The Warlock Insane Read online

  The Warlock Insane

  by Christopher Stasheff

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter One

  "Yeah, but you don't have to shovel it!"

  "Oh, come, husband." Gwen tightened her grip on his arm, mouth pursed in amusement. " Tis beautiful by moonlight, naetheless. And thou hast no need to clear it by main force, in any event."

  Rod smiled, watching the kids frolic up ahead, carefully avoiding the well-cleared road and slogging through the snowbanks, where they could get nice and wet. Geoffrey had started a snowball fight, and Magnus was retaliating with enthusiasm.

  "Gregory's trying, anyway."

  "He is merely distracted by watching the snowballs' trajectories, Rod, instead of their targets." The voice of the great black horse behind him sounded through the earphone implanted in his mastoid process. "He is a son to be proud of."

  "Yes. He certainly is, Fess—he certainly is." Rod smiled down into Gwen's eyes, and she radiated back up at him. "They all are—each in his own way." He looked up with a sparkle of mischief in his eye. "Or hers."

  Cordelia was standing by, watching her brothers with her nose in the air, pretending to be above such things— while she packed a snowball behind her back, waiting for a clear target.

  The moonlight was lovely, throwing the shadow of the castle's turrets before them, glinting off the piled snow to either side of the hilly road, and frosting the village below. Not that Rod could admit that, when he was in the middle of a perfectly good banter with his wife. "But as to the shoveling—you're the one who's always saying we shouldn't use magic for daily tasks."

  "Indeed we should not," Gwen said with prim rectitude. "Yet thou hast stalwart lads for the task, and thy lass…"

  "Swings a mean broom, yeah. Okay, you win—I have to admit I like it. Of course, I'm still suffused with the glow, of Twelfth Night. Tuan and Catharine throw a great party!"

  "They are a most excellent host and hostess, aye—the more so on a feast day."

  "Feast day is right! Talk about a royal banquet. You nearly had to roll me home." Rod smiled with nostalgic fondness, remembering the goose—and the ham, and the sausages, and the trifle… "Sorry there wasn't anything for you, Fess."

  "On the contrary, Rod, there was a plenitude of oats and hay—and I had to pretend to eat, to avoid making the grooms suspicious. Still, there was ample interest in observing the infinite variation in their customs."

  Rod frowned. "I would have thought you knew every habit of every groom in Gramarye by now."

  "Knowing is one thing. Understanding is quite another."

  "Oh." Rod pushed his tongue into his cheek. "Learn anything new?"

  "There were some fascinating variations on courting rituals…"

  Rod grinned. "That's right, it was a holiday for them, too, wasn't it? Of course, the banquet was over four hours ago." He frowned at the thought. "Y'know, I could've sworn I'd never have an appetite again."

  Gregory came charging up, eyes and cheeks aglow. "Papa, Papa! A beldame doth linger by the roadside yon, hawking hot chestnuts! May we?"

  "Oh, please!" Cordelia pleaded, appearing just behind him.

  "I was talking about being a mite peckish, wasn't I?" Rod fished in his purse and pulled out a copper. "Okay, kids— but save a few for us, will you?"

  "Thou shalt have the half of them!" Gregory snatched the coin and shot off, Cordelia hot on his heels.

  "Glad we could do something." Rod could see the old lady now, shivering by the roadside in her shawl, popping chestnuts into Cordelia's kerchief.

  "Aye." Gwen snuggled closer. " 'Tis beastly to have to stand in the chill."

  "Tuan and Catharine have brought prosperity to the land," Fess observed, "but they have not succeeded in eliminating poverty."

  "No one else ever has, either—all they do is redefine it. But at least she has a brazier—and I must say her wares are in the proper holiday spirit…"

  "Thine!" Gregory popped up in front of them again, looking like a chipmunk. Behind him, his brothers and sister were cracking shells and gobbling goodies with more verve than neatness.

  "Gee, thanks." But Rod was talking to air; his youngest was already en route back to his siblings. He sighed. "Well, left holding the bag, as usual. Care for one, dear?"

  "I thank thee." Gwen accepted the chestnut, broke the shell the rest of the way, and nibbled at the meat.

  Rod popped the whole kernel in his mouth and chewed.

  His eyes widened. "My heavens! I didn't know chestnuts could taste so good!"

  "They do, in truth." Gwen's eyes lost focus. "There are spices added to this. Let me see—there's rosemary, that's for remembrance…"

  "Odd combination—but very good, I have to admit." Rod swallowed and took the last chestnut. "Share?"

  "Aye." Gwen dimpled. "Three for us—and how many for them?"

  "Half a dozen each, at a guess. Maybe we should buy some more." Rod looked up, just in time to see the old lady kicking snow onto her fire and turning away down the hill, pot in hand. "No, I guess we got the last of them."

  "She had good custom, I doubt not, with all the folk of the village coming home from the castle."

  Rod nodded. "Plenty of apprentices, and a ha'penny each adds up. Glad we happened by before she folded—it lent the perfect touch to a wonderful day."

  Cordelia came up to them. She glanced back at the old peasant woman's retreating back, troubled. "What emptiness is that in her eyes, Mama?"

  "Ah." Gwen exchanged a look with Rod. " 'Tis only that she is very simple, child."

  "Simple?" Cordelia frowned. "Like to Their Majesties' fool?"

  "Oh, no!" Rod looked up, shaking his head. "That jester is a very intelligent man, dear, with a quick wit and a sense of humor that borders on genius."

  "Then why," said Magnus, "do they call him a fool?"

  "Because some of the things he says and does are very foolish."

  "Which is to say, they are things done by a fool," Gregory protested. "What sense is there in that, Papa?"

  "A rather unpleasant sense, I'm afraid," Rod answered, and Gwen said gently, "Long ago, lords did take the simpleminded and keep them by, to laugh at their clumsiness and mistakes of judgement, which did amuse their masters greatly."

  "How cruel!" Cordelia exclaimed indignantly, and all three of her brothers nodded in agreement. Rod felt a glow of pride in them as he replied, "It was cruel—and I'm afraid it wasn't exclusive to kings and queens. Most people have laughed at the mentally retarded, down through the ages."

  "E'en today, in a small village, thou wilt find many who do make mock of the village idiot," Gwen said softly. " Tis vile, but 'tis done."

  "So maybe it's just as well that smart people who had a gift for comedy convinced the lords that they were more foolish than the fools," Rod concluded.

  "Aye," Geoffrey said through his scowl. "At the least, they do it willingly."

  "Yet I did hear some ladies discuss him as a 'madcap,' " Gregory said. "Do they not mean that he is maddened, in his head?"

  Rod smiled, a glint in his eye. "Very good, son! Maybe that's where the term came from. But even if that was its original me
aning, it's not now—today it means that the man behaves insanely." Then he frowned. "Wait a minute…"

  "That he doth do and say things that make no sense," Gwen explained.

  "Then one who is 'insane' is senseless?" Cordelia asked.

  "Nay!" Geoffrey said. "He who is senseless hath been knocked unconscious."

  "Yea and nay," Gwen said, smiling. "The term doth mean one who doth sleep so unwillingly, aye—yet it also doth speak of one who hath lost all judgement."

  "Or whose judgement has become so distorted that he has become completely unpredictable," Rod added. "He's as likely to hit you as to hail you."

  "Ah!" cried Gregory. "Then that is madness!"

  "Well, yes, I suppose it would be," Rod said slowly, "in the way that Count Orlando was mad."

  Magnus frowned. "I have not met him."

  "No, nor are likely to, son," Rod said, amused. "Roland—or Orlando, as they called him in Italy—was nephew to Charlemagne…"

  "The Emperor of the Franks?" Geoffrey looked up, round-eyed. "He is history, not myth!"

  "Why yes, he is." Rod looked up at Fess with renewed respect; any tutor who could interest Geoffrey in history verged on being a magician. Of course, Charlemagne was military history… "But myths grow up around people who change the world, and Charlemagne did. Still, there's only so much you can say about a king, because he has to spend most of his time governing, which may be exciting in its own right, but is only occasionally dramatic—so the tale-tellers usually find somebody near him to build their stories around, and in Charlemagne's case, that person was his nephew."

  "He did really live, then?"

  "We think so," Fess said, "though he certainly did none of the supernatural feats attributed to him. He was an excellent focus for myth, however, and figures largely and luridly in a fairy-haunted world that never existed."

  "And he went mad?"

  "For a time," Rod said, "because he fell in love with a lady who didn't want anything to do with him—and when he found out she had married somebody else, he went into a nonstop rage, tearing up forests and slaughtering peasants, not to mention the occasional knight or two."

  "Are the mad truly so?" Gregory asked, wide-eyed.

  "Not 'mad,' Gregory—'mentally ill,' " Fess corrected, "and there are many kinds and degrees of mental illness. But one or two varieties do sometimes result in people going on rampages, beating and slaying numbers of people, yes."

  "Not quite on the scale that Orlando did, though," Rod said quickly. "In fact, I think his 'madness' was more probably a magnified version of someone suffering from rabies."

  "Oh! I have heard of that!" Cordelia shuddered. "Such poor souls do become like beasts, bereft of reason and seeking to bite and beat any who may cross their path!"

  "Unfortunate, but true," Fess agreed, "and they are referred to as being 'mad.' "

  "But they are not, Fess! Tis only a sickness in the body, brought by a germ in the bite of a dog or rat!"

  "True enough," Rod agreed, "but one of the symptoms is that the victim stops thinking, and turns homicidal."

  "There are many forms of mental illness that have physical causes, children," Fess said quietly, "even so slight a cause as an upset in the balance of the chemicals in people's bodies."

  "Now wait, wait!" Geoffrey held up a hand, squeezing his eyes shut. "Thou dost confuse me! Thou dost say that simple folk are fools, but fools are men of wit?"

  "It is a problem in the language," Fess admitted, "brought by people using a word that describes one condition, and applying it to another. Let us say that a fool is a person of poor judgement, Geoffrey."

  Geoffrey looked doubtful, and Cordelia said, with hesitation, "That doth aid me somewhat in understanding…"

  "I think it might cut through some of the confusion if you tell them the story," Rod suggested.

  "A story?"

  "Tell it!"

  "Aye, tell, Fess! Matters are always made more clear by a tale!"

  "Not if it has any true literary value," the robot hedged,

  "but a fable generally does clarify matters, since fables are teaching stories."

  "Then tell us a fable!"

  "More pointedly," Rod said, "the fable of the Wise Man, the Jester, the Fool, the Simpleton, and the Madman."

  "Aye, tell!" And they all stopped in the road and gathered around the great iron steed.

  "As you will," Fess sighed. "The Wise Man said, 'Gentlemen, the world will end tomorrow, if you do not save it.'

  "The madman smiled with delight.

  " '//"we do not save it?' said the fool. 'Will you not share the risk?"'

  "Why, he was a fool in truth," Geoffrey snorted, "if he would cavil o'er fairness at a time of peril!"

  "Thou hast been known to cavil so," Cordelia pointed out.

  "Yet surely not when danger did threaten!"

  "Perhaps not when it is imminent," Fess temporized. "Then you understand that the threat is more important than your pride—as the Wise Man satisfied the Fool by saying, 7 will go with you, to show you where to dig.'

  "Then the fool felt shamed, and said, 'Do you really mean what you say?'

  " 7 really do,' the Wise Man answered.

  "The Simpleton's brow furrowed with the effort of his thought. 'How can so great a thing as the world, be destroyed?'

  " 'There are tremendous fires within the earth,' the Wise Man answered. 'They burn too quickly; if we do not let them out, their smoke will burst the world.'

  "The Simpleton stared. 'But how can there be anything within the earth? It is only dirt underfoot.'

  " 7f may seem so,' said the Wise Man, 'but it is truly a great ball, so vast that we are mere specks upon it—and it is hollow, with fires within.'

  "But the Simpleton only shook his head in bafflement, for he could not comprehend the notion.

  " 'How then shall we save the world?' asked the fool.

  " 'We must dig a great hole,' said the Wise Man, 'so that the fires may have a chimney.'

  " 'Why, that is too much work!' said the fool."

  "Too much work, and too great a folly," Geoffrey cried. "Did he not know he would breed a volcano?"

  "He did, and so did the jester, for he said, 'Nay, Uncle—it is not the world that will be destroyed then, but us. It is bad enough to be smoked meat, but it is worse to be fried.' "

  "There is some wit in that," Gregory said judiciously, "but there is most excellent sense, too."

  "Nay, there is cowardice!"

  "Well, there was sensible caution, at least," Fess said, "but the Wise Man answered, 'If a few do not risk being burned to cinders, all will be blown to bits,' and the Jester shivered and said, 'Alas the day, that I am one of the few who are made to see the need of it! But I shall go, then, for it is better to burn than to tarry.' ''

  Gwen gave Fess a glare, and Rod murmured, "That's truly apauling."

  Fess quickly went on. "Then they all took their shovels and followed the Wise Man to an empty field, and began to dig where he showed them; but the madman only leaned on his shovel and watched them."

  "Is that all?" Magnus protested. "There is no madness in that, but laziness and blindness, and lack of concern!"

  "Aye," Cordelia agreed. "When did he aught that was mad, Fess?"

  "When the others went to dinner, Cordelia—for then he filled in the hole."

  The children stared at him, shocked, while Gwen eyed Fess uncertainly, and Rod covered a smile.

  "Was the world destroyed, then?" Gregory burst out.

  "Nay, surely not," Geoffrey said, "for we stand on it now!"

  "This was only a fable, children, and it stood on nothing but imagination," Fess reminded them. "But the world of the story was destroyed, yes."

  "Why," Magnus gasped, "he was mad!" Then he stared, surprised by his own words.

  "Why, indeed he was," Cordelia said slowly. "So that is madness!"

  "But of only one kind." Gregory turned to Fess. "And thou hast said there are many, and of differing degre
es."

  "I have," Fess agreed, "but they all have this in common: that people who are mentally ill do things without reason—or at least, no reason that healthy minds can see."

  Rod nodded. "So don't worry about it, children—and do try to help the simpleton and the madman when you can."

  "What of the fool, Papa?"

  Rod stirred uncomfortably. "I don't know if you can help a fool, children, except to save him from total disaster. But remember, it won't help any of them to go around looking gloomy."

  Magnus grinned. "Aye, Papa. Let us help them when we can—but when we cannot, let us take what joy we may."

  "Well said." Rod smiled. "And just now, it's the end of a perfect day."

  "Aye." Gwen rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, then looked up at him, smiling. He returned the smile, gazing deeply into her eyes, hoping that she was really giving the promise he read there.

  "You two really should be careful of your footing," Fess observed.

  "Okay, I get the message. We'll watch where we're going." Rod turned back to the road with a happy sigh. "I can't complain, though. It's a perfect winter's night— clear as a bell, with the stars at their brightest."

  "Aye, and the greater moon nearly full."

  "Yeah." Rod looked up at the silver circle through the twigs of the branch above him. "Funny how every decent-sized moon always has markings that look like a face."

  "Like a face?" Gregory piped up. Rod looked down at his youngest. "Thou hast told us some did see the whole of the man there!"

  "Aye, and with a dog at his heels!" Cordelia was still in the habit of behaving like little brother's shadow, just in case.

  "And a lantern, too!" Geoffrey wasn't about to be left out—and, suddenly, Gwen was surrounded with her whole brood again, as dapper young Magnus came sauntering back, smoothing his first moustache with a fingertip. (Rod had sworn he wouldn't teach him to shave until there was enough to make the effort worthwhile.)

  "The man with the dog and lantern was a medieval European interpretation, children," Fess explained.

  "Back on old Terra, kids, humanity's birthplace." Rod smiled down at Gwen. "We did manage to find time to take a look at it, when we were there."

  "Tell us again how thou wert on that first Moon of Men," Geoffrey demanded.