The Warlock Rock

Chapter Sixteen

The next evening, Gregory piped up, "I am hungry."

"Let it not trouble thee," Geoffrey advised. "It is but illusion."

"Illusion or not, you had best answer it with real food." Fess came to a halt, turning back to face them. "Or would you rather have an illusory dinner?"

"True substance, by choice." Geoffrey pressed a hand over his stomach. "Now that I bethink me of it, my little brother speaketh aright."

" 'Tis only past sunset, Geoffrey."

The boy shrugged. "I care not. I can be a-hungered at any hour."

"Yet thou didst dine but four hours agone."

"Aye, 'tis gone indeed." Geoffrey frowned around him. "There is sign of game hereabouts. Mayhap we should hunt down our dinner now."

"What," Magnus scoffed, "lose time for naught but an empty belly? Nay, where is thy soldier's fortitude?"

"It hath fled with the last of my dried beef," Geoffrey answered. "Naetheless, thou hast the right of it, brother—I must endure."

But Gregory' pointed to a column of smoke that stood against the sky. "Yon are folk. Mayhap they will have some victuals to sell."

They followed the path through the trees, till it opened out into a meadow. "Go warily, children," Fess cautioned. "Let us be sure they are friendly."

"As thou wilt." Cordelia sighed, and stepped through the last screen of leaves.

"It is certainly no village," Geoffrey said.

All over the meadow, young men and women were sitting up and shaking their heads, as though waking. They yawned, stretched, and put something in their mouths. A few were straggling down to a stream to drink and splash water on their faces; others were returning, far more sprightly than when they had left. Two others added sticks to a small tongue of flame, their movements quick, but so energetic that they sometimes nearly buried it.

"They are so gaunt!" Magnus said, unbelieving.

And they were—not emaciated, but devoid of any ounce of fat, pared down to stringy muscle. Their cheeks were hollow, their eyes too bright.

"The poor folk!" Geoffrey turned away, drawing a sling from a pouch at his waist. "Come, brothers! Let us find them meat!"

Fifteen minutes later, they approached the fire shoulder to shoulder, laden with squirrels, rabbits, and partridge.

The couple around the fire were chatting with each other, scarcely pausing for breath. They looked up, surprised; then the girl recoiled, face twisting in disugust. "Faugh! The poor beasts!"

"Aye." The young man frowned. "Wherefore didst thou slay them!"

They spoke so rapidly that the Gallowglasses could scarcely understand them.

"Why… why…" Geoffrey, his gift spurned, was at a loss.

"We have brought thee food," Magnus explained. "All thy folk do seem a-hungered."

The lad and lass stared at them in amazement. Then, abruptly, they burst into laughter—too loud, too hard.

"Why… wherefore…" Gregory looked around, perplexed.

"How ill-bred art thou!" Cordelia stormed at the couple. She threw her bundle of game down by the fire and set her hands on her hips. "To so laugh at those who seek to aid thee!"

But other young folk were gathering around now, and joining in the laughter.

"Be not offended, I prithee." A young man, perhaps a little less hard-faced than the others, choked back his laughter and smiled at them. "And your gift is welcome, for we must eat now and again, whether we wish to or no."

"Not wish to?" Geoffrey asked. "How is this? Wherefore wouldst thou not wish to eat?"

"Why, for that we have these." A girl who had once had a shapely figure held out a double handful of white pebbles. "Eat of one, and thou'It be no more a-hungered."

Geoffrey shied away, and Cordelia eyed the pebbles askance. "How now! Is not mistletoe a poison?"

"They are not mistletoe," another lad assured her, "but magic stones. What Greta offers thee are near to being the apples of Idun!"

"What, they that conferred eternal youth?" Magnus took up a pebble and inspected it narrowly. It had an unhealthy look somehow, a translucence that hinted at corruption just under the surface.

"Well, mayhap Tannin doth overspeak his case," the first youth allowed, "though when thou hast swallowed these stones, they fill thee with so great a sense of well-being that thou dost indeed feel as though thou wouldst ever be young."

"And end thine hunger," Greta asserted. "Thou wilt not wish to eat, and will be bursting with vigor."

"Here! Try!" Tarmin's hand shot out toward Magnus's mouth, a white pebble pinched between thumb and forefinger.

He almost punched Magnus in the nose, but Magnus recoiled just in time. "How now! I've no wish to eat of it!"

"Nor I," Geoffrey said, scowling about, "if it will waste me as much as it hath thy selves."

"Waste!" the first young man cried, offended. "Why, I am the picture of health!"

"He is!" another girl asserted. "Alonzo is the very portrait of robust young manhood!"

"Busted, mayhap," Geoffrey allowed. "I thank thee, but I'll not eat."

"Nay, thou wilt," Alonzo insisted. "What! Wilt thou thrust our gifts back in our faces?"

"We do not wish to offend," Magnus soothed, "but we will not eat."

"Why, how rude art thou!" Greta said, offended. "When we do but wish to share with thee. We would not be alone."

"Dost thou say that we do wrong to eat of them?" Tarmin demanded, glowering.

"Now that thou hast said it," Geoffrey replied, "aye."

"Then thou must needs partake of them," Alonzo stated. "We will not be wrong! Everybody must get stoned! Kindred! Catch and hold!"

And the circle closed in with a shout.

But a spirit screamed behind them, a huge black form towering out of the night above them, steel teeth flashing in the firelight, steel hooves flailing down.

The young folk screamed, terrified, and cowered before the night-demon—and the Gallowglasses ran through the gap toward Fess.

"Around me, and run!" the horse told them, and they shot past him, off into the night.

Alonzo shouted, seeing his prey escape, and leaped after them. Fess slammed his hooves down—he didn't have enough cause to really attack, but he could bar the way. Alonzo jarred into his steel side and reeled back, arms flailing, into Greta's embrace. The other young people raised a huge shout and, seeing that the demon was only a horse, leaped past it after the fleeing Gallowglasses.

"Where… to?" Gregory panted. Night had fallen, and he could not see.

"Over here, brother!" Geoffrey called. "There is a path!" He pounded away, taking the lead, his night-sight better than the others'.

"Fly," Cordelia called to her little brother, "or thou'lt be caught for weariness!"

"They will not." Magnus looked back over his shoulder. "Whence gained they such a store of strength, with so little meat upon them?"

"Do not ask, brother! Run!"

The leaders had yanked sticks out of the fire, pursuing them by torchlight. Magnus glanced back at the bobbing lights. "They come… closer," he panted. "Nay, find some way… to lose them! Or they'll… outrun us yet!"

"Into the wood!" Geoffrey called, and swerved in among the trees.

Behind them, a joyful shout split the air.

"They cheer with reason," Magnus cried. "We must go slowly here!"

"So must they," Geoffrey called back, "for I've spied a bog!"

The trees became more widely spaced, and between them some sort of sticky, mudlike substance roiled. Here and there, it puffed up into a bubble, sometimes of amazing dimensions, which finally popped and subsided into a sticky mess that closed off its own crater.

"The trees are all of one kind." Cordelia looked up about her. "What sort are they?"

"Gum, by the look of them," Magnus answered, "though 'tis too dark to see clearly."

Cordelia turned back to the business at hand. "How shall we cross?"

"There are stepping stones!" Geoffrey called. "Step where I step!"

They hopped across the bog, the boys levitating, ready to dash to catch their sister on the instant. But she sprang from rock to rock, more sure-footed than any of them.

Behind them, the mob came up against the sticky substance and jarred to a halt, one step from the mire.

"They stop," Cordelia cried. "They'll have none of this bog!"

"Small wonder." Magnus wrinkled his nose at the sickly sweet smell that rose from the bursting bubbles. "What manner of mud is this, that is pink?"

"Mayhap 'tis not its true color," Geoffrey called back. "We see by starlight, look you."

"I look," Magnus answered, "and I hear, and wish I did not."

The air about them was filled with soft rock music, perhaps softer than ever. Certainly the melodic line was simpler, varying only by a few notes, repeating over and over.

"I find it pleasant," Gregory said, smiling.

"Aye," Cordelia puffed, "but I'll warrant thou dost find the scent of this bog to thy liking, also."

"Why, so I do. How couldst thou know?"

"Because thou alone among us art still young enough to be truly a child, brother, and children do ever like sweetness."

"What, will I one day dislike it?" Gregory asked in surprise.

"Belike," Magnus admitted. "I find I have come to have a liking for sharper flavors."

"Then why dost thou not like the music we have heard?"

"I do find some of it suiting my taste," Magnus admitted.

"Safe ground!" Geoffrey cried, with one last bound. He climbed up the bank several paces and sank down to rest. "That was trying. Rest, my sibs, but not o'erlong."

"Aye." Cordelia joined him. "Those lean ones may yet find their way around this bog."

"But what of Fess?"

Geoffrey looked up at a slight sound. "He comes—or trouble doth."

"I am not trouble, Geoffrey." The great black horse shouldered out of the night. "As you guessed, however, your pursuers are coming around the bog; there is a trail, and they know their way."

" Tis their country." Magnus pushed himself to his feet with a groan. "Come, my sibs! The chase is on!"

They dodged around tree trunks and did their best to avoid thorns. "Is there truly a trail, Geoffrey?" Magnus called.

"Not truly, no. There is a game track that I follow."

"It should lead us to a larger." Cordelia looked back with apprehension; jarring music echoed in the distance behind them, with faint but enthusiastic shouting. "Find it quickly, I prithee! They gain!"

"We must fly, then," Magnus said, tight-lipped, "and 'tis dangerous enough in a daytime forest, let alone one benighted."

"Not so," Geoffrey called as he broke through some underbrush. "Here is a pathway!"

"Then we can run," Cordelia panted. She followed Geoffrey through the gap and began to sprint down the pathway. Magnus and Gregory followed, the younger boy gliding an inch off the ground, keeping pace with Cordelia.

Behind them, a huge crash announced their pursuers' breaking in upon the path. A whoop filled the air behind them, then the thunder of pounding feet.

"They follow," Magnus panted. "Run!"

And they did—but the mob stayed hard on their heels, whooping with glee.

"Where does… this path… lead?" Magnus puffed.

"I have… no notion… brother!" Geoffrey replied.

"So long as 'tis… away from them," Cordelia called.

Gregory piped up, "Is not that… tree ahead… the one near which… we came onto… the path?"

As they shot by it, they saw the broken screen of brush where the mob had tumbled through onto the trail.

"It is!" Geoffrey cried. "We are on a circle!"

"Then our pursuers are, also," Cordelia called back.

But Magnus frowned. "I hear them—but not… behind us."

"Aye," Gregory called. "By the sound, they are beneath!" And he stopped, peering down at the path.

"Nay, brother!" Magnus caught him up and started him running again. "An they still follow, we must not let them gain!"

But it was the Gallowglasses who gained; the sound of the mob began to fall behind them again.

"How is this?" Gregory wheezed. "I could swear we have passed them!"

Cordelia looked up, frowning. "Their voices come from the side, now."

They all looked—and the spectacle made them jar to a halt. The mob was in sight, but across from them, on the other side of a curve—and the young peasants were running upside down, seeming to hang from the path.

"What manner of magic is this?" Geoffrey demanded.

"Whatsoe'er it may be, they still follow, and we must flee!" Magnus stated. "Yet they will run us to ground if we keep to our feet. Up, sibs, and fly!"

He and Geoffrey grasped wrists in a fireman's carry, swooped Cordelia off her feet, and rose up a foot above the path, sailing away down its length. Gregory wafted alongside them, demanding, "How can they run inverted?"

"I know not," Geoffrey grated, "but we must run faster if we wish to lose them. See! They are still across from us!"

Gregory stared. "How can that be? We have flown a quarter-mile, at least!"

" 'Ware!" Geoffrey called. "We come to where we came in again!"

"Aye!" Magnus swerved toward the break in the underbrush. "And whence we came in, we can leave!"

But as they shot toward the break, it seemed to start moving itself, staying just a few feet ahead of them.

"Why, how is this?" Geoffrey demanded. "Doth the circle turn?"

They were all silent as insight hit a hammer blow.

"Many circles turn, brother," Cordelia said. "They are wheels."

"And so is this, upon which we run! Nay, then, we must go faster than the wheel, to catch its entrance! Fly, my sibs! At thy fastest speed!"

And fly they did, flat out, exerting every ounce of psi energy they possessed—but the gap stayed just ahead.

"Wherefore… did it not flee… before?" Cordelia panted.

"Belike because we did not seek to catch it! Save thy breath, sister, and fly!"

It was Geoffrey who realized their danger. "Slacken, sibs! Or we will overtake our pursuers!"

Sure enough, the mob's torches were just barely visible in front of them—right side up again.

"What unholy manner of loop is this?" Geoffrey moaned.

"Who asks?" called a clear alto, and two figures stepped through from the brush screen. The Gallowglasses cried out, and did their best to stop—but couldn't arrest their motion fast enough; they sailed into the strangers…

Who caught Cordelia and Gregory in one-armed hugs, and reached out to catch the older boys by the arm. Magnus jolted back, trying to break free, saw the stranger's face, and froze. "Papa!"

"Mama!" Cordelia cried, throwing her arms around her mother. "Oh, praise Heaven thou art come!"

Geoffrey squeezed his father in a quick bear hug before he remembered how old he was and drifted back, saying, "Alas! Now thou, too, art caught here with us!"

"Caught?" Gwen asked in alarm. "Have we come into a trap, then?"

"Aye! For this path is a circle, and we must run faster and faster to escape it!"

"But speed is not enough!" Cordelia explained. "The entrance stays ever ahead of us!"

"And there are those who chase us." Magnus looked back over his shoulder nervously. "By your leave, my parents, let us fly."

"Well, an thou wilt." Gwen levelled her broomstick; Cordelia hopped aboard. They drifted up above the path, and the boys rose to parallel them.

"If I fly, I can't really do much thinking." Rod started trotting alongside.

"You must ride, then, Rod." The great black horse shouldered through the brush and onto the trail.

"Fess! Praise the saints!" Cordelia called. "I feared they might ha' given thee a seizure!"

"No, Cordelia, though I thank you for thinking of me." Fess nodded to Rod, who mounted. "The gaunt young people ran past me; I had but to follow, since they pursued you."

"Why didn't you join them sooner?" Rod asked.

"I had to wait for them to come around again, Rod."

"Around? So it is a circle, then."

"But a most strange one, Papa," Cordelia burbled. "Anon our pursuers are across from us—but upside down!"

"Aye," Gregory agreed, "but after some time, they are before us again—yet right side up!"

Gwen frowned. "Husband, what manner of spell is this?"

"Probably a projective illusion," Rod said thoughtfully.

"Oh, I ken the manner of its casting!" his wife said impatiently. "Yet what hath been cast?"

"From the sound of it, I'd guess a Mobius loop."

"A Mobius loop?" Gregory questioned. "What is that, Papa?"

"A loop with a half-twist in it—it only has one side. Stay on it, and you eventually come back to where you started— but on the other side of its single surface."

" 'Tis nonsense," Geoffrey said flatly.

"Nay, 'tis wondrous!" Gregory's eyes were huge. "Wherefore have I not heard of it aforetime?" He gave Fess an accusing look.

"Because you are not yet ready for topology, Gregory," the horse answered. "I must insist on your learning calculus first."

"Teach it quickly, then!"

"Not now." Magnus looked back over his shoulder with apprehension. "We have either lagged, or gone too fast— they approach from behind again."

"Faster," Geoffrey urged, and they all picked up the pace.

"How shall we break out of this circle, husband?" Gwen asked.

"We must run faster!" Geoffrey declared. "Soon or late, we will catch the break in the brush through which we came!"

"Not so, brother," Magnus reminded him, "for the faster we go, the faster it doth go."

"Synchronizing its rotation rate to yours, huh?" Rod pursed his lips. "So you have to run faster and faster to get out of the trap—but there's a catch."

"Yes," Fess corroborated. "The faster you run, the faster the loop's rotation—and the faster its rotation, the greater its attraction."

"The more speed, the more you're stuck in the rut." Rod nodded. "That makes a weird sort of sense."

"Weird it is," Gwen agreed. "A trap."

Magnus stared. "Dost thou say that as we run harder, we hold ourselves better to it?"

"Of course!" Geoffrey cried, "even as a sling-stone sticks to the pouch of the sling!"

"Then loose, and throw," Magnus urged.

"Good idea." Rod skidded to a halt just short of the break in the underbrush, caught Gregory, and threw him through the gap. He squalled, then remembered to fly as he sailed up and over. He sank out of sight, then bobbed up again, calling, "I am free!"

"I thought so." Rod nodded. "Just a matter of making the effort to break the vicious cycle. Hold still, everybody— then jump!"

They all came to a halt—and the gap slowed with them, then halted, seeming ready to take off again.

"Now!" Gwen called, and the whole family arced up and over. They landed in a crackling of underbrush and bounded to their feet. "You too, Fess!" Rod called.

The great horse followed, landing in their midst.

Howling approached, and torches flared near. The young folk sailed by in a storm of thundering feet.

"They do not even know we're gone," Cordelia said, staring after them.

"I think they do not care," Magnus said, with a cynical smile. "They take joy in the running; they care not if they never come to their destination."

"What destination?" Geoffrey wondered.

"Well asked," Magnus agreed.

"Leave them be," Rod said firmly, and turned his boys' heads away from the Mobius trail. "Some people you just can't help."

"But we must try, Papa!" Cordelia protested.

"It is to no purpose, daughter," Gwen said gently. "You cannot succor those who do not wish a rescue. Come, leave them to their trap, and let us seek our beds."

Everything considered, Fess forbore to wake them and, by the time Rod rose, the sun was high in the sky. The family had a late breakfast of journey rations, with the parents asking the youngsters what they'd seen. They were only too glad to oblige, and by the time they got around to asking what their parents had seen, it was noon. Gwen filled them in, with a few details from Rod. The youngsters shivered with delight at their descriptions and, when they'd finished, Gregory asked:

"Have we now enough facts to make some guess as to who hath wrought this coil? Or is't but happenstance?"

"Surely not happenstance!" Geoffrey said. "'Tis too much of a pattern."

"Ah," said Gwen. "What pattern dost thou see?"

"Chaos!" Cordelia answered, and Rod nodded. "I'd say that's pretty good. It's almost as though the younger people become addicted to the music, and disregard any social rules they've been taught."

"I would not say that," Geoffrey demurred. "There is some faint ranking that I've seen, some one who doth assert himself as leader, each and every time."

"Thou couldst say that, too, of birds and beasts," Gregory objected.

"An excellent point," Fess said. "What little social order is left, is of the most primitive."

Rod sat there and glowed as he watched his offspring putting their heads together to work out a problem.

Magnus lifted his head. "No order but the most primitive? That hath the ring of anarchy!"

"Not quite," Rod disagreed. "The ideal anarchy has everybody cooperating with everybody else, and nobody giving orders."

Gregory stared. "Is't possible?"

"Oh, surely," Cordelia scoffed, "and 'tis possible that a fairy came to take thy tooth away and leave thee a penny for it!"

Gregory stared at her, in shocked disbelief. "Dost thou mean the fairy comes not?"

Cordelia bit her lip, irked with herself. "Nay, certes not. We but spoke of what is possible, brother, not of what doth truly exist."

Neat try at covering, but the cat was out of the bag now, and Gregory had that much less left of childhood's wonder. Rod had to remind himself that intelligence can only make a child seem to be more mature.

But Magnus was nodding. "Such an ideal anarchy may be as possible as the Wee Folk, but is far less likely; it doth require that all folk agree without saying so, and that none seek to violate that common trust for his own gain. Can people truly believe that such a thing may hap?"

"People can believe anything, if they want to badly enough," Rod murmured, "and the anarchists who are trying to subvert Gramarye want very badly to believe that no one is better than they are. Not the other way around, of course—but they're not really worried about proving that they can't be superior."

"So," Magnus said, "it would seem that these music-rocks are made and spread by thine ancient enemies, the anarchists."

"Not ancient—but, let's say, well established, anyway. And, yes, I'd stake my job on the future anarchists' being behind this phenomenon."

"How have they wrought it, then?" Magnus asked. "Have they won a convert among Gramarye espers?"

"That's their standard operating procedure, and I don't see any reason to think they're not doing that now. Might be more than one—it would take a dozen espers to spread these music-rocks all over Gramarye."

Gwen shook her head. "I cannot believe there could be more than one. 'Tis a wondrous accomplishment, husband, to make rocks such as these that will make their music, and make more of themselves, when they are far from their crafter—and 'twould take an amazing mind to think of it, too. He or she would be a very genius of a witch."

"But intelligence and shrewdness don't always go together, dear. We're talking about someone who's not only an amazingly gifted crafter, but who also has a very thorough grasp of organization and leadership."

Magnus frowned. "That hath the sound of two separate people."

Husband and wife looked up, amazed. Then Gwen said slowly, "Why, so it hath. Gramercy, my son."

Magnus shook off the compliment with irritation—he was getting a little old to be showing pleasure at praise. "I thank thee, Mama, yet 'tis of greater import to discern who is which, and where they are."

"As to where," said Cordelia, "I've seen naught to make us think 'tis not come from the West."

"All the evidence does seem to point in that direction," Fess agreed.

"Why, then, there's an end to it." Magnus rose, dusting off his hands. "Westward ho!"

"Aye." Gwen looked up at him, her eyes bright. "Yet where shall we go to in the West, my son?"

Magnus shrugged. "There is not enough to tell us that yet. We must be alert for clues and signs that may direct us as we go. Must we not, sprout?" He slapped Gregory's shoulder affectionately.

Little Brother looked up, his eyes alight. "Aye, Magnus! Assuredly, we know not yet all the answer—but I've no doubt we shall learn it. Let us go!"

"Bury the fire." Gwen rose, and began packing up the journey bread and pemmican. The boys kicked dirt over the flames, made sure they were dead out, then turned to follow her toward the sun's destination.

Rod followed, subvocalizing, "The kid amazes me, Fess. He's showing a talent for leadership that I hadn't expected."

"Yes, Rod. His seeking of confirmation of his conclusions was deftly done."

Rod nodded. "After all, Big Brother couldn't admit that Little Brother might be better at thinking things through—at least, not if he wanted to keep leading."

"It is not Gregory who would question his leadership."

"No, but Cordelia and Geoffrey both would, if they thought Magnus had to refer his decisions to the youngest— and he has to keep them on his side if he wants to get anything done." Rod nodded. "Oh, yes. If anybody can keep them working together, Magnus can."

"Or Gwen, Rod. Or yourself."

"Well, yes," Rod agreed, "but we won't always be here, will we?"

"Prudent, Rod, but rather morbid. Shall we think of more pleasant things?"

"Such as finding out who's behind these music-rocks? An excellent idea, Fess. Let's go."