Read Online The Warlock is Missing by Christopher Stasheff - Free Book Online Page A

thus!" Cordelia cried.
    Puck shrugged. "What cared he? So long as he felt the satisfaction of revenge—of what concern was her life to him?"
    "'Tis the most vile of Sassenaches," Kelly muttered, face thunderous. "An we can find him, we must slay him!"
    Gregory shuddered.
    "That may not be true," Fess said quickly. "The wrong he has done, will not necessarily be righted by the equal wrong of his murder."
    "Mayhap not—but it will surely prevent him from harming any others!"
    "How now, brother," sneered Geoffrey, "thinkest thou to imprison a warlock?"
    Magnus turned to scowl at his impertinent younger brother. "Wherefore not?"
    "Why, for that he'll disappear clean from any cell thou mayest find for him!"
    Gregory's eyes lost focus. "Mayhap there is a way…"
    Geoffrey eyed him warily. "Dost think to craft a gaol that will hold a magic-worker? 'Ware, brother—ere thou dost find thyself imprisoned within it!"
    "An he doth, he'll discover a way to come out," Magnus assured him, "yet no other would. An we can catch this vile sorcerer, I doubt not we can hold him."
    "And how shalt thou catch him?" Cordelia scoffed.
    "Why, thus!" Magnus cried, and he swatted at Geoffrey. "Tag!"
    Geoffrey rounded on him, incensed, but Magnus disappeared with a bang—a double bang, for Geoffrey disappeared right after him. From a thicket a hundred feet away, his voice cried, 'Tag!" followed by the sound of a small explosion, then another in an oak tree a few yards away; its top swayed with sudden weight. But a small boom echoed it, and the treetop lashed wildly as Magnus's voice shouted, "Thou art 'it'!" Geoffrey howled in anger, but Magnus answered with a laugh that cut off with another small explosion, followed immediately by another bang as Geoffrey disappeared after him.
    Kelly leaped for the nearest oak root. "What manner of weird game is this ?"
    "'Tis young warlocks' play," Puck answered. "Dost know of mortal children's 'tag'?"
    "Wherein one must flee while another seeks to touch him? Aye."
    "'Tis much the same, save that the one who is 'it' must read in the other's mind, the instant ere he doth disappear, some passing hint of the place he doth flee to. Then the lad who is 'it' doth disappear also, and doth attempt to reappear in the same place as the one he pursueth, that he may tag him."
    "And they who are not 'it' must needs try to hide their thoughts, so that he cannot follow them," Cordelia added, glaring toward the treetop.
    Kelly frowned. "And if the one who is 'it' finds no hint of where the other is going? Or if he reads the hint wrongly?"
    "Then must he cast about, mind open to all impressions, seeking his quarry's thoughts."
    Magnus reappeared with a thunder-crack right behind Gregory, eyes alight with glee, crying, "Hide me!" and ducking down behind his little brother.
    "Thou great oaf, I can see thee most clearly!" Cordelia cried; but Gregory squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating furiously, thinking of apples and oranges, of a large bowl of luscious fruit, of their tantalizing aromas.
    Air boomed, and Geoffrey shouted, 'Tag!" as he swatted Magnus's shoulder, then pivoted to Gregory. "I had lost him; he 'scaped without a trace of a thought of where he was bound. Yet when I listened for sign of his presence, all I could find was a picture of luscious fruits in thy mind—and, me-
    thought, 'There's no reason for Gregory to be so suddenly entranced with food.' Therefore did I know thou didst seek to hide knowledge of him—wherefore, he must needs be near thee."
    "Thou dost talk overlong." Magnus slapped his shoulder and disappeared, crying, "'Ta…!"
    "It will not serve," Geoffrey hollered. "Thou must needs remain long enough to finish the word!" But he was talking to empty air. With a hiss of impatience, he turned to tap Gregory. "Thou, too, art in this game! Tag!"
    He disappeared with a firecracker's bang, and Gregory disappeared after him with a whoop of joy.
    Cordelia stamped her foot. "Oh! How naughty of them! They know Papa