“I did not say he had not been born,” Agatha hedged. She stared at the bouncing fruit, her gaze sharpening. “Yet I ha’ ne’er been able to see my son aforetimes.”
“Then, how come Magnus can?” Rod frowned.
“Why, ‘tis plainly seen! Thy son is clearly gifted with more magical powers than am I myself!”
Rod locked gazes with Gwen. Agatha was the most powerful old witch in Gramarye.
He turned back to Agatha. “Okay, so Magnus is one heck of a telepath. But he can’t see a body if there’s none there to see.”
“My son ha’ told me that he did have a body aforetime,” Agatha said slowly. “ ‘Twould seem that he doth send outward from himself his memory of his body’s appearance.”
“A projective telepath,” Rod said slowly. “Not a very strong one, maybe, but a projective. Also apparently a telekinetic. But I thought that was a sex-linked trait…”
Agatha shrugged. “Who can tell what the spirit may do when it’s far from its body?”
“Yes—his body,” Rod said softly, eyes locked on the point where the fruit bounced back toward Magnus. “Just where is this body he remembers?”
Agatha sighed and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and resting her head against the high back. “Thou dost trouble me, Lord Warlock; for I cannot understand these matters that Harold doth speak of.”
“Well, maybe Gwen can.” Rod turned to his wife. “Dear?”
But Gwen shook her head. “Nay, my lord. I cannot hear Harold’s thoughts.”
Rod just stared at her.
Then he gave himself a shake and sat up straighter. “Odd.” He turned back to Agatha. “Any idea why you should be able to hear him, when Gwen can’t?”
“Why, because I am his mother.” Agatha smiled sourly.
Rod gazed at her, wondering if there was something he didn’t know. Finally, he decided to take the chance. “I didn’t know you’d ever borne children.”
“Nay, I have not—though I did yearn for them.”
Rod gazed at her while his thoughts raced, trying to figure out how she could be barren and still bear a son. He began to build an hypothesis. “So,” he said carefully, “how did you come by Harold?”
“I did not.” Her eyes flashed. “He came to me. ‘Tis even as he doth say—he is my son, and old Galen’s.”
“But, Galen…”
“Aye, I know.” Agatha’s lips tightened in bitterness. “He is the son that Galen and I ought to have had, but did not, for reason that we ne’er have come close enough to even touch.”
“Well, I hate to say this—but… uh…” Rod scratched behind his ear, looking at the floor. He forced his eyes up to meet Agatha’s. “It’s, uh, very difficult to conceive a baby if, uh, you never come within five feet of one another.”
“Is’t truly!” Agatha said with withering scorn. “Yet, e’en so, my son Harold doth say that Galen did meet me, court me, and wed me—and that, in time, I did bear him a son, which is Harold.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“The depth of thy perception doth amaze me,” Agatha said drily. “Yet Har-old is here, and this is his tale. Nay, further—he doth say that Galen and I reared him, and were ever together, and much a-love.” Her gaze drifted, eyes misting, and he could scarcely hear her murmur: “Even as I was used to dream, in the days of my youth…”
Rod held his silence. Behind him, Gwen watched, her eyes huge.
Eventually, Agatha’s attention drifted back to them. She reared her head up to glare at Rod indignantly. “Canst thou truly say there is no sense to that? If his body has not been made as it should have been, canst thou be amazed to find his spirit here, uncloaked in flesh?”
“Well, yes, now that you mention it.” Rod leaned back in his chair. “Because, if his body was never made—where did his spirit come from?”
“There I can thresh no sense from it,” Agatha admitted. “Harold doth say that, when grown, he did go for a soldier. He fought, and bled, and came away, and this not once, but a score of times—and rose in rank to captain. Then, in his final battle, he did take a grievous wound, and could only creep away to shelter in a nearby cave. There he lay him down and fell into a swoon—and lies there yet, in a slumber like to death. His body lies like a waxen effigy—and his spirit did drift loose from it. Yet could it not begin that last adventure, to strive and toil its way to Heaven…” She shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut. “And how he could be eager for such a quest is more than I can tell. Yet indeed he was”—she looked back up at Rod, frowning—“yet could he not; for though his body lay in a sleep like unto death, yet ‘twas not death—no, not quite. Nor could the spirit wake that body neither.”
“A coma.” Rod nodded. “But let it alone long enough, and the body’ll die from sheer starvation.”
Agatha shrugged impatiently. “He’s too impatient. Nay, he would not wait; his spirit did spring out into the void, and wandered eons in a place of chaos—until it found me here.” She shook her head in confusion. “I do not understand how aught of that may be.”
“A void…” Rod nodded his head slowly.
Agatha’s head lifted. “The phrase holds meaning for thee?”
“It kind of reminds me of something I heard of in a poem—‘the wind that blows between the worlds.’ I always did picture it as a realm of chaos…”
Agatha nodded judiciously. “That hath the ring of rightness to it…”
“That means he came from another universe.”
Agatha’s head snapped up, her nostrils flaring. “Another universe? What tale of cock-and-bull is this, Lord Warlock? There is only this world of ours, with sun and moons and stars. That is the universe. How could there be another?”
But Rod shook his head. “ ‘How’ is beyond my knowledge—but the, uh, ‘wise men’ of my, uh, homeland, seem to pretty much agree that there could be other universes. Anyway, they can’t prove there aren’t. In fact, they say there may be an infinity of other universes—and if there are, then there must also be universes that are almost exactly like ours, even to the point of having—well—another Agatha, and another Galen. Exactly like yourselves. But their lives took—well, a different course.”
“Indeed they did.” Agatha’s eyes glowed.
“But, if Harold’s spirit went looking for help—why didn’t it find the Agatha in that other universe?”
“Because she lay dead.” Agatha’s gaze bored into Rod’s eyes. “She had died untimely, of a fever. So had her husband. Therefore did Harold seek out through the void, and was filled with joy when he did find me—though at first he was afeard that I might be a ghost.”
Rod nodded slowly. “It makes sense. He was looking for help, and he recog-nized a thought-pattern that he’d known in his childhood. Of course he’d home in on you… Y’know, that almost makes it all hang together.”
“I’ truth, it doth.” Agatha began to smile. “I ne’er could comprehend this brew of thoughts that Harold tossed to me; yet what thou sayest doth find a place for each part of it, and fits it all together, like to the pieces of a puzzle.” She began to nod. “Aye. I will believe it. Thou hast, at last, after a score of years, made sense of this for me.” Suddenly, she frowned. “Yet his soul is here, not bound for Heaven, for reason that his body lies in sleeping death. How could it thus endure, after twenty years?”
Rod shook his head. “Hasn’t been twenty years—not in the universe he came from. Time could move more slowly there than it does here. Also, the universes are probably curved—so, where on that curve he entered our universe could de-termine what time, what year, it was. More to the point, he could reenter his own universe just a few minutes after his body went into its coma.”
But Agatha had bowed her head, eyes closed, and was waving in surrender. “Nay, Lord Warlock! Hold, I prithee! I cannot ken thine explanations! ‘Twill sat-isfy me, that thou dost.”
“Well, I can’t be sure,” Rod hedged. ”Not about the why of it, at least. But I can see how
it fits in with my hypothesis.”
“What manner of spell is that?”
“Only a weak one, till it’s proved. Then it becomes a theory, which is much more powerful indeed. But for Harold, the important point is that he needs to either kill his body, so he can try for Heaven—or cure it and get his spirit back into it.”
“Cure it!” Agatha’s glare could have turned a blue whale into a minnow. “Heal him or do naught! I would miss him sorely when his spirit’s gone to its rightful place and time—but, I will own, it must be done. Still, I’d rather know that he’s alive!”
“Well, I wasn’t really considering the alternative.” Rod gazed off into space, his lips pursed.
Agatha saw the look in his eyes and gave him a leery glance. “I mistrust thee, Lord Warlock, when thou dost look so fey.”
“Oh, I’m just thinking of Harold’s welfare. Uh, after the battle—a while after, when I was there and you’d recovered a bit—didn’t I see you helping the wounded? You know, by holding their wounds shut and telling them to think hard and believe they were well?‘’
“Indeed she did.” Gwen smiled. “Though ‘tis somewhat more than that, hus-band. Thou must needs think at the wound thyself, the whiles the wounded one doth strive to believe himself well; for the separate bits of meat and fat must be welded back together—which thou canst do by making them move amongst one another with thy mind.”
“You can, maybe.” Inwardly, Rod shuddered. All he needed was for his wife to come up with one more major power—all corollaries of telekinesis, of course; but the number of her variations on the theme was stupefying.
He turned back to Agatha. “Uh—did you think up this kind of healing your-self?”
“Aye. I am the only one, as far as I can tell—save thy wife, now that I’ve taught her.” Agatha frowned, brooding. “I came to the knowing of it in despair, after I’d thrown aside a lad who sought to hurt me…”
Rod had to cut off that kind of train of thought; the last thing he wanted was for Agatha to remember her hurts. “So. You can help someone ‘think’ themselves well—telekinesis on the cellular level.”
Agatha shook her head, irritated. “I cannot tell thy meaning, with these weird terms of thine—‘tele-kine’? What is that—a cow that ranges far?”
“Not quite, though I intend to milk it for all it’s worth.” Rod grinned. “Y’know, when we were at Galen’s place, he told me a little about his current line of research.”
Agatha snorted and turned away. “ ‘Researches?’ Aye—he will ever seek to dignify his idle waste of hours by profound words.”
“Maybe, but I think there might be something to it. He was trying to figure out how the brain itself, that lumpy blob of protoplasm, can create this magic thing called ‘thought.’ ”
“Aye, I mind me an he mentioned some such nonsense,” Agatha grated. “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing, really.” Rod stood up, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “I was just thinking, maybe we oughta go pay him another visit.”
The dark tower loomed before them, then suddenly tilted alarmingly to the side. Rod swallowed hard and held on for dear life; it was the first time he’d ever ridden pillion on a broomstick. “Uh, dear—would you try to swoop a little less sharply? I’m, uh, still trying to get used to this…”
“Oh! Certes, my lord!” Gwen looked back over her shoulder, instantly con-trite. “Be sure, I did not wish to afright thee.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I was frightened…”
“Wouldst thou not?” Gwen looked back at him again, wide-eyed in surprise.
“Watch where you’re going!” Rod yelped.
Gwen turned her eyes back to the front as her broomstick drifted sideways to avoid a treetop. “Milord,” she chided, “I knew it was there.”
“I’m glad somebody did,” Rod sighed. “I’m beginning to think I should’ve gone horseback after all—even though it would’ve been slower.”
“Courage, now.” Gwen’s voice oozed sympathy. “We must circle this Dark Tower.”
Rod took a deep breath and squeezed the shaft.
The broomstick began to swing around the tower, following Agatha’s swoop ahead of them. Rod’s stomach lurched once before he forgot it, staring in amazement at the Tower. They were sixty feet up, but it soared above them, a hundred feet high and thirty wide, the top corrugated in battlements. Altogether, it was an awesome mass of funereal basalt. Here and there, arrow-slits pierced the stones—windows three feet high, but only one foot wide.
“I wouldn’t like to see his candle bill,” Rod grunted. “How do you get in?”
The whole bottom half of the Dark Tower reared unbroken and impregnable, pierced by not so much as a single loophole.
“There has to be a door.”
“Wherefore?” Gwen countered. “Thou dost forget that warlocks do fly.”
“Oh.” Red frowned. “Yeah, I did kinda forget that, didn’t I? Still, I don’t see how he gets in; those loopholes are mighty skinny.”
“Yonder.” Gwen nodded toward the top of the Tower, and her broomstick reared up.
Rod gasped and clung for dear life. “He would have to have a heliport!”
Agatha circled down over the battlements and brought her broomstick to a stop in the center of the roof. She hopped off nimbly; Gwen followed suit. Rod disentangled himself from the broom straws and planted his feet wide apart on the roof, grabbing the nearest merlon to steady himself while he waited for the floor to stop tilting.
“Surely, ‘twas not so horrible as that.” Gwen tried to hide a smile of amuse-ment.
“I’ll get used to it,” Rod growled. Privately, he planned not to have the chance to. “Now.” He took a deep breath, screwed up his courage, and stepped forward. The stones seemed to tilt only slightly, so he squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and took another step. “Okay. Where’s the door?”
“Yonder.” Agatha pointed.
Right next to a merlon and its crenel, a trapdoor was set flush with the roof. Rod stepped over to it—carefully—and frowned down, scanning the rough planks. “I don’t see a doorknob.”
“Why would there be one?” Agatha said beside him. “Who would come up here, other than the ancient cockerel himself? And when he doth, I doubt not he doth ope’ this panel from below.”
“And just leaves it open? What does he do about rain?”
Agatha shook her head. “I misdoubt me an he would come up during foul weather.”
“True,” Rod said judiciously. “He probably only comes up to stargaze—so why bother, when there aren’t any stars?”
He drew his dagger and dropped to one knee. “Gotta be careful about this—it’s good steel, but it could break.” He jabbed the tip into the wood and heaved up. The trap rose an inch; he kicked his toe against it to hold it, pulled the dagger out, and dropped it, then caught the wood with his fingertips and heaved again—with a whine of pain; the maneuver certainly didn’t do his manicure any good. But he hauled it up enough to get his boot-toe under, then caught it with his fingers properly and swung it open. “Whew! So much for basic breaking-and-entering!”
“Well done!” Agatha said, mildly surprised.
“Not exactly what I’d call a major effort.” Rod dusted off his hands.
“Nor needful,” the old witch reminded him. “Either thy wife or myself could ha’ made it rise of its own.”
“Oh.” Rod began to realize that, with very little persuasion, he could learn to hate this old biddy. In an attempt to be tactful, he changed the subject. “Y’know, in a culture where so many people can fly, you’d think he’d’ve thought to use a lock.”
At his side, Gwen shook her head. “Few of the witchfolk would even dare to come here, my lord. Such is his reputation.”
That definitely was not the kind of line to inspire confidence in a hopeful burglar. Rod took a deep breath, stiffened his muscles to contain a certain flutter-ing in the pit of his stomach, and started down the stairs. “Yes
. Well—I suppose we really should have knocked…” But his head was already below the level of the roof.
The stairs turned sharply and became very dark. Rod halted; Agatha bumped into his back. “Mmmmf! Wilt thou not give warning when thou’rt about to halt thy progress, Lord Warlock?”
“I’ll try to remember next time. Darling, would you mind? It’s a little dark down here.‘’
“Aye, my lord.” A ball of luminescence glowed to life on Gwen’s palm. She brushed past him—definitely too quickly for his liking—and took up the lead, her will-o’-the-wisp lighting the stairway.
At the bottom, dark fabric barred their way—curtains overlapping to close out drafts. They pushed through and found themselves in a circular chamber lit by two arrow-slits. Gwen extinguished her fox fire, which darkened the chamber; outside, the sky was overcast, and only gray light alleviated the gloom. But it was enough to show them the circular worktable that ran all the way around the circumference of the room, and the tall shelf-cases that lined the walls behind the tables. The shelves were crammed with jars and boxes exuding a mixture of scents ranging from spicy to sour; and the tables were crowded with alembics, crucibles, mortars with pestles, and beakers.
Agatha wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Alchemy!”
Rod nodded in slow approval. “Looks as though the old geezer has a little more intellectual integrity than I gave him credit for.”
“Thou canst not mean thou dost condone the Black Arts!” Agatha cried.
“No, and neither does Galen, apparently. He’s not satisfied with knowing that something works—he wants to know why, too.”
“Is’t not enough to say that devils do it?”
Rod’s mouth tightened in disgust. “That’s avoiding the question, not answer-ing it.”
Glass tinkled behind him. He spun about.
A jar floated above an alembic, pouring a thin stream of greenish liquid into it. As Rod watched, the cover sank back onto the jar and tightened in a half-turn as the jar righted itself, then drifted back up onto a shelf.
“Harold!” Agatha warned. “Let be; these stuffs are not thine.”
King Kobold Revived Page 19
