Magnus looked up. The bellowing imposter twisted, and Magnus reacted barely in time to tighten the elbow lock. "What can he know?"
"Only the item we're wanting most." Rod went over and caught the young man by the hair. As the mock prince jerked his head up to yell at Magnus, he howled. "Yeowtchl"
"Yes, that gives you a reason to hold your head still," Rod said. "Now, pay attention for a second."
"What for, big man?"
Magnus applied a little more leverage. The imposter groaned, eyes bulging.
"Now that we have a basis for discussion," Rod said, "maybe you can tell us where these music-rocks came from."
"Oh no, big man." The youth tried to shake his head, winced, and gave it up as a bad job. "Oh no, I can't. I only know they came one day—and never has my living life been dull a moment since."
"I wonder an he doth tell the truth." Magnus bore down, and the young man yelped. "The dead! Only the dead know, only the dead! I mean it… YEOWTCH!"
"Magnus!" Gwen scolded. "What honor's in this? Thou hast reason to hold him still, naught more!"
Magnus looked up, realization dawning. "I cannot stay here all year, Mama."
"Mama, Mama," the young man mocked. "Oh, pretty honor, little b—OWWWW!"
"You shouldn't have made him angry," Rod explained. "Either control your mouth, or don't use it. As to your dilemma, son—we could put him to sleep."
Magnus shook his head. "He would but follow us when he waked, Papa."
"What dost thou intend!" Gwen said with indignation.
"I know not," Magnus confessed.
"Give him more of what he doth wish," Gregory suggested. •
"No can do, little man! I want everything!"
"Aye, but what dost thou want most?"
The imposter's eyes roved toward Cordelia, but his arm creaked, and he groaned. "Music. Most of all, music!"
"He shall have music, wherever he goes." Geoffrey shrugged.
"An excellent idea, brother!" Gregory caught up two rocks.
"What?" Geoffrey stared blankly. "What have I said?"
"That he should have music, wheresoe'er he doth go!" Gregory placed the two rocks over the youth's ears. Instantly, his eyes dulled and lost focus.
"Maybe, just maybe," Rod said thoughtfully.
"Bind them in place," Gregory suggested.
Geoffrey caught up the youth's singlet, tore off a strip, and tied it around his head, crown to chin. Then he tore another and bound it from nape to forehead. "They shall stay, unless he doth take them off."
"He won't, or I miss my guess," Rod said. "Let him go, son."
Magnus let go, and the young man fell like a stone.
Magnus looked down at him with disgust. "What, hast thou no pride? Rise and walk, man!"
The prince-mocker picked himself up, looking dazed, and ambled away. He walked right between Gwen and Cordelia, unseeing, and wandered into the wood.
Rod nodded with satisfaction. "Wonderful idea, boys! He's out of trouble for the rest of his life!"
"Or until someone doth take the rocks off from him," Geoffrey pointed out.
"By then, we shall be long gone," Magnus said with satisfaction, "and our trail grown very cold." Then he frowned. "What did he mean by saying, 'only the dead know'?"
"A metaphor," Gregory suggested, "to show that none living can have any idea of the rocks' origin."
"No." Rod was quite certain. "What started this whole exploration, son?"
Gregory looked up, startled. "Why… the dancing dead."
Rod nodded. "So if he says that only the dead know, those zombies might just be the dead he speaks of."
"But where," asked Cordelia, "shall we find the walking dead?"
"Somewhere between sunrise and dawn." Rod turned to pick up sticks. "But I, for one, am not minded to go searching just now. Fire and food, kids. We'll go hunting tomorrow. Maybe the blimp will show us."
"Aye," Gwen agreed. "For now, dinner and bed."
They managed to sleep well in spite of all the music—or perhaps because of it. Rod's last thought, as he drifted into sleep, was that maybe his ears were beginning to grow numb.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day was a hard one. They followed the blimp from sunrise to sunset and beyond. Past dark, they came to a village.
"We truly ought to have stopped some while ago, husband, whiles there was still light."
"I know, dear, but you'd been talking about wanting to sleep in a real bed, and frankly, I just couldn't resist the notion. Besides, I thought you might appreciate not having to cook." Rod frowned down at the village below them in the gloaming. "But I'm beginning to wonder if this hamlet is big enough to have an inn."
"It hath a graveyard," Magnus noted.
They stood atop a ridge, with the village nestled in a bowl of trees below them, centered around a small church with a broad yard dotted with grave markers. Lights warmed the darkness here and there, but none bright enough to indicate an inn.
"Well, if there is an hostel, it'll be near the church," Rod noted. "We can always go on through and camp on the outskirts, if we come up dry."
"Papa…"
"Patience, Geoffrey," said Gwen. "If there is an inn, thou'lt have thy dinner straightaway."
The boy signed and followed his father down the hill.
But as they passed the churchyard, Gregory winced at the volume of sound. "Is this reverent, Papa? How can there be so much more noise here?"
"It is suspicious," Rod admitted with a glance toward the church, "almost as though someone were attacking the chapel…"
"We have seen a meadow where folk did throw music-rocks, to be rid of them," Magnus contributed.
Gwen frowned. "But wherefore would they throw stones at the church?"
Gregory jolted to a halt, staring.
Rod stopped. "What's the matter, son?"
"The graves," Gregory gasped, affrighted. "Papa… so many…"
In front of a score of tombstones there were gaping, ragged holes. Rod was aghast. "What is it?" he asked. "The plague?"
"No, Rod," Fess answered. "I am enhancing my night-vision, and can see that the holes are those of old graves. It is not the work of a sexton, though it might be the detritus of grave robbers."
"Or ghouls," Cordelia said, with a delicious shiver.
"I think not, Cordelia. From the pattern in which the dirt has fallen, I would say that the graves have been opened from within."
The whole family was very quiet for a minute or so.
Then Magnus said, "Fess—dost thou say these graves were…"
The ground in front of one of the tombstones began to tremble.
Gregory cried out, and Gwen caught him up in her arms. "Peace, my little one, peace… Husband, away!"
"Good idea." Rod crouched down to hide behind the wall. "You folks get going."
Gwen hopped onto her broomstick, then turned back, startled. "Assuredly thou dost not mean to stay!"
"What danger could there be?" Rod asked. "Don't worry, I'm only going to watch."
"Wherefore take the chance!"
"Because," Rod whispered, "I think we just may have found out where our zombies came from."
Gwen made a little noise of exasperation, then commanded. "Cordelia! Geoffrey! Aloft!"
The younger children circled up reluctantly—until Geoffrey noticed that his mother had that withdrawn look that she had whenever she was readying magic. He had a notion he might just see a flying tombstone.
For the moment, though, he saw his father and his big brother crouched behind a wall and, in a patch of moonlight, ground bulging in front of a headstone. It bulged, it heaved—and clods of earth spewed up as a hole appeared and widened. Then the dirt stopped flying, and two hands of bone rose out of the hole. They groped about, found purchase on the ground at the sides, and heaved. A skull catapulted out of the hole with the rest of the skeleton behind it. It knelt on the edge of the grave, scrabbled for purchase, then rose up tall in the moonlight, gleaming white, wrapped in the rotting remnants of a shroud.