“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 cannot ken thine explanations! ‘Twill satisfy me, that thou dost.”
“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 manner of spell is that?”
“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.”
“Cure it!” Agatha’s glare could have turned a blue whale into a minnow. “Heal him or do naught! I would miss him sorely when his spirit’s gone to its rightful place and time—but, I will own, it must be done. Still, I’d rather know that he’s alive!”
“Well, I wasn’t really considering the alternative.” Rod gazed off into space, his lips pursed.
Agatha saw the look in his eyes and gave him a leery glance. “I mistrust thee, Lord Warlock, when thou dost look so fey.”
“Oh, I’m just thinking of Harold’s welfare. Uh, after the battle—a while after, when I was there and you’d recovered a bit—didn’t I see you helping the wounded? You know, by holding their wounds shut and telling them to think hard and believe they were well?‘’
“Indeed she did.” Gwen smiled. “Though ‘tis somewhat more than that, husband. Thou must needs think at the wound thyself, the whiles the wounded one doth strive to believe himself well; for the separate bits of meat and fat must be welded back together—which thou canst do by making them move amongst one another with thy mind.”
“You can, maybe.” Inwardly, Rod shuddered. All he needed was for his wife to come up with one more major power—all corollaries of telekinesis, of course; but the number of her variations on the theme was stupefying.
He turned back to Agatha. “Uh—did you think up this kind of healing yourself?”
“Aye. I am the only one, as far as I can tell—save thy wife, now that I’ve taught her.” Agatha frowned, brooding. “I came to the knowing of it in despair, after I’d thrown aside a lad who sought to hurt me…”
Rod had to cut off that kind of train of thought; the last thing he wanted was for Agatha to remember her hurts. “So. You can help someone ‘think’ themselves well—telekinesis on the cellular level.”
Agatha shook her head, irritated. “I cannot tell thy meaning, with these weird terms of thine—‘tele-kine’? What is that—a cow that ranges far?”
“Not quite, though I intend to milk it for all it’s worth.” Rod grinned. “Y’know, when we were at Galen’s place, he told me a little about his current line of research.”
Agatha snorted and turned away. “ ‘Researches?’ Aye—he will ever seek to dignify his idle waste of hours by profound words.”
“Maybe, but I think there might be something to it. He was trying to figure out how the brain itself, that lumpy blob of protoplasm, can create this magic thing called ‘thought.’ ”
“Aye, I mind me an he mentioned some such nonsense,” Agatha grated. “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing, really.” Rod stood up, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “I was just thinking, maybe we oughta go pay him another visit.”
The dark tower loomed before them, then suddenly tilted alarmingly to the side. Rod swallowed hard and held on for dear life; it was the first time he’d ever ridden pillion on a broomstick. “Uh, dear—would you try to swoop a little less sharply? I’m, uh, still trying to get used to this…”
“Oh! Certes, my lord!” Gwen looked back over her shoulder, instantly contrite. “Be sure, I did not wish to afright thee.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say I was frightened…”
“Wouldst thou not?” Gwen looked back at him again, wide-eyed in surprise.
“Watch where you’re going!” Rod yelped.
Gwen turned her eyes back to the front as her broomstick drifted sideways to avoid a treetop. “Milord,” she chided, “I knew it was there.”
“I’m glad somebody did,” Rod sighed. “I’m beginning to think I should’ve gone horseback after all—even though it would’ve been slower.”
“Courage, now.” Gwen’s voice oozed sympathy. “We must circle this Dark Tower.”
Rod took a deep breath and squeezed the shaft.
The broomstick began to swing around the tower, following Agatha’s swoop ahead of them. Rod’s stomach lurched once before he forgot it, staring in amazement at the Tower. They were sixty feet up, but it soared above them, a hundred feet high and thirty wide, the top corrugated in battlements. Altogether, it was an awesome mass of funereal basalt. Here and there, arrow-slits pierced the stones—windows three feet high, but only one foot wide.
“I wouldn’t like to see his candle bill,” Rod grunted. “How do you get in?”
The whole bottom half of the Dark Tower reared unbroken and impregnable, pierced by not so much as a single loophole.
“There has to be a door.”
“Wherefore?” Gwen countered. “Thou dost forget that warlocks do fly.”
“Oh.” Red frowned. “Yeah, I did kinda forget that, didn’t I? Still, I don’t see how he gets in; those loopholes are mighty skinny.”
“Yonder.” Gwen nodded toward the top of the Tower, and her broomstick reared up.
Rod gasped and clung for dear life. “He would have to have a heliport!”
Agatha circled down over the battlements and brought her broomstick to a stop in the center of the roof. She hopped off nimbly; Gwen followed suit. Rod disentangled himself from the broom straws and planted his feet wide apart on the roof, grabbing the nearest merlon to steady himself while he waited for the floor to stop tilting.
“Surely, ‘twas not so horrible as that.” Gwen tried to hide a smile of amusement.
“I’ll get used to it,” Rod growled. Privately, he planned not to have the chance to. “Now.” He took a deep breath, screwed up his courage, and stepped forward. The stones seemed to tilt only slightly, so he squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and took another step. “Okay. Where’s the door?”