The Spell-Bound Scholar

by Christopher Stasheff

  Allouette made no apologies but was silent for the rest of the meal, and very thoughtful.

  When she was done, she joined him in scouring their bowls and spoons, then said, "I am most amazingly wearied."

  "Scarcely amazing," Gregory said. "You may have slept a night and a day, but that sleep was filled with a year's effort."

  Allouette blinked in surprise. "That long?" Then, quickly, "Also, my head throbs with an ache. I shall lay me down to sleep, an it please you."

  "Do so, of course," Gregory said. "I shall keep watch."

  As usual, Allouette thought, but did not say it. He was perfectly understanding, which irritated her, but she knew that resentment was irrational and lay down on her bed of bracken. She had been lying about the headache, but she had been quite truthful about exhaustion and felt her eyes closing almost of their own accord. At the last second, though, she saw Gregory settling into his trance, sitting cross-legged, hands on his knees, gazing off into the forest, seeing more of his inner landscape than the outer. Resentment sparked again and she determined to learn how he did it.

  But not now. Now all she cared was that the warm darkness beckoned, and for a few hours at least, she did not have to worry about the cares and struggles of life.

  He still sat unmoving when the birds woke her. Somehow that bothered her. She stretched, stretched her whole body as sensuously as possible, but he reacted no more than any wood. She considered trying to wake him from his trance by tickles and husky words, then realized why the thought had come—she was still convinced that only sexuality could gain a man's attention. She scolded herself—she did not really need attention, and certainly not the kind that her well-

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  practiced allure would bring. Still, she found Gregory's meditation insulting, for he seemed to ignore her.

  A dilemma, and a pretty one. She wished his attention, but not as the result of her erotic projection. How could she achieve it?

  Fight fire with fire, of course. If he would ignore her, she would ignore him—but for just as good a reason. She decided that she should study his form of meditation. Besides, sharing his trance might win his attention when nothing else did.

  Ridiculous! she told herself. How can he pay attention to you when that trance ignores the whole world?

  Still, it was an idea worth developing. She set about fanning the coals and setting the kettle over the fire to boil.

  These signs of morning and waking cued Gregory to rouse from his trance when her self-display had not; he began to stir, a turn of the wrist here, a deeper breath there, then rose slowly, stretching and inhaling the aroma of the morning. Then he looked down at Allouette with a smile. "Good morrow."

  "Good day," she returned. "You must teach me how to do that."

  "What?" Gregory asked, staring. "To stretch? But you know that already."

  So he had noticed. With a little self-satisfied smile, she said, "Yes, but I do not know your trick of waking sleep. How do you do it?"

  Gregory sat down and began to tell her. She frowned with skepticism but attempted the first stage of meditation, sitting cross-legged with back straight and hands in her lap. She was amazed to find a feeling of tranquillity stealing over her as her breathing slowed and her pulse began to beat in her ears. The forest before her eyes began to seem removed, as though it were something seen through a thick pane of glass.

  "Rise, now," Gregory said softly. "A step a day is enough. It is best learned slowly."

  Her heart began to beat more quickly, her breathing grew deeper and faster, and the world became closer, more immediate. She felt the transition back to her ordinary state very clearly and turned to stare at Gregory. "Amazing!"

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  Gregory nodded, smiling, eyes glowing. "It is no mere trick."

  "No, I can see that." Allouette turned away, a little shaken because she realized the implication: The trance could increase the effectiveness of her psi powers amazingly. Even more remarkably, she realized that she could still be totally aware and prepared to defend herself. "Will I remain cognizant of the real world if I learn the deeper trance?''

  "You will," Gregory assured her, "but it must be learned slowly, for it requires skill as well as knowledge. Also, there are dangers on that road; you must learn it from someone who has travelled it already."

  She gave him an arch glance. "Whom did you have in mind?"

  Gregory only smiled in answer and explained, "You shall have to practice."

  She did. As the days passed and her trances deepened, she was amazed to discover how much she noticed that she had never registered before, even beginning to understand ecological interactions—then began to see parallels between them and the ways in which people related to one another. Little by little she began to suspect the existence of something greater than individual human beings, perhaps even greater than political organizations.

  But that came slowly, over weeks. For the rest of that day she helped break camp and rode on into the forest with Gregory.

  They spoke with one another now and then as they rode, until Allouette grew bored, gave in to habit and temptation, and began to work double entendres into the conversation in hopes of seeing Gregory blush. Instead, he turned the topic to the ribald deeds of the old Greek gods and soon had her laughing at the variety of their liaisons with mortals.

  Thus in high good humor, they rode out of the forest to see a large house before them, and behind it, a castle on a hill. As they came closer, though, they saw two mounted men come riding around the side of the house, driving a woman and children before them.

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  "How dare they!" Allouette exploded. "Will the government never cease exploiting the weak?"

  "If that woman lived in that house, I think she may be more a member of what you call the government than one of the downtrodden," Gregory said. "See—her gown is damask, and her children wear good leather boots, not peasants* buskins."

  "No matter what they wear, she is oppressed at this moment! What, sir, will you see her suffer and not raise a hand to defend her?"

  One of the soldiers swung his arm up for a backhanded slap at the woman. Allouette cried out in anger and kicked her horse into a canter, shouting, "Now I bid you holdV

  The man's arm froze in midair. He looked up at it in alarm; then his face twisted with effort, but his arm stayed high.

  Smiling, eyes glowing, Gregory rode after Allouette. If this were not a test of her newfound love of virtue, nothing would be.

  Allouette cantered past the soldier, snatching his pike from his nerveless hand. "Flee, woman!" Then she turned her horse and walked it in until the point touched the man's throat.

  His comrade shouted and spurred his horse, reaching out to yank Allouette off her mount—but a fat blue spark jumped from her shoulder to his hand. He shrieked and reined in, blowing on his fingers.

  Allouette gave Gregory an angry glance. "I shall fight my own battles, thank you." Only a glance; she kept her gaze fixed on the first soldier.

  "Witch!" the second soldier howled.

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  "Aye, and one too hot for you."

  With a yell, a third soldier came riding around the corner of the house, lowering his pike. Allouette spared him one disgusted glance, and the pike wilted. He swerved wide around her, staring at the limp pole.

  "You had best begone ere other staves turn incapable of stiffness," Allouette told him.

  All three soldiers stared at her in horror, then turned their horses and rode. A hundred feet away, the one with the elevated arm pulled up and turned to call, "We shall be back with a dozen more behind us!"

  "It had better be a score," Allouette informed him, and his arm jerked straight up in the air. He shouted with pain, then the limb went limp. He raised his hand, staring in amazement as he rippled his fingers.

  "Aye, as good as ever," Allouette called. "If you wish to keep it that way, wait till I have gone
before you come this way again."

  The soldier blanched and kicked his horse into a gallop, riding hard after his mates.

  Allouette watched them go with a curled lip, then turned back to Gregory. "Where went our wounded bird?"

  Gregory nodded toward the forest. "In among the leaves. That was quite well done, beauteous lady."

  "It was not," Allouette said, riding past him toward the woods. "I have had too much practice at that sort of thing." She wondered at his compliment, though.

  She drew up near the underbrush. "Come forth, dame. None shall hurt you now. Come forth, and tell us the reason for this bullying."

  She heard a child crying and the mother's lulling voice; then the woman came out, clutching a child against each leg, and Allouette saw that Gregory had been right: Her clothing marked her as a gentlewoman, the wife of a squire at least and perhaps of a knight.

  "I thank you for your protection, kind lady." But the woman looked rather nervous, knowing she was addressing a witch.

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  "It is gladly given," Allouette told her. "I have many debts to pay, and this is a beginning."

  "Debts!" the woman's face crumpled. "I, too, have many debts and cannot pay them! Alas, if my Herschel had only lived!"

  "Your husband?" Allouette frowned. "That is why you lost this house?"

  "Indeed," the woman acknowledged. "I am Nora—Nora Musgrave, kind lady."

  "Then your husband was Squire Musgrave."

  "Indeed. He left us a little money, but it lasted only a month. Sir Hector was patient, he allowed us six months, but when we could not pay the rent, he appointed a new squire and sent his soldiers to rid the house of us."

  "Poor dame!" Allouette said, and was about to launch into a diatribe against the wealthy when Gregory came up beside her, saying, ' 'Then if you could pay, he might let you have back your house?"

  "What matter?" the mother lamented. "We have no money, nor any prospect of it! My husband's father hid a small fortune somewhere on the land and on his deathbed told Herschel where to find it, but what use is that?"

  "Did not your husband tell you where it was?" Allouette demanded, seething.

  "Aye—that it is buried at the top of the shadow the old oak cast on Midsummer's Eve." She turned, pointing to a broad, low stump. "There it stands, or what is left of it. Since we had no need of money at the time, Herschel thought it best to let the treasure lie—but lightning struck that tree a month later and he despaired of discovering where its shadow might have fallen. Mind you, he probed the earth all about the stump, but found nothing."

  "A buried treasure?" Allouette frowned at the stump. "Wizard, have you any skill as a douser?"

  The children looked up at Gregory in alarm and huddled against their mother, who clutched them tight, staring at the wizard with wide and frightened eyes.

  "Stuff and nonsense!" Allouette told them. "A wizard is

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  a blessing if he is on your side. How say you, man of magic?"

  Gregory shook his head. "I could cast such a spell, but it would be quicker to calculate the lay of the shadow."

  "Calculate?" Allouette turned to him, brow furrowed. "How would you do that? Pythagoras's theorem? But we know not the length of any side!"

  "True." Gregory smiled at her, eyes glowing. "But as you have seen, the tree and its shadow form two legs of a triangle. If we can learn its height and the position of the sun on Midsummer's Eve, we can learn the angle of the line between the top of the tree and the top of the shadow."

  "By what method?"

  "The answer," Gregory said, "lies in geometry."

  "Geometry? What is that?"

  Gregory's eyes widened in surprise. "You know algebra but do not know geometry?"

  "Have I not but now said it?" Allouette demanded. "You know for which tasks I was trained. They did not require geometry."

  "I shall demonstrate it, then, if we can discover where the sun rose on Midsummer's Eve."

  "I can tell you that, sir," Dame Musgrave said. "Herschel remarked upon it every year, for it reminded him of the treasure he could no longer find."

  "Where, then?" Gregory asked, too mildly. Allouette glanced at him, recognizing the sign of interest. She could not blame him; the puzzle intrigued her, too.

  "Yon." Dame Musgrave pointed. "Just over the northern tower of the gatehouse."

  Gregory gazed at the structure, pursing his lips. "Good, good. Now for the height of the tree."

  "Let us measure the thickness of the stump," Allouette suggested, "then find three other oaks of the same thickness and learn their heights."

  "Figure the average?" Gregory nodded, smiling with pleasure. "That will give us a good estimate of the old oak's height. Come, let us set about it!"

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  Allouette soon had the average height of three forty-inch-thick oaks.

  Gregory said, "We must wait until the sun is even with the top of the tower."

  "Wherefore?" Allouette demanded.

  "So that we may discover the length of a shadow at that hour," Gregory said.

  Allouette's expression said that she did not understand. Then suddenly it cleared. "The sun will be at the same angle as it is on Midsummer's Eve, and will cast the same length of shadow!"

  "That is it." Gregory nodded vigorously. "Then we have only to strike the path it would have traced on Midsummer's Eve—unless we wish to wait a week and see."

  "I shall manage with the estimate, thank you."

  They had not long to wait, only a quarter of an hour. When the sun was level with the top of the tower, Gregory looked down at his shadow and asked, "How long is it?"

  Allouette gave him an odd look but stepped off the length of his shadow, heel to toe. "Nine feet."

  "I am just six feet tall," Gregory told her. "How tall is your average oak?"

  "Sixty-four feet." She smiled, eyes bright. "If a six-foot-tall man casts a shadow nine feet long, a sixty-four-foot oak would cast a shadow ninety-six feet long."

  "Well calculated, and instantly!"

  Gregory thrilled to know she was learning the concepts so quickly and thoroughly. He sketched out the problem so that Allouette could calculate the angle of the evening sun from her average oak height, then the location of the fallen tree's shadow. She jumped to her feet, pink with excitement. "Come, wizard! We must discover if we have calculated aright!"

  Gregory rose and hurried after her, protesting, "Do not expect too much. We only knew the average height, after all. We may need to probe ten square yards to find it."

  "Ten square yards instead of an acre?" Allouette called back over her shoulder. "A good bargain indeed!"

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  The widow followed with her children, wide-eyed and wondering.

  Allouette whirled at the tree stump, setting the back of her heel against it, then paced off the distance and stopped, pointing at the ground. "There! Will you move the earth, wizard, or shall I?"

  "You may have the honor of the first excavation," Gregory said with a smile. "If you tire, I shall take it up."

  Allouette gave him a strange little frown as though wondering if he were mocking her, but turned to glare at the earth. It burst into a fountain of loam, dirt shooting up into the air in a tightly controlled spray that fell neatly to the north in a growing mound.

  The children cried out in fear and clung to their mother, who, sadly, was in little better condition than they.

  The last scatter of dirt fell on the heap, and Allouette scowled down. "Three feet. That should be enough."

  "Should." Gregory looked down into a neat cylinder a foot in diameter. "Let us widen it to three feet."

  She eyed him askance, wondering if that was really admiration in his voice. "It took small enough skill, you know."

  "I know just the opposite. Nevertheless, stand away from the spray and let us see if I can perform in as tidy a fashion as yourself."

>   Allouette stepped back beside him and the earth erupted again, as though a giant mole were trying to claw his way back into his lightless home. It rose in a nearly solid column for minutes as Gregory stared at it with a knit brow, digging by telekinesis and trying to equal Allouette's skill. Abruptly he relaxed and the flow stopped. "Boy," he said to the widow's eldest, "go look in that hole and tell me what you see."

  The lad glanced up at his mother for reassurance, but she took firm hold of his hand, took his sib's too, and went with him. All three of them peered down into the excavation—a very ragged circle, to Gregory's chagrin—and exclaimed with wonder.

  "I see a chest, sir!" the lad cried. " 'Tis a wooden chest,

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  banded with brass and fastened with a huge lock."

  Allouette gave a shriek of joy and threw her arms around Gregory in triumph. "We have found it!"

  He stood rigid for a moment, wondering what Geoffrey would have done in this situation, then clasped his arms around her waist and whirled her about, grinning. "You have calculated marvelously."

  "Liar!" She pushed away from him but looked up with glowing eyes. "It is you who did the calculations, but I shall be able to when next I need. ... Ho! Leave be! It is too heavy for you!"

  Turning, Gregory saw the eldest boy standing in the hole, heaving at the little chest. He grinned and stepped over to the lad. "Is it so weighty, then? That is good news. Let me help."

  The boy gave a shout of fright as the box floated upward in his grip. He let go as if it were hot metal, but it kept on rising of its own accord—or Gregory's.

  He let it float to the ground. "Dame Musgrave, have you the key?"

  "That, at least, my husband did leave me." The widow came forward, pulling out a key and fitting it to the lock. She tried to turn it and frowned with the effort. "It moves, but scarcely."

  "It has lain long in the damp with no oil," Gregory explained, then turned to Allouette. "Will you aid?"

  "Why not you?" Allouette retorted. "I have never seen a telekinetic warlock before. Surely you can manage!"

  "My father seems to have had a skill Gramarye telepaths lack," Gregory acknowledged, "but you seem to have it in greater measure than I—or at least have it under greater control."