Read Online The Warlock in Spite of Himself - Warlock 01 by Cristopher Stasheff - Free Book Online

between accepted theory and actual occurrence, Rod. You may confide in me without fear of overload.'
    Rod shook his head and turned to stumble out of the stall. 'In the morning, Fess. You might be able to believe it right now, but I'm not sure I could.'
    Rod sat down to a whopping breakfast, but he was on a starvation diet compared to Big Tom. The man was surrounded by unbelievable stacks of food.
    Some of it was familiar to Rod - the eggs, pancakes, and ham. The
    'cakes had a subtly alien flavor, though, and the eggs had three-inch yolks. There was some sort of grain on any human-inhabited planet, usually a descendant of Terran cereals; but the soil of another planet sometimes produced weird variations in the grain. There was always some sort of domesticated fowl; but more often than not it was a local lifeform. Hogs, of course, were ubiquitous; they were found on Terran planets even more consistently than dogs. Rod sometimes wondered about his species.
    The food was all digestible, of course, and probably nourishing: genetic drift couldn't change human metabolism all that much. But trace elements were another matter; Rod swallowed an all-purpose pill just to be on the safe side.
    Big Tom noticed it. 'What was that, master?'
    Rod forced a smile. 'Just a minor spell. Don't let it worry you, Big Tom.'
    Tom stared, then looked down at his plate, muttering a quick prayer under his breath. He attacked the pancakes with a shaking fork. The big man started to speak, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again.
    'What doth the new day bring, good master?'
    'A trip to the castle,' said Rod. 'We'll see if the Queen's in the market for a new soldier.'
    Tom wailed a protest. 'A Queen's sojer! Nay, master, that's no trade for a honest man!'
    Rod cocked an eyebrow. 'Are you trying to tell me that one of us might be honest?'
    Big Tom shut up.
    The landlord had a spare horse, or so he suddenly remembered when Rod rested a hand on the hilt of his dagger. It was an old, swaybacked gray gelding with a slightly longer neck and smaller ears than the Terranstandard animal. That was bad, since it would call a certain amount of attention to Fess; but then, the great black horse wasn't exactly inconspicuous anyway.
    The church bells were ringing as they rode out of the inn-yard, Rod on Fees and Tom on the equine antique. The sound of the bells reminded Tom of the early hour; he began to grumble at masters who kept unreasonable hours.
    But his gripes trailed off as they mounted the slope above the town, where they could look out to the horizon and see the east pregnant with the morning sun.
    Tom took a deep breath of the dawn and grinned back over his shoulder at Rod. 'Eh, master! 'Twill be a fine day!'
    'And a chill one,' said Rod, turning up his collar, for the wind was at his back.
    'Aye, aye! Did I not say 'twould be fine?'
    'I don't quite share your enthusiasm for low thermometer readings,' Rod growled. 'Look alive, Tom; we're almost to the castle.'
    'Stand and declare yourselves!', cried the sentry on the drawbridge.
    'Oh, ye gods!' Rod rolled his eyes upward.
    'Your name and your concern at the Queen's castle.'
    'Overdoing it a bit, aren't you?' Rod eyed the sentry sidewise. The footman's mouth turned down sharply at the corners.
    'None of your mouthings,' he barked. 'I'm a Queen's man, and you'll speak with respect.'
    'Not likely,' said Rod, smiling benignly. 'My name is Rod Gallowglass.'
    'Gallowglass?' The sentry frowned. 'Your time is wasted; the Queen already has a fool.'
    'From the look of you, I'd say she has many.' Rod grunted. 'My trade is soldier, and my manservant's, too. Call the master-at-arms, and let him enroll me.'
    The sentry glowered. 'Enlisting in the Queen's army is not so easily done as that.'
    'Why, how now!' Rod scowled. 'Must I prove I'm a soldier?' He dismounted, swinging out of the saddle to land just a yard from the sentry.
    'If you're a soldier, you're a poor one,' the sentry said with a sneer,
    'or