“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 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.”