The warlock unlocked (20 page)

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She fairly seemed to glow. “Oh, ‘tis naught; I could carry two of thee with little effort. Yet I must needs caution thee, good friar, ‘tis like to disconcert thee summat…”

“I care not!” Father Al ran around behind her and leaped astride the stick. “What matter comfort, when a soul’s welfare is at stake? Nay, then, let’s be gone!”

In fact, he scarcely noticed when the broomstick left the ground.

Opening a lock was women’s work; it took telekinesis. The boys could make the lock disappear, but they couldn’t open it.

“Let Cordelia attempt it. She must be trained, must she not?” Gwen ushered her daughter over to the door and set her in front of the lock. “Remember, sweeting, to ease the bolt gently; assuredly the Duke hath posted guards on us, and they must not hear the turn.”

“Uh, just a sec.” Rod held up a hand. “We don’t knowthey’ve locked us in.”

Gwen sighed, reached out, and tugged at the handle. The door didn’t budge. She nodded. “Gently, now, my daughter.”

Rod took up a position just behind the door. Cordelia frowned at the lock, concentrating. Rod could just barely hear a minuscule grating as the lock turned, and the bolt slid back. Then Gwen stared, and the door shot open silently.

Rod leaped out, caught the left-hand guard from behind with a forearm across the throat, and whacked his dagger-hilt on the man’s skull. He released his hold and whirled, wondering why the other guard wasn’t already over him…

And saw the man down and out, with Geoff crawling out from between the guard’s ankles; Magnus standing over the man’s head, sheathing his dagger; and Gwen beaming fondly as she watched. Rod gawked.

Then he shook his head, coming out of it. “How’d you keep him quiet?”

“By holding the breath in his lungs,” Magnus explained. “Can I fetch Elidor now, Papa?”

Rod rubbed his chin. “Well, I don’t know. You could teleport him away from whatever room he’s in—but are you sure you could make him appear right here?”

Magnus frowned. “ Fairlycertain…”

“ ‘Fairly’ isn’t good enough, son. You might materialize him inside a wall, or in between universes, for
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that matter.” Why did that thought hollow his stomach? “No, I think we’d better do this the old-fashioned way. Which way is he?”

“Thither!” Magnus pointed toward the left, and upward.

“Well, I think we’ll try the stairs. Let’s go.”

“Ah, by your leave, Papa.” Gwen caught his sleeve. “If thou shouldst meet some guardsman, or even one lone courtier, ‘tis bound to cause some noise.”

Rod turned back. “You have a better idea?”

“Haply, I have.” Gwen turned to Cordelia. “Do thou lead us, child, skipping and singing. Be mindful, thou’rt seeking the garderobe, and have lost thy way.”

Cordelia nodded eagerly, and set off.

“Thus,” Gwen explained, “he who doth encounter her will make no outcry; ‘twill be a quiet chat.”

“Even quieter, after we catch up with him.” Rod gazed after his daughter, fidgeting. “Can’t we get moving, dear? I don’t like letting her go out alone.”

“Hold, till she hath turned the corner.” Gwen kept her hand on his forearm, watching Cordelia. The little girl reached the end of the hall and turned right, skipping and warbling. “Now! The hall is clear before her; let us go.”

They went quickly, trying to match unseen Cordelia’s speed, wading through the darkness between torches. Near the end of the hall, Gwen stopped, with a gentle tug at Rod’s arm. The boys stopped, too, at a thought-cue from their mother. “She hath encountered a guardsman,” Gwen breathed. “Softly, now!”

Rod strained his ears, and caught the conversation:

“Whither goest, child?”

“To the garderobe, sir! Canst tell me where it is?”

“A ways, sweet lass, a ways! There was one near thy chambers.”

Oh. So allthe guards knew where they were quartered. Very interesting.

“Was there, sir? None told us!”

“He curses in his mind, and she has turned him!” Gwen hissed. “Go!”

Rod padded around the corner on soft leather soles. Three torchlight-pools away, Cordelia stood facing him, hopping from foot to foot with her hands clasped behind her back. The guardsman stood, a hulking shadow, between the child and Rod, his back to Papa. Rod slipped his dagger out of its sheath and leaped forward.

“Did not others, clad as I am, stand beside thy door to tell thee the way?”

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“Why, no, good sir!” Cordelia’s eyes were wide with innocence. “Should there have been?”

“There should, indeed!” The guardsman began to turn. “Nay, let me lead thee b… Ungh!”

He slumped to the floor. Rod sheathed his dagger.

Cordelia stared down at the guardsman. “Papa! Is he…” Then her face cleared with a smile. “Nay, I see; he but sleeps.”

“Oh, he’ll have a headache in the morning, honey—but nothing worse.” Rod glanced back over his shoulder as Gwen and the boys came running up. “Well played, sweeting!” Gwen clasped Cordelia’s shoulders. “I could not ha’ done it better. On with thee, now!”

Cordelia grinned, and skipped away, lilting the top part of a madrigal.

“If this’s what she’s doing when she’s five,” Rod muttered to Gwen, “I’m not sure I want to see fifteen.”

“If thou dost not, there are many lads who will,” Gwen reminded him uncharitably. “Come, my lord, let us go.”

Five guardsmen, three courtiers, four varlets and a lady-in-waiting later, Gwen stopped them all at a corner. “There lie Elidor’s chambers,” she breathed in Rod’s ear. “Two guard the door, three keep watch in the antechamber, and a nursemaid sleeps on a pallet beside his bed.”

Rod nodded; Foidin definitely wasn’t the sort to take chances. “This is why I took care of the ones we met en route—so Magnus’d be well-rested. How many can you handle, son?”

“Four, at the least.” The boy frowned. “Beyond that, their sleep might be light.”

Rod nodded. “That’ll do. Now, here’s a routine your mother and I used to run…”

A few minutes later, Magnus frowned, concentrating; a minute later, there was a clatter and a pair of thumps, followed by a sigh in chorus, as the two door-guards sank into slumber. Rod peeked around the corner, saw them both sitting slouched against the wall, and nodded. “Okay, Geoff. Go to it!”

The three-year-old trotted eagerly around the corner and knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again. Finally a bolt shot back, and the door swung open, revealing a scowling guardsman. He saw Geoff, and stared.

“Elidor come out ‘n’ play?” the little boy piped.

The guardsman scowled. “Here, now! Where’d thou come from?” He grabbed, but Geoff jumped back. The guardsman jumped after him, and Geoff turned and scooted. He sailed around the corner under full steam, with the guardsman a foot behind him, bent double, hand reaching, and another guard right behind him. Rod and Gwen kicked their feet out from under them, and they belly-flopped on cold stone with a shout. Magnus and Cordelia yanked their helmets off, and Rod and Gwen struck down with reversed daggers. A grace note of nasty double chunks! sounded, and the guardsmen twitched and lay still, goose eggs swelling on the backs of their heads.

“They’ll sleep for an hour or two, at the least.” Gwen handed Magnus’s dagger back to him.
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“Hoarstane? Ambrine?” A hoarse voice called from around the corner. Everyone froze. Rod’s pulse beat high, with the hope that the third guard might follow the first two. Unfortunately, he was a little too wary. “Hoarstane!” he snapped again. There was silence; then the guardsman snarled again. Metal jangled as he turned away, and the door boomed shut; then a bolt snicked tight.

“Back in, and the door locked.” Rod shook his head. “Well, we hadn’t expected any more. You said you could handle four, son?”

Magnus nodded. “Without doubt.” His eyes lost focus; he became very still. Rod waited. And waited. Four, he reminded himself, were bound to take a little time. Finally Magnus relaxed and nodded. “All sleep, Papa.”

“Okay. You go get Elidor ready, while we get the door open.”

Magnus nodded, and disappeared.

He’d started doing it when he was a baby, but Rod still found it unnerving. With people who were only friends, such as Toby, okay—but his own son was another matter. “Well, teamwork starts at home,” he sighed. “After you, ladies.”

They tiptoed up to the door. Rod kept a firm hold on little Geoff’s hand, to make sure he didn’t try to teleport away to join Magnus. Gwen watched with fond pride as Cordelia stared at the lock, and they heard the sound of the bolt sliding back. The door swung open. They stepped into a scene out of “Sleeping Beauty.” The third guardsman sat slumped in a chair, chin on chest, snoring. Beyond him, a half-open door showed a nanny in a rocker, dozing over her needlework. Rod stepped forward and pushed the door the rest of the way open. Elidor looked up from belting on his sword. His hair was tousled, and his eyes bleary from slumber, red and puffy; Rod had a notion he’d cried himself to sleep.

“Almost ready, Papa.” Magnus picked up a cloak and held it out. Elidor stepped over; Magnus dropped it over his shoulders.

“God save Your Majesty.” Rod bowed. “I take it Magnus has informed you of our invitation?”

“Aye, and with right good heart do I accept! But why art thou willing to take me from mine uncle’s halls?”

“Because my sons have taken a liking to you.” You couldn’t exactly tell a King that he triggered every paternal response you had. “If you’re ready, we shouldn’t linger.”

“Ready I am!.” The King clapped a hat on and headed for the door. Rod bowed him through, and waited as Magnus stepped through behind him.

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He found Elidor staring at the snoring guard. “Magnus had told me of it,” the boy whispered, “but I scarce could credit it.”

“You’re moving in magic circles.” Rod gave him a firm nudge on the shoulder. “And if you don’t keep moving, we’ll wind up back where we started.”

Elidor paced on forward, pausing for a bow to answer Gwen and Cordelia’s curtseys. Rod took the opportunity to dodge on ahead.

Magnus stepped up beside him, as pilot, and they padded silently through dim, torch-lit halls. Whenever Magnus stopped and nodded to Cordelia, she skipped on ahead, singing, to engage whatever unsuspecting person happened to be walking the halls at this late hour, in conversation, until Magnus could knock them out. After the fifth guardsman, Rod noticed the man was twitching in his sleep. “Getting tired, son?”

Magnus nodded.

So did Rod. “I’ll take over for a while.”

Fortunately, there weren’t too many more; the old-fashioned method is a little risky. Elidor just followed along, his eyes getting wider and wider till they seemed to take up half his face. Finally they crossed the outer bailey—it was really the only one; the castle had grown till it absorbed the inner. Rod’s commando tactics couldn’t do much about the sentries on the wall, so Magnus padded along, alert and ready; but the sentries were watching the outside, so they came to the main gatehouse without incident.

There they stopped, and Gwen gathered them into a huddle. “Here’s a pretty problem,” she whispered.

“A sentry stands on each tower, a porter by the winch, and six guardsmen in the wardroom—and thou art wearied, my son.”

Magnus waslooking a little frayed around the edges. “I can still answer for two, Mama, mayhap three.”

“That leaves six.” Rod frowned. “What’re they armed with, Gwen?”

Gwen gazed off into space for a moment. “All bear pikes, save the Captain; he wears a sword.”

“Could you and Cordelia bop them with their own pike-butts?”

“Aye, but they wear their helmets.”

“So.” Rod rubbed his chin. “The problem is, getting them to take off their helmets.”

“Why, that can Ido!” Elidor declared, and marched off towards the guardroom before anyone could stop him.

Rod looked up after him, startled, glanced back at Gwen, then turned and sprinted after Elidor. What was the kid trying to do, blow the whole escape?

But the boy moved fast, and he was hammering on the door before Rod could catch him. It swung open,
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and Rod ducked into the nearest shadow and froze. He could see through the open door, though, as Elidor marched in.

The guardsmen scrambled to their feet. “Majesty!” The Captain inclined his head. “What dost thou abroad so late o’ night?”

Elidor frowned. “I am thy King! Art thou so ill-bred as not to know the proper form of greeting?

Uncover, knaves, and bow!”

Rod held his breath.

The soldiers glanced at the Captain, whose eyes were locked with Elidor’s. But the boy-King held his chin high, glance not wavering an inch. Finally, the Captain nodded. The guardsmen slowly removed their helmets and bowed.

Their pikes leaped to life, slamming down on the backs of their heads with the flats of their blades. They slumped to the floor with a clatter.

All except the Captain; he didn’t have a pike near. He snapped upright, terror filling his face as he stared at his men.

Then the terror turned to rage.

Rod leaped forward.

“Why, what sorcery is this?” the Captain snarled, coming for Elidor and drawing his sword. The boy stepped back, paling—and Rod shot through the door and slammed into the Captain. He went down with a clatter and a “ whuff,” the wind knocked out of him; but his sword writhed around, the point dancing in Rod’s face. Rod yanked the sword to one side, rolling the man half-over, and dived in behind him, arm snaking around the Captain’s throat. He caught the larynx in his elbow, and squeezed. The Captain kicked and struggled, but Rod had a knee in his back, so all he could do was thrash about. But Elidor was loose. He darted over to pluck the Captain’s helmet, yanked his dagger out, and clubbed down with all his strength, just the way he’d seen Rod do. The Captain heaved, and relaxed with a sigh. Rod let go and scrambled out. “Well done, Your Majesty! You’ve got the makings of a King, all right.”