The Warlock Rock (9 page)

"Give in to it," a boy coaxed. "Thou wilt not believe the pleasure of it, the heady giddy feeling!"

"Hold fast!" Gregory reached up to thump his big brother's arm. "Thou art thine own man, not some mindless puppet!"

"The music is great, the music is all!" another boy countered. "Submerge thyself in it; let it roll over thee!

Then reach to find another's hand, to touch, to stroke!"

"Thou knowest right from wrong!" Gregory insisted. "Thou hast so often told me of it! 'Tis wrong, thou didst say, to let another think for thee! How much more wrong must it be, then, to let mere music make thee mindless?"

"Aye." Magnus's face hardened and, with a huge effort, he squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and turned away from Lalaina. "I am my own man still."

"Then thou art not ours!" the hulking youth cried. "Avaunt thee! Get thee hence!"

"Didst thou say we are naught but things of play?" taunted a girl not much older than Cordelia. "What more should we wish to be? Thou art but jealous for that thou hast so little of thine own!"

"What I have is mine own!" Cordelia answered hotly. "What! Wouldst thou give thyselves to boys who see thee as naught but toys?"

A long, scandalized gasp raked along the line of dancers. Then the girls' faces hardened, and they stepped forward.

"What a foul mouth thou hast!" a smaller boy snapped at Gregory. "We must stop it for thee!" And he caught up a fistful of dirt.

"Stand away!" Geoffrey leaped in front of his little brother, glaring. "Thou shalt not touch him!"

"Then we shall bury thee !" the hulking youth cried and, with a roar, several of the boys leaped at Geoffrey.

"Thou hast spoke too much now," Lalaina grated, glaring at Cordelia. "Have at thee, wench!" Magnus leaped up beside his brothers, catching two of the boys by their collars and hurling them at the hulking youth, while Geoffrey dispatched the third with a left jab and a quick right cross.

"Thoul't not touch my brothers whilst I can stand!" snapped Magnus.

"Why, then, we shall hale thee down!" the hulking youth bellowed. "Out upon him, lads!" With a roar, the boys all leaped at Magnus.

With one unified scream, the girls leaped on Cordelia.

"Repel them!" Magnus shouted, catching his brothers' hands, and Gregory caught Cordelia's. Their faces turned to stone with strain, and the air about them glimmered a split second before the girls and boys fell
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upon them with the howl of a wolf-pack…

… and slammed into an invisible wall.

They bounced back, crashing to the ground with howls of surprise and fright—but Lalaina screeched,

"They are witches!"

"Then we should fly," Magnus grated, tight-lipped. "Away, my sibs!" And the word ran through the mob like a trace of gunpowder: "Witches! Witches! Witches!"

"Then we shall burn them!" cried the hulking boy, and the crowd answered with a roar. But the Gallowglasses had already disappeared down the woodland path and around the bend, so the pursuing mob careened into a great black horse, with a bong like a boxful of bolts in a belfry. They recoiled, yammering and clamoring, and ducked under, around, and over as the great horse danced about, maneuvering to make it harder for them—but they all twisted past somehow, and sprang after their quarry, howling in full voice.

"We must go aloft," Magnus panted.

"There is no space!" Cordelia answered, tears in her eyes. "There are too many branches, all too low!" The pack rounded the bend, saw them, and burst into wild yelling.

Then out of the roadside brush sprang slavering jaws with furious barking, red-rimmed eyes above and sharp claws below, leaping and growling and snapping, and the mob screeched to a halt in sheer shock with howls of panic.

"Throw!" Cordelia cried. Her brothers skidded to a stop, whirled about to look, and every loose stick around leaped up spinning to shoot whirling at the mob. The pack stood for a second, wavering; then the first stick struck, and they turned about with a woeful yell, fleeing in panic. Magnus and Geoffrey stood tense, unbelieving, but Cordelia and Gregory collapsed with a sigh. "I shall never trust a crowd of folk again," Gregory croaked.

"Nor ever did, I wot," Geoffrey answered. "Mayhap thou hadst the right of it, small brother." The dog turned and came up to them, wagging its tail. It was a tall, rangy beast with long ears, drooping eyes, and jowls; but the eyes were all friendliness now, and guileless. It sat down in front of Geoffrey, cocked its head to the side, and barked.

In spite of himself, the third Gallowglass began to grin.

"And who art thou, who hast come so timely to help us?" Magnus stepped forward, still wary, but opening his mind to the dog's.

The dog barked again, and both boys read its feelings. "It did like us the moment it saw us," Gregory said, grinning widely now. "What! Wouldst thou be my friend?" The dog barked and wagged its tail.

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"Mama will never allow it," Cordelia warned.

"Wouldst thou sleep in the stables?" Magnus asked.

The dog nodded, panting and still wagging its tail.

"There is another tenant in that room," Gregory reminded. Right on cue, the great black horse came round the bend toward the children. Cordelia scrambled to her feet. "Do they rally, Fess?"

"They do not," the horse told her. "In fact, as soon as you were out of sight, they seemed to forget you; and when they had calmed for a minute or two, they began to dance again. They have gone on their way, and one would think they had never seen you."

"Praise Heaven for that!" Cordelia sighed. "Mayhap this nepenthe of music hath its uses!"

"But how did you rout them, children? I trust you did no irreparable harm…"

"We only threw sticks," Magnus assured him, "few of which struck. But the greatest work was done by this stalwart." Gingerly, he placed a hand on the dog's head. "He sprang upon them so suddenly that the surprise itself did rout them."

"Then he is a friend in deed." Fess came closer, and the dog stretched its nose up at him, sniffing. Then it sneezed, and stared up at him indignantly.

"There is no deceiving a large nasal cavity." The horse sighed. "He knows I am no true equine."

"Can I take him home, Fess?" Geoffrey asked.

The robot horse stood immobile for a moment, then said, "You may bring him, Geoffrey—but whether you may keep him is for your parents to say."

The dog's tail beat the ground furiously.

"Papa could not turn away a valiant ally," Geoffrey protested.

"I suspect you may be right—though I refuse to commit myself on the issue. Bid him stay here, and he may join us when we return home."

Geoffrey dropped to one knee, holding the dog by the sides of its head and staring into its eyes. The animal panted up at him eagerly. Concentrating, Geoffrey projected into the dog's mind a picture of him watching the four children and the horse walking away, and the dog shut his mouth, staring. Then Geoffrey made the picture darken into night, then lighten with dawn, fill to midday, and darken to night again; then, on the second dawn, the children and the horse came in sight again. The dream-Geoffrey reached down to pet the dog, and the final picture showed the four children, the horse, and the dog walking away together.

The dog whined, and Geoffrey read in his mind a succession of pictures of him leaping and snapping at
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five wolves until he drove them away, while the four children cowered behind the horse; of the dog barking furiously at a band of robbers, who turned tail and ran; and of the dog taking on a huge bear single-handed, biting and clawing and howling until finally the bear lay dead, and the children crowded around with petting and cries of admiration.

"Brother," Geoffrey said, "he doth…"

"I have seen; he doth wish to protect us from all the hazards of the forest, for he doth believe himself to be twenty times more powerful than any canine could be." Magnus knelt down beside the beast, shaking his head sadly. "Thou canst not do such great deeds, for thou art nothing but a hound, dog. And we may not take thee with us now, for we know not to what we go, and cannot halt for another member of our party."

The animal's head drooped, and his tail flopped still.

"Nay, 'tis not so bad as that," Geoffrey protested, rubbing the dog's head and scratching behind its ears.

"Thou art a most wonderful beast indeed, and I do long to have thee for my companion all the years of my youth!"

The dog lifted its head with a hopeful look.

"Canst thou not bide here in patience?" Geoffrey asked. "Then, when we return, we shall take thee to our home. Wilt thou so serve me?"

The dog stared up at him. Then its mouth lolled open again, and its tail beat the earth a few times.

"Stout fellow!" Geoffrey tousled its ears and jumped to his feet. "Bide in readiness, then, and thou shalt yet be a stable-dog… An thou wilt, Fess?" With trepidation, he looked up at the horse.

"I would be honored to share my stable with so faithful a companion, Geoffrey—but you understand that the decision must still remain with your parents."

"Oh, surely, Fess! Yet an thou wilt permit him the stable, I do not think Mama will object!"

"Come, then." Cordelia had been watching the whole affair with ill-concealed impatience. "The West awaits."

"Aye! I will come gladly!" Geoffrey turned and strode away, turning back to wave goodbye only twice as he and his brothers and sister moved away down the path with Fess behind them. He didn't even hear Cordelia muttering under her breath, something about a great, smelly, slobbering beast.

The forest thinned; the trees became fewer and more slender. The ground began to rise and, as the sun rose to mid-morning, the children found themselves in an upland moor. Wind tossed their hair, and the wide-open view lifted their hearts. "Oh!" Cordelia cried. "I could dance!"

"Please do not," Fess said quickly. Even here, strains of repetitive music rose from rocks all about them.
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Magnus looked about, his brow furrowed. "I see no springs or ponds, Fess."

"You will find very few," the robot confirmed. "Open water is rare on a moor. When we do find some, we must fill waterskins."

"And if we do not?"

"Then we shall not turn back," Fess said, with decision, "until we do."

"Do we not chance fate, Fess?"

"With ordinary children, yes. But you can fly; when you begin to grow thirsty, we shall go aloft." Cordelia swallowed. "I have thirst now."

"That is only because we have been discussing the issue, Cordelia."

"I might flit to the stream we camped by last night," Gregory suggested. Fess lifted his head. "Of course! I continually fail to correlate the full range of your powers with current circumstances."

"Thou doth mean thou dost ever forget what we can do."

"Not 'forget,'" Fess demurred.

" Tis only that he doth not wish to acknowledge it," Geoffrey muttered to Magnus, but Big Brother shushed him.

Fess affected not to have heard. "Then there is little peril from thirst, since you can fetch water whenever you wish. However, there are bogs, children. Be careful to remain on the path; those patches of soft earth could swallow a child whole."

"Not with thee by us, Fess," Gregory piped.

"Yet Mama would be wroth at so much mud on thy clothes," Cordelia pointed out. "Mind thy steps, brother."

Gregory's lower lip jutted in a pout, but he followed as they set off up the path, two abreast, Geoffrey and Cordelia in the lead, Fess following behind.

They crested the top of a rise and found a huge boulder blocking the path. On top of it glowed a pair of girls' shoes, electric blue.

Cordelia let out a cry of delight and ran to the rocky pedestal. "Oh! They are so beauteous!" She caught up the slippers and held them up in the sunlight. "And so soft."

"Soft?" Gregory asked, wide-eyes. "Are they cloth, sister?"

"Nay, they are leather—but velvet to the touch."

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"It is a leather-finish termed suede," Fess explained. "Cordelia! They are not yours!"

"Yet who else's could they be?" Cordelia kicked off her shoes and pushed her toes into the blue slippers. "Surely, if someone left them and went away, they must care not who takes them! And see, they are new from the last!"

"And also from the first." Magnus scowled. "Why do I mistrust them?" A bass note thrummed especially loudly. Magnus jumped aside, and saw a new rock landing almost where he'd been. "A plague upon these noisy stones!"

"They are a plague." Then Gregory stared at his sister, wounded. "Cordelia! Not thee too!" Cordelia's feet had begun to step lightly to the music of the rock, her body swaying. "Wherefore not?

Ah, now I ken wherefore this music hath so strong a beat—'tis for dancing!"

"I have lost all stomach for the sport," Magnus declared, "since we have seen what others make of it. Give over, Delia! Let us be off!"

"There is no harm in dancing, Magnus," Fess told him. "Let her amuse herself for a few minutes; we assuredly have no pressing schedule."

Magnus looked up at him, startled, and gave the robot a glare that clearly accused him of treachery. Fess only watched Cordelia, though, immobile and patient as a block of iron.

" 'Tis more silly than aught I have seen," Geoffrey snorted, "to dance to strains that go DOO-DOO-DOO." He grunted along with the tune, hopping about in a crude parody of Cordelia's dance. She screeched in outrage. "Thou vile boy! Canst thou not see another's pleasure, without need to lessen it?"

" 'Ware, brother," Magnus cautioned. "Thou dost begin to step quite deftly."