The Warlock Rock

by Christopher Stasheff

"Yes, Geoffrey. That is how human knowledge progresses."

  The screen flickered, and the children found themselves staring at an overhead view of the Isle of Gramarye. Then a circle appeared over it, cutting through the western corner of Romanov, down along the western edge of Tudor and the western corners of Runnymede and Stuart, to intersect the Florin River in the middle of the Forest Gellorn, and on through the western corner of Loguire to cut Borgia in half from north to south.

  The children stared at the screen.

  Then Magnus asked, in a hushed whisper, "Where is its center, Fess?"

  "Where radü meet," the robot answered, and a large red dot appeared at the western edge of Gloucester.

  "The center of the rock music is on the West Coast," Gregory breathed.

  "The hypothetical center," Fess reminded them, "and the word is 'western,' not 'west.' It is an adjective."

  "Oh, what matter?" Geoffrey grumbled. " 'Tis the location of the crafter we do seek. Is he on the coast or not?"

  "Remember, we are making several assumptions that may prove false," Fess cautioned. "We really must have more data before we can claim our hypothesis is sufficiently well validated to rank as a theory."

  "And a theory is a statement of fact?" Magnus asked.

  "Yes, Magnus, with the understanding that such a statement may later prove to be only part of a larger pattern. Do not make the error, as so many do, of saying 'theory ' when they really mean 'hypothesis.'"

  "Then let us hypothesize further." Geoffrey folded his arms, frowning at the screen. "Let us ask what will hap if we are right, and this development of rock music doth proceed without hindrance."

  "A valid question," Fess said slowly, while Geoffrey's brothers and sister (not to mention his parents) stared at him in surprise. "Extrapolate."

  "This arc of thine will expand, at the rate of three hundred yards a day."

  "Why, then, we may calculate how long it hath taken to come this far east," Gregory said, eyes lighting.

  "How shall we do that, Gregory?"

  "Divide the distance from the western coastline by three hundred yards!"

  The answer appeared on the screen in blue characters.

  "Two years and three-quarters?" Magnus stared. "How is't we've not heard of this sooner?"

  " 'Tis but entertainment," the rock behind him answered. Magnus gave it an irritated glance. Fess said, "It is probably correct, Magnus. No one thought the phenomenon worth reporting; all thought it too trivial."

  "How long shall it be ere the whole country is filled with soft rocks?" Geoffrey asked.

  "Good question," Rod murmured.

  "Extrapolating at the current rate of three hundred yards per day, and assuming no change?"

  "Aye, aye!" Geoffrey said impatiently. "How long ere the rival army doth conquer us, Fess?"

  The robot was silent a moment, then said, "I would prefer you not think of these rocks as an enemy army, Geoffrey…"

  "Any pattern may be enemy action, Fess!"

  "Nay!" Gregory looked up, alarmed. "Any pattern may have a meaning, but that meaning need not be hostile!"

  "Tend to knowledge, brother, and let me tend to arms. A sentry doth not cause a war. How long, Fess?"

  "Four years and a month, Geoffrey"—the robot sighed— "and allow me to congratulate you on correct use of the scientific method."

  Geoffrey leaped in the air, shaking his fists with a howl of triumph.

  Piqued, the music-rock boosted its volume.

  "I question, however, the purpose for which you have used it," the robot said. "Still, I must applaud the alacrity with which you have learned the day's lesson."

  "I have learned… ?" Geoffrey gaped at the robot. "Fess! Thou didst not tell me 'twas school!"

  "We were still within school hours, Geoffrey. But it is so no longer; my clock shows 1500 hours. School is out for the day."

  The children cheered, turned about, and plowed into the forest, heading west.

  Rod stared after them, startled. "What do they think they're doing?"

  "Children! Come back!" Gwen called.

  "Fess did but now say school was out." Cordelia turned back, puzzled. "We are free to do as we wish, are we not?"

  "Well, aye," Gwen conceded. "Yet what is't thou dost seek to do?"

  "Why, to test our hypothesis," Magnus said.

  "We must needs seek the information," Gregory explained. "Fess hath said we have not yet enough."

  "Come to think of it, he did," Rod said slowly.

  "It was not intended as an imperative, though," Fess protested.

  "Is not that what we came to do?" Geoffrey demanded.

  "Not quite," Rod said, as much to straighten out his own confusion as theirs. "We're supposed to be finding out who's sending zombies into Runny mede, trying to scare the taxpayers!"

  Geoffrey cocked his head to one side. "And where shall we seek to learn that?"

  Rod opened his mouth, and stalled.

  "Here, at least, there is a clear path to follow," Gregory pointed out, "and the two phenomena are as likely to be related as not."

  "There is a tempting refutation of logic in that…" Fess said.

  "Yeah—it comes down to: when you don't know where to look, one direction is as good as another." Rod threw his hands up. "So, okay! Why not go west?"

  The young ones cheered, and charged into the woods.

  Chapter Four

  "Do I suppose it, or doth the music gain in loudness?" Geoffrey frowned at the echoing forest.

  "You have used the precise term," Fess told him. "The volume of sound can be measured as a signal, and its 'gain' is its increase. Yes, the gain has decidedly increased."

  "Doth this show that folk around about believe in it more?" Cordelia asked.

  Rod stopped stock-still, struck by the idea. "Not a bad idea, Delia. The music's been around this neighborhood for at least seventy-eight hours; the local peasants must have heard it. They sure wouldn't doubt their own ears. Yes, they'd believe in the music-rocks more strongly."

  "There are a greater number of rocks, too," Gregory noted.

  "That would certainly increase the overall ambience," Fess agreed.

  "Especially," said Gwen, "if thou art between two rocks."

  "Yet how can one not be, when there are so many?" Magnus asked.

  The trees opened out into a large clearing, and the children stared at the sight that met their eyes. "Fess," asked Magnus, "what is that slanted slab of rock that doth stand upright on its edge?"

  "The angle," Fess said slowly, "is that of the sun at midday. Can you not tell me?"

  "It is a gnomon—the 'hand' of a sundial, that doth cast its shadow on the number of the hour of the day."

  Fess nodded with satisfaction. "You did know it."

  "Then there should be numbers on the ground about it," Gregory said.

  "Why, so there are!" Cordelia said, astonished. "Yet they are so huge that I did not recognize them. And made of flowers! Oh! How pretty!"

  "Why, thank you," someone said.

  "Not thee, horseface," Geoffrey said, glancing up with absent-minded scorn, then back at the huge sundial—and spun about, eyes wide and staring. " 'Tis a rocking horse!"

  "That talks?" Rod asked, amazed.

  "Certes I do talk. Dost not thou?"

  "I have heard that aforetime," Magnus muttered.

  "Small wonder, son," Gwen assured him. "It, too, must needs be made of witch-moss."

  "The ingenuity of these psionic crafters astounds me," Fess murmured.

  The horse rocked gently in time to the music of the rocks—or was the music coming from the toy itself? .

  "What dost thou here?" Cordelia skipped up to the horse, hands behind her back. Her brothers glanced at one another; they knew her techniques.

  "I do seek to grow," answered the rocking horse. "Dost not thou?"

  "Aye, yet I did not know a thing of wood could gain."

  "Why, a tree doth, and 'tis a thing of wood. Wherefore may not
I?"

  "For that thou dost lack roots," Gregory answered reasonably.

  "Thou dost, also. Yet I have arcs of wood beneath mine hooves, which can gain nourishment from the grass I rock on. The more I rock, the more I grow."

  Gwen glanced down at his rockers. "Small wonder; thou dost rock upon a patch of witch-moss."

  "I think he may also gain from the beliefs of the latent projectives around him," Fess murmured.

  "Didst thou not tell me that nigh onto all the folk of Gramarye may be latent witch-folk of one sort or another?" Magnus asked.

  "'Espers,' son," Rod corrected. "You're old enough to use the more technical term, now."

  "Yes, I did say exactly that," Fess confirmed. "I have calculated such a saturation, based on the assumed proportion of the original colonists who had latent psionic powers. That is, however, only an assumption. We would need to check the character-profiles of all of them most carefully, to determine whether or not there is any basis for that assumption."

  Gregory's eyes lost focus in a particularly dreamy look.

  "The things of witch-moss grow," Magnus pointed out. "That is evidence of a sort for thy conjecture."

  "Yes, but scarcely conclusive. I would not yet develop it as an hypothesis."

  "What wilt thou be when thou art grown?" Cordelia asked the oversized toy.

  "A rock horse," the equine answered.

  Geoffrey frowned. "If that is what thou wouldst wish to become, then what wouldst thou term thyself now?"

  "Oh, I am but a hobby," the rocking horse answered. "When I am grown, I shall be a career rocker!"

  "Thou shalt career about on only two rockers?"

  "Nay! Regard my fetlocks!"

  The family looked, and saw large, brightly painted wheels attached just above the arcs of wood.

  "I had thought them mere decoration," Gregory said.

  "Nay, they are more. The more I rock, the more I grow; and the more I grow, the wider grow my wheels, till they shall touch the ground as I rock forward, shooting me farther and faster along my way; and the rear pair shall likewise touch and scoot me as I rock back. Thus shall I rock and roll about, full-grown and strong, and fit to pull full many a gig!"

  "A small carriage? 'Twould be pleasant to ride in such a chaise," Gregory said wistfully.

  "It will take time for thee to grow so big," Cordelia warned the horse.

  "Not so long as thou dost think—for as I go about this dial, I shall make the time go faster for me!"

  Magnus looked quizzically at Fess. "He cannot truly make time speed, can he?"

  "No, Magnus, but he can create such an illusion for himself—and will perhaps extend it to the people he meets."

  "And he shall gain strength from their belief! So that for him, time will seem to go faster, and he shall grow the greater!"

  "All rockers are in a rush to grow up," the horse informed them, "and therefore do I rock without ceasing, day and night."

  "Yet they would seek to remain also things of childhood," Gregory pointed out, "as thou art."

  "What a wondrous thing, to be a child grown!" Cordelia exclaimed in tones of wonder.

  Rod shuddered.

  "It will indeed," the horse agreed, "and therefore do I rock around the clock."

  Fess exclaimed, "Full-grown human beings, with the independence and abilities of adults, but the minds and emotions of children? What a chaotic vision!"

  Magnus stiffened. "Chaotic? Fess… do I detect outsiders' hands in this?"

  "Maybe you do, son," Rod said slowly. "Maybe you do."

  "Develop the inspiration," Fess suggested, "and see if you can formulate an hypothesis."

  Magnus was silent, deep in thought.

  "I hesitate to offer a notion," Cordelia said, with that bashful manner of hers that almost guaranteed the other person would ask—and the rocking horse was no exception.

  "What thought hast thou in mind?"

  "Why, that thou couldst go more quickly an thou didst not depend upon these arcs of wood for travel, but did use thine hooves."

  "What!" the horse cried, appalled. "Wouldst thou have me be off my rocker? For shame, damsel!"

  "'Twas not well counselled," Geoffrey agreed. "What chance would he have against a full-grown horse?"

  "Why, most excellent chance! Is not thy companion just such a one as I, yet full-grown?"

  The children grew wide-eyed, then turned slowly to Fess.

  "In what sense do you mean that?" the robot asked carefully.

  "Why, thou art no more real than I—only a model of a horse, and just as much a thing of crafting as I am! Yet thou hast grown, as I do strive to!"

  "We are both artificial," Fess admitted, "yet there the similarity ends. My 'brain' is a computer, and yours is only a recorded pattern of responses imposed on you by the mind that engendered you."

  "Fess," Magnus said, voice hollow with dread, "hast thou not but now described a program?"

  The great black horse was silent, immobile. Then he said, "That description is a horrendous oversimplification, Magnus."

  "Yet the point is well taken," Gregory pointed out. "Do witch-moss crafters impose some form of program on their witch-moss toys?"

  "Toys!" the rocking horse snorted, insulted. "I am no toy, but a thing of great moment!"

  "Of many moments, an thou dost hold to a clock," Geoffrey said, eyeing the sundial.

  "Nay, such a hobbyhorse as thou wouldst be far more than a toy—thou wouldst be a boon companion." Gregory pouted. "Where wast thou when I did yearn for thee, three years agone?"

  The rocking horse stared at him, taken aback.

  "Peace, brother," Magnus assured him. "We all did wish for such a companion in our nurseries."

  "Save Cordelia!"

  "Save thyself an thou dost say so!" Cordelia retorted. "I did ride Magnus's hobby more than he did himself!"

  "It need not be a broom for her to ride it," Magnus agreed, "though that last doth come more naturally to her."

  Cordelia stuck out her tongue at him.

  "Why," the rocking horse said slowly, "an thou dost wish my company, I am glad to give it. Wouldst thou ride me?"

  "Oh, aye!" Gregory leaped up onto the horse's back. Startled, it rocked back with a wild and musical neigh, rearing, and Gregory howled with joy.

  "Gregory!" Gwen cried, alarmed. "Do not…" But she held her tongue as she gazed at the little boy swooping and ducking along the great arc of the sundial, swatting at the rocking horse's flanks with his hat and whooping with glee.

  "Let him be, dear," Rod murmured, smiling.

  "Do not tell him not to, Mama," Cordelia pleaded. "We see no danger."

  "Aye." Gwen relented. "He doth so seldom have the chance to behave as the child he is!"

  "That had occurred to me," Fess admitted.

  "He hath almost never behaved as babes rightly should," Geoffrey said stiffly, his body taut and his face a granite mask. Magnus saw, and started to reach out toward his younger brother, then hesitated and took his hand away. "I am sure the rocking horse will allow us all rides an we should wish it."

  "Oh, aye!" Cordelia exclaimed, eyes alight, but Geoffrey snorted. "And foolish thou shouldst look, brother—a youth of seventeen, on a child's plaything! Nay, surely we who have grown past the nursery must be generous in allowing the lad this play."

  Cordelia turned to him, startled. Then she saw the look on his face, and her own expression saddened.

  So did her mother's.

  "Dost thou not agree, Delia?" Geoffrey ground out.

  "Oh, aye!" she said quickly. " Tis even as thou dost say, Geoffrey! Nay, let the babe play."

  "And let him have some moment of childhood that is his alone," Rod murmured.

  Cordelia looked at him in surprise. Then her face brightened a little, into a tremulous smile. "Aye, Papa. He hath ever played in our shadows, hath he not?"

  "His clothes were once mine," Geoffrey agreed, "and I, at least, had a toy arbalest and catapult, which he disdained. Nay,
let him be."

  Gregory finished the circuit and sprang off the horse, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. He whirled about, doffing his cap and bowing low to the hobby. "I thank thee, good horse! Ne'er shall I forget this ride!"

  "Thou art welcome," the horse answered, bowing forward on its rockers. "Nay, come here again, and thou shalt once more ride."

  "Oh! May I?"

  "Mayhap on the way home," Gwen answered. "Yet now, I think, we must needs be on our way, Gregory."

  "Cannot the rocking horse come?" Gregory asked, crestfallen.

  "Nay, though it doth warm mine heart to know thou dost wish it," the rocking horse answered. "Yet I must needs rock here on my dial, or I'll not grow. Wouldst thou deny me that?"

  "No," Gregory said, as though it were pulled out of him. "Yet I shall miss thee, good horse."

  "And I thee," the horse answered, and for a moment, its music swelled up, slower and sadder than it had been.

  "It must let thee go thy way." Cordelia laid a hand upon Gregory's shoulder. "And thou must let it grow."

  "Indeed I must." Gregory turned away, following his siblings and Fess with lowered gaze. Cordelia's eyes misted. But Gregory turned back and called to the horse, "Shall I see thee when thou art grown?"

  "I doubt it not," the horse cried, rocking away on its arc.

  "Belike I shall be transformed into a great spring-steed—yet I will know thee."

  "And I thee," Gregory returned. "Till then!" He waved once, then turned away, catching his sister's hand as he straightened up, squared his shoulders, and lifted his chin. "Come Delia! For I must let it rock!"

  She squeezed his hand and followed a half-pace behind, hoping he would not see the tenderness in her smile.

  Gwen blinked several times, caught Rod's hand, and followed.

  Chapter Five

  "This deal of sound could become a great nuisance." Gregory winced at the raucous noise around him. As they walked ahead through the trees, it dwindled behind them; but before it had faded, the music of the next rock wafted toward them on a truant breeze.

  "It is not terribly loud yet, Gregory," Fess suggested. "It is not truly the volume that irritates you."

  "Cordelia," Rod said, "stop nodding."

  "Mayhap." Gregory looked distinctly unhappy. "Yet the coarseness of it doth jar upon mine ear."