The Warlock in Spite of Himself wisoh-2 Read online

  "What is Terran?" the big man growled.

  "A dream," Rod sighed, "and a myth."

  "Are you one man who lives by it, master?"

  Rod looked up, startled. "What? The dream of Terra?"

  "No, this dialec—what magic didst thou term it?"

  "What, dialectical materialism?" Rod grinned. "No, but I find some of its concepts very handy, like the idea of a synthesis. Do you know what a synthesis is,To*n?"

  "Nay, master." Tom shook his head, eyes round in wonder.

  The wonder, at least, was probably real. The last thing Big Tom could have looked for was Rod to start quoting a totalitarian philosphy.

  "It's the middle way," Rod said. "The right-hand side of the road is the thesis, and the left-hand side is the antithesis. Combine them, and you get a synthesis."

  "Aye," Big Tom nodded.

  Pretty quick thinking for a dumb peasant, Rod noted. He went on, "The thesis and antithesis are both partly false; so you throw away the false parts, combine the true parts—take the best of both of them—call the result a synthesis, and you've got the truth. See?"

  Tom's eyes took on a guarded look. He began to see where Rod was going.

  "And the synthesis is the middle of the road. And, being true, it's naturally uncomfortable."

  He looked up; the east tower loomed over them. They stood in its shadow. "Well, enough philosophizing. Let's get to work."

  "Pray Heaven the banshee come not upon us!" Big Tom moaned.

  "Don't worry; it only shows up once a day, in the evening, to predict death within twenty-four hours," Rod said. "It's not due again till tomorrow evening."

  There was a sudden scrabbling in the shadows. Big Tom leaped back, a knife suddenly in his hand. "The banshee!"

  Rod's blade was out too, his eyes probing the shadows. They locked with two fiery dots at the base of the tower wall.

  Rod stepped out in a crouch, knife flickering back and forth from left hand to right. "Declare youself," he chanted, "or die."

  A squeal and a skitter, and a huge rat dashed away past him, to lose itself in the shadows near the inner wall.

  Big Tom almost collapsed with a sigh. "Saints preserve us! 'Twas only a rat."

  "Yes." Rod tried to hide the trembling of his own hands as his knife went back to its sheath. "There seem to be a lot of rats in the walls of this castle."

  Big Tom straightened again, wary and off his guard.

  "But I saw something as that rat ran by me…" Rod's voice trailed away as he knelt by the outer wall, running his hands lightly over the stone. "There!"

  "What is it, master?" Big Tom's garlic breath fanned Rod's cheek.

  Rod took the big man's hand and set it against his find. Tom drew in a shuddering breath and yanked his hand away.

  " 'Tis cold," his voice quavered, "cold and square, and—it bit me!"

  "Bit you?" Rod frowned and ran his fingers over the metal box. He felt the stab of a mild electric shock and jerked his fingers away. Whoever had wired this gadget must have been the rankest of amateurs. It wasn't even grounded properly.

  The box was easy to see once you knew where to look for it. It was white metal, about eight inches on a side, two inches deep, recessed so that its front and top were flush with the stone, halfway between two of the crennelations.

  But come to think of it, that faulty grounding might have been intentional, to keep people from tampering.

  Rod drew his dagger, glad of the insulation provided by the leather hilt. Carefully, he pried open the front of the box.

  He could make out the silvery worm-trails of the printed circuit and the flat, square pillbox of the solid-state components—but the whole layout couldn't have been larger than his thumbnail!

  His scalp prickled uneasily. Whoever had built this rig knew a little more about molecular circuitry than the engineers back home.

  But why such a big box for such a small unit?

  Well, the rest of the box was filled with some beautifully-machined apparatus with which Rod was totally unfamiliar.

  He looked at the top of the box; there was a round, transparent circle set in the center. Rod frowned. He'd never run into anything quite like this before. At a guess, the circuitry was part of a remote-control system, and the machined parts were—what?

  "Master, what is it?"

  "I don't know," Rod muttered, "but I have a sneaking suspicion it's got something to do with the banshee."

  He probed the mechanism with his dagger, trying to find a moving part. He felt sublimely reckless; the gadget could very easily have a destruct circuit capable of blowing this whole section of the battlements halfway back to Sol.

  The probing point found something; the machine clicked and began to hum, almost subsonic.

  "Away, master!" Big Tom shouted. " 'Tis accursed!"

  But Rod stayed where he was, hand frozen for fear the knife-point would lose whatever contact it had closed.

  Smoke billowed out of the transparent circle, shooting ten feet into the air, then falling back. In less than a minute, a small localized cloud had formed.

  A second machine clicked, somewhere in front of Rod, and a shaft of light stabbed upward from the outer wall, toward Rod but over his head, shooting into the smoke-cloud. The shaft of light spread into a fan.

  Big Tom wailed in terror. "The banshee! Flee, master, for your life!"

  Looking up, Rod saw the banshee towering ten feet above him. It seemed he could almost smell the rotting, tattered shrouds that covered the voluptuous woman's body.

  The rabbit mouth opened, showing long, pointed teeth. A hidden loudspeaker hummed into life; the apparition was about to start its wailing.

  Rod lifted his dagger a quarter of an inch; the fan of light blacked out, the hiss of the mechanical smoke-pot died.

  The wind murmured over the battlements, dispelling the last of the smoke-cloud.

  Rod knelt immobile, still staring upward; then, shaking himself, he picked up the front of the box and forced it back into place.

  "Master," whispered Big Tom, "what was it?"

  "A spell," Rod answered, "and the banshee it called up was a sham."

  He stood, drumming his fingers on the stone.

  He struck his fist against the wall. "No help for it. Come on, Big Tom, hold my ankles."

  He lay face-downward between the two great granite blocks, his knees above the smoke-pot machine.

  "What, master?"

  "Hold my ankles," Rod snapped. "I've got to take a look at the outside of the wall. And you've got to keep me from falling into the moat."

  Tom didn't answer.

  "Come on, come on!" Rod looked back over his shoulder. "We haven't got all night."

  Big Tom came forward slowly, a huge, hulking shape in the shadow. His great hands clamped on Rod's ankles.

  Rod inched forward until his head was clear of the stone.

  There, just under his chin, was a small, square box with a short snout: a miniaturized projecter, shooting a prerecorded banshee into the cloud of smoke, giving the illusion of three dimensions—a very compact projector and removable screen, all susceptible to remote control.

  From where?

  Rod craned his neck. All he could see was gray stone.

  "Hold tight, Big Tom." He inched forward, hoping he'd guessed right about the big peasant.

  He stopped crawling when he felt the granite lip of the battlements pressing his belt buckle. His upper body jutted free beyond the castle wall, with nothing underneath but air, and, a long way down, the moat.

  He looked down.

  Mm, yes, that was a long way, wasn't it? Now, just what would happen if he'd judged Big Tom wrong? If, contrary to expectation, the big lug let go of Rod's ankles?

  Well, if that happened, Fess would sent a report back to SCENT headquarters, and they'd send out another agent. No need to worry.

  Tom's hoarse, labored breathing sounded very loud behind him.

  Get it over with quick, boy. Rod scanned the wall u
nder him.

  There it was, just under the projector, a deep, silver-lined cup recessed into the wall—a hyperbolic antenna.

  Why a hyperbolic? he wondered.

  So that the radio impulse that turned the projection machines on could be very, very small, impossible to detect outside the straight line between the transmitting and receiving antennas.

  So, if you want to find the transmitting antenna, just sight along the axis of the receiving dish.

  And, looking along that line and allowing for parallax, he found himself staring straight at the rotting basalt pile of the House of Clovis.

  For a moment, he just stared, dumbfounded. So it hadn't been the councillors after all.

  Then he remembered Durer's poison attempt at breakfast, and amended his earlier guess: it hadn't been the councillors all the time.

  And, come to think of it, that warming-pan trick would have been much easier for a servant to pull than for a councillor.

  He was jarred out of his musing rather abruptly; Big Tom's hands were trembling on his ankles.

  Hell, I don't weigh that much, he thought; but he wriggled backward while he thought.

  He thought he hard a sigh of relief as Big Tom hauled him in.

  Rod rose and turned. Sweat streamed down Big Tom's face; his complexion looked very much like dirty dishwater, and his lower lip still trembled as he sucked in a noisy deep breath.

  Rod looked into the big man's eyes for a long moment, without saying anything.

  Then he murmured, "Thanks."

  Tom held Rod's eyes a moment longer, then turned away.

  Rod fell into step beside him.

  They were halfway back to the stairwell before Big Tom said, "And dost thou know who hath sent this enchantment, master?"

  Rod nodded. "The House of Clovis."

  Thei* boots echoed hollow on the stone.

  "Why hast thou not destroyed it?"

  Rod shrugged. "It's a good warning that the Queen's in danger."

  "Then who wilt thou tell of it?"

  Rod looked up at the stars. "My horse," he said slowly.

  "Horse?" Big Tom frowned.

  "Yes, my horse. And no one else, until I've figured out just where Tuan Loguire stands—for the Queen or against her."

  "Ah." Big Tom seemed to think that was explanation enough.

  Rod boosted his estimate of Big Tom's status. Appa-rently the man knew what was going on, more thoroughly than Rod did.

  Big Tom was silent till they came to the stairwell.

  "Thou wast not a hair's breadth from Death this night, master."

  "Oh, I don't think so." Rod folded his arms and leaned against the wall. "That was just a fake banshee; it couldn't have hurt us. And even as it was, I knew the spell that got rid of it."

  "I was not speaking of the banshee, master."

  "I know." Rod looked straight into Tom's eyes.

  Then he turned and started down the stairs.

  He'd gone six steps before he realized Big Tom hadn't followed.

  He looked back over his shoulder. Tom was staring at him, mouth slack with shock.

  Then the mouth closed, the face froze. "Thou didst know thy danger, master?"

  "I did."

  Tom nodded, very slowly. Then he looked down to the stairs and came down.

  "Master," he said after the first landing, "thou'rt either the bravest man or the greatest fool that ever I met."

  "Probably both," saidRod, keeping his eyes on the torchlit steps.

  "Thou shouldst have slain me when first thou guessed." Tom's voice had an edge.

  Rod shook his head, wordless.

  "Why not?" Tom barked.

  Rod let his head loll back. He sighed. "Long ago, Tom, and far away—Lord, how far away!"

  " Tis no time for fairy tales!"

  "This isn't a fairy tale. It's a legend—who knows? Maybe true. A king named Hideyoshi ruled a land called Japan; and the greatest duke in the land was named Ieyayasu."

  "And the duke wished to be king."

  "I see you know the basic techniques. But Hideyoshi did not want to kill Ieyayasu."

  "He was a fool," Tom growled.

  "No, he needed Ieyayasu's support. So he invited Ieyayasu to take a walk in the garden with him, just the two of them, alone."

  Tom stopped, turned to look down at Rod. His eyes glittered in the torchlight. "And they fought."

  Rod shook his head. "Hideyoshi said he was getting old and weak, and asked Ieyayasu to carry his sword for him."

  Tom stared.

  Then his tongue flicked out over his lips. He swallowed and nodded. "Aye. What happened?"

  "Nothing. They talked a while, and then Ieyayasu gave Hideyoshi his sword again, and they went back to the castle."

  "And?"

  "And Ieyayasu was loyal until the old man died."

  Big Tom's eyes were hooded; he could have been carved from wood.

  He nodded, mouth tightening. "A calculated risk."

  "Pretty high-falutin' language for a peasant."

  Tom snarled and turned away. Rod stood a moment, looking after him. Then he smiled and followed.

  They were almost back to the guard room when Tom laid a hand onRod's shoulder. Rod turned to face him.

  "What are you?" Tom growled.

  Rod smiled with one side of his mouth. "You mean who do I work for? Only myself, Big Tom."

  "Nay." Tom shook his head. "I'll not believe that. But 'twas not what I asked."

  Rod raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

  "Oh. I mean what are you, you, yourself, what manner of man?"

  Rod frowned. "Nothing so strange about me."

  "Aye, there is. Thou wilt not kill a peasant out of hand."

  Rod stared. "Oh?" He pursed his lips. "That's out of the ordinary?"

  "Most surely. And thou'lt fight for a manservant. And trust him. And speak with him, more than commands. What arr thou, Rod Gallowglass?"

  Rod shook his head and spread his hands in bewilderment. He laughed once, hollow. "A man. Just a man."

  Tom eyed him for a long moment.

  "Thou art," he said. "I am answered."

  He turned away to the guard room door, flung it open.

  "Master Gallowglass," said the page, "the Queen summons you."

  One of life's greatest and least expensive treasures is false dawn. The world lies waiting for the sun, lit by a glowing sky, chill and fresh, filled with rippling bird song.

  Big Tom took one long, deep breath of the morning air, filling his lungs with the innocence he had never known. "Eh, master!" he called back over his shoulder, "this is the world for a man!"

  Rod answered with a feeble smile as Tom turned away, to ride on ahead of Rod, singing jubilantly and with gusto, though somewhat off-key.

  Rod, unfortunately, was in no condition to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the dawn, having had about three hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours.

  Then, too, there was Catharine.

  The interview had been short and sour. She'd received him in her audience chamber, and had kept her eyes on the fire, not once looking at him. Her face had been cold, lips drawn tight against her teeth.

  "I fear for my Uncle Loguire," she had said. "There are men about him who would rejoice to see his eldest son become the Duke."

  Rod had answered in the same stiff, formal tone. "If he dies, you lose your strongest friend among the lords."

  "I lose one who is dear to me," she snapped. "I care not for friendship among the lords; but I care greatly for my uncle."

  And that, Rod reflected, was probably true—to her credit as a woman, and her detriment as a ruler.

  "Do you," she resumed, "ride south this day to Loguire's demesne; and do you see that none bring harm to him."

  And that, aside from a very formal leavetaking, had been that. Hell hath no stupidity like a woman scorned, Rod thought; she was sending her most competent bodyguard as far away as she could.

  "Fess?"

  "Yes,
Rod?" The horse turned its head to look back at its rider. s

  "Fess, I am without a doubt the prize booby ever hatched."

  "You are a great man, Rod, from a line of great men."

  "Oh yeah, I'm so great! Here I am, supposed to be turning this kingdom into a constitutional monarchy; and while I'm jauntily wandering southward, the councillors are tearing apart any possibility of a constitution, while the House of Clovis is on the verge of killing off the monarch!

  "And here I ride south, with a manservant who would probably gleefully slip a knife between my ribs if his sense of duty got the upper hand over his conscience for half a minute.

  "And what have I accomplished? I've established that the place is filled with ghosts, elves, witches, and a lot of other monsters that can't possibly exist; I've given you five or six seizures; and to top it all off, a beautiful woman propositioned me, and I refused! Oh, I'm so great it's unbelievable! If I were just a little bit more efficient, I'd have managed to botch the whole thing by now! Fess, wouldn't I be better off if I just gave up?"

  The robot began to sing softly.

  "I am a man of constant sorrow,

  I've seen trouble all my days…"

  "Oh, shut up."

  PART TWO

  THE WITCH OF LOW ESTATE

  Dawn found them in the midst of hayfields, half-mown and dew-laden. Rod looked about him from the top of the rise, looking down on rolling farmland and tidy hedges, with here and there a clump of trees, dark against the rising sun.

  "Big Tom!"

  Tom turned in the saddle and looked back, then reined in his horse when he saw Rod had halted.

  "Breakfast!" Rod called, dismounting. He ledFess off the road to a rock outcrop beneath a thicket of gorse. Tom shrugged and turned his mount.

  Rod had the fire laid and kindled by the time Big Tom had hobbled his pony and turned it to graze. The big man stared in amazement as Rod unlimbered a frying pan and coffeepot, then turned away, shaking his head in wonder, and dried a place to sit on a log further down the slope. He sniffed at the scent of frying ham, sighed, and took out a pack of hardtack.

  Rod looked up, frowning, and saw Big Tom sitting in wet grass with a biscuit and a skin of ale. He scowled and shouted.

  "Hey!"

  The shout caught Big Tom in mid-swig; he choked, spluttered, and looked up.