The Warlock's Companion (22 page)

"Did not their children wish it to stay?"

"No; they quite resented it, for their schoolmates had teased them about it unmercifully…"

"Jealousy, no doubt," Geoffrey muttered.

"Thou shouldst know, brother."

"… AND about the mansion," Fess concluded, overriding Geoffrey's response. "When they grew, they made sure to gain a thorough grasp of all the arts, including the study of aesthetics, and were much less concerned with social pretensions."

"Dost thou mean they became noble?"

"Well, they had certainly furthered the process. In fact, they eventually gained enough taste to see the amusing side of the holographic display, and would now and again ask to have the 'ghost' once more turned on for a while, then turned off again."

"Would we could so deal with the spectre within this castle," Gregory sighed.

"It would be pleasant, yes—though I suspect that
these
ghosts may be considerably harder to eradicate. And you must remember that there may be an element of actual danger involved."

"Dost thou truly think so?" Geoffrey perked up noticeably.

"I do. When your father first came to Gramarye, he was nearly frightened to death by the ghosts in Castle Loguire, until I pointed out to him that the cause was a subsonic harmonic of their moans, not their actual presence."

Magnus turned somber. "I misdoubt me an these ghosts will be a part with them."

"Aye, for those were
nice
ghosts," said Gregory, "as Father hath told it."

"Fair or foul, we shall vanquish them," Geoffrey said proudly. "The villain's not made that can stand against us, an we stand together.''

"Remember that, please, Geoffrey—it may become an important principle in your lives."

"And now?" Gregory asked.

"Most especially now. Please be very careful, children, to be sure you are never alone, in Castle Foxcourt. Now back to work! I feel my storytelling has slowed your cleaning."

Rod kept a weather eye cocked on his children the whole time, but all he could see was that the four of them were working industriously. "Gwen, there's something wrong."

"How so, my husband?"

"They're all working in the same room, without bickering. What's more, they're keeping their noses to the grindstone, without having to be nagged."

"Oh." Gwen dimpled. " 'Tis not so amazing as that. Hast thou not heard what Fess doth tell them?"

"Yeah, but that just makes it worse! When I was a kid, I went crazy when he tried to give me a lecture on top of my having to do chores!"

"Thy children are not thyself," Gwen said, but her tone was gentle, sympathetic. "And, too, these tales of thine homeland are like visions of a magical kingdom to them."

Rod frowned. "I suppose that makes sense. If people in a high-tech environment used to read fairy tales for escape, then…"

"Even so," Gwen agreed. "In any event, husband, I pray thee, do not question our good fortune."

"Or our good horse. Well, so long as there's nothing to worry about." And there wasn't, so Rod was obviously going to have to find something else to serve the purpose. He turned away, going back to sweeping the trash out from the corners, and gradually working his way further and further into the available shadows, closer and closer to the archway to the stairs. He carefully hadn't mentioned the downstairs armory. If it wasn't on the ground floor, it was in the cellar—and Rod didn't want the kids going anywhere near a real, authentic dungeon. Especially Magnus.

So he waited until Gwen had gathered them in the courtyard again, and was setting out leftovers—then quietly slipped away to explore.

He was only halfway to the cellar door when he heard hooves on the floor behind him. His heart jumped into his throat, and he spun about, then relaxed with a gusty sigh. "You nearly gave me heart failure!"

"I would just as soon you did not explore the dungeon alone, Rod," Fess told him.

"I
was
trying to sneak off unnoticed."

"It is my duty to notice you, Rod. I promised your father."

"Yeah, but he
also
told you to take orders from me, from then on." Rod turned away, heading back toward the huge oaken doors that closed the spiral stair from the Great Hall.

"I have obeyed all your orders, Rod."

"Yes, but not always their intent. Though I have to admit I'm glad of your company—as long as the kids don't tumble to it, and follow us."

"Gwen had them well occupied."

"Yes; that's the advantage of the appetites of youth." Rod heaved at a door, and it fell off its hinges. In several pieces. He stared down at its remains, then said, "Remind me to have that replaced."

"Yes, Rod."

"Immediately."

"To be sure."

They started down the curving stairway, and ran out of daylight pretty quickly. "It is not safe to proceed further, Rod."

"Yeah, I noticed." Rod held up a dead branch. "I salvaged something out of the detritus the wind blew in."

"Foresighted of you. Would you care for a spark?"

"Naw. It'd take too long." Rod glared at the end of the stick. After a minute, it burst into flames.

"You have learned well."

"Just practice." Rod held up the torch. "Let's see what's down here."

They came out into a narrow corridor—and Rod stopped dead. "Fess—there's
evil
here!"

"I am sure much wickedness was done here, yes."

"I mean
now
! I've never felt such malice!"

"I sense nothing, Rod."

Rod looked up slowly at the robot. "Nothing at all? Listen on human thought-frequencies."

Fess stood still a moment, then said, "Nothing, Rod."

Rod nodded slowly. "Then it's completely psionic."

"It would seem to be more intense than poor lighting and restrictive architecture could account for. Shall we leave?"

"Not until I'm sure what's here." Rod stepped ahead down the hall. "But I think we'll keep the kids out. I'll remind them what dungeons were for.''

"They were for storing foodstuffs, Rod, and other supplies the castle needed, especially those of military nature."

"It wasn't just potatoes they stowed down here, Fess." Rod steeled himself, then thrust his torch through one of the open doorways and stepped in.

"What do you see?"

"Damp stone walls." Rod frowned. "And a dirt floor, with several circular mounds about two feet across. And one open pit, the same size, with the dirt piled beside it."

"What is in the pit?"

"Apples. Or their mummies, anyway." Rod stepped back into the hall. "I give in. They
did
keep stores down here."

"Shall we forego the rest of the exploration, then?"

"Not until I've seen the whole thing. Come on."

There were six open doorways, one holding bundles of dust that might once have been arrows, another holding casks, and so on.

The the pool of torchlight showed doors.

Rod stopped, then stepped ahead with determination, but with his heart in his throat.

The doors had iron gratings in them, about a foot square. Rod thrust his torch through, but saw only empty shackles. He pulled the branch back out with a sigh of relief.

"Empty, Rod?"

"Yes, thank Heaven. Come on."

The final two doors showed dim light filtering down. "Must be at the side of the keep." In spite of the light, the feeling of evil intensified. Rod peered through the left-hand grating. His jaw hardened.

"What do you see?" Fess asked.

"I can recognize a few items," Rod answered. "There's a rack, and I'm pretty sure the coffin thing is an Iron Maiden."

"The torture chamber."

"Off-limits, especially for Magnus." Rod turned away. "Come on, let's go back."

"But you haven't investigated the last chamber, Rod."

"And I'm not going to, either—at least, not until after lunch. I'm pretty sure what I'm going to find there."

"What is that, Rod?"

"Let's just say that, if you're going to have a torture chamber for extracting information, you're going to keep the raw material close at hand—and apples aren't the only things that leave mummies."

After lunch, they went back to cleaning. Gwen and the kids set to work on the Great Hall, and Rod took the basement. He was right about the remaining cell—and even though it was two hundred years old, he handled what he found there with pity as he rolled it in their oldest blanket and set it on Fess's saddle for its last trip. He dug a deep hole far down the slope from the castle, and lowered the blanket down. As he started to throw the dirt back in, Fess said, "He was probably a Christian, Rod."

"She, I think."

"What evidence have you?" The robot sounded puzzled. "There is no clothing left, after all these years."

"Not even a scrap—but if that was a man, he had the broadest pelvis I've ever seen on a male. And as to his religion, you're probably right, and I'll ask Father Boquilva to come along on our next trip and say the funeral service."

"I wish you would say a few words now, Rod."

Rod looked up at the horse-head with a frown. "Odd of you to be so sentimental about someone you never knew."

"Humor me," the horse suggested.

Well, if there was one thing Fess was never without, it was a reason. Rod didn't ask—he just took the advice, and recited as much of the Twenty-Third Psalm as he could remember, added a few snatches from Ecclesiastes, and ended with a verse of the Dies Irae. Finally, he asked eternal rest and light everlasting for the soul that had inhabited the pitiful remains, and started shoveling.

On the way back, he asked, "Any particular reason why you wanted that?"

"Yes, Rod—to aid the spirit's rest."

Rod frowned. "You don't believe the ghost would come walking back in the middle of the night, do you?"

"I would not," Fess said slowly, "declare anything impossible, on Gramarye."

Rod tramped back in across the drawbridge, carefully avoiding the missing planks, crossed the courtyard, and went into the keep.

He had a pleasant surprise. He could scarcely believe it was the same room. There wasn't a speck of trash anywhere to be seen, and Gregory was just finishing dusting the last of the cobwebs out of the corners, high in the air, floating up near the ceiling. Their bedrolls were spread over mounds of pine boughs, and Cordelia was laying bowls and spoons around the edge of a picnic cloth. Magnus, Geoffrey, and Gregory were unloading bundles of logs and sticks next to the fireplace, where their mother stood over the great hearth, face lit by the flames of a small fire as she tasted something in a pot that hung from a crane. She twitched her nose, unsatisfied, put the cover back on, and pushed the cauldron back over the flames.

"Amazing! How did you manage this in only two hours?" Then Rod answered his own question. "No, of course—what's wrong with me? This is the kind of situation that
does
justify using magic, doesn't it?"

"Oh, nay, Papa!" Gregory said, eyes wide. "Such spirits as do slumber here, we have no wish to wake, an we can avoid it."

"Then how did you manage it?"

"With good, hard work," Gwen answered, with some asperity, "though I will own, 'twas somewhat faster to think at the trash, and make it fly itself out the window. Yet there was still a deal of sweeping and hauling to do, and thy children have labored mightily."

"As their mother has, I'm sure." Rod came and sat down by the fire. "You're going to make me feel as though I haven't done my share."

Gwen shuddered. "Nay. I think the chore thou hast done, was one none of us would have wished—though I think I should have stood by thee the while."

"It wasn't fit for you to see," Rod answered, "and Fess was company enough."

"Aye." Cordelia looked up. "He hath great experience of the surprises in castles, hath he not?"

"Not in the sense you mean, Cordelia," Fess answered. "However, as supervisor of the construction robots that built each stage of Castle d'Armand—I became somewhat conversant with the making and mending of castles."

"As well thou shouldst be, in light of all that Count Ruthven made thee do! Yet wherefore was he so churlish in his manner?"

Fess was silent. Rod had to explain, "It's called inbreeding, Cordelia—and since it could be construed as an insult to the family, Fess won't say anything about it."

"Not e'en an I ask him the question direct?"

"No—he'll just refer you to me. Count yourself referred," Rod turned to Fess. "Tell them what inbreeding is, would you?"

Fess rasped a sigh of white noise. "It occurs when people who are too closely related, have children, Cordelia."

"Thou dost speak of the law which saith first cousins may not wed?"

"Yes, and that second cousins should not. Oh, do not mistake me—when such a marriage occasionally occurs, it will not always result in great harm. But if first cousins marry first cousins for three or four generations, problems are likely to occur."

Cordelia asked. "Of what manner of problems dost thou speak?"

"Anything you can think of, Cordelia." Out of the corner of his eye, Rod was aware of Gregory listening, wide-eyed. "Birth defects of all sorts. Some of them don't show up until later in life, though—anything from a person being born without a limb, or with a weak heart, to having low ability to heal. One such boy was perfectly normal in every way—until he broke his legs, and they never healed properly, and wouldn't grow along with the rest of him."

"How horrible!"

"But the problems we're thinking of in your ancestor's case, were problems of the mind."

Cordelia lifted her head as understanding came. She turned to Fess with a beatific smile. "Such as behaving like a churl?"