Rod felt himself thawing—but he looked at Gwen, and saw that all the walls were up. He hardened his own heart again and gently disengaged his son. "Then stop chasing me. Let me deal with my own demons in my own way. If you need me, then leave me. I'll come back when I'm well. This is one time you can't help—but, boy, can you hinder! Follow me any more, and you'll have me afraid to strike a single blow in my own defense, for fear what I'm fighting might really be one of you! Try to help, and yoi 'll do me in!"
"Husband, thou dost wrong us! We would ne'er…"
"Not intentionally, you wouldn't, but…" Rod broke off, staring, feeling as though an electric current were tingling all across his back and up into his brain, making his hair stand on end. "Or is it intentional?" he whispered. "After all, you really can handle things without me. I'm just in the way now, aren't I?"
"Papa, no!" Cordelia cried, and Gwen stared, horrified.
"I notice your mother doesn't have anything to say, does she?" The anger flowed. "Not a thing! I've only been getting in her way, slowing her down all these years! Maybe she's finally realized she could have been the greatest witch in all Gramarye without me, that she could have led the revolution to put the witch-folk in power, and I was the only thing holding her back!"
Tears filled Gwen's eyes, and she shook her head, faster and faster, her lips forming words, but no sound coming.
"See? She can't deny it, even when she tries!" And Rod knew he had paused, more than long enough for Gwen to reply.
"Papa, there is not a word of truth in all of this!" Magnus stepped between his parents, anger beginning to show through a pallor of apprehension. "Mama hath never sought aught but thine happiness!"
"Who are you to speak, Heir Apparent? Who's the next High Warlock, eh? Who will be their king, after the uprising?"
"Thou canst not mean it!" Magnus said, hotly.
"But I do!" Rod caught up a stick and slashed out at them. "Away from me, all of you! Stay back in Runnymede! Run your power play without me! And whatever you do, don't follow me any more V He turned on his heel and strode off into the forest.
The trees swam past him, not quite in focus; blood pounded in his ears. He bulldozed through the woods, brush crashing around him.
Then he realized that there was more crashing than he was making. He looked up and saw Fess pacing beside him. "What are you doing here?"
"You were unjust, Rod," the robot answered. "They never sought to hurt you."
"Whose side are you on!" Rod whirled to face the robot-horse.
"Only yours, Rod. I cannot be on anyone else's side, while you are my owner; it is contrary to my programming."
"But if you had a different owner, you wouldn't have to stand by me—is that it? Help the heir move up a little faster, eh?"
"Never, Rod, and you know it! Do not pretend to have forgotten your knowledge of computer programming!"
Rod glared back, confounded for the moment. He knew Fess was the one being who couldn't lie to him.
In the real world. Even in Gramarye.
But in Granclarte?
The horse pressed his advantage. "I cannot stand silent when I see induced paranoia distorting your perceptions of those who love you best, and most support you. Your wife and children are as loyal as I am—perhaps more so."
"I don't see how they could be," Rod growled. "/ wouldn't, if I had to live with me. In fact, I do, and I'm not."
"Hear your own words," Fess advised. "Are you disloyal to yourself, then?"
"So you have to be even more loyal, to make up for it?" Rod's glare narrowed. "Even granting that, there's one big problem. How do you know what their motives are?"
"There are semiotic indications…"
"Interpreting signs can't let you read their thoughts."
"I can listen on human thought frequencies…"
"Yes, and if they want you to hear them, you will. But if they slip into family mode, you can't pick up their tiniest scrap of thought."
"I cannot decipher simultaneous multiplexing of decay modulation, it is true. However, I am working on the program…"
"But don't have it yet—which means you can't know what my tender chicks and their doting mother are planning in their hearts of hearts."
"Rod, you cannot honestly believe they would conspire against you!"
"Why not? Everything else does! Including you! Go ahead, side with them! Cozy up to the heirs! Just don't try to pretend you're still on my side!" Rod turned and stalked off into the forest.
"Rod! My devotion has always been…"
"Go away!" Rod thundered. "Get out of my sight! Leave me alone!"
He stumped off into the snow, and the bare branches closed behind him like whips.
Half an hour later, he had begun to calm down.
Then the nausea hit, and the headache started.
If it had been bad before, this time it was hellish. He cast about, frantic for cover, stumbled into the nearest thicket, and fell to his knees. His stomach turned inside out, but there was nothing there to come up, except a little bile.
When the spasms passed, he tumbled sideways into a mound of dead brush, managing to gather his cloak about him, and lay shivering as pain throbbed through his head. Finally, it slackened, and he fell into an exhausted slumber.
He woke to the glow of coals. Frowning, he started to rise, then remembered the headache and lifted his head very carefully. But there was no pain, so he dared sit up, though slowly. Something fell off him, and he looked down, amazed, to see that he was covered by a fur blanket. Who had thrown it over him?
For that matter, who had kindled the fire?
He stared at it, absorbing the fact that somebody had been close enough to kill him while he lay totally helpless, but instead had made sure he wouldn't freeze. Finally, he decided he would just have to accept the fact that the world really did contain some people who cared about him, whether it was Fess or his family.
Guilt hit, and hard, as he remembered what he had said to them, and the manner in which he had said it. It seemed incredible now, that he could actually have thought they wished his downfall, totally crazy…
Yes. It had been crazy. That was why he had gone away from them, to make sure he wouldn't hurt them while he was mired in delusion.
He lifted his head, feeling a little better about it all. There was still guilt about his rage, mind you—but at least he had been right in telling them to stay away from him.
Then he started at a sudden thought. How had his family come to be in Granclarte, anyway?
He thought about that for a little while, and decided that he had had a temporary lapse back into reality—sort of swapping delusions, Granclarte for persecution complex.
Was that to be the limit of his existence—just a choice of delusions?
He thought about it—and the more he thought, the angrier he became. Oddly, that seemed all right now— maybe because his anger had no one to focus on. After all, who could be responsible for his current state of existence?
Whoever had pushed him into delusions, of course.
Who was that?
Modwis had said it was the sorcerer Brume, from his haunted castle in the east.
But Modwis was part of Granclarte. Who had sent him the affliction in Gramarye?
Maybe the sorcerer Brume.
Why not? So far as Rod could tell, the fantasy enemies who attacked him in the delusion realm of Granclarte corresponded to real enemies—real people, he corrected himself, then corrected the correction, remembering Fess's verification that the man who Rod had thought was a homicidal old hermit had really tried to kill him. If the hermit had been a real assassin in disguise, why not Brume?