Warlock - The Warlock Unlocked Part 17

He craned his neck to see over her shoulder. About a hundred meters ahead, a large cottage nestled within a grove, a half-timbered house with a thatched roof, and two outbuildings behind it. Then the ground was rus.h.i.+ng up at them, and Father Al clung to the broomstick as he clung to his hope of Heaven, commanding his body to relax. His body didn't listen. The world rolled upward past them, then suddenly rolled back down. He clamped his jaw and swallowed, hard, just barely managing to keep his stomach from using his tongue as a springboard.

Then, incredibly, they had stopped, and solid earth jarred upward against his soles.

"We are come." The witch-girl smiled back at him over her shoulder. Then her brows knit in concern. "Art thou well?"

"Oh, most excellent! Or I will be, soon." Father Al swung his leg over the broomstick and tottered up to her. "A singular experience, maiden, and one I'll value till the end of my days! I thank thee greatly!" He turned, looking about him for a change of subject. "Now. Where shall I find the High Warlock?"

"Oh, within." The girl pointed at the cottage. "Or if he is not, surely his wife will know when he may return. Shall I make thee acquainted with them?"

"Dost thou know them, then?" Father Al asked in surprise.

"Indeed; most all the witchfolk do." She dismounted, picked up her broomstick, and led him toward the house. "They are gentle souls, and most modest; one would scarcely think that they were numbered 'mongst the Powers of the land." They were almost to the door, which was flanked by two flowering bushes. "Their bairns, though, are somewhat mischiev..."

"Hold!" one of the bushes barked. "Who seeks to pa.s.s? "

Father Al swung round to the bush in astonishment. Then, remembering what the girl had been saying, he realized one of the children was probably hiding inside the leaves, playing a prank. "Good morn," he said, bowing. "I am Father Aloysius Uwell, come hither to call upon the High Warlock and his family."

"Come hither, then, that I may best examine thee," the voice demanded. Rather deep voice, for a child; but the witch-girl was giggling behind him, so Father Al abided by his earlier guess-one of the children. And important to play along with the prank, therefore-nothing endears one to a parent like being cordial to the child. He sighed, and stepped closer to the bush.

"Why dost thou linger?" the voice barked. "Come hither to me now, I say!"

It was coming from behind him.

Father Al turned about, rea.s.sessing the situation-there were at least two children involved. "Why, so I do-if thou wilt hold thy place."

The girl giggled again.

"Am I to blame if thine eyes art so beclouded that thou mistakest quite my place of biding?" The voice was coming out of a bush a little to Father Al's left, farther from the house. "Come now, I say!"

Father Al sighed, and stepped toward the bush.

"Nay, here!" the voice cried from another bush, farther off to his left. "Besotted shave-pate, canst thou not tell my bearing?"

"I would, if I could see thee," Father Al muttered, and ambled patiently toward the new bush. Giggling, the girl moved with him.

"Nay, hither!" the voice commanded again, from yet another bush, off to his right and farther from the house. "Wilt thou come, I say!"

About then, Father Al began to get suspicious. The voice was plainly leading them away from the house, and he began to think this was no childish prank, but the work of some guardian who didn't trust strangers. "Nay, I'll go no farther! I've come where thou hast said, not once, but several times! If thou dost wish that I should move another step, now show thyself, that I may see which way to step!"

"As thou wilt have it," the voice grumbled; and, suddenly, the form of a broad and portly man rose up and came around the bush. Its head was shaven in the tonsure, and it wore a brown monk's robe with a small yellow-handled screwdriver in the breast pocket.

Father Al stared.

The girl burst into a peal of laughter.

"Dost thou not know me, fellow?" the monk demanded. "Wilt thou not kneel to the Abbot of thine own Order?"

"Nay, that will I not," Father Al muttered. Father Cotter-son had said the Abbot was on his way back to the monastery, half a kingdom away-what would he be doing here, near a High Warlock's house, at that? Father Al's suspicions deepened, especially since he recognized an element out of folklore. So he began to whistle loudly, untied his rope belt, and took off his ca.s.sock. The witch-girl gasped and averted her eyes; then she looked back at him, staring.

"Friar!" the Abbot cried, scandalized. "Dost thou dis-robe before a woman?!! ? ... And what manner of garb is it thou wearest beneath?"

"Why, this?" Father Al sang, improvising a Gregorian chant. " Tis nought but the coverall all Cathodeans wear, which warms me in winter, and never doth tear." He went back to whistling, turning his ca.s.sock inside-out.

The Abbot's voice took on a definite tone of menace. "What dost thou mean by this turning of thy coat? Dost thou seek to signify that thou'It side with the King against me?"

Interesting; Father Al hadn't known the old Church-State conflict was cropping up here. "Why, nay. It means only that..." (he put the monk's robe on again, wrong side out, and wrapped it about him) "... that I wish to see things as they truly are."

And before his eyes, the form of the abbot wavered, thinned, and faded, leaving only a stocky, two-foot-high man with a pug-nosed, berry-brown face, large eyes, brown jerkin, green hose, green cap with a red feather, and a smoldering expression. "Who ha' told thee, priest?" he growled. His gaze s.h.i.+fted to the witch-girl. "Not thou, surely! The witch-folk ever were my friends!"

The girl shook her head, opening her lips to answer, but Father Al forestalled her. "Nay, hobgoblin. 'Tis books have taught me, that to dispel glamour, one hath but to whistle or sing, and turn thy coat."

"Thou'rt remarkably schooled in elfin ways, for one who follows the Crucified one," the elf said, with grudging respect. "Indeed, I thought that thee and thy fellows scarce did acknowledge our existence!"

"Nor did I." In fact, Father Al felt rather dizzy-in spite of what Yorick had told him; he was frantically trying to reevaluate all his fundamental a.s.sumptions. "Yet did tales of thee and thy kind all fascinate me, so that I strove to learn all that I could, of worlds other than the one I knew."

" 'Worlds?' " The elf's pointed ears p.r.i.c.ked up. "Strange turn of phrase; what priest would think that any world existed, but this one about us?"

Somehow, Father Al was sure he'd made a slip. "In Philosophic's far realms..."

' "There is not one word said of things like me, that do defy all reason," the elf snapped. "Tell me, priest-what is a star?"

"Why, a great, hot ball of gas, that doth..." Father Al caught himself. "Uh, dost thou see, there is writing of seven spheres of crystal that surround the Earth..."

" 'Earth?' Strange term, when thou most a.s.suredly dost mean 'world.' Nay, thou didst speak thy true thought at the first, surprised to hear such a question from one like me- and, I doubt not, thou couldst tell me also of other worlds, that do swing about the stars, and heavenly cars that sail between them. Is it not so? I charge thee, priest, to answer truly, by thy cloth-dost thou not believe a lie to be a sin? " "Why, so I do," Father Al admitted, "and therefore must I needs acknowledge the truth whereof thou speakest; I could indeed tell thee of such wonders. But..."

"And didst thou not ride hither in just such a car, from such another world?" The elf watched him keenly.

Father Al stared at him.

The elf waited.

"Indeed I did." Father Al's brows pulled down. "How would an elf know of such matters? Hast thy High Warlock told thee of them?"

It was the elf's turn to be taken aback. "Nay, what knowest thou of Rod Gallowgla.s.s?"

"That he is, to thee, indeed a puissant warlock-though he would deny it, had he any honesty within him-and doth come, as I do, from a world beyond the sky. Indeed, he doth serve the same Government of Many Stars that governs me, and came, as I did, in a s.h.i.+p that sails the void between the stars."

" Tis even as thou sayest, including his denial of his powers." The elf regarded him narrowly. "Dost thou know him, then?"

"We never have met," Father Al evaded. "Now, since that I have told thee what thou didst wish to know, wilt thou not oblige me in return, and say to me how it can be that elves exist?"

"Why," the elf said craftily, "why not the way that witches do? Thou hast no difficulty understanding why she lives." He nodded toward the witch-girl.

"That is known to me; she is like to any other la.s.s, excepting that G.o.d gave to her at birth some gifts of powers in her mind; and I can see that, when first her ancestors did come to this world, those who chose to come had each within him some little germ of such-like powers. Thus, as generations pa.s.sed, and married one another again and yet again, that germ of power grew, until some few were born who had it in good measure."

" 'Tis even as Rod Gallowgla.s.s did guess," the elf mused. "Nay, thou art certainly from the realm that birthed him. But tell me, then, if such a marrying within a nation might produce a witch, why might it not produce an elf?"

"It might; it might indeed." Father Al nodded thoughtfully. "Yet were it so, my whistling, and the turning of my coat, would not dispel thy glamour, as was told in Terran legend. Nay, there is something more than mortal's magic in thee. How didst thou come to be?"

"Thou dost see too well for easy liking," the elf sighed, "and I do owe thee truth for truth. I do know that elves are born of forest and of earth, of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn; for we have been here as long as they. And well ought I to know it, for I am myself the oldest of all Old Things!"

The phrase triggered memories, and Puck ofPook's Hill came flooding back to Father Al's mind from his childhood. "Why, thou'rt Robin Goodfellow!"

"Thou speakest aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night." The elf grinned, swelling a little with pride. "Nay, am I so famous, then, that all beyond the stars do.know of me?"

"Well, all worth knowing." Father Al silently admitted to a bit of bias within himself. "For surely, all who know the Puck must be good fellows."

"Dost thou mean that I should trust thee, then?" Puck grinned mischievously. "Nay, not so-for some have known me to their own misfortune. Yet I will own thou dost not have the semblance of a villain. Nay, turn thy coat aright, and tell me wherefore thou dost seek Rod Gallowgla.s.s."

"Why... 'tis thus..." Father Al took off his robe, and turned it right side out again, getting his thoughts in order. He pulled it on, and began, "A wizard of a bygone age foresaw that, in our present time, a change would come to thy High Warlock, a transformation that could make him a mighty force, for ill or good- a force so mighty as to cast his shadow over all the worlds that mortal folk inhabit. This ancient wizard wrote this vision down, and sealed it in a letter, so that in our present time, it might be opened and read, and we could learn, in time to aid Rod Gallowgla.s.s."

"And bend him toward the good, if thou canst?" Puck demanded. "Which means, certes, thy notion of the 'good.' "

"And canst thou fault it?" Father Al stuck out his chin and locked gazes with Puck, hoping against hope as he remembered the long hostility between Christian clergy and faery-folk, and the diminis.h.i.+ng of the faeries' influence as that of the Christ had grown. And Puck glared back at him, no doubt remembering all that, too, but also rea.s.sessing the values the clergy preached.

"Nay, in truth, I cannot," the elf sighed finally, "when thou dost live by what thou preachest. Nor do I doubt thy good intention; and elves have something of an instinct, in the knowing of the goodness of a mortal."

Father Al let out a long-held breath. ' "Then wilt thou lead me to thy Warlock?"

"I would I could," the elf said grimly, "but he hath quite disappeared, and none know where."

Father Al just stared at him, while panic surged up within him. He stood stock-still against it, fighting for calm, silently reeling off a prayer from rote; and eventually the panic faded, leaving him charged for otherworldly battle. "Admit me to his wife and bairns, then; mayhap they hold a clue they know not of."

But Puck shook his head. "They have vanished with him, friar-all but one, and he's so young he cannot speak, nor even think in words."

"Let me gaze upon him, then." Father Al fixed Puck with a hard stare. "I have some knowledge gleaned, sweet Puck; I may see things that thou dost not."

"I doubt that shrewdly," Puck said sourly, "yet on the chance of it, I'll bring thee to him. But step warily, thou friar-one sign of menace to the child, and thou 'It croak, and hop away to find a lily pad to sit on, and wilt pa.s.s the rest of thy days fly-catching with a sticky tongue of wondrous length!"

He turned away toward the cottage. Father Al followed, with the witch-girl.

"Dost thou think that he could truly change me into a frog?" Father Al asked softly.

"I do not doubt it," the girl answered, with a tremulous smile. "The wisest heads may turn to a.s.ses', when the Puck besets them!"

They pa.s.sed through the door, and Father Al paused, amazed at the brightness and coziness of the house, the sense of comfort and security that seemed to emanate from its beams and rough-cast walls, its st.u.r.dy, homely table, benches, chests, two great chairs by the fire, and polished floor. If he looked at it without emotion, he was sure it would seem Spartan-there were so few furnis.h.i.+ngs. But it was totally clean, and somehow wrapped him in such a feeling of love and caring that he was instantly loath to leave. Somehow, he knew he would like the High Warlock's wife, if he should be lucky enough to meet her.

Then his gaze lit on the cradle by the fire, with the two diminutive, wizened old peasant-ladies by it-elf-wives! They stared up at him fearfully, but Puck stepped up with a mutter and a gesture, and they drew back, rea.s.sured. Puck turned, and beckoned to the priest.

Father Al stepped up to the cradle, and gazed down at a miniature philosopher.

There was no other way to describe him. He still had that very serious look that the newborn have-but this child was nearly a year old! His face was thinner than a baby's ought to be; the little mouth turned down at the corners. His hair was black, and spa.r.s.e. He slept, but Father Al somehow had the impression that the child was troubled.

So did the witch-girl. She was weeping silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Poor mite!" she whispered. "His mind doth roam, searching for his mother!"

"Even in his sleep?"

She nodded. "And I cannot say where he doth seek; his thoughts veer off beyond my ken."

Father Al frowned. "How can that be?" Then he remembered that the child was too young to have gained the mental framework that gives the human mind stability, but also limits. He found himself wondering where that little mind could reach to-and if, in a grown man, such searching would produce insanity.

He looked back at the child, and found its eyes open. They seemed huge in the tiny face, and luminous, and stared up at him with the intensity of a fanatic. Father Al felt an eldritch p.r.i.c.kling creep over his scalp and down his back, and knew to the depths of his soul that this was an extremely unusual baby. "Child," he breathed, "would that I could stay and watch thine every movement!"

"Thou mayest not," Puck said crisply.

Father Al turned to the elf. "Nay, more's the pity; for my business is with the father, not the child. Tell me the manner of his disappearance."

Puck frowned, like a general debating whether or not to release cla.s.sified information; then he shrugged. " Tis little enough to tell. Geoffrey-the third bairn-disappeared whilst at play. They called the- High Warlock back from council with the King and Abbot, and he drew from his eldest son the place exact where the child had vanished, then stepped there himself-and promptly ceased to be. His wife and other bairns ran after him, dismayed, and, like him, disappeared."

Father Al stared at the elf, while his mind raced through a dozen possible explanations. It could've been enchantment, of course, but Father Al wasn't quite willing to surrender rationality that completely just yet. A s.p.a.ce-warp or time-warp? Unlikely, on a planet's surface-but who could say it was impossible?

Then he remembered Yorick, and his claim to be a time-traveller. It could be, it could be...

He cleared his throat. "I think that I must see this place."

"And follow them?" Puck shook his head with a sour smile. "I think that five lost are enough, good friar."

Father Al hadn t really thought that far ahead, but now that Puck mentioned it, he felt a creeping certainty. "Nay, I think that thou has said it," he said slowly, "for where'er thy High Warlock has gone, it could be just such a journey that could wake in him the Power that he knows not of. And I must be there, to guide him in its use!"

"Art thou so schooled in witchcraft, priest?" Puck fairly oozed sarcasm.

"Not in witchcraft, but in the ways of various magics." Father Al frowned. "For, look you, elf, 'tis been my life's study, to learn to know when a mortal is possessed of a demon and when he's not; and to prove how things that seem to be the work of witchcraft, are done by other means. Yet in this study, I've of necessity learned much of every form of magic known to mortals. Never have I ever thought real magic could exist; yet that letter that I told thee of warned us that Rod Gallowgla.s.s would gain real magic power. Still do I think his strength will prove to be of origins natural, but rare; yet even so, he'll need one to show him its true nature, and to lead him past the temptations toward evil that great power always brings."

"I scarcely think Rod Gallowgla.s.s needs one to teach him goodness-an should he, I doubt me not his wife is equal to the task." But doubt shadowed Puck's eyes. "Yet I'll bring thee to the place. Thence, 'tis thy concern." y The witch-girl stayed behind, to help with the baby if she could. Puck led Father Al down a woodland path-and the priest kept an eye on the direction of the sun, whenever it poked through the leaves, to make sure he was being led in a definite direction. Finally, they came out into a meadow. A hundred meters away, a pond riffled under a light breeze, bordered by a few trees. A huge black horse lifted its head, staring at them; then it came trotting from the pool.

" Tis the High Warlock's charger, Fess," Puck explained. "An thou dost wish to follow after his master, thou first must deal with him." And, as the horse came up to them: "Hail, good Fess! I present to thee a goodly monk, whose interest in thy master doth to me seem honest. Tell him who thou art, good friar."

Well! Father Al had heard that elves had an affinity for dumb animals-but this was going a bit far! Nonetheless, Puck seemed sincere, and Father Al hated to hurt his feelings... "I am Father Aloysius Uwell, of the Order of St. Vidicon of Cathode..." Was it his imagination, or did the horse p.r.i.c.k up its ears at the mention of the good Saint's name? Well, St. Vidicon had influence in a lot of odd places. "I am hither come to aid thy master, for I've been vouchsafed word that he might find himself in peril, whether he did know of it or not."

The horse had a very intent look about him. Father Al must've been imagining it. He turned to Puck. "Canst thou show me where the High Warlock did vanish?"

"Yon," Puck said, pointing and stepping around Fess toward the pond. "Indeed, we've marked the place."

Father Al followed him.

The great black horse sidestepped, blocking their path.

" 'Tis as I feared," Puck sighed. "He'll let no one near the spot."Suddenly, Father Al was absolutely certain that he had to follow Rod Gallowgla.s.s. "Come now! Certes no horse, no matter how worthy, can prevent..."He dodged to the side, breaking into a run.

The horse reared up, pivoted about, and came down, its forefeet thudding to earth just in front of the priest.

Puck chuckled.

Father Al frowned. "Nay, good beast. Dost not know what's in thy master's interest?" He backed up, remembering his college gymnastics.