MALLOS
“Tristan possibly. He doesn’t trust his sister,” Mallos responded to Arthur’s statements regarding Thoth, politely omitting the reasons why the boy didn’t trust his sister. It should be apparent, even to someone who had not met Poppy, that brother and sister lived separate lives; to those who had met her, the justification for distrust took on a whole new clarity. As far as Mallos could tell, Poppy was erratic but basically good-hearted, and the only thing she truly lacked was the one thing Thoth needed: stability. “He trusts his pony,” he added helpfully, “I think.”
She was quite a nice pony. Mallos had had a chat with her before he’d given her to Thoth, but he somehow doubted Arthur would want to get a horse to break the news to him. That would be unkingly.
He smiled indulgently at Arthur’s expression of pity towards the churchmen, but the smile faded away when the king made his request. There was a pregnant (and probably not very reassuring) pause, in which Mallos studied the other man’s face with an absence of expression. He had, up until this point, omitted mention of one piece of defensive equipment Arthur already owned: the piece of leather bearing Mallos’ mark, which he had given him after Aura’s death. The mark would, as the Spaniard had explained at the time, cause most people to think twice before launching an attack on the king. Arthur was not a blood relation of Mallos’, but as long as he had the mark he could be considered as such, and if anyone attempted to attack him – psychically or physically – then Mallos would have grounds to intervene. Privately, an excuse to get involved was what he really wanted. Arthur was too proud to flash the mark at anyone who walked through the door, could take care of himself and was unlikely to be in any real danger from the Aurans. What harm was there?
Every harm, he realised.
Mallos was a selfish person. He never pretended to be anything else. Bar a few small exceptions, he had never had to consider the needs of others much; his friends all had divinity, his sister had her camouflage enchantment, and nobody else in the world really mattered. The legacy Gwythr had left for him on Shaman, and the relationships he had built on that, were different to any he had had before. He couldn’t act without consequence under the understanding that he could be forgiven in a few centuries, and nor could he waste time or toy around with the fragile mortal lives which meant something to him. Mallos would never seriously or consciously have offered Arthur up as bait in order to give himself an excuse to play around with the Auran churchmen if they were friendly acquaintances, but equally he wouldn’t have paid much attention to the consequences if they were only friendly acquaintances. Because, he realised, for a man – any man, not least one as private as this – to lay bare his mind to another, he had to consider him a friend. It shouldn’t have surprised Mallos as much as it did to realise that the feeling was mutual.
What harm was there in quietly letting Arthur open himself to a minor psychic attack, when he would never be in any real danger? Every harm. Arthur’s mental, physical and emotional wellbeing mattered to Mallos in a way he had never expected it to. It took an extension of trust, the kind he was not used to, to recognise that.
“Nobody bar the exceptionally bold is going to attack you if they can see you have the mark I gave you,” he replied slowly, “or, at the very least, they will think twice. Hypnosis emboldens people. Hypnotic attacks are almost impossible to see coming or to recognise when you’re in a trance. I wonder… could you pass me your goblet?”
As soon as he’d started speaking again, he had begun to feed a gentle level of comforting persuasion into the words, expertly building up to the climax: the hypnotic question. He maintained eye contact and slipped the question in with a full blast of hypnosis, so it was unsurprising when Arthur unquestioningly handed the goblet over to him. Once he had it, Mallos released the enchantment and held it up for the king to see.
“Do you remember giving me this?” He enquired, gently setting it back down on the desk. “Lots of people can’t remember when they’ve performed acts while hypnotised. You’re inexperienced with psychic attacks and probably won’t see it coming or feel it happening, but you might recognise when you’re coming out of a trance now that you’ve experienced it once. Remember this feeling.” He sat back in the chair and tapped the arm thoughtfully with the fingers of one hand, considering the options. What Arthur needed was going to be a lot more complex than what he had offered to do for Thoth. A minor mental impediment wasn’t going to bother a twelve year-old boy, but it could have a devastating effect for a ruler of a nation.
“I can create an overriding desire in your mind for Thoth to stay, using hypnosis, but there would be consequences,” he verbalised. “You would become more inflexible, and may develop an obsession. Certainly you would not be able to conduct negotiations as well as you can now. I can only think of two alternatives. One, I can put a protective enchantment on your mind which will require a one-off access, and which will have no effect on your day-to-day life. If anyone attempts to hypnotise you or access your mind, I’ll feel the enchantment break and I can come from wherever I am to help you.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “That will only protect you against a major psychic attack – the enchantment won’t notice someone using magical persuasion or low-level hypnosis, since neither of those involve breaking into the mind. Option two involves me setting up a permanent psychic link between our minds – more similar to a fairy-familiar connection, except that you can choose to activate it whenever you want. If you receive any visitors from Earth, you can alert me immediately, I can maintain a mental presence while you interview them, and I’ll know if anyone uses any kind of psychic attack.” He rested his hand back on the arm of the chair and gave a small, grim smile. “The disadvantage of that is that you need to give me long-term access to your mind… the only solution to which, I can see, is to equalise the link. The knowledge that you can access my mind will prevent me from being tempted to pry into yours.”
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