The warlock insane (18 page)

"Nay, Lord Gallowglass. I may diminish, but I shall not cease." But even with the words, he seemed to shrink, dwindling to a foot-high mannikin, and the whole hut seemed to grow more barren filled with dust and cobwebs, with gaps between the boards and holes in the roof. The rain had stopped, but coals still glowed on the hearth, giving off enough light for Rod to make out a form dressed in peasant garb with the handle of a knife sticking out of its belly—but the beard was neat and well trimmed, the hair was dark, and the form was stocky.

"Fess?" Rod whispered. "Who is this I've killed? Where's the old hermit?" The door creaked open, and the robot filled the doorway. It looked, and nodded. "This man is indeed the one who admitted you, Rod. The old hermit was of your making, not his own. This hut shows signs of abandonment; I conjecture that the quondam peasant came only a few hours in advance of you."

"Quondam? He's not a real peasant? But… the dagger's real…"

"Yes, Rod, and he really did try to murder you in your sleep. If he died on his own knife, it is his doing more than yours."

The anger returned then, but nausea followed it. Rod lurched to his feet and stumbled out into the night, catching the saddle to hold himself up. Pain hammered through his head from one temple to the other, and he found that his hands were trembling. "Fess… I'm sick… very sick…"

"Yes, Rod. It seems to follow each spell of delusion."

"They're… getting worse."

"They are. You must lie down and rest."

"Not… here…"

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"Then climb on, and I shall carry you to shelter." The robot knelt. Rod scrabbled into the saddle, lay down on the horse's neck, and held on for dear life. Carefully, Fess climbed to his feet and turned away into the darkness and mist.

According to an authority (i.e., a survivor) onNile River black water disease, "The first day, you only think you're going to die. The second day, you wish you were." Rod's malaise was something along that line, though it fortunately didn't last anywhere nearly as long. By sunrise, he was beginning to feel better, and when the sun rose, he had pretty much decided he was going to live. Of course, that didn't mean he was happy about it.

"The spells are getting worse," he muttered, "the paranoia and the aftereffects."

"You are still restraining your impulse toward violence very well," Fess contradicted, "though your physiological reactions are increasing in severity."

"But what is it?" Rod gasped. "It can't be something I ate—it's going on too long."

"That does not necessarily preclude the ingestion of a substance, Rod."

"If I did, it's one that really lasts. I don't know how much longer I can keep going, Fess."

"There is no particular reason why you should right now, Rod." Rod jolted bolt upright. "You don't mean I should just sit down and die."

"Rod! Of course I mean no such thing! But it would be beneficial for you to lie down and sleep. You have not slept for twenty-five hours, now."

"A telling point." Rod suddenly realized his eyelids were drooping. "Maybe a few winks would help. Find me a cave, would you, Fess?"

Caves were not to be had, but Fess did find a fallen tree whose crown had caught in its neighbor's fork. Rod spread his cloak over a mound of leaves under the trunk as Fess began to drag brush to pile against it.

Suddenly, Rod stood straight. "Fess… somebody's on my trail." The robot was still, then said, "I detect only animal life, Rod."

"Don't ask me how I know, but I do! I didn't say they were watching, but they will be!"

"Have you become precognitive, Rod?"

"Who knows? Anything can happen now! But they're on my trail, and they're going to catch up soon!

Ambush stations!"

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He disappeared into the brush. Reluctantly, Fess stepped away into the density of a thicket. The forest was quiet. After a few minutes, birds began to chirp again. Then a hand parted the brush along the trail, and someone pushed through. Others followed him. Rod parted the leaves, but in the shadows of dawn, he could only make out three forms. He waited for them to pass, then slipped out onto the trail, sword in hand, and hooked an arm around the throat of the last person in line, yanking him off balance and lifting the sword. The person gargled, flailing for balance, and Rod froze, realizing that the person was female. Then someone else shouted, "Papa, no!" and the ground slipped out from under his feet. He found he was floating, saw Gregory over the girl's shoulder, and realized he had almost stabbed his daughter. He dropped the sword as though it burned his fingers, let go of Cordelia, and thought Down ! furiously. Rage kindled as his heels touched ground—slowly, as though he were sinking through molasses. "Damn it, let me down't What the deuce do you think you're doing following me!"

"Husband," Gwen protested, "we feared for thee!"

"Who asked you, blast it! Here I go freezing and starving, nearly being drugged and poisoned, just to stay far enough away from you to be sure I can't hurt you, and what do you do? You come sneaking after me without even telling me! Thank Heaven I realized in time!" Geoffrey's lip quivered, but he maintained, "Thou hast enemies, Papa! We feared they might…"

"Well, they didn't!" Rod thawed a little. "Your concern is appreciated, but not your interference! I was fighting off murderous sneaks for ten years before I met any of you! Look, if you don't trust me to take care of myself, at least trust Fess!"

"Why, so we do," little Gregory said gravely. "Yet thou must needs own, Papa, that on Gramarye, thou hast had more enemies than e'er before."

The kid was right, and that just made it worse. The anger turned hot. "Yes, and I never know how many! Anyone I meet might be a futurian agent, any peasant, any knight, any forester! And how in Heaven's name am I going to be able to fight them off if my family won't at least do as I ask and stay out of itV

"We cannot," Gwen said simply. "We are of thee, as thou art of us!"

"And you! You have never given me a chance to see if I can handle my enemies on my own! Right from the first, you were in there interfering."

"Interfering!" Gwen paled.

But Magnus intervened. "Thou hast told us, Papa, that thy greatest strength is uniting folk to fight along with thee."

"Aye!" Cordelia cried. "Thou didst say thy first great achievement was in winning our mother to thy side!"

It was true, and Rod had virtually bragged of it—but that was not exactly what he wanted to hear at this
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moment in time. "I can handle them on my own, thank you! Look, just say I'm on leave of absence. It's enemies to myself I'm fighting now, not enemies to the whole kingdom!"

"They are one and the same." Gwen had begun to harden. "They seek thy death, so that they may work their will upon the kingdom."

"Well, they don't have a chance any more, do they? You folks are there to handle things if anything happens to me! And you can handle them, can't you? You can handle them just fine! You don't need me at all!"

"We shall ever need thee!" Cordelia protested, and Gregory threw his arms around Rod's waist, clinging like a leech.

Rod felt himself thawing—but he looked at Gwen, and saw that all the walls were up. He hardened his own heart again and gently disengaged his son. "Then stop chasing me. Let me deal with my own demons in my own way. If you need me, then leave me. I'll come back when I'm well. This is one time you can't help—but, boy, can you hinder! Follow me any more, and you'll have me afraid to strike a single blow in my own defense, for fear what I'm fighting might really be one of you! Try to help, and yoi 'll do me in!"

"Husband, thou dost wrong us! We would ne'er…"

"Not intentionally, you wouldn't, but…" Rod broke off, staring, feeling as though an electric current were tingling all across his back and up into his brain, making his hair stand on end. "Or is it intentional?" he whispered. "After all, you really can handle things without me. I'm just in the way now, aren't I?"

"Papa, no!" Cordelia cried, and Gwen stared, horrified.

"I notice your mother doesn't have anything to say, does she?" The anger flowed. "Not a thing! I've only been getting in her way, slowing her down all these years! Maybe she's finally realized she could have been the greatest witch in all Gramarye without me, that she could have led the revolution to put the witch-folk in power, and I was the only thing holding her back!" Tears filled Gwen's eyes, and she shook her head, faster and faster, her lips forming words, but no sound coming.

"See? She can't deny it, even when she tries!" And Rod knew he had paused, more than long enough for Gwen to reply.

"Papa, there is not a word of truth in all of this!" Magnus stepped between his parents, anger beginning to show through a pallor of apprehension. "Mama hath never sought aught but thine happiness!"

"Who are you to speak, Heir Apparent? Who's the next High Warlock, eh? Who will be their king, after the uprising?"

"Thou canst not mean it!" Magnus said, hotly.

"But I do!" Rod caught up a stick and slashed out at them. "Away from me, all of you! Stay back inRunnymede ! Run your power play without me! And whatever you do, don't follow me any more V He turned on his heel and strode off into the forest.

The trees swam past him, not quite in focus; blood pounded in his ears. He bulldozed through the
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woods, brush crashing around him.

Then he realized that there was more crashing than he was making. He looked up and saw Fess pacing beside him. "What are you doing here?"

"You were unjust, Rod," the robot answered. "They never sought to hurt you."

"Whose side are you on!" Rod whirled to face the robot-horse.

"Only yours, Rod. I cannot be on anyone else's side, while you are my owner; it is contrary to my programming."

"But if you had a different owner, you wouldn't have to stand by me—is that it? Help the heir move up a little faster, eh?"

"Never, Rod, and you know it! Do not pretend to have forgotten your knowledge of computer programming!"

Rod glared back, confounded for the moment. He knew Fess was the one being who couldn't lie to him. In the real world. Even in Gramarye.

But in Granclarte?

The horse pressed his advantage. "I cannot stand silent when I see induced paranoia distorting your perceptions of those who love you best, and most support you. Your wife and children are as loyal as I am—perhaps more so."

"I don't see how they could be," Rod growled. "/ wouldn't, if I had to live with me. In fact, I do, and I'm not."

"Hear your own words," Fess advised. "Are you disloyal to yourself, then?"

"So you have to be even more loyal, to make up for it?" Rod's glare narrowed. "Even granting that, there's one big problem. How do you know what their motives are?"

"There are semiotic indications…"

"Interpreting signs can't let you read their thoughts."

"I can listen on human thought frequencies…"

"Yes, and if they want you to hear them, you will. But if they slip into family mode, you can't pick up their tiniest scrap of thought."

"I cannot decipher simultaneous multiplexing of decay modulation, it is true. However, I am working on the program…"

"But don't have it yet—which means you can't know what my tender chicks and their doting mother are planning in their hearts of hearts."

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"Rod, you cannot honestly believe they would conspire against you!"

"Why not? Everything else does! Including you! Go ahead, side with them! Cozy up to the heirs! Just don't try to pretend you're still on my side!" Rod turned and stalked off into the forest.

"Rod! My devotion has always been…"

"Go away!" Rod thundered. "Get out of my sight! Leave me alone !" He stumped off into the snow, and the bare branches closed behind him like whips. Half an hour later, he had begun to calm down.

Then the nausea hit, and the headache started.

If it had been bad before, this time it was hellish. He cast about, frantic for cover, stumbled into the nearest thicket, and fell to his knees. His stomach turned inside out, but there was nothing there to come up, except a little bile.

When the spasms passed, he tumbled sideways into a mound of dead brush, managing to gather his cloak about him, and lay shivering as pain throbbed through his head. Finally, it slackened, and he fell into an exhausted slumber.

He woke to the glow of coals. Frowning, he started to rise, then remembered the headache and lifted his head very carefully. But there was no pain, so he dared sit up, though slowly. Something fell off him, and he looked down, amazed, to see that he was covered by a fur blanket. Who had thrown it over him?

For that matter, who had kindled the fire?

He stared at it, absorbing the fact that somebody had been close enough to kill him while he lay totally helpless, but instead had made sure he wouldn't freeze. Finally, he decided he would just have to accept the fact that the world really did contain some people who cared about him, whether it was Fess or his family.

Guilt hit, and hard, as he remembered what he had said to them, and the manner in which he had said it. It seemed incredible now, that he could actually have thought they wished his downfall, totally crazy…

Yes. It had been crazy. That was why he had gone away from them, to make sure he wouldn't hurt them while he was mired in delusion.

He lifted his head, feeling a little better about it all. There was still guilt about his rage, mind you—but at least he had been right in telling them to stay away from him.