I

274

They came back to a hill overlooking the field as dusk gathered, having run a long circle through wood and field and waded a mile of stream to hide their trail.

Rod slumped out of the saddle as Fess came to the edge of a grove.

He limped to a large tree and sat, leaning back against the trunk, hidden from eyes in the field below by the gathering gloom.

He looked down over the glowing fires on the field, listening to the faint sounds of the victory merry-making.

He sighed and turned to the problem at hand, or more accurately, at shoulder. He opened his doublet and probed the shoulder gently, wincing with the pain that he felt even through the anesthetic he’d applied on the run.

The barbed bolt-head seemed buried just in front of collarbone and joint; by some miracle, it bad missed both bone and artery.

There was a faint puff of air, like a miniature shockwave, and he looked up to see Gwendylon bending toward him, tears welling from her eyes. ‘My lord, my lord! Art badly hurt?’

Rod smiled and reached up to pull her head down to his. He held her against him for a good, long time.

‘Nay, then,’ she said blushing as she drew away, ‘I warrant thou’rt not so sorely wounded as I had feared.’

‘Ah, lass, lass!’ Rod leaned back, cradling her in his arm. ‘I was Christopher Stasheff

lonely, on that ride.’

‘I’d ha’ come to you sooner, lord,’ she said apologetically, ‘but I must needs wait till you’d come to rest.

‘Now to that shoulder.’ She took on a brisk, almost businesslike air. ”Twill hurt some, my lord.’

Rod ground his teeth as she stripped the blood-soaked tunic off his shoulder. ‘Bandages in the saddlebag,’ he gritted as she finished.

She turned to Fess, brought out the small metal box, frowned. What is this red cross here, my lord?’

‘Just a symbol,’ Rod wheezed. ‘Means it’s a, uh, healing kit.’

She knelt by his side again, very still.

Rod frowned, wondering what she was doing.

Then pain lanced him again, and he felt the bolt-head receding, withdrawing slowly along the channel it had cut on its way in, and, seemingly, all of its own accord.

Through a pain-blurred haze, a random thought burrowed: these witches were the answer to the surgeon’s prayer.

The bolt-head eased itself past his skin, then suddenly whirled spinning through the air to smash itself against a stone.

‘Thus,’ she hissed, ‘may I serve all who would harm thee, my lord.’

Rod shivered as he realized the extent of the power he’d been dallying with.

She reached for the bandages.

‘No, no!’ Rod touched her arm with his good hand. ‘The powder in the silver envelope first. It’ll stop the bleeding.’

‘I would rather use compress of herbs,’ she said dubiously. ‘But as thou wilt have it, my lord.’

Rod shuddered as the sulfa bit into him.

Then the pain numbed, and she was winding the bandage. ‘It seems you’re always bandaging that shoulder,’ Rod muttered.

‘Aye, my lord. I would that thou wert more chary of it.’ Someone coughed, somewhat delicately, nearby. Rod looked up and saw a squat silhouette lurking in the shadows.

Rod’s mouth tightened. ‘Well, if it isn’t the Atrophied Ajax himself!’

Gwendylon laid a reproving finger gently on his lips. Rod gave a short nod, irritated at himself; the fingers lifted away.

He beckoned with his good arm. ‘Well, come on and join the party, Christopher Stasheff

Brom. But be careful; the fruits of victory are sour tonight.’

Brom came forward, bands locked behind him, head bowed, and sat on a nearby root.

Rod frowned. There was something sheepish, almost furtive, in the dwarf’s manner. ‘What’s eating you?’ he growled.

Brom sighed and rested his bands on his knees. ‘Thou hast caused me much heartache this day, Rod Gallowglass.’

Rod smiled, one-sided. ‘Sounds more like a bellyache. I take it you weren’t too pleased at the way things went?’

‘Oh, nay, I was most enormously pleased! And yet’ - Brom rested~

his chin on his clenched hands, looking sheepish again -‘I confess that at first I was somewhat wroth with thee.’

‘You don’t say!’

‘Aye; but that was before I realized your plan.’

‘Oh?’ Rod raised one eyebrow. ‘But you did figure out what I was up to?’

‘Nay. I grow old, Rod Gallowglass …’

Rod snorted.

‘My thanks.’ Brom inclined his head. ‘But ‘tis truth; I grow old, and must needs be shown.’

‘And what were you shown?’

‘Oh, ‘twas a most touching scene!’ Brom smiled with a touch of sarcasm. ‘At first Catharine could but cry, “My love, thou’rt hurt!” and call for doctors and herbs, till Tuan managed to rise, saying his hurt was but slight; and then she fell to weeping on his shoulder, the while crying him her lord and protector and the guard of her honor, and would not be comforted till he’d swore he would wed her!’ Brom’s smile softened, ‘Aye, ‘twas most tender to look upon.’

Rod nodded wearily, closing his eyes. ‘When’s the wedding?’

‘As soon as they shall be thrice called in church. Catherine would have had it right then, but Tuan cried no, that she was Queen and the flower of womanhood, and must be wed as befitted her estate.’

‘A promising beginning.’

‘Oh, ‘twas more promising still! For Tuan then turned to the twelve lords and, quoth he, “And how shall we deal with these?”

And Catharine cried, “Oh, as thou wilt, my lord, as thou wilt! But be done with them right quickly, and come away!”’

‘Very auspicious,’ Rod agreed. ‘What did he do with them?’

‘Struck off their chains, and bade them once more take up the care Christopher Stasheff

of their demesnes. But he required of them each a hostage, of twelve years old or less, of their blood and body and legitimate household, to dwell in the Queen’s castle.’

Rod frowned, nodded. ‘Should work. He gets a deterrent, and a chance to raise a new generation very loyal to the throne.’

He leaned back against the rough bark, feeling totally drained.

‘Glad it worked.’

‘Aye.’ Brom’s eyes glowed. ‘This land shall stand ever in thy debt, Rod Gallowglass. Thou hast saved us our Crown, and banished the ghost of a long and full bloody civil war; and, moreover, thou hast given us a King.’

‘And a Public Enemy No. 1,’ Rod said bitterly.

A shadow darkened Brom’s face.

Rod lifted an eye to him. ‘You must admit that I’m slightly persona non grata.’

‘Aye,’ Brom growled, ‘Yet ever wilt thou find sanctuary in the land of the elves.’

Rod smiled weakly. ‘Thanks, Brom.’

‘Yet tell me!’ Brom hunched forward, frowning. ‘How is it thou hast come? When all looked bleak in our land, and hope had been exiled, then did you come, falling from the skies like an answer to prayer - you, who had no stake in our country. side, no manor to defend. Our cares were not yours, yet you made them so.’

He thrust his head forward, eyes burning. ‘Why hast thou saved us?’

Rod’s smile soured. ‘For the Dream.’

Brom frowned. ‘How…?’

Rod looked up at the stars. He hesitated a moment, then said,

‘Fess, record this.’

He turned to Brom, then to Gwendylon, lifting his good arm to point to the sky.

‘Look up there. See those stars? Each one has worlds circling about it, worlds like this one, where lovers meet and men feud, and kings topple.

‘But most of them are united under one rule, one government - the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal. And the voice that commands is that of the people themselves.’

‘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 Christopher Stasheff 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, bath witches?’

‘Because the men who brought life to this land, your ancestors, who dropped from the skies, selected only those persons who had at Christopher Stasheff 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 witchmoss, 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 whet 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 Christopher Stasheff

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 then 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.

‘Catherine,’ 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-grand. children.’

‘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, levitation, 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 Christopher Stasheff

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 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 don’t belong here. I belong out there, chasing a dream.’ He looked down at the earth and said heavily, ‘The men of the Tribunal will tell Fess, and Fess will tell me. I’ll go where they send me.’

Brom was very quiet for a moment.

Then he plucked a blade of grass and tore it between his fingers.

‘You are not your own master, Rod Gallowglass?’

‘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.

Brom gusted a sigh and slapped his thighs, standing. He gazed at Rod, his eyes weary and old.

‘If thou must go, thou must go; a geas is a thing no man can deny.

Go on to the stars, Rod Gallowglass, but be mindful: if ever thou seekest a haven, ‘tis here.’

He turned and strode away, down the hillside. Gwendylon sat quietly beside him, clasping his hand. ‘Tell me,’ she said after a little while, ‘is it only one dream that takes you away from me?’

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ Rod’s hand tightened on hers. ‘You sort of blotted Christopher Stasheff

out any other dreams.’

She turned, smiling tremulously, tears glittering on her lashes.

‘Then may not I accompany you to the stars, good my lord?’

Rod clamped down on her hand, throat tightening. ‘I wish that you could; but you’d wither and die there, like an uprooted flower.

You belong here, where they need you. I belong there. It’s as simple as that.’

‘No.’ She shook her ‘head sadly. ‘You go not for belonging, but for a geas. But, good my lord’ - she turned, tears flowing now ‘is not my geas as strong as your dream?’

‘Look,’ he said tightly, ‘try to understand. A man has to have a dream. That’s the difference between animals and man, a dream. And a man who’s lost his dream is something less than a man, and worthy of no woman. How could I dare claim you if I wasn’t a man?

‘A man has to prove his worth to himself, before he can claim a woman, and the dream is the proof. As long as he’s working for it, he’s got a right to her, because he’s worth something. I could stay here and be very, very happy with you. But in my depths I’d know I didn’t deserve you. Because I’d be a drone, a male with no purpose. How could I father children if I knew their mother was more valuable to the world than I am?’

‘Then it wouldst be thou who wouldst wither and die?’ she murmured.

Rod nodded.

‘But the geas, my lord, if not mine alone, is not Big Tom’s geas added to it, and the old Duke Loguire’s enough to balance the geas of the stars?’

Rod sat rigid.

‘They bade you watch over their people,’ she murmured. ‘And what would become of them, lord, if these fiends from tomorrow come again? As surely they will, if they hate as deep as thou say.’

Rod nodded, very slowly.

‘And what of the Dream then, my lord?’ she murmured. Rod sat rock-still for a moment.

‘Fess,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, Rod?’

‘Fess, send them my resignation.’

‘Your what?’

‘My resignation!’ Rod snapped. ‘And hurry it up!’