King Kobold Revived

“Aye, my lord.” A ball of luminescence glowed to life on Gwen’s palm. She brushed past him—definitely too quickly for his liking—and took up the lead, her will-o’-the-wisp lighting the stairway.

At the bottom, dark fabric barred their way—curtains overlapping to close out drafts. They pushed through and found themselves in a circular chamber lit by two arrow-slits. Gwen extinguished her fox fire, which darkened the chamber; outside, the sky was overcast, and only gray light alleviated the gloom. But it was enough to show them the circular worktable that ran all the way around the circumference of the room, and the tall shelf-cases that lined the walls behind the tables. The shelves were crammed with jars and boxes exuding a mixture of scents ranging from spicy to sour; and the tables were crowded with alembics, crucibles, mortars with pestles, and beakers.

Agatha wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Alchemy!”

Rod nodded in slow approval. “Looks as though the old geezer has a little more intellectual integrity than I gave him credit for.”

“Thou canst not mean thou dost condone the Black Arts!” Agatha cried.

“No, and neither does Galen, apparently. He’s not satisfied with knowing that something works—he wants to know why, too.”

“Is’t not enough to say that devils do it?”

Rod’s mouth tightened in disgust. “That’s avoiding the question, not answering it.”

Glass tinkled behind him. He spun about.

A jar floated above an alembic, pouring a thin stream of greenish liquid into it. As Rod watched, the cover sank back onto the jar and tightened in a half-turn as the jar righted itself, then drifted back up onto a shelf.

“Harold!” Agatha warned. “Let be; these stuffs are not thine.”

“Uh, let’s not be too hasty.” Rod watched a box float off another shelf. Its top lifted, and a stream of silvery powder sifted into the alembic. “Let the kid experiment. The urge to learn should never be stifled.”

“ ‘Tis thou who shouldst be stifled!” Agatha glowered at Rod. “No doubt Harold’s meddling doth serve some plan of thine.”

“Could be, could be.” Rod watched an alcohol lamp glow to life under the alembic. “Knocking probably wouldn’t have done much good anyway, really. Galen strikes me as the type to be so absorbed in his research that…”

“My lord.” Gwen hooked fingers around his forearm. “I mislike the fashion in which that brew doth bubble.”

“Nothing to be worried about, I’m sure.” But Ron glanced nervously at some test tubes on another table, which had begun to dance, pouring another greenish liquid back and forth from one to another. They finally settled down, but…

“That vial, too, doth bubble,” Agatha growled. “Ho, son of mine! What dost thou?”

Behind them, glass clinked again. They whirled about to see a retort sliding its nose into a glass coil. Flame ignited under the retort, and water began to drip from a hole in a bucket suspended over the bench, spattering on the glass coil.

“My lord,” Gwen said nervously, “that brew doth bubble most marvelously now. Art thou certain that Harold doth know his own deeds?”

Rod was sure Harold knew what he was doing, all right. In fact, he was even sure that Harold was a lot more sophisticated, and a lot more devious, than Rod had given him credit for. And suspense was an integral part of the maneuver, pushing it close to the line…

But not this close! He leaped toward the alembic. Gasses being produced in the presence of open flame bothered him.

“What dost thou?”

The words boomed through the chamber, and Galen towered in the doorway, blue robe, white beard, and red face. He took in the situation at a glance, then darted to the alembic to dampen the fire, dashed to seize the test tube and throw it into a tub of water, then leaped to douse the lamp under the retort.

“Thou dost move most spryly,” Agatha crooned, “for a dotard.”

The wizard turned to glare at her, leaning against the table, trembling. His voice shook with anger. “Vile crone! Art so envious of my labors that thou must needs seek to destroy my Tower?”

“Assuredly, ‘twas naught so desperate as that,” Gwen protested.

Galen turned a red glower on her. “Nay, she hath not so much knowledge as that—though her mischief could have laid this room waste, and the years of glassblowing and investigating that it doth contain!” His eyes narrowed as they returned to Agatha. “I do see that ne’er should I ha’ given thee succor—for now thou’lt spare me not one moment’s peace!”

Agatha started a retort of her own, but Rod got in ahead of her. “Uh, well—not really.”

The wizard’s glare swiveled toward him. “Thou dost know little of this haggard beldam, Lord Warlock, an thou dost think she could endure to leave one in peace.”

Agatha took a breath, but Rod was faster again. “Well, y’ see—it wasn’t really her idea to come back here.”

“Indeed?” The question fumed sarcasm. “ ‘Twas thy good wife’s, I doubt me not.”

“Wrong again,” Rod said brightly. “It was mine. And Agatha had nothing to do with tinkering with your lab.”

Galen was silent for a pace. Then his eyes narrowed. “I’ truth, I should ha’ seen that she doth lack even so much knowledge as to play so learned a vandal. Was it thou didst seek explosion, Lord Warlock? Why, then?”

“ ‘Cause I didn’t think you’d pay any attention to a knock on the door,” Rod explained, “except maybe to say, ‘Go away.’ ”

Galen nodded slowly. “So, thou didst court disaster to bring me out from my researches long enough to bandy words with thee.”

“That’s the right motive,” Rod agreed, “but the wrong culprit. Actually, not one single one of us laid a finger on your glassware.”

Galen glanced quickly at the two witches. “Thou’lt not have me believe they took such risks, doing such finely detailed work, with only their minds?”

“Not that they couldn’t have,” Rod hastened to point out. “I’ve seen my wife make grains of wheat dance.” He smiled fondly, remembering the look on Magnus’s face when Gwen did it. “And Agatha’s admitted she’s healed wounds by making the tiniest tissues flow back together—but this time neither of them did.”

“Assuredly, not thou …”

“ ‘Twas thy son,” Agatha grated.

The laboratory was silent as the old wizard stared into her eyes, the color draining from his face.

Then it flooded back, and he erupted. “What vile falsehood is this? What deception dost thou seek to work now, thou hag with no principle to thy name of repute? How dost thou seek to work on my heart with so blatant a lie? Depraved, evil witch! Thou hast no joy in life but the wreaking of others’ misery! Fool I was, to ever look on thy face, greater fool to e’er seek to aid thee! Get thee gone, get thee hence!” His trembling arm reared up to cast a curse that would blast her. “Get thee to…”

“It’s the truth,” Rod snapped.

Galen stared at him for the space of a heartbeat.

It was long enough to get a word in. “He’s the son of another Galen, and another Agatha, in another world just like this one. You know there are other universes, don’t you?”

Galen’s arm hung aloft, forgotten; excitement kindled in his eyes. “I had suspected it, aye—the whiles my body did lie like to wood, and my spirit lay open to every slightest impress. Distantly did I perceive it, dimly through chaos, a curving presence that… But nay, what nonsense is this! Dost thou seek to tell me that, in one such other universe, I do live again?”

“ ‘Again’ might be stretching it,” Rod hedged, “especially since your opposite number is dead now. But that a Galen, just like you, actually did live, yes—except he seems to have made a different choice when he was a youth.”

Galen said nothing, but his gaze strayed to Agatha.

She returned it, her face like flint.

“For there was an Agatha in that other universe, too,” Rod said softly, “and they met, and married, and she bore a son.”