King Kobold revived-Warlock-2.5 (26 page)

“Well done!” Agatha said, mildly surprised.

“Not exactly what I’d call a major effort.” Rod dusted off his hands.

“Nor needful,” the old witch reminded him. “Either thy wife or myself could ha’ made it rise of its own.”

“Oh.” Rod began to realize that, with very little persuasion, he could learn to hate this old biddy. In an attempt to be tactful, he changed the subject. “Y’know, in a culture where so many people can fly, you’d think he’d’ve thought to use a lock.”

At his side, Gwen shook her head. “Few of the witchfolk would even dare to come here, my lord. Such is his reputation.”

That definitely was not the kind of line to inspire confidence in a hopeful burglar. Rod took a deep breath, stiffened his muscles to contain a certain flutter-ing in the pit of his stomach, and started down the stairs. “Yes. Well—I suppose we really should have knocked…” But his head was already below the level of the roof.

The stairs turned sharply and became very dark. Rod halted; Agatha bumped into his back. “Mmmmf!

Wilt thou not give warning when thou’rt about to halt thy progress, Lord Warlock?”

“I’ll try to remember next time. Darling, would you mind? It’s a little dark down here.‘’

“Aye, my lord.” A ball of luminescence glowed to life on Gwen’s palm. She brushed past him—definitely too quickly for his liking—and took up the lead, her will-o’-the-wisp lighting the stairway. At the bottom, dark fabric barred their way—curtains overlapping to close out drafts. They pushed through and found themselves in a circular chamber lit by two arrow-slits. Gwen extinguished her fox fire, which darkened the chamber; outside, the sky was overcast, and only gray light alleviated the gloom. But it was enough to show them the circular worktable that ran all the way around the circumference of the room, and the tall shelf-cases that lined the walls behind the tables. The shelves were crammed with jars and boxes exuding a mixture of scents ranging from spicy to sour; and the tables were crowded with alembics, crucibles, mortars with pestles, and beakers.

Agatha wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Alchemy!”

Rod nodded in slow approval. “Looks as though the old geezer has a little more intellectual integrity than I gave him credit for.”

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“Thou canst not mean thou dost condone the Black Arts!” Agatha cried.

“No, and neither does Galen, apparently. He’s not satisfied with knowing that something works—he wants to know why, too.”

“Is’t not enough to say that devils do it?”

Rod’s mouth tightened in disgust. “That’s avoiding the question, not answer-ing it.”

Glass tinkled behind him. He spun about.

A jar floated above an alembic, pouring a thin stream of greenish liquid into it. As Rod watched, the cover sank back onto the jar and tightened in a half-turn as the jar righted itself, then drifted back up onto a shelf.

“Harold!” Agatha warned. “Let be; these stuffs are not thine.”

“Uh, let’s not be too hasty.” Rod watched a box float off another shelf. Its top lifted, and a stream of silvery powder sifted into the alembic. “Let the kid ex-periment. The urge to learn should never be stifled.”

“ ‘Tis thou who shouldst be stifled!” Agatha glowered at Rod. “No doubt Harold’s meddling doth serve some plan of thine.”

“Could be, could be.” Rod watched an alcohol lamp glow to life under the alembic. “Knocking probably wouldn’t have done much good anyway, really. Galen strikes me as the type to be so absorbed in his research that…”

“My lord.” Gwen hooked fingers around his forearm. “I mislike the fashion in which that brew doth bubble.”

“Nothing to be worried about, I’m sure.” But Ron glanced nervously at some test tubes on another table, which had begun to dance, pouring another greenish liquid back and forth from one to another. They finally settled down, but…

“That vial, too, doth bubble,” Agatha growled. “Ho, son of mine! What dost thou?”

Behind them, glass clinked again. They whirled about to see a retort sliding its nose into a glass coil. Flame ignited under the retort, and water began to drip from a hole in a bucket suspended over the bench, spattering on the glass coil.

“My lord,” Gwen said nervously, “that brew doth bubble most marvelously now. Art thou certain that Harold doth know his own deeds?”

Rod was sure Harold knew what he was doing, all right. In fact, he was even sure that Harold was a lot more sophisticated, and a lot more devious, than Rod had given him credit for. And suspense was an integral part of the maneuver, pushing it close to the line…

But not this close! He leaped toward the alembic. Gasses being produced in the presence of open flame bothered him.

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“What dost thou?”

The words boomed through the chamber, and Galen towered in the doorway, blue robe, white beard, and red face. He took in the situation at a glance, then darted to the alembic to dampen the fire, dashed to seize the test tube and throw it into a tub of water, then leaped to douse the lamp under the retort.

“Thou dost move most spryly,” Agatha crooned, “for a dotard.”

The wizard turned to glare at her, leaning against the table, trembling. His voice shook with anger. “Vile crone! Art so envious of my labors that thou must needs seek to destroy my Tower?”

“Assuredly, ‘twas naught so desperate as that,” Gwen protested. Galen turned a red glower on her. “Nay, she hath not so much knowledge as that—though her mischief could have laid this room waste, and the years of glassblowing and investigating that it doth contain!” His eyes narrowed as they returned to Agatha. “I do see that ne’er should I ha’ given thee succor—for now thou’lt spare me not one moment’s peace!”

Agatha started a retort of her own, but Rod got in ahead of her. “Uh, well—not really.”

The wizard’s glare swiveled toward him. “Thou dost know little of this hag-gard beldam, Lord Warlock, an thou dost think she could endure to leave one in peace.”

Agatha took a breath, but Rod was faster again. “Well, y’ see—it wasn’t really her idea to come back here.”

“Indeed?” The question fumed sarcasm. “ ‘Twas thy good wife’s, I doubt me not.”

“Wrong again,” Rod said brightly. “It was mine. And Agatha had nothing to do with tinkering with your lab.”

Galen was silent for a pace. Then his eyes narrowed. “I’ truth, I should ha’ seen that she doth lack even so much knowledge as to play so learned a vandal. Was it thou didst seek explosion, Lord Warlock?

Why, then?”

“ ‘Cause I didn’t think you’d pay any attention to a knock on the door,” Rod explained, “except maybe to say, ‘Go away.’ ”

Galen nodded slowly. “So, thou didst court disaster to bring me out from my researches long enough to bandy words with thee.”

“That’s the right motive,” Rod agreed, “but the wrong culprit. Actually, not one single one of us laid a finger on your glassware.”

Galen glanced quickly at the two witches. “Thou’lt not have me believe they took such risks, doing such finely detailed work, with only their minds?”

“Not that they couldn’t have,” Rod hastened to point out. “I’ve seen my wife make grains of wheat dance.” He smiled fondly, remembering the look on Mag-nus’s face when Gwen did it. “And Agatha’s admitted she’s healed wounds by making the tiniest tissues flow back together—but this time neither of
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them did.”

“Assuredly, not thou …”

“ ‘Twas thy son,” Agatha grated.

The laboratory was silent as the old wizard stared into her eyes, the color draining from his face. Then it flooded back, and he erupted. “What vile falsehood is this? What de-ception dost thou seek to work now, thou hag with no principle to thy name of repute? How dost thou seek to work on my heart with so blatant a lie? Depraved, evil witch! Thou hast no joy in life but the wreaking of others’ misery!

Fool I was, to ever look on thy face, greater fool to e’er seek to aid thee! Get thee gone, get thee hence!” His trembling arm reared up to cast a curse that would blast her. “Get thee to…”

“It’s the truth,” Rod snapped.

Galen stared at him for the space of a heartbeat.

It was long enough to get a word in. “He’s the son of another Galen, and an-other Agatha, in another world just like this one. You know there are other uni-verses, don’t you?”

Galen’s arm hung aloft, forgotten; excitement kindled in his eyes. “I had sus-pected it, aye—the whiles my body did lie like to wood, and my spirit lay open to every slightest impress. Distantly did I perceive it, dimly through chaos, a curving presence that… But nay, what nonsense is this! Dost thou seek to tell me that, in one such other universe, I do live again?”

“ ‘Again’ might be stretching it,” Rod hedged, “especially since your opposite number is dead now. But that a Galen, just like you, actually did live, yes—except he seems to have made a different choice when he was a youth.”

Galen said nothing, but his gaze strayed to Agatha.

She returned it, her face like flint.

“For there was an Agatha in that other universe, too,” Rod said softly, “and they met, and married, and she bore a son.”

Galen still watched Agatha, his expression blank.

“They named the son Harold,” Rod went on, “and he grew to be a fine young warlock—but more ‘war’

than ‘lock.’ Apparently, he enlisted, and fought in quite a few battles. He survived, but his parents passed away—probably from sheer worry, with a son in the infantry…”

Galen snapped out of his trance. “Do not seek to cozen me, Master Warlock! How could they have died, when this Agatha and I…” His voice dwindled and his gaze drifted as he slid toward the new thought.

“Time is no ranker, Master Wizard; he’s under no compulsion to march at the same pace in each place he invests. But more importantly, events can differ in different universes—or Harold would never have been born. And if the Galen and Agatha of his universe could marry, they could also die—from accident, or disease, or perhaps even one of those battles that their son survived. I’m sure he’d be willing to tell
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you, if you asked him.”

Galen glanced quickly about the chamber, and seemed to solidify inside his own skin.

“Try,” Rod breathed. “Gwen can’t hear him, nor can any of the other witches—save Agatha. But if you’re the analog of his father, you should be able to…”

“Nay!” Galen boomed. “Am I become so credulous as to hearken to the tales of a stripling of thirty?”

“Thirty-two,” Rod corrected.

“A child, scarcely more! I credit not a word of this tale of thine!”

“Ah, but we haven’t come to the evidence yet.” Rod grinned. “Because, you see, Harold didn’t survive one of those battles.”

Galen’s face neutralized again.

“He was wounded, and badly,” Rod pressed. “He barely managed to crawl into a cave and collapse there—and his spirit drifted loose. But his body didn’t. No, it lay in a lasting, deathlike sleep; so his spirit had no living body to inhabit, but also had not been freed by death and couldn’t soar to seek Heaven. But that spirit was a warlock, so it didn’t have to just haunt the cave where its body lay. No, it went adventuring—out into the realm of chaos, seeking out that curving presence you spoke of, searching for its parents’ spirits, seeking aid…”

“And found them,” Galen finished in a harsh whisper.

Rod nodded. “One, at least—and now he’s found the other.”

Galen’s glances darted around the chamber again; he shuddered, shrinking more tightly into his robes. Slowly then, his frosty glare returned to Rod. “Thou hadst no need to speak of this to me, Lord Warlock.

‘Twill yield thee no profit.”

“Well, I did think Harold deserved a chance to at least try to meet you—as you became in this universe. Just in case.”

Galen held his glare, refusing the bait.

“We have the beastmen bottled up, for the time being,” Rod explained, “but they’re likely to come charging out any minute, trying to freeze our soldiers with their Evil Eye. Our young warlocks and witches will try to counter it with their own power, feeding it through our soldiers. They wouldn’t stand a chance against the beastmen’s power by themselves—but they’ll have my wife and Agatha to support them.”

“Aye, and we’re like to have our minds blasted for our pains,” Agatha ground out, “for some monster that we wot not of doth send them greater power with each thunderbolt. Though we might stand against them and win, if thou wert beside us.”

“And wherefore should I be?” Galen’s voice was flat with contempt. “Where-fore should I aid the peasant folk who racked and tortured me in my youth? Wherefore ought I aid their children and grandchildren who, ever and anon all these long years, have marched against me, seeking to tear down my Dark Tower and burn me at the stake? Nay, thou softhearted fool! Go to thy death for the sake of
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those that hate thee, an thou wishest—but look not for me to accompany thee!”

“Nay, I do not!” Agatha’s eyes glittered with contempt. “Yet, there’s one who’s man enough to do so, to bear up with me under that fell onslaught.”

Galen stared at her, frozen.

“Harold’s a dutiful son,” Rod murmured. “I thought you might like the chance to get acquainted with him.” He left the logical consequence unsaid. Could a spirit be destroyed? He hoped he wouldn’t find out.

“I credit not one single syllable!” Galen hissed. “ ‘Tis but a scheme to cozen me into placing all at risk for them who like me not!” He turned back to Rod. “Thou dost amaze me, Lord Warlock; for even here, in my hermitage, I had heard thy repute and I had thought thee lord of greater intellect than this. Canst thou author no stronger scheme to gain mine aid, no subtle, devious chain of ruses?”