The Warlock Rock

Chapter Twenty

They had journeyed an hour or two the next day when Cordelia tilted her head back and sniffed the wind. "I smell brine."

"We do come near to the sea, then," her mother said. "Magnus, go aloft and tell if thou dost see water."

Magnus bobbed up as though he'd hit a thermal, skyrocketing to a thousand feet. His mental voice said, Aye, Mama! Ah, 'tis ever a noble sight! Such a vast expanse of water, so wide and flat, clear to the edge of the world!

"Stop being so poetic," Rod said, grinning. "It's just the horizon."

Ah, but who doth know what may lie beyond this horizon?

"More water, and you know it darn well." Rod felt a stab of anxiety, though; Magnus was almost of an age to begin wandering. How soon would his son leave him?

"How far is it?" Gwen asked.

Twenty miles or more, Mother. Two days' journey afoot, at least.

"Anything worth looking at in between?" Rod asked.

Dost thou wish to look at fens and marshland?

"Let us leave no stone unturned." Rod sighed. "Come down, son, and let's see what the fen has in store for us."

But they found out on the way. They happened across a road and, as they neared the scrub growth that marked the fen, they saw a group of people ahead—and another even farther ahead. Rod frowned. "What is this, a procession?"

"Aye," said Gregory. "Behind us, Papa."

Rod looked back and saw another handful of people following a hundred yards to the rear. "We seem to be popular."

"Or the fen is," Gwen pointed out.

"Wherefore are there only small children among them?" Cordelia asked.

"Interesting point, that." Rod lengthened his stride. "Let's ask someone."

They caught up with the group ahead—two men and two women in their forties, a woman in her sixties, and three small children.

"Where are you going?" Rod asked, but the people plodded on as though they hadn't heard. Rod throttled his irritation and was about to ask again, when Fess noted, "They wear bandages about their heads, Rod. Between that and the clamor of the rock music, they may not have heard you."

"Good point." Rod reached out and tapped the shoulder of the peasant in front. The man shied away like a critic hearing a countdown, then took in the sight of Gwen and the children. He relaxed a little, but eyed Magnus and Cordelia with caution, almost hostility.

Their voices echoed in Rod's head. Who hath hurt him, Papa? Of what is he so wary?

Of us, sister, Magnus answered. But why should he fear a youth and a maiden?

Let's ask. Rod pointed to his ear and said, "Can you hear us?" loudly and slowly. The peasant frowned, shaking his head. He pulled the bandage off his head, popped a wax cover off his ear, and promptly winced. "Aiee! The noise! I trust Your Worship hath good reason to rob me of my ward."

"I just want to know why so many of you are going to the fen," Rod called, trying to project over the sound of the music.

"Why, to escape this coil of howling," the peasant called back. "Come, but ask no more until we've gained shelter, I beg of thee." Still, he didn't turn away; Rob was obviously gentry.

Impatiently, Rob called, "Right. Go ahead."

The peasant smiled in gratitude and replaced his earcover, pulling the bandage back to hold it in place. He relaxed visibly, then gave the Gallowglasses a smile and turned away to trudge toward the fen.

"Can they truly seek refuge from the music?" Cordelia asked, wide-eyed.

"They can," Gwen assured her. "For myself, I do not wonder at it; 'tis a veritable cacophony."

"Nay, Mama! 'Tis pretty! Well… not 'pretty,' surely. But 'tis most appealing!"

"If that's appeal, I'll steal the bell," Rod growled. "Come on, family. If there's silence ahead, I crave it."

"If thou wilt." Magnus sighed, and followed after.

"Magnus," said Fess, behind him, "must you put in extra steps for each stride?"

"It doth no harm, Fess," Magnus answered, "and this music doth make me feel so filled with movement that I must needs find some way to let it out."

"Well, if you must, you must." The horse sighed, and followed the family, remembering how Will Kemp had danced his way from London to the seacoast, never taking a normal step for nine days.

The ground became marshy to either side of the road. Soon small pools appeared. Then they were in among the low scrub growth, and the peasant family stopped to take off their bandages and earcovers, warily at first, then quickly, with sighs of relief.

"Was it truly needful, Mama?" a ten-year-old asked.

"Mayhap not for thee, sweet chuck," his mother answered, "but it was for me."

"We would liefer not have thee heed the clamor about us, as thy brother and sister have done," his father explained.

"What clamor?" the boy said. " Tis most sweet strains, here."

And they were. The music was soft, very melodic—and so peaceful that Rod almost didn't realize it was there, until he stopped to listen. The tunes had a much greater range of notes, and the bass line and rhythm were no longer dominant.

"Aye, there be sweet sounds here," said the other man. "Thou art within the fen, and its music doth bar that howling that we have waded through these two days."

"The music doth emanate from some place ahead," Magnus pointed out.

"Let us go to it," one of the men said, "for I crave its shelter."

Everyone started down the road again, but it wasn't wide enough for more than four abreast, so the Gallowglasses followed after.

"Husband," said Gwen, "go up among these folk, and learn why they have come."

"If you say so—but I would have said it was pretty obvious." Rod lengthened his stride and caught up with the peasants. "If you don't mind, goodman—I need a bit of information."

"Assuredly, my lord! What wouldst thou?"

"Well, for starters—how did you find out about this place?"

"Word of it hath run through every farm and village," the wife answered, "wherever folk do groan under the burden of this clamor that hath begun these few months past."

More than two months, then, Rod noted. "You've had to try to keep up with your daily work all that time?"

"Aye, and it hath become a trial greater and more sore as the days have rolled," her husband said. "A neighbor told us there was sanctuary in the fen, yet we had crops in the field, and sought to keep our daily round."

"Yet our heads began to ache, and sorely," the wife added. "We stopped our hearing with waxen covers for our ears, we tied bandages to hold them—yet still the strident thumping came through, to make us falter."

"I began to stumble as I went out to the pasture," the other peasant man explained. "I found that I did trip as I sought to follow the plow."

"Anon the burden became too great to bear," his wife said, "and so we came here, for sanctuary."

"Ere any others of our children were reived from us," the first wife said darkly.

"Children reived!" Cordelia stiffened. "Who would do so craven a deed?"

"The music, maiden," the first man answered. "The music, that doth capture the affections of our older children."

"Why, how is this?" But there was foreboding in Cordelia's voice; she remembered the groups of young people she had seen.

"Our son was aged twelve, when he began to twitch with the music's rhythm," the second wife answered. "Our daughter was fourteen. Her head began to nod, and she commenced singing wordless songs as she went about her chores…"

"Not wordless," the ten-year-old protested.

"Well, if there were words to them, I could not make them out. She did move more slowly about her tasks, and more slowly still, till finally she threw them over, and went off to join the other maidens in the forest."

"Pray Heaven they are maidens still!" the second father said with a shudder, "for the older boys and young men have gone to the forest, too. Mine eldest was twenty, mine other son sixteen. Where are they now?"

Magnus saw the real worry that lined his face. "Peace, goodman. He's well, I doubt not."

"Then thou hast not seen what we have seen," the first father grunted. "The twitching and spasms they call dancing, the strange foods they gather, the bands of them that wind about the countryside with strange kicking steps, knowing not whither they go— Pray Heaven they have not come to their undoing!"

Magnus started to say that he hadn't seen the youths doing anything dangerous, but remembering the sense of peril he had felt with the lotus-eaters, the cadaverous pebble-eaters, and the vampire, he held his peace.

"So many families!" Gwen saved him with a change of subject. "And look, they do come from all points of the compass!"

They could see for a mile or two in each direction, for the fens were flat and level, and covered only with bushes and tussocks, with here and there a small stand of trees. Against the waning sun came the silhouettes of families and groups of older peasants, trooping in from all directions.

"Where are they going?" Rod asked.

"We shall know soon enough," Gwen assured him.

"The music has grown louder," Gregory noted.

It had, though not unpleasantly so. Rod glanced at his children, and saw that even Geoffrey was beginning to relax—and he was relieved that Magnus and Cordelia had stopped twitching.

Then they came into a grove of small, stunted, twisted trees, and saw a large pool in front of them. It lay still, molten gold in the late-afternoon sun, its surface rippled only by a passing breeze—and the whole pond seemed to resonate with the gentle melody. All around its edge, people were sitting or reclining, doing simple chores such as whittling or mending. Campfires blossomed.

"Water at last!" Magnus knelt by the pool. "I thirst!"

"I would not," the older peasant said, but Magnus had already dipped up a handful. He sipped, then shook the water off, making a face. " 'Tis brackish."

"Aye," the peasant said. "This is fen-land, look you, young master. We are near the sea; the water is salt."

"Even as our blood is," Rod murmured.

"How sayest thou, gentleman?"

"Nothing major." Rod sat down with a sigh. "We'll have to get a campfire going, of course."

"Certes." Gwen sat beside him. "Yet we may rest awhile."

"I shall search for water," Magnus said.

"Don't bother, son." Rod held up a hand. "Any water you find will taste of the sea. Anything in that waterskin, Gwen?"

His wife held up a leather bottle that was almost flat. Suddenly, it bulged. "Aye," she said. "Here, my son."

Magnus took the skin thankfully and squirted a long stream into his mouth.

"Cordelia," Gwen called, "what dost thou?"

The girl was ten yards away, by the brink of the pool. "Only looking to see what lies under the water, Mama," she called, all innocence—but she was making faces, giving exaggerated looks behind her, where Gregory was prowling along the shoreline on hands and knees, studying the water with a pensive expression.

Gwen smiled. "Oh, aye. Thou hast not seen such a pool aforetime, hast thou?"

"Nay, Mama," Cordelia said, with a smile of relief. She turned back to making sure that Little Brother didn't fall in—when he was so consumed by curiosity, he tended to ignore little things like safety. But of course it would have hurt his feelings if Cordelia had come right out and said she had to take care of him—or thought it, for that matter.

"Are there other places like this?" Rod asked one of the peasants.

The man looked up from setting kindling. "We have heard of some. A minstrel came by with clay o'er his ears; he had come from a grove to the north, where some chandlers had moved their shops, and did sing of the sea. He did say he was bound for the south, to an island on which some troubadors had gathered, where the music of the sea did keep the clamor at bay."

"A few little oases of calm, all up and down the coast, I'll bet." Rod nodded and turned to Gwen. "We'll have to encourage their growth inland."

"Aye, my lord. There is need for refuges from the wild life."

"Mama! Papa!" Cordelia called. "Come see! 'Tis most amazing!"

"Not truly, sister," Gregory disagreed. "They are but clams, after all. Wouldst thou not expect to find such near to the tidewater?"

"Not such as these, addlepate! Tis they who do make the music!"

Gregory looked up, incredulous.

Rod pulled himself to his feet. "I think we'd better have a look at this."

"Aye," Gwen agreed. "What manner of creatures are these?"

They moved around the curve of the pool, followed by Geoffrey and Magnus. Fess stayed where he was, but kept an eye on them.

Cordelia had followed Gregory out onto a sand-spit that ran twenty feet into the pool—and, sure enough, there they were, on a ledge two feet under the water: five clams, standing on end in the sand, almost in the middle of the pond, and they were moving, though slightly, in time to the music.

"But how can clams make music?" Gregory wondered.

"Why," said a voice from the water, "how can I keep from singing?"

The children did a double take, and Gregory asked, "Was it thou who didst speak, little clam?"

"Aye," she answered, "if 'twas thou didst ask."

"These," Rod whispered to Gwen, "are not your average clams."

"I had guessed it," she returned.

"It was a little obvious," Rod admitted. "Is there no end to the wonders of this island?"

"Only in people's hearts and minds, my lord."

"Dost thou sing only because thou must?" Cordelia asked.

The clam gave a melodious chuckle. "Is that so little?"

Cordelia blushed, and Gregory said, "Then why must thou needs sing?"

"Why," said a deeper voice, "we seek to keep alive the music that otherwise might die for want of singing."

"Do you unearth new tunes, then?"

"Some new, but many old. We seek to keep alive simple music, and ornate music, and songs with words worth hearing—but, more than aught else, we seek to foster melody, that the Land of Song may not die."

"'Tis poetry, look thou," said another clam, "the lyric poetry that had its birth in song."

" Tis beauty," said a fourth, "beauty of poetry and melody alike."

"But if you keep it alive," said Geoffrey, "then it must have begun before thee."

"Thou speakest aright," said two clams at once, and a third said, "The fen was once filled with the sounds of natural music until the hard rocks drowned them out, and we clams do keep the music of the fen alive."

"Also the music of the folk," said the fourth clam.

Gregory sidled over to Rod and said, low-voiced, "I have discerned the manner of five small beings making music enough to fill this grove."

"I don't think they're doing it deliberately," Rod pointed out.

"That they may not realize how much they do? Aye. Yet their sounds are carried by the water, making the whole pond to vibrate—and thus their music spreads."

You are correct, Gregory, said Fess's voice. They have set up a ripple effect.

"Yet if what thou dost say is true," Cordelia said to the clams, "thou must needs treasure all music."

"All good music, aye."

"Is there no good rock music then?" she protested.

"Music that the rocks have brought? Aye! There do be some!" the first clam said, but even as she spoke, a bass voice near her had begun to thrum in a steady rhythm. Then three other voices began to vocalize in a higher register, repeating a wordless refrain.

The Gallowglasses looked at one another, astonished. " 'Tis like the music of the first soft rocks we did hear," Magnus said.

"It is the same," Cordelia said.

Then the tenor clam broke in, singing,

The soprano clam sang the answer:

"Why, 'tis beauteous!" Gwen said, enthralled. "At the least, it is when thou dost sing it."

But Cordelia frowned. "The tune, I know—yet the words are new."

"Thou speakest aright," said a baritone clam. "It was but melody when first we heard it. Later, there were words, but we liked them not, so we gave the tune to other verses that we'd heard anon."

Rod frowned. "I don't know if I quite like the drift of that song's sentiments."

"Oh, thou art but one who would kill joy!" Cordelia scoffed. "Is not the lass's reply enough for thee?"

"It is," Rod said, "if you remember it."

"It was indeed the music of the soft rock," Gregory said. "Yet assuredly thou canst find no delight in the hard rocks' music!"

"Wherefore not, brother?" Geoffrey asked. "That, at least, I can begin to comprehend, for it hath the sound of an army on the march."

The clams began to vibrate with a strong, quick rhythm, and chanted:

"Now, wait a minute," Rod said; but the music rode right on over his words:

"Definitely," Rod said, "I find that offensive."

"Wherefore?" asked a baritone clam. "Thou art not aged."

Rod froze, agape, then managed to close his mouth. Cordelia giggled. Rod gave her a black look, then said to Gwen, "Of course, I do kind of agree with the sentiments of that last verse."

But her eyes were already glowing at him.

"Twas fair, I will allow," Geoffrey said. "Yet surely thou canst do naught with this plague of noise that doth come from the heavy metal stones!"

"Oh, but we have heard good sounds from them!" another baritone clam cried. "Aye, mayhap nine in ten are worthless—but is not that true of all things? The tenth is well worth keeping."

But the tenor clam was already vibrating, and Rod was awestruck at the sound.

It was like surf breaking on a shingled shore, like wind howling over a frozen tundra. It was an ancient locomotive, throbbing across that barren plain; it was a driving rhythm that beat and battered at him, then broke into a cascade of jangling notes as the tenor voice cried out:

The final chord rang, and died. The Gallowglasses sat, stunned.

Finally, Rod cleared his throat and said, "Yes. I guess that's good."

" 'Tis wondrous!" Cordelia breathed.

"No music is good or bad in itself," the bass voice said. "It is what people make of it."

"Each music hath its purpose," one of the clams admonished. "Each form of music hath its verse."

"The words, though," Rod protested. "Some of the songs I've been hearing have words that are downright poisonous!"

But Fess's quiet voice said, There have always been those who have turned music to evil purposes. Shall I speak of ancient hymns to bloodthirsty gods? Or of the twisted paeans sung by medieval witches?

"Or of the sirens' songs." Rod nodded. "Yes, I take your point."

Magnus asked the clams, "Whose words are these that thou didst sing? For surely I have not heard them from the stones."

"Nay," said the tenor clam. "They are an older poet's, I think—but we sing them of the witch who doth sow these music-rocks broadcast."

"A witch behind the music-rocks?" Rod tensed. "Who is she? Where?"

"Here on the West Coast, though to the north. She doth name herself Ubu Mare."

"Ubu Mare, eh?" Rod locked glances with Gwen. "Now we have a name, at least."

Gwen shook her head. "I have not heard it before, my lord."

"We'll hear it again," Rod promised. "Come on, kids— time to go hunting."

"Oh, not yet, Papa!" Cordelia protested, and Magnus agreed, "Aye. Let us hear one more song, at least."

"It will not be so long, husband." Gwen touched his hand. "And our poor minds do need rest, surely."

"Well… okay." Rod wasn't very hard to convince; he wasn't exactly looking forward to another trip into pandemonium.

But the clams were already singing again, a ballad about a lighthouse keeper, lively and quick. The children began to nod their heads—and Gregory, belly-down with his chin in his hands, watching the clams, began to tap his toes against air.

"Music hath charms," Gwen murmured, "and they are the most charmed of all."

A scream tore the fabric of the song, and men began to shout.

The Gallowglasses looked up, startled.

Out of the trees came two of the strangest animals they had ever seen—four feet tall and four feet thick, like fur-covered globes, with thick, stumpy legs and shaggy dappled coats. Tiny eyes glittered toward the top of each ball, just above a long, tapering nose. They waddled toward the water, and the clams gave a burbling scream of fear.

"Have no care—we shall ward thee," Geoffrey said quickly. "What doth affright thee so?"

"Those beasts!" cried a clam. "Hast thou never seen them?"

"Never. What's there to fear in such foolish animals?"

"Their noses!" cried a clam. "They will suck us up, they will tear us from our bed!"

"Not whiles we are here to guard thee," Cordelia assured them. "What manner of beast are these?"

"They are clamdiggers!"

The peasant men caught up clubs and attacked the things with blows and shouts, but the globular animals scarcely seemed to notice. They reached the water and splashed in.

"Zap 'em, kids!" Rod cried.

Magnus and Geoffrey launched into the air and swooped toward the beasts, drawing their swords. They stabbed at the clamdiggers, trying to turn them, but the beasts scarcely seemed to notice, the moreso because Cordelia was pelting them with sticks and pebbles from the bank. But Geoffrey lost his temper and dive-bombed, stabbing hard, and a long thin nose swept around in a blur, to swat him out of the air. He splashed down, and the beast lumbered toward him. Gwen screamed, shooting over the water like a rocket, whirling about to swat the reaching nose with her broom. The nose recoiled.

Rod leaped onto Fess's back. "Charge!"

But on the bank by the clams, Gregory glared, narrowing his eyes.

Soft implosions sucked air inward toward the center of the pond, and where the clamdiggers had splashed, two rectangular objects floated, bobbing in the ripples. They had no eyes or noses, only straps and buckles.

Rod stared. "Do my eyes deceive me, or did my son change those clamdiggers into…"

"A pair of trunks," Fess finished. "That is exactly what he has done, Rod. You have seen it clearly."

Geoffrey shot back over the water to clap his brother on the shoulder with a dripping hand. "Most marvelously done, little brother! How chanced thou to hit 'pon so excellent a scheme!"

Gregory blushed with pleasure. "Why, such ungainly beasts as they could only be things of witch-moss, look you—so I thought at them, to change their shape to something harmless."

"A thousand thanks," said a shaky clam-voice.

"Aye," said three more, and a fourth, "If there is aught that we may ever do for thee, thou hast but to ask it."

"Why," said Gregory, at a loss, "I can only ask that thou dost keep this fen free for all that is best in music, as a sanctuary for all of good heart."

"And tender ear," Rod muttered.

"Why, that shall we do!" the clams assured him. "And we shall ever sing thy praises!"

Gregory reddened again. "Spare my blushes, I pray thee! Sing only hearty songs of excellence, as thou wast wont to do!"

"As thou shalt have," a baritone clam said. "Yet I doubt not we'll sing of they who defend the weak, also."

"Why," said Gregory, "I can only therefore praise thee."

"Then let's go look for someone who's picking on the weak." Rod took his son firmly by the hand and turned him away. "What do you say, Gwen?"

"Aye, my husband." Gwen glanced at the sky. "We must make five more miles ere nightfall. Magnus, Cordelia! Geoffrey! Come!" They turned away, walking back along the sand-spit.

"I had liefer stay, Papa," Geoffrey volunteered.

"Stay! Are you kidding? When there might be a battle on our trail?"

"Art thou sure? There hath been naught but skirmishes thus far."

"All right, so you're on a diet." Rod halted and looked around. "I think we're a little shorthanded here."

"Magnus! Cordelia!" Gwen cried. "Come—and now!"

"Eh? Oh! Certes, Mama!" Cordelia shot toward her like a broomstick juggernaut. "Their music is so entrancing."

"Thy pardon, Mama." Magnus sighed as he came up. "They are wondrous minstrels."

"Farewell, good clams," Cordelia called back, and the song broke off for a burbling chorus of goodbyes. Then the Gallowglasses strode away, while behind them a voice cried, "Come, another roundelay!" and the singing began again.