“A moment,” I said, as he attempted to melt and flow. “I require you just as you are.”
I held him against his effort, and I drew a fiery rectangle in the air.
A series of quick movements filled it with a rough likeness of my mother.
“Merlin! What are you doing?” he cried.
I suppressed his effort to extricate himself by means of a transport spell.
“Conference time,” I announced. “Bear with me.”
I didn’t just meditate upon the impromptu Trump I had hung in the air before me, but practically attacked it with a charge of the energies I was cycling through my body and the space about me.
Suddenly, Dara stood within the frame I had created-tall, coal-black, eyes of green flame.
“Merlin! What’s happening?” she cried.
I’d never heard of it being done quite this way before, but I held the contact, willed her presence, and blew away the frame. She stood before me then, perhaps seven feet tall, pulsing with indignation.
“What is the meaning of this?” she asked.
I caught her as I had Mandor and collapsed her down to human scale.
“Democracy,” I said “Let’s all look alike for a minute.”
“This is not amusing,” she responded, and she began to change back.
I canceled her effort.
“No, it isn’t,” I answered. “But I called this meeting, and it will be run on my terms.”
“Very well,” she said, shrugging. “What has become so terribly urgent?”
“The succession.”
“The matter is settled. The throne is yours.”
“And whose creature am I to be?” I raised my left hand, hoping they had no way of telling one spikard from another. “This thing confers great powers. It also charges for their use. It bore a spell for control of its wearer.”
“It was Swayvill’s,” Mandor said. “I got it to you when I did to accustom you to the force of its presence. And yes, there is a price. Its wearer must come to terms with it.”
“I have wrestled with it,” I lied, “and I am its master. But the main problems were not cosmic. They were compulsions of your own installation.”
“I do not deny it,” he said. “But there was a very good reason for their presence. You were reluctant to take the throne. I felt it necessary to add an element of compulsion.”
I shook my head.
“Not good enough,” I said. “There was more to it than that. It was a thing designed to make me subservient to you.”
“Necessary,” he responded. “You’ve been away. You lack intimate knowledge of the local political scene. We could not simply let you take the reins and go off in your own direction-not in times such as these, when blunders could be very costly. The House needed some means to control you. But this was only to be until your education was complete.”
“Permit me to doubt you, brother,” I said.
He glanced at Dara, who nodded slightly.
“He is right,” she said, “and I see nothing wrong with such temporary control until you learn the business. Too much is at stake to permit otherwise.”
“It was a slave-spell,” I said. “It would force me to take the throne, to follow orders.”
Mandor licked his lips. It was the first time I’d ever seen him betray a sign of nervousness. It instantly made me wary-though I realized moments later that it may have been a calculated distraction. It caused me to guard against him immediately; and, of course, the attack came from Dara.
A wave of heat swept over me. I shifted my attention at once, attempting to raise a barrier. It was not an attack against my person. It was something soothing, coercive. I bared my teeth as I fought to hold it off.
“Mother-“ I growled.
“We must restore the imperatives,” she said flatly, more to Mandor than to me.
“Why?” I asked. “You’re getting what you want.”
“The throne is not enough,” she answered. “I do not trust you in this, and reliance will be necessary.”
“You never trusted me,” I said, pushing away the remains of her spell.
“That is not true,” she told me, “and this is a technical matter, not a personal one.”