The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (small books to read .TXT) 📗

“I remember light...everywhere...it was so beautiful.”  Christopher’s hand loosened on his beer, his face adopting a dreamlike cast.

“Don’t you remember?  You were taken from our holiday in Italy, we both were.”

“I want to go back.”

“Good.  We both do.”  He turned and faced Daaynan, summoning courage from out of his obvious fear of the man.  “We don’t want to stay here.  We want to go home.”

The Druid faced him down, standing at least a foot taller than the younger man, his cowl half raised, setting much of his face in shadow, all hard planes and angles.  He appeared to consider what Simon was saying, but when he spoke next the other realised his mind was elsewhere.

“I have lost much of my power,” he stated plainly.

Simon stared at him wordlessly for a beat.  “You mean you can’t take us?  When did this happen?”

“While you were only partially conscious back in the temple.  I confronted Iridis, and in our conflict he brushed up against me, not touching my skin, you understand- if he had done that he might have suborned me completely- but he grabbed hold of my cloak.  I was able to shrug him off, my magic protects me this way, but it has been weakened, I now fear, by my exposure to the atmosphere inside the temple.  I was unable to prevent some of it from being siphoned from my being.  It has left me weak.”

“Then we’re in trouble.  That monster will look for us and it’s only a matter of time before he finds us here.”

“I don’t think he will.  The temple has worked its effect on him too, and I don’t believe he possesses the strength necessary to carry himself into this world.  Yet aside from that I think the nature of this place will conceal our whereabouts.”

“But all he has to do is walk into one of those beams of light.  He’ll find us for sure.”

“You’re not listening to me.”  The Druid moved closer to Simon, his towering form casting a shadow over the smaller man’s face.  “He has been incapacitated.  Remember he has not use of the veil of magic which surrounds me and protects me from losing consciousness.  Our only problem remains, namely I cannot draw us back to the world of the Northern Earth as I have lost use of the green fire.”

“We don’t want to go to your world, we want to go home, back to Italy and England.”

“I cannot take us there either.”

Simon stared at the other man.  “That’s great.  Just great.  What do you suggest we do here then?”

“All is not quite lost.  This place might be able to help us in a way I could not have previously imagined.”

“What do you mean, apart from drinking ourselves to death?”

The tall man gestured to one of the windows beside the entrance to the bar.  “Look outside.”

They did and Simon’s breath hitched in his throat.  There were buildings of all manner and design, some of which he recognised and some which were utterly alien to him.  They rolled back as far as the view permitted to form a seemingly endless cityscape.  There were people walking between the buildings, some of them scaling the heights of half-completed structures, engaged in their creation.  Others were visible inside the edifices, sitting at desks and talking and writing, some on the telephone.  Other buildings were in the early stages of assembly, housing no one.

They were looking at a city in the midst of its construction.

“But this isn’t London,” he said finally, “it’s like no other city I’ve seen.”

“That’s because you haven’t,” the Druid said softly.  “It’s an amalgam of cities, a cross between whatever you and Christopher thought would be outside the tavern and a city in the Northern Earth called Brinemore, where I spent some time before training to become what I am.”

“What does it mean?”

“Haven’t you worked it out?  In this place, whatever you think of or imagine will come to pass.”

“So,” Simon said slowly, “Christopher thought of the Elephant and Castle and it materialised, while I naturally concluded that London would lie outside its walls and you, you thought of God knows where and this is where we’re at.”

“You understand.”

“Yes, but why is the city only half finished?”

“The Brinemore I left was still being built.  No doubt there are parts of your London being torn down and rebuilt.”

“The war ended over twenty years ago.  The Royal Festival Hall opened in 1951.  That was fifteen years ago.  Abercrombie and his proposals had been well under way.”

“What war are you speaking of?”

“The second great war.  I don’t think about it much.  My generation, my friends, are much more concerned with the social revolution that’s going on now.  War is a thing of the past.  It belongs to my father’s generation.  They call us members of the ‘counterculture.’  The Beatles changed music, John F. Kennedy, when he was still alive, changed politics...”

“In this revolution,” Daaynan cut him off, “did you take up arms against your aggressor?”

“No, we don’t, that’s the point.  It’s about peace, about protecting those who can’t stand up for themselves.”

“I see.”

“Do you, I wonder?”

“What do you mean?” the Druid enquired, but his expression was black.

“Only that you don’t seem to be the peace-loving type.  I’ve known people like you- well, not quite like you but as far as war and aggression goes you’re all bedfellows- and you’re uncompromising.  You’re devoted to a cause and nothing will distract you from it, not even innocent lives that might be harmed by your actions.  You ignore those consequences, or talk them away, all in the name of some pointless crusade that never would have happened if people like you hadn’t taken up arms.”

Daaynan reached out and grasped Simon’s arm, gripping it tight near the shoulder.  “Listen to me as you have never listened before in your life.”  Simon flinched and tried to move away but the other held him fast, his hold tightening.  He turned to Christopher but his friend was