“Oh, Papa, it’s turrible! It’s all Magnus’s fault; he disappeared Geoffrey!”
“Did not!” Magnus howled, agonized, as he came running up, and his mother seconded him as she landed on her knees next to her daughter.
“Cordelia, Cordelia! Magnus did not do it, he only said it!”
“You sure his just saying it couldn’t make it happen?” Rod looked up at her over Cordelia’s head. “Magnus may be the only warlock who’s ever been able to teleport someone else, except for old Galen—but Magnus did do it, when he got into that argument with Sergeant Hapweed.”
“Aye, and it took old Galen himself to fetch him back! Oh, we’ve sent for him—but truly, I misdoubt me ‘tis that! Magnus would not lie on a matter of such gravity.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Rod transferred Cordelia to her mother’s arms and caught Magnus against him. The boy resisted, his body stiff, but Rod stroked his head and crooned, “There, now, son, we know you didn’t do it! Maybe something you said makes you think so—but I know you can’t do a thing like that without meaning to!”
The eight-year-old trembled; then his body heaved with a huge sob, and he wept like a thundercloud, bellowing anguish. Rod just hung on and kept stroking the boy’s head and murmuring reassurances until his sobs slackened; then he held Magnus gently away, and said quietly, “Now, then. Tell me what happened, from beginning to end.”
Magnus gulped and nodded, wiping at his eyes. “He was trying to play my games, Papa, the way he always does—and you’ve told me not to let him climb trees!”
“Yes; he might be too scared to levitate, if he fell from twenty feet up,” Rod said grimly. “So he was tagging along in his usual pesty way—and what happened?”
“Magnus told him…” Cordelia burst out; but Gwen said, “Hush,” firmly, and clapped a hand over her daughter’s mouth.
“Let thy father hear it for himself.”
“And?” Rod prompted.
“Well—I told him to go jump in the lake. I didn’t know he’d do it!” Magnus burst out.
Rod felt a cold chill run down his spine. “He always does everything you tell him; you should know that by now. So he jumped in.”
“Nay! He never did get to’t! Ten feet short o’ the water, he faded!”
“Faded?” Rod gawked.
“Aye! Into thin air! His form grew thinner and thinner, the whiles I watched, till I could see the sticks and leaves through him—like to a ghost!”
Cordelia wailed.
Rod fought down the prickling that was covering his head and shoulders. “And he just—faded away.”
Magnus nodded.
Rod gazed out at the pond, frowning.
“Dost thou think…” Gwen’s voice broke; she tried again. “Dost thou think we should drag the waters?”
Rod shook his head.
“Then… what?” She was fighting against hope.
“Fess?” Rod murmured.
“Yes, Rod.”
“You watched me being sent through that time-machine in McAran’s lab once, right?”
“Yes, Rod. I remember the seizure vividly. And I see your point—Magnus’s description does match what I witnessed.”
Gwen clutched his arm. “Dost thou think he has wandered in time?”
“Not wandered,” Rod corrected. “I think he’s been sent.”
“But I ran right after him, Papa! Why would it not have sent me, too?” Magnus protested.
“Yeah, I was wondering about that.” Rod rose. “The most logical answer is that whoever turned the machine on, turned it off right after poor little Geoff blundered into it… But maybe not. Son, when you told Geoff to go jump in the lake, where were you standing, and where was he?”
“Why… I stood by yon cherry tree.” Magnus pointed. “And Geoff stood by the ash.” His arm swung toward a taller tree about ten feet from the first. “And he called, ‘Magnus, me climb, too!’ and started toward me.” Magnus gulped back tears, remembering. “But I spake to him, ‘No! Thou knowest Mama and Papa forbade it!’ And he stopped.”
Rod nodded. “Good little boy. And then?”
“Well, he began to bleat, in that way he hath, ‘Magnus! You climb, me climb! Me big!’ And I fear I lost patience; I cried, ‘Oh, go leap in the lake!’ And, straightaway, he fled toward the water.”
“From the ash.” Rod turned, frowning, toward the tree, drawing an imaginary line from it straight toward the lake, and cutting it off ten feet short of the water. “Then?”
“Why, then, he began to fade. I own I was slow; I did not think aught was out o’ place for a second or two. Then it struck me, and I ran hotfoot after.”
Rod drew an imaginary line from the cherry toward the pond. The two lines did not intersect, until their end-points. “Fess?”
“I follow your thought, Rod. The machine’s focus was no doubt ten feet or so further back from the water’s edge. Geoff’s momentum carried him further while he was beginning to shift.”
Rod nodded and started for the ash tree.
“What dost thou do?” Gwen cried, running after him.
“We’ve got the theory; now I’m testing it.” Rod turned right at the ash and started toward the water.
“Thou seekest to follow him, then!” Gwen kept pace with him determinedly. “And if thou dost?”
“Then he’ll have company. You stay with the other three, while we find our way back—but don’t hold dinner.”
“Nay! If thou dost… Rod! Thou…” Then whatever she was saying faded away. Rod turned back toward her, frowning…
… and found himself staring at the trunk of a tree.
A white trunk, white as a birch, but corrugated like an oak—and the leaves were silver.
Rod stared.
Then, slowly, he looked up, and all about him; all the trees were just like the first. They towered above him, spreading a tinsel canopy between himself and the sun; it tinkled in the breeze.
Slowly, he turned back to the meter-wide trunk behind him. So that was why Geoff had faded, instead of just disappearing—the machine’s computer had sensed solid matter at the far end, and hadn’t released him from its field until he was clear of the trunk. Rod nodded slowly, drew his dagger, and carefully cut a huge “X” in the trunk; he had a notion he might want to be able to find it again.
Apropos of which, he turned his back to the trunk, and looked about him carefully, identifying other trees as landmarks—the one with the split trunk over to the left, and the twisted sapling to his right…
And the gleam of water straight ahead!
And just about the same distance away as Elben Pond had been. The machine had set him down in the spot that exactly corresponded to the pick-up point.
But when? When had there been silver-leafed, white-trunked oaks on Gramarye?
When would there be?
Rod shook off the tingling that was trying to spread over his back from his spine. He had more important things to think about, at the moment. He stepped away toward the shoreline, calling, “Geoff! Geoffrey! Geoff, it’s Papa!”
He stopped dead-still, listening. Off to his left, faintly, he heard tiny wails, suddenly stopping. Then a little head popped up above underbrush, and a small voice yelled, “Papa!”
Rod ran.
Geoff blundered and stumbled toward him. Silver leaves rang and chimed as they ran, with a discordant jangle as Rod scooped the little body up high in his arms, stumpy legs still kicking in a run. “Geoff, m’boy! Geoff!”
“Papa! Papa!”
After a short interval of unabashedly syrupy sentimentality, Rod finally put his second son down, but couldn’t quite bring himself to take his hand off Geoff’s shoulder. “Thank Heaven you’re safe!”
“Scared, Papa!”
“Me too, son! But it’s all right, now we’re together—right?”
“Right!” Geoff threw his arms around his father’s leg and hugged hard.