The Warlock in Spite of Himself

"Certes, milord." The Mocker scurried around Rod and opened the inner door. Rod passed through it, pulling off his gauntlets… and stepped into the middle of a semicircle of beggars and thieves, standing three deep and armed with truncheons and knives.

They grinned, their eyes hungry; here and there one licked his lips.

Their faces were dirty and scarred, mutilated, and festering with sores; their clothes were threadbare, patched, torn; but their knives were remarkably well-kept.

Rod tucked his gloves into his belt, hands stiffening into karate swords, and turned to the Mocker. That worthy was now flanked by five or six prime samples of the lees of society.

"I come here in friendship." Rod's face was immobile.

"Do ye, now?" The Mocker grinned, exposing bleeding gums, and cackled. Suddenly his eyes gleamed with hate. "Declare yourself, lordling!"

Rod frowned. "Declare myself how?"

"For the noblemen, for the Queen, or for the House ofClovis!"

"Be done with your blathering!" Rod snapped. "I have small stomach for nonsense, and I'm beginning to feel very full. Take me to Loguire, now !"

"Oh, aye, that we shall. Yes, milord, at once, milord, straightaway." He rubbed his hands, chortling with glee. Then his glance darted over Rod's shoulder, and he nodded.

Rod started to turn, but something exploded on the back of his head. Stars reeled about him, then blackness.

Slowly, Rod became aware of pink light, pain, and a thousand discordant bass fiddles tuning up inside his head.

Slower yet, he became aware of something cold and slimy against his cheek. The pink light, he realized, was sunlight filtered through closed eyelids.

Th pain pulled itself in and concentrated in his head. He winced, then by heroic measures managed to open his eyes, and winced again.

Everything was blurred, out of focus, sunlight and blobs of color.

The slime under his cheek was moss, and the coldness beneath it was stone.

He shoved hard with his hands; the slimy surface swung away, left him reeling, leaning on his hands heavily, stomach churning.

He shook his head, flinched at the pain, and blinked several times. His lids rasped over gummy eyeballs, but slowly his vision cleared. He forced his eyes to focus on… the face of Tuan Loguire.

Tuan sat with his back against black, old stone. There were huge iron staples in the stone, and the chains that hung from them ran to manacles on Tuan's wrists and ankles. He sat in a heap of dirty, moldering straw, in the watery light of a weak sunbeam.

Tuan smiled with irony as heavy as the rusty chains on his body, and lifted a hand in greeting, chain jangling with the movement. "Welcome."

Rod turned his eyes away, looking about him. The old Duke sat against the next wall, chained beside his son. "Cold welcome, RodGallowglass," the old lord mumbled, face heavy and brooding. "It is scant safety your serving-man has brought me to."

Treachery! Rod should have known better than to trust Tom. "Big Tom, you… !"

"Here, master."

Rod looked, turning; Big Tom sat against the far wall, chained like the rest of them.

Tom smiled sadly, bent a reproachful, bloodhound-eyed look on his master. "I had thought you would free us, master. Yet here art thou, chained one amongst us."

Rod scowled, looked down at his wrist, A rusty, thick iron band circled it. It had mates on his ankle and other wrist.

He looked up at Tom, smiled, and raised his hand, giving the chain a shake. "Ever hear tell that stone walls don't make a prison?"

"Who spoke those words was a fool," said Tom bitterly, from the shadows.

Rod lifted his eyes to the small, barred window set high in the wall. It was the only light in the room, a chamber perhaps ten feet wide by fifteen long, with a ten foot high ceiling, all moss-grown, rotting stone, floored with moldering straw.

The only decoration was a skeleton, held together by mummified ligament, chained to the wall like themselves.

Rod eyed the silent partner warily. "Not such great housekeepers, are they? They could at least have lugged the bones into the nether room."

He turned to the window again. "Fess," he mumbled, low enough so the others couldn't make out the words. "Fess, where are you?"

"In the most filthy, broken-down stable I've ever seen," the robot answered, "along with five of the sorriest nags outside of a glue factory. I think we're supposed to be the cavalry of the House of Clovis, Rod."

Rod chuckled softly. "Any mice with large green eyes running around, Fess?"

"No, Rod, but there is a wren perched on my head."

Rod grinned. "Ask her if she has any power over cold iron."

"How am I to speak with her, Rod?"

"Broadcast on human thought-wave frequency, of course! She's a telepath, you idiot savant!"

"Rod, I strongly resent the derogatory connotions of references to my abilities in areas in which I am not programmed to—"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry, I repent! You're a genius, a prodigy, an Einstein, an Urth! Just ask her, will you?"

There was a pause; then Rod heard a faint series of chirpings in the background.

"What's the chirping, Fess?"

"Gwendylon, Rod. She reacted significantly to the novel experience of telepathy with a horse."

"You mean she almost fell off her perch. But did she say anything?"

"Of course, Rod. She says that now she is certain you're a warlock."

Rod groaned and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Look, get her back to business, will you? Can she get us out of these chains and cut the bars on our window?"

There was another pause; then Fess answered, "She says she has no power over cold iron, Rod, nor has any witch or elf that she knows. She suggests a blacksmith, but fears it is impractical."

"Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus… Well, tell her I' in glad she hasn't lost her sense of humor. And ask her how the hell she's going to get us out of here!"

" She says there is no need for hard language, Rod."

"You didn't have to transmit me literally, you bumblebrain!"

"And she thinks that the Prince of the Elves may be able to free you. She thinks he will come, but he is some short distance away, so it may be a while."

"I thought she said elves couldn't handle cold iron!"

There was another pause; then Fess said, "She says that the Prince of the Elves is not quite an elf, Rod, being but half of the Old Blood."

"Only half… Wait a minute!" Rod scowled. "You mean he's a half-breed between elf and mortal?"

"Precisely, Rod."

Rod tried to imagine how an eighteen-inch elf and a six-foot mortal could have a child; his brain reeled.

"She departs now, Rod, to summon him, and will return as quickly as she may, but will be a while. She bids you be of stout heart."

"If my heart were any stouter, it'd be positively obese! Give her my… No, just tell her I thank her, Fess."

He seemed to hear a faint sigh behind his ear, and the robot said, with a touch of resignation, "I'll tell her, Rod."

"Thanks, Fess. Stay lively."

Rod turned back to his prison. The Loguires were both plastered against the wall, looking at him strangely.

"He speaks to thin air," murmured Tuan. "Certes, the man is possessed!"

"Seems to me I've heard that before," Rod mused, "and the air in here is anything but thin."

"Still," muttered Loguire, " 'tis the act of one crazed!"

Big Tom rumbled a laugh. "Not so, my lords. This man speaks with spirits."

Rod smiled bleakly. "How come so cheerful all of a sudden, Big Tom?"

The big man stretched, chains clashing. "I had thought for a moment they had beaten you, master. Now I know 'twas fool thinking."

"Don't be so sure, Tom. Cold iron is a tough spell to break."

"Nay, master." Tom's eyelids drooped lazily. "Thou'It find a way to it, I warrant."