The Warlock in Spite of Himself

Rod tied it under Tom's arms, threw the loose end out, and called "Heave!"

He heard Brom grunt, and marveled again at the little man's muscles as Big Tom moved jerkily up the wall, still snoring happily.

What with the beerbelly and the muscles, and the minimal size of the window, Big Tom was a tight fit.

"Why don't you just wake him and let him shove himself out?" Rod grunted as he shoved at Tom's ample rear.

"I have no wish for my office to be known among mortals," came Brom's muffled reply.

The window now framed only Tom's sizable posterior and sequoia shanks. Rod eyed the former, weighing the merits of a well-placed kick, and decided against it.

"So, why'd you let me stay awake?" he grunted as he pushed.

"One amongst you must needs aid me with the others," answered Brom, but Rod had a notion that wasn't quite the whole story.

He left off the questions, however, until his cellmates were deposited on the ground outside the window. Tuan's shoulders had proved even more of an obstacle than Tom's belly; they had to back him up, feed his hands through in front of his head, while Rod wondered fleetingly about brachiator ancestry.

Then Brom hauled Rod out, muttering something about the fish being undersized these days. Rod snarled a return compliment as he gained his feet, then bowed double, putting his head on Brom's level.

"And what's that for?" Brom growled.

"For belting," Rod answered. "You owe me a rap on the head, remember?"

The dwarf chuckled, clapped him on the shoulder. "Nay, lad; you did only that which I should ha' done myself years ago; but I had never the heart. But come now, we must away."

Brom caught up Tuan's midsection. The gnomes took his shoulders and feet, and bore him away toward the ruined fountain in the center of the courtyard.

More gnomes materialized out of the stonework and tucked their shoulders under Big Tom.

Rod shook his head wonderingly, and stooped to sling Loguire over a shoulder.

Brom fumbled with a stone at the fountain's base and pulled it away to disclose the dark mouth of a small tunnel three feet in diameter.

Rod tapped Brom on the shoulder. "Wouldn't this be a little easier if we woke them first?"

Brom stared, scandalized; then his face darkened. "We go to Elfland, Master Gallowglass! And no mortal may journey there and remember it!"

"I have."

"Well, truth," Brom admitted, turning back to the Tuan problem," but then thou' rt not so mortal as some. Thou'rt a warlock." He disappeared into the burrow.

Rod started to reply, then thought better of it. He contented himself with a few grunted reniarks about discrimination and a report to the Human Rights Commission as he lugged Loguire into the tunnel.

Two gnomes started to swing the stone back into place, but Rod stopped them with an upraised hand.

"Fess," he murmured, looking at the stable, "we're on our way. Get out of that hole and meet me at the castle."

There was a moment's silence; then a crash and the sound of splintering wood came from the stables. The door crashed open, and the great black horse came trotting out into the morning sunlight, head held high, mane streaming.

Heads popped out of slit-windows in the inn as a bleary-eyed hostler came stumbling out of the stable in Fess's wake, screaming for the horse to stop.

"Come on, get moving!" Rod growled, but instead, Fess stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the hostler.

The youth came running up, shouting, one hand outstretched to grab Fess's bridle.

A great, blue electric spark crackled from Fess's hide to the youth's hand.

The hostler screamed and fell backward, nursing his hand and moaning as he rolled on the cobbles. Fess was off in a swirl and a clatter of hooves.

"Show-off," Rod growled as the horse disappeared.

"Not at all, Rod," came the horse's quiet answer. "Merely providing an instructive object lesson—at low amperage, it shook him up but didn't hurt him—and enhancing your reputation as a warlock."

Rod shook his head slowly. "As if it needed enhanc-ing!"

"Why, Master Gallowglass," one of the gnomes chuckled in a voice strongly reminiscent of a rusty can opener, "wouldst thou have us believe thou'rt not a warlock?"

"Yes! Uh, that is, I uh…" Rod glanced back at the tunnel. "Warlock? Of course I'm a warlock! Till we get through Elfland, anyway. Shall we go, boys?"

Not so very much later, they sat around the fire in the Queen's council chamber. Catharine had apologized profusely to Loguire, pointedly ignoring Tuan the while; and the amenities over, reverted to type.

Tuan sat to the left of the fireplace, eyes fixed in brooding on the flames.

Catharine sat in the angle of the room, as far from Tuan as possible, with a heavy oak table and Brom O'Berin carefully interposed between.

"… and that is full standing in the South, my Queen," said Loguire, gnarled hands twisting as he wound up his report, which had abounded in nuances of intrigue that Rod couldn't follow at all. "I am no longer duke; and the rebel lords march already."

Catharine stirred. "Thou shalt be Duke Loguire again," she stated coldly, "when we have beaten these traitors!"

Loguire smiled sadly. "They shall not be easily beaten, Catharine."

" 'Your Majesty'!" she snapped.

" 'Catharine'!" Rod barked.

She glared at him.

He glared back.

Catharine turned haughtily away. "What am I, Brom?"

" 'Your Majesty,' " Brom answered with the ghost of a smile. "But to your uncle, and to his son, your cousin, you must needs be Catharine."

Rod fought down a smile as Catharine sank back in her chair, staring aghast at Brom.

She composed herself, and gave Brom the best et tu, Brute? look in her repertoire. "I had thought you were for me, Brom O'Berin."

"Why, so I am," Brom smiled, "and so is this gyrfalcon, here"—he jerked a thumb toward Rod—"if you would but see it."

Catharine favored Rod with a cold glance. "A gyr-falcon, aye." Her voice hardened. "And what of the poppinjay?"

Tuan's head shot up as though he'd been slapped. He stared at her, appalled, eyes wide with hurt.

Then his mouth tightened, and a crease appeared between his eyebrows.

Some day , Rod thought, she will push him just a little too far, and that may be the luckiest day of her life-if she lives through it .

"I am for you," Tuan breathed. "Even now, Catharine my Queen."

She smiled, smug and contemptuous. "Aye, I had known you would be."

Oh, bitch ! Rod thought, his fist tightening. Bitch !

Catharine noticed the silent motions of his lips.

She smiled archly. "What words do you mumble there, sirrah?"

"Oh, ah, just running through a breath-exercise my old voice-and-diction coach taught me." Rod leaned back against the wall, folding his arms. "But about the rebels, Queenie dear, just what do you propose to do about them?"

"We shall march south," she snapped, "and meet them on Breden Plain!"

"Nay!" Loguire bolted from his chair. "Their force is ten to our one, if not more!"

Catharine glared at her uncle, the corners of her mouth curled into tight little hooks. "We shall not stay to be found like a rat in a crevice!"

"Then," said Rod, "you will lose."

She looked down her nose at him (no mean trick, when she was seated and he was standing). "There is naught of dishonor in that, Master Gallowglass."

Rod struck his forehead and rolled his eyes up.

"What else ought I do?" she sneered. "Prepare for a siege?"

"Well, now that you mention it," said Rod, "yes."

"There is this, too," Tuan put in, his voice flat. "Who shall guard your back 'gainst the House of Clovis?"

Her lip curled. "Beggars!"

"Beggars and cutthroats," Rod reminded her. "With very sharp knives."