"Wait," Rod answered. "See his tatters, drifting? They're coming back together now."
And they were—swirling through the air like flakes of glowing snow, they pulled in upon themselves again, coalescing, returning to a form.
"I am ever proud when thou dost stand in my defense," Gwen said, low-voiced, "yet mayhap thou shouldst not have spent so much of thy power so soon."
"No fear—I've just begun to tap it," Rod answered. "Not that I had any urge to control myself, you realize."
"He comes," Geoffrey said, his voice hard.
The Count was there again, though without color now, only a pale and glowing form, but one with fury contorting his features. "Foolish mortals, to so bait a ghost! Hast thou no sense of caution? Nay, I shall be revenged on thee!"
Magnus was eyeing him narrowly. "He hath less hair, and more belly."
The Count whirled, staring at him in rage. "Avaunt thee, stripling! Up, men of mine! All mine old retainers, out upon him! Men-at-arms, arise!"
Magnus stepped down and over to his parents. "What comes now?"
Rod shook his head. "Can't say. Let's see if he can bring it off."
But the Count was succeeding. With drunken laughter, his retainers appeared—men-at-arms with ghostly pikes, and knights in spectral armor. But they were only outlines, and their laughter sounded distant.
"The lesser evils," Rod muttered.
"To horse, and away!" Count Foxcourt called—and suddenly, his knights were mounted on ghostly Percherons, and his men-at-arms advanced not with pikes, but with sticks and horns, blowing a hunting call.
"The game is up!" the Count cried. "Ho, bearers! Drive them from the covert!"
The men-at-arms came running, eyes alight, shouting with laughter and glee, thrashing at the Gallowglasses with sticks while the Count and his knights came riding, seemingly from a great distance.
"Avaunt thee!" Magnus shouted, and a wall of flame encircled the family.
"Oh, be not so silly!" Cordelia sniffed. "We must banish them, "not hold them back!" And the sticks writhed in the spectres' hands, growing heads and turning back on the men-at-arms, becoming snakes which struck at their holders. With oaths, the soldiers dropped them. Instantly, the snakes coiled and struck, then struck again, and the men-at-arms fled shouting in disorder.
"A most excellent plan, my daughter!" Gwen cried, delighted, and the hunting horns grew limp, then swung about, their bells turning into gaping jaws, glowing eyes appearing behind them as they sprouted wings, and dragons drove at the men who had them by the tails. The soldiers yelled in fear and fled, pursued by instruments of destruction.
Then the whole band of soldiers ran headlong into the advancing wall of knights.
Their masters rode them down with curses and galloped toward the Gallowglasses, faces filled with hungry gloating, their mounts' eyes turning to coals, flames licking about their outthrust jaws.
"This, then, is mine!" Fess galloped out between the family and the knights and, suddenly, he seemed to swell and grow to twice his normal size, bleaching into a pale and giant horse with mane and tail of flame, glowing coals for eyes, and bright steel teeth that reached out past the Percherons' heads to savage their riders as he screamed with insane, manic glee.
" 'Tis a pouka, a spirit horse!" Gregory shrank back against Gwen, and even Geoffrey had trouble holding his ground. "What hath possessed our good and gentle Fess?"
"The same thing that possesses him every time someone tries to hurt us," Rod said grimly, "and the foe are of his own form, this time."
But the horses were fleeing now, ghosts overawed by ghosts, while their riders saved face by kicking and cursing at them, as they dwindled into distance.
"The false cowards!" Cordelia stormed. "They were as struck with fear as their mounts—nay, more!"
The pouka had faded, darkened, and dwindled, and it was only their own, old Fess who came trotting back to them—albeit with a ghost of glee in his plastic eye.
"When did you learn how to do that trick?" Rod asked, fighting a grin.
"I have been considering its feasibility for some time." Fess said, with airy disregard. "I had wondered if I could exert the same ability to project illusions as you could. Indeed, use of psionic amplifier…"
"Aye, wherefore not?" Gregory said, eyes alight as he stepped away from Gwen.
"Yet would real folk see the seeming?" Geoffrey frowned. "Ghosts are illusions themselves, and would certainly hold another such to be as real as they. Folk of flesh and blood, though, might not."
"Yet 'tis ghosts we fight at this time and place," Gwen reminded, "and Fess's devising is most puissant with them."
Magnus's lip curled. "Assuredly, we shall have no difficulty with so tattered a band."
"We won't have any trouble with his lordship, either," Rod said, "except that he'll come back every time we tear him apart. We need to banish him, not kill him."
"How will that aid the damsel Sola?"
"It will not." Gwen touched Rod's shoulder. "Hurt his pride."
"Of course." Rod lifted his head with a grin. "He's nothing but egoplasm, now—where else would he be vulnerable?"
The Count had rallied his courtiers now, primarily by banishing their horses. "Slay them!" he screamed, pointing toward the Gallowglasses.
The ghosts turned to look, then began to march with low, gloating laughs.
"Show me how he looked when he was old,'' Rod suggested.
Magnus frowned, concentrating—and, at the head of his troops, the Count began to age visibly. His hairline receded, then crept down the back of his head as his belly grew, and his whole body began to swell. His cheeks thickened as liver spots bloomed all over his skin.
His courtiers began to mutter among themselves, pointing. Someone giggled.
The Count halted, his lascivious leer turning into a scowl. He turned to look at his retainers, saw the pointing fingers, and turned to look back at the Gallowglasses. His face had swollen with fat and sagged into jowls.
"Is this how he truly looked at the end of his life?" Gwen asked.
Magnus nodded. "So say the stones."
"What kind of illnesses did he have?" Rod asked.
Magnus grinned.
The Count took another step, and howled with pain. "My gout!"
"Thou art no longer young," Gwen informed him. "Thou art an aged fool!"
But the malice in those eyes was anything but foolish.
"Didn't you say something about jaundice?" Rod muttered.
Magnus nodded, and His Lordship's skin gained a pale yellowish cast.
"Summon Sola," Gwen ordered.
Sweat beaded Magnus's brow, and the ghost-girl was there, wailing, "Wherefore hast thou brought me forth?"
The Count looked up, aghast, trying to balance on one foot while he cradled the other.
"Behold," Gwen called out, "thy tormentor's triumph! Old age!"
Sola turned, her weeping slackening. Her eyes widened, her lips parted. Then she began to laugh.
"Be still!" the Count commanded, alarmed.
Sola laughed the louder.
"Now!" Rod said to Magnus. "The pratfalls!"
The Count's remaining foot skidded out from under him, and he landed flat on his back with a howl.
Sola howled, too.
His courtiers stared, astounded.
The Count scrambled to rise, but he was too heavy. He roared in anger, trying to turn over, but even then, he had to kick a few times before he could finally work up enough momentum.
Someone in his court began to snicker.
"I—I shall be… revenged!" the Count panted, getting his feet under him, and treating his courtiers to a great view of his expanded backside. They began to laugh openly. He looked back at them, startled, then managed to heave himself to his feet and turned on them, his hand going to his sword, crying, "Be still, dolts!"
"The sword," Rod muttered. Magnus nodded.
The Count tugged at his hilt. He tugged again, then frowned and looked down. It was still there, all right. He set himself and gave a mighty pull—and the blade flashed out, describing a glittering arc through the air, heaving him around. His feet tangled, and he fell again.