The Warlock in Spite of Himself - Warlock 01 (31 page)

He stepped a little closer, towering over her. 'Will your people pay the price of your pride, my Queen? Or will you?'

She glared back at him a moment, but something inside her was clamoring for attention. She dropped her eyes and sat quiet a moment, then turned to the table again and wrote.

She folded the letter, sealed it, and held it out to him. He took it, bowed a little too deeply, with a click of the heels, and turned for the door.

He caught a quick scurry of movement along the baseboard out of the corner of his eye. He turned, saw a mouse duck under the tapestry, where it stayed very still.

Rod's jaw tightened. He crossed the room in two strides, lifted the tapestry.

The mouse looked up at him, its eyes very wide, very green, and very intelligent.

'I do not appreciate eavesdroppers,' Rod said coldly. The mouse flinched, but stared back defiantly.

Rod frowned at a sudden thought. Then his stern look melted. He picked the mouse up, gently, held it level with his eyes, with a tender look that did a very nice job of negating any image of dignity he might have built up.

He shook his head slowly. 'You didn't really think I'd need help in here, did you?'

The mouse lowered its eyes, whiskers twitching a little. 'Certes,'

murmured Catharine, 'methinks the man is possessed.'

'Your Majesty,' Brom said with a musing tone and a gleam in his eye,

'may speak more truth than she knows.'

The drawbridge echoed hollowly under Rod's striding feet. He ran lightly down the slope, away from the castle, and slipped into a copse of spruce.

'Fess,' he called softly.

'Here, Rod.' The great black steel horse came through the trees. Rod smiled, slapped the metal side affectionately. 'How the hell'd you know I'd come here?'

'Quite simply, Rod. An analysis of your behavior patterns, coupled with the fact that this grove is the closest to-'

'Skip it,' Rod growled. 'Big Tom took Loguire to the House of Clovis?'

'Affirmative, Rod.'

Rod nodded. 'Under the circumstances, it's probably the safest place for the Duke. What a comedown for a nobleman.'

He swung into the saddle, then fumbled in his doublet and brought out the little mouse. It looked up at him apprehensively.

'Well,' he sighed, 'it doesn't seem to make any difference what I tell you to do; you're going to go right ahead and do whatever you want anyway.'

The mouse lowered its eyes, trying to look guilty and ashamed; but its whiskers quivered with delight.

It rubbed its cheek against the skin of his palm.

'Affection will get you nowhere,' Rod growled. 'Now, listen. You go to the House of Clovis; that's where I'm bound. That's an order.'

The mouse looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes.

'And it's one order I can be sure you'll obey,' Rod went on, 'since it's what you were going to do anyway. But, look!' A note of anxiety crept into his voice. 'Be careful, will ya?'

He brought his hand forward and kissed the mouse's nose, very gently. The mouse leaped, wriggled with delight, dancing gleeful on his hand; as it danced, it reared up, its front paws stretching and broadening into wings. Its tail fanned out; feathers sprouted on its body; its nose blurred and became a beak, and a wren was dancing on Rod's hand. Rod caught his breath. 'Uh. . . yeah,' he said after a while. 'That's just a little hard to take the first time I watch it happen. But don't worry, I'll get used to it.'

The bird hopped from his hand, flew once around his head, hovered in front of him, then sprang arrowing into the sky.

Rod looked after the wren, murmured, 'Do you think she'll do what I tell her this time, Fess?'

'She will.' There was a strange quality to the robot's voice. Rod looked sidewise at the great black head. 'Thought robots couldn't laugh.'

'A misconception,' Fess replied.

'Git.' Rod knocked his heels against the steel sides. Fess leaped into his long, steel canter.

'What else could I do?' Rod growled.

'With that lady,' Fess answered, 'nothing. But have no regrets, Rod. It's excellent policy. Many kings have used it.'

'Yes,' Rod mused. 'And after all, being obeyed is the important thing, isn't it?'

Fess galloped silently into the moonlit courtyard on rubber-padded hooves and stopped abruptly. Rod's chest slammed against the horse's neck.

'Whuff!' He slammed back into the saddle. 'Ohhhh I My tail-bone! Look, Fess, warn me before you pull a stunt like that, will ya? Inertia may be just a nuisance to you, but it hits me right where I live.'

'Where is that, Rod?'

'Never mind,' Rod growled, dismounting. 'Suffice to say that I just learned why the cavalry used split saddles.'

He crossed the courtyard, glancing at the moon as he went. It was low in the sky; dawn was not far off.

He pounded on the door. There was a rustle of movement inside, then the door opened. The gnarled, bent figure of the Mocker stood before him.

'Aye, milord?' he said with a snaggle-toothed grin. Wouldn't do to let him know that Rod knew he was the power behind the throne. Rod stepped in through the door, scarcely noticing the little man's presence. 'Take me to the Lord Loguire, fellow.'

'Certes, milord.' The Mocker scurried around Rod and opened the inner door. Rod passed through it, puffing off his gauntlets . .. and stepped into the middle of a semicircle of beggars and thieves, standing three deep and armed with truncheons and knives.

They grinned, their eyes hungry; here and there one licked his lips. Their faces were dirty and scarred, mutilated and festering with sores; their clothes were threadbare, patched, torn; but their knives were remarkably well-kept.

Rod tucked his gloves into his belt, hands stiffening into karate swords, and turned to the Mocker. That worthy was now flanked by five or six prime samples of the lees of society.

'I come here in friendship.' Rod's -face was immobile.

'Do ye, now?' The Mocker grinned, exposing bleeding gums, and cackled. Suddenly his eyes gleamed with hate. 'Declare yourself, lordling!'

Rod frowned. 'Declare myself how?'

'For the noblemen, for the Queen, or for the House of Clovis!'

'Be done with your blathering!' Rod snapped. 'I have small stomach for nonsense, and I'm beginning to feel very full. Take me to Loguire, now!'

'Oh, aye, that we shall. Yes, milord, at once, milord, straightaway.'

He rubbed his hands, chortling with glee. Then his glance darted over Rod's shoulder, and he nodded.

Rod started to turn, but something exploded on the back of his head. Stars reeled about him, then blackness.

Slowly, Rod became aware of pink light, pain and a thousand discordant bass fiddles tuning up inside his head.

Slower yet, he became aware of something cold and slimy against his cheek. The pink light, he realized, was sunlight filtered through closed eyelids.

The pain pulled itself in and concentrated in his head. He winced, then by heroic measures managed to open his eyes, and winced again. Everything was blurred, out of focus, sunlight and blobs of color. The slime under his cheek was moss, and the coldness beneath it was stone.

He shoved hard with his hands; the slimy surface swung away, left him reeling, leaning on his hands heavily, stomach churning. He shook his head, flinched at the pain, and blinked several times. His lids rasped over gummy eyeballs, but slowly his vision cleared. He forced his eyes to focus on . . . the face of Tuan Loguire. Tuan sat with his back against black, old stone. There were huge iron staples in the stone, and the chains that hung from them ran to manacles on Tuan's wrists and ankles. He sat in a heap of dirty, moldering straw, in the watery light of a weak sunbeam. Tuan smiled with irony as heavy as the rusty chains on his body, and lifted a hand in greeting, chain jangling with the movement. 'Welcome.'

Rod turned his eyes away, looking about him. The old Duke sat against the next wall, chained beside his son. 'Cold welcome, Rod Gallowglass,'

the old lord mumbled, face heavy and brooding. 'It is scant safety your serving man has brought me to.'

Treachery! Rod should have known better than to trust Tom. 'Big Tom, you... !'

'Here, master.'

Rod looked, turning; Big Tom sat against the far wall, chained like the rest of them.

Tom smiled sadly, bent a reproachful, bloodhound-eyed look on his master. 'I had thought you would free us, master. Yet here art thou, chained one amongst us.'

Rod scowled, looked down at his wrist. A rusty, thick iron band circled it. It had mates on his ankle and other wrist.

He looked up at Tom, smiled, and raised his hand, giving the chain a shake. 'Ever hear tell that stone walls don't make a prison?'

'Who spoke those words was a fool,' said Tom bitterly, from the shadows. Rod lifted his eyes to the small, barred window set high in the wall. It was the only light in the room, a chamber perhaps ten feet wide by fifteen long, with a ten foot high ceiling, all moss-grown, rotting stone, floored with moldering straw.

The only decoration was a skeleton, held together by mummified ligament, chained to the wall like themselves.

Rod eyed the silent partner warily. 'Not such great housekeepers, are they? They could at least have lugged the bones into the nether room.'

He turned to the window again. 'Fess,' he mumbled, low enough so the others couldn't make out the words. 'Fess, where are you?'

'In the most filthy, broken-down stable I've ever seen,' the robot answered, 'along with five of the sorriest nags outside of a glue factory. I think we're supposed to be the cavalry of the House of Clovis, Rod.'

Rod chuckled softly. 'Any mice with large green eyes running around, Fess?'

'No, Rod, but there is a wren perched on my head.'

Rod grinned. 'Ask her if she has any power over cold iron.'

'How am to speak with her, Rod?'

'Broadcast on human thought-wave frequency, of course! She's a telepath, you idiot savant!'

'Rod, I strongly resent the derogatory connotations of references to my abilities in areas in which I am not programmed to-'

'All right, all right, I'm sorry, I repent! You're a genius, a prodigy, an Einstein, an Urth! Just ask her, will you?'

There was a pause; then Rod heard a faint series of chirpings in the background.

'What's the chirping, Fess?'

'Gwendylon, Rod. She reacted significantly to the novel experience of telepathy with a horse.'

'You mean she almost fell off her perch. But did she say anything?'

'Of course, Rod. She says that now she is certain you're a warlock.'

Rod groaned and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. 'Look, get her back to business, will you? Can she get us out of these chains and cut the bars on our window?'

There was another pause; then Fess answered, 'She says she has no power over cold iron, Rod, nor has any witch or elf that she knows. She suggests a blacksmith, but fears it is impractical.'

'Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus . . . Well, tell her I'm glad she hasn't lost her sense of humor. And ask her how the hell she's going to get us out of here!'

'She says there is no need for hard language, Rod.'

'You didn't have to transmit me literally, you bumble-brain!'

'And she thinks that the Prince of the Elves may be able to free you. She thinks he will come, but he is some short distance away, so it may be a while.'

'I thought she said elves couldn't handle cold iron!' There was another pause; then Fess said, 'She says that the Prince of the Elves is not quite an elf, Rod, being but half of the Old Blood.'

'Only half... Wait a minute!' Rod scowled. 'You mean he's a half-breed between elf and mortal?'

'Precisely, Rod.'

Rod tried to imagine how an eighteen-inch elf and a six-foot mortal could have a child; his brain reeled.

'She departs now, Rod, to summon him, and will return as quickly as she may, but will be a while. She bids you be of stout heart.'

'If my heart were any stouter, it'd be positively obese! Give her my . . . No, just tell her I thank her, Fess.'

He seemed to hear a faint sigh behind his ear, and the robot said, with a touch of resignation, 'I'll tell her, Rod.'

'Thanks; Fess. Stay lively.'

Rod turned back to his prison. The Loguires were both plastered against the wall, looking at him strangely.

'He speaks to thin air,' murmured Tuan. 'Certes, the man is possessed!'

'Seems to me I've heard that before,' Rod mused, 'and the air in here is anything but thin.'

'Still,' muttered Loguire, ''Tis the act of one crazed!'

Big Tom rumbled a laugh. 'Not so, my lords. This man speaks with spirits.'

Rod smiled bleakly. 'How come so cheerful all of a sudden, Big Tom?'

The big man stretched, chains clashing. 'I had thought for a moment they had beaten you, master. Now I know 'twas fool thinking.'

'Don't be so sure, Tom. Cold iron is a tough spell to break.'

'Nay, master.' Tom's eyelids drooped lazily. 'Thou'lt find a way to it, I warrant.'

He clasped his hands over his belly, leaned his head back against the wall.

Rod smiled as Tom began snoring. He looked at the Loguires and jerked his head toward Tom. 'There's confidence for you. While I work things out, he takes a nap.'

'Let us hope 'Tis a faith warranted,' said Tuan. He eyed Rod dubiously.

'Let's,' Rod echoed grimly.

He nodded at the Duke. 'Been renewing acquaintance?'

Loguire smiled. 'I rejoice to see my son again, though I had life it were more open welcome.'

Tuan frowned at his hands. 'It is sad news he hath brought me, Rod Gallowglass, most sad and sorrowful.' He looked at Rod, bright anger in his face. 'I had known my brother hateful and ambitious, but I had not thought he would sink into treason.'

'Oh, don't be too hard on the poor boy.' Rod leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes wearily. 'Durer's got him spellbound. And if his magic came so close on the father, how could it fail on the son?'

'Aye,' Tuan agreed darkly. 'Myself had fallen like prey to the Mocker.'

'Oh?' Rod opened one eye. 'You've realized that, have you?'