The Warlock Enraged-Warlock 4 (17 page)

v "The nasty one, who threw rocks," Gregory chimed in.

"Art thou mindful, Papa, of when he took thee to the dungeon?"

"Yes, I remember." Suddenly, vividly, in his mind's eye, Rod saw the prisoner shackled to the wall again. "You mean

... the man in chains... ?"

"Aye! Wouldst thou not say, Papa, that he was..." He 720 Christopher Stasheff

turned to Illaren, nose wrinkling. "How didst thou picture thy father?"

"A great bear of a man," Illaren supplied.

"Aye!" Geoffrey whirled back to Rod. "With hair of so dark a brown 'twas near to black. And richly clad, with gilded armor!"

Rod nodded, faster and faster. "Yes... yes! Yes on the armor, too—what there was left of it, anyway."

"But that is Father!" cried the younger boy.

"Art thou certain!" The Duchess came to her feet, staggering, Geoffrey stilled, staring at her, eyes huge. "In truth, we are."

"Dost thou truly mean..."

"They're right." Rod turned a grave face to her. "I didn't recognize him, at the time—but I should have. It was your husband, my lady Duchess. I'm sure of it."

She stood rigid, staring at him.

Then her eyes rolled up, and she collapsed.

Gwen stepped forward, and caught her in an expert grip.

"Be not affrighted," she assured the two boys. "Thy mother doth but swoon—and 'tis from joy, not grief."

"But Illaren's papa is sorely hurted. Papa!" Magnus reminded Rod.

"Yes." Rod fixed his eldest with an unwavering stare.

"He was hurt—and imprisoned. Remember that." Magnus stared up at him, face unreadable.

"A Duke." Rod's tone was cold, measured. "With all his knights, with all his men-at-arms, with all his might, he was sorely wounded, captured, and imprisoned." He turned his head slowly, surveying his children. "Against a power that could do that, what could four children do? And what would happen to them?"

"But we are witches!" Cordelia cried.

"Warlocks!" Geoffrey's chin thrust forward.

"So," Rod said, "are they."

"They have come against us," Geoffrey cried, "and we have triumphed!"

"Yes—when there were six of us, and one of them. What's going to happen if we meet all of them together?" He stared into Geoffrey's eyes. "As the Duke did."

"We will no? go back!" Cordelia stamped her foot. Rod stiffened, his face paling. "You... will... do... as

... I... tell you!"

Magnus's face darkened, and his mouth opened, but Gwen's hand slid around to cover it. "Children." Her voice was quiet, but all four stilled at the sound. Gwen looked directly into Rod's eyes. "I gave thy father my promise."

"What promise?" Cordelia cried.

"That if he did insist, we would go home." She raised a hand to still the instant tumult. "Now he doth insist." Rod nodded slowly, and let his gaze warm as he looked at her.

"But, Afama..."

"Hush," she commanded, "for there is this, too—these horrors that the Duchess hath spoke of to me. Nay, children,

'tis even as thy father hath said—there is danger in the North, horrible and rampant. Tis no place for children." Cordelia whirled on her. "But you. Mama..."

"Must come with thee, to see thee safely home," Gwen said, and her tone was iron. "Or dost thou truly say that I have but to bid thee 'Go,' and thou'It return to Runnymede straightaway? That thou wouldst truly not seek to follow thy father, and myself, unseen?"

Cordelia clenched her fists and stamped her foot, glaring up at her mother with incipient mutiny, but she didn't answer. Gwen nodded slowly. " 'Tis even as I thought." She lifted her gaze to Rod. "And there is this, too—I do not believe the Duchess and her sons are safe yet."

Rod nodded. "Very true."

Gwen nodded too, and turned back to the children. "We must needs guard them."

"But the soldiers..."

"Did lately chase them," Gwen reminded. "Who is to say the sorcerer's power may not reach down from the North to ensnare them again, and turn them 'gainst the Duchess and her boys?"

Illaren exchanged a quick, frightened look with his brother.

"But, Mama..." Geoffrey cried.

"Thou wilt do as thou art bid," Gwen commanded, "and thou wilt do it presently. Thou, whose care is ever the 722 Christopher Stasheff

ordering of battles—wilt thou truly deny that the course of wisdom is to guard this family, and take them to King Tuan, to bear witness?"

Geoffrey glowered back up at her, then said reluctantly,

"Nay. Thou hast the right of it. Mama."

"Doesn't she always," Rod muttered; but nobody seemed to hear him.

She turned to him. "We shall go, husband—even as thou dost wish."

"But Papa won't be safe!" Cordelia whirled to throw her arms around his midriff.

Rod hugged her to him, but shook his head. "I've faced danger without you before, children. There was even a time when I didn't have your mother along to protect me." Magnus shook his head, eyes wide with alarm. "Never such danger as this. Papa. A vile, evil sorcerer, with a whole army of witches behind him!"

"I've gone into the middle of an army before—and I only had a dagger against all their swords, and worse. Much worse."

"Yet these are witches!"

"Yes—and I've got more than a mental dagger, to use against them." Rod held his son's eyes with a grave stare.

"I think I can match their sorcerer, spell for spell and power for power—and pull a few tricks he hasn't even dreamed of, since he was a child." He hauled Magnus in against him, too. "No, don't worry about me this time. Some day, I'll probably meet that enemy who's just a little too much stronger than I am—but Alfar isn't it. For all his powers and all his nastiness, he doesn't really worry me that much."

"Nor should he."

Rod looked up to see his youngest son sitting crosslegged, apart from the huddle. "I think thou hast the right of it. Papa. I think this sorcerer's arm is thickened more with fear, than with strength."

"An that is so," said Geoffrey, "thou must needs match him and, aye, e'en o'ermatch him. Papa."

"Well." Rod inclined his head gravely. "Thank you, my sons. Hearing you say it, makes me feel a lot better." And, illogically, it did—and not just because his children had, when last came to last, become his cheering section. He

had a strange respect for his two younger sons. He wondered if that was a good thing.

Apparently, Cordelia and Magnus felt the same way. They pried themselves away from Rod, and the eldest nodded. "If Gregory doth not foresee thy doom. Papa, it hath yet to run."

"Yes." Rod nodded. "Alfar's not my Nemesis." He turned back to Gregory. "What is?"

The child gazed off into space for a minute, his eyes losing focus. Then he looked at his father again, and answered, with total certainty, "Dreams."

8

The Duchess slapped the horses with the reins, and the coach creaked into motion as they plodded forward. They quickened to a trot, and the coach rolled away. Gwen turned back from her seat beside the Duchess, and waved. Four smaller hands sprouted up from the coach roof, and waved frantically too. Rod returned the wave .until they were out of sight, feeling the hollowness grow within him. Slowly, he turned back toward the North, and watched the soldiers moving away, bearing their wounded knight on a horse-litter. They had decided to go back into the sorcerer's army, disguised as loyal automatons. Gwen had told them how to hide their true thoughts with a surface of simulated hypnosis—thinking the standardized thoughts that all Alfar's army shared. She had also made clear their danger; Alfar would not look kindly on traitors. They understood her fully, every single man jack of them; but their guilt feelings ruled them, and they welcomed the danger as expiation. Rod watched them go, hoping he wouldn't meet any of them again until the whole rebellion had been squelched.

Somehow, he was certain that it would be. It was assinine to place faith in the pronouncements of a three-year-old—

but his little Gregory was uncanny, and very perceptive. 124

Acting on the basis of his predictions would be idiocy—

but he could let himself feel heartened by them. After all, Gregory wasn't your average preschooler.

On the other hand, just because he had a ten-year-old's vocabulary, didn't mean he had a general's grasp of the situation. Rod took his opinions the way he took a palm reading—emotionally satisfying, but not much use for helping decide what to do next. He turned to Fess, stuck a foot in the stirrup, and mounted. "Come on. Alloy Animal!

Northward ho!"

Fess moved away after the departing squadron. "Where are we bound. Rod?"

"To Alfar, of course. But for the immediate future, find a large farmstead, would you?"

"A farmstead? What do you seek there, Rod?"

"The final touch in our disguise." But Rod wasn't really paying attention. His whole being was focused on the devastating, terrifying sensation of being alone, for the first time in twelve years. Oh, he'd been on his own before during that time—but never for very long, only a day or two, and he'd been too busy to think about it. But he had the time now—and he was appalled to realize how much he'd come to depend on his family's presence. He felt shorn; he felt as though he'd been cut off from his trunk and roots, like a lopped branch. There seemed to be a knot in his chest, and a numbing fear of the world about him. For the first time in twelve years, he faced that world alone, without Gwen's massive support, or the gaiety of his children—not to mention the very considerable aid of their powers. The prospect was thoroughly daunting.

He tried to shake off the mood, throwing his shoulders back and lifting his chin. "This is ridiculous, Fess. I'm the lone wolf; I'm the man who penetrated the Prudential Network and overthrew its Foreman! I'm the knife in the dark, the vicious secret agent who brings down empires!"

"If you say so. Rod."

"I do say so, damn it! I'm me. Rod Gallowglass—not just a father and a husband!... No, damn it, I'm Rodney d'Armand! That 'Gallowglass' is just an alias I took when I came here, to help me look like a native! And Rodney 726 Christopher Stasheff

d'Armand managed without Gwen and the kids for twentynine years!"

"True," Fess agreed. "Of course, you lived in your father's house for nineteen of them."

"All right, so I was only on my own for ten years! But that's almost as long as I've been married, isn't it?"

"Of course."

"Yes." Rod frowned. "On the other hand, it's only as long—isn't it?"

"That, too, is true."

"Yeah." Rod scowled. "Habit-forming little creatures, aren't they?"

"There, perhaps, you have touched the nub of it," Jie robot agreed. "Most people live their lives by habit patterns, Rod."

"Yeah—but they're just habits." Rod squared his shoulders again. "And you can always change your habits."

"Do you truly want to, Rod?"

"So when I get home, I'll change them back! But for the time being, I can't have them with me—so I'd better get used to it again. I can manage without them—and I will."

"Of course you will. Rod."

Rod caught the undertone in Fess's voice and glared at the back of his metal skull. "What's the 'but' I hear in there, Fess?"

"Merely that you will not be happy about it...."

"Rod, no! This is intolerable!"

"Oh, shut up and reverse your gears."

The robot heaved a martyred blast of white noise and stepped back a pace or two. Rod lifted the shafts of the cart and buckled them into the harness he'd strapped onto Fess in place of a saddle.

"This is a severe debasement of a thoroughbred, Rod."

"Oh, come off it!" Rod climbed up to the single-board seat and picked up the reins. "You used to pilot a spaceship, Fess. That's the same basic concept as pulling a cart."

"No—it is analagous to driving a cart. And your statement is otherwise as accurate as claiming that a diamond embodies the same concept as a piece of cut plastic."

"Hairsplitting," Rod said airily, and slapped Fess's back with the reins.

The robot plodded forward, sighing, "My factory did not manufacture me to be a cart horse."

"Oh, stuff it! When my ancestors met you, you were piloting a miner's burro-boat in the asteroid belt around Sol!

I've heard the family legends!"

"I know; I taught them to you myself," Fess sighed, again. "This is merely poetic justice. Northward, Rod?"

"Northward," Rod confirmed, "on the King's High Way. Hyah!" He slapped the synthetic horsehide with the reins again. It chimed faintly, and Fess broke into a trot. They swerved out of the dirt track onto the High Road in a twowheeled cart, leaving behind a ragged yeoman gazing happily at the gold in his palm, and shaking his head at the foolishness of tinkers, who no sooner came by a bit of money, than they had to find something to spend it on. As they trotted northward, Fess observed, "About your discussion with your wife, Rod..."

"Grand woman." Rod shook his head in admiration. "She always sees the realities of a situation."

"How are we defining 'reality' in this context. Rod?"

"We don't; it defines us. But you mean she was just letting me have my own way, don't you?"

"Not simply that," Fess mused. "Not in regard to anything of real importance."

"Meaning she usually talks me into doing things her way." Rod sat up straighter, frowning. "Wait a minute! You don't mean that's what she's done this time, too, do you?"

"No. I merely thought that you achieved her cooperation with remarkable ease."

"When you start using so many polysyllables, I know you're trying to tell me something unpleasant. You mean it was too easy?"

"I did have something of the sort in mind, yes."

"Well, don't worry about it." Rod propped his elbows on his knees. "It was short, but it wasn't really easy. Not when you consider all the preliminary skirmishes."

"Perhaps... Still, it does not seem her way..."

"No... If she thinks I'm going to lose my temper, she 728 Christopher Stasheff