The Warlock Unlocked

  

 by Christopher Stasheff

 Table ofContents

  

 PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 PROLOGUE



  

 Pope John the XXIV said his first Mass with the whole world watching through its 3DT cameras. He said his second at sunrise the next morning, with a handful of devoted clerics watching, in a little chapel adjoining his chambers. Not too many were willing to get up at 5:00 AM, even for a Mass said by the Holy Father.

 After a frugal breakfast—he had resurrected the quaint, antique custom of saying Mass on an empty stomach, in spite of what his doctor told him that thimbleful of wine every morning was doing to its lining—the Pope sat down at his desk to face his first day on the job.

 Cardinal Incipio gave him just time enough to get settled before entering with an armful of fiche-wafers. “Good morning, Your Holiness.”

 “Good morning, Giuseppe.” Pope John eyed the bulging case, sighed, and pulled over his wafer-reader. “Well, let’s get started. What’ve you got for me?”

 “An air of mystery.” Cardinal Incipio produced an ancient envelope with a magician’s flourish. “I thought you might like to start the morning with a dash of intrigue.”

 The Pope stared at the nine-by-twelve parchment container. “You’ve certainly got my attention. What, by all the stars, is that?”

 “An envelope.” Cardinal Incipio handed it to him reverently. “Be careful, Your Holiness; it’s rather old.”

 “An envelope.” The Pope took it, frowning. “Enclosures for messages. So large? It mustbe old!”

 “Very old,” Cardinal Incipio murmured, but Pope John wasn’t hearing him. He was staring, awed, at the sprawling, handwritten inscription:

 To be opened by:

 His Holiness, Pope John XXIV On August 23, 3059

 Pope John felt a tingling spread from the base of his neck over his upper back and shoulders.

 “It’s been waiting a very long time,” Cardinal Incipio said. “It was left by a Dr. Angus McAran, in 1954.” And, when the Pope remained silent, he went on nervously, “It’s amazing anyone was able to keep track of it, buried in the vaults like that. But it washermetically sealed, of course.”

 “Of course.” His Holiness looked up. “One thousand, one hundred and five years. How did he know I’d be Pope on this date?”

 Cardinal Incipio could only spread his hands.

 “Certainly, certainly.” The Pope nodded, glowering. “I can’t expect you to know. In fact, it shouldbe the other way around—but I’m afraid Papal Infallibility is only in matters of doctrine, and even then, only ex cathedra… Well! No sense sitting here, contemplating in awe!” He took out a pocket-knife and slit the flap. It broke with a skeleton’s rattle. Cardinal Incipio couldn’t restrain a gasp.

 “I know.” The Pope looked up in sympathy. “Seems like desecration, doesn’t it? But it was meant to be opened.” Carefully, gingerly, he slid out the single sheet of parchment the envelope contained.

 “What language is it?” Cardinal Incipio breathed.

 “Early-International English. I don’t need a translator.” Even as Cardinal Kaluma, Pope John had still found time to teach an occasional course in comparative literature. He skimmed the ancient, faded handwriting quickly, then read it again very slowly. When he was done, he lifted his eyes and stared off into space, his dark brown face becoming steadily darker.

 Cardinal Incipio frowned, worried. “Your Holiness?”

 The Pope’s eyes snapped to his, and held for a moment. Then His Holiness said, “Send for Father Aloysius Uwell.”

  

 The pitcher crashed to the floor. The child darted a quick, frightened glance at the video pickup hidden in the upper right-hand corner of the room, then turned to start picking up the pieces.

 In the next room, Father Uwell nodded, and sighed, “As I expected.” He turned to the orderly, waiting at the back of the chamber. “Go clean that up for him, would you? He’s only eight years old; he might cut a finger, trying to do it himself.”

 The orderly nodded and left, and Father Al turned back to the holovision tank with a sad smile. “So many unbreakable materials in this world, and we still prefer our vessels made of glass. Reassuring, in its way… and so is the boy’s glance at our hidden pickup.”

 “How so?” Father LeBarre frowned. “Is it not proof that his powers are magical?”

 “No more than his making that pitcher float through the air, Father. You see, he made no use of the paraphernalia of magic—no mystic gestures, no pentagrams, not even a magic word. He simply stared at the pitcher, and it lifted off the table and began to drift.”

 “Demonic possession,” Father LeBarre offered halfheartedly.

 Father Al shook his head. “He’s scarcely even naughty, from what you tell me; if a demon possessed him, it would make him a very unpleasant child indeed.”

 “So.” Father LeBarre ticked off points on his fingers. “He is not possessed by a demon. He does not work magic, either black or white.”

 Father Al nodded. “That leaves us with one explanation—telekinesis. His glance at the 3DT pickup was very revealing. How could he know it was there, when we did not tell him, and it is well hidden, built into the ceiling? He probably read our minds.”

 “A telepath?”

 Father Al nodded again. “And if he is telepathic, it’s quite probable that he’s also telekinetic; psi traits seem to run in multiples.” He stood. “It is too early for a complete opinion, of course, Father. I will have to observe the boy more closely, inside this laboratory and outside—but at the moment, I would guess that I will find nothing of the supernatural about him.”

 Finally, Father LeBarre dared a smile. “His parents will be vastly relieved to hear it.”

 “Now, perhaps.” Father Al smiled, too. “But before long, they will begin to realize the problems they will have, rearing a telekinetic and telepathic boy who has not yet learned to control his powers. Still, they will have a great deal of help, possibly more than they want. Telekinetics are rare, and telepaths are even more so; there are only a few dozen in the whole of the Terran Sphere. And in all but two of them, the talent is quite rudimentary. The interstellar government realizes that such abilities may be of enormous benefit, so they take a great interest in anyone found to possess them.”

 “The government again,” Father LeBarre cried, exasperated. “Will they never be done meddling in the affairs of the Church?”

 “Beware, Father—the government might think it is you who violates the separation of Church and State.”

 “But what was more natural than to bring him to the priest?” Father LeBarre spread his hands. “This is a small village; only the magistrate represents the Terran government, and none represents the DDT. The parents were on the verge of panic when objects within their house began to fly through the air in the boy’s presence. What was more natural than to bring him to the priest?”

 “Natural, and wise,” Father Al agreed. “For all they knew, it might have been a demon, or at least a poltergeist.”

 “And what was more natural than that I should call upon my Archbishop, or that he would call upon theVatican ?”

 “Quite so. And therefore I am here—but I doubt not I’ll find no taint of the supernatural, as I’ve said. At that point, Father, the matter ceases to fall within our jurisdiction, and moves to the government’s. ‘Render unto Caesar…’ ”

 “And is this boy Caesar’s?” Father LeBarre demanded.

 A soft, muted chime spared Father Al from answering. He turned to the comscreen and pressed the “accept” button. The screen blinked clear, and Father Al found himself looking through it into a Curia chamber, hundreds of miles away inRome . Then the scene was blocked by a brooding face under a purple biretta. “Monsignor Aleppi!” Father Al smiled. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

 “I have no idea,” the Monsignor answered, “but it should be a great pleasure indeed. His Holiness wishes to speak to you, Father Uwell—in person.”

  

 “ ‘On September 11, 3059 (Terran Standard Time), a man named Rod Gallowglass will begin learning that he is the most powerful wizard born since the birth of Christ. He dwells on a planet known to its inhabitants as ‘Gramarye’… Then he gives the coordinates, and that’s all. Nothing more but his signature.” The Pope dropped the letter on his desk with a look of disgust.

 Joy flooded through Father Al; he felt like a harp with the wind blowing through it. His whole life he had waited for it, and now it had come! At last, a real wizard!

 Perhaps…

 “Reactions?” His Holiness demanded.

 “Does he offer any proof?”

 “Not the slightest,” His Holiness said in exasperation. “Only the message that I’ve just read you. We’ve checked the Public Information Bank, but there’s no ‘Rod Gallowglass’ listed. The planet is listed, though, and the coordinates match the ones McAran gives. But it was only discovered ten years ago.” He passed a faxsheet across the desk to Father Al.

 Father Al read, and frowned. “The discovery is credited to a Rodney d’Armand. Could it be the same man?”

 The Pope threw up his hands. “Why not? Anything is possible—and nothing probable, when you’ve so little information. But we checked his PIB bio. He’s a younger son of a cadet branch of an aristocratic house on a large asteroid called ‘Maxima.’ He had a short but varied career in the space services, culminating in his enlistment in the Society for the Conversion of Extra-terrestrial Nascent Totalitarianisms…”

 “The what?”

 “I don’t think I could say it again,” His Holiness sighed. “It seems to be a sort of government bureau that combines the worst aspects of both exploration and espionage. Its agents are supposed to seek out the Lost Colonies, decide whether or not their government is headed towards democracy and, if it’s not, put it onto a path that will eventually evolve a democracy.”

 “Fantastic,” Father Al murmured. “I didn’t even know we had such a bureau.”

 “Any government that’s overseeing three-score worlds should have a bureau that just keeps track of all the other bureaus.” His Holiness spoke from personal experience.

 “I take it, then, that this Rodney d’Armand discovered a Lost Colony on Gramarye.”

 “Yes, but the Lord only knows which one,” the Pope sighed. “You’ll notice that the PIB sheet doesn’t tell us anything about the inhabitants of the planet.”

 Father Al looked. Sure enough, any human information on the planet was summed up in one word at the bottom of the page: CLASSIFIED. It was followed by a brief note explaining that the planet was interdicted to protect its inhabitants from exploitation. “I’d guess it’s a rather backward culture.” Excitement thrilled through Father Al’s veins—were they backward enough to still believe in magic?

 “Backward, indeed.” The Pope peered at another paper on his desk. “We checked our own data bank, and found we did have an entry on the planet—just a very brief report, from a Cathodean priest named Father Marco Ricci, that he’d accompanied an expedition by a group calling themselves the ‘Romantic Émigrés.’ They found an uncharted, Terra-like world, seeded a large island with Terran bioforms, and established a colony, four or five hundred years ago. Father Ricci requested permission to establish a House of the Order of St. Vidicon of Cathode—your own Order, I believe, Father Uwell.”

 “Yes, indeed.” Father Al tried not to let his disappointment show; the Cathodeans had to be engineers as well as priests. No planet could be toobackward, if they were there. “Was he granted permission?”

 His Holiness nodded. “So it says; but apparently the Curia was never able to convey the news to him. The Interstellar Dominion Electorates fell about that time, and the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra was established. As you know, one of the first thingsPEST did was to lose the Lost Colonies. There was no way to communicate with Father Ricci.”

 “Well, that’s hopef… I mean, that might create problems.”

 “Yes, it might.” The Pope fixed him with a glittering eye. “We may have another splinter sect there, calling themselves Roman Catholics, but out of touch with us for centuries. No telling what heresies they’ll have dreamt up in that time.” He sighed. “I’d hoped to have a rest from that sort of thing for a while.”

 Father Al knew what the Pope meant. Just before he’d been elevated to the Chair of St. Peter, Cardinal Kaluma had conducted the negotiations with the Archbishop of Burbank, a Lost Colony that had been found about twenty years before. They’d managed to keep the Faith fairly well, except for one heresy that had taken firm root: that plants had immortal souls. It turned out to be a fundamental point of doctrine onBurbank , since the whole planet was heavily involved in botanical engineering, with the goal of creating chlorophyll-based intelligence. The talks had become rather messy, and had ended with the establishment of theChurchofBurbank . Its first act had been to excommunicate the Church of Rome. His Holiness hadn’t been quite so drastic; he’d simply declared that they were incommunicado, and that theChurchofBurbank could no longer really be said to be Roman Catholic.

 A shame, too. Other than that, they’d been so sane…

 “I will be discreet, Your Holiness, and only report accurately what I discover.”

 “Oh?” The Pope fixed Father Al with an owlish eye. “Are you going somewhere?”

 Father Al stared at him for a moment.

 Then he asked, “Why else would you have sent for me?”

 “Quite so,” His Holiness sighed, “I admit to the decision. It rankles, because I have no doubt that’s what this McAran intended.”

 “Have we any choice, really?” Father Al asked quietly.

 “No, of course not.” The Pope frowned down at his desktop. “A letter that’s been lying in the vaults for a thousand years acquires a certain amount of credibility—especially when its sender has managed to accurately predict the reign-name of the Pope. If McAran could be right about that, might he not be right about this ‘wizard?’ And whether the man is really a wizard or not, he could do great damage to the Faith; it has never proven terribly difficult to subvert religion with superstition.”

 “It’s so tempting to believe that you can control the Universe by mumbling a few words,” Father Al agreed.

 “And too many of those who are tempted, might fall.” The Holy Father’s frown darkened. “And, too, there is always the infinitesimal chance of actually invoking supernatural powers…”

 “Yes.” Father Al felt a shadow of the Pope’s apprehension. “Personally, I’d rather play with a fusion bomb.”

 “It would do less damage to fewer people.” The Pope nodded.

 Pope John XXIV stood up slowly, with the dignity of a thundercloud. “So. Take this with you.” He held out a folded parchment. “It is a letter in my hand, directing whoever among the clergy may read it, to render you whatever help you require. That and a draft for a thousand Therms, are all the help I can send with you. Go to this planet, and find this man Gallowglass, wherever he is, and guide him to the path of the Lord as he discovers his wizardry, or the illusion of it.”

 “I’ll do my best, Your Holiness.” Father Uwell stood, smiling. “At least we know why this man McAran sent his letter to theVatican .”

 “But of course.” The Pope smiled, too. “Who else would’ve taken him seriously?”

 CHAPTER ONE



  

 There was a crash, and the tinkle of broken glass.

 “Geoffrey!” Gwen cried in exasperation, “if I have told thee once, I have told thee twenty times—thou must not practice swordplay in the house!”

 Rod looked up from Gerbrensis’s Historie of Gramaryeto see his smaller son trying to hide a willow-wand sword behind his back, looking frightened and guilty. Rod sighed, and came to his feet. “Be patient with him, dear—he’s only three.”

 “ ‘Tis thy fault as much as his,” Gwen accused. “What business has so small a lad to be learning o’ swordplay?”

 “True, dear, true,” Rod admitted. “I shouldn’t have been drilling Magnus where Geoff could watch. But we only did it once.”

 “Aye, but thou knowest how quickly he seizes on any arts of war. Here, do thou speak with him, the whilst I see to the mending of this vase.”

 “Well, I didn’t know it then—but I do now. Here, son.” Rod knelt and took Geoff by the shoulders, as Gwen knelt to begin picking up pieces, fitting them together and staring at the crack till the glass flowed, and the break disappeared.

 “You know that was your mother’s favorite vase?” Rod asked gently. “It’s the only glass one she has—and glass is veryexpensive, here. It took Magnus a long time to learn how to make it.”

 The little boy gulped and nodded.

 “She can mend it,” Rod went on, “but it’ll never be quite as good as it was before. So your Mommy won’t ever have it looking as nice as it did before. You’ve deprived her of something that made her very happy.”

 The little boy swallowed again, very hard, and his face screwed up; then he let loose a bawl, and buried his face in his father’s shoulder, sobbing his heart out.

 “There, there, now,” Rod murmured. “It’s not quiteas bad as I made it sound. She canmend it, after all—psi-witches have an advantage that way, and your mother can manage telekinesis on a veryfine scale—but it wasvery naughty, wasn’t it?” He held Geoff back at arm’s length. The little boy gulped again, and nodded miserably. “Now, buck up.” Rod pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at Geoff’s cheeks. “Be a brave boy, and go tell your Mommy about it.” Geoff nodded; Rod turned him toward Gwen, gave him a pat on the backside, then stood back to watch.

 Geoff toddled over to Gwen, stood mute and apprehensive until she was done melding the last piece back in place, then lisped, “I sorry, Mommy. Di’t meanto.”

 Gwen heaved up a sigh that said chapters, then managed a smile and tousled his hair. “I know thou didst not, my jo. ‘Twas happenstance; still, when all’s said, thou didstbreak it. ‘Tis why I have told thee to keep thy swordplay out of doors. So thou wilt ever keep thy manly arts out of housen from this day forth, wilt thou not?”

 Geoff nodded miserably. “Yes, Mommy.”

 “And thou wilt obey thy mother henceforth?”

 “Uh-huh… But, Mommy!” he cried, in a sudden wail of protest, “was raining!”

 Gwen heaved a sigh. “Aye, and I know, thou couldst not go out of house. Yet still, jo, ‘twas then time to draw up thy pictures.”

 Geoff made a face.

 Gwen bent an accusing eye at Rod.

 He looked around, frantically, then pointed to himself, with an incredulous look.

 Gwen leaped up and marched over to him… “Aye, thee! How many times hast thou said thou wouldst show him the drawing of a moated keep? That, at least, he would draw—once, and again, and a thousand times! Wilt thou not do it?”

 “Oh, yeah!” Rod slapped his head. “I didn’t really haveto do research this morning. Well, better late than never…”

 They both whirled around at an explosion of wailing, screaming, and angry barking.

 Magnus had come in from the boys’ room and found the evidence. He stood over little Geoff, waving a heavy forefinger down from the height of his eight years of life-experience. “Nay, ‘twas foully done! To break a present to our Mother that I was so long in the crafting of! Eh, little Geoffrey, when wilt thou learn…”

 And Cordelia had sailed in to Geoff’s defense, standing up to her big brother from five years’ age and forty inches’ height. “How durst thee blame him, thou, who didst bar him from his own room…”

 “And mine!” Magnus shouted.

 “And his! Where he might have played to’s liking, with hurt to nought!”

 “Be still, be still!” Gwen gasped. “The baby…”

 On cue, a wail erupted from the cradle, to match Geoffrey’s confused bawling.

 “Oh, children!” Gwen cried in final exasperation, and turned away to scoop up eleven-month-old Gregory, while Rod waded into the shouting match. “Now, now, Geoff, you haven’t been thatnaughty. Magnus, stop that! Scolding’s myjob, not yours—and giving orders, too,” he added under his breath. “ ‘Delia, honey, it’s very good of you to stick up for your brother like that—but don’t be good so loudly, okay?… Sheesh!” He hugged them all, pressing their faces against his chest to enforce silence. “The things they don’t tell you about the Daddy business!”

 On the other side of the room, Gwen was crooning a lullaby, and the baby was already quiet again. Rod answered her with a quick chorus of:

 “Rain, rain, go away!

 Come again some other day!”

 “Well, if you really want it, Daddy.” Magnus straightened up and looked very serious for a minute.

 “No, no! I didn’t mean… oh, stinkweed!” Rod glanced at the window; the pattering of the rain slackened, and a feeble sunbeam poked through.

 “Magnus!” Gwen’s tone was dire warning. “What have I told thee about tampering with the weather?”

 “But Daddy wantedit!” Magnus protested.

 “I did let that slip, in an unguarded moment,” Rod admitted. “But it can’t be just what wewant, son—there’re other people who actually likethe rain. And everyone needsit, whether they like it or not—especially the farmers. So bring it back, now, there’s a good boy.”

 Magnus gave a huge sigh that seemed to indicate how disgustingly irrational these big people were, screwed up his face for a moment—and the gentle patter of raindrops began again. Cordelia and Geoffrey looked mournful; for a moment there, they’d thought they were going to get to go out and play.

 “Odd weather we’re having around here lately,” Rod mused, wandering over to the window.

 “In truth,” Gwen agreed, drifting over to join him with Gregory on her shoulder. “I cannot think how he does it; ‘twould take me an hour to move so many clouds away.”

 “Yeah, well, just add it to the list of our son’s unexplained powers.” He glanced back at Magnus, a chunky boy in tunic and hose with his hand on the hilt of his dirk. His hair had deepened to auburn, and the loss of his baby-fat had revealed a strong chin that puberty might turn to a lantern-jaw—but Rod could still see the affectionate, mischievous toddler. Strange to think his powers were already greater than his mother’s—and his father’s, of course; Rod had only knowledge and wit, and a computer-brained robot-horse, on his side. But Magnus had the wit already.

 They all did. Cordelia was a flame-haired fairy-slender version of Gwen. Golden-haired Geoff had a compact little body that would probably grow up into a unified muscle, where Magnus would probably turn lean and rangy; golden hair that would probably stay that way, though Magnus’s was darkening; clear, blue eyes that seemed to show you the depths of his soul, and a square little chin that seemed made for deflecting uppercuts.

 And Gregory, who was fair-haired and chubby, though not as much as a baby should be, who was so very quiet and reserved, and very rarely smiled—an enigma at less than a year, and a prime focus for Rod’s chronic, buried anxiety.

 Each of them gifted enough to drive Job to distraction!

 There was a knock at the door.

 Gwen looked up, inquiringly.

 Rod stepped over to the panel with a sinking stomach. Knocks meant trouble. So much for his quiet day at home!

 He opened the door, and found what he’d expected—Toby the warlock, in his mid-twenties now, grinning and cheerful as ever, in the livery of a King’s courier. “Good day to thee, High Warlock! How goes it with thee?”

 “Hectic, as usual.” Rod smiled; he couldn’t help it, when Toby was around. “Step in, won’t you?”

 “Only the moment; I must be up and away.” Toby came in, doffing his cap. “A fair day to thee, fair Gwendylon. Thy beauty never fades!”

 “ Uncle Toby!” shrieked three gleeful voices, and three small bodies slammed into him at speed. Rod put out a hand to prop up the esper, who was crooning, “Ho-o-o, whoa, not so quickly there! How goes it w’ thee, Geoffrey-my-bauble? Cordelia, little love, thoul’t steal my heart yet! Good Magnus, good tidings!”

 “What did you bring me, Uncle Toby?”

 “Can I play with your sword, Uncle Toby?”

 “Toby! Unc’ Toby! Can’y?”

 “Now, now, children, let the poor man capture his breath!” Gwen pried her brood off her guest with tact and delicacy. “Thou’It take ale and a cake, at least, Toby.”

 “Ah, I fear not, sweet Gwendylon,” Toby sighed. “When I said I must be away, I spoke not lightly. Queen Catharine is wroth, and the King waxes somber.”

 “Oh.” Gwen’s glance went to Rod, and a shadow crossed herface. “Well, I should not complain. I’ve had thee home a week, now.”

 “ ‘Fraid the work goes with the title, dear,” Rod said, commiserating. “Twenty-four-hour call, and all that.” He turned to Toby. “What’s going on?”

 “I know only that I was summoned to fetch thee, with their Majesties’ compliments and a request for greatest speed.” Toby inclined his head knowingly. “Yet I know the Lord Abbot approachesRunnymede at greatest speed.”

 “Yeah, there has been something brewing between the Church and the Crown, hasn’t there? Well, I’d better let Tuan fill me in on it.”

 “InRunnymede , then!” Toby raised his hand in farewell. “ ‘Til next we meet, fair mother!” And his form started to waver around the edges.

 “Toby,” Gwen said, quickly but firmly, and the young warlock’s form stabilized again. “Not in the house, if you please,” she explained. “An’ you do, the boys’ll be popping in and out in all manner of places the rest of the day, and part of the night!”

 “Oh! Aye, I had forgot. Well, ‘tis gratifying to know they hold me in such regard. Farewell, children!” He doffed his cap, and stepped to the door.

 “Uncle Toby!” cried three anguished voices, and they pressed forward to their friend. He slipped a hand into his belt-purse, cast a quick, furtive look at Gwen, then tossed a quick spray of candies at the children and ducked out the door as they scrambled for the booty.

 Gwen heaved a sigh. “They’ll never eat now! Well, I’d best delay dinner.”

 “Yeah, but I think you’d better not keep it warm for me.” Rod looked up at the thunder-rumble as air rushed in to fill the space where the young warlock had just disappeared. He turned back to Gwen. “From the sound of it, this could go on for some time.”

 Gwen shook her head. “But whydo they not call thee when they know such broils are brewing? Why do they always wait ‘til the troubles are come?”

 “Well, you know Catharine—she always thinks she and Tuan can handle it on their own, until the moment arrives. Then they want me by, just for moral support.”

 “And skill,” Gwen reminded him. “When ‘tis all done, ‘tis thou who hast averted conflict, not they.”

 “Yeah, well, you can’t expect one of the teams to referee.” Rod leaned forward to kiss her. “Bear up without me, darling. I’ll be home when I can.”

 “Papa’s going!” Cordelia shrieked, and delight filled the air as the children ran for the back room window that faced the stable, to wave goodbye when Papa left.

 Gwen caught Rod’s sleeve and glanced back, waiting till all three were out of sight. Then she leaned forward and hissed, “Beware, my lord! I would I could’st go with thee, to guard thy steps.”

 “Why?” Rod frowned. “Oh! Those idiots and their ambushes… Don’t worry, dear. Their marksmanship’s no better than their intentions.”

 “Yet how oft have they tried, my husband?”

 Rod pursed his lips. “Well, now, let’s see…” He started counting on his fingers. “There was the cretin who took a potshot at me from the steeple in that village—what was it, about a year ago now?”

 “Eleven months,” Gwen corrected. “Three weeks ere Gregory was born.”

 “Eleven months, then. He didn’t seem to realize that a crossbow bolt can’t possibly go as fast as a robot horse with a built-in radar. And there was that so-called ‘peasant,’ who jumped out of a hay wagon with a laser—poor chump.” He shook his head sadly. “He didn’t realize he should’ve waited until he was away from the hay before he pulled the trigger.”

 “ ‘Twas good of thee, to pull him from the flames, and hurl him into the millpond. Still, his lance of light did come but a hair’s-breadth from thy body.”

 “Yeah, but Fess side-stepped in time. And there was that guard at Tuan’s castle; Sir Maris is still wearing sackcloth and ashes because the enemy managed to infiltrate his troops. But, that! My Lord, that was a joke! You can see a pike blow coming a mile away! It takes at least a quarter-second to swing a ten-foot pole; all I had to do was dodge, and yank the shaft as it came past.” He shook his head, remembering. “He went right past me, into the moat—and Fess wasn’t even with me on that one.”

 “Aye, my lord, but ‘tis the only one of these ambushes in which he hath not saved thee—and he may not ‘company thee within the castle. Nay, sweet lord, take care!”

 “Oh, don’t worry.” Rod reached out to caress the line of her jaw. “I’ll be wary. After all, I have something to come home to, now.”

 The great black horse looked up as Rod stepped into the stable, and a voice spoke through the amplifier embedded in the bone behind Rod’s ear. “I detected a warlock’s arrival, Rod, and his departure. Are we off to the castle, then?”

 “We are.” Rod threw the saddle on Fess’s back. “Just a Sunday outing, I think.”

 “But it is Wednesday, Rod.”

 “Well, the clergy’ll be there, anyway. The Lord Abbot himself.”

 Static whispered in Rod’s ear—Fess’s equivalent of a sigh. “What game is the Church beginning?”

 “Cards, probably.” Rod tightened the girth and took down the bridle. “At least, I’ll have to keep a poker-face.”

 “Are you sure of your hand, Rod?”

 “The best.” Rod fitted the bridle, grinning. “Full house, Fess.”

 As they rode out of the stable, the back window of the house exploded into a hail of goodbyes, and the frantic waving of three little hands.

  

 A few minutes later, as his steel horse’s gait ate up the miles between his home and the King’s Castle atRunnymede , Rod mused, “Gwen’s worried about the assassination attempts, Fess.”

 “I will always guard you, Rod—but I do wish that you would take greater precautions.”

 “Don’t worry—they bother me, too, but in a different way. If our futurian foes are suddenly working so hard to get rid of me, they must have plans for a big push at toppling Tuan’s government.”

 “Why not say ‘revolution,’ Rod?”

 Rod winced. “Nasty word, when it’s my side that’s in power. But they do seem to be gearing up for a big offensive, don’t they?”

 “I agree. Could this conference between the Abbot and Their Majesties signal the beginning of such an offensive?”

 Rod scowled. “It could, now that you mention it. The totalitarians have pretty much exhausted the ‘Peasants’ Revolt’ motif for the moment, and the anarchists have ridden the ‘Barons’ Rights’ movement into the ground. They’ve got to try a new theme, don’t they?”

 “The Church-State conflict has a long tradition, Rod. Henry II ofEngland had a protracted feud withSt. Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, because the Church’s authority obstructed Henry’s attempts to centralize government. The feud ended with Thomas’s murder, and Henry’s public humiliation; he was forced to grant concessions to the Church. His son, King John, was more obstinate; John’s feud with the Pope resulted inEngland being laid under the Interdict, which meant that no baptisms, weddings, or funerals could be held—no Masses could be said, no confessions heard; none of the sacraments could be performed. To the medieval mind, this was disaster; most of the people ofEngland felt they were being doomed to Hellfire eternally, because of their King’s sin. The resulting pressure was so great that John had to publicly repent, and do penance. The Protestant movement in Christianity succeeded partly because the German princes welcomed an excuse to oppose the Holy Roman Emperor.England became Protestant because Henry VIII wished a divorce that the Pope would not grant him. The Inquisition, the Huguenot Rebellion… the English Civil War occurred partly because the nation was Protestant, but ruled by a Catholic King… The list goes on. It is small wonder that, when theUnited States of America was established in the 18th Century, the founding fathers wrote a separation of Church and State into their Constitution.”

 Rod nodded grimly. “It’s a potent force, no question about it—especially in a medieval society, where most of the people take their religion superstitiously. Just the kind of a conflict to topple a government, in fact—if the Church can drum up enough popular support, and an army.”

 “With the futurians’ propaganda techniques and weaponry, neither should be too great a problem.”

 “Not if it gets that far.” Rod grinned. “So it’s up to us to head it off before it gets to that pass, eh, old circuit rider? ”

 “So many human battles could be averted by a little common sense,” Fess sighed.

 “Yes, but the King and the Lord Abbot aren’t common—and when religion and politics are involved, no one’s got much sense.”

 CHAPTER TWO



  

 Travel light, don’t you, Father?” the spaceport guard commented.

 Father Al nodded. “It is one of the advantages of being a priest. All I need is a spare cassock, a few changes of underwear, and my Mass kit.”

 “And a surprising amount of literature.” The guard riffled through a book from the stack. “ Magic and the Magi… Little odd for a priest, isn’t it?”

 “I’m a cultural anthropologist, too.”

 “Well, to each his own.” The guard sealed the suitcase. “Certainly no weapons in there—unless you come across a devil or two.”

 “Hardly.” Father Al smiled. “I’m not expecting anything worse than the Imp of the Perverse.”

 “ ‘Imp of the Perverse?’ ” The guard frowned. “What’s that, Father?”

 “An invention of Edgar Allan Poe’s,” Father Al explained. “To my way of thinking, it nicely explains Finagle’s Law.”

 The guard eyed him warily. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Father, you’re not exactly what I expect in a priest—but you’re clear.” He pointed. “The shuttle gate’s over that way.”

 “Thank you.” Father Al took up his suitcase and headed for the boarding area.

 On the way, he passed a fax-stand. He hesitated; then, on an impulse, he dropped in his credit card and punched up “McAran, Angus, ca. 1954.” Then he leaned back and waited. It must have been a long search; almost five seconds passed before the machine began humming. Then the hard copy emerged slowly—about a meter of it. Father Al pulled it out and devoured it with his eyes.

 “McAran, Angus, Ph.D., 1929 - 2020: Physicist, engineer, financier, anthropologist. Patents…”

 “Excuse me, Father.”

 “Eh?” Father Al looked up, startled, at the impatient-looking gentleman behind him. “Oh! My apologies. Didn’t realize I was in the way.”

 “Perfectly all right, Father,” the man said, with a smile that contradicted the words. Father Al folded the hard copy in thirds, hastily, and moved off toward the boarding area.

 He sat down in a floating chair and unfolded the copy. Amazing what the PIB had stored in its molecular circuits! Here was a thumbnail biography of a man who’d been dead more than a thousand years, as fresh as the day he’d died—which was presumably the last time it’d been updated. Let’s see, now—he’d patented five major inventions, then set up his own research and development company—but, oddly enough, he hadn’t patented anything after that. Had he let his employees take the patents in their own names? Improbably generous, that. Perhaps he just hadn’t bothered to keep track of what his company was doing; he seemed to have become very heavily involved in…

 “Luna Shuttle now boarding.”

 Drat! Just when it was getting interesting. Father Al scrambled up, folding the copy again, and hurried to tail onto a very long line. The shuttle left once every hour, but everyone who was leavingEurope for any of Sol’s planets or for any other star system had to go through Luna. Only half a percent of Terra’s population ever left the mother planet—but half a percent of ten billion makes for very long lines.

 Finally, they were all crowded onto the boarding ramp, and the door slid shut. There was no feeling of movement, and any sound from the motors was drowned out by the quiet hum of conversation; but Father Al knew the ramp was rolling across a mile of plasticrete to the shuttle.

 Finally, the forward door opened, and the passengers began to file aboard the shuttle. Father Al plopped down into his seat, stretched the webbing across his ample middle, and settled down to read his hard copy with a blissful sigh.

 Apparently having tired of inventing revolutionary devices, McAran had turned his hand to treasure-hunting, finding fabled hoards that had been lost for centuries; the most spectacular was King John’s treasury, but there had also been major finds all the way back to the city of Ur, circa 2000 BC. This pursuit had naturally led him into archaeology, on the one hand, and finance, on the other. Apparently the combination had worked well for him; he had died a very wealthy man.

 All very impressive, Father Al admitted, but not when it came to magic. How would the man have been able to identify a wizard, even during his own time? Father Al had searched history assiduously, but had never come up with anyone who could have been a real magic-worker—they were either tricksters, espers, or poor deluded souls, almost certainly. Of course, in the very early days, there were a few who mighthave been sorcerers, tools of the devil. Opposing them, there were definitely saints. And, though the saints were certain, Father Al doubted there had ever really been any “Black Magic” witches; it made very poor business sense for the Devil. But magic without a source in either God or the Devil? Impossible. It would require someone who was an esper, a medium, and had some unnamed power to break the “Laws of Nature” by, essentially, merely wishing for things to happen. That was the stuff of fairy tales; neither science nor religion even admitted its possibility, had even a chink in its wall of reason through which such powers might seep.

 Which, of course, was what made it so delightful a fantasy. If any such individual ever did actually come to light, those walls of reason would come tumbling down—and who could tell what new and shining palaces might emerge as they were rebuilt?

 “Gentlefolk,” said a canned voice, “the ship is lifting.”

 Father Al bundled up his paper, thrust it in his breast pocket, and pressed his nose against the port. No matter how many times he flew, it still seemed new to him—that wonderful, faerie sight of the spaceport growing smaller, falling away, of the whole city, then the countryside, being dwarfed, then spread out below him like a map, one that dropped away further and further beneath him, till he could see Europe enameled on the bottom of a giant bowl, its rim the curve of the Earth… and that was just on the ballistic rocket flights from one hemisphere to another. The few times he had been in space, it had been even better—the vast bowl dropping further away, till it seemed to turn inside out and become a dome, then a vast hemisphere filling the sky, somehow no longer below him, but beside him, continents mottling its surface through a swirl of clouds…

 He knew that seasoned passengers eyed him with amusement, or contempt; how naïve he must seem to them, like a gawking yokel. But Father Al thought such delights were rare, and not to be missed; to him, it was wrong to ever cease to glory in the wonder of God’s handiwork. And, at the moment when he sat most enthralled with the majestic vista on the other side of the port, a question sometimes tickled the back of his mind: Who was the true sophisticate, they or he?

 This time, the overcast quickly cut off sight of the faerie landscape below, but turned into a dazzling sea of cotton beneath him, sinking away till it seemed a vast snowfield. Then, just barely, he felt the ship quiver, then begin a low, threshold hum of muted power. The antigravity units had been shut off, and the powerful planetary drive now propelled the shuttle.

 Father Al sighed, and sat back, loosening his webbing, gazing out the port as his current problem floated to the surface of his mind again. There was one big question that the PBB bio hadn’t answered: How could McAran have known about this man Gallowglass, about something that would happen more than a thousand years after his own death? And that question, of course, raised another: How had McAran known just when to have the letter opened, or who would be Pope at the time?

 The boarding ramp shivered to a stop, and Father Al filed out into Luna Central with a hundred other passengers. Gradually, he worked his way through the flow to a data wall, and gazed up at the list of departing ships. Finally, he found it—Proxima Centauri, Gate 13, lifting off at 15:21. He glanced up at the digital clock above—15:22! He looked back at the Proxima line in horror, just as the time winked out, to be replaced by the glowing word, “Departed.” Then the gate number blanked, too.

 Father Al just stared at it, numbed, waiting for the departure time of the next ship to light up.

 Presently, it did—3:35Greenwich Standard Time. Father Al spun away, fueled by a hot surge of emotion. He identified it as anger and stilled, standing quiet, letting his whole body go loose, letting the outrage fill him, tasting it, almost relishing it, then letting it ebb away till it was gone. Finagle had struck again—or his disciple Gundersun, in this case: “The least desirable possibility will always exert itself when the results will be most frustrating.” If Father Al arrived at Luna to catch the Centauri liner at 15:20, of coursethe liner would liftoff at 15:21!

 He sighed, and went looking for a seat. There was no fighting Finagle, nor any of his minions—especially since they were all just personifications of one of humankind’s most universal traits, perversity, and had never really existed. You couldn’t fight them, any more than you could fight perversity itself—you could only identify it, and avoid it.

 Accordingly, Father Al found a vacant seat, sat down, pulled out his breviary, and composed himself to begin reading his Office.

 “Gentleman, Iwas sitting there!”

 Father Al looked up to see a round head, with a shock of thick, disorderly hair, atop a very stocky body in an immaculately-tailored business coverall. The face was beetle-browed and almost chinless, and, at the moment, rather angry.

 “I beg your pardon,” Father Al answered. “The seat was empty.”

 “Yes, because I got up long enough to go get a cup of coffee! And it was the only one left, as you no doubt saw. Do I have to lose it just because there was a long line at the dispense-wall?”

 “Ordinarily, yes.” Father Al stood up slowly, tucking his breviary away. “That’s usually understood, in a traveller’s waiting room. It’s not worth an argument, though. Good day, gentleman.” He picked up his suitcase and turned to go.

 “No, wait!” The stranger caught Father Al’s arm. “My apologies, clergyman—you’re right, of course. It’s just that it’s been a bad day, with the frustrations of travel. Please, take the seat.”

 “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Father Al turned back with a smile. “No hard feelings, certainly—but if you’ve had as rough a time as that, you need it far more than I do. Please, sit down.”

 “No, no! I mean, I do still have some respect for the clergy. Sit down, sit down!”

 “No, I really couldn’t. It’s very good of you, but I’d feel guilty for the rest of the day, and…”

 “Clergyman, I told you, sit down!” the man grated, his hand tightening on Father Al’s arm. Then he caught himself and let go, smiling sheepishly. “Will you look at that? There I go again! Come on, clergyman, what do you say we junk this place and go find a cup of coffee with a table under it, and twoseats? I’m buying.”

 “Certainly.” Father Al smiled, warming to the man. “I do have a little time…”

 The coffee was genuine this time, not synthesized. Father Al wondered why the man had been waiting in the public lounge, if he had thiskind of expense account.

 “Yorick Thai,” the stranger said, holding out a hand.

 “Aloysius Uwell.” Father Al gave the hand a shake. “You’re a commercial traveller?”

 “No, a time traveller. I do troubleshooting for Doc Angus McAran.”

 Father Al sat very still. Then he said, “You must be mistaken. Dr. McAran died more than a thousand years ago.”

 Yorick nodded. “In objective time, yes. But in my subjective time, he just sent me out in the time machine an hour ago. And I’ll have to report back to him when I get done talking to you, to tell him how it went.”

 Father Al sat still, trying to absorb it.

 “Doc Angus invented time travel back in 1952,” Yorick explained. “Right off, he realized he had something that everyone would try to steal, especially governments, and he didn’t want to see what that would do to war. So he didn’t file for a patent. He made himself a very secret hideout for his time travel lab, and set up a research company to front the financing.”

 “There’s not a word about this in the history books,” Father Al protested.

 “Shows how well he keeps a secret, doesn’t it? Not quite well enough, though—pretty soon, he found out there were some other people bopping around from advanced technological societies, cropping up in ancient Assyria, prehistoric Germany—all sorts of places. After a while, he found out that they came mostly from two organizations—the Society for the Prevention of Integration of Telepathic Entities, and the Vigilant Extenders of Totalitarian Organizations. He also found out that they were both using time machines that were basically copies of his—without his permission. And they weren’t even paying him royalties.”

 “But you said he didn’t file for a patent.”

 Yorick waved the objection away. “Morally, he figured he still had patent rights—and they could at least have asked. So he formed his own organization to safeguard the rights of individuals, all up and down the time line.”

 “Including patentholders?”

 “Oh, yes. In fact, he calls the organization ‘The Guardians of the Rights of Individuals, Patentholders Especially.’ Pretty soon, he had a network of agents running all the way from about 40,000 BC on up, fighting SPITE and its anarchists, and VETO and its totalitarians.”

 Father Al pursed his lips. “I take it that means he supports democracy?”

 “What other system really tries to guarantee an inventor’s patent rights? Of course, supporting an organization that size requires a lot of money, so he went into the treasure-hunting business. He’d have an agent in, say, ancientGreece bury some art objects; then he’d send a team to dig ‘em up in 1960, when even a child’s clay doll would fetch a thousand dollars from a museum. With coins, he’d have ‘em dug up in the Renaissance, and deposit them with one of the early banks. It’s really amazing what can happen to a few denarii, with five hundred years of compound interest.”

 “Speaking of interest,” Father Al said, “it’s rather obvious that our meeting was no accident. Why are you interested in me?”

 Yorick grinned. “Because you’re going to Gramarye.”

 Father Al frowned. “I take it you have an agent in theVatican , today.”

 “No fair telling—but we do have our own chaplains.”

 Father Al sighed. “And what is your interest in Gramarye?”

 “Mostly that SPITE and VETO are interested in it. In fact, they’re doing all they can to make sure it doesn’t develop a democratic government.”

 “Why?”

 Yorick leaned forward. “Because your current interstellar government, Father, is the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal, and it’s very successful. It comprises sixty-seven planets already, and it’s growing fast. SPITE and VETO want to stop it, any way they can—and the easiest way is to let it grow until its own size destroys it.”

 Father Al gave his head a quick shake. “I don’t understand. How can size destroy a democracy?”

 “Because it’s not the most efficient form of government. Major decisions require a lot of debating and, if the diameter of the Terran Sphere gets too long, the Tribunes won’t be able to learn what the folks at home think about an issue until after it’s decided and done with. That means that unpopular decisions get rammed down the throats of the voters, until they start rebelling. The rebellions’re put down, but that turns into repression, which breeds even more rebellion. So eventually, the democracy either falls apart, or turns into a dictatorship.”

 “You’re saying, then, that the size of a democracy is limited by its communications.” Father Al gazed off into space, nodding slowly. “It sounds logical. But how does this affect Gramarye?”

 “Because most of the people there are latent telepaths—and about 10 percent are active, accomplished, and powerful.”

 Father Al stared, feeling excitement thrum through his blood. Then he nodded. “I see. As far as we know, telepathy is instantaneous, no matter how much distance separates the sender and the receiver.”

 Yorick nodded. “With them in the DDT, democracy could expand indefinitely. But they’d have to be willing volunteers, Father. You can’t expect much accuracy in your communications if you’re using slaves who hate you.”

 “Quite apart from the fact that the requirement for membership in the DDT is a viable planetary democracy. So the DDT has to see to it that the planet develops a democratic government.”

 Yorick nodded again. “That’s why the DDT has SCENT—to sniff out the Lost Colonies, and see to it that they develop democratic governments. And SPITE and VETO have to see to it that SCENT fails.”

 Father Al’s mouth tightened in disgust. “Is there no place free of political meddling any more? How many agents does SCENT have on Gramarye?”

 “One.” Yorick sat back, grinning.

 “ One? For so important a planet?”

 Yorick shrugged. “So far, they haven’t needed any more—and too many cooks might spoil the brew.”

 Father Al laid his hand flat on the table. “The agent wouldn’t be the Rodney d’Armand who discovered the planet, would it?”

 Yorick nodded.

 “And Rod Gallowglass? Where does he fit into this?”

 “He’s Rodney d’Armand. The man always feels more comfortable using an alias.”

 “Insecure, eh?” Father Al gazed off into space, drumming his fingers on the table. “But effective?”

 “Sure is. So far, he’s thwarted two major attempts by SPITE and VETO together. What’s more, he’s used those victories to put the current monarchy on the road to developing a democratic constitution.”

 Father Al’s eyebrows shot up. “Extremely able. And he’s about to discover some psionic talent of his own?”

 “He’s about to disappear,” Yorick corrected, “and when he reappears in a few weeks, he’s going to be a genuine, full-fledged, twenty-four-carat wizard, able to conjure up armies out of thin air. And that’s just the beginning of his powers.”

 Father Al frowned. “And he won’t do it by psi talents?”

 Yorick shook his head.

 “Then what isthe source of his power?”

 “That’s your field, Father.” Yorick jabbed a finger at the priest. “You tell us—if you can catch up with him before he disappears, and go with him.”

 “You may be sure that I’ll try. But why isn’t he a psi? Because he comes from off-planet?”

 “Only the genuine, Gramarye-born article occasionally turns out to be a telepath—and usually a telekinetic or teleport, too, depending on sex. The women are telekinetic; that means they can make broomsticks fly, and ride on them, among other things.”

 “The witches of legend,” Father Al mused.

 “That’s what they call ‘em. They call the esper men ‘warlocks.’ They can levitate, and make things, including themselves, appear and disappear, sometimes moving ‘em miles between.”

 “But Rod Gallowglass can do none of these things?”

 “No, but he wound up marrying the most powerful witch in Gramarye—and they’ve got four kids who’re showing a very interesting assortment of talents. In fact, they’re all more powerful than their mother. When they start realizing that, she’ll reallyhave trouble.”

 “Not necessarily, if they’ve raised them properly,” Father Al said automatically (he’d been assigned to a parish for several years). “Odd that they should be more powerful than their mother, when they don’t have psionic genes from both parents.”

 “Yeah, isn’t it?” Yorick grinned. “I just love these little puzzles—especially when someone else gets to solve ‘em. But it might not be all that strange—there’re still new talents that keep cropping up on that planet. I mean, they’ve only been inbreeding for a few hundred years; they’ve got a lot of untapped potential.”

 “Inbreeding… yes…” Father Al had a faraway look. “The answers would lie with their ancestors, wouldn’t they?”

 “Buncha crackpots.” Yorick waved them away. “Ever hear of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Father?”

 “No. Who were they?”

 “A hodgepodge collection of escapists, who tried to forget they were living because of an advanced technology, by holding gatherings where everybody dressed up in medieval outfits and performing mock battles with fake swords.”

 “Ah, I see.” Father Al smiled fondly. “They tried to restore some beauty to life.”

 “Yeah, that was their problem. That kind of beauty requires individuality, and reinforces it—so they weren’t too popular with the totalitarian government of the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra. WhenPEST came in, it broke up the SCA and executed the leaders. They all requested beheading, by the way… Well. The rest of the organization went underground; they turned into the backbone of the DDT revolution on Terra. Most of ‘em, anyway; there’s a rumor that about a quarter of ‘em spent the next few centuries playing a game called ‘Dungeons and Dragons.’ They were used to being underground.”

 “Fascinating, I’m sure,” Father Al said drily, “but what does it have to do with Gramarye?”

 “Well, a dozen of the richest SCA members saw thePEST coup coming, and bought an outmoded FTL space liner. They crammed aboard with all the rank-and-file who wanted to come along, renamed themselves the ‘Romantic Émigrés,’ and took off for parts unknown—the more unknown, the better. When they got there, they named it ‘Gramarye,’ and set up their version of the ideal medieval society—you know, architecture out of the Fourteenth Century, castles out of the Thirteenth, armor out of the Fifteenth, costumes out of any time between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, and government out of luck. Well, they did have a King, but they paid him a fine medieval disregard. You get the idea.”

 Father Al nodded. “A thorough collection of romantics and misfits—and a high concentration of psi genes.”

 “Right. Then they proceeded to marry each other for a few centuries, and eventually produced telepaths, telekinetics, teleports, levitators, projective telepaths…”

 “Projectives?” Father Al frowned. “You didn’t mention those.”

 “Didn’t I? Well, they’ve got this stuff they call ‘witch moss.’ It’s a telepathically-sensitive fungus. If the right kind of ‘witch’ thinks hard at it, it turns into whatever she’s thinking about. And, of course, the whole population turned latent-esper fairly early on, and they loved to tell their children fairy tales…”

 “No.” Father Al blanched. “They didn’t.”

 “Oh, but they did—and now you’ll find an elf under every elm. With the odd werewolf thrown in—and a few ghosts. Hey, it could’ve been worse! If they hadn’t had this thing against anything later than Elizabethan, they might’ve been retelling Frankenstein.”

 “Praise Heaven for small blessings!”

 Yorick nodded. “You’ll have trouble enough with what they’ve got there already. Be careful, though—new talents keep showing up, from time to time.”

 “Indeed? Well, I thank you for the warning. But I’m curious… Why did you come tell me all this? Why didn’t Dr. McAran just put it all into his letter?”

 “Because if he had, the Pope would’ve thought he was a raving maniac,” Yorick said promptly. “But since he put down just the bare-bones-vital information, and made an accurate ‘prediction’ about who would be Pope…”

 “With a little help from your agent in theVatican ,” Father Al amplified.

 “Don’t say anything against him, Father, he’s from your Order. Anyway, with that much and no more in the letter, the Pope believed it, and sent you.”

 “Ingenious. Also devious. But why bother with the letter at all, since you were coming to meet me anyway?”

 “Because you wouldn’t have believed me if you hadn’t read the letter.”

 Father Al threw up his hands in mock despair. “I give up! I never could make headway against a circular argument—especially when it might be valid. But tell me—why did you bother? Why does Mr. McAran care?”

 “Because SPITE and VETO keep trying to sabotage us, anywhen they can. It’s us versus them, Father—and you and Rod Gallowglass are part of the ‘us.’ If he loses, we lose—and a few trillion people, all down the ages, lose a lot of individual rights.”

 “Especially patentholders,” Father Al amplified.

 “Of course. And by the way, Doc Angus did finally patent it—in 5029 AD.”

 “After the secret was finally out?”

 Yorick nodded.

 “How did he manage to get a patent when its existence was already public knowledge?”

 “Did you ever stop to think how difficult it would be to prove when a time machine was invented?” Yorick grinned. “It’s a fun puzzle. Think it over when you’ve got some time—say, on your way to Gramarye.” He glanced at his watch-ring. “Speaking of which, you’d better hurry—SPITE and VETO are already massing for their next big attack on Gramarye. Massing behind a poor dupe of a front man, of course.”

 “Oh?” Father Al inquired mildly. “Who’s the poor dupe?”

 “The Church, of course.” Yorick grinned. “Good luck, Father.”

 CHAPTER THREE



  

 How dare this tatter-robed priest so flout our power!” Queen Catharine stormed.

 They were pacing down a hallway in the royal castle, heading for the state audience chamber. Rich oak panelling flashed past; thick carpet soaked up Catharine’s angry stamping.

 “His robe is scarcely tattered, my dear,” Tuan answered. “And he governs all priests in our land.”

 “An abbot?” Rod frowned. “I think I’ve been overlooking something this past decade. Doesn’t he take orders from a bishop?”

 Tuan turned to him, perplexed. “What is a ‘bishop?’ ”

 “Uh—never mind.” Rod swallowed. “How come an abbot of a monastery governs parish priests?”

 “Why, because all priests in this land are of the Order of St. Vidicon!” Catharine snapped impatiently. “How is it that the High Warlock does not know this?”

 “Uh—just haven’t been taking religion very seriously, I guess.” Rod hadn’t even been going to Mass on Sundays, but he didn’t think this was the time to mention it. “So the Abbot’s the head of the church, here—and I understand he’s not too happy about your appointing all the parish priests in the country. Nowit makes sense.”

 “Some, but not overmuch,” Tuan said grimly.

 “Where was he when the barons still named their own priests?” Catharine stormed. “Oh, he would not go up against them! But now that ‘tis accepted that weappoint them… Uh!”

 A cannonball of a body hit her in the midriff, crowing, “Mama, Mama! Chess time! Chess time!”

 Catharine’s face softened remarkably as she held the small one away from her, kneeling to look into his eyes. “Aye, sweetling, ‘tis the hour we usually play. Yet your mother cannot, this morn; we must speak with the Lord Abbot, thy father and I.”

 “Not fair, though!” the little prince protested. “You couldn’t play yesterday, neither!”

 “Either,” Tuan corrected, tousling the boy’s hair. “Aye, Alain, thy mother had need to speak with the Duchess d’Bourbon yestere ‘en.”

 “Not that I wished to.” Catharine’s tone hardened a little. “Yet not even kings and queens can do only what they please, my boy.”

 She, Rod reflected, had definitely matured.

 Alain pouted. “Not fair!”

 “ ‘Tis not,” Tuan agreed, with an achingly sad smile. “Yet…”

 “My apologies, Majesties!” A middle-aged lady in a grey coif and gown, with a gleaming white apron, hurried up and dropped a curtsy. “I but turned my gaze away for the half of a minute, and…”

 “ ‘Tis no matter, good nurse.” Tuan waved away the apology. “If we have not an occasional moment to spare for our son, what worth is our kingdom? Yet thou must not keep us long from matters of state, child, or there will be no kingdom for thee to inherit! Come, now, go with thy nurse—and take this with thee.” He felt in his purse and produced a sugarplum.

 Alain glared at it accusingly, but accepted it. “Soon?”

 “As soon as we are done with the Lord Abbot,” Catharine promised. “There, now, go with thy nurse, and we’ll be with thee presently.” She gave him a kiss on the forehead, turned him around, and gave him a pat on his bottom to speed him. He plodded off after Nurse, looking back over his shoulder.

 His parents stood, gazing fondly after him.

 “Fine boy,” Rod said into the silence.

 “He is that,” Catharine agreed. She turned to Tuan. “But thou dost spoil him atrociously!”

 Tuan shrugged. “True; yet what are nurses for? Still, Madame, remember—he has not yet come under my tutelage.”

 “That, I want to see,” Rod said, nodding. “Papa as swordmaster.”

 Tuan shrugged. “My father managed it. Stern he was—yet I never doubted his love.”

 “Your father’s a grand man.” Rod knew old Duke Loguire quite well. “What does hethink of your appointing priests for his parishes?”

 Tuan’s face darkened as he was wrenched back to the topic. He started toward the audience chamber again. “He is not overly joyous about it, but sees the need. Why will not the Lord Abbot?”

 “Because it encroaches on hisauthority,” Rod said promptly. “But isn’t the appointment just a matter of form? I mean, who do the priests take their orders from afterthey’re appointed?”

 Tuan stopped dead, and Catharine whirled about, both staring at Rod. “Why, that is so,” Tuan said slowly. “Barons ruled priests, when barons appointed them—yet since Catharine began that function, our judges have watched to be sure the lords give no orders to clergy.” He turned to Catharine, frowning. “Hast thougiven commands to priests?”

 “I had not thought of it,” Catharine admitted. “It seemed it were best to leave God to the godly.”

 “Sounds like a good policy,” Rod agreed. “See any reason to change it?”

 Tuan beamed. “I would not want to, save when a priest breaks the law—and I must own the Lord Abbot deals more harshly with a soiled cassock than I ever would, save in matters of death.”

 “Point of conflict?”

 “Never,” Catharine stated, and Tuan shook his head. “For any offense great enough to be capital, the Abbot’s punishment is to strip the cleric of office, and cast him out of the Order—whereupon, of course, our officers seize him. Nay, I catch thy drift—we’ve let the Abbot rule all the parish priests, have we not?”

 “ ‘Twas a grievous omission,” Catharine grated.

 “Not really,” Rod grinned. “It put the clergy solidly on yourside, against the barons—and their flocks with them. But now…”

 “Aye, now.” Tuan’s face darkened again; then he shrugged. “Well, no matter; for a priest, there’s small choice between Abbot and King, in any event. Aye, if ‘twere only a matter of granting him power of appointment, the form, why, let him have it! Since he hath already the substance.”

 “If ‘twere all,” Catharine echoed.

 “There’s more?” Rod could almost feel his ears prick up. “You’ve got my attention, I conFESS.”

 “The traditional conflict between Church and Crown,” Fess’s voice murmured behind his ear, “revolved over two issues: secular justice versus ecclesiastical, specifically in the matter of sanctuary; and Church holding of vast tracts of tax-exempt land.”

 “Aye, and more difficult,” Tuan said somberly. “He thinks we take too little care of the poor.”

 Well, it was reassuring to know that even a computer could miss. “I’d scarcely call that a disaster.”

 “Would you not?” Catharine challenged. “He wishes us to cede all administration of charitable funds unto himself!”

 Rod halted. Now, thatwas a Shetland of a different shade! “Oh. He only wants to take over a major portion of the national administration!”

 “Only that.” Tuan’s irony was back. “And one that yields great support from the people.”

 “Possible beginnings of a move toward theocracy,” Fess’s voice murmured behind Rod’s ear.

 Rod ground his teeth, and hoped Fess would get the message. Some things, he didn’t need to have explained to him! With a theocracy in the saddle, what chance was there for the growth of a democracy? “That point, I don’t think you can yield on.”

 “I think not.” Tuan looked relieved, and strengthened—and Catharine glowed.

 Which was not necessarily a good thing.

 “We are come.” Tuan stopped before two huge, brass-bound, oaken doors. “Gird thy loins, Lord High Warlock.”

 A nice touch, Rod thought—reminding him that he ranked equally with the man they were about to confront.

 The doors swung open, revealing an octagonal, carpeted room lit by great clerestory windows, hung with rich tapestries, with a tall bookcase filled with huge leather-bound volumes…

 … and a stocky, brown-robed man whose gleaming bald pate was surrounded by a fringe of brown hair running around the back of his head from ear to ear. His face was round and rosy-cheeked, and shone as though it were varnished. It was a kind face, a face made to smile, which made it something of a shock to see it set in a truculent frown.

 Tuan stepped into the room; Catharine and Rod followed. “Lord Abbot,” the King declaimed, “may I present Rod Gallowglass, Lord High Warlock.” The Abbot didn’t get up—after all, he was the First Estate, and Rod was the Second. His frown deepened, though he bobbed his head and muttered, “My lord. I know thee by repute.”

 “My lord.” Rod bobbed his head in return, and kept his tone neutral. “Take my reputation with a grain of salt, if you will; my magic is white.”

 “I hear thy words,” the Abbot acknowledged, “but every man must judge his fellows for himself.”

 “Of course.” Determined to be a hard case, wasn’t he? But that was it, of course—“determined.” He had to work at it; it didn’t come naturally.

 “Majesties,” the Abbot was saying, “I had thought my audience was with thy selves.”

 “As it is,” Tuan said quickly. “But I trust thou wilt not object to Lord Gallowglass’s presence; I find him a moderating influence.”

 The Abbot slipped for a second; relief washed over his face. Then it was gone, and the stern mask back in place; but Rod warmed to the man on the instant. Apparently he didn’t mind being made more moderate, as long as their Majesties were, too. It meant he was looking for a solution, not a surrender. Rod kept his eyes on the Abbot’s chest.

 The monk noticed. “Why starest thou at mine emblem?”

 Rod started, then smiled as warmly as he could. “Your indulgence, Lord Abbot. It’s simply that I’ve noticed that badge on every priest on Gramarye, but have never understood it. In fact, I find it unusual for a cassock to have a breast pocket; it’s certainly not pictured so, in the histories.”

 The Abbot’s eyes widened—he was concealing surprise. At what? Rod filed it, and went on. “But I can’t imagine why a priest would wear a screwdriver in the breast pocket—that iswhat that little yellow handle is, isn’t it?”

 “Indeed so.” The Abbot smiled as he slipped the tiny tool out of his pocket, and held it out for Rod to inspect—but his eyes were wary. “ ‘Tis only the badge of the Order of St. Vidicon of Cathode, nothing more.”

 “Yes, I see.” Rod peered at the screwdriver, then sat down at Tuan’s left. “But I can’t understand why a monk would wear it.”

 The Abbot’s smile warmed a little. “On a day when no grave matters await us, Lord Warlock, I will rejoice to tell thee the tale of our founder, St. Vidicon.”

 Rod cocked a forefinger at him. “It’s a date.”

 “Amen!”

 And the ice was broken.

 The Abbot laid both palms flat on the table. “Yet now, I fear, we must turn to weighty matters.”

 Rod felt the temperature lowering noticeably.

 The Abbot drew a rolled parchment from his robe, and handed it to Tuan. “It is with sorrow, and all respect, that I must present this petition to Your Majesties.”

 Tuan accepted the parchment, and unrolled it between himself and Catharine. The Queen glanced at it, and gasped in horror. She turned a thunderous face to the Abbot.

 “Surely, Milord, thou canst not believe the Crown could countenance such demands!”

 The Abbot’s jaw tightened, and he took a breath.

 Rod plunged in. “Uh, how’s that phrased, Your Majesty?”

 “ ‘In respect of our obligations to the State and Your Majesties,’ ” Tuan read, “ ‘we strongly advise…’ ”

 “Well, there you are.” Rod sat back, waving a hand. “It’s just advice, not demands.”

 The Abbot looked up at him, startled.

 Catharine’s lips tightened. “If the Crown feels the need of advice…”

 “Uh, by your leave, Your Majesty.” Rod sat forward again. “I fear I lack familiarity with the issues under discussion; could you read some more of it?”

 “ ‘Primus,’ ” Tuan read, “ ‘we have painfully noted Your Majesties’ encroachment upon the authority ofHoly MotherChurch in the matter of appointment of…’ ”

 “I see. There, then, is the substance of the case.” Rod leaned back, holding up a forefinger. “I beg your indulgence, Your Majesties; please excuse the interruption, but I believe we really should settle this issue at the outset. Authority would seem to be the problem. Now, the people need the Church, but also need a strong civil government; the difficulty is in making the two work together, is it not? For example…” Rod took a quick look at the parchment for form’s sake, and plowed on. “For example, this item about administering of aid to the poor. What fault find you in the Crown’s management of such aid, my lord?”

 “Why… in that…” Rod could almost hear the Abbot’s mind shifting gears; he’d been all set for a hot debate about appointment of clergy. “Why, in that, quite plainly and simply, there is too little of it! That is the substance of it!”

 “Ah.” Rod nodded, with a commiserating glance at Tuan. “So we come down to money, so quickly.”

 They hadn’t, but Tuan picked up a cue well. “Aye, so soon as that. We are giving all that the Crown can spare, Lord Abbot—and a bit more besides; we do not keep great state here, the Queen and I.”

 “I know thou dost not.” The Abbot looked troubled. “And there is the cause of it. We do not feel we should eat off gold plate, if our people go hungry. Yet they dogo in hunger, for there’s simply not enough coin flowing to the Crown, for us to be able to channel back more than we do.”

 “Thou couldst levy greater taxes,” the Abbot offered, half-heartedly.

 Tuan shook his head. “Firstly, an’ we did, the barons upon whom we levy it would simply wrench it out of their villeins, who are the same poor we speak of here; and secondly, because, if the barons did not, the villeins would rise in rebellion. No, Milord Abbot—the taxes are already as high as we may push them.”

 “For example,” said Catharine sweetly, “thou thyself, Lord Abbot, would be first to protest if we levied a tax on all the vast lands of the Church!”

 “And little would you gain thereby,” the Abbot declared stiffly. “The Order’s holdings are scarcely a fortieth part of thy whole kingdom!”

 “Datum correct,” Fess immediately hummed behind Rod’s ear. And if Fess said it, it hadto be right—statistics were his hobby.

 But it struck Rod as anomalous, that a medieval administrator could be so accurate, without being able to consult the State’s records.

 “Many of thy barons hold more!” the Abbot went on. “And of our income from those lands, the bulk is already given out to the poor—so thou wouldst gain quite little by taxing us! Excepting, mayhap,” he amended, “that thou mightest, thereby, take even morefrom the poor!”

 “You see?” Rod threw up his hands. “The well’s dry; you’ve said it yourself.”

 The Abbot looked up, startled, then realized that he had.

 “And if both Church and State are already giving all they can,” Rod pursued, “what more can we do?”

 “Put the administration of what funds there are under one single exchequer,” the Abbot said promptly; and Rod’s stomach sank as he realized he’d lost the initiative. “Two whole trains of people are currently employed in the disbursing of these funds, and the upshot is, a village I know has two poorhouses, one a hospice of our Order, one paid by the Crown—and there are scarcely twenty souls who need either! Such doubling is costly. Moreover, if only one staff worked at this task, the others’ pay could go to the poor—and since the Brothers of St. Vidicon do this work for only meager bed and board, assuredly ours would be the less expensive staff to maintain!”

 Rod sat, dumfounded. Of course, it was possiblethat the Lord Abbot had hit on this idea by himself—but Rod doubted it.

 “Subject refers to duplication of effort,” Fess murmured behind his ear, “a concept in systems analysis. Such concepts are far too sophisticated for a medieval society. Off-planet influence must be suspected.”

 Or time-traveller influence. Who was sticking a finger in the Gramarye pie thistime, Rod wondered—the future Anarchists, or the Totalitarians?

 Probably the Anarchists; they tended to work on highly-placed officials. Though there wasa proletarian issue here…

 He’d paused too long. Catharine was saying, caustically, “Aye, leave an hundred or so loyal servants without employment, and their wives and families without bread! Thou wilt thus assure thyself of good custom at thine almshouses, Lord Abbot!”

 The Lord Abbot’s face reddened; it was time for Rod to get back in. “Surely neither system is perfect, Lord Abbot. But, with two operating, what the one misses, the other catches.” Had he heard of redundancy? “For example, does the Church still divide its charity-money equally, between all the parishes?”

 “Aye.” The Abbot nodded, frowning. “That which the parish itself doth not raise.”

 “But parishes inRunnymede have a much greater proportion of desperately needy than the rural parishes,” Rod explained.

 The Abbot blinked, and stared, wide-eyed.

 “I don’t think the parish priests have even had time to notice it, they’re so overworked.” Rod was a great one for saving the other guy’s face. “But the King’s almshouses are there, giving these poor parishioners at least enough for bare subsistence. That’s the advantage to having two systems—and the disadvantage to only having one. Who then would catch what the officers missed?”

 He’d gone on long enough for the Abbot to recover. “There’s some truth in that,” he admitted. “But surely, if there are to be two systems, at least each one should be self-governing. Would it not work at its best that way?”

 Rod glanced at the Queen and King. Catharine was considering it—and didn’t seem disposed to commit herself.

 “Aye,” Tuan said slowly, “I confess there’s reason to that.”

 “But mine cannot be so!” The Abbot slapped the tabletop and sat back with an air of triumph, obviously pleased with himself for having gotten them back to the topic they hadn’t wanted to discuss—and with such a good case for it, too.

 “No—it really can’t, I suppose.” As far as Rod was concerned, the timing was just right.

 “Nay. While the Crown appoints priests to parishes, I cannot set the man I deem best for the task, to the doing of that task. Does this not lessen the excellence of this double-chain thou speakest of?”

 “At least our appointments are better than those of the barons, whose choices obtained ere I was crowned,” Catharine retorted; but her tone lacked vehemence.

 “For which, I must thank Your Majesties.” The Abbot inclined his head. “Yet is it not now time to take a further step on the upward road?”

 “Mayhap,” Tuan said judiciously, “though it’s surely not to the Crown’s advantage to lessen any further its hold over the roots of government…”

 “But is it to the interests of thy people?” the Abbot murmured.

 Tuan fairly winced. “There, good Milord, thou touchest the quick. Yet thou wilt understand, I trust, that the Queen and I must discuss these matters you have so kindly brought to our attention, at some length.”

 “That,” Catharine warned, “will be a fulsome talk, and hot.”

 Tuan grinned. “Why, then, here I stand.” Suiting the action to the word, he stood. “Wilt thou, then, hold us excused, Lord Abbot? For indeed, we should begin this while we’re fresh to it.”

 “But of course, Your Majesties.” The Abbot scrambled to his feet, and even inclined his head a little. “Thou wilt, then, summon me, when thou dost feel further need of, ah, converse, on this matter?”

 “Be assured, we shall,” Tuan said grandly, “and so, good e’en.”

 “God be with thee,” the Abbot muttered, sketching a quick cross in the air. Then the doors boomed wide as the two monarchs turned away, arm in arm, and paced out, in a hurry—but more, Rod suspected, to get to a chess game with a small boy, than to discuss affairs of state.

 Still, he couldn’t let the Abbot suspect that—and he had a curiosity bump to scratch. “Now, Milord—about your founder…”

 “Eh?” The Abbot looked up, startled. “Oh, aye! I did say, when there would be time.”

 “All the time in the world,” Rod assured him. “The wife doesn’t expect me home till late.”

 Air rang with a small thunderclap, and Toby stood there, pale and wide-eyed. “Lord Warlock, go quickly! Gwendylon hath sent for thee—thy son Geoffrey hath gone into air!”

 Rod fought down a surge of panic. “Uh—he does that all the time, Toby—especially after you’ve just been there. Just lost, right?”

 “Would she send for thee if he were?”

 “No, hang it, she wouldn’t!” Rod swung back to the Abbot. “You must excuse me, Milord—but this’s got to be a genuine emergency! My wife’s a woman of verysound judgement!”

 “Why, certes, be on thy way, and do not stay to ask leave of a garrulous old man! And the blessings of God go with thee, Lord Warlock!”

 “Thank you, Milord!” Rod whirled away, out the door, with Toby beside him. “Try not to pop in like that, when there’s a priest around, Toby,” he advised. “It makes them nervous.”

 CHAPTER FOUR



  

 Someone’s out to get me,” Father Al muttered, as he flew through an underground tube in a pneumatic car, along with a dozen of his fellow passengers from Terra. They had just filed out of the liner from Luna and up to the datawall. Father Al had found his entry, and seen that the ship to Beta Cassiopeia was leaving at 17:23 GST, from Gate 11 of the North Forty terminal. Then he’d looked up at the digital clock and seen, to his horror, that it was 17:11, and he was in the South 220 terminal. That meant he was 180 degrees away from his next ship in both horizontal and vertical planes—which meant that he was exactly on the opposite side of the two-and-a-half-mile-wide planetoid that was Proxima Station!

 So down, and into the tube. The only saving grace was that he didn’t have to pass through Customs, as long as he stayed within the Station. That, and the speed of the pneumatic car—it could cross the two-and-a-half kilometers in three minutes. It could’ve done the trip in less than a minute, if the computer didn’t limit it to 1.5 G acceleration and deceleration at the beginning and end of the trip. Under the circumstances, Father Al would’ve settled for the quicker time, and taken his chances on ending his existence as a thin paste on the front of the car. It had taken him five minutes to find the tube, and a four-minute wait before the car came.

 Deceleration pushed him toward the front of the car, then eased off and disappeared. The doors hissed open, and he was on his feet, turning and twisting between other passengers, threading his way toward the platform. “Excuse me… Excuse me… I beg your pardon, madame…Oh, dear! I’m sorry about your foot, sir…”

 Then he was through, and standing, hands clasped on his suitcase handle, glaring at the lift’s readout. The minutes crawled agonizingly by while a discreet, impersonal voice from the ceiling informed him that Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110 to Beta Casseiopeia was about to depart from Gate 11; last call for Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110…

 The lift doors hissed open. Father Al held himself back by a straining effort of will as the passengers filed out; then he bolted in. That was a mistake; five people crowded in behind him. The doors hissed shut, and he began elbowing his way back to them. “Excuse me…I’m sorry, but this really is imperative… I’m sorry, sir, but my liner’s leaving, and the next one’s apt to be quite a while coming…”

 Then the doors hissed open, and he charged out, with one eye watching to avoid a collision, and the other watching for signs. There it was—Gates 10 through 15, and an arrow pointing to the left! He swerved like a comet reeling around the Sun, leaving a trail of bruised feet, jogged elbows, and shattered tempers behind him.

 Gate 11! He skidded to a halt, leaped toward the door—and realized it was chained shut. With a sinking heart, he looked up at the port-wall—and saw a glowing spot already small and diminishing, the St. Elmo’s-Fire phosphorescence that surrounded a ship under planetary drive, growing smaller and dimmer as his ship moved away.

 For a moment, he sagged with defeat; then his chin came up, and his shoulders squared. Why was he letting it bother him? After all, it wouldn’t be thatlong before the next flight to Casseiopeia.

 But the datawall said otherwise; the next flight to Beta Cass. wasn’t leaving for a week! He stared at it in disbelief, Yorick’s warning to hurry echoing in his ears. Rod Gallowglass was going to disappear, and Father Al had to make sure he disappeared with him!

 Then a nasty suspicion formed at the back of his mind. Admittedly, it was too soon to say—three times is enemy action, and he’d only been delayed twice; but Rod Gallowglass was about to discover some sort of extraordinary power within himself, and probably had some major flaw in his personality, as almost everyone had—well-hidden and well-rationalized, to be sure, but there nonetheless. That flaw could be a handle to grasp his soul by, and twist him toward evil actions—again, well-hidden and well-rationalized, not recognized as evil; but evil nonetheless. He could be a very powerful tool in the hands of Evil—or a great force for Good, if someone were there to point out the moral pitfalls and help him steer clear of them.

 Definitely, it helped Evil’s chances if Father Al missed contact with Rod Gallowglass.

 And it was so easy to do—just make sure he missed his ship, and arrived on Gramarye too late! All Hell had to do was to help human perversity run a little more than its natural course. Perhaps the captain of the liner had been in a bad mood, and hadn’t been about to wait a second longer than was necessary, even though one of the booked passengers hadn’t arrived yet… Perhaps the spaceport controller had had an argument earlier that day, and had taken it out on the rest of the world by assigning the ship from Terra to the South 220 terminal, instead of the North 40; so Finagle had triumphed, and the perversity of the universe had tended toward maximum.

 Father Al turned on his heel and strode away toward the center of the terminal.

 Father Al arrived in the main concourse and strolled down the row of shops, searching. The Church did all it could to make the Sacraments available to its members, no matter how far from Terra they might be—and especially in places where they might need its comfort and reinforcement most. There was one Order that paid particular attention to this problem; surely they wouldn’t have ignored a major way-station on the space lanes…

 There it was—a curtained window with the legend, “Chapel of St. Francis Assisi” emblazoned on it. Father Al stepped through the double door, gazed around at the rows of hard plastic pews, the burgundy carpet, and the plain, simple altar-table on the low dais, with the crucifix above it on a panelled wall, and felt a huge unseen weight lift from his shoulders. He was home.

 The Franciscans were very hospitable, as they always were. But there was a bit of a problem when he explained what he wanted.

 “Say Mass? Now? With respect, Father, it’s six o’clock in the evening.”

 “But surely you have evening Masses.”

 “Only on Saturday evenings, and the vigils of holy days.”

 “I’m afraid it really is necessary, Father.” Father Al handed the Franciscan his letter from the Pope. “Perhaps this will make the situation more clear.”

 He hated to pull rank—but it was satisfying to watch the Franciscan’s eyes widen when he looked at the signature. He folded the letter and handed it back to Father Al, clearing his throat. “Yes. Well… certainly, Father. Whatever you’d like.”

 “All I need is the altar, for half an hour.” Father Al smiled. “I don’t think there’ll be any need for a sermon.”

 But he was wrong. As he began to say Mass, passersby glanced in, stopped, looking startled, then came quietly in, found a pew, and knelt down. When Father Al looked up to begin the Creed, he stared in amazement at a couple dozen people in front of him, most of them well-dressed travellers, but with a good sprinkling of spaceport mechanics and dirtside crew—and a few gentlemen with three-day beards, whose coveralls were patched, greasy, and baggy at the knees. It was curious how any major spaceport always seemed to develop its own skid row, even if it was millions of AU’s from any habitable planet. It was even more surprising how many Catholics cropped up out of the plastic-work at the drop of an altar bell.

 Under the circumstances, he felt obliged to say something—and there was one sermon he always had ready. “My brothers and sisters, though we are in a Chapel of St. Francis, allow me to call to your minds the priest in whose honor my own Order was founded—St. Vidicon of Cathode, martyr for the faith. In the seminary, he had a problem—he kept thinking in terms of what did work, instead of what should work. He was a Jesuit, of course.

 “He also had a rather strange sense of humor. When he was teaching, his students began to wonder whether he believed more firmly in Finagle than in Christ. Too many young men were taking his jokes seriously, and going into Holy Orders as a result. His bishop was delighted with all the vocations, but was a bit leery of the reasons—so theVatican got wind of it. The Curia had its doubts about his sense of humor, too, so they transferred him toRome , where they could keep an eye on him. As an excuse for this surveillance, they made him Chief Engineer of TelevisionVatican .

 “The term is confusing today, of course; ‘television’ was like 3DT, but with a flat picture; 3DT was originally an abbreviation for ‘three-dimensional television.’ Yes, this was quite a few centuries ago—the Year of Our Lord 2020.

 “Well. Father Vidicon was sad to leave-off teaching, but he was overjoyed at actually being able to work with television equipment again… and he didn’t let his nearness to the Pope dampen his enthusiasm; he still insisted on referring to the Creator as ‘the Cosmic Cathode…’ ”

 “Praise God, from Whom electrons flow!
Praise Him, the Source of all we know!
Whose order’s in the stellar host!
For in machines, He is the Ghost!”

 “Father Vidicon,” Monsignor reproved, “that air has a blasphemous ring.”

 “Merely irreverent, Monsignor.” Father Vidicon peered at the oscilloscope and adjusted the pedestal on Camera Two. “But then, you’re a Dominican.”

 “And what is thatsupposed to mean?”

 “Simply that what you hear may not be what I said.” Father Vidicon leaned over to the switcher and punched up color bars.

 “He has a point.” Brother Anson looked up from the TBC circuit board he was diagnosing. “ Ithought it quite reverent.”

 “You would; it was sung.” Monsignor knew that Brother Anson was a Franciscan. “How much longer must I delay my rehearsal, Father Vidicon? I’ve an Archbishop and two Cardinals waiting!”

 “You can begin when the camera tube decides to work, Monsignor.” Father Vidicon punched up Camera Two again, satisfied that the oscilloscope wasreading correctly. “If you insist on bringing in Cardinals, you must be prepared for a breakdown.”

 “I really don’t see why a red cassock would cause so much trouble,” Monsignor grumbled.

 “You wouldn’t; you’re a director. But these old plumbicon tubes just don’t like red.” Father Vidicon adjusted the chrominance. “Of course, if you could talk His Holiness into affording a few digital-plate cameras…”

 “Father Vidicon, you know what they cost! And we’ve been the Church of the Poor for a century!”

 “Four centuries, more likely, Monsignor—ever since Calvin lured the bourgeoisie away from us.”

 “We’ve as many Catholics as we had in 1390,” Brother Anson maintained stoutly.

 “Yes, that was right after the Black Death, wasn’t it? And the population of the world’s grown a bit since then. I hate to be a naysayer, Brother Anson, but we’ve only a tenth as many of the faithful as we had in 1960. And from the attraction Reverend Sun is showing, we’ll be lucky if we have a tenth of thatby the end of the year.”

 “We’ve a crisis in cameras at the moment,” the Monsignor reminded. “Could you refrain from discussing the Crisis of Faith until the cameras are fixed?”

 “Oh, they’re working—now.” Father Vidicon threw the capping switch and shoved himself away from the camera control unit. “They’ll work excellently for you now, Monsignor, until you start recording.

 Monsignor reddened. “And why should they break down then?”

 “Because that’s when you’ll need them most.” Father Vidicon grinned. “Television equipment is subject to Murphy’s Law, Monsignor.”

 “I wish you were a bit less concerned with Murphy’s Law, and a bit more with Christ’s!”

 Father Vidicon shrugged. “If it suits the Lord’s purpose to give authority over entropy into the hands of the Imp of the Perverse, who am I to question Him?”

 “For the sake of Heaven, Father, what has the Imp of the Perverse to do with Murphy’s Law?” Monsignor cried.

 Father Vidicon shrugged. “Entropy is loss of energy within a system, which is self-defeating; that’s perversity. And Murphy’s Law is perverse. Therefore, both of them, and the Imp, are corollary to Finagle’s General Statement: ‘The perversity of the universe tends toward maximum.’ ”

 “Father Vidicon,” Monsignor said severely, “you’ll burn as a heretic someday.”

 “Oh, not in this day and age. If the Church condemns me, I can simply join Reverend Sun’s church, like so many of our erstwhile flock.” Seeing the Monsignor turn purple, he turned to the door, adding quickly, “Nonetheless, Monsignor, if I were you, I’d not forget the Litany of the Cameras before I called ‘roll and record.’ ”

 “ Thatpiece of blasphemy?” the Monsignor exploded. “Father Vidicon, you knowthe Church has never officially declared St. Clare to be the patron of television!”

 “Still, she did see St. Francis die, though she was twenty miles away at the time—the first Catholic instance of ‘television,’ ‘seeing-at-a-distance.’ ” Father Vidicon wagged a forefinger. “And St. Genesius isofficially the patron of showmen.”

 “Of actors, I’ll remind you—and we’ve none of those here!”

 “Yes, I know—I’ve seen your programs. But do remember St. Jude, Monsignor.”

 “The patron of the desperate? Why?”

 “No, the patron of lost causes—and with these antique cameras, you’ll need him.”

 The door opened, and a monk stepped in. “Father Vidicon, you’re summoned to His Holiness.”

 Father Vidicon blanched.

 “You’d best remember St. Jude yourself, Father,” the Monsignor gloated. Then his face softened into a gentle frown. “And, Lord help us—so had we all.”

  

 Father Vidicon knelt and kissed the Pope’s ring, with a surge of relief—if the ring was offered, things couldn’t be all thatbad.

 “On your feet, Father,” Pope Clement said grimly.

 Father Vidicon scrambled to his feet. “Come now, Your Holiness! You know it’s all just in fun! A bit irreverent, perhaps, but nonetheless only levity! I don’t reallybelieve in Maxwell’s Demon—not quite. And I know Finagle’s General Statement is really fallacious—the perversity’s in us, not in the universe. And St. Clare…”

 “Peace, Father Vidicon,” His Holiness said wearily. “I’m sure your jokes aren’t a threat to the Church—and I’m not particularly worried by irreverence. If Christ could take a joke, so can we.”

 Father Vidicon frowned. “Christ took a joke?”

 “He accepted human existence, didn’t He? But I’ve called you here for something a bit more serious than your contention that Christ acted as a civil engineer when He said that Peter was a rock, and upon that rock He’d build His Church.”

 “Oh.” Father Vidicon tried to look appropriately grave. “If it’s that feedback squeal in the public address system in St. Peter’s, I’ll do what I can, but…”

 “No, I’m afraid it’s a bit more critical.” The hint of a smile tugged at the Pope’s lips. “You’re aware that the faithful have been leaving us in increasing droves these past twenty years, of course.”

 Father Vidicon shrugged. “What can you expect, Your Holiness? With television turning everyone toward a Gestalt mode of thought, they’ve become more and more inclined toward mysticism, needing doctrines embracing the Cosmos and making them feel vitally integrated with it; but the Church still offers only petrified dogma, and logical reasoning. Of course they’ll turn to the ecstatics, to a video demagogue like Reverend Sun, with his hodge-podge to T’ai-Ping Christianity and Zen Buddhism…”

 “Yes, yes, I know the theories.” His Holiness waved Father Vidicon’s words away, covering his eyes with the other palm. “Spare me your McLuhanist cant, Father. But you’ll be glad to know the Council has just finished deciding which parts of Chardin’s theories arecompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

 “Which means Your Holiness has finally talked them into it!” Father Vidicon gusted out a huge sigh of relief. “At last!”

 “Yes, I can’t help thinking how nice it must have been to be Pope in, say, 1890,” His Holiness agreed, “when the Holy See had a bit more authority and a bit less need of persuasion.” He heaved a sigh of his own, and clasped his hands on the desktop. “And it’s come just in time. Reverend Sun is speaking to the General Assembly Monday morning—and you’ll never guess what his topic will be.”

 “How the Church is a millstone around the neck of every nation in the world.” Father Vidicon nodded grimly. “Priests who don’t pass on their genes, Catholics not attempting birth control and thereby contributing to overpopulation, Church lands withheld from taxation—it’s become a rather familiar bit of rhetoric.”

 “Indeed it has; most of his followers can recite it chapter and verse. But this time, my sources assure me he intends to go quite a bit farther—to ask the Assembly for a recommendation for all U.N. member nations to adopt legislation making all these ‘abuses’ illegal.”

 Father Vidicon’s breath hissed in. “And—with so large a percentage of the electorate in every country being Sunnite…”

 “It amounts to virtual outlawing of the Roman Catholic Church. Yes.” His Holiness nodded. “And I need hardly remind you, Father, that the current majority in the Italian government are Sunnite Communists.”

 Father Vidicon shuddered. “They’ll begin by annexing theVatican !” He had a sudden nightmarish vision of a Sunnite prayer meeting in the Sistine Chapel.

 “We’ll all be looking for new lodgings,” the Pope said drily. “So you’ll understand, Father, that it’s rather important that I tell the faithful of the whole world before then, about the Council’s recent action.”

 “Your Holiness will speak on television!” Father Vidicon cried. “But that’s wonderful! You’ll be…”

 “My blushes, Father Vidicon. I’m well aware that you consider me to have an inborn affinity for the video medium.”

 “The charisma of John Paul II, with the appeal of John the XXIII!” Father Vidicon asserted. “But what a waste, that you’ll not appear in the studio!”

 “I’m not fond of viewing myself as the chief drawing-card for a sideshow,” His Holiness said sardonically. “Still, I’m afraid it’s become necessary. The Curia has spoken with Eurovision, Afrovision, PanAsiavision, PanAmerivision, and even Intervision. They’re all, even the Communists, willing to carry us for fifteen minutes…”

 “Cardinal Beluga is a genius of diplomacy,” Father Vidicon murmured.

 “Yes, and all the nations are worried about the growth of Sun’s church within their borders, with all that it implies of large portions of their citizenry taking orders fromSingapore . Under the circumstances, we’ve definitely become the lesser of two evils, in their eyes.”

 “I suppose that’s a compliment,” Father Vidicon said doubtfully.

 “Let’s think of it that way, shall we? The bottleneck, of course, was the American commercial networks; they’re only willing to carry me early Sunday morning.”

 “Yes; they only worry about religion when it begins to affect sales,” Father Vidicon said thoughtfully. “So I take it Your Holiness will appear about two p.m.?”

 “Which is early morning inChicago , yes. Other countries have agreed to record the speech, and replay it at a more suitable hour. It’ll go by satellite, of course…”

 “As long as we pay for it.”

 “Naturally. And if there’s any failure of transmission at our end, the networks are notliable to give us postponed time.”

 “Your Holiness!” Father Vidicon threw his arms wide. “You wound me! Of courseI’ll see to it there’s no transmission error!”

 “No offense intended, Father Vidicon—but I’m rather aware that the transmitter I’ve given you isn’t exactly the most recent model.”

 “What can you expect, from donations? Besides, Your Holiness, British Marconi made excellent transmitters in 1990! No,Italy andSouthern France will receive us perfectly. But it would help if you could invest in a few spare parts for the converter that feeds the satellite ground station…”

 “Whatever that may be. Buy whatever you need, Father Vidicon. Just be certain our signal is transmitted. You may go now.”

 “Don’t worry, Your Holiness! Your voice shall be heard, and your face be seen, even though the Powers of Darkness rise up against me!”

 “Including Maxwell’s Demon?” His Holiness said dourly. “And the Imp of the Perverse?”

 “Don’t worry, Your Holiness.” Father Vidicon made a circle of his thumb and middle finger. “I’ve dealt with thembefore.”

  

 “ ‘The good souls flocked like homing doves,’ ” Father Vidicon sang, “or they will after they’ve heard our Pope’s little talk.” He closed the access panel of the transmitter. “There! Every part certified in the green! I’ve even dusted every circuit board… How’s that backup transmitter, Brother Anson?”

 “I’ve replaced two I.C. chips so far,” Brother Anson answered from the bowels of the ancient device. “Not that they were bad, you understand—but I had my doubts.”

 “I’ll never question a Franciscan’s hunches.” Father Vidicon laced his fingers across his midriff and sat back. “Did you check the converter to the ground station?”

 “ ‘Converter?’ ” Brother Anson’s head and shoulders emerged, covered with dust. “You mean that huge resistor in the gray box?”

 Father Vidicon nodded. “The very one.”

 “A bit primitive, isn’t it?”

 Father Vidicon shrugged. “There isn’t time to get a proper one, now—and it’s all they’ve given me money for, ever since I was ‘promoted’ to Chief Engineer. Besides, all we reallyneed to do is to drop our 50,000-watt transmitter signal down to something the ground station can handle.”

 Brother Anson shrugged. “If you say so, Father. I should think that would kick up a little interference, though.”

 “Well, we can’t be perfect—not on the kind of budget we’re given, anyhow. Just keep reminding yourself, Brother, that most of our flock still live in poverty; they need a bowl of millet more than a clear picture.”

 “I can’t argue with that. Anyway, I did check the resistor. Just how many ohms does it provide, anyway?”

 “About as many as you do, Brother. How’d it test out?”

 “Fine, Father. It’s sound.”

 “Or will be, till we go on the air.” Father Vidicon nodded. “Well, I’ve got two spares handy. Let the worst that can happen, happen! I’m more perverse than Murphy!”

 The door slammed open, and the Monsignor was leaning against the jamb. “Father… Vidicon!” he panted. “It’s … catastrophe!”

 “Murphy,” Brother Anson muttered; but Father Vidicon was on his feet. “What is it, Monsignor? What’s happened?”

 “Reverend Sun! He discovered the Pope’s plans, and has talked the U.N. into scheduling his speech for Friday morning!”

 Father Vidicon stood, galvanized for a second. Then he snapped, “The networks! Can they air His Holiness early?”

 “Cardinal Beluga’s on three phones now, trying to patch it together! If he brings it off, can you be ready?”

 “Oh, we can be ready!” Father Vidicon glanced at the clock. “Thursday, 4 pm. We need an hour. Any time after that, Monsignor.”

 “Bless you!” the Monsignor turned away. “I’ll tell His Holiness.”

 “Come on, Brother Anson.” Father Vidicon advanced on the backup transmitter, catching up his toolkit. “Let’s get this beast back on line!”

  

 “Five minutes till air!” the Monsignor’s voice rasped over the intercom. “Make it good, reverend gentlemen! Morning shows all over the world are giving us fifteen minutes—but not a second longer! And Reverend Sun’s coming right behind us, live from the U.N.!”

 Father Vidicon and Brother Anson were on their knees, hands clasped. Father Vidicon intoned, “Saint Clare, patron of television…”

 “…pray for us,” finished Brother Anson.

 “Saint Genesius, patron of showmen…”

 “One minute!” snapped the Monsignor. “Roll and record!”

 “…pray for us,” murmured Brother Anson.

 “Rolling and recording,” responded the recording engineer.

 “Saint Jude, patron of lost causes…”

 “…pray for us,” Brother Anson finished fervently.

 “Slate it!” Then, “Bars and tone!”

 They could hear the thousand-cycle test tone in the background, whining. Then it began beeping at one-second intervals.

 “Ready mike and cue, ready up on one!”

 “Five!” called the assistant director. “Four! Three!”

 “Black! Clip tone!” the Monsignor cried. “Mike him! Cue him! Up on One!”

 Television screens all over the world lit up with the grave but faintly-smiling image of the Pope. “Dearly beloved in Christ…”

 The picture flickered.

 Father Vidicon darted a glance at the converter. Its tally light was dead. Beside it, the light glowed atop the back-up converter.

 “Quick! The big one died!” Father Vidicon yanked open the top of the long gray box and wrenched out the burned-out resistor.

 “There are a few points of theology on which we can’t agree with Reverend Sun,” His Holiness was saying. “Foremost among these is his concept of the Trinity. We just can’t agree that Reverend Sun is himself the third Person, the ‘younger son’ of God…”

 Brother Anson slapped the spare resistor into Father Vidicon’s palm.

 “…nor is the sharing of a marijuana cigarette a valid form of worship, in the Church’s eyes,” the Pope went on. “But the Council does agree that…”

 The screen went dark.

 Father Vidicon shoved the spare into its clips and threw the routing switch.

 The screen glowed again. “…have always been implicit in Catholic doctrine,” His Holiness was saying, “but the time has come to state their implications. First among these is the notion of ‘levels of reality.’ Everything that exists is real; but God is the Source of reality, as He is the Source of everything. And the metaphor of ‘the breath of God’ for the human soul means that…”

 “Yes, it’s gone.” Father Vidicon yanked the burned-out resistor out of the back-up. “The manufacturers must think they can foist off all their defectives on the Church.” Brother Anson took the lump of char and gave him a new resistor. “That’s our last spare, Father Vidicon.”

 Father Vidicon shoved it into its clips. “What’re the odds against three of these blowing in a space of ten minutes?”

 “Gunderson’s Corollary,” Brother Anson agreed.

 Father Vidicon slapped, down the cover. “We’re up against perversity, Brother Anson.”

 The tally blinked out on the main converter as the little red light on the back-up glowed into life.

 “We’re out of spares,” Brother Anson groaned.

 “Maybe it’s just a connection!” Father Vidicon yanked open the cover. “Only four minutes left!”

 “Is it the resistor, Father?”

 “You mean this piece of slag?”

 “…the oneness, the unity of the cosmos, has always been recognized byHoly MotherChurch ,” the Pope was saying. “Christ’s parable about the ‘lilies of the field’ serves as an outstanding example. All that exists is within God. In fact, the architecture of the medieval churches…”

 A picture of the Cathedral of Notre Dame appeared on the screen. The camera zoomed in for a close-up of the decorative carving…

 … and the screen went blank.

 “It died, Father Vidicon,” Brother Anson moaned.

 “Well, you fight fire with fire.” Father Vidicon yanked out the dead resistor. “And this is perversity…” He seized the lead from the transmitter in his left hand, and the lead to the ground station in his right.

 Around the world, screens glowed back into life.

 “…and as there is unity in all of Creation,” the Pope went on, “so there is unity in all the major religions. The same cosmic truths can be found in all; and the points on which we agree are more important than the ones on which we disagree—saving, of course, the Godhood of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. But as long as a Catholic remembers that he is a Catholic, there can certainly be no fault in his learning from other faiths, if he uses this as a path toward greater understanding of his own.” He clasped his hands and smiled gently. “May God bless you all.”

 And his picture faded from the screen.

 “We’re off!” shouted Monsignor. “That was masterful!”

 In the transmitter room, Brother Anson chanted the Dies Irae, tears in his eyes.

 The Pope moved out of the television studio, carefully composed over the exhaustion that always resulted from a television appearance. The Monsignor dashed out of the control room to drop to his knees and wring the Pope’s hand. “Congratulations, Your Holiness! It was magnificent!”

 “Thank you, Monsignor,” the Pope murmured, “but let’s judge it by the results, shall we?”

 “Your Holiness!” Another Monsignor came running up. “Madridjust called! The people are piling into the confessionals—even the men!”

 “Your Holiness!” cried a cardinal. “It’sPrague ! The faithful are flocking to the cathedral! The commissars are livid!”

 “Your Holiness—New York City! The people are streaming into the churches!”

 “Your Holiness—Reverend Sun just cancelled his U.N. speech!”

 “Your Holiness! People are kneeling in front of churches all overItaly , calling for the priests!”

 “It’s the Italian government, Your Holiness! They send their highest regards, and assurances of continued friendship!”

 “Your Holiness,” Brother Anson choked out, “Father Vidicon is dead.”

  

 They canonized him eventually, of course—there was no question that he’d died for the Faith. But the miracles started right away.

 InParis , a computer programmer with a very tricky program knew it was almost guaranteed to glitch. But he prayed to Father Vidicon to put in a good word for him with the Lord, and the program ran without a hitch.

 Art Rolineux, directing coverage of the SuperBowl, had eleven of his twelve cameras die on him, and the twelfth started blooming. He sent up a quick prayer to Father Vidicon, and five cameras came back on line.

 Ground Control was tracking a newly-launched satellite when it suddenly disappeared from their screens. “Father Vidicon, protect us from Murphy!” a controller cried out, and the blip reappeared on the screens.

 Miracles? Hard to prove—it always could’ve been coincidence. It always can, with electronic equipment. But as the years flowed by, engineers and computer programmers and technicians all over the world began counting the prayers, and the numbers of projects and programs saved—and word got around, as it always does. So, the day after the Pope declared him to be a saint, the signs went up on the back walls of every computer room and control booth in the world:

 “St. Vidicon of Cathode, pray for us!”

 “Thus Saint Vidicon died, in an act of self-sacrifice that turned perversity back upon itself.” Father Al turned his head slowly, looking directly into the eyes of each person in his little congregation, one by one. “So, my brothers and sisters, when you are tempted to commit an act of perversity, pray to St. Vidicon to intercede with Almighty God, and grant you the grace to turn that perversity back upon itself, as St. Vidicon did. If you are a masochist, and are tempted to find someone to whip you, be even more perverse—deny yourself the pleasure you long for! If you are tempted to steal, find a way of defrauding the bank’s computer into giving you money from your own account! If you’re tempted to try to ruin an enemy, pay him a compliment instead—he’ll go crazy wondering what you’re plotting against him!”

 One of the businessmen shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

 Father Al took a deep breath. “Thus may we take the energy of the urge toward perversity, and turn it to the strengthening of our souls, by using its energy to perform good works.”

 The congregation looked a bit confused, and he didn’t blame them—it wasn’t exactly the most coherent sermon he had ever delivered. But what could you expect, on an ad-lib basis? He did notice a look of surprise on a few of the derelicts’ faces, though, followed by thoughtful brooding. At least not all the seed had fallen on rocky ground.

 He hurried on to the Creed, then pronounced the intention of the Mass. “Dear Lord, if it pleases You, allow the soul of Your servant, the sainted Vidicon of Cathode, to lend his strength in defense of this member of the Order founded in his name, by battling the forces of perversity that ring Your Holy Church, turning them against themselves, to the confounding of those who seek its downfall, and who war against holiness and freedom of the soul. Amen.”

 From there on, it was pretty straightforward, and he could relax and let himself forget the troubles of the moment while he became more and more deeply involved in the Sacrament. As always, the spell of the Mass wove its reassuring warmth around him; soon all that existed were the Host and the wine, and the silent, intent faces of the congregation. A surprising number of them turned out to be in shape for Communion; but, fortunately; one of the Franciscans was standing by in the sacristy, and came out to unlock the tabernacle and bring out a ciborium, so no one went away empty.

 Then they were trooping out, singing the recessional, and Father Al was left alone, with the usual sweet sadness that came from knowing the Mass was indeed ended, and that he must wait a whole twenty-four hours before he could say it again.

 Well, not quite alone. The Franciscan came over to him, with a whispering of his rough robe. “A moving Mass, Father—but a strange sermon, and a strange intention.”

 Father Al smiled wanly. “And stranger circumstances that brought them forth, Father, I assure you.”

  

 He had almost reached the departure port again when the public address system came to life, with the howling of a siren behind the voice. “All passengers please clear the area. Conditions of extreme danger obtain; a ship is returning to port with damage in its control system. All passengers please clear the area immediately.”

 It went on to repeat the message, but Father Al was already on his way back toward the main terminal. He only went as far as the rope, though—the red emergency cord that attendants were calmly stringing across the corridor, as though it were a daily event. But one look at their eyes assured Father Al that this was rare, and dreaded. “ My Lord!” he prayed silently. “ I only sought aid for myself, not danger to others!” And he found the nearest viewscreen.

 Emergency craft were moving into position, amber running-lights flashing. Snub-nosed cannon poked out of their noses, ready to spray sealant on any ruptures in the hull of ship or station. A hospital cruiser drifted nearby.

 And, in the distance, a dot of light swelled into a disc—the returning ship.

 The disc swelled into a huge globe, filling a quarter of the velvet darkness, pocked with the parabolic discs of detectors and communicators. Then the swelling stopped; the huge ship drifted closer, slowing as it came. The emergency craft maintained a respectful distance, wary and alert, as the liner loomed over them, till it filled the whole sky. Then the front of the hull passed beyond the range of the viewscreen. Father Al listened very carefully, but heard nothing; he only felt the tiniest movement of the station about him as the behemoth docked in the concave gate awaiting it. He breathed a sigh of relief; no matter what trouble they’d detected, the control system had functioned perfectly for docking.

 He turned away, to see the attendants removing the velvet rope, with only the slightest tremor in their hands. “Excuse me,” he said to the nearest. “What ship was that, docking there?”

 The steward looked up. “Why, it was the liner for Beta Casseiopeia, Father. Just a minor problem in the control system—they could’ve gone on with it, really. But our line doesn’t believe in taking chances, no matter how small.”

 “A wise policy,” Father Al agreed. “ ‘The Universe’ll get you, if you don’t watch out.’ ”

 The attendant smiled thinly. “I’m glad you understand.”

 “Oh, perfectly. In fact, it’s something of a fortunate coincidence for me; I was supposed to be on that liner, but my ship from Terra arrived a bit late.”

 The attendant nodded. “ ‘Fortunate’ is right. The next ship for Beta Cass. doesn’t leave for another week.”

 “Yes, I know. You will let them know they’ve another passenger waiting, won’t you?”

 Six hours later, the engineers had found and replaced a defective circuit-grain, and Father Al slid into his couch, stretching the webbing across his body with a sigh of relief, and prayers of thanks to St. Vidicon and God.

 No reason to, really; it was probably all just a coincidence. No doubt St. Vidicon had sat by smiling in amusement all the time, and the ship would’ve returned to port even without Father Al’sMass. But a little extra praying never hurts, and it had kept him occupied.

 Besides, in the realm of the supernatural, one never knew. Rod Gallowglass might really be important enough to merit the personal attention of the Imp of the Perverse. Father Al just hoped he’d reach Gramarye in time.

 CHAPTER FIVE



  

 The jets cut out, and the great black horse landed at full gallop. He slowed to a canter, stubby wings folding back into his sides, and then to a trot.

 “Elben Pond, Toby said,” Rod muttered, glaring at the dark sheet of water barely visible through the trees. “Here’s Elben Pond. Where are they?”

 “I hear them, Rod,” Fess answered.

 A few seconds later, Rod could, too: two small voices crying, “Geo-ff!” Geo-ffrey!“ And a full one calling, ”Geoffrey, my jo! Geoffrey! Whither art thou?”

 “Geof-frey, Geof-frey!” Cordelia’s voice came again, with sobs between the cries. Then Fess was trotting into a small clearing, with the little lake gleaming at its edge, and Cordelia’s head poked out of the shrubbery as Rod swung down. “Papa!” And she came running.

 “Oh, Papa, it’s turrible! It’s all Magnus’s fault; he disappeared Geoffrey!”

 “Did not!” Magnus howled, agonized, as he came running up, and his mother seconded him as she landed on her knees next to her daughter.

 “Cordelia, Cordelia! Magnus did not doit, he only saidit!”

 “You sure his just saying it couldn’t make it happen?” Rod looked up at her over Cordelia’s head. “Magnus may be the only warlock who’s ever been able to teleport someone else, except for old Galen—but Magnus did do it, when he got into that argument with Sergeant Hapweed.”

 “Aye, and it took old Galen himself to fetch him back! Oh, we’ve sent for him—but truly, I misdoubt me ‘tis that! Magnus would not lie on a matter of such gravity.”

 “No, he wouldn’t.” Rod transferred Cordelia to her mother’s arms and caught Magnus against him. The boy resisted, his body stiff, but Rod stroked his head and crooned, “There, now, son, we know you didn’t do it! Maybe something you said makes you think so—but I know you can’t do a thing like that without meaning to!”

 The eight-year-old trembled; then his body heaved with a huge sob, and he wept like a thundercloud, bellowing anguish. Rod just hung on and kept stroking the boy’s head and murmuring reassurances until his sobs slackened; then he held Magnus gently away, and said quietly, “Now, then. Tell me what happened, from beginning to end.”

 Magnus gulped and nodded, wiping at his eyes. “He was trying to play my games, Papa, the way he always does—and you’ve toldme not to let him climb trees!”

 “Yes; he might be too scared to levitate, if he fell from twenty feet up,” Rod said grimly. “So he was tagging along in his usual pesty way—and what happened?”

 “Magnus told him…” Cordelia burst out; but Gwen said, “Hush,” firmly, and clapped a hand over her daughter’s mouth.

 “Let thy father hear it for himself.”

 “And?” Rod prompted.

 “Well—I told him to go jump in the lake. I didn’t know he’d doit!” Magnus burst out.

 Rod felt a cold chill run down his spine. “He always does everything you tell him; you should know that by now. So he jumped in.”

 “Nay! He never did get to’t! Ten feet short o’ the water, he faded!”

 “Faded?” Rod gawked.

 “Aye! Into thin air! His form grew thinner and thinner, the whiles I watched, till I could see the sticks and leaves through him—like to a ghost!”

 Cordelia wailed.

 Rod fought down the prickling that was covering his head and shoulders. “And he just—faded away.”

 Magnus nodded.

 Rod gazed out at the pond, frowning.

 “Dost thou think…” Gwen’s voice broke; she tried again. “Dost thou think we should drag the waters?”

 Rod shook his head.

 “Then… what?” She was fighting against hope.

 “Fess?” Rod murmured.

 “Yes, Rod.”

 “You watched me being sent through that time-machine in McAran’s lab once, right?”

 “Yes, Rod. I remember the seizure vividly. And I see your point—Magnus’s description does match what I witnessed.”

 Gwen clutched his arm. “Dost thou think he has wandered in time?”

 “Not wandered,” Rod corrected. “I think he’s been sent.”

 “But I ran right after him, Papa! Why would it not have sent me, too?” Magnus protested.

 “Yeah, I was wondering about that.” Rod rose. “The most logical answer is that whoever turned the machine on, turned it off right after poor little Geoff blundered into it… But maybe not. Son, when you told Geoff to go jump in the lake, where were you standing, and where was he?”

 “Why… I stood by yon cherry tree.” Magnus pointed. “And Geoff stood by the ash.” His arm swung toward a taller tree about ten feet from the first. “And he called, ‘Magnus, me climb, too!’ and started toward me.” Magnus gulped back tears, remembering. “But I spake to him, ‘No! Thou knowest Mama and Papa forbade it!’ And he stopped.”

 Rod nodded. “Good little boy. And then?”

 “Well, he began to bleat, in that way he hath, ‘Magnus! You climb, meclimb! Me big!’ And I fear I lost patience; I cried, ‘Oh, go leap in the lake!’ And, straightaway, he fled toward the water.”

 “From the ash.” Rod turned, frowning, toward the tree, drawing an imaginary line from it straight toward the lake, and cutting it off ten feet short of the water. “Then?”

 “Why, then, he began to fade. I own I was slow; I did not think aught was out o’ place for a second or two. Then it struck me, and I ran hotfoot after.”

 Rod drew an imaginary line from the cherry toward the pond. The two lines did not intersect, until their end-points. “Fess?”

 “I follow your thought, Rod. The machine’s focus was no doubt ten feet or so further back from the water’s edge. Geoff’s momentum carried him further while he was beginning to shift.”

 Rod nodded and started for the ash tree.

 “What dost thou do?” Gwen cried, running after him.

 “We’ve got the theory; now I’m testing it.” Rod turned right at the ash and started toward the water.

 “Thou seekest to follow him, then!” Gwen kept pace with him determinedly. “And if thou dost?”

 “Then he’ll have company. You stay with the other three, while we find our way back—but don’t hold dinner.”

 “Nay! If thou dost… Rod! Thou…” Then whatever she was saying faded away. Rod turned back toward her, frowning…

 … and found himself staring at the trunk of a tree.

 A white trunk, white as a birch, but corrugated like an oak—and the leaves were silver.

 Rod stared.

 Then, slowly, he looked up, and all about him; all the trees were just like the first. They towered above him, spreading a tinsel canopy between himself and the sun; it tinkled in the breeze.

 Slowly, he turned back to the meter-wide trunk behind him. So that was why Geoff had faded, instead of just disappearing—the machine’s computer had sensed solid matter at the far end, and hadn’t released him from its field until he was clear of the trunk. Rod nodded slowly, drew his dagger, and carefully cut a huge “X” in the trunk; he had a notion he might want to be able to find it again.

 Apropos of which, he turned his back to the trunk, and looked about him carefully, identifying other trees as landmarks—the one with the split trunk over to the left, and the twisted sapling to his right…

 And the gleam of water straight ahead!

 And just about the same distance away as Elben Pond had been. The machine had set him down in the spot that exactly corresponded to the pick-up point.

 But when? When had there been silver-leafed, white-trunked oaks on Gramarye?

 When wouldthere be?

 Rod shook off the tingling that was trying to spread over his back from his spine. He had more important things to think about, at the moment. He stepped away toward the shoreline, calling, “Geoff! Geoffrey! Geoff, it’s Papa!”

 He stopped dead-still, listening. Off to his left, faintly, he heard tiny wails, suddenly stopping. Then a little head popped up above underbrush, and a small voice yelled, “Papa!”

 Rod ran.

 Geoff blundered and stumbled toward him. Silver leaves rang and chimed as they ran, with a discordant jangle as Rod scooped the little body up high in his arms, stumpy legs still kicking in a run. “Geoff, m’boy! Geoff!”

 “Papa! Papa!”

 After a short interval of unabashedly syrupy sentimentality, Rod finally put his second son down, but couldn’t quite bring himself to take his hand off Geoff’s shoulder. “Thank Heaven you’re safe!”

 “Scared, Papa!”

 “Me too, son! But it’s all right, now we’re together—right?”

 “Right!” Geoff threw his arms around his father’s leg and hugged hard.

 “Well! Time to go… what’s that?”

 Something blundered into the underbrush and stopped with a clashing of leaves. Then it set up a frightened wail.

 A voice faded in after it. “…thou dare—Cordelia! Thou’st done… Oh, child! Now twoof thee are lost!”

 “Uh—three!” Rod called, peering over the underbrush to see Magnus come barrelling out of the tree-trunk. “Come on, Geoff! Family-reunion time!”

 “Not lost, Mama!” Cordelia crowed triumphantly. “We’re allhere!”

 “And all lost,” Rod agreed as he came up. “Here he is, Gwen.”

 “Oh, Geoffrey!” Gwen fell to her knees and threw her arms around her boy.

 Rod let her have herfew minutes of sickening sentimentality while he set his arms akimbo and glared down at Magnus. “You know, this wasn’t exactly the world’s smartest idea.”

 “If one of us’s lost, we should all be lost!” Cordelia declared.

 “So said she to Mama,” Magnus stated, “and me thought her idea had merit.”

 “Oh, you did, did you?” Rod growled, glaring; but he couldn’t hold it, and grappled them to him, one against each hip, hugging them hard. “Well, maybe you’ve got a point. The family that strays together, stays together—even if we areall in danger.”

 “Danger?” Magnus perked up. “What danger, Papa?”

 Rod shrugged. “Who knows? We don’t even know what kind of country we’re in, let alone what lives here.”

 “It’s all new!” Cordelia squealed in delight.

 “Well, that’s one way of looking at it.” Rod shook his head in amazement. “And to think I used to be a cynic!”

 “Where are we, Papa?” Magnus was looking around, frowning.

 “It’s beginning to get through to you, too, huh? Well, I thinkwe’re still in Gramarye, but way in the future—way, wayin the future. It couldn’t be the past, because Gramarye never had trees like this—before the colonists came, it was all Carboniferous.”

 “Carbo- what?”

 “Just giant ferns, no trees.”

 “Art thou certain?”

 “Well, that’s what the rest of the planet still has—but let’s check it, anyway… Fess?” Rod waited for the robot to answer, then frowned. “Fess? Fess, where are you? Come in, hang it!”

 There was no answer.

 “Can Fess ‘talk’ across time, Papa?” Magnus asked quietly.

 “Well, we tried it once, and it worked—but Doc, uh, Dr. McAran was lending us a time-machine’s beam, then.” Rod didn’t finish the thought, but a cold lump of dread began to swell in his belly.

 “But isn’t there a time-machine still running, here?”

 Rod wouldhave to beget brainy kids! “Don’t miss much, do you? Uh, Gwen, dear? I think it’s time we were getting back.” Or trying to.

 Gwen looked up, startled. “Oh, aye!” She scrambled to her feet. “I had clear forgot about time! Why, Gregory must be squalling with hunger!”

 “I have a feeling you should have weaned him sooner,” Rod mused.

 The telepathic mommy picked it up from her kids. “What is this foreboding…? Oh.” She looked up at Rod. “Magnus fears the gate may be closed.” Her face firmed as she accepted it.

 Rod felt a surge of admiration, and gratitude that he’d lucked into this woman. “There is that possibility, dear. Let’s check it out, shall we?”

 Without a word, Gwen clasped little Geoff’s hand and followed after her husband.

 Rod went slowly, holding Cordelia’s hand and letting Magnus stalk by his side, searching for the bent sapling on the one hand, and the split trunk on the other. There, and… there. And there was the big oak with the “X” on it.

 He caught Magnus’s hand. “Take your mother’s hand, son. I think we’d better be linked up, just in case this works.”

 Silently, Magnus caught Gwen’s hand.

 Slowly, Rod paced toward the tree.

 He stopped when the bark was grooving his nose, and didn’t seem disposed to melt nicely out of the way.

 “Thou dost look silly, Papa,” Cordelia informed him.

 “I never would have guessed,” Rod muttered, turning away. His eyes found Gwen’s. “It didn’t work, dear.”

 “No,” she answered, “I think it did not.”

 They were silent for a few minutes.

 “Art thou certain ‘twas here, Papa?” Cordelia asked hopefully.

 Rod tapped the tree-trunk. “X marks the spot. I should know—I put it there, myself. No, honey—whoever opened this particular door for us, has shut it.”

 “At least,” Gwen pointed out, “I will not have to wait dinner for thee.”

 “Yes.” Rod smiled bleakly. “At least we’re all here.”

 “No, Papa!” Cordelia cried. “ Notall here! How couldyou forget Gregory!”

 “Believe me, I haven’t,” Rod assured her, “but I think whoever trapped us here, did.”

 “ Trappedus?” Magnus’s eyes went round.

 “Don’t miss much at all, do you?” Rod gave him a bitter smile. “Yes, son, I think somebody deliberately set out to trap us here—and succeeded admirably.” His gaze travelled up to Gwen. “After all, it makes sense—and it’s about the only theory that does. There’s a storm brewing, between the Church and the Crown, back on Gramarye— ourGramarye, that is. And I’ve got some pretty strong hints that somebody from off-world’s been pushing the Church into it. So what happens? Church and Crown have a meeting this afternoon, a confrontation that should’ve blown the whole thing sky-high—and what do I do but foul up the plan by getting them both to see reason! No, of coursewhoever’s behind it would want me out of the way!”

 Magnus frowned. “But why us, Papa?”

 “Because you’re a very powerful young warlock, mine offspring, as anyone on Gramarye knows. And, if they’re going to all this trouble just to foist off a war between the Church and the State, you can darn well bet they don’t intend to have the State win! So the smart thing to do is to remove the State’s strongest weapons—me, and your mother, and you. Don’t forget, they lost one because of you, already, when you were only two. And Geoffrey’s three already, and Cordelia’s all of five! They’ve got no way of telling whatany of you might be able to do.” Nor do I, for that matter. “So, as long as you’re setting the trap, why not catch all five of the birds-of-trouble while you’re at it?”

 “But Gregory, Papa?”

 Rod shrugged. “I’m sure they’d’ve preferred it if your mother’d carried him in here, too—but since she didn’t I don’t expect they’re going to lose much sleep over it. He’s not even a year old, after all. Even if he had every power in the book, what could he dowith them? No, I don’t think they were about to keep the gate open just to try and get Gregory, too—especially if it meant that the five of usmight escape! Speaking of Gregory, by the way—who’s with him?”

 “Puck, and an elf-wife,” Gwen answered. “And, aye, fear not—she knows the crafting of a nursing-glove.”

 Rod nodded. “And anything else she needs to know about him, I’m sure Brom will be glad to supply.”

 “He takes so great an interest in our children,” Gwen sighed.

 “Ah—yes.” Rod remembered his promise not to tell Gwen that Brom was her father. “Comes in handy, at a time like this. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he flits in from Beastland, just to take charge of Greg personally—and Baby couldn’t be safer inside a granite castle guarded by a phalanx of knights and three battlewagons. No, I think he’ll be safe till we get back.”

 “ ‘Until?’ ” Magnus perked up. “Then thou’tt certain we can return, Papa?”

 Well, Rod hadbeen, until Magnus mentioned it—but he wasn’t about to say so. There were times when it came in handy, being telepathically invisible, even to members of his own family.

 Damn few, though. And there were so manytimes when it was a curse, almost made him feel excluded…

 He shrugged it off. “Of course we can get back! It’s just a problem—and problems are made to be solved, right?”

 “Right,” all three children shouted, and Rod grinned in spite of himself. They were handy to have around, sometimes. Most times.

 “Tell us the manner of it!” Magnus demanded.

 “Oh… I dunno…” Rod let his gaze wander. “We don’t exactly have enough information to start building theories. We don’t even know where we are, in a manner of speaking, or what materials and tools are available—which might be handy to know, ‘cause it might come down to building our own time-machine. For that matter, we don’t even know if there’re even any people!”

 “Then let us go discover it!” Magnus said stoutly.

 Rod felt the grin spreading over his face again. “Yeah, let’s go!” He whipped out his dagger. “Blaze trees as we go, kids—we might want to be able to find our way back here. Forward march!”

 CHAPTER SIX



  

 I trust you had a pleasant journey, Father Uwell.”

 “As usual, Your Grace.” Father Al dug gratefully into a pile of asparagus that appeared to be fresh. “Aboard ship, it was very pleasant—ample time for meditation. It was getting tothe ship that was the problem.”

 Bishop Fomalo smiled thinly. “Isn’t it always? I believe my secretary said you were from theVatican .” The Bishop knew that full well; that’s why he’d invited Father Al to dinner. Not to impress him, but because that was the only half-hour open in the Bishop’s schedule.

 Father Al nodded, chewing, and swallowed. “But I have no official standing, Your Grace. An informal trouble-shooter, you might say.”

 The Bishop frowned. “But we have no troubles in my diocese—at least, none that would merit theVatican ’s attention.”

 “None that you know of.” Father Al tried a sympathetic smile. “And it’s debatable whether or not it’s in your diocese.”

 Bishop Fomalo seemed to relax a little. “Come, now, Father! Certainly theVatican knows which solar systems my diocese includes.”

 “Lundres, Seredin, and Ventreles—I believe those are the colonists’ names for the stars. I’m afraid I don’t know the catalog numbers.”

 “I’d have to look them up, myself,” the bishop said, with a thin smile. “There are colonies on the third and fourth planets of Lundres, one on the fourth planet of Seredin, and one on the second planet of Ventreles.”

 “But they haven’t begun to branch out to the moons and asteroids yet?”

 “No, the planets are enough for us, for the time being. After all, Father, we scarcely total a million souls.”

 “So little as that? My, my. I trust that doesn’t indicate a disaster?”

 “Scarcely.” The bishop tried to repress a smile. “But when you begin with a colony of a few thousand, Father, it does take a while to build up a sizable population, even with sperm and ova banks to keep the genetics stable.”

 “Yes, of course. I hope you’ll pardon my ignorance, Your Grace—I’ve never been so far from Terra before. And distance is the factor—with so few people spread over so many light-years, it must be an Herculean task to stay in touch with them.”

 “It is difficult,” the bishop admitted, “especially with so few vocations. But we do have hyperadio now, and of course we’ve had a dozen pinnaces with FTL drives all along.”

 “Of course.” But Father Al’s eyes suddenly gleamed.

 The bishop shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “About this trouble you mentioned, Father—on which colony is it?”

 “A Lost Colony, Your Grace, about two-thirds of the way between Seredin and Ventreles, and thirteen light-years away.”

 The Bishop relaxed again. “Well, that is out of my diocese. What colony is this?”

 “Its people call it ‘Gramarye,’ Your Grace.”

 “Troubling.” The bishop frowned. “The word refers to sorcery, does it not?”

 “Well, magic, certainly, and it does have occult connotations. The term’s also used to refer to a book of magical spells.”

 “I can see why theVatican would be concerned. But how is it I’ve never heard of this Lost Colony, Father?”

 “Why, they wished to stay lost,” Father Al said, lips puckering in a smile. “As far as I’ve been able to make out, they deliberately set about cutting themselves off from the rest of humanity.”

 “An ominous symptom.” The bishop’s frown deepened. “All manner of heresies could break out in such a situation. And they’ve been there for several centuries?”

 Father Al nodded. “The colony was founded just before the Interstellar Dominion Electorates fell to the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra’s coup.”

 “At least they were founded under a democratic interstellar federation. I take it they saw the totalitarian rule ofPEST coming, and went off to try to keep democracy alive?”

 “Not really; they established a monarchy.”

 “Why, I wonder?” The bishop rubbed his chin. “How did theVatican learn of them?”

 Father Al heard the indignant echo under the words; what business did he, an outsider, have coming in here, telling the bishop there was a nearby trouble spot he hadn’t known about? “You might say the information was leaked to us, by an agency associated with the interstellar government.” Which was true; but the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal didn’t know about the association.

 “I see.” The bishop’s face cleared. “It’s good to know there are still some concerned citizens. Was your source Catholic?”

 “I believe his name’s Irish, but that’s all I know.”

 “That’s indication enough.” The bishop sat back in his chair. “I assume he gave you the coordinates. How will you get there?”

 “Well, ah…”

 The bishop’s eyes widened. “No, Father. All my boats are fully scheduled, for the next three months. If we were to transport you, one of the colonies would have to miss its consignment of missalettes.”

 “I think the clergy could manage to find the correct readings, Your Grace. Besides, don’t you keep at least one of your craft on standby, in case of breakdowns?”

 “Yes, but what if there werea breakdown? Good heavens, Father, two of our colonies can’t even produce their own altar wine yet!”

 “But surely…”

 “Father!” The bishop’s eyebrows drew down in a scowl. “I hate to be so blunt, but—the answer is an unequivocal ‘No!’ ”

 Father Al sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that—but I was hoping to avoid having to do this.” He drew a long white envelope from the inside pocket of his cassock. “Pardon this archaic form of communications, Your Grace—but we weren’t sure what level of technology we’d encounter on Gramarye. I assure you, it’s just as personal as a message cube.” He handed the envelope to the bishop.

 Frowning, the bishop slid out the letter and unfolded it. He read with a scowl. “Aid the bearer of this letter, Father Aloysius Uwell, in any way he may request. In all matters pertaining to the planet ‘Gramarye,’ he speaks with my voice.” He blanched as he saw the signature. “Pope John the XXIV!”

 “And his seal,” Father Al said apologetically. “So you see, Your Grace, I really must have transportation to Gramarye.”

 CHAPTER SEVEN



  

 They cut a particularly big blaze on a huge old willow overhanging the shore, then set off to the left, along the lakeside, heading north. After a half-hour’s walk, they came out of the silver wood into an emerald-green meadow.

 “Oh, look!” Cordelia gasped, pointing. “The prettiest cow in the world!”

 Rod looked, and swallowed, hard. The “cow,” even if it didn’t have any horns, was definitely the biggest, toughest, meanest-looking old bull he’d ever seen. “No, Cordelia, I don’t think that’s…”

 “ Cordelia!” Gwen gasped, and Rod whirled, just as a miniature witch on a branch of a broomstick shot past his nose.

 “Too late!” Gwen clenched her fists in frustration. “Oh, you dare not take your eyes from them for a second! Milord, she is dangered!”

 “I know,” Rod ground out, keeping his voice low, “but we don’t dare charge out there, or we might spook it… No, put down that branch! I’ve got to stalk it…No you don’t, young man!” He made a frantic grab for Magnus’s collar, and yanked him back. “I said I’llstalk it! One child in danger is enough, thank you! Gwen, hold onto ‘em!” And he stepped out into the meadow, drawing his sword.

 Geoffrey began to cry, but the sobs cut off quickly—Gwen’s hand over his mouth, no doubt. She was right; they didn’t dare make a sound. Rod moved very slowly, though every cell of his body screamed at him to hurry.

 Especially since Cordelia was coming in for a landing! Not right under the bull’s nose, thank Heaven—but only a few feet away! She plumped right down on the grass, though—at least she had the sense not to go running up to it.

 “Here, Bossy!” He could hear her voice clearly, over a hundred feet of meadow grass—that might as well have been a thousand miles! “Sweet moo-cow, come here!”

 And the bull was turning its head towards her!

 And now the rest of its body! It was moving! It was ambling towards her! Rod braced himself for a frantic mad dash…

 And it nuzzled her outstretched hand.

 Rod stood rigid, unable to believe it. But it was real—it liked her! It was gentle! It was nibbling grass from her hand! A father itself, no doubt—and sure enough of its own masculinity not to be insulted by her mistake as to its gender. Thank Heaven!

 Not that he was about to stop trying to get to her—but carefully, now, very carefully; it was being gentle, let’s not upset the cattle car! And move around to come at it from the side—if it charged him, Rod didn’t want Cordelia in the way.

 But there was no need to worry about that—she was going to be on top of the situation. Because the bull was folding its legs, and lying down beside her, in pure invitation! And she was climbing on! He choked back her name, and the impulse to shout it; don’t spook the bull!

 But it was climbing to its feet, and trotting away across the meadow—with his little girl on its back! “Cor-deeel-iaaaa!”

 She heard him; she waved—and turned the bull somehow, set it trotting back towards him! Rod breathed a sigh of relief, then stiffened again. This was only an improvement, not a solution—she was still on its back!

 He pulled away, backing up toward his family, until his left hand brushed Gwen’s arm. The boy’s could teleport out, if they had to, and there was a nice-sized boulder right next to Gwen—small enough for her to “throw” by telekinesis, but large enough to knock the bull cold. He saw her glance flick over to it, and knew she was thinking along the same line.

 But about twenty feet away, the bull started getting skittish. It slowed, and slewed around sideways, prancing to a stop, then pawing the turf.

 “Oh, come, sweet cow, come!” Cordelia pleaded. “Thou ‘rt so lovely, I wish to show thee to my family! Pleasedo come!”

 “Now, now, dear don’t push him—uh, it. Wecan come over—can’t we, dear?” And Rod stepped forward.

 The bull stepped back.

 Rod halted. “I… don’t think he likes me…”

 “Mayhap he is wise enough not to trust males,” Gwen suggested. “ Ishall try.” And she took a step forward.

 The bull stepped back again.

 “Try it without the boys.” Rod caught Geoff’s and Magnus’s hands, and Gwen stepped forward again.

 The bull held its place—warily, but holding.

 Gwen took another step, then another, and another.

 Great. Just great. Now Rod had bothhis womenfolk at peril!

 Then the boys shouted with delight, and both little hands wrenched out of his. “ Hey!” Rod made a frantic grab—but he landed on his face, as two small boomstold him they’d teleported. He scrambled back to his feet, just in time to see them reappear at the far end of the meadow, way over against the trees on the other side, along with…

 Thatwas the attraction—another little boy!

 But what a boy—or at least, what an outfit! His doublet was dark green, with a golden surcoat; its sleeves belled out to brush the ground. His hose were buff, and fitted like second skins—and was that the glimmer of gold in his hair? Not a coronet, surely!

 Whatever he was, he was moving very slowly toward a shaggy-looking horse that seemed to be waiting for him, head up and turned toward him, ears pricked forward. But it was bare-backed.

 Wild?

 Magnus whooped a greeting, and the boy looked up. The horse tossed its head angrily, and sidled closer. Magnus ran toward the new boy, with Geoff hurrying after.

 Rod squeezed his eyes shut, gave his head a quick shake in disbelief, and looked again. It was! The horse’s body had grown longer—say, long enough for a couple of more riders!

 Rod decided he didn’t like its looks. He lit out running, sword in hand.

 The boys had gotten past the opening wariness, and were shaking hands. Now the new boy was pointing to the horse—and Magnus was nodding eagerly—and the horse was kneeling down!

 Then Gwen cried out in fright, and Rod whirled. She was running after him, waving frantically at the boys. Behind her, Cordelia was shrieking and kicking her heels against the bull’s sides. It rumbled, and lumbered into motion.

 The boys screamed behind him—high, hoarse, with raw, absolute terror! Rod spun about again, running. The horse was running flat-out toward the lake, and the boys were yanking and tugging, trying to pull themselves loose from its back.

 Rod swerved, and fear shot a last ounce of adrenalin into his veins. He tore through the grass, shouting.

 The horse hit the water with a huge splash; fountains of foam shot high. When they cleared, its back was bare; it reared up, wheeling about and plunging down at three small heads in the water, mouth gaping wide—and Rod saw carnivore’s teeth!

 He bellowed rage, and leaped.

 Spray gushed about him as he hit, directly under the horse. It surged down, jaws gaping wide; he leaned to the side and slashed, back-handed, straight into its jaws. It screamed, rearing back, and lashed out at him with razor-edged hooves. Fire raked his side; then a thundering bellow shook the earth, and a juggernaut knocked him back, floundering. Water closed over his face; daylight glimmered through water. He fought his way back, broke surface, and stood—to see the horse twenty feet farther from shore, scrambling back upright, wheeling about in time to catch the bull’s second charge.

 The great dun beast slammed into the chestnut stallion. It folded over the bull, gleaming hooves slashing, needle-teeth ripping. The bull bellowed in anger and pain, and dove down. Blood sheened the water as both animals went under.

 Rod didn’t stay to wait for the curtain call. He floundered over to his boys, shot a hand down under water to grapple Geoff’s collar and yanked him back above the surface, spluttering and wailing.

 “Papa!” Magnus yelled. “Elidor! He can’t swim!”

 Rod wallowed over to the sinking princeling, bellowing, “Get to shore!” Water whooshed in as Magnus disappeared, shooting Elidor briefly to the surface. Rod caught him under the arms in a cross-body carry and backed toward shore, towing both boys. He stumbled and fell as he hit shallow water, scrambled back up, and hauled the two boys out onto the grass. And he kept hauling, yanking them up, one under each arm, and ran. He stopped when he fell, but Gwen was there by that time, with Magnus beside her, to catch Geoff in her arms. “Oh, my boy, my foolish lad! We near to lost thee!”

 Rod followed suit, yanking Magnus to him, hugging him tight to reassure himself the boy was still there. “Oh, thank Heaven, thank Heaven! Oh, you fool, you little fool, to go near a strange animal like that! Thank the Lord you’re alive!”

 A high, piercing scream shattered the air.

 They whirled, staring.

 For a moment, the horse and bull shot out of the water, the horse leaping high to slash down at the bull with its teeth, catching it where neck joined shoulders. But the bull twisted, catching the horse’s hind leg in its own jaws. Even a hundred feet away, they could hear the crunch. The horse screamed, and the bull bellowed, rearing up to drive down with its forelegs, slamming its opponent back under the water with the full force of its weight. It sank, too, but the water churned like a maelstrom, and the blood kept spreading.

 Gwen shuddered and turned the children’s heads away. “ ‘Tis a horrid sight, and one that only thy father need watch, that he may warn us to flee if need be.” Then she noticed the blood dripping from Rod’s doublet. “Milord! Thou’rt wounded!”

 “Huh?” Rod looked down. “Oh, yeah! Now I remember. Unnnngh! Say, that’s beginning to hurt!”

 “Indeed it should,” Gwen said grimly, unlacing his doublet. “Cordelia, seek outSt. John’s Wort and red verbena! Boys, seek four-leafed clovers! Quickly, now!”

 The children scampered to search. Elidor stood, blinking in confusion.

 “Four-leafed clovers, lad,” Gwen urged. “Surely thou mayst seek them, no matter how little herb-lore thou knowest! Quickly, now!”

 Elidor stared at her indignantly; then fright came into his eyes, and he ran to join Magnus and Geoff.

 “Strange one, that,” Rod said, frowning. “Ow! Yes, dear, the skin’s broken.”

 “ ‘Tis not pretty,” Gwen said, tight-lipped. She tore a strip from the hem of her skirt.

 “Here, Mommy!” Cordelia was back, leaves in hand.

 “Good child,” Gwen approved. A flat rock lifted itself, a few feet away, and sailed over to land at her feet. She plucked Rod’s dagger and dropped to her knees, pounding the herbs with the hilt.

 “Here, Mama!” Magnus ran up, two four-leafed clovers in hand, with the other boys right behind him.

 “Any will aid. I thank thee, lads.” Gwen added them to the porridge, then gave Rod’s ribs a swipe with his doublet and plastered the herbs on the wound.

 “St. John’sWort, red verbena, and four-leafed clovers,” Rod winced. “Not exactly the usual poultice, is it?”

 “Nay, nor wast thou ripped by a usual beast.” Gwen wound the improvised bandage around his torso.

 Rod tried to ignore the prickling in his scalp. “As I remember, every one of those herbs is supposed to be a sovereign against fairies.”

 “Indeed,” Gwen said, carefully neutral. “Well, I have never seen such as these two beasts afore—yet I mind me of certain tales from my childhood. There, now!” She fastened the bandage and handed him his doublet. “Walk carefully a week or so, mine husband, I pray thee.”

 A long, piercing shriek echoed over the meadow. Before it died, a rumbling, agonized bellow answered it.

 They spun about to face the lake. The maelstrom subsided; the waters grew calm. Finally, they could make out the body of the bull drifting toward shore.

 “Children, be ready!” Gwen warned.

 “No, I don’t think so.” Rod frowned, and stepped carefully toward the lake. About twenty feet away, he could see a thick stew of blood and chunks of flesh drifting away toward the east. A passing crow noticed, too, circled back, and flew down for a sample. Rod shuddered and turned away. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the horse, either.”

 “ ‘Tis courtesy of thy good rescue,” Elidor said solemnly. “An thou hadst not come to our aid, this land had lacked a sovereign. A King’s thanks go with thee!”

 Rod looked down, startled. Then he darted a questioning glance at Gwen. She looked as startled as he felt, but she was nodding in confirmation.

 Well, maybe she could read the kid’s mind, but he couldn’t. “Are you the King of this land, then?”

 “I am.” Elidor was wet to the skin; his fine clothes were torn and bedraggled, and he’d lost his coronet somewhere along the fray—but he straightened his shoulders, and bore himself regally. “By courtesy of my mother the Queen, though I never knew her, and of Eachan, my father the King, dead these three years, I am King of Tir Chlis.”

 Rod’s face composed itself, hiding a stewpot of emotions—incredulity, sorrow for the boy, a yearning to take him in his arms… and the realization that this could be a huge stroke of good fortune for a family of wanderers, marooned in a strange world. “It is my honor to greet Your Majesty. Yet I cannot help but notice your age; may I inquire who cares for you now?”

 “A thousand thanks for kind rescue, brave knight and fair lady!” gasped an anxious voice.

 Rod looked up, startled.

 A gross fat man, a little shorter than Rod, with a gleaming bald pate surrounded by a fringe of hair around the back of his head, and a ruddy complexion, waddled toward them, swathed in an acre of white ankle-length robe topped with a brocade surcoat, and belted by a four-inch-wide strap. Behind him trooped thirty courtiers in bell-sleeved skirted coats and hose, and two peasants with a brace of belling hounds.

 The courtiers all had swords, and the fat man had a lot of sweat and a look just short of panic. “Gramercy, gramercy! If aught had happened to mine nephew through my lack of vigilance, I had never come out of sackcloth and of ashes! Yet how didst thou know to set a bull of the Crodh Mara ‘gainst the Each Uisge?”

 “Ag whisky?” Rod was watching Elidor; the boy had drawn in on himself, staring at the fat man with a look that held wariness, but a certain longing, too… “Uh, well… to tell you the truth…”

 “We but knew the old grannies’ tales,” Gwen cut in hurriedly. “The water-bull and the water-horse—all else followed from reason.” Her elbow tapped Rod lightly in the short ribs.

 They were the wounded ones; the stab of pain cut through the murk of sentiment. “Uh, yes, of course! Opposite forces cancel out.”

 “Indeed, an thou sayst it.” The fat man’s brows were knit. “Though I do not claim to understand. Thou must be a warlock most accomplished.”

 Typed again! Rod winced. There must be something about him… “A great part of wizardry is luck. By good fortune, we were here when we were needed.” He took a chance. “Your Lordship.”

 Fatso nodded, but his gaze strayed to Elidor, as though to assure himself the boy was all right. “Fortunate indeed, else I had lacked a nephew—and this land, a King.” There was something of longing in his eyes, too.

 He tore his gaze away from Elidor and turned back to Rod, forcing a little smile, “Forgive me; I forget the courtesies. I am Duke Foidin, Regent to His Majesty, King Elidor.” He extended a beringed hand, palm down.

 Gwen beamed, but there was uncertainty in her eyes. Rod tried to convert his puzzled frown to a polite smile, but he kept his hands on his hips, and inclined his head. “Rodney d’Armand, Lord Gallowglass.” Some prick of caution kept him from using his real title. “And my Lady Gwendylon—and our children.”

 “I rejoice at thine acquaintance, Lord and Lady… Gallowglass?” The Duke seemed a little puzzled. “ ‘Tis a title unfamiliar. Thou art, then, travellers from another land, far from thine own estates?”

 “Very far,” Rod agreed. “A foul sorcerer’s curse has sped us here, far from our homeland; but we shall return with all due expedition.”

 “Nay, not so quickly!” the Duke cried. “Thou must needs let us honor thee—for thou hast saved a King!”

 Somehow, Rod didn’t want to spend a night under the man’s roof. “ ‘Tis courteously said—but time does press upon us…”

 “Certes, not so much as that!” Wet and bedraggled, Elidor stepped up to his uncle’s side—but still with that look of wariness about him. “Surely thou’lt not deny the hospitality of a King!”

 He was trying so very hard to be regal! Rod was about to cave in—but Gwen did, first. “Well, a night’s rest, then—we are sore wearied.”

 But Rod was watching the Duke. The man’s face lit up at Elidor’s approach, and his hand hovered over the boy’s shoulder, but didn’t quite touch; Rod saw the longing in his face again, quickly masked, then a hint of a darker emotion that flashed upon his features, and was gone—but left Rod chilled. Somehow, he didn’t think he’d want to be around if the Duke lost his temper.

 Then Elidor smiled bravely up at his uncle, and the man’s face softened. Troubled, he nodded reassuringly at the boy, forcing a smile; the hand hovered again, then fell to his side.

 He turned the smile up to Rod. “Thou art in accord with thy Lady, then? Thou’It guest within our castle this night, that we may honor thee?”

 Gwen’s elbow brushed his side again, and Rod winced again, too. She hadn’t had to do that! The Duke seemed nice enough, or seemed to be honestly trying to be—but somehow, Rod didn’t want to leave Elidor alone with him just yet. “Indeed we shall. We are honored to accept your invitation.”

 “Most excellent!” The Duke’s face split into a huge, delighted smile. “Then come, in joy! To Castle Drolm!”

 He whirled away, the hovering hand finally descending to clap Elidor’s shoulder, and clasp the boy against his side. Elidor seemed to resist a little, and the Duke’s hand immediately sprang free. Insecure, thought Rod, as he and his family were borne forward by the tide of the entourage that followed the Duke, roaring a victorious war-song.

 “Papa,” Cordelia piped up through the din, “I don’t like going to that man’s house.”

 “Don’t worry, dear,” Rod reassured her. “We can always get out again—fast.”

 CHAPTER EIGHT



  

 The excitement, the glory of it!” Brother Chard burbled. “Just think, Father, we may be the first clergy to contact these poor, benighted people in centuries!”

 “Quite so, Brother.” Father Al couldn’t help smiling at the young pilot’s enthusiasm. “On the other hand, we may arrive to find them quite well-equipped with their own clergy; one never knows.” He gazed at the viewscreen, letting his subconscious read ecclesiastical symbols into the random swirls of color that hyperspace induced in the cameras.

 “Roman Catholic clergy, in a society devoted to magic? Scarcely, Father! Just think, a whole new world of lost souls to save! We must try to get some estimate of the population, so that I can come back to His Grace with some idea as to how many missionaries we’ll be requiring! How long before we get there?”

 “Why ask me?” Father Al hid a smile. “You’re the pilot.”

 “Oh! Yes, of course!” Brother Chard peered at his instrument panel. “Let’s see, ten light-years… It should be about six more days.” He turned back to Father Al. “Sorry the quarters are so cramped, Father.”

 “It’s easy to tell you’ve never spent much time inside a confessional. Don’t worry, Brother, the quarters are positively luxurious. Why, we even have a separate cabin for sleeping!… Ungh!”

 His body slammed into his shock webbing, as though the ship had suddenly rammed a wall. Then it took off like a bear with a fire on its tail, slapping Father Al back into his couch. His vision darkened, and he fought for breath, waiting for the bright little stars to stop drifting across his field of view. They didn’t, but they did dim and fade, and the velvet blackness with them. Through its last tatters, he saw Brother Chard leaning forward groggily, groping toward his control console.

 “Wha… what happened?”

 “See for yourself.” The monk pointed at the viewscreen. Father Al looked, and saw the velvet darkness and bright little stars again; but this time, they stayed still. “We’re back in normal space?”

 Brother Chard nodded. “And travelling at sub-light-speed. Very high, but still below C. We’re lucky the difference in velocity didn’t smear us against the forward bulkhead.”

 “It would have, without the webbing: What went wrong?”

 Brother Chard peered at a readout screen, punching keys. “No significant damage; everything’s padded as well as we were… There! The isomorpher quit!”

 “Quit? Just… quit? Why?”

 “That is a good question, isn’t it?” Brother Chard loosed his webbing, smiling grimly. “Shall we go have a look, Father?”

 They climbed into pressure suits, cycled through the tiny airlock one at a time, clipped their safety lines to rings on the ship’s skin, and clambered aft to the drive unit. Brother Chard slipped out a wrench and loosened the access hatch. He slid through head-first; Father Al followed, groping for the rungs set into the hull, gaze riveted to the mirror-surfaced unit before him. “Doesn’t appear to be a break in the shielding.”

 “No,” Brother Chard agreed. “At least we can rule out any effects from stray radiation. Though you never know; if we can’t find anything else, we’ll have to go over it with a microscope.” He turned a knob, and the silver egg split open, the top half lifting up like a clamshell. A steady background of white noise faded in on Father Al’s helmet speaker. He frowned. “It issick, isn’t it?”

 “Yes; we should be hearing a 1650 Hz tone.” Brother Chard looked up. “I didn’t know you knew electronics, Father.”

 Father Al shrugged. “Cathodeans pick up a lot from each other, especially during the seminary bull-sessions. I wouldn’t claim to be an FTL mechanic, but I know basically how the isomorpher works.”

 “Or how it doesn’t. Well, let’s see where the circuit broke.” Brother Chard pulled out a set of probes and started poking at the isomorpher’s insides. Father Al crouched beside him in the crawl space, silent and intent, watching the meter on the forearm of Brother Chard’s suit, atop the pocket that held the probes.

 Finally, the monk looked up. “No break, Father. Current’s flowing through the whole beast.”

 “Then you’ve got a grain that’s passing current, but not doing anything with it. May I try?”

 Brother Chard stared at him; then, reluctantly, he moved back. “Certain you know what you’re doing, Father?”

 “Enough to know how to find out which grain is gone.” Father Al slipped the probes out of his sleeve pocket. “We just test each pair of terminals, and when the needle goes into the red, we’ve found the trouble-spot, haven’t we?”

 “Yes, that’s all,” Brother Chard said drily. “Check your chronometer, Father; I think we’ll have to go back for a recharged air cycler in about an hour.”

 “Oh, I don’t think it’ll take us that long.” Father Al started probing.

 Brother Chard was silent; when his voice came over the headphones, it was strained. “I hope you’re right, of course, Father—but it could take a week. If only we had a diagnostic computer aboard!”

 “Well, a pinnace can’t carry everything,” Father Al said philosophically. “Besides, Brother Chard, I have a certain faith in the perversity of electronic circuitry.”

 “You mean a faith in perversity, period, don’t you, Father? I’ve heard some of the stories you Cathodeans tell about Finagle; sometimes I think you’ve fallen into heresy, and made a god of him!”

 “Scarcely a god—but we might promote him to the status of demon, if he were real—which, fortunately, he’s not. But the perversity he personifies is real enough, Brother.”

 “True,” Brother Chard admitted. “But the perversity’s in us, Father, not in the Universe.”

 “But so much of our universe is man-made, Brother, so many of the things around us, the things that keep us alive! And it’s so easy for us to build our own perversity into them—especially really complicated pieces of electronics!”

 “Such as an isomorpher?”

 “Well, yes. But computers, too, and 3DT cameras, and any number of other gadgets. Have you ever noticed, Brother, how they’ll sometimes stop working for no apparent reason, then suddenly start again?”

 “Now and then. But when you dig into them, Father, you can always find a reason.”

 “When youdig into them, perhaps. Not when I do. But then, I seem to have an anti-mechanical personality; any chronometer I carry, starts gaining about five minutes a day as soon as I touch it. On the other hand, there’re people machines seem to like; let one of them walk in and lay his hand on the widget, and it works perfectly.”

 “A little far-fetched, isn’t that, Father?”

 “Perhaps. But I’m fetching as far as I can, right now.” Fetching aid from my patron, I hope. St. Vidicon, no matter how far away you may be, please come to my aid now! Intercede with the Almighty for me, that this isomorpher may begin working again, long enough to get us to Gramarye and to get Brother Chard safely home again! “That might do it.” Father Al withdrew his probes. “By the way, Brother Chard, you did disengage the isomorpher before we came out here, didn’t you?”

 “Of course, Father. There’s just a trickle of current flowing through it now.”

 “Good. Can you fire it up fully from in here?”

 “I could.” The ghost of a smile tugged at Brother Chard’s lips. “But I wouldn’t recommend it. The ship might not go into H-space, but we might.”

 “Hm.” Father Al turned away toward the access hatch. “Then let’s go back to the bridge, shall we? We’ll try it from there.”

 “But you can’t think it’ll work again, Father! We haven’t even found the trouble yet.”

 “Perhaps not.” Father Al turned back with a smile. “But I think we may have fixed it.”

 “That’s impossible!”

 “Brother Chard, you should be ashamed of yourself! Allthings are possible—with God.”

 “And St. Vidicon of Cathode,” Brother Chard muttered; but he closed the isomorpher’s shell, anyway, and followed Father Al.

 On the way back to the airlock, Father Al finally let himself feel the dread at what might happen if the isomorpher couldn’tbe fixed. They’d be stranded light-years away from any inhabitable planet, with only a month’s supply of food and water. The air cycler would keep working for several years and, with strict rationing, the food might last an extra month; but no matter how you looked at it, even if they accelerated the ship to nearly the speed of light, by the time it came near enough to civilization for its beacon to summon aid, it would be carrying only two mummies.

 Dread clutched at Father Al’s belly; fear soured his throat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes. Thy will, Father, not mine. If it suits Thy purpose that I die in this place, then let it be as Thou wilt have it.

 Serenity filled him; the fear ebbed away. Smiling, he ducked into the airlock.

 They loosened their helmets and webbed themselves into their couches. Brother Chard fed power into the engines, then engaged the isomorpher and fired it up.

 The stars disappeared in a swirl of colors.

 Father Al heaved out a huge sigh. “Praise Heaven!” And I thank you, St. Vidicon, for interceding with Him for me.

 Brother Chard just sat staring at the viewscreen. “I don’t believe it. I see it, but I don’t believe it.”

 “Faith, good Brother,” Father Al chided gently. “With faith, all things are possible.” He took out his breviary and began reading his Office.

 CHAPTER NINE



  

 The Duke’s Hall was huge, panelled in a grayish wood with silver highlights, and adorned with old weapons, bent and battered shields in a variety of coats-of-arms, and the skins of animals with the heads still on—not the most appetizing decoration in the world, Rod reflected, as he looked up into the eyes of a twelve-point stag while he chewed a mouthful of venison.

 He noticed that Magnus was chewing his food very carefully, and wondered why. Have to ask him about that, later. Still, it seemed like a good idea. Seemed like a good idea to be careful about everything, with Duke Foidin for a host. In accordance with which thought, he made sure that he served himself only from platters that at least two other courtiers were eating from. He noticed Gwen was doing the same, and pointedly hadn’t sipped her wine.

 The Duke noticed, too. “Do you not find my vintage sweet, Lord Gallowglass?”

 Rod swallowed and smiled. “Religious rule, Duke. We never touch intoxicating spirits.” We have too many for friends.

 That drew startled looks from the whole table. A low mutter of gossip started up.

 “Be ye paynim, then?” the Duke inquired, a little too carelessly.

 “ ‘Paynim?’…Oh, Moslems! No, not at all. Are you?”

 “Sir!” The Duke drew himself up, affronted, and all the courtiers stared, aghast. “What mockery is this? Are we not in Christendom?”

 Okay, so they were. At least Rod knew what the local religion was. “No offense, Milord. But as you know, we’re far-travellers; I honestly did not know that you’re of the same religion as ourselves.”

 Foidin relaxed. “Ah, then, ye do be Christian folk. Yet how’s this? I’ve never heard of a Christian would refuse wine.”

 Rod smiled. “ ‘Other lands, other rules,’ m’lord. At least, in our land, the Church allows wine atMass. I’ve heard of some Christians who won’t even go thatfar.”

 “Strange, most truly strange,” Foidin murmured. “Are many of your folk warlocks, like yourself?”

 Careful, boy. “Not too many. It requires the Gift, the talent, and a great deal of study and training.”

 “Ah.” The Duke nodded. “Even as it doth here. I’ truth, there be not four warlocks of any power in this land—and one of them’s a vile recreant, who seeks to steal the person of the King, and usurp my regency!”

 “No!” Now was the time to keep him talking—but Foidin wasn’t the type to give any information away. What was he trying to pull?

 Elidor nerved himself up. “Nay, Uncle! Lord Kern…”

 “Hush; be still, Majesty.” Foidin patted Elidor’s hand with a paternal touch and gave him a steely glance. “Thou’st had time a-plenty to speak with these good folk; do now allow your old Uncle a modicum of conversation.”

 Elidor met that steely gaze, and subsided.

 “Well, I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.” Rod turned back to his food. “Wherever there’s wizardry, there’ll always be warlocks who misuse their power.”

 “Aye, and so he doth!” Foidin fairly jumped on it. “Indeed, his villainy surpasseth all imagining; he would seek to lay the whole of the land under the rule of magic!”

 The table was noticeably silent. Elidor was reddening like a volcano, about to erupt.

 Gwen caught his eyes and moved her hand, just a little, in a calming gesture. He stared at her, surprised; then he glanced up at his uncle, and back to his food.

 “Indeed,” Gwen cooed, “Tir Chlis is fortunate to have so goodly a man as thyself, to defend it from such a knave.”

 Nice try, Rod thought, but he was sure the Duke knew about flattery.

 He did; he battened on it. He fairly expanded. “Why, gently said, sweet lady—and true, quite true! Aye, the greater part of this land now dwells in peace and prosperity, under in… His Majesty’s beneficent rule.”

 “Mmf!” A courtier across the table suddenly pressed a napkin to his mouth; bit his tongue, probably.

 The Duke noticed, and frowned.

 “Then thou must presently free the unhappy remainder,” Gwen said quickly.

 “Ah, but ‘tis not easily done, fair lady.” The Duke waved a forefinger sadly. “Knowest thou that vasty range of mountains, in the northeast?”

 “Nay; we came by magic.” Gwen smiled sweetly. “We know only the meadow where thou didst find us, and the stretch of riverbank that curls on northward to the spot where we appeared.”

 Northward? Rod could’ve sworn they’d hikednorthward—which meant their entry-point lay southward!

 “So newly-come as that!” The Duke was too surprised. Who was pumping whom, here? “Yet let me assure thee, the mountains lie there, in the northeast, blocking off a poor eighth-part of this land; and ‘tis there Lord Kern hath fled, to try to build a robber-force to steal the King away. I cannot go against him through those mountains, for he’s blocked the only pass that’s large enough for armies, with foul sorcery.”

 “Yet he is thereby blocked himself!” Gwen crowed, delighted.

 The Duke looked surprised, but he hid it quickly. “Ye-e-e-s, there is that, sweet lady—for if he lifts his sorcery, my armies would be upon him in a moment!”

 The courtier across the table was having trouble swallowing again.

 “Yet there is coastline near him,” the Duke went on, “and he hath attempted to land a force within our safe domain.”

 “Thou hast repulsed him, then?”

 “I have.” The Duke preened a little. “My ships are of the best, most especially when I command ‘em.”

 The courtier grabbed for his wine-cup.

 “Thus have matters stood for three long years.” The Duke spread his hands. “He cannot come out, nor can I go in, to free those miserable wretches who live beneath his yoke. Yet time will ripen my good designs, and rot his fell ones; my armies daily increase, as do my ships; and, when the time hath come, I’ll strike at him by sea and grind him to the dust! Then will this land be whole again, to deliver up to Elidor when he doth come of age.”

 The boy-King looked frightened at that last remark. Gwen caught his eyes briefly, then looked back at the Duke. “Simply planned, but nobly, Milord. And thou art wise to bide thy time; disaster visits he who strikes before the iron’s hot!”

 “Well said, well said.” The Duke sat back, nodding, pleased. “Thou art most rare of ladies. I am not accustomed to such intelligence in one so beautiful.”

 Rod felt his hackles rising; but Gwen’s foot touched his under the table, and he forced a smile. “And we are fortunate to have so wise and prudent a host—and one who sets so goodly a table, as well!”

 The Duke waved carelessly. “My table’s yours, whenever thou dost wish it. Yet dost thou wish to dine at my most noble banquet?”

 Rod stared, caught short.

 “Come, sir.” Gwen smiled roguishly. “Wouldst thou have us think thou hast not laid forth thy finest for the rescuers of thy King?”

 “Assuredly, I have,” the Duke said heartily. “Yet I spoke not of game and pasties, but of battle.”

 “Oh.” Rod nodded slowly. “You speak of this gallant expedition to free the northeast corner of Tir Chlis.”

 “Aye, indeed.” The Duke’s eyelids drooped, and tension seemed to emanate from him, as from a lion who sees the antelope step near. “As I have told thee, in that broil I’ll face magics as well as spears. ‘Twould soothe me, then, to have stout warlocks by my side. How say you, Lord Gallowglass? Wilt thou dine at my table, and aid King Elidor?”

 “That’s… a most attractive offer.” Rod found Gwen’s eyes. “To tell you the truth, nothing of the sort had occurred to me. We hadbeen planning to get back home as fast as we could.”

 “ ‘Tis a long and weary journey, I doubt not,” Gwen pointed out. “And, to tell the truth, we know not even where our homeland lies, nor how far it is.”

 “We coulduse a rest,” Rod agreed, “and some time to find out where we are.” He glanced back at the Duke, and saw Elidor staring at him, suddenly tense.

 But Magnus was sitting next to Rod, looking absolutely chirpy. Elidor noticed him, and relaxed a little.

 “It isa very attractive offer,” Rod said to the Duke. “But you’ll understand, Milord, that w… Imust consider it fully. I’ll give you my answer over breakfast.”

 “I shall await it eagerly,” the Duke said, smiling. “Yet we have lingered long at table, and the hour doth grow late. No doubt thou’rt wearied.”

 “Kind of,” Rod admitted. “A soft bed would feel good.”

 “Then let us have no more of talk.” The Duke clapped his hands, and a functionary in a glittering tunic stepped forward. “Show these good people to their chambers!” The Duke stood. “Myself am minded also of my rest; the day has been demanding. Elidor—Majesty! Wilt thou come with me?”

 Elidor rose slowly, still wary—and almost, Rod would have said, hopefully.

 His uncle seized his shoulder; Elidor winced, and bit back a cry. “To bed, to bed!” the Duke sang jovially. “Good night to all!”

 CHAPTER TEN



  

 Amphibians?” Father Al stared at the screen of the electron-telescope, unbelieving.

 “I’ve noticed a couple of true lizards, but they’re small.” Brother Chard shook his head. “I’m sorry, Father. We’ve been around this planet four times in four separate orbits, and that’s the highest form of life on any of the continents.”

 “So there’s only that one large island with humans; the rest of the planet is carboniferous.” Father Al shook his head. “Well, if we needed anything to assure us that we’re dealing with a colony instead of native sentients, we’ve found it. Could you call up the recordings of that island, Brother Chard?”

 The monk pushed buttons, and a large island appeared in the main viewscreen, a huge, uncut emerald floating in a blue sea. “Close in on that one large town, if you please,” Father Al murmured. A tiny hole in the greenery, a little north and west of the center of the island, began to grow; the shorelines disappeared beyond the edges of the screen. The dot swelled into an irregular, circular clearing, and other dots began to appear around it.

 “Really the only settlement large enough to be called a town,” Father Al mused.

 The roofs filled the screen now, with the spire of a church and the turrets of a castle reaching up toward them, from the crest of a hill off to the eastern edge of the town.

 “It’s medieval architecture, Father—early Tudor, I’d guess.”

 “Yes, but the castle’s got to be Thirteenth Century; I’d swear it was almost a reproduction of Château Gaillard. And the church is late Gothic; Fourteenth Century at the earliest.”

 “Church! It’s a cathedral! Why does it look so familiar?”

 “Possibly because you’ve seen pictures of the cathedral of Chartes. The original colonists don’t seem to have been terribly original; do they?”

 Brother Chard frowned. “But if they were going to copy famous buildings from Terra, why didn’t they make them all from the same period?”

 Father Al shrugged. “Why should they? Each century had its own beauties. No doubt some liked the Fifteenth Century, some the Fourteenth, some the Thirteenth… If we kept looking, Brother, I’m sure we’d find something Romanesque.”

 Brother Chard peered at the screen as the camera zoomed in to fill it with an overhead view of a single street. “Apparently they applied the same principle to their clothing; there’s a bell-sleeved tunic next to a doublet!”

 “And there’s a doublet withbell-sleeves.” Father Al shook his head. “I can almost hear their ancestors saying, ‘It’s my world, and I’ll do what I want with it!’ ”

 Brother Chard turned to him with a sympathetic smile. “You’re going to have a bit of a problem with transportation, aren’t you?”

 “I never did learn to ride a horse.” Father Al felt his stomach sink. “Appalling great brutes, aren’t they?”

 Brother Chard turned back to the viewscreen. “Are you searching for just one man down there, Father? Or a community? ”

 “One lone individual,” Father Al said grimly. “I can’t just punch up a directory and scan for his name, can I?” He thought of Yorick and had to fight down a slow swell of anger; the grinning jester could’ve prepared him for this!

 “Under the circumstances,” Brother Chard said slowly, “I don’t really suppose there’s much point in following the usual protocol about landing.”

 “Better try it, anyway, Brother,” Father Al sighed. “You wouldn’t want to be imprisoned on a technicality, now would you?”

 “Especially not by all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.” Brother Chard shrugged. “Well, it can’t do any harm. Who could hear our transmission down there, anyway?” He set the communicator to “broadband” and keyed the microphone. “This is Spacecraft H394P02173 Beta Cass 19, the Diocese of Beta Casseiopeia’s St. lago, calling Gramarye Control. Come in, Gramarye Control.”

 “We hear you, St. lago,” a resonant voice answered. “What is your destination?”

 Father Al almost fell through his webbing.

 “Did I hear that correctly?” Brother Chard stared at the communicator, goggle-eyed. He noted the frequency readout and reached forward to adjust the video to match it. An intent face replaced the overhead view of the town street, a thin face with troubled eyes and a dark fringe of hair cut straight across the forehead. But Father Al scarcely noticed the face; he was staring at the little yellow screwdriver handle in the breast pocket of the monk’s robe.

 “What is your destination, St. la… Ah!” The face lit up, and the man’s gaze turned directly toward them as they came into sight on his screen. Then he stared. “ St. lago, you are men of the cloth!”

 “And your own cloth, too.” Father Al straightened up in his couch. “Father Aloysius Uwell, of the order of St. Vidicon of Cathode, at your service. My companion is Brother Chard, of the Order of St. FrancisAssisi .”

 “Father Cotterson, Order of St. Vidicon,” the monk returned, reluctantly. “What is your destination, Father?”

 “Gramarye, Father Cotterson. I’ve been dispatched to find a man named Rod Gallowglass.”

 “The High Warlock?” Father Cotterson’s voice turned somber.

 “You’ll pardon my surprise, Father, but how is it you’ve retained knowledge of technology?” asked Father Al. “I was told your ancestors had fled here to escape it.”

 “How would you have known that?”

 “Through a prophet, of a sort,” Father Al said slowly. “He left a message to be opened a thousand years after he wrote it, and we’ve just read it.”

 “A prophecy?” Father Cotterson murmured, his eyes glazing. “About Gramarye?”

 He was in shock; one of his prime myths had just focused on himself. The pause was fortunate; Father Al needed a little time to reflect, too.

 High Warlock? Rod Gallowglass?

 Already?

 As to the rest of it, it was perfectly logical—there had been a Cathodean priest among the original colonists; and where there was one Cathodean, science and technology would be kept alive, somehow.

 How? Well, that was nit-picking; it had any number of answers. The question could wait. Father Al cleared his throat. “I think we have a great deal to discuss, Father Cotterson—but could it wait till we’re face-to-face? I’d like to make planetfall first.”

 Father Cotterson came back to life. He hesitated, clearly poised on the horns of a dilemma. Father Al could almost hear the monk’s thoughts—which was the worst danger? To allow Father Al to land? Or to send him away, and risk his return with reinforcements? Father Al sympathized; myths can be far more terrifying than the people underlying them.

 Father Cotterson came to a decision. “Very well, Father, you may bring down your ship. But please land after nightfall; you could create something of a panic. After all, no one’s seen a ship land here in all our history.”

 Father Al was still puzzling that one over, three hours later, when the land below them was dark and rising up to meet them. If no spaceship had landed for centuries, how had Rod Gallowglass come to be there? Yorick had said he was an off-worlder.

 Well, no use theorizing when he didn’t have all the facts. He gazed up into the viewscreen. “About 200 meters away from the monastery, please, Brother Chard. That should give you time to lift off again, before they can reach us. Not that I think they wouldprevent you from leaving—but it never hurts to be certain.”

 “Whatever you say, Father,” Brother Chard said wearily.

 Father Al looked up. “You’re not still saddened at discovering they don’t need missionaries, are you?”

 “Well…”

 “Come, come, Brother, buck up.” Father Al patted the younger man on the shoulder. “These good monks have been out of contact with the rest of the Church for centuries; no doubt they’ll need several emissaries, to update them on advances in theology and Church history.”

 Brother Chard did perk up a bit at that. Father Al was glad the young monk hadn’t realized the corollary—that those “emissaries” might find themselves having to combat heresy. Colonial theologians could come up with some very strange ideas, given five hundred years’ isolation fromRome .

 And Rod Gallowglass could spark the grandaddy of them all, if he weren’t properly guided.

 The pinnace landed, barely touching the grass, and Father Al clambered out of the miniature airlock. He hauled his travelling case down behind him, watched the airlock close, then went around to the nose, moving back fifty feet or so, and waved at the nose camera. Lights blinked in answering farewell, and the St. lagolifted off again. It was only a speck against dark clouds by the time the local monks came puffing up.

 “Why… did you let him… take off again?” Father Cotterson panted.

 “Why, because this is my mission, not his,” Father Al answered in feigned surprise. “Brother Chard was only assigned to bring me here, Father, not to aid me in my mission.”

 Father Cotterson glared upward at the receding dot, like a spider trying to glare down a fly that gained wisdom at the last second. The monk didn’t look quite so imposing in the flesh; he was scarcely taller than Father Al, and lean to the point of skinniness. Father Al’s respect for him rose a notch; no doubt Father Cotterson fasted frequently.

 Either that, or he had a tapeworm.

 Father Cotterson turned back to Father Al, glaring. “Have you considered, Father, how you are to leave Gramarye once your mission is completed?”

 “Why…” said Father Al slowly, “I’m not certain that I will, Father Cotterson.” As he said it, the fact sank in upon him—this might indeed be his final mission, though it might last decades. If it didn’t, and if the Lord had uses for him elsewhere, no doubt He would contrive the transportation.

 Father Cotterson didn’t look too happy about the idea of Father Al’s becoming a resident. “I can see we’ll have to discuss this at some length. Shall we return to the monastery, Father?”

 “Yes, by all means,” Father Al murmured, and fell into step beside the lean monk as he turned back toward the walled enclosure in the distance. A dozen other brown-robes fell in behind them.

 “A word as to local ways,” Father Cotterson said. “We speak modern English within our own walls; but without, we speak the vernacular. There are quite a few archaic words and phrases, but the greatest difference is the use of the second person singular, in place of the second person plural. You might wish to begin practice with us, Father.”

 “And call thee ‘thee’ and ‘thou?’ Well, that should be easy enough.” After all, Father Al had read the King James Version.

 “A beginning, at least. Now tell me, Father—why dost thou seek Rod Gallowglass?”

 Father Al hesitated. “Is not that a matter I should discuss with the head of thine Order, Father Cotterson?”

 “The Abbot is absent at this time; he is inRunnymede , in conference with Their Majesties. I am his Chancellor, Father, and the monastery is in my care while he is gone. Anything that thou wouldst say to him, thou mayst discuss with me.”

 A not entirely pleasant development, Father Al decided. He didn’t quite trust Father Cotterson; the man had the look of the fanatic about him, and Father Al wasn’t quite certain which Cause he served.

 On the other hand, maybe it was just the tapeworm.

 “The prophecy I told thee of,” Father Al began—and paused. Decidedly, he didn’t trust Father Cotterson. If the man was the religious fanatic he appeared to be, how would he react to the idea that the High Warlock would become even more powerful?

 So he changed the emphasis a little. “Our prophecy told us that Rod Gallowglass would be the most powerful wizard ever known. Thou dost see the theological implications of this, of course.”

 “Aye, certes.” Father Cotterson smiled without mirth—and also without batting an eye. “Wrongly guided, such an one could inspire a Devil’s Cult.”

 “Aye, so it is.” Father Al fell into the monk’s speech style, and frowned up at him. “How is it this doth not disconcert thee, Father?”

 “We know it of old,” the monk replied wearily. “We have striven to hold our witchfolk from Satan for years. Rest assured, Father—if no Devil’s Cult hath yet arisen on Gramarye, ‘tis not like to rise up now.”

 “ ‘Witchfolk?’ ” Suddenly, Father Al fairly quivered with attention to the monk’s words. “What witchfolk are these, Father?”

 “Why, the warlocks and witches in the mountains and fens, and in the King’s Castle,” Father Cotterson answered. “Did not thy prophecy speak of them, Father?”

 “Not in any detail. And thou dost not see thy High Warlock as any greater threat to thy flock?”

 “Nay; he ha’ been known nigh onto ten years, Father, and, if aught, hath brought the witchfolk closer to God.” Father Cotterson smiled with a certain smugness, relaxing a little. “Thy prophet seems to have spake somewhat tardily.”

 “Indeed he doth.” But Father Al wondered; the lean monk didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual about Rod Gallowglass. Perhaps there was a big change due in the High Warlock’s life-style.

 “At all odds, if thou hast come to guide our High Warlock, I fear thou hast wasted time and effort,” Father Cotterson said firmly. “I assure thee, Father, we are equal to that task.” They came to a halt at the monastery gates. Father Cotterson pounded on them with a fist, shouting, “Ho, porter!”

 “I am sure that thou art,” Father Al murmured as the huge leaves swung open. “Yet the prime task given me, Father, is to seek out the truth regarding our prophecy. If nought else, my mission is well-spent simply in the learning so much of a flock we had thought lost—and better spent in finding that they are not lost at all, but exceedingly well cared for.”

 Father Cotterson fairly beamed at the compliment. “We do what we can, Father—though we are sorely tried by too little gold, and too few vocations.”

 “I assure thee, Father, ‘tis the case on every world where humanity doth bide.” Father Al looked about him as they came into a wide, walled yard. “A fair House you hold, Father, and exceedingly well-kept.”

 “Why, I thank thee, Father Uwell. Wilt thou taste our wines?”

 “Aye, with a right good will. I would fane see summat of this goodly land of thine, Father, and thy folk. Canst thou provide me with means of transport, and one to guide me?”

 The thaw reversed itself, and Father Cotterson frosted up again. “Why… aye, certes, Father. Thou shalt have thy pick of the mules, and a Brother for guide. But I must needs enjoin thee not to leave this our House, till the Lord Abbot hath returned, and held thee in converse.”

 “Indeed, ‘tis only courtesy, Father,” Father Al said easily.

 “Yet most needful,” Father Cotterson said, in a tone of apology that had iron beneath it. “Our good Lord Abbot must impress upon thee, Father, how strictly thou must guard thy tongue outside these walls. For these people have lived for centuries in a changeless Middle Ages, look you, and any hint of modern ways will seem to them to be sorcery, and might shake their faith. And, too, ‘twould cause avalanches of change in this land, and bring ruin and misery to many.”

 “I assure thee, Father, I come to verify what is here, not to change it,” Father Al said softly.

 But something in the way Father Cotterson had said it assured Father Al that, if he waited for the Abbot, he might spend the rest of his life waiting. After all, he had taken an oath of obedience, and the Abbot might see himself as Father Al’s lawful superior, entitled to give binding orders—and might resent it if Father Al chose to honor the Pope’s orders over those of an Abbot. His resentment might be rather forcibly expressed—and, though Father Al valued times of quiet contemplation in his cell, he preferred that the cell be above ground, and that the door not be locked from the outside.

  

 “… per omnia saecula saeculorum,” Father Cotterson intoned.

 “Amen,” responded fifty monks, finishing the grace.

 Father Cotterson sat, in his place at the center of the head table, and the other monks followed suit. Father Al was seated at Father Cotterson’s right hand, in the guest’s place of honor.

 “Who are servitors tonight?” Father Cotterson asked.

 “Father Alphonse in the kitchen, Father.” One of the monks rose and stripped off his robe, revealing a monk’s-cloth coverall beneath. “And myself, at the table.”

 “I thank thee, Brother Bertram,” Father Cotterson answered, as the monk floated up over the refectory table and hung there, hovering face-down above the board. Father Alphonse bustled out of the kitchen with a loaded tray and passed it to Brother Bertram, who drifted down to the monk farthest from the head table and held the platter down for the monk to serve himself.

 Father Cotterson turned to Father Al. “Is this custom still maintained in all chapters of the Order, Father—that each monk becomes servitor in his turn, even the Abbot?”

 “Well… yes.” Father Al stared at Brother Bertram, his eyes fairly bulging. “But, ah—not quite in this manner.”

 “How so?” Father Cotterson frowned up at Brother Bertram. “Oh—thou dost speak of his levitation. Well, many of our brethren do not have the trick of it; they, of necessity, walk the length of the tables. Still, ‘tis more efficient in this fashion, for those that can do it.”

 “I doubt it not.” Father Al felt a thrill course through him; his heart began to sing. “Are there those amongst thee who can move the dishes whilst they remain seated?”

 “Telekinesis?” Father Cotterson frowned. “Nay; the gene for it is sex-linked, and only females have the ability. Though Brother Mordecai hath pursued some researches into the matter. How doth thy experiments progress, Brother?”

 A lean monk swallowed and shook his head. “Not overly well, Father.” The salt-cellar at the center of the table trembled, rose a few inches, then fell with a clatter. Brother Mordecai shrugged. “I can do no better; yet I hope for improvement, with practice.”

 Father Al stared at the salt-cellar. “But—thou didst just say the trait was sex-linked!”

 “Aye; yet my sister is telekinetic, and we are both telepaths; so I have begun to attempt to draw on her powers, with the results thou dost see.” Brother Mordecai speared a slab of meat as Brother Bertram drifted past him. “She, too, doth make the attempt, and doth draw on mine ability. To date, she hath managed to levitate three centimeters, when she doth lie supine.”

 Father Cotterson nodded, with pursed lips. “I had not known she had made so much progress.”

 “But…but…” Father Al managed to get his tongue working again. “Is there no danger that she will learn of the technology thou dost so wish to keep hidden?”

 “Nay.” Brother Mordecai smiled. “She is of our sister Order.”

 “The Anodeans?”

 Father Cotterson nodded, smiling. “It doth warm my heart, Father, to learn that our Orders are maintained still, on other worlds.”

 “Yet ‘tis indeed a problem of security,” another monk volunteered. “Our old disciplines seem to wear thin, Father Cotterson, in the closing of our minds to the espers without our Order.”

 Father Cotterson stiffened. “Hath one of the King’s ‘witch-folk’ learned of technology from our minds, Father Ignatius?”

 “I think not,” the monk answered. “Yet, the whiles I did meditate on mine electrolyte vies an hour agone, I did sense an echo, an harmonic to my thoughts. I did, of course, listen, and sensed the mind of a babe in resonance with mine. So ‘tis not an immediate threat; yet the child will, assuredly, grow.”

 “Might not his parents have been listening to his thoughts!”

 “Nay; I sensed no further resonance. And yet I think it matters little; the babe’s mind held an image of his mother, and ‘twas the High Warlock’s wife.”

 Father Cotterson relaxed. “Aye, ‘tis small danger there; Lady Gallowglass cannot have escaped learning something of technology, and must assuredly comprehend the need of silence on the issue.”

 “I take it, then, thou hast found ways of shielding thy minds from other telepaths?” Father Al burst in.

 “Indeed.” Father Cotterson nodded. “ ‘Tis linked with the meditation of prayer, Father, in which the mind is closed to the outside world, but opened toward God. Yet it doth seem we’ll have to seek new ways to strengthen such closure. Brother Milaine, thou’It attend to it?”

 A portly monk nodded. “Assuredly, Father.”

 “Research is, of course, common amongst we who are cloistered within this monastery,” Father Cotterson explained.

 Father Al nodded. “ ‘Twould not be a House of St. Vidicon, otherwise. Yet I assume such activity is forbidden to thy parish priests.”

 “Nay; ‘tis more simply done.” Father Cotterson started cutting his ounce of meat. “Monks trained for the parishes are taught only their letters and numbers, and theology; only those who take monastic vows are trained in science and technology.”

 “A practical system,” Father Al admitted, “though I mislike secrecy of knowledge.”

 “So do we, Father.” Father Cotterson’s eyes burned into his. “Knowledge ought to be free, that all might learn it. Yet ‘twas only through subterfuge that Father Ricci, the founder of our Chapter, did manage to retain knowledge of science when he did come to Gramarye; and assuredly, he’d have been burned for a witch had he attempted to teach what he knew. Those who originally did colonize this planet were intent on forgetting all knowledge of science. We’d likely suffer burning ourselves, if we did attempt to disclose what we know—and ‘twould throw the land into chaos. The beginnings of science did batten the turmoil ofEurope ’s Renaissance, on Terra; what would knowledge of modern technology and science do to this medieval culture? Nay, we must keep our knowledge secret yet awhile.”

 “Still, the High Warlock may ope’ us a path for the beginnings of teaching it,” Father Ignatius offered.

 “Indeed he may.” Father Cotterson’s eyes gleamed with missionary zeal.

 “Saint Vidicon,” Father Al murmured, “ was a teacher.”

 “As are we all—are we not?” Father Cotterson fairly beamed at him. “Are we not? For how can we gain new knowledge, and not wish immediately to share it with others?”

 This, Father Al decided, was the kind of fanaticism he could agree with.

 Father Cotterson turned back to his monks. “Apropos of which, Brother Feldspar, how doth thyresearches?”

 Brother Feldspar chewed his meat thoughtfully. “Dost thou not wish more salt on this fowl, Father?”

 “Indeed I do, but…”

 The salt-cellar appeared in front of Father Cotterson with a whoosh of displaced air.

 He sat back sharply, eyes wide, startled.

 The company burst into laughter.

 After a second, Father Cotterson relaxed and guffawed with them. “A most excellent jest, Brother Feldspar! Yet I must caution thee against thy proclivity for practical jokes.”

 “Yet without it, Father, how would I ever have begun to seek methods of teleporting objects other than myself?”

 “Truth,” Father Cotterson admitted. “Yet I think thou didst make intermediate bits of progress in thine experiments that thou didst not inform us of. Beware, Brother; we might credit someone else with thy results! For a moment, I thought Brother Chronopolis had made progress.”

 “Sadly, no, Father,” Brother Chronopolis smiled. “The theory is sound, and I do think we couldmanufacture a quantum black hole—but we fear to do it on a planet’s surface.”

 Father Al tried not to stare.

 “Indeed,” Father Cotterson commiserated. “I shudder to think of the effects of so steep a gravity-gradient, Brother; and I’ve no wish to find myself atop a sudden new volcano! Nay, I fear the experiment will have to wait till we’ve access to space flight.”

 Brother Chronopolis turned to Father Al. “Father, when thou dost depart Gramarye…”

 “Well, I could not perform the experiment myself.” Father Al smiled. “I do be an anthropologist, not a physicist. Yet where I can provide aid, I will rejoice to do so.”

 “The rest is for the Abbot to consider,” Father Cotterson said firmly.

 Manufacturequantum black holes? The DDT’s best scientists still thought they couldn’t exist! Either the Gramarye monks were very mistaken—or very advanced. There was a way to find out… Father Al said casually, “Hast thou made progress in molecular circuitry?”

 The whole room was silent in an instant; every eye was fastened to him. “Nay,” breathed Brother Chronopolis, “canst thou make a circuit of a molecule?”

 Well. They were very far behind, in somethings. “Not I, myself. Yet I do know that ‘tis done; they do fashion single crystalline molecules that can perform all the functions of…” What was that ancient term? Oh, yes… “…an whole integrated-circuit chip.”

 “But thou knowest not the fashion of it?”

 “I fear I do not.”

 “ ‘Tis enough, ‘tis enough.” Brother Feldspar held up a quieting palm. “We know it can be done, now; ‘twill not be long ere we do it.”

 Somehow, Father Al didn’t doubt that for a minute.

 “A most excellent evening, indeed,” Father Cotterson sighed as he opened the oaken door and ushered Father Al in. “Thy presence did stimulate discussion wonderfully, Father.”

 “ ‘Twas fascinating, Father—especially that account of the nun who doth surgery without opening the body.”

 “Well, ‘tis only the mending of burst blood vessels, and the massaging of hearts thus far,” Father Cotterson reminded him. “Yet it doth hold great promise. I trust this cell will be to thy satisfaction, Father.”

 “Luxurious,” Father Al breathed, looking around at the nine-by-twelve room with bare plaster walls, a straw mattress on an oaken cot-frame, a wash-stand and a writing-desk with a three-legged stool. “True wood is luxury indeed, Father!”

 “To us, ‘tis the least expensive material,” Father Cotterson said with a smile. “I’ll leave thee to thy devotions, then, Father.”

 “God be with thee this night, Father,” Father Al returned, with a warm smile, as Father Cotterson closed the door.

 Then Father Al darted over to it, carefully pressing his ear against the wood. Faintly, he heard a key turn in a lock—and all his earlier forebodings came flooding back. Disappointment stabbed him; he’d found himself liking the monks’ company so well that he’d hoped his suspicions were unfounded, then had become almost certain it was only his own paranoia.

 Not that locking him in his cell proved they intended to imprison him, and not let him see the rest of Gramarye. In fact, the Abbot might be delighted to have him visit Rod Gallowglass.

 But he also might not.

 So Father Al charitably decided to avoid putting him to the test. Accordingly, he waited two hours, after which all the Brothers must certainly have been snoring on their cots. Then he took out his vest-pocket tool-kit, picked the huge old lock, and slipped down darkened hallways, as silently as a prayer. He drifted through the colonnade like a wraith of incense, found a ladder and a rope, and slipped silently over the wall.

 They were such wonderful monks. It was so much better to remove temptation from their path.

 CHAPTER ELEVEN



  

 All sleep, except Elidor,” Magnus said, glowering.

 He sat on the edge of a massive four-poster bed opposite a fireplace as tall as Rod. Tapestries covered cold stone walls; Rod paced on a thick carpet.

 “He was…” Cordelia burst out; but Gwen clapped a hand over her mouth, and stared at Magnus. He looked up at her, surprised, then nodded quickly, and closed his eyes, sitting very straight. He held it for a few minutes, then relaxed. “I’m sorry, Mama; I was carried away.”

 “No great harm is done,” Gwen assured him. “They heard only that one sentence, and they cannot do so much with that.”

 “Spies?” Rod frowned. “How many of them werethere?”

 “Only the two,” Gwen assured him. “One there, behind the knight on the tapestry o’er the hearth—thou seest that his eye is truly a hole? And one behind the panel next the door, where there’s a knot dropped out.”

 Rod nodded. “Milord Foidin likes back-up systems—no doubt so he can check them against each other, and make sure no one’s lying. Well, it kinda goes along with the rest of his devious personality; I think he’s in the process of inventing the police state.” He turned to Magnus. “How long are they out for?”

 “Till dawn,” Magnus assured him, “or after.”

 Rod shook his head in amazement. “How does he do it so fast?”

 Gwen shook her head, too. “I know not how he doth it at all.”

 “Oh, that’s easy! It’s just projective telepathy. You just think ‘sleep’ at ‘em, right, son?”

 “Not really, Papa.” Magnus frowned. “I just wantthem to sleep.”

 Rod shook his head again. “You must ‘want’ awfully loudly… Well! Can you tell what Duke Foidin’s thinking?”

 “I shall!” Cordelia said promptly.

 “No, thou shalt not!” Gwen pressed her hands over her daughter’s ears. “Thou shalt not soil so young a mind as thine; that man hath filth and muck beneath the surface of his thinking that he doth attempt to hold back, but ever fails!”

 “Oh.” Rod raised his eyebrows. “You’ve had a sample already?”

 “Aye, of the things he doth yearn to do to the folk in his part of Tir Chlis, but doth never, out of cowardice, and, be it said to his slight credit, some lingering trace of scruple. This I read in him, whilst he did speak of Lord Kern’s ‘foul rule!’ ”

 Rod nodded. “If you could get him talking about one thing, all the related thoughts came to his mind, just below the surface.”

 “Thou hast learned the fashion of it well, mine husband. Almost could I believe thou hast practiced it thyself!”

 “No, worse luck—but I’ve learned a lot about the human mind, from books.” He surveyed his children. “I hope none of you were peeking into the Duke’s mind.”

 All three shook their heads. “Mama forbade us,” Magnus explained.

 “One of those little telepathic commands that I couldn’t hear.” Rod sighed philosophically. “Speaking of things I can’t hear, what’s the Duke doing right now?”

 Gwen’s eyes lost focus. “Speaking to Elidor…” Her voice suddenly dropped in pitch, in a parody of the Duke’s. “I was so veryglad to find thee well, unharmed—believe, ‘tis true!” Her voice rose, imitating Elidor’s. “I do believe it, Uncle.”

 “Then believe it, also, when I tell thee that thou must not wander off again, alone! ‘Tis too dangerous for an unfledged lad! There be a thousand perils in this world, awaiting thee! I own I have been harsh with thee, from time to time—yet only when thou hast tried mine patience overly, and ever have I repented of mine anger after! Stay, good lad, and I’ll promise thee, I’ll try to be more moderate.”

 Very low: “I’ll bide, good Uncle.”

 “Wilt thou! There’s a good lad! Be sure, ‘tis chiefly my concern for thee that moves me to this protest! Oh, I will not hide from thee my hatred for Lord Kern, nor have I ever sought to hide it—or my abiding fear that he may somehow seize thee from me, and use thee to gain power over me! For thou dost like him more than me, now dost thou not?… Dost thou not!… Answer!”

 “He and his wife were kindly,” Elidor muttered.

 “And was I not? Have I never treated thee with kindness? Nay, answer not—I see it in thine eyes. Thou dost remember only cuffs and blows, and never all the sweetmeats I did bring thee, nor the games that we did play! Nay, thou didst not wander off for mere adventure this day, didst thou? Thou didst seek to join Lord Kern! Didst thou not? Now answer to me!… What, wilt thou not?” Gwen’s whole body shook; she shuddered, and her eyes focused on Rod again. Trembling, she said, “He doth beat the lad. Most shrewdly.”

 Rod’s face darkened. “The animal!…No, son!” He clamped a hand on Magnus’s shoulder; the boy’s body jolted, his eyes focussing again. “You can’t just teleport him away from the Duke; you’d raise a hue and cry that’d keep us penned in this castle for days. Poor Elidor’ll have to last it out until we can find a way to free him.”

 “He did not seem so bad a man, when first we met him,” Cordelia said, troubled.

 “He probably wouldn’t be, if he weren’t a Duke, and a regent.” Rod ran his fingers through his hair. “A burgher, say, where he could split the responsibility with a committee—or a clerk in an office. Without the pressure, his kind side’d be able to come through. But in the top position, he knows down deep that he can’t really handle the job, and it scares him.”

 “And when he’s fearful, he will do anything to safeguard himself,” Magnus said somberly.

 Rod nodded. “Good insight, son. Anyway, that’s how I read him. Unfortunately, he isthe regent, and he’s out of control—even his own control.”

 “Thus his power doth corrupt him,” Gwen agreed, “and all his hidden evils do come out.”

 “Evil he is,” Magnus said with a shudder. “Papa, we must wrest Elidor from out his power!”

 “I agree,” Rod said grimly. “No kid ought to have a man like that in charge of him. But we can’t just bull in there and yank him loose.”

 “Wherefore not?” Cordelia’s chin thrust out stubbornly.

 “Because, sweetling, a thousand guardsmen would fall on us ere we’d gone fifty paces,” Gwen explained.

 “Papa can answer for ten of them—and thou and Magnus can answer for the rest!”

 “Nay, I fear not.” Gwen smiled sadly. “There are some things that surpass even witches’ power.”

 “I coulddefeat a thousand!” Magnus protested.

 Rod shook his head. “Not yet, son—though I’m not sure you won’t be able to, when you’re grown. A thousand men, though, you see, they come at you from all sides, and by the time you’ve knocked out the ones in front, the ones behind have stabbed you through.”

 “But if I took them all at one blow?”

 Rod smiled. “ Canyou?”

 Magnus frowned, looking away. “There must be a way. How doth one do it, Papa? Without magic, I mean.”

 “Only with a bomb, son.”

 Magnus looked up. “What is a ‘bomb?’ ”

 “A thing that makes a huge explosion, like a lightning-blast.”

 Magnus’s face cleared. “Why, thatI can do!”

 Rod stared at him, feeling his hair trying to stand on end. He might be able to do it—he just might. No one knew for sure, yet, just what the limits were to Magnus’s powers—if there were any. “Maybe you could,” he said softly. “And how many would die in the doing of it?”

 Magnus stared at him; then he turned away, crestfallen. “Most, I think. Aye, thou hast the right of it, Papa. We cannot withstand an army—not with any conscience.”

 “Stout lad,” Rod said softly, and felt a gush of pride and love for his eldest. If only the kid could pick it up, straight from his mind!

 Instead, he had to content himself with clasping Magnus’s shoulder. “Well, then! How willwe do it? First, we need some information. What did you get from him while you had him talking, dear?”

 “He had a bonfire of craving,” Cordelia said. “That, we could not shut out!”

 Rod went so still that Magnus looked up at him, startled.

 “Nought but what one would expect from so foul a man,” Gwen said quickly. “Indeed, I doubt a lass doth cross his threshold that he doth not so desire!”

 “But what doth he want them for, Mama?” Cordelia piped.

 “That’s one of the things we don’t want you hearing from his mind, darling,” Rod said grimly.

 “Papa, cool thy spirit,” Gwen cautioned.

 “I will, for the time being. But when I can get him alone, I think Duke Foidin and I will have a very interesting exchange.”

 “Of thoughts?” Magnus frowned.

 “Interpret it as you will, son. But, speaking of thoughts, dear…?”

 “Well!” Gwen sat down on the bed, clasping her hands in her lap. “To begin with, Lord Kern was the old King’s Lord High Warlock.”

 Rod stared.

 Gwen nodded. “And I do not ken the meaning of it, for none at that table could hear thoughts—of this, I’m certain. Still, the Duke is sure Lord Kern wields magic, and knows of several others—but none so strong as Kern.”

 “No wonder he wants us! But what kind of magic do they do here, if they aren’t espers?”

 Gwen shook her head. “I cannot tell; there were no clear events. Beneath the surface of his mind, there was but a feel of many mighty deeds unrolling.”

 “There was making many men at once to disappear,” Magnus chipped in, “and summoning of dragons, and of spirits.”

 “And calling up the fairies! Oh! ‘Twas pretty!” Cordelia clapped her hands.

 “An’ swords, Papa!” Geoff crowed in excitement. “Swords that cut through all, and could fight by th’selves!”

 Rod stared.

 Then his gaze darkened, and he turned slowly, glowering down at each child in turn.

 They realized their mistake, and shrank back into themselves.

 “Mama only said not to listen to the Duke’s mind,” Magnus explained. “She said nothing of the other folk.”

 Rod stilled.

 Then he looked up at Gwen, fighting a grin.

 “ ‘Tis true,” she said, through a small, tight smile. “In truth, it may have been a good idea.”

 “There weresome with nasty, twisted thoughts,” Magnus said eagerly, “but I knew that was why Mama did not wish us to ‘listen’ to the Duke, so I shunned those minds, and bade Cordelia and Geoffrey to do the same.”

 “Thou’rt not to command,” Cordelia retorted, “Papa hath said so!… Yet in this case, I thought thou hadst the right of it.”

 Rod and Gwen stared at each other for a moment; then they both burst out laughing.

 “What, what?” Magnus stared from one to the other; then he picked it up from his mother’s mind. “Oh! Thou art thatpleased with us!”

 “Aye, my jo, and amazed at how well thou dost, without fully understanding what or why I bade thee,” Gwen hugged Geoff and Cordelia to her, and Rod caught Magnus against his hip. “So! Magic works here, eh?” It raised a nasty, prickling thought; but Rod kept it to himself.

 “It seems it doth, or there is something that doth pass for it. The old King sent Lord Kern away, to fight some bandits in the northeast country; then the King died. But Duke Foidin’s estate’s nearby, and the Duke was the King’s first cousin—so, even though he was out of favor with the King, he and his army were able to seize young Elidor and, with him, the strings of government. His army was the largest, three-quarters of the royal force being with Lord Kern; so when he named himself as regent, none cared to challenge him.” Her voice sank. “It was not clear, but I think he had a hand in the old King’s death.”

 The children sat silent, huge-eyed.

 “It fits his style,” Rod said grimly. “What’s this nonsense about a spirit having closed the pass?”

 “No nonsense, that—or, at least, the Duke doth in truth believe it. Yet the spirit was not summoned by Lord Kern; it’s been there many years. The High Warlock’s force went to the northwest by sea.”

 “Hm.” Thoughts of Scylla and Charybdis flitted through Rod’s mind. “Be interesting to find out what this ‘spirit’ really is. But what keeps Lord Kern from filtering his troops through smaller passes?”

 “The Duke’s own army, or a part of it. Once he’d seized Elidor, he fortified the mountains; so, when Lord Kern turned his army southward, he was already penned in. Moreover, the ships that landed him, the Duke burned in their harbor. He has at most ten ships in his full-vaunted ‘Navy’—but they suffice; Lord Kern has none.”

 “Well, he’s probably built a few, by this time—but not enough. So he’s really penned in, huh?”

 “He is; yet Duke Foidin lives in fear of him; it seems he is mostpowerful in magic.”

 “But not powerful enough to take the spirit at the pass?”

 Gwen shook her head. “And is too wise to try. Repute names that spirit mostpowerful.”

 “ Mustbe a natural hazard.” Rod had a fleeting vision of a high pass with tall, sheer cliffs on either side, heaped high with permanent snow. An army doesn’t move without a lotof noise; an avalanche… “Still, Duke Foidin no doubt lives in dread of Lord Kern’s finding a way to fly his whole army in. Does he really think we’d work for him?”

 “He doubts it; though what had he to lose in trying? Yet he’s not overly assured by ‘our’ victory o’er the Each Uisge;he doth not trust good folk.”

 “Wise, in view of his character.”

 “Yet even if we’ll not labour for him, he doth want us.” Gwen’s face clouded. “For what purpose, I cannot say; ‘twas too deeply buried, and too dark.”

 “Hm.” Rod frowned. “That’s strange; I was expecting something straightforward, like a bit of sadism. Still, with that man, I suppose nothing’dbe straightforward. I’d almost think that’s true of this whole land.”

 “What land is that, Rod?” Gwen’s voice was small.

 Rod shrugged irritably. “Who knows? We don’t exactly have enough data to go on, yet. It lookslike Gramarye—but if it is, we’ve got to be wayfar in the future—at least a thousand years, at a guess.”

 “There would be more witches,” Gwen said softly.

 Rod nodded. “Yes, there would. And where’d the Each Uisgecome from, and the Crodh Mara? Same place as the Gramarye elves, werewolves, and ghosts, I suppose—but that would mean they’d have risen from latent telepaths thinking about them. And there weren’t any legends about them in Gramarye—were there?”

 “I had never heard of them.”

 “None had ever told us of them,” Magnus agreed.

 “And the elves have told you darn near every folk-tale Gramarye holds. But a thousand years is time for a lot of new tales to crop up… Oh, come on! There’s no point in talking about it; we’re just guessing. Let’s wait until we have some hard information.”

 “Such as, mine husband?”

 “The year, for openers—but I don’t feel like asking anyone here; there’s no point letting them know just how much we don’t know, other than to excuse our lack of local knowledge. We don’t even know enough to know whose side we’re on.”

 “Elidor’s,” Magnus said promptly.

 “He is the rightful sovereign,” Gwen agreed.

 “Fine—but who’s on his side? Lord Kern?”

 Magnus nodded. “He slipped away from the Duke’s men, and was fleeing in hopes of reaching Lord Kern, for protection. This was in his mind whilst the Duke did whip him.”

 Rod nodded. “If only he hadn’t stopped to play with the pretty horsey, hm?”

 “He did not play, Papa! He knew he stood no chance without a mount!”

 “Really?” Rod looked up. “Then he’s got more sense than I pegged him as having.”

 Magnus nodded. “Thou hast told me I have ‘roots of wisdom,’ Papa; so hath he.”

 “We must defend him,” Gwen said quietly.

 “We cannot leave him to that Duke!” Cordelia said stoutly.

 Rod sighed and capitulated. “All right, all right! We’ll take him with us!”

 They cheered.

 CHAPTER TWELVE



  

 Ow! Cur… I mean, confound it!” Father Al fell back onto a grassy hummock, catching his poor bruised foot in both hands. It was the third time he’d stubbed it; Gramarye had uncommonly sharp rocks. They couldn’t poke holes through his boots, but they could, and did, mash the toes inside.

 He sighed, and rested his ankle over the opposite thigh, massaging it. He’d been hiking for six hours, he guessed—the sky to the east was beginning to lighten with dawn. And all that time, he’d been wandering around, trying to navigate by the occasional glimpse of a star between the bushy trees, hoping he was heading away from the monastery, and not around in a circle back toward it. He had no idea where he was going, really—all that mattered right now was putting as much distance as possible between himself and his too-willing hosts before daybreak. They’d given him one of their brown, hooded robes, but it was torn by thorns in a dozen places; his face and hands were similarly scratched, and he could’ve sworn he’d heard snickering laughter following him through the underbrush from time to time. All in all, he’d had better nights.

 He sighed, and pushed himself to his feet, wincing as the bruised left one hit the ground. Enough hiking; time to try to find a place to hole up for the day…

 There was a flutter of cloth, and a thump. He whirled toward it, sudden fear clutching his throat.

 She was a teenager, with fair skin and huge, luminous eyes, and lustrous brown hair that fell down to her waist from a mob-cap. A tightly-laced bodice joined a loose blouse to a full, brightly-colored skirt…

 … And she sat astride a broomstick that hovered three feet off the ground.

 Father Al gawked. Then he remembered his manners and gathered his composure. “Ah… good morning.”

 “Good… good morning, good friar.” She seemed shy, almost fearful, but resolved. “May… may I be of aid to thee?”

 “Why… I do stand in need of direction,” Father Al answered. “But… forgive me, maiden, for I have been apart from this world almost since birth, and never before have I seen a maid ride a broomstick. I have heard of it, certes, but never have seen it.”

 The girl gave a sudden, delighted peal of laughter, and relaxed visibly. “Why, ‘tis nothing, good friar, a mere nothing! Eh, they do keep ye close in cloisters, do they not?”

 “Close indeed. Tell me, maiden—how did you learn the trick of that?”

 “Learn?” The girl’s smile stretched into a delighted grin. “Why, ‘twas little enough to learn, good friar—I but stare at a thing, and wish it to move, and it doth!”

 Telekinesis, Father Al thought giddily, and she treats it as a commonplace. “Hast thou always had this… talent?”

 “Aye, as long as I can remember.” A shadow darkened her face. “And before, too, I think; for the good folk who reared me told me that they found me cast away in a field, at a year’s age. I cannot but think that the mother who bore me was afrighted by seeing childish playthings move about her babe, seemingly of their own accord, and therefore cast me out naked into the fields, to live or die as I saw fit.”

 Inborn, Father Al noted, even as his heart was saddened by her history. Prejudice and persecution—was this the lot of these poor, Talented people? And if it was, what had it done to their souls? “Ill done, Ill done!” He shook his head, scowling. “What Christian woman could do such a thing?”

 “Why, any,” the girl said, with a sad smile. “Indeed, I cannot blame her; belike she thought I was possessed by a demon.”

 Father Al shook his head in exasperation. “So little do these poor country people know of their Faith!”

 “Oh, there have been dark tales,” the girl said somberly, “and some truth to them, I know. There do be those harsh souls possessed of witch-power who have taken to worshipping Satan, Father—I have met one myself, and was fortunate to escape with mine life! Yet they are few, and seldom band together.”

 “Pray Heaven ‘twill never be otherwise!” And Father Al noted that most of these ‘witches’ were notSatanists, which pretty well assured that their Talent was psionic. “Thine own charity shows the goodness of thine own sort, maiden—thy charity in seeking to aid a poor, benighted traveller; for I’d wager thou knew I had lost mine way.”

 “Why, indeed,” the girl said, “for I heard it in thy thoughts.”

 “Indeed, indeed.” Father Al nodded. “I had heard of it, yet ‘tis hard to credit when one doth first encounter it.” In fact, his brain whirled; a born telepath, able to read thoughts clearly, not just to receive fuzzy impressions! And that without training! “Are there many like thee, maiden?”

 “Nay, not so many—scarce a thousand.”

 “Ah.” Father Al smiled sadly. “Yet I doubt me not that Holy Matrimony and God shall swell thy numbers.” And up till now, there had only been two real telepaths in the whole Terran Sphere!

 “May I aid thee in thy journey, Father? Whither art thou bound?”

 “To find the High Warlock, maiden.”

 The girl giggled. “Why, his home is half the way across the kingdom, good friar! ‘Twill take thee a week or more of journeying!”

 Father Al sagged. “Oh, no… uh, nay! ‘Tis a matter of some import, and I mind me there is need for haste!”

 The girl hesitated, then said shyly, “If ‘tis truly so, good friar, I could carry thee thither upon my broom…”

 “Couldst thou indeed! Now bless thee, maiden, for a true, good Christian!”

 She fairly seemed to glow. “Oh, ‘tis naught; I could carry two of thee with little effort. Yet I must needs caution thee, good friar, ‘tis like to disconcert thee summat…”

 “I care not!” Father Al ran around behind her and leaped astride the stick. “What matter comfort, when a soul’s welfare is at stake? Nay, then, let’s be gone!”

 In fact, he scarcely noticed when the broomstick left the ground.

 CHAPTER THIRTEEN



  

 Opening a lock was women’s work; it took telekinesis. The boys could make the lock disappear, but they couldn’t open it.

 “Let Cordelia attempt it. She must be trained, must she not?” Gwen ushered her daughter over to the door and set her in front of the lock. “Remember, sweeting, to ease the bolt gently; assuredly the Duke hath posted guards on us, and they must not hear the turn.”

 “Uh, just a sec.” Rod held up a hand. “We don’t knowthey’ve locked us in.”

 Gwen sighed, reached out, and tugged at the handle. The door didn’t budge. She nodded. “Gently, now, my daughter.”

 Rod took up a position just behind the door. Cordelia frowned at the lock, concentrating. Rod could just barely hear a minuscule grating as the lock turned, and the bolt slid back. Then Gwen stared, and the door shot open silently.

 Rod leaped out, caught the left-hand guard from behind with a forearm across the throat, and whacked his dagger-hilt on the man’s skull. He released his hold and whirled, wondering why the other guard wasn’t already over him…

 And saw the man down and out, with Geoff crawling out from between the guard’s ankles; Magnus standing over the man’s head, sheathing his dagger; and Gwen beaming fondly as she watched.

 Rod gawked.

 Then he shook his head, coming out of it. “How’d you keep him quiet?”

 “By holding the breath in his lungs,” Magnus explained. “Can I fetch Elidor now, Papa?”

 Rod rubbed his chin. “Well, I don’t know. You could teleport him away from whatever room he’s in—but are you sure you could make him appear right here?”

 Magnus frowned. “ Fairlycertain…”

 “ ‘Fairly’ isn’t good enough, son. You might materialize him inside a wall, or in between universes, for that matter.” Why did that thought hollow his stomach? “No, I think we’d better do this the old-fashioned way. Which way is he?”

 “Thither!” Magnus pointed toward the left, and upward.

 “Well, I think we’ll try the stairs. Let’s go.”

 “Ah, by your leave, Papa.” Gwen caught his sleeve. “If thou shouldst meet some guardsman, or even one lone courtier, ‘tis bound to cause some noise.”

 Rod turned back. “You have a better idea?”

 “Haply, I have.” Gwen turned to Cordelia. “Do thou lead us, child, skipping and singing. Be mindful, thou’rt seeking the garderobe, and have lost thy way.”

 Cordelia nodded eagerly, and set off.

 “Thus,” Gwen explained, “he who doth encounter her will make no outcry; ‘twill be a quiet chat.”

 “Even quieter, after we catch up with him.” Rod gazed after his daughter, fidgeting. “Can’t we get moving, dear? I don’t like letting her go out alone.”

 “Hold, till she hath turned the corner.” Gwen kept her hand on his forearm, watching Cordelia. The little girl reached the end of the hall and turned right, skipping and warbling. “Now! The hall is clear before her; let us go.”

 They went quickly, trying to match unseen Cordelia’s speed, wading through the darkness between torches. Near the end of the hall, Gwen stopped, with a gentle tug at Rod’s arm. The boys stopped, too, at a thought-cue from their mother. “She hath encountered a guardsman,” Gwen breathed. “Softly, now!”

 Rod strained his ears, and caught the conversation:

 “Whither goest, child?”

 “To the garderobe, sir! Canst tell me where it is?”

 “A ways, sweet lass, a ways! There was one near thy chambers.”

 Oh. So allthe guards knew where they were quartered. Very interesting.

 “Was there, sir? None told us!”

 “He curses in his mind, and she has turned him!” Gwen hissed. “Go!”

 Rod padded around the corner on soft leather soles. Three torchlight-pools away, Cordelia stood facing him, hopping from foot to foot with her hands clasped behind her back. The guardsman stood, a hulking shadow, between the child and Rod, his back to Papa. Rod slipped his dagger out of its sheath and leaped forward.

 “Did not others, clad as I am, stand beside thy door to tell thee the way?”

 “Why, no, good sir!” Cordelia’s eyes were wide with innocence. “Should there have been?”

 “There should, indeed!” The guardsman began to turn. “Nay, let me lead thee b… Ungh!”

 He slumped to the floor. Rod sheathed his dagger.

 Cordelia stared down at the guardsman. “Papa! Is he…” Then her face cleared with a smile. “Nay, I see; he but sleeps.”

 “Oh, he’ll have a headache in the morning, honey—but nothing worse.” Rod glanced back over his shoulder as Gwen and the boys came running up. “Well played, sweeting!” Gwen clasped Cordelia’s shoulders. “I could not ha’ done it better. On with thee, now!”

 Cordelia grinned, and skipped away, lilting the top part of a madrigal.

 “If this’s what she’s doing when she’s five,” Rod muttered to Gwen, “I’m not sure I want to see fifteen.”

 “If thou dost not, there are many lads who will,” Gwen reminded him uncharitably. “Come, my lord, let us go.”

 Five guardsmen, three courtiers, four varlets and a lady-in-waiting later, Gwen stopped them all at a corner. “There lie Elidor’s chambers,” she breathed in Rod’s ear. “Two guard the door, three keep watch in the antechamber, and a nursemaid sleeps on a pallet beside his bed.”

 Rod nodded; Foidin definitely wasn’t the sort to take chances. “This is why I took care of the ones we met en route—so Magnus’d be well-rested. How many can you handle, son?”

 “Four, at the least.” The boy frowned. “Beyond that, their sleep might be light.”

 Rod nodded. “That’ll do. Now, here’s a routine your mother and I used to run…”

 A few minutes later, Magnus frowned, concentrating; a minute later, there was a clatter and a pair of thumps, followed by a sigh in chorus, as the two door-guards sank into slumber. Rod peeked around the corner, saw them both sitting slouched against the wall, and nodded. “Okay, Geoff. Go to it!”

 The three-year-old trotted eagerly around the corner and knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again. Finally a bolt shot back, and the door swung open, revealing a scowling guardsman. He saw Geoff, and stared.

 “Elidor come out ‘n’ play?” the little boy piped.

 The guardsman scowled. “Here, now! Where’d thou come from?” He grabbed, but Geoff jumped back. The guardsman jumped after him, and Geoff turned and scooted.

 He sailed around the corner under full steam, with the guardsman a foot behind him, bent double, hand reaching, and another guard right behind him. Rod and Gwen kicked their feet out from under them, and they belly-flopped on cold stone with a shout. Magnus and Cordelia yanked their helmets off, and Rod and Gwen struck down with reversed daggers. A grace note of nasty double chunks! sounded, and the guardsmen twitched and lay still, goose eggs swelling on the backs of their heads.

 “They’ll sleep for an hour or two, at the least.” Gwen handed Magnus’s dagger back to him.

 “Hoarstane? Ambrine?” A hoarse voice called from around the corner.

 Everyone froze. Rod’s pulse beat high, with the hope that the third guard might follow the first two.

 Unfortunately, he was a little too wary. “Hoarstane!” he snapped again. There was silence; then the guardsman snarled again. Metal jangled as he turned away, and the door boomed shut; then a bolt snicked tight.

 “Back in, and the door locked.” Rod shook his head. “Well, we hadn’t expected any more. You said you could handle four, son?”

 Magnus nodded. “Without doubt.” His eyes lost focus; he became very still.

 Rod waited. And waited. Four, he reminded himself, were bound to take a little time.

 Finally Magnus relaxed and nodded. “All sleep, Papa.”

 “Okay. You go get Elidor ready, while we get the door open.”

 Magnus nodded, and disappeared.

 He’d started doing it when he was a baby, but Rod still found it unnerving. With people who were only friends, such as Toby, okay—but his own son was another matter. “Well, teamwork starts at home,” he sighed. “After you, ladies.”

 They tiptoed up to the door. Rod kept a firm hold on little Geoff’s hand, to make sure he didn’t try to teleport away to join Magnus. Gwen watched with fond pride as Cordelia stared at the lock, and they heard the sound of the bolt sliding back. The door swung open.

 They stepped into a scene out of “Sleeping Beauty.” The third guardsman sat slumped in a chair, chin on chest, snoring. Beyond him, a half-open door showed a nanny in a rocker, dozing over her needlework. Rod stepped forward and pushed the door the rest of the way open. Elidor looked up from belting on his sword. His hair was tousled, and his eyes bleary from slumber, red and puffy; Rod had a notion he’d cried himself to sleep.

 “Almost ready, Papa.” Magnus picked up a cloak and held it out.

 Elidor stepped over; Magnus dropped it over his shoulders.

 “God save Your Majesty.” Rod bowed. “I take it Magnus has informed you of our invitation?”

 “Aye, and with right good heart do I accept! But why art thou willing to take me from mine uncle’s halls?”

 “Because my sons have taken a liking to you.” You couldn’t exactly tell a King that he triggered every paternal response you had. “If you’re ready, we shouldn’t linger.”

 “Ready I am!.” The King clapped a hat on and headed for the door. Rod bowed him through, and waited as Magnus stepped through behind him.

 He found Elidor staring at the snoring guard. “Magnus had told me of it,” the boy whispered, “but I scarce could credit it.”

 “You’re moving in magic circles.” Rod gave him a firm nudge on the shoulder. “And if you don’t keep moving, we’ll wind up back where we started.”

 Elidor paced on forward, pausing for a bow to answer Gwen and Cordelia’s curtseys. Rod took the opportunity to dodge on ahead.

 Magnus stepped up beside him, as pilot, and they padded silently through dim, torch-lit halls. Whenever Magnus stopped and nodded to Cordelia, she skipped on ahead, singing, to engage whatever unsuspecting person happened to be walking the halls at this late hour, in conversation, until Magnus could knock them out. After the fifth guardsman, Rod noticed the man was twitching in his sleep. “Getting tired, son?”

 Magnus nodded.

 So did Rod. “I’ll take over for a while.”

 Fortunately, there weren’t too many more; the old-fashioned method is a little risky.

 Elidor just followed along, his eyes getting wider and wider till they seemed to take up half his face.

 Finally they crossed the outer bailey—it was really the only one; the castle had grown till it absorbed the inner. Rod’s commando tactics couldn’t do much about the sentries on the wall, so Magnus padded along, alert and ready; but the sentries were watching the outside, so they came to the main gatehouse without incident.

 There they stopped, and Gwen gathered them into a huddle. “Here’s a pretty problem,” she whispered. “A sentry stands on each tower, a porter by the winch, and six guardsmen in the wardroom—and thou art wearied, my son.”

 Magnus waslooking a little frayed around the edges. “I can still answer for two, Mama, mayhap three.”

 “That leaves six.” Rod frowned. “What’re they armed with, Gwen?”

 Gwen gazed off into space for a moment. “All bear pikes, save the Captain; he wears a sword.”

 “Could you and Cordelia bop them with their own pike-butts?”

 “Aye, but they wear their helmets.”

 “So.” Rod rubbed his chin. “The problem is, getting them to take off their helmets.”

 “Why, that can Ido!” Elidor declared, and marched off towards the guardroom before anyone could stop him.

 Rod looked up after him, startled, glanced back at Gwen, then turned and sprinted after Elidor. What was the kid trying to do, blow the whole escape?

 But the boy moved fast, and he was hammering on the door before Rod could catch him. It swung open, and Rod ducked into the nearest shadow and froze. He could see through the open door, though, as Elidor marched in.

 The guardsmen scrambled to their feet. “Majesty!” The Captain inclined his head. “What dost thou abroad so late o’ night?”

 Elidor frowned. “I am thy King! Art thou so ill-bred as not to know the proper form of greeting? Uncover, knaves, and bow!”

 Rod held his breath.

 The soldiers glanced at the Captain, whose eyes were locked with Elidor’s. But the boy-King held his chin high, glance not wavering an inch. Finally, the Captain nodded.

 The guardsmen slowly removed their helmets and bowed.

 Their pikes leaped to life, slamming down on the backs of their heads with the flats of their blades. They slumped to the floor with a clatter.

 All except the Captain; he didn’t have a pike near. He snapped upright, terror filling his face as he stared at his men.

 Then the terror turned to rage.

 Rod leaped forward.

 “Why, what sorcery is this?” the Captain snarled, coming for Elidor and drawing his sword.

 The boy stepped back, paling—and Rod shot through the door and slammed into the Captain. He went down with a clatter and a “ whuff,” the wind knocked out of him; but his sword writhed around, the point dancing in Rod’s face. Rod yanked the sword to one side, rolling the man half-over, and dived in behind him, arm snaking around the Captain’s throat. He caught the larynx in his elbow, and squeezed. The Captain kicked and struggled, but Rod had a knee in his back, so all he could do was thrash about.

 But Elidor was loose. He darted over to pluck the Captain’s helmet, yanked his dagger out, and clubbed down with all his strength, just the way he’d seen Rod do. The Captain heaved, and relaxed with a sigh.

 Rod let go and scrambled out. “Well done, Your Majesty! You’ve got the makings of a King, all right.”

 “There’s more to that than battle,” the boy said, frowning.

 “Yes, such as wisdom, and knowledge. But a lot of it’s the ability to think fast, and the willingness to act, and you’ve got those. And style and courage—and you’ve just demonstrated those, too.” Rod clapped him on the shoulder, and the boy seemed to visibly expand. “Come on, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t say the rest of our party is dying to find out what happened, but they’ll be vastly reassured to actually seeus intact.” He ushered the boy out the door.

 “Six down and three to go,” he whispered as they came up to Gwen and the children in the alcove.

 Gwen nodded. “ ‘Twas well thou followed Elidor. Well, if thou wilt hide thee near the porter, I think I can distract him for thee.”

 Rod set his palms against his buttocks and leaned back, stretching. “Okay, but give me a minute. I’m beginning to feel it, too.”

 A few minutes later, he waited just outside the doorway leading to the giant windlass that controlled the drawbridge. The porter paced the floor inside, humming to himself—trying to stay awake, probably.

 Suddenly the rope that held the windlass slipped loose, and the ratchet chattered as the great drum began to turn.

 The porter shouted and leaped for the crank-handle.

 Rod leaped for the porter, plucked off his helmet, and clubbed him.

 A few minutes later, he rejoined Gwen. “All secure. I take it I should run back there and drop the bridge.”

 “Aye, and raise the portcullis. Yet attend a moment.” She turned to Magnus. “Son?”

 Magnus was gazing off into space. A few seconds later, he relaxed and turned to her. “The sentries on the towers are asleep.”

 Gwen nodded at Rod.

 He sighed, and trudged back to the windlass. Being a telepath must certainly save a lot of hiking.

 The portcullis rose, the drawbridge fell, and Rod almost did, too. He straightened up, aching in every joint; it was getting to be a long day.

 “My lord?” Gwen’s head poked around the doorway. “Wilt thou join us?”

 “Coming,” he grumbled, and shuffled toward the doorway. How could she still look so fresh and cheery?

 They went across the drawbridge, as fast as Geoffrey and Rod could manage. Fifty feet from the castle, Gwen stopped the party, and shooed them into the shadow of a big rock. She ducked her head around it, staring back at the castle. Curious, Rod peeked around the other side. He saw the drawbridge slowly rise.

 Startled, he darted a glance at Gwen. A wrinkle showed between her eyebrows; her lower lip was caught between her teeth. She was showing the strain—and so she should! That slab of wood had to weigh half a ton!

 Cordelia was watching alertly, glancing from Gwen to the drawbridge and back. Finally, Gwen nodded, and Cordelia’s face screwed up tight for a second. Then Gwen relaxed with a sigh. “Well done; thou hast indeed secured the winch. Now slip the ratchet on the portcullis, sweeting—yet not altogether; thou dost not wish it to come a-crashing down.”

 Cordelia frowned darkly for a few minutes, staring at the castle; then Rod heard a muted, deep-toned clang. Cordelia looked up at her mother, and nodded. “ ‘Tis down.”

 “Well done.” Gwen patted Cordelia’s shoulder, and the little girl beamed. Mama turned to Magnus. “Now wake the sentries, that they may think they’ve only dozed, and that nothing is amiss.”

 Magnus gazed off into space a moment—it was a long moment, for he wastiring—then looked up at Gwen and nodded.

 “Well enough.” Gwen nodded, satisfied. “ ‘Twill be at least an hour ere the others awake, and we’ll be long gone; let them search.” She turned to Rod. “Yet we had best lose no time.”

 “Agreed,” Rod affirmed. “Make sure the sentries are looking the other way for a few minutes, will you? Otherwise, they can’t help seeing us on this slope.”

 “Hmf.” Gwen frowned. “I hadforgot that. Well…” She held the frown for a few minutes, then nodded. “They think they hear voices calling, towards the north. Lose no time.”

 Rod nodded, and darted out across the slope, swinging Geoffrey up to his shoulders. The family followed. A hundred yards farther on and fifty feet lower, they stopped, panting, in the shade of a huge oak tree, sentinel for a crop of woodland.

 “Whither away?” Gwen demanded.

 Rod caught his breath and pointed southwest. “That way, toward the grove where we came in. After all that talk about the High Warlock’s holdout in the northeast, they’ll expect us to head for him. They won’t think we’ve got any reason for going back.”

 “Have we?”

 Rod shrugged. “Not that I know of—except that I don’t like travelling in totally unfamiliar territory at night, especially when I’m on the run.”

 Gwen nodded. “ ‘Tis as wise a course as aught else. Follow Father, children.”

 CHAPTER FOURTEEN



  

 Father Al clung to the broomstick for dear life, knuckles white and forearms aching with the strain. At first, flight on so slender a craft had been a heady, delightful thing, almost like flying under his own power; but the sun had risen, and he’d happened to glance down. The world whizzed by below, treetops reaching up to snag at his robe. His stomach had turned over, then done its best to shinny up his backbone to safety. Since then, the ride had been a qualified nightmare. He just hoped the tears in his eyes were due only to the wind.

 “Yon, ”the girl called back to him, “ahead, and below!”

 He craned his neck to see over her shoulder. About a hundred meters ahead, a large cottage nestled within a grove, a half-timbered house with a thatched roof, and two outbuildings behind it. Then the ground was rushing up at them, and Father Al clung to the broomstick as he clung to his hope of Heaven, commanding his body to relax. His body didn’t listen. The world rolled upward past them, then suddenly rolled back down. He clamped his jaw and swallowed, hard, just barely managing to keep his stomach from using his tongue as a springboard.

 Then, incredibly, they had stopped, and solid earth jarred upward against his soles.

 “We are come.” The witch-girl smiled back at him over her shoulder. Then her brows knit in concern. “Art thou well?”

 “Oh, most excellent! Or I will be, soon.” Father Al swung his leg over the broomstick and tottered up to her. “A singular experience, maiden, and one I’ll value till the end of my days! I thank thee greatly!” He turned, looking about him for a change of subject. “Now. Where shall I find the High Warlock?”

 “Oh, within.” The girl pointed at the cottage. “Or if he is not, surely his wife will know when he may return. Shall I make thee acquainted with them?”

 “Dost thou know them, then?” Father Al asked in surprise.

 “Indeed; most all the witchfolk do.” She dismounted, picked up her broomstick, and led him toward the house. “They are gentle souls, and most modest; one would scarcely think that they were numbered ‘mongst the Powers of the land.” They were almost to the door, which was flanked by two flowering bushes. “Their bairns, though, are somewhat mischiev…”

 “Hold!” one of the bushes barked. “Who seeks to pass? ”

 Father Al swung round to the bush in astonishment. Then, remembering what the girl had been saying, he realized one of the children was probably hiding inside the leaves, playing a prank. “Good morn,” he said, bowing. “I am Father Aloysius Uwell, come hither to call upon the High Warlock and his family.”

 “Come hither, then, that I may best examine thee,” the voice demanded. Rather deep voice, for a child; but the witch-girl was giggling behind him, so Father Al abided by his earlier guess—one of the children. And important to play along with the prank, therefore—nothing endears one to a parent like being cordial to the child. He sighed, and stepped closer to the bush.

 “Why dost thou linger?” the voice barked. “Come hither to me now, I say!”

 It was coming from behind him.

 Father Al turned about, reassessing the situation—there were at least two children involved. “Why, so I do—if thou wilt hold thy place.”

 The girl giggled again.

 “Am I to blame if thine eyes art so beclouded that thou mistakest quite my place of biding?” The voice was coming out of a bush a little to Father Al’s left, farther from the house. “Come now, I say!”

 Father Al sighed, and stepped toward the bush.

 “Nay, here!” the voice cried from another bush, farther off to his left. “Besotted shave-pate, canst thou not tell my bearing?”

 “I would, if I could see thee,” Father Al muttered, and ambled patiently toward the new bush. Giggling, the girl moved with him.

 “Nay, hither!” the voice commanded again, from yet another bush, off to his right and farther from the house. “ Wiltthou come, I say!”

 About then, Father Al began to get suspicious. The voice was plainly leading them away from the house, and he began to think this was no childish prank, but the work of some guardian who didn’t trust strangers. “Nay, I’ll go no farther! I’ve come where thou hast said, not once, but several times! If thou dost wish that I should move another step, now show thyself, that I may seewhich way to step!”

 “As thou wilt have it,” the voice grumbled; and, suddenly, the form of a broad and portly man rose up and came around the bush. Its head was shaven in the tonsure, and it wore a brown monk’s robe with a small yellow-handled screwdriver in the breast pocket.

 Father Al stared.

 The girl burst into a peal of laughter.

 “Dost thou not know me, fellow?” the monk demanded. “Wilt thou not kneel to the Abbot of thine own Order?”

 “Nay, that will I not,” Father Al muttered. Father Cotterson had said the Abbot was on his way back to the monastery, half a kingdom away—what would he be doing here, near a High Warlock’s house, at that? Father Al’s suspicions deepened, especially since he recognized an element out of folklore. So he began to whistle loudly, untied his rope belt, and took off his cassock. The witch-girl gasped and averted her eyes; then she looked back at him, staring.

 “Friar!” the Abbot cried, scandalized. “Dost thou disrobe before a woman?!! ?… And what manner of garb is it thou wearest beneath?”

 “Why, this?” Father Al sang, improvising a Gregorian chant. “ ‘Tis nought but the coverall all Cathodeans wear, which warms me in winter, and never doth tear.” He went back to whistling, turning his cassock inside-out.

 The Abbot’s voice took on a definite tone of menace. “What dost thou mean by this turning of thy coat? Dost thou seek to signify that thou’It side with the King against me?”

 Interesting; Father Al hadn’t known the old Church-State conflict was cropping up here. “Why, nay. It means only that…” (he put the monk’s robe on again, wrong side out, and wrapped it about him) “…that I wish to see things as they truly are.”

 And before his eyes, the form of the abbot wavered, thinned, and faded, leaving only a stocky, two-foot-high man with a pug-nosed, berry-brown face, large eyes, brown jerkin, green hose, green cap with a red feather, and a smoldering expression. “Who ha’ told thee, priest?” he growled. His gaze shifted to the witch-girl. “Not thou, surely! The witch-folk ever were my friends!”

 The girl shook her head, opening her lips to answer, but Father Al forestalled her. “Nay, hobgoblin. ‘Tis books have taught me, that to dispel glamour, one hath but to whistle or sing, and turn thy coat.”

 “Thou’rt remarkably schooled in elfin ways, for one who follows the Crucified one,” the elf said, with grudging respect. “Indeed, I thought that thee and thy fellows scarce did acknowledge our existence!”

 “Nor did I.” In fact, Father Al felt rather dizzy—in spite of what Yorick had told him; he was frantically trying to reevaluate all his fundamental assumptions. “Yet did tales of thee and thy kind all fascinate me, so that I strove to learn all that I could, of worlds other than the one I knew.”

 “ ‘Worlds?’ ” The elf’s pointed ears pricked up. “Strange turn of phrase; what priest would think that any world existed, but this one about us?”

 Somehow, Father Al was sure he’d made a slip. “In Philosophic’s far realms…”

 “There is not one word said of things like me, that do defy all reason,” the elf snapped. “Tell me, priest—what is a star?”

 “Why, a great, hot ball of gas, that doth…” Father Al caught himself. “Uh, dost thou see, there is writing of seven spheres of crystal that surround the Earth…”

 “ ‘Earth?’ Strange term, when thou most assuredly dost mean ‘world.’ Nay, thou didst speak thy true thought at the first, surprised to hear such a question from one like me—and, I doubt not, thou couldst tell me also of other worlds, that do swing about the stars, and heavenly cars that sail between them. Is it not so? I charge thee, priest, to answer truly, by thy cloth—dost thou not believe a lie to be a sin? ”

 “Why, so I do,” Father Al admitted, “and therefore must I needs acknowledge the truth whereof thou speakest; I could indeed tell thee of such wonders. But…”

 “And didst thou not ride hither in just such a car, from such another world?” The elf watched him keenly.

 Father Al stared at him.

 The elf waited.

 “Indeed I did.” Father Al’s brows pulled down. “How would an elf know of such matters? Hast thy High Warlock told thee of them?”

 It was the elf’s turn to be taken aback. “Nay, what knowest thou of Rod Gallowglass?”

 “That he is, to thee, indeed a puissant warlock—though he would deny it, had he any honesty within him—and doth come, as I do, from a world beyond the sky. Indeed, he doth serve the same Government of Many Stars that governs me, and came, as I did, in a ship that sails the void between the stars.”

 “ ‘Tis even as thou sayest, including his denial of his powers.” The elf regarded him narrowly. “Dost thou know him, then?”

 “We never have met,” Father Al evaded. “Now, since that I have told thee what thou didst wish to know, wilt thou not oblige me in return, and say to me how it can be that elves exist?”

 “Why,” the elf said craftily, “why not the way that witches do? Thou hast no difficulty understanding why shelives.” He nodded toward the witch-girl.

 “That is known to me; she is like to any other lass, excepting that God gave to her at birth some gifts of powers in her mind; and I can see that, when first her ancestors did come to this world, those who chose to come had each within him some little germ of such-like powers. Thus, as generations passed, and married one another again and yet again, that germ of power grew, until some few were born who had it in good measure.”

 “ ‘Tis even as Rod Gallowglass did guess,” the elf mused. “Nay, thou art certainly from the realm that birthed him. But tell me, then, if such a marrying within a nation might produce a witch, why might it not produce an elf?”

 “It might; it might indeed.” Father Al nodded thoughtfully. “Yet were it so, my whistling, and the turning of my coat, would not dispel thy glamour, as was told in Terran legend. Nay, there is something more than mortal’s magic in thee. How didst thou come to be?”

 “Thou dost see too well for easy liking,” the elf sighed, “and I do owe thee truth for truth. I do know that elves are born of forest and of earth, of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn; for we have been here as long as they. And well ought I to know it, for I am myself the oldest of all Old Things!”

 The phrase triggered memories, and Puck of Pook’s Hillcame flooding back to Father Al’s mind from his childhood. “Why, thou’rt Robin Goodfellow!”

 “Thou speakest aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night.” The elf grinned, swelling a little with pride. “Nay, am I so famous, then, that all beyond the stars do know of me?”

 “Well, all worth knowing.” Father Al silently admitted to a bit of bias within himself. “For surely, all who know the Puck must be good fellows.”

 “Dost thou mean that I should trust thee, then?” Puck grinned mischievously. “Nay, not so—for some have known me to their own misfortune. Yet I will own thou dost not have the semblance of a villain. Nay, turn thy coat aright, and tell me wherefore thou dost seek Rod Gallowglass.”

 “Why… ‘tis thus…” Father Al took off his robe, and turned it right side out again, getting his thoughts in order. He pulled it on, and began, “A wizard of a bygone age foresaw that, in our present time, a change would come to thy High Warlock, a transformation that could make him a mighty force, for ill or good—a force so mighty as to cast his shadow over all the worlds that mortal folk inhabit. This ancient wizard wrote this vision down, and sealed it in a letter, so that in our present time, it might be opened and read, and we could learn, in time to aid Rod Gallowglass.”

 “And bend him toward the good, if thou canst?” Puck demanded. “Which means, certes, thynotion of the ‘good.’ ”

 “And canst thou fault it?” Father Al stuck out his chin and locked gazes with Puck, hoping against hope as he remembered the long hostility between Christian clergy and faery-folk, and the diminishing of the faeries’ influence as that of the Christ had grown. And Puck glared back at him, no doubt remembering all that, too, but also reassessing the values the clergy preached.

 “Nay, in truth, I cannot,” the elf sighed finally, “when thou dost live by what thou preachest. Nor do I doubt thy good intention; and elves have something of an instinct, in the knowing of the goodness of a mortal.”

 Father Al let out a long-held breath. “Then wilt thou lead me to thy Warlock?”

 “I would I could,” the elf said grimly, “but he hath quite disappeared, and none know where.”

 Father Al just stared at him, while panic surged up within him. He stood stock-still against it, fighting for calm, silently reeling off a prayer from rote; and eventually the panic faded, leaving him charged for otherworldly battle. “Admit me to his wife and bairns, then; mayhap they hold a clue they know not of.”

 But Puck shook his head. “They have vanished with him, friar—all but one, and he’s so young he cannot speak, nor even think in words.”

 “Let me gaze upon him, then.” Father Al fixed Puck with a hard stare. “I have some knowledge gleaned, sweet Puck; I may see things that thou dost not.”

 “I doubt that shrewdly,” Puck said sourly, “yet on the chance of it, I’ll bring thee to him. But step warily, thou friar—one sign of menace to the child, and thou’lt croak, and hop away to find a lily pad to sit on, and wilt pass the rest of thy days fly-catching with a sticky tongue of wondrous length!”

 He turned away toward the cottage. Father Al followed, with the witch-girl.

 “Dost thou think that he could truly change me into a frog?” Father Al asked softly.

 “I do not doubt it,” the girl answered, with a tremulous smile. “The wisest heads may turn to asses’, when the Puck besets them!”

 They passed through the door, and Father Al paused, amazed at the brightness and coziness of the house, the sense of comfort and security that seemed to emanate from its beams and rough-cast walls, its sturdy, homely table, benches, chests, two great chairs by the fire, and polished floor. If he looked at it without emotion, he was sure it would seem Spartan—there were so few furnishings. But it was totally clean, and somehow wrapped him in such a feeling of love and caring that he was instantly loath to leave. Somehow, he knew he would like the High Warlock’s wife, if he should be lucky enough to meet her.

 Then his gaze lit on the cradle by the fire, with the two diminutive, wizened old peasant-ladies by it—elf-wives! They stared up at him fearfully, but Puck stepped up with a mutter and a gesture, and they drew back, reassured. Puck turned, and beckoned to the priest.

 Father Al stepped up to the cradle, and gazed down at a miniature philosopher.

 There was no other way to describe him. He still had that very serious look that the newborn have—but this child was nearly a year old! His face was thinner than a baby’s ought to be; the little mouth turned down at the corners. His hair was black, and sparse. He slept, but Father Al somehow had the impression that the child was troubled.

 So did the witch-girl. She was weeping silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Poor mite!” she whispered. “His mind doth roam, searching for his mother!”

 “Even in his sleep?”

 She nodded. “And I cannot say where he doth seek; his thoughts veer off beyond my ken.”

 Father Al frowned. “How can that be?” Then he remembered that the child was too young to have gained the mental framework that gives the human mind stability, but also limits. He found himself wondering where that little mind could reach to—and if, in a grown man, such searching would produce insanity.

 He looked back at the child, and found its eyes open. They seemed huge in the tiny face, and luminous, and stared up at him with the intensity of a fanatic. Father Al felt an eldritch prickling creep over his scalp and down his back, and knew to the depths of his soul that this was an extremely unusual baby. “Child,” he breathed, “would that I could stay and watch thine every movement!”

 “Thou mayest not,” Puck said crisply.

 Father Al turned to the elf. “Nay, more’s the pity; for my business is with the father, not the child. Tell me the manner of his disappearance.”

 Puck frowned, like a general debating whether or not to release classified information; then he shrugged. “ ‘Tis little enough to tell. Geoffrey—the third bairn—disappeared whilst at play. They called the High Warlock back from council with the King and Abbot, and he drew from his eldest son the place exact where the child had vanished, then stepped there himself—and promptly ceased to be. His wife and other bairns ran after him, dismayed, and, like him, disappeared.”

 Father Al stared at the elf, while his mind raced through a dozen possible explanations. It could’ve been enchantment, of course, but Father Al wasn’t quite willing to surrender rationality that completely just yet. A space-warp or time-warp? Unlikely, on a planet’s surface—but who could say it was impossible?

 Then he remembered Yorick, and his claim to be a time-traveller. It could be, it could be…

 He cleared his throat. “I think that I must see this place.”

 “And follow them?” Puck shook his head with a sour smile. “I think that five lost are enough, good friar.”

 Father Al hadn’t really thought that far ahead, but now that Puck mentioned it, he felt a creeping certainty. “Nay, I think that thou has said it,” he said slowly, “for where’er thy High Warlock has gone, it could be just such a journey that could wake in him the Power that he knows not of. And I must be there, to guide him in its use!”

 “Art thou so schooled in witchcraft, priest?” Puck fairly oozed sarcasm.

 “Not in witchcraft, but in the ways of various magics.” Father Al frowned. “For, look you, elf, ‘tis been my life’s study, to learn to know when a mortal is possessed of a demon and when he’s not; and to prove how things that seem to be the work of witchcraft, are done by other means. Yet in this study, I’ve of necessity learned much of every form of magic known to mortals. Never have I ever thought realmagic could exist; yet that letter that I told thee of warned us that Rod Gallowglass would gain real magic power. Still do I think his strength will prove to be of origins natural, but rare; yet even so, he’ll need one to show him its true nature, and to lead him past the temptations toward evil that great power always brings.”

 “I scarcely think Rod Gallowglass needs one to teach him goodness—an should he, I doubt me not his wife is equal to the task.” But doubt shadowed Puck’s eyes. “Yet I’ll bring thee to the place. Thence, ‘tis thy concern.”

 The witch-girl stayed behind, to help with the baby if she could. Puck led Father Al down a woodland path—and the priest kept an eye on the direction of the sun, whenever it poked through the leaves, to make sure he was being led in a definite direction. Finally, they came out into a meadow. A hundred meters away, a pond riffled under a light breeze, bordered by a few trees. A huge black horse lifted its head, staring at them; then it came trotting from the pool.

 “ ‘Tis the High Warlock’s charger, Fess,” Puck explained. “An thou dost wish to follow after his master, thou first must deal with him.” And, as the horse came up to them: “Hail, good Fess! I present to thee a goodly monk, whose interest in thy master doth to me seem honest. Tell him who thou art, good friar.”

 Well! Father Al had heard that elves had an affinity for dumb animals—but this was going a bit far! Nonetheless, Puck seemed sincere, and Father Al hated to hurt his feelings… “I am Father Aloysius Uwell, of the Order of St. Vidicon of Cathode…” Was it his imagination, or did the horse prick up its ears at the mention of the good Saint’s name? Well, St. Vidicon had influence in a lot of odd places. “I am hither come to aid thy master, for I’ve been vouchsafed word that he might find himself in peril, whether he did know of it or not.”

 The horse had a very intent look about him. Father Al must’ve been imagining it. He turned to Puck. “Canst thou show me where the High Warlock did vanish?”

 “Yon,” Puck said, pointing and stepping around Fess toward the pond. “Indeed, we’ve marked the place.”

 Father Al followed him.

 The great black horse sidestepped, blocking their path.

 “ ‘Tis as I feared,” Puck sighed. “He’ll let no one near the spot.”

 Suddenly, Father Al was absolutely certain that he hadto follow Rod Gallowglass. “Come now! Certes no horse, no matter how worthy, can prevent…” He dodged to the side, breaking into a run.

 The horse reared up, pivoted about, and came down, its forefeet thudding to earth just in front of the priest.

 Puck chuckled.

 Father Al frowned. “Nay, good beast. Dost not know what’s in thy master’s interest?” He backed up, remembering his college gymnastics.

 Fess watched him warily.

 Father Al leaped into a run, straight at the great black horse. He leaped high, grasping the front and back of the saddle, and swung his legs up in a side vault.

 Fess danced around in a half-circle.

 Father Al hit the ground running—and found himself heading straight for Puck. The elf burst into a guffaw.

 Father Al halted and turned around, glowering at Fess. “A most unusual horse, good Puck.”

 “What wouldst thou expect, of the High Warlock’s mount?”

 “Apparently somewhat less than he doth expect of me.” Father Al hitched up his rope belt. “But I know better now.” He set himself, watching Fess with narrowed eyes; then he raced straight at the horse, and veered to the left at the last second. Fess danced to the left, too, but Father Al was already zagging to the right. Fess reversed engines with amazing speed, getting his midsection solidly in front of the priest—and Father Al ducked under his belly.

 Fess sat down.

 Puck roared with laughter.

 Father Al came reeling out of the fray, staggering like a drunk. “I think… a change of tactics… might be in order.”

 “So I think, too.” Puck grinned, arms akimbo. “Therefore, try sweet reason, priest.”

 Father Al frowned down at him, remembering Puck’s legendary fondness for helping mortals make fools of themselves. Then he shrugged and turned back to Fess. “Why not? The situation’s so ridiculous, why should a little more matter?” He stepped up to the beast. “Now, look thou, Fess—thy master’s sore endangered. It may be that I may aid him.”

 Fess shook his head.

 Father Al stared. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought the horse had understood him.

 Then he frowned—just a coincidence, no doubt. “We had a letter. It was writ a thousand years agone, by a man long dead, who foretold us that, in this time and place, one Rod Gallowglass would wake to greater power of magic than mortals ever knew.”

 The horse moved to the side, tossing its head as though it was beckoning.

 Father Al stared. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, gave his head a quick shake; but when he looked again, the horse was still beckoning. He shrugged, and followed, ignoring Puck’s chortle.

 Fess was standing by a patch of bare dirt, scratching at it with a hoof. Father Al watched the hoof, then felt a shiver run through him as he saw what the horse had drawn. There in the dirt, in neat block letters, lay the word “WHO?”

 Father Al looked up at the horse, facts adding themselves up in his head. “The High Warlock’s horse—and you came with him, from off-planet, didn’t you?”

 The horse stared at him. Why? Oh. He’d said, “off-planet.” Which marked him. “Yes, I’m from off-planet, too—from theVatican , on Terra. And you…” Suddenly, the priest shot a punch at the horse’s chest.

 It went “bongggggg.”

 Father Al went, “Yowtch!” and nursed bruised knuckles.

 Puck went into hysterics, rolling on the ground.

 Father Al nodded. “Very convincing artificial horsehide, over a metal body. And you’ve a computer for a brain, haven’t you?” He stared at the horse.

 Slowly, Fess nodded.

 “Well.” Father Al stood straight, fists on his hips. “Nice to know the background, isn’t it? Now let me give you the full story.”

 He did, in modern English. Fess’s head snapped up at the name of Angus McAran; apparently he’d had some contact with the head time-spider before. Encouraged, Father Al kept the synopsis going through his meeting with Yorick, at mention of whose name, Fess gave a loud snort. Well, that had sort of been Father Al’s reaction, too.

 “So if McAran’s right,” Father Al wound up, “something’s going to happen to Rod Gallowglass, wherever he’s gone, that’s going to waken some great Power that’s been lying dormant in him all along. Whatever the nature of that power, it might tempt him toward evil—without his even realizing it. After all, some things that seem right at the moment—such as revenge—can really lead one, bit by bit, into spiritual corruption, and great evil.”

 The horse tossed its head, and began to scratch with its hoof. Father Al watched, holding his breath, and saw the words appear: POWER CORRUPTS. He felt relief tremble through him; he was getting through! “Yes, exactly. So you see, it might be to his advantage to have a clergyman handy. But more than a clergyman—I’m also an anthropologist, and my life’s study has been magic.”

 Fess’s head came up sharply.

 Father Al nodded. “Yes. I suppose you might call me a theoretical magician; I can’t work a single spell myself, but I know quite a bit about how a man with magical Power might do so. There’s a good chance I might be able to help him figure out how to use his new Power to bring himself and his family back here!”

 But Fess lowered his head and scratched in the dirt again: AND A GREATER CHANCE THAT YOU, TOO, WOULD BE LOST.

 Father Al thrust out his chin. “That is my concern. I know the risk, and I take it willingly. It’s worth it, if I can help this poor fellow and his family—and possibly avert a spiritual catastrophe. Have you considered the possible heresies that might arise, if a man should suddenly seem to have realmagical powers?”

 The horse’s eyes seemed to lose focus for a few seconds, and Father Al was impressed; not many computers would have any theology on storage in their memory banks. Then Fess’s eyes came back into focus again, and Father Al said quickly, “So I have some vested interest in trying to help your master, you see. Properly instructed, he couldbe a mighty asset to the Church on this planet. But left to himself, he might fall into the temptations that power brings, find a way to return here from wherever he’s gone, and become the leader of a heresy that could rock the Terran Sphere. We dare not leave him there.”

 The horse lowered his head again, scratching with his hoof: HIS SAFE RETURN IS ALL.

 Father Al frowned, puzzling it out, wishing the robot had been equipped with speech. Then he nodded, understanding. “I see. It makes no difference to you if he comes back a heretic or a saint, as long as he comes back. But don’t you see, with my knowledge of the workings of magic to aid him, his chances of returning are increased? Muchincreased, if you’ll pardon my boasting.”

 The synthetic eyes stared intently into Father Al’s, for a few minutes that seemed to stretch out into aeons. Then, finally, the great horse nodded, and turned away, beckoning.

 “I scarce can credit it!” Puck cried. “Thou hast persuaded him!”

 Father Al breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I scarcely can believe it, either. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever made any headway with a computer.” He sent up a quick, silent prayer of thanks to St. Vidicon, and followed Fess.

 The black horse stopped, and looked back expectantly. Father Al trotted to catch up, and came to a halt to see a line of stones laid in the grass—the threshold of a Gate to—where?

 The great black horse stood to the side, waiting.

 Father Al looked up at him, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. “Wish me luck, then. You may be the last rational being I see for a long, long time.” And, without giving himself a chance to think about it, he stepped forward. Nothing happened, so he took another step—and another, and another…

 … and suddenly realized that the trees had silver trunks.

 CHAPTER FIFTEEN