The Warlock Unlocked

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

When he saw the light of day again, it was golden-orange, and dim. Turning a head that seemed as large as an asteroid and rang at the slightest touch, he saw the reason for the dimness—a tiny window, barred, and up near the low ceiling. Turning his head again in spite of the pain, he saw walls of rough-hewn rock, damp and splotched with fungus.

He levered himself up on his elbows. Consciousness tried to slide away again, but he hauled it back. Little Geoff huddled next to him, curled into a ball. Beyond him, Father Al sat gravely watching.

They were both shackled to the wall by four-foot lengths of heavy chain.

“Good afternoon, my friend,” the priest said softly.

Geoff’s head snapped up. He saw Rod’s eyes open, and threw his arms around his neck. “Papa!” He began to cry.

“There, there, now, son,” Rod soothed. Chains clanked as he wrapped his arms around Geoff. “Papa’s all right. It’ll be okay.” He looked up at Father Al. “Where’re Gwen and Cordelia and Magnus?”

“In a room like this one, I’d guess. The soldiers carrying them split off one floor up; I gather they’ve two layers of dungeons here.”

“You were conscious.”

“By then I was, yes.” Father Al fingered a bruise in the middle of his tonsure. He had several more on his forehead and cheeks, and there was clotted blood around his nostrils. “It wasn’t much of a fight. Your wife stepped out just as you started to crumble, and they caught her on the back of the head with a cudgel; she was out before she could do anything. Your little daughter and I made something of a try—the air was quite thick with flying stones for a few minutes there, till a soldier caught her from behind with a pike-butt. For myself, I found a reasonably solid stick, and actually managed to lay out a couple of them, myself.” He sounded surprised.

“Which lost you your clergy’s right to not get hit.” Rod found his respect for Father Al going up still more, while dull anger grew at the bastards who’d struck his wife and daughter—and clouted a priest, besides!

He took Geoff by the shoulders and held him back a little. “Try to stop crying, son. I’ve got to check you over. Where does it hurt?”

Geoff pointed to his head, and Rod fingered the spot gently—there was a large goose-egg. Geoff winced as he probed, but didn’t cry out; and the bone didn’t give when he pressed it. Good. “Look at me, son.” He stared into Geoff’s eyes—the pupils were the same size. “No, I think you’re okay.” Thank Heaven! “You’ll have a headache for a while, though. Now, close your eyes, and see if you can hear Mama’s thoughts.”

Obediently, Geoff sat back against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. After a few minutes, he said, “She there, Papa—‘n’ Mag’us ‘n’ Delia near. But everyone asleep!”

“Haven’t come to, then.”

“Big sleep, Papa—bigger ‘n’ you just had!”

‘Bigger?’ Rod didn’t like the sound of that—it smacked of drugs.

A key clanked in the lock, and the door groaned open. Duke Foidin stepped in, grinning, flanked by guards. “Well, well! The gentlemen wake!”

“Yes, we do.” Rod glowered up at him. “Gonna slip us a sleeping potion now, like you did to my wife and other children?”

The Duke couldn’t quite mask the surprise. “Well, well! Thou dost have some power! And to think Eorl Theofrin assured me ‘twas the other three who were dangerous.”

“We operate as a unit,” Rod snapped. “What’re you planning to do with us?”

“Why, turn thee over to the Eorl, naturally—his help thus far has been rather half-hearted, being solely concerned with capturing thyself. Thou must have offended him deeply.”

“I didn’t exactly find him complimentary, myself.”

“Delightful, delightful!” The Duke rubbed his hands. “He should be quite eager to seize thee and thine—eager enough to pledge full support. To assure it, I believe I’ll give him thy family, but save thee till Lord Kern’s defeated.”

Rod studied the Duke’s face, deciding that his usual squeamishness about murder could be waived in this case.

“Oh, and thy wife! I had forgot!” The Duke raised a finger. “I ha’ not had time to attend to her properly—but I shall.” A leering grin spread over his face. “Be assured that I shall.”

Rod held himself wooden-faced, but the anger and loathing condensed and hardened into iron resolve.

Footsteps clattered in the hall, and a soldier burst in, covered with dust and caked blood. He dropped to one knee. “Milord Duke! Foul sorcery! Lord Kern’s troops filled the pass ere ours could come there! We battled to hold them within, but a horde of monsters turned our flank, and…

“Be still, fool!” The Duke snapped, with a furious glance at Rod. “Well, I must attend to this matter, wizard—but I’ll see thee again, at my leisure! Come!” he snapped to his guards, and whirled out the door. The messenger scrambled to his feet and stumbled after him. The guards clanked out and slammed the door; the key grated in the lock.

“I don’t think he’ll have much leisure for anything, now,” Rod said, with vindictive pleasure. “Lord Kern’ll come down like a whirlwind, and mop him up. Unless…” his face darkened.

“Unless Eorl Theofrin joins him whole-heartedly?” Father Al nodded. “But he has to buy Theofrin’s support. I suggest we do what we can to eliminate his buying power.”

“Yes—and now, while he’s busy!” Rod turned to Geoff. “Try to wake Mama, son! She can get us out of these shackles. Try really hard.”

“I… will, Papa,” the little boy said hesitantly. “But sleeps real hard.” Nonetheless, he screwed his eyes shut, concentrating. His whole little face knotted up with trying.

Then he yawned.

“Son?… Geoff. Geoff!” Rod reached out and shook him. Geoff’s head lolled over against him, with a little smile, and the boy breathed deeply and evenly.

“Damn! Whatever they put into her must’ve been really strong—it put him to sleep, too! What do we do now, Father?”

“A good point.” The priest frowned down at his hands. “We are, as they say, thrown back on our own resources.”

“Which means me,” Rod said slowly. “Ready to try a theory now, Father?”

The priest sighed and straightened up. “I don’t have much choice now, do I?”

“We have come to the crunch,” Rod agreed.

“All right.” Father Al slapped his hands on his thighs. “Try to follow me through this. First, the Gramarye espers could read your mind—until you fell in love with one of them.”

“Hey, now, wait a minute…”

Father Al held up a hand. “It was your falling in love that did it. You can’t remember the precise moment you became psionically ‘invisible,’ of course; but you weren’t before you met her, and you were afterwards. What other event could have triggered it?”

“Mmf. Well, maybe,” Rod grumbled. “But why? I want her to be able to read my mind, more than anyone!”

“No, you don’t.” Father Al waved a forefinger. “Not subconsciously, at least. She may be your greatest blessing, but she’s also your greatest threat. A man’s vulnerable to his beloved when he’s vulnerable to no one else; because you’ve ‘let her into your heart,’ she can hurt you most deeply. You needed some defense, some way of keeping the core of yourself inviolate—which you couldn’t do, if she could read your mind.”

“It sounds sensible. But Lord, man, it’s been nine years and four children! Wouldn’t I have outgrown that by now? I mean, shouldn’t my subconscious be convinced it can trust her?”

“Should,” the priest agreed.

Rod was silent, letting the implications sink in.

Father Al gave him a few minutes, then said, “But that’s beside the point. What matters here is that the ability to shield your mind from a telepath indicates some power in you, some sort of esper ability that you’ve never been aware of. Not the ones we ordinarily think of—I’d imagine there’ve been some rather desperate moments in your life, when you could’ve used such powers badly.”

“Quite a few,” Rod said sourly. “In fact, my subconscious should’ve dredged them up out of sheer instinct for survival.”

“But it didn’t; therefore, you don’t have them. What I think you do have is the ability to use the psionic force that espers, and latent espers, leak into the general environment.”

Rod frowned. “But there must’ve been plenty of that power leaking into the rocks and trees of Gramarye; in fact, the place must’ve been permeated with it. Why couldn’t I use that?”

“Because you didn’t know how. You didn’t even know you could. You needed something to trigger it in you, to release it, and to teach you how to use it.”

“So what did it? Just being in a universe where magic works?”

“Not quite.” Father Al held up a forefinger. “When Redcap finished with you, you were so thoroughly chewed up that I doubt the most advanced hospital could’ve put your insides back together—but you wished for it, didn’t you?”

Rod nodded slowly.

“And it worked.” Father Al smiled. “That wasn’t the doing of a neophyte wizard—it was the work of a master. And I suspect it took a bit more power than your own.”

Rod frowned. “So where did it come from?”

“Lord Kern.”

Rod looped his head down and around, and came up blinking. “How did you figure that one?”

“The child, the one we saved from Redcap. He’s an exact double for your own infant son—and his analog.” He stopped, watching Rod closely.

Rod watched back—and, slowly, his eyes widened. “Holy Hamburg! If the kid’s Gregory’s analog—then his parents have to be analogs of Gwen and me!”

Father Al nodded again.

“And if Lord Kern’s his father—then Kern’s my analog!”

“But of course,” Father Al murmured. “After all, he, too, is High Warlock.”

“And if he’s my analog—then he and I can blend minds, just as his baby and Gregory did!”

“If you could learn to drop your psionic shield, yes—which, in a moment of great emotional stress, you did.”

“At least for the moment.” Rod frowned. “I never told you, Father—but each of those times I worked a ‘spell,’ I felt some… presence, some spirit, inside me, helping me.”

“Lord Kern, without a doubt!” Father Al’s eyebrows lifted. “Then perhaps there is something of the telepath about you—or about Lord Kern. For, do you see, whether or not you can hear his thoughts, you can apparently draw on his powers.”

Rod shivered. “That’s a little intimidating, Father. Well, at least he’s a nice guy.”

“Is he?” Father Al leaned forward, suddenly very intent. “What is he like?”

Rod frowned. “Well—from what I’ve felt when I was wanting some magic to happen—he seems kind, very kind, always willing to help anybody who needs it, even an interloper like me. But he’s stern; he knows what he wants and what he believes is right, and he’s not going to put up with anyone going against it.”

“Hm.” Father Al frowned. “That last sounds troubling.”

“Oh, no, he’s not a fanatic or anything! He’s just not willing to watch someone hurt somebody else! Especially children…”

“Yes?” Father Al prompted. “What about children?”

Rod shuddered. “Threaten a child, and he goes into a rage. And if it’s his child…”

“He loses control?”

“Well, not quite berserk…”

“It sounds somewhat like yourself,” the priest said gently.

Rod sat still a moment; then he looked up. “Well, shouldn’t it?”

“Of course.” Father Al nodded. “He’s your analog.”

Rod nodded. “But where’s your analog, Father?”

“Either we haven’t met him, or he doesn’t exist.” The priest smiled. “Probably the latter—and that’s why I can’t work magic here.”

Rod frowned. “But how come I’d have an analog, and you wouldn’t?”

Father Al held out his hand with the fingers spread. “Remember our theory of parallel universes—that there’s a set of ‘root’ universes, but any one ‘root’ branches? Every major historical event really ends both ways—and each way is a separate universe, branching off from the ‘root.’ For example, in our set of universes, the dinosaurs died, and the mammals thrived—but, presumably, there was another ‘main branch’ in which the mammals died, and the dinosaurs survived, and continued to evolve.”

“So there might be a universe in which Terra has cities full of intelligent lizards.” Rod gave his head a shake. “Sheesh! And the further back in time the universes branched off from one another, the further apart they are—the more unlike each other they are.”

Father Al nodded slowly, gazing steadily at him.

Rod frowned. “I don’t like being led. If you’ve got the next step in mind, say it.”

Father Al looked surprised, then abashed. “Pardon me; an old teacher’s reflexes. You see, this can’t be the universe next to ours—we’ve skipped a whole set in which science rules, and magic’s just fantasy. There should be a universe in which the DDT revolution failed, for example, and PEST still rules—and one in which the I.D.E. never collapsed, the old Galactic Union. And on, and on—one in which humankind never got off of Terra, one where they made it to the Moon but no farther, one in which the Germans won World War II, one in which they won World War I and World War II never occurred… millions of them. We skipped past all of them, into a universe far, far away, in which magic works, and science never had a chance to grow.”

Rod stared, spellbound.

“Now, logically,” Father Al went on, “since the farther you get from your ‘home universe,’ the more it changes—the number of people who have analogs grow fewer. For example, think of all the soldiers who came back from World War II with foreign brides. In the universe in which World War II never happened, those couples never met—so their descendants have no analogs in that universe, nor in any of the universes that branched off from it.”

Rod scowled. “Let me head you off—you’re working around to saying that, by the time we get this far away, there’re damn few analogs left.”

“Exactly.” Father Al nodded. “Very few, my friend. You seem to be a very rare case.”

Suddenly, the stone floor felt very uncomfortable. “What makes me so special?”

“Oh, no!” Father Al grinned, holding up a palm. “You’re not going to get me to make any guesses about that—not without a great deal more research! After all, it could just be a genetic accident—Lord Kern and yourself might not even have analogous grandfathers!”

“I doubt it,” Rod said sourly.

“Frankly, so do I—but who’s to tell? I don’t quite have time to work out a comparative genealogy between yourself and Lord Kern.”

“But how many universes do I have analogs-in?”

“Again—who knows? I’d guess you don’t have any in universes that never developed Homo Sapiens—but I wouldn’t want to guarantee it.”

Rod chewed at the inside of his lower lip. “So I might be able to draw on the powers of wizards in still other, more magical, universes?”

“It’s conceivable. Certainly you’ve got to have a great many analogs, to have come even this far.”

“That makes two, I don’t knows’—or is it three?” Rod folded his legs. “Time to quit speculating and get down to practicalities, Father. How do I control this gift? How do I go about drawing on Lord Kern’s powers? I can’t just wish—it’s a little too chancey.”

“It surely is. But when you’re wishing with great emotional intensity, all you’re doing is opening yourself up—and there are techniques for doing that deliberately.” Father Al leaned forward. “Are you ready?”

Rod settled himself a little more comfortably, swallowed against the lurking dread that was trying to form in his belly, and nodded. “What do I do?”

“Concentrate.” Father Al held out his rosary, swinging the crucifix back and forth like a pendulum. It caught the remaining ray of golden sunlight and glittered. “Try to let your mind go empty. Let your thoughts roam where they will; they’ll settle down and empty out. Let the dancing light fill your eyes.”

“Hypnotism?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to do it yourself—all I can do is give directions. Let me know when I seem a little unreal.”

“As of three days ago, the first time I met you.”

The priest shook his head. “That kind of joke’s a defense, my friend—and you’re out to let the walls fade away, not make them thicker. Let your mind empty.”

Rod tried. After a little while, he realized that’s what he was doing wrong. He relaxed, letting his thoughts go wherever they wished, keeping his eyes on the glittering cross. Words whirled through his mind like dry leaves; then they began to settle. Fewer and fewer remained—and he felt as though his face were larger, warmer, and his body diminished. The cross filled his eyes, but he was aware of Father Al’s face behind it, and the stone room behind that—and he was aware of the ceiling and floor lines slanting together toward an unseen vanishing point, as though the whole thing was painted on a flat canvas. There seemed to be a sort of shield around him, unseen, a force-field, four feet thick… “I’m there.”

“Now—reach out.” The droning voice seemed both distant and inside his head. “Where’s your mind?”

It was an interesting question. Rod’s head was empty, so it couldn’t be there. “Far away.”

“Let your consciousness roam—find your mind.”

It was an interesting experience—as though he were groping with some unseen extension through a formless void; but all the while, he still saw only the dungeon, and the priest.

Then the extension found something, and locked into place. “I’ve got it.”

And power flowed to him—blind, outraged anger, a storm of wrath, that filled him, he could feel his skin bulging, feel it trying to get out of him and blast everything to char.

The crucifix filled his eyes again, and the priest was barking something, in Latin, Rod couldn’t follow it, but it was a thundering command, with the power of Doom behind it.

Then the crucifix lowered, and the priest’s voice was muffled, distant. “Whatever it is, it’s not supernatural.”

Rod shook his head, carefully. “It’s human.” His voice seemed to echo up through a long channel, and also be right there at his eardrums. It occurred to him that he should be scared, but he was too angry. Slowly, he rose to his knees, keeping himself carefully upright. “What do I do now?”

“Use it. First…”

A sudden shock shook Rod. “Hold it. It’s using me.”

“For what!”

“I don’t know… No, I do. It’s Lord Kern, and he’s not a telepath, but I’m getting the bottom level of what he’s going through. He just used me for a beacon, and he’s drawing on me in some way, to teleport a chunk of his army in…” He convulsed again. “Another chunk of infantry…Cavalry… archers… they’re all here now, very close by… Now he’s done with me.”

“Do you still have his power?”

Rod nodded.

“Wake your family.”

Rod didn’t try to slide into Geoff’s mind; he just willed him awake, pushing a bit of power into him to throw off the effects of the drug. The little boy yawned and stretched, and looked up at his father with a sleepy smile. Then his eyes shot wide open, and he scrambled to his feet.

Rod reached over to grasp his shoulder. “It’s okay, son. I’m still me. Now I’ve got to wake your brother and sister. Find them for me.”

Geoff gulped, paling, and squeezed his eyes shut. It was almost as though Rod could see the line of his thought, arrowing off through the stone wall. He turned his eyes that way, glaring up at the ceiling, pushing power out to his family and willing them awake.

“They awake.” Geoff’s voice was hushed and subdued. Father Al gathered him in.

“Are they chained?”

“No, Papa. They were asleep.”

“Then tell them to meet us at the stairwell. We’re going to find Elidor.”

“How, Papa?” Geoff held up his manacle.

Rod glared at the iron cuff, and it shattered. Geoff screamed and cowered back against Father Al. Rod glared at his other wrist, and the iron shattered again.

Slowly, Father Al held up his own wrists, side by side. The manacles shattered. Then Rod pushed his arms straight forward, and his manacles crumbled. He stood up, very slowly, keeping his body very straight; he felt as though his head were swollen, his face two feet in front of itself. “Guide me, Father. I can’t feel the floor.”

And he couldn’t—he could feel nothing but the tremendous, vibrating power that filled him, the towering rage that he fought to contain. He reached out to grasp the priest’s arm, and Father Al gasped. Rod lightened his hold, and the priest guided him slowly toward the door. Geoffrey followed, eyes huge.

They paused at the huge oaken panel. The lock erupted in a cloud of wood-dust; when it settled, they saw the lock twisted half-out of the door. Rod kicked it open and staggered out into the hall. Father Al scurried along, holding him up, bracing him. Rod’s head was beginning to ache now, with a savage throbbing. They moved toward the stairway.

There were a handful of guards at the iron gate. They looked up, saw Rod coming, stared, then caught up their pikes.

The iron gate suddenly wrenched itself out of shape, and the pikestaves exploded into flame. The soldiers shrieked and dropped their weapons, and spun toward the oaken door behind the gate—as it exploded into flame, too. They fell back, howling, as the center of the door blew out, scattering burning wood through the passage.

“I didn’t do that,” Rod croaked, “any of it.”

And Gwen stalked through the door, surrounded by flame, eyes burning in wrath, coming to claim her man. Magnus and Cordelia leaped up on each side of her, faces flint, hounds of war.

She saw him coming, and the anger hooded itself. She came to him, caught his arm. “Husband—what hath thee?”

“Power,” he croaked. “Lead me.”

Up the stairwell, then, and through the halls. Soldiers came running, shouting, pikes at the ready. A huge invisible fist slammed them back against the walls. Courtiers leaped out with swords arcing down; something spun them aside and threw them down. The family stepped over their bodies, advancing.

They climbed the Keep. On the last step, Magnus suddenly screamed in rage and disappeared. Geoff yelled and disappeared after him.

“Where’ve they gone?” Rod grated.

“To the King’s chamber!”, Gwen’s fingers tightened on his arm. “Hurry! Duke Foidin seeks to slay Elidor!”

Rod grabbed Cordelia’s arm and closed his eyes, swaying, concentrating. The ache pounded in his temples; blood roared in his ears and, behind it, a singing…

He felt a jolt, and opened his eyes.

He stood in a richly-furnished room, with an Oriental carpet and tapestried hangings. A huge, canopied bed stood against the far wall, with Elidor huddled against the headboard. Near it, under a tall slit of a window, stood a cradle.

The Duke stood before the bed with his sword drawn. Between it and Elidor, Geoff and Magnus wove like cobras, fencing madly against the Duke. He roared, laying about him with huge sweeps of his sword, maddened at not being able to touch them.

Elidor uncurled and plunged a hand under the featherbed, snatching out a dagger.

A huge blue face appeared at the window, and a blue arm with iron nails poked through, groping toward the cradle.

Cordelia shrieked, and the hag’s arm suddenly twisted. It bellowed, and Geoff looked up, startled, then whirled away to the cradle, to thrust up at the monster. With a howl of glee, it scooped him up. Geoff wailed, suddenly only a very frightened three-year-old, struggling madly.

“Aroint thee!” Gwen screamed, and the monster’s arm snapped down against the window ledge with a crack like a gunshot. The hag shrieked, but her hold on Geoffrey tightened; his face was reddening too much. Then the blue face fell back, and the hand yanked Geoffrey out of the window.

Rod leaped to the window and bent out, looking down.

Below him, the hag scuttled down the wall of the keep, like a spider, waving Geoffrey in the air. Rod’s eyes narrowed, and the cold rage that filled him left no room for pity. Suddenly, the hag’s arm twisted, and twisted again, ripping free from her shoulder. Her screams drilled through Rod’s head as she fell, turning over and over, to slam into the ground.

But her arm floated high in the air, with Geoffrey.

Then Gwen was beside Rod, staring at the huge blue hand. One by one, the fingers peeled back, opening, and Geoffrey floated up toward them, cradled by his mother’s thoughts, sobbing.

Rod didn’t stay to see the rest; his younger boy was safe, but the oldest wasn’t. He turned, deliberately, cold glare transferring to the Duke.

Duke Foidin still fought; but he fenced with a gloating grin, for Magnus was tiring. His parries were slower, his ripostes later. The Duke slashed at his head, and Magnus ducked—and tripped on the carpet’s edge, falling forward. The Duke roared with savage satisfaction and chopped down at Magnus.

His arm yanked back hard, slamming him against the wall; he screamed. Then he looked up into Rod’s eyes, and dread seeped into his face. Rod’s eyes narrowed, and the Duke’s body rocked with a sudden, muffled explosion. The color drained out of his face as his head tilted back, eyes rolling up; then he crumpled to the floor.

“What hast thou done?” Gwen murmured into the sudden silence.

“Exploded his heart,” Rod muttered.

A scream erupted from the cradle.

Gwen ran over to it, scooped up the baby. “There, there, now, love, shhh. ‘Tis well, ‘tis well; none here would hurt thee, and thy mother shall come presently to claim thee.” She looked up at Rod. “Praise Heaven we came!”

Father Al nodded. “The Duke’s sentries must have told him Lord Kern was virtually at his gate—so he tried to kill Elidor, in spite.”

“And would’ve gone on to kill the baby!” Suddenly, the anger soared up in Rod again, bulging him out, shaking him like a gale—and Father Al was there beside him, shaking his shoulders and crying, “The deed is done, the Duke’s dead! Elidor’s safe, the baby is safe, your children are safe! All the children are safe—and you are Lord Gallowglass, not Lord Kern! You are Rod Gallowglass, Rodney d’Armand, transported here from Gramarye, in another universe—and by science, not magic. You are Rod Gallowglass!”

Slowly, Rod felt the anger beginning to ebb, the Power to fade. It slackened, and was gone—and he tottered, his brain suddenly clouded; stars shot through the room.

“My lord!” Gwen was beside him, baby cradled in one arm, the other around him.

“Yes, I know you are drained.” Father Al had a shoulder under his arm. “That use of magic took every bit of reserve your body had. But pull yourself together—it’s not over yet! Hear that?”

Hear? Rod frowned, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He strained, and dimly, through the ringing in his ears, he heard shouts, and the clash of steel. War!

“Lord Kern’s troops are battling the Duke’s,” Father Al snapped.

Adrenalin shot its last surge, and Rod straightened up. “No… no, I can stand.” He brushed away their hands and stood by himself, reeling; then he steadied.

And a voice thundered through the castle, coming from the walls themselves: “THY DUKE IS DEAD! THROW DOWN THINE ARMS!”

There was a moment’s silence; then a low moan began, building to despair. As it died, Rod heard, dimly, the clatter and clank of swords, shields, and pikes rattling on cold stone.

“That voice,” Gwen murmured.

“What about it?” Rod frowned. “Sounded ugly, to me.”

“It was thine.”

“I believe your counterpart has come,” Father Al murmured, “to reclaim his own.”

“Good,” Rod muttered. “He’s welcome to it.”

Mailed footsteps rang on the stone of the hallway.

“Quickly!” Father Al snapped. “Hold hands! Link your family together!”

Rod didn’t understand but he reacted to the urgency in the priest’s voice. “Kids! Children-chain! Quick!”

They scurried into place, Magnus and Cordelia catching Geoff’s hands, Cordelia holding Gwen’s hand and Magnus holding Rod’s.

Just to be sure, Rod grabbed Father Al’s arm. “What’s this all about?”

“Just a precaution. Do you know what to do when you see your fetch?”

“No.”

Father Al nodded. “Good.”

Then the doorway was filled, and Gwen’s exact double stepped into the room.

Well, not exact—her hair was darker, and her lips not as full—but it was unmistakably her.

The “real” Gwen held out the baby. “Here is thy bairn.”

The woman gave a little cry, and leaped to scoop the child out of Gwen’s arms. She cuddled it to her, crooning to it in the same tones Gwen used.

“My thanks.”

Rod looked up.

The hair swept the shoulders, and he wore a jawline beard and close-clipped moustache—but it was Rod’s face behind all the hair. “I give thee greatest thanks, for the lives of my babe, and my King.”

Then Lord Kern’s face darkened, and he bellowed, “What dost thou here, what dost thou here? Seekest thou mine end? Get thee hence! Get thee gone!”

And the scene exploded into a riot of color.

Swarming colors, sliding into one another and back out, wavering and flowing all about him. Rod couldn’t see anything else; he was floating in a polychrome void; but he could feel the pressure of Magnus’s hand within his, and Father Al’s arm. And he felt yearnings and longings in different directions, like unseen hands trying to pull him five ways at once; but one was stronger than the others, and pulled him harder. He moved toward it; it was the direction Magnus’s hand was pulling in, anyway. Gregory, he realised—baby Gregory, calling Mama home. And Papa, too, of course—but who’s really important to an infant, anyway?

Then the colors began to thicken, blending into one another, then separating out again—brown stripes, and multi-hued ones, that coalesced into wooden beams and draperies; white, that bristled into stucco…

There was a floor under him. He let go of Magnus and Father Al and shoved against it, levering himself up, feeling dizzy—and gazed around the big room in his own home.

Near the fireplace stood a cradle, with Brom O’Berin bulking over it, scarcely larger than it was, staring.

Gwen scrambled up with a glad cry, and ran to catch up the baby.

Brom bellowed in joy and flung his arms around her.

“Uncle Brom!” the children shouted, and piled onto both of them.

“Fess?” Rod muttered, not quite believing it.

“Rod!” The voice cracked in his ear; he winced. “Is it feedback in my circuits? Rod! Are you real?”

“I’ll have to admit to it,” Rod muttered. “Never knew I’d be so glad to hear your tinny voice. You can shut down the transmitter, now.”

“Oh, Papa!” Cordelia scampered up to him, disappointed. “Just one more time?”

“No! Definitely not!… At least, not today.” He turned to see Father Al picking himself up off the floor. “If you don’t mind, Father, I definitely prefer technology.”