The Warlock's Grandfather Read online

  Dr. Dan Reves was perhaps better known as Lord Hypoc—his arms were a syringe argent on a field gules—and was certainly so known during dinner that night, at least by Count Rory. "But your father was a lord of many smiths, milord," he said. "Medicine seems an odd choice, for one of your station."

  "Medicine should be the concern of anyone of any rank or station, if he has the aptitude for learning it and the temperament for practicing it, milord." Dr. Reves smiled, but his eyes were grave. "The well-being of other folk is too vital a concern to neglect, for any reason."

  The gleam of contest came into Count Rory's eye. "Do you contend, Lord Hypoc, that physic is of such great import that a man who might be gifted in some other profession should turn aside from it to invest his time in healing?"

  "Certainly not," Dr. Reves said. "I will cheerfully own that any man of good conscience, who has the gifts of governance, should practice them for the good of his fellow creatures. Unfortunately, the contrary case seems to obtain."

  "And those who go into politics," Robin mused, "seek to obtain anything they can, by any means."

  "Ah, but the more reason why those of good conscience should involve themselves," Dr. Reves countered.

  "The King is poorly served indeed." Count Rory blithely ignored the fact that the Dictator of Terra could hardly be called a king. "And those who turn to his service seem to feel that morality is but a matter of taste."

  "And we all know how vastly tastes can vary," Dr. Reves said with a smile. "For example, my lord, I would say that the gown Lady Rose is wearing this evening is enchanting."

  "I would certainly agree, Lord Hypoc." Rory tried to alleviate Rose's embarrassment with a sly wink, which only made her redden more. "Her bliaut is the delightful shade of her namesake the rose, with a kirtle of black over all."

  Rupert couldn't help glancing at his sister-in-law, just to make sure she indeed was not wearing anything black—which she wasn't. Robin, of course, knew quite well—he studied his wife's figure far more than was quite proper for a married man—so he only gazed with polite interest at Dr. Dan and his father.

  "An unusual term for a gown," Dr. Reves murmured. He turned back to Count Rory. "Why do you say 'bliaut,' my lord?"

  Rupert wondered if, under the dress, Rose really was wearing a black girdle.

  Robin knew.

  Rory spread his hands. "Why, my lord, simply because it is a bliaut."

  Rupert also wondered how Count Rory knew.

  Well, as it happened, since it was a formal dinner, Lady Rose was wearing a floor-length gown, and the skirt was quite full—but there its resemblance to a bliaut ended. The top was molded to her contours so tightly that it might have been attributable to species variation, and her skirt rustled with crinolines.

  "Fascinating," Reves murmured, aware that he had embarrassed Rose and trying to take her off the spot. "Why do not all women wear such graceful garments as bliauts?"

  Rory kept it down to a polite chuckle. "Why, Lord Hypoc, because not all are of her station."

  Rupert glanced nervously at Robin, but Dr. Reves murmured, "Indeed."

  "A peasant may only wear blouse, bodice, and skirt." Rory frowned. "Has it been so long since you have seen the country folk that you have forgotten, Lord Hypoc?"

  "There are some disadvantages for we who dwell in cities." Dr. Reves was referring to Ceres. "But there are compensations. For example, the decoration of this dining hall is scarcely such as would occur to rural people. I find it magnificent."

  "It is, is it not?" Count Rory gazed fondly about him. "The banners of battles won adorn the grimness of the stone so gaily—and the shields of my ancestors lend great color and figure to the somberness of the timber."

  His sons and daughters-in-law stilled, exchanging glances out of the corners of their eyes. The walls were, of course, plastered and papered—ivory edged with azure—and the only timber in sight was the wainscoting.

  "I must apologize for the drafts, though." Rory smiled with embarrassment. "The screens passage is all very well, but I believe I must have a genuine door hung to close it; the tapestry alone does not suffice."

  "I assure you, I feel quite warm," Dr. Reves answered.

  "Only because you are near the hearth, milord. The servants, I fear, are chill, since they are farther from the blaze."

  There was no fire in the room, of course. There wasn't even a fireplace, and certainly not a screens passage—and who ever heard of drafts blowing in from outdoors, on an asteroid?

  "You must dress more warmly, Fess," Count Rory scolded his old family retainer.

  "I am indifferent to temperature, my lord and master," Fess answered. He looked like a stick figure with a head the size of a basketball, which held the computer that served him as a brain.

  "Bravely said!" Count Rory cried. "Yet your welfare is as much my responsibility as mine is yours. We must have that door installed."

  "I shall have it done," Fess assured him.

  Lady Elaine looked up in alarm. She certainly did not want a door partitioning the hall.

  "What's done can be undone, sometimes," Rupert muttered, with a touch on her hand. His mind raced for a change of topic. "Are you in communication with other members of your profession on Terra, Doctor?"

  Reves turned his gaze to Rupert, and the topic to his uses. "Only with those at the Eclectic University, Lord Rupert. They assure me that the probe will not be built."

  "It will not?" Rory stared, aghast. "How dare they not sally forth to undertake the Quest that they have sworn!"

  It was an odd metaphor for an unmanned space probe that was designed only to broadcast greetings from the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra, and to record any responses that the frontier planets might make.

  Dr. Reves turned back to him. "It would not be the first time the government of the Terran Sphere has refrained from doing something it has promised, milord."

  "Nay, they have been foresworn indeed! The King did promise a Parliament, and forbore to call it; and when the lords did mutter in discontent, he prattled on about the needs of the treasury! As though mere tin could be of concern in affairs of honor! And he did swear to set we lords outlying on an equal footing with those sniveling courtiers who dwell in his capital—yet where is this 'program of rotation' he did speak of? Why, dead aborning, so soon as the mutterings of discontent subsided! Nay, he is not a king, but a knave, a craven, a blackhearted scoundrel who has so little semblance of honor as to care only for his own pleasures!" Rory paused for breath, red-faced and trembling. He began to rise as he inhaled for another blast.

  "Should we not pity him, Pater?" Robin asked quietly.

  Rory's head swiveled to face him, outrage paling his features. He could only gasp, "Pity?"

  "Yes—for his days are numbered. Or his days in office, at least. He cannot put off the calls for election much longer."

  "Aye, for so many lords demand this Parliament that all his horses and all his men cannot suffice to confront them!" Rory smiled, his complexion returning to normal. "Thou hast the right of it—the King must abdicate ere long!" He sat down again, and turned to Fess. "Fill the glasses, butler—for a toast, to Parliament!"

  For once, Lady Elaine insisted on the grand old custom of the ladies retiring to the drawing room, all of herself and Rose, leaving the gentlemen to their brandy and cigars (the air-purifying filters were up to the worst of anything old Terra could provide). Rose's heart warmed at the thought that her sister-in-law was accommodating her father-in-law's antiquarian preferences, until she realized Elaine was white-faced and trembling, and had taken the first possible excuse to leave the field to the gentlemen. Rose set herself to trying to calm Elaine, while their husbands finished doing the same to Rory.

  Dr. Reves sipped his brandy and said, "Your sons tell me you have undertaken the development of a work of fiction of truly staggering proportions, milord."

  "Fiction?" Rory turned to his sons with a scowl. "Why on earth would you have told him it was fiction?
"

  Robin got a faraway look in his eyes while he tried to dream up a politic answer, and Rupert reddened and cleared his throat to stall for time, but Dr. Reves said smoothly, "No doubt a misunderstanding, milord. I had assumed it to be a work of fiction, since I have never heard of an estate called Granclarte."

  "Oh, but it is more than an estate, milord! 'Tis the seat of the Kings of Dondedor, and the capital of that realm!"

  "Indeed." Dr. Reves lowered his cigar, frowning. "I blush to admit I am ignorant in these matters. Where is Dondedor?"

  "In the Middle Realm, milord, though far from its center. In truth, it is a Marcher kingdom, on the boundary between the lands of Law and Order, and those of Barbarism and Chaos."

  "Ah." Dr. Reves had become very still, watching Count Rory with all his attention. "And how is it we others are unaware of it?"

  "Ah, because you have not opened yourselves to the perception of it, milord! In truth, it lies all about us, and yet infinitely distant, for 'tis another aspect of reality, and may only be gained by passage through a higher dimension!"

  "And you have learned how to make that transition?"

  "Aye, and 'tis only a step away, thereby."

  Dr. Reves held out his snifter to Fess. "And the folk there—are they aware of your presence?"

  "Aye, for I am Chronicler to the Court of Granclarte. All come to me to speak of the wonders they have wrought, and the prodigies of their accomplishments!"

  "So the events you write of, have actually happened in Dondedor?"

  "Are happening, milord, are happening! For oft do I inscribe the beginning of a tale, hard upon its occurrence! Admittedly, I must await the outcome and report, if the events transpire far from the walls of Granclarte—as they have in the quest of the knight Beaubras. I myself beheld the damsel Clematis come into the Court, with quavering words of the coming of the ogre Boartooth, and saw how our noble King Flambeau did send forth his most gallant knight, with a score of men-at-arms at his back, to battle with the monster."

  "But you could not know what happened on that mission?"

  "Not until a man-at-arms returned, with news of the encounter—how the knight alone had gone against the ogre, and Oh! Milord! The clash of arms between them was like to make the earth shake! For the ogre hefted high his massy bludgeon, and did smite with all his force at proud Beaubras—but Rovisage, his valiant steed, did dance aside, and the monster's blow did smash the earth into a basin. Yet whiles he struck, Beaubras drew out his sword Aiguise..."

  And on he went, and on. Dr. Reves gazed at him in total concentration, while Robin sat back, smiling, letting himself be drawn into the fascinating, glowing world of his father's imagination. And, as the tale spun on, even Rupert began to fidget less, and lose some of his look of embarrassment.

  "We have come to join you, my dear."

  Lady Elaine visibly braced herself, then turned slowly, with a nice attempt at a smile—and went rigid at the sight of Rory. Rose really couldn't understand why—the old dear was at his most charming, sweeping a gallant bow to them both and chatting amiably as the husbands held chairs for the ladies and Fess seated first Count Rory, then Dr. Reves, and set a deck of cards on the table. Rose watched Elaine out of the corner of her eye, alert for trouble, but she was between her sister-in-law and Count Rory, so Elaine began to relax a bit. She calmed remarkably as the play progressed and the talk tapered off, and no one was the worse for wear. Pont was an absorbing game, no matter what archaic name Rory wished to call it by. Almost too soon, it seemed, Fess was murmuring, "Lord and Sahib, you have an early day tomorrow."

  "Oh! Yes, I have, haven't I?" Rory frowned and rose with a sigh. "Well, there's no help for it—duty must be done."

  "Perhaps we should all..."

  "No, no, not a word of it, Lord Hypoc!" Rory held up a restraining hand. "You young folk must keep on without me; you mustn't abate your pleasures simply because I must leave."

  "As you wish, Pater." The gentlemen started to rise, but Rory waved them back. "Sit down, sit down! There is no need for such ceremony—though I must admit I enjoy it. Good night to you all."

  "Good night, Pater."

  "Good night, milord."

  And Rory left in a chorus of good wishes, with Fess behind him. The gentlemen remained standing in frozen tableau until the door slid firmly shut behind Fess.

  Then Rupert collapsed with a shuddering sigh, pressing a hand to his brow. "No one should have heard that but family!"

  "Oh, come now, Rupert." Robin resumed his seat, smiling. "It wasn't so bad as all that."

  "So bad!" Elaine squawked. "With a stranger present? ...Oh! I'm sorry, Doctor."

  "Not at all, milady." Dr. Reves smiled, amused, as he sat down again. "And please do not feel put out—that was, after all, what I came to hear."

  "In fact, even solicited." Robin nodded. "You drew him out excellently, Doctor."

  "Training and practice." Reves waved away the compliment. "All an aspect of my profession—which, I assure you, includes total confidentiality."

  "Thank Heaven for that! A stranger might have thought Pater was speaking sedition!"

  "I suppose that could be said of all of us," Dr. Reves mused. "However, we seem to be in agreement with an overwhelming majority on all the planets except Terra itself."

  "And even there, we have indications that the people are unhappy with PEST." Robin nodded. "Although that might just be a matter of their beginning to believe the Dictator is powerless to stop them."

  "But there is no Parliament, of course," Rupert said firmly.

  "No, though there is some likelihood of some sort of representative body forming," Dr. Reves demurred.

  "Will it require a war, though?" Robin mused, looking at the brandy in his snifter. "Or will the Dictator have sense enough to step aside gracefully?"

  "A fascinating question, I'm sure," Rupert said impatiently. "However, the question in hand concerns our father, not our government. What is your diagnosis, Doctor?"

  "Your father is an immense success," Dr. Reves sighed.

  "Success?" Rupert frowned. "In what way?"

  "He has immensely succeeded in escaping reality."

  The room was silent for a moment.

  Then Robin leaned back with a sigh. "I was afraid you would say something like that."

  Elaine found her voice gain. "Well, really, Robin! It was rather obvious, you know. But Doctor, is he really seeing all the things he is describing to us?"

  "He is, milady, unless he is perpetrating a huge hoax on us all."

  "I wouldn't put it past him," Rupert muttered darkly.

  "Perhaps not, but we must assume he is sincere."

  "But how can he be speaking to us, in our own world?" Rose frowned.

  "He perceives you all as denizens of Granclarte, milady, even as he himself is—but he sees you as emissaries from the world he has left."

  "My lord!" Robin stared, appalled. "You mean he thinks it's we who travel from universe to universe, not him?"

  "Yes, if he concerns himself about it at all—which I don't think he does. To him, the two worlds seem thoroughly compatible; he sees no need to rationalize their junction."

  "But what could have moved him to such extremes?" Rupert scowled.

  "The tedium of an obscure and isolated life, milord. Oh, you and I may not mind the isolation, since we have the companionship of kindred spirits available, and have occasionally sojourned on Terra—but I infer that your father wished to live there, and was prevented from decamping by his rank."

  "He was the only son," Rupert mused, "after his elder brother died."

  Dr. Reves nodded. "Finally, he acknowledged that he would never be able to leave home—and that despair, when deepened by the loss of his wife, moved him to invent a fantasy world of his own, of which he is official chronicler, retaining his own name and rank, but residing at the court."

  "The poor man." Rose was dewy-eyed.

  "Poor us, rather!" Elaine said indignantly. "It's we who mu
st bear the burden of his delusion!"

  "Oh, we can cope with it, surely!" Rose protested. "At least, we can once we know of it. It's been the surprise of it all that has disconcerted us."

  Elaine didn't look convinced.

  "We must, in any case," Rupert grumbled.

  "There isn't much choice," Robin agreed, "though there's no harm in it, either, since he has relinquished the running of the factory to you, and the running of the household to Elaine."

  "There's some truth in that," Rupert muttered. "But it's a deuced inconvenience."

  "Yes, perhaps that's the mark of it." Dr. Reves smiled thinly. "He has inconvenienced himself for others' sake, all his life, and has finally decided to do as he wishes."

  "Oh, ho!" Robin grinned. "You mean it's our turn to be inconvenienced? Well, I must say there's some poetic justice in that."

  Rupert frowned, and Elaine looked downright resentful—she hadn't grown up in Castle d'Armand, after all; Rory's self-sacrifice hadn't been for her.

  Rose, on the other hand, realized that she did benefit by Rory's life. But then, she was glad she had Robin.

  "He must, of course, be watched continually," Dr. Reves cautioned. "He might let his delusion lead him into danger."

  Robin nodded. "We've been alert for that. All the robots are programmed to notify us of unusual behavior, and we try to make sure one of us is always nearby."

  "That's most important." Dr. Reves nodded. "Loneliness is his Nemesis now."

  "Isn't it for us all?" Elaine muttered, but Robin added, "Fess is good company, robot or no, Doctor. And, of course, he's a most excellent sentry. So he can be alert for signs of..." he couldn't quite finish the sentence.

  "Be watchful, in case he deteriorates into a less-controlled condition?" Reves nodded. "Of course. But there's really no sign of that."

  "Well, that's a relief, at least."

  Rupert was still concerned, though. "What if Pater decides to exercise his authority again, Doctor? I mean, we can't have the factory running like a medieval smithy!"