Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

"Good afternoon," the blond offered gravely.

"You couldn't prove it by me." Serena sat down cautiously, and risked letting go of her head. It didn't fall off, which was a nice surprise. Apparently exhaustion had finally caught up with her; she had slept soundly for nearly nine hours, and the aftereffect was rather like a hangover.

Roxanne pushed a heavy mug across the table to her guest. "Drink this. It will help, I promise."

A cautious sip rewarded Serena with a cool, sweet drink that began clearing her head immediately; by the time she set the mug back onto the table a moment later, she felt reasonably human again.

"You took advantage of me," she told her hostess severely. "Unless I dreamed it, you visited me before dawn and forced me to babble like an idiot."

Roxanne was smiling slightly. "I merely asked you a few questions. And you didn't babble."

"I didn't?"

"No. Well, toward the end you may have lost the thread of what you wanted to say, but I would hardly call the result babbling."

Serena winced. "Yeah, right." She cleared her throat. "I seem to remember confessing that I'm a wizard."

"Yes. And now that your mind is clearer, I'm very curious, Serena. How do you hide your powers?"

"A little trick Merlin taught me. I hope you aren't upset about this. It wasn't that I wanted to deceive you, it was just that… well, it seemed a good idea at the time."

Roxanne's shoulders lifted and fell in something more than a shrug. "It's just so incredible. A male and female wizard traveling together, not fighting or hurting each other. Is that common in Seattle?"

Serena hesitated, but she couldn't lie to the younger woman any more than she had to. "No, it isn't common-but then, Seattle is hardly a city filled with wizards. Merlin and I are pretty much trying to find our way alone. Or we were, until we came here."

"But you want to be together?"

"I want to be with him," Serena answered honestly. "And he's risking quite a lot by being here with me."

"I don't understand."

"It isn't important. All that matters is that Merlin is making an effort to tear down that wall between us. At least I think he is."

"What will happen then?"

For the first time since coming to Atlantis, Serena considered that question. "I… I don't really know."

"Will you… be mates?"

"I don't know," Serena repeated slowly. "Can two wizards be mates? All the years we've been together… will that let us trust each other enough to get so close? Can we forget what's going on all around us here? I just don't know."

Roxanne hesitated, then said, "What if Merlin returns from his visit to the mountains more like the male wizards here?"

"That won't happen."

"How can you be so sure? Serena, the male wizards of Atlantia are treated like gods. And you said-you told me he was at Varian's palace. Varian is by far the worst of the Mountain Lords, concerned with nothing except his… his gluttony. What if Merlin likes the idea of being godlike?"

Serena didn't hesitate. "He won't. If he had wanted to be treated like a god, he could have made it happen before now." And after now . "Believe me, Roxanne."

Solemnly the younger wizard said, "I believe you believe it. I just hope you're right."

So did Serena.

"Are you leaving the city for good?" Phaedra asked.

Serena adjusted the pack she carried and smiled pleasantly. It was late the following morning. "No, just for a while. I thought I'd explore the ruins of the Old City I've heard so much about."

The Sentinel glanced at the mark at the base of Serena's throat, and her thin lips curved in a feint smile. "You should be safe enough even at night, but that's by no means certain. I would advise you not to spend the night outside our walls. Unless your Lord is with you, of course."

Despite Roxanne's contention that all in Sanctuary were treated with respect, this wasn't the first time Serena had caught a touch of scorn from one of the female wizards. The mark she wore was a kind of brand, every bit as degrading as the one the male wizards were forced to wear inside the city. Many of the wizards of Sanctuary seemed to feel that the powerless women marked with the signs of possession were to be condemned for something that was never their fault.

Because she hadn't been marked when she had first walked through these gates, Serena had been treated with respect by the Sentinels; now she was apparently just another powerless woman who had been used by a male wizard.

Serena was tempted, but there was no good reason for her to reveal her own powers to this wizard. Besides that, she had a hunch that keeping the knowledge quiet for a while longer would be for the best. Roxanne had agreed to say nothing, though she'd been obviously puzzled by the request.

Keeping the expression pleasant, Serena said, "Fin quite capable of taking care of myself, Phaedra."

The Sentinel wizard nodded. "Fine. Just remember that we close the gates an hour before sunset. And we don't open them after that, for anyone, until sunrise."

"I'll remember." Serena walked on, past the burned circles on the ground that indicated old and recent campsites where powerless men (and very few male wizards) had spent nights waiting for the gates of the city to open. She moved into the woods toward the northwest, heading for the ruins Roxanne had told her about, the remnants of what had once been the center of culture and society in Atlantis.

No one seemed to remember what it had been called; now it was simply the Old City. It had existed a long, long time ago, when wizards and powerless, male and female, had lived and worked in something like harmony. The population then had consisted mostly of powerless people with a scattering of wizards, and perhaps that had simplified matters and enabled everyone to coexist peacefully.

As she walked steadily through the forest, crossing a narrow stream, working her way around a ridge carefully because she was hampered by the heavy, awkward skirts of an outfit she'd come to despise, Serena thought about that bygone time and wondered what had happened to alter the status quo. No one in Sanctuary had been able to tell her. Probably it had been a gradual change, maybe even over generations. In any case, the result had been the first salvos in the battle between male and female wizards.

It was midafternoon by the time Serena topped a ridge to see what was left of the Old City before her, and the sight froze her. Once, the city must have been huge, far larger than Sanctuary, sprawling out at the northern end of the valley. Now it was tumbled piles of stone and jutting bits of petrified timbers and thin trails that had once been wide thoroughfares.

The increasingly frequent earthquakes of recent times had torn open a ravine like a jagged cut zigzagging in the center of the ruins, and the bizarre plant life of Atlantis had encroached to lend the remains of the city an even more pathetic and ravaged appearance.

Serena made her way down into the ruins cautiously; Roxanne had said that snakes were plentiful, and though none apparently were poisonous, Serena didn't like snakes. She shrugged out of her backpack and hung it over the low branch of a tree barely taller than she was with violet leaves, and then wandered along one of the thin paths threading the ruins.

It was incredibly sad. There were signs that this had once been a thriving culture, for more advanced than the somewhat primitive conditions in Sanctuary. There was evidence of a sophisticated water and sewer system, for instance. The roads seemed to have been laid oat with care and logic, unlike the winding and wandering ones of Sanctuary. Bits and pieces of the pottery and stonework that had survived indicated a love of beauty and a high degree of skill.