Rod frowned. “Well—from what I’ve felt when I was wanting some magic to happen—he seems kind, very kind, always willing to help anybody who needs it, even an interloper like me. But he’s stern; he knows what he wants and what he believes is right, and he’s not going to put up with anyone going against it.”
“Hm.” Father Al frowned. “That last sounds troubling.”
“Oh, no, he’s not a fanatic or anything! He’s just not willing to watch someone hurt somebody else! Especially children…”
“Yes?” Father Al prompted. “What about children?”
Rod shuddered. “Threaten a child, and he goes into a rage. And if it’s his child…”
“He loses control?”
“Well, not quite berserk…”
“It sounds somewhat like yourself,” the priest said gently.
Rod sat still a moment; then he looked up. “Well, shouldn’t it?”
“Of course.” Father Al nodded. “He’s your analog.”
Rod nodded. “But where’s your analog, Father?”
“Either we haven’t met him, or he doesn’t exist.” The priest smiled. “Probably the latter—and that’s why I can’t work magic here.”
Rod frowned. “But how come I’d have an analog, and you wouldn’t?”
Father Al held out his hand with the fingers spread. “Remember our theory of parallel universes—that there’s a set of ‘root’ universes, but any one ‘root’ branches? Every major historical event really ends both ways—and each way is a separate universe, branching off from the ‘root.’ For example, in our set of universes, the dinosaurs died, and the mammals thrived—but, presumably, there was another ‘main branch’ in which the mammals died, and the dinosaurs survived, and continued to evolve.”
“So there might be a universe in which Terra has cities full of intelligent lizards.” Rod gave his head a shake. “Sheesh! And the further back in time the universes branched off from one another, the further apart they are—the more unlike each other they are.”
Father Al nodded slowly, gazing steadily at him.
Rod frowned. “I don’t like being led. If you’ve got the next step in mind, say it.”
Father Al looked surprised, then abashed. “Pardon me; an old teacher’s reflexes. You see, this can’t be the universe next to ours—we’ve skipped a whole set in which science rules, and magic’s just fantasy. There should be a universe in which the DDT revolution failed, for example, and PEST still rules—and one in which the I.D.E. never collapsed, the old Galactic Union. And on, and on—one in which humankind never got off of Terra, one where they made it to the Moon but no farther, one in which the Germans won World War II, one in which they won World War I and World War II never occurred… millions of them. We skipped past all of them, into a universe far, far away, in which magic works, and science never had a chance to grow.”
Rod stared, spellbound.
“Now, logically,” Father Al went on, “since the farther you get from your ‘home universe,’ the more it changes—the number of people who have analogs grow fewer. For example, think of all the soldiers who came back from World War II with foreign brides. In the universe in which World War II never happened, those couples never met—so their descendants have no analogs in that universe, nor in any of the universes that branched off from it.”
Rod scowled. “Let me head you off—you’re working around to saying that, by the time we get this far away, there’re damn few analogs left.”
“Exactly.” Father Al nodded. “Very few, my friend. You seem to be a very rare case.”
Suddenly, the stone floor felt very uncomfortable. “What makes me so special?”
“Oh, no!” Father Al grinned, holding up a palm. “You’re not going to get me to make any guesses about that—not without a great deal more research! After all, it could just be a genetic accident—Lord Kern and yourself might not even have analogous grandfathers!”
“I doubt it,” Rod said sourly.
“Frankly, so do I—but who’s to tell? I don’t quite have time to work out a comparative genealogy between yourself and Lord Kern.”
“But how many universes do I have analogs-in?”
“Again—who knows? I’d guess you don’t have any in universes that never developed Homo Sapiens—but I wouldn’t want to guarantee it.”
Rod chewed at the inside of his lower lip. “So I might be able to draw on the powers of wizards in still other, more magical, universes?”
“It’s conceivable. Certainly you’ve got to have a great many analogs, to have come even this far.”
“That makes two, I don’t knows’—or is it three?” Rod folded his legs. “Time to quit speculating and get down to practicalities, Father. How do I control this gift? How do I go about drawing on Lord Kern’s powers? I can’t just wish—it’s a little too chancey.”
“It surely is. But when you’re wishing with great emotional intensity, all you’re doing is opening yourself up—and there are techniques for doing that deliberately.” Father Al leaned forward. “Are you ready?”
Rod settled himself a little more comfortably, swallowed against the lurking dread that was trying to form in his belly, and nodded. “What do I do?”
“Concentrate.” Father Al held out his rosary, swinging the crucifix back and forth like a pendulum. It caught the remaining ray of golden sunlight and glittered. “Try to let your mind go empty. Let your thoughts roam where they will; they’ll settle down and empty out. Let the dancing light fill your eyes.”
“Hypnotism?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to do it yourself—all I can do is give directions. Let me know when I seem a little unreal.”
“As of three days ago, the first time I met you.”
The priest shook his head. “That kind of joke’s a defense, my friend—and you’re out to let the walls fade away, not make them thicker. Let your mind empty.”
Rod tried. After a little while, he realized that’s what he was doing wrong. He relaxed, letting his thoughts go wherever they wished, keeping his eyes on the glittering cross. Words whirled through his mind like dry leaves; then they began to settle. Fewer and fewer remained—and he felt as though his face were larger, warmer, and his body diminished. The cross filled his eyes, but he was aware of Father Al’s face behind it, and the stone room behind that—and he was aware of the ceiling and floor lines slanting together toward an unseen vanishing point, as though the whole thing was painted on a flat canvas. There seemed to be a sort of shield around him, unseen, a force-field, four feet thick… “I’m there.”
“Now—reach out.” The droning voice seemed both distant and inside his head. “Where’s your mind?”
It was an interesting question. Rod’s head was empty, so it couldn’t be there. “Far away.”
“Let your consciousness roam—find your mind.”
It was an interesting experience—as though he were groping with some unseen extension through a formless void; but all the while, he still saw only the dungeon, and the priest.
Then the extension found something, and locked into place. “I’ve got it.”
And power flowed to him—blind, outraged anger, a storm of wrath, that filled him, he could feel his skin bulging, feel it trying to get out of him and blast everything to char.
The crucifix filled his eyes again, and the priest was barking something, in Latin, Rod couldn’t follow it, but it was a thundering command, with the power of Doom behind it.
Then the crucifix lowered, and the priest’s voice was muffled, distant. “Whatever it is, it’s not supernatural.”
Rod shook his head, carefully. “It’s human.” His voice seemed to echo up through a long channel, and also be right there at his eardrums. It occurred to him that he should be scared, but he was too angry. Slowly, he rose to his knees, keeping himself carefully upright. “What do I do now?”