Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock is Missing

The children stared, appalled, anger evaporating in an instant. Finally, Cordelia spoke. "Is… is he…"

Gregory was staring intently at the old body. "His heart hath stopped."

"We have slain him!" Cordelia cried, in dismay.

"More to the better!" Geoffrey snapped.

But Magnus said, "Nay! We must not have blood on our hands, an we can prevent it! What would Mama and Papa say?"

"That he is a vile, evil man," Geoffrey answered.

"But they would say also that we must spare his life, an we can." Cordelia knelt down by the body, gazing intently at Lontar's face. "What we have done thus far they would ap-

prove, for we have done it only in defense of ourselves—and I thank you, my brothers!" She gave each of them a warm look of gratitude that made even Geoffrey forget his anger for a moment; then she turned back to the sorcerer. "Now, though, 'tis another matter. Now we can spare his life—and we will, an we can start his heart to beating once again!"

"How canst thou do that?" Geoffrey questioned; but Magnus joined Gregory and Cordelia beside the waxen body, staring down.

"Be guided by me," Cordelia breathed, "for this is women's work, in this land. Squeeze the left of the heart, when I bid thee—now!"

With telekinesis, they massaged the heart. All three of them thought a squeeze on the left-hand side of the heart, then let go immediately.

"Now, the right side," Cordelia instructed, and they all squeezed together. "Now the left again… now right… left-right… left-right… left-right…"

They kept at it for several minutes while Geoffrey stood back glowering, his arms folded.

"It doth beat of its own," Gregory reported.

"Aye," Cordelia agreed, "but faintly. Keep pressing, brothers, but softly now."

Gradually, bit by bit, they lightened the pressure till, finally, the old man's heart was beating regularly again. Cordelia breathed a long, shaky sigh and sat back on her heels. "'Tisdone!"

"Mama would be proud of thee," Gregory said, beaming.

"And of thee." Cordelia managed a tremulous smile before she sighed again. "Eh, brothers! I hope that never again shall I come so close to causing another's death!"

"If thou dost," Geoffrey growled, "I trust he will deserve it as deeply as this one did."

Cordelia frowned down at the old sorcerer. "He hath caused great suffering, 'tis true."

Gregory frowned, too. "Mama and Papa hath said that when a person's heart is stopped too long, the brain can suffer hurt."

"Aye, and full damage." Magnus scowled, concentrating. The room was silent a moment while his brothers and sister watched him; then he nodded. "All is as it should be. From what I can tell, there is no damage done."

"There should have been," Geoffrey hissed.

Magnus glanced up at him, irritated, but said nothing—he couldn't really disagree.

"Yet I think he will not be so quick to offer injury again," Cordelia said thoughtfully.

"Aye… yet let us be certain." Magnus glared down at Lontar's unconscious face. The old man twitched in his sleep, and Magnus said, "Lay words, Gregory."

The little boy's face screwed up for a moment, then relaxed.

So did Magnus. He wiped his brow with a shaky smile. "An aught will restrain him, that will."

His brother and sister nodded. They had heard the thought Magnus and Gregory had implanted in the old man's mind. "Prom this time forth," Cordelia said, "if he doth so much as think of causing pain to another creature…"

"Every time," Gregory agreed, "each and every."

And they turned and went out the door, closing it behind them, leaving the unconscious sorcerer to waken in his own good time—with an association arc buried in his mind. If ever again he thought, even thought, of causing pain to somebody else, he would feel a twinge of the agony the children had given him stabbing through his own brain, and a small child's voice echoing in his ears:

"Thou must not be so nasty!"

They came out of the hut to find rain still falling lightly about them.

"I will gladly choose a wetting, over housen with that monster!" Geoffrey declared.

Cordelia shivered and hugged herself, but said bravely, "I, too."

"Kelly knew it from the first." Magnus looked glum. "We should have hearkened to him; he would not come near."

"Nor would my unicorn," Cordelia said softly. "Alas, poor beauty! Doth she suffer from this wetting?"

"She doth know the ways of the wood." Magnus looked about him, frowning. "Kelly! Wherefore art thou? Hast thou abandoned us quite?"

"Nay, he hath not," said a deep voice by his knee, "nor have I."

"Robin!" Cordelia exclaimed, overjoyed, and Geoffrey said, "I thought thou hadst gone to spy out dangers ahead of us."

"Aye, but I did not know thou wouldst turn from the home-ward path. Yet thou hadst need to; I will own, thou hast done well."

"Well! We were near to being slain in agony!" Cordelia cried.

"Thou wouldst not have been," Puck said, with full certainty, and Kelly stepped up beside him, nodding. "If there had been any true danger, children, yer great black horse would have stove in that sorcerer's door, and elf-shot would have struck him senseless."

"I think he was so already," Geoffrey growled.

"Mayhap," Puck agreed, "yet he did not have so much power as the four of thee."

But Magnus was frowning at Kelly. "How didst thou know what did hap within?"

"Through a brownie, who hid by the hearth. Long have the Wee Folk forsaken that place; yet when they saw thee go in, one crept through a mousehole to watch."

"Fie upon it!" Geoffrey plopped down cross-legged, arms folded tight, head hunkered down. "Will we never truly win a fight by ourselves?"

"Why, so thou didst," Puck answered. "'Twas thou four who didst best that sorcerer, children."

"As thou didst know we would," Magnus accused.

Puck shook his head. "If thou hadst not been able to join all thy four powers together, then might he have hurted thee."

"Then," Geoffrey retorted, "elves would have saved us."

"That they would have," Puck agreed. "I have sworn to thy parents that I would protect thee. Never wilt thou lack for elfin guards. Yet they did naught, in this instance—the victory was thine, and thine alone."

"The day shall come," Geoffrey vowed, "when I shall win broils without even thy warding, Puck."

"So it shall, when thou art grown," the elf allowed. "Yet for now…" He looked from one little face to another. "We must join forces. What thou didst, thou didst well. Now let us return to thy chosen goal."

Geoffrey looked up, frowning. "To free the count?"

Puck nodded. "Yet I bethink me, we must have greater force than a band of elves and four small children, even ones so powerful as thyselves. Kelly!"

"What would ye?" the elf muttered.

"Hie thee to King Tuan, and ask of him some few knights and a hundred foot. 'Tis a castle we must breach, not some mere peasant's hut."

Kelly nodded. "A catapult with it?"

"Aye! See to it thou art there and back within the half of an hour!"

"Were the cause not so vital," the leprecohen growled, "I would never heed so much as one of yer commands!"

"Thou wouldst, or thou wouldst truly hop to it!"

"Yet the cause is vital," Kelly said hastily, "and I am gone." And he was, with the sound of arrow feathers whipping past an archer's ear.

"Come, children!" Puck turned away toward the roadway. 'To Castle Glynn!"

"The half-hour is up," Gregory reported.

Puck spared him a glance of annoyance. "Must all thy folk carry clocks in their heads?"

"Only Gregory." Magnus gave his little brother's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "Yet where is Kelly, Puck?"

"Here."

The unicorn and robot-horse stopped; Magnus and Gregory dropped down to the road. The leprecohen stepped out of the brush, slapping dust out of his breeches. "Sure and it's a hornet's nest ye did send me into!"