The Warlock Enraged

10

The osprey circled above them, its wings dipping as it balanced in the updraft. Rod scowled up at it, wondering if its eyes were green, like Gwen’s. “Simon, how far are we from the coast?”

“Mayhap a day’s ride.” Simon followed Rod’s gaze. “Ah, I see. Tis a fish-hawk, is’t not?”

“Far as I know. But if the ocean’s only twenty miles off, it’s probably genuine.” Rod turned to his companion. “Thought you were a dirt farmer. How would you know what a fish-hawk looks like?”

Simon shrugged. “As I’ve said, the ocean’s not so far.”

Which was true enough, Rod reflected. He didn’t really have anything to be suspicious about—but in enemy territory, he couldn’t help it. He wasn’t that far from suspecting the nearest boulder might be a witch in disguise.

“Then, too,” Simon said, amused, “I’ve never claimed to be a farmer.”

Rod looked up, surprised. “True enough,” he said slowly. “I did just assume. After all, what other occupations would there be, in a small village?”

“Tis hard by the King’s High Way,” Simon explained. “I keep an inn.”

Rod lifted his head, mouth opening before the words came. “Oh.” He nodded slowly. “I see. And quality folk stop in frequently, eh?”

“Mayhap twice in a month. There was ever a constant coming and going with the castle of Milord Duke. I did hearken to their speech, and did mimic it as best I could, the better to please them.”

He’d hearkened to a lot more than their speech, Rod reflected. The aristocrats would no doubt have been aghast, if they’d known a mind reader served them. And, of course, Simon couldn’t have had too many illusions left, about the lords.

So why was he still loyal?

Probably because the alternative was so much worse. “I don’t suppose they taught you how to read?”

“Nay; my father sent me to the vicar, for lessons. He kept an inn before me, and knew ‘twould be useful for an innkeeper to read and write, and cast up sums.”

So. Unwittingly, Rod had stumbled into one of the local community leaders. “An enlightened man.”

“Indeed he was. And what art thou?”

Every alarm bell in Rod’s head broke into clamor. Admittedly, he’d made a pretty big slip; but did Simon have to be so quick on the uptake? “Why… I’m a farmer. Do I look so much like a knight, as to confuse you? Or a Duke, perhaps?” Then his face cleared with a sudden, delighted smile, and he turned to jab a finger at Simon. “I know! You thought I was a goldsmith!”

Simon managed to choke the laugh down into a chuckle, and shook his head. “Nay, goodman. I speak not of thine occupation, but of what thou art—that thou art there, but thou’rt not.”

Rod stared, totally taken aback. “What do you mean, I’m not here?”

“In thy thoughts.” Simon laid a finger against his forehead. “I have told thee I can hear men’s thoughts—yet I cannot hear thine.”

“Oh.” Rod turned back to the road, gazing ahead, musing—while, inside, he virtually collapsed into a shuddering heap of relief. “Yes… I’ve been told that before…” Glad it’s working…

Simon smiled, but with his brows knit. “ ‘Tis more than simply not hearing thy thoughts. When my mind doth ‘listen’ for thee, there is not even a sense of thy presence. How comes this?”

Rod shrugged. “I can guess, but that’s all.”

“And what is thy guess?”

“That I’m more worried about mind readers than your average peasant.”

Simon shook his head. “That would not explain it. I have known some filled with morbid fear their thoughts would be heard—and I think they had reason, though I sought to avoid them. Still, I could have heard their thoughts, an I had wished to. Certes, I could sense that they were there. Yet with thee, I can do neither. I think, companion, that thou must needs have some trace of witch power of thine own, that thy will doth wrap into a shield.”

“You trying to tell me I’m a witch?” Rod did a fairly good imitation of bristling.

Simon only smiled sadly. “Even less than I am. Nay, I’d not fear that. Thou canst not hear thoughts, canst thou?”

“No,” Rod said truthfully—at least, for the time being.

Simon smiled. “Then thou’rt not a witch. Now tell me—why dost thou come North? Thou must needs know that thou dost drive toward danger.”

“I sure must, after you and the auncient finished with me.” Rod hunched his shoulders, pulling into himself. “As to the danger, I’ll chance it. I can get better prices for my produce in Korasteshev, than I can in all of Tudor’s county! And my family’s always hungry.”

“They will hunger more, an thou dost not return.” Simon’s voice dropped, full of sincerity. “I bid thee, friend, turn back.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t like my company?”

Simon’s earnestness collapsed into a smile. “Nay—thou art a pleasant enough companion…”

Personally, Rod thought he was being rather churlish.

But Simon was very tolerant. “Yet for thine own sake, I bid thee turn toward the South again. The sorcerer’s warlocks will not take kindly to one whose mind they cannot sense.”

“Oh, the warlocks won’t pay any attention to a mere peasant coming to market.” At least, Rod hoped they wouldn’t.

“The prices in Romanov cannot be so much better than they are in Tudor.” Simon held Rod’s eyes with a steady gaze. It seemed to burn through his retinas and into his brain. “What more is there to thine answer?”

Reluctantly, Rod admitted, “There is more—but that’s all you’re going to get.”

Simon held his gaze for a minute.

Then he sighed, and turned away. “Well, it is thy fate, and thou must needs answer for it thyself. Yet be mindful, friend, that thy wife and bairns do depend upon thee.”

Rod was mindful of it, all right. For a sick instant, he had a vision of Gwen and the children waiting weeks, without word of him. Then he thrust the thought sternly aside, and tried to envision the look on his boys’ faces if he abandoned his mission and came back to be safe. “You have obligations to the people of your village, Master Simon. So have I.”

“What—to the folk of thy town?”

“Well, to my people, anyway.” Rod had the whole of Gramarye in mind, not to mention the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal. “And once you’ve accepted an obligation of that sort, you can’t put it aside just because it becomes dangerous.”

“Aye, that’s so,” Simon said, frowning. “ ‘Tis this that I’ve but now come to see.”

Rod turned to him, frowning too. “But you’ve already done your part, taken your risks. No one would call you a coward for going South now!”

“I would,” Simon said simply.

Rod looked directly into his eyes for a moment, then turned away with a sigh. “What can I say to that, goodman?”

“Naught, save ‘gee-up’ to thine horse.”

“Why?” Rod asked sourly. “This cart may be pulled by a horse, but it’s being driven by a pair of mules.”

Sundown caught them still on the road, with grainfields at either hand. “Nay,” Simon assured Rod, “there is no town near.”

“I was afraid of that,” Rod sighed. “Well, the earth has been my bed before this.” And he drove off the road, pulling Fess to a stop in the weeds between the track and the field. He was cutting vegetables into a small pot before Simon could even volunteer.

The innkeeper eyed him quizzically, then asked, “Dost ever have a pot with thee?”

“I was a tinker once. Habits stick.”

Simon smiled, shaking his head, and leaned back on an elbow. “I think such travels are not wholely new to thee.”

“We’re even,” Rod snorted. “I get the feeling spell-breaking isn’t all that new to you.”

Simon was still for a moment, but his eyes brightened. “Almost could I believe thou didst read minds.”

“If I did, I’d need to have yours translated. So when did you start spell-breaking?”

Simon sat up, hooking his forearms around his shins, resting his chin on his knees. “The men of the village came oft to mine inn for drinking of beer, which they took as part-price for the produce they brought. Anon would come one whose heart was heavy, with thoughts in turmoil, to drink and be silent—mayhap in hopes that beer would quiet his unrest.”

Rod nodded. “Strange how we keep trying that solution. Especially since it never works.”

“Nay; but speaking thy thoughts to a willing ear, can help to calm them; and the troubled ones would talk, for I would hearken, and give what sympathy I could. Yet one there came who seemed like unto a wall in winter—like to spring apart at the first freeze. He could not talk, but huddled over his flagon. Yet the jumble of his thoughts rode upon such pain that they fairly screamed. I could not have shut my mind to them, even had I wished to—and brooding over all was the shadow of a noose.”

Rod looked up sharply. “The kid was suicidal?”

“Aye. And he was no child, but in his thirties. ‘Tis these passages from one state to another that do wreak their havocs within us, and his children all had grown.”

Rod couldn’t understand the problem; but he had Gwen for a wife. “What could you do about it?”

“Fill another flagon, and one for myself, and go to sit by him. Then, ‘neath the pretext of conversing—and ‘twas very much a pretense, for I alone did speak—I felt through the snarl of his thoughts, found the sources of his pain and shame, then asked aloud the questions that did make him speak them. And ‘twas not easy for him thus to speak—yet I encouraged, and he did summon up sufficient resolution. I meant only to have him thus give me pretext to discuss his secret fears, to tell him they were not so fearsome—yet I found that, once he had spoken them aloud, and heard his own voice saying them, these secrets then lost half their power. Then could I ask a question whose answer would show him the goodness within him that could counter his hidden monsters, and, when we were done, he’d calmed tolerably well.”

“You saved his life,” Rod accused.

Simon smiled, flattered. “Mayhap I did. I began, then, to give such aid to all such troubled souls that I encountered. Nay, I even sought them out, when they did not come into my inn.”

“Could be dangerous, there,” Rod pointed out. “Just so much of that hauling people back from the edge, before the neighbors decided you had to be a witch to do it. Especially since you were poaching on the parish priest’s territory.”

Simon shook his head. “Who knew of it? Not even those I aided—for I gave no advice nor exhortation. And look, you, ‘twas a village. We all knew one another, so there was naught of surprise should I encounter any one of them, and chat a while. Yet withal, the folk began to say that troubled souls could find a haven in mine inn.”

“Definitely poaching on the priest’s territory,” Rod muttered. “And that was an awful lot of grief to be taking on yourself.”

Simon shrugged, irritated. “They were my people, Master Owen. Are, I should say. And there were never more than three in a year.”

Rod didn’t look convinced.

Simon dropped his gaze to the campfire. “Thus, when Tom Shepherd lapsed into sullenness, his brothers brought him to my taproom. In truth, they half-carried him; he could no longer even walk of his own.” He shook his head. “ ‘Twas an old friend of mine—or should I say, an old neighbor.”

“What was the matter with him?”

Simon turned his head from side to side. “His face was slack; he could not move of his own, and did but sit, not speaking. I drew a stool up next to his, and gazed into his face, the whiles I asked questions, which he did not answer; yet all the while, my mind was open, hearkening at its hardest, for any thought that might slip through his mind.”

“Sounds catatonic.” Rod frowned. “I shouldn’t think there would’ve been any thoughts.”

“There was one—but only one. And that one did fill him, consuming all his mind and heart with a single graveyard knell.”

“Suicidal, again?”

Simon shook his head. “Nay. ‘Twas not a wish to die, look thou, nor even a willingness, but a sureness, a certainty, that he would die, was indeed that moment dying, but slowly.”

Rod sat very still.

“I labored mightily ‘gainst that compulsion. Yet I could but ask questions that would recall to mind the things that would make him wish to live—wife, and bairns, and careful neighbors; yet naught availed.” He shook his head. “One would have thought he had not heard; for still throughout him rang the brazen knell of death.” Simon sighed, turning his head slowly from side to side. “In the end, I could but bid his brothers take him to the priest, but the good friar fared no better than I.” He shrugged. “I could not cast into his mind thoughts to counter that fell compulsion. The power was not in me.”

Rod nodded, understanding. Simon was only a telepath, not a projective.

Simon picked up a stick, and poked at the fire. “He died, in the end. He ate not, nor drank, and withered up like a November leaf. And I, heartsick, began to wonder how such a doom came to burden him. For he’d ever been a cheerful fellow, and I could see that one had laid a spell upon him. Aye, I pondered how one could be so evil as to do so fell a deed.

“So I commenced long walks throughout the county till at length I found that same wholehearted, whole consumption of a mind—yet ‘twas not one mind, but a score; for I came into a village, and found that half the folk who lived there were bewitched. Oh, aye, they walked and spoke like any normal folk—but all their minds were filled with but one single thought.”

“Death?” Rod felt the eeriness creeping over the back of his skull.

“Nay.” Simon shook his head. “Twas praise of Alfar.”

“Oh-h-h.” Rod lifted his head slowly. “The sorcerer’s enchantment team had been at work.”

“They had—and, knowing that, I went back to mine own village and, in chatting with my fellow villagers, asked a question here, and another there, and slowly built up a picture of that which had occurred to Tom Shepherd. He’d met a warlock in the fields, who had bade him kneel to Alfar. Tom spat upon the ground, and told that warlock that his Alfar was naught but a villein, who truly owed allegiance to Duke Romanov, even as Tom Shepherd did. The warlock then bade him swear loyalty to Alfar, or die; but Tom laughed in his face, and bade him do his worst.”

“So he did?”

“Aye, he did indeed! Then, knowing this, I went back to the village where half had been of one thought only, and that thought Alfar’s. I found only ten of a hundred still free in their thoughts, and those ten walking through a living nightmare of fear; for I spoke with some, and heard within their thoughts that several of them had defied the warlocks, and died as Tom Shepherd had. Even as I stood there, one broke beneath his weight of fear, and swore inside himself that he’d be Alfar’s man henceforth, and be done with terror.“ Simon shuddered. ”I assure thee, I left that village as quickly as I might.”

He turned to look directly into Rod’s eyes, and his gaze seemed to bore into Rod’s brain. “I cannot allow such obscenities of horror to exist, the whiles I sit by and do naught.” He shook his head slowly. “Craven was I, ever to think I could walk away and leave this evil be.”

“No,” Rod said. “No, you can’t, can you? Not and still be who you are.”

Simon frowned. “Strangely put—yet, I doubt me not, quite true.”

The campsite was quiet for a few minutes, as both men sat watching the flames, each immersed in his own thoughts.

Then Rod lifted his head, to find Simon’s gaze on him. “Now,” said the innkeeper, “ ‘tis thy turn. Is’t not?”

“For what?”

“For honesty. Why dost thou go North?”

Rod held his gaze for a few moments, then, slowly, he said, “Same reason as yours, really—or one pretty much like it. I’ve seen some of Alfar’s work, and it’s sickened me. I can’t call myself a man if I let that happen without fighting it. At the very least, I’ve got to help keep it from spreading—or die trying.”

“As indeed thou mayest,” Simon breathed. “Yet that is not the whole of thine answer, is it?”

“No—but that’s all you’re going to get.”

They gazed at one another for several heartbeats, the blade of Rod’s glare clashing off the velvet wall of Simon’s acceptance. Finally, the innkeeper nodded. “ ‘Tis thine affair, of course.” He sounded as though he meant it.

He turned back to the fire. “Thou art mine ally for this time. I need know no more than that the sorcerer’s thine enemy.”

“Well, that—and that the stew’s ready.” Rod leaned over to sniff the vapors. “Not bad, for field rations. Want some?”

When Simon rolled up in his cloak to sleep, Rod went over to curry Fess. The job wasn’t really stage dressing at all—Fess’s horsehair may have owed more to plastic than to genetics, but it still collected brambles and burrs on occasion.

“So.” Rod ran the currycomb along Fess’s withers. “Alfar started out with nothing but feelings of inferiority, and a grudge against the world.”

“An ordinary paranoid personality,” Fess noted.

“Yeah, except that he was an esper. And somewhere along the line, he all of a sudden became a lot more powerful than your average warlock.” He looked up at Fess. “Maybe just because he managed to talk some other witches into joining him?”

“Perhaps.” The robot sounded very skeptical. “I cannot help but think there is more to the matter than that.”

“Probably right, too… So. Alfar had a sudden boost in power, and/or got together a gang. Then he started leaning on the local citizenry, like any good gangster.”

“The process seems to begin with intimidation,” Fess noted.

Rod stopped currying for a minute. “Maybe… Even the soldiers were scared, when they were marching against him…” He shrugged. “Hard to say. In any event, he’s finally able to mass-hypnotize whole villages—though from the soldier’s account, it needs to be redone in depth, on an individual basis.”

“The soldiers’ mass hypnosis was done during the heat of battle, Rod, and very quickly. The peasant villages seem to have been done more leisurely, by Simon’s statement—over a period of days, perhaps even weeks.”

“True—so it would be more thorough. Though, apparently, some are harder to hypnotize than others.” He looked up at Fess again. “And espers appears to be immune.”

“So it would seem, to judge by Simon.”

“Yes…” Briefly, Rod wondered about that. Then he shrugged it off. “Anyhow. When Alfar’d built enough of a power base, one of the local knights got worried, and tried to knock him down before he grew too big. But he was already too big.”

“Indeed,” Fess agreed. “He was already powerful enough to overcome a knight with his village force.”

Rod nodded. “And by the time he was big enough to worry the local baron, he’d absorbed the forces of several knights. So the baron fell, and the chain reaction began—the baron, then the count, then finally the duke himself—and it doesn’t end there, does it?”

“Certainly not, Rod. After all, he now has the resources of a duchy to draw on.”

“Yes. We all know what he’s going to do now, don’t we?”

“But surely Gwendylon and the children have already borne word to Tuan and Catharine, Rod—and the Duchess’s personal account must certainly have been very persuasive. I doubt not that Tuan is already gathering his forces.”

“Gathering them, yes. But it’s going to be at least a week or two before he can march North.”

“Surely Alfar cannot consolidate his newly won forces with sufficient speed to enable him to carry the attack to Tuan!”

“Oh, I don’t think he would, anyway.” Rod looked up into Fess’s imitation eyes. “All the Duke’s horses and all the Duke’s men aren’t quite enough to take on the King’s army.”

“True,” the robot conceded. “Therefore, he will attack Earl Tudor.”

“You really think he’d dare strike that close to Tuan?”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps he will seek to conquer Hapsburg first.”

“It’s just great, having outgoing neighbors… and if he manages to swallow Hapsburg, he’ll have to digest him before he can take on Tudor.”

“I doubt that he would try. He might be able to defeat the Earl quickly, but he must surely need a week or two to complete the indoctrination of the captured soldiers.”

“And while he’s digesting, he’s right next to Tuan. No, you’re right. He’d try to march through Tudor, and attack Tuan right away. Which means our job is to keep him from being able to attack another baron, before Tuan attacks him.”

“What methods do you propose, Rod?”

Rod shrugged. “The usual—hit and run, practical jokes, whispering campaigns—nothing sensible. Keep him off-balance. Which shouldn’t be too hard; he’s going to be feeling pretty insecure, right about now.”

“He will indeed. And, being paranoid, he will seek to eliminate whatever enemies he does see, before he turns his attention to attack.”

“Maybe. But a paranoid also might decide to attack before the next baron can attack him, and start his own secret police to take care of internal enemies.” Rod clenched a fist in frustration. “Damn! If only you could predict what a single human being would do!”

“Be glad you cannot,” Fess reminded, “or VETO and its totalitarians could easily triumph.”

“True,” Rod growled. “Truer than I like. And speaking of our proletarian pals, do you see any evidence of their meddling in this?”

“Alfar’s techniques do resemble theirs,” Fess admitted.

“Resemble? Wish fulfillment, more likely! He’s got the kind of power they dream of—long-distance, mass-production brainwashing! What wouldn’t any good little dictator give for that?”

“His soul, perhaps?”

“Are you kidding? Totalitarianism works the other way around—everybody else gives their souls to the dictator!”

“Unpleasant, but probably accurate. Nonetheless, there is no evidence of futurian activity.”

“Neither totalitarians nor anarchists, huh?”

“Certainly not, Rod.”

“Not even the sudden, huge jump in Alfar’s powers?”

“That ability does bother me,” Fess admitted. “A projective telepath, who seems to be able to take on a whole parish at one time… Still, there’s no reason to believe the totalitarians would be behind it.”

“Oh, yes there is,” Rod countered. “From everything Simon’s told me, and it just backed up what Gwen said—the trance these people seem to walk around in, is thoroughly impersonal.”

“Almost depersonalized, you might say? I had, had something of the same thought too, Rod. I recognize the state.”

“Yes—mechanical, isn’t it?”

“True. But that is not conclusive evidence of futurian meddling.”

“No—but it does make you wonder.” Rod gave the synthetic horsehair a last swipe with the brush. “There! As new and shiny as though you’d just come from the factory. Do you mind a long tether, just for appearances?”

“I would mind not having it. It is certainly necessary, Rod.”

“Must keep them up, mustn’t we?” Rod reached into the cart, pulled out a length of rope, tied one end to Fess’s halter and the other to a convenient tree branch. “Besides, you can break it easily, if you want.”

“I will not hesitate to do so,” Fess assured him. “Sleep while you can, Rod. You will need the rest.”

“You’re such an optimist.” Rod pulled his cloak out of the cart and went back to the campfire. “I’m not exactly in a great mood for emptying my mind of the cares of the day.”

“Try,” the robot urged.

“If I try to sleep, I’ll stay awake.” Rod lay down and rolled up in his cloak. “How about trying to stay awake?”

“Not if you truly want to sleep. I could play soft music, Rod.”

“Thanks, but I think the nightbirds are doing a pretty good job of that.”

“As you wish. Good night, Rod.”

“I hope so,” Rod returned. “Same to you, Fess.” He rolled over toward the fire…

… and found himself staring into Simon’s wide-open, calm, and thoughtful eyes.

“Uh… hi, there.” Rod forced a sickly grin. “Say, I’ll bet you’re wondering what I was doing, rambling on like that—aren’t you?”

“Not greatly,” Simon answered, “though I do find thy conversation to be of great interest.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Rod’s stomach sank. “Does it, uh, bother you, to, uh, hear me talk to my horse.”

“Not at all.” Simon looked faintly surprised. “And ‘tis certainly not so desperate as talking to thyself.”

“That’s a point…”

“ ‘Tis also scarcely amazing.” Simon favored him with a rather bleak smile. “Be mindful, I’m an innkeeper, and many carters have stopped at my inn. Every one I’ve known, has spoken to his horse.”

“Oh.” Rod hoped his surprise didn’t shown in his face. “You mean I’m not exactly unusual?”

“Only in this: thou’rt the first I’ve heard who, when he spoke to his horse, made sense.”

Rod supposed it was a compliment.