The Warlock's Companion (7 page)

Magnus frowned, cocking his head to one side. "From that, I take it the ghost who doth haunt this castle was not of the good sort, the whiles he did live."

"Not from what I hear," the elf said, his face grim. "Yet as I say, I do not truly
know
—even whiles the man endured, I had no business in his realm, and never chanced to meet him. Yet he bore his title with ill fame."

"Thou didst hear of him whiles he still did live?" Magnus frowned. "He hath not been so long a ghost, then."

"Nay, only a couple of hundreds of years."

"
Thou
didst know a man who…" Gregory's voice petered out as his eyes lost focus. "Nay, thou
art
spoken of as the oldest of all Old Things, art thou not?" But he looked a little dizzied by the implications.

Puck tactfully ignored the reference to his age. "I shall travel with thee, good folk."

"We might ever take pleasure in thy company, Puck." Gwen said, dimpling. "Yet if 'tis for cause that thou dost fear for us, I thank thee, but bid thee stay. No mere spirit can long discomfort
this
family, no matter how evil it was when alive."

"Be not so certain," Puck said, still looking uncomfortable. "Yet I'll own I've business of His Majesty's to attend." They all knew that the "Majesty" in question was not King Taun, but only Rod knew that the dwarf referred to the children's grandfather. "Yet an thou hast need of me, whistle, and I'll be by thee in an instant."

"Thanks," Rod said. "Hope we don't need to, though."

"Most dearly do I also! Yet an thou hast need of more knowledge than I do own, thou hast but to ask of the elves who dwell hard by the castle. They'll know the truth of its tale, I doubt not."

Rod nodded. "Thanks for the tip.
That
, we definitely will do."

"Nay, surely we must come to know our neighbors," Gwen agreed.

"There are few enough of those, I wot," Puck said with a grimace. "Rumor doth say that any who can, have fled its environs."

They had to wait for all the laughing and joking to die down in the inn, and for the limping driver to make his exit, red-faced, before they could order; but when the food came, it was good, and filling. With his stomach full, Rod declared that, since he was on vacation, he was going to honor it by attempting to nap, and any child who made enough noise to disturb him was likely to gain empirical evidence of the moon's composition.

It was a good excuse, at least, for going off under the shade of a tree fifty feet away, and lying down with his head in his wife's lap. From the constant murmur emanating from the two of them, the children doubted that their father was really sleeping or even trying to, but they bore it stoically.

"Is he not a bit aged to playing Corin to Mama's shepherdess?" Geoffrey grumbled.

"Oh, let them be," Cordelia said, with a sentimental smile. "Their love is our assurance, when all's said and done. Bide, whiles they make it the stronger."

"Cordelia speaks wisely," Fess agreed. "They did not wed to speak of nothing but housekeeping and children, after all."

"There is, of course, no loftier topic," Geoffrey assured him.

Cordelia gave him her best glare. "Thou art unseemly, brother."

"Mayhap—yet I am, at least, only what I do seem."

"I wonder." Cordelia turned moody.

"You are still troubled by Puck's cruelty to the driver, are you not?" Fess said gently.

'Nay—I do not doubt the rightness of it, nor the man's well-being," Cordelia answered. " 'Tis the look of the man that doth bother me, Fess."

"Wherefore?" Geoffrey asked, amazed. "He was well favored, for all that I could see."

"Aye, only a man such as any thou mightest meet upon the road," Magnus agreed.

"But dost thou not see, 'tis therein lies my grievance!" Cordelia said. " 'Tis even as Geoffrey did say—he was not fat, nor slovenly, nor had he the look of a brute! Yet he was one, beneath his seemly guise!"

"Not all do wear their villainy openly, sister," Gregory reminded her.

"Oh, be still, nubbin! 'Tis even that which doth trouble me!"

"Ah," Fess said. "You have begun to fear that all people are truly only bullies at heart, have you not?"

Cordelia nodded, her eyes downcast.

"Take comfort," the robot advised her. "Though they may be beasts within, most people do learn how to control their baser instincts—or, at least, to channel them in ways that are not harmful to others."

"But are they the less vile therefore?" she burst out. "They are still brutes within!"

"There is good at your cores as well as evil," Fess assured her. "Indeed, many people have so strong an instinct for helping others that it quite overshadows their urge to browbeat those about them."

"How canst thou say so!" Geoffrey said indignantly, "when thy first experience of mankind was with so base a knave?"

"That is true," Fess agreed, "yet he was in contact with other human beings, and I had some indication of redemptive qualities in them."

Cordelia frowned up at him. "Did thy second owner confirm those hints of virtue?"

They heard a sixty-cycle buzz, Fess's equivalent of a contemptuous snort. "He confirmed the opinion I had gained from Reggie, children, and demonstrated nadirs in human nature I had not thought possible, the worst of which was treachery. Reggie, at least, was not treacherous, and had some slight interest in others. My second owner, though, was of a mean and grasping nature, which is, I suppose, only natural."

Geoffrey frowned up. "How is that?"

"Why, anyone who would purchase a defective component simply to gain a bargain price, must necessarily be miserly—and he bought me to be the guidance computer for his burro-boat."

Geoffrey frowned. "What is a burro-boat?"

" 'Was,' Geoffrey, for they are no longer manufactured, which is something of a blessing. They were small, heavily shielded craft designed for excavating and hauling, but certainly not for beauty."

Magnus smiled, amused. "Yet thy second owner cared little for grace, and greatly for gain?"

"He did, though I suppose the attitude came naturally to one of his occupation. He was a miner in Sol's asteroid belt, and lived constantly with danger, but with little else; only a solitary individual would choose such a life, and might well become bitter accordingly. He was interested only in his own self-aggrandizement—or his attempts at such; he never succeeded notably."

"Was he poor, then?"

"He subsisted," Fess answered. "By towing metal-rich asteroids into Ceres station, he gained enough to buy the necessities, which are notably expensive at so remote a location from the planet where your species evolved. He was interested in other human beings only as sources of his own gratification—and if they did not contribute to that gratification, he preferred to reject them completely."

"Thou dost not mean he hated good folk!"

"That is perhaps an overstatement," Fess said, "yet not quite so far off the mark as it might be."

"But folk cannot live without other folk!"

"On the contrary, they can. They will be emotionally starved, of course—but such people frequently are emotionally crippled to begin with."

Cordelia shuddered. "How couldst thou think any good of mortal folk with such as that to form thine opinion?"

"Because I was constantly exposed to good people, Cordelia—or to news of them, at least."

Magnus frowned. "How couldst thou be?"

"Because most of the Belt folk were lonely, and wished company. They sought it the only way they could—by radio and video communication with others. I, of course, had to be ever vigilant, listening to the constant stream of chatter, in case some event should occur that would affect my owner—and as a result, I came to learn of all manner of people—some bad, some good, some quite evil, some very good. I learned of events, both important and insignificant. I think I remember best the time when an asteroid's dome failed—a force field that enclosed the atmosphere the people breathed."

Cordelia stared, shocked. "How could they have lived?"

"They did not—they died, with the exception of a technician and a tourist, both of whom happened to be in space suits at the time, and a little girl, who survived under rather unique circumstances."

"Oh, that must have wrung the heart of thee!"

"I have no 'heart,' as you call it, Cordelia—but I did learn a great deal about the abilities of people to sacrifice for one another, as I tracked her through the remainder of her childhood."

"Tell us of her then!" Gregory cried.

"Oh, 'tis all weepy lass's stuff!" Geoffrey objected.

"Not entirely, Geoffrey, for there was a villain involved, and a bit of fighting."

The boy's eyes glittered. "Tell!"

"Willingly, for it is part of your heritage. The hero of the tale is a quite unlikely specimen, for he was a reformed criminal."

"Indeed! Who was he?"

"He came to be called 'Whitey the Wino' after he reformed, and he earned his living by making up songs and singing them in taverns…"

Whitey struck a last chord from his keyboard and lifted his hands high, grinning at the burst of applause from the customers. "Thank you, thank you." His amplified voice boomed out through the cabaret—at least, they called it that. "Glad you liked it."
Yeah, and the shape you're in, you'd like anything right now
. But you don't get cheers by insulting your audience, nor return engagements either, so he kept the smile on and waited till the applause slackened, then said, "I'm going to take a little rest now, but I'll be back real soon. You take one too, okay?" Then he waved and turned away, with cheers and laughter behind him.
Yeah, take one
—
or two, or three. Then you'll think whatever I do is great
.

He shouldn't be so bitter, of course—they were paying his livelihood. But fifty-three, and he was still singing in glorified taverns on backwater moons!

Patience, he told himself. After all, there had been that record producer on vacation, who'd heard him and signed him before he sobered up. But he'd come back the next day with a studio booked, and Whitey had cut the wafer, and it had sold—with a low rating, yes, but a low rating of a hundred billion people on fifty-some odd planets is still twenty million, and Whitey got six per cent. It kept him alive, even under a dome on an asteroid or a lifeless moon, and paid his passage to the next planet. He never had trouble finding a cabaret who was willing to pay him now, so its patrons could hear him chant his songs. Then that critic had gone into rhapsodies about his verses being poems from the folk tradition, and a professor or two had agreed with him (anything for another article in print, Whitey supposed) and there had been another burst of sales, so here he was back in the Solar System, even if it was only on Triton, to cut another wafer. He hoped the professor wouldn't be too disappointed when he found out Whitey had a college degree.

He tried to throw off the mood—it meant he was good enough, he thought as he stepped into the glorified closet that the cabaret laughingly called a "green room." Well, at least it had someplace for the entertainers to relax between sets—more than a lot of clubs had.

He looked around, frowning. Where was that wine Hilda had promised him? Promised to have it waiting, too.

Ah, there she came, diving through the door, sailing in Triton's low gravity, out of breath. "Sorry, Whitey. There was a hold-up."

"Don't give them anything—it's a water pistol." Whitey reached out and plucked the glass from her as she braked against the other chair. "What was his name?"

"Terran Post Express." Hilda took an envelope from her bodice and handed it to him. "For Mr. Tod Tambourin."

Whitey winced at the sound of his real name. "Official, huh?"

"I'll say. Who knew you were here?"

"My producer." Whitey grinned, stroking the letter lasciviously as he eyed her.

"Don't give me that—if you meant it, you'd be trying to pet me, not the letter. What is it?"

"Probably money." Whitey slit the envelope.

She could almost hear his face hit the ground. "Who… who is it?"

"Lawyers," he told her. "My son's."

Not that he had ever known the boy that well, Whitey reflected, as he webbed himself into the seat on the passenger liner. Hard to get to know your son when you're hardly ever home. And Henrietta hadn't wanted him to be, after she realized her mistake—at least, that's what she had called it when she had figured out he wasn't going to settle down and become a nice safe asteroid miner, like a sensible man. She didn't approve of the way he made his living, either—selling exotic pharmaceuticals at an amazing discount, on planets where they were highly taxed. Totally illegal, and his first big regret—but she'd been plenty willing to take the money he'd sent back, oh yes—until that horrible trip when he'd landed on a tariff-free planet, and couldn't even make enough profit to ship out, and had found out, the hard way, what his stock-in-trade could do to his clients.

So no more drugs, for him or his customers—only wine, and beer at the most. He hadn't needed to smuggle any more, anyway—he had enough invested, he could live on the interest. Or his wife and boy could, while he eked out a living wandering from bar to bar, singing for shekels. The accommodations weren't too great, but other than that, it wasn't so different. He'd missed his son's early years though, and was beginning to think of going back to Ceres and getting to know him. Henrietta couldn't be all that bad.

Then he'd had the letter from the lawyer, and decided maybe she could. He'd
had
to live on his singing after that, because the court had given Henrietta all the stocks and bonds, and the kid. Whitey didn't have a leg to stand on—so he'd missed the lad's middle years, and teen years, too, because Henrietta had taken the money and the boy and emigrated to Falstaff, where Whitey couldn't follow—he didn't have the money for a ticket any more.