“Well! Time to go… what’s that?”
Something blundered into the underbrush and stopped with a clashing of leaves. Then it set up a frightened wail.
A voice faded in after it. “…thou dare—Cordelia! Thou’st done… Oh, child! Now two of thee are lost!”
“Uh—three!” Rod called, peering over the underbrush to see Magnus come barrelling out of the tree-trunk. “Come on, Geoff! Family-reunion time!”
“Not lost, Mama!” Cordelia crowed triumphantly. “We’re all here!”
“And all lost,” Rod agreed as he came up. “Here he is, Gwen.”
“Oh, Geoffrey!” Gwen fell to her knees and threw her arms around her boy.
Rod let her have her few minutes of sickening sentimentality while he set his arms akimbo and glared down at Magnus. “You know, this wasn’t exactly the world’s smartest idea.”
“If one of us’s lost, we should all be lost!” Cordelia declared.
“So said she to Mama,” Magnus stated, “and me thought her idea had merit.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” Rod growled, glaring; but he couldn’t hold it, and grappled them to him, one against each hip, hugging them hard. “Well, maybe you’ve got a point. The family that strays together, stays together—even if we are all in danger.”
“Danger?” Magnus perked up. “What danger, Papa?”
Rod shrugged. “Who knows? We don’t even know what kind of country we’re in, let alone what lives here.”
“It’s all new!” Cordelia squealed in delight.
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it.” Rod shook his head in amazement. “And to think I used to be a cynic!”
“Where are we, Papa?” Magnus was looking around, frowning.
“It’s beginning to get through to you, too, huh? Well, I think we’re still in Gramarye, but way in the future—way, way in the future. It couldn’t be the past, because Gramarye never had trees like this—before the colonists came, it was all Carboniferous.”
“Carbo-what?”
“Just giant ferns, no trees.”
“Art thou certain?”
“Well, that’s what the rest of the planet still has—but let’s check it, anyway… Fess?” Rod waited for the robot to answer, then frowned. “Fess? Fess, where are you? Come in, hang it!”
There was no answer.
“Can Fess ‘talk’ across time, Papa?” Magnus asked quietly.
“Well, we tried it once, and it worked—but Doc, uh, Dr. McAran was lending us a time-machine’s beam, then.” Rod didn’t finish the thought, but a cold lump of dread began to swell in his belly.
“But isn’t there a time-machine still running, here?”
Rod would have to beget brainy kids! “Don’t miss much, do you? Uh, Gwen, dear? I think it’s time we were getting back.” Or trying to.
Gwen looked up, startled. “Oh, aye!” She scrambled to her feet. “I had clear forgot about time! Why, Gregory must be squalling with hunger!”
“I have a feeling you should have weaned him sooner,” Rod mused.
The telepathic mommy picked it up from her kids. “What is this foreboding…? Oh.” She looked up at Rod. “Magnus fears the gate may be closed.” Her face firmed as she accepted it.
Rod felt a surge of admiration, and gratitude that he’d lucked into this woman. “There is that possibility, dear. Let’s check it out, shall we?”
Without a word, Gwen clasped little Geoff’s hand and followed after her husband.
Rod went slowly, holding Cordelia’s hand and letting Magnus stalk by his side, searching for the bent sapling on the one hand, and the split trunk on the other. There, and… there. And there was the big oak with the “X” on it.
He caught Magnus’s hand. “Take your mother’s hand, son. I think we’d better be linked up, just in case this works.”
Silently, Magnus caught Gwen’s hand.
Slowly, Rod paced toward the tree.
He stopped when the bark was grooving his nose, and didn’t seem disposed to melt nicely out of the way.
“Thou dost look silly, Papa,” Cordelia informed him.
“I never would have guessed,” Rod muttered, turning away. His eyes found Gwen’s. “It didn’t work, dear.”
“No,” she answered, “I think it did not.”
They were silent for a few minutes.
“Art thou certain ‘twas here, Papa?” Cordelia asked hopefully.
Rod tapped the tree-trunk. “X marks the spot. I should know—I put it there, myself. No, honey—whoever opened this particular door for us, has shut it.”
“At least,” Gwen pointed out, “I will not have to wait dinner for thee.”
“Yes.” Rod smiled bleakly. “At least we’re all here.”
“No, Papa!” Cordelia cried. “Not all here! How could you forget Gregory!”
“Believe me, I haven’t,” Rod assured her, “but I think whoever trapped us here, did.”
“Trapped us?” Magnus’s eyes went round.
“Don’t miss much at all, do you?” Rod gave him a bitter smile. “Yes, son, I think somebody deliberately set out to trap us here—and succeeded admirably.” His gaze travelled up to Gwen. “After all, it makes sense—and it’s about the only theory that does. There’s a storm brewing, between the Church and the Crown, back on Gramarye—our Gramarye, that is. And I’ve got some pretty strong hints that somebody from off-world’s been pushing the Church into it. So what happens? Church and Crown have a meeting this afternoon, a confrontation that should’ve blown the whole thing sky-high—and what do I do but foul up the plan by getting them both to see reason! No, of course whoever’s behind it would want me out of the way!”
Magnus frowned. “But why us, Papa?”
“Because you’re a very powerful young warlock, mine offspring, as anyone on Gramarye knows. And, if they’re going to all this trouble just to foist off a war between the Church and the State, you can darn well bet they don’t intend to have the State win! So the smart thing to do is to remove the State’s strongest weapons—me, and your mother, and you. Don’t forget, they lost one because of you, already, when you were only two. And Geoffrey’s three already, and Cordelia’s all of five! They’ve got no way of telling what any of you might be able to do.” Nor do I, for that matter. “So, as long as you’re setting the trap, why not catch all five of the birds-of-trouble while you’re at it?”
“But Gregory, Papa?”
Rod shrugged. “I’m sure they’d’ve preferred it if your mother’d carried him in here, too—but since she didn’t I don’t expect they’re going to lose much sleep over it. He’s not even a year old, after all. Even if he had every power in the book, what could he do with them? No, I don’t think they were about to keep the gate open just to try and get Gregory, too—especially if it meant that the five of us might escape! Speaking of Gregory, by the way—who’s with him?”
“Puck, and an elf-wife,” Gwen answered. “And, aye, fear not—she knows the crafting of a nursing-glove.”
Rod nodded. “And anything else she needs to know about him, I’m sure Brom will be glad to supply.”
“He takes so great an interest in our children,” Gwen sighed.
“Ah—yes.” Rod remembered his promise not to tell Gwen that Brom was her father. “Comes in handy, at a time like this. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he flits in from Beastland, just to take charge of Greg personally—and Baby couldn’t be safer inside a granite castle guarded by a phalanx of knights and three battlewagons. No, I think he’ll be safe till we get back.”
“ ‘Until?’ ” Magnus perked up. “Then thou’tt certain we can return, Papa?”