King Kobold Revived

“We arrre i

“Never mind,” Rod said hastily. “I get the general idea.” He frowned suddenly, turning away, brooding. “I also get the idea that maybe my wife isn’t dead; if she was, her body would have been there. So they’ve kidnapped her?”

“I regret…”

“ ‘That the data is insufficient for…’ ” Rod recited with him. “Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how do we find her?”

“I regret…”

“Skip it. I’ve got to find her.” He struck his forehead with his fist. “Where is she?”

“In the next room,” boomed a deep, resonant voice. “She is unharmed and quite well, I assure thee. Agatha is there also.”

A tall old man with long white hair streaming down over his shoulders and a long white beard down his chest, in a long, dark-blue monk’s robe with the hood thrown back, stood by the fire. His robe was sprinkled with silver zodiac signs; his arms were folded, hands thrust up the wide, flaring sleeves. His eyes were surrounded by a network of fine wrinkles under white tufts of eyebrows; but the eyes themselves were clear and warm, gentle. He stood tall and square-shouldered near the fire, looking deep into Rod’s eyes as though he were searching for something.

“Whoever you are,” Rod said slowly, “I thank you for getting me out of a jam and, incidentally, for saving my life. Apparently I also owe you my wife’s life, and for that I thank you even more deeply.”

The old man smiled thinly. “You owe me nothing, Master Gallowglass. None owe me ought.”

“And,” Rod said slowly, “you owe nothing to anyone. Hm?”

The wizard’s head nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Rod chewed at the inside of his cheek and said, “You’re Galen. And this is the Dark Tower.”

Again the old man nodded.

Rod nodded too, chewing again. “How come you saved me? I thought you ignored the outside world.”

Galen shrugged. “I had an idle moment.”

“So,” said Rod judiciously, “you saved two witches, my horse, and my humble self, just to kill time.”

“Thou art quick to comprehend,” said Galen, hiding a smile deep in his beard. “I had no pressing researches at the moment.”

“Rod,” Fess’s voice murmured, “an analysis of vocal patterns indicates he is not telling the whole truth.”

“For this I need a computer?” Rod muttered dryly.

Galen tilted his head closer, with a slight frown. “Didst thou speak?”

“Oh, uh—just an idle comment about the physical aspects of thought.”

“Indeed.” The old wizard’s head lifted. “Dost thou, then, concern thyself with such problems?”

Rod started to answer, then remembered that he was talking to a wizard who had locked himself away for forty years and had gained power continually throughout that time—and it wasn’t because he’d been fermenting. “Well, nothing terribly deep, I’m afraid—just the practical side of it.”

“All knowledge is of value,” the wizard said, eyes glittering. “What bit of knowledge hast thou gained?”

“Well… I’ve just been getting some firsthand experience in the importance of the prefrontal lobes.” Rod tapped his forehead. “The front of the brain. I’ve just had a demonstration that it acts as a sort of tu

“Tu

Rod remembered that the original Galen had authored the first definitive anatomy text back at the dawn of the Terran Renaissance. Had to be coincidence—didn’t it? “There seems to be a sort of wall between concept and words. The presence of the concept can trigger a group of sounds—but that’s like someone tapping on one side of a wall and someone on the other side taking the tapping as a signal to, oh, let’s say… play a trumpet.”

Galen nodded. “That would not express the thought.”

“No, just let you know it was there. So this front part of the brain”—Rod tapped his forehead again—“sort of makes a hole in that wall and lets the thought emerge as words.”

Galen slowly nodded. “A fascinating conjecture. Yet, how could one verify its accuracy?”

Rod shrugged. “By being inside the mind of someone who doesn’t have prefrontal lobes, I suppose.”

Galen lost his smile, and his eyes lost focus. “Indeed we could—an we could find such a person.”

Rod couldn’t help a harsh bark of laughter. “We’ve got ‘em, Master Wizard—more than we want. Much more! The peasants call ‘em ‘beastmen,’ and they’re raiding our shores.” He remembered the alarm, and guilt gnawed at him. “Raiding ‘em right now, come to think of it.”

“Truly?” The old wizard actually seemed excited. “Ah, then! When I finish my current tests I will have to let my mind drift into one of theirs!”

“Don’t rush ‘em,” Rod advised. “But please do rush me! I’m needed at the home front to help fight your test group—and I’d kinda like to take my wife back with me.”

“As truly thou shouldst.” Galen smiled. “Indeed, there is another here whom thou must also conduct away from this Dark Tower.”

“Agatha? Yeah, I want her too—but not for the same reasons. Would you happen to know where they are?”

“Come,” said Galen, turning away, “thy wife is without the chamber.”

Rod stared after him a moment, surprised at the old man’s abruptness; then he shrugged and followed, and Fess followed Rod.

The wizard seemed almost to glide to the end of the cavernous room. They passed through the maroon hangings into a much smaller room—the ceiling was only fifteen feet high. The walls were hung with velvet drapes, cobalt blue this time, and one huge tapestry. The floor boasted an Oriental carpet, with a great black carven wood chair at each corner. Roman couches, upholstered in burgundy plush, stood between the chairs. A large round black wood table stood in the center of the room before a fair-sized fireplace. Six huge calf-bound volumes lay open on the table.

Rod didn’t notice the splendor, though; at least, not the splendor of the furnishings. The splendor of his wife was something else again.

Her flame-red hair didn’t go badly with the cobalt-blue drapes, though. She stood at the table, bent over one of the books.

She looked up as they came in. Her face lit up like the aurora. “My lord!” she cried, and she was in his arms, almost knocking him over, wriggling and very much alive, lips glued to his.

An eternity later—half a minute, maybe?—anyway, much too soon, a harsh voice grated, “Spare me, child! Pity on a poor old hag who never was one tenth as fortunate as thou!”

Gwen broke free and spun about. “Forgive me, Agatha,” she pleaded, pressing back against her husband and locking his arms around her waist. “I had not thought…”

“Aye, thou hadst not,” said the old witch with a grimace that bore some slight resemblance to a smile, “but such is the way of youth, and must be excused.”

“Bitter crone!” Galen scowled down at her from the dignity of his full height. “Wouldst deny these twain their rightful joy for no reason but that it is joy thou never knew? Hath the milk of love so curdled in thy breast that thou canst no longer bear…”

“Rightful!” the witch spat in a blaze of fury. “Thou darest speak of ‘rightful,’ thou who hast withheld from me…”

“I ha’ heard thy caterwauls afore,” said Galen, his face turning to flint. “Scrape not mine ears again with thy cant; for I will tell thee now, as I ha’ told thee long agone, that I am no just due of thine. A man is not a chattel, to be given and taken like a worn, base coin. I am mine own man to me alone; I never was allotted to a woman, and least of all to thee!”

“Yet in truth thou wast!” Agatha howled. “Thou wert accorded me before thy birth or mine and, aye, afore the world were formed in God’s own mind. As sure as night was given day, wert thou allotted me; for thou art, as I am, witch-blood, and of an age together with me! Thy hates, thy joys, are mine…”