The Warlock`s Companion

Chapter 9

All was quiet, except for the distant calls of night-birds wafting through the windows. There wasn't even the rustle of a mouse searching for crumbs. Moonlight crept in through a tall slit window, drifted across the floor, and was gone.

It was only a slight sound, but it grew quickly to a wail that tore at the heartstrings.

The Gallowglasses shot bolt-upright, staring about them. Rod reached out and caught Gregory to him; Gwen hugged Cordelia. Rod clasped Geoffrey's shoulder, felt a slight quivering.

Then he saw Magnus.

The boy sat still, every muscle taut, staring at the apparition.

She was beautiful, even now, with her hair disheveled and her face contorted with terror. She was pale as moonlight on snow, her garments a cloud about her. "A rescue," she moaned, "a rescue, I beg of thee! A rescue, good souls, from this monster who hath chained me here. I prithee…"

Suddenly, her gaze leaped up to fix on something above their heads, and her fists came up to her lips as she began to wail again, voice rising to a scream that seemed to pierce their temples. Then she leaped, shot toward them…

And was gone.

Bitter cold chilled them, then faded. The last echo of the scream rang into nothingness.

In the silence, Rod heard Cordelia sobbing, and white-hot anger flared in him, against the thing that could so terrify his child.

But what thing was it? He looked behind him, but only darkness was there.

Light was the one weapon against it. He pressed Gregory into Gwen's arm and turned to blow on the coals, laying kindling on them until flame licked up. He put on a heavier stick, glared at it to give the fire a boost, laid a log on, and turned back to his family.

They seemed to thaw in the warmth of the fire, but not much.

" 'Tis well now, daughter—'tis well," Gwen murmured. "What e'er 'twas, it is gone."

Cordelia gasped, bringing her sobs under control.

But Rod saw Magnus still tense, eyes gazing off into darkness. Rod concentrated, listening, and could hear distant, mocking laughter echoing into stillness far away.

Magnus relaxed a trifle, and his eyes came back into focus. " 'Tis gone, as much as 'twill ever be."

"Oh, I don't know." Rod's eyes narrowed. "I think we might be able to make it a little more permanent than that."

Magnus stared at him, shocked. "We are no priests, to exorcise spirits!"

"No, we're fighting wizards. Expert espers, where I come from—and every form of magic we've encountered on this planet has been psionic, in some way or another. Why should ghosts be different?"

Magnus's stare held; he almost whispered, "Dost mean we can lay this spectre to rest?"

Rod shrugged. "It's worth investigating."

"Then we must! Whatsoe'er we can do, we shall! The lady is in peril dire—e'en now, past her death, she doth bide in terror! Howsoe'er we can aid her, 'tis vital!"

The other children stared at him, startled, and Gwen seemed very thoughtful; but Rod only nodded, flint-faced. "Let's learn what we can, then. First we need to know who she was, and what happened to her."

"Who she is, Papa!"

"Was," Rod grated. "She's dead, son, no matter whether or not you can see her! She died two hundred years ago!"

Magnus stared at him, but Rod held his stony gaze, and the boy finally relaxed a little. "Was," he agreed. "Yet she is still in torment. How shall we learn?"

"As to that, you're the only research tool we've got," Rod said, "but the rest of us are going along; no splitting this family at night in this castle!"

"Never!" Cordelia shuddered.

"What! Wouldst thou search now, husband?"

"But we must, Mama!" Magnus cried. " 'Tis only at night they are so strong! By day, we might learn no more than we already know!"

Gwen stared at him, surprised.

"Were you thinking of drifting back to sleep?" Rod asked.

Gwen shuddered. "Nay, I think I shall not slumber now till dawn bringeth light! Wherefore should we not wander these halls? We have conned them already—and can we see worse than we have?"

"It's possible," Rod allowed, "so let's keep our torch with us." He turned to pull a branch out of the fire. "You remember that ball-of-light spell you used when we first met?"

"Aye, husband." Gwen smiled ruefully. " 'Twas due to ghosts' work then, too, was't not?"

"Yeah." Rod nodded. "I think I'm beginning to understand how that happened now. Well, lead on, stone-reader."

Magnus stepped away in front of them, frowning, then reached out to touch the wall. He stood still a few seconds, then drifted toward the stairway, fingertips brushing rock.

The other children followed. Behind them, Fess clopped into movement.

Rod hung back to murmur in Gwen's ear. "Any question as to the nature of the malady, Doctor?"

"Not a doubt of it," Gwen answered softly. "She is a beauteous lass, though a spectre, and he is in love, as any young man might be."

"Yes." Rod nodded. "I'm relieved, really."

"I, too. I feared he might be so distraught that he'd try to join her."

"Kinda my thought, too." Rod gave her a sardonic smile. "Fortunately, he's young enough to still be sufficiently scared of girls so that he's more apt to sublimate than to woo. Well, let's follow where love leads, dear."

"Have we not always?" she murmured, but he'd slipped behind her, and didn't hear.

The stairway hadn't seemed nearly so long by daylight. But they toiled up, following the curve as they went. Fess's hooves rang loudly in the stairwell. Rod turned to him, glaring. "You don't have to make that much noise, you know."

"True, Rod, but I do not think you would truly wish me to move silently behind you, on such an occasion."

"A point," Rod admitted. "The more noise, the fewer spooks. But can I hear myself think?"

"Do you truly wish to?"

At the top, Magnus stepped away from the wall, frowning and looking about him.

"Lost the scent?" Rod asked.

"Nay, yet 'tis quite faint. And I bethink me there's more to her tale than she herself."

Rod nodded. "True. There's also the thing she's afraid of."

"Let us seek through all." Magnus stepped over to the nearest doorway, pushed the door open wide, and stepped in, reaching out to touch the wall.

Cordelia had managed to slip back to her parents. Now she whispered into her mother's ear. "What hath him so beset?"

Gwen smiled at her, amused. "Why, lass, what dost thou think?"

"That he's besotted," Cordelia said promptly. "Is it thus boys behave, when they're lovestruck?"

"Aye, till they finally come nigh the lass. Then pursuit halts awhile."

Cordelia smiled. "Let us hope this light-o'-love doth not give encouragement."

"Any lass must, if the lad's not to flee," Gwen said. She stopped in the middle of the chamber to look around. It was perhaps twelve feet square, walls bare stone except for a tapestry hanging on one wall. The room held a bed, a small table, a stool, and a chest.

"Standard medieval furnishings." Rod reached out to the tapestry, then thought better of it. "Do you suppose this thing would crumble if I touched it?"

"I would not chance it," Gwen answered.

"A knight dwelt here." Magnus's voice was a sigh, a breeze. "A knight, and his lady wife. They were goodly, and content with one another—though toward the end of their tenure the knight was oft upset by the Count's son."

"Upset?" Rod said. "Why?"

Magnus shook his head. "All manner of wrongdoing—and the knight was on his guard to prevent such malfeasance."

"Had they no children?" Cordelia asked.

"Aye, and they were oft in this chamber, though they slept elsewhere."

"Elsewhere" turned out to be the room next door, and there was a similar suite across the hall for another knight and family. Magnus stayed in it only long enough to ascertain its nature, not even touching the walls, then came out.

"So the married knights took it in shifts, to attend on their lord." Rod looked about the chamber, musing. "How many did you say were in here in a year?"

"Four, to each suite—each to a season."

"And all were on edge, toward the end, because of the Count's son." Rod nodded. "We'll probably find a dormitory for the bachelors, outside the keep. What kind of people lived here after the heir became Count?"

"The single knights thou hast spoke of, though they but slept here. There is small trace of their presence, and that only for their more—earthly pleasures." Magnus's face hardened. "Most of their wenches were willing, yet I do sense summat of women's fear and pain."

Cordelia began to look angry.

"I'm beginning to see why the place was abandoned." Rod turned away, face dark. "What else is on this floor?"

They went out, and turned into the next chamber. Their torch was burning down; Rod plucked a mummified stick from a wall sconce and lit it. It burned brightly but quickly.

The room held only a single bed, a washstand, and a chest.

"A gentle-lady dwelt here." Magnus's voice seemed to come from a distance. "She did wait upon the Countess till she was wed; then another took her place, till she in turn wed"

"Probably several of these rooms; usually more than one lady-in-waiting at a time."

Magnus nodded. "The last dwelt in some apprehension, for the Count's son had grown to young manhood, and had an eye for the lasses. He had no scruples as to his manner of attaining their favors—though he feared his father's wrath."

"Did this damsel leave the castle free of him?" Cordelia asked, eyes thoughtful.

Magnus nodded. "She wed, and went—and none dwelt here after."

"Wherefore?"

"I know not." Magnus turned to the door, moving like a sleepwalker. "Let us seek."

He drifted on down the hallway, fingertips brushing the wall, and turned into the next chamber.

But it was exactly like the one before; the memories were of different women, but held no new information. So it was with the third, and the fourth—though the last lady-in-waiting of that chamber had been importuned by the heir, who had become quite unpleasant when she refused. She had managed to break away; the young man had pursued her, but had been brought up short by one of his father's knights, who had rebuked him soundly and reported the incident to the Count, who personally took a horsewhip to his son. Nonetheless, the lady asked permission to return to her parents, and the Countess granted her request.

Cordelia frowned. "I begin to have some notion of the cause of this spectre's misery."

"I, too." Gwen wasn't smiling.

"No more rooms on this floor." Rod stood at the end of the hall, glowering around at the doorways and the slit-window in the end wall. "Back to the stairs, folks."

Gregory went first, being the lightest, followed by Geoffrey, then Magnus. They were going up in order of ascending weight, with the levitators first. "Just in case the masonry isn't what it once was," Rod explained. But he insisted on bringing up the rear.

At the top of the stair, a small chamber opened on either side of the hallway, very much like the ones below. Magnus stepped into the one on his left, concentrating and touching the stones. " 'Twas another lady-in-waiting dwelt here—the Countess kept two near her in the night. This damsel…"

He broke off, for the air was thickening in the corner, beyond the torch's pool of light.

The Gallowglasses held their breaths, their eyes wide.

The keening started before the form had become clear; Gregory clapped his hands over his ears. Then she drifted there before them, the same young lady they had seen in the great hall below, wailing in fear and terror.

"Damsel, what affrights thee?" Magnus cried, stepping forward and reaching out.

Rod thrust out an arm, blocking him.

"Thou dost!" the girl wailed. "Go, get thee hence! Leave me in peace!"

Rod started to talk, but Magnus beat him to it. "I cannot, for thy pain is mine, and when thou dost feel agony, a blade doth twist in mine heart! Nay, speak! Tell me why thine unquiet spirit still doth walk, and I will set it aright!"

A glimmer of hope glowed in the darkness that was her eyes, but she moaned, "Thou canst not, for I did not roam these halls till thou didst come to wake me! 'Tis thou, and thou alone! But for thee, I'd not have walked!"

Magnus's head snapped up, and he fell back a pace, staggered—but Gwen stepped forward and asked, very calmly, "Canst thou truly say thou hast lain quietly?"

The girl's face contorted, and her hands came up to her cheeks as she wailed once again, a wail that soared up and up until it rang in their ears, then twisted and was gone, and the room lay empty about them.

They straggled back to the Great Hall, a very glum and silent crew, with glances out of the corners of their eyes at their brother, whose face was thunderous. Gwen stepped up to the hearth, stirred up the coals, tossed on a handful of kindling and blew it alight, then put on larger sticks and a log.

Then she turned back to her son.

"Be not heartsick, my lad. We know ghosts have walked this castle for two hundred years. 'Tis not thou who hast brought her unending misery."

"But how can she speak of my waking her!" Magnus burst out.

"Thou art a stone-reader," Gwen answered, "and a thought-speaker, and a crafter. The traces of her unquiet spirit may have kindled thy mind into bringing her forth from the stones.''

Magnus looked up, appalled—and Rod lifted his head with dawning understanding.

"Yet why she?" the boy burst out. "Why she alone? Why she, and none of the others who dwelt 'midst these rough stones?"

"For that 'twas only she did live through agony so sharp as to leave traces so strong they could be conjured forth. Where others have left only some lingering touch that thou canst read, her feelings were so deep as to bring her once more before us."

"Call it hallucination," Rod said softly, "but you're also a projective—and once you could see her, anyone near you could, too; you put the picture into their minds."

"But I know the craft of that, Papa, and 'tis not a thing to be done unawares! It doth take intensity of thought, and some strength!"

"You did it when you were a baby," Rod said evenly. "We had to keep you away from witch-moss, because anything you were thinking about, took form."

"Yet there is no witch-moss here!"

Rod shrugged. "You can't be sure of that. And even if it isn't, your mind is thoroughly capable of projecting a hallucination into other people's thoughts."

"I have never done so before!"

"You've never encountered a stimulus this strong before, either." Rod forbore to mention that most of the strength might have come from Magnus's feelings toward the ghost-girl, but he exchanged glances with Gwen, and she nodded. First love can do wonders.

Magnus's face crumpled. "Then 'tis I am to blame for her misery?"

"No!" Rod said, full-force. "The misery was caused by someone else, and I have a sneaking suspicion he's lurking about, just panting to be hallucinated, too—so try not to hate him too hard; it might help him."

"Yet she would have slumbered, had I not come within!"

"I have a notion she has waked a few times in the past," Rod said evenly. "I doubt that you're the first psychometricist to come in here in the last two hundred years. You remember how boys like to prove their courage by spending the night in a haunted house? And who would be most likely to do that? I have a notion that any time you hear about a haunting anywhere in Gramarye, you've had a latent psychometricist who doesn't know what he is."

Magnus's gaze was fastened on Rod; the boy was drinking in the words, hungry to believe.

"Besides," Rod said, feeling uncomfortable, "if you hadn't triggered her walking, I probably would have."

"Thou?" Magnus stared, then whirled to his mother. Gwen nodded, gaze fast on him. "Thy father hath waked ghosts aforetime, son." She turned to Rod, and couldn't help a smile. " 'Twas not long after we met."

Rod couldn't stop the smile, either. "No, it wasn't, was it?"

He turned back to his son. "I did something rather stupid: I went for a stroll in the haunted section of Castle Loguire—alone."

"Wherefore wouldst thou have committed such folly?" Cordelia's eyes were huge.

"Because I didn't believe in ghosts. But I saw them, all right—and I was scared hollow, till Fess figured out their trick. And mind you, I wasn't the first to see ghosts there—that part of the castle had so strong a reputation that nobody lived there any more. And the same is probably true here—I have a notion that this isn't the first time this spectre has waked, though she may not remember the others as more than a dream. I'd bet that psychometricists are more common here than she led you to believe."

A bit of color was coming back to Magnus's face now. "Yet her cries of anguish, and the wicked laughter we all heard last night, whiles the storm did rage…"

"When we weren't even inside yet. Right." Rod nodded. "Either you have a lot more range than we thought, or the ghosts linger once they're roused. Of course, all the electricity in the atmosphere might have had something to do with it."

Magnus paled again. "Dost think they may talk to one another when we living are not by them?"

"Interesting thought," Rod agreed, "but a pretty useless one, for our purposes. If they do, how can we tell, since we're not here to hear it? If a tree falls in the forest, but there's no one near to hear the noise, did it make any sound?"

The junior Gallowglasses exchanged glances, which could have meant that it was a good question that would require thought, or that Papa was being silly again.

"No matter how she hath been raised." Magnus banished the question with a wave of his hand, and Rod's heart leaped; if the kid could put it behind him, he'd been lifted past it. "Wherefore would she wish me to go, rather than asking mine aid, as she did before?"

"I don't think it was your help she was asking for." Rod rubbed the bridge of his nose. "More likely reliving a scene from the days of her life."

"And as to bidding thee go," Gwen answered, "she may have wished to hide her shame from the world."

"What shame?"

Gwen spread her hands. " 'Tis hidden yet. Naetheless, when a damsel hath been hurted deeply, she will oft wish to be alone until her wound hath healed."

"Definitely," Rod agreed, "and that's not exclusive to women. It can take a long time for a man to heal, too."

Magnus frowned. "Dost thou speak from conjecture, or from knowledge?"

"Doesn't matter," Rod said, "since the important question is really not how we've waked her, but how we can help her to find rest again."

Magnus's gaze drifted. "Aye—that is the nubbin…"

"Then," said Gregory, "we must first learn why she is unhappy."

"Back to where we left off." Rod smiled. "So tomorrow, we'll search the castle and grounds and see if we can find any more clues. But I don't think we can do too much more tonight." He lifted a hand to stifle Magnus's protest. "You're tired, son, and not at your most perceptive any more—and if any of the rest of us have this particular gift, we don't have it as strongly as you. We need to get what rest we can. Come on, back to bed." And he stepped over to lie down on his pallet. Gwen smiled gently at the children, then went to join her husband.

Reluctantly the children followed suit, and lay still in the firelight.

"Mayhap," Cordelia offered, "we ought not to meddle in this affair at all."

"Nay, we must!" Magnus protested loudly.

"Softly, softly, son," Gwen called. "I do not think we can worsen matters for the lass, Cordelia, and we well might help. Yet her affairs aside, there's some small matter of our own interest."

Geoffrey looked up. "Why, how is that?"

"I do not mean to dwell in a house where ghosts do wander in the dead of night, to disturb our sleep," Gwen said, with finality.

"An excellent point," Rod agreed. "You're right in this, Cordelia—that if it didn't affect us, we should probably mind our own business."

"Nay, even then, we ought to seek to alleviate the poor damsel's suffering, out of simple humanity!" Cordelia cried.

"Thought you were the one who was saying we should back out. Well, since we're all agreed, we'll consider ways and means—and let's sleep on it, shall we?" He rolled up a little more tightly.

Slowly, Magnus lay tense but quiet again.

The hall was still, and a branch popped in the fire.

Cordelia tossed and turned, unable to sleep, even when the low, even breathing of her mother and brothers, and her father's snoring, told her that she alone remained awake.

The thought was frightening. There was a small sound, somewhere in the great room, and she lifted her head to peer around, eyes wide, heart hammering.

She saw only the forms of her sleeping family, and the dark silhouette of the great black horse, standing watch over them. Its eyes glistened in the firelight, ever vigilant.

Cordelia felt relief; she wasn't completely alone in her wakefulness. Very quietly, she slipped out of bed and came over to the robot. Fess lifted his head at her approach. "Lie still, Cordelia. Sleep will come."

"I have need of talk." She twined her fingers in his mane.

"Your charms avail you nothing, Cordelia—I am made of metal."

"I shall try the mettle of a man, when I am grown." She managed a small smile at her own feeble jest. "Speak to me, that I may sleep."

"Am I so boring a companion as that? No, do not answer. Tell me what you would have me speak of.''

She said nothing, only set to work making a plait in his mane.

"Of love, of course," Fess answered, with a sigh. "You are, after all, a young maiden."

"Aye. Wouldst thou, mayhap, recall Papa's manner when he first was moonstruck? Was he as Magnus is, this night?"

"Cordelia!" Fess reproved, in his softest tone. "I have told you before that your father's experiences are entirely confidential, and that it is for him alone to breach that confidentiality, not I."

"Oh, thou didst not even know when the Archer did smite him!"

"How should I, when I am only a thing of iron, with no feelings? How might I recognize romantic love?"

"Thou dost know it by its signs."

"Signs that can be hidden, with self-control. I will tell you only this: that when humans do suppress such evidence of love's coming, they cease to know clearly when they are in love."

Cordelia looked up, frowning. "Why, how couldst thou know such a thing?"

"I have studied humankind for five centuries, Cordelia. Go, now, and let your fancy play with the notion."

She smiled, taken with the idea. "Why, that I shall. I knew thou wouldst know cures for wakefulness, good Fess." And she turned away, going back to roll up in her blanket.

Of course, Fess did recognize the signs of infatuation, and remembered that the young Rod d'Armand had been worried because it had never happened to him. But Fess had seen the reason clearly, when he looked at the belles of Maxima—so he had not been surprised with the quickness of love's striking, once Rod left home. He remembered, with the clarity that only comes from permanent changes in the electrical patterns of molecules. It had been a time when Rod's joy and pain had been so clear to see that Fess was, for once, quite glad he had no emotions of his own. Rod's had been bad enough. Oh, yes, he remembered…