The Warlock Rock (19 page)

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"They are so gaunt!" Magnus said, unbelieving.

And they were—not emaciated, but devoid of any ounce of fat, pared down to stringy muscle. Their cheeks were hollow, their eyes too bright.

"The poor folk!" Geoffrey turned away, drawing a sling from a pouch at his waist. "Come, brothers! Let us find them meat!"

Fifteen minutes later, they approached the fire shoulder to shoulder, laden with squirrels, rabbits, and partridge.

The couple around the fire were chatting with each other, scarcely pausing for breath. They looked up, surprised; then the girl recoiled, face twisting in disugust. "Faugh! The poor beasts!"

"Aye." The young man frowned. "Wherefore didst thou slay them!" They spoke so rapidly that the Gallowglasses could scarcely understand them.

"Why… why…" Geoffrey, his gift spurned, was at a loss.

"We have brought thee food," Magnus explained. "All thy folk do seem a-hungered." The lad and lass stared at them in amazement. Then, abruptly, they burst into laughter—too loud, too hard.

"Why… wherefore…" Gregory looked around, perplexed.

"How ill-bred art thou!" Cordelia stormed at the couple. She threw her bundle of game down by the fire and set her hands on her hips. "To so laugh at those who seek to aid thee!" But other young folk were gathering around now, and joining in the laughter.

"Be not offended, I prithee." A young man, perhaps a little less hard-faced than the others, choked back his laughter and smiled at them. "And your gift is welcome, for we must eat now and again, whether we wish to or no."

"Not wish to?" Geoffrey asked. "How is this? Wherefore wouldst thou not wish to eat?"

"Why, for that we have these." A girl who had once had a shapely figure held out a double handful of white pebbles. "Eat of one, and thou'It be no more a-hungered." Geoffrey shied away, and Cordelia eyed the pebbles askance. "How now! Is not mistletoe a poison?"

"They are not mistletoe," another lad assured her, "but magic stones. What Greta offers thee are near to being the apples of Idun!"

"What, they that conferred eternal youth?" Magnus took up a pebble and inspected it narrowly. It had an unhealthy look somehow, a translucence that hinted at corruption just under the surface.

"Well, mayhap Tannin doth overspeak his case," the first youth allowed, "though when thou hast
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swallowed these stones, they fill thee with so great a sense of well-being that thou dost indeed feel as though thou wouldst ever be young."

"And end thine hunger," Greta asserted. "Thou wilt not wish to eat, and will be bursting with vigor."

"Here! Try!" Tarmin's hand shot out toward Magnus's mouth, a white pebble pinched between thumb and forefinger.

He almost punched Magnus in the nose, but Magnus recoiled just in time. "How now! I've no wish to eat of it!"

"Nor I," Geoffrey said, scowling about, "if it will waste me as much as it hath thy selves."

"Waste!" the first young man cried, offended. "Why, I am the picture of health!"

"He is!" another girl asserted. "Alonzo is the very portrait of robust young manhood!"

"Busted, mayhap," Geoffrey allowed. "I thank thee, but I'll not eat."

"Nay, thou wilt," Alonzo insisted. "What! Wilt thou thrust our gifts back in our faces?"

"We do not wish to offend," Magnus soothed, "but we will not eat."

"Why, how rude art thou!" Greta said, offended. "When we do but wish to share with thee. We would not be alone."

"Dost thou say that we do wrong to eat of them?" Tarmin demanded, glowering.

"Now that thou hast said it," Geoffrey replied, "aye."

"Then thou must needs partake of them," Alonzo stated. "We will not be wrong! Everybody must get stoned! Kindred! Catch and hold!"

And the circle closed in with a shout.

But a spirit screamed behind them, a huge black form towering out of the night above them, steel teeth flashing in the firelight, steel hooves flailing down.

The young folk screamed, terrified, and cowered before the night-demon—and the Gallowglasses ran through the gap toward Fess.

"Around me, and run!" the horse told them, and they shot past him, off into the night. Alonzo shouted, seeing his prey escape, and leaped after them. Fess slammed his hooves down—he didn't have enough cause to really attack, but he could bar the way. Alonzo jarred into his steel side and reeled back, arms flailing, into Greta's embrace. The other young people raised a huge shout and, seeing that the demon was only a horse, leaped past it after the fleeing Gallowglasses.

"Where… to?" Gregory panted. Night had fallen, and he could not see.

"Over here, brother!" Geoffrey called. "There is a path!" He pounded away, taking the lead, his
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night-sight better than the others'.

"Fly," Cordelia called to her little brother, "or thou'lt be caught for weariness!"

" Theywill not." Magnus looked back over his shoulder. "Whence gained they such a store of strength, with so little meat upon them?"

"Do not ask, brother! Run!"

The leaders had yanked sticks out of the fire, pursuing them by torchlight. Magnus glanced back at the bobbing lights. "They come… closer," he panted. "Nay, find some way… to lose them! Or they'll…

outrun us yet!"

"Into the wood!" Geoffrey called, and swerved in among the trees. Behind them, a joyful shout split the air.

"They cheer with reason," Magnus cried. "We must go slowly here!"

"So must they," Geoffrey called back, "for I've spied a bog!" The trees became more widely spaced, and between them some sort of sticky, mudlike substance roiled. Here and there, it puffed up into a bubble, sometimes of amazing dimensions, which finally popped and subsided into a sticky mess that closed off its own crater.

"The trees are all of one kind." Cordelia looked up about her. "What sort are they?"

"Gum, by the look of them," Magnus answered, "though 'tis too dark to see clearly." Cordelia turned back to the business at hand. "How shall we cross?"

"There are stepping stones!" Geoffrey called. "Step where I step!" They hopped across the bog, the boys levitating, ready to dash to catch their sister on the instant. But she sprang from rock to rock, more sure-footed than any of them.

Behind them, the mob came up against the sticky substance and jarred to a halt, one step from the mire.

"They stop," Cordelia cried. "They'll have none of this bog!"

"Small wonder." Magnus wrinkled his nose at the sickly sweet smell that rose from the bursting bubbles.

"What manner of mud is this, that is pink?"

"Mayhap 'tis not its true color," Geoffrey called back. "We see by starlight, look you."

"I look," Magnus answered, "and I hear, and wish I did not." The air about them was filled with soft rock music, perhaps softer than ever. Certainly the melodic line was simpler, varying only by a few notes, repeating over and over.

"I find it pleasant," Gregory said, smiling.

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"Aye," Cordelia puffed, "but I'll warrant thou dost find the scent of this bog to thy liking, also."

"Why, so I do. How couldst thou know?"

"Because thou alone among us art still young enough to be truly a child, brother, and children do ever like sweetness."

"What, will I one day dislike it?" Gregory asked in surprise.

"Belike," Magnus admitted. "I find I have come to have a liking for sharper flavors."

"Then why dost thou not like the music we have heard?"

"I do find some of it suiting my taste," Magnus admitted.

"Safe ground!" Geoffrey cried, with one last bound. He climbed up the bank several paces and sank down to rest. "That was trying. Rest, my sibs, but not o'erlong."

"Aye." Cordelia joined him. "Those lean ones may yet find their way around this bog."

"But what of Fess?"

Geoffrey looked up at a slight sound. "He comes—or trouble doth."

"I am not trouble, Geoffrey." The great black horse shouldered out of the night. "As you guessed, however, your pursuers are coming around the bog; there is a trail, and they know their way."

" Tis their country." Magnus pushed himself to his feet with a groan. "Come, my sibs! The chase is on!" They dodged around tree trunks and did their best to avoid thorns. "Is there truly a trail, Geoffrey?" Magnus called.

"Not truly, no. There is a game track that I follow."

"It should lead us to a larger." Cordelia looked back with apprehension; jarring music echoed in the distance behind them, with faint but enthusiastic shouting. "Find it quickly, I prithee! They gain!"

"We must fly, then," Magnus said, tight-lipped, "and 'tis dangerous enough in a daytime forest, let alone one benighted."

"Not so," Geoffrey called as he broke through some underbrush. "Here is a pathway!"

"Then we can run," Cordelia panted. She followed Geoffrey through the gap and began to sprint down the pathway. Magnus and Gregory followed, the younger boy gliding an inch off the ground, keeping pace with Cordelia.

Behind them, a huge crash announced their pursuers' breaking in upon the path. A whoop filled the air behind them, then the thunder of pounding feet.

"They follow," Magnus panted. "Run!"

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And they did—but the mob stayed hard on their heels, whooping with glee.

"Where does… this path… lead?" Magnus puffed.

"I have… no notion… brother!" Geoffrey replied.

"So long as 'tis… away from them," Cordelia called.

Gregory piped up, "Is not that… tree ahead… the one near which… we came onto… the path?" As they shot by it, they saw the broken screen of brush where the mob had tumbled through onto the trail.

"It is!" Geoffrey cried. "We are on a circle!"

"Then our pursuers are, also," Cordelia called back.

But Magnus frowned. "I hear them—but not… behind us."

"Aye," Gregory called. "By the sound, they are beneath!" And he stopped, peering down at the path.

"Nay, brother!" Magnus caught him up and started him running again. "An they still follow, we must not let them gain!"

But it was the Gallowglasses who gained; the sound of the mob began to fall behind them again.

"How is this?" Gregory wheezed. "I could swear we have passed them!" Cordelia looked up, frowning. "Their voices come from the side, now." They all looked—and the spectacle made them jar to a halt. The mob was in sight, but across from them, on the other side of a curve—and the young peasants were running upside down, seeming to hang from the path.

"What manner of magic is this ?" Geoffrey demanded.

"Whatsoe'er it may be, they still follow, and we must flee!" Magnus stated. "Yet they will run us to ground if we keep to our feet. Up, sibs, and fly!"

He and Geoffrey grasped wrists in a fireman's carry, swooped Cordelia off her feet, and rose up a foot above the path, sailing away down its length. Gregory wafted alongside them, demanding, "How can they run inverted?"

"I know not," Geoffrey grated, "but we must run faster if we wish to lose them. See! They are still across from us!"

Gregory stared. "How can that be? We have flown a quarter-mile, at least!"

" 'Ware!" Geoffrey called. "We come to where we came in again!"
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"Aye!" Magnus swerved toward the break in the underbrush. "And whence we came in, we can leave!" But as they shot toward the break, it seemed to start moving itself, staying just a few feet ahead of them.

"Why, how is this?" Geoffrey demanded. "Doth the circle turn?" They were all silent as insight hit a hammer blow.

"Many circles turn, brother," Cordelia said. "They are wheels."

"And so is this, upon which we run! Nay, then, we must go faster than the wheel, to catch its entrance!

Fly, my sibs! At thy fastest speed!"

And fly they did, flat out, exerting every ounce of psi energy they possessed—but the gap stayed just ahead.

"Wherefore… did it not flee… before?" Cordelia panted.

"Belike because we did not seek to catch it! Save thy breath, sister, and fly!" It was Geoffrey who realized their danger. "Slacken, sibs! Or we will overtake our pursuers!" Sure enough, the mob's torches were just barely visible in front of them—right side up again.

"What unholy manner of loop is this?" Geoffrey moaned.

"Who asks?" called a clear alto, and two figures stepped through from the brush screen. The Gallowglasses cried out, and did their best to stop—but couldn't arrest their motion fast enough; they sailed into the strangers…

Who caught Cordelia and Gregory in one-armed hugs, and reached out to catch the older boys by the arm. Magnus jolted back, trying to break free, saw the stranger's face, and froze. "Papa!"

"Mama!" Cordelia cried, throwing her arms around her mother. "Oh, praise Heaven thou art come!" Geoffrey squeezed his father in a quick bear hug before he remembered how old he was and drifted back, saying, "Alas! Now thou, too, art caught here with us!"

"Caught?" Gwen asked in alarm. "Have we come into a trap, then?"

"Aye! For this path is a circle, and we must run faster and faster to escape it!"

"But speed is not enough!" Cordelia explained. "The entrance stays ever ahead of us!"

"And there are those who chase us." Magnus looked back over his shoulder nervously. "By your leave, my parents, let us fly."

"Well, an thou wilt." Gwen levelled her broomstick; Cordelia hopped aboard. They drifted up above the path, and the boys rose to parallel them.

"If I fly, I can't really do much thinking." Rod started trotting alongside.
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