The Warlock in Spite of Himself

Rod studied the big man's face for a long moment, wondering where this deep devotion had come from.

Then he smiled gently. "Your knees have turned to jelly at the mere thought of the monster, but you still won't let me go alone."

He clapped Tom on the shoulder, grinning. "Well, then, come along, Big Tom; and I'm downright glad of your company, I don't mind telling you."

Tom grinned and looked down at the stones again. It was hard to be sure in the moonlight, but Rod thought there was a faint blush creeping up from the big man's collar.

He turned and set out toward the tower. Tom plodded along by his side. " 'Ere now, master, thou'lt grow a-cold," and Tom flung the cloak he had been carrying over his arm around Rod's shoulder.

A warm, friendly gesture, Rod thought as he thanked Big Tom. He was touched that the clumsy ape should be worried about him—but he was also aware that the cloak hampered his knife hand, and was pretty sure Big Tom was aware of it, too.

"Art not afraid, master?"

Rod frowned, considering the question. "Well, no, not really. After all, the banshee's never been known to hurt anybody. It's just, well, a forecast, you know? Herald of Death and all that."

"Still, 'tis a marvel thou'rt not afeard. Wilt thou not even walk in the shadows by the wall, master?"

Rod frowned and looked at the shadows along the battlements. "No, I'll take the center of the way when I can. I'd always rather walk tall in the sunlight than skulk in the shadows at the side of the road."

Big Tom was silent a moment, his eyes on the shadows.

"Yet," he said, "of necessity, a man must go through the shadows at one time or other, master."

With a shock, Rod realized Tom had picked up the allegory. Illiterate peasant, sure !

He nodded, looking so serious it was almost comic. "Yes, Big Tom. There's times when he has to choose one side of the road or the other. But for myself, I only stay on the sidelines as long as I have to. I prefer the light." He grinned. "Good protection against spirits."

"Spirits!" Tom snorted. He quickly threw Rod a half-hearted grin.

He turned away, frowning. "Still, master, I do much marvel that you will take the middle road; for there may a man be attacked from both sides. And, more to the point, he cannot say that he has chosen either the right or the left."

"No," Rod agreed, "but he can say that he has chosen the middle. And as to attack, well, if the road is well-built, the center is highest; the pavement slopes away to right and left, and the shoulder is soft and may give way beneath you. A man in the middle can see where his enemies are coming from; and it's firm footing. The sides of the road are treacherous. Sure it's an exposed position. That's why not too many have the courage to walk it."

They walked a moment in silence; then Rod said, "Did you ever hear of a dialectical materialism, Tom?"

"How… ?" The big man's head jerked up in surprise, almost shock. He recovered, scowling and shaking his head fervently, and muttering, "No, no, master, no, never, never!"

Sure, Big Tom , Rod thought. Aloud, he said, "It's a Terran philsophy, Big Tom. Its origins are lost in the Dark Ages, but some men still hold by it."

"What is Terran?" the big man growled.

"A dream," Rod sighed, "and a myth."

"Are you one man who lives by it, master?"

Rod looked up, startled. "What? The dream of Terra?"

"No, this dialec—what magic didst thou term it?"

"What, dialectical materialism?" Rod grinned. "No, but I find some of its concepts very handy, like the idea of a synthesis. Do you know what a synthesis is,To*n?"

"Nay, master." Tom shook his head, eyes round in wonder.

The wonder, at least, was probably real. The last thing Big Tom could have looked for was Rod to start quoting a totalitarian philosphy.

"It's the middle way," Rod said. "The right-hand side of the road is the thesis, and the left-hand side is the antithesis. Combine them, and you get a synthesis."

"Aye," Big Tom nodded.

Pretty quick thinking for a dumb peasant , Rod noted. He went on, "The thesis and antithesis are both partly false; so you throw away the false parts, combine the true parts—take the best of both of them—call the result a synthesis, and you've got the truth. See?"

Tom's eyes took on a guarded look. He began to see where Rod was going.

"And the synthesis is the middle of the road. And, being true, it's naturally uncomfortable."

He looked up; the east tower loomed over them. They stood in its shadow. "Well, enough philosophizing. Let's get to work."

"Pray Heaven the banshee come not upon us!" Big Tom moaned.

"Don't worry; it only shows up once a day, in the evening, to predict death within twenty-four hours," Rod said. "It's not due again till tomorrow evening."

There was a sudden scrabbling in the shadows. Big Tom leaped back, a knife suddenly in his hand. "The banshee!"

Rod's blade was out too, his eyes probing the shadows. They locked with two fiery dots at the base of the tower wall.

Rod stepped out in a crouch, knife flickering back and forth from left hand to right. "Declare youself," he chanted, "or die."

A squeal and a skitter, and a huge rat dashed away past him, to lose itself in the shadows near the inner wall.

Big Tom almost collapsed with a sigh. "Saints preserve us! 'Twas only a rat."

"Yes." Rod tried to hide the trembling of his own hands as his knife went back to its sheath. "There seem to be a lot of rats in the walls of this castle."

Big Tom straightened again, wary and off his guard.

"But I saw something as that rat ran by me…" Rod's voice trailed away as he knelt by the outer wall, running his hands lightly over the stone. "There!"

"What is it, master?" Big Tom's garlic breath fanned Rod's cheek.

Rod took the big man's hand and set it against his find. Tom drew in a shuddering breath and yanked his hand away.

" 'Tis cold," his voice quavered, "cold and square, and—it bit me!"

"Bit you?" Rod frowned and ran his fingers over the metal box. He felt the stab of a mild electric shock and jerked his fingers away. Whoever had wired this gadget must have been the rankest of amateurs. It wasn't even grounded properly.

The box was easy to see once you knew where to look for it. It was white metal, about eight inches on a side, two inches deep, recessed so that its front and top were flush with the stone, halfway between two of the crennelations.

But come to think of it, that faulty grounding might have been intentional, to keep people from tampering.

Rod drew his dagger, glad of the insulation provided by the leather hilt. Carefully, he pried open the front of the box.

He could make out the silvery worm-trails of the printed circuit and the flat, square pillbox of the solid-state components—but the whole layout couldn't have been larger than his thumbnail!

His scalp prickled uneasily. Whoever had built this rig knew a little more about molecular circuitry than the engineers back home.

But why such a big box for such a small unit?

Well, the rest of the box was filled with some beautifully-machined apparatus with which Rod was totally unfamiliar.

He looked at the top of the box; there was a round, transparent circle set in the center. Rod frowned. He'd never run into anything quite like this before. At a guess, the circuitry was part of a remote-control system, and the machined parts were—what?

"Master, what is it?"

"I don't know," Rod muttered, "but I have a sneaking suspicion it's got something to do with the banshee."

He probed the mechanism with his dagger, trying to find a moving part. He felt sublimely reckless; the gadget could very easily have a destruct circuit capable of blowing this whole section of the battlements halfway back to Sol.