The Warlock in Spite of Himself

"I mean you no harm, Horatio." He grinned suddenly, sardonically. "What harm could I do you, even if I wanted to?"

The ghost's head snapped up, empty eyes staring into Rod's. "You know not, mortal?"

"A ghost," Fess's voice said hurriedly behind Rod's ear, "like all supernatural creatures, can be hurt by cold iron or silver, or any medium of good conductivity, though gold is usually regarded as too expensive for such uses."

The ghost loomed larger over Rod, advancing on him.

Rod stepped back, his dagger at the ready. "Hold it right there," he snapped. "Cold iron, remember?"

"Then, too," Fess murmured, "you do know the secret of their power. You could bring in an army with earplugs."

"Then, too," said Rod, "I do know the secret of your power. I could bring in an army with earplugs."

The ghost halted, the corners of its mouth turning down. "I had thought thou hadst said thou knew not."

"I do now. One step backward, if you please."

The ghost reluctantly retreated, groaning, "What phantom stands at your side to advise you?"

Rod's teeth bared in a grin. "A black horse, made of cold iron. It's in the castle stables, but it can talk to me from there."

"A pouka," Horatio growled, "a spirit horse, and one who is a traitor to the world of ghosts."

"No." Rod shook his head grimly. "It's not a spirit at all. I said it was made of cold iron, didn't I?"

The ghost shook its head decisively. "No such thing could exist."

Rod sighed. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But that's beside the point. All that matters to you is that I don't mean any harm here. I'm just looking for something. I'll find it and go. Okay?"

"You are master. Why dost thou ask?" the ghost said bitterly.

"Courtesy," Rod explained. Then a vagrant and vague possibility crossed his mind. "Oh, by the way, I'm a minstrel…"

The ghost's mouth dropped open; then it surged forward, hands grasping hungrily. "Music! Oh, sweet strains of melody! But play for us, Man, and we are thine to command!"

"Hold on a second." Rod held up a hand. "You built these halls, Horatio Loguire, and therefore do I ask of you the boon that I may walk these halls in peace. Grant me this, and I will play for you."

"You may walk, you may walk where you will!" the ghost quavered. "Only play for us, Man!"

Very neat, Rod thought. As good a job of face-saving as he'd ever done. After all, no sense making enemies if you can help it.

He looked up, started, and stared in shock. He was ringed by a solid wall of ghosts, three deep at least, all staring like a starving man in a spaghetti factory.

He swallowed hard and swung his harp around with a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn't been able to leave it in the sleeping-loft.

He touched the strings, and a groan of ecstasy swept through the ghosts like the murmur of distant funeral bells on the midnight wind.

It then occurred to Rod that he was in an excellent bargaining position. "Uh, Lord Horatio, for two songs, will you tell me where the secret passages are?"

"Aye, aye!" the ghost fairly shrieked. "The castle is thine, my demesne, all that I have! The kingdom, if thou wish it! Only play for us, Man! For ten hundreds of years we have heard not a strain of Man's music! But play, and the whole world is thine!"

His fingers started plucking then, and the ghosts shivered like a schoolgirl getting her first kiss.

He gave them "Greensleeves," and "The Drunken Sailor," they being the oldest songs he knew. From there he went on to "The Ghost's High Noon," and "The Unfortunate Miss Bailey." He was about to swing into "GhostRiders in the Sky" when it occurred to him that ghosts might not particularly like songs about ghosts. After all, mortals told spook stories for escapism; and by that yardstick, specters should want songs about humdrum, ordinary, everyday life, something peaceful and comforting, memories of green pastures and babbling brooks, and the lowing herd winding slowly o'er the lee.

So he went through as much of Beethoven's Sixth as he could remember, which was not easy on an Irish harp.

The last strains died away among the hollow halls. The ghosts were silent a moment; then a satiated, regretful sigh passed through them.

Horatio Loguire's great voice spoke quietly at Rod's elbow. "In truth, a most fair roundelay." Then, very carefully: "Let us have another, Man."

Rod shook his head with a sorrowful smile. "The hours of the night crowd down upon us, my lord, and I have much that I must do ere daybreak. Another night I shall return and play for you again; but for this night, I must away."

"Indeed," Horatio nodded, with another mournful sigh. "Well, you have dealt fairly with us, Man, and shown us courtesy without constraint to it. And shall we, for hospitality, be beholden to a guest? Nay; but come within, and I will show you doors to the pathways within the walls of this keep, and tell you of their twists and turnings."

All the ghosts but Horatio disappeared, with the sound of mouse feet running through the autumn leaves. Horatio turned abruptly and fled away before Rod, who dashed after him.

Rod counted his running steps; after fifty, the ghost made a right-angle turn with a fine disregard for inertia and passed through a doorway. Rod made a manful attempt at the inertialess turn, and got away with only a slight skid.

The ghost's voice took on the booming echo of the cavernlike room. "This was a cavern indeed, ready-made by God, lo, many centuries before I came. Loath to begrudge His gifts, I took it for my great banquet hall." The room seethed with the voices of a thousand serpent-echos as the patriarch ghost heaved a vast sigh. "Boisterous and many were the feastings held within this great hall, Man. Beauteous the maidens and valiant the knights." His voice lifted, exulting. "Brilliant with light and music was my banquet hall in that lost day, the tales and sagas older and more vital than the singing of this latter world. Wine flushed the faces of my court, and life beat high through the veins of their temples, filling their ears with its drumming call!

"The call of life…" The spirit's voice faded; its echoes died away among the cold cavern stones, till the great hall stood silent in its enduring midnight.

Somewhere a drop of water fell, shattering the silence into a hundred echoes.

"Gone now, oMan," mourned the ghost. "Gone and dead, while threescore of the sons of my blood have ruled these marches in my stead, and come home to me here in my halls. Gone, all my bold comrades, all my willing maidens—gone, and dust beneath our feet."

Rod's shoulders tightened as though a chill wind had touched him between the shoulder blades. He tried to stand a little more lightly in the dust carpet of the old banquet hall.

"And now!" The ghost's voice hardened in sullen anger. "Now others rule these halls, a race of jackals, hyenas who blaspheme my old comrades by walking in the forms of men."

Rod's ears pricked up. "Uh, how's that again, my lord?" Somebody's stolen this hall from you?"

"Twisted, stunted men!" grated the wraith. "A race of base, ignoble cowards—and the lord of them all stands as councillor to a scion of my line, the Lord Duke Loguire!"

"Durer," Rod breathed.

"Calls he himself by that name" growled the ghost. "Then well is he named, for his heart is hard, and his soul is brittle.

"But mark you, Man," and the ghost turned his cavern eyes on Rod, and the base of Rod's scalp seemed to lift a little away from his skull, for embers burned at the backs of the specter's eyes.

"Mark you well," it intoned, stretching forth a hand, forefinger spearing at Rod, "that the hard and brittle steel will break at one strong blow of iron forged. And so may these evil parodies of humankind be broken by a man that you may call a man!"