The Warlock Rock (15 page)

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sister by an arm and loft her high." He turned to swing Gregory aboard.

"I shall parallel your course on the riverbank," Fess assured them. "Be careful."

"We shall," Magnus subvocalized.

A wiry young man pushed with a pole, and the raft floated out into the stream.

"Come, sit by me!" A handsome young man stretched out a hand toward Cordelia. "I am Johann, and there's room a-plenty 'gainst my pillow of fragrant boughs. Come nestle with me in idle dalliance!"

"I thank thee." Cordelia sat primly, tucking her skirt about her shoes. "I've need of rest." Johann smiled, accepting the implied refusal with equanimity. "You do seem wearied."

"Aye," Cordelia admitted, "for we have come far, and have seen much."

"And heard much," Geoffrey added. "A cacophony of sound, and seen strange ways a-plenty."

"Tis horribly confusing," Gregory sighed, "and most dreadfully ravelled."

"Then let it be." The dark-haired girl smiled up at Magnus. "I am Wenna. Unknit thy brow, and rest with me." She leaned back, hands behind her head, stretching.

Magnus's breath hissed in, his gaze fast upon her, and Geoffrey stared, spellbound. Cordelia looked up, frowning at the sound, but Johann asked, "Is't so great a coil, then, that doth confound thee?"

"Aye." She turned back, relieved at being able to speak of it to a stranger. "We have found stones that make music, and in following them we have found strange creatures and seen folk who behave in senseless fashions. 'Tis a web proof 'gainst all unravelling."

"Ravelled indeed," said the girl behind Johann. "What confusion it is, seeking to discover why mothers and fathers do as they do, not to us alone, but to one another also." Johann nodded. " 'Tis even as Yhrene saith."

"Aye," the wiry young man agreed. "Wherefore do they kneel to the priest, and bow to the knight?

There is no sense in it."

"None, Alno," Yhrene agreed.

But Gregory objected. "They kneel to Our Lord, not to the priest! And the knight's of a higher station than they."

"Even so," a lumpish young man growled, nodding. "It all seemed so simple, when I was ten. But when I came to the brink of manhood, and did begin to act as I thought a man should, I was rebuked. When I protested that I did but as they had bade me, they told me that they had not meant it that way."

"Aye, Orin, I know the way of it," Johann said, with sympathy. "Long and long did I seek, till at last I
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riddled it out."

"Thou hast?" Gregory roused up, suddenly no longer at all sleepy. "How didst thou make sense of it?"

"Why, by seeing that there was no need to," Johann returned, with a beatific smile. "This was my great insight. "

Alno nodded. "And mine."

"And mine," Yhrene said, "and all of ours. What great peace it brought us!"

"What?" Gregory asked, incredulously. "Did all of you see the same answer at the same moment?"

"And all the same idea," Geoffrey murmured.

"We did, in truth." Johann smiled, quite pleased with himself. "Of a sudden, we saw there was no need to puzzle it out—only to embark upon the flood, and be happy."

"We needed but to build rafts," said Orin, "and take ourselves aboard—ourselves, and the stones that made our music."

"Oh, it is thy music, is it?" Geoffrey breathed.

"Naught but music?" Gregory was still wide-eyed. "What had you to eat?"

"The river provides." Alno reached out and pulled in a lotus as he passed. Looking up, Gregory saw that the others were nibbling the plants, too. He squeezed his eyes shut, then looked up again. "Thou dost say there was no need to puzzle out the sense of the world, and its people?"

"Aye, and what a deal of peace did it bring us!" sighed a redheaded lass.

"Peace indeed, Adele. How blessed an end to all confusion," Wenna agreed. Orin nodded with slow conviction. "Therein lay our error—in wrestling with the world, in seeking to strive."

"Nay, surely," the dark-haired beauty agreed, "for when we cease to strive, there's an ending to strife."

"But thou dost speak of ceasing to think!"

"Aye," said Johann, "and therein lies tranquility. We ceased to ponder the matter."

"And gained a ponderous peace," Geoffrey murmured.

"But how couldst thou still the workings of thy mind?" Gregory asked.

"By hearkening to the music," Johann explained. "When thou dost think of nothing but its sweet strains, all else doth ebb from thy mind."

"I cannot believe it," Gregory protested. "Attending to music cannot obliterate thought!"
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But it can, Fess's voice said inside his head, as concentration on any one notion can dull any other mental activity. And the lotus aids them in this, for it dulls the mind and induces a sense of euphoria. It is, after all, a narcotic .

"Narcotic," Gregory mused. "Doth not the word mean 'deathlike'?"

, ' Pertaining to death' might be a more accurate definition. It usually refers to a sleeplike state.

"And Sleep is the brother of Death," Gregory murmured.

Johann turned to Cordelia, holding out a lotus. "Come, join our bliss."

"By ceasing to think?" she exclaimed, shocked.

"Aye! Turn off thy mind."

"Relax." Adele gave them all an inviting smile.

"Float downstream with me." Wenna gave Magnus a roguish glance. She leaned back and stretched languorously again, holding out a hand toward Magnus. He gazed at her, fascinated, and Geoffrey stared, too.

"Whether thou canst or no, thou must not!" Gregory seemed near tears. "Thou must needs strive to understand, for all else is false!"

"But what if there's no sense to be found?" Alno said, with a skeptical smile.

"Nay there is, there must be! For why else have we minds?" There is some sense to that notion, Fess's voice said, for your species evolved intelligence to comprehend its environment. By doing so, it became better able to survive and prosper. If the world were truly random and without sense ,

the more intelligent person would not be any better fit, and so would not survive.

"Nay, in truth!" Gregory averred. "The sharper mind would be less fit for life—for the world would drive it mad!"

" Tis not so bad as that, little one." Yhrene smiled with sympathy and reached out to him. "The world is as it is; we cannot change it. We can but enjoy it whiles we may."

"But what of the morrow?"

"Tomorrow, we shall yet drift upon the river."

"But all the rivers flow home to the sea!" Gregory insisted. "What wilt thou do when thou art come to the ocean?"

Adele frowned. "Be still, mite!"

"Speak not so to my brother," Cordelia snapped, since it was the kind of thing she might have said
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herself.

Adele fixed her with a glare and was about to speak, but Johann forestalled her. "When we come to the ocean? Belike we shall float!"

Gregory rolled his eyes up, exasperated. "Nay, but think! What of the barons through whose lands thy river doth flow? Will they leave thee to thy pleasures?"

"Wherefore should we care? We leave them alone."

"Thou mayest leave Life alone, but it shall not always leave thee alone. What shall thou do when it doth once again touch thee?"

"Must we have aught to do with it?" Alno fixed him with a stony stare. "We have that choice. Is there a law that says we must live?"

"There is," Johann said softly, "but how shall they enforce it?"

"Aye! How shall they reach us? We float on the river!"

"Dam the river," Gregory shouted, "and they may!" Johann waved the notion away with the first signs of exasperation. "Peace, peace! An thou wilt have it, then, there will come a day when we must strive again for an answer! Will that appease thee?"

"Nay," Gregory answered. "Dost thou not see thou must seek the means to deal with that day ere it doth come?"

"Dost thou not see that even the most earnest seeker doth need rest?" Yhrene countered, striving to keep her tone gentle.

Gregory paused, then finally admitted, "Aye. Even our minds need some ease. Yet tell—how long is this rest to be?"

"Oh—a day, a week!" Adele said crossly. "What matter?"

"Why," said Gregory, "so long a rest is a sleep."

"What matters it?" said Yhrene, amused now. "This is the little sleep, not the great one." Geoffrey shrugged impatiently. "A great sleep, a little death—what difference?"

"Try the Little Death with me, and learn." Wenna stretched her arms up.

"Come dally with me!" Johann reached out for Cordelia. "Golden slumbers kiss thine eyes! Smiles shall wake thee when thou dost rise!"

"Nay," Cordelia said, as though it were dragged out of her. "I must remain vigilant." Adele exhaled a sigh of frustration, and Johann said, smiling, "But even the watchman must rest, soon or late. Come, repose thy brain awhile, as we do. Hearken to the words of the music and let them fill thy
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mind."

"Words?" Geoffrey looked up, alert. "What words are these?"

"Why, in the music," said Orin. "Has thou not heard them?"

"Pay heed," Yhrene suggested.

The Gallowglasses frowned, listening.

"I hear it," said Cordelia, "but 'tis not a voice. 'Tis the music itself doth speak."

"Yet I ken not the sense of it," Geoffrey said dubiously.

"Thou hast but to attend," Yhrene assured them. "It will begin again. It ever does." And it did, repeating itself. It only lasted a few minutes, but it started again immediately—and again and again, cycling on and on. Gradually, the words became clearer:

Why do they do the things they do?

Why is the world as it is?

Why are there customs, and why are there laws?

Why must we labor, with never a pause?

Why are we living, and where is our cause?

And why must we never stray? Why not just turn away?

Why do our parents do as they do?

Who bade them leach out their time?

Why must they labor all day on the soil?

Why must so many grieve, and so many toil?

Why to those who command them must they ever be

loyal?

Why so many questions to cause us turmoil? And why must we obey? Why not just turn away?

Why are there rulers, and why must we bow?

What is their worth to the world?

Why are there kings, and why are there lords?

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Why must they all bear armor and swords?

Why are they misers who lock away hoards?

And why should we obey? When we could just turn away?

Why so many frowns on so many faces?

Why are there so few who smile?

Why must the lasses refuse our embraces?

Why must we try not to give them caresses?

Why so many "noes" and so very few "yes'es?

And why should we obey? Why not just drift away?

Why must we do the things that they do?

Why must we never seek joy?

Why so much sorrow and why so much pain?

Why so much striving without any gain?

Why do these questions belabor my brain?

And why not just drift away? Why not just drift away?

Why should we do as our parents have done? Whv wear their shackles and chains?

Why not eat lotus, and let the world be? Find lotus, on rivers that flow to the sea! Taste lotus, recline, and seek pleasure with me! Let us taste of each other and drift away free! And let us go drift away, let us go drift away…

Gregory's eyes were huge. "Why, what manner of song is this?"

"Aye," Magnus agreed. "There's a scant meter, and little enough of rhyme in it."

"And less of reason," Geoffrey declared, "to say to do naught, for no better reason than that the why of it doth not leap up to strike one in the eye! Do they not see that a man must strive?"

"Wherefore?" Johann said simply.

"Wherefore?" Gregory asked in consternation. "Why— because without it, he has no worth!"

"But there is no virtue in labor by itself," Orin protested. "What purpose doth it serve?"

"But there is virtue in it! Men need labor as a plant needs sun!"
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"Why, what a poxy lie is this?" Alno stirred impatiently. "Hast thou not heard but now? There is no worth in toil!"

Gregory persisted. "And who hath told this to thee, with what proof?"

"None need tell me! 'Tis plainly seen!"

"And thou dost believe it?"

"Aye! Wherefore not?"

"Yet wherefore shouldst thou?" Geoffrey said, low.

Because, said Fess's voice, he has heard the song say it. He has heard it time after time without noting the words, though they did register in the back of his mind. Then, once he understood them, he paid attention to them for only a few recitals; after that, each time he hears the song, he does not truly pay attention to it .

"The backs of your minds do heed these words you scarce understand," Geoffrey explained to Alno. Orin frowned, unsure whether or not to take offense.

Yes, because they do not expect to be targets of persuasion; they only expect to be entertained. Simple repetition by itself would persuade them, when it is perceived at so fundamental a level.

"Yet why should you listen to a song when you cannot understand the words?" Geoffrey wondered.

"Why, for the pleasure of the music," Wenna said, with a sinuous wriggle. Do not grind your teeth, Geoffrey. The young woman speaks truly— the music has a beat and lilt that elicits the sensations that people of this age wish to feel.