Read Online Phoenix and Ashes by Mercedes Lackey - Free Book Online

gone—”
    “Nevertheless,
he has closed off his mind to his power,” she replied. “And it is
of no use trying to get him to open it now. He tells me that the things that
attacked him destroyed his Gifts, and he believes it with every iota of his
being.”
    “And
that isn’t true?” A second figure stepped away from the shadows
beside the fireplace; another nobleman, Peter Almsley, lean and blond,
nervously highbred, and the Scotts’ best friend. He was in a uniform, but
he was on some sort of special duty with the War Department that kept him off
the Front. She suspected that special duty was coordinating the magical defense
of the realm. Certainly Alderscroft wasn’t young enough anymore to do so.
    She
closed her eyes for a moment. Even if Fenyx never flew again,
he
could
be put to doing what Almsley was doing—with more effectiveness. The Air
Elementals actually controlled winds and weather to some extent, and if an Air
Master could see to the
physical
defenses of the country—
    She
did not shudder, she had endured worse than bombardment by Zepps and Hun
aeroplanes, but—it was hard, hard, to hear the drone of those motors in the
sky, in the dark, and look up helplessly at the ceiling and wait for the first
explosions and wonder if you were sitting on the target, or if you would be
able to scramble away to somewhere safer when you knew where the bombs were
falling. And if the latter—who, of your friends,
was
sitting on
the target. If Reggie could be persuaded—
    She
shook her head. “There is nothing wrong at all with his Gifts,” she
said, decidedly. “But I think that, in those dreadful two days
underground, he understood instinctively that his very power was what attracted
the Earth creatures to him, and that if he closed that power off, they would
cease to torment him. At some level deeper than thought—Doctor Freud
would have called it the
id
—in the most basic of his instincts,
he walled that part of himself away. And now he truly does not believe it
exists anymore.”
    “So
you can get him back—” Alderscroft began, eagerly, looking
optimistic for the first time this interview began.
    But
she shook her head emphatically. “Not I. This is too complicated a case
for me. Doctor Andrew Pike in Devon is the man you need—”
    But
Almsley groaned. “Not a chance of a look-in there, Maya. Not now, not
ever
.
It’s one thing to unburden his weary soul to you, my heart—but if
you call in the good Doctor Pike, or worse, send the boy to him, our Reggie
will have to admit that he’s gone balmy, and that he can never do.”
    Maya
looked from Almsley to Alderscroft and back again, and felt like stamping her
feet with frustration at what she read there. Men! Why did they have to be so
stubborn
about such things?
    “Maya,
think,” her husband said, quietly. “If he’s sick with guilt
over the idea that he’s malingering, what do you think the mere sight of
Andrew Pike at his bedside do to his feelings about himself?”
    Defeated,
she could only shake her head.
    “Going
‘round the bend is just not the done thing, my heart,” Almsley said
sadly. “It’s what your dotty Uncle Algernon does, not an officer
and a gentleman. Andrew could probably have him right and tight in months, but
that doesn’t matter. If he saw Andrew, he’d be certain that we all
think he’s mad, and if he’s mad, he’s broken and useless, and
worse, he’s a disgrace to the old strawberry leaves and escutcheon. If
he’s gone mad, he might just as well die and avoid embarrassing the
family.”
    She
leveled her gaze at Alderscroft. “Then you had better hope he can get
well and work his way through his troubles on his own,” she said, doing
her best to keep accusation out of her tone. “But
I
don’t
think that he will. Not without a powerful incentive to break through that wall
of fear that keeps him away from his power, and I can tell you right now that
duty, honor, and pride are not powerful enough. Duty,