The Warlock Rock

Chapter Thirteen

Meanwhile, the elder Gallowglasses continued their part of the quest.

The sun set, turning the sky into rose and pink, reaching long streamers out toward Rod and Gwen as they hiked toward it.

"I had felt tired," Gwen said, "and a-hungered—but now, by some happenstance, I do feel invigorated, and mine hunger has abated."

"A bait that I would have taken," Rod said, "and dealt with the trap if I'd had to. But I know what you mean—I'm ready to greet the day. Only it's dusk."

"Could it be the music that hath done it?" Gwen asked.

"Can you call it music?" Rod returned.

"Whatever 'tis, 'tis wondrous," Gwen answered.

And it was—a magical blending of sound that almost seemed to lift them and lend wings to their heels. They walked on into the sunset with a spring in their steps. Almost without realizing it, they joined hands.

But the pinks went on much longer than they should have; surely the sun must have set long ago! Nonetheless,

all the sky was rosy still, and Rod suddenly realized that everything around them was pink-hued too. "Gwen—we're looking at the world through rose-colored glasses!"

Gwen looked about, eyes widening. "So it would seem— yet we wear no spectacles. How comes this, my lord?"

"Don't ask me—you're the magic expert." Rod grinned. "Why worry, anyway? Let's just enjoy it."

For a second, he could have sworn the breeze whispered in his ear, " Tis but entertainment." But he knew it must have been his imagination.

"Rose-colored glasses, indeed," Gwen said after a while. "The pinks have deepened."

"Yes, they have," Rod mused. "In fact, some of them have turned a definite red."

Then suddenly, the music that had been all about them was in front of them, and scarlet light glimmered through a screen of leaves ahead.

"What have we here?" Gwen murmured.

"Go gently," Rod whispered.

Together, they stole up to the screen of leaves, and peered in.

It was a throne room—it had to be. There was a huge chair on a high dais, which could only have been a throne, and a mass of courtiers treading the measure before it. They were all different shades of red—ruby, scarlet, deep rose— and the man who sat on the throne was crimson, with a crown of red gold adorned with rubies. He nodded and beat time with his sceptre, for it was rock music they danced to—and even the tallest of them could scarcely have reached Rod's knee.

"I thought that I knew all of the Wee Folk, or at least knew of all their kingdoms," Gwen whispered, "yet ne'er have I heard of these."

"They may not have been here before," Rod whispered back. "After all, that music they're dancing to wasn't here before, either. Maybe they came with it."

The courtiers bowed and curtsied, rose and swirled, and the crimson king nodded and smiled over all, delighting in his subjects' bliss.

"Twould be shame to trouble them," Gwen whispered. "Come, my lord, let us go."

They stole away, leaving the king and all his court to their endless ball.

But as they went farther and farther into the wood, the tones of color deepened and changed—maroon, then purple, and finally indigo—and the music became slower, even rather sad, but with a strident beat that lifted the spirits before they could sink too low.

"I am saddened." Gwen leaned her head on Rod's shoulder. "I have no reason to be, I know—yet I am."

"Must be the music that's doing it." Rod held her close, trying to cradle her as they walked. "I feel it too. Lean on me, love—it makes it better."

"I shall," she murmured. "Thou must needs support me now."

"I promised to once, in front of a congregation of elves, didn't I?" Rod smiled. "We really must get around to a church wedding one of these days."

"Would not our children be scandalized, though?" she murmured.

"Are you kidding? You'll have all you can do to keep Cordelia from making the arrangements."

She lifted her head, smiling up into his eyes. "Thou canst ever buoy me up when I sink, Rod Gallowglass. Mayhap 'tis that for which I love thee."

"Well, you manage to put up with some awfully rough changes in my temperament," he reminded her. "You're not the only one who's moody now and then."

"Now most of all," she said. "Come, speed my steps. We must move out from this place of blue hues, or it will sadden us to death."

"Only a little farther now," he murmured. "It's getting darker."

"Can that be good?"

"Of course. It has to get darker before it can start getting lighter, doesn't it?"

She gave him a thin smile in answer, but her face was growing pale. With a stab of anxiety, Rod noticed that she had become heavier, as though some weight were dragging her down. Looking up, he saw that all the leaves had fallen, and bare branches glimmered in starlight. Off to his right, a dark lake lay like the gathering place of lost hopes, a well of despair, and Rod shuddered and pushed on, half-carrying his wife now. Her feet still moved, but her eyes had closed, and she was murmuring as though in a fever. All around them, the music still strummed with a steady beat, but a slow one now, sad and lonely. High above it, like an arpeggio, came a long, eerie howling that sank and died into a gloating laugh. It was distant, but it made Rod shiver. He pushed on, walking a little faster.

Finally, the haunted woodland sank behind them—but they were in a place that was bleaker still, a barren land broken by harsh upthrusts of rock, sharp-edged and unworn, like flints new-broken in a new-made world. Light glimmered on their points and edges, but starlight only. It didn't bother Rod, really—he had grown up on an asteroid, and to him, it seemed almost like home. Yes, quite like Maxima, or perhaps even Luna, between sunset and earthrise—the dark side of the moon.

Rod took a deep breath and actually relaxed a little—it might be stark, but at least it was clean. That other place had felt of sickening and decay.

Gwen lifted her head, eyelids fluttering open. "My lord… what did I…"

"The blues got to you, darling," he said softly. He felt good about having helped her out for once. "We're into a new land, now. In

Gwen looked about her, and shuddered. She nestled closer to Rod. "Cold… I feel so chilled…"

"Well, you just woke up, sort of. But keep walking, dear. If nothing else, the dawn must come sometime. Just keep moving your feet, and we'll be out of it."

"I will," she murmured. "'Tis not so hard, now. The music doth aid."

And it did, rising and soaring, still with that pronounced beat, but you had to listen for it sometimes now, and Rod could even recognize the sounds of strings.

Softly, almost in silence, they came to a place where the land dipped down, and a river ran. It should have been silver, or at least reflected the glitter of the stars, but it was black, totally black, dark as velvet. Their path followed the incline down to a landing, where a boat waited, with a ferryman leaning on his pole, head bowed.

"I mislike that river," Gwen murmured.

"I know what you mean," Rod said, "but I like what's behind us even less. Come on, darling—the boat looks safe."

As they came up to the pier, though, the old man lifted his head, then raised his pole to bar their path. "Wilt thou not carry us?" Gwen pleaded, but the ferryman shook his head.

"Here, maybe he wants money." Rod opened his belt pouch and drew out a silver coin. The old man released his pole with one hand, which came out cupped. Rod dropped the coin into his palm and reached down to his pouch again. "Maybe I have another…"

But the old man shook his head again and turned away, slipping his pole into the dark water, waving a hand toward vthe seats in his boat.

Rod held the gunwale while Gwen got in, a bit awkwardly—she hadn't been in boats very often. Then Rod climbed in himself and sat beside her, holding her close. The old man's expression was kindly enough, but there was something forbidding about him all the same. He pushed on his pole, and the boat glided out into the current.

That was a very eerie trip indeed, totally in silence, except for the music coming from the shore, which waned as they moved out into the middle of the river. There it was silent indeed. Curls of mist rose from the water, more and more of them, thickening and twining together, swelling into roughly anthropoid shapes with darknesses for eyes and mouths, gesticulating and beckoning. Gwen gasped and crowded closer to Rod, which he was very glad of, since he wasn't feeling any too cocky himself. They slid through the silent shapes, mists of ghosts wreathing up all about them, until finally they began to hear music, faint but unmistakable, coming from the approaching shore.

Then they could see the land, and they knew dawn was near.

The ferryman pushed the boat up against a pier, and they stepped out into the false dawn. Rod reached into his pouch again, but the ferryman was already turning away, shaking his head and poling out into the middle of the stream.

"Strange old duck," Rod murmured, but the jaunty words had the false ring of bravado.

Together, they clambered up the bank into a meadow.

Rod yelped with pain and surprise. The missile that had hit him glanced away, spinning up and around, swooping back at him. It was a discus, looking like two dinner plates glued together rim to rim, only it was made of metal.

"Duck!" Rod shouted. "That edge is sharp!"

They dove for the ground, but the strange missile skimmed past a bare foot above them—and it was being joined by others like it, a dozen, two dozen. As they came, they made a humming, thumping, syncopated music that drowned out the magical sounds Gwen and Rod had followed through the long night.

Gwen glared at them. With a surge of relief, Rod remembered that she was telekinetic. Then he remembered that he was, too, and glared at a saucer that was skipping through the air toward him, thinking down and away.

It went right on skipping.

Rod felt a surge of indignation—how dare it ignore him? But Gwen said, "My lord, they will not answer!"

"So don't ask," Rod snapped. Then he realized what she had said, and whirled to her. "They what?"

"They will not answer," she said again. "I think at them, I seek to turn them with my mind, but they do not respond."

"You mean these flying discos have nothing to do with mind power?" Rod frowned. "Well, we'll have to cope with them, anyway."

"What can we do?" Gwen asked.

"Rise above it!" Rod answered. "Ready, dear? Up and away!"

She shot off the ground on her broomstick, and Rod rose up right behind her. The discos oriented on them and came singing after, but they were out of their league, and the High Warlock and his wife left them far behind.