Warlock and Son

2

Magnus rode into the deepening gloom, seething with anger, hurt and bewildered. His father didn't want him? Well, he didn't want his father! For a moment, he was sorely tempted to go back, to go home-after all, Dad had given him leave.

Not that he needed it. He was a man grown, and should have been living by himself now, not still at home. Most of the young men of his age were already married, with their own homesteads and their own children. Only the romantic failures, the old bachelors whom no one wanted, still lived at home with their parents.

At twenty-one, to be an old bachelor!

And, of course, in a medieval society, there was no alternative, no third choice-except the army, or the monastery. You lived at home with your parents until you married. Or went for a soldier. Or to the cloister. FOr a moment, Magnus wondered how many young men married simply to escape their parents' houses and become masters of their own homes....

Though some of them were anything but masters. Magnus had seen quite a few who had escaped their parents' authority only to find they had become henpecked husbands, or if not actually subject to their wives, at least forever contending with a nagging termagant. More than a few, from what Magnus had seen. He shuddered at the thought of such a life with no escape in sight, then shuddered again at what it must do to the children. Though most of the marriages he had seen seemed happy enough-the husbands didn't expect much, and the wives expected less, so neither was disappointed.

Was that the limit of his choices?

To be fair, he reflected, calming, he had never known the other young men of his generation very well-noblemen's children did not become intimate with commoners, and children who had no psionic talents seemed to avoid witchkinder in any case. The young espers, the ones who had answered the call to the Queen's Magic Corps twenty years before, had wed each other and had children, to the delight of his father and the Order of St. Vidicon, both having a vested interest in increasing the number of operant espersbut by the time the younger generation had generated offspring, Magnus had been ten. Even his little brother Gregory was a year or two older than the other young magic-folk. It had been a pretty lonely childhood, he supposed, though he and his siblings hadn't really noticed-they'd had each other's company, and that had usually been enough. Friends their own age had been a huge treat-Their Majesties' sons, Alain and Diarmid-but only a treat. They hadn't been a necessity. What contact he had had with other young men his age had been fleeting, and frequently hostile. He hadn't missed the company-till now.

A scream tore through the treetops. Magnus looked up, suddenly alert, blood pounding at the thought of danger-a fight would be an almost welcome diversion now. Then a gust flapped his cloak, and he realized it had just been a sudden blast of wind.

Looking down, he saw a man standing before him. Magnus started, shocked. Then he scowled, anger rushing. "Who art thou, who dost come so unmannerly in silence?"

It was a good question, he saw-for the man was like nothing he had ever encountered on Gramarye. He wore a top hat and a Victorian caped coat, trousers, and Wellington boots-but all very tattered. His staff was ornately carved, and he wore mutton-chop whiskers. They were tattered, too.

"What art thou?" Magnus demanded again, hand going to his sword.

"Thine evil genius, Magnus," said the apparition. Magnus's eyes narrowed. "How knowest thou my name?"

"Do not all in Gramarye know the name of the High Warlock's son?"

That stung-the implication that he could not be known for himself. Magnus shifted the subject. "I ha' ne'er seen garb like to thine. . . ."

"Thou hast," the stranger interrupted, "in thine history books."

"Save there." Magnus tossed his head in impatience, though dread lurked within him. What did this stranger know of his books? "Whence comest thou?"

"From the London of thy books," the stranger answered. "I am one who doth pick and sort among the rags and tags of other people's thoughts for that which might be of interest or value to me. That which I cannot take, I buy-and that which I tire of and find to be of no worth, I give to others. I have a present for thee."

"I want it not!"

"I think thou wilt, for 'tis a spell of invulnerability."

"To make my body impervious to weapons?" Magnus's lip twisted in a sneer. "There is no such thing, only illusion!"

"Thou art poorly suited to speak of things that cannot be," the ragpicker said softly. "Yet 'tis not thy body I would make immune to harm, but thine heart."

That gave Magnus pause. There had been enough young women in his life who had feigned love, but really wanted only to exploit him in one way or another, that he already realized the value of the spell the ragpicker spoke of. "And what shouldst thou gain thereby? What would I give to thee?"

"Why, naught," the ragpicker said softly, but with too great an air of innocence. " 'Tis only as I've said- a rag of no great use, to me, and therefore do I give it."

"I trust not one who doth profess to give in altruism," Magnus grunted, "and surely not one who doth seem alien to this time and place, while knowing too much of me. I'll have naught to do with thee! Avaunt!"

The ragpicker shrugged and smiled. "Thou wilt change thy mind presently. I'll visit thee anon, when thou hast greater cause to know this present's value." He swept a hand between them in a gesture, and disappeared.

Magnus stared at the spot where he'd been.

Then he turned to ride on, more shaken than he was willing to admit to himself. He strove for composure, regulated his breathing-and, in a short while, calmed enough to begin to become aware of his surroundings again. The ground had risen beneath him; his horse had followed the deer track automatically, and Magnus realized that he had absolutely no idea of where he was.

Which was just fine.

Somewhere in the middle of the Forest Gellorn, of course-the largest wilderness in the land, its depths as much unknown as the Carboniferous Period mainland-and in the foothills of the mountains along its northern edge, at a guess. More than that, he didn't know. More than that, he had no wish to know.

Magnus realized he was shivering with the chill. He pulled up, surprised to see that he was soaked through. He had to find someplace dry, where he could build a fire, or he would have to teleport himself and his horse back to civilization-and he wasn't quite ready to deal with other people, yet. Morose and melancholy, he was nonetheless enjoying the solitude, and wanted to make it last a bit longer. He listened carefully, probing the night with psionic senses as well as hearing ...

... and heard the dull, repetitious thrumming of a musicrock, somewhere not too far distant. They virtually infested Gramarye now: The crafter Ari, who had been deceived into flooding Gramarye with rocks that made music leading young people to be victimized, had tried to correct his misdeeds by making more and ever more rocks that chanted music pleading for kindness and consideration. But lesser crafters, once shown that the trick could be done, had begun making music-rocks of their own, though the tunes were rarely as compelling as Ari's.

This one, however, was the exception. Frowning, Magnus made out the words:

"The Hag o' the Tower-she must be The ugliest witch in the North Country Has trysted me all day in her bower, And many a fair speech she made to me. She stroked my head, and she combed my hair, And she set me down softly on her knee, Saying, "If you will be my leman so true, So many braw things I would you gie . . ." "Away, away, ye ugly witch, Hold for away, and let me be; I never will be your leman so true, And I wish I were out of your company!"

"She's turned her right and round about, And thrice she blew on a grass-green horn, And she swore by the moon and stars above, That she'd make me rue the day I was born!"

Interesting notion. Magnus's attention strayed from the song as he found himself wondering if this was the work of some local crafter seeking revenge on a milkmaid who had turned him away-or if there might actually be some danger from some sour old witch who had a grudge against people in general.

If so, the fight would be welcome. Magnus was in the mood for mayhem, and looking for an excuse. Magical or physical, a good, brisk fight was just what he needed.

Unfortunately, no antagonist appeared. Drenched, chilled, and shivering, Magnus looked around for shelter. He reflected that animal trails usually led somewhere, and that even deer knew where to find a roof. He clucked to his horse and moved through the night, along the track.

It was only a rocky overhang, not even a cave-but there was dry ground beneath it, and even some dead leaves and small branches blown against the rock face. The deer had departed long since-at a guess, a doe had only used it to shelter her fawns last spring, and it was late autumn now. Magnus gathered the leaves, piled twigs on top of them, and stared at the little pyramid, thinking of the molecules in the leaves at the center, thinking of their random, erratic movement, of that motion speeding up, growing faster and faster....

A coal glowed to life in the center of the pyramid.

The young warlock smiled. It was always reassuring, knowing that his skills were still sharp. Practice made perfect, after all; he had to keep doing the little things, in case he should have sudden need of the big ones. He fed the fire kindling, and once it was a true blaze, went off and brought back some thick, wet branches, broke them into smaller lengths, and set them around his fire to dry off, draping his cloak over them. That done, he unsaddled his horse, rubbed it down as well as he could, looped a nose bag of oats over its head, and dug into the saddlebags. Hardtack, cheese, and sausage made a Spartan meal, but they suited his mood. He washed it down with plain water from a skin, took the nose bag off the horse and splashed some drinking water into a hollow for the the animal, then stripped and set his clothes to dry while he wrapped himself in the warmth of the cloak. He unrolled his blanket, sitting down and winding it about his lower body, then took the small harp from his saddlebag and tuned it.

He plucked a few chords, letting himself fall into a reverie, dissolving the disappointment and anger, letting his mind drift where it would.

It moved with the longing that he usually kept hidden away. Now, though, contemplation freed it to rise up, as young men's spirits will, into thoughts of the consolation and companionship of a woman he had not met. Somewhere, she was waiting for him, or so the stories said-somewhere, he would find her; his sister believed this with religious conviction, their mother had sung to them of it when they were small, and he had never questioned it-only wondered, as he did now, what she would be like, when he would find her. He did not wonder what it would be like to be with her-he knew that, from the tales and the songs and the poems: it would be bliss.

He had never had much experience with women his own age, for the same reasons that he had known so few of his male peers: the common people did not associate closely with the nobility, nor the non-espers with the esper "witchfolk," and the psionic babies of his own generation were ten years younger than himself.

Of course, noblemen did have quite a bit of association with peasant women, though none of it official-but Magnus had been raised by Church and Book, and with a strong sense of responsibility; he had frankly never thought of seducing a peasant lass-it would have been a violation of his obligations as a nobleman, to take advantage of a woman he had no intention of wedding ...

Or was not in love with.

Because, of course, love was the magic spell that brooked no resistance. If love came, and you turned away from it, you might never find it again, and live lonely all your days. The songs warned of that; the stories cautioned against it-and all promised the bliss that came of following true love, whenever it came and wherever it led, regardless of rank, wealth, or prudence.

Parents, of course, advised quite the contrary-once you were old enough to understand. But by that time, the dream of True Love had taken hold, far more deeply than any mere warning could do. Magnus longed for the bliss of that love, though he would never have admitted it-and yearned for the sexual satisfaction that was promised with it.

There had been hints of sexuality in his life-from older women, peasant girls. But always there had been the knowledge that they were his father's enemies, and his king's, seeking to use him for their own purposes-or, if not enemies, that they somehow sought to take advantage of him, even as they were letting him take advantage of them; so he had resisted them all, turned away from them. What they offered was not True Love. If a woman was really in love with you, she wasn't trying to use you, wasn't trying to gain anything by binding herself to you-she only wanted to be happy with you, and therefore make you happy.

As he would wish to delight her, in every way he could. So far, though, it was all just a daydream. Magnus plucked a final chord and tucked the harp away. He put more wood on the fire, then checked his garments and found them still damp, except for his smallclothes. He girded his loins, set a saddlebag for a pillow, wrapped himself in cloak and blanket, and lay down to sleep.

In the night, he dreamed--of a beautiful maiden, smiling at him like the sun, swaying close to him and closer, removing her clothing piece by piece, all the while beaming up at him without the slightest hint of duplicity, open and giving, wanting only him, yearning to make him happy, thus finding her own joy. His heart swelled with delight, knowing this was True Love as she swayed closer to him, naked body a vision of delight, and he was about to embrace both her and the rare ecstasy that came in such dreams, when ...

He woke.

And she was still there, heavy-lidded and smiling with invitation, but fully clothed and beckoning.

Magnus stared, started to sit up, then halted in embarassment; he was hardiy in condition for a woman to see him. But she beckoned further, making soft sounds in her throat and reaching down to catch his hand....

At the touch of her fingers, all doubt, all reservations, all concerns of modesty left him. He rose, transfixed by her gaze, aware only of her eyes, feeling as though they pulled him, as though he were falling into them....

She led him away from the campfire, off into the night. Charmed in more ways than one, he followed, oblivious to the rain and the chill, aware only of her.

Rod had camped not too far from his son, and slept when Magnus slept. Fess, always vigilant, noted by radar when the young man left his campsite, though not why; he waked Rod.

"What?" Rod craned his neck, squinting around at the darkness. "What did I have-a two-hour nap?"

"One, Rod."

"An hour! What did you wake me for?"

"I thought you might not wish to wait for breakfast, Rod. Magnus has left his campsite."

"Left! In the middle of the night? Why?"

"There is no indication, Rod-but radar shows that he did not take his horse."

Rod lay still, letting the implications sink in and fuel the worst aspects of his imagination. Then he pushed himself up and started rolling his sleeping bag. "We'll collect the beast, then. Start following."

But even with Fess's infrared night-sight, it went slowly. He didn't know the trail.

The dream-wench did, though.

High up she led Magnus, to a tower atop the high hill, and within it, and up a spiral staircase. At the top, they came out into a chamber hung with tapestries and furnished with damask pillows and a huge feather bed, all glowing with the light of a fire against one wall. Then, slowly, swaying, she began to disrobe, eyes never leaving his, smile wide and inviting.

But some niggling doubt at the back of his mind still pressed; some childhood fear of the unknown, perhaps, weakened his concentration, expanded his awareness just a little, and he realized that the tapestries showed writhing figures engaged in sexual foreplay-then going on to the act itself, pictured more realistically than he had ever seen. But beyond that simple coupling were other images, more exotic posturings, even bizarre, even ...

Cruel.

At the edges of his vision there were scenes involving whips and chains, of bound men and masked women, and the dissonance rocked Magnus, the juxtaposition of the postures of cruelty with the actions of love shocking him to his core-and the shock of the pictures jarred him back to his senses. Not completely, but enough for him to realize that he, the warlock, was enchanted, bound within the spell of an expert. He was shaken by the thought of such expertise, for he knew himself to be the most powerful esper of his generation. Who was this woman, who could befuddle his senses and draw him by a glamour, an attractive illusion, so complete that he did not even think to resist?

Or was it a woman?

The thought was like a slap in the face, and Magnus bent his will to dispelling the glamour, to seeing things as they truly were. For a moment, he saw bare walls decked with old spiderwebs, a floor strewn with refuse about a rotting straw pallet-and the most hideous crone he could ever have imagined. Only a few white hairs strayed over a nearly bald and liver-spotted scalp; a huge bent nose protruded from a mass of warts with two malevolent yellow eyes; the skin sagged, almost hiding a gash of mouth that opened, showing two rotting teeth and crooning, in a voice like a rusty gate, "Nay, dream ... dream ... forget this nightmare vision, for there is naught of the real about it.... Come back to the truth, to the actual, to the vision of my pleasures, my treasure. . . ."

The rusty gate was suddenly transformed into a thrush's song, low and melodious, husky and thick with desire, and the beautiful woman was back, the tapestries glowing behind her, writhing as they enacted the pleasures they showed, and she was stripped to the waist, a vision of earthly delights, beginning to unfasten her skirt as she crooned, "Oh, I love thee! Oh, I ache for thee! Come, caress me, my treasure!"

But Magnus, with the sensitivity of a lifetime's training, was aware of a mind sliding around his own, seeking the entry he had given it, then denied it, probing, finding the crack of desire in his shield, pressing against it, pushing and tickling at his mind. He was breathless for a moment, amazed at the skill it revealed, for he could tell that her mind was no match for his own in sheer power--

But far greater than his, in dexterity, born of long practice. How many young men had she bent to her will, to have become so proficient at it?

What did she want of him?

"Only the pleasure that you seek to give me." The skirt came away; there was no other garment beneath it, and her body swayed against his. "Come, my love. I am open to thee; I ache for thee! Come!"

"Nay," Magnus grated, and with a wrench of his will, he saw the room as it really was again, saw the naked, filthy hag who pressed against him, and recoiled from her in revulsion.

Then the enchanted room was back, and the woman was young, beautiful, and sensuous once more. There was sunlight behind her now, from a window high above, turning her silken hair into a flame of gold. "Come," she breathed, eyes devouring his, fingers plucking at his breeches. "Have at me!" And her head tilted back, eyes closing, lips parting....

A flash of memory of that slash of mouth, with its rotten teeth, made Magnus recoil again ... but the memory was quickly smothered with the sight of her, proud and glorious and longing, standing full in a sunbeam, and his body clamored for her with an intensity that was sickening. She smiled, beckoning, and almost against his will, he felt himself stepping toward her with slow, dragging steps, reaching out to touch her perfect skin, head bending over hers, lips parting....

He forced out the single syllable, thwarted longing shaping it to a groan: "No!"

"Thou canst not mean no." Tears filled those huge, wondrous, violet eyes, filled and overflowed; the beautiful head bowed, shoulders heaving with sobs. "Oh, thou wilt not leave me forlorn!"

Guilt seized him, and shame at making a woman weep; pity filled him, and he reached out to gather her close, to comfort her, to press her to him in the golden rays of the setting sun that seemed to set both of them aflame with desire, gilding the huge expanse of snowy feather bed, and he felt his need for her rising, filling him, a physical pain within him.

But the thought of pain reminded him of the tapestries. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at them, and recoiled with a gasp of horror.

Suddenly, the tapestries were gone, and the cobwebbed walls were all that were there behind the naked hag who stood before him, screaming, "Fool!" Oblivious of her nudity, she howled, "Villain! Vile miscreant! Travesty of a man! If thou wilt not take what is offered thee, become what thou art-the lowest of the low!" Her hands snapped out; he felt her will compelling his own as her eyes seemed to swell, swallowing him, dragging him into the dreadful, bloodshot, yellow gleam, and he felt himself dwindling, growing slack, falling to his knees, till he writhed on the floor.

"Be the serpent thou art," she hissed, malicious satisfaction in her eyes, "and shalt be evermore. "

He strained against the compulsion, but again, the touch of an expert had bound him, constrained him; he knew she had only convinced him he was a snake, that physically he was still every bit the man he had been-but his subconcious knew differently. It was now convinced of his snakehood as completely as it had once been certain of his humanity; she had bound him within his own skull, far more expertly than anyone he had ever met, and he could no more throw off that conviction than he could leap to the moon unaided.

"Away," she hissed, lips curving with cruel satisfaction, and he felt himself rising, lifting, up off the floor and to the stairwell. He writhed and strained against the compulsionbut only felt his body whipping about like a snake's. She crowed with delight, and followed him down the spiral stair-down, down, and down, then out into the dusk, for night was falling again.

A hundred yards from her tower, he felt his body drift to the ground at the foot of a huge old oak-and, suddenly, whip itself about, curving against the bark.

"There shalt thou stay," the hag grated, "warding that tree from harm, till death take thee-and thy bones shall assure all who come nigh that they must do the bidding of the Hag of the Tower!"

She turned away, and Magnus stared after, at the sagging, mottled flesh and gaunt shanks, realizing that the musicrock's song had been a warning, that he should have heeded it more closely. . . .

How had it ended?

He strove to remember, but had only a fleeting notion that the youth had escaped the fate the witch had bound him toand he had the vagrant dread that if he looked, he might find the skeletons of other young men bound around tree trunks nearby. The music, he thought desperately-maybe the song would tell him the means of escape! He listened, yearning, but the only sound was the wind. Even the birds would not sing so close to the witch's lair; no doubt they shied away from the miasma of her malice. And certainly the musicrocks had been stilled by her rage.

Magnus slithered against the bark of the tree, knowing for the first time in his life what was meant by the word "despair."

At sunset, Rod came to a village in a small valley. Smoke from cook-fires drifted up into a clear sky; peasant men were making their way out into the fields, sickles in their hands, to gather in the last of the crop.

It was very quiet.

Rod frowned; this was wrong. Peasant farm laborers should have been singing as they went out to the fields, as they did in the rest of Gramarye. Granted, it was chill in autumn; their breath steamed, and they wore heavy woolen tunics; but even so, the peasants of Gramarye laughed and jested as they went to their work, and sang as they reaped. Their wives sang, too, as they went about their work-and the children chanted rhymes over their games.

But no one sang in this town.

Rod looked up at the sun, and saw the silhouette of a dark tower against it, at the top of a ridge. The local lordling? A tyrant, crueler than most? Could that be the cause of the silence?

One way to find out. He rode down into the town.

The peasants drew back at sight of him, and the whisper ran. "A knight! A knight!"

Rod frowned. Was a knight so strange a sight here? Well, he'd have to ask. But as he rode toward a housewife, she looked up in alarm, called her children to her, and shooed them into the house.

Well! Rod had heard of peasant mothers telling their nubile daughters to turn their faces to the wall when the gentlemen passed by-but not their toddlers! He turned to an old man who was shuffling along the single street. "Good day, gaffer!"

The man looked up at him warily. "What wouldst thou wi' me, sir knight?"

"Am I so strange a sight? Are knights so rare here?"

The old man launched into a windy and elaborate answer obviously disguised to hide the facts, but Rod was adept at extracting sense from circumlocutions, and ascertained that yes, knights were that rare-even the local baron visited only once a year, with all his men. Otherwise, he stayed away, for fear of the witch in the tower, and his bailiff came with a very strong guard only once a month. Other than that, there were never any knights who came this way, except for the very occasional wanderer who rode on up the trail to the tower-and was never seen again.

Rod frowned. "What's so bad about this witch? Is she that cruel?"

The old man explained that, yes, she was, and went on in some detail. When he was done, Rod rode on up the trail in his own turn, face set in very grim lines, resolved to rid the peasants of the hag's tyranny-and very much afraid for his son.