The Perilous Sea (33 page)

Titus's eyes widened. “You were at the oasis?”

They laughed softly. “We were the ones who grabbed the rifles, sir. It's much less suspicious for us to go around as nonmage men,” said Shulini.

Fifteen seconds later, they were airborne. The carpet that carried Shulini, Ishana, and the boy was, if possible, even faster than the boy's had been. But this time, Titus did not mind. He deliberately fell a few lengths behind. Fairfax held his hand and said nothing.

Miles passed. The desert night air cut hard against the exposed skin of his face, but he was almost glad of the numbing pain, for the distraction it offered.

“I do not want to be the Master of the Domain,” he said, after a long time. The Master of the Domain was not someone to be envied at the best of times. The Master of the Domain as a fugitive from Atlantis was an untenable position. “Is it possible for me to arrange to become his stable boy instead?”

“You should try,” she said, her fingers tightening over his. “I really like stable boys, especially when they smell like the muck they have been shoveling all day.”

He was halfway between laughter and tears. “I cannot think of anything I want to do less than being responsible for an entire realm.”

“Well, if you take care of the Domain half as well as you have looked after me, both you and the Domain will be all right.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do. Not to mention, now you know of at least one girl who would kiss you even if you weren't a prince—isn't that what all princes are trying to find?”

“This has been such a terrible shock,” he said slowly. “I will need kisses by the dozen to help me deal with it.”

“I was going to hoard my kisses until I see that fifty-ton slab chiseled with unspeakably bad verses. But extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures, so you may have one kiss now.”

He managed, just barely, not to send the carpet into a tailspin.

“Better?”

“One more, and I might be able to carry on.”

But one more was not in the cards. Up ahead, Ishana shouted, “Your Highness, the base is near. We must start our descent now. Please follow closely.”

CHAPTER
30

England

“WHAT'S THE MATTER?” CAME FAIRFAX'S
voice.

Titus started—he had not even noticed she had arrived in the laboratory. “I see you are still determined to not listen to me about not venturing abroad after lights-out.”

She sat down across from him at the worktable. “I never listen to you when I know enough to make up my own mind.”

Her tone was light, but the truth of her words struck him hard: she relied on her own judgment. He, on the other hand, was accustomed to running his life according to directions his mother had left behind. Which was all well and good when he did not question those directions. But when he did, it plunged him into a state of paralysis.

“Is it something Lady Callista said?” asked Fairfax.

She had been shocked to see Lady Callista revealed as the memory keeper, but she had not seemed particularly affected afterward, probably because she had always disliked the memory keeper—and probably because all her personal memories of Lady Callista as her mother were still inaccessible.

“There was something she shouted when she was accusing you of being ungrateful,” answered Titus. “I have not been able to get it out of my head.”

Do you have any idea how difficult it was, how frightful, to figure out how to do everything my future self was telling him we needed to do?

He repeated those words aloud to Fairfax. “Notice anything?”

“Yes, I do,” she said slowly. “We have always assumed that the memory keeper had been working
against
a vision of the future, which was why everything eventually went wrong. But it was the other way around: Lady Callista had done everything in her power to make a vision come true.”

“There is that. And there is the fact that the vision she had let dominate her life was not a vision of action, but one of speech: in that vision, her future self was
telling
your future guardian what they needed to do.”

Fairfax frowned. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“There has never been agreement on what mages ought to do when they have foreknowledge of events that have yet to transpire. Some feel that as long as one is not trying to prevent that future, nothing more needs to be done. Some feel the opposite: the future had been revealed for those in the present to work toward.

“You mentioned the paradox of created reality some time ago: a future that probably would not have come true, if it had not been revealed and then assiduously brought to pass. Obviously I do not mind a little created reality. But even among mages who believe one should work toward a revealed future, there are huge differences of opinion on just how much should be done.

“For example, my mother saw herself writing
There is no light elixir, however tainted, that cannot be revived by a thunderbolt
in the margins of a copy of
The Complete Potion
. There is not much argument there—she should definitely do it when she finds herself in the foreseen situation.

“But what if she had seen herself
telling
someone that is what she had done? Should she still write about light elixirs and thunderbolts in the potions manual?”

Fairfax blinked. “This could get complicated. Strictly speaking, to fulfill the prophecy she only needs to say the words, no need to actually do the writing.”

“It gets more complicated still. What if she had seen herself telling someone that she
plans
to write these words
inside a copy of
The Complete Potion
?”

“And you are saying that is the equivalent of the vision Lady Callista worked from, a vision of a plan being spoken aloud.”

He nodded. Just as seers came in vastly different calibers, so did visions. “A vision of someone discussing her plans is far less significant than a vision of actual events. But it is not anything to do with Lady Callista that I am worried about . . .” He almost could not speak the next few words. “It is my mother's vision that is giving me pause.”

She rose from her seat. “What?”

“My mother's visions almost always concerned events. My coronation was an event. The Inquisitor's death, an event. She herself writing the words that would one day inspire you to bring down a bolt of lightning, a series of actions that constituted an event.” He set his hands on top of the diary, which for so long had been his life raft in a sea of uncertainties. “But now I realize that some of my mother's most important assumptions rest not on a vision of action, but one of speech.”

This then is most likely what Titus is witnessing, the manifestation of the great elemental mage who would be, as he would say in a different vision, his partner for the task.

As he would
say.

“Can you ask the diary to show you that vision, so you will know one way or the other?”

“I can, but I am afraid to.” He looked up at her. “Have I told you that she foresaw Baron Wintervale's death? But she misinterpreted what she saw to mean that Atlantis had been responsible for the execution curse. She was a flawless seer, but she was not infallible in the interpretations of her visions.”

Yet the directions for his entire life had been set down on the strength of those interpretations.

She rounded the table and came to stand next to him, her hand on his shoulder.

He put his hand over hers. “Am I a coward?”

“Because you are afraid? No. Only fools are never afraid.”

He stared at the gilt edge of the diary's pages. “What if everything changes?”

“Sometimes it does.”

“I hate changes like that.”

“I know,” she said gently. “So do I.”

He inhaled deeply and opened the diary, silently asking to be shown the vision in which he spoke of the great elemental mage who would be his partner for the task.

 

24 April 1021

 

Only a few days before Princess Ariadne's death.

 

It is Titus—or at least I think it is Titus, perhaps ten years or so older than he is now, a boy of sixteen or seventeen, lean and handsome. Next to him is another boy, about the same age, good-looking, but in a way that was almost too pretty for a young man. They seem to be standing on the bank of a lake or a river, tossing pebbles, but I do not recognize the place as any I have ever visited.

“I am going to bring down the Bane,” Titus says.

I had to step away from my desk for a moment to collect myself. So this is what all the other visions had been leading up to. For the thousandth time, I wish I had never been cursed with this “gift.”

“Why?” asks the other boy, sounding as afraid and flabbergasted as I feel.

“Because that is what I am meant to do,” Titus replies, with an adamantine certainty.

 

He snapped the diary shut. It
was
the conversation he and Fairfax had on the bank of the Thames, when he had told her about their destiny.

“Remember, this does not diminish your mother's power as a seer,” Fairfax said urgently.

No, but it cast doubt on her interpretation of everything. Princess Ariadne wrote that there was to be one partner for Titus because the future Titus had said so. But the future Titus had said so because Princess Ariadne had written so. It was a complete and vicious paradox.

“Fortune shield me, what does this mean?” he heard himself mumble. “Is there a Chosen One or not?”

It had been the most gut-wrenching thing to do to tell Fairfax that she was not part of his destiny, but he had done it without hesitation because, as he told her, one did not argue with the force of destiny. Now, however, the force of destiny was proving itself to be nothing more than a wobbly conundrum.

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“How can it not matter? If there is no Chosen One, then what am I, the one whose task is to train and guide the Chosen One, supposed to do?”

She turned his chair around so that he faced her. “Listen to me. Forget how she interpreted everything—visions are and have always been squirrelly things. Look instead at what her visions have led you to accomplish: you saved me twice
and
you brought down the Inquisitor, the Bane's most capable lieutenant.

“You mother died because Atlantis wanted her dead. You were always going to be an implacable enemy of Atlantis. You were always going to do your best to upend the Bane's reign. The only difference was that Princess Ariadne made sure that you were ready far sooner than you would otherwise have been.

“Wintervale doesn't need to be the One to take up his wand against Atlantis—he wants to be part of something greater than himself. I don't need to be the One either—if I can make a difference, then I am willing do to my utmost. But we do need you—you are better prepared to bring down the Bane than any other mage on Earth. So don't tell me that you don't know what you ought to do anymore. Your role hasn't changed at all. Dust yourself off and get back to it.”

He looked into her eyes and felt some of his despair drain away. “So you do not think everything I have done is in vain?”

“No, I don't think anything you've ever done has been in vain. It will all come to fruition someday. And furthermore, I'm convinced you will live to see that day.”

He took her hands in his. “When the time comes, will you come to Atlantis with Wintervale and me?”

“I will.” She kissed him on his hair. “Now go get some sleep. The road is long yet.”

 

“I can't believe it,” said Cooper, looking at the calling card. “Low Creek Ranch, Wyoming Territory. Are you really leaving us?”

Iolanthe walked to Cooper's window. “Won't be too long now. And I'll really miss this easy life.”

Cooper came to stand next to her. “You know what? Maybe someday I'll run away and join you in Wyoming Territory. At least I won't have to be a lawyer, if I'm herding cattle.”

“Good luck finding me. I'll bet this godforsaken ranch is three hundred roadless miles away from the nearest railway station. You'll be better off applying to the prince to become his secretary.”

“You know what I would like? I would like to see my future, so I can stop worrying about it.”

Iolanthe snorted and shook her head.

“Oh, look, there's West. I think he is coming to Mrs. Dawlish's.” Cooper opened the window, his dreaded future as an unwilling lawyer momentarily forgotten. “West, are you coming inside? Have you seen where I got brained by a flying tile?”

He no longer needed to wear his bandage, but he still enjoyed showing off the scab.

“Yes, I am coming inside,” said West, already dressed in his cricket kit. “Thought I'd have a look at Wintervale, but I'll gladly inspect your war wounds too, Cooper.”