The Warlock Rock Read Online Free PDF Page A

uncontrolled…"
    "It would burn out his mind," Magnus whispered.
    "It would, if you did not cease pushing out your thoughts almost instantly. Fortunately, your father knows what feedback is, and ceased the experiment as soon as he felt his own mental power turning back on him. Even so, he had a raging headache, and I kept a close watch on him for twenty-four hours, fearing brain damage."
    "That was when he failed to come home!" Geoffrey exclaimed.
    "No wonder thou wast so distraught," Cordelia said to Gwen.
    "I was quite concerned," Gwen admitted, "though Fess sought to reassure me."
    "I immediately informed her that he was well, but would rest within the spaceship for the night. He had connected me to its systems, as he does whenever he goes there, so I was able to monitor his condition closely through his sickbed. But he recovered, with no sign of brain damage." Page 19
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    "Did he ever dare use it again?"
    "I dislike that glint in your eye, Geoffrey. Please give over any thought of using the device; it is simply too powerful."
    "But is it truly safe where it is?" Gregory asked.
    "The friars of St. Vidicon of Cathode have sifted such matters five hundred years," Gwen assured them.
    "And five centuries of research into psionic affairs should give them a certain competence," Rod pointed out. "In fact, Brother Al assured me they were the best in the Terran Sphere, even better than the scholars on Terra."
    "If they cannot handle it safely," Fess said, "no one can—and they will have the good sense to know that at once."
    "Then they may destroy it?" Gregory sounded so disappointed that Fess interpreted it as a danger signal, but his programming wouldn't allow him to lie. "I cannot be certain, Gregory, for your father asked them not to tell him if they did so."
    "I was kinda proud of it," Rod admitted.
    "So," Fess said, "they may liquidate it—or they may yet use it as a research tool. We simply do not know."
    "Yet we can know that we will never have it out from there," Geoffrey said, disgusted.
    "Quite so, Geoffrey." Fess was relieved to see his most tenacious student finally let go of the notion.
    "Destroyed or intact, it has gone where it will be safe." Geoffrey suddenly lurched, tripping over something among the dry leaves. "Ouch!" They were all suddenly still, for there had been a very odd echo to his word. In the silence, they heard music.
    "'Tis louder," Gregory observed.
    "And with a stronger fundament." Geoffrey's head began jerking backward and forward in time to the beat.
    "Geoffrey," Fess commanded, "hold still!"
    The boy looked up at him, hurt. "I did not move, Fess."
    "Yet thou didst," Gregory assured him, and turned to Fess, wide-eyed. "What insidious thing is this, Fess, that doth make one's body to move without his own awareness?"
    "It is rock music, Gregory," Fess answered. "Come, look where Geoffrey tripped." They turned back a step and pushed aside the leaves. Sure enough, there it lay, the twin of the first rock Page 20
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    they had found.
    "We were right!" Cordelia cried, clenching her fists and hopping with delight. "Oh! Hath our experiment succeeded, Fess?"
    "It has, Cordelia; our hypothesis is validated. Now, gather more data."
    "Well enough!" Cordelia knelt and picked up the rock. It chuckled. "Oh!" she said, surprised. "Tis harder!"
    "Yet still doth yield." Geoffrey poked the rock with a finger, and it fairly howled with laughter.
    "Let me! Let me!" Gregory dropped down to probe the stone, and it laughed so hard it coughed—right on the beat, of course. "Leave off!" it wheezed between coughs. "Oh! I shall die of tickling!" Cordelia dropped it and rubbed her hands on her skirt.
    "Art thou alive, then?" Gregory asked.
    "Aye; no fossil form am I." The rock chuckled. "Oh! I have not laughed so since last I split!"
    "Last?" Magnus looked up. "Thou dost