Anne Bishop - Sebastian

“Sebastian,” Koltak gasped. “There’s danger. Great danger. We need your help. You have to listen.”

“The way you listened when I came to you for help? Go back where you came from. You’ll get nothing from us.”

“You have to listen.” Koltak started to raise his hand, perhaps in supplication, perhaps for a different reason.

Sebastian didn’t wait to find out. His hand shot up, the power crackling through him, balling in his fingertips, waiting for release.

Koltak stared at the hand, then slowly lowered his own. “So. The power awoke in you. You’re a wizard.”

“Justice Maker,” Sebastian snapped. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand the difference.”

“But I do,” Koltak cried. “I do! I—” He swayed. “Sebastian, if there’s anything human in you, show a little pity.”

“Don’t throw that in my face, old man. You’ve always said there was nothing human in me, never wanted to see anything human in me. So now—”

“Do you think this is easy for me?” Koltak said, the familiar, angry venom back in his voice. “Do you think I want to grovel for your help? To be here ? But I’m willing to put aside our differences to save Ephemera. Are you enough of a Justice Maker to do the same? Or are you going to let everything be destroyed as a way of farting in my face?”

To save Ephemera. Which, for him, meant saving Glorianna’s and Nadia’s landscapes. Which meant saving the Den, the place he’d promised to protect. Which meant keeping Lynnea safe.

“Come on,” Sebastian said. “We’ll get you some food—and I’ll listen.”

Leading Koltak back to Philo’s, Sebastian hurried along the edge of the courtyard until he reached the door to the interior dining room. Koltak smelled ripe enough to put anyone but the bull demons off their food, so getting the man away from Philo’s customers as quickly as possible was a kindness. He held the door for Koltak, took a deep breath of fresh air, and went into the dining room.

Koltak staggered to the nearest chair and collapsed into it.

Thinking there were benefits to having a head cold and wishing he could have one for the next hour, Sebastian reluctantly pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down.

“Long journey?” Sebastian asked too politely, making it plain that no matter how long the journey had been, it hadn’t been long enough. Which, judging by the flash of anger in Koltak’s eyes, the wizard understood.

“Yes,” Koltak replied in a restrained voice, “it was a long journey.”

What does he want from me that he’s making an effort to be civil? And why did the words “a long journey” make him uneasy, as if something important was just out of memory’s reach?

The inner door swung open. Teaser walked in with a tray, set out two steaming bowls of water, two towels, and a plate with two pieces of soap that had been cut off a bar, then walked out again.

Sebastian eyed the pieces of soap and hoped someone made Brandon wash the knife before the boy went back to cutting up meat or vegetables.

“Is this…customary?” Koltak asked, embarrassment coloring his face.

“No,” Sebastian replied, reaching for a piece of soap. “But it’s appreciated when it’s offered.” He washed his hands, dried them, set everything to one side, and smiled at his father—a dare to turn down an amenity just because everyone knew it was needed.

By the time Koltak finished scrubbing the grime off his hands, Teaser was back with a pitcher of water, a bottle of red wine, and various glasses that looked like they’d been grabbed because they were clean and handy, since they weren’t the ones Philo usually used for water and wine.

“Not very well trained, is he?” Koltak grumbled as he poured a glass of water and drank it greedily.

“He’s just helping out.” And Teaser had remembered to take the bowls of dirty water and the towels away. Sebastian wasn’t sure if leaving the soap on the table was an oversight or a comment.

“The wench doesn’t serve the tables in here?”

The wench is going to be my wife. But the less Koltak—and every other wizard—knew about Lynnea, the better. Still, he wondered what it said about Koltak as a man that a woman on the other side of the courtyard had caught his eye when it was supposedly so vital that he talk to his son—and what it said about the man that he’d seriously use the word “wench,” which, in the Den, was said only as a good-natured tease.

“No, she doesn’t serve tables in here.”

Teaser swung into the room for the third time. After dropping two spoons in the middle of the table, he emptied the tray, which held two bowls of beef stew, a plate of cubed cheese instead of the usual bowl of melted cheese, and a basket of Phallic Delights. No butter.

Sebastian looked at Teaser. Teaser shrugged and walked away. Obviously Philo didn’t think their visitor deserved a delicacy like butter. Or olives.

Probably just as well, Sebastian decided as he took a Delight out of the basket. This wasn’t a meal he wanted to linger over.

“That’s disgusting,” Koltak said, staring at the Delight in Sebastian’s hand.

“It’s bread,” Sebastian snapped. “If you don’t want to eat it because of how it’s shaped, then don’t eat it.” Dropping the bread into the bowl of stew, he poured a glass of wine and sat back. It scraped something inside him to know he still wanted his father’s acceptance. Pointless, useless way to feel, since he’d done without that acceptance all his life. Especially when the “wench” comment pricked something that was less than a memory, more like a faded impression of the times Koltak had come to Nadia’s home to drag him back to Wizard City and the journey had required staying overnight at an inn.

If Koltak hadn’t been a wizard, if he hadn’t had that authority to hide behind, he would have been nothing more than a crude, unlikable man. Maybe, by refusing to accept an incubus for a son, he’s done me more of a favor than I’d realized. Instead of learning from him, I’d had Aunt Nadia showing me what it meant to be a good person.

Koltak hesitated. Then hunger overcame disgust and he grabbed a Delight from the basket and took a big bite. He dug into the stew with the same mixture of disapproval and hunger on his face.

His own appetite gone, Sebastian drank wine and watched his father devour the meal. While Koltak mopped up the last of the stew with a piece of bread, he drained his glass, pushed his own untouched meal aside, and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Koltak belched. Then he sighed. “Your report of violent deaths was just the first of many. If the council had listened—”

“If you had listened!”

Anger flashed in Koltak’s eyes before he fixed his gaze on the table. “Yes, all right. If I had listened. It’s worse than you realize, Sebastian. The Landscapers’ School was attacked.”

“I know.” Remembering what he’d seen soured the wine in his belly. “I had…business…at the school, but it was too late. I didn’t see anyone alive. Barely got out of there myself.”

“Then you saw. You know. ”

“That the Eater of the World has escaped and is loose in the landscapes? Yes, I know.”

The shock he saw in Koltak’s face couldn’t have been an act.

“No,” Koltak said. “Not the Eater of the World. Even—” He stopped, made an effort to regain control. “The Wizards’ Council is aware that some of the dark landscapes that were taken out of the world have been…appearing…in other landscapes, that a Dark force is manipulating the landscapes to allow these places access to the rest of the world again. It has to be stopped, has to be destroyed. You can see that, can’t you?”