41 Child of All Fathers
Then Gerald followed the child down to the roadside. And they talked together under the chestnut-tree, just where Gerald had talked with so many strange beings who had passed beyond Mispec Moor in that continuous journeying toward Antan.
First Gerald performed that needful rite which would reveal the truth. The child watched quietly. By and by Theodorick began to smile. But he said never a word until his father was through with these droll doings.
Then Gerald questioned his small son. Theodorick replied. The appearance of a little child still sat there, and the soft red lips of a child were moving, but that curious tongue which was like a small white serpent was speaking about matters never known to any child.
No one of Gerald’s excursions into the darker magics had prepared him for what was now in part revealed. Something of the spaces outside the world apparent to human senses Gerald knew, and of the realms beyond Earth’s orbit he, as a former student of magic, was not ignorant. But now he understood from what remote abyss his wife had drawn the being which seemed his child: a bit unwillingly, he could even surmise with what kind of enchantments Maya had fetched this seeming into the happier superficial world which is apparent to human senses.
And Gerald was moved: he was, as so many husbands have been, before and since, now almost frightened by this glimpse of the unswerving and whole-hearted and unscrupulous love which women nourish for that man whom marriage has given them to look after. He was not worthy, he contritely felt, of being thus idolized and of being coddled at the fearful price of such unearthly indiscretions. And Gerald was sincerely touched, now that he comprehended to what lengths Maya had gone to gratify his whim of wanting a son, out of hand. She had warned him, too, that he was contriving for himself grief. Yes, her womanly intuition had, somehow, foreseen that to which all his cleverness had been blind. And yet, even so, Maya had not denied him his desire, because poor Maya pampered him in everything, to the accompaniment of a commentary howsoever tart.
And Gerald thought too of how, a moment since, his worst dread had been that the boy was an illusion. He looked at his beloved son, knowing now what inhabited that freckled and droll, sturdy little body. The boy had of a sudden become strange; he was now a threat of unimaginable danger, and a creature worse than evil: yet Gerald knew, with a dull wonder, that he loved Theodorick Quentin Musgrave even now....
Gerald by and by put yet another question to this dreadful parody of a child’s innocence and helplessness, to the being whom Gerald invoked as Abdel-Hareth.
“But I have served her purpose,—my father,” the child replied, with a rather perturbing smile. “Oh, but I know! She has had many husbands. Most of them desired a son. I have always been that son.”
Then, after an instant of silence, the being who was speaking through the child’s dear lips told of the bonds from which the Midianite storm god’s touch and absolution had released him. Gerald found this part of the story particularly unpleasant. And Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, whom Gerald still addressed as Abdel-Hareth, went on to tell why he must now go downward into Antan, to encounter, not the Master Philologist, but Queen Freydis.
Gerald asked, What was needed of Queen Freydis? The child told him. Then Gerald shivered. He felt, if only for the instant, physically cold and nauseated. Still, that this creature should desire to return to its unearthly home was natural enough.
“I comprehend,” said Gerald. “I comprehend a great deal which was unknown to me ten minutes ago. I confess to being surprised by much that I have learned from you. Nevertheless, my son,—if you will pardon the force of habit, sir, and the love I had for my own little, so dear son—! But I drift into emotional remarks which would be wholly out of place. My voice, as I note with sincere regret, evinces a distressing tendency—”
Gerald paused. He gulped. He spoke now in a voice that was light and high-pitched and rather hysterical.
“In fine, my dear Abdel-Hareth, as you see, I incline somewhat to blubber like a badly whipped baby. I can but ask you to respect the emotions of a suddenly bereaved parent, without bothering to understand his confused utterances. No: you have given me my desire, and my great happiness. A part of that dies now. But I have had it, utterly. I am content. I will see to it that you, in your turn, sir, get what you desire.”