“Nothing at all,” Mother Northwind said. “Your power woke fully with that attack, and hurled it back on the attacker.” She studied the back of his head. “Let me guess,” she said. “You had already had a hint that that power existed.”
“Since I was a boy,” Karl said. “Small things… magic has always tended to go awry near me. Enchanted objects lose their enchantment. Magelights die. And magically locked doors… can be opened.”
Even in her very brief contact with Teran outside, Mother Northwind had seen the memory of the time when one locked door in particular had opened, greatly pleasing two young boys. “Has Falk taken notice?” she asked.
“He’s never asked me about it. Tagaza…” He paused, looking sad. “Tagaza once told me the Magecorps were always struggling with magelights and such near my quarters, but I don’t think he ever thought I had anything to do with it.” He turned to look at her. “What would Falk do if he knew? Knew I might be a Magebane? Kill me?”
“No,” Mother Northwind said. “At least, not until he was certain he could not use you instead.”
“He must know what happened at Goodwife Beth’s,” Karl said.
Mother Northwind’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t,” she said. “Tell me.”
“During the attack, Denson… one of my captors… wanted me to stick my head up first to draw any fire that might be aimed at him and his friend. A soldier threw a… I think they call it a melonbreaker… spell. All I saw was a flash, but the soldier who threw the spell…”
“Let me guess,” Mother Northwind said. “No more head.”
Karl shuddered. “Yes.”
Mother Northwind noted that shudder. A soft heart, to go with that soft exterior, she thought. I can use that. “You have it in your power to do away with abominable spells like that,” she said gently. “If you do as I ask, you can do away with all spells.”
Karl glanced at the antechamber window. “That will do away with all that, too,” he said, nodding at the bright blue sky the window framed. “Eternal spring in the middle of winter. Sunlight on the darkest day.” He paused, then looked back at her. “And Healers?”
Mother Northwind hesitated. “I hope not,” she said at last. “Soft magic is not part of the Keys or the Barriers. I do not believe that it will be affected. Not, at least, to the same extent.”
Karl studied her. “Meaning you will still have the power to twist men’s minds to do your will.”
Why deny it? “I believe that I will,” she said. “But I will use the power judiciously.”
“Will you?” Karl said. “Or are you asking me to throw over one Mageborn-led tyranny for another?”
“No!” Mother Northwind said sharply. “I want only to remove the MageLords from power. Not seize it myself.”
“Except when, in your judicious opinion, it needs to be seized.”
Mother Northwind studied the Prince with new respect. Karl had always been, in her mind, simply the tool she had forged to bring down the MageLords. Falk had always dismissed him as a feckless, immature boy with little interest in politics or anything beyond his own comfort and amusement. But that was not the Prince who stood before her now, nor the Prince who had stood up to Falk at the dinner a few nights before.
Well, she thought dryly, having someone try to kill you, rebels capture you, and a platoon of guards violently rescue you is probably a very effective program for growing up in a hurry. “I do not seek to rule,” she said again.
“Then who will, Mother Northwind? When you throw down all this,” his gesture took in the Palace, the Lesser Barrier, the Kingdom as a whole, “What will replace it?”
“Commoners,” Mother Northwind said. “Rule by the common people.”
“And are the common people ready to rule?” Karl said softly. “Or are you simply paving the way for chaos?”
Mother Northwind felt the first stirrings of real anger. Enough was enough. “The Kingdom is corrupt. The MageLords are brutal tyrants. They oppress and exploit the Commoners, and massacre the Minik at will, as though they were nothing but animals. Chaos would be preferable!”
Prince Karl studied her for a long moment. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last. “I’ll think long and hard about whether I want to help you or not.”
“Think about it?” Fury suddenly roared through her veins. After all these years…! “You’re my creation,” she snarled. “I changed you in the womb to make you what you are. You will do what I wish!” She got to her feet and stepped toward him. “Or-”
“Or what?” Karl said coldly, not moving. “You’ll twist my mind?” He suddenly stood and took a step toward her, within easy reach. “I’m the Magebane, if you tell the truth,” he said. “Care to try it?” He held out his hand.
Mother Northwind reached for it-then snatched it back. SkyMage! she thought, and that was an oath she rarely used.
She was ashamed to admit it, but she had never realized until that moment that she could no more influence the Magebane than Falk could slay him with magic. If she reached inside his mind, would she reach inside her own, instead? If she tried to twist him, would she instead twist herself… into madness?
Karl drew his hand back. “I said I will think about your request to help bring down the MageLords,” he said, voice calm. “And I will also think about the fact that you ‘changed me in the womb.’ ” His voice dropped to an intense whisper. “Whose womb was that, Mother Northwind? And what became of its owner? What became of my mother?”
Mother Northwind remembered a stormy night, a woman in pain, blood, the cry of a healthy baby boy… the woman begging to hold the child… a soothing hand on the woman’s brow…
… labored breathing that slowed, stopped…
It had to be done, Mother Northwind thought. It had to be!
But now, faced with that babe grown to a man, forged by her own efforts into someone she could not manipulate as she had manipulated so many others over the years, she was helpless before the memory. “She died when you were born.”
“You murdered her,” Karl said flatly. “As you murdered the Queen, Brenna’s mother… and how many others? How many others have you killed or caused to be killed so that your great Plan could go forward, so you could overthrow the MageLords. In what way does that make you better than them? ”
Mother Northwind trembled with rage. She wouldn’t stand there any longer, to be lectured and accused by this beardless boy who owed his very existence to her. She had wrestled with and made her choices long ago, and she stood by them. “Those I have slain were few, those I have saved are many,” she grated. “The MageLords have slain tens of thousands, here and before this Kingdom was established. If Falk has his way-and if you will not help me, and my plans crumble to dust, then he most assuredly will-thousands more will die in the war that will erupt when he brings down the Great Barrier.
“So. Take your time, Prince Karl. Make your own calculations. Decide your own level of acceptable sacrifice. I have worked my whole life to give you that power and put you where you could use it. You once thought you would be King, and wield great power. Now you know you never will… but you have more power than you would ever have had as King.
“Whatever choice you make you will have to justify to yourself.. . as I have justified mine.”
Without another word, she turned, hobbled to the door, and let herself out.
He’ll do as I ask, she thought as she made her painful way down the hallway. He has to.
But in her heart she knew that he really had to do nothing of the kind… and that the plan she had worked so long to bring to the edge of fruition now depended entirely on another.
I created him, she thought, but I had no part in molding him, and now, like a mother who gave up her son for adoption at birth and is now destitute, I have come back to him begging for his help.
Suddenly feeling very old and very alone, Mother Northwind made her way back to her empty rooms.