“How could you tell where he was going?”
“They held his hands,” Gwen reminded. “Thoughts travel more readily, by touch.”
Magnus nodded. “We could feel, through his skin, where he meant to go next.”
Rod stared at him for a moment, then sat back, shaking his head. “Beyond my comprehension. Thoughts can’t travel any FESSter just by touching—can they?”
“No,” Fess’s voice murmured through the earphone implanted in the bone behind Rod’s right ear. “But there would be less signal-loss than with a radiated waveform.”
Cordelia sighed, striving for patience with her dullard father. “Tis not that one doth hear faster, Papa—only that one doth hear more. With touch, even tinges of thought speak clearly.”
“I bow to the guest expert.” Rod managed to keep the fond amusement out of his tone, giving the words a sour twist.
Fess plowed on. “The neurons in the warlock’s hand did, in all probability, induce the signal directly into the neurons in the boys’ hands.”
“He couldn’t hide his thought-traces from you.” Rod turned back to Geoffrey. “So you always had just enough clues to follow him. But how did you manage to bring me along?”
Gregory shook his head, eyes round. “That, Papa, we cannot say.”
“We thought thou couldst,” Magnus added.
Rod scowled. “No… can’t say that I did. Except that I was bound and determined that I wasn’t going to let go of him…”
The children stared at one another, then at their mother.
“What’s the matter?” Rod demanded. “What am I—a monster?”
“Nay, Papa,” Cordelia said softly, “thou’rt only a warlock—yet a most puissant one.”
“You mean it was just my determination that took me wherever he went?”
Magnus nodded. “Thy magic followed all else that was needful.”
Rod was still, gazing at the fire for a few minutes while he tried to absorb that. It was unnerving to think that he was beginning to be able to work magic the way his wife and children did—just by thinking of it. Now he was going to have to watch his step, to make sure he didn’t do it accidentally. He could just hear a casual passerby asking, “How do you think the weather’s going to be today, Mr. Warlock?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I think it’s going to rain…” and, sploosh! They’d be drenched…
He shook off the mood, and looked up to find the children’s gazes glued to him. They looked worried; he wondered what they’d been up to. “So. Finally, he took us into a dungeon.”
“Twas the sorcerer Alfar’s dungeon,” Geoffrey explained, and Cordelia gasped.
Rod nodded. “Convenient. If he could just have figured out some way to get rid of us, we’d be right there to hand for the jailers. But how did he figure he was going to be able to keep you there? How could he prevent you from teleporting out?”
“I do not think he had thought that far,” Magnus said slowly.
Rod was still nodding. “Makes sense. I wouldn’t be too good at the details, if I was trying to run from the enemy, but he was coming right along.”
“He was not attempting that,” Geoffrey said, with conviction. “He meant only to take us to a place in which we would be unwilling to stay.”
Rod smiled slowly. “Clever kid. Chose a nice one, didn’t he?”
“Aye.” Magnus shivered. “I was well relieved, to be quit of that place.”
“But how’re you so sure?” Rod asked Geoffrey.
“Because we tried to hale him out, and he would not come.”
Rod stared. Then he took a deep breath and said, delicately, “Little chancey, wasn’t it?”
“Nay. We sought to bring him to Mama.”
Gwen’s eyes gleamed. Rod glanced at her, and turned back to the boys with a shudder. “That’s what put us into Limbo?”
“Where?” Magnus frowned. “Oh! Thou dost speak of the Void!”
Rod didn’t like the familiarity with which he spoke of it. “Been there before, have you?”
Magnus caught the look, and realized its significance. “Nay, not so often…‘Tis only that…”
“Spells go awry sometimes, Papa,” Geoffrey explained. “Assuredly thou must needs realize that.”
“That,” Rod said tightly, “is why you’re supposed to wait till Mama can supervise.”
“She did, the first time.”
“First… time?”
“Peace, husband.” Gwen touched his arm. “ ‘Tis naught so dangerous as that.”
“Aye,” Magnus said quickly. “When thou dost arrive in that place that is not a place, thou hast but to think of where thou dost wish to be, and lo! Thou art there indeed!”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Rod said grimly. He noticed that Cordelia was managing to hold her tongue, but she looked chartreuse with envy. He caught her hand, and she squeezed back. “So,” he said to Geoffrey, “how did we wind up in Limbo this time?”
“Why, because we wished to bear him to Mama, and he did not wish to go.”
“I don’t blame him, when she’s in that mood. So you were trying to go, and he was trying to stay, so…”
“We went nowhere.” Geoffrey nodded. “I saw, then, that we could not win, so I sought safety.”
“What was so tough about it?” Rod frowned. “I thought you only needed to think yourselves home!”
“We did need some aid,” Geoffrey admitted, and he reached out to clap his three-year-old brother on the shoulder. “This one had followed us with his mind, where e’er we had gone. I had but to call out to him, and he helped pull us, and showed us the road to home.”
“Yes…” Rod’s gaze fastened on his youngest. “He’s had some experience doing that.”
Gregory looked totally blank.
“Not that he’d remember it,” Rod explained. “He was a little young, at the time—eleven months old.
“But! Here you are, safe at home—praise Heaven!” He gathered them all into his arms, and squeezed. They gave mock yells of dismay, and Rod relaxed, looking down into their faces. “And now—you can go home.”
They let loose a squall that must’ve waked villagers for miles around.
“Nay, Papa, not so soon!”
“It was just beginning to be fun!”
“We’re not ready, Papa!”
“Boys get to do all the fun stuff,” Cordelia pouted.
Geoffrey looked straight into Rod’s eyes. “There is no danger, Papa.”
“No danger!” Rod exploded. “You have a maverick warlock raining cannonballs on you, and you tell me there’s no danger? You have a monster magus trying to conjure rock chunks into your bodies, and you tell me it’s safe? You have a felon enchanter, straight from the glass house, throwing stones at you, and you tell me it’s tame?”
“But we are whole,” Magnus spread his hands. “Naught save a bruise or two.”
“Chance! Sheer, freakish good fortune! You’re just lucky that sorcerer was a lousy shot!”
“Yet we outnumber him, Papa!”
“He outweighs you! And that’s just the human danger! What’s going to happen the next time you get into a tug-of-war with one of those sorcerer interns? You might be stranded out in that void with no way to get home!”
“Surely not, Papa!” Geoffrey protested. “ ‘Tis as I’ve said—thou hast but to think of…”
“Yeah, if you’ve got somebody tuned in to act as your safety line!”
“But Gregory…”
“Gregory might be with you!” Rod bawled.
“Yet that doth not alright me, Papa,” the three-year-old cried. “That gray place doth please me! ‘Tis comforting, and…”
“Makes you feel right at home, does it?” Rod felt a bitter stab of guilt. “You should; your mind spent enough time searching there, when you were a baby, trying to find out where Mama and I had gone.”
“An thou sayest it. Therefore do I know my way. There is truly no dange—”
“Now I say NO!” Rod roared, slamming his fist into the turf. Pain shot up his forearm, but his rage shoved it aside. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, talking back to your father!” He snatched Magnus’s collar, and yanked the boy’s face up to his. “Think you’re getting big, do you? Let me tell you, you will never be old enough to argue with me!” He threw Magnus back, and whirled to catch at Geoffrey. The six-year-old ducked aside, automatically bringing his arm up to block, managing to knock Rod’s arm aside.