The Warlock Enraged wisoh-5 Read online

  The Warlock Enraged

  ( Warlock in Spite of Himself - 5 )

  Christopher Stasheff

  Cristopher Stasheff

  The Warlock Enraged

  Warlock in Spite of Himself - 5

  1

  For some time now, I’ve been getting worried about the steadily increasing number of hopeful historians on this Isle of Gramarye. There weren’t any when I came here—none that I was aware of, anyway. Then Brother Chillde started keeping his chronicles, and, first thing I knew, there were five more just like him. Not that this is all bad, of course—Gramarye’ll be much better off if it has an accurate record of its history. What bothers me is that each one of these young Thucydideses is conveniently forgetting all the events that make his own side look bad, and definitely overdoing it more than a bit, about the happenings that make his side look good. I’m mostly thinking of the Church here, of course, but not exclusively—for example, I know of one young warlock who’s taken to keeping a diary, and a country lord’s younger son who’s piling up an impressive number of journals. So, in an effort to set the record straight, I’m going to set down my version of what happened. Not that it’ll be any more objective, of course; it’ll at least be biased in a diff-

  “Tis my place, Delia!”

  “Nay, Geoffrey, thou knowest ‘tis not! This end of the shelf is mine, for the keeping of my dolls!”

  “Tis not! I’ve kept my castle there these several weeks!”

  Rod threw down his quill in exasperation. After three weeks of trying, he’d finally managed to get started on his history of Gramarye—and the kids had to choose this moment to break into a quarrel! He glared down at the page…

  And saw the huge blot the quill had made.

  Exasperation boiled up into anger, and he surged out of his chair. “Delia! Geoff! Of all the idiotic things to be arguing about! Gwen, can’t you…”

  “Nay, I cannot!” cried a harried voice from the kitchen. “Else thou’lt have naught but char for thy… Oh!” Something struck with a jangling clatter, and Rod’s wife fairly shrieked in frustration. “Magnus! How oft must I forbid thee the kitchen whiles I do cook!”

  “Children!” Rod shouted, stamping into the playroom. “Why’d I ever have ‘em?”

  “Di’nit, Papa.” Three-year-old Gregory peeked over the top of an armchair. “Mama did.”

  “Yeah, sure, and I was just an innocent bystander. Geoffrey! Cordelia! Stop it!”

  He waded into a litter of half-formed clay sculptures, toys, and pieces of bark twisted together with twigs and bits of straw that served some fathomless and probably heathen purpose known only to those below the age of thirteen. “What a mess!” It was like that every day, of course. “Do you realize this room was absolutely spotless when you woke up this morning?”

  The children looked up, startled, and Cordelia objected, “But that was four hours ago, Papa.”

  “Yeah, and you must’ve really worked hard to make a mess like this in so short a time as that!” Rod stepped down hard—into a puddle of ocher paint. His foot skidded out from under him; he hung suspended for a split second, arms thrashing like the wings of a dodo trying to fly; then his back slammed down to the floor, paralyzing his diaphragm. For an instant of panic, he fought for breath, while Cordelia and Geoffrey huddled back against the wall in fright.

  Then Rod’s breath hissed in and bounced back out in a howl of rage. “You little pigs! Can’t you even clean up after yourselves!”

  The children shrank back, wide-eyed.

  Rod struggled to his feet, red-faced. “Throwing garbage on the floor, fighting over a stupid piece of shelf space—and to top it off, you had the gall to talk back!”

  “We didn’t… We…”

  “You just did it again!” Rod levelled an accusing forefinger. “Whatever you do, don’t contradict me! If I say you did it, you did it! And don’t you dare try to say you didn’t!”

  He towered over them, a mountain of wrath. “Naughty, stupid, asinine brats!”

  The children hugged each other, eyes huge and frightened.

  Rod’s hand swept up for a backhanded slap.

  With a crack like a pistol shot, big brother Magnus appeared in front of Cordelia and Geoffrey, arms outspread to cover them. “Papa! They didn’t mean to! They…”

  “Don’t try to tell me what they were doing!” Rod shouted.

  The eleven-year-old flinched, but stood up resolutely against his father’s rage—and that made it worse.

  “How dare you defy me! You insolent little…”

  “Rod!” Gwen darted into the room, wiping her hands on her apron. “What dost thou?”

  Rod whirled, forefinger stabbing at her. “Don’t you even try to speak in their defense! If you’d just make your children toe the line, this wouldn’t happen! But, oh no, you’ve got to let them do whatever they want, and just scold them, and that’s only when their behavior’s really atrocious!”

  Gwen’s head snapped back, stung. “Assuredly, thou’rt scarce mindful of what thou sayest! ‘Tis ever thou who dost plead leniency, when I do wish to punish…”

  “Sure, when!” Rod glared, striding toward her. “But for the thousand and one things they do that deserve spanking, and you let them off with a scold? Use your head, woman—if you can!” His gaze swept her from head to toe, and his lip lifted in a sneer.

  Gwen’s eyes flared anger. “Ware, husband! Even to thine anger, there doth be a boundary!”

  “Boundaries! Limits! That’s all you ever talk about!” Rod shouted. “ ‘Do this! Do that! You can’t do this! You can’t do that!’ Marriage is just one big set of limits! Will you ever…”

  “Peace!” Magnus darted between them, holding out a palm toward each. “I prithee!” His face was white; he was trembling. “Mother! Father! I beg thee!”

  Rod snarled, swinging his hand up again.

  Magnus stiffened; his jaw set.

  Rod swung, with his full weight behind it…

  … And shot through the air, slamming back against the wall.

  He rolled to his feet and stood up slowly, face drained of color, rigid and trembling. “I told you never to use your ‘witch powers’ on me,” he grated, “and I told you why!” He straightened to his full height, feeling the rage swell within him.

  Geoffrey and Cordelia scurried to hide behind Gwen’s skirts. She gathered Magnus to her, but he kept his face toward his father, terror in his eyes, trembling, but determined to protect.

  Rod stared at them, all united against him, ready to pick him up with their magic and hurl him into his grave. His eyes narrowed, pinning them with his glare; then his eyes lost focus as he reached down inside himself—deep down, reaching across an abyss—to the psi powers that had lain so long dormant, but which had been awakened by the projective telepathy of Lord Kern, in another universe, one in which magic worked. His powers weren’t as readily accessible as his family’s; he couldn’t work magic just by willing it, as easily as thinking, but once he’d drawn them up, his were at least as great as theirs. He called those powers up now, feeling their strength build within him.

  “Mother,” came Magnus’s voice, across a huge void, “we must…”

  “Nay!” Gwen said fiercely. “He is thy father, whom thou dost love—when this fit’s not on him.”

  What did that mean! The powers paused in their building…

  A smaller figure entered his blurred field of vision, to the side and a little in front of the family group, gazing up at him, head tilted to the side—three-year-old Gregory. “Daddy is’n’ there,” he stated.

  That hit Rod like a bucketful of cold water; the complete, calm, sanity of the child’s tone—so open, so reasonabl
e—and the totally alien quality of the words. His eyes focused in a stare at his youngest son, and fear hollowed his vitals—fear, and a different anger under it; anger at the futurians who had kidnapped him and the rest of his family away from this child while Gregory was still a baby. The desertion, Rod feared, had totally warped the boy’s personality, making him quiet, indrawn, brooding, and sometimes, even weird. His gaze welded to Gregory’s face, his fear for Gregory burying his anger at the rest of the family; it ebbed, and was gone.

  “Who’s not there?” he whispered.

  “Lord Kern,” Gregory answered, “that Daddy like thee, in that Faerie Gramarye thou’st talk of.”

  Rod stared at him.

  Then he stepped closer to the boy. Magnus took a step toward Gregory, too, but Rod waved him away impatiently. He dropped to one knee, staring into the three-year-old’s eyes. “No… no, Lord Kern isn’t anywhere—except, maybe, in his own universe, that Faerie Gramarye. But why should you think he was?”

  Gregory cocked his head to the other side. “But didst thou not, but now, reach out to touch his mind with thine own, to draw upon his powers?”

  Rod just gazed at the boy, his face blank.

  “Gregory!” Gwen cried in anguish, and she took a step toward him, then drew back for Rod still knelt staring at the child, his face blank.

  Then he looked up at Gwen, with an irritated frown. “What am I—a bear? Or a wolf?” He raked the children with his glare. “Some kind of wild animal?”

  They stared back at him, eyes huge, huddled together.

  His face emptied again. “You think I am. You really think I am, don’t you?”

  They stared back, wordlessly, eyes locked on him.

  He held still, rigid.

  Then he swung up to his feet, turning on his heel, and strode to the door.

  Cordelia darted after him, but Gwen reached out and caught her arm.

  Rod paced out into the bleakness of a day veiled by clouds. A chill wind struck at him, but he didn’t notice.

  Rod finally came to a halt at the top of a hill, a mile from home. He stood, staring down at the broad plain below, not really seeing it. Finally, he sank down to sit on the dry grass. His thoughts had slowed in their turmoil as he walked; now, gradually, they sank away, leaving a blank in his mind. Into that, a niggling doubt crept. Softly, he asked, “What happened, Fess?”

  The robot-horse answered, though he was a mile away in the stable. Rod heard him through the earphone embedded in his mastoid process, behind his ear. “You lost your temper, Rod.”

  Rod’s mouth twitched with impatience. The robot’s horse body might be a distance away in the stable, but the old family retainer could see into him as well as if they were only a foot apart. “Yes, I do realize that much.” The microphone embedded in his maxillary, just above the teeth, picked up his words and transmitted them to Fess. “But it was more than simple anger, wasn’t it?”

  “It was rage,” Fess agreed. “Full, thorough, open wrath, without any restraints or inhibitions.”

  After a moment, Rod asked, “What would have happened if my family hadn’t been able to defend themselves so well?”

  Fess was silent. Then he said, slowly, “I would hope that your inborn gentleness and sense of honor would have protected them adequately, Rod.”

  “Yes,” Rod muttered. “I would hope so, too.”

  And he sat, alone in his guilt and self-contempt, in silence. Even the wind passed him by.

  Quite some while later, cloth rustled beside him. He gave no sign of having heard, but his body tensed. He waited, but only silence filled the spaces of the minutes.

  Finally, Rod spoke. “I did it again.”

  “Thou didst,” Gwen answered gently. Her voice didn’t blame—but it didn’t console, either.

  Something stirred within Rod. It might have risen as anger, but that was burned out of him, now. “Been doing that a lot lately, haven’t I?”

  Gwen was silent a moment. Then she said, “A score of times, mayhap, in the last twelvemonth.”

  Rod nodded, “And a dozen times last year, and half-a-dozen the year before—and two of those were at the Abbott, when he tried his schism.”

  “And a third with the monster which rose from the fens…”

  Rod shrugged irritably. “Don’t make excuses for me. It still comes down to my losing my temper with you and the kids, more than with anyone else—and for the last three months, I’ve been blowing up about every two weeks, haven’t I?”

  Gwen hesitated. Then she answered, “None so badly as this, my lord.”

  “No, it never has been quite as bad as this, has it? But every time, it gets a little worse.”

  Her answer was very low. “Thou hast offered hurt to us aforetime…”

  “Yes, but I’ve never actually tried it have I?” Rod shuddered at the memory and buried his head in his hands. “First, I just threw things. Then I started throwing them without using my hands. Today, I would’ve thrown Magnus—if Gregory hadn’t interrupted in time.” He looked up at her, scowling. “Where in Heaven’s name did you get that boy, anyway?”

  That brought a hint of smile. “I did think we had, mayhap, borne him back from Tir Chlis, my lord.”

  “Ah, yes!” Rod stared out over the plain again. “Tir Chlis, that wonderful, magical land of faeries and sorcerers, and—Lord Kern.”

  “Even so,” Gwen said softly.

  “My other self,” Rod said bitterly, “my analog in an alternate universe—with magical powers unparalleled, and a temper to match.”

  “Thou wert alike in many ways,” Gwen agreed, “but temper was not among them.”

  “No, and witch powers weren’t either—but I learned how to ‘borrow’ his wizardry, and it unlocked my own powers, powers that I’d been hiding from myself.”

  “When thou didst let his rage fill thee,” Gwen reminded gently.

  “Which seems to have also unlocked my own capacity for wrath; it wiped out the inhibitions I’d built up against it.”

  “Still—there were other inhibitions that thou didst learn to lay aside, also.” Gwen touched his hand, hesitantly.

  Rod didn’t respond. “Was it worth it? Okay, so I had been psionically invisible; nobody could read my mind. Wasn’t that better than this rage?”

  “I could almost say the sharing of our minds was worth the price of thy bouts of fury,” Gwen said slowly, “save that…”

  Rod waited.

  “Thy thoughts grow dim again, my lord.”

  Rod only sat, head bowed.

  Then he looked up. “I’m beginning to hide myself away from you again?”

  “Hast thou not felt it?”

  He stared into her eyes; then he nodded. “Is that any surprise? When I can’t trust myself not to explode into wrath? When I’m beginning to feel as though I’m some sort of subhuman beast? Sheer shame, woman!”

  “Thou art worthy of me, my lord.” Her voice was soft, but firm, and so was her hand. “Thou art worthy of me, and of thy children. I’ truth, we are fortunate to have thee.” Her voice shook. “Oh, we are blessed!”

  “Thanks.” He gave her hand a pat. “It’s good to hear… Now convince me.”

  “Nay,” she murmured, “that I cannot do, an thou’lt not credit what I say.”

  “Or even what you do.” Rod bowed his head, and his hand tightened on hers. “Be patient, dear. Be patient.”

  And they sat alone in the wind, not looking at each other, two people very much in love but very much separated, clinging to a thin strand that still held them joined, poised over the drop that fell away to fallow lands below.

  Magnus turned away from the window with a huge sigh of relief. “They come—and their hands are clasped.”

  “Let me see, let me see!” The other three children shot to the window, heads jammed together, noses on the pane.

  “They do not regard one another,” Cordelia said dubiously.

  “Yet their hands are clasped,” Magnus reminded.

/>   “And,” Cordelia added, troubled, “their thoughts are dark.”

  “Yet their hands are elapsed. And if their thoughts are dark, they are also calm.”

  “And not all apart,” Gregory added.

  “Not all—not quite,” Cordelia agreed, but with the full, frank skepticism of an eight-year-old.

  “Come away, children,” a deep voice bade them, “and do not leap upon them when they enter, for I misdoubt me an they’d have much patience now with thy clasping and thy pulling.”

  The children turned away from the window, to a foot and a half of elf, broad-shouldered, brown-skinned, and pug-nosed, in a forester’s tunic and hose, wearing a pointed cap with a rolled brim and a feather. “Geoffrey,” he warned.

  The six-year-old pulled himself away from the window with a look of disgust. “I did but gaze upon them, Robin.”

  “Indeed—and I know that thou’rt anxious. Yet I bethink me that thy parents have need of some bit more of room than thou’rt wont to accord them.”

  Cordelia flounced down onto a three-legged stool. “But Papa was so angered, Puck!”

  “As thou hast told me.” The elf’s mouth tightened at the corners. “Yet thou dost know withal, that he doth love thee.”

  “I do not doubt it…” But Cordelia frowned.

  Puck sighed and dropped down cross-legged beside her. “Thou couldst scarce do otherwise, if he did truly become as enraged as thou didst tell.” He turned his head, taking in all four children with one gaze. “Gentles, do not reprehend; if you pardon, he will mend.”

  They didn’t look convinced.

  “Else the Puck a liar call!” the elf cried stoutly.

  The door opened, and the children leaped to their feet. They started to back away, but Puck murmured, “Softly,” and they held their ground—warily.

  But their father didn’t look like an ogre as he came in the door—just a tall, dark, lean, saturnine man with a rough-hewn face, no longer young; and he seemed dim next to the red-haired beauty beside him, who fairly glowed, making the question of youth irrelevant. Still, if the children had ever stopped to think about it, they would have remarked how well their parents looked together.