The Warlock Rock (22 page)

"I know not," Magnus confessed.

"Give him more of what he doth wish," Gregory suggested. •

"No can do, little man! I want everything!"

"Aye, but what dost thou want most?"

The imposter's eyes roved toward Cordelia, but his arm creaked, and he groaned. "Music. Most of all, music!"

"He shall have music, wherever he goes." Geoffrey shrugged.
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"An excellent idea, brother!" Gregory caught up two rocks.

"What?" Geoffrey stared blankly. "What have I said?"

"That he should have music, wheresoe'er he doth go!" Gregory placed the two rocks over the youth's ears. Instantly, his eyes dulled and lost focus.

"Maybe, just maybe," Rod said thoughtfully.

"Bind them in place," Gregory suggested.

Geoffrey caught up the youth's singlet, tore off a strip, and tied it around his head, crown to chin. Then he tore another and bound it from nape to forehead. "They shall stay, unless he doth take them off."

"He won't, or I miss my guess," Rod said. "Let him go, son." Magnus let go, and the young man fell like a stone.

Magnus looked down at him with disgust. "What, hast thou no pride? Rise and walk, man!" The prince-mocker picked himself up, looking dazed, and ambled away. He walked right between Gwen and Cordelia, unseeing, and wandered into the wood.

Rod nodded with satisfaction. "Wonderful idea, boys! He's out of trouble for the rest of his life!"

"Or until someone doth take the rocks off from him," Geoffrey pointed out.

"By then, we shall be long gone," Magnus said with satisfaction, "and our trail grown very cold." Then he frowned. "What did he mean by saying, 'only the dead know'?"

"A metaphor," Gregory suggested, "to show that none living can have any idea of the rocks' origin."

"No." Rod was quite certain. "What started this whole exploration, son?" Gregory looked up, startled. "Why… the dancing dead."

Rod nodded. "So if he says that only the dead know, those zombies might just be the dead he speaks of."

"But where," asked Cordelia, "shall we find the walking dead?"

"Somewhere between sunrise and dawn." Rod turned to pick up sticks. "But I, for one, am not minded to go searching just now. Fire and food, kids. We'll go hunting tomorrow. Maybe the blimp will show us."

"Aye," Gwen agreed. "For now, dinner and bed." They managed to sleep well in spite of all the music—or perhaps because of it. Rod's last thought, as he drifted into sleep, was that maybe his ears were beginning to grow numb.

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The next day was a hard one. They followed the blimp from sunrise to sunset and beyond. Past dark, they came to a village.

"We truly ought to have stopped some while ago, husband, whiles there was still light."

"I know, dear, but you'd been talking about wanting to sleep in a real bed, and frankly, I just couldn't resist the notion. Besides, I thought you might appreciate not having to cook." Rod frowned down at the village below them in the gloaming. "But I'm beginning to wonder if this hamlet is big enough to have an inn."

"It hath a graveyard," Magnus noted.

They stood atop a ridge, with the village nestled in a bowl of trees below them, centered around a small church with a broad yard dotted with grave markers. Lights warmed the darkness here and there, but none bright enough to indicate an inn.

"Well, if there is an hostel, it'll be near the church," Rod noted. "We can always go on through and camp on the outskirts, if we come up dry."

"Papa…"

"Patience, Geoffrey," said Gwen. "If there is an inn, thou'lt have thy dinner straightaway." The boy signed and followed his father down the hill.

But as they passed the churchyard, Gregory winced at the volume of sound. "Is this reverent, Papa?

How can there be so much more noise here?"

"It is suspicious," Rod admitted with a glance toward the church, "almost as though someone were attacking the chapel…"

"We have seen a meadow where folk did throw music-rocks, to be rid of them," Magnus contributed. Gwen frowned. "But wherefore would they throw stones at the church?" Gregory jolted to a halt, staring.

Rod stopped. "What's the matter, son?"

"The graves," Gregory gasped, affrighted. "Papa… so many…" In front of a score of tombstones there were gaping, ragged holes. Rod was aghast. "What is it?" he asked. "The plague?"

"No, Rod," Fess answered. "I am enhancing my night-vision, and can see that the holes are those of old graves. It is not the work of a sexton, though it might be the detritus of grave robbers."

"Or ghouls," Cordelia said, with a delicious shiver.

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"I think not, Cordelia. From the pattern in which the dirt has fallen, I would say that the graves have been opened from within."

The whole family was very quiet for a minute or so.

Then Magnus said, "Fess—dost thou say these graves were…" The ground in front of one of the tombstones began to tremble.

Gregory cried out, and Gwen caught him up in her arms. "Peace, my little one, peace… Husband, away!"

"Good idea." Rod crouched down to hide behind the wall. "You folks get going." Gwen hopped onto her broomstick, then turned back, startled. "Assuredly thou dost not mean to stay!"

"What danger could there be?" Rod asked. "Don't worry, I'm only going to watch."

"Wherefore take the chance!"

"Because," Rod whispered, "I think we just may have found out where our zombies came from." Gwen made a little noise of exasperation, then commanded. "Cordelia! Geoffrey! Aloft!" The younger children circled up reluctantly—until Geoffrey noticed that his mother had that withdrawn look that she had whenever she was readying magic. He had a notion he might just see a flying tombstone.

For the moment, though, he saw his father and his big brother crouched behind a wall and, in a patch of moonlight, ground bulging in front of a headstone. It bulged, it heaved—and clods of earth spewed up as a hole appeared and widened. Then the dirt stopped flying, and two hands of bone rose out of the hole. They groped about, found purchase on the ground at the sides, and heaved. A skull catapulted out of the hole with the rest of the skeleton behind it. It knelt on the edge of the grave, scrabbled for purchase, then rose up tall in the moonlight, gleaming white, wrapped in the rotting remnants of a shroud. Gregory moaned and hid his head in Gwen's shoulder. She made soothing noises as she glared at the tombstone; the skeleton didn't see it tremble.

No, it was the skeleton who was trembling—or rather, nodding. It made a happy noise, then moved away from its grave, stepping in time to the music, its whole body bobbing and weaving as its skull rotated, seeking. Suddenly it stiffened, facing west, then leaped in the air, landing with the sound of a xylophone run. It gave a joyous yelp and set off in a stiff and awkward dance, moving away down the main street of the village. Shutters slammed in its wake, but it didn't notice. Rod and Magnus rose from behind the wall. "If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it!" Rod breathed.

"It doth not seem ill-intentioned," Magnus pointed out in a shaky voice. Fess stepped up behind him out of the night. "It does seem harmless."
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" Ya-a-a-h!" Magnus leaped five feet straight up. "Must thou move so silently!"

"My apologies, Magnus. Rod, may I recommend seeking a campsite?"

"Uh, not just yet." Rod set off down the road.

"Where dost thou go?" Gwen cried down in anguish.

"Why, after that skeleton, of course. You can't think it would mean any harm! Why, it's fairly whistling!"

"To whistle," Fess pointed out, "one must have lips."

"And it needs vocal folds to sing, but it's doing a pretty good job of that. Gwen, you didn't tell me witch-moss could grow in graves."

"I had not thought it," she admitted, swooping low. "Now that thou dost speak of it, I wonder an it doth occur by nature's way."

"Nay! Someone did seed each grave with witch-moss!" Geoffrey cried, alighting next to Rod. Rod looked at him askance. "And where do you think you're going?"

"Why, with my father! If 'tis as safe as thou sayest, then I am at no hazard!" Rod opened his mouth to answer, then closed it with a sigh. "One of these days, I'll start saying no."

"Tomorrow," Cordelia suggested, "or mayhap next year."

"A possibility. Okay, family, let's go see where the skull is headed. Just be ready to hit the treetops on a moment's notice, okay?"

The skeleton led them out of town, past three fields, and into a pasture that was bordered with a circle of piled stones—musical ones. The night was filled with hard, jangling sound, and the cows had fled to the nearby wood-lot. Rod had a notion there wouldn't be much milk in the morning. Not that the field was empty, of course. In fact, it was rather full—of bones. Not heaped, but articulated. It was a night of the walking dead, in various stages of mummification. There were only twenty of them, though—Rod counted. The rest of the crowd…

"Papa," Cordelia gasped, "they are living folk!"

"Yes, dear—their descendants, no doubt. A little on the young side, too." In fact, they were still trickling in—young folk in their teens and early twenties, heads nodding, feet weaving in intricate patterns, bodies moving in time to the music.

"Are they blind to the presence of the dead?" Magnus demanded. Rod was about to say "yes" when he saw a zombie rise up in the center of a circle of young folk, who
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shouted and clapped their hands as their ancestor cavorted. After a few minutes, they left off clapping and began to dance with one another in the stiff, awkward movements of the skeleton, while he beat time over their heads, signalling them in their progress through the dance.

"Nay," Gwen said, coming down to earth. "They see, but do not see." Rod frowned. "How can that be?"

"Like the drifters we met," Magnus explained. "They used lotus to rid their minds of thought—but for these young folk, the music alone doth suffice to achieve that end." Rod turned to him, appalled. "You don't mean they're trying not to think!"

"Aye," Cordelia said. "They told us they had wearied of the sad and endless task of seeking to make sense of the world."

Rod remembered his own adolescence, and held his peace. He turned back to watch the dancers for a while, then whispered, "Of course. They seek to be like the zombies."

"Rod."

He shook off the mood. "Yes, Fess?"

"You must establish the mechanism and, if possible, determine who has created this situation."

"A good point." Rod frowned. "Any advice on methodology?"

"Gather data."

"How are we to do that?" Magnus asked. "Will watching tell us aught more?"

"Maybe," Rod said, "but I'd like to try a more direct approach." And, before anybody could stop him, he dove into the center of the circle of dancers. Gwen gave a scream, then clamped her lips shut, pale with anger.

"He will be well, Mama," Cordelia said faintly.

"An he is not, we shall drag him out! Children! Be ready!" Rod surfaced inside the circle, coming up right next to the dancing bones. Now he could see why the skeleton stood head and shoulders above the youths—it danced on a broad stump. Rod waved. "Hi, there!"

The skeleton turned about, bobbing and beating time, not seeing him. Rod steeled himself and reached up to tap a scapula. "Hey! Got a minute?"

"Eternity." Now the skull swivelled toward him, the sightless eyes seeking his own. "What wouldst thou of me?"

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Rod swallowed. "Just some information. Mind telling me the reason for the party?"

"What is a 'party'?"

No, the culture wasn't ready for democracy yet. "This festival, then. Any particular reason you climbed up out of your grave? Or did you just feel like taking a walk?" The skeleton made a dry, rattling sound that Rod hoped was a laugh. "I only know that I swam up from darkness to feel a steady rhythm round me, like to a heartbeat. I wished to hear more of it; I swam up through the earth, and the closer I came, the more clearly I heard—till I broke through to air, and climbed again upon the surface."

Rod stared. "You mean the music was loud enough to wake the dead?"

"Aye. I was the first; anon I gathered all the pretty rocks that made such wondrous sound, and brought them here, to set in a circle by which I might dance. Ere the night had ended, others had waked from their long sleep to join me."

Rod swallowed. "Well—at least it doesn't seem to be doing you any harm."

"Oh, nay!" the skeleton carolled, and pirouetted for joy, stamping a foot down to stop so that it faced Rod again, and all its bones rattled like castanets. "Nay, this music doth make me stir as though with life again; it doth fill my bones with the need to dance! Oh, happy are we all for this second chance at life, and ten times thankful to be waked!"

Just what Gramarye needed—a band of grateful dead. "You're setting a bad example, you know."

"What—by dancing?" The skeleton stared with sightless eyes, incredulous. "How can that be so bad?"

"Because your descendants are imitating you. They were raised to respect their elders, after all."

" 'Twas we who were raised, not they." But the skeleton looked about at the young people. "How is our example harmful to them?"

"Because they're trying to become just like you— mindless zombies. You don't want them to grow up to be deadheads, do you?"

"Wherefore not?" The skeleton turned a toothy grin on him. Rod was still trying to phrase an answer, when the skeleton looked past his dancing circle and saw the family. "Oh, I see! Thou hast children of thine own, and dost fear to lose them!"