Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock's Companion

" 'Tis not like thee, Puck, to be so cruel," Cordelia protested.

The elf grinned with a carnivore's smile. "Though knowest only one face of me, child, an thou canst speak so. Yet there was no true cruelty in this, for I did but make the man appear a fool, and that not even before his fellows. If he is wise, and doth profit where he can, he will not henceforth be so certain as to whom he can, or cannot, smite with impunity."

Cordelia appeared to be somewhat reassured, though not greatly. "Yet he was mightily affrighted, and sore hurt…"

"Had he worse than he hath given his beast?"

"Well… nay…"

"I cannot say thou hast done ill in this case, Robin," Gwen said, still smiling.

" This case, pooh! I am a man of many mischiefs, yet rarely of true hurt!"

Rod noted the 'rarely,' and decided it was time to change the subject.

Apparently, so did Puck. "Yet enough of this villain—he's not worth more words! How dost thou came to be nearby, to witness his coming to justice?"

"We," Rod said grandly, "are going on vacation."

"Oh, aye, and the sky is beneath our feet while the earth's overhead! Naetheless, 'tis a worthy goal. Whither wander you?"

"To our new castle, Puck," Cordelia said, eyes shining again. "Oh! Will it not be grand?"

"Why, I cannot tell," the elf answered, "unless thou dost tell me what castle it is."

"It's called Castle Foxcourt," Rod said.

Puck stared.

"I take it you know something about the place," Rod said slowly.

"I do not know ," the elf hedged, "for I've only heard tell of it."

"But what you've heard, isn't good?"

"That might be a way to speak of it," Puck agreed.

"Nay, tell us," Gwen said, frowning.

Puck sighed. "I know little, mistress, and guess less—but from what I have heard of it, this Castle Foxcourt is of ill repute."

"Dost say 'tis haunted?" Geoffrey asked, his eyes kindling.

"Not unless I'm asked—yet since I am, I must own 'tis that which I've heard of it. Yet there are ghosts, and ghosts. I would not fear to have thee near the shade of a man who was good in his lifetime."

Magnus frowned, cocking his head to one side. "From that, I take it the ghost who doth haunt this castle was not of the good sort, the whiles he did live."

"Not from what I hear," the elf said, his face grim. "Yet as I say, I do not truly know —even whiles the man endured, I had no business in his realm, and never chanced to meet him. Yet he bore his title with ill fame."

"Thou didst hear of him whiles he still did live?" Magnus frowned. "He hath not been so long a ghost, then."

"Nay, only a couple of hundreds of years."

" Thou didst know a man who…" Gregory's voice petered out as his eyes lost focus. "Nay, thou art spoken of as the oldest of all Old Things, art thou not?" But he looked a little dizzied by the implications.

Puck tactfully ignored the reference to his age. "I shall travel with thee, good folk."

"We might ever take pleasure in thy company, Puck." Gwen said, dimpling. "Yet if 'tis for cause that thou dost fear for us, I thank thee, but bid thee stay. No mere spirit can long discomfort this family, no matter how evil it was when alive."

"Be not so certain," Puck said, still looking uncomfortable. "Yet I'll own I've business of His Majesty's to attend." They all knew that the "Majesty" in question was not King Taun, but only Rod knew that the dwarf referred to the children's grandfather. "Yet an thou hast need of me, whistle, and I'll be by thee in an instant."

"Thanks," Rod said. "Hope we don't need to, though."

"Most dearly do I also! Yet an thou hast need of more knowledge than I do own, thou hast but to ask of the elves who dwell hard by the castle. They'll know the truth of its tale, I doubt not."

Rod nodded. "Thanks for the tip. That , we definitely will do."

"Nay, surely we must come to know our neighbors," Gwen agreed.

"There are few enough of those, I wot," Puck said with a grimace. "Rumor doth say that any who can, have fled its environs."

They had to wait for all the laughing and joking to die down in the inn, and for the limping driver to make his exit, red-faced, before they could order; but when the food came, it was good, and filling. With his stomach full, Rod declared that, since he was on vacation, he was going to honor it by attempting to nap, and any child who made enough noise to disturb him was likely to gain empirical evidence of the moon's composition.

It was a good excuse, at least, for going off under the shade of a tree fifty feet away, and lying down with his head in his wife's lap. From the constant murmur emanating from the two of them, the children doubted that their father was really sleeping or even trying to, but they bore it stoically.

"Is he not a bit aged to playing Corin to Mama's shepherdess?" Geoffrey grumbled.

"Oh, let them be," Cordelia said, with a sentimental smile. "Their love is our assurance, when all's said and done. Bide, whiles they make it the stronger."

"Cordelia speaks wisely," Fess agreed. "They did not wed to speak of nothing but housekeeping and children, after all."

"There is, of course, no loftier topic," Geoffrey assured him.

Cordelia gave him her best glare. "Thou art unseemly, brother."

"Mayhap—yet I am, at least, only what I do seem."

"I wonder." Cordelia turned moody.

"You are still troubled by Puck's cruelty to the driver, are you not?" Fess said gently.

'Nay—I do not doubt the rightness of it, nor the man's well-being," Cordelia answered. " 'Tis the look of the man that doth bother me, Fess."

"Wherefore?" Geoffrey asked, amazed. "He was well favored, for all that I could see."

"Aye, only a man such as any thou mightest meet upon the road," Magnus agreed.

"But dost thou not see, 'tis therein lies my grievance!" Cordelia said. " 'Tis even as Geoffrey did say—he was not fat, nor slovenly, nor had he the look of a brute! Yet he was one, beneath his seemly guise!"

"Not all do wear their villainy openly, sister," Gregory reminded her.

"Oh, be still, nubbin! 'Tis even that which doth trouble me!"

"Ah," Fess said. "You have begun to fear that all people are truly only bullies at heart, have you not?"

Cordelia nodded, her eyes downcast.

"Take comfort," the robot advised her. "Though they may be beasts within, most people do learn how to control their baser instincts—or, at least, to channel them in ways that are not harmful to others."

"But are they the less vile therefore?" she burst out. "They are still brutes within!"

"There is good at your cores as well as evil," Fess assured her. "Indeed, many people have so strong an instinct for helping others that it quite overshadows their urge to browbeat those about them."

"How canst thou say so!" Geoffrey said indignantly, "when thy first experience of mankind was with so base a knave?"

"That is true," Fess agreed, "yet he was in contact with other human beings, and I had some indication of redemptive qualities in them."

Cordelia frowned up at him. "Did thy second owner confirm those hints of virtue?"

They heard a sixty-cycle buzz, Fess's equivalent of a contemptuous snort. "He confirmed the opinion I had gained from Reggie, children, and demonstrated nadirs in human nature I had not thought possible, the worst of which was treachery. Reggie, at least, was not treacherous, and had some slight interest in others. My second owner, though, was of a mean and grasping nature, which is, I suppose, only natural."

Geoffrey frowned up. "How is that?"

"Why, anyone who would purchase a defective component simply to gain a bargain price, must necessarily be miserly—and he bought me to be the guidance computer for his burro-boat."