“ ‘Cause I didn’t think you’d pay any attention to a knock on the door,” Rod explained, “except maybe to say, ‘Go away.’ ”
Galen nodded slowly. “So, thou didst court disaster to bring me out from my researches long enough to bandy words with thee.”
“That’s the right motive,” Rod agreed, “but the wrong culprit. Actually, not one single one of us laid a finger on your glassware.”
Galen glanced quickly at the two witches. “Thou’lt not have me believe they took such risks, doing such finely detailed work, with only their minds?”
“Not that they couldn’t have,” Rod hastened to point out. “I’ve seen my wife make grains of wheat dance.” He smiled fondly, remembering the look on Magnus’s face when Gwen did it. “And Agatha’s admitted she’s healed wounds by making the tiniest tissues flow back together—but this time neither of them did.”
“Assuredly, not thou …”
“ ‘Twas thy son,” Agatha grated.
The laboratory was silent as the old wizard stared into her eyes, the color draining from his face.
Then it flooded back, and he erupted. “What vile falsehood is this? What deception dost thou seek to work now, thou hag with no principle to thy name of repute? How dost thou seek to work on my heart with so blatant a lie? Depraved, evil witch! Thou hast no joy in life but the wreaking of others’ misery! Fool I was, to ever look on thy face, greater fool to e’er seek to aid thee! Get thee gone, get thee hence!” His trembling arm reared up to cast a curse that would blast her. “Get thee to…”
“It’s the truth,” Rod snapped.
Galen stared at him for the space of a heartbeat.
It was long enough to get a word in. “He’s the son of another Galen, and another Agatha, in another world just like this one. You know there are other universes, don’t you?”
Galen’s arm hung aloft, forgotten; excitement kindled in his eyes. “I had suspected it, aye—the whiles my body did lie like to wood, and my spirit lay open to every slightest impress. Distantly did I perceive it, dimly through chaos, a curving presence that… But nay, what nonsense is this! Dost thou seek to tell me that, in one such other universe, I do live again?”
“ ‘Again’ might be stretching it,” Rod hedged, “especially since your opposite number is dead now. But that a Galen, just like you, actually did live, yes—except he seems to have made a different choice when he was a youth.”
Galen said nothing, but his gaze strayed to Agatha.
She returned it, her face like flint.
“For there was an Agatha in that other universe, too,” Rod said softly, “and they met, and married, and she bore a son.”
Galen still watched Agatha, his expression blank.
“They named the son Harold,” Rod went on, “and he grew to be a fine young warlock—but more ‘war’ than ‘lock.’ Apparently, he enlisted, and fought in quite a few battles. He survived, but his parents passed away—probably from sheer worry, with a son in the infantry…”
Galen snapped out of his trance. “Do not seek to cozen me, Master Warlock! How could they have died, when this Agatha and I…” His voice dwindled and his gaze drifted as he slid toward the new thought.
“Time is no ranker, Master Wizard; he’s under no compulsion to march at the same pace in each place he invests. But more importantly, events can differ in different universes—or Harold would never have been born. And if the Galen and Agatha of his universe could marry, they could also die—from accident, or disease, or perhaps even one of those battles that their son survived. I’m sure he’d be willing to tell you, if you asked him.”
Galen glanced quickly about the chamber, and seemed to solidify inside his own skin.
“Try,” Rod breathed. “Gwen can’t hear him, nor can any of the other witches—save Agatha. But if you’re the analog of his father, you should be able to…”
“Nay!” Galen boomed. “Am I become so credulous as to hearken to the tales of a stripling of thirty?”
“Thirty-two,” Rod corrected.
“A child, scarcely more! I credit not a word of this tale of thine!”
“Ah, but we haven’t come to the evidence yet.” Rod grinned. “Because, you see, Harold didn’t survive one of those battles.”
Galen’s face neutralized again.
“He was wounded, and badly,” Rod pressed. “He barely managed to crawl into a cave and collapse there—and his spirit drifted loose. But his body didn’t. No, it lay in a lasting, deathlike sleep; so his spirit had no living body to inhabit, but also had not been freed by death and couldn’t soar to seek Heaven. But that spirit was a warlock, so it didn’t have to just haunt the cave where its body lay. No, it went adventuring—out into the realm of chaos, seeking out that curving presence you spoke of, searching for its parents’ spirits, seeking aid…”
“And found them,” Galen finished in a harsh whisper.
Rod nodded. “One, at least—and now he’s found the other.”
Galen’s glances darted around the chamber again; he shuddered, shrinking more tightly into his robes. Slowly then, his frosty glare returned to Rod. “Thou hadst no need to speak of this to me, Lord Warlock. ‘Twill yield thee no profit.”
“Well, I did think Harold deserved a chance to at least try to meet you—as you became in this universe. Just in case.”
Galen held his glare, refusing the bait.
“We have the beastmen bottled up, for the time being,” Rod explained, “but they’re likely to come charging out any minute, trying to freeze our soldiers with their Evil Eye. Our young warlocks and witches will try to counter it with their own power, feeding it through our soldiers. They wouldn’t stand a chance against the beastmen’s power by themselves—but they’ll have my wife and Agatha to support them.”
“Aye, and we’re like to have our minds blasted for our pains,” Agatha ground out, “for some monster that we wot not of doth send them greater power with each thunderbolt. Though we might stand against them and win, if thou wert beside us.”
“And wherefore should I be?” Galen’s voice was flat with contempt. “Wherefore should I aid the peasant folk who racked and tortured me in my youth? Wherefore ought I aid their children and grandchildren who, ever and anon all these long years, have marched against me, seeking to tear down my Dark Tower and burn me at the stake? Nay, thou softhearted fool! Go to thy death for the sake of those that hate thee, an thou wishest—but look not for me to accompany thee!”
“Nay, I do not!” Agatha’s eyes glittered with contempt. “Yet, there’s one who’s man enough to do so, to bear up with me under that fell onslaught.”
Galen stared at her, frozen.
“Harold’s a dutiful son,” Rod murmured. “I thought you might like the chance to get acquainted with him.” He left the logical consequence unsaid. Could a spirit be destroyed? He hoped he wouldn’t find out.
“I credit not one single syllable!” Galen hissed. “ ‘Tis but a scheme to cozen me into placing all at risk for them who like me not!” He turned back to Rod. “Thou dost amaze me, Lord Warlock; for even here, in my hermitage, I had heard thy repute and I had thought thee lord of greater intellect than this. Canst thou author no stronger scheme to gain mine aid, no subtle, devious chain of ruses?”
“Why bother?” Rod answered with the ghost of a smile. “The truth is always more persuasive.”
Galen’s face darkened with anger. His arm lifted, forefinger upraised, to focus his powers for teleporting them away. Then, suddenly, his head snapped about, eyes wide in shock for a moment before they squeezed shut in denial.
Agatha winced too, but she grinned. “Ah, then! That shout did pierce even thy strong shield!”
The wizard turned his glare to her. “I know not what trickery thou hast garnered to thus simulate another’s mind…”
“Oh, aye, ‘tis trickery indeed! Oh, I have studied for years to fashion the feel and texture of another’s mind, and all for this moment!” Agatha turned her head and spat. “Lord Warlock, let us depart; for I sicken of striving to speak sense unto one who doth seek to deafen his own ears!”