The warlock insane (25 page)

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Modwis looked at his empty hands in disbelief, then looked up at Rod in mute appeal—but the light glinted stars off the tears in his eyes, and the stars grew and dazzled, filling Rod's vision with a fall of light. Dimly through it, he thought he saw a beautiful lady, with long, blond hair bound by a coronet, followed by several nuns. But that couldn't have been, there weren't any nuns on Gramarye, and Rod found himself tumbling again, into a world of light.

The leprechaun crouched over the Lord Warlock's body, hammer in his hand, glaring at the tall woman.

"Peace, Old One," she said. "We come to aid your friend, not to hurt him."

"Who be these women by ye?" Modwis demanded. "Wherefore are they garbed in monks' robes?"

"Why, for that they are monks—though with ladies, they are spoken of as 'nuns.' "

"We are Sisters of Saint Vidicon, Old One," the first woman said. She was plump, with kindly eyes peering from under the white headband that separated her face from her hood. "We have dedicated our lives to the worship of God, and the service of our fellow sinners." The leprechaun winced at the name of God, but held his ground, and his suspicion lessened. "Ye are healers, then?"

"Aye, and we could not help but see what befell at our very gate. Dost know who was that half-armored fellow in the red robe?"

"A fell knave hight Brume, who hath followed this man through half of Gramarye, to plague him. Beyond that, I

know only that his peasant band fled as soon as they were struck. Will ye mend my companion, then?"

"We will that," the lady replied. "Sisters, take him up." Two of the nuns unrolled a stretcher, placed it beside Rod, set themselves, and heaved him onto the canvas. Then they rose and carried him in through the Gothic arch, past the low walls. The lady with the coronet turned back to Modwis. "Thou art welcome, an thou dost wish to enter and rest."

"Nay," the leprechaun returned, "for thy holy places are bane to us. Yet I will abide in a hollow tree nearby. An thou hast need of me, lady, but call out, 'Modwis, come hither!' "

"I shall, friend—and fear not; my friends shall care for thine. Canst thou tell me his name?" But the leprechaun was gone, vanished like a dream. The lady smiled sadly and turned away, going into the convent. The porter closed the oaken shutters behind her.

In the darkness, a spot of light appeared, dim and nebulous, but growing, until Rod realized he was looking at the moon through a heavy haze. But it kept growing, larger and larger, until it was swollen
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greater than the harvest moon—and it kept on swelling.

Finally, Rod realized he was moving toward it.

In a panic, he looked about, trying to see the spaceship that contained him, the scooter, even just the space suit… and saw an old man drifting beside him in the void. His long white hair flowed down around his shoulders; his beard streamed down over his chest, held there by acceleration, not gravity. He was wearing a long white robe with a golden chasuble over it, and had a huge, thick book under one arm—

And no space suit. Not even a helmet.

"Be at peace, my son," he intoned. "Thou art in a realm of magic; thou shalt not want for air to breathe, nor heat to warm thee. Aye, and if thou dost hearken, thou mayest hear the music of the spheres." Rod swallowed an automatic protest and listened. Sure enough, he heard a harmonious chord of clear, crystalline tones, each beginning and dying in a staggered progression, so that the music kept changing, but never ceased.

He turned back to the old man, amazed. "But these are things that cannot be!"

"Save in a realm of magic," the old man reminded him. "Thou art not in the Earth of Mankind's childhood now, nor on the Isle of Gramarye, nor even in thy grandfather's Granclarte. Thou art in a realm of magic, pure magic, and naught else."

Rod began to suspect his schoolboy memory was working harder than his subconscious.

"You are a knight, after all," the old man said, as though reading his thoughts. "Where would your soul find rest, save in a realm enchanted?"

"Not really a knight—I only have a title." But Rod felt a certain sick certainty that the old man was right.

"Still, if I am a knight, what are you?"

"I am only a watcher now," the old man said, "and mayhap a guardian. I was a writer of books once, but my work in that is done, and therefore have I time to journey here and there for pleasure, now and again. And thou, sir, are not only a knight but also a wizard, art thou not? For unless I mistake, you are the Lord Gallowglass."

"That is my real name, I guess," Rod said slowly. "And you, honored sir—whom have I the pleasure of addressing?"

"I am that John whom men call the Evangelist," the venerable father returned. " 'Twas I who beheld the visions of the end of Time, and set them forth for all to read."

"The Book of Revelation? That John? The saint?"

The old man smiled, amused. "There are many saints named John, praise Heaven. Yet I am one among them, aye."

And probably the first one, Rod noted. "I am honored, Father." Well, after all, he had been a priest, hadn't he?

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Or was he still?

"Thou hast honor because thou dost give honor," the old man replied. Rod thought about that for a minute. "How is it that I am so fortunate as to meet you? And why are we going to the moon?"

Saint John laughed gently. "Thou art in my company, Lord Gallowglass, because thou must needs go to the moon—and must needs go there to recover thy wits."

"My wits?" Rod asked. "How'd they get to the moon?"

"The celestial beauty doth draw men's minds,"Saint John explained, "and those whose hold upon their wits is feeble do yield them up unto her."

Rod remembered an old tradition that the full moon could bring madness. In fact, he believed that was the origin of the term "lunatic."

"All that is lost from men's hearts or minds doth come to the surface of the moon," the Evangelist explained, "and is there transmogrified, into shapes that the eye can perceive, and the hand can touch. But come—the Sphere draws nigh."

And so it had, Rod realized with a start—the face of the moon had grown to fill their whole field of view. Under the strange magic of planetary approach, he suddenly realized he was falling toward the surface, not sailing through space.

But they slowed as they fell, swinging around to the dark side of the moon—only it wasn't dark here, not in this universe. Rather, it was suffused with a strange, muted, sourceless light. They drifted down past the huge, rugged peaks of Luna. But, in the strange fashion of this magical universe, those slopes were no longer barren rock, but clothed with brush, then with somber evergreens. Looking down, Rod could see a few people wandering over grassy plains and by dark, still pools—but all the colors were muted, as though seen through a haze. "Good Father," said Rod, "who are they who wander this bleak plain?"

"Poor, lost souls, my son," the Evangelist said sadly, "who have lost their way in Life, and lost the Faith that might give them purpose. They wander here, without direction, waiting for death. But come—the land awaits."

They swung their feet down and touched, not dust, but gray-green turf. Rod looked up and saw a mound of paired circlets, attached so tightly they must have been cast-joined—but each circle was broken opposite the joint. "Good Father, what are these?"

"Promises of love," the old man said, "broken and forgot. Anon some lost soul may come and sort through this heap, find a promise made and broken long before, and with it find his way again—but few are they, and rarely come."

Rod saw a broken heart engraved on one, and felt a stab of guilt, remembering a few liaisons in his younger days. He reached for the pile, wondering whose names were engraved on the circlets nearest him, but the Evangelist took his arm and ushered him firmly on. "Enough, Sir Knight. 'Tis lost wits we seek, not their cause."

They went around the pile, past an azure pond whose brim was encrusted with salt, through a meadow
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of pale valentines that were drooping for lack of light, and into a grove of willows. "What trees are these, good Father?"

"Ones that weep, my son. They are fed by the springs of remorse and pity that should soften every human heart— yet some have lost each drop of compassion, and their hearts are hard and sere." Rod saw names and pictographs engraved on the trunks of the trees. He recognized a bar of steel on one, and a sail from a ship on another, but the old man kept him moving too fast to read. On they went, past a giant honeycomb holding crystal glasses of muted luster, through a tunnel lined with sealed caskets, and out onto a plain of dust. This, at least, looked a little like the Luna with which Rod was familiar—only an endless, flat plain of shifting particles, with stark crags rising in the distance. But in the middle of that plain rose a mountain of shields made of darkened metal. The saint took Rod's arm and stepped out onto the lake of dust. Rod followed, with a sinking stomach—he knew that the dust-pits of Luna could be worse than quicksand. But the saint walked that treacherous surface as lightly as a dove borne up by Faith, or by the magic of that world— and Rod walked with him. "What is this pile of shields, Father John?"

"Blotted escutcheons, my son. Here are arms of honor, made of brightest silver, but tarnished now with disdain or neglect. Their number has always been legion, yet never more so than in these darkened, latter days."

Rod leaned close as they passed, and saw a lectern on one, and a tall hat with a puffy top on another, but he couldn't make sense of the icons.

They rounded a huge mound of shredded paper, through which two pale shadows sifted wearily.

"What are they looking for?" Rod hissed toSaint John .

"A Seal of Confidence, my son," the Evangelist answered, "yet they are doomed not to find it, for it was a thing of their own devising."

Then the rugged peaks loomed closer, and Rod saw that one of them was composed of millions of shards of glittering glass. "Father, these are not merely lost, but broken also."

"Aye, my son, and wondrous would be that soul who could find all the pieces of any one cup, let alone weld them back together. Yet those who have lost these vessels have no such interest—for this is the resting place of broken integrity, where those who have fragmented themselves, seeking to give a bit to each who can aid them, will end their days. Yet sadly, they've often much of life to live ere death." Rod craned his neck as they went by, and made out a compass with its needle pointing upward, a playing card with a knave holding an antique pistol, and a sort of rusty machinery jack. Beyond that, there were a few initials, some in the Roman alphabet, some in Cyrillic, some in Arabic, and many in Oriental ideograms. He wondered what was at the bottom of the pile. Then, finally, they came to a huge mound of stoppered test tubes. A few lay open; all were engraved with people's names. On some, the letters had been so thoroughly eroded by time that only the initials were clear; on one, Rod could make out something that looked like the word "AH." Some were so old (or so new) that they had, not writing, but pictograms; one had a picture of two elks with wide, spatulate
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antlers. Rod could even see one with a picture of a Buck Rogers-style blaster. "What artifacts are these, sainted Father?"

"These vials hold the wits of men and women, my son—the reasoning faculty of they who have lost the power of logical thought."

Rod could see a very large test tube that read, "Conte Orlando," and decided that he had come in in the middle of more stories than one.

That tube, at least, was unstopped. "Why is that vial still here, if it's empty?"

"It awaits the return of the wits it held,"Saint John explained. It would wait forever, Rod knew. "Am I in there?"

' 'That part of thee that doth lend clarity and judgement to thy thinking, aye—that aspect of thy mind that doth see the material world about thee as it truly is."

"Only the material world? What about that part of my mind that discerns the intangible world?"

"That, at least," said the saint, "thou hast not yet lost." Rod was about to ask about the "yet," then decided against it. He turned to start sorting through the test tubes. "This could be a long search, Father."

"Not so," said the holy one. "Thy wits are only a few days' fled; thou wilt find them near to the top." Then a large tube caught Rod's eye—one of the ones that was stoppered with rubber, instead of being sealed with wax. Engraved on it, in large, plain letters, was the name "Rod Gallowglass, ne d'Armand." Beside it, of course, lay Rory's. Rod was surprised to see that it was empty. He lifted his own test tube, frowning at the murky vapor inside. "How come everybody else's is clear?"

"Ask, rather," murmured the Evangelist, "why thine is beclouded." Rod noticed that he didn't answer.

"Hold it 'neath thy nostrils," the old man urged, "and ope it." Frowning, Rod did as he was told—and the mist curled up out of the tube, shrouding his whole head in fog, then streaming into his nostrils, his eyes, and his ears. A tendril brushed his lips, leaving a trace so tantalizing that Rod opened his mouth before he could think—and the vapor cascaded over his tongue and down his throat.

' 'The cloud of thy wits hath entered thine head through each of its orifices," the Evangelist explained. Rod's senses reeled; he suddenly felt that he was tasting color, and feeling flavors. He listened to warmth for a moment, as the world went fuzzy; then the mist rose up and obscured it all. Only sound remained, the sound of the old man's voice right next to his ear, to each ear, intoning, almost inside his head,