Free The Warlock Rock by Christopher Stasheff

it have gained so thorough a hold on thee?"
    "Thou canst not know till thou hast begun to dance to it." Cordelia shuddered. "Do not ask, brother—but when thou hast begun to move thine whole body to its rhythms willingly, it doth seem quite natural to continue."
    " Tis a foul twisting of all that's right in the use of one's body," Geoffrey said, disgusted. "Thy limbs should ever move with purpose, one set forth by thy mind and made effective by practice; they should not twitch to some sound that doth but pass by thy brain."
    " 'Tis horrid to see children so young become victim to it." Magnus had to clasp his dagger to keep his hand from trembling. "I might credit it in one of mine own age, though I would still deplore it. Yet in children!"
    "Aye, grandfather of seventeen," Cordelia said, with full sarcasm. After all, she was almost as tall as he, at the moment.
    But Gregory said only, "How can mere music have absorbed them so completely?"
    "How can it have become so much louder?" Geoffrey retorted. "I can comprehend how it can induce bodies to move, for I do feel mine own limbs respond to the beat of the music, almost as to mine heartbeat…"
    "Thine heartbeat! Thou hast it!"
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    "Why, I should hope I do, else would I be dead." Geoffrey frowned. "How is this, little brother?"
    "Thy body is accustomed to doing all to the beat of thine heart! In truth, dost thou not gauge the strength of thy feelings by its speed? Thus when the music doth pulse, thy limbs do respond!"
    "A most excellent notion, brother," Magnus agreed. "Yet the music's beat is not my heart's—unless it should by some happenstance beat with a very odd rhythm."
    "Such as a comely lass passing near," Cordelia said sweetly. Magnus gave her a dark look, but Gregory said, "Ah, but 'tis therefore that thy limbs do move to the music! For an 'twere but thine heartbeat, look you, thy limbs would be as much in accord as they ever were!"
    "Gregory may have a point," Fess said slowly. "There are certain natural rhythms to the body's functions; the heartbeat is only one of them. And, as Geoffrey points out, once the music becomes too loud to truly ignore, the body naturally tends to respond."
    "I wot no physician would countenance such a notion," Magnus muttered.
    "Yes, but I am not a physician," Fess noted. "And I must stress, Magnus, that the idea we are discussing is only conjecture at the moment; it is not yet sufficently detailed to even be termed an hypothesis."
    "Yet what hath made the music so much louder?" Geoffrey demanded.
    "Why, the grown folk, brother," Cordelia explained. "When they threw so many stones together, there was more music in one place!"
    "That would suffice for that one field, sister," Geoffrey answered, "yet it doth not explain the greater loudness all around us."
    Cordelia stopped, casting about her. "Why, it hath grown! I do hear it all round! How is't I had not noticed that sooner, Fess?"
    The robot started to reply, but a sudden cry belted from farther down the woodland path, around the bend. "Ho!" followed by a "Ha!" all in the woodwind timbre of adolescent boys' voices, repeating and repeating. "Ho! Ha! Ho! Ha!" Then, above their rhythm, came girls' voices, chanting: I sought for love, and love sought me, And found me there beneath a tree. Touch and kiss and soft caress Taught me of sweet love's duress.
    Loving whispers, sweet love's moan. Say I'll never be alone. Lip to lip, and heart to heart, Seek to cling, and never part!
    "What manner of song is that ?" Geoffrey asked, goggle-eyed. Cordelia's nose wrinkled. "Oh! 'Tis vile! Is love naught but the press of bodies?"
    "Yet who doth sing it?" Magnus asked, frowning.
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    Round the bend of the path they came, a chain of thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds, linked by clasped hands, their feet stamping out the pattern of a dance,