The Warlock in Spite of Himself

"Nay!" Brom boomed. "How can that be?"

"Because each man's voice can be heard, his opinions adding weight to those of his fellows. That's the key, communications. You can't have that kind of government here because your communications are lousy, which is strange, because you've got the potential for the best system, if you'd just use it."

He folded his arms and leaned back. "But they've got bad trouble up there. They're growing, you see. Every day, at least one new world joins the Tribunal. At that rate, they'll have reached the limit of their communications. After that, they'll start running downhill to dictatorship."

"But how is this thy concern?" Brom growled.

"I work for them. I'm the salesman. I'm the boy who goes out and gets new planets ready for membership.

… if they want it, which they always do, once they're ready !"

"And what is this readiness?" Brom smiled, fighting for tolerance.

"Communications, as I told you, but even more than that, learning. Education."

He sighed. "The education, we've got licked. Took a long while, but it's licked. Communications, though, that's another matter.

" 'Cause there's one other ingredient to freedom:a frontier. It prevents a stratified society—never mind what that is, my Lord O'Berin, King of the Elves—and a stratified society is another road to totalitarianism.

"So the Tribunal's got to keep growing. But if it grows much more, slowing communications will be its death. And I, very personally, don't want that. Because the Dream has a name, you see—Freedom. That's my Dream. And that's why Gramarye means so much to me."

Brom scowled. "I do not comprehend."

Rod turned to him, smiling. "The witches. Their power to hear thoughts. That's the communications system we need."

He watched understanding, and a certain dread, dawn in Brom's face, then turned away.

"We need them," he said, "we need lots of them. Up till now, their numbers have been growing slowly. But, under Catharine's protection, they'll grow faster; and from their winning in today's battle, they'll begin to be respected, and before too long, every parent will be hoping for a witch to be born in the family. Then their numbers will soar."

Brom scowled. "But how is it this world alone, of all the ones you speak of, hath witches?"

"Because the men who brought life to the land, your ancestors, who dropped from the skies, selected only those persons who had at least a trace of witch-power in them, to come here. They didn't know they had it, it was too little, and hidden too deeply, to be seen; but as the generations rolled and they married one another again and again, that little bit grew and grew, until at last a witch was born."

"And when was that?" Brom smiled tolerantly.

"When the elves appeared. Also the banshees, werewolves, and other supernatural fauna. Because there's a strange substance on this planet, called witch-moss, that shapes itself to the forms a witch thinks of. If the witch thinks of an elf, the moss turns into an elf."

Brom paled. "Dost thou say…"

"Don't feel bad about it, Brom," Rod said quickly. "All men were once just pulsing blobs floating in the sea; it's just that in your remote ancestor's case, the process was speeded up a trifle, through the witches. And it was your first ancestor, not you; my guess is that the critter formed out of the moss is such a perfect copy, it can breed true—and even cross-breed with mortal men."

He leaned back and sighed. "Be proud, Brom. You and your people are the only ones who can claim to be real native citizens."

Brom was silent a long moment; then he growled, "Aye, then, this is our land. And what wouldst thou do with it, warlock from the skies?"

"Do?" Rod cocked an eye. "Only what you yourself are trying to do, Brom, through the reforms you've suggested to Catharine. Equality before the law, isn't that your aim?"

"It is, aye."

" Well, it's mine, too. And my job is to show you the least bloody road to it, which job I have just finished."

He scowled, suddenly brooding.

Brom studied him. Gwendylon touched his head, stroking the hair, worried.

Rod looked up at her and tried to smile.

He turned to Brom. "That's why I fought for Catharine, you see: because she protects the witches, and because she's a reformer; and so is Tuan, thank Heaven.

"And that's why the councillors and the Mocker fought against her."

Brom scowled. "I am old, Rod Gallowglass. Show me."

Rod looked up at the stars again. "Someday the Tribunal will govern all the stars you can see, and a lot more that you can't. And almost all the people who live on those worlds will be witches, because they'll have the blood of Gramarye flowing in their veins.

"How's that for a laurel wreath, Brom? 'Father to a Galaxy…'

"But some people won't be witches. And because they're not, they'll hate the witches, and their government, more violently than you can imagine. That kind is called a fanatic.

"And they'll go for any system of government, any, as long as it isn't democracy. And they'll fight democracy with every breath in their bodies."

"If it is to be as you say," growled Brom, "these men will lose; for how could they fight so many worlds?"

"They can't," Rod answered, "unless they kill it before it's born."

"But how shall they do that? For to kill the witch in the womb, they must come to the womb, here to Gramarye, and try to… why… to slay…"

Brom stared, horrified.

"Catharine," Rod finished for him, nodding sourly.

"Right, Brom. The councillors and the leader cadre of the House of Clovis are somebody's great-great-fifty-times-great-grandchildren ."

"But how could that be?" Brom gasped. "What man can visit his ancestors?"

"They can. They've got a thing called a time machine. There's one of them hidden somewhere in the House of Clovis, and another in the haunted tunnels of the Castle Loguire.

"So guard those four men in your dungeon very carefully, Brom. They might have a few surprises in store."

"Be assured that I will!"

"And the councillors are all dead." Rod leaned back, eyes closing. "Which nicely wraps up the report. Send it home, Fess. Oh, and corroborative material: a description of the time machine, and descriptions of the witches' main tricks—you know, telekinesis, levita-tion, telepor—"

"I do know, Rod," the robot's voice reminded him.

"Umph. Some self-effacing retainer you are. Well, send it home."

The warp transmitter deep within Fess's basketball brain spat a two-second squeal at the stars.

All was silent a moment; then Gwendylon said, hesitantly, "My lord?"

Rod lifted an eyelid and smiled. "You shouldn't call me that. But I like it."

She smiled, shyly. "My lord, you ha' finished your work here…"

Rod's face darkened.

He turned away, glowering down at the earth.

"Where will you go now, Rod Warlock?" Brom murmured.

"Oh, cut it out!" Rod snapped.

He turned away again, sullen. "I'm not a warlock." he growled. "I'm an agent from a very advanced technology, and as such have a bag of tricks like you wouldn't believe, but they're all cold iron and its breed. I haven't a witch trick to my name, and I certainly don't have the tiniest shred of witch power."

He lifted his eyes to the stars again. "I'm not a warlock, not the slightest bit, not so much as the meanest of your peasants. I don't belong here."

He felt a tearing in him as he said it.

"I chose this life," Rod growled. "I take orders, yes, but I do it voluntarily."

"A point," Brom admitted, "but a weak one. By choice or not by choice, thou'rt still enslaved."

"Yes," Rod admitted. "But some must give up their freedom, so that their children may have it."

But it didn't even sound convincing to him.