Only the scream was coming from behind the trolls, and something struck the ogre hard in the back. He stumbled and turned with a roar, and Rod saw Fess, reared up and lashing out with hooves and teeth. He lunged at a troll; the monster stumbled back and fell into the moat with a howl, where it began to dissolve. Another troll grabbed at Fess, bellowing; steel teeth reached for him, but the ogre was smashing out with the club, and Fess was trying to hit him with a hoof, rearing high and slamming down…
Down stiff-legged, knees locked, head swinging between the fetlocks. He had had a seizure.
And the ogre's club was slamming down.
Rod bellowed and barreled into the ogre with his full weight, driving into the small of his back. The ogre wobbled, swung around, and lashed out at Rod with a roar. Rod fell back, but the club caught him alongside the head, and his ears rang while stars danced before his eyes. He struggled to clear his head, waiting for the blow to fall, knowing he was doomed, hearing the roaring still…
Then the stars were gone, but the bellowing was still there. The ogre had turned away from him, and was battling something on his other side. Then one of the trolls lurched and fell into the river. Modwis rose up where he'd been, buckler on his arm, mace in his hand—and behind him, Beaubras battled the ogre with axe and sword while his charger guarded his back, lashing out at the trolls with hoof and tooth.
Gasping for breath, Rod limped toward them. He couldn't let the knight die in his defense without at least helping, though Heaven only knew what Beaubras was doing alive again.
The horse struck out, and the last troll fell into the moat with a wail of despair—but the ogre's club finally battered down Beaubras's guard, and a huge blow slammed the knight's own axe flat against his head. Beaubras reeled and fell, and the ogre swung up a huge foot, to stamp on him.
Rod finally got there and stabbed the foot.
The ogre howled, flailing for balance on the edge of the moat. He almost recovered—but Modwis was there, throwing all his weight against a huge kneecap, and the ogre tottered and fell, with a roar of wrath that changed to terror. He hit the water with a huge splash, and his howl cut off. The moat heaved, and was still.
"Allergic to water, too, I guess," Rod muttered, and turned back to the knight, his own head whirling.
Modwis was there before him, kneeling beside Beaubras, cradling the knight's head in the dwarf's arm. The knight looked up at him, and Rod saw the slick of blood that covered the whole side of his head. "Do not weep for me, friend," he whispered, but Modwis's eyes were filled with tears, anyway.
"Hang in there," Rod grated. "You'll make it—somehow."
Beaubras turned back to him with a sad smile. "Nay, Lord Gallowglass—though I thank Heaven I… came in time."
"But how did you… I mean, you were…"
"Dead?" The knight gave him a weak smile. "Only gone—as I go now. You must act for both of us, Lord Gallowglass, for both of us together, in this world and your own. Yet fear not—for I shall come again. I shall always come again."
Then he sighed, and went limp.
Rod stared, aghast.
The knight's form rippled, thinned, and was gone.
Modwis looked at his empty hands in disbelief, then looked up at Rod in mute appeal—but the light glinted stars off the tears in his eyes, and the stars grew and dazzled, filling Rod's vision with a fall of light. Dimly through it, he thought he saw a beautiful lady, with long, blond hair bound by a coronet, followed by several nuns. But that couldn't have been, there weren't any nuns on Gramarye, and Rod found himself tumbling again, into a world of light.
The leprechaun crouched over the Lord Warlock's body, hammer in his hand, glaring at the tall woman.
"Peace, Old One," she said. "We come to aid your friend, not to hurt him."
"Who be these women by ye?" Modwis demanded. "Wherefore are they garbed in monks' robes?"
"Why, for that they are monks—though with ladies, they are spoken of as 'nuns.' "
"We are Sisters of Saint Vidicon, Old One," the first woman said. She was plump, with kindly eyes peering from under the white headband that separated her face from her hood. "We have dedicated our lives to the worship of God, and the service of our fellow sinners."
The leprechaun winced at the name of God, but held his ground, and his suspicion lessened. "Ye are healers, then?"
"Aye, and we could not help but see what befell at our very gate. Dost know who was that half-armored fellow in the red robe?"
"A fell knave hight Brume, who hath followed this man through half of Gramarye, to plague him. Beyond that, I
know only that his peasant band fled as soon as they were struck. Will ye mend my companion, then?"
"We will that," the lady replied. "Sisters, take him up."
Two of the nuns unrolled a stretcher, placed it beside Rod, set themselves, and heaved him onto the canvas. Then they rose and carried him in through the Gothic arch, past the low walls.
The lady with the coronet turned back to Modwis. "Thou art welcome, an thou dost wish to enter and rest."
"Nay," the leprechaun returned, "for thy holy places are bane to us. Yet I will abide in a hollow tree nearby. An thou hast need of me, lady, but call out, 'Modwis, come hither!' "
"I shall, friend—and fear not; my friends shall care for thine. Canst thou tell me his name?"
But the leprechaun was gone, vanished like a dream. The lady smiled sadly and turned away, going into the convent. The porter closed the oaken shutters behind her.
Chapter Nineteen
In the darkness, a spot of light appeared, dim and nebulous, but growing, until Rod realized he was looking at the moon through a heavy haze. But it kept growing, larger and larger, until it was swollen greater than the harvest moon—and it kept on swelling.
Finally, Rod realized he was moving toward it.
In a panic, he looked about, trying to see the spaceship that contained him, the scooter, even just the space suit… and saw an old man drifting beside him in the void. His long white hair flowed down around his shoulders; his beard streamed down over his chest, held there by acceleration, not gravity. He was wearing a long white robe with a golden chasuble over it, and had a huge, thick book under one arm—
And no space suit. Not even a helmet.
"Be at peace, my son," he intoned. "Thou art in a realm of magic; thou shalt not want for air to breathe, nor heat to warm thee. Aye, and if thou dost hearken, thou mayest hear the music of the spheres."
Rod swallowed an automatic protest and listened. Sure enough, he heard a harmonious chord of clear, crystalline tones, each beginning and dying in a staggered progression, so that the music kept changing, but never ceased.
He turned back to the old man, amazed. "But these are things that cannot be!"
"Save in a realm of magic," the old man reminded him. "Thou art not in the Earth of Mankind's childhood now, nor on the Isle of Gramarye, nor even in thy grandfather's Granclarte. Thou art in a realm of magic, pure magic, and naught else."
Rod began to suspect his schoolboy memory was working harder than his subconscious.
"You are a knight, after all," the old man said, as though reading his thoughts. "Where would your soul find rest, save in a realm enchanted?"
"Not really a knight—I only have a title." But Rod felt a certain sick certainty that the old man was right. "Still, if I am a knight, what are you?"
"I am only a watcher now," the old man said, "and mayhap a guardian. I was a writer of books once, but my work in that is done, and therefore have I time to journey here and there for pleasure, now and again. And thou, sir, are not only a knight but also a wizard, art thou not? For unless I mistake, you are the Lord Gallowglass."