Rod rolled at the last second. The huge blade smashed into the stone floor, and twisted out of Alfar’s hands. One of the fallen stones shot up off the floor, straight at his face. Alfar screamed in shock, and stepped back—and tripped over something, crashing down onto his back.
Rod was up on one knee, trying frantically to force himself to his feet. He stared at the obstacle Alfar had stumbled over, and it stared back for a fraction of a second—Geoffrey! The boy grinned just before he leaped to his feet, his eighteen-inch sword whipping out to stab down at the fallen sorcerer, who just barely managed to twist out of the way in time. His hand flailed about the floor till it found the scimitar’s hilt, and wrapped fast around it.
A block of stone smashed at Geoffrey. He dodged, but Rod roared with rage when he saw how closely the block had come. He sprang at the telekinetic—but Alfar jumped into his path, slashing with the scimitar again. Rod leaped back, letting the blow whistle past him, then lunged over it with a chop. Alfar just barely managed to twist aside.
The telekinetic was surrounded by blocks of stone smashing into each other. Her lips were drawn back in a feral snarl, and drops of sweat beaded her forehead. Geoffrey ducked in under the hedge of stone and stabbed upward. The telekinetic screamed and jumped back, stumbled over Gregory, and fell. Magnus’s cudgel whacked her at the base of her skull and she went limp.
Cordelia crouched glaring at the other witch—but between them was a storybook witch, complete with cone hat, broomstick, hooked nose, warts, and insane cackle, hands clawing at the child. A ghost materialized beside her, moaning, and something huge, flabby, and moist, with yellow, bloodshot eyes, lifted itself up off the floor, extruding pseudopod tentacles toward the little girl. But Cordelia spat, “Aroint thee, witch! Dost thou think me a babe?” and threw her broomstick at the illusionist. It speared through the storybook witch and arrowed toward the illusionist, who screamed and threw up her hands to ward it off—and the ghost, witch, and monster disappeared. But the broomstick whirled and whipped about, belaboring the woman from every side faster than she could block, whacking her about the head and shoulders. She screamed, and darted toward the chamber door—and Gwen’s full-sized broomstick swung down from the ceiling and cracked into her forehead. Her eyes rolled up, and she crumpled.
Rod twisted aside from Alfar’s scimitar and reached out to brace himself against the wall, just as his burning leg tried to give out under him again. He shoved against the stone, shifting his weight onto his good leg, and drew his sword just in time to parry another cut. He riposted and thrust, faster than Alfar could recover. The sorcerer darted back, just an inch farther than Rod’s thrust, and saw two of his lieutenants on the floor. He was just in time to see Fess’s hoof catch the emotional projective a glancing blow on the temple. She folded at the knees and hit the flagstones, out cold. He shrieked, and Rod leaped, catching the sorcerer’s arm with his left hand to steady himself. Alfar whirled, saw Rod’s sword chopping down, screamed again—and Rod caught the unspoken image of another place. He closed his eyes and willed himself not there, just as Alfar teleported toward it. Dimly, Rod heard a thunder-boom, and knew Alfar had managed to disappear from the tower room. His eyes sprang open—and he found himself still clinging to the sorcerer’s arm, in the midst of formless grayness, lit by dim, sourceless light. There was nothing, anywhere—nothing but his enemy.
Alfar looked about him, and screamed, “We are lost!” Then he squeezed his eyes shut, and Rod caught the impulse toward someplace he didn’t recognize. He countered grimly. Their bodies rocked, as though hit by a shock wave, but stayed put. “You’re in the Void,” Rod growled, “and you’re not getting out!”
Alfar screamed, hoarse with terror and rage, and whirled to chop at him with the scimitar. But Rod yanked him close, caught his sword hand, and cracked it against his good knee. Pain shot through him, almost making him go limp—but Alfar was still screaming, in hoarse, panting caws, and the scimitar went whirling away through empty space. Rod slammed an uppercut into the sorcerer’s face. He dodged, but the blow caught him alongside the jaw. His head rocked, but he slammed a knee into Rod’s groin. Rod doubled over in agony, but clung to Alfar’s arm and a shred of sense; his right hand slipped the dagger out of his boot, and he shot his last ounce of strength into a sudden stab into Alfar’s belly. The blade jabbed up under the ribcage, and Alfar folded over it, arms flailing, eyes bulging in agony. Conscience smote; Rod yanked the dagger out and stabbed again, quickly, mercifully, into the heart. He saw Alfar’s eyes glaze; then the body went limp in his hands. Rod held it a second, staring, unbelieving. Then chagrin hit, and he felt his soul quail at the reality of another manslaughter. “It was him or me,” Rod grated; but no one heard except himself.
He let go, shoving, and the body drifted away from him, turning slowly, trailing an arc of blood. It swung away, revolving, and faded into the mists, a thin red line tracing its departure.
Rod turned away, sickened. For a long, measureless instant, he drifted in space, numbed, absorbing his guilt, accepting the spiritual responsibility, knowing that it had been justified, had been necessary—and was nonetheless horrible.
Finally, the tide of guilt ebbed, and he opened his mind to other thoughts—Gwen, and the children! Had they all come through that melee alive? And what the hell had they been doing there, anyway? Never mind the fact that if they hadn’t been, they’d be short one husband and father by now—nonetheless! What were they doing where it was so dangerous?
Helping him, obviously—and they’d have to help him again, or he’d never find how to get out of here. He wasn’t scared of the Void; he’d been here before, between universes.
And, of course, he’d get home the same way now. He closed his eyes, and listened with his mind. There—Gregory’s thought, unvoiced, a frightened longing for his father—the same beacon that had brought him home before. Rod sighed and relaxed, letting the boy’s thought fill his mind. Then he willed himself back to his three-year-old son.
“Is that all of them?” Rod ground his teeth against a sudden stab of pain from his upper arm.
“Be brave, my lord,” Gwen murmured. She finished binding the compress to his triceps. “Aye, every one of them has come—every witch and warlock of the Royal Coven. E’en old Agatha and Galen have come from their Dark Tower, to flit from hamlet to village, speaking with these poor peasants, who have waked to panic, and the loss of understanding.”
“I don’t blame ‘em,” Rod grunted. “If I all of a sudden came to my senses and realized that I’d been loyal to an upstart for the last few weeks while my duke was casually bumped off, I’d be a little disoriented, too. In fact, I’d be frightened as hell.” He winced as Gwen bound his arm to his side. “Is that really necessary?”
“It must,” she answered, in a tone that brooked no argument. “Yet ‘tis but for a day or two, ‘til the healing hath begun.”
“And I didn’t even notice I’d been sliced, there.” Rod looked down at the bandage. “Well, it was only a flesh wound.”
Gwen nodded. “Praise Heaven it came no closer to the bone!”
“Lord Warlock!”
Rod looked up.
They were in the Great Hall of Duke Romanov’s castle. It was a vast stone room, thirty feet high, forty wide, and eighty long—and empty, for the moment, since all the boards and trestles had been piled against the walls at the end of the last meal, for the evening’s entertainments. The High Table was still up, of course, on its dais, and Rod sat in one of the chairs, with Gwen beside him—though pointedly not in the Duke’s and Duchess’s places.
An auncient, still wearing Alfar’s livery, came striding toward them from the screens passage, eyes alight with excitement.