The jets cut out, and the great black horse landed at full gallop. He slowed to a canter, stubby wings folding back into his sides, and then to a trot.
“Elben Pond, Toby said,” Rod muttered, glaring at the dark sheet of water barely visible through the trees. “Here’s Elben Pond. Where are they?”
“I hear them, Rod,” Fess answered.
A few seconds later, Rod could, too: two small voices crying, “Geo-ff! Geoffrey!” And a full one calling, “Geoffrey, my jo! Geoffrey! Whither art thou?”
“Geof-frey, Geof-frey!” Cordelia’s voice came again, with sobs between the cries. Then Fess was trotting into a small clearing, with the little lake gleaming at its edge, and Cordelia’s head poked out of the shrubbery as Rod swung down. “Papa!” And she came running.
“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.
“Wull—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.
“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 methought 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’rt certain we can return, Papa?”
Well, Rod had been, until Magnus mentioned it—but he wasn’t about to say so. There were times when it came in handy, being telepathically invisible, even to members of his own family.
Damn few, though. And there were so many times when it was a curse, almost made him feel excluded…
He shrugged it off. “Of course we can get back! It’s just a problem—and problems are made to be solved, right?”
“Right,” all three children shouted, and Rod grinned in spite of himself. They were handy to have around, sometimes. Most times.
“Tell us the manner of it!” Magnus demanded.
“Oh…I dunno…” Rod let his gaze wander. “We don’t exactly have enough information to start building theories. We don’t even know where we are, in a manner of speaking, or what materials and tools are available—which might be handy to know, ’cause it might come down to building our own time-machine. For that matter, we don’t even know if there’re even any people!”
“Then let us go discover it!” Magnus said stoutly.
Rod felt the grin spreading over his face again. “Yeah, let’s go!” He whipped out his dagger. “Blaze trees as we go, kids—we might want to be able to find our way back here. Forward march!”