembered. And saying it where his daughter could hear was just unforgivable.
“It’ll be alright,” Taffy said, gently. She sat on the other side of Lilith, face unreadable. Their relationship had changed, in the days since they’d cast the spell together, and become closer in ways he’d never thought possible. “He won’t be forgotten.”
Adam looked up as Jasper and Dalia approached. His fists clenched. Jasper might have grown up a lot – and it was clear he would follow Dalia anywhere – but if he said one thing that hurt Lilith, Adam would kill him and to hell with the consequences. Dalia, too ... she’d moved from being a rabble-rouser and troop leader to a loud and inspiring politician, demanding nothing but the end to all social hierarchy, complete freedom of speech, unlimited democracy and equality before the law. Adam suspected her fanatical approach to politics was going to cause problems in the future, but right now he found it hard to care.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Jasper said to Lilith. “He meant well.”
“Thanks,” Lilith said, in a tone that told him to go away. “He’ll appreciate it.”
Jasper nodded and, showing surprising sensitivity, stepped back.
“He’ll be formally entered in the list of martyrs,” Dalia said, stiffly. “And he will be remembered.”
Lilith said nothing. Dalia nodded curtly and headed off, Jasper following like an overgrown puppy. Adam wondered, idly, just what Master Dagon would have made of being remembered as a Leveller hero, even though he’d never intended to be anything of the sort. Outraged, perhaps, or even amused. He’d certainly never been the type of person who’d normally be accepted as a hero, although Levellers came from all walks of life. Some had even been aristos ...
“I think Betty wants to speak with you,” Taffy said, quietly. “I’ll see you later.”
Adam nodded. “Later.”
“And I have to go talk to them,” Lilith said, indicating a redheaded woman – only a few years older than her, if at all – on the other side of the ceremonial garden. “Later too.”
Adam felt a rush of warm affection, which he tempered as the girls hurried away. The war – the greater war – was supposed to be over, and the university was back in touch with what remained of the Allied Lands, but it felt as if nothing would ever be the same again. He’d sent five letters to his family and his former master, in hopes of telling them what had happened and inviting them to join him, yet there’d been no reply. Matt had told him Master Pittwater had been badly wounded, almost killed. Given his age, it was quite possible Adam would never see his old master again.
“Adam,” Betty said. “We need to talk.”
Adam looked up. Betty looked more like a merchantwoman than a revolutionary, he reflected as she joined him, although it was quite practical garb for her. The fighting was over, for the moment, and now the hard part – hammering out a new order – had begun. She needed to bargain, to ensure the people got what they needed, without giving the aristos a chance to push back or allow the fanatics in her own ranks to push forward. It wasn’t going to be easy. Too many people had too much interest in restarting the fighting as quickly as possible.
“I know,” he said. He’d been neglecting his duties as a councillor. There was no way around it. He couldn’t be both a full-time researcher, and part of the university staff, and a councillor who needed to be in two places at once with depressing regularity. “I’m sorry.”
“So you should be,” Betty said, bluntly. “Do you want to remain on the council, or do you just want to be a spokesperson?”
“Both,” Adam said. He shook his head. That wasn’t helping. “I don’t have the time to be a councillor any longer.”
“We need someone in that seat, someone active,” Betty said. “If you can’t do it, we need you to step down.”
“Taffy can do it,” Adam said. “She can run for my seat, if she wants it. I don’t mind.”
Betty lifted her eyebrows. “And you do realise Taffy’s reputation is tarnished?”
“It might have been mentioned,” Adam agreed, dryly. “But ... everyone makes mistakes. Everyone does dumb things, when they’re young and foolish and think they’re in love. Taffy is no different to any of the other idiots who got themselves in trouble through trusting someone they shouldn’t. Or does it make a difference because she’s a young woman instead of a man?”
Betty smiled. “Point.”
Adam met her eyes. “Everyone makes mistakes,” he repeated. “And yes, it can be hard to give them a second chance. Some mistakes are so bad there is no way the person who made them can be offered a second chance. But if we decide that no one can ever recover from a mistake, the best we can hope for is breeding anger and resentment and eventual treachery. At worst, we will encourage people to cover up their mistakes, or convince outsiders we punish too harshly and so serious mistakes, even crimes, get excused. Taffy made a mistake – yes – but she also fought for us. We would be dead, now, if it weren’t for her. We owe her.”
He sighed, inwardly. There’d been a fisherman apprentice who’d done something so stupid his master had not only kicked him off the boat but blacklisted him so thoroughly he’d never found a job again. And then one night he’d crept into the docks and set fire to the boats, ruining a dozen fishing families. He’d been hanged, of course, but it hadn’t saved the families. It was, he’d been told, a cautionary tale. If you made it impossible for someone to recover from their mistakes, you made an enemy who had nothing to lose.
“I’ll speak for her, if someone challenges her right to run for office,” Betty said. “I can’t promise she’ll win, of course.”
“Of course,” Adam said. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Betty said. “We have hope now, which is more than we had before.”
Adam nodded, although he had no idea how things would go. The university had survived, and was stronger than ever, but the rest of the world felt disconcertingly fragile. Heart’s Ease was being rebuilt, better than before, and yet ... he knew very little about what was happening a few short miles away. The world was suddenly a very large place again, something that hadn’t happened since the Empire had given way to the Allied Lands and the portal network had been put together. He wondered, as he looked at Lilith talking to the redhead, what would happen now. The magical communities had been shattered too.
“I was surprised Queen Violet didn’t come,” Adam said, changing the subject. “What’s happening in Lokane?”
“She can’t leave the castle, or what’s left of it, right now,” Betty said. “The aristos are buzzing like angry bees, the commoners want freedom and the mercenaries ...”
Her eyes narrowed. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that they needed a way out, or they’d fight to the death,” Adam told her, bluntly. Most of the mercenaries had made it out – he didn’t care where they went, as long as they left the kingdom – and the ones who’d been caught had suffered terribly before they died. Adam didn’t feel any sympathy, but it was harder to deal with someone who thought they were going to die and they might as well try to take as many people as possible down with them before they were killed. “And so I gave them one.”
“If they cause trouble elsewhere, we will be blamed,” Betty said. “Or if they come back with a neighbouring monarch’s army ...”
“We’ll deal with it when it happens,” Adam said. He was too tired to argue. “If it does.”
“If.” Betty stood. “Good luck, Adam.”
“You too,” Adam said.
He watched her go, shaking his head. Had he done the right thing? He didn’t know. He suspected he never would. And yet, the last thing they’d needed was a fight to the death ... he looked at his arm, at the new skin covering the former wounds. It still hurt sometimes, when he was too close to raw magic. The infused blood was gone – more accurately, drained – but ...
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier,” a quiet voice said. Adam looked up to see Master Caleb. “I only just arrived.”
Adam shrugged. “It’s been like that for everyone,” he said. “I’m sorry about the mess awaiting you on your return.”
“Oh, I’ll have you all cleaning up tomorrow,” Master Caleb said, sitting next to him. Adam thought he was joking. “But you did what you could.”
He looked past Adam, at Lilith. “I see her family has arrived.”
Adam frowned. Lilith had been vague about who was attending the funeral. “Her family?”
“Melissa, Matriarch of House Ashworth,” Master Caleb said, indicating the older redhead. “Her husband, Markus ... formerly of House Ashfall. It’s complicated.”
“I suppose,” Adam muttered. Why had she been so vague about it? Was she worried about what her family would say when they found out about their relationship? Or ... he remembered Master Dagon’s words and shivered. Lilith might love him, and he was sure she did, but her family might want her to marry elsewhere. “What do they think of me?”
Master Caleb shrugged. “You’re asking me?”
Adam flushed. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” It was a reminder Master Caleb wasn’t that much older than Adam himself. “I think they’ll take one look at your achievements, Adam, and any objections will be quickly and roughly silenced.”
“I hope so,” Adam said. “Can I ask a question? A private question?”
Master Caleb moved his fingers, casting a privacy ward. “Ask away. I don’t promise to answer.”
Adam nodded. “Your father is mundane too,” he said. “How did he handle being married to a magician? How did it work?”
“My father knows his own worth very well,” Master Caleb said, his lips twisting as if he were recalling a private joke. “He was never” – his hands twisted in his lap – “he was never plucked from the gutter and appointed husband, or anything else. He was a grown and mature man when he met my mother, then married her. And so was she.”
He paused, then grinned a weak grin. “We talked once about ... stuff ... and he had some good advice on the topic. He thought I needed to prepare for marriage with ... well, never mind. It isn’t any of your business. Point is, he had some good advice. He said ... he said that as long as you loved each other, and you had the shared determination to make the marriage work, you could talk through anything and come out all the stronger for it. It was never easy, he said, but all the worthwhile things are often difficult.”
Adam had to smile. “Your father is a very wise man.”
Master Caleb snorted. “I thought he was full of it, at the time,” he said. “It wasn’t until I got older that I realised he actually had a pretty good point.”
He tapped Adam’s shoulder. “You drained the magic from your blood?”
“Yeah.” Adam wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “I tried a blood rune, when I realised, and there was nothing.”
He kept his face blank, with an effort. He’d done his best to conceal just what they’d done, in that moment of near-godhood, but he suspected too many people would read between the lines and guess the truth. The combination of his raw power, Lilith’s focus and Taffy’s knowledge had saved the airship, yet ... he sighed. There was no easy way to duplicate the trick, certainly not in a hurry. But someone would manage eventually ...
“Perhaps it is for the best,” Master Caleb said. “Lilith will be busy for a while, I’m afraid. They’ll be moving the discussion to her father’s suite shortly.”
Adam scowled. “What do they want to discuss?”
“She’ll tell you later, I am sure,” Master Caleb said. “And I need you to go down to your workroom.”
“You do?” Adam knew they’d have to talk about the magiwriter, and everything else, but he didn’t want to. Not now. “Why ...?”
“Go,” Master Caleb said. “Now.”
Adam stood – Lilith was still busy and Taffy was nowhere in sight – and turned away, feeling a twinge of something he didn’t care to look at too closely. The university was his home now, yet it had changed ... he shook his head and hurried into the building, passing dozens of students, refugees and others as they made their way through the corridors. It was just a matter of time, he told himself, before the university could reopen completely. Or he took a week’s leave and took Lilith to see his family, or ...
He paused as he reached the workroom door. It was open. Someone was inside. Adam reached for his pistol, then stopped himself. The wards were solid. Master Caleb was the only person who could have altered them and that meant ... what? He pushed the door open, bracing himself. If he was wrong ...
The magiwriter – the first model – sat on the workbench. A young woman was examining it thoughtfully. Adam stared as she looked up. She didn’t look anything like her portraits – brown hair, brown eyes, a simple blue dress rather than battle armour or golden gowns – but there was no mistaking her. It was Lady Emily. It had to be.
Adam felt his breath catch in his throat, suddenly unsure of himself. Should he bow? Or kneel? Or ... or what? The workplace was his, but the university was hers ...
“Adam,” Emily said. She sounded friendly. Reserved, but friendly. Her accent was hard to place. He’d expected her to talk like Lilith or Master Dagon, or even Mistress Irene, but she didn’t. “This is a remarkable piece of work.”
“I ... I thank you,” Adam managed. He wanted to tell her about it. He wanted to impress her. He wanted ... she was his heroine and he wanted her to know how much she’d inspired him when she’d changed the world. And yet, what was he to her? She was a powerful sorceress and a leader and an inventor and gods alone knew what else, while he’d just piggy-backed on her innovations. He felt like a stumbling buffoon asking a lady to dance, all too aware she’d laugh in his face. “I ... would you like to hear about it?”
Emily smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I very much would.”
“It wouldn’t have been possible without you,” Adam said. How much of the New Learning came from her fertile mind? Certainly, she’d devised the basics. And liberated the university from the necromancer. “If you hadn’t done all of this ...”
“I may have laid the seeds,” Emily said. “But Adam, you’re the one who made them grow.”
She met his eyes. “You more than earned your place here,” she added. He believed her, even though others had told him the same and he hadn’t. “You did very well.”
Adam smiled, and relaxed. Everything was going to be fine.
The End
Emily Will Return In:
The Demon’s Design
Coming Soon!
Afterword
“Never was the two cultures stand-off more apparent than here. In Gunn’s poem, a new neighbour (an outsider) wants them evicted because of their detrimental effect on property prices. She might well have been an academic: in more than thirty years in the humanities side of universities, the attitude towards those skills which I encountered was mainly one of ignorant, patronizing condescension. Just occasionally a student from the science side would dismantle a car in a campus car park only to be moved on by the authorities, as were Gunn’s auto freaks.”
-Jonathan Dollimore, Desire: A Memoir
One of my beta-readers, upon skimming the draft of The Conjuring Man, asked why the airship didn’t make an appearance in Child of Destiny. One answer, of course, is that – to quote David Weber – the airship had been invented, but only in a vague sort of way. I knew it existed without any real details. I did have an idea Emily would spend more time at Heart’s Eye between Oathkeeper and The Right Side of History, where this plotline would be developed, but the underlying story arc demanded that things would fall apart very quickly after the Necromantic Wars came to a sudden end.
The other reason, of course, is that the airship was out of place and couldn’t reach Whitehall in time to be useful – and even if it did, Void would have no trouble destroying it.
I always intended that there would be, eventually, a form of magical technology (magitech). Electricity was hardly unknown in our world before we discovered how to produce it at will and it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine magicians and mundanes finding ways to tap the background magic field to produce spell circuits and magitech. My original plan was that Emily and Aloha would be the ones to turn their vague spell processor concept – from Schooled in Magic – into reality, but as the story went on that seemed less and less likely to happen. Both of them have power to spare and therefore find it harder, as they grow older, to find ways to reduce their power usage to the bare minimum. They are also channelling power through their own minds, which means their spells are shaped by intention as much as spellwork itself and they tend to skip steps Adam cannot afford to ignore. But that meant Adam was in a position to take what Emily had given him (and the rest of the world) and make some new discoveries of his own. As Emily herself pointed out in The Cunning Man, much of progress consists of taking concepts devised by your predecessors and improving on them, then allowing your successors to improve on yours.
A couple of other readers pointed out incongruities within Heart’s Eye itself. These are easily explained. Emily, who devised the template for Heart’s Eye, never went to university and tended more to believe in the ideal rather than the reality. This ensured Heart’s Eye would become a strange mishmash of various different factions and concepts, offering the chance to create a melting pot for ideas (and then research and development) and far too many flashpoints that could lead to disagreements, resentments and even open fighting, either between students and staff or the community surrounding the university itself. The recent controversy surrounding Oberlin College and Gibson’s Bakery is merely the latest in a string of incidents that date all the way back to the very first universities to take shape and form. It is unlikely, unfortunately, that Oberlin College or anyone else will draw the right lessons from the affair.
