Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock Unlocked

“Nay. While the Crown appoints priests to parishes, I cannot set the man I deem best for the task, to the doing of that task. Does this not lessen the excellence of this double-chain thou speakest of?”

“At least our appointments are better than those of the barons, whose choices obtained ere I was crowned,” Catharine retorted; but her tone lacked vehemence.

“For which, I must thank Your Majesties.” The Abbot inclined his head. “Yet is it not now time to take a further step on the upward road?”

“Mayhap,” Tuan said judiciously, “though it’s surely not to the Crown’s advantage to lessen any further its hold over the roots of government…”

“But is it to the interests of thy people?” the Abbot murmured.

Tuan fairly winced. “There, good Milord, thou touchest the quick. Yet thou wilt understand, I trust, that the Queen and I must discuss these matters you have so kindly brought to our attention, at some length.”

“That,” Catharine warned, “will be a fulsome talk, and hot.”

Tuan grinned. “Why, then, here I stand.” Suiting the action to the word, he stood. “Wilt thou, then, hold us excused, Lord Abbot? For indeed, we should begin this while we’re fresh to it.”

“But of course, Your Majesties.” The Abbot scrambled to his feet, and even inclined his head a little. “Thou wilt, then, summon me, when thou dost feel further need of, ah, converse, on this matter?”

“Be assured, we shall,” Tuan said grandly, “and so, good e’en.”

“God be with thee,” the Abbot muttered, sketching a quick cross in the air. Then the doors boomed wide as the two monarchs turned away, arm in arm, and paced out, in a hurry—but more, Rod suspected, to get to a chess game with a small boy, than to discuss affairs of state.

Still, he couldn’t let the Abbot suspect that—and he had a curiosity bump to scratch. “Now, Milord—about your founder…”

“Eh?” The Abbot looked up, startled. “Oh, aye! I did say, when there would be time.”

“All the time in the world,” Rod assured him. “The wife doesn’t expect me home till late.”

Air rang with a small thunderclap, and Toby stood there, pale and wide-eyed. “Lord Warlock, go quickly! Gwendylon hath sent for thee—thy son Geoffrey hath gone into air!”

Rod fought down a surge of panic. “Uh—he does that all the time, Toby—especially after you’ve just been there. Just lost, right?”

“Would she send for thee if he were?”

“No, hang it, she wouldn’t!” Rod swung back to the Abbot. “You must excuse me, Milord—but this’s got to be a genuine emergency! My wife’s a woman of very sound judgement!”

“Why, certes, be on thy way, and do not stay to ask leave of a garrulous old man! And the blessings of God go with thee, Lord Warlock!”

“Thank you, Milord!” Rod whirled away, out the door, with Toby beside him. “Try not to pop in like that, when there’s a priest around, Toby,” he advised. “It makes them nervous.”

Someone’s out to get me,” Father Al muttered, as he flew through an underground tube in a pneumatic car, along with a dozen of his fellow passengers from Terra. They had just filed out of the liner from Luna and up to the datawall. Father Al had found his entry, and seen that the ship to Beta Cassiopeia was leaving at 17:23 GST, from Gate 11 of the North Forty terminal. Then he’d looked up at the digital clock and seen, to his horror, that it was 17:11, and he was in the South 220 terminal. That meant he was 180 degrees away from his next ship in both horizontal and vertical planes—which meant that he was exactly on the opposite side of the two-and-a-half-mile-wide planetoid that was Proxima Station!

So down, and into the tube. The only saving grace was that he didn’t have to pass through Customs, as long as he stayed within the Station. That, and the speed of the pneumatic car—it could cross the two-and-a-half kilometers in three minutes. It could’ve done the trip in less than a minute, if the computer didn’t limit it to 1.5 G acceleration and deceleration at the beginning and end of the trip. Under the circumstances, Father Al would’ve settled for the quicker time, and taken his chances on ending his existence as a thin paste on the front of the car. It had taken him five minutes to find the tube, and a four-minute wait before the car came.

Deceleration pushed him toward the front of the car, then eased off and disappeared. The doors hissed open, and he was on his feet, turning and twisting between other passengers, threading his way toward the platform. “Excuse me… Excuse me… I beg your pardon, madame…Oh, dear! I’m sorry about your foot, sir…”

Then he was through, and standing, hands clasped on his suitcase handle, glaring at the lift’s readout. The minutes crawled agonizingly by while a discreet, impersonal voice from the ceiling informed him that Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110 to Beta Casseiopeia was about to depart from Gate 11; last call for Chairlady Spaceways’ Flight 110…

The lift doors hissed open. Father Al held himself back by a straining effort of will as the passengers filed out; then he bolted in. That was a mistake; five people crowded in behind him. The doors hissed shut, and he began elbowing his way back to them. “Excuse me…I’m sorry, but this really is imperative… I’m sorry, sir, but my liner’s leaving, and the next one’s apt to be quite a while coming…”

Then the doors hissed open, and he charged out, with one eye watching to avoid a collision, and the other watching for signs. There it was—Gates 10 through 15, and an arrow pointing to the left! He swerved like a comet reeling around the Sun, leaving a trail of bruised feet, jogged elbows, and shattered tempers behind him.

Gate 11! He skidded to a halt, leaped toward the door—and realized it was chained shut. With a sinking heart, he looked up at the port-wall—and saw a glowing spot already small and diminishing, the St. Elmo’s-Fire phosphorescence that surrounded a ship under planetary drive, growing smaller and dimmer as his ship moved away.

For a moment, he sagged with defeat; then his chin came up, and his shoulders squared. Why was he letting it bother him? After all, it wouldn’t be that long before the next flight to Casseiopeia.

But the datawall said otherwise; the next flight to Beta Cass. wasn’t leaving for a week! He stared at it in disbelief, Yorick’s warning to hurry echoing in his ears. Rod Gallowglass was going to disappear, and Father Al had to make sure he disappeared with him!

Then a nasty suspicion formed at the back of his mind. Admittedly, it was too soon to say—three times is enemy action, and he’d only been delayed twice; but Rod Gallowglass was about to discover some sort of extraordinary power within himself, and probably had some major flaw in his personality, as almost everyone had—well-hidden and well-rationalized, to be sure, but there nonetheless. That flaw could be a handle to grasp his soul by, and twist him toward evil actions—again, well-hidden and well-rationalized, not recognized as evil; but evil nonetheless. He could be a very powerful tool in the hands of Evil—or a great force for Good, if someone were there to point out the moral pitfalls and help him steer clear of them.

Definitely, it helped Evil’s chances if Father Al missed contact with Rod Gallowglass.

And it was so easy to do—just make sure he missed his ship, and arrived on Gramarye too late! All Hell had to do was to help human perversity run a little more than its natural course. Perhaps the captain of the liner had been in a bad mood, and hadn’t been about to wait a second longer than was necessary, even though one of the booked passengers hadn’t arrived yet… Perhaps the spaceport controller had had an argument earlier that day, and had taken it out on the rest of the world by assigning the ship from Terra to the South 220 terminal, instead of the North 40; so Finagle had triumphed, and the perversity of the universe had tended toward maximum.