"I see." Gregory's face cleared. "It may not be ultimate, but it is the only reality we have."
"Even so."
Magnus frowned. "Then the purple lad and lavender lass, they were not real at all?"
"Certes, they were not real!" Cordelia said with a shudder, "and I thank thee for saving me from them, brother."
"As I thank thee, for saving me," Magnus returned. "Yet how can we have needed saving from them, if they were not real?"
"Because they were real illusions," Fess explained. "Be sure, children—illusions can do as much harm as anything else in this world. By clouding your perception of reality, illusions can kill."
Chapter Fifteen
Many miles away, Rod and Gwen finally began to hear the roar of surf. Coming out of the forest, they found themselves on a rocky beach with a thin strip of sand near the foaming breakers.
"How beautiful!" Gwen exclaimed.
"It is," Rod agreed, gazing at the dark green mass of water, smelling the salt air. "I keep forgetting."
They strolled toward the tide line, watching the gulls wheel about the sky. But they couldn't hear them— whenever there was a lull in the sound of the surf, all they could hear was the snarling and beating of the music of the metallic rocks.
"Here?" Gwen cried. "Even here?"
"I suppose," Rod said with resignation. "They fanned out from wherever they originated—and there's no reason why this edge of the fan should end, just because it's come to the ocean."
Something exploded, just barely heard above the roar of the surf, and they saw a rock go flying off into the waves. The other rock went…
"Duck!" Rod dove for the sand, pulling Gwen with him. The rock sailed by right where her head had been.
"Look!" Gwen pointed.
"Do I have to?" Rod was noticing how wonderfully the fragrance of her hair went with the scent of the surf.
"Oh, canst thou never pay heed to aught else when I am by?" she said, with exasperation (but not much). "See! The' waves do hurl the rock back at us!"
Rod followed the pointing of her finger and saw the new rock come sailing back, shooting by over their heads. They heard its whining thumping as it hurtled past.
"The sea will not have it!" Gwen exclaimed.
"Sure won't." Rod pointed to a yard-wide swath of thumping, twanging stones at the edge of the water, shifting like sand with each surge and ebb of the waves. "Thank Heaven." He had a sudden vision of the sea filling up with layer upon layer of stones, each vibrating with its own rasping beat. Then he realized that the same phenomenon was happening on land. "Gwen—is there any end to how many music-rocks can be produced?"
She shrugged. "As much as there is a limit to the witch-moss of which they are made, my lord."
"And there's no shortage of that—new patches crop up after every rain. It spreads like a fungus—which it is." Rod struggled to his feet. "Come on. We've got to find out where those rocks come from and put a stop to their making, or they'll bury the whole land."
"Husband, beware!" Gwen cried. "The waves…"
Rod leaped back as a new wave towered above him. "My Lord! Where did that one come from?"
The new wave hammered down on the heavy metal rocks and, for a moment, their music was drowned in its roar. Then, as the wave receded, the music made itself heard again.
Gwen came up behind Rod, touching his arm. "Husband mine… the music…"
"Yes," Rod said. "It has changed again."
"But can we call that a change?" Gwen murmured.
It was a good question. The music had the repetitive melodic line and metrical beat they had first heard, near Runny mede.
"Well, it's a change," Rod said, "but it seems as though that wave has washed everything new out of them. It's the same music as it was at first."
"No, wait." Gwen frowned. "I think…"
Rod waited, watching her closely.
Finally, Gwen shook her head. "What e'er it was, 'twas so slight that I could not distinguish it. For all that I can tell, 'tis as it first was."
"And so we end where we began." Rod caught her hand and turned away. "Come on—if the music can go back to its beginning, so can we."
"To the place where the music began?"
"Yes. Every time a rock split, we followed the northern pebble—and this is where it ends. Time to swing south. If this is the end, the beginning must be down there."
"There is sense to that." Gwen fell in beside him, but found a huge swell of peace and joy in her heart. To be walking with him, by the sea, was enough; she found she didn't really care whether or not they found what they were looking for.
"This rock music has a strange effect on me," Rod muttered.
"I am glad," Gwen murmured.
"How's that again?"
"Naught."
"Oh. Right." Rod's stride became more purposeful. "Yes. We do have to find the source of this rock music, you know."
"Oh, aye."
"That's right. The stones already around are all well enough, but we've got to choke off the source, before Gramarye is totally buried under rock."
"Yes," Gwen agreed, "we must."
And they went off south, hand in hand, with the sea and the sunset on their right, and a land of music on their left.
* * *
Far to the south, Magnus came wide awake. He frowned, looking about the clearing where they had camped for the night. The embers of the fire showed him the blanket-wrapped forms of his brothers and sister, and the bare outline of Fess, black against night, brooding over the scene.
What had wakened him?
"I heard him, too, Magnus," the great black horse assured him. "It is no dream."
But Magnus didn't even remember a dream of someone talking. Before he could ask, "What?" it came again, inside his head. Magnus. His father's voice.
Aye, Papa, he answered, watching his siblings.
We're on the way back now, Rod said. Where are you?
Some ways south and west of Runnymede, Papa, Magnus replied, and looked up at Fess with a question.
Ninety-eight miles southwest of Runnymede, Rod, Fess advised.
Right. We're about fifty miles northwest of you, Rod said. Should meet you in two days, but it could be tomorrow about noon. Should we rush?
Magnus looked at Fess again, then said, There is no need.
Good. See you tomorrow, then.
Papa, wait!
Yes, my son?
What hast thou found?
Some things that are very interesting, but nothing that seems to provide much information, Rod reported. Tell you all about it over dinner two nights from now.
Aye, Papa. Safe journey to you.
Godspeed. And he was gone.
Magnus lay down again, feeling rather disconcerted. But after all, at seventeen, he couldn't very well admit that he had felt reassured by even the mental presence of his father—now, could he? No, of course not. Not even to himself. Instead, he rolled up in his blankets and recited a koan. He fell asleep listening for the sound of one hand clapping.
Chapter Sixteen
The next evening, Gregory piped up, "I am hungry."
"Let it not trouble thee," Geoffrey advised. "It is but illusion."
"Illusion or not, you had best answer it with real food." Fess came to a halt, turning back to face them. "Or would you rather have an illusory dinner?"
"True substance, by choice." Geoffrey pressed a hand over his stomach. "Now that I bethink me of it, my little brother speaketh aright."
" 'Tis only past sunset, Geoffrey."
The boy shrugged. "I care not. I can be a-hungered at any hour."
"Yet thou didst dine but four hours agone."
"Aye, 'tis gone indeed." Geoffrey frowned around him. "There is sign of game hereabouts. Mayhap we should hunt down our dinner now."
"What," Magnus scoffed, "lose time for naught but an empty belly? Nay, where is thy soldier's fortitude?"
"It hath fled with the last of my dried beef," Geoffr
ey answered. "Naetheless, thou hast the right of it, brother—I must endure."
But Gregory' pointed to a column of smoke that stood against the sky. "Yon are folk. Mayhap they will have some victuals to sell."
They followed the path through the trees, till it opened out into a meadow. "Go warily, children," Fess cautioned. "Let us be sure they are friendly."
"As thou wilt." Cordelia sighed, and stepped through the last screen of leaves.
"It is certainly no village," Geoffrey said.
All over the meadow, young men and women were sitting up and shaking their heads, as though waking. They yawned, stretched, and put something in their mouths. A few were straggling down to a stream to drink and splash water on their faces; others were returning, far more sprightly than when they had left. Two others added sticks to a small tongue of flame, their movements quick, but so energetic that they sometimes nearly buried it.
"They are so gaunt!" Magnus said, unbelieving.
And they were—not emaciated, but devoid of any ounce of fat, pared down to stringy muscle. Their cheeks were hollow, their eyes too bright.
"The poor folk!" Geoffrey turned away, drawing a sling from a pouch at his waist. "Come, brothers! Let us find them meat!"
Fifteen minutes later, they approached the fire shoulder to shoulder, laden with squirrels, rabbits, and partridge.
The couple around the fire were chatting with each other, scarcely pausing for breath. They looked up, surprised; then the girl recoiled, face twisting in disugust. "Faugh! The poor beasts!"
"Aye." The young man frowned. "Wherefore didst thou slay them!"
They spoke so rapidly that the Gallowglasses could scarcely understand them.
"Why… why…" Geoffrey, his gift spurned, was at a loss.
"We have brought thee food," Magnus explained. "All thy folk do seem a-hungered."
The lad and lass stared at them in amazement. Then, abruptly, they burst into laughter—too loud, too hard.
"Why… wherefore…" Gregory looked around, perplexed.
"How ill-bred art thou!" Cordelia stormed at the couple. She threw her bundle of game down by the fire and set her hands on her hips. "To so laugh at those who seek to aid thee!"
But other young folk were gathering around now, and joining in the laughter.
"Be not offended, I prithee." A young man, perhaps a little less hard-faced than the others, choked back his laughter and smiled at them. "And your gift is welcome, for we must eat now and again, whether we wish to or no."
"Not wish to?" Geoffrey asked. "How is this? Wherefore wouldst thou not wish to eat?"
"Why, for that we have these." A girl who had once had a shapely figure held out a double handful of white pebbles. "Eat of one, and thou'It be no more a-hungered."
Geoffrey shied away, and Cordelia eyed the pebbles askance. "How now! Is not mistletoe a poison?"
"They are not mistletoe," another lad assured her, "but magic stones. What Greta offers thee are near to being the apples of Idun!"
"What, they that conferred eternal youth?" Magnus took up a pebble and inspected it narrowly. It had an unhealthy look somehow, a translucence that hinted at corruption just under the surface.
"Well, mayhap Tannin doth overspeak his case," the first youth allowed, "though when thou hast swallowed these stones, they fill thee with so great a sense of well-being that thou dost indeed feel as though thou wouldst ever be young."
"And end thine hunger," Greta asserted. "Thou wilt not wish to eat, and will be bursting with vigor."
"Here! Try!" Tarmin's hand shot out toward Magnus's mouth, a white pebble pinched between thumb and forefinger.
He almost punched Magnus in the nose, but Magnus recoiled just in time. "How now! I've no wish to eat of it!"
"Nor I," Geoffrey said, scowling about, "if it will waste me as much as it hath thy selves."
"Waste!" the first young man cried, offended. "Why, I am the picture of health!"
"He is!" another girl asserted. "Alonzo is the very portrait of robust young manhood!"
"Busted, mayhap," Geoffrey allowed. "I thank thee, but I'll not eat."
"Nay, thou wilt," Alonzo insisted. "What! Wilt thou thrust our gifts back in our faces?"
"We do not wish to offend," Magnus soothed, "but we will not eat."
"Why, how rude art thou!" Greta said, offended. "When we do but wish to share with thee. We would not be alone."
"Dost thou say that we do wrong to eat of them?" Tarmin demanded, glowering.
"Now that thou hast said it," Geoffrey replied, "aye."
"Then thou must needs partake of them," Alonzo stated. "We will not be wrong! Everybody must get stoned! Kindred! Catch and hold!"
And the circle closed in with a shout.
But a spirit screamed behind them, a huge black form towering out of the night above them, steel teeth flashing in the firelight, steel hooves flailing down.
The young folk screamed, terrified, and cowered before the night-demon—and the Gallowglasses ran through the gap toward Fess.
"Around me, and run!" the horse told them, and they shot past him, off into the night.
Alonzo shouted, seeing his prey escape, and leaped after them. Fess slammed his hooves down—he didn't have enough cause to really attack, but he could bar the way. Alonzo jarred into his steel side and reeled back, arms flailing, into Greta's embrace. The other young people raised a huge shout and, seeing that the demon was only a horse, leaped past it after the fleeing Gallowglasses.
"Where… to?" Gregory panted. Night had fallen, and he could not see.
"Over here, brother!" Geoffrey called. "There is a path!" He pounded away, taking the lead, his night-sight better than the others'.
"Fly," Cordelia called to her little brother, "or thou'lt be caught for weariness!"
"They will not." Magnus looked back over his shoulder. "Whence gained they such a store of strength, with so little meat upon them?"
"Do not ask, brother! Run!"
The leaders had yanked sticks out of the fire, pursuing them by torchlight. Magnus glanced back at the bobbing lights. "They come… closer," he panted. "Nay, find some way… to lose them! Or they'll… outrun us yet!"
"Into the wood!" Geoffrey called, and swerved in among the trees.
Behind them, a joyful shout split the air.
"They cheer with reason," Magnus cried. "We must go slowly here!"
"So must they," Geoffrey called back, "for I've spied a bog!"
The trees became more widely spaced, and between them some sort of sticky, mudlike substance roiled. Here and there, it puffed up into a bubble, sometimes of amazing dimensions, which finally popped and subsided into a sticky mess that closed off its own crater.
"The trees are all of one kind." Cordelia looked up about her. "What sort are they?"
"Gum, by the look of them," Magnus answered, "though 'tis too dark to see clearly."
Cordelia turned back to the business at hand. "How shall we cross?"
"There are stepping stones!" Geoffrey called. "Step where I step!"
They hopped across the bog, the boys levitating, ready to dash to catch their sister on the instant. But she sprang from rock to rock, more sure-footed than any of them.
Behind them, the mob came up against the sticky substance and jarred to a halt, one step from the mire.
"They stop," Cordelia cried. "They'll have none of this bog!"
"Small wonder." Magnus wrinkled his nose at the sickly sweet smell that rose from the bursting bubbles. "What manner of mud is this, that is pink?"
"Mayhap 'tis not its true color," Geoffrey called back. "We see by starlight, look you."
"I look," Magnus answered, "and I hear, and wish I did not."
The air about them was filled with soft rock music, perhaps softer than ever. Certainly the melodic line was simpler, varying only by a few notes, repeating over and over.
"I find it pleasant," Gregory said, smiling.
"Aye," Cordelia puffed, "but I'll wa
rrant thou dost find the scent of this bog to thy liking, also."
"Why, so I do. How couldst thou know?"
"Because thou alone among us art still young enough to be truly a child, brother, and children do ever like sweetness."
"What, will I one day dislike it?" Gregory asked in surprise.
"Belike," Magnus admitted. "I find I have come to have a liking for sharper flavors."
"Then why dost thou not like the music we have heard?"
"I do find some of it suiting my taste," Magnus admitted.
"Safe ground!" Geoffrey cried, with one last bound. He climbed up the bank several paces and sank down to rest. "That was trying. Rest, my sibs, but not o'erlong."
"Aye." Cordelia joined him. "Those lean ones may yet find their way around this bog."
"But what of Fess?"
Geoffrey looked up at a slight sound. "He comes—or trouble doth."
"I am not trouble, Geoffrey." The great black horse shouldered out of the night. "As you guessed, however, your pursuers are coming around the bog; there is a trail, and they know their way."
" Tis their country." Magnus pushed himself to his feet with a groan. "Come, my sibs! The chase is on!"
They dodged around tree trunks and did their best to avoid thorns. "Is there truly a trail, Geoffrey?" Magnus called.
"Not truly, no. There is a game track that I follow."
"It should lead us to a larger." Cordelia looked back with apprehension; jarring music echoed in the distance behind them, with faint but enthusiastic shouting. "Find it quickly, I prithee! They gain!"
"We must fly, then," Magnus said, tight-lipped, "and 'tis dangerous enough in a daytime forest, let alone one benighted."
"Not so," Geoffrey called as he broke through some underbrush. "Here is a pathway!"
"Then we can run," Cordelia panted. She followed Geoffrey through the gap and began to sprint down the pathway. Magnus and Gregory followed, the younger boy gliding an inch off the ground, keeping pace with Cordelia.
Behind them, a huge crash announced their pursuers' breaking in upon the path. A whoop filled the air behind them, then the thunder of pounding feet.
"They follow," Magnus panted. "Run!"
The Warlock Rock Page 14
