Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock Unlocked

He felt a jolt, and opened his eyes.

He stood in a richly-furnished room, with an Oriental carpet and tapestried hangings. A huge, canopied bed stood against the far wall, with Elidor huddled against the headboard. Near it, under a tall slit of a window, stood a cradle.

The Duke stood before the bed with his sword drawn. Between it and Elidor, Geoff and Magnus wove like cobras, fencing madly against the Duke. He roared, laying about him with huge sweeps of his sword, maddened at not being able to touch them.

Elidor uncurled and plunged a hand under the featherbed, snatching out a dagger.

A huge blue face appeared at the window, and a blue arm with iron nails poked through, groping toward the cradle.

Cordelia shrieked, and the hag’s arm suddenly twisted. It bellowed, and Geoff looked up, startled, then whirled away to the cradle, to thrust up at the monster. With a howl of glee, it scooped him up. Geoff wailed, suddenly only a very frightened three-year-old, struggling madly.

“Aroint thee!” Gwen screamed, and the monster’s arm snapped down against the window ledge with a crack like a gunshot. The hag shrieked, but her hold on Geoffrey tightened; his face was reddening too much. Then the blue face fell back, and the hand yanked Geoffrey out of the window.

Rod leaped to the window and bent out, looking down.

Below him, the hag scuttled down the wall of the keep, like a spider, waving Geoffrey in the air. Rod’s eyes narrowed, and the cold rage that filled him left no room for pity. Suddenly, the hag’s arm twisted, and twisted again, ripping free from her shoulder. Her screams drilled through Rod’s head as she fell, turning over and over, to slam into the ground.

But her arm floated high in the air, with Geoffrey.

Then Gwen was beside Rod, staring at the huge blue hand. One by one, the fingers peeled back, opening, and Geoffrey floated up toward them, cradled by his mother’s thoughts, sobbing.

Rod didn’t stay to see the rest; his younger boy was safe, but the oldest wasn’t. He turned, deliberately, cold glare transferring to the Duke.

Duke Foidin still fought; but he fenced with a gloating grin, for Magnus was tiring. His parries were slower, his ripostes later. The Duke slashed at his head, and Magnus ducked—and tripped on the carpet’s edge, falling forward. The Duke roared with savage satisfaction and chopped down at Magnus.

His arm yanked back hard, slamming him against the wall; he screamed. Then he looked up into Rod’s eyes, and dread seeped into his face. Rod’s eyes narrowed, and the Duke’s body rocked with a sudden, muffled explosion. The color drained out of his face as his head tilted back, eyes rolling up; then he crumpled to the floor.

“What hast thou done?” Gwen murmured into the sudden silence.

“Exploded his heart,” Rod muttered.

A scream erupted from the cradle.

Gwen ran over to it, scooped up the baby. “There, there, now, love, shhh. ‘Tis well, ‘tis well; none here would hurt thee, and thy mother shall come presently to claim thee.” She looked up at Rod. “Praise Heaven we came!”

Father Al nodded. “The Duke’s sentries must have told him Lord Kern was virtually at his gate—so he tried to kill Elidor, in spite.”

“And would’ve gone on to kill the baby!” Suddenly, the anger soared up in Rod again, bulging him out, shaking him like a gale—and Father Al was there beside him, shaking his shoulders and crying, “The deed is done, the Duke’s dead! Elidor’s safe, the baby is safe, your children are safe! All the children are safe—and you are Lord Gallowglass, not Lord Kern! You are Rod Gallowglass, Rodney d’Armand, transported here from Gramarye, in another universe—and by science, not magic. You are Rod Gallowglass !”

Slowly, Rod felt the anger beginning to ebb, the Power to fade. It slackened, and was gone—and he tottered, his brain suddenly clouded; stars shot through the room.

“My lord!” Gwen was beside him, baby cradled in one arm, the other around him.

“Yes, I know you are drained.” Father Al had a shoulder under his arm. “That use of magic took every bit of reserve your body had. But pull yourself together—it’s not over yet! Hear that?”

Hear? Rod frowned, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He strained, and dimly, through the ringing in his ears, he heard shouts, and the clash of steel. War!

“Lord Kern’s troops are battling the Duke’s,” Father Al snapped.

Adrenalin shot its last surge, and Rod straightened up. “No… no, I can stand.” He brushed away their hands and stood by himself, reeling; then he steadied.

And a voice thundered through the castle, coming from the walls themselves: “THY DUKE IS DEAD! THROW DOWN THINE ARMS!”

There was a moment’s silence; then a low moan began, building to despair. As it died, Rod heard, dimly, the clatter and clank of swords, shields, and pikes rattling on cold stone.

“That voice,” Gwen murmured.

“What about it?” Rod frowned. “Sounded ugly, to me.”

“It was thine.”

“I believe your counterpart has come,” Father Al murmured, “to reclaim his own.”

“Good,” Rod muttered. “He’s welcome to it.”

Mailed footsteps rang on the stone of the hallway.

“Quickly!” Father Al snapped. “Hold hands! Link your family together!”

Rod didn’t understand but he reacted to the urgency in the priest’s voice. “Kids! Children-chain! Quick!”

They scurried into place, Magnus and Cordelia catching Geoff’s hands, Cordelia holding Gwen’s hand and Magnus holding Rod’s.

Just to be sure, Rod grabbed Father Al’s arm. “What’s this all about?”

“Just a precaution. Do you know what to do when you see your fetch?”

“No.”

Father Al nodded. “Good.”

Then the doorway was filled, and Gwen’s exact double stepped into the room.

Well, not exact—her hair was darker, and her lips not as full—but it was unmistakably her.

The “real” Gwen held out the baby. “Here is thy bairn.”

The woman gave a little cry, and leaped to scoop the child out of Gwen’s arms. She cuddled it to her, crooning to it in the same tones Gwen used.

“My thanks.”

Rod looked up.

The hair swept the shoulders, and he wore a jawline beard and close-clipped moustache—but it was Rod’s face behind all the hair. “I give thee greatest thanks, for the lives of my babe, and my King.”

Then Lord Kern’s face darkened, and he bellowed, “What dost thou here, what dost thou here? Seekest thou mine end? Get thee hence! Get thee gone!”

And the scene exploded into a riot of color.

Swarming colors, sliding into one another and back out, wavering and flowing all about him. Rod couldn’t see anything else; he was floating in a polychrome void; but he could feel the pressure of Magnus’s hand within his, and Father Al’s arm. And he felt yearnings and longings in different directions, like unseen hands trying to pull him five ways at once; but one was stronger than the others, and pulled him harder. He moved toward it; it was the direction Magnus’s hand was pulling in, anyway. Gregory, he realised—baby Gregory, calling Mama home. And Papa, too, of course—but who’s really important to an infant, anyway?

Then the colors began to thicken, blending into one another, then separating out again—brown stripes, and multi-hued ones, that coalesced into wooden beams and draperies; white, that bristled into stucco…

There was a floor under him. He let go of Magnus and Father Al and shoved against it, levering himself up, feeling dizzy—and gazed around the big room in his own home.

Near the fireplace stood a cradle, with Brom O’Berin bulking over it, scarcely larger than it was, staring.