"Only in this," Brother Dorian demurred, "only in my music."
"Yet that is his magic," said Father Thelonius, "not the instrument alone."
"Yes, there is psi power in that, isn't there?" Rod mused. "You're a genius, Brother Dorian."
"Not I," the monk protested, though he flushed with pleasure. "Not I, but he who composed this piece."
"I could almost believe that such magic as this could counter the power of that fell maelstrom," Gwen said.
"It can! I assure thee, it can!" Brother Dorian said, his eyes bright. "Yet not alone."
"No, not alone," Father Thelonius agreed, "but with other instruments to aid it, and the power of a sacred ceremony to counter the vicious impulses drawn by the sorceress's profane ritual, we may hope to build a strength of psi power that will stand against it."
"Not just us eight," Rod protested.
"Aye, not we alone," Father Thelonius agreed, "for there are twelve-score monks in the monastery who shall sing and play, and shall link their upwelling of hope and serenity to ours."
"Why, how shall this be?" asked Gregory.
"It is the talent of our choirmaster, little one—the blending of musics, and the sharing of their power with those who have need of it, no matter how far removed—for he is a man for distances."
"A tele-man?" Rod asked. "And you'll be linked to him?"
"Aye, and he to all of us. We must have a meeting of minds, seest thou, a concert indeed."
"But how shall we aid?" Cordelia wondered.
Brother Dorian smiled and came around the keyboard, taking small instruments from hiding places within his robe. "Why, thou shalt play with me, as the spirt moves thee. Youngest one, a pipe for thee." He gave Gregory a wooden flute. "And a harp for the lass."
Cordelia took the wooden frame, gazing at it, caressing it. "But I have not the time to learn to play!"
"Thou hast but to sweep the strings, for they are tuned in harmony. A tambour for the warrior-lad." Brother Dorian handed Geoffrey a sort of shallow drum, a tambourine without the bangles, and a stick with a head on each end. "Strike the skin in time to the lowest notes I shall sound. And thou, O eldest son, shalt have an heir's portion." He held out a flat slab as long as his forearm and as wide, with four inset plates for the right hand and and six pressure-pads for the left. Magnus took it, frowning, and pressed one plate. A chord sounded, seeming to come from the air before his face. He almost dropped the instrument. "But how shall I know when to press which?"
"Thou shalt feel the impulse from me, for I have just such plates and pads upon my board."
"Yet wherefore should we play," Cordelia asked, "if we know not how?"
"Because," said Brother Dorian, "there is great power for good in the innocence of youth."
Father Thelonius nodded. "That is why such innocence is so great a threat to those who wreak evil—and why they are so eager to corrupt it."
Rod gave the monk a measuring gaze. "You seem to have this awfully well planned out, Father."
"Aye." Father Thelonius looked up with a smile from where he was gathering brushwood. " 'Tis for this we were sent, Lord Warlock—to keep the domain of vengeful music from increasing, and to push it back if we may."
Rod watched him silently for a minute. Then he said, "No wonder you found us."
"Aye." Brother Dorian smiled. "No wonder at all."
Rod was tempted to ask why Father Thelonius was gathering sticks, but decided he didn't want to know.
Brother Dorian turned back to the junior Gallowglasses. "Thou must attune thy selves to me, young ones, so that we may make sound together—and that blending of musics will increase the linking of our minds."
"Then we must be linked with thee, too," Gwen stated.
"Thou must indeed." Father Thelonius locked gazes with them—and, suddenly, the atmosphere was grim. "Thou must needs be at one with all of us—thy children, ourselves, and the monks in the monastery."
Rod was almost afraid to ask: "And how shall we make music?"
"Thou shalt not."
They stared at him in silence for a long moment. Then Gwen asked, "What shall we do?"
"Thou shalt fly sped by melody," said Father Thelonius, "for someone must bear the Warlock's Rock into that unholy place, to turn the witch's power back upon herself."
They were very quiet, the children stock-still, chilled with dread.
Rod wasn't exactly feeling warmed himself, but he swallowed and nodded. "Okay, Father. Give it to me. Someone has to stop her."
"Nay," Gwen snapped. "Whither thou goest, I will go. 'Twas into my keeping thou didst give the jewel, husband." And she stepped forward, bowing her head.
Father Thelonius nodded, slipping the chain over his head and holding it out.
"No!" Rod protested. "One of us at risk is enough!"
"Yet life would never be enough for me without thee," Gwen returned. "I beg thee, Father."
He slipped the chain over her head.
Gwen straightened, then turned to her eldest. She rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. "If we should miscarry, do thou care for thy sister and brothers."
Eyes huge, Magnus nodded.
"And thou." Gwen gave the other three her sternest look. "Do thou heed and obey him."
Wide-eyed, they nodded slowly.
"Take care of them, Fess," Rod said softly.
"I will at need, Rod—yet I hope that need shall not come."
"Yes." Rod smiled, and broke the spell. "What's a mere coven, against a cloister-ful of psionic monks and a family of espers? Even if they are reinforced by the more depraved emotions of an eighth of the souls of Gramarye." He turned to Father Thelonius. "What ceremony is this you'll be performing to the music, Father?"
The monk turned back from draping a linen cover over a table improvised out of stones and scrub. "It will be the Mass of Light."
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was the Missa Lubba, actually, blending the traditional meolodies of the Latin Mass with African rhythms, and coupling the highest aspirations of both cultures. The Kyrie rang in Rod's head as he strode beside his wife into the domain of a warped witch. The landscape about him seemed dim and remote; all his attention was on channelling his psi powers now. He was forgetting himself, becoming aware only of his anxiety for his wife, and the power filling him; he didn't really notice that Fess was following them. Nightmare shapes grew, collapsed, and flowed on every side, for they went on foot to escape detection, detouring around newly risen forms of distorted dancing bodies, hideous faces with leering grins, and monstrous forms that comprised parts of three or four animals; but the illusions were only that, and seemed unaware of their passage. Their nature finally became clear to Rod, with the impact of insight—they were the nightmares of the souls before him, warped and twisted by their own depravity, images of foulness called up out of the depths of the subconcious by the perversion of an art form that had begun as a vivacious celebration of youth and life, but had been twisted to the titillation of the jaded and vicious, corrupted into a medium for the evoking of cruelty and degradation.
Then they were through, quite suddenly, on the lip of the amphitheater. Only a hundred feet away, the naked witch cavorted in an obscene and insulting dance, beating time for the chanting that focused the sickened hungers of a thousand souls, drawing tenfold psychic energy from the raw emotions of bemused and baffled young.
They paused on the brink to clasp hands; then they plunged into the mass of people, driving straight toward the witch.
Fess followed, immune to illusion and relentless in purpose.
Rod's ears were filled with the Gloria; only dimly, in the distance, could he hear the roaring and thumping of the metallic music. As if by coincidence, the people before them shifted aside, or turned away with the force of the wind, so that they seemed to move in a spreading path, a furrow through the human mass. But neighbors looked up, rouged and whitened faces stared, arms in patchwork sleeves raised up pointing fingers. Suddenly they were surrounded by tunics that glittered but were quartered with dun, by hands lifting cutlasses and sabres and scythes and spindles. Pitchforks and rusty swords speared at them; rouged and chapped lips stretched over rotted teeth in howling glee.