“There, there, now, son,” Rod soothed. Chains clanked as he wrapped his arms around Geoff. “Papa’s all right. It’ll be okay.” He looked up at Father Al. “Where’re Gwen and Cordelia and Magnus?”
“In a room like this one, I’d guess. The soldiers carrying them split off one floor up; I gather they’ve two layers of dungeons here.”
“You were conscious.”
“By then I was, yes.” Father Al fingered a bruise in the middle of his tonsure. He had several more on his forehead and cheeks, and there was clotted blood around his nostrils. “It wasn’t much of a fight. Your wife stepped out just as you started to crumble, and they caught her on the back of the head with a cudgel; she was out before she could do anything. Your little daughter and I made something of a try—the air was quite thick with flying stones for a few minutes there, till a soldier caught her from behind with a pike-butt. For myself, I found a reasonably solid stick, and actually managed to lay out a couple of them, myself.” He sounded surprised.
“Which lost you your clergy’s right to not get hit.” Rod found his respect for Father Al going up still more, while dull anger grew at the bastards who’d struck his wife and daughter—and clouted a priest, besides!
He took Geoff by the shoulders and held him back a little. “Try to stop crying, son. I’ve got to check you over. Where does it hurt?”
Geoff pointed to his head, and Rod fingered the spot gently—there was a large goose-egg. Geoff winced as he probed, but didn’t cry out; and the bone didn’t give when he pressed it. Good. “Look at me, son.” He stared into Geoff’s eyes—the pupils were the same size. “No, I think you’re okay.” Thank Heaven! “You’ll have a headache for a while, though. Now, close your eyes, and see if you can hear Mama’s thoughts.”
Obediently, Geoff sat back against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. After a few minutes, he said, “She there, Papa—‘n’ Mag’us ‘n’ Delia near. But everyone asleep!”
“Haven’t come to, then.”
“Big sleep, Papa—bigger ‘n’ you just had!”
‘Bigger?’ Rod didn’t like the sound of that—it smacked of drugs.
A key clanked in the lock, and the door groaned open. Duke Foidin stepped in, grinning, flanked by guards. “Well, well! The gentlemen wake!”
“Yes, we do.” Rod glowered up at him. “Gonna slip us a sleeping potion now, like you did to my wife and other children?”
The Duke couldn’t quite mask the surprise. “Well, well! Thou dost have some power! And to think Eorl Theofrin assured me ‘twas the other three who were dangerous.”
“We operate as a unit,” Rod snapped. “What’re you planning to do with us?”
“Why, turn thee over to the Eorl, naturally—his help thus far has been rather half-hearted, being solely concerned with capturing thyself. Thou must have offended him deeply.”
“I didn’t exactly find him complimentary, myself.”
“Delightful, delightful!” The Duke rubbed his hands. “He should be quite eager to seize thee and thine—eager enough to pledge full support. To assure it, I believe I’ll give him thy family, but save thee till Lord Kern’s defeated.”
Rod studied the Duke’s face, deciding that his usual squeamishness about murder could be waived in this case.
“Oh, and thy wife! I had forgot!” The Duke raised a finger. “I ha’ not had time to attend to her properly—but I shall.” A leering grin spread over his face. “Be assured that I shall.”
Rod held himself wooden-faced, but the anger and loathing condensed and hardened into iron resolve.
Footsteps clattered in the hall, and a soldier burst in, covered with dust and caked blood. He dropped to one knee. “Milord Duke! Foul sorcery! Lord Kern’s troops filled the pass ere ours could come there! We battled to hold them within, but a horde of monsters turned our flank, and…
“Be still, fool!” The Duke snapped, with a furious glance at Rod. “Well, I must attend to this matter, wizard—but I’ll see thee again, at my leisure! Come!” he snapped to his guards, and whirled out the door. The messenger scrambled to his feet and stumbled after him. The guards clanked out and slammed the door; the key grated in the lock.
“I don’t think he’ll have much leisure for anything, now,” Rod said, with vindictive pleasure. “Lord Kern’ll come down like a whirlwind, and mop him up. Unless…” his face darkened.
“Unless Eorl Theofrin joins him whole-heartedly?” Father Al nodded. “But he has to buy Theofrin’s support. I suggest we do what we can to eliminate his buying power.”
“Yes—and now, while he’s busy!” Rod turned to Geoff. “Try to wake Mama, son! She can get us out of these shackles. Try really hard.”
“I… will, Papa,” the little boy said hesitantly. “But sleeps real hard.” Nonetheless, he screwed his eyes shut, concentrating. His whole little face knotted up with trying.
Then he yawned.
“Son?… Geoff. Geoff!” Rod reached out and shook him. Geoff’s head lolled over against him, with a little smile, and the boy breathed deeply and evenly.
“Damn! Whatever they put into her must’ve been really strong—it put him to sleep, too! What do we do now, Father?”
“A good point.” The priest frowned down at his hands. “We are, as they say, thrown back on our own resources.”
“Which means me,” Rod said slowly. “Ready to try a theory now, Father?”
The priest sighed and straightened up. “I don’t have much choice now, do I?”
“We have come to the crunch,” Rod agreed.
“All right.” Father Al slapped his hands on his thighs. “Try to follow me through this. First, the Gramarye espers could read your mind—until you fell in love with one of them.”
“Hey, now, wait a minute…”
Father Al held up a hand. “It was your falling in love that did it. You can’t remember the precise moment you became psionically ‘invisible,’ of course; but you weren’t before you met her, and you were afterwards. What other event could have triggered it?”
“Mmf. Well, maybe,” Rod grumbled. “But why? I want her to be able to read my mind, more than anyone!”
“No, you don’t.” Father Al waved a forefinger. “Not subconsciously, at least. She may be your greatest blessing, but she’s also your greatest threat. A man’s vulnerable to his beloved when he’s vulnerable to no one else; because you’ve ‘let her into your heart,’ she can hurt you most deeply. You needed some defense, some way of keeping the core of yourself inviolate—which you couldn’t do, if she could read your mind.”
“It sounds sensible. But Lord, man, it’s been nine years and four children! Wouldn’t I have outgrown that by now? I mean, shouldn’t my subconscious be convinced it can trust her?”
“Should,” the priest agreed.
Rod was silent, letting the implications sink in.
Father Al gave him a few minutes, then said, “But that’s beside the point. What matters here is that the ability to shield your mind from a telepath indicates some power in you, some sort of esper ability that you’ve never been aware of. Not the ones we ordinarily think of—I’d imagine there’ve been some rather desperate moments in your life, when you could’ve used such powers badly.”
“Quite a few,” Rod said sourly. “In fact, my subconscious should’ve dredged them up out of sheer instinct for survival.”
“But it didn’t; therefore, you don’t have them. What I think you do have is the ability to use the psionic force that espers, and latent espers, leak into the general environment.”
Rod frowned. “But there must’ve been plenty of that power leaking into the rocks and trees of Gramarye; in fact, the place must’ve been permeated with it. Why couldn’t I use that?”
“Because you didn’t know how. You didn’t even know you could. You needed something to trigger it in you, to release it, and to teach you how to use it.”
“So what did it? Just being in a universe where magic works?”
�
��Not quite.” Father Al held up a forefinger. “When Redcap finished with you, you were so thoroughly chewed up that I doubt the most advanced hospital could’ve put your insides back together—but you wished for it, didn’t you?”
Rod nodded slowly.
“And it worked.” Father Al smiled. “That wasn’t the doing of a neophyte wizard—it was the work of a master. And I suspect it took a bit more power than your own.”
Rod frowned. “So where did it come from?”
“Lord Kern.”
Rod looped his head down and around, and came up blinking. “How did you figure that one?”
“The child, the one we saved from Redcap. He’s an exact double for your own infant son—and his analog.” He stopped, watching Rod closely.
Rod watched back—and, slowly, his eyes widened. “Holy Hamburg! If the kid’s Gregory’s analog—then his parents have to be analogs of Gwen and me!”
Father Al nodded again.
“And if Lord Kern’s his father—then Kern’s my analog!”
“But of course,” Father Al murmured. “After all, he, too, is High Warlock.”
“And if he’s my analog—then he and I can blend minds, just as his baby and Gregory did!”
“If you could learn to drop your psionic shield, yes—which, in a moment of great emotional stress, you did.”
“At least for the moment.” Rod frowned. “I never told you, Father—but each of those times I worked a ‘spell,’ I felt some… presence, some spirit, inside me, helping me.”
“Lord Kern, without a doubt!” Father Al’s eyebrows lifted. “Then perhaps there is something of the telepath about you—or about Lord Kern. For, do you see, whether or not you can hear his thoughts, you can apparently draw on his powers.”
Rod shivered. “That’s a little intimidating, Father. Well, at least he’s a nice guy.”
“Is he?” Father Al leaned forward, suddenly very intent. “What is he like?”
Rod frowned. “Well—from what I’ve felt when I was wanting some magic to happen—he seems kind, very kind, always willing to help anybody who needs it, even an interloper like me. But he’s stern; he knows what he wants and what he believes is right, and he’s not going to put up with anyone going against it.”
“Hm.” Father Al frowned. “That last sounds troubling.”
“Oh, no, he’s not a fanatic or anything! He’s just not willing to watch someone hurt somebody else! Especially children…”
“Yes?” Father Al prompted. “What about children?”
Rod shuddered. “Threaten a child, and he goes into a rage. And if it’s his child…”
“He loses control?”
“Well, not quite berserk…”
“It sounds somewhat like yourself,” the priest said gently.
Rod sat still a moment; then he looked up. “Well, shouldn’t it?”
“Of course.” Father Al nodded. “He’s your analog.”
Rod nodded. “But where’s your analog, Father?”
“Either we haven’t met him, or he doesn’t exist.” The priest smiled. “Probably the latter—and that’s why I can’t work magic here.”
Rod frowned. “But how come I’d have an analog, and you wouldn’t?”
Father Al held out his hand with the fingers spread. “Remember our theory of parallel universes—that there’s a set of ‘root’ universes, but any one ‘root’ branches? Every major historical event really ends both ways—and each way is a separate universe, branching off from the ‘root.’ For example, in our set of universes, the dinosaurs died, and the mammals thrived—but, presumably, there was another ‘main branch’ in which the mammals died, and the dinosaurs survived, and continued to evolve.”
“So there might be a universe in which Terra has cities full of intelligent lizards.” Rod gave his head a shake. “Sheesh! And the further back in time the universes branched off from one another, the further apart they are—the more unlike each other they are.”
Father Al nodded slowly, gazing steadily at him.
Rod frowned. “I don’t like being led. If you’ve got the next step in mind, say it.”
Father Al looked surprised, then abashed. “Pardon me; an old teacher’s reflexes. You see, this can’t be the universe next to ours—we’ve skipped a whole set in which science rules, and magic’s just fantasy. There should be a universe in which the DDT revolution failed, for example, and PEST still rules—and one in which the I.D.E. never collapsed, the old Galactic Union. And on, and on—one in which humankind never got off of Terra, one where they made it to the Moon but no farther, one in which the Germans won World War II, one in which they won World War I and World War II never occurred… millions of them. We skipped past all of them, into a universe far, far away, in which magic works, and science never had a chance to grow.”
Rod stared, spellbound.
“Now, logically,” Father Al went on, “since the farther you get from your ‘home universe,’ the more it changes—the number of people who have analogs grow fewer. For example, think of all the soldiers who came back from World War II with foreign brides. In the universe in which World War II never happened, those couples never met—so their descendants have no analogs in that universe, nor in any of the universes that branched off from it.”
Rod scowled. “Let me head you off—you’re working around to saying that, by the time we get this far away, there’re damn few analogs left.”
“Exactly.” Father Al nodded. “Very few, my friend. You seem to be a very rare case.”
Suddenly, the stone floor felt very uncomfortable. “What makes me so special?”
“Oh, no!” Father Al grinned, holding up a palm. “You’re not going to get me to make any guesses about that—not without a great deal more research! After all, it could just be a genetic accident—Lord Kern and yourself might not even have analogous grandfathers!”
“I doubt it,” Rod said sourly.
“Frankly, so do I—but who’s to tell? I don’t quite have time to work out a comparative genealogy between yourself and Lord Kern.”
“But how many universes do I have analogs-in?”
“Again—who knows? I’d guess you don’t have any in universes that never developed Homo Sapiens—but I wouldn’t want to guarantee it.”
Rod chewed at the inside of his lower lip. “So I might be able to draw on the powers of wizards in still other, more magical, universes?”
“It’s conceivable. Certainly you’ve got to have a great many analogs, to have come even this far.”
“That makes two, I don’t knows’—or is it three?” Rod folded his legs. “Time to quit speculating and get down to practicalities, Father. How do I control this gift? How do I go about drawing on Lord Kern’s powers? I can’t just wish—it’s a little too chancey.”
“It surely is. But when you’re wishing with great emotional intensity, all you’re doing is opening yourself up—and there are techniques for doing that deliberately.” Father Al leaned forward. “Are you ready?”
Rod settled himself a little more comfortably, swallowed against the lurking dread that was trying to form in his belly, and nodded. “What do I do?”
“Concentrate.” Father Al held out his rosary, swinging the crucifix back and forth like a pendulum. It caught the remaining ray of golden sunlight and glittered. “Try to let your mind go empty. Let your thoughts roam where they will; they’ll settle down and empty out. Let the dancing light fill your eyes.”
“Hypnotism?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to do it yourself—all I can do is give directions. Let me know when I seem a little unreal.”
“As of three days ago, the first time I met you.”
The priest shook his head. “That kind of joke’s a defense, my friend—and you’re out to let the walls fade away, not make them thicker. Let your mind empty.”
Rod tried. After a little while, he realized that’s what he was doing wrong. He relaxed, letting his thoughts go wherever they wished,
keeping his eyes on the glittering cross. Words whirled through his mind like dry leaves; then they began to settle. Fewer and fewer remained—and he felt as though his face were larger, warmer, and his body diminished. The cross filled his eyes, but he was aware of Father Al’s face behind it, and the stone room behind that—and he was aware of the ceiling and floor lines slanting together toward an unseen vanishing point, as though the whole thing was painted on a flat canvas. There seemed to be a sort of shield around him, unseen, a force-field, four feet thick… “I’m there.”
“Now—reach out.” The droning voice seemed both distant and inside his head. “Where’s your mind?”
It was an interesting question. Rod’s head was empty, so it couldn’t be there. “Far away.”
“Let your consciousness roam—find your mind.”
It was an interesting experience—as though he were groping with some unseen extension through a formless void; but all the while, he still saw only the dungeon, and the priest.
Then the extension found something, and locked into place. “I’ve got it.”
And power flowed to him—blind, outraged anger, a storm of wrath, that filled him, he could feel his skin bulging, feel it trying to get out of him and blast everything to char.
The crucifix filled his eyes again, and the priest was barking something, in Latin, Rod couldn’t follow it, but it was a thundering command, with the power of Doom behind it.
Then the crucifix lowered, and the priest’s voice was muffled, distant. “Whatever it is, it’s not supernatural.”
Rod shook his head, carefully. “It’s human.” His voice seemed to echo up through a long channel, and also be right there at his eardrums. It occurred to him that he should be scared, but he was too angry. Slowly, he rose to his knees, keeping himself carefully upright. “What do I do now?”
“Use it. First…”
A sudden shock shook Rod. “Hold it. It’s using me.”
“For what!”
“I don’t know… No, I do. It’s Lord Kern, and he’s not a telepath, but I’m getting the bottom level of what he’s going through. He just used me for a beacon, and he’s drawing on me in some way, to teleport a chunk of his army in…” He convulsed again. “Another chunk of infantry…Cavalry… archers… they’re all here now, very close by… Now he’s done with me.”
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