Christopher Stasheff: The Warlock Enraged

“Nay, surely not,” Gwen agreed, but her brow was still furrowed.

“What, then? The kids? I really don’t think they’ll mind.”

“Oh, certes they will not! Yet hast thou considered the trials of shepherding our four upon the road?”

“Sure.” Rod frowned. “We did it in Tir Chlis.”

“I know,” Gwen sighed. “Well, an thou sayest ‘tis for the best, my husband, we shall essay it.”

Rod turned the key in the lock, pulled it out, set it in Gwen’s palm, and wrapped her hand around it. “Your office, O Lady of the House.” He studied her face for a second and added gently, “Don’t worry, dear. It’ll still be here when you get back.”

“I know,” she sighed, “yet ‘tis never easy to leave it.”

“I know.” Rod glanced back at the house. “I’ll get halfway down the road, and start wondering if I really did put out the fire on the hearth.”

“And thou dost, but call it out, and an elf shall bear word to me,” Brom O’Berin rumbled beside them. “Mere minutes after thou hast uttered it, an elf shall spring out of the ingelnook to douse thy hearth—if it doth need.”

“I thank thee, Brom,” Gwen said softly.

The dwarf scowled, becoming more gruff. “Nay, have no fear for thine house. Elves shall guard it day and night. Ill shall fare the man who doth seek to enter.”

Rod shuddered. “I pity the footpad Puck catches! So come on, dear—there’s nothing to worry about. Here, anyway. Time for the road.” He grasped her waist, and helped her leap to Fess’s saddle.

“May we not fly, Papa?” Cordelia pouted. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and a broomstick stuck out from behind her shoulder.

Rod smiled, and glanced at Gwen. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. He turned back to Cordelia. “As long as you stay near your mother and me—yes.”

Cordelia gave a shout of joy and leaped onto her broom. Her brothers echoed her, drifting up into the air.

“Move out, Old Iron,” Rod murmured, and the great black robot-horse ambled out toward the road. Rod fell into step beside him, and turned back to wave to Brom.

“A holiday!” Geoffrey cried, swooping in front of him. “ ‘Tis ages since we had one!”

“Yeah—about a year.” But Rod grinned; he seemed to feel a weight lifting off his shoulders. He caught Gwen’s hand and looked up at her. “Confess it, dear—don’t you feel a little more free?”

She smiled down at him, brightening. “I do, my lord—though I’ve brought my lock and bars along.”

“And I, my ball and chain.” Rod grinned. “Keep an eye on the links, will you?… Magnus! When I said, ‘Stay near,’ that meant altitude, too! Come down here right now!”

The tinkers strolled into the village, gay and carefree, smudged and dirty. Their clothes were patched, and the pots and pans hanging from their horse’s pack made a horrible clattering.

“This is rather demeaning, Rod,” Fess murmured. “Additionally, as I have noted, no real tinker family could afford a horse.”

“Especially not one fit for a knight. I know,” Rod answered. “I’ll just tell them the last stop was a castle, and the lord of the demesne paid us in kind.”

“Rod, I think you lack an accurate concept of the financial worth of a war-horse in medieval culture.”

“Hey—they had a lot of pots.” Rod grinned down at his own primitive publicity agents. “Okay, kids, that’s enough. I think they know we’re here.”

The four little Gallowglasses slowed their madcap dancing, and gave their pots and pans one last clanging whack with their wooden spoons. “You spoil all the fun, Papa,” Cordelia pouted as she handed him the cookware.

“No, just most of it. Magnus? Geoff? Turn in your weapons, boys. Gregory, you, too—ah, a customer!”

“Canst mend this firkin, fellow?” The housewife was plump, rosy-cheeked, and anxious.

Rod took the little pot and whistled at the sight of the long, jagged crack in the cast iron. “How’d you manage that kind of break?”

“My youngest dropped it,” the goodwife said impatiently. “Canst mend it?”

“Yeah,” Rod said slowly, “but it’ll cost you a ha’penny.”

The woman’s face blossomed in a smile. “I have one, and ‘twill be well worth it. Bless thee, fellow!”

Which sounded a little odd, since “fellow” was a term of semicontempt; but Rod blithely took out a hammer and some charcoal, laid a small fire, and got busy faking. Magnus and Gregory crouched on either side of him, ostensibly watching.

“This is the manner of the crafting of it, Gregory,” big brother Magnus said softly. “Let thy mind bear watch on mine. The metal’s made of grains so small thou canst not see them…”

“Molecules,” Rod supplied.

“Aye. And now I’ll make those molecules move so fast they’ll meld one to another. Yet I must spring them into motion so quickly that their heat will not have time to spread through the rest of the metal to Papa’s hands, the whiles he doth press the broken edges together—for we’d not wish to burn him.”

“Definitely not,” Rod muttered.

Gregory watched intently.

So did Rod. He still couldn’t quite believe it, as he saw the metal spring into cherry-redness all along the crack, brighten quickly through orange and yellow to near whiteness. Metal flowed.

“Now quickly, cool it!” Magnus hissed, drops of sweat standing out on his brow, “Ere the heat can run to Papa’s hands!”

The glow faded faster than it had come, for Gregory frowned at it, too; this part was simple enough for a three-year-old.

Simple! When only witches were supposed to be telekinetic, not warlocks—and even the best of them could only move objects, not molecules.

But there the pot stood, round and whole! Rod sighed, and started tapping it lightly with the hammer, far from where the crack had been—just for appearances. “Thanks, Magnus. You’re a great help.”

“Willingly, Papa.” The eldest wiped his brow.

“Papa,” Gregory piped up, “Thou dost know that elves do ‘company us…”

“Yeah.” Rod grinned. “Nice to know you’re not alone.”

“Truth. Yet I’ve thought to have them ask for word from their fellows in the North…”

“Oh?” Rod tried not to show it, but he was impressed. Three years old, and he’d thought of something Tuan and Rod had both overlooked. “What did they say?”

“The goodwives no longer call warnings to the Wee Folk ere they empty garbage out upon the ground,” Gregory’s eyes were large in his little face. “They no longer leave their bowls of milk for the elves, by their doors. Each house now hath cold iron nailed up over its door, whether it be an horseshoe or some other form, and hearths go unswept at eventide.”

Rod felt a chill and glanced at a nearby tree, but its leaves were still. “Well, I guess no housewife there is going to find sixpence in her shoe. What are the elves doing about it?”

“Naught. There is some spell lies o’er the plowed land there, that pushes against all elfin magic. They have turned away in anger, and flitted to the forests.”

Rod struck the pot a few more times, in silence.

“Is this coil in the North so light as thou hast told us, Papa?” Gregory finally asked.

Rod reflected that, for a three-year-old, the kid had one hell of a good vocabulary. He put down his hammer and faced the child squarely. “There’s no real evidence, yet, that it’s anything major.”

“But the signs…” Magnus murmured.

“Are not evidence,” Rod answered. “Not firm evidence—but I’m braced. That’s why we’re travelling in disguise—so we can pick up any rumors, without letting people know we’re the High Warlock and Company.”