King Kobold Revived

“And warlocks,” Rod reminded. “Don’t forget the warlocks.”

Tuan frowned. “I trust I will not.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind seeking out some more of them.”

“Nay, I surely will not,” Tuan said slowly. “Yet where wilt thou discover them?”

Rod sighed and shook his head. “The ladies had the right idea, Tuan. We should’ve gone out recruiting.”

Tuan’s mouth twisted. “What young witch or warlock will join us now, with this crazed preacher raising the whole of the land against them?”

“Not too many,” Rod admitted. “That’s why I’ve realized Gwen had the right idea.”

Tuan’s frown deepened in puzzlement. “Of what dost thou speak?”

“The old ones, my liege—starting with Galen.”

For the first time since Rod had known him, he saw fear at the back of Tuan’s eyes. “Rod Gallowglass—dost thou know whereof thou dost speak?”

“Yeah—a grown wizard.” Rod frowned. “What’s so bad about that? Don’t we want a little more mystical muscle on our side?”

“Aye—if he’s on our side i’ truth!”

“He will not be,” croaked Agatha from a boulder twenty feet away. “He doth care for naught but himself.”

“Maybe.” Rod shrugged, irritated. “But we’ve got to try, don’t we?”

“My lord,” Gwen said softly, “I ha’ told thee aforetime, ’tis the lightning that lends them their strength—and not even old Galen can fight ‘gainst a thunderbolt.’‘

Rod turned slowly toward her, a strange glint coming into his eye. “That’s right, you did mention that, didn’t you?”

Gwen nodded. “We did free our soldiers from the Evil Eye—but the lightning flared, and the witches lay unconscious. ‘Twas then the soldiers froze, and the beastmen mowed them like hay in summer.”

“Lightning,” Rod mused.

He turned away, slamming his fist into his palm. “That’s the key, isn’t it? The lightning. But how? Why? The answer’s there somewhere, if only I could find it and FESSten to it.”

“Here, Rod,” his mentor murmured.

“Why would the Evil Eye be stronger right after a lightning flash?” Rod seemed to ask of no one in particular.

The robot hesitated a half-second, then answered. “Directly prior to a lightning flash, the resistance of the path the bolt will follow lowers tremendously, due to ionization, thus forming a sort of conductor between the lithosphere and the iono-sphere.”

Rod frowned. “So?”

Tuan frowned, too. “What dost thou, Lord Warlock?”

“Just talking to myself,” Rod said quickly. “A dialogue with my alter ego, you might say.”

Fess disregarded the interruption. “The ionosphere is also capable of functioning as a conductor, though the current passed would have to be controlled with great precision.‘’

Rod’s lips formed a silent O.

Gwen sat back with a sigh. She had long ago acquired the wifely virtue of patience with her husband’s eccentricities. He would’ve been patient with hers as well, if he could find any (he didn’t think of esper powers as eccentric).

Fess plowed on. “The ionosphere is thus capable of functioning as a conductor between any two points on earth—though it would tend toward broadcast; to avoid loss of power some means of beaming would need to be developed. There are several possibilities for such limiting. Signals may thus travel via the ionosphere rather than by the more primitive method of…”

“Power, too,” Rod muttered. “Not just signals. Power.”

Gwen looked up, startled and suddenly fearful.

“Precisely, Rod,” the robot agreed, “though I doubt that more than a few watts would prove feasible.”

Rod shrugged. “I suspect psi powers work in milliwatts anyway.”

Tuan frowned. “Milling what?”

“That’s right. You wouldn’t need much for a psionic blast.”

Tuan eyed him warily. “Rod Gallowglass…”

“All that would be needed,” said Fess, “is a means of conducting the power to ground level.”

“Which is conveniently provided by the ionization of the air just before the lightning bolt, yes! But how do you feed the current into the ionosphere?”

Tuan glanced at Gwen; they both looked apprehensive.

Old Agatha grated, “What incantation’s this?”

“That,” said Fess virtuously, “is their problem, not ours.”

Rod snorted. “I thought you were supposed to be logical!”

Tuan’s head came up in indignation. “Lord Warlock, be mindful to whom you speak!”

“Huh?” Rod looked up. “Oh, not you, Your Majesty. I was, uh… talking to my, uh, familiar.”

Tuan’s jaw made a valiant attempt to fraternize with his toes. Rod could, at that moment, have read a gigantic increase in his reputation as a warlock in the diameters of Tuan’s eyes.

“So.” Rod touched his pursed lips to his steepled fingertips. “Somebody overseas lends the beastmen a huge surge of psionic power—in electrical form, of course; we’re assuming psionics are basically electromagnetic. The beastmen cha

“Probably a means of focusing power. Unsophisticated minds would probably need such a mental crutch, Rod,” Fess conjectured.

“And from the soldiers’ minds, it flows into the witches’, immediately knocking out anyone who’s tuned in! Only temporarily, thank Heaven.”

“An adequate statement of the situation, Rod.”

“The only question now is: Who’s on the other end of the cable?”

“Although there is insufficient evidence,” mused the robot, “that which is available would seem to indicate more beast-men as donors.”

“Maybe, maybe.” Rod frowned. “But somehow this just doesn’t seem like straight ESP… Oh, well, let it pass for the moment. The big question is not where it comes from, but how we fight it.”

Tuan shrugged. “Thou hast said it, Lord Warlock—that we must seek out every witch and wizard who can be persuaded to join us.”

“We tried that, remember?” But Rod smiled, a light kindling in his eyes. “Now that we’ve got some idea about how the Evil Eye gains so much power so suddenly, we should be able to make better use of the available witch-power.”

The phrase caught Tuan’s military attention. A very thoughtful look came over his face. “Certes…” He began to smile himself. “We must attack.”

“What!?”

“Aye, aye!” Tuan gri

“Yeah, and get chopped to pieces!”

“I think not.” Tuan gri

A slow smile spread over Rod’s face.

Tuan nodded. “We will make fray whilst the sun shines.”

“You must admit that the idea has merit, Rod,” Fess said thoughtfully. “Why not attempt it full-scale, immediately?”

“Well, for one thing, those earthworks are a major barrier.” Rod sat astride the great black robot-horse on top of the cliffs in the moonlight. “And for another, well… we’re pretty sure it’ll work, Fess, but…”

“You do not wish to endanger your whole army. Sensible, I must admit. Still, logic indicates that…”

“Yes, but Finagle’s Law indicates caution,” Rod interrupted. “If we made a full-scale frontal attack by day, we’d probably win—but we’d lose an awful lot of men. We might be defeated—and Tuan only bets on a sure thing, if he has a choice.”

“I gather he is not the only one who favors caution. Allow me to congratulate you, Rod, on another step towards maturity.”

“Great thanks,” Rod growled. “A few more compliments like that, and I can hold a funeral for my self-image. How old do I have to be before you’ll count me grown-up—an even hundred?”