Warlock’s Last Ride

by Christopher Stasheff

  The leg held.

  Rod gripped the pommel again and began to swing the leg as though he took a step with every shift of weight. At first it refused to budge, then twitched, then swung a little, then wider and wider. When he had achieved a normal length of stride, he began to put his weight on it at the end of the forward swing, then lifted and swung it back. When it held his full weight, he let go of the pommel and began walking in place, then stepped away from Fess and back, then away and around in a circle.

  "Well done, Rod," the robot said. "You have recapitulated two years of physical therapy in an hour."

  "Is that how long it's been?" Time seemed to pass differently when Rod was in a trance. "Now let's work on the arm." He heard his voice say, "Nahwehwhirahdah."

  "Then you will begin work on your speech?"

  Rod glanced at the sun's rays, where they laid their path through dust-motes to the leaves below. "Won't be time before dark. I'll have to finish that tomorrow."

  By sunset, he had the right arm and hand back to full function and was quite unreasonably proud that he was able to brew up a stew of jerky and dried vegetables.

  Speech took longer, though. It required much more fine-muscle coordination, so even after a night's sleep and a morning's work, it was noon by the time Rod was willing to take a break, drown the fire, and ride on through the forest. After an hour, he started practicing tongue-twisters again, and was speaking quite normally by the time he pitched camp that evening. For practice, he discussed the elf marksman with Fess.

  "I did not notice any unusual amounts of witch-moss around his feet, Rod."

  Rod nodded. "It probably all came from within—he was much heavier than anyone his size has a right to be. Even if he absorbed extra witch-moss as he grew, there must have been a lot of it in him to begin with. That was one very tightly-compacted elf."

  "But you knew whatever mass he had would be, shall we say, stretched thin when he grew twelve feet in a matter of minutes?"

  "Thin as cobwebs—which is exactly what he felt like when I rode through." Rod shuddered at the memory and spooned up some more stew—an action of which he was unreasonably proud at the moment. "He had become, if you'll pardon the phrase, a very insubstantial elf."

  THE SENTRY AT the gatehouse looked uncertain as Alea approached. "Do you need an escort, milady?"

  Alea bristled but hid it; she flashed him a smile instead and wondered why his eyes widened—but she said, "No thank you, trooper." She brandished her staff. "I have all the protection I need—unless there are wild lions in that wood that no one's told me about?"

  "No, milady." Wide-eyed or not, the man still seemed doubtful. "There's wolves and bears, though we haven't seen 'em in a year or two."

  "I'll take my chances, then," Alea said. "Sometimes you just need to be by yourself for a while, you know?"

  "Yes, milady." The young man clearly didn't.

  Alea knew she didn't have to explain but tried anyway. "I'm a stranger here, trooper, and sometimes I feel very much alone—but I don't when I'm in the forest by myself."

  "Just call if you need help, milady."

  "As loudly as I can." Alea gave him a bright smile as she turned away. "And I'm not the daughter of a lord, so you don't have to call me lady."

  "Begging your pardon, milady, but if you're Sir Magnus's companion, you're a lady."

  Alea sighed, recognizing a fight she couldn't win. She only said, "Thank you, soldier," and turned to walk through the tunnel and out under the portcullis.

  The woods were as welcoming as Alea had expected; as soon as the leaves closed around her, she felt a burden lift from her. She wondered why—she had been on planets where she knew no one before. Here, at least, she had Magnus's brothers and sister.

  Of course—that was why. She felt she was continually on trial, continually being judged for her fitness to accompany Magnus. Here, though, only the beasts and birds would judge her, and that was as a threat or merely an interesting addition to their world.

  She strolled down a path, letting the thoughts gradually empty from her mind, filling it instead with birdsong and the rustling of leaves. She came to a little clearing with a large rock off to one side and sat down to enjoy the play of sunlight and shadow.

  "It has taken you long enough to come out of that ugly stone shell," Evanescent said.

  Alea looked up, surprised to see the cat-headed alien, then frowned. "It would help if you didn't keep erasing my memories of you after every encounter. How am I supposed to know you want to talk if I can't even remember you exist?"

  "You might ask me how I like this new world."

  "You might ask me the same."

  "Very well." Evanescent tucked her paws under her chest as she lay down. "How do you find this world of Gramarye, Alea?"

  "Oh, the world itself is well and good," Alea said. "It's the people who are giving me difficulty."

  "Really?" the alien asked, interested. "Which people?"

  "Only Magnus's brothers and sister," Alea said with a sigh. "His father has gone adventuring, which is too bad, for he seemed very nice. All the servants and soldiers are friendly, though. A bit distant, since they seem to think I'm an aristocrat, but friendly nonetheless."

  "You don't think you're a fine lady?"

  "I'm a farmer's daughter," Alea snapped. "If I'd known Magnus was noble, I'd never have had anything to do with him!"

  Evanescent tilted her head to the side, considering the statement, then asked, "Isn't the man worth more than his rank?"

  "Yes, I suppose so," Alea conceded. "I'm just a bit upset at the thought of serving as his squire."

  "That's not what people expect." Evanescent spoke as a mind-reader with no compunctions about mental eavesdropping.

  "No, it's not. They all seem to expect me to marry him—never mind that he isn't in love with me!"

  "Or you in love with him?" Evanescent asked. "I noticed you didn't mention that."

  "Didn't, and won't," Alea snapped.

  Evanescent sighed and stirred with impatience. 'This emotion you silly two-legs call 'being in love' is rather exasperating."

  "Don't I know it," Alea said with all her heart. "But why does it bother you?"

  "Only because you all seem to want it so badly, but are so reluctant to tell each other about it," Evanescent explained. "Are you that much afraid of being hurt?"

  Yes! Alea thought, and was surprised at her own intensity. Aloud, she said, "That's where we can be most easily and most deeply hurt. Magnus still hasn't recovered from the injuries that she-wolf Finister gave him years ago."

  "Just as you haven't recovered from your own … what is your phrase for it? Heartbreak?"

  "That's it," Alea said through gritted teeth.

  "A most nonsensical phrase," Evanescent said. "Hearts don't break, after all, though they may stop working—and it's not your heart that does the feeling anyway, it's your brain!"

  "Would you have us say 'brainbreak,' then?" Alea couldn't help smiling.

  "I suppose 'heartbreak' is a good enough metaphor," Evanescent conceded. "Of course, mating is scarcely a guarantee it won't happen. I do find it amusing that a strapping young woman like yourself who can face sword-swinging warriors in battle is afraid of a man who has proved his loyalty."

  "If I were foolish enough to tell him I loved him, he might still hurt me by saying he didn't love me," Alea said, her voice hard.

  "Quite so—he'll face ten armed men in battle but is still afraid to look into his own heart," Evanescent admitted.

  Alea frowned at her closely. "So. You've been eavesdropping again."

  "Why not?" Evanescent asked. "Your kind are so amusing!"

  Alea was afraid to ask but forced herself. "So you know he doesn't love me, then."

  "He's afraid to let himself feel it," Evanescent explained. "Every time he has before, he's been hurt. Why should he think you'd be any different?"

  "He's braver than that!"

  "Something in him isn't." Evanescent nodde
d toward the side of the clearing.

  Alea followed her gaze, frowning, and saw nothing but dry leaves and, behind them, dark trunks and live leaves— and dust motes dancing in a ray of sunlight. As she watched, though, the motes thickened, doubling in number, tripling, becoming a sort of sunlit fog, a mist that billowed up seven feet, then drew in on itself, taking human form.

  Alea found herself staring at a stout little man in a bottle-green coat and battered top hat, with ruddy cheeks and a rum-blossom nose, who cried, "A rag, a bone!" then turned a very angry glare on Evanescent. "And just who do you think you are to call me awake out here in the middle of a forest?"

  "Who do you think you are," the alien responded, "to go hiding in the depths of a man's mind?"

  "That's where I was born, catface," the tubby little man answered. "That's where I live!"

  "Magnus's brain?" Alea asked, staring.

  "In his most secret depths." The man turned his glare on her. "Where you'd like to be yourself, wouldn't you, and evict me or make me cease to exist!"

  "I… I bear you no ill will," Alea said, taken aback.

  "No ill will, she says! When my home's becoming so crowded I can scarcely move, there's so much of you there already!"

  "Is … is there really?" Alea asked, wide-eyed.

  "Oh, there'd be more, if he could open his heart," the rag-and-bone man told her, "but he locked it away years ago, he did, in a box of golden, and can't open it!"

  "Did he, now!" Alea's eyes narrowed. "With no help from you?"

  The rag-and-bone man shrugged impatiently. "I'm just a figment of his imagination, a personification of his fears and desires. To say I did it to him is as much as to say he did it to himself."

  "Are you sure that she-wolf Finister didn't call you into being?" Alea demanded.

  "Oh, she did the most," the rag-and-bone man said, "but she wasn't the first and wasn't the last. He had a knack for falling in love with women who wanted to use him, he did."

  "And … that's why he hasn't fallen in love with me!" Alea felt anger growing. "Because I don't want to use him!"

  "No, it's because his heart is locked up, and he doesn't know how to unlock it," the rag-and-bone man said cheerfully. "Don't put on airs, young woman. Don't think you're rnore than you are."

  "Meaning he isn't in love with me!" Alea said, seething.

  The rag-and-bone man rolled his eyes over to Evanescent. "Bound and determined to believe the worst of herself, isn't she?"

  "She's growing out of it," the alien said. "These humans seem to cling to their illusions, even when they're destructive."

  "All right, then, if you know so much," Alea said, "how can I free his heart?"

  "Ask the one who did the most to imprison it," the rag-and-bone man said. "Ask the she-wolf!"

  "Never!"

  " 'Never' can be a long time," Evanescent warned.

  "I couldn't stand to ask anything of her! I'd rather die!"

  "Well, then, you will," the rag-and-bone man said, "alone."

  Alea rounded on him in a fury. "Who asked you?"

  "You did," he answered. "Go ahead, don't listen to the answer. It's better for me if he lives alone all his life, anyway."

  Alea stood with fists clenched, fuming but silent, searching for some scathing retort but finding nothing. It made her feel helpless, powerless, and her fury built in silence.

  "I'd love to help you, if I could," Evanescent said, "but I haven't the faintest notion how to generate this emotion you call 'love.'"

  Alea stared at her in disbelief. "Don't your kind fall in love?"

  "No—we come into season and smell the other's interest," Evanescent said. "Once we know, we do something about it. It's enjoyable while it lasts, but it never distracts us for long."

  "And of course, distractions are what you most need," Alea said with disgust.

  "Of course." Evanescent gave her a toothy smile. "Most of us die of boredom, quite literally. You promise to give me a good long life, you and your male."

  "He's not mine!"

  "And you can't change that," the rag-and-bone man said.

  Alea rounded on him. "You be still! You can disappear!"

  "Can I really?" he asked, and turned away, turned soft around the edges, soft all the way through, his form blurring, then thinning as it turned back into dust motes that blew away. A last whisper of beery voice cried, "I can!"

  "That didn't accomplish much, did it, dearie?" Evanescent asked. "But I suppose you'd learned all you needed from him, anyway."

  "Not a thing!" Alea said.

  "Of course you had," Evanescent said. "You learned that it's no lack in you that keeps that silly male from—'falling in love,' do you call it? The fault's in him, not in you."

  "That's no help!"

  "Oh, it's help you want, is it?" the alien asked. "Well, I'll be delighted to do what I can. Your species' courtship ritual is quite amusing—you make it so much more complicated than it needs to be, especially you and Magnus."

  Something in the statement rang false. Alea eyed the alien narrowly. "Have I really fallen in love? Or have you just been manipulating my emotions for your own diversion?"

  "How could you think such a thing!" But the alien's toothy smile was less than convincing. "Your emotions are real—though I must confess I find them a great source of diversion. No, if I were going to manipulate anyone's emotions, it would be his—but you just saw what I'm up against."

  "A funny little man and a golden box?" Alea frowned. "Scarcely daunting adversaries."

  "They wouldn't be, if they were real," Evanescent said, "but when they're buried in the mind, it's another matter entirely."

  Alea heaved a sigh and sat down on a stump. "Does it really happen? I don't just mean people falling in love—I mean staying in love, even after they're married!"

  "Well, I know of one couple that will probably manage to be in love until death does them part," Evanescent said, "though I suspect they're cheating by making death come sooner. She's only twenty-six and he's twenty-eight, but he's about to hang for the capital crime of feeding his people. She's more in love with him than ever, so I think they'll make it through life—his life, anyway."

  "But that's terrible!" Alea was back on her feet again. "Who are they? Where? How can I help them?"

  "In the south," Evanescent answered. "She's bound for Castle Loguire to make one last plea for his life. His case looks clear, though. He doesn't deny he slew all those deer."

  "The poor woman!" Alea said. "What is her name? Tell me how to find her!"

  "You have only to ride the forest road that runs from the west toward Castle Loguire and follow the sound of sobbing," Evanescent said. "After all, the poor thing hasn't been trained to war, as you have."

  "We have to find a way to help her!" Alea spun about, looking helplessly at the trees. "How, though? There must be lawyers on this planet!" She looked around at the empty clearing and did wonder for a moment how she'd come to know of the young man's arrest. Well, that was what came of practicing on other people, of trying to see how far away she could read minds. She deserved every bit of anxiety she was feeling.

  But she had to find a way to help! She turned and started back up the trail toward Castle Gallowglass, never thinking for a moment that she hadn't learned of the young couple's plight by anything but her own telepathy—for of course, she didn't remember meeting Evanescent at all, nor even a hint of their conversation.

  AS ROD RODE, the woods thinned out. By noon, Fess brought him out of the last trees onto a long ramp of grassland—but as they climbed, the grass grew thinner and more yellow until Rod rode across an upland of scrub and tufts. "We've come onto a moor, Fess."

  "Yes, Rod, but it is surely the most barren moor I have ever seen."

  "They're not exactly known for being fun places." Rod shivered as a sudden gust of wind chilled him. "Well, if it's barren, there's that much less to catch fire if my campfire shoots out sparks." Rod dismounted. "And if it's cold, I could use the warmt
h for a little while. Time for lunch."

  "Where will you find wood to burn, Rod?"

  "Good question—but as I remember, moors have pockets of peat." Rod scouted about. "Though we may have to ride a bit farther before we … Hey!"

  Fess came closer. "Mud, Rod?"

  "Mud that won't let go." Rod tried frantically to pull a foot loose. "And it's getting deeper!"

  Nineteen

  "NO, ROD—YOU ARE SINKING." FESS STARTED for him.

  "Stop!" Rod cried. "I don't want you sinking, too!"

  "But I cannot let you …"

  "You won't! Go forward a step at a time, and if the ground goes soft, step back!"

  Fess edged toward him, tossing his head to make the reins fly forward over his ears. "Catch the reins, Rod."

  Rod flailed, missed—and sank another two inches. "Isn't there a branch…" Rod broke off, staring, as the mud began to bubble. "No! There can't be anything living in this!"

  The ooze heaved upward, higher and higher into a sloppy sort of column. At its top, pockets appeared with a sucking sound, two holes of darkness over a much larger third that yawned wide and said, "Foolish mortal, to have dared come into the Barren Land!"

  For a moment, Rod wondered crazily if he had stumbled into mud or a pool of witch-moss. Then he realized that it wasn't crazy at all if the bog could take on a face and talk to him. "What manner of spirit are you?"

  "I am the Spirit of the Waste," the mud-monster intoned, "and I spread sloughs for the unwary."

  "I'm not sure you can actually spread a slough." Rod looked down at the mud. "But I'm not exactly in a position to argue."

  "Nay, nor to struggle." A muddy hand shot out from the monster's body to touch Rod on the forehead. He shouted and recoiled, trying to avoid the oozing finger—but the mud sucked at his feet, and he fell on his back.