The Warlock Rock Read online

  "Aye, Fess."

  "Loose, then."

  Geoffrey pushed the 'trigger,' and the arm slammed forward. The pebble shot up into the air.

  "Notice that the path of the stone is a curve, children. In fact, if you watch closely, you will see that it is a curve with which you are familiar."

  "Why, so 'tis," Geoffrey agreed. " Tis like to the path of an arrow, when the archer doth shoot at a distant target."

  "It is indeed—and it is also a parabola. With the proper mathematics, one can calculate from the elevation, the angle, the length of the catapult's arm, and the tensile strength of its rope spring, exactly where that arc will end."

  "And therefore where the rock will strike!" Geoffrey cried, his eyes lighting.

  "Odd teaching method," Rod murmured to Gwen, "but for him, it works."

  Gwen shook her head in exasperation. "He will learn naught if it bears not on the waging of war."

  The stone smacked into the tree, and a reedy, distant voice said distinctly, "Ouch!"

  The children stood stock-still, staring.

  Then they turned to one another, all talking at once.

  "Didst thou say 'ouch'?"

  "Nay, I did but watch. Didst thou?"

  "I never say 'ouch'!"

  "I did not. Didst thou say 'ouch'?"

  "Nay, for nothing struck me."

  "Children!" Gwen said sternly, and they stilled on the instant, turning toward her. "Now—who did say 'ouch'?"

  "The rock did," Gregory answered.

  "That is impossible," Fess assured them. "Rocks cannot talk. They are inanimate."

  "In Gramarye, Fess, aught can do anything," Magnus reminded him.

  Uncertainty underscored the robot's response, "You imply that the pebble in question is a false stone?"

  "I do not, Fess. As thou hast taught us," Cordelia reminded, "we do not imply—thou dost infer."

  "I must admit your accuracy," Fess acknowledged. "The rock must have said 'ouch'."

  Rod was amazed at Fess's progress. "Time was when that would have given you a seizure."

  The children gave a cry of delight and shot off toward the stone.

  "Stay back, children," Fess said, but they had already pelted across the stableyard to the tree. Fess boosted his amplification. "Stay back! We must assume it is dangerous, since we do not know what it is."

  Gwen frowned. "That is not needful, Fess."

  "But advisable," Rod qualified, "and he has given an order."

  Geoffrey reached out a forefinger.

  Gwen sighed, and called, Geoffrey! No!

  Admittedly, she gave the call telepathically, which may have been why the boy yanked his finger back and gave her a wounded look. "It cannot hurt me, Mama."

  "You cannot know that, any more than I can." Fess came up behind them and lowered his head, searching for a fallen stick. He found one and picked it up in his teeth. "No matter what it is, it can do far less damage to my body than to yours, since I am made of steel, and you are only made of flesh. Since it is apparently necessary to test this item, you must stand back."

  The children took a small step away.

  "Giant step," Fess commanded.

  The children sighed and complied.

  "Three," Fess ordered.

  "There is no need," Cordelia huffed, but they did as he said, then held their breaths as Fess reached forward slowly.

  In the silence, they became aware of faint strains of music, melodious, but very repetitious, and with a heavy bass rhythm.

  Magnus lifted his head, looking about him. "Whence cometh that sound?"

  "From the stone," Fess answered.

  They stared at the rock and strained their ears. Sure enough, it was giving off music.

  " 'Tis a most strange stone," Gregory breathed.

  "Then it requires most careful handling." Very gently, Fess prodded the stone with the stick.

  It giggled.

  "It lives," Gregory gasped, eyes wide.

  Rod and Gwen both stared. "What thing is this?" Gwen asked.

  " 'Tis not dangerous, at the least." Geoffrey straightened up, relaxing.

  "It would seem not." Reluctantly, Fess added, "Very well, children. You may touch it."

  They gave a minor cheer as Geoffrey stepped up, knelt, and prodded the stone with a forefinger.

  "Stop that!" It giggled.

  The children gawked. "It talks!"

  "Of a certainty I talk," the pebble said. "Dost not thou?"

  "Well… certes, I do," Gregory answered, "yet I am not a rock."

  "Of course not," the pebble told him. "Thou art too soft."

  "As art thou." Geoffrey picked up the stone and squeezed it. " 'Tis a soft rock."

  They all stared, startled. In the silence, they could hear the faint, endlessly repeating melody again, its strong bass chords thrumming.

  "Cordelia," Fess said, "please stop nodding your head."

  "I did not move it," she replied.

  Gwen frowned. "Nay, daughter, thou didst."

  Cordelia turned to her in surprise, and Fess interjected, "You simply were not aware of it."

  "Put me down," the stone protested. "Thou dost tickle."

  "Give it me." Cordelia held out her hand, and Geoffrey gave her the pebble. The rock giggled again. She stroked it with a forefinger, and the giggling turned into a purr.

  "Oh, 'tis delightful!" She stroked it again. "As though 'twere moss!"

  "Moss." Gwen lifted her head. "Certes, my children. It must be a thing of witch-moss."

  Witch-moss was a type of fungus exclusive to Gramarye. It was telepathically sensitive; if a projective telepath thought at it, the witch-moss would take the form and color of anything the telepath visualized. It could even gain the power of speech and the ability to reproduce.

  Magnus looked down at the stone, frowning. " Tis true—it must needs be of witch-moss. An it were aught else, how could it exist?"

  "What doth it here?" Geoffrey demanded.

  "I make music," the rock answered.

  "What is the purpose of it?"

  " 'Tis but entertainment," the rock assured him.

  "An odd word is that. Where hast thou got it?"

  "Why," said the rock, " 'twas ever within me, sin that I was made."

  "If 'tis witch-moss, one must needs have crafted it." Gwen tilted her head, eyeing the stone. "Who made thee, rock?"

  "Another rock," the stone answered.

  Gregory looked up at Gwen, startled. "How could another rock have made it?"

  "Oh, silly!" Cordelia said in her loftiest manner. "How do mothers and fathers make children?"

  Gregory just stared blankly at her, but Fess said, "I doubt it would be quite the same process, Cordelia. After all, the stone referred to only one other rock."

  "Then 'tis a babe," Cordelia crowed with delight. "Oh! 'Tis darling! I am half a mind to take thee home with me, as a pet!"

  "Do not dream of it," Gwen said instantly. "I've trials enough without music that will not stop in my house."

  "It will stop when 'tis indoors." Cordelia turned to the rock. "Thou canst cease making music, canst thou not?"

  "Nay," the rock answered. "I am filled with melody; it must come out."

  "Art thou never empty, then?" Gregory asked.

  "Never," the stone answered firmly. "The music doth but grow and grow inside me, until I feel that I… must… burst!" It bounced out of Cordelia's hand. She gave a wordless cry and grabbed for it, but Magnus caught her wrist. "Let me be!" she snapped, instantly furious. "I must have…" Then her eyes widened, and she stopped, staring, for the rock was rotating on the ground in front of them, hissing over the gauzy, iridescent film that coated the dead leaves under it. Just as suddenly, it stopped.

  "How did it know when to turn, and when to stop?" Gregory whispered.

  "It has responded to light," Fess pointed out. "Note that it now lies in a sunbeam. It is nearly noon; I believe you will find that it oriented itself by the angle of the sun above t
he horizon."

  Rod stiffened. What Gramarye esper could know about solar cells?

  "Would it not rather orient at sunrise or sunset?" Magnus asked.

  "No, because at noon, the sun is at its zenith, and its angle above the horizon indicates position north or south. The stone has positioned itself relative to the pole."

  "It doth swell," Geoffrey breathed.

  They all stared. Sure enough, the stone was growing bigger.

  "Back, children!" Gwen ordered, and, "Down!" Rod snapped.

  Without demur, they all leaped back and hit the dirt.

  "Wherefore, Papa?" Cordelia called.

  "Because," Rod answered, "I've known things like rocks that fly apart hard enough to kill people!"

  They all wormed back further, Geoffrey, Magnus, and Cordelia hiding behind trees, Gregory ducking behind his parents. Then they peeked out as the rock swelled and swelled, bloating up to twice its original size. It began to tremble and shrink in the middle, pinching in until it looked as though someone had tied a piece of string around it, and kept on shrinking until, with a bang and a metallic crash, it split apart, two pieces flying off into the air.

  The children stared, stupefied, but Fess saw a perfectly good demonstration going to waste. "Notice its path as it cuts through the air, children! What is its form?"

  "Oh, a parabola," Geoffrey said in disgust.

  "We must follow it!" Cordelia leaped to her feet and set off.

  "Now, wait a minute," Rod said.

  The youth brigade halted in the act of setting forth, then turned back to eye their father with trepidation. "Thou dost intend summat," Magnus accused.

  "May I offer an idea for consideration?" Fess asked.

  "Which is?" Rod asked.

  "Consider: This is presumably the same mechanism that brought the rock here to this location in the first place."

  "Certes!" Magnus cried. "That is its meaning, in saying another rock made it!"

  "Precisely, Magnus. There was one rock, but there are now two. It has reproduced itself."

  "Yet with only one parent!" Cordelia said.

  "Indeed. This form of reproducing by splitting is called 'fission.'"

  "Yet why did it swell and burst?" Cordelia frowned. "What occasioned it?"

  "The sun reaching the zenith no doubt triggered it. As to how it swelled, did you notice where it landed when you dropped it?"

  Four pairs of eyes darted to the soft rock, and the gauzy sheen beneath it. The patch of iridescence had shrunk to a half-inch circle around the stone. "It did land in witch-moss," Cordelia breathed, "and did absorb it all."

  Rod and Gwen exchanged glances.

  "Precisely. Let us hypothesize that it swelled so rapidly because it had only just landed in more witch-moss, and noon was almost upon it."

  "Why hypothesize?" Geoffrey demanded. " 'Tis plain and clear!"

  "Many things are plain and clear until we count on them, and they fail to happen. If you wish to be sure you have guessed rightly, Geoffrey, you must create the same conditions and see if they cause the same result."

  "Why, this is the scientific method of which thou hast taught us!" Magnus cried. "We first observed and gathered information, then we sought to reason out what that information signified, and now we have stated an hypothesis!"

  "Thou hast sneaked a lesson upon us, Fess," Cordelia accused.

  "Of course; we are still within school hours."

  "Keep it up, Metal Mentor," Rod breathed.

  "If you insist. I now propose that we test the hypothesis we have formulated."

  "Thou dost mean we should experiment," Gregory translated.

  Geoffrey glared at him. "Showoff!"

  "Wast not thou, with thy catapult?" Gregory retorted.

  "Yes!"

  "How can we experiment, Fess?" Magnus asked. "Seek another soft rock, and set it in a patch of witch-moss?"

  "Yes, and come to look at it shortly before noon tomorrow, to see if it has grown," Fess answered.

  "Well enough!" Geoffrey clapped his hands, delighted by the prospect of action. "Let us follow the rock!"

  "We could," Rod said thoughtfully, "or we could go in the opposite direction."

  Geoffrey halted and turned back, frowning. "Wherefore?"

  "Why would a captain do such a thing, son, if he saw a scout ride toward him?"

  Geoffrey gazed off into space. "Why—to seek out the army from which the scout rode!"

  "And if we do backtrack the rock, we may find its parent?" Cordelia asked, eyes lighting.

  "We may indeed," Fess said, "and we can use it for our experiment."

  "And in seeking it," Geoffrey asserted, "we will perform another experiment—one that will determine whence the rock came!"

  "What a wonderful insight, Geoffrey! Really, there are times when you delight me! You have hit the precise point—that we may as well perform two experiments at once, thus answering two questions for the price of one! Come, children—let us see if we have guessed rightly as to the rock's source!"

  Cordelia, Gregory, and Magnus gave a shout and followed Fess away from the musical rock. Geoffrey followed more slowly, flushed with pleasure at Fess's compliment, but somehow feeling he'd been manipulated.

  As his parents knew very well he had, and by a master. "I have never truly known Fess's worth as a teacher," Gwen said softly as they followed the children.

  "Neither have I," Rod admitted, "and I was his student."

  Chapter Three

  The Gallowglasses set off cautiously, Fess following behind. They walked awhile in silence. Then Magnus spoke.

  "Yet how could a stone make music? 'Tis not in the nature of the substance; rock is hard and unfeeling."

  "Tis equally unnatural for stones to be soft, then," Cordelia reminded.

  "Not for a stone made of witch-moss," Geoffrey snorted.

  "Aye. What is not in the nature of witch-moss?" Gregory asked.

  Gwen smiled, amused. "Why not ask what is in its nature?"

  "Everything and nothing," Rod answered. "Right, Fess?"

  "That is correct," the robot replied. "Of itself, the fungus had no properties other than color, texture, composition, mass, and the ability to respond to projected thought. Its 'nature' is entirely potential."

  "I comprehend how it may be crafted; I have done it." Cordelia frowned. "Yet how can it keep the aspects I give it, when I am far from it?"

  Rod shrugged. "Dunno—but it can. If I'm guessing right, the first elves were made of witch-moss by people who didn't know they were doing it—grandmothers, maybe, who were projective telepaths but unaware of it, and who liked to tell stories to their grandchildren. But the nearest growth of witch-moss picked up the stories, too, and turned into the characters the story was about."

  "Dost say the Puck is a thing of witch-moss?"

  "Not where he can hear it—but he probably is."

  "Yet whosoever crafted him must be five centuries in his grave!" Magnus protested. "How can the Puck endure?"

  "I should think he is sustained by the beliefs of the people all about him," Fess put in. "One might say that, on Gramarye, the supernatural exists in a climate of belief."

  "Thou dost mean that other folk with the power to send out their thoughts do sustain him?" Magnus nodded slowly. "I can credit that; yet how then can he think?"

  "Doth he truly think?" Gregory asked.

  Fess shuddered. "That is a philosophical question which I would rather not broach at the moment, Gregory." In fact, he didn't intend to broach it for about ten more years. "For the moment, suffice it to say that Puck, and all other elves, do indeed exhibit all the symptoms of actual thought."

  "An it doth waddle and quack, can it be a hen?" Geoffrey muttered.

  "A what?" Cordelia asked.

  "A hen! A hen!"

  "Do not clear thy throat; thou shalt injure thy voice…"

  "Are they so real that they can even, um"—Magnus glanced at his sister and blushed— "have babes?"

&nb
sp; "I had little difficulty accepting the notion," Fess replied, "once I accepted the existence of witch-moss. It is only a question of whether the crafter makes an elf of witch-moss himself, or does it by one remove."

  "And if we do credit an elf's thinking," Gwen mused, "wherefore should we not credit a stone's making of music?"

  "But there are no tales of singing stones, Mama!" Geoffrey protested.

  "What difference does it make?" Rod countered. "If the people of this land believe in magic, they probably believe in anything anyone can imagine."

  "Yet a true rock could not make music?" Gregory asked anxiously.

  "Not a true rock," Fess said slowly, "though it could conduct vibrations, and resonate with them…"

  "Then a rock could be made to convey music!"

  "In a manner of speaking—but it could not make music itself. However, a person could make a substance that looks exactly like stone."

  "Thou dost speak of molecular circuits," Magnus said, relieved to be back on the solid ground of physics.

  "I do. You have all seen the ring your father wears; the jewel contains a molecular circuit, and the setting contains others."

  "Can it make music?"

  "Your father's ring? No—but it can 'hear' music, and send it to the receiver behind his ear. Still, one could build a circuit of that size that would create simple music—and that is certainly ail that is at issue here."

  "And 'twould look just like stone?"

  "It could," Fess confirmed, and Rod explained, "In a way, such circuits are stones, since they're usually made of silicon—but they're very carefully made rocks."

  "Ah!" Magnus looked up, finally connecting ideas. " 'Tis that which thou didst research, by making the amulet thou didst give Mama!"

  "And that she very prudently gave the Abbot. Yes."

  Cordelia looked up at the robot-horse, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Art thou pleased with the fruit of thy teaching, Fess?"

  "I cannot deny it, Cordelia—the boy turned out remarkably well, in spite of it all. He not only absorbed the information, but also learned how to think, which is a different matter entirely, though related. He even began to enjoy learning, and eventually found it to be so great a source of pleasure that he seeks new information purely as recreation now."