"Then he was the Count himself." Geoffrey was confused. "Wherefore did he live in the lesser house?"

"He, ah, found it more congenial," Rod explained.

"Your father understates again," Fess assured the children. "Inbreeding and recessive genes caught up with my old master in his seventy-third year…"

"Also the realization that he was never going to get away from Maxima," Rod reminded. "He finally admitted that to himself.''

"That is mere conjecture, Rod, bordering on slander," Fess stated.

"It's conjecture based on all the advice he gave me, mostly to leave home as soon as I grew up."

"He did seem to regret his youthful decision to stay and take care of the family business," Fess admitted, "though that was also his responsibility. He was, after all, the heir."

"And how did these regrets affect him?" Magnus asked.

"He became—somewhat foolish," Fess answered.

Geoffrey cocked his head to the side. "Thou dost mean he went mad."

"Most would say that," Fess agreed. "Certainly, from his conversation, he was no longer fully aware of the real world, and had escaped into a fantasy realm of his own devising. He spoke of knights and fair maidens, of wizards and dragons. He believed himself to be chronicler of a royal court in a fantastic land."

"He was lots of fun to be with, though," Rod said quickly.

"Unless he decided that you were a monster of some sort," Fess demurred.

Rod shrugged. "Even there, he had very good judgement. After all, the Duchess of Malcasa was an old dragon."

"What did he do to her?" Geoffrey asked, eyes wide.

"Oh, nothing. Never hurt a soul, mostly because Fess was always there. That's why his successor gave us Fess, along with the Grange."

"There was also some mention of being 'outmoded' and some claim, on the part of his wife, that the only antiques that graced a house were furniture," Fess said darkly.

"Which applied as much to Grandpa as it did to you," Rod said quickly, "and I think you've disproved the 'outmoded' part a few hundred times since then. Starting as soon as the two of you moved in, in fact—you became very good at calming Grandpa down."

"I merely accorded him the respect that was due him, Rod."

"Yeah, and couched everything in the terms he was using." Rod turned back to the children. "Me, I thought it was a fun game. What was I—six? So if he said a bush was an ogre, I was ready to play along."

"Thou didst take pleasure in his company, then?"

"Oh, yes," Rod said softly. "Always."

"What was this fantastic land he did see?"

"The kingdom of Granclarte," Rod sighed, gazing off into the years of a childhood made magical by a childish old man. "I used to sit and listen to him for hours."

"Well, for half-hours," Fess amended, "though in a child's time-sense, the tales must have seemed longer."

"Longer? They never ended!" Rod turned back to the children. "He wrote some excellent stories in the process. They became instant best-sellers, after he died."

"After?" Cordelia asked. "Wherefore not whiles he lived?"

"He would not publish them," Fess explained. "He was quite insistent on the point. It was perfectly compatible with his delusion, I assure you. He was writing for the glory of the Courts of Granclarte, not for his own aggrandizement.

"Mad as a hatter," Rod sighed, "but a wonderful old man." He gazed off into space, into the years of his childhood. "I used to sit on the floor in his study, listening to him tell me about the wonderful adventures of the knight Beaubras and his quest for the Rainbow Crystal. Of course, the voicewriter was picking up his every word. When I grew up, I found out that, after the Nanny-bot took me off to tuck me in, he'd sit up and edit it all. But it was wonderful to hear."

"What was the Rainbow Crystal?" Gregory demanded.

"In the story, it was sort of a master-key," Rod explained. "It could tie all the different sorts of magic together, uniting them to confound the evil sorcerer Maumains."

He smiled down at them. "Of course, in the real world, it was the big prism that hung in the middle of my mother's chandelier—but I liked it better his way."

"Aye," Cordelia breathed. "When may we read his books?"

"As soon as I can find a copy, dear. Unfortunately, I left them all about thirty light-years back."

Fess said nothing, but Gregory eyed him speculatively.

"Oh, why did he not endure till we could meet him!" Cordelia cried.

"I'm sure he wanted to," Rod sighed, "but he had a prior engagement. I hope he found Granclarte as he ascended. The Count was good enough to let us stay on in the Grange after he died, though—it was wrenching enough to be suddenly without Grandpa. Even made it pretty clear that my older brother Richard would inherit the place when Dad passes on, in his turn."

Magnus frowned. "And what wilt thou inherit?"

"Nothing." Rod smiled sadly. "There's nothing left over. All the houses are taken by my cousins, and all the family land, too—if you can call bare rock 'land.' Oh, there'll be a bit of money from my father—a goodly bit; he contributed quite a few designs to the family business, and invested the proceeds well and wisely, so he has made quite a sum on his own. But that's all."

"You did have an option, Rod," Fess reminded. "You could have taken a position in d'Armand Automatons, Ltd., and doubtless done quite well."

"Yeah, but a poor relation is a poor relation, no matter how cleverly it's disguised." Rod made a face. "Besides, Maxima was… boring."

"Oh, truly?" Magnus perked up. "In what way was it boring?"

Rod glanced at Fess out of the corner of his eye. Magnus caught it, and turned to the robot. "Wilt thou not tell me, Fess?"

"We have spoken of this before," Fess said, somewhat severely. "I will not betray your father's confidences."

Rod did a rapid mental balancing act. He and Fess had managed to distract the children, quite successfully, from their current, rather grim, surroundings. He compared the advantages of continuing that distraction, with the disadvantages of letting their minds return to the haunted castle around them, and made his decision. "Oh, go ahead and tell them!" He leaned back. "After all, there's nothing in my past that I'm really ashamed of. A bit embarrassed, maybe, but not really ashamed."

"As you will have it, Rod," Fess sighed, and Rod sat back to listen as the tale grew more and more lurid, and his ears grew more and more red.

Chapter 8

"Look, Fess, just call me 'Rod' when we're alone. I know you can do it!"

"I cannot, sir master boss." Fess was looking better these days—he had gone through two body changes and an overhaul. He fairly gleamed with a metallic shine, and his arms and legs were much fuller than the pipestems he had worn when he first came to Maxima. They had to be—they were the storage places for his spares and tools, now. His torso had been enlarged enough to hold his computer/brain, and his "head" had consequently been reduced to a much more anthropoid size and form. He was virtually a metal android now, albeit a somewhat barrel-chested one. "I cannot change my terms of address," he explained, "unless my owner issues the command."

"And Dad won't do it, because he has too much respect for his. ancestors." Rod shook his head and went back to sorting through his revolving closet. "One more reason why I need to get off this provincial backwater of a planetoid.''

"I cannot understand your preoccupation with leaving, young master."

"Yeah, well, if I could have gone to college on Terra, as Cousin Rupert did, maybe I wouldn't be quite so antsy. But when you have to stay here on Maxima and let college come to you, via comm screen, and the only place you've ever visited is Ceres, you start developing a huge hankering to see some of what you're learning all about."