The Warlock Insane

Chapter Seventeen

By midmorning, Rod was becoming acutely aware that they had set out on this jaunt without food or water. "Y'know, Modwis, I'm getting a mite peckish."

The dwarf took a sling from his pouch and unwound the strings. "Shall I seek us a brace of partridges?"

Rod's mouth watered. "Sounds good. Know how to cook 'em?"

"Aye. 'Twill be some time, though—I must seek and bait them first."

"That's okay, I can use a break. Say, can I help?"

The dwarf flashed him a grin. "I shall hunt more quickly alone—yet I thank thee."

"However you like." Rod reined in by a stream. "I'll get the fire going."

"An thou wilt." Modwis dismounted and tied his donkey to a bush. "Ere noon, we shall dine. Wish me a hunter's luck."

"Hunter's luck!" Rod called, and waved a hand as Modwis rode away into the wood. Then he went down to the stream.

"Be careful, Rod."

"I will, Fess—but I'm thirsty enough to drink water now." Rod took up a fallen branch and brought its end down sharply on the ice. It cracked through; water welled up, and Rod knelt to drink.

And froze—for he saw the top of a shaven head with a knot of hair in the center, floating just below the water. He backed away, but the head rose up out of the ice, with a bull neck and a massive torso beneath it. It was a face with hard, narrow eyes, high cheekbones, and long, drooping black moustaches. Adrenaline tuned Rod's system. What's a Mongol doing here?

Then he realized he could see through the man.

"I am come again." The apparition's voice was thin and whispery, but had the echo of a rotund basso.

"For the first time, as far as I'm concerned! Who the hell are youT'

"Aye, feign innocence! Thou knowest well I am the warrior Pantagre, whom thou didst most treacherously slay in battle—and am come now for revenge!"

The ghost suddenly lashed out with an arm, and Rod had no doubt that, if he'd really been the guilty party, that mean left hook would have managed to drag him down into the water. Because he was innocent, though, the ghost's hand went right through him.

The spectre stared at his palm. "How can this hand fail me!"

"Because I'm innocent," Rod explained. "Look, I don't know who killed you—but it wasn't me."

"Thou dost lie! 'Twas thee, or thy very likeness!"

"That's not impossible—I seem to have a lot of duplicates running around—but it wasn't me."

The ghost's eyes narrowed. "Art bold enough to prove thy claim?"

"Generally, yes."

The ghost reached up to a low-hanging branch of the oak tree above them, and plucked a sprig of mistletoe. He pulled off one of the little white globes, then held the sprig out to Rod. "My hands cannot grasp thee, yet thine can serve. Take thou this berry, and eat, as I eat. Whiche'er doth lie shall sink."

"Sink?" Rod asked. "I can understand what that means for you—but what does it mean if / sink?"

"That thou wilt die, and become a ghost, as I am— whereupon we may fight on equal terms."

Rod's scalp prickled as his hair tried to stand up. It might have looked like mistletoe, but the berry he held was poison.

"Art afeard?" the ghost jeered. "Dost own to thy guilt?"

"Never," Rod snapped. He opened his mouth and lifted the berry…

With a howl, a wolf shot from the brush and leaped on him.

Rod shouted and rolled aside—and the wolf caught the berry in his mouth and barreled on past Rod. He landed and wheeled toward the ghost with a manic growl.

The ghost wailed in dismay and sank from sight.

Rod stared. What kind of ghost was afraid of a wolf? And what kind of wolf would charge a ghost?

A young one. The beast turned to Rod, tongue lolling out—and Rod could have sworn he was smiling. Slowly, he let his own mouth curve, too. "So. Mirabile left a guardian over me, did she?"

The wolf nodded and came right up to Rod, sat down, and held up a paw.

Rod took it with a grave bow. "Delighted to have the opportunity to further our acquaintance, Sir Wolf." Then he looked up in alarm. "Hey, wait a minute! If that berry was poison, we'd better take you and get your stomach pumped!" Every protective instinct in him screamed—he might play along with the charade, but he knew who the wolf was!

But White Fang shook his head, still smiling, and Rod realized, Of course. If Big Tom was right, the berry was made of witch-moss—and if the wolf was who he knew it was, then the berry wouldn't hurt it. Just the opposite, if anything.

Either that, or the wolf meant it had had the sense to spit the berry out. For a moment, Rod was tempted to ask it, then decided he didn't want to hear the animal speak. Why weaken the illusion? "Okay, Fang—and thanks for the vote of confidence. I knew I was innocent, but it's nice to have somebody confirm it."

When Modwis came back, he stepped into the clearing and dropped the partridges, staring in alarm.

Rod looked up from the fireside and smiled, resting a hand on the wolf's head. "Hi, Modwis. Meet my friend."

He hoped he was right.

They traveled together all the next day, and Rod and Modwis found the young wolf to be remarkably good company. But when the sun's rays were stretching the shadows of the trees halfway up their neighbors' trunks, Rod finally admitted, "We're not going to find an inn tonight."

"Even so," Modwis said.

Rod sighed. "Time to find a campsite." He turned to the wolf. "Want to run ahead and find us a clearing?"

The wolf grinned, then loped off ahead among the trees.

"Art thou certain 'tis safe to have him with us?" Modwis asked.

"That particular young wolf, I would trust with my life," Rod answered.

Fess, of course, said nothing.

The wolf came loping back, still grinning, slewed to a halt on its haunches, and jerked its head back over its shoulder, as though pointing.

"Right ahead, huh?" Rod nodded. "Well, let's see."

The clearing was only about twenty feet across, and would have been fully roofed with leaves in summer—but now the darkening sky showed clearly through the bare branches. Modwis tethered his donkey and hung its oat bag over its ears. Rod watched him, muttering under his breath, "Just how conspicuous should we be, Alloy Ally?"

"So far as Modwis knows, you have already left me to graze once, Rod—as Beaubras left his horse, outside High Dudgeon."

Rod nodded. "Good point." He dropped the reins and strolled away to hunt for firewood.

"There are pine boughs." Modwis took out a long knife. "I shall make our beds."

"Great," Rod called back, "and I'll get the fire going. Then it's my turn to hunt." He turned to the wolf. "I'll find dinner for Modwis and me, but you'd better go dig up a rabbit for yourself.''

The wolf grinned up into his eyes, then turned and trotted off into the underbrush.

Rod watched him go, reflecting that he was being mean— but he had to play along with the boy's charade, didn't he? Either that, or reveal his own knowledge of it, which would no doubt dampen Magnus's spirits like an autumn rain.

Of course, he could have been mistaken—the wolf might have really been a wolf, though a fairie's pet. What then?

Well, then the wolf might not be back until late, or might not come back at all, for that matter. Rod felt a chill, and hoped it would come back.

Out of sight of the camp, the wolf's form fluxed; it turned back into Magnus. He slipped from trunk to trunk until he could see the camp clearly through a screen of branches, waited until Rod and Modwis were both facing the other way, then stepped out where Fess could see him, and waved. The great black horse lifted its head, and Magnus nodded, then stepped back into cover, satisfied that his father's other guardian knew of his own presence. He leaned back against a trunk and reached into his pouch for some dried beef. It wasn't going to be much of a dinner, but he didn't intend to let Papa out of his sight. Like father, like son—only now, it was Magnus's turn to be overprotective.

Rod lay awake, listening to Modwis's deep, even breathing, and trying to imitate it. He kept telling himself he was being silly, that there was no way Magnus could come to harm. Nonetheless, he knew there was equally no way he was going to sleep until the wolf came back. He'd even saved him some stew, too…

Then he realized that the shimmering through the trees wasn't all moonlight.

He tensed even more, staring off toward the south, weighing his worry about Magnus against the possibility that the boy might have run afoul of whatever was shedding that eldritch light—and wishing heartily that his son had not insisted on coming along into the wild.

He finally decided that knowledge was better than worry. If Magnus came back while he was gone, Modwis would waken to take care of the lad—assuming the wolf disguise didn't bother him too much. Even if it did, there was always Fess. "I'm going to investigate that light," Rod murmured to the robot-horse. "Stay here and take care of the 'wolf,' will you?"

"Rod—the only light is that of the moon."

Rod shook his head. "No. I thought so, too, but I took a closer look, and there's another kind. It looks like moon-light, yes, but it's different. Hold the fort, Fess." And he slipped off into the forest.

The robot hung poised between obedience and concern for his owner—but Rod had ordered him to stay, and there was no sign of an external threat, only Rod's own hallucination…

Which could be dangerous enough; but Rod had given an order. Fess heaved white noise and settled himself to wait—but he opened the channel to Rod's maxillary microphone, and boosted the gain.

Magnus's head nodded heavily, and the jerk woke him from his doze. Blinking, he glanced toward the campfire—

And saw Rod's bedroll empty.

Instantly, the boy was alert. He scanned the campsite and saw Rod slipping into the trees on the far side. Magnus pulled himself together and set off around the clearing, being careful where he stepped, moving almost silently through the winter wood.

He was a quarter of the way around when something hard and blunt cracked into his skull just behind the ear, and he dropped, senseless.