Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock is Missing

"Where dost thou lead us?" Magnus panted.

"To a secret place that only fairies know of," Fall answered.

"Courage—'tis not far now," Summer urged.

It wasn't; in fact, it was only a few more steps. Gregory was following along in Cordelia's wake when suddenly he tripped and lurched against a screen of vines twined together. But the screen gave beneath his weight, and he went bumping and mumping down a hillside with a single yelp of dismay.

"Gregory!" Cordelia cried, and leaped after him.

The boy landed at the bottom with a thud and a thump, and a sister right behind him, who caught him up in a hug almost before he'd stopped sliding. "Oh, poor babe! Art thou hurted, Gregory?"

"Nay, 'Delia," Gregory answered, rubbing at a sore spot on his hip. " 'Tis naught; I'm no longer a babe… Oh, 'Delia!"

He looked about him in rapture. She followed his gaze and stared, too, entranced.

It was a faerie grotto, only a dozen yards across, like a deep bowl in the midst of the woods, lit by a thousand fireflies and walled by flowering creepers and blossoming shrubs, roofed by blooming tree branches and floored with soft mosses. An arc of water sprang out of one wall in a burbling fountain, to fall plashing into a little pool and run tinkling and chiming across the floor of the grotto as a tiny brook.

" 'Tis enchanted," Cordelia breathed.

"In truth, it is," Fall said beside her. "Long years ago, an ancient witch did fall and sprain her ankle here. The Wee Folk aided her, sin that she had always been kind to mem; we bound her hurt with sweet herbs and a compress of simples, and murmured words of power o'er it, so that the grasses took the hurt from out her, and healed her. In thanks, she made this dell for us and, though she is long gone, her gift yet endures."

With a crash and a skid, her two brothers shot down the side of the grotto. Their heels hit the moss and shot out from under them, landing them hard on their bottoms. Magnus

yelped, and Geoffrey snarled a word that made Cordelia clap her hands over Fall's ears.

"I thank thee, lass," the fairy said, gently prying Cordelia's fingers away, "but I misdoubt me an thy brother could know a word I've not heard. Still, 'tis most ungentlemanly of him to say it!" She stalked over to glare up at the seated boy, fists on her hips. "Hast thou no consideration for a gentle lady, thou great lob?"

Geoffrey opened his mouth for a hot answer, but Magnus caught his eye, and he swallowed whatever he'd been about to say.

"I prithee, forgive him," Big Brother said. "He is young yet, and 'tis hard for him to be mindful of manners when he is hurted." That earned him a murderous glare which he blithely ignored, and turned back to his sister. "I take it from these presents that thou art not greatly hurted, nor our brother neither."

"Thou hast it aright," she confirmed. "Yet never have I so rejoiced in a mishap. Hast thou ever seen so lovely a covert?"

Magnus looked up, saw and stared. Cordelia realized that he hadn't really noticed his surroundings, nor had Geoffrey. Even he was looking about him with awe. "'Delia! Is this some magical realm?"

" 'Tis a faerie place," Summer told him, "and 'twas made for us by a good witch."

"'Tis enchanted," Fall agreed. "Hush! Canst thou not hear the chant?"

They were all quiet, and heard it softly—a murmur of musical tones, like the wind blowing through the strings of a harp, overlaid with the chiming of the fountain and its brook.

"What is it, then?" Magnus murmured.

"The wind blowing midst the vines," Fall answered.

"And what is this!" Gregory cried. He scrambled down to the center of the grotto, where light glittered from the facets of a huge crystal that sprang from an outcrop of rock.

" 'Tis some great jewel, surely." Cordelia was right behind him.

"Nay." Fall smiled, stepping up next to the huge stone. "'Tis only a stone, though a pretty one. These glistening planes are but its natural form."

"Nay, I think not quite." Magnus came up behind her. '"'Tis mat kind of stone which Papa terms quartz, an I mistake me not."

" 'Tis indeed." But Gregory's gaze was glued to the crystal.

Magnus nodded. "And I've seen quartz aforetime. Rarely doth it show surfaces so flat—and when it doth, they are scarce larger than a finger. There hath been some skilled working in this."

"Nay." Summer disagreed. "It hath been there sin that the witch did make this place."

"She made this crystal with it." Gregory's voice seemed distant somehow—diminished and drawn. "It did not merely grow; she did craft it."

Geoffrey frowned. "Why hath his voice gone so strange?… Gregory!"

"Hist!" Cordelia seized his hand, pulling it away from their younger brother. "He doth work magic!"

For Gregory's face had taken on a rapt expression, and his eyes had lost focus. Deep within the crystal, a light began to glow, bathing his face in its radiance.

"Surely it must hurt him!" Geoffrey protested.

"Nay." Magnus knelt on the other side of the crystal, watching his littlest brother's face intently. "It cannot; it is he who doth make use of it. Let thy mind look within his, and see."

They were silent then, each child letting his mind open to the impressions from Gregory's. They saw the crystal from his point of view, but its outlines had dimmed; only the bright spot where the moonlight cast its reflection on it was clear. As they watched through his eyes, that gleaming highlight seemed to swell, filling his vision but growing translucent, as though he were gazing into a cloud, into a field obscured by fog. Then the mist began to clear, growing thinner and thinner until, through it, they could see…

"'Tis Mama!" Geoffrey exclaimed, in hushed tones.

"And Papa!" Cordelia's eyes were huge, even though it was her mind that saw the vision. "Yet who are those others?"

In the vision, their mother and father sat side by side at an oaken table in a paneled corner with flagons before them, chatting with other grown-ups sitting there with them. One the children could identify—he was obviously a monk, for he wore a brown cowled robe; even the yellow screwdriver-handle that gleamed in his breast pocket was familiar. But the others…

"What manner of clothing is that?" Cordelia wondered.

Indeed, their clothes seemed outlandish. Two of the

grown-ups, by the delicacy of their features, were probably women, but their jerkins were almost identical to those the men wore. One of the men was lean, pale-skinned, and white-haired, his eyes a very pale blue, his face wrinkled; the other was much younger, but quite fat, though with a good-natured smile. And the third was stocky and broad, but also rather ugly…

" 'Tis Yorick!" Cordelia gasped.

"He who was King Tuan's Viceroy of Beastmen, till lately?" Geoffrey stared. "I' troth, 'tis him! Yet what strange manner of garb doth he wear?"

Indeed, Yorick was dressed just like the other grown-ups, in some weird form of tight-fitting tunic that was fastened up the front without buttons.

" 'Tis he," Magnus agreed. "Yet how doth he come to be with them?"

"At the least, they have found themselves good folk to accompany them," Cordelia observed.

"Why certes, thou dolt!" Geoffrey snorted. "Would our folk e'er find aught else?"

Cordelia whirled toward him, a sharp retort on her tongue, but Magnus touched her arm. "Nay! Thou wilt disrupt the dream! Abide, sister! Be patient! Watch our parents whilst thou may!"

"Oh, aye!" Cordelia held still, concentrating on the vision. "Yet 'twas ill of them, to so leave us. Oh! How dare they go wandering without us?"

"I misdoubt me an they did it by choice," Geoffrey said, with sarcasm.

"He hath the right of it, for once," Magnus agreed. "At the least, sister, rejoice that they do live and are well!"