“Why, by peering into thine eye,” Catharine shrieked, whirling back on him. “Lightning, forsooth! Was it at lightning that thy soldiers stared?”
“Nay, certes,” Gwen said wearily. “ ‘Tis true, when they stared at the beastmen’s eyes, then could the beastmen cast their spell. And ’tis a foul spell!” She shuddered. “I had some taste of it when I sought to lift it. ‘Tis a vile thing that doth fascinate with ugliness!”
“ ‘Fascinate’ is the term,” Rod agreed. “They focused all the soldiers’ attention on one single point—the beastmen’s pupils. Then…”
“Then they could spare no attention for fighting?” Tuan nodded heavily. “Vile, indeed, that will not even allow a soldier the chance of defense.”
Catharine rounded on Gwen. “Hast thou never encountered a spell like to this before?”
“There are tales of it,” Gwen said slowly, “of the Evil Eye. I, though, have never found it in life.”
“I have,” Rod said slowly, “though it was a milder version.”
Tuan frowned. “When?”
“In prefligh… uh, in apprenticeship,” Rod hedged, “when I was being trained in the, uh”—he took a deep breath and gave up on honesty—“in the wizardry I use. This particular form of magic was called ‘hypnotism,’ but it looked a lot like this Evil Eye. It came to the same thing in the long run; it’s just that they had to do it much more slowly.”
“Aye, therein is it most phenomenal.” Tuan frowned. “How can they fascinate so quickly?”
“Therein I have some experience,” Gwen said slowly. “ ‘Tis a matter of throwing one’s thoughts into another’s mind.”
Fess’s voice murmured in Rod’s ear, “Your wife is describing projective telepathy, Rod.”
“Scientific terminology is wonderful,” Rod growled. “It lets skeptics believe in magic. In fact, it transforms them into instant authorities.”
Catharine turned on him, glowering. “Of whom dost thou speak, sirrah?”
Not you, Rod thought, remembering the rumors that the Queen had a touch of ‘witch-power’ herself. Aloud, he said, “To whom is more the point—and the problem is that the beastmen do it to whomever they want. I think we’ve got a pretty good idea of how they do it now—but how do we fight back?”
“Why, as we did.” Gwen looked up in surprise.
Rod frowned down at her. “ ‘We’?” He felt a chill trickle down his back.
“Toby and I,” Gwen explained. “What we did was even as thou didst say, mine husband—we cast our thoughts into the soldiers’ minds and made them see what the glowing point at which they stared was in truth—naught but a pair of tiny eyes. We made them see again the face around the eyes, and the body ‘neath the face.”
“Yeah,” Rod said with a curt nod. “Then they stepped up the strength of their Evil Eye and knocked you both out.”
But Gwen shook her head. “Not ‘they,’ milord. ‘Twas the lightning.”
Catharine threw up her hands in despair and whirled away.
“Lightning or not, they did knock you out,” Rod growled, “and you’ll pardon me, but I didn’t like the look of it.”
Gwen spread her hands. “What wouldst thou, my lord? There were but Toby and myself—and we acted at the same moment, but not in concert.”
“Huh?” Rod’s scowl deepened. “ ‘Not in concert’? What did you want—a drum-and-bugle corps?”
“Nay, my lord.” Gwen visibly fought for patience. “We could not join our powers—and there were too many soldiers for poor two of us. We did attempt to cast our thoughts into all their minds—but we did it side by side, not by blending both our powers into one.”
“I take it you think it’s possible to merge your powers,” Rod said softly.
“Mayhap.” Gwen frowned, gaze drifting to the window. “When two who can hear thoughts do touch, there is ever some greater sense of contact—threat, I should say; for I’ve never known two who have risked reaching out through touch to thoughts.”
The door shot open, and Brom O’Berin stumped in, followed by two men-at-arms, each with a shoulder under one of Toby’s arms. The young warlock limped between them, panting, “Nay! I… I can bear mine own…”
“Thou canst scarcely bear thine head upon thy shoulders, now,” Brom growled. “Indeed, an thou wert a crab tree, thou couldst not bear an apple. There,” he said to the two men-at-arms, nodding toward a chair. They lowered the young warlock carefully, and he sagged back, mouth gaping open, eyes closed, panting in huge hoarse gasps.
“What ails him?” Gwen cried.
“Naught but exhaustion.” Brom’s mouth held tight. “Were his news not vital, I would have sent him to his bed.”
“Young idiot! I told him to call for a relief!” Rod strode over to the teenager and caught up a wrist, feeling for the pulse. “Didn’t you bring any wine?”
Brom turned to the doorway and snapped his fingers. A page scurried in, wide-eyed and apprehensive, bearing a tray with a flagon and a flask. Brom caught them up, poured the mug half-full, and held it to Toby’s lips. “A sip only, my lad, then a draught. Attempt it, there’s a good fellow.”
Toby sipped, and promptly coughed. Rod thumped him on the back till the boy nodded weakly, then sipped again. It stayed down, so he took a big swallow.
“Feel a little better now?” Rod asked.
Toby nodded and sighed.
“Don’t fall asleep on us,” Rod said quickly. “What did you see?”
“Only the dragon ship, and miles and miles of water,” Toby sighed. “I sickened at the sight. I swear I’ll never drink the stuff again!” And he took a long pull on the wine.
“Steady there, now,” Rod cautioned. “So they sailed a lot. Which way did they go?”
“West,” Toby said firmly, “west and south. I called for Giles, and set him to the following, whiles I appeared upon my bed and slept till he did call to say he’d sighted land. Then I appeared beside him and sent him home. He was sorely tired, seest thou, whilst I was fresh.”
From the gray cast of the youth’s face, Rod doubted that. “There was also a little matter of possible danger if you’d reached their homeland.”
“Well, that too,” Toby admitted. “In any case, the journey’s end was mine affair. The danger was not great; the sky was lightening but not yet dawning, and clouds still hung low and heavy.”
“E’en so, I had hoped thou wouldst not take too great a chance,” Gwen said. “What had the beastmen come home to?”
“A bend of land in the coastline,” Toby explained, “low land, with high sky-reaching cliffs behind it a mile or two from shore.”
Rod nodded. “How big was the low land?”
“Mayhap some five miles wide.”
“He describes an alluvial plain,” Fess’s voice murmured in Rod’s ear.
“You’re a better observer than I knew,” Rod told the youth. “What was on the plain?”
“A village.” Toby looked up at him. “Huts of daub and wattle, at a guess—round and with thatched roofs. Around and about their fields they did lie, with greening crops.”
“Farmers?” Rod frowned, puzzled. “Not the kind of people you’d expect to go pillaging. Any idea how many huts there were?”
Toby shook his head. “More than I could count at ease, Lord Warlock. ‘Twas as far across as any village I ha’ seen in Gramarye.”
“Village,” Rod repeated. “Not a town?”
Toby pursed his lips. “Well… mayhap a small town… Still, the houses were set far apart.”
“Maybe a thousand households, then. How’d they react when they saw the dragon ship come back?”
“They did not,” said Toby.
“What?” Rod gawked. “They didn’t react? Not at all?”
“Nay—they did not see it. ‘Twas not yet dawn, as I’ve said, and the dragon ship did not come to the village. Nay, it sailed instead to southward, and found a narrow river-mouth just where the cliffs came down to join the water. Then the beast-men unshipped oars and furled their sail and rowed their ship upstream, until they slipped into a crack within the cliff-wall from which their river issued.”