King Kobold Revived

“Then, how come Magnus can?” Rod frowned.

“Why, ‘tis plainly seen! Thy son is clearly gifted with more magical powers than am I myself!”

Rod locked gazes with Gwen. Agatha was the most powerful old witch in Gramarye.

He turned back to Agatha. “Okay, so Magnus is one heck of a telepath. But he can’t see a body if there’s none there to see.”

“My son ha’ told me that he did have a body aforetime,” Agatha said slowly. “ ‘Twould seem that he doth send outward from himself his memory of his body’s appearance.”

“A projective telepath,” Rod said slowly. “Not a very strong one, maybe, but a projective. Also apparently a telekinetic. But I thought that was a sex-linked trait…”

Agatha shrugged. “Who can tell what the spirit may do when it’s far from its body?”

“Yes—his body,” Rod said softly, eyes locked on the point where the fruit bounced back toward Magnus. “Just where is this body he remembers?”

Agatha sighed and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and resting her head against the high back. “Thou dost trouble me, Lord Warlock; for I ca

“Well, maybe Gwen can.” Rod turned to his wife. “Dear?”

But Gwen shook her head. “Nay, my lord. I ca

Rod just stared at her.

Then he gave himself a shake and sat up straighter. “Odd.” He turned back to Agatha. “Any idea why you should be able to hear him, when Gwen can’t?”

“Why, because I am his mother.” Agatha smiled sourly.

Rod gazed at her, wondering if there was something he didn’t know. Finally, he decided to take the chance. “I didn’t know you’d ever borne children.”

“Nay, I have not—though I did yearn for them.”

Rod gazed at her while his thoughts raced, trying to figure out how she could be barren and still bear a son. He began to build an hypothesis. “So,” he said carefully, “how did you come by Harold?”

“I did not.” Her eyes flashed. “He came to me. ‘Tis even as he doth say—he is my son, and old Galen’s.”

“But, Galen…”

“Aye, I know.” Agatha’s lips tightened in bitterness. “He is the son that Galen and I ought to have had, but did not, for reason that we ne’er have come close enough to even touch.”

“Well, I hate to say this—but… uh…” Rod scratched behind his ear, looking at the floor. He forced his eyes up to meet Agatha’s. “It’s, uh, very difficult to conceive a baby if, uh, you never come within five feet of one another.”

“Is’t truly!” Agatha said with withering scorn. “Yet, e’en so, my son Harold doth say that Galen did meet me, court me, and wed me—and that, in time, I did bear him a son, which is Harold.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“The depth of thy perception doth amaze me,” Agatha said drily. “Yet Harold is here, and this is his tale. Nay, further—he doth say that Galen and I reared him, and were ever together, and much a-love.” Her gaze drifted, eyes misting, and he could scarcely hear her murmur: “Even as I was used to dream, in the days of my youth…”

Rod held his silence. Behind him, Gwen watched, her eyes huge.

Eventually, Agatha’s attention drifted back to them. She reared her head up to glare at Rod indignantly. “Canst thou truly say there is no sense to that? If his body has not been made as it should have been, canst thou be amazed to find his spirit here, uncloaked in flesh?”

“Well, yes, now that you mention it.” Rod leaned back in his chair. “Because, if his body was never made—where did his spirit come from?”

“There I can thresh no sense from it,” Agatha admitted. “Harold doth say that, when grown, he did go for a soldier. He fought, and bled, and came away, and this not once, but a score of times—and rose in rank to captain. Then, in his final battle, he did take a grievous wound, and could only creep away to shelter in a nearby cave. There he lay him down and fell into a swoon—and lies there yet, in a slumber like to death. His body lies like a waxen effigy—and his spirit did drift loose from it. Yet could it not begin that last adventure, to strive and toil its way to Heaven…” She shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut. “And how he could be eager for such a quest is more than I can tell. Yet indeed he was”—she looked back up at Rod, frowning—“yet could he not; for though his body lay in a sleep like unto death, yet ‘twas not death—no, not quite. Nor could the spirit wake that body neither.”

“A coma.” Rod nodded. “But let it alone long enough, and the body’ll die from sheer starvation.”

Agatha shrugged impatiently. “He’s too impatient. Nay, he would not wait; his spirit did spring out into the void, and wandered eons in a place of chaos—until it found me here.” She shook her head in confusion. “I do not understand how aught of that may be.”

“A void…” Rod nodded his head slowly.

Agatha’s head lifted. “The phrase holds meaning for thee?”

“It kind of reminds me of something I heard of in a poem—‘the wind that blows between the worlds.’ I always did picture it as a realm of chaos…”

Agatha nodded judiciously. “That hath the ring of rightness to it…”

“That means he came from another universe.”

Agatha’s head snapped up, her nostrils flaring. “Another universe? What tale of cock-and-bull is this, Lord Warlock? There is only this world of ours, with sun and moons and stars. That is the universe. How could there be another?”

But Rod shook his head. “ ‘How’ is beyond my knowledge—but the, uh, ‘wise men’ of my, uh, homeland, seem to pretty much agree that there could be other universes. Anyway, they can’t prove there aren’t. In fact, they say there may be an infinity of other universes—and if there are, then there must also be universes that are almost exactly like ours, even to the point of having—well—another Agatha, and another Galen. Exactly like yourselves. But their lives took—well, a different course.”

“Indeed they did.” Agatha’s eyes glowed.

“But, if Harold’s spirit went looking for help—why didn’t it find the Agatha in that other universe?”

“Because she lay dead.” Agatha’s gaze bored into Rod’s eyes. “She had died untimely, of a fever. So had her husband. Therefore did Harold seek out through the void, and was filled with joy when he did find me—though at first he was afeard that I might be a ghost.”

Rod nodded slowly. “It makes sense. He was looking for help, and he recognized a thought-pattern that he’d known in his childhood. Of course he’d home in on you… Y’know, that almost makes it all hang together.”

“I’ truth, it doth.” Agatha began to smile. “I ne’er could comprehend this brew of thoughts that Harold tossed to me; yet what thou sayest doth find a place for each part of it, and fits it all together, like to the pieces of a puzzle.” She began to nod. “Aye. I will believe it. Thou hast, at last, after a score of years, made sense of this for me.” Suddenly, she frowned. “Yet his soul is here, not bound for Heaven, for reason that his body lies in sleeping death. How could it thus endure, after twenty years?”

Rod shook his head. “Hasn’t been twenty years—not in the universe he came from. Time could move more slowly there than it does here. Also, the universes are probably curved—so, where on that curve he entered our universe could determine what time, what year, it was. More to the point, he could reenter his own universe just a few minutes after his body went into its coma.”

But Agatha had bowed her head, eyes closed, and was waving in surrender. “Nay, Lord Warlock! Hold, I prithee! I ca

“Well, I can’t be sure,” Rod hedged. ”Not about the why of it, at least. But I can see how it fits in with my hypothesis.”

“What ma

“Only a weak one, till it’s proved. Then it becomes a theory, which is much more powerful indeed. But for Harold, the important point is that he needs to either kill his body, so he can try for Heaven—or cure it and get his spirit back into it.”